your last five novels - Page 2 - Fantasy Sports Forums

Pengwin7 · #11 12-10-2012, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by icevenom

Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)

I read that one. Didn't really care for it.
I was annoyed that there were so many discussions that Albom chose to write about... and so few about the man's family.
It was almost as if Albom was the most important person in that man's life.
Meh.

DerekReese · #12 12-10-2012, 12:57 PM

I dont really have time to sit down with a good book but here are my last 5:
Have a Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks By Mick Foley
Lightning By Dean Koontz
Private Parts By Howerd Stern
Dont Stand too close to a Naked Man By Tim Allen
If They Only Knew - By Chyna

Dakkster · #13 12-10-2012, 02:02 PM

Those of you who have read Atlas Shrugged (or The Fountainhead for that matter), how the **** do you stomach Rand's horrendously bad prose? That's not even getting into her ridiculously stupid philosophy, but I really tried reading those novels and her characterization and dialogue is just off the charts worthless. And the 70+ page speech by John Galt? Come oooooon!

Dakkster · #14 12-10-2012, 02:15 PM

My last 5 books were...

The Fault in our Stars, by John Green (of vlogbrothers fame on youtube): 5/5, fiction, completely awesome about surviving and living with cancer while still being funny and thoughtful.

Blackwater, by Jeremy Scahill: 4/5, nonfiction, exposé on the private army Blackwater (they've change their name to something else now...) that is just baffling and disgusting

The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein: 5/5, nonfiction, even more baffling on how the Chicago school of economics is ****ing over the world in many ways

Halo Glasslands, by Karen Traviss: 3/5, fiction, one of the tie-in books that kind of sets up Halo 4. your standard action sci-fi fare

One Day, by Chris Nichols: 5/5, fiction, it's a romcom that touches a lot of nerves if you like that kind of stuff. makes you laugh, makes you cry, really cleverly written at times. every chapter is the same date, only one year forward, and you plop down for whatever happens in the lives of the main characters at that particular day each year.

spitball · #15 12-10-2012, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dakkster

My last 5 books were...

The Fault in our Stars, by John Green (of vlogbrothers fame on youtube): 5/5, fiction, completely awesome about surviving and living with cancer while still being funny and thoughtful.

Blackwater, by Jeremy Scahill: 4/5, nonfiction, exposé on the private army Blackwater (they've change their name to something else now...) that is just baffling and disgusting

The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein: 5/5, nonfiction, even more baffling on how the Chicago school of economics is ****ing over the world in many ways

Halo Glasslands, by Karen Traviss: 3/5, fiction, one of the tie-in books that kind of sets up Halo 4. your standard action sci-fi fare

One Day, by Chris Nichols: 5/5, fiction, it's a romcom that touches a lot of nerves if you like that kind of stuff. makes you laugh, makes you cry, really cleverly written at times. every chapter is the same date, only one year forward, and you plop down for whatever happens in the lives of the main characters at that particular day each year.

agree, Shock Doctrine 5/5. helps me understand the mindset that creates a term like 'fiscal cliff'.

this book, The Drunkard's Walk; (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/bo...e6mZLYnqLpVzeg), has some great insights about randomness. can help ease the pain after totally pooching a hockey draft.

spitball · #16 12-10-2012, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dakkster

Those of you who have read Atlas Shrugged (or The Fountainhead for that matter), how the **** do you stomach Rand's horrendously bad prose? That's not even getting into her ridiculously stupid philosophy, but I really tried reading those novels and her characterization and dialogue is just off the charts worthless. And the 70+ page speech by John Galt? Come oooooon!

from Gore Vidal (http://www.esquire.com/features/gore...comment-0761);

Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read. She has just published a book, For the New Intellectual, subtitled The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; it is a collection of pensées and arias from her novels and it must be read to be believed. Herewith, a few excerpts from the Rand collection.

• “It was the morality of altruism that undercut American and is now destroying her.”

• “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequence of freedom…or the primordial morality of altruism with its consequences of slavery, etc.”

• Then from one of her arias for heldentenor: “I am done with the monster of ‘we,’ the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”

• “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself.”

• “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.”

• “The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral….”

This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the “freedom is slavery” sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her “philosophy,” but the size of her audience (in my campaign for the House she was the one writer people knew and talked about). She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the “welfare” state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you’re dumb or incompetent that’s your lookout.

