Sunday Morning Book Thread - 05-12-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, celebrate Mother's Day, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

Seeing as today is Mother's Day, I wanted to find a picture of a mother reading to her daughter. I was able to find the picture above in Adobe's massive archive of stock photos. I like this one because it not only shows a mother reading to her daughter, but the father is also involved. Reading together as a family. When I was a child, my mom would read to us kids at the breakfast table, even when we were old enough to read books on our own.

HOW TO ENJOY READING

I sometimes wonder if there are lurkers out there that peek in on the Sunday Morning Book Thread and are just gobsmacked by the quantity and quality of reading that we engage in on a week-to-week basis. Maybe they want to be become better readers but are intimidated by reading because they've never really enjoyed it before. Or maybe they themselves are active readers, but struggle to get their children or grandchildren engaged in reading. In any case, it is possible to become someone that enjoys reading if you are willing to put in the necessary time and effort. Like any skill, it takes practice, practice, and more practice!

Here are Tristan's five simple tips to enjoy reading in a nutshell:

Be present when you are reading - You need to devote your FULL ATTENTION to the activity of reading. This is similar to any hobby people enjoy. All those creative folks who work on neat little projects on the hobby thread devoted all of their attention to what they are doing in the moment, and because of that, their creativity shines through. Half-assing your way through building a diorama will lead to a half-assed result. Half-assing your way through reading a book will result in you missing out on the full details--and meaning--of the story that is being shared with you. Don't think of anything else other than the story that is in front of you. Even if you can only read a few pages at a time, have your full attention engaged with those few pages, as if they are the most engrossing thing in the world to you in that moment. Soon enough, you will find that your ability to focus on more and more pages will increase over time. And this can be applied to ANY skill or activity you choose to learn.

Switch off your devices - Now, if you read from an electronic device (e.g., Kindle app on iPad), I suppose that would not apply. However, I would strongly recommend disengaging with your phone, television, even stereo for a period of time. Remove yourself to a space in your home that does not have such devices readily available (this may mean leaving your phone elsewhere). This will greatly help with tip #1 above because you will be more fully able to devote yourself to your reading. I do this myself sometimes. I'll go read out in the sunroom where there is nothing out there to really distract me. When I read in my office, I always have my computer there, with a browser tab opened to AoSHQ, which means I'm not always engaged with my reading.

Immerse yourself in what you are reading - The idea behind this is to slow down and take your time. Savor the experience of reading, like you would a fine meal. Tristan says that you should not hurry through a book just to say you have read it. I find myself guilty of this on occasion because there are some books that I *do* want to say I have read, even if I didn't really enjoy them that much (e.g., William Gibson's Neuromancer). Then there are other books that I *do* like to savor and enjoy, as if I'm eating the finest culinary creation from The Deplorable Gourmet (e.g., P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath). I *immerse* myself in the story and I become saddened when it is done, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Listen to audio books - If you are still struggling with enjoying reading, then read with your ears and not with your eyes. However, you will still want to combine this with the first 3 tips. You will need to FOCUS on the story being read to you, meaning you should NOT listen to audio books while engaged in other tasks, because your brain will have to split its attention. You will want to switch off any other distrctions and just IMMERSE yourself in the story. Imagine what it was like when you were a child before you were a proficient reader. Children will sit quietly, enraptured when being read to, because they are devoting all of their being into the story as it's read to them. Recapture that experience.

Read something you are interested in! - This may be the most important piece of advice. And this is where the Moron Horde excels. Between us, we have a massive range of genres and interests that we read. We don't all read the same things, nor should we. What we can do is provide recommendations on books that we enjoyed that we believe others may also enjoy. You may not like certain books when you first start reading. That's OK. There are millions of other books out there and I guarantee you 100% that there are books out there you WILL enjoy. It may just take a bit of time to sort out your personal tastes and preferences in literature (or nonfiction, if you prefer that). Do not be discouraged!

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WOKE LITERATURE AT WRITERS CONFERENCES

J.J. Sefton recently (5/2/2024) included this link to an article on Front Page Magazine by Thom Nickels. Thom points out that writers conferences are "a mixed bag of how-to workshops, self-help lectures, networking, and--in today's world--politics."

Is it even *possible* to escape politics at a conference these days? This was a writers conference, so presumably most of the participants were there to discuss the craft of writing, storytelling, publishing, etc. Yet, I suspect that most of the participants were of the left-wing bent, so don't even find it strange to infuse radical political discussions into even the most banal and innocuous conversations about books.

During one of the panel discussions, one of the women on the panel said that "Men don't read." That poses a problem for the literary world if they want to sell more books. They are alienating half their potential audience. Are writers even interested in creating stories that appeal to men anymore? Or are they pressured by the literary agents and publishers into writing stories that appeal mainly to women because the conventional wisdom is "men don't read?" Worse, young boys are actively being discouraged from reading because the only stories they are taught in school involve women central characters, instead of positive male role models.

Another point that stood out to me was this idea that people deliberately try to write a bestseller, as if there is a formula one can follow to make it happen. Stick to the formula and fame and fortune shall be yours! Instead, the truth is that the reading public will determine what sells and what doesn't, despite the best marketing efforts. Many authors struggle for *YEARS* before selling even ONE book, let alone becoming a household name. During that time, writers are working numerous other jobs in order to pay the bills. Ray Bradbury once said that he was never paid to write. He wrote over 1,000 short stories and sold around 600 or so. But no one paid him to write those stories. He did it because his creative muse would not leave him alone. And then he shopped them around from publisher to publisher until he found a buyer willing to take a chance. As his fame grew, then he had a lot more options open up to him, but he spent many years struggling to make ends meet. He used what little funds he had to rent time on typewriters at the local university in order to crank out manuscripts.

Attending writers conferences to gain insights into the publishing industry, network with peers, and improve one's craft is all part of playing the game to become an "author" as a full-time vocation. It may suck--a lot at times--but the payoff can be huge.

Any of y'all been to a writers conference like the Philadelphia Writers Conference? How was it? What did you get out of it? Has your writing improved?

BOOKS BY MORONS

Speaking of playing the game of becoming an author, we have the following submission for consideration.

I've just published my first novel, and am hoping you will give it a mention. It's a bit murder mystery, psychological thriller, and police procedural with original characters and a unique perspective. Reviews have been very good. Here's the book blurb:
When forensics engineer Ian Deal accidentally destroys a building he's supposed to fix, he creates a chaotic stream of events culminating in being accused of murdering a man he barely knew. All his efforts to clear his name only leads him deeper into a murderous conspiracy so clever the police are unaware of its existence. Doggedly pursuing him is Patricia Everett, a homicide detective with a clear directive from superiors to pin these murders on Ian Deal. Sensing that she is being manipulated by unknown players in city hall, Everett must choose to follow orders or enlist the brilliant Deal and his rag-tag group of hackers and malcontents to figure out who is killing society's least sympathetic victims.
And here's the link to it on Amazon.
Neale Martin

It's one of those books where the main protagonist's life goes horribly wrong when he makes a terrible decision that seemed like a good idea at the time. In the first chapter, Ian sneaks into a building and sets off a demolition charge that has some unforeseen consequences. Whoops! Whoopsie!

The book is available on Kindle Unlimited, so there's no purchase required if you already subscribe to that service.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I'm still working my way through A Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare by Kathleen Beckman. Its a pretty comprehensive work, including case studies and deliverance prayers should one need them.
Since 2020, I've become much more attuned to spiritual things, and while it gives me greater clarity on what is going on in the world, explaining it can be difficult, particularly to people who have shut themselves off from the very possibility of there being anything other than a secular, materialist world.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 05, 2024 09:11 AM (llXky)

Comment: The more I travel in my own spiritual journey, the more attuned I seem to become to the spiritual warfare raging all around us, unseen, unheard, in the spaces between our known reality. People who live solely in a secular, materialist world don't know what they are missing. Moreover, they are vulnerable to being attacked by dark spiritual forces that do want to consume their souls.

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I read Nuclear War: A Scenario by Anne Jacobson. This isn't another dystopian novel. Rather it is a minute by minute account of what would happen if the U. S. came under nuclear attack. In this scenario, North Korea launches a nuclear tipped ICBM targeted at the Pentagon. It is followed by a submarine-fired missile which targets the Diablo Nuclear Power Plant on the central coast of California. As a final shot, Kim Jung Il orders a satellite to be positioned over Omaha which detonates a nuclear bomb 300 miles up and causes an EMP.
The book is soon reading like a thriller, but it is an accurate portrayal of the scenario. Seventy-four minutes after the initial North Korean launch the U. S. and Russia have launched all their nuclear assets, except some on submarines; obeying the "use it or lose it" doctrine. A discussion of the nuclear winter aftermath is also discussed. A very interesting, informative, and chilling book.
Posted by: Zoltan at May 05, 2024 10:01 AM (gyCYJ)

Comment: Sounds interesting, but I have a difficult time buying into the premise that North Korea could successfully launch an ICBM that hits the Pentagon--unless it's by sheer chance. Still, it's always worth considering the cost of worldwide nuclear apocalypse. NO ONE will emerge unscathed--even those who skedaddle off to a remote New Zealand bunker will have to deal with the aftermath in that scenario. They may not be the power players after all when they emerge.

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My off the shelf was a little book by John McPhee called The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed that lead me to read a bunch of his stuff. It showed me that almost anything is interesting if you probe into it deeply enough (and write as well as John McPhee).
Posted by: who knew at May 05, 2024 11:06 AM (4I7VG)

Comment: I will agree that ANYTHING can be interesting if it's presented well. I find that out all the time when I'm working with faculty. Although I have no desire to become practitioners in their fields, they almost all have interesting and engaging ways of presenting their knowledge in one-on-one conversations. As an example, I'm helping to redesign several geophysics courses. I don't know anything about the topic right now, but I will know a lot more through the conversations I'll have with the professor who teaches it. The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed is about a very unusual aircraft design--sort of a cross between an airplane and a rigid airship.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

The Wonderland Gambit Book 1 - The Cybernetic Walrus by Jack L. Chalker

Programmer Cory Maddox gets more than he bargains for when he signs on to work for an off-the-books government project after being let go from his previous job. Turns out the genius Matthew Brand has stumbled onto the building blocks of all reality and his "Brand Boxes" can shape or even create entirely new virtual worlds. Or are they virtual? As one might expect from Jack L. Chalker, there is a lot of body-swapping as the main characters go on a wild ride through the multiverse attempting to find out who is *really* behind all creation. Is it God? Is it some other omnipotent entity? What is reality? From the title of the series, it's also pretty obvious that there are a lot of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass references. Entertaining fluff, mostly, but it can be difficult to track the layers of reality from one chapter to the next...

The Wonderland Gambit Book 2 - The March Hare Network by Jack L. Chalker

Cory Maddox escaped the clutches of Al Stark and jumped to a new incarnation in an alternate universe. Now he is able to continue his journey, exploring the reality behind ALL realities, reconnecting with his previous allies and making new ones. He's been at this for longer than he knew, part of an elite group of people that have ascended to a higher plane of consciousness, but still "middle-management" in the grand scheme of things. This book had A LOT of elements that could have been taken directly from the movie The Matrix except that it was written three years before that movie was released. I wonder if the Wachowskis read this series as inspiration for their own movie.

The Wonderland Gambit Book 3 - The Hot-Wired Dodo by Jack L. Chalker

In the Author's Note at the beginning mentions that Chalker and Roger Zelazny were very close friends and that Zelazny passed away while Chalker was writing this series. In hindsight, it's very obvious that Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber series directly influenced The Wonderland Gambit. The core group of characters are all part of some form of "super-reality" and travel through virtual worlds where everyone else are just "spooks" going through programmed motions. It's possible to attune oneself to the master system controlling the virtual reality and then gain a measure of control over it, creating effects that would seem magical to the "spooks" if they were aware of the changes at all. This is very similar to the rules of Amber, which is the one true reality. All other realities are just Shadows of Amber. Initiates of the Pattern can move through Shadows and create/modify them as well. Chalker just uses a supercomputer instead of a magic system for creating his worlds.

Here's a passage I never expected to read:

"A twin-sexed centaur Jesus just wasn't something I was ready for yet, although the moment I thought of it, just such an image popped into my head. I still wondered how they would crucify a centaur, and at the same time I didn't really want to know."

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 05-05-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Everything you know is wrong.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Antipodal Applied Logic !

Posted by: Ciampino - FBI called because someone misnamed others?! at May 12, 2024 08:59 AM (qfLjt)

2 Part 1 of 2

Finished up "He Was Dead When I Got There" (#18 in the Raconteur Press Anthologies series). Amusing! A couple of the stories cut "Andrew Spurgle" a bit more slack than I expected. (He's supposed to be the arrogant idiotic incompetent that everyone encounters in life and wonders how they manage to even breath without screwing it up.) Overall though, some very creative tales told, and definitely a lot of "Oh yeah, I've met THAT guy" in my thoughts as I read.

Currently reading #19: Or All Will Burn: Fierce Love. The second in this series that focuses on what parents will do when their children are threatened. Some dark, but well written stuff here, as was the first one.

After reading this many of their anthologies, I can safely say: If it comes from them, just buy it, you'll enjoy your read.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 12, 2024 09:00 AM (O7YUW)

3 Hello, my fellow Librotarians

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:01 AM (FkUwd)

4 I did beta reading for ALH authors, does that count?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 09:01 AM (0eaVi)

5 Part 2 of 2:

Surprisingly, John Van Stry's "Stand Alone: Wolfhounds - Book One" is still on sale for 99 cents (80% off) in both the USA and Canada (when I checked at 8:13 AM eastern.) Oh, and that's 99 cents in Canada as well, no exchange rate! I expected this was going to be a one-week only sale, but apparently it's set to go a bit longer. How much longer, I have no idea though, so if you want to grab a copy at the sale price, do it soon.

