Bookworm Corner

[pdogg]

I spend so much time online I don't read too much these days but I'm reading two good books now.

 

On my tablet I'm reading My Life by Bill Clinton and on old fashioned paper I'm reading Straight Flush by Ben Mezrich. 

 

Thumbs up on both.

[Kahuna]

I don't read those kinda books PD although I probably should...Maybe I would learn a thing or two........

 

And I do read every day the old fashion way...By turning a page and using a book marker........

 

I am re-reading for the I can't recall time but not in a long while, God's Other Son by Don Imus..........

 

As hilariously irreverent, outrageously inventive a novel not penned by Tom Robbins but by a very bizarre

man one could ever find...Imus in the Morning..................

 

I like it a lot..............A big Sissy Hankshaw hitchhiking thumbs up...........

[williethepimp]

"vietnam,a war lost and won" by nigel cawthorne......ive read a few books about vietnam from a soldiers/helicopter pilots POV,but this is a short history of it,interesting and informative......i like to vary my reading....i have another waiting in line, a biography of a lesser known football/soccer manager....

 

.i dont read many novels nowadays,most of them,i find, are so disappointing......I read Vernon God Little recently,mildly amusing at its best(and it won a Booker Prize !)....and a Stephen Fry autobiog"Moab is my washpot"(sic)......tremendous read.....

[seven]

Harbor Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh  . Ex. detective at LAPD. His 5th in the Hollywood -series, where  cops Flotsam and Jetsam make a great return. Best crime writer i've read in a long time

[Kahuna]

Harbor Nocturne by Joseph Wambaugh  

 

I do like a Joseph Wambaugh read, especially The Onion Field...one of my all time favorites...

 

Maybe the best non-fiction crime tale I have ever read......

 

Thanks for the info son...I will look for this one..........

[Torurot]

"Planet Walker" by John Francis 363.7FRA 2005 ISBN: 978-1-4262-0275-9

Published by National Geographic. It's about walking around mostly the North West coast of the U.S.

"Don't tell Mum I work on the rigs"

Paul Carter 622.338 CAR ISBN: 978-1-74114-698-1

Tolstoy and the purple chair : my year of magical reading / Nina Sankovitch. ISBN: 9780061999840

True story about a woman who reads a book per day for a year after her sister dies, and blogs about it

[KenW]

2 books on the go as always: one technical and the other (usually a novel) for reading in bed at night time (yep, while you lads are cavorting I'm there dutifully reading till lights out).

 

At the moment:

 

The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, by Roger Penrose;

 

The Untouchable, by John Banville.

[Guest Scooby]

Reading all boring work related stuff right now, but about one month ago I read a few great books by Jerry Hopkins, Bangkok Babylon and . Great insights and stories about Thailand from the perspective of an American writer and journalist. I enjoyed them immensely.

[seven]

I do like a Joseph Wambaugh read, especially The Onion Field...one of my all time favorites...

 

Maybe the best non-fiction crime tale I have ever read......

 

Thanks for the info son...I will look for this one..........

Hes the real thing,hes stories are supposedly very true to the  real cop life.

 

The story begins with  Hollywood Station. Then Hollywood  Crows, Hollywood Moon,  Hollywood Hills and  he wraps it up in Harbor Nocturne.

 

 The Onion field is a classic, i should read it again.

[Tomcat]

 

 

The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe, by Roger Penrose;

 

 

Good luck with that Ken... i prefer Paul Davis , a bit more Layman friendly . Penrose is a bit to technical for me but if you can understand 80% of him then my hat off to you. Maybe i should take up that advanced online Physics course ... ive been putting it off for years.. work gets in way and trips to Ladyboyland

 

also

Try Brian Greene  " The Hidden Reality" .. a real feast for the brain and ill start this book again when i get on the plain in a few days time

 

the full title is  THE HIDDEN REALITY -  Parallel Universes and the deep laws of the Cosmos

[ArchieBunker]

I spend so much time online I don't read too much these days but I'm reading two good books now.

 

On my tablet I'm reading My Life by Bill Clinton and on old fashioned paper I'm reading Straight Flush by Ben Mezrich. 

 

Thumbs up on both.

 

 

Hummm how is that STRAIGHT FLUSH then PD??  How did you come by that one??

 

I read a lot more when I am in LOS-too much time on my hands I guess.

 

Just finished The Summer of 1927 by Bill Bryson-quite interesting.  That was when Charles Lindburgh flew solo from NY to Paris.  Lots of stuff about that and flying.

