Literature-anyone a fan?

Mizu Kuma - 07 May 2011 03:33 AM

Warren Chapstick - 07 May 2011 01:13 AM

I wish i was more like huckleberry finn…...........

You are Huckleberry Fin!!!!! Now get on a raft and get out on that lake!!!!! And take fatima n eddie with ya!!!!!

I would but i dont have a life jacket big enough to fit Fatima…...... 

I’ll have to check out some of the books/authors mentioned in this thread.  I second spaz’s comments regarding ‘on the road’ and the ‘catcher in the rye’, I started on the republic but got bogged down….lot’s of people have suggested the stieg larsson trilogy and it’s on my list!  Gamblor, what catagory would you put Haruki Murakami’s books in (see below)?

I’ve been trying to think of some books that have literary merit (painful term) and yet are pretty easy to read.  So far i’ve got…Tom sawyer and huckleberry finn by mark twain and lord of the flies by william golding; the elegance of the hedgehog by murial barbery;...i’m going to put these in the catorgory ‘easy literature’ 

Some of my favourite books have taken a bit of getting through, but you are richly rewarded for your tenacity, perhaps challenging literature would be a good title.

Anna Karenina by leo tolstoy; the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde; all quiet on the western fron by eric maria remarque; steppenwolf, the glass bead game or siddhartha by hermann hesse, a tale of two cities by charles dickens (you’ve gotta be tough but it’s worth it!)

Some books fall in between these stalls or are science fiction (which is a different catagory I suppose?):
Atonement by ian mcewan; Perdido street station by china melville; ender’s game by orson scott card; dune by frank herbert (yeah gamblor, great effort reading all of those!), lots by iain m banks and fantasy/satire, pretty much anything by terry pratchett.

Philosophy: meditations by marcus aurelius; enchiridion by epictetus and ‘on the suffering of the world’ by arthur schopenhauer.

Anyways if you’ve read any of these and think you know similar books I’d be keen to hear them.

Murakami’s books have some element of the supernatural in them. Like, it’s a great story and then all of sudden some weird stuff happens.

my favourites:
a wild sheep chase
dance, dance, dance (to be read after a wild sheep chase)
the wind-up bird chronicles
Kafka on the shore

Norwegian wood is his most famous book but I recommend it after you’ve read some of his other works. It deals with suicide and is quite emotionally charged.
Anyways, Murakami books are easy to read.

the other guy I recommended was philip k. dick. Along with Murakami, when reading his stories I have put the book down at points and just wanted to yell out loud, “this book is so f***** awesome!”

the man in the high castle blows your mind when you think about the premise. ” It is set in an alternate universe United States ruled by the victorious Axis powers.” The whole book is defined by the I Jing, a Chinese fortune telling.
A scanner darkly is so amazing and has some total LOL moments

Was the Scanner Darkly a book? I saw the movie- pretty wild.

Mizu Kuma - 07 May 2011 03:35 AM

I actually enjoyed readin Ben Elton’s fictional mind warps!!!!!

Last book that I read was OCCY!!!! Took me a while even though I still enjoyed it!!!!! I did read the Mick Fanning just prior though!!!!!

Ben Elton’s stuff is great and Occy’s book is awesome.

Name drop time, one of our clients was Ben’s PA, amazing woman and I can see why he had her working for him.

Occy’s son Rainer (he’s in the book) is a Hotham local and all round good guy. I worked with him at Hotham (work is a loose term, we hung out and got paid ) Awesome snowboarder, Jez may of seen him, he was hanging out in Whistler not to long ago.

I am reading a book at the moment “The Winter of our disconnect” by Susan Maushart. Its about a single Mum with three teenagers that takes away all technology from herself and kids for 12 months. Very interesting read.

snowdragon - 09 May 2011 09:43 AM

Was the Scanner Darkly a book? I saw the movie- pretty wild.

yeah, and as always, the book is better than the movie

azz that book sounds sick.

like others have said i go through stages. at the moment i barely have enough time to scratch my arse(but still manage to to cruise here in work hours) but when i was going through interviews for my job to move here to melbourne i would buy a new book each time a flew.

have a lot of biographies, some army based ones(sas and sniper teams), i prefer real life stories to fiction but almost bought the millenium trilogy off amazon uk cause of free shipping but didnt.  Have a few photogrpahy books also but thats mostly to learn techniques not read i guess.

‘Crime and Punishment’ - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
^that’s got emotion! I kept reading while balling my eyes out page after page, choked with laughter and in terror of what I could do. The psychological (I want to call undertones but they are rampant) have hung with me through every emotion I’ve lived or played. It will reach as deep or as shallow into your psyche as your able to go. And surprisingly easy to read. You may never feel hatred again afterwards.

Frederick Nietzsche - The Superman (or all/any of his work)
Philosophy taken beyond the limit. I believe he was the last great philosopher - I think the limit had been more than reached by him and nothing more could be said.

Biography;
Daniel Day-Lewis : ‘A fire Within’ - Because of this book, this man and his father’s poetry (Cecil Day-Lewis | Poet Laureate)  I never lost myself - and I’ve been over the edge many times, not average ‘over the edge’ I have completely lost it in real life and in some of the roles I’ve played-(talkin mass murder of the none-fiction variety that are as bad as Hannibal Lector)

‘No One Here Gets Out Alive’ -
(there was a time in my life I thought I was the re-incarnation of Mr Mojo Risin) Yes, I tried to open the doors of perception only to find the veil of illusion fixed over my eyes.

