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Books and Beer

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Post by Mick Sawyer Sun 03 Jan 2010, 02:13

I've just finished Lincoln Hall's account of the first successful Australian ascent of Everest titled "White Limbo". The climb was completed in 1984 up the north face, without oxygen & with only 5 climbers in the team.
One of the two who got to the top later became the first to make the first full climb of the mountain. He walked from the ocean in the Bay of Bengal to the top of the world, alone and without oxygen from base camp up.
Tough guys!
Mick Sawyer
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Post by furriner Sat 13 Feb 2010, 03:32

Not beer, but hey.

S'okay, Doubtless I will find it much improved as I drink more.

Books and Beer - Page 7 Perrin%20et%20Fils%20Cotes%20du%20Rhone%20Villages%202007
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Post by DJ_Smerk Sat 13 Feb 2010, 04:48

I've just finished reading Nineteen Eighty Four.


No Victory Gin though. sook
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Post by simkat Sat 13 Feb 2010, 05:44

I've got Nineteen Eight Four on the go at the moment. I'm reading it in conjunction with other books which probably isn't the best way to go about it.

Last time I was in this thread I was reading "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor. Since then I've read "World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, The Nazis and the West" by Laurence Rees which was a very good book, Armageddon by Max Hastings which was also very good but I was trying to read it during Christmas, school holidays and family issues so I'm not sure I got as much out of it as I could have. I think there were a few chapters there that I read just for the sake of reading something.

I'm currently reading "Human Smoke: The Beginning of World War II and the End of Civilization" by Nicholson Baker. I'm only 50 pages in but already I would say it's one of the most extraordinary war related books I've ever read. It's not a story narrative, analysis or essay but a near chronological collection of interrelated quotes, speeches, decisions, diary entries etc that lead towards the Holocaust. So far every page - and just about every piece - has given me goosebumps. If it keeps going like this, I don't think I'll be the same person when I finish it.
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Post by DJ_Smerk Sat 13 Feb 2010, 13:54

I've ordered Chuck Palahuik's Survivor and another Orwell book based on his life on the streets of London and Paris.
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Post by furriner Mon 15 Feb 2010, 03:07

I stumbled across this poem by Larkin, re-read it after many years.

The subject is death, it frankly out and out terrifies me.

It's frightening from the fifth line Unresting death, a whole day nearer now, and gets progressively scarier.

I've never read anything that described death half as well, or managed to evoke so many fears as this.

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
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Post by simkat Wed 17 Feb 2010, 04:17

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood


This bit was chilling. Very accurate description of when you're on the precipice.
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Post by furriner Sat 13 Mar 2010, 04:02

Expensive, but ...meh.

Books and Beer - Page 7 1054198x
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Post by simkat Mon 28 Jun 2010, 05:22

Earlier this year I watched the Band of Brothers DVD set, read the book then watched the DVDs again. Since then I've read:

"The D-Day Companion: Leading Historians Explore History's Greatest Amphibious Assault" which was a good read, if not somewhat repetitive.

"The Pacific" by Hugh Ambrose. I enjoyed BofB so I thought this one would be good too but it turned out to be the worst book I've read in years. The structure was terrible and I felt no affinity between the author and the characters. About three-quarters of the way through I thought I would rather poke a stick in my eye than read another page so I turfed it.

And thank goodness too because 'Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar' by Simon Sebag Montefiore was the next book I turned to and it was a cracker. I wish Montefiore had written the Third Reich trilogy rather than Richard J Evans. The content was similar but much more readable - and being a non-academic I really appreciate that!

After that I read "Berlin - The Downfall 1945" by Antony Beevor and 'Their Darkest Hour: People Tested To The Extreme In WWII' by Laurence Rees. Beevor's was very good but Rees' book was a disappointment. I was hoping for a gutsy look at the subject but there really wasn't much to it - mostly just a retelling of some interviews with the question "what would you do?"

The book I recently finished was 'Emancipation: How Liberating Europe's Jews from the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance' by Michael Goldfarb. I loved this book so much. I thought it was beautifully written - the handling of the timeline and the seamless introduction of all the historical characters superb. And reading a tale filled with so much hope under the shadow of what was to come was also quite heart-wrenching. I think I've developed my first author-crush geek
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Post by tac Mon 28 Jun 2010, 05:26

DJ_Smerk wrote:I've ordered Chuck Palahuik's Survivor and another Orwell book based on his life on the streets of London and Paris.

Down and out in Paris and London is a nice little book, smerky . . . the parisian part being stronger. I still think Coming up for air is his best book . . . have a look at it . . .
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Post by furriner Sat 08 Oct 2011, 02:55

Books and Beer - Page 7 George-r-r-martin-a-song-of-ice-and-fire-audiobooks-+-55266

Read 'em all recently.

Very nice.
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Post by PeterCS Sat 08 Oct 2011, 11:26

God you're foraging.


Have you gone blind, furri?
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Post by Basil Sat 08 Oct 2011, 11:48

Nowhere near enough talk about beer on this thread for my liking
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Post by PeterCS Sat 08 Oct 2011, 12:49

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
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Post by lardbucket Mon 10 Oct 2011, 07:49

I've been reading 'Musicophilia' by Oliver Sachs.

And drinking 'Little Creatures' Bright Ale.

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Post by lardbucket Sat 29 Apr 2017, 05:35

Recently read 'the wind-up bird chronicle', an intense study of love, cruelty and loss, with blurring of reality and imagination; it is still provoking reflection some weeks later.

No beers recently but had a brilliant red a few nights ago, 2014 Mourvèdre sourced from McLaren Vales, also sent me ordering more. 'Faux pas'.

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116 - 9 - 400 - 4

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Post by taipan Sat 29 Apr 2017, 05:54

Reading this.

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Step-Legends-Lore-American-ebook/dp/B00IUP9O22/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493441548&sr=1-4&keywords=rick+ridgeway
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