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Currently reading....

Pappawas1975 - 8-4-2006 at 21:31

I figured Id start a new thread for this, rather than us all tacking posts onto the LOTR thread......

Currently reading Cows by Matthew Stokoe.....Pretty vile stuff, but great fun....

vivien_o_blivion - 8-4-2006 at 23:23

zazkia - 9-4-2006 at 00:20

A currently reading post, that's quite impossible. I believe it's something like this:

Guinea Pigs - Vaculik (very very very cool)
War & Peace - Tolstoj (lousily translated in Dutch)
The Tartarian Helmet (a very very boring comic book, in the Spike and Susy series -rem. Bpns avatar)
The rise and fall of great empires - Paul Kennedy (a master piece that is taking me too long, about a year now)
The Choice for Europe - Moravscik (a sensible book about Europe and thus very rare in its kind)
something by Hrabal that book is quite lost at the moment it was something with trains...
and this list could continue for a rather long time if my sister wasn't jumping on her chair -she wants to say some things too):regan:

BBP - 9-4-2006 at 00:35

Still Gogol... but I'm through with the Qu'ran.
Though I'm very close to finishing Dead Souls. The second part of it was completed by the author several times, but every time it was destroyed by him. There's one manuscript remaining which misses words occasionally and here and there it has unreadable hand writing. It's a great book though.

DED - 9-4-2006 at 06:52

Yeah reading books.
At this moment I'm reading Gates of Fire by Elwin M Chamberlain in a Dutch translation in a Playboy Roman row of books. It is a disappointing story with a worse plot. The book before that was "A Rude awakening" By Brian Aldiss also in a Dutch translation in The row of Playboy Humor. And guess what. I didn't laugh once.
Further more I'm collecting the total biography of P.G Woodhouse in dutch and english. Had read over 45 books from the guy now and starting to read Mulliner Nights in English. Chapter 5 is called "The voice from the past" and actually that is what it is. Living in a time with no television, hardly telephone, no internet, no mobile phone etc. I love to read that kind a stuff.
In English now because of the humor that could not be translated and the use of "old fashioned words and understandings of the past.
I'm also trying to read and understand Big Blues, The unmaking of the IBM. A pretty old managementbook helping to understand the meaning of business in different economical settings.
Sometimes I open my (american)book of Multivariate Data Analysis. It was hard to learn it in a short time and for me it is some sort of knowledge that will fade out if you don't use it, and I won't allow that to happen. Apart from that I'm reading the English translation of the Philips taperecorder book to get my hands on the specific knowledge in English,
It helps me to speak about my favorite pasttime and also I need this to fully understand the servicemanuals that mostly are written in English.
And I open more regularely the PHP5 book from Baby Pee (bbp) To help her to get more content. in the site. Preparing a quiz now but the change of forms did't work quite well due to the redirection behind a action statement , with te help of the book I solved that and again some PHP scriptwriting is learned.

zazkia - 9-4-2006 at 09:58

baby P :-D:biggrin:
Thankx for opening up the subject Goji.. I can't find you cow at the wikipedia thing... But there is something funny about another stokoe who developed some sort of sign language.
"BB" represents a dominant flat hand acting on a passive flat hand; this is disambiguated from both hands acting together by using an overt tab symbol, such as 'ØBB'.
ZaZ appears to stand for two bent middle fingers and an fist.
(this sort of numbing lookups is the reason why I havent finished Guinea Pigs...
A here it is:
Quote:

A cow that escaped a slaughterhouse dodged vehicles, ran in front of a train, braved the icy Missouri River and took three tranquilizer darts before being recaptured six hours later. News of the heifer's adventures prompted a number of people to offer to buy the animal.

:wow:

scallopino - 9-4-2006 at 13:10

Ahhh. All of these posts make me wish i could read. One day, scallopino. One day...*looks to the sunset with quiet determination*

scallopino - 9-4-2006 at 13:15

I don't have time to read anything else other than what i'm required to for skoowel. It's so much!

So i can't participate in this topic!

BBP - 9-4-2006 at 14:32

What do you read for school? I studied history for a year, and noticed you're reading some stuff I had to read as well...

Currently I'm reading for school:
some 6 books on Alban Berg, particularly the fragments on his Sonata op 1.

scallopino - 10-4-2006 at 12:42

For history? It's currently the Vietnam War this semester. Pages and pages and pages of documents each week, plus a related main text (a couple of chapters each week), plus additional readings from other works on special topics (like JFK, or Lyndon Johnson, or MacNamara, or Ho Chi Minh, etc.)

And for politics: either the whole or main parts of the masterpiece/s by the thinker in question (Rousseau, Marx, Foucalt etc.), plus commentary and analysis ON those guys by other people.

It's all very interesting though.

BBP - 10-4-2006 at 17:27

My twentieth-century history teacher had the annoying habit of talking about unrelated topics. We had 6 classes in which we were to discuss the 1914-1991 period, but when we got to the last class we still had to talk about WW2.
We had 2 text books on the period, one by Joll (The Ascendency of Europe) and The Age of Extremes of which I can't come up with the author's name right now.

aquagoat - 10-4-2006 at 19:04

Some of the things I read:



BBP - 10-4-2006 at 20:05

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
My twentieth-century history teacher had the annoying habit of talking about unrelated topics. We had 6 classes in which we were to discuss the 1914-1991 period, but when we got to the last class we still had to talk about WW2.
We had 2 text books on the period, one by Joll (The Ascendency of Europe) and Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes.

DED - 11-4-2006 at 17:45

I think I stop with the playboy book, it is sh..

zazkia - 14-4-2006 at 00:15

@ sis "Huntington" dear BBP, you gave me two of them. He wrote really well about everything before 1950 but after then it became an annoying mixture with his own ideas
(I'm especially annoyed by his sceptiscism towards postmodernism, either be neutral or shut up, or stop being a historian. :mad:)

@ scallopino, hah that's almost philosophy that polical course, if you have to read primary texts.
Foucault now that's someone I know something about. What did you read? Discipline & Punish? That is much refuted by historians for its style, i believe.

scallopino - 14-4-2006 at 12:03

Actually Zaz we haven't got to Foucalt yet in the course. I was reading Discipline and Punish before semester started for my own enjoyment and was up to Panopticism when I had to postpone finishing it.

We've just done Marx, who is great to read. Next is a section on what Romanticism was, especially in contrast with the Enlightenment (which we've already done alongside Rousseau), then Weber, Nietszche, Foucalt and Habermas.

And yeah, it is very philosophical in a sense. I enjoy that kind of Politics because it's sort of a middle ground to (i) what people usually think politics subjects are (you know History of the Australian Labour Party, Feminism and Dissent in the 20th Century etc.), and (ii) straight out Philosophy; the first type i'm not really interested in and the second i would struggle to take seriously.

Pappawas1975 - 18-4-2006 at 09:27

Finished Cows and the Lincoln Lawyer, by Michael Connelly since I was last here....Both very good reads....
Am now re-reading The Dice Man, by Luke Rhinehart.....An excellent book, anybody else read this? Very recommended indeed....

polydigm - 21-4-2006 at 12:18

Quote:
Originally posted by zazkia: ... either be neutral or shut up, or stop being a historian ...

That's a pretty strident view about historians. I can't imagine not having an opinion about history.

polydigm - 21-4-2006 at 12:24

Quote:
Originally posted by scallopino: I don't have time to read anything else other than what i'm required to for skoowel ...

As a local, I know what that "skoowel" is about, I wonder if anyone else does?
Quote:
Originally posted by scallopino: ... So i can't participate in this topic!

It is what you're currently reading.

Anyway, hi guys, the official forum getting back on it's feet has been pretty engaging, but I haven't forgotten about this place.

BBP - 21-4-2006 at 15:02

That's good... Thanks for remembering!

Right now, I'm re-reading Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground" because I didn't understand a word from it the first time I read it.

scallopino - 23-4-2006 at 00:31

Quote:
Originally posted by polydigm
Quote:
Originally posted by zazkia: ... either be neutral or shut up, or stop being a historian ...

That's a pretty strident view about historians. I can't imagine not having an opinion about history.


I think she has a point. As i understand it, an historian's job is to interpret events, movements and ideas; to piece together those things and synthesise into a coherent account of something in the past.

It's not to make personal value or moral judgements on those events, movements and ideas. Any one can do that.

scallopino - 23-4-2006 at 00:46

What i'm reading for an upcoming (too fast) essay on the Enlightenment:



Condorcet, Sketch for an Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind





Georges Sorel, The Illusion of Progress. Couldn't find an image.




Krishan Kumar, Prophecy and Progress.

scallopino - 23-4-2006 at 00:48

Oh, and

Sidney Pollard, The Idea of Progress.

Pappawas1975 - 23-4-2006 at 12:13

Am now halfway through "What A Carve Up!", by Johnathan Coe.....Very quirky, but enjoyable....

BBP - 24-4-2006 at 16:06

Finally finished Gogol's Dead Souls... Great book, in spite of being unfinished. Somehow I can't put myself to reading when I'm stuck at home in one room with the PC with internet access...

BBP - 25-4-2006 at 18:35

Some stories by Tolstoy.

Pappawas1975 - 25-4-2006 at 20:09

Began re-reading Naked Lunch....Definitely something that needs to be re-read.....I love it....

BBP - 25-4-2006 at 22:45

I still need to get that some day...

Pappawas1975 - 26-4-2006 at 10:44

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
I still need to get that some day...

Thoroughly recommended! But it is a difficult read, Ill warn you now, but there is something very magical about it.....

scallopino - 27-4-2006 at 07:32

I haven't read it, but i've heard it's the origin of 'Steely Dan'.

