What book are you reading?
- Thread starter Morpheus
- Start date
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
One of my favorites
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
I am still reading the Jung autobiography, but have also started reading the Big Bang book.
Rather than starting at the time of Hubble when information was accumulating to
support an expanding universe theory- it begins with Ancient Greece and Eratosthenes who
calculated the circumstance of a spherical Earth, and based on that, the size and distance
of the Moon and Sun. It seldom fails that in books about physics, chemistry or math, I am good for
the first 3/4- and then get bogged down toward the end when they start calculating in 15 dimensions.
Anyway, the way it starts in such a basic way reminded me of this-
Rather than starting at the time of Hubble when information was accumulating to
support an expanding universe theory- it begins with Ancient Greece and Eratosthenes who
calculated the circumstance of a spherical Earth, and based on that, the size and distance
of the Moon and Sun. It seldom fails that in books about physics, chemistry or math, I am good for
the first 3/4- and then get bogged down toward the end when they start calculating in 15 dimensions.
Anyway, the way it starts in such a basic way reminded me of this-
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Lovely book
Sudacafan
Bionic Poster
Now that we are talking about Wuthering Heights, I remember that @milk of amnesia created a TTW book club two years ago, and that WH was a candidate that lost the vote for the second or third book read by the club.
As I actually would have preferred WH, I downloaded it to my Kindle anyway, waiting for the appropriate time to read it, which came only now, after two years.
It was a nice initiative to have a book club in those times, at least for me, when I was unemployed. Now that I returned to a full time job, it would be hard for me to join a book club.
As I actually would have preferred WH, I downloaded it to my Kindle anyway, waiting for the appropriate time to read it, which came only now, after two years.
It was a nice initiative to have a book club in those times, at least for me, when I was unemployed. Now that I returned to a full time job, it would be hard for me to join a book club.
milk of amnesia
Legend
Glad to hear you're back at work. How is WH so far?
Mongolmike
Hall of Fame
Dungeon Crawler Carl Book IV Lit RPG category. Funny, entertaining, easy summer reading. Heard the audio book is excellent narration.
Sudacafan
Bionic Poster
Only could read like 40 pages, too early for judgement.
You see I don't get much time now. Anyways, I may speed up any day.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
It has been a long time since I read WH. I vaguely rember, at the time feeling
there was something surreal about the novel.
Only recently, I saw that there was a (1953) movie version by Bunuel.
Here is someone's brief take on the effort.
Luis Buñuel’s typically gonzo take on Wuthering Heights relocates the story to 19th-century Mexico, where the outsized emotions and inflamed passions of lovers Alejandro (Jorge Mistral) and Catalina (Irasema Dilián) engulf everyone around them in a whirlpool of psychosexual chaos. Throughout, the director emphasizes the novel’s most perverse aspects—the sadism at the heart of the romance, the undercurrents of necrophilia—while displaying striking compassion for the story’s most downtrodden characters. The finale—a delirious liebestod in a moonlit cemetery set to the throbbing strains of Wagner’s music—is a surrealist triumph.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Well, I finished Big Bang by Simon Singh.
Did I learn anything new. No. Almost everything I had read somewhere else
in one form or another, or seen on PBS.
There were questions, like how did they know the temperature of the "universe"
two minutes after the Big Bang? I still don't know.
There was a lot of information about personalities, anamosities, and other unscientific
and religious side issues, some of it interesting.
So, here in one volume is everything superficial you need to know about what led up to
the dominance of the Big Bang theory, but I guess I was hoping fore something more profound.
Did I learn anything new. No. Almost everything I had read somewhere else
in one form or another, or seen on PBS.
There were questions, like how did they know the temperature of the "universe"
two minutes after the Big Bang? I still don't know.
There was a lot of information about personalities, anamosities, and other unscientific
and religious side issues, some of it interesting.
So, here in one volume is everything superficial you need to know about what led up to
the dominance of the Big Bang theory, but I guess I was hoping fore something more profound.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Well, I am finally done with with the Jung "autobiography" (see up above).
Do I recommend it?
Well, it might be a good choice if you always wanted to know something
about Jung's ideas, but not so much that you want to wade through his
12 volume (or so) shelf of books. In this book you do get to know about
Jung- as well as a self-analysis of some of his dreams.
Personally, I am not a big fan of Jungian psychology. Archetypes and the collective
consciousness, I understand, but parachology and synchronicity just seem like
so much mambo-jumbo.
In fact there are a couple sentences in the chapter about Freud- "After the break
with Freud (when he published a book renouncing Freud's ideas and set forth
his own) all my friends and acquaintances dropped away. My book was declared
to be rubbish; I was a mystic and that settled the matter."
