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Author Topic: The definition of optimism  (Read 3044 times)
TightEnd
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« on: April 21, 2018, 02:36:04 PM »

asking this and expecting the 20 questions to be answered

but if you don't try

(anyone still read?)
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« Reply #1 on: April 21, 2018, 03:39:30 PM »

I'll have a go. Am including plays I enjoy reading, though.

1. Jacobean drama (Jonson, Marlowe, Webster, Shakespeare)
2. Thunderball (Ian Fleming), Captain Scott (Ranulph Fiennes), and The Quantum Universe: Everything that Can Happen Does Happen (Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw)
3. Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
4. The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry
5. Sherlock Holmes
6. Toss up between Long John Silver in Treasure Islans and Mephistopheles in Dr Faustus. Silver it is. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
7. A play, years ago. Still needs work.
8. Great Expectations (John Mills one)
9. Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
10. Thomas Hardy
11. Chick Lit? Celebrity gossip mags? Can't say I read much of either. Hated with a passion Eric by Terry Pratchett.
12. Things Snowball by Rich Hall
13. Can I have Ian McKellen's Richard III?
14. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
15. I don't read anything I don't expect to like. At school, I had no choice. Handmaid's Tale was better than I expected.
16. Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
17. The Bible
18. Ian Fleming
19. PG Wodehouse. Every home should have them all.
20. Book, Tess of the D'Urbevilles by Thomas Hardy; series, Sherlock Holmes stories.
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TightEnd
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« Reply #2 on: April 21, 2018, 03:41:10 PM »

7. A play, years ago. Still needs work.

synopsis?
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Marky147
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« Reply #3 on: April 21, 2018, 03:41:34 PM »

1  - Biographies/Autobiographies
2  - Mark Howard's Ahead on the Flat
3  - Charlie & The Chocolate Factory
4  - Creed - James Herbert
5  - Jack Reacher
6  -
7  - Nope
8  - The Firm
9  - Steve Palmer's betting diary
10- John Grisham
11- Sci-Fi
12- The Wasp Factory
13- Time to Kill
14- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
15- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More
16- Not sure I've read any
17- No idea
18- Roald Dahl
19- Iain Banks
20- Prob the Jack Reacher books when I used to read a lot
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« Reply #4 on: April 21, 2018, 03:55:03 PM »

7. A play, years ago. Still needs work.

synopsis?

Characters from plays of the age compete in the first ever series of Big Brother in 1604.
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« Reply #5 on: April 21, 2018, 04:09:06 PM »

1. Autobiography
2. Terry Mc Dermott
3. Jaws
4. Eion Colfer Artemis Fowl series
5. Atticus Finch
6. Hannibal Lecter
7. Have written poetry.
8. Not seen a movie better than the book.
9. Richard Branson Losing my Virginity
10. Philip Pullman
11. Sci Fi
12. To Kill a Mocking bird
13. The Green Mile
14. To Kill a Mocking bird
15. Life of Pi
16. The Hobbit
17. Eichmann
18. Harper Lee
19. Philip Pullman
20. His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman 
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« Reply #6 on: April 21, 2018, 05:57:54 PM »

I shall have a crack at this. Weirdly, since discovering poker and sports betting my free time for reading has significantly decreased but it is something I always try and make time for and encourage my boys to do as well (when I can drag them off Fortnite).

1. Thriller, Horror, Humour..... I like variety more than anything.
2. A Feast for Crows; George RR Martin
3. The Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
4. The Necroscope Series by Brian Lumley
5. Patrick Bateman - American Pyscho; Brett Easton Ellis
6. The Wamphyri - Necroscope Series; Brian Lumley
7. Bucket list item - always felt I had a novel in me.
8. Trainspotting
9. Skagboys - Irvine Welsh
10. Irvine Welsh
11. Anything 'Romantic'
12. Filth by Irvine Welsh
13. American Psycho
14. Again ( children's book I read to my youngest son every night for 12 months!)
15. Several of Jeffrey Deaver's books. My wife is a huge fan and convinces me to read one every now and again and despite my doubts I always enjoy them.
16. Animal Farm by George Orwell
17. Origin of the Species
18. Darwin
19. Brian Lumley - overshadowed by King/Koontz etc but an excellent writer of horror in his own right.
20. The 'Trainspotting' world created by Irvine Welsh.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2018, 06:17:33 PM by HutchGF » Logged
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« Reply #7 on: April 21, 2018, 06:47:16 PM »

1. Favorite genre. Bio/autobiography, especially against the odds survival of any situation. ie poverty, illness, abuse, accident, kidnap, shipwreck, war, holocaust, ect ect...

