What are you reading?

[skylee]

Finally I have bought 中國人史綱 and starting reading it. I hope to finish it in one month, and may report again then. The preface starts by discussing about the confusion created by the use of 年號. And I almost missed my station ...

[Dancer]

HI all, I am new to this forum. I have a passion in poetry and i have written some poems but they are all in english. I hope to learn better chinese and hopefully in time, i can write a poem in chinese.

Chinese history, culture, language, fascinates me so much. I've just printed out some of the chinese poetry from this forum to read.

One of my goal in life is to read the full text of San Guo Yan Yi, but i know my chinese is not up to standard yet.

Is there any books out there which kind of tell the story but in a more summarised, simplified version? Not those cartoons kind. Thanks.

By the way, i'm located in Singapore.

[skylee]

Dancer, you may like to try this one ->

http://www.threekingdoms.com/

[Dancer]

Thanks! i hope it is not too thick to read.

[Lu]

Currently re-rereading Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee novels. I luv' it.

[skylee]

I have just finished reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code". I think it is quite good.

[xuechengfeng]

My mom let me borrow that and it is just lying around.. I'll sadly probably never get to it (or the 2o other unread books) because school is starting soon.

[Lu]

Currently reading a book by Anchee Min, I guess it'd be called Empress Orchid in English. Not good. Anchee Min just can't write well. The story is scattered, problems are brought up and never solved, the story just skips it and goes on. Fairly important characters aren't mentioned for several chapters, changes in mood are not explained... etc etc. It's readable, but only if you have nothing better to do or read.

[Lu]

Reading some Lin Yutang books, which is all the English that the guoyu zhongxin library has.

I liked Chinatown family (唐人街), I like it when a family does rather well. It reminded me of Pearl Buck's The good earth, different time, different place, but also a family that works hard and gets well-to-do.

Now reading Moment in Peking (京华烟云), and am discovering that Lin is actually not that good a writer. He can keep the readers attention, the boring parts are not too long, but he explains too much, there's too much he tells in advance. Girl loves boy and he loves her too, and then Lin tells that she is going to suffer. A good writer doesn't need to tell that, his writing is so that the (good) reader already feels the tragedy coming.

Moment in Peking is a bit like the Hongloumeng, only with less people, and much less deep. But also landscape, a rich family and some related or befriended families, story mostly about the kids of the family growing up, story now about this person, now about that.

And reading 台北人 (Taipei people) by Pai Hsien-yung, Chinese on the right page, English on the left. I'm doing ok, but I'm not fooling myself, if it wasn't for the English I would have stopped understanding long ago.

[skylee]

I am still reading 中國人史綱 (it's been almost 2 months now). I have finished about 75% and reached Ming Dynasty.

But I've just received a yesasia newsletter and in it there is this interesting item -> 情書 (a novel of that unforgettable film written by the director 岩井俊二). I am going to read it, 籐井樹、籐井樹、籐井樹 ...

一封寄往天國的信竟然收到了逝者的回信，是不捨的亡魂，還是同名同姓的巧合？小說《情書》揭開了埋藏多年未被揭穿的一段至死不渝的戀情。兩個相貌一模一樣的女子，在不一樣的故事與回憶中，都暗念一個相同的名字——籐井樹……根據小說《情書》改編的同名影片自上映後感動了無數觀眾，深沉的眷戀和一去不復返的少年往事，己成為億萬人心中珍藏的記憶。岩井俊二更以其清麗、雋永的文筆成為當今亞洲青春唯美文學的代言人。

在這本等待已久的小說《情書》中，你將會發現，這位在世界電影版圖中佔有重要地位的新銳導演的小說創作才華，竟然是如此的令人驚訝。被稱為「映像作家」的岩井俊二，別具一格地將電影中的鏡頭語言敘述引入到小說的創作中，使得他的作品擁有了一種獨特的氣質：細節飽滿的畫面和光滑而不失漣漪的情節銜接。日本女作家北川悅吏子在看完《情書》的小說後專門致信岩井俊二，熱情洋溢地讚歎：「你的小說沒有輸給你的電影！」

[ChouDoufu]

Been reading 3 Murakami books and a biography on Roald Dahl.

