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

[Bobblehead]

If Jagger goes AKed then the bottom 9 people will all be kicked. There are more people AKed than still picking.

20 Categories total, so 6 rounds left to go.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by liamenator

Why don't we go to GirlySports' fast-track mode in order to pick things up? I think once we are this late in the game, duplicate picks are less of an issue.

I think what she did in other drafts was say, anyone can make their round X pick in any order, but each team may only make 1 pick per 12 hour period. After 12 hours, we move on to the next round (and teams that miss the window can just bank their picks and catch up when able).

Thoughts?

Are we doing this now?

[troutman]

Aeneas was properly scolded last night.

[Circa89]

Are we done here? I'll submit my last 5 rounds just for kicks.

[Bobblehead]

2+ weeks since last pick.

Time of death?

[troutman]

Rapid Fire Round - make the rest of your picks in any number, and out of turn.

Go!

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by troutman

Rapid Fire Round - make the rest of your picks in any number, and out of turn.

Go!

LOL, 3 hours later, no response.


I'll finalize my picks when I get home.

[driveway]

Here are the remainder of my picks.

First I move The Flashman Papers from Humour/Graphic Novel into Wildcard. In the now vacant Humour/Graphic Novel category I select:



Johnny The Homicidal Maniac.
Art and Writing by Johan Vasquez.

Wikipedia link

To fill the Canadian Literature category, I choose:



The Cellist of Sarajevo
by Steven Galloway.

In Science Fiction, team Discovery Channel chooses:



The Stars my Destination
by Alfred Bester

Wikipedia

In the category of Travel:



The Lonely Planet travel guide to Cuba. This baby got me up and down that island.

In Philosophy/Religion I take:



God is not Great
by Christopher Hitchens

And finally in Mass/Pulp fiction I take the books that, though I haven't read them in years and don't really think I'd enjoy them as much if I went back to them now, these got me through Junior High School:



The Dragonriders of Pern
by Anne McCaffery

I think that does it for me.

[RougeUnderoos]

European Lit pick: Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov.



An adventure, a novel, a romance, a satire... this totally unusual work by the world-famous author of Lolita is a true original: a one of a kind book. Critics have praised it, readers have devoured it, writers have exalted and admired it. But no on has ever described it.

That's from the back of the book. It really is one of a kind, and takes a while just to figure out how to read the damn thing.


Science: River out of Eden by Richard Dawkins.

[Circa89]

In no particular order and no deal of fan fare.

Pulp Fiction - The Davinci Code- Dan Brown -Haha but I actually enjoyed the book.
Travel - Toujour Provence - Peter Mayle - because I lived there
Humor etc- Mad Magazine Special Collection (any) because they were hilarious when I was twellve.
Anthology- Margaret Atwood Poems 1976-1986 - I hated her books but loved her poetry.
History/ Political - Hawaii- James Mitchner - Not very profound but very indepth and insightful as I read it on Vacation in Maui last month.

[RougeUnderoos]

Even with the staggering finish, I did get some winners out of this exercise.

All Quiet On the Western Front is a great book but also really awful in the way that Night by Elie Wiesel is. Ugh, you get nightmares from reading this kind of thing. At least I do.

Candle in the Dark was good but a "preaching to the converted" kind of thing so it eventually got a little dull for me. But still a good book.

War With The Newts is the best science fiction (and by far the creepiest, skin-crawlingest) book I've ever read. I'd never heard of it before this.

I'm "reading" The Dangerous Book For Boys right now. It is more flipping around than actually reading, but it's a cool book. I'm having a hard time memorizing the names of dead English kings, but there is a lot of nifty information in it besides that.

I have no pick at all for "Fantasy". If you have one and want to yak about it, you can have my spot.

[driveway]

I can live with someone picking The Da Vinci Code, but...

If anyone picks any of the 'Twilight' books for any of their last picks, I will personally hunt you down and kick you in the back.

Fair warning.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

War With The Newts is the best science fiction (and by far the creepiest, skin-crawlingest) book I've ever read. I'd never heard of it before this.

