# Share a Literary Passage/Recommend a Book



## madox (Jan 6, 2004)

Share a passage that strikes you as being particularly evocative or humorous or any other quality you judge to be worthy of sharing. People can come here and get ideas for their next read. 

This one is from The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, which I’m reading right now. He’s great. I always feel a strong connection to his characters. 

‘I love humanity,’ he said, ‘but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams,’ he said, ‘I have often come to making enthusiastic schemes for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually have faced crucifixion if it had been suddenly necessary; and yet I am incapable of living in the same room with any one for two days together, as I know by experience. As soon as any one is near me, his personality disturbs my self-complacency and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner; another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.’


ADD: I'll post a review when I'm finished with it.


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

"It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey."
-from Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby_

"Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime."
"The dog did nothing in the nighttime."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.
-from Conan Doyle's "Silver Blaze"
(I could go Sherlock Holmes forever, but I won't)

Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much.
Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twil serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I am peppered, I warrant, for this world. - A plague o' both your houses!...-Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.
Romeo: I thought all for the best.
Mercutio: Help me into some house, Benvolio, or I shall faint. - A plague o' both your houses! They have made worm's meat of me: I have it, and soundly too. - Your houses!
-from Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_

"I told you I would tell you my names. This is what they call me. I'm called Glad-of-War, Grim, Raider, and Third. I am One-Eyed. I am called Highest, and True-Guesser. I am Grimnir, and I am the Hooded One. I am All-Father, and I am Gondlir Wand-Bearer. I have as many names as there are winds, as many titles as there are ways to die. My ravens are Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory; my wolves are Freki and Geri; my horse is the gallows."
-from Gaiman's _American Gods_ 

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
"That's some catch that catch 22," He observed.
"It's the best there is." Doc Daneeka agreed.
-from Heller's _Catch-22_ 

These are just some I rediscovered on Wikiquote...I'll leave off know.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

Melville
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve--
Fame or country least their care:
(*What like a bullet can undeceive!*)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.


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## Krstic All-Star (Mar 9, 2005)

“I must learn to love God’s creation wherever I am and not shut myself up in a world of dreams that the world of reality can so easily shatter.” Orde Wingate, to his then-fiancee Enid Jelley, quoted in Trevor Royle's Orde Wingate:Irregular Soldied at p. 219


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## BG7 (Jun 25, 2003)

She's my time machine
She's my rolling memory
She's my family
And I love her so

She knows my secrets well
But her back seat won't ever tell
She's no Jezebel

My ‘65 Mustang rides along
Every mile's another song
And what I don't remember
She never forgets
That little girl ain't let me down yet
It all comes back to me
When I turn that horse's key
I'm 17 or 23
Or bringing home my first baby
Like Dad did when the ‘65 was three

She's been four colors
We've broken forty laws
She goes where she wants
No matter what the cost

No power nothing here
AC's 2 by 75
Yea you got it man
You roll em down and drive

My ‘65 Mustang rides along
Every mile's another song
And what I don't remember
She never forgets
That little girl ain't let me down yet
It all comes back to me
When I turn that horse's key
I'm 17 or 23
Or bringing home my first baby
Like Dad did when the ‘65 was three

Don't need to play no new CD's
She's enough music for me
I Don't need no new AC
Cause she's cooler than I'll ever be

My wild Mustang
She's waiting on me
Ready to take us away
Sail across the sea

When I'm on her back
I'm the boy each man should be
She's My Family Tree

My ‘65 Mustang rides along
Every mile's another song
And what I don't remember
She never forgets
That little girl ain't let me down yet
It all comes back to me
When I turn that horse's key
And she roars to me...I'm 23
Or bringing home my first baby
Like Dad did when the '65 was three

She's my family


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## Showtyme (Jun 24, 2002)

(maybe) my favorite romantic poet, William Wordsworth:

These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:--feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love.

-Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

For some good books, try:

*Nonfiction*
The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman Very trite recommendation, I know, but it's worth reading, even if obnoxious.
The End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs It IS possible to eliminate extreme poverty in this generation! We can actually see it. This book gets me psyched up.
Indefensible, David Feige Terrific book looking into the true stories of a public defender.

*Sci-fi*
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card and most of its progeny. I've liked the "Ender's Shadow" series a ton so far. I heard that the "Voice for the Dead" series is less good. If you haven't read this, you're missing out on one of the best books ever. Sci-fi fan or not, this book blows my mind over and over.

*Christian Theology and Philosophy*
Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem. One of the toughest things about understanding Christianity, whether you are a Christian or not, is trying to define it. This is a standard of what 21st Century evangelicals believe. There are some major deviations from this big body of doctrine that are still considered "evangelical Christians", but they are noted and addressed. Anything that departs from this too much is probably not really mainstream Christianity as it should be understood.

The Character of Theology, John Franke. John Franke is a friend and mentor of mine, as I took one course at Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, PA, and he's years ahead of his time. He promotes a post-liberal, post-conservative ideology of post-MODERN Christianity that HAS defined boundaries but celebrates in diversity of doctrine to demonstrate Christ to the world. It's based on some pretty radical philosophical presumptions, like the fact that the only knowable truth is subjective, but still truth. Try to chew on that one. This book is dry, but if you're into philosophy, Christian thought, theology in general, whether you're a Christian or not, this book will light you up.

*Classic Literature*
Women in Love, DH Lawrence. His best work, in my opinion.
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Displays human nature and the essential struggle of morality.
Some modernist authors:Hemingway (especially A Farewell to Arms), William Faulkner, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck

I'll finish the list later, when I've actually read some of these books I've stocked up on recently.


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## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

Showtyme said:


> *Sci-fi*
> Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card and most of its progeny. I've liked the "Ender's Shadow" series a ton so far. I heard that the "Voice for the Dead" series is less good. If you haven't read this, you're missing out on one of the best books ever. Sci-fi fan or not, this book blows my mind over and over.


_Ender's Game_ is awesome, and the Shadow series is lots of fun to read. The other series (the one with _Speaker for the Dead_, _Xenocide_, and _Children of the Mind_) is very different. It's a lot more introspective and slow, rather than the action and intrigue of the Shadow series. _Speaker for the Dead_ I liked, but I thought it got a little too slow by _Children of the Mind_. Just thought I'd talk about it, since it was brought up.

And if you're doing poetry too, allow me to submit W.H. Auden's "The Unknown Citizen":


> (To JS/07/M/378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)
> 
> He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
> One against whom there was no official complaint,
> ...


