Posted on 09/18/2008 6:41:41 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
Whatta silly, arbitrary, personal list. I mean, why Naomi Wolf? Who remembers that beyotch? How about a list of authors not to read, like Stephen “Penny Dreadfuls” King, Tom Clancy, Danielle Steel, James Fenimore Cooper, Luis L’Amour, you get the idea. Take the NY Times bestseller list (please) at any time of the year to see my list of ten books not to read (except when somebody like Umberto Eco happens to be included, by accident, I reckon.)
This twit’s book would be at the top of my list.
The Lattimore translation of the Illiad is magnificent.
Don’t read War and Peace? I guess that means we’ll all have to read Anna Karenina.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is one of the most popular author’s the English language has ever produced. Some say she was merely the greatest woman writer. Others say leave out the word woman.
"Naomi Wolf? This is the woman who was hired to turn Al Gore into an Alpha Male. Nothing more needs to be said."
Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a toilet seat.
Holden Caulfield in Chapter 8
If you are looking for a good movie about the Dust Bowl, I would recommend "Under Western Stars" (1938), a musical starring Roy Rogers.
Well I like The Iliad but I prefer to listen to it rather than read it. I’m also a big fan of Tolkin and my Airedale is named Aragorn. The rest I don’t care about or dislike. I’m not a fan of Tolstoy or Dickens for that matter and in comparison to Proust these guys are the soul of brevity.
I SAW WUT U DID THAR
How about Miss Lonely Hearts.
The only book i can see not reading before i die is Ulysses..Considered a classin in Irish literature because of it’s allusions to many past Irish authors i found the book to be incredibly difficult—boring—because i had no familiarity with the Irish writers Joyce cited...
Now his poem Trees i can handle...but not Ulysses..Even Joyce’s wife asked him why did he write such a useless book, so hard to understand?..i agree—Ulysses is useless...
Thanks for the Dust Bowl-related book and film suggestions.
If you haven’t read Egan’s book (amazon.com link below), it does a
good job of detailing the unrealistic farming practices that made
the topsoil a victim of the drought and winds of the Dust Bowl era.
And he has some simply harrowing interviews and diaries of
the tough folk that tried to ride out the downturn.
Many of my family members (father and mother sides) lived in the area
around Tonkawa and Blackwell during the Dust Bowl / Great Depression time.
My mother’s family had a hard go of it while my father’s family had
what was (relatively speaking) nice existence working on their paid-off
farm and some precious income from a small property in the Three Sands
Oil field area about 15 miles away.
My late father said he knew his family was lucky because they never
lacked for food. But he didn’t like chicken because it provided
so much of his daily protein intake. And that was a LUXURY during
those lean times.
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
by Timothy Egan
http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-Survived-American/dp/0618773479/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221797177&sr=1-1
Great minds think alike! That was exactly what I was thinking.
ping
War and Peace is 570,000 words, according to Amazon. I suspect LOTR is very nearly the same length.
Somebody should introduce the author to Robert Jordan. A 12 book (so far) series. Most of them longer than War and Peace.
Death of a Salesman is a play, not a book. Seems odd to include it in this group.
Finally, someone else who didn’t like “Lord of the Rings”.
“The Times Online is on my list of 10 newspapers not to read before I die.”
LOL!!
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