Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal FortKnox's Journal: Book Meme (this is real short) 23

Journal by FortKnox
I never learned to read!

Honestly, the crap they threw in front of me in highschool was RARELY absorbed. Some british poetry in the 12th grade was pretty rememberable (John Donne, etc..), but the only things I walked away from school with some retention:
The Scarlet Letter: Symbolism. Yay... meh

Great Gadspy or whatever: Eh, wasn't tough to read, but didn't go nuts over it.

The Divine Comedy - Dante: Some people read the Inferno, which I enjoyed... the Pergatorium was just like Inferno, except no fire and an extremely dim sense of hope... Paradiso was boring as hell (I really truely hope heaven isn't that boring)

MacBeth - that famous british playwright dude: The only Shakespeare I really enjoyed reading.

And that's all I got outta high school. Yup, that was it. I'm not an avid reader, and engineers only had to take english 101 and 102, so I didn't have to read crap for school, either.

After graduating, though, I started picking up books again:
The Forever War - Joseph Haldeman. First scifi I read. Really enjoyed it, too. He really dealt with the whole travelling through 'space causes hundreds of years to pass' thing well.

Forever Peace - Joe Haldeman. Thought I'd try the sequel since I enjoyed the first so much. Was good, although it ended quickly and abruptly.

Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Yeah, I didn't read this till I was in my mid 20s (and haven't read the other 4 yet)

The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas (that's doo mas, Em, not Dumbass). Loved the movie, so I gave the book a try. Holy crap was that a fantastic story. You don't truely know revenge until you've read this book. I may pick up another Dumas. Really liked his style.

Contact - Carl Sagan. Well, give me a day or two... almost done.

LotR - Started reading the trilogy after the first movie. Finished before the last one. I read slow, sue me :-P

That's it. I have such a short list compaired to everyone else that I could write something about each book. Rather sad, isn't it? To defend myself, I really enjoy reading anthologies of scifi shortstories, and that's what I usually read.

Oh, and one other thing, I've been collecting classic stories to read to Joey when he gets old enough to understand them and remember them. Like Gulliver's Travels, the whole CS Lewis Narnia books, etc... I figured I'm a little too old to not know classics, but at least Joey will be well learned before going to school and is 'forced' to read them.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Book Meme (this is real short) More

Book Meme (this is real short)

Comments Filter:

  • Hmmm (Score:2)

    by JMZero ( 449047 )
    I just got through "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night". It's a murder mystery, but mostly it's about the mystery of living in the world as an autistic child (who narrates).

    I'm usually a sci-fi guy - but I enjoyed this and thought you might have somewhat similar tastes.
  • Start reading them before he's old enough to understand. It helps shape brain architechture. Seriously, it's a BIG boost to learning power later in life.

    And i like Dumas, he's my mum's favourite. She got me hooked.
    • Oh, I read to him constantly. Mostly Dr.Seuss and the like. I am not reading him anything comlex yet (and without pictures, he'd lose interest fast).

      I was just telling STB that my son is already a nerd. I try roughhousing and playing with a mini football with him, and in about 2 minutes, he's grabbing one of his books (each room he plays in has a bookshelf full of his books) and sits in my lap and asks me to read it ("read wocket! read wocket!" Fav book is "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" by Dr.S... a
      • Oh, my mum was reading us beowulf in the cradle and *i* turned out just fine. Ooh, look, a sparkly pebble! Mine! Were we talking? Wanna see my impression of a battle dwarf with a coffee buzz?? Let me get my chainsaw and some kindling...

        oke, oke. maybe not. But i had to speak up for it. DOn't you want your kid to be one of the child prodigies everyone's jealous of?
      • I have been known to use Hamlet's soliloquoy's as lullabies when I don't have a book handy. Also, "Breathe" by Pink Floyd is kinda nice. Pretty much anything that takes a while to recite and can be done in a fairly rhythmic way. Just please god no more miss mary mackmackmack.
  • Holy crap dude, you really didn't read much, did you?

    I've read HHGTTG about 5 or 6 times. First time was in sixth grade. Have read the others at least 3 times (except for the last, which I have only read once).

    If'n you're gonna list Forever War, I feel Ender's Game should be listed.

    'The Count of Monte Cristo' goes under 'how to'. (Thanks to 'Shawshank Redemption'. Not sure if that line appears in 'Rita Hayworth and...' BTW, the featured pinup should have been a page from 'Life' magazine that has been chr [skylighters.org]
  • Mr Dumbass?

