A widow is referred to as a “widow-woman,” or even better, “widder-woman.”
There is a fat section of glossy photographs in the middle of the book.
There is a family tree printed sideways in the pages before the first chapter.
A character who is a preacher is never called by his real name, but by Preacher, Minister, or Parson.
At some point, a character challenges the preacher by saying “Ain’t that right, Preacher?”
There is at least one carefully pencilled map on the interior front cover. Not the kind of Fantasy 101 map that’s clearly just England with four cities located nowhere near a river or strategic port dabbed on with ridiculous-sounding names, either. A good map, with plausible coastlines.
At least one city is referred to as The City, with no explanation.
The fat section of glossy photographs in the middle of the book includes at least one nude photograph of a long-dead movie star or a horribly mutilated corpse. Something you can hardly bear to look at, but keep flipping back to see.
A description of a meal the characters are having that lasts for at least one page.
A little reminder written in bold at the beginning of each chapter at how close the events of said chapter are to the momentous and probably fatal event about which the book is concerned.
Gilt-edged pages.
Conversations between various characters in languages other than English that are not translated for you, so you have to guess as best you can with whatever knowledge of Romance languages you’ve managed to pick up over the years.
A ton of subtitles, all of which have phrases like Concerning That or Being A Tale In Which in them.
Black-and-white, pen-and-ink illustrations. Not too many. Maybe four or five for the entire book.
A cast of real-life historical characters listed like a set of dramatis personae with all their names in bold printed before the introduction.
A chapter that’s entirely composed of letters written from one character to another.
A reference to another book that does not exist.
A chapter that starts with a really intense Bible quote. One of the really fucked-up ones, like from Ezekiel or Ecclesiastes.
A table of contents that describes a series of horrible real-life events using the Stations of the Cross as a metaphor.
Mallory, I’ve always felt you should be friends with Kate Beaton, from Hark! A Vagrant
The world would simply not be able to handle THAT MUCH FUNNY.
– It contains at least one women who dresses as a boy.
It contains a glossary of in-world terms and concepts.
Reminds me of this XKCD strip:
It contains a glossary of [i]real world[/i] terms.
I read a book recently with so many made-up terms, place names, and characters that some of the made-up terms *weren’t in the glossary.*
Ooooh what book!?
The Goblin Emperor. Which was actually a lovely, fascinating book, but I ended up checking the glossary multiple times for some terms, going, “they use this term every other page, SURELY they have a definition somewhere, I must have just missed it the past half-dozen times…”
Some friends and I were playing Ex Libris, and a friend came up with the first line (for a YA fantasy novel featuring werewolves, vampires, and New Mexico Native Americans and no it wasn’t Twilight), “for those unfamiliar with vampire-werewolf lore, a glossary can be found on page 153 of this book.” I told him that even though it wasn’t the real first line, I would totally read a book that opened with that line.
OK but I actually really like lengthy descriptions of food in books, like I’ve realized that a large part of why I prefer reading to watching movies is in movies they always skip over the food and in books you get to hear about all kinds of delicious breakfasts and coffee. I’m hungry.
I don’t eat lamb but I’m still thinking about the lamb stew from The Hunger Games, which I first read over 4 years ago.
just one more reason why the Redwall books were so grand
The author has been featured on the Toast. (Too obvious?)
How do we feel about multiple footnotes? Footnoted footnotes?
Does anyone have examples where this worked out really well?
Off the top of my head, this worked out very poorly for me in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
All of the fiction where I’ve seen footnotes and footnotes-within-footnotes pulled off really well have been humor or humorous fantasy–some Dave Barry books, some Discworld books, the Bartimaeus trilogy. I haven’t seen any fiction with an author successfully using them seriously.
The footnotes in Dave Barry’s Book Of Bad Songs are amongst my favorites ever. I have Strong Feelings about that book.
I spent an entire summer of my sophomore year OBSESSED with Dave Barry’s Book Of Bad Songs. I was a nanny, so I made sure the young, impressionable children I was watching were ALSO obsessed with this book and the songs in it. Also Pokemon. Because it was the late 90’s and Pokemon are/were THE BEST. I remember spending an entire day once having Pokemon card battles with them while singing the mangled lyrics of MacArthur Park. Good times.
