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Bentrovato

Coronavirus Reading List

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1. Camus. The Plague.

2. Nicolas Diat. A Time To Die

3. Emily St.John Mandel. Station Eleven. 

 

There is a Playlist. So I thought some fogeys out there might like a reading list. 

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I read your no. 3 book recently.  I wouldn't recommend it.  

I did finish it in the hope that there might be a point to all the flashbacks (there isn't) and that it all might come together into something interesting (it doesn't).  Nothing much happens, and it just sort of tails off. 

 

Are you just looking for tongue-in cheek ironic suggestions, or genuine recommendations?  Or both?

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This could do with being in Extra-Curricular...

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The great Dino Buzzati's short story Seven Floors comes to mind.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Toast said:

Are you just looking for tongue-in cheek ironic suggestions, or genuine recommendations?  Or both?

Presumably corona-themed books, since we already have a thread for the latter:

 

 

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Obvious answer:

 

Giovanni Boccaccio - Decamerone

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10 minutes ago, The Quim Reaper said:

This could do with being in Extra-Curricular...

Agreed and moved. 

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Support fandom writers and join https://archiveofourown.org/. I know so many amazing writers who write Harry Potter size novels just based on characters they love.

 

There are also original stories there not based on fan works.

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32 minutes ago, The Quim Reaper said:

This could do with being in Extra-Curricular...

This could do with being binned.

I cannot be the only one getting royally fucked off with Corona Virus this and Corona Virus that.

Three fucking years of Brexit bollocks and now we are going to have a year of Corona Virus bollocks.

Lets have some threads that are NOT about it.

Please.

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The full set of The Walking Dead Comic book series should cheer every one up. 
 

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway, is a cool title.

 

The Stand by Stephen King (this hits close to home in what we are going through right now.)

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The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster

 

The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Travel is permitted, but is unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine with which people conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for knowledge.

 

Online text here

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On 22/03/2020 at 16:10, Torva Messor said:

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster

 

The story describes a world in which most of the human population has lost the ability to live on the surface of the Earth. Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard room, with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine. Travel is permitted, but is unpopular and rarely necessary. Communication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine with which people conduct their only activity: the sharing of ideas and what passes for knowledge.

 

Online text here

Read this a few weeks ago. Just after reading Dorian Lynskey's The Ministry of Truth: A biography of George Orwell's 1984. Both well worth it. Especially as we are now moving into being a full on totalitarian state. For a while anyway. Maybe. 

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On 21/03/2020 at 14:03, Toast said:

I read your no. 3 book recently.  I wouldn't recommend it.  

I did finish it in the hope that there might be a point to all the flashbacks (there isn't) and that it all might come together into something interesting (it doesn't).  Nothing much happens, and it just sort of tails off. 

 

Are you just looking for tongue-in cheek ironic suggestions, or genuine recommendations?  Or both?

Fair enough. I will give it a go anyway.  Both in answer to your question.

 

To be honest there seem to be a lot of lists knocking around on other websites/social media sites. A lot of them seem to be French authors who I have heard of but never read. Seems to be a lot of end of world feeling from across the channel. Amongst readers at any rate.

 

A lots of books about suicide as well. Alvarez: The Savage God: a study of suicide, seems to be a popular one. 

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I'm currently reading Revelation by C.J. Sansom, one of a series of novels set in the time of Henry VIII.  It's the fourth in the series - they are very long so take me ages to get through.  What with that, and watching The Tudors, I'm still glad I'm alive now and not liable to be tortured and executed at the whim of a tyrant.   Probably better off catching the plague or the "sweating sickness".  :unsure:

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On 21/03/2020 at 13:32, Bentrovato said:

3. Emily St.John Mandel. Station Eleven. 

 

On 21/03/2020 at 14:03, Toast said:

I read your no. 3 book recently.  I wouldn't recommend it.  

I did finish it in the hope that there might be a point to all the flashbacks (there isn't) and that it all might come together into something interesting (it doesn't).  Nothing much happens, and it just sort of tails off. 

 

 

Well, I couldn't resist the temptation and invested 99p in the Kindle version.  I'm quite liking it so far, but will report back when I've finished. 

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 A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller. For when it is all over and the world starts to try to rebuild. Post-apocalyptic science fiction to cheer the soul. 

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The Masque of the Red Death. Edgar Allan Poe. Damnation to you all......

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