HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jeffw2@cfsmo.honeywell.com (Jeff Walberg)
Subject: Re: read any good books lately?
Reply-To: jeffw2@cfsmo.honeywell.com
Organization: Honeywell Inc.
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1992 21:07:21 GMT


I've read three winners lately:

1) A Prayer For Owen Meany - John Irving
   I read _Garp_ about ten years ago and liked Irving's style,
   but overall the book didn't really grab me.  This is much
   better and I can't wait to finish (100 more pages) as I've
   been assured by friends that the ending is terrific.  Even
   though there are a lot of absurd events in the story (as
   is typical of Irving) they don't stray too far, and the
   book seems to be written from a very personal perspective.

2) A Confederacy Of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
   Speaking of absurd ... This is one of the strangest and
   most enjoyable books I've ever read.  If you're not totally
   turned off by Ignatius Reilly's (the obese central character)
   repulsive personal habits, it's hard not to enjoy the 
   hilarious dialogue and situations that transpire.  Pulitzer Prize
   Winner submitted by Toole's mother a couple of years ago -
   he committed suicide in the late 60's.

3) Blue Highways - William Least Heat Moon
   Man loses job.  Man loses wife.  Man tours backroads and small
   towns of U.S. in his van.  Man meets people more interesting than
   most fiction writers could hope to dream up.  Great book.

Jeff

There's only so many times
You can sit and watch TV
Think it's dumb, stay detached
And somehow think you're free
             - Greg Brown
From: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: read any good books outside museums lately?
Date: 13 Apr 92 20:46:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: heurikon.1417
Reply-To: gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)
Distribution: rec
Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI

Sadly, Johnathan Carroll doesn't seem able to conjure up more than the
most cartoonish ciphers for women [two muses and an ex-wife made of
cardboard and decoratively painted], which is a bit of a disappointment
after "Sleeping in Flames". Still, his latest, "Outside The Dog Museum"
is a cracking good skewed read. Magic realism done by a non-Latino
writer? The box score has one urban legend in the pages [hint: it's
the same one Douglas Adams retreaded], some wonderful twists and turns,
and a story/fable so interesting you are inclined not to mind all the
whittling of the world which props it up. The cover blurb says it's
a novel about "Love, Death, and Architecture." Ah - not quite, but
close. It made me laugh, and then put little barbs on the punch lines.

A nice vile quote: The narrator is walking down the street with his 
mother, when they come upon two dogs ah...mating. "Really going at it,"
as the narrator says. He asks his mother what the dogs are up to [Dogs
are big stuff in this book. Messengers from God, in fact.], so he can
hear her answer [he knows of course].

"The dog on the bottom is sick, honey," she replies. "The other dog is
pushing her to the hospital." 

It's a bon-bon, but one with something
serious in the center [liquer-filled]. I liked it better than John C.
Batchelor's "Gordon Liddy is My Muse", which made me laugh about as 
much, and whose artifice also disguised some Big Ideas.


--
I am so lonely for the twentieth century,/for the deeply felt, obscene
graffiti/of armed men and the beautiful bridges/that make them so small and
carry them/into the hearts of cities written like words/across nothing,/the
dense void history became in my beautiful century/gtaylor/608-828-3385
From: gummitch@techbook.com (Jeff Frane)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: read any good books lately?
Date: 7 Apr 92 17:42:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: techbook.1992Apr7.174256.18829
Distribution: rec
Organization: TECHbooks of Beaverton Oregon - Public Access Unix

loosemore-sandra@CS.YALE.EDU (Sandra Loosemore) writes:

>This newsgroup has seemed kind of slow lately.  Is everybody too busy
>reading books to post here any more?  :-)  What have you all been
>reading?  

>On my own stack lately: Patricia Cornwell's "Body of Evidence" (a good
>read, finally out in paperback), the new F. Paul Wilson novel (not as
>good as "The Keep"), Trollope's "Orley Farm" (average Trollope), an
>obscure tome on "Underwater Warfare in the Age of Sail" (early
>submarines), and "Around the World on the Kamchatka, 1817-1819" (a
>Russian view of the rest of the world).

