BS: Book snobs

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 26 Jun 15 - 01:23 PM

I did buy and read war and peace, and a bunch of other classics some years past. I hope it left me half way cultured !.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: EBarnacle
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 11:29 PM

I'm never going to die because I'll never catch up with my "to read" pile. It is totally eclectic.
Ask me sometime how science fiction helped me save a mountain.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 03:29 PM

Some time in the 1940s (as I recall reading) an evil researcher set up a book table outside    the New York Public Library. There were perhaps a dozen titles on it, including heavyweights like "War and Peace," "Ulysses," and "Remembrance of Things Past."

Passersby were asked which books they would most like to read. Naturally, they chose books like"War and Peace", "Ulysses," and "Remembrance of Things Past."

Then they were told that they could take any book they wanted, free of charge, to keep and read.

The vast majority of them chose "Death of a Stripper," by Gypsy Rose Lee.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 11:30 AM

Well, I see Dawk and hawk got a few mentions. I recently read, evolutions Achilles heels by nine PhDs scientists. A bit of balance , I say .

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jun 15 - 03:53 AM

"I worked with a guy who bragged all the time about his collection of signed first editions. "
We don't 'collect' first editions, though down the years we've acquired several of them simply because they were the only ones on our 'wants' list that we could lay hands on.
In fact, if you constantly use books as references, valuable old ones can be a bit of a pain in the bum.
Doesn't mean we don't enjoy having some of them - we have some we wouldn't part wih - signed copies of ballad collections by Robert Chambers and his son, Robert Jnr, a copy of Borrows 'Lavengro' that a former owner 'corrected' by visiting one of the author's Gypsy sites and a set of Ford's 'Vagabond Songs' annotated in pencil throughout by Peter Buchan's supporter, William Walker - wouldn't part with them for the world.
One of our jewels in the crown is a slim, rather tatty soft bound book entitled 'Jacobite Minstrelsy'
We found it in a rather cold book warehouse in S.E. London one freezing winter day.
We took it off the rusty Dexion shelf, and when we examined it, it turned out to be a lined notebook containing around 160 songs, all in beautiful copper-plate and writing, with all of tunes carefully hand-written in tonic-sol-fa - you can see the handwriting getting 'old' as you progress through the book.
There is no indication of who wrote it and the only clue to its age is small leaflet advertising a lantern-slide lecture given in 1909, somewhere in the Scottish Highlands in 1909.
It cost us seven shillings and sixpence.
Beginning to sound like a book snob.....!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:50 PM

William Bradford Huie's _The Revolt of Mamie Stover_ (1951; first read, ca. 1959) is one of the great books of my life. I recently discovered that he had written two sequels, so I ordered them from Amazon. One of them, _The Americanization of Emily_ (1959), has just arrived.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 10:02 AM

Nope, course not. You appreciate them for their intrinsic beauty - that comes from a different set of values altogether.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 09:51 AM

I can totally understand that people collect certain books because they are beautiful objects in and of themselves. I have a few, very few, of that type. I don't handle them much but I do take them down occasionally and admire them. I have read them in other, less delicate editions. I don't think that makes me a book snob, does it ?

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: SINSULL
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 09:18 AM

I worked with a guy who bragged all the time about his collection of signed first editions. Turned out he belonged to the Book of the Month club. Every month a book arrived and HE SIGNED IT. It was then put on a shelf and remained untouched. The rest of us sat in stunned silence until someone finally broke the news to him that the books had to be real first editions and signed by the author. All those years of collecting wasted.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 10:30 AM

Okay,
I've read a little deeper. This only applies to books "borrowed" under the "Kindle Unlimited" system. So there is no payment 'per book' as such, just a monthly sub.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 10:07 AM

News in todays press that Amazon will restrict their royalties payments to authors (for ebooks) based on the percentage of the downloaded book which their customer reads. Here

I wonder if they'll discount the charges to the readers on the same basis!

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 09:32 AM

Books nobs?

I didn't know they had them...

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 08:11 AM

Most of us feel as you do, Joe - but pretentious twits who are only concerned with appearances do exist, and always have in the human race. Hence the thread topic -

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 08:05 AM

I kinda don't believe that buying things to impress others, is a primary motivator for most human beings. For some people, I guess it might be the case, but not for most of us.

I buy books because I fully intend to read them. I sure have accumulated a lot of unread books over the years, but my intentions are still good.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 07:44 AM

Most of them are available free from sites like archive.org, gutenberg.org, bartleby.com and various others. Even good old Amazon does a fair number of free or incredibly cheap editions as Kindle downloads.

