Bookworms of JF, what's your favorite book (s) and why?

Bookworms of JF, what's your favorite book (s) and why?

Paula Paul said:
War and Peace: The 10 things you need to know if you haven't actually read it. (C&P)

Who is the hero? Can you skip the boring bits? How long will it take to read? A guide to a book that is not just great, it is the best novel ever writte

1 People change. The characters in War and Peace endure extreme experiences, and emerge at the end as quite different people. The miracle of the book is that the Natasha who falls in love with anyone and everyone in the ballrooms of the opening is recognisably the same woman who withdraws from society at the end.

2 There is no hero and no heroine. This is the story of a group of people living within a society. Andrei Bolkonsky is not Tolstoy’s hero, and Natasha is not a romantic heroine. It forgives ideas of heroism, most beautifully in the last words any character speaks in the book, as Andrei’s son thinks of his father at the end of the First Epilogue. It understands and sympathises with those ideas but it excuses itself from repeating them. The book will try to understand why people behave as they do, and it may make the best case possible for some strange actions, but it won’t make apologies for anyone and won’t pass a final judgment. Don’t expect to be able to predict what happens. Even the characters won’t be able to explain why they do what they do, perhaps until weeks or months later. The subject of the book is the wildness of possibility, and how the world can be changed by one woman saying, for no particular reason that she can explain, “I have had so little happiness in my life.”


3 The novel has a particular technical feature; it passes from mind to mind, showing us the world as a consciousness moves through it. It doesn’t mean that the consciousness of the moment has any particular importance; it is just how these events were seen by one particular observer, and another observer will take up the baton in a page or two. (After 300 pages, you will agree that this is the best way to write a novel.)


4 This is not a historical novel, but a novel that discusses events of the recent past within the memory of many of Tolstoy’s first readers. Its details are not exquisite recreations of lost practice, but ways in which an individual psychology can engage with the real world. It is about history, and both the tsar and Napoleon make awesome appearances. But it is not about “the historical”, and it has no costume department.

5 You will like some characters more than others, and there will be long stretches where a character you used to like irritates or frustrates you. Other characters will engage your sympathy over time; you may be deeply surprised, by the end, by who you want to spend most time with. The book has the rhythm of life, and likability is not a steady, constant factor; sometimes Natasha is entrancing, sometimes a great bore. (If you read it more than once, as almost everyone who reads it at all does, these responses may occur at quite different times.)

6 Love comes into it. It understands, as James Buchan once wrote, that love is the circus hoop through which history is made to leap again and again. But romantic love is only one of the things that may interest the mind, and sometimes it does not interest the mind at all. There are other subjects in the novel, too.



7. Anyone who tells you that you can skip the “War” parts and only read the “Peace” parts is an idiot. The bits that interest you personally and the bits that you find of only abstract curiosity are going to change when you read the book at 20, and again at 50. The book is the product of a very big mind, who lost interest in almost everything War and Peace was about before he died. It is a living organism that is never quite the same as you remembered when you go back to it.

8 It’s quite a long novel, but not absurdly long. Proust is twice the length. Nor is it at all difficult. You think it’s a challenge? Ha, ha – The Man Without Qualities is a challenge, and it took me 17 years to get to the end of Joseph and his Brothers. You’ll read War and Peace in 10 days, maximum. Many people find the first 100 pages dauntingly full of characters, and only then does it seem to smooth out .

War and Peace: the 10 things you need to know (if you haven't actually read it)
Click to expand...
Paula Kuna list flani nilikuomba uniandikie pamoja na pdf zake, hujaniandikia my dear
 
James Comey said:
Kuna wakati siku hizi natumia muda wa movie kusoma vitabu. Nimeweza kusoma kitabu cha hadithi Case if Shapely Shadow 726 pages ndani ya siku moja kwangu ni mile stone. I owe JF and its members a lot for such inspiration.
Click to expand...
"The Case Of Shapely Shadow"

Umesoma ndani ha siku moja 726 pages ? Did I read that right? Aww hongera sana James.
 
Paula Paul said:
War and Peace: The 10 things you need to know if you haven't actually read it. (C&P)

Who is the hero? Can you skip the boring bits? How long will it take to read? A guide to a book that is not just great, it is the best novel ever writte

1 People change. The characters in War and Peace endure extreme experiences, and emerge at the end as quite different people. The miracle of the book is that the Natasha who falls in love with anyone and everyone in the ballrooms of the opening is recognisably the same woman who withdraws from society at the end.

