makelar | Reading

samijoe_13 posting in

addme

Name:Sami

Age:30's

I mostly post about:A little of everything I guess.

My hobbies are:Writing, Reading

My posting schedule tends to be: Pretty sporadic.

When I add people, my deal breaker is:If you're only reaching out when you need something, and never reciprocating support or interest in what's going on with me.

Before adding me, you should know: Nothing really. I like to think I'm a pretty laid back person. I'm a good listener and I'd be happy to meet some new people here.

Current Mood: nervous

marycatelli posting in

books

Sanders' Union Fourth Reader by Charles Walton Sanders

Despite the titles, this is more recent than his New Fourth Reader. It repeats three or four readings from the earlier works, not all of them from the fourth reader.

Interesting nowadays chiefly for the views of edifying works and science of the time.

marycatelli posting in

books

To Tame a Land by Louis L'Amour

You can do a lot of things in Westerns. This one is a bildungsroman.

( Read more... )

stonepicnicking_okapi posting in

endings

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spiralsheep posting in

endings

Outside was the beach, somewhere between the darkness and the light, and nothing was moving, neither in the air nor on the land nor on the water. Even the white waves rolling in to the sands seemed to me to be motionless.

marycatelli posting in

books

The School Reader. Third Book: Containing Progressive Lessons in Reading, Exercises in Articulation and Inflection, Definitions, by Charles Walton Sanders

The third book is still focused on reading. Very few of the pieces come with bylines. Still, it's taking on the aspect of the later readers, with the focus on good readings, edifying and instruction.

May be chiefly of interest in view of what they selected in the era.

labingi posting in

books

This is the first self-published book I have ever read a good chunk of without realizing it was self-published. [EDIT: This is not a dig at self-published writing. I am self-published and hope my books are roughly comparable to traditional in quality, but it is a mountain to climb to do all the traditional publisher work yourself on your own dime, so I'm impressed when a work does it, and I want to uplift that it's possible.] The book is as well written as a number of recent traditionally published books; it’s well edited, proofread, designed, nice cover art. It looks professional.

But in retrospect, it had to be self-published because it’s a Silmarillion fan fic with the names changed, and a traditional publisher wouldn’t take it for fear of being sued. (Not really spoilery: this is clear quite early.) Its premise (I’ll just render this in Tolkien terms) is one of the exiled Noldor returns to the Undying Lands after dying (?) in Middle-earth. That’s a fantastic premise for a fic! With some alterations, it’s a great premise for an original story. That’s why I bought it! I don’t think it fully exploits this premise, though. It’s a goldmine for psychological and philosophical development, and it has fairly little of either, in my opinion.

It does have a great original addition in the idea of a male and female elf who are well-matched “professional/vocational” rivals to such a degree they can be almost interchanged with each other. That concept may be the story’s strongest, and again, I felt it wasn’t fully exploited.

But some of my discontents are discontents with the source material (The Silmarillion): 1) the style is, for my taste, too expository—too much “telling,” not enough “showing”; 2) I just don’t get the concept of the Undying Lands on any deep level, because my cosmology is very different from Tolkien’s. Goddard is, I think, trying to follow Tolkien here, and part of my difficulty suspending disbelief may come from my just not getting it. I give her marks, on the whole, for showing respect for Tolkien’s work and not altering his Elves in any bizarre ways.

One the whole, I find the book conceptually fascinating but not developed deeply enough to fully engage me.

Spoilery review at my DW.