The Reading Room

Shokhet

12:00 AM

Okay, thank you.

I hope you get your book soon -- it's the 22nd!

BESW

Yeah, it was supposed to come on the 17th.

But unpredictable mail is just a thing out here.

Seriously though, that anthology has authors from the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia... and such fascinating cultural mélanges as Chinese-Malaysian Singaporean.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor well, there's a reason why I restricted my close reading answer to a five line stanza of a poem.

Because in close reading you typically go word by word. This means, like I said, paying careful attention to every word in a passage.

In your answer (which is a perfectly good answer that does a great job answering the question -- close reading is a tool; it's not something you have to use everywhere), you don't really break down the meaning of the quotes you use word by word. You summarize the general gist of the quote, and you explain how it supports your argument, but you aren't doing that at the level of detail you would expect in a close reading.

Again, close reading isn't applicable everywhere. As you show in that answer, there are many questions that can be answered just fine without close reading.

But at the same time, it's a powerful tool that everyone on this site should be familiar with. Without a tool like close reading, people would find it hard/impossible to answer a lot of really interesting questions.

Ugh, I might go ahead and ask a The SEA is ours question.

BESW

@Shokhet I would suggest that challenge topics be announced a month in advance, to give people time to acquire the material.

Shokhet

@BESW Okay. So, what are we reading in August?

BESW

Interlibrary loans, shipping times, budgetary constraints... not everybody can just grab a book.

I dunno, I'm not an organizer. I just make snappy suggestions.

Shokhet

12:15 AM

Right, right. This one proved to be particularly elusive for many.

Does anyone think that TSiO deserves an extension‌?

BESW

That'd probably be a meta question.

Shokhet

Yeah, probably. I'm not interested in writing one, though. Someone else can do it.

BESW

I think it'd be best to just move and learn from it.

It's not like people can't keep asking SEA questions in July.

Shokhet

12:30 AM

True.

Gilles

1:39 AM

@Hamlet I'm not sure whether you're a racist and sexist provocateur or a misguided anti-racist and anti-sexist. I think it's the latter, so: your insistence in rooting out racism and sexism everywhere trivializes the problems that people face with genuine racism and sexism.

Please assume good faith — just because someone uses the word “woman” or “Black” doesn't mean they're sexist or racist. Not even subconsciously.

Hamlet

1:51 AM

@Gilles As far as I am aware, I have not accused you of racism or sexism, nor do I think you are racist or sexist.

My comments about the word primitive were not about your use of the word primitive.

My comments are about the role concepts like "primitive" and "anthropological museums" play in that particular scene. While your answer makes an argument that those concepts are important, your answer does not address the racial nature of those concepts, and how the character's race changes the meaning of those words.

If you disagree with me and think that the racialized language in the story is irrelevant to the meaning of the scene, fine. You've made your argument in your answer, I found your argument wanting and downvoted it. I left a comment as well, because (1) people complain when they don't get comments explaining downvotes, (2) to show others that I found the answer wanting and that I would appreciate a different answer.

Again, no where did I accuse you of racism or sexism. As you said, assume good faith :)

2

Bookworm

0

Q: Any Novel about Misanthropy

I am suffering from the severe depression. From the consultant I had received some feedback that I have some kind of Misanthropy over my world. I would like to read some novels about Misanthropy and to re-tune of myself. Any advice or recommendation would be welcomed.

epistolary-novel

Beverlie

Hi I am visiting here by recommendation from Hamlet

Hamlet

@Beverlie Welcome! I don't have any specific recommendations at the moment; I'll think of some tomorrow.

But have you tried using a site like Goodreads?

BESW

2:07 AM

There are misanthropic novels, and novels about misanthropy. It sounds like you're looking for the latter?

Hamlet

@Beverlie are you looking for a novel where the main character has a misanthropic view of the world?

BESW

BTW, @Hamlet, you might consider whether lit.se would benefit from a collected list of alternative communities for querents whose problems aren't a fit for the Stack structure.

Hamlet

@BESW yes, definitely.

@BESW sent you an email FYI

@BESW I'll create that post right now.

BESW

@Hamlet Absolutely!

Beverlie

Yes I am looking for the latter I think. I just want to share the view of any character in Novel which could stimulate myself to rethink about the origin,mechanism,effect of Misanthropic attidtude in one,'s life

Hamlet

2:22 AM

@Beverlie hmmm let me think.

@BESW done

Would it make sense to create a community wiki answer, or go one website per answer?

BESW

@Hamlet One website per answer, and folks can vote on how useful they think the suggestions actually are.

Hamlet

@BESW done.

@BESW did you see my email by any chance?

BESW

Answered quickly, must dash, will have more later.

Hamlet

2:50 AM

@Shokhet @Gallifreyan @Mithrandir @Randal'Thor if there aren't any objections, I'll go live with the custom close reason.