UM YES TO EVERYTHING. I am a wee bit younger (graduated eighth grade in 2000, yikes!) but I was and am in love with that book. And Pokémon.
I DON’T THINK THAT I CAN TAKE IT
‘CAUSE IT TOOK SO LONG TO BAKE IT
AND I’LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAAAAAAAAAAAIN
I *lost* my copy of the Book of Bad Songs and it makes me so sad. I think I loaned it to a teacher of mine in middle school.
I need to go buy a used one off of Amazon for a penny or something.
aaaaaaaaaaand I just did. It’s too treasured not to.
Love it in Discworld books. Couldn’t get through Jonathan Strange.
Even in Discworld, I’ll occasionally skip them if I remember clearly what the punchline was.
Haha, I was going to say the opposite! But I suppose I like really lengthy footnotes. Comes from all those years in academia. It’s like an academic’s version of Stockholm Syndrome.
how do you feel about Discworld
though I think the Pratchett/Gaiman team-up for Good Omens might be better for footnotes
I haaaaaaated Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell! It kept getting recommended to me as like “Harry Potter for Jane Austen fans” or something like that — so I bought it and just could. not. get through it. I did slog through nearly half of it, which made me even more irritated when I finally had to give up arghhh ლ(ಠ益ಠ)ლ
So, nay to extensive footnotes IMO.
I would not say Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is particularly Austin like? Even though I more or less liked it.
Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal is much better and much more Jane Austin-esque, if it is something you are interested in.
House of Leaves.
House of Leaves House of Leaves House of Leaves.
HOUSEOFLEAVESHOUSEOFLEAVESHOUSEOFLEAVESHOUSEOFLEAVESHOUSEOFLEAVESHOUSEOFLEAVES.
I have strong feelings about that book.
I want to read that book so badly! I’ve been waiting on the hold list for it at my local library FOREVER, apparently it is very popular here!
YES YES YES YES and that prompts an addition to the above list: chapters that are letters containing SECRET CODES that you, dear reader, must decipher for yourself
The Bartimaeus trilogy had hilarious footnotes. Mostly they weren’t fractal, but I think there was one point where a footnote was itself footnoted. It was also funny, because the second footnote was directly beneath the first – they could just have been written as a continuous paragraph.
My favorite thing about this thread is how many people are recommending The Bartimaeus Trilogy. I love those books with an undying and eternal love and almost never find people who have read them.
Also, the audiobooks for the series are wonderful. The narrator has the perfect level of urbane snark. The trilogy got me through a series of 12-hour drives, which were some of the most delightful of my life.
I’ve never listened to audiobooks for anything, but clearly I must seek these out.
I loved the footnotes in that book! Also in Good Omens. And anything by Neal Stephenson. But I’m a weirdo who loves footnotes.
Yup to the footnotes in Good Omen/Pratchett & Jonathan Strange for fiction, Mary Roach & Sam Kean for non-fiction. Loved all of those & enjoyed the books more for the footnotes.
If you are a weirdo then I am too. Loved them in Neal Stephenson’s stuff, and Jonathan Strange, as well as several other books.
My people!
Junot Diaz?
I know a lot of people hate those footnotes, but they work for me.
Aw really, do people hate those? They really work for me too, maybe because they’re not so academic?
I love the footnotes in Discworld and Junot Diaz’s work. Also, I did enjoy quite a bit of the footnotes in Infinite Jest, which maybe I shouldn’t admit here?
I did toooo. Was wondering if it was safe to admit here. Let’s hold hands/link Creed arms.
Creed was one of the first cd’s I bought in middle school, so I am all about Creed arms.
Some books I am a bit perplexed when people hate them, though I accept it. Infinite Jest is not one of them. I begrudge no one there dislike of it.
wait hold on, the toast doesn’t like Infinite Jest? …it’s…amazing?
I, personally, love Infinite Jest, but THIS IS NOT THE PLACE TO ARGUE WITH PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR LOVES AND HATREDS.
not arguing, just like to know where things stand to have a sense of which opinions of controversial books are more commonly held. i remember when i found out that the commonly held opinion of the av club commentariat was to hate mumford and sons and i was all whaaaaat.
A time footnotes worked out really well for me was reading Don Quixote and the translator had very helpfully footnoted where the jokes and references did not translate or age well, so the book was 500% times funnier and 50% more interesting.
