AmyStrange
Philosopher
I love books with strong woman characters. I'm wading through all of Dickens' works right now, but I'm definitely putting it on my list, hopefully, I'll live to read it.
Anyway, thank you Agatha.
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What book is everyone reading at the moment? Part 2.
- Thread starter alex04
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I love books with strong woman characters. I'm wading through all of Dickens' works right now, but I'm definitely putting it on my list, hopefully, I'll live to read it.
Anyway, thank you Agatha.
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Helen
Implicitly explicit
Ah, thank you, you have reminded me of a book I wanted to read but forgot about; you are now my new best friend
AmyStrange
Philosopher
Ah, thank you, you have reminded me of a book I wanted to read but forgot about; you are now my new best friend
That reminds me of one of my favorite strong women character series that I just finished reading.
The A Murder In Time series by Julie McElwain
Through some weird quirk in the Universe, a modern-day FBI agent, Kendra Donovan, ends up going back in time to 1815, just in time to be on hand to stop a serial killer seventy years before anyone ever heard of Jack the Ripper.
Of course, she's didn't want to tell anyone she was from the future because she was afraid they'd throw her in an insane asylum, but what trips her up is that she said that Jane Austen was the author of Sense and Sensibility.
The was true, but the real problem was that back in 1815 no one knew who the author of that book was except her editor. It actually said on the cover that the author was "A Lady".
!!!Busted!!!
Another series with strong woman characters that I also love is A Rip Through Time series by Kelley Armstrong.
It has a similar theme as the series above, except she's a police detective from Canada.
In the first book of the series, the way Mallory Atkinson proves she's from the future is simply hilarious.
Anyway, Happy reading!
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Spektator
Is that right?
The Sign of the Four, Arthur Conan Doyle
To begin with: The title of the second Sherlock Holmes novel is variously given as The Sign of Four and The Sign of the Four. The copy I read omits the second "the," but facsimiles of Doyle's manuscripts (original and revised) in his own hand say it's The Sign of the Four. Next, I was mistaken when I mentioned A Study in Scarlet upthread. That one was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual. Sign of the Four is the one that, along with Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey, was commissioned for publicaiton in Lippincott's Magazine. I sit at the keyboard corrected.
Sign of the Four combines thievery, murder, exotic poisons, a chase on the Thames, Holmes's detecive skills, and a romance for Watson. It's set in 1888 or 1889 (Sherlockians differ) and mentions Study as having been published a few years back. The story finds Miss Mary Morstan, forlorn and poor, coming to Holmes with a request that he accompany her on a visit that might be dangerous. She has received a string of pearls and a request that she visit the Sholto twins (not two cherubic kiddies, but bald, identical, middle-aged fuddy-duddies). It turns out that the Sholtos have inherited from their father a (stolen) treasure trove. The old man has died, and now we are off on a treasure hunt that leads to a vengeful ex-convic with a wooden leg navmed Jonathan Small (his other leg is named "Leg"), his diminutive and murderous aide, and moments when Watson is whispering sweet nothings in Mary's ear. Well, mostly, "Err. Umm. Don't worry, my dear. Mean to say 'my dear young lady,' you know. You're in good hands. Um, metaphorically speaking, of course. Will you take another slice of tea?"
Not quite that bad, because Doyle's Watson is no bumbling idiot, but he is smitten. After the rousing chase downriver, by dint of observation, deduction, and his acting skills, Holmes eventually unravels all the mysteries.
This is the one in which we learn that Holmes has taken to cocaine, not sniffed, which is declassé, but mainlined three times a day in a seven percent solution. He gives us to understand that he uses it just to maintain his attention and energy when he's not investigating. He does not appear to be hooked. After the opening scene at 221-B Baker Street, he puts the coke aside for the duration of the plot, and later in the canon he kicks the drug entirely.
I liked it back when I frist read it at the age of about twelve, and it holds up as Victorian adventure story.
To begin with: The title of the second Sherlock Holmes novel is variously given as The Sign of Four and The Sign of the Four. The copy I read omits the second "the," but facsimiles of Doyle's manuscripts (original and revised) in his own hand say it's The Sign of the Four. Next, I was mistaken when I mentioned A Study in Scarlet upthread. That one was published in Beeton's Christmas Annual. Sign of the Four is the one that, along with Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey, was commissioned for publicaiton in Lippincott's Magazine. I sit at the keyboard corrected.
