Bring back the books!

[hunterlee]

Where have all the libraries and books gone?? I typically to read a book or two a month.

 

I was overseas in a beautiful ornate library that used to be a temple and almost not a single soul inside.

 

Shoutout to all my fellow nook or book readers!

 

I have recently become interested in middle eastern literature, any recommendations for titles?

[+ Truereview]

Hope you are enjoying your trip. Although technically not written in the Middle East, the setting is very in the Middle East: I loved Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran.

[sincitymix]

Hope you are enjoying your trip. Although technically not written in the Middle East, the setting is very in the Middle East: I loved Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran.

Librarians loved me when i was growing up. they would save all the new release and best sellers for me Also.. being military base libraries, i got to check out all the hottie military guys as i was browsing through the books. I was such a precocious child

 

tangent note.. TR, is that really a picture of you?

[+ Truereview]

Librarians loved me when i was growing up. they would save all the new release and best sellers for me Also.. being military base libraries, i got to check out all the hottie military guys as i was browsing through the books. I was such a precocious child

 

tangent note.. TR, is that really a picture of you?

SCM, is that how you spent some time near DMZ? Your knowledge of the area is striking.

 

As for the pic, a good Military brat never never tells (yes...shhhh)

[sincitymix]

SCM, is that how you spent some time near DMZ? Your knowledge of the area is striking.

 

As for the pic, a good Military brat never never tells

I visited the DMZ with my mother when we were visiting relatives in Seoul. It was an interesting but adrenaline surging experience after the speech the Sgt gave us. However i did spend the majority of my childhood preteen life at Okinawa.

[sincitymix]

a good Military brat never never tells

 

Pfff the majority of the military brats i knew were wild bad boys

[Mo Mason]

I don't have recommendations for the original poster, but if anyone seeing this enjoys gay fiction I recommend "Where the Rainbow Ends" by Jameson Currier.

 

I've never cried so much while reading a book.

[+ friendofsheila]

 

I was overseas in a beautiful ornate library that used to be a temple and almost not a single soul inside.

 

If you visit Baltimore, don't miss the main library there. It's quite handsome.

 

But if you ARE there and you miss out on the reading room of the Peabody Library (not far from the main library, actually), you'll smack your forehead for doing so!

 

http://themysteriousworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/george-peabody.jpg

[+ friendofsheila]

Where have all the libraries and books gone?? I typically to read a book or two a month.

 

Libraries have never been cool, in my lifetime anyway. (Hence, neither have I. I'm typing this from my local library now.)

 

I'm pretty proud that I'm nearing the end of Thackeray's Vanity Fair, all the while finishing about one other book a month in between. I can't recommend anything in the category you name.

[+ friendofsheila]

Does Florida have any memorable libraries, @hunterlee ?

[gallahadesquire]

In my youth I had a job at the MIT libraries ... shelving mostly, or desk-sitting. I was asked by the head Librarian to help out on a project: Move ALL the books in the Rare Book Room so they were all >18" off the floor. And we had to keep them in order. And we had one day.

 

It took three of us ten hours. At one point, I realized that someone had to stay behind and work through lunch. I was locked in, alone. Sigh. I was covered in 16th and 17th century leather dust. One of my favorite finds: A first edition of the last of Galileo Galilei's books, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matematiche, intorno à due nuoue scienze, attenenti alla mecanica & i movimenti locali. Con una appendice del centro di grauità d’alcuni solidi (1638). This was printed after his books were banned in 1632, and then re-published in 1639 in Holland. I think this is the Holland printing.

 

The most memorable title: The Autobiography of an Electron.

[+ WilliamM]

n my youth I had a job at the MIT libraries ... shelving mostly, or desk-sitting. I was asked by the head Librarian to help out on a project: Move ALL the books in the Rare Book Room so they were all >18" off the floor. And we had to keep them in order. And we had one day.

 

In the U.S., university libraries are often better than public libraries. There is a nominal cost, and not everyone lives near a major college/university.

 

Just a suggestion.

[Mocha]

LOL, maybe this can answer part of my other thread. I was thinking the same thing!

[+ bigjoey]

LOL, maybe this can answer part of my other thread. I was thinking the same thing!

