Everyone should read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Stephenson's Anathema is
also a must read, much better than Cyptonomicon IMO.
On Oct 8, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Ok, so I've decided my literary education is somewhat lacking and would like
to know this group's
] The Best 10 Fictional Works
Everyone should read David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. Stephenson's Anathema is
also a must read, much better than Cyptonomicon IMO.
On Oct 8, 2010, at 12:44 PM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Ok, so I've decided my literary education is somewhat lacking and would
like to know
Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
On Oct 9, 2010, at 5:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote:
Likewise, I am keenly aware as well that we are largely reading only
in Western European and American works. Can any folks on this list
who were raised
Being here in Italy, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose comes to mind. The
translation is considered quite good, and it reads very well.
Owen
I am an iPad, resistance is futile!
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets
Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
Restricting to just novels --
Ulysses by James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Moby Dick (1849) by Herman Melville
The Sound and the Fury (1929) by William Faulkner
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor
*S* difficult to find only ten. And I'm not sure what to do with the
literature requirement ... I like well-written stories that transcend
genre, but I wouldn't claim that is enough. And while I would
recommend *everything
*from, say, Terry Pratchett or P.G. Wodehouse, I've tried to pick
Great to meet yet another Pratchett fan.
If you had to pick one Pratchett, which would it be?
I'd go for Thief of Time...
Tory
On Oct 11, 2010, at 10:20 AM, Ted Carmichael wrote:
S difficult to find only ten. And I'm not sure what to do with
the literature requirement ... I like
Me thinks submissions are continuing to digress away from the Best
Works for a Literary Education goal.
Thanks
Robert C
On 10/11/10 11:30 AM, Victoria Hughes wrote:
Great to meet yet another Pratchett fan.
If you had to pick one Pratchett, which would it be?
I'd go for Thief of Time...
Tory
Well, yes but have you read him?
Despite being an enormous fan I did not mention him until three others
had done so.
On Oct 11, 2010, at 11:54 AM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Me thinks submissions are continuing to digress away from the Best
Works for a Literary Education goal.
Thanks
Just checking - this is the Friam list and not the discuss list, right?
On Oct 11, 2010, at 11:54 AM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Me thinks submissions are continuing to digress away from the Best
Works for a Literary Education goal.
Thanks
Robert C
On 10/11/10 11:30 AM, Victoria Hughes
That's right because I started out interested in what this
science/technology oriented community would recommend. I suspect the
Discuss list would have a completely different perspective given that
there's a big artist component.
Thanks
Robert C
On 10/11/10 12:00 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote:
Du hast Recht.
On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 12:00 PM, Victoria Hughes
victo...@toryhughes.comwrote:
Just checking - this is the Friam list and not the discuss list, right?
On Oct 11, 2010, at 11:54 AM, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Me thinks submissions are continuing to digress away from the
I have never heard of him, Tory, lord help me. The second most widely read
author in the UK and the seventh most widely read non-US author here. I
wonder who compiled that statistic. But there's glory for you nonetheless.
Thanks to all for mentioning him -
Favorite one? Well, I love the whole interplay with DEATH and his
granddaughter, so I agree that Thief of Time is excellent. For my favorite
I'm going to go with one of the city watch books though ... either Night
Watch or Jingo. (Night Watch overall is better, but that bit near then end
of
On Oct 9, 2010, at 5:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote:
Likewise, I am keenly aware as well that we are largely reading only
in
Western European and American works. Can any folks on this list who
were
raised outside this tradition, weigh in? Additionally, I
appreciated the
sci-fi variant, and
On 9 Oct 2010 at 23:17, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Steve Smith and Lee Rudolph, and everybody,
Why would I want a PhD to lead a discussion on Literature?
Because, even though I was a participant in the Berkeley dustup of the
sixties, I still think that expertise has its place in the world.
-
From: Pamela McCorduck pam...@well.com
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com
Sent: Sat, Oct 9, 2010 9:08 pm
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
On Oct 9, 2010, at 7:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote:
And I (also) say Why English, why not World
Thanks everyone for the tremendous response to this topic. However,
we now have over 100 submissions from which to elect the 10 Best
Fictional Works for a literary education!
