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Blax12

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #30 on: February 19, 2003, 07:48:23 AM »
 
If anti particles have opposite spin, time in anti-matter runs oppositely.

Could it mean if we get into anti-matter we become younger?????


Ok, sorry. I passed from physics to sci-fi.

Blax12

 
 
 

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Palomine

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #31 on: February 19, 2003, 06:24:41 PM »
Enough "Dancing Wu-Li Masters." Back to books:

After having thoroughly enjoyed two of Jonathan Ames' essay collections (detailed above) I moved on to a novel of his called "The Extra Man." Sadly, I didn't enjoy it as much as his essays and after a few chapters called it quits.

I then tried (for the second time) to get into P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" books (looking for something funny) but again was put off by the tone and language and abandoned it too (though I do expect that an earnest 3rd attempt is in the offing old pip, perhaps when yours truly has reached the venerable old age of 40) ...ps: that was my feeble attempt at imitating Wodehouse on the fly. (as always, pls forgive spelling errs)

So, on my way to pick up "Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex" which is supposedly amazingly funny, I also (after hearing about war correspondents on NPR) picked up two books of WW2 dispatches by Ernie Pyle: "Brave Men" and another, larger collection of his reports. All three look promising (Woody Allen's "The Whore of Mensa" is supposed to be great). I'll let you know....

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docross

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #32 on: February 20, 2003, 08:19:22 AM »
I recently read two old Sci-Fi books:

Starship Troopres by Robert Heinlein
Cronache Marziane (I believe the orginal englis name is Marthian Chrinicles but I'm not sure) by Ray Bradbury

they are really good books, I loved in particular Starship Troopers (that is a lot different from the movie)

ciao
 
DocRoss

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Juliekat

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #33 on: February 20, 2003, 08:30:19 AM »
I'm currently in the middle of "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Sure, I'm reading it for my college english credits, but it's really an incredible story.

Also, I recommend anything by Joseph Campbell.

Juliekat  
"grOw" volumes #1-#4 and #5 (issue 1) as well as the grOw stOry Collections now available!: http://www.bustartist.com/

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Zasha

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #34 on: February 23, 2003, 12:41:36 AM »
Here's one of my faves that I stumbled upon in the library the other day:

Grass Beyond the Mountains, by Richmond Hobson.

It's a true telling of stories by a grandson of one of a group of Wyoming cowboys that scouted the high mountain swamplands of British Columbia, and established a cattle operation there.

When you get to thinking that you've got it tough, re-read the winter chapters.  Those guys were tough.
 
Choosing doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Morphermor did me!...Er...Mine!

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Zasha

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #35 on: February 25, 2003, 02:02:27 AM »
Another newly placed on my To Acquire/Read list:  Ben Stein's How To Ruin Your Life.
 
Choosing doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Morphermor did me!...Er...Mine!

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Goldeneye

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #36 on: February 25, 2003, 11:32:28 PM »
Good recent reads:

The short story "Babylon Revisited" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, I read last Friday.  Terrific.

Anything from Stuart Woods' Stone Barrington series - 'The Short Forever' is the most recent...okay, but deeply lacks the punch and balls-out fun of 'Swimming to Catalina,' 'L.A. Dead,' and 'Cold Paradise,' my favorites

Another by Stuart Woods, 'Under the Lake' - a tense somewhat supernatural mystery in a sleepy Southern town...pretty good.  I kept seeing Brian Keith as the sherriff.

'Rat Pack Confidential,' Shawn Levy - FAN-fucking-TASTIC book.  Kicks off with five breezy chapters, each dedicated to a different member of the Pack with a snappy bio leading up to the years in focus, then launches into a fascinating, quickly unspooling you-are-there recounting of the era of the Rat Pack, from formation to implosion.  Some of the best parts, btw, are from the sobering last section detailing their lives after the Pack disbanded.

'The Great Gatsby,' F. Scott Fitzgerald - My all-time favorite book...I try to read it once a year or so.

'On the Road,' Jack Kerouac - Good book, but I stopped in the middle for some reason.  I should finish.

Favorite guilty pleasure book: I'm not really one for romance novels, but...'Hidden Passions,' which tells the backstory of the characters from the soap "Passions" (THE WORST SHOW ON TV! and I have since given it up).  Show sucks hard, but the book is spellbinding.  I don't apologize, I said 'guilty pleasure.'

Currently reading:

'The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin' - REALLY fun book so far.
'The Art of Mingling' - 'cause I approve of any excuse to improve social skills

Upcoming reads:
'No More Mr. Nice Guy' by Dr. Robert Glover - Details "Nice Guy Syndrome" and sets out to cure it.  Haven't heard a bad review yet.
'All About All About Eve' and 'Close-Up on Sunset Blvd by Sam Staggs - in-depth books about my third and second-favorite movies, respectively

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Palomine

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #37 on: February 28, 2003, 03:39:52 AM »
An update: well, I read bits and pieces of the two Ernie Pyle collections (dispatches from the front lines during WW2 in both theaters) and though they were interesting, I just didn't feel like dragging myself through more than 800 pages of it right now. Same goes for Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex... I made my way though the first few stories and enjoyed them (what's not to like... sex and neuroses?!) but with this lighter material too I didn't feel like going the distance... though I will buy a copy as a gift for a sexy, literate, Jewish friend.

