Sunday Morning Book Thread 04-17-2016: Imbalances [OregonMuse]

A Book Purchase List

(Pic stolen from Aeppol: http://www.boredpanda.com/illustrations-the-blossom-of-youth-aeppol/)

Good morning to all of you morons and moronettes and bartenders everywhere and all the ships at sea. Welcome to AoSHQ's stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, where men are men, space isn't safe, and snowflakes will melt. The Sunday Morning Book Thread is the only AoSHQ thread that is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Except if you feel like you're going to shart.

Also, dig up the old children's books, the ones that said something and addressed morals.
They are out there still, just not in the new bookstores.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 29, 2015 09:34 AM (3pRHP)

Chess News

Before we get into books, I have an announcement for you chess-playing morons: I started a chess group on chess.com called, appropriately enough, 'Moron Horde'. Here's the link to join:

https://www.chess.com/groups/home/moron-horde

Guys Read

Feminists like to scream and yell. Specifically, feminists like to scream and yell about being oppressed, and the more feminists have moved into positions of power and dominance on the cultural landscape, the louder and more shrill their screaming and yelling about being oppressed has become. Like how they're screaming and yelling about women being short-changed in academia as the ratio of female-to-male college students is approaching 60%. And despite their predominance in the publishing industry, they're spent the last couple of years yelling about not reading male authors for a year, as if women authors are somehow being forcibly prevented from writing and publishing books.

The feminists are right in that there is a huge, gender-based imbalance, but it's not the one they think:

The facts are stark: in every state and in every grade, boys are trailing behind girls in reading, according to a 2010 report by the Center on Education Policy, which called this lag, “the most pressing gender-gap issue facing our schools.”

There are a number of reasons for this, but probably the most glaringly obvious one is:

At the same time, boys and girls approach reading in fundamentally different ways.

Hsssss! Even mentioning this idea to a feminist will cause her to produce a handful of garlic and a silver crucifix to wave around at you. And I would say that this is the reason the 'reading gap' persists, namely, the feminists who run the schools in this country simply DO NOT WANT to admit that there could be any real difference between the genders. To aid them in their denial, they then claim that gender is a "social construct" followed by inventing a whole new bunch of bogus "genders" which adds so much confusion that no solution is possible, and their minds remain unruffled.

But the facts are simply not accounted for in feminist ideology:

Girls are more likely to enjoy relating to characters in books and often equate fiction with reading for pleasure. Boys, on the other hand, “want an immediate function for what they read and learn,” says Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, a professor of English education at Boise State University in Idaho...Boys need to feel a sense of competence or developing competence, and if reading doesn’t contribute to that then they won’t see much point in it. This is part of “staking their identity,” according to Wilhelm.

Wilhelm has a number of books on this subject, including Reading Don't Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men:

Through a variety of creative research methods and an extended series of interviews with 49 young men in middle and high school who differ in class, race, academic achievement, kind of school, and geography, the authors identified the factors that motivated these young men to become accomplished in the activities they most enjoyed-factors that marked the boys' literate activities outside of school, but were largely absent from their literate lives in school. Their study questions the way reading and literature are typically taught and suggests powerful alternatives to traditional instruction.

And also along the same lines, Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom: Being the Book and Being the Change.

Another man who's trying to address this issue is YA/children's author Jon Scieszka. His Guys Read web site is dedicated to the proposition that if you want boys to read, you need to give them books they will want to read. This includes a page full of recommendations for boys, which includes Scieszka's books as well as many others. These should help with the request on last week's book thread for books for boys.

Among other things, Scieszka says:

Research shows that boys are having trouble reading, and that boys are getting worse at reading. No one is quite sure why. Some of the reasons are biological. Some of the reasons are sociological. The good news is that research also shows that boys will read — if they are given reading that interests them.

This is carefully restrained, neutral language. I think he's pulling a number of punches. I think we need to start pointing fingers at where this gender twaddle is coming from, but it's perhaps for the best to avoid all of that. The goal here is to interest boys in reading, not get into time-wasting slap fights with snarling, hate-fueled feminists.

Flawrence of Arabia

This pic is from the MAD Magazine parody of "Lawrence of Arabia" mentioned here two three weeks ago. Apparently, Peter O'Toole's poofy Arab garb struck the MAD writers as being a wee bit effeminate. The dialog accompanying this drawing goes like this:

"Hoo-boy! Again with the dancing!"

"Who does he think he is, Fred Astaire?"

"No, Ginger Rogers!"

A Taxing Problem

Thanks to votermom who made me aware of this book, The Income Tax: Root of All Evil by Frank Chodorov. First published in 1954, this book argues that the income tax, more than any other legislated change, made it possible for the government to violate individual rights.

A more appropriate book for the April tax season would be hard to find.

It's a short book, less than 100 pages, and less than $3 on Kindle.

In my younger days, when I was quite naive, I thought that the problem of out-of-control government spending could be solved if we simply eliminated automatic withholding. In other words, every person in America would have to, once a quarter, sit down at the kitchen table, calculate the amount of income tax owed to the federal government based on earnings, write out a check for that amount, and mail it in. I thought that if Americans were confronted with really having to pay real taxes, more of us would ask "whoa, what are they spending all of this money on?" And then overnight, we'd get huge budget cuts and the elimination of entire federal agencies, and the conservative dream of a substantially smaller government would finally come to pass. But now I realize that even that wouldn't help. We have become so addicted to the federal teat (as well as various state and local teats), that if by some miracle we ever did succeed in stopping automatic withholding, it would last maybe a year. And then everybody would be clamoring, not for the reduction of government expenditures, but rather to bring back withholding.

Chodorov is an old-school conservative, who are known nowadays as "paleo-cons". They despise the so-called "new right", whom they refer to as "statists and warmongers". Which, actually, is mostly correct. That's why whenever I hear pig ignorant lefties call George W. Bush "far right" or "ultra right", I just have to laugh. They have no idea.

Chodorov has got another book available, The Rise and Fall of Society, also for less $3 on Kindle, which looks interesting.

Moron Recommendations

Moron commenters Stringer Davis and votermom recommend a book I had never heard of before, Don Quixote USA, a political satire by Richard Powell. Stringer says the Kindle version is missing the fun illustrations that were in the now out-of-print print version.

An idealistic young American, who finds botany more compelling than his family's desires for status and wealth, goes to a Caribbean island to teach the locals how to grow Dwarf Cavendish bananas. He get kidnapped by the local revolution...Disturbed by the inefficiency of his captors, he uses his Boy Scout training to teach them woodcraft and organizational skills. As his beard grows out, he starts looking more and more like the leader of the revolution, who is not at all pleased by this.

If this is starting to sound familiar, if you're asking yourself, wait a minute, I think I've already seen this movie, you're most likely recalling the Woody Allen film Bananas, which, according to one of the Amazon reviews, borrowed huge sections of the DQ USA plot without attribution.

Stringer doesn't like the movie, but says the book is a real hoot, also, "[the] best part was the Sears Credit Card. Remember that when you read it."

The Kindle edition is $4.99, but the print version was in one of those Readers' Digest "condensed book" books that you can find.

What I'm Reading

I'm on the third book of the Seafort Saga by David Feintuch. This is a military sci-fi adventure series that starts out with midshipman Nicholas Seafort getting thrust into command due to a freak accident on a starship far from home. He obviously has leadership skills that come out during the ordeal, but there's another side of him where his hair-trigger temper combined with an overwhelming pettiness make him a complete jerk. Human civilization is in the hands of a future version of the United Nations on steroids, and, in an interesting twist, most of the major historic rifts in the Christian church have been resolved, and the one true church, the Reunified Church, has become the official state religion as promulgated by the U.N.

Recommended for fans of military sci-fi.

___________

Mrs. Muse and I have been watching the FX series The People vs. OJ Simpson. I remember seeing that slow-speed "chase" on the L.A. freeways as it was happening live and I remember hearing people express their fears that if a guilty verdict came down, it would be the Rodney King riots all over again. Then I saw that this series is based on Jeffrey Toobin's book, The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson.

Of course, there have been a crap ton of books written about this case. Everyone wanted to cash in, including the principal actors. Without A Doubt by lead prosecutor Marcia Clarke. She argues that the OJ trial equation was something like: "race + celebrity + hostile jury = I couldn't get a conviction even if OJ slashed their throats and then licked the knife clean on live TV". Co-prosecutor Christopher Darden has chimed in with his version of the events with his book In Contempt. "Dream Team" lead attorney Robert Shapiro explains how he can sleep at night in his book The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney's Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case

I was looking for books written by other principals. Robert Kardashian doesn't seem to have any, Johnnie Cochran has a couple, A Lawyer's Life and Journey to Justice, but they appear to be more autobiographies than specifically about the Simpson case. I was disappointed that the man I personally hold most responsible for turning the Simpson trial into a three-ring circus of celebutard farce, Judge Lance Ito, hasn't written any books. I found out there's a reason for this. Ito's wiki page says:

Ito has considered writing a book about the Simpson trial, but doing so would require resigning from his judicial seat, and Judge Ito believed that resigning from his position would be a dishonor to his family.

Judge Ito retired in 2015, so he can now write his book. Of course, at this point, the Simpson case is well past its sell-by date, so there's no reason for yet another book that will do nothing more than rattle the rubble.

I watched the opening of the Simpson trial on TV, and I remember thinking that the best way to make sure that justice would be served would be for Judge Ito to simply ban any and all television cameras from his courtroom. But Ito seemed to want to encourage the spectacle it quickly turned into, and even exult in it, and I thought, oh great, here's yet another parasite trying to take advantage of the Simpson trial to leech out 15 minute of fame. It was like a rich man had died and then hordes of greedy relatives suddenly pop up out of nowhere to siphon off what they can from the estate. In a high-profile criminal case, I suppose you have to expect the celebutard leeches, but a sitting judge? I quickly grew disgusted and stopped watching or following the trial.

One more thing: I didn't find out until as I was writing up the book thread for this week that Ito's wife, Margaret York, was a police officer who held the rank of captain in the LAPD, and, coincidentally, she was at one time the immediate superior of the lead detective on the Simpson case, Mark Fuhrman. For that reason alone, Ito should have recused himself from the case.

Of course, Mark Fuhrman has written his own book on the case, Murder in Brentwood. Here's a review written by moronette commenter (and author) anonymous-9

Of course, some "interested bystanders" have weighed on on this trial, notably Vincent Bugliosi, who wrote Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder. From the other side, there's O.J. Is Innocent and I Can Prove It: The Shocking Truth about the Murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman by William Dear who contends that O.J. is actually covering for his son Jason who did the actual slayings.

And then, to add a dollop of bizarre on a case that is already overloaded with nuts, there's If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer by the Juice himself wherein he lays out a "hypothetical" scenario of how he "would have" committed the murders, is itself the part of the wrongful death suit by the Goldman family, who acquired all rights to the book as a result of the legal proceedings.

So what's the Juice been up to lately? Well, he's in the slammer:

On October 3, 2008—exactly 13 years to the day after he was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and Ronald Goldman—Simpson was found guilty of all ten charges. On December 5, 2008, Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison with eligibility for parole in nine years (in October 2017). He is currently incarcerated at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada.

It's hard for me to understand how a man like that can have a wildly successful football career and then spend the rest of his life throwing it all away. It was like sometime around 1990 he'd been taken over by demons.

And incidentally, I think Cuba Gooding deserves an Emmy for his performance as O.J. Simpson in the FX series. I have no idea whether Simpson is really like how Gooding is playing him, but it's certainly believable.

___________

Moronette 'votermom' is putting together a list of moron authors over on the Goodreads site which is intended to be acessible to non-members. Here is the list she has compiled so far. Let her know if there's an author she's missing.

http://www.bookhorde.org/p/aoshq-authors.html

___________

Don't forget the AoSHQ reading group on Goodreads. It's meant to support horde writers and to talk about the great books that come up on the book thread. It's called AoSHQ Moron Horde and the link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/175335-aoshq-moron-horde.

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 08:59 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Morning.

Posted by: HH at April 17, 2016 08:56 AM (DrCtv)

2 Ahhhhhh.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 08:57 AM (jR7Wy)

3 Good morning bookworms
Well still working slowly on Campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler (it is 1,100 pages)
Also looking for a chess book, for intermediate player, I have one but it's mia

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 08:58 AM (Dpy/y)

4 Ah the book thread. I am finishing up the last of the Harry Potter books. Don't know what I will move on to next.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:00 AM (vvmPQ)

5 What a charming illustration! Love it!

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:00 AM (nbrY/)

6 Btw today's blog post is a short shout out to Daffy Duck.
Link in nic

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:01 AM (nbrY/)

7 I got hooked on the Potter books starting with the 2nd while on vacation with nothing else to read. Have them all now.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 09:02 AM (Dpy/y)

8 Don Quixote USA was a blast.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:03 AM (nbrY/)

9 Good morning my fellow Book Threadists. I have a swap meet at our club this morning and the chance of REAL GOOD prices on reloading components and gear is not to be missed. BBL this morning.

One thing. I just joined Chess.com to take part in the chess thread group. Even if you are a total beginner or haven't played in half a century (raises hand), but want to start, look into this. More about this later.

Posted by: JTB at April 17, 2016 09:03 AM (V+03K)

10 Just ordered "Democracy in America"

Reading Liberal Fascism, and The Human City, Urbanism For The Rest Of Us.

Posted by: Village Idiot's Apprentice at April 17, 2016 09:04 AM (ptqRm)

11 [. . . as if women authors are somehow being forcibly prevented from writing and publishing books.

What is so amazing about this lie is how easy it is to refute. Just go to the Amazon book page of the Daily Bookbub and almost every book you see is written by females targeting females.

And why is that? more than 80% of all new books sold are sold to women so the publishers tend to offer women authors.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:04 AM (vvmPQ)

12 Boys need to feel a sense of competence or developing competence, and if reading doesn’t contribute to that then they won’t see much point in it.
---------------------

Thus my inclination to sit and read the Motors Manuals in the school library. I never saw any of the girls doing that.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 17, 2016 09:04 AM (9mTYi)

13 All 14 year old boys like to rub ass with willing 13 year old girls in the library. Unless his name is Barry.

Posted by: Corona at April 17, 2016 09:07 AM (ragzU)

14 Finished 'To Save Us All From Ruin' last week. Nicely done, Muldoon, nicely done. Thanks.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 17, 2016 09:08 AM (9mTYi)

15 Good Morning.

Finished reading about Diplomacy. Also finished Citizen Soldiers by Ambrose. I like my large print ex-library version.

Started a space opera book Seeds of Earth. Unreadable. Plot holes everywhere, PC nonsense, and bad writing. Threw it against the wall.

Going through A Concise History of India by Francis Watson. Written in 1975 by a WWII vet Brit. It reads much different that histories written these days. Sometimes that's good.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 17, 2016 09:09 AM (u82oZ)

16 I started out reading almost nothing but history (military mostly) and historical fiction. As a kid I read most of Louis L'Amour and other western books. I always say I was a cowboy as a kid.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 09:09 AM (Dpy/y)

17
Ito was a terrible judge. Right after he was assigned, I was at a mall with a friend and all these people kept asking him if he was judge Ito because you know, all asians look alike...

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:10 AM (iQIUe)

18 I don't think that making everybody who pays taxes be required to file quarterly taxes instead of withholding would have any impact. The people who actually pay taxes pretty much already do not vote for tax and spend liberals. It is the FSA who keeps them in office.

As for the OJ trial that case was lost as soon as the LA idiots decided to file the charges and try the case in downtown LA instead of Brentwood where the crime occurred, thus tainting the jury pool with social justice idiots.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:11 AM (vvmPQ)

19 Boys, on the other hand, want an immediate function for what they read and learn...

****

Hmmmm. Time for a second look at bodice-rippers?

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 09:11 AM (NeFrd)

20
I always remember Gene Siskel talking about watching Bananas with his 10 year old nephews who found the snake bite scene absolutely hilarious.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:13 AM (iQIUe)

21 Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 17, 2016 09:08 AM (9mTYi)

*****

Thank you kindly, sir!

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 09:14 AM (NeFrd)

22 4 year old grandson is not much interested in sitting still while I read to him. Even boy-type books. About the only time he sits still enough for a book is when the 6 year old granddaughter reads to him. I don't know if it's so much that he's interested in the book. I think it's more that he can't figure out how she does that.

Off to church. Be blessed.

Posted by: grammie winger, watching the fig tree at April 17, 2016 09:14 AM (dFi94)

23 In the mood for some fiction this week, I rummaged through the 'not read' shelf. Most of those are items that I bought at auction in lots, simply to obtain a particular book in the lot that I knew to be fairly valuable.

The book I am reading is titled 'The Lynmara Legacy', by Catherine Gaskin, 1975. She seems to have written at least a dozen books, and so must have had an audience.

At any rate, it's a gurrl's book, by my standard, but quite readable, and a distraction from the heavier stuff that I have been reading in recent months.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 17, 2016 09:14 AM (9mTYi)

24 I got a lot read this week. First I finished The Phoenix Exultant, the second in The Golden Age series by John C. Wright. Phaethon has been unfairly banned and exiled to an island. The book is about an individual with a dream versus the powers that be. Wright has created a rich, multi-layered future society. The series is a great space-opera. Now I'm waiting, not too patiently, for my county library to acquire the final volume, The Golden Transcendence. At least I'm first in line for it.

On the Kindle, I read the four short books of The Wick Omnibus (Wick, The Charm School, Exodus, One World of Truth) by Michael Bunker with Chris Awalt. This is a story of a diverse set of characters who fight their way from different directions to Amish country in PA after an EMP and nuclear attack. I thought that it ended abruptly and not to my liking, but then I found out that this is a prequel to Bunker's The Last Pilgrims, set twenty years after the scenes in this book.

I also finished Flag In Exile, the fifth in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. The book has just the right mix of dirt-side political intrigue and space battle scenes. A very good read.

Finally, I bought the Outdoor Medical Emergency Handbook by Dr. Spike Briggs and Dr. Campbell Mackenzie for, you know, when the SHTF.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 17, 2016 09:15 AM (JYer2)

25 7
I got hooked on the Potter books starting with the 2nd while on vacation with nothing else to read. Have them all now.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 09:02 AM (Dpy/y)

I have found lately that when I am re-reading a long series like this I grow bored after the 3rd or 4th books. That has not been so with this series.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:16 AM (vvmPQ)

26 About reading to children, cartoon:
http://www.gocomics.com/dogeatdoug/2016/04/04

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 17, 2016 09:16 AM (9mTYi)

27 From earlier this week in 1944- Nettuno, Italy

April 10, 1944
A beautiful day. The flowers are coming out by the hundreds. There is a large peony bush beside our outdoor latrine. One of the buds is about ready to open. Enemy fire is still quite heavy.

April 11, 1944
Bomb Disposal brought in an unusual specimen today, a 280mm dud. It has 12 longitudinal rotating strips instead of the usual band. Length: about 3-1/2 feet. Wt.: over 500 lbs. Range is unknown but it is bound to be a very long range gun.

This dud round was from one of the infamous rail guns (collectively known as "Anzio Annie") that were the nemesis of Allied counterbattery. Incoming rounds sounded like a freight train.

And since I haven't pimped it lately, the book is "To Save Us All From Ruin" written by a good friend of mine. Available in paperback through Ace's Amazon link

http://astore.amazon.com/aoshq-20/detail/B017AKV03I

...or on the Kindle from the regular Amazon site (special Kindle pricing this week).

It's got cannons, peonies, damsels and...of course...

...PIE!!!!

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 09:17 AM (NeFrd)

28 Books for boys:

G. A. Henty. Basically historical fiction/romance novels for teenage boys (romance, defined as medieval stories involving wrestling giants, smiting rogue knights, and rescuing fair maidens. Not goopiness....). Rather formulaic, but the formula is good, so who cares? One of the homeschooling presses has reprinted a bundle of the original 140+ novels that Henty wrote - my family acquired a couple dozen before we stopped collecting them a couple decades ago, and I know they have reprinted more since then.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 17, 2016 09:17 AM (bZ7mE)

29 After looking at this 7th and 8th grade reading list it's east to understand why boys are having trouble reading...

http://tinyurl.com/hu2apav

Posted by: Kreplach at April 17, 2016 09:18 AM (WVvzl)

30 I just this morning finished astronaut Clayton C. Anderson's The Ordinary Spaceman: From Boyhood Dreams to Astronaut. It's a very funny and informal account of his life, from small town Nebraska everykid to NASA astronaut (in the book First Man, Neil Armstrong noted that quite a few astronauts came from small Midwestern towns - interesting).

Clayton devotes considerable time answering the questions people really want to know -- like how to poop in zero g. "Gravity is essentially absent and there is no 'separation factor'. Without gravitational pull the process of executing number two relies on near-perfect body position and flawless technique....If our aim is successful and our diet is sound, a long, smooth, brown 'cobra' will snake its way into the very bottom of the bag...Some astronauts has reported (bragged about, actually) the innate ability to execute a floater. This is done by hovering slightly above the can and using their internal musculature to impart a small separation velocity to the turd."

