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ddriver
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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Oct 21, 2009 - 06:58pm PT
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ddriver
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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Oct 21, 2009 - 06:59pm PT
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Oct 21, 2009 - 08:21pm PT
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What all men and women should do is read- and read often. Anything form the back of the soup can to every Louis L'Amour
Here's the murf list:
Huckleberry Finn i re-read it about every other year
Gone With the Wind I was bummed when it was over- My choice between Huck Finn for The Great American Novel
Mark Twain's 3 Travelogues: Roughing It, Innocents Abroad,Life on the River Read them to see Twain developing his style
All of the Freak Brothers Comix- Got me through college-very very funny
Desert Solitaire- Because of the honesty
Steinbeck: Cannery Row, Travels with Charlie, Log from the sea of Cortez- Because of the non-judgemental humanity
Tolkein Trilogy- What a story
Michael Herr's Dispatches- Viet Nam Viet Nam Viet Nam We've all been there
Bible= changed my life
Kerouac's On the Road-Written during Burr haircut 1950's america. So bad Ass
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Blitzo
Social climber
Earth
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Oct 21, 2009 - 08:51pm PT
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Sacajawea.
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Fritz
Trad climber
Hagerman, ID
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Oct 21, 2009 - 10:09pm PT
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Hats off to the previous literary pundits!!
I am going to stay on thread and keep this to the 10 books that sent me to where I am today. I will attempt to explain along the way.
I have read many of the classic books mentioned in previous posts, but they did not shape who I am. It appears that late 20th century authors have captured my imagination.
Also----thanks to Mr. E and Hobo Dan for reminding me of these gems of literature that every manly man should read.
I should further note that almost all women that I have tried to force these books on have found most: “boring, violent, and stupid.”
I will add that most all of these books read easily.
1. Catch 22, J. Heller. At age 13: this book changed my life. It had sex, war, and the real theme of: fighting the system. This book moved me from Young Republican to Liberal in a few sweaty, pubescent days.
2. Lord of the Flies, Golding. High school eye opener on just how bad, groups of your peers can be.
3. Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain. Skip digging for symbolism! Another high school eye-opener, that was easy reading.
4. Any of the older Heinlein science fiction books! They simply gave me another way to look at our culture, and what might become of it.
5. Autobiography of a Yogi, P. Yogananda. I was never very religious and still am not. This long book hit me like a “ton of bricks” in my early 20’s and allowed me to appreciate other people’s beliefs and the major world religions.
6. Sometimes A Great Notion, Ken Kesey. OK---I am guilty of following a theme here. This is another novel about people bucking the system. I think it is equal to “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and not as much of a downer.
7. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Journey, A. Lansing. It is a good idea to read this: so you can quit bitching about “how tough life is.”
8. The Monkeywrench Gang, Ed Abbey. Another book about someone who had the guts to fight the system.
9. Games Climbers Play. If you only read one climbing book-----this distills the best stories.
10. Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner. A non-fiction read on how the west has been shaped for “optimal water use.” My favorite quote from the book: “water runs uphill, towards money.”
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Oct 21, 2009 - 10:41pm PT
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dddriver
Good choices.
The Family of Secrets (about the shrub family)
Blackwater. . .
The Dark Side
And I can't imagine this was left out
Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
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BASE104
climber
An Oil Field
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Oct 21, 2009 - 11:01pm PT
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There is some damn good stuff above.
I agree with almost anything that Wallace Stegner wrote. I think Ed Abbey was a blowhard..mainly because I have been in a lot of the places he wrote about, and I thought he would go over the top. Philosphically I agree with him.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom is right up there. By T.E. Lawrence. Or just go rent Lawrence of Arabia and watch the movie. The book is way better if you can bite into it.
To be quite honest, I made it all the way to thirty reading nothing but Penthouse Forum in that hole under Bachar Cracker.
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Blitzo
Social climber
Earth
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Oct 21, 2009 - 11:41pm PT
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Ishi.
Real Frank Zappa Book.
Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga.
The Marijuana Papers.
Kaddish and Other Poems.
Your Brain is God.
The Good Earth.
The Old Man and the Sea.
Alive.
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex .
Downward Bound.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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Oct 21, 2009 - 11:57pm PT
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Bhagavad Gita
(recommended even by one of my patron saints, Thoreau;)
"The New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality, the best of the Vedic Scripture, for its pure intellectuality. But the reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in a bigger, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita's 'sanity and sublimity' have impressed the minds even of soldiers and merchants."
(edit; while I'm at it, Emerson seems to have liked it too:
"I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavat-Gita. It was the first of books; it was as if an empire spake to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions that exercise us.")
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mark miller
Social climber
Reno
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Oct 22, 2009 - 12:28am PT
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Great list Mr. E,(The peaceful Warrior was given to me in a bar room fight from an innocent bystander) and glad to see "Downward bound" on someone's list.
