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

[octothorp]

In the interests of keeping things moving, I'll go ahead and make my pick now and do my writeup for it after the Grey Cup game.

In the European category, I'm really excited to pick up Joseph Conrad's masterful study of evil in a colonial world, Heart of Darkness.



This book is based in part on Conrad's (Józef Konrad Korzeniowski's) own experiences on as a steamboat captain in the Belgian Congo, where he was shocked at the atrocities being committed by a European colonial forces toward the native africans. His protagonist, Marlow, has been tasked with captaining a steam ship up the Congo to retrieve Kurtz, an ivory trader who the trading company wants back in Europe. As Marlow travels up the river, he learns more and more about Kurtz, who is setting himself up as a vicious dictator over the locals; yet many of the people that Marlow meets are in complete awe of Kurtz.
The historical significance of the novel was that it presented an extremely dark view of the nature of humanity and in particular of European attitudes and how it leads to evil; I think that part of the reason that the book achieved such influence is that many of Conrad's views that might have been dismissed as pessimism were later confirmed by the world wars. Really, this was the book that kicked off modernist literature, presenting a hero who eventually stripped away the optimism surrounding him to discover a dark and soulless side to supposed progress.

[liamenator]

Damn you octo. Great pick.

[Eastern Girl]

Originally Posted by sadora

The man can write. The book's worth buying just for the introduction, which is classic Kitchen Confidential Bourdain. The food is classic French bistro and include such solid fare as Onion Soup Les Halles, Steak au Poivre, Boeuf Bourguignon, Coq au Vin and Chocolate Mousse. Nearly all recipes are within reach of competent home cooks, and those that are more complicated or time-consuming-Bouillabaisse, Cassoulet and Roulade of Wild Pheasant-are thoroughly spelled out to calm most jitters. Even though many of the dishes can be found in other cookbooks, what sets this one apart is Bourdain's signature wise-ass attitude that pervades nearly every recipe.

Competent? Bugger, I was all excited about this book til I read that.

[sadora]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

Competent? Bugger, I was all excited about this book til I read that.

You shouldn't let that stop you from getting this book. These are recipes that everyone should know and his methods make everything so easy to follow. He goes from prep work to what equipment you'll need to how you should present the dish. Whether you're a 'competent' cook or just starting, Anthony Bourdain is a chef everyone needs to read.

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Under the category of Science-Fiction, one of my favorite books of all time, might be picking it a bit early and there are other novels on my radar, but alas 1984 by George Orwell. Will most info/book cover later.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by octothorp

In the interests of keeping things moving, I'll go ahead and make my pick now and do my writeup for it after the Grey Cup game.

In the European category, I'm really excited to pick up Joseph Conrad's masterful study of evil in a colonial world, Heart of Darkness.

That was my next pick too.

[Circa89]

Wow that was a fast series of selections, on a Grey Cup Sunday no less!
I'll get my selection in shortly after the Monday Morning Meeting here.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

You have made a powerful enemy to-day, Burninator. A powerful enemy.

Serves me right for taking Watchmen, I guess.... :/

Haha!

I was upset you took Watchmen as it is the only graphic novel I have read.

[Circa89]

Sorry, The meeting wasn't that long. The server went down at work today. What did the business world do before the internet and email. The office came to a grinding halt. NO printing, emailing, wasting time on CP. I actually organized my desk.

With out further ado...
My 2nd selection Circa89 selects from the Science Fiction category.
VALIS by Philip K. Dick
Bantam Books 1981.


I would select the entire trilogy but it was never finished.
The Divine Invasion (1981),
The Owl in Daylight. Unfinished.

Dick isn't a common household name but his works adapted for screenplays sure are.
They include Bladerunner, Total Recall and The Minority Report among others.

I consider VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System) his best work. Like most great Sci - Fi works it is a social commentary asking the big questions about perceived reality, exisitence, God and all that good stuff.

From Wiki.

