Books

Sorry, I'm being overbearing here. I just read that Replacements one. I thought it was really good. If anything, the takeaway I… uh… took away from it is that Paul and Tommy were pathologically self-destructive. And not just "let's drink and drug ourselves to death", I mean like desperately needing money, receiving some, and then using it to buy a broken down golf cart or lighting it on fire. Those guys just sabotaged themselves at every single opportunity.

It was pretty fun to read Bob Mould's simmering rage as he describes how hard he and Husker worked the circuit and did everything DIY and then the Replacements stumbled in, said they didn't want to do any work, demanding roadies and assistance, and then got the major label deal.

Also, the whole Bob Stinson thing is such a heartbreaker. Dude was just so damaged from his childhood.

I am reading War & Peace and quite enjoying it

By candlelight, right grampa?

Yes I am old

love how it's 100% ok to give seth shit
and he just rolls with it
de-mock-racy

I have yet to finish it myself…I have trouble with novels by russians…

hutch wrote:
I have yet to finish it myself…I have trouble with novels by russians…

I actually love the classic Russians. Prefer Anna Karenin if we're talking Tolstoy specifically.

Sidehatch wrote:
love how it's 100% ok to give seth shit
and he just rolls with it
de-mock-racy

I'm a divorced, bald 45 year old shadow of a man. The number of people I can rip on is dwindling rapidly. I take my spots when they emerge.

^sorry to hear that



as a rule-with exceptions- I'm not a fan of novels from the "get paid by the word" (serialized) period of literature….some of these books just go on and on and on and on…it feels like they had to drag them out as long as they could.. kind of like a Latin American soap opera or something.. but I admire anyone who can get through these things….I am embarassed never to have finished some classics even though I seem to recall having passed English without reading them

hutch wrote:
as a rule-with exceptions- I'm not a fan of novels from the "get paid by the word" (serialized) period of literature….some of these books just go on and on and on and on…it feels like they had to drag them out as long as they could.. kind of like a Latin American soap opera or something.. but I admire anyone who can get through these things….I am embarassed never to have finished some classics even though I seem to recall having passed English without reading them

I get that if you're talking Dickens or someone whose work was actually serialized and published in a magazine and paid by the word. That was, however, assuredly not the case with War and Peace. There's a lot of long Russian novels, but unless I am gravely mistaken, none of them were serialized releases; that was a uniquely English thing at that time.

Relaxer wrote:
I'm a divorced, bald 45 year old shadow of a man.

Divorced? What was all that "my wife never puts out" business you were going on abo– ohhhhhhhhhhh. . .

Julian, wrote:

hutch wrote:
as a rule-with exceptions- I'm not a fan of novels from the "get paid by the word" (serialized) period of literature….some of these books just go on and on and on and on…it feels like they had to drag them out as long as they could.. kind of like a Latin American soap opera or something.. but I admire anyone who can get through these things….I am embarassed never to have finished some classics even though I seem to recall having passed English without reading them

I get that if you're talking Dickens or someone whose work was actually serialized and published in a magazine and paid by the word. That was, however, assuredly not the case with War and Peace. There's a lot of long Russian novels, but unless I am gravely mistaken, none of them were serialized releases; that was a uniquely English thing at that time.

well serializing of works was very popular in the second half of the 19th century.. mademe bovary was serialized, brothers karamazov, anna karenina and even war and peace (in an earlier form) were all serialized..

forgot to replace the periods with commas.. my bad.. habit..

hutch wrote:

Julian, wrote:

hutch wrote:
as a rule-with exceptions- I'm not a fan of novels from the "get paid by the word" (serialized) period of literature….some of these books just go on and on and on and on…it feels like they had to drag them out as long as they could.. kind of like a Latin American soap opera or something.. but I admire anyone who can get through these things….I am embarassed never to have finished some classics even though I seem to recall having passed English without reading them

I get that if you're talking Dickens or someone whose work was actually serialized and published in a magazine and paid by the word. That was, however, assuredly not the case with War and Peace. There's a lot of long Russian novels, but unless I am gravely mistaken, none of them were serialized releases; that was a uniquely English thing at that time.

well serializing of works was very popular in the second half of the 19th century.. mademe bovary was serialized, brothers karamazov, anna karenina and even war and peace (in an earlier form) were all serialized..

I'm sure you'd agree there's a difference between, say, Great Expectations where the author was paid by the word and had a financial motivation to keep the story going on as long as possible vs Tolstoy/Dostoyevski giving portions to a periodical for printing (or David Foster Wallace/Franzen doing the same today in The New Yorker) as the book is being written. Great Expectations is long for length's sake. I never got that feeling with the Russians.

What?? ??
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/02/10/entertainment/harry-potter-part-8-publish-summer-feat/index.html

Harry Potter is back for another round of magic, struggles with the darkness and parents.

This time, Harry's the dad, struggling with his own son.

The eighth installment of the Harry Potter series, the two-part play, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," will be published as a book this summer, author J.K Rowling announced on her Pottermore website Wednesday.

killsaly wrote:
What?? ??

She likes money.

You do know she is one of the world's top charitable people, right?  ::)
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/juice/content/jk-rowling-drops-forbes-billionaire-list-because-she-gave-so-much-away

It's interesting to me that she's re-visiting a world that she'd ended neatly and nicely. I mean, she just published an adult fiction book and it was a big hit! I don't know why she feels the need to go back to this trough again so quickly. Yes, of course, $$$ but A) she's already got a lot of it, and B) she appeared to be en route to making $$$ with a new line of books.

She loves the characters and the world she created.

killsaly wrote:
She loves the characters and the world she created.

Can we kick this over to the nerd alert thread please?