Digested Ham

Media Digest: November 29, 2016 -- Mi lernas esperanton

What I'm Reading

• Or not reading, as it turns out. I was reading Blake Crouch's Abandon, but at 35% of the way in, I've decided to, well, abandon it. It's not bad, it's just that I'm still not connecting with the story or the characters. I don't particularly like old west stories, either. It's become a chore to read, and life is too short. That said, do give his Wayward Pines books a go.

In Translation

• So I spent about two months working through the Esperanto course on Duolingo, and I fell in love with the language. I've got some books en route now from Esperanto USA,* and I'm very happily reading a (non-official, because there is, alas, no official) Esperanto translation of the first book of Harry Potter, Hari Potter kaj la Ŝtono de la Saĝuloj. I'm almost finished with the first chapter. You can download the translation here. (Clicking that link will automatically download it to your computer.) I am, of course, a beginner (komencanto), but I think Esperanto is a wonderful language, and one that children should be taught as a second language, both to promote international communication and because it would serve well as a "gateway" language, making subsequent languages easier to learn. If nothing else, it would give them a leg up on SAT preparation because of its largely Latinate vocabulary. If you have any interest at all in learning it, do take a look at the course on Duolingo, which makes learning languages fun. You'll find Esperanto easier to learn than other, natural languages because it was designed to be simpler, with absolutely regular grammar. And it's fascinating because of the way that words are built in the language, through the agglutination of roots and affixes. For example, while reading Harry Potter in Esperanto I was very excited to see the word liphararo, which turns out to be a collection (the suffix -ar-) of lip (lip-) hair (har-), i.e., a moustache. You can suss out what a lot of words mean just by knowing the affixes.
  
  * The doorbell just rang, and the books are here!

 

Media Digest: November 26, 2016 -- Mr. Spader

What I'm Watching

• Secretary: Having finished season 3 of Blacklist, I was interested to see some of James Spader's earlier work. Yowza. 

Media in the Mail: Real Chester

My friend Clare sent me a copy of Real Chester, her hot-off-the-presses travelogue about the city of Chester in England. It's a fascinating place, its Roman walls enclosing a space in which historical strata are piled on top of one another, where the modern abuts the ancient and medieval in a living city. The amount of history you can trip over in Chester is astounding. This is a place where you can see Roman ruins in the closet of a clothing store if you know to ask about them at the counter.

The book isn't available on Amazon.com, yet, but you can pick up a copy from Amazon.co.uk.

Book Notices: October

My October book notices post is up over at book-blog.com: http://www.book-blog.com/2016/10/october-2016-book-notices.html.

I've written brief comments about: 

    Victoria Helen Stone, Evelyn, After and

    Barry Eisler, The God's Eye View.

Media Digest: November 1, 2016 -- Red Reddington and other heroes

What I'm Watching

• Faster:  Dwayne Johnson pairs up in this one with Billy Bob Thornton. It's very okay, not bad, not great, but there is an unexpected twist at the end.
• Spectre: I watched this one a second time because I'd forgotten I'd seen it already. Why? Because one James Bond movie is much like another: pretty, and fun to watch, but I can never follow the plot.
• Star Trek Beyond: This was also a pretty movie, and I bet it was really impressive on a larger screen than my Kindle Fire. 
• The Blacklist: Catching up on Red Reddington. I don't care about anyone else in the show particularly, but I do love his character.