ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
"I'm sorry to write such a long letter; I did not have time to write a short one." - attr. var.
Books, y'all.
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"I'm sorry to write such a long letter; I did not have time to write a short one." - attr. var.
ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
We'll, I finally finished The Three Musketeers last night, to about 80% satisfaction. I have to say, I was loving the book, but the ending blew my mind and actually disappointed me a bit. It's like Dumas figured out how to deal with the most immediate plot worry and then said "aw, f--- it" and just tagged an ending on. To be honest, I was actually horrified by the ending of the Milady sub-plot.
I always get excited to pick the next book, and I never plan too far ahead, choosing instead to just pick something I haven't read yet haphazardly. After years of working in a bookstore, I have years' supply of unread books on my shelves, as well as classics I'll read and re-read. It's almost time for me to take another whirlwind trip through Dostoevsky (took about a year the last time, but I didn't have kids and I read constantly).
For now, I'm excited for William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, which represents the execution of a great idea he had before I was born. I always wanted to do that and write the book, but then I found out that he already did, so I'll just read his. Besides, with kids, my life expectations of being interesting ever again have been dramatically adjusted down. I haven't smoked a pipe, or anything, in like two months.
I always get excited to pick the next book, and I never plan too far ahead, choosing instead to just pick something I haven't read yet haphazardly. After years of working in a bookstore, I have years' supply of unread books on my shelves, as well as classics I'll read and re-read. It's almost time for me to take another whirlwind trip through Dostoevsky (took about a year the last time, but I didn't have kids and I read constantly).
For now, I'm excited for William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, which represents the execution of a great idea he had before I was born. I always wanted to do that and write the book, but then I found out that he already did, so I'll just read his. Besides, with kids, my life expectations of being interesting ever again have been dramatically adjusted down. I haven't smoked a pipe, or anything, in like two months.
I found an interesting news item about the newly discovered "lost" novel by Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird: https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/beyond-to-kill-a-mockingbird-the-lost-novel-of-123555389873.html
To hit stores July 14.
To hit stores July 14.
Brown Thumb
Well-Known Member
I like picture Books with centerfolds.
Since the "lost" novel is actually To Kill a Mockingbird version 1.0, I suspect it may be of more interest to historians of literature. Her well known novel was the result of tossing the 1.0 version (different point-of-view character), and re-writing the whole thing from scratch.
Who knows? It might be good. It might have a centerfold.
Bob
ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
Blue Highways was pretty good! And then, I read Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story by DT Max, which is the only biography of the late/great David Foster Wallace. Excellent and haunting. What a great mind and good soul. And now I feel compelled to reread Wallace's novels.
I like picture Books with centerfolds.
Wrong forum.
Professor Pangloss, you and I may be the only pair who appreciate Barth's Sotweed Factor. I remember little or notyhing of Lost in the Fun House, End of the Road, Giles Goat Boy, etc... but The Sotweed Factor was unforgettable fun. My Johnny Sotweedseed project derives its name from this book. Johnny rides again weekend after next, by the way.
Keep your chin up, Pangloss.
ChinaVoodoo
Moderator
I've been reading nothing but plays lately in an effort to hone the skills I wish to be strong in. The most moving story has been Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart. I advise you not to read Julia Mackey -Jake's Gift; you'll bawl your eyes out and look like a pussy or something. Judith Thompson is a Canadian genius. I must stop there.
ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
It's been a while since I posted in this thread, and I've been busy reading since then (busy doing everything, as always). After Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, I read a new novel by Ann Bauer, called Forgiveness 4U. I heard about it on NPR. It was okay and did not go as I predicted it would in the beginning. Then I re-read The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace, which was insanely good fun. Webmost, you should definitely read that if you liked any Barth. Wallace is one of his heirs. Also, I'd say he'd be appealing to any Thomas Pynchon fans. Wallace is definitely channeling Pynchon with a lot of his style and joke names and implausible, futuristic plots and settings.
