What 📔book are you reading right now?

[Deimos]

"Rendezvous with Rama" is from 1973, so almost, but not over 40 years ago. It's the first book in the series of four, the only one Clarke wrote alone, and the shortest one at 243 pages in my 1990 Bantam paperback edition.
"Rama II", 1989/90, 466 pages, "Garden of Rama", 1991/98, 593 pages, and "Rama Revealed", 1994/95, 602 pages, are all collaborations with Gentry Lee.
From what I vaguely remember, Lee did most of the actual writing, with Clarke providing the framework or "skeleton". The three Lee collaborations appealed less to me that Clake's first solo book.

My dear Olorgando....perhaps our math is a teensy bit off? 😉
Or maybe you learned "The New Math" in your grade school years.
I must say, the nuns taught me better than that 😁.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

"Rendezvous with Rama" is from 1973, so almost, but not over 40 years ago. It's the first book in the series of four, the only one Clarke wrote alone, and the shortest one at 243 pages in my 1990 Bantam paperback edition.
"Rama II", 1989/90, 466 pages, "Garden of Rama", 1991/98, 593 pages, and "Rama Revealed", 1994/95, 602 pages, are all collaborations with Gentry Lee.
From what I vaguely remember, Lee did most of the actual writing, with Clarke providing the framework or "skeleton". The three Lee collaborations appealed less to me that Clake's first solo book.

yeah, I've heard the "sequels" all were less than entertaining, from people who've read them.

 

[Olorgando]

My dear Olorgando....perhaps our math is a teensy bit off?
Or maybe your learned "The New Math" in your grade school years.
I must say, the nuns taught me better than that 😁.

Argh! Must be something like Jack Benny's insisting his age was 39 for decades, forgetting a (in Benny's case more than one) decade ...

... but in base 13 it is less than 40 ...

... and nuns taught me from grades 6 to 8, too.

 

[Deimos]

Argh! Must be something like Jack Benny's insisting his age was 39 for decades, forgetting a (in Benny's case more than one) decade ...

You know who Jack Benny is???!!! Yesssssssss!!!😄

... but in base 13 it is less than 40 ...

... and nuns taught me from grades 6 to 8, too.

12 years of Catholic school (grade school and high school) ....best education to be had anywhere, [edit:] almost bar none. 😎

 

[Olorgando]

You know who Jack Benny is???!!! Yesssssssss!!!😄

My parents and I lived in the US 1966-1975, in my parents' case very early 1975, in mine late.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

You know who Jack Benny is???!!! Yesssssssss!!!😄

I'm 35 and I know who Jack Benny is . I first learned about him from Looney Tunes, of course...

The Mouse That Jack Built

In this spoof of "The Jack Benny Program", a mouse with Jack Benny's personality and poor violin playing ability lives, along with a mouse version of

www.supercartoons.net

 

[Deimos]

I'm 35 and I know who Jack Benny is . I first learned about him from Looney Tunes, of course...

The Mouse That Jack Built

In this spoof of "The Jack Benny Program", a mouse with Jack Benny's personality and poor violin playing ability lives, along with a mouse version of

www.supercartoons.net

So are you going to stay 35? 😄
Yep, God bless Loony Tunes ....The folks that put it all together--cartoonists, writers, directors, oh and Mel Blanc***--- all incredibly gifted.
I can only think of one current "cartoon" show that is better than L-T in the calibre of writing...The Simpsons.

*** Mel Blanc, can't leave out Mel Blanc "The Man of a Thousand Voices"...no Mel Blanc, no Loony Tunes
Trivia factoid: the way Bugs Bunny munches on a carrot was modeled on the way Clark Gable ate a carrot (the "Carrot scene") from "It Happened One Night".
(And No, Clark Gable did NOT say "What's up, Doc!" in the movie....he just ate the carrot 😉 )

 

[Olorgando]

12 years of Catholic school....best education to be had anywhere, bar none. 😎

The one I went to was a grade school of sorts - extended, perhaps, grades 1-8. When we moved from Queens in NYC just a bit over the border to Nassau County on Long Island, and I entered a definitely good public school there, I found that I had serious deficits in science, despite having had an interest in it from earliest reading age, and up to today.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

So are you going to stay 35? 😄
Yep, God bless Loony Tunes ....The folks that put it all together--cartoonists, writers, directors--- all incredibly gifted.
I can only think of one current "cartoon" show that is better than L-T in the calibre of writing...The Simpsons

I'd love to . I definitely already have the back of someone a bit older but I try to live it up

 

[Deimos]

The one I went to was a grade school of sorts - extended, perhaps, grades 1-8. When we moved from Queens in NYC just a bit over the border to Nassau County on Long Island, and I entered a definitely good public school there, I found that I had serious deficits in science, despite having had an interest in it from earliest reading age, and up to today.

