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Has anyone read this.... ?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Sun 08 May , 2016 10:53 pm
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I'll add it to my list. :) Al recommended a couple others, and Ber recommended one.

Have you read this one, Jude?

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Sun 08 May , 2016 11:26 pm
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Are you referring to Stardust?

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Sun 08 May , 2016 11:28 pm
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No, I'm referring to my original book, Ocean at the End of the Lane.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Sun 08 May , 2016 11:46 pm
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No, but I just reserved it at my library :D

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 12:07 am
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Good! I should do the same with the ones that were recommended to me.

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 12:42 am
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I read Gaiman's Neverwhere recently. It's good, a darker, more adult rabbit hole.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 1:34 am
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That was one that was recommended. :)

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 1:02 pm
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I loved The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It's probably my second favorite of Neil Gaiman's books (after Good Omens, which he co-wrote with Terry Pratchett). I like Stardust and Neverwhere, but never particularly liked American Gods. It's a clever idea, but I think it just goes on too long for me - because I do like a short story he wrote along the same lines. Or maybe it's just because I don't particularly care about any of the characters.
[SHOW]
I don't usually look for mythological references (unless they're glaringly obviously, as in Gaiman's American Gods books), but yes, I expect they could be maiden, mother and crone in The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 2:15 pm
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I am still struggling to like Pratchett, so I wonder if I would like Good Omens. I think I'll read Neverwhere and Stardust first before trying that one out.

I find analogies and mythologies and symbolism everywhere; that's just how my brain works, connecting even a fragment of a character or an event to another, deeper meaning. That being said, I'm pretty sure...
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...Gaiman meant the analogies in Ocean at the End of the Lane. Perhaps not so much with Ursula or even the ocean itself, but I'm pretty sure with the 3 women.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 8:55 pm
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That wouldn't surprise me.

But you pretty much have to hit me over the head with symbolism to make me notice it. I'm not especially fond of it - or allegory, for that matter. I absolutely hated those college literature assignments when you had to write an essay about the symbolism of X, Y or Z in a certain piece of literature. Though I could always b.s. well enough to pull an A. Which made me wonder how much of the symbolism is really there, and intentional, and how much is made up by literature students who need something to write about. ;)

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Mon 09 May , 2016 11:30 pm
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I loved those assignments! :D No doubt, I would've been one of those literature students/teachers who made up those assignments for others to do (if I had been a literature student/teacher). ;)

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Wed 18 May , 2016 6:32 pm
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Okay, I read "The Ocean at the End of the Lane". It was excellent.

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Alatar
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Wed 18 May , 2016 9:20 pm
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I'm listening to it on Audible, read by Gaiman.

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Wed 18 May , 2016 10:38 pm
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He's great at reading his books.

I want a full-cast recording of The Graveyard Book. The trailer sounded amazing.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Thu 19 May , 2016 1:07 am
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Oh, excellent! :D I'm glad to hear it.

I have Neverwhere from the library and am dying to start it.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Thu 19 May , 2016 1:27 pm
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Celebrate National Short Story Month with five of the best

I've read the Jack London story, but I'm definitely putting "Why I Live at the P.O." on my reading list. Probably the others, too.

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Thu 19 May , 2016 2:36 pm
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I'll check that out! :)

One of my favorite short story authors is Frank O'Connor. Guests of the Nation is powerful and unsettling.

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Thu 19 May , 2016 3:43 pm
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London's is the only story I've read. I used to love O. Henry and Kipling's short stories. In Russian, it's customary to point to Chekhov, and he's good, but for truly masterful short story you can't beat Babel. Although the vernacular gets lost in the translation.

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aninkling
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Wed 12 Oct , 2016 1:58 pm
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If anyone's considering Neil Gaiman's nonfiction collection, The View from the Cheap Seats, I can definitely recommend it. I've been dipping into it since I received it as a gift, and while a few pieces have been mediocre (mostly forewords to other people's books), some of it is very, very good.

Sometimes he sounds a bit like Terry Pratchett:
"I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast."
(From his "credo," which I love in its entirety, and where he goes on to say "I believe that you can set your own ideas against ideas you dislike. That you should be free to argue, explain, clarify, debate, offend, insult, rage, mock, sing, dramatize and deny." )

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Society can and does execute its own mandates, and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. ― John Stuart Mill


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Has anyone read this.... ?
Posted: Thu 13 Oct , 2016 12:17 am
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I'll keep that in mind, inky! I really liked the one book of his that I've read.

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