I guess that's sort of my opinion as well.
Now, I am 36 pages into Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace.
I had seen the movie and was expecting something a bit more "magical".
It comes across, however, like a series of tall tales- Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill sort
of stuff. It is also a bit confusing, because the (dying) father is considered by
the son to be a joker who inflates himself by making up outrageous stories.
On the other hand, the narrator (the son?) tells the tales as if they were true.
It begins on the day the father was born- during a drought. The ground was hard and dry.
There was no food.
"One man went crazy, ate rocks and died. It took ten men to carry him to his grave he
was so heavy, ten more to dig it, it was so dry."
And so on, so forth, more stuff like that.
Do I recommend it?
Well, it might be a good choice if you always wanted to know something
about Jung's ideas, but not so much that you want to wade through his
12 volume (or so) shelf of books. In this book you do get to know about
Jung- as well as a self-analysis of some of his dreams.
Personally, I am not a big fan of Jungian psychology. Archetypes and the collective
consciousness, I understand, but parachology and synchronicity just seem like
so much mambo-jumbo.
In fact there are a couple sentences in the chapter about Freud- "After the break
with Freud (when he published a book renouncing Freud's ideas and set forth
his own) all my friends and acquaintances dropped away. My book was declared
to be rubbish; I was a mystic and that settled the matter."
I guess that's sort of my opinion as well.
Now, I am 36 pages into Big Fish, by Daniel Wallace.
I had seen the movie and was expecting something a bit more "magical".
It comes across, however, like a series of tall tales- Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill sort
of stuff. It is also a bit confusing, because the (dying) father is considered by
the son to be a joker who inflates himself by making up outrageous stories.
On the other hand, the narrator (the son?) tells the tales as if they were true.
It begins on the day the father was born- during a drought. The ground was hard and dry.
There was no food.
"One man went crazy, ate rocks and died. It took ten men to carry him to his grave he
was so heavy, ten more to dig it, it was so dry."
And so on, so forth, more stuff like that.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Finished a Big Fish (Daniel Wallace).
Have mixed feelings. Saw the movie first and
was (saw/was) expecting something a bit different,
more "focused" building toward an apotheosis.
Instead, got a book with lots of confusing questions.
Problems with the son as narrator.
In parts of the book, the father is a sort of God- like figure,
loved by everyone. In other parts he is a vapid, self-involved "user".
I suppose the Homeric heroes were a bit like that. Was that the model
for this book?
The father is supposed to be incredibly rich (he bought an entire town),
but his wife spends her time cleaning the house while he has
adventures.
So, it was awkward, trying to figure what the author was trying to say.
The novel was inventive, a sort of combination of tall tales, myth,
old jokes (one I remembered from the Dick Van D y k e Show).
I suppose there is a difference being a hero to the world and a husband and
father to one's family.
Have mixed feelings. Saw the movie first and
was (saw/was) expecting something a bit different,
more "focused" building toward an apotheosis.
Instead, got a book with lots of confusing questions.
Problems with the son as narrator.
In parts of the book, the father is a sort of God- like figure,
loved by everyone. In other parts he is a vapid, self-involved "user".
I suppose the Homeric heroes were a bit like that. Was that the model
for this book?
The father is supposed to be incredibly rich (he bought an entire town),
but his wife spends her time cleaning the house while he has
adventures.
So, it was awkward, trying to figure what the author was trying to say.
The novel was inventive, a sort of combination of tall tales, myth,
old jokes (one I remembered from the Dick Van D y k e Show).
I suppose there is a difference being a hero to the world and a husband and
father to one's family.
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Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Well, I seem to be back to reading 3 books at a time.
1. Our knowledge of the External world, by Bertrand Russel- 1914.
It is written in a simple, straightforward manner and easy to read,
but after three or for a prioris, or similar ancient terms, I take a break
and read some detective fiction I missed in
2. Masterpieces of Mystery- The Golden age. I am just starting a short
story by Nicholas Blake- The Assassins' Club. He was a poet as well
as a mystery writer. I need to check out some of his poems.
3. I am also reading Fred Allen, His Life and Wit, by Robert Taylor.
I was watching an old, old episode of What's My Line. One of the panelists
was Fred Allen. For whatever reason I got the impression that he
resembled Judge Holden, a character in Blood Meridian. So, I dug out this
book I bought about a year ago and it turns out Fred Allen was an interesting
guy in interesting time, among so many interesting people. I may add more to
this when I finish.
