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Epigonos

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On 1/26/2021 at 10:32 PM, CuriousByNature said:

How is it, compared to Pillars of the Earth, if you have also read that?

I was gifted a copy of Pillars, it took a while to get into, but by p50 I was hooked. Dove directly into the 2nd, World Without End. I was so attuned his prose at that point I was flying through it - save a pause when a printing goof resulted in 100+ missing pages. (I was working backstage on a tour of Dirty Dancing Live, and having Follett between cues saved my brain from atrophy…

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I recently finished Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and very much enjoyed it. Here's the synopsis that made me want to read it:

The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies. Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time save. Like all great teachers, Ishmael refuses to make the lesson easy; he demands the final illumination to come from within ourselves. Is it man's destiny to rule the world? Or is it a higher destiny possible for him-- one more wonderful than he has ever imagined?

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I read "Project Hail Mary", the third book by Andy Weir, who wrote "The Martian", earlier this summer, and re-read a bit of it at the end of our camping trip (after I finished "Auntie Mame" and "Around the World with Auntie Mame", both of which had been in my bookcase for years).  It's very good; Weir's second book, "Artemis" was a bit flat, but I loved this new one as much, possibly more, than "The Martian" - and that's a high bar.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I am currently reading Young Benjamin Franklin by Nick Bunker, an in-depth examination of Franklin's life before he became a world-famous figure. It is a brilliant explanation of the influences that created his character. (As a longtime Philadelphian, I have always been fascinated by Franklin and his place in American history.)

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2 hours ago, WilliamM said:

The Magician, a novel about Thomas Mann by Colm Toibin

Can't wait to read that, I love Colm Toibin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/books/review-magician-colm-toibin.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/07/books/review/colm-toibin-magician.html

 

How is it so far?  

Edited by Rod Hagen
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On 9/13/2021 at 1:52 PM, Rod Hagen said:

Good, not great. Interesting side story from this week's New Yorker about the author. Some time ago, Colm went to a bar in NYC  and fell in love with New York Yankees pitcher Andy Petite'ass on the TV screen!

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On 9/13/2021 at 1:52 PM, Rod Hagen said:

Thomas Mann can't stand Agnes Meyer, owner of The Washington Post. She monopolies his time. But he needs her connection to FDR and others to help Germans settle in the United States, especially Mann's older brother and his wife

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newspaper article. I am into preparing to write my second official letter. Its hard a bit to do because I am bad at writing. So I want to use letterhead template here and check needed information. Plus oficial letters mush to have strict design and contaion all required informations

Edited by boruto
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On 9/13/2021 at 10:52 AM, Rod Hagen said:

and this in the September 20 issue of The New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/how-colm-toibin-burrowed-inside-thomas-manns-head

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I just finished "Real Life" by Brandon Taylor, a young black queer author; it's about a grad student from Alabama figuring out where he should be in life; it was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize; I had read a short story of his in an anthology ("Kink" edited by R.O. Kwon and Garth Greenwell) and I really enjoyed his writing; I must admit the book did not grab me as much as the short story did. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/flavors-of-freak/

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A couple books in history, LGBTQ stuff, novels, philosophy, politics and number theory
 

Gay Berlin: A Birthplace of Modern Identity by Robert Beachy

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

The Boys on the Rock by John Fox

Kindred  by Octavia Butler

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler 

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated by Gore Vidal

Turning the Tide: US Intervention in Central America by Noam Chomsky

A Concise History of Mathematics by Dirk J. Struik

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrand Russel

Number Systems and the Foundations of Analysis by Elliott Mendelson

Probability: A Concise Course by Y.A. Rozanov 

Ordinary Differential Equations: An Elementary Textbook for Students of Mathematics, Engineering and the Sciences by Morris Tenenbaum and Henry Pollard  (this one will take a couple of months)

The Theory of Poker: A Professional Poker Player Teaches You How to Think Like One by David Sklansky ;) 

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On 10/18/2020 at 3:37 PM, Danny-Darko said:

'Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe' By John Boswell.

 

Fascinating to find out that same-sex unions were blessed and performed in the early Christian Church! This evidence is kept hidden in the Vatican Archives and kept from the general public.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-Sex_Unions_in_Pre-Modern_Europe

 

 

719105._UY630_SR1200,630_.jpg

Highly recommend Boswell's other book if you haven't read it- Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality. Very ahead of his time and his scholarship was a nightmare for the Christian Right in the 70's and 80's. It drove them crazy because it was so thorough and irrefutable. We got to learn about Boswell in a LGBTQ history course. Great scholar! Great writing!  Eloquent. 

Edited by rn901
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On 1/26/2021 at 10:32 PM, CuriousByNature said:

How is it, compared to Pillars of the Earth, if you have also read that?

Pillars = Part One.
I love getting into Follett’s prose 

They’re all amazing! (and films will never live up to his skill of telling what’s there, and letting you imagine what’s not)

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