111 new of 298 responses total.
For those trying to find it in the library, you'll find "The Princess Bride" filed under "Goldman, William", and not "Morgenstern, S." (Goldman presents the story as the creation of the fictional S. Morgenstern) "The Princess Bride" is a delightful book, even better if you haven't had it spoiled for you by the movie.. Has anyone read "S. Morgenstern's" other book (the one about the gondoliers)? Is it any good?
There's a used bookstore on Cross street in Ypsilanti near Vinyl Joe's
that has a rare two-colour edition of _Princess Bride_, with the 'real'
portions in red and the 'story' in black (or is it vice versa?) that might
be a real find for a fan.
Amen
The book I finished most recently is _The_Number_of_the_Beast_, by Robert Heinlein. I think this is the second time I read it; the first time was July, 1980 (the publication date is August, 1980). I'm working on _The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_. I have a copy of _Symbolic_Logic_ from the library, which I will probably read before I return it. (I read it the first time in 1980, too.)
I had to watch the movie version of _Temptation_ a couple years ago for a class, and, even tho' I am a Christian, I was not offended by it, as I had feared, after all the hype about it. There were certainly a number of things about it that I did not like at all, but it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Of course, it wasn't a terribly good movie even on its own terms, but that's beside the point. Sorry about the movie talk. I have right beside me the book version of _The_Phantom_MEnace_. :-) So far, so good (p36, of 300+).
I just finished _The Practice of the Wild_ by Gary Snyder, which I think was reccomended somewhere in this conference, but I'm too lazy to find where and by whom. I was really impressed -- most "save the earth, stop oppression"-type books make my mind turn off immediately no matter how much I agree or disagree, but Snyder's writing really held my attention. Not surprising, given how much I like his poetry.
Can somebody tell me what _The Last Temptation of Christ_ is about? The only thing I know about it is that Peter Gabriel did the music for it :) I read a lot of stuff over the summer which I will write something about later 'cause it's getting late.
It's about an alternate universe where Christ is seduced by the dark side. (Oh, no, wait, that's the Star Wars "prequel".. Nevermind..)
Jesus, a carpenter in Nazareth, makes crosses for crucifixions. He has been subject to fits since he realised that he loved his cousin Mary. That rejection led Mary to a life of prostitution, also in rebellion against her father (a rabbi). (So she has mixed motiviations. Don't we all?) Some suspect that Jesus is the Messiah, but they neither can nor want to believe it. I've not gotten much farther than that, and I'm not willing to repeat the summarisations offered by others. It's written by the same guy who did _Zorba_the_Greek_.
To continue: Jesus spends some time with a group much like the Essenes (kind of like Jewish monks), and then begins a ministry much like that described in the Gospels, but he is very unsure of himself. Eventually he becomes more self-confident, and goes to Jerusalem. There, he sends his oldest and closest friend, Judas Iscariot, to betray him to the Jewish leaders. While on the cross, he is told by an angelic figure that his debt is paid, and he can come down. He marries Martha *and* Mary (whose brother Lazarus was killed before he was arrested), and later confronts Paul of Tarsus, who is preaching Christianity. He is dying in bed as Jerusalem burns in AD 70, when Peter and Judas come to tell him how badly he screwed up. He then prays for God to return him to the cross, where he can correct the error that led to the rest. God does, and the rest, as they say, is history. Anyone who notices an error in my summary is free to say so.
I finished _Ecstasy_Club_ by Douglass Rushkoff recently. It started out well as a story about a motley bunch who decided to buy a warehouse and have raves every day, with a different theme for different subcultures (goths, gays, ravers). Then it turned into this bizarre conspiracy story involving Tesla and Scientology (called Cosmotology in the novel). The ending was very unsatisfying. I enjoy conspiracy theories, but this book left me feelin like I wasted my time. Stick with his non-fiction if you read anything by Rushkoff.
By Tesla, you do'nt mean Nikolai Tesla, do you? He was dead long before raves started, I think.
Re #199: Yes, Nikolai Tesla. The conspiracy theory involved telepaths and time travel.
Most of the better conspiracy theories do..
My favorite conspiracy theories are either plausible or completely loopy. The best are both.
Like the one about that project where the government spent billions
researching some obscure physics theories that might have applications, while
a war was going on?
hehe ..which war? ...which theories?
Yah, we all "know" the conspiracies are fantasies, eh?
Remember, just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. "Perfect paranoia is perfect perception." - a line from Stephen King's Golden Years
The most unbelievable thing about most of the interesting government conspiracy theories is that our government is intelligent and competent enough to be involved in such things, without it being more widely known than the Watergate scandal and more bungled than the Vietnam War.
That's what I find to be the most effective argument against most of them.
re #207, 208: That's *just* what They WANT you to think.. ;-)
A lot of conspiracy theories fall apart when you realize that no plan, however ingenious, goes off as planned. Plus, the more people involved, and the wider the conspiracy, the more likely it's going to be discovered.
That's not necessarily true. We've managed to do a few things in
complete secret and away from the public eye, like developing thermonuclear
weapons and breaking the German and Japanese main ciphers, that were only
revealed after they'd ceased to be useful to keep secret. The government
isn't as bungling as you might think - they're just bound to the ebb and tide
of public opinion and political process when they act in an open manner.
