Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 1, 2011 - 05:34pm PT
Or a book or books you have recently read. Climbing books preferred, but any book of fiction or non-fiction. Title and author with a short description of the contents.
Credit: Donald Thompson
This book is an absolute classic. Details the bygone eras of mountaineering from the earliest Alpine adventures to the first ascents of the Himalayan peaks. Reads like a novel at times. Adventure writing at its
best.
Credit: Donald Thompson
The late middle-ages in all its glory and decay, and black plagues.
Credit: Donald Thompson
A very well written chronicle of the great age of central African exploration. The source of the Nile, Speke, Burton,Stanley,Livingstone,and Pasha Gordon- they're all here.
Just finished Killing Dragons by Fergus Fleming. On par with his Barrow's Boys. (It shares some common material too.) Now I gotta give James Ramsey's son, Bill, a call.
Some interesting choices there Donald.
I gave my mom's copy of A Distant Mirror to a young art student, but no way am I giving away my 19th century edition of Le Decameron even if my french still sux (yeah, I know, but it is a french translation my grandma owned).
Likewise I'm hanging onto my dad's first editions of The White Nile and The Fatal Impact as well as Emil Ludwig's The Nile.
Ten years ago I was reading (my paperback edition of) The Fatal Impact by the terrace of the Cliff Lodge when, to drop another name, Liz and Royal Robbins walked by. Liz was curious as to what I was reading and was surprised that it is not a book about climbing. lol
Woody's recommend of The Last Stand Of The Tin Can Sailors was so good that I just started Hornfischer's Ship of Ghosts.
Recently finished Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. My wife and I had been talking to a Nigerian and he'd mentioned the story, and I'd planned on getting a copy. My son had it assigned as his summer reading, so I picked it up and finished it pretty quickly.
I enjoyed the storytelling, insight into life in rural Africa, and the dual theme of how our actions and "modern life" encroaching on traditions can have quite negative effects.
Piton Ron:
Tell Bill that his Dad's masterpiece is still loved and treasured. I have a first edition copy with a dust jacket identical to the one pictured above. If ever there were a book to curl up with on a cold winter night this is it.
There was a movie of the same name released 1947 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039462/
After having it recommended to me over a year ago, I've begun reading it and I'm really enjoying it. I think it's important to understand, on very deep levels, the feminine points of view. This book is like a guidebook, not a topo, to the feminine psyche.
Credit: BooDawg
Some reviews:
"Recommended for men who dare to run with women who run with the wolves."
-Sam Keen, author of "Fire in the Belly."
"Through myth, fairy tale, and an extended 'soul conversation,' Estes calls back into life the wild neglected places of the feminine psyche. This is an inspiring and complassionate book."
Right now I am reading Jared Ogden's Big Wall book....for the third time. Still trying to grasp all the concepts and ideas, and then take them outside.
So far, so good. Hauling will be coming up soon though. Want to get better at frog jugging first.
Crime and Punishment- Dostoyevsky
The Rough Guide to Pink Floyd
The History of America- Zinn- probably the best book I have ever read and I have probably read thousands of history books in my life. There is a memorable quote and new epiphany on every single page.
Riley, Gary and I climbed 'climb and punishment' last Thursday. You know that the tv character Columbo, is based on the detective in Crime and Punishment? At one point, as he's leaving he turns around and confronts Raskolnikov with, "you know, just one thing bothers me....."
"The Ascent of Rum Doodle"
fiction-1956
W.E. Bowman
I'm re-reading this parody of mountaineering expeditions. Info is on Wikipedia. I especially enjoyed the antics of the expeditions cook-Pong. The Guardian includes it in it's list of "1000 novels everyone must read". It was part of our groups' early '60's indoctrination to climbing.
KL
Spirit of the Hills by Dan O'Brien. I don't know how it reached my bookcase
but I am pleasantly surprised. Best of all it involves Native Americans,
guns, a stoopid Forest Service district ranger, a classic Park Service LEO who
sees terrorists behind every tree at Mount Rushmore, and wolves!!!! Yes,
campers, this could be the go-to book for every tacohead! Interestingly it
takes place in the 70's so the 'terrorists' are the Native Americans trying to
take back the Black Hills.
I'm also reading Fur, Fortune, and Empire, by Eric Jay Dolin.
Did you know that BITD the Catholic Church permitted the eating of beavers'
tails on Fridays as the beaver lived underwater and
"such meat was viewed as "cold" and apparently unlikely to excite libidinous passions."
More interesting might be that the Indians saw the beaver's tail in the exact
opposite and it
"was usually reserved for the sachem or chief, and was, as a seventeenth-century
English observer of Indians in lower New England noted, "of such masculine
virtue, that if some of our Ladies knew the benefit thereof, they would desire
to have ships sent of purpose, to trade for the tail alone."
I've been thinking of starting a beaver appreciation thread but that could
get out of hand here.
Just finished, Between a Rock and a Hard Place - Aron Ralston
An interesting read, he was kind of an over enthusiastic neophyte when he first started mountaineering (as were a lot of us), but he certainly learned some skills that allowed him to make it through that terrifying situation (somewhat self induced).
Slightly OT but the Art of War jogged my thinking..
For the chronic reader who finds themselves with no book at odd times;
There are stacks of free books available online, generally of the, 'I should read that someday' category. I try to keep at least one book like that on my phone so that I always have something to read. Besides the Art of War and the Hagakure, I recently downloaded Uncle Tom's Cabin into it. Alice in Wonderland, and the Winnie the Pooh books are in there as well, for comfort reading...
We put our bookshelf and hence library in storage earlier this summer, and while the monster bookshelf is finally back in place, the shelves are still mostly empty.
Somehow the Huber Brothers book The Wall wasn't put in storage, and I re-read it the other day. It's a decent read, and a reminder to take my kids out climbing more often.
"Mormon America: The power and the promise"; Ostling
"fair and balanced" as faux-news likes to say. Some fair criticism and some restrained appreciation.
I'm a student of religion, so at least for me it is an interesting read. History, theology, authoritarian control, high standards of piety,
Credit: rockermike
explosive growth, all have a chapter.
Personally I still can't quite get my head around how/why so many people can accept such an "unusual" theology (we are all on our way to becoming Gods - or at least the men are). I guess the community warmth and family values kind of brings people in before they analyze whether the theology makes sense or not. The Church's world wide membership is approaching 14 million and going viral as they say. hmmm
Jaybro, heh, I know I'll suffer for this but...if you like that sort of thing once in a while, re-read the Piper at the Gates of Dawn from The Wind in the Willows.
Given that I spent last week with my young grandchild - I spent way too much with Dr. Seuss.
One fish, two fish - MEH.
Although I have reunited with the joy that is Green Eggs and Ham. Especially fun when being old enough to remember when Jesse Jackson read it live on SNL.
At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, by Gordon Prange. I think you have to be a bit OCD to get through it. Oh, and several other things of little consequence.
I recall this looney old WWII Vet from down the block (since deceased) who used to tell us that Pearl Harbor happened because all of those white bread Midwestern boys were so gaga over exotic Asian girls that you could fly a bomber right over them and they wouldn't notice.
Old geezer also swore that the Commies had done the same thing to us in Vietnam using those sweet little Asian honeys to take our eye off the ball.
A rogue Angel, and a rogue Demon team up to prevent the apocalypse because they are both having a hell of a time slacking off on earth, and the final battle between good and evil just seems like too much work. The fun begins when the switch the anti-christ at birth.
This is my second time reading it. Absolutely hilarious.
