Sunday Morning Book Thread 10-03-2021

Château de Groussay, Library, Montfort-l'Amaury, France

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules). Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, salvaged by cultural historians from a bad Monty Python skit.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

(h/t CBD)

What bugs me about this is the word 'harmless'. Both Congress and the executive branch are filled with incompetents, but unfortunately, none of them could be called harmless.

A Book For These Times:

(Click to Enlarge)

Slow Books

Well, here's something else we can thank Joe Biden and the pack of ignorant fools he has surrounded himself with: New books will be hard to come by for the rest of the year, due to their ill-conceived economic policies that completely messed with the supply chain. First toilet paper, then, lumber, and now books:

Publishers are warning sellers and consumers that supply chain issues have forced a major slowdown in book production and threaten a shortage of certain titles for the rest of the year. Supply chain problems have touched almost every aspect of book production, storage, and delivery, mostly as a result of Covid-related bottlenecks. Printer capacity issues plagued the publishing industry last year, too, though 2021 is expected to be worse.

Naturally, those of you who prefer printed books will be, as they way, hardest hit:

Raiton points out that the disruption isn’t a shortage, so much as a delay. “You have to get them here by ship—where you’ve got all the challenges with ocean freight, if you can get a vessel. Then once the goods get to the US, we’ve got trucking issues of our own in this country with the shortage of workers,” she says, adding that trucking delays affect delivery even once books get to the publisher’s warehouses.

So you'll have to do your Christmas book shopping early:

As for consumers, the key for the 2021 holiday season is to start purchasing books early. Huber said to preorder any books you’re looking forward to, start your shopping early, and be flexible—independent-bookstore employees have expertise that can help customers find a suitable replacement gift if the one they want is not in stock.

Well, that's just great, isn't it? But, on the plus side, no more mean tweets.

Who Dis:

Last week's who dis was French actress Barbara Laage, whom all of you no doubt recognize from movies such as Les assassins du dimanche (1956) and Ça va être ta fête (1960).

Moron Recommendations

The only juvenile fiction I've read beyond the grandsons' material was the first book in The Hunger Games as a patient was obsessed by it. The thing I liked about it was that the heroes were not elites at all and there was no "chosen" element to it. The intended victims were losers in a lottery, but the girl chose to replace her little sister and then used her life skills to succeed. There was no "magic" . It's an ugly story, sure, but life isn't wands and wizards.

Posted by: CN at September 26, 2021 10:56 AM (ONvIw)

Right. There's nothing particularly special about Katniss Everdeen. She's doing what she needs to do to help feed her family, which includes some illegal bow hunting. That skill, which she developed out of necessity, and not so much choice, is a major factor in her success later on. She finds herself thrust into a horrific situation not of her own making where she has to reach inside herself to find the courage and strength she needs to survive. She's not some Mary Sue character who's just totally awesome from the very start. I think it's a much more satisfying story than the Captain Marvel movie with Brie Larson, or the Mulan live-action remake. In fact, HG is very much like the first Mulan movie, different story, but the character arc was is similar, where strength is earned by hard work, not given like it's some birthright thing.

___________

50 I read American Tabloid by James Ellroy. This is the first volume of the Underworld USA trilogy. The timeframe of this book is from November, 1958, through November, 1963. There is a great cast of characters including Jack and Bobby Kennedy. Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Jimmy Hoffa, Cuban freedom fighters, almost every major mob boss, and a dozen or so FBI and CIA agents.

While reading the book, I kept wondering how much of this novel is actually true. I suspect the answer is quite a bit. I'm looking forward to reading the next two books in the series, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's A River. Warning: profane language throughout.

Posted by: Zoltan at September 26, 2021 08:30 AM (Jw8M0)

Yeah, this one looks like a out-of-control roller-coaster ride of a book:

The '50s are finished. Zealous young senator Robert Kennedy has a red-hot jones to nail Jimmy Hoffa. JFK has his eyes on the Oval Office. J. Edgar Hoover is swooping down on the Red Menace. Howard Hughes is dodging subpoenas and digging up Kennedy dirt. And Castro is mopping up the bloody aftermath of his new communist nation.

In the thick of it: FBI men Kemper Boyd and Ward Littell. They work every side of the street, jerking the chains of made men, street scum, and celebrities alike, while Pete Bondurant, ex-rogue cop, freelance enforcer, troubleshooter, and troublemaker, has the conscience to louse it all up.

Mob bosses, politicos, snitches, psychos, fall guys, and femmes fatale. They're mixing up a molotov cocktail guaranteed to end the country's innocence with a bang. Dig that crazy beat: it's America's heart racing out of control...

And *plunk* goes American Tabloid on my TBR stack. The Kindle edition is $11.99.

___________

120 For those of you who enjoy military historical fiction, I commend to you the works of Andrew Wareham, a VERY prolific author (not sure how many titles he has on Kindle, a lot of them Kindle Unlimited).His books range in time period from the English Civil War through WWII, and all are very well written. Right now I'm reading his series "Duty and Destiny", set during the French Revolution and early Napoleonic era. Not only some great naval episodes, but also a lot of insight about living in rural England during the period of land enclosure and social upheaval. I would compare him favorably with Patrick O'Brian in his description of warfare between wooden ships and iron men.

Definitely worth a look, if you are so inclined.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at September 26, 2021 08:54 AM (CmPBR)

So I went to Wareham's author page on Amazon, he's got more books out than I want to take the time to count. He's got more *book series* published than many authors have indvidual books. The first book in the series is The Friendly Sea

The Duty and Destiny Series is a superbly-crafted collection of historical novels with a strong naval/seafaring theme. The series follows the naval career, loves and business dealings of Englishman, Frederick Harris, a brave but reluctant mariner. Despite his disinclination, he is seemingly destined to become a Master and Commander of his own ship.

Book One - The Friendly Sea: The second son of a Hampshire landowner, Frederick Harris has no expectations worthy of the name. He takes to the sea as a profession, rather than from love of the seafaring life. Early in the French Revolutionary War he seizes the chance to shine in a bloody sea battle. After promotion, he is sent to the Caribbean where he gains further promotion and the patronage of a senior admiral.

Also this note: "The novels are best read in series order."

The Kindle edition is $4.99. As far as I can tell, there are no paperback or hardcover editions. And once you've finished this one, there are 12 more to go. Just in this one series.

___________

156 Strong recommendation from me on Lyndon LaRouche and The New American Fascism by Dennis King.

It was a blast. That LaRouche dude was far crazier but also more insightful than I had heard.

Gotta say, I think he was part of something bigger involving an earlier run of the current year madness.

He was probably a part of the faction behind Hoover and Nixon. His early Marxism is laughable on its face considering his father was a hard-rightist who testified and worked with HUAC and battled the globohomo Quakers his whole life (he was a Quaker himself)

Anyway, Lyndon was a brilliant and sadistic madman who identified a market failure to supply cults to super high IQ post-grad whites and filled the void.

Posted by: Thesokorus at September 26, 2021 09:06 AM (1ais2)

First, I'd like to point out that this is the first time I've ever heard it said that "globohomo Quakers" were a force that had to be defeated, and second, what a great name for a band!

Lyndon Larouche and the New American Fascism has long been OOP. It was first published in 1989, back when Larouche was just big enough to scare people. Some Larouche candidates running for state offices as Democrats in Illinois won their primaries, which made the national news, and caused no small amount of consternation among Democrats. But they failed to win their elections.

Too bad Larouche passed in 2019. He died too early. His particular brand of insansity would fit right in with the 2020-2021 maelstrom of madness. It might not even sound excessively delusional by today's standards.

Just look at the books he's written. He's definitely got his own "take" on things.

___________

Unfortunate Book Covers:

More cringe-worthy book covers here. Some of them are so bad, they look like parodies.

Books By Morons

'Ette author artemis has a new entry in her Doyle & Acton mystery series, Murder in Material Gain

The holidays had come and gone, and Doyle was chafing to get back home to London, so as to start being productive, again. Acton’s hereditary estate was grand indeed, but there was something a bit off-putting about the grandeur, and all that tiresome peacefulness. After all, Trestles hadn’t always been a peaceful sort of place; for hundreds of years, it had housed generation after generation who were consumed with ruthless ambition, and who were willing to sail very close to the wind, in their quest for material gain. Best to whisk Acton away, before this troublesome atmosphere seeped into his very bones.

This isn't much of a blurb, but I couldn't find a better one. The Kindle edition is $4.99.

___________

Lurking moron author Shane Gries e-mails and says the third and final installment of his Ashes series was released just over a week ago. This one's called From the Ashes of Armageddon, and it closes out the story he's been working on for the last two years:

The final showdown between competing factions of a banished star nation erupts in an apocalyptic bloodbath. Those who stand for what is just and right, resist in the face of suicidal odds and relentless conquest. In the end, the contest will be decided by indomitable spirit and a ruthless desire to survive

Shane's novels are published by Eric Flint's outfit, Ring of Fire Press. E-copies are available in multiple formats, epub, mobi, pdf, rtf, and zip, for $5.99. I don't see a RoF link for the paperback edition, but Amazon has it for $15.99.

Here are rhe first two books in the series:

From the Ashes of a Dead World
From the Ashes of Interstellar Empire

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions 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: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 hiya

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 08:00 AM (arJlL)

2 *searches for some pants*

Posted by: GnuBreed at October 03, 2021 08:01 AM (F0YaR)

3 Charles Dickens and family?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 03, 2021 08:01 AM (PiwSw)

4 Rereading David Eddings The Belgariad. On the 5th and last book now. Too bad you can not get the next series in that line of books or almost all of his other books on Kindell.

Posted by: Vic at October 03, 2021 08:01 AM (mpXpK)

5 Tolle Lege
Was given a life recovery autobiography yesterday so will see what's in it.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 08:01 AM (2JoB8)

6 Books! And Top 10. Morning Horde.

Posted by: NALNAMSAM- not as lean, not as mean, still a Marine at October 03, 2021 08:02 AM (+ldAm)

7 Hello my bookish kin!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:03 AM (XItSe)

8 Making your waist 12 inches around can't be good for your health.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 08:04 AM (2JoB8)

9 I never knew artemis was an author !

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 08:04 AM (arJlL)

10 Who's that Dick?

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:04 AM (XItSe)

11 I really don't think the pants guy owns a weedwhacker (if you catch my drift)

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 08:05 AM (arJlL)

12 Good morning readers. I always feel sorry for the poor person who has to dust these libraries.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:06 AM (45fpk)

13 I'm going to say Charles Dickenson is who 'dis.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at October 03, 2021 08:06 AM (cSyAR)

14 Rowr

Posted by: Dr. Varno at October 03, 2021 08:06 AM (vuisn)

15 I hadn't thought about the paper shortage and transportation problems affecting books in all this Fun Times stuff. Of course it would!

Well, at least I have a tottering ziggurat of books to be read, and of course there's e-books.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:06 AM (XItSe)

16 Yay! Another Doyle and Acton book! Thanks artemis.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:07 AM (45fpk)

17 I'd like to throttlebiden

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 08:07 AM (YZG/i)

18 Hey everyone! Regarding the "boners," I had an ageing teacher in middle school who understood that word in the same context as the pocket book referenced above: short for "bonehead" or "thoughtless.

One can surely imagine the resulting hilarity when she admonished the class that they need to get over their mistakes and keep going. "Why every time I pull a boner, I don't look for someone else to help me out!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:07 AM (llXky)

19 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to a barbeque in the White House back yard.

Posted by: A Taxpayer Funded Clown at October 03, 2021 08:08 AM (Tnijr)

20
g'mornin', 'book-ish 'rons

Posted by: AltonJackson at October 03, 2021 08:08 AM (DUIap)

21 I should add that such was the breakdown in order that a neighboring teacher popped in and - upon learning of the unfortunate use of language - struggled mightily to avoid joining in. Eventually the pair withdrew so that the change in language could be explained.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:09 AM (llXky)

22 3 Yes, Charles and his daughters

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 08:09 AM (ONvIw)

23 I love those books with questionable titles (most seem self-aware).

William Gurstelle is an unapologetic blower-upper of stuff.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:10 AM (XItSe)

24 I read American Tabloid by James Ellroy. This is the first volume of the Underworld USA trilogy. The timeframe of this book is from November, 1958, through November, 1963.

That's a writer Robert Barnes speaks highly of iirc. Barnes put out a Goodreads list of books he recommends; I don't think I've read a single one.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 08:10 AM (y7DUB)

25 I read the latest work of one of my favorite authors, Steven Pressfield. The work, A Man At Arms, is about a retired Roman legionnaire hired by the Romans in Jerusalem to stop a man and a girl carrying a letter from the apostle Paul to the Christians in Cornith, Greece. Many others are trying to stop the letter, and it's a cat and mouse game across the Sanai desert and into Egypt. During the journey the legionnaire, Telemon of Arcadia, has a conversion in his world view. Action packed and great character development.

Posted by: Zoltan at October 03, 2021 08:11 AM (av5VM)

26 I remember in elementary school we sang a little ditty in music class: "Pumpkins are gay, on Halloween Day; pumpkins are bright, on Halloween night!"

We must have been one of the last classes to learn that tune.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:11 AM (llXky)

27 ...Then once the goods get to the US, we've got trucking issues of our own in this country with the shortage of workers," she says, adding that trucking delays affect delivery even once books get to the publisher's warehouses.

I saw a semi truck yesterday with the entire rear of the trailer as one big help wanted ad "make $2500 per week".

That's pretty good money. Of course you'll work 60 hours per week, and never see home again...

Posted by: GnuBreed at October 03, 2021 08:11 AM (F0YaR)

28 Good morning readers. I always feel sorry for the poor person who has to dust these libraries.
Posted by: grammie winger

The pants guy can use his mustache.....

Hiya Grammie !

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 08:12 AM (arJlL)

29 I'm currently reading C.J. Cherryh's "Alliance Rising" and it's great to be back in the Union-Alliance universe. This story takes place before "Downbelow Station" and "Cyteen", if you're a fan of those novels (I am). The beauty of Cherryh's stories is how the average Spacer Joe is affected by the economic and socio-political upheavals.

Vast distances, time dilation, and relationship with technology have created different cultures diverging wildly the further they are from Old Earth. Those who live planetside, Belters, traders aboard family-run ships, space station personnel, etc. all experience time/space in their own way.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:12 AM (XItSe)

30 There is no safe FTL jump point near the Sol system (too many colonies and too much mass) so people and goods travel at sub-light speed to the nearest station. Earth tries to maintain the fiction that it is the administrative center, but it is a delusion when it takes so long for directives to reach their intended audience. Other colonies have FTL capability and access to jump points and can sidestep Earth authority altogether. To keep its hand in the game, Earth Company has built its own FTL behemoth from stolen plans and berthed the ship at Alpha Station.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:12 AM (XItSe)

31 I'm currently on Tanith Lee's fifth book in the Tales of the Flat Earth, Night's Sorceries. It's basically a collection of short stories that take place during the events of Delirium's Mistress but involving other, mostly mortal, characters. As with anything Tanith Lee, it's pretty decent. She has a real flair for descriptive language. All of her stories are quite dream-like and ethereal.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 03, 2021 08:13 AM (K5n5d)

32 Lyndon LaRouche had a hard on for my undergrad school for reasons which were never very clear. The occasional protestors would get particularly enraged if we would ball up single dollar bills to throw at them

Posted by: San Franpsycho at October 03, 2021 08:13 AM (EZebt)

33 What's with that shrieking woman's makeup? She looks bizarre as well as crazy.

Posted by: Blacksheep at October 03, 2021 08:14 AM (6mvRv)

34 Here's a good cheat sheet on all the players in the Cherryhverse:

https://tinyurl.com/4du2a28n

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:14 AM (XItSe)

35 I've been reading the Seymour biography of Mary Shelley. A very interesting life, imagine having Coleridge reading to you when he came over for dinner with your dad .

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 08:14 AM (ONvIw)

36 I went to the physical actual library this week, first time since the 'rona. I found the next book in the series of an author I like: "All the Devils Are Here', by Louise Penny. I was fortunate enough to find a copy in large print. But lo and behold, later that day I saw where Penny has co-authored a book with Hillary. That put me off a bit.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:14 AM (45fpk)

37 Is your Dick running??

Posted by: andycanuck (UHVv4) at October 03, 2021 08:14 AM (UHVv4)

38 Hello all,

The past two weeks I've been reading the books Kyle Mills wrote to continue Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series. I stopped reading the series when Vince died because I never thought anyone could do him justice. Then my book club took up the latest, Enemy at the Gates. Wow! The surprises - where Mitch lives now, the fact he has a love life again, and worst of all: the villain in this last book. The ending broke my heart. If you haven't read the Kyle Mills continuation of the series, do it. He brings the minor characters like Coleman's crew of warriors to life in wonderful ways. You get their backstories which Flynn didn't write.