1. Our knowledge of the External world, by Bertrand Russel- 1914.
It is written in a simple, straightforward manner and easy to read,
but after three or for a prioris, or similar ancient terms, I take a break
and read some detective fiction I missed in
2. Masterpieces of Mystery- The Golden age. I am just starting a short
story by Nicholas Blake- The Assassins' Club. He was a poet as well
as a mystery writer. I need to check out some of his poems.
3. I am also reading Fred Allen, His Life and Wit, by Robert Taylor.
I was watching an old, old episode of What's My Line. One of the panelists
was Fred Allen. For whatever reason I got the impression that he
resembled Judge Holden, a character in Blood Meridian. So, I dug out this
book I bought about a year ago and it turns out Fred Allen was an interesting
guy in interesting time, among so many interesting people. I may add more to
this when I finish.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
OK, we all need to be reading more books. I had to go to page 3 to find this thread.
I don't even really like this book much, but I'm writing about it to keep the thread out there.
I picked up this book from one of those mini libraries people have in front of their homes.
I picked it up mainly because of the title- Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke.
It is a type of detective mystery called a "cozy"- think Hallmark TV mysteries.
In this novel Hannah Swenson, a cookie shop owner and cat lover from Lake Eden, helps her
brother-in-law, a policeman solve the murder of of her dairy delivery man while dealing
with life's everyday problems.
Is it a great novel? No.
Is it horrible and badly written? No.
Basically, it's the sort of thing people read on the bus, to and from work.
Oh, I also finished the biography about Fred Allen. It was interesting, especially the
first part- early beginnings and vaudeville, but eventually in most all biographies, the
ending becomes sad, and the subject dies. I may just stop reading biographies.
I don't even really like this book much, but I'm writing about it to keep the thread out there.
I picked up this book from one of those mini libraries people have in front of their homes.
I picked it up mainly because of the title- Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke.
It is a type of detective mystery called a "cozy"- think Hallmark TV mysteries.
In this novel Hannah Swenson, a cookie shop owner and cat lover from Lake Eden, helps her
brother-in-law, a policeman solve the murder of of her dairy delivery man while dealing
with life's everyday problems.
Is it a great novel? No.
Is it horrible and badly written? No.
Basically, it's the sort of thing people read on the bus, to and from work.
Oh, I also finished the biography about Fred Allen. It was interesting, especially the
first part- early beginnings and vaudeville, but eventually in most all biographies, the
ending becomes sad, and the subject dies. I may just stop reading biographies.
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Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
‘It never ends’: the book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake
The group in Venice, California, started the difficult James Joyce book in 1995. They reached its final page in October
Lois Beckett in Los Angeles
@loisbeckett
Sun 12 Nov 2023 08.00 EST
For a quarter century, Gerry Fialka, an experimental film-maker from Venice, California, has hosted a book club devoted to a single text: James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, one of the most famously difficult texts in literary history.
Starting in 1995, between 10 and 30 people would show up to monthly meetings at a local library. At first they read two pages a month, eventually slowing to just one page per discussion. At that pace, the group – which now meets on Zoom – reached the final page in October. It took them 28 years.
That amount of time “could well be a record”, said Sam Slote, a Joyce expert at Trinity College, Dublin, and one of the editors of How Joyce Wrote Finnegans Wake. His own weekly Wake group in Dublin, which is made up of about a dozen Joyce scholars, is on track to read through the text in a brisk 15 years.
The California reading group spent longer reading Finnegans Wake than Joyce spent writing it: the 628-page experimental text took the author 17 years to complete, Slote said, including a four-year stretch of near-complete writer’s block.
Fialka, who started the group in his early 40s, is now 70. “I don’t want to lie, it wasn’t like I saw God,” Fialka said, of reaching the book’s end. “It wasn’t a big deal.”
While Joyce’s Ulysses has a reputation as a difficult novel, Slote said, Finnegans Wake is “a whole different level”, with ongoing debate over basic points such as where and when the novel is set, or who the characters are. It is written in a mishmash of reinvented words, puns and allusions, with references to roughly 80 different languages.
“When people hear you’ve been a member of a book club that reads the same book every time you meet, most people go, ‘Why would you do that?’” said Bruce Woodside, a 74-year-old retired Disney animator who joined Fialka’s reading group in the 1990s. Though “it’s 628 pages of things that look like typographic errors”, said Woodside, who has been reading and re-reading Finnegans Wake since his late teens. “There’s a kind of visionary quality to it.”
Fialka leans into that visionary aspect, describing his group as “more a performance art piece than a book club”, and also referring to it as “a living organism”, a “hootenanny”, and a “choir”.
Woodside found the club’s early atmosphere “kind of chaotic”. The first impression of most readers is that Finnegans Wake is “gibberish”, Woodside said, and he recalls that “a lot of commentary on it was gibberish”, too.
