The Reading Room

4:41 AM

@Bookworm If this ain't on HNQ... well it is, uh, no more joke here

7 hours later…

11:24 AM

Congratulations to Peter Shor on reaching 6k reputation.

2 hours later…

Q: What was the question which the Baudelaire orphans were asking themselves?

12:54 PM

May 2 at 10:23, by Rand al'Thor

There are five proposals tied on 4 votes for the next topic to be chosen, from five different languages/cultures: Maltese, Hindi, Bengali, Hungarian, Korean.

^ still tied ... any chance of some deciding votes in the next day or two?

Bookworm

1:33 PM

I was reading the last chapter of The Penultimate Peril, by Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), and when I reached the end of that chapter, I couldn't understand what was the question which the Baudelaire orphans were asking themselves? Richard Wright, an American novelist of the realist school, as...

2 hours later…

3:12 PM

@Randal'Thor I've already upvoted four and don't want to upvote the fifth. Would a downvote help?

1 hour later…

4:28 PM

If there is a tie between the suggestions, we pick the oldest one. See Rule for selecting a topic challenge among those with the same number of votes.

@Tsundoku Oldest according to its time of posting on the old list or the new onee? :-)

Is the old one still relevant at this point? I think we can ignore that list now.

@Randal'Thor s/onee/one

@bobble s/Randal'Thor/Rand al'Thor/

;-)

@Tsundoku Well, many of the currently highest voted suggestions were originally posted on the old list (as indicated by comments below them). Among those answers on the new list, which one is older depends only on who was quicker to copy-paste across, rather than which proposal was actually thought of first.

Anyway, someone has upvoted Magda Szabó, so it seems @b_jonas will get his chance to help us all with understanding Hungarian literature this July/August.

Q: Why would birds fall from the sky due to a lack of moisture?

4:37 PM

@Randal'Thor Well, if we want to take the old list into account, couldn't we also use its votes as a tie-breaker?

Alex

4:56 PM

Have a sudden death overtime.

Bookworm

Chapter 2 of François Rabelais's novel Pantagruel contains the following passage (quoted from the edition on Wikisource, emphasis added): Car il ny avoit arbre sus terre quil eust ny feuille ny fleur, les herbes estoient sans verdeur, les rivieres taries, les fontaines à sec, les pauvres poisson...

french-literature francois-rabelais gargantua-and-pantagruel

Mithical

5:16 PM

@Tsundoku That doesn't account for people who've voted on both lists

Bookworm

5:48 PM

Q: RL STEVENSON'S TREASURE ISLAND

In the the chapter "Cruise of the coracle" Jim sails northward (due to northward current) from Haulbowline Head past the the Cape of the Woods and that is when he beholds Hispaniola. After this there is a sentence "the current was bearing coracle and schooner southward at equal rate". How could t...

meaning historical-context narrator robert-louis-stevenson treasure-island

@Bookworm Catching a minor apparent discrepancy in a description? @Alex sock spotted ;-)

I'm unsure why they thought the author and book name, in all-caps, was a useful title

6:04 PM

@Randal'Thor I am not actually all that familiar with Szabó Magda. I've only ever read three of her books, saw her in real life once in a book signing when she didn't have any time to talk to people, and saw a few scenes of the Abigél movie (or is it a TV series?)

@bobble Eh, I've seen worse titles, from people new to SE.

But I have also only read Mission of Gravity from Hal Clement…

Recent string of Bank PO questions on Puzzling has worse titles, I'll give you that

@b_jonas That's probably three more than most people here.

Yeah, just not the ones that people will ask questions about. I expect people will ask questions about the historical background of the adult books.

6:07 PM

Which three have you read?

I'll be happy to prove you wrong if I can find something interesting to ask about them.

Abigél once long ago, plus Tündér Lala and Sziget-kék several times with copies of both at home

and I'm not likely to read others, because if someone deliberately writes children's books and adults books, then the children's books won't be indicative on whether I'll like the adults books

Alex

@Randal'Thor Ready for pedantry.stackexchange.com?

Again?

@Alex Yep.

@Randal'Thor What...

7:07 PM

Shortly before Boris Pasternak died OTD in 1960, after the Soviet government forced him to resign his Nobel Prize, Albert Camus – a Nobel laureate himself – sent him this remarkable letter of appreciation, solidarity, and kinship across artificial divides (tweeted by Maria Popova)

4 hours later…

10:45 PM

Congratulations to @Randal'Thor on being the third person to reach 400 answers on Literature SE.