I think we should stop here because that's a lot to choose from.
Shortly, I'll distribute the list for folks to
Nick -
Why would I want a PhD to lead a discussion on Literature?
Because, even though I was a participant in the Berkeley dustup of the
sixties, I still think that expertise has its place in the world.
I wasn't actually criticizing your desire for a PhD in English to lead
the seminar, but
The Odyssey -
Genji Monogatari - I liked Seidensticker's translation, though it was years
before I finally finished reading it. I see there's yet another translation
available now.
The Journey to the West - how the dharma came to the middle kingdom, and no
abbreviated description could do it
, not a field
of specialization. We're talking literature here.
Nick
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 9:28 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10
All great suggestions and timely since my library book is due back
tomorrow. I'll add a couple of other suggestions:
The English Patient (Ondaatje)
Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Persig) (not sure if this
counts as fiction)
A Glass Darkly (Philip K Dick)
On the Road (Kerouac)
Most of you are PhDs and respond to inquiries from the
non-science type to aspects of your field(s). So how about asking
a college in the English Lit or World Lit department?
Robert, you mentioned you are going to improve your literary
education, so the works will generally be older because
What? Nobody mentioned Proust, James Joyce or Woolf? (I'm not going to.)
Grant
Grant Holland
VP, Product Development and Software Engineering
NuTech Solutions
404.427.4759
On 10/8/2010 11:54 PM, Alison Jones wrote:
After 10 years of lurking something I can finally comment on.
In no
Somebody did mention To the Lighthouse, and I'd agree. I mentioned
admiring, without particularly liking (except in parts) Ulysses. The
Scott-Moncrieff translation of Remembrance of Things Past is heavy
weather; a later translation (sorry; it's on a high shelf) lets
Proust's humor show
Grant,
James Joyce has been mentioned twice, Woolf once... and your top 10 are?
but you're right about Proust.
Thanks
Robert C
On 10/9/10 8:31 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
What? Nobody mentioned Proust, James Joyce or Woolf? (I'm not going to.)
Grant
Grant Holland
VP, Product Development and
The situation so far... in case you are not keeping count:
Given some restrictions, like only accepting the first 10 mentioned by
anyone ... so far we have 73 submissions, 4 have been recommended 3
times, 9 have been recommended twice and the rest once. And just to
confirm that my literary
I'd add to Jack's criteria: 9) deep exploration of a particular culture
at a moment in time. Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. Hate to say it
because it's been so over-hyped, but it's that good, right up there with
Huck Finn and Jay Gatsby. I think it will 10) stand the test of time.
Merle
Oops...
I'll mention two. Far from great literature, but I still enjoy reading
it is Journey to Ixtlan - Carlos Castaneda. (I know it is advertised
as Sociology, but I regard it as Fantasy.)
Another great Fantasy (although held by most as mathematical logic) is
Kurt Godel's 1931 paper On
Grant -
Thanks for the reminder, I haven't visited Castenada since I was in my
twenties... perhaps he deserves a revisit. At the time I slogged
through several of his works because everyone was raving so much about
them (not unlike the ravings about Cormac's work)... they just came off
as
Saul -
I love (most of) your list. Great Ante.
I think you might mean A Scanner Darkly by Dick, but there appear to
be as many as 5 novels by the Title Through a Glass Darkly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Through_a_Glass_Darkly and then there is
Sheridan le Fanu's 1872 collection of Gothic
Stephen -
Good points all. Most of us went off on a my favorite reads jag with
only a minor interest in whether it was Literature by any nominal or
not-so-nominal standard.
It doesn't surprise me that most of us have a collective
double-standard. In our own fields of study/expertise we
Thanks, Steve. I've noticed that the breadth of you reading is
exceptional.
Grant Holland
VP, Product Development and Software Engineering
NuTech Solutions
404.427.4759
On 10/9/2010 10:45 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
Grant -
Thanks for the reminder, I haven't visited Castenada since I was in my
I make no claims about being among the 10 Best but here are a few selections
not previously mentioned.
