HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Subject: Re: Gravity's Rainbow
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 05:39:45 GMT

In article <leroy.702884997@syzygy>, leroy@socs.uts.edu.au (Leroy.) writes:
 
|>     That's not an argument, it's a cliche. They are, I'm told, to be
avoided.

       Another cliche....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:7957 alt.cyberpunk:2082
From: p2d@sci.kun.nl (Jeroen Huinink)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.cyberpunk
Subject: publishing on disck (Was Re: Gibson's new book)
Date: 14 Apr 92 13:54:50 GMT
Organization: University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands

In <1992Apr14.114154.28310@linus.mitre.org> m13079@mwunix (Mary Anne Walters) writes:

>Forgive me if I am a bit behind the curve on this, but I just read about
>William Gibson's new book _Agrippa_ (the Book of the Dead).  I understand
>it is going to be published on disk, with a virus that prevents it from
>being printed out.  Any other news on this? What do people think of this
>idea?

>As a sidebar, I also read that Neuromancer will be published on disk (sans
>virus) this year as well.

I do not see any point in publishing books on disk. I for myself *hate* 
reading from a screen. I do favor a book. It's better for your eyes and you
can take it everywhere (e.g. in the train, on the bike, in school) and I don't
see myself carrying a laptop all day, just to read a novel. 

BTW a virus against printing it: --> How about a virus against copying it??
It's far more easy to make a diskcopy of a book than a photocopy.

Greetings, 

Dreumel
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Words and Music from da Lowlands" -- Gotcha!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: farrell@coral.cs.jcu.edu.au (John Farrell)
Subject: Re: reading in bed
Organization: James Cook University
Date: 16 Apr 92 06:50:11 GMT

In <1992Apr15.135933.5624@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> wald@theory.lcs.mit.edu (David Wald) writes:
>In article <JMC.92Apr14183753@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU writes:
>>What is the most convenient arrangement people have found?
>>What equipment is best?

>Lots of pillows and a good, adjustable small-area lamp.

  Lots of pillows and one of those lamps which clips on to your book.

>A like-minded partner *with a second lamp* is optional.

  A partner who is at least tolerant of you is essential!

Friendless
From: KGODDEN@cmsa.gmr.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Business Novels
Date: 14 Apr 92 14:21:52 GMT
Organization: GM Research Labs

In article <92104.132630FJM1@psuvm.psu.edu>
FJM1@psuvm.psu.edu (Frank Mulhern) writes:

>
>I teach undergraduate senior business majors.  Right now I require them to
>read BABBITT by Sinclair Lewis.  Some students have asked me to recommend
>other novels for them to read.  Remarkably, many of these students have
>made it to the last semester or their senior year without reading any novels.
>I am looking for other business novels to recommend.  I'd prefer to avoid
>the businessman as tycoon types novels (e.g., THE JUNGLE, Upton Sinclair).
>I would like the students to get a feel for the nature of working is
>business.  If you have any ideas, pease send them to me.  Thanks.
>
>        Frank Mulhern   Department of Marketing
>                        Penn State 814-865-0232    FJM1 @ PSUVM
I recently was reading "Thurber: Collecting Himself" by, er, James Thurber
in which he says that Mencken once said that there are only two American
novels--Babbit and Huck Finn.  There was no citation given for Mencken,
unfortunately.  BTW, both Mencken and Thurber are *wonderful* and I
highly recommend them for those of you of are not familiar with them.
Let's see now, business novels...?... well, I suppose you could suggest
to your students Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged", but it's hardly going to teach
them what the real world is like.  (On the other hand, it may pump up their
capitalistic little egos.)  And for balance, you may want them to read
Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" or "In Dubious Battle".
-Kurt
From: ceblair@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Freud as character in novels
Date: 17 Apr 92 19:50:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: ux1.1992Apr17.195012.24151
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana


   Not counting quasi-biographies like PASSIONS OF THE MIND, there seem to
be quite a few cases.  The ones I can think of at the moment:

      RAGTIME
      THE WHITE HOTEL
      THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION

Surely there are others.

