books, books, books

This is for all non-EC or peripheral-EC topics. We all know how much we love talking about 'The Man' but sometimes we have other interests.
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alexv
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Post by alexv »

History of Britain--Rebecca Fraser. I actually only made it to the Victorians. This is a "traditional" history, full of dates, kings, wars and such. I can't imagine anyone reading the whole thing and not coming away with a gigantic headache and a hatred for history. But it was fun to get a survey of the early history and the middle age stuff. She really does not like Germans, by the way. This is how she introduces the first Hanoverian king, George I:

"George I was a German Brunswick through and through. He was small, pop-eyed and jowly, and his methodical German ways extended even to his dealings with his mistresses. There were two of them, both Hanoverian. One was hugely fat, the other thin and superstitious. The English rapidly christened them the Elephan and the Maypole. Both passed every other night with the king, on a strictly rotating basis. Whichever mistress it was, the evening always passed in exactly the same way. A frugal supper having been consumed by just the two of them, they would play cards and listen to music. Then the king would begin his interminable cutting out of little silhouettes made of paper. The English thought he was insufferably dull, and his mistresses so ugly that they could see no point in his having them."

You think she's piled up enough stereotypes?
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Brilliant!
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King Hoarse
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Post by King Hoarse »

Everything I know about king George I (that he was 5'6" tall at the start of his reign but only 4'8" tall at the end of it, etc.) I learned from John Cleese singing "Oliver Cromwell" to the tune of Chopin's Polonaise No. 6 Op. 53 in Ab. I don't need no stinking bookses.
What this world needs is more silly men.
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mood swung
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Post by mood swung »

I read Memoirs of a Geisha yesterday, while lying miserable in my bed with the flu. Perfect for that sort of thing.
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laughingcrow
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Post by laughingcrow »

A Briefer History Of Time...edited version of the boring original, with colour pictures! I can't get into these quantum physics books at all...although I suppose Universe in a nutshell was half decent. Why are they so popular?

The Search for Schrodinger's Cat by John 'do I ever stop writing to sleep and eat?' Gribbin was a struggle after the first 'introductory' chapter...same with Greene's The Elegant Universe.
These are massive bestsellers though! My theory is that people buy them and pretend to have read them - leave them lying around when the in-laws are over, or stare at the pages with a knowing look/wry-smile on the tube.
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ReadyToHearTheWorst
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Post by ReadyToHearTheWorst »

laughingcrow wrote:My theory is that people buy them and pretend to have read them - leave them lying around when the in-laws are over, or stare at the pages with a knowing look/wry-smile on the tube.
Sounds about right - The Brief History of Time is, apparently, the least read best seller.

I quite enjoyed it, and enthused wildly that finally I understood what a black hole was. First Born immediately asked me to enlighten her, but I couldn't :oops: (although I do remember that they are actually blue).
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ice nine
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Post by ice nine »

LaughingCrow-

I read all but the last book of The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through The Lives of its Greatest Inventors by John Gribbin. Everything you wanted to know about science and discoveries are in the book. It is divided into five books with each book concentrating on a different science. The early chapters on Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and the early astronomers was very interesting.

I began to loose interest as Mr. Gribbon explained more modern discoveries such as DNA, atoms and molecule, and quantum theories.

If I am ever going to appear on Jeopardy I will read the last section. All in all, I would have to say it was a very interesting read.
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Who Shot Sam?
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Post by Who Shot Sam? »

Reading this at the moment (Arrr, Matey!....)

Image

Love this stuff.
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alexv
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Post by alexv »

Crow, you've got a point with all the science books, but for the past few years I've been hooked on them, and i make it to the end of most of them. Prior to my new obsession, science was something I had to do in school. Now, I gobble them up like there's no tomorrow. My favorites are books on all aspects of evolution (I recommend books by Matt Ridley and Sara Blaffer Hrdy), how the mind works (Pinker), relativity (Greene, Dyson), quantum mechanics (don't remember the author) and one I particularly enjoyed on, believe it or not, "Oxygen" (that was the title). I have a theory that we are in a golden age of science writing for the educated masses, and I'm loving it. Now if I only knew a little math, because I made the mistake of picking up this book by Roger Penrose which I thought was also general, and I could not make it past the second page.
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Post by laughingcrow »

