Donald Thompson
Trad climber
Los Angeles,CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2011 - 06:29pm PT
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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.
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Riley Wyna
Trad climber
A crack near you
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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.
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'Pass the Pitons' Pete
Big Wall climber
like Ontario, Canada, eh?
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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.
When I grow up, I want to be just like him.
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Riley Wyna
Trad climber
A crack near you
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Piper at the Gates of Dawn
Anyone know what the one degree of separation between this book and a book I mentioned is?
Edit...me too Pete
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Donald Thompson
Trad climber
Los Angeles,CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 2, 2011 - 07:45pm PT
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Picked this book up today. I always feel I need to patronize my local bookstore to help keep it around a little longer.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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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...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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The Foundations of the Theory of Probability A. N. Kolmogorov
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Riley Wyna
Trad climber
A crack near you
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Nope nobody got it yet- it isn't that hard.
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.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there, say, all....
my books... read MY book, :)
http://stores.lulu.com/neebeeshaabookwayreadjakeanddonate
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...
:)
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Gunkie
Trad climber
East Coast US
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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.
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sullly
Trad climber
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Gunkie, I'm a Fitzgerald lover myself. Reading him on the East Coast must be a kick.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Um Riley, it was the aristocracy, not the proletariat, that the Bolsheviks ( who were larley made up of proletariat) had a problem with...
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Bruce Kay
Gym climber
BC
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Rocker Mike:
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!
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Cragman
Trad climber
June Lake, California....via the Damascus Road
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Just finished:
"The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant"
Completely riveting....the man was truly badass!
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Just started - Ender in Exile - big fan of Orson Scott Card
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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hell by robert owen butler.
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.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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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.
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AndyG
climber
San Diego, CA
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The Broom of the System - David Foster Wallace
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Donald Thompson
Trad climber
Los Angeles,CA
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 3, 2011 - 05:51pm PT
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I read "Under the Banner of Heaven" a few years ago. It was an interesting enough expose of fundamental Mormonism which is rarely known in detail.
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Gunkie
Trad climber
East Coast US
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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.
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