Areala Asks: About Books (20160422)

[E-Day]

Moving on from superpowers to books. Tally ho!!

This week on "Areala Asks" the red-headed wonder of the convent has a multi-part question for you concerning books. You remember books, don't you? Those masterfully-constructed, processed tree corpses filled with things like 'words' and 'dangerous ideas' and such? I thought so. You are SO intelligent, loyal minions!

So, before you from this thread can flee

Answer, you must, these questions three:

1 - What is the best book you ever read, and what makes it so? (If you can't narrow it down to one, feel free to list two or three. You won't get extra credit, but you WILL appear extra smart to everyone else, and that's important!)

2 - What is the worst book you ever read, and what makes it so? (Again, if you can't narrow it down to the absolute worst, just toss out a couple you absolutely hated for some reason. My guess is most of these will fall into the 'had to read it for school' category, and that's totally understandable. Most of mine sure do. But even more amusing are the ones you just kept reading because 'it has to get better eventually, right...?')

3 - What is the one book you've always meant to read but have yet to get around to doing so, and why not? (We all have this one, right? I mean, you know you should read it, everyone else has talked about it, maybe you even saw the movie it was based on and just love the story, but for whatever reason, you just haven't picked it up yet. Talk about that here.)

The question shall remain open from now until 5pm EST on Friday, April 29th, when yet another brain-twisting question shall arise. I cannot WAIT to see what everyone says here. You can tell an awful lot about a person by what they like and dislike to read.

*huggles*

Areala

1. Best book as far as my enjoyment goes, in fiction it is "Sphere" by Michael Crichton. "Jurassic Park" was also hella good. I enjoyed the science in Sphere, as well as the sci-fi elements and the suspense. The end of each chapter made you eager to start the next one. Most of his books were good for that. For non-fiction, the one that jumps out at me is one I read recently and that has been talked about on here, "Console Wars". I really enjoyed everything about that book.

2. Worst book: all of the William Shakespeare stuff we had to read in high school. I only actually read "The Taming of the Shrew". It was so annoying that after that I only read the Coles Notes for the rest of the Shakespeare stuff in the rest of high school (Canadian Content Warning: Coles Notes were sold at Coles bookstores in Canada, and are currently sold at all bookstores owned by Chapters/Indigo. In the US they are called CliffsNotes, as the U.S. rights were sold to Cliff Hillegass in 1958). Having to constantly check the footnotes to figure out what every other word or phrase meant made it difficult to follow along and figure out what was actually happening.

Most of the stuff we had to read in high school was terrible, or at least nothing I was interested in. It might be because of the fact that we were reading stuff for the purpose of analyzing it to death instead of just reading for readings sake.

3. The book I always meant to read is one I actually did read. In high school. It's called "Fifth Business" by Canadian author Robertson Davies. We read it in the final year of high school. I do not remember it except for one scene. Our teacher told us that we would not get most of it at the time, but would get it when we were adults. My first question was why are we bothering to read it now if we won't get it? But I have been meaning to read it again for the first time now to see if in fact the book would make sense to me as an adult and if I would "get it", or if it's just another piece or dreck that we were subjected to in high school.

[te72]

I've lived in Japan for over 8 years and names are still the most difficult things for me to remember to the point where I've almost stopped even trying. If someone has a name that is also a word that means something, I can remember it pretty easily. Ah, her name is Shizuka...just like the word for "quiet" (regardless of whether it uses the same kanji) - I can remember that! But when a name is just a name it's way too easy for all of the Masakis, Misakis, Masatos, Misatos, Kentas and Kentos etc. to become jumbled in my mind. It also doesn't help that I interact with about 1500 people on a weekly basis lol.

I'm rather curious, if you don't mind my asking, but what is it that you do that you interact with so many in a week?

Also, fun when someone's name can mean a few different things, depending on how you want to read the kanji, isn't it?

I'm surprised to see The Hobbit show up as somebody's least-favorite book, not just because I love it but because it takes some serious guts to admit a dislike for that or Lord of the Rings in public. I'm going to guess, based on your description, that the book you had to read was possibly Brave New World by Huxley. It gets assigned frequently in schools, and includes ideas on genetic manipulation and reproduction technology so as to produce people who are more alike than they are dissimilar, and was written in the 1930s.

*huggles*

Areala

Don't get me wrong, I love the story, I just could never seem to finish the book. Blame the attention span, perhaps? I can't tell you how many times I watched the Rankin & Bass cartoon back when I was a kid, and I loved the Jackson films. Some day when the power goes out, I'll need to read through the LOTR books.