Main article: Exegesis (book)
VALIS has been described as one node of an artificial satellite network originating from the star Sirius in the Canis Major constellation. According to Dick, the Earth satellite used "pink laser beams" to transfer information and project holograms on Earth and to facilitate communication between an extraterrestrial species and humanity. Dick claimed that VALIS used "disinhibiting stimuli" to communicate, using symbols to trigger recollection of intrinsic knowledge through the loss of amnesia, achieving gnosis. Drawing directly from Platonism and Gnosticism, Dick wrote in his Exegesis: "We appear to be memory coils (DNA carriers capable of experience) in a computer-like thinking system which, although we have correctly recorded and stored thousands of years of experiential information, and each of us possesses somewhat different deposits from all the other life forms, there is a malfunction - a failure - of memory retrieval."


If you liked the Sci-Fi feel of Blade Runner (Do Anroids Dream of Electric Sheep) mixed with all that slef questioning sense of what is reality, this is another great book by a Sci-Fi Legend Philip K. Dick

[Ronald Pagan]

Sorry, just got back from the Grey Cup.

Can I pick?

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan

Sorry, just got back from the Grey Cup.

Can I pick?

By all means - how was the grey cup party in MTL?

[Eastern Girl]

I am thrilled to pick in the category of Childrens Lit, The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.




It was published in 1908 and became popular after playwright A.A. Milne adapted part of it for the stage.

it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters (Mole, Ratty, Mr. Toad and Mr. Badger) in a pastoral version of England. The novel is notable for its mixture of mysticism, adventure, morality, and camaraderie.

I read this book when I was younger and loved it. I read it again when I took a Childrens Lit course in university and still loved it.

[Ronald Pagan]

In the Science category I am proud to select Jared Diamond's seminal anthropological work:

Guns Germs and Steel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_G...s_in_arguments



This book is a very interesting and important examination of why some parts of world created advanced civilizations and why others did not. It is a non-racist analysis that assumes that all humans have the same cognitive capacities. The books conclusion is that the environment matters almost wholly.

Areas of the world with easily domesticated food sources be it grains or animals created civilizations because they had surplus food. Surpluses allowed people to embark on activities that were directly related to getting more food. As such, written languages, science, political systems all stemmed from this surplus.

I like this book mainly because it's a big broad horizontal analysis of many different fields of academia. Some people say that that is one of the books main weaknesses. Diamond does gloss over huge parts of academia in mere pages. But the point of the book is to be accessible while still exlaining the argument clearly and convincingly.

Some of my favourite parts are about:

• the Fertile Crescent and how it was endowed with grains.
• how domesticating animals made those societies resistant to disease
• languages and how there are essentially 3-4 original languages in the world, everything else is a derivation of those

[Mean Mr. Mustard]

Edit: Meh... jerk. I figured no one would pick a science book this early in the draft... I guess I was wrong. That being said I have picked up a few of the books drafted here and hope to read them in between reading differing textbooks, none of which will be selected here I hope.

[octothorp]

I thought Guns, Germs and Steel was an excellent book, definitely near the top of my non-fiction list.

[Circa89]

Guns, Germs and steel was an eventual pick for me for sure.

[JerzeeGirl]

Originally Posted by Eastern Girl

I didn't realize we could take a whole series in one category. Interesting.

Just FYI.....

"RULES:

You can only pick a particular author once in this draft. Other GMs could pick that author though. A series (ex. trilogy like Lord Of The Rings, counts as one book)."

[Ronald Pagan]

What's the draft order? I feel like I may have another pick coming up because it is a snake draft no?

[troutman]

1. RougeUnderoos
2. sadora
3. octothorp
4. Circa89
5. Eastern Girl
6. FanIn80
7. Bobblehead
8. driveway
9. rogermexico
10. habernac
11. Iowa_Flames_Fan
12. liamenator
13. garypowers
14. RatherDashing
15. troutman
16. jammies
17. JerzeeGirl
18. Ro
19. Antithesis
20. Aeneas
21. Jagger
22. Ronald Pagan
23. Burninator
24. Mean Mr. Mustard

No snake.

[rogermexico]

Valis really blew my mind. I didn't know anything about Dick's life before reading it, so when the WTF moment comes I was completely unprepared for it. Great book.

Heart of Darkness... I had to study that book 4 different times over the course of my post-secondary career. I actually grew to like it more each time.

And Moby Dick is the best book ever. Great picks everybody.