Books.

Anybody else a fan of Jack London? Call of the wild and White Fang were both boyhood favourites of mine, great American writer. I've just finished Martin Eden, wow.

Thought I was chancing my arm on here with any real literature, illiterate wankers!

I loved the book White Fang. Must read it again!

I got "Jack London 11 great novels" on kindle for 77p there's about six weeks solid reading there. Call of the wild was made into a film and is a great book of you looked White Fang you'll love that. He's also written Sea Wolf which is a fantastic book about a mental seal schooner captain who kidnaps his crew and kills them with his bare fists. He's a real romantic and reminds me of the old Beltane the Smith books and a little of Poe with his darkness. He constantly references to the betterment of man and common people attaining greatness is a theme of his as well as the ruling classes bettering themselves by living a real life. Plenty of philosophy and politics as well.
Gonna get pounded by a real book lover for using a kindle soon, in my defence I've got a lot of real books and love them.

I use a kindle, like you Iggy I've accumulated many hundreds, maybe even into the thousands of books over the years, and for sheer practicality and space saving it's perfect, not to mention some of the amazing deals you can get on older books which is what I mostly read, you get great deals, many are free

AstiSpumante wrote:

I use a kindle, like you Iggy I've accumulated many hundreds, maybe even into the thousands of books over the years, and for sheer practicality and space saving it's perfect, not to mention some of the amazing deals you can get on older books which is what I mostly read, you get great deals, many are free

You might enjoy this website Asti, if you haven't come across it before -

BIBLIOMANIA

I read proper books an all innit. I've got some Jack London here - White Fang and at least one other - but haven't read any of his yet. So many books, so little time ...

Bit of a leftie, Jack London was

Hitch wrote:

AstiSpumante wrote:

I use a kindle, like you Iggy I've accumulated many hundreds, maybe even into the thousands of books over the years, and for sheer practicality and space saving it's perfect, not to mention some of the amazing deals you can get on older books which is what I mostly read, you get great deals, many are free

You might enjoy this website Asti, if you haven't come across it before -

BIBLIOMANIA

Cheers Hitch, looks very interesting.

Peggy wrote:

I read proper books an all innit. I've got some Jack London here - White Fang and at least one other - but haven't read any of his yet. So many books, so little time ...

Bit of a leftie, Jack London was

A lot of his ideas are needed now, a dose of proper socialism.

Iggy wrote:

Peggy wrote:

I read proper books an all innit. I've got some Jack London here - White Fang and at least one other - but haven't read any of his yet. So many books, so little time ...

Bit of a leftie, Jack London was

A lot of his ideas are needed now, a dose of proper socialism.

Hmmm - apart from the fact that socialism has never and can never work I'm not sure you'd approve of Jack London's views on women and immigration. He was a misogynistic racist. Apart from that he could write a bit.

And aside of his romantic ideals are being a real man in the wild and back to nature he died a fat achohlic living in the Cali suburbs. Not that I condone that either btw.

Jack London doesn't actually spout many political ideas of his own in his books he references to other philosophers and thinkers and uses his stories as frame for the discussion. Discussion of politics is stale as fook nowadays with no real change being offered or asked for, if Jack London worries you try Terrence Makenna and the Tree of Life Food of the Gods where he states that all religion stems from our ancestors taking halluconegenic mushrooms, the visions they saw being seen as evidence of gods and a higher world. He would also like to completely overhaul the governance of earth dealing with population growth and going to back to animist instead of dominator principles, if socialism worries you then you'll shit yourself if you read him. Btw I think you should.

I got a Kindle for Christmas 2014 and its such an awesome gift.. Mind you I don't read much fiction. In fact, I don't read any fiction. It's all politics, social sciences and economics.

It's a fun life.

Might have a look at these books you're on about Iggy, seeing as you're raving about them so much!

