Anybody read a good book lately?

Started by MURP, March 16, 2002, 12:34:25 AM

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Diomedes

Christ, that's as cool as Zanshin's rock star son.  Good on you.
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

ice grillin you

some chick just came out with a novel called gonzo girl that acts as a loosely based real life experience of her time as hunter s thompsons assistant in the early 90's thats supposed to be very good
i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous

rjs246

Quote from: ice grillin you on July 25, 2015, 09:02:39 AM
some chick just came out with a novel called gonzo girl that acts as a loosely based real life experience of her time as hunter s thompsons assistant in the early 90's thats supposed to be very good

IN
Is rjs gonna have to choke a bitch?

Let them eat bootstraps.

ice grillin you

Quote from: rjs246 on July 25, 2015, 03:57:43 PM
Quote from: ice grillin you on July 25, 2015, 09:02:39 AM
some chick just came out with a novel called gonzo girl that acts as a loosely based real life experience of her time as hunter s thompsons assistant in the early 90's thats supposed to be very good

IN

yeah i figured you and dio would be IN
i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous

Seabiscuit36

I was mildly disappointed that the title wasn't about her time in the Adult Film industry
"For all the civic slurs, for all the unsavory things said of the Philadelphia fans, also say this: They could teach loyalty to a dog. Their capacity for pain is without limit." -Bill Lyons

smeags

#1355
thought this would be the best place to post this - not sure how many of you may have read the comic strip "bloom county" back in the day but Berkeley breathed started it back up in july.
If guns kill people then spoons made Rosie O'Donnel a fatass.

Quote from: ice grillin you on March 16, 2008, 03:38:24 PM
phillies will be under 500 this year...book it

Rome


phattymatty

Quote from: ice grillin you on July 25, 2015, 09:02:39 AM
some chick just came out with a novel called gonzo girl that acts as a loosely based real life experience of her time as hunter s thompsons assistant in the early 90's thats supposed to be very good

i read this a week or two ago. meh. i mean i guess it was entertaining enough but knowing what it was based on, i expected more.

Diomedes

Went up to Deep Creek this weekend for three nights.  Read a book.

John Renehan's The Valley

Thriller/detective style novel set in modern day (war-consumed) Afghanistan.  It was a page turner.  I have some confusion about who did what and how it all went down in the end.  Perhaps that's the point, I don't know.  Seems more like the end wasn't flushed out as well as it could have been.  With another edit and review, the author might have retained all the excitement and suspense, but cleared up some of the confusion.

It was well received and may have said it gives a good primer to what life is like in our current war in Afganistan. 

Fell into my lap and I read it; have no particular interest in the genre, if you will.

Now that I'm back to normal life, probably won't actually finish a book for a long time.   Well, other than the ones I read to my children.  Recently wrapped up Treasure Island, moving on to Call of the Wild next.  Reading these aloud at night turns out to be more fun than getting drunk and watching football.  that is incredibly accurate.
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

Yeti

Read the whole Fire and Ice series from Martin.  Good story, too much time spent on food and banner descriptions.  Now i'm waiting for the next book like the rest of the world
"It's only a matter of time before we get to the future."

Hbionic

Diomedes

The older I get the less I can tolerate television and movies.  I watch basically nothing but Eagles football.  I can go years without seeing a movie.  The only way I can entertain myself is by being active, not passive.  Games and puzzles work.  That is, I'm able to forget myself for a while as I'm busy figuring shtein out in the game.  And of course, there's reading.  Without books, I'd probably just rather die. 

Recently:

Frederick Douglass --  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave - Holy shtein this man was a giant.  Fascinating to read this man's first account of his life as a slave in parts of the world that I know pretty well.  Among other things I liked Douglass' observations of people's character.  He put flesh and blood into the figures of different slavers who traded him, as well as some of his fellow slaves.  I could see in my imagination the fields he was made to work under Covey, and also the ships at Fell's Point in Baltimore.  Fascinating read. 


