What are you currently reading?

[Forest Spirit]

"The hobbit" in Italian, because why not be somewhat productive and get some practise😅 but goodreads doesn't care if you read a book in different languages...

[Guest]

"Less: A Visual Guide to Minimalism", by Rachel Aust. 

[Skycaptain]

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 

[Phantasmal Fingers]

Deeply engrossed in the Sitwells atm. Just finished 'Facades', a triple biography of Edith, Osbert & Sacheverell. Now reading a biography of Sacheverell. 

[tooktoolong]

I'm currently reading All the Bright Places because my friend watched the adaptation and said it broke her soul into a million pieces and like.. that sounded like a party. Alternating between that and They Both Die at the End. I'm a sucker for YA fic, hahaha. That being said - I'm always open to YA fic suggestions!

Edited May 1, 2020 by tooktoolong

[Guest]

On 4/29/2020 at 2:53 PM, Moonman said:

Quiet by Susan Cain. It's helping me embrace my introversion.

I love that book! It really helped me embrace my introversion as well. I highly recommend it.  

 

On 4/29/2020 at 11:20 PM, Skycaptain said:

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams 

How is it? I've seen the movie, which I enjoyed, but I've been thinking about reading the book as well. 🤔

[Skycaptain]

1 minute ago, Just Dani said:

I love that book! It really helped me embrace my introversion as well. I highly recommend it.  

 

How is it? I've seen the movie, which I enjoyed, but I've been thinking about reading the book as well. 🤔

I'll be fair here, it's eclectic. It's not a book I can plough through in one hit, although others may think differently. 

[Guest]

37 minutes ago, Skycaptain said:

I'll be fair here, it's eclectic. It's not a book I can plough through in one hit, although others may think differently. 

I love eclectic books!  

[SoggyDoggy]

I’m reading Narnia even though the amount of sexism in the books make me mad, it’s still wonderfully written and apparently the only complete series of books my family has left.

[Atheno]

Eh... Batman comic called Hush.  Artwork's pretty good.

Batman.

[AmberUK]

Quote

On 5/3/2020 at 5:58 PM, Just Dani said:

I love that book! It really helped me embrace my introversion as well. I highly recommend it.  

 

How is it? I've seen the movie, which I enjoyed, but I've been thinking about reading the book as well. 🤔

 

The TV series is way better than the film

The BBC are running the radio plays atm

[Zagadka]

On 5/3/2020 at 9:58 AM, Just Dani said:

How is it? I've seen the movie, which I enjoyed, but I've been thinking about reading the book as well. 🤔

Read the books or listen to the BBC radio plays. They are far superior to the movie. The movies aren't great.

[Atheno]

Finished reading Pride and Prejudice.  It's was all right, wasn't blown away by the story or anything else but the characterization was good and the narration was witty.  Story was decent enough anyway.

I've started The Brothers Karamazov.  I've started it before but didn't read much.  Currently not to where I left off at last and it may be some time before I get there.  Sort of a slow start but seems kind of good, kind of.  By the author of Crime and Punishment, which was pretty great.

[GingerRose]

Mood Indigo by Boris Vian

and

Mister God, this is Anna by Fynn

[Phantasmal Fingers]

41 minutes ago, GingerRose said:

Mood Indigo by Boris Vian

and

Mister God, this is Anna by Fynn

I read a surrealist novel by Boris Vian many years ago and very much enjoyed it. It was translated as 'Frith on the Daydream'. 

[communityabed]

Hollow Tree House - Enid Blyton

Ye Olde Book of Locked Room Conundrums.

[GingerRose]

6 hours ago, Moderne Jazzhanden said:

I read a surrealist novel by Boris Vian many years ago and very much enjoyed it. It was translated as 'Frith on the Daydream'. 

Yes! That's the book I am reading the title was changed to "Mood Indigo" when was made into a film.

I saw the film then am now in the midst of the book.

The film is one of my favorites. It is French with actress Audrey Tautou.

[GingerRose]

On 2/22/2020 at 3:36 PM, Goonie said:

Just finished Jo's Boys yesterday

I like Louisa's writing I need to read that one!

[Ldlelee]

The Foxhole Court by Nova Sakavic.

