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 ...
Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses
"—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
I find him completely unreadable. I liked Red October, but after that everything became a homogenous blur.
Especially the ones that were "co-written". Always a bad sign.
My husband's a Georgia Tech man and not a "litterary cove". I occasionally recommend a book, sometimes it makes a hit, sometimes not.
He liked "Mr. Midshipman Easy". He likes most Kipling. He liked "Destiny Bay". He did NOT like Lafcadio Hearn's ghost stories, and I just couldn't get him into Trollope although I tried. He won't even look at Austen.
Yep, I studied German in high school and college. Isn’t he the one who said that the German emerges from the Atlantic of his sentence with his verb in his mouth?
LOL, it’s funny you repent re: the confessions. Btw, my very liberal Jewish friend told me years ago that Josephus was a notorious liar; but I don’t know if that is true.
I'm glad to know I'm not alone. I don't even remember how I decided to latch on to that novel. 100 pages in I didn't know what this story was supposed to be about. Makes Philip K. Dick's books seem lucid in comparison.
10. Atlas Shrugged — Own several copies but have only read sections of it, never cover-to-cover (Have read The Fountainhead)
9. On the Origin of Species — Nope.
8. Les Miserables / A Tale of Two Cities — No, but I read a lot of old American and English novels in college: Bleak House, Vanity Fair, Moll Flanders, Pamela, The Vicar of Wakefield, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, etc.
7. 1984 — Nope.
6. Democracy in America, The Federalist Papers, and The Constitution — Read them all in college.
5. The Wealth of Nations — Have read parts. I own very nice two-volume hardcover reproduction of the original that I got from the Laissez-Faire bookstore in the early 1980s and refuse to part with.
4. Moby Dick — Read it as part of a summer course in at Columbia. Read lots of it on the subway and train between NJ and NYC.
3. The Art of War, Sun Tzu — Nope.
2. The Prince — Yes, in high school.
1. Ulysses — Another book that I own but have never finished. I also owned a record of the first chapter. I can tell you that the novel begins with the words “Stately plump, Buck Mulligan....”
Some “classics” I have never read include Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye, The Old Man and the Sea and the Grapes of Wrath.
Gretchen: Wilhelm, where is the turnip?
Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.
Gretchen: Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?
Wilhelm: It has gone to the opera.
Hollyweird is making “Animal Planet” with capitalism as the evil entity
There seem to be two arguments contra Josephum - one, that he was a liar; two, that all the parts liberal Jewish persons do not like are "interpolated" (same as the Jesus Project does with all the miracles).
It's only fair to repent wrt St. Augustine - he did it a lot too.
i like Emma... she matures in grace... she does not stay the same... Northhanger Abby... i read that too... Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park... i enjoyed all of them... but Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are my favorites... then Emma... love that Emma!
My daughter and I engaged in a mutual hymn of hate over that book in carpool while she was having to read it for school.
She turned our discussions into a critical paper and got an "A"! :-D
But I'd definitely read Animal Farm.
When you have a single speech going more than a dozen pages, it might be over written.
several years ago i started to read Huckleberry Finn... but the dialect was too difficult for me to read and understand at the same time, so i decided to listen to it on audio... and it was wonderful!
I’ve given Clancy a try. No thanks.
Sometime during the 1980s a friend forced on me a novel by Michael Crichton titled “Rising Sun”. It was the time of the rise of Japan Sony Walkman ruled the universe, Toyota Corolla ruled the roads (we know how it ended), and Crichton novel was a paranoid take on this conspiracy, filled with little plot but with speeches made by the cartoon characters , which (speeches) were cut and paste jobs from the Wall Street Journal reports on the growth of Japanese economic power that Crichton creatively turned into a growth of a dangerous imperial power. Laughable, and unfortunately to maintain good relations with my friend, I had to force myself to finish it, but at least I got a good and last taste of Michael Crichton.
“The Silmarillion by Tolkien”
Seems to be not such a good one, I think it got a few mentions in the comments on the linked site.
Well,,, it did way better than the top 100 with critics. Many consider it the best post war novel written, The first time I tackled it, I didn’t get it until I was about 150 pages into it. But I love his prose style, so I persevered. Don’
t give up early! It all makes sense. Read what wiki has to say about it. It’s a masterpiece of fiction, based solidly on facts.
I love Anne Elliot and wish I could invite her and her husband to tea.
Poor Mr. Twain! Confusing gender with sex (something very common nowadays).
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