The first time I attempted to read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was back in 2005 or so, a year after it had first come out to all the acclaim in the world. I gave up after about a hundred pages - I was in my late teens at the time, and a 1000-page tome written like a Victorian classic focused more on daily minutia over fast-paced action wasn't exactly my style. I re-attempted it again a few years later - but again, found myself disinterested after 200 pages or so.

Some years went by, and recently, I was gifted a bundle of used books from a family member moving houses and looking to get rid of some of their possessions. JSaMN happened to be in that pile of books, and last month, I decided to give it one final attempt. Over the past few years, I've kind of 'leveled up' my reading with more classics, literary fiction and non-fiction, and my patience and ability to navigate a book like this I felt would be better than it was.

Well, it stuck this time around, and I ended up finishing the book and really loving it quite a bit. Letting myself get immersed into the intricately detailed, grounded and fleshed-out world Susanna Clarke created, and just going with the slow-burn flow of the story really made it much more enjoyable this time around.

This book really is unlike any other fantasy novel I've read - it essentially is a Victorian drama of manners that just happens to feature some magic. Clarke's ability to create such a compelling setting where the practice of magic is so interweaved into what is otherwise a grounded "our world" is pretty incredible.

The crux of the story, and what really drives it, are the two protagonists and their journey. Two lost, somewhat broken men finding solace and belonging in each other, and the thrill - and the lows - of dedicating your life to mastering an art. It's a long, and fascinating journey, and Susanna Clarke really makes you feel both the narrative and personal weight of it on the main characters.

The style is fantastic as well, as Clarke's simple and yet elegant prose captures Victorian England in all its glory, and enhances the atmosphere of the book feeling like it really was written in that era. The numerous footnotes add to the immersion as well, and really add to the lore and worldbuilding without taking away from the general pace and flow of the story.

I do have some quibbles with the book, although they're fairly minor. The pacing in general is fine (although it may be a hard sell for those preferring something faster) but it does tend to become downright glacial at points. I also wasn't very invested in a lot of the side stories, for example the introduction of the Greysteels in Italy in the final quarter of the book. The relationship between Strange and Norrell is so compelling that you keep wishing for the book to go back to that story thread.

I also felt that the book lacks a sense of...emotional attachment I suppose? At least, for a large part of it anyway. I guess it aligns with Victorian England being a stuffy, stoic sort of place but the story does tend to keep you at a bit of a distance. The ending was fairly powerful though.

Overall, I'm glad I made the journey through this book and saw it through to the end. It's not for everyone, and for many it may be the kind of book you respect and admire rather than love. But it's still an impressive achievement in the genre, and really stands alone as a very unique story.

Growing up in the 90s “Collected Letters” books were still being published surrounding famous and notable figures, especially those in the literary world. I used to fantasize that one day my own letters would be collected… but I never really wrote any. When I first started emailing in high school, before Gmail existed, I used to save them all on hard drives and email servers that no longer exist. I really poured my soul out to them and connected on a personal level with people all over the world. I would even write authors and film directors and writers and far off university professors whose books I enjoyed and they wrote back to me, always impressed that a kid would reach out to them and correspond with them. I remember one of those foreign professors (who was also my cousin) marveling at my verbosity. The point isn’t to brag, but to ponder about this lost genre of literature. Sure, there are plenty of unpublished collection sitting around in archives that will one day see the light of day, but what was the last true collection of”Collected Letters” to actually be collected?

“Holly” by Stephen King was a book I couldn't wait to devour but I wanted to get into it the right way. I went on a Holly-inspired reading marathon so I could jump in and be fully caught up. I’m talking about taking an entire week off of work to enjoy a BOOKcation with everything involving Holly. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I devoured four novels and an entire short story collection written by King that featured Holly and it was such a rewarding reading experience.

