Cameron's comments (member since Nov 01, 2008)

Cameron's comments from the The Next Best Book Club group.

Esther, I visited the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site recently in Hendersonville, NC. He's a famous Abraham Lincoln biographer. The entire wall space in every single room except the kitchen and bathroom is covered with book shelves, floor to ceiling. The living room, dining room, each bedroom, the office - wall to wall books. The Park Service maintains a collection of about 9,000 of Sandburg's books, but he owned about 12,000 when he was alive. It was pretty impressive.

I just grabbed a hard-cover, 1951 edition of "The Red Badge of Courage" from a used bookstore for $6. I'll call that a splurge since I'm a library reader and usually wait until my birthday and Christmas to get copies of books I want.

This was a surprisingly easy read for something first printed back in 1894 and dealing with some pretty heavy themes. Almost read like YA stuff. Anyways, glad to finally have a copy of another classic on my shelf. :-)

I had a really tough time putting a star rating on this book because it was phenomenally well-written but, on the other hand, I would never, ever recommend it to anyone.

I took some major issue with that one chapter immediately preceding the "scissor scene" - I won't post the details here since this is a spoiler-free thread, but I discuss it thoroughly in my review of the book. I just thought that chapter was outrageously gratuitous, repugnant, underhanded...it was such a cheap shot. I was really disappointed that Saramago stooped to that level. The rest of the novel was so exquisitely rendered - if it weren't for that chapter I would have immediately gone out and purchased a hard cover copy to keep in my collection.

Welcome to the group. Have you read the Dragonlance Chronicles? I didn't see them on your "Fantasy" bookshelf. The first one is Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I think they're young adult or pretty close to it, but they're my favorites in the fantasy genre.

Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis

(in reference to a broken heart)

"I tell you, my heart split in two. But the knave soon stuck itself together again. You must have seen those sails with red, yellow and black patches, sewn with thick twine, which never tear even in the roughest storms. Well, that's what my heart's like. Umpteen holes, and umpteen patches: it need fear nothing more!"

Mine is a 13 year-old picture of me making a 30 foot jump into a flooded rock quarry. I was scared to death to do it because the water was black and I couldn't see if there were rocks or anything beneath the surface. That was just my imagination though - it was super deep. Finally, after about 5 minutes of hesitation I jumped in. It was a blast.

I like the pic because I can think of it when I'm fearful about doing something or doubting myself. It's better to just throw those feelings aside and do it. Failure is not nearly as bad as not trying.

I have something similar but it clips on to the hat brim, rather than being built in. You might be able to find it at a retail store; I picked up mine at a convention.

Try to get something that uses L.E.D. bulbs; the batteries last longer. The one I have is rated for 10,000 hours.

http://www.batzusa.com/batz/catsvision.p...