Books

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/post/30928435

In middle school I read The Three Musketeers and enjoyed it overall. Later in high school a movie adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo was released and I enjoyed it enough to read the book. I feel like I lucked out in picking up the Robin Buss translation. It was a recent translation based on the most complete original texts he could find. He explained how the first anonymous English translations would sometimes edit the story to fit English sensibilities of the era or simply not be very good at translation. The book is full of endnotes explaining things, like references that would’ve been obvious to contemporary readers but are largely lost to anglophones over a century later, or things that simply don’t translate well, like an important scene where a character uses the formal vous tense instead of the informal/familiar tu tense but this distinction doesn’t exist in modern English. It made me want to re-read The Three Musketeers in a translation by Buss, but the only other Dumas work he translated before his death at the age of 67 in 2006 was The Black Tulip.

Have you read Buss’s translation of The Count of Monte Cristo? Have you found a similar translation you liked for The Three Musketeers? Searching online the most helpful listings I’ve found are a couple old Reddit threads where it seems like the two recommendations are those by Richard Pevear or Lawrence Ellsworth.

The company changed names and was sold in a stock restructuring. They took the money from community backers, refuse to deliver the books to them. Now they claim they have no responsibility to pay author's royalties for books already sold, they also don't have money to deliver or ship books. Half the people who work there quit. It's 238 authors who are collectively owed more than £650,000.

Link is one YouTuber's account of the situation from the POV of an author.

Here's a news article about the situation: “If I wasn’t so f*cking angry, I’d laugh”: Boundless delays author payments

And another: After Unbound’s Collapse, Boundless Faces Uphill Battle to Rebuild Trust

cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/20608258

Last night the Kobo CEO had a longer thread on Bluesky talking about how, when, and where they are using AI and what type of AI they are using.

Short version is that they are against using Generative AI that is trained on authors content without their expressed and explicit consent. But have used small models that help with proper metadata, flag explicit material for proper review, look for malicious duplication or auto-generated AI modifications of existing books or scraped websites.

They also reposted it to their writinglife blog.

I'm using Thorium at present. Not thrilled with it.

I figured it could be fun to do small discussion each time I finish an (interesting) book, since I always have so many thoughts but no book club to discuss them with.

I completed Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice last night, and I have to say I really enjoyed the book. I found it had a great amount of drama and intrigue to keep me reading on, even after my usual bedtime. But more significantly, I found the insight into 1800's English culture to be supremely interesting.

I was continually dazzled by the changes in English, and how we've modified the language as the years have progressed. For example, for someone to "condescend" in those days wasn't (in my interpretation) necessarily something rude, as it would be these days. It was seen as someone of higher station being humble enough to interact with and advise people who would generally be considered "beneath" them. For example, Lady Catherine is often described as condescending to Mr. Collins, which he takes great pleasure in.

This was also one of the first times I found an enjoyable use-case for LLMs, namely ChatGPT. I found it very helpful to be able to ask questions about the time period and its relation to the book and get specific, well thought out answers without spending too much time searching for reputable sites and scanning through potential sources for answers. That's time that I wanted to be reading, not researching. For example, I was curious how the "ten thousand a year" income was scaled, and how that worked out to today's dollars and how that income was generated. I also was able to ask questions like why Elizabeth might have been embarrassed at a certain scene, or why Mr. Collins was considered so "uncool" by everyone. In fact, a lot of my questions revolved around Mr. Collins and what he was specifically doing to be considered a social pariah by some. Admittedly, I could have had the same experience (potentially) using an annotated book, which I did want to do at some point, but I didn't find the time to get to the library to find a copy, and ChatGPT was conveniently in my pocket at any time. I generally consider myself largely anti-"AI hype" - but I'd be foolish not to admit that this is one of those use-cases that it really shines.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I'd probably give it a five out of five, meaning that I will probably re-read it someday in the future.

Love to hear others thoughts:

• When did you last read it?
• Did you enjoy it?
• Would you read it again?
• Did anything about the book stick with you in particular?

This shocking, historical true crime account brings to light the illegal activity that many people engaged in to make a living during the Great Depression: kidnapping

A chilling true crime book that chronicles the wave of abductions that terrorized the U.S. during the Great Depression, including the most infamous kidnapping case in American history.

