HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk (JHenderson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: books to avoid
Date: 10 Sep 92 12:47:24 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <1992Sep7.122135.21030@cs.yale.edu> loosemore-sandra@CS.YALE.EDU (Sandra Loosemore) writes:
=>tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
=>
=>	   Actually, I have trouble believing that any of the distinguished
=>   r.a.b.ble are foolish enough to judge books by their covers.  Do remember
=>   that writers have *no* say 99.n% of the time about what does and doesn't go
=>   on the cover--whether idiotic words or phrases or pink & heaving bosoms.
=>
=>Well, if a book is recommended to me in other ways, then I usually
=>*don't* care what's on the cover.  
=>
=>On the other hand, if I'm just browsing at books I have no other
=>information about, I have to apply *some* filtering algorithm to
=>determine which ones to take home with me.  (So many books!  So little
=>time!)  The art and blurbs appearing on the covers usually follow
=>certain genre conventions just as the text on the inside.

One filtering algorithm that might seem useful is to buy a novel by the
writer of a short story that you have greatly enjoyed. But this is far
from foolproof, right Tom?


-- 
=======Jeremy Henderson========egpv29@castle.ed.ac.uk===============
Q: How many user support people does it take to change a light bulb?
A: We have an exact copy of the light bulb here and it seems to be
   working fine.  Can you tell me what kind of system you have?  
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith)
Subject: Re: books to avoid
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 92 21:41:26 GMT

Meg Worley writes:

	I long ago learnt to steer clear of books that were described on
	their covers as "wickedly funny" or any variation of "rollicking"
	or "romp", David Lodge being to one to bring the lesson home
	most painfully.
	
	What other phrases get up your nose or otherwise serve to prevent
	you, like Socrates' divine sign, from making sorry mistakes?




This mostly applies to movies because very few books are described this
way.  I run from any movie advertized as "zany".  I also hate the 
phrase "for children of all ages".  Hurt even to write it now.



William Sburgfort Smith
Intel, SSD

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: cs3631ae@triton.unm.edu (Jim Tanzola)
Subject: Re: Marcia Muller's books
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 23:28:00 GMT
Organization: Disorganization

In article <18o921INNmtt@news.aero.org> nadel@aero.org (M.H. Nadel) writes:
>In article <2wtnay@lynx.unm.edu> cs3631ae@triton.unm.edu (Jim Tanzola) writes:
>> Dates are added
>>courtesy of the Albuquerque Chapter of 'Sisters in Crime' a group of Ladies
>>dedicated to the reading and discussion of mystery books by female authors.
>>
>
>This is not quite an accurate description of Sisters in Crime.  First off,
>most of the members I met would bristle at being called "ladies," which
>implies certain manners that are hardly compatible with expertise on weapons
>or poisons.  But, more significantly, Sisters in Crime was actually founded
>by a group of women writers (I think of Sara Paretsky as the guiding light
>of the organization) to counter the problem that women writing mysteries have
>in marketing and publicity.  For example, even though over half of the
>mysteries published in the U.S. and Britain are by women, you'd never know
>that by reading reviews of mysteries.  (For example, the Bloody Sunday 
>column in the L.A. Times typically reviews 5 or 6 books and it is rare for
>more than one to be by a woman.  20-30% women authors seems to be typical
>in other review columns I've seen.)
>
>The local chapter is very definitely geared to authors, not fans.  The 
>meeting topics focus primarily on technical aspects of detection.
    Thanks for setting the record straight.  Actually, my use of the term
'local chapter' was a poor choice, but the meetings are attended by published
and aspiring authors.  ( Most notably, Albuquerque's own Judith Van Gieson -
author of:
           _North of the Border_, _The Other Side of Death_, _Raptor_,
           _Wolf Pack_     )
    Actually, I had already been chastised by group members for my description
before I read your posting.
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Chautauqua ? (Zen & the Art...)
Date: 11 Sep 92 21:32:51 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Sep10.080414.1811@bnr.co.uk>, br@bnr.co.uk (Brian Robertson) writes:
> I have nearly finished reading Zen & the Art... and the author 
> continually uses the word _chautauqua_ (sp?).  Although I have 
> more or less worked out what the word means, could anyone help
> me with its origins and use.  
> 
> Thanks in advance
> 
> Brian

