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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

JCC If you could recommend one book and only one, what would it be?"

Discussion in 'Community' started by TiniTinyTony , Nov 4, 2013.

  1. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    by the way, come this april, im deffo going to be at the midnight premiere of the film adaptation of this starring greg kinnear lmao
     
  2. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    They're making a movie out of it? Will it be directed by Terry Gilliam?
     
  3. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    directed by the dude that wrote braveheart and directed secretariat

    starring. greg. kinnear. hey greg how's that career goin?
     
  4. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000


    Well damn, that was going to be my answer. And then someone else is already recommending Catch-22, so I can't pick that one.

    Thus I drop to my third favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird. Just a singular piece of fantastic insight into the human heart and a beautiful lesson on what being heroic really means. Also has one of the best film adaptations of all time.
     
  5. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    What did people enjoy so much about Catch-22 out of curiosity?
     
  6. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    Poor old Greg.
     
  7. V-2

    V-2 Jedi Grand Master star 5

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    Dec 10, 2012
    1984.
     
    Frank T. likes this.
  8. darth-calvin

    darth-calvin Jedi Grand Master star 2

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    Dec 10, 2002
    I'd say he did pretty well for starting out on Talk Soup - better than the hack that replaced him :p
     
  9. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
  10. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Holy ****. I read that book. This movie is going to be astoundingly terrible. And, yeah, Greg Kinnear. Poor guy.

    Here's a few I'm surprised haven't been mentioned yet. Anybody going to recommend A Short History of Nearly Everything? Or what about Will & Ariel Durant's Story of Civilization? Could you count that last one as "one book," even though it's eleven volumes? If so, that would be really high on my list. And then you can get the complete works of Shakespeare in a single volume, which no one's mentioned yet.

    If I got a second one after the Bible, it'd definitely be Les Miserables and then probably the complete Shakespeare. After that, it starts getting hard to pick.
     
  11. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    My options as I thought about this were such books as Mining The Sky, I Lucifer, The Science In Science Fiction, The God Engines; but there sat Pale Blue Dot which I have not read in many years and it was an easy choice.
     
  12. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Will Durant's a great historian, Rogue, but 11 volumes as one book? Big stretch.

    Incidentally, have you listened to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast? If not, why not - you should. In fact, you should listen to the episode that discusses the anabaptists of Munster.
     
  13. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 18, 2002


    what. why would you... even as a believe dont you find that sort of thing crass and offensive and obviously fake? i mean clearly a lot of people thought it was interesting enough to at least buy if not read, but i always assumed that was the same people who think its okay that their megachurch has a giftshop in it. are you one of those? i really didnt have you pegged for one

    i like to think that even if i did have religious beliefs, that sort of transparent marjoe **** would disgust me as much as it does as a nonreligious person
     
  14. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    Wait wait wait.

    More fundamentally, how do you make a "movie" out of a tale recounted by a three year old?
     
  15. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    i dunno they made a movie out of that stupid steve harvey relationship advice book
     
  16. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Works of fiction are made into film all the time, Wocky.
     
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  17. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    A) Yes but that was actually more comparable to Lindsay Lohan's Mean Girls in that at some point they just stuck a huge quotation from the book in there to frame the story.

    B) That's not quite my concern, Ender. The thing is that dreams--or visions, if you prefer to credit the child, which I don't--are already narratively incoherent enough. Let alone when related by a 3 year old. How is anyone going to be able to follow what is happening at all?
     
  18. Coruscant

    Coruscant Chosen One star 7

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    Feb 15, 2004
    Hey, wocky, I'm going to make a film about you and your Companion Cavalry. I don't know how yet, and it'll be heavily fictionalized with lots of invented aspects, but I'm going to make it.
     
  19. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

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    Aug 18, 2002
    im saying listening to steve harvey for relationship advice seems intellectually equivalent to taking a three year old's near death experience and incorporating it into your theology

    but seriously this kid apparently talked about jesus' "blue eyes". how do people not know better right there? how much of a bumpkin do you have to be in the damn 21st century to think a nazerene dude 2000 years ago looked like modern day "white" people?
     
  20. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

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    Feb 18, 2001
    Well, if English was good enough for Jesus...

    But seriously, if I understand it correctly - little kid may have schizophrenia or a similar neurological disorder, trips out and instead of having a "bad trip" and being traumatised, he experiences what he later calls god and everyone goes "awwww, let's put Greg Kinnear in a movie about that"?
     
  21. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    But that's an issue with the book itself, not the fact that it was adapted into a film. Even terrible relationship advice is functional for that. After all, it's not as if romantic comedies are otherwise profound as a genre.
     
  22. Darth Guy

    Darth Guy Chosen One star 10

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    Aug 16, 2002
    So 1. grow an epic 'stache, 2. wear loud, oversized suits, 3. kill the Cheshire Cat and take his grin.

    Ladies.
     
  23. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    Maybe they'll make Heaven is for Real super gritty and the kid has to slay demons and stuff?
     
  24. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 2, 2000
    I listened to one episode recently, the last one he did about the Spanish American War. I was blown away. Like four frigging hours and I was just riveted the whole time. I'm definitely gonna go back and listen to some of the archive.

    It was getting passed around my church; somebody handed it to me and said read it and I read it. It didn't take long. I'm not really into that kind of stuff; I find that it strains credulity, even as a believer in God, and it often seems really sappy. I don't know that I find it offensive; I might find the fact that everyone is so credulous and just laps it up, even people who clearly aren't believers at all, to be kind of offensive. I mean, it's the reaction I had to The Purpose Driven Life and the Left Behind books. I mean, it's sort of just lowest common denominator Christianity, you know? Stuff like that's everywhere; as a Christian, I see more of it than you can possibly imagine. Typically poorly written, mostly derivative and theologically and philosophically shallow. But cheap sentimentality sells. Always has, always will. Christians are as susceptible as anyone (if not occasionally more so).

    Back when I read it, I told someone, "Even if it was all true, it's still a crappy book." I mean, as a book, you know? So, I know what you mean. As a more thoughtful, intellectual Christian, I find a lot of Christian pop culture to be really disappointing, lazy and awful. I mean, I love real art by people who are Christians (say . . . the music of Bach - now that's Christian music) or art with Christian themes (like . . . hmm, Prisoners is a recent example; that thing was just stuffed with spiritual issues), but a lot of mass-market Christian stuff is really lame and stupid. In my opinion. I mean, people like that stuff, I guess and it isn't like the secular arena doesn't have its share of crap too, but that stuff doesn't represent at all my Christianity. Or Christ's. Did I just say that?
     
  25. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

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    Apr 3, 2002
    I like my Bible as illustrated by Dore.