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Andy D
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« Reply #375 on: 23:02:03, 19-07-2008 » |
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Last night I finished reading Daniel Keyes' Flowers for Algernon, can't think why it passed me by all these years, and me an infrequent but enthusiastic SF reader too. Does anyone know this book? Gosh, yes, I read it when I was an SF enthusiast as a teenager - first the short story, then the novel. I've forgotten most of it, though a bit of googling has reminded me of some of the details. Really couldn't say what I'd think of it now and I can't see that I'm ever going to read it again. |
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« Reply #376 on: 15:29:09, 21-07-2008 » |
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I red flowers fer algernon wen i was in skool -- didnt no bak then that we had a seveerly shorter versin that didnt inklood any of the icky stuff in the middel wen he was all smart and had a girlfrend. he just lerned to tok smart and then got dum agin. not too enlig elni memmerubl.
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Antheil
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« Reply #377 on: 16:59:22, 22-07-2008 » |
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I'd like to ask Don Basilio about Ivy Compton Burnett, someone I have never read, know nothing about, but whom he has been mentioning lately and what book he would recommend to start with?
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #378 on: 21:06:14, 23-07-2008 » |
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I want to go back and read it again (and keep a closer grip on who is who) but not straight away! I'm going to read Iain Banks' The Steep Approach to Garbadale again. His most accomplished book since The Crow Road SERIOUSLY? As good as anything Banks has ever written, if not better Did I read a different book to everyone else? Well, no I didn't. I suppose that reviewers like it because it does what they expect it to do. It's quite tame. In Heathrow Terminal 5, I suddenly realised that I was halfway through The Sea, The Sea so dipped into a bookshop and bought Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence and Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. Rushdie's book reads like he wants to be Eco when he grows up but can't quite stomach the final stretch so chickens out and takes the shortcut. I found the Hosseini was written less 'smoothly' than the Rushdie and I can't say that it's a book I'll come back to but I did find it moving. Read it on the train today but it only took me as far as Doncaster. |
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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« Reply #379 on: 22:52:15, 23-07-2008 » |
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Read it on the train today but it only took me as far as Doncaster.
Nooo! Doncaster in that role, she's wrong for it! |
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increpatio
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« Reply #380 on: 22:03:49, 03-08-2008 » |
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Purchased and started this weekend, following a watching of a documentary on Steve Ditko:  And: I'm enjoying it. Tremendously. Doesn't make for comfortable reading, but yeah: think I'm going to get quite a lot out of it. |
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« Reply #381 on: 20:18:18, 09-08-2008 » |
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Now having another attempt at Hans Blumenberg. This time it's Wirklichkeiten in denen wir leben.
I see that much Blumenberg is translated into English. Does anyone here actually read him? I find it often quite impenetrable, sometimes his motivating subtext seems to be: "Behold. Here is my brian at this moment. Please savor it."
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #382 on: 20:22:36, 09-08-2008 » |
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"Behold. Here is my brian at this moment. Please savor it."
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Eruanto
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« Reply #383 on: 23:31:17, 09-08-2008 » |
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The Page Turner by David Leavitt.
Relevant to say the least. And never have I found a book so easy to read; I only started it yesterday and it runs to 244 pages, though the type is quite well-spaced.
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"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set"
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MrY
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« Reply #384 on: 13:44:40, 11-08-2008 » |
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Now having another attempt at Hans Blumenberg. This time it's Wirklichkeiten in denen wir leben.
I see that much Blumenberg is translated into English. Does anyone here actually read him? I find it often quite impenetrable, sometimes his motivating subtext seems to be: "Behold. Here is my brian at this moment. Please savor it."