With the Manhattan project, there were leaks, but those leaks were very quickly suppressed. Scientists would go to nearby diners and say the wrong thing. Army officials would very quickly converge on these places and swear the people inside to secrecy. As for the Enigma project, the way it was kept secret was by letting the Germans bomb some of their targets without resistance. It was costly, but it worked. I can agree that the government is perfectly capable of doing things in secret. My point is that world-wide conspiracies can't exist to the extent that the theorists say because the more people involved, the greater the risk of exposure. Everyone within a group has their own agenda. They may act with or against others in the group for the sake of furthering their personal motives. Even when a group is in agreement with an agenda, they may disagree with the means used to carry out a plan.
Unless someone at some level comisserates with someone else. It's
not difficult at all for gas stations, for instance, to maintain
near-identical price levels despite the vagrarites of gas prices and shipping
to various markets.
Yes, but in the instance of gas prices, you're dealing with multi-national corporations with interlocking boards of directors, ensuring that no one oil company will try to undercut another. On the more local level, gas stations will compete with other places down the street, but they do agree not to step on each other's toes too much. They want the appearance of competition. On to the actual topic though... I just finished reading Japanese Mythology by Juliet Piggott. I enjoyed the brief historical overview and the survey of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs. It also had a decent selection of Japanese myths, legends and stories. It wasn't very comprehensive though. I much preferred "Myths and Legends of Japan" by F. Hadland Davis. That book had more stories that were divided into varoius topics (animals, mirrors, Mt Fuji, etc.). Both are enjoyable reads.
I'm much more concerned that corporations would attempt to conspire
than governments. And they do. When they're not all owned by the same
people.
Some of the books I read over the summer: _Borderliners_ by Peter Hoeg. I picked this one up because I loved _Smilla's Sense of Snow_. I didn't like this one quite as much, because the tone is darker and a bit depressing. The story is about an orphaned boy called Peter who is taken out of a state home (in Denmark) and sent to an expensive private school called Biehl's Academy. He forms friendships with two other "outsiders," a disturbed boy named August and a girl called Katarina. (er, I think I have those names right.) They try to discover the details of the reason that they have been brought to the academy. There is also a lot of philosophical speculation on the nature of time, and towards the end these passages get in the way of the story a bit too much. Still, I thought it was a very engrossing and thought-provoking book. (I'd like to smack the person who wrote the blurb on the jacket. It gives away two of the major important points of the plot.) Also read _The Woman and the Ape_ by Hoeg. I thought it was awful: a sort of bizarre pseudo-fantasy plot and a mystery story that doesn't hang together very much. I went to hear Ray Bradbury talk at the Chautauqua Auditorium and while there bought a copy of _Quicker than the Eye_, a collection of stories, and got it signed. It is a bit of a mixed bag, but because of the several truly wonderful stories in it-"The Electrocution", "Hopscotch", "The Finnegan," "The Very Gentle Murders," (both of which are rather like updated Poe stories), "The Witch Door," "Last Rites," and "The Other Highway"-I have probably missed a few good ones; those were just my favorites-it is well worth the $12 I paid for it. Ray Bradbury is a great speaker, BTW. I might write about some others if I can remember them. At the moment I am not getting to read a lot because of schoolwork. :(
I don't think I could read another Hoeg book after "Smilla's Sense of Snow" It built up so nicely that the ending was a shocking disappointment.
Was it the SF-like component of the ending that you didn't like? It seems from reading the customer comments on Amazon that a lot of people (probably those who are into mystery novels but not science fiction) think the ending was a sort of copout. Personally, I think the final mysterious, inconclusive paragraphs are wonderful. The ending of _The Once and Future King_ (which I read for school) is a bit like that too. (I loved TOAFK as well). Another book has come to mind, _Red Shift_ by Alan Garner. Now *this* is one of the strangest books I have ever read. It is a bit more difficult to get through than the average "young adult" novel; sometimes I lost track of who was speaking in the dialogue passages, as there are no cues from the narrator. There are three interwoven plots: one concerning two teenagers engaged in a strange sort of romance in the twentieth century, one set during one of the Roman occupations of Britain and involving a boy in a Roman legion who has epileptic-like visions, and one set in England's civil war. The ending complicates the puzzle of how the plots fit together rather than clearing it up. I hope to read the book again later and try to understand it better.
I thought it was a copout but not because of the bizarre/fantastic element.. It just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story -- all the hints that something dark and sinister was going on would have worked just fine with any number of strange endings, just not the one that Hoeg chose..
I actually enjoyed the ambiguity of the close, and the realism of the
core of the sinister "conspiracy" being something relatively mundane. But
that's just me.
Re resp:218 - Which of England's many civil wars? King John vs the barons, the war of the roses, the one that brought Cromwell to power, the one that restored the monarchy ... ?
The parliament vs. King war, the one that brought Cromwell to power. I was going to say that, but I thought that "the English civil war" always refered , ack, referred, to the same one. I stand corrected :) I thought the monarchy was restored in a bloodless "revolution"; am I confusing it with something else?