In Chinese I'm reading 《家》by 巴金 and various short stories by pre-modern Chinese authors. I recently found out you can download quite a lot of Chinese stories, classics, etc. for free.　　and it's legal (copyright expirations)

check out http://www.chinese-e-book.com/.

[skylee]

I think I am a fan of Murakami (bought all his books), but I find it hard to love some of his works. I love his style, but not some of the stories.

[madizi]

I'm reading Feng Youlan's History of Chinese Philosophy. It's a little bit out-of-date, but still good reference. Beside that I also read one textbook about Western philosophy, because I recently realized that I know much more about Chinese philosophy than Western philosophy.

[in_lab]

Been reading 3 Murakami books and a biography on Roald Dahl.

In Chinese I'm reading 《家》by 巴金 and various short stories by pre-modern Chinese authors. I recently found out you can download quite a lot of Chinese stories, classics, etc. for free.　　and it's legal (copyright expirations)

How's the Roald Dahl biography? I used to really like his books.

I read a translation of Ba Jin's Family a few years ago. I know it has a lot of historical value, but I thought it was terrible. I think the characters seemed too unreal or too tragic for me.

I'm currently trying to read some essays by Kenzaburo Oe translated to Chinese. I would read them in English if it was available, but they're not too difficult.

[skylee]

I have finished reading 中國人史綱 and I think it is not bad as an easy-to-read General Chinese History. Some readers might find some of the author's points of view biased (well I do), but overall it is not unacceptable. The thing I dislike most about it is that the author deliberately (obviously) calls some of the very famous historical figures by names different from what everyone uses. For example, instead of using 秦始皇、唐太宗、康熙皇帝 or 慈禧太后, he calls them 嬴政大帝、李世民大帝、玄燁大帝 and 那拉蘭兒 instead. But this is not a very serious problem.

And I have finished 情書 too. The novel is as good as the film, and can be finished in two hours. It is amazing how a simple story can be so touching. (The one I read was the Taiwan edition, which was published in last century (1997) and is out of print so I had to resort to borrowing it from a library.)

[Dancer]

Da Vinci Code is terrific. however, it has become pop nowadays, and so are other books by dan brown.

I have read murakami's Norwegian Wood, and find it too slow for my liking.

Roald Dahl was great!!! i read all his books! weird sense of perception of this world, simply delightful!! if you can, try reading his OmniBus, a mini collection of short stories. still i would most love to see Charlie and the chocolate factory in movies!!

[skylee]

I am reading the Chinese version of another of Murakami's books called "雪梨!" (What a delightful translation) ("Sydney!" / "シドニー！"). It is about the 2000 Olympic Games held in Sydney. The first chapter 亞特蘭大 (Atlanta) is about a Japanese marathon runner Arimori Hiroko (有森裕子). I find the ending of the chapter quite touching –

如果我覺得自己有甚麼值得誇獎的話，那就是甚麼都不怕。被扔進奧運這個巨大的漩渦裏，而且甚麼都不怕。不，並不是這樣。正確來說應該是這樣：我到最後甚麼都不怕了。而且直接面對不會閉上眼睛，戰勝，同時也被擊敗。我做了閃亮的夢，同時又在那裏醒來。與厲害的敵手進行殊死戰，同時也愛上她們。在路上靜靜死去，同時讓那死在各個角落活過來。我，一名二十九歲的女性，在這裏。我靠自己的雙腿踩着地面。爬上最後的坡道，然後再跑下最後的下坡。

亞特蘭大終於要接近尾聲了。

[studentyoung]

I've recently read proses by Mr. Lin Qing-xuan. I think he is a great Taiwanese proser. While reading his proses, I just can't help being impressed by

1 the natural scenery about his home town which is a little country somewhere in Taiwan,

2 his common but lovely parents (including their love stories, how they educated their childerns, how Mr. Lin was deeply moved by his parents, ets.)

3 his special understanding for arts and life, which is full of the Buddhist philosophy.

Is there anyone in this forum from Taiwan or heard of this gentelman? Please come and discuss his works with me.

[Jamie]

I'm currently reading The March of the Barbarians by Harold Lamb. I love Harold Lamb's writing style.

[Lu]

Currently reading stories by Lu Xun, not that I've never read them before but this time I finally really appreciate them.