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Any Great Books?
July 25, 2008 | Stephanie32

Posted on 07/25/2008 3:01:11 PM PDT by Stephanie32

(My first thread, hope I'm doing this right!)


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Chit/Chat
KEYWORDS: bookclub; bookreview; books; firstthread; godsgravesglyphs; readinglist
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To: mathluv; Stephanie32

I have never listened to a book, have to try that. Thank you, I’ve heard of both of your choices!


161 posted on 07/25/2008 9:23:48 PM PDT by Stephanie32
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To: Stephanie32
I clicked on your homepage.

From your interests in Animals, the "All Creatures Great And Small" series by James Herriot (memoirs of a 1930's-era British farm vet). "Heartwarming" they call it but uproariously funny while still sticking to your ribs.

From your cooking, if you want technical, try "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" by Harold McGee, this book goes into the chemical composition of food and how cooking accomplishes what it does, with a lot of interesting history about the development of different foods and recipes from around the world.

For mystery novels, if you like intellectual puzzlers, go for Agatha Christie; and if you like English period pieces, go for Dorothy L. Sayers or Josephine Tey. Sayers is better .

For light fluffy humor, try P.G. Wodehouse for comedies; for outdoor humor columns, Patrick F. McManus.

For science, try Kip Thorne's work on black holes, or anything by the late Richard Feynman.

Political humor is covered by P.J. O'Rourke.

And of course, there's always Shakespeare.

Or you can just FReep.

Cheers! IS that enough for starters?

162 posted on 07/25/2008 9:32:27 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: 6ppc
Lot's of good Bolo books by Keith Laumer and others who have picked up the franchise for a few stories or even a book.

You forgot Retief of the CDT, you scoundrel! :-)

Cheers!

163 posted on 07/25/2008 9:34:24 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Stephanie32
Also, anything by the late G.K. Chesterton, but he is definitely an *acquired* taste.

Cheers!

164 posted on 07/25/2008 9:36:01 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Stephanie32
...if I’m thinking right it’s the book of essays...I think all of Dalrymple's books are essays, many collections of reprints of his newspaper articles and/or related to his experiences as a prison psychiatrist in Great Britain - "Our Culture..." covers a wide range of topics from "Why Shakespeare is For All Tome" to "What's Wrong With Twinkling Buttocks?" to "Why Havana Had to Die" - very insightful and entertaining reading......
165 posted on 07/25/2008 9:37:23 PM PDT by Intolerant in NJ
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To: Stephanie32
Oh, yes.

Don't forget Tom Clancy (military/spy stuff).

And R.F. Delderfield's To Serve Them All My Days -- Brit historical novel.

...and if you want WW II, try F. W. Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret about how the allies broke the top-secret german code machine.

Cheers!

166 posted on 07/25/2008 9:39:03 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Stephanie32; All

I am fascinated by all of your choices and I will finish my replies to you all tomorrow night and this weekend. I have a wedding tomorrow and I’m sort of bleary eyed here. Thank you again. :-)


167 posted on 07/25/2008 9:42:09 PM PDT by Stephanie32
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To: dominic flandry

Btw, Joe Haldeman’s “The Forever War” and “All My Sins Remembered” are excellent SF.


168 posted on 07/25/2008 9:42:13 PM PDT by stylin_geek (Liberalism: comparable to a chicken with its head cut off, but with more spastic motions)
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To: Stephanie32
EX-FRIENDS by Norman Podhoretz--a great companion to INTELLECTUALS by Paul Johnson

Podhoretz details his friendships with several famous American leftists and why they became "ex" friends (he moved to the right politically).

A TALENT FOR TROUBLE

A biography of film director William Wyler. I read all 500 or so pages in an afternoon.

ROSEBUD by David Thomson.

A very opinionated bio of Orson Welles, very enjoyable.

LOOP GROUP by Larry McMurtry

I know most here prefer McMurtry's westerns but I really enjoy his contemporary novels. This one's a little too close to chick lit for comfort but so far I'm enjoying it. McMurtry eases you into the reality of his characters' world and before you know it, you're at the end of the book. Not a great novel, but a fun read.

I, ASIMOV

Fun reduction of his two-volume autobio into bite-sized chunks.

SEIZE THE DAY by Saul Bellow

Starting this tonight.

I'm in the mood for a fun Heinlein-type read, and may read one of his I haven't read yet this weekend. Recent SF bores me, and that definitely includes the "conservative" SF writers, too.

169 posted on 07/25/2008 9:58:05 PM PDT by Darkwolf377 (American secret agent in enemy territory (Cambridge, MA))
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To: Stephanie32

The Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters as narrated unabridged by Barbara Rosenblat, as well as anything else narrated by Barbara Rosenblat.


170 posted on 07/25/2008 9:59:54 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: Stephanie32

I’m currently reading several off and on:

http://www.amazon.com/Captain-African-Slaver-Theophile-Conneau/dp/0405018304 (given me by a fellow freeper and a definitive narrative of the West African slave trade early 1800s focusing on the coastal trading centers by someone who was there)

http://www.amazon.com/Commando-Boer-Journal-War/dp/1417925841/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217048910&sr=1-1 ( when Southern Africa was first lost)

Camp of the Saints stays on my bedside, I’ve yet to finish it


171 posted on 07/25/2008 10:11:08 PM PDT by wardaddy (Myself and my ancestors take full responsibility for all racial discrimination here since 1607)
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To: Stephanie32
Sounds like a beautiful book, I belong to a couple of book clubs and this sounds like one they might enjoy too. Thank you.