Nicholas Monsarrat --  The Cruel Sea - An account of wartime life aboard the British corvette class convoy escort ships of WWII.  I knew little of this part of the war prior...America sitting over there doing farg all as the Germans enjoyed years of target practice taking out merchant ships from their U boats.  I was surprised by how modern the language was--a few anachronistic phrases and the like but generally it was the same English we use today.  It's characters are good at Sea but on land, and in matters of domestic life, they flag and their stories smack of cliche.  From what I gather, this book was an amalgamation of several shorter pieces Monsarrat had written previously, and is considered his best work.


Erik Larson --  Devil in the White City - Two subjects addressed in tandem, set in the same time and place (roughly):  the effort by Chicago's (and eventually, America's) leading architects to produce the World's Fair of 1893, and the career of on of America's first famous serial killers.  I found the former story fascinating, and ate it up, but the latter uninteresting and a chore.  I couldn't care less about serial killers and their methods.  The cop who eventually figured it all out was interesting.  As for the Fair, I couldn't get enough of that.  As a carpenter, I was fascinated by the scale of the building, and the characters who lead the Fair are a laundry list of Important people from the time.  Well worth the read just for the education about Chicago and the Fair at the end of the 19th century. 


Phillip K. Dick --  The Man in the High Castle - Billed as "alternate history" and "science fiction" at once, this is the first of Dick's work that I've read.  I'm broadly aware of his place in the canon of American writing, and also that he was an all-time speed freak, neither of which helped me to appreciate the book any better than I might have done if I came to it completely ignorant of the man.  As it happened, I suspected from the start that I was merely being dragged along in the frantic uppers-rush of his writing by the idiotic genius you think you've become amidst the crazy flow of thoughts that cascade relentlessly though an amphetamine-besotted mind.  The actual language was interesting and if not exactly a pleasure to read, it was definitely something more accomplished than the unremarkable style of Erik Larson, which I read just before this.  At the end of Man..Castle, I was just glad to be done, and despite his reputation for putting big questions to the reader, I didn't find anything in it too very interesting.  Clever idea, Japan taking the U.S. from CA to the Rockies, and the Germans getting the rest, etc.  But the whole circular, self-referential b.s. about an important author writing a book of alternate history in which America wins the war was just too clever by half.  I could be persuaded otherwise perhaps, but I don't think this is anymore than pseudo-intellectual jerking off, that passes well in coffee shops with young edgy people...  I'll give his work another chance some day, as I'm told that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is better.


John Le Carre --  The Spy Who Came in from the Cold -- This was my first exposure to Le Carre, and I loved it.  What an outstanding breath of fresh air the writing was after the jarring staccato of The Man in the High Castle.  Concise, sharp, excellent writing, with good characters and momentum.  I'm not a spy novel guy, or into mysteries, so this was not typical reading.  The closest I've come to the genre is some Eric Ambler.  I was glad to find that it is not a page turning spy thriller along the lines of Tom Cruise movies, but instead more of a rumination on black questions about how far one can go in opposing evil without becoming so.  I often wonder it it will always require a Stalin to defeat a Hitler, as it were, and the abdication of morality that is accepted, even embraced, by the spies who are supposedly fighting to preserve good things, is good shtein to chew on with a second deep whiskey in the evening.  I will read Le Carre again now that I find he's doing more than just spinning yarns about dashing spies.

Richard Price -- The Whites  - Very good modern American writing, page turning cops story, written in short passages that come off more like a script for the Wire than as a novel, but entertaining nevertheless.  Hardly an important work, nothing really to chew on here, but a pleasant read and Price nails modern urban American life.  I've also read Lush Life--which I think was better than The Whites--and would recommend Price as a not-quite frivolous page turner, but that's all.  If for no other reason, his language is top notch.  Some passages are so packed with fresh, accurate descriptions of people's motives, or expressions, etc. that they warrant re-reading and underlining as examples of talented writing.

