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

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by habernac

well crap, I even searched the list and found nothing. I'll have another selection up shortly.

Oops - I noticed I accidentally typed 1985 on the draft sheet

Fixed.

[habernac]

no worries. Animal Farm was almost as good.

[RatherDashing]

Hey, just checked out the spreadsheet, and noticed that you have me down as having traded my fantasy pick. Anyways, that wasn't me, I think it should be GaryPowers' pick that got traded.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by RatherDashing

Hey, just checked out the spreadsheet, and noticed that you have me down as having traded my fantasy pick. Anyways, that wasn't me, I think it should be GaryPowers' pick that got traded.

Thanks goodness for copy and paste - easy fix, thanks.

[liamenator]

We'll take for this round, in the memoir/biography category.... Dave Eggers pulitzer prize-nominated A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius!

Love this book, love Eggers schitzophrenic style.

[RatherDashing]

With our 5th round pick in the draft, RatherDashings "24 CCs of Heart" select in the Graphic novel/ comic book/ Humour /Satire Category, The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories, by Nicholas Gurewitch.




For those who don't know, the Perry Bible Fellowship is a comic strip featured in a small number of newspapers worldwide, but has developed a massive internet following. The comics feature the bizarre and often dark humour of Gurewitch, combined with fantastic artwork, makes PBF one of the best comic strips I've ever read.

Unfortunately, his website has recently gone down, so finding some of his comics is a bit tricky, but here are a few that I like:

[troutman]

I select in the travel category, INTO THIN AIR: A Personal Account Of The Mt. Everest Disaster, by JON KRAKAUER (1996):



This is a chilling and troubling book. I can't understand the psychology of people that risk their lives for adventure. It seems to me that this is a very selfish pursuit, doubly so for those with wives and children. Krakauer cannot explain why people risk their lives this way, a theme in much of his writing:

http://outside.away.com/peaks/features/transcript.html

How do climbers square the risk with the reward when embarking on these expeditions?

In fact, statistically the risk is closer to one in 33 [risk of dying]. And I don't square the risk. I mean, climbing is an irrational act. It makes no sense. It defies logic. It's something I'm compelled to do. I'm not sure why. I'm at a loss to explain it in any way that makes any sense.

I've written two books--Eiger Dreams and Into the Wild--that deal with this question of risk and why people do it. And I'm sure I've failed to explain it in both those books. I've devoted many months, years, in those books to try to explain this question and I haven't succeeded. I don't think I ever will.


http://www.amazon.ca/Into-Thin-Air-P...e=UTF8&s=books

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

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster is a bestsellingnon-fiction book written by Jon Krakauer.[1] It details the author's May 10, 1996 ascent of Mount Everest, which turned catastrophic when eight climbers were killed and several others were stranded by a 'rogue storm'. The author's expedition was led by the famed guide Rob Hall, and there were other groups trying to summit on the same day, including one led by Scott Fischer, whose guiding agency, Mountain Madness, was perceived as a competitor to Rob Hall's agency, Adventure Consultants[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Everest_Disaster

The 1996 Everest Disaster refers to a single day of the 1996 climbing season, May 11, 1996, when eight people died on Mount Everest during summit attempts. In the entire season, fifteen people died trying to reach the summit, making it the deadliest single year in Everest history. The disaster gained wide publicity and raised questions about the commercialization of Everest.

Journalist Jon Krakauer, on assignment from Outside magazine, was in one of the affected parties, and afterwards published the bestseller Into Thin Air[1] which related his experience. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide who felt impugned by Krakauer's book, co-authored a rebuttal book called The Climb.[2] Expedition members Beck Weathers and Lene Gammelgard wrote about their experiences of the disaster in their books Left For Dead [3] and Climbing High[4]. The storm's impact on climbers on the mountain's other side, the North Ridge, where several climbers also died, was detailed in a first-hand account by British filmmaker and writer Matt Dickinson in his book The Other Side of Everest[5].

