Languish.org

The book threads always struck me as very history book heavy. So I wondered, what do Languishites read, and if the thread was representative? Me, I think I read non-fiction and fiction in about equal shares.

Fiction mostly.

I should read more, but don't have the time.

Non-fiction mostly.  I don't know why.

I usually have at least one of each on the go at any one time. Cloud Atlas and Principles of Crime Scene Investigation at the moment.

Almost exclusively fiction. I don't remember when I have read my last non-fiction book that wasn't work-related.

Mostly non fiction, history above all, and my scarce fiction readings usually have a certain 'non-fictionish' appeal, like historical novels and hard sf...

Quote from: Brazen on March 23, 2009, 05:24:49 AM
I usually have at least one of each on the go at any one time. Cloud Atlas and Principles of Crime Scene Investigation at the moment.

Cloud Atlas is really, really good.  :)

Quote from: Syt on March 23, 2009, 03:18:48 AM
The book threads always struck me as very history book heavy. So I wondered, what do Languishites read, and if the thread was representative? Me, I think I read non-fiction and fiction in about equal shares.

Same.  I used to exclusively read non-fiction, but about five years or so ago I suddenly started reading fiction (mostly SF)... no clue why.

All sorts, from non-fiction of work type to history books to lighter fiction.  I always try to return and reread favorites as well.  Often I am juggling 5-6 books at a time, more is not unheard of.

Read? ???

Quote from: katmai on March 23, 2009, 08:42:00 AM
Read? ???

I was arrested for smuggling books into Kentucky. They had to let me go, since they couldn't prove that it was a book.

Both in equal shares.
I often alternate the two kinds, although I don't do a conscious effort at it; moreover, I often find myself having at least two different books at different reading stages on my bedside table.

L.

I'm definitely of the "more non-fiction than anything elseÈ category.

Quote from: Ed Anger on March 23, 2009, 08:45:03 AM

Quote from: katmai on March 23, 2009, 08:42:00 AM
Read? ???

I was arrested for smuggling books into Kentucky. They had to let me go, since they couldn't prove that it was a book.

They brought in the expert witness from Ohio State, who claimed to have seen a book in his student days, but he couldn't make a positive ID.

Fiction, mostly.  I do throw in some non-fiction as well, but typically the selection process for those is driven by my fiction reading too.

About equal shares, although I haven't bought a new fiction book in a little bit. Been reading new non-fiction and re-reading fiction.

Mostly classic fiction and history books. Every now and then I'll read a science book or some modern fiction, but the first two are over 90% of my reading.

Mostly fiction.  In large part because I'm studying English....

Mostly fiction. I read a lot of Canadian authors, US, Brit.

Almost exclusively non-fiction.

I don't avoid fiction. But I deny it my essence.

Almost exclusively non-fiction. Occasionally I'll pick up a novel that may catch my eye or I find interesting and it's highly recommended.

I switch between the two.  I usually have a couple books on the go although right now they are both non-fiction.

Non-fiction mostly.  Used to be much more of an even mix, but I've gradually read proportionally less and less fiction over the last 20 years or so--not sure why exactly.

I must say I am a bit apprehensive about reading non-fiction because (probably due to some obsessive side of my personality) I keep trying to remember what I am reading in the same way one would be when reading a textbook before an exam - I am just weird like that - which means I end up being unable to enjoy it. When reading fiction I instead treat it as an escapist leisure and it is much more fun that way.

Now having said that, I am reading one non-fiction book at the moment too.

Hey Marti, I love the Stanislaw Lem quote.  :D Where did you see it?

Mostly non-fiction

Quote from: Syt on March 23, 2009, 03:18:48 AM
The book threads always struck me as very history book heavy. So I wondered, what do Languishites read, and if the thread was representative? Me, I think I read non-fiction and fiction in about equal shares.

I read a lot of job-related military stuff. I wish I had more time for history. I'm trying to get a book about warfare in northern Italy during the renaissance. Very interesting period.

And there is always a sci-fi volume somewhere around my desk. I am adicted to the damn thing.

Reading right now: Stalk and Kill, by Adrian Gilbert. A very well researched volume about sniper tactics through out history. Amazing that there were already snipers with scoped rifle during the ACW.

Mostly history, science fiction and fantasy.

