Recommend a book

[Anodyne]

This was the second fanatsy book I read and it affected me deeply as a kid. I sure it wouldn't affect most people, but I like to recommend it to others. I set my eyes on it at Kmart, of all places. I was almost crying at the end. The relationship between the father and son was intense, at least to me at the time. I suppose if I read it again, now as an adult, I may feel differently and that's why I avoid doing so.

THE LONGING RING

Summary:
The 1st of the original seven Earthdawn novels, its protangonist J'role is young adult who is unable to speak because of the monstrous Horror lurking in his mind. Over the course of the novel, J'role sees many of the wonders of the world of Barsaive, and becomes initiated in the magic of the thief adept. The longing ring of the title is a magical ring that drives the story by forcing its wearer to find the lost City of Parlainth. While there are wonderous (through often dark) and magical events, the heroic adventure elements of the story are undercut by a secondary psychological drama delving into the disturbing relationship between J'role and his father.

From the back cover:

The thief adept was an ork named Garlthik, a being pursued by a mighty magician bent on reclaiming the ring the ork had stolen. With no other choice, Garlthik entrusted both the magic ring and his own life to J'role, a young man cursed by a terrifying burden—unwilling host to one of the Horrors which ages before had driven mortals, elves, dwarves, and the like to seal themselves behind spell barrier. But now the age of hiding was over, and the search for the treatures of Atlantis was about to begin.

Hoping to free himself from the creature within by going on a quest with the ork, J'role willingly abandoned his village for the lure of adventure. But, possessed by both his own Horror and the ring's seductive promise of a city of light, and pursued by enemies with much more power than his own, J'role was about to discover that there were far worse fates than staying home...

index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3801&editionid=4169

[atessalev]

I studied this book (voluntarily) for English during my senior year of high school. It's simply superb. I read it over a weekend, and went to bed three hours before i had to wake up to go to school. I failed my biology test that day too. It's one of those books that is not only beatifully written, it also has an amazing storyline and 'purpose' that was well ahead of it's time. By the end of the it, you're left completely disturbed, and i honestly had a hard time falling asleep afterwards.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.



When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D'Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her 'cousin' Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future. With its sensitive depiction of the wronged Tess and with its powerful criticism of social convention, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of the most moving and poetic of Hardy's novels.

From Wikipedia:

Symbolism and themes

Hardy's writing often illustrates the "ache of modernism", and this theme is notable in Tess. He describes modern farm machinery with infernal imagery; also, at the dairy, he notes that the milk sent to the city must be watered down because the townspeople can't stomach whole milk. Angel's middle-class fastidiousness makes him reject Tess, a woman whom Hardy often portrays as a sort of Wessex Eve, in harmony with the natural world and so lovely and desirable that Hardy himself seems to be in love with her. Without her, the handsome young man gets so sick that he is reduced to a "mere yellow skeleton." All these instances are typically interpreted as indications of the negative consequences of man's separation from nature, both in the creation of destructive machinery and in the inability to rejoice in pure nature.

Another important theme of the novel is the sexual double standard to which Tess falls victim. Hardy plays the role of Tess's only true friend and advocate, pointedly subtitling the book "a pure woman faithfully presented" and prefacing it with Shakespeare's words "Poor wounded name! My bosom as a bed/ Shall lodge thee." However, although Hardy clearly means to criticize Victorian notions of female purity, the double standard also makes the heroine's tragedy possible, and thus serves as a mechanism of Tess's broader fate. Hardy variously hints that Tess must suffer either to atone for the misdeeds of her ancestors, or to provide temporary amusement for the gods, or (with a nod to Darwin) because she possesses some small but lethal character flaw inherited from the ancient clan.

From numerous pagan and neo-Biblical references made about her, Tess can be viewed variously as an Earth goddess or as a sacrificial victim. Early in the novel, she participates in a festival for Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, and when she performs a baptism she chooses a passage from Genesis, the book of creation, over more traditional New Testament verses. At the end, when Tess and Angel come to Stonehenge, commonly believed in Hardy's time to be a pagan temple, she willingly lies down on an altar, thus fulfilling her destiny as a sacrifice to the gods. This symbolism may help to explain her character as a personification of nature--lovely and fecund, certainly, but also exploited by the other characters in the novel.

