Random books from hashiru's library

Morphy's Games of Chess by Philip Sergeant

Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

In a Word by Margaret S. Ernst

Sex and Death to the Age 14 by Spalding Gray

Neela: Victory Song (Girls of Many Lands) by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

The Encyclopedia Britannica Quiz Book by Encyclopedia Britannica

Resume Kit by Richard H. Beatty

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Member: hashiru

CollectionsYour library (4,578), To read (250), All collections (4,578)

Reviews8 reviews

Tagsfiction (599), novel (525), TBR (250), fantasy (95), mystery (94), PGW (69), short stories (64), western (55), historical novel (52), chess (48) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

Groups50 Book Challenge, 75 Books Challenge for 2008, Mathematics, Purely Programmers, The Drones Club (all things P.G. Wodehouse)

Favorite authorsCecil Adams, Douglas Adams, Lloyd Alexander, Robert Asprin, Margaret Atwood, Sara Backer, Desmond Bagley, Beryl Bainbridge, Nicholson Baker, J. G. Ballard, Iain M. Banks, Julian Barnes, Cynthia Bass, Peter S. Beagle, Christine Bell, Madison Smartt Bell, Ambrose Bierce, Buzz Bissinger, Michael Blake, Lawrence Block, Thomas Boswell, Peter Bowen, Jennifer Finney Boylan, T. C. Boyle, Richard Bradford, Lilian Jackson Braun, Bill Bryson, Bartle Bull, Anthony Burgess, James Lee Burke, Robert Olen Butler, Bruce Catton, Carolyn Chute, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Richard Condon, Robert Coover, Bernard Cornwell, Michael Crichton, Roald Dahl, Robertson Davies, L. Sprague de Camp, John DeChancie, Patrick Dennis, Kiran Desai, Charles Dickens, Gordon R. Dickson, Paul Dickson, E. L. Doctorow, John Dunning, Clyde Edgerton, Loren D. Estleman, Janet Evanovich, C. S. Forester, George MacDonald Fraser, Ernest K. Gann, Alan Garner, William Gibson, William Goldman, Ursula K. Le Guin, Charles Nordhoff; James Norman Hall, Parnell Hall, Steve Hamilton, Joseph Heller, Carl Hiaasen, Tony Hillerman, Nick Hornby, Kazuo Ishiguro, Norton Juster, Tom E. Kakonis, Walt Kelly, Harry Kemelman, James Kirkwood, Louis L'Amour, Harper Lee, Fritz Leiber, C. S. Lewis, Jack London, R.A. Macavoy, John D. MacDonald, George R. R. Martin, Sujata Massey, Armistead Maupin, John McPhee, A. Merritt, Christopher Moore, Walter Mosley, Farley Mowat, Haruki Murakami, Iris Murdoch, Mervyn Peake, Iain Pears, Ellis Peters, Ralph Peters, Nathaniel Philbrick, Richard Powers, Philip Pullman, Spider Robinson, J. K. Rowling, Matt Ruff, Damon Runyon, William Shakespeare, Laurence Shames, Tom Sharpe, Robert Sheckley, Jean Shepherd, Georges Simenon, C. P. Snow, Troy Soos, Muriel Spark, Wallace Stegner, John Steinbeck, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, John Straley, Glendon Swarthout, Paul Theroux, James Thurber, J. R. R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Jack Vance, A. E. van Vogt, Fred Waitzkin, Manly Wade Wellman, Donald E. Westlake, Thomas Wharton, William Wharton, Calder Willingham, Connie Willis, Simon Winchester, P. G. Wodehouse, Gene Wolfe, Tom Wolfe, Tobias Wolff, Richard Wright (Shared favorites)

About meI am a software developer at SunGard in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Prior to being in the Computer industry, I was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Eastern Michigan University.

About my libraryI started reading early. My parents used to complain that they didn't have many pictures of me, since my "nose was always in a book." Some proof of that claim may be seen in the picture above - taken during Christmas time in the mid 1950's. I was probably 10 or 11 in the picture and I'm tracing a map in an Atlas that I got as a Christmas present.

