cgarri is currently reading Man and Superman.
I’m 56 years old, male, from the United States. I’ve been a DailyLit member since April 17, 2009. My reading interests include SciFi, Bio, and History.
Books
- Man and Superman 49% complete
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Secret Adversary finished
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The Mysterious Affair at Styles finished
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Divine Comedy - The Inferno finished
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Roo'd finished
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Time Traders finished
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Future Imperfect finished
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The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories finished
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Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom finished
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There Will be Dragons finished
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1632 finished
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Riders of the Purple Sage finished
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Berlitz DailyLit Spanish Lessons finished
- When the World Shook finished
- Book Sampler: Science Fiction finished
- Star Soldiers finished
- Walden finished
- The House of Seven Gables finished
- Accelerando finished
Posts
Secret Adversary - More unbelievable than her usual stories
First, I did enjoy reading it. That said, she has written much better. All the characters were written exaggerated; a cartoon compared to a Poirot or Marple story.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles - A real page turner
Her writing style is such that it's very easy reading. And, the way she mixes humor over, under, and within the mystery plot adds to the reading pleasure. I highly recommend the book.
Though I never even had a suspect for the murder, it was a little disappointing that a key piece of information was withheld until the final reveal. I like to try and solve the mystery before the final pages, and then read on to see if I was right. This time I had incomplete information, but somewhat less than 77 days to think about it, so given that balance, I guess Ms. Chrisite wins and I lose. A pleasurable loss, though.
Question of the Week - 10 Must-Read Classic Books
Just the ones not already mentioned
Brave New World - Huxley
The Social Contract - Rousseau
Democracy in America - Tocqueville
and one which will never make a consensus list, but has some great ideas
Stand on Zanzibar - Brunner
Divine Comedy - The Inferno - I need a modern day Virgil
This bread wasn't fun, it was work. In the story, Virgil leads the author through and explains hell. I needed a modern day Virgil to interpret the work. At least now I know from where comes the quote "Abandon all hope ye who enter here".
Roo'd - Good cyber punk adventure
Good cyber punk. An adventure story only; no exploration into deeper meanings of life or the human condition.
Question of the Week - When I was a child...
When I was a child ..... the ponds froze in the winter; I read books from the library; they had gas wars with prices, not armies ...... and I didn't know the meaning of nostalgia.
Question of the Week - Opening Lines
How did I get here.
At some point, everybody asks it of themselves. What decisions had I made, what paths had I followed, what chances had I taken that brought me to this point. Now for me, one more decision. Right in front of me, a choice. A choice that would shape the world.
Time Traders - OK, but not her best work
A great start, but the book never finished. I realy enjoyed the first 120 pages, but the ending appeared to be rushed (perhaps by a publisher's deadline). There were numerous story threads which were never wrapped up.
Anyway, the plot follows a team of men on two missions. The first has them journey into earth's past adopting period dress and speech as they search for alien technology that's been showing up in modern times. Quite interesting and fully fleshed out.
The second mission sends them on an alien spacecraft in a sort of allegory for travelling into the future. Everything is well done to the point they leave the alien world. After that the story is rushed and in my opinion concluded poorly.
Future Imperfect - Film Noir meets Sci Fi
A good collection of stories. The longest two, the first and last, feature a loner tough guy working through a mystery. Each has a femme fatale, though she is a key player only in the first, and a world spanning evil organisation. And, in a seldom used ordering, the last is better than the first. I called them Film Noir because I'm not familiar with the literary classification for the Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe style novels.
The shorter stories in the middle were OK, too, though for the life of me, I can't remember a single one right now.
Question of the Week - What's Your Moby Dick?
So, I read Atlas Shrugged. What a surprise. It's more philosophy than adventure, but just enough adventure to keep me reading. After starting it, I learned that this is the Tea Party manifesto. What a shock. I see some of the book in the world, but can not accept the premise that there is no place for compassion in one's decision making. Still, I'd give the book four stars.
The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories - Waste of time
Clearly Wodehouse is a very good writer. However, in these stories he spends many, many pages setting up the small irony or witticism that ends each story. If you're going to spend that much time on the set up, the payoff should be laugh out loud funny.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Quirky
A quirky story of how a life goes wrong in an utopian society. All the characters were interesting, though the story was not so much. There are certainly better reads out there.
Question of the Week - The most beautiful place on earth
Yosemite Valley in 1973. A river running through a relatively flat, fertile, verdant valley sheared by an ancient glacier from majestic mountains down which numerous waterfalls casacade to the valley floor. The valley was abundant with wildlife, mostly harmless, but enough not that there was about one encounter a day with danger. A return in 1995 found so many people it was impossible to experience the peacefullness that I'd found in '73.
There Will be Dragons - Another tale mixing future and past
Very little science in this science fiction. Really a tale of a future society suddenly deprived by war of electromagnetic power and how a community with a foresighted leader grows. Of course, in the end, the community plays its small, but important part in the war.
If this type of tale interests you, I think 1632 is a much better book.
