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

[troutman]

I select in the picture book/coffee table book category, THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ATLAS OF THE WORLD:



I love maps, and can pore over them for hours. National Geographic maps are great, and I have a collection of many old maps from the magazine going back to the 1970s. My dad got me this atlas for Xmas one year.

http://www.amazon.com/National-Geogr.../dp/0792275284

When National Geographic published its first Atlas of the World more than 35 years ago, the world was indeed a different place. In order to cover today's world--including its oceans, stars, climate, natural resources, and more--National Geographic has published its seventh edition of the Atlas of the World. With each new edition, National Geographic strives to make its atlas more than just maps. You'll learn that the coldest place in the world is the Plateau Station in Antarctica, where the average daily temperature is minus 56.7 degrees Celsius; the most populated continent is Asia, with more than 3.6 billion people, or 60.8 percent of the world's population; the driest place on earth is the Atacama Desert in Chile; a flight from New Delhi to Rio de Janeiro covers 14,080 kilometers; life expectancy in the Republic of Zambia is 37 years; and the literacy rate in Turkmenistan is 98 percent.

Flip through the pages of this impressive book and you will feel as though the world is literally at your fingertips. Full-page spreads are devoted to more than 75 political and physical maps (political maps show borders; physical maps show mountains, water, valleys, and vegetation). There are many new touches to be found in this edition, including increased usage of satellite images, an especially helpful feature when researching the most remote regions of the earth; more than 50 updated political maps that record the impact of wars, revolutions, treaties, elections, and other events; and the use of the latest research on topics such as tectonics, oceanography, climate, and natural resources. The sheer size of the atlas's index--134 pages--offers insight into just how much information is packed into 260-plus pages. The book is so physically large, in fact, that when it's open, the reader is staring at three square feet of information, a surface area larger than many television screens. The potential uses of this book for a family are vast, from settling a friendly argument to completing a school report. In the end, though, the atlas is still mostly about maps. Pages and pages of maps. Maps that force us to see how wonderful and dynamic our world is. Maps that remind us of where we've been and where we'd still like to go. --John Russell




http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/maps

[octothorp]

Wow, five picks already this morning, all of them very good picks. I love Solaris in particular; real shame about the most recent movie adaptation of it.

[Circa89]

That's 3 Philip K. Dick selections and counting. He's a gooder!

[jammies]

Wow seems like I just had a turn - gonna be tough to do my own synopsis of each book if it's going to be every couple days!

Anyway, for my next pick, jammies' Fahrenheit 451 picks Shadowland by Peter Straub in the Mass/Pulp Fiction category:



Shadowland is a story about two boys who want to be magicians. It is also the story of a man who has learned true magic, and who ostensibly wants to teach them it, although his true purpose is somewhat less noble.

The book jumps back and forth thru various viewpoints, and times, and we learn much of the true motivations and histories of the characters, and much of good and evil besides. Straub does an excellent job of making his monsters both horrific and pathetic; we see inside the little dreams of little men who want to be transformed and feared, and who have willingly embraced hate because it is better than nothing at all.

There are stylistic and continuity errors, and the book is sometimes disjointed, but there are also passages of great skill and powerful imagery; I think it is one of those books that one either loves or hates for mysterious reasons. Put me down definitely in the love camp!

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

I almost hesitate to raise this, but I have a category question. In the category of European lit, we do now have one novel that was written in English by an American Citizen--I'm talking about Lolita.

I only bring it up to clarify what's possible for me in this and other categories in the future. Nabokov was trilingual, and a very accomplished writer in Russian as well, but was most famous for his works in English, produced after he settled in the U.S. in 1940. He became a U.S. citizen in '48, and published Lolita in '55.

It may seem like I'm splitting hairs--and again, I'm not trying to play "gotcha"-- I'm content to go whichever way everyone else does. But it does raise the issue of whether, say Rohinton Mistry or Salman Rushdie could fit into the World Lit category as just one example. My feeling is that Mistry is Canadian and Rushdie is British.

I guess I'm just hoping for a clarification--how do we classify a writer as part of one or another category, when the categories are geographic? Do we go with place of birth, in which case Ezra Pound is an American, or nationality of choice, in which case he's a Brit?

Also to clarify--Lolita was an awesome pick--and I am in no way pursuing a personal vendetta against octothorp for stealing all my books.

(But for the record, he did take 2 of them. )

[Circa89]

Tough call for me but that is precisely why I traded away my world lit category. It seems like every author I've read who could be classified under world was either living in Europe or North America when the book was published.

Tough call.
Country of Origin versus country of citizenship versus country of influence.
I say whatever the authors citizenship is when he published is the correct answer.

It reminds me of that controversial Gold Medal. Ben Johnson was a Canadian when he won the Gold but when he was busted for doping he was a Jamacian living in Canada at the time.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I almost hesitate to raise this, but I have a category question. In the category of European lit, we do now have one novel that was written in English by an American Citizen--I'm talking about Lolita.

I only bring it up to clarify what's possible for me in this and other categories in the future. Nabokov was trilingual, and a very accomplished writer in Russian as well, but was most famous for his works in English, produced after he settled in the U.S. in 1940. He became a U.S. citizen in '48, and published Lolita in '55.

It may seem like I'm splitting hairs--and again, I'm not trying to play "gotcha"-- I'm content to go whichever way everyone else does. But it does raise the issue of whether, say Rohinton Mistry or Salman Rushdie could fit into the World Lit category as just one example. My feeling is that Mistry is Canadian and Rushdie is British.

I guess I'm just hoping for a clarification--how do we classify a writer as part of one or another category, when the categories are geographic? Do we go with place of birth, in which case Ezra Pound is an American, or nationality of choice, in which case he's a Brit?