Let's see. Then I got back onto nonfiction and read Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. Great read. It was a National Book Award finalist, and it was very heartfelt, well-researched, and evenly paced. And because I'm a sucker for dystopian nonfiction, then I read Lost and Found in Russia by Susan Richards, which I got in galley from my bookstore employer several years ago - it came out in 2010. It's one of two books I've read about modern Russia in which the journalist actually goes somewhere east of Moscow (The other was Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier). Very good read, similarly excellent to the previous North Korea book. It follows the lives of several Russians after the fall of the USSR. It's not just pro-Western cheerleading, either, and it's the first book about modern Russia that's given me any cultural context whatsoever for the weirdness of that place. In fact, there's a sizeable chunk devoted to Crimea that reads like a prequel to the recent war. It's like the author and her sources saw the war coming, six or seven years ago.
And now I'm finally getting around to Angela's Ashes, having read the other two Frank McCourt books. This book is brilliant.
Let's see. Then I got back onto nonfiction and read Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick. Great read. It was a National Book Award finalist, and it was very heartfelt, well-researched, and evenly paced. And because I'm a sucker for dystopian nonfiction, then I read Lost and Found in Russia by Susan Richards, which I got in galley from my bookstore employer several years ago - it came out in 2010. It's one of two books I've read about modern Russia in which the journalist actually goes somewhere east of Moscow (The other was Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier). Very good read, similarly excellent to the previous North Korea book. It follows the lives of several Russians after the fall of the USSR. It's not just pro-Western cheerleading, either, and it's the first book about modern Russia that's given me any cultural context whatsoever for the weirdness of that place. In fact, there's a sizeable chunk devoted to Crimea that reads like a prequel to the recent war. It's like the author and her sources saw the war coming, six or seven years ago.
And now I'm finally getting around to Angela's Ashes, having read the other two Frank McCourt books. This book is brilliant.
Frozenthunderbolt
Well-Known Member
Can I lower the tone by dropping in some fantasy gents?
S. M. Stirling's latest Emberverse novel 'The desert and the blade' has just come out and I wait with baited breath . . .
While I like his "dies the fire" initial series most (having worn out the first book twice) I am also compelled to read everyone that comes out.
S. M. Stirling's latest Emberverse novel 'The desert and the blade' has just come out and I wait with baited breath . . .
While I like his "dies the fire" initial series most (having worn out the first book twice) I am also compelled to read everyone that comes out.
ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
There's no book judging here, and there's nothing wrong with fantasy, so fire away.
Since Angela's Ashes, I read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (great read - well worth the time), and then Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. That book was brilliant. It was pitched to me as a feminist Heart of Darkness, which piqued my interest, but even without considering it an update of Conrad, it's just a kickass novel. The characters are very well-made, especially the enigmatic Dr. Swenson (a Kurtz variation) and the protagonist Dr. Marina Singh. It centers around the activities of a pharmaceutical company in the Amazon rainforest, which sounds like a snooze, but is definitely not. Fast read - couldn't put it down.
Let's see...now I'm about 60 pages into Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, only ten years too late. This book manages to feel accurate, but also insanely, blithely optimistic, and depressing as hell, all at the same time. I know there's a whole scholarly/pundit-y conversation that's surrounded the "flat world" concept for ten or so years, and I'm late to that party - not having read the Friedman - but I'm familiar with the idea, and globalization is nothing new to someone my age. I'll finish the book, because that's what I do, but it's nearly 700 pages long AND there's a bloody sequel, Hot, Flat, and Crowded.
Since Angela's Ashes, I read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed (great read - well worth the time), and then Ann Patchett's State of Wonder. That book was brilliant. It was pitched to me as a feminist Heart of Darkness, which piqued my interest, but even without considering it an update of Conrad, it's just a kickass novel. The characters are very well-made, especially the enigmatic Dr. Swenson (a Kurtz variation) and the protagonist Dr. Marina Singh. It centers around the activities of a pharmaceutical company in the Amazon rainforest, which sounds like a snooze, but is definitely not. Fast read - couldn't put it down.