ETA: one example of when having a joke explained actually works, I guess.
(late to the party but) what translation/edition did you read? I really want to read Don Quixote and that sounds like an improvement on the super old copy I have.
Not the original commenter, but I liked the Norton Critical Edition. Which I actually re-read after grad school and still enjoyed!
Pale Fire
Also I think they worked well in that Calamity Physics book, which isn’t fantasy or humor, but it is a sort of… I don’t know how to call it. MFA-type book? It’s very polarizing – I enjoyed it because I liked watching what the author was doing with the structure and themes and such, but she wasn’t very subtle at all, and the occasional footnotes worked well with the narrator’s characterization while also making it so much more obviously a Book That Was Consciously Crafted which in turn highlighted the unreliableness of the narrator (who desperately wants to be perceived as Better Than You And Super Smart).
But a lot of people really hated all of that and thought it was too pretentious (it was very pretentious, ngl) or clumsy or unsubtle.
I loved Special Topics in Calamity Physics, especially for its pretentiousness, but I can no longer remember much of anything about it. I also quite liked Night Film, which I read only a few months ago, and which I also barely remember.
Oh, yeah, I liked the pretentiousness, because it fit with the themes and stuff. Hated the actual plot (mostly because all the characters were horrible people that I hated reading about), but the book as a book was enjoyable for me. (gd i’m such a fucking english major!)
I’ll have to look up Night Film. Not sure if I’ve really heard of it!
I loved it in Jonathan Strange and also in House of Leaves. Understand that I am a sucker for things like this.
The Princess Bride! The Princess Bride x10000000!
Oh but I LOVED IT in Jonathan Strange… I wanted to read whole books about the footnotes. It is probably why I loved the book so much.
I haven’t actually read it yet, but I think Susanna sort of expanded some of the footnotes in her second book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories!
I listened to the audiobook of JS&MN after reading it, and I loved the footnotes in the audio version. They were read right as they appeared in the text. I thought they added a lot to the world.
YES, I love this. True of the Discworld novel audiobooks, too. Sounds much more conversational to have the footnotes read immediately after the text they are footnoting.
I was going to say Colors Insulting to Nature (by Cintra Wilson) buuut I checked Google Books and it looks like the author’s notes are just inserted in the text like block quotes rather than as footnotes like I remembered.
It works in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
I know this opinion isn’t shared by everyone but I really liked their use in House of Leaves
It gets a bad rap around these parts, but I really, really liked it. I’m glad it has its share of defenders. It’s not all postmodern douchebros who like it!
I loved House Of Leaves, and not even in a ‘I’m so clever, reading this PoMo masterpiece’ way, just in a ‘I’m too bloody scared to sleep now so I’m going to finish the bastard’ way.
oh holy fuck, the first time I read HoL, a noise woke me in the night. Disoriented and still mostly asleep, I reached out to pull the lamp cord, and it wasn’t there. I reached over to the bedside to my glasses; the bureau was just a few inches farther away than it should have been. Then I realized that the window was on the wrong side, the walls (which I could barely see in the pale light from the window) were too far away, and there were dark doorways looming all around me. Even the bed was just slightly too big.
Then I woke up enough to remember I was housesitting.
I was so spooked by then that, even once I got my bearings, I had to psych myself up to enter the little hallway full of doors beyond the bedroom door to investigate the noise (the source of which was so mundane I don’t even remember it; probably the cat I was caring for).
After careful consideration, I have to say that I consider footnotes as an interruption in a book of fiction. Like that drunk guy who butts in and takes over a good conversation
Or like that “Accctually” person who interrupts a conversation to fact-check it.
(I’m moderately pro-footnote, strongly anti-“Accctually.”)
Wow. I don’t even mind footnotes in fiction, and I still think this is a perfect analogy.
There’s a novel called Ibid, the introduction has this (false) story that the manuscript to the biography was lost and all that remained were the footnotes, but they were extensive enough to publish alone. So that’s what the whole novel is, almost 300 pages of just footnotes.
I WANT TO READ THAT
but i’m afraid it’s going to be too densely boring
it sounds like the most amazing thing though
It wasn’t quite as successful as his other book (Ella Minnow Pea)–also convoluted set-up, but there’s an island where the guy who made up the pangram “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” lived and they have a statue in his honor with the pangram on it. But then the letters start falling off the statue. So the government logically outlaws the letters that have fallen off. The book is a series of epistles written between two friends, so they have to stop using those outlawed letters, and by the end of the book, only 3 letters are left. So everything is written completely phonetically and it’s very cleverly done.