This is book 1 in what's intended to be a 5 book series. It's a VERY satisfying read, and a well written story. The second book is as well. In a nutshell, the Empire gets taken over in a coup by a clever usurper. An elite warrior unit intended to protect the emperor and family at all cost was sidelined in cryo-sleep in their ship in space, and the usurper figured that without valid activation by the emperor, they were dealt with and could be safely forgotten about. That turns out a bit differently than expected though, and when the Wolfhounds figure out what's happened, it's on like Donkey Kong. Battlemechs, amazing battles, righteous fury, paybacks, respect for hard work, this story's got a ton of themes I love.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 12, 2024 09:01 AM (O7YUW)

6 "Perfessor" Squirrel:

Thank you again for the book thread! Always enjoy this lovely addition to my Sunday morning.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 12, 2024 09:02 AM (O7YUW)

7 I did not read this week.

Happy Mothers Day.

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 12, 2024 09:02 AM (ENQN6)

8 I like the picture of the disgruntled man, and I understand his plight. LOL. Of course, when books are everywhere in your house and there are too many, you may tend to regret it.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:03 AM (XkYcA)

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

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 09:03 AM (zudum)

10 I won't be hanging out with y'all this morning. I'm on deck to handle the livestream for our church services today.

Have a great day!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at May 12, 2024 09:03 AM (BpYfr)

11 Finished a book yesterday. Started reading Prof. Gad Saad's "The Parasitic Mind." Depressing.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at May 12, 2024 09:05 AM (MEM6T)

12 Hiya

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 09:05 AM (T4tVD)

13 Good morning!

My mother read to us at bedtime. Five children piled around her on a bed, listening to James Herriot's books, Cheaper by the Dozen, Chronicles of Narnia...we had such a good time.

I also read to mine, and my daughter to hers.

And, it being Mother's Day, I wish I'd had more kids.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 12, 2024 09:06 AM (OX9vb)

14 Good morning everyone. Happy Mother's Day to all whom perform the role.

Very little reading for pleasure this week - I did kick my way through a few dozen pages of the Catechism however.

Posted by: Tonypete at May 12, 2024 09:07 AM (ibKjr)

15 Hi gang.

Not much reading this week -- skimmed Blake Bailey's bios of Richard Yates and Philip Roth. Back to Simenon soon.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 09:07 AM (q3u5l)

16 OrangeEnt: Beta reading absolutely counts!

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 12, 2024 09:07 AM (O7YUW)

17 For the first time ever, Perfesser Squirrel, I must take exception to something you wrote. Why specifically search for an image of "a mother reading to her daughter"? Why not "child" or "children"? For the Love of Life Orchestra, why deliberately exclude sons?! As a mom of each, I can declare from experience that one isn't automatically closer to the child/parent of the same sex; my son and I are on the same page (see what I did there?) more often than I am with my daughter (who fell under leftist influence at school and work). Just saying.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 12, 2024 09:09 AM (SPNTN)

18 And I would like to thank my mom (and dad ) for nurturing in me a love of reading, which- along with my husband- I think I've passed onto our son.

I can read the book thread today (Yay!) because I am off from church, as we make a migration with our son to PA for an internship.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:09 AM (XkYcA)

19 My mother read to us at bedtime. Five children piled around her on a bed, listening to James Herriot's books, Cheaper by the Dozen, Chronicles of Narnia...we had such a good time.

I also read to mine, and my daughter to hers.

And, it being Mother's Day, I wish I'd had more kids.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!

Dash - I can give you a few of my extra.

Mom and Dad read to us all the time. Dad would choose children's books that Mom just hated: The Five Chinese Brothers comes to mind instantly. Oh, she hated that one.

Posted by: Tonypete at May 12, 2024 09:09 AM (ibKjr)

20 I got a book this week which I think I first heard about on this thread some months ago: "Well, Doc, You're In!" -- a collection of biographical essays about Freeman Dyson, edited by Daniel Kaiser and published by MIT. It's basically a biography of Dyson, but the different stages of his life are covered by different writers, many of whom knew him at the time. Fascinating guy, so the book's quite interesting.

I was amused that the editor felt it necessary to devote roughly a quarter of his introduction to an attempt to handwave away or excuse Dyson's well-known skepticism about climate alarmism. As if this was a biography of Newton published in the 19th century and the editor had to make excuses for his religious heresy.

When Dyson supported nuclear disarmament he was a brave visionary. When he doubted St. Al Gore he was . . . problematic.

But other than that it's a good book.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:10 AM (78a2H)

21 "Men don't read."

Uhh...no. Men don't read romances, novels where everyone is gay and singular individuals go by plural pronouns, and all the Men are Bad.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 12, 2024 09:11 AM (OX9vb)

22 I'm reading John Ringo's "The Last Centurion" for the third time. No matter when you read this novel (from 200

, it seems prescient.

Of course, when he wrote it, it seemed like President Hillary was an inevitability; who could have foreseen Obama? But the political satire doesn't seem dated even 20 years later because government overreach and the idiocy of "experts" is a constant in the universe.

But reading it post-Plandemic should reveal new insights. In this story, the world is hit with the triple whammy of a severe cooling period plus a bird flu epidemic plus catastrophically inept governance.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:12 AM (FkUwd)

23 Dr. Mrs. T. and I both read to our kids. One of them actually concealed the fact that they could read well into elementary school so that we wouldn't stop the bedtime reading.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:12 AM (78a2H)

24 Ray Bradbury once said that he was never paid to write. He wrote over 1,000 short stories and sold around 600 or so. But no one paid him to write those stories. He did it because his creative muse would not leave him alone. And then he shopped them around from publisher to publisher until he found a buyer willing to take a chance.

Leads to a question. Did he ever sell those earlier works once he became a name? I'm sure he probably rewrote them. But, I've never heard of any author who sold older stuff once they made sales.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 09:12 AM (0eaVi)

25 And not much reading this past week-having his graduation and cleaning up (with all of us) his dorm room. i did read some of the Gideon's Bible. I explained in an earlier thread a couple of days ago-someone had tossed it out of a room-onto the parking lot of a hotel-and I rescued it. I think I may send it with son.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:13 AM (XkYcA)

26 "Men don't read."

Uhh...no. Men don't read romances, novels where everyone is gay and singular individuals go by plural pronouns, and all the Men are Bad.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 12, 2024 09:11 AM (OX9vb)
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What you mean to say is that real men don't read kitch.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at May 12, 2024 09:13 AM (MEM6T)

27 Imagine if Martin Bormann had escaped Germany in the final weeks of the second world war, and headed for South America to maintain the party. This is the theme of Thunder Point by Jack Higgins.

Former terrorist Sean Dillion is sprung from prison and offered a pardon if he will undertake a top secret mission for the crown. Bormann escaped Nazi Germany aboard a U-Boat headed for Venezuela, but the trail ended when the craft left port. Recently, the wreck of the U-Boat has been discovered in the Caribbean, and the powers that be want the wreck explored, and Dillon has the necessary expertise. Apparently, documents in the sealed briefcase Bormann carried on board included a list of sympathisers he could count on for assistance, quite possibly including peers and members of the royal household. If the briefcase is on the wreck, it contains explosive information. England certainly would like to recover the documents, and ensure they never see the light of day. But of course, the documents are tremendously valuable to others as well...

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 12, 2024 09:13 AM (ZtpfE)

28 More accurately, men don't read fiction.

This may be a self-reinforcing cycle because it means fiction is increasingly written and marketed exclusively for women.

But men do read nonfiction -- especially science and history. I suspect they are the primary market for those.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:14 AM (78a2H)

29 Durn it. Have to go somewhere. Don't end the BT without me!!!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 09:14 AM (0eaVi)

30 Happy Mother's Day to the Horde mamas!

My mom taught me to read at age 3, which made school a breeze (until I hit physics many years later). This is just one of the many things I appreciate about her.

Posted by: screaming in digital at May 12, 2024 09:15 AM (xQ/4D)

31 They made a film of thunder point with rob lowe as sean dillon honestly

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 09:16 AM (PXvVL)

32 Ah, reading aloud ... During the Covidiocy, when our entire library staff was sent home to try to justify our paychecks while online only, I began an adult evening storytime over Zoom. "Mystery Monday" never attracted more than 7 or 8 people at a time, but I found some of the most delightful short stories ever written (the only criterion was that it had to involve some kind of crime and/or investigation); learned an enormous amount about the pulp era and short genre fiction in general; and became a reasonably skilled voice actress, if I may say so myself. Pity that I didn't get authorization to record the show.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 12, 2024 09:16 AM (SPNTN)

33 Durn it. Have to go somewhere. Don't end the BT without me!!!
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 09:14 AM (0eaVi)
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Look, I, too, read in the can. But you've got to limit yourself, man.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at May 12, 2024 09:16 AM (MEM6T)

34
Cheaper by the Dozen

__________

A book you can come back to again and again with pleasure. A good book for children and young adults.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 09:16 AM (MoZTd)

35 What an out of date picture! They're not mixed race! There's no purple hair or tackle box face or keffiyeh. And where are the virtue signalling rainbows? We're just weeks away from Pride Month!!

Posted by: Don't take me seriously at May 12, 2024 09:17 AM (dg+HA)

36 Currently reading A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War about Lewis and Tolkien's war experiences. Hope to finish before I leave for England in less than #2weeks.

And I hope I have space to take some plane reading material along (I don't do ebooks). I'm planning to take The Great Divorce and Who is Your Resilience Builder? Loss, Friendship, and Creativity. The latter is about the friendships of Lewis and Tolkien, and Lennon and McCartney, respectively.

Posted by: screaming in digital at May 12, 2024 09:18 AM (xQ/4D)

37 Booken morgen horden!

Guess what, KTE got me something on my wishlist - a kindle paperwhite. I'm hoping I can read ebooks on it without getting distracted by the internetz

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 09:18 AM (yD62l)

38 There's a follow-up to Cheaper By the Dozen, called Belles on their Toes, about the family's life after Frank Gilbreth's death. It's pretty good, though Frank was such an outsize character his absence is notable.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:19 AM (78a2H)

39 My daughter was the one who suggested that I aim the Lone Star series (my reworking of the Lone Ranger story) to tween and teen boys - as she pointed out, there was nothing much in YA novels for boys, once that Harry Potter was done and dusted. So - I deliberately wrote Lone Star Sons and the rest specifically aimed at boys' sense of mystery and adventure. Many are the times that I have hand-sold copies of the series to boys by saying, "Hello - I wrote these books specifically for you!"

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at May 12, 2024 09:19 AM (Ew3fm)

40 Guilty in regard to speeding through some books.

Case in point: I am a huge fan of the original Executioner books, those actually written by Don Pendleton. Yet in "Monday's Mob," set in Pendleton's home county -- Brown County, Indiana -- he devotes pages to the scenery and architecture of certain buildings that become the scene of combat. I've never read those thoroughly, and I feel guilty that I've missed something.

Happy Mother's Day to those Morons who qualify!

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 09:19 AM (p/isN)

41 When I was a child, my mom would read to us kids at the breakfast table, even when we were old enough to read books on our own.

--

That's lovely.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 09:19 AM (yD62l)

42 Observation - I find myself reading fewer books these days and more long-form interweb material. The interweb has lowered the barriers to entry for those who enjoy writing and don't need to write in book form. Substack, blogs, white papers, and even LinkedIn and X have a lot of non-fiction nuggets. I'm guessing that most authors aren't getting rich given the laws of supply and demand, but there are a lot of interesting people out there with interesting knowledge and perspectives. The challenge is sorting the signal from the noise.

Posted by: TRex at May 12, 2024 09:19 AM (IQ6Gq)

43
Given (a) Her Majesty's knee and (b) the behavior of the puppies, I decided to go to Mass this afternoon at a local parish instead of this morning at the one I usually attend, which is 45 miles away.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 09:19 AM (MoZTd)

44 I started a book, but the library delivered two comics collections. So I've spent most of the past week with "Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s," which reprints four sequences of only Sunday strips, including one that appeared the day before my father was born.

Chester Gould had yet to use "gruesome" characters, but he rattled me with a gang whose members had a tongue tattoo. Yecch.

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 09:20 AM (p/isN)

45 In this scenario, North Korea launches a nuclear tipped ICBM targeted at the Pentagon.

(And there was great rejoicing from the U.S. Military as millions of calendars suddenly were cleared in order to kill people and break stuff.)

It is followed by a submarine-fired missile which targets the Diablo Nuclear Power Plant on the central coast of California.

(Isn't that plant about to be shut down?)

As a final shot, Kim Jung Il orders a satellite to be positioned over Omaha which detonates a nuclear bomb 300 miles up and causes an EMP.

(People used to be puzzled as to why I kept a "nuke folder" when we were stationed at Offutt AFB. Although this proves why I was right, I think the relevant structures are hardened against this type of attack and the "300 miles" seems too far, but maybe not for an EMP. I'll have to ask my resident expert.)

Posted by: pookysgirl would probably read the book anyway at May 12, 2024 09:20 AM (dtlDP)

46 Happy Mother's Day morons

Posted by: San Franpsycho at May 12, 2024 09:20 AM (RIvkX)

47 When I order a book I always want it to appear quickly but the latest example, which arrives later today, has me eager for the delivery. It's "Botanical Shakespeare: An Illustrated Compendium of All the Flowers, Fruits, Herbs, Trees, Seeds, and Grasses Cited by the World's Greatest Playwright ". From the information on Amazon (had the best price by far this time) the illustrations look excellent and the Shakespeare quotes makes it especially interesting. Anyone who has read much Shakespeare knows he makes a lot of references to plants and nature.

