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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Dec 10, 2013 - 02:46pm PT
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Sullly-
I've been doing this for a while; it's by invitation after one reaches >100 book reviews written, and enough positive "votes." It's not only books, but included stuff like vitamins, electronics, coffee, etc.
Rodger
P.S. I read pretty fast; normally a book a day for me.
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Byran
climber
Yosemite
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Dec 30, 2013 - 11:23pm PT
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Just finished The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. I give it 4/5 Supertaco stars. It's an introduction to evolution, how it works, and the evidence it leaves behind. It briefly covers several fields of study - from radiometric dating and plate tectonics to genetics, embryology, and zoology. And each step of the way he pauses to pick apart the claims and arguments made by creationists. Dawkins has a great enthusiasm for his work and he writes with clarity and expertise. This is the second book of his that I've read with several more on my "to read" list.
Just started The Last Gasp: Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber by Scott Christianson. A couple chapters in, I've learned about rise of the Eugenics movement at the turn of the century and the development of poisonous gases during the first World War. Pretty good so far.
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Eclipze
Trad climber
Morris Plains / Givat Haim Ichud Israel
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Dec 31, 2013 - 01:26am PT
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Reading Richard Marcinkos books again always an enjoyable read. Was gonna start reading a sport Climbing book but just haven't had to take to really take on a serious book.
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Gal
Trad climber
going big air to fakie
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Dec 31, 2013 - 01:44am PT
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I read "the language of flowers" quick entertaining read
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Dec 31, 2013 - 09:44am PT
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Retreading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
And taking firsts on Playback, Raymond chandler & Three to get ready-Janet evanich
Last week was zero history ( Gibson), The glass Key,- Dashiel Hammet
& the Autistic Brain by a Temple Grandin
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Dec 31, 2013 - 10:50am PT
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An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson. A very well researched and written account of the invasion of North Africa. We sure f*#ked up a lot, but managed to figure out how to fight eventually.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Dead Mountain, by Donnie Eichar.
My review of it, "Siberian Death Trip," is in today's Wall Street Journal, bottom of page C8.
(I've got to link you through a google search in the hopes of avoiding the WSJ paywall. If you get caught by the paywall, doing your own search should circumvent it.)
There are two major threads of interest to climbers in the book, which I enjoyed:
The totalitarian control of the Soviet Union, which even reached down into local adventure clubs. Could you imagine having to deal with such bureaucracy in order to get your various adventure certifications? Reminds me of what caused the Vulgarian revolt in the Gunks, only much, much worse.
And Eichar's conclusion about what caused the deaths--"infrasound," induced by "tornadic vortices" caused by strong wind whipping around the sides of the mountain. Which description sounded a lot like "the Patagonian Organs" to me, and although those aural effects are pretty darn scary, I find it hard to imagine that it drove the 9 dead Russians simultaneously out of their minds.
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paganmonkeyboy
climber
mars...it's near nevada...
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I am alternating between midget-on-horse porn and the King James Bible at the moment...they compliment each other quite nicely...
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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hairyapeman
Trad climber
Fres-yes
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The second book in the Common wealth Saga (Sci-Fi). An awesome read!
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crunch
Social climber
CO
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There are two major threads of interest to climbers in the book, which I enjoyed:
The totalitarian control of the Soviet Union, which even reached down into local adventure clubs. Could you imagine having to deal with such bureaucracy in order to get your various adventure certifications? Reminds me of what caused the Vulgarian revolt in the Gunks, only much, much worse.
Hey Gregory Crouch, that sounds like the premise behind Bernadette McDonald's Freedom Climbers for the climbers in Poland, while under Soviet control.
She suggests that,
one, the most ruthless, organized and determined mountaineers dealt best with the bureaucracy, thereby self-selecting Himalayan climbers who were well suited to thriving in hideously adverse conditions;
and two, the bureaucracy itself, once it realized it had a world-class, elite group of climbers, saw them as an asset/propaganda tool. It quietly encouraged, supported and helped them. This became a delicate balancing act of a relationship with mutual distrust, even hatred, but also mutual need.
Cool read.
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Crunch, I think that's right for the elites, but for every handful of them, there were boatloads of people like most of us, who weren't. I bet it sucked to be told what you could and couldn't do and be told how to do it for the vast majority of "weekenders."
Although I'm equally sure that those weekenders drew a lot of solace from outdoor adventure amidst the regulation, too.
Or maybe they were so used to the subjugation that it was accepted as normal?
I found those threads to be pretty interesting in Dead Mountain.
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this just in
climber
north fork
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Jan 25, 2014 - 11:15am PT
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Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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A Life of Phillip K Dick. Yesterday I worked through the collected Crumb Volume II
A genius, that Turgenev - Diary of a Superflous Man - how post existential is that?
Diary of a madman, might be more applicable to climbers - Google Gogol - okay so I had to set that up to use that phrase, but, I, like it!
And while we're talking the Russians.. Sorta...what about
Chekhov? and through him, the various medical school graduates who became novelists? Seems like a weighty path, to me, having been married to a physician. Chekhov, Michael Crichton and robin cook were actual md's who had a 'literary' second career take off on them but Somerset Maugham, Gertrude Stein, and whomever I am forgetting, studied medicine, and then went in another direction, which I find fascinating! Then of course, there are Oliver Sacks, sr Close, et al who found the material of their practice, to be the muse for their words....
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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I know exactly what you mean! Have you read Krokodil? It's even more magical realism- rich than The Nose! One of the reasons I law tied to learn Russian was to read the Nose, and the Overcoat, in the original language.
I think that some of that romance and magical realism carried over into the Soviet realism as seen in the revolutionary Posters. The imagery and iconography, of some of those images coupled with the the aphorisms, is amazing, "the hard workers are behind us, in this is our strength,". Forgive or correct me, Alexey & Vitalliy, I think it goes like, Трудяшихся за нас, в етом, наша Сила!
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Urizen
Ice climber
Berkeley, CA
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Made a good haul at the library yesterday. Cold weather today, so I spent most of it in bed finishing Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories. Next: Stephen Spender's World within World, and Robert Pinsky's anthology Singing Class.
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rockermike
Trad climber
Berkeley
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God: A Biography. Jack Miles
An incedibly intellegent - we can say - post modern look at the Jewish idea of god.
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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"American Sniper" by the late Chris Kyle.
Interesting look into the military's ability to locate and exploit a young man's angst and aggression.
At least that's what I am taking from it.
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