Yeah, the only real problem I have is with the Quantum Physics or deep mathematics books...I just can't get my head around them - partly because of own limited knowledge in the field, and partl;y because they aren't very accomodating reads.
I've read The Blank Slate and The Red Queen - both good examples of good pop.science...maybe the issue is biology translates easier because it is, literally, more natural for us to understand. I also recommend Robin Dunbar's The Human Story, Lauren Slater's Opening Skinner's Box, anything by Richard Dawkins or Stephen Jay Gould, and I quite enjoyed Human Instinct by Robert Winston. I also love King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz - a bit outdated now, but he was one of the forefathers of animal behavioural science.
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Post by selfmademug »

My brother gave me WARPED PASSAGES: Unravelling the Myseries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions (Lisa Randall). I'll let you know if any of the mysteries of string theory or similar get unravelled, or if (as I fear instead) I end up feeling like a macrame freak at a bondage convention....

Almost finished with Zadie Smith's ON BEAUTY. Meh. Will write more when I'm done. The it's back to COLLAPSE..
alexv
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Post by alexv »

Crow, read Dawkins and Gould (also Dennett who is my favorite of the three). Agree with you that the physics stuff is a hard read: I have to go back to it over and over again to see if I get it (I sometimes don't). Will check out your suggestions.

Mug, I kinda cheated and skimmed through the last part of Collapse where he gets all fuzzy with his recommendations. I loved the case studies though.

Just finished (to the end, baby) TS Eliot's Collected Letters (reading collected letters has become another obsession) 1898-1922 and found them fascinating. I had the sense that he had been very mean to his first wife, and maybe after 1922 he did horrible things to her (did he put her in a mental asylum?), but the letters give you almost a day by day account of their life together in the early years of their marriage, and man that woman was a piece of work. She was basically "ill" through their entire marriage. The letters are very discreet as to what was actually wrong: she was always having to go away to the country for rest, but she was either nuts and or a hypochondriac or had the worst luck health-wise of any wife of a Nobel Prize winning poet that i've ever heard of. In any case, he was completely devoted to her during all this time (and she to him, to be fair) and I can't find any fault in his treatment of her. In fact, he deserves a medal. Ezra Pound, that lovable Fascist, comes across here, just like in his relations with Joyce, as one of the world's greatest mensches: he basically got Eliot published, encouraged him to veer away from philosophy and into poetry, and then harangued any and all to give, yes give, Eliot enough money so he wouldn't have to work at Lloyd's Bank (money was a constant worry for these early modernists). I know Pound went nuts later in life, but what he did early in his life gets him a pass in my book. Strangely enough, Eliot's anti-semitism doesn't crop up much in his letters: it gets subsumed whithin his general antipathy for most people. He did have a soft spot for the "English working class" of all people. From the letters you get the sense that his favorite job was teaching literature to workers in night classes for adults during the time of WWI. Eliot could be nasty, then you get things like the following: just prior to the war, Eliot is staying in Germany at a hostel; the war starts and he and other tourists have to bolt for England; cannot pay his last bit of rent; war ends; Eliot writes his mother that she should check on the amount of money he left unpaid, so that he can repay (with interest!!) his German hosts. Last thought: WWI's impact on daily life in England, especially London, really comes across in these letters.Highly recommended.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

I read a lot of Eliot in my student days, and like many was thrilled by him, but am hazy about his life. Whenever there have been books reviewed and with corresponding articles about him, the picture always seems to be of an obsessive compulsive with deep-rooted misogyny, and wasn't he a hypochondriac with it? Wasn't it his take that she was a nutjob when this was more his perspective than the reality? Not surprising if his letters paint another picture!

I've just read something altogether more simplistic:

Image
This was a (for me very rare) airport purchase. Hard to resist a book with a title like that! I feel like I've been following his career: Collins and Maconie on BBC Radio1 in the 90s, Q journalism too, more recently The Word. His stylistic limitations wear a bit thin over 300 pages, but it was fun to read. Even though I was a very different sort of student to him, I could relate massively to his account of living in a hall when at Chelsea College of Art in the mid-80s. He's a year or two younger than I am. Some nice observations, and some very funny set-pieces. Good to read on aeroplanes, which is where I finished it yesterday. Now onto this:

Image

An altogether different prospect. I've read the sublime Rings of Saturn, about him wandering around Suffolk and dipping in and out of all sorts of historical scenarios connected with the journey. This explores layers of time and place. Translated from German in wonderful prose. These reviews give a suitably enthusiastic sense of it.

