Great Books lately ?

[markwebster]

For fiction, anything by larry mcmurtry (lonesome dove, etc),

Dick Francis, John D. MacDonald (Travis McGee series), Wilbur Smith or Louis LaMour.

 

I have a big bookshelf of books dating back to the seventies. I wait a few years until I can't remember the plot, then I re-read them. A good book is a wonderful way to relax. I don't watch tv at all.

 

Saw a great bumper sticker:

Your living room is the factory, you are the product. Turn off the tube!

[ivan]

I've already read two of them. Will have to get The Prize.

read that a couple of summers ago - it's real interesting in places, especially the parts on iran i thought, but there's also some real long sections on corporate histories that made me want to suck a tailpipe - i'd advise skipping those bits

 

happily, i've been too busy climbing for most of the summer to read, but i have managed to finish "they made america," a collection of biographies of 30 some odd inventors/innovators of the past 200 years which was pretty damn interesting - i never knew robert fulton, prior to "inventing" the steamboat, was essentially a dandy and male prostitute prior to settling into a menage a twois in paris - or that issac singer, the sewing machine dude, had 5 concurrent wives n' families in new york and had to flee the country after beating the holy hell out of one of them after being discovered - one of the underlying themes i liked, which maybe bill orielly would be good to understand, is that a huge number of america's most significant inventors/innovators were from totally poor/shit/disregarded immigrant families

 

i read "salt" too, which illustrates how pathetic my life is (at least compared to fairweather) - learned why flamingos are pink, the origins of words like soldier, salary and "wich" in english place names, the significance of cod, and why its wierd that after 3 millennia of mankind trying to make salt white n' of uniform crystal size, folks these days are willing to pay extra for dirty salt

[Ponderosa]

learned [snip] the origins of words like soldier, salary and "wich" in english place names,...

 

Etymology can be mighty interesting and insightful.