The Holy Bible

[Nathan]

I find it hard to believe that you have a daughter, but if you're serious about a good book, I highly recommend How To Read The Bible For All Its Worth.

As far as the authorship goes, it is an anthology so I'm not sure how a bookstore would alphabetize that. I guess you arrange an anthology by it's editors.

[aphronben]

I think Andy is looking for something like York notes, chapter summaries and the like....  

[DaveShearn]

woah woah woah, andy andy andy. You have a daughter?!?!??!??!??! She has very short hair for a girl.

or is this like that time when, in a debate about which animal was better, you replaced the word cat with dog on the aphron forum in an attempt to make me appear to be a dog-supporting low life?

sorry, i feel i may have digressed slightly from the threads subject  :ph34r:  

[apm]

Ben, thanks, i did find a good set of GCSE York The Holy Bible notes, AND they had been edited by a Catholic.  I have been led to believe that these 'Catholics' are very good teachers of this book, and pick out all the important themes and discard the unnecessary parts that the examiners dont really bother about.

Also, I heard that there is a kind of mid-quel thing that they include sometimes called the Apocrypha, so I may give that a go when i finish reading my daughter's version of the Bible.  Its got a good twist apparently...

And Dave, yes she is a she.  Sometimes she comes on here and reads these posts, and if she saw her Uncle David questioning her gender again that confusion may reoccur in her mind.  I guess it didnt help me calling her Gordon, but my ex-wife was in to all that women's rights stuff.

Thanks for all the help

[hazyz]

has anyone read the sequel to this book.  i heard it is supposed to be really good but i forget the name. i'll let you know when i find out

[DaveShearn]

no i haven't heard much about it. isn't their gonna be a spin-off series about paul or something?

[SingaporeSunflower]

actually, I've got quite a soft spot for the original -

and anyway, I hear that we might have to wait until the author makes another book tour before we get the sequel - and this time he's bringing a bunch of his buddies

bit like a really REALLY large scale Sundance Festival for books and authors and stuff

or something

 

[SingaporeSunflower]

I guess you arrange an anthology by it's editors.

"it's editors"?!

Nathan.....!    

Another book you all might want to consider is:
"Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss

(sorry - I don't know how to do the funky hyperlink thing)

bit anal - as I am - but guffhawingly funny in places
(and yes, I am aware that that's not how it's spelt...)

(and this is a poor use of brackets. And "and". And dots...)

[apm]

yes i agree. ive decided to give my daughter the back of a cereal packet to read, its much better, if you catch my drift  

[hazyz]

the koran
 

[marke]

Where have you been, Hazyz?

[anna]

Hazyz, glad to see you took the plunge.    

[Depressafone]

Also, I heard that there is a kind of mid-quel thing that they include sometimes called the Apocrypha, so I may give that a go when i finish reading my daughter's version of the Bible.  Its got a good twist apparently...

 

You should read the secret Gospel of Mark, now thats got a twist.......

 

[whoops]

The Catcher in the Rye is a book about Holden Caulfield, except you don't pronounce the "l" in Caulfield, or maybe there's no "l" in there in the first place.  Everyone in America has to read it in tenth grade because it's not banned anymore.  Basically Holden has to grab the brass ring, which is his goal.  He says "goddam" a lot, and he licks all the tears off a girl's face.  And a guy jumps out a window.  

Holden wears a hunting hat, which is significant because it is red.  Anyhow it's really about how adults are phonies and life is crumby.  And how Holden wants to get laid, but not lose his innocence, which is hard to do.    And though it was banned, it's not really racy or anything, just embarrassing because Holden can't unhook a girl's bra.  Oh, and English teachers are homos.

[marke]

Salinger would roll in his grave for that attempted imitation, if he were dead.

Reading your "review" made my stomach turn the same way as reading this shit on the back of Steppenwolf:

"Steppenwolf is Hermann Hesse's best-known work. It is a profoundly memorable and affecting novel, the gripping and fascinating story of disease in a man's soul, and "a savage indictment of bourgeois society." -The New York Times

These people who have the audacity to attempt summary, or apprehension of a great work of art in a few well-chosen words, a sound-bite, make me despair. They seek to name something as a means of dismissing it. Some things are un-nameable. Some things are bigger than your easy definition, categorization, or imitation. Some things are dangerous and some things are important. The Catcher in the Rye is one of these things.

Zooey's writing is another.

If all you got from Salinger was a memorable tone and an underpaid teacher's cliff notes interpretation of "brass rings" and "innocence lost" at least have the respect to remain silent about it.

Clearly the inference of your "review" is that Zooey writes like Salinger. I'll respond by saying Zooey does indeed have the uncanny ability to convey whatever writer he is currently reading with an amazing ownership and exactness. Indeed I see traces of Salinger, traces of Watterson, traces of Hesse and Hemingway and countless others in his work. He is an insatiable student of all Art. But the difference between that hack-job of a parody and Zooey's work is the difference between a Saturday Night Live skit featuring the new flavor-of-the-month who learned a few tricks and facial tics and a son who has inherited the genes of his father and ancestors.

His writing is not a trick. It is the result of a relentless dismantling and rebuilding of great art like a mechanic with o.c.d. A result of a ritualistic sacrament of communion. A cannibal who eats the heart of his dead enemy to gain his strength. Zooey owns his influences because he murders them. You took a sophmore english class.

If my response seems harsh it is because I feel it is an unforgivable insult to insinuate that your flippant and artless parroting of Salinger is in any way comparable to Zooey's Writing.