Yeah, I should slightly qualify what I said....NY (metro area) has some of the best Public schools in the nation... always have. Likewise Chicago.
They are highly selective tho'. ****

Catholic grade schools--indeed almost all mainstream religiously affiliated schools--- were far better than most public schools in most metro areas, often being better than any of the public schools in the area; and at least the Catholic ones (back then) were more affordable.

The non-denom. " Country Day Schools" were even better, but very very spendy....even now, very good, but very expensive.
Vincent Price attended the C-D school in St Louis [MO], which is where I'm from (but not where I currently live)

**** Mid Town Science School in MCU's Spiderman (Tom Holland) movies is modeled on The Bronx High School of Science.
Even the school logos are [deliberately] similar.
But BHSofS is not your typical public school in that just anyone can attend....it has very stringent admission requirements.
Same with similar schools in Chicago.

 

[Olorgando]

The non-denom. " Country Day Schools" were even better, but very very spendy.... even now, very good, but very expensive.

Good thing I checked the link - the image that formed in my mind was what are actually the boarding schools - Andover and Exeter are names I remember from my college days. As to NY public schools, I have dim memories of Forest Hills High School having cropped up in my parents' considerations, which did have stiff admission requirements (and was an easy bike ride from where we lived). But we ended up moving to Nassau County, north shore on or by Long Island Sound.

 

[Deimos]

Good thing I checked the link - the image that formed in my mind was what are actually the boarding schools - Andover and Exeter are names I remember from my college days. As to NY public schools, I have dim memories of Forest Hills High School having cropped up in my parents' considerations, which did have stiff admission requirements (and was an easy bike ride from where we lived). But we ended up moving to Nassau County, north shore on or by Long Island Sound.

oooo....cue Twilight Zone music.....
Did you know that in the Spiderman Comic book world Stan Lee modeled Peter Parker's school on....(wait for it)...Forest Hills High School. 😮

Good thing I checked the link - the image that formed in my mind was what are actually the boarding schools - Andover and Exeter are names I remember from my college days. As to NY public schools, I have dim memories of Forest Hills High School having cropped up in my parents' considerations, which did have stiff admission requirements (and was an easy bike ride from where we lived). But we ended up moving to Nassau County, north shore on or by Long Island Sound.

Yep, the Schools were literally "Day Schools out in the country" (meaning not urban, but more like in suburbia) .... as opposed to boarding schools.
Even now at schools that have both kinds of students, the students that don't board are called Day Students.

 

[Olorgando]

oooo....cue Twilight Zone music.....
Did you know that in the Spiderman Comic book world Stan Lee modeled Peter Parker's school on....(wait for it)...Forest Hills High School. 😮

I checked Wikipedia and did find an article on FHHS.
Among the alumni two names immediately rang a bell: Simon and Garfunkel!

 

[Lithóniel]

I’m reading “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel for my honors lit class. I’m sure you’ve all heard of it before.

 

[Olorgando]

I’m reading “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel for my honors lit class. I’m sure you’ve all heard of it before.

Not just heard of it, read it in the 2003 German translation (probably a Christman present from friends), which has the title "Shipwreck with Tiger".
Certainly not an everyday setting for a novel! I enjoyed it.

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I've just started Shippey's Road to Middle Earth. The first chapter seemed to be a lot of Oxford academic nit-picking but I'm hoping it gets better. Also having come across the term Kafkaesque so often, I'm reading The Trial. Long paragraphs but fairly simple language. The difficulty is the surreal nature of some of the scenes. No spoilers on this book please! The surreal nature makes it more interesting.

I'm also reading a People's History of Christianity on the late ancient period. I've just read a fascinating chapter on children's toys and games of the period. There were no Xboxes, but there was hide and seek, blindman's bluff, board games, pebbles rather than marbles, dolls (which boys had as well), toy carts - sometimes drawn by caught mice!

 

[Olorgando]

I've just started Shippey's Road to Middle Earth. The first chapter seemed to be a lot of Oxford academic nit-picking but I'm hoping it gets better.

I'm assuming this is the 2003 third edition.
The first chapter deals with the situation in Oxford (and English studies in the UK generally) between two sometimes hostile factions in the English school. The "Lit" camp is the one which produced practically all of the critics hostile to LoTR upon its publication in 1954/55, while JRRT was a, perhaps during his time the major player in the "Lang" camp - though he did manage to have something of a compromise (perhaps "cease-fire" is the better word) established in the Oxford syllabus round about 1930/31.

 

[Culaeron]

I just picked up David Eddings’ Elenium Trilogy. Almost finished with the first book. On the same visit to the bookstore, I discovered a new Richard Sharpe (Sharpe’s Assassin) which has started me rereading that series again. I’m also rereading Tanith Lee’s Flat Earth series, just started Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, and Christopher Hibbert’s The Days of the French Revolution.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

If you like Sharpe, you should try Flashman. 😄

 

[Deimos]

If you like Sharpe, you should try Flashman. 😄

Are you referring to the Flashman character created by George MacDonald Fraser?