Author Topic: The great American read  (Read 11400 times)

Chan

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The great American read
« on: May 23, 2018, 03:22:58 PM »
This interesting reading list was featured on PBS last night.
 
http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/books/#/

 I’d include several of these if compiling a long list of my own favorites (Gulliver’s Travels, A Prayer for Owen Meany, 1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc) and there are others that I haven’t read that are now on my future list after watching the commentary (i.e. Game of Thrones, Confederacy of Dunces, The Shack, A Separate Peace). 

Any Zoner votes for or against the PBS choices?
« Last Edit: May 23, 2018, 03:26:42 PM by Chan »

Dusk Patrol

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2018, 04:53:14 PM »
Aargh... I love/hate these lists.  8)

I would add Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth.... both because it's worthy and to honor the man...
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SUPcheat

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2018, 06:43:21 PM »
A lot of good books there, but as usual, YMMV when you are scouting issues of taste.

I guess I like irony.  "Gulliver's Travels" is great, and still a great read.  "Catch 22" in a different venue.

I don't care for the stridently polemic types.
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PonoBill

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2018, 07:56:36 PM »
Confederacy of Dunces makes a lot of lists primarily because the author committed suicide. Other than that I'm reasonably certain it would be relegated to the dustbin. It's poorly written, boring, long, pointless and artless. Other than that it's fine. Yes, I read it. Yes, I finished it. I read cereal boxes--that's not an endorsement for Cheerios.

I read a lot, I've read almost all of these books, a few of them suck. Jane Auel, Clan of the Cave Bear--Oregon writer, needed a good editor and needed to talk to someone who actually knows how a sling works. Her heroine invents everything from sling to spear thrower to bow and arrow to women's liberation. Clearly way smarter than Issac Newton. Entertaining, sort of, but requires a huge suspension of disbelief and the basic technical inaccuracy of just about anything that relates to primitive tech is too irritating. Reviewers made a big deal about her deep research. I think it all occurred in her head.

Chronicles of Narnia--bah. Religious claptrap disguised as fiction. Left Behind--same story, different verse.

Da Vinci code. Really? Yuck. I hate that I read that.  Fifty shades of Grey--shoot me now. I didn't finish that piece o' shit. Why that was popular escapes me. Ready player one is breathlessly moronic. Interesting setting, likeable character, dopy story. The audible version is read by Will Wheaton, who does sort of a good job, except he really relishes all the tedious gamer stuff. I guess if you were addicted to video games you'd like it. But no.

I read about half of the first book of the Outlander series. Gets sillier and sillier. I can accept a big whopping deus ex machina, but after that things need to get tidy. they don't.

I read a Separate Peace a very long time ago, I recall the second half being tedious. Given how long ago that was it must have been stupendously so. It's kind of a B-team Catcher in the Rye.

Anthem is a better Ayn Rand book, but I read the Romantic Manifesto before I read either Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged so I already thought she was nuts.

The rest, pretty good. I found 31 I haven't read, and that's gold for me. I'm ordering them. Silly of OPB not to do an Amazon link. I wouldn't mind them making a few bucks from my purchases.

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Chan

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2018, 10:08:22 PM »
I had the same reaction to Davinci Code apparently Pelosi’s pick (no joke it’s featured in the intro commentary).   I’m stuck in a love/hate relationship with my current read the critically acclaimed Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan.  I swore it off after the first chapter but had to give it a second shot.   A few months later, half way through, and it makes me appreciate the readability of a Da Vinci Code and pleased to currently have an incredibly difficult and at times rewarding alternative.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2018, 10:47:08 PM by Chan »

pdxmike

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2018, 10:36:56 PM »
I try to read fiction about once a year after seeing lists like that, but after a few pages I remember why I don't like it.  I have read quite a few from that list due to being forced to in school.  My problem with fiction is I don't read books from the start--I just read random pages until I've hit most of them, so I don't know who anyone is for quite a while.  So for fiction I just go back to reading Sherlock Holmes for the twentieth or so time.  One novel I actually finished recently was The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, which I read only because I heard he'd based the characters on his own family, and his brother was a neighbor of mine (and pretty clearly one of the book's characters). 


I'm reading Miles Davis' autobiography now--not fiction so that s%$t won't ever make any f%$#$%g list.  That book is a m%^*&$f&^%$r.

surfinJ

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2018, 04:53:42 AM »
Being almost finished with “The Corrections”, a random reading order must have been tough to follow.

Franzen, Eggers, Roth... this is American literature. Books that you put on the bookshelf when you’re done. 

A lot on the list is junk food reading. Goes in easy but doesn’t sustain.
I try to mix up my reading with non-fic and fic, serious effort and easy junk.
When I’m done with a good junk food title I’ll leave it somewhere to be found and hopefully read again.
But the Divici Code, now that brought out an angry bin toss.

