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

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

As for driving America's roads, I recommend Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street by Rick Antonson. Rick Antonson and his long-time friend Peter look for all the roads of Route 66. As they do so, they travel through American's ever-changing main street. As I read, I experience something of the variety of that ever-changjng main street. Some black and white pictures included. my review

From Cynda

One of my original favorites is Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

A walking journey along the Appalachian Trail. By turns hilarious and serious, along with doing a great job of evoking the feeling of long hikes. Times flies — the particular journey took place nearly 25 years ago.

From John D

Please post books covering traveling or journeys through North America

Route 66 Still Kicks: Driving America's Main Street

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

John,
I have something to share regarding your excellent comments above...but I have to do it later today after a day's worth of barn work.

Late in your post I see you explain why that last book of Bloom's was rated so low. Glad to know that.

John wrote: "When I look at a book I just added to my current reading list, I like to click the prompt for all editions. If I cannot match up the edition I have, then I like to pick one out that is nicely done...."

Hi John-- That's a fun little detail about choosing editions. Carol recently posted a book that I moved through all the editions before finding a non-French edition. Sometimes a Kindle edition pulls up, and I try to make sure I have the print edition since I do not use Kindle. But, my choices are not informed by anything as whimsical and color oriented as your choices are. :)

Larry wrote: "Carol,

Do add both. Some of our readers use smartphones the GR app on those devices, as John says, just doesn't work well if its just the image.

Thanks.

Larry"


Hello Carol:
Yes, if possible please add both or the direct link without cover, because just the cover does not work well for folks who use their phones. I go back and forth between my phone and the laptop all day long... Phone when I am working down at barn, and laptop when up at house. I hope this helps.

I've got to ask -- how hard are you willing to work to "get" / understand a poem? Do you enjoy reading poems that have a list of footnotes? Do you look up allusions ? Definitions of unfamiliar words?

What if you read through a poem, and upon first read- it makes no sense at all--what do you do? Do you do more , if the poet is famous?

John,'When was this poem written? 1980s? or...

Would we call it post-modern?

Billy Collins's work gives me a deep smile. I like this poem because it covers so many possibilities-- could fish, but really fishing isn't what I do, here's what I do, and wow check out that alert rabbit- it's likely to jump off the canvas! Really fun, creative whimsical... very nice...

Cynda wrote: "We have had 3 travel or journey books mentioned in the last few posts. I have short list of such books I read this year and have more to read this year. Mods, might we have a journey or travel thre..."

Hi Cynda - I have added the Travel Journey folder. I will let Larry deal with the womens' threads. I'm not sure how to handle that complexity.

One of the things we are finding - if we have lots and lots of subcategories, it makes the lists so long- many topics will begin to be covered requiring folks to always have to scroll and work for finding the hidden areas. We are still looking at the categories and exploring ways to organize most clearly...

Please share your best books covering travel and journey writing here. All places-- all types of travel and journeys . The books can include photographic journeys too. A brief explanation as to why you recommended your book would be helpful.

John- that is an interesting tie to New Orleans I had not thought of. I still have not read Rice's book though I know it has great reviews consistently. I get close, but haven't taken the plunge...

I'm looking for what might be an unusual gift for a Christmas present to a family member. I need a book that looks at all the major social, economical, and cultural issues of the day and then breaks down the Conservative view (what would a conservative say about this) and then show the Liberal view (what would a liberal say about this).

Does anyone know of a book like this? I am not sure where to even begin, but I would think it was out there--preferable written by an Independent. :) Kidding.

Here is The New Yorker's Guide to the best music of 2020... I see Bob Dylan is making the grade...

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/202...

will you try something new in 2021?

I will try a Tim McGraw album and also the new Bob Dylan.

I needed to look up herit
transitive verb. 1a : to receive from an ancestor as a right or title descendible by law at the ancestor's death. b : to receive as a devise or legacy. 2 : to receive from a parent or ancestor by genetic transmission inherit a defective enzyme. merriam webster

I'd like to share w.s. Merwin's "Leviathan" 1956

I've now read more about this poem, but my first response was an appreciation for it raw physical power and the sense of vastness (like the ocean) and movement. Many images I find compelling even without looking at the Biblical references.

Leviathan


This is the black sea-brute bulling through wave-wrack,
Ancient as ocean's shifting hills, who in sea-toils
Travelling, who furrowing the salt acres
Heavily, his wake hoary behind him,
Shoulders spouting, the fist of his forehead
Over wastes gray-green crashing, among horses unbroken
From bellowing fields, past bone-wreck of vessels,
Tide-ruin, wash of lost bodies bobbing
No longer sought for, and islands of ice gleaming,
Who ravening the rank flood, wave-marshalling,
Overmastering the dark sea-marches, finds home
And harvest. Frightening to foolhardiest
Mariners, his size were difficult to describe:
The hulk of him is like hills heaving,
Dark, yet as crags of drift-ice, crowns cracking in thunder,
Like land's self by night black-looming, surf churning and trailing
Along his shores' rushing, shoal-water boding
About the dark of his jaws; and who should moor at his edge
And fare on afoot would find gates of no gardens,
But the hill of dark underfoot diving,
Closing overhead, the cold deep, and drowning.
He is called Leviathan, and named for rolling,
First created he was of all creatures,
He has held Jonah three days and nights,
He is that curling serpent that in ocean is,
Sea-fright he is, and the shadow under the earth.
Days there are, nonetheless, when he lies
Like an angel, although a lost angel
On the waste's unease, no eye of man moving,
Bird hovering, fish flashing, creature whatever
Who after him came to herit earth's emptiness.
Froth at flanks seething soothes to stillness,
Waits; with one eye he watches
Dark of night sinking last, with one eye dayrise
As at first over foaming pastures. He makes no cry
Though that light is a breath. The sea curling,
Star-climbed, wind-combed, cumbered with itself still
As at first it was, is the hand not yet contented
Of the Creator. And he waits for the world to begin.

I am 50% done with The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels

I like Jon Meacham's works, and this book is quite good. I am still formulating how I view it. It seems to be about challenges to democracy and how democracy has survived since the Republic was founded. So, far most of the American presidents are covered in relationship to their instilling of hope versus their efforts to tear down democratic institutions. Some of the history is very familiar to me, but there is enough new angle regarding how hope works in America that I am sticking with it. Plus the KKK is covered in detail and gives me much to reflect on. A lot going on in this book- a lot to think about.

You'll see there have been significant threats to democracy before--even attempts at coups, anarchy... terrifically helpful perspective in regards our present time in American government.

John,
Thank you. I need to read Don Juan; it's on my list. I am glad you gave me some more details about longer poems. I agree about Wallace Stevens as I can speak to his work. I think it is much more difficult to unpack his longer works versus his shorter works. I was reading recently that Wallace Stevens is considered a Modern Era (1901- 1945) poet, and that his work (and the others like Pound, Eliot, Yeats...) is characterized by layers of symbols versus meaning communicated directly, and that this is also what made poetry really daunting for many to read.

Hi John:
That's an excellent follow up for Orwell's Burmese Days, which I have read and liked very well. Someone might benefit from checking them both out...

I am posting this book here even though it is a memoir because it is totally place oriented and is a powerful look into place and culture.

From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey

Excellent.

Sher, I should qualify my comment on the long poem and say there are truly remarkable long poems that really do work. Omeros and Don Juan are two examples. But then I come upon long or longer poems by James Dickey or Wallace Stevens that don’t seem to work, despite their talents with shorter poems. Even A.R. Ammons, who has all these wonderful short poems, is mostly incomprehensible to me in his long poems.

Moved from another thread by Sher -- this is John D's post