A Conversation for Ask h2g2

(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8261

Sho - employed again!

the main thing for me about Gorky Park is the character of Arkady Renko. He's a guy trying to do a job with so many things going on around him that he also has to fight against.

And the film was brill too.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8262

U14993989

The Story of Art, AE Gombrich 11th Edn, 1966. Begins provocatively, stating there is no such thing as art only artists. There then follows an exceedingly lucid description of art from paleolithic times to the mid 20th century. The majority of the book focuses on Western Art from the Renaissance onwards. He includes architecture within the umbrella of art. I must say this was the best book on art I have read. Checking on the web I find that there were 16 editions with the last being published in 1995 and that this book is considered one of the best introductory books on art available. Similar to Jenifer Homans (Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet, 2010), he had concerns regarding the future development of art (she ballet - but she was fairly weak in describing the breadth of the contemporary forms and weak in providing reasons for these concerns). However Gombrich was more optimistic with regards to architecture.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8263

Cheerful Dragon

I inherited a copy of that book when hubby's mum died. I read it about two years ago and found it easy to get in to. I was fascinated by the connection between Ancient Egyptian and early Ancient Greek art, something that was clearly shown on a visit to the Archaeological Museum in Athens last year. I believe Stephen Fry had (or has?) the Pocket edition and speaks very highly of it.

I've broken my 'only three books at a time' rule again. I'm reading Making Habits, Breaking Habits by Jeremy Dean. The secondary title - How to make changes that stick - makes it sound like a self-help book. So far it's been about the psychology of acting on habits, rather than how to form or break habits. It's readable, though.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8264

U14993989

This book looks interesting - I'll wait & see if my library gets it:
The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology
By Douglas E. Christie, Oxford University Press, 2012
In The Blue Sapphire of the Mind, Douglas E. Christie proposes a distinctively contemplative approach to ecological thought and practice that can help restore our sense of the earth as a sacred place. Drawing on the insights of the early Christian monastics as well as the ecological writings of Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Annie Dillard, and many others, Christie argues that, at the most basic level, it is the quality of our attention to the natural world that must change if we are to learn how to live in a sustainable relationship with other living organisms and with one another.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8265

philosophyjam1984

'1Q84' by Haruki Murakami


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8266

U14993989

>> I inherited a copy of that book when hubby's mum died. I read it about two years ago and found it easy to get in to. I was fascinated by the connection between Ancient Egyptian and early Ancient Greek art ... <<

Yes Gombrich gives a straight forward explanation of Egyptian art - how they created images of what was known rather than what could be seen all at once when representing human form, with each part of the human body drawn in its idealised projections (head in profile eye and shoulders in front view, legs drawn in profile with big toe on outside) - somthing not unlike the ideas behind early twentieth century cubism. And then the old traditional arts were suddenly swept away with the coming into power of King Akhnaton, father of Tutankhamun, with a more realistic, warm images of king and wife, but with the end of his reign the old traditional arts reappeared and became again locked in for the next 1000 odd years. One of the themes to emerge from the book was the idea of the interplay between knowledge and seeing ... that what we see is influenced by what we know or think we know.

... and then we have Greek Architecture partly based on a stone mimicry of timber architecture of an earlier "hidden" past ...


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8267

Pheroneous II

Would love to read IQ84 but its so flipping big!! Should come with its own suitcase.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8268

Bagpuss

I have returned to Robert A. Heinlein's book of short stories The Man Who Sold the Moon (I'm sure it's mentioned earlier in the thread). Kind of interesting comparing his imagined moon mission with what actually happened.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8269

Cheerful Dragon

Finished The Fortune of War. My bedtime/bathroom book is now The Elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8270

sprout

John Muir, travels in Alaska.

Interesting guy, and a real pioneer, but the book itself is a little slow in places (enough about the glaciers already, John!)

sprout


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8271

hygienicdispenser


I've just finished 'Star of the Sea' by Joseph O'Connor. I got it from a charity shop about 8 years ago when it was a huge hit and promptly forgot all about it. It's a very good book, centred around the Irish famine of 1847, and it will fill you with anger and indignation towards us British. There's just one misguided section where one of the criminal characters bumps into Charles Dickens, and in the ensuing conversation gives Dickens the entire plot of Oliver Twist. It's not even remotely necessary to the story, and damn near capsizes the whole book due to suspension of disbelief plummetting earthwards.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8272

Keith Miller yes that Keith Miller

Alexander Pope A Life by Maynard Mack.

Not for the easily distracted this one.
Is also the only Biography you'll find available on this interesting man and that's a shame.
Shame Boswell wasn't around a little bit earlier but thank be to Johnson for his Life of the Poets as much info was gleaned from that particular book.


rRght, return to your fiction discussions.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8273

Bagpuss

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Occasionally I feel like I should read more classic books. Also having recently looked at colonial Africa in my OU course I have a good chance of understanding what's going on.

It's nicely cynical about European dealings with Africans. The description of a French ship "firing into a continent" is beautifully absurd. However, I'm wondering if I can find an older edition that doesn't think I need 47 pages of preamble and numerous end notes explaining that Conrad once went to Brussels, so that's probably why there's a bit set in Brussels.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8274

Bagpuss

And now I'm reading Pompeii by Robert Harris.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8275

BeowulfShaffer

I'm currently reading the Selfish Gene. I'm already reasonably familiar with many of the ideas from my evolutionary psychology class and some other readings, but like the way it ties them all together.
Also, about the Space Odyssey series. I read all four of the books as a kid after enjoying both movies. The first three books were terrific, the fourth was ok but not as nearly as good.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8276

hygienicdispenser


Porius by John Cowper Powys. A week in the life of a Welsh chieftan, 499 AD. With Arthur and Merlin and Mordred thrown in the mix.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8277

~ jwf ~ scribblo ergo sum

smiley - book

This week's h2g2 Post includes my review of
"Mr P and George" by Pheroneous.

A87787660

I really did enjoy it very much. And have been
having ongoing conversations with Pheroneous
regarding a few typos and other minor repairs
which have resulted in a newly revised edition
now available on the Lulu.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/pheroneous/mr-p-and-george/paperback/product-20921902.html;jsessionid=1354A6927CD15B79AD0149141F13A77F

A fascinating study in First Person narratives
that have many far reaching diversions in the
study of the human character. Each short story
is just the right length for bedtime reading and
it should last you a month or more.

Highly recommended and not at all expensive.
Enjoy.

smiley - cheers
~jwf~


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8278

Secretly Not Here Any More

I'm re-reading one of my favourites. Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

"This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I just happen to know what it is...

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8279

Cheerful Dragon

Finished The Elephant to Hollywood. Started 1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke. So far it makes me think of 1066 and All That, but focussing on our relationship with the French (and a lot longer). It's thicker than my usual bedtime/bathroom books, but it's an easy read so I'm sticking with it.


(The Return of) What book are you reading at this time?

Post 8280

Mol - on the new tablet

Re-reading Hoskins' 'The making of the English landscape'. So good.

Mol


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