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Candide - Voltaire
Perhaps something by John Steinbeck? I guess the obvious is The Grapes of
Wrath but I hated it for some reason (perhaps because I grew up in
All -
10??? Oh, well . . .
When I was a kid, my parents installed this in the living room (you can still
sometimes find it in used book stores -- saw one a few years ago for $150,
missing Marx and Freud !). I learned a lot :-):
Here's some in random order.
The Age of Reason, Jean Paul Sartre
The Tale of Genji, Lady Murasaki
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
The Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Cervantes, Don Quixote
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
Labyrinths,
On 10/9/10 11:10 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
Thanks, Steve. I've noticed that the breadth of you reading is
exceptional.
And that is just the stuff I'm willing to admit to on-list I'll save
the really juicy stuff for another forum.
Most places I'm askeered to admit to reading Russel and
Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Thank you for mentioning Richard Powers. And don't forget Powers' The
Time of Our Singing, an extraordinary imaginative leap into the
complexities of racial identity.
Tom Carter wrote:
All -
10??? Oh, well . . .
When I was a kid, my parents installed this in
Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Have I missed something? I don't recall having seen anything by Philip
Roth on anyone's list. And now that I think about it, I've been musing
for some time about the dearth of neurotic Jewish intellectuals in
Friam--especially noteworthy given our Complexity
and even us lurkers
(10 !? can't even begin to get it down to ten, thus the absence of
presence)
are getting a kick
and
learning a lot
from this all...
Tory
On Oct 9, 2010, at 12:41 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
On 10/9/10 11:10 AM, Grant Holland wrote:
Thanks, Steve. I've noticed that the
Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Have I missed something? I don't recall having seen anything by Philip Roth
on anyone's list. And now that I think about it, I've been musing for some
time about the dearth of neurotic Jewish intellectuals
On Oct 9, 2010, at 3:28 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Merle Lefkoff wrote:
Have I missed something? I don't recall having seen anything by
Philip Roth on anyone's list. And now that I think about it, I've
been musing for some time about the dearth of neurotic Jewish
intellectuals in
When I hear someone say I never read fiction, I'm a little saddened.
It comes to my ears like I never look at art. When one starts
getting all hairy-chested about the greater value of non-fiction over
make-believe, please be reminded of the books you pull off your shelf
to make room for
...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Tom Carter
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 12:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
All -
10??? Oh, well . . .
When I was a kid, my parents installed this in the living room (you can
Hi, I get to claim both lurkership and newbie-ship here, and have enjoyed this
thread.
This is an interesting idea, Pamela, that literature has endured, more than
non-fiction. It feels intuitively true as we look back on various canon(s).
It does all sorts of
I come from the opposite
Steve:
There are so many good suggestions I despair of finding the
Classic Comics version of all these books - that's the only way
I will get through them all. (An HS teacher said when you get to college,
read the first and last 2 chapters then read the classic comic for the
middle
- its
Thanks for the Yeats, Robert. He's one of my favorites, and was even
before I knew there was a tenuous family connection.
P.
On Oct 9, 2010, at 4:56 PM, Stephen Thompson wrote:
Steve:
There are so many good suggestions I despair of finding the
Classic Comics version of all these books -
Of Tom Carter
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 12:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
All -
10??? Oh, well . . .
When I was a kid, my parents installed this in the living room (you can
still sometimes find
...@well.com
To: friam@redfish.com
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 2010 16:27:30 -0400
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
When I hear someone say I never read fiction, I'm a little saddened. It comes
to my ears like I never look at art. When one starts getting all
hairy-chested about the greater value of non
On 10/9/10 1:27 PM, Victoria Hughes wrote:
and even us lurkers
(10 !? can't even begin to get it down to ten, thus the absence of
presence)
are getting a kick
and
learning a lot
from this all...
And no fair submitting 10 (only 10?) Terry Pratchett Novels... though I
think I have a couple of
...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Robert J. Cordingley
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 9:14 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
The situation so far... in case you are not keeping count:
Given some
Pamela -
When I hear someone say I never read fiction, I'm a little saddened.
It comes to my ears like I never look at art. When one starts
getting all hairy-chested about the greater value of non-fiction over
make-believe, please be reminded of the books you pull off your shelf
to make room
Steph T.