I'll have comments for next weeks thread. Obviously, I am eager for the book to arrive.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 09:21 AM (zudum)

48
I've stared reading-

"The Day of the Triffids" by John Wyndham

This seems to be the Ur-novel for a lot of SF inspired disaster stories. Esp. zombie movies/shows seem to have straight out ~~stolen~~...uh...."been inspired by" the opening of TDotT.

You're probably familiar with the story but if you aren't a guy who's had eye surgery wakes up to find practically everyone in the world but him is blind thanks to an unusual celestial event. Perhaps involving comet debris.

Blind hijinks ensue. Then not zombies but killer and mobile plants show up. Carnivorous horticultural hijinks ensue.

Very well written so far. If a bit wordy. Opens with the story already ongoing which is a method i prefer in my fiction.

No complaints. We'll see how it goes.

Posted by: naturalfake at May 12, 2024 09:21 AM (eDfFs)

49 Morning, Book People! I have to run out to the urgent care place (some kind of insect or spider bite [?] on my back has been bothering me for a few days), but I have a few minutes, and then I should be back before the Thread is done.

Finishing Nevil Shute's No Highway, the basis for the fine 1950 movie with James Stewart. As usual with Shute's work, it's all pretty low-key and more about the people than anything. His protagonist, Mr. Theodore Honey the airframe analyst, is a little harder to like than in the film version, but he grows on you in the same way he does on several female characters in the story.

And I picked up a few possible goodies at the library yesterday: Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology, the first in a series called An Irish Country Doctor, and a collection of Frederick Forsyth's short stories. Speaking of country doctors: Who was the English author who wrote a novel or two about a young doctor serving his early internship in a Scottish or English coal-mining town? "J.J." something? He also wrote The Keys to the Kingdom, I think?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (omVj0)

50 Writing fiction is not a way to make money. It's literally easier to get struck by lightning than to write a bestseller.

If you want to make money writing, do freelance nonfiction writing for magazines. There's still a lot of them and they need "content" every month. It requires a lot of "hustle" but it can be done.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (78a2H)

51 Tolle Lege
Trip to Bramble used book store and picked up a book saw long time ago
Arkady Vaksberg
The Prosecutor and the Prey
Vyshilinsky and the 1930s Moscow Show Trials

1st my continuing interest in Russian history is expanding
2nd we are in the midst of our own Show Trials.
It's starting in just before the Russian Revolution and doubt anyone knows what it's like under a totalitarian government until you live it.

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (fwDg9)

52 LOL, Bandit Six complaining about his new CO's staff meetings:

"If the previous meetings had been, say, a Catholic High Mass of dick-beating, this guy was full up Aztec Sun Day ritual dick-beating with a cast of thousands and everyone has to give up their still beating heart. The best and the brightest were flayed and he wore their skin around for the next week."

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (FkUwd)

53 Think I read Cheaper by the Dozen when I was 12 or so. Like much of what I've read, I recall enjoying it without recalling much in the way of specifics.

There was a pretty decent movie made from it with (if memory serves) Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy; it used to be run frequently during the early days of NBC's Saturday night movie broadcasts. Think they did a remake some years back, but I've never seen it because I figured they'd ruin it.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (q3u5l)

54 Thanks for the dandy Book Thread, Perfessor!

I've always been a reader, and while I have no memories of my folks reading to us, they did encourage us to read.

Still reading, mostly for pleasure, and enjoying it when I can sit outside in the mild weather and read. I picked up Pride and Prejudice to mix in with the fluff so we will see how that goes. I like that time period in England so that's a positive.

Happy Mother's Day to the 'ettes!

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (U3L4U)

55 Durn it. Have to go somewhere. Don't end the BT without me!!!
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 09:14 AM (0eaVi)

How long you gonna be gone ?

You takin' a Rowboat to China ?

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 09:23 AM (T4tVD)

56 Husband and some both like to read fiction, but it's not recent fiction. Son just read "Dune" and Alfred Bester's-"The Stars Are My Destination"

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:23 AM (XkYcA)

57 Naturalfake, I well recall John Wyndham's Out of the Deeps, another very creepy and world-spanning disaster novel. It was also known in England as The Kraken Wakes, I think.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 09:23 AM (omVj0)

58 Happy Sunday and happy Mother's day to the 'ettes!

>> one of the women on the panel said that "Men don't read."

Maybe because so many of the NYC publishing house book editors are young, woke women? They naturally pick drafts that appeal to them -- not men?

Anyone who reads this Sunday thread knows how much the men here read!!

Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 09:23 AM (cCVOS)

59 Happy mothers day. My mother and my grandmother taught me to read when I was about four, which is one of the greatest gifts of all. I can still remember their fingers tracing the words as they read, and when they would pause at a word, I would say it. Eventually, I was reading most of the passage, and then all of it. I was miles ahead when I entered school.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 12, 2024 09:24 AM (W4r1a)

60 I loved reading to my little hobbits when they were young enough to tolerate it. Long, short, adventure, just silly - each had a place. Now that we're getting into the "I hate you, Mom!" teen years, I think back fondly on evenings surrounded by little boys, reading The Hobbit or Wind in the Willows on a comfy bed.

Posted by: She Hobbit at May 12, 2024 09:25 AM (ftFVW)

61 Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 09:21 AM (zudum)

I'll have to recommend that to my son. He just finished watching an excellent version of "The Tempest" from the Globe Theatre and son was a horticulture major.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:25 AM (XkYcA)

62 I've started reading Clifford D. Simak "All Flesh Is Grass", recommended here some Sunday ago.

Posted by: Ciampino - loose leaves sink authors at May 12, 2024 09:26 AM (qfLjt)

63 'Fake, I loved "The Day of the Triffids".

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:26 AM (FkUwd)

64 Dr. Mrs. T. and I both read to our kids. One of them actually concealed the fact that they could read well into elementary school so that we wouldn't stop the bedtime reading.
=====

One of my kids concealed the fact she could read because the slower readers got candy as rewards. Imagine my surprise at the parent-teacher conference.

Posted by: mustbequantum at May 12, 2024 09:27 AM (MIKMs)

65 "During one of the panel discussions, one of the women on the panel said that "Men don't read."

The words confuse and frighten me.

Posted by: Caveman Moron at May 12, 2024 09:27 AM (vFG9F)

66
More accurately, men don't read fiction.

What the...?

I'm a man. I read fiction. I also read non-fic, science, whatever.

I read whatever interests me for whatever reason.

As apparently do other men on this blog.

Seriously silly statement.

Posted by: naturalfake at May 12, 2024 09:27 AM (eDfFs)

67 The more I travel in my own spiritual journey, the more attuned I seem to become to the spiritual warfare raging all around us, unseen, unheard, in the spaces between our known reality.

**

Same here

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 09:28 AM (yD62l)

68 The tripe that simon and schuster and penguin put out likr the line sbout dog food

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 09:29 AM (PXvVL)

69 Currently reading "All of Our Sins" by Yuval Kordov, the creator of the world of Dark Legacies, a post-post-apocalyptic sci-fi/dark fantasy world. It's the second book in the series, following "The Hand of God".

Both excellent books. Nuclear war has killed almost everyone on Earth, and God has punished humanity for its suicide by casting our planet into darkness, and opened a HellMouth in the SE of the US that spews forth demons to plague the survivors, and caused much of the rest of the country to be a place where you'll go insane merely from traveling across it.

Several groups of survivors vie for technological supremacy as they battle demons and the world. There are sentient mechs, mutant children, witches, and lots of political backstabbing and intrigue. I'm really enjoying these books very much.

Posted by: Sharkman at May 12, 2024 09:29 AM (/RHNq)

70 At the used book store this week picked up a book on planting dahlias (just bought one last week to give it a try). Just started The Passengers by John Marrs, it's about driverless cars becoming sentient - or maybe controlled by some madman? Not sure yet. . .!

Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 09:29 AM (cCVOS)

71 My father told me that when I was five days old my mother began reading aloud to me every day. As far back as I can remember, which is pretty far back, to when I was maybe three, I’ve loved books, learning, and reading.

I tell my students that when they have kids they have to start doing this. It’s the knowledge, ideas, and habits in our heads that is the bedrock of civilization. Pass it on.

Happy Mother’s Day.

Posted by: Durak Kazyol at May 12, 2024 09:29 AM (MqK4a)

72 More accurately, men don't read fiction.

What the...?

I'm a man. I read fiction. I also read non-fic, science, whatever.

I read whatever interests me for whatever reason.

As apparently do other men on this blog.

Seriously silly statement.

When I was younger, I spent a great deal of time reading in a monthly periodical. It was called Playboy. Perhaps you've heard of it.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 12, 2024 09:29 AM (CsUN+)

73 A few years ago I finally got around to reading The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

Got a lot out of it. Now I understand why I find it hard to get rid of a gift I've been given. Even a card. Gifts are one of my love languages. I never realized that about myself until I read that book.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at May 12, 2024 09:30 AM (dg+HA)

74 51 Tolle Lege
Trip to Bramble used book store and picked up a book saw long time ago

---

Oh, KTE had just recently wanted to go visit the cats there!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 09:30 AM (yD62l)

75 >>> 8 I like the picture of the disgruntled man, and I understand his plight. LOL. Of course, when books are everywhere in your house and there are too many, you may tend to regret it.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:03 AM (XkYcA)

I will be happy to take your "excess" books, bacon and/or booze.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at May 12, 2024 09:31 AM (llON8)

76 Just started reading 'Ghost on the Throne' by James Romm. Interesting, so far.

Posted by: dantesed at May 12, 2024 09:31 AM (Oy/m2)

77 Cheaper by the Dozen

------------------

One of two books my grandmother had in her house that I could read. The other was (probably not the title) Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans. I must've red CbtD at least 2 dozen times. She had other books, but what they were I have no idea.

based on the Perfesser's summary I won't watch the video. Yes, to get better at reading you need to work at it. But only 3 and 5 ring true with me.

Posted by: yara at May 12, 2024 09:32 AM (jwDtS)

78 The dam burst for reading for me on an eight day sailing trip in the Bahamas. Windy chop, mechanical difficulties, and the rather advanced age of the crew led to a lot of down time on a parked boat.
Started and finished at least five books; I'd been having trouble finishing books for a few years now.
The best of the bunch was The Wizard of The Kremlin, A.N. Ruilida, an Italian guy. Fiction about Putin's PR guy for lack of a better description. Very well done.
1/2

Posted by: From about that Time at May 12, 2024 09:32 AM (4780s)

79 When I was younger, I spent a great deal of time reading in a monthly periodical. It was called Playboy. Perhaps you've heard of it.
Posted by: Archimedes

I have heard they had some good articles.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 12, 2024 09:32 AM (vzov9)

80
Of course, when books are everywhere in your house and there are too many, you may tend to regret it.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:03 AM (XkYcA)

________

It means you need a bigger house.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 09:33 AM (MoZTd)

81 We are following our tradition of Pooky reading Shel Silverstein to the children in utero. He did it with Pookette and she would do backflips when she heard Daddy reading to her. Lil Pooky isn't quite to the backflip stage yet, but he wakes up when Pooky does it.

Posted by: pookysgirl, nurturing the generation of book addicts at May 12, 2024 09:33 AM (dtlDP)

82 4 I did beta reading for ALH authors, does that count?
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Very much so

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 09:33 AM (yD62l)

83 Seriously silly statement.
Posted by: naturalfake at May 12, 2024 09:27 AM (eDfFs)

Nah, brain dead, or condescending and deliberately piggish.

Posted by: GOP sux at May 12, 2024 09:33 AM (Zzbjj)

84 If you like Wyndham, Modern Library's been reprinting some of his work over the last few years. Can't recall if Out of the Deeps/Kraken Wakes is one of 'em, though; think I read somewhere that the original US edition of Out of the Deeps was abridged for reasons I don't remember, so if there's a new edition maybe it's complete. There's also a volume of his selected short stories coming some time this summer that should be worth a look.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 09:34 AM (q3u5l)

85 36 ... "Currently reading A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War about Lewis and Tolkien's war experiences. "

SiD,
That is a wonderful book and does a better job explaining the effects of WW I on Tolkien, Lewis, and Europe in general than any 'regular' history book. I've read it several times.

A book in a similar vein is "In the House Of Tom Bombadil" by C. R. Wiley. It explores some of the sources for the character but also why the character is so important to Tolkien and his world view. It is one of the few books I've read where as soon as I turned the last page I immediately re-read the whole thing. I've read it several times and given it as a gift. Can't recommend it highly enough. It's also only about 120 pages so it's not to large to travel with.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 09:34 AM (zudum)

86 Oooh, Thomas Paine, Thunder Point sounds good.

*Adding to the TBR tower.

This week, I read Down Range by Taylor Moore. " DEA agent Garrett Kohl fights to protect his home on the Texas High Plains when a vicious criminal enterprise comes after his family."

It was exciting, good guys vs. bad guys, destruction, mayhem, family relationships, no trannies. I enjoyed it. Looks like it's the first of a series, so I'll check out another.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 12, 2024 09:36 AM (OX9vb)

87 Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's in the Horde!

I have been devouring Kurt Schliter's books the past couple of months starting with "The Attack" and then all of the Kelly Turnball books - half way through the eighth. They have been a very quick read - and like the author said, "they are not a how to gude", but there are a lot of similarities to the real world.

I have just picked up "Not Stolen" by Jeff Fynn-Paul. It is the truth about European Colonialism in the New World. Apparently it wasn't all about replacing the indigenous population through conquest. I will learn more shortly.