Just so you know, to get the most out of “Holly” I highly recommend that you read all five books she is in before reading this novel. The order to read them are…

Mr. Mercedes -> Finders Keepers -> End of Watch -> The Outsider -> If It Bleeds -> Holly

Now before I jump into my review of this novel, here’s a list of the trigger warnings I found while reading…

- Homophobic comments

- COVID-19 pandemic

- Cannibalism

- Politics

- Racism

- Sexual harassment

- Rape

- Abortion

- Cancer

- Alzheimer’s Disease

- School shootings

If any of these trigger you, please don’t read this novel. One more thing I’d like to mention is my thoughts on how tons of readers hated the heavy use of politics, COVID-19, masking, vaxxing, and all that jazz in this novel to the point of being rude and mean to each other due to differences of opinion.

As always, reading is subjective and everyone reads for different reasons. Some like the escapism of novels and want to stay away from anything involving world and political events. Others don’t care at all and welcome it for whatever reason. Some will DNF a novel the moment they see things like that because they completely disagree and get all worked up. Others will enjoy it because they agree with that side of the debate.

Whatever the case may be, do whatever makes you happy as long as it’s not at the expense of treating others badly. It’s important to remember that if readers completely disagree with King’s views on politics, masking, vaxxing, etc., it’s okay to stop reading and move on to something else. Just please don’t start attacking your fellow Constant Readers because they agree with him on these kinds of topics or vice versa. We’re all readers at heart with different genres and topics we enjoy so no need to attack or be rude to each other over political differences or how people ultimately feel about COVID, masking, vaccinations, etc.

In my opinion, King is 76 years old and will be 77 years old on 9/21/24. The fact that he is still writing novels at such a high level is nothing short of incredible. I’m just glad he is because he will forever be my all-time favorite author. Regardless of how you feel about his political views and opinions on COVID, masking, vaccinations, etc., if you are a horror reader at one point or other in your life he probably gave you at least one character or book you enjoyed based on something he wrote. He’s been writing for over 50 years now and is still going strong.

These trigger warnings I mentioned above don’t bother me at all since they’re just words on paper to me. Remember my friends, be kind to each other, no matter where you stand on these political and COVID topics. Whether you agree or disagree, just treat each other with kindness. Trust me, it truly goes a very long way in life.

Anywho, I loved this novel so much and I would consider it one of the best he's written if you go on this Holly journey. It was that extraordinary to me and just like the other novels featuring Holly, King did a wonderful job weaving a story within a story within a story with tons of little subtle references here and there.

Everything from The Princess Bride, Blood Red Sky (I loved this movie on Netflix), Freddy Krueger, Carrie (lost my mind when he did this), and even The Haunting of Hill House all made me smile. I love it when King does things like this, especially with his legendary work.

The intro to “Holly” was a wild one and my goodness, King dialed up the horror with a very gross twist to things in this one. I made lots of weird faces with those insanely descriptive situations. In general, I was so happy to see Holly get her novel and not only what she’s been up to lately but also how she has evolved in the grand scheme of things.

To finally get more of Holly’s backstory and fill in the gaps to what makes her tick was such a great thing to read. I have connected with Holly way before this novel came out and reading this solidified to me that she’s a rockstar. I just love the kind of person she is, how vulnerable she can be depending on what is going on at the moment, and just how she figures things out over time.

Seeing Holly continuing to be Holly as she pieced things together in this horror mystery novel was a lot of fun. The suspense is throughout this novel and besides Holly, I also enjoyed how King was able to include Jerome and his sister Barbara to also get updates on them which was nice to read. This is a big reason why I highly recommend reading those five novels I mentioned above since it’ll just make it more meaningful.

Besides this incredible unique and disturbing story, King did a phenomenal job breaking down an underlying tone to “Holly” that was evident throughout this novel. Seeing Holly process grief due to what she’s going through was engrossing. Everyone handles grief differently but to see such a complex and riveting character as Holly goes through this on top of trying to figure out what she’s investigating was nothing short of brilliance.

It goes to show that no matter how strong, weird, or complicated someone is on the outside, grief like that affects everyone to some degree even as they vehemently deny it on the inside. Don’t worry, I won’t ruin anything for you but I just loved seeing Holly turn into the person she is now. Not only am I impressed but well, proud. I know that’ll sound weird but I went through a five-novel journey reading them all in a single week and feel like I know Holly. Even King said in recent interviews promoting this novel that there is a bit of Holly in him and well, everyone. I also feel the same as I’ve seen some of my tendencies of handling things as Holly would which makes her so relatable to me.

