quote:

Originally posted by Braling II:
WG, reading is good for you. Puts you into another world, excercises the imagination, improves circulation, and improves the vocabulary; to name a few benefits. But,
if it's hard to find the time, and you're doing something like walking or driving, I recommend recorded books! Many of those mentioned heretofore are available at one's local library and some of the readers are most excellent!

Dear Braling, I'm afraid Rocket is right, its not reading I have an aversion to, why, my public library is a second home to me! No, I'm simply not willing to spend an excessive amount of time poking through old threads and archives, of this, or any internet forum. Although I'm sure there is some good, and very interesting topics there, I would MUCH rather spend my time reading the books that have been suggested to me!

And, if I had an averison to reading Braling, would I have joined my favourite authors forum?

WG,
Point taken.

*steals point back*

ha!

You can't just randomly take
the point back without making a new point,....can you??? Wouldn't that be like calling a do-over in pro basketball or football. It just isn't done. Now, I want rebuttal, and I WANT REBUTTAL NOW!
Is my point taken? I already lost didn't I?

Yes, rocket I have your point too.

*lovingly strokes stolen points*


Point Piracy!

I'm staying up way too late and eating way too many m&ms. I don't even remember writing that! Don't count your points before their hatched, WildG...

Some recommendations from Mr. Dark:

Beneath the Wheel (Hermann Hesse)
Narcissus and Goldman (Hermann Hesse)
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
In Our Time (Ernest Hemingway)
Short Stories (Ernest Hemingway)
Farewell to Arms (Ernest Hemingway)
Islands in the Stream (Ernest Hemingway)
Bleak House (Charles Dickens)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
Hard Times (Charles Dickens)
Go Down Moses (William Faulkner)
Humboldt's Gift (Saul Bellow)
The Natural (Bernard Malamud)
The Power and the Glory (Graham Greene)
Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
The Razor's Edge (W. Somerset Maugham)
Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (Kurt Vonnegut)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson)
The Plague (Albert Camus)
The Stranger (Albert Camus)
The Penal Colony (Franz Kafka)
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
Collected Stories (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Stories, poems (Edgar Allan Poe)
The Bluest Eye (Tony Morrison)
A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
The Cider House Rules (John Irving)
The World According to Garp (John Irving)
The Member of the Wedding (Carson McCullers)
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe (Carson McCullers)
The Milagro Beanfield War (John Nichols)
The Sterile Cuckoo (John Nichols)
Legends of the Fall (Jim Harrison)
The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
The Great Santini (Pat Conroy)
The Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum)
Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carol)
The Shipping News (E. Annie Proulx)
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
The Edible Woman (Margaret Atwood)
The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
To the Wedding (John Berger)
A Lesson Before Dying (Ernest J. Gaines)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
Dune (Frank Herbert)
The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever (Stephen Donaldson)
More Than Human (Theodore Sturgeon)
Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep? (Philip K. Dick)
The Man in the Castle (Philip K. Dick)

Well, at least it's a start!

Mr. Dark, according to some quickly scribbled calculations, I figure it would take me somewheres in the neighborhood of 37 years to read all the books you have listed. Not only am I a slow reader, I tend to lay the book aside for periods of time. Lengthy periods of time. How many of these recommended readings have you read may I ask? Also, if you had to recommend 5 books that you felt were must read, would you name them?

I've read them all. I used to be a fast reader until I started reading philosophy and theology in addition to literature. Then I realized that speed reading might actually exist, but I'm pretty sure speed thinking is an illusion. We have to reflect on what we're reading to fully understand it and be impacted by it.

Five "must" reads? Wow, that is tough. It depends on what your goal is. If it's to understand the foundations of literature, you need Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, Dickens, etc. If it's to understand western thinking, you need to deal with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Augustine, Locke, Hume, Kant, etc. In American literature, you need Poe, Whitman, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Dreiser, Thoreau, Emerson, etc.

For me, in 9th grade, I read F451 by our esteemed Mr. Bradbury. This was a result of pressure by a friend. I read it, then borrowed Martian Chronicles. I went to the book store and bought everything I could by Bradbury and read those. I then branched out to Science Fiction. Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Dick, Williamson, Van Vogt, Howard, Sturgeon, Silverberg, etc. These guys got me to thinking about religion and mankind and literature. From them I went to literature and philosophy, which took me to theology. I ended up getting MA degrees in English and in Philosophy, and read and teach in all areas now.

Bradbury turned me on to the concept that ideas mattered, and that idea changed my life and has impacted me every single day since.

Hope this helps.

rocket- Poo, does that mean I have to give the points back?

Mr. dark - thank you so much for the list of books you suggested. I will certainly look into them

Mr. Dark, very impressive list!
As to "speed reading", yeah, just try speed reading poetry! No can do - especilally something like Dylan Thomas or Gerard M. Hopkins!

quote:

Originally posted by Mr. Dark:
Then I realized that speed reading might actually exist, but I'm pretty sure speed thinking is an illusion. We have to reflect on what we're reading to fully understand it and be impacted by it.

Exactly! Which is why I read slow on purpose - so I can savour every word, which is particularly handy when reading the likes of Bradbury, whose every word is perfect.

As I read Big daddies monologue about his father from cat on a hot tin roof today ( a play I have read many times) I found myself in tears. During and long after I read it.

WildGravity

No, it just means don't count them.

I may watch that movie tonight, a good long cry may do me some good...

I watched the movie with my daughter tonight and it had the desired affect. I was balling like a two year old kid who's balloon bailed on him in the wind, during the critical scene in the basement...I feel much better now.

another highlight:

"It was the Cotton Bowl, Sister Woman."

and: "clickety-clack"

and: "Bull!"