Also,
Psycho Vertical by Andy Kirkpatrick. Very good climbing book.
Finished this book a few days ago. The definitive account of the sinking of the Titanic and an important resource for all the subsequent films. Its amazing to think that even after the iceberg was spotted some distance off,clearly visible on a cold clear night, a nonchalant response resulted in a somewhat glancing collision that nonetheless produced a 300 ft long gash below the Titanic's waterline. Lord did an excellent job of depicting the various dire events during the nearly 3 hours it took the ship to sink.1517 people perished.
Jay- I can't get through it.
Honestly I find the Russian Authors just to powerful and in the end to depressing.
I read the short story "The Overcoat" and was deeply effected by it. The power of the poverty, pain and misery in the class systems of Russia is just to much for me.
I've started reading every Dostoyevsky novel, some more than once inclueing CandP and have never got through one.
Out of my two goals this summer, almost dying on El Cap, has proved easier then reading about the everyday life of a Russian in the 19th century.
I enjoyed a glorious rest day here in Kentucky between caving trips.
I read the "whole entar" Downward Bound by Warren Harding, an irreverent and farcical look at his life and climbs, and the Yosemite scene back in the day.
It's great to see a guy who just did what he wanted, and didn't really care what the others thought. He did it his way, and good on him. Perhaps the first real Big Wall Camper and Big Wall Wine Aficionado.
I don't know riley, did you mention LOTR? It is said that Treebeard's voice is that of CS Lewis, ( he lectured down the hall from where Tolkien did a lot of writing) that one degree?D
The only dostoyevsky novel I had trouble getting through was the Posessed.. I don't find him, esp in C & P, depressing at all. Have you tried the Idiot? I liked that almost as much as C & P, I've read them each 4or 5 times.
Also try White nights, Notes from the Underground, or if you can find it, Krokodil. They're much shorter. I've been able to read them, and the Overcoat, in Russian. Incredibly nuanced in the native tongue...
The way they live- the poverty, the sadness is unbelievably depressing.
Hunger and lives like nothing we can ever imagine in a horribly unfair society
You can certainly see where the Bolshivics anger toward the Proletariat came from.
Where all revolutionary anger and socialist thinking comes from.
If Tea Baggers only knew they are more Socialist than Marx ever dreamed.
THE JAKE SMITH RANCH SERIES--though that is just the title
of all nine books, lumped together...
the five short story collections are all based on the
first three novels, and in a sense, elaborate, or continue, or just express live situations, etc... with family, buddies, or the folks in their world...
then, there is the small conclusion novel, which can be read before or after the short stories (though it was written before them)...
have fun...
the are:
different.... :)
about a REAL 'hidden' hero.... and his twin sis... :)
twinship, at its BEST... while going through its worst...
and comeing out with victory...
ex-rodeo folks, they be, from the tip of tex, lyford...
in a montana-ranch, now displayed...
Just finished F. Scott Fitzgerald's "This Side of Paradise". Good book, particularly if you want to get an idea of where some later writers derived their writing styles. Can see exactly where Hemmingway got his cadence and prose from. Done reading, time to surf.
Personally I still can't quite get my head around how/why so many people can accept such an "unusual" theology (we are all on our way to becoming Gods - or at least the men are). I guess the community warmth and family values kind of brings people in before they analyze whether the theology makes sense or not. The Church's world wide membership is approaching 14 million and going viral as they say. hmmm
you must have read krakauer's Banner in the Sky as well? How would you critique the accuracy of his take on Mormonism? Is it true that Joseph Smith, prior to his brain wave of transcribing a bunch of borrowed tablets and setting up as a prophet of a sparkling new religion, was a moderately successful snake oil salesman?
I read his book while in Utah with my kids. It was great horror story fodder for the campfire!
this book updates dante's inferno. just about anybody who was anybody has wound up in hell, including dante himself and his strangely platonic inspiration, beatrice. humphrey bogart is down there too, trying forever to find lauren bacall (instead he finds skinny, anorexic beatrice).
hell involves perpetual suffering, pain, and worst of all, frustration, but by the end of this little romp, it has grown on you, and like the protagonist, a damned television anchorman still devoted to the principles of journalism, you learn to love it.
Bruce
I read the Krakauer book some years back. All I remember (as with most of Jon's stuff) is it seemed more aimed at making money for Jon through sensationalism rather than enlightening people. But the Mormon's do have their "difficult to explain to non-believers" stuff. One thing I got from "Mormon America" is that they are not all blind followers. The Mormons evidently actually do have educated theologians who try their best to articulate explanations of their beliefs, rather than just quoting verses from the book of Mormon from rote memory. But as some of their own leaders have expressed, they are a young church and will need time to perfect their theological apologetics. But in the meantime, there is an awful lot of unquestioned faith in their leaders statements. Too much for comfort for me, and this from someone in a very "authority-centric" tradition.
Re: Banner -IMHO its easy to take cheap shots at anything - particularly religion, harder to maintain realistic balance.
Gunkie, I'm a Fitzgerald lover myself. Reading him on the East Coast must be a kick.
Yeah, very familiar ground in This Side of Paradise. We live about 40 minutes from Princeton and my older daughter attends summer softball camp at the Lawrenceville School. One issue with the book, when Amory Blaine and gang are bivying on the beach at Asbury Park NJ, Fitzgerald talks about Amory trying to stay up to watch the moon settle into the ocean. Well, being the east coast, the moon rises from the ocean. Oops.
Just finished, The Help by Kathryn Stockett and Irvin Yalom's Staring at the Sun, Overcoming the Terror of Death. Yalom is an existentialist Psychologist and I enjoy his perspective on life and insight into the human condition.
Right now reading, The Wife by Meg Wolitzer~ into it and enjoying it.
This summer have read one book after another, quite a break from all the studying I had to do during the previous months. A treat now!
Jay..really?
Let me check..
Been years since I studied those words...
Maybe I am confused..
Cool..my memory has been corrupted sometime the last decade..although I remember having trouble with these words when I was young...I had been thinking proletarian was the rich class for at least a few years. Probably mixed up with bourgeoisie and a little with Bolshivics.
"Marxism sees the proletariat and bourgeoisie (capitalist class) as occupying conflicting positions, since workers automatically wish their wages to be as high as possible, while owners and their proxies wish for wages (costs) to be as low as possible."
I gotta study up on my Marxist theory if I am gonna win fattards hat.
The Proletariat has nothing to lose but his chains,"- Karl Marx.
-And Fattrad's cool hat to gain!
next book I want to read, "The Posessed"- not the Dostoyevskii novel by the same name, (aka 'The Demons') But a new whimsical/ scholarly book by a young woman who is a russian literary scholar and writs about traveling in russia seeking out various various russian literary roots...
Just finished the Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence. I saw the movie ages ago, and was curious about the book when I ran across it at Powell's in Portland. The book is 10 times better than the film. What is most disturbing are the images of the Arabs, and how it looks like they haven't changed an iota since 1918 - still shooting in the air and acting like wild men. I think they will get a regime in Libya they deserve, and the farther we are away from them, the better.
Just finished the Seven Pillars of Wisdom by TE Lawrence. I saw the movie ages ago, and was curious about the book when I ran across it at Powell's in Portland. The book is 10 times better than the film. What is most disturbing are the images of the Arabs, and how it looks like they haven't changed an iota since 1918 - still shooting in the air and acting like wild men. I think they will get a regime in Libya they deserve, and the farther we are away from them, the better.
And if you substitute "American" for "Turk" it's like reading today's newspaper.