[MojoSolid]

Just finished 'Dragons of Autumn Twilight' by Weis & Hickman, and started "Live and Let Die" by Ian Flemming (also 'Quiet' by Susan Cain)

[Phantasmal Fingers]

Rereading Sacheverell Sitwell's All Summer in a Day (subtitled An Autobiographical Fantasia) 32 years after I first read it. Parts of it really work, other parts are too diffuse and don't.

[Guest]

Deeplight by Frances Hardinge

[Skycaptain]

The Hydrogen Economy, opportunities and challenges, Martin Ball and Michael Wietschel

[everywhere and nowhere]

The Ursynoteka libraries have reopened after two months and so I'm back to loaning books.

Currently: Katarzyna Kłosińska, Michał Rusinek - "Good Change, or how to rule the world with words". It's a critical analysis of the language of Law and Justice (PiS)*, built as a kind of glossary which discusses specific words or phrases characteristic for them. The authors are both members of the Council of Polish Language, and Rusinek also used to be a secretary of the Nobel-winning poet Wisława Szymborska in her lifetime.

An example from the entry "Caste" (which has become a callword for judges, due to their opposition for PiS "reform" of the judiciary which is, in fact, meant to subordinate it to political decidents):

Quote

Extraordinary caste or judicial caste - phrases with a metaphoric and highly judgemental character - have become, in the language of PiS and allied media, a standard term for judges as a professional group, which can be seen, for example, in TVP news-tickers: "The extraordinary caste's extraordinary standards", "The judicial caste chooses attack as defense", "The judicial caste doesn't want any changes", "Defence front for the judicial caste" (on manifestations against changes in the judiciary), "The end of 'extraordinary caste'" (on passing the law on Supreme Court). If this kind of phrases (...) is used in informational programmes, and in texts which are the television equivalent of a press headline, a recipient might develop an impression that they are an onjective description or the world and not a way of expressing the sender's subjective value judgement. An equals sign is created between the language and the world it describes, which cuts recipients off from the reality which is beyond these words.

In right-wing press judicial caste is a kind of callword for texts on impunity of judges' transgressions. (...) These articles (...) are written in a gutter-press style (including words such as set-to, swindle, flimflam, crazy, wasted judge behind the wheel), and the titles usually have a sensational tone (...).

Only in the portal wPolityce, from September 2016 to September 2019, the word caste was used in over 1500 articles, which makes it a new propaganda phrase.

In August 2019 the word caste, used against judges, turned out to be a double-edged sword. The portal Onet exposed the practices of vice-minister of justice, Łukasz Piebiak, who in collaboration with a group of judges and ministry employees passed materials on work and private life of judges who opposed the judiciary changes pushed by PiS, to a woman named Emilia, who in turn sent these materials to various people and institutions in order to discredit those judges. The group communicated through a Twitter account under the name CasteWatch, which can only be considered derisive-cynical: those who introduce the "good change" in the judiciary, which is meant - in their intention - to stop excesses committed by judges, themselves commit disreputable or even criminal acts against them. The public opinion soon reclaimed the word "caste" and started using it to describe the culprits.

*Which is a very ironic name for a party with such a "casual" approach to law, shown also in this example. That said, PiS was a different party in the very beginning, when it was formed by later president Lech Kaczyński (the one who was killed in the Smolensk disaster in 2010) after him having gained popularity as a minister of justice with an image of a "sheriff". I disliked them already at that point, for example due to their support for reintroduction of death penalty, or their homophobia. And sure, already the "sheriff" image of Lech Kaczyński at that time showed a yearning for "simple solutions". But with time PiS became much more radical, openly hostile to Europe, left wing, liberals, refugees, LGBT+ people, basically anyone whom they consider an enemy - and for PiS other political forces are not just "rivals" or "opponents", they are enemies in a militaristic sense. It is now a party with, at best, thinly veiled authoritarian tendencies. I am moderately pessimistic about the situation in Poland - in the sense that PiS has gone so far that losing power would mean imprisonment for several leaders, so it's not like they only fear losing power because they cannot bear not having it. And yes, in my opinon Jarosław Kaczyński would be morally capacle of ordering electoral fraud, introducing dictatorship... So the only hope may be police officers and soldiers who refuse to shoot people if the situation escalates.

