The Book Shelf

[Murat Baslamisli]

Just started reading AS I LAY DYING from Faulkner. Interesting narration, different first person every chapter.

 

[tented]

^ "The Sound and the Fury" is the only Faulkner I've read, and it's a masterpiece, IMHO. I think "As I Lay Dying" was written around the same time, employing similar techniques: first person, stream-of-consciousness, and other benchmarks of Modernism.

 

[shawnbm]

Trying to learn a little more Latin--reading Amo, Amas Amant. I just latch on to certain things here and there. I intend to digest a few key phrases--Deo volente.

 

[Kieran]

Good stuff, Shawn. What books are you using?

 

[shawnbm]

That one and Dummies on Latin now. I only took one semester of Latin as a required course in my freshman year of college. I honestly recall very little, so it is like learning it all over again. I just wish I had more time to study it. Pax Christi

 

[Kieran]

Brings back cold memories of school, Shawn: Mensa, Mensa, Mensam.

I'm glad our Latin teacher was a sports fan and he liked Borg too, got me out of many a skinny bind... :snigger

 

[shawnbm]

I remember facio, facis, facet and all of us laughing at that, along with the professor. (recall that classical Latin employs a hard C, like in cat, in all places, and not the "che" C of Italian or ecclesiastical Latin).

 

[Moxie]

^ That is a high-brow joke. Made me laugh, though. :laydownlaughing

 

[calitennis127]

That one and Dummies on Latin now. I only took one semester of Latin as a required course in my freshman year of college. I honestly recall very little, so it is like learning it all over again. I just wish I had more time to study it. Pax Christi

Moreland and Fleischer is a pretty good Latin book, similar to Hanson and Quinn for ancient Greek. People often praise Latin but the sound of Greek is far more elegant and subtle (and the grammar constructions are the same). The accentuation can be a pain to get used to though.

 

[calitennis127]

I'm currently reading Candide by Voltaire. I am loving it - quick-witted, satirical, fast-moving, and full of humour. Just brilliant so far.

Well Voltaire was a progenitor of Western self-hatred of the dumbest and most pernicious variety. If anyone has anything good to say about the Enlightenment, it should be the Scottish Enlightenment of Hume and Adam Smith, not the moronic fantasies of Rousseau or the deeply misguided opinions of Voltaire.

It's funny to hear anti-Christians question the Book of Genesis in the most simplistic manner possible while praising something like Rousseau's "State of Nature" thesis as a brilliant idea.

 

[Kieran]

One of the books I got from the library today was Steve Tignor's High Strung: Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, and the Untold Story of Tennis's Fiercest Rivalry.

We all know Tignor, right? He has an excellent column on tennis.com. The book is fine so far but it's an easy breeze-through read, written, I suspect, for Fedal fans who never watched any tennis before 2003, and who have little grasp of the social stratus that tennis came out of, let alone the two protagonists of the book. It's simple, and straight forward, but without the vividness that makes his column so sharp.

It isn't bad, and of course, it has a great cast of characters and a fabulous story to tell, but I doubt it's the ultimate word on this era. I suspect he's used a lot of secondary sources for the book, which is fine because it's the most fabled and blabbed about era in tennis, bar now, but it could do with more direct insight from the main players...

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

^ I own that one Kieran and I have to say I was not impressed. Maybe my expectations were a bit high. Now that you mention it, I will read it again and see how I feel this time.

 

[markus1]

I've decided to reread The Lord of the Rings

 

[Kieran]

I've decided to reread The Lord of the Rings

It's always well-rewarded, to read that book, isn't it? I must have read it eight times, and loved it every time. I never read the Hobbit, funny enough...

 

[tented]

Kieran's revelation that he's read LOTR eight times has made wonder which book people have read more than any other?

For me, it's J.D. Salinger's "Franny & Zooey". I got into the habit, decades ago, of sometimes taking it with me whenever I go on a vacation which includes air travel. I open the book as soon as the plane takes off, and try to finish it before it lands. Most of the time I can do it. I must have read it a dozen times at this point, yet I never get tired of it.

Has anyone else ever read a particular book multiple times?

 

[Kieran]

I'd say LoTR is the book I've read most times, though it's been about 20 years now since I read it. Recently, Of Mice and Men is one I serially read - about 3 times in a single month.

I'm reading The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway again now - and only read it last month. This time, it's just to see how he does it. But with Lord of the Rings, it was an obsession of my youth and I first read it when I was about 15.

In non-fiction, I've read The Way of A Pilgrim a load of times, and a lot of books like this one, I serially read. In history books, I've read Persian Fire three times now, and I think that's the most I've read in that type of book.

Interesting question, by the way!

 

[shawnbm]

In terms of books, I have read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass three or four times each. I have read To Kill A Mockingbird three times, The Old Man and the Sea twice, Arnold Palmer: The Evolution of a Legend twice, The Beatles by Hunter Davies twice or perhaps thrice, and there are others I can't recall. In terms of repeat reading over the years, various books within the Bible would top the list, to be honest--with Genesis and the Gospels being read the most.

 

[britbox]

Kieran's revelation that he's read LOTR eight times has made wonder which book people have read more than any other?

For me, it's J.D. Salinger's "Franny & Zooey". I got into the habit, decades ago, of sometimes taking it with me whenever I go on a vacation which includes air travel. I open the book as soon as the plane takes off, and try to finish it before it lands. Most of the time I can do it. I must have read it a dozen times at this point, yet I never get tired of it.

Has anyone else ever read a particular book multiple times?

Yeah, LOTR - not quite in Kieran's league though. I've probably read it 5 or 6 times. First time I read it was when I was about 14 and just got blown away. It felt like you were part of the journey - and it is a journey reading that book. A good one.

It's a book you should read at least twice, as you pick up on things you missed the first time around.

The Hobbit was to me, a kids book. We actually read it in junior school. Not a patch on the LOTR and the Hobbit films felt the same too - kids stuff in comparison to LOTR.

I rarely read a fiction book more than once now but when I was a little kid I loved reading Enid Blyton books over and over - Brer Rabbit, Mr Gallianos Circus, Magic Faraway Tree and then moving onto all the Famous Five, Secret Seven stuff. Used to devour books like a beast. Used to love CS Lewis (Narnia stories) and Willard Price books too as a youngster.

Don't read that much fiction these days - but got Game of Thrones ready to go when I get some more time.

 

[shawnbm]

Songs of the South!!!! Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox and Brer Bear--and who can forget 'd ol' Tar Baby!!!!! I loved those stories, but it is politically incorrect to read them now. Who knows, maybe they will ban Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before I am through.

 

[Kieran]

I finished reading the Tignor book. Not sure why it's called "The Untold Story," when it's all secondary sources, and therefore very told. But I enjoyed reading it, those were the gang of players I grew up watching. Not that chapters on Connors, Nastase and Gerulaitus added anything to a book about the rivalry between Borg and Mac, taking up maybe two thirds of the book in the process, but I enjoyed those too. I suppose the publishers insisted on an exclusive title.

It kinda fizzled out a little in the end, and like I say, there's a better book to be written in this period of tennis, but it filled a gap nicely between the FO and Wimbo...