What are you currently reading?

[JBS]

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level undernéath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstacy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!


Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!


No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

I've not encountered that poem before, but knew instantly who the poet was. Hopkins' style is unique.

[AnotherSpin]

I like the quote from Hopkins - "What I do is me: for that I came"

[Mandryka]

I'm about to do a course on The Windhover, that's why I'm reading it. It's all pretty clear to me until the sestet then it's like, wtf does he mean?

It must be real hard for someone who's first language isn't English to read Hopkins!

[Mandryka]

I like the quote from Hopkins - "What I do is me: for that I came"

Have you read this one? He had a terrible life in a way

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
 With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.


 I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
 Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.


It's like Philip Larkin's Aubade

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48422/aubade-56d229a6e2f07

[Cato]

For newer members: if you are looking for a "summer-reading book" either for yourself or for an adolescent of your acquaintance  , please consider this book, suitable for ages 12 and up!



Many thanks in advance, if you decide to give it a chance, or to purchase it as a present!

I know some of you have read this book, when it was published in three smaller volumes, and I thank you again for your support!

The story has now been reissued in one volume: please consider buying this as a Christmas present.

If you have not read the book, please consider doing so!   

From a 5-star review:




A Diary Found at Lynchburg

See:

A Diary Found at Lynchburg

[SimonNZ]

"Texan Reads His Electric Bill Like Its A Faulkner Novel"

[Papy Oli]

Completed in the last month...

Two devastating heart-breaking Irish Short stories:

- Claire Keegan - Foster
- Claire Keegan - Small Things like these

A beautiful French classic:

- Antoine de Saint Exupéry - Le petit prince

A struggle at the start, then couldn't put this down from halfway point. Planning to continue the series soon:

- Emile Zola - La Fortune des Rougon

More gritty police investigating in Edinburgh:

- Ian Rankin - Tooth & Nail (Rebus Series #3)

A South Korean novel, peculiar and weird to say the least:

- Han Kang - The Vegetarian

[Florestan]

Antoine de Saint Exupéry - Le petit prince

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. 

[Papy Oli]

On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. 

Quite 

Like La Fontaine, one much more appreciated and grasped as an adult, I found.

[DaveF]

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent

It is indeed a "terrible" poem, and commenting on it seems almost as arrogant as commenting on King Lear, but I've always been interested in the diaeresis in the second line, indicating that even then for a Highgate- and Oxford-educated boy the default pronunciation of "hours" would be a monosyllable more or less rhyming with "Mars".  To make it into a disyllable (rhyming with "Showers") he has to explicitly indicate a separation of the vowels.  (Although perhaps an Oxford accent would make that "Shahs" even today.)

And of course it's all necessary to make the stresses fall correctly: What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent

I'll shut up now.

[Mandryka]

It is indeed a "terrible" poem, and commenting on it seems almost as arrogant as commenting on King Lear, but I've always been interested in the diaeresis in the second line, indicating that even then for a Highgate- and Oxford-educated boy the default pronunciation of "hours" would be a monosyllable more or less rhyming with "Mars".  To make it into a disyllable (rhyming with "Showers") he has to explicitly indicate a separation of the vowels.  (Although perhaps an Oxford accent would make that "Shahs" even today.)

And of course it's all necessary to make the stresses fall correctly: What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent

I'll shut up now.

Do you think he spoke like Julian Mince?

[Henk]

[Mister Sharpe]

I've been looking forward to reading this since 1973 and have thought of it off and on since then.  Spotted this copy (revised ed.) in a thrift shoppe the other morning and thought, "Hey, it's now or never!"  I could say it's worth the wait but more to the point: it's good and interesting enough to have been further up on my reading list.  There is a third, more recent edition.

[AnotherSpin]

The description sounds intriguing. What do you think of this book?

[Henk]

The description sounds intriguing. What do you think of this book?

Pang suffers from ASD (autism) and ADHD. She uses science to ease her suffering and to better cope with things. Also humans without these disorders can benefit from the tools she has developed as she treats phenomena that we all have to deal with.

I find it written very clearly and in an engaging style. Very intelligent woman. I think I can benefit from it too, will see. The parallels she draws between humans and science (like wave theory, machine learning, biochemistry) are striking. I like reading the book a lot. It was awarded with the Science Book Prize in 2020.

[SimonNZ]

Started:

[Henk]

Book just arrived, earlier than expected. Happy to read a tough philosophical book again. Was feeling lazy.



Btw this one arrived too:

It's open-access: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262552554/the-ecology-politic/

[Brian]

I've been looking forward to reading this since 1973 and have thought of it off and on since then.  Spotted this copy (revised ed.) in a thrift shoppe the other morning and thought, "Hey, it's now or never!"  I could say it's worth the wait but more to the point: it's good and interesting enough to have been further up on my reading list.  There is a third, more recent edition.

Interesting, thank you. This sounds somewhat like Akenfield, an oral history of life in a remote English village in the midcentury.

[Mister Sharpe]

Interesting, thank you. This sounds somewhat like Akenfield, an oral history of life in a remote English village in the midcentury.

Yes, good comparison! Even if the Wylie book is a shade more academic than Blythe's.  Even so, it's a rippingly good read. And like Akenfield, it's surprising how personal things can get in Rousillon (masquerading as Peyrane in the book).  Can't help but recall Peter Mayle's works, too, more whimsical though they be.  I'm a quarter of the way through and it's got me wondering just what was done to update things in the 3rd ed. It'd make a good class topic to compare Akenfield with Rousillon, it's the same time period.  Speaking of Blythe, did you ever see Brian May's (yup, Queen's guitarist) A Village Lost and Found?  It's motivated by much the same love of town and country that compelled Blythe, along with the kind of puzzlers that many people delight in via British murder mysteries (where the locales are seemingly as significant as Who Done It).   

[Brian]

Yes, good comparison! Even if the Wylie book is a shade more academic than Blythe's.  Even so, it's a rippingly good read. And like Akenfield, it's surprising how personal things can get in Rousillon (masquerading as Peyrane in the book).  Can't help but recall Peter Mayle's works, too, more whimsical though they be.  I'm a quarter of the way through and it's got me wondering just what was done to update things in the 3rd ed. It'd make a good class topic to compare Akenfield with Rousillon, it's the same time period.  Speaking of Blythe, did you ever see Brian May's (yup, Queen's guitarist) A Village Lost and Found?  It's motivated by much the same love of town and country that compelled Blythe, along with the kind of puzzlers that many people delight in via British murder mysteries (where the locales are seemingly as significant as Who Done It).   

Thank you for the recommendation! I'll look for that book.