You nailed it with your guess, it was Brave New World. Honestly, the ideas were fantastic, but the writing style irked me for whatever reason. Perhaps it was just the timing, I was really into Star Wars novels at the time (late 90's), the DOOM novelizations, things of that nature. Huxley was ahead of his time, for science fiction tends to only stay fiction for so long... we're starting to see some of his ideas become reality.

Haruki Murakami. He was conspicuously skipped in all the Japanese literature courses I took. Apparently his writing has been criticized in Japan as being "non-Japanese," so maybe that's why?

Anything on that list that a layperson would know?

1. Best book as far as my enjoyment goes, in fiction it is "Sphere" by Michael Crichton. "Jurassic Park" was also hella good. I enjoyed the science in Sphere, as well as the sci-fi elements and the suspense. The end of each chapter made you eager to start the next one. Most of his books were good for that. For non-fiction, the one that jumps out at me is one I read recently and that has been talked about on here, "Console Wars". I really enjoyed everything about that book.

2. Worst book: all of the William Shakespeare stuff we had to read in high school. I only actually read "The Taming of the Shrew". It was so annoying that after that I only read the Coles Notes for the rest of the Shakespeare stuff in the rest of high school (Canadian Content Warning: Coles Notes were sold at Coles bookstores in Canada, and are currently sold at all bookstores owned by Chapters/Indigo. In the US they are called CliffsNotes, as the U.S. rights were sold to Cliff Hillegass in 1958). Having to constantly check the footnotes to figure out what every other word or phrase meant made it difficult to follow along and figure out what was actually happening.

Speaking of sci-fi that I loved, Crichton... I read Jurassic Park when I was 9, and absolutely loved it. Can't say I understood all of it, the bits on genetics were a bit over the head of a young me, but I grasped enough to keep going.I know I read JP,, The Lost World, Sphere, Eaters of the Dead, and Congo.

Also of note, speaking of monsters and animal based horror stories, The Beast, by Peter Benchley. Rather enjoyed that one too. No surprise, seeing as how much I liked the Jaws movies as a kid, and he wrote the book...

I can't say I ever read any Shakespeare, but I will say this much: his stories make for some rather good TV, when done right. Example off the top of my head, Sons of Anarchy. Not to spoil anything, but it's basically Macbeth. Everybody is scheming, almost everybody dies, and well... it's how they get there that makes it interesting. Plus, you'll never look at Katey Segal the same, ever again.

[kitsunebi]

I don't have one particular book, but I do have a particular author. Yukio Mishima is a fascinating person from what little I've read about his life, and I have a number of his books, I just have yet to start any of them. Maybe he will be part of my vacation reading project this year.

Definitely a case where knowledge of the author will inform how you interpret his works. I've only read The Sound of Waves and Spring Snow. Both were a long time ago, so I can't say I remember either very well. But I wrote a paper on The Sound of Waves that I still have around, so I can confirm that it can be read as an allegory for his politics (still, my instincts tell me I would recommend Spring Snow out of the two of them.) Of all the "classic" Japanese writers, I prefer Junichiro Tanizaki, although I wouldn't consider any of his works particularly exciting reads.

I'm rather curious, if you don't mind my asking, but what is it that you do that you interact with so many in a week?

I'm an elementary school English teacher. But I teach all the kids from grades 1-6...at eight different schools lol. Soooo many similar-sounding names. It's HOPELESS! Thank god for name tags.

[te72]

I'm an elementary school English teacher. But I teach all the kids from grades 1-6...at eight different schools lol. Soooo many similar-sounding names. It's HOPELESS! Thank god for name tags.

Oh wow man... Not to derail the thread in an off-topic section, but the logistics of that must be rather hectic. Or did you figure out how to clone yourself?

Areala, Long Walk sounds interesting, but as someone who has done a fair bit of walking and running over the years, I would think that even the strongest distance runners are going to run out of steam within a couple days, no? I know keeping a 4mph pace, even with my lengthy (for a person of medium height) stride would wear me out within a few hours...

[Areala]

Areala, Long Walk sounds interesting, but as someone who has done a fair bit of walking and running over the years, I would think that even the strongest distance runners are going to run out of steam within a couple days, no? I know keeping a 4mph pace, even with my lengthy (for a person of medium height) stride would wear me out within a few hours...