She is fighting two battles: the first, against the idea of the State being anything more than a police force and a judiciary to restrain people from stealing each other’s money openly. She is in legitimate company here. There is a reactionary position which has many valid attractions, among them lean, sinewy, regular-guy Barry Goldwater. But it is Miss Rand’s second battle that is the moral one. She has declared war not only on Marx but on Christ. Now, although my own enthusiasm for the various systems evolved in the names of those two figures is limited, I doubt if even the most anti-Christian free-thinker would want to deny the ethical value of Christ in the Gospels. To reject that Christ is to embark on dangerous waters indeed. For to justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. For one thing, it is gratuitous to advise any human being to look out for himself. You can be sure that he will. It is far more difficult to persuade him to help his neighbor to build a dam or to defend a town or to give food he has accumulated to the victims of a famine. But since we must live together, dependent upon one another for many things and services, altruism is necessary to survival. To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy. That it is right to help someone less fortunate is an idea which ahs figured in most systems of conduct since the beginning of the race. We often fail. That predatory demon “I” is difficult to contain but until now we have all agreed that to help others is a right action. Now the dictionary definition of “moral” is: “concerned with the distinction between right and wrong” as in “moral law, the requirements to which right action must conform.” Though Miss Rand’s grasp of logic is uncertain, she does realize that to make even a modicum of sense she must change all the terms. Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life a right action is consideration for the welfare of others. In the one case, through a state which was to wither away, in the other through the private exercise of the moral sense. Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society. Moral values are in flux. The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum. There are storm warnings ahead. But to counter trolls and Caesars, we have such men as Lewis Mumford whose new book, The City in History, inspires. He traces the growth of communities from Neolithic to present times. He is wise. He is moral: that is, he favors right action and he believes it possible for us to make things better for us (not “me”!). He belongs to the currently unfashionable line of makers who believe that if something is wrong it can be made right, whether a faulty water main or a faulty idea. May he flourish!

or simply this; Rolling Stone: Have you ever read Ayn Rand?

President Obama: Sure.

Rolling Stone: What do you think Paul Ryan's obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?

President Obama: Well, you'd have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity -– that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a 'you're on your own' society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

doulos · #17 12-10-2012, 03:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pengwin7

I actually got back into reading this year thanks to my wife's Kindle.

(current), 1. The Twelve (Justin Cronin), 4/5 stars. This is the 2nd of an intended trilogy. I love the way it jumps between time presence and characters. Very enjoyable.

3. The Passage (Justin Cronin), 5/5 stars. Awesome. Loved everything about this book. Story, characters, timelines, oh soooo good.

I also just started The Twelve this weekend (my name finally was next on the library list...) and LOVED The Passage. I imagine that I will fly through the Twelve quite quickly.

Dakkster · #18 12-10-2012, 03:36 PM

I've already gone balls deep into objectivism and Ayn Rand and her life. I know way too much about her. What I want to know is what regular people see in her pathetic excuses for books. Throw away her rhetoric and philosophy and replace it with anything and she still writes just about the worst prose in the 20th century. I want to know how people get over that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by spitball

from Gore Vidal (http://www.esquire.com/features/gore...comment-0761);

Ayn Rand is a rhetorician who writes novels I have never been able to read. She has just published a book, For the New Intellectual, subtitled The Philosophy of Ayn Rand; it is a collection of pensées and arias from her novels and it must be read to be believed. Herewith, a few excerpts from the Rand collection.

• “It was the morality of altruism that undercut American and is now destroying her.”

• “Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society. Today, the conflict has reached its ultimate climax; the choice is clear-cut: either a new morality of rational self-interest, with its consequence of freedom…or the primordial morality of altruism with its consequences of slavery, etc.”

• Then from one of her arias for heldentenor: “I am done with the monster of ‘we,’ the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame. And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: ‘I.’”

• “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself.”

• “To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men.”

• “The creed of sacrifice is a morality for the immoral….”

This odd little woman is attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the “freedom is slavery” sort. What interests me most about her is not the absurdity of her “philosophy,” but the size of her audience (in my campaign for the House she was the one writer people knew and talked about). She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the “welfare” state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you’re dumb or incompetent that’s your lookout.

