CP LITERATURE DRAFT - (Rapid Fire Free For All Round)

[habernac]

for historical political, I choose Jon Lee Anderson's exhaustively researched Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life



This book is an intense read. You get a play by play of almost his entire life. Anderson's reasearch is unreal. I was always curious as to why so many people wore the t-shirts, etc. I found out that most people have no idea what this man was all about. He was definitely into his cause. But the lengths to which he would go were totally unacceptable.

An amazing read, pick it up and enjoy.

some reviews:

“Superb . . . Mr. Anderson does a masterly job in evoking Che’s complex character, in separating the man from the myth . . .”—The New York Times Book Review

“Excellent . . . admirably honest [and] staggeringly researched . . . It is unlikely that after Anderson’s exhaustive contribution, much more will be learned about Guevara.”—Los Angeles Times

“Groundbreaking. . . . Anderson’s book is an epic end run around the guard­ians of the Che legend.”—The New Yorker

“A masterly and absorbing account of Latin America’s famous guerrilla leader . . . Anderson’s book, easily the best so far on Guevara, is a worthy monumentto a flawed but heroic Utopian dreamer.”—The Sunday Times (London)

“Remarkable . . . Anderson’s account is well rounded and far from uncriti­cal . . . [his] journalistic flair and hard legwork are evident.”—Foreign Affairs

“Exceptional and exciting . . . Anderson’s up-close look, with beauty marks and tragicflaws so effortlessly rendered, brings the reader face to face with a man whose ‘unshakable faith in his beliefs was made more powerful by his unusual combination of romantic passion and a coldly analytical mind’ . . . An invaluable addition to the literature of American revolution­aries.”—Booklist

“A solidly documented biography that succeeds, with brilliant effect, in stripping away the layers of demonization and hero worship that for so longhave concealed the human core of this legendary figure. . . Thanks to Jon Lee Anderson, we now have the true story, the real man, a portrait of excep­tional substance to confound the myth and enhance our understanding of the facts.”—The Kansas City Star

“Jon Lee Anderson . . . draws upon an unprecedented wealth of new infor­mation . . . [an] assiduously researched and perhaps definitive biography.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“A skillful interviewer, Anderson elicited information from dozens of par­ticipants in Guevara’s life….Combining contradictory sources and an immense amount of detail, Anderson produces a multifaceted view of Guevara as a person, seething with ambiguities and complexities. This is an achievement that makes Che Guevara essential for anyone seriously inter­ested in Guevara or the Cuban revolution.”—The Nation

“Thirty years after his death, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life gives an admirablybalanced account of the Argentine adventurer, his real achieve­mentsand glamorous Robin Hood appeal . . . . An excellent guide to the myth behind the martyr.”—The Independent (London)

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

A lot of great American novels have been picked--but there are a few still out there, fortunately. In the category of American, team Bartleby and the Scriveners are pleased to select The U.S.A. Trilogy by John Dos Passos.







Dos Passos is more well known for The Manhattan Transfer, but it's pretty clear that he himself saw U.S.A. as more or less the magnum opus of his very fraught literary life. It can be criticized as in many ways nearly incoherent, but it was also experimental for a novel of its time, anticipating many techniques of fiction that would be used by other novelists later in the century. U.S.A. follows particular characters, like any novel would--but as its title suggests, it attempts to arrive at some conclusion about the economic reality of America itself. It is formally innovative, dense, long, complex--but most importantly, it is rip-roaringly good, far better than his more famous, but far less complex Manhattan Transfer.

[liamenator]

In the Philosophy section, I will select, from one of the most mind-blowing of mind-blowers... Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation.

The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true.

Originally published in 1985, Baudrillard's startling theories shook the foundations of postmodern thought. Building upon the ideas of Jameson, Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze, Simulacra and Simulations can be considered as one of the most ground-breaking and seminal texts in postmodern philosophy/theory.

The simulacrum is the replacement of reality and meaning in society with a series of symbols and signs - which begin as representations of reality. However these signs have become so familiar to us as to render the original irrelevent, lost; such that only the representations exist as reality. In fact, there is no reality - in the modern sense - it is lost, and there is only the simulacrum.

Baudrillard went on to apply this theoretical framework to numerous historical events - perhaps most famously in his statement that the Gulf War of 1991 "did not take place". (The media representations of the war do not simply influence the perception of the war to viewers and readers; rather that the perception of the war only exists via these representations - they are the only base of "reality" a viewer has, and thus supercede and become reality.)

