Love this Robbie. And just today I discovered there's a word for my favourite way to consume books ... A librocubicularist meaning a person who enjoys reading in bed.
I never read the foreword or introduction until after I've read the book. And then only if the book was interesting enough for me to want to know what someone else has to say about it. I don't want someone else's analysis or exegesis up front. They tell me I'm an Enneagram 8, maybe that's why.
I'm amazed by Alyssa's accounting skills! I have no idea at all how many books I read last year. But it was probably somewhere between 50 and 100, could be more. I read 3 or 4 at a time. I also find myself occasionally reading something that I realise halfway through I already read.
Right now I'm reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Jay Fowler for the second time, and discovering how little I remembered of this huge masterpiece. In print. The Annotated Turing by somebody or other. In print. That's in Kampala next to my bed, but I live most of the time in Nebbi so I read it in snatches. About 75% of it is over my head but the rest is interesting enough to keep me going. Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato, a Second World War pilot, for the second time. In print. The Sins of the Fathers by Alan Massie, on kindle. It's a fictionalised version of the 1963 Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Khalid Rashidi, in print. It's a dense book, but fascinating and horrific. Am about to start The Complete Works of Dostoyevsky on kindle, but I doubt I'll get to the end. It costs less than a dollar, amazing value, like The Complete Non-Fiction of George Orwell edited by Peter Davison. I actually read the 20 volumes from start to finish a couple of years back. Also extraordinarily cheap on kindle. Dostoyevsky is a rare exception where I'm reading the intro first. I read a few of his novels and stories 50 years ago, so I already know he's worth discussing!
"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" I know nothing about this book but have always loved the title.
I also haven't read Dostoevsky yet, but he's high on the list. I'm currently (slightly) struggling my way through Oliver Twist, having never read any Dickens before. Once I'm done with that my "doorstopper Victorian novel" slot will be open and I might pick up something by Dostoevsky. Any suggestions on where to start?
I never read Oliver Twist. Don't think I've even seen the musical. Bleak House is excellent, tho long. A Christmas Carol is well known via The Muppets and other adaptations but well worth reading in the original. It's where I started reading Dickens at age 10. Might be good to try an audio Dickens, he is very audiable. Big Victorian novels - War & Peace? The Mill On The Floss? (Never read it, I read Silas Marner and a couple of others of hers.) I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen but she's pre-Victorian of course. Some of the film and TV adaptations are OK but nothing I've seen really captures the sharpness of her wit or the sheer penetration of her understanding of people. Colin Firth delivers some of her funniest lines without any hint he understands them. Odd, because he does have a sense of humour and ought to get them. Anything by Conrad, although he is early modern rather than strictly Victorian. Did you ever read Typhoon? Best short novel I ever read. I never managed to get very far with Henry James but others think he's the bees knees. I never read Vanity Fair, nor any Smollett or the lesser Victorians. I'm not as well-read as I think. Mark Twain? Huckleberry Finn. I remember reading Life on the Mississippi at a young age and then trying to get it on kindle recently, but whoever put it into kindle has fucked around with the text and talks about the web and email and crap. I bought two or three different ones and they are all the same. No-one edited/policed the editions published on kindle. Early modern, DH Lawrence, The Rainbow and Women In Love. Ulysses, of course. Never read it, despite how essential it is. Going back a bit, you could try Tristram Shandy. I love it, but it is perhaps something of an acquired taste. It's mad. Far too long, but hilarious. Shandy Hall, where Lawrence Sterne lived, is near Pickering in N. Yorkshire. xxx
I read 57 books last year! One thing that’s helped me is checking books out from the library. The deadline gets to me at least open it. And once it’s open, I’m highly likely to keep reading.
I just learned that the Kobo e-reader (which I was already looking into to try and get a little bit out of the amazon ecosystem) let's you borrow ebooks directly from the library, which seems amazing to me.
Also, people keep giving me these exact numbers. How do you know you read 57? Do you have a spreadsheet?
Oh nice! I hate e-readers and love having a physical book in my hands…
No spreadsheet (because I’m a 4, not a 5). I have a notebook that I call my Book of Books where I write down everything I’ve read, a few details about the book, how I felt about it, etc. I started it after I re-read a book I’d read 10 years earlier, and didn’t realize I’d already read it until I was halfway through it. Figured I needed a way to track 🤪
Love this Robbie. And just today I discovered there's a word for my favourite way to consume books ... A librocubicularist meaning a person who enjoys reading in bed.