That's entirely possible. However, I am not quite enuf of a history buff to know the names to everything, I just know what happened. :-) After Cromwell, Charles ( whose (grand?)father was executed ) became king, if I recall correctly. The Glorious Revolution resolved a succession problem, I believe. Some king's heirs were Catholics? I don't remember exactly, and you could be right again. :-)
Because of the holiday I had a fair amount of time to read this weekend
and because of all of the work *before* the holiday I chose for
entertainment more than anything else..
Tim Powers -- "On Stranger Tides".. John Chandagnac, a puppeteer and
amateur scholar is sailing to the new world to claim his grandfather's
estate when his ship is captured by pirates. Sooner than you can say
"shanghaied", he's pressed into service aboard by the rather odd pirates
and soon he's "Jack Shandy", unwilling participant in a power struggle
between voodoo practicing pirates, a one-armed Oxford don seeking to
restore his wife's spirit -- to his daughter's body, and other typically
strange Powers characters. Entertaining, but not as good as his other
books. Powers writes entertaining books filled with strange characters
who are involved in bizarre plots. Instead of "On Stranger Tides" I
would recommend:
"Last Call": which has a strangely similar plot, but takes place
in modern times, with sorcerous card sharks taking the place of
the voodoo-practicing pirates, as they vie to unseat the magical
Fisher King of Las Vegas and become king themselves.. -or-
"the Anubis Gate": a time-travelling poet encounters plotting
Egyptian sorcerers, a body-swapping werewolf, and a killer clown
who performs awful medical experiments in the sewers of 18th-century
London..
-------------
Sara Paretsky -- "Hard Time".. Latest in the V.I. Warshawsky series.
Tough and independent Chicago private-eye Warshawsky manages to tick off
the wrong people and is soon caught up in a complicated plot that everyone
else begs her not to unravel. How is this different from every other
V.I. Warshawsky novel, you ask? Clearly it's not, but it's a pretty good
formula if you like mystery novels. Nothing new here, but after all of
the other books in the series fans probably know what to expect.
Recommended for fans of the series -- people who haven't read the other
books will be confused by all the peripheral characters who've been
acquired in the other books and remain part of the continuity. Probably
best to start with an earlier installment..
-------------
Dick Francis -- "Second Wind" Francis could do with a bit of a "second
wind" (or third, or twelfth, or whatever it takes..) himself. Having by
now almost completely mined out his trademark gimmick (every mystery
involves horseracing in some way, although in this latest the connection
is slapped on pretty haphazardly..) Francis is showing the dark side of
the formula problem. While fans of the rest of Paretsky's books will
probably enjoy the new V.I. Warshawsky novel, it's difficult to imagine
*anyone* particularly enjoying Francis' latest offering. The plot makes
little or no sense, the characters' actions are all annoyingly irrational,
and even the villains have little idea what they're doing. It's clearly
not up to the standards of Francis' usually successful (if completely
predictable) suspense formula.
Strong recommendation against. His fans will probably buy it anyway,
but I can at least say "I told you so." Seriously, though, this one
stinks. You'd be far better off re-reading any of his previous works.
Don't say I didn't warn you..
I just finished reading "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis. I highly recommend this book. It follows the tale of Kivrin, a 21st century college student who is sent back in time to 14th century Skendale, a village outside of Oxford, to study the Middle Ages. Trouble begins when people in the 21st century succumb to a mysterious illness, hampering any attempt to retrieve her from the past. I don't know how to adequately describe this novel in the short amount of time available to me, except to say that it's the best novel I've read this year. I can't recommend it enough to fans of SF or medieval history.
The 'last' book I read was _The Neutronium Alchemist Part 1: Consolidation_, which is the third paperback in a six-book "trilogy" (apparently, it was originally published in three hardcover volumes). I'm working on the next part, "Conflict" now. Fun stuff, but there are a lot of characters, a lot of plot lines; about what you would expect given that each paperbook runs over 500 pages.
I finish and re-reading The radiant future, the invisible writings, The age of longing, the first is buy alexander zinoviev, second is arthur koestler.
I finished reading Feng Shui for Apartment Living recently. Good book.
I want to finish my George Eliot marathon this summer
but I keep getting interrupted. At Borders yesterday
I picked up two irresistible interruptions: _Nabokov's
Butterflies_ and Borges' _Complete Fictions_.
The title of the Borges book sounds a little bit affected.
Why "fictions"? There are no novels or novellas, so why
not call them "short stories" like everyone else? Well,
first of all, "ficciones" is what Borges himself called
them. Secondly, many of them are unclassifiable -- not
stories, exactly, but not essays or reviews, either.
Some of them read like essays and reviews, but the authors
and works they deal with are all invented by Borges.
Anyway, here, between two covers, is everything Borges
wrote of that nature. Many old favorites of mine, and
many more I'd never heard of, all in brand-new translations.
The translator takes a big risk in renaming one of Borges
most famous "fictions" from the familiar "Funes the Memorious"
to "Funes, His Memory," explaining that "memorious" is
not a good translation of "memorioso" ("elephant-memoried"
would be more like it, he says).
_Nabokov's Butterflies_ tries to collect everything Nabokov
ever wrote of the subject into one volume. It has the entire
"Butterflies" chapter from _Speak, Memory_, the butterfly
parts from all of his novels and stories, excerpts from
interviews and letters, all of Nabokov's scientific papers,
selected diary entries, and various other stuff from the
Nabokov Archives including plans of projected works. It is
almost 800 pages long and is filled with illustrations --
photographs of Nabokov in collecting mode at all ages,
photographs, Nabokov's own drawings, ec., etc. This is one
of thise books that can fairly be described as "sumptuous."