Friend of mine - no lover of snobs - once accused a mutual acquaintance of buying books by the metre to fill up his showoffy shelves.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 07:27 AM

Wow, buying books to impress, who would've thunk it? Well at least that doesn't happen with houses, cars, boats, bathrooms, holidays, kitchens, phones, furniture, computers and pretty much everything else in our capitalist status driven society.. The somewhat ironic thing about buying classics, is that they're available to anyone with a library card, or indeed anyone (for a few pence anyway) who goes to jumble sales and charity shops.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 23 Jun 15 - 06:53 AM

YIKES, that's right... on 4th July, I think. Thanks for the heads-up - been away in England and only just returned, to a mountain of paperwork. Your cheque, as they say, is in the post (just as soon as I find my chequebook: been so long since I wrote out a paper cheque I'm not sure if I remember how).

To get this thread back on topic: I suppose with the advent of e-readers, the whole concept of book snobbery is taking something of a hit. You can't flash your intellectual titles around, nor display them on your bookshelves. But one of the delights of reading classics is that you find out just how interesting and enjoyable they actually are, and why they have survived. (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, anyone? But guess what: it really is a stonking good read. And no, I have not read all of it, just bits, so put those rotten eggs down, you guys...)

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 07:40 PM

Missed this first time around
I was a self employed electrician in London for over twenty years and a series of chance encounters got me work in some of the wealthiest houses in the country - a couple of Lords (I taught the Marquis of Drogheda's children to pronounce their inheritance correctly instead of Drog-he-da), film stars and directors, (Nicholas Roeg and Theresa Russell), Shirley Bassey, Ruby Wax... all needing their lights fixed.
I lusted over some of the most valuable book collections, yet. whenever you tried to talk about them, all they could tell you was how much they were worth (Nicholas Roeg had an incredible collection of Myths and Legends which he had (I assume) acquired for a film he was researching - knew almost nothing about the subject.
It used to tickle me when, after drooling over some priceless first editions, you would go upstaird to the bedrooms and invariable find Geoffrey Archer on one side o the bed and Jilly Cooper on the other.
(PM me Bonnie - the postage goes up in Ireland shortly)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 06:37 PM

There's also the matter of differentiating which is the 10% and which is the 90%. YMMV.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: GUEST,Uncle_DaveO
Date: 22 Jun 15 - 06:13 PM

Someone, above, said in part:

The revered SF author, Theodore Sturgeon, once said that "90% of everything is crap"

That quote is correct so far as it goes, but is more meaningful in context.What Sturgeon said before that bit was that some people thought that science fiction was 90% crap. Then he continued (approximately) "But then 90% of everything is crap. This is known as Sturgeon's 90% Law."

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 12:11 PM

The Sun Also Rises is a deceptively simple book. And quite marvelous as far as many English majors are concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: frogprince
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 11:43 AM

I've heard a number of times over the years of people who bought classics by the foot, or the yard, to fill their library shelves. It's never crossed my mind to buy a book other than to read it. I finish almost anything I start, if only from compulsive habit; there might be one book in fifty that I start and drop.
I buy mostly from an exchange store, and often look for at least one book by an author I haven't read, or even heard of.

I've read "Huckleberry Finn" at least four times.
I've read at least three Mickey Spillaine "Mike Hammer" books, at   least one of which was so bad I wished I had tossed it.
I read "The Sun Also Rises" and it left me so cold I haven't read any more Hemingway. Had the same reaction, maybe more so, to French existentialism.
All-time favorites include Heinlein and John D. McDonald; they both died within a few months, and I about went into grief.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 10:02 AM

OOps. I was distracted before I made my point--that Steinbeck and Twain and Faulkner and others were POPULAR authors before they were classic authors. There are some writers who always aim high in their readership, and these folks weren't aiming at a lowest common denominator, by any means. But they made their livings as writers and spoke to a large audience in their days.

I also tended to contradict myself. That while we call someone else's reading "trash," it's best to not be too loud about it, because all that happens is hurt feelings and possibly discouraging a reader who might move on to better stuff eventually. (I once called Harlequin's books "trash" at a writer's conference and was jumped all over by the romance writers at the table. Wooosh! They don't even take particularly kindly to their kind of novel being called "guilty pleasures," or something along those lines.)

