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  • Constantbee
    Full Member
    • Jul 2017
    • 504

    From tales of pandemic to reflections on isolation, here is a shelf’s worth of books to keep you going during a quarantine


    A dystopian reading list, with one notable omisssion, and my personal favourite: 'Journal of the Plague Year', Daniel Defoe (1722), containing some shrewd observations of human behaviour we might have seen recently.

    Jane Eyre was a surprise. Jane survives an epidemic at a girls' boarding school before Mr Rochester enters the story.
    And the tune ends too soon for us all

    Comment

    • Joseph K
      Banned
      • Oct 2017
      • 7765

      Originally posted by Constantbee View Post
      https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ed-coronavirus

      A dystopian reading list, with one notable omisssion, and my personal favourite: 'Journal of the Plague Year', Daniel Defoe (1722), containing some shrewd observations of human behaviour we might have seen recently.

      Jane Eyre was a surprise. Jane survives an epidemic at a girls' boarding school before Mr Rochester enters the story.
      I've thought that there was something decidedly Ballardian about our situation...

      Comment

      • Don Basilio
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 320

        I'm having a Robertson Davies binge. I have read the Deptford Trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone which are wonderful. I have just finished his earliest trilogy, the Salterton Trilogy. These were his first novels and the influence of Jung is not yet apparent. The first of the set, Tempest Tost, is about an am dram production of The Tempest, which gives him plenty of opportunity for social satire and good humoured and tolerant acceptance of human vanity and self deception. The third in the series, Mixture of Frailties, goes a bit deeper and touches the tragic although very, very funny at times.

        I would best describe Davies as a Canadian Jungian Dickens.

        Comment

        • Pulcinella
          Host
          • Feb 2014
          • 10872

          Originally posted by Don Basilio View Post
          I'm having a Robertson Davies binge. I have read the Deptford Trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone which are wonderful. I have just finished his earliest trilogy, the Salterton Trilogy. These were his first novels and the influence of Jung is not yet apparent. The first of the set, Tempest Tost, is about an am dram production of The Tempest, which gives him plenty of opportunity for social satire and good humoured and tolerant acceptance of human vanity and self deception. The third in the series, Mixture of Frailties, goes a bit deeper and touches the tragic although very, very funny at times.

          I would best describe Davies as a Canadian Jungian Dickens.
          I remember enjoying Rebel Angels very much, too.

          Comment

          • DracoM
            Host
            • Mar 2007
            • 12955

            Mission Song - John Le Carre

            Comment

            • Bella Kemp
              Full Member
              • Aug 2014
              • 457

              Dorothy Wordsworth - The Grasmere Journals. One of those books that you really want never to end. I even find myself slowly re-reading pages in the way that one sometimes may gaze at photographs or pictures.

              Comment

              • Count Boso

                I may not read much of it, but out of curiosity I downloaded Project Gutenberg's Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the ****** year, but I don't feel quite ready yet to investigate the way people thought, felt and behaved which (I assume) he describes. Perhaps when I feel completely inured to the situation, if that ever happens. At the moment I'm too busy to sit down and record my own experiences in detail, though no doubt others are doing so.

                Comment

                • richardfinegold
                  Full Member
                  • Sep 2012
                  • 7640

                  I started Grant, by Ron Chernow (of Hamilton fame)

                  Comment

                  • Pulcinella
                    Host
                    • Feb 2014
                    • 10872

                    Originally posted by Don Basilio View Post
                    I'm having a Robertson Davies binge. I have read the Deptford Trilogy and What's Bred in the Bone which are wonderful. I have just finished his earliest trilogy, the Salterton Trilogy. These were his first novels and the influence of Jung is not yet apparent. The first of the set, Tempest Tost, is about an am dram production of The Tempest, which gives him plenty of opportunity for social satire and good humoured and tolerant acceptance of human vanity and self deception. The third in the series, Mixture of Frailties, goes a bit deeper and touches the tragic although very, very funny at times.

                    I would best describe Davies as a Canadian Jungian Dickens.
                    Finished the latest Hilary Mantel yesterday, so have started reading The Deptford Trilogy again (bought 14 October 1983, in Old Aberdeen, I wrote in the front).

                    Comment

                    • Rjw
                      Full Member
                      • Oct 2012
                      • 117

                      The Military Orchid, by Jocelyn Brooke

                      Comment

                      • LMcD
                        Full Member
                        • Sep 2017
                        • 8396

                        Originally posted by Rjw View Post
                        The Military Orchid, by Jocelyn Brooke
                        The Betrayal by Helen Dunmore

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                        • jayne lee wilson
                          Banned
                          • Jul 2011
                          • 10711

                          Wasn't sure where to place this..... effectively a hauntingly insightful prose-poem that I hope will fascinate, soothe and reward many....
                          Peering closely at the almost-micro-environment that lies almost-hidden, all around us.... finding a rich history within it.

                          Last edited by jayne lee wilson; 08-04-20, 20:42.

                          Comment

                          • DracoM
                            Host
                            • Mar 2007
                            • 12955

                            Norman Nicholson's collection of poems 'A Local Habitation'.

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                            • johncorrigan
                              Full Member
                              • Nov 2010
                              • 10337

                              Originally posted by jayne lee wilson View Post
                              Wasn't sure where to place this..... effectively a hauntingly insightful prose-poem that I hope will fascinate, soothe and reward many....
                              Peering closely at the almost-micro-environment that lies almost-hidden, all around us.... finding a rich history within it.

                              https://www.theguardian.com/environm...nstitution-ink
                              Thanks, jayne. Really enjoyed that piece of writing, especially the question, 'What possessed our ancestors to pound marble galls into powder, steep them in water as a brown soupy sludge, then add rusty iron and gum arabic from acacia trees, to turn the liquid so black it was almost blue?'

                              Comment

                              • Padraig
                                Full Member
                                • Feb 2013
                                • 4220

                                Originally posted by johncorrigan View Post
                                Thanks, jayne. Really enjoyed that piece of writing . . .
                                Yes John, and Jayne. Prose poem indeed. Poor little wizened heroic wasp.

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