Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Yes indeed -- dental work is scary today so one can only imagine what it would have been like 150 years ago. Yikes!

Steven they just pulled teeth than. No other way around it.

Yep, no fun at all. Guess a trip to salon, pub, tavern beforehand was likely much needed.

I did not enjoy this read as much as I had hoped. I found myself at a level of moderately.

At times like when he criticizes people that need to travel at 30 mph on the railroad when it would be much cheaper to walk did make me grin a bit.

Impressed with his philosophies at times but I found chapter called "Solitude" and the simple things like the taste of a fresh picked berry, the quiet hours watching the ripples on the pond surface more to my liking.

My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Excellent review. I agree. Much has changed in my feelings about this book between when I read it many, many years ago and my recent reading. I enjoyed his vivid descriptions of nature and admired his curiosity, but not so much his feelings about his fellow man and his interactions with them. For some reason I also thought his cabin was much more isolated that it was.

Steven wrote: "Excellent review. I agree. Much has changed in my feelings about this book ..."

His discriptions of Nature is outstanding.
Thank you!

Familiar Fields by Peter McArthur is a lovely read. I only found a download copy for now.
It is filled with thoughts of his small farm and the beauty that surrounds him in nature. Intertwined is poems that are just as special.

https://archive.org/details/familiarf...

My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

To The Birds by Peter McArthur

HOW dare you sing such cheerful notes?
You show a woful lack of taste;
How dare you pour from happy throats
Such merry songs with raptured haste,
While all our poets wail and weep,
And readers sob themselves to sleep?

'Tis clear to me, you've never read
The turgid tomes that Ibsen writes,
Or mourned with Tolstoi virtue dead,
Nor over Howells pored o' nights;

For you are glad with all your power;
For shame! Go study Schopenhauer.

You never sing save when you feel
The ecstasy of thoughtless joy;
All silent through the boughs you steal
When storms or fears or pains annoy;
With bards 'tis quite a different thing,
The more they ache the more they sing.

All happiness they sadly shirk,
And from all pleasure hold aloof,
And are so tearful when they work
They write on paper waterproof,
And on each page express a yearn
To fill a cinerary urn.

Go, little birds, it gives me pain
To hear your happy melodies!
My plaudits you can never gain
With old and worn-out tunes like these;
More up-to-date your songs must be
Ere you can merit praise from me.

"Desperadoes" by Ron Hansen was on sale yesterday at Amazon - has anyone read this one, and if so, what did you think?

Desperadoes is a 1979 fact and fiction novel by Ron Hansen that chronicles the rise and fall of the Dalton Gang.

I have not Steven.
Interesting part is the fact/fiction

Thanks - may have to give it a read one of these days.

Steven

Desperadoes by Ron Hansen
I just ordered a copy!

Maybe we can add it to next years FWC reads.

I would join in for sure.

Buzzacott's Famous Fisherman's Handbook

by Buzzacott

Actually I really enjoyed this little manual. For one that is just a casual or maybe even stream fisherman it does not lack for anything in covering the topics.

My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Lesle wrote: "Familiar Fields by Peter McArthur is a lovely read. I only found a download copy for now.
It is filled with thoughts of his small farm and the beauty that surrounds him in nature. ..."



I received the book yesterday and this is how it came. It is so thoughtful that I almost want to leave it this way!

I have ordered The Singing Wilderness by Sigurd F. Olson it has to do with the calling of the loons, northern lights, and the great silences of a land lying northwest of Lake Superior.

Sounds beautiful actually.

Has anyone read this one, The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones, and if so, what did you think.

Sigurd F. Olson's Wilderness Days

In the evocative words of one of America's best-loved nature writers, Wilderness Days brings together the essence of the magnificent wilderness with which he so deeply identifies.

Sigurd F. Olson collects from his writings those moments that most vividly depict the turn of the seasons in the great woodlands and waters of the legendary Quetico–Superior region overlapping the Ontario–Minnesota border.

Sigurd Ferdinand Olson (April 4, 1899 – January 13, 1982) was an American writer, environmentalist, and advocate for the protection of wilderness. For more than thirty years, he served as a wilderness guide in the lakes and forests of the Quetico-Superior country of northern Minnesota and northwestern Ontario. He was known honorifically as the Bourgeois — a term the voyageurs of old used of their trusted leaders.

Anyone like to explore this Wilderness Novel with me?

I would like to but have a full plate for the next weeks.

Steven wrote: "I would like to but have a full plate for the next weeks."

Totally understand. I was hoping to get to it next but I think I am going to wait a month or so for it. Maybe by than you will be good too?

That just might work - thanks

Steven wrote: "That just might work - thanks"

No problem. Ive got two books before it so it might be November.