Read any good books lately?

jlunt · Post by **jlunt** » Wed Nov 28, 2007 6:09 pm

I got on an Eco kick and read Foucault's Pendulum and The Name of the Rose. I thought I was on a roll so I tried Baudolino. Well, two out three... So now I'm getting ready for World Without End by Follett. Pillars of the Earth is my favorite book, so I'm pretty excited about it.

brewerpaul · Post by **brewerpaul** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 5:18 am

I'm in the midst of Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution
which I read quite a number of years ago. I'm really enjoying the heck out of it.

For those who are not familiar with it, it's supposedly a newly discovered manuscript by Dr. John Watson describing a previously unpublished memoir of an adventure with his friend Sherlock Holmes. It also features several historical characters of the period, most notably Sigmund Freud.
Meyer really captures the flavor of the Sherlock Holmes stories, so Holmes fans will especially appreciate this novel, although the uninitiated will like it too.

Re: The Name Of The Rose-- if you liked this, try re-reading it with the help of this:
http://www.amazon.com/Key-Name-Rose-Tra ... 875&sr=1-3

The Key To The Name Of The Rose is a page by page reference to the Eco novel including English translations to the numerous quotations in Latin and other languages, information on all historical names and places mentioned in The Name etc. The novel is terrific in it's own right (oh, check out the Sean Connery movie too-- abbreviated by necessity but not bad) but The Key REALLY brings it to life[/u]

beowulf573 · Post by **beowulf573** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 7:41 am

brewerpaul wrote:I'm in the midst of Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution
which I read quite a number of years ago. I'm really enjoying the heck out of it.

FYI, you can now get "The West End Horror" and "The Canary Trainer", they were hard to find for a while. I don't think they were as good as "The Seven Percent Solution" but still fun and worth reading.

Meyer also wrote and directed the best Star Trek film, "The Wrath of Khan".

Khaaaaaaan!

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 8:21 am

izzarina wrote:I'm in the process of reading Plato's Republic. So far, so good

Well, I like Socrates. And Plato.
Err, Izz, I hope the introduction made it clear that the last book is missing, and that Socrates' ideal state was not likely to resemble the examples in the books remaining. (Based on examples of Socrates' forensic method as demonstrated in other books.)

Flyingcursor · Post by **Flyingcursor** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:25 am

djm wrote:Overalls to Scrubs by CW Pellows. Lots of stories about working on trains from the steam years into early diesel, life out in the bush and in a tiny northern community, and the strange people who used to inhabit such places.

djm

that sounds good.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 9:38 am

Flying Cursor wrote:that sounds good.

Definitely should have had an editor for all the typos, spelling erros, and atrocious grammar, but lots of laughs. One of my favourite stories:

A guy and his wife are living in a cabin miles into the bush from the nearest tracks (no roads whatsoever) on a lake. He is out in his front yard one autumn. He looks across the lake and sees a beaver struggling with a pretty large poplar to bring it across the lake to its winter den. There is a stiff wind, and a lot of chop on the water, but the beaver struggles on.

The guy knows it will be a hard winter coming for the beaver to be going so far away to get food, and to be fighting so hard against the waves to bring this tree home. After about twenty minutes watching the beaver's struggles, the guy goes down, starts up his boat, and goes out to the beaver. He ties a rope to the tree and hauls it over to the beaver's lodge.

That evening after dinner, the guy calls for his wife to come down to the dock, as she will never see anything like this again. There, in the back of the boat, is the beaver, trying to start up the motor.

djm

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:14 am

i just finished "stiff" it's a book about what happens to cadavers that are donated to science. the possibilities are more than most folks could imagine.

i can't bear to read poetry but that's just me and please don't hold that against me.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 11:16 am

mp wrote:please don't hold that against me.

The poetry or the cadaver?

djm

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Thu Nov 29, 2007 10:40 pm

mutepointe wrote:i can't bear to read poetry but that's just me and please don't hold that against me.

From past conversations on the board, you're not the only one. And many of the ones who do read poetry won't read anything in free verse. No skin off my nose, either way.

mutepointe · Post by **mutepointe** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:14 am

well, i'm still special then. if i were forced to read poetry, i would choose the free verse. rhymming words don't get in the way and they don't shoot through my brain when the words don't actually rhymme in my local dialect. did "rain" and "again" ever rhymme in the history of the english language?

djm · Post by **djm** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:18 am

They still do. Perhaps your problem lies in your misconception that you speak English.

djm

Congratulations · Post by **Congratulations** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 10:55 am

mutepointe wrote:well, i'm still special then. if i were forced to read poetry, i would choose the free verse. rhymming words don't get in the way and they don't shoot through my brain when the words don't actually rhymme in my local dialect. did "rain" and "again" ever rhymme in the history of the english language?

You probably have trouble with slant rhyme, then?

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:11 am

mutepointe wrote:well, i'm still special then. if i were forced to read poetry, i would choose the free verse. rhymming words don't get in the way and they don't shoot through my brain when the words don't actually rhymme in my local dialect. did "rain" and "again" ever rhymme in the history of the english language?

They rhyme if you were brought up in Oxfordshire and are fabulously well-to-do. Otherwise not.
One of my tutors at Uni spoke received pronunciation. He talked of "ralways" instead of railways and was gently bemused by our provincial accents. We thought he was a C***.
The Conventry Carol has a nice rhyme of "good" and "blood". They still speak this way in parts of Manchester, but not in Coventry, I think.
One of my bosses once had a go at me when I took a message from someone and recorded the name as "Carol Bea".
"Did you not know her name was 'Beer'?"
"Look, I'm not the one with the speech impediment."

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 11:42 am

Innocent Bystander wrote:Err, Izz, I hope the introduction made it clear that the last book is missing, and that Socrates' ideal state was not likely to resemble the examples in the books remaining. (Based on examples of Socrates' forensic method as demonstrated in other books.)

Hmmm.....I wasn't aware of this. Right now, I'm still on Book 1, so I haven't gotten to the meat and potatoes of Socrates' thinking on the "ideal state" anyway. The whole concept of Justice is an interesting one (from Book 1)...at least from the viewpoint of an ancient Athenian. But despite where I am in the book, I agree it would have been nice to have that last book.

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Fri Nov 30, 2007 12:43 pm

Haven't read it lately, but I just found out that you can download a PDF of Calculus Made Easy (1914) by Silvanus P. Thompson(warning huge file). I found that it was a surprisingly well written text book.