From "Reading books is not meant to be a competitive sport" by Michael Henderson (London Times), which is mostly about not trying to read as much as possible, but that paragraph jumped out at me.
Are Americans still reading what is supposed to be good for us? Or is that a concept of the past? What's the last thing you read — or tried to read — because it was supposed to be good for you? If you wanted to force yourself to read something because you believe it's considered to be good for you, what would you pick?
Posts
147 comments:
Currently reading Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity. I enjoy reading.
Avoid books that are supposed to be good for us.
That advice has served me well in life. It should be embroidered on a throw pillow.
Try Derrida, "Spurs" for the guys, "The Post Card" for women. Skip the preface by somebody else on the former.
Which books should we read to keep from being put on the left's lists?
I read Rabbit, Run by John Updike recently. It was TERRIBLE.
There's no guarantee what book will end up making you guilty of wrong think. Remember. To Kill a Mockingbird is seriously considered a bad book by many people now a days. Just read what you like and damn the torpedoes.
Not really sure what "good for me" means? Something I don't want to read? Most of my reading today consists of flipping through things I've already read, and reading this and that.
One thing that has started to interest me is the kindle search function. Did you know that in the original novel "The Godfather," Fredo is called "Freddy" about 80% of the time. Or that Tom Hagen is referred to as "Thomas" once, but never Tommy or Tomaso? And he's called by the full name "Tom Hagen," constantly, as if it's a single word. They're small matters, but in the numbers you can see the writer creating character.
Tristram Shandy honks like John Coltrane, and is not nearly so funny
Me-yow. Why the Coltrane diss when we're talking books?
James Lee Burke is terrible.
The late Tom Wolfe was the last guy worth reading.
I thought we were already well into the process of eliminating books that 'were supposed to be good for you'. The classics. Most anything written by a white man. I'm not exaggerating or trying to be hyperbolic. I am sure this has happened in America. If there are still bookstores around, go look at what's being hawked at you. Are they still teaching Homer at U of Wisconsin? I wonder.
I recently read (finally) 'One Day in the life if Ivan Denisovitch'. I did not realize it was going to be a prep guide for our coming society. (I see Parler is now officially gone. I wonder if the founders have been 'removed' yet.) Anyway, 'One Day...' was good, but not as well written as I had expected. Not nearly as great as Koestler's 'Darkness at Noon', about a similar topic.
"Atlas Shrugged", more than 20 years ago. While sympathetic to the theme, I found the writing to be poor, the story tedious and repetitive. Haven't read a book I'm supposed to read since. I read what interests me and have arrived at a place where I can quit a book midway through if it isn't keeping up.
I went through the history/biography section at B&N recently after a long absence. The books basically were:
- America sucks
- Trump sucks
- Barry and Michelle luvvies
- World War II was won by women
- Celeb memoirs
I am trying to read "Don Quixote" because it is one of the books I have never read but feel as if I should have.
There are several books on that list. "Moby Dick" is at the top.
As to more contemporary authors I feel as if I should have read something by Ian McEwan already.
I know when I'm browsing for library ebooks on Overdrive, mention of awards won is almost always a cue to pass.
I find that most books that are considered classics actually are pretty good. One exception was The Great Gatsby, which I thought was boring. I haven't read it since around age 20, though, and have a friend who swears by it, so maybe I'll give it another try.
Ha! I just finished rereading Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey!
Was it “good got me?” I believe that with books, as with most things, what you get from them depends on what you bring to them.
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ‘Tis all barren—and so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers.
I tend to alternate between book for fun and book for education or "because I'm supposed to." Right now, the book I'm reading because I'm supposed to is Remembrance of Things Past, which is much more enjoyable than I expected.
I've given up on Tristram Shandy and Gravity's Rainbow several times. I haven't given up entirely on reading out of obligation, but as I get older, it becomes less important (as do many things).
stevew said..."Atlas Shrugged", more than 20 years ago. While sympathetic to the theme, I found the writing to be poor, the story tedious and repetitive
I suspect you can pick up all the important passages in the comment sections of right-wing blogs.
I find it ironic that one of our most virulent libertarians chooses as his avatar one of the most brutal dictators in history who would have gleefully destroyed western Europe given the chance.
I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through The Odyssey in the Fagles translation and enjoying it thoroughly. I got halfway through Proust and finally gave up on it.
" Gravity's Rainbow several times."
What does that say about me. I've read it half a dozen times. " Fict nicht mit der rocketmenche." Get a copy of,"The Crying of Lot 49". It will tell you all you need to know about Pynchon.
One book I couldn't not put down was "The History of the Peloponnesian Wars". Those early Greeks were a contentious bunch.
Freder Frederson said...
"I find it ironic that one of our most virulent libertarians chooses as his avatar one of the most brutal dictators in history who would have gleefully destroyed western Europe given the chance."
Given your political predilections, I find that statement ironic.
For that reason I picked up Moby Dick again a few years back, then put it down after a couple pages.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) it is available for free on kindle. I could have rented the movie and let Gregory Peck do the hard work.
Blogger Freder Frederson said...
I find it ironic that one of our most virulent libertarians chooses as his avatar one of the most brutal dictators in history who would have gleefully destroyed western Europe given the chance.
Evil fascists find odd things "ironic."
They use these thing to justify censorship and their tyrannical activity.
Freder is one of the most obviously evil people that post here.
Temujin, or Genghis Khan, is how my wife refers to me when I get into debates about politics. It's a pet name. She professes to love me. I used to have a scorched earth policy when I got into such debates. I don't do that much anymore. But the nickname stuck. I would not expect anyone on the left to find that humorous. Everyone knows there is no humor on the left.
I read totally for pleasure these days. If a book doesn't make me laugh or cry or scare the shit out of me, it's not worth my time. I've reached that point in life where I'm educated enough. I now want to be entertained.
Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life
I'm currently about two-thirds of the way through The Odyssey...
Good to see Banned in Boston still has meaning....
