Heartland

Since they're not letting me take a Kindle on planes anymore, I'm looking for a really good fat (but content with its image) paperback to keep me occupied on long journeys. It occurs to me that P&P would fit the bill, as well as being one of those books that everyone says people ought to read. Has anyone read it, and would they recommend it?

Anything from L.Tolstoi will fit description given
I 've never read P&P or felt the need to do so

I read it at school. It's a satire of middle class society manners of its time. Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

Oh, yes. Austen writes prose sharper than a box of Wilkinson's Swords.
Emma is another good one, and Persuasion. I have a sharp tongue and a high level of sarcasm use, but she makes even me wince sometimes. Don't be fooled by bonnets and pelisses.

Well, I will read almost anything - and satire can be amusing. If I can pick it up and put it down and pick it up again without losing the thread or thinking, "Hold on, I thought Lester was taken prisoner by the Zargaloins in chapter 3, so how come he's commanding the HMSS Arsekicker now?" then that would be good. Wouldn't mind a good book for commuting also - finished Pamuk's Museum of Innocence, not bad, beautifully written (or at least translated), breezing through McEwan's Saturday and Atonement which I've enjoyed.

I thought we had a Currently Reading thread around here somewhere...

i think we do...
there are never so many characters in Austen that it gets confused - 'society in miniature' is what she gets at. And easy to read.
I've read her novels many times and i still go back a page or three for 'did she really just say that??'

https://www.myheartland.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=19907

It's been a while...

I've been wanting to read Austen for a while. My go-to plane and train reading tends to be Plutarch's Lives these days. Good stuff.

emilystrange wrote:Oh, yes. Austen writes prose sharper than a box of Wilkinson's Swords.
Emma is another good one, and Persuasion. I have a sharp tongue and a high level of sarcasm use, but she makes even me wince sometimes. Don't be fooled by bonnets and pelisses.

That is so true. It is an enduring classic for a reason. I had to read it for school but would just as happily pick it up now, something I wouldn't say for Hard Times or half a dozen others that were on the reading list.

There's no Earl Grey tea in it though (but then if you're on a plane that's probably not such a bad thing).

guess what i'll be doing tomorrow...

can you use the kindle app on your phone? small, but it works

Thanks! Sounds like I would enjoy reading it, and if I don't, well, it's only a fiver in the 2nd-hand bookshop. And maybe I'll add Vol. II, the one that has the zombies in it.

Should offer some light relief to compensate for Kashmir in Conflict: India, Pakistan and the Unending War which promises to be an unending grind of awfulness - also trying to get through Fall's Street Without Joy, can only manage about 10 pages at a sitting, a catalogue of utter utter fuckups by the Garlic Botherers in SEAsia - a good place to start understanding how Vietnam turned into the shitshow that it did, but the laughs are few and far between.

markfiend wrote:https://www.myheartland.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=19907

It's been a while...

Ah, yes - could we slide this thread into that one to keep things tidy?

Microcosmia wrote:

emilystrange wrote:Oh, yes. Austen writes prose sharper than a box of Wilkinson's Swords.
Emma is another good one, and Persuasion. I have a sharp tongue and a high level of sarcasm use, but she makes even me wince sometimes. Don't be fooled by bonnets and pelisses.

That is so true. It is an enduring classic for a reason. I had to read it for school but would just as happily pick it up now, something I wouldn't say for Hard Times or half a dozen others that were on the reading list.

There's no Earl Grey tea in it though (but then if you're on a plane that's probably not such a bad thing).

I've seen the BBC adaptation, with Colin Firth - pretty sure that there was no end of Earl Grey being drunk being drunk chez Bennet when he popped over for a dip.

Horses for courses innit, I would recommend Thomas hardy, the dour bastard, and if that don't float your boat a great big hefty Richard Morgan should do the job.

EvilBastard wrote:

Microcosmia wrote:

emilystrange wrote:Oh, yes. Austen writes prose sharper than a box of Wilkinson's Swords.
Emma is another good one, and Persuasion. I have a sharp tongue and a high level of sarcasm use, but she makes even me wince sometimes. Don't be fooled by bonnets and pelisses.

That is so true. It is an enduring classic for a reason. I had to read it for school but would just as happily pick it up now, something I wouldn't say for Hard Times or half a dozen others that were on the reading list.

There's no Earl Grey tea in it though (but then if you're on a plane that's probably not such a bad thing).

I've seen the BBC adaptation, with Colin Firth - pretty sure that there was no end of Earl Grey being drunk being drunk chez Bennet when he popped over for a dip.

That scene was in the BBC screen adaptation but it was never in the book!

Needs Zombies. Oh hang on...maybe not.

There are zombie versions!

The zombie movie follows the book?
I enjoyed that movie , i think Cersey and Tywin Lannisters play in that one and it was good

yeap half Lannisters in it

i didn't know there was a movie - i've seen the books in the shops

Microcosmia wrote:

EvilBastard wrote:

Microcosmia wrote: That is so true. It is an enduring classic for a reason. I had to read it for school but would just as happily pick it up now, something I wouldn't say for Hard Times or half a dozen others that were on the reading list.

There's no Earl Grey tea in it though (but then if you're on a plane that's probably not such a bad thing).

I've seen the BBC adaptation, with Colin Firth - pretty sure that there was no end of Earl Grey being drunk being drunk chez Bennet when he popped over for a dip.

That scene was in the BBC screen adaptation but it was never in the book!

Fecking book censors! Where will the madness end?

Pista wrote:Fecking book censors! Where will the madness end?

John Mervyn Guthrie Griffith-Jones, CBE MC wrote:When you have read it through, would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?

EvilBastard wrote:

Pista wrote:Fecking book censors! Where will the madness end?

John Mervyn Guthrie Griffith-Jones, CBE MC wrote:When you have read it through, would you approve of your young sons, young daughters – because girls can read as well as boys – reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?

Pista wrote:

Microcosmia wrote:
That scene was in the BBC screen adaptation but it was never in the book!

Fecking book censors! Where will the madness end?

Even if it had been in the book we'd never have got to read it in school. The nuns were the most effective censors of all

Which planes can't you take Kindles on? I've never had a problem.

ruffers wrote:Which planes can't you take Kindles on? I've never had a problem.

New rule, apparently - there's a bunch of airlines and departure points to the US and the UK where you can't take any electronics bigger than a mobile phone into the cabin. No cameras, no laptops, no tablets, no big-screen TVs, they've all got to go in the hold.

The merkins started it (but of course the rules don't apply if you're flying an American carrier from these departure points - yeah, fathom the logic on that one), the brits followed suit, while every terrorism expert and security specialist is shaking his/her head going, "Really? What the actual fuq? Do you actually think this is going to do any good? Really?"