Kathleen wrote:
> Mr. Joseph Littleshoes Esq. wrote:
>
>
>> I didn't think much of Walton's "The Complete Angler" or "Zen and the
>> Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." And Kerouacks "On the Road" was only
>> slightly better.
>
>
> I didn't like any of the above, although I was told that I was supposed to.
>
> I read through Hemmingway's stuff by the time I was 10 - it was in the
> living room bookcase. At that point, nobody had told me what ultimately
> became of the man. Based on his writing alone, I thought that there was
> something seriously wrong with him. I was right. Don't even get me
> started on Salinger...

I never found a Hemmingway story that i actually enjoyed reading. But
im very fond of Norman Mailer, his "Ancient Evenings" is a favorite and
i think his Harlots Ghost very underrated.

A lot of male writers works are so fraught with heterosexual angst that
i find them utterly boring, the exception being The Rosy Crucifixion by
Henry Miller. His hetrosexism is as boring as any other guy's but
beautifully written, very nostalgia inducing now a days.

>
> I am an insatiable, omnivorous reader.

Me too, i joke about being an Bibliomanic but its probly closer to truth
than any joke.

> Put it in ink, leave it where I
> can reach it and it will get read. But I always wonder why some things
> wind up deemed "classics", how they end up as required reading in high
> school or college? Who decides these things?

Committees?

>
> Personally, I would get naked for Mark Twain or Terry Pratchett
> (assuming the one wasn't dead and the other afflicted with rapid onset
> Alzheimer's).
>

There are lots of authors i could mention, and various works i could
recommend, Dune by Herbert is probly my favorite Sci Fi novel, but
Adiamante by Modieste is about tied with it. It has its own Wiki page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adiamante

The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley is a nonhetrosexist love story.
With, at the risk of being a spoiler, a 'happy ending.'

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell i consider very well written.
The Ghormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake - "the immemorial stones
brooding in umbra" is just about the finest use of the English language
that i have seen.

Im very fond of reading biography and history, Longfords life of Queen
Victoria is a favorite. And while i would not recommend any of my
favorite authors works (though i could point out some poetry if your
interested), i would recommend his autobiography for the pleasure of a
very colorful and eccentric tale, "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley",
an "Autohagiography" the man could write, he just has a reputation for
writing what most people consider irrelevancies.
His lifestyle created a reputation that hovers over his writings,
obscuring them from a more general notice.

Even some of his technical writings that i wont mention by name are
superb, but because of the reputation he successfully cultivated as a
'bad boy' are little read to day, and even less, discussed seriously.

And don't even get me started on 'cook books' im the type that can read
a cook book for fun

Hmmmm.....theres an unofficial RFC web site, maybe there should be an
unofficial RFC "Book Club"?

With books and reading im like the French and their peas in the time of
the court of Louis XIV at Versailles (ever read the memoirs of the Duc
de Saint Simone? the letters of Mdm. de Servigny (sp?).

I love talking about them, thinking about them, discussing them,
regretting ones already 'consumed' and eagerly anticipating new ...
course one time i saw a list of signs that would indicate if your child
is on drugs and while i don't remember the specific details i do
remember 9 out of 10 of the signs of drug addiction i could apply to
myself about books, i have been known to spend excessive amounts of
money on them, prefer the books to real people, get depressed and with
drawn when i don't have books, get manic if i think im going to get
books & etc. etc. etc.
they have never induced suicidal tendencies in me but then i have never
been seriously deprived of them either
--
Mr. Joseph Littleshoes Esq.

Domine, dirige nos.
Let the games begin!
http://www.dancingmice.net/Karn%20Evil%209.mp3