What are you reading this week?

13723.png
 
I stay amazed at how bad books by good writers are. All do it.

So, when does the bad writing tip the writer from being good to bad? There must be a breaking point somewhere. What you might be seeing is a crap writer coming up with the occasional good piece. Maybe hacks can strike gold...
 
So, when does the bad writing tip the writer from being good to bad? There must be a breaking point somewhere. What you might be seeing is a crap writer coming up with the occasional good piece. Maybe hacks can strike gold...

When my mind wanders to chores and lost keys or I wanna go to sleep. The usual affects boring books create. McDonalds sells millions of Pilot Burgers, I prefer prime rib.
 
So, when does the bad writing tip the writer from being good to bad? There must be a breaking point somewhere. What you might be seeing is a crap writer coming up with the occasional good piece. Maybe hacks can strike gold...

When it wasn't written by James or wasn't written by Raymond Chandler or he just wants to razz someone with his intellectual dishonesty, it's bad writing--at least that's what James would have you believe, if you're that gullible.
 
Now this was a truly fascinating book. In short, the story of the rediscovery of the first great masterpiece of world literature: the ancient epic of the legendary Sumerian king Gilgamesh who possibly lived around 2,700BC. Several copies of a largely complete version of the 4,000-year-old poem were part of the great library of the palace of Nineveh collected there by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, who ruled from 669 B.C. After Nineveh was sacked in 612 B.C., the Gilgamesh epic was forgotten for more than 2,000 years until archaeologists uncovered the library and shipped 100,000 clay tablets and fragments to the British Museum in the 1840s and '50s where the Akkadian was deciphered and the ancient account of Noah's Flood found.

It's the oldest book in the world and I find it quite fascinating to read about the life of a king who lived possibly 5,000 years ago and is still remembered. Must have been quite the guy. It's a really readable book, not at all dry and the author is a Prof of literature or something, not an archaeologist so in the last half of the book there's far more emphasis on looking at the story itself. The epic was covered in a way that was interesting and I really appreciated the authors views on the similarities in themes and plots with both the Old Testament and other works such as the Odyssey.

"The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh"

51EpwR0dVZL._AC_US218_.jpg
 
Last edited:
Reading "Bhowani Junction" by John Masters tonight. Masters was a British officer of the Indian Army and later a novelist who mostly wrote novels set in India as well as a three volume autobiography, the first two parts I picked up along with a few of his other books all in one go. I love library book sales. The two volumes are Bugles and a Tiger (1956) and Road Past Mandalay (1961) plus I got a few more of his novels which I haven't got round to reading yet.

Anyhow, Bhowani Junction is set during the British withdrawal from India and I was kind of interested in it because one of the main characters, Victoria, is a eurasian anglo-indian girl whose caught up in a dilemma over her identity - Indian, English or Anglo-Indian, as India heads for independence. She becomes engaged to an Indian, leaves him and becomes the lover of a British Army officer, but in the end decides she cannot escape her origins, and chooses an Anglo-Indian like herself. The central theme of the novel is the dilemma faced by the mixed-race Anglo-Indian community as Independence nears.

Just finished reading it and it's a good novel. Masters is a good writer, altho it's definitely written in an older writing style. Not as fast paced as modern novels but I did enjoy it.

51tthxMRpeL._AC_US218_.jpg
 
Bought another pile of Kindle books. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD by John LeCarre, THE KILLER INSIDE ME by Jim Thompson, and several non fiction military memoirs. I rejected a pile of erotica that looked better than they read.

One of the military memoirs makes a claim that's bull shit. The author says you cant capture combat in words. Not true. Its loud. Its total chaos till you focus on your situation and God instantly organizes your life. And you know what to do. The doing part is raw terror but the mystery is gone. But plenty don't reach the grace part.
 
When it wasn't written by James or wasn't written by Raymond Chandler or he just wants to razz someone with his intellectual dishonesty, it's bad writing--at least that's what James would have you believe, if you're that gullible.

When youre whining to Laurel about me ask her to check out your word-turds. Just say, LAURE;L my shit smells like roses, right?
 
Reading "Bhowani Junction" by John Masters tonight. Masters was a British officer of the Indian Army and later a novelist who mostly wrote novels set in India as well as a three volume autobiography, the first two parts I picked up along with a few of his other books all in one go. I love library book sales. The two volumes are Bugles and a Tiger (1956) and Road Past Mandalay (1961) plus I got a few more of his novels which I haven't got round to reading yet.

Have you read any of George Macdonald Fraser's 'Flashman' novels. The first of about 8 or 9 is simply called 'Flashman.' The Hero, Harry Flashman a junior British army officer is banished in disgrace to India and then Afghanistan in 1842. Flashman is a bully , liar, thief, cheat, womanizer and all round cad and coward. But he somehow hilariously survives, somehow is a hero and somehow is immensely likeable. One can read the novels in any order but this one should be first because it establishes the character.