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 09:47 AM

Also Thackeray's.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 09:20 AM

Just for the record, somewhere around here I have a copy of The Duke of Bedford's Book of Snobs.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 07:23 AM

Hadn't realised Maclean was a facist, but the latter books were tedious. I also heard many were ghostwritten. The early ones are mostly terrific light reads.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 07:03 AM

Another news item from a month or so ago quoted Victoria Beckham [ posh spice ] as never having read a book in her life, because she couldn't see the point. How sad.

I also like Stephen King and Spike Milligan.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: jonm
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 02:59 AM

'Tis true in other walks of life, too.

In surveys in the UK, if you ask in the street about what newspapers people buy, apparently 40% buy broadsheets and 10% The Sun. Sales are about the other way around!

The UK TV viewer preference surveys have struggled for years to get an accurate picture (pun not intended) becuase so many people will tell you they watch worthy TV when they really watch soaps - some have even ben found to wtch the worthy stuff for a couple of weeks because there is a set-top box recording what they watch...

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 05 - 01:34 AM

Our house is one where you trip over books. No period, no genre omitted, but nothing like an orderly collection. There is a lot of western and Canadian history, a lot of books on music, a lot of mysteries, a lot of botany and zoology, a lot on American Indians and their cultures, a lot of children'a books, a lot on art, a lot of novels, a lot of references- OK, a lot of everything but nothing ever collected to cover any one subject comprehensively.
I am re-reading Conrad, Twain, Charles Russell along with current novels.

One 'novel' which sticks in my mind is The Leopard, by Guiseppe de Lampedusa. Like some of the Victorian novels, it is a capsule of a particular time, transcending place, much more accurate than any social history could be. Perhaps that is one of the criteria for a fine novel.

I wish I could devote more time to a set I have in matched bindings- durable plain blue cloth- once printed by Xerox and University Microfilms, "March of America Facsimile Series"- A set of hardbound historical, exploration and travel books covering the Americas, both North and South- the writings of the early explorers to the exploration and settlement of the continents, all in facsimile, filling one bookcase and part of another. I read a bit here, a bit there and occasionally read a whole volume. Pulling a couple off the shelf- No. 38 of the set, History of California, 2 vol., by Miguel Venegas (a keen observer), a translation printed in London in 1759; No. 98, Campaigning with Crook and Stories of Army Life by Charles King (the annihilation of Indian life on the plains), 1890; No. 70, Visit to Texas, by Anon. (purchased 20,000 acres and was swindled, so decided to see the country), 1834, and all the others.

Yes, I read the Da Vinci Code. Like mysteries, a restful read before putting out the light.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 11:47 PM

Stopped reading Alastair Maclean when it dawned on me he was a fascist.Like Joe and others, I have enjoyed Uris and Mitchener. My other fav. American writers are --hold your breath --Louis Lamour [I even read most of his "Sackett' novels] and a much neglected author , McKinlay Kantor ["Spirit Lake" and "Andersonville"]. Tolkein is on my list,as is Stephen King--I would recommend "Hearts in Atlantis". My younger days were lightened by home grown stuff from Gibbon, Dickens and Scott.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Peace
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 10:46 PM

Mysteries: Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe
Sci-fi: Heinlein, Asimov, some Blish, Bradbury
Novels a la more serious: Steinbeck, Twain, Mowat, Berton
Short stories: The one and only Alice Munro, Cather, Valgardson
'Historical' fiction: Uris, Michener
Escape: Clancy, used to like MacLean but stopped liking his stuff after "Puppet on a Chain". (His book "HMS Ulysses" is a great novel by anyone's standards. Hope to read it at least once more before I die.)
I like non-fiction, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 10:29 PM

Recreational reading in the authors you've named isn't "trash." It's what keeps people sane and entertained. You can't (well, most people can't) read the heavy stuff all of the time. It's good, but it can be a lot of work, and you need to refresh your palette, so to speak. I love mysteries. I'm reading a Nevada Barr Park Ranger Anna Pigeon murder mystery right now.

The stuff I consider "trash" a lot of people like. As long as they're reading SOMETHING, it can't be all bad. (I detest Danielle Steele and a couple of other local romance writers whose formulas are so hackneyed that after one or two are pushed on you you can easily refuse them and wonder how anyone can keep reading the things).

I love Faulkner, and though I haven't read it exhaustively by any means, what I have read has been marvelous. I learned to read it by listening to in on audio books and getting the pace of the performer who was reading the work. That makes all of the difference.

