Welcome back!

I'm just starting The Illustrated Man by...well, you know.

"The Long Walk" is an excellent book which my sixth grade teacher read to her class every year. Always controversial, it is now being outright challenged as not factual. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6098218.stm

Currently Reading: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

Just Finished: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (slow read), and Survivor: The Ultimate Game (for research). I read multiple books at a time, usually a fiction and a non-fiction.

Reading Next: The rest of the books by Jane Austen, then Memoir of Jane Austen by James Edward Austen-Leigh. I've never been able to slog through her prose before, so I'm doing it while I can. Then I'm off to read the rest of H.G. Wells's work.

Well, if "The Long Walk" isn't factual, then that makes the writing of it that much more impressive! I tend to believe it, though, as there are many similar seeminingly incredible stories of the triumph of the Human Will; whether endurances and/or escapes from the Gulag, or Holocaust survival stories. My English mum-in-law just told me about 2 Jewish friends of hers and their incredible WWII stories, nearly as incredible as "The Long Walk".
Of course, now it could be said that the Zeitgeist includes at least a minimization of the triumphs, struggles, morals, and certainly the 'awareness' of our forebears.
Anyway, I will always highly recommend reading the book.

Martian Chronicles, 40th Anniversary Special Edition, which in a few short years will be the 60th Anniversary Edition! Seems like only yesterday...

Now we know where rocket gets the signature quote;

She stood silently looking out into the great sallow distances of sea bottom, as if recalling something, her yellow eyes soft and moist...

Currently, I am reading Wind, Sand and stars, By Antoine de Saint-Exupéry again.

Coincidently, does anyone have any idea where I can find the english version of "Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry? I'd be interested in knowing.

quote:

Originally posted by WildGravity:
...does anyone have any idea where I can find the english version of "Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry?

Cheap one here.

Regular priced one here.

Borders here has it. Perhaps your local (if there is one) has it or can order it. It's in print. Bon chance!

Here, here greenray. Yes, Martian Chronicles is one of my favorite all time books hence the mysterious sadly beautiful quote from it. One copy that I have from Doubleday 2001, changed all of the dates in the chapter page to update it. I was put off by that, those dates are just as much a part of the context of the stories as anything else woven out of Ray's mind then. You just don't fool with perfection.

Finished Written On The Body, was excellent and even had a happy ending. I'm starting A Home At The End Of The World by Michael Cunningham.

Though I'm halfway through "Christianity On Trial", I couldn't resist starting "The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson. So far, it's really a kick!

Have you read A Short History Of Nearly Everything by him? I haven't yet but it comes highly recommended at work.

Rocky, I finished "Thunderbolt". Really good. Lots of laugh-out-loud moments. Perfect for anyone who grew up in the '50s. I got the Recorded Books version, read by Bryson himself! There's an interview of him at the end in which he says "Short History" took much time to write and was not so humourous; so that he felt like writing something lighter, hence the "Thunderbolt Kid", which is really his autobiography with some embellishments, of course. Anyway, I may get to the other book eventually.

Still reading "Christianity On Trial" and starting Jeffry Deaver's new 'Lincoln Rhyme' novel...

Thanks B-Two & welcome back. I'll have to check them both out. I heard Deaver is good too, enjoy!

>Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction

Trying my hand (again) at reading Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.