Reading Minds: The CoastGab Book Club

[21st Century Man]

Just finished reading this new bio on Douglas Fairbanks.  He seemed like a great guy to hang out with.  He was fun, energetic, creative and kind.  He had his flaws.  He appears to have never fooled around when he was married to Mary Pickford.  That is until she was caught fooling around a bit with Charles "Buddy" Rogers rehearsing kissing scenes on the set of a film.

I highly recommend this book as it is never boring and there are a lot of interesting stories about early Hollywood and the the creation and management of United Artists. Chaplin and Fairbanks were best friends and Charlie hanged out at Pickfair a lot.  It became his second home.  Also of note is his childhood in Colorado where he was raised.  He would die at a relatively young age, 57, as a result of coronary blockage. He was also extremely close to his son, Doug Jr.  especially in the 30's.  So much so that Doug Jr. was interred at Sr.'s  tomb when he died in 2000. 

[whoozit]

I just started Green Eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss.  I was a little intimidated by this book seeing how it was written by a Doctor.  There was very little character development other than a sign that said Sam I am and then bang, right into the conflict.  I must admit I'm only about half-way through, I got tired out and needed a break, but from what I can tell it is a story about Sam I Am trying to get the other character, You, to eat green eggs and ham.  Obviously You does not want to as there is no explanation as why the eggs and ham are green.  At first I suspected it is because they are old and moldy but now I think this is some kind of metaphor that I have not figured out yet.  Or, perhaps the author being a Doctor, will expect us to think there is another reason besides age for the foods strange color and being clever will just say they are old.  Since the author is a Doctor I'm sure the old and moldy explanation is too simplistic.  Well, Sam I Am is pretty invested in getting You to eat them.  He keeps trying to entice You to eat them in different settings, such as here or there, or in strange scenarios such as with a goat.  That is about as far as I got in the first couple of hours.  I suspect that You will eventually give in and die from food poisoning.  That will teach Sam I Am about trying to talk people into doing things they do not want to do.  When I finish I'll let everyone know if my guess is correct. 

[UnscreenedCaller]

I just started Green Eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss.  I was a little intimidated by this book seeing how it was written by a Doctor.  There was very little character development other than a sign that said Sam I am and then bang, right into the conflict.  I must admit I'm only about half-way through, I got tired out and needed a break, but from what I can tell it is a story about Sam I Am trying to get the other character, You, to eat green eggs and ham.  Obviously You does not want to as there is no explanation as why the eggs and ham are green.  At first I suspected it is because they are old and moldy but now I think this is some kind of metaphor that I have not figured out yet.  Or, perhaps the author being a Doctor, will expect us to think there is another reason besides age for the foods strange color and being clever will just say they are old.  Since the author is a Doctor I'm sure the old and moldy explanation is too simplistic.  Well, Sam I Am is pretty invested in getting You to eat them.  He keeps trying to entice You to eat them in different settings, such as here or there, or in strange scenarios such as with a goat.  That is about as far as I got in the first couple of hours.  I suspect that You will eventually give in and die from food poisoning.  That will teach Sam I Am about trying to talk people into doing things they do not want to do.  When I finish I'll let everyone know if my guess is correct.

Lol, whoozit! I'm a teacher and even I can't stand Dr. Seuss. Although, I would pay good money for anyone who could do a decent mashup of Dante's Divine Comedy and Oh! The Places You'll Go.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

I just started Green Eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss.  I was a little intimidated by this book seeing how it was written by a Doctor.  There was very little character development other than a sign that said Sam I am and then bang, right into the conflict.  I must admit I'm only about half-way through, I got tired out and needed a break, but from what I can tell it is a story about Sam I Am trying to get the other character, You, to eat green eggs and ham.  Obviously You does not want to as there is no explanation as why the eggs and ham are green.  At first I suspected it is because they are old and moldy but now I think this is some kind of metaphor that I have not figured out yet.  Or, perhaps the author being a Doctor, will expect us to think there is another reason besides age for the foods strange color and being clever will just say they are old.  Since the author is a Doctor I'm sure the old and moldy explanation is too simplistic.  Well, Sam I Am is pretty invested in getting You to eat them.  He keeps trying to entice You to eat them in different settings, such as here or there, or in strange scenarios such as with a goat.  That is about as far as I got in the first couple of hours.  I suspect that You will eventually give in and die from food poisoning.  That will teach Sam I Am about trying to talk people into doing things they do not want to do.  When I finish I'll let everyone know if my guess is correct.

