What have you been reading this week?

Compa_Mighty

Compa_Mighty

Tol Eressea
I'm playing as Designated Batter here... since GaladrielTX didn't post this yesterday, and we're well into Thursday, I figured I'd post it myself.

I've been reading Tezozomoc, by Antonio Guadarrama. He's a Mexican writer from Guadalajara, who has embarked on a project of writing historical novels on the most important Aztec "Kings". More on the quotations sometime [;)].

Tezozomoc was not Aztec, and the author makes it very clear since the foreword. He was the soverign of another Kingdom, Azcapotzalco, when the Aztec arrived to the Valley of Mexico. He lived more than 100 years, spanning the lives of 5 Aztec Kings, and was a figure that, with his actions, defined the Aztec "Empire" (see above) in many many ways.

Up until this day, one of the 16 political divisions of the Federal District, the see of the Capital is called Azcapotzalco.

The book is great. If you read Spanish I highly recommend it to you, since it has good historical value and accuracy, at a good entry level.

Pre-columbian history is tricky. There are many opposing arguments, which come from facts and clues that are very difficult to understand from our current way of thinking. So you might take two books and read entirely different perspectives of the same thing. This one is pretty good, well-researched and not at all misleading, even if it is not what I particularly believe in several matters.
 
Popular history book about the eastern Roman Empire (the "Byzantine" Empire). Obviously there's a lot of skimming, since it covers 1000+ years of history in not too long a book, but it's very entertaining and fascinating. Despite being into both classical and medieval history, the stories of the Byzantine empire were mostly unfamiliar to me (which is the point of the book -- the "lost to the west" of the title -- that the history of the empire is mostly untaught and forgotten despite being important to understanding contemporary and later events). If you're already familiar with the Byzantine empire, you'll probably want a book with more detail, but for those new to it like me, the book is an excellent introduction.

I now am more determined to visit Istanbul (not Constantinople), which is fine, just makes my mental 'travel destination list' even longer. [:)] (Well, it was probably on there before, but now it's higher up on the list.)
 
I've never been there, but my parents visited him a couple of times and said it was beautiful. The only bad thing was there were no street signs. You were just supposed to know where you were. Luckily, the cabbies usually did.

Anyway, sounds like a fascinating book! My brother's doctoral dissertation was about the Kabadayi of Istanbul; they were popular bandits in the 1800s, so probably after the time frame of your book.
 
I had given up Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' series several books ago. I tried to stick with the series but it really fell apart for me.

I like Brandon Sanderson so I picked this up since it was the final book. After 100 pages and learning it was book one of the final three books, I put it down and gave up again.

A friend convinced me to give it one last try. I did. I am enjoying the book now. The plotting moves forward at a tolerable pace, I don't feel like I have missed much despite skipping several books, and I dare say Sanderson's writing with Jordan's detailed notes aiding him on the plotting, is better than Jordan was.

Editors needed to save this series and failed to. Hopefully Sanderson will maintain my interest.

I don't love it, but I enjoy it.
 
I have finished the first two books and am now working on the third.

I was very pleased to have finally completed The Sil.
But I was getting frustrated with 'Two Cities', I loved Oliver Twist and I read it in the original, but I wasn't as fond of this DIcken's book so in the end I opted for a Great Illustrated Classics version of the book.

And Penelope I'm still trying to figure out if it was a movie or book first, but it's really good so far. A lot like the movie.
 
I really enjoy the Austen movies... even the mediocre ones as being part of a 'set' I enjoy. Some of the movies bring me great pleasure. (I watched one just the other night as a badly needed mood altering activity.) But I haven't been able to get myself to read the books. I tried Emma for about two hours and kind of drifted away never to return.

But I love listening to audio books on my cassette player in the car (the cd player died) and so I buy used copies of audio books when I find them. And I was happy to find an unabridged copy of P&P. I have to say, I'm really enjoying it.

I have a question that actually has been on my mind even from the movies. I may be missing something by having to have only some of my attention on the reading (the rest focused on my driving, of course). I rewound that part of the tape and listened again and either missed something again or just don't get it.