2. Current book. Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon.
In the early seventies Ted spent four years riding a 500cc triumph Tiger through 45 countries. lots of people have done this sort of thing since, but Ted was one of the pioneers. He's a great writer too, one of those people you really live with as you read. Highly recommended. 

3. First book I remember loving. Five Fall into Adventure by Enid Blyton.
I read all the Famous Five books when I was a boy. Five fall into Adventure introduced a Gypsy girl, a tomboy named Jo, (Josephine). Gypsies didn't fare to well in literature of that period but Jo turned out to be a thoroughly good egg and became a staunch friend of the Five.

As an aside, when I was about 10 years old I saw in a paper-shop window an advert offering all 21 volumes of the Famous Five books in a hardback collection. I think the asking price back then was about a fiver, but it might as well have been a million quid as far as I was concerned. Never the less I took myself and my half-crown to the address and a posh bloke invited me into a big house.
There on a shelf, arranged in order were all the famous Five books.

"How much for one?" I asked.

"Oh I don't know, which one would you like?"

I ran my finger along the line until I came to the first one that I hadn't read.

"This one".

"How much do you have?"

"Half a crown".

"Well you can have that one for half a crown, but you have to promise to keep it clean and bring it back when your finished".

I promised immediately. When you live in a caravan, you don't keep books that you've read anyway. I bought the book and returned it a couple of days later. He returned my Half crown and I used it to buy the next in the series. pretty soon I'd read them all.

It wasn't until many years later that I realised what a lovely thing that posh gentleman did.




Blimey! This will take me ages at this rate.
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« Reply #8 on: April 21, 2018, 07:30:58 PM »

Agree about PG Wodehouse - probably the greatest* writer of parables ever - love his golfing tales.

*My favourite
« Last Edit: April 21, 2018, 07:32:49 PM by Karabiner » Logged

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« Reply #9 on: April 21, 2018, 10:57:43 PM »

1. Psychology
2. This https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/art-failure
3. The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band
4. It literally just has – fahrenheit 451
5. I don’t read enough fiction to say
6.  don’t read enough fiction to say
7. No
8. The Men Who Stare At Goats
9. 12 rules for life
10. Jon Ronson
11. Fiction
12. Freakonomics
13. Frank
14. Trust Me I’m Lying
15. Animal Farm
16. 1984
17. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
18. Orwell
19. Jon Ronson
20. The Unthinkable
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« Reply #10 on: April 21, 2018, 11:02:53 PM »

1. Favourite genre to read
It changes over time. Historical fiction has been quite a mainstay - with the more specific sub-genre changing. At the moment it's probably Historical Drama. I can recommend Bernard Cornwell's Fools and Mortals.
 Click to see full-size image.


2. Current book you're reading
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. I preferred the first of these (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind) because this one is somewhat more speculative about what could happen and using that as a way to comment on the current state of the species. But he writes really well (or has a really good editor if he doesn't), so I think I'd probably enjoy any topic he wrote on (roughly in his field of expertise at least).
 Click to see full-size image.


3. First book you remember loving
Bit tricky because I know I did love The Very Hungry Caterpillar when I was very small - but I don't 'remember' loving it. I have a terrible memory, the first books I actually remember loving were the Choose Your Own Adventure books (I definitely can't remember a specific one Smiley )

 Click to see full-size image.
 Click to see full-size image.

4. A book/series you wish would be adapted to film
A few, probably mostly the Rift War series by Raymond E Feist.


5. Favourite protagonist
Hard question, will probably change regularly but I guess Thursday Next from Jasper Ffordes 'Thursday Next' Series.
 Click to see full-size image.



6. Favourite antagonist
... I really can't think of one; plenty of books have well written antagonists but I can't really think of any that really stand out enough to be 'special'.

7. Do you write any stories?
I have done. I co-wrote a pilot for Blackadder 5 when I was at school (it was City/stock market based) it had some good gags in it is probably the best that could be said. I wrote a short story for  my wife, but it was very tailored to her likes so wouldn't 'travel' well. But mainly I've had ideas and cba to do anything about them - even the short story I wrote for my wife I plotted out as a trilogy but never got around to writing the 2nd and 3rd one.

8. A movie you think was better than the book
I've seen at least one film where I thought it was better than the book, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was.

9. Best book you've read this year
The Romanov's by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Really good book on that (large) part of Russian history.
 Click to see full-size image.


10. One of your favourite authors
Jasper Fforde

11. Least favourite genre to read
Difficult to say, maybe epistolary novels, but even that is arguably more of a style rather than a genre.

12. A book you'd recommend to a friend
It would depend on the friend. For example, my wife and a few of her friends like Harry Potter a lot so I'd suggest the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch. But for other people I'd never recommend any fiction book - because it wouldn't help them.
So very much - it would depend on the friend.