Toys, by James Patterson. Best seller, got it in my Christmas stocking. Completely stupid worthless total crap. I guess if Patterson puts his name on it, everyone buys it, because its not because of content. How low have we sunk if this is on the best seller list?
My last read climbing book was Bernadette McDonald's "Freedom climbers". The one before "Freedom climbers" was a spot-rereading of Lynn Hill's "Climbing Free".
I have recently read "Chasing the sun. The epic story of the star that gives us life." Richard Cohen.
I have read Cormac McCarty's "Blood Meridian" two times before and have been spot-rereading it lately.
All four books highly recommended.
The next book will possibly be Umberto Eco's "The Prague cementry".
I pick up a Faulkner every year or so to have my mind blown. Right now it's Go Down Moses.
Recently finished a biography of Bradford Washburn, it was good. Got a Kindle recently too, first book on it is Seven Years in Tibet. Yeah, I mostly read the old stuff.
Three Roads to the Alamo. It's about how Davy Crocket, William Travis and Jim Bowie all ended up in, and then dying in, the Alamo. They all had a different political and business reason for wanting Texas.
also Stalin, Peter the Great and the Spanish explorer LaSalle books are all staring at me.
While not a climbing book, I just finished Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, an incredible non-fiction account of a Hurricane Katrina survivor. It's quite timely regarding our country's recent abandonment of our constitutional right to a trial.
Also in the middle of Born to Run, a hidden tribe of super athlete's... very interesting to anyone who's ever trained in the mountains.
Fantasic read. Looks not only at the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico, but other facets of running including the cycles and types of injuries modern day runners experience, the history of Nike and the marketing behind selling running shoes and equipment (it's all BS). It's safe to say this book was quasi-responsible for the barefoot running trend of late. It's a fun read even for non-hardcore runners (like me). Recommended.
I received 1Q85 for Christmas but haven't started it. Looking forward to it.
I'm about halfway through Independence Day by Richard Ford. I'm enjoying it. A serious endeavor though.
I'm also halfway through the second book of a romp that starts with 1632 by Eric Flint. My bro from Seattle always sends me the start of a series for Christmas and this is it for '11. It's not great literature but it is a lot of fun. The premise is that a town of coal miners gets send back in time to Germany in 1632 into the middle of the Thirty Years War. Check it out.
Now half way through the Jobs book where Ross Perot invests in NeXT. This led me to youtube to watch Dana Carvey in Ross Perot skits...which led me to Carvey's Mclaughlin Group skits.
DS66, I read 11/22/63 last week, it's a piece of shiite. Writing valid historical fiction might be a pretty high calling.
Curious about that new Murakami someone mentioned upthread, that guy is a trip.
I'm reading Arthur & George by Julian Barnes right now.
@Sully....don't you just hate when you go on endless backward mapping? At least yours sounds fun. In grad school ( way before Internet) I used to get hung up on back tracking through citations and references on this endless backward chain....like it was a surprise. ... The writer had usually bastardized the original authors' intent. Like a game of telephone at a birthday party.
Looking forward to January...bunch of my favorite authors have new books coming out.
"Tillich: A Guide for the Perplexed" O'Neil (about the thought of Paul Tillich, 20th century protestant theologian proposing Christianity without the myths)
and on my I-Pod for by bicycle workouts, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" - makes me sick of my race (or of the human race).
and
"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the future of Religion" Sam Harris: he's one of the neo-atheists who are on a campaign to erase religion in all its forms from the face of the earth. Not what I expected but interesting all the same. Did you know that all evil is the result of religion? Its true, and Sam will tell you so, over and over again.
Gary - You could be right about us being the Turks of today. I just finished The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, an interesting case history. It seems we have our own empire today run by old, crazy, ugly surrogates all over the place left over from the cold war to whom money is given which is used for military control. Maybe it's crumbling? It is a different model than the British had, but it appears to work for our moneyed classes. The sad conclusion (my deduction, it isn't mentioned in the book) is that Osama may have had a point in wanting to attack us because our troops are stationed in their lands. No one wants a foreign presence running their lives whether directly or through surrogates.
Kevin- it's Murakami supersized. read it 3/4's of the way through then put it down for awhile before finishing. There's some particularly brilliant structural stuff I won't spoil by discussing. If you want it email me or facebook an address and I'll send it. Happy New Year to you and yours.
The Road by McCarthy. He just gave Oprah his first interview. He says he wrote it in a few weeks and that it was like taking dictation. It was dedicated to his eight year old boy and written as a love story for him.
I have not read it for a long time but I have read it twice. I am going to have to do it again now. It is that good.
The Things They Carried. Haven't taught it in a few years. What other book covers the Vietnam War better? I want to read Tobias Wolf's book about his V. War experiences too since I heard him speak last month and his writing resembles T. O'Brien's.
last month:
Comeback 2.0- Lance Armstrong (very short)
The Invention of Hugo Cabret- Brian Selznick (short)
The Big Year-Mark Obmascik
most of 100 Favorite North American Climbs- Fred Beckey
most of Yosemite Big Walls- Chris McNamara, Chris Van Leuven
The Ox Bow Incident-Walter Van Tilberg Clark
started Moby Dick- Herman Melville ( rereading it,I'm savoring it, a little at a time)
The Things They Carried. Haven't taught it in a few years. What other book covers the Vietnam War better? I want to read Tobias Wolf's book about his V. War experiences too since I heard him speak last month and his writing resembles T. O'Brien's.
The Things They Carried is great. Recently read Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, which comes pretty close.
Here is the begininning of The Fathers' Key...the opening is a quote from John Adams to his wife in a correspondance;
"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeding generations as the great anniversirrary festival. It ought to be commemerated as the day of deliverance. By solemnn acts of God almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pom and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever more,,,,"
Not reading anything super noteworthy but I'll put in a plug for Kindle--just got an e-ink one and am reading more than in years.
(Finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, now on The God Delusion).
Some time in the 90's I picked up a copy in paperback for a re-read. I'd read the first English edition checked out from the library as a novice in 1970.
Not the same book.
There was some extensive PC editing in the later edition.
The bad part is that the later edition does not give the insight into the 30's political milieu that the first does.
It astounds me the crap people waste their time with. I do realize you'd have the same opinions of my 'literary' choices.
I'm not really surprised, hanging out on a site filled with, largely, liberal people. But it really fascinates me that you guys dwell on some inane sh#t that you really feel is worthy.
Maybe it's just because you all are avid readers and have run out of quality stuff and have resorted to quasi-okay stuff. I don't read regularly because I'm pretty busy, so I choose my selections carefully. I even have some sh#t I bought but haven't gotten to.
I guess I like more of the classics and historical texts. I'm not trying to project superiority, just focus on the really good stuff.
Hemimngway and Steinbeck are really good IMO. Huxley, Heinlein, and Asimov too.
Maybe I should STFU and leave this thread to real literary conisseurs. I ain't one...hehe
EDIT: Oh! As a big fan of Michael Savage, I did read his first novel, "Abuse of Power". Excellent read if you're into Tom Clancy type stuff. Very good read. NY Times best-seller, whatever that means.
I have just finished Into the Silence, by Wade Davis.
The book is long and sometimes ponderous, however I found descriptions of the climbers and the time which they lived to be revealing. His treatment of George Mallory is not always sympathetic, but if it's true it explains much of the reasons behind the 1924 disaster.
You may want to skip some of the book,as they spend much of the time describing world war 1, the last chapters give a very detailed account of the 1924 expedition.
