(Hee Hee) - No need to shun you, your embarrassment is sufficient!

Howard,

Re: Twilight
I would say probably not, but that's not necessarily the case. A huge portion of the first novel (the only of the series that I have read) is about the budding relationship between Bella and Edward. I mean, a really sizeable portion of it is about that. There aren't many actions scenes at all.

The book's interesting aspects come from the characters and their interactions with each other, but there is a sizeable chunk of the book about Bella falling for Edward and his inability to deny his feelings, basically. It's the type of thing where you're probably better off finding other material for your eight year old. I don't think you'd kill me if you let your daughter read it, though. It's not overly sexualized, just once or twice "our lips touched for a moment" kissing. But a lot of the "falling in love" would probably be above an eight year old girl's range. (I'm comparing to my 10 and 11 year old sisters, who I think would just be understanding the bulk).

I'd actually recommend something like Hawksong before Twilight, for an eight year old girl. It was tamer in a lot of ways, but I suppose it has subjects of feuding war between the two "families." Shrug. I'll keep an eye out, but both of these books, personally, I wouldn't give until maybe ten years.

Apologies this is a poorly constructed response.

Re: R&G Are Dead.
I've seen the movie already. Outside of having read Hamlet about ten times and being somewhat familiar with postmodern literature, what would you recommend? I do like how R&G is postmodern I can dig, whereas Hamlet is obviously well-known for being modern lit.

I just finished Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer. I really enjoyed it. I could barely stop reading during the latter 1/3rd of the book where they are summiting Everest.

I find that Krakauer's writing style is overly stylized at times and I also think that his editor should tone down the vocabularly as a lot of "complicated" words that he choses add little value but immense distraction. Of course, that is only my opinion. I had the same complaint with Into the Wild.

Even though I criticize his choices overall he is very readable and the story is simply amazing. I am not sure if this was made into a movie or not, but it could be. I was shaking my head over and over again as I read this book; not as a judgmental admonishment of the decisions made, but in pure shock. Would I have done any different? I am completely unsure. Would I ever be there in the first place? Never. And that was one of the reasons that this book was so fascinating to me. I will never climb Everest and I found it very interesting trying to understand why people are motivated to climb it and the lengths they are willing to take to get to the top. The lack of morality that is required in pursuit of a single meaningless (in my mind) goal is incredible.

I also just finished Financial Statements: A Step by Step Guide and it was an easy quick read that does exactly what the title says. I want to better understand stocks and therefore found this very useful.

I don't know what I'm going to tackle next, but I have a big pile of books on my nightstand to chose from.

Does anyone else often mix up Jon Krakauer with Jack Kerouac?

I haven't read On the Road or Into Thin Air, so yes, I'm sure I've misconnected more than a few times.

I want to read both.

No, but sometimes I get Groucho Marx and George Orwell confused and start talking about Orwell's famous essay "Shooting an Elephant in My Pajamas."

BTW my dad climbed Everest and he likes to read Krakauer's books at Borders but wouldn't buy them.

The 'goal' of climbing a mountain might seem meaningless to you, but have you ever experienced a sustained adrenaline rush? The science of risk is quite fascinating.
It's not so much about the goals as it is about the process.

What is not meaningless in this life anyway?

That's subjective of course, but some people enjoy adventures and taking risks. Why does that entail lack of morality?

I don't think he meant it the way you're thinking of it.

I get that life is basically meaningless and I fight with this everyday as I do a job I don't enjoy simply for the money of it. I was trying to convey my inability to understand a person who will risk so much in pursuit of their goal. I know that I also failed to convey my admiration for the same people. I get "it", but I don't get "it", at the same time.

I think people who have climbed Everest are amazing. I couldn't do it and I find it somewhat inspiring.

My morality comment has nothing to do with all of that. People in the book walked past people they could help but if they stopped to help them they would not be able to climb the mountain, and so, they left them to die. Other similar decisions were made as well, and it is these things that inspired my morality comment. Nothing at all to do with the pursuit of a dream.

STILL reading War & Peace....

And just how did an elephant get in his pyjamas?

I was going to ask the same question. Have you found it an interesting read??

DB, sometimes I have to ask myself if other people's minds really work the way mine does too. You give me hope.

Either good for you or bad for him?

John, please be seated when you look at this spoiler. It's bad news, I'm afraid.

You might try Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven." Totally different subject matter, but quite interesting.

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

Jon, have you read this one?

no jackie. I haven't read that one either...

do I get any points for at least knowing about it? :-\


how was F 451?

Jacktay = 2

Jontsef = -1*

* penalized for attempting to bribe scorekeeper


Fahrenheit 451 was good, you should add it to your list to read. If you had to memorize only one book to prevent it's extinction, what would it be?

For any of you wondering how interesting this question is among a group of non-readers, I can tell you that it's not at all interesting. Sigh.

Probably some scientific or mathematical paper or book.

Are you interested enough to answer the question?

Any specific one?

I'm not sure if Newton or Einstein would be more important, or Crick & Watson(I think those are the guys) who discovered DNA. I'm also not sure if I'm even thinking of the question the right way -- would the knowledge really necessarily disappear if the books were gone? Some things are so thoroughly and broadly integrated into our world that the papers or books that laid them out could probably disappear without causing an irreversible loss. Since relativity is so tricky and probably thoroughly understood by comparatively very few people, maybe the specific theory of relativity. It's not what he won the Nobel for, but I'm kind of taking a shot in the dark here, as a non-scientist.

Of course. I am just currently trying to decide what it would be.