PonoBill

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #7 on: May 24, 2018, 06:26:04 AM »
I'm rereading a fantastic book that probably will never make a list like this. Reality Is Not What It Seems -- Carlo Rovelli. This is the second time I've read it and I've listened to the audible version twice. After the second listening, I decided I needed to reread so important points didn't fly by while I was distracted (as if that ever happens). Highly recommended. Yeah, okay, it's about loop quantum gravity, but it's absurdly well written if a little repetitive. Poetry about physics. I realized that the repetition is intentional, aimed at taking a slightly different slice at important concepts.

Wow, I just did a google search to see what came up about this book and found that NPR did a review. It reads like a much longer version of what I just wrote. https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2017/02/01/512798209/reality-is-not-what-we-can-see
« Last Edit: May 24, 2018, 06:47:03 AM by PonoBill »
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stoneaxe

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2018, 06:52:14 AM »
Just what I need...more books I can't find the time to read.... :P.

Reminds me Bill….I need to get another Kindle to hook up to you....get the audible too... :)
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PonoBill

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2018, 07:03:03 AM »
I've got a spare you can have--already linked to the library. I misplaced mine, Diane bought me a fancier version of the paperwhite, but I like the el cheapo paperwhite better. So I bought another and promptly found the missing one. Elizabeth grabbed the extra paperwhite which leaves the fancy thingy, complete with cover. I'll try to remember to bring it when I come for Billy's wedding. I think the fancy one plays audible books. A little bigger screen, blah, blah but I like what I like.
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Chan

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2018, 07:57:06 AM »
I didn't watch all of the interviews, but I think 50 Shades of Grey was a Pence pick. 

stoneaxe

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2018, 08:01:41 AM »
I've got a spare you can have--already linked to the library. I misplaced mine, Diane bought me a fancier version of the paperwhite, but I like the el cheapo paperwhite better. So I bought another and promptly found the missing one. Elizabeth grabbed the extra paperwhite which leaves the fancy thingy, complete with cover. I'll try to remember to bring it when I come for Billy's wedding. I think the fancy one plays audible books. A little bigger screen, blah, blah but I like what I like.

Cool...I keep expecting to find the el cheapo paperwhite I bought mixed in with some tools in a box or something. The cheap ones are great...small, kind of feels like a paperback in your hand.
Bob

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eastbound

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2018, 09:19:27 AM »
my experience with confederacy of dunces was different--loved it and laughed my ass off while reading for most of it.
and the suicide was well known for all the many years in which the author's mother peddled the book with no takers--so for most publishers, the suicide meant little as they declined to publish
and the book won a pulitzer---which means at least a few well-read folk thought highly of it.

catch22--yep--awesome book--segways to vonnegut and other black humorists from that era--i happily inhaled all of em

here's a shocker: i think ayn rand is mentally defective--but i love and inhaled all steinbeck--especially grapes of wrath and east of eden

but hey we all gon read through our unique filters..........

what about capote--in cold blood??  breakfast at tiffany's (speaking of black humor)??

weird list--a mix of solid lit, and lotsa garbage too

sadly i read few books these days--tons of good longreads, but i dont seem to have staying power for books--hope is that, when i retire, and move to a less frenetic life pace, i will find my way back--cant imagine life without reading

altho check out audm--6 bux a month for tons of quailty long read journo, read aloud---painfully slow compared to reading, but if you can only listen, they are great

also check out texture--6 bux a month for just about any magazine you can imagine--works on any internet-connected device---i subscribe with guilt---worries me that i am helping do to writers what has been done with musicians via the spotify's of our world
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Chan

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2018, 09:40:52 AM »
I haven't tried audm.  Thanks for the suggestion.   Ayn does seem a tad past eccentric and her philosophy has glaring flaws still I find her novels enjoyable.  Her infatuation with capitalism and subsequent attempts to construct a literary free trade utopia are not only abstractly insightful but also proved influential in creating the US economic policies (Greenspan was a follower) that promoted the current global trade structures and prompted the great recession. 


Catch 22 and Vonnegut (all) are awesome.  I'm still interested in Confederacy of Dunces, if I ever finish Born Again Pagan that is.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2018, 09:47:20 AM by Chan »

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Re: The great American read
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2018, 11:01:05 AM »
I try to read fiction about once a year after seeing lists like that, but after a few pages I remember why I don't like it.  I have read quite a few from that list due to being forced to in school.  My problem with fiction is I don't read books from the start--I just read random pages until I've hit most of them, so I don't know who anyone is for quite a while.  So for fiction I just go back to reading Sherlock Holmes for the twentieth or so time.  One novel I actually finished recently was The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, which I read only because I heard he'd based the characters on his own family, and his brother was a neighbor of mine (and pretty clearly one of the book's characters). 


I'm reading Miles Davis' autobiography now--not fiction so that s%$t won't ever make any f%$#$%g list.  That book is a m%^*&$f&^%$r.
LOL, sounds like you just described Keith Richards "Life", a great m%^*&$f&^%$ing book.
It takes a quiver to do that.

 


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