BrentD
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What is it about? A novel I assume, and maybe part of a series?
What are you currently reading?
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noharleyyet
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It's gratuitous drivel but I'm short on unreads...thinking of starting
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Islander
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A Bret Harte classic about the gold rush.
128 years later my folks were caretakers at THE Roaring Camp on the Mokelumne River when I was a teen. It is still an active mining operation, with the added opportunity of a few cabins that folks can rent for a week. Mined a lot of gold on that river. Here's Dad and I a few miles downstream in China Camp, circa 1977.
128 years later my folks were caretakers at THE Roaring Camp on the Mokelumne River when I was a teen. It is still an active mining operation, with the added opportunity of a few cabins that folks can rent for a week. Mined a lot of gold on that river. Here's Dad and I a few miles downstream in China Camp, circa 1977.
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jbseamus83
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So the author wrote about his journey in 1850 from New York to California. At that time the railroad wasn't complete, so they took a ship down to Panama and switched over there to another ship to sail up to CA. Then he goes into the people he meets and what life was like in 1850 California. Pretty interesting. I'm only a couple chapters in though.
LopeHunter
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jwatts
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Nameless Range
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Short but heavy
Southern Elk
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I’ve always been interested in the Nez Perce War. Looking forward to learning more about it. 
Benfromalbuquerque
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Tactical withdrawal that would have worked somewhat even today.
noharleyyet
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...next in line
Irrelevant
Well-known member
Ok, need to catch up on a few. I'll start with the more ominous
Infinite Jest: I started this book in March and just finished it while elk hunting last week. It's hard to describe this book in any kind of positive light. It's probably the single worst story I've ever read that was almost entirely composed of good to great literature. At any point, you could find yourself reading a truly great line or two, like as good as they get. And yet, it was an almost incoherent series of rabbit holes so long and so detailed as to prevent you from keeping track of the original point and the original plot/s of which there are several, and they don't really interweave, and they damn sure don't come to any kind of real conclusion. There are far too many characters to keep track of. I could never really get used to the footnotes, which span the spectrum of both readily important to the current storyline, important to the overall picture, and completely irrelevant. The book would have been much better at 1/2 the length, and possibly the best at 1/3 the length. I'm not sure what it's actually about. I think you would need to take notes and possibly read it a few times to decipher anything of substance from it. 1 star, at best. Moby Dick was much better and it was the lowest ranked book I'd read before that.
Catch-22: Another "classic" that left me questioning WTF it means to be a classic. It might have been funny if it wasn't so sadly absurd. In fact, "absurd" is the best word to describe it. There was no real point other than characterizing our military as being so incredibly absurd as to be grossly negligent in the deaths of most of the characters. I was still infinitely better than infinite jest. 2 stars. Another on the "do not recommend" list.
The Jungle: A real classic. While people often point to its description and characterization of the early meatpacking industry, which it is brutal, it's really just a story about why poor people are poor and how they stay poor even with all the good intentions in the world. It's similar to The Grapes of Wrath in its pitting of workers vs. industry, and economic class struggles and disparities, but it's not nearly as well written as GOW. It then goes hard into the pros of socialism at the end, which detracts from the better storyline, but also allows some "happiness" into it, which can be a plus, even though all of us realize it's not really true. 3 Stars.
Infinite Jest: I started this book in March and just finished it while elk hunting last week. It's hard to describe this book in any kind of positive light. It's probably the single worst story I've ever read that was almost entirely composed of good to great literature. At any point, you could find yourself reading a truly great line or two, like as good as they get. And yet, it was an almost incoherent series of rabbit holes so long and so detailed as to prevent you from keeping track of the original point and the original plot/s of which there are several, and they don't really interweave, and they damn sure don't come to any kind of real conclusion. There are far too many characters to keep track of. I could never really get used to the footnotes, which span the spectrum of both readily important to the current storyline, important to the overall picture, and completely irrelevant. The book would have been much better at 1/2 the length, and possibly the best at 1/3 the length. I'm not sure what it's actually about. I think you would need to take notes and possibly read it a few times to decipher anything of substance from it. 1 star, at best. Moby Dick was much better and it was the lowest ranked book I'd read before that.
Catch-22: Another "classic" that left me questioning WTF it means to be a classic. It might have been funny if it wasn't so sadly absurd. In fact, "absurd" is the best word to describe it. There was no real point other than characterizing our military as being so incredibly absurd as to be grossly negligent in the deaths of most of the characters. I was still infinitely better than infinite jest. 2 stars. Another on the "do not recommend" list.
The Jungle: A real classic. While people often point to its description and characterization of the early meatpacking industry, which it is brutal, it's really just a story about why poor people are poor and how they stay poor even with all the good intentions in the world. It's similar to The Grapes of Wrath in its pitting of workers vs. industry, and economic class struggles and disparities, but it's not nearly as well written as GOW. It then goes hard into the pros of socialism at the end, which detracts from the better storyline, but also allows some "happiness" into it, which can be a plus, even though all of us realize it's not really true. 3 Stars.
I loved this book. What an incredible story. I think my favorite part was the flight through Yellowstone.
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