BruceH Posted December 8, 2008 Report Share Posted December 8, 2008 Patrick O'Brian- The Reverse of the Medal Good one. I should re-read the whole series one of these days. (Well, years...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted December 8, 2008 Report Share Posted December 8, 2008 Haven't reread it since, so it's hard to say how good it really is. This comment triggered a memory today. I picked up a few Phillip Jose Farmer books (The World of Tiers series, to be exact) and settled in for a bit of nostalgia last week. Well, I made it through the first one with a struggle, but one chapter into the second I gave up and moved all five books to the "already read" shelf. Damn, these things stink. Silly, poorly written, a complete waste of time and trees. I'd say that they're on the level of those godawful "Gor" books, but to make a fair comparison I'd have to reread one of those to make sure, and I see no reason to punish my brain like that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 (edited) Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose by Hieromonk Damascene. A fascinating book about Eugene Rose, born is San Diego, baptized in the Presbyterian Church at 13, convert to the Russian Orthodox Church in his twenties. Founded a skete in Plantina, CA, and had many followers. The book is over 1,000 pages, but it's holding my interest, I'm about half way through. Highly recommended if you're interested in something off the beaten path. Another picture An icon of Fr. Rose: Edited December 9, 2008 by Matthew Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceH Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose by Hieromonk Damascene. A fascinating book about Eugene Rose, born is San Diego, baptized in the Presbyterian Church at 13, convert to the Russian Orthodox Church in his twenties. Founded a skete in Plantina, CA, and had many followers. The book is over 1,000 pages, but it's holding my interest, I'm about half way through. Highly recommended if you're interested in something off the beaten path. "Skete"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blajay Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose by Hieromonk Damascene. A fascinating book about Eugene Rose, born is San Diego, baptized in the Presbyterian Church at 13, convert to the Russian Orthodox Church in his twenties. Founded a skete in Plantina, CA, and had many followers. The book is over 1,000 pages, but it's holding my interest, I'm about half way through. Highly recommended if you're interested in something off the beaten path. "Skete"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 Not of This World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose by Hieromonk Damascene. A fascinating book about Eugene Rose, born is San Diego, baptized in the Presbyterian Church at 13, convert to the Russian Orthodox Church in his twenties. Founded a skete in Plantina, CA, and had many followers. The book is over 1,000 pages, but it's holding my interest, I'm about half way through. Highly recommended if you're interested in something off the beaten path. "Skete"? Here is your answer: <h3 id="siteSub">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</h3> A skete is a community of Christian hermits following a monastic rule, allowing them to worship in comparative solitude, while also affording them a level of mutual practical support and security. A skete usually has a common area of worship (a church or a chapel), with individual hermitages, or small houses for a small number of monks or nuns. In the early tradition of Christianity, the skete was one form of monastic life, forming a bridge between the cenobium (community of monks or nuns living together) and the isolated hermitage (solo monks and nuns). In the early church, once steps began to be taken to further religious ascetiscism by giving it organised forms, men and women aspiring to be hermits or anchorites, might first be sent to the skete in preparation – the skete acted as almost a 'halfway house' between the cenobium and total solitude. The term "skete" has fallen out of use in Western Christianity; however, the eremitic communal life of the Carthusian, Camaldolese, and Carmelite hermits is similar to that in the Eastern Christian tradition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceH Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 Interesting. (Almost sounds like a type of barbecue, just going on sound.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 So I guess it's like a minor league hermit thing. Sounds like something I'd like to try after a day at work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 (edited) I thought this was an interesting piece on the "to read" pile: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/...ks-sam-jordison This year, I have really been making a concerted effort to stack up books that I am pretty sure I will only read once (usually you can tell) and working my way through the list. After reading, I either sell the book, give it to the library donation pile, or in very rare cases keep it. I've done pretty well, maybe going a third of the way through the list so far. Now if you consider all the books on my shelves I have to read, well that is too depressing to bear thinking about (or viewed the other way, I have more than a lifetime's worth of good-to-great literature still to discover). I just finished this: Here's a case where the Amazon reviewers have it exactly right. The main character is a book-loving detective with existential doubts. Actually, kind of an interesting, though perhaps too passive character. The book starts off as a police procedural (a la Simenon) but then adds more twists. However, the sheer number of coincidences driving the plot and threads left hanging at the end is very unsatisfying, along with a uniquely unbelievable ending. Nonetheless, this was only the first book in the series, and the others have much more solid ratings, so I am starting the second one: However, I will be alternating with this (which is one of the books I will most likely keep): Edited December 11, 2008 by ejp626 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 Francine Prose: Goldengrove Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 I thought this was an interesting piece on the "to read" pile: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/...ks-sam-jordison Wow. This guy has a totally different view of the 'to read pile' than I do. The 'to read pile' has an honored spot on my shelves, and if it drops under fifty books I get extremely nervous. My 'to read pile' is not something to dread, it's my security blanket. Yeah, there's a few books there that I've been carrying from place to place for twenty years or more, but what the hell... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jostber Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 (edited) Top of the crop Science Fiction with a touch of the surreal by a master of the genre. Edited December 11, 2008 by jostber Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 I thought this was an interesting piece on the "to read" pile: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/...ks-sam-jordison Wow. This guy has a totally different view of the 'to read pile' than I do. The 'to read pile' has an honored spot on my shelves, and if it drops under fifty books I get extremely nervous. My 'to read pile' is not something to dread, it's my security blanket. Yeah, there's a few books there that I've been carrying from place to place for twenty years or more, but what the hell... I don't mind carrying books about if they are great books (Proust and Musil -- and I'll tackle one in 2009 for sure) but I am trying to weed out the marginal books and open up space on my shelves. So in general I am pretty close to Moose, but this year I really wanted to get rid of a lot of books, and I've been doing a pretty good job so far. Of course, this is nothing compared to the summer after I graduated from college when I learned that all my books stored with my parents had to come with me or get donated. I think I probably threw out 500 books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 A thousand page heavy-weight to carry around. If it's half as good as his book about James the Just it will be worth the weeks spent on itQ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzmoose Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Top of the crop Science Fiction with a touch of the surreal by a master of the genre. This has to be good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jostber Posted December 12, 2008 Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 (edited) Top of the crop Science Fiction with a touch of the surreal by a master of the genre. This has to be good! That novel 5,271,009 is worth the price of the book on its own, and a lot of other classic Bester novels makes this a must-read! Edited December 12, 2008 by jostber Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BruceH Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 I think you mean "short stories" don't you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jostber Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 I think you mean "short stories" don't you? That's right! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poetrylover3 Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 War and Peace. I haven't read this since the Ford Administration. I really like this translator, so this is my #1 reading over Christmas break. Not that I don't have plenty else to peruse including a hoped-for-gift of Hot, Flat, and Crowded from my wife and a two year-old unread copy of Team of Rivals. Peace, Blue Trane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejp626 Posted December 13, 2008 Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 War and Peace. I haven't read this since the Ford Administration. I really like this translator, so this is my #1 reading over Christmas break. Not that I don't have plenty else to peruse including a hoped-for-gift of Hot, Flat, and Crowded from my wife and a two year-old unread copy of Team of Rivals. Peace, Blue Trane I've had a handful of Pevear/Volokhonsky translations and went and got several more this past week. I think I have most of their Dostoevsky's now and Anna Karenina. Still haven't gotten War and Peace but probably soon. As to when I will read them, that is a different issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Van Basten II Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Should start reading it in a day or two, depending how much free time i have at work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jazzbo Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 A. E. Van Vogt, "The Voyage of the Space Beagle". . . possibly one of the inspirations for "Alien." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carnivore Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 'Consumption' by Kevin Patterson - Very well written and quite moving novel set in an Inuit community on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, spanning the last 50 years and dealing with the effects on the culture and lives of the people as they move off the land and leave their nomadic life. And the changes wrought by the exploitation of their natural resources by the Kablanauks. (Apparently Inuit for 'Canadian' - or maybe non-Inuit) The novel also contains a lot of detailed medical stuff, particularly on the subject of tuberculosis, which the author implies could well be this century's solution to the problem of population and resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlhoots Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Marilynne Robinson: Gilead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF Posted December 17, 2008 Report Share Posted December 17, 2008 Ray Bradbury, Classic Stories I. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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