I have been collecting books since I was in High School (1956 - 1961). At last estimate, I now own about 4550 volumes of all sorts - probably 75% or more are paperback (mass market or trade) and the rest are hardbound.

I read anything and everything. I have kept a reading record since 1959 and it is posted on the web at:
http://webpages.charter.net/hashiru/read...

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Homepagehttp://webpages.charter.net/hashiru/default.html

Also onblogspot, pbase.com, Picasa, Twitter

Real nameRichard C. Vile, Jr. (aka Dick)

LocationDexter, MI

Emailhashirugmail.com

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/hashiru (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hashiru (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (516), Awards (412), Characters (7899), Places (1515)

Member sinceFeb 5, 2008

Most recent activity

hashiru added:
The Full Cupboard of Life (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 5) by Alexander McCall Smith

hashiru added:
The Kalahari Typing School for Men (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Book 4) by Alexander McCall Smith

hashiru added:
Hit and Run by Lawrence Block

hashiru added:
Morality for Beautiful Girls (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 3) by Alexander McCall Smith

hashiru added:
Beyond Aspirin : Nature's Challenge to Arthritis, Cancer & Alzheimer's Disease by Thomas M. Newmark

hashiru added:
Tears of the Giraffe (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Book 2) by Alexander McCall Smith

Hi Richard,

It is good to know you are reading again, even if you are yet to achieve your previous levels. I graduated this March and am presently into the first month of my job in Mumbai. Which company do you work for? Pune is quite close to Mumbai as I am sure you would know.

Piyush

posted by PiyushChourasia at 1:36 pm (EST) on May 28, 2009

Hi Richard,

Got back to reading? How is your grand kid?

Piyush

posted by PiyushChourasia at 1:57 am (EST) on May 28, 2009

Well, both the grandson and the running are certainly excellent reasons to spend less time on LT, I have to admit. Glad the computer is doing well. I'm going to have to figure out what to do with my backup drive. It keeps going off my computer's senses, and I've replaced the cable once already. I hate diagnosis!

I meant to say in the previous post, "Noticed you DIDN'T join the 2009 challenge", so that probably was confusing!

posted by ronincats at 1:13 pm (EST) on May 18, 2009

Hi,

Was wondering if you'd be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here as well as a few other book-related sites. Saw you liked Paris Trout, and I thought you might like my novel since it's also southern and a bit dark. I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

http://christophertusa.com/blog/?page_id...

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 10:35 am (EST) on Mar 20, 2009

I was (believe it or not) searching for "Programming your own Adventure Games in Pascal" and this is how I found you. I've been playing with FreeDOS and I noticed they have a Pascal compiler included in the install. So I decided to go through the book again in my spare time.

When I looked on Amazon I misremembered the title as "Programming Adventure Games in Turbo Pascal" so I ended up looking on Google.

Most people still programming IF games use Inform or TADS, but I went through your book once, and remember it fondly. Yes, there is still a fairly active but shrinking group doing this. See www.ifarchive.org

Anyway, it is nice to meet you this way

posted by petersfamily at 8:39 pm (EST) on Mar 5, 2009

Great Picture! Oh' and library, of course.

Mike

posted by mhatchett at 8:58 pm (EST) on Mar 3, 2009

Hi Hashiru, haven't heard from you for quite some time now...how is your reading going?

posted by PiyushChourasia at 7:59 pm (EST) on Nov 30, 2008

Always nice to find other fans of Cornwell and Martin. I read them the most. I'm currently finishing up the Saxon Chronicles from Cornwell, and I still have A Feast for Crows left to read in ASOIF.

And of course, you have to love CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien.

