NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

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MGMcAnick
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by MGMcAnick »

Bicycle Bill wrote:
Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:08 am
laying the blame on "some parents in a Kansas school district" without further clarification or citation. 
Like I said.

The original post and link implied that the whole state had banned the book. Some Kansans may be backward nut jobs, but we're not all both.
A friend of Doc's, one of only two B-29 bombers still flying.

ex-khobar Andy
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

And the winners are:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. The Fellowship of the Ring
3. 1984
4. One Hundred Years of Solitude
5. Beloved

And re LR's comment:
No Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, etc. I'm going with Boaty McBoat Faces Lives.
there is this note:

Three writers — John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner — received nominations for seven of their books.

Big RR
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by Big RR »

Interesting; I have read the first three, and plan to, someday, read the fourth (perhaps in Spanish--if I can read Don Quixote I am sure I can read it, depends on how it is written--the supernatural elements give me a little concern for comprehension). I have not really been interested in Beloved, but may reconsider now that it has placed so high. However, among the books I have read, I would not place any of these, other than 1984, in my top 50, let alone my top 10 or 5.

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Crackpot
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by Crackpot »

Don Quixote is a hard read. I couldn’t get through it. The mix of old language and translation killed the narrative flow. I bought an audiobook version but the chosen narrator was a Spaniard and dealing with a thick accent and the fore mentioned difficult language was too much for me to process at speed. Perhaps I’ll try again someday
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

Big RR
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by Big RR »

I agree CP; indeed, I read it for a Spanish literature course I took in college, and the Spanish used was very archaic; on top of this, many of the themes were centered around the politics of Cervantes' time (not to mention that it is over 600 pages long). Without the lecture and discussions, not to mention it was required for the course, I may well have given up on it as well.

What scares me about 100 Years of Solitude, it that it was hailed as a masterpiece of "magical realism" when it was published; I recall reading another short story in the literature class called Axotl which was called one of the first examples of magical realism, and it was an even more difficult read. It was about a guy (who narrated the story) who became an axolotl (some kind of small lizard) in the zoo; the narration went back and forth in time, and I was never sure if the writing was the perception of the guy looking at the axolotl, or the axolotl looking at him; some of the class liked it, but I'm still not sure what it was about; I would hope "100 Years..." isn't the same sort of thing.

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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by BoSoxGal »

Crackpot wrote:
Wed Dec 29, 2021 5:30 pm
Don Quixote is a hard read. I couldn’t get through it. The mix of old language and translation killed the narrative flow. I bought an audiobook version but the chosen narrator was a Spaniard and dealing with a thick accent and the fore mentioned difficult language was too much for me to process at speed. Perhaps I’ll try again someday
Go see Man of La Mancha instead, it’s much more fun!


I took a graduate course on Don Quixote and the picaresque novel; even with an utterly brilliant comparative literature professor whom I adored at the helm of the class I still struggled with the slog through Don Quixote. When my beloved professor died unexpectedly (only 54, an age I am so close to now that his youthful death feels even more painful) his family gifted me his personal copy of the novel with margin notes from his own graduate school study of it - his dissertation was on the picaresque novel, of course. I have long intended to reread the novel (to be fair for the first time in full) using his copy, but 20+ years later I still haven’t. Thomas Mann re-read Don Quixote every year; I am no such superhuman.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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Long Run
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by Long Run »

That is a thoughtful gift, but one that comes with responsibility. We have a number of stewardship type gifts as well, and I have a friend who has a veritable museum of precious and semi-precious items. You get to a certain age and you start thinking about a succession plan for such gifts, along with everything else.

On the topic of revisiting books previously read, shouldn't reading at some point be enjoyable rather than a slog? That is, shouldn't it be books that we really liked reading that we read again? (I know, my American Novel 1-3 professors are opening my permanent record and marking me down a grade).

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BoSoxGal
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by BoSoxGal »

Long Run wrote:
Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:32 am
That is a thoughtful gift, but one that comes with responsibility. We have a number of stewardship type gifts as well, and I have a friend who has a veritable museum of precious and semi-precious items. You get to a certain age and you start thinking about a succession plan for such gifts, along with everything else.