 

Some libraries have a "special collection" section where you can find gay reading material. The University of Missouri at Kansas City has such a collection that includes gay porn (for historical interest only, I'm sure).

[Rod Hagen]

I have recently become interested in middle eastern literature, any recommendations for titles?

 

Morocco is North Africa not the Middle East, BUT The Sheltering Sky is fantastic:

https://www.amazon.com/Sheltering-Sky-Paul-

 

Anything by Orhan Pamuk is great, but I recommend the one about my favorite city:

https://www.amazon.com/Istanbul-Memories-City-Orhan-Pamuk/dp/1400033888

http://sangastiano.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Istanbul-Memories-and-the-City-by-Orhan-Pamuk1.jpg

[actor61]

My happiest childhood memory is my weekly trip to the local library with my mother. She is a voracious reader in 3 languages, I in 2. Even now, when I enter a library, my heart thumps a little faster and I feel tranquil and happy. My neighborhood branch is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment building, and I go every week to return a bag of books and to check out a bag of books. The whole process fills me with happiness even on my worst days, and then there's the pleasure of reading the bag of books I've brought home. I've just finished an exhaustive and fascinating biography of W. Somerset Maugham, and am now starting "1606, The Year of Lear" by David Shapiro. It's a rainy Sunday, I'm home from Mass drinking my second cup of coffee, and I'm going to dive into Shakespeare's London for the afternoon before meeting friends for dinner after the Pride Parade downtown, which I am not attending - too old to enjoy it anymore. But I'm certainly there in spirit.

 

I may have posted this story on here before - I can't recall - but in the early 1960s when I was about 10 years old I became fascinated with the French Revolution, especially the stories of people mounting the scaffold steps to the guillotine with courage and resignation, including the King and Queen. The violence, romance, ideas and history really attracted me. On a trip to the library with my mom, I found a huge book about the Revolution with engravings and drawings that I drooled over. I didn't have my own library card at the time, so I handed it to mother to check out on hers. When we arrived at the desk, she checked it out with the librarian, handed it to me and I said, "Thanks mom!" to which the librarian said, "That book is entirely inappropriate for that child. He'll never understand a word. I'll put it back on the shelf." My mother in her perfect but European accented English replied, "You'll do no such thing. He wants to read about queens' heads falling into a basket and who are you to stop him?" Later, when I knew about such things, I thought that was a remark that would have done Noel Coward proud!

[+ Truereview]

My happiest childhood memory is my weekly trip to the local library with my mother. She is a voracious reader in 3 languages, I in 2. Even now, when I enter a library, my heart thumps a little faster and I feel tranquil and happy. My neighborhood branch is about a 10 minute walk from my apartment building, and I go every week to return a bag of books and to check out a bag of books. The whole process fills me with happiness even on my worst days, and then there's the pleasure of reading the bag of books I've brought home. I've just finished an exhaustive and fascinating biography of W. Somerset Maugham, and am now starting "1606, The Year of Lear" by David Shapiro. It's a rainy Sunday, I'm home from Mass drinking my second cup of coffee, and I'm going to dive into Shakespeare's London for the afternoon before meeting friends for dinner after the Pride Parade downtown, which I am not attending - too old to enjoy it anymore. But I'm certainly there in spirit.

 

I may have posted this story on here before - I can't recall - but in the early 1960s when I was about 10 years old I became fascinated with the French Revolution, especially the stories of people mounting the scaffold steps to the guillotine with courage and resignation, including the King and Queen. The violence, romance, ideas and history really attracted me. On a trip to the library with my mom, I found a huge book about the Revolution with engravings and drawings that I drooled over. I didn't have my own library card at the time, so I handed it to mother to check out on hers. When we arrived at the desk, she checked it out with the librarian, handed it to me and I said, "Thanks mom!" to which the librarian said, "That book is entirely inappropriate for that child. He'll never understand a word. I'll put it back on the shelf." My mother in her perfect but European accented English replied, "You'll do no such thing. He wants to read about queens' heads falling into a basket and who are you to stop him?" Later, when I knew about such things, I thought that was a remark that would have done Noel Coward proud!

as usual, I loved reading your post. Thank you. Not to get off-track, but have you seen In Which We Serve ?