I agree. We studied Blumenberg once in university: Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer. Paradigma einer Daseinsmetapher ( Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence) He goes through different uses of the seatrip and subsequent 'shipwreck' as a metaphor for existence, from the very olden days until the not so olden days, in (a highly selective, idiosyncratic selection of) works of literature, philosophy, biographic material,... and draws some conclusions. What these conclusions are, isn't very clear. Why write this book? Motivating subtext here: 'Look at how godawful many books I've read, and what obscure and marginal texts I know of, and how I can randomly find important links between the use of the word 'mirror' in this text and the narrator perspective in this unfunny anecdote by Goethe, which should indicate something very big and important, but on which I will not expand and will only talk of in the most nebulous and obscure terms.' |
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thompson1780
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« Reply #385 on: 15:38:54, 11-08-2008 » |
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The Page Turner by David Leavitt.
Relevant to say the least. And never have I found a book so easy to read; I only started it yesterday and it runs to 244 pages, though the type is quite well-spaced.
I saw this only the other day. Somewhat different, though? I'll read your version later. Tommo |
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #386 on: 15:41:09, 11-08-2008 » |
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The Page Turner by David Leavitt.
Relevant to say the least. And never have I found a book so easy to read; I only started it yesterday and it runs to 244 pages, though the type is quite well-spaced.
I saw this only the other day. Somewhat different, though? I'll read your version later. Tommo Having put the cello spike down first  |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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« Reply #387 on: 17:31:59, 11-08-2008 » |
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We studied Blumenberg once in university: Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer. Paradigma einer Daseinsmetapher (Shipwreck with Spectator: Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence) He goes through different uses of the seatrip and subsequent 'shipwreck' as a metaphor for existence, from the very olden days until the not so olden days, in (a highly selective, idiosyncratic selection of) works of literature, philosophy, biographic material,... and draws some conclusions. What these conclusions are, isn't very clear. Why write this book?
Motivating subtext here: 'Look at how godawful many books I've read, and what obscure and marginal texts I know of, and how I can randomly find important links between the use of the word 'mirror' in this text and the narrator perspective in this unfunny anecdote by Goethe, which should indicate something very big and important, but on which I will not expand and will only talk of in the most nebulous and obscure terms.'
Many thanks for that, Mr Ypsilon. And yet 'metaphorology' -what he calls it - is such an intriguing topic to me, that I keep coming back to it. Are there less impenetrable writers on the topic of metaphorology? |
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #388 on: 17:58:04, 11-08-2008 » |
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I've been reading "The Return" by Victoria Hislop. (Ian Hislop's wife). It's a really well-written tale of a family's experiences during the Spanish Civil War. I think she writes eloquently and captures the atmosphere really well. There's a wonderful element of intrigue and excitement coursing right through. A very human story, intelligently and passionately expressed.
I haven't read her first book which is called "The Island", but I mean to acquire that as soon as possible now I've seen what a good writer she is.
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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trained-pianist
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« Reply #389 on: 22:33:01, 11-08-2008 » |
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 I find this book funny and good distraction from unpleasant thoughts. On the back cover it says : The king of the exasperated quip discovers that: bombing North Carolina is bad for Yorkshire. We can look forward to exploding at the age of 62. Russians look bad in s;eedos. But not as bad as we do. Wasps are the highest form of life. here is a beginning of a short funne story: For 150 years, people have been arguing about what or who should be immortalised on the empty plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. And then last week came the news that we're to get a statue of a disabled and pregnant woman called Alison Lapper. My first reaction was: why not the Flying Scotsman? It's for sale at the moment for just " million pounds and would be ideal, since it fits in with Ken Livingstone's much publicised love for public transport and genuinely reflects Britain's glorious engineering achievements of yesteryear. The trouble is that whatever you choose will be used as a pigeon perch and then vandalised. And it would be a shame to see the lovely old engine treated this way - so how aabout my next brainwave? if it's to be a bird bog and a magnet for drunks and yobs intent on tuining it, then why not put a statue of Piers Morgan up there? You may have heard that at the British Press Awards last wek I strolled over to Piers, the editor of the Daily Mirror, and punched him in the middle of his face. |
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