For scifi, my Fahrenheit451 book is Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
I'll see your Lord and raise you a Jack (of Shadows)... Zelazny (our
own hometown boy) was awesome... I miss him. And his works.
FRIAM Applied
On 9 Oct 2010 at 16:04, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
Perhaps you could gin up a reading group for the City University of Santa Fe
Spring Coffee House Seminars. Do we know anybody with a PhD in English who
would lead us?
I know that, being unacquainted as I am with the CVs
of the Friends and
Lee -
/Why would you want to ask a PhD in English to lead
you? Ph.D.s in English are to the joy of reading
fiction or poetry as firefighters are to fires./
I think I understand Nick's need for a PhD-person... (something about
establishing credibility in the whole City College
And I (also) say Why English, why not World Literature or something
more expansive... and for the benefit of the women on this list... why
do we (mostly) read the words of dead white men? Really? Without
going all feminist, I'd really like to have more submissions here of
women
Pamela Steve:
Winging their way to me via the magic of the Internet
and Amazon Books are three books: two recommended here:
1. James Woods How Fiction Works
2. Zelazny's Jack of Shadows
and one recommended by a reviewer of Wood's book (not a happy review)
Percy Lubbock's The Craft of
On Oct 9, 2010, at 6:49 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
Pamela -
When I hear someone say I never read fiction, I'm a little
saddened. It comes to my ears like I never look at art. When one
starts getting all hairy-chested about the greater value of non-
fiction over make-believe, please be
I read Lubbock many years ago, and he's got much good to say, as does
E. M. Forster on the novel, and even, if I recall right, Henry James.
But I prefer Wood. Your mileage may vary.
Menand's The Metaphysical Club is good stuff too, but dense, I agree.
P.
On Oct 9, 2010, at 8:29 PM,
Pamela -
Great reference... thanks! A couple of Trollopes! I'll mention it to
my wife, she probably has a copy somewhere or will find one within a
week (really, she is *that good*) ...
Sigh. Not much of an option in Manhattan. You've gotta discard.
Especially when you calculate what
On Oct 9, 2010, at 7:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote:
And I (also) say Why English, why not World Literature or something
more expansive... and for the benefit of the women on this list...
why
do we (mostly) read the words of dead white men? Really? Without
going all feminist, I'd really like
Sent: Sat, Oct 9, 2010 9:08 pm
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
On Oct 9, 2010, at 7:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote:
And I (also) say Why English, why not World Literature or something
more expansive... and for the benefit of the women on this list... why
do we (mostly
1. A Course in Miracles, J. Christ, 1975 -- JC through Helen Schucman,
Columbia University Medical Center research psychologist, in 1965-1972, the
foundation for post-Christian Christianity -- as a willing victim of this
relentless subversion of all concepts since August, 1977, I never tire of
,
Nick
From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf
Of Steve Smith
Sent: Saturday, October 09, 2010 5:07 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
Lee -
Why would you want to ask a PhD
Don't forget Sound and Sense by Laurence Perrine.
Grant Holland
VP, Product Development and Software Engineering
NuTech Solutions
404.427.4759
On 10/9/2010 6:29 PM, Stephen Thompson wrote:
Pamela Steve:
Winging their way to me via the magic of the Internet
and Amazon Books are three
@redfish.com
Sent: Sat, Oct 9, 2010 9:08 pm
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
On Oct 9, 2010, at 7:34 PM, Leigh Fanning wrote:
And I (also) say Why English, why not World Literature or something
more expansive... and for the benefit of the women on this list... why
do we (mostly
I would have to vote for the Bible. Its arguably not great fiction,
but its probably the most influential work of fiction in the English
language.
Cheers ;).