Fraser is a fine writer with intimate and detailed knowledge of military history. His description of this first Afghan war has more than a few echos in the current conflict.

Wiki has a pretty decent article on the Anglo Indians.
 
Have you read any of George Macdonald Fraser's 'Flashman' novels......: Fraser is a fine writer with intimate and detailed knowledge of military history. His description of this first Afghan war has more than a few echos in the current conflict.

Someone else here put me on to Flashman a few months ago and I picked up almost all of them off of Thriftbooks. I've read almost all of them and loved them without exception. Fraser's a wonderful writer and I love his sense of humor and the way he pictures Flashman as such a coward and a bully and always out to save his own skin above all else and yet still you like him. And the history he weaves in - I actually did learn a tremendous amount from those books. I don't think I have a favorite, every single one of them is good.

Fpr those not in the know, "Flashman" was the evil bully in "Tom Brown's Schooldays", by Thomas Hughes, a novel about life in an English Public School in the second half of the nineteenth century. Flashman is a minor character in the novel but Fraser has taken him and written an entire series (The Flashman Papers) about his life.

While I was at it, I picked up "The Complete McAuslan" and "Quartered Safe Out of Here", both of which my ex-military partner enjoyed far more than I did. The last one is biographical, Fraser's served as a nineteen-year-old soldier in the British army’s campaign against the Japanese in Burma.

51pRJWeJO5L._AC_US218_.jpg
51xU9BPvSkL._AC_US218_.jpg
51vU8RF3F3L._AC_US218_.jpg
512Qs-kdA0L._AC_US218_.jpg
 
Last edited:
Why you shouldn't believe anything (as in nothing) you read in the New York Times or the "WaPo." Basically, they're either hopelessly uninformed or they're dishonest. There is no other possible explanation.
Read all about it:

Being as it's hilarious me saying this, no current politics please. There's a whole other board for that.
 
This week...

For informaiton...
The Emotions Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi

For fun...
I just finished The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins and am starting The Great Pursuit (the sequel) tonight.

For the kids...
Robots Rule by CJ Richards

For Education, information, the kids and because I hate the school reading program...
Making Sense of Phonics by Isabel Beck, PhD & Mark Beck, JD MEd

On Lit...
The Mountain by DreamCloud
re-reading: Worlds Apart by secretsxywriter
 
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

and

Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian by Paul Knitter
 
WASHINGTONS SECRET WAR by Thomas Fleming.

A sad and embarrassing account of Valley Forge.

Lafayette was 20 years old and sent here to be rid of him in Paris. The rest came here to depose Washington and use the army to capture Canada from the Brits. The Congress and American officer corps were hostile to Washington. But he was big andunafriad of sissies.

One of my ancestors was at Valley Forge. Its documented. Thomas Bond was an MD, 65 at the time and retired. But a monument in the history of medicine and science.
 
WASHINGTONS SECRET WAR by Thomas Fleming.

A sad and embarrassing account of Valley Forge.

Lafayette was 20 years old and sent here to be rid of him in Paris. The rest came here to depose Washington and use the army to capture Canada from the Brits....

I just looked that one up and it looks fascinating. Added it to my list for the next order along with a bio of John Paul Jones and another one on John Adams.
 
George McDonald Frazer ? Oh definitely !
Especially the McAuslan stories.


On Lit? Jonas Agonistes, by Malraux,
 
George McDonald Frazer ? Oh definitely !
Especially the McAuslan stories

I'm working my way thru Flashman, reading the complete series book by book and loving them. Just wonderful the way he interweaves real people and history to give you that "inside" picture. Hilarious and I've learnt so many obscure bits and pieces already. McAuslan I have skimmed thru but my partner grabbed it from me.
 
Fleming publishes lotsa history books.

I'd never heard of him before. Added to my list now. Thanks.

Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield - At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history--one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale....

Fire from Heaven - Mary Renault - This is the first volume of Mary Renault's trilogy on Alexander the Great, the other two being "The Persian Boy" and "Funeral Games". She's a wonderful writer.

Other Men's Flowers - Lord Wavell - Lifted this from my partner's book collection to read. Wavell was the commander of the British Army in the Middle East and Africa in 1940-1941. and this collection is all poems he memorized - and I'm just in awe of anyone who could do this. The title is from Montaigne's essays-"These are other men's flowers, only the string that binds them is mine own." Still working my way through this one - an interesting peek into one aspect of a great man's mind.

51o9d63lxjL._AC_US218_.jpg
51x4jB17J2L._AC_US218_.jpg
51JwldHQGwL._AC_US200_.jpg
 
Back
Top