Taelac
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Be bold. It makes your enemies hesitate.
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Post by Taelac on Jun 24, 2013 9:25:35 GMT -8
Baby corn is just corn that's harvested early, though I imagine some varieties are better suited to that than others.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jun 27, 2013 5:53:12 GMT -8
Allow me to take a moment to heartily recommend Raymond Chandler to any readers out there. I picked up a collection that I'd read years ago, and I'd forgotten how great he is. He's got such a unique turn of phrase and the way he uses words is just really impressive to me. I prefer the novels to the short stories, but even the stories are good. If you're at all a mystery reader his essay "The Simple Art of Murder" is a really interesting piece of work that lays out what he sees as the basis and necessity for the noir detective stuff. It's a thought provoking read from one of the masters of the genre.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jun 28, 2013 13:05:36 GMT -8
I always feel that I need more "adult" books to read (as opposed to "young adult"), so this is greatly appreciated . Do you have a particular novel you recommend, Leif, or just Chandler in general?
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jun 28, 2013 14:22:24 GMT -8
Hmm... That's a good question. The most famous are probably The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity, and The Long Goodbye, all of which have movies, at least one of which stars an unexpectedly handsome Elliot Gould. I haven't read any of them recently (though I just started re-reading The Long Goodbye) so they aren't as fresh.
The novel that really prompted the post was The Lady in the Lake. I just finished The Little Sister. Both are good. What I like, as a mystery fan, is that I actually have a fair chance to solve a mystery. It doesn't hinge on things I, as a reader, can't know. I don't often, but I can see where they're coming from. The warning here is that it very much a hardboiled world. Cops are often corrupt. People are shabby. LA is a once nice small town now festering under the glamorous facade of Hollywood. Philip Marlowe is a man who is more clever than smart, and as straight as he can be in a crooked world.
So... Lady in the Lake is good and had some distinct A ha! moments. The first 3 mentioned are good choices if you want to discuss with other people too. Not that The Little Sister is bad. It has one of his more memorable chapters, I just enjoyed Lady more.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jun 28, 2013 16:17:04 GMT -8
I vote we start a book club y/y
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jun 28, 2013 17:09:01 GMT -8
I'm up for it, I suppose.
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Leif
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Posts: 600
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Post by Leif on Jun 28, 2013 17:40:36 GMT -8
For any that take up the chandler recommendation, allow me to remind you:
As it's summer, allow me to recommend a Whiskey Smash or, if you're adventurous, a Derby.
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Taelac
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Be bold. It makes your enemies hesitate.
Posts: 357
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Post by Taelac on Jun 28, 2013 17:50:30 GMT -8
I vote we make that a book and booze club. Speaking of books, though, I have one copy left of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale from World Book Night this year that needs a home. I'll drop it in the mail to the first address to hit my PM box.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jun 28, 2013 21:07:07 GMT -8
I second a book and booze club. Tea for the younger ones?
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Post by AhoyLindsay on Jun 29, 2013 8:41:11 GMT -8
I highly approve of book clubs. Also, I think Leif could make a solid career as a reviewer and/or blurb writer. Earlier this summer I read a book called The City and the City, and it was very very good. It's centered around a murder mystery but it's almost equally about exploring and understanding the setting where the book takes place, namely, two entirely separate cities that share the same physical space. It's exciting, intriguing, and just plain well-written. By China Mieville, pick it up if you get a chance.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jun 29, 2013 11:23:49 GMT -8
Mieville is interesting. I keep meaning to pick up The City and the City. I've read the Bas Lag trilogy: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and The Iron Council. Of the three, The Scar was my favorite. Perdido was next, and Iron Council a distant third. Imaginative guy. Sort of steampunkish fantasy, in that there's clearly some sort of magi-tech. Mieville, at least in these, is very much in love with his own vocabulary. Also his cleverness. Still, entertaining books as a whole. Also, I've read his book Un Lun Dun. Sort of a YA Neverwhere. One of the biggest surprises to me after reading Perdido was Mieville himself. Reading them you sort of expect a nerdy guy, after all there's sort of an homage to a D&D party snuck in there. Sort of a Mountain Dew swilling Cheeto dusted kind of guy. Then you get to the Author's Bio on the back flap, and his picture.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jun 29, 2013 13:02:13 GMT -8
*adds everything to 'to read' list on Goodreads*
Right now I'm trying to make myself get through Under the Dome by Stephen King. My mom and I watched the first episode Monday night, and from what I've read already, characters are already diverging. Argh.