>-Sandra

I'll bite.  Just finished James Burke's latest mystery novel, set in and
around New Orleans (the title, idiot, the title), uh, er -- anyway,
Burke is a terrific writer, generally speaking a cut above much of the
detective genre.  Hmmm, guess I better look up the title.

Just before that I waded through Holy War, which traces the effects of
the Crusades on modern middle eastern history through very objective
views of Islam, Judaism and Christianity (both eastern and western).
The author (the name, fool, the name) is a British ex-nun.  I say "wade"
only because the book was pretty long and I had trouble finding the time
to read it; in fact it's very interesting and very well written.

Currently reading Gerald Fleming's "Hitler and the Final Solution" (ah,
got both author and title on that one), an answer to David Irving's
thesis (which Fleming dismisses as a fiction) that Hitler gave no direct
orders for the Final Solution to the "Jewish problem."  Not fun to read,
but enlightening.

--Jeff

-- 
gummitch@techbook.COM  Public Access UNIX at (503) 644-8135 (1200/2400) 
"Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."
                                    --Thomas Jefferson
From: Ronald_Ramage@mindlink.bc.ca (Ronald Ramage)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Gravity's Rainbow: MEGAZONE (Meggezone)
Date: 10 Apr 92 09:14:47 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Distribution: world

thank you

Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: holocaust books
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 03:24:40 GMT

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.

The truth is known already. The survivors of the Holocaust bear witness to
its atrocity. And you cannot imagine the anger and pain it causes them to
have someone imply that they might be lying about or exaggerating their
experiences. That is a final horror that the Nazis never had a chance to
commit--it was left to the anti-Semitic Holocaust revisionists to perpetrate
this Big Lie.

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

There is no reason not to debate the blood libel or the moral inferiority
of blacks either--since you're being so open-minded, why stop with
questioning the Holocaust?

>The 
>possibility does exist, that these revisionist historians like Arthur Butz 
>are correct in their assertions.

"Possibility" is not the same thing as "reasonable possibility." 

>I am not God, and thus, I do not know the 
>answer.

And you haven't taken the pains to find out the answer, either. The
Holocaust is well-documented--do you suppose it's all a conspiracy by
camp survivors to pull a fast one on you?

>In my heart, I am neutral on this issue, and I would really like to read an 
>appropriately balanced view of the "holocaust" which takes Revisionst 
>theories into account.

While we're at it, let's have an appropriately balanced discussion of the
merits of feeding babies to Doberman pincers. I mean, we're reasonable
people, right?

If you doubt the Holocaust, it's because something in you wants to doubt
it. There's a word for what that motivation is, but I'll leave it to you
to figure it out.



--Mike



 

-- 
Mike Godwin,     |"Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece
mnemonic@eff.org | of gossip experiences the explosive relief that
(617) 864-0665   | accompanies the satisfying of a primary need."
EFF, Cambridge   |          --Primo Levi
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: The Closing of the American Mind
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 13:09:11 GMT

In article <1992Apr11.050129.8558@athena.mit.edu> 
hhuang@m4-035-15.MIT.EDU (Han-Young Huang) writes:

>Is this section also for general type of books, such as The Closing of the
>American Mind?  Books which can tell me how to live?

Could you enlighten *us*?  How did it do that?  

>Bloom's book is one I fought and reread several times.  It has slowly grown on
>me, this 18 year old MIT math and computer science major.

>I'm not sure if modern fiction fills the bill of "telling me how to live."

I wasn't aware that Bloom filled that bill, either.  I'm sure he'd be
tickled to know, though most of the philosophers he mauls would be
appalled; but then, I wasn't able to get a feel for what he meant by
"democracy," either.

As for modern fiction, I think it *does* tell one how to live: freely.
Allowing oneself to learn from other experience, impression, etc.

>That, in fact, seems to be the key issue.  So somebody enlighten me.  I have
>too many problem sets to do.

Best of all, read a lot, and then tell YOURSELF how to live.  

And stop by Fenway Park come afternoon.

