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I just started "De Bello Gallico"/"Commentaries of the Gallic Wars" by Julius Ceasar in the original Latin.......problem is I dont know any Latin... This might take awhile :D
"Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unum incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appelantur".
I think I have the first sentence figured out; "Gaul is divided overall into 3 parts, the first inhabited by Belgians, another by the Aquitani, and third those who speak Celtic, who our men call Gauls."
Any Latin speakers out there ?
Its actually pretty fascinating... problem is it takes me an hour to read a few sentences and then I'm not always sure I get the drift of whats being said. "Nostra Galli appalentur" I thought at first meant "the gauls who our men attack". This Latin stuff is tricky, lots of meanings for one word.
"Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unum incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appelantur".
I think I have the first sentence figured out; "Gaul is divided overall into 3 parts, the first inhabited by Belgians, another by the Aquitani, and third those who speak Celtic, who our men call Gauls."
Any Latin speakers out there ?
Its actually pretty fascinating... problem is it takes me an hour to read a few sentences and then I'm not always sure I get the drift of whats being said. "Nostra Galli appalentur" I thought at first meant "the gauls who our men attack". This Latin stuff is tricky, lots of meanings for one word.
Just finishing up Among the Living by Timothy Long, zombie fiction and have several anthologies of 50's pulp science fiction I am going thru. That is the one nice thing about an e-reader, you can get anthologies pretty cheap. I'm also occasionally reading HP Lovecraft.
I normally read WW2 history but the above is pretty mindless reading, which is nice to unwind after a tedious day at work. That and a pipe.
Mike
I normally read WW2 history but the above is pretty mindless reading, which is nice to unwind after a tedious day at work. That and a pipe.
Mike
"The Man in the Glass Booth" by Robert Shaw.
Shaw was a wonderful under the radar writer but is best remembered as Captain Quint in "Jaws." However, I will always remember him as the greatest actor in the English speaking world for his performances in "A Man for All Seasons," "Young Winston," - (nobody ate better than Shaw on screen. Watching him have breakfast with Simon Ward was astonishing) - "From Russia With Love" and as the heaviest of heavies in the original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three."
Shaw was a wonderful under the radar writer but is best remembered as Captain Quint in "Jaws." However, I will always remember him as the greatest actor in the English speaking world for his performances in "A Man for All Seasons," "Young Winston," - (nobody ate better than Shaw on screen. Watching him have breakfast with Simon Ward was astonishing) - "From Russia With Love" and as the heaviest of heavies in the original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three."
@rickpal14 Great book by one of the legends of SF! Two of my favorites of his are Stranger In A Strange Land and Door Into Summer. Read both when I was in high school (he was still alive at the time, as were most of the dinosaurs}, and they remain favorites today....some 50 years later!
I just made the horrible mistake of reading "The Forest of Hands and Teeth", partly because it sounded like a very original horror novel idea ("The Village" meets "Night of the Living Dead") and partly because it has one of the best and most evocative titles I've ever found. It was very well written but I hated every character, and came away thinking I am entirely too middle-aged and too male for the intended audience of this book. The lead character was like Ally McBeal dropped into zombieland, and spent the ENTIRE book obsessing about her personal life and her relationships and whether she was going to get the guy she wanted or not, and being incredibly self-centered and selfish, even when her village was under attack and everyone she had ever known or (in theory) cared about as being devoured by undead.
Unless the intention was to make the reader desperate to see the lead character become zombie chow by the end, it was clearly not a book written to appeal to anyone who isn't a teenage girl. :roll:
Unless the intention was to make the reader desperate to see the lead character become zombie chow by the end, it was clearly not a book written to appeal to anyone who isn't a teenage girl. :roll:
I'm in the middle of the Vampire Chronicles as of right now but just finished the Song of Fire and Ice series.
Lord of Bows. It is a Ghengis Khan historical fiction.
@checotah. Interesting that you area reading the Thomas Covenant series. I read the first two trilogies, and the first book of the final. I haven't gone back to it since, so maybe it is getting close to time!
@checotah. Interesting that you area reading the Thomas Covenant series. I read the first two trilogies, and the first book of the final. I haven't gone back to it since, so maybe it is getting close to time!
Just started Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clark. I quite like it, so far. It's the sort of read you can't put down. Light a bowl, cup of tea... And it's hours later. I hope you seek out this book. And, if you do, that you enjoy it as much as I am.
Copied from inside dust jacket...
" The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the war with Napoleon, and it is hundreds of years since practical magic faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history suddenly discover that one practicing magician still remains: the reclusive Mr. Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey. Challenged to demonstrate his powers, Norrell causes the statues of York Cathedral to speak and sing, and sends a thrill through the country. The magician proceeds to London , trailed by excited rumors, where he raises a beautiful young woman from the dead and finally enters the war, summoning an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French.
Yet Norrell is soon challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome, and daring, Strange is the opposite of the cautious, fussy Norrell. Still, Norrell agrees to take Strange as a pupil, and the young magician joins England's cause, enduring the rigors of Wellington's campaign in Portugal to lend the army his supernatural skill on the battlefield.
But as Strange's powers grow, so do his ambitions. He becomes obsessed with the founder of English magic, a shadowy twelfth-century figure known as the Raven King. In his increasingly reckless pursuit of the wildest, most perilous forms of magic, Strange risks sacrificing mot only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else that He holds dear."
Copied from inside dust jacket...
" The year is 1806. England is beleaguered by the war with Napoleon, and it is hundreds of years since practical magic faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history suddenly discover that one practicing magician still remains: the reclusive Mr. Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey. Challenged to demonstrate his powers, Norrell causes the statues of York Cathedral to speak and sing, and sends a thrill through the country. The magician proceeds to London , trailed by excited rumors, where he raises a beautiful young woman from the dead and finally enters the war, summoning an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French.
Yet Norrell is soon challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome, and daring, Strange is the opposite of the cautious, fussy Norrell. Still, Norrell agrees to take Strange as a pupil, and the young magician joins England's cause, enduring the rigors of Wellington's campaign in Portugal to lend the army his supernatural skill on the battlefield.
But as Strange's powers grow, so do his ambitions. He becomes obsessed with the founder of English magic, a shadowy twelfth-century figure known as the Raven King. In his increasingly reckless pursuit of the wildest, most perilous forms of magic, Strange risks sacrificing mot only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else that He holds dear."
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