The semester will be over in two more weeks, and I'll have an entire month with no required reading. I'll be greedily devouring those books that have been on my waiting list.
About five years ago, while on weather hold at the Denver airport, I purchased and read "The Twilight of American Culture" by Morris Berman. I'll be reading it again over the holidays. I highly recommend it.
Here is a summary from Google books:
A Prophetic examination of Western decline, The Twilight of American Culture provides one of the most caustic and surprising portraits of American society to date. Whether examining the corruption at the heart of modern politics, the "Rambification" of popular entertainment, or the collapse of our school systems, Morris Berman suspects that there is little we can do as a society to arrest the onset of corporate Mass Mind culture. Citing writers as diverse as de Toqueville and DeLillo, he cogently argues that cultural preservation is a matter of individual conscience, and discusses how classical learning might triumph over political correctness with the rise of a "a new monastic individual" -- a person who, much like the medieval monk, is willing to retreat from conventional society in order to preserve its literary and historical treasures. Any other good recommendations for holiday reading?
__________________
The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life. - Julie Beck
"Delights and Shadows" and "Flying at Night: Poems 1965 - 1985" by the previous US Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser.
It is poetry the way it is meant to be written and read that just makes you go "Woooow!" when you read it (or listen to it if you catch a replaying of his poetry reading UC-Santa Barbara a couple years back on UCTV), not the long-haired artsy-fartsy elitist "arteest" stuff and fluff or the stuff you had to wade through in high school / college english classes.
I even sent him a letter once thanking him for sharing his talent, and he (the Poet Laureate!) dropped me a personal note back!
If you didn't like poetry before, you will come to appreciate it better by reading his work. If you liked poetry before, you will be reinvigorated to find there are actually important poets still out there who still get what poetry is all about and write it for, to, and about the average person and their experiences.
__________________
It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
The last book I read that I really recommend is "Following Christ" by Stephen E. Robinson. I really am a terribly slow reader, and get frustrated by poorly written/unpurposeful writing. I often will read the first chapter of a book and then just get bored and leave it... I did go through a phase where I read a lot of history books... but recently I have not had a lot of interest in reading anything... though I've gotta finisht the Lemony Snickett series... just for the heck of it. :)
--Ray
__________________
I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
The last book I read that I really recommend is "Following Christ" by Stephen E. Robinson. I really am a terribly slow reader, and get frustrated by poorly written/unpurposeful writing. I often will read the first chapter of a book and then just get bored and leave it... I did go through a phase where I read a lot of history books... but recently I have not had a lot of interest in reading anything... though I've gotta finisht the Lemony Snickett series... just for the heck of it. :)
--Ray
You know, I used to equate slow reading with a lack of intelligence. But I came to realize that it doesn't mean that at all. My brother is one of the smartest people I know, and yet he is also a slow reader.
__________________
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
rayb wrote: I really am a terribly slow reader, and get frustrated by poorly written/unpurposeful writing.
--Ray
I admit it, I was captain of the debate team in high school. I learned to read really fast. Then I spent a year as a student announcer on KRIC at Rick's College I did the local news cutaways for Morning Edition. The station manager kept telling me I read the copy too fast on the air--slow down! Slow down! So now, even when I read silently, I read at about the same pace as reading aloud. Which means that I also have little patience for tedious writing (The Work and The Glory Series.)
__________________
The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life. - Julie Beck
I'm trying to read A Well Ordered Militia that someone over on Zions Camp wrote.
I think it's going to get intense in a good way (it is getting better). I'm just having a really hard time getting past the "babe" stuff (i.e. protagonist dating the girl and referring to her has "babe"), and the "he asked for and paid for he check" stuff to prove he's a "real man." It's just a tad too "Stan Lee" for me.
Also, I hate those stupid nicknames. Just call them their name, please. Arrow, Gringo. It's like they all grew up to coach BYU football or something. Gag me.
But the story sounds frighteningly plausible so far.
But if I don't get into it this week, I may not finish. I'm going to Salt Lake saturday to get a signed copy of Empire and Saints at the OSC book signing.
I'm more than halfway through Empire, and I think we could have a rousing discussion on that book here at Bountiful, seeing as how it is OSC's most political work to date.
The last book I read that I really recommend is "Following Christ" by Stephen E. Robinson. I really am a terribly slow reader, and get frustrated by poorly written/unpurposeful writing. I often will read the first chapter of a book and then just get bored and leave it... I did go through a phase where I read a lot of history books... but recently I have not had a lot of interest in reading anything... though I've gotta finisht the Lemony Snickett series... just for the heck of it. :)
--Ray
I actually just finished reading "The End" of the Lemony Snickett series. I love how creative and truly original it is.
__________________
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
— Oscar Wilde
Thank you all for the recommendations. Cat, I enjoy poetry, so when I'm at the library this week, I'll look for the Kooser selections you recommended.
The semester is over. I submitted two major research projects and completed three final exams this past week. I'm looking forward to three weeks without school. More time to devote to family, cooking, reading, and, of course, engaging topics at Bountiful
__________________
The ability to qualify for, receive, and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be acquired in this life. - Julie Beck
Neat roper! I hope to someday have my poetry published. That's a dream I've had since I was a teen, but it has not been realized yet, although I did have one included in the senior edition of our high school's magazine the year I graduated...
__________________
It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
glumirk wrote: I actually just finished reading "The End" of the Lemony Snickett series. I love how creative and truly original it is.
Gah! I thought it was annoying. I get the theme that nothing really has a beginning or end, so therefore you can't tell the ENTIRE story...but he just left too many things hanging. I wanted to see the sugar bowl, dagnabbit!
Umm...recommendations? Sophie's World, Fablehaven, Ship of Magic...
glumirk wrote: I actually just finished reading "The End" of the Lemony Snickett series. I love how creative and truly original it is.
Gah! I thought it was annoying. I get the theme that nothing really has a beginning or end, so therefore you can't tell the ENTIRE story...but he just left too many things hanging. I wanted to see the sugar bowl, dagnabbit!
Umm...recommendations? Sophie's World, Fablehaven, Ship of Magic...
See, that's the thing...the sugar bowl leaves room for more books by him. I'm guessing he may become like the next Madeline L'lengel, writing many series of different stories that all surround similar objects, most likely VFD and the sugar bowl. That's what I'm hoping for anyway. I don't want him to have any reason to stop writing.
Or maybe he just wrote himself into a whole and created the no beginning, no end theory to cover up his mistake. We also don't understand what his relation to the whole story is. I have a feeling we'll find out some day.
__________________
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
— Oscar Wilde
I learned to read really fast. Then I spent a year as a student announcer on KRIC at Rick's College 
I did the local news cutaways for Morning Edition. The station manager kept telling me I read the copy too fast on the air--slow down! Slow down! So now, even when I read silently, I read at about the same pace as reading aloud. Which means that I also have little patience for tedious writing (The Work and The Glory Series.)