You come away from this book feeling that you know as much as anyone could about what may have caused the deaths of Irvine and Mallory.
The book concludes with the finding of George Mallory's body.
While it is a long sometimes slow book, I would recommend it to anyone who is a serious fan of Mount Everest climbing history.
I love those Follett's Lolli. Reading Fall of Giants right now and loving it too. Do you ever read Henning Mankell, the Swedish author of the Kurt Wallander series? They are my favorite crime/mysteries, set in Ystad.
I have a confession, I just finished re-reading C.S Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. I first read them as a child and loved them.
Now, as an adult I find them to be engaging stories. However, as the series progresses there seems to be an ever growing sense of Christianity, which never registered on me as a kid.
Lots'a god in those books.
As a recommendation I'll offer up Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. It's a history of water use in the western states.
Edit; I read Pillars of the Earth in my teens. That type of story is my favorite when compared to Folletts spy novels.
Fatal Crossroad: The Untold Story of the Malmedy Massacre at the Battle of the Bulge
by Danny S. Parker
(Da Capo Press: Cambridge, MA, 2012)
Finally solves the long-standing mystery of the murder of nearly a 100 American POWs by the Waffen SS at a crossroads outside Malmedy in Belgium on the German border.
The rot begins at the top! Yes, indeed, there were secret orders instructing the SS to terrorize civilians and murder POWs during their advance into Belgium in December 1944. Of course, those orders have not survived, but there are German vets who saw them. So, despite the fact that no one was ever convicted of the massacre during a trial after the war in 1947, a war crime did take place that was condoned by the highest level of the Nazi regime. Parker even has maps showing where the individual tanks and SPWs were parked and who the drivers and occupants were. Extensive interviews with Waffen SS vets too. A real historical landmark.
I'm reading Thin Ice by Mark Bowen. The story centers on Lonnie Thompson, a scientist who takes ice core samples from high-altitude peaks in the tropics (e.g., Peru) to study the history of climate change. He was profiled in one of the climbing mags a while back. The author is a climber and physicist and does a great job of explaining the science. If you are interested in mountaineering, climate change, and science in general, it's a great read.
I recently read Into the Silence. It's very detailed, but I don't know that it adds an awful lot to the historiograpy of Mallory, Irvine and Everest. Still, well worth a read.
A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume Two by Peter Gosson (Amberley). A book that documents the sand trade from its inception in 1912 to the present day, focusing on the Welsh coast.
Excellent chronicle of the 20th century from the First World War until the 1980s. Its all here: from the Bolshevik Revolution, the Great depression,
WW2, the cold war , Hitler, Stalin, Churchill. Anyone interested in the history of the last century should read this book.
Trying to put off finishing Whatever You Do, Don't Run by Peter Allison.
He was a snot-nosed 19 year old Aussie who went to Africa to pursue a career
as a safari guide. The guy has serious writing chops and the seemingly
innate Aussie penchant for yarn spinning, not that I doubt any of his.
Absolutely superb!
After viewing a fine production of The Sea Gull in Ashland, I've been on a Chekhov binge. Starting Uncle Vanya. Read Cherry Orchard and ThreeSisters last week. Before that, his short stories.
Just finished Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. Pretty witty.
Now I'm into Robert Hughes's The Shock of the New. Same.
Seventh in line at the public library for The Passage of Power. Hope Caro lives to finish the final volume.
Sully, if you can find it see Laurence Olivier's film of The Three Sisters. (1970). Alan Bates, as usual, gives a performance to make you believe that no one gave a moment's thought to the character until he came along.
Forward by Lucien Devies (struck with a real case of admiration/inspiration).
NOTE TO Phillip Revis:
The book Cogan's Trade, also by Higgins and part of a trilogy with The Friends of Eddie Coyle, has been made into a movie called Killing Them Softly. It stars Brangelina (Part I) and will be out later this year.
See imdb.com.
The last climbing-oriented novel that I read was in March, Looking for Mo, by Daniel Duane.
"Does God Exist", by Hans Kung (liberal, sometimes banned Catholic theologian). Long, detailed intellectual history of Christian thought. Haven't finished it yet but great so far - if you are into that sort of thing. Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Pascal.... they all got their place.
edit: This is what I'm doing the rest of the evening. I am going through this whole thread and checking the Wik for the titles and seek out the reviews/synopses of each one I haven't read. Goal!!!
Urizen, I'll look for the Olivier version. Just watched him in something I hadn't seen in 30yrs - Brideshead Revisited (with Jeremy Irons). Olivier is mesmerizing as a dying man. I'll try House ofMirth since I love Wharton.
Just finished "The Memory of Running". It had its weeknesses, but I'm a sucker for the regular guy on a big endurance journey. Think Forrest Gump during his running phase as the sane brother in "I Know This Much Is True."
Currently finishing up "Toltec Dreaming" by Ken Eagle Feather, a disciple of don Juan Matus of Castenada fame. It delves into dreaming body experiences and "dreaming while awake," among other things.
Two weeks ago, when I was half way through the book, I woke up one morning with a crystal clear vision about a new route to the left of one I had established last fall. That weekend I rapped over the face, and hidden by 3" diameter lichen were three pristine routes, each containing great movement and hidden holds. Although none are terribly hard, they filled in a previously unexplored 110' high section of cliff.
"A Toltec Dream" 5.7; "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" 5.9; and the last one fell today at NH 5.9+, "Sweat Lodge" named for the 85 degree temps and high humidity.
About Rocky Flats, where nuclear triggers were made of plutonium
just outside of Arvada, and Denver, CO, polluting us all with
PU, having a half life of 24,000 years. . .
Too rushed to check all the above posts but I cracked The Dharma Bums yesterday. One of my students (Thai) asked about the Beats, said his Dad mentioned them, wanted to know if he could read a beat book for the novel component of a lit. class I teach. Sure, I said "I'll read it along with you, if you're Dad has Dharma Bums." The student thinks it odd that an American, Kerouac, would write about dharma. I said, "You'd be surprised what goes down on Turtle Island." My copy is a paperback from 1959, fifty cents from Signet.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
Incredible novel about the persecution of the jewish people and the false idea that that the majority of the Germans were in on it together.
Snowblind, A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade by Robert Sabbag
Death Valley in '49 by WIlliam Lewis Manly.
The last lines read are still fresh in my mind, "It was on this trip that one of Mr. Bennett's ox drivers was taken with a serious bowel difficulty..."
Jackson Pollock by Kirk Varnedoe (large monograph with essays which accompanied the Polllock retrospective in the late '90s).
Recently completed Orange Sunshine by Nicholas Schou, which I thought was unexceptional writing about an interesting topic. Another book on the same topic, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, From Flower Power to Hippie Mafia: The Story of the LSD Counterculture by Stewart Tendler and Davaid May, is available online (http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/lsd/books/belcont.htm).
It is by far the most amazing story of courage and survival that I have ever read. Absolutely mind blowing what Marcus Luttrell endured.
Here's the synopsis...
"On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive.
This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers.
A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow-by-blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich , moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare-and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country."
Here's just one small excerpt from "Lone Survivor"...
And he groped in his pocket for his mobile phone, the one we had dared not use because it would give away our position..and then Leutenant Murphy walked out into the open ground. He walked until he was more or less in the center, gunfire all around him, and he sat on a small rock and began punching in the numbers to HQ.
I could hear him talking. "My men are taking heavy fire...we're getting picked apart. My guys are dying out here...we need help."
And right then Mikey took a bullet straight in the back. I saw the blood spurt from his chest. He slumped forward, dropping his phone and his rifle. but then he braced himself, grabbed them both, sat upright again, and once more put the phone to his ear.