Another thing I loved is how the presence of Bill Hodges so many moons ago impacted Holly so much that it is still helping her in the present. I swear, the quote that King put to open up this novel (“Sometimes the universe throws you a rope.” - Bill Hodges) just hits you from beginning to end. Speaking of which, my goodness, the climax to the ending was fantastic! The main antagonists in this one were pure evil and I loved how Holly handled everything in stride towards that stupendous ending.

I was on the edge of my seat getting through that ending because I didn’t think that would ever happen and to see Holly do what she did make me scream YES!!! so many times in my head because it was so epic. It was quite the buildup and everything ended perfectly. I loved the ending. Mainly because it ended the way it should have when it comes to Holly and the kind of character she has now become. As always with anything I read by King, I was left mesmerized as Holly is now one of my all-time favorite characters he’s ever created.

I give “Holly” by Stephen King a 5/5 as it was so worth reading all the novels Holly was in before this one was published to enjoy watching her evolve into the person she is now. The horror, creepiness, and disturbing aspects of this novel were bloody magnificent. It probably isn’t a good idea to eat or drink anything while reading this one but at the end of it all, Holly rocks. I’m so glad King decided to give this influential character her novel because this has been quite the reading journey I will never forget for the rest of my life. Finally, the last little thing King left me with besides all this awesomeness involving Holly is that I will never look at vanilla ice cream the same again. Ever.

This news has genuinely made my day, week month, century! Like most millennial British women Jacqueline Wilson books were my childhood. And while I eventually put them down one day around yr8 and stopped paying attention to her yearly releases, I’ve been regularly revisiting the Girls books pretty much forever.

I always really enjoyed that series as they were less issues focussed and more character driven. Plus I was always left a bit disappointed that the series ended with Girls in Tears, as it didn’t feel like a satisfying ending at all. It was even pretty un-Jacqueline esque to me with Ellie staying with Russell. She’s usually very anti useless awful men in her other books so it really surprised me.

I am completely buzzing at the idea of a Jacqueline Wilson book written specifically for an adult reader, and a continuation of one my favourite stories of hers to boot. I’m counting down the weeks until we get to revisit Ellie, Nadine and Magda and see what they’re all up to at 40!

Sorry this is a trivial question/request for help but it’s driving my OCD crazy. Johnny told Sarah to “stop snortin’ that cocaine” several times throughout the book, but I can’t remember where it all started and what original joke(?) he was referring to. I re-read the early chapters when they were together many times, downloaded the e-book and looked up the occurrences of “cocaine” (the first was in chapter 9 and with no context), but I couldn’t find what it meant anywhere, I suppose it must have fallen into my “dead zone”… Can somebody help please? Many thanks in advance.

!I just finished reading Rock Paper Scissors and Daisy Darker and noticed some similarities.!<

!Here's what I noticed in both stories:!<

!A girl has her plaits cut off while she sleeps (Robin in RPS; Lily in DD).!<

!Both mention a magnolia tree being planted!<

!In RPS we learn that Henry Winter liked to use place names that include the word "black". DD takes place near Blacksand Bay.!<

!Both feature a black Labrador named Bob (in DD this is the dog Nana had before she got Poppins).!<

!The note from the author's agent at the beginning of DD mentions the agent received it wrapped in brown paper and string, which is how Henry Winter (and Robin writing as Henry) delivered his manuscripts.!<

!I thought it was strange because RPS (and presumably her other works) aren't supernatural, but Daisy is a literal ghost, and Henry Winter (and Robin) did write horror/supernatural novels.!<

!Could Daisy Darker be the novel Robin says she wrote in Rock Paper Scissors?!<

First off, I really enjoyed this book. Very dark and disturbing. Four pretty typical American college students who have never even considered their mortality are suddenly confronted with their own (and each other's) horrific deaths. None of them are particularly likable, but not so awful that their deaths didn't bum me out. Poor Pablo suffered so much that his death was more of a mercy at that point. Amy's struck me as particularly tragic, but that might just be because it was unexpected.