I really preferred the writings of Frank Herbert over Tolkeins but you say Tomato......The bible and other cornerstones of the modern world obviously should be required reading and the 40 ways of power by .....
But what about such delightful tales such as "A New Sweater for Harry" and " Where the Wild Things Are"? Reading can do more for the soul then just deep intellectual or spiritual self awareness, how about some whimsical Joy?
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Tready
climber
Montana
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Oct 22, 2009 - 12:45am PT
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If you're talkin' about "manly" books, how about something from Cormac McCarthy? The Old West, blood, violence, mayhem. How can you go wrong with that?
I'll second A Clockwork Orange. I have never hated a character so much, and then felt so bad for him.
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ontheedgeandscaredtodeath
Trad climber
San Francisco, Ca
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Oct 22, 2009 - 03:13pm PT
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At different stages I'd say the following were important to me:
1. Chronicles of Narnia/and Hobbit
2. Catch-22
3. Sometimes a Great Notion
4. Crime and Punishment
5. War and Peace
6. Soldier of the Great War
7. Out of Africa
8. The Virginian
9. Lolita
10. All of Ludlum's Jason Bourne novels!
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Homer
Mountain climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Oct 22, 2009 - 06:41pm PT
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To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch rules!
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JNB
Big Wall climber
Northridge
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Oct 22, 2009 - 06:57pm PT
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Failure is not an Option - Gene Kranz
The best book I ever read about the space program.
CMOS Cookbook
TTL Cookbook
Practical Electronics for Inventors
The Way Things Work (2 Book Set)
How Things Work (4 Book Set)
K2 - American Expedition
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Dodo
Trad climber
Spain/UK
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Oct 23, 2009 - 03:24am PT
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How to Sh#t In The Woods by Kathleen Meyer, and this one.
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o-man
Trad climber
Paia,Maui,HI
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Oct 23, 2009 - 05:01am PT
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I totally agree that every manuscript previously submitted is a must read!
I am pleased that I have the honor of nominating” GORILLA MONSOON” by John Long as my personal all time Favorite !
So there!
Way to go Largo!
IMHO: YOU hit a home run first time at bat!
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Oct 23, 2009 - 10:35am PT
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I think it is always interesting to hear what other people read. I have a good friend who is an avid reader and very well educated. He also travels a lot for work. His reading habits are based on only reading the books on the biggest display in airport book stores. I think he must read three per week. Rarely do we read the same things.
Picking just 10 is really thought provoking.
So, should this list be books that are for fun? To conform to our own customs and beliefs? Or, to get outside ourselves? For my ten, I pick the last category for the combination of two reasons: all of our sense of a broader self is based on what we have read (or seen in a movie or TV adaptation or heard from our parents based on what they have read or from a religious leader based on what she has read). Or more succinctly, our gods are literary characters. Secondly, our personal sense of self is arbitrary: time and place of birth, language and custom; wealth; etc. So to read is to tap into the nature of who we are and at the same time to escape our individual starting places.
Okay, here goes my totally fallacious list told in scholarly tones. (I can do scholarly tones way easier than I can do actual scholarship.) Can you guess which ones I have actually read cover to cover?
1 and 2. The “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” by Homer. Homer provides the first literary (at least to us) sense of mankind before science, philosophy, and monotheism. The stories also have the flow and characteristics of what we expect in a good read. And reading them back-to-back shows the skill of Homer in weaving the two stories together. It is a little startling to discover that 2700 years ago was not so distant. Fagle’s translation with Knox’s introduction (golden) and the pronouncing and proper name appendix (a godsend) is worth every hour spent.
3. The Bible. It is hard to read the Bible without getting stuck in personal religious beliefs. The Bible is only the starting point of Christian belief. In my opinion the best way to move down the path—not part of the ten—is to read Anne Armstrong’s “A History of God.”
4. The Bhagavad-Gita. I don't read Sanskrit, and I don’t have a recommendation for a more or less full translation.
5. The teaching of Buddha. I only have books starting from Zen. Maybe Karen Armstrong’s “Buddha” is the best introduction.
6. Greek plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes. Take your pick or read them all. This is the the beginning of modern Western civilization, dealing with reconcilation of the competing issues of human character, heroism, hubris, science, and self governance. Read as many as you can carry, but only count as one.
7. Dante “The Devine Comedy”. In my opinion, the first send-up of humanity and its relation to God; and perfectly grounded in Catholic dogma. Irony writ large. Turns the light on the Dark Ages. Also provides the updated travel guide to Hell following on from Virgil. It is worth thinking on how Dante managed to pull this off. Ask yourself what a modern version of "The Devine Comedy" would be-everyone known was named and placed in Hell, Purgatory, or Paradise, and Dante named himself as the best poet/writer of all time. Sounded good at the time. This is the only difficult book to read on my list. Unless you are a Catholic and late Middle Ages scholar, the people, places and events (and jokes) are impossible. I think that Dorothy Sayers’ translation is the best place to start since she includes very complete notes. She was a devout Catholic and for her the Devine Comedy is a strictly religious poem, but she still sees the fun and outrageousness of the whole concept. Her notes make it relatively easy going. If my chance you have read "The Name of the Rose" and liked it (I didn't) you would like the real deal wiht Dante. Many of the same historical characters show up in both.
