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If Kaladin dies in Wind and Truth I will never stop crying

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Time to reread the Stormlight Archive

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Here's THE masterpost of free and full adaptations, by which I mean that it's a post made by the master.

Anthony and Cleopatra: here's the BBC version, here's a 2017 version.

As you like it: you'll find here an outdoor stage adaptation and here the BBC version. Here's Kenneth Brannagh's 2006 one.

Coriolanus: Here's a college play, here's the 1984 telefilm, here's the 2014 one with tom hiddleston. Here's the Ralph Fiennes 2011 one.

Cymbelline: Here's the 2014 one.

Hamlet: the 1948 Laurence Olivier one is here. The 1964 russian version is here and the 1964 american version is here. The 1964 Broadway production is here, the 1969 Williamson-Parfitt-Hopkins one is there, and the 1980 version is here. Here are part 1 and 2 of the 1990 BBC adaptation, the Kenneth Branagh 1996 Hamlet is here, the 2000 Ethan Hawke one is here. 2009 Tennant's here. And have the 2018 Almeida version here. On a sidenote, here's A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Henry IV: part 1 and part 2 of the BBC 1989 version. And here's part 1 of a corwall school version.

Henry V: Laurence Olivier (who would have guessed) 1944 version. The 1989 Branagh version here. The BBC version is here.

Julius Caesar: here's the 1979 BBC adaptation, here the 1970 John Gielgud one. A theater Live from the late 2010's here.

King Lear: Laurence Olivier once again plays in here. And Gregory Kozintsev, who was I think in charge of the russian hamlet, has a king lear here. The 1975 BBC version is here. The Royal Shakespeare Compagny's 2008 version is here. The 1974 version with James Earl Jones is here. The 1953 Orson Wells one is here.

Macbeth: Here's the 1948 one, there the 1955 Joe McBeth. Here's the 1961 one with Sean Connery, and the 1966 BBC version is here. The 1969 radio one with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench is here, here's the 1971 by Roman Polanski, with spanish subtitles. The 1988 BBC one with portugese subtitles, and here the 2001 one). Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern retelling. Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here. And 2017 brings you this.

Measure for Measure: BBC version here. Hugo Weaving here.

The Merchant of Venice: here's a stage version, here's the 1980 movie, here the 1973 Lawrence Olivier movie, here's the 2004 movie with Al Pacino. The 2001 movie is here.

The Merry Wives of Windsor: the Royal Shakespeare Compagny gives you this movie.

A Midsummer Night's Dream: have this sponsored by the City of Columbia, and here the BBC version. Have the 1986 Duncan-Jennings version here. 2019 Live Theater version? Have it here!

Much Ado About Nothing: Here is the kenneth branagh version and here the Tennant and Tate 2011 version. Here's the 1984 version.

Othello: A Massachussets Performance here, the 2001 movie her is the Orson Wells movie with portuguese subtitles theree, and a fifteen minutes long lego adaptation here. THen if you want more good ole reliable you've got the BBC version here and there.

Richard II: here is the BBC version. If you want a more meta approach, here's the commentary for the Tennant version. 1997 one here.

Richard III: here's the 1955 one with Laurence Olivier. The 1995 one with Ian McKellen is no longer available at the previous link but I found it HERE.

Romeo and Juliet: here's the 1988 BBC version. Here's a stage production. 1954 brings you this. The french musical with english subtitles is here!

The Taming of the Shrew: the 1980 BBC version here and the 1988 one is here, sorry for the prior confusion. The 1929 version here, some Ontario stuff here, and here is the 1967 one with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. This one is the Shakespeare Retold modern retelling.

The Tempest: the 1979 one is here, the 2010 is here. Here is the 1988 one. Theater Live did a show of it in the late 2010's too.

Timon of Athens: here is the 1981 movie with Jonathan Pryce,

Troilus and Cressida can be found here

Titus Andronicus: the 1999 movie with Anthony Hopkins here

Twelfth night: here for the BBC, here for the 1970 version with Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright and Ralph Richardson.

Two Gentlemen of Verona: have the 2018 one here. The BBC version is here.

The Winter's Tale: the BBC version is here

Please do contribute if you find more. This is far from exhaustive.

(also look up the original post from time to time for more plays)

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can you recommend a book about the end of world war one

There are SO many that it kind of depends on what exactly you're interested in reading about: the story of the Armistice and actual end of the war; the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Versailles; an overview of how the world tried to start putting itself back together (and how so much of that "reconstruction" ended up leading to World War II less than 20 years later and many of the conflicts around the world since 1918), and so on. I'll try to give you a suggestion for each of those aspects of the end of the First World War.

Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918: World War I and Its Violent Climax by Joseph E. Persico (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) is an excellent look at the military aspect of the end of the war.

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) is probably the best book about the diplomatic negotiations following the end of the war which, among other things, led to the Treaty of Versailles, carved new boundaries and created new territories in vast parts of the world which led to decades of conflicts that are still being fought today, punished Germany so harshly that it led to the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, and much more.

The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End by Robert Gerwarth (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) is the story of the brutal consequences of the war and diplomatic blunders of the victors which ultimately resulted in scores of governments falling, empires collapsing, dynasties going extinct, economic chaos -- and the aftermath of those disasters.

But my highest recommendation is Charles Emmerson's book Crucible: The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917-1924 (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), which was published in 2019 and is, without a doubt, the absolute best book I've read in the past 10 years. It's on the short-list of best books I've EVER read. Crucible touches on all the aspects of the end of the war that I mentioned, but does so through the stories of individual people -- mostly notable people, but in a much different manner than normal biographies or history books. It's actually kind of hard to explain the book because it's so original in the amazing way that Emmerson writes, but I don't simply recommend Crucible for someone wanting to read about the end of World War I; I think everyone should check it out. I give a lot of book suggestions, but I don't exaggerate when it comes to praising a book to this extent. It's remarkable and as I've said before, I'm always frustrated that I can't read it for the first time all over again.

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I finished White Teeth this week and have just finished The Remains of the Day. Both 5 star reads. Next up: Gilead and Go Tell it on the Mountain

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Been jet lagged and sick for the last week but I’m settling in this sleepy Sunday for an all-day reading session. White Teeth and The Best and the Brightest are top of my pile today.

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“The book feels so fundamental to me, now, that I find it hard to cast my mind back to a time when I hadn’t read it, and harder still to explain what it’s about, because it seems to be about everything. It’s a novel about work and the moral value of work; the importance – indeed the necessity – of finding the job you’re fitted for and doing it to the very best of your abilities. It’s about truth, and the need, in a slippery, shifting world, to find the one true thing you’re willing to defend, no matter what the personal cost. It’s about friendship, and how it ebbs and flows as you yourself grow – or stop growing. It’s about writing: what it means to write well and how to do it. It’s about love and integrity, and the thought and work and consideration that must go into establishing and maintaining a relationship of equality and mutual respect. It’s about class and sex and society between the wars. And above all, it’s about the age-old question (which at the time of writing was a fresh, new one) of whether it’s possible for a woman to have it all: to have a life of the mind and of the heart, and to do equal honour to them both.”

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GEORGE WASHINGTON •Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •George Washington: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall (BOOK)

JOHN ADAMS •John Adams by David McCullough (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams by Joseph J. Ellis (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •John Adams: Party of One by James Grant (BOOK)

THOMAS JEFFERSON •Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson by Joseph J. Ellis (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History by Fawn Brodie (BOOK)

JAMES MADISON •The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •James Madison: A Life Reconsidered by Lynne Cheney (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •James Madison: A Biography by Ralph Ketcham (BOOK | AUDIO)

JAMES MONROE •James Monroe: A Life by Tim McGrath (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness by Harlow Giles Unger (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity by Harry Ammon (BOOK)

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS •John Quincy Adams: American Visionary by Fred Kaplan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, A Private Life by Paul C. Nagel (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •The Lost Founding Father: John Quincy Adams and the Transformation of American Politics by William J. Cooper (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •The Remarkable Education of John Quincy Adams by Phyllis Lee Levin (BOOK | KINDLE)

ANDREW JACKSON •American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times by H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •Andrew Jackson, Volume I: The Course of American Empire, 1767-1821 by Robert V. Remini (BOOK) •Andrew Jackson, Volume II: The Course of American Freedom, 1822-1832 by Robert V. Remini (BOOK | KINDLE) •Andrew Jackson, Volume III: The Course of American Democracy, 1833-1845 by Robert V. Remini (BOOK)

MARTIN VAN BUREN •Martin Van Buren and the American Political System by Donald B. Cole (BOOK | KINDLE) •Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics by Joel H. Silbey (BOOK) •Martin Van Buren: The Romantic Age of American Politics by John Niven (BOOK)

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON •A Child of the Revolution: William Henry Harrison and His World, 1773-1798 by Hendrik Booraem V (BOOK | KINDLE) •Mr. Jefferson's Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy by Robert M. Owens (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO) •The Carnival Campaign: How the Rollicking 1840 Campaign of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" Changed Presidential Elections Forever by Ronald G. Shafer (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

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Reading Around the World: Introduction

An exciting New Year for everyone!

Like for many other people, the New Year always inspires me to try out new things and challenge myself, and this year I've decided to do this by starting the Reading Around the World challenge - a reading challenge where you read books from all around the globe, attempting to read at least one book from every country.

