What Are You Reading

[AmateisGal]

Thank you on the scan, but I know you haven't been feeling well - so no rush. The Literary Ace is awesome.

I might have it saved somewhere on my laptop. I'm pretty sure I've scanned it in before.

 

[Harp]

I took almost every high school literature class offered and the selections were all over the map. One teacher - who had moved to the Northeast from the deep south - had us reading all that sad, morose the "decay of the south / southern way of life" literature of Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner - which I still avoid to this day.
The liberal teacher had us reading Steinbeck and H.G. Wells and plays like "You Can't Take it With You," while, countering that, one teacher was big into Orwell and the evils of communism.
High school lit was all over the map, but Fitzgerald and Hemingway... were probably the two that made the biggest impression on me in high school.

The Christian Brothers of Ireland steered a fairly Catholic literary course of English, Irish, and American lit including some French authors of whom Flaubert was a favorite,
while more renown scribes like Shakespeare took an inexplicable back seat to modern writers such as Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus. Flannery O'Connor caught my attention
and has held it more so than either Hemingway, Fitzgerald, or Faulkner; though Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie hit hard as did A Streetcar Named Desire.
Joyce, Chesterton, Shaw, Yeats competed against philosophers and theologians Boethius, Descartes, and Aquinas; and I despised Henry James and his caustic criticism against
Whitman-a poet never assigned by the Irish masters-and the Russians led by Dostoyevsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy were found and gratefully discovered. Yet the most compelling
high school read was assigned: Viktor Frankel's concentration camp memoir, Man's Search For Meaning. A most memorable glimpse inside cruelty and the supreme power of love over hate.
In some respects all other literature pales beside Frankel's epistle, which as with Boethius' final testament The Consolation of Philosophy cuts to the quick-heart and soul.

 

[Fading Fast]

T...though Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie hit hard as did A Streetcar Named Desire....

We read those two and they really effected me as I did not want my life to turn out sad and depressing. I had a tough health run in my early 20s and was advised to by a doctor to "take time off from work to focus on getting better" but I was a afraid I'd end up broke and without a career like one of his characters, so I kept on working - some days it was incredibly tough - and almost no one at work knew I was sick.

Right or wrong, I also knew I would not marry young, in part, because of "ASCND." I figured I had a much better chance of making a mistake marrying early, so I never even considered it in my 20s.

I'm not saying - please let me emphasize this - that the decisions I made would have been right for anyone else and I am not giving guidance or judging what anyone else has done in any similar sounding situation; all I am saying is that the fear of failure and the abject misery of the lives of his characters inspired me to push through some tough medical stuff so that I could keep earning and to wait to get married despite having some interesting opportunities.

Looking back, those plays are some pretty tough stuff to throw at young kids. But if the goal of education is to help "mature" our minds and expose us to real world challenges - then they worked.

 

[MisterCairo]

Bleak House, Charles Dickens.

 

[Touchofevil]

Harry Whittington's Slay Ride for a Lady (1950). More noir and fun at that.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage, by William Rathje and Cullen Murphy.

Originally published in the early 1990s, this is a breezy look at the history of Solid Waste and how we deal with it. Rathje was basically a "professor of Garbage" at the University of Arizona, and devoted his entire academic career to the question of solid waste and its impact on society. This gave him a rather tunnel-vision view of greater social and economic issues -- when all you have is a garbage spike, everything you see is litter -- but it's nonetheless an interesting look at a topic that affects us all.

Despite the title, there's less discussion of actual Garbage Archaeology than I'd hoped for, with more of an emphasis on how modern landfills work -- or don't work. Rathje notes that the trash buried in landfills decomposes very, very slowly -- and sometimes not at all, with core excavations of various capped landfills usually bringing up perfectly legible newspaper pages that are decades old, along with organic material that has mummified rather than decomposed. He also indulges in a bit of myth-busting, arguing that such things as foam fast-food containers and disposable diapers are actually far less significant contributors to solid waste problems than ordinary paper and demolition debris, which make up well over half of all waste in any landfill.