I read several of Saul Bellow's books in years past. I enjoyed them, but I'm in no hurry to ever read them again. So far as I can tell, they didn't make me a better man......Al Smith said that he never met a woman who had been ruined by reading a novel. In like way, I can't recall ever reading about any human being who had ever been exalted by reading a book. I guess reading a lot does help to improve your vocabulary though.
I don't generally find it enjoyable to read books that were written before 1945 or so. The writing is stilted to my contemporary ear which gets in the way of the message. I do enjoy reading different points of view with regard to individual character, but most would be better as essays than as books.
Just Finished Paul Johnson's The Intellectuals.
Loved his definition of an intellectual as a person who believed that he found the answer to all of the world's problems by thinking about it a lot.
For me the book I had to slog through was The Silmerillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. I loved the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but it took me like 5 tries to make it through The Silmerillion. Deadly dull.
In terms of books you "should" read, I'd recommend Tolkien's translation of Beowulf. He brings that text alive and his notes are fascinating!
A copy of Pale Fire has resided on my bedside table for three years.
I would love to re-read Fifty Works of English and American Literature We Could Do Without (1967) by Brigid Brophy, et al. It takes the hatchet to many works on the Required Reading List.
Some 50 years ago, in the hiatus between completing college courses and waiting for my folks to arrive for graduation, I went to the library looking for a novel or something to pass the time. There wasn't much there of that type but found 'Catch 22'. Could not get through it. Total dreck, didn't make any sense.
Just started "Lincoln on the Verge". It's the first two weeks of the Lincoln Admin in 1861 and his trip to Washington DC through Baltimore by train. From the first dozen pages or so it looks to be a good read...
Putting down reading on a tablet. I like tbe heft of a book...
Once you put it down it's hard to pick it up again.
I have a copy of John Ciardi's translation of The Divine Comedy that I'm going to get around to reading someday before I die.
My brother sent me The Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley for Christmas that I do intend to read. It doesn't seem as ponderous.
I read Erica Jong (but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t really very good for me.)
Last book I read that I know was good for me was Mountain Bike Like A Champion by Ned Overend.
SensibleCitizen said...I don't generally find it enjoyable to read books that were written before 1945 or so.
An oldie book that found found quite readable is The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal. It was recommended in another book--Embracing the Ordinary--as having the first truly realistic battle scene in literature. The battle in question was Waterloo and realistic in the fog of war sense. The main character was on the French side and it was such chaos and confusion that, when it was over, he wasn't even certain he had been at Waterloo.
The aspect I found especially interesting was how uncertain life in a monarchy is for the people in the power structure. You could be the prince's favorite living in the palace one day, chained in a dungeon the next, and then back in favor with your own palace a week later. All for no clear reason. No wonder these societies never broke through into modernity and were eventually crushed by democracies.
Some years ago a reviewer read the best sellers from, IIRC, 1940 or there abouts to see how they held up. He thought the only one that was a good read was a frivolous work of entertainment, the serious novels were dead, dead, dead.
Are Americans still reading what is supposed to be good for us?
“White Fragility,” by Robin DiAngelo at No. 1
“How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi at No. 3
“So You Want to Talk About Race,” by Ijeoma Oluo at No. 4
“Me and White Supremacy,” by Layla F. Saad at No. 5
“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates at No. 8
There wasn't much there of that type but found 'Catch 22'. Could not get through it. Total dreck, didn't make any sense.
I couldn't get into it the first time, but later when I was in the Navy, it all made perfect sense.
Two books I enjoyed reading cover to cover: The Story of Corn by Betty Fussell and Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, which was good for me but the movie adaption hurt my head.
Bob Boyd, I don't think that anyone is actually reading those books. Buying, yes, reading, no.
The last thing I read that was good for me was some self-help book that my wife gave me to improve my communications skills. I read a couple of chapters but didn’t finish it. Life is too short to read boring books. Currently I’m reading “A Memory called Empire,” by Arkady Martine, the 2019 Hugo Award winner for best sci-fi novel. It’s quite good.
It isn’t necessary to read a single turgid sentence of Boring Saul Bellow...
If Michael Henderson hasn't read Henderson The Rain King, he's missing out.
In midlife, I thought my list of reading conquests needed a final summit. I heard it was a difficult book, but really, how hard is any book if you take the time to digest it? I opened this particular book as I moved to the library checkout. If the summit is Finnegin’s Wake, my flag is unplanted. The book never felt the library.
I'm currently reading 'With The Old Breed' by E.B Sledge, a memoir, not a novel.
Highly recommend.
Don't think it's supposed to be "good for you", but if you think these are tough times, it might be.
"As for Midnight’s Children, it’s more fun to walk round town with a nail in your boot."
True. Overrated author.
"From "Reading books is not meant to be a competitive sport""
Who does that??
"Are Americans still reading what is supposed to be good for us?"
Most young Americans have to, i.e., read things that make them into good SJWs. Nothing older than about 70 years, since before then all books had bad values, as teachers have been saying.
Example, first paragraph I see after opening a certain book:
"On Second Avenue the springtime scraping of roller skates was heard on hollow, brittle sidewalks, a soothing harshness."
Turd?
I love storytelling and I read because I enjoy seeing how authors tell stories. Their styles, their methods. Then, I imitate them.
I greatly enjoy reading histories written by ancient authors. Thucydides, Xenophon, Arrian, Tacitus, Josephus, Herodotus, etc., etc. Currently reading Procopius's "The Wars." Wow. Romans (i.e. Byzantines) vs. the Sasanians, blook and thunder, the epic sweep of history. Doesn't get any better than that.
Also The Alexiad by Anna Comnena. Anna was the inspiration for the Princess Irulan in Dune. Forget Dune, Star Wars, and all the others, this is the real things. Read in Tandem with John Julius Norwich's three-volume history of the Byzantine Empire.
The Iliad and the Odyssey, over and over and over. The Lattimore translations, of course.
As a Covid project I read Paradise Lost. It was good, and good for me.
"Turd?"
Misremembered turgid. Oh well. Not boring, I hope.
Ned Overend
A playful pseudonym for a cyclist.
Transpose two letters:
End Overend
m
All Russian novels, Remembrance of Things Past, Finnegan's Wake.
