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

[RougeUnderoos]

Coffee table book

Dr.Seuss Goes To War by Richard H. Minear



Dr. Seuss wanted the Yanks in the war and getting them there is a main theme of these cartoons that he published in the early 40's.



He apparently didn't mind dabbling in a little racism to get the message across. That's not a major theme of his book and you get the impression that the guy is not a racist and is a "progressive" thinker for his time, railing against both anti-semitism and discrimination against black people. But he does draw a nasty caricature of the Japanese.

It's quite a book. I just stumbled across it a few years ago. I didn't know lovable old Dr. Seuss had such a serious side.

[octothorp]

Trade to report: I'm trading my biography category to habernac for his travel.

edit: And I guess Sadora is AKed still, so I'm up. Pick up in a few minutes...

[octothorp]

With my pre-20th century pick, I'm taking Homer's Odyssey. It's got some beautiful poetic imagery, a complex narrative style, but mostly it's just a damn good tale: Odysseus (or Ulysses) leaves for home after 10 years at the Trojan war, where his tactics were largely responsible for the Greek victory. But he ends up inciting Poseidon's wrath, which is obviously a bad thing when you're planning on travelling by sea. He gets swept from island to island, sometimes stopping briefly, other times delayed for years, before finally escaping to his home and slaughtering all the suitors who had been courting his wife while he was away. Odysseus is an unusual heroic character; while he's a decent warrior and an excellent archer, his defining trait is his use of deceit to get out of difficult situations.

If anyone is looking to pick this up, of the few translations that I've read, I really liked the recent Robert Fagles translation.

[Circa89]

10th Round.
I guess I have to pick this category up sooner or later. The only traditional books I have in this genre have already been selected, the Narnia's, LOTR's, Harry Potter's etc. so I guess I am going to have to go a bit off the board with this selection and push the boundries of a traditional FANTASY pick. In a perfect world all fantasy books should reference Dragons and at least have some order of humanoid who is either slightly smaller or substantially larger than us humans ( who would of course be weilding a sword). This book has none of those elements however it does have a 200 year old Vampire which in my books classifies as Fantasy.

Interview With The Vampire
Ann Rice
1973
Alfred A. Knopf - Publisher


I read this book about 15 years ago and enjoyed it so much I read about a half dozen more Ann Rice novels. I really liked how Rice humanized Lestat and chronicled the daily trials and tribulations of being a Vampire. I always assume immortality is awesome but I guess at times it can be quite trivial. Getting to know people watching them age and die is fun the first couple of times but it kind sucks after awhile. Cool book, the movie with Pitt, Cruise and a young Kirsten Dunst wasn't so great.


The Recap from Wiki is too long to post here so I won't bore ya

[Eastern Girl]

I will select Urban Italian by Andrew Carmellini and Gwen Hyman.

This was purchased for me as some of the recipes were discribed as being stupidly easy to make, and because I like Italian food. I've enjoyed attempting these recipes.

[FanIn80]

For my Philosophy pick...

Alcoholics Anonymous ("The Big Book") by Bill W.

In the realm of "self-help"... is there a better pick than the book that finally gave the world real recovery from one of the most painful diseases humanity has ever known?

On a 1935 business trip to Akron, Ohio, Wilson felt the urge to drink again and in an effort to stay sober, he sought another alcoholic to help. Wilson was introduced to Dr. Bob Smith. Wilson and Smith co-founded AA with a word of mouth program to help alcoholics. Smith's last drink on June 10, 1935 is considered by members to be the founding date of AA. By 1937, Wilson and Smith determined that they had helped 40 alcoholics get sober, and two years later, with the about 100 members, Wilson expanded the program by writing a book entitled Alcoholics Anonymous which the organization also adopted as its name. The book, informally referred to by members as "The Big Book," described a twelve-step program involving admission of powerlessness over alcohol, moral inventory, and asking for help from God. In 1941 book sales and membership increased after radio interviews and favorable articles in national magazines, particularly by Jack Alexander in The Saturday Evening Post.