Pappawas1975 - 27-4-2006 at 14:35

Ha! Yes it is. Im not gonna tell you what Steely Dan is though.....Or Steely Dan Mark II. Or Steely Dan Mark III......

DED - 28-4-2006 at 08:46

Quote:
Originally posted by DED
I think I stop with the playboy book, it is sh..


Well in the contrary, I finished the book. Pff a good thing is that all main characters are missing or dead in the end. Upon me the writer can follow soon. It was a bad book.

Now that I have finished this one I started to read the English version of Mr. Mulliner off P.G. Woodhouse.....
But it is a little diificult to read, that special style of the guy.
So I choose to read a French book (in a Dutch translation first) It is called Wet Paint or originally Peinture Fraiche by Robert Escarpit.
The main character in it, is a wall. :roll:

BBP - 28-4-2006 at 10:41

Quote:
Originally posted by Gojira1975
Ha! Yes it is. Im not gonna tell you what Steely Dan is though.....Or Steely Dan Mark II. Or Steely Dan Mark III......


:lol: Unfortunately my pop music teacher gave it away... (the meaning of the name, not a Steely Dan)

Pappawas1975 - 28-4-2006 at 11:00

So he told you what Steely Dan is in Naked Lunch?....Not the sort of thing to be discussing with students?!!

BBP - 28-4-2006 at 19:48

She did, yeah. She's my popular music teacher, we were discussing art rock and stuff, played some Pink Floyd... She also introduced us to Yes, by saying how much she dislikes the band.

DED - 29-4-2006 at 08:46

Do not mind my asking BBP, but where is the seat of your bike..... ?.....:roll:

[Edited on 29-4-06 by BBP]

scallopino - 29-4-2006 at 10:30

Unfortunately, that went way over my head Ded.

Pappawas1975 - 29-4-2006 at 12:23

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
She did, yeah. She's my popular music teacher, we were discussing art rock and stuff, played some Pink Floyd... She also introduced us to Yes, by saying how much she dislikes the band.


Dildos are surely still a strange topic for an art rock discussion nonetheless?.....I know you guys are liberal, but still....

BBP - 29-4-2006 at 17:36

No really! Teacher was talking about Steely Dan... The thing about culture is that it's at the moment very "hip" to dislike Metallica, Charles Ives, Michael Jackson, and Steely Dan among others. She didn't understand why SD should be so impopular just out of fashion.

Still reading Tolstoy, and thoroughly enjoying it. He's got such a fluent style of writing.

Puptent - 1-5-2006 at 12:47

I like the Dan, but most of my friends don't, because they feel it isn't "proper raw rock" and not 'heartfelt', and just too deliberately crafted and arty. I've heard similar complaints about FZ, though...

BBP - 1-5-2006 at 13:54

Kinda liked them myself...

BBP - 2-5-2006 at 19:48

Have now bravely picked up my copy of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Which I hopefully will finish by the end of May.

Pappawas1975 - 5-5-2006 at 16:10

Just finished Animal Farm by George Orwell. A good little book.

Now reading Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard...

vivien_o_blivion - 21-5-2006 at 20:51


although it has now been interupted by


as i have my test this wednesday



[Edited on 21-5-06 by vivien_o_blivion]

BBP - 21-5-2006 at 21:17

Good luck Viv!

Pappawas1975 - 22-5-2006 at 09:32

Just finished Women by Charles Bukowski.....Just started The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time by.......cant remember who...

BBP - 22-5-2006 at 12:25

Mark Haddon?

DED - 22-5-2006 at 15:21

I know someone with Asperger
poor guy. Is banned from the audiofreaksforum several times.

BBP - 22-5-2006 at 16:09

That's a long title for a book, Dad! :-P

Seriously, I knew someone with Asperger, he studies with me. I dated him for a day, he broke up with me after he found out I supported the "wrong" football team. Gotta admit, he's about the smartest person I've ever met, never made notes in college yet passed every subject, and spoke 11 languages.

Pappawas1975 - 23-5-2006 at 09:43

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
Mark Haddon?


Thats it, thanks BB....You read it?...Its ok so far....

BBP - 23-5-2006 at 18:50

Never heard of it, just googled... sorry... Still working on Anna Karenina, but I'm nearly there.

BBP - 24-5-2006 at 15:52

I'm there! Yay! Good book, really, now I'm a happy single.

Now started on Naked Lunch!

Pappawas1975 - 25-5-2006 at 10:00

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
I'm there! Yay! Good book, really, now I'm a happy single.

Now started on Naked Lunch!


Would definitely be interested on your thoughts on NL BB.....

BBP - 8-7-2006 at 12:40

Now reading a superb play by Friedrich Durrenmatt, called Der Besuch der alten Dame, "the visit from the old lady". An old, wealthy, eccentric lady visits her home town, and announces she will give a billion (probably Marken or Francs) to the town, provided somebody will kill her former lover who left her after she got pregnant.
The mayor refuses the offer, because the man's a well-respected citizen, but the people in the village already start spending huge sums of money...

Pappawas1975 - 12-7-2006 at 11:46

Lost interest in The Crow Road Im afraid BB. I was really enjoying it, until about the 250 page mark, and realised that nothing had really happened AT ALL, and nothing pointed to anything happening either! The author tends to take 30 minutes for a 5 minute journey....

I very rarely put books down, but I was just totally bored with it!

And then I started The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien......WHOA. HEAVY SHIT. This is interesting, but soo in depth and difficult. I am trying and perservering though!!

BBP - 13-7-2006 at 20:37

Please do! The first book of it (maybe the first two) was quite hard to get through for me, but the actual Silmarillion book is enjoyable!.

Was in Amsterdam today, and went into the American Book Store. And in the children's section, I found:
The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless by Ahmet Zappa!

I read it on the way back home, just finished it. Quite an enjoyable read it is too! The Ahmet illustrations are not too great, but the photoshopping is enjoyable! Ahmet uses himself and Frank in some of them, is cool! Also quite some Zappa references.

Sad to see him ending his lengthy Thank You page with the most thanks to his amazing wife, who he'll love forever and ever. Ouch... How old is that book anyway?

Pappawas1975 - 14-7-2006 at 10:19

Ha! Quality. Id be interested to read that Ahmet book actually....

BBP - 14-7-2006 at 13:01

Wanna borrow my copy?

Pappawas1975 - 14-7-2006 at 15:43

Nah, its all good, but thanks anyway BB....

BBP - 15-7-2006 at 09:46

Believe it or not but I lost it already... :rolleyes:

scallopino - 27-7-2006 at 09:00

I have David Copperfield sitting on my desk but I won't be able to read it for about 4 months...

BBP - 27-7-2006 at 09:14

I've grabbed my old Smurf comics. The ones Peyo made are really very funny!

scallopino - 28-7-2006 at 09:19

Ha! I loved the smurfs! Do you think they exist in real life? I always suspected my mother was a smurf, or at least descended from smurfs.

BBP - 28-7-2006 at 11:35

Not until I actually saw some smurfs when I was on holiday in France...

...but I always gathered from the comics Peyo was a misogynic communist...

vivien_o_blivion - 22-8-2006 at 20:05

punknaynowned - 4-9-2006 at 12:05

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
Not until I actually saw some smurfs when I was on holiday in France...

...but I always gathered from the comics Peyo was a misogynic communist...


oh! I'm convinced the original artist was not a misogynist tho there is only one female smurf. A dear friend of mine who is female and decidedly not misogynist is convinced by deduction that smurfs reproduce asexually . . . she (my friend) frequently and with great vehemence will go on and on all day convincing anyone she's right about this. don't get her started!!!!

hahahhahhahhahhahhahhaahhahha!!!!!!

but she would agree with you that he was probably at least heavily socialist

[Edited on 4-9-2006 by punknaynowned]

BBP - 4-9-2006 at 13:04

Smurfs don't seem to reproduce at all. In the Babysmurf album, Baby is brought by a stork during a blue moon. When Brainy asks Papa Smurf where babysmurfs come from, the reply is that it is a great mystery.

Have you read the album in which Smurfette is introduced? Gargamel's recipe for a statuette with female character:

A spark of coquetry, a large dose of prejudice, three crocodile tears, the brains from a shrimp, powder from a vampire tongue, one carat of slyness, a handful of anger, a finger of lie-tissue, hand woven... a large quantity of craving for sweets, a quarter pound of bad faith, a thimble of unpredictability, a bit of haughtiness, a pint of jealousy, a bit of sentimentality, one part madness and one part cunningness, a lot of flying spirit and stubbornness, and a large measure of spendthrift.

(The responsibility for this recipe is for the editors of the book Magicae Formulae, Belzebub).

In the story any nasty prejudice on women is dealt with, from untimely headaches, spending ages on putting on make-up, singing badly whilst thinking she's singing great and unability to tell a joke properly, to endless talking and backseat driving... Ever wondered why the Smurf-dam is pink? Smurfette's suggestion.

punknaynowned - 4-9-2006 at 13:16

ouch!!! that's pretty damning I must agree.
you and my friend should talk. I'll see if I can't get her on here.

BBP - 5-9-2006 at 00:32

Great! Discussing Smurfs!

punknaynowned - 11-9-2006 at 23:41

bought a dozen books yesterday at a used bookshop.
Travel books of Dickens: Italy and America, The Old Curiosity Shop, 'the uncommercial traveller', a biography of Boccaccio, some faullkner miltie (hamlet again and Sanctuary the two 25 years apart), Conrad's Heart of Darkness, William Golding's Rites of Passage, some more sailing adventure-type books (CS Forester, Mutiny On the Bounty), Gunter Grass My Century c 1999, and John Fowles' The Maggot. I read The Magus 16 years ago but I bet this'll remind me of that.

