Member: DLSmithies

Thanks. I notice you're reading some Gogol -- any translation suggestions to make? Also, I notice you list Dostoevsky; have you read Leonard Tsypkin's "Summer in Baden-Baden?"

Jim

posted by JimElkins at 10:50 am (EST) on Aug 2, 2009

Thanks Debs!

Yes, there actually would be room if my spouse would let me - but she likes having furniture & tables & trinkets & chairs & room to walk (dunno what her problem is!) - so I'm afraid I'm limited to housing roughly 1,500 in the house (500 of which are children's books in our kids room) so really all I get to display is 1,000 or so (sickening); the rest are in boxes in the garage.

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 8:13 pm (EST) on Jul 15, 2009

Hey that's really cool of you to say that. I appreciate it a lot. I just try to entertain and have as much fun as possible in whatever I do here in LT.

You're in to Agatha Christie, eh? My mom, er, I should say "mum" right? since I'm conversing w/a Brit barrister?, gave me one of her Christie omnibus's awhile back, Five Complete Novels. I know very little of her work other than it's regarded highly. One of the books in the omnibus is titled, N or M? which sounds intriguing for some reason. Have you read it?

Pleasure making your acquaintance,
Brent

posted by EnriqueFreeque at 8:25 pm (EST) on Jul 5, 2009

> what's that they say about great minds?

Hahaha, I wish I could believe it! Maybe it's just a Leeds thing - I grew up there and Kafka, Camus, Dostoevsky hit the mail on the head. I can't see my recommendations any more, so perhaps I'd better put them back. Thanks for dropping me the note!

posted by chrisharpe at 10:43 am (EST) on Apr 29, 2009

Glad to hear you agree re: Can You Forgive Her! I sometimes wonder if perhaps it's a sexist thing, and if I might be more inclined towards appreciating Alice if I shared her gender? I think it's just frustrating because she makes these bold independent moves and then takes refuge in her whiny "I cannot stay in the room if we're to discuss this". She sorta reminds me of Dorothea Brooke in Middlemarch, who also drove me CRAZY, what with her treating James Chettham like crap...also, to a lesser extent, Emma Woodhouse in Austen's Emma, but she has quite a bit of redeeming charm to compensate for her constant nosy wrong-headedness.

I had to read Barchester Towers for a class, and found it much less annoying. It's fairly comic, although I have to admit I wasn't really interested in the maneuverings of the conservative vs. liberal religious groups, so...I dunno, I keep reading in reviews how Trollope is so worldy and witty. I think I was expecting maybe a Charles Dickens of the upper classes, and he's certainly not that. I don't even know if there is such a thing as an upper-class Dickens, although Fielding and Smollett and maybe Thackeray come closer. And I recall reading somewhere about the sequel to Can You Forgive Her (entitled Phineas Finn)--and I don't think it received rave reviews

posted by uncultured at 1:21 am (EST) on Feb 25, 2009

Thanks for adding me to your interesting libraries list, DLSmithies. I see we're both Marx, Dostoevsky, and Fourier-reading law students. After you've read Walzer's book on Just War, I would recommend you have a look at Talal Asad's lectures, "On Suicide Bombing", which provide an interesting critique.

posted by hmzsiddiqui at 2:33 am (EST) on Dec 25, 2007

When my sister was working on her PhD ten years ago, she was reading through the debate in Pravda and elsewhere in the Soviet Union from the 1920s about whether jazz was "bourgeois decadence" or "people's music", though I forget what conclusion the comrades ultimately came to. Probably the former.

posted by chrisbrooke at 7:11 am (EST) on Dec 2, 2007

But how did your lawschool friend know that you were the kind of person who really really wanted a copy of The Theory of the Four Movements? (Sounds like a friend worth holding on to, in any case.)

posted by chrisbrooke at 6:14 am (EST) on Dec 2, 2007

it's all a bit embarassing frankly - too distant a connection to have any justifiable emotional significance, but it has always been a rather big thing, because granny cares about it so much.
now, i really must stop procrastinating.