It's an Americanism.  In last years of the 19th century, there
was a widespread educational movement known as the Chautauqua,
after its place of origin in upstate New York.  The goal was to
combine education for adults with entertainment in a manner
that would both raise the cultural awareness of the population
in rural America, and in a manner sufficiently interesting that
it would be popular.  (It's a shame that PBS in the U.S. hasn't
figured out how to do this -- but then again, they require a
substantial tax subsidy, unlike the Chautauqua movement).

I've read a little about the movement, so I'm sure that there
are more knowledgeable people, but the programs were frequently
based around popular orators, William Jennings Bryan being one
example.  An effort was made to include lectures on history,
classical art, and literature.


-- 
Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer  My opinions, all mine!
Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun
prohibition won't work.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: hopkins@agora.rain.com (Scott Hopkins)
Subject: Book of Counted Sorrows?
Organization: Open Communications Forum
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:35:12 GMT


Where can I find the Book of Counted Sorrows?  And does anyone know the
author(s)?

		-Casey Hopkins
		hopkins@agora.rain.com

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Subject: Re: unexpected quotes
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 01:02:11 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <1992Sep14.215101.11159@crd.ge.com> kassover@rumsey.crd.ge.com (David Kassover) writes:
>In article <-4xn2d=@lynx.unm.edu> rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires) writes:
>...
>>	There are some great passages in the _Federalist Papers_
>>	as well.  I especially recall one that likened the government
>>	to a solar system, with the states as minor planets, that
>>	I thought was very finely turned.
>
>On the _Lathe of Heaven_, perhaps?
>
	I'm such a clod.  Good refs always go right by me!
	And, as usual, I had it all wrong -- here's the quote:
		After the conclusion of the war with Xerxes, it
		appears that the Lacedaemonians required that a
		number of the cities should be turned out of the 
		confederacy for the unfaithful part they had
		acted.  The Athenians, finding that the Lacedaemonians
		would lose fewer partisans by such a measure than
		themselves and would become masters of the public
		deliberations vigorously opposed and defeated the
		attempt.  This piece of history proves at once
		the inefficiency of the union, the ambition and
		jealousy of its most powerful members, and the 
		dependent and degraded condition of the rest.  
		The smaller members, though entitled by the theory
		of their system to revolve in equal pride and 
		majesty around the common center, had become, in fact,
		satellites of the orbs of primary magnitude.
	(From No. 18)  The following paragraph is equally good...

	And on the subject of quotes, I like to inscribe apropos ones
	in my favorite books.  For instance, in _Don Quixote_,
	I wrote on the inside cover the poem of Pushkin which
	is itself quoted in _The Idiot_:
		Lived a Knight once, poor and simple,
		pale of face with glance austere, 
		spare of speech, but with a glance
		proud, intolerant of fear.
		[etc.,etc.]
	and in _The Growth of Biological Thought_, by Ernst Mayr,
	I wrote in two quotes; one from Gibbon (which of course
	is a goldmine for this sort of thing!):
		A magnificent temple is a laudable monument of
		national taste and religion, and the enthusiast
		who entered the dome of St. Sophia might be
		tempted to suppose that it was the residence,
		or even the workmanship, of the Deity.  Yet how
		dull is the artifice, how insignificant is the
		labour, if it be compared with the formation of 
		the vilest insect that crawls upon the surface
		of the temple!  (Chapter 40)
	and the other from _The Romance of the Rose_.  I don't
	have the book here, but it's from the section where
	Nature is monologueing on the many benefits she bestows.
	This book has been mentioned enough times in this group
	that everyone should know what I'm referring to.

>David Kassover             "Proper technique helps protect you against

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The White Man's Burden of Proof
Date: 14 Sep 92 14:44:51 GMT
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway


> mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto) writes:
 
>> My WEBSTER'S defines "Cannot" as "Can not."  I was taught that the space is
>> optional.  I'm surprised that Fido missed this, and wonder if it is due to
>> a shortcoming of his nanny, or to his public school.
> . . .
 
