The Reading Room

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Bookworm

4:00 AM

Q: May we find the digital text renderings of the Herculaneum scrolls?

I'm not sure, but this seems to be the closest to an "official website" for the Herculaneum scrolls: https://scrollprize.org/data_scrolls It recaps the technologies used and has explainers for file extensions involved in the scans. What it seems to be lacking is a repository of the texts reconstr...

greek-language

2 hours later…

CowperKettle

5:40 AM

John Clare of the day: elting soil

> The ploughman hears its humming rage begin,
And hies for shelter from his naked toil;
Buttoning his doublet closer to his chin,
He bends and scampers o'er the elting soil,
While clouds above him in wild fury boil,
And winds drive heavily the beating rain;
He turns his back to catch his breath awhile,
Then ekes his speed and faces it again,
To seek the shepherd's hut beside the rushy plain.

5 hours later…

Mithical

11:02 AM

...does this answer make any sort of sense to anyone else?

I'm having trouble grasping what it's getting at.

2 hours later…

Tsundoku

12:41 PM

@Mithical I think it assumes a watch on which the minute hand move just once a minute instead of continuously. I'm not sure spring-driven watches ever worked that way. I'll ask my father, who is a retired watch maker.

Bookworm

1:17 PM

Q: I am writing an essay on The Crucible

This is a line from my essay. I want to how to rephrase it concisely. Particularly the "it attempts to uphold" phrase. I wasn't sure if this is the correct site....

the-crucible

4 hours later…

CowperKettle

4:57 PM

For the first time in post-Soviet Russia, two women have been sentenced to a 6 year prison term for producing a theater play

bbc.com/russian/articles/cv2gp0gk0zdo

> "Finist Yasny Sokol" received the Golden Mask award in several nominations in 2022: the author of the play, Svetlana Petriychuk, was also a laureate.

However, a denunciation was written about the production. The name of the informer is unknown to the public, but nevertheless, he came to court as a witness (and spoke via audio link with a distorted voice from the next room under the pseudonym "Nikita").
.. during the trial it became clear that Karpuk (the second denunciator) might not have seen the performance he was complaining about: he was unable to describe the atmosphere in the hall …

Bookworm

5:57 PM

Q: Senior citizen ladies solve crimes

I've read three or four ebooks about two ladies that are senior citizens solving crimes. They live in a place called "Tawas" I thought I'd saved them in my library but am unable to find them now. I tried googling using the word "Tawas" and still nothing. Unfortunately I can't remember the ladies ...

identification-request mystery-novels

3 hours later…

Bookworm

8:44 PM

Q: Looking for short story about a girl called June and her summer experience

When I was in 8th grade, we had a Literature English class and we read a lot of short stories. The year was around 1998 and the books where Scholastic books that the school used. The story that I am looking for is about a teenage girl called June, she moved from outside the city (I think from the...

short-stories

2 hours later…

Tsundoku

10:16 PM

@Mithical Also, why are people answering the question without taking the trouble to read the text? (Or without trying to understand the text at a basic, literal level.)

I read this as Fogg having expected Passepartout at 11:25. Since it's 11:29, Fogg sees Passepartout as being 4 minutes late, rather than his watch. — Amos Joshua yesterday

Mithical

@Tsundoku I don't know. I'm considering protecting it, but that won't help with some of the cases there.

Tsundoku

Phileas Fogg probably wouldn't put up with those low-quality answers ;-)

Bookworm

Q: Why does Macbeth well deserve his name?

In the beginning of Macbeth, before Macbeth himself is actually introduced, we get a little overview of what's been happening from the Sergeant. He says this, which includes this aside about Macbeth's name: And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling, Show'd like a rebel's whore: but all's too we...