Quote from: Siege on March 23, 2009, 02:31:01 PM
I read a lot of job-related military stuff. I wish I had more time for history. I'm trying to get a book about warfare in northern Italy during the renaissance. Very interesting period.

And there is always a sci-fi volume somewhere around my desk. I am adicted to the damn thing.

Reading right now: Stalk and Kill, by Adrian Gilbert. A very well researched volume about sniper tactics through out history. Amazing that there were already snipers with scoped rifle during the ACW.

Don't worry, we know you don't know how to read. :console:

Quote from: Siege on March 23, 2009, 02:31:01 PM
I'm trying to get a book about warfare in northern Italy during the renaissance. Very interesting period.

If you find a good one let me know. I have been trying and failing.

I used to be pretty heavily into sci fi and historical nonfiction, but lately it seems like Pratchett and Douglas Adams are. about the only authors I can force myself to read.

Quote from: Malthus on March 23, 2009, 01:04:44 PM
Hey Marti, I love the Stanislaw Lem quote.  :D Where did you see it?

I came upon it fairly recently. Apparently he said it in one of his interviews. :)

I understand he was an avid surfer in his final years.

Quote from: DontSayBanana on March 23, 2009, 03:49:19 PM
I used to be pretty heavily into sci fi and historical nonfiction, but lately it seems like Pratchett and Douglas Adams are. about the only authors I can force myself to read.

I must say it was quite a leap for me to go from scifi (with Gaiman, Pratchett and Adams being my favourite authors in that genre) to the "realistic" fiction - until about two or three years ago, the only books of the latter kind I read were for my literature classes at school and college.

Then I discovered the likes of William C. Burroughs, Oscar Wilde and Alan Hollinghurst and changed my mind. I admit, I still read fiction for its escapist aspects as much as for its aesthetic value - I would find "serious" fiction addressing themes of no relevance to me to be extremely tedious and unbearable.

Also - to continue the discussion from the book recommendations thread - I freely admit I greatly enjoy good, gay-themed books written from the late 19th century until today.

I do not see this as an expression of some prurient interest (well, not solely at least) or a political obsession, though. For me, there is this intriguing "underground", or "dark" (or if you buy into the Nietzschean dichotomy, Dionysian) quality to these stories that I find extremely satisfying.

I find it both empowering, and fascinating in a sociological sense, to see how we were and how far we have gone - but also how (surprisingly, and amusingly enough) little has changed in our natures over these decades and centuries. Maybe we are no longer put away into prisons or reviled by the society at large, but it didn't stop us, upper and upper-middle class fags, from craving virile young dockworkers, stablehands and valets (or as they are today, skater boys and construction workers) while bemoaning the unbearable lightness of our existence.  :D

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 03:56:16 PM
I admit, I still read fiction for its escapist aspects as much as for its aesthetic value - I would find "serious" fiction addressing themes of no relevance to me to be extremely tedious and unbearable.

I'm curious what you consider "themes of no relevance to you".

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 03:51:27 PM

Quote from: Malthus on March 23, 2009, 01:04:44 PM
Hey Marti, I love the Stanislaw Lem quote.  :D Where did you see it?

I came upon it fairly recently. Apparently he said it in one of his interviews. :)

I understand he was an avid surfer in his final years.

I was looking on the Wiki site and came across this gem:

QuoteLem singled out only one American SF writer for praise, Philip K. Dick - see the 1986 English-language anthology of his critical essays, Microworlds. Dick, however, considered Lem to be a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion, and wrote a letter to the FBI to that effect.

:D

The letter is on the Lem website. It's a hoot.

http://english.lem.pl/index.php/faq#P.K.Dick

QuotePhilip K. Dick to the FBI, September 2, 1974

I am enclosing the letterhead of Professor Darko Suvin, to go with information and enclosures which I have sent you previously. This is the first contact I have had with Professor Suvin. Listed with him are three Marxists whom I sent you information about before, based on personal dealings with them: Peter Fitting, Fredric Jameson, and Franz Rottensteiner who is Stanislaw Lem's official Western agent. The text of the letter indicates the extensive influence of this publication, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES.

