Looking back over the reading list, what titles would you designate in the following personal categories:
1) Best book we've read
2) Best discussion we've had (that you can remember)
3) Unmitigated rubbish, won't ever read again
4) Book you never got around to but really do mean to read at some point
Here are my choices:
- The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
- Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer
- Anthem, Ayn Rand (the only one I banished from my bookshelf)
- True History of the Kelly Gang, by Peter Carey
Your thoughts?
6 comments:
1) Fool's Progress
2) Under the Banner of Heaven
3) Grendel
4) ???
You're calling Grendel crap? I thought it kicked ass! (admitedly I don't remember it well, though.) Interesting that you liked Fool's Progress so much. I'm a huge Abbey fan, but I seem to recall that one getting a mixed reception. Didn't Mullen basically hate it?
In fact, I was reading a little Abbey last night (a piece called "Gather at the River" that is not about the desert Southwest but instead, of all places, ANWR) and came across this passage that should basically cement Mullen's dismissal:
"Myself, I gave up fishing decades ago. Not so much on moral grounds--although I can see the point of animal liberationists when they argue that there is something unjust in fishing or hunting primarily for sport--but on account of sloth. I lack the diligence and industry to stand in one place for hours, casting and recasting, reeling in and reeling out, endeavoring to outwit a simple creature with a one-digit I.Q. and one-twentieth my body weight. In the time one man spends trying to catch one fish I have ascended a small mountain, explored five miles of river valley or probed to its secret heart a winding desert canyon."
1. Crossing to Safety or Biff
2. Angela's Ashes or Biff (whoch was not an official discussion)
3. In Open Spaces
4. Confederates in the Attic or was it A Confederacy of Dunces?
1. Enduring Love. Ian McEwan is @#$%ing brilliant.
2. Under the Banner of Heaven. Was this the discussion that included a threatened ass-kicking?
3. Anthem. This was before my time in terms of the club, but I've read the book, and I'm convinced that Ayn Rand is insane. As are her pseudo-gothy black clad minions.
4. Well. There are several I've missed.
Clark,
Your Abbey quote is about a man and a spin reel -- not fishing.
And Grendel was not crap, just a bit too much intellectual buffoonery for a spin off of another book I do not intend to pick up again -- Beowulf.
Brian
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