What are you reading?

[garebear]

Hi GareB Darlin'

I'll never forget your fantastic correspondence and beautiful pix from the front line in Afghanistan.   Are you at home now in the States?  Are you still in the military or have you quit that?  Did you marry and/or are you still with your childhood sweetheart?  We all of us love you !


What is this book you're into?  I don't really do autobiographies, there's noone else I care about sufficiently to want to read about their relationship with life. 

What is it?  Looks like some fit long-haired hippy (love him already) standing on the top of a mountain in either Canada or New Zealand? 


What I wanna know is how they get back down the hill...  Are they air-lifted out via helicopter with their production team and the camera man or do they instead abseil back down?


kisses and hugs
madly
xLinda
in London England

Hey, Linda!

I'm completely out of the Army now. I've actually moved to China and am teaching English again.

I was in London in March, seeing a girl who is now an ex. It's a great city but I could never afford to live there. But I had a blast and everyone was real good to me.

What part do you live in? Do you go to Westminster often? Did you ever forget to mind the gap?

That book isn't really a biography, it's more about ultra-running, or very long distance running. I never run more than 4 miles at a time, but some of those people are amazing. There is a tribe called that Taramuhara in Mexico who make running sandals out of tire rubber and can run forever. Many of their best runners we would consider middle-aged or old.

[xxxLinda]

China?  Teaching English?  Waaaaaaaaaa - I'm impressed.

Can't imagine what it'd be like to live in China (or for that matter, what it'd be like to serve in the US Army in Afghanistan...  You're having one hell of a life !

...I won't ask about your girlfriends again.  (Although when all of us - or most anyways - Girlies on the Girly Board mobbed you and boasted about having had dirty weekends with you, it was so very funny...


So glad you visited London in March, it was good weather then and I'm pleased to hear that you enjoyed yourself.  It's an incredible city.  I loved NYC, but I only lasted less than a year there as I didn't have a green card and didn't wanna get married.  I need to live in the centre of the universe but be able to travel often.  I'm doing a beach, in Kerala on the west coast of southern India next, 6 weeks next Jan-Feb.  I reckon I need to learn to meditate...

And yes, I live right in the middle of London, in Westminster, Maida Vale W9.  The only reason I can afford to live here in that I lucked into social housing.  When I returned from Canada and my brief stint in NYC, I qualified for subsidised housing just because I had a Brit Passport (and I've got a smashing flat near the Portobello Market.  I was extremely lucky).  Nowadays there are no council flats left other than tower blocks in Deptford and you can't get one unless you're a single teenage mum and deemed needy, straight out of jail and therefore homeless, or are a refugee straight off the boat.



Are you doing photos of China?  Can you post them?  You're a wonderful photographer.  That would be worth logging into GetBig regularly for.  

Maybe we ought suggest that Ron consider a member's photo log/blog section?  The only reason we were able to appreciate your fantastic pix from the front line in the Middle East was because we Girlies loved you and STella/ButterBean very kindly did a 'top of the Girly Board in Bold thread' just for you.

Now you're in the Far East.  Far out !



You've still not answered my very serious but somewhat silly query about how they get back down from the top of the mountain.  Noone ever does a documentary or writes a book about that.  It always ends when they get to the top and stand there posing.  I really really want to know:  Do they get helicoptered off?  

It must be harder to get back down than climbing up and they never show that bit.  I'm funny like that, I always need to know the whole story...  The end of a book frequently disappoints me.


with mad love
Linda
xxx

[Benny B]

[xxxLinda]

I've not read a satisfying book for yonks

please keep this thread going, because i can get anything on Amazon 2nd-hand for £2.99 with free p&p, so please continue with your book club thread (I tried this on the Girly Board more than once but found noone there with stick-to-itiveness...



Great Gatsby bugged me, sorry.  bunch of spoilt rich brats.



a neighbour has just given me a pile of paperbacks none of which I fancy.  I need a good read, the nights are drawing in, there's nothing on TV...

xL

I'm not reading any of your number one bestseller Doctor in LA self help crap.  Never have, never will.