What is involved here is not that these persons are Marxists per se or even that Fitting, Rottensteiner and Suvin are foreign-based but that all of them without exception represent dedicated outlets in a chain of command from Stanislaw Lem in Krakow, Poland, himself a total Party functionary (I know this from his published writing and personal letters to me and to other people). For an Iron Curtain Party group - Lem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not - to gain monopoly positions of power from which they can control opinion through criticism and pedagogic essays is a threat to our whole field of science fiction and its free exchange of views and ideas. Peter Fitting has in addition begun to review books for the magazines Locus and Galaxy. The Party operates (a U..S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction. And in earlier material which I sent to you I indicated their evident penetration of the crucial publications of our professional organization SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA.

The Commies are infiltrating our vital natural science fiction resource!  :-X

Quote from: fahdiz on March 23, 2009, 04:10:42 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 03:56:16 PM
I admit, I still read fiction for its escapist aspects as much as for its aesthetic value - I would find "serious" fiction addressing themes of no relevance to me to be extremely tedious and unbearable.

I'm curious what you consider "themes of no relevance to you".

:D


-----

I'm reading a biography of Caesar and a Star Wars novel.  *gods I *hate* these icons !*






G.

Quote from: fahdiz on March 23, 2009, 04:10:42 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 03:56:16 PM
I admit, I still read fiction for its escapist aspects as much as for its aesthetic value - I would find "serious" fiction addressing themes of no relevance to me to be extremely tedious and unbearable.

I'm curious what you consider "themes of no relevance to you".

Well, what I meant are themes that I simply find uninteresting - this is purely subjective, I'm afraid, and has nothing to do with their overall social poignancy or importance. I may be moved to tears by a report about children starving in Africa or the dehumanizing poverty in South America, and indeed will freely donate to causes fighting such tragedies, when asked for it, but that will not change the fact that I won't find fiction highlighting such issues to be horribly entertaining, and thus will shun it for something else.

Quote from: Grallon on March 23, 2009, 04:13:46 PM

Quote from: fahdiz on March 23, 2009, 04:10:42 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 03:56:16 PM
I admit, I still read fiction for its escapist aspects as much as for its aesthetic value - I would find "serious" fiction addressing themes of no relevance to me to be extremely tedious and unbearable.

I'm curious what you consider "themes of no relevance to you".

:D


-----

I'm reading a biography of Caesar and a Star Wars novel.  *gods I *hate* these icons !*






G.

Well, I do not hide the fact that among the "themes of relevance to me", any instance of an upper class Briton describing in a flowery, rich language the process of sucking cock ranks rather high.  :D

Quote from: Malthus on March 23, 2009, 04:12:56 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 03:51:27 PM

Quote from: Malthus on March 23, 2009, 01:04:44 PM
Hey Marti, I love the Stanislaw Lem quote.  :D Where did you see it?

I came upon it fairly recently. Apparently he said it in one of his interviews. :)

I understand he was an avid surfer in his final years.

I was looking on the Wiki site and came across this gem:

QuoteLem singled out only one American SF writer for praise, Philip K. Dick - see the 1986 English-language anthology of his critical essays, Microworlds. Dick, however, considered Lem to be a composite committee operating on orders of the Communist party to gain control over public opinion, and wrote a letter to the FBI to that effect.

:D

The letter is on the Lem website. It's a hoot.

http://english.lem.pl/index.php/faq#P.K.Dick

QuotePhilip K. Dick to the FBI, September 2, 1974

I am enclosing the letterhead of Professor Darko Suvin, to go with information and enclosures which I have sent you previously. This is the first contact I have had with Professor Suvin. Listed with him are three Marxists whom I sent you information about before, based on personal dealings with them: Peter Fitting, Fredric Jameson, and Franz Rottensteiner who is Stanislaw Lem's official Western agent. The text of the letter indicates the extensive influence of this publication, SCIENCE-FICTION STUDIES.

What is involved here is not that these persons are Marxists per se or even that Fitting, Rottensteiner and Suvin are foreign-based but that all of them without exception represent dedicated outlets in a chain of command from Stanislaw Lem in Krakow, Poland, himself a total Party functionary (I know this from his published writing and personal letters to me and to other people). For an Iron Curtain Party group - Lem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not - to gain monopoly positions of power from which they can control opinion through criticism and pedagogic essays is a threat to our whole field of science fiction and its free exchange of views and ideas. Peter Fitting has in addition begun to review books for the magazines Locus and Galaxy. The Party operates (a U..S.] publishing house which does a great deal of Party-controlled science fiction. And in earlier material which I sent to you I indicated their evident penetration of the crucial publications of our professional organization SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS OF AMERICA.