    The name's Due mas.

    Now that's thickheaded! /Commercial

    On a more serious note:

    I have an intense dislike of Shakespeare. Not for anything ole Willie did, I mean hell, he's just telling stories about incest, rape, murder, suicide, gang wars, carving flesh from people, etc. Nothing wrong with that.

    However my english teachers in high school had an absolute hard on (and they both were chicks, one taught 9th and 11th, the other 10 and 12th grade english) for his prose.

    Willie: For wouldst though
    • forgot the *

      It appears Willie isn't the only thing sucking in class today, eh Teach? ;)
    • I have an intense dislike of Shakespeare. Not for anything ole Willie did, I mean hell, he's just telling stories about incest, rape, murder, suicide, gang wars, carving flesh from people, etc. Nothing wrong with that.

      Problem may have been that you had to read it. Shakespeare's plays were never meant to be read, they were meant to be seen. (Imagine reading a script for GoodFellas. Whoo-hah, real thrilling.)

      That's the mistake English teachers the world over make (including mine). They make you read the d

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • For me, it wasn't that Shakespeare is hard to understand or anything, it's more that they just straight POUNDED month after month his works into our heads.

          We needed variety and didn't get it.

          Besides, as Freud once said, man, sometimes Shakespeare is just a story, not a way of life*.

          *He didn't actually say this that I am aware of, but hey, I figure he's dead and won't mind.
        • As in, there is value in the reading. It is good to see the plays to get an idea of what is supposed to be done, but I think the reading, which has bourne itself out over a few hundred years, is of value as well.

          Of course it's good to read it -- sometimes it's hard to get what words are being said, so it's helpful to follow along with the text. But what I meant was teachers teaching Shakespeare's plays without showing the plays. I had three different English teachers do that, and know of quite a few other

      • Problem may have been that you had to read it. Shakespeare's plays were never meant to be read, they were meant to be seen.

        I'll half agree. I think there is value in reading them in order to see the root of all the interpretations. The foundation upon which they are based. Every interpretation you see will be different. Some good, some bad. By reading and understanding the original, you get to make up your own interpretation in your head. You don't have it handed to you on a platter. Is Hamlet real

    • Yeah, it's a shame. Like I mentioned, I honestly can't remember if I hated Shakespeare or liked him in high school. I think I *wanted* to like it. I remember the memorizing coming easy to me. But I had to hate it because...well, everybody hated it.

      Turning point for me, when I realized that I Was allowed to actually think for myself regarding this stuff, came freshman year of college reading Hamlet and I read something like "Thrift, Horatio! The thrice baked funeral meats did coldly furnish forth the w

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Read it, yup. Stoppard and Shakespeare go great together.

          Nobody ever "gets" Taming of the Shrew in high school because if any high school kid ever stopped and thought about "What, with my tongue in your tail?" really meant the teacher would never restore order to the classroom. :)

          On a related note, I remember reading "Stopping by woods..." by Frost in college. Teacher asks, "What's it about?" All hands go up, because we all laerned this in high school. He says, "It's not about suicide." All hands go

    • I prefered the Shawshank version of that joke.

      Heywood: The Count of Monte Crisco...

      Floyd: That's Cristo, you dumb shit.
      Heywood: ...by Alexandree Dumb-ass. Dumb-ass?
      Andy: Dumas. Ever read it? You'll like that one, Heywood. It's about a prison break.
      Red: Prison break? Maybe we oughta file that one under Educational, too.
  • I can't remember if I actively liked or despised Shakespeare in high school, although we did read all the great tragedies. THen I went to a college that insisted you take a humanities minor. Most geeks took "history of war" -- I found enough Shakespaere and theatre courses to go that route. Ever since, I've been a tremendous Shakespeare geek. I even worked on an educational game that involved developing a datbase of 1000 questions about the man.

    It's kinda neat to suddenly discover that you can actually

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:AOL! (Score:2)

      by arb ( 452787 )
      Our English teacher introduced us to HHGTTG in Year 8. He played an excerpt from the radio play then made us write a story in the same style. That day after school I went to the local book shop and grabbed a copy of the novels.

      The first three were really good, the fourth was just okay and the rest sucked.

Slashdot Top Deals

"The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a neccessity." - Oscar Wilde

Close