What Are You Reading?

[Swede]

I've sought to understand the reasons for man's inhumanity to man. The only thing that's a degree of peace about it is "the love of money is the root of all evil".

 

[Blackhorse]

Gentlemen…let’s try to keep this thread close to its stated topic...what you’re reading. Politics, even non-partisan historical politics, is frowned upon.

 

[Swede]

Seeing that I got this started with the comment, my apologies.

 

[Zippo]

Beautifully said Nik, but none of us can be held responsible for the rights and wrongs done by our forebears. The trick is to learn from it and not repeat it.
I've been to America several times, and have found it to be an awesome country, with Americans being some of the most friendliest and hospitable people on the planet.England too is quilty of so many atrocities inflicted on others during our long history. But as we say British by birth, English by the grace of God.

 

[Zippo]

Sorry Blackhorse, I apologise.

Gentlemen…let’s try to keep this thread close to its stated topic...what you’re reading. Politics, even non-partisan historical politics, is frowned upon.

Sorry Blackhorse, I saw this too late, I apologise

 

[Blackhorse]

 

[Zippo]

"Nowhere in the world will such a brotherly feeling of confidence be experienced as amongst those who sit together smoking their pipes."
Dr. Barnstein
The Results and Merits of Tobacco.

 

[Zippo]

"When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked."
Herman Melville, Moby Dick

 

[Blackhorse]

“He took off his coat and waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Man With the Twisted Lip.

 

[Zippo]

"Oh, give me but Virginia's weed,
An earthen bowl, a stem of reed,
What care I for the weather?
Though winter freeze and summer broil
We rest us from our days of toil
My Pipe and I together!"

Hermann Rave, "The Ballad of the Pipe"

 

[Brewdude]

I'd seen the movie several times but never read the book until just now. Lots of detail and pretty incredible!




Cheers,

RR

 

[Book]

I do not wish to distract from the thread or the forum, but I say bravo to Blackhorse and Zippo. Conversing in literary quotation and reference is profoundly admirable and, all too often, a lost art in this day and age.

For my part, I have just read Jim Butcher's latest addition to the Dresden Files series, The Law, and have been re-reading Peace Talks and Battle Ground to refresh my memory about the series.

If you happen to like detective noir and fantasy novels, I highly recommend Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. (Storm Front is the first book in the series.) There is also a rather admirable (though all too brief) telesvision series based (loosely) on the books starring Paul Blackthorne.

From the forum posts, I see that some of you already know about the novels and the television series, so I'm mentioning it just in case someone has not yet run across it.

 

[Blackhorse]

I do not wish to distract from the thread or the forum, but I say bravo to Blackhorse and Zippo. Conversing in literary quotation and reference is profoundly admirable and, all too often, a lost art in this day and age.

For my part, I have just read Jim Butcher's latest addition to the Dresden Files series, The Law, and have been re-reading Peace Talks and Battle Ground to refresh my memory about the series.

If you happen to like detective noir and fantasy novels, I highly recommend Jim Butcher's Dresden Files. (Storm Front is the first book in the series.) There is also a rather admirable (though all too brief) telesvision series based (loosely) on the books starring Paul Blackthorne.

From the forum posts, I see that some of you already know about the novels and the television series, so I'm mentioning it just in case someone has not yet run across it.

Hey Book…read ‘em all, at least I think so. My son and I share in the appreciation of a specific scene…forget which book. But in it Dresden is “invited” to a vampire (all the nastiest and most influential local vamps are there) ball and goes…sneaks in…with one if his cohorts. Now the good part: he makes a grand entrance by stepping out onto a balcony in full view if the entire assemblage…dressed in a powder blue tux with “cheesy vampire” makeup…a daring and extreme insult to all the crowd. Anyway, the author builds everything up to that point with consummate skill so that Dresden’s arrival dressed as the cheesy vampire is shockingly and stupidly hilarious. It’s absolutely one of the funniest scenes ever written, at least to me.

 

[Zippo]

Because I love the soothing weed
And am of sober type,
I'd choose me for a friend in need
A man who smokes a pipe.
A cove who hasn't much to say,
And spits into the fire,
Puffing like me a pipe of clay,
Corn-cob or briar.

A chap original of thought,
With cheery point of view,
Who has of gumption quite a lot,
And streaks of humour too.
He need not be a whiskered sage,
With wisdom over-ripe:
Just give me in the old of age
A pal who smokes a pipe.

A cigarette may make for wit,
Although I like it not;
A good cigar, I must admit,
Gives dignity to thought.
But as my glass of grog I sip
I never, never gripe
If I have for companionship
A guy who smokes a pipe.

"The Pipe Smoker"
Robert Service

 

[Blackhorse]

Warming coffee
Slice of cake
Favored pipe
Navy flake
Wooden matches
Ember glow
Trusted tamper
Thoughts to grow

 

[Zippo]

“The fact is, squire, the moment a man takes to a pipe, he becomes a philosopher. It’s the poor man’s friend; it calms the mind, soothes the temper, and makes a man patient under difficulties. It has made more good men, good husbands, kind masters, indulgent fathers, than any other blessed thing on this universal earth.”
-Sam Slick, the clockmaker

 

[Brewdude]

Maybe the 3rd or 4th time I've read this. Arguably one of King's finest.





Cheers,

RR

 

[Brewdude]

Fantastic true story of one mans successful escape from the penal colony of French Guiana.




Cheers,

RR

 

[DWSmith]

Sounds a bit like the movie Papillon but I think that movie was based upon the book Papillon.

 

[Brewdude]

Sounds a bit like the movie Papillon but I think that movie was based upon the book Papillon.

Correctomundo.


Cheers,

RR