The Commies are infiltrating our vital natural science fiction resource!  :-X

Yeah, it's funny as balls - Dick thought Lem was a commie plot. :D

Well, you're dead on about the escapist thing, Marti. It's definitely for pleasure only, but my schedule only really allows for reading before bed, and I'm not going to feel up to any scratching the surface that late at night (often 1 or 2 in the morning).

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 04:19:46 PM

Yeah, it's funny as balls - Dick thought Lem was a commie plot. :D

Oddly (or maybe not) sounds like it could be the plot to a Dick novel.  ;)

I love the stated reason:

QuoteLem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not -

Please, don't give this man If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino. His head might explode.  ???

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 04:19:06 PM

Well, I do not hide the fact that among the "themes of relevance to me", any instance of an upper class Briton describing in a flowery, rich language the process of sucking cock ranks rather high.  :D

Tell me, do you feel at a disadvantage for not being one of those british upper class type ? 




G.

Quote from: DontSayBanana on March 23, 2009, 04:46:22 PM
Well, you're dead on about the escapist thing, Marti. It's definitely for pleasure only, but my schedule only really allows for reading before bed, and I'm not going to feel up to any scratching the surface that late at night (often 1 or 2 in the morning).

Oh that's true. I usually only have time to read when I'm on vacation and I'm sunbathing by the swimming pool, sipping my margaritas and green spiders (or my recent favourite, Freddy Fudgepackers :p).

Quote from: Grallon on March 23, 2009, 05:12:37 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 04:19:06 PM

Well, I do not hide the fact that among the "themes of relevance to me", any instance of an upper class Briton describing in a flowery, rich language the process of sucking cock ranks rather high.  :D

Tell me, do you feel at a disadvantage for not being one of those british upper class type ? 




G.

Well of course. I'm upper class by Polish standards, but if there is one thing about my birth I truly regret and would like to change, it is not being born British. I have had this Anglophile thing going long before I even realised I'm gay.

All my favourite authors are British (whether gay or not). This is one of the reasons I never really got into, say, popular Latino or Spanish writers such as Marquez - they just have a different sensibility from the dry, British wit I singularly adore.

Quote from: Malthus on March 23, 2009, 05:07:46 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 04:19:46 PM

Yeah, it's funny as balls - Dick thought Lem was a commie plot. :D

Oddly (or maybe not) sounds like it could be the plot to a Dick novel.  ;)

I love the stated reason:

QuoteLem is probably a composite committee rather than an individual, since he writes in several styles and sometimes reads foreign, to him, languages and sometimes does not -

Please, don't give this man If On A Winter's Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino. His head might explode.  ???

It's actually funny because Lem was as far from being a communist Party aparatchik as one could be. He was a free thinking wonderful person. A Jewish Holocaust survivor, an atheist, he was a deeply involved humanist (he was a medical doctor by education). Along with Mrozek and Gombrowicz, he is my favourite 20th century Polish author and thinker. He (along with Leszek Kolakowski - who is quoted in Joan's signature; and some other thinkers) recorded this great TV series "Interviews at the end of the century" in the late 1990s, which is a real treat. I am not sure if it is available in non-Polish language version, but it was a real treat.

Wasn't Dick a mormon, though? He does sound like a lunatic.

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 05:29:29 PM


Wasn't Dick a mormon, though? He does sound like a lunatic.

(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.destructoid.com%2Felephant%2Ful%2F91497-facepalm.jpg&hash=c302c2cd8827574eabe41fa8c2d60135a15f26d7)

If you remove stuff I read for University then mostly fiction.  A lot of Russian, Turkish, and American literature.

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 05:29:29 PM
Wasn't Dick a mormon, though? He does sound like a lunatic.

Anyone with any understanding of literature would understand that creative genius and batshit insanity are not mutually exclusive, if anything they come together.

I think Dick mentally declined over his last few years though, IIRC. 

I never said his books suck (although I haven't read them so can't pass any judgement), just that he was batshit crazy. While you are right that this is not uncommon in great writers, many of them (like Lem, for example) escaped that insanity.