Woodside dropped out of Fialka’s group for about two decades, but after he retired, he decided to go back. He had sampled other book groups, including a Proust reading group that had pivoted to reading Finnegans Wake, but it was hard to find anyone “who was really delivering a lot of intelligent commentary on the book”.
“Gerry’s group was just fun,” Woodside said. In the 20 years he had missed, he said, the group had advanced from chapter one to chapter 15.
Peter Quadrino, 38, joined Fialka’s group around 2008 or 2009. He would drive up three hours from San Diego, where he lived, to attend the meeting. “If you’re really interested in Finnegans Wake, it’s kind of hard to find people who will talk about it with you.”
The Finnegans Wake reading group in 2008. Photograph: Alfred Benjamin/Courtesy of Gerry Fialka
Because Joyce spent 17 years of his life working on the book and then died not long after it was published, “He didn’t really get to explain it,” Quadrino said. “It’s up to us to figure it out, and figure out why he was so devoted to it.”
When Quadrino moved to Austin, Texas, in 2011, he did not want to stop reading, so he put up fliers around town, put some ads in the newspaper, and started his own Texas-based group. Twelve years in, Quadrino’s group is now about halfway through Finnegans Wake, putting them on track to complete the whole thing in about 24 years.
Joyce himself would probably be pleased to hear of these endeavors: he once described the perfect reader of Finnegans Wake as “suffering from an ideal insomnia”, and said: “The demand I make of my reader is that he should devote his entire life to reading my works.”
Fialka said he once saw a list of at least 52 active Finnegans Wake reading groups, though Slote, the Joyce scholar, said he thinks there are even more. A Wake group in Zurich, founded in 1984, has read the book three times in nearly 40 years, and is currently well into its fourth cycle. Their first reading took 11 years.
Different groups have their own local character. “The New York group is really argumentative, and they’re always yelling at each other, but they’re all friends, they’ve all known each other for 20 years.” Quadrino said. His Austin group is “more friendly, more ‘Yes, and’”.
The Zurich group, which attracts a mix of retirees and university students, is “benevolent, although it can also become competitive and contentious,” according to Sabrina Alonso, a member, and Fritz Senn, its host.
Inspired by the California group, a Finnegans Wake reading group has been meeting in Austin, Texas, for the past 12 years. Photograph: Courtesy of Peter Quadrino
Fialka, a self-described “antiquarian ne’er-do-well”, brings his own distinctive approach. My phone interview with him lasted one hour and eight minutes, and its zigs, zags and sheer velocity were unmatched in my nearly 20-year journalism career. Was I writing about Finnegans Wake, or was I suddenly inside it?
“You know, listening to me talking is sensory overload,” Fialka noted.
A well-known member of the Venice community, Fialka once worked for Frank Zappa and then George Carlin, and has also hosted a toy camera film festival for the past 33 years. He reels off celebrities who said they have been inspired by the Wake, from Joseph Campbell to Brie Larson to Frank Gehry.
For the reading of the final page, Fialka opened his October Zoom meeting with a “cosmic beginning”, asking the 15 participants “to take one conscious breath in together” to support their effort. He then had them chant a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “a total Wake-ian”, before members took turns reading exactly two lines of the text at a time.
James Joyce described the perfect reader of Finnegans Wake as ‘suffering from an ideal insomnia’. Photograph: Archive Photos/Getty Images
The sheer difficulty of Finnegans Wake makes reading it a kind of democratic experience, Slote said. Expertise doesn’t go very far. “You have to accept that no one person is really going to get it, which is where the idea of community reading can really kick in,” he said. A team effort can also help with decoding Joyce’s many allusions, which range from references to 19th-century Irish politics to French literature to popular drinking songs to the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Quadrino, who has a corporate day job, said he considers his Austin Wake group “the most fulfilling thing in my life”.
“In the course of a meeting, I have 30 different Wikipedia tabs open,” he said. “You’re always learning about some new historical figure, or event, or some poet. It really just feels like my brain just took a shower. It’s so refreshing.”
Fialka emphasises that media reports saying his group has “finished” the book are wrong. “We didn’t end. The last sentence of the book ends midsentence and then it picks up at the front of the book. It’s cyclical. It never ends.”
This November, they started back on page three.
“There is no next book,” Fialka told me. “We’re only reading one book. Forever.”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/12/california-venice-book-club-finngeans-wake-28-years
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Just last night I was looking through a book- Quotable Women of the Twentieth Century,
And came across this:
Why don't you write books people can read?- Nora (Barnacle) Joyce (to her husband James).