Posted by: CarolinaGirl at October 03, 2021 08:15 AM (Kh9rg)

39 I hadn't thought about the paper shortage and transportation problems affecting books in all this Fun Times stuff. Of course it would!

Well, at least I have a tottering ziggurat of books to be read, and of course there's e-books.
----
Right there with you...I have accumulated enough books to last me the rest of my lifetime. There are relatively few NEW books that I'm looking for at the moment. I still have a few gaps in my library, but those can probably be filled in with existing inventories...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 03, 2021 08:15 AM (K5n5d)

40 Hiya JT!

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:15 AM (45fpk)

41 I think what God says through cats is, I gave you dominion over all the animals, but I gave cats dominion over you.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:15 AM (XItSe)

42 There was famously a Batman comics run in the Fifties in which the Joker was committing theme crimes based on famous "boners." This means there's dozens of authentic Batman panels with him and the Boy Wonder talking about boners.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:16 AM (QZxDR)

43 who dis : Robert E. Lee !

Posted by: runner at October 03, 2021 08:17 AM (V13WU)

44 Last week's discussion compelled me to pull The Hidden Origins of Islam off the shelf. It's a book of ten essays edited by Ohlig and Puin. The longest is more than 100 pages by Volker Popp and is essentially a rewrite of the conventional history of the Middle East, using no Islamic sources but instead relying on archeology and especially coins.

I've read through this before, and a second trip is proving fruitful. Very densely-packed information. Not all the essays are comprehensible -some of the authors assume you speak 5+ languages so they can provide extensive quotes in Arabic, German, French and of course you'll keep up. Others are less obscure.

One point that keeps getting hammered home is that historians have basically broken all the evidentiary rules of their craft when it comes to Islam's history. If there is physical evidence that contradicts the received narrative, they will bend over backwards to attack *the evidence* because well, the narrative is settled.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:17 AM (llXky)

45 Is your Dick running??
Posted by: andycanuck

What's the 1-2-3 for ?

Not anymore !

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 08:17 AM (arJlL)

46 3 Charles Dickens and family?

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 03, 2021 08:01 AM (PiwSw)

Yes!

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 08:17 AM (oxV/g)

47 This means there's dozens of authentic Batman panels with him and the Boy Wonder talking about boners.
Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:16 AM (QZxDR)
---

Meta-boners are the best boners.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (XItSe)

48 I remember when boner was something stupid

Posted by: 4thewin at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (Oq5a2)

49 So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics?: A Text on Elementary Mathematical Economics by Lyndon LaRouche (Author)

What a total 9-yards of horseshit. The idea that a numeric value can be placed on an item (or a market of items) and then that value is realized and recognized by everyone, everywhere, at the same fucking time. It is really bad maths used to try to justify central planning. It is really really bad economics trying to make the government the Good Guy (oh look we subsidized healthcare) and the Bad Guy (we subsidized war) based on the way the wind blows and public thoughts changed.

It is a great idea that we can eliminate greed, emotion, backlash, and charity out of our lives, and the economy, but it render the entire idea of a market economy down to 2+2=5, or 7, or 23.

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (yrol0)

50 Who dis?

Charles and the Dickettes

Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (5NkmN)

51 With the difficulty of getting actual books, I wonder if now would be a good time for used book stores to make a comeback. Almost all of the ones in my bailiwick have closed.

As to Lyndon LaRouche, the main thing I know about him is that he ran for prezzy from prison (he was in for tax evasion iirc; TPTB got him on probably Trumped up charges).

Three Felonies A Day is not a fiction novel.

Posted by: GnuBreed at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (F0YaR)

52 "Boner" still remains the funniest, least offensive and most descriptive minor league profanity kids learn.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 08:19 AM (y7DUB)

53 What the hell is Beethoven teaching that kid?!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:20 AM (XItSe)

54 It's Rutherford B. Hayes!

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:22 AM (QZxDR)

55 Our country would be in better shape of we elected more throttlebottoms and fewer communist ignoranuses.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at October 03, 2021 08:23 AM (d9Cw3)

56 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at October 03, 2021 08:23 AM (7EjX1)

57 Yay book thread!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 08:25 AM (YZG/i)

58 Throttlebottom does not exist in real life! Almost everyone in public life at some time by nature of their office causes harm. Many do it as they say, they are just doing their job. Others take their job seriously believing that they are the final determination between good and evil (eg teachers).

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 03, 2021 08:25 AM (yrol0)

59 Primary source documents are especially suspicious, lol.

I saw this in action years ago as an undergrad. This is unacceptable. "But ... this is what they wrote... from the horses mouth", I protested. Not good enough. You have to read something filtered through somebody else's interpretation.

"We'll tell you what they really meant" is the unstated or sometimes stated assertion. The "news" has been doing this for decades. Now they do it in real time.

And the modern extension, merely reposting official government documents will get you kicked off the imternet.

Academia, Journalism, Science, Medicine.

Dead. Is there anything leftists can't fuck up three ways to Sunday?

Posted by: Common Tater at October 03, 2021 08:26 AM (hbjKv)

60 Our country would be in better shape of we elected more throttlebottoms and fewer communist ignoranuses.
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at October 03, 2021 08:23 AM (d9Cw3)

Communist ignoranuses should be wiped out.

Politically, but of course!

Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021 08:26 AM (5NkmN)

61 I'm continuing with 100 Days of Dante which is now up to Canto 11 of the Inferno. As Virgil and Dante spiral down to the lower portions of hell, the journey is getting more revealing for Dante the pilgrim and the reader.

Posted by: JTB at October 03, 2021 08:26 AM (7EjX1)

62 Charles Dickens and his mistress?

Posted by: dantesed at October 03, 2021 08:28 AM (88xKn)

63 One point that keeps getting hammered home is that historians have basically broken all the evidentiary rules of their craft when it comes to Islam's history. If there is physical evidence that contradicts the received narrative, they will bend over backwards to attack *the evidence* because well, the narrative is settled.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:17 AM (llXky)

I'm not even sure there was an actual "Mohammed". At best, he was a small time preacher and mystic whose name was appropriated for regime building purposes by the new Arab state 150 years after the fact.

To me, the evidence suggests that there was a region wide revolt against the Orthodox Byzantine Church and its Emperor, mainly due to their heavy handed control and taxation. 200 years later, the Arabs claimed it was all because of their Glorious New Religion, and the Byzantines went along rather than admit it was all the fault of their incompetent governance. So, everyone agreed to forget the actual history and go with the new storyline.

Posted by: Tom Servo at October 03, 2021 08:28 AM (evAgx)

64 "J. Edgar Hoover is swooping down on the Red Menace."

And now they run the place.

Hoover's FBI had a lot of issues, but at least they didn't overthrow elections and help ANTIFA burn down our cities.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at October 03, 2021 08:28 AM (Ndje9)

65 This past week I finished Tom Holland's big history of Christianity, _Dominion_. I think I picked it up because of a recommendation from the morons here. So, thanks to whoever!

It's a good book, going into how so many things we think of as universal -- individual rights, a distinct role for religion, rulers still subject to the laws, natural world operating by understandable rules, equality, sympathy for the poor and oppressed, etc. -- all are specifically derived from Christianity.

He gets a bit wobbly at the end when he touches on contemporary issues. I don't think he discusses abortion at all, for instance.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:28 AM (QZxDR)

66 Primary source documents are especially suspicious, lol.

I saw this in action years ago as an undergrad. This is unacceptable. "But ... this is what they wrote... from the horses mouth", I protested. Not good enough. You have to read something filtered through somebody else's interpretation.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 03, 2021 08:26 AM (hbjKv)
---
Of course part of that is job security. Can't have you thinking for yourself; leave it to the "experts."

Still, what remarkable about the way Islam is treated is that even as Christianity was getting dissected by German scholars in the 19th Century, Islam was getting kid glove treatment. And no, no one was worried about a jihad; the Ottoman Empire was tottering to its grave at the time. I think it was envy and admiration. The Germans were bored with Christianity and looked as Islam as something more robust and pure. Certainly Hitler took a liking to it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:31 AM (llXky)

67 I'm not even sure there was an actual "Mohammed". At best, he was a small time preacher and mystic whose name was appropriated for regime building purposes by the new Arab state 150 years after the fact.
----
It's entirely possible he was an amalgam of several different people....

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 03, 2021 08:31 AM (K5n5d)

68 I'm finishing up Elizabeth George's "Playing for the Ashes", an Inspector Thomas Lynley murder mystery. Skimming thru Britbox last night, I was surprised to see there is an Inspector Lynley TV series. I'll have to check it out.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:31 AM (45fpk)

69 Darn OM. You stole my thunder. I was up til 1 am finishing Artemis' new Acton and Doyle book which I grabbed as soon as it was available. And yes, that blurb does not at all describe the book.
It is good to read the series in order as you learn more about the personalities and quirks of the main characters in each book. This is important as the plots are very complex. The twists and turns are impossible to predict.I love trying to figure out how it is all going to turn out. It is that can't put the book down feeling. The book has a great finale but there were definitely some unanswered questions which I assume will be taken up in the next book.
Artemis?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at October 03, 2021 08:33 AM (Y+l9t)

70
It's entirely possible he was an amalgam of several different people....

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 03, 2021 08:31 AM

I had a "girlfriend" like that in college...

Posted by: Barack Hussein Obama at October 03, 2021 08:34 AM (DUIap)

71 I'm going to disagree about Islam. The Arabs didn't revolt, they swooped into a power vacuum after the Byzantines and Persians had wrecked each other's empires. Islam was a unifying ideology for the Arabs, and their military success seemed to prove God was on their side. Modern parallel: Communism after WWI.

And the idea that Big Mo was made up is as silly as the idea that St. Paul invented Jesus. There have been made-up founders of empires and dynasties -- China's an example -- but they're always safely in the prehistoric past AND there's a direct line of descent leading directly to the current man in charge. If the Caliphs all claimed to be descendants of Mr. M., that would be one thing. But since his actual family were still around, not in power, and continually intriguing against the Ummayad Caliphs, one wonders why they would have made up such a counterproductive story.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:34 AM (QZxDR)

72 "Always Complaining" is also a great song by The Skybombers.

Posted by: ID Gent at October 03, 2021 08:34 AM (FOwnc)

73 Started reading Buddenbrooks this week. Unlike Magic Mountain this is about something concrete, namely a family in decline, like a kraut Faulkner. It reads just fine except at times seems weirdly self conscious; maybe that's because it's his first full length book and he wasn't confident he could pull it off. Or maybe the translator was intimidated. Or maybe I'm flat out wrong.

Anyway early on you can see that the family is top heavy with shitheads, like the patriarch who disowns his son whose birth killed his beloved first wife. Rejecting your own flesh and blood for things not in his control is one of the few asshole things in life I can state I wouldn't do under any circumstance. But the characters are interestingly portrayed so I'll probably enjoy it

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 08:36 AM (y7DUB)

74 I'm not even sure there was an actual "Mohammed". At best, he was a small time preacher and mystic whose name was appropriated for regime building purposes by the new Arab state 150 years after the fact.

Posted by: Tom Servo at October 03, 2021 08:28 AM (evAgx)
---
There is no contemporaneous evidence, which is really amazing if you think about it. I mean, there is an entire genre of history books about having a meal with a conqueror. As soon as tribes start to rally and build conquests, some trader/adventurer will end up chatting with the Big Guy over dinner and writes it up.

Attila, Alaric, Saladin, Genghis - you name it, someone wrote an account of their sumptuous (or austere!) lodgings. Except for this one guy.

Popp largely agrees with you - there was an Arab revolt but it was lead by non-Trinitarian Christians who insisted in a solitary God, which is why their earliest coins hammer that point home. He also claims that "the Muhummad" is Jesus, because it's a common noun, not a proper name.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:38 AM (llXky)

75 I read this about 20 years ago, but am re-reading it now because it's such an excellent book. Written by Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra chronicles the last Tsar, Nicholas Romanov, and the end to the Romanov dynasty during the Russian Revolution of 1917. A fascinating, and harrowing, true account of the private family life of the Romanovs, their children and the devastating influence of Rasputin on Alexandra amidst the upheaval of one of the most explosive events in the 20th century, imo. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 08:38 AM (O+I8R)

76 25 I read the latest work of one of my favorite authors, Steven Pressfield. The work, A Man At Arms, is about a retired Roman legionnaire hired by the Romans in Jerusalem to stop a man and a girl carrying a letter from the apostle Paul to the Christians in Cornith, Greece. Many others are trying to stop the letter, and it's a cat and mouse game across the Sanai desert and into Egypt. During the journey the legionnaire, Telemon of Arcadia, has a conversion in his world view. Action packed and great character development.
Posted by: Zoltan at October 03, 2021 08:11 AM (av5VM)

Added to the TBR stack, thanks!

Posted by: Not From Around Here at October 03, 2021 08:38 AM (wrzAm)

77 Blowing Islam, especially by the Krauts, was called "Orientalism".

Posted by: andycanuck (UHVv4) at October 03, 2021 08:39 AM (UHVv4)

78 Started Virginia Postrel's Fabric of Civilization about textile trade. Couple of chapters in and liking it so far, but holding off on rec until done.

Posted by: Charlottr at October 03, 2021 08:39 AM (RNpWq)

79 I know it's a job, but can you imagine being the model for that "Always Complaining" cover?

I'm moving through "The Skylark of Space," and I've come across what I consider a flaw in Smith's writing -- his books read as if pages are missing. He mentions side characters in passing, with no explanation as to who they are. You have to use context to identify them.

I'm still in the buildup of the story, but I'm ready for them to take off into space.

I'm leavening this with early Lee/Kirby stories of Thor. The bad guy in the story I just read is from the 23rd century. He forces Thor to aid him in world conquest.

This is made easier for him because Earth is run by a World Council, who in turn take their orders from a computer! And this is portrayed as an utopia? No thank you!!

(The computer, with Thor's aid, defeats the bad guy.)

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 08:40 AM (Om/di)

80 29 I'm currently reading C.J. Cherryh's "Alliance Rising" and it's great to be back in the Union-Alliance universe. This story takes place before "Downbelow Station" and "Cyteen", if you're a fan of those novels (I am). The beauty of Cherryh's stories is how the average Spacer Joe is affected by the economic and socio-political upheavals.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 03, 2021 08:12 AM (XItSe)

Wait, new Cherryh? So little time, so many books!

Posted by: Not From Around Here at October 03, 2021 08:40 AM (wrzAm)

81 Leftists hate the ending of The Hunger Games because Katniss married and takes care of her children - she became a housewife! How dare she! They missed the part that's what she wanted all along but couldn't/wouldn't because her children would be at risk to play in the Hunger Games. With the Games gone she could have her family.

Posted by: hadsil at October 03, 2021 08:40 AM (55qP6)

82 Aha! Pixy doesn't like strings of asterisks, which I had used to break up topics.

Good to know.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 08:41 AM (Om/di)

83 Islam is sort of Communism with a God. It's less a religion, than a War Plan.

That's why asshat statements like GW that it's a "religion of peace" (after rearrangement of the NYC skyline, no less!) are so egregious.

Personally I'm not particularly Churchy but the superiority of the Judaeo-Christian West is obvious, and it isn't even close. Islam is completely incompatible with a free and open society: this explains why there is an uneasy alliance with leftists, I suppose. Anything to destroy the West.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 03, 2021 08:43 AM (hbjKv)

84 Thanks for the heads up on slow books OM. Christmas books from Dad/Grandpa are a tradition. I inherited my mothers collection of Macmillan pocket classics. My daughter has hinted that they would make a nice Christmas gift. She has a substantial portion of her grandmother's library as well as some of mine. Not sure I'm ready to part with the MPC's yet.

Posted by: Sock Monkey * recycled at October 03, 2021 08:44 AM (a2Y2Y)

85 I'm reading "The Two Worlds of Andrew Wyeth" which was published as part of a Wyeth exhibition at the Met in 1976. The two worlds, by the way, are Maine and Pennsylvania: how Wyeth perceives them in his life and his art.

The book is a conversation between Hoving of the museum and Wyeth. It covers his earliest attempts at drawing, how his father taught art, and how and why his style developed and changed over his career. There are many paintings and, even more interesting for me, pencil and pen sketches. The book isn't just a biography but deals with some of Wyeth's materials and techniques and how and why he uses them.

The twenty dollar used price for this book is looking like a bargain for anyone who enjoys Wyeth's art and how it developed.

