Let's Talk Books

[Roadblock7611]

Anyone in here like to read? I did a search for old threads for books and didnt find anything. So here's my question. What is everyone Currently Reading? If nothing, then what is your favorite book? I have finished 2 books in the past week. "The Sex Lives of Cannibals" by J. Maarten Troost and "Glitz" By Elmore Leonard. Both of these books were Excellent. I just started reading "The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover" By Kinky Friedman.

On the Topic of TG books, I recently read two books by Ed Wood. It seems after the Glen or Glenda movie he wrote a few books connected with it where Glen/Glenda turns into a hitman and kills people while in drag. Has anyone read any good Fiction along the lines of TG/TS?


Also If anyone would like to trade some books I have Plenty. Hit me up.

[TomSelis]

I just finished reading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy. Very beautiful language, very violent, but very good.

Tommorrow, I'm going to pick up "The DiVinci Code" just because.

[Quinn]

Lately, I’ve been reading more political, historical, and economic works than usual. Currently, I am rereading the following works:

1. Tomorrow’s Gold: Asia’s Age of Discovery, by Marc Faber. Tomorrow’s Gold is a detailed analysis of global economic trends that focuses heavily upon Asia’s rise.
2. Africa: A Biography of the Continent, by John Reader. Reader’s book is probably the most detailed work I have ever read on Africa’s history. The first half is a bit heavy with anthropology, etc., but the second half is really interesting and focuses more on historical studies.
3. Can Asians Think: Understanding the Divide Between East and West, by Kishore Mahbubani. Written by an internationally renowned diplomat from Singapore, this work studies Asian political and cultural perspectives.
4. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Not all of this is a reread because there are a number of obscure poems, etc., that I have never read.

-Quinn

[Ecstatic]

On my nightstand of late:

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (for the nth time)

The Hurdy Gurdy Man: The Autobiography of Donovan

Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook - Raven Kaldera

The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching - Thich Nhat Hanh

[AllanahStarrNYC]

What am I currently reading?

Bette Davis By Ross Mosely

Confessions of A Pretty Lady by Sandra Bernhard

and

Running With Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs

WHICH IS A MUST IF U WANT TO LAUGH PAGE TO PAGE

[chefmike]

If you like edgy, suspenseful fiction (with historical characters thrown in), try James Ellroy. He authored L.A. Confidential and The Black Dahlia, among many others.

[LAtoNY]

check out "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Krakauer (author of "Into Thin Air").

[Harrys Boy]

nobodies mentioned the bible yet

[Copenhagen]

Being a 27 year old gang member in southern los angeles i read alot of Tookie Williams.

[Copenhagen]

Oh, you must mean his kids book. Its an advanced course i was reading, "eliminate your rivals, and increase freebase cocaine profit margins." Good stuff.

[Ecstatic]

Well, you'd have to qualify the reference: the Tanakh (Jewish Bible, referred to as the Old Testament by Christians); the New Testament (but then there are many variations, from the Gnostic to the Mormon, though most Christian sects accept the official canon established by ecumenical council in the 4th century CE, which left many books out as apochryphal and rejected as heretical, such as the Gospel of Thomas); or any of various secular versions, which include the Book of Mormon. And that's not to mention the question of translation and interpretation. So there really isn't any one, definitive book called The Holy Bible, except as accepted by the faithful of any given sect.

Personally I find a few books, such as Job, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs, of interest.

[Harrys Boy]

isnt the king james version the official bible?

[Buddy Wood]

I read and reread Charles Bukowski. Tales of Ordinary Madness is a good one if you haven't read his stuff. Short stories. He's the best.

Buddy

[Copenhagen]

Arriana, My posts have been brief. Don't you think its a stretch to make a counter point by referring to any other gang leader when i am citeing the only one in the current news? I mean if you want me to go there i will. I agree the guy is equally a scumbag. His current circumstances are alot different. So anyways, if you want me to address more points i will.

[Roadblock7611]

isnt the king james version the official bible?

