Quotations and Literature Forum

Alright, I know this was a post on the earlier board and I was just about ready to respond to it when the board went down for the change. Anyhow, the question was "what books are you reading?" and so my response is:

A Hitchhikker's Guide to the Galaxy
Nicholas and Alexandra (about the fall of the royals in Russia)
and selected short stories by Mark Twain

now then, I noticed that quite a few people had their masters degrees, and I was wondering as to what they're in?

Katina

My reading ( to date) in 02 includes the following books.

1) Survival Games
2) Wild (Stories of survival in the world's most dangerous places)
3) A Walk in the Woods
4) The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Times (In two lines or less)
5) The Sound and The Fury
6) The Summons

Presently, I am reading The Vegetable & Herb Expert by Dr. D.G. Hessayon

I am reading The Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain and falling in love all over again for the billionth time with Twain's inimitable wit and wisdom.

Where did you notice quite a few people have M.A.s, Katina? (I'm still getting my feet wet on the new board.) I have a doctorate in English Lit. What are you into?

I will add A Hithhiker's Guide to the Universe to my list of books to read in 2002. Right now I am reading the first draft of a chapter that I wrote. It is titled as The Trials & Arrows of Bows & Errors. It is one of many chapters in a collection of outdoor adventures that I am writing. I hope to publish this collection under the title of Red Oaks & Heartwood late in 2002.

Part I, Eastern Sky
Part II, The Red Leaves Trail
Part III, Sparks from a Hunters Fire
Part IV, Red Oaks & Heartwood

Founding Brothers, by Ellis.

Regards,
Lou

_________________
Regards,
Lou
I feel like a fugitive from th' law of averages.
— Bill Mauldin

Luna:

It was in the "what are you reading" section o fthe Literature forum right before the board was revamped--It was mostly like "while i was getting my masters, I was only reading the books my professor wanted us to read so now i'm reading what I like."

as for interests, I usually like American Civil War books, and I guess what would be considered Horror (Anne Rice, Steven King). I also like Historical books about people that I'm interested in (which is why I'm reading Nicholas and Alexandra). I also like true crime and forensics stuff (I love CSI and the version that's on TLC). I'm also in my second year of studying Civil Engineering (and my boyfriend is in Mechanical Engineering), so we like the shows on discovery and TLC about buildings and whatnot (I personally liked the show about "engineering the future" and we both enjoyed the "10 greatest human failures in history"--about how human error caused the distruction of man made structures)

Wow -- what are the 10 greatest human failures in history?

"It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is from among such individuals that all human failures spring."
-- Alfred Adler

The only ones I remember are Titanic, Chernoble (and how they handled it), the Marriot walkway collapse, and the breaking of the Hunan Dams in China.

k

Your mention of the Hunan Dams triggered my memory -- I saw that show, but have forgotten much of it and would like to see it (or read about it) again. However, I've been all over the Discovery.com Web site and can't find any info about it. If I'm remembering, it seems like all ten were in the 20th Century? Maybe it was a fin de siecle special.

Back to books . . . I'm looking forward to getting back to my Twain after some unavoidable intrusions on my contemplative life the last two weeks. From Essays and Sketches: " . . . almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them."

"The individual is a nation unto himself. "(I can't locate the source)

I am reading, Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer. Outdoor Adventure turns my crank. Some other titles in my proposed collection are listed as follows:

Faith, Hope and a Buck named Charity (deer hunting)
The Devil's Backbone (hiking/backpacking)
Rolling on the River (canoeing)
Premonition (trout fishing)
A Duck named Scoby (bass fishing)
Pole Cat Fever (trapping)
Fox Tales (fox lore)
The Jolly Mistletoe Hunt (seasonal)
The Ghost of Dawn (fly fishing)
Wings Field (sky diving)
Snow Walker (snow shoeing)

Let's see, here is my latest reading list. I always have 2-4 books going at once:

1. Author Unknown, by Don Foster. Literary sleuthing. Foster is a literature professor at Vassar. After reading this, I'd love to take one of his classes. His specialty is Shakespeare.

2. The Summons, by John Grisham. Very enjoyable, but I think he tends to write in preparation for a movie.

3. Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, Clifton Fadiman, et al.

4. Writings on an Ethical Life, Peter Singer. Singer, the Princeton philosophy professor, is very controversial but has some out-of-the-box insights on bio-ethics and animal rights.

