HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: For RS Walz, everyone else hit "n" now.
Followup-To: misc.test,rec.humor
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 16:36:50 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.220521.8418@deeptht.armory.com> rstevew@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>In article <1992Aug7.170856.23044@rtsg.mot.com> brand@rtsg.mot.com (Robert W. Brand) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug05.035518.9289@deeptht.armory.com> rstevew@deeptht.armory.com (Richard Steven Walz) writes:
>>>But agnostic means one doesn't think that one can know one way or the
>>>other, not only that they themselves don't but that no one can know one way
>>>or the other, nor can anyone state any "fact" about any such entity or
>>>non-entity or none of the above.
>>>-RSW
>>
>>The point is that agnostic is a worthless term.  There is no such word for 
>>people who are not sure whether astrology is real, or whether there are 
>>ghosts or bigfoots or whatever.  Either you believe or you don't.  And as
>>for all of you atheists, stop equating [Gg]od with Christianity.  Expand 
>>your knowledge of religion.  Buddhism, for instance, has a much more 
>>acceptable notion of the spiritual aspects of life.  Spinoza's notion of
>>god was different yet, and embraced by Einstein.  I'm an atheist myself, 
>>but disregarding Christianity is a lot easier than disregarding all notions
>>of god.  Many of them can easily coexist with what is known about the origins
>>of Man and the Universe.
>>-- 
>>Bob Brand
>-----------------
>You're quite right, and I believe that most hardbitten agnostics, (as
>opposed to "wimp" agnostics), are serious about these other
>approaches, whether one calls them "spiritual" or not. I didn't think
>we were restricting ourselves to some kind of christian god here, or I
>wouldn't have bothered to join conversation about it.
>-RSW
>
>
>-- 
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>* Richard STEVEn Walz   rstevew@deeptht.armory.com   (408) 429-1200 *
>* 515 Maple Street #1   To remain ignorant enter in your KILL file: *
>* Santa Cruz, CA 95060     /From: rstevew@deeptht.armory.com/h:j    *

Why does RSW include the entire post when he posts?  And why does he post
it to all of these inappropriate groups?
-- 
             ......................................................
             ted frank | thf2@midway.uchicago.edu | std disclaimers
             the university of chicago law skool, chicago, illinois
             it's log!  log!  log!  it's big, it's heavy, it's wood
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: Paul Schroeder
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brien vs Horatio Hornblower...
Organization: BNR
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 13:11:00 GMT


>I haven't read anything by Forester, but I've read the first 5-1/2 volumes
>of the O'Brian series and I'm enjoying it immensely.  Yes, the relationship
>between the two characters is most important.  As the reviews (particularly
>John Bayley's review in the NY Review of Books) say: yes, there's naval
>action, but the characterizations and the depictions of daily life on the
>ship are much more important.
>
>Wayne
>
>-----------
>Wayne Citrin   citrin@soglio.colorado.edu   citrin@cs.colorado.edu
>

Which issue of _The NY Review of Books_ contain's Bayley's review?  I'd be very
interested in reading it.  Thanks.
From: barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Keywords: race canon
Date: 4 Sep 92 13:50:10 GMT
Organization: Georgia Tech Research Institute

In article <12139@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>In article <67525@hydra.gatech.EDU>, barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes:
>> In article <12084@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
>> >Why are liberals so dense?  I was giving an example of how I might
>> >describe a mythical driver in a hit-and-run accident.  Yes, most
>> >Turks I know are rather heavy.  So are most Americans I know of
>> >German ancestry (including me).  I was giving a description such as
>> >you might give to a police officer.  If I had said, thin, you would
>> >have attacked me for that.  If I had said, "average build" I would
>> >be criticized for that.
>> 
>> I'm getting damned tired of your insulting blanket generalizations about 
>> liberals.  Besides that, you sound paranoid.
>> 
>> Barclay Elizabeth Blanchard    barclay@rail9000@gatech.edu

[comments about your experience with some liberals deleted]
>I post to rec.arts.books, where liberals attempt to defend the
>position that the ancient Greeks weren't white, and engage in
>continual assertions that I am racist with no reason whatsoever,
>other than my assertion that race shouldn't be an issue.
>
>Why am I paranoid?

