What BOOK are you reading right now?

You are reading a translation of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri -

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5031312.Dante_Alighieri

I've read him twice but never all the way through, once in italian (a beginning italian class, where I, still in high school, went to a local college on Monday afternoons for the school year, me the only student (this was in the late '50's, just around the onset of advanced classes for people in high school). What do I remember of that, just about nothing but that I enjoyed it, as the nun was from Italy and the language was beautiful.

Later, first semester college, small catholic college, we read the Inferno in english. I would still recognize some bits of that now.
That was long ago, and a lot has changed in my views of life, but I still am attracted to Italy, for all its faults and joys.
In the nineties, I took a barrage of university extension italian classes; my teacher was born in Padova and studied in Bologna. We became pals. Maybe it was my miserably written essays that she liked.. not my grasp of grammar, but the opinions I threw around.

She told me about the bars (caffe's) in Bologna, where people would duel at reciting Dante. He is iconic. I think I wouldn't take him as a fast read, more slow and to savor.

Hi, Now i am reading a bengali Book Called ""Chander Pahar" which is written by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay.

Tell us a little bit about it and why you like it...if you do.

she's a good writer. You're right - more to read by Donna Tartt would be terrific.

tell us about it

<edit - Panz already got this>

I'm a few pages from the end of



good transit/porch/holiday reading

Dumas wrote a lot, and aimed at commercial success rather than literary fame. He's something like the 19th century equivalent of Michael Crichton. You have no reason to feel bad about not reading any of his books. There are dozen of better writers which i have never heard of, let alone read.

A few years ago, a French TV channel aired a Dumas biopic featuring Depardieu in the lead role. Problem: Dumas was a 'black' man. His father was a mulato from Martinique, and became a brilliant general in Napoleon's army. The Austrians called him the Black Devil. Not your average gallic face. So there was a mini-scandal, and accusations of 'whitewashing' Dumas' negritude...

I mention this because that's how I learned that Dumas was 'black'. I had read three books by the guy, and didn't know that... So IMO the Dumas whitewashing happened a long time, in public school textbooks...

Just finished The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

Not fully off topic: A friend served jury duty a month ago. During the voir dire, the attorneys asked prospective jurors what was the last book you read? People who answered that they did not read were impaneled. Now, either the attys wanted a jury of people who were uniformed or the case involved a publisher, editor or author.

While reading The Little Friend, I occassionally had to put the book down in the lap and say "Get out of my head!" The little girl in that book? Except for being in charge of the nativity play, that was me.

I should read that one again.

There's a not uncommon line of reasoning that juries are made up of people who are too stupid to get out of jury duty.

oops.

One book I'm reading right now is Christopher Wilson's "The Ballad Of Lee Cotton". I'm enjoying it - it's fun, but thoughtful. Sort of a cross between Vernon God Little and Forrest Gump.

Thomas Jefferson -- The Art of Power
by Jon Meacham

I often have to stop and read up on some obscure (to me, anyway) bits of
history. Who knew there was a Republic of West Florida?

I'm reading, when I feel like it," The World Almanac for 2015".

I bought the paperback edition, which is OK, except for the fact that the print is very small . The maps are well done, but again everything is tiny and cramped.

Next time, I'll buy the hard cover edition.

I agree. Also from all that I have learned in my personal before read study Dante had made the exact version of stanza and ryme for the Italian language and it is meant for that language. It is huge. HOWEVER, even though it was made for a western language you should listen to the japanese audio book version.

Yes I am reading it (was on amazon kindle for free) but I try to model myself after the Asmovian Writer Guidelines. Albite I slightly modified them to that of focusing on research and self improvement and put them along the 20hrs. a day lifestyle. Fun isn't it.

Oxford University Press has put out a series of very short introductions -- tiny books the size of pocket diaries -- on an amazing range of subjects. I'm reading the one on Martin Luther. Interesting to consider that his "heresy" succeeded when others did not, although some of the others were goofy.

I recommend the series if you want to know a bit about something from a better source than Wiki.

Martin Luther's so-called 'heresy' succeeded because the time was right for a major reform in the Roman Catholic Church, not because there was anything special about it. His suggested reforms were common sense. Plus he had the backing of some powerful secular rulers, eager to minimize the power that the Pope had wielded over their realms. This had not been true for earlier 'heretics'.

Don't forget Guttenberg had something to do with Luther's success.

That's interesting - Gutenberg made books a lot easier to acquire, but surely there must have been an concurrent increase in the ability to read - how/why did that come about?

First, Europeans, who once knew how to make paper, rediscovered how to make paper. What to do with the paper? That question pushed the development of movable type. Once there was type, words could be put into larger circulation. Business changed as well because it was easier to keep records, etc.

There is some debate among academics as to how literate people were in earlier times. It is generally held that more people than once thought had minimal literacy. Shakespeare provides a way into the matter. The Anti-Avonians say that Shakespeare was illiterate but the pro-Shakespeare people discuss the curriculum of English grammar schools during his lifetime which was quite intellectual. He was born about 130 years after the invention of movable type. So, make a timeline between Gutenberg and Will's grade school years and things look just about right.

Recently, I wondered if Shakespeare had Hamlet attend Wittenberg whether because Luther taught at Wittenberg.