I haven't been a fan of fiction for five years. I got the urge again. The weather just started to get a little cooler at night. Wonder if these'll whet my apetite again.

scallopino - 12-9-2006 at 13:37

i have read one work of fiction in about 3 years...Voltaire's Candide. No wait..i also read the last harry pothead book.

BBP - 12-9-2006 at 13:44

Nice purchases!

Today I bought a Japanese guitar book. It contains a lot of songs in a writing I cannot decipher, and, among others, "nothing else matter". Also I got a Guide to Learning Hiragana & Katakana, which looks fun, though considering I also still have a Modern Greek course, an Ancient Greek course, an Arabic course and a few Russian courses lying around I keep my fingers crossed I get to it.

Yesterday I got a nice Dutch youngsters classic, Stad in de Storm by Thea Beckman, about Utrecht in the Renaissance.

scallopino - 12-9-2006 at 13:52

my favourite part of Iron Chef is when Iron Chef Kenichi paints up his menu in that wonderful caligraphy. It looks real cool. It's just so different to European writing.

BBP - 15-9-2006 at 14:55

Just bought William Burroughs's Dead Fingers Talk.

And something else I'd been wanting for some time: a Donald Duck comic by Carl Barks, FC0308, the only scene Barks ever drew in which someone commits suicide.

language

punknaynowned - 15-9-2006 at 16:40

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
Also I got a Guide to Learning Hiragana & Katakana, which looks fun, though considering I also still have a Modern Greek course, an Ancient Greek course, an Arabic course and a few Russian courses lying around I keep my fingers crossed I get to it.

Yesterday I got a nice Dutch youngsters classic, Stad in de Storm by Thea Beckman, about Utrecht in the Renaissance.


'Hiragana & Katakana' : are these Japanese character drawing categories (am I close?). I think maybe I once knew about this but have since long forgot.
middle greek is quite similar to russian and ancient greek is different still. I have yet to get back to latin and greek which I love. Arabic, tho needed now is a whole other world . . . tho if I were to live longer, I would love it.
Perhaps you are right for doing the polymath path . . .
I tried it once or twice and got tired of the routine for more than a few years . . .:singer:

-- what do you mean Dutch youngsters classic? I'd love to learn about Utrecht in the Renaissance! But I dunno Dutch, hmmm lemme go look! thanx fer the idea

BBP - 15-9-2006 at 19:38

Thea Beckman's debut was for adults, and the rests of her books are for kids age 12 and up, often based on historic themes. When asked "Why don't you write grown-up books?" she replied "Grownups will read my books anyway." :bald:

Shall I post you a summary of that book?

Ooh, and Arabic is relatively easy as a language... The biggest problems are the reading from right to left, and that in writing there are 4 different symbols for every letter: one for a letter on its own, one for the beginning of a word, one for the middle, and one for the end.

And what do you mean Polymath Path?

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 02:27

oh!
a polymath is someone who studies lots of things.
Post me a summary? Well what can you tell me about Crusade In Jeans, the one where she got popular???? Or are the market for such things in general there, better. I for one would love to see more of that stuff. Was that story accurate insofar as appropriate for the tenor of Dutch cultural attitudes then???? or can that be measured. hmmmm
This is the first I've ever heard of this, tho, so I am already looking at it with a skewed perspective. Historical fiction for youth in the states never really took off. Video games replaced it and fantasy settings. I liked that stuff too, but I went into history. So it's a novelty to be hearing about such things and so of course, I ask questions about it that are interesting to me. Maybe not at all relevant to what you even brought it up for . . . Que?
Damn, I almost fell outta my chair there!

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 02:30

Arabic is easy huh?
I'm intrigued. What 'lessons' are you looking at?
:bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing::bouncing:

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 02:31

woah! that's almost eery all those bouncing balls smiling and leaping head over heels IN UNISON!!!!!

BBP - 16-9-2006 at 10:58

Quote:
Originally posted by punknaynowned
oh!
a polymath is someone who studies lots of things.
Post me a summary? Well what can you tell me about Crusade In Jeans, the one where she got popular???? Or are the market for such things in general there, better. I for one would love to see more of that stuff. Was that story accurate insofar as appropriate for the tenor of Dutch cultural attitudes then???? or can that be measured. hmmmm
This is the first I've ever heard of this, tho, so I am already looking at it with a skewed perspective. Historical fiction for youth in the states never really took off. Video games replaced it and fantasy settings. I liked that stuff too, but I went into history. So it's a novelty to be hearing about such things and so of course, I ask questions about it that are interesting to me. Maybe not at all relevant to what you even brought it up for . . . Que?
Damn, I almost fell outta my chair there!


Crusade in Jeans is about a 15-year old boy named Dolf, whose uncle is a scientist and who has invented a time machine. It's not perfect, when it's been used to ap something back and forth, it needs to be repaired for a month. As an experiment, they send Dolf to the Middle Ages and will flash him back in an hour. When the hour is over, the children's crusade is marching along and a little boy is zapped back to the present. Leaving Dolf to march along with the children...

It's a very captivating book, read it twice from start to finish in a day, and it's 600 pages long. Plus Beckman was famed for using relatively difficult lines. Whenever her bosses complained she used a too difficult word, she'd say "Nonsense!"

punknaynowned - 16-9-2006 at 22:58

ah yes! a device!
but then what does she do? does Dolf get to spend much more time in the 13th century? Is that the substance, the main plot arc of the thing or is it in getting him back? . . .

vivien_o_blivion - 16-9-2006 at 23:05

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
Great! Discussing Smurfs!



here's a lost episode



lol:lol:

BBP - 17-9-2006 at 16:23

Quote:
Originally posted by punknaynowned
ah yes! a device!
but then what does she do? does Dolf get to spend much more time in the 13th century? Is that the substance, the main plot arc of the thing or is it in getting him back? . . .

Yeah much more... he travels along with the children's crusade and has to save the kids from hunger and disease on a number of occasions, then overhears what the crusade is really about... But you'd better wait for the film, or read it yourself. It's been translated.

BBP - 17-9-2006 at 16:25

punknaynowned - 25-9-2006 at 04:56

I'll look for it

BBP - 29-9-2006 at 22:49

There's English translations of CIJ available in book stores around here, I can get you one...

Am now half-way in Stad in de Storm, it's a very exciting book.

Edit: finished it last night... really good, really good... Now off to Dead Fingers Talk whilst running the virus scanner.

[Edited on 30-9-06 by BBP]

polydigm - 30-9-2006 at 01:05

I'm currently reading Unweaving The Rainbow by Richard Dawkins.

scallopino - 30-9-2006 at 03:53

I've read some chapters from that Poly. I couldn't read it all because it was in the middle of semester and completely unrelated to my work.

Mr. Dawkins featured for about 6 months as my avatar here.

scallopino - 9-11-2006 at 15:58

Here is my self imposed formal study free reading list for my holiday months:


CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, H 415 C548S
FOUCAULT, The Order of Things, U 901.9 F762M
NIETZSCHE, The Antichrist, U 235.48 N677A
NIETZSCHE, Portable Nietzsche, U 193 N677A
KAFKA, The Castle, U 830.912 K11.1 A6/S3m
KAFKA, Short Stories, U 830.912 K11.1 A23/P
ROUSSEAU, Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, M 840.5 R864 A6/C.B
DURKHEIM, The Rules of Sociological Method, U 301.018 D963R8
DERRIDA, A Derrida Reader, U 194 D438 A28/K.h
FEYNMAN, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, H 530 F435F
DICKENS, David Copperfield, U 820.8 D548 A6/D.n
FLAUBERT, Sentimental Education, U 840.8 F587 A6/E3B

plus some other stuff not by any particular author.

BBP - 10-11-2006 at 12:09

That's quite some literary stuff you got there... Kafka is great!
But to be honest I never heard of Chomsky.

punknaynowned - 10-11-2006 at 19:17

Quote:
Originally posted by scallopino

CHOMSKY, Syntactic Structures, H 415 C548S
FOUCAULT, The Order of Things, U 901.9 F762M

DURKHEIM, The Rules of Sociological Method, U 301.018 D963R8
DERRIDA, A Derrida Reader, U 194 D438 A28/K.h
FEYNMAN, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, H 530 F435F


I'd love to spend some quality time with these as well. I can't anytime soon :drool:

scallopino - 11-11-2006 at 04:24

Yeah tell me about it...i have to wait until the end of each year usually.

scallopino - 11-11-2006 at 04:41

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
That's quite some literary stuff you got there... Kafka is great!
But to be honest I never heard of Chomsky.


I'm up to page 76 or something of The Castle. Noam Chomsky is an American and kind of has a similar stature to Michel Foucault. He is probably most famous for his advocacy of a sort of a modern form of anarchism and his criticism of american foreign policy.

There is a youtube video of a debate about human nature between Chomsky and Foucault (Foucault talks to Chomsky in French and Chomsky talks to Foucault in English..). It was a live to air thing and it might have even been for Dutch tv.

BBP - 12-11-2006 at 14:33

Sounds interesting...

punknaynowned - 25-11-2006 at 17:08

so you saw the CIJ movie. yeah books are always better, but did they do a decent job for this one?

BBP - 25-11-2006 at 21:36

Well there were some unfortunate plot changes... I wasn't too fond of the adding of a love story and the deletion of one main character... But it's still a very entertaining film. Two hours just flew past.