ELLA MINNOW PEA IS SUCH A GREAT BOOK
ALSO HERE FOR ELLA MINNOW PEA WHICH YES IS GREAT
THAT’S THE SAME AUTHOR?! I’ve heard of Ibid but never read it–I’ll have to read it now.
Ella Minnow Pea! I read that eons ago and just loved it, but I think I gave away my copy. I should get a new one.
Thank you!
I’ve definitely heard of Ella Minnow Pea but dunno why that one hasn’t intrigued me so much. I should probably AT LEAST thumb through it at the library or used book store at some point.
This sounds amazing, I’ve just put a hold on it at the library. Among the many ways the Toast absolutely rocks are the book recommendations.
I must just really love footnotes. I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, in part for its footnotes.
There’s also Jasper Fforde’s Tuesday Next series. In at least one of those books (the one I’ve read), footnotes are used as a medium for dialogue as the characters become aware that they are characters in a book.
I love Thursday Next! I was trying to remember where I had read a conversation in footnotes. I thought it was very well done.
Footnoterphone!
I think the Amulet of Samarkand books had them. I liked those a lot!
I’m fond of the footnotes to The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. They generally specify which bits are (very loosely) based on historical facts, and have entertaining quotes from original documents, as well as links to said documents.
But I think the fact that it’s a webcomic helps a lot. When you get to the footnotes, you’ve already read the update, and if you’re actively following the comic then that means there’s no more comic for you to read at the time, so the footnotes aren’t adding an interruption.
Also they’re generally more like endnotes than like footnotes, I guess.
Also, someone else MUST have said this, but Pale Fire.
Love them. Love love love. My only issue is when reading a footnoted book on a kindle– the footnotes are all converted to endnotes with embedded links in the text, so instead of glancing gently downward I have to click down a bunch and sideways a bunch and then follow the little number link to the end of the text to read it, then go back, but the syncing between devices is all spoiled because now the farthest page I have read is at the end with the footnotes.
….and that is a lot of complaining about one of my favorite modern conveniences
If I’m reading fiction, footnotes only work for me if they’re arguing with the primary text in some way, possibly in the form of hilarious asides or interjections by a secondary comic character.
Vollmann’s Seven Dreams series. The guy is nuts, but he is the king of the righteous footnote.
Only if it turns into a footnote ouroboros.
-Noses always receive a single characteristic adjective (“Roman,” “aquiline,” “patrician”).
-In the middle of the book, the action stops cold so a very old person with snow-white hair can tell a ghost story. Ideally, a full chapter will be given over to the telling. (eg “Chapter XXXIV: Old Tipton’s Story.”) The tale has no particular significance for the overall plot or theme, and is never referred to again.
re: noses
If any character is described as being “hatchet-faced,” you know the author’s really on to something.
It’s set in a real historical period which has always seemed super interesting but which for some reason doesn’t have many novels set in it (thinking of books like The Miniaturist and A Star Called Henry!).
Plausible coastlines for real — I’ll even let you get away with the ol’ “Mediterranean world but upside-down!” switcheroo if you give me reason enough to believe in your maritime trade routes.
God, this. I don’t even mind the coastlines so much as WHY WOULD THOSE COUNTRIES BE EVEN TRADE PARTNERS THEY PRODUCE THE EXACT SAME THINGS.
See, the thing is that I cannot draw, and I for serious cannot draw maps such that they come out the same way every time, and so I have decided that my original-world fantasy novels/games will all be set on a continent shaped like a goddamn butterfly because I DON’T FUCKING KNOW, MYTHOLOGY OR SOMETHING.
As in the days of Númenor, before the fall.
A long dream that is probably rich with symbols and meanings that frightens the main character and is never truly explained
Preferable two or more per chapter. Go crazy. Your book is basically just a series of unexplained symbolic dreams connected by a little bit of plot tissue? GOOD.
