Reading “A tale of two cities” by Charles Dickens. I am not too far into it, but so far it’s been really enjoyable! The English accents are really hard to follow for someone whose native language isn’t English, but I’m getting used to it.
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwells memoir about the Spanish civil war. I never read memoirs or autobiographies, but I am very glad I have read this one. It gives a good insight into various aspects of the civil war, as well as Orwells personal views (and his sigarette addiction). On top of that, it is at times hilarious. And it is almost unbelievable how many things happened in just 6 months.
Highly recommend it if you’re into history or politics or love Orwells other works.
Thanks for answering! It looks great!
Looks great!
Some questions out of curiosity: how long ago did you convert your lawn to this (if it was a lawn before), and how hard was it to beat all the grass?
If you have objectively proven that atheists are wrong, that means that you must have proven that God exists right? I do not think that is possible without God showing himself, and not just to you, but to others too. If these atheists have not seen God, you have in fact, not proven that they are objectively wrong.
Also, there are many arguments that atheists use. For example, some atheists believe that the Bible can not be right because parts of it were written long after the events that they describe (for example gospels written maybe 50 years after Jesus’ death, meaning most if not all eyewitnesses have died).
As a Christian myself, I do not believe you can objectively disprove atheism. And to claim not liking God is the only reason for their beliefs is ignorant, if not worse.
Did some re-reading of Anna Karenina and Pride and Prejudice. Now reading George Orwells “Homage to Catalonia”, his memoir of his time as a volunteer against the fascists in the Spanish civil war. I’m about a third of the way in and so far it has been quite enjoyable, but I am hoping for some more politics later on; right now it is mostly about the situation on the front.
Yeah it is definitely bittersweet, but if you compare it with the Children of Húrin, it is a very happy book. Boromirs death may be the saddest part of LOTR, but it would be the happiest part of The Children of Húrin, just because that whole book is so dark.
I am a big fan of Leo Tolstoy. His biggest works are War and Peace and Anna Karenina, but those are both quite large, so if you want to know a bit about his style i would suggest some of his shorter works. Of the shorter works I have read I really loved “The Death Of Ivan Ilyich”, “Hadji Murad” and “Master And Man”.
I also really like Jane Austen, you can’t really go wrong with her. Her novels aren’t that difficult either; they were the first novels in English (my second language) that I really enjoyed reading and they significantly improved my English.
I know I am in the right, because the only ones arguing against the truth I have revealed do not bring forth arguments, but use “ad hobbitem” instead. No sense, no respect, just blindly following Bilbo’s lies!
Although I’m happy to read that you are open to the truth, your comment also shows just how effective Bilbo’s propaganda has been. Don’t you understand that you base your comment on a book written by Bilbo himself? They didn’t want it, you say? How do you know?
The sad truth is that we cannot make an objective reconstruction of what happened when Bilbo returned. It is however obvious that Lobelia moving into Bag-End was absolutely logical and that if she was angry, that can easily be understood. It also is obvious that Bilbo greatly disliked Lobelia. With this information we must try to understand what really happened. It is a hard battle we must fight, but in the end, I am convinced that truth shall be victorious.
going by your theory
You misspelled “truth”.
The only pay I need is justice; the only food I need is truth; the only drink I need is apple juice. Lobelia is just a Hobbit, a widow even late in her life! Nowhere in the books is any mentions of women working in the Shire, nor of any pension funds. It is fair to assume that the poor woman was in deep poverty. On top of that she was robbed of her inheritance, Bilbo making Frodo his only heir just to spite her. And here are you, talking about paying someone to defend your name ages after your death! Sometimes even a platform as glorious as Lemmy can make you lose your faith in humanity.
I know it’s just a meme, but when I see anti-Lobelia propaganda of any kind, it fills my veins with rage. Therefore I now spread the truth that Lobelia did nothing wrong, but that Bilbo framed her as a thief. Here is why:
Once upon a time, the hobbits lived peacefully in the Shire, never needing to leave their paradise, therefore never leaving it. However, one day Bilbo suddenly disappears with a wizard and some weird beard-dudes. Then he does not return.
Obviously, he is dead. So his family inherits his estate, among other things, and Lobelia moves into Bag-End.