I ws surprised at one thing. One of my favourite actors, Jan Decleir, has a part in it; and I didn't recognize him.

BBP - 31-1-2007 at 12:56

Just started on reading The Devils by Dostoevski.

punknaynowned - 2-2-2007 at 23:27

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
Just started on reading The Devils by Dostoevski.


that's one I never got to. Have I ever prattled on about how I love Dostoevsky? I think I did . . . could ya keep me updated , but noooooo that might be too much like school eh?

anyway, I love it. That's supposed to show some of what he learned about as a gambler and 'arnachist' before his jail time, after which he started writing his works that have been most remembered.

BBP - 3-2-2007 at 18:57

Ah great! I especially enjoyed reading about his experiences in Siberian punishment camp... dirty clothes, one bath per year... Not sure about the English title.

punknaynowned - 12-2-2007 at 22:09

I'm reading the latest Thomas Pynchon novel: Against The Day.
here's the dustjacket synopsis that Pynchon wrote (oh, you can bet on it).

"Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after WWI, Against The Day moves from the labor troubles in Colorado [that's where I am right now] to turn-of-the-last-century New York to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.
With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places.
The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikolai Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.
As an era of uncertainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.
Meanwhile Thomas Pynchon is up to his usual business. Charcters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange and weird sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-fact occurences occur. Maybe it's not the world, but with a minor adjustment or two it's what the world might be."

I call it fun.
Already, me being in Colorado as noted above, I find the characters paralelling where I'm at in my present day world. Love it when this happens to me. When you come upon a book of fiction pretty randomly that gives insight or shows analogous perspective to the troubles and concerns of real life, right now. Makes you feel like you are part of a larger stream of pseudo-consciousness or something.:grin:

[Edited on 12-2-2007 by punknaynowned]

BBP - 12-2-2007 at 22:49

That sounds like some nice book that you have to be American to enjoy to the fullest...

Right now I'm reading something on the islam for college.

punknaynowned - 13-2-2007 at 08:56

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
That sounds like some nice book that you have to be American to enjoy to the fullest...

Right now I'm reading something on the islam for college.


what do you mean? LOL He's a lot easier to read than Burroughs! and a lot more fun!!
try this:
two 'mine engineers', Webb and Veikko, explosives experts are out on 'a job', somewhere northern New Mexico, 1890's. One American, the other from Finland.
Quote:
Mostly with Veikko you had your choice of two topics, techniques of detonation or Veikko's distant country and its beleaguered constitution, Webb never having seen him raise a glass, for example, that wasn't dedicated to the fall of the Russian Tsar and his evil viceroy General Bobrikoff. But sometimes Veikko went on and got philosophical. He'd never seen much difference between the Tsar's regime and American capitalism. To struggle against one, he figured, was to struggle against the other. Sort of this world-wide outlook. "Was a little worse for us, maybe, coming to USA after hearing so much about 'land of the free.'" Thinking he'd escaped something, only to find life out here just as mean and cold, same wealth without conscience, same poor people in misery, army and police free as wolves to commit cruelties on behalf of the bosses, bosses ready to do anything to protect what they had stolen. The main difference he could see was that the Russian aristocracy, after centuries of believing in nothing but its own entitlement, had grown weak . . . "But American aristocracy is not even a century old . . . strong from efforts it took to acquire its wealth, more of a challenge. Good enemy."
"You think they're too strong for the workers?"
At which Veikko's eyes would grow pale and illuminated from within, his voice issuing from an abundant and unkempt beard . . . "We are their strength, without us they are impotent, we are they," and so forth.
. . .
Webb and Veikko got into the usual argument about whether to blast the 'sucker now or wait til a train came. "You know how owners are," Veikko said, "lazy sons of bitches can't be bothered to saddle up, they take trains wherever they go. We blow train, maybe get a couple of them with it."
"I ain't about to sit out here all day waitin for some train that likely won't be runnin anyhow, it bein a three-day holiday." . . .
"Your mother fucks reindeer."

or
Quote:
Webb's trajectory toward the communion of toil which had claimed his life had begun right out in the middle of Cripple Creek, blooming in those days like a flower of poisonous delight among its spoil heaps, cribs, parlor houses and gambling saloons. It was a time in Cripple and Victor, Leadville and Creede, when men were finding their way to the unblastable seams of their own secret natures, learning the true names of desire, which spoken, so they dreamed, would open the way through the mountains to all that had been denied them. In the broken and soon-enough-interrupted dreams close to dawn in particular, Webb would find himself standing at some divide, facing west into a great flow of promise, something like wind, something like light, free of the damaged hopes and pestilent smoke east of here -- sacrificial smoke, maybe, but not ascending to Heaven, only high enough to be breathed in, to sicken and cut short countless lives, to change the color of the daylight and deny to walkers of the night the stars they remembered from younger times. He would wake to the day and its dread. The trail back to that high place and the luminous promise did not run by way of Cripple, though Cripple would have to serve, hopes corroded to fragments -- overnight whiskey, daughters of slaves, rigged poker games, the ladies who work on the line.


on second thought, maybe it's an old man's book. Maybe I'm feeling old, wanting to feel young again.:crying:
damn this post is huge. hope you don't mind.

btw, speaking of differences and divisions, what is that, 'the islam for college'?

BBP - 13-2-2007 at 20:24

Quote:
Webb and Veikko got into the usual argument about whether to blast the 'sucker now or wait til a train came. "You know how owners are," Veikko said, "lazy sons of bitches can't be bothered to saddle up, they take trains wherever they go. We blow train, maybe get a couple of them with it."
"I ain't about to sit out here all day waitin for some train that likely won't be runnin anyhow, it bein a three-day holiday." . . .
"Your mother fucks reindeer."


:puzzled:
And what's so funny about "Your mother fucks reindeer"?

It's OK if you make long posts... just remember there'll be fewer people to read it...

For college I'm taking a class on the islam: a basic introduction to the faith from an "academic" viewpoint (= non-believing). It's a pretty interesting class, I'm learning lots of Arabic (like Al-qaida). Also it's strengthening me in my atheist conviction. We have a decent teacher too, except yesterday the internet connection failed and he had to lecture without Power Point, which got him very confused.

punknaynowned - 14-2-2007 at 08:42

Quote:

:puzzled:
And what's so funny about "Your mother fucks reindeer"?


ouch!
it seems that Veikko is so frustrated with Webb because he won't go along with him to blow up a bridge and the train along with it potentially holding the corporate bosses (!!!!!) that he tries to insult him by insulting his mother . . .
it's a variation on a fairly common insult: to insult someone deeply you would attack their mother verbally and to insult someone's mother you say something about her supposedly . . . bad choices. It's funny because it's a wildly improbable thing first of all, and reindeer are found in places like Finland or Alaska, Siberia but not the lower 48 states at all. It's also funny because insulting someone's mother is either a reaction coming from a deeply felt place -- like "I'm hurt badly by what you say and so I want you to hurt badly too", or in cases where people are more used to each other's 'pressure points' it can also be almost endearing.
For example, it's so obvious to me that jpfunk actually likes or feels a kind of kinship with Isaac and that's exactly why he gives him such a hard time -- like a little brother he never had . . . Jpfunk probably feels like he's 'toughening little Isaac up' --he even told Isaac, 'I love you you big dummy' once and Isaac was so pissed off he couldn't even acknowledge it. Isaac doesn't see it that way, tho and jpfunk would probably never admit it.

I hope I haven't been overly wordy or seemed pretensious or any of that, Bonny. To be real honest, I don't know what you know and you don't know what I know and I have no idea how you see any of this. It is merely my simple hope that exposing people to stuff, whatever it is, will get them to see a little more of the wide world that is out there. That's all. :roll:
Quote:

It's OK if you make long posts... just remember there'll be fewer people to read it...

Up with literacy!, I say. :)
Quote:

For college I'm taking a class on the islam: a basic introduction to the faith from an "academic" viewpoint (= non-believing). It's a pretty interesting class, I'm learning lots of Arabic (like Al-qaida). Also it's strengthening me in my atheist conviction. We have a decent teacher too, except yesterday the internet connection failed and he had to lecture without Power Point, which got him very confused.


wish more folks could take a class on what other people believe in, so long as it's a reasonably accurate portrayal -- and I'm sure your class is a lot better than what the average American 'learns' on the slime from the tvset

oh! and happy Valentine's day!:P

[Edited on 14-2-2007 by punknaynowned]

BBP - 31-3-2007 at 21:08

Emile Zola - Germinal
In French, so wish me luck...

punknaynowned - 2-4-2007 at 05:07

I would LOVE to read Zola or Hugo, Balzac or Dumas in French. Omigod! Jealous Iam.

BBP - 2-4-2007 at 10:51

Easy solution: learn French. French is not such a difficult language, except for listening.

DED - 2-4-2007 at 13:45

I'm now rereading my dutch detecive books of Havank
(Hans van Kampen)
Keyperson is chief inspector Charles C.M. Carlier and most stories play in France. A lot of them in the Provence

BBP - 15-5-2007 at 14:02

Just got a lot of books from my birthday, some Ionesco and Gogol... Just finished a story collection by Emile Zola.

Now I'm reading for college: the bible. I've cleverly disguised my bible as The Real Frank Zappa Book so that I can read it without creepy people sitting next to me and talking to me on the train.

