What are you currently reading?

Started by facehugger, April 07, 2007, 12:36:10 AM

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Kullervo

Quote from: orbital on March 11, 2008, 08:26:17 PM
I took Pere Goriot as my yardstick  ;D, a book which I had found overly sentimental.

Hm, I have to agree with you there in regards to the parts of the novel based around Goriot, but I found it immensely entertaining for Balzac's witty aperçus. Paris of his day seems little different from our world today. Cousin Bette is probably his greatest book, though I haven't read all of them, he was hugely prolific!

orbital

Quote from: Corey on March 11, 2008, 08:35:49 PM
Hm, I have to agree with you there in regards to the parts of the novel based around Goriot, but I found it immensely entertaining for Balzac's witty aperçus.
I would say not only Goriot, but also parts relating to Rastignac and Delphine as well. It is, for the most part, what we would today call a melodrama (at least when adapted to film or a play...) I always thought it would make an excellent opera  >:D

Gustav

Bruno Walter - A world Elsewhere by Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky

Bogey

There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

Mark

#1064
Just started Harold C. Schonberg's 'The Lives of the Great Composers': a biographical history (with appropriately limited analysis of musical form and compositions) of composers from Bach to Schoenberg. Old book - got it for £2 from Oxfam - but refreshingly easy to read compared to some books on classical music history which purport to be for 'the layman'. Nice writing style, too.

Jupiter

Just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Read it in one long sitting and finished at 2 in the morning. Cried at the end. Brilliant book.

Haffner

Vol 4 Ernest Newman's "Life of Richard Wagner"

The whole ordeal between King Ludwig and Wagner gets pretty darn creepy sometimes, overall Wagner sure had an interesting life!

DavidW

Discipline in the Secondary Classroom by Sprick

I think this will be an invaluable resource, I read it last weekend.  I need to find more ways to bring order and discipline into the classroom but using positive reinforcement.  Sounds like an oxymoron but it's not.

Teaching Introductory Physics by Arons

Another book I could have used in the beginning of the year.  There is alot of valuable advise in this book, but it's just too late to implement any of it.

I've been pretty good with reading useful books for work, but haven't read for entertainment since well Christmas time.

Danny

I bought this for about $5; so far has been worth the price:


Bogey

100 pages into:



Danny,
If you have not cracked this one then get on it bruddah.  Satisfaction guaranteed,
There will never be another era like the Golden Age of Hollywood.  We didn't know how to blow up buildings then so we had no choice but to tell great stories with great characters.-Ben Mankiewicz

SonicMan46

Quote from: Danny on March 19, 2008, 12:29:02 PM
I bought this for about $5; so far has been worth the price:



Danny - great choice!  My father's favorite writer in this genre - Russell, of course, a Nobel Prize winner!  I read a number of his  books years ago, including the one you mention - his rather short work 'Why I'm Not a Christian' changed me from a Catholic to at least an agnostic - worth a read for those in doubt!  ;D

Haffner

Quote from: SonicMan on March 19, 2008, 05:52:37 PM
Danny - great choice!  My father's favorite writer in this genre - Russell, of course, a Nobel Prize winner!  I read a number of his  books years ago, including the one you mention - his rather short work 'Why I'm Not a Christian' changed me from a Catholic to at least an agnostic - worth a read for those in doubt!  ;D



I like the book mentioned earlier, but "Why I am Not a Christian" was laughable to me. Russell was a pioneer of the Analytical Philosophy movement, a movement that is notorious for completely disregarding the the value of things like imagination, allegorical symbols, romanticism, etc. His entire Weltanschauung is based around such tiresomely dry, mathematical formulations .

"Why I am Not a Christian" only reinforced my faith at the time I read it, since at the very least I don't ever want to be a completely unimaginative, arid, "analytically-minded" arse like Bertrand Russell.

Absolutely no offense intended, and it's only the opinion of a nobody guitar teacher in Burlington, Vermont.

Kullervo

Quote from: Haffner on March 20, 2008, 06:35:36 AM
Absolutely no offense intended, and it's only the opinion of a nobody guitar teacher in Burlington, Vermont.

Haff, you don't need to append this qualification any time you have an opinion that might be controversial.

Florestan

Quote from: Haffner on March 20, 2008, 06:35:36 AM
"Why I am Not a Christian" was laughable to me.

Absolutely no offense intended, and it's only the opinion of a nobody guitar teacher in Burlington, Vermont.

Seconded by a nobody mechanical engineer in Bucharest, Romania.  :D
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Haffner

#1074
Quote from: Corey on March 20, 2008, 06:38:38 AM
Haff, you don't need to append this qualification any time you have an opinion that might be controversial.



I understand, Corey, but I don't ever want to pretend like I'm putting on airs. Or that my opinion is particularly important. I just wanted to put in my two cents, and I was probably kind of dumb to do so in the first place.


One of the most laughable parts in that book is that age old saw about the questioning of Christ's historical existence, a position very few secular scholars take seriously these days. Nietzsche actually jeopardized the validity of his overall philosophy by blaming the "invention" of Christianity solely on St. Paul, as a "plot" to undermine the Roman Empire. As if the "secret" wouldn't have been out by now. It's so dumb it brings tears of hilarity to my eyes.

OOOPS there I go again.

The new erato

"God is not great"  by Christopher Hitchens. Picked this up because I felt the need to cleanse myself.  

Florestan

Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Haffner



Haffner

Quote from: erato on March 20, 2008, 06:48:59 AM
Of some threads that led to great disagreement.



Now there's a good answer!