Well there's plenty more where that came from.

I'm reading The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker. I've read several of his books, U and I, The Mezzanine, and Vox, so I was favorably disposed going in. The narrator is a poet, something of a failed poet, who talks a lot about poetry. I am interested in the gossipy/historical stuff about other poets, but a lot of the technical stuff is going over my head. Still, it's an easy read, and although this guy's life is a little downbeat, Baker can always be scream-out-loud hysterically funny out of the blue. I like his playful imaginative approach to language.

This is exactly the way i feel with a lot of king books and with fantasy in general. I think he said at one point that all fantasy writers are essentially trying to recreate Tolkien. Although i disagree at face value I think hes onto something there. Its not like they want to recreate the characters or events of Middle Earth....we're just trying to keep it alive in various forms and versions. If its a cool world then i feel a little sense of loss when im done with the book whether i like the ending or not. King on the other hand is more like a long scenic stroll but then eventaully i just want to go home.

Would you believe that I have multiple female students reading books from the Plum series for their independent book reviews?

Had a ten day vacation...read a lot.
I tend to rate tougher than the amazon crowd.
Read and reviewed, in brief, in order:

Blindsight-Great scifi, thought provoking and original. A first contact story that brings up the question of why we evolved consciousness. Easily one of my favorite scifi books. 4.5/5

What we talk about when we talk about love. A good collection. Simple and dark but not uncomplicated. 3/5.

Lamb-I thought it was funny and an interesting idea but it dragged a bit. Many of Moore's jokes are trying just too hard or are too obvious. I struggled through the last 100 pages. 2.5/5

Zeitoun-Not Eggers best imo, falls short of What is the What but still very good. A side of the Katrina story I had been oblivious to. 3.5 or 4.

The Ascent of Money-Brief overview of financial history, a good text to accompany The Origin of Wealth. I felt the history stuff was interesting and well done; the attempt to tie it into a coherent thesis was uninspiring. Definitely worth reading for an overview of how we evolved such a complex financial system. Reviews the Rothschilds, John Law, Argentina, etc. 3.5.

The Blindside-3.5. enjoyable. Im not a huge NFL fan but I found both the story and the info on the position interesting. 3

The Nine-A bit wandering and watered down but great if you want to understand the personalities of the court and the underlying political battles. I found it highly interesting. 4.

It's time to knock off some classic literature. Picked up a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird at the used bookstore yesterday.

Mockingbird is one of the classics that I think absolutely deserves its acclaim.

I love the book too, but the "southern USA social injustice court drama" has since become a genre of it's own, so this book won't feel fresh to many readers today.

I told someone at work yesterday that I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird. His response:

"There's a little Boo Radley in all of us."

Rereading The Power of Body Language by Tonya Reiman

Just finished The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner. I'd always avoided Faulkner because that whole stream of consciousness thing seemed like a lot work. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it actually. I've picked up Absalom, Absalom! to read, but I'm going to knock off The Old Man and the Sea by Hemmingway first.

Going from Faulkner to Hemingway, or vice versa, is always fun. It's like getting out of a hot tub and jumping into a snowbank.

Yea, I was warned ahead of time. I may go back and forth for a while. But I'd like to get some feed back on Steinbeck. I heard wildly divergent things on if he is a considered much of an author. I'm told Europeans don't read Steinbeck--consider him a hack. Whereas Faulkner and Hemmingway get full marks. Can anyone from accross the pond confirm?

I doubt if more than 2-3% of Europeans would have any sort of an opinion on it. Never heard of Steinbeck being regarded as a hack. While his work perhaps isn't all that literary it has a lot to say about the human condition, which makes it great literature imo. Mice & Men and Grapes of Wrath are pretty well known in particular. Hemingway is read quite a bit here but Faulkner not so much.

n=1 disclaimer

I read both Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men) and Faulkner (A Rose for Emily) in school and Hemingway (The Old Man and the Sea) in my spare time.

Fwiw, I liked The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men -- enough to want to read one of his other books, East of Eden (havent actually read it yet). GoW was likeable because it focuses on an old farm family in it, and you become attached as they experience alot of woeful situations based off of real events from the dust bowl and the great depression.

Anybody have anything good or bad to say about Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms? I've never read anything by him but his short story, Hill's like White Elephants.

I loved For Whom the Bells Toll and The Old Man and the Sea is one of my favourite books ever but despite several attempts I've never managed to get through more than 20 pages of A Farewell to Arms.

A Farewell to Arms is pretty good imo; it drags a bit in the middle, and is maybe a bit less forceful than For Whom the Bell Tolls or even The Old Man and the Sea (that is, it seemed to me less angrily opinionated and/or insistent), but is still solid; probably closer to The Sun Also Rises than FWTBT, despite the subject matter.

started reading Niels Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money" - my knowledge of finance is woefully ignorant

If you haven't read almost all of Hemingway's short stories, you're missing out. Even people who talk down his novels often rave about his short stories.

hey fellow bookworms -- back in HS i read a short story by some poet, i believe. if i recall, it was W.B.Yates, or T.S.Elliot, or someone similar...

anyways, the story was about a scientist who was determined to "civilize the cowbird" and teach it to stop laying eggs in other birds' nests. his premise was that if the cowbird could be taught to create its own nest, the cowbird would be reformed.

well, the scientist became ill and bedridden and was despairing of seeing his life's work unfulfilled. his nephew took up the task, and began practicing making nests that mimicked other birds. after each nest he built, he took it to an ornithologist and asked him if it was an authentic nest. once he perfected the art of mimicking actual bird nests, he used a little creativity, added some cowbird feathers, and presented the "reformed cowbird nest" to his dieing uncle in the hospital.

the old scientist then was able to die in peace.

i found the story awesome because i had no idea what was going on until the final paragraph. does anyone know this story?

the book on basketball by bill simmons. simmons is as biased as it comes but he is funny as hell.

Never heard of it quick. Sounds pretty nifty though.

I still have no idea what's going on in that story. If there's a punchline, I guess it zoomed right over the top of me.

well, the uncle scientist had been wasting his life trying to train cowbirds to build nests. ( the best he'd gotten was one cowbird who arranged 4 toothpicks in a square. lol )

anywoo -- the nephew, in a pretense of taking over his Uncle's research, kept coming back to the uncle with good reports of the cowbirds' breakthrough progress, until one day, he brings in the completed cowbird nest ( that he had made ).

The uncle then could die in peace because his life's work had been fulfilled.
The nephew duped him for that purpose.