posted by theagoodsell at 7:15 am (EST) on Aug 27, 2007

kind of.... mortality is presently weighing rather heavy on my granny, so have inherited the two box files and heap of books that pass for the family archives - all relates to the eternal task of protecting fanny brawne's reputation (she was my granny's great-gran) - no one may ever suggest she actually slept with keats, and if anyone does dare to suggest otherwise they shall have to fight granny about it, and she's a mean shot with an eccles cake. consequently have come into possession, or at least guardianship, of an awful lot of rather lovely old books about keats and fanny. Alas, granny has not passed on her collection of rock-hard pastry items, so have no idea how to fight for the Reputation when I eventually must.

posted by theagoodsell at 6:31 pm (EST) on Aug 25, 2007

thanks; now, if only i had time to read all of them! (considering that i'm a grad student in theory, i really can't figure out why i don't...)

for my part, i'm envious that you were at magdalen. i spent a summer at LMH once and used to picnic at magdalen every time i had the chance.

posted by mgallagher at 10:29 pm (EST) on Aug 20, 2007

Hi there,

thank you for the nice message! Yes, we share a very rare and nice book! Well, at the time I had to read it for university it wasn't so nice ;-)

I've seen you also have a couple of books by Robert Dahl that I read... I suppose you study/have studied politics, don't you? I need to go back to those books, they're very interesting.

Cheers, Gio

posted by Gio at 5:20 pm (EST) on Aug 6, 2007

Hi!

Thanks for the invitation to the 007 group! This inspires me to go back and reread these, as it has been at least 15 years -- I'm looking forward to revisiting them and to participating in the discussions!

All best.

posted by pmowrey at 8:58 pm (EST) on Aug 3, 2007

Thanks for the invite to 007. I've read them so long ago, I'll have to reread.

posted by Cateline at 11:00 pm (EST) on Jul 19, 2007

debs,

Thanks very much for joining the Proust Group

David Perrings
Danville, California

posted by dperrings at 4:43 pm (EST) on Jul 15, 2007

Thanks for the Bond group invite; I'm looking forward to it.

MIke

posted by burnit99 at 4:28 pm (EST) on Jul 8, 2007

Yes

posted by D.J.Powell at 3:49 pm (EST) on Apr 16, 2007

Thanks for the welcome! This cataloguing is addictive isn't it? Isn't it surprising how few of us there are here? I intend to bully a few local friends into swelling Leeds' LibraryThing prescence...

posted by CarlGreatbatch at 1:32 pm (EST) on Jan 15, 2007

Hello Debs,

Funny seeing you on this site! What are you up to now that you have left the ivory towers of Oxford? I'm working back in Singapore.

I bumped into you here because we are apparently the only two people to own copies of a Very Short Introduction to Existentialism. So an existential meeting indeed!

Caleb

posted by liulibrary at 2:43 pm (EST) on Dec 25, 2006

gormenghast is fantastic indeed, though I will admit I was introduced to it by the tv series. i had goldfish called clarice and cora for years, for their tendency to have threateningly low levels of personality.

i am doing marx for fhs, i think. i would be if finals were happening you see. this is the trick, you see, denial.

if you learn to spin seven plates at once, i'm sure that will stand you in excellent stead when it comes to actually working as a lawyer - if nothing else, you can impress everyone into agreeing with whatever it is you are doing. what kind of law are you heading for?

x

posted by theagoodsell at 5:04 pm (EST) on Nov 9, 2006

Well, I suppose I did once suggest that you might find Seeing Like A State interesting. I'm not sure I'll take any responsibility for anything else, though.

And it's nice to see you on LibraryThing.

posted by chrisbrooke at 6:57 am (EST) on Nov 5, 2006

heya

i'm actually in Rad's old room - Alex is living in Alma Place with Charlie, so I stole her room. I am relishing in my ability to cook, after I came so close to losing it...

How's life outside the bubble?

x

posted by theagoodsell at 9:02 am (EST) on Oct 30, 2006