Sign of the Four combines thievery, murder, exotic poisons, a chase on the Thames, Holmes's detecive skills, and a romance for Watson. It's set in 1888 or 1889 (Sherlockians differ) and mentions Study as having been published a few years back. The story finds Miss Mary Morstan, forlorn and poor, coming to Holmes with a request that he accompany her on a visit that might be dangerous. She has received a string of pearls and a request that she visit the Sholto twins (not two cherubic kiddies, but bald, identical, middle-aged fuddy-duddies). It turns out that the Sholtos have inherited from their father a (stolen) treasure trove. The old man has died, and now we are off on a treasure hunt that leads to a vengeful ex-convic with a wooden leg navmed Jonathan Small (his other leg is named "Leg"), his diminutive and murderous aide, and moments when Watson is whispering sweet nothings in Mary's ear. Well, mostly, "Err. Umm. Don't worry, my dear. Mean to say 'my dear young lady,' you know. You're in good hands. Um, metaphorically speaking, of course. Will you take another slice of tea?"
Not quite that bad, because Doyle's Watson is no bumbling idiot, but he is smitten. After the rousing chase downriver, by dint of observation, deduction, and his acting skills, Holmes eventually unravels all the mysteries.
This is the one in which we learn that Holmes has taken to cocaine, not sniffed, which is declassé, but mainlined three times a day in a seven percent solution. He gives us to understand that he uses it just to maintain his attention and energy when he's not investigating. He does not appear to be hooked. After the opening scene at 221-B Baker Street, he puts the coke aside for the duration of the plot, and later in the canon he kicks the drug entirely.
I liked it back when I frist read it at the age of about twelve, and it holds up as Victorian adventure story.
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catsmate
No longer the 1
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Have you tried Madeline "Mad Max" Maxwell?
AmyStrange
Philosopher
catsmate
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Not at all, somewhat obsessive time travel fan.
Dr Madeleine/Lucy Maxwell is my all time favourite fictional female* character, surpassing even Lizzie Bennett and Lady Amelia Smallhope.
I have read the Mallory Atkinson books but I will keep an eye open for the Murder in Time series, thank you AmyStrange.
* The Association for the Avoidance of Arbitrary Alliteration did not approve this post.
I have read the Mallory Atkinson books but I will keep an eye open for the Murder in Time series, thank you AmyStrange.
* The Association for the Avoidance of Arbitrary Alliteration did not approve this post.
Lennart Hyland
Muse
Currently reading some war history again, this time its Six Armies in Normandy by John Keegan.
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
For the longest time I thought the title was actually The Portrait of Dorian Gray, which I think is better suited. But then, I'm not Oscar Wilde.
My copy had a lovely painting of the title character on the cover -- the problem being that in the book he is mentioned many times as having blonde hair, and the man on the cover has dark hair. It's not a trick of the painted light, either. And there is no credit to the artist. In fact, I had to look up the year the book was originally written as that's not mentioned inside either, even on the copyright page.
The book is less than 200 pages, but seemed a lot longer. Not boring, per se, but there were a lot of philosophical discussions which did nothing to advance the story (not to mention, a lot of misogyny). The main plot point we all know of doesn't even come about until about halfway through the book. I think it would have worked a lot better as a short story (I'm sure there are abridged versions out there somewhere.)
I guess I'd consider this the OG Twilight Zone story. I think that's the first time I ever used that stupid term. But then, I'm not Oscar Wilde.
For the longest time I thought the title was actually The Portrait of Dorian Gray, which I think is better suited. But then, I'm not Oscar Wilde.
My copy had a lovely painting of the title character on the cover -- the problem being that in the book he is mentioned many times as having blonde hair, and the man on the cover has dark hair. It's not a trick of the painted light, either. And there is no credit to the artist. In fact, I had to look up the year the book was originally written as that's not mentioned inside either, even on the copyright page.
The book is less than 200 pages, but seemed a lot longer. Not boring, per se, but there were a lot of philosophical discussions which did nothing to advance the story (not to mention, a lot of misogyny). The main plot point we all know of doesn't even come about until about halfway through the book. I think it would have worked a lot better as a short story (I'm sure there are abridged versions out there somewhere.)
I guess I'd consider this the OG Twilight Zone story. I think that's the first time I ever used that stupid term. But then, I'm not Oscar Wilde.
Spektator
Is that right?
With the Old Breed, E.B. Sledge
This is a memoir of the author’s time in the mortar team of K/3/5 (K Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines) during the invasions of Peleliu and Okinawa Islands during the fall of 1944 and the spring and summer of 1945.
Eugene B. Sledge was a young guy from Alabama whose older brother attended US Army officers’ training and went to war as a lieutenant. He took part in D-Day and later battles, including the Battle of the Bulge. Eager to follow his example, in December 1942 Eugene volunteered for the Marine Corps and entered an officers’ training program at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, he was so anxious to get into the war before it ended that he deliberately flunked out and so became a private. At least he found himself in a battalion of seasoned veterans of Pacific warfare, the Old Breed of the title.
