The Swamp

Just finished


On to


then will finally finish

Johnnie wrote:Started reading Born To Run finally. I'm about a third of the way in and I like it a lot.

Overall, I have this knack for owning books and never actually bothering to read them. It's like I think I'll get to them through osmosis or something. It's funny when people look at my bookcase they make this weird face and can only go "Wow...what a wild set of books you have. There's no particular genre and they all seem pretty cool." Then I say "I have yet to read most of these, so I'll let you know....eventually." For a moment I feel smart and then I'm too much of an honest person to keep the lie afloat.

When I was a younger man, opening a book was a big deal as 95% of the time I finished the book. Even when it was a tough slog, I always managed to finish it.

Now, my patience is thin and I finish maybe a third of the books I start. Luckily the Toronto library system is amazing - that's where I get the majority of my books. That way, if I get bored or fed up by page 25, I am under no financial obligation to finish the book. My record for giving up on a book is 16 pages.

I enjoyed Lunatics. I listened to it, and they each read half the book. I think that enhanced the experience.

phxgators wrote:

BTTG wrote:Amazing, a one-month old child has not really slowed reading down

Just wait a few months...

Correct. The amount of reading/television viewing/free time of any type decrease with every passing month. Its all good though.

Pruitt wrote:When I was a younger man, opening a book was a big deal as 95% of the time I finished the book. Even when it was a tough slog, I always managed to finish it.

Same here. Every word, right to the bitter end.

Pruitt wrote:Now, my patience is thin and I finish maybe a third of the books I start. Luckily the Toronto library system is amazing - that's where I get the majority of my books. That way, if I get bored or fed up by page 25, I am under no financial obligation to finish the book.

Absolutely, yes. While I stop short of getting angry for my time having been wasted (I picked up the damn book after all) life is too short and there is copious amounts of brilliance to explore. If it sucks, it gets tossed.

Pruitt wrote:My record for giving up on a book is 16 pages.

C'mon! Don't leave us hanging like that! What was it?

I can't say for certain how many pages was my quickest trashing but I recently made it through about 15-20 minutes of In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made by Norman Cantor before firing it across the room; thank goodness for libraries, indeed. I was looking for a decent history of the plague in Europe (don't ask) and that hunk of junk is hands down the worst non-fiction writing I've come across in ages.

The latest book i gave up on was Absurdistan. Just didn't care for it at all.

Picked up my mother's copy of Shakespeare that she used in college and decided to read some of the stuff that she did way back in the day. On A Comedy of Errors. Shakespeare is difficult to read, you almost have to imagine you're watching a play and not just a scene in your head. Best part is seeing her familiar handwriting in the margins, taking me back to fifty years ago when she was reading the exact same passages.

I've always maintained that reading a play and expecting to get to the heart of it is like reading sheet music and expecting to hear a symphony.

There are exceptions, of course, and Shakespeare is one of them in the sense that the plays can be read for the pure enjoyment of the poetry. And, let's face it, he did say it all.

The Comedy Of Errors in particular should be seen, given that the two sets of identical twins are very much visual ("twins" being an effect that was in Shakespeare's time achieved with make-up or masks). Granted, the wordplay Shaker provides for the two sets of identical twins is tremendous in its own right.

Yard of Junk wrote:

phxgators wrote:

BTTG wrote:Amazing, a one-month old child has not really slowed reading down

Just wait a few months...

Correct. The amount of reading/television viewing/free time of any type decrease with every passing month. Its all good though.

I hear you, I fully expected to have done nothing of the sort over the last four weeks, so what time I have had has been a very pleasant surprise. A 30-40 minute commute each way helps.

Still, I'd much rather spend time with her, so my to-read list has now been pared down to the barest of essentials - if a book doesn't have the potential to either be a) brilliantly mind-expanding or b) a vapid break from having my mind expanded, it won't be getting much of a look. At least not for the next 18 years or so.

I actually found that I was able to read a fair amount, assuming you don't mind to read with a child in your arms.

