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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Base104, if you're into Seven Pillars, might I suggest Arabian Sands by Sir Wilfred Thesiger? IMO, that's one of the best adventure books of all time. (Although it takes about 60 pages to get into the meat of it...) I've actually stood on some super-obscure, remote spots in Oman that Thesiger wrote about with Arabian Sands in my hands, and his descriptions were so absolutely accurate that I suspect he was standing on the exact same spot when he was making notes in his journal. (Impossible to be that accurate without taking notes on the spot.)
I second The Lost City of Z. Recently read it on Kelly Cordes' reccy and really enjoyed it.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Mar 18, 2015 - 08:36am PT
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Mr. Crouch, I have much respect for your literary skills, as well as your work ethic in completing such a project. Your acknowledgement chapter was a complete work of literature within itself.
American Sniper Chris Kyle's Autobiography. Breeze of a read. I found it interesting how humble of a man he was, admitting his weaknesses such as not being fond of the water and a fear of heights doesn't exactly fit the traits of the ideal Navy Seal.
Now reading Summer of '49 by David Halberstam.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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Mar 29, 2015 - 08:00pm PT
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A simple, but profound book I just finished "The Orphan Train".
Also, "RED" an interesting book by Terry Tempest Williams. The writer speaks to the preservation of the Redrock Wilderness in the canyon country of southern Utah. I enjoyed her book, but would love to debate her on some of the books issues.
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mongrel
Trad climber
Truckee, CA
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Mar 29, 2015 - 09:05pm PT
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Currently reading Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich. Incredibly interesting, amusing, and well written. Though the rare-species folks dislike ravens, it has always been one of my favorite birds, so I grabbed this one in an instant when I saw it in the bookstore.
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jgill
Boulder climber
The high prairie of southern Colorado
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Mar 30, 2015 - 12:09pm PT
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Tomahawk , a Dan Lenson novel by David Poyer. Recently finished the latest Jack Reacher book . . . disappointed in the finale.
Reading an article in the latest New Yorker on student political organizations during the Cold War. It reminded me of working at Glasgow AFB in the early 1960s, SAC nukes in abundance, and subscribing to that old Soviet cultural magazine, Soviet Life maybe, but I'm too lazy to look it up. It was fairly popular on the Base. Seems strange in retrospect.
Oh for the good old days when our enemy was another civilized state and Balance of Power worked.
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David Knopp
Trad climber
CA
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Mar 30, 2015 - 03:39pm PT
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preparation for the next life, by Atticus Lish
great move l of modern nyc, but not the ny you know, the poor immigrant blu collar nyc of queens, etc. Really great writing, poetic...
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Bad Climber
climber
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Mar 30, 2015 - 06:58pm PT
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Just finished Last Call by Okrent--an AWESOME history of prohibition. Definitely read it.
Currently reading Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun by Geoffrey Canada
This is a short but compelling story of his growing up in NY in the fifties and sixties. Yikes! Interesting because it was a prelude to the gun culture that made such places "killing fields," as he puts it. Hard to put down.
BAd
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two-shoes
Trad climber
Auberry, CA
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Mar 30, 2015 - 08:44pm PT
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Totally interesting studies. The book was highly contested by big foods scientists. Dairy, Beef, chicken, pharma, etc, multi billion dollar industries went to war over potential lost in profits. It's the Capitalistic way! Excellent studies by Oxford, Cornell, and The Chinese Government for over 3 decades!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Mar 31, 2015 - 02:01pm PT
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This one may interest you, Tobia.
Brian Jones: The Making of the Rolling Stones/Paul Trynka.
BJ liked to take things to the edge and was addicted to risk.
The French singer and actress, Zouzou, said of staying in his Chelsea mews home, "It was very fun...but he was up and down very often."
Like me, he was a dandy and a narcissist.
He could get no satisfaction, truly.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 1, 2015 - 05:30pm PT
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Mouse, I will give it a try. Someone handed me Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand the other day, so I'm going to jump in it for now. I enjoyed _The Summer of '49_, as I have all of Halberstam's books.
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Spider Savage
Mountain climber
The shaggy fringe of Los Angeles
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Just finished "The Call of The Ice" Simone Moro 2012.
Simone is one of the most badazz human beings alive. The book documents his quest to climb 8000 m peaks in winter culminating in G2 in 2011. If you saw Cory Richards film "Cold" this book leads up to that.
If you saw it and remember that crazy Italian coughing his lungs out, that was Simone. After meeting Simone at a slide show last fall and reading this book I have huge respect for that crazy Italian who makes Cory looks like an adolescent American crybaby.
The writing style is raw, coursely edited and in a way that is about the same as listening him speak in English, not his first language. While not winning any awards for writing style, it makes for a clearer picture of who he is and what he is doing. So in fact, it is easier to understand him as he communicates.
He has a harshness and self-centeredness which I could easily forgive and live with. He is a doer. A man of great accomplishment, largely because he has a great sense of his limitations and knows when to give up. His list of failures on peaks outnumbers his successes. For this reason he still has all his fingers and toes and is alive today.
He is near the top of my heros list along with his equally badazz partner Denis Urubko.
The book is essential reading for anyone interested in high altitude climbing.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Levy told me to read....
"Don't Tel Mom I work on the Rigs, She Thinks I play Piano in a Whorehouse"
Paul Carter
Really funny, horrible and interesting stuff in there, has had me laughing a bunch.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Trad climber
Will know soon
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I love all kinds of books, even literature for children. These are several very good ones grownups should enjoy too.
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
The Orphan Train, by Christina Baker Kline
and
Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanhha Lai. In this one the sentence structure threw me at first, but after a few pages I was totally engrossed.
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Urizen
Ice climber
Berkeley, CA
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E. M. Forster, The Longest Journey. It has the best opening sentence ever, better than Pride and Prejudice or Ulysses.
The novel opens in medias res, the first scene an idle discussion between Cambridge students arguing about whether there is an objective reality independent of the sensations of an observer. Sentence one:
"The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it over the carpet.
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Adventurer
Mountain climber
Virginia
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"Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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I don't often read modern "literature" as I find a lot of it purposely showy and obscure writing.
But I had liked Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, so I am now wading through The Buried Giant, his new book.
I'm about 50-50 on it. Interesting magical realism set in early Dark Ages Britain. But not great.
On the lighter side, also reading the SPQR mysteries by John Maddox Roberts, set in ancient Rome.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 16, 2015 - 09:41am PT
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In the middle of David McCullough's The Johnstown Flood. A historic work on how the negligence of a few people combined with an unusual amount of rain in 1880's wiped an entire town and more off the Pennsylvania map.
I read his Path Between The Seas which covered the politics and mechanics of the building of the Panama Canal. I have one more of his books that I haven't read, The Great Bridge, the detailed summary of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Apr 16, 2015 - 10:42am PT
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Tobia, I've read most of his: The Great Bridge, Path, 1776, John Adams, Mornings, etc. All superb. Can't go wrong with McCullough.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Apr 16, 2015 - 10:52am PT
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Boyd, the man who single-handedly changed fighter aviation.
A mesmerizing story exceptionally well told.
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Tobia
Social climber
Denial
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Topic Author's Reply - Apr 20, 2015 - 09:18am PT
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Finished The Johnstown Flood by D. McCullough and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer over the weekend. We are getting lots of rain here ; which makes for great reading time.
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