Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

It works the other way round too. Authors have to account for their readers' ignorance: The Tiffany Problem

Fascinating and illuminating.

I have mixed feelings, though. In part it’s because enlightenment is not always a throwaway line as suggested in the article, but a huge clunky info dump. In part it’s because it lumps all readers into a common pool of ignorance; it plays to the lowest denominator. Some readers - I’d argue the best readers - won’t be fazed. My own preference tends to be along the lines of, “get it right and let the chips fall where they may”; however, I realize that pissing off know-it-all ignoramuses might not be the best strategy to maximize sales and it is a business after all.

So a combination of subtlety and less-is-more? A fine line and there are a lot of people out there who could be clunked with an informational two-by-four and still not get it.

Inspired term and I admit it; a gotcha moment for me.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by issybird

...there are a lot of people out there who could be clunked with an informational two-by-four and still not get it.

That would be me. From time to time I dive into wikipedia on it and come out just as confused as ever.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

That would be me. From time to time I dive into wikipedia on it and come out just as confused as ever.

Hah! I doubt it. But it’s why playing to the confidently stupid bothers me; everyone is sitting on all the information in the world, pretty much, and they could look it up before going all superior on the author.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by issybird

Fascinating and illuminating.
My own preference tends to be along the lines of, “get it right and let the chips fall where they may”; however, I realize that pissing off know-it-all ignoramuses might not be the best strategy to maximize sales and it is a business after all.

This is basically my reaction too. I have often been delighted when I spotted an anachronism in a book, stormed off to research it and discovered "well waddya know, the author was right!" so my personal preference would be for those authors to stick to their guns at all times. But, that might indeed hurt their business.

[Uncle Robin]

In a remarkable coincidence, I've just seen the Tiffany effect in action. A character in a post-Waterloo Regency I'm reading used the word "condom" and I stormed off to the OED to confirm my righteous anger at such an awful anachronism, only to discover that the earliest citation in the OED pre-dates Waterloo by 110 years! ��

[gmw]

I hit a variation of the Tiffany effect while trying to be clever on this thread four years ago (the book under discussion was Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters):

Originally Posted by gmw

[...] * I did note one minor anachronism: the phrase "body bag" in a story set in 1884 is at least 30 years too early. I mention this only to be a smart ar-person. It matters not at all to the story. (I spotted it thanks to another book I'd read earlier this year, otherwise I'd never have noticed.)

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

Interestingly, the OED has a citation for the phrase from 1885, but it's very unlikely to be in the context of a corpse container, almost cetainly in its older sense of "sleeping bag". Which is an interesting example of how meanings exapand over time, even if it doesn't let the author off the hook

Originally Posted by gmw

Ooh... I missed that! I checked my OED but obviously didn't look far enough. A "sleeping bag" sense could cover the context in the book. That would make the mistake mine (I assumed she meant in the modern sense, being unaware of the old sense). I should have known better than to doubt Miss Amelia Peabody!

Thanks for the correction.

[spacepope]

Amazon bamboozled me into subscribing for 3 more months with a “3 months for $1.99” deal, so I decided I would actually try reading something from KU.

Picked up Shadow of an Empire by Max Florschutz last night and it seems promising. Fantasy Wild West, which is a genre I’ve always wanted more of. I really want to find more underappreciated / hidden gem type stuff on KU but never know where to start looking. Found this one in a Reddit thread somewhere.

[Gatton]

Originally Posted by spacepope

Amazon bamboozled me into subscribing for 3 more months with a “3 months for $1.99” deal, so I decided I would actually try reading something from KU.

Interesting. I wasn't gonna bother with KU but then I bought a new Paperwhite and decided to try giving the three month free trial a go. I wonder if I'll get offered this as well. I'm pretty ho-hum about KU so far. Not really reading much from it as it is. That might change.

[Gatton]

The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson. It's book #4 in a 10 book series The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: The Unbeliever. I've been reading this series for about thirty years and am on book 4 lol.

Cue King George from Blackadder "Yes well I'm a slow reader myself."

Anyway I'm not sure what it is about Donaldson's prose I like so much. It's rather dense and the man clearly LOVES his thesaurus (upside: I learn a lot of new words especially for colors).

[spacepope]

I should stop picking up more books without finishing current reads but, I had a Libby library loan I want to read before the loan expires.

Reading Immortal Coil by Jeffrey Lang, a Star Trek TNG book. Really liking it so far and it’s shaping up to be a quick read.

[Uncle Robin]

Just started Strong Poison, Wimsey 5. Sayer's grasp of chemistry, and her use of that knowledge in this book, gets a special mention in Martin Edwards' The Life of Crime, so it should be an interesting read.

[Gatton]

Originally Posted by spacepope

Reading Immortal Coil by Jeffrey Lang, a Star Trek TNG book. Really liking it so far and it’s shaping up to be a quick read.

Ooh I read that. I liked it. I enjoyed how he took characters from several episodes and fleshed them out some more. So many interesting characters exist in one episode and then are never discussed again even if they were responsible for altering time in large swaths of the galaxy. I am itching to read another Trek novel but not sure what yet. I've read Cloak from the Section 31 series. Maybe I'll do another one of those.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: A random pick, Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

Which I almost abandoned near the start. I probably should have done. I wasn't impressed. 3/5 at best.

Next up: Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley. A recent biography, and my most recent purchase.

[Uncle Robin]

Sayers' Strong Poison is highly regarded, but 1/4 in I don't know why. "I fell in love at fist sight, ergo she MUST be innocent" is pure BS. Even the insufferable Wimsey admits there was NO evidence provided to justify his conviction (ha!). Repeatedly castigating Parker for doing his job as a police officer and following the evidence is rich, too.

[Bookstooge]

Just re-read Napoleon of Notting Hill. I've definitely changed in the 20+ years since I originally read it.