Posted by italyprof on 6/10/2020 5:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by usf_bulls on 6/9/2020 5:52:00 PM (view original):
Six weeks since the last post? Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away? (it's a quote from Aliens, so don't have a cow.)

Emma (1815) Jane Austen - Have you ever sworn that you would read X before you die...a kind of book bucket list? I had such a list. Tolstoy, Cervantes, Proust, Dostoyevsky, that kind of stuff. Most of it I had gotten through years ago but Jane Austen was still a big fat 0. Dover Publications (a great company) had a sale late last year on paperbacks so I bought a copy of Emma, generally considered her best novel. The Covid shutdown seemed like the perfect time to finally tackle an author almost universally lauded as one of the finest female novelists of all time.

What a waste. Don't misunderstand me. The writing is par excellence but I have read textbooks on chemistry which were also very well written. You don't read a 300+ page novel just to be wowed by writing skill. A novel has to have a compelling story line and be entertaining, does it not? Emma falls short on both accounts spectacularly. It was boring and predictable. Worse, it was pointless, other than being a great window into what English bourgeois life must have been like in the early 1800s, the so-called country house period. Other than the history lesson, it's many hours of my life I'll never get back.

If you have a book bucket list, good for you. If Emma is on it, think again.

I don't think I have read Emma. Sense and Sensibility is very, very good and was hard to put down. Certainly the world she describes - the world of the women of aristocratic families in late 18th and early 19th century England, in families that have fallen on hard times - is a world very far from most of our experiences, but she is able to engage us in that world to a remarkable degree, and make us care about the lives, aspirations, disappointments, sorrows, and triumphs of these women from, compared to the rest of the population privileged and wealthy families, and I write that as an avowed socialist with roots in the labor movement.

Will take a look at Emma to see if I have the same impression. Every great hitter has a slump or an off-year. Maybe Emma was hers.

I think the best two novels ever are Moby Dick and Anna Karenina. I WANT to love War and Peace, took a course on Russian Novels in college and could not finish it, picked it up again some years later and couldn't finish it, and tried reading it two years ago, and for the third time got maybe halfway through and put it down. Does Napoleon win in the end?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34jQKSP2EMI

Later Sam finds out there is a movie version, after reading the whole thing to impress Diane.

(this is my main ID)

I also bought Pride and Prejudice, so I'll give poor Jane another at bat. I liked War and Peace but hated Moby Dick (what drivel.) Maybe we can all agree that Anna Karenina is one of the best novels ever written?

It's good to see activity on this thread again. My next book is The Red and the Black by Stendhal - I'm on a classics kick.

Not so high brow but I'm a Stephen King fan so went back to one I missed "From A Buick 8."

Typical for him. I'm always amazed at how this guy basically writes the same story over and over. Still I keep going back.
To paraphrase Woody Allen to his shrink (Annie Hall?): I need the milk.

Recently finished Liu Cixin sci-fi trilogy Remembrance of Earth's Past. Starting with The Three Body Problem.
I am not particularly into the genre but this is really a thought provoking series and well executed. Very well written if a bit detailed on astrophysics. Highly recommended.

Also got into Louis Lamour. Not really a western fan either (trying new stuff during this crazy period.) He's kinda the Stephen King of westerns.

The guy was very prolific. Having read 3 or 4 of his novellas, I'm done. Too repetitive and predictable. Mysterious stranger with a past comes to town, gets wounded, drives off/kills the bad guys/gets the girl. However Walking Drum is a 12th cent historical fiction and is excellent.

How about joe hill the son of Steven king. He is the new king of horror. If you haven’t read any of his stuff try nos4tu.

I like louie lamour. His regular novels are the best to read.

Nothing wrong with King. I have 6-7 of his books. I much prefer his short stories (Night Shift/Skeleton Crew) to the full-length novels.

Posted by gomiami1972 on 6/10/2020 12:18:00 PM (view original):
Nothing wrong with King. I have 6-7 of his books. I much prefer his short stories (Night Shift/Skeleton Crew) to the full-length novels.

I've read em all.

Great short stories: The Long Walk and The Body.