What do you think would've happened if Stacy had held out til the Greeks and Brazillians got there? Would they have run into the hill to try and help her only to have gotten trapped? Would they have tried to run away only to be murdered by Mayans?

What do you think about the Mayans? At the beginning, I thought they were trying to warn them away, but the language barrier made it impossible. When people got trapped on the hill, they didn't let them leave because they didn't want the vine to escape. But if tourists kept showing up and wandering back to the old mine, I would think they would make more of an effort to at least learn Spanish. Now I kind of think they were feeding it... the cab driver said it was a bad place.

Anyway, very cool book. The tension was there from the beginning and only escalated from there. If you like horror at all, I highly recommend it.

Very short article, but still interesting. Rushdie believes AI is more threatening to film and television writers as they often rewrite the same story. (It fails to look at whether they're specifically asked to reproduce the same story.)

https://www.barrons.com/news/salman-rushdie-ai-only-poses-threat-to-unoriginal-writers-5406c49e

Watching Shogun on Disney reminded me of James Clavell's novel that I read back in the 80's and the phenomenon of Blockbuster fiction that was so prevalent at the time. They weren't high literature but they had gripping plots and impressive world building and they were a thumping good read. They were also massive beefy tomes. I think the authors must have been paid by weight.

Is there any equivalent any more? Does the era of the blockbuster novel no longer exist?

A lot of folks are confused by my use of the word blockbuster. I don't have a precise definition but the following characteristics applied:

Best selling book that everyone knew about and talked about.

1000+ pages long

Epic Saga

Not very literary but nevertheless a cracking good read.

Bonus points if it is historical but not essential

Written for adults. May well have naughty bits in or at least what passed for naughty bits in the 1970s

Welcome readers,

Today is World Poetry Day and, to celebrate, we're discussing poetry! Please use this thread to discuss your favorite poets and poetry.

If you'd like to read our previous weekly discussions of fiction and nonfiction please visit the suggested reading section of our wiki.

Thank you and enjoy!

I finished this last night and couldn't find much discussion on here regarding this one.

I think this might just be one of the best books I have ever read. I was completely captivated the entire way through. MacInnes' writing is absolutely mesmerising and I just did not want to put it down at all.

I thought the ending was perfect as well - it does leave it a bit open-ended and open to interpretation so I'm interested to see what other people think of it.

Anyone else enjoy this as much as me?

After seeing several recommendations for Octavia E. Butler's books on various subs, I decided to check out the "Parable" series, which was highly recommended. The first Parable book was all checked out, so I got a copy of "Fledgling" from my library, and I've been noticing a writing trend that's really off-putting. She repeats herself pretty consistently in a really weird way. Here's an example of what I mean:

"I wondered what work was done in libraries, then knew. I had been in libraries. I had memories of rooms filled with books. Theodora worked with books, and with people who used books."

It seems like every couple of lines that she does this. Earlier in the book it happens a lot right after Renee comes to in the cave. It's super frustrating to read this choppy writing style. It's almost like watching one of those cartoons for toddlers where the characters prompt kids to find stuff on the screen, like Blues Clues or Dora. What's with the constant repetitive wording? And does it go on like this for the entire book? Is this just Butler's writing style? I see people lauding her books a lot (almost always the Parable series) but if this is how they all read, I don't understand why.

More examples:

"Was I blind? I lay in the dark, trembling. What if I were blind?"

"As I walked, it suddenly occurred to me that my feet were bare. I was walking carefully, not stepping on anything that would hurt me, but I could see and understand now that my feet, and legs, were bare. I knew I should have shoes on. In fact, I knew I should be dressed. But I was bare all over."

"My skin was scarred, badly scarred, over every part of my body that I could see. The scars were broad, creased, shiny patches of mottled red-brown skin. Had I always been scarred? Was my face scarred? I touched one of the broad scars across my abdomen, then touched my face. It felt the same. My face might be scarred. I wondered how I looked. I felt my head and discovered that I had almost no hair. I had touched my head expecting hair. There should have been hair, but I was bald, except for a small patch of hair on the back of my head, and higher up on my head..."

