Bill in Dayton. He's definitely one of the good guys. Articulate, well-informed...a very interesting person, to say the least.

I particulary enjoyed his input in some of the threads here in the Bar and I'm looking forward to have more of these discussions.

It's always a treat to have conversations -even the written kind- with people who have a good head on their shoulders.

There are two other fine gentlemen whom I respect and admire. You know who you are, of course. If you don't...well... then I failed.

The Bar has become my favorite place on SZ even though I've been rather sluggish lately. My excuse(?) is that I've been reading quite a lot. I always read a lot but even more so lately. Books fascinate me and that's probably why I wish to open a bookshop in Vientiane, Laos. Some day my dream will come true. Hope I get to read them before I sell them.

Any other voracious readers here? I mean, besides comics and soup cans?

Taike

------------------
Bo pen nyang.

[This message has been edited by Taike (edited 10-22-2010).]

Taike, apparently...many folks do not read keyboard manuals...so my guess avid readers ..we are not...

Neither do I, Fran. Well, only the parts I really need to know. Most of the other stuff is too technical for me.
Now why can't they have user manuals a layman like me can actually understand? And then there's all the stuff they leave out. I would understand a lot more if it read like a novel.
A manual on DVD would really help but they're usually available only from third parties. A good thing that I prefer playing instead of really digging in. Nothing wrong with that, either. Not everyone is interested in all that's possible with an arranger. Just look how few actually create their own styles or voices. Not that many, I reckon. We may be able to create styles but how many can come up with good styles?

Taike

------------------
Bo pen nyang.

You're right, Taike, Bill is a good guy. I have spoken to him several times,and he's within 100 miles of me. One of my "to do's" next year is to meet up with him.

Always been an avid reader. Now, I'm reading "Rock and Roll...an Unruly History", by Robert Palmer.


I'm hooked on the classics, but have read most of them. I'm now re-reading "Atlas Shrugged"and am intending to re-read other stuff by Ayn Rand, my all-time favorite auth. I met her on a speaking tour a few years before she died.

It's scary how "right on" she was in her predictions about society so many years ago.
Let's hope Mopanoy becomes a reader, following dad's lead. His life will be so much richer (Great school photos, by the way).


Russ

I go in spells. Sometimes I go months at a time without reading, then other times I read several books in a month. Mostly audio books now. Braille just takes up a lot of space, though I've certainly read my share of brail novels. Audio books are just a nicer way to go for me. Can load 4 books or more on my player, which is terrific when I'm out on tour and spending several hours at a time in a van or in a hotel room. Luckily my player has a speed control on it so I usually am listening at about twice the speed the narrator actually recorded.

Ayn Rand is one of my favorite authors as well, Russ. At least ONE thing we have in common. Ha! Ha!

Books played a very important part in my family. We were all avid readers, except my sister. I doubt she even knows how to read. LOL It's what I used to tell her all the time when we were kids.

Birthday and Saint Nicolas gifts were usually books. Dad even built us a library upstairs just to keep us from running up and down the stairs.

I stopped reading novels around the age of ten or eleven as I was more interested in reference books, mostly History and Geography. My interest in novels bloomed once again in my early twenties but reference books are still high on my reading list.

My first English novel was "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck. My second one was "Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger. I must've read this one close to fifty times and will surely read it another fifty times. Have been a fan of Salinger's works ever since.

I can't sit in a coffee shop (drinking TEA), airport -pretty much anywhere- without having something to read OR a crossword puzzle. Heck, even a soup can would do. Throw me in jail without anything to read and I'd a complete nutcase in less than 24 hours. Wait! I'm already one.

FAEbGBD, what genre do you like? Any particular authors that keep you going back for more?

Taike

------------------
Bo pen nyang.

Thanks for the kind words, guys...

I did the Ayn Rand thing back in College, reading The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged and Anthem. (What young male upstart who's read these hasn't fantasized about a fling with Dagny Taggart, eh?) They were grand, massive stories with grand ideas in them to be sure. I liked Fountainhead because I felt it was more believable. Atlas Shrugged had a marvelous story/plot but parts of it just didn't connect for me.

I doubted the intense application of hers ideas then and doubt them even more so now, 30 years later.

I must say that my opinion of her fell greatly when I came to learn that she had, for years, carried on a virtually open affair with one of her assistants. For an author and a thinker to pervert the grand and pure ideals she wrote on and on and on about into some kind of justification for her moral errors, well...her credibility took a hit, let's say.

I am not a Socialist, I am certainly not a Marxist or a Communist, but as I get older, I am disgusted by the systemic ways we as a Country maneuver huge numbers of people, usually by economic groups into various outcomes. Personal responsibility is valid and essential for a successful society, but there are powers at play in the US that are not good ones. Our political process is highly flawed, our media from both the right & the left are seemingly more concerned with agendas than the facts and I think a few special interest groups have hijacked America's Moral Compass.

We don't treat each other very well all too often and that saddens me deeply...

I started way too late in life to really try and understand my world and for the last several years have been reading quite a bit. I have been reading quite a bit about Health Policy, Corporations, Politics and Pr. Obama over the last year or so...Next up is a book on the Auto Industry bailout and then a new book on Glen Beck...

God help me, lol...

------------------
Bill in Dayton


[This message has been edited by Bill in Dayton (edited 10-23-2010).]

Some of the books that I've recently read:

"Spring Flowers, Spring Frost" by Ismail Kadare (Albania)

"The Yacoubian Building" by Alaa Al Aswany (Egypt)

"Disco for the Departed" by Colin Cotterill (UK)

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou (USA)

Taike