nephihaha

I love a lot of Hesse's work but the Glass Bead Game was unreadable.

There are several westerns I can think of which are classic novels by any standard. I got my book group to read "True Grit" by Charles Portis. ("Masters of Atlantis" by the same author is another underrated work, and sends up secret societies.) There was some resistance to it based on its genre, since the group had not read a western before, but it has a strong female lead character, and some of the members were very impressed by it.

Roald Dahl: "True Grit is the best novel to come my way for a very long time. What book has given me greater pleasure in the last five years? Or in the last twenty? What a writer."

Donna Tartt: "I cannot think of another novel—any novel—which is so delightful to so many disparate age groups and literary tastes [as True Grit]."

The more recent film is more faithful to the novel than the 60s/70s one.

"Butcher's Crossing" is another one that springs to mind.

Certainly, but I would not underestimate stress. Definitely a major factor in cardiovascular trouble in addition to what you said.

I doubt most of these pictures would make much sense to a primitive future society. The skull and cross bones might be one of the few that would get through to them. The nuclear radiation sign would probably be forgotten.

In print:

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. (Much more disjointed than the film, but a quick read.)

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

On audiobook (I know, not technically reading):

Garth Marenghi's horror trilogy (Matthew Holness is one of the best narrators I've heard.)

On Kindle:

Cut Throat: the Vicious World of Rod Maclean by Wayne Thallon (I don't believe the half of it, but I know many of the locations discussed in it. I seem to find true crime my light reading these days)

An Angel at my Table by Janet Frame

The Summer Son by Craig Lancaster

Recently finished:

Sky Above, Great Wind by Kazuaki Tanahashi

Jew(ish) by Matt Greene

The House that Evolves by Pauline Hunter

The Inheritors by William Golding (made much less of an impact than the last time I read it.)

I have had about a hundred pages to go for three years now. I should knuckle down and finish it. It wasn't for me either. A shame because I have enjoyed some of Wallace's other writings.

There are much harder works out there. Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest, Finnegans Wake to name but three. Heck, even Walter Scott's novels. That's before we get onto ergodic literarure.

I read the Grapes of Wrath many years ago. I think Steinbeck is more effective in his shorter works.

Quite incredible how much manmade crap there is up there, and much of it probably useless, and a potential problem for the satellites which are of actual use.

A lot of blood pressure is down to stress.

No, more to do with health concerns and antisocial behaviour.

As usual Wikipedia is misleading again by suggesting it is mainly an Irish festival, when Scotland has contributed as much to it. It is Samhainn or Samhuinn around here.

Definitely never Sam Hain as some smooth brains call it. "Mh" is a "v" or "w" sound in Gaelic.

I can think of two. There are entire ecosystems in some of these places.

American conservatives are economically liberal (or pretend to be), whereas American liberals are not economically liberal. In other words some of the American conservatives are pushing laisser-faire and Manchester School type economics, while the so called liberals are pushing intensive government regulation (which is not liberal.)

Many so called "conservatives" are economically liberal, whereas the so called "liberals" are pushing statism and social democrat ideas, which are not liberal. American definitions are arse backwards. American liberals were socially liberal at one point, but even that has begun to change.

I see this all the time. I was trying to explain recently to someone how a person can be highly intelligent and a fool at the same time. It is as if the brain takes skills from one area to build them up in another. Many intelligent people lack social understanding, and some are extremely cut off and cruel in their view of the wider population. Some intellectuals are highly totalitarian in their thinking.

Academia itself also functions as a kind of subculture, with its own customs, traditions and quirks. I'm not just thinking of the strange fraternities, processions and whatnot in old universities, but the way academic papers are worded or even titled.

I did not know that. I have family living near there.

Because the Chinese writing system is immensely complicated, and alphabets are far easier to typeset.

You have to know over two thousand characters to read classical Chinese, with some appearing very rarely.

Someone should do a graphic novel version of the Bayeux tapestry based heavily on the original.

Which gives rise to the word floccinaucinihilipilification.

Czechoslovakia was never in the USSR. It was Warsaw Pact. Same with Hungary.

The Warsaw Pact was the eastern bloc's answer to NATO. They were also in Comecon, their version of the EEC.

Not to be confused with Comicon.

Sousveillance is not that new a word. I remember seeing it at least twenty years ago.

Like most Wikipedia articles on billionaires, this piece is a hagiography. His employees probably wrote it.

I wish I could say the same here. People seem to have forgotten what the word liberal is supposed to mean. There is a local Liberal tradition which has very little to do with modern usage.

That was standard across major Soviet cities.

Neither does Lord Howe Island, but continental Antarctica is probably the world's largest rat-free region. I'm sure many rats have made it ashore, and survived briefly, and some have managed to live in stations/bases, but most of the continent will be rat-free.

On the other hand, I'm aware rats have managed to survived in South Georgia, and caused problems for local flora and fauna there.

Is Wikipedia on there?

The majority of Antarctica is rat free.

Not really in some countries taxis are specific vehicle types and clearly branded. American ones are ordinary cars with slight modifications.

Americans have changed/reversed a lot of political definitions including conservative/liberal.

Very good point and that is one of the biggest problems. It needn't be so.