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It's funny you guys bring up the Pirates of that era. Just the other night I was telling somebody too young to remember about Dave Parker throwing a guy out from right field (in an All-Star game?) on the fly. I just wish I could remember Clemente more clearly. Every time you hear his stats...

I've read the first book in the Dresden series, and was surprised by how much I liked it. I mean, I worried that it would be just another piece of "assembly line" genre fiction. But, there were lots of little touches that I thought were clever. And, I thought that the hard-boiled touch was a...

Some of my favorites: PrairyErth by William Least-Heat Moon - 620+ pages about a county in Kansas. I know how it sounds, but the book is like a long, waking dream. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes - everybody says that that their non-fiction history reads like a...

I'll second Stewart's opinion. If I had it at a show, I'd prob'ly ask $10 - $12 for it. But, I can't imagine anybody buying it. And, as I've said in other threads, 1879 isn't all that long ago in terms of books and ephemera.

I quite agree. However, I would temper that by saying that I also often avoid conversations because people can be painfully boring to talk to. I mean, I don't have to talk about books to have a conversation, but don't much care to spend an hour debating the relative merits of monster trucks...

Angus, I couldn't agree with you more. Books that are written, from the outset, to be optioned to Hollywood are usually bad. The Da Vinci Code doubly so. I've heard that Angels & Demons was better, but then I can't imagine how it could be worse.

As good as Borges is, I think that some stories make better introductions to him than others. I would not suggest starting out with Pierre Menard or some of the other more esoteric stories. Perhaps something like The Aleph or The Zahir would be better starting points. I think that because...

Well said, Kristo. I agree, though I think that redux is different from both the book and the original movie. In any event, Conrad is one of my favorite authors. He should be read at every opportunity.

I should think that my feelings about Borges are self-evident. He's written some fantastic stories, often managing to capture the essence of something (say, the problem of memory) without being obtuse or dry. Do you mean the story of the Yardmaster? I happen to have a collection Borges'...

My favorite (not from the show) was one an old roommate of mine came up with - "Holy pocket books, Bantam!"

Yeah, but that isn't exactly Stout's thing. At least, not in the same way that it is associated with folks like Chandler and Hammett and Cain, etc. Either way, I think that you'd enjoy them a great deal. Plus, there are 40+ books in the series, so if you do like them, you won't run out for a...

SFG, If you like the Holmes stories, I recommend that you move on to any of the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout. Among Stout's fans who are obsessed enough to worry about such things, it has been speculated that Wolfe is the son of Sherlock (or even Mycroft) Holmes and Irene Adler. Stout's...

I should add that I have noticed the same phenomenon with other non-fiction writers - that is, that their books read like magazine articles which they have stretched, by way of repetition and unnecessary verbiage, to book length. It's just that Krakatoa was the most recent example.

I think that that is fine, but I think, in Krakatoa, at least, he bludgeons his reader over the head with it. For instance, he must have mentioned the Wallace line four or five times, and in each instance gave an exhaustive list of the various types of flora and fauna to be found on either...

I did find, and read, Winchester's Krakatoa. It was a rather strange experience. Somehow, he managed to write a 400 page book about one of the biggest natural disasters in history in such a way that the actual eruption was anti-climactic. There was a great deal of repetition. The end result...

I'd say that it wasn't quite as bad as The Da Vinci Code, but then what is? I found it very annoying (and relentlessly boring) that the authors of Rule of Four spent the first two hundred pages of the book making sure that everyone knew one of them went to Princeton and that the experience was...

“. . . but as soon as I get bored and come down the mountain I can’t for the life of me be anything but enraged, lost, partial, critical, mixed-up, scared, foolish, proud, sneering shit shit shit . . .” Jack Kerouac – Desolation Angels

Does getting back together with an old girlfriend (who has dumped me twice before) and giving her most of my savings count? I once passed out in a bath tub with the water on and suppose I might have drowned. Other than that, I can't think of anything else right now.

It doesn't really count (in the sense that you meant), but having just finished The Rule of Four, I can tell you that the authors use the title "Hypnerotomachia" way too often. Wouldn't four guys who have spent four years together reach a point when they could just say "the book"? I noticed...

"There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is, that they forget it is growing. The second is, that they like it. The third is, that it comes cheaper" Israel Zangwill - The Big Bow Mystery