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 09:18 AM (jR7Wy)

31
Books for kids should include useful information, for example, how to sail, how to pitch a tent, how to cook, how to climb, how to raise a pet, how to make a bottle rocket, etc.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:21 AM (iQIUe)

32 Last week my sister showed me a kids book that she has. It's an illustrated poem called "10 Little Zombies".

OMG I was literally lol'ing as I read it. It will show whatever # of zombies on one page, then you turn the page to see how one of them get's destroyed. Something like this: "4 little zombies coming after me",
(flip the page) "Went and got my shotgun then there were 3".

Black and white drawings until you turn the page then usually a lot of red thrown in.

Apparently the grand kids love it and always want my sister to read it to them. Amazingly enough she found the book several years ago in the gift shop of a major museum here in KC.

I just wonder if you can even find that book any more.

Posted by: HH at April 17, 2016 09:23 AM (DrCtv)

33 Well, he's in the slammer:

What?! Isn't law and order a sure cause of white supremacy? Shouldn't we be agitating for his freedom?

Posted by: t-bird at April 17, 2016 09:23 AM (9mTYi)

34 29 Posted by: Kreplach at April 17, 2016 09:18 AM (WVvzl)

That reading list is a liberal abomination.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:23 AM (vvmPQ)

35
When I was in 7th and 8th grade, all I read were bios and stuff about spies.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:23 AM (iQIUe)

36 My next acquisition is : " The Faith of Christopher Hitchens. The Restless Soul of the Worlds Most Notorious Atheist." It's written by Larry Taunton, a Christian who befriended Hitchens, and developed a close relationship with him. They were so close they took 2 long road trips together, w/Hitchens reading from The Gospel of John. Hitchens was a raving lib, but he was consistent. And, pretty damn funny too.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 17, 2016 09:26 AM (SeD0w)

37 @34

That's what kids are reading in Fairfax County Virginia...

So you know it's even worse in our more liberal locales.

Posted by: Kreplach at April 17, 2016 09:27 AM (WVvzl)

38 Also enjoying Dean Koontz's Ashley Bell.

Yesterday I went to an early voting site in an unfamiliar area rather close by and stumbled across a big, shiny, new-to-me library. Oh joy!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 09:27 AM (jR7Wy)

39
Still havent moved the Falcon 9. Guess they dont work weekends. Poor think needs a paint job.

http://portcanaveralwebcam.com/

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:28 AM (iQIUe)

40
Few people know that "Ito" means asshole in Japanese.

Posted by: Libra at April 17, 2016 09:29 AM (GblmV)

41 Maybe feminist educators are aware of the differences, and simply seek to hobble boys by limiting reading to books they will not want to read, like that kindergarten teacher who bogarted the legos. But this would be less of an issue if parents read to their kids more, I'd think.

Posted by: angela urkel at April 17, 2016 09:30 AM (EuAgP)

42 37 That's what kids are reading in Fairfax County Virginia...

So you know it's even worse in our more liberal locales.

Posted by: Kreplach at April 17, 2016 09:27 AM (WVvzl)

Fairfax County used to be more conservative 50 or 60 years ago. I would not call it that anymore since it is a suburb of DC.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:30 AM (vvmPQ)

43 I used to love Mad Mag. They were wonderfully irreverent, and 90% of their content would be impossible today. We've been watching the collected works of Seinfeld as a family, and it's amazing how much of THAT show would be impossible today. Isn't Hollywood et al going to exhaust white, male, traditional family oriented material pretty quickly?

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 17, 2016 09:30 AM (SeD0w)

44 When I was little, I remember devouring The Hollisters. A family- but mostly the kids- from 'Shoreham' solving little mysteries. It seemed like it was always during summer or family vacations.

Posted by: t-bird at April 17, 2016 09:31 AM (ANVXm)

45 My hubby is like that - he will read manuals, how-tos, and self-help books.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:32 AM (nbrY/)

46 Maybe feminist educators are aware of the differences

Of course they are. That's why the boys are placed under IEP's or special ed so that their deficiencies can be dealt with.

Posted by: t-bird at April 17, 2016 09:32 AM (ANVXm)

47 Want to thank the citizens of this thread for turning me on to "The Master and Margarita" and" A Hobbit, a Wardrobe and a Great War" last year.

Never would have picked them up without your recomendation.

Loved them both.

Posted by: Charles Martel at April 17, 2016 09:36 AM (EWQg3)

48 I used to read a lot of Dean Koontz. I don't know why I stopped... too many scenes of grisly psycho killings ? I should check out what he's done in the interim.

Posted by: Gem at April 17, 2016 09:39 AM (c+gwp)

49 I like the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:40 AM (nbrY/)

50 Thanks again for all the recommendations and for this week's link to "guys read"

Posted by: Mattminnj at April 17, 2016 09:41 AM (fp2zB)