The King James Version of the bible........ Official.....Yeah I guess you could say its the translation that most everyone uses. It shoudnt be called the king james translation now though since the roman catholic church has edited the shit out of it over the years. Also alot of Christians would probably freak if they did any research on King James and found out he was a Necromancer and an avid student of Black Magic. he translated such scrolls for his research of the Kabala. The parables everyone says are bullshit and false history are actually encoded messages used by the students of Kabala. Years later when teh Roman Catholic was at the pinnacle of its dictatorship alot of te origninal texts were edited and now its useless as such a tool.

[Roadblock7611]

Arriana, My posts have been brief. Don't you think its a stretch to make a counter point by referring to any other gang leader when i am citeing the only one in the current news? I mean if you want me to go there i will. I agree the guy is equally a scumbag. His current circumstances are alot different. So anyways, if you want me to address more points i will.


If you wanna talk about his books have at it. If you wanna address more points about his Current Circumstances theres a Thread for just that here:

http://www.hungangels.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=5777

This thread is about Books.[/url]

[BeardedOne]

If you like an odd laugh, try the works of Tom Sharpe, a couple of which were turned into BBC miniseries.

The ones that come immediately to mind are Blotte On The Landscape and The Throwback. Fun stuff.

[Sinister]

"Behold a Pale Horse" by William Cooper (must read if your into the whole illuminati, conspiracy theory type of thing)

E.A.R.L.: The Autobiography of DMX by smokey d. fontaine

Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (def worth picking up) by jeff chang

Our Name is Melancholy: The complete books of Azrael by leliah wendall

most of james patterson's work

A Clockwork Orange by anthony burgess

I wanted to list a couple of more but my mind is drawing a blank right now, i'll prob post later if i can remember them

[Ecstatic]

isnt the king james version the official bible?
Translations aren't official by definition. What's official is the canon, which can be (and is) differently defined by different religious sects. For instance, the term Old Testament makes no sense to Jews, because as far as they're concerned there is no New Testament; to them, the Bible is the Tanakh, which is more-or-less the same as the Old Testament of Christians (though organized differently). The word Bible itself is from the Latin for "little books", which in turn derives from the Greek for the Phoenician city of Byblos (the producer of the papyrus used for the Bible and other works of the time).

Most Christians accept the canon as defined by ecumenical council in the 4th century. Thus, what is official isn't the translation, but the books themselves. These books, organized into the Old and New Testaments, existed in Latin until the mid-16th century, when as part of the Protestant Reformation they were translated into vernacular English and German. The King James version--a beautiful, poetic, highly literary translation published in 1611 which alongside Shakespeare influenced the English language and literature ever since--became widely accepted among English-speaking Christians as the standard and is still widely read and circulated by the Gideon Society.

In the early 20th century the first real challenger to the King James appeared in English, the Revised Standard Version, which supplanted the King James as the standard in many denominations (for instance, the Methodists), and is in common use today. Catholics however use the Douay or Douay-Rheims, it being translated from the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome in 1582 (New Testament) and 1610 (Old Testament). Widely accepted among scholars in the latter half of the 20th century is the Jerusalem Bible. There are, of course, many more. Many translations into other languages have gone a circuitous route from Greek to Latin to English to another language.

[Harrys Boy]

i prefer the king james version to the revised standard version, mainly because it takes all the fun out of reading matthew.

[scipio]

isnt the king james version the official bible?
Translations aren't official by definition. What's official is the canon, which can be (and is) differently defined by different religious sects. For instance, the term Old Testament makes no sense to Jews, because as far as they're concerned there is no New Testament; to them, the Bible is the Tanakh, which is more-or-less the same as the Old Testament of Christians (though organized differently). The word Bible itself is from the Latin for "little books", which in turn derives from the Greek for the Phoenician city of Byblos (the producer of the papyrus used for the Bible and other works of the time).

Most Christians accept the canon as defined by ecumenical council in the 4th century. Thus, what is official isn't the translation, but the books themselves. These books, organized into the Old and New Testaments, existed in Latin until the mid-16th century, when as part of the Protestant Reformation they were translated into vernacular English and German. The King James version--a beautiful, poetic, highly literary translation published in 1611 which alongside Shakespeare influenced the English language and literature ever since--became widely accepted among English-speaking Christians as the standard and is still widely read and circulated by the Gideon Society.

