Welcome to bookchat where you can talk about anything...books, plays, essays, and books on tape. You don’t have to be reading a book to come in, sit down, and chat with us.
Thinking back over my life, it seems to me that there are different ways of looking out and trying to understand the world around us. There's a very clear scientific window. And it does enable us to understand an awful lot about what's out there. There's another window, it's the window through which the wise men, the holy men, the masters, of the different and great religions look as they try to understand the meaning in the world. My own preference is the window of the mystic.
Jane Goodall
http://womenshistory.about.com/...
I have great respect for the great books of the world, but in truth I have not read very many of them. Those I have read I most often enjoyed. Some on the list are unforgettable and are often referred to in other stories for they are the foundation of literature and thought.
Great stories are often alluded to and we are expected to at least know something about them even if we have not read them.
Lists are fun to contemplate. I often disagree with those titles that appear. It is fun to argue about which great books should be on the list. Books that last through the ages and are still read and talked about are good candidates. Books that make us think and reflect and grow are as well.
Below the great books are galactic tales and then the books that begin with G. I love aliens and what I learn from considering different worlds. Please share your favorites, too.
100 Most Influential Books Ever Written
By Martin Seymour Smith
http://www.thegreatbookslist.com/...
I have only read 10 1/2 of the books on this list, but it is a great list. Some of my readers have surely done better.
101 Great Books
Recommended for College-Bound Readers
http://www.collegeboard.com/...
I did better on this list having read 59 and ½ .
Pico provided a list, too, that is interesting: (there are two lists of 100)
http://www.randomhouse.com/...
Great Books Curriculum
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Great Books refers to a curriculum and a book list, as well as a method of education. Mortimer Adler lists three criteria for including a book on the list:
the book has contemporary significance; that is, it has relevance to the problems and issues of our times;
the book is inexhaustible; it can be read again and again with benefit; "This is an exacting criterion, an ideal that is fully attained by only a small number of the 511 works that we selected. It is approximated in varying degrees by the rest."
the book is relevant to a large number of the great ideas and great issues that have occupied the minds of thinking individuals for the last 25 centuries.
The following is an example list from How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren. (1940, 1972)
List of 139:
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Shortly after Adler retired from the Great Books Foundation in 1989, a second edition (1990) of the Great Books of the Western World was published; it included more Hispanic and female authors and, for the first time, works by African American authors.
From the list of 139 Great Books above at wiki, I recommend:
Homer: The Iliad, The Odyssey
The Old Testament
Aeschylus: Tragedies
Sophocles: Tragedies
Euripides: Tragedies
Virgil: Works
Ovid: Works
The New Testament
The Song of Roland
Geoffrey Chaucer: Troilus and Criseyde; The Canterbury Tales
Michel de Montaigne: Essays
Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote (Book one)
William Shakespeare: Poetry and Plays
John Milton: Works
Jonathan Swift: "A Tale of a Tub"; A Journal to Stella; Gulliver's Travels; "A Modest Proposal"
Alexander Pope: "Essay on Criticism"; "The Rape of the Lock"; "Essay on Man"
Voltaire: Letters on the English, Candide, Philosophical Dictionary
William Wordsworth: Poems
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems; Biographia Literaria
Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice; Emma
Lord Byron: Don Juan
Charles Dickens: Works
George Eliot: Adam Bede; Middlemarch
Herman Melville: Moby-Dick; Billy Budd
Fyodor Dostoevsky: Crime and Punishment; The Idiot; The Brothers Karamazov
Henrik Ibsen: Plays
Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace; Anna Karenina; What is Art?; Twenty-Three Tales
Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Mysterious Stranger
George Bernard Shaw: Plays and Prefaces
James Joyce: "The Dead" in Dubliners; A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Ulysses
Franz Kafka: The Trial; The Castle
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The First Circle; Cancer Ward
I know my readers have many more to mention.
I have to admit that I enjoy Galactic Tales very much and have mentioned some of these books before.