I heard him speak again. "Roger that, sir. Thank you" Then he stood up again and staggered out to our bad position, the one guarding out left, and Mikey just started fighting again, firing at the enemy.
Uh-oh...good guy SteveW might be turning into an anti-nuke. I was loaned out to Rocky Flats in the last days of the decon and demolition a decade ago...not many structures left now. (above ground)
Interesting history, there...
Doing my annual reading of Look Homeward, Angel and struck with wonder at finding The Godfather quite absorbing. Oh, those murderous Irish ! :-)
Reading Tortilla Flats by Steinbeck. Steinbeck is a hero of the left but today this book would surely be condemned for portraying Latinos as lazy, over-sexed, alcoholic and criminal.
Hedge Fund Market Wizards - Schwager
Hiroshige: Prints and Drawings - Forrer
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Fred Beckey's 100 Favorite North American Climbs
The stack waxes and wanes, but there is always a stack in progress.
Hey Jennie, did you know Mister E's relative wrote Look Homeward A.? Pretty impressive, this ST bunch.
Yes, I remember Mister E posting of Thomas Wolfe being a kinsperson, Sully…and I agree 100% apropos our impressive ST bunch.
I’ve been a Thomas Wolfe aficionado since my teens, grasping every TW novel, anthology and biography I could lay my hands on. (…even reading history of the“Pennsyvania Dutch”.)
Look Homeward, Angel is his brightest gem. Wish I could write like that…
Raintree County by Ross Lockridge is in similar sub-genre and nearly as captivating. Although the war narration and foot racing chronicles become a mite tedious.
Hey Toad, have you read Tortilla Curtian by Boyle? Another one worth delving into.
yes, I've been to a few readings by TC Boyle and they are always hilarious.
Tortilla Curtain he said was his even-handed "meditation" on the illegal immigration issue in California. For portraying the criminal element among illegals (as well as the good element), Boyle said he received quite a few denunciations from liberals (though Boyle clearly is NOT a conservative).
I've pretty much read everything by TC Boyle except his latest novel, which is set (I think) on the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, and has an environmental theme of some sort.
His three novels I'd most recommend are: Riven Rock, The Road to Wellville, and A Friend of the Earth
People seem to enjoy Drop City (about the hippie era); and his send up of Frank Lloyd Wright in The Women was funny and amazing.
The stack waxes and wanes, but there is always a stack in progress.
Ain't that the truth. And they aren't pancakes, either.
Has anyone read the new translation of Kristin Lavransdatter? Sort of historical chick-lit, but well written. Won the Nobel Prize. The author was some sort of distant cousin.
A Kindle is NOT a book.
Eff Kindles. How much Coal burned while you were reading?
Huh?
Real Books are amazing. Unplug. At least some of the goddam time, eh?
It'll do you good.
The tragic story of the passenger liner Andrea Doria collision with another liner the Stockholm on the night of July 25, 1956.
52 people perished that fogy night out of 1134 passengers and 572 crew.
Acts of heroism, and cowardice, abound. Many of the victims were killed outright in the collision. One passenger, Linda Morgan, survived, still in her cabin bed which had miraculously landed on the prow of the Stockholm.
Andrea Doria hours after the collision. She managed to stay afloat for nearly 11 hours.
Credit: Donald Thompson
The Stockholm. Badly damaged made it into port.
Credit: Donald Thompson
A painting taken from various sounding images, etc. The Andrea Doria in 2005 in her very deep watery grave.
Hey Ninjakait, saw there's a two part Asimov interview on Netflix. Search Bill Moyers Writers. There's about six writers that he interviews in the series.
The foundation series is fascinating. Over the years I read the trilogy in order, then the additions as I came across them. Maybe a decade later I read them in order.then the the third party spinoffs and the various extra robot books. Once I tried to read them in order of publication.
Spoiler alert, procede (or don't) with caution if you haven't read Foundation's End.( I think that's the name of the last one....)
I found it fascinating how an avowed atheist made a universe that could be looked at with a religious perspective esp the later books with the Gaia stuff and referring to robots as eternals and even "angels."
Was this Asimov explaining how beliefs in religion might form to explain linear yet infinitely complex histories and events. I loved how he wrote in various peoe's ignorance ofthe past and how they made up traditions and myth to fill in the holes.
And through it all r Daneel has the most complete 'godlike' knowledge of the history and continuity of the human race while being aware that there are gaps in his own knowledge.
Donald Thompson, the best Italian restaurant in Huntington Beach was started by a fellow named Lino who was on the Andrea Doria. He made a great pizza.
Off topic and old news to Sully I'm sure... I find it sort of morbidly fascinating that Asimov died of Aids acquired from a blood transfusion, in the days before they checked for that. I imagine he was blindsided. Though he was in his eighties, he was still profic. I gotta wonder what else he might have had to say about the foundation/empire/robot universe..
I was deep into fantasy and science fiction books in junior high and high school, then somehow drifted away from it. I would like to go back and re-read the Foundation series in order. I think I read 2 or 3 of them, never read any of the Robot ones. I never finished the later books in the Dune series either. I bet I would get more out of both series now than I did at the time. Or at least something different.
Right now I'm 48 pages into "The Enchantress of Florence," a work of fiction by Salman Rushdie. Interesting so far, more of a joy for the writing and side stories and descriptions and musings, rather than the main plot which has yet to be developed. I think the main plot will be about the collision of cultures between early-renaissance Europe and the Mughul empire at peak influence. The prose is a little dense, but not as challenging as Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose." I had to work to enjoy that book, this one is more relaxing but many notches above say Tom Clancy spy novels.
It is interesting for me because the names and places draw upon scattered bits of history I've accumulated through travels in Italy and India and other reading.
I generally like Rushdie a lot though I haven't read that one.
Last year Marty(r) and I drove from the BA to Inian creek and had the Satanic Verses on mp-3 it had been at least fifteen years since I read it, but I 'm convinced that it's a deeper experience to hear aloud, than read! Like poetry. The language is exquisite! There was so much nuance and humor, much more than I remember from the first time...
I never got farther than the first Dune either. it really would be interesting g to see what's there now and whether it seemed different now...
I read that book several years ago. It ranks high in the annals of existentialism.
Sartre was heavily influenced by Heidegger, as revealed by his opus Being and Nothingness
The professional philosophical community has sort of blackballed Heidegger over the years because of his alleged association with the Nazi movement. This ostracizing of Heidegger was patently unfair, in many respects. Will Durant doesn't even mention Heidegger in the index of my edition of The Story of Philosophy.
Sartre, being a Frenchman, was a Cartesian philosopher (the tradition that Heidegger set out to critique). Remember Dasein doesn't translate to "I". Nausea will forever be a classic within the genre of existentialist literature, but even Heidegger thought Being and Nothingness was a terrible text.
I just finished "No Easy Day" by Mark Owen (not his real name)
It's the story of Operation Neptune's Spear (the mission to kill Bin Laden).
It is the first person account of the planning, training and execution of the raid on Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan as told by one of the DEVGRU team leaders of the raid and the second guy into Bin Laden's room.
He was also on the helo that crashed.
It is a great read and clears up some of the questions and misinformation about the operation.
I highly recommend it.
Just finished Lynn Hill’s Climbing Free. Very nice memoirs with almost a hint of mystical. She represents herself well, with a unique voice among climbers.
Now going through Jon Krakauer’s Eiger Dreams. The writing seems more sparkling and potent than some of his full-length books.
