Thursday, August 14

Books on the Brain

The other day I had a refreshing conversation with a fellow bibliophile, let's call her Beth because that is her name. I would love to say that it brought me back to thoughts (fantasies? ) about books however I was already there.

What I am reading now:

Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
-This is almost complete after weeks and weeks of reading faithfully over my lunch hours. This isn't the kind of book I could ever recommend to anyone because I have enjoyed reading it but to be honest: it is really long and tedious! Why should I hate it? Humour is mostly related to quotes from old Russian writers that I have never heard of, it is almost 1000 pages with itty-bitty writing, it was written in the 1800s and translated from Russian (I'm using this for the reason that absolutely everyone is ridiculously over-dramatic, the women are 'hysterical', everyone makes eyelid-drooping speeches.....) Why do I like it? No idea. But I will feel soooo good when I finish these last 90 pages.

Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of its Moods by Michael Wex
-Mostly this is much more linguistic based than it is funny. Looks funny, isn't really. If you like how languages evolve then this book might just be for you. Kvetch is Yiddish for "to complain" which is basically what the language seems to have evolved around, at least according to Wex.

Vandal Love by D.Y. Bechard
-Canadian lit I could actually not wait to open. So far I'm only a few chapters in but it has already surprised me quite a bit. The description focuses on the Herve family that alternately births runts and giants. I wasn't really expecting boxing to come into it, but hey, I'm open. I'm still excited but have no idea what to expect.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ive done something here to have you a few cents!

Beth said...

so i went to the library on tuesday and picked up:
People I Wanted to Be (a collection of short stories) and Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures as well as a movie called The Squid and the Whale. I'm excited for all of them. Thanks in part to our conversation :)