When I was in college you were supposed to read these to become an educated adult. I stopped on the first pages. Even the Spark Notes were too long. But I've never admitted this trifecta of ignorance till now.
Someone else loves stories featuring Dave Robicheaux! A programmer who worked for me on a couple projects back in the 1990s exposed me to James Lee Burke and I could never thank him enough. The first one I read was In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, at least partly for the title. And then I was hooked. The guy had a BA in English but back when object-oriented programming was new he was easily my best C++ programmer, probably because he had no preconceived notions of how code “should” be written left over from learning procedural programming in languages like C or FORTRAN or COBOL. I mean, who thinks English majors know what good writing is?
I also love the broad humor of Peter Bowen’s Yellowstone Kelly series. His early books in the Gabriel Du Pre series were also great. Liberals like Althouse might profitably read some of them to find out why poor people hate you and your “good intentions” so much.
As for Dave Begley (6:53), them’s fighting’ words, friend.
nothing keeps happening, over and over
I can think of some books like that :) I might read a chapter or two while waiting for something more entertaining to come out. A good night's sleep needs proper preparation.
All ancient epics. The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian, modern epics, both by Cormac McCarthy. "Refiner's Fire" by Mark Helprin, another modern epic.
I like epics. I like the genre, the organization, the hero's journey and the quest.
@BigMike
C++ is procedural. The first version I looked at was "C with classes", basically a C preprocessor.
I was a big James Lee Burke fan. Dave Robicheaux is one of the better cop/detective characters around. However, Burke increasingly injected his politics into his novels to the point that I have stopped reading the series.
BTW, Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957. While Ayn Rand was a somewhat tedious writer, she was also prescient about the development of totalitarian societies. I have read the book twice and listened to audio CDs (the complete set is 50!) twice on long road trips. If you find her writing too much, I highly recommend the audio.
Most of the "good books" I read in HS and college were enjoyable and mind opening. However, TGG and Catcher in the Rye always seemed to be trivial and overly interpreted.
Big Mike, I too like Burke. His characters stay in my head after I finish a book for a longer time than most do.
I started reading him after a character in another book spoke well of him. (One of the Cliff Janeway books by John Dunning, maybe "Booked to Die".)
Tristram Shandy honks like John Coltrane, and is not nearly so funny.
Only a blowhard would write a sentence like that.
I believe that with books, as with most things, what you get from them depends on what you bring to them.
This.
Last thing I read because it was supposed to be good for me? I can't recall. I am reading a general history of the Roman Empire, just got past Vespasian. I am reading that for no other reason than I want to.
I never read books that are 'good for me' but always read books that promise to be interesting or amusing and I'm seldom disappointed. Tristram Shandy is mostly very funny and Uncle Toby and his military fixations will remain in my circle of 'acquaintances' for my entire life. Most modern literature is pathetically weak in content and poorly written. As Dorothy Parker aptly observed, it is 'not to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force'.
I like John Coltrane, too.
I have been unable to finish Donna Tartt’s novel, Goldfinch . On the other hand, I’ve read all of the Hornblower and the Nero Wolfe books a number of times.
....sorry Donna
- Krumhorn
I believe that with books, as with most things, what you get from them depends on what you bring to them.
If this is true then books contribute nothing.
Honks like John Coltrane?? Has he ever listened to the man’s work? Maybe he meant honks like a coal train and got autocorrected by biased AI.
- Krumhorn
Tolstoy is, IMO, vastly overrated. One benefit, though, from reading War and Peace was the rabbit hole of Freemasonry and its dark and insidious power. Tolstoy obviously had some personal experience with the society and found it disturbing.
The last time I read in the manner described was in grade school, when the school library did have competitions for the number of books read. The last time I saw it suggested that certain books should be read and in volume was the early parts of the Obama Administration, when we learned of the books the President read. This continues to essentially this day.
I only read what interests me, and these don't
Bob Boyd said...
Are Americans still reading what is supposed to be good for us?
“White Fragility,” by Robin DiAngelo at No. 1
“How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi at No. 3
“So You Want to Talk About Race,” by Ijeoma Oluo at No. 4
“Me and White Supremacy,” by Layla F. Saad at No. 5
“Between the World and Me,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates at No. 8
1/11/21, 8:08 AM
Are they reading them, or merely buying them to put on the table?
Cannot read the article but he’s wrong even in the teaser. You can get a lot out of more than one book a week. And more generally you can get a lot out of books that aren’t just tailored to your view of the world, written only by people born in similar circumstances and at the same time as you. He sounds, from the snippet,like the worst kind of “every leads up to me” ignoramus.
Anyone got a useable link so I can check?
If this is true then books contribute nothing.
No. It is in the interaction between what the book brings and what the reader brings that one gains value. If you bring nothing, you get nothing in the same way multiplication by zero equals zero.
No. It is in the interaction between what the book brings and what the reader brings that one gains value. If you bring nothing, you get nothing in the same way multiplication by zero equals zero.
That's a fun interpretation. It's just not what it says...
(eaglebeak)
Tristram Shandy (by Laurence Sterne) is in fact very funny. Of course, you have to have a sense of humor to appreciate it.
Midnight's Children (by Salman Rushdie) seemed to me to be a wonderful book, better than Satanic Verses.
But if Michael Henderson wants to read Little Prudy's Sister Susie, more power to him. I read it myself many a long year ago.
Read the statement again with cruel neutrality....
Here N N Taleb's concept of lindy is useful. Go look it up if you don’t know it.
I find older classics are usually good, but “modern classics” (an oxymoron perhaps) not so much. You need to see the results of generations of filtering. Don Quixote and The Odyssey are wonderful books. Gravity's Rainbow and Salman Rushdie are dull. But the first two are classics because they have been filtered, but the last two were just promoted by intellectuals amongst their contemporaries for various reasons .
As for his too many books nonsense. If you can get something out of watching a game or a TV why could you not,in the same time, gotten something from a book? (I noticed he declared the amount he reads just the right amount.)