War and Peace (for a class I'll be taking). What I want to read, but don't want to pay for: Tyler Hamilton's cycling/doping book and Michael Chabon's new book. Met Chabon (shwing!!) a few years ago. He's an excellent writer, but not Tom Wolfe (my hero) by any stretch.
With the Old Breed, E.B. Sledge (for the fifth time)
Eugene (Sledgehammer) Sledge's spare and unflinching account of his shattering experience with The Marines K/3/5 on Peleliu and Okinawa.
Required reading.
Just polishing off Gervasutti's Climbs and it was so satisfying I forced myself to read a chapter at a time space widely apart. His writing is so damned good, and the stories are so historical. Shame about the ending, though.
Sledge's book: Top five unsung battles of the War, top one, even. Read it twice, recommended it many times. With the Old Breed is the real goods...
Got to meet a hero, and get his new book fresh off the presses :)
I almost read the thing in one sitting, but had to go to work instead! It's awesome so far.
I just powered through the Tyler Hamilton tell all,"The Secret Race." I got it on my b.day last Thurs. I could not put it down.
Then finished "The Book Thief." It was a long one but very good.
Just started a book today about Captain Cook, can't think of the title, it's out in the car. It's very good.
Hey zbrown, by the Bounty trilogy you mean "Mutiny on the Bounty," "Men Against the Sea," and "Pitcairns's Island?" 3 of my faves, mega, mega classics.
God, a Biography. Miles.
Fascinating. The author analyzes the 'God' of the Jewish scripture not theologically, nor historically, but as a character in a work of literature, highlighting the sometimes radical changes in his personality across the various books of the Old Testament.
Just finished this one. Was a real eye opener regarding the timber industry especially in NA and specifically British Columbia. I'd certainly recommend it.
He'll treasure this photo if you send him one to thank him for all of us here for writing the book, if you would. Just a suggestion.
Bri
Edit: Thanks to Shack for bumping this thread. Time alone with a book is a precious thing, sharing what you read with others is neighborly, and using what you've read to improve your life and those of your neighbors is the highest good. Look it up in the bible.
^good idea mouse; I'll get on that. Just finished the book, and it was great. Lots of climbing in this one. I am not the fasted reader out there and I read the book in a day! I couldn't put it down.
Hey zbrown, by the Bounty trilogy you mean "Mutiny on the Bounty," "Men Against the Sea," and "Pitcairns's Island?" 3 of my faves, mega, mega classics.
Thats it. I first read them in elementary school, my first big read. Had to ask my father what "tenacious" meant. Seems like I acquired the trait somehow.
The British are frequently criticized by other nations for their dislike of change, and indeed we love England for those aspects of nature and life which change the least. Here in the West Country, where I was born, men are slow of speech, tenacious of opinion,
Kind of amazing that you can now read the entire trilogy on-line.
zB, yes mega classics. I finished the Cook Book "Blue Latitudes." By Yony Horwitz, "Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before."
By the way, Captain Bligh of the Mutiny trilogy was an officer with Cook on his first voyage. Also, Bligh had 2 subsequent mutinys in later life after his issues with Mr. Christian and winning the trial.
Now I'm reading the story of Major John Wesley Powell's second voyage down the Colorado River by Frederick Dellenbaugh (("Canyon Voyage?") yes, it is in the car). It is most excellant. There are no mutinys involved. Powell was a great leader, he had a sense of humor and liked to sing.
I just picked up a couple books that are kinda old news, but I finally got around to them. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo & The Men Who Stare At Goats. So far, the TGWTDT is extremely boring. I cud give a sh#t about Swiss baking, etc.! I am around 50+ pages nto it and can remember little. I pick it up and struggle through a chapter and put it down and leave it their for a few days. Everyone I talk to says its great. Maybe I'm wierd. I have ben thinking about watching the movie first. The very beggining did pique my curriosity with the pressd and mounted flower every year. But that kind of disapeared into a fog of business coruption, etc.! Guess i will continue to slog on through it, but it was not what i was hoping for. I haven't started MWSAG yet. I prefer nonfiction/history/autobiographies, etc. or classic/american lit.! Maybe i will check what people have been reading here a little closer!
maybe someone here knows of Jon Turk? climber and adventurer/scientist from Colorado. I am reading his "The Raven's Gift" about his travel in Siberia and his experience there with an elderly female shaman healer.
I also started Paul Coelho's "Aleph" also about a mystical healing while on the Trans Siberian Railroad. I had no idea I had picked up two books on the same theme describing the same area. Maybe this bodes well for my own next adventure as I've been lazily considering the Kamchatka Peninsula via Alaska as a next destination. crazy.
I am finishing "My Life as an Indian" which is great and found here upthread or on the other book thread recommended by someone here. True ish account of white guy who bridged the racial and cultural gap at the turn of the century.
yeah I read Girl with the dragon tattoo and it took quite a few pages until it became engaging as a who dunnit. I couldn't actually get into the characters although my brother read it and found the characterizations fascinating. There is a great revenge scene that is just delightful in a twisted sort of way.
I have enjoyed this thread immensely and found many recommendations that stimulated my reading. Thanks everyone.
i thought Cell was hilarious. i just read it as a sort of a dark, extended rant against technology. The Stand it ain't but i got a few chuckles out of it.
anyone here read Cloud Atlas by david mitchell? i'm halfway thru it and interested to see how he ties all the stories together.
Jay, how did you like the new Irving? i typically love his stuff but for whatever reason the stuff I've read about the themes in the book don't seem that appealing to me.
I'm reading the whole Harry Hole series by Jo Nesbo. I'm on the third in the series, and enjoying it.
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne.
Not too far into it yet, but looks like it will be good. Batrock, you should read this after you're done with the Kit Carson book. Sounds like it may be the same story from two different persepctives, at least in part. I always like doing that with history themes. Think I´ll try to find your book when I'm done with this one.
Spoon River Anthology: Headstone Epitaphs: of a small town names Spoon River. (Almost poems) Sporadic reading.
best Travel Essays of 2000: Bed time reading. Short essays that I can read one at a time before I kill the lights.
Started Early, Took My Dog. Kate Atkinson. I live overseas, so what ever book I find in English or french, I pick up and read the first couple chapters. If I like it, I continue, if not, I move on. (To many books to read to bother with those I don't enjoy.
Hi, Sully. Some people are gaga for Chabon's style. It's a little self-indulgent to me, like one day he wakes up and he's writing in hard-boiled crime voice, and the next he's Kerouac.
The first thing of his that I read was The Mysteries of Pittsburgh just after college when I'd moved here from Pittsburgh. It was hard to tell if it was good or not because I loved reading about college kids in my college town too much to care. Telegraph Ave. is my hoody hood these days, so my enjoyment of the book was highly biased.
I don't think I got 50 pages into Kavalier and Clay though. I just couldn't make myself care enough about comics, golems, or the characters he was presenting to keep engaging. Similarly, in Telegraph Ave. the author shows off for pages and pages with jazz, comics, and movie trivia that would kill me if it wasn't in another context that interested me. I didn't think I could go for a whole novel centered around baseball either, so I haven't tried the Art of Fielding.
I picked up 2 classics at the thrift store for a buck each; Ulysses by James Joyce and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
Thumbed through Ulysses and found it almost unreadable. Did I really see a sentence that was 10 pages long? I'll tackle it sometime this winter though.
Robinson Crusoe, while a little difficult to read since it was written in 1720, is an awesome book! The way the character explores his own character, and changes his patterns of thinking to be consciously happy with his lot seems to be the point of the book, intermingled with exciting adventure and immature observations of natural history. Wonderful!
