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blahblah
Gym climber
Boulder
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How about recommendations for out-of-copyright or otherwise free Kindle books?
Anything from the stuff we read (or were supposed to read) in high school to stuff most of us have never heard of.
I'll start (with one of the high school variety): Call of the Wild, by Jack London. Pretty good, but didn't necessarily make me want to read more London--kind of been there/done that.
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner
Sort of Tom Robbins meets an easier to read Pynchon. All the protagonist is missing is big thumbs.
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Killer K
Boulder climber
Sacramento, CA
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Just finished the illustrated man again so cool how many of the stories dont seem so far fetched today as they did when they were written. Bradbury was a genius.
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Ward Trotter
Trad climber
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Exhaustive and fairly well-written account of the period, the science, the history, the human accounts, surrounding the world's most destructive and awesome volcanic eruption of modern times.
A good read only if you can appreciate the minutiae of context within which such episodic events transpire.
Such books come and go as a matter of course, largely under the radar. However, if there is ever an eruption on the scale of the1883 Krakatoa event anytime soon, anywhere on the globe---this book, and books like it ,will instantly receive huge and well-deserved attention as a sort of general reference manual for these apocalyptic , world-changing cataclysms and the tragic aftermaths.
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looking sketchy there...
Social climber
Lassitude 33
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Winchester's Kratatoa book is excellent as are some of the others he has written, including: The Professor and the Madman and The Map That Changed the World.
Currently am reading the excellent Lawrence In Arabia, by Scott Anderson
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pud
climber
Sportbikeville & Yucca brevifolia
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stevep
Boulder climber
Salt Lake, UT
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The Abominable by Dan Simmons.
Sort of historical horror mystery, similar to his novel the Terror, about the Franklin Expedition that disappeared in northern Canada. I liked that, and this one is good so far. Simmons is a good writer and does a lot of historical research to give context to his fictional narrative.
More importantly, this ties into climbing, as it centers around an expedition to Mt. Everest shortly after Mallory and Irvine.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Thinking, fast and slow...Second time... spot-reading and marking...slow reading...
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Gregory Crouch
Social climber
Walnut Creek, California
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Have read two I'd strongly recommend this week:
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, a tragic novel about three soldiers unraveling during the Iraq War. Beautifully written and moving.
Peter Stark's Astoria, about John Jacob Astor's unsuccessful attempt to found a fur trading outpost at the mouth of the Columbia River, 1810-1812. Astor's plan was sound, but things went horribly wrong. Stark does a great job taking us along and giving us a view of North America before it was "civilized.
I'll also kick down my enthusiasm for Simon Winchester. I've read a bunch of his books, and have enjoyed them all: The Professor and the Madman, The Map that Changed the World, Krakatoa, The Man Who Loved China, The River at the Center of the World, The Crack at the Edge of the World.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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The Man in the High Castle Phillip K Dick
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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn
The Upanishads, Eknath Easwaran translation
Trad Climbers' Bible, Croft/Long
Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved, Shulgin
The first two should be must-reads for any stupid american.
Trad bible I'm only about 20 pages into. Has great pics and good tales, but so far my biggest impression is that it needs a serious re-editing. Cringeworthy, overwrought prose and sporting ridiculous slang that was "in" for about 3 minutes in the 90s ("gettin' jiggy" etc), poor word choice (using the noun drill, as in a synonym for exercise, in a sentence about trad climbing within a paragraph that is trying to differentiate it from sport climbing). I had a hard time getting past those things. I expect it will improve when I get into the meat of it and past the introductory philosophical pondering.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I rarely read only one book.
The Desert Fox by David Irving. Despite turning into a Holocaust denier
Irving's bio seems totally free of his late looniness and is very impartial
to the point that Rommel comes under fire for his enfatuation with Der Fuhrer.
The War for all the Oceans by Roy and Lesley Adkins. The Napoleonic Wars
were won on the high seas. Waterloo was a mopping up operation.
The Russian Mind by Ronald Hingley. What with the current insanity I've
dragged out this seminal work from my university days by the Emeritus Fellow at Oxford.
You do know that Nihilism was and is a Russian creation?
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ydpl8s
Trad climber
Santa Monica, California
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Telex From Cuba - Rachel Kushner
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The Glowering Sailor
climber
Mt. Humphreys
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Have read two I'd strongly recommend this week:
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers, a tragic novel about three soldiers unraveling during the Iraq War. Beautifully written and moving.
Thanks for reminding me about this. I bought it not long after it came out and haven't gotten to it yet.
Elcapinyoazz, them's fightin' words 'round here, wut wif the paranoiacs, wingnuts, and various other trailer park critters who call this place home.
Good reading the both of yiz.
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Roxy
Trad climber
CA Central Coast
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just finished Hawkeye: my life as a weapon (Marvel comics) not sure if there are any comic fans out there....bygones if not.
now reading Ed Abbey's "Down the River"...prolly already read by most. As it should be.
Abbey quoted Thoreau in the first essay of that book, a line that has stuck with me today - "Goodness is the only investment that will never fail"
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David Knopp
Trad climber
CA
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Good Lord Bird
by James Macbride
Funniest book about slavery and John Brown, more metaphors than you can stand, ultimately moving as well. My top recommended book this year. So far that is!
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Lacey
Social climber
Nevada
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WILD
by Cheryl Strayed
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Byran
climber
San Jose, CA
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just finished Hawkeye: my life as a weapon (Marvel comics) not sure if there are any comic fans out there....bygones if not.
Yeah I've never read Hawkeye before but picked up the new series because of all the acclaim it's been getting. Smart writing by Matt Fraction and incredible art by David Aja. Definitely one of the best comics of 2013, right up there with Saga.
Anyways, I made it one of my new years resolutions to read 2 books a month in 2014.
In Jan I read "The Last Gasp" by Scott Christianson which is a history of the American gas chamber and also includes some chapters about the invention of lethal gas in WW1 and use by the Nazis in WW2. And also read "Anticipations" by HG Wells, which is available for free
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19229
Now for Feb I've finished "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris which was pretty interesting and well argued. It was written in the post 9/11 atmosphere and so now some of the anti-terrorism rhetoric feels a bit dated, but it's still worth a read. And I also just got done with HG Wells' follow-up to Anticipations which is Mankind in the Making, also available online
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7058
For March I'm currently reading "Escape from Camp 14" by Blaine Harden which recounts the true story of Shin Dong-hyuk's life and escape from a North Korean labor camp. Also started Origin of Species by Darwin, which is slightly laborious but I think prove worthwhile.
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steveA
Trad climber
Wolfeboro, NH
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A wonderful read. An incredible piece of work.
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