   I wonder what real person has been a minor character in the most books?
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jordan@cs.tulane.edu (Misti Jordan)
Subject: Re: C.S. Lewis (was Re: ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE)
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 16:52:06 GMT
Nntp-Posting-Host-[nntpd-3036]: isis


In article <1992Apr14.130320.15113@morrow.stanford.edu>, francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:

	 [stuff deleted about the "different" C.S. Lewises of
		      British Literary History]

>  Lewis III was the one who came to believe in his own
> nonsense, and for the sons and daughters of the Mr & Mrs Christopher Robins
> that were by now floating around he produced *The Chronicles of Narnia*,
> the most sickly-sweet and morally offensive series of Children's Books it
> has ever been my misfortune to come across.
>
>                                               Francis Muir
>
> francis@sep.stanford.edu

I am sorry, but I haave to disagree here. I happened to love the Narnian
Chronicles. I first read them years ago when I was in about the 5th grade.
When I read them initially, it was as a grammar school child with an
interest in fantasy and stories of damsels in distress and knights in
shining armour. I waas fascinated with the _The Lion, The Witch, And The
Wardrobe_, which was the first one I read, and from then on, I finished the
entire set. I did not read these books as an allegorical describtion of my
religion-- I was only 10 at the time! However, I have read all 7 (I think
there are 7) of the books many times since then, and even wrote my term
paper about it during my Junior year of High School. Once I went back and
read the stories again, I realized just how allegorical they were, but I
fell in love with their content and the way they were written, not the
symbolism. I don't see how you can consider these books "morally offensive"--
unless of course you have morals that would offend people who are basically
good and trying to do what is right. Last Christmas, I reread these stories,
and I also happened across a show that came on PBS every other day that
was depicting the stories. My brother (who is 12 now, and hates to read)
sat down with me and watched every segment in the series, then asked me if
the books I had been reading were like the TV show. Since the episodes on
TV followed exactly the books, I told him yes, and he proceeded to read
every book in the series. Lewis does not write books that are intended to
be read by children alone. When I reread the books over Christmas, I
discovered many things that I had never noticed before and I now consider
myself an adult. Granted, I am only a meager 20 years old, but I am no
longer a child of 10 and I still love these stories. Maybe you should go
back and read these stories as an adult reading with a child's wonder of
life and not as a child reading with an adult's cynical view of the world.

Misti
From: jzimm@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Joann Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Q about _Gravity's_Rainbow_
Date: 11 Apr 92 15:43:40 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <1992Apr8.065419.2533@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Matt Austern writes:
>
>	By the way, Mike [Godwin], good to have you back.  There's nothing 
>	quite like one of those hundred-articles-in-rec.arts.books days. 
>
>I received a packet of 25 postings -- all from Godwin -- this morning.
>Should i send the details off to the Guinness Book of Records? 

Only if you're interested in documenting some of the more random
peculiarities of Usenet or Mike's machine. One thing I noticed, that
the rest of you seem to have missed, is that the postings come with
all sorts of different dates. This should make you gents revise
somewhat your picture of MG hunched over his keyboard, skipping three
meals straight to make up his missed quota of postings.


-- 
"There are times when the historian must regret the modern artist's
irresistible urge to explain himself."   
                                                     Peter Gay, _Art and Act_
..!cs.utexas.edu!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu!jzimm
From: tmaddox@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: ???Behaviorist Brainwashing????
Date: 12 Apr 92 20:16:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Apr12.201604.18843
Organization: The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington


	Using the Cramer Method, I can establish conclusively that 
rec.arts.books is peopled by right-wing cranks in desperate need of 
calming medication.
-- 
				Tom Maddox
			tmaddox@u.washington.edu
		"Writing is reading and reading is writing."
				A. S. Byatt
From: ian@spider.co.uk (Ian Heavens)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Freya Stark Bibliography
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:46:21 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK

Travel books:

The Valley of the Assassins
The Southern Gates of Arabia
A Winter in Arabia (1940)
Baghdad Sketches
Seen in the Hadhramaut
Letters from Syria (1942)
East is West
Perseus in the Wind
Alexander's Path (1958)
Ionia: a Quest (1956)

autobiography:

Traveller's Prelude, 1893-1927
Beyond Euphrates, 1928-33
The Coast of Incense, 1933-39

This may not be complete

ian


---
Ian Heavens				ian@spider.co.uk                 
Spider Systems Ltd			
Spider Park, Stanwell Street		
Edinburgh, EH6 5NG, Scotland		+44 31 554 9424 (Ext 4166)
--
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: ed@wente.llnl.gov (Ed Suranyi)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Isaac Asimov Dead ...
Date: 9 Apr 92 01:28:43 GMT
Organization: UC Davis Dept of Applied Science at LLNL

In article <1992Apr8.191144.27023@umbc3.umbc.edu> cs201139@umbc5.umbc.edu (cs201139) writes:
>I'm really upset about this. Now no more novels and no continuation of the
>Foundation series. I am awarethat either his wife or daughter (or perhaps
>both?) is also an author...Maybe they will pick up where he left off or maybe
>he has some unfinished works? No one can ever replace him...
>
>Does anyone know if he was in poor health before this or was it just a sudden
>thing?

He finished one novel, "Forward the Foundation", just before he died.  It
will be released later this year.  

He had been in poor health for some time.  In the late seventies he
suffered a heart attack, and in the eighties he had to have a triple
bypass surgery.  But as late as 1985, he said that he still basically
felt fine.  However, earlier this year he underwent prostate surgery,
and he had to stop writing almost entirely.  What an awful blow that
must have been!  We all know that writing was his entire life.  Perhaps,
once it became clear that he could no longer write, he didn't really have
anything to live for anymore, and so just didn't try to force himself to
live.

I'm curious about one thing.  I've seen lots of people post here who are
science fiction fans, and got into Asimov through SF, or vice-versa.  But
I came across Asimov's non-fiction first.  I can't remember what the first
Asimov book was I read, but I think it was on astronomy.  I couldn't have
been more than eight.  I soon read as many of his books as I could,
turning to fiction only when I had exhausted our local public library's
collection of his non-fiction.  To this day I like his fiction a lot, but
it's his nonfiction that I'm crazy about.

Ed
ed@wente.llnl.gov
From: millman@ursa.UUCP (Phillip Millman)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Another DAVID EDDINGS Q
Date: 10 Apr 92 18:02:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: ursa.26838
Organization: Bear Stearns, NY

The Books in that Trilogu are:

Diamond Throne
Ruby Knight
Sapphire Rose


--

Phillip Millman					millman@bear.com

The opinions expressed are those of Phillip Millman and not that of 
Bear Stearns & Co. Inc.  I think it is better that way.
From: bobdev@hprpcd.rose.hp.com (Bob Devereaux)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 22:16:02 GMT
Subject: Novelist seeks 1645-1660 England info
Organization: HP Roseville Site
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books

Folks--

I'm contemplating a novel set in 17th century England, specifically
during the Cromwellian decade or a portion thereof.  I'd appreciate
any leads as to good non-fictional accounts of that time and/or
convincing novels set in that same period.  General histories are
good, though mostly I'm looking for books that can provide the look
and feel of the time, details I can judiciously lift and rearrange
to help create a convincing background for my story.

Many thanks,
Robert Devereaux
bobdev@hprpcd.rose.hp.com
From: mls@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (mike.siemon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: holocaust books
Summary: neutral? hah!
Date: 11 Apr 92 02:41:19 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <RHk2iB1w164w@jab.tucson.az.us>, cr@jab.tucson.az.us (clint ruoho)
writes:

> Perhaps in a few generations our children will be able to discuss this 
> "holocaust" rationally.  However, as long as there are people who refuse to 
> discuss this issue, the truth may never be known.