Twelve Steps

After the third and fourth chapters of the Big Book were completed, Wilson decided that a summary of methods for treating alcoholism was needed to describe their "word of mouth" program. The basic program developed from the works of William James, Dr. Silkworth, and the Oxford Group, and included six basic steps:

1. We admitted that we were licked, that we were powerless over alcohol.
2. We made a moral inventory of our defects or sins.
3. We confessed or shared our shortcomings with another person in confidence.
4. We made restitution to all those we had harmed by our drinking.
5. We tried to help other alcoholics, with no thought of reward in money or prestige.
6. We prayed to whatever God we thought there was for power to practice these precepts.

Wilson decided that the six steps needed to be broken down into smaller sections to make them easier to understand and accept. He wrote the Twelve Steps one night while lying in bed, which he felt was the best place to think. He prayed for guidance prior to writing, and in reviewing what he had written and numbering the new steps, found they added up to twelve. He then thought of the Twelve Apostles and became convinced that the program should have twelve steps. With contributions from other group members including atheists who restrained religious content like Oxford material that could later result in controversy, by fall 1938 Wilson expanded the six steps into the final version of the Twelve Steps which are detailed in Chapter Five of the Big Book called How It Works.

These are the original Twelve Steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

For my Philosophy pick...

Alcoholics Anonymous ("The Big Book") by Bill W.

In the realm of "self-help"... is there a better pick than the book that finally gave the world real recovery from one of the most painful diseases humanity has ever known?

There is also a secular method that does not involve religion.

http://www.americanhumanist.org/press/AAMonopoly.php

SMART Recovery is a worldwide, science-based, secular substance abuse recovery program that, from its inception, has been endorsed by the American Humanist Association and offered through many of its local chapters. There are other such programs, including Secular Organizations for Sobriety, LifeRing and Women for Sobriety, all of which contribute to greater public choice among mutual-help recovery group options. "While some people may benefit from a religious program," added Dr. Gerstein, "that doesn't justify giving Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics Anonymous a treatment monopoly.

[FanIn80]

Nice, I hadn't even heard of them before.

[Bobblehead]

In the History category, Pierre Berton - Vimy

How could an army of civilians from a nation with no military tradition secure the first enduring victory in thirty-two months of warfare with only 10,000 casualties, when the French had lost 150,000 men in their unsuccessful attempt? Pierre Berton's haunting and lucid narrative shows how, unfettered by military rules, civilians used daring and common sense to overcome obstacles that had eluded the professionals.

http://www.randomhouse.ca/catalog/di...=9780385658423
http://www.amazon.ca/Vimy-Pierre-Berton/dp/0850529883

[troutman]

driveway AK'd

[rogermexico]

With my other European Lit pick, I'll take The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.



This is one serious pancake of a book. It's slightly funnier than At Swim-Two-Birds, which is a whole lot funnier than Ulysses.

[habernac]

for my Anthology selection, I'll take The Beatles Anthology.



A huge amount of interviews and information collected over years and years. Very interesting read.

Wiki:

In October 2000, The Beatles Anthology book was released, which included interviews with all four band members and others involved, plus rare photos. Many of the interviews quoted are from those featured in the documentary films. The book is designed as a large-format hardback, with imaginative artwork throughout, and several visually impressive and colorful spreads featuring graphics relevant to the proceeding chronology, photographic arrays and a variety of text styles and layouts. The book went straight to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list.[1]

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Well, hopefully no-one objects to this pick, though I could see a category fight over it...

But in the category of Picture-book / Coffee Table book (photo or illustration), team Bartleby and the Scriveners would like to select In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman. This was a tough category for me, but in the end I felt that Spiegelman's book, which lacks the narrative coherence of a "graphic novel" is big and unweildy enough, and perhaps pictorially careful enough that it qualifies (at least in this household) as a coffee-table book. For anyone who own it: I challenge you to fit it into your bookshelf!