Stephen King, _On_Writing_. Having read most of it I'd have to say it's thoughtful and entertaining, providing insights of a man who's been writing for many many years. It provides more than that, however, in giving Mr. King's perspective on his life as well as that fateful day in 1999 that almost ended his life. You'll get a sense of the man that I think might be hard to gleen if you've only read his fiction.
John Grisham, _The Runaway Journey_. Got it to pass the time on a recent airplane flight. Never read Grisham before. Probably won't again.
Oops, make that _The Runaway Jury_.
So you read "The Runaway Jury" on your runway journey?
Exactly!
Eniac by Scott McCartney. Have become very interested in Computer History lately, this is a good intro book to lay some framework on the subject. I thought it was an objective look at who stood where in the development of the first working computer and the spread of computer science. The author sets the record straight as too VonNeumann's role in the birth of computers, he contributed greatly to the birth of computer science while it was Eckert and Mauchly who bore the first working computer. Although I was very disappointed that there was no mention of Turing and Colossus. Many people dispute this as the first true working computer and Turing as the real father. Also many places where details would have been appreciated, the author vaguely described the events and moved on. Overall still a good read.
If you're in Ann Arbor, have you stopped by the EECS building to view the piece of ENIAC that's on display near the front of the atrium?
Mayflies, by Richard Wilbur. An extremely slim volume of poems by our greatest living poet. Maybe his last, as he turns eighty this year and his output seems to have slowed down sadly. Spaking of poetry, I was reading a volume of Robert Frost's letters the other day, and noted that he said "Cadmus and Harmonia" was his favorite long poem by Matthew Arnold. The title meant nothing to me, which was alrming because I know, or thought I knew, all of Arnold's poetry. The Oxford Authors selection of Arnold's poetry and prose (published fifteen years or so ago) didn't have "Cadmus and Harmonia" in either the ToC or index, but it doesn't purport to be complete. I have two collections of Arnold's poetry that call themselves "complete," both from the late 19th century shortly after Arnold's death, one by Oxford and one by Macmillan. The Macmillan volume didn't have anything called "Cadmus and Harmonia," but the Oxford edition did: both the ToC and the title index showed "Cadmus and Harmonia" as starting on page 112. But on turning to that page, I found myself in the middle of "Empedocles on Etna," near the end of the first act. I must've rechecked the ToC and index of the Oxford volume three or four times, in growing disbelief. I started to feel like a character in a Borges story. Finally, as a last resort, I pulled down Stedman's Victorian Anthology and the 1879 Golden Treasury selection of Arnold's poems. The Stedman had nothing; but there, in the little Golden Treasury selection, was my poem. I recognized it immediately as the passage from the first act of "Empedocles on Etna." All I can think is that Palgrave excerpted the passage from the verse drama, which was much too long to include in full in the Golden Treasury edition, and published it as a standalone poem in the collection, with or without Arnold's permission, and that that is where Robert Frost saw it. It probably became a Victorian sentimental favorite, and so earned the oblique reference in the Oxford edition. 100 years ago, that reference wouldn't've puzzled anyone. The poem is about a man and a women who saw their children all killed, and who were turned into snakes by the gods, in an act of mercy, and sent to a beautiful hillside overlooking the ocean, where they lived ever after in blissful reptilian ignorance. Frost's reference to it was in a letter written around the time his daughter Marjorie died of puerperal fever after giving birth to her only child. The tragedy as much as killed Frost's wife, and sent Frost into a deep depression. Just a few years later and they could have saved Marjorie with antibiotics.
Okay, the Oxford Authors edition has a note to the "Empedocles on Etna" passage remarking that it was published separately by Arnold as "Cadmus and Harmonia" as early as 1852. Also, Frost didn't say it was his "favorite long poem by Matthew Arnold," but his favorite poem, period, "long before I knew what it would mean to us." I've got to stop quoting stuff from memory. Worked ten years ago, doesn't work now.
"started to feel like a character in a Borges story." What a great description. :-)
Thanks. I was thinking of "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," where the narrator finds a long article on Uqbar in a bootleg edition of an encyclopedia, but then can't find it in the original edition and, what's much worse, can't find any reference to Uqbar anywhere else.
Btw -- continuing the Borders bashing from another conference -- I was at the big Borders in Farmington Hills a few days ago while I still had Matthew Arnold on the brain, so I decided to see what they were carrying by Arnold. Answer: absofuckinglutely nothing. Not one volume of poems, no prose, no biography, no criticism. Nada. I don't even want to know who else they don't carry anymore. It went from Maya Angelou to John Ashberry, as I recall. (A blind item in the old Spy magazine told about a "respected American poet" who, when was asked by a student at an Ivy League reading what he thought about some poem by Maya Angelou, replied that he had never read anything by Maya Angelou. When the student expressed shock, he said, "But nobody actually reads Maya Angelou. She's one of those poets whose sole function is to be taught in schools.")
re240 - yes, I know the story. Last year in English we got to write one "research paper" on any topic we liked, and I did Borges.