Posted by: JTB at October 03, 2021 08:45 AM (wsAOu)

86 Globohomo Quakers is from Vox Day I think.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 03, 2021 08:45 AM (7bRMQ)

87 I'm going to disagree about Islam. The Arabs didn't revolt, they swooped into a power vacuum after the Byzantines and Persians had wrecked each other's empires. Islam was a unifying ideology for the Arabs, and their military success seemed to prove God was on their side. Modern parallel: Communism after WWI..

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:34 AM (QZxDR)
---
There's pretty convincing evidence that it was a revolt - the Arabs in question were Syrian and Babylonian, not desert wanderers. Byzantine control of Syria and Egypt was tottering due to religious disputes about the nature of Christ.

We also know that the succession of the Caliphs was disputed and records are fragmentary. It makes perfect sense for the eventual winner to retcon history to bolster their claim to the throne.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:46 AM (llXky)

88 There were several books of Boners--written by Dr. Seuss! Note the illustration on the book cover in that crazy style most of us love.

Posted by: Brett at October 03, 2021 08:47 AM (zxs2I)

89 Love that still life photo of the autumn book setting with the candle. Beautifully arranged and photographed.

Posted by: JTB at October 03, 2021 08:48 AM (7EjX1)

90 Nevertrump are a pack of throttlebottoms.

IYKWIM

Posted by: squid_hunt at October 03, 2021 08:49 AM (7MBHe)

91 The woodwork in the French library (and all that shelf space) makes me drool. What a gorgeous setting. Thanks, OM, for that scene and the weekly book thread. It is a highlight of my week.

Posted by: JTB at October 03, 2021 08:50 AM (7EjX1)

92 I think it's notable that Lefties love to go slumming in Latin American Marxist Utopias but stay the hell away from Iran.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:51 AM (QZxDR)

93 Always love the library photo on Sunday morning.

Posted by: squid_hunt at October 03, 2021 08:51 AM (7MBHe)

94 Action packed and great character development.

Posted by: Zoltan at October 03, 2021 08:11 AM (av5VM)

I was shocked by one of the deaths at the end.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 08:51 AM (YZG/i)

95 I was surprised to see there is an Inspector Lynley TV series. I'll have to check it out.
Posted by: grammie winger

Another inheritance from my mother. Well done and entertaining.

Posted by: Sock Monkey * recycled at October 03, 2021 08:52 AM (a2Y2Y)

96 Just to clarify, the trick wasn't to "make up" a founder per se, it was to piece together known dates and events and reinterpret them in accordance with the regime's needs. Again, lots of key tenets of Islam are completely absent for the first century of its existence.

For example, the early caliphs started minting their own coins, but had Christian symbols on them, including images of John the Baptist. Sympathetic historians try to spin this as an example of Islam's vaunted tolerance, but c'mon - what conqueror goes to the trouble of minting coins with his enemy's symbols on them? Other than trade, coinage is one of the oldest ways to assert authority and legitimacy.

Lots of problems with the accepted narrative.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:53 AM (llXky)

97 In all fairness, unlike conservatives in Americas, Iran recognizes the left to be the dire enemies they are.

Posted by: squid_hunt at October 03, 2021 08:53 AM (7MBHe)

98 On Baby Yar anniversary massacre, I re read book "Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel" by Anatoly Kuznetsov. I read Russian edition where all censored text by communist regime printed in different font(more than half of book). The author lived in Kiev during German occupation as kid and book has a lot first hand accounts.
English edition is available on Amazon but ther is not kindle edition and paperback is 26$

Posted by: redmonkey at October 03, 2021 08:54 AM (0+Ppk)

99 Lloyd: Undoubtedly some retconning did occur -- just look at how much of the Koran itself is based on what was reconstructed after Mo's death (= made up). But my point is that if Mo himself was a retcon, it would be a BETTER RETCON. What we have is a messy and realistic story of a guy who founded a religious movement which then passed into the hands of his ambitious followers. That's the official version!

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:54 AM (QZxDR)

100 Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 08:38 AM (O+I8R)

Being old and all I read Massie's book after watching the movie. I think Massie's first version came out in the 60s.

Did you see the movie with Dr Who as Rasputin? I liked it, IIRC

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 08:55 AM (ONvIw)

101 Since this week's "Increasing your word power" segment features a word coined for a performance, I'll share a new vocabulary word I learned this week: die Gretchenfrage is a colloquial German way to refer to "A direct question meant to reveal the thoughts and attitudes of the person questioned" (https://www.thelocal.de). It originated in Goethe's play Faust. I ran into it when skimming an article about the Green Party meeting with the Libertarians (FDP) over here in Germany to discuss forming a governing coalition with either the Social Democrats (SPD) or the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) [who are also 'Social' but not as much as SPD--aside from FDP all parties over here are to the left].

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at October 03, 2021 08:55 AM (eT12Z)

102 I saw Globohomo Quakers open for Butthole Surfers at the Stonewall Inn

Posted by: Freddie Mercury at October 03, 2021 08:56 AM (UGKMd)

103
Did you see the movie with Dr Who as Rasputin? I liked it, IIRC

--

I sure haven't, CN. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for it.

Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 08:56 AM (O+I8R)

104 62 Charles Dickens and his mistress?
Posted by: dantesed at October 03, 2021 08:28 AM (88xKn)

Family. I don't think anybody knew about his mistress and until years after he had passed.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (oxV/g)

105 As to the Christian symbology, I think it's pretty clear that Mo (like Hong Xiuquan in the 1850s) initially believed that his revelations were "the real Christianity" and so naturally the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch of Alexandria would instantly recognize his authority as the Prophet. That's presumably why early mosques had the qibla pointing at Jerusalem instead of Mecca.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (QZxDR)

106 Nevertrump are a pack of throttlebottoms.

IYKWIM

Posted by: squid_hunt at October 03, 2021 08:49 AM (7MBHe)

Probably throttleDbottoms too....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (7bRMQ)

107 Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:31 AM (45fpk)

With the handsome Nathaniel Parker, no less

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (ONvIw)

108 "Love that still life photo of the autumn book setting with the candle."

I wish the resolution was sharp enough that I could determine the title of the book, which is in Russian.

Posted by: Brett at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (zxs2I)

109 I grade papers while I read this thread...Just finished grading. Fortunately finished on a high note with a student who actually accomplished the assigned task...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 03, 2021 08:59 AM (K5n5d)

110 In addition to re-reading about Islam, I'm working my way through Lorenzo Scupoli's The Spiritual Combat. I'm going a chapter a day, and these are from 1 to 3 pages.

He has lots of good ideas about contemplation and self-discipline. A recurring theme is that one accept events with trust in God and if something bad happens, either you brought it on yourself, or you've been given this adversity as a gift to learn humility. He says we should embrace these "little crosses" and rejoice that in doing so, we are briefly raised next to Our Lord to share in His suffering.

Intense reading, which is why I only do a chapter a day.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:00 AM (llXky)

111 Reading book by Leah Garret "X Troop: The secret Jewish commandos of World War II".
Book is about Jewish refugee from occupied Europe, who fought Britain's most secretive special-forces unit. Very interesting book packed with facts and characters

Posted by: redmonkey at October 03, 2021 09:00 AM (0+Ppk)

112 The movies actually improved on The Hunger Games books. But, yes, the character wasn't a Mary Sue. In some ways she isn't likeable. That however makes her more relatable. Harrelson was an excellent choice for Haymich. He filled the role perfectly.

Finished reading The Naval War of 1812 by T. Roosevelt. It's not for the casual reader, but is well written and interesting. If it were written today, it would be a extremely long blog post tearing apart a British snob for bias.

Posted by: WiNO - You'll gasp when you read this post at October 03, 2021 09:01 AM (EpDzw)

113 yes kyle mills latest blows chunks, thats why I've moved on to parnell, and coes and carr

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:02 AM (hMlTh)

114 I'm sure some of you have read "The Power and the Glory" by Graham Greene. Books located in impoverished areas of the tropics, by Conrad and other good writers, have weirdly fragmented social structures with religious figures occupying roles at odds with what we think of as normal. Its hard to imagine the Heart of Darkness not playing an underlying not quite passive role in that.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:03 AM (y7DUB)

115 I ran into it when skimming an article about the Green Party meeting with the Libertarians (FDP) over here in Germany to discuss forming a governing coalition with either the Social Democrats (SPD) or the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) [who are also 'Social' but not as much as SPD--aside from FDP all parties over here are to the left].

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at October 03, 2021 08:55 AM (eT12Z)
---
IIRC, the FDP has a history of working with the CDU/CSU. I don't know how the vote went, but clearly those two aren't enough. How did the AfD do? Are they still being ostracized?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:04 AM (llXky)

116 I wish the resolution was sharp enough that I could determine the title of the book, which is in Russian.
Posted by: Brett at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (zxs2I)

The picture in the book looks vaguely like a cavalry battle.

Posted by: WiNO - Comment #3 will shock you at October 03, 2021 09:04 AM (EpDzw)

117
I sure haven't, CN. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for it.
Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 08:56 AM (O+I8R)

It was a big deal when it came out and I remember seeing in in the theater with friends. There was even a popular song based on the theme music, sung by Englebert Humperdink. Teenaged girls loved it.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:05 AM (ONvIw)

118 That description of "American Tabloid" has me interested.

I salute the authors of back-cover texts.

I wonder how many of those people are frustrated would-be novelists.

(What is the term for the parts of a cover that are wrapped around the hard cover? Inside flaps?)

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 09:05 AM (Om/di)

119 "threaten a shortage of certain titles"

And we know which titles these will be.

Posted by: Bonnie Blue no longer gives a shit at October 03, 2021 09:05 AM (hlxe7)

120 ted bell's alex hawke is closer to the spirit of bond, we were discussing earlier, for a while there was james swallows nomad series, but it's gone very prog hunting alt right bogeymen,

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:06 AM (hMlTh)

121 A book for our times;

"All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. "

Peter 1: 24-25

Posted by: Marcus T at October 03, 2021 09:06 AM (dRIqz)

122 Gotta run some errands. BBL

Posted by: JTB at October 03, 2021 09:06 AM (7EjX1)

123 Stay safe, JTB !

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 09:07 AM (arJlL)

124 As to the Christian symbology, I think it's pretty clear that Mo (like Hong Xiuquan in the 1850s) initially believed that his revelations were "the real Christianity" and so naturally the Byzantine Emperor and the Patriarch of Alexandria would instantly recognize his authority as the Prophet. That's presumably why early mosques had the qibla pointing at Jerusalem instead of Mecca.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 08:58 AM (QZxDR)
---
Don't forget that the "original" Korans were all burned by Imperial Decree. Only fragments survive and none are in the Middle East.

Oh, and it wasn't written in "classical Arabic" because the language didn't yet exist.

Also recall that Mecca has had all of its archeology completely obliterated - you know, the usual treatment you give to ancient holy places!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (llXky)

125
I saw a semi truck yesterday with the entire rear of the trailer as one big help wanted ad "make $2500 per week".

That's pretty good money. Of course you'll work 60 hours per week, and never see home again...
Posted by: GnuBreed

An acquaintance of my daughter, they went to nursing school together, recently quit his nursing job at Spokane's largest hospital because of Inslee's vaccine mandate. He is currently in the midst of training for his CDL.

Posted by: Sock Monkey * recycled at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (a2Y2Y)

126 121 A book for our times;

"All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever. "

Peter 1: 24-25
Posted by: Marcus T at October 03, 2021 09:06 AM (dRIqz)

Peter is quoting Isaiah 40:8!

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (PiwSw)

127 Well, here's something else we can thank Joe Biden and the pack of ignorant fools he has surrounded himself with: New books will be hard to come by for the rest of the year, due to their ill-conceived economic policies that completely messed with the supply chain. First toilet paper, then, lumber, and now books:

-
There's no 'conomy like Joeconomy like no 'conomy I know!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (d9FiS)

128 An acquaintance of my daughter, they went to nursing school together, recently quit his nursing job at Spokane's largest hospital because of Inslee's vaccine mandate. He is currently in the midst of training for his CDL.
Posted by: Sock Monkey * recycled at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (a2Y2Y)

Hospitals are pretty authoritarian these days, much less tolerance for differences of opinion. It's too bad

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:10 AM (ONvIw)

129 An acquaintance of my daughter, they went to nursing school together, recently quit his nursing job at Spokane's largest hospital because of Inslee's vaccine mandate. He is currently in the midst of training for his CDL.
Posted by: Sock Monkey * recycled at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (a2Y2Y)
===
And herein lies the story of the demise of our civilization.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at October 03, 2021 09:11 AM (EZebt)

130 (What is the term for the parts of a cover that are wrapped around the hard cover? Inside flaps?)
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 09:05 AM (Om/di)

Inside back or front flap of a dust jacket.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:11 AM (y7DUB)

131 "Peter is quoting Isaiah 40:8!
Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 03, 2021 09:08 AM (PiwSw)"

Amen.

Posted by: Marcus T at October 03, 2021 09:11 AM (dRIqz)

132 After 3 weeks of not being able to find a book that I wanted to read, I picked up Michael Chrichton's Pirate Latitudes .

I've mentioned before that some books grab you by the lapels and PULL you in.

Pirate Latitudes is such a book.

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 09:11 AM (arJlL)

133 BTW, I went back to read the content, after waking up very late today and missing the earlier thread entirely, and was surprised to see my comment about Hunger Games. Thanks, OM.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:12 AM (ONvIw)

134 Thanks, Captain. I couldn't remember.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 09:13 AM (Om/di)

135 I just picked up Hunger Games at my Little Free Library of Death yesterday.

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 09:13 AM (arJlL)

136 ellroy has a very dark view of American history, based on his own early life, I actually bought the cold 600, the sequel to american tabloid, which goes from dallas to around los angeles, the villain is one of the father of one of the characters who is an evil howard hughes type,

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:14 AM (hMlTh)

137 Do people loose control of their bladder while being tazed?

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 09:15 AM (iWKOD)

138 I've mentioned before that some books grab you by the lapels and PULL you in.

Pirate Latitudes is such a book.
Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 09:11 AM (arJlL)

Chrichton had a very engaging writing style that keeps the reader wanting to find out what happens next.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:15 AM (y7DUB)

139 After I finish the Shelley bio, I'm going to read some of her father's work. Her parents' fiction and non-fiction had a profound effect on her, her husband, and her friends. Godwin messed up his reputation, and that of his wife, after her death by telling too much about their personal lives. Seems Mary Wollstonecraft lived a rather scandalous life prior to her marriage to Godwin, and he was too candid for the times.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:16 AM (ONvIw)

140 @95

If you like the Lynley books from Elizabeth George, though, don't expect the series to match them exactly. For example, Havers is attractive (!) and there is sexual tension between herself and Lynley.

But if you aren't expecting the book plots, the TV series is good.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:17 AM (AwPyG)

141 I just finished "The Monkey Wrench Gang". The only reason I picked it up is that it is set in AZ desert, in part. That I use to hunt as a youth. It is said to be the inspiration for the Eco-Terrorist that are about. It was enjoyable, in that he captured the personalities of the Gaia Worshipers. I have no intention of picking up the rest of the series of books. On account I wanted to punch the character in the face. I did find the origin of a couple of my mentors sayings of my youth. "Never eat at a place called Mom's, Never play cards with a man called Doc. And never lie down with a woman that has more problems than you."

Posted by: Paladin at October 03, 2021 09:17 AM (VZ2Ga)

142 Other book I've been reading lately is Chernow's bio of George Washington. Now there's a founder with a well-documented life. At one point Chernow mentions that because of 200 years of obsessive collecting of every damned piece of paper mentioning GW we probably know more about him than his contemporaries did. Especially since he was a very private man who didn't like to confide in anyone.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 09:18 AM (QZxDR)

143 Twould not surprise me. Tazed and Incontinent. I think Led Zeppelin had a tune about that.

I've thought about a CDL. I don't want to do long haul 18 wheeler, no way Jose, but short runs in a panel truck, should be able to make some good spendin' money.

It's a crime what they did to Trucking. I hope all those fuckers starve on their Arugula and get raped by roving bands of savages.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 03, 2021 09:18 AM (hbjKv)

144 Racism! Racism everywhere you look and in every book!

Women's March
@womensmarch
Handmaid's Tale imagery has proliferated, primarily by white women, in recent years. This message erases the fact that Black, undocumented, incarcerated, poor, & disabled women have always had their reproduction controlled in America. It's not some dystopian future or past.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (d9FiS)

145 Currently reading Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti mysteries. I think, for many years, the older novels were not available on Kindle so I put off reading them. Now that they are I've made a good start. Currently on the sixth of 30. The only thing which would make them better is a detailed map of Venice and surrounding cities

Posted by: Tuna at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (gLRfa)

146 Particular details from Ellroy's Underworld trilogy aren't true, of course. It's a novel. But the overall idea that adjuncts of Hoover's FBI worked with the mob to bring America the 1960s is broadly true. Very interesting treatment of events leading to 1968 election in the second volume. The DNC and its FBI adjuncts ran an op against Trump in 2020 that looked a lot like an op the mob and its FBI adjuncts feared MLK and RFK would run ahead of the 1968 election.

