10 Books You Recommend

nj1639 said:
As a child in the '50's, my parents sprung for The World Book Encyclopedia and kept it in my room. I would sit for hours starting out with a subject in mind but being delightfully distracted by something that would catch my eye along the way. ADHD? Probably, but I learned about Icarus and Daedalus before I was eight.

Books seem to have come to me in a few ways, mandate, happpenstance and subject interest.
Regarding mandate, we had required reading in high school that included "Brave New World" by Huxley and "1984" by Wells. These were hand in hand for that year. In English Lit class our instructor brought in a 33 RPM LP of Romeo and Juliet. We would read along to ourselves as the vinyl spun the audio but the topper of the class was the instructor sometimes pantomiming a scene or getting our attention to listen closely. It was the icing on the cake for further adventures in Shakespeare and leading to works by Chaucer. Honorable mention to Homer and Tacitus.

As a youngster I read Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" of course, but ventured no further in his works. One day, by happenstance, I was driving down an alley after a rain and saw a hardback off to the side of a puddle. Stopping out of curiosity I picked it up and found it was a copy of "Roughing It". The book opened a new door for me to Twain's humor which left me seeking more.
Another happenstance was Castaneda, suggested by a dear friend as we would discuss the curiosities of human existence. I'll say that the first three volumes are in my library.

I've always been fascinated by the natural world and Euell Gibbons piqued my curiosity for foraging. I could name, thanks to that encyclopedia, just about every life form that walked, flew, slithered or swam but knew very little about the ones outside the door that make up the most of this world but don't have the ability to flee a fire. So starting with Euell I took a deep dive. I still have "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" which contains a purple thumbprint of elderberry juice placed there accidentally by one of the hippie chicks of our then "household" making up some jam after a forage (thinking she wandered off to join an Ashram in the mid seventies, we moved back to the land). Honorable mention to Virgil Vogel and his "Native American Medicines" and also Grace Firth's "A Natural Year", they both sit well worn.

Being a history buff and living in the Old Nothest Territory I came across Alan Eckert and his Americana series. Good novel type reading inspired by the history and the events of the areas, drawn from first person accounts. Tons of footnotes.

Solzhenitsyn' "Gulag Archipelago" was the last thing I've read. Better late than never.
Thinking I may put Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" on my Christmas list. Thanks Norm!

Speaking of Christmas brings me full circle to the one book my Godmother gave me as a child, which I still read.

Nice to meet y'all.
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1984 was written by George Orwell.
 
nj1639 said:
Thanks! Missed that in editing.
Oh Well, Or Well
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I do the same thing all the time or the autocorrect changes words on me. Sometimes it completely changes a word other times it doesn't even correct my spelling. I can't figure it out. I'm guessing you must be in or around your 40s I had all the same required reading, and thankful looming back now, I have reread 1984, and The Brave New World countless times. Also The Prince by Machiavelli, however not required reading but a timeless classic nonetheless.
 
AWFaneuf said:
I do the same thing all the time or the autocorrect changes words on me. Sometimes it completely changes a word other times it doesn't even correct my spelling. I can't figure it out. I'm guessing you must be in or around your 40s I had all the same required reading, and thankful looming back now, I have reread 1984, and The Brave New World countless times. Also The Prince by Machiavelli, however not required reading but a timeless classic nonetheless.
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See what I mean "looming back" supposed to be looking back
 
nj1639 said:
Just turned 72 in this last month, for any who care about those things. Providence has been very kind in spite of my younger foibles.
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Glad to hear you're still well, 70 is the new 50. Are you still riding? By Providence are you referring to God or Rhode Island? I know it's easy to confuse the two, lol.
 
AWFaneuf said:
. . . 70 is the new 50 . . .
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I thought 70 was the new 40? Whatever, I'll be there in three years.

On books, just finished Possession by AS Byatt. I don't read a lot of novels but I have been very impressed by Byatt's book. Very literary but still manages to be a good read. It's about two young academics researching a previously unknown liaison between two Victorian poets. Reading the book, you are presented with straightforward narrative of the modern academic detective work, but also with Victorian letters, journals and poetry, all written very convincingly in different 'voices' - the author adopts multiple different styles and wrote hundreds of lines of poetry in a bygone style with references which are unfamiliar to modern readers. Very convincing - apparently many people who read the book end up believing these were real poets.

IMO it's not a book you could read at one sitting, I found I would read one or two chapters and leave it for a day or two.

They made a film with Gwyneth Paltrow, but reviews say the film is very different from the book.
 
Raymond said:
I thought 70 was the new 40? Whatever, I'll be there in three years.

On books, just finished Possession by AS Byatt. I don't read a lot of novels but I have been very impressed by Byatt's book. Very literary but still manages to be a good read. It's about two young academics researching a previously unknown liaison between two Victorian poets. Reading the book, you are presented with straightforward narrative of the modern academic detective work, but also with Victorian letters, journals and poetry, all written very convincingly in different 'voices' - the author adopts multiple different styles and wrote hundreds of lines of poetry in a bygone style with references which are unfamiliar to modern readers. Very convincing - apparently many people who read the book end up believing these were real poets.

IMO it's not a book you could read at one sitting, I found I would read one or two chapters and leave it for a day or two.

They made a film with Gwyneth Paltrow, but reviews say the film is very different from the book.
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I personally haven't been dying much reading, I was working on Morals and Dogma by Albert Pike, it's considered the Holy Bible of Freemasonry. I am definitely interest in books of an occult nature as well as history, true crime, and philosophy. I'm more a Sun Tzu The Art of War or Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzche kind of reader more than that of novels although Cormac McCarthy does have some great fiction.
What kind of bike do you have is it safe to assume it's xs650? Ha. I have 79 xs650 and 76 cb500t bobber, I'm starting a small modest collection next I am gonna work on getting/building a scrambler possibly out of 1200 Sportster if not another XS. There is someone selling an 81 Heritage for $600 next town over to me, they just did over $1500 in work to it before they realized they couldn't register it. I live in Massachusetts and they male it extremely difficult to register older bikes here, fortunately I have the formula so I can turn "parts" bikes back into road warriors.
 
AWFaneuf said:
Glad to hear you're still well, 70 is the new 50. Are you still riding? By Providence are you referring to God or Rhode Island? I know it's easy to confuse the two, lol.
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Yep, still riding.
Providence, the inspiration for Roger Williams to name the town after. Some interesting Colonial history there.
 
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