Member: redkit

I'm happy you enjoyed my Borges review. I was worried it was too lengthy--not to mention self-indulgent.

I see you're reading Crime and Punishment. Have you read it before? I thought it was fantastic. I haven't read Notes from Underground yet, but if it's anything like Dostoevsky's other novels, it will be quite a challenge to keep all those characters aligned with the right book, since you're reading both at the same time and all.

Happy reading!

posted by polutropon at 9:45 am (EST) on Nov 14, 2009

Hey there - sorry didn't notice your note earlier. I see you haven't read China Mieville, if I am correct, I would recommend rectifying that right away. Sort of more New Weird but with some steampunk. Michael Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter and Dragons of Babel would fit the bill too. The Difference Engine, the eponymous steampunk novel, is actually not bad either.
Happy reading!

posted by bellisc at 1:08 pm (EST) on Nov 5, 2009

Sounds good, I'll put it on my list to get a copy.

posted by seedwords at 11:59 am (EST) on Nov 5, 2009

Hello,
I wanted to thank you for the Calvino recommendation. I have been enjoying T-zero but as I've progressed to about the last third of the book it seems interminable. I'm wondering if that isn't the point, dragging out the moment where the event passes from future to past? I'll be interested to pick up If On a Winter's Night a Traveler.

posted by seedwords at 12:05 pm (EST) on Nov 2, 2009

Don't mention it. Glad to have you aboard.

posted by Porius at 11:59 am (EST) on Oct 23, 2009

Good and excellent MORNING to ya!

Just finished Ender's Shadow. I liked both books (and both characters) equally well. They were only different in what devils were driving each of them to survive (and, really, even those devils weren't all that different). Bean's superior grasp of reality was balanced by Ender's compassion (which Bean, of course, recognized and finally learned from Ender).

While I was reading Shadow, I kept thinking that would be great to have an edition that alternated their two stories under one cover, but, of course, that wouldn't work, because keeping the big surprise of the "game" until the war was over from the reader (and Ender) made a much more powerful book of Ender's Game. Reading Game and then Shadow, back to back, was perfect!

Thanks for the recommendation!

Doug

"In the end, only kindness happens."

posted by doogiewray at 9:38 am (EST) on Oct 21, 2009

Hello redkit
I know this is sudden but Enrique's right, you should join the Salon, we need your quick eye and the fresh Ned Zed air. Think about it. You don't have to weigh-in all the time, the slightest of your apercus will be welcome.

posted by Porius at 10:33 pm (EST) on Oct 19, 2009

Just realized that, earlier, on HomePlanet, I mistakenly guessed the direction the shadow (Earth's, not Ender's) going the wrong way and that the sun is probably just about to rise outside your doorstep. I think I now have it figured out; in real time, you're 17 hours ahead of me (it's Monday morning there, whereas it's only Sunday afternoon here ... though with the approaching gale, it seems the lights could go off at any time now). On the other hand, ignoring the date, your waking/sleeping pattern is 7 hours behind mine (i.e., you get up seven hours after I do (assuming we have the same sleeping habits, which, I assume we don't)), just on different days.

Oh, just ignore me ... I'm babbling again.

Have a good day!

D.

"In the end, only kindness matters."

posted by doogiewray at 1:35 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2009

Sorry about that, you actually caught me right after I signed off and passed out.
I don't have an MSN, Facebook, or anything that promotes extensive online social connection.
I consider them distractions since when I am online, on the computer, I am usually writing or at work.

I do have an email addy though, if you'd like to communicate privately through email message.

posted by ScanningDarkly at 1:34 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2009

Thanks for the tip. The small library here (closed on weekends and only open a few hours during the week) have about a half-dozen of the Ender books, and I'm going to try to squeeze in one more before they tear me away from here on Friday. I was trying to decide between the next sequel (Speaker for the Dead(?)) or Ender's Shadow (I liked Bean almost more than Ender and I'm intrigued by rewrites from a different view (did you ever see the old Japanese movie, Rashoman?). I was leaning towards Shadow and, with your recommendation, I'll be checking out the book tomorrow. Thanks.

Boy, I'm confused on the time difference ... have to check out a map or something. There's a great (free) program that I downloaded years ago (I think it's still available) called HomePlanet and, among several other things, it puts up a map of the world showing where it's day and where it's night (and it continually updates it ... I use it as my wallpaper much of the time). As I type this, it's just about noon here and the map shows you being in total darkness ... hmmm ... well, maybe it's around 7 pm there(?). Ah, but maybe I'm forgetting the part about you being on a different day of the week from me. All, this doesn't really matter, because I can never remember what day of the week it is here!