> I trust that this circumstance does not make you feel that the words
> in question qualify as an example of metonymy?
 
Oh no.  We all know that Francis went to a first rate public school, and
that his nanny was also first rate.  Any complaints that I have about 
Fido are confined to Fido, and should not be transferred to Francis.
 
Mark
From: deanc@ex.heurikon.com (Dean Cheney)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Keywords: nowyou'vedoneit
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:41:48 GMT
Organization: Entropy Inc., Madison, WI


>+> >>} >>>>>>>IF THIS DOESN'T STOP, IM GOING TO START THE WORST CASCADE EVER.
>+> >>} >>>>>>WHILE EATING THIS SLOP, I SEWED THE FIRST BROCADE BEAVER.
>+> >>} >>>>>BILE FITTING RIG STOP, LIE SPEWED THIRST LIVER !!!!
>+> >>} >>>>IF YOU MUST CONTRIBUTE, AT LEAST DELIVER...
>+> >>} >>>WHO MAY I ATTRIBUTE TO THIS BEASTLY SLIVER?
>+> >>} >>TO SPAY A LUTE IN A GREASY RIVER
>+> >>} >DAMN CASCADERS THINK YOU'RE SO CLEVER
>+> >>} I WILL NOT CASCADE; NOPE, NO, NEVER
>+> >>WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, ON A TRAIN?
>+> >WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, IN THE RAIN?
>+> R2-D2 ON THE BRAIN?
>+OY, THE PAIN!
>BUT WITHOUT PAIN THERE BE NO GAIN!
2000 VOLTS PLEASE, IN MY BRAIN
















--
deanc@ex.heurikon.com    \        /When I get mad, and I get pissed/
                         /        /I grab a pen and I write out a list/
                         \        /of all the people that won't be missed/
                         /        /you've  made  my... Shitlist!/          ---L7
From: amnell@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Marko Amnell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: npr & freedom - WALDEN
Date: 15 Sep 92 19:12:57 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki


jmhodapp@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu writes:
> There is some quote by a greek thinker about how he will buy food if he
> has money left over from buying books.  Anyone know how it goes?  Or
> any good reading quotes appreciated.

I wouldn't know where to find it offhand, but I'm pretty sure that the
saying is correctly attributed to Spinoza, who was definitely not Greek...
And if you meant _ancient Greek_ then the anachronism is plain to see.
Books didn't exist before, oh, the 6th Century; Justinian had sent the
thinkers in Athens fleeing to Persia by then.

-- 
Marko Amnell
amnell@klaava.helsinki.fi
Graduate Student in Philosophy
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: harper@oracorp.com (Douglas Harper)
Subject: Re: The White Man's Burden of Proof
Organization: ORA Corporation, Ithaca, New York
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 01:15:59 GMT

In article <matthew.716375507@munna> matthew@.cs.mu.oz (Maciek Blasikiewicz) writes:
]jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
]>I promise to take a literature
]>course next year if someone will assure me that after taking it I
]>will understand what Mark Taranto meant.
]
]The benefits you gain from a literature course are your own responsibility. 
]Are you so dependent on your mother's teat that you require another's
]assurance of your success before stepping out into the big wide world?
]
]
]Endek.

Careful, sir: this *is* the big wide world, where not all the pickings
are so easy as they look.  Professor McCarthy is about as naive and
safe to attack as Muhammad Ali with his fists down.

-- 
Douglas Harper          | "'What is your conceptual continuity?' 
(quoting Frank Zappa)   |  'Well, I told him right then,' Fido said, 
harper@oracorp.com      |  'it should be easy to see.  
+1 (607) 277-2020       |   The crux of the biscuit is the apostrophe'". 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel (x2025))
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Bernard Berenson
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:10:13 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep14.173140.24316@morrow.stanford.edu>, francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes...

>What a load of codswallop. "nearly paralyzed"? To the contrary...

Hughes does describe how (and maybe I didn't make this clear) Berenson did
bring order to the chaos, but he points out, with examples, that Berenson
could hold up a transaction so that it more than gave the impression that
he wanted a piece of every deal.

