Ringworld is okay; his most famous, but IMO nowhere near his best.
The sequels are pretty bad in multiple ways, and I think his weakest books.
His real strength is in his short stories, not novels. Get a copy of Neutron Star and give him a second chance.
There is some sexism in some of his stories, but some of it cuts both ways, and I think no untypical of SF stories from the time; and certainly minor compared to Heinlein books where there is a half-page description of the “hero” trying to determine what type of bra, if any, is being worn by the woman who caught his interest.
We been forced to travel to some sad or worrisome family occasions lately. Since I absolutely can’t go to a new town without hitting the library or other non-profit, searching for books to scout, I found an old favorite: Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M Delafield. Made me laugh out-loud, which was badly needed. I even bought the collection(The Provincial Lady Goes Further; The Provincial Lady in America…in Wartime).
She’s rather like Angela Thirkell, who wrote the many-volumes of the Barsetshire Chronicles, not to be confused w/ those by Trollope or her social commentary w/ the inimitable Jane A. whose works shouldn’t be confused w/ nobody elses!
As an English major, I read the Dorothy Sayers translation in college. Helped unearth the characteristics of the medieval Italian characters, mostly of whom I’d never heard..
I’m really impressed! Not sure my aging brain could take in Dante-would have to have quiet-not something one can read while husband is binge-watching Gunsmoke!!
On the back flap of The Divine Comedy, I learned Sayers had written a mystery series featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, which became one of my favorites. Though the early ones are tough to get through w/ the 20’s “gay young things” slang and Lord Peter shouting “What, Ho!” every 30 pages; the mysteries after she introduces Harriet Vane are where she hits her authorial stride!!
Perhaps similar to D.E. Stevenson, also a Scots author and cousin of Robert Louis. She wrote from 1920’s to 60’s and is best known for her Miss Buncle titles and Mrs. Tim series.
In March, toured Georgia O’ Keeffe’s Studio/home near Abiquiu, NM. These plus the gardens have been conserved in the condition when O’Keefe died in 1986-but most of the appliances/pantry items are from 50’s-70’s. Glorious scenery-especially from her bedroom’s ceiling-to-floor windows
Though the price was steep($60 per person), was worth it and they have a extended, longer tour for $85!! There was a Center/Museum, run the same trust responsible for the O’Keeffe museum in Santa Fe, in the middle of Abiquiu that has rotating O’Keefe exhibits.
The Museum had a shelf of titles on Alfred Stieglitz and O’Keeffe available for the public to flip-through but the gift-shop itself itself had very few of them, particularly the expensive ones. Right now I’m reading: Georgia O’Keefe and Her Houses(Ghost Ranch and Abiquiu )by B. Buhler Lynes /Agapita Judy Lopez(who worked for O’Keefe) and Maria Chabot-Georgia O’Keeffe Correspondence 1941-1949 edited by Lynes and Ann Paden. Chabot renovated both Ghost Ranch and AKbiquiu(then a decrepit 100-year-old adobe) during W.W. II.
If interested in American art or Southwestern history, these are worthwhile.
Since few seem to be reading this summer(a great time to read in AZ-if retired. One may stay inside under A/C or ceiling fans or both- and hide from the scorching sun), I’m gonna ask a question.
Have talked about A.N.Wilson, an author of culture/history/bio., before. I often disagree with him-which is good for the elderly. Stirs our blood and jettisons it to our brains. I read his The Victorians and now reading After the Victorians.
In the latter, he makes what I consider a controversial statement: John Cowper Powys, surely the greatest English novelist of his generation.
Not Virginia Woolf/H.G. Wells/Doris Lessing/Tolkien or C.S. Lewis-(who both fall into the fantasy genre, among others) or Muriel Spark? A guy I’ve never heard of-and I majored in English Lit! Had to look him up. Wrote A Glastonbury Romance or Owen Glendower among other works which meant nothing to me.
