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@verglas@books.theunseen.city ahh, oops, that makes sense! I took a sneak peek at Emily Wilson's introduction to her translation of the Iliad, and was happy to note that at least half the characters sounded familiar because I'd encountered them in The Odyssey. So heres hoping that'll help me through 😉

Finished reading it this morning before work! Wow, that went by faster than I expected 😮

The story flowed so well I didn't even realise it was passing by. Aks tells me that The Odyssey is very accessible compared to other works of the period, so that makes sense, but it makes me want more. Also this is the first time I've happily gone through a whole workful of iambic pentameter! (The original Odyssey was written in dactylic hexameter, but this translation is in iambic pentameter)

Now...on to the iliad? 🤔

So I started reading this! Posting late so I'm not sure of the exact date but it was either "yesterday" or "today". Read the intro first as a started, and then began the story itself on the subsequent day 😉

My Chennai reading :P I was thinking to take this to Bessy Reads, but that didn't end up happening. Anyway. This is the first book of Mark Haddon's that I've read that isn't The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time; weirdly I was surprised that he's written other books! I don't know how to compare the two since I read the other one long ago, but this was a nice "slice of life" read.

I'm getting some Crome Yellow vibes, not in the writing style or anything but in the way that and The Red House are both setting us down in a place and observing the people there. There's no "plot" that follows anything as neat as a beginning, development, and ending; the story moves forward merely because life does so, too.

I've never attempted to read any of Homer's works before, but I recently read an article about Emily Wilson (on Savs' recommendation) and now I'm interested! I like how her translation aims to avoid gratuitous complexity and avoid making things archaic just for the sake of sounding archaic—as she says in the article, "he didn’t sound archaic to the Greeks"!

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/09/18/emily-wilson-profile

I suddenly got onto a (re)reading spree of Paul Graham's essays, so when I realised it was a book I decided to read them in that form! A blazing fast read, although I regret not looking up the endnotes till I found them at the end of the book. I somehow assumed I'd reach them at the end of every chapter, but didn't realise I wasn't till I found them all at the end of the book instead >.<

This was such an absorbing read! I want to maybe read it again when I have more time to soak it all in, but even this time was good. Thanks Savs for recommending!

Forgot to mention that it was recommended by Savitri (who was a guest illustrator for Snipette) and also that we do have a big collection of Ray Bradbury stories at home, which I'm very familiar with and we keep quoting or referencing every so often—kind of like family lore, I guess?

Feels good now to be reading new, unfamiliar work by a very familiar author!

Started this about six days ago and it's going well so far! Recommended side dish: this Cubbon Reads post that talks about going slow and appreciating descriptions rather than plot:

cubbonreads.substack.com/p/secret-letter-2-what-do-you-read

This was a nice read. It felt like I was poking my nose into other peoples' affairs and you don't know how good that feels 😈

Started reading this on the bus en route to Salem (to catch a Kodaikanal night/early morning train). This is the only one book I'm carrying, since I tend to not get much time to read there, so let's see how it goes...

Discovered this book when I was checking Bookwyrm moderation notifications! (I had to decide whether to approve the domain). Added to my e-reader, and now I'm reading it under the lamp at night. It's my first J-novel and I like it :)

My first and last reading sessions of this book were both after midnight which is weirdly appropriate :P

This story kind of reminded me of the true crime podcast Serial, which follows the conviction of Adnan Syed (who eventually got released, towards the end of the podcast or after it was released I think)

I haven't read any biographies or autobiographies in a while, and this was nice. I liked the fact that it's not linear; instead Nadja is actually taking us through her own process of discovering more about her family and collecting information for the book.

In some ways, this book is also its own "The Making Of __"!

I've seen it come up so many times, so at this point I can't not read The Priory of the Orange Tree!