Random books from jargoneer's library

Herovit's World by Barry N Malzberg

The Bells of Bruges by Georges Rodenbach

Greed by Elfriede Jelinek

Philosophy by Richard H Popkin

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K Le Guin

The Kingdom of the Wicked by Anthony Burgess

The Ice-Shirt by William T. Vollmann

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Friends: AuthorsandExperts, avaland, ktruh, polutropos, TKKenyon

LibraryThing authors: Colum McCann (ColumMcCann), William Alexander (WilliamAlexander), Alon Hilu (alonhilu), Ann Douglas (anndouglas), Arthur Phillips (arthurphillips), Brian Clegg (brianclegg), Cynthia Giles (cgbluebird), Dara Horn (darahorn), David Mitchell (davidmitchell)

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Member: jargoneer

CollectionsYour library (2,458), Read but unowned (15), All collections (2,473)

Reviews24 reviews

TagsFiction (1,804), Novel (1,427), Hardcover (932), First Edition (850), American Literature (669), Nonfiction (623), English Literature (514), Translation (294), Short Stories (235), History (204) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsAncient History, Atwoodians, Australian LibraryThingers, Awful Lit., BBC FOUR VIEWERS, Book Nudgers, Books Compared, Books in Books, Brits, Club Read 2009 — show all groups

About meOh, to have an exciting life. Then I could write something interesting about myself - about how I swam the Pacific Ocean without support, fighting off sharks and Japanese fishermen. Unfortunately, I have the standard dull life - sitting at home reading books but then that's the reason I love LT. If I was swimming the Pacific I wouldn't have time for books and discussions about books and dicussions that started about books but are now about something completely different, like the logistics of swimming the Pacific.

Inbetween reading books I listen to music (I own many more albums that I do books, which frightens me) and usually attempt to see something live every couple of weeks. (The last gig was Thomas Truax, a Tom Waits influenced singer-songwriter who has just released an album of songs from David Lynch films). I go to the theatre, which I'm not sure I enjoy that much, but I go anyway because I feel as if I should like it, that is good and uplifting. I used to go the cinema all the time, watch films on dvd and television but recently can't be bothered that much - which is strange as a few years ago I used to take this seriously - taking a number of courses on cinema studies.

Also, currently pursuing an Open University degree in Literature, for no reason other than fun.

My Club Read 2009 thread can be found here.

My other account which I use for books I don't own is Jargoneered.

About my libraryMy library has developed on whim - usually along the lines of "That looks interesting. I'll buy that. I know I will read it someday." Fiction-wise it is a mainly a mixture of science fiction (mainly from a few years ago - as I grow older it is harder to find sf that is really good: by which I mean well-written as well as the big ideas), and literary fiction. The non-fiction contains a lot of books on the cinema and on literature - usually the result of courses I have done over the years. There is also a fair smattering of Scottish fiction and non-fiction.

LocationEdinburgh

Emailjargoneergooglemail.com

Favorite authorsNone

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

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

Common KnowledgeSeries (230), Awards (400), Characters (3798), Places (971)

Member sinceAug 16, 2006

Most recent activity

jargoneer added:
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists by Gideon Defoe

jargoneer added:
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

jargoneer added:
In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

jargoneer added:
I'm Off and One Year: AND "One Year" (Harvill Panther) by Jean Echenoz

jargoneer added:
Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar

jargoneer added:
Krazy and Ignatz: 1927-1928 - Love Letters in Ancient Brick (Krazy & Ignatz) by George Herriman

Despite having many warm and fuzzy feelings for Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, I could not disagree with your review. There is nothing deep in the story--but oh, what an American Gothic surface! I did love reading Bradbury (although mostly did so in my teens)--but remember being embarrassed for him after listening him giving an interview. Perhaps it was because he has nothing to say...