As noted, the book was written over 25 years ago, and although newspaper and magazine circulation has plummeted and phone books are all but obsolete, we still seem to be generating as much wastepaper as ever. Rathje died four years ago, but hopefully his successors in Garbageology will consider putting out a revised edition for the 21st Century.

 

[Fading Fast]

Is recycling of paper also making a difference as, over the last decade, I've noticed a lot more of the, "this [box, envelope, memo, etc.] is made from recycled paper" notation popping up on things?

 

[LizzieMaine]

From his perspective in 1992, Rathje was very much a proponent of recycling, and contended that it was making a difference even then. But he emphasized that there had to be follow-thru after the public turned in its recyclables -- he notes that a great deal of the recyclable material turned in during WW2 was actually warehoused because there wasn't a well-administered system in place for processing it after it was turned in, and that after the war much of that warehoused material was written off and landfilled.

 

[Fading Fast]

From his perspective in 1992, Rathje was very much a proponent of recycling, and contended that it was making a difference even then. But he emphasized that there had to be follow-thru after the public turned in its recyclables -- he notes that a great deal of the recyclable material turned in during WW2 was actually warehoused because there wasn't a well-administered system in place for processing it after it was turned in, and that after the war much of that warehoused material was written off and landfilled.

I often wonder about the all-in economics and environmental impact of recycling as, in NYC, the garbage is recycled into at least three categories (I say three, as that seems to be what most residual apartment houses do), but I have seen more categories in some public places.

Then, there are two or, sometimes, three separate types of pickups - the "normal" garbage, the paper garbage and the bottles. Hence, there is a lot more truck traffic (if all loads are always full, maybe not, but when is that really the case), a lot more time, space and resources devoted to the recycle chain - all of which burns fossil fuels and uses money that could go to other social programs.

If the full-in economics and resource use makes sense, then great - I'm all for it, but I admit to being skeptical as I never read anything about that, but only "success" stories that are anecdotal or big-figure reports about how much paper, or bottles, etc. were recycled or "saved," but while nice, those reports are only half the story - what are the costs?

I don't have a real ax - if recycling saves resources and energy, I, like most people, am for it, I just wonder as I see a lot of very expensive things done in its name, but never see a comprehensive all in cost-benefit (and benefits should include environmental, not just dollars and cents) report.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Here it's laid out pretty simply -- our non-recyclable trash is sent to a regional incinerator, the Penobscot Energy Recovery Company, which bills each town for the tonnage of waste processed. Those fees are passed along as user fees at the dump -- in my town you pay $160 a year for a dump sticker, and without one you can't dump. (We don't have any kind of curbside pickup service -- everybody is responsible for hauling their own garbage.)

Recycling of glass, paper, metals, and plastic keeps these materials out of the tonnage sent to PERC, and therefore keeps the sticker fee from being higher than it is. Right now our PERC fee is about $89 a ton, but it's expected to climb to over $100 within the next few years due to increased costs, so everything that can keep that tonnage down is to our benefit: not just in some theoretical future, but right now.

 

[MisterCairo]

If there's a cost-benefit to recycling, great. For us, it's also pure economics. One bag/bin of garbage requires a sticker at $3.00. Recycling is picked up free 'o charge. We save money, and if fewer resources need to be extracted and the landfill lasts longer, great benefits.

 

[AmateisGal]

If there's a cost-benefit to recycling, great. For us, it's also pure economics. One bag/bin of garbage requires a sticker at $3.00. Recycling is picked up free 'o charge. We save money, and if fewer resources need to be extracted and the landfill lasts longer, great benefits.

We pay to have our recycling picked up. We used to collect it ourselves and hubby would take it all down to the recycling center, but this is far easier.

 

[MisterCairo]

We pay to have our recycling picked up. We used to collect it ourselves and hubby would take it all down to the recycling center, but this is far easier.

That's a drag! Our "no fee policy" is to induce recycling. Not every locale has a tag system, however. My sister's city has "free" pickup of both garbage and recycling, but if you're lazy and drop it all into bags or bins, there's no financial hit (directly).

Of course nothing is "free", but when you see the cost up front (having to buy tags) it hits home.

