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Elanna
Elanna is on page 73 of Dialogue Books A History of the World in Six Plagues How Contagion, Class and Captivity Shape Us, from Cholera to Covid-19.
I have the utmost respect for people who publish in a foreign language, but here sometimes words seem matched randomly, and entire passages don't make any sense.
It reminds me of the crab-like diplomat in a Culture novel whose speech could only be partially understood by musing on it after a couple of hours, while sleeping on it.
Is a history writer allowed to use cryptic poetic language?
Jul 29, 2025 05:02AM Add a comment
Dialogue Books A History of the World in Six Plagues How Contagion, Class and Captivity Shape Us, from Cholera to Covid-19.

Elanna
Elanna is on page 142 of 336 of How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
Do they edit books anymore??? The same paragraph on Shakespearian quotes is replicated, nearly verbatim, in two successive chapters.
Also, so many arbitrary assumptions and such blindness to most non-English language literature and literary theory. How can you go on for pages about the eternal identity of all stories and forget to name Pessoa?
Dec 30, 2024 04:16PM Add a comment
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines

Elanna
Elanna is on page 184 of 284 of The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English
There is a great bibliography organised by chapter and sub-themes at the end of this book. Also, it all started with @OEWordhord on social networks. Approaching rabbit hole entrance in 3... 2... 1...
Jul 28, 2024 04:12AM Add a comment
The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English

Elanna
Elanna is on page 100 of 288 of A Beautiful Nothing
Fumous, with a touch of exaggerated fussing around nothing, and the language is quite poor for Joyce's literary translator... we'll see.
Jun 17, 2024 07:56AM Add a comment
A Beautiful Nothing

Elanna
Elanna is on page 85 of 284 of The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English
It toom me time to warm to this book. I had, maybe, excessive expectations. I trudged along the first couple of chapters, and I was rewarded with much more fun once I got into yhe slow rythm and I accepted that not all of its explanations and word-hords are interesting to me. Great fun tracing modern words back to their Old English roots, though! Like sēamestre/seamstress, or lœfdyge/the breadmaker/lady!
May 01, 2024 02:09PM Add a comment
The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English

Elanna
Elanna is starting The Thirteenth Tale
Oh, how irksome to be reminded every other paragraph that the protagonist is a bibliophile woman, socially awkward, with a loving bookworm father and a mysterious wealthy old intellectual choosing her for some mysterious bookish task just because she is oh so special...
How many novels have I started that have this exact plot?
How many strong-willed, dying old ladies or old gentlemen do live in England, pray explain?
Mar 17, 2024 03:38AM Add a comment
The Thirteenth Tale

Elanna
Elanna is on page 27 of 160 of Eliot's Book of Bookish Lists: A Sparkling Miscellany of Literary Lists
Usually I would find these kind of "impulse-purchase-shelf" books quite dreary. This one is a bright exception, or my watch has stopped XD
Aug 30, 2023 03:49AM Add a comment
Eliot's Book of Bookish Lists: A Sparkling Miscellany of Literary Lists

Elanna
Elanna is on page 74 of 143 of Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act
For such a famous thinker, to mistake the meaning of Labour Day as a celebration of Total Work sounds like sheer bad faith (pun intended).
Ok, I started reading this with an open mind, but evidently I am too much of a heathen, or he was too much of a reactionary... (hello, 1933 essay where he tried to link National-Socialist politics and the Church's latest & greatest Encyclica...
Aug 27, 2023 03:26AM Add a comment
Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act

Elanna
Elanna is on page 74 of 143 of Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act
As an inveterate atheist I respect who can find meaning in their faith; I just won't set aside critical thinking for a leap of faith; history taught us better. Why cannot most Catholic thinkers respect disagreement? Is it my fault if someone CANNOT see the intrinsic value of being human without transcendence?
Aug 27, 2023 03:25AM Add a comment
Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act

Elanna
Elanna is on page 74 of 143 of Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act
I like his deep poetic insight into the value of human beings other than their usefulness to the production machine, but the logic gets quite fuzzy when linking dignity to faith and the spiritual value of leisure to worship. His arguments feel like he bult a careful construction until now and then... ooops there are pillars missing all over this storey.
Aug 27, 2023 03:22AM Add a comment
Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act

Elanna
Elanna is 20% done with The Quantum Universe (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)
This is one of the first popularisation books about quantum physics I read, that attempts to introduce the public to some of the actual complexity and "uneasiness" of quantum theories.
Aug 27, 2023 03:12AM Add a comment
The Quantum Universe (And Why Anything That Can Happen, Does)

Elanna
Elanna is on page 74 of 143 of Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act
Finished Leisure the Basis of Culture. Well, it is a powerful indictment of modern totalitarian utilitarianism, but he used some of the worst fuzzy logic I have ever met when trying to tie it all up nicely into the role of worship as the sole vehicle of celebration of human dignity.
Aug 26, 2023 07:59AM Add a comment
Leisure: The Basis of Culture: Including the Philosophical Act

Elanna
Elanna is on page 429 of 1088 of Infinite Jest
I had started this book in full academic thesis madness, and boy was that a mistake. I kept feeling a longing for it in my guts, and now here we are again, now that i have time and brains for it. And boy is it some satisfaction...
Aug 26, 2023 07:54AM Add a comment
Infinite Jest

Elanna
Elanna is 80% done with Trouble with Lichen
Ok, I have mixed feelings about this book, but the titles of the different British papers were spot on 😆😆😆
Feb 17, 2023 11:01PM Add a comment
Trouble with Lichen

Elanna
Elanna is on page 200 of 432 of The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
A nice advertisement of xenophobia on the part of Bree's folks. They don't want any foreigners, they want to be left alone. How quaint and lovable, thinking that borders are drawn by God and that your folks are not the result of mixing. ffs
Feb 13, 2023 10:55PM Add a comment
The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

Elanna
Elanna is on page 200 of 432 of The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)
Eowyn has clearly lacked that strong male presence in her life, eh... One woman needs some vitamin D, therefore she has a death wish, that's why she reclaims a place in the world of her own. Another is a dimwit, totally unaware of the gravity of the moment. Then we have the love interest: invisible, idealised and SILENT, as women shoul be, innit. At least Galadriel makes for some dignity. Indeed she beats it...
Feb 02, 2023 12:14AM Add a comment
The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

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