How Proust Can Change Your Life
10 journalers for this copy...
Purchased with a voucher given for my birthday at Waterstones in Horsham.
I like Mr de Bottons writing, he makes a rather heavy subject amusing. I have decided life is too short to read Proust, but not too short to read more by this author.
Offering as a ring:
Ususal rules-
-PM me with your shipping prefs
-move on within 1 month or let me know if there is a problem
-if you are not prepared to ship internationally I may not be able to include you, but I WILL do my best to keep everyone happy!
-shiping surface mail international is fine, but please note this on you release notes or we will think the book has gone missing..................
list so far, order subject to change for best fit:
azuki (US) -International
valerief (US)-International
Mahinaarangi (NZ)-International
Miss-Owl (Australia)-Aus/NZ or surface international
crimson-tide (australia)-Aus or int surface
briz-cowgirl (Austrailia)-International
Gooby (Australia)-International
snufkin81 (S Africa)-International-here!
Hengameh (Iran)-International
ruzena (Finland) -International
home to starflash
Released 15 yrs ago (7/16/2008 UTC) at Seafront, nr The Beachcomber in Seaford, East Sussex United Kingdom
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
sending the ring out this week to US by surface mail, to the first participant.
oops, this HAS gone to the USA, and hasnt been wild released!
It sure looks interesting and i look forward to reading it.
As I read on, I was thinking that maybe as the author and Proust himself suggested, an author's book can be more interesting than the real person as it is a distillation of his best idea; and I certainly began to feel that I won't particularly want to meet Proust himself. While he has keen insight of nature and mankind, his writings give me much to muse about, his personality doesn't sound too pleasing. So I was somewhat surprised that Proust friends speak so highly of him, and I found it endearing that he could devote full attention to whoever he is speaking to and never consider people too lowly for conversation. Most people can certainly benefit from his example.
As an introvert booklover, I also find most amusing Proust's comment that he considers book superior companion to human friends. If a book is boring, you can give a loud yawn, slap the book shut and shove it back onto the shelf without any guilt or apology.
Will send this off to the next reader when I go to the post office next week. I have the address already.
UPDATE: I'm going to Sydney on business in two weeks, so in the interest of speed, will post it from there, as soon as I get an address.
Released 15 yrs ago (11/16/2008 UTC) at Mail, Bookring -- Controlled Releases
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Shipping to Mahinaarangi from Sydney GPO.
I apologise, for my delay in posting anything.
The book will be forwarde on Monday. Kia ora.
I note with some amusement that valerief posted this book from Sydney :)
Life is a bit crazy at the moment but I hope it settles soon. I aim to start reading this around Easter. Thank you, starflash, for sharing your book.
I've only had a taste of de Botton's writing thus far, dipping into chapters here and there in his "The Consolations of Philosophy", but he has a unique gift of making the bizarre seem compelling. In the former, he was able to make the misanthropic Schopenhauer a fascinating, rather than repugnant, figure, and here he redeems the quirkily neurotic Proust to the same effect. Let me indulge myself with a few quotes.
In the chapter on reading, de Botton writes:
"After childishly picking a fight with a lover who had looked distracted throughout dinner, there is relief in hearing Proust's narrator admit to us that 'As soon as I found Albertine not being nice to me, instead of telling her I was sad, I became nasty', and revealing that 'I never expressed a desire to break up with her except when I was unable to do without her', after which our own romantic antics might seem less like those of a perverse platypus." (!)
There are many more such gorgeous, instantly recognisable passages in the text, but I leave them for future readers to discover. This book makes me want to read Proust marginally more than I did before, but it makes me want to spend more time with de Botton infinitely more!
Sending on to crimson-tide this week.
I gather Miss-Owl got rather side-tracked . . . but never mind, the book has now arrived safe & sound over here in the West. About number four on the list I think. Thanks Miss-Owl, and all others thus far.
de Botton certainly has a knack of synthesising all the elements - Proust's ideas, personality, novel, philosophy and life, along with the 'self-help' elements relevant to today - into something very readable. Some of it even managed to be humorous, although I found the attempts at humour in Chapter Eight: 'How To Be Happy In Love' rather weak and 'wet'.
I'll certainly be reading more from Mr de Botton, and appreciate learning much more about Proust than I thought I ever needed to know. I've even put "Swann's Way" on my wish list just to see what it's really like; but whether I ever get a copy, or read it, remains to be seen . . .
Will be sent off to briz-cowgirl as soon as I can organise myself to the post office.
Released 14 yrs ago (9/11/2009 UTC) at Balingup, Western Australia Australia
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Off by post to briz-cowgirl in Brisbane.
I especially enjoyed the chapter "How To Suffer Successfully". It is amazing Proust got so much done with all of his ailments - he describes his customary state as "suspended between caffeine, aspirin, asthma, angina pectoris and altogether between life and death every six days out of seven".
Thanks starflash for hosting this bookring! Heading off to Gooby in North Qld tomorrow.
Released 14 yrs ago (9/21/2009 UTC) at Brisbane, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases
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Heading off to Gooby, the next participant in this bookring...
***UPDATE***
My profuse apologies - I swear I'm not usually an atrocious bookcrosser like this but life has got the better of me. Now sending off to snufkin81.
I have a few books ahead of this one, but I'll read it as soon as I can.
I have PMed Hengemah twice with no response and have now PMed Ruzena. I hope to post this on the weekend.
Released 12 yrs ago (4/2/2011 UTC) at returned to owner, A Bookring -- Controlled Releases
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Sorry for keeping this so long!!
The book will be released again soon..........
Released 12 yrs ago (5/22/2011 UTC) at Starbucks - (zone closed October 2012) in Horsham, West Sussex United Kingdom
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