Baudrillard's work has also been credited as the largest single influence on The Matrix series - which even includes an overt (and somewhat heavy-handed) reference to Simulacra and Simulation, as Neo pulls the book itself off the shelf and hides something within it - har har!

Apparently, Baudrillard was less than impressed with the Wachowski's far too literal interpretation of his work... Though personally I am inclined to salute the effort to incorporate some pretty abstract material into a big-budget studio movie.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Wow--what a great pick. I have to admit, that had fallen completely off my radar, but definitely a seminal work.

[troutman]

I select in the Fantasy category, PERDIDO STREET STATION by CHINA MIEVILLE (2000);

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdido_Street_Station



Perdido Street Station is the second novel written by China Miéville, and the first set in New Crobuzon. It was nominated for the 2002 Nebula Award for Best Novel and Hugo Award for Best Novel.[1][2] It won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award in 2001 and both the Premio Ignotus (2002) and Kurd Laßwitz (2003) Best Foreign Novel Awards.[3][4][5][6] It also won the Amazon.com Editors' Choice Award in Fantasy in 2001.[7] In May 2009, it will be available as an audiobook from Random House.[8]

In an interview, Miéville described this book as "basically a secondary world fantasy with Victorian era technology. So rather than being a feudal world, it's an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind!" [9]

China Tom Miéville (IPA: /ˈtʃɑinɑ ˈmieɪˌvɪl/) (born September 6, 1972 in Norwich) is an award-winning English fantastic fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" (after early 20th century pulp and horror writers such as H. P. Lovecraft), and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird who consciously attempt to move fantasy away from commercial, genre clichés of Tolkien epigons. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party. He has stood for the House of Commons for the Socialist Alliance, and published a book on Marxism and international law.

This is a fantasy world like no other. I also enjoyed the next book in the series, The Scar, but did not enjoy the third book Iron Council so much. Dragon Magazine devoted an entire issue to the world of Bas-Lag. New Crobuzon is a vividly realized city-state.

http://www.sfsite.com/06b/ps106.htm

Perdido Street Station is an unrelenting, marvelously imaginative stew, suggesting Mervyn Peake with astonishing invention, the diverse, sometimes ornate architecture of the city/state, and black humour. A fantasy epic with this assembly of colourful locales and magical, energetic, appealing characters will have readers expecting a happily-ever-after climax; but while the worst of the evils are overcome, the characters of the story pay a terrible price.

http://www.nplusonemag.com/?q=node/314

Miéville provides us with an understanding of fantasy very different from Howard's and Tolkien's. For Miéville, fantasy shouldn't merely justify what is, in the service of a self-defeating escapism or consolation; to the extent that it does, it's merely remaking our political world, not Remaking it. Instead, fantasy should become a way of arguing about our social condition, of re-presenting our dilemmas, and creating a space for the imagination in which we can identify new possibilities of action. Fantasy can have a kind of political force that the ‘realistic' novel can't, precisely because it doesn't take the real for granted.

[driveway]

I picked up The Scar without having read Perdido Street Station. I found Mieville's world-building to be better than his plotting or character development, though the world-building was good enough that it made me wand to read Perdido Street. Now that it's been taken in the draft, it makes me more curious to read it.

[jammies]

Jammies' Fahrenheit 451 would like to pick, under the category of Non-Fiction - Memoir/Biography, Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday.



A comprehensive record of atrocities and lunacies committed for the gratification of a single evil ego, this book details Mao's life from his early years as a student radical to his death. Along the way he destroys not only his enemies, but his allies and country, and all for the sole purpose of making himself a god on earth.

Mao emerges as a political genius of the first order, and the ultimate propagandist. His ability to deny reality and impose his own version of truth serves him well during his rise to leadership; his opponents are unable to fight political battles without accepting Mao's rules, and thus he outmaneuvers them again and again. His reputation as a military genius, however, is exposed as sham - he excels at taking the credit for other's victories, but cripples his commanders by his insistence on putting political considerations above military ones at all times.