[Funk Monk]

I doubt anyone else here is a dino nerd, but anyway:

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Narrated from the point of view of a dinosaur, paleontologist Bakker's novel is filled with facts and informed speculations regarding dinosaur life.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The dinosaur known as "raptor" first became well known through Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (Knopf, 1990). Revolutionary paleontologist Bakker (The Dinosaur Heresies, LJ 11/1/86), who consulted on the special effects for the film adaptation, has written a novel that might be subtitled "A Year in the Life of a Dinosaur," as he tells the story of Raptor Red, a giant carnivore of the Early Cretaceous period. Having lost her mate in a botched hunting attack, Red (so-named because of the red stripe on her snout distinguishing her from other raptor species) joins forces with her sister and her sister's three chicks to survive in a world of hostile natural forces. Bakker manages to mix scientific theories?some of which are definitely on the cutting edge?with a rip-roaring narrative. Perhaps even more miraculously, he has created a sympathetic nonhuman heroine without anthropomorphizing her into a Disney character. This astonishing and successful novel will appeal to a wide audience and belongs in all fiction collections.
-?Eric W. Johnson, Teikyo Post Univ. Lib., Waterbury, Conn.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Introducing his superb animal biographical "novel," Bakker reveals that the "velociraptors" in the movie Jurassic Park were of just speculative provenance. No bones for raptors that big had been found. Then, during filming, they were. Bakker, once paleontology's bad boy for insistently advocating such heresies as that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, imagines a year in the life of such a dinosaur, a young adult female he dubs, on account of her distinctive species markings, Raptor Red. She has come to Utah over the land bridge from Asia in a pack including her sister and the sister's two chicks. Her year is action filled, featuring an on-and-off-and-on relationship with an eligible male, conflicts with the impulsive sister, the oversight of an old dactyl (i.e., winged dinosaur) who is symbiotic with her pack, and vivid encounters with prey and rival carnivores that Bakker loads with biological and evolutionary information. Analogizing the raptors to modern wolves and eagles, Bakker attributes considerable cognition and emotion to them, which makes his book all the more exciting and provocative. Good reading for animal lovers from 10 to 100. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review
"What the real Jurassic Park must have been like...exciting, bold and fun!" --Publishers Weekly

www.amazon.com/Raptor-Red-Robert-T-Bakker/dp/0553575619

[Anodyne]

atessalev said:

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

For anyone interested you can listen to a computer generated reading of the book (which sounds terrible, actually - my dog heard it an freaked out - www.gutenberg.org/etext/9433 )

or you can just read it yourself here: www.gutenberg.org/etext/110

or... you can download a free version of Textaloud, modify the "voice" so it's not annoying, and let your eyes rest. www.nextup.com/

[drooperdoo]

It's interesting that Thomas Hardy came up. I just read his "Far From the Madding Crowd" and thought it was brilliant.

As for now, I'm reading Henri Barbusse's 1908 novel "L'Enfer" [translated into English as "Hell"].

It's brilliant--and can also be read on project gutenberg for free. (Although, oddly, comparing the version I'm reading now to the Project Gutenberg version, roughly 20,000 words are missing. Very odd. Perhaps they used an expurgated version--one that omitted the lesbian scene and some of the other "objectionable" stuff for 1908.)

[Bilaad Binti]

I love Thomas Hardy...ahh, reminds me of high school and when I was motivated.

My recommmendation: 'The Book of Love' by Diane Ackerman and Jeanne Mackin. Its an anthology of love letters, love stories, poetry and `

[murphee]

"Stones From The River" by Ursula Hegi

www.amazon.com/Stones-River-Ursula-Hegi/dp/068484477X

[Forrester]

funk said:

I doubt anyone else here is a dino nerd, but anyway:

I've been a dinosaur nerd since I was born (and read Raptor Red years ago.)

[whateva]

Mostly for Funk i guess...

www.amazon.com/Velvet-Claw-Natural-History-Carnivores/dp/0563208449

David MacDonald: The velvet claw: A natural history of the carnivores.

It's about the family Carnivora not about meat-eaters in general mind you.

It's good I think. very interesting to trace the evolutionary developments on the various continents in comparison. Also since it's about carnivores there are some pretty hefty predators in it

There's a kind of abstract of some of the info in the book here:

www.bobpickett.org/velvet_claw.htm

[Funk Monk]

Now we're talking!