Being a runner myself, that is the only thing I actually think is wrong with the book. If King had said 3mph as opposed to 4, I think it would be easier to buy. Four miles per hour is just a step below running, and for the amount of conversation the guys partake in, having them half-jogging down the eastern seaboard of the US at 4mph at the same time is ridiculous to anyone who's done any amount of running, or just hops on a treadmill for the first time and realizes that 4mph is pretty fricking fast, all things considered.

Personally, I think 3mph is a much better speed for them to maintain than 4mph for realism's sake, but yeah, that's a significant flaw of the book.

*huggles*

Areala

[marktrade]

Four miles per hour is just a step below running, and for the amount of conversation the guys partake in, having them half-jogging down the eastern seaboard of the US at 4mph at the same time is ridiculous to anyone who's done any amount of running,

I've been in a 100-mile ultramarathon through a state forest trail and can tell you people are conversant all through the race running faster than 4mph. During the latter half of the race, when you're running through the night, it's almost necessary to talk just to maintain your sanity. At this point you're allowed a pacer, someone to come in from outside the race and run alongside you to help you stay focused. It's not uncommon for runners to have hallucinations or for pacers to report that their runners were carrying on a conversation with someone who wasn't there. I didn't fully hallucinate but I did start to see shapes and patterns in the trees and grass that looked like big animals or people, when I could tell it was just grass. It was years ago and I had many scary thoughts that night that I have since forgotten. Sounds like a scary book to me!

[Sean697]

Scans magazines at an ungodly rate, runs 100 mile marathons. Your really a superhero arent you. I never could understand how people could complete that kind of run.mits pretty insane.

Edited April 26, 2016 by Sean697

[kitsunebi]

Oh wow man... Not to derail the thread in an off-topic section, but the logistics of that must be rather hectic. Or did you figure out how to clone yourself?

Hectic? I guess. I mean, sometimes I go to 2 schools in a day and I obviously don't teach every single student at each school each time I go - I rotate through the classes and end up teaching 5th and 6th grade more often than 1st or 2nd for example. But that doesn't mean I'm not surrounded by 1500 different kids each week in and out of the classroom. They all know my name, but I'm just one guy. Being kids, they don't have any understanding of why I might not know all of their names as well.

To keep this relevant to books, I'm gonna recommend a book I saw at work today. It's a tale of mystery and intrigue called Who pooped?! or About the little mole who wanted to know who pooped on his head (the original German title.) I haven't read it yet, but it gets my highest recommendation and I guarantee it will be the best book about a mole with poop on its head that you've ever read in your entire life.

[Areala]

I've been in a 100-mile ultramarathon through a state forest trail and can tell you people are conversant all through the race running faster than 4mph. During the latter half of the race, when you're running through the night, it's almost necessary to talk just to maintain your sanity. At this point you're allowed a pacer, someone to come in from outside the race and run alongside you to help you stay focused. It's not uncommon for runners to have hallucinations or for pacers to report that their runners were carrying on a conversation with someone who wasn't there. I didn't fully hallucinate but I did start to see shapes and patterns in the trees and grass that looked like big animals or people, when I could tell it was just grass. It was years ago and I had many scary thoughts that night that I have since forgotten. Sounds like a scary book to me!

You're right. I should have qualified that I meant ordinary people trying to maintain a conversation at 4mph speeds. If you're training for ultramarathons or distance running, yeah, you're gonna have the kind of cardio system that allows you to maintain a conversation at that speed. But the kids in the book aren't like that. Most of them are in decent shape simply by virtue of being young, but there's a big difference between "Yeah, I did 100 miles in a non-stop marathon last weekend" and "I ran a half-mile for my phys ed. class in seven minutes last year."

*huggles*

Areala

[te72]

I've been in a 100-mile ultramarathon through a state forest trail and can tell you people are conversant all through the race running faster than 4mph. During the latter half of the race, when you're running through the night, it's almost necessary to talk just to maintain your sanity. At this point you're allowed a pacer, someone to come in from outside the race and run alongside you to help you stay focused. It's not uncommon for runners to have hallucinations or for pacers to report that their runners were carrying on a conversation with someone who wasn't there. I didn't fully hallucinate but I did start to see shapes and patterns in the trees and grass that looked like big animals or people, when I could tell it was just grass. It was years ago and I had many scary thoughts that night that I have since forgotten. Sounds like a scary book to me!

I uh... have no words man. One hundred miles? As in, one hundred miles in one go? That's ridiculous... where do you find time to recharge? I mean, that must burn calories like crazy. I've heard of eating on the run before, but sheesh...

