Programmable Logic DesignLine Blog
What's the most amazing book no one (you know) ever read?
Clive Maxfield
10/9/2012 1:56 PM EDT
The reason I ask is that I love reading all sorts of books, from science fiction to fantasy and horror to stuff like the historical novels of James Clavell and the contemporary techno-thriller tales of Tom Clancy.
Some of my friends may prefer one genre to another, but – generally speaking – If I wish to discuss a particular book with anyone, I can usually find someone I know who has read it.
And thus we come to Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. This book, which has to be one of my "all-time favorite reads," is sitting on the shelf in my office as we speak. It must have been 20 years or more since I read it, but I still think about it to this day. Every now and then, something will happen to make me say "That reminds me of…"
Take the film Hugo for example (Click Here to see my review). The first time I saw the big train station in Paris and we are introduced to the kid living behind the walls, I thought "Ah, Ha! That reminds me of…"
The thing is that I've never, ever met anyone else who has read this book. If the truth be told, I would have assumed that it was now long out of print. However, the last time I was in an airport, strolling around waiting for my next flight, I meandered my way into a book store, and saw a new release of Winter's Tale prominently displayed on one of the center stands.
I just bounced over to Amazon.com where I discovered the book has 256 reviews with an average of four stars. Out of these, 156 readers accorded 5 stars, while the remaining options were strangely similar (27 = 4 stars, 22 = 3 stars, 25 = 2 stars, and 26 = 1 star).
Some of the reviewers really didn't like this book at all, finding it "boring" or "never ending," and I can understand why a lot of people might feel this way, but I identify with the reader whose review was titled Sheer Insanity and Gorgeous Magic. As this reviewer said:
And later…
Actually, it's almost impossible for me to summarize (or even say) what this book is about. The tale is so involved and convoluted and rich and magnificent and confusing and strange that … it leaves me speechless (and that's not something you hear me say very often).
So, the bottom line is I continue to live in hopes that one day I will meet someone who has read this book and who enjoyed it as much as I, so that we can quaff a beer or two and discuss this little rapscallion and compare notes.
Until that glorious day, have you got any tales to tell about books you've read that you want to share with someone, but no one you know is interested?
If you found this article to be interest, visit Microcontroller / MCU Designline where – in addition to my Max's Cool Beans blogs on all sorts of "stuff" – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of designing and using microcontrollers.
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for my weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).
Last but certainly not least, make sure you check out all of the discussions and other information resources at All Programmable Planet. For example, in addition to blogs by yours truly, microcontroller expert Duane Benson is learning how to use FPGAs to augment (sometimes replace) the MCUs in his robot (and other) projects.
Some of my friends may prefer one genre to another, but – generally speaking – If I wish to discuss a particular book with anyone, I can usually find someone I know who has read it.
And thus we come to Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. This book, which has to be one of my "all-time favorite reads," is sitting on the shelf in my office as we speak. It must have been 20 years or more since I read it, but I still think about it to this day. Every now and then, something will happen to make me say "That reminds me of…"Take the film Hugo for example (Click Here to see my review). The first time I saw the big train station in Paris and we are introduced to the kid living behind the walls, I thought "Ah, Ha! That reminds me of…"
The thing is that I've never, ever met anyone else who has read this book. If the truth be told, I would have assumed that it was now long out of print. However, the last time I was in an airport, strolling around waiting for my next flight, I meandered my way into a book store, and saw a new release of Winter's Tale prominently displayed on one of the center stands.
I just bounced over to Amazon.com where I discovered the book has 256 reviews with an average of four stars. Out of these, 156 readers accorded 5 stars, while the remaining options were strangely similar (27 = 4 stars, 22 = 3 stars, 25 = 2 stars, and 26 = 1 star).
Some of the reviewers really didn't like this book at all, finding it "boring" or "never ending," and I can understand why a lot of people might feel this way, but I identify with the reader whose review was titled Sheer Insanity and Gorgeous Magic. As this reviewer said:
Winter's Tale, a gorgeous masterpiece by master writer Mark Helprin is a book about the beauty and complexity inherent in the human soul, about God, love and justice and the power of dreams, those that take place while we sleep and those that we conceive while awake.