BBP - 8-8-2007 at 12:37

Read through the bible, passed the test. Now I've started finally on Germinal.

punknaynowned - 22-8-2007 at 19:02

this summer I've been reading sea stories:
Midshipman Hornblower
Mutiny On The Bounty (half-through)
Heart of Darkness (background in the Norton edition)

dunno why really. It's been ten years or more since I read fiction regularly. Just feel like it I guess.:P

[Edited on 22-8-2007 by punknaynowned]

BBP - 22-8-2007 at 19:06

Have only heard of the middle one...
How are they Punky?

punknaynowned - 22-8-2007 at 19:25

the hornblower is the first of a series, there are ten in all

heart of darkness = that giant sinking sound of decay we smell every time someone mentions 'progress'

how are u?
got to see zpz in tulsa last week. It was great!
then they're coming to Kansas City in November!
hooray!!

won't be going to europe this fall :(

DED - 22-8-2007 at 20:59

that are always nice stories about the sea, the tall ships, slavery (dutch slaves in Algery) and not to forget the merchand ships fighting in the second WW.
These types of books are famous (sorry were) in Holland

punknaynowned - 23-8-2007 at 03:55

I read many sea stories as a kid.
found the real world navy not as enjoyable
strange weather on the sea

of course, the Dutch made world sailing famous and then the spainiards took the helm and then the brits and then the yanks and then the pirates

I remember that one!:P
hope your well :)

DED - 16-10-2007 at 10:04

Are any of these books you read translations of Dutch work?
Me myself are now reading some childish Detectives, I read when I was Young.

And off course my new knowledge book

punknaynowned - 17-10-2007 at 10:31

no, those weren't. They are all English.
but one of my favorite books of the last few years was Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen of Johann Huizinga.
marvelous book
not fiction
history is my first true love

BBP - 17-10-2007 at 14:11

There's a funny pun going around on the name of that novel... I've thought of reading it just because of that.

(For the Dutch-speakers here: in the category of things that aren't what they sound like: herfsttijloos is niet iemand die Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen van Johan Huizinga heeft uitgeleend en niet teruggekregen.)

aquagoat - 18-10-2007 at 14:21

currently reading Brett Easton Ellis' American psycho, quite a special book, I can't stop reading it.

BBP - 19-10-2007 at 09:07

Ha! I couldn't continue reading it... Are you reading it in English? I found the first few pages pretty hard to get through, and somehow I never felt like continuing.

aquagoat - 19-10-2007 at 14:50

I read it in french, but it's true the first pages are a bit difficult to understand, my girlfriend had difficulties reading it in the beginning too. But after a while you get used to it and it becomes very captivating, you should try again, bb.

BBP - 20-10-2007 at 10:28

Maybe... I'm still stuck on Germinal in French. My French has definitely slipped downhill a lot.
And I'm still reading Junky because I can never remember where I put it. :freak:

BBP - 3-11-2007 at 16:29

Currently I'm reading something I got for free at the book fair: I could choose a book for free, out of a pile of works that you normally wouldn't touch. But this one's entertaining.

It's The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide by Douglas and Graham Walker, the leaders of the World RPS Society.

aquagoat - 5-11-2007 at 16:02

hum, that sounds quite interesting, considering the title. I never thought such a book could exist. :shocked:

BBP - 14-11-2007 at 21:30

It's... well... it begins with a large chapter on how RPS is much better than flipping coins... Now I've reached the chapter "How To Meet Girls With RPS". This book has to be the most absurd I've read in a long time.

Speaking of RPS: In Fort Boyard they play it sometimes against the tigerheads. Then they have 4 cards, a rock, paper, scissor and pit. What does the pit do?

At the book fair I bought a 2-in-1 book with Frankenstein and Dracula.
Now I'm reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which turns out to be a great read. I'm halfway already.

DED - 18-11-2007 at 18:05

I do not like the genre.
When reading is a pastime it will always be detectives or thrillers
othwerwise it will be management books (preferably about Knowledge Management)

Badchild - 13-3-2008 at 12:28

I'm currently reading Gravity's Rainbow by T. Pynchon. It's a tough read i must say. I just ot my National Geographic so now that's my daily reading for the next couple of days...Great article on animal intelligence.
Quote:
Speaking of RPS: In Fort Boyard they play it sometimes against the tigerheads. Then they have 4 cards, a rock, paper, scissor and pit. What does the pit do?


You mean they make an English version of Fort Boyard? It's just a few km from here. My kids love that show. However, it used to be better before it became just tv people competing. Before, the teams kept the money:freak:.

Really nice to be here BBP.

punknaynowned - 13-3-2008 at 14:11

I haven't finished Pynchon's latest, Against The Day yet.
I've been on page 637 out of 1085, for some months now.

BBP - 13-3-2008 at 17:20

Quote:
Originally posted by Badchild
I'm currently reading Gravity's Rainbow by T. Pynchon. It's a tough read i must say. I just ot my National Geographic so now that's my daily reading for the next couple of days...Great article on animal intelligence.


Quote:
Speaking of RPS: In Fort Boyard they play it sometimes against the tigerheads. Then they have 4 cards, a rock, paper, scissor and pit. What does the pit do?


You mean they make an English version of Fort Boyard? It's just a few km from here. My kids love that show. However, it used to be better before it became just tv people competing. Before, the teams kept the money:freak:.

Really nice to be here BBP.


Let's see... there was a Dutch FB, a Belgian FB, a Russian, Bulgarian/Serbian/Turkish, US, UK, German, Holland vs Belgium, Algeria, Argentina, Canada, Denmark... The format's been sold to 65 countries.

For me it doesn't matter much whether the competitors are famous Frenchies or not. I think i've seen only one I knew this far. It's just that they used to rehearse so they knew what they were supposed to do in every chamber, and with the celebs they don't.

But to stay on topic: I'm reading a play by Gogol.

scallopino - 14-3-2008 at 09:15

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
It's... well... it begins with a large chapter on how RPS is much better than flipping coins... Now I've reached the chapter "How To Meet Girls With RPS". This book has to be the most absurd I've read in a long time.

Speaking of RPS: In Fort Boyard they play it sometimes against the tigerheads. Then they have 4 cards, a rock, paper, scissor and pit. What does the pit do?

At the book fair I bought a 2-in-1 book with Frankenstein and Dracula.
Now I'm reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which turns out to be a great read. I'm halfway already.


I think Frankenstein is one of the most beautiful books ever written, in a lot of ways. The descriptions of the scenery around Geneva and the other places...the lakes, the forests, the mountains, the ice, are really breathtaking.

It's also probably the most depressing thing i've ever read. It is as utterly and continuously bleak as you can get.

I got the film a few weeks after I read it, given its reputation as one of the great movies. I thought it was an absolute travesty. It took all the great things about the novel out and Hollywoodized it. I don't know what i would think if i hadn't read it first.

scallopino - 14-3-2008 at 09:20

Quote:
Originally posted by punknaynowned
I haven't finished Pynchon's latest, Against The Day yet.
I've been on page 637 out of 1085, for some months now.


Punky, here's a tip for when you have lots of pages but can't get motivated to get to the end: Just turn the pages without reading them. You'll find that you'll just fly through it! You can even try humming a tune to yourself while you do it!

BBP - 14-3-2008 at 12:33

Quote:
Originally posted by scallopino

I think Frankenstein is one of the most beautiful books ever written, in a lot of ways. The descriptions of the scenery around Geneva and the other places...the lakes, the forests, the mountains, the ice, are really breathtaking.

It's also probably the most depressing thing i've ever read. It is as utterly and continuously bleak as you can get.

I got the film a few weeks after I read it, given its reputation as one of the great movies. I thought it was an absolute travesty. It took all the great things about the novel out and Hollywoodized it. I don't know what i would think if i hadn't read it first.


It's a great book indeed... I'm reluctant to watch any more book films. I read Dracula a few months ago and loved it, with strong, friendly characters, one of them Dutch speaking ungrammatical at occasions. Now that I've seen Coppola's monstrosity he even dared to attach Stoker's name to, I'm upset about what Hollywood does to the images a reader may form. Not to mention about character change.

punknaynowned - 14-3-2008 at 18:03

this is exactly my biggest problem with film in general. Hollywood makes a bigger dime by spoon-feeding it to such an extreme, the way they do. Reading IS an active activity, it stimulates imagination in so many ways in addition to the mainly visual. And with so many faster and faster images in the way they do them, strips character away for one, but shuts out the possibility of getting to think on one's own except for 'how they gonna get out of this'. Documentaries are much more interesting to me,. for a long time now. I can enjoy a well-displayed shot and so on, but without the layers that a book can convey and trusting the audience to put it together, or go off on your own, much is lost in film-making as a story telling medium.

[Edited on 14-3-08 by punknaynowned]

scallopino - 15-3-2008 at 08:09

I agree Punk. One thing about reading is that everybody "reads" something different; they create the text in a sense based on their own experiences and they have their own images which reflect people and places they've seen. Movies take all this away by forcing on you a particular reading of something and you have no choice but to see what they want you to see.

I can only watch a certain kind of documentary. I can't watch history documentaries because of the re-enactments, which rivals tag graffiti as the lamest thing in the world. The best documentaries have no narration and let the subject and story speak for itself and let the audience form their own conclusions.

BBP - 15-3-2008 at 09:33

Ugh! History documentaries!

Back in the day I studied history, I had a lovely teacher Maarten Prak who explained us what's the problem with history documentaries: lack of footage. It's why the main Dutch history programme only deals with the 20th century.
In his lecture, just prior to showing a highly dopey commentary, he explained to us:
"In a historical documentary, there are three ways of making a story more exciting.
The first is reenacting certain events in clothes of the time.
The second is geting an expert to talk about it.
The third is getting an expert in the field to tell about it. (imitates expert) "I am now on the field where in 1600 a battle was fought. It is likely that this tree (hugs blackboard post) was the witness of this event..."

