@lunalein@bookstodon When I was a young teen I read a book by Ellen Kindt McKenzie called Taash and the Jesters. Many years later I searched for it (pre Amazon days mail order) and purchased it. The book was just as satisfying.
@CuriousMagpie@lunalein@bookstodon Cool! I was just thinking about that book a few days ago. I should probably hunt down a copy as well. Glad to hear it held up.
@CuriousMagpie@bookstodon i don’t think i realized how bizarre the pacing was back then! and how many major plot points are described in the frame story rather than dramatized
@lunalein@bookstodon Lost Horizon by James Hilton. I read it in high school and liked it but couldn’t really understand how the character would be tempted to stay in Shangri La. Read it again about 35 years later and saw it very differently.
@lunalein@bookstodon
Elric: Song of the Black Sword has some of the most (for me) evocative passages in literature. My first tattoo was Stormbringer.
And I can always, ALWAYS revisit our old friends at 221B Baker St. Over the years, they’ve taught me more and more about human nature (even looking past Conan Doyle’s inherent and increasingly obvious chauvinism).
@lunalein@bookstodon The Iliad and Odyssey I dip back into regularly. It's a continuous process. my understanding of both has changed. Reread Brideshead Revisited after 20 years. Life experience really changed how it hit.
@lunalein@bookstodon Jeugdboek dat ik las toen ik ongeveer 12j was en was totaal ondersteboven.
Terug gelezen bij het voorlezen aan mijn kinderen en even teleurgesteld als zij... was niet half zo spannend en mysterieus als verwacht...
@lunalein@bookstodon Joyce's Ulysses: first time around, certain sections made me understand, based on Joyce's brilliant ability to capture dialogue and language in general, why so many people have called it the greatest novel ever. Revisiting it ten years later, I still appreciated it, but was less enamored in general. (However, another instance, involving reading it aloud with a group, was a real joy, and different, of course, from reading it on one's own in silence.) #books#literature
@lunalein@bookstodon I'm re-reading Julian May's Saga of the Pleistocene Exile. It holds up quite well, though it does make me realize that omniscient third person seems to be out of style now. #books#bookstodon#reading
@lunalein@bookstodon I re read John Fowles’s The Magus with a 30 year gap & it sort of held up… but I had to sort of mentally role-play as a teen again
Walden. I've read it a handful of times. Love it.
Desert Solitude, by Ed Abbey. My favorite book of all time. I reread every few years.
From my youth. They still hold up so well…
Starship Troopers (I know; very different from Walden)
Most anything by Jack London or Maupassant or Poe or Lovecraft
Recent reread:
The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Just so incredibly good.
@tw@bookstodon@lunalein Huysmans A Rebours is a book that constantly gives up new pleasures & I like more every time I read it. Lautreamont’s Maldoror is the same.
@lunalein@bookstodon@tw both turn of the century French novels, A Rebours is a descent into sensual oblivion & lonely decadence; Maldoror is just a strange, surreal & evil tale - very influential to the actual Surrealists that came after. Neither particularly ‘easy’ to read but beautiful to dip back into & perhaps ONLY make true sense after multiple reads
@REEL@bookstodon@lunalein@tw Maldoror was quite the experience when first read as a teenager, esp. when going in blind. Thanks for bringing it up, will loan and read again
@lunalein@bookstodon I recently reread A Confederacy of Dunces after about 30 years. Not only did it hold up, but it was FAR more hilariously upsetting now that I've lived so much more life.
@lunalein@bookstodon Well worth the effort, and in today's climate it's probably more important than the comic novel it was when it was written. It's a great one, and really unlike anything else. I suppose, since it's filled with quirky characters, it could be compared to Carl Hiaasen or the like, but it's got more meat on the bone. And hilariously, there isn't much of a forward-moving plot. Lots of things happen, but with little or no result. It's like an incredibly politically incorrect episode of Seinfeld written by someone with an eye fopr detail and an uncompromising vocabulary.
Add comment