Read a good book lately?

[Bill Hagan]

This may be only a rumor, but last I heard, she got rid of the Guzzi and bought a horse.

39803[/snapback]

 

This book has come up before. Run a search for "Melissa," etc.

 

A few months ago, I had a long plane ride and a weekend business trip. As I often do if I'm not in the middle of a good book already, I stopped by Borders on the way to the airport and buy something for the trip.

 

Saw a new hardback, "Breaking the Limit: One Woman's Motorcycle Journey Through North America," by Karen Larsen, and got it.

 

General story is a memoir of an early-30's-something leaving Princeton (town and school) to ride a HD Sportster deep into Alaska and back. Both great and disappointing. Never quite an Annie Dillard, Ms. Larsen can nevertheless write engagingly, and her words on motorcycles and traveling generally are fine.

 

She has true grit, too, as anybody who can ride--as it appears she did--in seriously cold and wet weather and describe it well and unwhiningly is OK by me.

 

On the downside, from my vantage, some of the HD-centric stuff leaves me cold, and her internal struggles with old boyfriend and romp(s) with those along the road are a bit on the "chick book" side of the house for me. Some classic Mars-Venus stuff where she chews the cud for maddening pages before and after, while the guys (left behind and found) probably didn't have a clue about all this angst except "during." Reminds me of that great Dave Barry piece that ends, "Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?'' See http://www.naute.com/jokes/guys.phtml

 

Anyway, if you are snowbound and eager for motorcycling books of any kind, see http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...392002?v=glance

 

As for other genres, I like but have little time for fiction, so I tend to read history and biography almost exclusively. If you like that sort of thing, just finishing “Washington's Crossing,” by David Hackett Fischer, a great and readable account of a pivotal moment in the American Revolution. There has been little serious scholarship of this event, and it has thus slipped, enshrouded in legend, into what passes for history. http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subj...170342&view=usa

 

About the only thing I really wanted (and shamelessly and successfully hinted) for as a Christmas gift is a new book by Edward M. Coffman, “The Regulars: the American Army, 1898-1941.” This is the sequel to his 1987 classic, “The Old Army,” which told the untold story of the peacetime Army from 1789 to 1898. Coffman used many primary sources to view that Army through eyes and words of contemporary officers, soldiers, wives (this was before “spouses,” you understand ), children, and more. Great stuff.

 

As for “The Regulars,” too soon to tell, but appears to be, as one reviewer found, "an exceptionally gracefully written, scrupulously researched, professionally objective, endlessly interesting administrative and social history of a crucial 40 years for the U.S. Army.” http://www.hup.harvard.edu/reviews/COFREG_R.html

 

Yeah, I know. Zzzzzzzz.

 

Merry Christmas and a Guzzi New Year!

 

Bill

[TX REDNECK (R.I.P.)]

I read this book 30 yrs ago and it still is one of my favorites

http://www.craigr.com/books/enduranc.htm

 

A&E did a movie on Shackelton last year and I purchased the DVD which is quite good also, but like any movie based on a outstanding book it leaves out too much .

[Guest Jeff Kelland]

"Paul Revere's Ride" by David Hackett Fischer. Excellent if you like history.

[GuzzTim]

I read this book 30 yrs ago and it still is one of my favorites

 

Tx. you may like Caroline Alexander's Book - Endurance. I thought it was well written. I also read Shackleton's South.

 

I was lucky enough to be in NYC years back and they had his actual lifeboat on display at the Museum together with photos and artifacts. To see how small that boat was in real life gave me a whole new appreciation for the journey

 

 

Tim

[Guest davidb]

maybe I should write a book on my daughter's horse "loosie" (she bites)

[GuzzTim]

that's the same expression I had during my last physical

[P3GA]

Two books that continue to have me laughing my ass off - even though each has been read countless times:

 

Letters from a Nut by Ted Nancy

 

A much maligned individual send absolutely absurd, brilliant letters to CEO's & the like, with ridiculous requests. Somehow he manages to get these people to write back in earnest.

 

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and other disasters by Jean Shepherd

 

You might know Jean Sheppard from his wrtiting of the story that ultimately became the movie "A Christmas Story".

 

Wanda's Night details a midwestern boy's efforts as he copes with the rights of passage through adolesence, including the dreaded Junior prom.

 

This book is long out of print, if you can find a used copy, it's an easy read, 8 short stories in this compilation. The great thing is there's stuff in here that we can all relate to.

