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GDavis
Trad climber
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Mar 20, 2009 - 03:31am PT
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No Shortcuts to the Top
High Exposure
Flame of Adventure
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Kiss Me Judas
The Illiad
The Fellowship of the Ring
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Camp 4
Mountain Light
Good, Great, Awesome!
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Mar 20, 2009 - 03:43am PT
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That's scary Anders! I have Independent People high on my list just not top 3. Same with my hero Fridtjof (my company is named Fram!).
Last 3
Ghosts of Cape Sabine - Guttridge (Greeley Expedition)
A Year In Paradise - Schmoe (a ranger at Mt Rainier in 1920)
In the Wake of the Jomon - Turk (sail and kayak from Hokkaido to Alaska? Are you nuts?)
Best 3? Most Recent Best 3:
Flying Through Midnight - Halliday (irreverent story of the covert air war in Laos)
The Songlines - Chatwin (Definitely top 10 all time)
Kristin Lavransdatter - Undset (good 'nuff for Nobel committee)
Best 3 climbing
Annapurna - Herzog (what got me going down this road)
On the Ridge Between Life and Death - Roberts
Everest: The West Ridge - Hornbein
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MH2
climber
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Mar 20, 2009 - 03:54am PT
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Last
The First 8 Billion Miles, Abigail Foerstner
A Reed Shaken by the Wind, Gavin Maxwell
The Middle-aged Man on the Flying Trapeze, James Thurber
Best
(Pretty good, at least)
John Gilley of Baker's Island, Charles W. Eliot
The 13 Clocks, James Thurber
The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Climbing
Climberz, M. John Harrison
Last Blue Mountain, Ralph Barker
No Picnic on Mount Kenya, Felice Benuzzi
nice to see Cork Boat and Canoeing With the Cree show up
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kellie
climber
Seattle
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Mar 20, 2009 - 10:28am PT
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So pip (or any other Maugham fans out there), I've been trying to remember the title of a book he wrote set in the South Pacific, sailing around visiting various ports of call such as Pago Pago and the like. I read it eighteen years ago and can't for the life of me remember what it was called. It's not the Moon and Sixpence. I'm honestly not certain whether it was short stories or a novel that read like a series of short stories.
Any thoughts?
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Mar 20, 2009 - 10:37am PT
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It was a collection of short stories, great stuff.
Maugham was one of the best. If he had only written, Of Human Bondage, and the Rqzor's edge, that would have been enough. But he gave us a lot more.
If you ever get a chance to read his memoirs and short stories about being a spy during WW1(?) you'll appreciate a whole other facet of his work and psyche.
In the same vein that Pip brought up with "
a Writer's Notebook', 'The summng Up' is worth a read, as well.
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kellie
climber
Seattle
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Mar 20, 2009 - 11:17am PT
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But what was the title???
I was very fond of The Gentleman in the Parlour and The Merry-Go-Round as well, despite the grim view of marriage embodied therein. Miss Ley was a great character and I always enjoyed her commentary on country living: "I dare say it's a fine thing to be born in the country on your own land, even if you're only a woman. I like to feel that my roots are here. When I look round, I can hardly resist the temptation to take off my clothes and roll in a ploughed field."
Which novel has the spy stuff in it? I'd like to read that.
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pip the dog
Mountain climber
planet dogboy
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Mar 20, 2009 - 04:06pm PT
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kellie,
> I've been trying to remember the title of a book he wrote
> set in the South Pacific, sailing around visiting various
> ports of call such as Pago Pago and the like.
> Any thoughts?
"The Trembling Of A Leaf: Little Stories From The South Sea
Islands" W. Somerset Maugham (1921)
one of those short stories "Rain" is set in Pago Pago.
it is exquisite.
~~~
here's a brief piece of it:
"There was silence downstairs. Miss Thompson was sitting in her
little room alone. But suddenly the gramophone began to play.
She had set it on in defiance, to cheat her loneliness, but
there was no one to sing, and it had a melancholy note. It was
like a cry for help. Davidson took no notice. He was in the
middle of a long anecdote and without change of expression went
on. The gramophone continued. Miss Thompson put on one reel
after another. It looked as though the silence of the night
were getting on her nerves. It was breathless and sultry. When
the Macphails went to bed they could not sleep. They lay side
by side with their eyes wide open, listening to the cruel,
singing of the mosquitoes outside their curtain.
"What's that?" whispered Mrs Macphail at last.
They heard a voice, Davidson's voice, through the wooden
partition. It went on with a monotonous, earnest insistence.
He was praying aloud. He was praying for the soul of Miss
Thompson."
-from "Rain" (page 274 in the first edition)
~~~
Google has a digitized verion of the entire original edition at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=AwtEDPKc66UC&dq=The+Trembling+of+a+Leaf&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=dO7DSfOjK5n4MdfK3agF&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA5,M1
(perhaps the longest URL ever posted on ST) you can also
download the entire facsimile first edition (it is now in the
public domain) as a 2.8m PDF file via that URL.
^,,^
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Mar 21, 2009 - 05:36pm PT
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Apparently I can't count very well...
Reilly, do you have the new translation of Kristin Lavransdatter (Tina Nunnally), or the 1920s one? The new one is more readable. Big time chick-lit. Undset may be a very distant cousin - some cousins named Undseth came to my mother's memorial last spring. (Norwegians aren't famed for consistent spelling of family names.)
You do, I hope, know what Fram means? The literal translation of Nansen's title is "Forward Across the Polar Ocean" - a nice pun in that his vessel Fram has the same name. Fram is now in a museum in Oslo, and very worth seeing. http://www.fram.museum.no/en/
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Last three: British Trade Unions, 1800-1875 Musson
Finding Beauty in a Broken World, Terry Tempest
Williams
The Dark Side, Jane Mayer
Best three: The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner
Rising from the Plains, John McPhee
Best Climbing: The West Ridge, Thomas Hornbein
The Karakoram, Mariani
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
In the mountains... somewhere...
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I can't believe that no one has mentioned The Savage Arena yet. Really though, anything by Tasker or Boardman are incredible.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Wow, the Gnome resurfaces ,,,thought you were gone~~~~
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Reilly
Mountain climber
Monrovia, CA
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Anders,
Jeg har den gammel Kristin men jeg tror det var ett gode oversettelse. "chick lit"? Du ær pussig, men jeg håpe Tami ska ikke lese dette.
Rett fram!!! Jo, jeg besøkte Fram Museet foran Kolsås og Aandalsnæs!
ta det med ro!
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Last read:
In Cold Blood: Capote
Colossus: Niall Ferguson
The Wall: Hubers
Best read:
Magic Mountain: Mann
Absalom, Absalom: Faulkner
Illiad and Odyssey: Homer
Hamlet: Shakespeare
The Crossing books: Cormac McCarthy
Best climbing:
Gervasutti’s Climbs: Giusto Gervasutti
Annapurna: Herzog
The Wildest Dream: the Gillmans
The Villain: Jim Perrin
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there chris.. say, thanks for the share...
i never knew of such a thing, until
i read the post on all that...
thanks for the share...
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