Roger
From: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Unbearable Lightness of Being (was Re: Q about _Gravity's_Rainbow_)
Date: 16 Apr 92 04:55:40 GMT
Reply-To: dstein@rhea.math.ucla.edu (David Stein)
Organization: UCLA, Mathematics Department

In article <1992Apr15.125840.6446@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>,
wojdylo@maths.uwa.oz.au (INFIDEL) writes:
 
|> I do not. Read my reply to the previous post.

   Which was:

----
I meant that Kundera concerns himself with explicit meanings of words. This
is automatically a kind of aloofness, since with any explicit definition, the
meaning moves further away. Hence Kundera's "pencil sketch with no outline"
motif.
----

   I'm afraid your use of the word "aloof" is, well, a bit too aloof. 

   So stop being aloof and define "aloofness". 

 
|> >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|> >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) - ===
|> 
|> 
|> Te, kurvo, odpierdol sie!

   A valiant try, but a failure nonetheless.  Clearly, Polish is no 
   substitute for the far more superior Czech.
 
|> jw

 - David 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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 Polish.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.cyberpunk
From: m13079@mwunix (Mary Anne Walters)
Subject: Gibson's new book
Organization: Mitre Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 11:41:54 GMT

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.

--
--Mary Anne  
"What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all
that we love deeply becomes a part of us."  Helen Keller
                                                 [for Alexander]
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: vehaag@crocus.waterloo.edu (Viktor Haag)
Subject: Re: suggestions for good fantasy/sf, mystery, for travel reading?
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 15:45:30 GMT

In article <1992Apr07.214045.26625@golem.uucp> davidf@golem.uucp (David J. Fiander) writes:
>
>I have a couple of recommendations, one obvious, one not so
>obvious:  Doug Adams (of Hitchiker fame), and another Brit who
>writes fantastic comedies (pun intended): Terry Pratchet.  His
>most recent book was a collaboration with somebody else (I
>can't remember who) called _Good_Omens_ (or was it _Bad_?).

The collaborator on _Good Omens_ was Neil Gaimen, a writer best known
for his work on several comic books, most notably MircaleMan and Sandman.
And before you poohpooh that, you should run not walk to obtain a copy of
the Sandman tradepapers (borrow or buy) to read.  They are in the best
tradition (Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Grant Miller ...) of ground breaking
multi-media literature.  I reccommended to my library that they buy several
copies for lending.  Decide for yourself, but I think that Sandman is a
good example of how some comics transcend mere pop-art.



-- 
Viktor Haag 
		            |  "We are not thugs.  We are not fanatics.
vehaag@crocus.uwaterloo.ca  |   We are vitamin supplements to justice."   
viktor@watdcs.uwaterloo.ca  |				: a Selector
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: n2412@cray.com (Joe Green)
Subject: Re: holocaust books
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 9 Apr 92 15:19:53 CDT

In article <1992Apr9.171801.4931@odin.corp.sgi.com> joyce@deco.csd.sgi.com (Joyce Richards) writes:
>i didn't see anyone list these Holocaust books:
>"The Banality of Evil" by Hannah Arendt,
>"Maus"
>and 
>"MausII" by Art Spiegelman
>
>the first one made me think
>and the Maus books made me feel (bad).
>
>now something for the PC crowd.
>why is it so appropriate to bark at people who ask for books on both sides
>of the Holocaust.

Because there is no fucking other side to the Holocaust.  It's not as
if the inquirer wants to know whether Shakespeare or the Earl Of Oxford
wrote the plays. The "other side" of the Holocaust is that it didn't
happen or that the Nazis were maybe justified or that it matters
if 5 instead of 6 million Jews were killed.  Asking for books about
the "other side" implies that these assertions are other than the
vilest assertions to come along since the assertion that was the
Holocaust.  It implies that this can be the subject of rational
debate and is obscene because it is of a piece with the rationalization
of the victims of the Holocaust out of their existence.  It profanes
the dead and the living. Asking for the books as an example of pathology is 
another matter.  An interest in necrology is necessary to live. 



>i often wonder about PC usage.
>for example:
>why is it if you have a mass murderer, there is the murderer, and then
>the victims.  jeffry dahlmer's name was in the papers.  he murdered
>n number of victims.  but when we talk about the Holocaust, it's usually
>said:  6.25 million Jews died. and gays and gypsies and priests and artists,
>etc. or were lost.  or disappeared.
>but we don't say the ruling German Government killed ...