Sledge ended the war as a corporal. He earned a series of combat ribbons, but no medals at all. Not because he was an indifferent Marine, but because the hellish series of battles he fought through took a fearsome toll in dead and wounded from his outfit. He began the war in a unit of 245; by the time of VJ Day, he was one of 26 survivors.
Sledge kept notes of everything. The planners of the Peleliu invasion confidently predicted that the island would be conquered in two to three days, certainly no more than four. It took four months. The Japanese defenders had moved from their earlier massed-troop banzai charges to defense in depth, meaning they fought not to win, but to war down the American troops by striking from concealed gun emplacements and holing up in deep caverns and tunnels, striking only when they could kill Americans.
And they did. Sledge’s harrowing story seems like something taken from deep in Dante’s Inferno, a level where mud consisting of soil and human blood sucked at a man’s boots, where the air was a suffocating miasma of rotting flesh and human waste, where a soldier had to fight not only the enemy but the terror of not knowing where the next shell might hit, the sickness of digging a foxhole only to discover a shallowly buried corpse covered with maggots.
Okinawa was . . . much worse. It is tough reading, and it must have been tough living.
Sledge never portrays himself or his fellow Marines as heroes. He did his job, was fortunate to survive, and paid for his youthful eagerness to fight in the war with a lifetime of horrendous nightmares. After the war, he became a gentle and well-liked professor of biology. When With the Old Breed came out it was a best-seller, but Sledge never put on the airs of a big-time author.
He continued to live a quiet life until he passed away in 2001. Just this year his son has written and published a follow-up book, weaving his memories of his father together with outtakes from the original text of Sledge’s book (weeded down from 1100 to 350 pages by the publishers when it came out in 1981). The new work, which I have just begun to read, fleshes out E.B. Sledge’s story He won his brutal-sounding nickname, Sledgehammer, on the battlefield, but in peacetime he became a gentle man who gave up hunting because he could no longer bear the thought of taking a life.
This is a memoir of the author’s time in the mortar team of K/3/5 (K Company, Third Battalion, 5th Marines) during the invasions of Peleliu and Okinawa Islands during the fall of 1944 and the spring and summer of 1945.
Eugene B. Sledge was a young guy from Alabama whose older brother attended US Army officers’ training and went to war as a lieutenant. He took part in D-Day and later battles, including the Battle of the Bulge. Eager to follow his example, in December 1942 Eugene volunteered for the Marine Corps and entered an officers’ training program at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, he was so anxious to get into the war before it ended that he deliberately flunked out and so became a private. At least he found himself in a battalion of seasoned veterans of Pacific warfare, the Old Breed of the title.
Sledge ended the war as a corporal. He earned a series of combat ribbons, but no medals at all. Not because he was an indifferent Marine, but because the hellish series of battles he fought through took a fearsome toll in dead and wounded from his outfit. He began the war in a unit of 245; by the time of VJ Day, he was one of 26 survivors.
Sledge kept notes of everything. The planners of the Peleliu invasion confidently predicted that the island would be conquered in two to three days, certainly no more than four. It took four months. The Japanese defenders had moved from their earlier massed-troop banzai charges to defense in depth, meaning they fought not to win, but to war down the American troops by striking from concealed gun emplacements and holing up in deep caverns and tunnels, striking only when they could kill Americans.
And they did. Sledge’s harrowing story seems like something taken from deep in Dante’s Inferno, a level where mud consisting of soil and human blood sucked at a man’s boots, where the air was a suffocating miasma of rotting flesh and human waste, where a soldier had to fight not only the enemy but the terror of not knowing where the next shell might hit, the sickness of digging a foxhole only to discover a shallowly buried corpse covered with maggots.
Okinawa was . . . much worse. It is tough reading, and it must have been tough living.
Sledge never portrays himself or his fellow Marines as heroes. He did his job, was fortunate to survive, and paid for his youthful eagerness to fight in the war with a lifetime of horrendous nightmares. After the war, he became a gentle and well-liked professor of biology. When With the Old Breed came out it was a best-seller, but Sledge never put on the airs of a big-time author.
He continued to live a quiet life until he passed away in 2001. Just this year his son has written and published a follow-up book, weaving his memories of his father together with outtakes from the original text of Sledge’s book (weeded down from 1100 to 350 pages by the publishers when it came out in 1981). The new work, which I have just begun to read, fleshes out E.B. Sledge’s story He won his brutal-sounding nickname, Sledgehammer, on the battlefield, but in peacetime he became a gentle man who gave up hunting because he could no longer bear the thought of taking a life.