"The Shakespearean Moment" by Patrick Crutwell. The poetic rivalry between Shakespeare and Donne, and particularly how it (and Donne's struggles to give voice to the mythical Catholicism he officially renounced) deepens and personalizes S.'s later sonnets.
For some reason, the last 5 years, great poetry (From S. to Dickinson, Frost and Larkin) has been more rewarding than fiction. A single poem can rattle around for days, and reading older critical works is a hunt, chasing down all the different scents.
""Atlas Shrugged", more than 20 years ago. While sympathetic to the theme, I found the writing to be poor, the story tedious and repetitive."
Rand is like Crichton and King...great concepts and big picture stuff, but the writing itself isn't anything to write home about : )
They are A-list airport books, the literary equivalent of 'My Sharona.'
I tried reading Umberto Eco's 'Name of the Rose."
Jesus that was dense.
It seemed like he was being obscure just for the sake of being obscure.
Kind of like the medieval equivalent of an even more-than-usually obscure Dennis Miller reference.
But for 500+ pages. And there's no punchline...ever.
Do yourself a favor, perform a root canal on yourself with no anesthetic instead.
I read Moby Dick a few years ago because I felt bad I had never read it. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but in terms of the number of scenes etched into my memory whether I want them there or not, it rates very highly.
'The Holy Bible' is a tough slog, but there is a lot of brilliant stuff in it.
Forget about the religious part...it's really just about the human condition.
"I read Moby Dick a few years ago because I felt bad I had never read it."
Call me Bill : )
Meade said, "I read Erica Jong (but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t really very good for me.)"
Thanks. I needed to laugh today.
I thought it would be good for me to have more knowledge of Italy's history, being half Italian and all. Can't make the leap from sci-fi to history. The books are still sitting there.
I read Midnight's Children while traveling in India and found it was a very good guide to the country and culture around me. I started, but never finished, Tristan Shandy. Now I don't read novels much at all, preferring to read history, where considering detail is important, and watch fiction, where it is not.
John said...
For that reason I picked up Moby Dick again a few years back, then put it down after a couple pages.
************
Mark Twain was said to have tasked with reviewing a book by Henry James.
His review?
"Once I put it down I couldn't pick it up."
Tristram Shandy is an entertainment, to read bit by bit for the pleasure of reading, just like Gargantua and Pantagruel, but less prurient and scatalogical. Which comparison also defines the cultural differences of English and French quite succinctly.
Last year I read Democracy in America because I thought it would be good for me, and it turned out to be fun and entertaining. Then I started Walden for the same reason, and found it insufferable and haven't finished it. (Forget about the parts where one disagrees. When you do agree with him, he writes so pretentiously that it's like having your ideas recited back to you in a sarcastic, taunting way.)
My experience has been that reading something that has been considered a classic for a long time is usually enjoyable, but reading something new that people think is "good for you" is usually a waste of time. Most of the new stuff blows away like chaff after a few years.
For lovers of James Lee Burke:
Funny story. I have several of his books. I travel back and forth from WA to Eugene, Oregon visiting family. Before catching the train for home, I often pick up a used book in Eugene for the ride. Purchased James Lee Burke novels three times - each time I was rung up by the same typical Eugene 30-something man. And each time he'd look at the book and say: "James Lee Burke. Now he's too violent for me. As a man, you know...have to watch the violence."
Are you menfolk incited to violence by James Lee Burke? Personally, I don't find him particularly violent.
I wonder what other authors he had opinions on.
tcrosse said...
"There wasn't much there of that type but found 'Catch 22'. Could not get through it. Total dreck, didn't make any sense.
I couldn't get into it the first time, but later when I was in the Navy, it all made perfect sense. "
In my freshman high school study hall that book was taken away from me by the monitor five times. I never got any of those copies back. Fortunately there was a Bantam Books warehouse on my home from school. I dumpster dived about ten copies. Eventually they just left me alone.
I read Moby Dick a few years ago because I felt bad I had never read it.
I read it in high school and the language and names made a big impression on me. Starbuck, what a wonderful name, crisp, yet with primeval overtones. The whole book is like that, somehow larger than the story. There is something mystical about it.
Herodotus was a long slog but I'm still glad I read it, if just for all the contemporary histories and anthtropogical info he collected if nothing else,
Can't get into Homer though, but loved the Trojan horse story as a child.
Althouse>>What's the last thing you read — or tried to read — because it was supposed to be good for you?<<
Three come to mind (sorry about "last"):
- 'The Analects of Confucius' - Bland and banal; I found much of it to be self-evident rather than revelatory. I forced myself to the end. And regretted the wasted time.
- 'Gravity's Rainbow' - I didn't force myself to the end. I didn't force myself beyond page 100. I simply could not do it. (And I will guess I won't be the only one to mention GR here)
- 'Last Of The Mohicans' - Reluctantly plucked from bookshelf a few years back and force-read because I haven't read enough of the classics. Forced through the first page or two that is. It is one of my favorite books. Simply because Cooper's use of the language is magnificent. The story is, of course, very good as well.
Additionally, pursuant to your topic and to the fact that Saul Bellow's works were apparently disparaged in this paywalled article, I must mention 'Henderson The Rain King.' It is a great mid-life crisis book which was in fact good for me when I read it at that time in my life. It was a significant factor in adjusting the misanthropism:humanism ratio of my 40s to a heathier balance. Another of my favorite books. I've read some other Bellow books as well. They're good and he's a fine writer. What is this "turgid" business?
Mikey NTH, which one? Working my way through Stephen Kershaw's. Gibbon would fit AA's criterion of something supposed to be good for me. Have a copy but too imposing to start.
1984...
'...As of Sunday morning, Amazon book sales showed that the top-selling book is the dystopian novel published by George Orwell more than 70 years ago. The classic novel, published in 1949, depicts how government Thought Police eavesdrop on citizens in their own homes, searching for heresy of any kind. Anyone whose beliefs deviate from the official norm are declared "unpersons" who never existed.
Reviewers on Amazon drew parallels between the book's plot and current events in the United States.