Posted by: Lurking in Garland at May 12, 2024 09:36 AM (QYnea)

88 Guiliani de empoli ironically hes a media guy for one ba frontmen for the previous italian government

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 09:36 AM (PXvVL)

89 Don't forget the letters.

Posted by: Penthouse Forum at May 12, 2024 09:36 AM (dg+HA)

90 Men _as a commercial demographic_ don't read. This is the current conventional wisdom in publishing, and consequently publishers engage in self-fulfilling prophecy by aiming books at women.

Every now and then there will be a "surprise breakout hit" like The Martian or Harry Potter or Tom Clancy -- and then the publishers readjust their blinders and keep on doing the same as before.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:37 AM (78a2H)

91 >>Another point that stood out to me was this idea that people deliberately try to write a bestseller, as if there is a formula one can follow to make it happen

"Crazy, huh?"
-- James Patterson

Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 09:37 AM (cCVOS)

92
When I was younger, I spent a great deal of time reading in a monthly periodical. It was called Playboy. Perhaps you've heard of it.
Posted by: Archimedes at May 12, 2024 09:29 AM (CsUN+)

The funny thing about Playboy is the literary reputation they acquired as a skin mag.

Lots of well-known authors wrote for them, esp SF like Harlan Ellison. And straight up literary authors were solicited by by them as well. apparently, their payments were one of the best in the magazine industry.

When wee tad, I bought a few of the SF/horror analogies of they put out of stories published in Playboy.

Great mag with great tits displayed for the discerning young man.

Posted by: naturalfake at May 12, 2024 09:37 AM (eDfFs)

93 During one of the panel discussions, one of the women on the panel said that "Men don't read."

-

More accurately, men don't read the garbage that they are pushing now.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 12, 2024 09:37 AM (EpehN)

94 The scene: a comic book written in 2002. It's the inside of a luxury office owned by the very rich villain of the comic. His secretary informs our villain that: "You have a 10 o'clock with Mr. Eisner and Mr. Weinstein." He responds "Ah, yes. I did tell them I had some ideas to help them with their business. Very well."

And I laughed harder than I've laughed in weeks. Sure, part of that was because I was thinking about Bob Iger instead of Micheal Eisner, but it's still funny even with Eisner.

Yeah, the author thought he was making a point about how the supervillain had fooled people into thinking he was a respectable part of high society...But in retrospect, a perverted sex-offender and the head of the Disney Corporation having lunch with (and taking advice from) a murderous super-villain seems like the most natural thing in the world!

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 09:37 AM (Lhaco)

95 I've never been able to read for pleasure, work or education without being in a quiet spot. Typically the only thing I can tolerate is instrumental music, usually piano.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:38 AM (2NHgQ)

96 2/2 On the boat, I also finished "The Poison Handbook" by Deb Blum, entertaining telling about the formation of the NYC medical examiners office; "Enders Game" by Orson Card, which I had started and never finished many times; a woman's romance detective story whose title and author I can't recall but was very enjoyable in a who cares that it's badly written I like the story way, and another such novel that had been left on the chartered boat about which I remember nothing other than I started and finished it.

Posted by: From about that Time at May 12, 2024 09:38 AM (4780s)

97 Just finished reading Bulfinch's Mythology. Pretty interesting but a bit of a slog at times. Now reading someone else's summary of Greek and Roman myths (it's part of an ebook that is a huge collection of a ton of myths and fairy tales - it has all of Andrew Lang, for example. Yes I'm still reading through my massive ebook backlog).

The next translation of Ascendance of a Bookworm comes out on Wednesday! There are only a handful left to translate before the series ends. (BTW, I went to the history of printing museum in Tokyo, and it was AWESOME. I only wish I could have been there for the Bookworm event a few years ago!)

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at May 12, 2024 09:38 AM (Y+AMd)

98 My Dad, late in his work career, became a HS vocational instructor. He always made home visits for each of his students to 'get a feel where they are coming from'.

He found, in many of the homes, not a shred of reading material. Nothing, zip, nada. Not even a newspaper. He got so he could tell that before the visit.

Posted by: Tonypete at May 12, 2024 09:39 AM (ibKjr)

99 Both excellent books. Nuclear war has killed almost everyone on Earth, and God has punished humanity for its suicide by casting our planet into darkness, and opened a HellMouth in the SE of the US that spews forth demons to plague the survivors, and caused much of the rest of the country to be a place where you'll go insane merely from traveling across it.
===
Memphis?

Posted by: San Franpsycho at May 12, 2024 09:40 AM (RIvkX)

100 3/2. Oh, and when I got home, I read the "My Name is Legion" stories by Zelanzy, which someone on here recommended.
However, I still have no urge to pick up the Comorant Strike books lying around the house.

Posted by: From about that Time at May 12, 2024 09:40 AM (4780s)

101 vmom didn't see the cat, but had a gargoyle reading a book so had to show her mine ( graced this thread years ago) I carved. Found she paints miniatures so showed her pictures of a few of mine.

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 09:41 AM (fwDg9)

102 >>He found, in many of the homes, not a shred of reading material. Nothing, zip, nada. Not even a newspaper. He got so he could tell that before the visit.

IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE I NOTICED THE SAME THING WHEN WATCHING "MTV CRIBS." BUT THEY ALWAYS HAVE A FRAMED "SCARFACE" MOVIE POSTER!

Posted by: BEN ROETHLISBERGER at May 12, 2024 09:41 AM (cCVOS)

103 Thanks for the tip about In the House of Tom Bombadil. Just purchased it for my kindle app.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:42 AM (2NHgQ)

104 Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,
Listen to the DON'TS
Listen to the SHOULDN'TS
The IMPOSSIBLES, the WONT'S
Listen to the NEVER HAVES
Then listen close to me-
Anything can happen, child,
ANYTHING can be.

Posted by: From Shel Silverstein at May 12, 2024 09:42 AM (dg+HA)

105 If memory serves, at some point Playboy was paying something like 2 grand for a short story and was perhaps the highest-paying market for short fiction in the country. Quite a few top names published fiction there. There was an anthology of science fiction published in Playboy, and it had some terrific stuff in it.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 09:43 AM (q3u5l)

106 It means you need a bigger house.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 09:33 AM (MoZTd)

Umm-no 😉 I think I need to have a yard sale, but would people buy books?

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 09:43 AM (Rcvmt)

107 He found, in many of the homes, not a shred of reading material. Nothing, zip, nada. Not even a newspaper. He got so he could tell that before the visit.
Posted by: Tonypete

That is becoming more common, sadly.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 12, 2024 09:43 AM (EpehN)

108 Can't recommend it highly enough. It's also only about 120 pages so it's not to large to travel with.
Posted by: JTB
---
Thanks so much for this recommendation! It's in my Amazon cart.

Gotta run, y'all, but it was nice to be here for a little bit of the Book Thread. Thank you Perfessor and Horde bookworms!

Posted by: screaming in digital at May 12, 2024 09:43 AM (xQ/4D)

109 I loved Bulfinch, and when I was younger I was obsessed with D'Aulaire's Greek Mythology. Not to mention Edith Hamilton.

BUT . . . all of them are a bit too tidy. When you actually start studying Classical religions there's a lot you have to "unlearn" from the pop-mythology books. For instance: who were the Big Three gods of ancient Rome? Jupiter, Saturn, and Quirinus. Who's Quirinus? He's not in any of those mythology books I used to read! He's Romulus made into a god, that's who.

I understand that simplifying and systematizing are the best way to learn . . . but at times I think mythology books are a little _too_ simplified.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:44 AM (78a2H)

110 In a three month period in 1964, Arthur C. Clarke had cover stories published in both Playboy and Boys Life.

For good or ill, we will never see that again.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 12, 2024 09:45 AM (zdLoL)

111 "Just finished reading Bulfinch's Mythology. Pretty interesting but a bit of a slog at times."

We have a copy of that, illustrated with classic paintings. I got it for my boys when they were homeschooled. It does help to bring the stories to life, and you also get an art lesson.

I was introduced to Bullfinch, along with Edith Hamilton's "Mythology", by my 11th grade English Lit and Mythology teacher. She was probably the best school teacher I ever had.

Posted by: Caveman Moron at May 12, 2024 09:45 AM (vFG9F)

112 I bought Larry Correia's book "Hard Magic" in 2016. I couldn't get into it at the time even though I enjoyed his MHI series. I started reading it again this week and am enjoying it this time around. Point being, books I use to love now make me wonder why and books I had no interest in now engage me. People's perspectives and interests change...

Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024 09:45 AM (PZo5T)

113 Just finished John Sayles' "Jamie MacGillivray," a big sweep through 18th century history starting in Scotland with the final defeat of the Highlander's and their Jacobite attempt to install their king to the Brit throne.

I knew Brits sentenced their poor "criminals" to transportation to the penal colony of Australia, but in this book Jamie is sentenced to transportation and ends up in Virginia.

He ends up with the Lenape tribe on the Allegheny river up from where Pittsburgh is, and we find him later participating in terror attacks on Dutch and Quaker farm families in central and eastern PA that makes the hamas 10/7 affair seem like a PG-13 film.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at May 12, 2024 09:45 AM (KiBMU)

114 JTB, you should ask for a commission from Amazon. I wonder if their book sales go up right after this thread is posted?

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:46 AM (2NHgQ)

115 Off trog sock

Posted by: fd at May 12, 2024 09:46 AM (vFG9F)

116 Playboy paid $5 A WORD. Think about that: a dollar every time you hit a key on your typewriter.

To put it in perspective, "professional" rates for SF and mystery magazines right now are 8-10 cents a word.

Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:47 AM (78a2H)

117 kindle paperwhite. I'm hoping I can read ebooks on it without getting distracted by the internetz
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion

I still think it’s the best device for hardcore ebook reading; no blinky colored things, the browser is terrible, no sound fx, slim and lightweight.

Posted by: 13times at May 12, 2024 09:47 AM (1WJqk)

118 >>Yeah, the author thought he was making a point about how the supervillain had fooled people into thinking he was a respectable part of high society...

Heh. Or maybe he'd heard the rumors about what both men were really like? Weinstein's behavior was an open secret in Hollywood. . .

Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 09:47 AM (cCVOS)

119 He found, in many of the homes, not a shred of reading material. Nothing, zip, nada. Not even a newspaper. He got so he could tell that before the visit.
Posted by: Tonypete at May 12, 2024 09:39 AM (ibKjr)
---

I've heard of such homes but can't imagine growing up in one. We had books in every room.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:47 AM (FkUwd)

120 I am reading William Tecumseh Sherman by James Lee McDonough. And he did something I am seeing in biographies that irritates me.

"It was an era when “aristocrat” became regularly employed by Democrats as a political smear, much the same as today’s right-wing politicians have demonized the word “liberal.”"

Throwing that in makes me question their ability to write about Sherman fairl. I saw the same sort of thing in the Eisenhower biography. And it's jarring. You can show that it was used as a smear without smearing modern day politicians. It's been an interesting book but I will have to try and find another biography to read about him, to find out if this one is biased.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at May 12, 2024 09:48 AM (yeEu9)

121 In my family my father was the one who read to us when we were children. Some of his choices of reading material were typical children's fare such as "The Hobbit". Others were less typical as when he read me selections from Bernal Diaz del Castillo's "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain" a conquistador's first hand account of how the Spanish conquered Mexico which is replete with bloody battles and first hand accounts of human sacrifice. One bit from that I still remember is del Castillo's wise advice to anyone who finds themselves having to prepare for a desperate fight to escape from a besieged city: Don't try to carry looted gold, it is much too heavy, just pack a careful selection of jewels for minimum weight with maximum value.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at May 12, 2024 09:50 AM (jjfDF)

122 I read The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed many years ago, and as I recall it was about the development of a lifting body type aircraft that was driven by a propellor and barely flew. No dirigible-like qualities at all, and no literary qualities beyond those required to appeal to young gear-heads.

Posted by: Ray Van Dune at May 12, 2024 09:51 AM (fvaUq)

123 We had the bible and Ben Hur in the house where I grew up. Neither of them ever opened and read. I eventually found the local library and Scholastic Books, mostly the library. Spent a lot of time reading to escape some of the realities of growing up in a crazy household. So lucky that the library was close to home.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:51 AM (2NHgQ)

124 Am recommending our oldest grandson, who has become quite the history buff, read Paul Theroux's "Burma Sahib," then George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia," and swing to Orwell's "1984," which he read three years ago in 8th grade.

Hint: George Orwell was not his birth name.

Here is a good little look at Britain today. Guy comes on like he's Ray Winstone's kid bruv. https://twitter.com/i/status/1789520349022806288

Posted by: Mr Gaga at May 12, 2024 09:51 AM (KiBMU)

125 OOps, Bible not bible.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:52 AM (2NHgQ)

126 More than 10 people have declined offers to serve as the keynote speaker for Harvard College’s annual Class Day, leaving the Harvard Alumni Association scrambling to find a speaker with less than two weeks until the ceremony for undergraduate seniors.

gooder and harderer

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 12, 2024 09:52 AM (ENQN6)

127 I just found out my Kindle paperwhite can play audible books by having a little bluetooth speaker nearby.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at May 12, 2024 09:53 AM (KiBMU)

128 Between Sesame Street (back when it was actually educational) and my mom's consistent practice of reading to me, I was able to read well before kindergarten. This shocked the teacher because she was apparently of the mindset that no child could learn outside the presence of an august sage who got college credits for finger painting.

I used to read "Frog and Toad" stories to my stepdaughter. The best part about reading to kids is making up voices for the characters. Frog had a refined British accent, and Toad sounded, well, like a toad. It was as much fun for me as it was for her.

Posted by: PabloD at May 12, 2024 09:53 AM (f7a6n)

129 So I am listening to Tom Wolfe's 2006 "I Am Charlotte Simmons." College was a whole lot better then than today.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at May 12, 2024 09:54 AM (KiBMU)

130
I knew Brits sentenced their poor "criminals" to transportation to the penal colony of Australia, but in this book Jamie is sentenced to transportation and ends up in Virginia.