8. Shakespeare's “King Lear”. Shakespeare filled in the whole canvas of defining human character in all of its manifestations and all in five beat lines. All plays and sonnets are worth reading many times.
9. Tolstoy. Take your pick. The modern world (late 19th Century version) is upon us and it is falling apart fast. There are many worthwhile books from the 19th century.
10. One left to cover the last 100 years. I think that is a tough call. There are lots of great novels written in the last 100 years. And many great non-fiction books. Even a few climbing books worth reading. But picking one that will be read in a 1000 years is impossible. This spot has traditionally fallen to James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. For sure this is a great novel, a writerly tour do force, that links back to all the prior literature of western civilization, and it confers great bragging rights on any one who finishes it with the ability to see all those allusions to the history of our literature. (In this sense, “Ulysses” could count for hundreds of books.) But in my opinion, it moved the needle on the writerly novel scale rather than on the seeing-humanness-in-a-new light scale.
So why not something from Beckett, or Graham Greene, or Kafka, or Borges, or Neruda, or Garcia, or Naipaul, or Coetzee, or Faulkner, or McCarthy, or Roth, or Delillo, or Updike, or…, or....
Okay. Time’s up.
So for 10, I pick McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian”. I think it is probably the best American novel, period. But more importantly for the thesis of breaking the arbitrariness of how we see outside ourselves and dealing with how we define and adhere to some sense of civilization, it belongs as a coda to the first nine. It is based on a real story of our history and it ties back through all of literature and human history. If you have read McCarthy’s recent books like ‘The Road” or “No Country for Old Men”, I suggest that you read the first nine books, or at least Homer’s contribution before you read “Blood Meridian.” You will see why.
I just read "White Tiger" by Adiga. I think that this is a modern classic.
Last thought: Read faster or die slower. Too many good things to read and do.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Oct 23, 2009 - 03:51pm PT
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Wow, Roger and I have a pretty similar list. While I didn't specifically identify King Lear, rather some of Shakespeare's plays, if I had to pick one it would be Lear. I wouldn't put Tolstoy in the top ten, although he is one of the great authors. I just think Dostoyevsky is better placed there.
It is interesting what other people read. This thread has kind of drifted from a 'top ten before you die' to 'the last good book I read.'
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Oct 23, 2009 - 04:37pm PT
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Some books that are good to read early in life, as training. Other books are good to read later in life, when you can twist your mouth into a wry smile as you read words that crystallize what you have lived and felt or struggled to define. I guess the 10 books should somehow be distributed between these.
Even if they were translated, I have a hard time thinking of 10 books that should be read by "All Men," i.e. peoples across all cultures. What I have come to appreciate is how fundamentally different can be the basic beliefs of different people, in terms of prioritizing Truth vs. Happiness (or it's cousin, Being Right vs. Being Happy), what is the meaning of love and how to show it, what is the meaning of respect and how to show it, what is the appropriate relationship and behavior of a person toward his family, friends, and the world at large. There are not many works which probe into truly universal laws to guide humanity or universal insights that explains a large swath of human experience. I think almost by definition, any work that attempts such a broad scope is going to be welcomed by some and roundly rejected by others. The world is just too diverse.
So, with this preamble I sidestep the brain-hurt of trying to find 10 books great for all humanity. Instead I'll pick a few I liked a lot:
 Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Man's Search for Meaning
Shantaram
Life of Pi
The Sea Around Us (Rachel Carson)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
And some important for bridging the gap in understanding between peoples of the world:
Bible
Quran
Bhagavat Gita (a subset of a bigger story)
I'm only halfway through it right now, but The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco) is pretty awesome for a view into the cultural evolution of the western world through the middle ages into the renaissance. It's good for reflecting on the kaleidoscope of human nature that led to a wide range of religious sects and the bloody power struggles amongst themselves, amongst sectarian governments, and the inter-relationships.
I guess that's 10. Whenever these things come up, I always end up including some of the things I've read most recently.
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Roger Breedlove
climber
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
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Oct 23, 2009 - 04:46pm PT
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Okay, Dostoevsky has replaced Tolstoy to cover the period from Shakespeare to the post- existentialist (the way I would think of it). Sounds so reasonable, doesn't it?
I think that picking a single work to cover the dawning of individualism and the collapse of the certainty of moral underpinnings is a bit crazy, but the limit of 10 books forces the issue everywhere. This would be fun to do in bar. "I'll trade you "The Odyssey" and "The Divine Comedy: Paradise" for a spot for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy with Gogol's "The Overcoat" thrown in. This was countered by "You can keep either Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, but not both, to make room for Dickens." Followed by another round bought by the guy who wants four spots for John Grisham (fun reads).
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