haven't read Doors of Perception but want to. also want to do a bunch of mushrooms.

Youseff wrote:my favorite Orwell books are Down and Out in Paris and London about being homeless and a bum, and Homage to Catalonia about fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

Did you ever read "It Can't Happen Here"? I read it years ago. I desperately wanted to like it, but just couldn't get into it. If I can find my old copy, I'll give it a try again.

dont think I ever read anything by Sinclair Lewis.

Youseff wrote:dont think I ever read anything by Sinclair Lewis.

Yeah I was curious b/c you seemed to be versed in the political dystopian line.

Lewis was my jam for a few years after I did a term paper on Babbit in 11th grade.

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Youseff wrote:dont think I ever read anything by Sinclair Lewis.

Yeah I was curious b/c you seemed to be versed in the political dystopian line.

Lewis was my jam for a few years after I did a term paper on Babbit in 11th grade.

Main Street was a bit of a slog in the middle, but worthwhile.

Realize that at my ripe old age I've never read Arrowsmith or Elmer Gantry. Have to rectify that.

Babbit doesn't really interest me for some reason.

swishnicholson wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:

Youseff wrote:dont think I ever read anything by Sinclair Lewis.

Yeah I was curious b/c you seemed to be versed in the political dystopian line.

Lewis was my jam for a few years after I did a term paper on Babbit in 11th grade.

Main Street was a bit of a slog in the middle, but worthwhile.

Realize that at my ripe old age I've never read Arrowsmith or Elmer Gantry. Have to rectify that.

Babbit doesn't really interest me for some reason.

I liked Elmer Gantry much more than Babbitt. I was a Catholic school kid, and that was probably my first piece of literature that made me question organized religion.

Can't recall my feelings about Arrowsmith.

Liked Main Street well enough back then.

The Second Kingkiller Chronicles book is kinda dragging for me. finally starting to pick up i'm hoping, but the past 10+ hours of listening has been very underwhelming

Underground Railroad was a good read and definitely an important book in some ways, but I wasn't knocked out by it. I'm not sure the half-hearted use of fantasy elements don't detract from the work. They make for some easy machinery in illuminating some issues, but I'm not sure it was worth the trade-off in obscuring the historical record , or in making it harder for the reader to firmly place the action in time and space. The characters also showed remarkably little inner life, even the ones we spent a great deal of time with.

But still would recommend, as it's very engaging and while the events are grabbed from various corners of American history , they still have a basis in truth that make them sting.

finishing up (well, trying to) Stephen King's "Bag of Bones". Not one of his best. The climax has been going on for like 2 hours now (/PiP). Probably not helping my consumption method is that that narrator is very folksy. A fine, talented guy, but his voice & delivery just don't wield suspense and terror. It's 21 hours and I'm too far invested to quit now.

HOLY #@$% I JUST LOOKED IT UP AND THE NARRATOR IS STEPHEN KING HISSELF

Youseff wrote:haven't read Doors of Perception but want to. also want to do a bunch of mushrooms.

nice thing is its brevity. 70pp, can read it in a sitting

jamiethekiller wrote:The Second Kingkiller Chronicles book is kinda dragging for me. finally starting to pick up i'm hoping, but the past 10+ hours of listening has been very underwhelming

this was good. probably a little too long

Bucky wrote:finishing up (well, trying to) Stephen King's "Bag of Bones". Not one of his best. The climax has been going on for like 2 hours now (/PiP). Probably not helping my consumption method is that that narrator is very folksy. A fine, talented guy, but his voice & delivery just don't wield suspense and terror. It's 21 hours and I'm too far invested to quit now.

I haven't read it in years but I loved it.

Bill McNeal wrote:

Bucky wrote:finishing up (well, trying to) Stephen King's "Bag of Bones". Not one of his best. The climax has been going on for like 2 hours now (/PiP). Probably not helping my consumption method is that that narrator is very folksy. A fine, talented guy, but his voice & delivery just don't wield suspense and terror. It's 21 hours and I'm too far invested to quit now.

I haven't read it in years but I loved it.

It had a few groan-worthy moments for me, but I generally enjoyed this one as well. Honestly, I thought it was his most recent good horror/supernatural work until Dr. Sleep came out. (I consider Dark Tower books, 11/22/63, and Under the Dome to be in a different King sub-genre.)

started The Dagger and the Coin series. the guy who writes it has done co-writing with GRRM and co-wrote The Expanse. 6 book series that was finished last year.

I've been reading East West Street by Philippe Sands, a specialist in International Law. It's an exploration of how the concepts of genocide and crimes against humanity were developed by two polish jewish lawyers, Lemkin and Lauterpecht. But it's also a biography of Sands' geandfather, a Jew from town of Lwow, where both Lemkin and Lauterpecht went to college. Sands is a superb storyteller with a real love for hunting down clues and digging up evidence and the whole thing is incredibly gripping. It's a valuable introduction to the beginnings of human rights law, and the fight against the idea that a state can treat its citizens however it wants. Can't recommend it enough.

just finished John Williams' Augustus, loved it. I guess it helps to have an interest in the Roman empire but I thought it was elegant and thrilling throughout. the epistolary style really works for the material. looking forward to reading his Stoner sometime soon

Shūsaku Endō wrote Silence, which is the book the new Scorsese movie is based on. There were a lot of scenes where they talked about the black waves crashing on the shore, that kinda sounded like Zen poetry, but not as poignant. Endo is regarded as the best Japanese novelist, so I suspect the translation isn't perfect.

One thing that was really odd was how they told the story. For the first 75 pages or so it was the priest writing letters back to Portugal, then it switched to an omnipresent narrator once it got to hairy for him to write letters. That was fine, but toward the end, it switches again to the notes of a shipping company clerk. Fine again, but from there, mid-chapter, with no explanation, he switched back to the omnipresent narrator.

Simone Weil's On the Abolition of All Political Parties (and the accompanying essays in the nyrb version) was enlightening and depressing and gave me a lot of homework

I've just been assigned a review of condi rice's democracy. Ugh.