 

On a lighter note, some ironic alternative names for PiS include: "Lawlessness and Injustice", "Positions and Seats" (in the sense of almost limitless opportunities of employment in supervisory boards of state companies, cultural institutions etc.), "party with an absurd name", "Two Lies and a Conjunction".

Edited May 15, 2020 by Nowhere Girl
typoes

[everywhere and nowhere]

I have started a new book, this time something lighter: "Slavic bestiary" by Paweł Zych and Witold Vargas. It's an interesting illustrated compendium of different demons, spirits and other beings from Slavic folklore and mythology, most from pre-Christian times, although some more recent.

A bit of examples to show that it's often quite funny:

Quote

Water hag was an older version of a rusalka*. Similar to water nymphs, she lived on the shore of a river or lake and would dance naked under the moonlight. One can only have some doubts whether she was as successful in seducing gullible young men.

Sorry, I won't write anything more because I'm very upset that I have run a program called CCleaner, asked it not to delete cookies and history, and have instead lost my loged-in status and game progress everywhere. I just wanna lay down and cry instead of writing anything.

[daveb]

1 hour ago, Nowhere Girl said:

Sorry, I won't write anything more because I'm very upset that I have run a program called CCleaner, asked it not to delete cookies and history, and have instead lost my loged-in status and game progress everywhere. I just wanna lay down and cry instead of writing anything.

That book sounds interesting. But, oh, I'm sorry to read about this; I feel for you.

[everywhere and nowhere]

By the way, I forgot to add a footnote about the Rusalka, but - as I wrote - I was very upset (I still am, all my progress in some online puzzles went down the drain). So here it is. As I have mentioned, apart from Literature I also love adventure games, mostly retro ones (from the gameplay point of view - a classic "quest", from the visual point of view - good old two-dimensional pixel art). While I never enjoyed typical RPGs, I really like hybrid adventure-RPGs, with both character development and a classic "quest" structure. This subgenre originates from the series "Quest for Glory" by Sierra On-Line and was later continued by a few games, such as "Heroine's Quest", "Quest for Infamy", "Hero-U" (unfortunately, mostly 3D; the shorter sequel "Summer Daze at Hero-U" should have cartoon graphics instead) and "Mage's Initiation". So, "Quest for Glory 4: Shadows of Darkness"" (released in 1993 for good old DOS*) is inspired a lot by Slavic folklore and includes a Rusalka...

TMI: some of (covered anyway) pixel nudity.

Spoiler

(it seems that images only can't be inserted inside spoilers, so here's a link)

The Rusalka is an undead, the player can befriend her by giving her flowers and a hero of the Paladin class is able to help her by letting her at least leave for the afterlife instead of hanging around and drowning people. A very touching scene.

 

By the way, about cartoon nudity - here's an example so funny that it can hardly be offensive. Hidden in a platformer game for children - it could be "hidden" because the whole naked "lady" was never visible at once.

*Not that I don't realise that Windows is better... I remember when I was about 14 years old, spending the summer holidays at my granny's in Włocławek, an my father visited us and said that he had installed Windows on our computer in the meantime. I asked him what does it do, and he said that "It has windows"... and I felt "Gosh, this is obvious from the very name...". Only later did I realise what's so special about it: that Windows is able to perform many tasks at the same time, DOS wasn't. My mobile phone, by the way, is more like DOS than like Windows: it too can only perform one task at the same time (it's, more precisely, a Nokia 6210). But, as someone who just prefers being in minorities, I just don't want to switch to a smartphone - almost all people have smartphones nowadays, so I don't want to!

[Phantasmal Fingers]

The Alexiad by Anna Comnena. It's a biography of a Byzantine emperor (Alexius I Comnenus, reigned 1081 - 1118) by his daughter.  About a quarter of the way through so far. I'm looking forward to reading her eye-witness account of the first crusade. 

 

[everywhere and nowhere]

Just started: Jarek Sępek - "Around the world in eighty days (without leaving London)". It's about ethnic diversity and multiculturalism of contemporary London - taking, obviously, Verne's book as an inspiration, the author shows that representatives of cultures from all around the world are found in today's London.

[Karst]

I'm reading some more Le Guin.  Currently, I'm about halfway through The Beginning Place, which is an unconventional take on portal fantasy.