Posted by: occam's brassiere at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (V8JPv)

147 I'll point out that if you are buying self-published books, there is no delay at all because they are always print-on demand from the closest Amazon facility that does it.

And if you are reading ebooks, of course, there is no delay at all.

Not sure why NY publishers are shipping their books on container ships, but maybe. The whole article is amusing to me because NY publishes about 5% of the physical books people buy.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (AwPyG)

148 >>> 144 Racism! Racism everywhere you look and in every book!

Women's March
@womensmarch
Handmaid's Tale imagery has proliferated, primarily by white women, in recent years. This message erases the fact that Black, undocumented, incarcerated, poor, & disabled women have always had their reproduction controlled in America. It's not some dystopian future or past.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (d9FiS)

Margaret Sanger laughs.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at October 03, 2021 09:21 AM (ACi07)

149
Lots of problems with the accepted narrative.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

View Islam from the perspective of being a political system as opposed to a religion and the the narrative gains continuity. The " will of Allah" is merely the lever of control for the unwashed. That perspective makes the inconsistencies of the Koran more obvious.

Posted by: Sock Monkey * recycled at October 03, 2021 09:21 AM (a2Y2Y)

150 Another writer whose bio I'd love to read is Ford Madox Ford. Any suggestions?

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:21 AM (ONvIw)

151 Not sure why NY publishers are shipping their books on container ships, but maybe. The whole article is amusing to me because NY publishes about 5% of the physical books people buy.
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (AwPyG)

They are printed in China.

Posted by: Barr Durham at October 03, 2021 09:22 AM (2yjji)

152 137 Do people loose control of their bladder while being tazed?
Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 09:15 AM (iWKOD)

Not that I have heard, but I suppose it's possible.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 09:22 AM (oxV/g)

153 If anyone's looking for good British detective TV, I'll recommend Prime Suspect, with a young Helen Mirren as Jane Tennyson of Scotland Yard. Really first-rate.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:23 AM (AwPyG)

154
They are printed in China.
Posted by: Barr Durham at October 03, 2021 09:22 AM (2yjji)

Yep, we've outsourced everything possible courtesy of richie rich and the government he bought.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:23 AM (ONvIw)

155 I've been watching the TV series Turn, about Washington's spies. It's mostly really good. To make it less an historical re-enactment, it invents some characters to include some domestic soap opera conflicts of Tories v Patriots. This is I believe a divergence from the source, which is a book called Washington's Spies.

They get the character of George Washington quite right. Truly a remarkable man.

To think we now have Joe Biden as POTUS. Benedict Arnold at least had some talent.

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 09:24 AM (ZHVt1)

156 Steve Colbert had a very scientific dissertation on the vaccine. I'd link to it, but nah.

Posted by: Jimco Industries at October 03, 2021 09:24 AM (buTO7)

157 At one point Chernow mentions that because of 200 years of obsessive collecting of every damned piece of paper mentioning GW we probably know more about him than his contemporaries did. Especially since he was a very private man who didn't like to confide in anyone.
Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 09:18 AM (QZxDR)

We've gone from modest leaders who reluctantly filled a vacuum to human garbage who won't STFU about themselves and their dysfunctional existence.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:24 AM (y7DUB)

158 Thanks for the recommendation for Dorothy Grant's Blood, Oil, and Love last week. Really enjoying the aviation-spiced mil-sf.

Posted by: sinmi at October 03, 2021 09:25 AM (A5IVt)

159 Bill Cosby (scum but funny) on seeing a car coming toward you:

"First you say it, then you do it."

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 09:25 AM (Om/di)

160 @145

Donna Leon is another author who can't help letting her lefty views filter in the books, I think. She's European, though, so maybe that's a given

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:25 AM (AwPyG)

161 Not sure why NY publishers are shipping their books on container ships, but maybe. The whole article is amusing to me because NY publishes about 5% of the physical books people buy.
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (AwPyG)

The article mentions that many books are printed in China. So container ships.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 09:26 AM (oxV/g)

162 Welp, our younger cat has definitely leveled up. Killed another mouse last night, which I just discovered. That's two this week. We usually get them coming in when the weather changes, so if this keeps up, I won't need to buy traps any more.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:26 AM (llXky)

163 We've gone from modest leaders who reluctantly filled a vacuum to human garbage who won't STFU about themselves and their dysfunctional existence.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:24 AM (y7DUB)

And yet we keep voting them into office.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 09:27 AM (oxV/g)

164 22 3 Yes, Charles and his daughters
Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 08:09 AM (ONvIw)
-
What? No Dickensons?

Posted by: Biden's Dog at October 03, 2021 09:27 AM (ajZKe)

165 @161

And isn't it fitting, that the NY publishers are using China to print, if that's the case.

Meanwhile, the dreaded Amazon is now offering a hardcover option, if anyone's interested. You order a book on prime, and its at your doorstop in two days.

So yeah, the article is very amusing. It's for the people in the lefty bubble.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:28 AM (AwPyG)

166 allen dulles is one of the less explored members of the deep state bestiary, his flubbing the whole lenin episode, then his dealings with German industry, his whitewashing of some of the worse war criminals then we come to hungary and the disposal at giron beach, of course his underlings bissell and cabell were mueller's inlaws

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:29 AM (hMlTh)

167 The dickens!

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:29 AM (AwPyG)

168 I read this about 20 years ago, but am re-reading it now because it's such an excellent book. Written by Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra chronicles the last Tsar, Nicholas Romanov, and the end to the Romanov dynasty during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Yes, indeed, a fine book! I should re-read it this winter. It's what makes me reluctant to believe in conspiracies today. Many people credit our enemies with infernal planning and plotting, attributing our ongoing downfall to some brilliant scheme that's going according to someone's plan. But Nicholas and Alexandra shows that sometimes people can just do everything wrong. There were so many places early on where they had to choose whom to trust and what to do, and they just made the wrong choice every single time. It's like plane crashes - it's almost never just one mistake that brings a plane down, it's a series of mistakes building on and magnifying each other.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 09:29 AM (Y8Re1)

169 Another writer whose bio I'd love to read is Ford Madox Ford. Any suggestions?

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:21 AM (ONvIw)
---
Did he write an autobiography? It's interesting how he was a major literary figure and then disappeared. The only book of his still reliably in print is The Good Soldier.

Finding a good copy of Parade's End was not easy.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:29 AM (llXky)

170 What? No Dickensons?
Posted by: Biden's Dog at October 03, 2021 09:27 AM (ajZKe)

He had quite a few kids and at least 6 sons, IIRC.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:29 AM (ONvIw)

171 Do people loose control of their bladder while being tazed?
Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 09:15 AM (iWKOD)
-
Try it. Urine for a surprise!

Posted by: Biden's Dog at October 03, 2021 09:30 AM (ajZKe)

172 162 good kitty!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 09:31 AM (YZG/i)

173 Meanwhile, the dreaded Amazon is now offering a hardcover option, if anyone's interested. You order a book on prime, and its at your doorstop in two days.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:28 AM (AwPyG)
---
I saw that and immediately thought of doing a hardcover version of Long Live Death. I figure I could add some more maps - maybe operational ones - to gin up interest.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:31 AM (llXky)

174 I saw a semi truck yesterday with the entire rear of the trailer as one big help wanted ad "make $2500 per week".

That's pretty good money. Of course you'll work 60 hours per week, and never see home again...
Posted by: GnuBreed

DoT regs back when I drove were you could work 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days. I don't think that's changed much. Those hours included loading/unloading and a daily truck inspection. The longest I was ever out from home was 5 months.

Posted by: Old Blue at October 03, 2021 09:31 AM (VNmG1)

175 They are printed in China.

For a few extra yuan, you can get the collector's editions printed on Uighur skin

Posted by: cool breeze at October 03, 2021 09:32 AM (UGKMd)

176 "Chrichton had a very engaging writing style that keeps the reader wanting to find out what happens next."

While at Harvard, Chrichton wanted to major in English/Writing but ran into a professor who kept giving him bad grades for his writing. So he submitted a George Orwell essay as his own.

He got a B-, and then he switched majors.

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 09:32 AM (ZHVt1)

177 @168

Like Louis the XVI. Bad decision after bad decision.

But to be fair, you probably had no idea how bad things could get, until it was brought home with the crash of a guillotine.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:32 AM (AwPyG)

178 Good Sunday morning, horde!

You know, the funny thing about those pants is that a certain kind of dapper fellow could pull off the look (thinking of the poster guy on Antiques Roadshow). But only if he left off that weird denim skirt. And trimmed about a foot off of the mustache.

Posted by: April -- dash my lace wigs! at October 03, 2021 09:32 AM (OX9vb)

179 @166...that indictment of Dulles doesn't even include Bay of Pigs. Impressive. Didn't know that about Mueller. Has explanatory value, and is also kind of sad. Mueller's laughable "report" may have been the last, pathetic gasp of a once powerful and capable elite whose time has long since passed.

Posted by: occam's brassiere at October 03, 2021 09:33 AM (V8JPv)

180 Havers is attractive (!) and there is sexual tension between herself and Lynley.

Oh how awful.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 09:33 AM (45fpk)

181 Women's March
@womensmarch
Handmaid's Tale imagery has proliferated, primarily by white women, in recent years. This message erases the fact that Black, undocumented, incarcerated, poor, & disabled women have always had their reproduction controlled in America. It's not some dystopian future or past.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (d9FiS)

===
Let me guess. They've dispensed with "My Body, My Choice" but they have adopted the Muzzle.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at October 03, 2021 09:33 AM (EZebt)

182 I'm ashamed to say I haven't read any of the content. By the time I do the thread will be dead. If any moronettes/morons want to have their minds blown, the book is "Hamlet's Mill". I keep trying to describe it before typing, but I can't. If you have any interest in old things, mythology, ancient thought, etc. this book is really the shit.

Posted by: Plum Duff at October 03, 2021 09:33 AM (5IGYY)

183 Re Louise Penny--we used to listen to the Inspector Gamache series on audio-book, but they quickly became tiresome retreads, with the usual leftist globohomo slant on everything. Ugh...

Posted by: FriscoYoda at October 03, 2021 09:34 AM (+56GQ)

184 trying to post from my usual spot.
Got banned last night from the ONT while using a vpn.
test

Posted by: Winston, GOPe, not one dime, not one vote at October 03, 2021 09:34 AM (FtJ1S)

185 Do people loose control of their bladder while being tazed?
Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 09:15 AM (iWKOD)

Couldn't that lead to electrocution? The death of Jean-Paul Belmondo a few weeks ago reminded me of the one movie of his I've seen: 'Les Morfalous', about a WWII gold heist in Northern Africa while trying to elude Rommel's troops. At one point the French bank manager takes a pee in a ditch where the French and German combat has left a large live wire lying exposed. The electricity surges up the... stream... and kills him dead. His sexy wife deadpans that that was the first time his dick ever showed a spark of life.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 09:35 AM (Y8Re1)

186 David Ross Locke?

Posted by: Kindltot at October 03, 2021 09:35 AM (KbLYZ)

187 Looks like this passed.

Posted by: Winston, GOPe, not one dime, not one vote at October 03, 2021 09:35 AM (FtJ1S)

188 @173

I think the main selling point is for libraries and institutions, since hardcovers will last longer.

Doesn't help the author much, since the printing cost will bite into any royalties--and the royalties are tiny, for libraries and institutions, in the first place.

But it's experimental, so we'll see

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:35 AM (AwPyG)

189 Finding a good copy of Parade's End was not easy.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:29 AM (llXky

I recall reading that he bemoaned his "failure" relative to his friends' careers and fame. I don't think he wrote an autobiography, so I'm looking for a decent one.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:35 AM (ONvIw)

190 "Donna Leon is another author who can't help letting her lefty views filter in the books, I think. She's European, though, so maybe that's a given"

Actually she's American though she's lived in Europe a very long time. Probably had a left leaning viewpoint before she left the States.

Posted by: Tuna at October 03, 2021 09:36 AM (gLRfa)

191 Good morning, OM, good morning, Horde,

Litteruhsee, its gud four ewe and gud fore mee.

Posted by: callsign claymore at October 03, 2021 09:36 AM (tBHYN)

192 Re: Hospitals. Nurses at our local receive a $3000 bonus for any referrals they make - even for food service workers or janitorial services. They are stacked up and double-rooming.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 09:37 AM (45fpk)

193 @181

what's grimly funny is that the Handmaid's tale author admits that she based the premise on how Islam treats women, but didn't dare say it out loud.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:37 AM (AwPyG)

194 It doesn't really count as 'reading' but during work this week I listened to an old pulp story starring The Shadow. "Double Z" as read by Youtube's Razorfist. Gotta admit, the story was fun! However, reading/listening to one of these old serials in can be funny at times, like when the hero is dramatically re-introduced every couple chapters. Doing that makes sense when the story is serialized, and the hero gets one introduction per installment. But when when read/listened to in one sitting, the third and fourth re-introduction can become a little eye-rolling.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 03, 2021 09:39 AM (Lhaco)

195 This week I decided to go through the many, many kindle freebies I've accumulated over the last few years, and just pick something. I settled on Dead Game, by Gerald Hammond. Set in Scotland in the late 70s, this is the first in the Keith Calder series. Calder is a gunsmith, poacher, and womanizer. The brother of one of his girlfriends is arrested for murder, and she asks Calder to investigate. Gun nerds will love it.

Posted by: DIY Daddio at October 03, 2021 09:39 AM (RJscS)

196 I liked Ellroy's White Jazz. It's hard boiled as a bowling ball. Rumor has it that when he turned his manuscript into his publisher he was told it was too long and he needed to shorten it meaning to eliminate numerous subplots. Instead he removed adverbs and adjectives leaving a very spare, first person, often present tense, stream of consciousness noir. It's about an LA cop who moonlights as a hitman for the mob. That's all well and good until he investigates a particularly brutal burglary at one of the Department's pet gangster/informant's residence.

Ellroy has a show on Discovery +. He is one creepy dude.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 09:39 AM (d9FiS)

197 @180

Just don't expect the books, and you'll enjoy the TV series.
The man who plays lynley is dreamy.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:39 AM (AwPyG)

198 Here's a short essay, complete with illustrations, of the whole Batman "boner" cartoon strip series: https://screenrant.com/joker-boner-comic-meme/

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 09:40 AM (Y8Re1)

199 Tasing goes bad when

(1) the two barbs hit close to your heart, which can throw off your natural heartbeat and kill you. Rare but it happens

(2) your blood ph is off because you're high on cocaine. This can kill you and it's not uncommon

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 09:41 AM (ZHVt1)

200 100 Days of Dante is great! Also checking in with guyraffa.com. Strongly recommended! The translation given on the 100 Days website is very readable; but for fun I am parallel reading with the Harvard Classics 2020 version that I got for cheap on Kindle.

Posted by: sinmi at October 03, 2021 09:41 AM (A5IVt)

201 @191

Did you ever see "The Story of English" which was a mini series that discussed how the English language developed.

They had to use captions for some of the Scotsmen and Yorkshiremen.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:42 AM (AwPyG)

202 I recall reading that he bemoaned his "failure" relative to his friends' careers and fame. I don't think he wrote an autobiography, so I'm looking for a decent one.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 09:35 AM (ONvIw)
---
My copy of The Good Soldier is packed with praise for him and has a bunch of authors of the time (It's a 50s printing) blurbing about how good the book is.

I think he was overshadowed in his old age by the people he mentored but after he died got some good press for a while. My father had heard of him growing up, he was represented in writing classes and such, but that was it.

Part of his problem is that his subject matter and writing style is a bit dated. Unlike Waugh, he totally omitted any serious discussion of faith, instead throwing some jabs at Catholicism and leaving it at that. His books also seem devoid of any real moral message, and that limits their applicability for modern readers.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:43 AM (llXky)

203 Good morning readers. I always feel sorry for the poor person who has to dust these libraries.
Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 08:06 AM (45fpk)

I think it is like Roadhouse steak house, they use leafblowers now

Posted by: Kindltot at October 03, 2021 09:43 AM (KbLYZ)

204 Hamlet's Mill is indeed extraordinary. It may be utter bullshit, it may be correct, but it's fascinating.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 09:43 AM (QZxDR)

205 one thing about Wareham's Kindle offerings that irritates me: a series which has most of the books as KU, but one or two to purchase.

i don't object too much to the series where the first one is KU and the remaining ones are for purchase. Teasers are IMO a legitimate marketing tool and I can choose to ignore them. But #1 KU, #2 for purchase, #3 KU, #4 KU? Leaves me wondering ... should i invest the time in #1?