And later…
Ignoring reality, Helprin's book is a glorious and ethereal melange of magic and insanity in which people are picked up by a wall of clouds that engulfs the city and then deposited in other times and other places.
Actually, it's almost impossible for me to summarize (or even say) what this book is about. The tale is so involved and convoluted and rich and magnificent and confusing and strange that … it leaves me speechless (and that's not something you hear me say very often).
So, the bottom line is I continue to live in hopes that one day I will meet someone who has read this book and who enjoyed it as much as I, so that we can quaff a beer or two and discuss this little rapscallion and compare notes.
Until that glorious day, have you got any tales to tell about books you've read that you want to share with someone, but no one you know is interested?
If you found this article to be interest, visit Microcontroller / MCU Designline where – in addition to my Max's Cool Beans blogs on all sorts of "stuff" – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to all aspects of designing and using microcontrollers.
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for my weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren't already a member you'll be asked to register, but it's free and painless so don't let that stop you [grin]).
Last but certainly not least, make sure you check out all of the discussions and other information resources at All Programmable Planet. For example, in addition to blogs by yours truly, microcontroller expert Duane Benson is learning how to use FPGAs to augment (sometimes replace) the MCUs in his robot (and other) projects.
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Max the Magnificent
10/9/2012 2:19 PM EDT
According to the Wikipedia ( http://bit.ly/OlBBBp ) a Film Adaptation of Winter's Tale is planned. This could be MAGNIFICENT ... or if could be a DISASTER ... I'm hoping for the best...
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RaulHuertas
10/9/2012 11:25 PM EDT
I'll read it :)
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Max the Magnificent
10/10/2012 9:34 AM EDT
Hi Raul -- I would LOVE to hear what you think about this book (I'd also love to hear how YOU describe it to other people when you've finished :-)
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seaEE
10/9/2012 11:46 PM EDT
Well I am intrigued enough to want to see the movie! One of my favorite books is Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.
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Max the Magnificent
10/10/2012 9:40 AM EDT
I've not read that, but when I was in Oslo, Norway earlier this year I went to the Kon-Tiki Museum to see Thor Heyerdahl's raft and then to the Fram Museum next door wehere I saw the Fram - -the boat that was used by Roald Amundsen in his southern polar expedition from 1910 to 1912
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bcarso
10/10/2012 11:35 AM EDT
I wasn't able to finish Winter's Tale at the time, many years ago, so I might revisit it. I do remember that I was impressed that Helprin's word processor was, exclusively, a Mont Blanc fountain pen.
Brad
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Max the Magnificent
10/10/2012 11:42 AM EDT
I think it's fair to say that, in many respects, it's not an *easy* read ... but I also think it's true to say that it's a very *rewarding* read...
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vapats
10/11/2012 5:28 AM EDT
/The Dispossessed/ by Ursula K. LeGuin.
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Max the Magnificent
10/11/2012 9:18 AM EDT
I loved LeGuin'e Earthsea Trilogy (and the additional fourth book) in the series.
I just ordered a secondhand copy of "The Dispossessed" from one of the Amazon sellers -- thanks for the suggestion
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Paul A. Clayton
10/11/2012 9:41 AM EDT
I would not have thought that it would be especially hard to find someone willing to read and talk about The Dispossessed (if you can find people willing talk about science fiction).
While it has been a long time since I read it, I remember it being a nicely balanced, if necessarily incomplete, view of anarchy (syndicalism?)--e.g., social conformity can be a worse tyranny than dictatorship (driving a satirist crazy).
I do not fully agree with the cynical view of academic grading being only about ego; grading provides a relative quality measure to the student and to organizers of talent (employers in a capitalist system).
I also feel that committed partnership is contrary to Odonism; exclusive sharing--sharing all of oneself with a single other--is still exclusive. This is more a failure of the Odonist principle than of partnership.
Responsibility is a difficult problem. Partial identification with the object of responsibility can corrupt the "owner" ("I am no more than my property") or the "owned" ("It must conform to my self concept.").
Stewardship can lack the intensity and intimacy of ownership ("Well done, good and faithful servant" is a small reward unless one loves and admires the true owner--'The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards' [LoTR, approx.]).