And came across this:
Why don't you write books people can read?- Nora (Barnacle) Joyce (to her husband James).
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LOBALOT
Hall of Fame
My wife is reading:
I will read it next but wonder if it is going to be a tough read...
I will read it next but wonder if it is going to be a tough read...
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
It’s strange, but I’ve never felt motivated to read Finnegans Wake, even though I’ve read Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Ulysses multiple times each. Lately, I’ve been really interested in the interplay of literary movements with the philosophical, political, and economic dynamics of the times.
This is the best way to understand Joyce in my mind, and moving forward today in our times of German idealism meets Nietzsche meets existentialism meets postmodernism meets post-structuralism meets post-metanarrative relative truths meets post-fact alternative facts Vladislav Surkov hall of mirrors meets trying to find meaning in the vertigo of confusion through humanism in the lack of meaning through metamodernism meets me crawling under my bed and curling up into a ball, I’d rather appreciate Joyce for his place in history than tackle Finnegans Wake.
sovertennis
Professional
Just finished The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. Another masterpiece from James McBride.
junior74
Talk Tennis Guru
‘It never ends’: the book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake
The group in Venice, California, started the difficult James Joyce book in 1995. They reached its final page in October
For a quarter century, Gerry Fialka, an experimental film-maker from Venice, California, has hosted a book club devoted to a single text: James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, one of the most famously difficult texts in literary history.
That's incredible. And I thought "Life - a user's manual" was tough...
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
I notice on the cover photo that she is serving with an extra ball in her hand.
Is that something commonly done in the "old days".
LOBALOT
Hall of Fame
Yes, I did when I was kid. My pal that plays on my teams and is 1 year older than me still serves that way during his USTA matches, etc. He does get a few looks and of course we all chuckle.
It certainly keeps the palm out of play with the toss.
Mike Bulgakov
G.O.A.T.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Interesting, I may have to try that.Chris Evert
Steffi Graf
milk of amnesia
Legend
A while back I accidentally stumbled upon a (now out of print) series of books called The Adventure Library. The series consists of thirty adventure classics with topics including sailing, mountaineering, rafting, aviation, and just flat-out survival. The books are printed on high-quality paper and are handsomely bound. I like reading adventure stories, but am not familiar with the classics of the genre so I regard this set as a kind of recommendation of what to read.
The first book in the set is Endurance by Alfred Lansing. I wrote about the book several pages back on this thread. The second book in the set is K2: The Savage Mountain by various members of a team of Americans who attempted to be the first to climb the Himalayan K2 summit in 1953. Even though this must have been a gripping adventure -
- I can’t recommend it as it turns out mountaineers don’t make very good writers especially when they each write separate chapters and then cobble them all together. The climbers write about what they did to prepare for, travel to, and then climb the mountain, but they don’t describe each other very well so the reader never gets a sense of who they are as people. As a result, the book reads as methodical but with little tension as it’s hard to be overly concerned about people we know almost nothing about.
I just finished reading the third book in the series: Running the Amazon by Joe Kane, a free-lance writer who has published articles in National Geographic and The New Yorker. Running the Amazon is about a bunch of people who wanted to be the first in recorded history (this is the 1980's) to paddle the entire length of the Amazon River starting at its headwaters high in the Andes mountains. The author was specifically invited to come along to write about the trip.
The group consists of a couple of wealthy hobbyists who helped fund the trip, some world-class kayakers, a doctor, the author, a filmmaker, and various support personnel ferrying equipment and supplies. The first stretch of the trip was so dangerous that only the world-class kayakers could travel on the river; the others portaged their boats or rode along with the support crew. The author portaged the first stretch writing about the flora and fauna and the people in the various villages that the portaging team hiked through. Once the kayaking team made it past the headwaters the author and the rest of the portaging group joined them on the river paddling their own raft.
This adventure story is different from the others in that the adventurers are not off on their own in the middle of nowhere as they paddled past plenty of towns and villages on the river. The members of the expedition are constantly stopping off to buy food and send communiques back to their friends and family. The trip wasn’t without its dangers, however. A person could easily whack their head on a rock in the rapids or get sucked into a whirlpool and drown. They also crossed paths with some not-so-nice people such as drug runners. Additionally, part of their trip carried them straight through territory controlled by armed guerrillas who shot at them. Conflict was also generated by the team members themselves as months on the river took its toll and infighting and politics ensued as cliques developed threatening the trip, bringing into question whether they would succeed. The author does a great job of narrating the expedition making it clear that it wasn’t just the river with which they had to contend. I really liked this story even though I am not particularly interested in kayaking/rafting.
