Blue Moon
Talisman
Posts: 14,824
Likes: 5,192
|
Post by Blue Moon on Jan 3, 2014 4:50:24 GMT
I too am looking to read more. Can never be arsed buying books though, need to join a library in Leeds.
|
|
hazzy
Spectator
Posts: 48
Likes: 2
|
Post by hazzy on Jan 3, 2014 6:58:46 GMT
Not directly aimed at this thread but I always, always, see more people criticising the amount of people posting "new year, new me" stuff than actually saying it. My plan is to become as close to fluent in French as possible (can vaguely speak it) and read 2 new books a month. Preferably classics. you can holla at me if you want some random french help or say certain words correctly No real plan from me for this year, just raising the bar as usual.
|
|
|
Post by g7vikings on Jan 3, 2014 9:23:40 GMT
Not directly aimed at this thread but I always, always, see more people criticising the amount of people posting "new year, new me" stuff than actually saying it. The last couple of years has seen a growing section of people moaning about the moaning too. I always want to read more, but never do. Just last night I had planned to stop watching Community at 11 and read for an hour before bed, but I decided one more Community wouldn't hurt. I watched three more. It would only have been two but the pillows and blankets was done over two episodes and you can't go to bed or stop to read in the middle of that.
|
|
Cashis
Starter
Posts: 4,588
Likes: 2,371
|
Post by Cashis on Jan 3, 2014 10:02:03 GMT
Is it really bad that I just got that you were making an Irishman potato connection? Unless you weren't, in which case, I'm clearly oversensitive. Not directly aimed at this thread but I always, always, see more people criticising the amount of people posting "new year, new me" stuff than actually saying it. My plan is to become as close to fluent in French as possible (can vaguely speak it) and read 2 new books a month. Preferably classics. How would you define classics? Let me know if you need any starters. Yes mate it was an Irishman-potato comment haha
|
|
Matt
Reserve
It was the blurst of times?!
Posts: 101
Likes: 6
|
Post by Matt on Jan 3, 2014 10:23:39 GMT
Not that extreme, but yeah, friend of mine locked at midnight tagging all the 14 people she was with at the time. Never understood this behaviour on the actual night out, sitting on your phone searching for the profiles of the people surrounding you to tag. Mine are the general 'get my life in order' shite, with more of an emphasis on working life and living life considering I've moved out and actually have to cop on to savings and rent and cooking and shit. Giving up drink for January (starting this morning... ) and seeing how it goes from there also.
|
|
|
Post by Heung-Min Pleat on Jan 3, 2014 11:24:58 GMT
2014 IZ MYYY TYM NOW BITCHEZZ U HAVE BIN WARNED
|
|
|
Post by Maskya Yoshida on Jan 3, 2014 13:24:59 GMT
Giving up drink for January (starting this morning... ) and seeing how it goes from there also. I'm doing this also, I'm making sure I go out and do something tomorrow for my birthday so I don't just go to the pub with people. Don't have the will power to ask for a non-alcoholic drink in a pub yet.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2014 16:06:09 GMT
Is it really bad that I just got that you were making an Irishman potato connection? Unless you weren't, in which case, I'm clearly oversensitive. Not directly aimed at this thread but I always, always, see more people criticising the amount of people posting "new year, new me" stuff than actually saying it. My plan is to become as close to fluent in French as possible (can vaguely speak it) and read 2 new books a month. Preferably classics. How would you define classics? Let me know if you need any starters. Even though I studied Lit. at sixth form I can be pretty ignorant so I tend to just go by Wordsworth for modern classic writers like Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens etc. If you can give me any pointers for "The Classics" then that'd also be a huge help because I don't even know where to start. Except maybe Cicero. I think Cicero falls under that period. Brings me on to my third and final aim for the year: Latin. Learn, read and write it. Only then will I consider myself an able History student. Although people spend their entire lives studying Latin so I might be happy just knowing the basics come this time next year. hazzy I'm sure I will need it some point haha
|
|
Star of Spurs
Key Player
alcohol and night swimming
Posts: 5,399
Likes: 2,676
Team: Tottenham Hotspur
|
Post by Star of Spurs on Jan 3, 2014 16:28:59 GMT
I'm taking this to heart tbh, 2013 was shite on so many levels so my 17 resolutions are going to make sure this year's better
fwiw I don't see the big deal about people talking optimistically
|
|
notpropaganda
Key Player
Eden 'Azarrrrrrrr!