Steven
http://steventill.com

posted by StevenTill at 7:26 pm (EST) on Jul 2, 2008

Last to last year I joined IIM Indore, the year after that, I got into IIM Ahmedabad and thats where I am now...
This is my second (last) year at this place. I have read a quite a few books this year apart from the ones I have mentioned, will keep listing them, doing it in one go is a bit of an ask...
Actually, I am at the 40 books mark as of now, so am pretty much on track :)
It is ofcourse difficult to find time with the hectic schedule we have, but somehow I try to manage it.

posted by PiyushChourasia at 6:51 pm (EST) on Jun 23, 2008

Hi Dick, thanks for the reply. It looks like comments posted to this ethernet, then apparently lost, are not always lost. I live and learn. I agreed with everything you said about book owning. I'm an avid library user but there is something powerful about buying a book and putting it in your own library that mere borrowing doesn't encompass. And, like you, I always have a book on me when I go out. I call it my "security book" without which I can't go shopping, visiting or do business. It is irrelevant whether or not I think it likely to be opened, I have to have it by - chucked on the car's back seat will be a big book, dropped in my handbag will be a smaller. A pretty small, cheap, easily managed eccentricity, satisfaction for little apparent effort, it's saved my life and kept me sane. Thank god for books, Margaret

posted by Bookful at 6:51 am (EST) on Jun 2, 2008

Hi Hashiru: thanks for the compliment. I did a serious edit on my library a few years ago, getting rid of about 2,000 books (a friend was opening a used book store, so I dumped a ton of science fiction). Like you, there are funny ones I've hung on to - goodness knows why. I did my thesis on Gormenghast and although I have other Peake works, I don't have the one you mentioned. I will look for it, thank you.

Love that profile page photo above.
Tiffin

posted by tiffin at 7:00 pm (EST) on May 27, 2008

Hi Hashiru,

Just wondering if you made it through Orlando? It's actually pretty readable, compared to her stories that transpired over MUCH shorter durations (Mrs. Dalloway, To the Lighhouse). Those bored me to tears, I much preferred the more fanciful Orlando. Regards, Steve

posted by Sandydog1 at 1:02 pm (EST) on May 25, 2008

True, but that was no where near as appealing to my teenaged imagination when I picked out my internet alias a decade ago.

posted by pynelyf at 9:22 pm (EST) on May 22, 2008

Well, hashiru, I can quite easily overlook your math-into-science job description, your 4000 vol library, your niche zeitgeist,because I know, to me, that all that really counts is that you're the only other person (apart from myself) to possess "Questions from the Rockpile". So maybe you can answer my question. Why do people hang on to books? I bought my copy of Rockpiles on Guam as a 16 year old. I've lived all over the world. I'm 4 decades older. I still have my copy of this book, not a world shattering book but one I kept when I threw away so many others (ie Jonathons Livingston Seagull, what a WASTE OF IMAGINATION!!, bought about the same time).Why??

posted by Bookful at 6:28 am (EST) on May 20, 2008

posted by Bookful at 6:27 am (EST) on May 20, 2008

Poo, bum, shit, I just wrote a most erudite comment, lost, in the manner of computer interfaces, which paid tribute to the intimidating nature of previous comments - ie "mathematician turned scientist" with a "4,000+ volume library" and enough time to hammer away at the comp termial designating said library, one who was also part of the "80s computer zeitgeist" (I confess to some problems with "80s comp zeitgeis" - an image of my 8 year old bashing away at computer games while swearing foul baby curses is all I see in that term). So, why am I bothering to comment (not having any other literary overlap)? "Questions from the Rockpile" is why. You are the only other person I know to own a copy. I've had my copy since I was 15, living on Guam, feeling very odd as a non-American living in an American-hating space. Why did I hang on to my copy for 4 decades? I love books, loved books even as a socially-paralyzed teenager, books the one place I felt OK to explore. This book appealed to me because of its mix of quiz ( I was smart, thought I knew all the answers as a pre-condition) and social interest (people in prison had brains too??). It showed me you could never learn enough. I found this condition was not perfect, however. Remember [[Jonathon Livingston Seagull]]? Bought it the same time I bought Rockpile, chucked it soon after. I mean, a seagull that could fly mach point whatever!! It's so nice to find someone with the same odd book! Forget the 3,999+ others - we're soul siblings!! chow, Margaret