You sound paranoid to me for assuming you'll be attacked.  ("If I had said,
'average build' I would be criticized for that.")  You sound
antagonistic, as if you're (subconsciously perhaps) trying to provoke attack.
I don't like being generalized about as a liberal any more than most
conservatives I know like being generalized about.  I don't know if you're
racist or not.  I don't care whether the ancient Greeks were white.  But I'm
not ignorant simply because I'm liberal (nor are most of my liberal friends).
I'll qualify that... I'm not ignorant about some things; I am ignorant about
others, for instance, astronomy.  It's not shameful to be ignorant.  It's
shameful to claim to know much more than we do or to shame others for not
knowing things.

rambling but sincere,
Barclay



-- 
Barclay Elizabeth Blanchard    barclay@rail9000@gatech.edu
"I've been laughed at by some of the funniest people."
--Lissie, Alice Walker's _The Temple of My Familiar_
From: wagner@ohstpy.mps.ohio-state.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The White Man's Burden of Proof
Date: 2 Sep 92 22:38:40 EDT

In article <JMC.92Sep1210838@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>, jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:
> Mark Taranto posts:
> 
>        The ONLY people I have ever heard complain about racism
>      towards whites (other than Clayton) are white supremicists.
> 
> Mark hasn't been paying much attention unless he claims magical
> means of identifying white supremacists.  Almost all of the people
> who complained about the singer who said it was time for a week
> of killing whites called it racist.
> 
> --
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305

Not to beat a dead horse, but the woman did not call for a week of
killing whites.  She was apparently trying to explain a gangbanger's
mentality to a talk show host.  That is, she was trying to explain what she
thought someone else thought.  I didn't think she showed herself to be 
particularly charming or open-minded in her fifteen minutes of fame, 
but she was demonized for words taken out of context.

Of course, once Clinton gave an opinion of the context-less quote,
calls for reason by either side would have appeared as weakness...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski)
Subject: Sea stories (was: Patrick O'Brian vs Horatio Hornblower)
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 22:51:06 GMT

In article <10449@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
>  .....
>  BTW, this thread awoke in me a great longing to read some more good sea
>  stories.  Anyone got any suggestions?

Good sea stories? Many posters would undoubtedly favor the greats:
Conrad, Melville, London. For me, the most famous novels have always 
been unsatisfactory, maybe because they use the Sea and Seafaring 
as a metaphor for Greater Things. For pure love of sailing,
nothing beats the first-hand accounts of those who muscled the great 
steel windjammers around the world during the last epoch of square-rigged 
sail, i.e., the years 1880-1940. These men were the greatest sailors of all
time, and their ships the finest ever built.

During the past several years I have made a hobby of collecting these 
books, but I hesitate to recommend them since they were mostly published 
in the `30s and `40s and are difficult to find. Here are a couple that
show up frequently in used bookstores, and occasionally in print. The first 
is Alan Villiers' "By Way of Cape Horn", the history of a passage from 
Australia to England in the ship Grace Harwar in 1929. True in every
detail, it's a story of adventure, hardship and, in a critical moment, 
horrible tragedy. Villiers, who sailed both before and after the mast in his 
extraordinary career, is no Melville, but a competent writer all the same.

My second recommendation is Eric Newby's "The Last Grain Race". The 
author was 18 years old in 1938 when he shipped aboard the giant four-
masted barque Moshulu on a year-long voyage to bring in a cargo of wheat 
from Australia. His book is full of insight and humor, and is exceptionally 
well-written (Newby went on to become a professional travel writer).
Incidentally, the hull of the Moshulu is still afloat, somewhere in the
vicinity of Philadelphia.

Stefan Michalowski
stefan@sunrise.stanford.edu



Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: calvo@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov (Sherri Calvo)
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Summary: list of women authors
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 13:29:00 GMT

In article <67235@hydra.gatech.EDU>, barclay@RAIL9000.gatech.edu (Barclay Blanchard) writes...
> 
> 
>Some fairly contemporary women's works I've read and which I found excellent:
>
            (list omitted)
> 
> 
>Some fairly contemporary women's works I've not yet read but which have been
>highly recommended to me:
>
            (list omitted) 
> 
>-- 
>Barclay Elizabeth Blanchard    barclay@rail9000@gatech.edu
>"I've been laughed at by some of the funniest people."
>--Lissie, Alice Walker's _The Temple of My Familiar_

Good lists! An addition I'd suggest would be "The Joy Luck Club", by 
Amy Tan. Reading this book prevented me from accomplishing much else 
this past weekend. "The Joy Luck Club" was Amy Tan's first novel; 
I believe she has had another published since. Has anyone read it?