I'm very fond of nature documentaries. Though Richard Attenborough nowadays makes me laugh (too much Shivers playing), I'm very fond of his work. And Iain Stewart's recent Earth series is absolutely gorgeous.

There are cases in which the book is worse than the film. Other than some Dutch work, Silence of the Lambs is the first one that springs to mind. And in case of Clockwork Orange, there is a tie.

scallopino - 18-3-2008 at 07:36

I think you might mean David Attenborough! I really admire him as a film maker and as a person. But I can't stand the "Extreme Nature" documentaries, which attempt to link animals with stuff teenagers are interested in: like BMX. They're aimed at people who don't usually like documentaries. And they pretty much say that these "Extreme Animals" would definitely go skateboarding given half a chance.

BBP - 18-3-2008 at 23:04

Quote:
Originally posted by scallopino
Quote:
Originally posted by punknaynowned
I haven't finished Pynchon's latest, Against The Day yet.
I've been on page 637 out of 1085, for some months now.


Punky, here's a tip for when you have lots of pages but can't get motivated to get to the end: Just turn the pages without reading them. You'll find that you'll just fly through it! You can even try humming a tune to yourself while you do it!


Heh heh heh! I've done that a lot, indeed! Sometimes it just takes a while for me to get concentrated.

Today I finished my Gogol-collection, with the gorgeous play "The Gamblers". It's been a great read... but I feel a little empty now...

BBP - 18-3-2008 at 23:11

:pissed: You're right! I'm so stupid! Richard is an actor.
There's been a lot of heat recently about Attenborough's documentaries: not about the content, but because parts which were hinting on or dealing with evolution were deleted by the highly catholic channel (EO) that was showing them.

It's spawned a lot of spin-offs. I myself made an EO-approved comic version of 2001, A Space Odyssey. It's very short.

punknaynowned - 19-3-2008 at 05:57

EO-approved, ? who's that?
and care to share yer adaptation for viewing?
(:

scallopino - 19-3-2008 at 09:57

Quote:
Originally posted by BBP
:pissed: You're right! I'm so stupid! Richard is an actor.
There's been a lot of heat recently about Attenborough's documentaries: not about the content, but because parts which were hinting on or dealing with evolution were deleted by the highly catholic channel (EO) that was showing them.

It's spawned a lot of spin-offs. I myself made an EO-approved comic version of 2001, A Space Odyssey. It's very short.


:lol: I would like to see that! I wish people like the EO would stop trying to prevent the spread of information. The more I think about it, the more upset I get. I think David is very much unreligious himself and has spoken out about creationists getting involved with science. It's one of the reasons I like him.

BBP - 19-3-2008 at 13:26

Well Punky:
EO is the Evangelische Omroep, known for its religious outings in shows (and UGLY hosts). They cut segments regarding evolution out of Attenborough documentaries.

And I'll share you the comic, but I have to remake and ink before I can scan it.

Gosh, it's been long since I last published a comic... There's The Middle-Aged Twos I made when I was 15 (and a Primus-head)... and I just discovered I took it off-line...

polydigm - 16-9-2008 at 23:34

I'm reading Kathy Reich's latest called Devil Bones. Yes, I know, nothing very edifying.

BBP - 17-9-2008 at 08:25

I'm still, STILL getting through Dostoevski's Devils. And for college I'm reading books by Grier and Caldwell on music editions.

Badchild - 10-11-2008 at 14:03

I'm reading this....




Not too bad...tends to ramble.

almost finished these three as well








Nice trilogy....

[Edited on 10-11-2008 by Badchild]

BBP - 12-11-2008 at 00:03

Les Castors Juniors présentent les Bonnes Recettes de Grand-Mère Donald. I'm surprised at the amount of recipes calling for alcoholic beverages.

DED - 11-1-2009 at 22:02

The family reunion
a play by T.S. Eliot

I am at the end and must say still looking for the missing piece.
One of the lines says : I think I stay till after the funeral. But I haven't read that someone has died ????

BBP - 12-1-2009 at 15:39

Yeah I had that too once... a particularly boring book by Marga Minco... the main character died and I didn't even notice.

I've just finished Lolita and am now onto De Pianoman, which was a free book, based on the Pianoman who was found two years ago.

BBP - 16-1-2009 at 21:37

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland.

scallopino - 17-1-2009 at 12:50

I read that a month ago I think Bonny for the first time. I was surprised at how concise it is...I mean, I knew most of the things that happen in it from the various movies. But when I read it, it seemed like all the famous bits were so SHORT! They would be only one or two pages long! There was nothing more in the book than what i'd seen in the animation and movie, which is really unusual.

BBP - 17-1-2009 at 12:58

A lot more, I think... the Gryphon, chess game, Humpty Dumpty, Mock Turtle, Lobster Dance and stuff was all left out of the Disney one. Along with the Father William verse, which I adore. I noticed how well the verses have been translated into Dutch.

MTF - 17-1-2009 at 22:22

I'm reading The Science of Leonardo, by Fritjof Capra.

Leonardo was around 100 years after the Great Plague and 100 years before Copernicus. This was when modern science was taking its first baby steps; and Leonardo was the one taking them.

Pretty cool guy: he was doing things that most people of the time could barely even imagine.

BBP - 17-2-2009 at 15:34

"The man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sachs. It's so good!

scallopino - 19-2-2009 at 03:49

I'd never heard of Sachs before this. His books sound fascinating. Not to mention the visual hilarity conjured up by a man mistaking his wife for a hat.

BBP - 19-2-2009 at 16:31

That's because he's called Sacks. Sorry, my bad.
I heard of him through a cartoon of Dutch artist Gummbah, with a messy, slightly pornographic and rude sense of humour (among his steady themes are: sex with smurfs, homosexuality, strap-on dildos and people wearing flippers) and overly ugly main characters. He made a riddle: "What book is this?" and the picture was a man hitting a woman, saying: "There, that'll teach you, you filthy hat!"

scallopino - 20-2-2009 at 04:50

:D

BBP - 20-2-2009 at 12:07

It's a great book and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, though Sacks occasionally gets scientifical and then I lose him.

punknaynowned - 23-2-2009 at 01:10

surprise random new!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs3sNigcdoE&feature=channel
pt 1 of 2
from this weekend
(:

BBP - 23-2-2009 at 09:54

Nice! Thank you Punky!

BBP - 16-3-2009 at 21:24

Latest addition to my dictionary collection: Dinkum Aussie Dictionary.

I didn't know that Living Daylights was Australian... James Bond is a man of the world!

scallopino - 19-3-2009 at 12:24

The only phrase i know of it's used in is "You scared the living daylights outta me!", if someone jumps out at you or whatever.

[Edited on 19-3-2009 by scallopino]

BBP - 19-3-2009 at 18:04

Yeah, that! I like that line! Other lines I find particularly entertaining are:
Better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick
Brass razoo
Bung on a blue
Camp as a row of tents
Cocky on the biscuit tin
Didn't come down in the last shower
Face like a stopped clock
Happy as a bastard on Father's day
If it was raining palaces I'd be hit by the dunny door
Talk under wet cement with a mouthful of marbles
Who's robbing this coach?
You don't have to be dead to be stiff.

scallopino - 20-3-2009 at 07:02

A few of those are classics and used very regularly. If you complain about something that has just happened to you, someone might say "yeah well, it's better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick". If you try and lie to someone and they know it, they might say "I didn't come down in the last shower", or alternatively, "do you think I was born yesterday?". I've never really understood that last shower one. If someone is very talkative and loud you'd say they could talk under six feet of wet cement with a mouthful of marbles.

Also, if you make some outlandish request, someone might say "What do you think this is? Bush week?" That's another one i've never understood. And if someone says to you, "How are you?" you could say "Fit as a fiddle".

I bet Poly would have more of them.

[Edited on 20-3-2009 by scallopino]

BBP - 20-3-2009 at 11:35

Yeah where's Poly anyway?

Fit as a fiddle? Hmmm...

punknaynowned - 20-3-2009 at 13:09

a fiddle makes you happy, ergo>>>

I grew up in a world full of those bonny. Living in so many places with different traditions and dialects there are so many of those. By the time I could think for myself I wanted to make up my own.
a couple that come quickly to mind

You make a better door than a window = Get out of the way

Where did you grow up? In a barn? = either Shut the door, or Zip up your pants or something like that

Eatin grass with the ducks = I have no money

Off like a prom dress = In a hurry

Don't get your undies in a wedge or Don't tie your titties in knots = Relax

He's on crack! = I could never do that



I'll come back when I remember more

BBP - 21-7-2009 at 16:23

Reading 2 very different books right now.
One is The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln. It's the conspiracy theory book that inspired the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and Gabriel Knight 3: Blood Of The Sacred, Blood Of The Damned. It's very interesting pseudo-science.

And I'm reading Samuel Becket's Worstward Ho. No, I don't understand it very much either, but it's very nice all the same.

scallopino - 23-7-2009 at 06:53

I've read a similar thing that was called (I think) 'Sacred Virgin and the Holy Whore' that alleges amongst other things that Jesus was female.

BBP - 23-7-2009 at 14:35

Yeah, it's by Anthony Harris.
That sure sounds like fun! I'll see if my library carries it (which is probably a pretty big if).

scallopino - 28-7-2009 at 13:56

It was my grandfather's copy that I read. I don't know where he got it from, but after I read it I googled it and it hardly comes up anywhere on the net. It must be really obscure. I was thinking "Man, this book is so controversial, it must be really famous!" but no, almost not at all.

