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cduggles said:
I finally took a few minutes to read a little Sherlock Holmes. It was really hard to put it down. ☹ I miss reading more.
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recently recommended to me. i told the recommender "no," but i'll go ahead and read some anyway. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes an ok selection?



"I close my eyes, and she’s there with me, suddenly, without warning, it must be the smell of the soap. I put my face against the soft hair at the back of her neck and breathe her in, baby powder and child’s washed flesh and shampoo, with an undertone, the faint scent of urine. This is the age she is when I’m in the bath. She comes back to me at different ages. This is how I know she’s not really a ghost. If she were a ghost she would be the same age always."

"Sometime in the eighties they invented pig balls, for pigs who were being fattened in pens. Pig balls were large colored balls; the pigs rolled them around with their snouts. The pig marketers said this improved their muscle tone; the pigs were curious, they liked to have something to think about."

"Behind my closed eyes thin white dancers flit gracefully among the trees, their legs fluttering like the wings of held birds."

"Lily of the Valley. Perfume is a luxury, she must have some private source. I breathe it in, thinking I should appreciate it. It’s the scent of prepubescent girls, of the gifts young children used to give their mothers, for Mother’s Day; the smell of white cotton socks and white cotton petticoats, of dusting powder, of the innocence of female flesh not yet given over to hairiness and blood."


i'm off to a slow start this year. attempting to read Waves by virginia woolf while on vacation sharing a condo with eight other people. that's fine. i have a slow period every year. always due to the same reason: reading something requiring a level of concentration beyond what my setting permits. will catch up quick. read 38 books last year. goal is 42 this year.
 
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word. added to the list. is good to read outside what i normally would. shouldn't turn a recommendation down. will be able to surprise the recommender by saying i read it. though i don't lie when reporting back. don't lie, but, depending on the person, sometimes i avoid saying what i thought overall and simply pick a positive on which to comment. especially if it's the first time they've given me a recommendation.

no one beats @Kenickie. without her, who knows what musicians i'd listen to or authors i'd read. life without duras, angela carter, and grimes.
 
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weird that wikipedia lists it as the first published collection of short stories but goodreads has it titled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes #3).
 
oh my did i enjoy The Handmaid's Tale. gives 1984 a real run for its money. a feminine 1984? that's good stuff. i wish there hadn't been that symposium bit at the end, but whatever. i read it because the sequel is next month's bookclub choice. that's not until march 29. so in addition to not wanting to read it too far before the discussion, i also don't want to risk an inferior sequel dampening the glow of my enjoyment of the original.

what should i read by atwood next?

ok, Alias Grace was available as an ebook via chicago library and Surfacing was available through cincinnati as an ebook. so i have both. i get Alias Grace for 21 days and Surfacing for 14 days. i can read them both in 14 days, oh, maybe a trip will mess that up but maybe not. i kinda wanna read Alias Grace first. i try not to know anything about a book before reading it, but fucking goodreads shows the star ratings so prominently. and Alias Grace is a full star above Surfacing. i placed a hold on Surfacing as an ebook in chicago's system and i'm next in line. so in case i can't read them both in the next 14 days i'm covered. plus it's past midnight so i really do get 14 days. i should be fine. starting Alias Grace now.

fucking 3-meo-pce. point is i just finished The Handmaid's Tale and really enjoyed it. i'm reading Alias Grace starting now. and unless something interrupts my plans, Surfacing after that. then sometime in mid-to-late march i'm gonna read whatever the sequel to the The Handmaid's Tale is called. i might have to pay for that because even in hardcopy i'm like 212th in line. i hope my mother caves and buys it first so i can borrow it from her. unlikely, i showed my hand when i said it was next month's bookclub selection.

wow do i love me e-reader. finish a book a 12:30am and not only get to immediately start another by the same author for free, but have choices on which title.

i wonder how long after you move before your previous library system ejects you. i would have figured a year, but i'm past that. what other cities have good library systems? i could establish false residency to get a card and pin.
 
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congrats! is a good feeling.

how did you find it? there are sites specifically dedicated to that, but i've never found them useful. usually i google different things i can remember about it until i get lucky.
 
I'm about 3/4 of the way through Blitzed: drugs in the third Reich, it's really interesting, about how the Nazis basically fuelled their rampage through Europe with pervitin (methamphetamine tablets).

Edit: I actually downloaded the PDF of blitzed from academia.org for free if anyone's interested

Before that I re-read the magicians guild trilogy by Trudi Canavan, if you enjoy reading fantasy I highly recommend Trudi Canavan, think that's the third time I've read them now

Peace
 
finished Alias Grace. feel very fucked with. half way through it starts up this weird hollywood plot line, and then when the big moment comes it goes bizarro. it indirectly addresses the reader. calls itself a story. i'm not sure if i missed the slip, or if the joke's that there isn't one. seems to end by saying, "you like it fucked up, don't you?"

if i had better self-control i'd sit with it. i really wanna google as see what other people are saying. i wonder how much of it is in my head. but there are lines like ...

"... she began to cry, and when I asked her she was was doing that, she said it was because I was to have a happy ending, and it was just like a book; and I wondered what book she'd been reading."

followed twenty or so pages later by her saying the more fucked up she makes her story, the more he gets some release from hearing it. and the middle of the story is some cry porn. seems like she's pointing at the reader through the fourth wall.

book even talks about herrings. went back and looked; simon calls her a red herring at the start. "And he says, Let us begin at the beginning."

being fucked with for sure. it talks twice about bible being ordained by god but written by man, and the inaccuracies that result. it references Lady of the Lake a ton of times. which i haven't read. grace fills us in that there's a madwoman who throws herself off a cliff due to sorrow, and that's the juicy bit. feel like it's kinda doing whatever that german horror movie remade almost shot for shot in america is doing. with more feminist intent. altman's 3 Women style. there's a quote in there about the death of a beautiful women being good reading. by edgar allen poe. and then it almost being the story of three women killed by man, only one gets a magic ending instead.


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googled and my interpretation is not out of left field. surprised there are not people talking about altman's 3 Women, but google results are skewed by synopses calling it the story of three women. i'm sure someone calling it out is buried in there. the majority of readers understand that they are being taken for a ride. the quilt bit. a story being strung together. ok.

will read the author's afterword tomorrow.

i really like The Handmaid's Tale except for the symposium ending, which is easier to detach from story. while being self-referential is cool, i hope atwood doesn't end all her novels by pulling up the curtain.
 
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SlowandFastandSlow said:
I'm about 3/4 of the way through Blitzed: drugs in the third Reich, it's really interesting, about how the Nazis basically fuelled their rampage through Europe with pervitin (methamphetamine tablets).

Edit: I actually downloaded the PDF of blitzed from academia.org for free if anyone's interested

Before that I re-read the magicians guild trilogy by Trudi Canavan, if you enjoy reading fantasy I highly recommend Trudi Canavan, think that's the third time I've read them now

Peace
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I heard an interview with the author of that book on a radio program a while back, it was quite interesting I thought. Both Hitler's own experiences with drugs (cocaine for sinus problems and oxycodone for pain relief, etc.) and the influence of methamphetamine in the Nazi officer corps and rank-and-file

Currently I've been checking out this book I stumbled upon randomly in a used bookstore recently, it's called "Megalithic Mysteries" and it's basically an illustrated guide to prehistoric sites in Europe and North Africa
 
finished Flowers in the Attic. not on par with Ada, or Ardor. while i can understand why it has cult status, was surprised it’s serial fiction of writing quality to suit.

still, a fucked up coming of age tale with a female protagonist and author. didn’t hate it.
 
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