[+ Charlie]

If you want to read about the Middle East from a British perspective, Lawrence Durrell's series of four novels, The Alexandria Quartet, is a classic. In each novel, Durrell re-tells the story from the point of view of a different character. It can be heavy-going and pretentious at times, but the descriptions of the city are wonderful, and there is a lot of sex, of all types.

[+ honcho]

To go completely off topic - from libraries to long gone TV series, I'm wondering how many people saw a Twighlight Zone episode entitled "To serve Man" ... ?

 

Maybe somebody could bring it back online by citing literary equivalents?

 

 

to get off-track, but have you seen In Which We Serve ?

[+ Truereview]

To go completely off topic - from libraries to long gone TV series, I'm wondering how many people saw a Twighlight Zone episode entitled "To serve Man" ... ?

 

Maybe somebody could bring it back online by citing literary equivalents?

What human wouldn't want to have a giant alien serving him?

 

PS - you can watch it on Netflix

[WolfRamNHard]

I suggest checking out Egyptian author and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz.

[Rudynate]

I visited the DMZ with my mother when we were visiting relatives in Seoul. It was an interesting but adrenaline surging experience after the speech the Sgt gave us. However i did spend the majority of my childhood preteen life at Okinawa.

 

I used to visit East Berlin in the 70s. In the west, at Checkpoint Charlie, the military police gave this hair-raising briefing, just before you walked through no man's land into East Berlin. It was very scary.

[actor61]

as usual, I loved reading your post. Thank you. Not to get off-track, but have you seen In Which We Serve ?

In Which We Serve is one of my favorite films. Some of it is sentimental claptrap, and Coward and Celia Johnson can be a bit precious at times, but it's still a wonderful movie. The action sequences are terrific and frightening. I'm a bit of a Coward freak. As a young actor, I was in Hay Fever and Present Laughter. I saw Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens in Private Lives, directed by Gielgud in London, and I think it was definitive. I saw a rather drab production of Hay Fever in London in the 1980s with Penelope Keith but even the mediocrity of the performance couldn't dim the comic brilliance of the play. Coward, of course, wrote Brief Encounter, and it still makes me weep every time I see it. I adored the kid who imitates Celia Johnson in The History Boys; I might have been the only one in the theatre who got the joke! I saw George C. Scott in Present Laughter, and later saw Victor Garber do it - both of them great but believe it or not, Scott was funnier. I love the anecdotes Elaine Stritch recounts about her experience with Coward when she did Sail Away. I once worked with Florence Henderson and she had very funny, somewhat bitter stories about him when she did The Girl Who Came to Supper. My parents saw High Spirits on Broadway and to their minds there has never been a funnier stage performance than Beatrice Lillie as Arcati but I think Angela Lansbury was pretty hysterical in the same role in the recent B'way revival of Blithe Spirit. If you're a Coward fan, you should read his novel - the name of which escapes me at the moment - about the English couple on diplomatic assignment in the tropics. Really, really funny. Apparently, it's based on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's experiences in the Bahamas (he loathed them). His diaries are also worth reading, although I'm not usually a fan of diaries. I just finished reading Richard Burton's and the acting anecdotes were interesting, and his friendship with Coward was deep and lasting, but you had to wade through a lot of trivia about Burton's wives and kids before you got to the good stuff. I really don't care how many times in a day he fucked Elizabeth Taylor; I wanted to hear what rehearsals were like for Hamlet.

 

What I loved about the English acting/writing/directing/producing giants of the 20th Century - Richardson, Gielgud, Olivier, Coward, Evans, Ashcroft - is that they weren't afraid of non-traditional, new work. Gielgud and Richardson performed Pinter and Hare plays, Olivier went off to the Royal Court to do The Entertainer and gave what was probably his greatest performance, and Coward also worked at the Royal Court and didn't dismiss the new writers as viciously as some of the old guard did. He was a great fan of Wesker and Bond; all he cared about was that the writing was good. There is a clip of Coward on You Tube performing a scene from Chips with Everything that is astounding.