Who is this we?  



>why is that?  am i wrong to guess that PC talk avoids ugliness?

You are wrong to ask about a verb without a noun.



-- 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Subject: Re: ENGLISH AS SHE IS SPOKE
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 14:56:36 GMT

Bonita Kale writes:

	They're freeways in Cleveland.  Not the Turnpike, which costs, 
	but all the others. 

Which may be why they are called Freeways. Was this term introduced by
the Fed Dept of Highways? Out here (note correct use of "out") in
California we talk about the "freeway system" but "getting on the
Interstate". The freeways themselves are either identified by number,
"I5", or by name "the Long Beach". I'm a name man myself, but most
of my axcquaintance seem to like numbers. i can never remember which they
mean, and there is this dreadful business here in the Peninsula where
North and South are called East and West.

Confused in Palo Alto
From: yms@carp.cis.ufl.edu (Yuh-Ming Shyy)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Used Books for Sale
Date: 8 Apr 92 14:54:47 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Univ. of Florida CIS Dept.

I have the following used books for sale. 
They are all in very good condition. 

(1) The Bad Place - by Dean R. Koontz 
    Hard Cover, first edition, $4.50

(2) Silver - by Ira Levin
    Hard Cover, $3.50

(3) Loves Music, Loves to Dance - by Mary Higgins Clark 
    Hard Cover, book club edition, $3.50 

(4) The Mummy - by Anne Rice 
    Soft Cover, $3.00 

All the prices include shipping.

If you are interested, please contact yms@carp.cis.ufl.edu
Thanks.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,alt.books.technical,misc.books.technical
From: hbauschk@watmath.uwaterloo.ca (Heinz Bauschke)
Subject: HELP
Keywords:  HELP
Organization: University of Waterloo
Distribution: na
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 16:13:25 GMT

Sorry, if this is the second posting.

Dear Net,

I am looking for a mail-order bookstore (ideally with e-mail or 1-800 number)
having a large selection on math books, U.K. books (or just books).

If You know one, please reply to this account (hbauschk@watmath.uwaterloo.ca)

Regards,

Heinz



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Subject: Re: Cruelty in Human History (was Re: The Painted Bird)
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 1992 22:48:31 GMT

In article <1992Mar28.173606.11253@news.lrz-muenchen.de> TRINGHAM@usmv01.usm.uni-muenchen.de (Tringham, Neal) writes:

>I was responding to Mark Leeper saying that `Stalin had political
>reasons for starving the Ukrainians' by suggesting that not all of
>Stalin's victims were killed for entirely "rational" or "political"
>reasons. Incidentally, what is the issue? 

Comparative cruelty.

>If efficiency was not the distinguishing characteristic of the Holocaust,
>then what was?

The degree of cruelty, and the scale of it.

Read Primo Levi's THE DROWNED AND THE SAVED. Then read Solzhenitsyn.

Then imagine which camp you'd rather be in, if, God help you, you were
forced to choose between them.

My feeling is that most people who insist that there's little to
distinguish the Holocaust other than the number of people killed haven't
read enough about it.


--Mike






-- 
Mike Godwin,     |"Les vrais paradis sont les paradis
mnemonic@eff.org | qu'on a perdus."
(617) 864-0665   | 
EFF, Cambridge   |          --Marcel Proust
From: iccsap020@spacm1.spac.spc.com (David Cohen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Who is Elia Kazan ?
Date: 10 Apr 92 11:50:46 PST
Followup-To: rec.arts.books
Organization: Security Pacific Automation Co., LA, CA