After completing the third book in the series, I realized that so far, the story I didn’t like was the one written by the explorers themselves. Tip: If you are going to do something amazing, be sure to hire a professional writer to document the story for you – it will make all the difference.
The first book in the set is Endurance by Alfred Lansing. I wrote about the book several pages back on this thread. The second book in the set is K2: The Savage Mountain by various members of a team of Americans who attempted to be the first to climb the Himalayan K2 summit in 1953. Even though this must have been a gripping adventure -
They didn’t make it to the top and one of the team members was lost. His body was eventually found forty years later.
I just finished reading the third book in the series: Running the Amazon by Joe Kane, a free-lance writer who has published articles in National Geographic and The New Yorker. Running the Amazon is about a bunch of people who wanted to be the first in recorded history (this is the 1980's) to paddle the entire length of the Amazon River starting at its headwaters high in the Andes mountains. The author was specifically invited to come along to write about the trip.
The group consists of a couple of wealthy hobbyists who helped fund the trip, some world-class kayakers, a doctor, the author, a filmmaker, and various support personnel ferrying equipment and supplies. The first stretch of the trip was so dangerous that only the world-class kayakers could travel on the river; the others portaged their boats or rode along with the support crew. The author portaged the first stretch writing about the flora and fauna and the people in the various villages that the portaging team hiked through. Once the kayaking team made it past the headwaters the author and the rest of the portaging group joined them on the river paddling their own raft.
This adventure story is different from the others in that the adventurers are not off on their own in the middle of nowhere as they paddled past plenty of towns and villages on the river. The members of the expedition are constantly stopping off to buy food and send communiques back to their friends and family. The trip wasn’t without its dangers, however. A person could easily whack their head on a rock in the rapids or get sucked into a whirlpool and drown. They also crossed paths with some not-so-nice people such as drug runners. Additionally, part of their trip carried them straight through territory controlled by armed guerrillas who shot at them. Conflict was also generated by the team members themselves as months on the river took its toll and infighting and politics ensued as cliques developed threatening the trip, bringing into question whether they would succeed. The author does a great job of narrating the expedition making it clear that it wasn’t just the river with which they had to contend. I really liked this story even though I am not particularly interested in kayaking/rafting.
After completing the third book in the series, I realized that so far, the story I didn’t like was the one written by the explorers themselves. Tip: If you are going to do something amazing, be sure to hire a professional writer to document the story for you – it will make all the difference.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
When I was in high school, over 50 years ago, a teacher there (fresh out of college) would suggest books to read. One was At play in the Fields of the Lord,
by Peter Matthiessen. It was a book similar (I think) to those you mentioned that combined adventure and discovery. I remember liking it enough to to read The Snow Leopard
about a trip to the Himalayas. I probably would never have read them on my own as I was more into fiction and and surrealism at the time and liked the idea being a writer
without needing to leave the house.
milk of amnesia
Legend
The Snow Leopard is definitely considered a classic of the genre. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to reading it. When I was really young I saw a copy of Blue Meridian at the library and I picked it up because it had a picture of a shark on the cover which I thought was really cool. I don't remember anything specific about it other than the writing was really engaging.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Yes, I have read many books that remain only as a vague impression. Did I waste my time
reading these things or is there some residue in my old brain that influences or colors
all future reading. Right now I am rereading Jack Vance's The Demon Princes for the third time.
It is a five volume series (pentalogy) that I read first out of order in individual paperbacks.
Now, I am rereading it in a more anilytical frame of mind and will try to make some comments
when I finish (again).
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Reading is more of the joy of the process. Very rarely do books stick with you. That is why I don’t bother with books that do not speak to me within the first 100 pages or so.
milk of amnesia
Legend
I love re-reading books that I've almost forgotten. The sensation is almost like going back to an old vacation spot that I haven't visited for years - rediscovering things and memories coming back, etc.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Yep me too. In our lifetimes we do not have the time to read every possible great book out there. I wouldn't mind re-reading a book I thoroughly enjoyed.
WildVolley
Legend
I can't really imagine how bored someone must be to waste time reading Finnegans Wake, much less actually meet with other people and argue about it. I read the first page and the last and that was enough for me.‘It never ends’: the book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake
The group in Venice, California, started the difficult James Joyce book in 1995. They reached its final page in October
Lois Beckett in Los Angeles
@loisbeckett
Sun 12 Nov 2023 08.00 EST
Sudacafan
Bionic Poster
I would like to read comments of someone who liked FW and can explain to me why he/she did
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Well, I just finished reading The Demon Princes, a five volume series (bound into one 965 page book) by Jack Vance.
On one level it is the type of science fiction often called "space opera".