BBP - 20-9-2009 at 15:07

I'm reading Gogol's Taras Bulba. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Bulba
I never realized that Darkwing Duck was so... clever in its references...

BBP - 11-11-2009 at 21:19

Just finished up on Macbeth today.

You know Shakespeare is so much better when you don't get it funnelled down your throat... (recalls the 2000 Merchant of Venice in Olivier Theatre in London... 3.5 hours, miserable acoustics making it impossible to understand a word...)

Calvin - 22-11-2009 at 07:22

I've just read The Smartest Guys in The Room and The Informant! Both really good.

BBP - 13-1-2010 at 09:04

Audio book of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It's very odd to read a book of which you know the story by heart already. But I'm loving it!

BBP - 18-9-2010 at 13:43

I finally finished Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers. Starting up took a little long though I loved it from the first chapter, but I read the second half of near 650 pages in the time space of three days. Amazing book.

DED - 11-11-2010 at 21:28

I am "reading",more looking, in a book bbp gave to me.
Pictures of my town of birth and youth in the 19th century. Most pictures are between 1890 and 1910.
So beautiful.

BBP - 21-2-2011 at 17:19

A leg to stand on - Oliver Sacks. Wow... I wish I had read that when I was in the hospital! If ever you have a friend who loses functioning of a limb and you want to give him a present, consider this book!

It deals with the neurological issues the author suffered when he tore a tendon and a nerve in his left leg. Among them: He lost all perception of that leg, like it wasn't his. It's a very common, but little described, occurrence with people who injure themselves in such manner. And indeed I had issues like that: it just can't be your leg lying up there in a cast, all swollen. So it was very consoling to know it's normal. Your mind does play tricks with you at such times.

polydigm - 22-2-2011 at 04:00

Quote: Originally posted by BBP  
... I didn't know that Living Daylights was Australian... James Bond is a man of the world!

I realise this is an old post, but George Lazenby was an Australian.

BBP - 22-2-2011 at 13:08

^I knew that. I continue to think he's a total asshole.

polydigm - 23-2-2011 at 12:46

Quote: Originally posted by BBP  
^I knew that. I continue to think he's a total asshole.
Why's that? Personally, I don't know anything about him other than the fact he's an Aussie and he once played James Bond.

BBP - 23-2-2011 at 13:55

He's very arrogant. It really shows in the movie itself, but even in interviews he continues to think he's the Bee's Knees. Arrogance is a highly unattractive trait. See how I got off Dweezil.

Of course the only other thing I've seen Lazenby in is 4 Dogs Playing Poker. That movie can be very well described with that internet joke: http://thechive.com/2010/04/13/creative-writing-assignment-goes-hil... . There are some bits where one of the authors tries to get "insightful into the characters" (very badly developed characters, 30 minutes in you probably won't have remembered their names), and another writer includes the word Fuck as many times as he can.

polydigm - 9-3-2011 at 21:48

"The Rest is Just Noise" by Alex Ross, about the music of the 20th century. Not theoretical but critical. What I mean is he's telling the story of 20th century music as opposed to it being a book about how to write music. It's a very engaging book. Wow, a lot of artists and composers around the end of the 19th into the start of the 20th century were such a depressing bunch.

BBP - 1-6-2011 at 11:20

A collection of Bulgarian tales. I've only had a few, but I'm very pleasantly surprised at Aleko Konstantinov's creation Bay Ganyo. Ganyo is the representation of the new Bulgaria: merchant of precious rose oil abroad, filthy, vulgar, completely unable to adapt to the country he's in, and calling the other cultures "crazy". I'm trying to find an English version on-line, but for now here's Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Ganyo

and a joke:

Bay Ganyo, an American and a Frenchman were flying on a plane. The American stuck his hand out of the plane and said, “We're in America.”

“How can you tell?” the others asked.

“I just touched the Statue of Liberty.”

After a while the Frenchman stuck his hand out and said, “We're in France.”

“How do you know?”

“I just touched the Eiffel Tower,” he answered.

Finally Bay Ganyo stuck his hand out and said, “We're in Bulgaria.”

The others asked him how he knew.

“They stole my watch,” he replied.

polydigm - 1-6-2011 at 23:03

Don't get it. Mind you, never heard of Bay Ganyo.

BBP - 1-11-2011 at 19:50

Currently reading Witches of Eastwick by John Updike. Not sure what to make of it. I don't read too many American authors and John Updike isn't going to change that.

BBP - 29-1-2012 at 12:18

Reading Boccacio's Decameron. Will take a while.
What a book!

polydigm - 31-1-2012 at 00:38

So Bonny, I'd forgotten about that. Are you ever going to tell me who Bay Ganyo is?

BBP - 31-1-2012 at 14:24

Bay Ganyo is the lead character of the series of stories by the same name, written by Aleko Konstantinov. He's a rose-oil merchant and travels Europe, where his totally a-social, ignorant and egotistic behaviour raises everybody's eyebrows.
Bay Ganyo is a cult hero in Bulgaria. The four tales I read about him, make me hungry for more, but unfortunately finding a translation is hard. Of course the entire text is on-line, but in Bulgarian only.

polydigm - 1-2-2012 at 00:24

Thanks Bonny. I have to say I more than half got the joke when I first read it, but the fact that it was someone's name, rather just any Bulgarian, I thought I might be missing some subtlety, but it turns out not.

KAPTKIRK - 11-5-2012 at 03:04

I'm close to the end of Bonfire of the Vanities and it's amazing how we repeat the same mistakes every 15-30 years or so.Especially the money markets of Wall St.! Banks are never too big to fail,IMHO and this as Chase is losing 2 billion on the same investitures that got us in trouble 4 yrs. ago! Basically betting investers money on futures that aren't there.Only projected futures! It makes me want to scream!!! At least bet it on a horse that can finish! The CEO's excuse? Well it worked before....why they outta through away the keys,with that one, :forumsmiley243: I tell ya!!

BBP - 5-7-2012 at 14:19

I'm on a Hesse-trip, just finished Demian and am onto Narziss und Goldmund, and find it hard to put down. No wonder Kafka was a fan of his!

punknaynowned - 9-7-2012 at 16:58

I really like Herman Hesse. My favorite was Magister Ludi. But I feel like I've talked to Bonny about this.
When I was a teenager I read the Foundation trilogy of Isaac Asimov. A future world where 'pychohistorians' can statistically predict the future of humanity, within probabilities. They've developed it into a science and worked out how to steer humanity in the 'right' direction, with constant support. If only. The idealism of such a notion meshes in pretty ways with the glass bead game of Magister Ludi. So in a way it makes sense I would like that. Also read Hesse when I needed beautiful ideas to get me through the day. It worked!

BBP - 9-7-2012 at 18:39

Am reading that one now. :) Really!

polydigm - 11-7-2012 at 02:53

I had a brief Hesse period sometime in my twenties. I read Steppenwolf and was very much inspired by it, then I read Knulp and that was a bit ordinary and then I tried to read The Glass Bead Game but I found it a bit laboured and got bored. Personally, Steppenwolf was enough for me.

BBP - 11-7-2012 at 11:11

Ah, so no Demian for you then? I'm impressed by his psycho-analystic building of his lead characters. Good characters are important to me, the biggest flaw of Lord Of The Rings is the underdeveloped Frodo.
But he's a bit Jungian, which does annoy me slightly.

It's a lot harder to get into the Glass Bead Game than into Demian, Narziss und Goldmund or even Steppenwolf, that's for sure. But I'll get there, currently Knecht has found a friend in the monastery.

punknaynowned - 11-7-2012 at 15:56

in the version I had there are a few short stories at the end, purportedly written by Knecht when he was young that show his interests at that age. Whether they are early stories of Hesse lumped in or crafted specifically for this book - they add more to the character at that age. One seems like Demian, another,the young Gautama - they could easily work as early drafts of those books. Anyway, it's one of those books of just a few that inspired me and also made me feel less alone in this world. The knowledge that there were people out there who wanted to look at complex things in clearer if abstract ways was liberating.

BBP - 11-8-2012 at 13:07

Just finished reading the play Rozencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard. Nice!

BBP - 14-9-2012 at 21:15

Last night I finished reading The Three Musketeers. It's interesting how it relates to the two films I've seen: it still has a decent amount in common with the 1948 TM with Gene Kelly as d'Artagnan, and barely anything with the 1993 one with Chris O'Donnell.

[Edited on 14-9-12 by BBP]

BBP - 27-9-2012 at 10:22

Finished my fifth Hesse: The Prodigy. :crying:

BBP - 4-11-2013 at 16:26

Hasse Simonsdochter put me on a Thea Beckman-trip again, been re-reading some of her novels. I just finished her historical novel Geef me de ruimte! which takes place in France during the 100 Years War. One chapter is devoted to Amiens during the Plague. Though Beckman does tone down violence a bit, the sections about the Plague and about the attempted betrayal of Jean II are nauseating, to say the least.

BBP - 19-1-2014 at 18:38

Let's see... on Thursday I got through Murakami's latest in one day (and the only reason I had the confidence to buy a 20 dollar book by an unknown author was that there were at least two people on the FZ forum saying how good he was in the book topic).

And I just finished the second book of Beckman's trilogy on the 100 Year War: Triomf van de verschroeide aarde. Deals with, among others, revolution in Paris and the sieges of Rennes and Reims.