posted by Bookful at 6:09 am (EST) on May 20, 2008

i haven't read Baker's book...i should. my main problem w/ the old paperbacks in particular is the mold buildup which makes reading an adventure in allergies...
I loaned a friend of mine a book called "Glut" - basically about the history of information storage/libraries etc through the ages, that you might enjoy.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 9:21 am (EST) on May 19, 2008

patty's actually has one of those little "tagmaker" devices..so she types the DDN and sticks the label onto the spine of the book. She HATES that i just have a general area for books of more or less the same types and firmly believes that each book should have its rightful place.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 3:10 pm (EST) on May 1, 2008

just a happy birthday comment...a book, new or used, is always good to give..or receive!
cheers
bob
(patty's become more obsessive than i...she's making little labels w/ dewey decimal #s on them, at least for the non-fiction books she's been entering. Why books like "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction" are classified as "dictionaries" i don't know. If they ever told me in library school, i've long forgotten.)

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 2:35 pm (EST) on Apr 28, 2008

Thanks a million for the recommendations.
If you are into ancient rome Conn Iggulden has a great series about Julius Caesar - the Emperor series. Not very accurate but very enjoyable.
If you prefer accuracy, Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome series is fantastic. Very accurate, more political than action. Getting your head around the characters names is the only hard part.
Regards
Willie

posted by WillieD at 4:06 pm (EST) on Apr 14, 2008

yeah - seeing all those books of his in your library just reminded me of him..I didn't really know him - I was very a-social in re my attempt at becoming "churched" - and the congregation was actually v. small. The deal was that he and the priest were v. close friends - iirc Edgerton lived in Hillsboro, about 35 miles north of Pittsboro, so that was something of a trek to get to St. Barts....And yeah...finding out that he was a local..we started reading everything (that he had out at that point) at once, which w/ some authors is fine..but w/ others is an overload. If we'd spread them out, i suspect we would have liked the later books a lot more than we did. The commencement spiel was undoubtedly the best such event i've experienced.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 6:31 pm (EST) on Apr 11, 2008

Dick - as one of the few people who's picked up Ghosh's Calcutta Chromosome--others than the ones we've given it to-- what did you think of it? I found it totally intriguing and original..but then my phud centered on some facets of the history of medical ideas, and the changing conceptions of the interrelationships between the environment and health as Europeans came to terms w/ the radically different ecologies/ecosystems of the new world and tried to parse it in terms of what they'd "learned" from the old.
curiously,
bob
(in my typically upbeat fashion, i'm perversely wondering if malaria will return to the lower 48 in my life time or not...Kind of have a running bet w/ a friend w/ similar pathologies who's placing his bets on dengue fever).

BTW my sister's been an AP reporter based in NO since 1978...the AP moved their offices just north of Lake Ponchartrain (sic) before Katrina hit, so they kept working throughout. She's kindof had survivors guilt..since her house escaped w/ virtually no damage. The AP provided their reporters w/ "portable" Tandy's w/ phone coupled modems so their reporters could file from pay phones in the mid 80s...My sister's STILL on compuserve! Adam's first computer was a...Timex Sinclair!!given to him my my sister's sig. other when he was about 1 1/2 so he'd leave me alone when i attempted to write my phud on my dual disk drive Compaq deskpro...MS Word on 2 floppies!

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 11:07 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2008

she DOES live in Tahiti! Mothers' just know.....