On the other hand, Jack Vance is a great literary stylist who effortlessly describes far worlds, cultures, and peoples while
creating some great characters- both main characters and minor.
In the first novel, Star King, Vance creates all the elements that will come into play in all five of the novels- a complexity
of ideas that never seem forced. Though the basic plot-line is fairly simple- a story of revenge- there is enough sprawling adventure
and creativity- even for jaded Finnegans Wake readers.
Here is a quiet passage describing the sensation of traveling from one community into another.
Gersen boarded the bus, which suddenly lurched into motion; the border station under the sprawling blue linglang was left behind.
The landscape was now that of Maunish, different from that of Lelander; whether by reason of psychic shift or immanent character
or altered references Gersen, who had experienced such shifts many times before, had no way of knowing. The country seemed bigger,
the sky more open. in a new clarity of atmosphere the horizons seemed both far and near, in a curious visual paradox...
Anyway, check the internet for Jack Vance if you think you might be interested. There are many lists and descriptions of his varied work.
On one level it is the type of science fiction often called "space opera".
On the other hand, Jack Vance is a great literary stylist who effortlessly describes far worlds, cultures, and peoples while
creating some great characters- both main characters and minor.
In the first novel, Star King, Vance creates all the elements that will come into play in all five of the novels- a complexity
of ideas that never seem forced. Though the basic plot-line is fairly simple- a story of revenge- there is enough sprawling adventure
and creativity- even for jaded Finnegans Wake readers.
Here is a quiet passage describing the sensation of traveling from one community into another.
Gersen boarded the bus, which suddenly lurched into motion; the border station under the sprawling blue linglang was left behind.
The landscape was now that of Maunish, different from that of Lelander; whether by reason of psychic shift or immanent character
or altered references Gersen, who had experienced such shifts many times before, had no way of knowing. The country seemed bigger,
the sky more open. in a new clarity of atmosphere the horizons seemed both far and near, in a curious visual paradox...
Anyway, check the internet for Jack Vance if you think you might be interested. There are many lists and descriptions of his varied work.
Larry Duff
Legend
Every so often I pick up something easy and currently Jeffrey Archer, Traitor's gate.
Pretty corny but he spins a good yarn.
Pretty corny but he spins a good yarn.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
I was at the thrift shop today, and picked up a book, 13 short Espionage Novels.
Normally I am not so much into espionage, but there were some good writers
listed on the cover- Ian Fleming, Leslie Charteris, W Somerset Maugham, Arthur Conan Doyle,
Cornell Woolrich (think Hitchcock's Rear Window), Earle Stanley Gardner... so I
bought it for a dollar.
I have not started it yet. I am in the middle of a Rex Stout, Nero Wolf mystery. I am a fan of the
Nero Wolf stories, but not this one. Somehow Rex Stout became obsessed with Watergate
and tried to incorporate something related in this novel. It doesn't work. Possibly
the worst Nero Wolf story ever. If if you are interested in the Nero Wolf stories, start with
the early (1930s) novels...
milk of amnesia
Legend
What are the titles of the Conan Doyle and Maugham stories?
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Good question.
Maughan- The Traitor
Doyle- The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
Woolrich- Tokyo, 1941
Charteris- The Sizzling Saboteur
Gardner- The Danger Zone
MacDonald- Betrayed
Fleming- Octopussy
Peter O'Donnell- The Giggle Wrecker (Modesty Blaise)
etc.
Maughan- The Traitor
Doyle- The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans
Woolrich- Tokyo, 1941
Charteris- The Sizzling Saboteur
Gardner- The Danger Zone
MacDonald- Betrayed
Fleming- Octopussy
Peter O'Donnell- The Giggle Wrecker (Modesty Blaise)
etc.
Dominic & Andrey
Legend
A Season in Hell - Arthur Rimbaud.
ErrorMachine
Rookie
Finishing up Winning Ugly. I took a break for a few days to read about the Barbary wars and formation of the US Navy.
Also reading an event management book to try to put on my own tournament.
Also reading an event management book to try to put on my own tournament.
Azure
G.O.A.T.
Will be interested in knowing what you make of them.
Bagumbawalla
G.O.A.T.
Well, I just finished the first two "short espionage novels" from
the book I picked up at a thrift shop.
The first was The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, by Arthur
Conan Doyle.
A while back I read another book, Science: Good, Bad, Bogus, by Martin Gardner
where, writing as a skeptic, he doubts that Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes
stories because he was gullible, unscientific, illogical and easily taken in by
psychics, seances and fairies.
