What are you reading now?

[EternaLisa]

The Urantia Book (just started it-it will take quite a few months, no doubt)

[Sorrano]

I've always gotten H.G. Wells and Jules Verne's works mixed up. Both wrote some good things and I need to add them to my reading list (which is rather large; I am ambitious!). Right now it's some light reading for me, anthologies of short stories that are introduced by Alfred Hitchcock.

[Megan]

I have just started to read The Island of Dr. Moreau, by H.G. Wells. This is the first book I will ever have read in its entirety (that I can remember or am aware of) if I finish it. I have read a lot on the internet and read many parts from books - particularly about Beethoven (kind-of got on a Beethoven kick), but never really read a book in its entirety.

Anyway, I watched the last 30 minutes of the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau (the one made in 1996), but it was the ending lines that caught my attention and then the symbolism became clear. The symbolism and the last lines from the movie moved me so much that I instantly looked up the article on Dr. Moreau on Wikipedia.

I just want to say that it is symbolism that I have thought for quite sometime. For instance, one thing that was very sad, yet true, and moving (moving, in the sense that someone else thought and had written it so clearly) was about how Dr. Moreau had created a society for the beast-man based on proper manners and all of these rules. The thing that happened though was the animals eventually could not stand the rules anymore and started using their own natural instincts. The point there is very relative to humanity and our laws and what we are actually doing to people just like ourselves.

Anyway, it seems to have a lot of very serious symbolism, very deep and serious. And the good thing is that it is not a hard read. I have finished chapter 1 and will start on chapter 2 soon.

Also, because of the book, hence my new signature.

Interesting you say that about the Wells novel, which I never got round to reading. Do tell me what your view is when you've finished it.
It is sounds similar to the last novel that Aldous Huxley wrote when he was dying in 1962, called Island, which is about making a perfect community based on drug use and meditation.
Contrasting it with Brave New World and the Wells novel that you are reading, its really concerned with the difference between imposing rules to bring about some perfect society, or as against a more libertarian approach .

[Enrique]

Brave New World is a perfect description of our present society. I remember the savage knowing Shakespeare by heart when nobody else in that world knew about him, that they were anesthetized by a pill which made them think they were happy, when they had the strongest reason to be unhappy in a State that was everything while they were nothing but mechanical toys obeying rules and satisfying needs artificially created by others.

[Quijote]

[...] anesthetized by a pill which made them think they were happy, when they had the strongest reason to be unhappy in a State that was everything while they were nothing but mechanical toys obeying rules and satisfying needs artificially created by others.

Sounds chillingly familiar, Enrique. Commercial advertising as practiced these days is part of the problem. I can't stand it.

[RobertH]

Dr.Theodore Dalrymple

Dr.Theodore Dalrymple

-------

I attended a very stimulating lecture over the weekend given by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple.
For those who haven't come across this brilliant writer, may I urge you to remedy that by checking him out on the internet where there are some articles of his that can be read.
He is what I would call a social critic and he is relentless in his attack on the way society has been dumbed down.
He used to be a prison doctor and psychiatrist and I remember reading his weekly column in the Spectator years ago where he was for me the star turn. He commented that we spend fifty thousand a year on each prisoner but we still don't teach them how to read. So he used to get inmates coming to him saying they were depressed and when he asked why they said because they spent too much time on their own thinking and couldn't stand it.
To remedy that his latest book is called, The Pleasure of Thinking, and it really is a delight.
It begins, with a short ( and startling ) story of him entering (as he often does) a second hand bookshop looking for interesting and old titles. A while ago he came across a small bookshop in Manchester and picked up a not very exciting book called, Making Sense of the NHS Complaints and Disciplinary procedures. Inside the book fluttered out a slip of paper from someone in the General Medical Council asking for a professional review of the book.The reviewer asked was Dr. Harold Shipman. His review was due six months before he was arrested for having murdered many, perhaps hundreds of patients.

Dalrymple's book goes on with other fascinating essays, dealing with central America, where he has travelled widely and has exposed the fantasies of communist ideology, the wanton vandalism of libraries, who are now literally throwing away very expensive and old books, the greatest single discovery in medical science, which was the insect transmission of diseases (through mosquitoes), famous murderers (he is an expert witness in court cases) and many other topics. It is incredible that in such a short book, which is only about 200 pages, he manages to cover so many topics in such a succinct and very witty way.

Thoroughly recommended.

[Quijote]

Dear BRS Forum members, I'm trying to get hold of a copy of Moscheles' biography of Beethoven. I did check out Amazon, but it's far too expensive as hardback, and I don't have (nor want) Kindle.
Would any of you happen to have a copy that you'd be prepared to sell me? Or perhaps you might know of another source at a reasonable price?
Thanks in advance,
Don Q

[Sorrano]

Dear BRS Forum members, I'm trying to get hold of a copy of Moscheles' biography of Beethoven. I did check out Amazon, but it's far too expensive as hardback, and I don't have (nor want) Kindle.
Would any of you happen to have a copy that you'd be prepared to sell me? Or perhaps you might know of another source at a reasonable price?
Thanks in advance,
Don Q

This is an electronic version; doesn't need Kindle as you can download the HTML version and read it on your computer. What's nice is that it is free. If you had a Kindle there is a Kindle version, as well (for free).

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39093

[Quijote]

This is an electronic version; doesn't need Kindle as you can download the HTML version and read it on your computer. What's nice is that it is free. If you had a Kindle there is a Kindle version, as well (for free).

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39093

That seems to be Schindler's biography, Sorrano. I've got the Schindler, I really would like the Moscheles.

[Sorrano]

That seems to be Schindler's biography, Sorrano. I've got the Schindler, I really would like the Moscheles.

Can you link me to the book on Amazon? All I can find is the Schindler that is edited by Moscheles. They are listed together as authors, but Moscheles is the editor. The name of the book is "The Life of Beethoven" and is in two volumes.

Incidentally, I do have an 1875 edition of his (Moscheles) own biography, in which he talks about Beethoven along with other contemporary composers.

[Quijote]

Here it is, Sorrano :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-LIFE-OF-...9971952&sr=1-4

[Sorrano]

Here it is, Sorrano :
http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-LIFE-OF-...9971952&sr=1-4

That is the Schindler, edited by Moscheles. Check the inside (click on the picture of the book) and you can read the editor's notes. It is the same book that I linked you to on Gutenberg.

[Quijote]

OK, I see now. I've got the Schindler (the third edition, without Moscheles' preface), but I never saw before the Moscheles edition, so I'll copy paste that to my hard drive, thanks!
In the meantime, where can I get hold of the 1875 Moscheles biography? That would be certainly of interest!

[Sorrano]

The 1875 edition is one that I happened across in a sale where a library was discarding old books. I am not sure where that can be obtained. Off the top of my head I do not recall the title, but it's more of an autobiography; written by Moscheles about the various composers that he met during his lifetime. As far as I can tell, my copy was printed in 1875, so it's a bit of a keepsake.

[Enrique]

I have the 1860 edition of Schindler's book, edited by Donald W.MacArdle and translated by Constance S. Jolly (London, 1966). It seems obvious that MacArdle worked on the German text and then the result was translated into English, and not the other way around. So, it means that the editor didn't have full command of the English language, even though his name sounds Scottish. Perfectly possible, but has someone info on him, his native country and the like? I find it difficult to find out.

EDIT: I learn from the German wikipedia that he was born in the US, lived and worked there. So he worked on the translation.