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Taelac
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Be bold. It makes your enemies hesitate.
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Post by Taelac on Jun 29, 2013 16:14:25 GMT -8
Book's been claimed.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jun 30, 2013 7:25:03 GMT -8
Two rather separate suggestions.
First, this time of year, I often like to check the local high school's summer reading list. On ours this summer, there's a fair number aimed at high schoolers, but there's also some distinct classics and interesting biographies. It might be worth giving it a look for some suggestions.
Second, for Fantasy readers, I'd recommend Joe Abercrombie. He has a series called The First Law that starts with The Blade Itself. It's a trilogy. It's all more of the darker fantasy stuff, distinctly not high fantasy. The good guys and bad guys are bastards and good and bad may just depend a lot more on how you're looking at it than some absolute capital G Good. Magic is present, but scarce. The first book is a little slow, but it gets into it well. It's followed by 3 stand alone novels that occur after the trilogy. Best Served Cold, Heroes, and Red Country. It's nice with those to have read the series first, but if you wanted, you could just grab those books and run with it.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jun 30, 2013 11:35:35 GMT -8
Sadly, I was usually not a fan of the books assigned for summer reading. This includes Catcher in the Rye (full disclosure: I feel like a horrible reader for saying this, but I generally don't like the "classics," mainly because I find the language difficult).
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jul 1, 2013 6:02:22 GMT -8
Ours has done a fair mix of classics and more modern. There's been Gulliver's Travels and Arabian Nights, and then more modern things like One Hundred Years of Solitude. A few years ago they even had the Case of Charles Dexter Ward by Lovecraft. For (very) light reading in something classic-ish, I'd recommend The Scarlet Pimpernel. It's not long. A mysterious man is helping French aristocracy escape the Reign of Terror. A game of cat and mouse ensues as rumors of a trip to France start swirling. Can the gendarmes corner and unmask the daring Scarlet Pimpernel on their own shores? In other classics (well, earlyish 20th century), and also light reading, I'll heartily recommend PG Wodehouse. He wrote a lot of books. My favorites tend to be the Jeeves and Wooster books. I can't possibly do them justice in a quick blurb. Basically Bertie is a dim witted, wealthy, socialite who finds himself in a number of amusing imbroglios while he avoids the wrath of his aunts, dabbles in the lists of love, and helps out pals in trouble. Fortunately, his wise manservant Jeeves is ready to rally round and render aid before things get too bad. I started with this unfortunately out of print compendium. It contains Right Ho, Jeeves, The Inimitable Jeeves and Very Good, Jeeves. I would recommend them.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jul 1, 2013 6:25:21 GMT -8
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Taelac
Officer
Be bold. It makes your enemies hesitate.
Posts: 357
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Post by Taelac on Jul 1, 2013 12:38:43 GMT -8
That ain't right.
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Post by Jolyma on Jul 2, 2013 19:51:54 GMT -8
Most of what I read these days are the books sent home by the middle school teachers. My kids read way above grade level, and so the teachers want them to read more challenging books. My challenge? What is appropriate for the high schoolers isn't always good for 11 and 12, so I read everything in case there are questions or issues like, well Hunger Games, where there are kids killing each other for a TV show.
This year, I liked Divergent and the follow up Insurgent, and we're waiting on the third of that trilogy to come out this fall. (Veronica Roth, and also a movie coming out next year on the first one)
Then there was Matched, Crossed and Reached trilogy by Allie Condie (heads up, it's going to be a movie this year).
They are both similar to Hunger Games in that they are a futuristic 'what if' setting, and why their 'fix' to the problems of the world go wrong, and how things come to a head.