I never knew I was desperately in need of a book that had ALL OF THIS until just now
I have recently delved back into fantasy after a long time away, and I was surprised by how much I love mysterious prologues set 100+ years before the rest of the book, where no one is making any sense and everything is totally fucked up.
e.g., I just started the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (dear lord help me) and I am 1/3 of the way into the first book and I still have no earthly idea how the prologue is supposed to tie into ANYTHING but by god, I am going to read until I find out.
STOP. STOP NOW. SAVE YOURSELF.
You will be reading a LOOONNNNGGGG time. Like possibly forever. You will also get quite sick of the four adjectives that Jordan uses to describe women’s clothing. And, you know, women generally–stubborn whores that we are.
Omg! Where every borrowed dress is too loose in the waist and too tight in the bust?
Oh God no don’t do it. Just walk away before it’s too late.
I think it’s something to do with Nynaeve endlessly flipping her braid smack dab into the Eye of the World to summon the Nine Rods of Dominion?
Or tugging her braid angrily. Don’t forget all the time she tugs her brain in a fit of temper. It’s a wonder she still has hair left, really.
Feel free to skip a bunch of the books from 8-10 or so and just kind of skim them, but it is a fun series. I’m biased as someone who loved the series from middle school.
I also just began reading fantasy again and started the Wheel of Time. I had to put it down after I strained my eye-rolling muscles and am now reading fantasy by women exclusively. Best decision I ever made.
(This is in no way a criticism of your decision to read WoT. I know lots of folks who love it! I am just very picky and also would happily never read another word written by a man.)
Yes, more maps in everything please.
“A good map, with plausible coastlines.”
I can just hear Bilbo saying this approvingly, while delving into the Rivendell archives & coming across a map of Gondor.
“Plausible, dependable coastlines. You could follow those coastlines, and always know *exactly* where you are. Even be back in time for supper.”
An obnoxious character is introduced two-thirds of the way through Book II and has a gruesome-yet-satisfying death in Book VI.
Is there any one book that fits all of these?! I would read the hell out of it.
So please I need to know: which book is it that has all these things? Because, I notice, they aren’t mutually exclusive.
On the same lines as food: really sumptuous clothing descriptions and descriptions of celebrations. If a woman is wearing a dress that’s “stiff with silk” and featuring an embarrassment of lace and jewels and seed pearls stitched into shapes, and they’re preparing for a coronation or a festival that will determine the course of the next eight chapters of the book, it’s going to be GREAT.
Ohh, man, give me a cloth-of-gold dress whose full skirts are covered over with seed pearls and I am so there. (I mean, not me personally, I would be the one who always ran out back to dress like a stableboy & practice archery or whatever, but I would imagine that dress for daaaays)
I have read the phrase “seed pearls” three times this week (twice alone on the Toast!) and had never heard it before so I looked it up. And like, I know what the objects are, but I had never heard them referred to them as such. The more you know ™!
This was one of the things I loved about Katherine Addison’s “Goblin Emperor.” Epic descriptions of elaborate fantasy-Versailles jewelry? YES PLEASE
Yes, and bonus points if it is in essence a makeover scene. Tell me about how you’ve never in your life felt such a cloth, or had such dainty slippers upon your feet, DO IT. Tell me about how the crinolines feel. Tell me of how you were almost embarrassed to possess such a cloak, and how you offered to make a simpler, cheaper version yourself but they told you NO, MILADY, YOU ARE WORTH IT, TREAT YO SELF.
Also, if you could be slightly worried about how your rough hands may snag the fine fabrics, please and thanks.
one thumbs up is not enough for this comment.
INDEED.
I thrill to the tale of how Our Heroine tripped the first time she walked in such light, dainty slippers, as she could scarcely tell her feet were upon the ground.
Also, dresses existing as clouds of [fabric].
I stopped reading the only game of thrones book I have tried to read early on when the word “yestermorn” was used by some kind of wizard or something.
NOPE
I read on, grimly, until That Guy did one too many stupid things. Then I cast it aside with glee, happy in the knowledge that someone so willfully stupid does in fact die for his stupidity, and resenting GRRM for being so heavy handed in the same way that I resent people who patronize me.
Grump grump grump.
Deckle edge. I can see the appeal of gilt-edged pages but I’m firmly on Team Deckle Edge.
I too enjoy a good deckle-edge, but it makes my habit of idly riffling the pages as I read very difficult.
Far fewer papercuts, tho.
AH! So THAT’S the name for that, thank you.
