view larger

Member: usnmm2

CollectionsYour library (850), Currently reading (3), To read (29), Favorites (46), All collections (850)

Reviews107 reviews

TagsScience Fiction (239), TBR (89), Age of Sail (76), WW2 (76), Fiction (Novel) (66), Read 2007 (59), Biography / Memoirs / Autobiography (58), Science Fiction ( Heinlein ) (58), Read 2008 (57), Women Authors (52) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

Groups50 Book Challenge, 50-Something Library Thingers, Club Read 2009, Naval History and Fiction, Non-Fiction Readers, Science Fiction Fans, What Are You Reading Now?

Favorite authorsEdward L. Beach, Thomas Cahill, James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Joan Druett, C. S. Forester, Pat Frank, Daniel V. Gallery, Marcus Goodrich, Robert A. Heinlein, Ernest Hemingway, Douglas Reeman, Richard McKenna, Herman Melville, Brent Monahan, John Steinbeck, Barbara W. Tuchman, Mika Waltari, Morris West (Shared favorites)

About meOld enough to know better, young enough not to care :)
Married, three children (My wife and I lost the war we're out numbered).
Like many LT'ers I tend to have more than one book going at the same time (book surfing is what I tell my wife)

****************************************...

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library." - Jorge Luis Borges

". . .there is indeed a heaven on Earth, a heaven which we inhabit when we read a good book." - The Haunted Bookshop, Christopher Morley

"Your library is your paradise." - Erasmus

****************************************...

In my younger days I'd try to read and figure out the existential angst of the Jovian gods and how they interacted with the Proletariat masses. Now I read for enjoyment. (also I don't have try to impress the girls with weighty matters {besides it never worked anyway :o})). Anyhow that's why I like the Lincoln quote.

"Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all." --Abraham Lincoln --

There's not an original thought in my head.

Chris Kringle said to Natalie Wood ",,, you've heard of the British Nation, the French Nation well this is the imagiation"; So in my mind books are the planes, trains and automobiles that take us were no man (or woman) has gone before (see no original thoughts).

The last few years my reading has tended toward lite sci-fi and popular fiction. This year I've tried to change that somewhat by reading more non-fiction and a few more books of a literary nature. So far I've succeeded on the non-fiction part but a little lacking in the literary department. But I'll let the games proceed.

About my libraryThe bulk of my library is made up of Sci-Fi and a large number of nautical/naval/military history and fiction books. But I'll read almost any thing that strikes my fancy at the moment.

****************************************...
"There is no Frigate Like a Book"
by
Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate Like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of Prancing Poetry-
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.

****************************************...

Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all." --Abraham Lincoln --

****************************************...
I've started to collect quotes about book collecting and reading. Most of these I've gleaned from fellow LTers:

****************************************...

"Lord!" he said, "when you sell a man a book you don't sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue you sell him a whole new life.

"Parnassus on Wheels" by Christopher Morley

****************************************...

From "A City of Bells" by Elizabeth Goudge
'A bookseller . . . is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise minds, all sorts and conditions. And there come into him other minds, hungry for beauty, for knowledge, for truth, for love, and to the best of his ability he satisfies them all.'

****************************************...
The hours of night unheeded fly,
And in the grate the embers fade;
Vast shadows one by one pass by
In silent daemon cavalcade.

But still the magic volume holds
The raptur'd eye in realms apart,
And fulgent sorcery enfolds
The willing mind and eager heart.

The lonely room no more is there -
For to the sight in pomp appear
Temples and cities pois'd in air
And blazing glories - sphere on sphere.
- H.P. Lovecraft, 1890-1937
****************************************...
"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time."
- Carl Sagan

****************************************...

Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.
The Haunted Bookshop (1919)

****************************************...
A good book should leave you... slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. ~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958
****************************************...
"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers." ~ Charles W. Eliot
****************************************...
"The worst thing about new books is that they keep us from reading the old ones." -- Joseph Joubert
****************************************...
"To build up a library is to create a life. It's never just a random collection of books." (Carlos Maria Dominguez, "The House of Paper")
****************************************...
'It is often much harder to get rid of books than it is to acquire them. They stick to us in that pact of need and oblivion we make with them, witnesses to a moment in our lives we will never see again.'(Carlos Maria Dominguez, "The House of Paper")
****************************************...
Also from Carlos Maris Dominques "the house of paper"
"...the books are advancing silently, innocently through my house. There is no way I can stop them"
****************************************...
"Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity... we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance."
--- A.E. Newton
****************************************...
"That is a good book that is opened with expectation and closed with profit."
--- A. B. Alcott, "Table Talk"
****************************************...
"A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life."
--- Milton, "Areopagitica", sec. 6
****************************************...
From "The Shadow of the Wind: A Novel" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"...Every book, every volume you see has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its sprit grows and strengthens."
****************************************...
Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man
far better than through mortal friends.
~ Dawn Adams ~
****************************************...
Some of the most famous books are the least worth reading.
Their fame was due to their having done something
that needed to be doing in their day.
The work is done and the virtue of the book has expired.
~ John Morely ~
****************************************...
The man who doesn't read good books
has no advantage over the man who can't read them.
~ Mark Twain ~
****************************************...
Wear the old coat and buy the new book.
~ Austin Phelps ~
****************************************...
I would be most content if my children grew up to be
the kind of people who think decorating
consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. (1993)
~ Anna Quindlen ~
****************************************...
'Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.'
- Carlos Ruiz Zafón, 'The Shadow of the Wind'
****************************************...
"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"
- Henry Ward Beecher
****************************************...
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
-- Arnold Lobel
****************************************...

Real nameMarty

Location Staten Island, New York

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/usnmm2 (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/usnmm2 (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (157), Awards (170), Characters (2706), Places (667)

Member sinceMar 19, 2007

Currently readingThe Englishman's Boy by Guy Vanderhaeghe
Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms: An Enlisted Man's Story by Jeff Zahratka
The White Rhino Hotel: A Novel by Bartle Bull