Posted by: yara at October 03, 2021 09:44 AM (N7mou)

206 "throttlebottom"--a definition of shart control.

Posted by: irongrampa at October 03, 2021 09:44 AM (KATBx)

207 The Russian Revolution was such an oncoming freight train, with underlying pressures begun when the French Revolution scared Potemkin's cock out of Catherine the Great's planned liberalizing, that even a stronger Czar than Nickie would have been helpless.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:45 AM (y7DUB)

208 It was the Dulles brothers, actually. Allen and ... the other guy. One was Secretary of State, the other CIA iirc, and I may not.

The spooks are hard to figure, if they were "good guys" or not, or whether they got rick rolled, turned, or were super secret squirrel reverse triple agents.

Then they discovered L.S.D. The situation was not, shall we say, improved.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 03, 2021 09:45 AM (hbjKv)

209 "I think it is like Roadhouse steak house, they use leafblowers now"

Is that the chain where you can drop your peanut shells on the floor? If so, I understand the leaf blowers. LOL

Posted by: Tuna at October 03, 2021 09:45 AM (gLRfa)

210 Popp largely agrees with you - there was an Arab revolt but it was lead by non-Trinitarian Christians who insisted in a solitary God, which is why their earliest coins hammer that point home. He also claims that "the Muhummad" is Jesus, because it's a common noun, not a proper name.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 08:38 AM (llXky)

Welp. There you go.

I'm gonna be the next Dan Brown. I'll write a thriller in which the stunning final reveal is that Jesus Christ was actually mohammed. Hollywood movies here I come.

Ka-ching!!!

Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021 09:46 AM (5NkmN)

211 I refuse to go to hospital. People die there everyday.

Posted by: JAS, AoSHQ addict at October 03, 2021 09:46 AM (xopIz)

212 Giron Beach, like Normandy as shorthand, I had a relative, who was the battalion commander, the real cutthroats like bandera, were given sanctuary in munich, he did lead an opposition that fought the soviets, for four years, smersh iced him in 57, the hitter then defected to South Africa,

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:46 AM (hMlTh)

213 171 Do people loose control of their bladder while being tazed?
Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 09:15 AM (iWKOD)
-
Try it. Urine for a surprise!
Posted by: Biden's Dog at October 03, 2021 09:30 AM (ajZKe)

I present the immortal Drunk Louisiana Man and his Riding Lawnmower clip.

https://tinyurl.com/2vvbwk67

"I think I crapped my pants! Jesus Christ, don't do that again!"

Posted by: Tom Servo at October 03, 2021 09:47 AM (evAgx)

214 Did you ever see "The Story of English" which was a mini series that discussed how the English language developed.

They had to use captions for some of the Scotsmen and Yorkshiremen.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:42 AM (AwPyG)
---
I have the companion volume, which has lots of amusing examples. Watched it during AP English in high school and our class adopted the line "Let's take a hypothetical Anglo-Saxon and call him Rapp" as a catch phrase.

I subsequently named my silver Trumpet "Rapp" so I could explain it's named after a hypothetical Anglo-Saxon.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:47 AM (llXky)

215 I'm still reading Christopher Lasch's book "American Liberals and the Russian Revolution." Guess what? The libs got it all wrong. And the NY Times was a conservative newspaper 100 years ago.

"Fake news" is nothing new. The libs wanted so badly to believe that the Commies would become moderate after they had to deal with the realities of ruling the mess that was Russia that they convinced themselves that it was happening. And the American radicals were already completely indifferent to the fact that a revolution of "the people" tuned out to be tyrannical. The Commies were getting rid of "class enemies," after all.

Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 09:49 AM (HabA/)

216 > What bugs me about this is the word 'harmless'. Both Congress and the executive branch are filled with incompetents, but unfortunately, none of them could be called harmless.

If you think those guys are bad, imagine the trouble COMPETENT politicians can cause.

Posted by: ArthurK at October 03, 2021 09:50 AM (lJ0uc)

217 Let's not forget that Nixon was taken out by the #2 at the FBI, out of personal pique over not succeeding Hoover as #1, and to protect the prerogatives of the FBI from outside interference.

Deep Throat Mark Felt used Woodward/Bernstein to cover his tracks. And Media swears this is the greatest piece of journalism ever.

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 09:50 AM (ZHVt1)

218 Greetings:

Islamo-curious, author Robert Spencer is a good guy to start with. Fouad Ajami (PBUH) also influenced me significantly.

"Islam is the globalization of Arab tribal culture under a thin veneer of religion" according to me.

Posted by: 11B40 at October 03, 2021 09:50 AM (uuklp)

219 192 Re: Hospitals. Nurses at our local receive a $3000 bonus for any referrals they make - even for food service workers or janitorial services. They are stacked up and double-rooming.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 09:37 AM (45fpk)

Be nice if hospitals stopped firing nurses for refusing the vaccine. Might help to alleviate their labor shortage. Just a thought.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 09:50 AM (oxV/g)

220 yes the luces among others tried lsd, some did not have bad trips but others did, olsen was probably murdered, his nephew paul vidich, just tells many of the same stories, that they told graham greene and lincoln kirkpatrick,

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:51 AM (hMlTh)

221 A shortage of books - and bacon prices through the roof.

Why there aren't people marching on DC already, I don't know.

Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 09:51 AM (HabA/)

222
Did you ever see "The Story of English" which was a mini series that discussed how the English language developed.

They had to use captions for some of the Scotsmen and Yorkshiremen.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:42 AM

I had to use the captions when I watched The Boondock Saints

Posted by: AltonJackson at October 03, 2021 09:51 AM (DUIap)

223 75 I read this about 20 years ago, but am re-reading it now because it's such an excellent book. Written by Robert Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra chronicles the last Tsar, Nicholas Romanov, and the end to the Romanov dynasty during the Russian Revolution of 1917. A fascinating, and harrowing, true account of the private family life of the Romanovs, their children and the devastating influence of Rasputin on Alexandra amidst the upheaval of one of the most explosive events in the 20th century, imo. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 08:38 AM (O+I8R)

I read it in highschool, and it sparked an deep interest in all things Russian that abides till this day.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 09:52 AM (BgMrQ)

224 Islamo-curious, author Robert Spencer is a good guy to start with. Fouad Ajami (PBUH) also influenced me significantly.

"Islam is the globalization of Arab tribal culture under a thin veneer of religion" according to me.

Posted by: 11B40 at October 03, 2021 09:50 AM (uuklp)
---
I have his The Truth About Mohammed, but I guess he has another one questioning Mohammed's existance, so does he want to walk abut the earlier one? It's all so confusing.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:52 AM (llXky)

225 Greetings:

Murmansk is beautiful this time of year.

Posted by: 11B40 at October 03, 2021 09:53 AM (uuklp)

226 I have the companion volume, which has lots of amusing examples. Watched it during AP English in high school and our class adopted the line "Let's take a hypothetical Anglo-Saxon and call him Rapp" as a catch phrase.

I subsequently named my silver Trumpet "Rapp" so I could explain it's named after a hypothetical Anglo-Saxon.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:47 AM (llXky)

Not seeing the humor here.

Posted by: Mitch Rapp at October 03, 2021 09:53 AM (oxV/g)

227 @218...yep, Islam is a vehicle for Arab chauvanism. Ajami is very good on this.

Posted by: occam's brassiere at October 03, 2021 09:53 AM (V8JPv)

228 Been looking forward to Dennis Prager Deuteronomy and it long ago was supposed to be out weeks ago but looks like next week, some mention on seller it was delayed. Ebook was out months ago but I want a hard back copy.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 09:53 AM (2JoB8)

229 So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics?: A Text on Elementary Mathematical Economics by Lyndon LaRouche (Author)

What a total 9-yards of horseshit. The idea that a numeric value can be placed on an item (or a market of items) and then that value is realized and recognized by everyone, everywhere, at the same fucking time. Posted by: rhennigantx at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (yrol0)

It is a neo-classical economics conceit that consumer satisfaction can be assigned an objective value to explain the laws of supply and demand.

It is horseshit, and it is an attempt to justify central control of the economy.

Full marks, Rhennig.

Posted by: Kindltot - Being condescending on purpose at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (KbLYZ)

230 Reading American Caesar. I don't much care for the author, but he does tell an interesting story. I'm not a big fan of MacArthur, but the man was a force to be reckoned with. He believed in the motto Duty, Honor, Country with every fiber of his being and he hated communists and pacifists. If he could rise from the grave, I believe he would skin Vanilli Milly alive with his riding crop for what he's done to Mac's beloved Army.

Posted by: Old Blue at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (VNmG1)

231 yes Mark felt ran the breakins, the agents into the left units, but it was that systematic and centralized records at media pennsylvania, that doomed him, almost sent him to prison,

this is why there are two contemporanous tales, latham's flowers for mother, and marchetti's the rope dancers, that were most accurate about that agem

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (hMlTh)

232 Greetings:

Throckmorton > Throttlebottom

Posted by: 11B40 at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (uuklp)

233 @185 --

A Destroyer book used that situation. "Missing Link."

It focused on the disappearance of the president's brother-in-law.

If you're thinking "Billy Carter," collect your winnings.

(I loved the Destroyer. Bought them all until I suddenly quit. Comics took priority.)

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 09:55 AM (Om/di)

234 The new Does Mo Exist from Robert Spencer is a update and does state it is.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 09:55 AM (2JoB8)

235 I had to use the captions when I watched The Boondock Saints
Posted by: AltonJackson at October 03, 2021 09:51 AM (DUIap)

I use subtitles for *all* movies and TV shows. I can't hear worth a toot any more.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 09:55 AM (oxV/g)

236 Thanks for the heads up on Hamlet's Mill. Why have I previously heard nothing about this compared to, say, God�l, Escher, Bach, which somehow resists all my efforts to enjoy?

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 09:56 AM (y7DUB)

237 I really don't think the pants guy owns a weedwhacker (if you catch my drift)

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 08:05 AM (arJlL)

What he really needs is a chipper, and stick his frigging head in it.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at October 03, 2021 09:56 AM (VwHCD)

238 . . . I have a copy of Why Cats Paint. It is pre photoshop and is a testament to layering images and laserpointers.
And it is moderately entertaining.

Posted by: Kindltot - Being condescending on purpose at October 03, 2021 09:58 AM (KbLYZ)

239 Morning Hordemates and book buddies.
I"m now on my second of the Shirlock Holmes seires by Charles Veley. I continue to be impressed with the writing and the story lines. Fun reading.

Posted by: Diogenes at October 03, 2021 09:59 AM (axyOa)

240 Not seeing the humor here.
Posted by: Mitch Rapp at October 03, 2021 09:53 AM (oxV/g)

Me neither.

Posted by: H. Rap Brown at October 03, 2021 10:01 AM (5NkmN)

241 The Womens March also banned coat hanger visuals along with The Handmaids crap.

Posted by: Tinfoilbaby at October 03, 2021 10:01 AM (Kd5Vh)

242 I think satan or some lesser demon wrote gott escher bach, I think I've tried five times to crack that thing, feel like the younger skarsgaard in green lantern afterwards,

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 10:01 AM (hMlTh)

243 I read it in highschool, and it sparked an deep interest in all things Russian that abides till this day.
Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 09:52 AM (BgMrQ)

--

Same here, browndog. I'm fascinated by Russia's history. If you haven't done so already, you must read 'Midnight in Chernobyl.' It is incredible.

Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 10:02 AM (O+I8R)

244 Cats can paint, work security, work hospice, but they can. Not. Drive.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at October 03, 2021 10:03 AM (EZebt)

245 @239

I think Veley writes with his daughter, and my hat's off to him. I don't think I could collaborate with any of my kids without wanting to spank them.

And on that note, Charlotte Todd, who collaborated with her son on the Charles Todd books, has passed away.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:03 AM (AwPyG)

246 Mentioned last week Islam turns every convert into a Arab

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:03 AM (2JoB8)

247 And on that note, Charlotte Todd, who collaborated with her son on the Charles Todd books, has passed away.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:03 AM (AwPyG)

I'm sorry to hear that.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 10:04 AM (45fpk)

248 Be nice if hospitals stopped firing nurses for refusing the vaccine. Might help to alleviate their labor shortage. Just a thought.

Posted by: OregonMuse
-----------------------

During my recent hospital stay my nurse said they are experiencing shortage too. Hospital has no mandate. 1.5 floors closed due to shortage of nurses.

She said they're leaving for contract nursing jobs. 2-4 times higher than their regular pay.

Posted by: olddog in mo, Pontoon Captain* (like a real captain, only drunker) at October 03, 2021 10:04 AM (ju2Fy)

249 Let's go Brandon!

Posted by: Pete in Texas at October 03, 2021 10:04 AM (2RBkF)

250 How can I have Mohammad when I haven't had no Hamad to begin with?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 10:04 AM (d9FiS)

251 "Mommy Drinks Because You're Bad"
from the Motivated By Guilt series...

Posted by: Oliver Klosov at October 03, 2021 10:04 AM (jYQlA)

252 Browndog, have you read Red Famine? She does a decent job exposing how Stalin caused the Holodomor.

Posted by: Old Blue at October 03, 2021 10:05 AM (VNmG1)

253 Same here, browndog. I'm fascinated by Russia's history. If you haven't done so already, you must read 'Midnight in Chernobyl.' It is incredible.
Posted by: Lady in Black at October 03, 2021 10:02 AM (O+I8R)

Thank you for the recommendation.

Chernobyl is another topic that piques my interest without fail.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:05 AM (BgMrQ)

254 @244 --

What about Toonces?

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 10:06 AM (Om/di)

255 Often lamented had the idea I should learn Russian as a older teenager and didn't, kick myself a lot over that.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:06 AM (2JoB8)

256 She said they're leaving for contract nursing jobs. 2-4 times higher than their regular pay.

Posted by: olddog in mo, Pontoon Captain* (like a real captain, only drunker) at October 03, 2021 10:04 AM (ju2Fy)

Yes, they are paying traveling nurses insane amounts of money.

Posted by: grammie winger at October 03, 2021 10:06 AM (45fpk)

257 252 Browndog, have you read Red Famine? She does a decent job exposing how Stalin caused the Holodomor.
Posted by: Old Blue at October 03, 2021 10:05 AM (VNmG1)

One more for the list...

Thanks!

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:07 AM (BgMrQ)

258 What about Toonces?

A marvelous driver.

Posted by: Baracky O'Cracky at October 03, 2021 10:07 AM (Xrfse)

259 I am currently reading Elmore Leonard's The Bounty Hunters, copyright 1953 and renewed 1973 with an addition form a 1959 short story. So far, so ver good. It's got a great introduction of the characters and a dishonorable, corrupt military leader who I hope gets his comeuppance.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at October 03, 2021 10:07 AM (/+bwe)

260 V.S. Naipaul's book _Among the Believers_ also goes into Islam as Arab imperialism. He's got a good passage about how South Asian Muslims, surrounded by all the tropical fruits of India, nevertheless say that dates are the most delicious thing ever, because that's what the Koran says.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 10:07 AM (QZxDR)

261 yes John Reed got the whole kornilov story wrong, and most everything else, he was eighteen credits, (brian williams ht captain hate)

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 10:08 AM (hMlTh)

262 A few days ago there was a brief conversation about favourite Jane Austen novels, and I want to put in a vote for 'Mansfield Park'. It's her least popular novel, but it's my favourite. When you think about it, it's a lot more complex than her other novels. The main plot is about matching and marrying, of course, but there are a lot of layers and intersecting couples involved. There's the principal Fanny-Edmund pairing, but that's complicated by the Edmund-Mary theme, as well as the Fanny-Crawford development. And just to complicate it more, we have the Crawford-Maria-Rushworth triangle layer to tangle all the families together.

The structure is pretty ambitious, with the play-within-a-play section taking up a bit part of the middle of the book. Although Fanny herself is probably the least interesting of Jane Austen's heroines, her book is the most complex and rewarding.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 10:08 AM (Y8Re1)

263 255 Often lamented had the idea I should learn Russian as a older teenager and didn't, kick myself a lot over that.
Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:06 AM (2JoB

Had a girlfriend who did just that.

Sexy, sexy sexy...and then she went to Smith.

End of that story.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:09 AM (BgMrQ)

264
Chernobyl is another topic that piques my interest without fail.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:05 AM (BgMrQ)
---
Amazon has a documentary on the old ladies who live in the "forbidden zone." Quite interesting, and they have patrols who drop by, deliver mail and check on them. Being hospitable, they offer food to the visitors, who dig right in (but only after metering it).