Dammit, now I need a TEAM DECKLE EDGE t-shirt.
It is set in a library.
Try “Magic For Beginners,” by Kelly Link. A novelette, not a book. Found in a couple of her collections.
Every time an author elects to just draw out a symbol rather than try to describe it, I am endlessly delighted. Like, “fuck imaginations, here it is.”
My favorite thing was in those Dan Brown books (I think Angels and Demons was the one about the Illuminati, right?), his guys spend all this time talking about how these fancy “ambigrams” were impossible or inconceivable, but then Brown hired a guy to draw them and put them in the book.
Really took a lot of mystery out of it, I think.
True story — I have a tattoo of the Summoning Dark.
Then you are officially the greatest.
That was first thing I thought of when reading that comment.
Oh hell yes that is awesome.
Yes to all of these, especially long descriptions of food. Also, RECIPES. If a book includes a recipe index of all the beautiful things described throughout, I will 100% enjoy it. I may never make the recipes, but I like having the option.
Like Water For Chocolate, right? right?
Yesssssss!
Yes yes yes! I still think about when she makes that sauce with the rose petals. I thought it sounded like the best thing in the world.
See this is why we need Discworld
DISAGREE about the merits of plausible coastlines.
When I am old, I shall retire to the Nation of Implausible Coastlines, and live in a house beside the sea, and floating high above a different sea.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/04/lake-srvagsv…
A giant helm falls out of the sky and the castle farts.
And the portraits come to life and start wandering around and giants wake up and emerge from the ballroom floor and no one is concerned about this.
Wait! What is this? This sounds awesome.
I think I have used The Power of Google to discern the answer (The Castle of Otranto?), which is, of course, probably what I should have done in the first place. Lots of people say it is terrible, but I have trouble believing that a book which features a dude named Manfred, an expy of the Ghost from Hamlet, and all the above bonkers-ness can really be all bad (or at least not enjoyable on some level)
Also, someone on Goodreads describes it thusly: “If Titus Andronicus is the literary equivalent to a b-movie, then The Castle of Otranto is one of those SyFy straight-to-cable originals. Titus is Dead Alive; Otranto is Sharktopus”, which is pretty great.
YES it is CASTLE OF OTRANTO and it is kind of fabulous.
The people who think it’s terrible probably just aren’t fans of campy horror or else aren’t fans of Ye Olde Timey writing (it’s from the late 1700s soooo the language can be difficult). (also it was written right there at the beginning of novels qua novels so its structure is a little wonky)
It’s not very long, maybe 60 pages in my Penguin Classics edition? It’s paired with VATHEK and FRANKENSTEIN in order to fill out the page count. It’s super batshit and amazing and is my second favorite Gothic novel (my favorite is THE MONK which is batshit in a different way).
It really sounds like the Most Batshit, and since it’s in the public domain, I downloaded a copy and am planning to read it soon! Thanks!
I love early novels, when they were trying to figure out what to do with this wacky new art form.
“A chapter that’s entirely composed of letters written from one character to another” really speaks to me. Epistolary novels are the shit.
I thought I hated this until Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and then I was like…ooooohhhh.
I’m reading Rainbow Rowell’s “Attachments”, and it occurred to me a couple chapters in that it was essentially an epistolary novel set in 1999. I definitely approve.
Looove that book. Done very well, I think.
“Freedom and Necessity” by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. So good.
The author claims, or loudly hints, that the story is actually true and was only *translated* by him/her.
Gene Wolfe’s conceit in The Book of the New Sun is that he’s translating a memoir from the future. There’s a great bit in the appendix to the first volume, which he writes in character as G. Wolfe, yr. humble editor and transliterator:
To those who have preceded me in the study of the posthistoric world, and particularly to those collectors—too numerous to name here—who have permitted me to examine artifacts surviving so many centuries of futurity, and most especially to those who have allowed me to visit and photograph the era’s few extant buildings, I am truly grateful.
That sounds excellent. I love that style of humor.
This is how I beat the Tolkien estate when they sued me for publishing “The Lord of the Rings: A New Translation.” Tolkien explicitly claims he’s translating the Red Book of Westmarch, and since the Red Book of Westmarch must be thousands of years old, it’s public domain and so they can’t claim copyright.
