Thanks for the comment on my climbing books.

Thanks to your excellent example, I just updated my LT profile. :)

I've only cataloged a *fraction* of the 700+ climbing-related books we own. I have tracked them for some years now via an Excell spreadsheet as so many are unusual or valuable for various reasons: imported, first editions, long out-of-print, or who* has signed them. I just got a CueCat, in the hopes it will make the process less laborious. In any event, I'm needing to scan quite a few covers because LT dodn't have them yet. The asterik (*) in my tags means I've completly cataloged the book, & that the cover & other info are correct for the edition that I own.

This is a wonderful site! Reading Fox is active on another site (literary science fiction) I'm on, & kindly alerted me to LT.

*"There are old climbers, and there are bold climbers, but there are no old, bold climbers." ;)

Lähettänyt: MtnSk8tr 12:34 pm (EST) Dec 22, 2007

I think the book is an amazing example of the untrustworthy narrator. Is nearly everyone he knows screwing him over in the way he describes, or is he a delusional conspiracy theorist? The fun of Zero was more the content of the narrative, where the fun and interest of this one was more trying to figure out whether the author was merely neurotic in a huge way (and he is, regardless of the ultimate honesty of his romantic partner; his actions as self-described were not the actions of a reasonable person), or if various people (his romantic partner foremost) were treating him poorly.

About 2/3 of the way thru I was convinced he was a loon and his woman was putting up with more lunacy than most would; by the end he had me convinced she probably was sleeping with anyone she wanted to while proclaiming an intent toward monogomy. The problems is, all the evidence we have for this (in the book itself) comes from the author, and since this is a memoir, the author is the main character and narrator, and how much can we really trust it? Were the "facts" and "admittances" that make sense only if she is sleeping around during their relationship things that actually happened outside the book, or are they massaged by the author?

I find myself wanting to deal with this intellectual problem (not peculiar to this book or to memoirs) when thinking about the book and not wanting to investigate the website's supporting materials, which may or may not make things clearer. If they stay on the web, however, I will probably end up looking thru them eventually.

Either way, I find the author to be a compelling and interesting writer, and I hope he can get this book into print again in some way, and I hope his future book and screen writing projects also bear fruit. I'm glad I noticed and purchase the ARC version for the brief time it was available.

I highly recommend his fiction book, Cosmic Banditos, if you enjoyed this one. Think of the narrator of Zero and Can't You Get Along With Anyone fictionalized (and therefore not bound to any historical "truth") with a large dose of Stanislaw Lem and a touch of Hunter S.

Lähettänyt: charlesclark 1:00 pm (EST) Jun 6, 2007

Thanks. Still need to create tags for them!

Lähettänyt: CafeNomad 4:18 pm (EST) Apr 18, 2007

Yup, I just graduated '02 CompSci. I think that I've got version 10 of the book...

Lähettänyt: trantjd 12:24 pm (EST) Dec 29, 2006

Hey, I see that you're the only other person that has an economics book by Frank Stermole. I'm guessing that you took his class at Colorado School of Mines also? Just thought I'd say hello!
Jeremy

Lähettänyt: trantjd 1:42 am (EST) Dec 22, 2006

Thanks for the comment. I enjoy the outdoors and trying to visit the mountains of each of the Continents. Next month I go to New Guinea to climb Carstensz Pyramid then a few days in Australia. Should be a challenging and interesting trip. Bill

Lähettänyt: wildburd 7:31 pm (EST) Aug 22, 2006

Hi- I just entered UNCOMMON WISDOM and came up with your name. I have one other Capra book- In Converstaiosn With Michael Toms...I'm straying away from these kind of books, favoring more fiction, history and memoirs but the principles elicited in Uncommon...remain as a compass for me in the, at times, crazy world we live in.
Peace.

Lähettänyt: berthirsch 9:54 pm (EST) Jul 28, 2006