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Rereading The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott to get in my mind a good overall feel sense Merton's life. Heaven help me, but I'm 99% certain that I am going to blog a commentary on Merton's Journals.

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:tup

And thanks for reminding me of WATERLAND--I've been wanting to read that book for years.

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Waterland by Graham Swift. Just got this from the library today, and started reading this for the first time in a long while. First of all, I cannot believe this was published twenty-seven years ago, where does time go? I remember the first time I read this book, when I finished, I went right back to page one, and started all over again. It's still that powerful, what a wonderfully written book, one of the best in the past thirty years.

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One of my desert island books! Some wonderful ruminations on history in its pages. Highly evocative of the Fenland region of East Anglia where it is set. And very good on eels too!

Bev: Have you seen the movie version of the book? It's out on dvd and it has Jeremy Irons in the lead. I'm tempted to buy it...

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Bev: Have you seen the movie version of the book? It's out on dvd and it has Jeremy Irons in the lead. I'm tempted to buy it...

You know, I can't remember. I'm sure I must have!

This doesn't strike me as a book it would be easy to film. How do you handle all the background history and philosophy (and biology!)?

I rarely read books more than once - I read this one twice!

Not the same at all, but a book which also gets the brain thinking about the big questions:

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I must read that again.

Edited by Bev Stapleton
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I recently finished re-reading "Slaughterhouse-Five" for the first time in 13 years. I'm pleased to say that to this reader, it has not lost a bit of its magic.

I also recently read a very enjoyable non-fiction book called "Soccernomics: Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the U.S., Japan, Australia, Turkey--and Even Iraq--Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport"

I just started reading "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" this afternoon.

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My 'ol beat-up copy from '54. Some fine short stories by O. Henry, Joe Alsop, Ring Lardener, Irvin Cobb, C.S. Forester, Faulkner, Joe Hergesheimer (anyone here ever read Hergesheimer's 'Java Head'?). Includes various cover reprints spanning the decades. The March 6,1948 one by Rockwell ('Gossip') is a hoot. A great collection that you can get for a song over at Amazon. 1 cent! :crazy:

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Richard Powers: The Time Of Our Singing

How is that? I went through a lot of Powers' books, then I just got tired of all the erudition, which started to come off as know-it-allism to me.

First one of his I've tried.

So far I like it.

Erudite for sure, but the concept of this one intrigued me.

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Well, I think the main problem is that Cherryh was published mainly by DAW books, and for some reason, I had this impression of DAW as some cheap garbage publisher back in the seventies and early eighties, and so avoided their books completely. I missed out on a lot of good SF with this misguided approach; I'm trying to make up for it now.

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Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis by Jack Chambers. I've always liked this one, lots of information. I now have numerous books, more than I dare count, at various stages of completion, about Miles cluttering my desk and tables in my home.:blush:

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The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry In Northwestern Europe, 1944 - 1945 by Paul Fussell. Interesting take by Fussell, trying to convey the reality of the infantryman's life in Europe. Not too many pages, just 165, but an interesting read. I might try his memoirs next.

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Well, my plans have been shot to hell, but I've still read some interesting things. I wrapped up Divided Cities. It's pretty good actually, for an academic book.

I finished Buffalo by Sidney Blair (it's been my cardio workout book).

Not to be confused with The Night Buffalo by Guillermo Arriaga, which is also on my reading list.

I've continued my detour into Soviet literature and am about 1/3 through Alexander Kaletski's Metro.

I'll probably wrap up The Burn by Vassily Aksyonov by the end of March and get back to my master plan of Mahfouz, Narayan and Nabokov.

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Still reading "Brave New World". I've developed a bit of a taste for these "dystopian future" books. Over the past year I've read Burgess's "Clockwork Orange" and "1985", "1984" and a Martin Amis short story. Anyone got any other suggestions? Preferably not too sci-fi.

Edited by rdavenport
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