There's a great scene where this huge spread is being laid out and the guys start munching and then one discretely meters it and the stuff is seriously radioactive and they're all "Oops! Look at the time! We're late!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 10:09 AM (llXky)

265 Did you ever see "The Story of English" which was a mini series that discussed how the English language developed.

They had to use captions for some of the Scotsmen and Yorkshiremen.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:42 AM (AwPyG)

I'm reading "A General History of the Pyrates" by Defoe that OM featured a couple weeks ago. It's getting me acquainted with early 18th century English syntax.

Posted by: BignJames at October 03, 2021 10:09 AM (AwYPR)

266 @250

Elmore Leonard is another one who conveys a lot in relatively few words.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:10 AM (AwPyG)

267 I think satan or some lesser demon wrote gott escher bach, I think I've tried five times to crack that thing, feel like the younger skarsgaard in green lantern afterwards,
Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 10:01 AM (hMlTh)

Invariably I get hung up on the embedded formulas along the way, which ultimately leads me to think "why am I fucking around with this?"

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 10:11 AM (y7DUB)

268 @266 It's why his novels make such good movies

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 10:12 AM (ZHVt1)

269 229 So, You Wish to Learn All About Economics?: A Text on Elementary Mathematical Economics by Lyndon LaRouche (Author)

rhennigantx at October 03, 2021 08:18 AM (yrol0)

It is a neo-classical economics conceit that consumer satisfaction can be assigned an objective value to explain the laws of supply and demand.

It is horseshit, and it is an attempt to justify central control Posted by: Kindltot - Being condescending on purpose at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (KbLYZ)

I was thinking 'labor theory of value' when I read rhen's comment, but maybe I'm wrong. It is known, however, that Larouche was a commie when he were a yute and perhaps never got very far away from commie ideas such as a centrally planned economy.

He truly is a totally unique oddball.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:13 AM (oxV/g)

270 268 @266 It's why his novels make such good movies
Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 10:12 AM (ZHVt1)

Crichton vs Leonard

Who ya got

I'll take the good doctor!

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:13 AM (BgMrQ)

271 Finished reading a biography of Robert P. Feynman. My introduction to him came on the day he pulled a small c-clamp from a glass of ice water and showed the world how the o-rings on NASA's solid fuel booster rocket lost resiliency at 32f. I was so mad at NASA and the sham committe hearings. I still remember Feynman pulling that c-clamp out of the water glass like it was yesterday. It's a frozen moment for me. At that time I was working as a microwave tech at a silicon valley defense contractor. I had heard that some of the clean room techs had inserted a page in the burn-in log so they could ship components on time - namely 6-18ghz gasfet amplifiers headed for avionics on jet aircraft.

One man can make a difference.

Posted by: 13times at October 03, 2021 10:13 AM (cHFXg)

272 Reading all the Islam comments I had a passing thought that I don't have the background to really flesh out. But I wonder if the trinity (ultimately one but embodying different points of view) as the heart of Christianity leads to the west's openness to new ideas and innovation while the unitary god of Islam leads to tyranny and stsagnation.

Posted by: who knew at October 03, 2021 10:13 AM (4I7VG)

273 I'm watching youtube videos on how to grow herbs... she said, apologetically.

Posted by: Adriane the Chronologically Challenged Critic ... at October 03, 2021 10:14 AM (okV1R)

274 I don't want to shock you but racist threats from the KKK were actually written and placed in mailboxes by a black chick.

https://bit.ly/2WBPtlX

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 10:14 AM (d9FiS)

275 "'Ette author artemis has a new entry in her Doyle & Acton mystery series, Murder in Material Gain"

I MUST HAVE IT!!!! *makes purchase*

"Damn you, Book Thread!" GGE's wallet

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at October 03, 2021 10:14 AM (CcOog)

276 Make war great again. Yawn.... Coffee. Mandate.

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 10:14 AM (iWKOD)

277 A few days ago there was a brief conversation about favourite Jane Austen novels, and I want to put in a vote for 'Mansfield Park'. It's her least popular novel, but it's my favourite.

Nabokov lectured on Mansfield Park, which he enjoyed more than he expected, at Cornell.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 10:14 AM (y7DUB)

278 its the mathematical version of the necronomicon,

yes leonard writes really sharp dialogue, and that showed in most of his work, which hollywood only halfway decently adapted,

Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 10:15 AM (hMlTh)

279 272 who knew - yeah that is a good observation

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:16 AM (2JoB8)

280 Jane Austen was really good with the plot device of "the villain in disguise." Mansfield Park has them, too.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:16 AM (AwPyG)

281
Charles Dikkens, the famous Dutch author of "Who Stopped My Dyke?"

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at October 03, 2021 10:16 AM (pNxlR)

282 Posted by: 13times at October 03, 2021 10:13 AM (cHFXg)

Richard....

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 03, 2021 10:17 AM (Q9lwr)

283 Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 10:08 AM (Y8Re1)

I really liked "Mansfield Park" too.

Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 10:18 AM (HabA/)

284 The Story of English is pretty good. Anthony Burgess's book _A Mouthful of Air_ is another good look at languages.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 03, 2021 10:18 AM (QZxDR)

285 That there is my dream library. Lots of old leather-bound books, TWO spiral staircases, dark wood, and a desk with mysterious oddments and fiddly bits. Just needs cats and a comfy armchair by a fireplace for total perfection.

Busy scribbling away on the latest book. Trying to improve my production rate. One book a year is not going to keep me in chocolate during the Burning Times.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at October 03, 2021 10:18 AM (CUULq)

286 I'm going to try that James Ellroy trilogy. Thanks for suggesting it. I've read LA Confidential, The Black Dahlia and the book he wrote about his mother's murder.

Posted by: JuJuBee at October 03, 2021 10:18 AM (mNhhD)

287 Invariably I get hung up on the embedded formulas along the way, which ultimately leads me to think "why am I fucking around with this?"

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 10:11 AM (y7DUB)

I think you have to be a computer geek to appreciate all of the complicated layers Hofstadter stacks up in GEB.

I've been meaning to comment about this book for awhile. Maybe this will spur me into actually writing something.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:19 AM (oxV/g)

288 Jane Austen was really good with the plot device of "the villain in disguise." Mansfield Park has them, too.
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:16 AM (AwPyG)

That's very true - in MP, S&S and P&P you've got to watch out for those charming, handsome fellows who come to sweep girls off their feet! Can't think of who it would be in Emma, though, unless it's Mr. Elton. Frank Churchill turns out to be OK in the end.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 10:20 AM (Y8Re1)

289 Hard choice, but Chrichton came up with some truly imaginative things, often with scientific insight.

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 10:20 AM (ZHVt1)

290 Busy scribbling away on the latest book. Trying to improve my production rate. One book a year is not going to keep me in chocolate during the Burning Times.
Posted by: Sabrina Chase at October 03, 2021 10:18 AM (CUULq)

*happydance*

*shoves chocolate through USB port*

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at October 03, 2021 10:21 AM (CcOog)

291 274 I don't want to shock you but racist threats from the KKK were actually written and placed in mailboxes by a black chick.

https://bit.ly/2WBPtlX

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks aka Hangdog Barkston at October 03, 2021 10:14 AM (d9FiS)

Well, dash my wigs!

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:21 AM (oxV/g)

292 It is horseshit, and it is an attempt to justify central control

Posted by: Kindltot - Being condescending on purpose at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (KbLYZ)

The Invisible Hand is pretty much the most important idea in economics, and it's pretty damned old.

But too many economists want to ignore it because they are smart enough to figure out how to quantify billions of individual decisions.

It is a tremendous conceit indeed. And it is similar to the socialist ideal of the perfectibility of Man...

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 03, 2021 10:21 AM (Q9lwr)

293
And since I mentioned the British series Prime Suspect, I'll encourage the new authors (who write fiction) to notice that each episode has three intertwined plots: (1) the homicide plot, (2) the protagonist's personal life (which is a train wreck) and (3) the "office politics" plot at her job.

If you use this same type of framework, there's never going to be a "saggy middle" to the story, because there's so much going on.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:22 AM (AwPyG)

294
I think satan or some lesser demon wrote gott escher bach

I have a childhood friend of the leftist persuasion who read that some time back and asked me if I found it to be profound. I replied that I had in fact not read it as I practiced active avoidance of works written by those suffused with too high self regard and prone to long windedness. The subject never came up again.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at October 03, 2021 10:23 AM (pNxlR)

295 Mornin' again, all,

At the library here, Miss Linda found me a 1977 Ruth Rendell non-series crime novel I haven't read, A Judgement in Stone. I've been trying to plow through Saul Bellow's Herzog and finding it an uphill battle. Bellow breaks too many writer rules -- he tells us a lot instead of showing, he makes it unclear who is speaking or thinking, and worst of all, I don't care about his characters. Tossed for Rendell.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:23 AM (c6xtn)

296 231 yes Mark felt ran the breakins, the agents into the left units, but it was that systematic and centralized records at media pennsylvania, that doomed him, almost sent him to prison,

this is why there are two contemporanous tales, latham's flowers for mother, and marchetti's the rope dancers, that were most accurate about that agem
Posted by: alien covenant was much worse at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (hMlTh)

I would probably take your comment more seriously if you learned the appropriate use of capital letters.

Posted by: Justsayin' at October 03, 2021 10:24 AM (Fs5vw)

297 Chernobyl is another topic that piques my interest without fail.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:05 AM (BgMrQ)

The HBO miniseries 'Chernobyl', fiction, but based on the events surrounding the near meltdown, is really quite good.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:25 AM (oxV/g)

298 Posted by: who knew at October 03, 2021 10:13 AM (4I7VG)

I think you raise a really interesting point. However, Judiasm also has a unitary God and I certainly wouldn't call the Jews intellectually stagnant.

A point raised by historian Tom Holland: Christians (and Jews) believe God created the laws of nature and human beings could discover those laws. The medieval Church (despite its' bad rep) produced quite a few monk-scientists who believed God wanted them to pursue knowledge about the way the world worked.

In Islam, everything happens because Allah wills it. If an apple falls off a tree and hits the ground, it's not because of any law of gravity, it's because Allah made the apple do it. If the answer to any questioning about the universe is simply "Allah wills it" rather than "we must discover the God given laws of the universe" you're going to end up with a pretty backward culture.

Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 10:26 AM (HabA/)

299 *noms chocolate*

*writes faster*

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at October 03, 2021 10:26 AM (CUULq)

300 I think you have to be a computer geek to appreciate all of the complicated layers Hofstadter stacks up in GEB.

I've been meaning to comment about this book for awhile. Maybe this will spur me into actually writing something.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:19 AM (oxV/g)

I worked in IT and it still didn't work for me, although I'll read anything you write about it. Lots of people whose opinions I respect have said nice things about it so I'm willing to think it's just a personal quirk

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 10:27 AM (y7DUB)

301
I would probably take your comment more seriously if you learned the appropriate use of capital letters.

Posted by: Justsayin' at October 03, 2021 10:24 AM

i'm not seeing the problem here

Posted by: e.e.cummings at October 03, 2021 10:28 AM (DUIap)

302 Not sure why NY publishers are shipping their books on container ships, but maybe. The whole article is amusing to me because NY publishes about 5% of the physical books people buy.
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:19 AM (AwPyG)

Comparative advantage, it is cheaper to have the books printed overseas and shipped in. Except when it isn't and China is throttling production.

At 1K a unit and with sufficient NFT based commerce I suspect I could put a print on demand kiosk in every used bookstore in the country, the only thing shipped would be the toner and the glue and paper. That would be cheapest and most efficient.

Posted by: Kindltot - Being condescending on purpose at October 03, 2021 10:28 AM (KbLYZ)

303 Michael Crichton vs. Elmore Leonard:

Crichton I love; I don't mind being lectured if the lecture is interesting enough, and he was a master at that. Imaginative stuff to boot. The films made of his stuff have been great entertainment.

Leonard, I prefer his Westerns really to most of his crime stories with a couple of exceptions like 52 Pick-Up. He reproduced the way criminals and street people talk with such accuracy that it's sometimes hard to know what the speaker means. In the film version of an EL book, you can see what the character's expression is and figure things out by context. The novel of Get Shorty I found a little confusing and not at all funny; I'll bet the film version with Travolta was easier to follow, and by all accounts it was funny.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:28 AM (c6xtn)

304 My favorite James Ellroy book is LA Confidential.

Posted by: 13times at October 03, 2021 10:28 AM (cHFXg)

305 The HBO miniseries 'Chernobyl', fiction, but based on the events surrounding the near meltdown, is really quite good.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:25 AM (oxV/g)

So I've heard, but I've never had HBO.

It seems I've missed a lot of good series over the years.

Posted by: browndog Official Mascot of Team Gizzard at October 03, 2021 10:28 AM (BgMrQ)

306 "I would probably take your comment more seriously if you learned the appropriate use of capital letters."

*shifty eyes*

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:29 AM (AwPyG)

307 241 The Womens March also banned coat hanger visuals along with The Handmaids crap.

Posted by: Tinfoilbaby at October 03, 2021 10:01 AM (Kd5Vh)

They actually *banned* them? Huh. Why? Did they think they might frighten the rubes?

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:30 AM (oxV/g)

308 I am reading "The Devil and the Dark Water: A Locked-Room Historical Mystery," a detective novel set aboard the Dutch East India Company Indiaman "Sardaam" shipping east from the port of Batavia (today's Jakarta) to Amsterdam, in 16something.

Only good thing for me about the story is the setting, the descriptions of people, dress, classes, armament, and attitudes.

An Indiaman was about 150 feet in length by 35 feet beam, and this area times maybe 3 was the square feet alloted to the people onboard, typically for that size being about 300 souls.

The voyage went across the Indian ocean in the tropics, then down to the cape along Africa's west coast, then up Africa's east coast, up past the Canary Islands, and home to Amsterdam passing the British isles enroute.

So, 300 dirty folks crammed into about 5000 square feet, bad water, worse food, nothing fresh, scurvy rampant, with mortality rates running between 8 and 30 percent. Kids, cabin boys, slaves, servants, and musketeers who signed on to avoid the gallows back in the lowlands.

They did not know that fresh fruit could cure the deadly scurvy in just a few days. Some ships lost more than 100 to disease.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at October 03, 2021 10:30 AM (4ZE6o)

309 My favorite James Ellroy book is LA Confidential.
Posted by: 13times

Great movie too !

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 10:30 AM (arJlL)

310 G.E.B....

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at October 03, 2021 10:23 AM (pNxlR)

I read it a long time ago and my only memory is that it was tedious and boring and easily forgotten.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 03, 2021 10:31 AM (Q9lwr)

311 Had to re-read all of the 13 previous Honor Harrington novels by David Drake to prepare for book 14. Now reading that last book. I think the Sollies have really upset the Salamander.

I think I'm going to re-read Drake's compendium of Hammer's Slammers when I'm done. Anyine know where I can get a ring mounted tri-barrel medium duty laser? I wanna put it on the Charger for road trips so I can move Texans out of the passing lane.

Posted by: BifBewalski @ (IJES/) - at October 03, 2021 10:31 AM (IJES/)

312
I use subtitles for *all* movies and TV shows. I can't hear worth a toot any more.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional

Subtitles on many YouTube videos often are hilariously bad.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at October 03, 2021 10:31 AM (pNxlR)

313 Hiya Donna of the Ampersands !

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 10:31 AM (arJlL)

314 309 My favorite James Ellroy book is LA Confidential.
Posted by: 13times

Great movie too !
Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 10:30 AM (arJlL)

Me too

Posted by: Rollo Tomassi at October 03, 2021 10:31 AM (BgMrQ)

315 @302

don't look now, but with laser printing is going to revolutionize manufacturing. Need a part? Print it up at home.

But like I said, ebooks don't need to be shipped anywhere, and the print book business is minuscule in comparison.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:32 AM (AwPyG)

316 Greetings:

I'm currently reading "Himalaya: A Human History" by Ed Douglas. (I like big books.). It has a good combination of geology and history mixed in with its Progressive (???) troth plighting. Obviously British Man the Worst among the kindler gentler Chinese, Muslims, Indians. Lots of "Empires" that were totally new to me but were no doubt also kindler and gentler.

Kind of a dense read. The page depth and chapter lengths are larger than usual. And the differing languages lead to differing names for the same places depending on the group in control. The maps are pretty good but it seems no one is interested in the old style of identifying the pertinent map in the text by number and the place by a chessboard-style alphanumeric grid.

