| deinol |
"The reason for this pressing summons lay in their reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege taught the Spartans their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place by assault."
Landmark Thucydides, Edited by Robert B. Strassler
| deinol |
Surprised to be the first to be reading a gaming book at the moment...
I am not. Most people don't read RPG books in multiple sittings. I may sit down with a book on occasion, but when I put it away I am no longer "reading" it. On the other hand, I have a stack of books by my bed that I am "reading". So the book I looked at last and plan to pick up next is the book I count as "reading" when one of these pops up. Which tends to either be a novel or a history book. Or philosophy.
| Kajehase |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I tend to read more than one book at a time (in fact, at the moment I think I have a separate book for each room in the flat), so...
"Rumours persisted that Soviet servicemen were flying helicopters and operating tanks on combat missions." Afgantsy by Rodric Braithwaite
"Death kneeled down and peered at it, because it was so small." Hogfather by Terry Pratchett.
"Until night came, and the sun disappeared all the advantage was with Manuchehr, because the world's soul loved him." Shahnameh: The Persian book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (translated by Dick Davis). Just a pity it wasn't one of the bits where Davis kept the verse-format.
"Figure 3.7 shows a chariot pulled by two or more animals, depicted on a stela from Zarza Capilla (south-west Spain)." Bronze Age Warfare by Richard Osgood and Sarah Monks with Judith Toms.
| Herbo |
"While there are many independant habitats and settlements in the inner system, they are largely under the thumb of the hypercorps."
Eclipse Phase Core Rule Book, by Posthuman Studios (multiple author credits including: Lars BLumenstein, Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, Jack Graham, John Snead, Bruce Baugh, Randall N. Bills, Davidson Cole, Tobias WOlter)
Asphere
|
"The cascade begins in the large eddies, which drain kinetic energy from the mean flow and transfer it to smaller ones through eddy-eddy interactions; it terminates in the smallest eddies, which convert kinetic energy into internal energy through viscous friction."
Turbulence in the Atmosphere by Wyngaard
(I wish I were reading fiction instead of work related stuff that makes me want to take a nap)
| Doodlebug Anklebiter |
"They cause damage in several ways: they are inedible or poorly edible to livestock and wild animals, but they crowd out edible plant species, so they reduce the amount of livestock fodder by up to 90%; some of them are toxic to animals; and they may triple rates of erosion because their roots hold the soil less well than do roots of native grasses."
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond. He's talking about Montana, btw.
"Cugel abruptly set down the goblet, and watched as Derwe Coreme raised hers to her lips."
The Eyes of the Overworld by Jack Vance. Cugel the Clever, always willing to endanger a beautiful woman's life to save his own!
| Doodlebug Anklebiter |
"I observed their visits were always short, and paid late in the evening; thus a shadow of mystery enveloped my infant days, and perhaps gave its lasting and ineffaceable tinge to the pursuits, the character, and the feelings of my present existence."
Alonzo de Moncada, like everyone else in Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer takes a while to say anything.
| Brian Kovich |
Two books right now;
"Hard boil (hard cook) some eggs and cut in half, Mash most of the yolks with an equal volume of sauce aurore containing chopped herbs" - LAROUSSE GASTRONOMIQUE ~Potter, Clarkson
"Every community has it's firebrand, or madman. or self-taught politician." - SNUFF ~Pratchett, Terry
Brian
| Doodlebug Anklebiter |
"And early in the morning Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and Laban departed, and returned unto his place."
Genesis 31:55 in the King James Bible with SUPER GIANT PRINT (it was the only one they had at the library--and despite all the potential jokes about impending age, I am glad--I hate all that two columns of text stuff!)
| Doodlebug Anklebiter |
"2
A Dream
He climbed over the rim
of the huge tower
looking down afraid,
descended the escarpment
over sheaves of rock,
crossed railyard gullies
and vast river-bridges
on the groundward slope
under an iron viaduct,
coming to a rivulet
in a still meadow
by a small wood
where he stood trembling
in the naked flowers,
and walked under oak
to the house of folk."
Allen Ginsberg, "The Shrouded Stranger" in Collected Poems 1947-1997
| Samnell |
"The peasants who made up the bulk of its [the Imperial Japanese military] recruits remained unliberated from feudal social relations in agriculture, disposed to resist the authority of superior officers, and so deeply resentful of conscription that oldest sons were eventually exempted from military service."
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert Bix
| Doodlebug Anklebiter |
"He was supposed to take part in a symposium out there entitled 'The Future of the American Novel in the Age of McLuhan.'"
Kilgore Trout on his way to meet his only fan in Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.
Marshall McLuhan jokes were kinda de rigeur in the seventies.
| Doodlebug Anklebiter |
Well, Samnell, I guess it's just me and you:
"They were like bonds we had accumulated, gilt-edged securities of which I would be the beneficiary when they and I reached maturity."
--Rabo Karabekian, who met Kilgore Trout at the symposium mentioned above, reminiscing about his mail in Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
"'I visited his grave one winter afternoon six months later,' van Agtmael writes, 'and the scene of his death is never far from my thoughts.'"
--Chris Hedges, quoting from Peter van Agtmael's 2nd Tour, Hope I Don't Die, in Death of the Liberal Class
and, finally:
page 55 of Chagall by Shearer West is taken up withThe Smolensk Newspaper
Unfortunately, I already gave The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White back to the library. :(