In article <Rob.vanGerwen-10/04/92+16:15:54@McVanGerwen>, Rob.vanGerwen@phil.ruu.nl (Rob van Gerwen) writes:
> In article <1992Apr9.105503.25895@email.tuwien.ac.at>, root@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (System PRIVILEGED Account) wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>  Recently I bought a paperback-novel 2nd hand "The Assasins" by some Elia Kazan.
>> I know that name from somewhere. As there's no "About the Author" in that book,
>> I'd like to know what other books Mr. Kazan wrote. Something deep in my memory
>> tells me he's connected with movies ( Is he a director ?)
>> 
>>
> He is a director.
> If my memory serves me right he has made several movies with Marlon Brando,
>  e.g. On the Waterfront. 
> 
> Rob van Gerwen
> Dept. of Philosophy
> Utrecht University
> 
He also wrote a novel called "The Arrangement".
From: Dino.Ciccone@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Dino Ciccone)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Robert Parker
Summary: Spencer Novel
Date: 13 Apr 92 14:36:13 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

Does anyone have any idea of when the new Spencer Novel is due out itsd right
around now that he usually announces that he is going to release it in May or June
I was wondering if anyone has heard anything about the title and Subject of the 
new one.

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  bbs.oit.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: Margaret Martin Gardiner <gardiner@lib.uwo.ca>
Subject: Re: Parkerbird
Organization: Relayed-by-Sendmail
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 01:46:04 GMT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
To: rec.arts.books@uwo.ca

 


> >>In article <1992Apr1.135822.20609@leland.Stanford.EDU> francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir) writes:
> >>>Who was Nosey Parker? Was Dorothy Sayers' Inspector Parker named for him?
> >>>And why Parkerbird?
> >>>
> >>>					Francis Muir
> >>>
> >>>francis@sep.stanford.edu
> >>
> >>This is my first post, so please have patience if I have difficulty.
> >>Nosey Parker, I think, refers to Matthew Parker, Archbishop of
> >>Canterbury, the first "Anglican" archbishop, during the reign of
> >>Elizabeth I.  I recently read browsed some histories about this man
> >>and remember seeing a reference.  Parkerbird eludes me.  Perhaps
> >>someone else knows that one.
> >>
> >>Margaret MG
> >>
> >Sorry, I posted and then my husband decided he wanted to say why
> >Matthew Parker was called Nosey Parker.  He was a conservative
> >"Anglican" archbishop, hated as much by the Puritans, who wanted to
> >see no Papist trappings, such as candles and special robes, in
> >religious ceremonies, as by the Catholic party who had held sway under
> >Queen Mary, who wanted all the old traditional forms.  Parker was the
> >middle-of-the-roader and he held endless inquests and commissions
> >around England to check on whether the new clergy were using some of
> >the rituals of the Anglican Church (i.e. not being as bare and bleak
> >as the Puritans wanted), but at the same time checking to make sure
> >that the old clergy were not making use of the full Catholic
> >trappings.
> >
> >Roger Gardiner
> >
> Why do you place quotation marks around the word Anglican, but not
> Puritan or Catholic?  Just wondering......
> 

	The reason why I used quotation marks around the word Anglican
is because its status as a separate Christian denomination had not yet
been stabilized.  In the roughly quarter century between the
accession of Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533 to the
accession of Parker in 1559, the church in England had shifted from a
pioneering reformed Protestant church back to "heretic-burning" Catholicism
(Catholic Reginald Pole acceeded in 1556) under Mary Tudor, then on to
an embattled form of Anglicanism through the reign of Parker.  I call
the Anglican Church during Parker's reign as archbishop "embattled"
because Elizabeth's political position was such, as I understand it,
that she was reluctant to act too strongly against either Catholics
or Puritans.  They were remained both powerfully and politically
hostile to Parker's "via media" inclinations.

RFG/MMG
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sexual Personae, Vol. 2 ?
Date: 10 Apr 92 23:35:10 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

In article <1992Apr9.103205.4739@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>, hlaufman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Harry B Laufman) writes:
> In the Preface to her wonderfully obnoxious book _Sexual Personae_
> Camille Paglia writes "The second volume will show how movies, sports,
> and rock music embody all the pagan themes of classical antiquity."
> 
> Harrington hlaufman@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

Hmmm.  One of my history professors made the observation recently
that the Nazi Party rallies pioneered the techniques of the modern
rock concert.  I can see a fascinating convergence of ideas...

The Parents Music Resource Center pursues warning labels on
rock music, classical art, and sports arenas.
-- 
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
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books