Lots of new names and page-flipping back and forth makes Jack a slow reader. Oh, and did I mention that the author has concerns about Anthrogenic Global Climate Warming Change. Well he does and in all its forms.

Posted by: 11B40 at October 03, 2021 10:32 AM (uuklp)

317 Feynman -
Many moons ago, I saw an interview with him, and the discussion had gone off into C. P. Snow Two Cultures territory. Feynman was talking about the near-impossibility of conversing with the humanities types due to their fuzzy thinking. I may have that garbled, because it's been eons since I saw it. What I don't have garbled is the moment where Feynman stopped mid-sentence, on-screen, and said "I take it all back," and talked about meeting the French writer Andre Maurois, and concluded that first-class disciplined minds in any field should be able to communicate with each other.

It'd be nice to have more people who can stop mid-sentence and correct themselves when it's called for.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 03, 2021 10:32 AM (JzDjf)

318 capital letters are hurtful and racist!!! *hic* stay safe

Posted by: suburban wine moms at October 03, 2021 10:32 AM (Xrfse)

319 My problem with subtitles is I find myself "reading" the show instead of watching it

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:33 AM (AwPyG)

320 306 "I would probably take your comment more seriously if you learned the appropriate use of capital letters."

*shifty eyes*
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:29 AM (AwPyG)

I'm happy when my typos don't look like I should be socking one of our trolls.

Posted by: BifBewalski @ (IJES/) - at October 03, 2021 10:33 AM (IJES/)

321 Chernobyl is one of the best things put on TV in recent years. #5 all time on imdb

Great acting throughout. The two leads knock it out of the park.

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 10:33 AM (ZHVt1)

322 I am currently reading Elmore Leonard's The Bounty Hunters, copyright 1953 and renewed 1973 with an addition form a 1959 short story. So far, so ver good. It's got a great introduction of the characters and a dishonorable, corrupt military leader who I hope gets his comeuppance.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at October 03, 2021

***
I just read that one -- I found a new edition in paperback at a Books-a-Million in Birmingham. The first chapter is one of the best setup-and-character introductions I've ever read.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:33 AM (c6xtn)

323 I worked in IT and it still didn't work for me, although I'll read anything you write about it. Lots of people whose opinions I respect have said nice things about it so I'm willing to think it's just a personal quirk

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 10:27 AM (y7DUB)

Oh, it ain't just a personal quirk, I think there are some real problems with GEB, which I hope I can explain adequately.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 10:34 AM (oxV/g)

324
CAPITAL LETTERS ARE PROUD AND HAUGHTY!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at October 03, 2021 10:34 AM (pNxlR)

325 Quite a salesman...selling Islam and or Marxism. Only the leaders and bad history books survive the crash course.

Bang crashy pow if you will.

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 10:34 AM (iWKOD)

326 Hello, JT!

Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 10:34 AM (HabA/)

327 115 A.H. Lloyd: IIRC, the FDP has a history of working with the CDU/CSU.

You are correct, FDP does tend to work with CDU/CSU. I think back in Merkel's early years they even managed to form a governing coalition with just the two of them, and things worked out pretty well (from an American conservative's vantage point).

AfD came in fifth, but yes, they're still being ostracized. I think even if they win a plurality, the other parties would form a coalition against them to keep them out.

On a personal note, I was TDY to Tyndall AFB to help out with _Deepwater Horizon_. I've got _Three Weeks with the Coasties_ on my TBR list and am looking forward to reading your version of events.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at October 03, 2021 10:35 AM (eT12Z)

328 The thought my Ebooks are at the whim of Amazon frightens me.
Who needs book burning when they could delete any book they want?

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:35 AM (2JoB8)

329 In Islam, everything happens because Allah wills it. If an apple falls off a tree and hits the ground, it's not because of any law of gravity, it's because Allah made the apple do it. If the answer to any questioning about the universe is simply "Allah wills it" rather than "we must discover the God given laws of the universe" you're going to end up with a pretty backward culture.
Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 10:26 AM (HabA/)

These beliefs were also very strong in the Medieval Christian Church. However, they could never escape the knowledge that the pagan civilizations (Greece, Rome, ancient Egypt) which had come before them had produced far greater monuments and much greater accomplishments than they had. Then when the ancient texts of the Greeks were rediscovered (aka the Renaissance) they saw the path forward to surpassing their ancestors, and would not let any theological assumptions stand in their way.

Posted by: Tom Servo at October 03, 2021 10:36 AM (evAgx)

330
Great acting throughout. The two leads knock it out of the park.
Posted by: Ignoramus

I find your disregard of Brian Dennehy's superb performance are the exploded nuclear reactor disturbing.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at October 03, 2021 10:36 AM (pNxlR)

331 Hello, JT!
Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V

Posted by: JT at October 03, 2021 10:37 AM (arJlL)

332 Watch lots of Russian movies, often not understanding a word, but the spectacles are worth it.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:37 AM (2JoB8)

333 @328

Remember that amazon is not really creating your product--a digital file is a digital file. Amazon is taking their cut because they are giving you access to their massive audience.

You can sell your ebooks from your own website, if you want--it would be pretty easy. I think some authors are doing just that.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:38 AM (AwPyG)

334 Part of his problem is that his subject matter and writing style is a bit dated. Unlike Waugh, he totally omitted any serious discussion of faith, instead throwing some jabs at Catholicism and leaving it at that. His books also seem devoid of any real moral message, and that limits their applicability for modern readers.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 09:43 AM (llXky)

I don't think most modern readers are so keen on faith and morals, hence the decline of a lot of classics. Instead they prefer to rip down authors because they're angry that the past had a different set of values.

After one Sunday book thread, I read some articles about modern "classics" professors and the revolting prevalence of a "burn it all down" mentality. Somehow those bastards Plato, Homer and Sophocles did not have adequate praise for Africa and must go!!!!!

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 10:38 AM (ONvIw)

335 I am reading "The Devil and the Dark Water: A Locked-Room Historical Mystery," a detective novel set aboard the Dutch East India Company Indiaman "Sardaam" shipping east from the port of Batavia (today's Jakarta) to Amsterdam, in 16something. . . .

Posted by: Mr Gaga
***
Sounds interesting in concept. Does the author actually have a "locked room," a chamber aboard the ship, that appears to have an impossible murder? Or is the ship itself the locked room? Sounds like a variation on the "snowbound country house" trope, or the house "threatened by forest fire" version by Ellery Queen.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:38 AM (c6xtn)

336 Well, time for Mass. Until next week!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 03, 2021 10:39 AM (llXky)

337 Discovered a book in the library at the airbnb we are staying that was published in 1941. It was a story about characters in Bisbee. A copper mining town in AZ. Interesting to think that when the book was published the town was still a thriving mining town. And tombstone was also. Good writer, enjoyable characters. I want to read more like it. Have a great day all. Coffee.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob at October 03, 2021 10:39 AM (RoIW/)

338 @330

Yep. He and Jared Harris both got stiffed for the Emmy

Posted by: Ignoramus at October 03, 2021 10:39 AM (ZHVt1)

339 *scribbles book rec's furiously*

On the horns of a dilemma. Buy books, buy ammo, buy books, buy ammo.

I could always just buy ammo and take the books by force.

Posted by: Old Blue at October 03, 2021 10:40 AM (VNmG1)

340 Me too

Posted by: Rollo Tomassi at October 03, 2021 10:31 AM (BgMrQ)

Fun fact: Rollo Tomassi isn't in the book. He was created for the screenplay.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at October 03, 2021 10:41 AM (gbfHZ)

341 Sounds interesting in concept. Does the author actually have a "locked room," a chamber aboard the ship, that appears to have an impossible murder? Or is the ship itself the locked room? Sounds like a variation on the "snowbound country house" trope, or the house "threatened by forest fire" version by Ellery Queen.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:38 AM (c6xtn)

Or a closed-for-the-winter resort in The Shining.

Posted by: Justsayin' at October 03, 2021 10:42 AM (Fs5vw)

342 288 Frank Churchill turns out to be OK in the end.
Does he, though? His aunt's sudden death happens at a very convenient time for him, and he was right there, on the scene . . .
I also think Mansfield Park is underappreciated, although Persuasion is probably my favorite.

Posted by: Linnet at October 03, 2021 10:43 AM (p1bnC)

343 In Islam, everything happens because Allah wills it. If an apple falls off a tree and hits the ground, it's not because of any law of gravity, it's because Allah made the apple do it. If the answer to any questioning about the universe is simply "Allah wills it" rather than "we must discover the God given laws of the universe" you're going to end up with a pretty backward culture.
Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 10:26

My eldest brother works at a Catholic university. He pointed out the science and maths departments are full of devout Christians. It's the humanities that have profs who f#&$%ing LOVE science while simultaneously believing reality can be changed by using different words.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at October 03, 2021 10:44 AM (/+bwe)

344 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - Michael Byrd MURDERED Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 10:45 AM (Zz0t1)

345 Print is dead.

Posted by: Egon Spengler at October 03, 2021 10:46 AM (Zz0t1)

346 @343

Yeah I had three kids get humanities degrees, and one kid get a science degree, and it was like completely different worlds, when they were in college.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:46 AM (AwPyG)

347 Sounds like a variation on the "snowbound country house" trope, or the house "threatened by forest fire" version by Ellery Queen.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021
*
Or a closed-for-the-winter resort in The Shining.
Posted by: Justsayin' at October 03, 2021

***
Right, though that was not a murder mystery in the classical sense. The best classic mysteries strive to isolate the characters in some fashion so that the detective, and the reader, has a manageable suspect list. Of course EQ broke that rule with Cat of Many Tails, in which a serial killer (in 1947, mind you) is terrorizing New York. Nothing less than 8 million suspects!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:46 AM (c6xtn)

348 Elmore Leonard. I love everything he ever wrote.

Glitz was particularly good. A Miami detective, spanish speaker, is on a medical leave, he's in San Juan, having been shot in the butt at home on duty. There is a gangster, a beautiful young girl named Iris (say it in Spanish), and a very creepy killer.

If you want the smell and feel of Detroit when it was at its absolute peak of glamour and energy, read his "Up in Honey's Room," set in the motor city during WW2. The plants have all been converted to making war materiel, and everything glitters.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at October 03, 2021 10:47 AM (4ZE6o)

349 "locked room murder" is what it sounds like; someone is dead in a locked room. How could this have happened?

A lot of famous stories used this premise--including the original detective story--Murders in the Rue Morgue.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:49 AM (AwPyG)

350 The Invisible Hand is pretty much the most important idea in economics, and it's pretty damned old.
But too many economists want to ignore it because they are smart enough to figure out how to quantify billions of individual decisions.
It is a tremendous conceit indeed. And it is similar to the socialist ideal of the perfectibility of Man...
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 03, 2021 10:21 AM (Q9lwr)

Well, this is the Great Problem of the West.
Except around the edges and except for Black Swans, we have pretty much everything figured out to have a good life for the vast majority of human beings.

Economics, yup. Political organization, yessir. Basic science and public health, more or less.
Literature, absolutely. The greatest in the World.
But, it's all old and well-established. That doesn't make it wrong. That just makes it hard for some shmoe in economics or English to make his/her mark. Particularly, if you're just average joe not once in a lifetime genius joe. Takes work.
So, it's easier make up some stupid shit that appeals to you but has no basis in reality.
But, it's new! And shiny. It's garbage but shiny garbage.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021 10:49 AM (5NkmN)

351 345 Print is dead.
Posted by: Egon Spengler at October 03, 2021 10:46 AM (Zz0t1)

IMO print is necessary. I despise the idea of some thought censor being able to delete or edit important books on a whim or because someone like Obama or Pelosi finds the thought or events to be inconvenient.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 10:49 AM (ONvIw)

352 The old pic looks like Charles Dickens. But maybe photography was not advanced enough for a pic like than in Dickens' day.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at October 03, 2021 10:50 AM (4ZE6o)

353 Comments are mightier than the...

Post?

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 10:51 AM (iWKOD)

354 Yeah, I was never a fan of Frank Churchill. Jane's going to have her hands full

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:51 AM (AwPyG)

355 "locked room murder" is what it sounds like; someone is dead in a locked room. How could this have happened?

A lot of famous stories used this premise--including the original detective story--Murders in the Rue Morgue.
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021

***
Aka the "hermetically sealed room." A fellow named John Dickson Carr mined the concept beautifully and brilliantly for most of his writing career, from the '30s to his death in the '70s. His The Three Coffins is rightly considered a masterpiece of the genre. See also Ellery Queen's "The Lamp of God" and the novel The King Is Dead.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:52 AM (c6xtn)

356 Did you ever see "The Story of English" which was a mini series that discussed how the English language developed.

They had to use captions for some of the Scotsmen and Yorkshiremen.
Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 09:42 AM (AwPyG)

If this is your interest, there is a podcast about this very thing

https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/episodes/

Posted by: Kindltot - Being condescending on purpose at October 03, 2021 10:52 AM (KbLYZ)

357 Posted by: Tom Servo at October 03, 2021 10:36 AM (evAgx)

Gotta disagree with you there. There's a big difference between believing that God created natural laws humans could discover if they applied themselves to study and thinking that Allah would not submit himself to laws and therefore everything is arbitrary. Allah willed the apple to fall down, but he could have willed it to go sideways or up - so there is really no such thing as the laws of nature. While we certainly owe part of our scientific tradition to the Greeks and Romans, science would not have advanced (and it did advance in the middle ages as well as in the Renaissance) without the Christian conception of God. I think you might be succumbing to the notion that all was darkness and backwardness until the Renaissance, but that really isn't true.

Posted by: Donna &&&&&&V at October 03, 2021 10:52 AM (HabA/)

358 I could see a book, decided to be outlawed would be electronically erased within a year.

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:53 AM (2JoB8)

359 If you want the smell and feel of Detroit when it was at its absolute peak of glamour and energy, read his "Up in Honey's Room," set in the motor city during WW2. The plants have all been converted to making war materiel, and everything glitters.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at October 03, 2021

***
A Michigan native named Loren D. Estleman should share the crown as best Detroit portraitist. His series of private-eye stories about Amos Walker, and his historical crime stories about Detroit over several decades, are all dynamite.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:54 AM (c6xtn)

360 I've been trying to plow through Saul Bellow's Herzog and finding it an uphill battle. Bellow breaks too many writer rules -- he tells us a lot instead of showing, he makes it unclear who is speaking or thinking, and worst of all, I don't care about his characters. Tossed for Rendell.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:23 AM (c6xtn)

Give "Humboldt's Gift" a whirl. It was one of Anthony Burgess' "99 Books".

I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read. So, I read some of Bellow's other stuff. Not as good as "HG".

But, "HG", yeah. That's the stuff.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021 10:55 AM (5NkmN)

361 358 I could see a book, decided to be outlawed would be electronically erased within a year.
Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:53 AM (2JoB

Or edited to bend the story to fit the politics of the day.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 10:55 AM (ONvIw)

362 @352

Remember there were photos taken of the civil war, which was about this time.

They said on antiques roadshow that the Victorian practice of incorporating a deceased relative's hair into jewelry stopped as soon as photography was invented, which makes sense.

Posted by: artemis at October 03, 2021 10:56 AM (AwPyG)

363 What light through yonder window breaks.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at October 03, 2021 10:56 AM (h020H)

364 If you like Audiobooks and an author that produces books regularly, the 13th book is being released this month along with another book in the Spellmonger series and the Reader is excellent and makes you feel you are in that world most books are over 24 hours long so you get your bang for you buck and SJW hate the book

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at October 03, 2021 10:58 AM (dKiJG)

365 WE HAZ NOOD

Posted by: Skip guy who says NOOD at October 03, 2021 11:01 AM (2JoB8)

366 Give "Humboldt's Gift" a whirl. It was one of Anthony Burgess' "99 Books".

I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read. So, I read some of Bellow's other stuff. Not as good as "HG".

But, "HG", yeah. That's the stuff.
Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021

***
I found Herzog in one of those little Book Nooks around town, so it was a freebie. Maybe Miss Linda can find HG at the library, or request it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 11:02 AM (c6xtn)

367 In Islam, everything happens because Allah wills it.

It may be an urban legend, but I have read that this accounts for the "spray and pray" style of firearms use among Muzzies - they think aiming a gun is pointless.

Posted by: cool breeze at October 03, 2021 11:03 AM (UGKMd)

368 Ms Gaga says "hey, look at this book I'm reading about, Wildland: The Making of America's Fury," and I go look it up.