>The real problem is that little men like Robert Hughes have to find little
>things to say -- it is in their nature.

These kinds of ad hominem statements are not calculated to really explain anything.
And someone who writes as well as you do in these groups can surely do better than 
use the hackneyed diminutive "little".  It sounds petulant; the sort of thing a 
first-year college kid might use (along with lots of other "new" words like "irregardless",
"pseudointellectual", and "hoisted with his own pitard").  What makes Hughes "little"?
Ronald Clark has made similar comments about Berenson.  For reference, is he also
little?  Sounds like a sacred cow got gored here.  To be sure, Hughes can be
acidic, but don't confuse that with "little", or you'd have hardly anyone to talk to
in these news groups.  You'd probably be the only "big one" around.  ;^>

> Unless, of course, you
>get your jollies from this rather tiresome bashing business.

Isn't that precisely what most r.a.b.ids do get their jollies from (present company 
excluded, of course)??


Ron
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Marriage as Hell: Charlotte Perkins Gilman on TV
Organization: University of California, at Berkeley
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 07:56:39 GMT

fi@grebyn.com (Fiona Webster) writes:

>Catch the films.  Read the story.  Revise (I hope!) some of your likely
>prejudices against the horror genre.

The reaction of the literary-critical establishment to "The Yellow Wallpaper"
is fascinating.  Ignored for some time except by the horror crowd (which
means Lovecraft, initially -- it's not often realized how little there was
before "Supernatural Horror in Literature"), TYW was seized on by feminist
scholarship as a brilliant allegory of a woman's imprisonment in the shackles
of conventional marriage ... but in the process, the overwhelming salient
fact of the _supernatural horror_ was reasoned away.  Gilman makes it
clear that there was a madwoman - or many? - imprisoned in the room, who
"made her way into the wallpaper" (in some psychic sense).  It's a classic
example of the technique of offhand, subtle suggestion - remember the "dear
me, it must have been an odd nursery!  look at those bars in the windows
and shackles on the walls!" bit?  CPG's tremendous achievement was to write
a great supernatural horror story that's also deliberately allegorical
as social commentary.  I can't think of anyone else who's done this in
horror; only Tolkien springs to mind, with his perfect fantasy story that
has such applicability as well.  And like Tolkien, much of the critical
activity of those who study Gilman has been to spot the themes and
the parallelism between the story and society, and to cast off the actual
work itself as somehow unworthy of its "real subject."  (Hm, why do I 
sound like I'm quoting JRRT's _Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics_?)

Yes I read more than horror (in fact I read very little horror); but for some
reason these subjects came up, and I couldn't keep my hand off the "f" key.

- David Librik
librik@cory.Berkeley.edu
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Title of poem from scanty fragment?
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:21:58 GMT


Luke (wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu) writes:
 
> I'd like to find the poem which contains (I'm sure I've mangled the lines,
> so I know this is a tall order)
 
>         Things fall apart, the center doesn't hold
 
>                     ...
 
 
>       The best are gnawed by withering doubts
>       The worst are full of headstrong certainty...
 
 
The poet is W. B. Yeats.
 
I double checked this with a friend (because I couldn't remember which poems).
 
She thought that they were from different poems (and agreed that the lines are
mangled).  She thought that the latter were from EASTER 1916, and former from
one of his more mystical poems -- perhaps BYSANTIUM.  EATER 1916 sounded
right to me.
 
Mark
From: rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu (Roger Squires)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Title of poem from scanty fragment?
Date: 4 Sep 92 21:39:08 GMT
Organization: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

In article <swmn6=_.dani@netcom.com> dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) writes:
>wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu:
>>        Things fall apart, the center doesn't hold
>
>William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming".
>

	This poem, and over 300 of Yeats' other poems, may be obtained
	via anonymous FTP from oes.orst.edu, in the pub/data/etext/yeats
	directory.