This defining political nature is what eventually causes him to try casting the reality of an entire nation as what he believes it should be, rather than what it is or is possible. The story of the "Great Leap Forward" and then the "Cultural Revolution" as detailed in the book are illuminating in their tragedy; Mao refuses to accept that China cannot become a superpower at once and thus millions die in futile attempts to remake the nation as an industrial realm of the right-thinking proletariat. Most chilling of all, he pushes China's nuclear and missile programs for one ultimate goal: atomic war, where he believes that China can afford to lose 300 million lives if that means the USSR and USA lose 300 million as well, leaving China the "winner" with its vast population.

As a cautionary example of the madness of tyrants, Mao: The Unknown Story is well worth the read. It also serves well as an indictment of the current Chinese regime, which still treats Mao as if he were "mostly right" instead of entirely wrong.

[Bobblehead]

Thats an AK (which is strange because Jersey has picked in the mini-draft, and actually posted in the TV draft but not picked while it is her turn - very odd).

You're up Aeneas

[JerzeeGirl]

Sorry! I know I was late - have been running like crazy all night trying to catch up on picks and dig friends out of the slush!

Ok, Team Writer's Block selects in the memoir/biography category, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School At A Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.

This is the tale of a man who found his purpose in life when he went to climb a mountain and scatter his sister's ashes at the summit. Mortenson never made the summit on that trip but it was the beginning of his life's adventure as he met and fell in love with the people of the isolated reaches of Pakistanand vowed to help them as they helped him.

From Publishers Weekly:
Some failures lead to phenomenal successes, and this American nurse's unsuccessful attempt to climb K2, the world's second tallest mountain, is one of them. Dangerously ill when he finished his climb in 1993, Mortenson was sheltered for seven weeks by the small Pakistani village of Korphe; in return, he promised to build the impoverished town's first school, a project that grew into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Coauthor Relin recounts Mortenson's efforts in fascinating detail, presenting compelling portraits of the village elders, con artists, philanthropists, mujahideen, Taliban officials, ambitious school girls and upright Muslims Mortenson met along the way. As the book moves into the post-9/11 world, Mortenson and Relin argue that the United States must fight Islamic extremism in the region through collaborative efforts to alleviate poverty and improve access to education, especially for girls. Captivating and suspenseful, with engrossing accounts of both hostilities and unlikely friendships, this book will win many readers' hearts.

From ThreeCupsofTea.com:
In 1993 Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering he observed the village’s 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school. From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time.

In an early effort to raise money he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen, and other prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Selling everything he owned, he still only raised $2,400. But his efforts changed when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin, donated $623.40 in pennies, who inspired adults to begin to take action. The 283 foot Braldu Bridge was completed in 1995 and the Korphe School was completed in 1996. Since then, he’s established 78 schools. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived an armed kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. Yet his success speaks for itself.

Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world .’ -Tom Brokaw

"Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He’s my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea , he’ll be your hero, too." -U.S. Representative Mary Bono (R-Calif.)

Some links to organizations you might want to investigate:

Pennies for Peace - Pennies for Peace educates children about the world beyond their experience and shows them that they can make a positive impact on a global scale, one penny at a time.

Central Asia Institute - CAI is a non-profit organization with the mission to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Three Cups of Tea Homepage - Resources and info on the book and how it came about, plus links to the young adult & children's versions.

[troutman]

^^^^

My Mom's book club is reading that now. I got it for her at Xmas.

[Aeneas]

Better pick before I get in trouble...

Going to put this in Science for now.

An unusual book in my opinion, that I feel lucky to have happened upon at a used bookstore.

Written by an author perhaps more famous for the fantastic.

It is, The Ancient Engineers,

by L. Sprague de Camp

"An astonishing look back at the ancient wonders of the world and their creators."

"Mr. de Camp has the trick of being able to show technology engaging in feats as full of derring-do as those of Hannibal's army. History as it should be told."
Isaac Asimov
New York Times Book review


For me, as someone who is as far from an engineer as could be, I found this book very interesting. I have always wondered how things work and my brain has generally been unable to fathom complex technology.

To take this trip back in time and learn how seemingly simple things now were first invented all over the world. Further how quite complex things were done thousands of years ago.

Starting from the beginnings of machine making in irrigation, the book explains levers, pulleys and moves on to complex military machines and clocks. Think building a road is straightforward (pun intended)? Learn how much went into a Roman road, and you'll know why they lasted so long.

Torsion weapons, bridges, walls, seigecraft, bireme versus trireme rowing, water clocks, pipe organs, bilge pumps, etc.

