The Frying Pan

8:00 PM

David Lodge is a pretty good stylist. Though he is also in his 70s. Also an English professor and critic. So not typical.

ElendilTheTall

@FaheemMitha well, I wouldn't personally say he was dreadful, but regardless, the man could write (and speak)

Faheem Mitha

@Jolenealaska Do you disagree?

@ElendilTheTall Probably yes. Faster, Pussycat. Kill, Kill!

I don't like warmongers. Especially when they pretend to be left intellectuals.

ElendilTheTall

@FaheemMitha I think if anyone could profess to be a Leftist intellectual it would be Hitchens

Jolenealaska

Shakespeare wrote like Shakespeare (whoever that was), Butler wrote like Butler, Hitchens wrote like Hitchens, Austin wrote like Austin... Every era in recorded history has had brilliant writers. Literacy has never been higher than it is right now, and now, as always, some people are geniuses, some people are idiots.

Faheem Mitha

@ElendilTheTall Except left intellectuals aren't supposed to support mass-murdering morons like Bush and Blair.

Jolenealaska

8:04 PM

To say we aren't as good at it anymore is like saying everything worth saying has already been said.

ElendilTheTall

@FaheemMitha he didn't, he supported getting rid of Saddam Hussein because he was a first-hand witness to the misery he caused in Iraq

Faheem Mitha

@Jolenealaska I don't believe I know an Austin. I also don't know many contemporary writers that I like.

Who do you like?

@ElendilTheTall Well, that was not the way to do it.

ElendilTheTall

regardless, he's worth reading

Jolenealaska

Sorry, Dragon sometimes interprets what I say without me double checking it.

I'm not typing, I'm talking.

Faheem Mitha

@ElendilTheTall I don't doubt it.

@Jolenealaska I'm impressed.

So, you did you mean by Austin?

Oh, Austen.

ElendilTheTall

8:07 PM

@jay I'm worried you're preparing your basement...

Jolenealaska

So I actually meant Austen, but Dragon heard a city in Texas.

Faheem Mitha

@Jolenealaska If you have not read it, The Way of All Flesh is a very interesting book. Was a favorite of mine as a child.

Jay

@ElendilTheTall lol no, im actually doing work so im only intermittently reading the chat

Faheem Mitha

Though I think the stuff he didn't say might have been even more interesting.

Jay

Also my basement is already prepare

Faheem Mitha

8:09 PM

It reminds me of what Orwell said about Mark Twain. That he perpetually seemed on the verge of saying more than he actually said. Or something like that.

ElendilTheTall

@Jay one can only imagine

Jolenealaska

The mental imagery Jay is inspiring makes me think of a short story I read not long ago.

ElendilTheTall

@Jolenealaska oh? do tell

Jolenealaska

Funny thing, I can remember passages from it, but I cannot come up with the title.

But the imagery is as clear as a bell.

Faheem Mitha

@Jolenealaska Sticking stuff into google sometimes does the trick.

And by stuff, I mean sentences.

ElendilTheTall

8:17 PM

yeah, google it jojo

Jay

Rawr

lol

Jolenealaska

hmmmm...Lots of hits, but not the story I have in mind.

ElendilTheTall

how odd

Jay

lol the new GABA rice question @.@

ElendilTheTall

@Jolenealaska was it any good, this story?

Jolenealaska

8:23 PM

Yes, it was. The imagery was particularly striking.

Jay

I'm glad i can help

ElendilTheTall

@Jolenealaska what was it about?

Jolenealaska

For some reason Jay's basement made me think of it...

ElendilTheTall

@jay what does your basement contain?

Jolenealaska

Here is what I was trying to say earlier, but better put:

rationalwiki.org/wiki/Good_old_days

Faheem Mitha

8:32 PM

@Jolenealaska Trying to say earlier where?

Jay

@ElendilTheTall Half of it is currently being converted into a new bedroom.

1/4 of the basement holds the washer and dryer

1/4 holds all my power tools and such

ElendilTheTall

@Jolenealaska any bedrooms or tools in your story?

Jay

plus all the dead bodies

naturally

Jolenealaska

@FaheemMitha To you, in response to the idea that current writers don't write as well as past ones.

Faheem Mitha

@Jolenealaska Oh, that.

Still waiting for your recommended book list. :-)

@Jay Naturally.

