Books you read over and over again (not climbing related)

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DavisGunkie

Trad climber

Davis, CA

Sep 28, 2006 - 05:45pm PT

yea but free library books don't make my own wall o'Books look any more impressive

Melissa

Gym climber

berkeley, ca

Sep 28, 2006 - 06:17pm PT

I've got one to add to my list, although I've only read it once. It's the best book I've read in the last 5 years. "A Fine Balance" by Mistry.

David Knopp

Trad climber

Sep 28, 2006 - 07:00pm PT

blood meridian-Cormac MacCarthy

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Sep 28, 2006 - 07:30pm PT

Funny Shel Silverstein note.
My relative, who I have reffered to as 'Aunt Em,' is Sylvia's Mother, of the Shel Slverstin penned song of the same name, performed by Dr Hook(?) I have a VHS tape of her (and her daughter Slyvia) being interviewd on Dutch tv for a top 500 songs of all time show (right behind "Another one Bites the Dust'"

My favorite poem of his, is 'Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout (?) who would not take the garbage out'.

I think the following;
"When I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today,
Gee, I wish he'd go away."

-is his, as well, isn't it?

'A boy named Sue,' isn't bad either, and definitely his!

Gary

climber

Desolation Basin, Calif.

Sep 28, 2006 - 07:35pm PT

Almost forgot: "In Cold Blood". Might be the only thing Capote wrote, but he really nailed it. Great movie, too.

Standing Strong

Mountain climber

the trail

Sep 28, 2006 - 07:55pm PT

another vote for Harper Lee: "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Fannie Flagg: "Welcome to the World, Baby Girl"

Janine and Jerry Sprout: "Alpine Sierra Trailblazer" (guide/history of the areas from Tahoe - Yosemite)

Jefferey Schaeffer: "Natural History of the Tahoe Sierra"

Truman Capote also wrote some short stories... "A Christmas Memory" being one of my favorites. My Dad used to read it to us around the holidays.

Another of my favorite short stories is "The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst. Also "Once More to the Lake" by E.B. White.

Jaybro

Social climber

The West

Sep 28, 2006 - 07:59pm PT

T*, I mean, Strong, do you have the Tahoe Tree adventure book? I think maybe it's the same guy as your Nat history book (don't have it at hand)self published out of King's Beach, or somewhere like that. Lots of Geology for a tree book, I think the guy Is a retired geologist.

Standing Strong

Mountain climber

the trail

Sep 28, 2006 - 08:02pm PT

I don't. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I'll look it up online. I'd like to check it out. Tahoe trees are a toughie for me, so many conifers... and speaking of which, the blue spruce (tower) on highway fifty cracks me up everytime i drive by... I didn't know we had those out here!

cheers,

t*strong

scuffy b

climber

The town that Nature forgot to hate

Sep 29, 2006 - 11:55am PT

Funny, S S, I used to think the conifers were the easy part.
Unclear on your Blue Spruce reference. Are you saying there's
a building called Blue Spruce?

Tie-in to the topic: Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope,
George Sudworth. My copy is way way worn. It's loaded with
great line drawings, several per species, mostly life-size.
In some editions the big ones (Sugar Pine cone, original 23.5
inches) came on fold-outs. Published 1906.

Brian

Trad climber

Cali

Sep 29, 2006 - 12:15pm PT

Books I read again, and again:
Walden (Thoreau)
The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky)
Seven Story Mountain (Merton)
The Lord of the Rings (Tolkein)
Wind, Sand, and Stars (St. Exupery)
Starlight and Storm (Rebuffat)

Books everyone should check out, in addition to the above list:
Ishi, Last of His Tribe
Two Years Before the Mast
Dubliners
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
A Moveable Feast
The Snows of Kilamanjaro (esp. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Dove
Nature
Moby Dick
The Nicomachean Ethics
On the Brevity of Life

Wow, I could go on and on...

Great thread!