Maybe it's just me, but to learn how these things were done, by what people and when; was eye opening to me. To know how to build a proper Sumerian dwelling may be important in the not too distant future.

[troutman]

^^^^

That book sounds like a good antidote to the nonsensical Chariots Of The Gods (which theorized ancient cultures had help from aliens).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_gods



Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past is a book written in 1968 by Erich von Däniken. It is centered on the hypothesis that many ancient civilizations' technologies and religion were given to them by space travelers who were welcomed as gods.

Most scientists and historians do not take the ideas seriously, claiming that the book's conclusions were based on faulty, pseudoscientific evidence, some of which was later demonstrated to be fraudulent and/or fabricated, and illogical premises.

Nutjobs:

http://www.legendarytimes.com/

de Camp is well known for his fantasy and science fiction books.

[Jagger]

The Mighty Pen are pleased to select in the Coffee Table book category:

The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson

amazon.ca: http://www.amazon.ca/Group-Seven-Tom...2129018&sr=8-1



The Group of Seven was founded in 1920 as an organization of self-proclaimed modern artists. The original members - Franklin CARMICHAEL, Lawren HARRIS, A.Y. JACKSON, Franz JOHNSTON, Arthur LISMER, J.E.H. MACDONALD and F.H. VARLEY - befriended each other in Toronto between 1911 and 1913. All except Harris, who was independently wealthy, made their living as commercial artists, and several of them even worked together in the same shop. Tom THOMSON, another commercial artist, was included in this circle of friends, but since he died in 1917 he never became a member of the Group. He was important to the other artists, however, for he was an avid outdoorsman and awakened their interest in painting the rugged northern Ontario landscape.











I have grown to have a huge appreciation for this group of artists, especially since seeing an exhibition of theirs at the Glenbow. This is an excellent coffee table book with close to 400 reproductions of their work.

[Aeneas]

I read "Chariots of the Gods" also, but de Camp explains pyramid building much better. It is really amazing what can be done without too much technology; of course along with the innovative thought it's nice to have a large army of slaves.

[Circa89]

Chariots of the Gods! Wow what an awesome book when you are in Grade 7. I still have my copy. Thats Hilarious!

[Burninator]

For my seventh pick of the draft, I select in the Travel category, Last Chance to See, by Douglas Adams.


1990

Douglas Adams, of Hitch Hikers fame, teams up with a zoologist and goes all over the world in search of endangered animals. This was my first Douglas Adams book that I read, and I thought it was great. His writing style is very entertaining and not to mention hilarious. Each chapter deals with the search of a different endangered animal. Some chapters will go into detail about the animal and it's habits and why there is so little of them left. Other chapters will give the animal only a brief mention and instead focus on the ordeal of traveling to these remote destinations. The book had me laughing out loud a couple times which is rare for me. If you are a Douglas Adams fan you should pick this book up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Chance_to_See

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

In the category of Memoir/Biography the Mustardeers select Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - a brutally sad tale of hardships which I have never had to face had a pretty big impact on me when I first read it and just the struggle to survive.

[driveway]

Originally Posted by Aeneas

of course along with the innovative thought it's nice to have a large army of slaves.

I'm fairly certain that it's been established - or is pretty close to being established - that the Pyramids were not constructed by slaves, but rather by the population of Egypt itself.

Link to a story about the research which led to this conclusion:
http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/w...-pyramids.html

[RougeUnderoos]

Pre-20th Century Pick 2

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. First published in 1726.



Funny book. I don't know if my 2009 sensibilities have me laughing at the right parts, but I thought it was a riot. It was supposed to be funny, I know that for a fact, but I'm pretty sure I laughed at some things that weren't supposed to be funny. One of the things I got out of it was that this guy (Gulliver) thinks he's a real noble gent, but he's really a boob and maybe a traitor and a coward.

The one story (there are four different ones) about the horses that talk -- the "Houyhnhnms" -- I didn't like that one nearly as much as the other three, but it does give us the excellent word "Yahoo". Well, it was excellent before it was taken over by the internet company.

(and if someone already picked this and I missed it then whoops. But there is a hockey game on now and I didn't have a chance to make sure. I don't remember it being picked).

[JerzeeGirl]

Nice pick Rouge....I read Gulliver's Travels in Lit12 and really enjoyed it....so much for thinking it might become a Wildcard now tho.....*LOL*