Best book you've read this year?

@Kwek00

Hmmm Good one, Frank Herbert!

@Pikachu Annyway, if you ever read the rest, let us know. I'm off to cook some pasta... I already have the spicy tomato sauce and the cheesy cheese... now I have to put it all together. 🥰

@Kwek00

Will do. Enjoy!

@helenS suggestion: start with the book Gilgamesh: the life of a poem by Michael Schmidt...it really helps you understand the context as well as the different translations. I was immersed in all this for weeks. :)

@Rambler Thank you very much for your help! It's much better to be led by someone, than to just start alone. 🌷

@helenS yes indeed it is :)

@SW-User Yes there is a lot of speculation about the origins of the Iliad.
Fascinating book.
A book about a man who refuses to fight, in a pointless war.

@helenS I also read the Iliad this year. Also amazing. And I guess we will never know for sure if Homer was the actual author of both or any of them. But it does seem to be more plausible that it all came from a tradition of oral poets. in the end I am just so glad they survived thousands of years and came to us. :)

@Bella112 Maybe, but in my case that's not the reason. I don't naturally gravitate to war stories or movies.

I loved the interplay among the gods, and between the gods and mortals, in the Iliad and Aeneid. And I loved all the foreshadowing and fulfillment of prophecy in the Aeneid, as well as Virgil's extended metaphors.

I've also managed to work through parts of the Aeneid in Latin, so that adds to the enjoyment of it.

But I have also found that for me, books have their seasons. I might start a given book at different times in my life and put it down because it does not hold my interest. Then, one day, I pick it up again, and I'm hooked on it!

Maybe my Odyssey season is still ahead of me!

@DrWatson Oh, I see. Yes, these books are so vast and they can speak to people in so many different ways. In the Iliad, I loved the all too human flaws and beauty of the heroes: Achilles suffering the loss of his best friend, Achilles raging through the battlefield, Hector inside the Trojan walls with his family …
As for the Odyssey, I marveled at the narrative construction, how the story is told in a complex order, how fate is foreseen in the small details, the intensity of the characters, the language, even the little formulaic parts like “When young Dawn with her rose-red fingers shone once more” gave me the thrills.

@Bella112 What you just said only reinforces my notion that a good time with the Odyssey still awaits me! (I think I ought to read some literary analysis of it first, to help guide my path the next time.)

Oh, one other thing about Virgil: his description of how the Trojans were dancing with joy as they brought the horse into the city is just....heartbreaking.

@Soossie sounds really interesting. I also want to understand the middle east better. will take a course on Palestine next year.

@Bella112

M.E. and its history is one of the most interesting since more than 3000 years ago when it was Mesopotamia and more... Bable, Ilam, Assyria and more....

@SW-User These books that make us feel deeply are awesome.

@Bella112 Especially with kids. The boys were hooked. The girls had a heroine. Ticked lots of boxes. We spent 3 weeks on it because they got so much from it

@SW-User what a nice story, lucky them they have a sensitive teacher.

@SW-User Yeah was and interesting perspective. The absolute best WW2 book I ever read was this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rogue-Warrior-SAS-Blair-Legend-ebook/dp/B005VQFRBA/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=blair+mayne&qid=1609253906&s=digital-text&sr=1-2

@Kwek00 I guess "the plague" was very providential this year...

@Bella112 I read it at the beginning of the lock down. Been on my shelf for years, just never read it. It's a verry short read and it jumped to the top 3 of my favourite books. It's just really really really good and insightfull. Short, to the point and well, I think if more people would have read it during these months they would have learned something about themselves and how groups of people function in a situation that isn't easy to grasp because it's outside the norm.

@forty7seventy4 you recommend it?

@SW-User Yes, I highly recommend it.

@Rickg That is what I should be reading. I'm reading "Predator's Gold" by Philip Reeve!

Blue Peter Book of the Year 2003!

@SW-User Her writing is really special! so strong, sensitive, enigmatic and poetic.

@SW-User I guess I will also be reading it again soon. too many impressions I would like to go deeper into.