I had to read The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins my senior year in college, and it kicked my butt. It took me a whole semester to finish that sucker!

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Lol, whoozit! I'm a teacher and even I can't stand Dr. Seuss. Although, I would pay good money for anyone who could do a decent mashup of Dante's Divine Comedy and Oh! The Places You'll Go.

Wish I could help you there, but I imagine it might look something like the "Dungeon for Scratchy Violins" from The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbCwLxd-X0s

[Camazotz Automat]

Three target books for May:

Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013) by Maria Konnikova

Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World (2011) by Lisa Randall

Life @ the Speed of Light: From the Double Helix to the Dawn of Digital Life (2013) by J. Craig Venter

[effluenza]

I just started Green Eggs and Ham by Doctor Seuss.  I was a little intimidated by this book seeing how it was written by a Doctor.  There was very little character development other than a sign that said Sam I am and then bang, right into the conflict.  I must admit I'm only about half-way through, I got tired out and needed a break, but from what I can tell it is a story about Sam I Am trying to get the other character, You, to eat green eggs and ham.  Obviously You does not want to as there is no explanation as why the eggs and ham are green.  At first I suspected it is because they are old and moldy but now I think this is some kind of metaphor that I have not figured out yet.  Or, perhaps the author being a Doctor, will expect us to think there is another reason besides age for the foods strange color and being clever will just say they are old.  Since the author is a Doctor I'm sure the old and moldy explanation is too simplistic.  Well, Sam I Am is pretty invested in getting You to eat them.  He keeps trying to entice You to eat them in different settings, such as here or there, or in strange scenarios such as with a goat.  That is about as far as I got in the first couple of hours.  I suspect that You will eventually give in and die from food poisoning.  That will teach Sam I Am about trying to talk people into doing things they do not want to do.  When I finish I'll let everyone know if my guess is correct.

I believe this is the first book I read on my own. I won't spoil it for you.

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Wish I could help you there, but I imagine it might look something like the "Dungeon for Scratchy Violins" from The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T.

I didn't hear any violins in there.

[WildCard]

The Holy Bible: King James Version


A decent sophomore effort., June 17, 2008
By 
W. Christian

For those of you who don't know, this is God's second novel after the Old Testament. It's a marked improvement, in my opinion. He got rid of a lot of his previous angst and scorn, and has really begun to show some of the maturity present in his later works. He's become a much more loving and kind God, and, noticeably, he doesn't throw nearly as many tantrums as he did in the first book.

That said, there is still vast room for improvement. Plot wise, there isn't really much suspense, and the story can be incredibly repetitive. In like four chapters, he just rewords the same basic story over and over again. To top that off, he puts those chapters one right after the other. Like we wouldn't notice! I like the whole Jesus character, but let's face it, the whole good guy martyr thing has been done before. There was no need to devote so much of the book to that guy.

If you're really looking for a good God read, check out the Koran or the Book of Mormon. They're much more polished. Plus, the storytelling in the Book of Mormon is wild. Some people say it goes too far and point to it as evidence that God's over the hill, but I beg to differ. Just read it. God's like a genius or something. I mean, magic spectacles! Tell me that isn't awesome. I don't know how he dreams up some of this crap.

http://www.amazon.com/review/RHMDPBWSOQ6XL/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0529064634&nodeID=283155&store=books

[Camazotz Automat]

I don't have The Book of Mormon in printed form, but proudly own an audiobook on CDs version.

Read by Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Rating: A+++

The last time I was this impressed with an audiobook was when I listened to John Cleese perform/read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

[WildCard]

I don't have The Book of Mormon in printed form, but proudly own an audiobook on CDs version.

Read by Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Rating: A+++

The last time I was this impressed with an audiobook was when I listened to John Cleese perform/read The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

That's a joke right? Wait, what?