Edgar Lee Masters --  Spoon River Anthology - Published 1915, this book is something else.  Masters offers a portrait of small town middle America that strips the facade of wholesome rural-values, and reveals the truth:  sex with people you'r not supposed to farg, murder, suicide, lifelong misery, graft and charity alike, all these things better and worse, thrive wherever the human heart beats...not just in the big cities.  The most interesting thing to me, other than the indictment of those small town Americans who like to see themselves (in today's lingo) as people of family values, as being no better than those denizens of iniquity in the City, is the way the story is told:  Master gives the reader an epitaph from each of dozens and dozens of townfolk.  Short passages that link one to another, the more so the better you pay attention.  But that's the rub:  he's given the reader such small chunks of narrative that it's easy to sample a bit now and a bit later, like snacking, rather than taking good long sections at a time, like a meal.  If the reader succumbs to the lure of taking the tale in bits and pieces, he will miss a great many of the connections that give the book depth.  In order to appreciate the larger tapestry, you really need to read the book through in big sections, but the format almost begs the reader to take small bites rather than a whole meal.  I'd love to ask Masters why he chose this method.  I think I will re-read this one some time sooner than later, because I'm sure I've missed subtle connections that enrich the work.

Next up, either The Sot Weed Factor, by John Barth, or Toland's Adolf Hitler.  Likely, the latter.  When reading The Man in the High Castle, I was ashamed by how little I knew of the few prominent Nazis mentioned.  I mean, I broadly get that Rommel was a tank guy in Africa, and Goebbals was the propaganda guy and all that, but I realized that I need to know the Nazis and their history better than I do.  Toland was recommended to me as an excellent start upon the European WW2 and Nazi history.  I do like big books, too...if they are good there's nothing like 1000 pages of something to suck me out of my own world.  This one might not be such a pleasant diversion as Middlemarch or Moby Dick, but it comes highly praised as being readable, etc.  We'll see.

Anyone else doing some good reading?
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

Diomedes

I forgot to mention:

William March -- Company K -- Another book, like Spoon River Anthology, composed of vignettes from fictional characters, rather than a long form narrative.  This one also has connections between some of the different accounts, but is not as reliant on the inter-relations between the characters for the reader to appreciate the work.  This is a book about serving in World War 1 -  March was a U.S. Marine - and it's brutal shtein.   Here is another book (like Cruel Sea that was published at a time - 1933-- when i would have thought social mores would prevent such frank language and treatment of terrible things, and again, it's surprisingly modern in language.  I guess not a lot has changed in the 90 years or so since it was published, but it's just not full of terms of phrase or idioms that I find archaic.  Could just be a (very old) grandpa speaking straight to you.  Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed it, if you could call it that.  The characters are dreamt up, but Studs Terkel couldn't tell you that if the author claimed otherwise, they seem so real.  Highly recommended.
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

Diomedes

#1362
Since my last post, I've been reading more books.  I ought to read more, but I'm a pseudo-intellectual, not the real deal.

Hitler - John Toland
Straight history, this one.  Very little commentary from the author at all.  I read this because, as mentioned above, I was woefully ignorant of the principal Nazi players, and figured a biography of Hitler was the best place to start because he was the Sun about which all these other monsters orbited.  Turns out, Hitler is far less interesting to me than they are, which I suspected would be the case.  To my way of thinking, AH was little more than a (wildly successful) cult leader.  His henchmen though, they were a different matter, much less inscrutable.  Now I have a much better understanding of who they were, which one did which when, etc.  As with any good book, I find that now I want to read more on the subject.  In particular, it's clear I don't know nearly enough about Stalin, Churchill, or Roosevelt.  I need to take up similarly brick-sized bios of those three before I go too much deeper into WWII, I think.  But other subjects and people are also interesting to me now that I know more of the European theater and the Nazis generally.  A book on the henchmen would be a good idea, too.   I recommend this one highly to anyone who wants a good primer on Hitler, the Nazis generally, and the European theater as well.  It's not a page turning thriller, but neither is it a slog.  The research is top notch, etc.

