What books are you currently reading?
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My goodness, congratulations for getting started on this history. It sounds like quite a challenge. Étienne Gilson set up the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. I look forward to finding out more about the institute in my home city.
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Like many I thoroughly enjoyed reading several of Hesse's novels. First time I've heard of these stories.Hesse: Strange News from Another Star
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This is an interesting collection of short stories from Hesse. They are stories, in the form of modern Fairy Tales, that explore levels of the subconscious and deep emotional thought.
They are strange but good. One would have to be in the correct frame of mind to assimulate them fully. I had to take my time over them but ultimately enjoyed them.
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Antidote to Venom by Freeman Wills Croft (1938) - a classic detective mystery in a delightful reprint series that we picked up at a charity shop. It's really well-written with an intricate though totally improbable plot and an intriguing twist at the end. It's told from the point of view of the murderer. That's why we'll be returning it - I just can't sympathise sufficiently, even though there are mitigating circumstances. We've kept one or two that we've picked up in the same charity shop that we think we'll read again. Despite my reservations, I'm glad I read this one.
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Putting my Spanish to good use...
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I'm almost halfway through Rand's mighty tome having read The Fountainhead, which she calls the overture, immediately beforehand. I love how shamelessly romantic it is without a trace of self-conscious humour or snark. And like the greatest romantic works in music, there's no ninnyish fear of being overblown or in bad taste. Characters at parties burst into 8 page long speeches on philosophy, the heroes are tall and beautiful, the villains worms. Usually when I read a novel I imagine all the characters as Muppets but I picture Atlas Shrugged as a black and white melodrama, with a soaring soundtrack and Gene Tierney as Dagny Taggart.
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There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.![]()
Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009
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Hamsun: Mysteries
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A very eccentric stranger decides to disembark from a boat at the last minute. He is attracted by the festivities in the town. The novel becomes the tale of his interactions with and his effect on the locals in the town. However, the novel focuses on the psychology of the main protagonist. The inhabitants are shocked and disturbed by his speech as he continually endeavours to convince them that he is a genuine person. I found it interesting but odd. It reminded me of how I felt when reading Kafka.
A very eccentric stranger decides to disembark from a boat at the last minute. He is attracted by the festivities in the town. The novel becomes the tale of his interactions with and his effect on the locals in the town. However, the novel focuses on the psychology of the main protagonist. The inhabitants are shocked and disturbed by his speech as he continually endeavours to convince them that he is a genuine person. I found it interesting but odd. It reminded me of how I felt when reading Kafka.
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By what sorcery is this achieved?!
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Heavens, I got this book so long ago and spent a youthful summer lazily reading about a third into it (it's a weighty book you'll agree, in prose and size) and then promptly mislaid it before ever finishing it. Several decades later I keep saying I'll restart it.
Did you finish it? Is it worth it?
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I imagine it as a Terrytoons cartoon before the real film comes on.
Text To Speech (TTS) engine from Samsun, [Apple, I guess) or Google and a reader application on a mobile telephone handset.
Or an application on my desktop PC such as Freda or Calibre. One open the book or document (epub, PDF, txt etc) and read aloud.
It's the first time I've tried listening to a book on the mobile telephone handset. I had to try several applications but I only got one of the apps I downloaded to work yesterday, it's called Read Aloud.
I have no idea what I'm doing and all the apps are a bit quirky.
With Read Aloud, after pausing, when I play again the voice changes back to a US one with an uplift at the end of each sentence like everything's a question?
The Freda reader on desktop has navigation problems. There's no scroll bar or buttons and if one as much as touches the scroll wheel of the mouse it advances or rewinds heaps of pages.
Calibre lacks navigation controls too but has better library management.
The desktop applications have less natural voice than Samsung TTS +( Read Aloud or other reader app).
I don't have an electronic book such as Kindle
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