The Reading Room

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11:02 AM

@Bookworm @Tsundoku Is this a literary question about Maugham, or just a biographical one? There were a couple of old meta discussions on questions about authors, with the conclusion that not every question about a writer's life should be on-topic. I don't know much about Maugham as a writer; is this detail from his childhood likely to be relevant to his literature?

Our QPD on Area 51 is now 4.5, the highest it's been for a while.

1 hour later…

Tsundoku

12:23 PM

@Randal'Thor It is relevant only to the extent that W. S. Maugham used his life at the vicarage as a source of inspiration for one of his early novels. I have edited the question to strengthen that link. Does it look better now?

1 hour later…

Knight

1:38 PM

Did Ezra Pound really use curse words in The Cantos, XIV? I got a search result from Google and started reading it, and really it disturbed me with the language used.

Knight

2:16 PM

@Tsundoku Yes, you're right. Having read your remarks, it seems to me that he could have used the curse words.

Bookworm

3:14 PM

Q: Was Mark Twain a racist?

The question had come to my mind after reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; I knew he more often had put Indians as his story villains, but I wasn't paying attention to it till I read that novel myself. There is a question asked by me in Yahoo! Answers 3 years ago; but the answers didn't properl...

mark-twain

Bookworm

3:39 PM

Q: What is the meaning of the Gaelic lines in the song "Tír na nÓg"?

The song "Tír na nÓg", like many of the Celtic Woman songs, is partly in English and partly in Irish Gaelic. Unlike many of those Celtic Woman songs, this one doesn't seem to be based on a traditional Irish ballad, as far as I can tell - it may have been written specifically for Celtic Woman. Thi...

song-lyrics translation gaelic-literature

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor I just wanted to say thank you for being like the only person to ask questions during the Korean Folktale challenge XD

Rand al'Thor

@NorthLæraðr Oh, no problem! Thank you for proposing the topic challenge, being around to provide answers, and helping me to learn new stuff :-)

North Læraðr

@Randal'Thor No problem! It was good reviewing my Korean

I normally would've had no incentive to refresh my Korean and it was cool to see someone be interested in Korean stuff

Rand al'Thor

I might try to ask more questions about that then, even though the challenge has finished.

Like some of the other topic challenges (notably Gilgamesh and Krleza) that inspired people to keep participating in the tag even after the end of the challenge.

North Læraðr

3:58 PM

@Randal'Thor Oooh cool

2 hours later…

Bookworm

6:09 PM

Q: Where did Samuel Johnson say Macbeth is wholly reviled?

The Wikipedia article about Shakespeare's Macbeth contains a section on reading the play as a tragedy of character. This section contains the following unsourced statement: Johnson asserted that Macbeth, though esteemed for his military bravery, is wholly reviled.[citation needed] I tried to fi...

william-shakespeare macbeth samuel-johnson

Tsundoku

6:40 PM

A Mild Case of Bibliomania: YouTube video by someone who first just liked reading books, then started collecting certain authors and eventually set himself up as a publisher.

2 hours later…

Bookworm

8:39 PM

Q: Story where undercover officer infiltrates a dangerous criminal organization; possibly connected to Sherlock Holmes and Watson

I read a story many years ago (possibly around 2010-2011) about a man who is a part of a criminal organization; it was some type of brotherhood where loyalty was incredibly important. I think they had tattoos to identify each other. The man joined the brotherhood in one city, then moved to anothe...