The Reading Room

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4:36 AM

@DLosc Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is great, but it's far from the same style as the Inheritance cycle, being alt-hist written in an Austenesque style. Speaking of alt-hist, though, another more contemporary story I'd recommend, with a reasonably well developed magic system and a lot of wit, is the Bartimaeus series by Jonathan Stroud.

Bookworm

4:59 AM

Q: Why is the town called "Trinity"?

The action in Cinda Williams Chima's The Heir Chronicles centers around Trinity, Ohio. The town name is almost obnoxiously religious. Religion, specifically Christianity, does come up in the books, too: Seph, for one, is a devout Catholic, some of the other characters are vaguely Christian in a n...

2 hours later…

verbose

7:05 AM

@Tsundoku yep, not sure whether to apologize for the long absence or for being back

@Randal'Thor Hey, good to be back. Things are fine, just ... never enough hours in the day. I'm sure you guys don't want a long explanation for my absence, so the short version is that I just had tons of stuff going on, and then after being away from here for a bit, I sorta lost the habit of being on here.

It's really great to chat with you guys again; I've missed all y'all, as they say down South.

2 hours later…

Tsundoku

9:32 AM

@verbose 18 months is nothing compared to the 14-year gap in Pericles, Prince of Tyre ;-)

Can you match the famous opening line to the story? (Quiz). Turns out I'm no good at opening lines. I only got 3 out of 6.

1 hour later…

CowperKettle

11:00 AM

> He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.
(Milne)

1 hour later…

Bookworm

12:09 PM

Q: I'm looking for manga or manhwa about girl that suffer dwarfism that make look like child and guy who is grown man but mind of a child

I don't remember the manga well but is about a girl who suffered dwarfism and and guy who grown adult but mind and child and it about their relationship and i remember

identification-request

Tsundoku

@Bookworm In what way does she "suffer"?

1 hour later…

Tsundoku

1:29 PM

I have submitted another review to the Tumblr blog. The subject may sound familiar ;-)

CowperKettle

1:40 PM

@Tsundoku Maybe dwarves have an elevated incidence of some diseases (endocrinal, skeletal, etc)?

I don't think this is discussed in a manga though

Tsundoku

@CowperKettle Maybe, but I can only guess.

Rand al'Thor

2:38 PM

@verbose As long as things are OK, that's the important part. I got worried that something bad had happened like during your previous long absence. We missed you too :-)

@Tsundoku I got 5 out of 6, but two of them I had to guess (one lucky, one unlucky).

@Bookworm I'm not sure why this is downvoted, but perhaps the phrase "obnoxiously religious" rubbed someone the wrong way?

Plus, I wouldn't say the name "Trinity" necessarily implies anything strongly religious. There's plenty of things called Trinity which aren't (any more) religion-related: a lighthouse authority, several secular teaching institutions, etc.

bobble

3:23 PM

I'm sorry :(

I guess I'm not good at asking questions any more

b_jonas

3:46 PM

welcome back verbose, hope the baby is healthy if there's a baby

Tsundoku

3:59 PM

@b_jonas I hope you're not trying to deter gents ;-)

@Randal'Thor And which of those are not named after the triad?

2 hours later…

Rand al'Thor

6:00 PM

@Tsundoku They're all indirectly named after the religious thing, but none of them are religious institutions, at least not today.

That doesn't make @bobble's question a bad one, though. Authors still have some reasons for choosing names, and the reason in this case might be religion-related (although I wouldn't assume it necessarily is).

Rand al'Thor

6:34 PM

Feb 6, 2021 at 17:29, by Rand al'Thor

@verbose is on 8808 rep. Get two more silver badges and eight more upvotes, and you'll have a lovely rep-badge set to screenshot.

Now @bobble is there.

Bookworm

7:20 PM

Q: I am looking for a young childrens book from the 1970s about a baby deer who loses his medal and the forest animals help him find it

It is a book I won in a reading competition at Nursery, so for ages 3-4 years old. The little fawn loses his medal from around his neck and feels very sad. All the forest animals start to help him look for it and finally find it for him in a bysh, if I remember correctly.

identification-request

Feeds

7:38 PM

One Minute Reviews: Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction by Stanley Wells

posted on February 04, 2023

When I was studying English and German literature in the 1990s and preparing to write a thesis about some of Shakespeare’s plays, I read two introductions to Shakespeare. Both took a very different approach, which made them complementary to each other. Many new introduction have been published since then and this review will be the first in a series that looks for the “best” i…

2 hours later…

Bookworm

9:26 PM

Q: I can't understand fiction please help

I am really struggling to understand fiction books. I've read 1/3 of "Crime and punishment" and found nothing interesting in it so I stopped. I believe that the book is very important as it is the most famous work of a world known author, but I've found nothing in it. Lately I've read Gogol's "go...