Helen
Implicitly explicit
I quite like Ben Aaronovitch's book series about the rivers of London and their goddesses. gods and monsters, and ghoulies, ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and crimes and misdemeanours of various kinds - light entertainment, with a nod or two to Terry Pratchett (although Aaronovitch is not in his league. But then who is?). Perfect summer reading, if you are thus inclined!
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
It must be mentioned -- the HBO miniseries The Pacific, in which he is a major character. Played by of all people Joseph Mazzello, probably best known as little Timmy from the original Jurassic Park. Also stars Rami Malek and other familiar names. I liked it much more than Band of Brothers, because this one was about my Marines.
xterra
So far, so good...
Thank you. I have put this on my Libby* hold list.
If people in the US are not aware of the Libby website and app, they might look for it. It allows borrowing electronic versions of books from libraries in which one has borrowing privileges.
EDIT to add, I don't think it allows access to libraries in other countries. But I have been wrong before.*
*Hard to believe, isn't it?
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catsmate
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A good series. Aaronovitch got his start with Doctor Who.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Thanks for reminding me that I need to re-read this ASAP!
I read it as a teenager, and I'm pretty sure I missed almost all of the story.
Coincidentally, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce, was also published in 1890.
catsmate
No longer the 1
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I'm half-way through Four Strange Women now. A return to form after the disappointment of Murder Abroad.
alfaniner
Penultimate Amazing
Ellison Wonderland
Collection of short stories by the world's most irascible curmudgeon Harlan Ellison. (I saw him at a convention once, talking to DC Comics Editor Julius Schwartz in the hallway. Having heard of his reputation (this was ca. 1978) I didn't want to interrupt for fear of getting my head bitten off (fair) but I did sneak a picture. I did think even that might incur some wrath but if he noticed he didn't address it. This was before celebrities charged for pictures, even candid ones.)
Anyway, in recent years I've found I don't like short stories, especially sci-fi ones (oh, he hates that term!) much because it requires such an investment to build a world in the first place, then it's all tossed after a few pages. Granted, a good writer can do it well, and he did. But I just like longer stories so I can stay in a world longer.
Anyway, this is a lot of his early work and most of them are Twilight-Zone-ish, that is, the entire story is just set up for the punch line at the end. There was one I knew how it was going to conclude just by the story's title. But it was an easy enough read, even with some of the real words he throws in that no human has ever spoken before (yet they exist in the dictionary.) But all the way through I could not separate the artist from the art, imagining him sneering and snorting and typing away, and that took away from my complete involvement in it.
Collection of short stories by the world's most irascible curmudgeon Harlan Ellison. (I saw him at a convention once, talking to DC Comics Editor Julius Schwartz in the hallway. Having heard of his reputation (this was ca. 1978) I didn't want to interrupt for fear of getting my head bitten off (fair) but I did sneak a picture. I did think even that might incur some wrath but if he noticed he didn't address it. This was before celebrities charged for pictures, even candid ones.)
Anyway, in recent years I've found I don't like short stories, especially sci-fi ones (oh, he hates that term!) much because it requires such an investment to build a world in the first place, then it's all tossed after a few pages. Granted, a good writer can do it well, and he did. But I just like longer stories so I can stay in a world longer.
Anyway, this is a lot of his early work and most of them are Twilight-Zone-ish, that is, the entire story is just set up for the punch line at the end. There was one I knew how it was going to conclude just by the story's title. But it was an easy enough read, even with some of the real words he throws in that no human has ever spoken before (yet they exist in the dictionary.) But all the way through I could not separate the artist from the art, imagining him sneering and snorting and typing away, and that took away from my complete involvement in it.
Spektator
Is that right?
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Unmarked spoilers follow.
In Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot assures us that each cat has three different names. Cats got nothing on Dostoevsky’s people, though, whose names change more often than I change my socks. The protagonist of Crime and Punishment is named Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the last name the most often used, but friends also call him Rodka, or Rodya, or Romanych. He’s a flunked-out former law student who lives alone in a ratty one-bedroom apartment, though with all those monikers it often seems like he’s throwing a party. He is very fond of his sister, Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov, who of course is always called Dunya. And there’s a host of other folks, but to tell the truth, eventually my eyes glaze over and I call hem “Rich Guy” “Other Rich Guy,” “Cop,” “Bestie,” and “Sonya, the Drunk’s Daughter.”