There is another book by John Allen, whoever that is, that postulates that
all the stories previous to The Final Problem, where Holmes and Moriarty
die in the Reichenbach Falls, were written by one person (possibly Doyle's wife)
and the later, inferior stories when Holmes is resurrected, by someone else.
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans falls into the category of
later, inferior stories. Mycroft Holmes visits his younger brother soliciting his
help in retrieving the plans for a submarine. The plans, themselves are
unbelievable- only ten pages of a size that fit into a coat pocket- when
even a simple building requires dozens of pages of blueprint size.
We are told that this is the only set of plans- also unbelievable- many
sets of plans are require for the construction of such complex technology.
Mycroft, who we have been told is as logical as Sherlock, says, "Surely
you have heard of it (the submarine)... It has been the most jealousy guarded of all
government secrets"- two statements that, together, make no sense- and
I don't think they were made ironically.
Sherlock, having no leads, asks Mycroft for a list of known spies, only
one seems a likely prospect. Mycroft is possibly smarter than Sherlock-
why didn't he think of that, and why are known spies running around free
to steal submarine plans?
The parts of the story that are not illogical and contrived are simplistic and
a bit repetitive and not very entertaining.
In the past I have enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories, but this one, from
the later "resurrection period" is below average and not recommended.
The Traitor, by Somerset Maugham, is a much better story. Maugham was
a member of British Intelligence during WWI, and his character, Ashenden,
a secret agent, seems realistic and believable. Everything in this story is
very low key and subtle. The "traps" are psychological. We get to understand
the spies, and feel a bit sorry for them in the end.
In one passage the author describes how Ashenden was always simultaneously
aware of a person's merits and their faults... and since he even judged his friends with
candor they never disappointed his and so he seldom lost one.
He was a spy, dealing with spies, who were, all-in-all, very much like himself.
I recommend this one.
the book I picked up at a thrift shop.
The first was The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, by Arthur
Conan Doyle.
A while back I read another book, Science: Good, Bad, Bogus, by Martin Gardner
where, writing as a skeptic, he doubts that Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes
stories because he was gullible, unscientific, illogical and easily taken in by
psychics, seances and fairies.
There is another book by John Allen, whoever that is, that postulates that
all the stories previous to The Final Problem, where Holmes and Moriarty
die in the Reichenbach Falls, were written by one person (possibly Doyle's wife)
and the later, inferior stories when Holmes is resurrected, by someone else.
The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans falls into the category of
later, inferior stories. Mycroft Holmes visits his younger brother soliciting his
help in retrieving the plans for a submarine. The plans, themselves are
unbelievable- only ten pages of a size that fit into a coat pocket- when
even a simple building requires dozens of pages of blueprint size.
We are told that this is the only set of plans- also unbelievable- many
sets of plans are require for the construction of such complex technology.
Mycroft, who we have been told is as logical as Sherlock, says, "Surely
you have heard of it (the submarine)... It has been the most jealousy guarded of all
government secrets"- two statements that, together, make no sense- and
I don't think they were made ironically.
Sherlock, having no leads, asks Mycroft for a list of known spies, only
one seems a likely prospect. Mycroft is possibly smarter than Sherlock-
why didn't he think of that, and why are known spies running around free
to steal submarine plans?
The parts of the story that are not illogical and contrived are simplistic and
a bit repetitive and not very entertaining.
In the past I have enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes stories, but this one, from
the later "resurrection period" is below average and not recommended.
The Traitor, by Somerset Maugham, is a much better story. Maugham was
a member of British Intelligence during WWI, and his character, Ashenden,
a secret agent, seems realistic and believable. Everything in this story is
very low key and subtle. The "traps" are psychological. We get to understand
the spies, and feel a bit sorry for them in the end.
In one passage the author describes how Ashenden was always simultaneously
aware of a person's merits and their faults... and since he even judged his friends with
candor they never disappointed his and so he seldom lost one.
He was a spy, dealing with spies, who were, all-in-all, very much like himself.
I recommend this one.
I read the WIkipedia summary now. I think I already knew most of the stuff.
alexio
G.O.A.T.
whats your fav book
I move on, whether it is books, movies or people. I don't read a book twice, and rarely do I find a book good in its entirety.
I find most novels to be contrived. I also don't watch most movies - I just watch a short video review and move on.
Nowadays, I just watch short Youtube videos. Just like I watch only tennis highlights.
Very few people are good enough to write/direct/act in such a way as to be interesting for more than 15 minutes. I have no complaint about short attention spans because life is boring.
alexio
G.O.A.T.
great response, im sure azure will like it
Azure
G.O.A.T.
The almighty ones prefers reading poasts of worship on his own thread.
Considering he loves moving on, this is rather bizarre -
