repost for @Catsandbooks:
June 2025 theme: Sapphic Romance
Please vote for what book we will read in June
https://forms.gle/4CuWphtQmMn2DfYq7
Read at your own pace. There will be a discussion on Litsy at the end of the month.
Rise up Reads- reading marginalized voices 🔥✊🏼 If you're not currently tagged & would like to be, let me know.
so-soA bilingual edition (Greek on the left-hand page, English on the right) of the complete surviving poetry of Sappho, some from papyri and some from quotations by other authors of a line or even just a word. TBH, I didn't find any of it particularly memorable but it was interesting to see just how fragmentary fragments are.
pick4/5⭐ I love that the book includes the facing Greek. The translations are more on the side of faithfully following the literal Greek; while this makes for more awkward-sounding poetry, I really appreciate the accuracy. I read this alongside Rayor's 2023 translation, & it's very interesting to see how they filled in blanks & translated words differently. The commentary on each fragment is great. The two editions necessarily supplemented each other.
pickSome books you read and know exactly what you think of them. Others you read, puzzle, struggle over, and consider bailing on and off for four months, with final ratings of 0-5 all seeming equally plausible. That was Art and Lies for me. I went with a cautious '4 stars' because it has undeniably beautiful sentences and stretches of ecstatic musings. But it's tough going - like Virginia Woolf, not sure I even know what's going on at times, tough 👇
Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView ! 💖
1. The tagged book! I love Anne Carson‘s translations.
2. I‘m good to go until the books start making me more frustrated than I am invested! Which could be book 2, or could be book 19. 😂
3. I will forever mourn the Discworld books we will never see. ❤️
#WondrousWednesday @Eggs
1- the Complete Poems of Sappho, c. 550 BCE
2- I have a soft spot for a duology, but I'm also very happy with a long / open ended series if the genre is appropriate for that.
3- The Expanse, though it had to end sometime and that was a good place to end it.
Just read this passage while on the train headed to work 😆