I thoroughly enjoyed Wilson’s brilliant biography of Dante. That being said, I recently read his Confessions: A Life of Failed Promises.
In his autobiography, he comes across as an arrogant, whiny snob. He admits to making mistakes in his life, but there is always someone else who is ultimately to blame.
Not sure how much I believe about his side of the story that he was an innocent college undergraduate seduced by an older woman, and trapped in a marriage he did not want. The birth of a child when he was 21, he blames for never reaching the lofty achievements in academia that he felt were his just due.
And that first child is the classicist Emily Wilson, translator of recent editions of both the Odyssey and the Iliad.
His second child is the talented Bee Wilson, food writer for the Wall Street Journal.
I don’t know whether there is any significance to the fact that since the girls’ mother has passed away, they both choose to live in the USA.
Due to A.N. Wilson’s whining, I’m not finding AFTER THE VICTORIANS as easy to read as its predecessor, which I enjoyed, though disagreeing w/ much of Wilson’s international policy ideas. This volume is chock-full of them, rather than discussing British history/culture.
Wilson doesn’t like Churchill, who, despite his many faults, w/ the intervention of the Allies, saved Britain(and at least part of its post-war empire-minus India). Absolutely dislikes AMERICANS for being, as a nation, richer, stronger, able to shift their manufacturing might to guns/planes tanks after Pearl Harbor. He does pay lip-service to our military who died by the thousands-generous of him(!). Perhaps he’s rather be writing/speaking German and praising a Fourth or Fifth Reich?
Resents Churchill begging Roosevelt for military help and has plenty to say on Lend-Lease. US took advantage of Britain, he yelps. Yeah, just like the Brits took advantage of India, Canada, Australia and much of Africa for most of the 19th century–and after. I understand he’s a revisionist but does he really need to discuss US policy in Vietnam for 3 pages? What’s that have to do w/ British minute contribution?
I was surprised the Brits invented the lightbulb, the phone, the automobile(thought it was Benz or Daimler), the skyscraper and anything else that encouraged modern society.
Oh well…
Anyone willing to admit they’ve read JOHN COWPER POWYS who Wilson whole-heartedly admires (see up-comment).
There’s a reason why Sir Humphry Davy - aka “The Great Inventor” in Victorian times - remains admired, all across this mortal coil, for his inventions and discoveries and scientifically-oriented contributions to Human Knowledge.
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That’s more than a tad bit of a stretch, IMHO - even with native-born American Elisha Gray’s same-day Patent Application to the USPTO in mind.
To my way of thinking, this increasingly-common assertion by British/Commonwealth/Dominion “revisionist”-leaning historians (and others of the same ilk, both foreign and domestic), over the last ½-Century, is also founded upon more than a tad bit of dissembling from the verifiable facts available from the primary and/or original sources…
I’m of the opinion that such disagreements remain, by and large, founded upon & rooted in Humankind’s failure to walk a mile in another person’s shoes…toomany of us can’t be bothered to use our heads for much more than a mere hat-rack, it seems (at least to a crusty ol’ codger like me ).
Well, I’ve managed to work quite a ways through my “To Read” pile (mostly lighter sci-fi).
Mostly by reading for a bit, giving it another chance, then finally giving up on it as something that just doesn’t work for me. Even the book of short stories, I finally decided that I just didn’t care for the editor’s taste. And ironically, it was a book written by a woman that I finally tired of hearing descriptions of the characters intimate body parts (maybe she was a Heinlein fan)
I suppose it’s old-age that has stopped me believing the description of intimate body parts improves literature (nude bodies in art don’t repulse me). Recently sold a horror chap-book that had nearly one word in 5 as an expletive or what I think of, perhaps quaintly, as inappropriate language.. Frankly, don’t know how the recipient read it.
Don’t believe in censorship, am horrified by committees/states telling libraries/schools/universities to throw titles away or remove from their shelves. True, there are age appropriate titles for schools but for adults, all that is needed is self-censorship or an accurate wrist-flick toward the garbage bin.
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