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA8BAC9375345E6C7

[Mind Flayer Monk]

Some quotes from "The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono"
-----
Lennon: get back is Paul. That's a better version of Lady Madonna. You know a potboiler be right.
Playboy: Really?
Lennon: You know get back to where you once belonged: every time he sang the line in the studio keep looking Yoko.
Playboy: Are you kidding?
Lennon: No. But maybe he'll say I'm paranoid. You know, he can say, I'm a normal family man those two are freaks. That'll leave him a chance to say that one.
----
Playboy: What about Ringo's drumming?
Lennon: Ringo is a damn good drummer. He was always a good drummer. He's not technically good, but I think Ringo's drumming is underrated the same way as Paul's bass playing is underrated.
Paul is one of the most innovative bass players that ever played bass in half the stuff that's going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles. He was coy about his bass playing. He's an egomaniac about everything else but his bass playing he was always a bit coy about. He's a great musician who plays the bass like a few other people could play it.. If you compare his bass playing with the Rolling Stones bass playing and you compare Ringo's drumming with Charlie Watts drumming, their equal to them, if not better. I always object to the fact that because Charlie came out a little more arty than Ringo Hugh Jazz and the cartoons they got credit. I think that Charlie is a damn good drummer and the other the good bass player. But I think Paul and Ringo stand up anywhere with any of the rock musicians. Not technically great. None of us were technical musicians. None of us could read music. None of us can write it. But after musicians as inspired humans to make noise, there is good as anybody!
----
Lennon: (Getting Better song) It is a diary form of writing. All that I used to be cruel to my woman, I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved was me I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I get. I thought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace I'm a violent man who is learned not to be violent and regrets his violence will have to deal why older before I can face in public now how I treated women as a youngster.

[zeebo]

^^^ Thanks for that, Monk.  I can never get enough Beatles lore.  He's right about Paul's bass playing, really great.  He's kind of like Sting, another fantastic bassist that gets more recognition for other things.

[albrecht]

Just read Stephen Coonts's latest "Liberty's Last Stand." It is, basically, porn for the "patriots" but pretty good action and funny because he doesn't even make an attempt to obfuscate who certain characters are representing. The diabolical President who initiates terrorism and declares martial law to become dictator in the name of socialism, Islam, and social progress is named "Barry Soetoro!" Haha. Classic. (Though, like most fiction, there is a disclaimer about characters and events not representing real people etc etc) Also some interesting scenarios and strategic scenarios. Easy read and worth it for the Soetoro stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/Libertys-Last-Stand-Stephen-Coonts/dp/1621575071/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470004806&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=stephen+connts

[zeebo]

Double Star by R. Heinlein (1956).  Entertaining sci-fi novel about politics and, oddly, the art of acting.  It has some thoughtful ideas on ethics and sociopolitical organization, including those of E.T.'s.  Also some good humor in there.  I wish though I'd read it first before The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966), which is a more sophisticated and thought-provoking book with somewhat similar themes.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.  It's the untold story of the missing years of Christ's life told by his best friend (who claims to have invented sarcasm) who was with him during that time. I'm about two-thirds through it and it has made me laugh out loud all the way.  It's like reading a combination of John Scalzi and Kage Baker strained through Tom Robbins. Very fun stuff!

[akwilly]

Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, by Christopher Moore.  It's the untold story of the missing years of Christ's life told by his best friend (who claims to have invented sarcasm) who was with him during that time. I'm about two-thirds through it and it has made me laugh out loud all the way.  It's like reading a combination of John Scalzi and Kage Baker strained through Tom Robbins. Very fun stuff!

Great book! I was reading another of his and I don't recall the title but basicly he is the pilot for a Mary Kay type lady

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Great book! I was reading another of his and I don't recall the title but basicly he is the pilot for a Mary Kay type lady

I'll look for it.  If I like way this one ends ( no spoilers, please!) I'm definitely going to try his other books.

[akwilly]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Sequined_Love_Nun
this was the book. lol

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_the_Sequined_Love_Nun
this was the book. lol

Ha!  The title alone is well worth the cost of getting it from the liberry!  Thanks!

[zeebo]

Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky.  Considered by many as a "rediscovered classic" from early 70's Soviet Russia.  The premise is really intriguing, and concerns a Zone where mysterious but dangerous artifacts have been strewn after a brief Visit by aliens, which has already happened before the events in the book take place.

I would give it a mixed review in that it raises some interesting questions about the intersection of society, economics, and science/technology - but ultimately was disappointed by it's dreariness, unfocused structure, and unsatisfying ending.  Imho it's worth a read as it does make you think, but I can't say I really enjoyed it, if that makes any sense.

Btw the prospectors who (illegally) go hunting for the artifacts are called "stalkers".  (No not that kind. :)  There's apparently a 1979 film called Stalker and a video game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl both influenced by the book.