 

[Fading Fast]

My neighbor is an editor for a major publishing house and she was kind enough to slide a copy under our door last night of the new book "Commonwealth" by Ann Patchett, so I'm going to put the two books I'm currently reading - William Boyd's "Any Human Heart" and Helen Simonson's "The Summer Before the War -" on hold and give this new one a shot as I almost never read a new book when it's new and popular.

 

[AmateisGal]

My neighbor is an editor for a major publishing house and she was kind enough to slide a copy under our door last night of the new book "Commonwealth" by Ann Patchett, so I'm going to put the two books I'm currently reading - William Boyd's "Any Human Heart" and Helen Simonson's "The Summer Before the War -" on hold and give this new one a shot as I almost never read a new book when it's new and popular.

Oh...how awesome to have a neighbor like that!

Slightly off topic, but Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a wonderful, wonderful novel. I highly recommend it.

 

[AmateisGal]

That's a drag! Our "no fee policy" is to induce recycling. Not every locale has a tag system, however. My sister's city has "free" pickup of both garbage and recycling, but if you're lazy and drop it all into bags or bins, there's no financial hit (directly).

Of course nothing is "free", but when you see the cost up front (having to buy tags) it hits home.

Nebraska is probably pretty behind when it comes to recycling. Heck, when we were growing up on the farm, we didn't get our trash picked up - we burned it in two giant metal cans.

 

[Fading Fast]

Oh...how awesome to have a neighbor like that!

Slightly off topic, but Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is a wonderful, wonderful novel. I highly recommend it.

Our neighbor is very nice, which is the best part of having her as a neighbor, but that she's an editor is a big plus for the crazy readers that we are. When she first came over, I think she was impressed with out bookshelves full of books - most of which we've actually read - it created an immediate bond.

I haven't yet read "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," but believe it is somewhere on our bookshelf. So far "The Summer Before the War" is good, but a bit too by-the-numbers predictable, but I'm only about a third in, so it could still be set up and has plenty of time to take off.

The other book, by William Boyd is really, really enjoyable - have you read anything by him? His "Restless" is a very good WWII spy thriller that I think you'd really enjoy (it was turned into a decent TV miniseries with "our girl" from "Agent Carter" Hayley Atwell and Michelle Dockery, Mary from "Downton Abbey" starring in it).

 

[scottyrocks]

I finished The Golem and the Jinni (Wecker) a short while back and am now reading The Night Circus (Morgenstern). Both take place around the turn of the last century (~1900).

 

[AmateisGal]

Our neighbor is very nice, which is the best part of having her as a neighbor, but that she's an editor is a big plus for the crazy readers that we are. When she first came over, I think she was impressed with out bookshelves full of books - most of which we've actually read - it created an immediate bond.

I haven't yet read "Major Pettigrew's Last Stand," but believe it is somewhere on our bookshelf. So far "The Summer Before the War" is good, but a bit too by-the-numbers predictable, but I'm only about a third in, so it could still be set up and has plenty of time to take off.

The other book, by William Boyd is really, really enjoyable - have you read anything by him? His "Restless" is a very good WWII spy thriller that I think you'd really enjoy (it was turned into a decent TV miniseries with "our girl" from "Agent Carter" Hayley Atwell and Michelle Dockery, Mary from "Downton Abbey" starring in it).

Oooh! A WW2 spy thriller? Heck yeah! I'll put that on my Goodreads shelf now. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

[Harp]

A bit late at the office last night, a fast bite on the way home, and the twilight subway where I sat near a young man reading; and I offered Albert Camus' The Stranger as he prepared to exit the car.
He remarked his thanks but he had read The Stranger, and said that he regretted his leaving prevented further discussion of Camus. And he had read Sartre and de Beauvoir.
About two years ago, I was reading Pollock's Spinoza before a revisit to The Ethic, and another kid asked if I had read Spinoza, or Maimonides; which considering his age was rather surprising.
The subway is often a much more interesting trip than the more urbane Rock Island with lawyers, judges, politicos, news anchors, bankers and the like wielding The New York Times or Wall Street Journal.