Still reading Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. Book 3 of Rivers of London series.

Though, technically I hadn’t read anything last two weeks to it’s more of “got back to reading”.

It’s still book 3, but I found it interesting how different it is from Dresden Files. There is no forces of nature with personal enmity with the protagonist (yet), it’s just (magic) crimes being solved by (magic) police. More of a police procedural then whatever genre Dresden Files is 😀

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?


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  • Libb@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    Almost finished ‘Les entretiens’ de Confucius (in French, because, well, I’m French). Started today: ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave’.

    Work of fiction waiting to be started: Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’, J.M. Barrie ‘The complete Peter Pan’.

      • Libb@piefed.social
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        3 days ago

        Thx.

        Yep, a lot of classics indeed. Moving back to print from ebooks a little over a year ago was also an opportunity to (re)read a lot of them as they can be found for dirt cheap, on the used market.

        The Douglass one was annotated by the previous owner (I don’t mind that, provided that doesn’t make the page unreadable) and the funny thing is that their notes so far are really not focusing on what I’m getting out of this very unsettling text. In its own way, next to the text itself, this person’s notes are another enriching encounter.

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            2 days ago

            Depends the kind of book you read and the shop you’re visiting but it can be relatively frequent, and sometimes it’s more interesting than the others.

    • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
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      3 days ago

      My French is very limited - probably straddling the border of upper beginner or lower intermediate - but I read through Barjavel’s La Nuit Des Temps and it was fuckin awesome.

      I don’t know whether it’s because it made me spend more time on each word, or whether translating it made me put my own spin on the story and made it more personal to me. Who knows. Banger of a book.

      • Libb@piefed.social
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        3 days ago

        My French is very limited - probably straddling the border of upper beginner or lower intermediate - but I read through Barjavel’s La Nuit Des Temps and it was fuckin awesome.

        Nice! It is a great book and, if one excepts Jules Verne, it also was the very first French science fiction author I ever read. The book made a huge impression on me too. So much so that I then read all of what Barjavel wrote, SF or otherwise.

        BTW, I would not consider anyone capable of reading a novel in a foreign language a beginner, even a ‘upper’ one. That too is awesome, if I dare say so ;)

        • PhobosAnomaly@feddit.uk
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          3 days ago

          Cheers friend. I follow a lot of Olly Richards’ stuff - a British polyglot - and got the idea from him after he recommended some books for learners of the language. I’m still not great - the lack of opportunity means I can’t really sharpen my skills - but I’m getting there. I read the French version of Twenty Thousand Leagues to my young son at bedtimes - and told him the story in English. I’m not sure whether it was the fantastic story that sent him to sleep or the frequent “ummmm” and “errrr” while I thought of the same expressions in English!

          I’m rather hoping to pick up Le Grand Secret soon, I’m not really a SF person but his writing is very good!

          • Libb@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            I read the French version of Twenty Thousand Leagues to my young son at bedtimes - and told him the story in English. I’m not sure whether it was the fantastic story that sent him to sleep or the frequent “ummmm” and “errrr” while I thought of the same expressions in English!

            That’s so great and nice :)

            You put a (happy) smile on my face for the rest of the day and it’s 8AM here.