A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.
I'm re-reading two of James Fenimore Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales." I finished Deerslayer and I've started The Last of the Mohicans, his best regarded piece. I guess I will read the remaining three books, too. This all came about because I recently spent a long weekend by the lake of glimmerglass featured in Deerslayer which happens to be Lake Otsego in upstate New York.
Edited to add that I've finished The Last of the Mohicans. I think I'll take a break from Cooper, even though there are three more in his "Leatherstocking Tales."
For fun, read Mark Twain's scathing critique of Cooper in Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses.
Last edited by FredRydr; August 15th, 2019 at 07:03 AM.
I'm in the middle of reading South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami.
The Crooked Stick by Hugh D.H. Soar
This is a history of the English longbow.
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." -Epicurus-
VertOlive (August 20th, 2019)
My daughter and I finally finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Verne) audio book.
VertOlive (August 20th, 2019)
Idaho by Emily Ruskovich. Kept me enthralled for days!
The development of personality by Carl Gustav Jung.
My other writing instrument is a pencil.
A post-apocalyptic story referencing some interesting cultural practices, satisfying character development and sharp plot twists. Bit-o-En.
Lady Onogaro (August 18th, 2019), VertOlive (August 20th, 2019)
The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe.
by John D Barrow
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." -Epicurus-
I was reading like a crazyman this summer Dale Brown and Tom Clancy books. I started a David Hackworth book about being a wartime corespondent. I also have a book on the plagues that have been happening in the world.
I recently finished the second of V.S. Naipaul's trilogy of India travelogues, India: a Wounded Civilization. I'm now reading the first one, An Area of Darkness. I'd gotten the order mixed up, but I don't think it's that important, as long as I recall the period described by each book, roughly 1962 for the first and 1975 for the second. I also have the third one, India: a Million Mutinies Now, published in 1990, and will get to it at some point.
"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly."
G.K. Chesterton
Toxophilus by Roger Ascham
This is an Archery manual written in Tudor English with a dedication to Henry VIII. Ascham was Queen Elizabeth I's archery instructor. I finally found the book in its untranslated state. Most people can't handle the archaic English and have to have a translation. Methinks it bee ane hoot.
"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little." -Epicurus-
Finished The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson. Someone recommended it to me since I liked Stranger Things. It was okay. I won't keep it for my library.
Lady Onogaro
"Be yourself--everybody else is already taken." --Oscar Wilde
Just finished Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, 1932. In the late 1920s, the authors conducted deep research in the British Museum, the Royal Navy Archives and much more. The story was written in the first person as Midshipmen Roger Byam who was captured, convicted and condemned to death by Naval Court Martial, but subsequently acquitted when a witness turned up before sentence and contradicted Lt. "Captain" Bligh's statement incriminating Byam. The book (and two subsequent volumes) was the inspiration for the 1935 film of the same name that starred Charles Laughton and Clark Gable.
I've just finished John Grisham's first ever book; "A Time to Kill." I read it on Kindle.
The word used for African Americans plus some of the actions taken show it's age and wouldn't be published today, but although I've seen the film I had never read the book until now.
Regards, Chrissy | My Review Blog: inkyfountainpens
Is Bligh the mustache-twirling villain in the book he was in the Gable movie (and also in the later Marlon Brando version)? A more recent book by Caroline Alexander portrays Bligh in a more sympathetic way, at least that is what I've heard. There is also, of course, the Mel Gibson film in which Anthony Hopkins' Bligh is not nearly the villain he was in the two older films.
Last edited by Zhivago; August 21st, 2019 at 02:15 PM.
This is probably one of the funniest book I've read in a while. I left a short review on goodreads.com.
More relevantly to us on FPG, even though fountain pens are mentioned exactly 1 time, the period -- which is extremely well depicted -- is literally when you can stroll to the grocer's or a drugstore and literally see a display case of fountain pens.
I'm currently reading The Last of the Earth Poems by Charles Bukowski. Sort of a diversion from reading long novels in the previous months.
So happy because I got my protaper handlebars just in time for my bike demo.
The book lacked the drama of the movies, since it followed the documents the authors dug up from the court martial and other sources. I really should read their remaining two volumes as Robert did (above). The second covers the 19 who were put off the Bounty into the launch and their survivor's perilous journey back to England, and the third deals with the mutineers who ended up on Pitcairn Island. It would be interesting to compare the more recent books. I confess I like period 18-19th century maritime tales, fiction and non-fiction, print and on film.
As to movies, for a really great villain on the open seas, see Robert Ryan in the 1962 film Billy Budd. Herman Melville wrote the novel which wasn't definitively finished until 1962 after Melville's original notes were discovered. Now I must get my hands on a copy. Abebooks to the rescue!
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