com-pas-sion (n.) [ME. & OFr. <LL. (Ec.) compassio, sympathy < compassus, pp. of compati, to feel pity < L. com-, together + pali, to suffer] sorrow for the sufferings or trouble of another or others, accompanied by an urge to help; deep sympathy; pity
Dostoevsky Forum!
Some of my favorite books have be by John Steinbeck. I loved "The Winter of our Discontent" when Mary says to Ethan (the main character) "You say such dreadful things even to the children....And they to me. Ellen, only last night, asked, 'Daddy when will we be rich?' But I did not say to her what I know: 'We will be rich soon, and you who handle poverty badly will handle riches equally badly.' And that is true. In poverty she is envious. In riches she may be a snob. Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms."
Also Steinbeck's book "Cannery Row" when Doc says, "It has always seemed strange to me......The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling; are the concomitatants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce ofthe second!"
Also, his Nobel Prize Banquet speech was one of the best I've ever read and so true to where we stand in our humanity.
"My hope in my life is to strive for beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and kindness without pretense."
hey everybody! everyone had a lot of author's works that they read, now here's another question:What are your favorite books?
i know i hve a few, so i will start this off.
1.The Host by Stephenie Meyers. i just justfinished this book...it was really good!
2.Twilight by Stephenie Meyers
3.New Moon by Stephenie Meyers
4.Eclipse by Stephenie Meyers
5.Rosehaven by Catherine Coulter.Very good book to those who love romances.
6.Time and Again by Nora Roberts.
7.Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Deveraux
8.The More I See You by Lynn Kurland
9.Until You by Judith McNaught
10.Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. this book is in my top ten favorite books mostly because even thoughi had to read it for my class, i enjoyed it...(i hate reading assigned books for some reason)and i can remember everything that happened in the book. only books i loved are the ones i remember.
this is my top ten favorite books. what's yours?
Last edited by Beautifull; 06-10-2008 at 04:44 PM.
Find your dream and stick with it...or your life will have slipped past in a whisper with you still on the bottom.
''The Good Soldier Svejk'' by Jaoslav Hasek.
'Charley' by Joan G. Robinson
It's about an 11 yr old girl who runs away from home, and lives in a forest for two weeks. She felt that no one loved her, or cared for her. When she was found, she realised that they had all cared about her.
"My warm hands have made the paper limp,
So that its feel reminds me of slept-in sheets: comfortable and safe"
"All these things I say... I say them because I want you to know, I don't ever want to regret afterwards that I didn't say enough, I would rather say too much." ~ Samuel Selvon
hmmm...sounds interesting Tournesol...i think i'll check it out!
Find your dream and stick with it...or your life will have slipped past in a whisper with you still on the bottom.
The Hours by Michael Cunningham and Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf in conjuntion with one another. There is a lot in the way of insight bewtween the two of them.
From what I've read up until now, my favorite is either Lord of the Flies (William Golding) or Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck). I just loooved both works, from beginning to end. The characters in them were really well written and developed. And in both cases, I wasn't sure how they were going to end which defiantly kept me interested. Least favorite: Anything by Jane Austen. I just find her writing very dry.
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost
Les Miserables without a doubt! The plot is just so all-encompassing and powerful, the characters so realistic! ah I can't get enough of it!
The Swimming-Pool Library & The Line of Beauty, both by Alan Hollinghurst (he writes beautifully)
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (his short stories are great too)
The Witches by Roald Dahl
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
I'm sure there's more but I can't remember...
Plays:
Anything Shakespeare wrote!
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (the only one I read from him -- but I'm sure I'll love his other works as well)
Crave, Phaedra's Love & 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane
In Japanese:
The Sputnik Sweetheart & The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, both by Haruki Murakami
AMEBIC by Hitomi Kanehara
Favorites:
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
A Dream Play by August Strindberg
The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
Candide by Voltaire
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec
Last Days by Raymond Queneau
The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Hated:
Harry Potter
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
Hello, this is my first post, my favorite book is A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole published in 1980, eleven years after his death. It's one of the few books I feel the desire to read again and I think I'll read it every few years for quite a while.....very funny.
I was so happy to see that it was someone elses favorite book, even though they posted that 8 years ago! This is one historic thread!
Probably my favourite work of fiction is Wedding Song, by Mahfouz. It's only a novella, but there was a sense of urgency in it that I won't forget.