51 Books for kids should include useful information,
for example, how to sail, how to pitch a tent, how to cook, how to
climb, how to raise a pet, how to make a bottle rocket, etc.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:21 AM
~~~~

Got my kids The American Boy's Handy Book. It was written about a hundred years ago (I think by one of the Boy Scouts founders) and it's got all that stuff in it plus a ton more. Even includes some splodey stuff which my kids loved.

Posted by: IrishEi at April 17, 2016 09:41 AM (E6RIJ)

52 Boys, on the other hand, want an immediate function for what they read and learn...

Hence, pornography

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 09:42 AM (7qAYi)

53 I always remember Gene Siskel talking about watching Bananas with his 10 year old nephews who found the snake bite scene absolutely hilarious.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 09:13 AM (iQIUe)

"You must suck out the poison!"

"Yes, suck out the poison!"

Yeah, that scene is good moron-level humor right there.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 09:44 AM (JJ5/6)

54 After being very disappointed with Robert J. Sawyer's paen to utilitarian bio-ethics, I re-read Koontz' One Door Away From Heaven to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 09:44 AM (Nwg0u)

55 Fairfax reading list does include Stevenson'sTreasure Island, so there is that.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 17, 2016 09:45 AM (bZ7mE)

56 Those kids in the picture are getting some cheap feels and thrills right?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 17, 2016 09:47 AM (Ozsfq)

57 I watched a movie yesterday on Netflix - "Admiral: The Roaring Currents" about Korean Admiral Yi Sun-Shen & how he & his 12 ships defeated the invading Japaneses fleet of over 200 ships & that has inspired me to buy a book on that war "The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China" by Samuel Hawley. I highly recommend the movie & look forward to reading the book.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 09:47 AM (7qAYi)

58 Boys, on the other hand, want an immediate function for what they read and learn...

Hence, pornography
Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 09:42 AM (7qAYi)

As boy I call bullshit on that. It can take almost 30 seconds sometimes

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 17, 2016 09:48 AM (Ozsfq)

59 29 After looking at this 7th and 8th grade reading list it's east to understand why boys are having trouble reading...

http://tinyurl.com/hu2apav

Posted by: Kreplach at April 17, 2016 09:18 AM (WVvzl)

Holy crap. It's as if whoever put that list together deliberately set out to confirm all of my views I've expressed on this book thread. Unbelievable.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 09:51 AM (JJ5/6)

60 I would recommend the Heinlein YA novels from the 60s for young boys. When I started reading those I really started ramping up my reading. Amazon even had one of the on sail a few days ago.

Even though it is no longer on sale it is still only $2.99 on the kindle.

http://tinyurl.com/jy8ubox

Also I used to like racing/car novels by a guy named "Galt". Don't remember his whole name and haven't seen any for decades.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:51 AM (vvmPQ)

61 I've only ever read for pleasure & diversion. I find instructional reading boring & difficult. Must be why I did well in English & history, but poorly in math.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 09:51 AM (7qAYi)

62 Read Poul Anderson's The High Crusade, where an alien spaceship lands on Earth. Unfortunately for them it's 14th century England and their laser guns are no match for the arrows and swords of their host. Interstellar warfare, romance, betrayal, a fun story.

Re-read Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, where a young broke intellectual commits murder and is eventually punished for it. Really terrific book with interesting characters and some humor. Hated Tales From The Underground, glad to see this one held up.

Starting to go through Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder books again, listened to The Sins Of The Fathers (MS #1), Time To Murder And Create (MS #2) and In The Midst Of Death (MS #3). Scudder when a cop accidentally killed a child in the line of duty, quit the force, left his family and is now a drunk living in a NYC hotel doing the odd PI job. All of these are really good noir detective stories with interesting characters.

Posted by: waelse1 at April 17, 2016 09:52 AM (wnoSJ)

63 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:00 AM (vvmPQ)

Game of Thrones?

Or you could stab your eyes out with knitting needles, which would be more pleasant, and much quicker.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:53 AM (Zu3d9)

64 On sale fat fingers.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:53 AM (vvmPQ)

65 I did some readin' this past week - first, "The Devil's Dictum" by Frederick Gerd Heimbach. Oh. My. Goodness. What a fun, unconventional read!!! The United States is run by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the House of Representatives is basically an insane asylum where congresscritters go in, but they don't come out, and Aaron Burr was the first President of the United States. Sounds bizarre? Well, yeah, kinda - but it moves fast, and the cultural references will make you laugh and laugh. Read it. Do it.
Also, finished the first book in the "Last Survivors" series, "Last Survivors" by Bobby Adair and T.W. Piperbrook. Set 300 years after a plague reduces society to the equivalent of the Dark Ages - all the technology, gone, and some sort of flowering spore-producing plant that infects people and turns them into flesh-eating monsters. If you're found to be infected (and the parameters of "infected" are pretty subjective), you get burned on the pyre. For the good of the village, don't ya know. Anyway - a really good story, only thing that kinda pissed me off was the way the authors got right to the brink of a climax - and then, "To be continued, want to know more? Buy the next volume in the series..." Yeah, I know, they want to sell books, but the book devourer in me was terribly, terribly hurt.
Also started "The Privateersman" and "Allegiance". Mr. antisocialist is away hunting turkeys for the next week or so, and I'm gonna read and read and read...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 09:56 AM (9n14Y)

66 63 Game of Thrones?

Or you could stab your eyes out with knitting needles, which would be more pleasant, and much quicker.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:53 AM (Zu3d9)

My wife picked me up the first two of those "Thrones" books in hard cover a few years ago. A colossal waste of $40.00. I didn't make it past the second chapter of the first book. Gave both of them to the library.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:56 AM (vvmPQ)

67 Read Poul Anderson's The High Crusade, where an alien spaceship
lands on Earth. Unfortunately for them it's 14th century England and
their laser guns are no match for the arrows and swords of their host.
Interstellar warfare, romance, betrayal, a fun story.

I love that story, because it doesn't treat medieval Europeans as a bunch of unwashed primitives. It isn't so much that that the laser guns are inferior as it is that the aliens themselves are no match for the courage, cunning, and ferocity of a 14th century man-at-arms.

Posted by: Grey Fox at April 17, 2016 09:57 AM (bZ7mE)

68 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:00 AM (vvmPQ)

Saxon Tales, by Bernard Cornwell.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:57 AM (Zu3d9)

69 I' m currently reading "Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos" by Donna Andrews. I think this is third in the Meg Langslow series and although they are fluff, I enjoy them.

I am also reading a kind of intro to history of the Renaissance which gives vignettes of 15 or 20 prominent figures. It's hard to know where to dive into history because everything assumes you know something, so I'm figuring this will be a nice little overview. I'm reading about Titian right now.

And now I must get back to reviewing music for church this morning. We are doing something set to Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" and, although it doesn't go above an E, that's still pretty high for this early. We are also singing "Shepherd Me, O God" which is one of my absolute faves, so yay for that.

Posted by: Tonestaple at April 17, 2016 09:58 AM (/dh3W)

70 Josephistan:

Did you ever see the link I posted for you a few days ago for the Ace of Spades Survival Guide? I think it might have been willowed.

Posted by: IrishEi at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (E6RIJ)

71 Random comments:

Good to see Easy Dog back.

Despite the preponderance of virtue-signalling books on that list, I could have found enough to last me a summer, when i was 14 or so. I bet even the "aggrieved class" books aren't actually read, by anyone - just checked out so that they are registered, etc.

I thought Cuba Gooding as OJ was terrible, fwiw. A big part of the "OJ episode" was his massive physical power and success at an aggressive, violent occupation. To see him as the same size as Johnnie C. was just wrong. Physical intimidation can't be 'acted' when there is that much of a difference.

Despite my efforts, the only reading likes that my son took from me were a couple Robb Whites and A Boy Ten Feet Tall. I don't think his (and subsequent generations) stood/stand a chance.

Posted by: goatexchange at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (Nd4YY)

72 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:56 AM (vvmPQ)

I got through the first one, and about 1/3 of the second before I gave up.

What astounded me was that his writing got worse, and the boring detail got more comprehensive, and more boring.

Give the guy credit....he can write a profoundly bad book.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (Zu3d9)

73 Josephistan, I recently watched Gu Family Book, a Korean period drama about a gumiho (fox demon) in that era. Admiral Yi Sun-Shen plays a surprisingly large role in the drama, and it was interesting how the writers conveyed their respect for him while keeping the fantastical elements of the story.

Posted by: pookysgirl at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (K27gs)

74 Ito has considered writing a book about the Simpson trial, but doing so would require resigning from his judicial seat, and Judge Ito believed that resigning from his position would be a dishonor to his family.

^^^^^^^^^^^
If Ito had been that concerned about bringing dishonor to his family, he wouldn't have let the OJ trial turn into the carnival sideshow it became. I guess the spotlight and fame got good to him...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (9n14Y)

75 Not sure who not that that matters, but the other Friday they said they stopped by the Harvest used book store in Ft Washington Pa. I had been looking at that place since before Christmas as I'm working within walking distance of it but it's closed. Didn't see that it was open the other Friday. Oh well.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (Dpy/y)

76 49 I like the Odd Thomas series by Dean Koontz.
Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:40 AM (nbrY/)

There's an Odd Thomas movie. Thought it was pretty good.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 17, 2016 10:00 AM (0mRoj)

77 Currently reading Pride and Prejudice to my almost 12 year old daughter. Also reading the Mortdecai books by Kyril Bonfiglioli. This trilogy was made into a movie by Jonny Depp which is where I learned of it. I think it is one of the funniest books I have read. It is very pink pantherish and OF Wodehouse. The movie is current date and combines all the books in such a way as to not take away from the original. There are differences enough to enjoy both. The books were written in the 70s so younger people might miss some references and it is absolutely not PC. Thank you for the book thread. I enjoy it immensely.

Posted by: ramblingmother at April 17, 2016 10:01 AM (n0iYF)

78 G.A. Henty books can be found at Gutenberg.org, too.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 10:02 AM (TVASf)

79 68 Saxon Tales, by Bernard Cornwell.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:57 AM (Zu3d9)

I don't have those but I have read them from the library. Pretty good series. Right now Amazon is wanted $10 for his books meaning that they haven't milked all the money put of them yet.
Steven Lawhead also writes some good ones in that vein of novel.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:02 AM (vvmPQ)

80 I think that guy's view on boy's reading habits/interests has it pretty correct:

When I was a boy all I read was either natural science books for kids, astronomy, archeology books (I heard about Heinrich Schliemann discovery of Troy stuff and was fascinated because, I read a lot of mythology books), folk tales, fairy tales, and because I was a good Catholic boy- lives of the saints- and on occasion my parent's college chemistry books.

But, all of it, to me was interesting-

1) because it told me about the real world around me - science - thus how people understood the world to be now

2) or how people understood the world to be in the past - myth, folktales, fairytales, lives of the saints

Yeah, I was a weird kid.

Anyway, we moved when I was in 5th grade and my new teacher was horrified that that was all I read, and convinced my Mom that I absolutely had to read fiction-

so my teacher and my Mom really pushed me to read fiction-

most hilarious of all was my Mom pushing me to read "Jane Eyre" because she loved that book at that age.

Oh. My. God. Just...just awful.

Several times I had the polite, good boy's version of this discussion with her "WTF! Why am I reading this now? It's sooooo boring." but I was assured it had a bang-up ending and there was this mysterious secret.

Anyway I get to the end (and SPOILER!!! )- mad previous wife(?) locked in attic burns down the castle- that was it.

Ugh- I was with the mad wife...burn that sucker to the ground.

Annnnywho- they finally got me hooked on two books-
a collection of Poe stories and "Dr Doolittle on the Moon"- and from then on I could stand reading fiction.

I understand why boy's have no interest in reading because public schools (at that age group) now have boys that age reading crapola like "Sarah Big and Tall"(girl learns to accept herself as, wait for it!- big and tall) and first woman to swim with sharks(yes, that's real)-

it's no wonder they have zero interest. School and feminist theory kills that interest in the cradle.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 10:04 AM (2rmvw)

81 4 Ah the book thread. I am finishing up the last of the Harry Potter books. Don't know what I will move on to next.
Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:00 AM (vvmPQ)

What are you in the mood for?
More fantasy?

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:04 AM (nbrY/)

82 72 Give the guy credit....he can write a profoundly bad book.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (Zu3d9)

I completely agree. What is really astounding is that it keeps being on the "best seller" lists.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:04 AM (vvmPQ)

83 Posted by: Zoltan at April 17, 2016 09:15 AM (JYer2)

I've got some Honor Harrington books on my wish list - worth the money, then?

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:05 AM (9n14Y)

84 The reading lists that were created and drive many boys from school and reading, are not by accident. Of course, some boys will read from this and......

And the Academy in all its permutations is following this. The meme of "micro agressions" and all its variations are for a reason.

The Matriarchy wants to make boys and men effeminate, and ultimately psychologically castrate them. Probably physically get them to self-castrate at some point. This is to make the world safe for women, in their minds.

At some point, it will be impossible to get a college education unless you totally submit to the feminist theories of everything, which is to control the credentialing process of higher education. This will condemn many of the non-credentialed (men) to the margins of society and make them all physically poorer (Kevin Williamson, are you listening?). This is already happening in part, with the triumph of "Free Trade" and the disappearing manufacturing base of America.

The chattering classes are all agog with Free Trade, and the argument is always how it is actually a net "win" for all of us. Except if you lose your job to it.

And it begins with an idea, in a book, transmitted by a book. Which is why reading books and the inner life of people is so important. The decline in literacy and academic discipline is not a mistake either, by the matriarchy.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 10:05 AM (+1T7c)

85 There's an Odd Thomas movie. Thought it was pretty good.
Posted by: Insomniac at April 17, 2016 10:00 AM (0mRoj)

I actually watched that on Netflix first, and it got me intetested in the books.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:06 AM (nbrY/)

86 Did you ever see the link I posted for you a few days ago for the Ace of Spades Survival Guide? I think it might have been willowed.
Posted by: IrishEi at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (E6RIJ)

Yes, thank you. I've favorite-ed the links.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 10:07 AM (7qAYi)

87 I read all the "Little House" books as a kid, just loved them. Still do.
So, I bought the first one, "Little House in the Big Woods" for my one and only granddaughter, who's 5 and loves books. I'm thinking about reading it out loud for her, on a thumb drive or something, and then sending the book and recording to her (she's in Washington state) so she can read along.
Any pointers from the horde?

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:09 AM (9n14Y)

88 81 What are you in the mood for?

More fantasy?

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:04 AM (nbrY/)

SF/Fantasy are my favorite ones. I throw in an occasional non-fiction history book too. What I have been doing lately is going through my dead tree library and picking out one or more and checking to see if I can get it on the Kindle. That is most likely what I will do later today after I finish this last one.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:09 AM (vvmPQ)

89 Anyway - a really good story, only thing that kinda pissed me off was the way the authors got right to the brink of a climax - and then, "To be continued, want to know more? Buy the next volume in the series..." Yeah, I know, they want to sell books, but the book devourer in me was terribly, terribly hurt.
Also started "The Privateersman" and "Allegiance". Mr. antisocialist is away hunting turkeys for the next week or so, and I'm gonna read and read and read...
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 09:56 AM (9n14Y)

I hate cliffhanger endings.
In my opinion, the proper way to do a cliffhanger is the way a lot if tv shows do them.now - you wrap up this story but meantime have started the new story and that's the cliffhanger.
(For example, Timmy' s been hauled out of the well, but now Sam is missing...)

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:09 AM (nbrY/)

90 83 I've got some Honor Harrington books on my wish list - worth the money, then?

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:05 AM (9n14Y)

Absolutely. One of the best SF series out there.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:10 AM (vvmPQ)

91 If Ito had been that concerned about bringing dishonor to his family, he wouldn't have let the OJ trial turn into the carnival sideshow it became. I guess the spotlight and fame got good to him...
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (9n14Y)

All true...but not moving that trial out of downtown LA was the only thing that mattered. THAT black jury was NEVER going to convict the brother ( although all OJ ever hung with was white people after he got famous). What a joke that whole trial was

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 17, 2016 10:10 AM (Ozsfq)

92 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:09 AM (vvmPQ)

Fantasy & ST are my first loves and most reliable joys. As I grew older I was getting less and less happy with the books I was reading, then eventually I realized it was because of the rampant leftism infecting the genre.
It's tough to find new good fantasy now.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:13 AM (nbrY/)

93 SF not ST

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:14 AM (nbrY/)

94 Feminists like to scream and yell.

--

Several weeks back, I finished a biography on Janis Joplin. She was decidedly anti-political, even during those days of the raging late 60s activist, and upon being asked about feminists and whether she supported them or not, she said she wasn't particularly drawn to their cause because....they always seemed so angry.

Always was, is and always shall be.

Posted by: Lady in Black - Death to the Man Bun at April 17, 2016 10:15 AM (+FSld)

95 Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:05 AM (9n14Y)

The first Honor Harrington book is free on Kindle, is worth a try if you like sci-fi.

Posted by: waelse1 at April 17, 2016 10:15 AM (Bboe/)

96 Posted by: goatexchange at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (Nd4YY)

I remember A Boy Ten Feet Tall. I wonder if my son would like it.

Perhaps I am overly extrapolating from myself and family, but to me there seems to be little need for "girl" books. Girls whi like to read will read nearly anything as long as the plot and characters are interesting. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be "girl" books, just that there's no need to make it a focus.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at April 17, 2016 10:15 AM (GDulk)

97 83
I'm enjoying the series. Very good to excellent so far. I'm reading library copies, so the price is just right.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 17, 2016 10:16 AM (JYer2)

98 SF not ST
Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:14 AM (nbrY/)

My junior year of high school, I wrote my term paper on the evolution of science fiction in the 20th century.

Yeah, I was kind of a geek back then.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:17 AM (9n14Y)

99 (Janis Joplin).....she said she wasn't particularly drawn to their cause because....they always seemed so angry.

Always was, is and always shall be.

Posted by: Lady in Black

Well, and that Janis was usually drunk or hung over most of the time, too.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 10:17 AM (+1T7c)

100 The first Honor Harrington book is free on Kindle, is worth a try if you like sci-fi.
Posted by: waelse1 at April 17, 2016 10:15 AM (Bboe/)

Thanks! Just downloaded it. I'm never gonna get to my official to-do list...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:18 AM (9n14Y)

101 When I was a teenager, I preferred to read the set of books designated as for boys, because they were all adventure, escape, derring-do ... the books designated as suitable for girls were all about some stupid girl pining for an equally stupid boy and coping with the machinations of the mean girl set. A writer named Betty Cavanna was responsible for many of these tomes pushed upon me. Yuck. I hated Betty Cavanna books with the white-hot passion of a thousand burning suns. Never really got into the bog-standard romance books either, for pretty much the same reason.

It's pretty dismal out there, in finding books which make tweens and teens want to read these days - why I ventured into writing Lone Star Sons - and targeted it especially for boys of all ages.

I vaguely remember reading Don Quixote, USA - and remember it as a very fun read.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at April 17, 2016 10:18 AM (oK6A/)

102 I read the Seafort saga 10-15 years ago, after finding a paperback of the last book at the Navy exchange. What drew me to it was the cover illustration - the equipment drawn there was then-current U.S. Navy CIC equipment. Which happened to be my specific specialty at the time. That exact equipment.

But jumping in so late in the series made for a confusing read. So I started from the beginning.

I found Nick Seafort to ultimately be an insufferable, self-flagellating ass with a guilt-complex so large he felt he couldn't do anything right no matter how well he had done, what correct decisions he had made, or how high he rose in the service or politics. It was always "I'm sorry" for this or that that was usually out of his control or what should have been considered acceptable - or at least understood - results of his usually by-the-book actions.

I felt like slapping the guy more than once.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 10:19 AM (dwc5Y)

103 Also spent yesterday morning binge-watching "11.22.63" on Hulu, I read the book last year and really loved it. The miniseries was good, didn't follow the book exactly but I suppose if it had, it would have been too long to hold people's attention. I recommend both the book and the miniseries, especially if you like James Franco and Chris Cooper. Which I do.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:21 AM (9n14Y)

104 85 There's an Odd Thomas movie. Thought it was pretty good.
Posted by: Insomniac at April 17, 2016 10:00 AM (0mRoj)

I actually watched that on Netflix first, and it got me intetested in the books.
Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:06 AM (nbrY/)

Ah so. I haven't read the books. My favorite line from the film is "I see dead people, and by God I do something about it!"

Posted by: Insomniac at April 17, 2016 10:21 AM (0mRoj)

105 Sad admission - kidlet who used to be a good reader (plowed through Harry Potter in 4th grade) now made slyly has her nose in her phone.
Tumblr

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:21 AM (nbrY/)

106 92 It's tough to find new good fantasy now.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 10:13 AM (nbrY/)

Weber and Ringo are good non-leftists for SF.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:22 AM (vvmPQ)

107 Bossy, this is true. Very true, especially as relates to her personal life. However, by all accounts she seemed pretty non-political during a time when her peers were lunatics. The statement she made about feminism didn't come from a clouded perspective. It was just funny that she saw that anger and unhappiness in feminists that we still see today.

Posted by: Lady in Black - Death to the Man Bun at April 17, 2016 10:22 AM (+FSld)

108 Fairfax County used to be more conservative 50 or 60 years ago. I would not call it that anymore since it is a suburb of DC.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:30 AM (vvmPQ)

Fairfax is part of District 1, right next to The Capital.

And, rest assured, the odds are never in our favor.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 10:22 AM (JJ5/6)

109 Bossy, this is true. Very true, especially as relates to her personal life. However, by all accounts she seemed pretty non-political during a time when her peers were lunatics. The statement she made about feminism didn't come from a clouded perspective. It was just funny that she saw that anger and unhappiness in feminists that we still see today.
Posted by: Lady in Black - Death to the Man Bun at April 17, 2016 10:22 AM (+FSld)

Wasn't Joplin a Texas gal?

Posted by: Nevergiveup at April 17, 2016 10:23 AM (Ozsfq)

110 A really good book for young boys to read is "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean George. Jean George, was, of course, a woman. She was quite and outdoors'men', in that she loved the outdoors. Later, I found she married one of the Craighead brothers (both well know outdoorsmen).
Great story of a young boy that runs away from home, to live on old family land (that has reverted to wilderness) in the Allegheny's in upstate New York.

How he survives, and prospers even, is a great story. I read it 50 years ago and still remember it clearly.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 10:23 AM (+1T7c)

111 Hey, 13 members in the online chess group already.

Nice.

Posted by: Burn the Witch at April 17, 2016 10:23 AM (Wckf4)

112 100 The first Honor Harrington book is free on Kindle, is worth a try if you like sci-fi.
Posted by: waelse1 at April 17, 2016 10:15 AM (Bboe/)

Thanks! Just downloaded it. I'm never gonna get to my official to-do list...
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:18 AM (9n14Y)

It also has a similar conceit as the Seafort books - transposition of Napoleonic-era royal Navy to future spacefaring.

The main character is also far less frustrating to read.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 10:24 AM (dwc5Y)

113 92 votermom

One of the few modern SF and Fantasy writers I can stand is Ryk E. Spoor.

His Polychrome is set in Oz, but in a good way.

Digital Knight is another interesting omnibus set in today's world, with a bit of a fantasy difference.

His epic fantasy Phoenix Rising is on my to read list.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at April 17, 2016 10:24 AM (u82oZ)

114 It's hard for me to understand how a man like that can have a wildly successful football career and then spend the rest of his life throwing it all away. It was like sometime around 1990 he'd been taken over by demons.

