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READING LIST


erik

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Here's a list for you Erik ---

 

"She," "King Solomon's Mines," and "Allan Quatermain" by Sir Henry Rider Haggard. The first is the greatest and stands as an all-time classic.

 

"The White Company" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This, by the author of the Sherlock Holmes canon, defines the essence of Medieval romance.

 

"For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. This is not highly regarded by the admirers of the master, but many think it is the best war story of modern times. It includes the best accounting of gun fighting that is known.

 

"The Dance of the Dwarfs" by Geoffrey Household. This is a fantasy involving the possibility of a curious evolutionary development of natural chemical warfare.

 

"Beat to Quarters," "Ship of the Line," and "Flying Colors" by C.S. Forrester. These three adventures relate the career of Captain Horatio Hornblower in his time as shipmaster. If you want to know what life at sea was like during the Napoleonic Wars, you will discover it better from Forrester's work than from any historical account.

 

"The Fellowship of the Ring," "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien. These constitute the ultimate in epic fantasy and are generally lumped together as "The Lord of the Rings." Tolkien is so great that he constitutes a world by himself, and a world well worth exploring. The despairing struggle of good versus evil is better portrayed here than anywhere else in literature, and Tolkien's lapidary prose is worth reading by itself as a lesson in the use of the English language.

 

"The Brave Bulls" by Tom Lea. The fiesta brava is not for everyone, explaining as it does the elegance of grace under pressure and man's triumph over fear.

 

"Aphrodite" by Pierre Louÿs. This may be called elegant Victorian pornography, though that may seem a contradiction in terms. Eroticism entertains most people, and French translates surprisingly well into English.

 

"The Long Rifle" by Stewart Edward White. This is the definitive adventure novel of the westward movement, following one man's saga through adolescence to maturity, as father of the "Boone Gun" which opened the frontier.

 

"The Big Sky" by A.B. Guthrie. This is something of a companion to Stewart White, done with a bit more narrative artistry but covering the same subject with main concentration upon the mountain men between Lewis and Clark and the Mexican War.

 

"And A Few Marines" by John W. Thomason. This may be considered something of a specialty for those who understand and appreciate the tradition of the US Marine Corps. It is marvelously well written and, as an added treat, it is personally illustrated by an author who knew whereof he spoke.

 

"Fancies and Goodnights" by John Collier. This is a collection of fanciful anecdotes. Collier's stories are great fun, as well as being jewels of technique.

 

The King James version of the Old Testament. This is pretty much necessary if one is to understand how we got to where we are and what we should do about it.

 

The complete verse collection of Rudyard Kipling. Kipling's verse is better than his prose, but it is all good, and all very enlightening.

 

"Reminiscences of a Ranger" by Horace Bell. This is Bell's account of life in Southern California in the period between the Gold Rush and statehood.

 

"Meditations on Hunting" by José Ortega y Gasset. This is the Old Testament of the hunter, and it explains completely just where hunting exists as a core of western civilization .

 

[ 09-21-2002, 08:28 AM: Message edited by: trask ]

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The New Science of Strong Materials (or Why You Don't Fall Through The Floor) and its sequel Structures (or Why Things Don't Fall Down) [smile] ... the sequel is slightly more nail-biting and has better pictures [laf]

 

More appropriate for cc.com is 'A Confederacy of Dunces' [Roll Eyes]

 

[ 09-19-2002, 04:04 PM: Message edited by: fern ]

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"Rainbow Six" by Tom Clancy. Action packed from the very first page. One of his best books I think present a truely scary reality in the post 9/11 world.

 

"The Elegant Universe" by Brian Green. If you like science and got at least a B in physics class this is a fascinating book introducing you to the history of Newtonian physics and the work of Einstein to develop a unified theory. Talks about String theory and multiple dimensions and does it in a way that an average person can understand. Great nerd stuff.

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I am reading The Unbareable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera right now. It is realy good, thought provoking. I read it when I was arround 20, and it just seems to have a whole new meaning 10 years later.

 

Anything by Tom Robbins you will laugh your ass off and be enlightend at the same time. He is my all time fave!!! [big Grin] Jitterbug Perfume is the best one [Wink]

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I loved 'Another Roadside Attraction!' And since the location was so close to home (Skagit Valley), it made it all the more pleasing... I think you'd like that one Erik, as would most guys, there are a couple quite descriptive *sexual* parts in it as well, with lots of drugs, hot dogs, VERY good read... [big Grin][Wink]

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they all have some one from the PNW in them or some referece to the PNW Drugs sex art philosophy... read Even Cowgirls Get The Blues [big Grin] READ THEM ALL!!!! No you don't understand I LOVE HIM [big Grin] I can see that you are not getting this [Wink] Erik go to the book store now... read Tom Robbins You too Jon [big Grin]

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Erik,

A couple of popular titles (not too new though):Try "Sick Puppy" by Carl Hiassen or "Homicide: Life on the Streets" the book that TV show was loosely modeled after. If we ever meet up I can give you my copies (i.e. they were good reads, but I ain't readin' 'em again).

 

As for classics: Have you read "On the Road" by Kerouac. If not, dude, it's right up yer alley. I'm not giving up my copy of that one.

 

Anything by Steinbeck is particularly good for the young womanless male. Grapes of Wrath is not as misogynistic as the rest. One time I was reading that on an airplane and some lady comes by and gushes, "THAT'S THE GREATEST BOOK ANYBODY COULD EVER READ!" She wasn't far off. For whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway. That's a good 'un.

 

I'm reading "Get in the Van" by Henry Rollins right now. I can see now why people think Caveman is Henry.

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Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney, it is long and sad. It has graphic scenes of homosexual, heterosexual and group sex. The greatest novel ever written in my humble opinion. It changed my life.

 

Currently reading:

The Physics of Immortality by Frank J. Tipler. Some comologist who thinks he's proven the existence of God... but at the end of time, He doesn't exist now.

 

The Water Method Man, by John Irving

 

Gog, by Andrew Sinclair- Some wierd tale about English mythology and an amnesiac who is repeatedly ambushed, beaten, and fucked by his sadistic wife (now that I think about it it's really good, I haven't picked it up in a few weeks cuz I was getting bored)

 

Stress and Strain, by Winthrop Means. Continuum Mechanics for Geologists... rock porn.

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quote:

Originally posted by erik:

i know this topic sux....but so do the books i am attempting to read

 

please share....

"A night of serious drinking" - Rene Daumal (also wrote Mont Analogue - an excellent climbing/exploration novel)

 

The Octopus - Frank Norris

 

Cannery Row - John Steinbeck (or any other Steinbeck)

 

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare- Henry Miller

 

One of my favorite books of all time is

The Master & Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov

all around excellent, though works better to read it around easter

 

Kerouac's good too, as is Kundera, or Ivan Pelevin

 

Carl

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I 2nd the motion for 'Sick Puppy' and the books by Tim Egan.

 

This may strike your fancy, too: "The Ornament of the World" a look at how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish cultures flourished simultaneously in Spain from circa 700 to 1200 AD. Great info on how the vast wealth of scientific knowledge the Arabs acquired from the Greeks was transmitted to European 'scholars'.

 

[ 09-19-2002, 04:55 PM: Message edited by: Thinker ]

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