Harmony: Somebody remembered to pick me up the sweetest unicorn. Guess someone was feeling guilty for standing me up in tenth grade. Brad: What? Had to get her something. She sired me. Peaches: Sire-whipped.

'Beneath You'


We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good  

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


Amy - Apr 27, 2005 10:29:04 am PDT #7488 of 10002
Because books.

shouldn't you be able to establish narrative voice with something other than font?

In My Sister's Keeper, it might have been the production department/her editor's idea, not hers. (Although obviously I don't know that for sure.) Everyone narrated in first person, and there were at least six narrators. Trying to remember it, though, I thought she did include the narrator's name at the start of each chapter anyway.


Lilty Cash - Apr 27, 2005 10:39:56 am PDT #7489 of 10002
"You see? THAT's what they want. Love, and a bit with a dog."

Trying to remember it, though, I thought she did include the narrator's name at the start of each chapter anyway.

I'm pretty sure she did, at least the first time each one spoke. Which is why I thought the font thing was redundant. Her new one didn't have as many characters narrating, so I didn't notice it as much.


Atropa - Apr 27, 2005 11:11:46 am PDT #7490 of 10002
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

Last night I finally finished reading Last of the Dandies : The Scandalous Life and Escapades of Count D'Orsay. While I enjoyed it, I was a bit peeved by one conceit of the author: the book is filled with all sorts of excerpts in French, but none of them have been translated into English, anywhere in the book. I feel like a semi-literate moron for complaining about it, but I do think that it was a little presumptuous of the author to assume that all of his potential readers are bilingual.

The next book I'm carting around to read is Die Upon a Kiss by Barbara Hambly. Of course, it is only just now that I discover it's the fifth book in a series that I've never read. (I picked it up on a whim at Half-Price Books.)


Lilty Cash - Apr 27, 2005 11:16:59 am PDT #7491 of 10002
"You see? THAT's what they want. Love, and a bit with a dog."

I was naughty and let myself indulge at Borders. I wandered and picked up whatever caught my fancy. Ended up with 'Little Children' by Tom Perrotta, 'The Jane Austen Book Club' by Karen Joy Fowler, 'Behaving Like Adults' by Anna Maxted, and 'Girls in Trouble' by Caroline Leavitt. Whee!


Betsy HP - Apr 27, 2005 11:17:45 am PDT #7492 of 10002
If I only had a brain...

I do think that it was a little presumptuous of the author to assume that all of his potential readers are bilingual.

Ooooh, I HATE that.


§ ita § - Apr 27, 2005 11:19:26 am PDT #7493 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Are the excerpts crucial to the understanding of the plot? If so, jackass. At best, they'll still be naggy to many.


Scrappy - Apr 27, 2005 11:19:54 am PDT #7494 of 10002
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Is it a Britiish book, Jilli? I notice no translations of French in books published there--maybe because it's assumed everyone knows at least enough French to get by and to imply they don't is to insult the reader's intelligence? I have found it vastly frustrating in the past.


Connie Neil - Apr 27, 2005 11:20:15 am PDT #7495 of 10002
brillig

Die Upon a Kiss by Barbara Hambly

Oh, the mysteries set in early 1800s New Orleans. I read one of them but couldn't read the others because I couldn't shake my knowledge of what history was like for blacks in the south later in the century, I couldn't just immerse myself in the period, fascinating though it is.


Connie Neil - Apr 27, 2005 11:20:53 am PDT #7496 of 10002
brillig

Is it a Britiish book, Jilli? I notice no translations of French in books published there

Sayers is horrible for that.


Betsy HP - Apr 27, 2005 11:21:02 am PDT #7497 of 10002
If I only had a brain...

I admire those mysteries greatly, but they only get more and more heartbreaking.