The same as every celebrity or powerful person, they don't face normal consequences for their actions, and they're actions get worse until they eventually do.

OJ was abusive to his wife long before he killed her. That didn't hurt him.

Posted by: Louis XV at April 17, 2016 10:24 AM (YIVls)

115 The good news is that research also shows that boys will read - if they are given reading that interests them.

I think they just need more Maya Angelou. Amirite?

Posted by: Jay Guevara at April 17, 2016 10:25 AM (oKE6c)

116 My mom loves the Odd Thomas series. My father started me reading Koontz many moons ago with "Watchers." They made four movies loosely based upon it, and they all sucked. I was presently surprised by the Odd Thomas movie. It was well done.

Posted by: no good deed at April 17, 2016 10:25 AM (GgxVX)

117 NGU, yes. Port Arthur, TX.

Posted by: Lady in Black - Death to the Man Bun at April 17, 2016 10:25 AM (+FSld)

118 I read the Seafort saga 10-15 years ago...I felt like slapping the guy more than once.
Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 10:19 AM (dwc5Y)

Oh, I agree, I feel the same way, but the story is still holding on my interest even with the third book, so there's that.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 10:26 AM (JJ5/6)

119 The same as every celebrity or powerful person, they
don't face normal consequences for their actions, and they're actions
get worse until they eventually do.

Posted by: Louis XV at April 17, 2016 10:24 AM (YIVls)
See, e.g., any number of Democrat politicians for particularly apposite cases. They don't worry about getting caught out, because at least subliminally they figure the MSM will have their backs.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at April 17, 2016 10:26 AM (oKE6c)

120 Finally, restarted and finished-

"Martian Time Slip" by Philip K Dick

Not one of his more famous books- I think because the Dickian weirdness is over-layed by a thick layer of 50s-early 60s lifestyle, even if it is on Mars.

Basically, think of Mars as a hardscrabble suburb faraway from Earth(Los Angeles).

so, while that might have read perfectly fine in the early 60's it seems like a bit of a mess here and now.

And then there's the level of knowledge- Dick sees autism as a kind of schizophrenia which is related to the autistic person's sense of sped up time.

But here's where it gets very good-

PKD's description of the autistic kid from the outside is very good- the running on tip-toes, etc.

And his description of a schizophrenic perception of the world around him is just horrifying-

some real first class writing that gets into your mind and makes you think about it.

Ultimately, the story plays out a bit like an extended Twilight Zone episode, but-

the schizophrenic perception of time are just fantastic and here's the best part-

he shows it to you without explaining what's going on until later, which makes up a great WTH is going on here for the reader.

I'd recommend "Martian Time-Slip for those parts alone.

Check it out.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 10:27 AM (2rmvw)

121 My son loves all things non-fiction. It is a struggle to find fiction material he enjoys. When he finally does, he is all in. He just found the Animorph series. It's about a visiting alien who bestows the power to transform into animals to a group of kids he encounters so they can fight another alien race coming to destroy Earth.

Posted by: no good deed at April 17, 2016 10:28 AM (GgxVX)

122 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 09:56 AM (vvmPQ)

I got through the first one, and about 1/3 of the second before I gave up.

What astounded me was that his writing got worse, and the boring detail got more comprehensive, and more boring.

Give the guy credit....he can write a profoundly bad book.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 09:59 AM (Zu3d9)

I read them all, and understand the irritations people feel about the writing. I enjoyed the story enough to overlook the negative aspects of his style... or lack thereof.

If he ever finishes another, I won't bother with it. Mostly, I'm done with the story. HBO is set to pass him up, with the next season of their show having to contain material he has not yet published, or stuff they make up on their own.

I have contended, there is no reason for the network to obligate themselves to him at this point. They can finish it any way they like. And frankly, I don't care for the approach they have taken already, liberties with the narrative.

In a way, the defense of Martin is that his characters behave like people. Deeply flawed and sometimes evil people, but the show... we're being given tv show characters. With tv show scenarios playing out like they do on tv shows. Whatever executive(s) took over the creative direction of the show, I guarantee it's somebody with extensive tv show experience.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 10:28 AM (Dj0WE)

123 Sock off

Posted by: AD at April 17, 2016 10:29 AM (YIVls)

124 112 It also has a similar conceit as the Seafort books - transposition of Napoleonic-era royal Navy to future spacefaring.

The main character is also far less frustrating to read.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 10:24 AM (dwc5Y)

Weber openly admits that series is modeled after the Hornblower series.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:29 AM (vvmPQ)

125 Antisocialist, to be honest I don't care for Weber's writing.

If you like space-opera I would suggest Tanya Huff, David Drake, or Elizabeth Moon, just based on the flow of action, plot being carried more by the action and less by the narration and explaining, and the use of language.

(Please note, this is my personal opinion and not revealed truth - you may love the Honorverse, many do)

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 10:30 AM (TVASf)

126 It's just a suggestion on the next chess thread one could have a one on one during and on the thread that anyone could follow along, keeping from interfering of course.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 10:32 AM (Dpy/y)

127 "My Side of the Mountain," now, that is a flashback. I read it in the third grade.

Posted by: no good deed at April 17, 2016 10:33 AM (GgxVX)

128 I'm still on my Len Deighton streak. While he was writing all those manly men books he was also writing a cooking column including cartoons about cooking. (In the movie The Ipcress File, our hero cooks a lot and the little papers stuck to his kitchen wall are Deighton's cooking cartoons.) So I've ordered his Action Cookbook and a book of his cooking cartoon. Should be here tomorrow.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 10:33 AM (Nwg0u)

129 As for the OJ show, it is extremely well done. In addition to Gooding deserving awards, so does Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark.

Neither Paulson nor Gooding try to mimic the exact speech patterns/mannerisms of their real-life characters, which helps them recreate the humanity of their characters.

I would say Courtney Vance as Cochran is well-done, but Vance does what he always does with his acting jobs: over-emote to the point of always seeming to be on the edge of explosion. Cochran was not like that at all. He managed to keep quiet when others were exploding, so while Vance's portrayal is entertaining to watch, as he almost always is, it's also distracting, in ways that Paulson and Gooding do NOT distract from the real-life people they are portraying.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 10:34 AM (Dj0WE)

130 125 If you like space-opera I would suggest Tanya Huff,
David Drake, or Elizabeth Moon, just based on the flow of action, plot
being carried more by the action and less by the narration and
explaining, and the use of language.

(Please note, this is my personal opinion and not revealed truth - you may love the Honorverse, many do)

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 10:30 AM (TVASf)

He does get carried away sometimes with his "political" discussions. But it is remarkable how the corrupt liberals in the Honorverse are like the corrupt liberals here today.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:35 AM (vvmPQ)

131 I'm going to go back to the Aubrey /Maturin series. I liked the Sharpe's book but didn't plan to read more but would if the opportunity came.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 10:35 AM (Dpy/y)

132
re boys/men and reading:

my husband has read two fiction books in his life that he enjoyed: The Secret Garden, and A Wrinkle In Time, back when he was very young.
The entire long wall of the family room is floor-to-ceiling cases filled with technical manuals and other extremely heavy nonfiction, that he pages through as lovingly as someone else might fondle Shakespeare or poetry.

My son has read maybe three fiction books that he has enjoyed: one school YA book, about young boys working through a problem in the group (with fighting too), and some Vonnegut that makes him laugh, hard.
He has an entire case and a tablet full of electronic, automotive, roofing and carpentry manuals and how-tos. he reads them constantly.

Too bad part of the long march through the institution of schooling eliminated most "shop", and made anything technically advanceda separate program requiring many bars for admission.

It isn't just the feminists--it is every minority with a grudge, who has brought the "affirmative action" concept to things like literature; "great" and "significant' literature now too often follows a quota of categories that are "underrepresented"--the crap my kids were assigned in school because it was by or about this or that set of protected classes!

Would it be too much to ask for them to be tasked with also reading GOOD BOOKS by or about lesbians, instead of the fashionable lesbian of the year? (I understand that by changing the selected icon each year, we can not only spend more money, but advance more individual victims--my niece is a journalist who wrote a memoir book about how hard it is to be a feminist and an objective journalist--she is not--that did not do well in open competition, but has earned her some tidy pay once a friend got it on the required reading list of a couple of school districts. Where the reviews by the teachers and high school kids say it sucks.)

Sigh. Maybe we should do a bit more of assigning all of them the same Dickens in fifth grade, so they all struggle stretching their minds together!

Posted by: barbarausa at April 17, 2016 10:36 AM (h3IJ6)

133
Just read Go Set a Watchman and liked it a lot.

Prog butthurt is a bonus.

Posted by: Frankly at April 17, 2016 10:36 AM (p9JeP)

134 I'm still working my way through Bede's History of the English because I got sidetracked by a study of primitive war called War Before Civilization. Very interesting and mostly apolitical. It takes the myth of the 'peaceful savage' and tears it apart. Turns out that stone age tribesmen are more warlike than civilized cultures. Who knew?

I'm also reading Gervase Markham's The English Housewife, which was an advice book published in the 1600s. I didn't even know there was a market for such things, since the literacy rate was still rather low in that era. Some of the medical remedies are enough to turn your stomach.

Still on the hunt for basic calculus and physics textbooks, so any recommendations are appreciated.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper- quietly rebellious at April 17, 2016 10:37 AM (26lkV)

135 After more than a year of on-again, off-again reading, I finally finished The Canterbury Tales. I read a translation, not the original Olde English or Saxon or whatever it's actually written in. For the most part I quite enjoyed it.

I also finished Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown, about being more vulnerable and dealing with shame. I'm not sure I'm the target audience for this book as shame isn't something I regularly deal with, but being willing to take more risks and be vulnerable is good advice.

Also, I decided to quit another mystery series that I've been reading, the Lady Emily series by Tasha Alexander. I bought the fifth and sixth books in the series at a FOL sale a year ago and read the fifth last week. I had already decided I was getting tired of the series, but went ahead and read the sixth book this week. Well, "social justice" and "progress" were mentioned a few times, and that just sealed the deal. I actually thought the sixth book was better than the fifth, and the social justice bit had very little to do with the mystery, but if the author feels she needs to virtue-signal to her readers, I'm done.

And now I'm reading Nothing Daunted, about two society girls who go out to Colorado in 1912 to teach the homesteaders' children.

Posted by: biancaneve at April 17, 2016 10:37 AM (e98eb)

136 My daughter in law and I are writing a childrens book, for the younger (0-5) age group, but writing a book that will appeal to both boys and girls is a difficult problem that most writers ignore. They think that boys will pick p just any book, and as the mother of a boy and girls, that isn't the case. The parents of today are so worried that their boy will want to play with trucks and guns and get dirty and don't realize that it's hardwired into boys to pay with trucks and guns and get dirty.

Posted by: Abby Coffey at April 17, 2016 10:38 AM (HBU7W)

137 A parting gift from Barack Obama that will keep on giving...

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/231623/

Posted by: steevy at April 17, 2016 10:38 AM (B48dK)

138 Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 10:30 AM (TVASf)

Any advice on where to start with each of the authors you mention? I like space-opera, but good writing makes all things science fiction/fantasy interesting...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:39 AM (9n14Y)

139 59 29 After looking at this 7th and 8th grade reading list it's east to understand why boys are having trouble reading...
http://tinyurl.com/hu2apav
Posted by: Kreplach at April 17, 2016 09:18 AM (WVvzl)
Holy crap. It's as if whoever put that list together deliberately set out to confirm all of my views I've expressed on this book thread. Unbelievable.
Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 09:51 AM (JJ5/6)

Hell, I'd give reading those a miss myself.

Posted by: Jay Guevara at April 17, 2016 10:39 AM (oKE6c)

140 Thanks for the links- discussion on boys and reading. I "live" in that issue as I teach humanities to juniors-- Huck Finn, Great Gatsby, etc don't really become page turners for the boys. I am pushing for something else that will actually be read by the guys. The traditionalists didn't really like my "Starship Troopers" recommendation.

Currently reading Killer Angels by Shaara

Posted by: Far Post at April 17, 2016 10:39 AM (/NoYP)

141
Z-Nation had an episode where the real George R.R. Martin played himself as a zombie at comic con. It was hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHLVnu98_Jc

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 10:40 AM (iQIUe)

142 barbarausa - please please please tell us the title of your niece's book!

Posted by: biancaneve at April 17, 2016 10:41 AM (e98eb)

143
Abdel-Fattah, Randa. DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN
THIS? Sixteen-year-old Ama, an Australian-born
Muslim Palestinian, decides she is ready to wear the
hijab, or head covering, as a sign of her deep faith. Ama
copes with misconceptions and discrimination in a
humorous way as she defends her decision to herself
and others. (F)

Yeah, I can just see vast hordes of 12- and 13-year-old-boys breaking down the doors of all the school libraries in Fairfax County because they so desperately want to read this book.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 10:41 AM (JJ5/6)

144 141
Z-Nation had an episode where the real George R.R. Martin played himself as a zombie at comic con. It was hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHLVnu98_Jc
Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 10:40 AM (iQIUe)

I laughed my ass off at that scene. I also thought the episode where they found that group of survivors who were stuck during a corporate retreat was funny as hell.

Posted by: Insomniac at April 17, 2016 10:42 AM (0mRoj)

145 I cannot wait to get out of Fairfax County. I will gladly take my happy self back to Southeast TX after this. One more year before we can decide if we are hanging up the hubby's combat boots.

Posted by: no good deed at April 17, 2016 10:43 AM (GgxVX)

146 Currently reading Killer Angels by Shaara

-
Excellent book. For a similar but grittier book, sees Ralph Peter's Cain at Gettysburg. It includes several enlisted characters and you get a cannon muzzle view of the battle. (Peters is the guy who got 86d from Fox News for calling Obozo a "pussy".)

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 10:47 AM (Nwg0u)

147
If I were to write a boys book, I think it would be about a 12 y/o kid sent to live on a relative's farm for the summer. The kid thinks it will be boring. However, he finds out that he is allowed to drive tractors, trucks, etc.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 10:47 AM (iQIUe)

148 Biancaneve--"Every Man In This Village Is A Liar".

One of the complaints that comes up is that she never explains that, among other things. Lots of impressionistic jumping-around in place and time, and lots and lots of over-emotice language are the other complaints lodged.

It is about being embedded in the mideast and Afghanistan, where she learns that the US and Israel are the greatest evils of all.

She just signed a deal to write about feminist globalization, which will be her third memoir, about quitting journalism to have children (she is married to an international journalist), and it is about how it feels to have children in major third world cities, and hire local women to care for them.

I think she has untreated PTSD from the war coverage, and a lot of first-world issues that aren't being addressed in the bubble she lives in in the third.

I love her, and respect what she's done, but she's as much in her own head as she was when she was a high school girl with dreadlocks and a pierced nose, saving up to go to Phish concerts

Posted by: barbarausa at April 17, 2016 10:47 AM (h3IJ6)

149 My junior year of high school, I wrote my term paper on the evolution of science fiction in the 20th century.

Yeah, I was kind of a geek back then.
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 10:17 AM (9n14Y)

----
I was lucky enough to have a class on science fiction and fantasy (junior year too) and got to write a paper on the influence of Norse mythology and the Eddas on Tolkien.

It's not that hard to "get the kids to read" if you let them read interesting genre fiction. Good fiction will teach you lots of non-fiction learnin' like history, geography, science, art, etc., all while building your vocabulary. Fun reads will lead you to more substantial works. In a way, it makes sense to eat dessert first and work your way to more nutritious fare later, when you have a more educated palate.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 10:48 AM (jR7Wy)

150 I think y'all are being too hard on the Fairfax County reading lists. There are several books that boys should like, including WW1 and WW2 books, a book written by a Navy SEAL , and a book about the 5000-year-old body recovered from a glacier in 1991. And what boy wouldn't want to read about Phineas Gage, a railroad foreman who survived having a 13-pound iron rod shot through his head in 1848?

Posted by: biancaneve at April 17, 2016 10:48 AM (e98eb)

151 Count me in as another who dislikes A Song of Ice and Fire. I read it because I was without other reading material at the time, but I heard Martin shouting, 'Look at me! Look at how shocking my story is!' on every single page. I hate it when people try to sell things to me. If I think the story is provocative, I'll come to that conclusion on my own; the author doesn't need to tell me I should be shocked.

Posted by: right wing whippersnapper- quietly rebellious at April 17, 2016 10:49 AM (26lkV)

152 I laughed my ass off at that scene. I also thought the episode where they found that group of survivors who were stuck during a corporate retreat was funny as hell.
Posted by: Insomniac at April 17, 2016 10:42 AM (0mRoj)

=============
They have a lot of funny stuff. Liked the zombie pole dancers and the Area 51 episode. Good bumper music, too.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 10:50 AM (iQIUe)

153 84
The Matriarchy wants to make boys and men effeminate, and ultimately psychologically castrate them. Probably physically get them to self-castrate at some point. This is to make the world safe for women, in their minds.
Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 10:05 AM (+1T7c)

Meanwhile they continue to import Muslims. Yeah, that'll end well.

Posted by: rickl at April 17, 2016 10:53 AM (sdi6R)

154 One of my favorites for kids and boys is 'No More Dead Dogs' (Gordon Korman). A boy won't withdraw his negative book report about a dog who dies in the end. Really funny and how the boy learns to persuade is really enjoyable. Sciezka's Time Warp Trio was really good as well.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 10:54 AM (MIKMs)

155 The Don Quixote book is available through AbeBooks for about $5 depending on the condition.

http://bit.ly/1QfPyuL

Posted by: random lurker at April 17, 2016 10:56 AM (+tRIN)

156 A bunch of writers--including me--are trying to reclaim SF and Fantasy from the joyless scolds. We're calling our movement Human Wave. I always put that in the tags for my books, so you should be able to search Amazon for that. We are all about the ripping yarns, adventure, chases, escapes, and no excessive goop :-) I have not yet gone to the extreme S.M. Stirling did and have a social justice lovey get fed to a jaguar by "in tune with nature" ancient Olmecs, though.

We just want it to be fun to read again. And write good books for *all* kids. I tried to make my YA fun for boys, but also girls (girls like adventure too!) I thiink the real problem is the progressives just don't like children. Any of them. So they have no sympathy for the kind of stories children like.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at April 17, 2016 10:57 AM (GG9V6)

157 Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 10:33 AM (Nwg0u)

Speaking of Len Deighton, I recently noticed his classic Cold War Bernard Samson books are finally available on e-book, will have to re-read those at some point.

Posted by: waelse1 at April 17, 2016 10:58 AM (Bboe/)

158 Crisis! The Denver global enwarmening blizzard is threatening the 420 celebration!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 10:59 AM (Nwg0u)

159 Sabrina, I totally agree with you. Progressives don't like children, even their own. I see it with mom's all the time. They look at them as pets, or a new purse. Something to look at but not interested in after a while.

Posted by: Abby Coffey at April 17, 2016 10:59 AM (HBU7W)

160 I watched the opening of the Simpson trial on TV, and I remember thinking that the best way to make sure that justice would be served would be for Judge Ito to simply ban any and all television cameras from his courtroom. But Ito seemed to want to encourage the spectacle it quickly turned into, and even exult in it, and I thought, oh great, here's yet another parasite trying to take advantage of the Simpson trial to leech out 15 minute of fame. It was like a rich man had died and then hordes of greedy relatives suddenly pop up out of nowhere to siphon off what they can from the estate. In a high-profile criminal case, I suppose you have to expect the celebutard leeches, but a sitting judge? I quickly grew disgusted and stopped watching or following the trial.

That was exactly my reaction to the trial as well, in that sequence. It just looked like an intentional media circus and I stopped watching because I knew it was going to be anything but justice.

OJ was so blatantly and clearly guilty that only morons and hateful bigots could possibly find him otherwise.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:00 AM (39g3+)

161 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:09 AM (vvmPQ)

Falkenberg's Legion series by Jerry Pournelle.

Good stuff, and decidedly not PC.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:00 AM (Zu3d9)

162 Someone above mentioned "A Wrinkle in Time".

That's an excellent children's book that appeals about equally to both boys and girls.

Probably, Harry Potter as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 11:02 AM (2rmvw)

163 I thiink the real problem is the progressives just don't like children. Any of them. So they have no sympathy for the kind of stories children like.
Posted by: Sabrina Chase at April 17, 2016 10:57 AM (GG9V6)
---
All their books are force-feedings of creamed spinach. Instead of fun, aspirational stories of adventure and daring-do, it's all victimhood and oppression. And what's with the gender segregation in kid's fiction? I don't care if the protagonist is a boy or a girl as long as I can identify with how they think and act in a situation.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 11:02 AM (jR7Wy)

164 I would posit that progressives don't like ANYONE.

Including themselves.

Posted by: barbarausa at April 17, 2016 11:04 AM (h3IJ6)

165 Re: Boys and reading. The reading list referenced above does have some books about WWII that could be of interest to boys, I would think. But would they be on the required reading list? Hmmm... no.

But, I have to say I don't recall a whole lot of interesting required reading from 1st grade (in 1957) through college. My love of reading is because of my parents who read to me when I was little, and along with relatives, gave me books on topics that interested me.

Maybe part of the reason for boy's not actively reading is that society has caused the parents to stop reading to, or buying boy-centric books for, their sons. I wish I still had this one.http://tinyurl.com/j2mwlxt I'd read it again.

George V.

Posted by: George V at April 17, 2016 11:05 AM (LUHWu)

166
Vic, or any other morons interested in a good history read....

I'm a quarter of the way through... The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805....by Richard Zacks

Very good read so far.

I don't know if it's completely historically accurate or not-I've read differing reviews on that...Got in on Amazon... used hardcover in like new condition for a penny... Woot!!

Posted by: Some Guy in Wisconsin at April 17, 2016 11:06 AM (Qj6zv)

167 158 Crisis! The Denver global enwarmening blizzard is threatening the 420 celebration!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 10:59 AM (Nwg0u)

Says who? And how will the participants know? Will they even care?

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:08 AM (JJ5/6)

168 I always read as a boy. My older brothers all did and when I was 2, I climbed on my dad's lap and asked him how to read since they were all doing so. He started teaching me by using the newspaper, and mom taught me by reading out loud with me in books. By the time I started first grade, I could read (and spell) really well.

My parents encouraged reading and helped me find books. They were both big readers. Outings to the library were fun. I think that attitude and focus on reading as pleasure and interest help boys, rather than being left to their own devices, showered with other distractions, and shown patterns and behavior that gives an example of not being interested in reading.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:09 AM (39g3+)

169 I haven't read Song of Ice and Fire precisely because of the Game of Thrones series. Why the fvck should I care anything about those characters or that world?

I don't think I'm supposed to root for the White Walkers, but I am. Sort of like how I stopped watching Fear The Walking Dead after a few episodes. I thought they did an excellent job portraying the residents, so I found myself rooting for the zombies there too.

Posted by: Burn the Witch at April 17, 2016 11:09 AM (Wckf4)

170 Forcing teenage boys read Jane Austen is a hate crime.

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 17, 2016 11:09 AM (bQxkN)

171 Feelz the Bern protesters throw money at Scankles as she goes to the fundraiser at George Clooney's house.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 11:09 AM (Nwg0u)

172 I thiink the real problem is the progressives just don't like children. Any of them. So they have no sympathy for the kind of stories children like.

Especially boys. Boys are naturally full of everything that repels and terrifies the left: ambition, rambunctious energy, creative use of materials for individual gain, even violence! Its enough to make pajama boy weep.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:11 AM (39g3+)

173 When I was a kid I wanted to literally live in some books. Boxcar Children, Tom Swift, Wrinkle in Time and Stalky and Company. Those were my go-to rereads.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 11:11 AM (MIKMs)

174 Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:09 AM (39g3+)

Heh....slightly different experience here...

I didn't give a shit about reading until my father bribed me with a BB gun.

It worked.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:12 AM (Zu3d9)