"Born and living in communist Romania I went through the same ordeal described in 1987," wrote Constantin Turculet, who is listed as making a verified purchase. "After 40 years I managed to escape to America, only to find after 35 years of living in freedom that this country is pushed toward the same horror scenario I thought mankind will never forget."...'
https://justthenews.com/nation/culture/big-tech-muffles-conservative-voices-dystopian-novel-1984-top-selling-book-amazon
I hated Catcher in the Rye the first two times I tried to read it. But once I saw Holden Caulfield as an unreliable narrator I enjoyed it much more.
C++ is procedural.
@chuck, I’ll take your word for it. By the late 1990s I was too high up to even be allowed to write code. The only time I tried writing C++ I discovered I had written routine, procedural, C without even creating any object classes. And I knew, in theory, about classes and methods.
C++ is a mustache on Dennis Ritchie's Mona Lisa.
“Wolf Hall”, “Bring up the Bodies”, and “The Mirror and the Light “.
“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”.
1984 is usually on the bestseller lists because it is a standard High School book assignment.
Whether this will persist when students start actually noting the parallels is unclear..
Well, I managed to get through 2020 without reading anything good for me! (And note I am not endorsing this list. Some of it was very good, and some of it turned out to be quite bad).
Vaults Of The Undergloom: The Farshore Chronicles 4
by Justin Fike
The Gathering Edge (Liaden Universe 20)
by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Sting & Song (Beesong Chronicles 1)
by Benjamin Medrano
Webs & Wards (Beesong Chronicles 2)
by Benjamin Medrano
The Witchkin Murders (Magicfall 1)
by Diana Pharaoh Francis
Star Pirate II: The Wrath of the Queen
by Mia Archer
Iron Maidens (Scythian Dawn 4)
by P.K. Lentz
Skyclad (Fate's Anvil 1)
by Scott Browder
Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force 9)
by Craig Alanson
Poorly Drawn Lines: Good Ideas and Amazing Stories
by Reza Farazmand
Poorlier Drawn Lines
by Reza Farazmand
"The New Mother"
by Lucy Clifford
Burn for Me: A Hidden Legacy Novel
by Ilona Andrews
Of Swine and Roses
by Ilona Andrews
The Foresight War
by Anthony G. Williams
Sweep with Me (Innkeeper Chronicles 5)
by Ilona Andrews
Enthralled: Book 3: The Eros Expansion
by Prax Venter
Almuric
by Robert E. Howard
The Spirit Siphon (Magebreakers 4)
by Ben S. Dobson
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Fall: A Devilishly Funny Urban Fantasy Romance
(Nava Katz 5)
by Deborah Wilde
Pirate Throne (Telepathic Space Pirates 3)
by Carysa Locke
White Hot: A Hidden Legacy Novel
by Ilona Andrews
Wildfire: A Hidden Legacy Novel
by Ilona Andrews
Diamond Fire: A Hidden Legacy Novella
by Ilona Andrews
Sapphire Flames: A Hidden Legacy Novel
by Ilona Andrews
The Pursuit of the Pankera: A Parallel Novel About Parallel Universes
by Robert A. Heinlein
Escaping Hallow Hill Academy: A Supernatural Prison Academy Romance
(Dr. Hyde's Prison for the Rare 1)
by A.K. Koonce, Aleera Anaya Ceres
Fae Trials: A Paranormal Academy Bully Romance (Royal Fae Academy 1)
by Sofia Daniel
Fae Games: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Bully Romance (Royal Fae Academy 2)
by Sofia Daniel
Fae Mates: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Bully Romance (Royal Fae Academy 3)
by Sofia Daniel
The Magicians' Guild: The Black Magician Trilogy
by Trudi Canavan
With This Ring (Imp Series 11)
by Debra Dunbar
Dragon Emperor: Human to Dragon to God
by Eric Vall
Balancing the Scales (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress 10)
by Annie Bellet
Sedition (Fixit Adventures 5)
by Erik Schubach
Seasons of War (Skulduggery Pleasant 13)
by Derek Landy
Night Shift Dragons (DFZ 3)
by Rachel Aaron
Fang U
by Mia Archer
Seraphim Academy 1: Wicked Wings
by Elizabeth Briggs
Seraphim Academy 2: Sinful Things
by Elizabeth Briggs
Seraphim Academy 3: Fallen Kings
by Elizabeth Briggs
Ghost's Whisper (Legion of Angels 9)
by Ella Summers
The Bastard
by Jack Porter
The Bastard 2
by Jack Porter
The Bastard 3
by Jack Porter
King of Shadows (Shadow Rogue 3)
by Mike Truk
Where Vultures Dare (Union Earth Privateers 3)
by Scott Warren
Freefall (Expeditionary Force Mavericks 2)
by Craig Alanson
Winds of Wrath (Destroyermen 15)
by Taylor Anderson
Hives & Heroism (Beesong Chronicles 3)
by Benjamin Medrano
Critical Mass (Expeditionary Force 10)
by Craig Alanson
The Five Trials (Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum 1)
by Mike Truk
The Hindering Ones (Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum 2)
by Mike Truk
The Manifold (Tsun-Tsun TzimTzum 3)
by Mike Truk
Peace Talks (Dresden Files 16)
by Jim Butcher
Battle Ground (Dresden Files 17)
by Jim Butcher
Shunned: a dark bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep 1)
by Steffanie Holmes
Initiated: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep 2)
by Steffanie Holmes
Possessed: A reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep 3)
by Steffanie Holmes
Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep 4)
by Steffanie Holmes
Sorceress Super Hero
by Darius Brasher
Relics of Eternity (Duchy of Terra 7)
by Glynn Stewart
Shadows of the Fall (Duchy of Terra 8)
by Glynn Stewart
Hero Hunt: Sorceress Super Hero 3
by Darius Brasher
Brushfire (Expeditionary Force 11)
by Craig Alanson
Master of the Five Magics (Magic by the Numbers 1)
by Lyndon Hardy
Readering said...
"The Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire," General Editor Carlos Gomez. I saw it at Barnes & Noble and made an impulse purchase.
