I would say that the lure is that it is easy to read, no work involved. "Good books" as you use it here means working to get the meaning.
yeah.
plus I have this dumb irrational belief that, once I have the book, the contents are somehow mine....
doh
Is "dumb (used in the sense of stupid) and irrational beliefs" a phrase containing a redundancy?
Literary Archaeology.
I was in Amazon's site just then - and, as per usual, I had a look at what they recommended for me.
It made me think of the footprints of our personalities that we leave littererd around by our browsing and buying habits.
What would an e-archaeologist of the future make of YOU?????
Here is a rather hilarious snap-shot of who Amazon thinks I am - skewed, of course, by what I look up in the portal, and by my buying my fiction here!
1. The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life
by Daniel N. Stern
2. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill
by Ron Suskind
3. Plan of Attack
by Bob Woodward
4. Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush
by John W. Dean
5. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
by Steve Coll
6. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush
by Kevin Phillips
7. Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror
by Anonymous
8. The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness
by Antonio R. Damasio
9. HOLDING TIME
by Martha G. Welch (Author), Mary Ellen Mark
10. Adopting the Hurt Child: Hope for Families With Special-Needs Kids : A Guide for Parents and Professionals
by Gregory C. Keck, Regina M. Kupecky
11. Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
by Sherrie Eldridge
12. Theraplay : Helping Parents and Children Build Better Relationships Through Attachment-Based Play
13. Parenting With Love and Logic : Teaching Children Responsibility
by Foster W. Cline, Jim Fay
14. The Healing Power of Play: Working with Abused Children
by Eliana Gil
15. Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex
by Richard A. Warshak
16. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
by National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
17. A General Theory of Love (Vintage)
by Thomas Lewis, et al
18. Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are
by Joseph Ledoux
19. House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties
by Craig Unger
20. A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development
by John Bowlby
21. My Life
by Bill Clinton
22. Custody Chaos, Personal Peace: Sharing Custody With an Ex Who's Driving You Crazy
by Jeffrey P. Wittmann, Jeffrey P., Ph.D. Wittman
23. THROUGH THE EYES OF CHILDREN
by Janet R. Johnston, et al
24. LifeBooks : Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child
by Beth O'Malley
25. Joint Custody With a Jerk: Raising a Child With an Uncooperative Ex
by Julia A. Ross, et al
26. A Terrible Thing Happened - A story for children who have witnessed violence or trauma
by Margaret M. Holmes, et al
27. Dandelion on My Pillow, Butcher Knife Beneath
by Nancy Thomas, et al
28. Trauma and Recovery
by Judith Herman MD
29. The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment
by Babette Rothschild
30. What About the Kids? Raising Your Children Before, During, and After Divorce
by Judith S. Wallerstein, Sandra Blakeslee
_______________________________________________
Makes me look a very solemn, serious person indeed, eh?
The thing is, I already own Nos. 2 and 28, and am reading 29 and the Bowlby - so I guess all is not absolutely wrong!
How about you>
dlowan wrote:Good - good times - hafta apologise to Wildclickers though - I thought I would be able to get in to do that - realised I had left my team clicking url at home - tried to get into Abuzz to ask Beth to send it to me in an email - couldn't get Abuzz to let me in from another person's computer - grrrr - hey, you be in Canadia?
Wotcha up to - read any Canajun books?
I finally DID get the Singer book on Bush - plus another challenging modern thinking on psychosis - a short history of the world (for arguing with Setanta!) - a book on latest research re genes vs nurture.....
An a crap mystery novel - which is the one I am reading - grrrrr......WHAT is the lure of crap vs good stuff?
Fun?
Canajun books eh...I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but you might want to check out Susan Swan's 'The Wives of Bath' and anything by Barbara Gowdy, especially her collection of short stories, 'We So Seldom Look on Love'. Both writers use very strange characters to make some very relevent points on universal themes.
My recommendations are really quite weird; mostly books written by sociopaths...
Jill
by Philip Larkin
Collected Poems: Philip Larkin
by Philip Larkin
Required Writing : Miscellaneous Pieces 1955-1982 (Poets on Poetry)
by Philip Larkin
The Chicago Manual of Style
by University of Chicago Press Staff
Lolita (Vintage International)
by VLADIMIR NABOKOV
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel
by Susanna Clarke
Middlesex: A Novel
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Crossing the Water
by Sylvia Plath
Gaudete
by Ted Hughes
Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry
by John E. O'Neill, Jerome R. Corsi
Why would Swift Boat veterans interest me? -- The mind boggles.
Which ones are the psychopaths, Drom??? Do you like Larkin, or not?
I think Ted Hughes badly done by the more extreme literary feminists...but I think we already discussed this.
I have read one Barbara Gowdy, Cav - The White Bone, or somesuch...about elephants.
Tell me about The Wives of Bath????
What is your Amazon archaelogical imprint, Cav - if you wish to share?
Well, there are no psychopaths; but everyone whom I know from that list is a little bit mental, in their own special way...
I do like Philip Larkin, though I find him oft repetitive; how about you? I studied him for my 'A' levels, long ago. I'm in the middle of writing something to show that he wasn't exactly always miserable. I think that 'Love songs in age,' 'An Arundel Tomb,' and 'Aubade' are some of my favourite poems ever. I don't like much of 'High Windows,' though; it's a real disappointment after having read 'The Whitsun Weddings.'
From the book cover: "In The Wives of Bath, Susan Swan penetrates the world of a girls' boarding school and tells a story - at once shocking and wickedly funny - that encompasses rebellion and murder, and stunningly evokes the pain, confusion, and humour of female adolescence and sexual coming-of-age.
It is 1963. Mary Bradford (a.k.a. Mouse) is thirteen when she is shipped off to Bath Ladies College. Mouse, motherless, a hunchback, enters the school feeling very much on its margins, determined never to fit in with the "normal" girls, never to succumb to the expectations of the elder role models: the spinster teachers, the elegant mothers of her schoolmates. She chooses her allies carefully: her hump, whom she calls Alice, and john F. Kennedy, to whom she writes long letters asking and giving advice.
But the school itself is stranger than Mouse ever could have imagined. A secret underworld of tunnels beneath the buildings, stolen love letters, King Kong worship, and ghostlike apparitions - a world where young girls sometimes refuse to be simply "good little girls" - all lead Mouse into experiences, both terrifying and exciting, of an alternate reality for her sex. What begins as experimentation spins out of control, ending in a death that only Mouse can fully comprehend.
Susan Swan has created in Mouse Bradford - wise, witty and vulnerable - an unforgettable heroine. The Wives of Bath is a novel that both moves the heart an astonishes the imagination."
It's a good read. Do not do not do NOT however see the movie 'Lost and Delrious', which was supposedly based on this fine novel. It's horrible.
As for the amazon archealogist, he would probably think I was a dinosaur, as I've never bought a book online in my life. I ordered two cds once, but I think that's it.
Well well indeed. It's a fine book! Very entertaining.
Hey!
Dictionary com finally sent me a word I didn't know. How cool is that!!!
fatidic \fuh-TID-ik\, adjective:
Of, relating to, or characterized by prophecy; prophetic.
Eat my dust.
Now - where am I gonna use it?
Use your fatidic faculty .........
something about chubby idiots...
No, li'l puppy - 'tis about prophecy...
not fat idiots or the idiocy of a fat when outside looking in ?
I was pretty much absolutely sure I once saw a thread on A2K about "best opening lines" or something of the sort ... as in, best first sentences of a book.
Fascinating.
But - can't find it back.
Any of you Literature regulars happen to know what I'm talking about? (Or could it still have been on Abuzz?)