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 05:29:29 PM
Wasn't Dick a mormon, though? He does sound like a lunatic.

I don't believe he was a Mormon, no.  He was, quite unfortunately, rather a textbook case of paranoia and delusional states in his later years.

I read a pretty fair mixture of fiction and non-fiction.  Admittedly, the fiction I do read often tends to have historical background, as of late.  I have read a plethora of the Flashman series and am just starting on the Captain Aubrey series.

Quote from: Habbaku on March 23, 2009, 05:52:40 PM
I read a pretty fair mixture of fiction and non-fiction.  Admittedly, the fiction I do read often tends to have historical background, as of late.  I have read a plethora of the Flashman series and am just starting on the Captain Aubrey series.

Watch it - I think Aubrey / Maturin sucked up an entire year of reading for me...

(and of course I've just finished book two of Flashman)

Quote from: Queequeg on March 23, 2009, 05:35:38 PM
Anyone with any understanding of literature would understand that creative genius and batshit insanity are not mutually exclusive, if anything they come together.

Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.

(There has not been any great genius without an element of madness.)

-Seneca

I read mostly non-fiction, although I did enjoy a Nora Roberts book recently.

Quote from: Barrister on March 23, 2009, 06:46:57 PM

Quote from: Habbaku on March 23, 2009, 05:52:40 PM
I read a pretty fair mixture of fiction and non-fiction.  Admittedly, the fiction I do read often tends to have historical background, as of late.  I have read a plethora of the Flashman series and am just starting on the Captain Aubrey series.

Watch it - I think Aubrey / Maturin sucked up an entire year of reading for me...

(and of course I've just finished book two of Flashman)

Ah, Flashman. What a treat.  :D

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 05:29:29 PM

It's actually funny because Lem was as far from being a communist Party aparatchik as one could be. He was a free thinking wonderful person. A Jewish Holocaust survivor, an atheist, he was a deeply involved humanist (he was a medical doctor by education). Along with Mrozek and Gombrowicz, he is my favourite 20th century Polish author and thinker. He (along with Leszek Kolakowski - who is quoted in Joan's signature; and some other thinkers) recorded this great TV series "Interviews at the end of the century" in the late 1990s, which is a real treat. I am not sure if it is available in non-Polish language version, but it was a real treat.

Wasn't Dick a mormon, though? He does sound like a lunatic.

Heh, I know Lem makes an unlikely Communist provocateur; more to the point, he's a person, not a committee.  :lol:

Sadly, I think Dick's delusional paranoia went beyond the amusing and into the relm of the clinical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_k_dick#Mental_health

Quote from: Malthus on March 24, 2009, 02:52:35 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 23, 2009, 05:29:29 PM

It's actually funny because Lem was as far from being a communist Party aparatchik as one could be. He was a free thinking wonderful person. A Jewish Holocaust survivor, an atheist, he was a deeply involved humanist (he was a medical doctor by education). Along with Mrozek and Gombrowicz, he is my favourite 20th century Polish author and thinker. He (along with Leszek Kolakowski - who is quoted in Joan's signature; and some other thinkers) recorded this great TV series "Interviews at the end of the century" in the late 1990s, which is a real treat. I am not sure if it is available in non-Polish language version, but it was a real treat.

Wasn't Dick a mormon, though? He does sound like a lunatic.

Heh, I know Lem makes an unlikely Communist provocateur; more to the point, he's a person, not a committee.  :lol:

Sadly, I think Dick's delusional paranoia went beyond the amusing and into the relm of the clinical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_k_dick#Mental_health

That's very interesting. I am always anxious about people like that - I mean, there is a difference between a debilitating, raving mad lunacy and people who experience such strange visions and are convinced of knowing some hidden truths - who says they aren't right in some way.

Personally, I treat them in a same way I treat religious people (of the non-tedious type, at least) - with fascination, amusement and a tinge of envy for having experienced stuff I have never had.

Mostly non-fiction (history, philosophy/theology and political matters), and maybe 20% fiction, the bulk of which are play scripts and "the Classics(tm)".

On rare occasions, I read some fiction written after WWII, but that's few and far between.
I just can't seem to get excited about modern fiction and devoting time to it, when there's so many books
that I *should* have read, but didn't.