Currently on pg 400+ of Hugh Thomas' The Slave Trade. Nastier than most people imagine, slaving to the New World sparked a four-century business boom not dissimilar to the tech revolution.
LOL. I'm glad someone agrees with me that Saul Bellow is a fucking Bore! There are certain books that have been read and loved for 60-350 years, and you should probably give them a try. It doesn't mean you should love them too, but if you don't like them, the problem is YOU, not the author.
Dickens, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Orwell, Conrad, Alice in wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, Hugo, Hemingway, Vanity Fair, Tom Jones, Defoe, are just some that come to mind.
I certainly wouldn't put Bellow, Rushie, or anyone in the last 40 years in that category.
Hugh Thomas is a windbag and mediocre writer who publishes books on interesting topics. Too bad, he's so verbose and bland.
I have no idea why "Moby Dick" was picked by some English Professors as "The great American novel" we're all supposed to read. It certainly is a good novel, but I don't enjoy it as much as "WHite Jacket" "Omoo and Typee" or even the "the confidence man".
Lets be honest, compared to the richness of English Literature, American 19th century fiction is rather thin. You have Cooper, twain, Howells, Melville, Hawthorne, and James. Not bad, except when compared to Trollope, Thackeray, Dickens, Conrad, Austen, Lewis Carroll, Eliot, Hardy, Kingsley, Scott, and Stevenson.
He's also dead, so you mean 'was' a windbag.
Sterne...I'm not a big fan. I've never been able to get through Tristan Shanty. Supposedly, its one of the those books like Joyce's Ulysses you're supposed to Dip in and out of and not try to read cover to cover. Maybe I'll try him again some day.
Hugh Thomas is dead. well, that is important to know.
Mannix - "black cargoes; a history of the Atlantic slave trade".
Is a better written book. and much more concise.
Mike Lesk on C++: strong typing is for weak minds.
I'd never heard of James Lee Burke. The things *other* people read for pleasure.
As with a lot of activities, you need to notice what is pleasurable to YOU. Don't imagine you're enjoying yourself just because you're doing something other people find pleasurable. Even the idea of "reading for pleasure" should be subject to this higher-level noticing.
And pleasure itself! Are you even sure that pleasure is pleasurable... that is, that pleasure is something that you experience. There are other feelings that you might prefer.
I myself suggested (void*) as a universal warningless cast, which dmr then incorporated into C.
"There are other feelings that you might prefer."
For example, flow.
I myself suggested (void*) as a universal warningless cast, which dmr then incorporated into C.
Cool!
I spoke to him twice I think, but not with a useful suggestion. I do have an autographed copy of the White Book.
"I know when I'm browsing for library ebooks on Overdrive, mention of awards won is almost always a cue to pass."
That, and if they are any of the morning show, Oprah, or Reese Witherspoon book clubs.
I still think Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to be the best novel ever written. But then, I haven't read them all.
The Pevear & Volokhonsky translation, of course.
Robicheaux is an interesting character. Burke understands recovering alcoholics well.
Burke also understands the underlying urges of violence that arise periodically.
I recently read Augie March and Herzog by Bellow. I enjoyed them both, but now, a month or so later, I don't remember much. Except, in Augie March there was an extended trip to Mexico with a girlfriend who was trying to train a falcon to catch lizards (or something). That stuck with me.
It's great to have friends/family who are on the same wavelength to get recommendations from. My grandmother (Babcia) was a voracious reader and always a reliable source for good recommendations. When she passed, I found it much more difficult to find good stuff.
I'm re-reading Trollope's "The Way We Live Now", on the recommendation from a commenter here (can't remember who) to try the audiobook. It's almost - almost! - reassuring to see how many of our current social, political, & media problems are nothing new.
I made a new year's resolution to read a poem every day; it's a little weird to realize that nearly all my favorite poems are about death.
Currently I am slogging through a book I thought would not only be good for me, but that I would enjoy: Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON. I did enjoy the snippets I read in college, but the full unabridged lap-buster edition is tough sledding. Was it necessary for Boswell to give us the full text of seemingly every letter Johnson wrote to seemingly everyone of the 18th Century? Maybe that's how biographies were composed in Boswell's era.
Before Boswell, the weighty tome I slogged through because I assumed it would be Good For Me was MOBY DICK. And I actually enjoyed the first 100 or so pages; but once the Pequod's voyage was well under weigh I got bogged down in all the chapters on whales and whaling. Only Melville's literary style kept me going until the Pequod began closing in on the white whale, when the pace picked up considerably.
One big classic that I enjoyed--rather to my surprise--was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV. The man could tell a story. Plus The Grand Inquisitor chapter is almost essential to understanding today's "liberalism" and "progressivism."
Speaking of which, one commenter above mentions ATLAS SHRUGGED for showing how totalitarianism worms its way and then takes over free societies. I think Rand was also prescient in showing the Left's devolution into the Stupid Left and the Loony Left. I remember criticisms of Rand for presenting cardboard caricatures of "liberals" and socialists in THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED; but reality and Muggeridge's Law overtook and bypassed Rand, so that yesterday's satire has become today's accurate reportage. It's easy to imagine walking caricatures such as Inga, Howard, et al, hanging out at Ellsworth Toohey's salons with Ike the Genius and Gus Webb, drinkingin every word Toohey says and then regurgitating in their online comments.
Loved Catch-22, and got through Gravity's Rainbow pretty well once I caught the drift.
An uncle of mine had me reading the usual CS Lewis apologetics when I stayed a summer in Alexandria VA. He was explicit that they were good for me.
In junior high school I wanted to check out some adult war memoirs and histories from the public library, which I was allowed to do when I demonstrated my reading proficiency; I recall one time a lady librarian trying to get me to read a bio of Ty Cobb instead. WTF?
I avoided, on principle, the assigned readings in high school, and don't feel like I've missed anything much. University literary experience much the same, only I actually did read most of the books assigned, since I had elected the courses to take.
My profile lists the writers who have most influenced me and/or given me the most pleasure, and NONE of them were introduced to me by teachers.