Then there was some werewolf book that wasn't too bad, it was a trilogy too, and I guess there have been others similar by the author...Nightshade was the first one. I was at first afraid that someone had turned my daughter onto Twilight, but this has a very interesting twist on the wolf/human thing. Sorta fantasy-ish, modern setting, not my kind of book, really, but not terrible to read.
Something about trilogies...
I just finished Iris Johansen's Taking Eve though, and I'm waiting for Hunting Eve to come out in a couple weeks. I love her. She is a great author, if you like thriller (not horror thriller, just, bad guy, good guy (who has a bad side) get the bad guy stopped) and very strong women protagonists. I also really like Tess Gerritsen for the mystery type books. I was reading a lot of James Patterson, but I'm getting tired of Alex Cross. I like his Michael Bennett character and I like the Women's Mystery Club though.
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Post by Jolyma on Jul 2, 2013 20:00:23 GMT -8
In other news...
We had tonight, tomorrow and Friday's dress rehearsal left. We have still not run the play beginning to end. We've done Act I a bunch with stopping and reblocking and we've done Act II with stopping and reblocking. We've gotten close before, but didn't have the right set pieces for the last 2 scenes, so we quit early....
I've never done lighting before, and it's nerve wracking enough to know that there will be 2 reviewers there at dress rehearsal, when I have to run it all by myself, without the normal lighting guy coaching me (thank goodness I don't have to do lighting for the actual production!!!), but I will only get ONE full beginning to end rehearsal without stops before having to do it alone.
Not. Cool.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jul 2, 2013 20:48:51 GMT -8
Ah yes, I am a big fan of the Divergent books. I was sort of nonplussed by the ending of the Matched books. Shatter Me and Unravel Me (Tahereh Mafi) are along the same lines, last one in that trilogy (for real...trilogies are the new "thing") being released...February I think? But I agree with Joly on age levels. I've had people ask me at my job what sorts of books would be good for a ten year old, and I always say it depends on the ten year old. The only book I ever had a problem reading was The Lovely Bones my sophomore year of high school. At 15, even though I was about the same age as the narrator, it wasn't a subject matter I was mature enough to handle I have to agree with you on the Alex Cross books too, though it could be that the summer I read them I read a huge chunk of Patterson's work and burned myself out on them. Had a similar problem another summer with Michael Crichton lol You can do it, Joly! Reviewers know that dress rehearsals are still that--rehearsals. You will be fine
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Post by firebolt153 on Jul 2, 2013 20:49:28 GMT -8
Also, my goodness, 71 guests in the past 24 hours??
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Post by Jolyma on Jul 2, 2013 21:58:16 GMT -8
My daughter's third grade teacher turned her onto historical fiction, so, well, death she handles. She's read kidnap books, and books with abuse, and we talk about it, she handles it well. It's the sexuality that worries me, I don't want her to read something too adult yet. I want her to continue to enjoy being a kid.
My son, he likes Rick Riordan and so anything with even a hint of mythology in it, he's all over that.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jul 3, 2013 3:11:28 GMT -8
I would have to give your son a high five. Riordan's Percy Jackson books are my go-to for kids (I have no shame in admitting that when I saw the cover reveal for House of Hades I squee'd like a teen girl at a boy band concert). Good writing, excellent humor, and learning Greek mythology...how can you go wrong?
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Misty
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Post by Misty on Jul 3, 2013 5:43:09 GMT -8
I had a six year old helping me paint the set on Saturday. We talked about the Hunger Games movie he had recently seen. I think that's too young, although he seemed fine with it. Also missed a lot of plot points, including the main character's name. (He told me they never revealed it.)
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Post by Aethera on Jul 3, 2013 6:10:08 GMT -8
Aww, I miss doing lighting. But I always did it the old-fashioned way, and I'm assuming you have a fancy auto-board where you just push a button? You can do it Joly, it's not too bad!
My boyfriend loves the Percy Jackson books, and has gotten my sisters and my mother reading them. I tried the first one and though the writing was dreadful.
I barely read anymore. Too many video games.