There's that little speech Darcy give Lizzie about the objections he has regarding her family. At one point, he mentions impropriety and 'even on occasion, by her father'. In the movie (at least the one I've watched most often lately), it's just a comment and I've always wondered what impropriety her father was guilty of. In the book, there's more discussion about the relationship he has with his wife but I still can't figure out what the impropriety is. I'm guessing someone here can clue me in. :-)

The part I heard today that I really loved: when Lizzie talks about realizing that she has grown to love Darcy, in part, because he seems to have forgiven her for her attitude and remarks that she now regrets. I think that was a pretty powerful understanding.
 
comes from the movies, mostly. The 1995 version as well as the 2005 version show Mr Bennett making Mary stop her awful singing and piano playing at the Netherfield Ball, in front of everyone. But it may also have to do with the contempt with which he treats his wife and 3 youngest daughters. I haven't read the book in a while, so I don't remember how much of this Darcy witnesses.
Here is an essay commenting on the 2005 movie's characterizations of the Bennett family. It also discusses Mr. Bennett's improprieties. But I think Darcy would not have witnessed very many of them, as they seem mostly to take place at home. Possibly he considers the behavior of the younger sisters in public a result of Mr. Bennett's failures as a father.
 
The 1995 version brings out all the failings of the Bennet parents beautifully and shows that Elizabeth and Jane are, in fact trying very hard to compensate for their parents' lack of control over their younger sisters. The scene at Netherfield where the younger girls and both parents "expose" themselves is downright painful.

I know quite a few parents who might benefit from meditating on her comment about how Lydia's exuberant nature, because it is not channeled appropriately, "has nowhere to run but downhill."
 
I'm actually reading LOTR...lol! Just began it a few days ago. The Hobbits are just now entering the Old Forest. :)

I'm also reading Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. It's a pretty science heavy book, but very good. Kind of hard to explain as the first half is sort of explanation about genes, and DNA, and all sorts of stuff like that. The second half appear to be more about human ancestry and I'm just now getting into that. Carl Sagan remains one of my favorite writers, if only I had had science teachers like him, who could explain things lucidly, I might have been better at science.
 
Someone here read this a couple of weeks ago. Unlike him/her (sorry, don't remember) I haven't read The Time Traveler's Wife, by the same author, Audrey Niffenegger.

I was attracted to Symmetry because of the setting, an apartment building right next to Highgate cemetery, and because it's a ghost story. I love ghost stories!

I very much appreciated Niffenegger's writing skills -- it's hard for me to just read something without my internal critic cutting in, but here all my writing critic did was swoon happily. My internal mystery critic did have a couple of quibbles with the way the plot worked out -- but why didn't they do it this way, that sort of thing. Still, the book isn't a mystery, it's almost a dream.

The book starts out with the death from cancer of a woman who lived in a flat next to the cemetery. Her lover lives downstairs and serves as a tour guide at the cemetery, and is devastated by her death. She wills her flat to her twin nieces, daughters of her own twin, and the young women come from America to live there.

The story also concerns the man living on the top floor, who suffers from an obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I really liked the way the story moved in a circle, but I can't explain that comment without giving away the plot! Suffice it to say, I really enjoyed the book. I would have liked to have had a map of Highgate cemetery and some photos, though. I ended up searching the net, just to see the places mentioned in the story.
 
After seeing a recent television production, I decided I needed to refresh my memory of the story proper. I was somewhat surprised to find that it was very readable, and enjoyed it very much. Occasionally I found Dickens' sentence structure a little confusing. Sometimes I would have to read a sentence over a few times to figure out what exactly he was trying to convey -- sometimes I got it, but sometimes it was so convoluted it never did make sense. Few and far between though.
 
[:)]Excellent point... something we should be more aware of...

I come from a small town (the first capital of the US, York PA), settled originally (after the Native Americans) by English and German colonists. A few years back, we gained world attention when the local school board tried to introduce "intelligent design" (a religious concept) into a science class (there was a Nova special about us). The lovely folks from the BBC who were in my friends' driveway observed that sometimes the places people migrate to become more provincial than the places they come from.