On the topic of revisiting books previously read, shouldn't reading at some point be enjoyable rather than a slog? That is, shouldn't it be books that we really liked reading that we read again? (I know, my American Novel 1-3 professors are opening my permanent record and marking me down a grade).
I recently made the decision that I will no longer read anything that doesn’t truly please me - I used to feel obligated to ‘finish what I started,’ but now if I’m not feeling a book after a chapter or two, it goes in the donate or return pile (depending whether it’s mine or a loan from the library). There isn’t a lot of time left and I want to use it wisely.

I lost about a decade of constant readership due to neurological issues from my chronic illness. I used to read 2-3 books a week and in the last decade it has been more like 2-3 books a year. I could weep just thinking of all the time lost. Anyway now my brain is restored somewhat to normal settings and I am reading again, have spent the last few days engrossed in a 1000 page Stephen King novel a client’s family member lent me this past weekend. It’s SO good!

I am working on my piles of unread books that made the cut when I last moved across country, and I have a small collection of beloved favorites that I will read again. But as the time grows short I feel like reading things again must take a backseat to reading things I’ve never got round to yet. Like One Hundred Years of Solitude, which may or may not make the cut after one or two chapters.

PS, about the legacy gifts - today I spent some time oiling my great grandmother's Bristol Clock Co. American Cuckoo clock, a family heirloom I have long cherished since as a very small child I used to sit on her floor and wait for the cuckoo to emerge on the hour. My grandmother gifted it to me when she died and it has been one of my most cherished possessions since. I realized as I was caring for it today that there is nobody left on this earth who gives a shit about that clock besides me. I could chalk that up to the price of not having children, but then I remember when my dear friend Linda passed away after I cared for her on hospice and I then watched as her two sons and their wives came into her home and in a day’s time dismantled 4 decades of her life, tossing her treasures into trash piles and Goodwill piles and basically not giving a shit about any of it except a few pieces of furniture they wanted for their homes. My uncle did the same thing with all my grandmother's things when she died, but luckily I got in ahead of him and took a few items that were very meaningful to me before he disposed of everything without sentiment.

We are all stardust.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan

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MajGenl.Meade
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

BoSoxGal wrote:
Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:57 pm
Thomas Mann re-read Don Quixote every year; I am no such superhuman.
I suspect Mann did that for excitement rather than read his own work over again. :lol:
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts

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Gob
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by Gob »

:lol:
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

Big RR
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Re: NYT is having readers vote on the best book of the last 125 years

Post by Big RR »

I recently made the decision that I will no longer read anything that doesn’t truly please me - I used to feel obligated to ‘finish what I started,’ but now if I’m not feeling a book after a chapter or two, it goes in the donate or return pile (depending whether it’s mine or a loan from the library). There isn’t a lot of time left and I want to use it wisely.
I agree; but sometimes it is worth attempting a book a second time. I recall hating Catch 22 the first time I read it, but loved it the second time. It's like a movie, sometimes you are in the mood for it, sometimes not. But life is far too short to read something you don't enjoy.

As for legacy gifts, as I have become older I have begun to realize that the few things I attach a value to will not be valued as much by future generations; just as the things my parents valued are not as valued by me. I have, by default, become the custodian of the family photo albums and home movies; except for having the movies transferred to DVD (mainly because I do not have a working projector, nor do I want one), the sit in boxes in the basement. I guess they're nice to have a a historic record, but literally hundreds of photos of people (who are not identified) as not as precious to me as they were to my parents, and will be even less important to my children. I do recall being depressed once when I saw framed family photos (really just the frames with the photos still in them) being sold at a garage sale, but I have come to realize that this is the way things go. No one is going to want a copy of my thesis or my reprints of the few publications I have had in journals, or my diplomas, certificates etc. It's probably better to get rid of many of them while you are living (especially if a friend or family member is interested (some people are natural born collectors), to avoid them being tossed in the trash or goodwill pile after your death.

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