I love Katherine Anne Porter and Flannery O'Connor, along with a few others. I think I will check this one out. Thanks for the mention.
KathyS wrote:Pepper, thank you for the overview of 49 Steps. For those of you who like short stores, which I'm finding I do, here is one for 50: Fifty Great Short Stories
50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world’s finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O’Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common–the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world’s fiction.
Peppermill wrote:
Ryan_G wrote:The Forty-Nine Steps by Roberto Calasso
'In books lauded as "brilliant"( New York Review of Books on The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony), "exhilarating" (Times Literary Supplement on Ka), and "profound"( New York Times Book Review on The Ruin of Kasch) Roberto Calasso has revealed the unexpected intersections of ancient and modern through topics ranging from Greek and Indian mythology to what a legendary African kingdom can tell us about the French Revolution. In this first translation of his most important essays, Calasso brings his powerful intellect and elegant prose style to bear on the essential thinkers of our time, providing a sweeping analysis of the current state of Western culture.
"Forty-nine steps" refers to the Talmudic doctrine that there are forty-nine steps to meaning in every passage of the Torah. Employing this interpretive approach, Calasso offers a "secret history" of European literature and philosophy in the wake of Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud. Calasso analyzes how figures ranging from Gustav Flaubert, Gottfried Benn, Karl Kraus, Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, and Theodor Adorno have contributed to, or been emblematic of, the current state of Western thought. The book's theme, writ large, is the power of fable-specifically, its persistence in art and literature despite its exclusion from orthodox philosophy.
In its breadth and the nature of its concerns, The Forty-nine Steps is a philosophical and literary twin to the widely-praised The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. Combining erudition with engaging prose and original insights, Calasso contributes a daring new interpretation of some of the most challenging writers of the past 150 years." From B&N site.
Some of you will recognize Calasso from a discussion on these boards recently about his Literature and the Gods. I did not know this book of his. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Ryan.
Ryan and Pepper,
I think I will check out 49 Stepsand Literature of the Gods both of those look like they are well worth reading and contemplating.
Muse
Ryan_G wrote:I love Katherine Anne Porter and Flannery O'Connor, along with a few others. I think I will check this one out. Thanks for the mention.
KathyS wrote:Pepper, thank you for the overview of 49 Steps. For those of you who like short stores, which I'm finding I do, here is one for 50: Fifty Great Short Stories
50 Great Short Stories is a comprehensive selection from the world’s finest short fiction. The authors represented range from Hawthorne, Maupassant, and Poe, through Henry James, Conrad, Aldous Huxley, and James Joyce, to Hemingway, Katherine Anne Porter, Faulkner, E.B. White, Saroyan, and O’Connor. The variety in style and subject is enormous, but all these stories have one point in common–the enduring quality of the writing, which places them among the masterpieces of the world’s fiction.
Ryan, after I found this, I'm wanting this book too!
Ryan_G wrote:I think this would be fun! Would they have to be in any sort of alphabetical order, or just no repeating colors.
Mountain_Muse wrote:We have been through 50 numbered books....what do you think about books by color? But this time, leave the list by title and author only...no pictures. That way we can make a running list. No repeated colors.
Just another idea. Numbers are starting to all look the same.
Based on this idea the string would look like:
RED Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls
BLUE The Blue Knight Joseph Wambaug
Input please?
Muse
This might be a tuffy....how many colors are mentioned in titles......I like the colors, heliotrope.... or paynes gray
KathyS wrote:
Ryan_G wrote:I think this would be fun! Would they have to be in any sort of alphabetical order, or just no repeating colors.
Mountain_Muse wrote:We have been through 50 numbered books....what do you think about books by color? But this time, leave the list by title and author only...no pictures. That way we can make a running list. No repeated colors.
Just another idea. Numbers are starting to all look the same.
Based on this idea the string would look like:
RED Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls
BLUE The Blue Knight Joseph Wambaug
Input please?
Muse
This might be a tuffy....how many colors are mentioned in titles......I like the colors, heliotrope.... or paynes gray
Colors and a list are fine when we move on with numbers by me. But, I am still enjoying the numbers and pictures, especially when a bit of description is included. I have found myself calling up the descriptions on several of the "number" books. (I started to write "a number of the ...." -- oh, well!)
Questions Of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief by John Polkinghorne, by Nicholas Beale
Probably not really a fiction book, but Polkinghorne is a writer of interest to call to our attention on these subjects.
Peppermill wrote:Questions Of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief by John Polkinghorne, by Nicholas Beale
Probably not really a fiction book, but Polkinghorne is a writer of interest to call to our attention on these subjects.
I'm always interested if someone has read the books that they post, here in this thread. Pepper, have you read this author, or this book? Books that are nonfiction, and especially those that pertain to these subjects, what, I might ask, is the truth to this writer, Polkinghorne? That's rhetorical. 
Peppermill wrote:
KathyS wrote:
Ryan_G wrote:I think this would be fun! Would they have to be in any sort of alphabetical order, or just no repeating colors.
