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Both Paul and Miriam danced around the issue of a physical relationship - on again, off again, love, hate. Rather perplexing. When Paul looked at Clara he saw her beautiful arms and the swing of her breast as she bent over. When he looked at Miriam he saw her eyes trying to draw him in. I...

I am now in Part 2, where chapters 7-9 form a unit related to the affair (or non affair) with Miriam: Lad-and-Girl Love, Strife in Love, and Defeat of Miriam. The flowers are everywhere, especially in Chapter 7, and seem to be a signal of sensory experience, not just sex but all the joys of...

Maybe we should link this to the Deconstruction thread going elsewhere on this forum.

My first personal computer was an Osborne. It looked, and sometimes acted, much like a portable sewing machine. The screen was 40 characters wide and it ran on CP/M, a predecessor of DOS. The designer didn't believe in cooling fans but in the cooling action of natural air flow. There was very...

If I ever read the book, it was so many years ago that I feel free to say anything I want about it. The title is misleading. Think and Grow Rich implies Think, and (thus) Grow Rich. Actually the author gives advice about two separate and unrelated areas: Think! Grow Rich!

I started with Compuserve (later purchased by AOL) before there was a world wide web. I remember the frustration of using their site with the charges they made to see a lot of the content. Also, if you spent too much time reading, which meant that your were "inactive" they cut the connection.

I have read only The Kite Runner and On Beauty. Both good, although to be fair, some critics found them contrived. Start reading either and I think you'll want to stay with them and see what happens. Interesting characters in both books.

Now that I have finished Part 1, I have comments regarding two topics. The first is Lawrence's picture of working class life. It feels absolutely real to me in its details: the bread with drippings, the pit scarf, the children's games, the men bringing in William's coffin. We see it in terms...

I'm not sure that it is the only method which acknowledges the suppression of meaning. The best critics have always done that nor have they insisted on one answer. The word answer itself implies the exiistence of a question. Maybe there is no question. Maybe the poem may not mean but be. Nor...

I too appreciate the clear explanations of deconstruction. It does nothing for me, however, or why or how I read. I took a lot of literature courses in college and we did take things apart. I feel I learned something from those various exercises. In my more mature (later?) years, I have...

I see it a little differently. Some people are happier when they can act on impulse, uncontrolled by rigid plans or other people's expectations. Others are more comfortable when they can take control, planning, making lists, piling up books. The world is a better place with a variety of...

I don't have a TBR pile, but a shelf. A shelf is self limiting. A pile can be any size that can be kept stable, or can generate subpiles, but the shelf has an absolute limit. (Sometimes I can cheat a little by sticking a book or two behind the ones in front, but that's a temporary expedient...

Here are three non fiction suggestions, all very different from one another: Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte Jared Diamond, Collapse Vladimir Nabokov, Speak Memory

I suggest the biography category and specifically propose The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell. Gaskell was already an established author when Jane Eyre was published. The two women admired each other's work, both were daughters of clergymen, married to clergymen. and they visited...

Did you see the series on television? It was very good, but some critics felt that it misrepresented the book. I read the book so many years ago that my memories are both vague and overlaid by the TV images. I expect to go around again any day now. By the way, if you read only Brideshead...

Agreed. I am just finishing Part 1 and hope to say something about it before I am influenced by reading Part 2.

My generation grew up with Lawrence Olivier as Heathcliff. He was a compelling Heathcliff, but not the character in the book. Some incidents in the book which showed Heathcliff's ruthlessness were in the movie changed to be abuse directed against Heathcliff.

Ok, how about Uncle Tom for November, and then we can have a restful and carefree December reading Frankenstein?

The quality is variable, but so the length. Short stories by Poe - The Fall of the House of Usher, The Pit and the Pendulum - as listed as are entire "collections" of books - Remembrance of Things Past, Dance to the Music of Time. That said, I intend to mine the list for authors I have missed...

I could go with either one. If it makes a difference, Frankenstein is short and Uncle Tom is long.