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#751 |
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Southern California
Posts: 6,674
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I just finished John McPhee's latest: Uncommon Carriers. It's a McPhee go-there-and-explore look at the business of commercial transportation, and a slice of the lives of the people who make their livings at it: owner-operators of eighteen-wheelers, river towboats (which actually are push boats) -- you know, navigation gets interesting when the river is narrower than your barge string is long -- a digression into a canoe trip replicating more or less the trip Thoreau and his older brother (who died young of septicemia) took; a coal train out of Wyoming taking low-sulfur coal to Georgia. As is usual with McPhee when he writes about this kind of thing, you get a lot of I-never-knew-that tidbits.
This may not be the titanic work Annals of the Former World was -- anyone who enjoys geology should read that -- but it upholds McPhee's reputation.
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Wanna stop school shootings? End Gun-Free Zones, of course. |
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#752 | |
Slattern of the Swail
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 15,654
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Quote:
A Bried History of Nearly Everything Lucy Gault - Wm. Trevor Evolution vs. Creationism - Eugenie Scott
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In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum |
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#753 | |
I hear them call the tide
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Perpetual Chaos
Posts: 30,852
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Quote:
Sick puppy. --- xob -you're right about the doorknobs. Goldfinger has the most excruciating game of golf. I'm at the skimming point now, this may well be my last Bond. (Who am I kidding, I'm seriously short of alternatives in the mindless fiction category..... ![]()
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The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity Amelia Earhart |
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#754 |
This is a fully functional babe lair
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Akron, OH
Posts: 2,324
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Anyone read "Next" by Michael Crichton?
I'm just starting and it's.. interesting.
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Kiss my white Irish ass. |
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#755 |
UNDER CONDITIONAL MITIGATION
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Austin, TX
Posts: 20,012
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I got it for my birthday back in November. It's next in line in the to-read pile, which means I might get started on it, oh, by July if I'm lucky. I miss having time to read.
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#756 |
Why, you're a regular Alfred E Einstein, ain't ya?
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 21,206
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"Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood" by Koren Zailckas.
This relatively young woman writes her memoir about her relationship with alchohol, starting with her first drink in high school and culminating in her alcohol-ridden college experience. She uses facts about women and drinking and her own experiences. She writes in a wonderfully honest voice. I think young women should read this book.
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A word to the wise ain't necessary - it's the stupid ones who need the advice. --Bill Cosby |
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#757 |
“Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo”
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Savannah, Georgia
Posts: 21,393
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A very good book about a very good group of dedicated individuals.
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Anyone but the this most fuked up President in History in 2012! |
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#758 |
in a mood, not cupcake
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 3,034
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Ah--thanks.
Just finished The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell, by Loraine Despres. A "Southern romance novel," I figured it would be sappy fluff, so I put off reading it until I needed help falling asleep one night. But it turned out to be really interesting. The story's set in 1920, so the author took advantage of the time period, and wove a few well-researched issues of the day into the plot--women's suffrage, eugenics, spread of the Klan and the automobile, etc. |
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#759 |
polaroid of perfection
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 24,185
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I'm reading Lord Foul's Bane. Finally.
I've seen it around for years but until reading about it here I wasn't fussed about reading it. I have to admit I'm mildly disappointed so far. It just doesn't have a lot of substance to it. I should have read it years ago.
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Life's hard you know, so strike a pose on a Cadillac |
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#760 |
™
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
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That's a sequel right? Did you read the one(s) leading up to it? Thomas Covenant, right?
I'm just starting Bel Canto. |
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#761 |
polaroid of perfection
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 24,185
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I'm pretty sure I'm reading the first one
The character is introduced before he travels to the other world - it starts with him going to pay a telephone bill...
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Life's hard you know, so strike a pose on a Cadillac |
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#762 |
™
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Arlington, VA
Posts: 27,717
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My bad. It's been 20 years or so since I read it.
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#763 |
polaroid of perfection
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: West Yorkshire
Posts: 24,185
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Don't worry - I know what that's like
I actually bought a book from the charity shop the other day and got 3/4 of the way through before I realised I'd read it. In my defense it was really generic chick-lit though.
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Life's hard you know, so strike a pose on a Cadillac |
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#764 |
Gamehenge
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Halifax, NS
Posts: 168
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Andy McNab: Recoil
TheMercenary- yeah, it's sad to see the sticks thrown in the wheels of guys actually trying to make a difference...Wonder where the world would be now if they had been able to operate like it was 1975.
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It's Really Plain and Easy To See, The Family grows like fungus on a tree. |
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#765 |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
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Completely nuts, which is why you should read Skin Tight.
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![]() ![]() "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
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