A Tender Soldier - Vanessa Gezari
Here is a book about another horror - the so-called war on terror, and in particular, Afghanistan.  This one focuses on a program by which the U.S. Army started embedding trained social scientists, actual anthropologists, with combat teams, because they recognized that the lack of cultural understanding was causing the military to make incredibly bad decisions about who to kill and who to partner with, etc.  Our military is so clueless that they were/are literally killing people who hate the Taliban, but make their money as criminals or drug dealers, and we can't tell anyone from anyone because we're  the ultimate foreigners.  The story centers on one incident, but fans out to give a picture of the whole program, and reads like a very long article for the Atlantic, or some such piece.  Huge index/source list to back up the reporting, etc.  Well written.I have to say though, that I had the sneaking feeling I"ve read the story of people who think they can make war better before.  It never ends well.  It usually ends horribly.  There's a scene mentioned in this book about a soldier who's brand of community engagement is screaming STOP MOTHERfargER at checkpoints, and to be honest, I'm not sure his tactics were any worse than the program described, sending over people to act as not-spy spies who understand the locals. Once you're at war, seems to me that "kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out," is no worse an attitude than any other.

Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
A great great pleasure.  Woodrow Call added to my short list of favorite characters, ever.  I love to get high, have taken very large doses of strong drugs that made me see hear and feel shtein that was fantasy....no drug has ever come close to the kind of transport that a great book like Lonesome Dove can do.  For a few weeks, I could check out of this shtein life and into the plains, damn near smelling the horses and coughing on the dust from the driven herd of cattle.  I was moping about for a few days after finishing the book, wishing it had gone on for another 700 pages.  There are four or five other volumes that McMurtry wrote in this universe.  If any one of them is half as good as this was, they'll all be worth my time.  I look forward to them.
I don't watch moving pictures often because I begrudge the power they have to supplant the impression of a work that my imagination has created.  I don't want to see Robert Duvall in my head every time I think of Gus McCrae; I want to think of the fuzzy, poorly defined version of my own.  So I won't be watching the mini-series, but I hear it's also great, so if you can't read the book, then I suggest taking in the mini series.  It's apparently almost as good as the book.

The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge - M.T. Anderson and Eugene Yelchin
This is a clever tale for young readers (10-14) written in both pictures and chapters.  In order to understand the story, you need to read both, by following the picture chapters closely, and then of course, reading the prose chapters.  It's a tale about perception of others, of the enemy in particular, of understanding, etc.  I enjoyed it.  If you know a thoughtful kid with an interest in art, especially gothic styled art, this might be a good birthday or Christmas present.

Red Notice - Bill Browder
Brisk, succinct, plainly written account of the tale that, eventually, concluded in the passage of the Magnitsky Act in the United States.  Russia is a corrupt place.  Bill Browder spells out how he learned that, and what it cost him to learn it, without too much boring financial exposition or detail about the diplomatic work it required to bring the world's attention to bear upon corrupt Russia.  The sections of the book in which Mr. Browder talks about falling in love with each of his wives can be skipped.Russia is a pretty lousy place, folks.

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight - Jimmy Breslin
This is a satire, loosely based on the criminal career of Joey Gallo, known previously to me only by the Bob Dylan song "Joey" on the album Desire.  To be frank, it's a timepiece.  I got through it, and did laugh at a few of the barbs, but in order for a good satire to work, you have to be familiar with the subject being skewered.  I've read a few books and seen a few movies that give me an idea of the times, but it's hard to appreciate from my vantage point.  Readers who remember the days when Italians ran the mob in NYC might appreciate it better.  Breslin's writing -- a bit dated -- is very good, of course.