I used to love open-topic "research" assignments. So, what do you think "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is all about? I used to think it was about an alien culture, from another dimension or something, taking over earth. Lately, I'm thinking it's an allegory of the triumph of American popular culture (Tlon was made in the USA, after all) and the real danger of it replacing native cultures everywhere. Borges was probably thinking of movies and jazz back then, but nowadays there would be language and history as well. The scary part, at the very end of the story, is when even such things as language and history become distorted and eventually completely changed. Spot quiz: Whay are mirrors and fatherhood abominable?
*wracks [racks?] brains* Obviously it's because they both have to do with multiplying the number of things, but why this is abominable to Borges I've forgotten if I ever knew. Why is it? I guess I was exaggerating a bit when I said I "knew" the story, as now that I try to think about it my recollection is distinctly fuzzy (it wasn't one of the stories I read closely for the research paper, and now I can only remember the part about the encyclopedia entry and something about things coming into existence when they were written about.) I'll be down at the library some time this week though and will look for the anthology in which I originally read it, and then I might be able to write something meaningful. The research assignment was a whole lot of fun. I can't say that I'm too happy with the final product as a whole, because it doesn't really have much of a thesis--I have a tendency to start writing such things with only a general sort of "focus" in mind, in this case the theme of the labyrinth, and hope that by the end I'll have discovered something which then can be made into a thesie statement. In this case it didn't really work, principally I think because I kept hoping to find that the stories featuring labyrinths would turn out to have a kind of philosophical consensus, and they rather obviously don't, as I belatedly realized at 2a.m. on the morning of the day the paper was due. For example: in the famous "Garden of Forking Paths" Borges presents the idea that the universe is constantly being duplicated in slightly different forms as decisions are made, so the number of "possible futures" increases exponentially with the passage of time. But in "A Survey of the works of Herbert Quain" he seems to present the opposite view, in the form of a book with nine possible stories of Evening #1, three possible stories for Evening #2 and only one for the third evening. (He then goes on to say that this is only a poor imitation of the universe's true scheme, which would feature [naturally ;-] an infinite number of branches). There are other examples too, like "The Lottery in Babylon" where the labyrinth is constructed not by conscious decisions but by chance. Borges is less interested in presenting a single view of the world than he is in toying with the various possibilities. At least that's what I think. :-) (Apart from a couple of interviews in which he talks about his innate philosophical skepticism [fairly selective it seems, since he also has a great interest in mysticism and suchlike], I think it was "The Library of Babel" that led me to this conclusion. The Library is obviously the universe, and there are descriptions of various groups who seem to symbolize different "ways of knowing", to borrow the relativists' phrase; the narrator expresses distrust for more or less all of them.) (Another story I really enjoyed was "Death and the Compass", which has both a nice symmetry of construction [to go along with the symmetry of the mansion?] and a macabre murder mystery keeping up the pace.) -- query: what are the four elements of fantasy, according to Borges? I remember the story within the story but not the other three.
hehe...I just realized that I used the phrase "distinctly fuzzy" up there, which isn't really an oxymoron but sounds like one.
At the end of November, my wife gave me Tom Clancy's _The_Bear_and_the_Dragon_. When I started reading it, I realised that he had covered a lot of ground since _The_Sum_of_All_Fears_, so I went to the library and got _Without_Remorse_, _Debt_of_Honor_, and _Executive_Orders_. When I finished them, I went back to _Bear_, and discovered there was another one, _Rainbow_Six_. So I got it and started reading. Got a little bit into it, and decided that _Bear_ was chronologically earlier, so I went back to that. Then I came across a reference to Rainbow which made it clear that I was wrong, so I finished _Rainbow_ before continuing with _Bear_. Now I'm done. Clancy is an exciting writer, but I've decided he is also a poor writer. It's not just the proofreading, which seems to be a general problem these days, and it's not just the inconsistency in continuity, which is more important to his books than to some other authors'. But I can't quite put my finger on why he leaves me dissatisfied. I guess it is the details he gets wrong after appearing to be putting so much effort into getting them right. Consider. He designates a Marine helicopter squadron as "VMH-1". Problem is, the "V" means "fixed-wing"; Marine helicopter squadrons are designated HM_-xx. The third character identifies the kind of helicopter: Attack, Light, Medium, and Heavy are the usual choices. The squadron he is talking about in his books doesn't quite follow that pattern; it is HMX-1. I know he wants to avoid entanglements with Real Life, but this isn't the way to do it. Change the third character from an X to an M or an L or H; change the number to 5. But calling a rotary-wing unit by a fixed-wing designator is Just Wrong. Inconsistency in Continuity: In _Debt_, _Orders_, and _Rainbow_, he calls the successor to the KGB "RVS." In _Bear_, he changes it to SVR. EXCEPT at the top of one page its RVS, and then toward the bottom of that same page it is back to SVR. (That's also a proof-reading problem, isn't it?) In the first three, John Clark uses the Russian name Ivan Timofeyevich Klerk. In _Bear_, it's Ivan Sergeyevich. Except at the very end when he's called "Ivan Timofeyevich" again. I won't comment on the physics he uses at the end of _Bear_ to build fake-suspense, but I will say that I *still* haven't figured out how six plus two equals ten.