Warning: it's kind of icky in parts. There are real and very vivid descriptions of the horrors of that particularly horrible war. There are also a few clearly-depicted sex scenes. So you must ask yourself if this is the sort of thing your book club would like to read. I am not discouraging you, just giving you a heads up so you can consider the book fairly. Amazon may have online excerpts available.

172 posted on 07/25/2008 10:37:33 PM PDT by ottbmare
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To: Stephanie32

Disraeli: Portrait of a Romantic - David Butler.


173 posted on 07/25/2008 11:29:01 PM PDT by neb52
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To: Stephanie32

I always have a book going in the van. Radio reception is spotty, at best. If I have my grandkids with me, they can find a station with music, somehow.


174 posted on 07/26/2008 1:46:46 AM PDT by mathluv
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To: Stephanie32

“Lincoln” by David Herbert Donald

great biography of one of our greatest Presidents

I’m reading it right now

When you think about what Lincoln and so many others went through in those times, and the tough tough decisions he had to make, it makes the socialist whiners and weasels of our era look even more pathetic.

Obambi, you’re no JFK, you’re certainly no Lincoln, but you might just be Jimmy Carter.....


175 posted on 07/26/2008 1:58:53 AM PDT by Enchante (OBAMESSIAH: "Pay no attention to that pitiful little man behind the curtain!")
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To: Stephanie32

Summer reading list bump! ;-)


176 posted on 07/26/2008 2:12:30 AM PDT by Tunehead54 (Nothing funny here. ;-)
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To: free_life
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (get the old english unabridged edition if you can)

I jsut finished the Lee Fahnestock and Norman MacAfee translation. I can't agree with the unabridged part. I thought the story was amazing. The extra stuff was torture to read in my opinion. My interest in the sewer system in my town basically extends to "does it work?" so 20 pages on 19th century Paris' sewer was tough to suffer through.

I really enjoyed Generation Kill. I haven't seen the mini-series currently running on HBO, but I'm sure it is of high quality as well.

Currently I'm reading Don Quixote and really enjoy it.
177 posted on 07/26/2008 2:53:33 AM PDT by Mr. Blonde (You ever thought about being weird for a living?)
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To: kitkat
Rebecca is a good book but looses its punch if viewed as an admonition against noncommunication in marriage, which is what it is. The whole mess could have been avoided if, in the first chapter, the unnamed narrator had just said: "Say, what'd you think of your first wife?"
178 posted on 07/26/2008 4:30:56 AM PDT by Savage Beast ("Some people are born knowing, and some people will die searching." -Antonio Banderas)
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To: Stephanie32
I always love these threads. I pick up some great book suggestions.

Here are a few I thought of during the night:

And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran.

This is a true story.

The author was blinded in an accident as a child.

He developed a sixth sense. He contends that nothing is taken away from us without something to replace it.

He worked for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation, and, because of his uncanny ESP, he was adept at identifying Nazis trying to infiltrate the Resistance.

He was betrayed and sent to a Nazi concentration camp, where fellow inmates at first stole his food etc. but learned to value him more than food because of his sixth sense. He was one of the few to survive (sorry about the spoiler).

Two other terrific books are Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Lewis Carroll was a genius and very clever. The metaphors, symbolism, and plays on words are terrific.

Looking Glass is a chess game. Playing it as you read--do this with your spouse, children, and/or friends--adds multiple dimensions.

For example, Alice is a pawn. What she wants most is to be a queen. In the end of the book (sorry about this spoiler), she reaches the other side of the chess board, becomes a queen, checkmates the Red King, and wins the game. Metaphorically, this is the fulfillment of every child's ambition to become an adult, find success, and fulfill her/his dreams.

Alice's conversation with Humpty Dumpty is priceless.

She urges him to climb down from the wall.

He refuses and adds: "The King has promised to send all of his horses and all of his men." How's that for the embodiment of hubris?

As Alice leaves him (sorry--another spoiler) a resounding crash reverberates through the forest--a great metaphor for everything from warning your child: "If you disobey me, you will be sorry; there are things that I can't fix" to warning Americans not to vote for Barack Obama and the Democrat Party to Aristotelian tragedy to the fall of civilizations and the fall of Adam and Eve.

Other great books are the Iliad, the Oddyssey, the Oresteia, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Also The Scarlet Letter, Washington Square, and The Sound and the Fury.

Also Tales of the South Pacific and The Bridges at Toko-ri by James Michener.

Sins of the Fathers: The Atlantic Slave Trade 1441-1807 by James Pope-Hennessy.

Born in Blood by John J. Robinson, about the persecution of the Knights Templars.

Captain from Castile and Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger--terrific books by an inexplicably underrated author.

Man! I love these books!

179 posted on 07/26/2008 5:35:05 AM PDT by Savage Beast ("Some people are born knowing, and some people will die searching." -Antonio Banderas)
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To: grey_whiskers
You forgot Retief of the CDT, you scoundrel! :-)

I started to list Retief...but I was interrupted and had to finish the post quickly. The Retief books by Keith Laumer are definite keepers.

180 posted on 07/26/2008 5:51:31 AM PDT by 6ppc (It's torch and pitchfork time)
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