Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Great films to watch

John, we have Sister Wendy's book, The Story of Painting, which I think is quite good, if not great. And I didn't know about her American books/DVDs

John wrote: "Trader Joe' s masala chicken and mashed potatoes await for later. My mother dislikes cooking, so holiday dinners aren't exactly a fond tradition for me..."

We carry these "traditions" or experiences deeply into our older age. My mother was a loving mother in her own ways, but she made decorating the Christmas tree a thoroughly miserable experience. I only do it now because my two granddaughters delight in it.

John,

His great grandfather is used as the character Col. Sartoris in his fiction. Both are cavalry officers. When the men of the 2nd Mississippi Infantry failed to reelect Falkner as colonel of the regiment, he sulked for a while, went home, sulked for awhile longer, and then formed a Mississippi cavalry regiment of irregulars.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sartoris

One of my favorite compilers of lists of great books was Dick Dabney, Here's what he had to say about Faulkner:

"Dabney’s List – Books 30-37: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom (1936), The Hamlet (1940), Light in August (1932), The Mansion (1960), The Reivers (1962), Sanctuary (1931), Sartoris (1929), and The Town (1957) – The best American novelist. College students are taught to despise Faulkner by being handed a copy of The Sound and the Fury and being told it’s his best work. It isn’t; it’s well-nigh unreadable. All those listed above are better than the one that’s supposed to be classic. Faulkner’s no good for skimmers, because you have to make an effort to get into his style. After that, it’s easy going, and ordinary discourse seems affected. And if Faulkner’s not for skimmers, neither is anybody else on this list."

I'll email you Dabney's list of his favorite 100 books.

Larry

Add recommendations here ...

Carol, Sher and I have our own problems in trying to start new topics. GR is flakey. I’ll try to add that topic in a little while. And Happy Thanksgiving to you and all!

John, Faulkner's great-grandfather William C. Falkner (note the name change) recruited my great-great grandfather James A. Deaton, his brother Tom Deaton, and their father Thomas to the 2nd Mississippi Infantry regiment. Brother Tom died at the Battle of First Manassas. I'm not proud of their service in an ignoble cause, but I am still interested in aspects of that service. My great-grandfather James S. Deaton had the sense after the Civil War to leave Mississippi to move up to Indian Territory to dig wells for the railroad. His past was past.

Sher wrote: "If others see this- I am curious what was your favorite one or two dishes you enjoyed at Thanksgiving when you were growing up?..."

When the turkey is great, it's the turkey. But I love cornbread stuffing the next day or the day after that. It usually is gone after that.

John, I can remember the day we were browsing in a bookstore in Charlottesville when I noticed that book. I showed it to my wife and we bought it. Still unread but we’ll get to it.

I just delivered an apple pie to my son and family for Thanksgiving. (He lives 15 minutes away.) We'll deliver another pie to a couple tomorrow along with sides ... they'll give us half a turkey and some other sides. Then about 14 of us will Zoom from 1:00 to 3:00pm on Thanksgiving Day. I think half the world will be on Zoom, so I wonder if there is enough bandwidth ... A different Thanksgiving indeed.

That portrait of Archibald Macleish is so excellent ... I started reading it and couldn't stop. He had so many positions, including the professorship at Harvard. It is so hard to survive in modern times if your only income is derived from poetry. Billy Collins is one exception who comes to mind.

Add recommendations here ...

Recommendations here ...

I have about 30 of these, one for each artist. The van Gogh one is truly amazing.

Similarly I have about 40 Delphi Collected Classics for writers. It's great having all of Dickens in one book for just a few dollars.

Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past by David Reich is all about using the human genome across populations to explain how the Earth was peopled. It is especially good in explaining the peopling of Western Europe and the Americas using the latest research in explaining the complexities. It is a bit complicated, to the extent that I have told some people to start with Adam Rutherford's A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes which covers much the same subject, but which gets a lot of the peopling of the Americas wrong.

One other warning. This science is changing so rapidly with the complete sequencing of more and more individuals so that much of the story of how we came to spread across the Earth is likely to change over the coming years.

Roger Ebert. My favorite film reviewer. I miss him greatly. My son always thought he was too easy in his reviews. I disagreed, but I thought he loved good films so much that it just made him want to share the experience with others. Anyway, it's hard to argue with the choices he made in these four books in which he selects great films. I still regularly go to them to try to find a movie to watch.

The Great Movies

The Great Movies II

The Great Movies III

The Great Movies IV

Add your best books here!

John wrote: "John Updike has an intriguing book in this theme.

Just Looking: Essays on Art

I believe the essays are formed around his museum visits. Eventually I will get to this one, as I have a..."

I'll look for this one, John. I love art museums EXCEPT after about 90 minutes I just hit a point of sensory overload and can't take much more. My wife can go on and on in her enjoyment of the displays. Our solution is that if there is a cafe or coffee shop in the museum then I can just hang out there unitl she wants to join me.

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard is probably my favorite history book of the last decade. She tells the story of Rome and the Roman Republic and explains in great detail how we know what we know and separates that from other "facts" that may or may not be true. It is history combined with historiography and I thought she did a great job of making the latter enjoyable. I will say that some of my friends enjoyed that aspect greatly and some did not.

It is well worth quoting the whole GR review here: "In SPQR, an instant classic, Mary Beard narrates the history of Rome "with passion and without technical jargon" and demonstrates how "a slightly shabby Iron Age village" rose to become the "undisputed hegemon of the Mediterranean" (Wall Street Journal). Hailed by critics as animating "the grand sweep and the intimate details that bring the distant past vividly to life" (Economist) in a way that makes "your hair stand on end" (Christian Science Monitor) and spanning nearly a thousand years of history, this "highly informative, highly readable" (Dallas Morning News) work examines not just how we think of ancient Rome but challenges the comfortable historical perspectives that have existed for centuries. With its nuanced attention to class, democratic struggles, and the lives of entire groups of people omitted from the historical narrative for centuries, SPQR will to shape our view of Roman history for decades to come."

Carol wrote: "Do you think a Chat thread would be nice, Larry? Thoughts are often prompted by book suggestions, or just general thoughts happen along. I feel it can make a group more cohesive, or there again, if..."

Carol,

I asked Sher to think about just that yesterday. It's mainly a matter of what we're going to call it!

Larry