Anyway, I am curious if your SF reading has ever included anything by Colin Wilson--The Philosopher's Stone, for example?

posted by Banbury at 6:04 pm (EST) on Nov 10, 2009

Are you still watching the US Open? We miss you in the Tennis group.

posted by littlegeek at 11:58 pm (EST) on Sep 10, 2009

Noticed you liked Clockwork Orange, and I 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. Thought you might like my book since it's also about a group of violent kids (and also a bit dark). I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like (I'm out of physical copies at the moment). Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary (and a sample chapter) in case you'd like to read more about the book before you commit:

http://christophertusa.com/

Thanks,

Chris

posted by cmtusa at 2:25 pm (EST) on Sep 9, 2009

thanks for adding me...Hope to get the chance to get to know you better!!

posted by AuthorsandExperts at 1:45 am (EST) on Jun 8, 2009

Your reviews are excellent. The ones for The Stranger and On Chesil Beach really caught my eye. Best wishes!

posted by Fullmoonblue at 12:25 am (EST) on May 4, 2009

Hello Jargoneer - I looked at that photo and thought, "Could that be Edinburgh?" and I see that it is. Ahhhhh! Lovely beautiful gorgeous Edinburgh. Hello from down-under in BrisVegas. I hope to see Edingburgh again one day. Many fond memoris of lunch at Jenners with all the china rattling as the 1 o'clock gun went off :) Now there's excitement!!!

posted by alexdaw at 7:23 am (EST) on May 1, 2009

the PAL/NTSC crap was why my attempt at conversion failed. There was a picture - but not one anyone wanted to watch. I'm sure there're ways around this, but not in the shareware world i was trolling through.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 6:24 pm (EST) on Apr 21, 2009

I'm fascinated with your chronicling of all short stories within a collection or anthology in your library in the comments field (I was looking at your Oates' books). Michael is quite irked that there is nothing on the book's page or CK that will accept the same information and make it searchable. And he doesn't want to go to the trouble of entering all that data and then having to redo it when LT comes up with something proper. I haven't been that much of a short fiction fan until fairly recently, so I am only just now coming to understand his frustration (and I'd like to avoid buying, say, Joyce Carol Oates redundancies). Best, Lois

posted by avaland at 10:06 am (EST) on Apr 14, 2009

thanks!

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 11:13 am (EST) on Apr 12, 2009

delighted to make your virtual acquaintance!

posted by bencritchley at 6:24 pm (EST) on Mar 2, 2009

"Are opinions are equal? No, they are not. The problem with books, and the arts in general, is that people THINK all opinions are equal because everyone can read (or see or hear). A Professor of Literature should read better than a lay reader because that's their job. (By better, I mean on a more sophisticated level: plot construction, literary techniques, intertextual references, etc) - if they don't, they should be sacked."

best comment in the history of LT (at least that i've read.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 1:49 pm (EST) on Feb 24, 2009

i am delighted when i get hold of an edition of anything layered that has explanatory notes/footnotes/endnotes. Probably the ultimate example of this in our library is "The Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha - Revised Standard Version - College Edition - With an Introductory Article the Number, Order, and Names of the Books of the Bible" which i had for a text in old/new testament courses during the spell when i was a religion studies major (my real interests were eastern religions, but it would've been impossible to get the degree w/out a bit of monotheism)..Of course i switched majors and transferred schools to end up w/ something completely different. (Medical/historical geography/public health/librarian degrees).

Carroll was exceptional in his ability to layer levels of meaning into a work explicitly written for relatively young children but w/ asides/jokes/puzzles that most modern kids, at least, wouldn't catch. But a fair bit of the children's lit written for the Victorian/Edwardian middle classes assumed that the kids would have a background that would enable them to catch references/allusions that would go past modern readers, esp. todays children. The estimable E. Nesbit peppered her excellent kids fantasies w/ asides that very explicitly expressed her personal socialist POV.

The beginnings of the "self-help" educational movt. in England in the first half of the 19th C had fascinating repercussions- eg allowing poor Keats (in every sense of the year) to do a marvelous job of self educating himself to the point where, by the time he died ~ 25? he'd given himself a pretty decent grounding in the classics (in translation) and allowed him to leave such classics as "on first looking into chapman's homer" (title isn't right)which, just by its existence, reveals a young man, born into poverty in London, managing throughout his short life to ground himself quite deeply into the European literary heritage w/out the benefit of Oxbridge.

posted by bobmcconnaughey at 6:30 am (EST) on Feb 22, 2009

Jargoneer--Really only 'Viva dead horses'. I find it funny at times, profound at others--the rat in the maze piano intros--going between lightness and heaviness on a dime--the socio-historical-political commentary. It is just a very iconclastic piece of work. I have another CD by them but it just is not as good. Anyway I have very whacky musical tastes at least according to everyone else around me but you like what you like.

posted by lriley at 2:21 am (EST) on Dec 31, 2008

I love the picture

posted by michaelbartley at 4:00 pm (EST) on Nov 20, 2008

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