PBS Frontline Documentary:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/everest/

Original Outside Article (Outside has excellent travel writing)
http://outside.away.com/outside/dest...hin_air_1.html

Everest deals with trespassers harshly: the dead vanish beneath the snows. While the living struggle to explain what happened. And why. A survivor of the mountain's worst disaster examines the business of Mount Everest and the steep price of ambition.

[driveway]

I just finished reading Into Thin Air and have been waffling on taking it almost every round. Great book, good pick.

[habernac]

great pick, trout. High elevation mountaineering is insane. I'm fascinated by it, but I'd never try it (esp. with a wife and 2 kids now).

[jammies]

For my WORLD LIT pick, jammies' Fahrenheit 451 is going to go with A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT WAR, by Mark Helprin (who, although an American, grew up in the Caribbean, served in the British Merchant Marine and the Israeli Air Force among other foreign postings), which is the story of Alessandro Giuliani, an upper-class Italian young man living in Rome who experiences the profound through the medium of war and its aftermaths.



From the summary on the author's website:

"In the summer of 1964, Alessandro Giuliani, an old and partially lame professor of aesthetics —white hair and mustaches, white suit, cane— is thrown off a trolley on the outskirts of Rome after he comes to the defense of a young and semi-literate factory worker who has irritated the driver. Alessandro and Nicolò, the boy, decide to make the very long journey into the mountains, on foot, as a defiant pilgrimage away from those things --worthless and imposed--that people allow to take the place of real life. In their trying walk the towns of Italy glittering below them in the warm summer air, the sea polished by a weightless fume of silver light, the old man is moved to tell the story of his life: of a youthful paradise instantly shattered by the First World War, of how he lost one family, gained another, and lost it as well. The boy is enthralled by the war and its spectacular events, by Alessandro's privations, heroism, and adventures, and by the extraordinary beauty of the story and in its telling. At the end of the long walk, however, he comes to understand its deeper import, that love is superior to and greater than all the glories of civilization, but that each is heightened by the understanding of the other, and that even in the face of death, life can be made worthwhile if these things are made to run together seamlessly, like a song."

Helprin's prose is known for his mastery of description and lyricism; here is an example from the novel:

"In the evenings after dinner he watched the flame of the lamp. When the wind howled with great strength, it moved as if the abyss were trying to take it away. Wind and darkness seemed to say that if only the flame would surrender and be extinguished, leaving behind a trace of white smoke, it would be taken at unimaginable speed and in unimaginable cold, whistling like a million flutes, high over the mountains of ice, rocketing into the darkness of space in distances that had no limit and for a time without end -- but the flame kept burning, wavering perilously behind a thin shell of brittle glass, and it lit the room, turning everything to gold."

An entirely beautiful book.

[octothorp]

Haven't read this one, but I love other Helprin books that I've read. Not mentioning which ones incase I or someone else wants to pick them up later, though. He has an ability to tell an epic story like few others; all of his work that I've read is brilliant both on the macro level of the complete work down to the minutae of the sentences and words.

[JerzeeGirl]

Team Writer's Block is thrilled to select a book from the Children's Lit category that is timeless, sentimental and very moving - Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.

From Wiki (as they said it better than me):
The story begins while a son has just been born. The story then continues through the life of the boy until he is a grown man. The mother continues to rock her son to sleep singing "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." Later, the role is reversed and he holds his elderly mother as she is dying and says "I'll love you forever I'll like you for always as long as I'm living my mommy you'll be." At the very end of the story, he is the father of a little girl, rocking her to sleep the same song that his mother used to sing to him.

I'm tearing up as I write this and about to call home - this is a doozy of a book but possibly one of the most meaningful 32 pages ever written that a parent & child can share.

Happy Holidays everyone - be safe & be happy!

[Eastern Girl]

^^Wicked pick. Would never of thought of it myself, even though I love it.

[Aeneas]

Read that book to my daughter many times. Have to admit it gets to me.

[Circa89]

Loved The Perry Bible Fellowship !!!

[Aeneas]

That was quick, I guess the two people ahead of me are AK'd.

I will get a pick up within an hour.

[Aeneas]

Sticking with the Travel category, I will now pick something very different from the last one.

Paul Theroux Pillars Of Hercules



The goal in this book is to travel from Gibraltar to Morocco. Not a difficult feat, unless you do it the long way.

