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

[FanIn80]

Pick changed!

It's difficult. Just picking one book out of the Poirot series seems... I don't know the word for it... it's kinda like having to only pick one Hardy Boys book, or something like that.

I understand that it's a bit of a stretch, though, so I've changed it.

[octothorp]

Hercule Poirot is such a fantastic character; the connection to Holmes and House is very apt; brilliant but dark and complex and somewhat disagreeable; even if somewhat good, they're more interested in the mystery than justice. (My new favorite character on TV, Walter Bishop in Fringe, also fits this role.)

[Bobblehead]

In the Comic Category, I chose Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons - Bill Watterson



I REALLY wanted to pick the The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (which sits proudly on my bookshelf) but couldn't do it after questioning FanIn80's pick, and besides, if someone wants to pick more C&H books, I'm all for that.

Like many, something about C&H resonates with me. I've had some of the same cartoons tacked on the wall of my cubicle for almost a decade, and whenther it is Calvin's dad saying "The WORLD isn't fair, Calvin", "Tuesdays don't start out much worse than this", or "Somehow I imagined this experience would be more rewarding"; I can always seem to find a strip that echoes my sentiments. But the snowmen strips are always hilarious.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=U1om...LIXEkATz-tXEBw
http://www.amazon.ca/Attack-Deranged..._bxgy_b_text_b

[habernac]

"Die, snow goons, die!!!!"

Excellent pick!

[jammies]

When my parents got me the Complete Calvin & Hobbes for Xmas a couple years back, it was the Best. Christmas. Present. Ever.

[driveway]

Good pick on the Calvin & Hobbes - the awesome thing is that I could visualize each and every one of the individual strips you referenced (and am also a proud owner of The Complete).


What with the hording of Fantasy picks, and the rate at which they are going, and this author having already made an appearance in the draft, I can't let this particular work drop down any further because I can't imagine it will still be available in a round or two.

For my fourth pick, in the Category of Fantasy, Team Discovery Channel is proud to select:



The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay

Comprising three novels:
The Summer Tree - published 1984
The Wandering Fire - 1986
The Darkest Road - 1986

Considering that Kay was Christopher Tolkien's assistant while the latter edited his late father's book The Silimarillion it is worth noting that, while indebted to Tolkien's invention of the genre, the similarities between Kay's work and LOTR pretty much begin and end with them both being triolgies.

The story begins with five University of Toronto students being whisked from our world to the world of Fionavar, the First world (echoing Zelazny's Amber) where each - of course - finds themselves with some pivotal destiny to play in a cataclysmic battle of Good v. Evil.

Kay weaves Arthurian and Celtic legend through the three books giving them a sense of being grounded that most Fantasy wishes it could have, and helps to makes sense of the connection between our world and Fionavar.

As far as the actual writing goes, Kay is leagues and leagues better than Tolkien. Perhaps struggling through the Silimarillion left him with an appreciation for precision and control which Tolkien, for all his creative genius, sorely lacked.

As with all of Kay's works you can pretty much count on crying at least once, watching a character you love do something you can't forgive, and watching another character you love - or possibly the same one - die when you are least suspecting it.

Read this book.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

If you are wanting to pick the series shouldn't it be in Anthology?

Or perhaps we should add a Series/Character category to account for these situations.

Things like "Lord of the Rings" is one long story spread over multiple volumes, but these are a bunch of discrete stories featuring the same characters.

That is the way in which I viewed it, I thought that Sherlock Holmes, while all having the same character were all completely different stories that didn't have a continuing theme or central plot thus allowing it to fit better into the anthology category rather than a single work of fiction.

[FanIn80]

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I realize you guys were right.

[driveway]

I think that the ultimate arbiter of whether a work is acceptable or not, should be whether it is an actual published product that one could go out and buy.

For example: The Complete Sherlock Holmes exists in a number of editions, therefore I think it's acceptable in the "Anthology" category (or even the Mystery category).

However, I am unable to find a Complete Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which would include books like The Lost World and The Disintegration Machine. Therefore I don't think that should be acceptable.

Likewise, as far as I can tell, there is no Complete Hercule Poirot. There are a number of anthologies and omnibuses which collect either the short stories, or some novels, or a group of both. Any of these books would be fine, I think in either the Mystery or Anthology category.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare exist in a plethora of editions and translations, so I think it's fine.

Does that satisfy everyone? That one must select an actual published edition that the other members of the draft could theoretically acquire in order for it to be acceptable?

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by driveway

I think that the ultimate arbiter of whether a work is acceptable or not, should be whether it is an actual published product that one could go out and buy.

For example: The Complete Sherlock Holmes exists in a number of editions, therefore I think it's acceptable in the "Anthology" category (or even the Mystery category).

However, I am unable to find a Complete Sir Arthur Conan Doyle which would include books like The Lost World and The Disintegration Machine. Therefore I don't think that should be acceptable.

Likewise, as far as I can tell, there is no Complete Hercule Poirot. There are a number of anthologies and omnibuses which collect either the short stories, or some novels, or a group of both. Any of these books would be fine, I think in either the Mystery or Anthology category.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare exist in a plethora of editions and translations, so I think it's fine.