Ownership can justify irresponsibility ("It is my X, I can do with it as I please." This would not be a problem if one's pleasure was in maximizing the true value of X.).
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Paul A. Clayton
10/11/2012 9:45 AM EDT
Sorry, Odonianism not Odonism.
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Max the Magnificent
10/12/2012 9:13 AM EDT
Wake up man!!! :-)
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vapats
10/16/2012 7:28 AM EDT
"I would not have thought that it would be especially hard to find someone"
It's relatively obscure -- and certainly under-appreciated.
"social conformity can be a worse tyranny than dictatorship"
/The Stalin in the Soul/, also by U.K. LeG.
Brilliant essay, but hard to find...
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Paul A. Clayton
10/16/2012 11:41 AM EDT
Perhaps you could find a person that likes speculative fiction and do a book trade ("I'll read a book from you and you'll read a book from me, and later we can discuss both.").
I admit The Dispossessed is probably not popular even among SF readers, and many SF readers (it seems) are more interested in action-adventure and technology than sociological, psychological, or philosophical speculation.
I have not had a deep philosophical conversation in quite a while, but I am almost a hermit, so this is more a failing on my part.
I do hope you find someone to discuss this book with; it certainly has significant food for thought.
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Max the Magnificent
10/16/2012 11:49 AM EDT
My secondhand copy of the Dispossessed arrived in my office -- but now it's on the shelf with all of the other books I want to read...
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vapats
10/18/2012 8:18 AM EDT
@Bar-Rollin, I'd be happy to share thoughts with you any time... how can we contact each other?
I believe that you'll agree with me that /The Dispossessed/ is *not* about social systems; it's about what it means to be human, and the prices we pay.
Why must I suddenly mention /The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas/?
:-) cheers, - vic
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vapats
10/18/2012 9:03 AM EDT
And lest we forget: Patrick McGoohan's /The Prisoner/ TV series!
It still holds up very well.
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vapats
10/18/2012 9:00 AM EDT
Found it: it's in /The Language of the Night/
Amazon, etc.
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Paul A. Clayton
10/25/2012 9:50 AM EDT
There appears to be a nesting depth limit for comments, so I am posting my contact information here.
My gmail.com address is 'paaronclayton'.
(Sorry for the delayed response.)
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Quintadad
10/12/2012 2:45 AM EDT
"The Emporers New Mind" by Roger Penrose. QED, religion, philosophy, ZEN..all connected?? Offers something for the most technical of us to the casual contemplator. Nver met anyone who even heard of him.
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Max the Magnificent
10/12/2012 9:14 AM EDT
Sound's brilliant - -I am going to add it to my wish list on Amazon, but it looks like their server is down at the moment...
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Max the Magnificent
10/12/2012 9:17 AM EDT
Ah Ha! It's back up and I've added this to my wish list
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Colli
10/12/2012 8:30 AM EDT
Gonna be a film next year with Will Smith!!!
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Max the Magnificent
10/12/2012 9:13 AM EDT
That's what I hear -- I cannot wait!!!
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strangluv
10/13/2012 12:38 AM EDT
I also love Ursula K LeGuin, 'The Lathe of Heaven' and a great PBS movie too. Protagonist's dreams become reality, and each day he wakes up in the previous dream. Seeking help, he visits a psych that realizes he is right, and has him create 'effective' dreams with suggestions that build him a fantastic new office.
On the EE side, I am reading some really famous 'fossils' that are at the beginning of electronics and semiconductor design using computers:
Introduction to VLSI Systems - Carver Mead
Analysis and design of Analog Integrated Circuits - Paul Gray
Circuit Design Using Personal Computers - Thomas Cuthbert
I highly recommend these, for anybody wanting to know circuit simulation with working code (Cuthbert) examples, and straight forward math for analog design (Gray)
Meade's book is without a doubt the landmark book that started CMOS design, and its very readable.
I have never seen these three books on any engineers bookshelf. Maybe I am the fossil.
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Max the Magnificent
10/18/2012 9:08 AM EDT
I used to have the Carver Mean one and the Thomas Cuthbert one -- not the other one (I say used to because I've been trying to clear my shelves of out of date books over the last few years)
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