I absorbed biographies on slip personalities, I may have read all that were published in the 1970’s/80’s. (the condition still remains a mystery today)

Horror;
(back on Hannibal Lector) ‘Red Dragon’ - It’s the book that inspired Silence of The Lamb. Not so scary when you find out people do this in real life. Nature is way more horrific.

I have read a lot of biographies and autobiographies, the vast majority of them are somewhat boring, MP, Mick Fanning, Occy, Kelly, Nat Young are only vaguely interesting.  Even worse to some extent are the rock star ones, Slash’s and Scar Tissue are very very repetitive, I got on heroin, I nailed heaps of birds, I got off heroin, I nailed heaps of birds and then I got back on heroin and in between I played some music.

One biography I did read was Billy about Billy Connelly by his Australian wife, that guy had a very fucked up childhood and probably as a coping mechanism became a very funny man.

I read a lot of biographies about Australians, a lot of them war hero’s and the like,

Clive “Killer” Caldwell - an Aussie fighter pilot ace in WW2 who was later charged with several offences and dishonourably discharged

Billy Sing - A digger of Chinese Australian heritage who become one of the most successful snipers of all time while based in Gallipoli who then died in obscurity without a penny to his name years later.

The Long Green Shore by John Hepworth, a book that was written about the fighting in New Guinea in the closing stages of the war

A Fortunate Life by A B Facey - a great read about one mans life growing up in the early part of the 20th century, going to WW1 and then making a life for himself afterwards.  have read this a few times and like it more each time.

SAS Sniper by Rob Maylor - A brit who served first with the Royal Commando’s then immigrated to Australia and ended up in the SAS a did tours of Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq, was also involved in the Blackhawk crash near Fiji

There are plenty of others I have read whose names escape me at the moment but if I remember and anyones interested I will put em down.

Have read a lot of biographies and similar on WW2 pilots from other countries, usually fairly good although some of the American ones would have you thinking no one else was fighting the war.

SAS Sniper is one i read, i thoroughly enjoyed it!

Spaz- i will check out the crime and punishment book.

amazon.co.uk have a sale on with free shipping so may see if i can get it there

‘QUOTE—->        Crime and Punishment’ - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
^that’s got emotion! I kept reading while balling my eyes out page after page, choked with laughter and in terror of what I could do. The psychological (I want to call undertones but they are rampant) have hung with me through every emotion I’ve lived or played. It will reach as deep or as shallow into your psyche as your able to go. And surprisingly easy to read. You may never feel hatred again afterwards.’    <———QUOTE

Interesting words spaz, I wanted to strangle the protagonist at times when he was doing his best to fuck his life up!  While at other times I held such empathy/sympathy for him as a thoughtful yet troubled man.

I’m in the middle of ‘the brothers karamazov’ which I’m constantly impressed with.  Such insight, such balance and so real.  An opinion that i’ve come to over my limited but not trivial experience is that when it comes to tolstoy/dostoyevsky the translations by richard pevear and larissa volokhonsky are the best….

QUOTE——->‘Frederick Nietzsche - The Superman (or all/any of his work)
Philosophy taken beyond the limit. I believe he was the last great philosopher - I think the limit had been more than reached by him and nothing more could be said.’ <———QUOTE

This is a strong statement….I’d like to hear more but i’m not sure boardworld is ready for a philosophy thread just yet….thoughts?

i didn’t like the brothers karamazov. I really liked ‘the idiot’ though.

I liked ‘war & peace’ too.
Moby Dick sucks. You just need to read the last page or 2 at the end of each chapter to follow the story.

Aidy,
Frederick Nietzsche
I’ve read many opinion similar - often from scholars (which I am not).
His ideas go too far especially by todays standards. It has been a loooong time since I read him though.

Starting a philosophy thread would be cool but I would end up with RSI and I’m far too opinionated, have clinical attention deficient and am caught up in my id. My understanding of studying philosophy - you learn how to discuss it, I don’t have that learning. To be on any line of thought with me is a practice in patience. Person to person my delivery is as entertaining as the subject matter and many people have been kept up until the sun rises discussing philosophy while others sit back to watch the show.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I read ‘Crime & Punishment’ and ‘The Idiot’ one after another (again, a long time ago <same period of my life). Reflecting back the characters and story meld together in my memory and my statement reflects that. It wasn’t until you mentioned the protagonist that I had a moment of clarity - I too felt the same frustration and may have even not finished ‘C&P”. ‘The Idiot’ had me crying page after page and I really identified with the main character and the opinion the world held upon him, a rare book that when finished, I turned back to the front page for a complete second reading like I turned to the next page.

I just leaned over my bed to check my “to read” stack (don’t know why I didn’t do this when opening this thread!)
-‘Pillars of the Earth’ & ‘Fall of Giants’ by Ken Follett; both suggested by my sister because they are “up my alley”.
-‘On The Road’ - Hard cover in a hard sleeve (Christmas pressy from Parents) It’s the 5th copy of this book I have out of 9 copies I’ve owned. No two (of the 5) are from the same print.
-‘THE BIBLE” - (mums) 1954, impossible to read, edition ‘The British & Foreign Bible Society’ with B&W illustration-(that my daughter finds amusing).
I’m not a practicing Christian - it’s just a handy reference.
-There is also a self help book ‘Learn To Remember’ that I keep forgetting to read.

spaz - 11 May 2011 02:35 AM

Starting a philosophy thread would be cool

But I haven’t read any Harry Potter!!!!