5

A: Is it time to discuss custom close reasons?

We should have a custom close reason for recommendation questions There's a strong consensus that they're off-topic, but there also seems to be a way of changing recommendation questions into valid questions, therefore making them on-topic. I therefore propose the following close reason: Que...

Librarian

3:55 AM

2

Q: I've been told my question is better suited to a forum, but where should I go?

This question was adopted/stolen from the RPG Stack Exchange's Meta. I asked a question about literature that was closed. Someone recommended that I try posting the question on another website. What are some good recommendations for other websites that would be a good fit for questions that woul...

support

BESW

6:05 AM

Can anybody else access flipreads?

Bookworm

7:08 AM

0

Q: Eloquent quotes on 15th-17th/18th century London

I am looking for quotes / passages of text from literature that are able to pin down poignantly what life in 15th, 16th, 17th or even 18th century London must have been like. I was thinking of Daniel Defoe or the like, but couldn't find anything satisfying so far. To be more precise: preferably ...

historical-context

Rand al'Thor

9:25 AM

@Hamlet Ah, OK. I didn't realise it necessarily had to be on such a fine level of detail.

@Shokhet I agree with BESW. We only got 2 questions on Icelandic sagas, and moved on regardless, and we're going to have at least 2 on The SEA is Ours.

@Beverlie One book which came immediately to my mind is the English classic Silas Marner, by George Eliot (Marian Evans). It's about a man who becomes miserly and misanthropic due to a betrayal in his youth, but later he's redeemed and rediscovers the joy in life. If you can get through the first, rather miserable, chunk of the book, it might be able to cheer and encourage you with its optimism.

@Hamlet I was just about to ping you and @Mithrandir to say that "primarily opinion-based" is probably better than "off-topic" for recommendation questions. A banner on the closed question saying "answers to this question will be almost entirely based on opinion, blah blah blah" would give the OP a more accurate idea than one saying "this question is not about literature". But I'd forgotten the proposed custom reason! Go right ahead (although you'll need a second mod to approve it) :-)

To be honest, if I could get an answer that just breaks down the language used in the original Polish text, I would be happy. — Hamlet ♦ Jun 16 at 22:52

@Hamlet And yet, you got an answer which does that and then downvoted it for a different reason :-)

BESW

9:51 AM

That answer... didn't seem to draw the lines between the text and the conclusions very clearly. It says things like "it is clear" without saying what makes "it" "clear."

Good Stack answers connect the dots for the reader. This one shares some of the original text and contrasts it with the translation, then immediately jumps to its conclusions without explaining how the original text and the conclusions are related.

2

Classic proof by obviousness.

Gallifreyan

10:17 AM

@BESW I can't. It responds to pings but the site is blank white.

BESW

That's what I get too.

durn.

It supposedly has some acclaimed Filipino literature available as free ebooks.

doppelgreener

@BESW There's a commented-out section of HTML that suggests they shut down around this time last year:

> Dear Flipreads Customers,
Thank you for supporting us and being an avid reader of ebooks since 2011. Unfortunately, at the end of July 2016, we'll be shutting down Flipreads.com. We've currently disabled the ability to purchase new books, but you can still download your previously-purchased books under your account until July 31, 2016.
Thanks.

BESW

[has a sad]

Gallifreyan

Wayback Machine for the win!

I hope.

doppelgreener

@BESW their facebook page contains the same message

BESW

10:30 AM

Thank you.

doppelgreener

(I has a sad also because I like their logo)

(... I wonder if they had a script to rainbow-ify it for pride month, or if it was always like that)

BESW

10:59 AM

One our absolute favourite books in our archive: Kathleen Lonsdale's handwritten crystallography textbook. #booksMW… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/878199505342083072

Tweeted by Ri_Science on June 23, 2017 at 10:34 AM

It details Bragg planes in crystallography, and is handwritten because typewriters of the time didn't have the necessary characters #booksMW

Tweeted by Ri_Science on June 23, 2017 at 10:34 AM in reply to Ri_Science

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor ^ that's what it looks like for me.

Librarian

11:44 AM

0

Q: "Recently Undeleted" posts in the mod tools are almost unreadable

I was browsing through the mod tools (only visible to users with >2k rep, sorry) and saw this: The "Recently Deleted" posts show up just fine, but the "Recently Undeleted" ones are so pale as to be almost invisible against a white background. I literally didn't see them at first. Is this a de...

bug design

Mithrandir

1:40 PM

Wow, the recommendation questions are coming in faster. Just noticed how many in the past few days.

If you go ahead and do the close reason, @Hamlet, I'll approve it (when I'm around). (It takes at least two mods to add a custom close reason.)

Hamlet

Turns out there's a length limit for the custom close reason.

