Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I just started reading "The Tempest" by Wm Shakespeare. I dug out my original copy of UK1 "Beyond the Crystal Cave" and thought I'd better read the play it was based on at least once before running it.

grodog wrote:

simrion wrote:I just picked up a massive Lovecraft tome yesterday at Banes & Nobles. The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft with an intro by Alan Moore. Delving into this soon.

This is worthwhile---I've been re-reading favorite stories in bed before going to sleep, and am nearly done with "The Shadow Over Innsmouth." I like Klinger's annotations and notes, and it's a nice touch that they include many pictures of sites in HPL's New England.

Bet you have some crazy dreams afterwards too!

Kellri wrote:Just started in on Gene Wolf's first Book of the New Sun, Shadow of the Torturer. I tried to read it when I was in university but couldn't get into it at all. Now...well, my God, it's brilliant.

Yeah, Wolfe is one of my all time favorites.

I meant to post this some time ago.

https://boingboing.net/2017/01/03/sherl ... ete-2.html

The Sherlock Holmes kindle edition is no longer free, but it is only a buck.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01N2VBE6U/

The Conan stuff is still free is seems for the kindle edition.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B01N1V3Q7N/

I'm currently reading Barbara Tuchman's The Zimmerman Telegram as part of my WW1 reading. I rather liked this exchange from 1915:

Zimmerman (German Foreign Minister): In case of trouble there are half a million trained Germans in America who will join the Irish and start a revolution!

US Ambassador to Germany: In that case there are half a million lamp posts to hang them on.

Welleran wrote:I'm currently reading Barbara Tuchman's The Zimmerman Telegram as part of my WW1 reading.

Good book. I also enjoyed Tuchman's Proud Tower (the events/climate leading up to the First World War).

I recently finished Cornwell's Flame Bearer (a satisfying book after following Uhtred's saga for so long, now). I haven't started anything new, yet. Last night before bed I was re-reading some sections of Heart of the Sea (the story of the men of the whaleship Essex, which was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific). Not sure what I want to read, next.

Philotomy Jurament wrote: Good book. I also enjoyed Tuchman's Proud Tower (the events/climate leading up to the First World War).

I like read that one last year...quite good. I also reread Guns of August, of course!

Yeah, Guns of August is a classic. I think I followed that with Keegan's First World War.

My goal had been to read 2 books on WW1 per month from 2014 through 2018. I am -- behind. I've done about 30 in the past 3 years, so not quite one per month. Not bad, really, considering life is so busy.

I tried a blog before realizing I am not a blogger! http://readinggreatwar.blogspot.com/

Philotomy Jurament wrote:I recently finished Cornwell's Flame Bearer (a satisfying book after following Uhtred's saga for so long, now). I haven't started anything new, yet. Last night before bed I was re-reading some sections of Heart of the Sea (the story of the men of the whaleship Essex, which was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific). Not sure what I want to read, next.

Moby-Dick is wasted on high school students and undergraduates. If you've never read it, you should consider it (or, if it sounds too iffy, pick up Typee instead): the wreck of the Essex was one of the primary inspirations for Melville's epic tale.

grodog wrote:

Philotomy Jurament wrote:I recently finished Cornwell's Flame Bearer (a satisfying book after following Uhtred's saga for so long, now). I haven't started anything new, yet. Last night before bed I was re-reading some sections of Heart of the Sea (the story of the men of the whaleship Essex, which was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific). Not sure what I want to read, next.

Moby-Dick is wasted on high school students and undergraduates. If you've never read it, you should consider it (or, if it sounds too iffy, pick up Typee instead): the wreck of the Essex was one of the primary inspirations for Melville's epic tale.

Man, I hated that in the undergrad American Lit. class. Well, I didn't hate it so much as the parts of the book that dove into the natural history of whales and stuff. Sure, I get it that as part of the serial he was publishing in papers/magazines/whatever it made sense, but in a novel? Skip them.

grodog wrote:Moby-Dick is wasted on high school students and undergraduates. If you've never read it, you should consider it (or, if it sounds too iffy, pick up Typee instead): the wreck of the Essex was one of the primary inspirations for Melville's epic tale.

Yeah, Melville even met some of the principal survivors of the Essex disaster. I read Moby Dick some years back (but as an adult), when I ordered those fancy Easton Press "100 greatest books." It was the first book they sent.

gizmomathboy wrote:

grodog wrote:

Philotomy Jurament wrote:I recently finished Cornwell's Flame Bearer (a satisfying book after following Uhtred's saga for so long, now). I haven't started anything new, yet. Last night before bed I was re-reading some sections of Heart of the Sea (the story of the men of the whaleship Essex, which was rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific). Not sure what I want to read, next.

Moby-Dick is wasted on high school students and undergraduates. If you've never read it, you should consider it (or, if it sounds too iffy, pick up Typee instead): the wreck of the Essex was one of the primary inspirations for Melville's epic tale.

Man, I hated that in the undergrad American Lit. class. Well, I didn't hate it so much as the parts of the book that dove into the natural history of whales and stuff. Sure, I get it that as part of the serial he was publishing in papers/magazines/whatever it made sense, but in a novel? Skip them.

Those are some of my favorite parts! But I'm a weirdo. Also, to be annoying, when talking to Manhattanites, I often refer to the borough as "your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs."

I'm rereading The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson. If you like Vikings (and I know you do!), this book is excellent. It's in print from the New York Review of Books, which is great at rescuing works that have fallen out of print.

Tonight I finally finished reading the Hobbit to my little girl. We've been reading it at bedtime once or twice a week for a few months. She of course absolutely loved it - much more than I did back in the day when I read it for the first time. (Not that I thought it was a bad book at all, just a bit less than its hype - I know, blasphemy to some here!)

But the pure joy she had listening to it, and the fun I had in reading it to her, and voicing the various characters, was special. Nothing else we've done together strikes the same sort of note. And for that, I should give the professor the due I had not yet as a weaver of magic.

EOTB wrote:Tonight I finally finished reading the Hobbit to my little girl. We've been reading it at bedtime once or twice a week for a few months. She of course absolutely loved it - much more than I did back in the day when I read it for the first time. (Not that I thought it was a bad book at all, just a bit less than its hype - I know, blasphemy to some here!)

But the pure joy she had listening to it, and the fun I had in reading it to her, and voicing the various characters, was special. Nothing else we've done together strikes the same sort of note. And for that, I should give the professor the due I had not yet as a weaver of magic.

Awesome. Magic, indeed!