books

There are 30 posts filed in books (this is page 1 of 2).

Lord of the Rings

Lord of the Rings

What book could you read over and over again?

I could (and do!) read Lord of the Rings over and over. Or at least, I’ve read it about 4 times since I first read it as a teenager in 2000.

As I’ve read more and more of Tolkien’s other works I’ve become familiar with the deeper lore. This has been greatly aided by many of the videos and articles available online. It becomes more enjoyable with every reading!

My most recent reading, in January 2021 was the best yet. One of my particular highlights include understanding more of the backstory and history to Shelob and the Phial of Galadriel.

Another of my highlights came as a consequence of getting older and perhaps increasing empathy – I really felt the tragedy of Gollum much more than I had in the past.

📚Read : The Accidental Footballer

📚Read : The Accidental Footballer

Metadata

  • Author: [[Pat Nevin]]
  • Full Title: The Accidental Footballer
  • Category:
  • Date: 2022-03-14

Highlights

‘People just like to have their own ideas reflected back at them, particularly online. They don’t want to think too much and certainly do not want to be challenged. Tell them what they want to hear, say it in as short and as simple a way as possible and if you do that, we will get more clicks. The more views we get on the site, the more advertising we can sell. That’s how it works, do you understand?’ (Location 75)

Try and stick to what you believe to be right, if you possibly can. There is nothing wrong with failure on your own terms if you have given it your best shot. But there’s a great deal to regret if you fail doing something you don’t believe in. (Location 109)

📚Read : I Am Legend

rw-book-cover

Metadata

  • Author: [[Richard Matheson]]
  • Full Title: I Am Legend
  • Category:
  • Date: 2022-03-14

Review

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read and re-read this book. Not because it’s a huge number, but because I find it so compelling that just reading the first few pages carries me along for the first couple of chapters until I’m a significant fraction through this, admittedly short, book. And then I put it down again, without even placing a bookmark, and read something else. This time, I read it right through.

I first read/heard this book on [[Radio 4]] about ten years ago when the BBC basically broadcast the extraordinary audio-book, emphatically read by [[Robertson Dean]] in his growling, sonorous tones. I listened to most of the episodes in one go, sitting in my suitably atmospherically lit tenement kitchen in [[Ibrox]]. I’ve loved it ever since.

My recent re-read in March 2022 came immediately after I’d finished reading [[Ulysses]] for the first time. As you’d expect, that was an extremely difficult read and I needed a palate cleanser from a book I barely understood. More importantly, it was the first time I’d read it since the beginning of the pandemic – the book which deals with the loneliness and isolation that comes as a result of a global pandemic. Of vampires.

The book deals with the fantastical concept of vampires (albeit in a modern, scientifically-focused style), but treats the emotional turmoil and trauma experienced by the protagonist as a result of his isolation with a straight bat. And I’m not going to deny that these parts struck a chord with me on this re-read.

Over the pandemic, I’ve been very lucky in a lot of ways. Despite being posted overseas for the last 4 years, there’s a strong culture of support in the team. However, there were still periods when, except for on screens, I didn’t have a conversation with another person for weeks on end. The “being trapped in your own head-edness” of the novel resonated with me a lot, and I suspect it does/would with a lot of other people too.

I think it’s right to treat a work of fantasy like this seriously – books like this and science-fiction such as [[E.M. Forster]]’s [[The Machine Stops]] are perfectly constructed pieces of art which bear examination after the world’s recent encounter with forced (but necessary) isolation. The fantasy element provides just that little bit of speculative distance to provide some mental room to maneuver.

I suspect, as restrictions are eased and people return more and more to their pre-pandemic ways, that many people would take a lot from this book to usefully examine their own experience of the past two years.

Highlights

Emotion was a difficult thing to summon from the dead, though. He had spent it all and felt hollow now, without feeling. (Location 1845)

The Moon’s a Balloon

rw-book-cover

Metadata

  • Author: [[David Niven]]
  • Full Title: The Moon’s a Balloon
  • Category:

Review

Well, that was an absolute hoot. I practically inhaled this book. Funny and witty throughout, with the odd touching moment for good measure, and a book that doesn’t dawdle. Thoroughly recommended, especially to those who have fallen off the reading bandwagon and need the literary equivalent of rocket fuel to get back into reading.

Rating

★★★★★

Highlights

But if, Dear Reader, you should think that I was a victim of circumstances, a magnet for bad luck, or just plain ‘hardly done by’, I beg you also to consider the possibility that I was a thoroughly poisonous little boy. (Location 332)

‘A good time’ she had said – it had to be at least a ginger beer and listening to the gramophone (Location 562)

‘Posh’ – I soon learned the origin of the word: Port Out Starboard Home, and it summed up the suburban snobbery of my shipmates whose supreme status symbol was a cabin on the shady side of the ship. (Location 1028)

This was also posted to /en/bookclub.

📕 Read Red Mars

 

Progress: ██████████ 100%
Rating: ★★★★★

Quotes

Frank’s French was worse than no French at all, like listening to someone attack the language with a hatchet. — location: 3324

Je me sens vu

Economics is like astrology in that sense, except that economics serves to justify the current power structure, and so it has a lot of fervent believers among the powerful.” — location: 4435

“The King asked his wise men for some single thing that would make him happy when he was sad, but sad when he was happy. They consulted and came back with a ring engraved with the message ‘This Too Will Pass.’” — location: 4709

“Maybe so. In any case, whole cultures were built around the idea of the gift, in Malaysia, in the American northwest, in many primitive cultures. In Arabia we gave water, or coffee. Food and shelter. And whatever you were given, you did not expect to keep, but gave it back again in your turn, hopefully with interest. You worked to be able to give more than you received. Now we think that this can be the basis for a reverent economics.” — location: 4718

This arrangement resembles the prehistoric way to live, and it therefore feels right to us, because our brains recognize it from three millions of years practicing it. In essence our brains grew to their current configuration in response to the realities of that life. So as a result people grow powerfully attached to that kind of life, when they get the chance to live it. It allows you to concentrate your attention on the real work, which means everything that is done to stay alive, or make things, or satisfy one’s curiosity, or play. That is Utopia, John, especially for primitives and scientists, which is to say everybody. — location: 5126

Most ignorance is by choice, you know, and so ignorance is very telling about what really matters to people. — location: 5637

and so of course the so-called rich elite are in actuality poor as well, disengaged from real human work and therefore from real human accomplishment, parasitical in the most precise sense, and yet powerful too as parasites that have taken control can be, sucking the gifts of human work away from their rightful recipients which are the seven generations, and feeding on them while increasing the repressive powers that keep them in place!” — location: 5713

“It’s impossible!” Frank exclaimed. “We’re part of the world, we can’t escape it.” “Can’t we? It’s only the blue evening star, the world you speak of. This red world is the only real one for us, now.” — location: 6884