[dr.chimps]

^^^No wonder people don't read! What bilge!

a) Find a book

b) Read a book

c) Enjoy/Not enjoy a book;put down said book; find new book

[Tapeworm]

Lovely Darlin'
Jane Austen over and over and yet again,

Somerset Maugham... Have you read "Of Human Bondage"?


I adore period drama.  A bit more of Dickens perhaps?  "Bleak House" or "Great Expectations"?



Gin & Tonic with a slice of lime anyone?
with mad love, see you at the book club next week...
xLinda

Confess I haven't gotten around to any of those.  I find Wodehouse hilarious, particularly the Jeeves & Wooster stories, but that heavy duty stuff is too much of a slog for my feeble brain.  

[xxxLinda]

^^^No wonder people don't read! What bilge!

a) Find a book

b) Read a book

c) Enjoy/Not enjoy a book;put down said book; find new book

OOooops sorry to peeve you.  You've perhaps mis-read my comment?

I've read just about everything other than autobiogs.  The only book I didn't get through was Joyce's Ulysses:  “...Yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes.”

and I think I can bear life without reading more than a few chapters of that.



I'm just disappointed with modern fiction, that's all.  Nowadays I tend to more enjoy reading magazines online and satirical political blogs.

Reason I got involved in a thread about what y'all might be reading is to find out what's appreciated and recommended, not to get misunderstood and slagged off.  Forgive me, sorry.

xLinda

started reading Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor (50p at Oxfam) last night and will finish it tonight or tomorrow.  I read voraciously.

[xxxLinda]

that heavy duty stuff

Of Human Bondage is compulsory >>>you must read it, it's not a hard slog, it's just a lovely sad but feel-good tale.

madly
xLInda

[Tapeworm]

Joyce's Ulysses

A slog for sure but I've enjoyed what I've worked through so far.  There's a lecture series by the teaching company which will walk you through it.  I admit, without shame, that I'd never have made much progress without it.

[powerpack]

I finished 3 recently

1) The man in the white suit by Ben Collins ( The STIG)
2) Making a Killing by James Ashcroft
3) Steel fist by Nigel Cawthorne

[Audioslave]

Now reading...

WRESTLING IS LIFE: A Novel http://www.amazon.com/WRESTLING-LIFE-Novel-ebook/dp/B005O4FE7G/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1318310668&sr=8-2

[dr.chimps]

Now reading 'Smonk' by Tom Franklin. Great writer, but this earlier book is so-over-the-top that I don't know what to make of it.

Oh, and the thriller I gave up on for being so boring, 'Before I go to Sleep,' just won a huge industry award.   

[CalvinH]

Just read the two Elmore Leonard books that had the character Raylon Givens in them.

[dr.chimps]

Just read the two Elmore Leonard books that had the character Raylon Givens in them.

Got lotsa of his. Met him a couple times, too. And laid back at 80+, no less!   

[CalvinH]

Got lotsa of his. Met him a couple times, too. And laid back at 80+, no less!   

Good read...a little slower in the second book but still good.


just finished a bunch of diffrent authors books on fictional history of Roman solders.....got real lucky as they were all good reads

[garebear]

China?  Teaching English?  Waaaaaaaaaa - I'm impressed.

Can't imagine what it'd be like to live in China (or for that matter, what it'd be like to serve in the US Army in Afghanistan...  You're having one hell of a life !

...I won't ask about your girlfriends again.  (Although when all of us - or most anyways - Girlies on the Girly Board mobbed you and boasted about having had dirty weekends with you, it was so very funny...


So glad you visited London in March, it was good weather then and I'm pleased to hear that you enjoyed yourself.  It's an incredible city.  I loved NYC, but I only lasted less than a year there as I didn't have a green card and didn't wanna get married.  I need to live in the centre of the universe but be able to travel often.  I'm doing a beach, in Kerala on the west coast of southern India next, 6 weeks next Jan-Feb.  I reckon I need to learn to meditate...

