Last book(s) you read?

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dongregg
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by dongregg » Fri May 12, 2017 5:18 am

Half-Shell Prophecies by Ruthanne Reid. Recommended by an Internet writing club I belonged to briefly last year as a model for how to thoroughly create a world. I had to warm to the perky protagonist, but I enjoyed it.

Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. Multiple rereads. Same reason. He puts you into the scene.

They are both written in the first person and in the past tense. I'm writing fan fics in the third person but in the present tense. Still, I'm going back and thinking hard about how I can put in more details to put the reader in the scene. It's all fun and all good. :)
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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dongregg
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by dongregg » Tue May 23, 2017 8:32 pm

Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Sons. A nuanced, thoroughly engaging story of two generations and the changes (or not) that the men and women of both generations experience over a few weeks of interaction.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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PeteMork
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by PeteMork » Wed May 24, 2017 3:37 am

Image

Free Will,
by Sam Harris
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. (Roberto Bolaño)

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dongregg
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by dongregg » Wed May 24, 2017 3:56 am

Falling in love with Ray Bradbury again after 50 or 55 years.

Dandelion Wine

Passages so achingly beautiful and evocative that they remind me of a former member of the forum whose youthful word magic even Bradbury does not surpass. :wub: :wub: :wub:

And I shall add -- her humor was on par with Mark Twain.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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EEA
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by EEA » Wed May 24, 2017 10:03 pm

The Neopolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante.

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PeteMork
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by PeteMork » Thu May 25, 2017 5:31 pm

dongregg wrote:Falling in love with Ray Bradbury again after 50 or 55 years.

Dandelion Wine

Passages so achingly beautiful and evocative that they remind me of a former member of the forum whose youthful word magic even Bradbury does not surpass. :wub: :wub: :wub:

And I shall add -- her humor was on par with Mark Twain.
She's a real pistol, for sure! I'm sure her sissy is aging fast, trying to keep up with her. ;)
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. (Roberto Bolaño)

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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by gattoparde59 » Mon May 29, 2017 1:16 am

Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night.

A detective stories writer returns to her alma mater at Oxford to solve a mystery involving a low-tech version of what we would now call a troll.

Our heroine is Harriet Vane, the sort-of girl friend of Lord Peter Wimsey. He turns up for the last 3rd of the book, although his wastrel nephew does a passing imitation early on. Reading this you will not only be navigating Vane and Wimsey's highly complicated relationship, but also a whole bunch of Anglo-Oxonian argot from the 1930s. Knowing Latin helps too. I googled a rather important Latin phrase from the book and found a kind lady had written a whole article supplying translations for all them learned quotations.

I'll break open the story and tell you what is there. Then, like the others that have fallen out onto the sand, I will finish with it, and the wind will take it away.

Nisa

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dongregg
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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by dongregg » Mon May 29, 2017 2:50 am

It's been years since I read Gaudy Night . I'd love to reread it, and it would be a plus if I had the article you mentioned by the kind lady. :)
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by dongregg » Fri Jun 02, 2017 8:45 am

Reading a 1942 collection of short stories (Brit and American). I had encountered some of them before. Most interesting to me were Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad; The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Ernest Hemingway; Turn About, William Faulkner; and The Old Demon, Pearl S. Buck.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Last book(s) you read?

Post by dongregg » Sat Jun 03, 2017 6:24 am

Fifty pages into one of the most delightful novels I've ever encountered -- Nobody's Fool, by Richard Russo, 1993. :D
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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