She is fighting two battles: the first, against the idea of the State being anything more than a police force and a judiciary to restrain people from stealing each other’s money openly. She is in legitimate company here. There is a reactionary position which has many valid attractions, among them lean, sinewy, regular-guy Barry Goldwater. But it is Miss Rand’s second battle that is the moral one. She has declared war not only on Marx but on Christ. Now, although my own enthusiasm for the various systems evolved in the names of those two figures is limited, I doubt if even the most anti-Christian free-thinker would want to deny the ethical value of Christ in the Gospels. To reject that Christ is to embark on dangerous waters indeed. For to justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. For one thing, it is gratuitous to advise any human being to look out for himself. You can be sure that he will. It is far more difficult to persuade him to help his neighbor to build a dam or to defend a town or to give food he has accumulated to the victims of a famine. But since we must live together, dependent upon one another for many things and services, altruism is necessary to survival. To get people to do needed things is the perennial hard task of government, not to mention of religion and philosophy. That it is right to help someone less fortunate is an idea which ahs figured in most systems of conduct since the beginning of the race. We often fail. That predatory demon “I” is difficult to contain but until now we have all agreed that to help others is a right action. Now the dictionary definition of “moral” is: “concerned with the distinction between right and wrong” as in “moral law, the requirements to which right action must conform.” Though Miss Rand’s grasp of logic is uncertain, she does realize that to make even a modicum of sense she must change all the terms. Both Marx and Christ agree that in this life a right action is consideration for the welfare of others. In the one case, through a state which was to wither away, in the other through the private exercise of the moral sense. Miss Rand now tells us that what we have thought was right is really wrong. The lesson should have read: One for one and none for all.

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society. Moral values are in flux. The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum. There are storm warnings ahead. But to counter trolls and Caesars, we have such men as Lewis Mumford whose new book, The City in History, inspires. He traces the growth of communities from Neolithic to present times. He is wise. He is moral: that is, he favors right action and he believes it possible for us to make things better for us (not “me”!). He belongs to the currently unfashionable line of makers who believe that if something is wrong it can be made right, whether a faulty water main or a faulty idea. May he flourish!

or simply this; Rolling Stone: Have you ever read Ayn Rand?

President Obama: Sure.

Rolling Stone: What do you think Paul Ryan's obsession with her work would mean if he were vice president?

President Obama: Well, you'd have to ask Paul Ryan what that means to him. Ayn Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we'd pick up. Then, as we get older, we realize that a world in which we're only thinking about ourselves and not thinking about anybody else, in which we're considering the entire project of developing ourselves as more important than our relationships to other people and making sure that everybody else has opportunity -– that that's a pretty narrow vision. It's not one that, I think, describes what's best in America. Unfortunately, it does seem as if sometimes that vision of a 'you're on your own' society has consumed a big chunk of the Republican Party.

HockeyProphet · #19 12-10-2012, 06:42 PM

I guess you'd never know your opinion about her writing or philosophy if you never read it. And the fact that Obama is being asked about it, Ryan was influenced by it and Vidal was commenting on it: makes it something worthwhile to read and allows you to join the discussion.

**Also being in law school has lowered my need for well written prose. Read Canadian Tax Law 2012, and your opinion may change about Rand hah

Dakkster · #20 12-10-2012, 07:39 PM

The only reason I've read her shit is so that I know what kind of BS ideas born-again capitalists get and where they get them from. In her non-fiction texts she uses intellectual dishonesty all the time, frequently re-defining words to suit her rhetorical needs.

The fact that she has gotten such a highly regarded standing is proof of one thing only and that's that greed rules. Objectivism and her novels are the epitome of selfishness. She calls selfishness a virtue and altruism the worst thing in the world. She was a sociopath, bitter from having her family's riches taken by communists, and most of the people who spend their lives figuring out ways to steal other people's money on Wall Street are also sociopaths.

The fact that her lover (Greenspan) became probably the single most powerful man in banking just goes to show what greed makes some people do.

Obama was asked about it simply because his opponent's VP candidate still hasn't gotten over the usual Ayn Rand hard-on some guys get when their ignorant boobs who don't understand how the world works. Yeah, let's privatize everything. That'll work well...

It still doesn't address my question: How the **** do all those people overlook her extremely bad prose? And I'm talking about the people who read Atlas Shrugged without it being course literature.

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