175 161 Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 10:09 AM (vvmPQ)

Falkenberg's Legion series by Jerry Pournelle.

Good stuff, and decidedly not PC.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:00 AM (Zu3d9)

That is some *great* stuff. I wish he would have written more, but the days are getting late.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 11:13 AM (dwc5Y)

176 The first Song of Fire and Ice book was recommended highly to me, and I was given a copy of the oversized tome. I read about a third, discovered I didn't like or care about any of the characters or the world, didn't get the slightest sense of it being fantasy, and skimmed through the rest. I've never picked it up again. Just not something that interests me. The blow-by-blow of a girl raped on her wedding night by someone she doesn't even know until she likes it was pretty much the last thing I ever wanted to read.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:13 AM (39g3+)

177 Willpower myself big time yesterday, but the comment is a little bit less OT here:
Seamus, loved the book, as you know. Slightly OT, but I'm doing a lot of genealogy research and finding that military records are very helpful. Lots of draft registrations and a number of grave marker applications. But just came across two relatives who died in September and October of 1918 ... One in action and the other by disease. No antibiotics then, of course.

Posted by: RI Red at April 17, 2016 11:14 AM (9EEmA)

178 A horde writer has free books just for us, and you can get the details in the horde Goodreads group.

My book Snowberry's Veil would be a good read for teenage boys at least, and Old Habits too. Not sure how young they might go, it would depend a lot on the kid. I remember mom always tried to get stuff slightly older than we were to get us to reach and learn and grow.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:18 AM (39g3+)

179 161 Good stuff, and decidedly not PC.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:00 AM (Zu3d9)

Looking at the reviews of that series it seems that the first two books have been combined into a single volume. But it is not available for the Kindle. I put in my list for a look see later.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 11:19 AM (vvmPQ)

180 Just noticed that the first book in the series is available in two different versions, one for 3.99 and the other for 6.99. What's up with that stuff?

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 11:23 AM (vvmPQ)

181 Got my kids The American Boy's Handy Book. It was written about a hundred years ago (I think by one of the Boy Scouts founders) and it's got all that stuff in it plus a ton more. Even includes some splodey stuff which my kids loved.

I suspect the 2016 version has a very different focus and includes other "skills" like the white guilt badge and the rainbow badge for homosexual approval.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:23 AM (39g3+)

182 "It's hard for me to understand how a man like that can have a wildly successful football career and then spend the rest of his life throwing it all away. It was like sometime around 1990 he'd been taken over by demons."

Developmental child neglect/abuse results in emotions that get buried within; mostly their rage at being abandoned. In order to deal with one's emotions, a child develops compulsive behaviors: drugs, eating, booze. Sometimes that compulsive behavior is channeled in a more healthy way: workaholism, compulsive practice of music or a sport.

Those adults that have successfully channeled their rage into productive activities? Often that rage lies dormant until they lose meaningful relationships. Then the developmental trauma goes acute, and they have to seek psychological help. But if you're rich enough, no one tells you you need help.

I'm guessing, without googling it, OJ's mom died somewhere around 1990.

Posted by: Oschisms at April 17, 2016 11:23 AM (ZsN9X)

183 The first Song of Fire and Ice book was recommended highly to me, and I was given a copy of the oversized tome. I read about a third, discovered I didn't like or care about any of the characters or the world, didn't get the slightest sense of it being fantasy, and skimmed through the rest. I've never picked it up again. Just not something that interests me. The blow-by-blow of a girl raped on her wedding night by someone she doesn't even know until she likes it was pretty much the last thing I ever wanted to read.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:13 AM (39g3+)

I don't recall anyone ever enjoying being raped, but I read it years ago.

I think you are supposed to root for the Stark family, and the intensity of your dislike for everyone else is possibly achievable in the context of what happened to that family.

There are still some of them out there. You can root for them. Or, you could, if you decided to follow the story to its conclusion, which apparently you decided not to do.

Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:25 AM (Dj0WE)

184 Votermom, thanks for the moron author list. Looks like I have my summer reading cut out for me.

Posted by: RI Red at April 17, 2016 11:26 AM (9EEmA)

185 Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:13 AM (39g3+)

The primary difference between the books and the HBO series is that the books are long on description and detail, but woefully inadequate when it comes to creating any sort of sympathetic characters. They are all two-dimensional.

The series does a much better job of character development.

I know that many of The Horde dislike the series, but I find it marvelous and am looking forward to the next season.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:26 AM (Zu3d9)

186 Tanya Huff has the confederacy series, the first is Valor's Choice: Earth, di'Takya and Krai have been brought into the Confederacy because they had rudimentary space faring technology and the Confederacy "elder races" are too pacifistic to deal with an enemy that tortures negotiation delegations to death while conquering star-systems. Valor's Choice is actually built around Roarke's Drift

David Drake, try Igniting the Reaches, first book in the trilogy of that name: based around Francis Drake's career from beginning through to Cadiz and the Spanish Armada with extras thrown in. I have read my copies to shreds and then I started reading about the age of discovery of the new world
He also has the RCN series that is pretty much the same universe or at least technology, but far advanced. (Drake is good at writing series where you can read any volume as a stand alone, out of sequence)

Elizabeth Moon, I liked Vatta's War series the best, starting with Trading in Danger. Cub trader goes out for the first time and due to a coup on the home planet winds up being the senior active member of the corporation, and has to fight to recover and redeem the corporation. Moon's Navy based sub-series (The Serrano Legacy) are OK, but they are also political thrillers and I had trouble getting excited about those so much.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 11:27 AM (TVASf)

187 Where is Captain Underpants (Dav Pilkey)? No discussion of kidlit is complete without the old Captain. All my son would read, and as he got older, he appreciated the puns and wordplay more and more. Teachers tried to not accept CU books as their 'required' weekly reading, but finally gave up, as long as the kids could start appreciating something new. He was the first in his class to read Harry Potter, so he kept himself out of 'special ed' because he could show excellent reading skills. Whew. I really do credit Captain Underpants for a lot.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 11:27 AM (MIKMs)

188 To my fellow history buffs - what book would you like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet? Any wars or battles that haven't gotten a good (or any) book written about them, any historical figures without a decent biography?

In no particular order, I'd like to see a book on the 1871 US - Korean expedition, the Great Siege of Montevideo (1843-1851) - which was a big deal at the time, even drawing in Britain & France, and the Greco-Turkish War following WWI.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 11:27 AM (7qAYi)

189 Developmental child neglect/abuse results in emotions that get buried within; mostly their rage at being abandoned. In order to deal with one's emotions, a child develops compulsive behaviors: drugs, eating, booze. Sometimes that compulsive behavior is channeled in a more healthy way: workaholism, compulsive practice of music or a sport.

Those adults that have successfully channeled their rage into productive activities? Often that rage lies dormant until they lose meaningful relationships. Then the developmental trauma goes acute, and they have to seek psychological help. But if you're rich enough, no one tells you you need help.

I'm guessing, without googling it, OJ's mom died somewhere around 1990.
Posted by: Oschisms at April 17, 2016 11:23 AM (ZsN9X)

He married Nicole sometime in the 80s, I believe. Was beating her pretty much from the start of their relationship. She was not the first female he beat up.

That, I can guarantee. The murders really really were a natural progression of who the man had always been.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:27 AM (Dj0WE)

190 She died in 2001. Dad in 1986.

So much for calling my homerun.

It should be noted that OJ's dad was a famous SF drag queen, so I don't think I'm wrong that there was some bad stuff going down in his childhood.

Posted by: Oschisms at April 17, 2016 11:28 AM (ZsN9X)

191 Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started.

Same here. I have no interest in that show no matter how well its written. Its about people doing evil without any real redeeming story or purpose, and winning? A lot of that on TV now, Damien, the kid from Psycho, Lucifer. I guess cheering on evil is the new good.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:29 AM (39g3+)

192 I didn't say he didn't ever beat his wife before then. I said that his childhood trauma went acute.

Sorry, I meant he was always violent (football player!), but could keep the rage enough under control to not kill anyone. Should have been more clear.

Posted by: Oschisms at April 17, 2016 11:31 AM (ZsN9X)

193 ***"I didn't give a shit about reading until my father bribed me with a BB gun."***

Tough to read when you only have one eye, son.

Posted by: Mrs. Dildo at April 17, 2016 11:31 AM (Wckf4)

194 Same here. I have no interest in that show no matter how well its written. Its about people doing evil without any real redeeming story or purpose, and winning? A lot of that on TV now, Damien, the kid from Psycho, Lucifer. I guess cheering on evil is the new good.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:29 AM (39g3+)

Things have gotten more Satanic, i.e., inverted, around here ever since the 2012 democratic convention when they booed the name of God, I've noticed.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 11:31 AM (7qAYi)

195 To my fellow history buffs - what book would you like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet?

A really good sea novel series written about clipper ships.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:32 AM (39g3+)

196 >>Where is Captain Underpants (Dav Pilkey)?

Yes! Also "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books were great for my fiction averse son. Now, he reads non-fiction, mostly geography (atlases, National Geographic) and books like 'the most deadliest weapons' (from viruses to the atom bomb) or military stuff.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 17, 2016 11:32 AM (NOIQH)

197 If I were to write a boys book, I think it would be
about a 12 y/o kid sent to live on a relative's farm for the summer. The
kid thinks it will be boring. However, he finds out that he is allowed
to drive tractors, trucks, etc.
Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 10:47 AM (iQIUe)

One of my favorite books as a kid was Henry Reed, Inc, by Keith Robertson.
There was a series of books, I think 4, but my school library only had 3 of them.

There were other, similar series, but for the life of me I cannot remember what they were or who wrote them. Alvin Fernald? I remember him building a spring powered bicycle and neglecting a governor or breaks and winding up in a canal.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 11:32 AM (TVASf)

198 ***"Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started."***

I've only read about BB. I guess they wanted to do a story where the protagonist becomes the antagonist, which is a neat idea and all, but the subject matter is kind of a turn off for me. It sounded to me like everyone became the antagonist.

Posted by: Burn the Witch at April 17, 2016 11:34 AM (Wckf4)

199 OJ seemed like a guy that got everything he wanted when he wanted it from a fairly young age and cheered on for all he did, so he didn't deal with refusal or frustration well.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:34 AM (39g3+)

200 And what's with the gender segregation in kid's
fiction? I don't care if the protagonist is a boy or a girl as long as I
can identify with how they think and act in a situation.

Posted by: All Hail Eris

The Left hate the heroic nature of Man. Generic Man; it could be a man or a woman. Unless the heroism is couched in some kind of victory for Social Justice. They really don't want to give kids the idea of heroism and innate self worth and self respect. All anachronisms of the past.

When I was young, "The Gulag Archipelago" was outside of my "comfort zone" of reading; it was really unpleasant to grasp the world of the Gulag as described by Solzhenitsin. Kids need to be pushed (a little) to read outside of what they are comfortable with, from time to time. But not made to hate reading by making them read ONLY stuff they cannot stand.
Conform or die is the unwritten credo of Leftist Feminism.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 11:36 AM (+1T7c)

201 OJ seemed like a guy that got everything he wanted when he wanted it from a fairly young age and cheered on for all he did, so he didn't deal with refusal or frustration well.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:34 AM (39g3+)

An all-too-common story, that many men find out in adulthood, doesn't go over so well. But in his case, he found a niche in which he could keep being indulged, by society, especially white people, and it never stopped being easy for him to be indulged, until it was.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:39 AM (Dj0WE)

202
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:09 AM (39g3+)
Heh....slightly different experience here...
I didn't give a shit about reading until my father bribed me with a BB gun.
It worked. Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:12 AM (Zu3d9)
=====

My youngest wanted a Game Boy, but she had to prove she could read fluently before Santa would cough up the $. Her daycare director laughed and said that was a 'good' bribe.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 11:39 AM (MIKMs)

203 I suspect the 2016 version has a very different focus and includes other "skills" like the white guilt badge and the rainbow badge for homosexual ~~approval~~ participation.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:23 AM (39g3+)

Fixed.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:39 AM (JJ5/6)

204 My problem with most modern female heroes is that they are guys with boobs. They are just as strong, just as tough, hit just as hard (or are better in all) as a man, plus they are hot, sexy women with grrl power and great fashion sense. I really don't care to read that kind of thing.

Honestly, I rarely enjoy books written by women. There are exceptions, of course. I liked Anna Puma's book, I enjoyed Anna McCaffrey's early dragon stories, etc. But for the most part, women focus on stuff I don't care much about like family and relationships.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:40 AM (39g3+)

205 It should be noted that OJ's dad was a famous SF drag queen, so I don't think I'm wrong that there was some bad stuff going down in his childhood.
Posted by: Oschisms at April 17, 2016 11:28 AM (ZsN9X)

A drag queen? Seriously? Wow, I never knew that. Might explain some things, though.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:41 AM (JJ5/6)

206 To my fellow history buffs - what book would you
like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet? Any wars or battles
that haven't gotten a good (or any) book written about them, any
historical figures without a decent biography?

[. . .]
Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 11:27 AM (7qAYi)

General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's East Africa campaign during WWI.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 11:42 AM (TVASf)

207 Does anyone else here read Oschisms name as if it should have an apostrophe? O'Schisms, the Irish priest that keeps causing trouble at the local parish.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:42 AM (39g3+)

208 Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:25 AM (Dj0WE)

What you should be rooting for is the redemption of Walter White. And having lost his humanity, can he regain it? That will take you to the end of the 2nd season. And then you can stop there, because the last episode of Season 2 pretty much answers the question, and there's no need to continue.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:44 AM (JJ5/6)

209 207 Does anyone else here read Oschisms name as if it should have an apostrophe? O'Schisms, the Irish priest that keeps causing trouble at the local parish.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:42 AM (39g3+)

He's got a split personality...

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:45 AM (JJ5/6)

210 Does anyone else here read Oschisms name as if it
should have an apostrophe? O'Schisms, the Irish priest that keeps
causing trouble at the local parish.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:42 AM (39g3+)

Does he have a large Nero Wolfe collection too?

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 11:46 AM (TVASf)

211 Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:25 AM (Dj0WE)

What you should be rooting for is the redemption of Walter White. And having lost his humanity, can he regain it? That will take you to the end of the 2nd season. And then you can stop there, because the last episode of Season 2 pretty much answers the question, and there's no need to continue.
Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:44 AM (JJ5/6)

Heh, I think you just saved me two seasons of viewing.

Also, I watched the first season of Spacey's House of Cards show, and had already purchased the second season before finishing the first. Well... I gave up after one episode of the second season. I was done.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:47 AM (Dj0WE)

212 Does anyone else here read Oschisms name as if it should have an apostrophe? O'Schisms, the Irish priest that keeps causing trouble at the local parish.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:42 AM (39g3+)

He's got a split personality...
Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:45 AM (JJ5/6)

Meek priest by day, badass pimp by night.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:48 AM (Dj0WE)

213 Seamus, loved the book, as you know. Slightly OT, but I'm doing a lot of genealogy research and finding that military records are very helpful. Lots of draft registrations and a number of grave marker applications. But just came across two relatives who died in September and October of 1918 ... One in action and the other by disease. No antibiotics then, of course.

Posted by: RI Red at April 17, 2016 11:14 AM (9EEmA)

*****

Thanks. Missed your comment yesterday. That's cool to find a past link to your heritage. Are those two relatives going to open up an interesting family chapter?

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 11:49 AM (NeFrd)

214 CBD- Is your blog going to go full time limericks? I feel famous now.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 11:50 AM (NeFrd)

215 Taught my boys to read using the Distar Method. They were reading on a second grade level at 4. Had to send the oldest to Montessori school because the kindergarten teacher told me they preferred the children didn't know how to read. Just caused problems, ya know?

Started them on David Eddings and Treasure Island.

If they were "good" they got a book.

Posted by: Oklahoman at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (ul+8R)

216 and there's no need to continue.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:44 AM (JJ5/6)

Unless you enjoy fine acting and interesting writing.

I think that "Breaking Bad" was the best series ever made for television.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (Zu3d9)

217 ***"Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started."***

I've only read about BB. I guess they wanted to do a story where the protagonist becomes the antagonist, which is a neat idea and all, but the subject matter is kind of a turn off for me. It sounded to me like everyone became the antagonist.

Posted by: Burn the Witch at April 17, 2016 11:34 AM (Wckf4)

Well, BB starts out as a very dark comedy.

And Walter's motivations seem fairly clear. If not good then understandable.

He's a self-perceived failure at life just barely getting by, who has terminal cancer-

and wants to leave enough money behind so his family can survive and thrive.

His skill set is chemistry...shenanigan's ensue...he gets into the crystal meth business as a way of quickly earning cash before he dies.

The first season is a very well written black comedy with several mistakes and unforeseen consequences occurring from actions Walter takes.

During the 2nd season the writing gets sloppier because they want Walter to turn bad and so a lot of the time, they have him do something that they haven't truly set up.(for instance, letting the girl who overdosed die when he could save her).

So, they backfill info-dumps showing us that he always was a bit of a dickweed.

And they change from black comedy to family drama which is easier to write but a drag to watch over and over again.

Looking back I think that they had some set-pieces in mind that they wanted to show-

and got lazy in writing to the set-pieces rather than through the character.

YMMV.

I would recommend watching the 1st season though cuz it's excellent. You don't need to watch the rest, basically the remaining seasons each have roughly 3-6 good episodes, which are generally so good you wade through the rest of the crap.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (2rmvw)

218 General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's East Africa campaign during WWI.

Posted by: Kindltot at April 17, 2016 11:42 AM (TVASf)

There's been a few good books written on the East African theatre of WWI, not the least of which is Von Lettow-Vorbeck's own memoirs.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (7qAYi)

219 He's got a split personality...
Posted by: OregonMuse

*****

Oh, and you kicked me out of the chess thread for an offense much less egregious than that!

Harumph!

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (NeFrd)

220 The progression over the decades has been pretty much down hill. We've gone from heroes, to flawed heroes, to anti heroes, to just straight up villains as protagonists. Am I suppose to cheer for Dexter as he hacks people apart and hides the bodies?

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:52 AM (39g3+)

221 Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 11:50 AM (NeFrd)

I sincerely hope not! But your limerick said everything I wanted to say about that East German harpy.....

I couldn't resist.

http://cutjibnewsletter.com/2016/04/in-honor-of-angela-merkel/

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at April 17, 2016 11:52 AM (Zu3d9)

222 Without going into the details of my psychological disorder (which I'm clearly projecting onto OJ) I will tell you that your jokes...are actually pretty close to the truth.

I love this place. (Grins)

Posted by: Oschisms at April 17, 2016 11:52 AM (ZsN9X)

223 Also, I watched the first season of Spacey's House of Cards show, and had already purchased the second season before finishing the first. Well... I gave up after one episode of the second season. I was done.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 11:47 AM (Dj0WE)

You actually *purchased* HoC? Wow, you poor sap.

I stopped watching HoC after the first season for the same reason. The show is basically about a group of evil characters all fighting each other for power, and I disliked everybody.

However, I do recommend the original British miniseries House of Cards. You won't like Francis Urquhart any more than you do Frank Underwood, but the actor Ian Richardson does a good job of sucking you in and making you a co-conspirator with him in his evil deeds.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:53 AM (JJ5/6)

224 "Am I suppose to cheer for Dexter as he hacks people apart and hides the bodies?"

Actually, yes, that is the intent of the show.
Dexter is acting as a vigilante.

Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 11:53 AM (8QGte)

225 >> Am I suppose to cheer for Dexter as he hacks people apart and hides the bodies?

Ugh, Dexter,. Or how about "Weeds". Yeah, I'm also sick of shows that want you to root for the bad guy.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 17, 2016 11:54 AM (NOIQH)

226 The idea of a protagonist becoming the villain is far from new.

Dirty Harry, for example.
Cop goes rogue.

Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 11:56 AM (8QGte)

227 I finally picked up "the Last Resort". I have heard of for years. It is pretty bleak. The humor does help break up the Doom Gloom. I would for some one like Thomas Sowell to write how this will it occur here...because it will. Since we are the reserve currency and everything is pegged to us, there will be no exchange banks to keep things moving. As little as there economy did. I remember reading the headlines of it all going down, but did not pay it much mind. Will our government become that parasitical? I think it already is, but we are just marching on. Much as his parents did.

Posted by: Paladin at April 17, 2016 11:56 AM (r6vt4)

228 Had to send the oldest to Montessori school because
the kindergarten teacher told me they preferred the children didn't
know how to read. Just caused problems, ya know?

Started them on David Eddings and Treasure Island.

If they were "good" they got a book. Posted by: Oklahoman at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (ul+8R)
=====

We were fortunate in our school in that the teachers were accustomed to dealing with hyper-competent scientists as parents (and I think a good quarter of the elementary teachers had PhDs). I insisted that my own kids know how to read and do simple arithmetic before they started school so that whatever the current educational fad, I knew that they were capable and put the teachers on notice that they received a capable kid and don't try any funny stuff.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 11:56 AM (MIKMs)

229 >>The show is basically about a group of evil characters all fighting each other for power, and I disliked everybody.

Terrible people! Interesting that people on the Hill love that show, maybe even telling of where they are morally?

Posted by: Lizzy at April 17, 2016 11:56 AM (NOIQH)

230
The character that war redeemed in Breaking Bad was Hank. Sure he beat Jessie but Jessie had it coming. You do not mess with a cop's family. The scene where Hank poured his heart out to Marie before his hearing was heart wrenching.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 11:57 AM (iQIUe)

231 Oh, and you kicked me out of the chess thread for an offense much less egregious than that!
Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 11:51 AM (NeFrd)

Whaddya mean "less egregious"? Muldoon, you're a a cereal offender, a corny flake who's been sewing his wild oats on AoSHQ threads for a long time. And it goes against my grain, let me tell you.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:57 AM (JJ5/6)

232 Am I suppose to cheer for Dexter as he hacks people apart and hides the bodies?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Let's not get judgmental here.

How's your average moron supposed to get his hobo jerky?

Riddle me that, Mr Perfect.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 11:57 AM (2rmvw)

233 >>>The progression over the decades has been pretty much down hill. We've gone from heroes, to flawed heroes, to anti heroes, to just straight up villains as protagonists.

As Chris Claremont, writer of the best run of X-Men comics said regarding (not) writing for Superman "Angst is easy to write. Nobility is hard." All these modern shows touted for their "great writing" could be seen as lazy writing.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 11:57 AM (7qAYi)

234 To me it seems like a bit of writing sloth.

Writing Daredevil somehow finding a way to defeat the guy that gets away with everything and bring him to justice; that takes ingenuity and cleverness. Writing the Punisher shooting the bad guy that gets away with everything, that's pretty much a taking the day off.