Steinbeck's stories are just about perfect. Hemingway grates on me some, but his stories are still riveting. Mark Twain--if I had only one author whose books I could take with me to a desert island, it would be a tough call, but I'd probably end up with Twain. I like Willa Cather, but with the way she ended O, Pioneers! I could kick the idiot down the stairs! A modern novelist, probably one of our best living writers, with a remarkable facility for story telling and clever turns of phrase is Louise Erdrich. Her prose (and poetry) is magical. She also reads her own work very well on the audio tapes (I've read more than I've listened to, but I was very pleased with her author's reading of her work. Some authors would do well to leave the reading-out-loud to the professionals).

Ooops. A kid wants money. It begins. My future liberal arts major needs the registration fee for a college application. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 10:27 PM

(yep)

small delays in the process of becoming a book snob

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 10:06 PM

(*hi Bill*)

Toldja to visit us, din't I?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Amos
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 08:39 PM

Hey I like good trash too! Clive Cussler is an old favorite of mine, and I love the occasional Stephen King marathon piece. The man manages his subject well, despite his occasional lapses. I mis-spent my youth on Clarke, Heinlein and Asimov, with SImak sauce and van Vogt trimmings. Never regretted a minute of it, because it taught me to believe the Big Lesson that JFK spoke of -- look at what has yet to be, and ask "Why Not?".

A

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 08:20 PM

I guess I should be embarrassed by some of the stuff I read. I like trash - good trash, but still trash. Uris and Michener were my favorites, but I haven't read much fiction since I started doing music and church stuff. Most of the significant literature puts me to sleep. Oh, and did I tell you I really like songbooks?

-Joe Offer, not qualified for snobbery-

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 08:03 PM

"boob snogs"? *grin*....I'll BET you do!

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: jets
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 07:55 PM

Kendall is a history major. In other words he claims to be a historion of some worth. I am primming to do battle with him.
By reading the history of New York by Washington Irving.Which, by the way , is a fun read, which rather suprised me. And yes I do have a matched set.Leather and marbled edges.All 16 volumes and I hope to live long enough to read them all.Why ? Because he too points out :
" What fools we mortals be". A chuckle on every page.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 07:04 PM

Ghastly book, Mein Kampf, but I'm glad I read it. Wouldn't care to repeat the experience, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 06:27 PM

In the survey - discussed today on Radio 4 - apparently 10% of people interviewed admitted to taking a book "to be seen with" on their tube commute and reading something very different in their home at night - sad.........
So - ok I took "How to write Chinese characters" to a folk Festival but I never got time to read it :>)

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 06:12 PM

I just can't help it-- EVERY time I see this thread title I misread it as BOOB SNOGS.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: kendall
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:55 PM

I only have two with matching binders, the Odyssey and the Illiad. Both great books. The Illiad was good for one read, but I've read the Odyssey three times.

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Morticia
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:51 PM

Anyone who can be that dismissive of Angela's Ashes hasn't a damn clue what deprivation means.......sorry Liz, but this is my history you are writing off.....

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: number 6
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 04:03 PM

Beautifully put Liz !! LOL

Good one, very good.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:54 PM

Oh 'Mein Kampf' is the most boring book I ever read - I don't remember a word of it now except that it was the most self serving tripe I ever read before 'Angela's Ashes'....

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:52 PM

One of the reasons I'm glad we're into fall now is that when it gets cooler I spend less time out in the yard and have more chance to sit and read. I set up a chair with an over-the-shoulder reading lamp that are perfect for me, and I have to keep evicting the kids' backpacks from the footstool that goes with them. When I first set them up I thought I'd "give it a test" and next thing I knew 30 minutes had passed.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:07 PM

Books I have had a go at at least three times but failed to complete include War and Peace, Mein Kampf, Das Kapital, The Winter of Our Discontent, Exodus, The Trumpet Major, The Affluent Society and the Pickwick Papers. The few books I have read at least three times include The Wind in the Willows, The Little Gray Men, The Major of Casterbridge, Far from the Madding Crowd, Lord of the Rings, Lark Rise to Candleford and the Fat of the Land.

I was cured of pretention when I used The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as a prop to impress a girl in the 60s but she went and asked me a question about it ...

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:06 PM

Books books and more books... Nice post! You write beautifully, and your thoughts are smooth and well expressd... with compassion and insight!

Though it's usually non-fiction for me, Allegory and myth are often truer than life.

ttr

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: Morticia
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 03:00 PM

tis a gift to be simple........( wicked laugh)

Subject: RE: BS: Book snobs
From: number 6
Date: 24 Oct 05 - 02:55 PM

Yer so right John!!

We must be perceived as being a snob about something .. if not, then we would be perceived as being quite simple (aghast!)

sIx