I am reading "The Corresctions" by johnathon Frazen. BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Franzen is reportedly a good writer (I've only read a couple of his New Yorker pieces) but a social idiot. When The Corrections was selected as the next Oprah Club book, Franzen made some supercilious remarks about the Oprah Club, whereupon Oprah Winfrey announced that she was skipping The Corrections and going on to the next book. This was after Franzen's publisher had increased the first printing from 80,000 to 500,000 on the strength of the Oprah Club selection. Franzen issued an apology, but it was too late. Then he started a book-signing at some chain store with a remark about how lowbrow he thought chain-store book signings are.
I just finished reading _Primary Colors_ by Annonymous, not a bad book althoug I did find it far more gripping then the movie version of the story. Certainly the ending was a bit more satisfying overall.
I think the last book I read was _The_Return_of_the_King_. I'm currently reading _Fire_Bringer_.
First time on the Tolkien, Joe?
Nope. I read it the first time in Sep/Oct '73; a month or later I dipped into it for "research" and ended up reading the last half or more. Then I read it again in Dec '73/Jan '74. And so many times since that I can no longer count. It just happens to be the most recent book I've finished. :)
Read Tolkien quite a bit ago, when I was in high school in the early 90s. What makes me chuckle is the large number of people who say "Wow the movie was really awesome, I am going to read the triology right away!" My response "Did you read the Hobbit?" "Naw...couldn't get into it." "Finish the Hobbit and then try the triology, might be better that way." If you can't finish the _Hobbit_, and correct me if others disagree, the triology is not going to be much better
I disagree; I find LotR much more readable than _The_Hobbit_.
Interesting. You're the first one I've heard say that. I know lots of people who _like_ LotR better, but even most of the fans seem to agree it's pretty dense.
Harold Schechter, _The Hum Bug_, Pocket Books, 2001. This is novel written in the first person of Edgar Allen Poe about a series of grisly murders in New York City in ca. 1844, in connection with which Poe is described as helping to investigate. There are many subplots, the major one of which is Poe's association with P. T. Barnum and his "American Museum" in New York of "oddities", of animals, objects, and humans. As far as the murder mystery theme is concerned, it is less skillful than the real Poe's stories. There are a lot of subplots involving strange characters, while real clues to the murders appear in contrived manners and often much delayed - that is, the reader is not provided clues early enough to get involved in the unravelling of the crimes. Of much greater interest to me than the story was the persona presented for Poe. He arrives in New York accompanied by his wife, who's name is Virginia but who is called "Sissy", and referred to by Poe as his "wifey", with much ado about his devotion to his delicate helpmate. Also in the family is his wife's mother, who is spoken to as "Muffy". (In real life Poe's wife is his first cousin, so his mother-in-law was also his aunt, and this is briefly alluded to in the story.) So Poe comes across as a somewhat fastidious romantic very solicitous of his family members, devoting his time only peripherally to his writing. This was very much at odds with my preconception of Poe from only reading his stories and brief biolgraphies (usually emphasizing his drinking and monetary problems). A brief diversion in the story involves Poe suddenly deciding he wanted to write a poem in his frequent theme of the death of a beautiful woman. He titled the resulting work _The Raven_. The more interesting character in the novel is P. T. Barnum, the ultimate humbug, self-promoter, and bon-viant. The author, Schechter, a professor of literature, has written the non-fiction books _The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers_, _Bestial_, _Depraved_, _Deranged_, Deviant, Outcry, and the prior "Poe" novel _Nevermore_.
There are two items for discussing Tolkien: 80, which is a general conversation, and the (current) last item, which was started by asking about the "meaning" of LotR. Yes, LotR is "denser" than _The_Hobbit_, but I still find it easier to read.
LotR is an adult book, Hobbit is a not-bad-for-adults kid book.
Sunday night/Monday morning, I finished Trevanian's latest offering, _The_ _Incident_at_Twenty-Mile_. Classic Western, but typical Trevanian, too. Quite fun.
I'd never heard of Trevanian before a friend recently recommended that I read the ultra-cheezy sounding spy novel "Shibumi." The way it was described, it sounded just bad enough to be good..
Sounds like it was poorly described. But it's a big book; no short review will do it justice. I don't know that I would call his stuff 'great literature', but it is certainly worth the time it takes to read. I've liked all of his books that I've read: _The_Eiger_Sanction_, _The_Loo_ _Sanction_, _The_Main_, _Shibumi_ and _The_Summer_of_Katya_. Now I need to find that collection of short stories I just found out about yesterday. One of my English teachers started with _Summer_; she liked it so much that she went looking for his other stuff. Boy, was she surprised by what she found. I had read the others, so I was just as surprised by _Summer_. Now, I see the similarities and links between all of his books, so I'm inclined to re-read them.
the sound and the fury faulkner
The last one I remember finishing was _Airframe_ by Crichton; before that, I read _Timeline_. It passed the time.
The book that I'm currently reading is _The_Wheel_Of_Time_ Series, book number five _The_Fires_Of_Heaven_. Is anyone else reading this awesome series by Robert Jordan? These books are awesome, I've been recommending them to any fantasy fiction fan I can get ahold of - at my school I suggested them to a friend who inturn suggested them to his friends.. let's just say now like half the class is reading his series, it is soo awesome. Exciting, Moving, tastefully written, and in times very humourous.