I never read the foreword or introduction until after I've read the book. And then only if the book was interesting enough for me to want to know what someone else has to say about it. I don't want someone else's analysis or exegesis up front. They tell me I'm an Enneagram 8, maybe that's why.
I'm amazed by Alyssa's accounting skills! I have no idea at all how many books I read last year. But it was probably somewhere between 50 and 100, could be more. I read 3 or 4 at a time. I also find myself occasionally reading something that I realise halfway through I already read.
Right now I'm reading We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Jay Fowler for the second time, and discovering how little I remembered of this huge masterpiece. In print. The Annotated Turing by somebody or other. In print. That's in Kampala next to my bed, but I live most of the time in Nebbi so I read it in snatches. About 75% of it is over my head but the rest is interesting enough to keep me going. Spreading My Wings by Diana Barnato, a Second World War pilot, for the second time. In print. The Sins of the Fathers by Alan Massie, on kindle. It's a fictionalised version of the 1963 Adolf Eichmann trial in Israel. The Hundred Years War on Palestine by Khalid Rashidi, in print. It's a dense book, but fascinating and horrific. Am about to start The Complete Works of Dostoyevsky on kindle, but I doubt I'll get to the end. It costs less than a dollar, amazing value, like The Complete Non-Fiction of George Orwell edited by Peter Davison. I actually read the 20 volumes from start to finish a couple of years back. Also extraordinarily cheap on kindle. Dostoyevsky is a rare exception where I'm reading the intro first. I read a few of his novels and stories 50 years ago, so I already know he's worth discussing!
His name is Rashid Khalidi, sorry!
"We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" I know nothing about this book but have always loved the title.
I also haven't read Dostoevsky yet, but he's high on the list. I'm currently (slightly) struggling my way through Oliver Twist, having never read any Dickens before. Once I'm done with that my "doorstopper Victorian novel" slot will be open and I might pick up something by Dostoevsky. Any suggestions on where to start?
Incidentally, I heard a very enthusiastic review of this biography of him recently: https://bookshop.org/a/20138/9780691155999
I never read Oliver Twist. Don't think I've even seen the musical. Bleak House is excellent, tho long. A Christmas Carol is well known via The Muppets and other adaptations but well worth reading in the original. It's where I started reading Dickens at age 10. Might be good to try an audio Dickens, he is very audiable. Big Victorian novels - War & Peace? The Mill On The Floss? (Never read it, I read Silas Marner and a couple of others of hers.) I'm a huge fan of Jane Austen but she's pre-Victorian of course. Some of the film and TV adaptations are OK but nothing I've seen really captures the sharpness of her wit or the sheer penetration of her understanding of people. Colin Firth delivers some of her funniest lines without any hint he understands them. Odd, because he does have a sense of humour and ought to get them. Anything by Conrad, although he is early modern rather than strictly Victorian. Did you ever read Typhoon? Best short novel I ever read. I never managed to get very far with Henry James but others think he's the bees knees. I never read Vanity Fair, nor any Smollett or the lesser Victorians. I'm not as well-read as I think. Mark Twain? Huckleberry Finn. I remember reading Life on the Mississippi at a young age and then trying to get it on kindle recently, but whoever put it into kindle has fucked around with the text and talks about the web and email and crap. I bought two or three different ones and they are all the same. No-one edited/policed the editions published on kindle. Early modern, DH Lawrence, The Rainbow and Women In Love. Ulysses, of course. Never read it, despite how essential it is. Going back a bit, you could try Tristram Shandy. I love it, but it is perhaps something of an acquired taste. It's mad. Far too long, but hilarious. Shandy Hall, where Lawrence Sterne lived, is near Pickering in N. Yorkshire. xxx
I read 57 books last year! One thing that’s helped me is checking books out from the library. The deadline gets to me at least open it. And once it’s open, I’m highly likely to keep reading.
I just learned that the Kobo e-reader (which I was already looking into to try and get a little bit out of the amazon ecosystem) let's you borrow ebooks directly from the library, which seems amazing to me.
Also, people keep giving me these exact numbers. How do you know you read 57? Do you have a spreadsheet?
Oh nice! I hate e-readers and love having a physical book in my hands…
No spreadsheet (because I’m a 4, not a 5). I have a notebook that I call my Book of Books where I write down everything I’ve read, a few details about the book, how I felt about it, etc. I started it after I re-read a book I’d read 10 years earlier, and didn’t realize I’d already read it until I was halfway through it. Figured I needed a way to track 🤪
That's amazing. Must have been a good book 😅