__________

Australia was founded and the destination for criminals after America became unavailable.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 09:54 AM (MoZTd)

131 More than 10 people have declined offers to serve as the keynote speaker for Harvard College’s annual Class Day, leaving the Harvard Alumni Association scrambling to find a speaker with less than two weeks until the ceremony for undergraduate seniors.

gooder and harderer

I would accept, then take the opportunity to deliver a blistering condemnation of what Harvard and its ilk have become.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 12, 2024 09:54 AM (CsUN+)

132 We had the bible and Ben Hur in the house where I grew up. Neither of them ever opened and read. I eventually found the local library and Scholastic Books, mostly the library. Spent a lot of time reading to escape some of the realities of growing up in a crazy household. So lucky that the library was close to home.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:51 AM (2NHgQ)

I grew up literally within eye shot of a small public library. Like maybe 100 yards away. I was there constantly. It was almost like my private library.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (VwHCD)

133 Well this past week I finished up a comic book collection "The Complete Witchblade" Volume 3. It was better than Volume 2, but not good enough to earn a recommendation. It still falls short of what is should be...

Early in the collection, the book gets a new writer, who gives the book a new direction: a direction it should have had since the beginning! Our main character is a police detective with a magical artifact stuck to her wrist, so she is pulled into murder investigations that have a supernatural bent. And she is sometimes targeted by supernatural criminals. The investigations are kinda short, and have distinct beginnings and endings, with a clear resolution. Just a police procedural with a couple of gimmicks...However, to take the book in this direction, the writer had to throw out/ignore pretty much every plotline inherited from the previous writer. And by the end of the book, one of the original writers returned, and charged direction again, ignoring the intermediate writer, and writing in more drawn-out, meandering style...

But the art was good! And that was always the selling point of Witchblade...

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (Lhaco)

134 I would accept, then take the opportunity to deliver a blistering condemnation of what Harvard and its ilk have become.

Too political? Yeah, like Harvard doesn't deliberately invite liberals to condemn conservatives at every commencement.

Posted by: Archimedes at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (CsUN+)

135 Good morning Hordemates.

I read a sample of Jacobson's Nuclear War: A Scenario and was glad I didn't buy it. Way too alarmist for me in her portrayal of what happens in the first minutes of the attack. Agree too that there's no way the Norks could launch an ICBM and hit the pentagon. And it's very unlikely they'd get a sub close enough to fire.
When you're North Korea, a suitcase nuke is a far better option for both targets.

Posted by: Diogenes at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (W/lyH)

136 28 ... "But men do read nonfiction -- especially science and history. I suspect they are the primary market for those."

Probably true. Actually I bet men read plenty of fiction but not necessarily recent stuff. Matt Helm books, Nero Wolfe, Cussler, tons of books from the 19th century and early 20th, etc. Men who read fiction aren't enthralled by the latest popular perversions that seem to appeal to women publishers as a story basis.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (zudum)

137 Can't remember being read to, but somebody must have done it because I could already read when I started kindergarten. Not a lot of books in the house that I recall until the folks started getting them for me (and I filled the available space bloody quick).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 09:56 AM (q3u5l)

138 But, I've never heard of any author who sold older stuff once they made sales.
Posted by: OrangeEnt
----
Stephen King did, I use to read every thing he wrote until about 20-25 years ago... then something happened and he went crazy...

Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024 09:56 AM (PZo5T)

139 What I'm reading today- Starwars 100 objects.

Don't judge. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at May 12, 2024 09:56 AM (VwHCD)

140 My dad used to read to us after dinner. It is a great memory.

Eldest Kidlet and Son were struggling with reading so I started reading The Secret of Droon series to the kids at lunch time. I made sure to end in the middle of an exciting bit each time and after a couple of books Eldest Kidlet started reading on her own.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at May 12, 2024 09:57 AM (phT8I)

141 Went and put flowers at the MiL's grave this morning. Quiet and peaceful morning.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at May 12, 2024 09:57 AM (R4t5M)

142 I'm back from the so-called Urgent Care. Place was supposed to be open at 8 am. It's still not open and nobody answers the phone. Fug 'em for a third-world country.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 09:57 AM (omVj0)

143 Gonna settle in for a modest orgy of coffee and bacon and classical music and reading. Later, my literary taters!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:58 AM (FkUwd)

144 Lynn Johnston, the cartoonist behind the late lamented comic strip "For Better or for Worse," wrote that in the beginnings of her career she submitted cartoons to several magazines, including Playboy.

When some scold would criticize her for working for a publication that exploits women, she would reply:

"If you want to work for a magazine that exploits women, write for a women's magazine."

To tie this back into books, her first success was a collection of cartoons, "David ... We're Pregnant!"

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 09:59 AM (p/isN)

145 I'm back from the so-called Urgent Care. Place was supposed to be open at 8 am. It's still not open and nobody answers the phone. Fug 'em for a third-world country.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

They're sleeping it off and they'll get there when they get there.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at May 12, 2024 10:00 AM (R4t5M)

146 >>So I am listening to Tom Wolfe's 2006 "I Am Charlotte Simmons." College was a whole lot better then than today.

Huh. I remember reading that when it came out and it was about now much college life had declined?

Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 10:01 AM (cCVOS)

147 As one might expect from Jack L. Chalker, there is a lot of body-swapping as the main characters go on a wild ride through the multiverse attempting to find out who is *really* behind all creation. Is it God? Is it some other omnipotent entity? What is reality?

Spoiler: It was a dream!!

Posted by: Bobby Ewing, Dr. Bob Hartley at May 12, 2024 10:02 AM (0eaVi)

148 Regarding the suggested reading advise: nope, my stereo stays on. I need background noise, or else I get distracted or fixate on things I shouldn't. Granted, a lot of times the stereo (well, my laptop) plays classical or instrumental music while I read, so there are no lyrics to distract me....but, still. I read best with music.

Or in the park, with the sounds of nature. Or the wind. It may have snowed on me during the week (ah, life in the mountains!) but the past two weekends have been warm enough for me to engage in my summer reading schedule: bike the park, read some pulp stories (Savage Realms digital magazine on my kindle) and then bike home. Reading and staying in shape at the same time!

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:02 AM (Lhaco)

149 o I am listening to Tom Wolfe's 2006 "I Am Charlotte Simmons." College was a whole lot better then than today.
Posted by: Mr Gaga at May 12, 2024

***
And it's an insane asylum without cages in the book!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:04 AM (omVj0)

150 The speaker at my college graduation was the university's chancellor. More schools should do that.

A cousin of mine had to sit through an address by some cluck who devoted all his text to ripping Reagan.

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 10:05 AM (p/isN)

151 There's a local pizza restaurant that makes awesome pastries. They take a huge amount of orders for Mother's Day. Their baker called in sick this morning so they are running a few hours behind as they scramble to catch up.

It seems people don't care about the consequences of not showing up or calling in any more.

Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024 10:05 AM (PZo5T)

152 As my parents noted, I can read anywhere, in any environment. Indoors, outdoors, noisy or quiet, it doesn't matter.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at May 12, 2024 10:06 AM (tmY+t)

153 >>More than 10 people have declined offers to serve as the keynote speaker for Harvard College’s annual Class Day, leaving the Harvard Alumni Association scrambling to find a speaker with less than two weeks until the ceremony for undergraduate seniors.

Who would voluntarily speak in front of a class of arrogant, spoiled brats who will no doubt heckle and shout them down about Israel-Palestine conflict, and later claim offence over what was actually said? It's a set-up from any possible speaker -- the rules are such that no one can please them. Heh.

Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 10:06 AM (cCVOS)

154 109 I loved Bulfinch, and when I was younger I was obsessed with D'Aulaire's Greek Mythology. Not to mention Edith Hamilton.

BUT . . . all of them are a bit too tidy. When you actually start studying Classical religions there's a lot you have to "unlearn" from the pop-mythology books. ...
I understand that simplifying and systematizing are the best way to learn . . . but at times I think mythology books are a little _too_ simplified.
Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:44 AM
****
Try Roberto Calasso's deep, dark dive into the subject: The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. His focus is on the sheer alienness of ancient Greek culture and religion; of course, being a modern European intellectual, one gets the distinct sense that he just might consider the shocking sexual violence of it to be a refreshing change from our oh-so-boring Bible-influenced perspective....

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 12, 2024 10:07 AM (SPNTN)

155 21 "Men don't read."

Uhh...no. Men don't read romances, novels where everyone is gay and singular individuals go by plural pronouns, and all the Men are Bad.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 12, 2024 09:11 AM (OX9vb)

When an industry denigrates what men enjoy, men tend to abandon the products of said industry. Funny how that works...

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:08 AM (Lhaco)

156 There were always plenty of books, mostly the library kind, in my house growing up. I spent quite a bit of my allowance in jr. high buying paperbacks of one kind or another. Some of them, like Alfred Hitchcock anthologies and Man From U.N.C.L.E. novels, I still have. The public library was about a mile's walk away, and I was there all the time after school and in the summer.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:09 AM (omVj0)

157 I read a sample of Jacobson's Nuclear War: A Scenario and was glad I didn't buy it. Way too alarmist for me in her portrayal of what happens in the first minutes of the attack. Agree too that there's no way the Norks could launch an ICBM and hit the pentagon. And it's very unlikely they'd get a sub close enough to fire.
When you're North Korea, a suitcase nuke is a far better option for both targets.
Posted by: Diogenes at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (W/lyH)
---
North Korea can't pick its nose without the PRC's approval. They are not independent actors. Trump threatened that arrangement, which was one reason he had to be removed.

There's also no reason for Russia to launch. Period. The US has a hotline and can inform Russia that retaliation is underway and it would not come from CONUS but a submarine right next to Korea.

Liberals always assume everyone is as emotionally unhinged as they are.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:09 AM (llXky)

158 37 ... "Guess what, KTE got me something on my wishlist - a kindle paperwhite. I'm hoping I can read ebooks on it without getting distracted by the internetz"

vmom,
The Paperwhite is my favorite e-reader. Small enough to fit in a breast pocket (that may not be a factor for you), long battery life, and the screen is usable even in bright sunlight. I find it easier on my eyes than other e-readers. The only downside is it doesn't do color, a minor consideration for me. Hope you enjoy it.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 10:10 AM (zudum)

159 I would like to report that our son seems to be taking about seven books with him to his new place to live and almost as soon as a place for him living was decided on he looked at how far the public library is from the where he will be staying.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 10:10 AM (XkYcA)

160 Look, I, too, read in the can. But you've got to limit yourself, man.
Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at May 12, 2024 09:16 AM (MEM6T)

(sound of swirling water)

Huh?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:11 AM (0eaVi)

161 Leads to a question. Did he ever sell those earlier works once he became a name? I'm sure he probably rewrote them. But, I've never heard of any author who sold older stuff once they made sales.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 09:12 AM (0eaVi)

I imagine a lot of early stuff doesn't sell because it's not as good: ameturish, unpolished, or it just doesn't feature the characters that the audience has come to love.

But there's a good chance that the earlier work will be collected into anthologies after-the-fact. Seems like there were quite a few stories in my assorted Robert E Howard collections that were 'never published.'

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:11 AM (Lhaco)

162 There's a local pizza restaurant that makes awesome pastries. They take a huge amount of orders for Mother's Day. Their baker called in sick this morning so they are running a few hours behind as they scramble to catch up.

It seems people don't care about the consequences of not showing up or calling in any more.
Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024

***
A walk-in customer who was there with me called the number on the Urgent Care clinic door. It transfers to a location about 30 miles and 45 minutes' drive away. I'm still going to call them and complain. Noisily. And if the local shop tries to send me a bill for a missed appointment I'm going to shred it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (omVj0)

163 When an industry denigrates what men enjoy, men tend to abandon the products of said industry. Funny how that works...
Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:08 AM (Lhaco)
---
Based on my sales, men read a lot of military history and (spoiler alert) men tend to be better writing about history than women.

All the female scholars I've read insert their beliefs, their cultural assumptions into what should be an objective account of other cultures.

Male authors feel no need to editorialize about how much more enlightened they are than their subjects.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

164 I read a sample of Jacobson's Nuclear War: A Scenario and was glad I didn't buy it. Way too alarmist for me in her portrayal of what happens in the first minutes of the attack. Agree too that there's no way the Norks could launch an ICBM and hit the pentagon. And it's very unlikely they'd get a sub close enough to fire.
When you're North Korea, a suitcase nuke is a far better option for both targets.
Posted by: Diogenes at May 12, 2024 09:55 AM (W/lyH)

It also seems to me to be really unlikely that a rogue attack by the Norks would lead to a war between the USA and Russia. Sounds like the author is stuck in a Cold War mindset.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (8zz6B)

165 Gonna settle in for a modest orgy of coffee and bacon and classical music and reading. Later, my literary taters!
Posted by: All Hail Eris

That sounds like a perfect morning! Though I'm not sure how one has a "modest" orgy.

Posted by: She Hobbit at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (ftFVW)

166 @124 --

That video made me think of the prison scene in "The Italian Job."

"ENGLAND! ... ENGLAND! ... ENGLAND!"

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (p/isN)

167 I would like to report that our son seems to be taking about seven books with him to his new place to live and almost as soon as a place for him living was decided on he looked at how far the public library is from the where he will be staying.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024

***
When, in my quest for a place to retire, I look at houses in smaller communities, I check for the existence of a library too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:13 AM (omVj0)

168 But there's a good chance that the earlier work will be collected into anthologies after-the-fact. Seems like there were quite a few stories in my assorted Robert E Howard collections that were 'never published.'
Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:11 AM (Lhaco)
---
Howard's Conan novella was published posthumously.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:13 AM (llXky)

169 Happy Mother’s Day to all the mamas! I am watching my dyslexic child go from it being painful to read to watching her plonk down on a chair with a book and one of our cats reading rainy afternoons away. I love it. She just finished E.B White’s The Trumpet of The Swan and started Charlotte’s Web, which I have read to her before. I can’t underline on my iPad, sorry.