Quote from: Martinus on March 24, 2009, 02:59:18 PM

That's very interesting. I am always anxious about people like that - I mean, there is a difference between a debilitating, raving mad lunacy and people who experience such strange visions and are convinced of knowing some hidden truths - who says they aren't right in some way.

Personally, I treat them in a same way I treat religious people (of the non-tedious type, at least) - with fascination, amusement and a tinge of envy for having experienced stuff I have never had.

Some of his delusions sound sort of cool, but I suspect it was mostly a terrible burden.

I remember as a teen talking with a schitzophrenic I used to see around in the donut shop; she talked about when she didn't take her meds, and everything around her was like some magic fairyland of wonders - only one that could, at any moment, turn into a hell of unreleved horrors, and then she's find herself in the loony bin again after doing stuff that seemed to make sense at the time, living inside a Heronimus Bosch painting.

I like Lem's quote about not realizing how dumb people were before the internet.   :lmfao:

Quote from: Malthus on March 24, 2009, 03:54:00 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 24, 2009, 02:59:18 PM

That's very interesting. I am always anxious about people like that - I mean, there is a difference between a debilitating, raving mad lunacy and people who experience such strange visions and are convinced of knowing some hidden truths - who says they aren't right in some way.

Personally, I treat them in a same way I treat religious people (of the non-tedious type, at least) - with fascination, amusement and a tinge of envy for having experienced stuff I have never had.

Some of his delusions sound sort of cool, but I suspect it was mostly a terrible burden.

I remember as a teen talking with a schitzophrenic I used to see around in the donut shop; she talked about when she didn't take her meds, and everything around her was like some magic fairyland of wonders - only one that could, at any moment, turn into a hell of unreleved horrors, and then she's find herself in the loony bin again after doing stuff that seemed to make sense at the time, living inside a Heronimus Bosch painting.

Yeah, I know what you mean. That being said, I remember talking to at least a couple of schizophrenics in my life, and they have always proven rather interesting conversationalists, I believe. I have a rather amused fascination for conspiracy theories, quabbalah-like (or Pi-like, in the meaning of the movie thus titled) connections between objects, symbols and ideas, and similar harmless but intriguing gibberish.

What's funny (and in a sense, disturbing, at the same time) that in each such case they seemed to regard me as one of their own - to the awed fascination of my friends who participated in such conversations - as we pranced with a Protean incongruence through diverse mythologies and mysticisms, occultisms and philosophies, semantics and ontologies, from Mary Magdalene to Mithras, from Latin to Arameic etymologies, and from Akhenaton to Apollonius of Tyana. :D

It was like some elaborate, egotistical and exhibitionist contest in a sense, a debate where meaning and logic took a back seat to extravagance. Some of the most entertaining moments of my life, I admit.

I wish we had more of things like this on Languish, alas, the majority of people who populate this forum seem to have the minds of steel and cogs, so any such attempts would dwindle in minutiae of grumbleresque arguments.

Edit: Of course, such conversations are best conducted when drunk or stoned. :D

Quote from: AnchorClanker on March 24, 2009, 03:59:17 PM
I like Lem's quote about not realizing how dumb people were before the internet.   :lmfao:

Yeah, I believe it's lovely.

Quote from: Martinus on March 24, 2009, 04:39:35 PM

I wish we had more of things like this on Languish, alas, the majority of people who populate this forum seem to have the minds of steel and cogs, so any such attempts would dwindle in minutiae of grumbleresque arguments.

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

or

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Pick one.

Quote from: Ed Anger on March 24, 2009, 04:52:48 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 24, 2009, 04:39:35 PM

I wish we had more of things like this on Languish, alas, the majority of people who populate this forum seem to have the minds of steel and cogs, so any such attempts would dwindle in minutiae of grumbleresque arguments.

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

or

My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Pick one.

The latter, definitely. ;)

What do people mean by the classics?  I'm always curious about this whenever I see a 'Penguin's Modern Classics' book.  What are the classics for people here?  The Great Victorian novels?  Modernist stuff like Woolf, Joyce and Waugh?  'Penguin Moderns' like 'The Go-Between' (which I still haven't read)?  And do perspectives change if you open out the field.  So, to take Ank's line about what you should have read (and I get what he means, I'm overwhelmed every time I go to the classics section of my local bookshop) are ther modern novels that, for whatever reason, are books that you should read (the two that spring into my mind are Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' and Beckett's trilogy)?