Sherri

Sherri Chasin Calvo
calvo@nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: twain@milton.u.washington.edu (Barbara Hlavin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Sea stories
Date: 28 Aug 92 04:06:25 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <1992Aug27.232948.1470@nas.nasa.gov> wismith@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (William R. Smith) writes:
>
>
>There seems to be many more suggestions for nonfiction than fiction
>in this thread.  


-Two Years Before the Mast_, Dana. (Classmate of Francis Parkman, 
who wrote the wonderful _The Oregon Trail_.  Adventurous alumni, 
those lads.) 

--Barbara


>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: AZ.EPC@forsythe.stanford.edu 
Subject: Re: loose literary canons
Organization: Stanford University, California, USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 10:09:26 GMT

In article <7857@public.BTR.COM>,
grady@btr.BTR.COM (Grady Ward  grady@btr.com) writes:
>Clayton, I think the problem is not that
>your answer to questions as "what color were
>the ancient Greeks?" or "is this a liberal
>objection?" are necessarily wrong,
>it's that formulating such stereotyped
>questions demonstrates a limiting world-view.

Who did formulate such questions?  And why?

>One point of being a voracious reader
>(and of being educated in general) is
>to Damascene both the _approach_ as
>well as the _content_ of a mind, which
>for a well-educated person more likely
>resembles a Symposium of friends arguing
>rather than an Oracular disquisition.

I'm damascene da questions here!  (Damascene?)

>This kind of fexibility and "community
>of mind"  is the kind of "liberalism" that
d 1/2 readers in this group pursue; not the
>kind of straw dog liberalism that you are
>busy kicking.

What's your definition of a liberal?  It may differ from mine.
But I think all extremist-types are nuts.  And we should ask
African anthropologists if the ancient Greek statues resemble
caucasians.
From: ignorant@cwis.unomaha.edu (Michael A. Munson)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Dragonbone Chair / Tad Williams
Date: 2 Sep 92 22:19:26 GMT
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha


	I heard from a Read All About It bookstore in Omaha Nebraska
that the 3rd part of the Memory, Thorn, and Sorrow trilogy would be out 
in October 92.


	I checked other bookstores in town, but they couldn't verify this
information for me.



IGNORANT BLISS                  MIKE MUNSON

*************************************************************************
disclaimer:  We will pay the price, but we will not count the cost - RUSH
*************************************************************************
Xref: sparky rec.arts.books:15196 rec.humor:27238 alt.folklore.urban:22310 rec.arts.sf.misc:2725
From: ajmiller@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Arkayn)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books,rec.humor,alt.folklore.urban,rec.arts.sf.misc
Subject: Re: Agnostics and Athiests
Date: 28 Aug 92 15:00:18 GMT
Organization: Purdue University

In <26AUG92.21515793@bright.pfc.mit.edu> casey@bright.pfc.mit.edu writes:

>FRAIL, MISSPELLED POTATOeS AROUND US DO HOVER!
Incidently, if you check your Oxford English Dictionary, as well as most
others, you will find that, contrary to popular opinion, potatoe is not only
a correct spelling, but for many years was THE correct spelling.
-- 
"How dare they demand merit in return for a raise?!!" Modern Educators Magazine
"What? Lie? Me? The truth is FAR too much fun!" -- James Hook
Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
Andy Miller   ajmiller@sage.cc.purdue.edu	ajmiller@ecn.purdue.edu
From: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Worthwhile newspapers
Keywords: Washington Post
Date: 4 Sep 92 02:51:00 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Dept. of Independence
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1

In article <la9tumINNam3@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>, danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR]) writes...
>the Washington Post. The NY Times is okay, but hey!
>no comics. Once you get on a diet of the Post, everything



The New York Times IS the comics...
From: tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Titles for Tom Maddox Biography Needed
Date: 1 Sep 92 07:28:13 GMT
Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest)

In article <1992Aug27.224651.13362@cactus.org> kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull) writes:
>
>I'm not at all sure what's up with Mr. Doland, who began this thread.

	His prescription for anti-psychotics, apparently.  