We still are quite provincial/traditional here (it's maddening!).

Point being: we get mired in one way of thinking, and interpret historical clues from our own viewpoint. What's the cure? Education. Travel. PBS. Read more books. Oh yeah, and the internet doesn't hurt either.
 
That was a useful essay. I think I'm hindered by two things: one... having that most recent movie (discussed in the essay) more current in my mind than any other film adaptation. And two... listening to the book in the car where it fails to receive my full attention! I would like to physically read the book someday and I think that essay has provided me some groundwork that will help a lot.

I think, this first 'read through', I'm kind of focusing on what seems familiar to me rather than looking beyond to what else is there... or what is deeper... or what is different. It will be hard to get those movie characters out of my head when reading the book so I think I'm tempted to *see* or *hear* Sutherland when reading about Austen's Mr. Bennett. I was not so quick to hear contempt in his voice as I might without those two factors (described above) conspiring against me.

Thanks to you and to Annael.
 
Actually, I'll be reading next week, when my books come in from Amazon (for those of us stuck in the hinterlands of The Shire, Amazon is a wonderful thing).

Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louvre; a look at "nature deficit disorder". This has been floating around the county park where I volunteer occasionally, all the naturalists have it (that's where the Elves went, not west, they all work for the Park Service). It points out how many of the "disorders" (ADD, obesity, etc) kids seem to suffer from these days can be cured, or alleviated by unstructured play time outdoors. By time in Nature, with animals, by being the little Elves and Hobbits they're supposed to be. While it's done with a bit of humor, it offers serious solutions. A must for any teacher or parent or human concerned with the next generation and how they will relate to other living things.

Also; "And a Little Child Shall Lead Them", Steve Edwards. A look at the lessons he's learned from working with kids and wild horses (he raises and trains horses of the Spanish Colonial type; mustangs of various US western strains as well as mustangs of the barrier islands of the US east coast) As a keeper/trainer of mustangs since I adopted a mare from Oregon in 1985, I found his website interesting, his philosophy great, and can't wait to see what he has to say about his experience.

One thing that comes out on his blog is the "problem of wildness" and the ingrained ideas horseman (and humans in general) have: from his blog:
"Mustang promoters must recognize that their efforts fly in the face of 1,000 years of northern European horsemanship and 2,000 years of Western civilization. Our horses represent wildness and savagery in America-just as their ancestors in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East did to the Anglo-Saxons of Northern Europe. From time of the Renaissance, upper-class Englishmen rode large, solid colored horses. Ponies were ridden by those whom the English considered barbarians such as the Mongols, the Turks, the Irish, the Moors, and even the Spanish Conquistadors. Henry VIII ordered the slaughter of the ponies of England, and two generations later, King James prohibited the importation of Arabians or Barbs for fear that they would corrupt the bloodlines of the “pure” horses of England."

The Barb blood (from the early Spanish explorers) is what makes American mustangs what they are; tough, hardy, enduring, low maintenance, intelligent, good tempered.

For all you Riders of Roan, I recommend this book.
http://www.msindianhorses.com/id24.html http://www.msindianhorses.com/id7.html

 
Aside from the positively scrumptious Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, over whom much drool has been drooled on these boards [;)], the character of Mr. Bennet is better. He still comes across as more jokingly contemptuous, but it is not as loving to his wife as Sutherland's Mr. Bennett. A&E's Mr. Bennett is cheerful in his put-downs and Mrs. Bennett is more air-headed. But I never got the impression that he was sinister. He is very withdrawn from his family and they know not to disturb him once he closes his library door.

It took me at least two readings and watching the A&E movie a couple of times to understand a lot of P&P. I still don't get a lot of it. I think a re read is in order.
(Sheesh, after the Sil and The Annotated Hobbit, mentioned in another thread! [crazy])
 
I read this a few weeks ago and I posted about it. I love that your "internal critic" was happy with the story. Mine too, and I don't have an "internal mystery critic" because I don't read mysteries. I agree that the story has a circular feel, but I like that it also breaks the circle. If you want a book that REALLY moves in a circle, read The Time Traveler's Wife. I do love that book.
 
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