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Perhaps I should have put this under media since it's online, but it concerns books, so I'm putting it here. Greg can move it if he is offended.
I found this on the Modern Library web site:
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary...ovels.html
I find both lists ridiculous. The board's list starts with a book almost no one has read (or can even understand) - how can that be best? And the reader's list starts with Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard!
And can we please give up on the notion that Animal Farm is a great book? It's heavy-handed propaganda and way too long; he could have done it in about 20 pages as more of a fable and it would have worked much better.
the hands that guide me are invisible
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Obviously some critics are more equal than others.
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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...but he can't. He can't move threads. What kind of lame admin can't move threads on his forum? Just kidding. Nice to have you back, KB, even if you posted a book thread on the movie forum...
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Your crow is on it's way. Imagine the audacity to question the might of my forum Fu? I can move topics. I can't move individual posts.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit
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DM totally defers to Greg when it comes to book vs. thread moving fu. Greg's thread moving fu is far more powerful than DM's. DM concedes this match.
:butthead: :butthead: :butthead:
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Based on the posters for these two fine movies with the same name (directed by Board's List and Reader's List respectively), I would have to give the nod to the former for the Pale Fire scene (which of course I didn't actually see, but whose merits are strongly suggested by the aforesaid poster).
On the opposite side of the hypothetical coin, I must honor Reader's List's effort in the Gravity's Rainbow scene, again which I did not see but whose power is suggested in the poster -- as well as the book, which I did read, or at least I started it, and it impressed me as far as I got, enough to look at the aforesaid poster.
Still, I remain disappointed in the total absence of a The Stars My Destination (by Alfred Bester) scene, which to my mind would have come closest to creating a fine science fiction movie. I can only wait, and hope, that someday it will be made into a movie...
Barring that, I'd settle for a poster.
--cranefly
P.S. Why is this thread in the book section?
I'm nobody's pony.
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First of all, let me say that I wasn't aware that I posted this in the wrong section - it wasn't a taunt about thread shifing abilities. I was at work and therefore trying not to think.
But despite his mockery, CF makes a good point - there isn't much SF on the critics' list, and the readers' list has too much LRH (I dare not speak the name) and Heinlein. I'd like to see City or Schroedinger's Cat up there.
And certainly Moby Dick should be on at least one of those lists.
the hands that guide me are invisible
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What is most disturbing to me is how few books from either list that I have read. With a margin of error of one or two, here is where I stand.
Board's List: 14.5 of 100
Reader's List: 16 of 100
Some of them I'm just not certain of. Did I read the Puppet Masters? I'm inclined to say I have. But I have no recollection of the plot at all. So maybe I didn't.
It's embarrassing to be my age and to have read so few of what most people view as the best that literature has to offer.
I'm nobody's pony.
Haggis Killer
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I took your lead and went through the list. It's curious that upon my first reading of the lists I agreed with neither but with the Reader's list much the least, due to the unfortunate inclusion of the LRH books. And yet, I stand like this:
Board's List: 10 of 100
Reader's List: 21 of 100
...putting me exactly 1/2 of a book ahead of CF. Many of the unread books are on a list my older brother gave me years ago.... that I almost entirely ignored after attempting the first on his list - The Brothers Karamatzov. Never again with the Russian authors for me.
Still, there are a couple on the list I've picked up a number of times but never finished: Ulysses, The Magus, Finnegan's Wake, Lord Jim, The Worm Ouroboros (has ANYONE finished that???). I remain an uncultured boob, I suspect.
But am I happy?
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I couldn't finish reading the lists...
"Puppet-Masters"? Dude, how could you not read that bit of cold-war inspired pulp! They even made a good movie adaptation of it (Donald Sutherland as The Old Man, Barbara Hershey looking brainy and cute...), I mean, like, Dude, c'mon...
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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Haggis Killer Wrote:I remain an uncultured boob, I suspect.
But am I happy?
That was probably a rhetorical question, but in a word, yes. I suspect you are much happier than someone who has read all of the books on those lists. I've never understood why so many people seem to equate "depressing" with "cultured"? Seems to be true for much of film, too -- for some reason it has to be off-the-scale uncomfortable and tragic in order to be judged as "good."
When I see a list like this, I have to wonder what their criteria for "best" involved. Clearly it's very different from my own.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
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I rejects these lists totally.
I've tried to read Conrad, couldn't get it. I should read more Joyce or better yet, some Joyce. It's a heritage thing I'm sure.
I got 10 on the Border's and 26 on the Readers, mostly because of frickin Charles De Lint and I read most of the Heinleins, before I read Number of the Beast and stopped reading Heinlein.
So much for the flickr badge idea. Dammit
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Yes, the Pulitzer Prize should be called the Pulitzer Cult of Despair. Every frickin' book about severely f*cked-up people in rapidly deteriorating situations that none of them can emerge triumphant from, but instead are ground into sandy chunks of stew-meat described in gorgeous prose.
Every Pulitzer-winning novel should come with a straight-razor and a copy of Grey's Anatomy with the major arteries marked with a neon-green highlighter.
OK, this time I went and looked at the lists:
17 on The Board
38 on The Reader
That "Reader" list was very lame, except for the addition of Robertson Davies, who totally rocks (for a Canadian). I would recommend The Deptford Trilogy to anyone (Fifth Business is the first book).
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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