Bad guys take the easy way, they take the obvious, less personally challenging and troubled route. I loved the contrast between Collossus and Deadpool in the movie. Collossus takes it in the teeth over and over again because he's good and will not do certain things. He manages to triumph anyway, but not before lots of setbacks due to his code and the way he believes.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:57 AM (39g3+)

235 @231

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at April 17, 2016 11:59 AM (NeFrd)

236 My one regret was not writing a book about the emotional impact of the OJ trial on me.

Posted by: zombie Leslie Nielsen at April 17, 2016 11:59 AM (EuAgP)

237 I just finished reading The Agony and the Ecstasy this week. I picked it up last year in the Uffizi Gallery gift shop in Florence. It was incredibly researched and I had no idea Michaelangelo was also a poet. What an incredible man. I was so glad I had been to many of the sites discussed in the book and had the chance to see some of his works. It often took him decades to complete a piece due to the whimsy of various changing popes.

Posted by: Obamaisacommunist at April 17, 2016 12:00 PM (naJf3)

238 One more thing: I didn't find out until as I was writing up the book thread for this week that Ito's wife, Margaret York, was a police officer who held the rank of captain in the LAPD, and, coincidentally, she was at one time the immediate superior of the lead detective on the Simpson case, Mark Fuhrman. For that reason alone, Ito should have recused himself from the case.

If you recall, the prosecution had their head up their collective asses right from the start. There was a fairly new law in CA requiring speedy trials. It had passed through the proposition process and was seen as a way to stop the criminals from dragging out the trial process and constantly gumming up the process. With Simpson in jail without bail, his team invoked the law to demand that the trial be scheduled asap. The prosecution was in the position of wanting to delay because they were still waiting on DNA results and plus they wanted to do much more investigating so they could build their case. They continued investigating thoughout the trial.

Anyway, with the defense gung-ho to move forward, they did agree to one delay: Ito's vacation. He had a previously scheduled vacation, and so he was proposing passing off the trial to another judge. The defense agreed to a 1 month delay so that Ito could have his vacation. They were willing to have Simpson sit in jail for the extra month, plus give the prosecution the extra time to build their case, just so they could retain Ito as the judge. I'm speculating, but I would guess that the defense was aware of the issue with Ito's wife, but still felt it was better to have Ito than whatever judge they would have got if Ito recused.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 17, 2016 12:00 PM (R+30W)

239 Dirty Harry, for example.
Cop goes rogue.

The anti hero is a different creature than the villain, though. Anti-heroes are guys that still do good, for good reasons, just by breaking the rules of proper social conduct and modern behavior.

Dirty Harry was still driven by the basic principles of law enforcement, and he wasn't a "crazed cop that breaks all the rules" he just wasn't restrained by some modern sensibilities and codes of behavior.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:01 PM (39g3+)

240 Walter White was a very bad guy. However, he did not start out that way and was not pure evil like the cartels. He did corrupt anyone he came in contact with including his wife towards the end. Too many people were rooting for Walter when I thought he deserved a painful death. Same with Mike. He as also a stone cold killer. The difference between Mike/Walter and the cartel bad guys is that they did not murder for pleasure. However, there reasons for killing were not good either. Same with Jesse. He was neither morally or legally innocent of murdering the chemist to save Walt's life.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:01 PM (iQIUe)

241 Dirty Harry was still driven by the basic principles of law enforcement, and he wasn't a "crazed cop that breaks all the rules" he just wasn't restrained by some modern sensibilities and codes of behavior.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:01 PM (39g3+)

Well I'm all broken up over that man's rights.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 12:02 PM (7qAYi)

242
I am so looking forward to Narcos this fall. This is when they introduce the Search Bloc, Delta Force, and Los Pepes. There should be explosions galore.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:02 PM (iQIUe)

243 You actually *purchased* HoC? Wow, you poor sap.

I stopped watching HoC after the first season for the same reason. The show is basically about a group of evil characters all fighting each other for power, and I disliked everybody.

However, I do recommend the original British miniseries House of Cards. You won't like Francis Urquhart any more than you do Frank Underwood, but the actor Ian Richardson does a good job of sucking you in and making you a co-conspirator with him in his evil deeds.
Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 11:53 AM (JJ5/6)

I watched the British version first! Don't judge me.

No, but you're right. The English guy is, if possible, more of a scamp, but he's so damned charming. And British.

Spacey is a fine actor. So is Robin Wright. As is the young reporter who Frank takes up with, so it was interesting enough. Until it wasn't.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 12:02 PM (Dj0WE)

244 The thing I remember the most about the OJ trial was when it was over, I won a huge bet.
During the slow speed chase we were having dinner with some friends. Dinner and drinks. Of course the conversation went to OJ. My friend (a scientist) posited that OJ was cooked, they had the glove, the knife, this thing, the other things, etc. etc. etc.
I said "They got nothing, they got a LA trial".
And that is when the scientist dared me to put my money where my mouth is. And I did. And we did. Not a small amount either.
So, then all time elapsed (18 months?) and then came the acquittal. Meanwhile I had forgotten about our bet.
Phone rings, it's my scientist friend. He says "Aren't you going to come over and get your money?". And I did.
With that bet, I shorted civics.

Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 12:04 PM (8QGte)

245 It just seems to me that we've gone from good guys who are always good and just, to good guys who are all "gray" and "nuanced" to just bad guys we're supposed to root for.

Actually, yes, that is the intent of the show.
Dexter is acting as a vigilante.

Yeah, but there's a huge gulf between, say, Paul Kersey in Death Wish and Dexter. Kersey is driven to extremes by the utter lack of justice and is horrified by what he is doing. Dexter is a raving lunatic who murders people horrifically, even an otherwise innocent cop when he gets in the way.

Kersey is doing what he has to, regretfully, because of the circumstances. Dexter is a monster who happens to only go after people who are also monsters.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:08 PM (39g3+)

246 If you rely on public schools to teach your kids - boys or girls - to read, you're doing it wrong. My kids were both reading by the end of pre-K because my wife and I taught them to read. And now they're both voracious readers and probably will be for life. And it had zero to do with a public school.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:08 PM (0LHZx)

247 "Girls are more likely to enjoy relating to characters in books and often
equate fiction with reading for pleasure. Boys, on the other hand, 'want an immediate function for what they read and learn,' says Jeffrey
D. Wilhelm, a professor of English education at Boise State University
in Idaho"

Horse puckey.

Boys will happily read fiction for pleasure, and will relate to characters in books, if the characters are strong male protagonists who engage in activities boys find of interest (typically action/adventure stuff).

However, material of this sort is regarded as doubleplusungood by the matriarchalist lefty feministas who draw up today's school reading lists, and who regard normal boys as nothing more than defective, misbehaving girls.

I was a kid during the long distant era when the schools actually had (AUDIBLE GASPS OF SHOCK HORROR FROM AUDIENCE) separate leisure reading list recommendations for boys and girls. I was such a voracious little bibliophile that I read everything recommended for boys and then started in on the girls' list too.

I got through a few titles but generally just thought to myself, wow, what sad and pitiable lives girls must have, that they find this insipid pap worth reading. Where are the pirate ships on the horizon? Where are the invading monsters from Planet X-Fourteen? Why is everything about sitting and moping and talking instead of running around, doing stuff, facing challenges, yelling "Look out!"?

Fortunately at that point I was a capable enough reader to start in on the easier sorts of adult fiction.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 17, 2016 12:09 PM (noWW6)

248 Jo-stan - thanks for the Korea-Japanese links/ideas!

Posted by: goatexchange at April 17, 2016 12:10 PM (Nd4YY)

249 I tried to watch the first episode of GoT on Friday, after my husband left and I knew I wouldn't be interrupted by cooking or eating or anything. Got about 10 minutes into it and...meh. I could tell pretty quickly that it wasn't my cup of tea.
However, for a real royal treat - "The Tudors". Somewhat historically accurate, great acting, gorgeous sets and costumes, and easy to get engrossed in.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:11 PM (9n14Y)

250 This upcoming week-

Whit Stillman's "Barcelona" is coming out on blu-ray.

It's a darkish comedy of manners about Americans in Europe, that's pro-American(!).

For me, it's worth a buy.

Please check it out because it is great.

And, as a bonus, not a fart joke in sight.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 12:13 PM (2rmvw)

251 �To my fellow history buffs - what book would you like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet?�

I haven't read what is written, and have been trying for nearly 45 years

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 12:14 PM (Dpy/y)

252 Joe Biden and Sheila Jackson Lee costar in a brand new miniseries: House of 'Tards.

Posted by: angela urkel at April 17, 2016 12:14 PM (EuAgP)

253 *blearily waves*
There was a comic series called The Desert Peach about Erwin Rommel's younger brother.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Desert_Peach

Never read it, but reading the entry boy did it go off the deep end. Wonder when the 'sad puppies' reference will get memory-holed.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:14 PM (AEIVR)

254 Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 12:04 PM (8QGte)

____

I have to be in the 1% of Americans who missed the whole OJ chase thing. In 1994 I was in college and working a summer job where my shift was mid-afternoon to late, late, late night and kind of in an isolated place with no radios or TVs. And of course this was pre-internet, texts, etc. So I had no clue any of that was going on the night it happened.

The next day I went to lunch with a friend and he started talking about OJ chase this this and OJ chase that. And I had no clue what the hell he was talking about. He had to fill me on on the previous evening's events.

It's so weird to imagine a world where information wasn't instantly available to everyone on demand. And that world was only 22 years ago.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:14 PM (0LHZx)

255 However, for a real royal treat - "The Tudors". Somewhat historically accurate, great acting, gorgeous sets and costumes, and easy to get engrossed in.

I tried that but I couldn't get past how everyone involved was modern model looking with modern makeup and hair. Its probably fine, that just bothered me so much I couldn't move on and enjoy the show.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:15 PM (39g3+)

256 G'morn, readers.

I finally made it to the book thread.

Would have been here sooner, but in the morning thread, creeper linked to the website Today I Found Out, and I got lost wandering in their woods.

Now, to read the post and comments and thereby become (more) enlightened...

Posted by: mindful webworker - at long last at April 17, 2016 12:15 PM (G0G8s)

257 However, for a real royal treat - "The Tudors". Somewhat historically accurate, great acting, gorgeous sets and costumes, and easy to get engrossed in.
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:11 PM (9n14Y)

============
But why are they always doing it doggy style???

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:16 PM (iQIUe)

258 Q: What did Ron Brown say to Nicole Simpson when they got to heaven?

A: Here's your fuckin sunglasses.

Posted by: Duke Lowell at April 17, 2016 12:16 PM (kTF2Z)

259 "Dirty Harry was still driven by the basic principles of law enforcement,
and he wasn't a 'crazed cop that breaks all the rules' he just wasn't
restrained by some modern sensibilities and codes of behavior."

And was the point of _Magnum Force_ not about Harry Callahan confronting an informal rogue cell within SFPD who were outright assassinating criminal suspects (or even potential criminals) without due process? So, indeed, not a guy breaking all the rules.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 17, 2016 12:17 PM (noWW6)

260 If you rely on public schools to teach your kids - boys or girls - to read, you're doing it wrong. My kids were both reading by the end of pre-K because my wife and I taught them to read. And now they're both voracious readers and probably will be for life. And it had zero to do with a public school.
Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:08 PM (0LHZx)

I could read when I got to kindergarten, actually read as in sentences and paragraphs, which wasn't that common back in 1967. And that was because my grandma would sit and read to me for hours and hours. Book after book, for as long as I wanted her to.
Today, though - they EXPECT your kid to be reading by kindergarten, and if he or she can't, well, that's too bad. Kids don't learn that reading is entertaining. It's just a chore.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:17 PM (9n14Y)

261 Winning that bet was a turning point for me in my personal view of our nation.
I shorted morality and fairness. And won.
Not only did I short it, I never even dreamed for a second that I would lose the bet.
I am a real hard baked cynic I guess.

Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 12:17 PM (8QGte)

262 Barcelona is a great movie as are the other 2 movies in the trilogy...Last Days of Disco and Metropolitan.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:18 PM (0LHZx)

263 #247 Torquewrench -

"I got through a few titles but generally just thought to myself, wow, what sad and pitiable lives girls must have, that they find this insipid pap worth reading. Where are the pirate ships on the horizon? Where are the invading monsters from Planet X-Fourteen? Why is everything about sitting and moping and talking instead of running around, doing stuff, facing challenges, yelling "Look out!"?"

About what I said, myself and eschewed the suggested girls reading lists of the time.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at April 17, 2016 12:18 PM (oK6A/)

264 Q: What did Ron Brown say to Nicole Simpson when they got to heaven?

A: Here's your fuckin sunglasses.
Posted by: Duke Lowell at April 17, 2016 12:16 PM (kTF2Z)

Joke fail: Goldman.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 12:18 PM (Dj0WE)

265 Today, though - they EXPECT your kid to be reading by kindergarten, and if he or she can't, well, that's too bad. Kids don't learn that reading is entertaining. It's just a chore.
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:17 PM (9n14Y)

____

Upper middle class schools attended by helicoptering parents expect it. But the curriculum for Kindergarten is teaching kids to read.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:19 PM (0LHZx)

266 For the brave souls who want to try and scam some money from a femonyst magazine, these people are offering such financial rewards

LisBeth
http://preview.tinyurl.com/zhna2vo

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:19 PM (AEIVR)

267 But why are they always doing it doggy style???
Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:16 PM (iQIUe)

Hmmm. I dunno...maybe because it looks racier that way?

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:20 PM (9n14Y)

268 250 This upcoming week-
Whit Stillman's "Barcelona" is coming out on blu-ray.
It's a darkish comedy of manners about Americans in Europe, that's pro-American(!).
For me, it's worth a buy.
Please check it out because it is great.
And, as a bonus, not a fart joke in sight.
Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 12:13 PM (2rmvw)

======================
Many years ago, I found a copy in the couple of bucks bin. I have recommended it as a movie of the week here but no takers.

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:20 PM (iQIUe)

269 If you like Frank Chodorov's book on the income tax, try his volume "Fugitive Essays." It's his best stuff.

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at April 17, 2016 12:20 PM (d2g9U)

270 Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 12:04 PM (8QGte)

Ha! What a great story.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 12:21 PM (JJ5/6)

271 Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:14 PM (AEIVR)
----
Anna, I read "Desert Peach" and the first couple volumes were a delight. Then I made the mistake of visiting the author's blog and oh my...

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 12:21 PM (jR7Wy)

272 off to church, bbl

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 12:21 PM (JJ5/6)

273 Winning that bet was a turning point for me in my personal view of our nation.
I shorted morality and fairness. And won.

I was pretty young still back then and assumed that the blatantly open and shut case was a slam dunk. I learned that enough money and leftist special identity can let you get away with murder.

Although its hard to say OJ really got away with it. His life was utterly ruined, he lost all his money, he's not the fun cool black guy to hang out with, he gets no more movie or ad work, and he's in prison.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:21 PM (39g3+)

274 I read voraciously as a young girl, so when one book stands out above all the rest as a fun read, you know it's a good one. "Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians" by Mary Nash is a charming and fun read (I did a book report on it in, I think, 3rd grade, back when it was new). Theodore "The Toad" is a typical boy who decides that he needs to use magic to assume some control over his life. The additional charm is the simplicity of the times and desires of the children (Malcolm and Molly are his older sibs). I cannot recommend this book enough. It had me cackling as a child in the 60's, and then a few years back, I bought a used copy for my stepdaughter, who is a teacher. I read it again before handing it over, and cackled again.

For the spiritually-minded, I recommend a book that I'm reading now, "The Book of Confidence" by Father Thomas de Saint-Laurent. I've found it to be very helpful in achieving focus and faith.

Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:22 PM (bIGOo)

275 "I think that "Breaking Bad" was the best series ever made for television."

I'd vote for The Wire, especailly Season 4. Excellent writing. Great ensemble cast

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 17, 2016 12:22 PM (bQxkN)

276 Pics or didn't happen bitches!!

Posted by: OJ Trial Jury at April 17, 2016 12:23 PM (0LHZx)

277 ***"The idea of a protagonist becoming the villain is far from new."***

Never said it was. Not a lot of new stuff out there.

Anyway, I'd just like to point out that Muldoon has posted several times in this thread without a pun.

Unless I missed it.

Posted by: Burn the Witch at April 17, 2016 12:23 PM (Wckf4)

278 Upper middle class schools attended by helicoptering parents expect it. But the curriculum for Kindergarten is teaching kids to read.
Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:19 PM (0LHZx)

Maybe some places. But here - and our schools are pretty rural, mostly middle class and military dependents - they proceed in kindergarten as if each child already knows how to read. I've already been through it with five kids and four grandkids.
The curriculum for kindergarten is SUPPOSED to be teaching kids to read. That's what I always thought, anyway.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (9n14Y)

279 ding ding ding ding

Posted by: zombie uncle tio at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (jVvcc)

280 I never bothered to read Barr's blog either. Considering she existed at Univ. Wash. Seattle, truly moonbatty I bet. But she did write some good stuff, just being a WWII person when the concept was explained to me when I asked what was it just left me cold.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (AEIVR)

281 Well, we can now see the media strategy that Hillary will use against Trump:

Yahoo Headline is "Hillary could care less about Trump insult."

"If Trump was trying to get a rise out of Clinton, it didn't work."

"After Lyin' Ted and Little Marco..."

Notice how clever the media is here:

Hillary is the focus, and she is strong.
Trump's jibe is called an insult.
and they don't mention the actual name for Hillary, but they do mention the two names he called the GOP candidates.

I predict a lot of this if/when Trump wins the nomination. (It won't be any better for Cruz, I'm just saying the press will suddenly be less willing to run Trump rallies on a live feed and you'll instead get Hillary responding to attacks, as the story.)

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (dZQh7)

282 Best series ever made for TV was Band of Brothers, although I guess that was more a miniseries.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (39g3+)

283 Barcelona is a great movie as are the other 2 movies in the trilogy...Last Days of Disco and Metropolitan.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:18 PM (0LHZx)

Yeah, I'm actually going to buy the blu-ray trilogy pack cuz they are all just that good.

Movies that you can watch over and over again.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (2rmvw)

284
Heroin AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ZdQ0z5cLM

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (iQIUe)

285 "If Trump was trying to get a rise out of Clinton, it didn't work."

Yeah, if they say it often enough, and Hillary continues to barely speak or be conscious enough to act, it seems like they're right.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:25 PM (39g3+)

286 OK, sorry for the OT: on the book thread. My bad.

I'll do a book related comment now:

I'm reading a book about the 1912 Italian war in Libya.

Boy does it sound familiar to our attempt there and also in Iraq. The Italians lost like 5,000 guys there - and Libya is a small country that had few people back then.

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:26 PM (dZQh7)

287 ***"Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians" by Mary Nash is a charming and fun read ***

Oh my gosh!! That was one of my very favorites as a kid!!!
Do you remember Toad's concoction for his cat - "Heather's Temptation"?

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:26 PM (9n14Y)

288 Yeah, I'm actually going to buy the blu-ray trilogy pack cuz they are all just that good.

Movies that you can watch over and over again.
Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 12:24 PM (2rmvw)

_____

Try watching Barcelona before Last Days of Disco. It's fun.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:27 PM (0LHZx)

289 I read like my life depended on it when I was a kid. Always loved to read. By the time I got to the 8th grade I was reading at a senior in a university level. I literally ran out of reading material in the English class because they didn't have a higher level of material. I got to goof off while everyone else toiled away on age appropriate material.

With all the talk of feminists it's neat to know it was my mother who instilled in me a love of reading. My father and my sister never liked reading.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 17, 2016 12:27 PM (4ErVI)

290 On a more positive note - Chicken Soup for the Soul is looking for story submissions.

http://www.chickensoup.com/story-submissions/possible-book-topics

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:27 PM (AEIVR)

291 Hey, I found "The Book of Confidence" online, so once again, the internetz provide instant gratification.

http://isfcc.org/2009/07/18/the-book-of-confidence/

Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:28 PM (bIGOo)

292 Hrumph on the Band of Brothers

I keep expecting the girl and boy to move in a cartoon above.

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 12:28 PM (Dpy/y)

293 A lot of that on TV now, Damien, the kid from Psycho, Lucifer. I guess cheering on evil is the new good.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:29 AM (39g3+)

Lucifer seems to be taking the tack that the protagonist was never evil, just a tempter and amoral, but that being on Earth is changing him for the better. In other words, it's more about his redemption than celebrating his bad deeds.

I was a voracious reader as a kid, and I always attributed it to having parents who read to me, who read books, and who encouraged reading. Dad and Stepmom would take my sister and myself out to the used bookstore every other Sunday and give us each $5 to spend. It was enough to two paperbacks, usually. I was allowed to bring a book places so I wouldn't be bored. No Gameboy or other toys.

Posted by: Colorado Alex at April 17, 2016 12:29 PM (fC9RO)

294 287 ***"Mrs. Coverlet's Magicians" by Mary Nash is a charming and fun read ***

Oh my gosh!! That was one of my very favorites as a kid!!!
Do you remember Toad's concoction for his cat - "Heather's Temptation"?
Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:26 PM (9n14Y)

NO! I'd forgotten about that!

Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:30 PM (bIGOo)

295 "Band of Brothers" was good. Something I can watch again and again.
The movie "Battleground" (about the Battle of the Bulge, with Van Johnson and John Hodiak) is another war movie I can watch over and over. Also fairly accurate, great acting and I love old war movies anyway.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:31 PM (9n14Y)

296 My kids were doing multiplication in 1st grade and fractions in 2nd. I didn't do fractions until 4th or 5th grade.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:31 PM (0LHZx)

297 this book argues that the income tax, more than any other legislated change, made it possible for the government to violate individual rights.

Yeah, I seems fairly clear. It creates a mechanism by which blocs of voters can confiscate the property of others. This violates the principle of unalienable rights that protect us from mob rule. It encourages politicians to pass unethical legislation for special interests when they think no one's looking. And it tempts states to sell their souls to the devil because they will get pork.

Posted by: angela urkel at April 17, 2016 12:31 PM (EuAgP)

298 Satan as misunderstood reformer, well there is always Piers Anthony's For the Love of Evil in his 'Incarnations of Immortality' series that culminated with And Eternity.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:32 PM (AEIVR)

299 "but you're right. The English guy is, if possible, more of a scamp, but he's so damned charming. And British. "

This is why I cannot work up any enthusiasm for watching the American version. The Btitish version was suberb and Ian Richardson so charmingly evil. He absolutely made you, the audience, his henchmen with his asides.

Posted by: Tuna at April 17, 2016 12:33 PM (JSovD)

300 NO! I'd forgotten about that!
Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:30 PM (bIGOo)

He'd made something for his cat, an elixir because she'd had kittens and she needed extra "oomph" - so he melted down a bunch of vitamins and stuff, put it in a bottle, called it "Heather's Temptation" but neglected to mention that it was for a CAT, and Mrs. Coverlet took some of it. Made her feel oh so much better and she told two friends...and they told two friends...bwaaahaaaa...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:33 PM (9n14Y)

301 My kids were doing multiplication in 1st grade and fractions in 2nd. I didn't do fractions until 4th or 5th grade.
Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:31 PM (0LHZx)

I didn't do fractions until...let's see, what day is it today?
Math. Ptooey.

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:34 PM (9n14Y)

302 299 "but you're right. The English guy is, if possible, more of a scamp, but he's so damned charming. And British. "

Posted by: Tuna at April 17, 2016 12:33 PM (JSovD)

______

I think that series was made in 1990 or thereabouts. Which is right where England started its slow suicide. It's almost like a museum piece, watching a country that no longer exists.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:35 PM (0LHZx)