Posted by: Piper at May 12, 2024 10:13 AM (p4NUW)

170 My dad used to read to us after dinner. It is a great memory.

"It was a dark and stormy night....BUUUUURRRRP !"

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 10:14 AM (T4tVD)

171 Posted by: Lizzy at May 12, 2024 10:06 AM (cCVOS)

The speakers at my son's school were all people getting their degrees-a woman getting a doctorate, a young woman who's a chemistry major and spoke very touchingly of how her professors helped her after her father died, and a young man who was head of the football team, yet graduated magna cum laude in business and whose little blurb in the commencement program said that he was head of one of the college Christian groups. I thought that this was much better than having "stars" who had no connection with the school.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 10:15 AM (XkYcA)

172 It also seems to me to be really unlikely that a rogue attack by the Norks would lead to a war between the USA and Russia. Sounds like the author is stuck in a Cold War mindset.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (8zz6B)
---
A ton of liberals assume military culture is literally Dr. Strangelove and the boys can't wait to drop the bombs.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:15 AM (llXky)

173 The kindles (paper-white, oasis, and scribe) have been godsends for this kid. A good thick hardcover is a real strain on the hands now, and the print size in a lot of books is too freakin' small. So the ebook readers are lifesavers for me. The Kindle scribe is big and heavier than the others, but better for pdfs and easier on the eyes than a tablet. Amazon may be a pain in some ways, but the Kindle made up for a lot of it.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 10:15 AM (q3u5l)

174 32 Ah, reading aloud ... During the Covidiocy, when our entire library staff was sent home to try to justify our paychecks while online only, I began an adult evening storytime over Zoom. "Mystery Monday" never attracted more than 7 or 8 people at a time, but I found some of the most delightful short stories ever written (the only criterion was that it had to involve some kind of crime and/or investigation); learned an enormous amount about the pulp era and short genre fiction in general; and became a reasonably skilled voice actress, if I may say so myself. Pity that I didn't get authorization to record the show.
Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at May 12, 2024 09:16 AM (SPNTN)

Um, YouTube! Make your own channel, post some readings on a somewhat regular basis, and see if you catch a following. I've listened to Razorfist read a could of Shadow novels on YouTube, and I occassionaly get recommended this HFY Sci-Fi channel: basically, bits of Humans-are-unique-and-awesome science fiction shorts.

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:15 AM (Lhaco)

175 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:13 AM (omVj0)

Good for you!

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at May 12, 2024 10:15 AM (XkYcA)

176 Happy Mother's Day to the Horde mamas!

My mom taught me to read at age 3, which made school a breeze (until I hit physics many years later). This is just one of the many things I appreciate about her.
Posted by: screaming in digital at May 12, 2024

***
Same here. We were *supposed* to learn to read in first grade. I was scared to death when my first-grade teacher asked me to stay after school one day, but the first thing she said was, "Young Wolfus, you know how to read, don't you?" I blinked and said, "Well, sure." I thought everybody did and couldn't understand why so many of my classmates struggled with the Dick and Jane readers.

Got me bumped up to second grade, which by my age was where I should have been all along.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:17 AM (omVj0)

177 148 Regarding the suggested reading advise: nope, my stereo stays on. I need background noise, or else I get distracted or fixate on things I shouldn't.
Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:02 AM (Lhaco)

Completely opposite here. I can't read with tv or music on, or else I get distracted.

I can and do listen to audio books while cooking or driving, but I do zone out at times and have to back it up and replay. I don't multitask.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at May 12, 2024 10:17 AM (OX9vb)

178 Jacobsen is not particularly a liberal not a conservative either she written books about the cia operation paperclip ufos

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (PXvVL)

179 Not a book review, just a comment on the lack of serious reading done by the general public. Had a discussion with someone yesterday, we share a pastor at two different churches, about separation of church and state. This change to the MT constitution about abortion has our diocese asking our priest to talk about it during Mass. I'm still amazed that people believe that separation of church and state is somehow a law, ingrained in the constitution and means that a pastor, priest, rabbi, whatever cannot bring up certain topics during worship. The person seemed astounded that the concept was meant to keep government, based on the state religions of Europe and other countries, out of the pulpit.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (2NHgQ)

180 I am watching my dyslexic child go from it being painful to read to watching her plonk down on a chair with a book and one of our cats reading rainy afternoons away. I love it. She just finished E.B White’s The Trumpet of The Swan and started Charlotte’s Web, which I have read to her before. . . .
Posted by: Piper at May 12, 2024

***
A former co-worker and friend of mine is dyslexic to a degree, and suffers from a touch of ADD as well. Neither stopped her from earning a Ph.D. in history. There's no limit to what your daughter can do.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (omVj0)

181 Raining out thar...

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (T4tVD)

182 Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers in the Horde.

Posted by: Northernlurker at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (JLq/1)

183 44 I started a book, but the library delivered two comics collections. So I've spent most of the past week with "Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s," which reprints four sequences of only Sunday strips, including one that appeared the day before my father was born.

Chester Gould had yet to use "gruesome" characters, but he rattled me with a gang whose members had a tongue tattoo. Yecch.
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 09:20 AM (p/isN)

I really should try to get into Dick Tracey sometime. For the crazy villain designs, if nothing else...

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:19 AM (Lhaco)

184 Strange food keeps falling from the sky, so I've been reading "Guess Who Is Coming To Dinner".

Anyway, like I was sayin', Bosey is the fruit of the sky. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, Bosey-kabobs, Bosey creole, Bosey gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple Bosey, lemon Bosey, coconut Bosey, pepper Bosey, Bosey soup, Bosey stew, Bosey salad, Bosey and potatoes, Bosey burger, Bosey sandwich. That- that's about it.

Posted by: A cannibal at May 12, 2024 10:19 AM (vFG9F)

185 Writing fiction is not a way to make money. It's literally easier to get struck by lightning than to write a bestseller.

If you want to make money writing, do freelance nonfiction writing for magazines. There's still a lot of them and they need "content" every month. It requires a lot of "hustle" but it can be done.
Posted by: Trimegistus at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (78a2H)

I expected to go the non-fiction route. I've done college newspaper work, and thought that's the way I'd go. Turns out I have more ability to do fiction than I thought. Doesn't mean I'm any good at it. Haven't sold a thing.

Eh, I don't do it for money. I'd like to make some money at it, but if not, it won't kill me. Once I'm ready to leave, I'll put all the stuff in a folder on the computer, then hit "delete."

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:20 AM (0eaVi)

186 60 I loved reading to my little hobbits when they were young enough to tolerate it. Long, short, adventure, just silly - each had a place. Now that we're getting into the "I hate you, Mom!" teen years, I think back fondly on evenings surrounded by little boys, reading The Hobbit or Wind in the Willows on a comfy bed.
Posted by: She Hobbit at May

They come back, I promise. I have one who hates me and then loves me again an hour later. But my 2 oldest now thank me and wonder how I did it, especially as the drama gene runs deep and wide in my girls!

Posted by: Piper at May 12, 2024 10:20 AM (pZEOD)

187 My brothers read. They don't read books by women authors. I do, so I understand why they don't. Our taste in fiction is similar, except for that.

Posted by: huerfano at May 12, 2024 10:21 AM (VGOMa)

188
In 1980 we had 30 years of gas and 50 years of oil.

In 2020 in is 49 and 57 respectively.

In 2024 combined oil and gas reserves are almost 200 years.

Posted by: rhennigantx at May 12, 2024 10:22 AM (ENQN6)

189 Probably true. Actually I bet men read plenty of fiction but not necessarily recent stuff. Matt Helm books, Nero Wolfe, Cussler, tons of books from the 19th century and early 20th, etc. Men who read fiction aren't enthralled by the latest popular perversions that seem to appeal to women publishers as a story basis.
Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024

***
If I can manage to reach the right male readers, they ought to like my "hardboiled fantasy" stuff. Plenty of action and adventure.

+1000 on Stout's Wolfe stories and Hamilton's Helm.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:22 AM (omVj0)

190 Jacobsen is not particularly a liberal not a conservative either she written books about the cia operation paperclip ufos
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (PXvVL)
---
At this point, all authors are assumed liberal until proven otherwise, especially when they are getting feted by the literary establishment.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:23 AM (llXky)

191 Almost half way through vol 3 of Toll's war in the pacific. It continues to be great. Read a thread about reading poetry aloud on a different web site and thought I might try it, but instead of pulling some poetry off the shelf I was drawn to The Iliad (Richard Lattimore's translation) and started that instead (alas, not aloud). It's great. I have his translation of the Odyssey on my TBR stack, so that might be next.

Posted by: who knew at May 12, 2024 10:23 AM (4I7VG)

192 How long you gonna be gone ?

You takin' a Rowboat to China ?
Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 09:23 AM (T4tVD)

This long.

(see, I just got to your comment)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:23 AM (0eaVi)

193 That is happy birthing person day you bigots.

Posted by: Jukin the Deplorable at May 12, 2024 10:24 AM (17s+e)

194 My mom used to read the Junior Deluxe Editions to me when I was a kid. I'm very grateful for that experience. She also bought me the American Heritage Illustrated History of the U.S. series at the grocery store that I greatly enjoyed. I still go back and read one of those occasionally on archive.org.

Posted by: Norrin Radd at May 12, 2024 10:25 AM (hsWtj)

195 Now, I do read certain women authors -- older ones who play fair and have good and bad male characters AND good and bad female ones, and who tell a real, compelling story. Anne Rivers Siddons, Anne Tyler, Dorothy Parker's short stories (though she is in a different field from the previous two). But you know, looking at the books on my shelves? Very few women authors, even from the golden days.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:25 AM (omVj0)

196 I havent gotten a particular vibe from her just saying

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 10:25 AM (PXvVL)

197 For five years in Chicago Lawn, this kid was in heaven. Our apartment was midway between two theaters with a third about 20 minutes walk away. Best of all, there were 5 shops close by (2 or 3 blocks) that had excellent paperback racks, and the Chicago Lawn branch of the public library two blocks away. At the time, best location I could have hoped for, and I did a LOT of reading. Summer vacations even with some chores and some part-time work I could get in a paperback a day and sometimes two. Them was the days.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 10:25 AM (q3u5l)

198 I'm still amazed that people believe that separation of church and state is somehow a law, ingrained in the constitution and means that a pastor, priest, rabbi, whatever cannot bring up certain topics during worship. The person seemed astounded that the concept was meant to keep government, based on the state religions of Europe and other countries, out of the pulpit.
Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 10:18 AM (2NHgQ)
---
Yes, and it's interesting that the Blaine amendments - which banned government funding for religious institutions - did not prohibit prayer or religious instruction in government-run schools. The idea wasn't to secularize society, it was to stop tax dollars from going to Catholic schools, because the "government" ones were Protestant.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:26 AM (llXky)

199 God has punished humanity for its suicide by casting our planet into darkness, and opened a HellMouth in the SE of the US that spews forth demons to plague the survivors

Huh? Sounds like DC to me.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:27 AM (0eaVi)

200 Nice family photo up top!

Posted by: m at May 12, 2024 10:27 AM (o3SCB)

201 "If the previous meetings had been, say, a Catholic High Mass of dick-beating, this guy was full up Aztec Sun Day ritual dick-beating with a cast of thousands and everyone has to give up their still beating heart. The best and the brightest were flayed and he wore their skin around for the next week."
Posted by: All Hail Eris at May 12, 2024 09:22 AM (FkUwd)

I've been in staff calls like that!

Was going to say I haven't read anything this week (bad cold with sinus headache and couldn't focus), but now I've read the comments here and feel enlightened!

Got book 5 of Pendergast waiting on the kindle once my head clears.

-SLV

Posted by: Shy Lurking Voter at May 12, 2024 10:27 AM (e/Osv)

202 I started a book, but the library delivered two comics collections. So I've spent most of the past week with "Dick Tracy: Colorful Cases of the 1930s," which reprints four sequences of only Sunday strips, including one that appeared the day before my father was born.

Chester Gould had yet to use "gruesome" characters, but he rattled me with a gang whose members had a tongue tattoo. Yecch.
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 09:20 AM (p/isN)

I really should try to get into Dick Tracey sometime. For the crazy villain designs, if nothing else...
Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024

***
I wonder if the Batman comic writers were inspired by the Dick Tracy villains to create the larger-than-life criminals like the Riddler and the Joker. Dick Tracy precedes Batman by some little time, doesn't he?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:27 AM (omVj0)

203 Switch off your devices

-
Not sure I agree with this. I usually, almost always, listen to instrumental music when I read. I try to match what I listen to to whatever I'm reading so if I'm reading about WWII, I might listen to big band hits of the '30s and '40s or, if I'm reading about the Napoleonic wars, perhaps Beethoven or Mozart. It helps with immersion.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 10:28 AM (L/fGl)

204 Liberals always assume everyone is as emotionally unhinged as they are.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:09 AM (llXky)

I suspect the author was more interested in the immediate response and aftermath of a strike, than the geopolitics that would make it possible.

Posted by: Kindltot at May 12, 2024 10:28 AM (D7oie)

205 I like just the Paperwhite. I find the other Kindles too slow. And the browser is good just for a quick reference lookup, so you don't get distracted. It was nice to be able to sewrch for that offensive quote.

My mom taught me to read at four. She would make up stories too. And she didn't put any books off limits.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at May 12, 2024 10:28 AM (yeEu9)

206 Has Nurse R checked in since yesterday morning? Is she ok?

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:29 AM (AwYPR)

207 "Men don't read."

