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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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 Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:22 am Post subject: |
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1. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky |
The best books you've NEVER read. Everyone's read those (or are people really bigger morons than I give them credit for?) |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:26 am Post subject: Re: The best book you've never read |
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| The best book you've never read: |
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
(Recently got, read all his other stuff, will knock this off my to-do list finally, by lunar new year the latest)
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The best album you've never listened to:
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Braggtown - Branford Marsalis
(The best album of last year it may be, in my fav genre)
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| The best movie you've never seen: |
American Splendor (2003)
(I've only heard good stuff about it. Was waiting for years for it to come to Korea. Will have to order it from overseas it seems.) |
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Tarmangani
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
Location: the Calm
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:56 am Post subject: |
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Best book would be Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Best movie would be Unknown
And the best album would be Black Label Society 1919 Eternal |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:35 am Post subject: |
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| Love in the Time of Cholera |
Excellent. He and Murakami are the undisputed masters of the magical realism genre. Reading their novels is like taking a valium with a glass of fantastic port. Yes, that's good.
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| Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond |
He's got an agenda, but I enjoyed it, and that's more than one can say for 99% of anthropological-leaning books one reads. Does one read those books? |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 8:23 am Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
| I'm not sure how many haven't read Atlas Shrugged, it's pretty mainstream, but it should be required reading (along with its companion The Fountainhead) |
Self-infantuated drivel. A world where everyone is completed focused on themselves. Oooh, how profound! Rand's egotistical world probably would sell well nowadays. I know lots of people who would fit the bill Mack  |
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Delirium's Brother
Joined: 08 May 2006
Location: Out in that field with Rumi, waiting for you to join us!
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:51 am Post subject: |
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| Thomas Pynchon's .... well anything by Thomas Pynchon. Timothy Findlay is pretty cool to; read "Stones". |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Still have to mop up some of Philip K Dick's stuff as well as some of Carver's poetry. Other than that I don't know. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| "Our Mutual Friend" I'm waiting til I'm near death to read it. |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 5:01 am Post subject: |
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| Self-infantuated drivel. A world where everyone is completed focused on themselves. Oooh, how profound! Rand's egotistical world probably would sell well nowadays. I know lots of people who would fit the bill Mack |
It's always sold well. What planet have you been living on?
It sells well because it makes sense. Try to be the best you can for yourself, and you will lift up others by proxy. Truly, what a harsh, egotistical world. It's called capitalism. And surprise, it works! |
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blaseblasphemener
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Location: There's a voice, keeps on calling me, down the road, that's where I'll always be
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:06 am Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
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| Self-infantuated drivel. A world where everyone is completed focused on themselves. Oooh, how profound! Rand's egotistical world probably would sell well nowadays. I know lots of people who would fit the bill Mack |
It's always sold well. What planet have you been living on?
It sells well because it makes sense. Try to be the best you can for yourself, and you will lift up others by proxy. Truly, what a harsh, egotistical world. It's called capitalism. And surprise, it works! |
Naw, your take on it is over-simplified. It's an appealing idea, that's why Rand was such a darling of the literary world, and why it has sold extraordinarily well, they are entertaining books. That said, I see it as a work by a desperate feminist-before-her-time, who lashed out at the chains put on women at that time, and to take her idea to its literal end would be ridiculous. Anyone with children would laugh at the idea of being totally engrossed in yourself, unless you wanted to be divorced or have your children resent you. There are some nuggets in there, but I see it as a philosophy that sounds good in a book but has many shortcomings in the real world. |
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merlot
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Location: I tried to contain myself but I escaped.
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 8:20 am Post subject: |
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| How to wake up on a 80 ft. yahct with twenty-seven naked women and a chest full of money |
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rubric
Joined: 28 Oct 2006
Location: Pongdongfongyong
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm waiting for that one to come out on dvd. |
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flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:32 pm Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
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| Self-infantuated drivel. A world where everyone is completed focused on themselves. Oooh, how profound! Rand's egotistical world probably would sell well nowadays. I know lots of people who would fit the bill Mack |
It's always sold well. What planet have you been living on?
It sells well because it makes sense. Try to be the best you can for yourself, and you will lift up others by proxy. Truly, what a harsh, egotistical world. It's called capitalism. And surprise, it works! |
It doesn't work perfectly. That's why capitalist countries still need wellfare programs as the gap between rich and poor keeps growing. I like capitalism. It is smart to take man's greed and materialism and use them as carrots to dangle before them. Greed will always be a basic part of man so it might as well be put to good use. However, just because appealing to man's selfishness and greed works pretty well in the economic sector, that doen't make it a good overall philosophy-unless, of course, you think money is all that matters. |
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Svetlana
Joined: 22 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 6:44 pm Post subject: |
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| The Brothers Karamazov |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 10:15 pm Post subject: |
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| However, just because appealing to man's selfishness and greed works pretty well in the economic sector, that doen't make it a good overall philosophy-unless, of course, you think money is all that matters. |
But you have to respect the difference between "greed" and "egotism". Ayn Rand believed that there is nothing inherently wrong with being proud, or even egotistical. In fact, it's impossible for humans to strive to be their best without a sense of pride or ego. Sure, you can squash them down, but why?
That's what "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" are all about. Work hard, and if you're a badass, be a badass, no sense in displaying false humility. And she was careful to draw lines between ego and arrogance, as well. Sometimes she allowed her characters to slip from one state into the other. Money is simply one of the fringe benefits of being a badass, not the endgame. |
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