Out of about 110 words in that last passage, 18 of them are scarred (or scars), face, head, and hair. I'm really interested in this book, and I have others by Butler on my TBR list, and I hope the style doesn't stay like this.

I wrote the above portion a few days ago and posted it in this sub, but it got removed for lack of sub-karma. I've since finished the book and have some more thoughts on it.

From later in the book:

"Two in Romania, and one in England. I met your mothers in England. They had young children, and two of them were pregnant when they reached England."

So the writing style with the repetition does continue. At first I thought I could attribute it to Shori's amnesia and working things out in her mind, but then the other characters started talking this way, too.

Speaking of the other characters talking, aside from Wright, they're pretty much all cardboard. Wright is the only one who seems to have any time invested into him. And it's largely based on his semi-sexual, semi-addiction relationship with Shori.

By the way, it's hard to get passed the whole sexualization of what appears to be an 11 year old girl. Sure, she's 53, but the book is written with her looking 11 and some of the sex happens before you find out she's 53. It's creepy.

On top of that, her symbionts are basically slaves to her, both physically addicted to her saliva and psychologically unable to refuse her in any way. In a book that revolves around a protagonist fighting for her own agency, she surely does a lot to take that away from others. Butler tries to make this all ok by showing that their regular lives are going nowhere, but that make the fact that they're all made Shori's slaves against their wills.

Overall, I was disappointed in this book. The themes were kinda messed up and the plot was fairly generic. The dialogue was awful- think: the extremely cringey discussion between Shori and Daniel about mating, or the constant use of "like" in discussions about significant life changes. All of that combined with the really choppy, repetitive writing style (it was like a 10th grader trying to meet a minimum word requirement) made this book unbearable. Seriously, by the end of it I couldn't wait to never hear the words "Ina" and "symbionts" ever again. My hold for "Parable of the Sower" just became available, and I really hope this book is better.

If we gave numerical values to letters according to each letter's alphabetical order we would have A=1, B=2, C=3 ... Z=26 we would have Big Bang as B = 2, I = 9, G = 7, B = 2, A = 1, N = 14 and G = 7.

Adding all those numbers we get Big (2 + 9 + 7 = 18) and Bang (2 + 1 + 14 + 7 = 24). Adding 18 to 24 we have 42.

Hence, when asked about the answer for the fundamental question for life, universe and everything Deep Think creates the Earth to harbor life and humans, which eventually discovered about the origins of the universe calling it Big Bang. Aliens, however cannot understand human language, as Carl Sagan pointed out when talking about Voyager Spacecraft. It was necessary to turn Big Bang into something mathematical, which is 42.

I’m not remotely involved in the publishing industry, but as a reader and casual jerk-observer, the Pulitzer Board strikes me as a bunch of jerks. Would love if anyone with more context can comment.

Here’s the deal.

Administrivia

There is a 20-member Pulitzer Prize Board (PPB) which selects a 3-member rotating jury. The jury chooses the finalists (typically 3), and submits them back to the PPB. The PPB then selects the winner.

The 2012 Drama

There was literary ✨drama✨ in 2012 bc the jury sent 3 finalists to the board and the board awarded the prize to … nobody.

I’d been following bc one of my favorite authors (Karen Russell, for her novel Swamplandia!) was a finalist. I have to say, the decision felt like a massive slap in the face to all three finalists. It’s one thing not to win bc another novel was really great, and quite another not to win bc the board thinks all three finalists were crap and don’t want to sully the fine Pulitzer name on this garbage.

Something else that struck me as very weird was that there was no explanation or communication from the PPB. The three jury members who selected the finalists were giving interviews and writing articles all over the place — and let me tell you, they were none too pleased. The PBB didn’t communicate at all with the jury either, other than to dismiss the three finalists they submitted as garbage. Rude.