13. Favourite film adaptation of a book
Difficult, I like a lot of books and a lot of films. Maybe Gone with the Wind, maybe Blade Runner; but they're both films I like which are also book adaptations. In terms of the process of adaptation my favourite would probably be Adaptation, even though that's a bit meta.


14. Book you've read the most times
Not sure, maybe Jane Eyre but it might be something like The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe because I haven't got a good enough memory to remember how many times I read it when I was younger.

15. A book you didn't expect to like
I don't read books unless I expect to like them. The only book I didn't expect to like at school was Of Mice and Men - and I didn't like it. So that's the sole answer.

16. Favourite classic book
Ulysses by James Joyce. It took me a couple of goes to get into it (the key was to be reading it in the right accent Cheesy ). But once I did get into it, I pretty much didn't stop until I finished.

17. Book that's impacted you the most
The Epigenetics Revolution by Nessa Carey. Nothing 'deep' or profound in the reasons, it just taught me a lot of science that I didn't know.
 Click to see full-size image.


18. If you could meet one author (living or dead) who would it be?
I've met a few authors and it's all nice and good if they do something like sign a book for you; but I'm not really that fussed about it. It would be quite nice to meet Bernard Cornwell, he seems like a nice chap. It would be nice to have dinner party conversation with Stephen Fry (I imagine); but I don't really 'care'. If I absolutely had to give an answer, I'd go with God.

19. An author you think more people should know about
I really like Ben Aaronivichs Peter Grant series of books, but as good as they are I'd still have to go for Jasper Fforde - his literary skills are pretty awe inspiring, and he's illustrated them over multiple book series (albeit thematically linked). It seems a bit mean to Ben Aaronvich given I like his books so much and that I've met him but he has to be relegated to second place in this question.

20. Favourite book / series of all time
Book: Ulysses by James Joyce
Series: at the moment the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde, but Ben Aaronvitches Peter Grant series could overtake it (I don't think they'll ever 'technically' be better - but they're just so goddam entertaining Smiley )
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« Reply #11 on: April 22, 2018, 09:13:40 AM »

1. Favourite genre to read

Dont have a favourite genre that i look out for. aside from thrillers and fantasy which i avoid, genre means nowt to me

2. Current book you're reading

i am not reading anything at the moment. a couple of years back i was 2-3 books a week. but i have rather fallen out of love with reading

3. First book you remember loving

my dad left a copy of confessions of an english opium eater on the kitchen table and it was the first time i fell in love with language being ornate, lovely for the sake of being lovely. previously i'd thought that words were simply there to drive a story along, or to convey meaning. this was a writer that turned his back on clarity and was wonderfully pretentious and at time opaque.

and a love letter to opium, what 16 year old wouldnt love such a book, innit


4. A book/series you wish would be adapted to film
urgh.

5. Favourite protagonist

the translator in everything is illiuminated.


6. Favourite antagonist



7. Do you write any stories?
poems, yes. stories, no.
i did write a story in school using the music of queen that is so scarily similar to the dross musical turned out by ben elton that i think he may have been scavenging the tip in birkenhead around 1996.

8. A movie you think was better than the book

American Psycho. for filming the unfilmable. had all the humour and satire without having to suffer the page upon page of prose that could have been lifted out of the GQ style section. and they NAILED the business card scene.

I love the book too btw

9. Best book you've read this year
N/A

10. One of your favourite authors

thomas pynchon. you can pick a book of his, open a random page and just let the words wash over you. a unique writer.

11. Least favourite genre to read

fantasy. terrible genre.

12. A book you'd recommend to a friend

depends on the mate.

13. Favourite film adaptation of a book

as above american psycho.

14. Book you've read the most times

gravity's rainbow by thomas pynchon. its where i lifted my user name. his books have wonderful character names: teddy bloat, tyrone slothrop, roger mexico.
its a beautiful book with the most extraordinary language. take the opening passage:

Quote
A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

It is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it's all theatre. There are no lights inside the cars. No lights anywhere. Above him lift girders old as an iron queen, and glass somewhere far above that would let the light of day through. But it's night. He's afraid of the way the glass will fall--soon--it will be a spectacle: the fall of a crystal palace. But coming down in total blackout, without one glint of light only great invisible crashing.

Inside the carriage, which is built on several levels, he sits in velveteen darkness, with nothing to smoke, feeling metal nearer and farther rub and connect, steam escaping in puffs, a vibration in the carriage's frame, a poising, an uneasiness, all the others pressed in around, feeble ones, second sheep, all out of luck and time: drunks, old veterans still in shock from ordnance 20 years obsolete, hustlers in city clothes, derelicts, exhausted women with more children than it seems could belong to anyone, stacked about among the rest of the things to be carried out to salvation. Only the nearer aces are visible at all, and at that only as half-silvered images in a view finder, green-stained VIP faces remembered behind bulletproof windows speeding through the city.