>However, having just read Tom M.'s book and having been particularly
>drawn to the surrealistic images of his virtual world, I think
>his bio should be named

>Halo, Dali.

	Eek.


-- 
				Tom Maddox
		    	    tmaddox@netcom.com
		   "I swear I never heard the first shot"
                Wm. Gibson, "Agrippa:  a book of the dead"
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Wordstruck
Date: 27 Aug 92 16:03:58 GMT



msmorris@watsci.waterloo.edu (Mike Morris) writes:

> The typing is dedicated to Joann, the subject matter mostly
> to Matt and Tom, and the cricket (sorry no Eco this time) to Francis.

> There was one more passage from _Wordstruck_ I wanted to report,
> but first the cricket-bat speech from _The Real Thing_ by Tom Stoppard:

>   Annie: It just needs a bit of work.
>   Henry: You're all bent.
>   Annie: You're jealous.
>   Henry: Of Brodie?
>   Annie: You're jealous of the idea of the writer. You want to keep
>          it sacred, special, not something anybody can do.

I love THE REAL THING.  I've read it, but I was also fortunate enough
to see it when Glen Close and Jeremy Irons performed in it.  The
cricket-bat speech stood out as one of many fine pieces in the play.

One of my favorite lines takes place just before or just after this scene.
Annie shows Brodie's play to her husband.  When asked why he does not
like it, he comments that it is half the length of DAS KAPITAL, and
only twice as funny.

While the first part of that comment can apply to Mike's articles, I'm
glad to see that Mike can keep his sense of humor intact.  I just worry
about Carpal-Tunnel syndrome.  Perhaps we can all chip in to buy him an
ergonomic keyboard.

Mark
From: hmkirchh@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de (Hans-Joachim Kirchhoff)
Subject: Re: Dragonbone Chair / Tad Williams
Organization: CSD., University of Erlangen
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 17:58:24 GMT

March 93' for Vol 3??? :-( That is bad news. I hoped, it was out already.
Just an hour ago I finished Vol 2. I cannot wait so long? Well, I'll
have to, I guess.  :-((

I was fortunate to come across the english book. Here in germany, Vol 1 only
came out last year.

-Hajo
---
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hans-Jochen Kirchhoff | hmkirchh@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de
> No signature today  | CompuServe 100024,712
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
Subject: Re: Anybody read these trash books?
Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
	<KANEKO.92Aug21191413@axiom.icsi.Berkeley>
	<1992Aug23.052532.20856@math.ucla.edu>
Date: 23 Aug 92 18:41:56

Astronauts is available in Russian.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
From: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Patrick O'Brian vs Horatio Hornblower...
Date: 27 Aug 92 13:43:04 GMT
Reply-To: nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall)
Organization: SCRI, Florida State University

In article <a4CC02oV1fJx01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> jjh00@OUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Joel J. Hanes) writes:
>
>  nall@sun8.scri.fsu.edu (John Nall) writes:
>>
>>  BTW, this thread awoke in me a great longing to read some more good sea
    
	...

>Real ones:
>   _The_Mutiny_on_the_HMS_Bounty_,   Bligh
>   _Two_Years_Before_The_Mast,       Dana
>   _Sailing_Alone_Around_The_World_, Slocum

   Well, yes, these are all good sea stories.  As are many others which were
suggested to me in e-mail notes (such as the Joseph Conrad books, the "Grain Ship"
series, "The Cruel Sea,", "Run Silent, Run Deep," and others which I guess I
would refer to as the Sea Story Classics.

   To those, I would add some of my own, which no one suggested: "Dove" (a lone
sailing voyage around the world by a 15-year old boy), "Voyage" by Sterling
Hayden (yes, the movie actor, who was also a bonafide wooden-ship man), "Moby Dick,",
"Kon Tiki" and Slocum's account of his voyage around the world.  "The Boat" which
is a German book about a WW II submarine, and very good.  "The Shipkiller" which
deals with a man's vendetta against a supertanker which killed his wife.  Also,
the Ernest Shackleton book about his open-boat voyage in Antarctic seas to seek
help for his stranded crew.  "The Captain," by Jan Hartog (sp?).

   Trouble is, I've read all those :-( and need some new ones (the ones suggested
by Francis Muir are new to me, and I'll try them.  They sound good).