I've been meaning to try Jordan. I'll have to add that to the list. I finished _John_o'_the_Green_ a day or so ago. Written in the '30s, probaby by an Englishman, but placed in the Age of Chivalry, with language to match. The author was very fond of "stilly water". The language didn't much disguise the '30s love/adventure story. The frontispiece listed a good two dozen books by this guy. I don't think I'll bother with them. Wish I could recall his name, though.
I also like the Jordan series very well. He's visibly improved (in things like economy of style) as he's gone on. I'm beginning to wonder if he'll ever get to the point where he can wrap things up, though. (And he's already put in some hooks for a followup series, at that.) He's now done at least as many books as called for by his early projections, and he's got so many plot lines open that he can't reasonably finish in less than another couple of books; these very large books are now covering a time span of a month or two at most.
I just finished reading the Ender Quartet by Orson Scott Card. Ender's Game, the first book in the series was a brilliant military science fiction novel. The three that came after that had very interesting moral considerations, but the fourth novel kinda fell flat to me. Overall, it's a great series though. I look forward to readinf Ender's Shadow and Shadow of the Hegemon in the near future. Currently, I'm reading What If?, an anthology of alternate history scenarios written by military historians. Very fascinating stuff.
I just finished reading _1919_ by Dos Passos. A fascinating look at the nature of World War I from the viewpoint of average individuals. Wonderful fiction, and also part two of the USA triology
I finished !!!SALMAN RUSHIDIE"S !!! SATANIC VERSES1 I like butter, I like toast.
Currently reading Archer Mayor's _Bellows Falls_, in which one of the side characters is a police Officer named Padgett. Those who were at Huron HS in the 80s/early-mid 90s may be even more amused by this than I am.
Tanya.
Dartmouth snotnoses (moi aussi, sniff) used to call it "Fellows Balls." Probably still do.
Just finished _Live from New York_, by Shales and Miller. It's an "uncensored" oral history of Saturday Night Live. Interviews with dozens of cast members, hosts, writers and others, broken up and arranged by topic. Just about everyone gets his or her two cents in, except for the dead ones. Lots of good gossip. Now I'm browsing through _The Early Stories, 1953 - 1975_, by John Updike. It was advertised in the last New York Review and gets a nice notice by Lorrie Moore in the current New York Review (it's a small club), so I went out and bought it. 838 pages. I have most of the original collections, but I figuered what the hey. Wonderful book, anyway.
I'm always reading, it seems. Recently, I finished "Tales from Earthsea" and "The Other Wind", re-reading "A Wizard of Earthsea" between them. I enjoyed the original trilogy when I first read it, but I didn't like the second and third as much when I re-read them a few years back. The fourth book, "Tehanu," just irritated me. I think "The Other Wind" just about finishes Earthsea. I also read "Don't Shoot the Dog", by Karen Pryor. A very interesting book. I'm hoping to get a few others to read it. Right now, I'm reading Gerry Spence's book on winning arguments (I don't remember the exact title) and "MacOS X for Unix Geeks" (the Jaguar version). Both have a lot to offer. :)
I think that's more Le Guin than I could stand -- for whatever reason I never really warmed to her stuff.
I"ve found that I like some of her stuff, but not all of it. For example,
I liked "The Wind's Four Quarters" (or something similar), but I didn't much
care for the one that opened with the king laying the keystone of an arch
("The Left Hand of Darkness"?).
I finished reading _Years of Wonders: A Novel About the Plague_. A very interesting book based on the 1665 plague in Eyam, England.
I just finished reading _The Autobiography of Santa Claus_ and its sequel, _How Mrs Claus saved Christmas_ at told to Jeff Guinn. I enjoyed them both, especially the first one-but both were good. There's lots of history in these readings with the Christmas twist.
The last thing I read (and I'm in the middle of it again) is _A Civil Campaign_ by Lois McMaster Bujold, subtitled "A Comedy of Biology and Manners." I think it's her best novel (out of 17 total, if I count correctly) -- and that's saying something, since in my opinion even her worst is as good as or better than most authors' best. (Anne McCaffrey is quoted as saying, "Boy, can she write!") The one caveat with this novel is that, unlike all the others in the "saga," its story depends somewhat (though not enough to preclude reading it if you could only read one) on the previous novel, _Komarr,_ which is not quite up to her usual (but that's still very good!), and I definitely regret reading _Komarr_ second because of the emotional content of the two.
I'm making steady progress through Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon". Man, and I thought Michener wrote long books.
Hah. You'll laugh at those words if you ever progress to Stephenson's "Baroque" trilogy.
This is my first by by Stephenson. I'm quite enjoying this one. Are his others worth reading?
Yes, quite, but I wouldn't advise going to the Baroque trilogy next, though it is his work which is most similar to "Cryptonomicon" (too similar, perhaps -- the affectation of having all of the characters' ancestors entangled in the same plot 300 years before is a little distracting sometimes. But I'd highly recommend "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age." Also, if you like "Cryptonomicon" you might like Thomas Pynchon, who clearly influenced Stephenson. In fact "Cryptonomicon" reminds me a lot of "Vineland," (and the Baroque cycle, to a lesser extent, remind me of "Mason & Dixon") neither of which is the kind of work that made Pynchon's literary reputation but "Vineland" is entertaining and is a good place to start (much better than launching into the bewildering maze of "Gravity's Rainbow.")