2023

Just today, I learned that the board awarded TWO Pulitzers in fiction for 2023. Am I taking crazy pills? Do I not understand what an annual award is? Are they just fucking with us to gin up interest?

To me, an annual award is given each year to whatever work best fits the criteria. Was it a shit year? Oh no, massive bummer, give it to the least shit submission. The IOC doesn’t refuse to give a medal to the winner of the 100m dash bc he’s slower than previous years. The announcer at the Oscar’s doesn’t get up on stage and keep the statuette for herself. Glut of talent? Everyone is amazing? Hooray, massive jubilation, you still have to choose one.

So what’s the deal here? Since the board weirdly refuses to offer any information whatsoever, I’m forced to conclude that they are jerks.

A final thought: $15,000 is not a lot of money

Pulitzer Prize winners get $15k.

Here is what $15,000 can buy you:

• 3.5 months of median manhattan rent
• Approximately 4 months of childcare in Boston
• a shared oceanview cabin for a family of 4 on a 9-day Alaskan Disney cruise — with $2,248 leftover for flights, excursions, and everything else!
• almost 3/4 of a 2024 Toyota Corolla with the least expensive trim

This is insane! The Pulitzer is easily one of the ten most prestigious literary prizes in the world, and the winner gets $15k? That’s 2 weeks salary for a mid level software engineer at a big company. If the author spent 40 hours a week for one year writing their Pulitzer-winning novel, they would have just made minimum wage. Like what are we doing here?

tldr I am fascinated by the politics and drama of the Pulitzer Prize Board

Edit: there’s been a lot of great comments but I definitely regret including the last section about the prize money bc that’s all anyone is talking about. Would love to hear people’s thoughts on the 2012 situation!

I love reading about mainly gay history, whether it’s about the Stonewall Riots, a biography on Oscar Wilde, or even a memoir by an adult actor from the 80s. I crave that history and I find it to be so enjoyable (and what better reason to read?)

But I’ve run into an issue.. I literally will scroll Amazon for a long time, searching for my next book. The issue? I’ve read what they have to offer. I go to bookstores here and I run into the same issue. It’s all of the same books, everything I’ve already read. So I scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll..

I LOVE going to big cities and checking out their bookstores just because they will have something I probably haven’t seen. The bookstore in the Castro in San Francisco is my favorite bookstore in the world because they things I’ve never seen before, even online.

But it’s tiring. And I crave learning and reading more! So what should I do? How do I find more? I’m not looking for recommendations, I’m looking for methods of finding books instead. What should I do when I feel like exhausted all of my options?

!He says that Camilla was definitely interested in Richard and was into him until she began to spend time with Henry at the hotel where she subsequently fell in love with him. He said that Camilla and Richard were serious about their future together. !<

!I completely disagree? I never got the sense that she was into Richard, perhaps interested but nothing serious at all. She was leading him on and Richard was never really her main option to begin with. Maybe she was a bit interested in him but she rarely initiated much with Richard and left him in the dark for much of the book. But his interest in her was surely amusing to Camilla. !<

!What do you all think about the dynamics between Camilla and Richard? I feel really blindsided by the way my friend interpreted their relationship. Do you think Camilla felt strongly for Richard? Enough to consider a future? !<

Now, a bit of a disclaimer: I'm really not trying to be inflammatory or hateful on this book, and I think it's worth mentioning that I only picked it up because Remains of The Day is one of my all time favorites and a book I thought to be near flawless, hence, the disappointing feeling I got when reading this other work. And of course it goes without saying that this is just my opinion.

I'll start with what I thought were the positives and what worked for me:

• The book is incredibly easy to read in a way that doesn't feel dumbed down. It's mainly the skillful use of simple language that just makes this book flow beautifully and naturally.
• The themes explored in the novel are in themselves poignant and interesting, even if I wasn't satisfied with the exploration of those themes itself.
• The world in the novel, even if it ultimately serves as a backdrop to explore the relationship between these characters and isn't meant to be this sci-fi deep world-building thing, was very intriguing and unique.

That being said, these are the things that ultimately annoyed the hell out of me:

• I found the three main characters to be quite annoying and whatever the opposite of lifelike is. I don't want to get into spoiler territory but I will only say that I found that most of the fights and discussions that felt important for the plot relied entirely upon contrivances such as the main character stating "I really wanted to do X and I really really should have done Y but for some unexplained reason I didn't" (The unexplained reason always seemed, at least to me, to be because the plot needs for things to play out in a particular way). Additionally I never quite ended up liking the three protagonists and found them all to be quite repetitive and two-dimensional in their actions. Take for example:
  • Kathy being forgiving and empathetic to a fault.
  • Kathy getting irked and annoyed at the smallest, most subtle things.
  • Tommy never quite developing an actual personality other than being a bit of a hot-headed doofus with a heart of gold, that, really, just feels like he's there to be a love interest for Kathy and feels like he walked straight out of a generic YA novel.
  • Ruth being just two-dimensionally awful in the most repetitive way possible. (It feels like her thing about fronting being in-the-know and then being petty when challenged repeats ad nauseam)
• I found the pacing to be really weak and repetitive in two distinct ways:
  • The use of flash forward to drop some mysterious hook-y line about what would end up happening (For example, the excessive use of the last line of a chapter being something a long the lines of "And I would have been fine if it was just x... but then y happened") before jumping back on the timeline until you reach the reveal of that particular section gets exhausting by the second half and once you've noticed this trope has been used over and over and over and over it starts feeling like the artifice is revealed.
  • I found the Hailsham section to be phenomenal but as we move on into the lodges and the care centers, the book becomes completely centered around the main love triangle, which I never really cared for, and I found it starts becoming slow, dull and uninteresting.
• Ultimately I also hated the never-ending delaying of answers about the world in the novel, which, I know isn't the point, but by the time those answers came I had already guessed 99% of the information revealed, and was mentally checked out by then.

Sorry for the long rant nobody asked for. I suppose that what hit me about this book is that I love Remains of The Day a LOT and I was excited while reading the first half of this book. After the dive I felt the narrative took I was crushed and I'm still left with an unsatisfactory feeling, even if I did leave with a few interesting ideas and thoughts.

That being said, I want to hear what other people think. I'd really appreciate it if anybody would like to address my points and if you thought otherwise and why. I'm open to hearing about your experiences.

I love secondhand books and thrift shopping for them. Idk why, older books are just more endearing to me. I love the smell and yellowed edges.

Anyway the oldest book I have is print of "The Crimson Circle" from 1950. This book was pressed and published in the UK more than 74 years ago and it's somehow traveled abroad and sat around undamaged for me to pick it up.

I wonder about the amounts of hands that book has passed through and the journey it took to sit on my shelf.

I haven't actually started the book yet, but the introduction by Clive Wilmer is so remarkable that I just had to say something now. (It's a Penguin Classics edition, ISBN 0-14-043211-6.)

I had never heard of Ruskin until I read Judith Brown's biography of Gandhi. (Ah, if only my parents had EDUCATED THEMSELVES lol. I wouldn't have had to discover all this for myself.) In this biography, she said two of Gandhi's most important influences were Ruskin's Unto This Last and Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You. I got them both - along with a number of other related works - and I'm gradually working through my TBR (or what's left of it after I threw most of it away a few months ago).

So a few days I finally picked up the Ruskin. How it survived all the TBR cuts between when I got it and now I don't know, but it did. And I am SO GRATEFUL. Clive Wilmer's introduction, all by itself, is an education and a half. Who is this guy? Why have I never heard of him before? There's a note about him in the book: he works as a freelance poet, critic, lecturer and broadcaster. Oh my GOD. He is on point and on task. He knows whereof he speaks. I thought at least he must have the Nobel Prize for Journalism or something. That's a joke.

Anyway. So Wilmer pulls together the entire Scottish Enlightenment in a few choice phrases, summing up conservatives, liberals, Tories, socialists, communists, etc, and setting them all in their proper positions in the economic and social history of the 18th and 19th centuries in a manner that cannot be described otherwise than magisterial. Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, Bentham, Mill, Carlyle, all troop forward for their introductions and stand on stage awaiting further instructions. Wilmer reveals how insane Ruskin was and also how well he understood and communicated what he believed. You wouldn't think a guy with the first condition could possibly display the second, but evidently it can be done well. And not just well: better than anyone else before him.

