What Are You Reading

[Viola]

Whatever happened to the Gentleman's Bookshelf thread? Where we talked about necessary books to call your library decent or well-rounded or classic, etc. Does anyone else remember that thread or did I dream it?

I need it because I read yesterday the pugnacious blitherings of a person who derided owning more than 30 books, total, all subjects, as unbearably pretentious.

Here, among those comfortable with not being the lowest common denominator, I was going to ask what 30 books, any combination of fiction or non-fiction (never more! unspeakable!) the ladies and gentlemen here would choose. I don't know if couples are allowed 60 or they have to share. lol

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Whatever happened to the Gentleman's Bookshelf thread? Where we talked about necessary books to call your library decent or well-rounded or classic, etc. Does anyone else remember that thread or did I dream it?

I need it because I read yesterday the pugnacious blitherings of a person who derided owning more than 30 books, total, all subjects, as unbearably pretentious.

Oh dear....I have more then 30 books strewn on the bedroom floor alone (why yes, I read a lot and forget to put them away again)......nevermind what's in the actual bookshelves

 

[Viola]

That's pretty much where I'm coming from too, Miss Neecerie.

I could probably restrain myself to 30 books in particular subjects; 30 gardening books, 30 history books, 30 architecture books, 30 Westerns... but I'd end up subdividing categories pretty small to do even that.

That said now I am thinking about what 30 books I'd own if I absolutely had to own only 30 or be chased out of my pretentious castle by all the local irate villages with torches and pitchforks.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

hmmm would the villagers count a 'book reader' as a book?

while I don't really like the idea....if it meant staying in the castle..( i don't run well enough to escape the pitchforks)....I could read -some- things electronically.....

 

[Viola]

I don't know, but I certainly hope compilations and anthologies count as one!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hmmm -- I'll bite. I wouldn't say these are the 30 greatest books ever written, but they're the 30 books I own that I can read over and over again.

A Confederacy of Dunces -- John Kennedy Toole
A Million and One Nights -- A History of the Motion Picture -- Terry Ramsaye
A Song In The Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film -- Richard Barrios
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain
The American Language -- H. L. Mencken
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin -- Benjamin Franklin
The Autobiography of Malcolm X -- Malcolm X and Alex Haley
BAD -- Or, The Dumbing of America -- Paul Fussell
The Boys of Summer -- Roger Kahn
Chaplin: His Life and Art -- David Robinson
The City Boy -- Herman Wouk
The Code of the Woosters -- P. G. Wodehouse
The Complete E. C. Segar "Popeye" -- Dailies 1928-30 -- E. C. Segar
The Complete Sherlock Holmes -- A. C. Doyle
The Glory and the Dream -- A Narrative History of America 1932-72 -- William Manchester
Handling Sin -- Michael Malone
The Making And Use of Recordings in Broadcasting Before 1936 -- M. J. Biel
Much Ado About Me -- Fred Allen
Only Yesterday -- An Informal History of the 1920s -- F. L. Allen
Out Of The Blue -- A Book about Radio and Television -- John Crosby
The Parade's Gone By -- Kevin Brownlow
The Public Arts -- Gilbert Seldes
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich -- William L. Shirer
The Roman Hat Mystery -- Ellery Queen
Since Yesterday -- The 1930s in America -- F. L. Allen
The Silent Clowns -- Walter Kerr
Sodom By The Sea -- An Affectionate History of Coney Island -- O. R. Pilat
Treadmill to Oblivion -- Fred Allen
The Waste Makers/Hidden Persuaders/Status Seekers -- Vance Packard

Some of these books I enjoy simply for the subject matter, others I like for the way they treat that subject matter, and others I just *like*. And that, in the end, is all that really matters, right?

 

[Viola]

After much deliberation and some shame, here's my list, subject to sudden, drastic change.