Does that satisfy everyone? That one must select an actual published edition that the other members of the draft could theoretically acquire in order for it to be acceptable?

I think that's a good rule. The way I see it, if you can find a cover image, then it counts as a "book."

[rogermexico]

Woah, that came up fast.

Alright. For the third round, team "Maybe you'll learn to drive in Hell" picks, in the Canadian Lit category, What The Crow Said by Robert Kroetsch.



I got to see Kroetsch read from this back when I was in university and it blew me away. This is a book I go back to whenever I need inspiration, whenever I need my head cleared, or if I'm a long way from home.

Kroetsch has a lot of great novels (The Studhorse Man and Gone Indian are my other favorites) and his poetry is a great way to get people who don't like poetry to see the other side. But this novel is the winner. It's the best novel about Alberta out there.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Fantastic pick, roger--definitely one of Kroetsch's best works.

[octothorp]

Wow, didn't expect to see any Kroetsch go this early... Not my absolute favorite of his, but definitely one of the greatest and most underrated Canadian authors.

[habernac]

for poetry, I am please to take the most excellent Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

We had the JP read this piece at our wedding, from Song of the Open Road:

I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

The writeup following is from wiki:




Leaves of Grass (1855) is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and in later editions, Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass,[1] revising it in several editions until his death.

This book is notable for its delight in and praise of the senses during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass (particularly the first edition) exalted the body and the material world. Influenced by the Transcendentalist movement, itself an offshoot of Romanticism, Whitman's poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. However, Whitman does not diminish the role of the mind or the spirit; rather, he elevates the human form and the human mind, deeming both worthy of poetic praise.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Dang it, habby! That was my next pick, I swear to god.

I have to rethink now. Pick will be up momentarily....

[habernac]

Uncle Walt rules. Kudos to the movie Dead Poet's Society for getting it out a little more to the masses.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

With our fourth selection, in the category of Science Fiction, Bartleby and the Scriveners are pleased to select Solaris,by Stanislaw Lem.



This is perhaps Polish science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem's most famous work; it has the dubious honour of having inspired two film adaptations. The first, a moody and slow-paced work from Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, captures something essential about the book--while the second, a brainless George-Clooney schmaltz-fest from director Steven Soderbergh, vitiates the story completely. However, Lem is probably not alone in having his work ruined by Hollywood.

Solaris tells the story of first contact with an alien life-form--a planet-sized consciousness that a group of scientists try desperately to communicate with, ultimately failing because the human experience (atomized selves interacting only in ways allowed by the substrate of our embodiment) is too different from the entirely different consciousness of a truly united, holistic being. In the end, the "ocean-consciousness" can only reflect back to the researchers their own traumatic pasts, and the harder they try to make "contact," the more they are confronted with their own traumas and past crimes, leading some to suicide and others to insanity. The protagonist, Kris Kelvin, is moved by his own grief to become a murderer--I won't say more than that, except to add that it is a novel which asks a lot of its reader. Not much is revealed about Kelvin's history, and less about the other characters, but lurking in the background is the hidden notion of the past as a burden, and it is this burden that prevents a real first contact from taking place. Also in the background is Lem's own exobiological theory--that alien life-forms might be so different from us that to make first contact would be senseless anyway.

[liamenator]

Some great picks lately... kudos habby on the WW pick, and Solaris is great too. I'm going to nab my Sci-Fi selection now, because I know for damn sure it won't be around again next round... Phillip K. Dick's brilliant, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

I am sure most in this thread of read or at least heard of this novel, so not a whole lot of introduction is needed. For anyone who hasn't, this is the novel from which Blade Runner (my personal favorite Sci-Fi film) was (loosely) based. If you haven't yet, read it!

[Bobblehead]

I think garypowers is still AKed from the last few rounds, so RatherDashing is up.

[RatherDashing]

With our 4th round selection, RatherDashings "24 CCs of Heart" select in the Non-Fiction-Memoir Category, And No Birds Sang, by Farley Mowat.




In "And No Birds Sang" Farley Mowat recounts his experiences during World War 2. Mowat served as an inexperienced Lieutenant in the Canadian infantry, serving first in Sicily, and then on the Italian mainland.

Of the many Farley Mowat books that I have read, this one has stuck with me the most. Mowat skillfully employs the light-hearted writing style featured in several of his more humourous books in order to establish the inexperience and happy-go-lucky nature of himself and his unit prior to hard battle. However, the mood of the book quickly changes as the war gets more intense, and the casualties begin to pile up. This abrupt change from light to somber really hit me hard when I read it, as it does an incredibly effective job of illustrating just how horrific war can be. Mowat uses this book to argue against the glory and honour of war, instead showing it as an awful waste of human life.

Like most Farley Mowat books, this one will likely make you laugh at several points in the story, but unlike most of his books, it will turn around to kick you in the gut. I would recommend this book to anybody interested in the Canadian role in World War 2, anybody who enjoys Farley Mowat, or anybody who doesn't fit into the above two categories.