What rock did you crawl from?  There is no "refusal to discuss this
issue" except with those whose issue is the denial of reality.

> There in no reason why the "holocaust" should not be debated. 

Debated?  What godawful nonsense are you laboring under?  Are we to act
like high-school simpletons with their files of quotes and equally take
PRO or CON (in order to rack up points in the National Forensic Society
and its rankings of our blather)  What is this "debate" about?  whether
it might have been "good" for the Nazis to obliterate any part of humanity
they happened to be dyseptic about on any particular morning?

If the debate is about "let's see if we can invent grounds for doubting
history" I want no part of it.  If it is about ways to avoid acknowledging
one of the worst episodes of the sorry history of humanity, I want no part
of it.  If it is about "justifiying" Nazi death camps, I want no part of
it.  If it is about the potential we ALL have to do the same, I *wish* no
part of it but can hardly put aside the fear that any of us might do much
the same, so miserable we are in our petty hatreds.

> possibility does exist, that these revisionist historians like Arthur Butz 
> are correct in their assertions.  I am not God, and thus, I do not know the 
> answer.

It does not require the absolute knowledge of God to know that the objecters
to truth have an agenda of hatred, and that there is no human possibility
that their arguments are honest.  That you speak for them only suggests that
YOU are ignorant, or evil.  Which is it, in your case?
-- 
Michael L. Siemon		   "Oh, stand, stand at the window,
					As the tears scald and start;
mls@usl.com			   You shall love your crooked neighbor
standard disclaimer			With your crooked heart."
From: sullivana@gtephx.UUCP (Anne Sullivan)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: books about music
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:05:55 GMT
Organization: AG Communication Systems, Phoenix, Arizona

Murder in C Major   by ??  Frommer
Murder on the High C's  by Robert Barnard
The Trapp Family Singers

A. Sullivan
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Surveying readers of the Advocate (Was: Re: Wanted: Readers)
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 16 Apr 92 16:06:59

Eric Smith posts

> -- 
> Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
> "The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a
> favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace
> of God." -- Thomas Jefferson

Interesting quote, from a slaveholder.

I'll bet that Jefferson was aware of the anomaly.  Moreover, I'll bet that
the statement helped create the sentiments that eventually abolished
slavery.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: thorntn@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Duncan Peter G. Thornton)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: "Reginald Peacock"
Date: 8 Apr 92 18:18:19 GMT
Distribution: talk
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

In <nudnik.702669414@camelot> nudnik@camelot.bradley.edu (Steven Parks) writes:

>Yesterday I ran across the name "Reginald Peacock" on a student's ID,
>and i got the strangest case of deja vu.  I got the distinct feeling 
>that I'd seen the name before, sometime during high school.  
>Granted, I should have asked him about it, but I didn't have the chance.

>So I post here, asking:  Can anyone here on the 'Net think of a short
>story, novella, or other publication that included the name "Reginald Peacock?

Sure - Katherine Mansfield's short story "Mr. Reginald Peacock's Day." 
It's in _Bliss and other Stories_, and it's about a shallow, self-
adoring voice teacher who half-seduces all his women students.

- Duncan

                    
Duncan Thornton          | The only way to escape misrepresentation is never
thorntn@ccu.umanitoba.ca | to commit oneself to any critical judgement that
                         | makes an impact - that is, never _say_ anything.
  *GKC rules ok*         |                  - F.R. Leavis
From: bl959@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Philip G. Terrie)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Wanted: Larkin title
Date: 13 Apr 92 00:24:44 GMT
Article-I.D.: usenet.1992Apr13.002444.7031
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)


The name of that poem, which I also can quote from memory--it's
so appropriate for so many occasions--is "This Be the Verse." I
suppose some day my children will recite it and think fondly of
me!
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: If all humanity had one throat ...
Date: 24 Mar 92 20:50:15 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

I recently heard a quotation, purportedly from a sociopath, that went
something like this:

"I wish everyone in the world had a single throat, and I had my hands
around it."

