Litsy

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

Poor Conseil 😂
And poor hotel employees who'll have to feed a babirusa haha
(and poor babirusa that has to live in a hotel 🤣)

4 likes

bookwyrm7

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

"In him I had an extremely capable specialist in natural history classification who could scale with the agility of a circus performer the ladder of branches, groups, classes, sub-classes, orders, families, genera, subgenera, species and varieties."

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bookwyrm7

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

Finally starting this beauty! 😍
#HyggeHourReadathon

TheBookHippie, AllDebooks

TheBookHippie Oh it‘s so pretty!!! 6d

AllDebooks That cover 😍 4d

9 likes2 comments

BkClubCare

A Journey to the Center of the Earth | Jules Verne

I DNF‘d Glory Over Everything- unfortunately this stoops a bit into melodrammmma (mellow DRAHma?) and I just can‘t. Cannot continue with the “OMG! Should I tell my truth OH NO! What if my secret is exposed?! OH MY!!”

Just. Can. Not.
So I found THIS in my audio library and . . . TIM CURRY!! 💗 It‘s SO good!! 😆🤩🥸

#classics #scifi #excellentnarration

AvidReader25 Tim Curry!!!! 1w

BkClubCare 5/31 putting on hold til I listen to Clear…. 9h

31 likes2 comments

LiseWorks

Around the World in 80 Days | Jules Verne

May 18 #StorySettings Train @Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Perfect 👍🏻 2w

Eggs Well done 👍🏼 2w

21 likes2 comments

bookwyrm7

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

Have you ever passed by a book that you just had to have? How was I supposed to leave this gorgeous edition of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" behind in the shop? Impossible!
Also, how amazing is this Penguin series of clothbound classics? I'm in love ?
Gotta "catch'em all" now ?

8 likes

Robotswithpersonality

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

so-so

I think what's most remarkable is how much of this book can still be full of (fictional?) wonders for the average modern reader, the bottom of the ocean has not become less remote a prospect for most to explore despite 150 years of scientific and technological progress. 1/?

Robotswithpersonality 2/? That being said, if you like detailed descriptions of ocean life, on repeat, with scientific calculations and recountings of history, you'll have a better chance of enjoying this book than if you go in looking for an adventure story. The ratio leans heavily towards observations and discussion, rather than action - which doesn't stop Verne from jam-packing the last eighth with some memorable episodes. 3w

Robotswithpersonality 3/? I appreciate that mystery remains regarding the figure of Captain Nemo, though his convenient metamorphosis from amiable tyrant happy to discuss ship, navigation and ocean to anguished obsessive bent on vengeance felt a bit abrupt. 3w

Robotswithpersonality 4/? Following the science was also tricky because after this many decades, without setting myself a research project, where is the line drawn between what is fictional and what has simply been disproven in the interim? I just felt disengaged from so much of that content because I couldn't float along clearly on 'suspended disbelief' or 'nifty facts discovered'.
3w

See All 9 Comments

Robotswithpersonality 5/? Did make me sad to see the narrator recount the many species in the sea, the clarity of the water. What a difference a century and half of humanity has made (even if I don't subscribe to Nemo's misanthropy).
The promise of knowledge versus the chance at freedom is not a dichotomy I've seen presented so thoroughly as a character dilemma before, so convincingly, it added admirable tension to the narrative. 3w

Robotswithpersonality 6/? Ned and Conseil are occasionally amusing interlocutors, but Conseil is too often servile as an identity and Ned is too often a wet blanket or point of friction stereotype to make for fully fleshed out characters. (edited) 3w

Robotswithpersonality 7/8 One last thing, because I'd like to believe I'm not the only one who had this wrong based on the title:
Leagues is primarily a distance measurement, they mostly used yards for depth, so it's not 20,000 leagues straight down, it's that they were underwater, traveling around various oceans at various depths for 20,000 leagues distance. You're welcome. 💁🏼‍♂️ 3w

Robotswithpersonality 8/8 ⚠️Outdated and offensive terms for Black and Indigenous peoples used, a lot of discussion of all the animals which can be and are caught and eaten, (some butchery involved); assessing various ocean life for purely commercial value, lot of 'this guy 'discovered' this place', as well as explorer history; tries to mash together Biblical creationism/ Bible history with actual science/history on occasion- never a comfortable mix 3w

Karisimo I think Rick Riordan did a good job bringing it back to life in his middle grade book

Daughter of the Deep

Lunakay Great review, I recently finished this as well and agree with all your assessments. Also recommend Riordan's modern version which picks up both, this book and the follow up

The mysterious island. The secret of the island, tr. by W.H.G. Kingston

10 likes9 comments

Robotswithpersonality

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

Interesting to see the cognitive dissonance at work in the characters that history shows on repeat: 'Don't hunt that for sport, it's endangered, but do hunt that, we want (don't NEED) to eat it, or that, because there's profit and plenty and we'll never run out.' 🤦🏼‍♂️

4 likes

Robotswithpersonality

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne

150 years ago, maybe...😞

Bookwomble Verne reckoned without rapacious capitalism 😕 3w

Robotswithpersonality @bookwomble Chills me further to see how frequently the characters commodify the oceans' wonders, they look for food or profit in much of what they discover, the blueprint for that disastrous model for consumption is already laid down...it just hasn't reached modern scale yet. 😨 3w

Bookwomble @Robotswithpersonality It was already going on with commercial whaling. Only the discovery of commercial extraction of cheaper mineral oil saved whales from extinction. 3w

9 likes3 comments

Robotswithpersonality

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea | Jules Verne