Raskolnikov is a philosopher wrestling with the problem of good for the sake of the soul or just for the hell of it, or evil for the sake of sticking it to the other side of the argument. He’s poor and behind in his rent, so he makes the rational decision to kill Alonya Ivanovna, a small-time pawnbroker who flourishes off the misery of others. I think of her as “Alonya Money.” She also has a harmless sister, Lisaveta, who’s in the book just to be harmless and to be friends with Sonya. Anyway, reasoning that he is a great man above the common herd, Raskolnikov decides to murder Alonya because he thought of it first and deserves to kill and rob her. He does, and her sister to boot,but instantly his conscience tortures him, so he (A) takes only a pittance and (B) hides it where nobody, including him, can ever find it. That’ll show ‘em.
The heart of the book is money. No, not really. The heart of the book is a series of philosophical discussions among the characters regarding right and wrong, morality and immorality, free will and predestination, and crime and punishment, or the lack thereof.
There’s a jolly policeman named Porfiry Petrovich who’s as philosophical as all get-out and who pegs Raskolnikov immediately as the one who done it, but he enjoys the man’s conversation and trading jokes with him. Porfiry comes across as Inspector Javert as played by Groucho Marx.
Mind, this novel is not a laff riot. People die hither and yon, most notably papas and mamas. Sonya, trying to support her impoverished mother and siblings, becomes a prostitute, though inside she’s a very moral and religious girl who falls in love with Rhody, I mean Roadan, no that’s a flying lizard, Raskolnikov, that’s it. Dunya, or sometimes Dounia, is Raskolnikov’s sister and she is determined to sell herself in a marriage-for-money with Old Rich Guy or Younger Old Rich Guy but glory be, they become ashamed of themselves and let her off the hook to marry Poor but Honest Young Guy. And in the end Raskolnikov confesses and takes his punishment. We’re promised a Part II, but never get it. The novel is a classic, and I’m glad I read it, but really I’m glad there’s not a part II. Hauling through all those static debates was, for me, punishment enough.
Unmarked spoilers follow.
In Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot assures us that each cat has three different names. Cats got nothing on Dostoevsky’s people, though, whose names change more often than I change my socks. The protagonist of Crime and Punishment is named Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, the last name the most often used, but friends also call him Rodka, or Rodya, or Romanych. He’s a flunked-out former law student who lives alone in a ratty one-bedroom apartment, though with all those monikers it often seems like he’s throwing a party. He is very fond of his sister, Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov, who of course is always called Dunya. And there’s a host of other folks, but to tell the truth, eventually my eyes glaze over and I call hem “Rich Guy” “Other Rich Guy,” “Cop,” “Bestie,” and “Sonya, the Drunk’s Daughter.”
Raskolnikov is a philosopher wrestling with the problem of good for the sake of the soul or just for the hell of it, or evil for the sake of sticking it to the other side of the argument. He’s poor and behind in his rent, so he makes the rational decision to kill Alonya Ivanovna, a small-time pawnbroker who flourishes off the misery of others. I think of her as “Alonya Money.” She also has a harmless sister, Lisaveta, who’s in the book just to be harmless and to be friends with Sonya. Anyway, reasoning that he is a great man above the common herd, Raskolnikov decides to murder Alonya because he thought of it first and deserves to kill and rob her. He does, and her sister to boot,but instantly his conscience tortures him, so he (A) takes only a pittance and (B) hides it where nobody, including him, can ever find it. That’ll show ‘em.
The heart of the book is money. No, not really. The heart of the book is a series of philosophical discussions among the characters regarding right and wrong, morality and immorality, free will and predestination, and crime and punishment, or the lack thereof.
There’s a jolly policeman named Porfiry Petrovich who’s as philosophical as all get-out and who pegs Raskolnikov immediately as the one who done it, but he enjoys the man’s conversation and trading jokes with him. Porfiry comes across as Inspector Javert as played by Groucho Marx.
Mind, this novel is not a laff riot. People die hither and yon, most notably papas and mamas. Sonya, trying to support her impoverished mother and siblings, becomes a prostitute, though inside she’s a very moral and religious girl who falls in love with Rhody, I mean Roadan, no that’s a flying lizard, Raskolnikov, that’s it. Dunya, or sometimes Dounia, is Raskolnikov’s sister and she is determined to sell herself in a marriage-for-money with Old Rich Guy or Younger Old Rich Guy but glory be, they become ashamed of themselves and let her off the hook to marry Poor but Honest Young Guy. And in the end Raskolnikov confesses and takes his punishment. We’re promised a Part II, but never get it. The novel is a classic, and I’m glad I read it, but really I’m glad there’s not a part II. Hauling through all those static debates was, for me, punishment enough.
Carlotta
Graduate Poster
All those blasted names is why I couldn’t read Russian literature! Dreary stuff, anywho!