Available @ Amazon.com
On the same shelf:How Amazon and Goodreads could lose their best readers
When Amazon bought Goodreads it got a community of passionate readers, not all of whom want to follow the new rules,
A couple of young Canadian web specialists have come up with a useful tool that will help you select good books to read, using the reviews of mainstream literary critics. Taking their cues from Rotten Tomatoes, the popular website that aggregates the work of professional movie reviewers around the world, Sarnia native Rahul Simha and his tech-savvy buddies, Canadian Vish Chapala and American Mohit Aggarwal, have built a website, idreambooks.com, that collects, aggregates and links the published works of professional book reviewers.continue reading
From a Book Review to a Criminal Trial in France
By ADAM LIPTAK, The New York Times,
"In a little more than a week, a court in Paris will decide whether a law professor in New York committed criminal libel by publishing a book review."
"We look for two things in any new translation of the Qur'an. How close does it get to communicating the meaning of the original, that inimitable oral text, the very sounds of which move men and women to tears and ecstasy? And does it offer something more: a new perspective, perhaps; or an innovative rendering?On the same shelf books by Dr. Ziauddin Sardar:
Tarif Khalidi, a professor of Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut, scores high on both these criteria. He manages to capture the allusiveness of the text, as well as something of its tone and texture. While being faithful to the original, he succeeds in conveying linguistic shifts, from narrative to mnemonic, sermons to parables. And there is an innovative component: it is the first translation that tries to capture both the rhythms and the structure of the Qur'an.
The best way to demonstrate its newness, and how close it is to the original text, is to compare it with an old translation...
Khalidi wants the reader to enjoy the experience of reading the Qur'an. Of course, he wants to communicate the majesty of its language, the beauty of its style, and the "eternal present tense" of its grammar. But he also wants the reader to appreciate the Qur'an's unique structure, how the language changes with the subject matter, how it swirls around and makes rhythmic connections. He wishes to show how each of the seven tropes of the Qur'an (command, prohibition, glad tidings, warnings, sermons, parables and narratives) registers a change in the style of its language. A lofty ambition, but one he pulls off with some success....
Continue reading The Eternal Present Tense
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