Posts: 8,476
Likes: 5,702
Team: Republic of Ireland
|
Post by notpropaganda on Jan 3, 2014 16:34:50 GMT
Anyone that wants to start reading more, get the cheapest version of a Kindle you can. My Kindle has made me read so much because it's so easy to have rather than a book. daveyposhboy, if you want to look back to ancient Greece and Rome then you're not gonna be reading any novels or stories, it's all in dramatic verse and poetry - and then philosophy and history. I'd recommend the Epic of Gilgamesh (I think the earliest known written text but I may be wrong), then obviously The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer. Sophocles is my favourite of all the playwrights in Ancient Greece. Obviously Plato is an important figure if you want to read stuff like The Republic, but I'm not a huge fan. Would highly recommend Herodotus, the "first historian", purely because he doesn't write like a historian, he just writes down all the stories people tell him hahaha. So he just records everything and calls it history. Thucydides is the first "real historian" in that he starts his book by calling Herodotus an idiot. He's a boring read though. For poetry, the Romans did it better - Catullus and Horace are my favourites. Virgil's The Aeneid is brilliant, carries on from after The Iliad and follows the foundation story for Rome. If you're reading Cicero again it's stuff like Plato, not really my thing to read. Plutarch does a "Life of:" series which is pretty interesting, picking out famous figures in ancient Greece and Rome. Suetonius does an autobiography type thing of the Roman Emperors. Livy and Tacitus are the "proper" historians for Rome but it's still entertaining. I tried Latin but I struggle with language. If I had a base in something like French or Spanish I think it would be easier to trace back. But yeah I wish I could properly read Latin and ancient Greece just to actually look at the original texts, because you're always relying on a "good translation" of things. And a "good" translation can be anything from capturing the meaning precisely, to capturing the feeling precisely etc.
|
|
Exonerator
Starter
Posts: 3,414
Likes: 1,096
Team: Liverpool
|
Post by Exonerator on Jan 3, 2014 20:00:14 GMT
|
|
hazzy
Spectator
Posts: 48
Likes: 2
|
Post by hazzy on Jan 3, 2014 20:51:10 GMT
Started not being fettered about the whole new year hype, then this morning I get offered a job that pays 15$ an hour, my first above minimum wage.
"new year, new me" might apply to me after all, haha safe. Step up my shoe game or somethin
|
|
notpropaganda
Key Player
Eden 'Azarrrrrrrr!
Posts: 8,476
Likes: 5,702
Team: Republic of Ireland
|
Post by notpropaganda on Jan 3, 2014 22:11:56 GMT
Middle Ages as far as I know, never studied it
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2014 16:15:48 GMT
Thanks a lot notpropaganda, Heredotus' histories sounds a lot like the way Inquisitors and Papal writers used to write in the 13th & 14th century and I found them pretty damn good this semester at Uni haha. Noted down all the others you've mentioned as well so I think I've got a pretty damn run for the year. Think I have to read both Cicero and Plato for a module I'm picking next year, so I'll probably push them to the end of the list. Your point about the translation, especially after looking at translated texts about the time of the French Crusades, is something I'm wary of. End up having to take most of that stuff with a pinch of salt or just have to be really really assumptive, especially when it came to how women and children would be stored in ale barrels if men thought they'd basically snitch on them for being heretics and rubbish like that. Dangerously polarising for historians. Nonetheless, thanks again man.
|
|
notpropaganda
Key Player
Eden 'Azarrrrrrrr!
Posts: 8,476
Likes: 5,702
Team: Republic of Ireland
|
Post by notpropaganda on Jan 4, 2014 17:50:48 GMT
Well in terms of history writers, almost every author has a motive for what they're writing so a big part of reading stuff from those times is to place it in a context so you don't take everything as fact. In that way Herodotus is refreshing because there's no motive he just records nearly everyhing he hears.
It's the same with history in general though I guess, what you're reading depends a lot on the author's own perspective etc.
|
|