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 9:41 pm (EST) on Apr 6, 2008

Hi Hashiru

Thank you for adding me to your interesting libraries list! You have a wonderful collection of books yourself. The Biggles books are a collection from my DH's childhood. I was a Worrals girl myself, Worrals being a feminine version of Biggles. Further to your interest in aviation fiction, DH pulled out a few books not yet entered, two biographies, "Reach for the Sky; The Story of Douglas Bader" by Paul Brickhill and "Fly for your Life; The story of Wing-commander R.R. Stanford Tuck" by Larry Forrester.

posted by merry10 at 5:08 am (EST) on Mar 30, 2008

Thanks for the return comment. I would like to tag the books I love, but I just started on this librarything, still trying to get perfection. Wodehouse is on my reading to-do list. On the fifty book challenge do you make a list of the titles you intend to read? I have musg to learn-take care

posted by melissajoy at 5:06 pm (EST) on Mar 29, 2008

No, actually old, fat, and bald, with no running involved. Unless you are using "runner" in some esoteric sense. Definately nerd, though.

setnahkt

posted by setnahkt at 10:44 am (EST) on Mar 9, 2008

Thanks for adding me to your interesting libraries list. We do seem to have a lot of books in common. Please excuse the briefness of this note; I'm still trying to recover from Daylight Savings Time.

setnahkt

posted by setnahkt at 10:24 am (EST) on Mar 9, 2008

Hello Dick,

Thanks for your note. Gosh you've been industrious. No worries about not having time to check out my photography. The site isn't going anywhere, so feel free to have a look whenever you have time.

Thanks,
Peter

posted by peterdmark at 4:46 pm (EST) on Mar 3, 2008

Dick:

Thanks ever so much for the note. Nice to know somebody's reading my comments.

Typing doesn't bother me, but that sentence was threatening to run on forever; I left off several sets. Lewrie I've got, Bibblecomb's on my purchase list, and Hazard I'm aware of but haven't decided to commit to. I've been avoiding Sharpe because those seem likely to lead me astray, but now I'll likely pick up the two books you mentioned....

And yes, I know Jim Lannen from SABR. I'm a fairly active member, and attend the AA chapter meetings when I haven't got a conflicting commitment. Hadn't known he was a runner, but I'm not surprised.

joel

posted by jowo at 10:13 pm (EST) on Feb 23, 2008

Hello Dick,

First of all, thanks for noticing my library and getting in touch. It's great to connect with another mathematician-turned-computer scientist who has a Seattle connection and a large library.

I wish you used tags just a little more liberally. It's far easier to take the measure of a nearly 4000-volume library with a few more tags ... but from glancing at the first hundred or two book covers, your library looks terrific.

There's one thing I find truly amazing: you have been on LT since February 5th, which means for 16 days, and you've catalogued 3,926 books. I know full well how easy it is to catalog books on LT, but this is still crazy. You must have done little else for these past two weeks!

Will you be in Shoreline anytime soon?

Best,
Peter

posted by peterdmark at 9:38 pm (EST) on Feb 21, 2008

Hi Dick,

Thanks for the lovely comment! Although I wasn't around in the Fair Play for Cuba era, your memories of New Orleans were certainly evocative. I too grew up spending many Louisiana summers in an air-conditioned library.

Which is where I got your book - at a library book sale. I'm not a Pascal programmer, but I am a fan of text adventures. I've had it a number of years now, and keep intending to donate it as a prize in the annual interactive fiction competition (www.ifcomp.org), but I so appreciate it as a (I hesitate to say relic, or artifact) reminder of of the earliest days of home computing that I have a hard time letting it go.

Why should you be ashamed of it? It was a part of the 80s computing zeitgeist. Thanks for writing it. :)

posted by Cena at 10:47 am (EST) on Feb 18, 2008

I remember your book well along with my Tandy 1000 with the massive 10 meg external hard drive (I would never need to upgrade again!!), and my turbo Pascal compiler on 5 1/4" floppies.
I see you work in Ann Arbor. I drive thru there once a quarter on my way to Alpena. Ann Arbor is about the midpoint for me. (I think they keep moving Alpena further and further away - It's about a 9 hour drive for me.)

posted by pascal at 8:28 pm (EST) on Feb 16, 2008

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