And at nap time. And at 10 PM when you might have gone out before. Etc.

Scottie wrote:

Pruitt wrote:My record for giving up on a book is 16 pages.

C'mon! Don't leave us hanging like that! What was it?

J-Pod by Douglas Coupland.

Saw it at the library and vaguely remembered liking something he'd written years earlier. Barely started it and was getting irritated. Looked at the size of the book and said "fuck it."

I read Battlefield Earth beginning to end. BEAT THAT.

Pruitt wrote:J-Pod by Douglas Coupland.

Yikes. Can't say I blame you; it's unspeakably bad. Unsurprisingly, the CBC turned it into a television series.

Scottie wrote:I was looking for a decent history of the plague in Europe (don't ask) and that hunk of junk is hands down the worst non-fiction writing I've come across in ages.

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly was quite good.

Thanks, Rush. Very much. I had that on an ILL hold over in YYJ but had to cancel it when we moved. Forgot about that. The Burnaby Library just happens to have a copy on the stacks; I'll grab it on the weekend.

Years ago I read The Black Death by Philip Ziegler. That's a good one, too, although dry as could be. Highly informative, fascinating, sure. But oh so dry. Like it needed a vacuuming.

Well Kelly has a very interesting theory on where the plague came from (before the rats in Venice and the other Mediterranean city-states.)

I really should reread that. Been 8-9 years since I've read it (and I own two copies.)

I thought the theory was that the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia as they crashed across western Europe. They even intentionally spread it in some cities, hurling diseased bodies over city walls via catapults (the first biological warfare?).

Shirley wrote:I thought the theory was that the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia as they crashed across western Europe. They even intentionally spread it in some cities, hurling diseased bodies over city walls via catapults (the first biological warfare?).

In the recent History channel show Mankind they showed a graphic re-enactment of this. I've been on an anti-Mongol rampage since I saw this...

Pruitt wrote:

Shirley wrote:I thought the theory was that the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia as they crashed across western Europe. They even intentionally spread it in some cities, hurling diseased bodies over city walls via catapults (the first biological warfare?).

In the recent History channel show Mankind they showed a graphic re-enactment of this. I've been on an anti-Mongol rampage since I saw this...

But you'll still eat their BBQ, right?

Shirley wrote:I thought the theory was that the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia as they crashed across western Europe. They even intentionally spread it in some cities, hurling diseased bodies over city walls via catapults (the first biological warfare?).

Marmots.

The Sybian wrote:

Pruitt wrote:

Shirley wrote:I thought the theory was that the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia as they crashed across western Europe. They even intentionally spread it in some cities, hurling diseased bodies over city walls via catapults (the first biological warfare?).

In the recent History channel show Mankind they showed a graphic re-enactment of this. I've been on an anti-Mongol rampage since I saw this...

But you'll still eat their BBQ, right?

I'm slowly making peace with them.

Rush2112 wrote:

Shirley wrote:I thought the theory was that the Mongols brought the plague with them from Asia as they crashed across western Europe. They even intentionally spread it in some cities, hurling diseased bodies over city walls via catapults (the first biological warfare?).

Marmots.

(yep. Any excuse for me to reference TBL. Almost bought this yesterday: )

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TIME-MAN-OF-THE ... 417516340c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Maybe I should post this in the soccer thread too -- but this is awesome.

Lonesome dove.

If you like McMurtry, try Anything For Billy.

Brontoburglar wrote:Maybe I should post this in the soccer thread too -- but this is awesome.

I must read this one!

Scottie wrote:If you like McMurtry, try Anything For Billy.

This is my first exposure to McMurtry, actually.

Anything For Billy, although it is ostensibly about Billy The Kid, is written from the viewpoint of a dime store novelist. And it is written in the form of a dime store novel; that is what is appealing about it. McMurtry fans (and they are typically hard core) complained that "Hey, this isn't like Lonesome Dove! What the hey? Therefore this sucks!" They're wrong, of course. No, it is nothing like Lonesome Dove, nor is it supposed to be. McMurtry is a big fan of century-old dime store novels so he wrote one himself. I've read a few McMurtry novels (including the one you're now reading); Anything For Billy is my favorite. As far as Western genre writing goes, yeah, Dove is his best, for sure; it's the most McMurtry of the McMurtry novels.