James White
Tales of Sector General series
Galactic Gourmet, Final Diagnosis, Mind Changer
Genocidal Healer
Silent Stars Go By
Double Contact
Hospital Station
Star Surgeon
Major Operation
Ambulance Ship
Sector General
Star Healer
Code Blue
General Practice
Alien Emergencies
So many by C. J. Cherryh
Foreigner
Invader
Inheritor
Precursor
Defender
Explorer
Destroyer
Pretender
Deliverer
Conspirator
Deceiver
Pride of Chanur
Chanur’s Venture
Kif Strike Back
Homecoming
Chanur’s Legacy
Julie Czerneda
3 featuring the adventures of Esen-alit-Quar.
Beholder’s Eye
Changing Vision
Hidden in Plain Sight
Thousand Words for Stranger
Ties of Power
In the Company of Others
Survival
Alan Dean Foster
Founding of the Commonwealth
Phylogenesis
Dirge
Diuturnity’s Dawn
Taken Trilogy
Lost and Found
Light Years Beneath My Feet
Candle of Distant Earth
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Liaden series
Balance of Trade
Partners in Necessity tri
Conflict of Honors
Agent of Change
Carpe Diem
Plan B
Local Custom
Scout’s Progress
Mouse and Dragon sequel to SP
I Dare
Barry Longyear
Enemy Papers trilogy
Enemy Mine
Tomorrow Testament
Last Enemy
Patricia Kenealy-Morrison
The Copper Crown (1984)
The Throne of Scone (1986)
The Silver Branch (1988)
Elizabeth Moon
Heris Serrano
Hunting Party
Sporting Chance
Winning Colors
Once a Hero
Rules of Engagement
Change of Command
Against the Odds
Vatta’s War
Trading in Danger
Marque and Reprisal
Engaging the Enemy
Command Decision
Victory Conditions
Timothy Zahn
Night Train to Rigel
What are your favorite Galactic Tales? No, I haven’t read The Hitchhiker’s Guide, but I know many of my readers love it.
Books that Begin with G
Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall
Gap Creek by Robert Morgan
Gardens of Kyoto by Kate Walbert
Gateway to Atlantis by Andrew Collins
Gathering of Spies by John Altman
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
Gesture Life by Chang rae-Lee
Gettysburg by Noah Trudeau
Gettysburg by Stephen Sears (my favorite of the two)
Ghost Country by Sara Paretsky
Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart
Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb
Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides
La Gioconda by Gabriele D'Annunzio
Renata Scotto Ponchielli La Gioconda Voce di donna San Francisco 1979
http://www.youtube.com/...
Gifted Hands by Ben Carson
Gift of Sanctuary by Candace Robb
Gigi by Alan Jay Lerner is based on the 1944 novella of the same name by Colette
Gigi Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/...
Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death by Patrick Henry
http://www.gutenberg.org/...
Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death
Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.
No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities,
of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different
men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it
will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do
opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my
sentiments freely and without reserve.
This is no time for ceremony.
The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country.
For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of
freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject
ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that
we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility
which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions
at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself
as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty
toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.
Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.
We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the
song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part
of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?
Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not,
and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their
temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost,
I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.
And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct
of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with
which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House.
Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves
to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our
petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and
darken our land.
Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and
reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that
force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves,
sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to
which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if
its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other
possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of
the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir,
she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other.
They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British
ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them?
Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.
Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the
subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.
Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication?
What terms shall we
find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir,
deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert
the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated;
we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have
implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and
Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced
additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded;
and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne!
In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and
reconciliation.
There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--
if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which
we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble
struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged
ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest
shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!
An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable
an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week,
or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British
guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by
irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance
by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until
our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make
a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.
The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a
country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy
can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.
There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will
raise up friends to fight our battles for us.
The battle, sir, is not to the
strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir,
we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late
to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery!
Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston!
The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--
but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps
from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms!
Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?
What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear,
or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?
Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take;
but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
The Godmother trilogy by Elizabeth Scarborough
The Godmother
The Godmother’s Apprentice
The Godmother’s Web
Goddess Within by Barbara Woolger
Gods and Generals by Jeff Shaara
Godspell created by John-Michael Tebelak
Godspell
http://www.youtube.com/...
Where are you going?
http://www.youtube.com/...
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Golden Apples of the Sun by Ray Bradbury
Golden Ocean by Patrick O’Brian
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Gone with the Wind trailer
http://www.youtube.com/...