Can anyone recall where this quotation, or something similar to it,
originated?



---Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,     |"Les vrais paradis sont les paradis
mnemonic@eff.org | qu'on a perdus."
(617) 864-0665   | 
EFF, Cambridge   |          --Marcel Proust
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Lit., Etc., Triv.  [was: ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE]
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
Date: 13 Apr 92 09:27:43

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, July 4, 1826.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: tmaddox@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Irrelevant _GR_ question
Date: 13 Apr 92 21:02:55 GMT
Organization: The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington

In article <1992Apr12.133433.16445@morrow.stanford.edu> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
>Does this little note entitle me to join Maddox' Yahoo Pantheon? I hope
>so...

	Point of clarification, Fido:  by "Yahoo Pantheon," do you indicate
the Yahoos who have prompted such displays of erudition by their surly
postings, or, more likely, those who have displayed the erudition in response?

	If the latter, "Yahoo Pantheon" seems an unfortunate epithet.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
			tmaddox@u.washington.edu
		"Writing is reading and reading is writing."
				A. S. Byatt
Organization: Freshman, Biology, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 10:55:46 -0400 
From: Julie Marie Goodliffe <jg4n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Aztec

	I posted awhile ago asking for information about _Aztec_ by Gary
Jennings. I have finally finished it, and would like to say how much I
enjoyed it.

	It has given me a wonderful sense of the Aztecs and their culture,
which was amazingly expressive and beautiful while being brutal and
warlike at the same time. 

	If anyone can tell me what they know about how much the book is
fictitious or historical, I would love to know.  

	
		Julie
Date: 15 Apr 92 06:13:48 GMT
From: Leroy
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Distribution: world
Subject: Re: A about _Gravity's_Rainbow_

>It wouldn't occur to me to insult your manhood. Such as it is.

        Subtlety is un-American, Mike.

--
-- Leroy@socs.uts.edu.au ------------------------- "Mike? I'm extremely excited"
                                                        -- My Own Private Idaho.
From: seltzer@ics.enet.dec.com (Richard Seltzer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Dangerous Waters by Bill Eidson
Date: 10 Apr 92 17:06:25 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation



Last week I met Bill Eidson, who works in Corporate Advertising here at 
Digital in Maynard, Mass.  He has published two suspense/mystery novels 
(both optioned for movies).  I went to hear him read at the Concord 
Library on Tuesday night.  And last night I was up until 2 AM reading 
Dangerous Waters.  Couldn't go to bed until I'd finished it.  The story 
and the characters grabbed me and held me.  

It's hard to say why Dangerous Waters works as well as it does.  And it's hard 
to describe without wrecking the suspense.  Suffice it to say that the main 
cahracter, Riley, has life to him.  While he is currently a well-off 
advertising executive (partner in a successful company), he has lots of rough 
edges and contradictions from his past, which come to play in how he relates ]
to people and reacts in critical situations.  He's sympathetic, even in 
violence, and he's credible.

Like Parker's Spenser, Riley is an interesting of someone with culture and 
taste and yet with an instinctive understanding of the world of drugs and 
violence.  Also, like Spenser, he has a strong moral sense -- he does what he 
does because he knows he must; and when he nearly strays, alarm bells go off 
inside him, leading him to not-so-rational behavior.

But unlike the Parker books, the writing is crisp and the plot itself is very 
well woven.  Parker, all too often, just capitalizes on the character of 
Spenser and the overall ambiance.  (And I read every one of his books.)  
Eidson has the character, the ambiance (the local New England scene), and 
fast-paced decisive action as well.

His other published book, Little Brother, is out in paperback.  And he just 
finished another one.  (All with different sets of characters, but he must be 
sorely tempted to return to Riley, who works so well.)

Richard Seltzer  seltzer@ics.dec.com
-- or --      ...!decwrl!ics.dec.com!seltzer
-- or --      seltzer%ics.enet.dec.com