Spiegelman's masterwork is both a love letter to the history of the comic strip and a message of grief and incomprehension over the attacks of 9/11. At times strident and always trenchant, Spiegelman picks up the visual themes of comic strip history all the way back to the Yellow Kid and the Katzenjammer Kids. Overall, Spiegelman winds up creating a work not only about grief, alienation and powerlessness, but more critically a work about the redemptive power of the comic strip. If you don't own it--pick it up today--it really will change how you look at the comics medium.

[octothorp]

Excellent pick. I think it works perfectly into the picture book category. It really does push the comic book medium in directions that are very different from that of the graphic novel.

[liamenator]

I'll take in Travel, Bill Bryson's hilarious Notes From a Small Island

Anyone who has been to Britain, has family there, or has any interest in British culture whatsoever should read this hilarious take on the idiosyncrasies of jolly old.

[Dion]

Love that book liamenator!

[driveway]

Oops... being AK'd here's team discovery channel's pick:

In the category of picture/coffee table book.

Countdown to the Stanley Cup: An Illustrated History of the Calgary Flames.
By Bob Mummery.

I can't find a cover image of this book, but it's a summary of the first nine seasons of the Flames in Calgary. Profusely illustrated with photographs and tables of stats, it was one of my favourite books when I was younger. I've since lost my copy, and think about buying another off the internet about once a month.

[RougeUnderoos]

[troutman]

I select in the Comics/Graphic Novel category, BLACK PANTHER VOL. 2, by Christopher Priest (Marvel, 1998):



Black Panther was my favorite super-hero growing up in the 1970s (Jungle Action by Don McGregor). T'challa is the current King of a technologically advanced African nation called Wakanda. The character was first created in the 1960s by Jack Kirby in the Fantastic Four.

Christopher Priest brought the character back in Vol. 2 in this sophisticated series, told in the style of Tarantino.

http://www.griffenaerie.com/blackpan...ord/index.html

The first story arc of Black Panther, Vol. 2 introduces the reader to many elements that will play out in this and future stories. Priest's masterful use of out-of-sequence storytelling works perfectly for Ross' narrative. Rather than a straightforward, linear story, the reader is given something much more interesting and complex.

This first story arc goes a long way in establishing the character as he's never been shown before. In the past, the Black Panther has been portrayed as your typical underpowered super hero: reactive and vulnerable. In this series, the Black Panther fulfills his potential, becoming a cunning predator, almost always one step ahead of his opponents.

"Lord of the Damned" (my arbitrary name for the arc, borrowed from the title of issue #5) is comics at their best: innovative and engaging with deep characterization and deeper storytelling. Priest's story, coupled with the beautiful painted art of Mark Texeira and Vince Evans, make this story a true Marvel masterpiece and the beginning of a landmark comic book series.

http://www.comicboards.com/blackpanther/

http://www.digital-priest.com/home-dpdc.htm

I feel the most profound statement I can make about race is to make Panther so cool he transcends the racial divide here in America. Rather than try and force the readers to identify with a black character, I accepted the fact a great many readers would not be able to overcome the race thing, and withdrew Panther from the reader entirely.

Borrowing a page from my mentor, legendary comics writer Denny O'Neil, I reinterpreted T'Challa in the mold of Denny's brilliant Ras Al Ghul, a villain from Batman's glory days. Nobody, not even Batman, ever knew, for sure, what Ras was thinking, what his true motives or true plans were. He was the world's greatest poker face, and only the legendary Darknight Detective had the power to challenge him. Ras was, like O'Neil himself, cool. And his coolness transcended race, gender, and even Ras' advanced age.

That was the energy I wanted for Panther. Rather than get into his head with an enforced intimacy that worked against his stealth, we withdrew altogether, pushing him to the shadows and, to some complaint, making him almost a guest star in his own book. Only, in any reasonable analysis of the series, Panther clearly drives the book. Even if he has only a handful of lines per issue, he is the dominating force.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(comics)

[Bobblehead]

I believe Jammies and JerzeeGirl each need 2 picks to catch up.