Narr
Nope, not a one
I'm not sure I've ever read anuthing because it was supposed to be good for me (a couple of self-help books pushed on me by my ex are the only exceptions, and since she's my ex, it's clear they weren't that 'good' for me). On the other hand, I've read a lot of stuff because it was supposed to be good. And, at least when it is one of the classics, it usually is. I just finished Vanity Fair and it was great. A lot of people have mentioned Tristram Shandy and Moby Dick. I've read Moby Dick at least 7 times and it might be my favorite novel. I read Tristram Shandy for no reason other than I had heard the name. Thought it was hilarious and it's one of Moby Dick's few competitors for my favorite novel status.
I read "The Convenience Store Woman," Sayaka Murata because Ann gave it a very positive mention. I enjoyed it because it was so strange. Very strange. I'll leave it at that because I haven't decided what to make of it.
Right now I'm rereading some Greek plays which I was told in high school were supposed to be good for you. Coincidentally I just watched "Never on Sunday" with Melina Mercouri, which is all about this idea of doing what you are told is good for you, or not.
In recent years I've semiconsciously been reading two or three "classics" or at least older books every year. Maybe I've just been lucky but for the most part I've found them to be unbelievably good. The most recent was Henry James' The American. So great, so interesting for its observations on the differences between Europe and the U.S. as seen in the 19th century. And I'm given to understand by my sister that it's not even considered top-tier Henry James.
Babbitt - so great, and not what I expected. Much more generous to Mr. Babbitt.
Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi and Innocents Abroad, both frequently spectacular and frequently seriously hilarious. And I don't mean "funny" - I mean funny.
The chapter in Innocents Abroad where Twain describes his little cohort group's refusal to be awed by anything considered awesome by their Italian guide - why would anyone ever again try writing something funny, I ask myself.
James Lee Burke is a favorite of mine. I picked up the audio book of In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead, like Big Mike because of the title, and fell in love. Burke is a lyrical writer and only because I had to listen to every word did I discover how much I value evocative prose. Before I would just hurry on past that descriptive stuff to get on with the plot. I can smell the bayou and feel the sun on my back as I read Burke. One of the more exciting aspects of that first, for me, novel was trying to figure out if I was reading magical realism or the working of a trained investigative mind filtered through the DTs.
And yes, I find him violent. The only time I'll pick up a romance novel is to cleanse after a Dave Robicheaux book.
His White Doves at Morning, a stand alone, gives an excellent perspective on the Confederate soldier who was not a slave owner, i.e. most of them.
I am so distressed these days I will not read anything that causes me anxiety. So I read a lot of history 'cause I already know how it ends. Except, I tried The Sleepwalkers and found myself hating the Serbs (distressing, that) and chose not to finish before it was due back.
ALP, have you read the McCullough Masters of Rome series? I found them enjoyable and an easy way to learn Roman history. The History of Rome podcast by Mike Duncan is excellent.
Gravity's Rainbow, a favorite, but is to be read as a "modern" novel, that is, the protagonist disappears before the end of the book, and you can stop reading before the end of the book as well.
Catch-22 - should be read in high school and not read again. It is like being a Democrat - really the thing when you are young and and inexperienced but at some point you find you have outgrown it.
Moby Dick - the book assigned in college that I would perhaps otherwise not have read that I most enjoyed
Robbe-Grillet - another author assigned in college I found to be clever, but definitely an acquired taste
Elmore Leonard - now there is some "good for you" reading!
"I still think Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to be the best novel ever written. But then, I haven't read them all."
Yeah, I love Dostoyevsky. Like Conrad, he really understood the Bolsheviks and dangerous left wing revolutionaries before anyone in the West had even heard of them.
"Babbitt - so great, and not what I expected. Much more generous to Mr. Babbitt.:
Its about the only Sinclair Lewis book that I liked. The rest, have bored me. And gad, the awful 1930 and 1940's slang, Lewis used. Its works in Babbitt for some reason, but in other works, I just find it annoying.
I like Tom Holland for ancient history.
Roughcoat mentioned Lord Norwich's Byzantine volumes--I read his Venetian books and will move on to the others eventually.
Narr
So many books
Hmmm. I seem to have missed a lot of the standard high school "Good For You" stuff. The books I did read there that I disliked most were Wuthering Heights and The Scarlet Letter, with The Red Badge of Courage not too far behind. OTOH, I liked all the Shakespeare they threw at me, and Beowulf, and bits of the Iliad and Odyssey. The Picture of Dorian Gray I didn't dislike, but it did cost me my only failing quiz grade in all HS: I spent so much time oohing and aahing over the "purple prose" that I forgot altogether about less important stuff, like, oh, plot.
Once in college I didn't have to read anything but texts, having AP'd out of the English and American History and Spanish requirements. But all that meant was that I could go to a bookstore (there were tons of bookstores in Berkeley at the time; now, not so much) and buy anything I liked. Bliss! So I read, lots of stuff, any number of angles or specialties.
I bulked up my Borges (in translation, though we had essayed him in HS Spanish), and through Borges to many others: Kafka, Chesterton (I can't say I've read all of Chesterton, but a damn good lot of it, thousands upon thousands of pages of essays, short stories, literary surveys, history, economics . . .), Dante, Wells. Then Ray Bradbury, tons of "Golden Age" mysteries (Marsh, Sayers, Allingham, Christie, Crispin, Tey, Aird . . .), lots of Heinlein, lots of Niven, tons of Asimov, some much lamer SF/fantasy. (Clark Ashton Smith, anyone?) Law: I read most of Ronald Dworkin's more "popular" work, a good bit of Laurence Tribe, some Richard Posner (much, much more fun than the other two). Natural history: I read all the Stephen Jay Gould I could get my hands on, as well as a couple of contrarian/anti-Darwinian texts like Behe's Darwin's Black Box. Read and mostly liked Hofstadter's Goedel, Escher, Bach and its successor, Metamagical Themas. (Mandelbrot's The Fractal Geometry of Nature I'd bought already in HS.) The Black Book of Communism. Spain Betrayed.
