rebeccad
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Writing like a maniac
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Post by rebeccad on May 3, 2019 19:13:34 GMT -8
Welcome back from your own Real World adventure! I'm reading The Forgotten 500 by Gregory Freeman right now. It's about the rescue of several hundred airmen whose aircraft were shot down over Yugoslavia in 1944-45. Before that, I read In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides. It's very well written and told. You might enjoy To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey. I like it a lot. I am sucker for exploration tales and epistolary novels. This is both. I’ve read the first 2 and enjoyed them. I’ll have to check out the third. zeke: Aw, gee, thanks!
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Post by Campfires&Concierges on May 8, 2019 16:12:14 GMT -8
The irony of becoming a writer is that I hardly have time to read anymore, but I've been making more of an effort lately. Just finished two really good books that are Southwest themed: Navajos Wear Nikes by James Krisotific - I saw this for sale several places on the Navajo Reservation last year, didn't realize until I picked it up that it's written by a white kid who grew up on the rez. amzn.to/2YgLtTeHouse of Rain by Craig Childs - probably my favorite book by Childs that I've read so far. It took me several months to read it, but I found it fascinating. amzn.to/2JriLe9Just started Twilight of Empire: The Tragedy at Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs - after a recent trip to Austria, I'm curious to learn more about the Habsburg Empire amzn.to/2LGaJk6
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BigLoad
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Pancakes!
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Post by BigLoad on May 8, 2019 20:14:31 GMT -8
House of Rain by Craig Childs - probably my favorite book by Childs that I've read so far. It took me several months to read it, but I found it fascinating. I found it fascinating and informative as well, and it's still my favorite of his books. However, there are a few areas where he departs from generally accepted interpretation. Also the experience he described of a rainstorm in Chaco Wash is something that simply couldn't have happened that way. Some of the big honchos at Chaco had unpleasant reactions on that point.
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Post by graywolf on May 19, 2019 9:01:26 GMT -8
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey Thanks for mentioning this book. Because you did I downloaded it from Kindle and just read the first page and I'm hooked already.
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Post by plaidman on May 19, 2019 20:26:58 GMT -8
Glad you're enjoying it. Her voice is like music in a different key--one I find both refreshing and a little mysterious.
I'm about a third of the way into The Overstory by Richard Powers. I like it well enough to mention here. It's called a novel. Maybe I'm dense, but so far, I think it's more of a collection of short stories with a tree motif.
Update: I finished The Overstory last night. The plots did become intertwined and merged, and the book held my attention to the end, but I can't really recommend it. Despite some interesting characters and nice pantheistic imagery, it's both preachey and a real downer on multiple fronts, not the the least of which is a visceral reliving the atrocities Charles Hurwitz perpetrated through his Maxxam Group and Pacific Lumber.
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trinity
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Post by trinity on May 21, 2019 12:13:09 GMT -8
Just finished The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. Stunning. Not a practical writing guide, but a series of reflections, many of them based in the natural world, on what the life of a writer is like. Her writing inhabits that grey area between prose and poetry that I love so much. She is one of my favorite writers ever.
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Post by trail126mt on Jun 2, 2019 19:56:07 GMT -8
Anything by Jim Corbett. Jungle Lore is good as well as the Temple Tiger.
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foxalo
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Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent.---Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
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Post by foxalo on Jun 3, 2019 12:09:06 GMT -8
It
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Post by catonsvillebill on Jun 6, 2019 14:28:07 GMT -8
Jefferson The Art Of Power, nu Jon Meachum. Not a straight biography, but a study of how Jefferson influenced events and indeed controlled events.
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trinity
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Post by trinity on Jun 8, 2019 16:15:53 GMT -8
I just finished Upstream, by Mary Oliver. Predictably awesome. She is one of my favorite poets,and her prose is just as gorgeous, beautiful and heartbreaking. I love her willingness to gaze unflinchingly at the natural world, in all it's glory and savagery. "I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple."
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swiftdream
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the Great Southwest Unbound
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Post by swiftdream on Jun 8, 2019 16:38:46 GMT -8
I just finished Upstream, by Mary Oliver. Predictably awesome. She is one of my favorite poets,and her prose is just as gorgeous, beautiful and heartbreaking. I love her willingness to gaze unflinchingly at the natural world, in all it's glory and savagery. "I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple." I have that bookmarked on your recommendation for my Kindle app now. She is an amazing author. I keep one of her poems always close everywhere I go including the wilderness. The Summer Day - 1990 Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
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trinity
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Post by trinity on Jun 8, 2019 17:12:33 GMT -8
The Summer Day - 1990 Mary Oliver Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? So awesome.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Jun 8, 2019 18:39:57 GMT -8
I just finished "About a Mountain", by John D'Agata. It's a book-length essay about Yucca Mountain, public and governmental ignorance about nuclear waste, and Las Vegas culture. The last element tended to dominate at the end, especially regarding the disproportionate suicide rate.
It was a a quick and engaging read, but it only skimmed the surface of the topics it covered and didn't reach any conclusions about any of them. It strongly implies that Yucca Mountain couldn't possibly meet the technical objectives for long-term disposal, which is most likely true, at least as that disposal was initially conceived. I wish it had gone into greater depth on one or all of the topics.
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Post by Michael on Jun 18, 2019 18:43:24 GMT -8
Just finished "Hiking the Florida Trail" by Johnny Molloy, a chronicle of his mostly solo through hike south to north in, I think, 2008. Great writing, felt at times I was slogging through the swamps with him. Not so much about gear, but his insights into the experiences, the environment and conditions, and the encounters on the way. A good and thorough account of what such an undertaking entails.
Regards Michael
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schlanky
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Lead singer, driver of the Winnebago
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Post by schlanky on Jun 19, 2019 15:45:59 GMT -8
I've run into him on the Pinhoti in Alabama a couple of times. Nice guy.
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