303 296 My kids were doing multiplication in 1st grade and fractions in 2nd. I didn't do fractions until 4th or 5th grade.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:31 PM (0LHZx)

I was reading before kindergarten. My mother taught me how to do it with stuff like the Berenstain Bears. By the time I hit kindergarten myself and a couple of other kids who could read got special time to keep going. The benefit of said group was that we were the first ones to see the latest Letter people blow up doll (Anyone else remember the Letter people?) before they took it in to the rest of the kids. And that was a big fucking deal, dammit!

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 17, 2016 12:36 PM (4ErVI)

304 191 Which is fine. It's the same reason I never bothered starting with the Breaking Bad series. Who am I supposed to root for? I never got a good answer, so I never started.

Same here. I have no interest in that show no matter how well its written. Its about people doing evil without any real redeeming story or purpose, and winning? A lot of that on TV now, Damien, the kid from Psycho, Lucifer. I guess cheering on evil is the new good.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:29 AM (39g3+)

++++

You're supposed to root for Walter White. The writers set it up so that White is a good guy who because of life threatening circumstances, breaks bad - but just a little bit. So he cooks up a little meth to supply to some street dealer to make some extra cash. If you have a sort of libertarian outlook towards vice laws, it doesn't seem so bad.

But, one thing leads to another, and before you know it, White is down the rabbit hole, taking the viewers with him. At every step, the logic of his situation demands the escalation to the next step, as long as the option of just stopping is rejected.

I enjoyed the series. They didn't try to con the viewers that White was still the good guy no matter what he did, but it was interesting and entertaining to watch how one thing led to the next and the guy descended (ascended?) from a high school chemistry teacher to a major player in the meth business and all that he had to do in order to stay on his chosen path.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 17, 2016 12:36 PM (R+30W)

305 antisociaalist, I did a search on Heather's Temptation and found this: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-289454.html

Apparently there was a sequel!

Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:36 PM (bIGOo)

306 Except if you feel like you're going to shart.

Although it has had some amusing repercussions, I don't think this latest meme inspired by Dear Leader will get the lifetime mileage some of his other work has had, like the classic Kaboom.

Of course, if we can cross the Kaboom and shart memes... ugh, never mind, sorry I thought of it, much less mentioned it.

Posted by: mindful webworker - crossing the memes is bad at April 17, 2016 12:36 PM (G0G8s)

307 Best series ever made for TV was Band of Brothers, although I guess that was more a miniseries.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor

Real, honest heroism. And human flaws and failure. Drama, death, life.

Sometimes, that miniseries brought me to tears, because I knew men that did some of those things when I was growing up. When I was a kid, I thought that was the normal thing, they way ALL men (at least American Men) were. Put on your country's uniform, try to do the right thing, be honest, be brave. How totally wrong I was about that.

They're all gone now.

Typically, the late Dick Winters summed it up best. When asked by his grandson, "Grampa, were you a hero?" Winters replied, " No, but I served in a company of heroes."

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 12:37 PM (+1T7c)

308 I was excited for the 4th season of HoC. But the first couple of episodes bored me. And now they have to have an evil Republican in the story line, of course. 1st season rocked, 2nd was very good 3rd was good, 4th....lost my interest. Kind of how most series play out these days.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:37 PM (0LHZx)

309 #297 And it tempts states to sell their souls to the devil because they will get pork.
Posted by: angela urkel at April 17, 2016 12:31 PM (EuAgP)

So instead of chicken soup for the soul, it's pork for the soul?

Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:38 PM (bIGOo)

310 To my fellow history buffs - what book would you like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet? Any wars or battles that haven't gotten a good (or any) book written about them, any historical figures without a decent biography?

-
I've got three ideas.

Although there have been several good books about aspects of the Battle of Leyte Gulf there has never been a comprehensive book combining all aspects.

The Battle of Chickamauga. Blood, death, heroism, and cowardice in Georgia during the Civil War.

Biography of Eric Ludendorff. A very interesting guy whose opinions shaped the world.

An historical time travel novel. A guy upset with the world since WWI goes back to change the outcome. The big reveal is that the outcome he 's unhappy with is a Europe dominated by the Hohenzollern so when he changes the outcome we get communism, WWII, the Holocaust, the Cold War, radical Islam etc. You know, Sunday.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 12:38 PM (Nwg0u)

311 The Letter people blow-up doll?

Whaaaa???

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 12:38 PM (jR7Wy)

312 Votermom - horde author here. Regular reader, only occasional poster.
Rolf Nelson - The Stars Came Back - (SF / space opera)
Also <i>Shakedown Cruise</i>, a short story in the mil-SF anthology "Riding The Read Horse"
[nominated for John W Campbell Award for new SF author, and Prometheus Award nom for Libertarian Fiction for TSCB; more books in the pipeline.]

Posted by: Rolf at April 17, 2016 12:39 PM (4t5BF)

313 The book in question:

A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:39 PM (dZQh7)

314 Same here. I have no interest in that show no matter how well its written. Its about people doing evil without any real redeeming story or purpose, and winning? A lot of that on TV now, Damien, the kid from Psycho, Lucifer. I guess cheering on evil is the new good.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:29 AM (39g3+)

_______

I never get this type of thinking. You don't have to root for anyone. You're supposed to be entertained by a good story. I never "rooted" for or against Walter or any of the others. I just liked watching their characters interact with each other.

Posted by: Monsieur Moo Moo at April 17, 2016 12:39 PM (0LHZx)

315 "To my fellow history buffs - what book would you like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet? Any wars or battles that haven't gotten a good (or any) book written about them, any historical figures without a decent biography?"

A history of the Egyptian invasion of Yemen in the 60's.

I looked for a book on this, and very little was available.

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:40 PM (dZQh7)

316 I still love the plot idea from some moron here that constant attempts on his life by time travelers is what drove Hitler insane. Its got a beautiful sci fi feel to it, old school.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:41 PM (39g3+)

317 Posted by: Miley's Tongue dba Ylva of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy at April 17, 2016 12:36 PM (bIGOo)

Yep, that's right - "While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away".
Still, I loved those books.
Toad told Mrs. Coverlet he wanted her to read a book to him - "20,000 Leaks Under The Sea. Wanna see how they plugged up all those holes."
Funny how things stick in your mind...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:41 PM (9n14Y)

318 I am a member of Amazon's Kindle Unlimited, where you can 'borrow' up to 10 books at a time. I read a lot. I'm retired and love to read, so I read about a book every three days or less. Anyway, when scrolling through the list of books available for teens and young adults one day out of curiosity, I discovered that there are about 30 books written by women to each one book written by men. The reason being is that boys don't read books like "Taken by the Alpha" or junk like that. They would rather, I think, read adventure books about guys who are good and fight evil, be it aliens or whatever.

Posted by: Timothy Pruett at April 17, 2016 12:42 PM (Fncys)

319 311 The Letter people blow-up doll?

Whaaaa???

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 12:38 PM (jR7Wy)

Heh yeah I knew that sounded bad when I reread it. The Letter People was a kid's show on PBS where every letter was a character. They had these plastic blow up dolls for each one that they were using in grade schools to promote reading. Most kids watched the show and they were pretty excited when they finally got to see the latest character. They'd pass it around and stuff. Just fun kid's stuff.

I made it sound sort of pervy and it wasn't.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 17, 2016 12:42 PM (4ErVI)

320 KABOOM!!!

Posted by: zombie uncle tio at April 17, 2016 12:42 PM (jVvcc)

321 Bottom of the Flawrence of Arabia catoon has "by Leornard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim". Heh. I can't stand musicals. I assume they are popular because so many people feel morally obligated to support sexual minorities.

Posted by: angela urkel at April 17, 2016 12:42 PM (EuAgP)

322 Boy does it sound familiar to our attempt there and
also in Iraq. The Italians lost like 5,000 guys there - and Libya is a
small country that had few people back then.

Posted by: sexypig

If you are interested, read "A Soldier of the Great War" by Mark Halperin.

This episode in Libya was a prologue to the Great War, WWI, for Italy. It was very tragic. The protagonist in the novel is the son of a lawyer in Rome, and has a pretty good life, growing up. And how the War changed everything. And how he came out on the other side.

Posted by: Bossy Conservative....tortured American at April 17, 2016 12:43 PM (+1T7c)

323 Don't know about anyone else, but I never noticed much differentiation between boys and girls until about 10 yo. Kids are kids. I do remember my youngest girl disliking pink and purple intensely because it was 'stupid' (try to find a cheap girls bike not pink or purple) and another daughter insisting everything being pink. As a general rule, girls are better at sports until then, so mine were all about sports until about 10. My boy was not allowed to play sports because of his size (a foot taller than everyone else his age), so he decided to be an artist.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 12:43 PM (MIKMs)

324 Egypt even used poison gas in Yemen.

The Saudis were bankrolling the opposition there, and in one book I read it seemed like they must be the Shia, but amazingly the book never specifies that!

That book mainly is about UK covert support for the Yemen royal forces opposing Egypt.

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:43 PM (dZQh7)

325 I never get this type of thinking. You don't have to root for anyone.

The funny thing is people keep talking about "rooting for" someone, and I never brought that up. I never even mentioned looking for a character to cheer for. Just that there's nobody to like and protagonists are turning really evil.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:43 PM (39g3+)

326 316 I still love the plot idea from some moron here that constant attempts on his life by time travelers is what drove Hitler insane. Its got a beautiful sci fi feel to it, old school.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:41 PM (39g3+)

Has this been done? Sounds great. Throw in the "fact" that Hitler became a huge anti-semite because Mossad agents kept trying to kill him as a child and during his years in Vienna.

Posted by: Dack Thrombosis at April 17, 2016 12:44 PM (4ErVI)

327 "A Soldier of the Great War" by Mark Halperin.

I have read that, but forgotten the story. At the time, I remember it was really good.

I don't read much fiction anymore, though.

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:45 PM (dZQh7)

328 313 The book in question:

A Box of Sand: The Italo-Ottoman War 1911-1912
Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:39 PM (dZQh7)

Have it, haven't read it yet. Though Maybe that'll be next for me, as I did just finish up a book.

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 12:45 PM (7qAYi)

329 Band of Brothers

-
Dude, cis-normative with no diversity. I don't think they say the word "transgendered" in the whole series.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 12:45 PM (Nwg0u)

330 ...The Income Tax: Root of All Evil...

I hope I'm not going to be provoking political battles in the book thread, but, relatedly: Ted Cruz is AFAIK the only true opponent of the IRS. I know some folks think that, even if elected with a yuge mandate, Cruz couldn't follow up on this promise, others may think he's just posturing, but he is saying the right things, fwiw. Flat tax is not exactly getting rid of the Income Tax, but, something.

I'll stop there rather than quoting him and just link to yesterday's Michelle Moons article at Breitbart for those interested:

http://bit.ly/1U021t9

Posted by: mindful webworker - Cruz/Bridenstine 2016 at April 17, 2016 12:46 PM (G0G8s)

331 Its amazing how many historical parallels there are. In the Italo-Ottoman war book, it mentions that the socialist party became upset at the party insiders who they considered to have become political professionals - who stopped caring about change, and just wanted gigs.

Sound familiar?

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:46 PM (dZQh7)

332 Throw in the "fact" that Hitler became a huge anti-semite because Mossad agents kept trying to kill him as a child and during his years in Vienna.

Right, I forgot that part all the assassins are Jews which makes him crack and hate Jews.

Its awful in one sense, because it makes Hitler a victim and Jews responsible for their own horror, but in another sense it is a fascinating concept.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:48 PM (39g3+)

333 Who won the great debate the other day? Hills or Bern?

Posted by: Bruce With a Wang! at April 17, 2016 12:49 PM (iQIUe)

334 Dude, cis-normative with no diversity. I don't think they say the word "transgendered" in the whole series.

They're all white males, too, its just horrible! All the women are treated awful. There's the naked one, and the girl that gets killed in the cathedral, and the evil rich woman, its completely sexist and racist!

Posted by: Social Justice Warrior at April 17, 2016 12:49 PM (39g3+)

335 For a reading list on the 1912 Balkan War, check the bottom of this page

http://www.balkanhistory.com/balkan_war_1912.htm

There were plenty of little wars simmering all around Mittel Europa.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 12:50 PM (AEIVR)

336 A history of the Egyptian invasion of Yemen in the 60's.

I looked for a book on this, and very little was available.
Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 12:40 PM (dZQh7)

Have you read "The War that Never Was" by Duff Hart-Davis? I haven't read it myself, but it's on my Wanted list.
http://tinyurl.com/hg6f4s7

Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 12:50 PM (7qAYi)

337 Who won the great debate the other day? Hills or Bern?

People who didn't watch.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:51 PM (39g3+)

338 "To my fellow history buffs - what book would you like to be reading, but hasn't been written yet?"

I'm wondering if there is a completely unexpurgated late-life memoir by James Jesus Angleton sitting in a heavily guarded subterranean vault out in Langley.

Posted by: torquewrench at April 17, 2016 12:54 PM (noWW6)

339 FWIW...
The first chapter of "The Devil's Dictum" starts out with the Special Master of the Supreme Court assassinating President Hitler in the Oval Office ("Why is it an OVAL office? So I can't be cornered, naturally!!) by pushing him out a window...of course, Hitler's mad. All the presidents are mad. You have to be Speaker of the House to become President, and the whole House of Representatives is a huge madhouse...
I'm tellin' ya, it's a hoot!!!

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:54 PM (9n14Y)

340 If Trump was trying to get a rise out of Clinton, it didn't work."

-
Several days ago Feelz the Bern said Hilldog was unqualified. Scanckles said she'd been calledots of things but she had never heard anyone call her that. I guess she doesn't get out much.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 12:54 PM (Nwg0u)

341 I watched the opening of the Simpson trial on TV...

Not a big fan of OJ in football or film, but I was intrigued by the slow-mo Bronco chase - seemed psycho but in what way I couldn't imagine - and so, I ended up watching the entire prosecution part of the trial.

I videotaped each day off CourtTV, and FF'd through the wasted time. Also tracked some intriguing "insider" posts each day on CompuServe's Law Forum. Big chunk of my life consumed, and I think I drove Milady a little nuts with it, and really I did neglect some other things to which I should have been tending, but it was such a mad circus!

By the time the prosecution was done, I was satisfied that they'd totally blown the case. I don't think the jury made a bad decision; I couldn't swear, based just on the trial, whether OJ had done it. I didn't bother watching the defense part, because I figured it was already over. And the verdict was no surprise.

Sure have taken a lot of flak over the years for my observation that the prosecution didn't do their job - as if I was saying OJ was innocent. Especially got criticized by a twice-divorced relative who more or less sympathized with OJ-the-murderer. That was a little scary.

Well, done reading and commenting about the post. Now to plow into the comments.

Posted by: mindful webworker - not guilty ≠ innocent at April 17, 2016 12:56 PM (G0G8s)

342 I don't think insulting Hillary will make any difference because of how insanely self confident and absolutely sure she's right. There's a wall the size of Ringworld around Hillary and nothing is getting through to that ego.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:57 PM (39g3+)

343 Sure have taken a lot of flak over the years for my observation that the prosecution didn't do their job - as if I was saying OJ was innocent. Especially got criticized by a twice-divorced relative who more or less sympathized with OJ-the-murderer. That was a little scary.

Absolutely agree. The prosecution dropped the ball, over and over again. Wonder if it was a matter of them being in awe of OJ's celebrity, or fear of the mega-high-dollar defense team, or...

Posted by: antisocialist at April 17, 2016 12:59 PM (9n14Y)

344 Thank you OM for the mention of Don Quixote USA, and for mentioning me, which I have presented to "Mrs Davis" as proof that I do, after all, exist. I have now done my bit for the memory and estate of Richard Powell. He also wrote "The Young Philadelphians" (an Important Film in its year, but I confess that its great moral dilemmas struck me as not-that-big-a-deal), and the source novel of the Elvis movie "Follow That Dream." A...varied career. His last book, "Whom The Gods Would Destroy," appears to be a juvenile about the Trojan Affair. I will try to look into that, but it's in the catalogue of my favorite house, Long Out of Print.

@315 sexypig, have you tried looking through the published papers of the several War Colleges? Like most required scholarship, the quality is uneven, but a lot of topics get covered. In the late 70's I stumbled across a position paper on future armored warfare in deserts, by then-young Norman Schwarzkopf.

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 17, 2016 12:59 PM (xq1UY)

345 By the time the prosecution was done, I was satisfied that they'd totally blown the case.

Oh I agree they did a terrible job, and from what I have read, Ito was lousy at his job too, because he let the defense get away with murder as well - part of why they wanted him so bad, because they knew he'd be easy to manipulate and lax with court rules.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 01:00 PM (39g3+)

346 Christopher Taylor, are you saying Hillary! has the molecular density of scrith then?

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 01:01 PM (AEIVR)

347 Abdel-Fattah, Randa. DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS? Sixteen-year-old Ama, an Australian-born
Muslim Palestinian, decides she is ready to wear the
hijab, or head covering, as a sign of her deep faith. Ama copes with misconceptions and discrimination in a humorous way as she defends her decision to herself and others.

I'm sure they recommended the touching story of a girl wearing a cross as a deep sign of her faith and the cruel abuse she gets for being one of those Christians....

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 01:03 PM (39g3+)

348 If Trump was trying to get a rise out of Clinton, it didn't work."

-
Several days ago Feelz the Bern said Hilldog was unqualified. Scanckles said she'd been calledots of things but she had never heard anyone call her that. I guess she doesn't get out much.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 12:54 PM (Nwg0u)

This is the idiot's version of BJ Clinton's triangulation strategy.

No matter what criticism you make about her-

it's because you're too far right, too far left cuz she's just right in the center with her views.

It'll be the distaff version of Biden's braying jackass routine with Ryan.

Lots of chuckles and laughing. No responses, of course, because everything Trump or Cruz or Bernie says is just nuts. Koo-koo bananas.

Which really is the only way she can play it because her record is so awful and she's so unqualified.

She will be the adult in the room...your wise grandmother filled with grandmotherly wisdom for the nation.

So, whether Trump or Cruz, they better figure out how to handle this before the debates.

As we know, Ryan was outclassed last go round by this very strategy by uber-dolt Biden.

As always, these people aren't that smart. They do what worked once over and over again until it doesn't.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 17, 2016 01:03 PM (2rmvw)

349 337 Who won the great debate the other day? Hills or Bern?

People who didn't watch.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 12:51 PM (39g3+)
---
Ha!

Even Ace confessed in his recent podcast that he doesn't pay much attention to the Dems.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 01:05 PM (jR7Wy)

350 Morons will enjoy this immensely. Richard Powell's Trojan War novel is available on "Amazon wireless," but brings up a "you may also be interested" list of "Dom's Guide to Submissive Training," "genuine leather flogger" and..."silver monocle."

Oh hell yes I'm going to read that book. And I've discovered a new way to review them, too. A stinging review. It's the monocle that puts it over the top. Top!

Posted by: Stringer Davis at April 17, 2016 01:06 PM (xq1UY)

351 Trump should be quite good at attacking Hillary. All of her supposed qualifications open up lines of attack. He can get ugly, and it won't affect his negatives which are already high. Goal is to drive up Hillary's negatives and win the turnout battle.

This assumes Hillary wins the Comey primary.

There's a risk that MSM won't give Trump air time, but I don't think they can resist.

Posted by: Ignoramus at April 17, 2016 01:08 PM (bQxkN)

352 I will note that The Devil's Dictum is available for the Kindle for a mere 99 cents.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 01:09 PM (jR7Wy)

353 You're supposed to root for Walter White. The writers set it up so that White is a good guy who because of life threatening circumstances, breaks bad - but just a little bit. So he cooks up a little meth to supply to some street dealer to make some extra cash. If you have a sort of libertarian outlook towards vice laws, it doesn't seem so bad.

But, one thing leads to another, and before you know it, White is down the rabbit hole, taking the viewers with him. At every step, the logic of his situation demands the escalation to the next step, as long as the option of just stopping is rejected.

I enjoyed the series. They didn't try to con the viewers that White was still the good guy no matter what he did, but it was interesting and entertaining to watch how one thing led to the next and the guy descended (ascended?) from a high school chemistry teacher to a major player in the meth business and all that he had to do in order to stay on his chosen path.

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 17, 2016 12:36 PM (R+30W)

My problem is, I can't even start it. It's a hump I can't get over: drug dealers, there's nothing for me to latch onto from the start, so I never start, no matter how good it is.

Contrast that with The Americans. Soviet spies, but here's the twist: we can see, if we're paying attention, the evil. The characters can't! Or they justify it with shallow, meaningless appeals to their patriotism.

And the show doesn't play some pandering, cloying version of moral equivalence. Yes, the FBI agents at times, behave badly, but the system is not the same. Not even close. And any time you want to root for the "Jennings family," you are reminded that, while they might not be able to see it, we do. Clearly.

One character is, at one point, pleading for his freedom, and says to Phillip "you're a monster!" And he is. We know it, even if he doesn't.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 17, 2016 01:11 PM (Dj0WE)

354 Based on my experiences raising boys and many, many years of volunteering at the school library, I'd say that boys generally prefer non-fiction. Girls (and teachers) tend to prefer fiction. After watching one too many small boys sadly abandon his selected stack, I threw a fit over the librarian's "one non-fiction book only" rule. She was too d*** lazy to understand the Dewey decimal system, and to his credit the principal sided with me. Also I did most of the book refiling anyway, as her laziness was unbounded.
Of course gender IS a social construct, which is why there can be an infinite number of genders and also why gender should be applied only to other social constructs like language. Sex OTOH is a BIOLOGICAL construct, and it comes in male, female and birth-defect.

Posted by: Laura at April 17, 2016 01:12 PM (Mhf5T)

355 My experience as a child was the opposite of many here: my mother didn't approve of reading for girls. I was allowed 2 library books a week, couldn't go back and trade.

It had a consequence I don't think she expected: I picked books solely on how thick they were. War and Peace when I was not yet ten. (Hint: it's about Russia. Though that's Woody Allen's line.)

Most of the thick books then were for boys. One writer in particular I want to mention. His last name's Altshuler (sp?). He wrote a series on the French and Indian war. Saul Bellow and Mario Puzo both cite him as their favorite author as boys.

I don't know much about him, but I'm fascinated by what I do know. He was born after the Civil War and died before WWI, so died at about say, 50? But at least in the 1990's, his books were still in print. He seems never to have been big-time famous, just a good read that boys kept enjoying, enough so that some publisher somewhere kept printing them.

I didn't even know the French and India War was a real thing--I thought he made it up--and I still read them again and again.

The best place I know of to find them--and some of the other books mentioned above--is ebay.

Thanks for this thread.

Posted by: Wenda (sic) at April 17, 2016 01:14 PM (pZEKq)

356 If anyone is interested in the Feintuch Seafort Saga books, they may be available as EPUB lending downloads from your library through the Freading subscription service, if your library uses it.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 01:15 PM (dwc5Y)

357 IrishEi #51: Got my kids The American Boy's Handy Book.

We got copies of that for our twin sons, and had them re-bound with the front title "Woodchuck Guides" as they (we all) were fans of the Carl Barks and Don Rosa $crooge McDuck comics.

One story had Huey, Dewey, and Louie trying to trace out what happened to books salvaged before the burning of the library of Alexandria. Guess what it eventually became?

Posted by: mindful webworker swimming in the money bin at April 17, 2016 01:17 PM (G0G8s)

358 My reading started with the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which my parents bought for the family when I was about 7.

I started with A and read through each volume all the way to Z.
Not saying I understood everything, but I read them all several times over.
There was no TV in our house for years and years. Later there was a small black and white one Dad kept in his wood shop. That was it.

Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 01:17 PM (8QGte)

359 Speaking of taxes, I read a stoopid article by Nicholas Kristoff, really does he write any other kind, wherein he actually speaks a truth. Government sometimes profits off of enterprise more than the people engaging in it. Of course, it's the big corporation and profits he blames though. About midway through this tripe is relevant the bit. http://tinyurl.com/zjydtev