Brian

ryanb

climber

Seattle, WA

Sep 29, 2006 - 01:30pm PT

Heart of Darkness is definetly up there. Pretty amazing conrad didn't learn english till his twenties or something like that?

"V." (Pynchon) is the novel that allways gets thrown in my bag when i have no idea how many stale tent hours i'm in for. Heavily insipred by heart of darkness but signifigantly more ridicullous.

Pyncon recently promised that his next novel, due out in november, will contain his usual mix of mathematicians, drugs and cahracters that burst into song for no apparent reason.

Good stuff if your into that kind of thing.

Invisible Cities and Under the Jaguar sun (both Italio Calvino) are good if you don't mind the pretentiousnous.

malabarista

Trad climber

San Francisco, Ca

Sep 29, 2006 - 01:56pm PT

Michelle, can't believe you listed: Island of the Blue Dolphins...

I've had a tattered copy of that book since I was probably 12 years old. It is by Scott O'Dell. And of course Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle -that entire series is great.

Lots of books I treasure, but the ones I flip thru on a monthly basis are probably just these:

Essential Rumi (Coleman Barks), Tao Te Ching (Ursula LeGuin transliteration), and the Joseph Campbell Companion (Diane Osbon ed).

Michelle

Trad climber

If it's puny, don't waste my time.

Sep 29, 2006 - 02:33pm PT

Jaybro - I was a little let down by Children of God. I was happy that Sandoz's problem was resolved, but much of the excitement was lost since there was really nothing new to discover.. you can't top finding other people in outter space with much else and NOT be let down.

I recently reread Catcher in the Rye. didn't like it the second time either. Also, Summer of the Monkeys. (I went through my parents attic and low and behold, all of my books were there) I did read (sadly to admit) all (and I mean ALL) of the Sweet Valley High books.

What, nobody reads the Bible over and over again? What, with all the conservatism around here, someone has got to have that on their list..

KEK

Trad climber

Boulder, CO

Sep 29, 2006 - 02:40pm PT

I have not seen it yet so: The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, the original dirt baggers. I read it every summer.

FinnMaCoul

Trad climber

Green Mountains, Vermont

Sep 29, 2006 - 04:30pm PT

I was an english major and I still wouldn't REREAD some of the heavy stuff some of y'all list on here. I mean read 'The Brothers Karamazov' AGAIN? Geez (no offense) but geez.

Me, I always return to John D. McDonald. Ain't nothin more relaxing than rereading about the irrepressible Travis McGee.

But the most battered copies of anything I have are "Gypsy Moth Circles the World" by Sir Francis Chichester (a phenomenal adventure read) and "Starlight and Storm" by Gaston Rebuffat.

eeyonkee

Trad climber

Golden, CO

Sep 29, 2006 - 04:55pm PT

Outline of History - HG Wells

I've been re-reading individual chapters of this book (actually, a two-book set) for 20 years or more.

bvb

Social climber

flagstaff arizona

Sep 29, 2006 - 05:07pm PT

yeah, dittos on huck finn. i first read it when i was nine or ten years old, spending the summer on my grandparent's farm in central washington, and i found the same copy of the book that my dad had read as a child, buried away on one of their bookshelves.

probably read it 30 times since then. a lot of well-read, clear-thinking people beleive it is far and away the best novel ever written by an american writer.

G_Gnome

Boulder climber

Sick Midget Land

Sep 29, 2006 - 05:41pm PT

FinnMaCoul, try reading The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier.

Also a really good sailing read is Close to the Wind by Pete Goss about his Vendee Glove and his sailing back into hurricane force winds to rescue Raphael Dinelli. The early part of the book is a little slow but is a good look at what it takes to obtain sponsorship these days.

rbolton

Social climber

The home for...

Sep 29, 2006 - 06:03pm PT

How 'bout

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco

The Painted Bird and Being There, Jerzy Kosinski

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter Thompson

The Goldbug Variations, Richard Powers

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Pale Fire, Vladimir Nabokov

Dog Soldiers and Children of Light by Robert Stone

Any and all of Paul Bowles