Last year on this thread Woman Who Runs With Wolves was recommended by BooDawg. I had a copy for 5 years and could never get off the ground with it. I have a really hard time understanding what an 'archetype' is, or why I should try to compare myself to one. I found it a very obtuse book that did not make me feel good about being a woman. And I know I'm a wild one. Modern society is very hard for me and my instincts can be killer lethal, especially to myself!
Thoughts? I tried very hard to get through this book and understand it. It is the ONLY book thus far in my life I have failed at.
Melissa, I met Chabon at a Cal book event. What a flippin' vision he is! Kav. & Clay is supposed to be an upcoming Kiera Knightly flick. M. of Pittsburg sort of fell flat for me too. He likes to get into the bi side of himself and his characters. I lived it with my ex husband. Enough already. Ch. said he modeled the book after The Great Gatsby, writing it as a grad student in his parent's basement.
Thanks for the heads up on the new book. I'll wait for it to get to my library instead of buying it.
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne.
Not too far into it yet, but looks like it will be good. Batrock, you should read this after you're done with the Kit Carson book. Sounds like it may be the same story from two different persepctives, at least in part. I always like doing that with history themes. Think I´ll try to find your book when I'm done with this one.
I did Kit Carson 1st and then Empire of the Summer Moon. 2 rad books but ones Navajo and ones Comanche, they are sorta similar.
Done with "Che'", that dude had issues. Now I'm onto "Charles II".
The Fifties by D. Halbersham (as suggested by Guido), Rats by Richard Sullivan. Prior to those two books Eisenhower by Stephen Ambrose.
Rats is an interesting read, about one man's study of rats in some alleys in NYC. Interesting history of warriors in the battle of man vs rat, rat migration throughout the world, the plague and other interesting history.
I came here to look for something to read next. Kit Carson, maybe.
Batrock, how's that Fremont do in the end? Pretty well, one-time presidential hopeful and all. There's hope for Mitt, after all.
And I liked the personality of Kit Carson, short and to the point.
I just got nailed for library fines today, but I got even.
Got a copy of Dog Walks Man/John Zeaman and one of Madonna anno domini/verse by Joshua Clover, which is the name of my old bitch German Shorthair, the wanderer. Bought them at the Friends of the Library used book store for one buck each, HC. Delighted!
"Lastly, who was I to broadcast all these regrets about wildness lost? I certainly wasn't wild. Not only was I ill-suited to survive in the wilderness. I wasn't even wild in the social sense. Not since we moved out of the loft in the city. Like Pete, I had heeded the call of the mild."--ch. 10, "Call of the Wild"/Dog Walks Man.
Not a particularly well- written biography but there are some great photos. There is an interesting section at the end all about Hendrix gear that will please guitar buffs and devotees of the Hendrix style and innovations. This book is the size of a friggin atlas.
Tom Wolfe has a new book out and Terri Gross interviews him today. This has made my morning!!!! Wolfe is my favorite living writer. I'll road trip to see him speak even.
Jaybro, I love J. Irving. I'll add that to my winter break stack. Wolfe is 81, so I'm thinking this is his last book and my last chance to ever see him at an event.
I'd go see Wolfe in a second if I had the chance! Missed the interview though, distracted by a storm over Arches
Edit just listened to it on the web. Well there's another book'i'll have to read.
Fascinating interview. Interestingly enough I was thinking about the concept of "the cop stare" today, having encountered it at a coffee shop this morning.
I thought In One Person was trashy in the bad way, but not as bad as the tattoo book. I used to love JI, but the last two will definitely slow my pace to pick up his next offering.
Trashy? Really? I don't see that. Maybe too much effort to be topical or something. Def more fourth hand than Hotel New Hampshire. I havn't read the tatoo book, couldn't get through son of the circus, though.
The interview was good. Wolfe always more natural and self- deprecating than I expect, pro ably based on the way he dresses and presents himself, which he poked fun at in the interview.
Phillip K. Dick: A Maze of Death, 1970. The book was miss-filed, and sitting on top of some climbing books in our local used book store. I figured it was speaking to me. Never heard of this PKD title. Wikipedia has it that Dick claimed to have written his 60’s era stuff while on “amphetamines”. (A precursor doping model for Lance Armstrong, but man enough to admit it...heh)
Sometimes the Politics, God and Religion vs. Science thread is a lot like a page out of a Dick book…or out of his mind. Both Haw Haw and For-Reals!
I remember a title which Slings once had his nose in: With A Finger In My I. Don't remember the author, nor have read it. There was lots of good SF book exposure going around C4 early 70's.
I read Club Dumas and that got me hooked on Perez-Reverte. The Seville Communion's considered his best. They're almost all good. This is the second time around on Fencing Master.
Credit: mouse from merced
And neebee has sent me a copy of her book Steppingstones Through Jake's Ranch Vol IV.
Thanks, neebee, I'll get rolling on it after Oakdale. :O)
Just finished Darwin's Ghosts. And would reccomend it. Kind of a Stephen key Gould type of thing, and a cautionary tale about reading those you aknowledge!
"Glittering Images" by Camille Paglia... grating but interesting look at art. Highly recommended for the introduction alone. Find it difficult to accept the idea that George Lucas is the greatest living artist though!
Mountains Beyond Mountains wasn't high lit, but it sure did make me feel lazy and like I should be doing more to make the world a better place. I'm very glad that I listened.
I'm not to the new Tom Wolfe book now. It's great fun. Basically, it's the Bonfire of the Vanities set in Miami in 2012, but I don't mind.
Issac's Storm, by Erik Larson. About the 1900 hurricane that destroyed Galveston TX and killed over 6k people - still the deadliest storm in US history. Apropos, although I picked it up at a book swap last month before Sandy was in the news.
Finished the Empire of the Summer Moon and liked it a lot. Started looking up places mentioned in the book on Google to see photos and saw there is a climbing area in SW Oklahoma in the Wichita Mnts near Ft. Sill where Quanah and his Comanches settled on the reservation. Also the Palo Duro canyon looks cool.
In between these books I had a quick read of Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. I had bought if for my son to read. It was only the 2nd time I'd read it. That was because I have such good memories of the first time. That was back in High School in the early 70s when I went on a weekend trip up to Old Rag in the Virginia Blue Ridge with the idea of climbing. It never stopped raining. So my partner and I wound up bivied in some cave and just read the whole time while downing pop tarts and hot chocolate.
Ever climber must have some book that brings back memories of long bivies in bad weather, or of some great climb in their lives. What's yours?
To speak to little Z, Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams is a light hearted anthology of climbing yarns which is so broad in its scope of climbing areas that I'm sure it would resonate with most S Topians...although for some reasons the current edition is lacking the “Is Yosemite Going to the Dogs?” chapter.
And, to take a tip from his “On Being Tentbound,” Marcel Proust does offer more ounce of weight to hour of entertainment, Swann's Way, from his A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time) is probably the most accessible – although one may chose to bring along all 5 volumes if contemplating a visit to Patagonia or the Alaska Range. Of course, one does not read Proust; one re-reads Proust.
Right know I'm re-reading Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, which feels so appropriate to our current economic state. “Who is John Galt?” Our heroine eventually finds out, when she is forced to make an emergency landing in her private airplane through the mists of a remote and uncharted valley high in the Rockies. There, she meets all of the various and very prominent industrialists; scientists; inventors; financiers; philosophers and thinkers, who have mysteriously disappeared, one by one, from our country and its corrupt efforts at nationalization across all sectors to delay its economic depressions descent into complete financial collapse. And it is here, in this valley (which is rendered undetectable by the artificial mist which is sort of like a 1-way mirror) that our country's best minds have reestablished themselves in a small and self contained utopia, its internal economy based on the gold standard.
