Currently I am reading the book "The Release of the Spirit" by Watchmen Nee and after I have read that I will begin reading the book "The Spiritual Man" by Watchmen Nee. I'm in a season of reading books on spiritual development my next season who knows what it will be anything from aliens to historical biographies I do not? LOL
Just reread "Of Mice and Men" by Steinbeck (one of my favourite books), and now I'm reading "Tell-All", by C. Palahniuk (one of my favourite authors).
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (although I am reading it in French so it is called Captive). Historical novel about notorious 1843 murders (which I did not know about prior to reading) She switches (with appropriate breaks!) from 1st Person Grace to 3rd Person (her psychiatrist).
Current book I'm reading: Your Heart Belongs To Me (Dean Koontz) Previous: Split Second (David Baldacci) Next: Gone Tomorrow (Lee Child)
I'm currently trying to finish up the Lovecraft Necronomicon, right now I'm on The Shadow out of Time. I've got Malazan Book of the Fallen 1 & 2 coming my way, so I'll be starting that any day now.
The vision I´m reading a book called The vision by Jessica Sorenson. It´s the fourth and last in this series. I was happily surprised since the first book was for free in Kindle so I decided to give it a try. I got so addicted that I wanted to read the rest of the books. Somehow I have fallen for the characters and the story itself. Can warmly recommend it to anyone who likes these kind of fiction stories
I'm reading The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman. Hilarious, sort of a spy spoof starting in Berlin 1933 and moving to Los Angeles during WWII, following a loser called Loeser who - it looks like - will become involved by accident in the Manhatten Project and Germans trying to spy on it. All in fun, not SF at all as I thought.
Just read the Night People by Jack Finney. Good book! It's about two couples in the 70's who are bored with their mundane lives and start taking walks late at night. The walks then spiral into pranks.
Just started reading 'Sociolinguistic Theory' by J. K. Chambers. It's covering quite interesting ground regarding use of language relating to things like class, gender and age, so hopefully useful in the way I write different characters' dialog. Bit of a dry read though, not exactly a story
My Lost Mexico, by James A. Michener. A good book for writers to read, because it details how Michener began his novel Mexico with high hopes, lost control of it and lost heart, and gave up on it for thirty years before resuming work on it. He discusses some of the issues we keep discussing here in these forums, like plotting, structure, writer's block, etc. And don't be scared off by the fact that it's a Michener book - it's really very, very short!
Currently rereading Robert Fagles' excellent translation of The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus Rex, amd Oedipus at Colonus. This is one of those books I can honestly call perfect and suggest, almost demand actually, that everyone reads.
I have Fagles' translations of Homer's poems. I think they're great. I hadn't known that he'd done more.
Yeah, he's really good. He's done the Homeric epics, Sophocles' Theban plays, Virgil's The Aenied (which was the first of his translations I read, I can highly recommend it too) and a few other things I think. I have to admit, I'm quite the fan of Fagles' work, and C.H. Sisson's translation of The Divine Comedy.
I don't know that one. Lemex, do you know a really, really good verse translation of The Divine Comedy? I used to have The Portable Dante, which contained Lawrence Binyon's translation, but is there a better one? I'm not really interested in prose translations.
The two verse translations I can recommend is the C.H. Sisson translation, which was my main one when I wrote about Dante in University, and the famous one; the Longfellow translation. I honestly wouldn't suggest reading any other translation first, and prose translations are few and apparently not very good so you are missing nothing interesting in that area from what I've heard. Between the two translations I can personally recommend (the Sisson and Longfellow) the Longfellow translation has all the famous lines such as 'Abandon Hope all ye Who Enter Here' and 'Midway along the journey of our life./I woke to find myself in a dark wood,/for I had wandered off from the straight path' as examples. It's mostly excellent to be honest, and some of the moments through Inferno are particularly visceral. Especially Canto XXXIII with the tale of Count Ugolino, which is really a horrifying moment. While the Longfellow translation is very good for Inferno I find it suffers during Purgatorio and especially Paradiso which means for a translation of the complete cycle go with the Sisson translation. It's just slightly more consistent, though not quite as dramatic and comes with a wealth of notes if you get the Oxford World Classics edition that, trust me, you'll need. Also, and this is what really tips the scales in favor of it, the Sisson translation is just easier to read than it's 19th century rival. I'll post the two opening stanzas of either translation for comparison: Longfellow Translation Sisson Translation:
Interesting. I've never even heard of the Sisson translation. I read the Mandelbaum translation, which is probably just as popular as the Longfellow translation. Mandelbaum also has a great translation of the Aeneid.
Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry. Edit: Oops, I already posted this in this thread a few days ago. I can't find a delete post option...
I've heard of the Mandelbaum translation but nothing about it, or if I have I don't remember right now anyway. It's a shame both Fagles and Sisson died recently, they were my favorite translators.