Good German by Joseph Kanon
Goodnight, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Gorillas in the Mist Dian Fossey
Go Tell it on the Mountain James Baldwin
Grand Complication by Allen Kurzweil
Grandfather Tales by Richard Chase (Wicked John and the Devil)
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Grave Denied by Dana Stabenow
Grease by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Greater than Angels by Carol Matas
Greatest Generation and sequel by Tom Brokaw
Letters from the Greatest Generation
Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick (William Marshal)
Scarlet Lion (WM #2)
Great Unraveling by Paul Krugman
Green Darkness by Anya Seton
Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge
Green Fried Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg
Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson
Green Rider by Kristen Britain
Gringolandia by Lyn Miller-Lachmann (our DKos Deejay Lyn)
My Review from a previous DKos diary:
Gringolandia is a wonderful book. It is a powerful story and inspiring. I liked the characters very much and they are very interesting people. If you enjoyed reading Isabel Allende, you will love this story. It is set in the time of the Pinochet dictatorship. Marcelo is a man who wishes his country of Chile to be free and for the disappeared and murdered people to be given names and their murderers to be identified.
His wife and children go to the USA to live when he is taken to prison. His son Daniel and Daniel’s girlfriend, Courtney, try to help Marcelo when he is released from prison and comes to the States. He has been tortured and cannot bear to be touched. This story is absolutely worth buying and owning. I highly recommend it.
It sounds difficult to read, but it is not. Of course, it is sad, even terrifying with a great deal of suspense, but the story is told with so much skill and love, that you come away glad to have read it.
Watch a haunting video presentation about Gringolandia here:
http://www.youtube.com/...
Grooks by Piet Hein
T. T. T.
Put up in a place
where it's easy to see
the cryptic admonishment
T. T. T.
When you feel how depressingly
slowly you climb,
it's well to remember that
Things Take Time.
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
Gypsy is a 1962 American musical film produced and directed by Mervyn LeRoy. The screenplay by Leonard Spigelgass is based on the book of the 1959 stage musical Gypsy: A Musical Fable by Arthur Laurents, which was adapted from Gypsy: A Memoir by Gypsy Rose Lee.
Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for songs composed by Jule Styne.
Gypsy - Everything's Coming Up Roses
http://www.youtube.com/...
Diaries of the week
AIDS Walk Austin - donations matched this morning
by anotherdemocrat
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Write On! Believing the alligator.
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music OPUS 14: Schubert Quintet in C Major (pt2)
by Dumbo
http://www.dailykos.com/...
To Tell The Truth: The Publishing Game
by Word Alchemy
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Magnifico gave this link at wader’s OND on Monday which is really interesting. I was fascinated by the story of the traders.
Mapping Ancient Germania
Berlin Researchers Crack the Ptolemy Code
By Matthias Schulz
http://www.spiegel.de/...
Astonishing New Map
...A group of classical philologists, mathematical historians and surveying experts at Berlin Technical University's Department for Geodesy and Geoinformation Science has produced an astonishing map of central Europe as it was 2,000 years ago.
The map shows that both the North and Baltic Seas were known as the "Germanic Ocean" and the Franconian Forest in northern Bavaria was "Sudeti Montes." The map indicates three "Saxons' islands" off the Frisian coast in northwestern Germany -- known today as Amrum, Föhr and Sylt.
It also shows a large number of cities...
This unusual map draws on information from the mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy, who, in 150 AD, embarked on a project to depict the entire known world. Living in Alexandria, in the shadow of its monumental lighthouse, the ancient scholar drew 26 maps in colored ink on dried animal skins -- a Google Earth of the ancient world, if you will.
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early. Watch for extra editions on Sundays!
sarahnity’s list of DKos authors has grown so much that she has her own diary.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
sarahnity says:
It turns out that we have quite a few authors hanging out here who have published books in the real world. A while ago, I started keeping a list of books by Kossacks, former Kossacks and Kossacks-once-removed. I was posting it each week to the diary series What Are You Reading and Bookflurries, but the list has grown long enough, that I've decided to turn it into a diary and post it as a weekly series on Tuesday evenings.
Not all Kossack authors may wish to lose their anonymity, so I am only including the author's UID if he has outed herself here (gender confusion intended). If you'd like to be included on the list, or if you know of an author who is left off, please leave a comment or email me.
(sarahnity@gmail.com)