1. A Grove of Trees to Live In – Gene Logsdon
2. American Gods – Neil Gaiman
3. Bible
4. Big Sleep, The – Raymond Chandler
5. Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis (Is this allowed as one if I find it in one anthology monster-sized book?)
6. Contrary Farmer, The – Gene Logsdon
7. Firestarter – Stephen King
8. Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond
9. Hamlet, annotated
10. House With A Clock In Its Walls, The - John Belairs
11. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong - James W. Loewen
12. Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
13. Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York - Luc Sante
14. Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the mob - Dennis Eisenberg
15. More Guys and Dolls – Damon Runyon
16. Nightmares and Dreamscapes – Stephen King
17. Prayerbook, Passover
18. Prayerbook, regular
19. Starship Troopers – Robert A. Heinlien
20. Survival Guns – Mel Tappen
21. The Adventurous Gardener – Christopher Lloyd
22. The Bad Ones – Lew Louderback
23. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1,200 Jews and Built a Village in the Forest – Peter Duffy
24. Thin Man, The – Dashiell Hammett
25. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
26. True Grit – Charles Portis
27. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
28. Wee Free Men – Terry Pratchett
29. What Flower Is That – Stirling Macavoy
30. Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Yep, plenty of kids' books, two Stephen Kings, and some history nerdery. Looks like my list.

 

[Harp]

Hmmm -- I'll bite...

A Confederacy of Dunces -- John Kennedy Toole

I was drawn to Toole's Confederacy but could not read
beyond the interview session, and simply discarded the book back
to the library shelf. However, I have since read through an excellent bio
of Toole, which attempted to analyze his talent and tragic death.
Like Daniel Deronda; another fast cut, ACOD is on my
"reconsider later list."

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was drawn to Toole's Confederacy but could not read
beyond the interview session, and simply discarded the book back
to the library shelf. However, I have since read through an excellent bio
of Toole, which attempted to analyze his talent and tragic death.
Like Daniel Deronda; another fast cut, ACOD is on my
"reconsider later list."

What first drew me to it was his absolute mastery of the nuances of dialect -- he manages to make it sound natural, not a literary affectation. That's something very few authors do well. But then I got sucked into the overall absurdity of the characters and story, and I was hooked. I reread it every winter now -- it's a sure cure for seasonal depression.

 

[Fletch]

One of the most consistently side-splitting books ever written - and easily the funniest novel. Ever.

 

[Harp]

I reread it every winter now -- it's a sure cure for seasonal depression.

...if the Bears don't make it to the Superbowl , I may give it another try.

 

["Skeet" McD]

Whatever happened to the Gentleman's Bookshelf thread?...I was going to ask what 30 books, any combination of fiction or non-fiction (never more! unspeakable!) the ladies and gentlemen here would choose.

And, led on by the two brave ladies....I'll throw my small box o' books out: these are either books that I have read and reread (sometimes many times, a rarity for me) or books that I read just once, but had a long-lasting effect on my thinking (sometimes both!). Hard to stop at 30...but that's a good round figure, enough to be representative, small enough to force you to choose. No particular order...except this is how they came to mind, so there's a rough logic to it:

1 The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkein)
2 Rats, Lice and History (Hans Zinnser)
3 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
4 Lark Rise to Candleford (Flora Thompson)
5 Brideshead Revisited (Evelyn Waugh)
6 A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
7 The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church
8 Ulysses (James Joyce)
9 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
10 The Crater (Richard Slotkin)
11 The Tempest (Wm Shakespeare)
12 Babiçka (Bozena Nemçova)
13 The Stripping of the Altars (Eamon Duffy)
14 The Iliad (Homer)
15 The Bible
16 Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman)
17 Meet Me in Saint Louis (Sally Benson)
18 Laxdaela Saga
19 Glencoe/Culloden/The Highland Clearances (John Prebble)
20 The Uses of the Past (Herbert J Muller)
21 The Velveteen Rabbit (Margery Williams)
22 A Wrinkle in Time (Madeleine l'Engle)
23 A Hunter's Road (Jim Fergus)
24 On Hunting (Jose Ortega y Gasset)
25 All the Best Rubbish (Ivor Noel Hume)
26 The Spanish Armada (Colin Martin & Geoffrey Parker)
27 The World of the Witches (Julio Caro Baroja)
28 Small Books and Pleasant Histories (Margaret Spufford)
29 The Tasteful Interlude (William Seale)
30 London Labour and the London Poor (Henry Mayhew)