Mountain_Muse wrote:We have been through 50 numbered books....what do you think about books by color? But this time, leave the list by title and author only...no pictures. That way we can make a running list. No repeated colors.
Just another idea. Numbers are starting to all look the same.
Based on this idea the string would look like:
RED Where the Red Fern Grows Wilson Rawls
BLUE The Blue Knight Joseph Wambaug
Input please?
Muse
This might be a tuffy....how many colors are mentioned in titles......I like the colors, heliotrope.... or paynes gray
Colors and a list are fine when we move on with numbers by me. But, I am still enjoying the numbers and pictures, especially when a bit of description is included. I have found myself calling up the descriptions on several of the "number" books. (I started to write "a number of the ...." -- oh, well!)
I have no problem with continuing numbers either. Was just checking to see where interest was. I am liking it better since people are starting to add a little bit about their books, if they know something about them.
Muse
KathyS wrote:
Peppermill wrote:Questions Of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief by John Polkinghorne, by Nicholas Beale
Probably not really a fiction book, but Polkinghorne is a writer of interest to call to our attention on these subjects.
I'm always interested if someone has read the books that they post, here in this thread. Pepper, have you read this author, or this book? Books that are nonfiction, and especially those that pertain to these subjects, what, I might ask, is the truth to this writer, Polkinghorne? That's rhetorical.
Kathy -- I have not read this book, but when it came up among several others when I was searching for "51", I figured it would be a fun one to call to our attention. I put in the link to Polkinghorne's Wikipedia entry because it gives a pretty good sense of who the guy is and where he is coming from. I first encountered his work -- I read some of his papers a few years ago and they aren't real easy going as I recall, but readable -- when I took a course and studied a bit under Robert Pollock on Faith and Evolution (that wasn't the exact title) at Auburn Theological Seminary. Among my colleagues and friends whom I respect on matters of science and religion, Polkinghorne receives a mixed reception, but he has earned his credentials deeply enough that he is still someone worthy of being heard, even if not necessarily agreed with, on the S&R subjects he addresses. It is within those parameters I introduce him here to any for whom he may be a "new" name. (He is not one of the writers I brand as "charlatan" or "demagogue," and there are a few of the very popular names on these subjects for whom I do hold grave reservations and hence would not personally bring to the attention of others, at least without qualification.)
Peppermill wrote:
KathyS wrote:
Peppermill wrote:Questions Of Truth: Fifty-one Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief by John Polkinghorne, by Nicholas Beale
Probably not really a fiction book, but Polkinghorne is a writer of interest to call to our attention on these subjects.
I'm always interested if someone has read the books that they post, here in this thread. Pepper, have you read this author, or this book? Books that are nonfiction, and especially those that pertain to these subjects, what, I might ask, is the truth to this writer, Polkinghorne? That's rhetorical.
Kathy -- I have not read this book, but when it came up among several others when I was searching for "51", I figured it would be a fun one to call to our attention. I put in the link to Polkinghorne's Wikipedia entry because it gives a pretty good sense of who the guy is and where he is coming from. I first encountered his work -- I read some of his papers a few years ago and they aren't real easy going as I recall, but readable -- when I took a course and studied a bit under Robert Pollock on Faith and Evolution (that wasn't the exact title) at Auburn Theological Seminary. Among my colleagues and friends whom I respect on matters of science and religion, Polkinghorne receives a mixed reception, but he has earned his credentials deeply enough that he is still someone worthy of being heard, even if not necessarily agreed with, on the S&R subjects he addresses. It is within those parameters I introduce him here to any for whom he may be a "new" name. (He is not one of the writers I brand as "charlatan" or "demagogue," and there are a few of the very popular names on these subjects for whom I do hold grave reservations and hence would not personally bring to the attention of others, at least without qualification.)
Thanks, Pepper....you gave me the answers I was looking for...
Womanhood And Marriage; Fifty-Three Lessons In Sex Hygiene Exclusively For Women by Bernarr Macfadden
This title was too good to resist! I don't think any comment is necessary, but if you want to have fun/waste a few minutes, search for the titles by this author! (Click on his name for his Wikipedia entry. It alludes to some 100 books written by Macfadden and lists many of the titles!)
Another intriguing title with 53: The Fifty-Three Stages of The Tokaido by Hiroshige (paperback) This book seems to be out of print.