I mostly avoided "literary fiction," though I did buy Midnight's Children, as well as an even earlier work of Rushdie, Grimus. (That was Borges's influence again: he relates the tale of the Simurg or Simurgh, which in the story is the king of the birds and whose name means "thirty birds"; the birds set out to find their king, and at the end of an arduous journey discover that they are the Simurgh and the Simurgh is each and every one of them. "Grimus" is, more or less, "Simurgh" literally and typographically backwards. I found it vertiginous and vaguely disturbing, and remember very little of it, and less of Midnight's Children, but I still have both.) I avoided the "big" literary hits, though: No Satanic Verses, no Amy Tan, no Isabel Allende. One book by Barbara Ehrenreich, sure, in the middle of an "education-debate" splurge. I found it depressing and set it aside; that woman can gin up hate about anything, and has.
Later, read Atlas Shrugged. (What's with the hate-on for this book? The writing is no worse than the writing in 99.9% of any year's "floorstacked" best-sellers, and far above most. Repetitive, sure; Galt's 50-page, almost-un-paragraphed speech near the end is practically the only thing I actually did only spot-read. tim maguire is right that the "distilled" Rand can be read in choice selections on libertarian (I don't accept "right-wing" here) blogs, mainly the passage about the only way to police everyone being to make essentially everything illegal, so that the person you want to suppress is already an admitted criminal. Rand can be distilled out like that; is it her fault that sex and relationships were at once essential to her project and antithetical to the tract that she actually wanted to write? Besides, she did get her characters right, not the virtuous few so much as the ones in charge. They are all different, motivated by different things. I like, for example, that the union guy (Kinnian?) is as corrupt as the others, but differently so; he's the only one of them who is actually likeable, and stays that way.
Recent reading: All of the above, mostly for the fourth time or so, plus a few additions, e.g. Orson Scott Card. Eric Schlosser's Command and Control (yes, he's the guy who wrote Fast Food Nation, but this is a lot grimmer). Karl Schloegel's Moscow 1937 (if you want something yet grimmer than Command and Control!) Plus a zillion books on music -- almost all classical. Currently working through W. Dean Sutcliffe's Instrumental Music in an Age of Sociability.
The one "important" book that I have seriously tried to like and so far haven't is Boswell's Life of Johnson. Maybe that's because I've taken the boring, ordinary route of starting from the beginning and reading through to the end (except I've barely breached the beginning), rather than Chesterton's approved one of opening the book at random and reading the first graf you come to. But it's been some years now.
Bilwick, read yours after writing mine! Part of the problem may be that Boswell is huge, an Everyman's Library imprint (I think) in tiny type, with a helpful ribbon bookmark b/c you ain't never gonna finish that in one sitting.
Re: Shakespeare, I forgot to mention that apart from the assigned plays (Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV/2, Macbeth) I mostly got my plays bass-ackwards. We were taken on a field trip to Shakespeare in the Park to see Richard III (featuring a very young Kevin Kline!), and I was smitten. So next week I asked my parents to take me to a local secondhand bookstore, and bought a complete Shakespeare (half-falling-apart, as a lot of my books always are), and started reading, with Richard III. And after that, the plays just before that, which are the Henry VI trilogy. I didn't know then that they were supposed to be trash (for Shakespeare, anyway); they were the history just before the play I already liked. And then I went back to Henry V, and then the two Henry IV plays, and then Richard II and (Heaven help us) King John. The only one I seem to have skipped is Henry VIII, not sure why, except perhaps that there seemed to be disappointingly little gore in it. Little did I know the period!
To this day, I'm only about halfway through the comedies, and a couple of those I know only because I've played incidental music to them. As for the tragedies: Very good on Hamlet and Macbeth, so-so on Lear, pretty damn hopeless on Othello. As for other things, like the sonnets -- well, I really know only those that have been set to music somewhere. "When most I wink" is forever for me the last movement of Britten's Nocturne.
In The Garden Of The Beast by Eric Larson. About when William E Dodd became ambassador to Germany when the Nazis took over. Very interesting read.
"Catch-22 - should be read in high school and not read again. It is like being a Democrat - really the thing when you are young and and inexperienced but at some point you find you have outgrown it."
Interesting point. You may be right. I like the book and think Heller is a fine writer, but I got bored after about 100 pages. Despite trying to read it 3 times over 20 years, have never finished it. Too repetitive.
BTW. I've never understood the fuss over Salinger and catcher in the rye. I wonder if it's because I read it as an adult. Maybe he's one of those authors, you need to read as a Teenager. I Definitely think its true of Hunter Thompson. His "I'm a wild and crazy guy on drugs on booze" shtick plays a lot better when you're 14.
The one "important" book that I have seriously tried to like and so far haven't is Boswell's Life of Johnson.
Its not the sort of book, you sit down and read cover to cover. I read it a little at a time over a couple months and enjoyed it.
@Churchy, you like Jim Butcher and Ilona Andrews, too? Have you also read any of the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs?
Tomorrow I should be receiving my copy of Ilona Andrews' Blood Heir.
Coltrane's "Messiah" album, despite the ridiculous title, is really good.
Tristram Shandy is good, but (unless you have a lot of practice reading out-dated prose styles) the best way to read it is to read the Spark Notes version and the read the fifty or sixty little chapters that speak to you. It is a really good novel if you are interested in friendship, empathy, and how to deal with people who are lovable but, as my peeps at CDAN say it, cray-cray
Ilona Andrews, too?
I read most of the Kate Daniels books, but they eventually drifted too far into romance to hold my attention. How have Andrews books been lately?
@chuck, IMAO both the “Edge” series and “Hidden Legacy” are Romance genre set in urban fantasy. But check with Churchy.
I enjoyed reading Bellow, but the way the Brits (Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis, James Wood) have taken him up and turned him into an icon or idol makes me enjoy seeing one Brit take him down a peg.
As with Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, Bellow is likely to fall in reputation because of his misogyny and general offensiveness, but when all we had were the novels, they were quite engaging. The fact that they weren't just novels, but something like extended essays on life and society and the fate of civilization made them all the more readable, at least for me.
Post a Comment