|
Post by The Cap'n on Mar 7, 2019 18:36:34 GMT -5
The library finally came through on my long-since ordered copy of Yuval Noah Harari's "21 Lessons for the 21st Century." I've really enjoyed hearing him in interviews and lectures so I have been looking forward to it.
I'm also slogging through a survey of sorts on conservative thought since the Enlightenment, "Conservatism: An Anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present." So far, it's slightly more interesting than it sounds. But only slightly. But I don't feel right criticizing the right without better understanding it.
|
|
Departed
Former Member
Posts: 0
Likes:
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2019 13:19:09 GMT -5
I forgot to mention it before when discussing books I read in college, but there's also Going Clear, the tell-all expose about Scientology. That is one of the more thorough, shocking nonfiction books I've ever had the pleasure to read. It was both fascinating and hard to read at the same time. HBO did a documentary based on the book which was also good, but didn't do the original book justice in my opinion.
|
|
|
Post by bullman on Mar 8, 2019 19:22:46 GMT -5
Three excellent books I'd recommend to read and re-read
Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea
Undaunted Courage
Ordeal By Hunger
Tim
|
|
|
Post by Beach Boys Fan on Mar 10, 2019 8:26:18 GMT -5
Planning to read books by Edgar Poe.
|
|
|
Post by The Cap'n on Mar 10, 2019 18:38:03 GMT -5
My neighborhood has almost countless free libraries, those little mailbox-looking receptacles in front yards from which you can take a book or leave a book anytime. While splashing through the slick oceans that are our sleet-and-puddle filled sidewalks this afternoon, I came across Elie Wiesel's "Night" in one. Score.
|
|
|
Post by jk on Nov 28, 2020 16:49:36 GMT -5
Wow. So many of the contributors to this thread no longer post here. But I refuse to believe that the "remainers" are an illiterate bunch. Some topics just need bumping now and again. I recently resumed reading Richard Miles's Carthage Must Be Destroyed, a vivid account of the rise and fall of an empire. I'd been fascinated by Ancient Rome and even more by Hannibal and his exploits ever since my enlightened preparatory school had included the BBC school broadcasts (and booklets) about this era in its curriculum. It took one of this forum's "leavers" to rekindle my interest in it when they recommended this book. After getting halfway through it on an island holiday in late 2018, I set it aside (what was I thinking?) and only returned to it a few weeks ago. www.theguardian.com/books/2010/apr/24/carthage-must-be-destroyed-miles
|
|
|
Post by jk on Dec 12, 2020 6:28:43 GMT -5
I had no idea Boris Pasternak wrote music. I knew Stalin was fascinated by Pasternak and probably a little afraid of him, ordering his thugs to "Leave that cloud-dweller in peace!" These preludes date from 1906 when Boris P was just sixteen: Medtnaculus's Youtube blurb is worth quoting in full: "It may be quite a surprise to learn that Boris Pasternak, the Symbolist poet, translator of Shakespeare and author of Dr Zhivago, who was forced by political pressure to refuse the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, was also a composer. However, he came from a musical family: his mother Roza was a concert pianist, a student of Rubinstein and Leschetizky, and his early impressions were of hearing piano trios in the home. The family had a dacha – country house – close to one occupied by Scriabin, and Rachmaninov, the poet Rilke and Tolstoy were all visitors to the family home. His father Leonid was a painter who produced one of the most important portraits of Scriabin, and Boris wrote many years later of witnessing with great excitement the creation of Scriabin’s Symphony No.3, The Divine Poem, in 1903. Boris began to compose at the age of 13 – the high achievements of his mother discouraged him from becoming a pianist – and inspired by Scriabin, he entered the Moscow Conservatoire, only to leave abruptly in 1910 at the age of twenty to study philosophy in Marburg University. Four years later he returned to Moscow, having finally decided on a career in literature, publishing his first book of poems, influenced by Alexander Blok and the Russian Futurists, the same year. "The two Preludes by the 16-year-old Pasternak show the clear influence of Scriabin. The first is in the 'romantic' key of E flat minor, and the contours of its melody, and its forays into the major key, are all very Scriabinesque. The second [here at 1:32; this is what jk heard on the radio this morning] is in G sharp minor, another typical key often used by Scriabin, and the cross-rhythms between the hands are another obvious echo of his mentor. It is on a larger scale than the first, and develops with increased speed and dynamics to a powerful climax, before dying away on a major-key ending, following the paradoxical marking con fierezza (with pride), yet another characteristic of a Scriabin score." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak
|
|
|
Post by jk on Dec 23, 2020 5:13:41 GMT -5
This four-year-old post has been lifted from across the road. Part 6 of Min kamp (My Struggle), a novel by the Norwegian author Karl Knausgård, contains the following passage. The book hadn't been translated into English at the time so I translated this from the Dutch edition my wife was reading: We drove through a tunnel and all of a sudden a fjord lay beneath us, wide and blue, with farmhouses here and there along one shore and along the other a steep treeless mountain slope, bluish in the hazy sunlight. ... And Vanja's voice from the back seat. [Vanja is the author's elder daughter, then five or six years old.] "When are we there, daddy?" "It's not much further. Chin up." "But it's so boring, daddy!" "Look at that! A waterfall on the other side!" "I can see it." "Shall I put some music on?" "Yes." So I put on Dennis Wilson, which is what Vanja calls car music every time I play it at home. In the mirror I saw her leaning back, looking blankly out of the window. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Struggle_(Knausgård_novels)
|
|
|
Post by highllama on Dec 24, 2020 12:17:29 GMT -5
Avid read, here. Currently going through The Duke Ellington Reader, which has a lot of articles, essays, and interviews from throughout his career. Also reading Journey to the End of the Night by Celine.
|
|