And yes, I live right in the middle of London, in Westminster, Maida Vale W9.  The only reason I can afford to live here in that I lucked into social housing.  When I returned from Canada and my brief stint in NYC, I qualified for subsidised housing just because I had a Brit Passport (and I've got a smashing flat near the Portobello Market.  I was extremely lucky).  Nowadays there are no council flats left other than tower blocks in Deptford and you can't get one unless you're a single teenage mum and deemed needy, straight out of jail and therefore homeless, or are a refugee straight off the boat.



Are you doing photos of China?  Can you post them?  You're a wonderful photographer.  That would be worth logging into GetBig regularly for.  

Maybe we ought suggest that Ron consider a member's photo log/blog section?  The only reason we were able to appreciate your fantastic pix from the front line in the Middle East was because we Girlies loved you and STella/ButterBean very kindly did a 'top of the Girly Board in Bold thread' just for you.

Now you're in the Far East.  Far out !



You've still not answered my very serious but somewhat silly query about how they get back down from the top of the mountain.  Noone ever does a documentary or writes a book about that.  It always ends when they get to the top and stand there posing.  I really really want to know:  Do they get helicoptered off?  

It must be harder to get back down than climbing up and they never show that bit.  I'm funny like that, I always need to know the whole story...  The end of a book frequently disappoints me.


with mad love
Linda
xxx

I'm not sure if he's on a mountain or just a hill. There are a few very long endurance races mentioned in the book. Sometimes they run in mountainous areas, I supposed that one is probably in Mexico.

A photography thread sounds like a good idea to me.

[Mr. Magoo]

finished up The Razor's Edge by Maugham

about to finish up On the Social Contract by Rousseau

about to start The Right Thing to Do by James Rachels

[Benny B]

[JimmyJam1974]

I don't get it. If you want to "attack" that statement, feel free. No one is holding you back, and I certainly could care less.
It stands to reason that your purpose for selecting a given reading material would be based on the personal appeal of the subject matter.

I hate when people make this mistake.. I mean, think about it - clueless

[Benny B]

I hate when people make this mistake.. I mean, think about it - clueless

No "mistake" was made, unless you are making a grammatical point. Color me clueless because you are making no sense.  

There is no need to write in riddles here my friend.  Make the comment you want to make, no matter how puerile and unnecessary to the established purpose of this thread.
"Think about it"...lol

[dr.chimps]

No "mistake" was made, unless you are making a grammatical point. Color me clueless because you are making no sense.  

There is no need to write in riddles here my friend.  Make the comment you want to make, no matter how puerile and unnecessary to the established purpose of this thread.
"Think about it"...lol

The proper wording is 'could not care less,' not 'could care less,' which means you actually could find room to care less. His point was open and sound. 

[Benny B]

The proper wording is 'could not care less,' not 'could care less,' which means you actually could find room to care less. His point was open and sound. 

Thanks for the grammatical correction.
However, as I suspected, it is a point completely irrelevant to the purposes of this thread. 

[haider]

Description from Amazon:
Beginning at the moment of creation with the Big Bang, Here on Earth explores the evolution of Earth from a galactic cloud of dust and gas to a planet with a metallic core and early signs of life within a billion years of being created. In a compelling narrative, Flannery describes the formation of the Earth’s crust and atmosphere, as well as the transformation of the planet’s oceans from toxic brews of metals (such as iron, copper, and lead) to life-sustaining bodies covering 70 percent of the planet’s surface. Life, Flannery shows, first appeared in these oceans in the form of microscopic plants and bacteria, and these metals served as catalysts for the earliest biological processes known to exist. From this starting point, Flannery tells the fascinating story of the evolution of our own species, exploring several early human species—from the diminutive creatures (the famed hobbits) who lived in Africa around two million years ago to Homo erectus—before turning his attention to Homo sapiens. Drawing on Charles Darwin’s and Alfred Russell Wallace’s theories of evolution and Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, Here on Earth is a dazzling account of life on our planet.

[Mr. Magoo]

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Also rereading On Liberty by John Stuart Mill

[BB]

Just finished up some older James Lee Burke stuff. Next will probably be the last Scudder book by Lawrence Block.

My main winter project is to read all of the Parker books by Westlake(Richard Stark) in order.