The Reading Room

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bobble

06:01

@Bookworm hey, I'd answer that if I wasn't going to sleep

It's not like I can do it early tomorrow either, I have work

4 hours later…

Gareth Rees

09:46

Feb 27, 2023 at 16:24, by Gareth Rees

While we are discussing The Name of the Rose: a possibly ironic aspect of the book is that the murderer was needlessly concerned about the possible impact on society of Aristotle's book on comedy. We know from Aristotle's remarks elsewhere the kind of thing he was likely to have written.

5 hours later…

User1865345

14:22

@verbose 👍🏻

@PeterShor 😱 didn't know about that. Dickens didn't even leave any plans as for how the plot would evolve. He took that in his grave.

Reading the Wikipedia article, I noticed other authors tried to finish the novel. Alas. This couldn't be equated with the master's work.

User1865345

15:05

Excerpt from Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz

bobble

16:01

It was raining so I wrote the answer instead of going running.

Peter Shor

16:22

@User1865345 And having read the first part, my judgment is that it would have been one of his masterpieces (like Great Expectations or A Tale of Two Cities).

User1865345

I see.

I have read his A Take of Two Cities but Oliver Twist was the first Dickensian book that I read.

Bookworm

Q: Why does the narration shift between first-person and third-person in the short story "Tell them not to kill me!"?

In Juan Rulfo's short story "Tell them not to kill me!" (part of the collection The Burning Plain and Other Stories, of which George D. Schade's English translation is freely available to borrow from the Internet Archive), the narration is mostly in third person, but shifts abruptly to first-pers...

Rand al'Thor

@Bookworm That was a fast upvote.

verbose

16:54

@Bookworm Shine and burn in the HNQ

bobble

Hey, I'll probably get to 10k then. Only 17 rep away

Rand al'Thor

17:21

Now only 7 rep away.

Rand al'Thor

18:18

Jul 20, 2017 at 11:33, by Rand al'Thor

Anyway: currently our most popular authors are George Orwell, Neil Gaiman, William Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Arkadii & Boris Strugatsky, J.K. Rowling, Edgar Allan Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, Mark Twain, and William Golding.

Jan 11, 2019 at 8:39, by Rand al'Thor

2019 update on our most popular authors: William Shakespeare, Ayn Rand, George Orwell, Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, Lord Byron, J. R. R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Arkadii & Boris Strugatsky, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Hardy, Arthur Conan Doyle, William Blake.

Jan 3, 2021 at 17:01, by Rand al'Thor

2021 update on our most popular authors: currently William Shakespeare (181), J.R.R. Tolkien (89), Ayn Rand (72), George Orwell (66), Tomasz Jedrowski (54), C.S. Lewis (52), Neil Gaiman (46), Arthur Conan Doyle (40), Lord Byron (38), G.K. Chesterton (36), J.K. Rowling (35), Fyodor Dostoevsky (34), Thomas Hardy and Edgar Allan Poe (29).

Dec 2021 (graduation) update on meta

Aug 26, 2023 at 16:45, by Rand al'Thor

Aug 2023 update on our most popular authors: currently William Shakespeare (250), J.R.R. Tolkien (97), Ayn Rand (76), George Orwell (74), Charles Dickens (68), C.S. Lewis (62), Tomasz Jedrowski (56), Arthur Conan Doyle (54), Neil Gaiman (49), Lord Byron and Thomas Hardy (48), Isaac Bashevis Singer and Jane Austen (45), Homer and Fyodor Dostoevsky and J.K. Rowling and James Joyce (44), F. Scott Fitzgerald (43).

Dec 2024 update: William Shakespeare (274), J.R.R. Tolkien (98), George Orwell (80), C.S. Lewis (79), Ayn Rand (78), Charles Dickens (75), Jane Austen (62), Arthur Conan Doyle (57), Tomasz Jedrowski (56), Agatha Christie (55), Homer (54), Lord Byron (52), Thomas Hardy (51), Neil Gaiman (50), Fyodor Dostoevsky (47), Isaac Bashevis Singer (45), F. Scott Fitzgerald (45), J.K. Rowling and James Joyce (44).

@GarethRees, would you like to do the honours for the better way you found of measuring most popular authors each year?

Gareth Rees

@Randal'Thor There's still a few days to go, but the current leaders are John Le Carré (31) and Gabriela Mistral (20).

5 hours later…

bobble

23:34

@GarethRees hey, I'm responsible for the Sophocles here :)

Bookworm

Q: The textile factory and spinning machine in John Dyer’s “The Fleece”

In book 3 of The Fleece (1757), John Dyer describes a textile factory in the Calder Valley in Yorkshire, which has a water-powered spinning machine: We next are shown A circular machine, of new design, In conic shape: it draws and spins a thread Without the tedious toil o...