 

Right now reading DEAR LEADER from tursted insider to enemy of the state my escape from north korea.

 

The guy had a weird job in North Korean intelligence/propaganda.  He lent a book to a buddy, his buddy misplaced it on the subway and they both lammed it!!!!!

[pdogg]

Hummm how is that STRAIGHT FLUSH then PD??  How did you come by that one??

 

Just finished The Summer of 1927 by Bill Bryson-quite interesting.  That was when Charles Lindburgh flew solo from NY to Paris.  Lots of stuff about that and flying.

 

A good buddy gave me the book  

 

Summer of 1927 besides being good for Lucky Lindy, it was also good for the Babe.

[ArchieBunker]

A good buddy gave me the book  

 

Summer of 1927 besides being good for Lucky Lindy, it was also good for the Babe.

 

George Herman Ruth and the 27 Yankees featured in that book as well.  Good read it was......

[Trenton42]

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination.

Always been a Disney fan and wanted to read his biography.

Nice to read a few pages on the phone or tablet when cooling my heels.

[bumblebee]

Since the coming of the Internet I have found reading an actual physical book is something I only do once in a blue moon. I have been doing a lot of family genealogy since I came home in February and discovered this book recently with my great grandfather on the cover. He is the guy with the moustache second from the left, bottom row. It turns out he was a prisoner of war in the Irish war of independence in the early 1920s.

I am looking forward to reading is as soon as my brother is finished with it.

[Tomcat]

R67  there was a book thread , i think Sam started it.. i could not find it yesterday.. however if someone does maybe can merge threads.. if not read on

[Tomcat]

R67

 

here it is, the other thread.. get bobby to merge maybe

[Pdoggg]

R67

 

here it is, the other thread.. get bobby to merge maybe

Good idea.     

[Pdoggg]

 

 

On my tablet I'm reading My Life by Bill Clinton

 

I haven't finished it yet. I'm up to December 2000.

 

It;s in chronlogical order so if reading about Bill's childhood doesn't interest you then you can skip that part and go back later if you choose.

 

Don't take it as a poor reflection on the book that I haven't finished.  I just spend too much a time on the internet.

 

I also read more than one book at time.

 

In the interim, I've read The 4th Star about four 4 star American generals that had big roles in the Iraq war.  I actually found their climb from young West Point grad to Brig General more interesting than their service in Iraq.

 

If I had access, I'd put a link to the Amazon review to every book mentioned here on Asia Hotel and Travel but I'm having technical problems.

 

My request is if you use either Amazon.com or Amazon UK to buy e-books or old fashioned paper books to please use our links to Amazon and Amazon UK on Asia Hotel and Travel which helps to support the web hosting of LBR.

 

http://www.asiahotelandtravel.com/index.php?/topic/34-great-deals-on-amazon-uk-and-amazon-usa/

 

(if this doesn't load correctly or if the wrong thread please let me know; I'm having access problems)

 

Thanks! 

[Kahuna]

I just finished for the 3rd or 4th or 5th reading...My memory ain't what I thought or hoped it once was..........

 

B Is for Beer  by Tom Robbins......

 

Also titled as a Children's Book for Grown-ups or  A Grown-up Book for Children...Depending on whether you are right eyed or left eyed...

 

A short 125 page very fun and very entertaining read...........

 

And educational if you care to learn how beer is made and maybe the ultimate meaning of a tall, cold brew.......

 

You must agree that the meaning is everything when it comes to beer......

 

But then again maybe you just like reading the words of the quirky, maverick and magical Tom Robbins.......

[KenW]

Thanks Tc, I've heard of Brian Greene but never read any of him.

I find Paul Davies a bit lite, having waded through 3 or 4 of his books.

 

Sucha buzz for bb to find his grand-da on a book cover. Whoeee.

Topic sounds fascinating as well.

Like to hear your thoughts once you've read it.

 

Going back to pd's opener, I bought & read My Life back when it was first published.

I have to say I enjoyed it very much.

The guy can write - whether you liked him as a president or not. (I did.)

[Pdoggg]

Harper Lee's new novel gets released on Tuesday.  I had always assumed Lee was a man and figured s(he) was dead by now.  To Kill A Mockingbird was an easy read. Probably read it in the 9th grade.  Here's s review of her new novel.