Books: fiction mostly nowadays.  My students years aren't that far behind me and I've got some catching up to do with fiction tales ;)
But I still read specialty magazine about finance, economics and construction.  Especially the "recommended wine" sections of the construction magazine.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 24, 2009, 05:42:56 PM
What do people mean by the classics?

That's as much unanswerable objectively as the question what literature is. The edges will always remain fuzzy. My personal definition is books that were originally published before WW2 but are still in print and circulation today. Of course that ignores a large number of great books that have fallen out of memory sometimes rightfully, sometimes regrettably.

Quote from: Ed Anger on March 24, 2009, 04:52:48 PM

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Ditto!

Quote from: Ed Anger on March 24, 2009, 04:52:48 PM
My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Gal-darnit, Mr. Anger, you use your tongue prettier than a 20-dollar whore.

Quote from: Sheilbh on March 24, 2009, 05:42:56 PM
What do people mean by the classics?  I'm always curious about this whenever I see a 'Penguin's Modern Classics' book.  What are the classics for people here?  The Great Victorian novels?  Modernist stuff like Woolf, Joyce and Waugh?  'Penguin Moderns' like 'The Go-Between' (which I still haven't read)?  And do perspectives change if you open out the field.  So, to take Ank's line about what you should have read (and I get what he means, I'm overwhelmed every time I go to the classics section of my local bookshop) are ther modern novels that, for whatever reason, are books that you should read (the two that spring into my mind are Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' and Beckett's trilogy)?

A classic is a work that has resisted the trial of time. In other words, a book is a classic if people keep buying it after the author is dead and can't promote its sales. 

Quote from: Syt on March 25, 2009, 01:06:56 AM
That's as much unanswerable objectively as the question what literature is. The edges will always remain fuzzy. My personal definition is books that were originally published before WW2 but are still in print and circulation today. Of course that ignores a large number of great books that have fallen out of memory sometimes rightfully, sometimes regrettably.

Oh I'm not asking for an objective answer but just what RH and Ank consider the classics.  Pre-WW2 makes sense.

Quote from: Octavian on March 25, 2009, 02:01:36 AM

Quote from: Ed Anger on March 24, 2009, 04:52:48 PM

My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.

Ditto!

Quote from: Ed Anger on March 24, 2009, 04:52:48 PM
My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.

Gal-darnit, Mr. Anger, you use your tongue prettier than a 20-dollar whore.

:thumbsup:

Quote from: viper37 on March 24, 2009, 11:19:12 PM
Books: fiction mostly nowadays.  My students years aren't that far behind me and I've got some catching up to do with fiction tales ;)
But I still read specialty magazine about finance, economics and construction.  Especially the "recommended wine" sections of the construction magazine.

That's pretty much my definition as well... WWII seems to be the cutoff, although I *do* read some post-WWII
fiction, perhaps it seems too recent to call them classics, but the best of them will be when I am old.  (or something).

A *very* conservative explanation of the classics might be restricted to Greco-Roman works, but I find that too narrow.
Surely Beowulf and the Kalevala would be *classics* to most people.

I think ultimately, "classics" is just a filter, just like my "gay themed" books one.

The fact is, in this day and age, we are simply bombarded with countless books that no normal person would be able to read because there are just too many. So we devise filters to narrow down the number of books we should be reading. This may be based on theme, or a genre, or "what other people considered good" (aka classics) or a combination of the above.

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 02:10:32 PM
I think ultimately, "classics" is just a filter, just like my "gay themed" books one.

The fact is, in this day and age, we are simply bombarded with countless books that no normal person would be able to read because there are just too many. So we devise filters to narrow down the number of books we should be reading. This may be based on theme, or a genre, or "what other people considered good" (aka classics) or a combination of the above.

Probably so

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 02:10:32 PM
So we devise filters to narrow down the number of books we should be reading. This may be based on theme, or a genre, or "what other people considered good" (aka classics) or a combination of the above.

Maybe for those obsessed with what others think.  I don't usually justify what I'm reading or want to read.

Quote from: garbon on March 25, 2009, 03:13:22 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 02:10:32 PM
So we devise filters to narrow down the number of books we should be reading. This may be based on theme, or a genre, or "what other people considered good" (aka classics) or a combination of the above.