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## narek (Jul 29, 2005)

Diophantos said:


> "I told you I would tell you my names. This is what they call me. I'm called Glad-of-War, Grim, Raider, and Third. I am One-Eyed. I am called Highest, and True-Guesser. I am Grimnir, and I am the Hooded One. I am All-Father, and I am Gondlir Wand-Bearer. I have as many names as there are winds, as many titles as there are ways to die. My ravens are Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory; my wolves are Freki and Geri; my horse is the gallows."
> -from Gaiman's _American Gods_


Neil Gaiman is a god. :biggrin: 

American Gods is terrific at capturing the American midwest and including The House on the Rocks. Someone how that place makes more sense as part of an alternate universe.


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## narek (Jul 29, 2005)

> Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summers day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men's stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o'clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.


From To Kill a Mockingbird, a book worth re-reading many times.


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

From _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_ by Hunter S. Thompson, absolutely perfect prose:

"_There was madness in any direction, at any hour... You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. And that, I think, was the handle— that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of old and evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave... So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark— that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back._"


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

Showtyme said:


> (maybe) my favorite romantic poet, William Wordsworth:
> 
> These beauteous forms,
> Through a long absence, have not been to me
> ...


That poem takes me back to the English literature classes in my first year at University, ah the memories...


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## PC Load Letter (Jun 29, 2002)

From the most brilliant wordsmith of all-time, WH Auden:

------------------------------------------------------------

Funeral Blues
 
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good. 

------------------------------------------------------------

I have never read nor heard loss and undying love expressed so deeply and in such a dark, yet stunningly beautiful, way. I read this poem for the first time just a couple years ago when I previously had no idea who WH Auden was. I had never been big on any poets, especially romantics, because I find most of them to be sappy, pretentious and melodramatic. With this work, though, it was different. It didn't feel like someone trying to be pretty. Rather, it felt like someone simply trying to portray his emotions through a pen and paper, a near-impossible task for most. It seems to define what poetry is or at least what it is supposed to be. When it was finished, I felt the sense of loss through this stranger's words and realized that I previously had no idea what true love really was.

(yes, _that_ was sappy and melodramatic)


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

A little bit basketball related, a quote from _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, which apparently is the reason why Phil Jackson is called the Zen Master. This quote is on the idea of a university and about education in general, and it's just perfectly executed:

_The real university is not a material object. It is not a group of buildings that can be defended by police.... The real university has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real university is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind, which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real university. The real university is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.

In addition to this state of mind, 'reason,' there's a legal entity which is unfortunately called by the same name but which is quite another thing. This is a nonprofit corporation, a branch of the state with a specific address. It owns property, is capable of paying salaries, of receiving money... 

But this second university, the legal corporation, cannot teach, does not generate new knowledge or evaluate ideas. It is not the real university at all. It is just a church building, the setting, the location, at which conditions have been made favorable for the real church to exist.

Confusion continually occurs in people who fail to see this difference ... and think that control of the church buildings implies control of the church.... They see the second university but fail to see the first._


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## JRose5 (May 4, 2003)

Just been reading some Keruoac lately, I'm currently reading his biography by Ann Charters while I'm waiting for the next book I ordered to show up, as our library here sucks.

Probably my favorite line in On The Road is about when he was describing seeing a girl getting onto a different bus:

'A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.'


I just started reading alot again a few weeks ago, so I don't have too many recomendations.


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## such sweet thunder (May 30, 2002)

I know this is dorky, but this is my 'wow-paragraph.' Justice Louis Brandeis in Whiteney v. California,

Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. [n2] They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence [p376] coerced by law -- the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech, there must be reasonable ground to fear that serious evil will result if free speech is practiced. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one. Every denunciation of existing law tends in some measure to increase the probability that there will be violation of it. [n3] Condonation of a breach enhances the probability. Expressions of approval add to the probability. Propagation of the criminal state of mind by teaching syndicalism increases it. Advocacy of law-breaking heightens it still further. But even advocacy of violation, however reprehensible morally, is not a justification for denying free speech where the advocacy falls short of incitement and there is nothing to indicate that the advocacy would be immediately acted on. The wide difference between advocacy and incitement, between preparation and attempt, between assembling and conspiracy, must be borne in mind. In order to support a finding of clear and present danger, it must be shown either that immediate serious violence was to be expected or was advocated, or that the past conduct furnished reason to believe that such advocacy was then contemplated. [p377]


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## L.O.B (Jun 13, 2002)

"It may be that at some far distant day greater insight will show them that they must look for comfort and encouragement in their own souls. I myself think that the need for worship is no more than the survival of an old remembrance of cruel gods that had to be propitiated. I believe that God is in me or nowhere. If that is so, whom or what am I to worship-myself? ......." Larry Darrell in H Somerset Maugham's _ A Razor's Edge _


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## Fizer Fanatic (Jun 20, 2002)

The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin


> Western humanist civilization as we know and value it today was born in expansion, grew in expansion, and can only exist in a dynamic expanding state. While some form of human society might persist in a nonexpanding world, that society will not foster freedom, creativity, individuality, or progress. Such a dismal future might seem an outrageous prediction, except for the fact that for nearly all of its history most of humanity has been forced to endure such static modes of social organization, and the experience has not been a happy one. Free societies are the exception in human history--aside from isolated pockets, they have only existed during the four centuries of frontier expansion of the West. That history is now over. The frontier opened by the voyage of Christopher Columbus is now closed. If the era of Western humanist society is not to be seen by future historians as some kind of transitory golden age, a brief shining moment in an otherwise endless chronicle of human misery, then a new frontier must be opened. Mars beckons.


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## Krstic All-Star (Mar 9, 2005)

A few thought-provoking books that come to mind:

This Side of Paradise by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Magus by John Fowles
A Rose for Ecclesiastes by Roger Zelazny


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## BG7 (Jun 25, 2003)

You're too far to bring you close
And too high to see below
Just hangin' on your daily dose
I know you never needed anyone
But the rolling papers for your grass
How can you give what you don't have

You keep on aiming for the top
And quit before you sweat a drop
Feed your empty brain
With your hydroponic pot
Start out playing with yourself
You get more fun within your shell
Nice to meet you but I gotta go my way

I'll leave again `cause I've been waiting in vain
But you're so in love with yourself
If I say my heart is sore
Sounds like a cheap metaphor
So I won't repeat it no more

I rather eat my soup with a fork
Or drive a cab in New York
`Cause to talk to you is harder work

So what's the point of wasting all my words
If it's just the same or even worse
Than reading poems to a horse

You keep on aiming for the top
And quit before you sweat a drop
Feed your empty brain
With your hydroponic pot
I bet you'll find someone like you
`Cause there's a foot for every shoe
I wish you luck but I've other things to do

I'll leave again `cause I've been waiting in vain
But you're so in love with yourself
If I say my heart is sore
Sounds like a cheap metaphor
So I won't repeat it no more


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## soonerterp (Nov 13, 2005)

"Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didn't know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent passage was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine."