Posted by marcstuart on 6/10/2020 1:00:00 PM (view original):

Posted by gomiami1972 on 6/10/2020 12:18:00 PM (view original):
Nothing wrong with King. I have 6-7 of his books. I much prefer his short stories (Night Shift/Skeleton Crew) to the full-length novels.

I've read em all.

Great short stories: The Long Walk and The Body.

The Mist, The Jaunt and Quitters, Inc.

Posted by italyprof on 6/9/2020 6:59:00 PM (view original):

Posted by crazystengel on 4/6/2020 2:51:00 PM (view original):
The three saddest words in the English language, according to Gore Vidal: Joyce Carol Oates.

Due respect to Gore Vidal, but Joyce Carol Oates is one of the best writers on boxing I have ever read. Yes, boxing. Look it up.

see now that makes sense

boxing has all she can see but in a place she can see it not in her head

White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

That one you're reading Bronxcheer looks interesting I'll add it to my neverending list

Gar Alperovitz argues that democracy is failing because in the end all power systems are based on property systems. Instead of trying to reproduce historical strategies for change like the New Deal, which were possible due to historical circumstances that no longer apply, like strong unions, he argues that we need to favor strategies that put property in the hands of all Americans - worker-owned cooperatives, systems to reward workers with voting shares of stock in companies as well as regular pay, employee representation on boards of directors, consumer cooperatives for electricity, wi-fi, and some other essential services, municipal ownership of some needed enterprises and services, including local banks which along with credit unions are mandated to invest locally, and of land trusts for affordable housing. In some exceptional circumstances, like large banks, fossil fuels and arms, and maybe the big tech firms, nationalization is appropriate, since regulation continues to fail consumers, workers and the public. So a more democratic economy can then lead to a more democratic political system where as in every system the owners of productive economic activities are represented. So long as most Americans remain employees of large businesses we can expect that government will not work for us.



These videos show an example of a project he is involved in - the Evergreen cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_kLye_6VBc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axX4RY265rA

and here is a short one about the Mondragon Cooperative in Spain, with nearly 100,000 worker-owners, operating manufacturing firms, retail outlets, farms, scientific laboratories, and a bank:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZoI0C1mPek

I can't find a video in English about it, but here in Italy, we have the Banca Etica - the ethical bank, which is owned by those who have their savings in its accounts - if you put your money in it, you get one vote - it's one person one vote, not one dollar one vote like in shareholder corporate systems. The bank only funds viable for profit projects and businesses - mostly cooperatives, some small family businesses too - and these businesses have to show a viable business model but also meet strict criteria for workers rights, environmental standards, international labor standards (no child labor used by suppliers overseas etc.), fair treatment of their own suppliers etc. to get funding. It's the fastest growing bank in Italy, has been immune to the financial crisis plaguing the larger commercial and investment banks here, which have all needed government handouts to be saved, and has spread to Spain as well. Here is their English language page:

https://www.bancaetica.it/about-us

So democratically run- consumer, public and worker owned enterprises of all kinds might be the next step in civilization and might be the way to sustain and improve democracy. Alperovitz's book is worth the read.

Posted by coreander on 6/18/2020 12:19:00 PM (view original):
I don't mean to be rude, but now would be a perfect time to read works written by POC authors. I am seeing way too many books written by white men, which, considering what is happening in the world right now, is a little bit problematic. Just my 2 cents #supportblackauthors

And worth WAY less!
You do mean to be offensive and racist!

WHO determines the color of an author before reading a book?
That itself is clear evidence of YOU looking to be offensive! (and offended!)

I didn't even know the gender/sexual identity of Terry Tempest Williams much less her RACE before I read one of her novels.
I had NO FREAKING idea if Pete Dexter (Author of Paris, Trout-- a powerful novel on the effects of racism) was black or white until I met him at a Book Fair.

YOU are a racist wackjob looking to find reasons to blame whiteys for everything!
You do immense HARM to the true cause of eliminating the scourge of racism in our society.
People need to be accepted as people and chosen/rejected on the basis of their WORTH and decency as humans!

I will accept no less from all colors!
Which is why the whole concept of reparations is so extremely damaging to our Country as a whole!

Only troublemakers would ever seriously consider such a program.
Talk about divisive!!
In the maximum!