Books Part V, featuring Benny Profane and the Whole Sick Crew

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I didn't really care for the first, but someone bought me this book as a present years ago and I've yet to open it up. :reject:
I finished Ready Player One. That was fun.
 
I read Voices from Chernobyl a while ago but since being diagnosed with thyroid cancer a few years back I think I'd like to read it again.

It has always fascinated me that the main health impact to those affected in the accident has been thyroid cancer from exposure to radioactive iodine (I-131) and yet, as part of my treatment for thyroid cancer I am required to ingest I-131.

My brother and his wife leave for a trip to the Ukraine tomorrow. They've arranged to take a tour of the abandoned site. I am very much looking forward to hearing about it.
 
I read Voices from Chernobyl a while ago but since being diagnosed with thyroid cancer a few years back I think I'd like to read it again.

It has always fascinated me that the main health impact to those affected in the accident has been thyroid cancer from exposure to radioactive iodine (I-131) and yet, as part of my treatment for thyroid cancer I am required to ingest I-131.

My brother and his wife leave for a trip to the Ukraine tomorrow. They've arranged to take a tour of the abandoned site. I am very much looking forward to hearing about it.

Oh gosh, I had no idea, beegee! Hope you're doing well and getting better :hug:
 
I read Voices from Chernobyl a while ago but since being diagnosed with thyroid cancer a few years back I think I'd like to read it again.

It has always fascinated me that the main health impact to those affected in the accident has been thyroid cancer from exposure to radioactive iodine (I-131) and yet, as part of my treatment for thyroid cancer I am required to ingest I-131.

My brother and his wife leave for a trip to the Ukraine tomorrow. They've arranged to take a tour of the abandoned site. I am very much looking forward to hearing about it.

Sorry to hear that, beegee. Here's to a speedy recovery

I did a little search after reading your post and found that higher doses (therapeutic doses such as the one you'd be getting) are actually less dangerous than lower level exposure (less danger as far a leaving behind tissue that would otherwise become cancerous). So the thyroid and cancerous tissues being destroyed by the I-131 are killed off completely, whereas a small dose would leave behind thyroid cells that would potentially become cancerous themselves. It's fairly interesting.
 
I read Voices from Chernobyl a while ago but since being diagnosed with thyroid cancer a few years back I think I'd like to read it again.

It has always fascinated me that the main health impact to those affected in the accident has been thyroid cancer from exposure to radioactive iodine (I-131) and yet, as part of my treatment for thyroid cancer I am required to ingest I-131.

My brother and his wife leave for a trip to the Ukraine tomorrow. They've arranged to take a tour of the abandoned site. I am very much looking forward to hearing about it.
Sorry to hear that.

Your brother and his wife are taking one of my dream trips! I've always been fascinated with the abandoned Pripyat. I wish I could take a tour before it becomes too disturbed by people to still be authentic. Although now that I've read the book it will definitely be 100 times more depressing.

I couldn't actually find my copy of The Girl Who Played With Fire and so I decided to start reading Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel instead. I'm less than a chapter in at the moment, but it looks like I will have some free time to read later today.
 
I have to start catching up or I'm going to be buried in a pile of finished books that can't be reshelved until I talk about them here. I'm something of an idiot, I guess.

I just finished Passage Through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest, by John Logan Allen.

I love this kind of book. Nerdy, scholarly, full of interesting analysis. It took me forever to read because I couldn't read it when I was tired (and I'm tired most of the time).

Allen takes a look at what the image of the area of the Louisiana Purchase was before any real exploration had taken place, puts that image into perspective as far as Jefferson was concerned, and then traces the Lewis and Clark expedition's realignment of that image, both during and after the expedition. He treats the two most important aspects of that image: the final quest for a waterway to India, and the idea of the West as a Garden of the world, with unlimited agricultural potential.

Frickin' fascinating.
 
If I take a break from a book half way through because it's kinda dry and I have no motivation to read it and I just read a book containing similar information, does that make me a fucking quitter?
 
Jive Turkey said:
If I take a break from a book half way through because it's kinda dry and I have no motivation to read it and I just read a book containing similar information, does that make me a fucking quitter?

No. I find it hard myself to complete a book that I have no interest in. A lot of people do it. I really wonder what motivates some people to finish books they don't like because it sounds like torture.
 
The description on amazon sounds pretty awesome.

So far, so good. I am a sucker for this genre/era, though. I remember watching "Shogun" the mini-series as a kid and being hooked. Read the book not long thereafter and the rest is boring, personal history but there you have it.
 
Strangely enough, I've never read any Japanese historical fiction. Well, some of Genji Monogatari. Probably should.
 
Depends on if you you actually read it or just looked at the pictures.

If you look into Japanese art history, you'll sadly see it's been around for quite some time. So disappointing to find out some of my favorite Japanese artists did some disgusting paintings / woodblock prints....in the freaking 1800's.
 
If I take a break from a book half way through because it's kinda dry and I have no motivation to read it and I just read a book containing similar information, does that make me a fucking quitter?

No. I find it hard myself to complete a book that I have no interest in. A lot of people do it. I really wonder what motivates some people to finish books they don't like because it sounds like torture.

One of my favorite quotes from Dorothy Parker:

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
 
Still catching up:

Gustave Baumann's Southwest, by Joseph Traugott
This is a collection of Baumann's very lovely woodcuts, with some biographical context. I got this in Denver when I had to go because of the cancelled U2 show. They had some of his woodcuts there. I read this recently because I'm going to Phoenix this month to see a band and there's a Baumann show at the Phoenix Art Museum.