[Robert Ghostwolf's Ghost]

Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky.  Considered by many as a "rediscovered classic" from early 70's Soviet Russia.  The premise is really intriguing, and concerns a Zone where mysterious but dangerous artifacts have been strewn after a brief Visit by aliens, which has already happened before the events in the book take place.

I would give it a mixed review in that it raises some interesting questions about the intersection of society, economics, and science/technology - but ultimately was disappointed by it's dreariness, unfocused structure, and unsatisfying ending.  Imho it's worth a read as it does make you think, but I can't say I really enjoyed it, if that makes any sense.

Btw the prospectors who (illegally) go hunting for the artifacts are called "stalkers".  (No not that kind. :)  There's apparently a 1979 film called Stalker and a video game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl both influenced by the book.

Sounds interesting, but you damned it with enough faint praise to convince me to pass on it.

Hope all's well, zeebo!  May the acorns and single malt be plentiful this fall so you'll have plenty to see you through the winter!

[zeebo]

Sounds interesting, but you damned it with enough faint praise to convince me to pass on it.

Hope all's well, zeebo!  May the acorns and single malt be plentiful this fall so you'll have plenty to see you through the winter!

Ha yes I sneakily it up so I could support reading it or not equally.  Thanks for the kind wishes pal.  The longer, cooler nights have me already stocking up on various warming elixirs and savory literary diversions.   

[maureen]

I recently found Donna Tartt.  A delightful romp in The Goldfinch, The Secret History, and The little Friend.

[Camazotz Automat]

Demian by Hermann Hesse (1925)

[aldousburbank]

I'm about halfway through my reading of Heads, A Biography Of Psychedelic America by Jesse Jarnow. I am enjoying it highly.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0306822555/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473901516&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=heads+a+biography+of+psychedelic+america

A collection of stories mapping the over and underground doings of the spread of all things psychedelic through the throbbing arteries of popular culture. A rainbow of tales whose arc connects the various mindplays of genius freaks from Hawaii to NYC who were the often unwitting architects of the medusa like spread of neo American culture- from musicians, playwrights, graffiti artists, internet birthers, and beyond. Much of the structure of the book is anchored around the Grateful Dead scene and their accompanying troupe of transactional tributaries, from a trickle to a flood of cosmic chemistry pulsing their entheogenic wtf into the larger non-dead cultural territories. One little factoid I enjoyed reading was that the supposed first e-commerce transaction was between two Berkely tech dept heads scoring a sack of weed.

It's an odd thing, picking up a new book and finding that a large portion of people and tales and photos are intimately familiar to me- right up to finding myself mentioned repeatedly. Weird. Just as getting high makes listening to the dead seem right and listening to the dead makes getting high seem necessary, reading this book is making my off hours rich with paisley ontological pleasure and sweet with felt memories of the past shedding light on my present. So many old friends that I love and miss... They're all in here.

[Camazotz Automat]

I wasn't sure if this is something I should read, but then you clinched it that I should, with the word "paisley."

Release the fractal hounds!  Across hippocampus fields!

[pate]

A glass of parsley tea, X=Tra(tall)/m(wide).

I had a typical crapitalist Anglish profess,urm at my debilitating thyme in Engineering Skal.  He assigned unweldy unpossible littoral goals, one among the library I hae yet to read, but sits on my shelf gathering dust is the classic "Tovarisch, I am not dead", the rare Cliff's Notes, Not Dead 4 Dummies(tm), and a bootleg 90's Betamax of a movie revisitation.

Mm, that all aside.

Saw a RussianThymes(Pravado) docu-reright history the other day called "Yalta's Last Secret," which reminded me that I have taken "official" courses in both German and French, but have neglected the Eye'talian, and have but some old dusty tomes to introduce me to the unspoken Latin.

I should "reed" moar, which in Klingon, I learned from watching "Star Trek VI: Undiscoverd Country" means "over."

Mm.

[Camazotz Automat]

Time Slave (1975)  by John Norman.   Time travel back to the age of primitive man "to rectify a mistake in his genetic heritage!" 

Heh.

[Dr. MD MD]

Time Slave (1975)  by John Norman.   Time travel back to the age of primitive man "to rectify a mistake in his genetic heritage!" 

Heh.

Wasn't there a whole subgenre of fatasy/scifi slave erotica in the 70s? I was a kid but I seem to remember seeing a series of books pertaining to a planet of slave women or something.