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Leif
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Post by Leif on Jul 3, 2013 6:15:35 GMT -8
On historical fiction ( I rather enjoyed Captain Blood. Captain Blood is about a doctor caught up in the Bloody Assizes and transported to the colonies as a servant. He manages to escape and he becomes a pirate trying to win the woman he loves. Also by Sabatinni, I enjoyed Scaramouche. Moreau's mentor is killed by the Marquis because he might foment revolution in France, and Moreau swears revenge. He flees and goes to ground in troupe of travelling actors while plotting revenge. This book features actors, duelists, and possibly revolution. Both are free e-book downloads. While both feature a love story, neither is racy in any regard.
On piratical books of a nonfiction nature, I quite enjoyed If a Pirate I Must Be. It's about Black Bart, the most successful pirate in the Caribbean. It chronicles his becoming a pirate and his exploits in the Caribbean and then on the African coast. It contains a lot of information from court proceedings, news papers, and other contemporary documentation. It was a really a really interesting book about pirates.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jul 3, 2013 21:10:38 GMT -8
I think the last book I read about pirates was Pirate Latitudes (Crichton). Leif, are those ebooks available via iTunes, do you know? I need more historical fiction in my life to balance out all the young adult, though I do have my eye on Steve Berry's new one. I tell people he's a better Dan Brown, cause he does more interesting topics than the Freemasons or the Church.
I also blame the arrival of my 3DS in preparation for some new games in the fall only for that console for sucking away my reading time. Also the lure of a handful of TV shows on Netflix (Buffy, Being Human UK version, etc).
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Post by Jolyma on Jul 3, 2013 22:25:27 GMT -8
Six is too young for Hunger Games, in my opinion as a mom. I was very tentative about 10 and 11, but as their friends had been allowed and they were talking about it at school, I felt that it was better they read it after I had and we could talk about it. Firebolt, if you like Riordan, try Pegasus the Flame of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn. Very similar. Aethera, the trouble you may have with the writing style of Riordan is probably because he writes not for young adults really, but for pre-teen. His facts are usually dead on though. He's done Greek, Egyptian and Roman series. The older son is also into the 39 clues types books. He loves the historical stuff. I guess my kids are weird. If they learn something, they like it. The daughter like American historical fiction mostly, although lately it's been WWII...holocaust and most recently one about the displaced Estonian/Latvian people sent to Siberia and beyond by the Russians in WWII. They're horribly depressing, but much like Anne Frank, show the hope and the will to live that people have, even under the most extreme trials of life. I have recently learned of a collection of fantasy/sci fi stories getting ready to be released. It has a cut scene from A Memory of Light in it, along with shorts by Tad Williams, Terry Brooks and many others. It's called Unfettered and is being published as a fundraiser for 2 fantasy authors who have had medical issues and no insurance to help with the pile up of bills (one cancer, one with a son in an severe accident) www.tor.com/stories/2013/07/unfettered-shawn-speakman-excerpts?utm_source=newsletter-Aethera, the lighting is a mix of intelligent lights that we set on a computer (which surprisingly is quite complicated, but it allows you to actually move the lights) and an older lighting board for the stationary stage lights. Once the intelligent lights are programmed, all I have to do for them is remember to hit 'go' on the board, but I have to set the switches on the dozen stage lights too and fade them in and out. It's fun, but I just don't want to mess the actors up with the wrong cue. I'm already being told that 'next time' I'll be programming the lights too. Tonight I learned how to mic people because I have to do that for dress rehearsal too. And sometime in there, run a light cue that Marian the Librarian is not cheating out on correctly, causing half of her face to be in shadow, so she can see how she's supposed to be standing.
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Post by firebolt153 on Jul 4, 2013 10:27:13 GMT -8
Was the "Latvian people sent to Siberia" one called Between Shades of Gray? Cause that book was horribly depressing. Edit: The Book Thief is another WWII one that touches on the Holocaust but it doesn't focus on it. Evidentally that's also going to be a movie.
What I love most about Riordan's style is the snark. I tried to read one of his adult novels (don't remember which one) and I just didn't feel it.
Oo micing people is fun :-p
I feel like I should be keeping a reading diary of slugging through Under the Dome. Example: "Day 17: I am still only 250 pages into this book and that's just under 25% of the way through. I may never see the light at the end of the epilogue."
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