The Case of the Spurious Spinster, by Erle Stanley Gardner.
Erle does love his ridiculous plots. This one was fun because we have this season on dvd and we've watched this one more than once, I think. Some underhanded business dealings, impersonation, and a murder. Poor Ken. He didn't deserve it. Sometimes the victim clearly has it coming; Ken didn't.
 
Cleopatra: A Life - Stacy Schiff

Pretty good. I've been meaning to read about Cleopatra for a while because even though she has the reputation of being an enthralling beauty with a wild sex life, she was also known for being an intelligent strong woman.

This book is considered to be a good first step in learning about her, plus Caesar and Mark Antony, and it was. Schiff points out something very poignant at the beginning - no written letter or description of Cleopatra survives, except Roman propaganda. So all that we can do now is examine the propaganda, look at the evidence and analyze who Cleopatra really was.

The downside to this book is that the paragraphs were quite long, and Schiff really went overboard describing how beautiful the city of Alexandria was. Yes, it certainly was a beautiful place and it's sad that it's underwater now, but enough of the gushing.
 
So I started the second book from Abercrombie's First Law trilogy. Not really sure why. I ended up being incredibly lukewarm on the first one by the time I finished it. Like nsw said, it was ok. It was too ok, too solid in its mediocrity that I'm not really sure why I feel compelled to go on with the series. Even with the impending war the union is facing from both the north and south, the geography seems so poorly fleshed out. Very rarely can I not distinctly picture a setting and its overall map as I'm reading, often making up my own details in absence of--and then as they're filled in, I sometimes get annoyed when mine are wrong and I have to start imagining things looking a different way, but that's another story. I was originally chalking it up to a slow pace, that the novel was just taking its sweet time in setting the stage, getting all the plot ducks in a row, and introducing the major characters. And there are two major examples in the first 50 pages of Before They are Hanged (on a side note, if the hang/hung grammar had been otherwise in the title, I wouldn't go near the thing with a stolen pair of eyes) that sort of redeem a lot of the vague geography for me. But I'm not really sold on the books yet, they're still just merely ok.
 
Just finished "Wool" by Hugh Howley. Yet another dystopian or post apocalypse book strongly recommended to me that had a semi promising premise but fell flat. Everyone is 2 dimensional, the same phrases are used over and over again, zero nuance to be found anywhere, etc. Apparently Howley wrote this over many years, during his lunch break while working at a bookstore. He then self published over the Internet, people latched on, buzz began, publishing company swooped in, movie rights were optioned, etc. So that's a nice success story, just wish the book were actually good. Oh well.

350 pages into "Taiko" and also about to start "The World at Night" by Alan Furst, the 4th book in The Night Soldiers series.
 
Guess who finally finished Atlas Shrugged today! :cabbagepatch: Yeah!

It actually got pretty exciting, barring the odd 60-page speech. OK, there was just one 60-page speech, but that was more than enough. Otherwise, the last two-thirds of the book were really good; the first third was really slow.

Poor Eddie Willers. :sad:

I'm not even going to get into the philosophical stuff here. That's another book in itself.

I'm going to read a short book about dragons now! Or maybe some Michael Crichton. And I think I earned a piece of cake or something. Where's my prize??? ;)
 
I warned you about that speech. Glad you finished, though.

Your prize is that randians will embrace you now, whereas Rand haters will now despise you. Enjoy.
 
Guess who finally finished Atlas Shrugged today! :cabbagepatch: Yeah!

It actually got pretty exciting, barring the odd 60-page speech. OK, there was just one 60-page speech, but that was more than enough. Otherwise, the last two-thirds of the book were really good; the first third was really slow.

Poor Eddie Willers. :sad:

I'm not even going to get into the philosophical stuff here. That's another book in itself.

I'm going to read a short book about dragons now! Or maybe some Michael Crichton. And I think I earned a piece of cake or something. Where's my prize??? ;)

:hi5: :cocktail::beer::dance:

There you go!

Really, I'm amazed at anyone who can read a 1000 page book and not get tired.
 
:hi5: :cocktail::beer::dance:

There you go!

Really, I'm amazed at anyone who can read a 1000 page book and not get tired.

Not singling you out here but I've never understood that sentiment. What's the difference between one 1,000 page book and three 333 page books? I mean, I get that tons of people are scared off by long books but I don't understand why, especially if it's good. If anything, a lengthier book is a preference for me, it allows for greater character development and I get to live in that world all the longer. BUT THAT'S JUST ME.
 
No spoken words said:
Not singling you out here but I've never understood that sentiment. What's the difference between one 1,000 page book and three 333 page books? I mean, I get that tons of people are scared off by long books but I don't understand why, especially if it's good. If anything, a lengthier book is a preference for me, it allows for greater character development and I get to live in that world all the longer. BUT THAT'S JUST ME.

The last time I read a 1000 page book was Anne Rice's The Witching Hour - that was back in high school. Since then, I haven't found anything worth all those pages.
 
I used to dread the giant books because I'd get sick of slogging them around! Ha.

Kind of a moot point now with the Kindle, but I've been slogging around a lot of hardcover books from the library the past few months, and sometimes I'm dismayed when I pick it up from the library and see it's a big-ol' heavy-ass book.

But if it's something I want to read, I'm certainly going to read it.
 
The last time I read a 1000 page book was Anne Rice's The Witching Hour - that was back in high school. Since then, I haven't found anything worth all those pages.

Which 1000 page books have you read and found unworthy? And if the answer is "none" then this is a silly conversation. To each their own of course, but yeah, this just makes zero sense to me.
 
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