 

 

We remember Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s 1960 classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” as that novel’s moral conscience: kind, wise, honorable, an avatar of integrity who used his gifts as a lawyer to defend a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in a small Alabama town filled with prejudice and hatred in the 1930s. As indelibly played by Gregory Peck in the 1962 movie, he was the perfect man — the ideal father and a principled idealist, an enlightened, almost saintly believer in justice and fairness. In real life, people named their children after Atticus. People went to law school and became lawyers because of Atticus.

 

Shockingly, in Ms. Lee’s long-awaited novel, “Go Set a Watchman” (due out Tuesday), Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like “The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Or asks his daughter: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”

 

In “Mockingbird,” a book once described by Oprah Winfrey as “our national novel,” Atticus praised American courts as “the great levelers,” dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.” In “Watchman,” set in the 1950s in the era of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, he denounces the Supreme Court, says he wants his home state “to be left alone to keep house without advice from the N.A.A.C.P.” and describes N.A.A.C.P.-paid lawyers as “standing around like buzzards.”

 

In “Mockingbird,” Atticus was a role model for his children, Scout and Jem — their North Star, their hero, the most potent moral force in their lives. In “Watchman,” he becomes the source of grievous pain and disillusionment for the 26-year-old Scout (or Jean Louise, as she’s now known).

 

While written in the third person, “Watchman” reflects a grown-up Scout’s point of view: The novel is the story of how she returns home to Maycomb, Ala., for a visit — from New York City, where she has been living — and tries to grapple with her dismaying realization that Atticus and her longtime boyfriend, Henry Clinton, both have abhorrent views on race and segregation.

Though “Watchman” is being published for the first time now, it was essentially an early version of “Mockingbird.” According to news accounts, “Watchman” was submitted to publishers in the summer of 1957; after her editor asked for a rewrite focusing on Scout’s girlhood two decades earlier, Ms. Lee spent some two years reworking the story, which became “Mockingbird.”

 

Some plot points that have become touchstones in “Mockingbird” are evident in the earlier “Watchman.” Scout’s older brother, Jem, vividly alive as a boy in “Mockingbird,” is dead in “Watchman”; the trial of a black man accused of raping a young white woman, while a main story line in “Mockingbird,” is only a passing aside in “Watchman.” (Interestingly, the trial results in a guilty verdict for the accused man, Tom Robinson, in “Mockingbird,” but leads to an acquittal in “Watchman.”)

 

 

Students of writing will find “Watchman” fascinating for these reasons: How did a lumpy tale about a young woman’s grief over her discovery of her father’s bigoted views evolve into a classic coming-of-age story about two children and their devoted widower father? How did a distressing narrative filled with characters spouting hate speech (from the casually patronizing to the disgustingly grotesque — and presumably meant to capture the extreme prejudice that could exist in small towns in the Deep South in the 1950s) mutate into a redemptive novel associated with the civil rights movement, hailed, in the words of the former civil rights activist and congressman Andrew Young, for giving us “a sense of emerging humanism and decency”?

 

How did a story about the discovery of evil views in a revered parent turn into a universal parable about the loss of innocence — both the inevitable loss of innocence that children experience in becoming aware of the complexities of grown-up life and a cruel world’s destruction of innocence (symbolized by the mockingbird and represented by Tom Robinson and the reclusive outsider Boo Radley)?

 

The depiction of Atticus in “Watchman” makes for disturbing reading, and for “Mockingbird” fans, it’s especially disorienting. Scout is shocked to find, during her trip home, that her beloved father, who taught her everything she knows about fairness and compassion, has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion. How could the saintly Atticus — described early in the book in much the same terms as he is in “Mockingbird” — suddenly emerge as a bigot? Suggestions about changing times and the polarizing effects of the civil rights movement seem insufficient when it comes to explaining such a radical change, and the reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed.

 

Though it lacks the lyricism of “Mockingbird,” the portions of “Watchman” dealing with Scout’s childhood and her adult romance with Henry capture the daily rhythms of life in a small town and are peppered with portraits of minor characters whose circumscribed lives can feel like Barbara Pym salted with some down-home American humor. And it reminds us that “Mockingbird,” the novel, was more concerned with the day-to-day texture of Scout and Jem’s lives and the world of Maycomb than “Mockingbird,” the movie, which focused more closely on Atticus and Tom Robinson’s trial.