Posted by: no good deed at April 17, 2016 01:21 PM (GgxVX)

360 started with A and read through each volume all the way to Z.

Not saying I understood everything, but I read them all several times over.

There was no TV in our house for years and years. Later there was a
small black and white one Dad kept in his wood shop. That was it.

Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 01:17 PM (8QGte)
=====
My parents had 11th Edition EB, leather bound and gold end. I used that for reports. I always thought it was funny that they would give the Greek or Latin in original and then the English. Had Harvard Classics (6ft shelf-o-books!) and Great Books by EB. Had some really interesting footnotes at times. We didn't have TV until the moon landing (grew up across the street from the library) and my parents didn't see the need.
Only time I can really be stumped in Trivial Pursuit is 50-60s TV. I have absolutely no idea.

Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 01:29 PM (MIKMs)

361 no good deed #121: ...He just found the Animorph series...

Milady and I enjoyed reading those along with our kids when they first came out.

Forewarning: the last one - my kids still are upset about it, all these years later. Seemed like the author got tired of writing the series and of the characters. Make up your own ending. It'd be better.

There was a pretty good Animorphs TV series that didn't last very long.

Posted by: mindful webworker identifies as a German Shepherd at April 17, 2016 01:35 PM (G0G8s)

362 OT Just popping in at the end of the book thread to thank everyone for their prayers. Today was my first Sunday at the new church I will be serving as an interim at for the next two months. I was a little nervous, but they seem like very nice people in need of healing.

Thanks, everyone, for their prayers and concern.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at April 17, 2016 01:35 PM (w4NZ8)

363 Posted by: navybrat at April 17, 2016 01:17 PM (8QGte)
-----
As I've said before, we had so many books in my house that Dad had to put shelves in the "throne room". And on the lower shelves, easily accessible to the seat of power, were junior encyclopedias, paperback science and nature guides, and How and Why science books.

You can learn a lot in 5-minute increments over the years!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at April 17, 2016 01:36 PM (jR7Wy)

364 My parents have a set of Britannica from 1944. Its probably even better than modern sets on history, and has amazingly interesting stuff about the time period and maps of the world which are quite different than now.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 01:40 PM (39g3+)

365 #175, I've known Jerry Pournelle for 30 years now. I met him at a convention and tried to talk him into telling what happened after New Washington. Then, when he and Stirling did the Sparta Trilogy I tried to talk him into telling the next part of the story. He intended to, but had other stories to tell first. After he recovered from the brain cancer, before the stroke he has sort of recovered from, I tried to talk him into a series on the rise of the Empire of Man I sketched out. He liked the idea, but said the base problem is that he doesn't do alt-history, and he can't convince himself that setting is still possible.

So, I'm trying to teach myself how to write so I can tell the stories I want to read.

Posted by: Graves at April 17, 2016 01:40 PM (beOli)

366 #365 - That is sort of how I started writing - not finding what I wanted on the shelf, I started to put the ideas and images I had running around my brain onto paper. Apparently, a few other people thought they were worth buying and reading. Go for it - you might surprise yourself.

Posted by: Rolf at April 17, 2016 01:47 PM (4t5BF)

367 Posted by: Graves at April 17, 2016 01:40 PM (beOli)

Thank you.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 01:48 PM (dwc5Y)

368 57 I watched a movie yesterday on Netflix - "Admiral: The Roaring Currents" about Korean Admiral Yi Sun-Shen & how he & his 12 ships defeated the invading Japaneses fleet of over 200 ships & that has inspired me to buy a book on that war "The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China" by Samuel Hawley. I highly recommend the movie & look forward to reading the book.
Posted by: Josephistan at April 17, 2016 09:47 AM (7qAYi)

Good movie, the Admiral was Brilliant and the movie just does not due him Justice, He was betrayed by his own King because he was Popular with the people, and his Turtle Ships was state of the art.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at April 17, 2016 01:48 PM (c4yY7)

369 Yep, that's how I started writing. I couldn't find the stories I wanted, so I wrote them.

The best way to learn to write is... to write. Its okay to take classes and learn the rules and all that, but the only way to really learn is to do.

Try out "national novel writing month," you can do it any month. Just write, try to finish a story in one month. It doesn't matter how crappy it is or how much sense it makes. You don't edit, you don't proof, you don't go back and fix stuff. You just write. One of the hardest things to get past in writing is finishing. Once you learn you can finish a book, you've passed a massive milestone.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 01:50 PM (39g3+)

370 Game of Thrones - loved the books until around the 3rd book, when I caught on that my favorites were all doomed.

Dexter - I think we are supposed to root for Dexter' s redemption.

Breaking Bad - hubby loved this. Good tv but hard to root for anybody

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 01:57 PM (nbrY/)

371 Graves, if you don't want to wait until November for National Novel Writing Month, there is Camp NaNoWriMo

https://campnanowrimo.org/sign_in

Get your feet wet with it, just try to write a short story.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 17, 2016 02:05 PM (AEIVR)

372 I don't think Dexter is all that different from regular cop shows. Murderer brought up on charges, gets off, and when he's grinning broadly as he walks out of the courthouse he's hit by a bus. Dexter was that bus.

Posted by: waelse1 at April 17, 2016 02:05 PM (GRfXU)

373 Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 11:29 AM (39g3+)

Actually Damien is turning out to be a psychological / theological drama about an interesting question of free will: can the anti-Christ reject evil?

It's only been 6 eps though do I don't know how it will proceed.

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 02:07 PM (nbrY/)

374 I think (perhaps not as seriously as I should) that the books they push on you in your highschool reading classes are on some level designed to punish you.

If you are someone who seeks competence, who wants to read about people doing interesting things, going interesting places, facing problems and succeeding: Whether to learn from their example, if it is something historical, or simply to experience as escapist fun the sort of word or people you would like to be possible, and perhaps would like to contribute building. The sort of books that English teachers love to inflict on their audiences are designed to take those desires and frustrate them. The Grapes of Wrath, Native Son, any of these books that seemed aimed directly at our aspirations, to mock them as childish and futile.

I read all sorts of books as a kid, at the town library. I pretty much exhausted the adventure and science fiction sections. I maybe read 3 or 4 of them a week. I couldn't *stand* the crap they assigned in school.

Posted by: MadRocketSci at April 17, 2016 02:12 PM (GtPd7)

375 My dad actually dropped out of high school because they required him to read Ivanhoe. He was young and stubborn. Ivanhoe is actually tough to read, its such an archaic style, but the story is terrific.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at April 17, 2016 02:14 PM (39g3+)

376 Bleh, shouldn't type 100 words a minute with no sleep if I intend to give the impression I'm literate.

Posted by: MadRocketSci at April 17, 2016 02:14 PM (GtPd7)

377 "369
Yep, that's how I started writing. I couldn't find the stories I wanted, so I wrote them."

I need to do more of this myself.

Posted by: MadRocketSci at April 17, 2016 02:18 PM (GtPd7)

378 101
When I was a teenager, I preferred to read the set of books designated
as for boys, because they were all adventure, escape, derring-do ... the
books designated as suitable for girls were all about some stupid girl
pining for an equally stupid boy and coping with the machinations of the
mean girl set. A writer named Betty Cavanna was responsible for many of
these tomes pushed upon me. Yuck. I hated Betty Cavanna books with the
white-hot passion of a thousand burning suns. Never really got into the
bog-standard romance books either, for pretty much the same reason.

It's pretty dismal out there, in finding books which make tweens and
teens want to read these days - why I ventured into writing Lone Star
Sons - and targeted it especially for boys of all ages.

Sgt. Mom- same reason I read more books targeted toward boys, but then we all spent lots of time outside. I vaguely remember liking an author named Joseph Altsheller (spelling??). May have to go look him up again.

Posted by: Charlotte at April 17, 2016 02:23 PM (g+AAj)

379 I am looking for book suggestions.

My wife will be teaching a segment on the Holocaust. She has selected a book, "Survivors: True stories of Children in the Holocaust" as something that her kids are likely to be able to relate to. We were discussing if there were any similar books geared for children about Stalin's mass murders, either the Holodomor in Ukraine, the purges or the more or less continuous transportation to camps in Siberia where at least 20 million people died.

Anyway, if anybody has any recommendations for children's books about the other mass murders of the 20th century, I would be interested.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at April 17, 2016 02:31 PM (QHgTq)

380 Always late to check in --

I read the RD condensed version of "Don Quixote USA" as a teen. Enjoyed it. Pleased to see it mentioned.

@274 -- Oh my gawd, Malcolm, Molly, and the Toad! I read one of those books in grade school. Loved it; it was so funny. Toad got a chance to be on TV. Couldn't remember the title. Thank you for the author's name. We hunt!

Recap of my reading life: Dad would read "the funnies" aloud. At 4, read "The Big Green Thing." (Kitten finds kite, is mystified.) Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Jr. through grade/middle school. Executioner and Destroyer series from high school through college, when I discovered comics (early '80s). Added Matt Helm and Nero Wolfe as young adult. Now many audiobooks, plus comics TPBs and assorted others. My TBR stack would challenge many of yours. Latest find is the Red Cell series by Mark Henshaw.

A typical boy I wasn't: Squeamish, preferred to be indoors. And this was on a farm!

That said, I would recommend The Mad Scientists' Club stories for boys.

This is the last time I use my phone to write something this long. Too hard to edit.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 17, 2016 02:38 PM (LDRZc)

381 Posted by: mustbequantum at April 17, 2016 01:29 PM (MIKMs) and navybrat

Same books and lack of tv. And because we were posted overseas most of my childhood and adolescence, the library was an early on refuge and treasure chest for me.

Also, as an adult worked overseas, pre kindle and tech accress to books. In Kyrgyzstan there was a State Dept. employee who traveled with an extensive home library which she graciously shared. So, her moving allowance was one federal benefit I could support!

Posted by: gracepc at April 17, 2016 02:38 PM (OU4q6)

382 "370
Game of Thrones - loved the books until around the 3rd book, when I caught on that my favorites were all doomed.

Dexter - I think we are supposed to root for Dexter' s redemption.

Breaking Bad - hubby loved this. Good tv but hard to root for anybody

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 01:57 PM (nbrY/)"

In Breaking Bad, I rooted for Todd. Despite his rather horrific family background, he was unfailingly polite and he tried to do what he could for Walter and Jesse, despite their self destructive behavior. I also thought that his puppy love infatuation with Lydia was endearing.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at April 17, 2016 02:41 PM (QHgTq)

383 I am always late too -- read the posts first which I love and benefit from. Contribution -- still enjoying Boorstin's The Creators A History of Heroes of the Imagination. For a historian it's a great book just to flip through and start reading.

But upthread someone mentioned not much background in history. It occurs to me that this could be a good book also -- because of the writing and the organization. Lots of facts and anecdotes in the time. Easy read.

Posted by: gracepc at April 17, 2016 02:44 PM (OU4q6)

384 Frank Chodorov was the leader of the libertarian wing of the conservative movement in the '50s. Nothing to do with the paleoconservatives, who didn't exist as a movement until the 1980s and who would have hated Chodorov.

Posted by: My Ridiculously Circuitous Plan at April 17, 2016 02:47 PM (FohCt)

385 Actually, I have completed a reimagining of John Carter of Mars. I then realized the climax was too derivative of the later books in the series, which are still in copyright. I've planned to rip the end apart and do it again. I've started an alt-history near future mil-sf story, and selected my new job not least because the fact that I can leave it when I go home should allow me to more seriously tackle writing.

Pournelle snuck me into a convention for writing contest winners, and I listened to many pro writers talking amongst themselves in the green room. They all agreed the secret was to throw away the first million words, since that's what it took to learn how to write. I've written massive amounts of technical reports, trying to learn the dark arts of the dialogue.

Posted by: Graves at April 17, 2016 02:48 PM (beOli)

386 BTW, when I used the turrent press I did not rotate the press for each single round. I would go through and resize/deprime each shell until I had all them done. Then rotate the press for for powder throw, then rotate the last time to seat the bullet and crimp it. I don't remember which step I seated the primer in but obviously it had to be before I did the powder throw.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 02:52 PM (vvmPQ)

387 oops wrong thread

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 02:52 PM (vvmPQ)

388 @ 357 -- Yeah, that was great.

Don Rosa is a genius.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 17, 2016 02:53 PM (LDRZc)

389 379 - I'm sure this isn't exactly what your looking for.
Innocence Lost by Else Elfriede Hopper
It's the story by a German teenage girl mid to end of the war. She almost is taken away after the war for slave labor by the Russians but escaped.
I was really awaken to the horrors done by the Soviets reading this

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 03:00 PM (Dpy/y)

390 In Breaking Bad, I rooted for Todd. Despite his rather horrific family background, he was unfailingly polite and he tried to do what he could for Walter and Jesse, despite their self destructive behavior. I also thought that his puppy love infatuation with Lydia was endearing.
Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at April 17, 2016 02:41 PM (QHgTq)

Oh Lord, I despised Todd. He had no emotions at all. He was dead inside.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 03:12 PM (dwc5Y)

391 I got the (no-pictures) reading bug when I was about 6.

My folks subscribed to a set of children's classics. I remember Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Prince and The Pauper, Black Beauty, Treasure Island...

My first-grade teacher punted me into the second grade.

When I was 10 I'd ride my bike 3 or 4 miles to the nearest library, and come back with as much scifi as they'd let me check out.

Times sure have changed. But...

I've found the weekly promo posts at "According to Hoyt" productive of lots of more-than-adequate Kindle Unlimited (it's FREEE!) SF&F with nice sneaky oldvalues. Definitely superversive literature.

At this stage it's a guerrilla campaign to take back at least some of our grandkids.

Posted by: phunctor at April 17, 2016 03:22 PM (CKGil)

392 "Oh Lord, I despised Todd. He had no emotions at all. He was dead inside.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 03:12 PM (dwc5Y)"

And I am sure you loved emotional basket case Jesse who was brought up by loving parents and given far more opportunities than Todd experienced. Jesse threw away all of his opportunities with both hands. When he first showed up he was known to the FDA and was on his way to prison the first time thy got lucky, at least if the cartel did not kill him first. Jesse's thoughtless solipsism and drama queen behavior hurt everybody around him. For example, driving around at night throwing money out the window led inevitably to the death of his girlfriend just as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at April 17, 2016 03:31 PM (QHgTq)

393 If I recall the Seafort Saga, the main character was an incompetent martinet who devastated the ranks of competent officers above him when they sidestepped stupid rules to get things done. Then he had them them whipped and demoted and then they loved him. I kept waiting for him to be dragged instead of worshipped.

Posted by: Naysayer at April 17, 2016 03:53 PM (ay8eq)

394 GOOD BOOK Alert !

Endangered by CJ Box - A Joe Picket Novel

Posted by: JT at April 17, 2016 03:54 PM (/WKad)

395 "Fragged"... Stupid spell check. Although being keelhauled would also have been a morerealistic reaction.

Posted by: Naysayer at April 17, 2016 03:54 PM (ay8eq)

396 1. I really need to up my chess game.
2. Still reading American Sniper. How long does it take me to read a book anymore? Forever, apparently.
3. I loved/hated all 7 books of the Seafort Saga. They're really fun, memorable reads. However, Feintuch has a writing style that borders on the purple which I find a little annoying. I have a couple of books in his fantasy series, but haven't started them, mainly, because of his style of writing.

Posted by: sinalco at April 17, 2016 04:11 PM (yODqO)

397 Charlotte, 378:

I mentioned Altshuler too upthread! The series that began with The Young Trailers? Look for them on ebay.

Posted by: Wenda (sic) at April 17, 2016 04:18 PM (pZEKq)

398 "Have you read "The War that Never Was" by Duff Hart-Davis? I haven't read it myself, but it's on my Wanted list."

I have this book but only got part way through and don't want to finish.

Its more logistics of British covert services getting weapons to the royalists.

It doesn't really explain too much why the war happened, etc.

Posted by: sexypig at April 17, 2016 04:18 PM (dZQh7)

399 393 If I recall the Seafort Saga, the main character was an incompetent martinet who devastated the ranks of competent officers above him when they sidestepped stupid rules to get things done. Then he had them them whipped and demoted and then they loved him. I kept waiting for him to be dragged instead of worshipped.
Posted by: Naysayer at April 17, 2016 03:53 PM (ay8eq)

Yeah, Seafort has the side of him that's petty, vindictive, and cruel. He's an officious little prick. Then all of a sudden he's gentle and noble. I can't figure it out, and I notice that sometimes the characters around him can't figure it out, either, because they never know which side of him they'll get. The saving grace is that he can see this bad side, and he despises himself for it. I'm curious to see if this is ever resolved.

Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 04:18 PM (JJ5/6)

400 355
My experience as a child was the opposite of many here: my mother didn't
approve of reading for girls. I was allowed 2 library books a week,
couldn't go back and trade.

It had a consequence I don't think she expected: I picked books
solely on how thick they were. War and Peace when I was not yet ten.
(Hint: it's about Russia. Though that's Woody Allen's line.)

Most of the thick books then were for boys. One writer in particular
I want to mention. His last name's Altshuler (sp?). He wrote a series
on the French and Indian war. Saul Bellow and Mario Puzo both cite him
as their favorite author as boys.

I don't know much about him, but I'm fascinated by what I do know.
He was born after the Civil War and died before WWI, so died at about
say, 50? But at least in the 1990's, his books were still in print. He
seems never to have been big-time famous, just a good read that boys
kept enjoying, enough so that some publisher somewhere kept printing
them.

I didn't even know the French and India War was a real thing--I thought he made it up--and I still read them again and again.

The best place I know of to find them--and some of the other books mentioned above--is ebay.

Thanks for this thread.

Wendy- thanks for the suggestion- I am off to ebay..

Posted by: Charlotte at April 17, 2016 04:22 PM (g+AAj)

401 310: ....The Battle of Chickamauga. Blood, death, heroism, and cowardice in Georgia during the Civil War. ...

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 12:38 PM (Nwg0u)

There are several quite good books on this three-day battle, and the better of them fold in the Chattanooga Campaign as well; it really was one more or less contiguous general campaign.

If you want the short version, let me put in a pitch for my own now out-of-print book, "The Insiders' Guide to Civil War Sites in the Southern States," which has a chapter devoted to that one battle.

"Six Armies in Tennessee" by Steven Woolworth is a bit dry but gives a great overall look at the campaign.

Peter Cozzens' "This Terrible Sound" has been sort of the standard read, at least for the last twenty years of so, but is in that odd category of being perhaps too detailed; it gets in the way of the general flow of events frequently.

The very best I can recommend (if you can afford them, they are only in expensive hardback, SFAIK) is David Powell's four volume history of the Chickamauga Campaign:

"The Chickamauga Campaign - A Mad Irregular Battle: From the Crossing of Tennessee River Through the Second Day, August 22 - September 19, 1863";

"The Chickamauga Campaign - Glory or the Grave: The Breakthrough, the Union Collapse, and the Defense of Horseshoe Ridge, September 20, 1863";

"The Chickamauga Campaign - Barren Victory: The Retreat into Chattanooga, the Confederate Pursuit, and the Aftermath of the Battle, September 21 to October 20, 1863";

and the very essential, "The Maps of Chickamauga: An Atlas of the Chickamauga Campaign, Including the Tullahoma Operations, June 22 - September 23, 1863."

These collectively cover that battle pretty much in isolation, are obsessively detailed but not in a way that interferes with the narrative, exquisitely well written, and cover every salient point and event that I could think of, and I've made a lifelong hobby of studying that campaign.

Now, if you want to study a Atlanta Campaign series of battles that *really* bears looking at in detail, look at the three battles that made up the Dallas Line Campaign, New Hope Church, Pickett's Mill, and Dallas. For some odd reason (cough cough**he had his butt handed to him**cough) Sherman "forgot" to mention these battles in his official reports or in his postwar memoirs.

Posted by: John the Baptist at April 17, 2016 04:28 PM (MPH+3)

402 "389
379 - I'm sure this isn't exactly what your looking for.

Innocence Lost by Else Elfriede Hopper

It's the story by a German teenage girl mid to end of the war. She
almost is taken away after the war for slave labor by the Russians but
escaped.

I was really awaken to the horrors done by the Soviets reading this

Posted by: Skip at April 17, 2016 03:00 PM (Dpy/y)"

Thanks. It's free on Kindle so I am going to read it. She says that it would probably be confusing for the kids to grasp that type of switch that quickly.

I wonder if the Dr.Tom Dooley books are still in print. Deliver Us From Evil, The Edge of Tomorrow and The Night They Burned the Mountain made an impression on me when I read them in elementary school.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-Hole at April 17, 2016 04:29 PM (QHgTq)

403 ACK! I forgot that Powell had *five* books on the Battle of Chickamauga, the other one is:

"Failure in the Saddle: Nathan Bedford Forrest, Joe Wheeler, and the Confederate Cavalry in the Chickamauga Campaign"

Posted by: John the Baptist at April 17, 2016 04:32 PM (MPH+3)

404 The saving grace is that he can see this bad side, and he despises himself for it. I'm curious to see if this is ever resolved.
Posted by: OregonMuse at April 17, 2016 04:18 PM (JJ5/6)

Only after an early character he sent to die is found.

The whole despising himself is what drove me to distraction. He despised himself over the smallest things. Yes, he seemed an officious little prick, but there were straight-up reasons for being by-the-book. He just never personally came to grips with that.

Posted by: Jeff Weimer at April 17, 2016 04:41 PM (dwc5Y)

405 I've some thoughts on Tom Clancy and wonder if there's any agreement.

In Sum of all Fears it appears that Clancy is no fan of Israel, rather he finds Saudis more admirable.

He seems to have thought that Russia would be able to sustain a reasonably democratic system of government.

In Debt of Honor there is a scene where CNN explais why they cooperated with the government to conceal the movement of a carrier; "After all, we're an American network" (BWWAAAAAAHAHAHA!).

Talk about massive prognostication failures.

Posted by: Vlad the Impaler, whittling away like mad at April 17, 2016 05:10 PM (3Mimg)

406 We were discussing if there were any similar books geared for children about Stalin's mass murders, either the Holodomor in Ukraine, the purges or the more or less continuous transportation to camps in Siberia where at least 20 million people died.

-
Andrea Warren has written several books about kids in a bad situation, most, if not all, true. Boy in Nazi camp, three kids in siege of Vicksburg, orphan trains, escaping while ,Saigon is falling etc.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 17, 2016 05:29 PM (Nwg0u)

407 405
I've some thoughts on Tom Clancy and wonder if there's any agreement.

In Sum of all Fears it appears that Clancy is no fan of Israel, rather he finds Saudis more admirable.

He seems to have thought that Russia would be able to sustain a reasonably democratic system of government.

In Debt of Honor there is a scene where CNN explais why they
cooperated with the government to conceal the movement of a carrier;
"After all, we're an American network" (BWWAAAAAAHAHAHA!).

Talk about massive prognostication failures.

Posted by: Vlad the Impaler, whittling away like mad at April 17, 2016 05:10 PM (3M___)

I did not get the feeling about Israel in the Sum of All Fears, however at the time the Saudis were our "best buds" so no oddity there. I think his thoughts on Russia were overly optimistic but again, most people thought things were improving with them. As for the networks not reporting the movement of an aircraft carrier during a war I can see that happening if they were threatened with a charge of treason if they gave the enemy actionable information.

But we haven't had a President who would threaten them with treason in a very long time.

Posted by: Vic We Have No Party at April 17, 2016 05:29 PM (vvmPQ)

408 Late as usual, but if anyone's interested, "Reagan Diaries Volume 2: November 1985-January 1989" is 99 cents on Amazon Kindle today. ASIN B003LL2Z1C. And Volume 1 is available for (!) $19.99. Yikes. There appears to be a combo edition for $13.99, too.

Posted by: RovingCopyEditor at April 17, 2016 05:33 PM (q18QJ)

409 Simpson also had a somewhat acting career if you count the "Naked Gun" movies.

Posted by: deepred at April 17, 2016 07:12 PM (xv5cf)

410 obnoxious a-hole: a wonderful book I read as a not-quite-teen was The Endless Steppe, by Esther Rudomin Hautzig.
It is the true story of a Polish Jewish family deported to Siberia during the early Holocaust, written by the young girl of the family (after the war, when she was an adult). Wrenching detail, the mom's brother shows up at the door while it's happening, and she says she doesn't know him so he won't be taken too.
After the war, they discover that being sent to the back of beyond in Russia is what allowed them to be the only members of their dual extended families to survive.

Posted by: barbarausa at April 17, 2016 07:14 PM (h3IJ6)

411 Since no one else has, let me mention Terry Pratchett's 'Tiffany Aching' books, which are excellent for teens. As are almost all of his 'discworld' books, although young people may not 'get' some of the puns and sly references. But Pratchett is a superb moral tutor.

Posted by: PersonFromPorlock at April 17, 2016 07:47 PM (U4QC6)

412 Votermom, can you contact me at empire1003 at hushmail dot com? I've got 5 novels and twenty-some short stories as freebies at gutenberg dot org, if you're interested. Also some Skyrim fanfic elsewhere, but I don't know if anyone would care about that.

Posted by: Empire1 at April 17, 2016 07:52 PM (VcMMo)

413 Empire1 ok. Will do tomorrow

Posted by: @votermom at April 17, 2016 09:26 PM (nbrY/)

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