It really is sort of nightmare-inducing, isn't it! Glad you liked it--Capek is the man.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

My remaining picks--hopefully I'm right that these are all available:

World (non-Euro):Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

Fantastic book, read it a few years back when preparing an intro-lit course. Didn't end up teaching it, but it is a wild read.

Fiction (Wildcard): Don Delillo, White Noise

Not much needs to be said, except--for my money, clearly Delillo's best work. Not self-satisfied or indulgent like some of his other work, but just smart, dark, prophetic and current.

Historical/Political: Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives

A seminal text in American muckraking journalism, Riis' photoessay raised awareness of the plight of the American working immigrant classes at the end of the Gilded Age. A little dated now, but still astonishing in many ways.

Wildcard: Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Unless I'm mistaken, this is still available. Assuming it is, I have to take it, and I could have selected it in about three other categories. A steal at this point in the draft, for my money--a great book about... well... books. And censorship. And literacy. And burning stuff.

Pre-20th Century or Poetry: Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs Du Mal)

This category was hard for me--so much to choose from. In the end, it was a choice I had to make--the father of decadent poetry, perhaps the grandfather of the historical avant-garde... syncretic, powerful poems about the wonderful and awful reality that was 19th-century Paris.

Fantasy: John Barth, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor


A send-up and a tribute to the 1001 nights, this book is gripping, intelligent and kind of a sex-filled romp! Great read, like everything of Barth's.

[troutman]

I select in the Philosophy/Religion category, The Power Of Myth, by Joseph Campbell, the companion to the PBS documentary series (1988):



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

The Power of Myth is a book and six part television documentary originally broadcast on PBS in 1988 as Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. The documentary comprises six one-hour conversations between mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904 - 1987) and journalist Bill Moyers.

The interviews were filmed at George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch during the final two summers of Campbell's life (the series was broadcast on television a year after his death). In these discussions, Campbell presents his ideas about comparative mythology and the ongoing role of myth in human society. These talks include excerpts from Campbell's seminal work The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

The companion book for the series, The Power of Myth, (Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers, and editor Betty Sue Flowers) was released in 1988 at the same time the series aired on PBS. In the editor's note to The Power of Myth, Flowers credits Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as "the Doubleday editor, whose interest in the ideas of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication of this book." The book follows the format of the documentary and provides additional discussions not included in the original six hour release.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...otes111502.DTL

Campbell is the famous master of myth, the warmly articulate weaver of cultural tapestry, the great professor effortlessly revealing, in these luminous talks with journalist Bill Moyers, how every culture's consecrated tales of gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, angels and demons, Jesus and Buddha and Allah and Yahweh and Yoda et al., simply represent and illuminate various elements of the human psyche, the human heart, the human condition.

And, more important, he illuminates, gently, calmly, effortlessly, without prejudice or bias, without spin or piousness or even heavy resigned sighing, and without actually saying so, the dangerous absurdity of a people taking these tales -- and gods -- way, way too literally.

http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php

[Circa89]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I have no pick at all for "Fantasy". If you have one and want to yak about it, you can have my spot.

Originally Posted by driveway

I can live with someone picking The Da Vinci Code, but...

If anyone picks any of the 'Twilight' books for any of their last picks, I will personally hunt you down and kick you in the back.

Fair warning.

May I suggest Twilight?

[Circa89]

Nice pick Trout. I too am a major fan of Campbells work. In fact I am working at finding my Bliss right now!

[octothorp]

I gave five picks to Troutman to post on my behalf before leaving on travels... I'm on a very spotty internet connection now and can't seem to access my messages panel, nor can I recall what I was going to pick, but maybe Troutman, you can go ahead and post the remainder of my choices? Thanks!

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Seems like that might be it for picks. Should we post team reviews or anything, as a final literary aperitif? Or we could each nominate winners in certain categories or something... I'm not sure how this usually works, not having participated in any of the other "drafts."

[troutman]

I have a few more picks to make. Hopefully others will fill-out their lists too.