http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ Just another bbPress community en Sat, 20 Mar 2010 00:43:43 +0000 http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/literary-prizes#post-80 Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:39:55 +0000 Jem Bloomfield 80@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>I was just reading an article in "Prospect" magazine from a few months ago about literary prizes. I've only got a very limited perspective on this (I don't know how such things are managed in the US) but big fiction prizes like the Booker seem to occupy a sort of middle ground between the smaller, genre-specific prizes (like the CWA, or the Romance Authors awards, which sometimes have the air of an intra-industry private party) and the more obviously "artistic" events like the Turner Prize, which simply provides an opportunity for the tabloid papers to be self-righteously Philistine. I wonder what everyone thinks about literary prizes generally? Are they useful ways of recognising people who contribute to our language's cultural life and give a bit of publicity to struggling writers? Or are they a self-indulgent exercise in propping up the "literary novel" which otherwise would have quietly died because no-one actually wants to read it? </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/which-books-got-you-started-as-a-reader#post-76 Sat, 13 Dec 2008 19:27:58 +0000 sandy 76@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>For me it was anything by Dr. Seuss. The artwork, the humor, the rhyming - I got more enjoyment (over and over again) from those books, than from anything else in my childhood.</p> <p>If I had to choose one, it would probably be GREEN EGGS AND HAM. </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/best-book-ever-read#post-45 Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:54:04 +0000 deborah 45@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>Let me balance my "worst book" thread with one for best book. I loved THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand. I'm not a Randian, but the story just moved and inspired me. I reread it every few years. </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/worst-book-you-ever-read#post-43 Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:41:49 +0000 deborah 43@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>There are many awful books out there, but when a book is extremely popular and you hate it, you wonder if it's just you or if you're missing something.</p> <p>The worst book I ever read was LEFT BEHIND, the first of the series by Tim LaHaye. I never read any of the others. The plot was absurd, the dialogue wooden. I thought it was beyond bad.</p> <p>Anyone else care to share? </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/whats-everyone-reading#post-12 Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:24:56 +0000 robin 12@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>I just finished "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini and highly recommend it. I loved "The Kite Runner" and this was this one was every bit as good.</p> <p>Next up is "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. I saw a documentary about this same topic on The History Channel last month and found it very interesting. </p> http://www.calitreview.com/forum/topic/three-books-that-permanently-changed-the-way-i-view-the-world#post-10 Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:33:22 +0000 fitler 10@http://www.calitreview.com/forum/ <p>Here are three books that fundamentally and permanently changed the way I view the world:</p> <p>* DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES by Jane Jacobs - I read this book in the early 70s and was still enamored by the Robert Moses, Ed Bacon school of city planning. Raze old "slum" neighborhoods and put in beautiful modern office skyscrapers or eight lane interstate highways. Jane Jacobs saw the sterility and inhumanity of those actions and she also saw the vibrancy, safety and humanity of those "slum" neighborhoods. I've never looked at cities the same way since.</p> <p>* ON HUMAN NATURE by E.O Wilson - The frightening idea that altruism may be an evolutionary adaption and not a human virtue.</p> <p>* DENIAL OF DEATH by Ernest Becker - Our fear of death may be the driving force in the development of civilization and particularly religious institutions. The ferocity of religious wars is because of how devastating the questioning of our religious world view is to our view of self.</p> <p>I'd be very interested in reading what three books others would choose. </p>