2 There is no hero and no heroine. This is the story of a group of people living within a society. Andrei Bolkonsky is not Tolstoy’s hero, and Natasha is not a romantic heroine. It forgives ideas of heroism, most beautifully in the last words any character speaks in the book, as Andrei’s son thinks of his father at the end of the First Epilogue. It understands and sympathises with those ideas but it excuses itself from repeating them. The book will try to understand why people behave as they do, and it may make the best case possible for some strange actions, but it won’t make apologies for anyone and won’t pass a final judgment. Don’t expect to be able to predict what happens. Even the characters won’t be able to explain why they do what they do, perhaps until weeks or months later. The subject of the book is the wildness of possibility, and how the world can be changed by one woman saying, for no particular reason that she can explain, “I have had so little happiness in my life.”


3 The novel has a particular technical feature; it passes from mind to mind, showing us the world as a consciousness moves through it. It doesn’t mean that the consciousness of the moment has any particular importance; it is just how these events were seen by one particular observer, and another observer will take up the baton in a page or two. (After 300 pages, you will agree that this is the best way to write a novel.)


4 This is not a historical novel, but a novel that discusses events of the recent past within the memory of many of Tolstoy’s first readers. Its details are not exquisite recreations of lost practice, but ways in which an individual psychology can engage with the real world. It is about history, and both the tsar and Napoleon make awesome appearances. But it is not about “the historical”, and it has no costume department.

5 You will like some characters more than others, and there will be long stretches where a character you used to like irritates or frustrates you. Other characters will engage your sympathy over time; you may be deeply surprised, by the end, by who you want to spend most time with. The book has the rhythm of life, and likability is not a steady, constant factor; sometimes Natasha is entrancing, sometimes a great bore. (If you read it more than once, as almost everyone who reads it at all does, these responses may occur at quite different times.)

6 Love comes into it. It understands, as James Buchan once wrote, that love is the circus hoop through which history is made to leap again and again. But romantic love is only one of the things that may interest the mind, and sometimes it does not interest the mind at all. There are other subjects in the novel, too.



7. Anyone who tells you that you can skip the “War” parts and only read the “Peace” parts is an idiot. The bits that interest you personally and the bits that you find of only abstract curiosity are going to change when you read the book at 20, and again at 50. The book is the product of a very big mind, who lost interest in almost everything War and Peace was about before he died. It is a living organism that is never quite the same as you remembered when you go back to it.

8 It’s quite a long novel, but not absurdly long. Proust is twice the length. Nor is it at all difficult. You think it’s a challenge? Ha, ha – The Man Without Qualities is a challenge, and it took me 17 years to get to the end of Joseph and his Brothers. You’ll read War and Peace in 10 days, maximum. Many people find the first 100 pages dauntingly full of characters, and only then does it seem to smooth out .

War and Peace: the 10 things you need to know (if you haven't actually read it)
Click to expand...

Thanks for this interesting summary Paula. I will squeeze this book into my reading schedule right away.

So far, I confess not to have many Russian authors under my belt but I have hardcopies of War and Peace, and Ana Karenina so I should start to remedy this anomaly in my reading.
 
Depal said:
Uliifanyaje mpaka ikaleta hiyo opt ya malipo? Mie mbona kwangu naingia free na mwisho nimetokapo huko mida ya saa 2
Click to expand...
Inakuwa km ivo!
Screenshot_2020-06-07-14-35-33.jpg


Sent from my KIW-L21 using JamiiForums mobile app
 
Capital G said:
Hello Paula, naweza pata list na pdf ya your top ten books toka uanze kusoma vitabu?

Sent using Jamii Forums mobile app
Click to expand...
1.A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine.

2.Principles "life and work" -Ray Dalio

3.Seven Habit Of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey .

4.Can't hurt me by David Goggins

5.Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman.

6.Ego is Enemy-Ryan Holiday.

7.How to win Friends and Influence people-Dale Carnegie

8.Feeling Good by David Burns,

9.Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman,

10.A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine

11.A Monk who sold his Ferrari- Robin Sharma

12.Deep Work: Rules for Focused success in A distracted World - Cal Newport

Have you read any of these books? If so, let me know.
 
Nowonmai said:
Thanks for this interesting summary Paula. I will squeeze this book into my reading schedule right away.

So far, I confess not to have many Russian authors under my belt but I have hardcopies of War and Peace, and Ana Karenina so I should start to remedy this anomaly in my reading.
Click to expand...
You are welcome Nowonmai.
Dostoevsky, Gogol and Leo Tolstoy are my favourite Russian authors.


War and Peace is the longest book I have ever completely read but damn it worth it.
The audible version is by far the best.
Goshh, I might just listen to it a second time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Our Community

Regional Communities

Back
Top Bottom
Menu
Forums
New posts
Log in
Register