I think I might want to read a “how I beat the Tolkien estate” article
I DEFINITELY want to read “how I beat the Tolkien estate” please and thank you
YOU MUST WRITE ABOUT THIS FOR US
Where is this available? The google machine is giving me nothing and I would like to exchange some dollars for your book pls.
Also, doubts are cast on some details as translation errors or exaggeration in the untranslated account or the like
And they interject footnotes about “authorial bias” or “creative license” on the part of the original author.
The MEALS, man. Farmer Boy!
Weirdly, I was just thinking about fried apples’n’onions, a dish I have only read about in Farmer Boy, the other day. One of these days I’m going to make it. With bacon.
Whenever I find myself with apples and onions in my basket at the store, I tell myself I need to make it, but I never get beyond that. With bacon is maybe the thing that will push me over the edge into actual apple-onion-land.
Yeah I could never get behind the fried apples’n’onions. Out of everything, THAT was his favorite??
That’s what intrigues me about it! Of course, I mean, have you ever tried anything out of the Little House cookbook? The authors talk about how they try to use ingredients and methods that would have been available back then, and it’s all very educational, and it’s also not very delicious. I’ll have to check to see whether the apples/onions made the cut.
I’ve never heard of that cookbook, but I am not at all surprised that the food wouldn’t taste great to us…I mean, remember how fancy of a deal white sugar is in the books? Also, I forget which book, but head cheese (boiled up/solidified head parts) and the best treat of all, a pig’s tail roasted on a stick?
That’s Little House in the Big Woods! When they kill the pig and eat all the good parts. And the crackling, which I am prettttty sure is just fat?
Yes, Little House in the Big Woods! Yeah I think cracklings == chicharrones == fried-up pig skin/fat? And let us not forget the use of the pig bladder as a fun kiddie toy!
See, the pig’s tail that I *imagine* when I read Little House in the Big Woods sounds amazing. The pig’s tail that I try to imagine in real life sounds like a thing I would run away from screaming.
SO MANY PIES. Tell me all about these pies.
FARMER. BOY. With Garth Williams’ illustrations.
“A ton of subtitles, all of which have phrases like Concerning That or Being A Tale In Which in them.”
These always make me happy.
DISAGREE about glossy image pages in the middle. They are the worst and should be banned.
They interrupt the feel: literally. They feel wrong, and they make the book fall open wrong, too. Like you are ever going to actually go look at them when the picture is referenced in the text, anyway. Only one is ever in color or big enough to see any detail, and it is always the most boring one. There is never a picture at all of the thing that you actually want a picture of. They are a false promise, an alluring glitz that is nothing but sawdust and lacerated dreams. Don’t fall for them.
Yes, and you can simultaneously get accidently spoilered by them and forget what they were as soon as you go back to reading, so that you have to keep flipping back and forth, and every time you read a particularly interesting description you eagerly flip to the photos and have your hopes repeatedly dashed.
I think if they were in between chapters – or even just between paragraphs – they’d be so much less annoying. The worst is literally trying to remember where you were IN MID-SENTENCE 8 pages later when the pictures are done and the text resumes.
I absolutely seethe when they don’t set up the pictures to be at the end of a chapter. I also get very indignant when it goes for pages and pages and pages with no definite stopping place. Is it really so hard to end a sentence with the page, or baring that, a space between paragraph?
Yes to family trees in bot fiction & non-fiction! Except I’m always tempted to rip out the pages so they can be next to me while I read rather than deal with the endless flipping back & forth.
When I’m reading Norse sagas, sometimes I’ll redraw the trees myself with different houses highlighted in different colors. It usually ends up looking like rainbow spaghetti with all of the re-marriages and intermarriages, but the act of writing/drawing everything out helps me to keep all of the Sigurds/Sigfrieds/Sigmunds/Sigsomethings straight in my head.
This is also the only way to make it through the Silmarillion.
Cobblestones.
And gas streetlamps.
The thought of glossy photos in the middle of the book, gives me absolute shudders of delight. It’s like being told there are marshmallows AND whipped cream with my hot chocolate.
thus confirming that i never need to read anything but jonathan strange and mr. norrell ever again.
The only time I ever got detention in middle/high school was when I was caught copying out a map from a fantasy book I was reading instead of paying attention in “Reading” class. This comment both to prove Mallory’s point about the allure of good maps and, incidentally, to explain my lack of friends during said middle school.