Help - Problems posting a book review
It's done ... NOT.
Since my reply in the help forum showed up immediately, I am assuming my book review should have showed up immediately, too. It did not. Maybe it takes some time to establish a new forum for 1632??
Help - Problems posting a book review
Thanks, Susan. It's done ... I hope.
Help - Problems posting a book review
Yes. When I go to My Profile, my Rating for 1632 is there, but no review. As I mentioned before, I suspect this is because my review was too long. What I need to have happen is for my rating to turn back into the button which says "rate this". Then, I could rate and review again.
Help - Problems posting a book review
I attempted to post a review of 1632 from my personal page. It never appeared (I suspect I went well over 1000 characters). Now the link to review the book is no longer there on my personal page. When I choose review this book from the 1632 page, it takes me to a page which says something like "the forum was improperly specified."
Now that I've written this, I suspect my review was over 3000 characters. 1000 is not enough.
Craig
Bugs - I can't start a new topic in the "book" forum
Never mind. I found that there's a link on my Profile page that allows me to start a topic on books I've finished.
Bugs - I can't start a new topic in the "book" forum
I've finished the book 1632 and would like to review it. On the 1632 main page, it tells me there are currently no reviews, and asks would I like to start a forum. I click the link and it takes me to all the forums under book, but there is no link for starting a new forum. I've poked around everywhere I can think of, and I can't do it.
Craig
Question of the Week - Back to School Books
This is a response to Susan from the Sep 22 posts. Sorry about the timing. I wasn't expecting a direct response.
I actually did get to assign my own reading material, with teacher approval, my senior year of high school. I submitted The Winds of War by Herman Wouk never expecting it would get approval. Fortunately, it was a young teacher not too set in his ways, and I was in with my first choice. At that time, it was popular literature; now, its turned out to be well regarded. Maybe someday it'll be a classic.
Lest you think I had it too easy in high school, I also had to read Othello for that class and others I've forgotten.
Question of the Week - Back to School Books
Funny,evereybody else remembers good experiences with assigned reading; my only memoiries were awful. In high school we had to read As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. My response was - this doesn't even qualify as literature; it's more like ravings from a lunatic. Then, in college I had to read The Awakening by Kate Chopin. That was just boring, but I got tortured anyway because I had to write a paper on it. Is it any wonder I hated English? It's a good thing I learned to love reading before I was ever introduced to "literature".
Question of the Week - What's Your Moby Dick?
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Best title ever; you can just see the world turned sideways. I'm really a science fiction and history reader though, and Atlas Shrugged has never risen to the top of the reading list. I guess by doing this, I'm now committed. Give me some time, though.
Riders of the Purple Sage - Not my cup of tea
I read this book because my Dad and brother-in-law are big fans of the genre, and it was free and relatively painless. I nearly quit after the first twenty installments because the author did not develop believable characters. But it was free and relatively painless. Eventually, I got to the point of wanting to know what happened. So, I did finish.
I never could beleive the motivations of the lead female character. The attempts by the author to have some of the characters speak in what he believes to be the vernacular of the Old West, but have the two male leads speak with only a few quirky phrases made the book more readable, but again, not very believable.
I was unsatisfied with the ending. The book needed an epilogue.
Berlitz DailyLit Spanish Lessons - Unit 17, Lesson 2
In the lesson, the first person future of three of the irregular verbs is given incorrectly. Tener, Saber and Decir. I think they should all end in an accented e (which I'll represent as e') So, it should be " yo tendre' " instead of " yo tender ", " yo sabre' " instead of " yo saber ", and " yo dire' " instead of " yo dire ".
Berlitz DailyLit Spanish Lessons - Unit 16, Lesson 2, Answers B. c. & d.
Berlitz. What are they doing?
B.c. Asks us to translate "They doubt ..." and gives the answer as "Ella duda ..." So obviously incorrect, keeping the gender, the answer should be "Ellas dudan ..."
B.d. pitcher (refering to baseball) is translated as bateador. It should be lanzador.
Berlitz DailyLit Spanish Lessons - Unit 14, Lesson 3, Question B.3
The answer is clearly not a. as listed in the key. I'm nearly certain that b. is the correct answer, though I could make an argument for c.
Does Berlitz have an opening available in their proof reading dept.?
Berlitz DailyLit Spanish Lessons - Unit 12, Lesson 1 - Answers
Question B.1 as I would phrase it in English asks "In order to make an international call, you must ...". I contend the answer should be a. "pick up the phone and dial the country code". The key gives the answer as b. "hang up the phone and dial the region code". Hanging up the phone to make a call is possible on some phones, but it wouldn't be my first choice. Then comes the question of region code. I'm not very familiar with international calling, but I do know calling from the U.S. to the U.K. requires more than just the country and city codes, so maybe region code is not another term for area code. So, again, it's a possibility, but not my first choice.
Berlitz DailyLit Spanish Lessons - Part 48, Unit 10 lesson 3, Answers
The answer to question B.2. has to be C. A is correct Monday-Friday. But, the question is about Saturday when it has to be C.