One rule: no planes.

A second informal rule I suppose is that he does not visit famous sights; like churches or castles.

So he travels by bus, boat, car, foot, etc, all the way from Spain through France, Italy, etc to Morocco all along the Meditteranean coastline. He does not visit Libya or Algeria.

I really wanted to include a quotation by him, but I have lent out the book to a couple whose European trip I planned. Gave them this book to read because they (though quite old) like to rough it a bit. Thought this book would give them a good feel for their trip, some inspiration.

The author describes Venice very nicely and that is the quote I wanted to include. Tried to find it on the internet, but came up with thousands of other famous people's quotes about Venice instead. (Thus the length of time it took me to get this post up!)

I enjoyed the book very much, his interactions with ordinary people every day are enlightening. Not a feel good positive travel book at all.

One story I liked very much was when he was at the extreme southern tip of Corsica waiting for the ferry to take him to very close Sardinia. He asked for information on a bus in the town that the ferry would land in and they had none. He was suprised because the ferry is going there, why wouldn't they gave some information on a town so close. Their answer, of course, was that that town was in Italy and this is France.

Just read some funny reviews of this book. Some loved it and some hated it. He certainly can rub people the wrong way, maybe those people that should stick to Frommer and bus all inclusives maybe.

[Jagger]

Have to head out right now. Will pick later.

[Jagger]

The Mighty Pen are pleased to select, representing Euro-Lit:

As The Crow Flies
by
Jeffrey Archer

Interesting man, Archer. Elected as a British MP at the age of 29, served as the Conservative deputy chairman, won a half million pound settlement against the Daily Star for libel against him, subsequently convicted of perjury in that same libel suit and served half of his 4 year sentence at her majesty's pleasure. Fantastic storyteller too!

This is my favourite novel of his but there are many other great novels that could have been selected. He has many excellent short story collections as well. Worth a shot for anybody who has yet to read him.

Quick synopsis:

When Charlie Trumper inherits his grandfather's fruit and vegetable barrow, he inherits as well his enterprising spirit, which quickly lifts him out of poverty in London's East End. Success, however, does not come easily or quickly, particularly when World War I sends Charlie into combat and into an ongoing struggle with a vengeful enemy who will not rest until Charlie is destroyed. Charlie Trumper's epic journey carries him across three continents and through the triumphs and disasters of the twentieth century, all leading toward the fulfillment of his greatest dream.



amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/As-Crow-Flies-...9920032&sr=8-1

[Ronald Pagan]

With his 5th Pick, Ronald Pagan of the Cart-drawn Mountebanks is proud to select, in the Religion and Philosophy category:

Dao de Jing

by Lao Tze



Thanks to my hapless pursuits of arts and humanities in undergrad, I was forced to read alot of philosophy. Now, I'm no philosopher but I found the classic western philosophy to be fairly pent up and awkward.

The Dao de Jing is a masterwork written by the mysterious and mythical Lao Tze. To try to describe this book would almost be unfair. It is the backbone of Daoist thought and the major work of the Daost cannon.

Why is it so great? I dont' know, it's simple to understand, it provides a wonderful way to view the world and live your life. Important concepts are WuWei which is the art of doing but not doing, and dan tiang which is channeling the power of universe through you.

This is probably worst write-up, sorry.

Here's the entire Dao de Jing:

http://www.chinapage.com/gnl.html

Here are some of my favourite excerpts:

Nature is everlasting because it does not have a Self.
In this way the sage:
Serves his Self last and finds it served first;
Sees his body as accidental and finds it endures.
Because he does not serve his Self, he is content.

Tao bears us,
Love nurtures us,
Nature shapes us,
Circumstance completes us.
We worship Tao and honour love;
For worship of Tao and honour of love
Are performed by being alive.
Tao bears us,
Love nurtures, develops, cares for,
Shelters, comforts, and makes a home for us.
Making without controlling,
Giving without demanding,
Guiding without interfering,
Helping without profiting,
This is love

The Tao is like a bellows:
it is empty yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.

Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly.
Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly.
Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it.
Without the laughter, there would be no Tao.