How does this look?

> Questions asking for list of works or reading recommendations are off-topic, as they generate opinion-based answers. Try to adapt your question to fit to our Q&A format, or feel free to ask for recommendations in chat or elsewhere.

(there are 40 characters left in the length limit, so maybe there's some more stuff we could add back in.

Hamlet

2:15 PM

@Randal'Thor experts.feverbee.com/t/… (useful reading about community development)

also feverbee.com/helping-members-to-have-influence

Gallifreyan

@Hamlet Looks good to me.

Hamlet

@Randal'Thor and feverbee.com/…

Hamlet

2:50 PM

@Gallifreyan went live. @Mithrandir you know what to do.

Gallifreyan

I went live!

Hamlet

4:03 PM

JK Rowling and the Cauldron of Discourse

2

yay authorial intent!

Mithrandir

...aaaand it's active!

Bookworm

2

Q: Why did Morris and Clay premptively dissolve the Red-Headed League?

Spoilers ahead for The Red-Headed League. In this Sherlock Holmes story Holmes and Watson are recruited by a flustered pawnbroker, Jabez Wilson, who has been tricked into joining a fake society, the Red-Headed League. In reality, the society was just a ruse to get Wilson out of his house between...

sherlock-holmes arthur-conan-doyle

Gallifreyan

@Mithrandir Reopen this one and close it with the new reason for test?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Randal'Thor kind of. yes and no. There's some dependencies, especially with "Waves". But the Noon books mostly can stand on their own plot wise. I don't really see someone being an expert in JUST one Noon book, though.

Gallifreyan

And/or this one

Mithrandir

4:19 PM

@Gallifreyan status-completed

DVK-on-Ahch-To

@Hamlet Wow. That one'll piss off EVERYONE, on right and left, I suppose. But, it's as brilliant an essay as David Brin's one on authoritarian nature of Jedayism.

Now I gotta read the whole blog

Hamlet

@DVK-on-Ahch-To link?

DVK-on-Ahch-To

4:48 PM

@Hamlet webcache.googleusercontent.com/…

Gallifreyan

5:40 PM

Today is 23rd. shouldn't we announce the next challenge?

I am a Cat is leading by one upvote.

Rand al'Thor

@Hamlet Ah yes, that was the one you recommended to me ages ago and I still haven't managed to look at properly :-/ Sorry!

@Hamlet Heh. I can probably use that to piss off some HP fans on SFF :->

@Gallifreyan I was going to do it this weekend.

People tend to be around less on weekends, so the voting is more likely to be stable.

Gallifreyan

It's been stable for at least a week.

More or less.

Rand al'Thor

Aw sheet, Sophie's World went down to 6 :-(

It was level with I am a Cat for a bit. I was planning to downvote the latter in order to break the tie if necessary.

Gallifreyan

Both are in my university library, so it doesn't matter for me.

Rand al'Thor

Oh NICE.

Is this also legit or not? (I've no idea what its copyright status is or who owns that site.)

Oh, published in 1906? I guess it must be out of copyright then.

Gallifreyan

5:55 PM

@Randal'Thor Nope, that looks like a recent translation and copyrighted.

Rand al'Thor

@Gallifreyan You can copyright translations?

<---- is ignorant about the translation industry

Gallifreyan

> Copyright © 1972, 1979, 1986, 2002 (compilation) by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written
permission from the publisher.

^ Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson are the translators.

Bookworm

9:50 PM

-1

Q: How would you describe the structure of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair?

How would you describe the structure of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair? I see that it takes the regular plot-diagram structure (rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) but is there another way to describe the way the book has been organized? Also, what primary rhetorical mode does the b...

american-literature

Shokhet

10:10 PM

@Randal'Thor I only see the intro and the first two chapters (out of 11); unless people plan to fill in the rest really quickly, that resource is incomplete.

BESW

11:25 PM

#YoungWizards readers: INTERIM ERRANTRY 2, 127K of new canonical material, is out now at #Ebooks Direct!… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/878296857675419649

Tweeted by dduane on June 23, 2017 at 5:01 PM

The quintessential Richard #Feynman bio Genius by @JamesGleick is only $1 for the @AmazonKindle #ebook today: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004LRPQIO

Tweeted by erailine on June 23, 2017 at 3:52 PM

BESW

11:44 PM

@MadeOfTeeth @skylit1 @runningscott59 I have yet to meet a kid's book author that didn't have a horror author struggling to get out.

Tweeted by UrsulaV on June 23, 2017 at 8:35 PM in reply to MadeOfTeeth

Thank you to .@ryanqnorth and .@EricaFails for literally the best panel in comics ever: https://t.co/tu5U3PwXxM

Tweeted by Ariellalphabet on June 22, 2017 at 6:46 PM

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