MAPS ARE THE SIGN OF A BORING AND TERRIBLE BOOK ABOUT ELF NONSENSE, TURN AWAY
Counterpoint: when I was a kid reading the Oz series, the books had maps of Oz, and those books owned.
OMG, I also hate books about elf nonsense!!!!! I started reading a book that was supposed to be about dragons (which I love), and on the 3rd page there began to be elf nonsense, so I threw the book across the room with a hearty “NOPE” and scared my husband.
I do generally enjoy a map, though…
my people
Elves (and maps) are just white men’s way of covering up that they are writing a book about nothing, basically.
this comment is everything to me
The best books are books about nothing.
“Conversations between various characters in languages other than English that are not translated for you, so you have to guess as best you can with whatever knowledge of Romance languages you’ve managed to pick up over the years.”
I have to read Dorothy Dunnett with my phone ready to Google the dialogue or else I’m totally, completely lost. AND I LOVE IT.
I bought the Dorothy Dunnett Companion and did a full read through of Lymond and looked up every single translation and literary reference. It took nearly six months and was totally worth it.
Nothing substantial to add other than it makes me so happy to find another Dorothy Dunnett fan! Lymond 4eva.
Place names are mysteriously blanked out, like L——-. Swearing is also blanked out, so that your eyes will not be offended by stray d–n’s. You amuse yourself by imagining that all the places are named using extremely foul language.
no lie, every time I read “Bishop of D—–” in Les Misérables, I read it as “Bishop of Dick” and giggled. I AM TWELVE.
Or “—-shire.” Love when I see that a character is from “—-shire” in a novel. I don’t know why, it just tickles me.
—- street, in —–shire.
F—–, Austria.
My favorite part of that Wikipedia article is that they had to have disambiguation at the top to distinguish the town from the village in Austria also called F——. I really want to read an eighteenth century novel set in Austria now.
Mmmmmm…plausible coastlines.
omg, the family tree. YES.
I love Cold Comfort Farm so much, you guys. And it nails at least 4 of these criteria. Go forth and love Stella Gibbons as I do.
I do like a good plausible coastline, as well as realistic politics surrounding warm-water ports and coastal inlets.
Also, the copy of GoT that my friend burned for me (sshhh) had no subtitles, and I didn’t realize that the Dothraki was supposed to have subtitles. I figured we were supposed to try and figure it out from context, to really get into Daenerys’s headspace as a frightened outsider.
Initially, I didn’t realize you were talking about the TV show and I was very curious to know why your friends set a GoT book on fire for you.
Because winter is coming, and we needed the fuel.
Mallory I hope you have read Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, it is the only book I have read enough times to need to buy a second paperback since I was super into the Redwall books in elementary school. It contains scholarly references in the footnotes to an entire imaginary scholarly discipline (of magic) and it’s got an entire epistolary chapter as well and chapters that are excerpts from books the characters write.
This book is a thousand pages long and I have read it at least 10 times in the past 7 years, it is the same shape as my soul and everybody ought to read it.
I really wish we could reinstate long and descriptive chapter subtitles, my favorite of which is “CHAPTER VIII – Strongly illustrative of the position, that the course of true love is not a railway” from Pickwick Papers.
Ayn Rand would disapprove – everything is a railway.
You forgot about the crazy lady in the attic. 🙂
Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle has at least a solid half of these. (Perhaps not coincidentally, they are some of my favorite books.)
I read Pale Fire in a college English seminar, and the professor had to specify that we were, in fact, expected to read all the footnotes. One year, apparently he had a student who just read the poem and called it a day.
(sorry for replying so late to the party, i just love this story)
No.5. Always No.5.
Try "Magic For Beginners," by Kelly Link. A novelette, not a book. Found in a couple of her collections.
The best books are books about nothing.
“There is at least one carefully pencilled map on the interior front cover. Not the kind of Fantasy 101 map that’s clearly just England with four cities located nowhere near a river or strategic port dabbed on with ridiculous-sounding names, either. A good map, with plausible coastlines.”
!!!!
I would pay very good money for a compilation book of just very well done fictional world maps. They are a true and basic joy.
Not the original commenter, but I liked the Norton Critical Edition. Which I actually re-read after grad school and still enjoyed!
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/04/lake-srvagsv…