What are you reading right now?

FETCHER. · 01-11-2022, 09:16 AM

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Originally Posted by FETCHER.

Ernest Cline - Ready Player Two. I’m enjoying what I have read so far but have had to remind myself to pick it up and get reading. Really wondering where the storyline is going to go. I am only around 100 pages in, generally don’t like the first stage of a book because I worry that it’s going to be ****. Has anyone here finished it?

It was ****e, don’t read it.

Currently reading Delia Owens - Where the crawdads sing. In comparison to the last book it’s been really effortless to get through.

**Marie Monday** · 01-23-2022, 07:41 AM

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Originally Posted by jadis

What the French call l'Âge classique (from late 16th to early 18th centuries) does have the advantage of "linguistic purity": the vocabulary is "soutenu" and restricted (Roland Barthes called Racine "l’homme aux deux mille mots") so knowing the few thousand Latinate words that are used in the literary registers of English gets you a long way. On the flip side, it's highly stylized and many of the words are used in ways that are subtly different from contemporary French, so I wouldn't focus on that era unless you want to be a scholar of French classicism or something.

I would avoid the 19th century: everyone thinks they're going to enjoy Madame Bovary or the Three Musketeers but it's full of lengthy descriptions of stuff like taverns and horses and chapels where you'll have to look up 5 words in every sentence. Impractical.

Many of the people I know who made the biggest progress in French started by reading plenty of nonfiction: it's just simpler than literary fiction and you can get it from wherever. From news agencies on Twitter to biographies of celebrities you like. Someone I know took herself to a new level by reading on her phone a French translation of an English-language Cure biography she found as an ebook (on Google's book app, whatever it's called) cause she was a Cure fan and knew a lot about them already, so she could figure out a lot from context as opposed to looking up every single word she didn't know.

Thanks, that's good advice. I don't read much non fiction but that seems like a good place to start. I also ordered the first Claudine novel by Colette.
In the mean time I'm reading another French book, l'ultime secret by Bernard Werber. A French friend of mine lent it to me; the book is bad but the French is easy to understand with a little help of Google translate.
And on the side I finally started reading Simone de Beauvoir's the Second Sex (in English because that's beyond my level of French). I've only read the introduction but so far it's excellent.
edit for update: her take on biology is at times very dubious though. About pregnancy: '[...] loss of appetite and vomiting [...] signalise the revolt of the organism against the invading species' ...um sure Simone

Another update which I forgot about: a while ago I read the Mischa Mengelberg book that someone gave me, and it was great. Very funny, very playful. Lots of whimsical writings about music, absurdist little plays and poems that twist language and play with it. His Dutch is beautiful; he also writes in German and English occasionally (his English is adorably off-kilter, as happens when someone tries to cast English in the grammar and idiom of another language)

**Marie Monday** · 01-23-2022, 07:50 AM

Oh also shoutout to another book I've read lately, My Antonia by Willa Cather. She somehow manages to give an extraordinary vividness to nature, people, and situations with fairly minimal means. It's a gorgeous book

moosegoose · 01-25-2022, 07:33 AM

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer. Abrupt and intoxicating read so far.

Quote:

“The real reality is something we create every moment of every day, that realities spin off from our decisions in every second we've alive.”

**Exo** · 01-25-2022, 11:51 AM

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Originally Posted by moosegoose

Borne by Jeff Vandermeer. Abrupt and intoxicating read so far.

I enjoyed Annihilation a lot. Wasn't too keen on the second one though.

dHYANA fREEMAN · 01-25-2022, 01:30 PM

I'm currently reading 'Lunar Alchemy' by: Shaheen Miro and also 'Sacred Woman' by: Queen Afua, both are very powerful insightful reads! has anyone here read them?

dHYANA fREEMAN · 01-25-2022, 01:32 PM

wus the word with your pro pic? just curious (no judgment zone)

**Exo** · 01-25-2022, 01:57 PM

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Originally Posted by dHYANA fREEMAN

wus the word with your pro pic? just curious (no judgment zone)

Who are you asking?

adidasss · 01-26-2022, 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Exo

I enjoyed Annihilation a lot. Wasn't too keen on the second one though.

My take on it from goodreads:

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...Didn't care for his style, structure, characters, naming of the characters, the world, the narrative, the pacing, most certainly didn't care if it was a Tower or a goddamn Tunnel. Just not for me. Don't think I'll see the movie either.

**Exo** · 01-26-2022, 07:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adidasss

My take on it from goodreads:

The movie was different enough from the book to possibly sidestep your issues with it. For one, there is no tower/tunnel in the film. You should try it.

01-25-2022, 01:30 PM	#7306 (permalink)
dHYANA fREEMAN Groupie Join Date: Jan 2022 Location: Arizona Posts: 2	I'm currently reading 'Lunar Alchemy' by: Shaheen Miro and also 'Sacred Woman' by: Queen Afua, both are very powerful insightful reads! has anyone here read them?

01-25-2022, 01:32 PM	#7307 (permalink)
dHYANA fREEMAN Groupie Join Date: Jan 2022 Location: Arizona Posts: 2	wus the word with your pro pic? just curious (no judgment zone)