The Great Depression was a time of desperation in America—parents struggled to feed their children and unemployment was at a record high. Adding to the lawlessness of the decade, thugs with submachine guns and corrupt law-enforcement officers ran rampant. But amidst this panic, there was one sure-fire way to make money, one used by criminals and resourceful civilians alike: kidnapping.

Jump into this forgotten history with Edgar Award-winning author David Stout as he explores the reports of missing people that inundated newspapers at the time. Learn the horrifying details of these abduction cases, from the methods used and the investigative processes to the personal histories of the culprits and victims. All of this culminates with the most infamous kidnapping in American history, the one that targeted an international celebrity and changed legislation forever: the Lindbergh kidnapping.

The Kidnap Years is a gritty, visceral, thoughtfully reported page-turner that chronicles the sweep of abductions that afflicted all corners of the country as desperate people were pushed to do the unthinkable. Fans of The Postman Always Rings Twice and other 30s and 40s American Noir crime novels will be fascinated by the true crime of the times.

Life is still pretty busy, not getting much time for Lemmy, but at least got some time to read now.

Still reading Streams of Silver by R. A. Salvatore. Book 2 of the series. Am more than halfway through now, if nothing comes up, should be able to finish it this week.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.

I just feel we live in times where this is still relevant.

First : didn’t find a comic instance so here it is Second : Warren Ellis is a sex pest, so don’t buy his comics

Ministry of Space is a cool twist on the « what if X was first on the moon/space and not the American ». In this case : Britain

Edit : also any good comic suggestions is welcome

Anyone read this work? Or other Pynchon? The only other thing I’ve read by him is Inherent Vice.

It would be a little fun to sneak the symbol in a few places. Kinda reclaiming conspiracy narratives for fun. That the purpose is mystery and what could be, not actually taking it seriously.

I’d love a return to classic conspiracies - to the world of something like the Illuminatus trilogy. “Aliens kidnapped me and my wife and we did weird sex stuff” and “there’s a war between ancient aliens and draconians*. Stuff like Whitley Strieber’s Communion or that silly “Spirit Science” channel on YouTube where it’s clearly someone’s world building passion project.

Instead we live in a twisted mirror of Fowler’s The Magus. Fowler shows some really twisted erotic understandings of class - the id complex that powers “the elites are sex criminals” types of conspiracies. The desire that is counteracted by repulsion; the unstable equilibria where hatred and desire can explode in either directing. The climax (literally) of the book is forced to watch one of the young women he has been erotically pursuing enthusiastically consent to sex with a black man. It’s a deep violent insecurity, that seems to underlie the world right now.

It might be fun to fight for more of that kind of fun insanity. To chase down secretive mailmen? To follow red herring after red herring until the end?

It might be fun to leave this symbol around places. And to read Pynchon.

I have volume 1 of Kim Il Sung’s works in English - printed in North Korea in the 70’s. I don’t know if the Foreign Languages Publishing House survived long enough for a Volume 2. They did put out some of Jong’s thoughts on film, if I recall correctly.

This is probably the prize of my collection. I have a first American printing of Lolita, which unfortunately has a bit of cat vomit stain on it or might be in that spot.

Hello everyone!

Have been pretty busy with life, so haven't been reading much, other than some random web novels when I have some time.

Just got back to my usual reading from today, hope will be able to stick to it now. I was reading Streams of Silver by R. A. Salvatore. Book 2 of the series.

What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?

For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29595648

Feeding Ghosts is a good read, glad she won the Pulitzer!

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374601652/feedingghosts/

NPR Interview here:

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/21/1196979443/nprs-book-of-the-day-draft-03-21-2024

Interesting bit: She doesn't consider herself a graphic novelist, this just seemed to be the best way for her to tell the story.

I've tried a couple times over the years to use Calibre to de-DRM my library. Previous attempts ended in failure. This community helped me find a way to fix my audio books, which inspired me to take one last shot at my kindle library.

I was able to follow this post comment and use a couple other comments to troubleshoot. Sorry for the Reddit link, but it's what worked for me. I'll include the text of the post in the comments below.

This method requires using Windows, but does not require a physical device as other methods that I'd found. The key points that worked for me we're using the correct program versions linked in this post and comments.

Another comment noted that changing the library download location in Kindle was a key to this outcome. I don't understand why that would be, but it turned out to be the case for me. The first try did not work, but once I changed the download location, deleted the old downloads, and re-downloaded the library everything went smoothly. Even the comic books worked!

I finally own the books that I've purchased over the years.