It turns out Ruskin was a conservative socialist. When I say he was conservative, I mean he opposed the march of progress in its invention of factories and modes of production that alienated the worker - and here we see the socialism - from the result of his work. According to Wilmer, this was a problem that bothered Smith as well as Ruskin and Marx. But the point is: Ruskin was a MORALIST. He took morality seriously. For these others, morality was really secondary to their primary goals (if it was even that high on their personal list).

I'm going to leave you with one quote: "He [Ruskin] detested both liberty and equality, blaming them, more than privilege, for the injustices he condemned. Only those who held power by right, as he saw it, could be moved by a sense of duty to serve and protect the weak. This is a side of Ruskin that is likely to confuse and even repel the modern reader, in particular the radical who finds his apparent socialism attractive."

lol well that's enough for now. A deep bow to Wilmer for what I've read so far of the introduction, and I hope this inspires all of you to get the book and read it thoroughly!!

'ahlaan bik readers,

This is our monthly discussion of the literature of the world! Every Wednesday, we'll post a new country or culture for you to recommend literature from, with the caveat that it must have been written by someone from that country (i.e. Shogun by James Clavell is a great book but wouldn't be included in Japanese literature).

Today is Independence Day in Tunisia and to celebrate we're discussing Tunisian literature! Please use this thread to discuss your favorite Tunisian books and authors.

If you'd like to read our previous discussions of the literature of the world please visit the literature of the world section of our wiki.

Shukraan lakum and enjoy!

Hello book peoples of Reddit. I have recently started to read Pynchons V. Its my first novel from him (I read some of his short stories and got interested). But now that I am half way throug the novel, I am realising that I really dont get a thing. I did enjoy some scenes and chapters, particularly the chapters regarding Benny, however, ther rest I barely have a grasp on. I get that its one of his more bizzare novels, and its ment to be overplotted, and confusion may be the point, especially with the number of characters and plot lines.

But now I am wondering if all of his fiction resembles V, or is there any difference if I were to pick some of his other work to start with. Like Mason&Dixon, I know its long but I have heard it is a more traditional narrative. Also, I dont have trouble with his sentence style. I am used to reading heftier and more challenging books because I studied literature and quite enjoy writers such as Faulkner who can be tougher to read.

So I dont really understand why I am having so much trouble getting through. Should I just pause this book, and start with something else of his?

I recently read Fear and Loathing and the whole time in my head I was thinking this book is fiction. But then I looked at the back cover of the book and on the edition I have it says "Nonfiction/Journalism." From what I understand it was inspired by the author’s actual experience but not sure how much of the story was fictionalized. Does anyone know how much of the story is real versus fabrication? When I check on Goodreads it says it's Fiction and the same on StoryGraph. So, can anyone clear this up? Is this book actually considered fiction? Or is it a case of a true-story that just has fictionalized elements? On my bookshelf I like to categorize my books as fiction or nonfiction but now I don't know where to place this one!

I was just recommending this novel to someone on reddit and thus was thinking about it again. I had never heard of it or him before, but I was a member of the short lived Cemetery Dance book of the month club and this is one of them they sent out.

The one problem with this novel is that the best way to read it is knowing nothing about it. So it can be hard for someone to take a recommendation of it. Things unexpected happen and then more and they build on each other. To tell you would ruin the experience. All I can say is that it's beautiful, emotionally draining, easy to follow. And imagine in your minds eye which is a big part of why it's emotionally draining. I don't remember quotes, but I remember what I saw when I read.

So yes just 1000 copies were printed. This is one of those things where it should have reached a much much wider audience. It's the kind of book when two people have read it it's the cliche of "when you know, you know" and nothing really needs to be said between them to understand the experience.

Luckily you can get an ebook fairly cheaply.

So listen, you need to read this book.