-- Homer H. Hickam Jr., _Rocket Boys: A Memoir_. New York: Random House, 1998. First paragraph of chapter one. This book was the basis for the film _October Sky_ (which, in fact, is an anagram of "rocket boys.") Hickam is a natural storyteller and that passage sets the book up fairly nicely.


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## L.O.B (Jun 13, 2002)

I after reading Sloth's 'literary' passages, I am very worried about english classes in today's high schools.


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## GB (Jun 11, 2002)

Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
--

1 Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.

2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.


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## mizenkay (Dec 29, 2003)

Tom Robbins

*Still Life with Woodpecker*


_Consider a certain night in August. Princess Leigh-Cheri was gazing out of her attic window. . . "Does the moon have a purpose?" she inquired of Prince Charming.

Prince Charming pretended that she had asked a silly question. Perhaps she had. The same query put to the Remington SL3 elicited this response:

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.

Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.

Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.

There is only one serious question. And that is:

*Who knows how to make love stay?*

Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.

Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and the end of time.

Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon._


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

> Limp, the body of Gorrister hung from the pink palette; unsupported--hanging high above us in the computer chamber; and it did not shiver in the chill, oily breeze that blew eternally through the main cavern. The body hung head down, attached to the underside of the palette by the sole of its right foot. It had been drained of blood through a precise incision made from ear to ear under the lantern jaw. There was no blood on the reflective surface of the metal floor.
> 
> When Gorrister joined our group and looked up at himself, it was already too late for us to realize that, once again, AM had duped us, had had its fun; it had been a diversion on the part of the machine. Three of us had vomited, turning away from one another in a reflex as ancient as the nausea that had produced it.
> 
> ...


_"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"_ -- Harlan Ellison



I make a number of book recommendations in a couple of posts on this thread:

http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/showthread.php?p=2008360&conly=#post2008360


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## Krstic All-Star (Mar 9, 2005)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> _"I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream"_ -- Harlan Ellison
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Still the creepiest story I've ever read. First read it when I got the collection The Super Hugos, edited by Isaac Asimov way back when. The ending still gives me chills to this day...


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## Showtyme (Jun 24, 2002)

SST, if you're going to post judicial opinion, then I have to give props to my boy O-Dub. This is an opinion not scrutinized as often, but probably one that I like the most. It's from the landmark case, _Lochner v. New York_. For those not familiar with legal history, this case decided that the 14th Amendment's protection of "liberty" included the "liberty of contract", deeming a law that regulated the hours bakers could work in New York as unconstitutional. It was the beginning of an awkward phase of history where courts enforced the doctrine of Substantive Due Process, making up "fundamental liberties" out of thin air. SDP is something that remains today but in a completely different form.

Anyway. O.W. Holmes is one of this country's finest legal minds, and his dissent in this case was surprisingly short but full of disgust. Below is 1 of the 3 paragraphs he felt this opinion was worthy of.



> General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgment or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise. But I think that the proposition just stated, if it is accepted, will carry us far toward the end. *Every opinion tends to become a law. I think that the word 'liberty,' in the 14th Amendment, is perverted when it is held to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion, unless it can be said that a rational and fair man necessarily would admit that the statute proposed would infringe fundamental principles as they have been understood by the traditions of our people and our law. *It does not need research to show that no such sweeping condemnation can be passed upon the statute before us. A reasonable man might think it a proper measure on the score of health. Men whom I certainly could not pronounce unreasonable would uphold it as a first instalment of a general regulation of the hours of work. Whether in the latter aspect it would be open to the charge of inequality I think it unnecessary to discuss.


Holmes is basically saying, this case is OBVIOUS, and this country's in trouble if we take this and run with it. And he was right.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Folks, if we are going to get into legal opinions, it all begins and ends with the case of Washington v Aliamo, in which the merits of a Motion to Kiss My *** and other similar pleadings (Motion to Restore Sanity?) are examined in a scholarly manner.

http://www.legalreader.com/archives/images/motion_to_kiss.pdf

It's not a Supreme Court decision, but it is easily my favorite piece of legal writing, ever.


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## King Joseus (May 26, 2003)

Infinite Jest by David Foster-Wallace is a good one; I'll throw some passages in later...


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

King Joseus said:


> Infinite Jest by David Foster-Wallace is a good one; I'll throw some passages in later...


I'm reading Infinite Jest at the moment, I'm not that far along yet, but it is very good so far.


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## jnrjr79 (Apr 18, 2003)

The last couple I've read are Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris and What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank. Both were quite good, although sometimes Frank is so hell-bent on advancing his agenda that it becomes distracting from learning the facts of what he's talking about.


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## DengNabbit (Feb 23, 2005)

my passage is all of Infinite Jest


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## The Truth (Jul 22, 2002)

DengNabbit said:


> my passage is all of Infinite Jest


That's one long passage!!!!! (But definitely worth reading)

I can't believe all the Infinite Jest talk in here!


I was actually just going to post that my signature is from Infinite Jest (which is the best novel of the last quarter century).


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## McBulls (Apr 28, 2005)

My summer reading this year: 

Atonement by Ian McEwan, which is a novel about a storytelling 13 year old girl whose imagination destroys her older sister and her lover's lives.

The Shadow of God, by Goodman, which is a historical novel about the seige of Rhodes in the early 16th century. I read this while we spent a week at a conference in Rhodes.

Fire in the Sky by Friedrich, which is a geological and anthropological history of the Santorini volcano. Of course this was read while we spent a week on holiday on Santorini.

and finally, Collapse by Jared Diamond, which is a historical analysis of past civilizations that destroyed themselves by befouling the environment and natural resources that supported them.

I recommend Collapse. Diamond is a genius of the first order, who has a breathtaking knowledge of social anthropology, biology, physiology and history but who is also capable of presenting complex ideas in a reader-friendly manner. If you read his book, it will change your view of environmental issues.


----------



## mizenkay (Dec 29, 2003)

some heavy readin' folk here! that's cool.

but i like my summer reading light, frothy, trashy, saucy, sexy and a wee bit naughty.

one of my _all time_ summer books (and whatever season, frankly)

is











_*The only hit that comes out of a Helen Lawson show is Helen Lawson, and that's ME, baby, remember?*_



you tell 'em helen. classic.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

I mentioned this in a thread the other day...

One of the best books I've read lately is Devil In The White City, which interweaves the story of Daniel Burnham building the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the twisted deceptions of serial killer Dr. H. H. Holmes.


----------



## Good Hope (Nov 27, 2002)

Lincoln's second inaugural:

I don't think there is a speech in history that can match this one. He took such a painful reality and made it make sense, and gave such a clear direction of what to do. We still need to hear it.



> Fellow-Countrymen:
> 
> AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. 1
> On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came. 2
> ...


James Joyce, 'Araby'

I can't think of a more concise expression of human despair. This of course from when Joyce took himself seriously, but not yet "Ulysses"-like serious.