   Also, if I may presume, let me define what I mean by "sea story".  I mean a story
which deals, at least in part, with boats/ships and the water *and* the author knows
what he/she is talking about.  Not the Tom Clancy style of giving everything a parts
number when it is mentioned, but written in such a manner as to assure the knowledgeable
reader that the author also is knowledgeable.  Whether the story deals with sailing
ships, submarines, steamships, tugboats, rafts, kayaks, or innertubes is immaterial :-) 

   To wind this up, what I would *really* like to find is some fiction or non-fiction
about sailing in the Cape Horn area.  The Dana book has a good section on it, as does
the Slocum book.  In fact, even Mitchner, in "Hawaii" has a good section on it.  But
I want more! More!

Peace from hurricane-ravaged Florida,

John

    

   

--
John W. Nall              | Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
nall@mailer.scri.fsu.edu  | Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306
  "Older women, make beautiful lovers - older women, they understand..."
    (song heard on radio, driving, one rainy night in Mississippi)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: cb@tamarack13.timbuk (Chris Brewster)
Subject: Re: Worthwhile newspapers (WAS Re: Why I read the Economist
In-reply-to: jjh00@outs.ccc.amdahl.com's message of 1 Sep 92 19:15:17 GMT
Organization: pubs
	<CB.92Sep1111228@tamarack13.timbuk>
	<31g=02o520YT01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>
Distribution: na
Date: 1 Sep 92 16:26:33 CDT

Joel J. Hanes writes:

   What newspapers are read by members of the r.a.b.ble, and
   what are their strong and weak points?

For better or worse, there's really no substitute for the New York
Times.  Its foibles and failings are all too obvious (as described in
amusing detail in SPY magazine), but no other publication is even
competing in the same league.  A few years back the LA Times provided an
excellent and quite different alternative, but I've heard it has gone
Lite along with everyone else (even Scientific American!).  The NY Times
is available in many parts of the country--I get same-day home delivery
in a Minneapolis suburb--and it's well worth the price if you want to be
in touch.  (I can't believe I'm sounding like such a promoter, because I
can get quite impatient with The House that Puck Built :-).

Chris Brewster
cb@cray.com
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: Why I read the Economist
Date: 1 Sep 92 15:26:17 GMT


wwhitman@nevada.edu (MICHAEL WISE), from the English Department at UNLV writes:

> I have to recommend good newsmagazines to my undergraduates for their
> term papers. As it stands, there is no American newsmagazine on that
> list. Quite a shame, I've always felt, that the best news about America
> comes from London.

I was thinking about making a snide comment like:

        As a graduate of Villanova, I wonder about Rollie
        Massamino leaving a school where students in the
        English Department read books to go to one where
        they read magazines. (For those who don't know,
        Rollie is a basketball coach who has a reputation
        for choosing players who actually graduate from college).

But I'm sure there is some perfectly good reason why Michael's students
are writing term papers using "newsmagazines" instead of books.

Michael?

Mark
From: manes@bu-pub.bu.edu (Michelle Manes)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: The Literary Canon
Date: 31 Aug 92 14:27:54 GMT
Organization: Boston University

In article <1992Aug28.223615.13519@cactus.org>, kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull) writes:

|> 
|> So--leaving ancient Greeks out of this--maybe someone could give me
|> a better word for those Caucasions who at any given period in history
|> are not considered "white" by the White People In Charge.
|> 
|> I'm not sure this makes any sense, it's been a long day, but that's
|> the definition of "non-white" that I think would be most useful in
|> this discussion.
|> 
|> Kate
|> 

And the one that I meant, though I had some trouble expressing that.
Thanks, Kate.

michelle
-- 
Michelle Manes		|	"What should I be when I grow up?"
manes@bass.bu.edu	|	"Honest."
			|	-Robert M. Pirsig


Newsgroups: rec.arts.books
From: djdaneh@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Subject: Re: ENTROPY & IRONY
Reply-To: djdaneh@PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes)
Organization: Pacific * Bell, San Ramon, CA
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 22:34:29 GMT


Don't I remember a video for "Entropy and Irony" with Michael
Jackson and Paul McCartney hanging around on some huge piano?

. . . 

Didn't think so.


		The Pavlov dog and the Schroedinger cat
		Side by side in my forebrain sat
		With Shakespeare's monkeys crowding in behind. . .
		. . . it's all in your mind.
			-- Visual Purple

Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books