-
We're not going to read your crap, sugar tits.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 10:29 AM (L/fGl)

208 @183 --

IDW's The Library of American Comics imprint started a "Dick Tracy" reprint series. Two years' worth in every volume. I know it got into the mid-1950s. (IDW discontinued "Steve Canyon" with 1970.)

Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 10:30 AM (p/isN)

209 I don't think The Pants Guy owns a weedwhacker. (if you catch my drift)

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 10:30 AM (T4tVD)

210 We are following our tradition of Pooky reading Shel Silverstein to the children in utero.

A late friend of mine knew him. Didn't know that until a year or so before she passed. She gave my oldest a copy of "Where the Sidewalk Ends." Wasn't signed by Shel, though.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:31 AM (0eaVi)

211 I read fiction but even then almost always historical fiction

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 10:31 AM (fwDg9)

212
I read a sample of Jacobson's Nuclear War: A Scenario and was glad I didn't buy it. Way too alarmist for me in her portrayal of what happens in the first minutes of the attack.

1) It is really badly written. Like one-word paragraph bad.

2) She assumes that every nuclear detonation will result in a firestorm. Munition-induced firestorms are very difficult to start and modern cities are not prone to them.

3) Her prediction of the depth of nuclear winter is way too extreme.

4) She seems to think every detonation will be a ground burst, which generate much more fallout than an airburst.

5) It seems preposterous to agitate for Launch on Warning for a single ICBM. LoW may make sense when it's a mass attack, but if it's so goldarned important to get in touch with the Russkies, for a single missile it would be best to absorb it and then respond later.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 10:31 AM (MoZTd)

213 206 Has Nurse R checked in since yesterday morning? Is she ok?
Posted by: BignJames at May 12

Appendix removed and she was on last night, sore but okay.

Posted by: Piper at May 12, 2024 10:31 AM (pZEOD)

214 I volunteer at a historical site in the gift shop where they recently started asking us to ring up items based on departments. I'm betting that the book section does the best based on the number of men who purchase history related books.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 10:32 AM (2NHgQ)

215 Has Nurse R checked in since yesterday morning? Is she ok?
Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:29 AM (AwYPR)

She entered a volleyball tournament !

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 10:32 AM (T4tVD)

216
IDW's The Library of American Comics imprint started a "Dick Tracy" reprint series. Two years' worth in every volume. I know it got into the mid-1950s. (IDW discontinued "Steve Canyon" with 1970.)
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 10:30 AM (p/isN)

Fearless Fosdick >>> Dick Tracy

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 10:32 AM (MoZTd)

217 I did beta reading for ALH authors, does that count?
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Very much so
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 09:33 AM (yD62l)

Well, there are a couple things posted asking for readers, Vmom.

(hint, hint)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:32 AM (0eaVi)

218 Thank you, Perfessor, for the Book Thread

My father read to me more than my mother. She was not a huge fan of books, preferring the newspaper and women's magazines. Dad was the book lover. (fiction and nonfiction).

I could read a few words before I started 1st grade and really wanted to learn more, but for some reason, my parents thought I should learn at school. Seems strange but so be it. Still, I had a head start on many of my peers and once I got to 1st grade, I learned to read easily and have loved it ever since. It's my escape.

As far as current reading goes, I just finished The Perry Mason Casebook. Even I was able to notice the quality of the writing improve from the first story, The Case of the Sulky Girl (1933) to the third in the collection The Case of the Fiery Fingers (1951). It was all entertaining, though, and I enjoyed them all.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at May 12, 2024 10:33 AM (Y4AW/)

219 When I was a kid, there were huge sections in books stores that consisted of trade paperbacks about war. Reach for the Sky, Blazing Chariots, The Great Escape, etc.

Military history sections are generally critiques and revisions, and even supposedly new and fresh stuff is really just recycled from other sources. Some years back, I read An Army At Dawn and was deeply disappointed with how superficial it was, telling me nothing that I wanted to do.

Of course, the deviant sexual practices section didn't exist back then, but now its huge because apparently people with weird sex habits can't stop reading about it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:33 AM (llXky)

220 "Men don't read."

-
We're not going to read your crap, sugar tits.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 10:29 AM (L/fGl)

This, 10,000X this, nothing but this.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at May 12, 2024 10:33 AM (VwHCD)

221 AH Lloyd,
Recently read your Long Live Death and about 2/3rds through Wall of Men. Well done introductions to the subjects and while military history can be dry, yours was not. My interest in The Spanish Civil War is more directed toward the political rather than military but I think you did an excellent job of balance in that book. Chinese politics tends to be more opaque especially when treating long gone empires but so far the pattern in Long Live is being followed in Wall of Men in giving enough detail of the politics so that sense can be made of the military history described in the book.

Posted by: whig at May 12, 2024 10:34 AM (peJ7P)

222 Has Nurse R checked in since yesterday morning? Is she ok?
Posted by: BignJames at May 12

Appendix removed and she was on last night, sore but okay.
Posted by: Piper at May 12, 2024 10:31 AM (pZEOD)

Tx

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:34 AM (AwYPR)

223 @201/SLV: Get well soon.

@206: Yup, nurse ratched is alive and recovering. Emergency appendectomy, successful extraction. See last night's ONT, comment #91, and the tech thread this morning, comment #10.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at May 12, 2024 10:34 AM (O7YUW)

224 You couldn't make me believe the Church of Global Warming isn't a state religion

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 10:35 AM (fwDg9)

225 Has Nurse R checked in since yesterday morning? Is she ok?
Posted by: BignJames at May 12

Appendix removed and she was on last night, sore but okay.

Posted by: Piper at May 12, 2024 10:31 AM (pZEOD)

Amaing she was home in the same day. Must be one of those drive-thru surgical joints.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at May 12, 2024 10:35 AM (VwHCD)

226 nurse posted on Tech threaf

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 10:35 AM (fwDg9)

227 I've started reading Grant Takes Command Bruce Catton.

Posted by: Northernlurker at May 12, 2024 10:35 AM (JLq/1)

228
You couldn't make me believe the Church of Global Warming isn't a state religion
Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 10:35 AM (fwDg9)

With the Autistic Doom Goblin as its Joan of Arc.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 10:36 AM (MoZTd)

229 A couple of people mentioned "Three Men In A Boat," so I picked it up for a casual read.

Mildly amusing, but overlong.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at May 12, 2024 10:37 AM (d9fT1)

230 Not sure I agree with this. I usually, almost always, listen to instrumental music when I read. I try to match what I listen to to whatever I'm reading so if I'm reading about WWII, I might listen to big band hits of the '30s and '40s or, if I'm reading about the Napoleonic wars, perhaps Beethoven or Mozart. It helps with immersion.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 10:28 AM (L/fGl)

Yeah, when I was reading for school, I always had music playing. It helped shut off the world.

The one recommendation I would make to anyone who says they don't like to read is "Get your eyes checked."

When I stopped reading years ago, I didn't realize, and it's hard to fathom how now, my vision had deteriorated, and I was struggling to make out the words.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 10:37 AM (41Nl3)

231 Fearless Fosdick >>> Dick Tracy

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 10:32 AM (MoZTd)

Trying to remember his GF.

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:37 AM (AwYPR)

232 I would guess that the only romance books read by the men of the horde are those written by Stacy Abrams. As a friend would say "joking, I'm joking". Happy to say I don't know what she writes about.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 10:37 AM (2NHgQ)

233 Has Nurse R checked in ?

You may recall my old account of taking a first date to 'Caligula.'
For first date scare stories, Nurse now has me beat.

Prayer and best wishes having done their bit, I expect to see her ribbed about this unendingly.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 12, 2024 10:38 AM (zdLoL)

234 We have a grand nephew who just turned two this week. His folks sent us a some photos including one where he is 'reading' Morgoth's Ring, one of the History of Middle-Earth series we gave them as a gift. Apparently, he is trying to emulate his folks who read as much as time with small children allows. (The book being upside down didn't discourage him.)

His other likes are Spiderman and fast noisy cars. Helps that they aren't far from the Indy Speedway.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 10:39 AM (zudum)

235 I was a pretty quick learner in grade school, finished my in class assignments ahead of most everybody.
Starting in 2nd or 3rd grade, to keep me busy, I was given open access to the SRA readers. Read the story, take the quiz, move on. By grade level.
By 4th grade I had completed the SRA readers through the 12th grade (end) level.
Kept everyone happy.

Posted by: From about that Time at May 12, 2024 10:39 AM (4780s)

236 Fearless Fosdick >>> Dick Tracy

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at May 12, 2024 10:32 AM (MoZTd)

Trying to remember his GF.

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:37 AM (AwYPR)

Did quick search..."Prudence Pimpleton"...formerly "Bess Backache".

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:41 AM (AwYPR)

237 I'm finding that I read almost no new fiction these days. But then most of my favorite writers have died and the few that are still around aren't writing much any more, if at all. Ramsey Campbell is still plugging away, though. If it weren't for revisiting books I'd read before, or picking up on older books I'd missed, I'd be buying or reading very little now.

Getting old, I think.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 10:41 AM (q3u5l)

238 I suspect the author was more interested in the immediate response and aftermath of a strike, than the geopolitics that would make it possible.
Posted by: Kindltot at May 12, 2024 10:28 AM (D7oie)
---
If you don't understand the psychology of the people and the institutional framework, your work will be worthless.

The US military has a fanatical culture of DON'T BLOW UP THE WORLD. Even in exercises, they show tremendous restraint. So going all in against Russia for a single strike is crazy.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:41 AM (llXky)

239 For good or ill, we will never see that again.
Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 12, 2024 09:45 AM (zdLoL)

I'd think, ill. If there are no outlets for writers to publish, and none for readers to read, soon there won't be either.

I know there's substacks and such, but a lot of that seems to be rattling the cup, begging for money. If the culture hadn't changed, away from reading and general interest magazines where a writer could make a few bucks an article, maybe we'd be a more literate culture.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:43 AM (0eaVi)

240 I was a pretty quick learner in grade school, finished my in class assignments ahead of most everybody.

Posted by: From about that Time at May 12, 2024 10:39 AM (4780s)

Did you shout "finished!" ?

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:43 AM (AwYPR)

241 I was drawn to The Iliad (Richard Lattimore's translation) and started that instead (alas, not aloud). It's great. I have his translation of the Odyssey on my TBR stack, so that might be next.

Posted by: who knew at May 12, 2024 10:23 AM (4I7VG)

Ancient Greek comedy might not be your thing but-

Lattimore also did a good translation of

"The Frogs" by Aristophanes.

That's a fun short read.

Posted by: naturalfake at May 12, 2024 10:43 AM (eDfFs)

242 "Men don't read" translates in publisher-speak to
"Men won't pay for what we have chosen to make available."

It doesn't mean exactly the same thing, but in practice it fulfills their prophecy. Imagine the same kind of thinking applied to other life pursuits, and it all makes a certain kind of sense.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at May 12, 2024 10:44 AM (zdLoL)

243 Chinese politics tends to be more opaque especially when treating long gone empires but so far the pattern in Long Live is being followed in Wall of Men in giving enough detail of the politics so that sense can be made of the military history described in the book.
Posted by: whig at May 12, 2024 10:34 AM (peJ7P)
---
Glad you like them! After the usual "topic burnout" following publication, I've been digging deeper into China again, especially their Kar98k Zhong Zheng rifles. Fascinating stuff.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:45 AM (llXky)

244 Blessings on the hand of women!
Angels guard its strength and grace,
In the palace, cottage, hovel,
Oh, no matter where the place;
Would that never storms assailed it,
Rainbows ever gently curled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Infancy's the tender fountain,
Power may with beauty flow,
Mother's first to guide the streamlets,
From them souls unresting grow—
Grow on for the good or evil,
Sunshine streamed or evil hurled;
For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world.

Posted by: From William Ross Wallace at May 12, 2024 10:46 AM (dg+HA)

245 Did quick search..."Prudence Pimpleton"...formerly "Bess Backache".
Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:41 AM (AwYPR)

"Fearless Fosdick" was, of course, a burlesque of Dick Tracy, and was presented as Lil' Abner's favorite comic-book hero.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at May 12, 2024 10:48 AM (8zz6B)

246 BigJames. Most likely. Unless Ellen Anderson, my nemesis, had shouted it first.
OT, I've known three Ellen Andersons in my life, all lovely and extremely talented.

Posted by: From about That Time at May 12, 2024 10:49 AM (4780s)

247 I had read that Georgette Heyer's regency romance An Infamous Army was once used for training at Sandhurst due to her meticulous description of the Battle of Waterloo. She was also known for using many phrases that had gone out of style for decades to give her books a more realistic feel of the times. Her books have character development, not just bodice ripping and blatant sex. Would our male horde members enjoy her novels, who knows?

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 10:49 AM (2NHgQ)

248 Stephen King did, I use to read every thing he wrote until about 20-25 years ago... then something happened and he went crazy...
Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024 09:56 AM (PZo5T)

Weird, isn't it?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:51 AM (0eaVi)

249 Having seen a very interesting biography of The Killer Angels author Michael Shaara featuring, in part, his difficult relationship with his son and literary heir, Jeff Shaara, I have begun to read Jeff's Gods and Generals. I had seen the movie and was not favorably impressed but the book is much better. The book is timely in that, so far, it deals with the coming of the war. All the major characters look on with shock and disbelief as their country falls apart.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 10:53 AM (L/fGl)

250 BigJames. Most likely. Unless Ellen Anderson, my nemesis, had shouted it first.
OT, I've known three Ellen Andersons in my life, all lovely and extremely talented.

Posted by: From about That Time at May 12, 2024 10:49 AM (4780s)

Probably a hard habit to break....First!!