Now Bilbo is returning from his adventure in the Hobbit. While vibing with Gollum, he had taken the ring of power, and now he comes back to his home. What he sees here horrifies him: His own home is being taken by Lobelia! This fills him with rage.
To understand matters fully, we must understand the power of the One Ring, as well as Bilbo’s psychology. The power of the ring, as is clear in the LOTR books, lies in corrupting the mind. However, we can point to a specific type of corruption: possession. This is logical, as Saurons goal was to possess all of Middle-Earth. You can see this influence of the ring with Frodo becoming paranoid, being mad at Sam for taking the ring.
Now Bilbo. He never went outside the Shire, the only place he calls home. He is continuously among strangers and obviously longs for home. Now when he finally comes home, he sees that this home is taken from him. With the ring already corrupting him he cannot think clearly and therefore doesn’t see how it is logical that others would think he is dead.
But the ring doesn’t stop corrupting Bilbo’s mind. He spins a fake tale to justify his possession of the ring and doesn’t even trust his best friend Gandalf.
Now the question is: why would he only care about posessing the ring? The rings power can’t solely lie in this, for then it would be useless to Sauron. The only logical conclusion is that he became more paranoid every day and started justifying himself in all his possessions.
Now to the point: Bilbo, paranoid as he was, tried to attack Lobelia in every way. She was a selfish person, always trying to get Bilbo’s house and his furniture and what not. Most notably, he said that Lobelia took his spoons, without providing any evidence.
The only thing that we can really say about Lobelia personality is her conversation with Frodo and the second-to-last chapter. The conversation with Frodo does put her in a bad light, but we must remember that Frodo was heavily influenced, or rather indoctrinated, by Bilbo, so this can’t be seen as an objective source. This means the only thing we know about Lobelia is that she was the most courageous of all Hobbits in fighting Saruman and his gang.
If you have mad it this far, I am sure you have been convinced of this truth, and if not, I invite you to give your arguments so that I can crush them.
Tl;dr: Lobelia was right
I am reading a bit too much different things at once right now, so this is a fairly long comment:
I’ve been reading “For Whom The Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway for a while, and I have read 5/6 now. It’s about partisans in the Spanish civil war. I am enjoying Hemingway’s prose and the story, but I think I will wait a bit after this before reading any of his other works.
I’ve been meaning to read the great Chinese classic novels for a while, but I never got to it. Last week, after seeing someone on here was reading it, I decided to start reading “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”. The story (about the fall of the Han dynasty and the war of, you guessed it, three kingdoms) is very fun so far, but there are like 50 names in the first 50 pages, so I have trouble remembering who is who. I’m hoping for a bit more dialogue too.
I’m also halfway through the “Aeneid”, the great Latin epic by Virgil. It’s a decent story, but I should have gone for a modern translation instead of the old one I have now. I think I’m going to stop with this one for a while, as this is the perfect point to stop.
Lastly, I’m reading Leo Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God Is Within You”, his most well-known non-fiction work. I am a massive Tolstoy fan (War and Peace is my all time favourite novel), so I wanted to know more about his philosophy. It is very interesting so far, with how he makes arguments for non-violence, as well as his arguments against the principle of the Church. I don’t always fully agree, but it is a very thought-provoking book.
Last week I also read Tolstoy’s short story “Master and Man”. I think it may be the best work to read as an introduction to Tolstoy. The setting is perfect for this time of the year, the prose is amazing as always, the psychological depth is unbelievable for so short a novel, and the moral part is typical for his later works, but not too prominent that it bothered me in any way. So if you’re interested in reading some Tolstoy, you should definitely read this one!
I forgot to mention it, but I have ADD too, so that is definitely a big contributing factor!
Many people do, myself included. I myself am just not capable of reading fast for some reason, but other people may just want to take more time to analyse prose or certain aspects of the story. For older books you may want to do some research about society in the time that it was written, for a book like Crime and Punishment you may want to think about the symbolism.
In short, there are many reasons to read slow, so many people do it.
I read mostly English because English books are easier to get online (I mostly read classics from Gutenberg). It really helped me improve my English. If you want to get better in your native language, then it may be a good idea to read more in that language, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it if I were you.
I should really start listening to audiobooks more often. I just looked and the book is freely available on Librivox, so I may switch back and forth between reading and listening from now on. Thanks for the tip!