When I was much younger (still in grade school) I used to read all night almost every night... I clearly recall finishing one, two and sometimes even three full science fiction novels during a long evening. Nowadays, I almost never read SF (though I do still like it, I just have less energy and patience than I used to) and of course, I can't read for 7 or 8 hours at a stretch either... my eyes won't stay focused that long, and of course the neck, elbow, etc... start to ache after a while. If I get through a hundred pages of fiction in a sitting now, that's not too bad (less if it's non-fiction, which is generally my preference these days). Of course, when I was young I would always finish a book I'd started, even if I didn't like it all that much. Nowadays, I have little compuction about putting a book down if it's not providing whatever I'm looking for at the moment... the number of hours remaining to me are finite, and I'm not going to spend any significant fraction of them pushing my way through something than I've lost interest in.

Since I seem to be out of gas with short stories lately, and my **83** habits are worse than usual, I'm going to reread Don Quixote again for the first time in more than 20 years (the Putnam translation). When that's done (or if I don't make it through) I have no definite plans, though my house is literally filled with books, many still unread.

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prinz

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #38 on: February 28, 2003, 08:56:20 AM »
Gary Paulsen " Winterdance" The Fine Madness OF Running The Iditadod  Harvest books.. If you are a dog lover this is a must read.. Wonderful lite read, you will laugh your Ass off!For those of us who run sleddogs we have all done some of the things this poor bastard writes about in this book. cheers PE  

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IMC

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #39 on: March 01, 2003, 03:44:35 PM »
Palomine, just a few unsolicited recommendations for future reference or in case you don't make it through
Don Quixote (I would caution that Part Two has an entirely different atmosphere and a rather careless and
hurried conclusion, almost as if Cervantes couldn't bear what he was subjecting his protagonist to).  If you
enjoy picaresque novels try Faulkner's "The Reivers", not his most monumental literary achievement but the
only work in his ouevre that has a felicitous and unambiguous ending.  Or Diderot's "Jacque the Fatalist and His
Master", the aimless peregrinations across ancien regtime France of a hopelessly conventional lesser aristocrat
and his wittily ribald manservant, their encounters with whores and gallows, their unresolvable dispute about
predestination.  Philosophic gauloiserie at its best.  Both of these are fun reads and if you happen to mention them
in the presence of literati, well, at least they won't think you're hopelessly shallow.

I understand how the hours put strict limitations on reading material sometimes.  If  I don't have the time or energy
to get into the rhythm of an extended, novel length narrative I generally pick up something like Borges' Collected
Fictions or the Norton Anthology and open at random.

Oh, for the record, my best read of the last year or so:  Robert Graves' "Goodbye To All That".  

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Palomine

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #40 on: March 01, 2003, 08:20:19 PM »
Recommendations noted and appreciated.

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Catch

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #41 on: March 04, 2003, 12:43:33 AM »
Just finished another Nero Wolfe mystery, The Doorbell Rang. Wolfe takes on the corrupt FBI of J. Edgar Hoover.
 
If only...

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RandomX

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #42 on: March 04, 2003, 10:33:35 PM »
I'm rereading all my Dave Barry and Orson Scott Card books, and I've begun to read the Sword of Shannara series. (all of them are incredible!)
100% real woman, with notarized documents and witnesses to back this claim up.

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prinz

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #43 on: April 20, 2003, 10:21:15 AM »
Thought I bring this thread up again as I just stumbled across a wonderful read..One of those that you just can't put down .. Daughter no1 is home for the holiday and brought with her a book her English class is reading.." The Soul Of The Night" An Astronimical Pilgrimage By  Chet Raymo.. This guy is a Poet /Astronomer . A wonderful read!!! What is the Universe? Where did it come from? How will it end??  How may pixies can dance on the head of a pin. We are living in the new golden age of Astronomy and this guy brings it alive for the common person.. I highly recommend!! cheers PE  

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rtpoe

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Re: Read any good books lately?
« Reply #44 on: July 22, 2003, 10:56:47 PM »
*bump*

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.

Ever wonder what happens to someone's body when they donate it to science? Some of the possibilities include being used for practice by plastic surgery students, calibrating crash test dummies, and decaying in a Tennessee field to produce data for forensic scientists.

There's a good deal of humor throughout - not at the expense of the departed, but a tongue-in-cheek look at the people who have dealt with cadavers in the past. Like the French doctor who wanted to see how long a head could stay alive after the body was removed by the guillotine...(about 10 seconds before **62** sets in). The passage where Roach visits a ballistics lab and was introduced to "ballistic gelatin" actually had me laughing out loud.

It's very interesting, and you will probably wind up thinking about your life after you're dead.

ALSO:

Before you spend $$$$ to see Seabiscuit at the movies, check your public llibrary to see if they have the book, which you can read for free....

rtpoe  
rtpoe

The last fling of winter is over ...  The earth, the soil itself, has a dreaming quality about it.  It is warm now to the touch; it has come alive; it hides secrets that in a moment, in a little while, it will tell.
-  Donald Culross Peattie