 

The advice Ms. Lee received from her first editor was shrewd: to move the story back 20 years to Scout’s childhood, expanding what are flashbacks in “Watchman,” used to underscore the disillusionment Jean Louise feels with the present-day Atticus, now 72. (“I’ll never believe a word you say to me again. I despise you and everything you stand for.”) Scout’s disillusionment in “Watchman” oddly parallels that of Jem in “Mockingbird,” after Atticus fails to get Tom Robinson acquitted, and Jem realizes that justice does not always prevail.

 

Another pivotal difference between the two books concerns the decision to make Scout (“juvenile desperado, hell-raiser extraordinary”) the narrator of “Mockingbird” — a decision Ms. Lee executed with remarkable skill, managing the stereoscopic feat of capturing both the point of view of a forthright, wicked-smart girl (who is almost 6 when “Mockingbird” begins) and the retrospective wisdom of an adult.

 

Somewhere along the way, the overarching impulse behind the writing also seems to have changed. “Watchman” reads as if it were fueled by the alienation a native daughter — who, like Ms. Lee, moved away from small-town Alabama to New York City — might feel upon returning home. It seems to want to document the worst in Maycomb in terms of racial and class prejudice, the people’s enmity and hypocrisy and small-mindedness. At times, it also alarmingly suggests that the civil rights movement roiled things up, making people who “used to trust each other” now “watch each other like hawks.”

 

“Mockingbird,” in contrast, represents a determined effort to see both the bad and the good in small-town life, the hatred and the humanity; it presents an idealized father-daughter relationship (which a relative in “Watchman” suggests has kept Jean Louise from fully becoming her own person) and views the past not as something lost but as a treasured memory. In a 1963 interview, Ms. Lee, who now lives in her old hometown, Monroeville, Ala., said of “Mockingbird”: “The book is not an indictment so much as a plea for something, a reminder to people at home.”

 

One of the emotional through-lines in both “Mockingbird” and “Watchman” is a plea for empathy — as Atticus puts it in “Mockingbird” to Scout: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.” The difference is that “Mockingbird” suggested that we should have compassion for outsiders like Boo and Tom Robinson, while “Watchman” asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/review-harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-gives-atticus-finch-a-dark-side.html

[KenW]

Never read it. No inclination to read "new" one either.

 

Did see the movie when I must have been early teens. Don't recall it, really.

[KenW]

I'm currently 30 pages out from end of Gargantua & Pantagruel, by Francois Rabelais.

 

It has taken me best part of 6 months; 780 pages of not-easy reading; quite dense at times.

Written in 1500s, translated into English 100 or so years after that.

It is a classic in all senses of that term.

I have enjoyed it very much.

His use of language matches other early giants like Shakespeare.

And the sense of fun, of comedy of outrageous proportions is sometimes breathtaking, especially when he mixes it with what you might politely call "very earthy language."

 

Highly recommended, but only for serious readers wiling to take on big, often hard, task.

[Kahuna]

Never read it. No inclination to read "new" one either.

 

Did see the movie when I must have been early teens. Don't recall it, really.

 

You are missing one of the great novels of our time brother Watanabe..........A Pulitzer Prize winning novel...

 

To Kill A Mockingbird was named by the or a British association of novelists as the one novel that everyone should read....

 

It is a slice of life in a small southern Alabama town during the great depression...It is also a brilliant coming of age tale...A tale of bigots and their bigotry and their undoing....A tale of false impressions and heroes...And so very much more......And of course it is a tale of the mockingbirds in their lives........And maybe in ours........

 

Truman Capote even makes an appearance under a fictive name of course...Truman and Harper Lee grew up together and were inseparable friends until Truman passed....She held his hand during much of his writing of In Cold Blood.......She had already published To Kill A Mockingbird......

 

The film is equally impressive as the novel and follows the novel closely....Gregory Peck who played Atticus Finch won an Oscar for his performance...Harper Lee was so impressed by Peck's ability to become Atticus that she gave him her father's pocket watch as a prop and a gift...The young girl who played Scout and who remained close to Gregory called him Atticus until his death...To her he was Atticus...And the black actor Brock Peters who played Tom Robinson gave the eulogy at Gregory's funeral......They had become very close friends.....

 

To be honest I ain't too exicted to revisit that little Albama town now...I understand that Ms Lee has killed off the son Jem Finch and has turned Atticus into a card carrying bigot...I don't think I could abide by that in my old age...Knowing that Gregory truly was Atticus and Atticus truly was Gregory..............

 

I do highly recommend To Kill A Mockingbird as a novel and as a film......