 

I've gone on and on again. I directed a college production of Hay Fever about 10 years ago and the students had no idea who Coward was when we started but they sure did by the time we finished, and they ended up loving him as much as I. I used to put up a quote of his each evening in the Green Room, and we all agreed that our favorite was from the Coronation in 1953. He was standing on a balcony with his young godson watching the procession go down the Mall and when the enormously fat Queen of Tonga and her much smaller husband passed by in her carriage, the child asked, "Uncle Noel, who is that very fat lady?" Coward answered, "That' the Queen of Tonga." "And who," continued the little boy, "is that skinny little man next to her." Coward replied, "Her lunch."

[+ Truereview]

In Which We Serve is one of my favorite films. Some of it is sentimental claptrap, and Coward and Celia Johnson can be a bit precious at times, but it's still a wonderful movie. The action sequences are terrific and frightening. I'm a bit of a Coward freak. As a young actor, I was in Hay Fever and Present Laughter. I saw Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens in Private Lives, directed by Gielgud in London, and I think it was definitive. I saw a rather drab production of Hay Fever in London in the 1980s with Penelope Keith but even the mediocrity of the performance couldn't dim the comic brilliance of the play. Coward, of course, wrote Brief Encounter, and it still makes me weep every time I see it. I adored the kid who imitates Celia Johnson in The History Boys; I might have been the only one in the theatre who got the joke! I saw George C. Scott in Present Laughter, and later saw Victor Garber do it - both of them great but believe it or not, Scott was funnier. I love the anecdotes Elaine Stritch recounts about her experience with Coward when she did Sail Away. I once worked with Florence Henderson and she had very funny, somewhat bitter stories about him when she did The Girl Who Came to Supper. My parents saw High Spirits on Broadway and to their minds there has never been a funnier stage performance than Beatrice Lillie as Arcati but I think Angela Lansbury was pretty hysterical in the same role in the recent B'way revival of Blithe Spirit. If you're a Coward fan, you should read his novel - the name of which escapes me at the moment - about the English couple on diplomatic assignment in the tropics. Really, really funny. Apparently, it's based on the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's experiences in the Bahamas (he loathed them). His diaries are also worth reading, although I'm not usually a fan of diaries. I just finished reading Richard Burton's and the acting anecdotes were interesting, and his friendship with Coward was deep and lasting, but you had to wade through a lot of trivia about Burton's wives and kids before you got to the good stuff. I really don't care how many times in a day he fucked Elizabeth Taylor; I wanted to hear what rehearsals were like for Hamlet.

 

What I loved about the English acting/writing/directing/producing giants of the 20th Century - Richardson, Gielgud, Olivier, Coward, Evans, Ashcroft - is that they weren't afraid of non-traditional, new work. Gielgud and Richardson performed Pinter and Hare plays, Olivier went off to the Royal Court to do The Entertainer and gave what was probably his greatest performance, and Coward also worked at the Royal Court and didn't dismiss the new writers as viciously as some of the old guard did. He was a great fan of Wesker and Bond; all he cared about was that the writing was good. There is a clip of Coward on You Tube performing a scene from Chips with Everything that is astounding.

 

I've gone on and on again. I directed a college production of Hay Fever about 10 years ago and the students had no idea who Coward was when we started but they sure did by the time we finished, and they ended up loving him as much as I. I used to put up a quote of his each evening in the Green Room, and we all agreed that our favorite was from the Coronation in 1953. He was standing on a balcony with his young godson watching the procession go down the Mall and when the enormously fat Queen of Tonga and her much smaller husband passed by in her carriage, the child asked, "Uncle Noel, who is that very fat lady?" Coward answered, "That' the Queen of Tonga." "And who," continued the little boy, "is that skinny little man next to her." Coward replied, "Her lunch."

I was introduced to Noël Coward by a charming and gifted client of mine when I was in college. My favorite Coward quote is " I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me." Again, I really enjoyed your post and your additional perspective, especially bc it reminds me of very sweet memories. You know, come think of it...I have a memory like an elephant, in fact, elephants often consult me.

[Reluctant Daddy]

I spent my youth in the library. I would read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Now, the only time I can settle in with a book is downtime during vacations - and my last vacation was 2 years ago.