The Dog Stars - Peter Heller
Dystopian/post apocalyptic fiction centered on a man who has survived the collapse of modern American civilization by partnering with a prepper/gun-nut survivalist.  The two live in the remains of a tiny airport, constantly patrolling the perimeter and occasionally fighting off intruders.  The protagonist ventures out beyond the perimeter, and things happen.  The writing is especially good, and the characters interesting.  There were a couple passages that were suspenseful to the degree that I put the book down, got up, and walked it off for a few minutes before returning.  Talented writer, I was disappointed by a few minor things that distracted from the overall effect.  If one employs very unusual words, (e.g. 'soughing') or uncommon metaphors, (e.g. 'the winter of his/her eyes'), one ought not to repeat them in close proximity to each other in the text.  Or at all, actually.  There's something about the way the author depicts the relationship between the protagonist and two different other men that's really deep.   It's a buddy novel, in a way.  On balance, I enjoyed the book a lot. 

Fatal Voyage - Dan Kurzman
An account of the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in August of '45.  The ship was a special one, fast and pretty, and used as the flagship for Admiral Spruance, among other things, one of which  was close to my family:  bombardment of Iwo Jima prior to landing.  Anyway, right at the end of the war, the ship was sent on a secret mission to deliver critifcal parts of "Little Boy."  Having successfully completed that mission, the Indianapolis was returning when a lucky Japanese submarine sunk it.  Bad news for those sailors.  But it got worse:  the damage was so immediate and severe, the giant ship sank so rapidly, almost no SOS signals were issued.  And since the ship was sort of special, and on a special trip, and the Navy is a rats nest of bureaucracy, no one noticed that the ship had not returned...for five days.  Almost 900 men survived the sinking, only to be left for five days in shark infested waters, with no food water, or in many cases, even rafts.  316 survived, barely, after  a chance spotting by a U.S.pilot on a routine patrol.  Worst disaster in U.S. Naval history, just as the war ending.  To make matters worse, the Navy scapegoated the captain of the Indianapolis (who survived) and it wasn't until 1990 that his name was finally cleared by an act of congress.  That was of little consolation to the dishonored captain, who killed himself well beforehand.Well researched  and documented story.  Well written.  Glad I know more about it now, but this one is just grim all around.

The Overstory - Richard Powers
This novel won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2018.  Extremely well crafted and balanced, with powerful writing.  I stalled out for a while trying to get to the point where the various threads start being woven together.  You can file this one under "serious" or "important" reading, rather than "fun" or as an "escape."  The subject matter is trees, forests, and the damage we do to them, and ourselves, by consuming ever more, always more, than can be replenished.  It's called "environmental fiction" in reviews, but I think that's not quite fair.  I mean, it does focus on the unqualified disaster we are creating and witnessing, but the questions it raises about what life is, which life deserves value, etc. are questions that run deeper than "the environment."  Some of you meatheads won't give it a second thought but it's a serious question worthy of sustained discussion:  what makes a human so much more valuable than a tree?  Highly recommended reading.


The "to read" stack is a more of a tower.  I'm not sure where I'm going next.  Probably something fun and escapist.
There is considerable overlap between the intelligence of the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists." - Yosemite Park Ranger

PhillyPhreak54

I'll be coming back to your list. I want to read the Hitler one and like you dive into the central players in WWII. It's my favorite period to read and learn about.

I've got about nine books to plow through. All fiction stuff (Lee Child, Stephen King, etc)

ice grillin you

its wwII for dummies not any sort of deep dive a 700 page book is going to give you but netflix has a excellent really well done series called greatest events of wwII thats redone in color....its probably not great for wwII nerds but for beginners i dont think you can do any better...and a lot of the video they have from the war is so good
i can take a phrase thats rarely heard...flip it....now its a daily word

igy gettin it done like warrick

im the board pharmacist....always one step above yous