Try Martin Eden, you may want to skip through a lot of the romantic stuff but you will find many references to some great political and philosophical thinkers, Herbert Spencer an early socialist was one of his favourites, a right revolutionary but he spoke an awful lot of sense.
I also like adventure and human endurance, The Long Way by Bernard Mottisier is a classic about how he circumnavigated the world during the Golden Globe race (early seventies?) to be the first man to do the trip single handed with no stops. Whilst he was leading the race he crossed his outgoing trail therefore completing the circumnavigation but gave the prize money and trophy to Knox Johnson with his decision to carry on to Tahiti in stead of returning to Plymouth. Knox Johnsons account of the race is excellent as well. A real old sailing classic is Joshua Slocum, Around the world alone, (might have to check the title) an American skipper who built his own boat and made the first solo circumnavigation although he put into many ports during the voyage. Every man of them were proper hard, anybody that has ever been to sea cannot help but admire their skill and fortitude, great stuff.

I read 'Fastnet force 10' years back, that was a good read imho. I can't remember who wrote it though.

There was a tv program on the fastnet recently they lost several boats and crew, that storm was flipping 30 and 40 footers over, crazy.

I've never understood the "I don't read fiction" line.

For a start how can you tell where fact and fiction start and begin? Even in an auto-biography the writer has been selective about the facts presented and is careful to present them in a particular way; somebody else relating exactly the same events may see them very differently; which one is the factual account? How can anybody possibly tell?

Even the content of so-called text books can be questionable: history is always written by the winner etc; should the ideas of creationism be in a religious or scientific textbook? (I know... Just run with me on that one.)

Has anybody ever said "I only watch news and documentaries on TV"? I suppose someone has but even then what passes as factual is edited by somebody, chosen by somebody and presented in a certain way by somebody but surely everybody watches films or comedies or something self-evidently not factual in any way.

How about art? Would you go to an exhibition in a gallery and refuse to look at anything other than landscapes and portraits - and even then the subject is chosen and presented as it is for a very good reason. Is that factual or is in interpretative?

Anything "made up" is made up for a reason. It might just be made up purely to entertain but it may be made up to inform. Something obviously fictional can be a very powerful allegory for actual events and could be a canny method of avoiding censorship and challenging authority or the attempt to stifle the discussion about a topic.

Just imagine never having read Animal Farm or To Kill A Mockingbird or Dickens or... Or any number of other similarly worthy, dare I suggest important?, novels just because they are "fiction"!

Sorry. That doesn't make sense to me. It's self-imposed limitation of options for no good reason.

I'd advise anybody to read lots of stuff. Anything really. Books, magazines, blogs, newspaper articles, fiction, biography, auto-geography, SF, fantasy... Anything. Be open to it all.

You don't have to like it, maybe you won't, but dismissing it without trying it to find out? No. Silly.

auto-biographies bore me to death.

I think the problem with auto-biographies stems with why we are drawn to them in the first place.

Usually, not always, that'll be because the author is of interest to us in some way. Maybe we really like them (most likely) or maybe we really don't like them one bit (not that likely) or maybe they were a part of a wider event that fascinates (somewhere between). Whatever it is we are not (usually) drawn there because that person writes well.

The last one I read was Keith Floyd's auto-biography. I met him once and he was an obnoxious boor but I liked his TV persona - and somebody gave me the book anyway so I had to give it a whirl. Basically it's just rubbish. Don't bother trying it to find out - just take my word for it.

But why would I expect a book written by (if it was, of course, and not ghost written which it probably was) a talented chef, heroic drinker and lousy businessman to be a good read? There's nothing to suggest that he could write entertainingly in his CV - and so it came to pass.

I'm with SFD - read everything and anything, I do. Plus, reading a lot is a really good way to learn how to (and how not to) write, but painlessly.

Ian Banks anybody? Wasp Factory, The Crow Road both products of a troubled mind. I met him at Stirling Uni where he studied he's got a rapier like wit and mind, nice fella to boot, just where does the darkness fit into his makeup?

I'd be curious as to what a youngster of today would make of reading The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy*.

In it's day The Book seemed to be a magical, unlikely invention but now we have smart phones the concept has been made real - mundane, even, if you grew up with such technology. Incredible really.





* This book is very, very funny. If you haven't... try it.

It's the way the guide is written that was most interesting back then, I think I probably jumped straight from Sven Hassel to that.

Youngsters (anybody under 40) probally dont even realise the meaning of Ford Prefect.

I like picture books, also magazine