Hectic? I guess. I mean, sometimes I go to 2 schools in a day and I obviously don't teach every single student at each school each time I go - I rotate through the classes and end up teaching 5th and 6th grade more often than 1st or 2nd for example. But that doesn't mean I'm not surrounded by 1500 different kids each week in and out of the classroom. They all know my name, but I'm just one guy. Being kids, they don't have any understanding of why I might not know all of their names as well.

To keep this relevant to books, I'm gonna recommend a book I saw at work today. It's a tale of mystery and intrigue called Who pooped?! or About the little mole who wanted to know who pooped on his head (the original German title.) I haven't read it yet, but it gets my highest recommendation and I guarantee it will be the best book about a mole with poop on its head that you've ever read in your entire life.

Now that sounds like my kind of book! I don't know much German (at all), but this makes a lot of jokes about scat porn make a LOT more sense now, if this is what their kids are reading.

Also, it's easy for us adults to forget that children don't usually understand logistics. Definitely puts things into perspective, interacting with them. My niece is always a bit interesting in how she sees the world.

You're right. I should have qualified that I meant ordinary people trying to maintain a conversation at 4mph speeds. If you're training for ultramarathons or distance running, yeah, you're gonna have the kind of cardio system that allows you to maintain a conversation at that speed. But the kids in the book aren't like that. Most of them are in decent shape simply by virtue of being young, but there's a big difference between "Yeah, I did 100 miles in a non-stop marathon last weekend" and "I ran a half-mile for my phys ed. class in seven minutes last year."

*huggles*

Areala

Proud to say that in high school, I was cracking well into the 6 minute range for a full mile, long as it was in the gym. Gym floor was kinda rubbery, and I had traction. Can't tell you how many times I've fallen on my ass trying to run too fast but not having the traction...

Then again, this was at a time in my life that I was living in Arizona. Roughly at 2000' elevation, I was playing soccer and skateboarding almost daily. Up here where I live now, we're at 6500'. I think I'd be pretty happy to be in the 7-8 minute range for a mile now, darn thin air.

Still... 100 miles just boggles my mind. Even for an animal, a literal, not of the human variety animal, 100 miles is a loooooong way.

[marktrade]

Scans magazines at an ungodly rate, runs 100 mile marathons. Your really a superhero arent you. I never could understand how people could complete that kind of run.mits pretty insane.

Well I haven't been scanning much lately. And that 100-mile run really was an experience that I don't plan to repeat (I think I'll just stick to double marathons and 100km runs, lol).

You're right. I should have qualified that I meant ordinary people trying to maintain a conversation at 4mph speeds. If you're training for ultramarathons or distance running, yeah, you're gonna have the kind of cardio system that allows you to maintain a conversation at that speed. But the kids in the book aren't like that. Most of them are in decent shape simply by virtue of being young, but there's a big difference between "Yeah, I did 100 miles in a non-stop marathon last weekend" and "I ran a half-mile for my phys ed. class in seven minutes last year."

*huggles*

Areala

Sounds like a very grim book indeed, then.

I uh... have no words man. One hundred miles? As in, one hundred miles in one go? That's ridiculous... where do you find time to recharge? I mean, that must burn calories like crazy. I've heard of eating on the run before, but sheesh...

There are races that are even longer. The Spartathlon, which traces the original steps of Pheidippides from the Battle of Marathon to Sparta, is 153 miles. Humanity has a forgotten history of traveling very long distances on foot. Many of the unique physical traits that humanity evolved make distance running easier, like long legs relative to body mass, longer tendons, more active perspiration which along with reduced body hair dissipates heat more efficiently than other mammals, etc. A cheetah is faster over shorter distances but it gets tired faster as well. We don't have to travel long distances on foot to outrun our caribou dinner anymore so we forgot that we're really good at it.

[te72]

There are races that are even longer. The Spartathlon, which traces the original steps of Pheidippides from the Battle of Marathon to Sparta, is 153 miles. Humanity has a forgotten history of traveling very long distances on foot. Many of the unique physical traits that humanity evolved make distance running easier, like long legs relative to body mass, longer tendons, more active perspiration which along with reduced body hair dissipates heat more efficiently than other mammals, etc. A cheetah is faster over shorter distances but it gets tired faster as well. We don't have to travel long distances on foot to outrun our caribou dinner anymore so we forgot that we're really good at it.

All good points, not something I would imagine that is common knowledge these days though. I'd be curious how I would do if I got myself back into running-running condition at this altitude, then go down to sea level and see how I do... This mountain air is tough on the body, but definitely builds stamina.