He died tragically a few years ago with his daughter in a motorbike accident in Norfolk, where he lived. They crashed into a lorry, which is precisely what happened to my father's father and sister 50 years ago on their motorbike. The kind of eerie Sebaldian fact which attracts me to him even more. Will report back.
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invisible Pole
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Post by invisible Pole »

Started reading "The Olive Labyrinth", the third installment in Eduardo Mendoza's trilogy of the adventures of a Barcelona petty crook-cum-detective.

I have only read about 30 pages, but, as with the two earlier parts (which I mentioned here) I love the sense of humour, the incredibly funny characters and the mastery of language.

Highly recommended !
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BlueChair
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Post by BlueChair »

While on vacation I read Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, the best work of fiction I've read in quite a while. It fictionalizes history, and looks at what would happen to a typical Jewish American family had Charles Lindbergh become president in 1940, beating out FDR.
This morning you've got time for a hot, home-cooked breakfast! Delicious and piping hot in only 3 microwave minutes.
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Wanna read it, and all the other recent Roths I haven't got as far as!
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laughingcrow
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Post by laughingcrow »

Michael Bywater's LOST WORLDS (What have we lost, and where did it go?) - very amusing musings on the things British society has lost since it's 'heyday'
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mood swung
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Post by mood swung »

Something possessed me to check The Executioner's Song out from the library. This is week 3, and I can tell you with certainty that it is at least 300 pages too long. Die, Gilmore! Die! Which is to say that what was probably shocking about this when it came out is all too common now.
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laughingcrow
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Post by laughingcrow »

Reading The State Of Africa: History of 50 years of Independence by Martin Meredith - absolutely fascinating!
alexv
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Post by alexv »

Started and could not finish "The Pound Era" by Hug Kenner. The only reason I can think of why this man was reputed to be the authority on Pound is that his stuff was equally incomprehensible.

Started and finished "Defining the World" by Henry Hitchings, about the making of Johnson's Dictionary. Read it because I've recently come to truly dislike Johnson and wanted to give him another chance. Still dislike him. Good book though.
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miss buenos aires
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Post by miss buenos aires »

Just started re-reading "The Great Gatsby," for the first time in ten years, because I want to assign it to some of my advanced students. Wow. I mean, really. Wow.
alexv
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Post by alexv »

It's one of my favorite novels of all time, MBA, and I put it at the top of the list of great american novels. That beginning, especially, is I think one of the great (and wisest) openings to any novel. The writing in that opening section is just a string of perfect sentences: wise, beautiful sentiments, gorgeously expressed.
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Masterpiece?
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Post by Masterpiece? »

Just started A Home at the End of the World, because I saw the movie and just knew that there had to be more to the story & characters than that. And there is.

(First post in this thread, apologies if it's already been discussed to death)
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Tim(e)
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Post by Tim(e) »

I seem to be reading nothing but fantasy for my 6 year old son at the moment. I have been buying a lot of Dianna Wynne Jones (author of Howl's Moving Castle) lately and prior to reading them to my son I always give them a going through first; otherwise each book can last for weeks on end - must be something in my presentation that sends him off to sleep after about two pages.

At the moment I am reading a series called The Chrestomanci Novels which are very engaging. I had already read Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Air and A Tale of Time City and now I also have a quartet of books by Ursula Le Guin called the Earthsea Collection (these are to be incorporated into the next Studio Ghibli animated production under the direction of Hayao Miyazaki's son.

Once I have managed to get through all of those I have a treat for myself waiting in the form of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore... but who knows how long it will be before I am immersed in that.

Also, for anyone who may be interested and not already aware of this place, there is a site called Book Closeouts which has books at very reasonable prices (try up to 70% off) and ships internationally - the only catch is that you have to catch them at the right time if you are after a particular title.
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miss buenos aires
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Post by miss buenos aires »

Tim(e) - Was it in a book by Diana Wynne Jones where the boy writes in his journal, "I got up, I got up, I GOT UP!"? Where "I got up" is a code for how much he hates school? Is that "Witch Week"? I loved that book to death. Also "A Tale of Time City."
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