Maybe for those obsessed with what others think.  I don't usually justify what I'm reading or want to read.

How do you choose what to read though? There are like tens of new positions ever month. It's impossible to read them all, so you have to follow some sort of a filter - either writers you have already read (which is rather limiting, because it means you never read anything by anyone new), or books that are considered good by others, or books dealing with themes you like etc.

Your pose is amusing but unrealistic, unless you read every single book published in English.  :rolleyes:

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 03:20:58 PM
How do you choose what to read though? There are like tens of new positions ever month. It's impossible to read them all, so you have to follow some sort of a filter - either writers you have already read (which is rather limiting, because it means you never read anything by anyone new), or books that are considered good by others, or books dealing with themes you like etc.

Your pose is amusing but unrealistic, unless you read every single book published in English.  :rolleyes:

I try to stick to one position. I'm rather...vanilla. :P

Anyway, I'm not really sure how you can leap from classics is simply a convenient filter that really means "what other people considered good" to everyone filters somehow!  The first part really has little to do with the latter as the latter is hardly support for the idea that classics are just what other people like.

To answer your most recent question, I stick to either writers I've read before and books with similar topics. :)  (Every so often I'll get a random book, but that's rather hit and miss.)

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 02:10:32 PM
"what other people considered good" (aka classics)

This is exactly how I choose the novels I read. If I ask around - well, that's not a good way to put it because no one I know reads much of anything..

If I happen upon a book on the internet that people on message boards sings songs of praise too, I put it on my list. Eventually I'll get to it. I honestly don't have the patience to pick up a random book I know nothing about and start reading because by the time I realize it's shit I'm pissed off that I wasted my time on it. I'll let other people do that for me.

Quote from: FunkMonk on March 25, 2009, 04:21:11 PM

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 02:10:32 PM
"what other people considered good" (aka classics)

This is exactly how I choose the novels I read. If I ask around - well, that's not a good way to put it because no one I know reads much of anything..

If I happen upon a book on the internet that people on message boards sings songs of praise too, I put it on my list. Eventually I'll get to it. I honestly don't have the patience to pick up a random book I know nothing about and start reading because by the time I realize it's shit I'm pissed off that I wasted my time on it. I'll let other people do that for me.

Yeah it's the same with me - I do the same, sometimes asking for specific themes I like, and ask around someone here and there.

I think the kind of "I read what I like, now what others like" pose that garbon seems to hold is unrealistic - I just can't be arsed to try some random stuff just to brave uncharted waters, and whatnot. Sure if whatever people recommend to me seems to my liking, I will pick up other books by the same author - if it doesn't, then I won't. But you just don't have enough time to try everything on your own.

Quote from: Martinus on March 25, 2009, 04:34:08 PM
Yeah it's the same with me - I do the same, sometimes asking for specific themes I like, and ask around someone here and there.

I think the kind of "I read what I like, now what others like" pose that garbon seems to hold is unrealistic - I just can't be arsed to try some random stuff just to brave uncharted waters, and whatnot. Sure if whatever people recommend to me seems to my liking, I will pick up other books by the same author - if it doesn't, then I won't. But you just don't have enough time to try everything on your own.

It can be somewhat limiting, and of course there's no guarantee that what others like you'll like as well, but so far I've been pretty pleased with my book selections. And you're definitely right - There's just not enough time to read everything. I don't think I'd even want to do that.

I read everything! I don't ever sleep!

Stories & Old ladies book.

Non-fiction pretty much.

Quote from: katmai on March 25, 2009, 11:58:10 PM
Non-fiction pretty much.

Does reading the final cut pro manual really count?

Quote from: garbon on March 26, 2009, 12:01:47 AM

Quote from: katmai on March 25, 2009, 11:58:10 PM
Non-fiction pretty much.

Does reading the final cut pro manual really count?

:P

I mean more along the likes of Military history or biographies.

Though the American Cinematographer manual is the last thing i've read recently :p

To answer the question, about 75/25 in favour of non-fiction.
I usually read a non-fiction book and a fiction book at the same time, but I read fiction way more slowly than non-fiction.

Some people call it savouring, I call it falling asleep.

I have purchased Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Languish will soon know whether Grahame-Smith is a gentleman of good character or a knave.