> The young lady changed the position of one of the vases and went back to the two young men. They began to talk of the same subject. Once or twice the young lady glanced at me over her shoulder.
> 
> I lingered before her stall, though I knew my stay was useless, to make my interest in her wares seem the more real. Then I turned away slowly and walked down the middle of the bazaar. I allowed the two pennies to fall against the sixpence in my pocket. I heard a voice call from one end of the gallery that the light was out. The upper part of the hall was now completely dark.
> 
> Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.


In the Bible (NIV translation), probably the most evocative passage to me is from Isaiah 53:3-6. The King James is more lofty, but I like the directness of the NIV, and here, the rhythm of the poetry and the flow of the meaning (how it captures the "give and take" in our relationship with the Messiah) is a good match for the content.



> He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
> 
> Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
> 
> ...


----------



## The Truth (Jul 22, 2002)

Oh yeah, I forgot, my location is the first sentence of the second paragraph of IJ.


----------



## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

The Bible verses, of course, reminded me of Life of Brian...

*** Sermon on the Mount
*** from Monty Python's "Life of Brian"
*** transcribed from the photonovel 2/11/88 Daniel Rich <[email protected]>

Jesus: How blest are the sorrowful, for they shall find consolation.
How blest are those of gentle spirit. They shall have the earth
for their possession. How blest are those who hunger and thirst
to see right prevail. They shall be satisifed. . .

(Camera pulls back to the back of the multitude)

Mandy: Speak up!
Brian: Mum! Sh!
M: Well, I can't hear a thing! Let's go to the stoning.
Big Nose: Sh!
B: You can go to a stoning any time.
M: Oh, come on Brian!
BN: Will you be quiet?
Wife: Don't pick your nose.
BN: I wasn't picking my nose...I was scratching.
W: You were picking it while you were talking to that lady.
BN: I wasn't.
W: Leave it alone...give it a rest...
Mr. Cheeky: Do you mind...I can't hear a word he's saying.
W: Don't you "do you mind" me...I'm talking to my husband.
C: Well go and talk to him somewhere else! I can't hear a bloody thing!
BN: Don't you swear at my wife.
C: I was only asking her to shut up so we can hear what he's saying,
big nose.
W: Don't you call my husband "big nose."
C: Well, he has got a big nose.

(Cultured jew turns around...)

Gregory: Could you be quiet, please? (to Mr. Cheeky) What was that?
C: I don't know...I was too busy talking to big nose.
Man: I think it was "Blessed are the Cheesemakers."
Mrs. Gregory: What's so special about the cheesemakers?
G: It's not meant to be taken literally. Obviously it refers to any
manufacturers of dairy products.
C: (to Big Nose) See--if you hadn't been going on, you'd have heard
that, Big Nose.
BN: Hey, if you say that once more, I'll smash your ****ing face in.
C: Better keep listening...might be a bit about "Blessed are the big noses."
B: Oh lay off him.
C: (rounding on Brian) You're not so bad yourself, Conkface. Where
are you two from? Nose City?
BN: Listen! I said one more time...mate and I'll take you to the
****ing cleaners.
W: Language! And don't pick your nose!
BN: I wasn't goint to pick my nose. I was going to thump him.
Another Person: I think it was "Blessed are the Greek."
G: THE Greek?
AP: Apparently he's going to inherit the earth.
G: Did anyone catch his name?
BN: I'll thump him if he calls me Big Nose again.
C: Oh shut up, Big Nose.
BN: Oooh! Right I warned you...I really will slug you so hard...
W: Oh it's the Meek...Blessed are the meek! That's nice, I'm glad
they're getting something 'cos they have a hell of a time.
C: Listen...I'm only telling the truth...you have got a very big nose.
BN: (trying to control himself) Your nose is going to be three foot
 wide across your face when I've finished with you.
C: Who hit yours then? Goliath's big brother?
BN: Oooh...oohh...aargh...ah (supreme self control) That's your last
warning... 
Mrs. Gregory: Oh do pipe d...

(Big Nose punches Mrs. Gregory, and a general scuffle breaks out)

BN: Silly *****, getting in the way.
M: Brian! Come on, let's go to the stoning.
B: Alright.


----------



## L.O.B (Jun 13, 2002)

I read about 70 books a year, fantasy is my guilty pleasure. My favorite fantasy writer is George RR Martin and I high recommend reading Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. 

I am also a big fan of Nick Hornby, his books _Fever Pitch _ and _High Fidelty _ were made into good movies but the books are way better.


----------



## Ron Cey (Dec 27, 2004)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> I mentioned this in a thread the other day...
> 
> One of the best books I've read lately is Devil In The White City, which interweaves the story of Daniel Burnham building the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the twisted deceptions of serial killer Dr. H. H. Holmes.


Absolutely. I think its the best new book I've read in years. Loved it. I've recommended it to several people who all loved it as well. Fascinating and wonderfully written. 

I'm reading Isaac's Storm right now, also by Erik Larson. So far, its not as good (which would be a difficult accomplishment). But I'm still enjoying it.


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## McBulls (Apr 28, 2005)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> I mentioned this in a thread the other day...
> 
> One of the best books I've read lately is Devil In The White City, which interweaves the story of Daniel Burnham building the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the twisted deceptions of serial killer Dr. H. H. Holmes.


Somehow I haven't gotten around to reading this, but you're about the 20th person who has reccommended it. I live in Hyde Park, so it wouldn't hurt me to know a bit more about my surroundings. In fact, I'm going to order the book from Amazon now!


----------



## The 6ft Hurdle (Jan 25, 2003)

*The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman*

"The Hmong never had any interest in ruling over the Chinese or anyone else; they wanted merely to be left alone, which, as their later history was also to illustrate, may be the most difficult request any minority can make of a majority culture."

"Most old people prefer not to go to doctor. They feel, maybe doctor just want to study me, not help my problems. . .Doctor is like earth and sky. He think, you are refugee, you know nothing."


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

McBulls said:


> Somehow I haven't gotten around to reading this, but you're about the 20th person who has reccommended it. I live in Hyde Park, so it wouldn't hurt me to know a bit more about my surroundings. In fact, I'm going to order the book from Amazon now!


Knowing the area (my wife and I lived at 61st and Greenwood for 3 years after we got married) was one of the cool things about the book.


----------



## Darius Miles Davis (Aug 2, 2002)

This would be my favorite love poem:




somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond	
by E. E. Cummings




somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

any experience,your eyes have their silence:

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,

or which i cannot touch because they are too near



your slightest look will easily unclose me

though i have closed myself as fingers,

you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens

(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose



or if your wish be to close me, i and

my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,

as when the heart of this flower imagines

the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals

the power of your intense fragility:whose texture

compels me with the color of its countries,

rendering death and forever with each breathing



(i do not know what it is about you that closes

and opens;only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

L.O.B said:


> I read about 70 books a year, fantasy is my guilty pleasure. My favorite fantasy writer is George RR Martin and I high recommend reading Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series.
> 
> I am also a big fan of Nick Hornby, his books _Fever Pitch _ and _High Fidelty _ were made into good movies but the books are way better.


_Fever Pitch_ is great, I haven't seen the movie though. It's exactly the other way around with _High Fidelity_, I've seen the movie, which was okay but not great in my opinion, but I haven't gotten around to reading the book for some reason.

Before I undertook the huge project otherwise known as _Infinite Jest_, I read _If I Die In A Combat Zone_ by Tim O'Brien, who is a Vietnam veteran writing about his experiences as a foot soldier in the war. He is by far the best writer on that topic in my opinion, and his style is just superb. I'll also recommend one of his other books, _The Things They Carried_, which is the best war book I've ever read, absolutely brilliant.


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## gregorius (Apr 26, 2005)

'The Job' by Douglas Kennedy.

Great read


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## ace20004u (Jun 19, 2002)

I'd like to reccomend an AMAZING book I read not too long ago which is fast becoming my favorite...Swan Song by Robert Mccammon, it is an apocolyptic battle between good and evil, an epic really and very much worth reading. Similar to the Stand which I also reccomend in some ways.


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## L.O.B (Jun 13, 2002)

LegoHat said:


> It's exactly the other way around with _High Fidelity_, I've seen the movie, which was okay but not great in my opinion, but I haven't gotten around to reading the book for some reason.


The success of _High Fidelity _ as a book was Hornby's use of prose which didn't translate well to the movie, even with Cusack who is great in his ability to talk directly to the camera.


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## Ron Cey (Dec 27, 2004)

I don't really have any quotes for you guys or anything, but the best book I've ever read remains Moby Dick. Not the most entertaining, probably, but the best. 

The Rest of the Best:

1984
Animal Farm (okay, I like Orwell)
In Cold Blood

Most entertaining:

Shogun
Battlefield Earth (sci-fi and please don't mention the movie)
Watership Down

The greatest piece of writing you have time to read right now while visiting this board:

A Modest Proposal: For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being A Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public. 

If you are not familiar with it, this is an essay by Jonathan Swift, not a book, and it is the finest bit of satire ever written (not that I've read them all :biggrin: ). 

If you haven't read it, here is a link to it in its entirety: http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

I recommend you give it a read. I suspect you'll never forget it.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Ron Cey said:


> I don't really have any quotes for you guys or anything, but the best book I've ever read remains Moby Dick. Not the most entertaining, probably, but the best.


Its also a hell of a drum solo.


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## T.Shock (Feb 11, 2003)

Ah where to begin. I'm not going to post any passages because I'm extremely sick and don't feel like it...but here are some books that I personally love...

Breakfast Of Champions-Kurt Vonnegut
Cat's Cradle-Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five-Kurt Vonnegut
Lullaby-Chuck Palahniuk
Invisible Monsters-Chuck Palahniuk
V.-Thomas Pynchon
Gravity's Rainbow-Thomas Pynchon
Rabbit, Run-John Updike
Rabbit At Rest-John Updike

And I can't believe nobody's mentioned who I consider to be the greatest writer of the 20th century, maybe ever, Vladimir Nabokov. I'd strongly recommend Pale Fire and Invitation To A Beheading and also Lolita which is a bit more famous. Thomas Mann's Death Is Venice is also amazing as well as some classic horror novels like Frankenstein and Dracula. 

Poetry wise, I'd say read some Keats (in fact read all of Keats) and read some Coleridge like Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan, This Lime-Tree Bower, My Prison, and any other his somewhat more trippy stuff.

This is one of my favorite short stories and it's told in such a way to make it seem like a how-to-guide, but its not...

*"Happy Endings"
Margaret Atwood*

John and Mary meet.
What happens next?
If you want a happy ending, try A.

A.

John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.

B.

Mary falls in love with John but John doesn't fall in love with Mary. He merely uses her body for selfish pleasure and ego gratification of a tepid kind. He comes to her apartment twice a week and she cooks him dinner, you'll notice that he doesn't even consider her worth the price of a dinner out, and after he's eaten dinner he ****s her and after that he falls asleep, while she does the dishes so he won't think she's untidy, having all those dirty dishes lying around, and puts on fresh lipstick so she'll look good when he wakes up, but when he wakes up he doesn't even notice, he puts on his socks and his shorts and his pants and his shirt and his tie and his shoes, the reverse order from the one in which he took them off. He doesn't take off Mary's clothes, she takes them off herself, she acts as if she's dying for it every time, not because she likes sex exactly, she doesn't, but she wants John to think she does because if they do it often enough surely he'll get used to her, he'll come to depend on her and they will get married, but John goes out the door with hardly so much as a good-night and three days later he turns up at six o'clock and they do the whole thing over again.

Mary gets run-down. Crying is bad for your face, everyone knows that and so does Mary but she can't stop. People at work notice. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a pig, a dog, he isn't good enough for her, but she can't believe it. Inside John, she thinks, is another John, who is much nicer. This other John will emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon, a Jack from a box, a pit from a prune, if the first John is only squeezed enough.

One evening John complains about the food. He has never complained about her food before. Mary is hurt.

Her friends tell her they've seen him in a restaurant with another woman, whose name is Madge. It's not even Madge that finally gets to Mary: it's the restaurant. John has never taken Mary to a restaurant. Mary collects all the sleeping pills and aspirins she can find, and takes them and a half a bottle of sherry. You can see what kind of a woman she is by the fact that it's not even whiskey. She leaves a note for John. She hopes he'll discover her and get her to the hospital in time and repent and then they can get married, but this fails to happen and she dies.

John marries Madge and everything continues as in A.

C.

John, who is an older man, falls in love with Mary, and Mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because he's worried about his hair falling out. She sleeps with him even though she's not in love with him. She met him at work. She's in love with someone called James, who is twenty-two also and not yet ready to settle down.

John on the contrary settled down long ago: this is what is bothering him. John has a steady, respectable job and is getting ahead in his field, but Mary isn't impressed by him, she's impressed by James, who has a motorcycle and a fabulous record collection. But James is often away on his motorcycle, being free. Freedom isn't the same for girls, so in the meantime Mary spends Thursday evenings with John. Thursdays are the only days John can get away.

John is married to a woman called Madge and they have two children, a charming house which they bought just before the real estate values went up, and hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging, when they have the time. John tells Mary how important she is to him, but of course he can't leave his wife because a commitment is a commitment. He goes on about this more than is necessary and Mary finds it boring, but older men can keep it up longer so on the whole she has a fairly good time.

One day James breezes in on his motorcycle with some top-grade California hybrid and James and Mary get higher than you'd believe possible and they climb into bed. Everything becomes very underwater, but along comes John, who has a key to Mary's apartment. He finds them stoned and entwined. He's hardly in any position to be jealous, considering Madge, but nevertheless he's overcome with despair. Finally he's middle-aged, in two years he'll be as bald as an egg and he can't stand it. He purchases a handgun, saying he needs it for target practice--this is the thin part of the plot, but it can be dealt with later--and shoots the two of them and himself.

Madge, after a suitable period of mourning, marries an understanding man called Fred and everything continues as in A, but under different names.

D.

Fred and Madge have no problems. They get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise. But their charming house is by the seashore and one day a giant tidal wave approaches. Real estate values go down. The rest of the story is about what caused the tidal wave and how they escape from it. They do, though thousands drown, but Fred and Madge are virtuous and grateful, and continue as in A.

E.

Yes, but Fred has a bad heart. The rest of the story is about how kind and understanding they both are until Fred dies. Then Madge devotes herself to charity work until the end of A. If you like, it can be "Madge," "cancer," "guilty and confused," and "bird watching."

F.

If you think this is all too bourgeois, make John a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent and see how far that gets you. Remember, this is Canada. You'll still end up with A, though in between you may get a lustful brawling saga of passionate involvement, a chronicle of our times, sort of.

You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality.

The only authentic ending is the one provided here:
John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die.

So much for endings. Beginnings are always more fun. True connoisseurs, however, are known to favor the stretch in between, since it's the hardest to do anything with.

That's about all that can be said for plots, which anyway are just one thing after another, a what and a what and a what.

Now try How and Why.


----------



## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

T.Shock said:


> And I can't believe nobody's mentioned who I consider to be the greatest writer of the 20th century, maybe ever, Vladimir Nabokov. I'd strongly recommend Pale Fire and Invitation To A Beheading and also Lolita which is a bit more famous.


I agree about Nabokov. In one of my lists that I linked to, I recommended his autobiography, Speak, Memory.


----------



## jbulls (Aug 31, 2005)

I'm too lazy to look up a specific passage, but all you've got to do is open up Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and point. It's pretty much all gold, IMO.


----------



## Ron Cey (Dec 27, 2004)

jbulls said:


> I'm too lazy to look up a specific passage, but all you've got to do is open up Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and point. It's pretty much all gold, IMO.


Agreed. Hilarious.


----------



## The Truth (Jul 22, 2002)

Do yourself a favor and read some Saul Bellow.

Beginning of _The Adventures of Augie March_:



> I am an American, Chicago born--Chicago, that somber city--and go at things as I have taught myself, free-style, and will make the record in my own way: first to knock, first admitted; sometimes an innocent knock, sometimes a not so innocent. But a man's character is his fate, says Heraclitus, and in the end there isn't any way to disguise the nature of the knocks by acoustical work on the door or gloving the knuckles.


First line of _Herzog_:



> If I am out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.


----------



## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

Another Neil Gaiman work. This is a (very) short story from his collection "Smoke and Mirrors":



> Nicholas Was...
> 
> older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.
> 
> ...


----------



## ViciousFlogging (Sep 3, 2003)

I'm about halfway through David McCullough's biography of Harry Truman and I'm incredibly impressed with it so far. Anyone who's interested in 20th century history should read it if they don't mind the fact that it's 1000 pages. Also great for the same time period are Manchester's MacArthur and Churchill biographies.


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## ViciousFlogging (Sep 3, 2003)

jbulls said:


> I'm too lazy to look up a specific passage, but all you've got to do is open up Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and point. It's pretty much all gold, IMO.


one of my favorite books. so much fun.


----------



## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

As far as overall books and whatnot, my list would be heavily tilted toward economics texts and essays that I've found useful and influential. If you're <strike>masochistic</strike> into that sort of thing:

Philosophy/Economics/Political Science
Serious Reading
* I'd agree on everything written by Orwell
* Thus Spoke Zarathustra (and most everything else by Nietzsche)
* The Theory of Moral Sentiments Adam Smith
* Politics (Aristotle)
* The Discourses (Machiavelli)
* The Wealth of Nations (Again, Adam Smith)
* "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (Milton Friedman)
* "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum", "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach" (Gary Becker)
* On the Rationale of Group Decision-Making (Anthony Downs)
* The Calculus of Consent (James Buchannan and Gordon Tullock)
* The Strategy of Conflict (Thomas Schelling)
* Micro Motives and Macro Behavior (Thomas Schelling)
* Cost and Choice (James Buchanan)
* Toward a Mathematics of Politics (Gordon Tullock)
* "The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, Monopolies, and Theft" (Gordon Tullock)
* "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society" (Anne Krueger)
* "Rational Irrationality: A Framework for the Neoclassical-Behavioral Debate" (Byran Caplan)
* "Systematically Biased Beliefs About Economics: Robust Evidence of Judgemental Anomalies from the Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy" (Bryan Caplan)
* How the Dismal Science Got its Name: Classical Economics and the Ur-Text of Racial Politics (David Levy)
* Freakonomics, Steven Levitt
* Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlett

History
* I haven't read Collapse yet, but Guns, Germs, and Steel, also by Diamond, was quite interesting
* The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
* Any encyclopedia. This is what I sat around and did when I was a kid... read the encyclopedia. Now I read Wikipedia.

Literature
* Tolkien
* Orwell
* Michael Crichton
* The Old Man and the Sea
* The Great Gatsby
* Moby Dick
* Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
* Hamlet
* The War of the End of the World (read that this summer)
* The Exorcist
* "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" (Ambrose Bierce)
* The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
* A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)
* War of the Worlds (HG Wells)
* All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
* The Mote in God's Eye(Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle)

----------------
*Edit:*
some other things I forgot
"The Problem of Social Cost" (Ronald Coase)
The Harry Potter books - If you're a literary snob who can't appreciate them, you've lost your way.
Eyes of the Dragon (Stephen King)
Arc Light (Eric L. Harry)


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## T.Shock (Feb 11, 2003)

MikeDC said:


> As far as overall books and whatnot, my list would be heavily tilted toward economics texts and essays that I've found useful and influential. If you're <strike>masochistic</strike> into that sort of thing:
> 
> Philosophy/Economics/Political Science
> Serious Reading
> ...


I read An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge a couple years ago and I was watching The Twilight Zone and stumbled upon the book in Twilight Zone form. Great story, great episode. Good thing somebody agrees with me on Nabokov.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

Some Passages:
Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen.

The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt. 

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage. 

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. 

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.


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## Bullsmaniac (Jun 17, 2002)

I recommend ...

The Kite Runner
Memoirs of a Geisha
She's Come Undone
Like Water for Chocolate


----------



## Diophantos (Nov 4, 2004)

Bullsmaniac said:


> I recommend ...
> 
> The Kite Runner


The Kite Runner was a damn fine book.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Here's an excerpt of what I was reading last night:



_Hand, hand, fingers, thumb. 
One thumb, One thumb, drumming on a drum. 
Dum ditty, dum ditty, dum, dum, dum!_


----------



## Ron Cey (Dec 27, 2004)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> Here's an excerpt of what I was reading last night:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


From my Sunday night:

"What is missing from Caillou's apple tree? Apples!'

"What is missing from Caillou's fish bowl? Fish!"

"What is missing from Caillou's coat? Buttons!"

I could go on, but you get the general idea.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Ron Cey said:


> From my Sunday night:
> 
> "What is missing from Caillou's apple tree? Apples!'
> 
> ...


I ****ing HATE Caillou. Biggest puss-boy ever animated.



I read Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb to Patrick, the 3 year old, along with a Thomas the Tank Engine book.

Molly (5) got a How Do We Know When Its Halloween flap book.

Colin (6 1/2) got the second half of Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets.


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## ScottMay (Jun 15, 2002)

Ron Cey said:


> From my Sunday night:
> 
> "What is missing from Caillou's apple tree? Apples!'
> 
> ...


Is it ever explained why Caillou is bald? He's supposed to be 3-4, right?

My kid has developed a sudden disdain for what he calls "baby shows" (with the exception of his morning dose of Diego). Better still, his new favorites are "This Old House" and its two spin-offs.


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## such sweet thunder (May 30, 2002)

MikeDC said:


> "The Problem of Social Cost" (Ronald Coase)
> The Harry Potter books - If you're a literary snob who can't appreciate them, you've lost your way.
> Eyes of the Dragon (Stephen King)


Begin dork-out.

Coase is my new favorite economist. His ideas on transaction costs and governemental structures are some of the more thought provoking things I've recently read. I cited to 'The Problem of Social Cost in a music/law article that wil be out in the spring. 
End dork-out.

Begin other dork-out.

I like the Harry Potter books on audio file. Theres something childishly (is that a word?) fun about having vivid adventure stories read to you . . .

End other dork-out.


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## Ron Cey (Dec 27, 2004)

ScottMay said:


> Is it ever explained why Caillou is bald? He's supposed to be 3-4, right?
> 
> My kid has developed a sudden disdain for what he calls "baby shows" (with the exception of his morning dose of Diego). Better still, his new favorites are "This Old House" and its two spin-offs.


I suspect Caillou is just the product of bad genes. His parents, and he, are losers as TomB rightly pointed out. 

My boy does not care for Caillou the show. But about once a week he requests his Caillou "books" for his bedtime story. They are pullout books. 

My son's favorites: (a) Thomas the Tank Engine - by a pretty wide margin; (b) SpongeBob Squarepants - which I actually think is pretty damn funny; and (c) The Simpsons - he doesn't understand it, but I think he likes the music, the way it looks, and the fact that I laugh at it out loud when we watch it together. 

Anyway, back to literature.


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## kukoc4ever (Nov 20, 2002)

I just finished Atlas Shrugged and now I'm 100 pages into The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Maybe that's why I'm so grumpy.

A couple of books I enjoyed over the last year were "When Genius Failed" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavailer and Klay."


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

kukoc4ever said:


> I just finished Atlas Shrugged and now I'm 100 pages into The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
> 
> Maybe that's why I'm so grumpy.
> 
> A couple of books I enjoyed over the last year were "When Genius Failed" and "The Amazing Adventures of Kavailer and Klay."


Ayn Rand is some heavy reading -- but worthwhile.

Third Reich is a great, informative read...but its just so damn looooong.


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## narek (Jul 29, 2005)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> Ayn Rand is some heavy reading -- but worthwhile.
> 
> Third Reich is a great, informative read...but its just so damn looooong.


I took an elective WWII history class when I was an under grad - we read the Third Reich and the Rising Sun (John Toland), plus a few other histories of the war. Tons of reading, but the professor was great. The most popular history class in the department at the time despite the tons of reading. 

I wish I remembered the prof's name - he challenged everone to let go of what they thought the war was like to see it in new way.


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

narek said:


> I took an elective WWII history class when I was an under grad - we read the Third Reich and the Rising Sun (John Toland), plus a few other histories of the war. Tons of reading, but the professor was great. The most popular history class in the department at the time despite the tons of reading.
> 
> I wish I remembered the prof's name - he challenged everone to let go of what they thought the war was like to see it in new way.


I read both Third Reich and Rising Sun. Both are excellent. For WWII, I also like Patton (a biography, I don't remember the author) and The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far, both by Cornelius Ryan.


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## Philomath (Jan 3, 2003)

I have to admit to finding the lack of irony and snark in this thread surprising and refreshing. :cheers: 

To an embarrassing degree I was struck by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, 10 years ago now. Probably viewed as pseudo-philosophical by serious students, but there it is.

I am currently reading the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Not sure if it qualifies quite as literature, but if you want a well presented and really informed guess at what exactly would happen not only to society and to the Mars, but to the bodies and minds of individual people if we sent a colony up there, this is it. He must be a brilliant guy, the science rings 100% true - and sociology and psychology are addressed as much as the harder sciences. I'm halfway through the middle one, but they seem to sort of be novels presenting thought experiments, but still novels - moreso than Atlas Shrugged for example, imho.

Probably the passage I've been most inspired by recently was LegoHat's recent signature about the battle already won, high water mark, etc. from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that was presented on the first page of this thread. I actually read your sig to someone over the phone a few weeks back, LegoHat, so thanks. Have to read that soon, along with a depressing load of other things.


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

such sweet thunder said:


> Begin dork-out.
> 
> Coase is my new favorite economist. His ideas on transaction costs and governemental structures are some of the more thought provoking things I've recently read. I cited to 'The Problem of Social Cost in a music/law article that wil be out in the spring.
> End dork-out.


Awesome... please send me a copy.

I've got an exam tomorrow (unless I screw it up, my last exam ever) that will pretty much be certain to have a question on Coase. He's one of my favorites as well, but I'm pretty tired of explaining how common law tresspass and nuisance reflect the normative implications of the Coase Theorem.

In fact, I'm pretty sick of law and economics in general.


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

Philomath said:


> Probably the passage I've been most inspired by recently was LegoHat's recent signature about the battle already won, high water mark, etc. from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that was presented on the first page of this thread. I actually read your sig to someone over the phone a few weeks back, LegoHat, so thanks. Have to read that soon, along with a depressing load of other things.


I'm glad you liked it, and if you haven't read the book before, it's definitely worth a read. You can say a lot of things about Hunter's choices in life, but he was a damn good writer.


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## SausageKingofChicago (Feb 14, 2005)

_So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken down river pier watching the long,long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that into one unbeleivable huge bulge over to the West Coast , and all that road going , all the people dreaming in the immensity of it , and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear ? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie , which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth ,darkens all rivers , cups the peaks and folds the final shore in , and nobody, nobody what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty , I even think of Old Dean Moriarity the father we never found , I think of Dean Moriarty _


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## TomBoerwinkle#1 (Jul 31, 2002)

Ahhh....this thread needed a good dose of Kerouac.

If you guys want to read a nice selection of Beat works, besides the aforementioned On the Road, try this on for size:

The Portable Beat Reader


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

SausageKingofChicago said:


> _So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken down river pier watching the long,long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that into one unbeleivable huge bulge over to the West Coast , and all that road going , all the people dreaming in the immensity of it , and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear ? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie , which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth ,darkens all rivers , cups the peaks and folds the final shore in , and nobody, nobody what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty , I even think of Old Dean Moriarity the father we never found , I think of Dean Moriarty _


The perfect ending to a perfect book.


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## LegoHat (Jan 14, 2004)

TomBoerwinkle#1 said:


> Ahhh....this thread needed a good dose of Kerouac.
> 
> If you guys want to read a nice selection of Beat works, besides the aforementioned On the Road, try this on for size:
> 
> The Portable Beat Reader


Great book, I have it at home. 

On that note, there is a great new book out on Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe and the whole New Journalism movement. It's called The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight, it's a great read if you're interested in how these guys kickstarted and revitalized journalism.


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## King Joseus (May 26, 2003)

I'm currently re-reading Infinite Jest, so I'll have some good passages up here sooner or later. So far I've got a few...

'I might have to burp a little bit in a second, from the soda. I'm alerting you ahead of time.'
'Hal, you are here because I am a professional conversationalist, and your father has made an appointment with me, for you, to converse.'
'MYURP. Excuse me.'

The whole dialogue between Hal and the professional conversationalist is good. I'm a little bit ahead of this next one:

'Hey Hal?'
'I'm going to propose that I tell you a joke, Boo, on the condition that afterward you shush and let me sleep.'
'Is it a good one?'
'Mario, what do you get when you cross an insomniac, an unwilling agnostic, and a dyslexic.'
'I give.'
'You get somebody who stays up all night torturing himself mentally over the question of whether or not there's a dog.'
'That's a good one!'
'Shush.'
'...'
'...'
'Hey Hal? What's an insomniac?'
'Somebody who rooms with you, kid, that's for sure.'

The introduction of Orin (aside from his brief mentions early in the book) is good stuff, as well...


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## MikeDC (Jul 16, 2002)

McBulls said:


> My summer reading this year:
> 
> Atonement by Ian McEwan, which is a novel about a storytelling 13 year old girl whose imagination destroys her older sister and her lover's lives.
> 
> ...


Interestingly, there have been several recent criticisms of Collapse.

Here's one bit:



> Using Rapa Nui as an example of "ecocide," as Diamond has called it, makes for a compelling narrative, but the reality of the island's tragic history is no less meaningful. . . .
> 
> I believe that the world faces today an unprecedented global environmental crisis, and I see the usefulness of historical examples of the pitfalls of environmental destruction. So it was with some unease that I concluded that Rapa Nui does not provide such a model. But as a scientist I cannot ignore the problems with the accepted narrative of the island's prehistory. Mistakes or exaggerations in arguments for protecting the environment only lead to oversimplified answers and hurt the cause of environmentalism. We will end up wondering why our simple answers were not enough to make a difference in confronting today's problems


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## McBulls (Apr 28, 2005)

MikeDC said:


> Interestingly, there have been several recent criticisms of Collapse.
> 
> Here's one bit:


Well, it would be a surprise if some social anthropologists didn't agree with some details of Diamonds sweeping analysis. 

The nature of metaanalysis is that one emphasizes the evidence and facts that fit a particular thesis. In this case the Diamond sets out to find examples of civilizations that self-destructed, or a least contributed to their own downfall, by improperly husbanding the natural resources that were available. 

Islands and remote civilizations are Diamonds laboratory for the obvious reason that they were less likely to have bumped up against other, more successful or more agressive civilizations that swallowed or destroyed them. Rapa Nui might not be perfect example, since the population had not entirely disappered when the island was discovered by european explorers. 

The encounter with europeans no doubt contrbuted to their final demise, but the islanders had clearly made a mess of things before then. There is no dispute that they had deforested the island, eaten all of the large indigenous animals and most of the large birds that were present when they arrived. Agricultural prospects were grim. Trade had become difficult due to shortage of wood to build boats. Even fishing was rudimentary. All that remained were rats and canaballism when the white explorers arrived. To have been shipped away as slaves was in this case perhaps not the worst end that could have come to some of them.

Of course, some of Diamonds conclusions don't sit well with those who would like to blame all of the world's ecological problems on industrialization, and all of the third world's problems on colonialism and western influence. 
But no small part of our future will also be deterimined by whether we can stop ourselves 
from hunting and fishing virtually all of the large animals on the land and in the ocean to extinction, 
from causing the extinction of millions of species, with their genetic diversity, with commercial deforestation, 
from raising the world's temperature by not reducing fossil fuel consumption with an effective carbon tax that would encourage alternate fuel use,
and neglecting to think about the long term consequences of agressive mining and industrial pollution.

I'm not a militant environmentalist who thinks the world would be better off if we would just stop using electricity, rode bikes all the time and ate veggies. But I do think, like Diamond, that some of the things we are currently doing to our enviroment may produce irreversible changes that will make living on this planet more difficult and unpleasant in the future. It is not a point of view that will be popular with political leaders like Bush who think the word "future" refers to events between now and the next election.


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## King Joseus (May 26, 2003)

_. . . that's not the way a realy player plays. With respect and due effort and care for every point. You want to be great, near-great, you give every ball everything. And then some. You concede nothing. Even against loxes. Your play right up to your limit and then pass your limit and look back at your former limit and wave a hankie at it, embarking. You enter a trance. You feel the seams and edges of everything. The court becomes a . . . an extremely unique place to be. It will do everything for you. It will let nothing escape your body. Objects move as they're made to, at the lightest easiest touch. You slip into the clear current of back and forth, making delicate X's and L's across the harsh rough bright green asphalt surface, your sweat the same temperature as your skin, playing with such ease and total mindless effortless effort and and and entranced concentration you don't even stop to consider whether to run down every ball. You're barely aware you're doing it. Your body's doing it for you and the court and Game's doing it for your body. You're barely involved. It's magic, boy. Nothing touches it, when it's right._

the whole conversation between James Incandenza and his dad is really good, actually. this is about 160 pages or so into Infinite Jest...


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