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What are you reading, Chapter 2
- Thread starter BioDriver
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This is on the way:
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My best friend's dad, a three-war pilot, knew Olds very well. Olds checked him out on the F-86 before he headed to Korea where he was credited with three kills in Mig Alley before the "North Korean" pilots were instructed not to engage American fighters.
I'm going to try to get him to read this too and see what he thinks about it. He's never short on incisive observations about anything.
He's also writing his own memoirs.
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My best friend's dad, a three-war pilot, knew Olds very well. Olds checked him out on the F-86 before he headed to Korea where he was credited with three kills in Mig Alley before the "North Korean" pilots were instructed not to engage American fighters.
I'm going to try to get him to read this too and see what he thinks about it. He's never short on incisive observations about anything.
He's also writing his own memoirs.
faulkner, the sound & the fury.
abebooks.com & ebay are good sites for used, inexpensive books.
abebooks.com & ebay are good sites for used, inexpensive books.
Honestly, this is the first time since High School Ive read any of her work. I remember reading a few shorts or maybe poems back in the day. Im still at the beginning, but the Bell Jar seems alright. I had just grabbed it on the way to work from my fiancee's bookshelf, as it was one of the only books I could find quickly that I hadnt read, and preferred not to read 'hannibal' or 'hannibal rising'.
Funny enough, my fiancee did a 20 page report on Plath and the Bell Jar and she told me yesterday that she couldnt even remember what it was about.
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So is Amazon.com, then click on the used link. I recently bought 2 different books, both hardcovers. One had a retail cost of $17 new. I got it new for $6 + shipping. The other was $25 new, I got it in 'Like New' condition for $4 + shipping. When it arrived I could not tell that it had been used. Ive gotten paperbacks used for 1 penny + shipping.
This book for a church thing I'm researching:
And also this one (cause I'm interested in Catholicism and the Early Church)
And also this one (cause I'm interested in Catholicism and the Early Church)
Fassa Albrecht said:
Augustin doesn't really represent the views of the Catholic Church, he is much closer in view to the early reformers; such as Luther and Calvin.
lowsound
Another one I forgot- the Ancient Greek Harry Potter.
It's silly hard to read- I can read the Latin one at the same speed as the English one, but this one really does my head in.
It's silly hard to read- I can read the Latin one at the same speed as the English one, but this one really does my head in.
His dialogue anachronisms are just groaners, and his dialogue is weak to start with.
People in 1954 did not tell lightbulb jokes.
After a long string of these great and small, I literally threw the book across the room in disgust.
It's not uncommon for a writer to be that clueless, but a major job of a publisher is to provide adequate reading and editing to clean up messes like this before the book sees print.
I was just reading something the other day to the effect that American publishers see editing as a useless expense that's wasted on semiliterate American readers anyway...so they let notoriously awful stuff through. For "quality" fiction, they just negotiate US rights to UK titles.
Writers like Lehane have fans who have suspended, or are too ignorant to have, high standards. They just want MORE, so the publisher has no motivation to require substantial rewrites, heavy editing or anything else that slows the conveyor belt.
I started to watch the DVD but somehow lost interest early on. I forget why. Maybe because DiCaprio was such a miscast.
Don't have time to dig up pics this time but here is what has come and gone lately.
Los Angeles Noir - LA shorts from new writers ok, not great.
LA Noir II - the masters. Shorts form Paul Cain, Chandler etc. -better.
David Lawrence - the Stella Mooney books, The Dead Sit Around in a Ring, Down into Darkness, Cold Kill.
I like his take on the ususally dry British police procedural a lot.
Heinlein's The Puppet Masters - the 1991 unabridged reissue republished at Virginia Heinleins behest in accordance with Robert's wishes. I think this is a beeter version and never should have been abridged for publication. The Moral Fifties were too repressed for the original apparently.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Satisfyingly weird.
Los Angeles Noir - LA shorts from new writers ok, not great.
LA Noir II - the masters. Shorts form Paul Cain, Chandler etc. -better.
David Lawrence - the Stella Mooney books, The Dead Sit Around in a Ring, Down into Darkness, Cold Kill.
I like his take on the ususally dry British police procedural a lot.
Heinlein's The Puppet Masters - the 1991 unabridged reissue republished at Virginia Heinleins behest in accordance with Robert's wishes. I think this is a beeter version and never should have been abridged for publication. The Moral Fifties were too repressed for the original apparently.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Satisfyingly weird.
On another forum, I was just reminded of this one, which I found absolutely fascinating:
Most of the major figures of the Civil War prominently figured in the Mexican War as young men. This book follows their truly remarkable exploits.
One of my top five American history titles!
Most of the major figures of the Civil War prominently figured in the Mexican War as young men. This book follows their truly remarkable exploits.
One of my top five American history titles!
entirely possible--I haven't read Shutter Island, just Mystic River.His dialogue anachronisms are just groaners, and his dialogue is weak to start with.
People in 1954 did not tell lightbulb jokes.
After a long string of these great and small, I literally threw the book across the room in disgust.
As always, its more complicated than that.
There's certainly something to this.
On the other hand, to take a snippet from mystic river:
They slapped their packs of menthols down on a table in the back of Spires Pub and threw back kamikaze shots and Mich Lights and shrieked every time a good-looking guy shot one of them The Look. They'd eaten a killer meal at the East Coast Grill an hour before, then sparked up a joint in the parking lot before walking into the bar. Everything--old stories they'd heard each other tell a hundred times, Diane's recounting of the latest beating from her ***hole boyfriend, Eve's sudden lipstick smear, two chubby guys waddling around the pool table--was hilarious.
I would argue that's well written, with evocative language and great pacing.
I wouldn't.
No point in my going into my criticisms in depth, but it just strikes me as another example of a mediocre American writer trying to show off and failing.
I don't read American fiction writers as a rule, not because there are no good American writers -- I'm sure there are, somewhere -- but they rarely get published.
As I said, American publishers want mediocrity, formula, consistency and quantity, and their business model is to simply buy rights to better-quality stuff from the UK that's already been well-edited and tested in a more demanding market, to serve the more discriminating American reader. No risk.
They can't even be bothered to go to the expense of editing it to American conventions.
Good American writers get published all the time. You just have to look for it. What you're doing now is essentially making the same argument that other people make about the modern day crisis of music "there's no good bands anymore!!!" It's a lazy argument that is simply untrue.
Consider the fact that if writing is good enough to be exported, it is probably good writing. That should silence your silliness about the supposed supremacy of English writers--who, frankly, haven't had a whole lot of fantastic going for them since the death of James Joyce.
Consider the fact that if writing is good enough to be exported, it is probably good writing. That should silence your silliness about the supposed supremacy of English writers--who, frankly, haven't had a whole lot of fantastic going for them since the death of James Joyce.
James Joyce ... English?
But even so, that's dismissing everything written in England since WW2. A little overly-harsh, perhaps?
Meant to to type British. Should've clarified Irish.
And that's a lot of unnecessary harshness, I was just using it as a general timeframe. I love Tolkien, as well as Mervyn Peake.
And that's a lot of unnecessary harshness, I was just using it as a general timeframe. I love Tolkien, as well as Mervyn Peake.
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