What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Thu Oct 13, 2022 6:55 pm

New author to chase.
Crime Pays
The dilemma of Georges Simenon.

By Joan Acocella
October 3, 2011
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011 ... n-acocella

who gets accolades like this .??!!!
Praise for Georges Simenon:

“One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequaled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories.” —The Guardian

“These Maigret books are as timeless as Paris itself.” —The Washington Post

“Maigret ranks with Holmes and Poirot in the pantheon of fictional detective immortals.” —People

“I love reading Simenon. He makes me think of Chekhov.” —William Faulkner

“The greatest of all, the most genuine novelist we have had in literature.” —André Gide

“A supreme writer . . . Unforgettable vividness.” —The Independent (London)

“Superb . . . The most addictive of writers . . . A unique teller of tales.” —The Observer (London)

“Compelling, remorseless, brilliant.” —John Gray

“A truly wonderful writer . . . Marvelously readable—lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with the world he creates.” —Muriel Spark

“A novelist who entered his fictional world as if he were a part of it.”lle —Peter Ackroyd

“Extraordinary masterpieces of the twentieth century.” —John Banville

About the Author
Georges Simenon was born in Liège, Belgium, in 1903. He is best know in Britain as the author of the Maigret novels and his prolific output of over 400 novels and short stories have made him a household name in continental Europe. He died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.
and he claims to have bedded 10,000 women ... :what: :naughty:

I might just abandon O'Brian for a while as I've read all his previously for a few Maigret novels as they appear to be quick reads.
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by rasetsu » Sat Oct 15, 2022 1:35 pm

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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by Tero » Sun Oct 16, 2022 11:35 am

I have a rather boring...it does have charts...book on global energy policy to read. This would be for the purpose of getting three speakers on energy for the senior classes fall of 2023. The electric company is easy to get. I can't find a local economist to explain the costs. We want to include putin's gas pipe to make it "global."
https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late

Turn stone to bread, said Daemon Duncetan
Turn stone to bread right away...

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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Sun Oct 16, 2022 11:28 pm

I succumbed to the lure of O'Brian.
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by Sean Hayden » Sun Oct 16, 2022 11:53 pm

Tero wrote:
Sun Oct 16, 2022 11:35 am
I have a rather boring...it does have charts...book on global energy policy to read. This would be for the purpose of getting three speakers on energy for the senior classes fall of 2023. The electric company is easy to get. I can't find a local economist to explain the costs. We want to include putin's gas pipe to make it "global."
I failed to finish a similar read on energy storage technologies.

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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed Nov 02, 2022 12:55 am

Hyperion. Dan Simmons. 1986.

It's amazing how dated it is. But it pretty blummin' fantastic anyway.
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Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by JimC » Wed Nov 02, 2022 1:45 am

Read that one when it came out, long time ago...

I'm re-reading "The Origins of Virtue" by Matt Ridley. A good read, I mostly agree with his arguments which have a strong evolutionary flavour...
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by pErvinalia » Wed Nov 02, 2022 2:03 am

You're just virtue signalling, Jim.
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Wed Nov 02, 2022 7:22 am

I thought and think Hyperion is superb and not dated.
You might as well say Chaucers Tale is "dated" :lou:
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by Brian Peacock » Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:26 am

It's dated only by the fact that it's of its time, but it's packed chokka with ideas, the prose is dynamic, rich, varied and compelling, and the characters and settings are superbly drawn. I haven't read a book in a long time that's brought me close to tears at one point and then made me made me laugh out loud the next like this has. It's a true literary novel masquerading as space opera.

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Details on how to do that can be found here.

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"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice.
There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."

Frank Zappa

"This is how humanity ends; bickering over the irrelevant."
Clinton Huxley » 21 Jun 2012 » 14:10:36 GMT
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Fri Nov 04, 2022 12:17 am

Image
Since it's referred to by O'Brian so often - thought I would read about Trafalgar as a break. I've been trying to identify some of the actual geography in the books but some locations are fabricated even tho the battles are based on history.
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Fri Nov 04, 2022 7:54 am

On to 9.
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:30 pm

and Number 13
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O'Brian makes me laugh .
'I will tell you what, Maturin, if this baby of ours has anything like the discontented, bilious, liverish expression you have brought down from town, it shall be changed out of hand for something more cheerful from the Foundling Hospital.'
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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by Tero » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:39 pm

This is quite good. Will read more pages of it than Thinking Fast and Slow

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https://esapolitics.blogspot.com
http://esabirdsne.blogspot.com/
Said Peter...what you're requesting just isn't my bag
Said Daemon, who's sorry too, but y'see we didn't have no choice
And our hands they are many and we'd be of one voice
We've come all the way from Wigan to get up and state
Our case for survival before it's too late

Turn stone to bread, said Daemon Duncetan
Turn stone to bread right away...

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Re: What are you reading now? (Chapter 2)

Post by macdoc » Wed Nov 16, 2022 1:38 am

Dr Maturin Irish/Catalan speaking to
Aubrey ...a somewhat less than sterling English post Capitain and Dr Maturins great friend
So the Irish have a writing of their own? I had no idea.'
'
Maturin
Certainly they have a writing of their own. They had it long before your ancestors left their dim Teutonic wood; and indeed it was the Irish first taught the English the ABC, though with indifferent success, I freely admit. Yet this is a very handsome letter, so it is.'
:smoke:

O'Brian makes me laugh all the time....Maturin is both a secret agent of the crown and a celebrated naturalist and dresses like a century relevant nerd. Aubrey knows little of the high circles in intelligence and science the Dr moves in
Such a brilliant conceit to pair them up and then bond them with music.... :dance:

Up to #14 - 2/3 through the series.
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