I've been a dinosaur nerd since I was born (and read Raptor Red years ago.)

Good to hear! My interest in dinosaurs (and animals in general) is deeply rooted, whereas my interest in human biodiversity is casual and very recent.

[enigma]

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins.

[nock]

Evolution Man: Or, How I Ate My Father
by Roy Lewis

www.amazon.com/Evolution-Man-How-Ate-Father/dp/0679750096/sr=1-1/qid=1169465602/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-7803996-2879248?ie=UTF8&s=books

It's funny.

[Yankel]

The End of Faith by Sam Harris

[Anodyne]

The Ominous Parallels
www.amazon.com/Ominous-Parallels-Leonard-Peikoff/dp/0452011175/sr=1-5/qid=1170710385/ref=sr_1_5/002-8562453-4908847?ie=UTF8&s=books

Read the book two or three years back. Big influence on me.

The book was published in 1983 and I'm amazed at how relevant it is to today's world. In fact, he's been proven right. Other than this book I'm not a fan of the author. He's gone nutso in the past few years.

Here's a very good review of the book. Although the review doesn't go into details about the US.

Some forum posters tend to remind me of the dangers discussed in this book.


"Ominous Parallels is a unique and revolutionary intellectual work by Dr. Peikoff, illustrating the role of philosophical ideas in shaping a society and its history. Using Plato, Kant, and Hegel as the antipode of Aristotle, he explains how their theories in opposition to reason, reality and individualism served as the framework for The Third Reich. Hitler sought obedient followers to carry out his "ordained will" and impose this on the world. Dr. Peikoff illustrates how he accomplished this.

In Germany many years before the rise of Hitler, philosophy replaced reason with faith, instinct, feelings or the wisdom of the German people in the name of the collective good as defined by authority. The individual became non-existent, subservient to the German race and fearful of committing the ultimate crime: an act of self-interest. Thus, without a mind to know the world and without a self to be concerned about, the German citizen became the obedient follower of Hitler's will to power and his mystical claim to knowledge and omnipotence in defiance of reason and reality.

Individual conscience and the concept of right and wrong based on the value of man's life were, according to the Nazis, instruments of selfishness and contrary to the interests of the German people. Thereafter, morality became what was right for the German people or Aryan race as determined by Hitler and the Nazi party. Individuality and self-interest were obliterated; the "organic whole" of the German race and people the principle of moral action.

As Dr. Peikoff explains, the violence, death, and annihilation that followed were consequences of the anti-reason and anti-individualism of the major branches of German philosophy and not random occurrences, merging together at the same time in history. Fascism and Nazism were not consequences of the innate depravity of the German culture, nor a collective deathwish, nor consequences of a Marxist integration of opposing forces. They were consequences of German philosophy, the Kantian and Hegelian influence that eradicated reason and enshrined self-sacrifice and service to others thus insuring a obedient populace.

While Ominous Parallels is relevant to any dictatorship or authoritarian regime, Dr. Peikoff points out that fascism and communism share the same philosophical base and that Hitler eagerly recruited former communists, believing them psychologically matched for Nazi ideology. In the sixties and seventies, the media advanced the theory that communism and fascism were polar opposites but Dr. Peikoff explains that they are branches of the same irrational, anti-reason, anti-individualist foundation. Both negate the power of the mind to know reality and sacrifice the individual to the needs and whims of society, obliterating the autonomous ego, and merging him into the "organic whole" of state power, embodied in an all-powerful charismatic leader a la Hitler, Franco, Stalin, Mussolini, or Castro.

As the first book by an Objectivist intellectual other than Ayn Rand, Dr. Peikoff follows in her illustrious path, showing how the role of reason and individualism are crucial fundamentals of any free society, and in contrast, how irrationality, mysticism, and altruism lead to the insane violence, savagery, and destruction of Nazi Germany.

While ominous parallels exist between Germany and present-day America, Dr. Peikoff speculates that the American people are still guided by reason and individuality and it is the intellectuals, who are destroying the country. Combine this with the surging popularity of Ayn Rand's ideas and their integration into the culture, and one can see the possibility of a new American renaisance of reason and individualism that can recapture the spirit of the Enlightenment and its respect for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."