"8 1/2" x 5 1/2" non-bound collection of 55 color prints on heavy stock from the Ukiyoe artist Hiroshige Ando of The Fifty-Three Stages of The Tokaido, with text in English and Japanese on the reverse, in a red envelope style wrap. Unstated publication date, looks like approx. 1950. Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858) is well known as an Ukiyoe artist in the latter period of Edo who accomplished Japanese landscapes. His studio name was Ichiyasai, which was changed to Ichiryusai later. He studied Ukiyoe under toyoshige Utagawa and was allowed later to use his own name of Hiroshige. Hiroshige suggests "the fifty-three stages on Tokaido highway". Having mastered Nanso-ga, he drew Yakusha-e, Musha-e, Bijin-ga and in the year of 1834 he drew the "fifty-three stages of Tokaido", which made him one of the leading landscape painters. Hiroshige completed emotional landscapes by the art of drawing was in which striking contrast to that of Hokusai Katsushika. Especially snow-scapes, landscapes dimmed by rain and a bright moon drawn by him are distinguished. The features of his drawing lie in the adoption of the changes of nature." Editorial Review
"The Tōkaidō (East Sea Road) was the most important of the Five Routes of the Edo period, connecting Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto..... the Tōkaidō travelled along the sea coast of eastern Honshu, hence the route's name."
'....25th station on the Tōkaidō, as illustrated by the ukiyo-e master Hiroshige. This print is from the first (Hoeiko) edition of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō."
Peppermill wrote:Womanhood And Marriage; Fifty-Three Lessons In Sex Hygiene Exclusively For Women by Bernarr Macfadden
This title was too good to resist! I don't think any comment is necessary, but if you want to have fun/waste a few minutes, search for the titles by this author! (Click on his name for his Wikipedia entry. It alludes to some 100 books written by Macfadden and lists many of the titles!)
Peppermill wrote:
The Fifty-Three Stages of The Tokaido by Hiroshige (paperback) This book seems to be out of print.
"8 1/2" x 5 1/2" non-bound collection of 55 color prints on heavy stock from the Ukiyoe artist Hiroshige Ando of The Fifty-Three Stages of The Tokaido, with text in English and Japanese on the reverse, in a red envelope style wrap. Unstated publication date, looks like approx. 1950. Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858) is well known as an Ukiyoe artist in the latter period of Edo who accomplished Japanese landscapes. His studio name was Ichiyasai, which was changed to Ichiryusai later. He studied Ukiyoe under toyoshige Utagawa and was allowed later to use his own name of Hiroshige. Hiroshige suggests "the fifty-three stages on Tokaido highway". Having mastered Nanso-ga, he drew Yakusha-e, Musha-e, Bijin-ga and in the year of 1834 he drew the "fifty-three stages of Tokaido", which made him one of the leading landscape painters. Hiroshige completed emotional landscapes by the art of drawing was in which striking contrast to that of Hokusai Katsushika. Especially snow-scapes, landscapes dimmed by rain and a bright moon drawn by him are distinguished. The features of his drawing lie in the adoption of the changes of nature." Editorial Review
"The Tōkaidō (East Sea Road) was the most important of the Five Routes of the Edo period, connecting Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto..... the Tōkaidō travelled along the sea coast of eastern Honshu, hence the route's name."
Pepper,
Your first book listed was a hoot, but I dearly wish the second was still in print. What a fascinating book. I would have loved to discovered the wonders between its pages.
Muse
Mountain_Muse wrote:
Peppermill wrote:
The Fifty-Three Stages of The Tokaido by Hiroshige (paperback) This book seems to be out of print.
"8 1/2" x 5 1/2" non-bound collection of 55 color prints on heavy stock from the Ukiyoe artist Hiroshige Ando of The Fifty-Three Stages of The Tokaido, with text in English and Japanese on the reverse, in a red envelope style wrap. Unstated publication date, looks like approx. 1950. Hiroshige Ando (1797-1858) is well known as an Ukiyoe artist in the latter period of Edo who accomplished Japanese landscapes. His studio name was Ichiyasai, which was changed to Ichiryusai later. He studied Ukiyoe under toyoshige Utagawa and was allowed later to use his own name of Hiroshige. Hiroshige suggests "the fifty-three stages on Tokaido highway". Having mastered Nanso-ga, he drew Yakusha-e, Musha-e, Bijin-ga and in the year of 1834 he drew the "fifty-three stages of Tokaido", which made him one of the leading landscape painters. Hiroshige completed emotional landscapes by the art of drawing was in which striking contrast to that of Hokusai Katsushika. Especially snow-scapes, landscapes dimmed by rain and a bright moon drawn by him are distinguished. The features of his drawing lie in the adoption of the changes of nature." Editorial Review
"The Tōkaidō (East Sea Road) was the most important of the Five Routes of the Edo period, connecting Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto..... the Tōkaidō travelled along the sea coast of eastern Honshu, hence the route's name."
Pepper,
Your first book listed was a hoot, but I dearly wish the second was still in print. What a fascinating book. I would have loved to discovered the wonders between its pages.
Muse
There are editions of The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō available on the used book market at prices ranging from $9.95 to over $200! Good quality appears to be available across that range, although the least expensive one may not include all 53 illustrations -- I can't tell for certain from the description. Some editions seem to have had the illustrations printed on individual cards, with the whole packaged in a box-like (pink!) envelope. I don't find the link for that one again this afternoon, but I did see a couple of other editions described. In some cases, I can't tell which one is actually offered by a particular bookseller.