So, I'm listening to The Gunslinger, by Stephen King, the first book in his Dark Tower series. I listened to this one many years ago, but was never interested enough to go further into the series. Now, I remember why. This book is pretty meh. King is a great storyteller, usually creating page turners even when you don't find the story otherwise silly. This one is a bit more of a slog though.

So tell me, folks. Is it worth it? Does the Dark Tower series get better? I mean, I'll go ahead and finish this one, as it's not that long, but dare I go on to book 2?

Started in on Brave New World. I'm through the first 50 pages or so. I'm having trouble following it because of the way he writes. Or I'm just dumb. Either way.

Shirley wrote:So, I'm listening to The Gunslinger, by Stephen King, the first book in his Dark Tower series. I listened to this one many years ago, but was never interested enough to go further into the series. Now, I remember why. This book is pretty meh. King is a great storyteller, usually creating page turners even when you don't find the story otherwise silly. This one is a bit more of a slog though.

So tell me, folks. Is it worth it? Does the Dark Tower series get better? I mean, I'll go ahead and finish this one, as it's not that long, but dare I go on to book 2?

I recently read the first 100 pages of his Joyland and just didn't care enough to pick it up again.

Buddy of mine has become a Stephen King maniac and he tells me that 11/22/63 is incredible. Any opinions?

I like pretty much all Stephen King. I liked 11/23/63, but it isn't King's best. THe first 300 pages were tough for me, but it got better.

Joyland was supposed to be different, and I ended up really liking it. He created some good characters in that one, with a decent twist involved.

I have read the first three Dark Towers and will eventually end up finishing it I am sure as I run out of King that I haven't read, but I am not as big of a fan of that series as most of his other stuff.

And I am really enjoying Lonesome Dove.

11/23/63 was the most I've enjoyed a new King book in QUITE some time (15 or so years?), so while incredible seems a little too lofty I did very much enjoy it.

Since I get pretty much all my recommendations from this thread, I'm now reading Double Feature after finishing up that Pullman Jesus/Christ book in one day.

Mo Meta Blues was awesome as well. Went back and rediscovered some awesome hip-hop.

Did you neglect to take your soma before your allotted reading time?

Johnnie wrote:Started in on Brave New World. I'm through the first 50 pages or so. I'm having trouble following it because of the way he writes. Or I'm just dumb. Either way.

I was unimpressed with Brave New World. Most of the so called classics I can get a sense for why they endure, and i suppose it was something entirely different given when it was published, but just not my cup of tea.

AB_skin_test wrote:I was unimpressed with Brave New World. Most of the so called classics I can get a sense for why they endure, and i suppose it was something entirely different given when it was published, but just not my cup of tea.

I liked it very much, then again I listened to it before I read it, so perhaps I gained something from that.

I've found that the classics or other readings that I had a hard time getting through in HS were very enjoyable when I read them as an adult.

For one of my all-time favorites, it has been decades since I've re-read BNW. I'll get on it, and see if the language seem dated. I will be shocked if I don't love it just as much or more this time around.

I binged on Huxley in my hippie college days. Should go back and see if he holds up.

howard wrote:For one of my all-time favorites, it has been decades since I've re-read BNW. I'll get on it, and see if the language seem dated. I will be shocked if I don't love it just as much or more this time around.

There must be something in the air. I just checked a new edition of Brave New World out of a local library a few days ago; it's next in line. Odd.

On a related note, Huxley's letter to Orwell: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/19 ... world.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just finished it. I love this book more than ever. I recall the difficulty I had with some of the language at age 15, with no familiarity with London geography, and the tighter sexual morality of the early 20th century compared to the early 70s (even for a naive 15yo).

Gonna hit BNW Revisited, which I skimmed once in college I think.