Total leftist drivel written by a New Yorker contributor, sets up Trump voters as all that is wrong with America today and the reason our "democracy" is about to explode in a huge wave of violence.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at October 03, 2021 11:03 AM (4ZE6o)

369 ***
A Michigan native named Loren D. Estleman should share the crown as best Detroit portraitist. His series of private-eye stories about Amos Walker, and his historical crime stories about Detroit over several decades, are all dynamite.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at October 03, 2021 10:54 AM (c6xtn)

Detroit went from a jewel to a punchline in record time. It's a tragedy in many ways.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 11:05 AM (ONvIw)

370 Nudie. Nood nood.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob at October 03, 2021 11:06 AM (RoIW/)

371
The accident at Chernobyl and the creation of the exclusion zone spawned a lot of weird fiction. The book Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer is two parts Prypriat and one part quantum physics double slit test. The videogame Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl walks players through strangely changed and irradiated landscapes

The concept of Russian exclusion zones predates Chernobyl. Soviet fiction like Roadside Picnic and its companion film Stalker explore life in alien landscapes. Solaris explores biosphere or noosphere zones of consciousness. Soviet scientist Lev Gumilev tried and failed to replace religion with something resembling science.

Posted by: 13times at October 03, 2021 11:08 AM (cHFXg)

372 OM, Labor Theory tries to explain supply and demand by asserting that the value of an item is based on the inputs. This is classical thought from Smith and Ricardo.

With Menger's Marginal utility theory in the 1870's supply and demand was explained by the value of the item based on the need of the consumer. To claw back the idea that it could be objectively understood, various work arounds like the arbitrary unit the "Utile" were proposed. This is just placing an arbitrary value on a subjective measure, which in itself is just an arbitrary subjective measurement.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 03, 2021 11:10 AM (KbLYZ)

373 There is a theory that Jane Austen loathed Fanny Price, considered her a monster. In that vein the book Mansfield Park is a sly satire of the goody two shoes who triumphs over all the characters who have personalities and human frailties and ends up with the stick-in-the-mud husband who had his heart broken by another. I personally don't read it that way, but the academics have to find something to write about.

Posted by: JuJuBee at October 03, 2021 11:13 AM (mNhhD)

374 These beliefs were also very strong in the Medieval Christian Church. ... when the ancient texts of the Greeks were rediscovered (aka the Renaissance) they saw the path forward to surpassing their ancestors, and would not let any theological assumptions stand in their way.
Posted by: Tom Servo at October 03, 2021 10:36 AM

Must disagree, having studied Spanish medieval works. Greeks didn't need to be rediscovered; they were taught in cathedral schools. There was already a concerted effort to collect all the knowledge of the pagans about the known world. And why not? St Paul was a citizen of Rome and didn't denounce everything about it - to paraphrase quotes from my studies. The Brits in particular pushed a revisionist view of the Dark Ages because their history is full of Christian veneer slapped over their ignorance and half-pagan superstitions. Belief in God's intervention wasn't the same as predestination, let alone Islam's If Allah Wills It excuses. Fortune's Wheel expresses this fallen, sinful world works. The rich, healthy man at the top of the wheel was apt to be later crushed under it. All men are fated to die, but all have free will.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at October 03, 2021 11:14 AM (/+bwe)

375 "But like I said, ebooks don't need to be shipped anywhere, and the print book business is minuscule in comparison."

My dad worked in the phototypsetting industry. Desktop publishing killed the phototypesetting industry, and epublishing is slowly killing off the rest of print media. I wonder what will be next.

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at October 03, 2021 11:16 AM (CcOog)

376 328 The thought my Ebooks are at the whim of Amazon frightens me.

Who needs book burning when they could delete any book they want?

Posted by: Skip at October 03, 2021 10:35 AM (2JoB

Right. Which is why I don't depend on Amazon/Kindle. Any ebook I buy from them I consider a rental. If I buy a Kindle book I really want to save, I arrange to acquire a copy from an alternate source (shiver me timbers!) and store it on one of my archival hard drives in an undisclosed location.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 11:16 AM (oxV/g)

377 Busy scribbling away on the latest book. Trying to improve my production rate. One book a year is not going to keep me in chocolate during the Burning Times.
Posted by: Sabrina Chase at October 03, 2021 10:18 AM (CUULq)

L. Ron Hubbard improved his output volume by running an 8" wide roll of butcher paper through his typewriter so he didn't have to break his flow by changing sheets. When he was done with a story he just cut it into sheets to mail it to his publisher.

(explanation #5 of why triple spacing your MS is essential)

Posted by: Kindltot at October 03, 2021 11:16 AM (KbLYZ)

378 Detroit went from a jewel to a punchline in record time. It's a tragedy in many ways.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 11:05 AM (ONvIw)

Another Democrat success story.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 11:18 AM (oxV/g)

379 The Underworld USA trilogy is fascinating, although you need a strong stomach for some of it and the last volume doesn't match up to the first two. A lot of it sounds authentic in feel, the main fictional characters are mashups and modifications of real people. Ellroy sometimes identifies with the left and sometimes with the right, so the books are a mishmash of both sides conspiracy theories. Nobody is really a good guy.
The Hunger Games thing came out during early Obama and it really felt like an allegory. I was always surprised it was allowed to get so big in popular culture and I remember reading an interview with the author where it felt like she was nervously denying that it was anything else than an adventure story...

Posted by: Azjaeger at October 03, 2021 11:18 AM (3/XaG)

380 Give "Humboldt's Gift" a whirl. It was one of Anthony Burgess' "99 Books".

I thought it was one of the best books I've ever read. So, I read some of Bellow's other stuff. Not as good as "HG".

But, "HG", yeah. That's the stuff.
Posted by: naturalfake at October 03, 2021 10:55 AM (5NkmN)

A reliable guy in a bookstore in the 70s, when it was published, gave it his highest recommendation.

Posted by: Captain Hate Won't Forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at October 03, 2021 11:19 AM (y7DUB)

381 Any Texas morons besides me going to New Braunfels for the library book sale? Pre-COVID, it was one of the good ones. I expect to go for some barbecue and some comfort food or Mexican while I’m there. (I plan to drive down a little early to beat the Austin traffic.)

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 03, 2021 11:19 AM (CX3cf)

382 Another Democrat success story.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 11:18 AM (oxV/g)

Yes, the donks were a problem, but there's lots of blame to go around when you look at the failure of the American auto industry.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 11:20 AM (ONvIw)

383 It is a tremendous conceit indeed. And it is similar to the socialist ideal of the perfectibility of Man...
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 03, 2021 10:21 AM (Q9lwr)

To be honest, it is hard to study something and have the basic element of your explanation of causation be "and then a miracle happened" or "we wanted it that way"

My beef is that neo-classical economics has turned away from investigating human interaction and has instead become a tool to manipulate and control human interactions.
And since it doesn't work voluntarily, it has to be forced.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 03, 2021 11:22 AM (KbLYZ)

384 I would probably take your comment more seriously if you learned the appropriate use of capital letters.
Posted by: Justsayin' at October 03, 2021 10:24 AM (Fs5vw)

Shhh. His name is actually "Archie" and his best friend is Mehitabel

Posted by: Kindltot at October 03, 2021 11:25 AM (KbLYZ)

385 Yes, the donks were a problem, but there's lots of blame to go around when you look at the failure of the American auto industry.

It was a precursor and indicator event. Arrogance of the elite (they were convinced that they could automatically dominate any sort of car style they decided to build)

Corporate fascism ( join with government to mandate things about cars, then use that as the reason to vastly raise the prices... "Can't help it, the government made us do it"

The elite let their snobbery and foreign style preference freak flag wave high. "You stupid peasants with your love of big cars with V8s...you need to think like a European! We will build you Euro cars and you will prefer them. Which circles back to their arrogance..if you are taught to prefer and value foreign cars, guess what? You will buy foreign cars.

Posted by: Azjaeger at October 03, 2021 11:27 AM (3/XaG)

386 385: And the American preference for "foreign sophistication" is still wrecking the country. Our "leaders" rake our country over the fires for "slavery" but let Europe, Africa and the Middle East completely off the hook.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 11:36 AM (ONvIw)

387 Any Texas morons besides me going to New Braunfels for the library book sale? Pre-COVID, it was one of the good ones.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair
-------
When is it?

Posted by: Drc at October 03, 2021 11:41 AM (Vnlws)

388 I hope the supply chain mess that's leading to book shortages, etc spurs a return of manufacturing to our shores. I suspect, however, it will lead to more repression and not revival.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 11:42 AM (ONvIw)

389 There is a theory that Jane Austen loathed Fanny Price, considered her a monster.

C.S. Lewis, of all people, wrote an essay on 'Mansfield Park', and he saw Fanny as embodying the "Blessed are the poor in spirit" style of Christian heroine. There was a long tradition of valuing the weak, even dying protagonist whose spirit is stronger than the flesh. Fanny is this sort of frail but spiritually strong character. Lewis says that later on Austen tries to correct the rather insipid impression Fanny makes by telling us that she gets stronger, healthier and more beautiful, but it doesn't really work. Our persisting impression is of a girl who gets wiped out when she tries to cut a bunch of roses.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 11:48 AM (Y8Re1)

390 Aiming a gun is pointless. Ha ha....here...try this Our Man Flint smart gun.

You can keep it.( for muzziess)

Posted by: Humphreyrobot at October 03, 2021 12:09 PM (iWKOD)

391 C.S. Lewis, of all people, wrote an essay on 'Mansfield Park', and he saw Fanny as embodying the "Blessed are the poor in spirit" style of Christian heroine. There was a long tradition of valuing the weak, even dying protagonist whose spirit is stronger than the flesh. Fanny is this sort of frail but spiritually strong character.
Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 11:48 AM (Y8Re1)

Like Beth in Little Women

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 12:10 PM (ONvIw)

392 389: And I guess Melanie in Gone With The Wind v Scarlet O'Hara.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 12:20 PM (ONvIw)

393 387 Any Texas morons besides me going to New Braunfels for the library book sale? Pre-COVID, it was one of the good ones.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair
-------
When is it?
Posted by: Drc at October 03, 2021 11:41 AM (Vnlws

This is a good site to bookmark:

https://booksalefinder.com/TX.html

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 03, 2021 12:24 PM (PiwSw)

394 Beth, Melanie - those are perfect illustrations of the theme. It might be why there was a bit of a fad for death by consumption in books of the 19th century. The slow, lingering death usually combined with a growing ethereal beauty really appealed to this idea of flesh wasting away and spirit shining through. You might even say that Frodo in LOTR had a bit of this character in him toward the end.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 12:27 PM (jq2vu)

395 If he could rise from the grave, I believe he would skin Vanilli Milly alive with his riding crop for what he's done to Mac's beloved Army.

Posted by: Old Blue at October 03, 2021 09:54 AM (VNmG1)

Omg I love that image! Thanks!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 12:28 PM (YZG/i)

396 Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 12:27 PM (jq2vu)

Death by TB was a real thing back then and there was probably a desire to see those who died from this as somewhat saintly in their hopeless battle. It seems to correspond with the "never speak ill of the dead" idea we seem to have mixed with the likelihood that many dying people were religious and became better than they were in order to face their maker.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 12:34 PM (ONvIw)

397 "Herzog." Was assigned to read that in Honors English during freshman year in college.

Repeat, "was assigned." Didn't get too far into it, or most of the other assigned books.

Was heavily into Pinnacle paperbacks then.

Decided that I preferred fiction to literature. Still do.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 12:54 PM (Om/di)

398 Re: Slow Books

Plenty of used book stores still around. Maybe this will give them a boost. I came home yesterday from a visit with a friend who is having a garage sale next weekend. Brought home 15 books from them. Free books are good.

Posted by: Lurker Extraordinaire at October 03, 2021 12:56 PM (da1Rm)

399 To me, Herzog was the Royals' best manager.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 03, 2021 12:56 PM (Om/di)

400 Plenty of used book stores still around. Maybe this will give them a boost. I came home yesterday from a visit with a friend who is having a garage sale next weekend. Brought home 15 books from them. Free books are good.
Posted by: Lurker Extraordinaire at October 03, 2021 12:56 PM (da1Rm)

Yes they are, and my interest in print over electronic continues to grow

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 01:09 PM (ONvIw)

401 It seems to correspond with the "never speak ill of the dead" idea we seem to have mixed with the likelihood that many dying people were religious and became better than they were in order to face their maker.
Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 12:34 PM (ONvIw)

I'm convinced that "never speak ill of the dead" tradition comes from the Romans. They even had a saying: "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum" - "Say nothing of the dead unless it's good". But the Romans were pagans, so their motive for this was not a Christian one of hoping for a happy afterlife for the dead, or even the fair play idea of not slandering someone who can't answer back. The Romans *feared* ghosts, and I think they were afraid that if you talked trash about someone who was dead, you could attract their angry spirit to come around and cause trouble. So better not to say anything; but if you HAVE to talk about a dead person, make sure it's something good, so they won't come back seeking revenge.

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 01:11 PM (Y8Re1)

402 So better not to say anything; but if you HAVE to talk about a dead person, make sure it's something good, so they won't come back seeking revenge.
Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 01:11 PM (Y8Re1)

You're probably right. I have also heard it attributed to the idea that the dead are not here to defend themselves, so you should not speak badly of anyone who cannot refute the charges.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 01:27 PM (ONvIw)

403 I'm convinced that "never speak ill of the dead" tradition comes from the Romans. They even had a saying: "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum" - "Say nothing of the dead unless it's good".

Posted by: Dr. Mabusette, just to clarify things at October 03, 2021 01:11 PM (Y8Re1)

Good article about that here:

https://archive.is/t93z5

Never mind that it links to an NRO piece, it's actually a pretty good article, written when Rush Limbaugh passed.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 03:28 PM (Gtaaj)

404 Never mind that it links to an NRO piece, it's actually a pretty good article, written when Rush Limbaugh passed.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 03, 2021 03:28 PM (Gtaaj)

Thanks

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 03:45 PM (ONvIw)

405 403: The idea of an attack from which one cannot defend oneself seems like a solid reason.

Posted by: CN at October 03, 2021 03:49 PM (ONvIw)

406 Still reading Rendell's Inspector Wexford series at bedtime. Well written Brit mysteries. Current is 'The Babes in the Woods'. Entertaining.

Working on 'The Real Lincoln', DiLorenzo. Very good read. Any unabashed admirers of Lincoln, ought to read it. Actually, everyone should read it. It's a blow-by-blow description of how the overwhelming central government was formed, destroying State's Rights.

Still working my way through 'A History of engineering and science in the Bell System: National Service in War and Peace (1925 - 1975) '. It's quite a tome. The achievements by Bell Labs, et al, were simply staggering.

Posted by: Mike Hammer etc., etc. at October 03, 2021 04:00 PM (oY5A0)

407 When is it?

I’m going Friday. (And the link Shadout Mapes gave is the one I use.)

You can contact me via email from the link at the bottom of every page on my site, including the one in my nic.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 03, 2021 04:26 PM (CX3cf)

408 The fact is that millions upon millions have struggled and fought great odds and been strengthened over the years so that they may have succeeded but they failed anyway for any number of mundain and unfair reasons.

The universe is unfair and is itself headed to complete destruction. Which is why stories of the success of the "little" person is so endearing and entertaining; because it mostly never happens.

People are usually just lucky to get by, to stay alive or above destructive forces and usually the ones that succeed were just lucky in the end. Of course no one ever makes they claim they got where they were by dint of luck it's always hard work and perseverance. But that just gets you to luck's front door.

Posted by: jakee308 at October 03, 2021 04:50 PM (nwORd)

409 This comment is a bookthread end

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 06:11 PM (YZG/i)

410 #272 - I've thought before that the Trinity sheds interesting light on the problem of universals. Didn't connect it to openness to new ideas, I kinda put that down to Christ saying He is the way, the truth and the light, and calling his disciples "not servants, but friends," and thus the truth is friendly to mankind. I will think about your observation some more, thanks!

And thanks everyone for the comments. Picked up about 6 new books to add to the List.

Posted by: Joe at October 04, 2021 12:09 AM (MgzvS)

411 "Zealous young senator Robert Kennedy"
Kind of missed that target by about 10 years.
In '59. John was the "young senator", while Bobby was pimping for senate committees as a lawyer, or for his brother as procurator (legal and social versions).

Posted by: B Dubya at October 04, 2021 06:09 AM (aLpqZ)

412 I have a copy of "How to $h!t In The Woods". It's actually a guide for people who go on wilderness trips where there are zero facilities on where and how to take a crap with minimal effect on the environment. For example, how deep should you dig the hole? Most people would not know that you can dig it too deep as well as not deep enough.

Posted by: RonF at October 04, 2021 01:45 PM (l8nW6)

413 409 This comment is a bookthread end

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion (oEn12) at October 03, 2021 06:11 PM (YZG/i)

No it's not!

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader, Pants Monitor & Social Distancing Professional at October 04, 2021 06:51 PM (GLULz)

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