"Skeet"

 

[Harp]

Fellow lounger John Boyer's loan of two volumes:

Eric D Hirsch's Wordsworth and Schelling;
A Topological Study of Romanticism

and Three Women in Dark Times:
Edith Stein; Hannah Arendt; Simone Weil
by Sylvie Courtine-Demay

Poetry's romance of the human heart; and the scour of Philosophic reason amidst the Holocaust.

 

[Viola]

Oh, Wrinkle in Time almost made my list too, Skeet. I'm glad I'm not the only one who'd have Young Adult (what a precious term that is, I sort of hate it) or childrens' books.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Just finished two books: It's Only a Movie, A Dedicated Biography of Alfred Hitchcock, by Charlotte Chandler and (read simultaneously) Get Real, the last John Dortmunder novel by Donald E. Westlake (just released, shortly after his passing). Here's a story of the very prolific author, who wrote every one of his books on a manual typewriter

Next, I’ll be reading a biography of Edith Head. I don’t have the title or author available at this time, because I loaned the book to my mother while I read the one about Hitchcock: She currently has them both. So, in the meantime, I’m enjoying a little light reading; a book about the Koran. According to it, I’m an infidel. I didn't need to be told.


Lee

 

["Skeet" McD]

Oh, Wrinkle in Time almost made my list too, Skeet. I'm glad I'm not the only one who'd have Young Adult (what a precious term that is, I sort of hate it) or childrens' books.

Viola, I must have read the book the first year it was out...I was "the strange little precocious kid" in my small town (they gave me an adult's library card when I was about 7)...and the librarian handed me WRINKLE the moment it came in. I was completely taken with it and read it repeatedly for a few years; then didn't read it again until a friend had children of about that age about a decade ago. I recommended it highly...and decided (with some trepidation) to read it again. Sometimes books which have been tremendously influential at a given age or time don't have the same punch when revisited under different circumstances. I'm happy to report that WRINKLE not only lived up to my memories....it surpassed them, because I was more able to see what had been there all along. The overtly religious aspect was a revelation to me (pun somewhat intended); those words were there, and sticking out just as boldly all along...and I, even at that time a believer, somehow didn't pick up on it (the answer is that I wasn't as familiar with the Bible as a kid).

KidLit has the same difficulties that any genre literature does: much is written as an item of commerce, and most of it is subliterary. But there are some science fictions, or 19C novels–or whatever–that manage to fulfill the requirements of the genre but also rise above them, transfigured. WRINKLE is definitely one of those, as I believe, is the Velveteen Rabbit. Both deal with very serious issues (self sacrifice and loss) at a very deep level...but within a context comprehensible to young readers. Thank goodness!

Remember me and all of us in your prayers today. May you be written in the book of life!

"Skeet"

 

[Viola]

As may you, Skeet; I wish you and all the Lounge a happy, healthy year!

Aaand now I'm going to send you a very nerdy PM about Wrinkle because my curiousity, it is raised, and its in keeping with the spirit of the holiday unlike some Internet conversations that tend to veer all over the place.

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

Anathem by Neal Stephenson.

 

[Antje]

coldheart canyon, Clive Barker

 

[NY_Confidential]

I'm finishing up on

"Confessions Of An Economic Hitman" by John Perkins, and then starting on either:

"The Return of History and the End of Dreams" by Robert Kagan
or
"The CIA in Iran: The 1953 Coup and the Origins of the US-Iran Divide" by Christopher J. Petherick