In the early 20th century the first real challenger to the King James appeared in English, the Revised Standard Version, which supplanted the King James as the standard in many denominations (for instance, the Methodists), and is in common use today. Catholics however use the Douay or Douay-Rheims, it being translated from the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome in 1582 (New Testament) and 1610 (Old Testament). Widely accepted among scholars in the latter half of the 20th century is the Jerusalem Bible. There are, of course, many more. Many translations into other languages have gone a circuitous route from Greek to Latin to English to another language.

Not to mention the "Gnostic" gospels which were never included in the orthodox cannon after the council of Nicaea, but should (one would think) be every bit as valid to Christians as the "accepted" collection.

[Copenhagen]

The Greatest Generation by tom brokaw, 1998.

Very good read

[Ecstatic]

Precisely; I mentioned the Gnostic gospels briefly in my previous post.

[runningdownthatdream]

Lately finished:

The Napoleonic Age -Author: Christopher Herrold (Semi-biographical account of Napoleon's rule)

Pale Fire - Author: Vladimir Nabokov (Satire of the highest order)

The Quincunx - Author: Charles Palliser (Dickens-like tale in the Victorian Era)

The Idiot - Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky (Those crazy Russians!)

Foucault's Pendulum & Name of The Rose - Author: Umberto Eco (Forget DaVinci Code...Dan Brown is to Eco as Mother Goose is to Charles Perreault)

A Confederate General From Big Sur/Dreaming of Babylon - Author: Richard Brautigan (Bukowski's more conservative brother?)

Working on:

Decline & Fall of The Roman Empire - Author: Edward Gibbon
Middlemarch - Author: George Eliot
Pan Tadeusz - Author: Adam Mickiezwich

To the person working on the John Reader book....also try his "Man on Earth"......an excellent comparative study of 6 very diverse cultures.

[Roadblock7611]

Umberto Eco Is about as close as we get to God!

[Roadblock7611]

Ok well Maybe Joseph Campbell too.

[chefmike]

The Greatest Generation by tom brokaw, 1998.

Very good read

If you enjoyed that, I'm sure you'll like

Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot by Al Franken

Very good read

[Baran]

Ulysses by James Joyce.

[Ecstatic]

I somehow managed to earn my BA and MA in English without reading Ulysses in its entirety. ;)

[Ecstatic]

Finnegan's Wake if anything is harder. But I think the main point with either novel is not to read for comprehension or understanding, but simply for the tour-de-force of his writing. I've only read a very small part of FW, but I have read large chunks of Ulysses--I just never sat down to read the book, end-to-end. My favorite part is Molly Bloom's monologue, which I've seen acted by a brilliant young actress which brought a presence to the monologue reading never would.

Have you read any Joyce? The Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are excellent, short, and accessible, yet still have his powerful grasp of language. Personally, though, I prefer Virginia Woolfe for stream-of-consciousness stylings.

[runningdownthatdream]

LOL @ Eco being the closest we get to God....

Agree with you, Ecstatic. Some writers should be read for the beauty of their writing first and for content second. Although I'm not knocking Joyce's content at all since I have read very little of his works. What little I have read was extremely detailed so much so that it became a little tiring trying to keep up....the best thing is just to let the words wash over you......eventually it becomes easier and easier.....I find this particularly true of Victorian era books.....most writers (esp. Europeans) seemed to feel the need to use 100 words where 10 would have sufficed...although later writers like Hemingway and Graham Greene with their minimalist styles helped to change that.....

[Ecstatic]

Portrait is very good, Arianna, and gives you a decent sense of Joyce as a novelist. Dubliners is also very good, a collection of short stories making it even more accessible.

How about poets? Among my favorites are Blake, Wordsworth, Whitman, Dickinson, Snyder, Stevens, Tremblay, and Dylan (Thomas, that is, though the dude from Minnesota ain't half bad).