Books: What have people been reading recently?

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Seneschal
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:17 PM

I may change my mind if I can read it, but it sounds way too modern.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:07 PM

It's fantasy, but set in the Regency. Excellent book with fantastic atmospheric drawings. It's a bit of an alternate history where magical still exists but only in a theoretical form, until Mr Norrell, a reclusive old miser from Yorkshire who buys up all the books, restores it. It's used in the war effort against Napoleon (hilarious bit where he tries, unsuccesfuly, to frighten napoleon by sending him nightmares: a dragoon hiding in his closet) and he takes on a young pupil, the eccentric but charming gentleman Jonathan Strange. The two eccentrics soon become rivals. Good villain and interesting subplot about the mythical Raven King. Verry witty, with psuedo-academic footnotes. Look for Susanah Clarke's official site.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:05 PM

The Chronicles of Narnia are great jacquiC..Not just for children as some think but good adult reading too. Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 05:04 PM

Seneschal, why silly if that's what he chose, as the author, to make of his character? Have you read the first book in which he says he explains it? I haven't, yet, so I really am just asking.

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: fat B****rd
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:50 PM

Alan Plater's Beiderbecke Trilogy and next a book about Custer.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: jacqui.c
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:47 PM

I'm just reading the Narnia books by C S Lewis. Just starting 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader".

When I've finished those I've got my eye on the complete works of Rudyard Kipling.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: skipy
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:44 PM

Ebay!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:38 PM

What genre is that then? Never heard the names.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:01 PM

Liz, you really must try Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 04:00 PM

I'm going through the Harry Potter series and Oscar Wilde 'Picture of Dorian Grey'.

I may try 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' after that, once I've finished with all of Les Barkers' volumes!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:33 PM

The Queen Elizabeth one is non-fiction?

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Rapparee
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:32 PM

Terry Jones' "The Murder of Chaucer" and whats-his-name's "Queen Elizabeth's Slave Trader."

Among others.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Seneschal
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:29 PM

That thing about her first love being law and not religion is a bit silly. Too often they were closely entwined.

Anyway I was reading Christ Stopped at Eboli. Carlo Levi wrote about his experiences as a doctor in southern italy of the 1940s, one of the most poverty-stricken places in the world. It's an incredible book, I challenge anyone to read it and not be moved.

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:29 PM

Thanks Kat.... hugs are always welcome!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:23 PM

{{{{{Hugs for Brian and his mom}}}}}} May you both find peace and strength.

Recent reads include: Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mystery series.
This is the first one I read, but not the first of the series. In this one she goes to Rome:click

This is some of what he has at the beginning of each book, taken from an interview:

Why did you choose a female protagonist, and a nun in particular?

I chose a female protagonist because this was the most intriguing aspect of the 7th-century Irish system which placed women in a co-equal role to men. A fact that seemed forgotten. And it was inevitable that she had to be a religious for, as Fidelma has explained in the stories, in pre-Christian days all the professionals and intellectuals were part of the Druid caste whereas, in the early days of Christianity, the vast majority of professionals simply became members of the new religious. It is not something Fidelma particularly likes because her first and main love is law – she is a qualified lawyer and law is her life first and foremost and not religion. She did give up life in the Abbey of Kildare for the reasons explained in the title story of Hemlock at Vespers.

What was the position of women in 7th-century Irish society generally and the church in particular? Did women have more rights in 7th-century Ireland than subsequently?

Under the ancient Irish law system, women occupied a unique place. Simply, the Irish laws gave more rights and protection to women than any other western law code at that time or until recent years. Women could, and did, aspire to all offices and professions as co-equal with men. They could be political leaders, command their people in battle as warriors, be physicians, poets, artisans, local magistrates, lawyers and judges.

            Women were protected, under the law, from sexual harassment, against discrimination and against rape. They had the right of divorce on equal terms as their husbands, with equitable separation laws and could demand part of their husband's property as a divorce settlement. They had the right of inheritance of personal property and the right of sickness benefit when ill or hospitalised. They remained the owners of any wealth that they brought into a marriage. Indeed, it was automatic that on divorcing their husband, if he were at fault, they took half of all the joint property accrued during the time of the marriage. The Irish law system was very ancient and sophisticated. While we have fragmentary texts from the early period, the first complete surviving texts do not survive until the 11th century. This law system was finally suppressed following the Tudor Conquest of Ireland at the beginning of the 17th century. During the Penal Years it meant death or transportation to be caught with one of the Irish law books.

            It was thanks to Charles Graves, grandfather of the Nobel literary laureate Robert Graves, that many of the Irish legal texts were finally saved. Charles Graves (1812-1899) was President of the Royal Irish Academy, as well as being Anglican Bishop of Limerick. He was an expert on Ogham, the ancient Irish form of writing, and on Brehon Law. He persuaded the British government to set up a commission to rescue the surviving legal books and texts and to edit and translate them. These were published in six volumes from 1865-1901.

Other books I really enjoy have been the Didius Falco series by Lindsey Davis: click.

And, the ancient Japan mystery series by Laura Joh Rowland:click You can look inside this book and read a bit of it. It's not the first in the series, but one I've read and quite good,imo.

Enjoy!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Alaska Mike
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 03:15 PM

I'm currently reading book 9 in the "Master & Commander" series by Patrick O'Brian. My first time through the series and I am totally enjoying the experience. I'll probably end up writing some more nautical songs before too long.

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: Stu
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 02:56 PM

I'm reading a book on the history of beer in Britain.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: BS: Books
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 02:40 PM

I have just completed two books by Pat Conroy.. "Prince of Tides" and "Beach Music"... the second hit me really hard... I picked it at random at a used book sale. One of the stories within it talks about the main character dealing with his mother being diagnosed with cancer -- my mother happens to be going thru the same, and I had just found out a day or so before getting this book that she wasn't expected to make it past a couple weeks (that was a few weeks back, she is doing somewhat better now, btw). Anyways, it is a very moving book that I would recommend.

Brian

Subject: BS: Books
From: GUEST,Scapin
Date: 13 Apr 05 - 02:36 PM

What have people been reading recently?