Posted on 02/03/2014 2:13:32 PM PST by jocon307
Have you ever lied about reading a book? Maybe you didn’t want to seem stupid in front of someone you respected. Maybe you rationalized it by reasoning that you had a familiarity with the book, or knew who the author was, or what the story was about, or had glanced at its Wikipedia page. Or maybe you had tried to read the book, even bought it and set it by your bed for months unopened, hoping that it would impart what was in it merely via proximity (if that worked, please email me).
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
Yes, I did. I accept the editorial correction, thank you.
Drive long distances, and only stay awake by means of good audiobooks.
Personally recommend the Aubrey-Maturin series by O’Brien. Really excellent reader.
Also Clarence Thomas’ memoir read by him. Not the greatest reader, but it was fascinating listening to his own words in his own voice. Especially when he describes how Joe Biden stabs him in the back at the Senate confirmation hearing 1/2 hour after swearing eternal support to his face.
“Wow! I loved “Gravity’s Rainbow!” I’ve read it twice.”
Me too. Pynchon was a master of words and I loved how he wove the disparate elements into his story. It was a bit like Morning of the Magicians crossed with WWII.
“It’s the originating writer’s fault!!”
(snicker)
As is known by some today, ‘there is always something lost in the translation.’
AS a side not, did you know that the investigator in Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”, was the germinating seed, for the character that is forever saying ....
“Uh, One last thing, Mr. Smith .....”!!!!
(I’ve forgotten if that investigator wore a brown overcoat, but I am positive his time frame is before a little off-blue aging Peugeot convertible!)
Yep, if you skip the unrelenting speechifying and the awkward, twisted sexual subplots, it’s really only about 30 or 40 pages. ;)
Have read LOTR annually since the age of 8. I got up to Shelob’s cave last night.
The Silmarillion perhaps half a dozen times. I find the allegories of Creation in the beginning really fascinating.
10. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand:
Read it. Isn’t this like the Bible of the Objectivist cult?
9. On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin:
Just selections from it.
8. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo and A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens:
Had to read them for school. *yawn*
7. 1984, George Orwell:
Read it and Animal Farm as well. Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell, must read for a political junkie.
6. Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville:
Read it.
5. The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith:
Read it. But economic history is an interest of mine.
4. Moby Dick, Herman Melville:
Call me Ishmael.
3. The Art of War, Sun Tzu:
Nope
2. The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli:
Read it. All political junkies should.
1. Ulysses, James Joyce:
Ha. This book is unreadable.
10. Atlas Shrugged — If, for no other reason than to understand the need for an editor, everyone should have to read it.
9. On the Origin of Species — never picked it up.
8. Les Miserables / A Tale of Two Cities — the first, yes, second never made it through, though I was probably in elementary or jr. high...
7. 1984 — Depressing and prescient, though off by a couple decades
6. Democracy in America, The Federalist Papers, and The Constitution — once, thrice, numerous.
5. The Wealth of Nations — Unread.
4. Moby Dick — read various versions—the original is a bear at times even an ursus arctos horribilis.
3. The Art of War, Sun Tzu — numerous times; classic and timeless
2. The Prince — forever one of the defining books on politics. This and Sun Tzu were some of my first free e-books. Read then on a Palm PDA... :)
1. Ulysses — Unread-no interest at all...
I got up to Shelob's cave (and through) with my four youngest sons this afternoon. Nothing like a nice, gross bug-evisceration to keep young boys riveted! We started with "The Hobbit" in the summer of 2012. I'm sure you'll make it to the end before we do.
He paid off every dime, but it killed him.
I didn’t know there was a genre of books about corruption in the music business. A dangerous profession, I’d imagine, to write about it.
In other news, and you’d better find a good hiding place, the WSJ reported today that publishers are reviving 1970s bestsellers of James Michener, Alex Haley and other hacks of the era as e-books.
Books I tried to read, but gave up:
The Silmarillion by Tolkien
The City of God by Josephus
and many others I can’t remember
Hard books I made it all the way through by skimming and then claimed I read them. (I repent of doing this.)
Confessions by Augustine
Wars of the Jews by Josephus
Samuel Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler... now you’re talking. These two were masters of the English language and each could crank out a story with the best of them. I think I’ve read every story these two wrote, and if I missed one it wasn’t for lack of trying.
And the Win Wenders film ‘Hammett’ starring Frederic Forrest and Peter Boyle is well worth seeing.
Even in seventh grade I figured out that having the main character fall into a convenient trance or fit whenever you needed to have something happen without his knowledge was pretty stupid - sort of like a creaky old trap door and a ghost in some second-rate touring company.
- Twain again, on the Book of Mormon.
So what was it about James Fenimore Cooper? I read him as a young lad instead of the boring high school assignments, and the next time I heard his name was when Christopher Buckley started the famous feud of faxes with Tom Clancy, after naming him the most popular American bad writer Since JFC.
Supposedly there’s a warhead buried in the mud on the sea floor, somewhere off the coast of Savannah.
Had to go to the original post. I thought maybe you were discussing Of Mice and Men.
I had the modern Library Giant edition published originally in 1937.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.