At any rate, when we're both walking around, our soles are pointing (somewhat) at each other.

Anyhow, I'll let you know how I like .

Oh, one quirk about HomePlanet ... when it's exactly on the hour, local time, a cookoo clock chimes the hour ... the fellow who wrote the program is from Switzerland! (It's noon here, now (grin)).

Take care,

Douglas

"In the end, only kindness matters."

posted by doogiewray at 12:02 pm (EST) on Oct 18, 2009

Can't talk about it now (non disclosure stuff) but it's first person horror.

And yes, we do have similar tastes.

Nice to meet you, redkit.

posted by ScanningDarkly at 2:55 am (EST) on Oct 18, 2009

OK, one last comment ... you just added To Kill a Mockingbird and (whoa! twice in one night!) If on a Winter's Night a Traveller! Two more of my 10 favorite books (of course, if you look at my tags, there are about 100 books labeled "10 favorite books"). Between Calvino and Pynchon (and a few others, like Borges, Baudelaire and Camus, etc.), there are few "sweet dreams," indeed.

Nighty night (oh, wait ... Top o' the morning to ye!).

Douglas

posted by doogiewray at 10:10 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2009

Oh, have you read Gravity's Rainbow yet? It's one of my all-time favorites (with V. a close-second).

D.

posted by doogiewray at 10:01 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2009

"I've been in one of those Sisyphus-type moods, struggling against a never ceasing tide, pointlessly trudging on, you know. It's a good thing that I'm a persevering type!"

Whoa! Right now, I'm on a very small island ten miles off the coast of Maine (Monhegan Island) and tonight I just finished reading a pretty good (it won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards) science-fiction novel (I usually don't read sci-fi, but I just found this one on the shelves of the tiny library there) - Ender's Game and it just might be the ultimate Sisyphus manual of "gifted and talented" kids "pointlessly trudging on." If you ever get some free time (heh!), you might give it a try ... it's real page-turner and not at all as deep as Pynchon, but, well, it got to me and I want to buy two copies of it for my own two sons (who went through the "I just don't quite fit in with the morons who surround me" phase). I'm a slow reader (not to mention, a "slow learner"), but I got through this book in a little over 24 hours (including sweet-dreams (hah!) sleep time).

Anyhow, it's great chatting with you, me being on my tiny (1 mile long) island and you being your big (? mile long) island roughly on the other side of the globe from each other. I've always wanted to go to New Zealand, because it has always seemed like one of the best places left on the globe, but, somehow, each October, I keep coming back to Monhegan Island instead. Maybe someday (sweet dreams, Douglas).

Speaking of sweet dreams, it's time for me to hit the sack (you're probably just waking up - synchronicity just a bit out of phase (oh, by the way, before retiring, I was a biomedical engineer for about a third of a century).

Hope all the links work (I'm a html wannabe). Keep your chin up and your head down when that big rock comes rolling down again at you!

Douglas

(Ain't LibraryThing fun, or what?)

posted by doogiewray at 10:00 pm (EST) on Oct 16, 2009

Oh, yes ... I've relished reading "Woman in the Dunes" several times over the years. I also bought the movie (first on video tape, now on dvd) and find (in my own mind) that the movie and the book are equal, but different. I love them both. I grew up in the sand dunes on the southern coast of Lake Michigan (in Indiana, USA), but the book takes it to a level I never experienced (except as a metaphor for Life and there have been a few times in my life that I have felt dead-ended and having the will sapped to the point of just giving up or accepting what's my your plate). Gratefully, those times have been few and I've somehow always gotten past them (sort of like indigestion). Then there's also the whole metaphor for the Western World Rat-race, but, thankfully, I retired about 9 years ago, so that doesn't apply to me either. It's great to get up each morning and say "What (if anything) shall I do today?

Anyhow, I love your library (add more books soon, ok?); it appears that we have some overlap on our reading tastes.

Keep on plugging on the studies; it's worth it just to have your ticket punched and degrees do open doors easier than having to prove yourself (a sad truth, right?). Also, if you ever have some extras, send truffles!

Douglas

"In the end, only kindness matters."

posted by doogiewray at 8:29 am (EST) on Oct 16, 2009