I'm sure the idea has existed in some shape or form for a long time, but, as far as I know, the challenge really kicked off on the internet when, in 2012, Ann Morgan started a blog to document her year-long journey through a book from every country in the world. Since then, many other people have also taken part, and now there is even a website for the challenge.

I've wanted to try something similar ever since I first heard about the challenge a couple of years ago - I love reading, I've studied comparative literature, and from the year 2019 I've been conducting my own "reading through the ages" challenge, where I've read literature from the Antiquity all the way through to the present era. However, during that challenge, I noticed that my reading was very Anglo- and Eurocentric. I wanted to read more from all around the world, so I started looking for interesting books from around the globe and compiling a list of them. Now, I feel that the time is finally ripe, and so I've decided that 2024 is the year I will embark on my literary voyage!

If you want to follow my journey, I will document it here on tumblr, and I might also occasionally post about it on my language-learning instagram.

If you want to know more about how I will personally be doing the challenge, you can read more under the cut:

My "rules" for the challenge:

I have no time limit for the challenge. The challenge can take one year or ten years, or the rest of my life - I have no specific goal.

I will read as many books from each country as I feel like.

I pick books to represent a country on a case-by-case basis; I don't have absolute criteria. My main goal is to read books written by people from and living in different countries and places in the world, and I want to challenge myself to read literature in translation and in other languages besides English and Finnish. However, I will also consider books by, for example, diaspora and descendant authors who are writing about a country/place to which they have a personal connection.

My rating system:

5/5: Amazing. I loved it, it's a new favourite.

4/5: Very good. I really liked it.

3/5: Alright. I liked it.

2/5: Nah. It was okay, but not really my thing.

1/5: Ö-mappi*. I did not like it. * Finnish, "a figurative binder into which any unwanted proposals are archived in order to be forgotten", literally "the binder Ö"

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Sadly, Blood of Elves is my first DNF of the year. Too much storytelling through conversation. There’s an interesting premise here, but my eyes just kept involuntarily closing while I was trying to get through it.

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Best books of the year: 2023 edition

When you read north of 200 books a year it's pretty hard (at least for me) to compile a best-of list without things getting out of hand, but here is my attempt:

Best fiction (new releases)

After Sappho by Selby Wynn Schwartz

The MANIAC by Benjamín Labatut

Not Even the Dead by Juan Gómez Bárcena

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

Honorable mention: This is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor

Best fiction (non-new releases)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger

Pollak's Arm by Hans Von Trotha

In the Cut by Susanna Moore

Honorable mentions: impossible to pick a favorite NYRB read but Zama and Cassandra at the Wedding both knocked me on my ass.

Best short story collection:

In the Country by Mia Alvar

Honorable mention: Savage Harvest: Stories of Partition by Mohinder Singh Sarna

Best nonfiction

We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death and Child Removal in America by Roxanna Asgarian

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs: A Journey Through the Deep State by Kerry Howley

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

The Paranoid Apocalypse: A Hundred-Year Retrospective on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, edited by Richard Landes and Steven T. Katz

Sex, Science, Self: A Social History of Estrogen, Testosterone and Identity by Bob Ostertag

Feeling Trapped: Social Class and Violence Against Women by James Ptacek

Intimate Alien: The Hidden Story of the UFO by David J. Halperin

Honorable mentions: Actual Malice by Samantha Barbas, The Devil's Element by Dan Egan, Europe and the Mystique of Islam by Maxime Rodinson

Best poetry

A Hundred Lovers by Richie Hofmann

Hard Damage by Aria Aber

Report to the Department of the Interior by Diane Glancy

Honorable mentions: Deluge by Leila Chatti, Critical Assembly: Poems of the Manhattan Project by John Canaday

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Currently reading Blood and Elves and… it’s boring. Sorry, I know there’s a lot of fans out there but the pacing of this book is a real drag. It’s short so I’m going to attempt to finish it but I’m disappointed.

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2024 reading goals:

75 books

Read more modern non-SF/Fantasy fiction

Expand my reading horizons in general

Specific stuff on my list this year:

Remains of the Day

Jon Fosse’s Septology

Ficciones

White Teeth

Finish The Expanse series

Finish all the Abercrombie books set in The Blade Itself world

The Thirty Year’s War: A New History

Reread the Stormlight Archives

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“ The station’s medical staff treated him with powerful sedatives and isolated him from the rest of the other personnel. “It is significant that his delusions developed in a tense emotional milieu which was marked by conscious homosexual anxiety stimulated by a schizoid, effeminate and seductive member of the group,” the report of the study added. “

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My favorite books of 2023