>Dani Zweig

Roger Squires
rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: alisg@Msu.oscs.montana.edu
Subject: Re: Back to Books
Reply-To: alisg@Msu.oscs.montana.edu
Organization: Montana State University
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 04:03:45 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.195439.10516@novell.com>, janines@novell.com (Janine Schenone) writes:
>
>I have a problem, which I hope you R.a.b.belaisians can help me solve: 
>I am in a fiction funk. The problem is so severe that I believe 
>they should add a new diagnostic category to depression for people 
>who can't seem to find anything to read. 
>
>Suggestions?
>
>Janine Schenone
>janines@novell.com

I have often found that a good way to get out of a funk like this is to read
something really different. I like to read children's/young adult books as a
nice (but by no means empty) alternative to "Serious Adult Books."  I would
recommend Laurence Yep's _Dragonwing_, Farley Mowat's _Owls in the Family_, any
of the Freddy stories by Walter R. Brooks, Sterling North's _Rascal_ (oops,
that's non-fiction, but wonderful anyway), _The Phantom Tollbooth_ by I forget
whom -- well, my list could on and on.

If this doesn't appeal to you, you might try Garcia Marquez's _One Hundred
Years of Solitude_, a book which lifted the top of my head off. Non-fiction but
wonderful (perhaps my favorite book) is Mark Salzman's _Iron and Silk_ (he also
wrote a novel, _The Laughing Sutra_, amusing in a picaresque way, but not as
good as IAS); also non-fiction but excellent are two travel books by Eric
Hansen, _Stranger in the Forest_ and _Motoring with Mohammed_ (I like travel
books).  If you haven't read Isaac Singer's short stories, treat yourself; I am
not as fond of his novels.

I'm working my way through George M. Frazer's "Flashman" series of highly
improbable but enjoyable historical novels. Of the ones I've read so far, I
liked "Flashman and the Redskins" (?) best, but then I used to live just up the
road from the Little Bighorn battlefield.

Good luck. I've been in your situation and it's awful!!!

  ***************************************************************************
  * George 'Notso' Suttle            * When Time recently announced the     *
  * SUTTLE/LIB@RENNE.LIB.MONTANA.EDU * discovery of a miles-wide fungus,    *
  * alisg@MtsUnix1.bitnet            * the largest and possibly oldest      *
  * Fax: 406-994-2851                * known living thing, readers wrote in *
  *                                  * immediately to ask "Can I eat it?"   *
  ***************************************************************************
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Encyclopedia Brit. (sure it is heh heh)
Date: 9 Sep 92 21:03:33 GMT


wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE) writes:
 
> I was going to start a flame about sinking into a morass of
> multiculturalism and mediocrity. Aren't you glad I didn't?
> Who could stand the alliteration?
 
Alright! Alliteration! I love illustrious alliterators, illuminating the
alleyways of allegory and the alcoves of the alleged allies of all literate
aliens.
 
Aloha,
 
Mark
From: jwest@ramona.com (Jim Western)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: utopias and distopias
Date: 7 Sep 92 02:16:23 GMT
Organization: Ramona Engineering

tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
-Crawford_Kilian@mindlink.bc.ca (Crawford Kilian) writes:
-[matter on utopias/dystopias omitted]:
-
->These are the traits of "anatomy" as defined by Northrop Frye in his Anatomy
->Criticism (1957)--a work I commend to all book-lovers. Frye deals with subject
->lucidly and at some length.
-
-       Can we take up a collection to buy Crawford Kilian a critical work
-later than 1957?  Either that or to buy him two weeks at the Clinic for
-Deprogramming Those Addicted to Literary Archetypes?
-
-       Or I suppose we could just go on letting him believe in the "anatomy."

We? Are "we" pregnant, sir? Hasn't the r.a.b FAQ list of people who are
still on speaking terms with you reverted to the null set? Maybe we should
take up a collection to buy you a neoprene butt plug...for your mouth.


                                    - Jim Western
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
         "Perchance a coupon, my customer?" -- King Guido III
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: NPR & Freedom of the Press: Part II
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<JMC.92Sep5122053@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
	<JMC.92Sep5134523@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> <y7nns2j.dani@netcom.com>
Date: 5 Sep 92 21:18:20

Characters in movies don't waste time reading books or newspapers or
watching TV.  Lacks cinematic values, I believe they'd say.

--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books