This kind of idealism I find very appealing in this day and age. It also strikes very close to home, as it closely parallels what we were to find here in the very small world of the Owens Valley, with its diverse populace which ranges from ranchers and packers; Pulitzer Prize authors; Cal Tech astrophysicists; artists; Olympic medalist athletes; Everest summiteers...and a thriving community of some damn good rockclimbers to match the world-class terrain.
And, as if by a strange coincidence, when we finally decided to make the Owens our new home, we were flown in by private plane. After dropping through a veil of clouds, spanning from the crest of the Sierra to the top of the Whites, the Valley floor was laid out before us, like some delicately tinted cartographer's artwork.
Neptune's Inferno by James D. Hornfischer, recommended up thread by Piton Ron; I recently read Last of The Tin Can Soldiers by the same author.
Neptune's Inferno won't let you go; from the opening pages. I don't relish the thought of having been a sailor in the Battle of Guadalcanal. I finished it 2 days prior to the 70th Anniversary of the U.S. Navy's first successful night action against the Japanese fleet trying to resupply the troops on Guadalcanal (Nov 12-13th 1942). A masterful account of the sacrifices made by the young sailors and older officers of the U.S. Navy.
Two of the most remarkable tales told are the strange ways in which the U.S. Navy would substitute inexperienced commanders of night and/or surface battles for those who had recently gained hard won experience in this brutal type of warfare right before expected clashes with the superior Japanese.
The other is the story of Eugene Tarrant, a steward, aboard the U.S.S. Atlanta. Treated with disdain due to his race, in normal times, he performs many acts of heroism that saved plenty of lives during or after the battle; only to return to status of a second class citizen later. Makes you scratch your head.
Just started Flying Through Midnight by J. Halliday as recommended on the taco by someone.
For all the discussion of OT threads on the taco, this thread and the What Song thread provide peaceful proof that some OT threads bring out the best sides of tacoians as compared to some other threads that do the opposite.
I just started "Lionel Asbo", the new one from Martin Amis. We'll see how it goes. I'm a bit ambivalent about Martin. There can be a little too much seamy underbelly of life stuff in his books for my delicate sensibilities.
Edit: Stopped reading it. He's a good writer but it's just not for me.
A few curves on canvas can paint a rich picture. If the artist is good. So it is with words. Clarity of thought, of vision, to evoke a reaction. And nothing more. Life, grief, longing, loss, love. All are on the table. Nothing is lost for want of words.
Road trip listening: Henning Mankell's "The Troubled Man" with the great character of police detective Kurt Wallender. To J Tree and back from the Bay area, 18 hours of driving, we got through 10 cds - 4 more to go!!
Dispatches by Michael Herr, for the 7th or 8th time.
First published in 68 and considered at the time one of the finest pieces on the Vietnam experience.
It's evident that Coppola and Stone lifted entire scenes intact out of this book for Apocalypse Now and Platoon.
Herr's writing style seems to break all the rules and capture the sociopolitical paradigm of an era.
This work belongs with other Vietnam war must reads such as:
Vietnam (Stanley Karnow)
A Bright and Shining Lie (Neil Sheehan)
Chickenhawk (Rober Mason)
About Face (Dave Hackworth)
We Were Soldiers Once and Young (Moore and Galloway)
Another explanation of the cosmos for the layman but with some very interesting and very memorable metaphors, especially as regards the Big Bang
Howard Bloom is trip: an irrepressible atheist who attempts in his book to explain, on his own terms ,how creative and magnificent, and paradoxical the physical universe truly is.
Just finished "The New Jim Crow" or why there are 2.3 million mostly black men in prison in the USA. Important book.
Now I'm back on "Theology for the Third Millenium" by Hans Kung. Progressive (some might say heretical I suppose) catholic and highly interllectual theology. Loving it. For me it hits the sweet spot where the intellect and faith converge.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Just finished watching Showtimes's The Tudors and found this book via a Twitter connection. Very good so far. The court of Henry the VIII via the eyes of Thomas Cromwell.
Just finished "Old Man's War," by John Scalzi. Great stuff! Not much of a sci-fi guy, but my son is, and he insisted I read it. Dang it...now I have to continue with the series.
The top of the back cover reads something like: "John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday: he visited his wife's grave, and he joined the army."
A fascinating book about Henrietta Lacks whose cells were the foundation of cell cultivation in clinical research for all types of diseases. They were harvested unbeknownst to her and her family. There are all types of connections to segregation and medical services in the early 50s. Really astounding book!
Kind of a tangled-up presentation of a huge subject. Some good history to ponder plus the usual dialectics. The author's original ideas are in la-la-land sometimes; but other times he has a few valid points to make as well. My opinion is that humans are nowhere near the end that the author rhapsodizes about; and we will constantly evolve new forms of "good" political/economic systems which will in turn become corrupted in new unforseen ways. Freedom does that.
97 reviews@: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57981.The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man
The summit was a corniced crest of ice, and the precipices on the far side which plunged vertically down beneath us, were terrifying, unfathomable. There could be few mountains in the world like this. Clouds floated halfway down, concealing the gentle, fertile valley of Pakhara, 23,000 feet below. Above us there was nothing!
My wife gave me a first edition Annapurna by Maurice Herzog for Christmas. I had never read it before.
You also should check out Benediction by Hent Haruf. It is his new novel that takes place in his fictional, eastern Colorado town of Holt that his previous work was set in. Its a story of a character known simply as "Dad" who finds out he will die of cancer. Incredible dialog with fantastic character development
http://www.barclayagency.com/speakers/appearances/sedaris.html
Plenty of David Sedaris fans on the Taco. Above is a link to his upcoming lectures and bookstore appearances. Bummed San Jose is sold out, but Bookshop Santa Cruz is hosting him again. Saw him there about ten years ago where he did his Billie Holiday imitation. Anyone read Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls?
Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe. Spectacular social commentary and sentences. Here's one: "The subtext was: In the meantime, if the mutts start growling, snarling, and disemboweling one another with their teeth -- celebrate the Diversity of it all and make sure the teeth get whitened."
Just finished "The Little Sister" by Raymond Chandler (I'm nutty about Raymond Chandler)
Just started "Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan ... LOVE IT, and I'm only on page 10!
And... I just picked up a copy of "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris, which sits on my bedside table, ready for pages to be dog-eared.
Night Driving
&
The autistic Mind by Temple Grandin, I read her bio and saw the movie, but this was one is more of a journey into her mind as a scientist, with fascinating, unique insights from her unusual mind and and related insights.
Have to read the owl book, I liked Naked & Me talk pretty, a lot.
Good luck with infinite jest, Walleye! So far, the jest has been own me!!
Read Strong Motion, recently.. Is it just me or to Frantzen's other novels not work as well as the adjustments?
Jededia Smith - the OG hardman
Wild Bill Donovan - the guy who started the OSS/CIA
Kaufman's Advanced Birding - hey, I'm a birdbrain, what can I say?
Birder's Guide to Michigan - like I'm gonna go there unprepared?
All This and Robins too - bird guide to Wisconsin. Like I'm just going to Michigan?
Collapse;How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail - probably too late for us.
Good luck with infinite jest, Walleye! So far, the jest has been own me!
Let us know!