This LAPL staff member claims to stumble upon the great variety of books that they read which are mostly old and modern classics.
Often cited as the first Gothic novel, the Castle of Otranto is the estate of one Manfred (the hero-villain), whose only son is immediately killed by a giant piece of armor, many parts of which are wandering the halls of the castle. Manfred spends the rest of the book desperately trying to extend his bloodline to prevent a prophecy that foretells the loss of the castle by his family to the rightful heir. Mystery, love, haunted halls, stormy nights, dark forests, surprising twists in the plot, a damsel in distress, a bloody murder, ghosts that will not stay in their portraits, and the afore mentioned armor trying to reconstruct itself are all the charming components to be found in a Gothic novel.
Montaigne's essays were ultimately written for Montaigne. I often wonder how honest he was in writing the essays. He seems truthful enough, but from the beginning, he makes it very clear that someday he would publish his book. In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Montaigne’s Essays is not a philosophical work concerned with debating the right and wrong, or piercing the veil of reality and gazing at the metaphysical truth. It is not a memoir or an autobiography, since he cares little for specific, factual events themselves, instead focusing on their impact on his mind. No, this book is more closely related to a work of fiction. Though the man lived, breathed and impacted his time and place, his thoughts, however clear, are now only real in print, like any other novel or poem dreamt by a beautiful mind. Montaigne is a character who ponders almost everything and leaves me thinking on these subjects and wanting more. He thought, questioned, and changed his mind in the process. He wrote those ruminations down and provided us with a wonderful template for the fiction in our minds.
Poetry is, to me, the classical music of literature. It is the symphony, the orchestration, the pure yet complicated and deceptively simple manifestation of sound. I say this because, unlike novels, or short stories, or any other form of writing, poetry has the ability to grab me immediately. I’ve memorized many poems and innumerable lines swirl within my brain, completely out of context, but with power nonetheless. Keats’ poems specifically consumed me in a way only Beethoven’s symphonies had before. His words enthralled me, haunted me. I found myself repeating lines as soon as I read them, trying desperately to commit them to memory. Keats was a romantic and an incredibly inventive writer. He thought beauty the ultimate truth and attempted to infuse every line he wrote with that truth. He achieved this more often than not and created some of the most sublime music I’ve ever read.
For anyone who misses the comic books of old, where good and evil are as clear as black and white, night and day, then Justice is perfect. The good guys will win and the bad guys are foild again, but there's plenty of action along the way. Justice doesn't try to change the way we think about comic book heroes like Watchman or the Dark Knight, but it will entertain. Add to that the iconic art of Alex Ross, and you might have one of the most satisfying comics around.
Grayling discusses everything from morality to trifles. The book is divided into three parts: Virtues and Attributes - ideas that usually help humanity; Foes and Fallacies - that which is often detrimental to us; and Amenities and Goods - which include more tangible ideas and less controversial discussions. No one will agree with Grayling one hundred percent of the time, and I doubt he would be happy if anyone did.
A classic dystopian novel. An engineer in One State is tasked with writing a diary that glorifies the state, but it turns into something else, which is about the engineer's life and how it is different because he falls in love with a woman in a resistance group. In order to cure everyone of their feelings, all citizens are forced to have a lobotomy.More powerful than1984 and Brave new world.