5. The New American Spirituality, Elizabeth Lesser.

6. Great Poetry, Burton Stevenson.

7. Dying, A Book of Comfort, Pat McNees. Some great readings on grief and death. (I do grief counseling, especially with teens.)

8. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert. I'm trying to read some of the classics again. Flaubert set out to write the perfect novel.

9. Cloud Missing, Whereabouts Unknown, Alan Watts. Watts, a '60s Zen icon, has very interesting insights into the nature of things and self.

Phantom Delta,

Re: "The individual is a nation unto himself. "(I can't locate the source)

This isn't the same sense of what you remember above, but I thought it was interesting and kind of coincidental to see similar words with different meaning in one of Twain's essays, The Turning Point of My Life:

"A nation is only an individual multiplied."

Luna,

Forgive me for neglecting to thank you for your research. I remember where I read the line about the (individual is a nation unto himself. ) Robert Olmstead had written a book and reviewer had said; "Robert Olmstead is a nation unto himself." I liked the comment so well that I must have retained and modified it over the years. I had bought the book and then loaned it out (to a really good looking woman) but she must have left the state and took my book with her. (She must have liked the book).

Last night I looked into my 1992 book log to see what I was reading ten years ago. There were only five books posted.

A Trail of Heart's Blood (wherever we go), By Robert Olmstead
The Firm, By John Grisham
Elton John, By Philp Norman
Mountain Men, By George Laycock
Complete Home Taxidermy, By Tim Kelly

In 1982 I read only two books.
A Fine and Pleasant Misery, By Patrick F. McManus
A Treasury of Outdoor Life (The Greatest hunting. fishing and survival stories from America's favorite sportsman magazine.) Edited by William E. Ray

In 1972 I read only two books.
The Cross and The Switchblade, By David Wilkerson
Wilderness Warden (?)

During the Spring of 72 I was a Freshman in High School. Our English Literature class read the Odyesey and the Illiad.

Sadly, a few years ago I just stopped reading books. Scanning this thread has made me realize that I need to get my butt in gear and start again. I've got Emberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" in my library, so I think I'm going to start with that one.

"Idiot. Above her head was the only stable place in the cosmos, the only refuge from the damnation of panta rei, and she guessed it was the Pendulum's business, not hers. A moment later, the couple went off -- he, trained on some textbook that blunted his capacity for wonder, she, inert and insensitive to the thrill of the infinite, both oblivious of the awesomeness of their encounter -- their first and last encounter -- with the One, the Ein-Sof, the Ineffable. How could you fail to kneel down before this altar of certitude ?"
~Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum, Chapter 1
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/eco.htm
http://www.2think.org/fp.shtml

Oh, and I found a bunch of people using the expression "a nation unto himself."

"The Türk is a herdsmen, groom, trainer, trader, veterinarian, and rider. A single Türk is a nation unto himself."
~ `Amr ibn-Bahr al-Jâhiz (ca. 776-868)
http://www.utoledo.edu/~nlight/dissch3.htm

Washington embodied the notion of a society made up of individuals with sacred and inalienable rights. Each American is in a certain sense a nation unto himself or herself. Now these millions of sovereign entities actually have to work out a way of getting along with each other, of accepting each other's individuality, and of competing in an international economy.
~ Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
President, The George Washington University
http://tracingboard.com/george_washington.htm

The strength and beauty of a community is a direct expression of the character of individuals constituting that community. It is said every Muslim individual is a nation unto himself.
http://www.whyislam.org/aa/old/index.asp?article_id=0

Each free man is a nation unto himself.

"Robert Olmstead is a nation unto himself, or at least a province in revolt; an original in the American grain, shrewd, funny, interested in the convention only for what he can get out of it"
~ Tobias Wolff
http://weberstudies.weber.edu/archive/V ... nowich.htm

I would be like constitutionally investing individual citizens with the right to disagree with and rebel against judicial decisions handed down from any level of the court system. It would be up to them to interpret the Constitution with regard to any legislative decisions and executive enactments. You would have no nation; every man and woman would be a nation unto himself or unto herself.
~ Professor Scott Hahn
http://www.mindspring.com/~darcyj/files/authorit.htm

"Every man is a nation unto himself"
http://www.fortunecity.com/millenium/po ... 4/id20.htm

He is virtually a nation unto himself and that while being the strong point of the Tibetan community is also, ironically, emerging as its weakness with age catching up with him.
~Pushp Saraf referring to the Dalai Lama at
http://www.tibet.ca/wtnarchive/2001/10/21_1.html