The Vampire Book by J. Gordon Melton.
Wizards of Langley and NIST 800 Series are my current reading material.
currently between books (it's end of term, and i'm moving at the end of the month), but read Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series last year. It's very different from most of his other work---it's much more on the fantasy end of things then horror---although some of the books' references won't be understood if you *haven't* read the other ones. If you pick up one of the most recent editions of the DT series, look for the bolded titles in the list of his previous books---those are the ones referenced in the DT books.
Just read "In the name of the Law" by Thomas Puccio
I recently finished "Freakonomics" by Dubner and Levitt (IIRC). It was allright, and fairly interesting at times, but no huge "a-ha!" experiences. As for my next book; I'm not really sure. On the one hand I've been thinking about getting back into some science fiction; on the other hand I am seriously considering reading Paul Auster's "Brooklyn Follies", which I bought for my sister some time ago (with the purpose of - eventually - reading it myself).
I very much enjoyed "Freakonomics." I particularly liked the chapter about the business of dealing drugs and how labor theory applies even to black market labor.
I know it's late but "Snow Crash" was fantastic! It was published in 1994 or so, but is even more relevant today.
_Independent People_ (1946) by Halldor Laxness, Literature Nobelist in 1955. This novel is set in the eartly 20th century in northeast Iceland, a land of vast treeless moors on rolling hills of volcanic soil between enormous glacial rivers. The protangonist is Bjartur, who took up sheep farming in the hills, a crofter, to seek independence from the businessmen of the cities. Its a rough life in a house made of blocks of sod with one room above and the sheep below. There is a story of Bjartur and his two wives, a sort-of step-daughter, several sons, and his dog and sheep, and his associations with other crofters and the powerful people in the nearby cities and their politics, but the evocation of the land and the society and social forces far beyond Bjartur's control are the central concepts. I seldom read fiction, but read this novel after spending two weeks in Iceland. The locations in the story are fictional although the geographic settings frame the events. What did surprise me is that what surprised me in visiting Iceland, the fact that there is no "night" in summer (and, what I did not experience, very little "day" in winter), is hardly invoked in this story, presumably because it is so much a part of the lives of Icelanders that it gets no particular mention in their stories. Crofting as a lifestyle has disappeared in Iceland today and the lands once scattered with crofts are now empty and their primitive buildings in ruin. Sheep are still raised for wool but as businesses, not as a way of life.
I finished Updike's _The_Witches_of_Eastwick_ the day before yesterday. Interesting and entertaining. I'm still reading _The_Dirty_Dozen_, the first edition of Harold McGee's _On_Food_, and, sort of, the second edition of McGee's book. I've also read _Dragon_, _Issola_ and _Dzur_, all by Steven (Stephen?) Brust, in the past month.
Does reading manga count?
The last book I read was _Cesar's Way_ which is Cesar Milan's book. Mostly it is about dogs but he also talks about his background. One part I really liked was when he told the story about how he came to this country as an illegal immigrant (he is here legally now). I also like that he wrote that he was not ashamed of that and why he wasnt.
RE #293: Sure, why not?
In that case, I've been reading Alice 19th, a manga from Viz Comics.
_Under the Glacier_ by Halldor Laxness (published in Icelaandic as _Christianity at Glacier_, 1968). Under the Glacier is a tale of a deputy (Embi) to the Lutheran Bishop of Reykjavik (Iceland), who is sent to a somewhat remote part of Iceland, the town of Glacier on Iceland's Snaefellness <"snowy peninsula">, just below Snaefellsjokull <"snowy mountain glacier">. (The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), written by the French author Jules Verne, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the earth on Snaefellsjokull). Although set in the 60's, Glacier is still pretty remote. Embi was sent to Glacier to report on rumors of some problems with the church there; apparently services no longer being held, the church boarded up, the graveyard neglected, a body allegedly transported in a coffin to and left on the glacier, and the pastor no longer performing his ecclesiastical duties. This turns out to be the case. Embi (= "Em-basador of the Bi-shop) interviews numerous locals in these regards. This book is a record of the notes and tape-recordings taken by Embi. The English translation is by Magnus Magnusseon, and this edition was published by Vintage International, with an introduction by Susan Sontag. Here is what Sontag said of the book in the Introduction: "A marvelous novel about the most ambitious questions....It is one of the funniest books ever written." There is certainly an odd cast of characters engaged in odd pursuits (the Pastor repairs Primuses, and does other odd jobs around the area). They also engage in rambling philosophical discussions. The coffin put on the glacier is in the end brought down - and turns out to be a sealed metal box containing, frozen in ice, a large salmon. Why...you will have to read the book to discover. Oh...there is also a love interest, of sorts. I read the book because we visited Iceland last year, and we have been indulging in books and movies by Icelandic authors both before and since the two-week trip. Our trip is recorded in slides in two subalbums, at http://s111.photobucket.com/albums/n154/ranecurl/ There are several views of Snaefellsjokull in the series.
The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn I never read it before. A very enjoyable classic that gives insight into a forgotten place and time, and gives humanity to characters who are usually portrayed as stereotypes.
You have several choices: