This thread started out as a video posted in the Cool Videos thread, with the video and comment below. It struck a resonant note with so many that tdtz started a new thread, with this post
Originally Posted By: tdtz
A thread to talk about books. All books are game. Fiction, non-fiction, SciFi, literature, etc....
(Since posts show up in chronological order, this video post is first.)
Original post:
If Heinlein could have lived to see this...
Verum audaces non gerunt indusia alba. - Ipsi dixit MCMLXXII
. . . or Asimov, Clarke, Smith, Niven, Williamson, and any number of other greats who are sadly no longer with us. At least Pohl is still around to see it - I think.
And Frederik, along with Cyril Judd, Edson McCann, Jordan Park, Elton V. Andrews, Paul Fleur, Lee Gregor, Warren F. Howard, Scott Mariner, Ernst Mason, James McCreigh, Dirk Wilson, Donald Stacy is still with us.
I am still in occasional email contact with Jerry at Chaos Manor.
Verum audaces non gerunt indusia alba. - Ipsi dixit MCMLXXII
I've enjoyed the Niven-Pournelle collaborations since the early-mid 70s. The Mote and Lucifer's Hammer especially have withstood the test of time.
Geek admission, back in the late 80s, I was a member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (LASFYS). Both Niven and Pournelle were also members at that time. They were both crusty pompous farts holding court at the clubhouse (yes, we had a clubhouse and yes there were a few girls who were members).
I actually hung out with Pournelle's son for a couple of years. He too was a SciFi geek.
Guilty as well, Tom. Read a ton of SF in my time. Even had a regular correspondence going for a couple of years with Asimov back in the mid-seventies (he always responded to fan mail, replying with typed postcards - still have about a dozen of those) .
I still read SF regularly, but I've branched out quite a bit in the past 15 years. So far in 2013 I've jumped around among Faulkner, Kafka, and Hemingway, while squeezing in some Connie Willis and Tim Powers. My bucket list includes someday being able to finish Finnegan's Wake without being completely lost. My other literary weakness is crime noir - Hammett, Mcdonald, and Chandler.
My 13 YO daughter asked me a couple of weeks ago to recommend "some of that old SF you've got" that she might like. This from a kid who blew through all the Harry Potter books by the time she was 10, and was invited to take the SAT earlier this year as part of Duke U's TIP program for gifted seventh-graders (she scored higher on reading and writing than 50-plus percent of college-bound high school seniors - at barely 13. My wife and I in for a wild ride the next few years). I pointed her towards Flowers for Algernon, which she loved, and graduated her to Ender's Game this week.
I have every Heinlein book ever published (even some rare gems). Arthur C. Clarke, all of the main Asimov books,,,Dune...L Ron Hubbard (before he went wacko, and on and on.
The body betrays and the weather conspires, hopefully, not on the same day.
I have every Heinlein book ever published (even some rare gems). Arthur C. Clarke, all of the main Asimov books,,,Dune...L Ron Hubbard (before he went wacko, and on and on.
Ha! Bee's a geek too! Who would'a thunk it?
Coincidentally, I recently ran across a poll done by Modern Library back in 1998 that ranked the top 100 novels of all time by their board members. They also ran a populist poll among readers and published those results:
Many of the usual suspects appear on both lists, but there was clearly some ballot-box-stuffing going on with devotees of both Hubbard's Scientology and Rand's Objectivism. Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead commonly appear on "Best Novels" lists, but not the top two spots. But Battlefield Earth and Mission Earth on any best list, let alone 3rd and 9th best novels of all time? Puh-leeeze!
You'll notice a lot of Heinlein on the populist rankings as well, even some of his juvies. Charles de Lint fans clearly had a vote program in place too.
I've got a a ton of Heinlein too, but not all of it. I don't have many of his juvies, but most everything else I do have in hardback (I try to buy only hardbacks, or quality trade softcovers if no HB available - I hate cheap standard paperbacks). The oldest book I own, that I bought new off of the rack, is a paperback Signet copy of Double Star from around 1969. Fifty cents retail cover price. My, how times have changed . . .
FWIW: Stephen King, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, 1982 LE hardback by Donald Grant, Pub. First Ed, First Printing, signed, and in strict NM condition. I believe there were only 500 or 1000 of these issued. Bought it directly from Donald Grant when it was published in 1982 for $20-something. I've listed it 3 times on E-bay, but have always pulled the plug before completing a deal (pissing off quite a few folks, incidently). I've had offers of as much as $2.5K, but I just can't part with it.
I generally am not a rare or signed edition book collector, just a collector of books in good quality formats. Me and Amazon are on really good terms - and have been since they opened their e-doors. I bet I've spent more on books and bookcases over the years than many folks spend on their vehicles. When I'm gone, my daughter is going to inherit one hell of a library. Good thing she loves to read.
The Dosadi Experiment is your favorite of all time? I've gotta go back and re-read it - it's been 30 years. I have a hard time naming favorites - it often depends on what I've read recently. I read McMurtry's Lonesome Dove the year it was published in '85, before it won the Pulitzer and was made into the big-deal mini-series (and eventually a virtual franchise), and I've generally stuck with that when I'm asked about my favorite book.
Bee, my SF library has most of the catalogs for: King, Asimov, Heinelin, Powers, Le Guin, Willis (my favorite SF author, actually), Wolfe, McDevitt, Niven, Gaiman, Bujold, Ellison, Bradbury, Cherryh, Martin, Pratchett, Stross, Reynolds, Stephenson, and probably a dozen others. In recent years I've been building a collection of the classics, old and new. Lotta Hemingway, Dickens, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Lawrence, Forster, and Dostoyevsky along with new classic authors like McCarthy and Doctorow. And of course, for the crime/noir buff in me, Chandler, Hammett, Mcdonald, and the mandatory Complete Sherlock Holmes.
Steve, this topic might deserve it's own thread if more literary types pop up!
Me, The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. About halfway though it - typical Faulkner, with intermittent streamofconsciousness, shifting POVs, and the occassional section exhibiting complete disregard for punctuation, capitalization, and other traditional grammatical niceties. So far, so good.
Prior to this, I finished Hemigway's The Sun Also Rises. Nice book, but literally half of it takes place at dozens of bars and restaurants throughout France and Spain.
I'm also working my way through Herzog's Annapurna (I generally have one fiction and one non-fiction book going concurrently, and sometimes a third of short stories - drives my wife crazy). The first-hand account of the semi-successful first ascent of the highest mountain yet climbed by man in 1950.
On deck, only slightly lighter fare: Tim Powers' new novel, Hide Me Among the Graves, the sequel to The Stress of Her Regard. The next-up non-fiction, a biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton.
I've been doing a little volunteer work at a local thrift shop which has quite a large inventory of books. I can buy books for 15 cents ea.
If we should happen to meet in meatspace sometime, perhaps you might like to list some titles/authors for yourself & Bri.
Appreciate the offer, Dave. I'll give that some thought before the next Sierra trip this summer. Presumably you won't be in the vicinity of Death Valley next Week? I could put you to work . . . ;-)
I love Faulkner. He knows how to use symbolism better than any writer I can think of. So many characters, names, objects and settings will evoke a subconscious image of something of importance to the story. I remember "Light in August" vividly to this day and I read it 30 years ago.
My son just finished "To Kill a Mockingbird". It was great re-reading that and then going over the meaning of the symbols and the significance of the book.
Tom, that's just nuts - Bri asked me last week if we had a copy of Mockingbird! I ordered it from Amazon for her, and gave her the DVD to tide her over. Of course, I always have to order at least $25 to get free shipping at Amazon, so I threw in Kafka's The Castle and a hardback edition of The Great Gatsby.
Are you familiar with the Library of America? They have a huge classic collection of American authors published in extremely high quality hardback - cloth cover, sewn binding, acid-free paper that will never yellow, and attached silk ribbon bookmark. Each volume contains about 4 novels. They have a complete cataglog for Faulkner and a ton of other American writers. Each volume lists for $35-$50, but they're typically $22 on Amazon. Excellent way to build a lasting, quality collection of American classics. They're sharply designed to look really good on a bookcase, and the cost per novel is about $5.50 for incredible lasting quality.
nope, never heard of the Library of America. Probably not a bad idea to look into it. The world is obviously going electronic for books. But I doubt that I will ever read a book in electronic format. I get lost in books and part of it is the physical/tangible turning of pages. Even the smell of a book plays into the experience.
someday it may be difficult to get books printed on paper.