On Fri, Oct 08, 2010 at 01:44:31PM -0600, Robert J. Cordingley wrote:
Ok, so I've decided my literary education is somewhat lacking and
Robert --
The St. John's graduate in me says whoopie! Here are 10, in no particular
order:
Shakespeare: Sonnets
Shakespeare: Romeo Juliet
Dante: The Divine Comedy
Homer: The Iliad
Tolstoy: War Peace
Cervantes: Don Quixote
Eliot: Middlemarch
Austen: Pride Prejudice
Fitzgerald: The Great
:39 pm
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
Robert --
The St. John's graduate in me says whoopie! Here are 10, in no particular
order:
Shakespeare: Sonnets
Shakespeare: Romeo Juliet
Dante: The Divine Comedy
Homer: The Iliad
Tolstoy: War Peace
Cervantes: Don Quixote
Eliot
Nov 2009
cheers, Paul
-Original Message-
From: q...@aol.com
To: friam@redfish.com
Sent: Fri, Oct 8, 2010 3:39 pm
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The Best 10 Fictional Works
Robert --
The St. John's graduate in me says whoopie! Here are 10, in no particular
order:
Shakespeare: Sonnets
The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse, is a must-read for any
self-respecting complexity theorist :-)
Hugh
- Original Message -
From: Robert J. Cordingley rob...@cirrillian.com
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group friam@redfish.com
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010
Restricting to just novels --
Ulysses by James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Moby Dick (1849) by Herman Melville
The Sound and the Fury (1929) by William Faulkner
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Crime and Punishment: by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Atonement
So I take it that our working definition of best is will look good on the
coffee table and impress liberal arts graduates rather than will be read
and enjoyed? ;-)
-- R
P.S. Also: when selecting foreign authors you must specify the translation
if you are going to maximize your pseud points. It's
I've just been reading a collection of Twain's writings on writing itself.
Therefore I have to offer the classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
It is the classic American Novel, and not just (though especially) for
young men.
I squirm at Frank's recommendation of (anything by?) Cormac
Hugh Trenchard wrote circa 10-10-08 02:56 PM:
The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse, is a must-read for any
self-respecting complexity theorist :-)
+1
I was also _very_ fond of Narcissus and Goldmund... Oh! Oh! and
Siddhartha and Steppenwolf, as well.
I'd also add the following to the list:
Geeze, doesn't anybody like good science fiction any more? Larry Nivin's
Ringworld. Poul Anderson's Gateway series.
--Doug
On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 4:21 PM, Steve Smith sasm...@swcp.com wrote:
I've just been reading a collection of Twain's writings on writing itself.
Therefore I have to
R -
So I take it that our working definition of best is will look good
on the coffee table and impress liberal arts graduates rather than
will be read and enjoyed? ;-)
I don't think that was the original question. Is it evidenced in some
of the answers? Or is this just Doug spoofing your
Doug -
Geeze, doesn't anybody like good science fiction any more? Larry
Nivin's Ringworld. Poul Anderson's Gateway series.
I love that shit (much of SF)... but don't quite want to call most of it
literature... great storytelling and exposition of esoteric scientific
concepts... but not
Lists like this are always a bit odd. I got dressed down last night
(gently but firmly) by a professor of English who couldn't believe
that I thought Brothers K. was the most tedious thing I've ever read
half of (couldn't drive myself to read the second half). I like other
Dostoevsky--just
Well, like an exercise program, the best books are the one's one
actually rereads.
I was that liberal arts major, until I came across computer science,
then all was lost, then complexity and developmental biology, and all
was *really* lost...virtually nothing on the English major curriculum
Trying to reduce a high-dimensional and subjective data set to a
one-dimensional well-ordered set is a fools errand.
I love hearing other's favorites and opinions of what makes a work of
fiction literature and what makes one work better than another.
I think Jack's criteria here are
I'd add Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey
and pretty much any volume of Encyclopedia Brown. That kid can solve
anything.
-S
_
step...@redfish.com
(m) 505-216-6226 (o) 505-995-0206
sfcomplex.org | simtable.com | ambientpixel.com
Steve
re: Brown...
You have to pick specific volumes! Sorry if I didn't make that clear,
otherwise someone could suggest a decalogy and 9 others, ie 19 works!
Thanks
Robert C
On 10/8/10 11:22 PM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
I'd add Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey
and pretty much any
After 10 years of lurking something I can finally comment on.
In no particlular order:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
Sometime a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Middlemarch by George
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