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Robert Dawson recommended Genesis in Books (curated)

 
Genesis
Genesis
Sebastiao Salgado, Lella Salgado | 2013 | Art, Photography & Fashion
(0 Ratings)
Book Favorite

"After our son Walker couch-surfed in Rio last year, we felt obliged to take in one of the Brazilian friends he met. She brought a copy of Sebastião Salgado’s beautiful but expensive book Genesis. We felt bad because she doesn’t have a lot of money and also because it is in Portuguese. However, 95% of the book consists of Salgado’s brilliant photographs, which need no translation. It seems that the people with the least often give the most."

Source
  
40x40

Deborah (162 KP) rated The Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459 1486 in Books

Dec 21, 2018  
TC
The Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 1459 1486
Nicholas Pronay | 1986
6
6.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Anyone who has read about the Wars of the Roses, and about Richard III in particular, has probably come across mention of The Croyland (now known as Crowland) Chronicle, and in particular the Continuation that refers to events in this period.

This volume was produced to mark the 500th anniversary or the writing of the Continuation and is only the second English translation and publication of it.

The book itself is a very scholarly book and the editors seem to assume that a reader will have a working knowledge of Latin as in the introductory section there are numerous quotations in Latin which are not then rendered in English. The introductory section is quite in-depth and indeed takes up more than half of the pages in the volume! A lot of it I will admit to having found rather heavy going, although the information I did glean was interesting and useful. I was not particularly aware of the history of the original manuscript, in that is had been badly damaged in a fire and much of the current text was therefore taken from a copy of the text written as part of the earlier English publication. There are some plates which show some of the surviving pages of the manuscript, but not all pages have survived, so the current editors have used the earlier transcript as a starting point. There is also an interesting and useful consideration of the authorship of the Continuation.

The Continuation itself takes up just under half of the volume and the original Latin text is printed on one side the the English translation on the facing page. I found the translation quite readable, even if it did feel like a bit of a whirlwind tour of events! Oddly, the national political picture breaks off several times and we have inserted a sort of obituary of Abbots of Croyland who happened to die as this point in the main narrative.

What I think I would like to see, and what would be of interest to a general historical reader, would be a publication of the English translation with an introduction and analysis geared more to the general reader than to the academic scholar.
  
    179 Bible Atlas Maps

    179 Bible Atlas Maps

    Reference and Education

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    Locations important to the Bible are covered in this atlas covering 1000s of years and vast areas of...

40x40

Sensitivemuse (246 KP) rated A Hero Born in Books

Sep 25, 2019  
A Hero Born
A Hero Born
Jin Yong | 2019 | Fiction & Poetry
5
5.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Great plot but translation isn't so good
Despite what you read on the covers (e.g. “It’s like Lord of the Rings”) ignore all of that. It’s nothing like it. There is no epic adventure to fight evil (at least not yet - this is the first book in the series). So before you get all disappointed in what the outside quotes say, completely disregard them.

Translation will always be an issue with these kinds of books. It’s hard to keep it true and coherent. Sometimes you get a good one that is completely comprehensible and makes the reading a journey well worth it. Then you get one like A Hero Born and it’s not the greatest translation. The writing style is dry and hard to get into. Sometimes it gets too descriptive, but other times it’s not descriptive enough. It can be a little long winded at times and it drags - I’m not too sure if that’s because of the run on writing style or the plot itself. Either way by the last third of the book it was getting to be tiresome.

Speaking of the plot, it was good! There’s plenty of action, a bit of intrigue here and there. If you don’t mind something akin to Chinese historical fiction movies with classic martial arts fighting then perhaps this is for you. There are small elements of political intrigue which keeps the story interesting, however keep in mind there are a lot of characters to keep track of, but luckily there is a cast of characters in the beginning of the novel so that should not be a problem. This isn’t a book to put down and turn back to later, this needs to be consistently read you will easily lose your place.

There’s also several plot arcs that happen throughout the novel so it’s best to keep track of them carefully. They are all intertwined at some point. It’s a great plot and if it wasn’t for the horrible writing/translation.

I don’t know if I could recommend this one to anyone. I would under normal circumstances but the writing just do the plot justice. It’s too bad, it would have been such a great series.