Jolenealaska

8:35 PM

The Pillars of the Earth is a recent book that I loved.

Faheem Mitha

You should try decorating your room with severed heads. Adds a real dash of style.

Anyone seen the film "The Voices"?

Follett? Don't know that one.

Jolenealaska

Another contemporary fave is a series by Susan Howach, including Glittering Images and Glamorous Powers.

I loved the Dragon Tattoo series.

Harry Potter was brilliant.

I like James Patterson and the other James Patterson.

Follet is a very interesting author, because his books are nothing alike.

Ken Follet wrote spy thrillers for decades.

Faheem Mitha

I don't know any of those people. Except Harry Potter of course.

Jolenealaska

Then, out of the blue came Pillars of the Earth, a very long novel set in the 12th or 13th century.

It couldn't be more different than Eye of the Needle, probably his most famous work prior to Pillars.

I liked the sequel to Pillars even more, but the critics didn't. World Without End is set in Europe during the bubonic plague.

ElendilTheTall

laugh a minute stuff

Jolenealaska

8:50 PM

Follet has one funny quirk as an author.

All of his female characters are incredibly fertile.

At least three times every book, a woman becomes pregnant the night she loses her virginity.

Faheem Mitha

@Jolenealaska have you read "The Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis?

ElendilTheTall

@FaheemMitha I've seen an actual Domesday Book, does that count?

Faheem Mitha

Doomsday Book (novel)

Doomsday Book is a 1992 science fiction novel by American author Connie Willis. The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and was shortlisted for other awards. The title of the book is a reference to the Domesday Book of 1086; Kivrin, the main character, says that her recording is "a record of life in the Middle Ages, which is what William the Conqueror's survey turned out to be." The novel is the first in a series about the Oxford time-traveling historians, including To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998) and Blitz (2010). == Plot introduction == Willis imagines a near future (first introduced...

@ElendilTheTall I thought there was just the one. And no.

ElendilTheTall

bah

Jolenealaska

@FaheemMitha he's cracking a joke.

nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday

Faheem Mitha

8:55 PM

@Jolenealaska Yes, I got that. I do know what the Domesday book is.

@ElendilTheTall you need to work harder

Jolenealaska

Ok, my bad. :)

ElendilTheTall

@Jolenealaska no I'm not, I have seen the actual Domesday Book, in the National Archives at Kew

Jolenealaska

I have actually not read a lot of science fiction.

ElendilTheTall

it is massive

@Jolenealaska try The Martian

it's excellent

it's set in the near future, and is kind of a Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Jolenealaska

You are like the third person who was recommended that book to me recently.

ElendilTheTall

8:58 PM

@Jolenealaska but the only person whose opinion who care deeply about! :D

Faheem Mitha

Yes, I read "The Martian" too. Assuming you are talking about the Andy Weir one.

It was Ok. Not the greatest thing I have ever read. Seems to be enormously popular though.

ElendilTheTall

yeah

I enjoyed it

that's all I ask from a book

Faheem Mitha

Well, the hero is quite remarkably resourceful. I think I would just have lain down and died. Less bother all around.

If anyone is interested in a really excellent sf thriller, read "Memoirs of An Invisible Man". Unputdownable. Also, rather well written.

Unfortunately the author's only work.

Jolenealaska

David Baldacci is another author I enjoy.

Faheem Mitha

The Amazon reviews are extremely flattering, but no more than the book deserves.

amazon.com/Memoirs-Invisible-Man-H-Saint/dp/0689117353

@Jolenealaska Don't know him either.

Jolenealaska

9:05 PM

Harlan Coben, John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer (Kane and Abel is in my top 10)

Janet Evanovich makes me laugh out loud.

ElendilTheTall

I still can't believe you haven't read Bill Bryson

Jolenealaska

I like Patricia Cornwell a lot until I realized that she wrote the same book five times in a row.

I read some columns of his I think, but never any books. Somehow, the fact that he is from my hometown made him seem uninteresting until you brought him up.

ElendilTheTall

Read Notes From A Small Island

It's about Britain.

Or Neither Here Nor There

Jolenealaska

When I clear my Kindle of what I already have, Bryson is next.

ElendilTheTall

Ok

Jolenealaska

9:21 PM

Scott Turow is another contemporary author I like.

ElendilTheTall