Or you could learn a language that's still in use and would earn you loads of bloody money?

TORSO wrote:Im about to start Dante's Inferno after my Spanish Inquisition book...though Paradise Lost, Canterbury Tales and lliad are good.

Paradise Lost is fantastic! I've always found it to be a bit of a difficult read in places but it's still excellent, the last few lines especially are absolutely gorgeous, it never fails to make me smile.

And I still need to read The Illiad, seeing as I love The Odyssey I really should get round to it.

thrashduck wrote:Or you could learn a language that's still in use and would earn you loads of bloody money?

Can earn money with latin, translating old texts or working as a Roman at some historical re-enactment

I wish they would teach Latin at school rather than French or German. OK, they taught Latin at my school but, unlike either French or German, it wasn't compulsory. That's fucking ridiculous seeing as literally everyone in the world can speak English anyway. If, however, you were taught Latin, you'd probably be able to suss out the French and German and be able to use amazing Latin phrases, like vis-á-vis and de facto in essays all the time.

Spencer wrote: And I still need to read The Illiad, seeing as I love The Odyssey I really should get round to it.

Its a shame only the illiad and the odyssey are the only fully intact parts of the epic cycle which goes on in more depth about the trojan war as the illiad covers Achilles leaving the war and then coming back to fight Hector and the odyssey is in the aftermath.

The last really good book I read was 'Filth' by Irvine Welsh. The main character in it is the biggest arse hole ever.

Metal Iain wrote:I wish they would teach Latin at school rather than French or German. OK, they taught Latin at my school but, unlike either French or German, it wasn't compulsory. That's fucking ridiculous seeing as literally everyone in the world can speak English anyway. If, however, you were taught Latin, you'd probably be able to suss out the French and German and be able to use amazing Latin phrases, like vis-á-vis and de facto in essays all the time.

I wish that too, I never had the option at my school, but thinking about it I probably wouldn't have been interested in voluntarily doing it at the time. However, I had the option to do extra-curricular Latin throughout A Levels and my degree, I just wasn't arsed to look into it.

Now I'm doing Beginner's Latin on the MA, and wish I'd had the headstart... but oh well. Also I'm pretty sure vis-a-vis isn't Latin...

caveat emptor

A few sci-fi authors who seem to be held in high esteem and also are of interest to me personally:

Philip K. Dick
Issac Assimov
Frank Herbert
Arthur C. Clarke
Ray Bradbury
Brian Aldiss
Roger Zelazny
Gene Wolfe
Keith Roberts
Richard Matheson

Hope that helps. You've probably heard of most of them but nevertheless can't hurt to be reminded of them. I have to admit I've yet to read anything by most of them apart from Philip K. Dick, and even then its mainly a collection of short stories. Will get round to reading this stuff eventually though.

Currently reading the second part of a three part H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus, then after that I intend to read The Complete Chronicles of Conan by Robert E. Howard. Also need to finish off my copy of the Poetic Edda.

heard most of em, apart from a few, thank you nekro

Jesus fuck fuck, I read two amazing books on holiday:

'Counter-Clock World' by Philip K Dick, it's fucking brilliant. Time runs backwards and dead people are reborn (or rather, 'old-born') in their graves and grow back to small child days, and powerful black leader of the Udi cult (and his predecessor) is reborn and the powerful organisation of the Library, who eradicate all things and such, want to get rid of him. It's a bit mental and complicated, but really bloody good. Not quite as confusing as The Man In The High Castle (the other Philip K Dick book I've read), but also not quite as good, but still amazing.

'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray Bradbury. Bloody wonderful. The main character Guy Montag is a fireman who burns books, which are forbidden, and that's a shame. He finds himself unhappy, and starts thinking, 'What the bloody hell's going on here, eh?' and such like and so on.

Now I'm reading 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin, it's also quite mental but really good. Excellent.

I'm reading the Silmarillion and I absolutely love it - I'm a total sucker for in-depth mythologies, and Tolkein is the absolute master. God knows what took me so long to check it out.

I've got the Silmarillion, but at the time I gave up after about 2 chapters, I couldn't handle his mental language, it was far more mental than the LOTR novels. Now that I'm better at reading though, I might try it again soon.

Yeah it's well worth it. When I first read The Hobbit it took me ages and it didn't really sink in, but then when I was older I read it again and loved it.

On the other hand, you may not like the Silmarillion as much because it does spend a long time explaining geography and geneologies... but the actual legendarium behind it is awesome in my opinion!

Yeah, I remember thinking it was like reading the bible! Very impressive though, that man had a bloody ridiculous imagination!