 

Phil

Atlanta GA

[callison]

There were several movies that were Jean Shepherd manifestations. They're a hoot to watch and some are really difficult to find a copy of. "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" (1988)," A Christmas Story" (1983), "The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters" with the last one based on the Wanda Hickey stories although I doubt it lives up to the novel.

[todd haven]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

 

Perhaps a little Libertarian, gun-culture "wacko" for some of our European brethren,

but this guy nails what I feel is wrong with this country(I know, it's a long list ).

 

I have purchased 3 copies of this book, and received a 4th as a gift.

I am very good about ID'ing the people who will relate to it.

About 95% so far.

 

3 of 4 copies are currently loaned out--Takers?

 

What I want most from my government is to be left alone.

[pete roper]

Books! Don't talk to me about bloody books! We've had our house extended twice and there are still sodding great piles of the things everywhere because we can't bear to get rid of 'em Most of them are 'Read Once and Never Read again" specials but there is some pearl among the swine.

 

While I'm currently reading a set of Victorian detective novels my good lady wife has discovered by a bint called Anne Perry. I'm also very fond of the roman detctive novels featuring Falco written by Lindsey Davis.

 

For travel writing though you can't go past Eric Newby. Anything he's written is brilliant. While I'm particularly fond of 'The Big Red Train Ride' his account of a trip on the Trans-siberian in 1977, my favorite is still his first book 'The Last Grain Race'. Newby was an apprentice on one of the last of the sailing ships to work commercially in the grain trade to Australia from Europe. His account of the voyage, in 1938, is compelling and hillarious reading. A couple of years ago Jude actually found me a 1st eddition which I treasure and re-read frequently. His account of his last major venture, 'On the Shores of the Medditeranean' is also fascinating and brilliantly researched.

 

I love travel books. I'm generally less than pleased with motorcycle travelers simply because, to my mind an account of travel is worthless without some sort of historical perspective. One exception to this is Peter Thoeming's 'Motorcycle Touring' which I still find an entertaining read after 20+ years.

 

One of the great regrets of my life is that I never went anywhere extraordinary when I was younger. Alas If I tried nowadays, even if it was politically possible, my poor health would proclude it . The world at the moment is not a place for the lone traveller on a bike. If China is an option? Take it with both hands, likewise any of the former Soviet nations as long as there aren't separaist wars going on. South Asia is a bit dangerous at the moment, the middle east is a shitfight and South America is very patchy with many countries being no-go zones. To me I find it stultifyingly boring always being surrounded by the decendants of blood-nut Irish convicts, one of the things I really miss from the UK is the cultural diversity. While I haven't travelled for a while outside of English speaking countries I've almost always found that people the world over are essentially the same. A possible exception being the Icelanders???? Who else can excuse a nation that foisted Bjork on an unsupecting world??????

 

Pete

[st. augustine]

Just picked up Long Way Round by McGregorer & Boorman. So far it is great. Check it out...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=books&n=507846

[not_scooter_Scura!]

Bruce,

 

I'll also have to vote for Z.A.M.M - excellent - the concept of quality as an 'event' , as Guzzi riders, I think we do this all the time.

 

I read it over 7 months while fully restoring a 1977 Ducati 900SS - along with listening to Luka Bloom's 'Acoustic Motorbike' album - what a great time in my life.

 

peace out (in!)

 

n_s_S!

[pete roper]

Bruce,

 

I'll also have to vote for Z.A.M.M - excellent - the concept of quality as an 'event' , as Guzzi riders, I think we do this all the time.

 

40092[/snapback]

 

Really??? I read it back in the '70's and found it boring, self-indugent and turgid. I tried to read it again a couple of years ago and was still confronted by the same things. Certainly when I'm riding my bikes, or working on them, I'm not in the least bit concerned with quasi-God-bothering nonsense of a very sophomorc nature. I thought the book stank! One *

 

Pete

[Guest Steve_W]

maybe I should write a book on my daughter's horse  "loosie" (she bites)

that's the same expression I had during my last physical

I've seen this exchange several times during the past couple of days and every time I laugh my ass off. I think I know exactly when you have that expression too!

[Admin Jaap]

- the concept of quality as an 'event' , as Guzzi riders, I think we do this all the time.

40092[/snapback]

 

Now you've ruined the end for me