Batchain - 7-7-2014 at 09:26

Thinking about "favorite authors" I recently dusted off two books by the "longshoreman/dockworker/migrant/migrant worker, Social Philosopher, Eric Hoffer! He has an astonishing background who went through six years of blindness (ages 6 through 12
) with an unexplained, slightly gradual, return of eyesight during which time he developed an insatiable craving for the written word while learning to read.
He was prodded by a faithful correspondent finally to write a book, far from anything he had intended. His first, and in my opinion, *best* books were his first two: "The True Believer (Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements)" and "The Ordeal of Change." By chance I picked them up at age 16 and Mr. Hoffer became an idol of mine and that's remained unchanged to this very day.
No, I have never had any so-called "heroes" at all, only people I admire by which I use the term "idol", just as I consider Frank Zappa an "idol". No one deserves the stature of "hero" as we are all largely full of holes and emptiness with those obvious exceptions who are unexplainably gifted with an unusual *substance*. Some are well-known, others are personal, but they all share in possessing *substance*.

BBP - 8-7-2014 at 11:12

I'm still on that Hiroshima book. It initially was a bit of a tedious read, primrily focussing on US intelligence (which was incredibly tight, the last the Japanese intelligence picked up was in late 1944, that it would take years until the US had a working atomic bomb), and now it's a very difficult read for a different reason. Eek eek eek eek eek eek eek eek.

aquagoat - 8-7-2014 at 20:53

wow, it's been such a long time since I read a book, i ain't got the time anymore.:(

polydigm - 9-7-2014 at 01:19

Having returned to study the only books I have time to read are maths and physics books. Any spare time I get, which is not a great deal, I socialise with family or work on my music. It's mid year break at the moment and I'm working on a jigsaw puzzle of Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette by Renoir with my wife, who's pretty damn busy herself most of the time.

BBP - 9-7-2014 at 10:55

Hey, Dad and I did one of that exact painting!
I recall I started with the lady in the striped dress in the middle, and that we ended with a lot of black pieces; as a joke I put on a wallpaper on my father's desktop while we were working on it. Definitely a two man's job.

polydigm - 12-7-2014 at 17:11

We finally finished that one yesterday afternoon. The next one is a Turner and I'll swear that entire painting is made of three shades of brown. It will be a hard one. A while back we tried doing Blue Poles - a sure recipe for a nervous breakdown - we gave up on it.

BBP - 12-7-2014 at 20:40

Xa! I know that, I know that... My favourite painting is Monet's Bridge over the garden pond, and I have a jigsaw of it... but it's nigh impossible, so pixellated... so little focus points...

There's an online jigsaw game that's nothing but white, but at least all the pieces are shaped significantly different, so it's solvable.

BBP - 24-5-2015 at 22:29

Just finished 1Q84 by Murakami, it's awesome!

aquagoat - 25-5-2015 at 07:23

Currently reading Spinoza's Ethics.

aquagoat - 25-5-2015 at 07:25

Quote: Originally posted by BBP  
Just finished 1Q84 by Murakami, it's awesome!
seems interesting, I'll have to read that.

BBP - 30-8-2015 at 15:46

Rest in peace Oliver Sacks... :crying:

aquagoat - 6-11-2019 at 09:06

Yesterday, I started reading Clair de Femme by Romain Gary. It starts pretty well.

Just bought:
Carl Jung's Symbols of Transformation and Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self.
Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.
Michel Houellebecq's Souimission et Serotonine.
And Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem and Responsibility and Judgment.

polydigm - 6-11-2019 at 18:24

I see how your week’s going now. That’s some pretty hefty stuff.

BBP - 6-11-2019 at 21:14

So great when you're able to finally read those books that have been on your to read list for a long time, enjoy!

aquagoat - 7-11-2019 at 08:31

That's exactly that, Bonny. I had stopped reading, years ago, but my ex-girlfriend put me back to it a few months ago. It was a bit difficult, in the beginning, cause I had lost the habit, but now it's ok. I can't stop reading the stuff I already have, and I have to buy some more.

BBP - 9-11-2019 at 08:20

Haha! I just found a verse by Annie M.G. Schmidt (who was one of the greatest Dutch children's books and TV show authors) called Literatuur, relating how her lovers introduced her to Hemingway, Ibsen and others, while bemoaning she hasn't had one yet who was into the Iliad. Moral: the more lovers one has, the more we develop intellectually!

Not that I have much experience in the field but I think I can still play all the reggae Niki once taught me. And I still listen to some of the music he gave me way back when.

aquagoat - 9-11-2019 at 08:51

That's true. I often listen to bands my ex lovers introduced me to. Or watch movies they like. I even, sometimes, remember reflections they shared with me, and act accordingly.
For example, my recent quitting my job was directly resulting from thinking about what Sylvie told me a few months ago: "When are you gonna stop working for these people who don't know how to manage their businnes?" I finally decided she was right, so I quit.

punknaynowned - 10-7-2022 at 03:35

I'm reading "them" by Joyce Carol Oates. It won the US National Book Award in 1970 and is the third title in a series called 'The Wonderland Quartet'. Essentially a four volume series on social aspects of Americana from the 1930's thru the 1960's. I really enjoy her styles and voices. "them" is the story of a poor family raised in Detroit from the '30's to the '60's. She employs several inner voices to tell her story of a single family, begun with that of a teenage girl who becomes a mother, and then carries on with her kids who grow into adulthood.
I say it is the third in the series but the other two that come before it have nothing to do with the characters in this third title. The second one called "Expensive People" is a first person narrator, also a teenager who confesses in the first line that they are a child murderer. That is, a child who killed someone. This act of violence is typical of Oates work. She writes A LOT about crime, violence, and the criminal mind set. So, yes, a reflection of a great swath of American reality in the 20th century, and beyond. Remarkable insight she brings to that field! Well worth reading, her descriptions of everything are amazing and I envy her wide ranging skills. But yes, she does get around to some sort of violence happening, but there is so much more along side those episodes. I highly recommend her work. And she is SO PROLIFIC! Hundreds of books, short stories, poetry, essays over the last sixty years. And she is still alive!

BBP - 10-7-2022 at 07:44

Been on a serious reading trip this year, read classics like Hunchback of Notre Dame, Max Havelaar, Anne Frank's Diary, The Tea Lords and Oeroeg by Hella Haasse, Val van de Vredeborgh, Oliver Sacks's autobiography...

I loved Hunchback so much I'm now also reading Les Misérables.

punknaynowned - 12-7-2022 at 09:28

that book is a serious commitment!

BBP - 13-7-2022 at 16:53

Wouldnt't say that, I find Hugo to be very accessible, much more than most 19th century authors I've read.

When I was on the train to my friend for the tea party I had to interrupt reading at a very tense part, where one of the main characters, Jean Valjean, escapes in a coffin but the plan turns a rough corner when the guy who nailed him in, who was banking on his ability to get his gravedigger friend to go on a drink with him so Jean has enough time to escape - and upon arrival at the cemetary he learns that the gravedigger friend has died and is replaced by a new gravedigger who doesn't drink.

BBP - 21-7-2022 at 20:29

Finished Les Misérables, it was a good book with a happier ending than I'd expected after reading Hunchback. I generally prefer the happy endings but I prefer Hunchback of the two - although Napoleon's elephant's appearance scored a ton of bonus points!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elephant_de_la_Bastille_aqua...

Caputh - 13-1-2024 at 17:56

Agree that Les Miserables is a masterpiece.
Finished reading a very well annotated edition of "Gulliver's Travels" (published by Norton) by Jonathan Swift. The 18th Century Zappa in terms of satire; he despised almost everyone and everything, particularly groups and is hilarious about how ridiculous life is.

Plook - 2-3-2024 at 22:12

How you doing my friend?

polydigm - 3-3-2024 at 04:03

I've been looking for support for the idea that human nature is not fundamentally bad. We do have a psychology that, with a combination of wonky genes and negative nurture, can produce psychopaths of varying types, but those cases are only about five percent of the human population, with none the less a disproportionately huge potential to bring about all kinds of potentially extinction threatening outcomes.

Easter last year I read Crimes Against Nature, Capitalism and Global Heating by Jeff Sparrow, wherein he takes a much more positive view of human nature and tries to show how we get trapped in the constructions of a small number of privileged powerful individuals and how the myth that we're all just basically bad is perpetuated by them in support of their self centred, empire building world views.

I recently obtained a copy of Debt by David Graeber wherein he tries to show how debt has taken a hold of the human psyche and looks at the entire history of how this came about. I've read a little of that so far, but I'm keen to continue when I finish the following book. He is now sadly deceased, having fallen fowl of a nasty disease around the age of 39. A huge shame, he was quite the character.

I'm currently reading The Dawn Of Everything, coauthored by David Graeber and David Wengrow wherein they try to show that both ends of the spectrum of views, the noble savage (Rousseau, precursor of the left wing) and the brute savage (Hobbs, precursor of the right wing), about pre state human beings, are just wrong. The basic fact is that scientists have shown very clearly that our DNA is not that different at all from human beings who lived more than sixty thousand years ago. They were just as capable of using their brains to solve food production problems and work out practical social relations.

For example, Native Americans arrived in America around 25,000 years ago and had plenty of time to work out solutions to their food production and social organisation problems and a lot of the detailed evidence of their capabilities has been outright lied about in order to dehumanise them at the time of the arrival of Europeans to justify trying to wipe them out and has continued to be used in that way retrospectively. Native Australians arrived around 50,000 years ago and showed particular ingenuity in the face of a much more limited environment than in the Americas and had developed quite complex social relations and methods for managing their environment to maximise food production by the time Europeans arrived. Similar obfuscations of the true nature of life in Australia before their arrival have been engineered by many academics and leaders through the years.

It's fascinating, I'm really enjoying it, it's quite the eye opener in some ways but also confirming much of how I've come to think of the human race in recent years and the current predicaments we find ourselves in, based on my own investigation.