Also to clarify--Lolita was an awesome pick--and I am in no way pursuing a personal vendetta against octothorp for stealing all my books.

(But for the record, he did take 2 of them. )

I think it's worthwhile to discuss this and come up with some more clearly defined rules. My rationale was that Nabokov wrote only four of his 17 books while in America (the first nine in Germany and France, the last four (five, if Laura ever gets published) in Switzerland), so I have a hard time counting anything that he's produced as being part of American Literature, especially when all of the themes and styles fit far more with European lit than American. He's really a European through-and-through, who moved to the US to escape persecution, taught European literature while in America, and then returned to Europe as soon as he had enough financial security. I'm content to change it to an american novel if there's that consensus, but to me it really doesn't fit there.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I think it's worthwhile to discuss this and come up with some more clearly defined rules. My rationale was that Nabokov wrote only four of his 17 books while in America (the first nine in Germany and France, the last four (five, if Laura ever gets published) in Switzerland), so I have a hard time counting anything that he's produced as being part of American Literature, especially when all of the themes and styles fit far more with European lit than American. He's really a European through-and-through, who moved to the US to escape persecution, taught European literature while in America, and then returned to Europe as soon as he had enough financial security. I'm content to change it to an american novel if there's that consensus, but to me it really doesn't fit there.

I'm just on the warpath against you!

That's a fair argument, though.

[Ronald Pagan]

I'm back from the brig.

When do I get to pick?

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan

I'm back from the brig.

When do I get to pick?

You only missed on pick, pick it as soon as you are able.

And don't wander away, your next pick should be soon.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by octothorp

I think it's worthwhile to discuss this and come up with some more clearly defined rules.

I don't think we need more rules. If you can reasonably stick a book in one category or another, no one is going to argue about it. This is not a contest.

[Aeneas]

Originally Posted by troutman

I don't think we need more rules. If you can reasonably stick a book in one category or another, no one is going to argue about it. This is not a contest.

Spoken like a true lawy...actually that was a reasonable answer.

[Aeneas]

Trade:

To Aeneas: Science fiction
To Ronald Pagan: American Literature

[JerzeeGirl]

Team Writer's Block is proud to call to the podium in the Poetry selection, Shakespeare's Sonnets.

We've all probably read some of the sonnets in high school or post-secondary, they are beautifully written and have a depth of meaning that you may not expect on an initial review. The sonnets are also quite "racey" in places, full of passion, love and desires.



From Wikipedia:
Shakespeare's sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years. All 154 poems appeared in a 1609 collection, entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS, comprising 152 previously unpublished sonnets and two (numbers 138 and 144) that had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim.

The first 17 sonnets are written to a young man, urging him to marry and have children,[3] thereby passing down his beauty to the next generation. These are called the procreation sonnets. Most of them, however, 18-126, are addressed to a young man expressing the poet's love for him. Sonnets 127-152 are written to the poet's mistress expressing his strong love for her. The final two sonnets, 153-154, are allegorical. The final thirty or so sonnets are written about a number of issues, such as the young man's infidelity with the poet's mistress, self-resolution to control his own lust, beleaguered criticism of the world, etc.

Sonnet IX is one of my favourites lately because it sounds like something my mother would say - a true reflectionof the timelessness of Shakespeare's writing!

IX

Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye,
That thou consum'st thy self in single life?
Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die,
The world will wail thee like a makeless wife;
The world will be thy widow and still weep
That thou no form of thee hast left behind,
When every private widow well may keep
By children's eyes, her husband's shape in mind:
Look what an unthrift in the world doth spend
Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;
But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,
And kept unused the user so destroys it.
No love toward others in that bosom sits
That on himself such murd'rous shame commits

(Basically the gist is that in by choosing not to marry and have kids, you are essentially murdering yourself as you leave nothing behind for your widow (the world at large & your spouse) as a legacy of your existence and the author wonders why you would be so selfish as to do such a thing.)

[Bobblehead]

Ummmm, Jerzeegirl - you traded your Poetry pick to Jammies
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...9&postcount=18

Here is the current draft board: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...y_h-SEBMq3wVDw

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

I'm just on the warpath against you!

That's a fair argument, though.

Very well then, I'm going to have to put some serious thought into what book you're planning on taking next... You may want to start wearing a tinfoil hat!

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Ummmm, Jerzeegirl - you traded your Poetry pick to Jammies
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...9&postcount=18

Scandal!

[Ronald Pagan]

For his 3rd pick...

Ronald Pagan of The Cart-Driven Mountebanks selects:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

by Milan Kundera

In the European Literature category.



Kundera's hollowing story of love and infidelity marks a masterful moment of Cold War literature.

The story recounts the life of a serial womanizer, his partner and their shared love and anguish. I don't really know how to describe this book. It moved me deeply.

It questions the associations and bonds between individuals through marriage and between individuals and their country through authoritarianism. Ultimately, both bonds are meaningless as the individual themselves must forge their own path to happiness and enlightenment. It is a post-existential book where the rooted problems of the characters are real and pressing but where they all have the choice to accept their own paranoia or press through the pain to find their own salvation.

Kundera's prose, especially his moments inside Teresa's thoughts are thundering. Wonderful book.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by octothorp

Very well then, I'm going to have to put some serious thought into what book you're planning on taking next... You may want to start wearing a tinfoil hat!

Done and done!


If you take another of my picks, I WILL start to feel paranoid! In all honesty, it sounds like we enjoy a lot of the same books.

[JerzeeGirl]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Ummmm, Jerzeegirl - you traded your Poetry pick to Jammies
http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showpos...9&postcount=18

Here is the current draft board: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?k...y_h-SEBMq3wVDw

All fixed! No fata here.....thanks again Aeneas!