"Maybe I have more than I need, but it is the same with books as with everything else - success in finding them spurs one on to greed for more." ~ Francesco Petrarch
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just love a german story of a man selling his soul...
my next on the list is trying to find a complete copy of beowulf. i keep seeing the "movie" versions and such but finding it difficult to find the origional translated from norse.. lol..
Are you actually reading "Faust"? I've tried many times, but I have a difficult time with the script structure. I have the same problem reading Shakespeare. I would love to see "Faust" preformed though someday. The story is fascinating. If you like "Faust", you would also really like "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. Similier themes and beautifully written.
I should read "Beowulf" too. I've heard that the translation by Seamus Heaney is quite good. I saw the Zemeckis version of "Beowulf" in 3-D! The 3-D was awesome!
i will have to take a peek. the copy i have of it is in german and english so i can do both if need be.
i agree the movie was kick-ass, but i want to be able to read it. i have this nasty problem of reading a book then bitching about how bad they killed it when it got a movie made out of it
Books are a bit like cats. They stick their claws in you and cough up hairballs. No, wait - that's not right!
Books are a bit like cats. My favourite is influenced a lot by which one is there right now.
Last week I read A River Sutra and it was such a positive, up, beautiful, life-affirming book. Very away-from-my-everyday-experience...chap retires to the shores of a holy river and hears tales from or relates tales about the mystics and ascetics of Hindus, Muslims and Jains.
Just now I'm reading The Lovely Bones which is so very different in taste (the main character, a young girl, is murdered in the second sentence of the first page) but is still turning out to be a delicious dish.
And between other books I'm gradually working my way through the series À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu which is just the most wonderful florid prose, even in translation. There are a lot of volumes and, beautiful as it is, I need to switch to something else between volumes..just to come up for air as it were.
Mwhahaha! I love the book / cat analogy! Books don't cough up hairballs. They just trip you in the night on the way to the kitchen for a 3AM glass of water. :)
I LOVED "The Lovely Bones". I think I read in in a 24 hour period. I just couldn't put it down, and it affected me very deeply. Very cathartic.
I will definitely add "A River Sutra" and "A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu" to my library list. The both sound brilliant, and I've been meaning to read some Proust but didn't know where to start. Thank you for the wonderful recommendations!
One of my favorites that I read in 2007 was "Life: A User's Manual" (in French - "Vie mode d'emploi") by Georges Perec. It is so rich in description, allusion and intricately, wonderful entwining stories.
Thank you so much for the wonderful book recommendations. I'm busy preparing my library list for 2008, and I will definitely add these titles to it. Though I might have to actually buy the Wallace Stevens. Poetry is best savored in sweet morsels of introspection, taken randomly when the mood is most in need or receptive to such heady distillations of thought and observations. It's hard to do that with a library book.
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just love a german story of a man selling his soul...
my next on the list is trying to find a complete copy of beowulf. i keep seeing the "movie" versions and such but finding it difficult to find the origional translated from norse.. lol..
probably non of the sentence is right..
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I should read "Beowulf" too. I've heard that the translation by Seamus Heaney is quite good. I saw the Zemeckis version of "Beowulf" in 3-D! The 3-D was awesome!
Reply
i agree the movie was kick-ass, but i want to be able to read it. i have this nasty problem of reading a book then bitching about how bad they killed it when it got a movie made out of it
Reply
Books are a bit like cats. My favourite is influenced a lot by which one is there right now.
Last week I read A River Sutra and it was such a positive, up, beautiful, life-affirming book. Very away-from-my-everyday-experience...chap retires to the shores of a holy river and hears tales from or relates tales about the mystics and ascetics of Hindus, Muslims and Jains.
Just now I'm reading The Lovely Bones which is so very different in taste (the main character, a young girl, is murdered in the second sentence of the first page) but is still turning out to be a delicious dish.
And between other books I'm gradually working my way through the series À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu which is just the most wonderful florid prose, even in translation. There are a lot of volumes and, beautiful as it is, I need to switch to something else between volumes..just to come up for air as it were.
Reply
I LOVED "The Lovely Bones". I think I read in in a 24 hour period. I just couldn't put it down, and it affected me very deeply. Very cathartic.
I will definitely add "A River Sutra" and "A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu" to my library list. The both sound brilliant, and I've been meaning to read some Proust but didn't know where to start. Thank you for the wonderful recommendations!
One of my favorites that I read in 2007 was "Life: A User's Manual" (in French - "Vie mode d'emploi") by Georges Perec. It is so rich in description, allusion and intricately, wonderful entwining stories.
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here are a few
poetry: "The Palm at the End of the Mind" Wallace Stevens
non-fiction: "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" Jane Jacobs (I'm reading it now!)
novel: "The Magic Mountain" (I'm drawing a blank on the author, I'll get back to you post-haste)
oh and more more, but my little brain won't work anymore
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Wallace Stevens makes my heart beat faster and soothes me in hours of anguish - he writes with force and grace
e.g.
I do not know which to prefer
The beauty of inflection]
Or the beauty of innuendo
The blackbird whistling
Or just after
Jane Jacobs makes me want to pick up and move to a great american city and revel in the ballet of the city streets
The Magic Mountain is vibrating narrative that captures a particular sweep in European history - right before the Great War
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