Let's see...now I'm about 60 pages into Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, only ten years too late. This book manages to feel accurate, but also insanely, blithely optimistic, and depressing as hell, all at the same time. I know there's a whole scholarly/pundit-y conversation that's surrounded the "flat world" concept for ten or so years, and I'm late to that party - not having read the Friedman - but I'm familiar with the idea, and globalization is nothing new to someone my age. I'll finish the book, because that's what I do, but it's nearly 700 pages long AND there's a bloody sequel, Hot, Flat, and Crowded.
ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
Well now, it's been since last year, and I'm resurrecting this thread. Here's a good new tobacco book from the University of Kentucky Press. It's called Burley, and it's a multi-layered look at growing burley in the Bluegrass. Part oral history, part technical history, and part rhetorical analysis. The last part is of less interest to the casual reader but interesting from a historical standpoint. It's about how the state's official rhetoric changed in reaction to public discourse on tobacco in the US.
Smokin Harley
Well-Known Member
I'm really not one to sit down and read a book. Let me rephrase that. I do read a lot of factual stuff or instructional . Not much of a fantasy /fiction reader. The last book I read and of course it was about cigars..."The Cigar ,Moments of Pleasure". Great book,a ton of great information . I read it cover to cover in 2 days.
Here it is on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Burley-Kentucky-Tobacco-Century-Remembered/dp/0813167582/ at $26.39 for the paperback (free shipping).
Many, many reviews.
Thanks for posting it. I just ordered it.
Bob
ProfessorPangloss
Amateur Kentuckian
I hope you like it. There's another one you might like, which I actually bought:
Tobacco Culture: Farming Kentucky's Burley Belt by John van Willigen and Susan C. Eastwood
Check it out. I loved this one. Another UK oral history. That department is awesome. It's currently the home of Ann Kingsolver, sister of Barbara, the novelist. Many people don't know that the family is native to Kentucky and they have deep farm roots.
Tobacco Culture: Farming Kentucky's Burley Belt by John van Willigen and Susan C. Eastwood
Check it out. I loved this one. Another UK oral history. That department is awesome. It's currently the home of Ann Kingsolver, sister of Barbara, the novelist. Many people don't know that the family is native to Kentucky and they have deep farm roots.
How about bright tobacco? A classic, published in 1948, is The Bright-Tobacco Industry: 1860-1927, by Nannie M. Tilley (U. N. Carolina Press). Gobs of history on the origin and development of bright tobacco, the patented flue scams, and the movers who drove the spread of bright tobacco growing in Virginia and North Carolina. (Thanks to Knucklehead for sending me a rare copy.)
Much more recently, Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology), published in 2011.
Both books highlight the wild marketeering that went into the growth of the bright tobacco industry (think Pokemon GO).
Bob
Much more recently, Making Tobacco Bright: Creating an American Commodity, 1617-1937 (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology), published in 2011.
Both books highlight the wild marketeering that went into the growth of the bright tobacco industry (think Pokemon GO).
Bob
For you history buffs, here is a must read: https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Conti...=1468736986&sr=8-2&keywords=Aftermath+of+wwII
The war didn't stop with the surrender and flowers and pretty girls kissing sailors as they got off the boat. This book starts there and goes into the mass migrations, ethnic cleansing, hunger, civil wars, the changes to the map of Europe, etc. Example: the war didn't end for Poland until the last Soviet tank rolled out in 1989. Spellbinding book and history that must not be forgotten so we can avoid repeating it.
The war didn't stop with the surrender and flowers and pretty girls kissing sailors as they got off the boat. This book starts there and goes into the mass migrations, ethnic cleansing, hunger, civil wars, the changes to the map of Europe, etc. Example: the war didn't end for Poland until the last Soviet tank rolled out in 1989. Spellbinding book and history that must not be forgotten so we can avoid repeating it.
Excellent topic. In our history classes, wars consist of leaders, generals, major battles and peace treaties. The actual events are treated as background noise.
Bob
Bob
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