They have begun to move. They pass in line, out of the main station, out of downtown, and begin pushing into older and more desolate parts of the city. Is this the way out? Faces turn to the windows, but no one dares ask, not out loud. Rain comes down. No, this is not a disentanglement from, but a progressive knotting into--they go in under archways, secret entrances of rotted concrete that only looked like loops of an underpass

Certain trestles of blackened wood have moved slowly by overhead, and the smells begun of coal from days far to the past, smells of naptha winters, of Sundays when no traffic came through, of the coral-like and mysteriously vital growth, around the blind curves and out the lonely spurs, a sour smell of rolling-stock absence, of maturing rust, developing through those emptying days brilliant and deep, especially at dawn, with blue shadows to seal its passage, to try to bring events to Absolute Zero . . . and it is poorer the deeper they go . . . ruminous secret cities of poor, places whose names he has never heard . . . the walls break down, the roofs get fewer and so do the chances for light. The road, which ought to be opening out into a broader highway, instead has been getting narrower, more broken, cornering tighter and tighter until all at once, much too soon, they are under the final arch: brakes grab and spring terribly.

It is a judgment from which there is no appeal.

its a book that you can start on any page a simply enjoy for the love of the writing




15. A book you didn't expect to like

the first david lodge novel i read. it may have been 'thinks'. he writes comedic novels set in university campuses /academic life. was recommended by a friend. but there's not a book of his i dont enjoy.

16. Favourite classic book

crime and punishment.  read a fair bit of dostoevsky in my youth. he's a difficult read for sure, but certainly worth the effort.

he also wrote the most beautiful refutation of christian morality, it should be more widely known imo, so i'll inflict it on a poker forum:

Quote
If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? It's beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to enrich the soil for the harmony of the future? I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution, too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their fathers' crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension.

Some jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn't grow up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be when everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: 'Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.' When the mother embraces the fiend who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' then, of course, the crown of knowledge will be reached and all will be made clear.

But what pulls me up here is that I can't accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste to take my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child's torturer, 'Thou art just, O Lord!' but I don't want to cry aloud then. While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell?

I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. I don't want the mother to embrace the oppressor who threw her son to the dogs! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she will, let her forgive the torturer for the immeasurable suffering of her mother's heart. But the sufferings of her tortured child she has no right to forgive; she dare not forgive the torturer, even if the child were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare not forgive, what becomes of harmony? Is there in the whole world a being who would have the right to forgive and could forgive?

I don't want harmony. From love for humanity I don't want it. I would rather be left with the unavenged suffering. I would rather remain with my unavenged suffering and unsatisfied indignation, even if I were wrong. Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket."


17. Book that's impacted you the most

i've not had any life changing moment. but dawkins early pop science books certianly sparked my interest in science and gave me a new outlook on the world. but no one book has been massively impactful.


18. If you could meet one author (living or dead) who would it be?

i think it'd be a bit cringy to meet an author for 'worthy' reasons. but for the joy of hedonism my 20 year old self would most definitely have joined thomas de quincy down the rabbit hole of drug induced hallucination.

19. An author you think more people should know about
thomas pynchon

20. Favourite book / series of all time
Book: gravity's rainbow - thomas pychon
Series: never read a series

« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 09:21:26 AM by teddybloat » Logged
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« Reply #12 on: April 22, 2018, 10:15:58 AM »


2. Current book you're reading
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. I preferred the first of these (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind) because this one is somewhat more speculative about what could happen and using that as a way to comment on the current state of the species. But he writes really well (or has a really good editor if he doesn't), so I think I'd probably enjoy any topic he wrote on (roughly in his field of expertise at least).
 Click to see full-size image.



I almost put Sapiens in my book I recommend answer, while not the best book I've ever read it may be the most broadly interesting
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« Reply #13 on: April 22, 2018, 03:55:43 PM »

A book/series you wish would be adapted to film.

What an incredible film this would make





I read this book and decided that I wanted a merle lurcher, so I bought one. I reared it, trained it, loved it and, finally, shot it.



Anyone interested can read a few pages here.



https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Merle.html?id=fUmHxs3LirQC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false



Brian Plummer is the man who's ferret bit Richard Whitely's finger BTW.

« Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 03:57:24 PM by RED-DOG » Logged

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« Reply #14 on: April 22, 2018, 04:25:55 PM »

Favourite Protagonist.

Slavomir Rawicz.






Slavomir Rawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 19th November 1939 he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation he was sentenced to 25 years in the Gulags.....

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