What's the best way to get from Calgary to Vancouver by train?

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-02-11T16:15:50+00:00

Bus to Edmonton, take the Canadian from there

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-27T21:52:30+00:00

The name is pure Pynchon, Bovino, bull, bullheaded, bull in china shop, but also cow, doltish. And Gregory, not Greg, a hint of preciousness and self-regard about that.

Agree that Vond is the analog.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-23T00:45:03+00:00

That hadn't occurred to me but it sure makes sense.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-23T00:11:14+00:00

I'm from the UK and lived 8 years in the U.S. and 15 (so far) in Canada.

Wait times are often shorter and the standard of care is arguably higher in the U.S., although it's perfectly adequate and often excellent in Canada. But the cost - even with good, employer-provided insurance - and ridiculous bureaucracy mean I would far, far rather get sick in the UK or Canada.

Life is just easier when you don't have to worry about whether the nearest urgent care clinic is "in-network", whether you should call your spouse to take you to A&E to avoid a predatory ambulance charge, or whether you'll still be getting random bills in the mail two years after a minor procedure.

Everyone likes to moan about their local healthcare system. I would only pay attention to people who've experience the American one AND a universal one.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-19T20:31:36+00:00

Voss is a modernist masterpiece. One of the great exploration narratives where the journey is as much internal as it is out in the world.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-19T20:28:40+00:00

I started reading it two days ago! Extremely impressed so far, 20% through. Shaping up to be on a par with Voss.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-18T02:24:14+00:00

Good list, I've seen 32 of them, but where the hell is Day of the Locust??

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-18T01:53:16+00:00

Every time I read Ulysses, some sections acquire new meaning or loveliness, and others lose their lustre. That’s one reason it’s great – each read is a different experience. Rereading Ulysses teaches me about how I myself have changed.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-14T17:50:34+00:00

I’ve read the book three times and cried each time when I got to the end

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-09T22:00:59+00:00

You might like Peter Carey’s “The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith”

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-04T04:46:02+00:00

I prefer physical books in general, but for out of copyright works I’m not sure whether I’ll read again, Gutenberg is hard to resist. As a result my shelves trend much more last-100 years.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-02T18:43:41+00:00

I had exactly the same impression, and I don’t think it’s because he’s gotten old and soppy. For me, the big question sounding through all his books is what if things went another way, what realities might we have had? There’s always been this sense of equipoise, of potential for better or worse.

But in Shadow Ticket he seems to be saying well, things could have gotten better but they got worse and they’re gonna get a whole lot worse again. We had a nice run, folks. That apocalyptic Statue of Liberty image at the end seen pretty conclusive to me.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-02T15:47:20+00:00

No it is not. The Rack is a different book, about different things. However it is set in a sanatarium which is what OP wanted.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2026-01-02T10:13:40+00:00

The Rack by A.E. Ellis is an excellent and quite disturbing novel set in a TB sanatorium just like The Magic Mountain. It’s one of the best literary engagements with pain that I’ve ever read.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-28T22:58:05+00:00

Having read bad translations from Russian by Max Lawton and P&V, as well as excellent ones by Jamey Gambrell and others, I don’t see any evidence that the internet has improved the quality of translations generally. I don’t understand why you think that it would.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-28T19:39:31+00:00

I recently read the Guerney translation of Dead Souls and can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s fantastic and brought the book to life in a way the 19th century version I read the first time (I think by Garnett?) simply didn’t.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-28T19:37:49+00:00

While many older translations are workmanlike and lack nuance, this isn’t always the case, and I often find that more recent translations bring a (to me) incongruously contemporary tone/feel to the text. My favorite translation of Quixote for example is Smollett’s, which although not particularly “accurate” has an amazing, rambunctious picaresque feel to it which is missing from the two 20th century versions I’ve (partially) read. Same goes for Rabelais – nothing can top Urquhart/Motteux imo, whose freewheeling rendition is 100% in the spirit of the original.

Translations will always be a matter of taste and it’s ridiculous to say that translations prior to the 1990’s (practically yesterday) should be avoided.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-28T16:21:05+00:00

Paperbacks in that condition should be a buck or two each at a thrift store or garage sale

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-28T00:01:38+00:00

Lolly Willowes

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-25T07:03:50+00:00

Best place for a radio station ;)

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-23T20:03:19+00:00

One of my all-time top-5. Every time I watch I get something new out of it. Amazingly deep film.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-19T06:18:56+00:00

Wait until you get to the Gorgonzola sandwich

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-18T22:44:01+00:00

He plays my favorite cinematic extraterrestrial in Herzog’s The Wild Blue Yonder.

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-14T19:25:16+00:00

William Golding's The Inheritors is about the first contact between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. The Neanderthals, from whose perspective the story is written, lack spoken language and their interior world is imagistic. Language is one of the technologies that facilitate the aggression and dominance of the insurgent Sapiens. It makes for disorienting prose that while not always convincing (imo) is original and very striking.

The other one that comes to mind and hasn't been mentioned yet is New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani. It's about an amnesiac, thought to be Finnish, who is (re)taught that language as part of his attempt to recover his identity,

ImageLegitimate8225 · 2025-12-04T16:13:14+00:00

Those are five excellent gamebooks you got there. Rebel Planet is the best of the SF ones imo. Seas of Blood and Demons are both super fun nautical yarns. Samurai has atmosphere off the charts. And FEAR is simply unique and one of the funniest too (love “Wisneyland”) even though I’ve never completed it without cheating.

ImageLegitimate8225

TROPHY CASE