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:53 AM (AwYPR)

251 I'm back from the so-called Urgent Care. Place was supposed to be open at 8 am. It's still not open and nobody answers the phone. Fug 'em for a third-world country.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 09:57 AM (omVj0)

Hon, hon! Southern time, mon cher.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 10:54 AM (0eaVi)

252 Off topic, but I just read that Roger Corman passed away. I may have to give my weekend reading time over to matching some old MST3K episodes in his honor....

Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:56 AM (Lhaco)

253 Reading Fred Saberhagen's: Book of Lost Swords, the second triad.
I'd read the Swords books when I was a wee Poindexter and recalled them fondly. I found this hardcover edition on the clearance shelf at the Half-Price book store for a couple of bucks and snatched it up.
Sadly, my memory of the books hasn't lived up to the reality of my adult brain. The book seems childish to me now and I'm having a difficult time getting immersed in it.
On a positive note; I read The Sunlit Man by Sanderson this week and thoroughly enjoyed it. A stand alone novel of his Cosmere series, it leaves me with more questions about the Cosmere than I had before.

Posted by: p0indexterous at May 12, 2024 10:57 AM (QBwMV)

254 so-called Urgent Care.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 09:57 AM (omVj0)

If you need more than an aspirin or band aid, go to the ER.

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 10:57 AM (AwYPR)

255 Whoops... Happy Mothers Day to the most important people in the world!

Posted by: p0indexterous at May 12, 2024 10:58 AM (QBwMV)

256 49
Who was the English author who wrote a novel or two about a young doctor serving his early internship in a Scottish or English coal-mining town? "J.J." something? He also wrote The Keys to the Kingdom, I think?

Wolfus, the author is A.J. Cronin. His famous novel about the mining town is The Citadel.

Posted by: Linnet at May 12, 2024 10:58 AM (9pwvn)

257 Stephen King did, I use to read every thing he wrote until about 20-25 years ago... then something happened and he went crazy...
Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024
*
Weird, isn't it?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024

***
His stuff was still readable into the 2000s. But yes, crazy time, esp. since Trump and the Sniffle Scare. I gave up on one of his recent novels, Holly, since he started thumping the drum on those two things early on. True, his lead character is a hypochondriac, and would be worried about the coof . . . but a real writer would have presented the other side, that it was not much more than a severe flu, with some fairness. And left the political stuff out of it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 10:59 AM (omVj0)

258 Liberals always assume everyone is as emotionally unhinged as they are.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:09 AM (llXky)

It's our liminal times, man!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:00 AM (0eaVi)

259 Wolfus, the author is A.J. Cronin. His famous novel about the mining town is The Citadel.
Posted by: Linnet at May 12, 2024

***
That's it! I knew there was a J in there somewhere. I kept thinking "J.J. Connington," who was a British mystery author of the 1920s and '30s.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:00 AM (omVj0)

260 I met a black guy, barraksmate in Germany with the last name of King.
Claimed he was related to SK and really didn't like him.
Had a few stories. Weird shit nobody can make up.

Posted by: Reforger at May 12, 2024 11:00 AM (B705c)

261 243, AH,
I have come across various Chinese militia and Chinese Govt Mausers over the years. I found the GEW 88 pattern rifles were appalling in materials and fit/finish and the Chinese militia rifles much of the same quality as Khyber Pass firearms. Only seen one of the more scarce Chinese arsenal made Mausers and to me it was passable but nowhere near German, Czech, or FN level of quality pre war.

Posted by: whig at May 12, 2024 11:02 AM (peJ7P)

262 254 so-called Urgent Care.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024
*
If you need more than an aspirin or band aid, go to the ER.
Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024

***
This shop was fine in 2019 when I needed an antibiotic for a sinus infection. But they've been taken over by LCMC -- about which I have heard nothing good.

No way I'm going to sit in an ER for hours among illegals and other sick people for what seems to be a strange bug bite. They'll never get to me.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:03 AM (omVj0)

263 But there's a good chance that the earlier work will be collected into anthologies after-the-fact. Seems like there were quite a few stories in my assorted Robert E Howard collections that were 'never published.'
Posted by: Castle Guy at May 12, 2024 10:11 AM (Lhaco)

That wouldn't surprise me. Going back to the stuff I wrote around 2021, I cringe. I definitely write better than I did then. Still can't get anyone to buy it though....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:03 AM (0eaVi)

264 Stephen King did, I use to read every thing he wrote until about 20-25 years ago... then something happened and he went crazy...
Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024
*
Weird, isn't it?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024

Probably like Woody Allen, King decided that he was not writing at the adult's table and decided to write something more important and serious.

Writing something more important and serious, it turns out was spewing his millimeter deep thoughts on politics and religion into his books.

Sad.

Posted by: naturalfake at May 12, 2024 11:04 AM (eDfFs)

265 That sounds like a perfect morning! Though I'm not sure how one has a "modest" orgy.
Posted by: She Hobbit at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (ftFVW)

Do it in the dark?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:05 AM (0eaVi)

266 Reading Fred Saberhagen's: Book of Lost Swords, the second triad.
I'd read the Swords books when I was a wee Poindexter and recalled them fondly. I found this hardcover edition on the clearance shelf at the Half-Price book store for a couple of bucks and snatched it up.
Sadly, my memory of the books hasn't lived up to the reality of my adult brain. The book seems childish to me now and I'm having a difficult time getting immersed in it. . . .

Posted by: p0indexterous at May 12, 2024

***
P., I read them as a grownup some ten years ago. While not up the grand level to his Empire of the East novel, they were quite good, and leagues better (in less space) than many other fantasy tomes nowadays. His rhymes about the things the Swords could do, and his working that all out in story terms, were well done.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:05 AM (omVj0)

267 I had read that Georgette Heyer's regency romance An Infamous Army was once used for training at Sandhurst due to her meticulous description of the Battle of Waterloo. She was also known for using many phrases that had gone out of style for decades to give her books a more realistic feel of the times. Her books have character development, not just bodice ripping and blatant sex. Would our male horde members enjoy her novels, who knows?
Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024

***
"Hard SF" author Larry Niven, of all people, has said that he and his wife are big fans of GH.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:07 AM (omVj0)

268 If you need more than an aspirin or band aid, go to the ER.

With my insurance, which I think it probably better than most, an Urgent Care visit is a $75 co-pay but an ER visit is $300.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 12, 2024 11:08 AM (/y8xj)

269 Well firestarter and the stand were on point for different reasons

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (PXvVL)

270
Hon, hon! Southern time, mon cher.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024

***
And I'm not really Southern in any sense. When I drive up to Indiana, I'm bringing a pic of a crawfish ("crayfish") with me. If I show it to locals and they go, "What IS that thing?", I'll know I'm among My People.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (omVj0)

271 About the "I hate you" stage. When I lived through that I responded with "that's OK and I don't care. If you still hate me when you're 30, I will seriously rethink things"

Posted by: who knew at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (4I7VG)

272 That sounds like a perfect morning! Though I'm not sure how one has a "modest" orgy.
----
Do it in the dark?

Remember to say "please" and "thank you."

Posted by: Oddbob at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (/y8xj)

273 I am about half-way through "My Name is Legion", the three, short-story compendium by Zelazny.

My reading habits over the last year or so have been to fill the gaps in my early SciFi reading since so much of the new stuff isn't interesting to me.

Posted by: pawn at May 12, 2024 11:10 AM (QB+5g)

274 Stephen King was always left-leaning (if memory serves he had a piece in one of the political magazines talking about why he was for Gary Hart), but he used to know how to keep most of the politics out of his novels.

It's been some time since I read her, but his wife was pretty good too and in a number of ways better. Except for her first book, Small World, Tabitha King didn't go in for anything with a horror theme and I was sorry to see that she'd decided to stop publishing. I think all her stuff's out of print now, but it's worth a look.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 11:11 AM (q3u5l)

275 Well firestarter and the stand were on point for different reasons
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at May 12, 2024

***
His first ten years, after Carrie, produced some fine stories: a definitively scary vampire novel, some of the best about psi powers, a tragedy in The Dead Zone, and the short novels in Different Seasons. All still readable and enjoyable today. And his 11/22/63 is still one of the best time travel stories ever done.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:12 AM (omVj0)

276 I've mentioned a couple of times my infatuation with Joseph Pearce' Catholic take on great books, particularly Shakespeare. Two plays he has written about are Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. Accordingly, I watched both Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet from 1968 and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet from 1996. Both are susceptible to Pearce' heretical interpretation as opposed to our contemporary secular interpretations. Both do, however, sometimes creak and strain to accommodate Pearce' view. Both movies are beautiful although I prefer a medieval Hamlet rather that the late Renaissance setting of Branagh.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:13 AM (L/fGl)

277 About the "I hate you" stage. When I lived through that I responded with "that's OK and I don't care. If you still hate me when you're 30, I will seriously rethink things"
Posted by: who knew at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (4I7VG)

Any observation of current affairs will show, there are many young people who are likely going through the "I hate you" stage, and it is not accidental.

Many a parent is paying thousands of dollars in tuition to institutions that are brainwashing their children to hate them.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 11:14 AM (3v8AB)

278 Accordingly, I watched both Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet from 1968 and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet from 1996. Both are susceptible to Pearce' heretical interpretation as opposed to our contemporary secular interpretations. Both do, however, sometimes creak and strain to accommodate Pearce' view. Both movies are beautiful although I prefer a medieval Hamlet rather that the late Renaissance setting of Branagh.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024

***
I was pleasantly startled by the fairly recent modern-dress film of Richard III with Ian McKellen, painting England of the 1930s as a proto-Fascist dictatorship. Interesting take.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:17 AM (omVj0)

279 I gave up on Stephen King after watching his "Rose Red" miniseries in 2002, which actually wasn't that bad a story in and of itself. But what I saw in it was that King had become completely derivative and was simply cannibalizing his earlier, better works. I noticed from the start that it was just a cut and paste pastiche of previous works - "oh, there's the girl from Firestarter, renamed, here's the hotel/house from The Shining, repurposed..." Whatever creative spark he once had in him had fled, and he was just going through the motions.

Posted by: Tom Servo at May 12, 2024 11:17 AM (q3gwH)

280 If you need more than an aspirin or band aid, go to the ER.

-
The son of a doctor told us that his father's philosophy was is don't need an amputation, don't go to the doctor.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:18 AM (L/fGl)

281 I think all her stuff's out of print now, but it's worth a look.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 11:11 AM (q3u5l)

That shouldn't still be a thing. It makes no sense that any book that was once published, it's either the property of a publisher, or it's public domain, and it should be possible for anyone to request a copy that can be produced in a matter of minutes.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 11:19 AM (3v8AB)

282 I was pleasantly startled by the fairly recent modern-dress film of Richard III with Ian McKellen, painting England of the 1930s as a proto-Fascist dictatorship. Interesting take.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

I liked it too.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:19 AM (L/fGl)

283 The son of a doctor told us that his father's philosophy was is don't need an amputation, don't go to the doctor.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:18 AM (L/fGl)

I learned (maybe) on Jeopardy this past week, that Charles Dickens coined the term "saw bones".

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 11:21 AM (AwYPR)

284 Stephen King did, I use to read every thing he wrote until about 20-25 years ago... then something happened and he went crazy...
Posted by: lin-duh at May 12, 2024

He always leaned left but totally lost his s*** after the hit and run accident in 1999 that put him in the hospital for about three weeks.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at May 12, 2024 11:21 AM (/HDaX)

285 My older than me by 8 years sister took it upon herself to teach me to read before I started kindergarten.

Apparently the honor of the family was at stake.

She was not a patient teacher but I learned.

I think she herself was not aware how she learned, but I think our dad would read the newspapers with her in his lap. All of us kids were bookworms, but not my mom. (The war had interrupted her HS education, and reading was low on the Maslow scale.) She would complain, plaintively, that reading was not getting the chores done.

Eventually Mom started reading too, after dad passed. I would fall asleep, in the room we shared, listening to the soft murmur of her reading Hemingway to herself.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 11:23 AM (yD62l)

286 What's a Maslow Scale ?

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 11:24 AM (T4tVD)

287 What's a Maslow Scale ?
Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024

***
Is it that Hierarchy of Needs thing? Food and shelter are at the top?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:25 AM (omVj0)

288 First time in a long time I've had the chance to comment on the book thread. It's been enjoyable. Should add on my last comment, Heyer has zero bodice ripping and blatant sex. She believed that sex was for procreation and reportedly didn't share a bedroom with her hubby. The last scene in The Grand Sophy is as steamy as she got.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 11:26 AM (2NHgQ)

289 BurtTC -- Agreed, it shouldn't still be a thing. And as far as the technology goes these days, it ain't. Copyrights and publishers' contracts with writers haven't caught up with the technology yet.

If I were God, publishers who put a book out of print would have to revert all rights to the author and provide the author with digital copies if the author had not submitted the work in digital form. The author would then sell the work or not through any platform he wished.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 11:26 AM (q3u5l)

290 Is it that Hierarchy of Needs thing? Food and shelter are at the top?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:25 AM (omVj0)

So Maslow never had to poop ?

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 11:27 AM (T4tVD)

291 That sounds like a perfect morning! Though I'm not sure how one has a "modest" orgy.
Posted by: She Hobbit at May 12, 2024 10:12 AM (ftFVW)

Zorro Masks !

Posted by: JT at May 12, 2024 11:29 AM (T4tVD)

292 Is it that Hierarchy of Needs thing? Food and shelter are at the top?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius,

Yes. Hierarchy, no Scale. My bad.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 11:29 AM (yD62l)

293 From about that Time: You were faster than me. Took me until, 5th or 6th grade to finish off the SRA. My youngest taught himself to read by maybe age 3. I read to him every night and Mrs. Knew taught him the alphabet but no body tried to teach him to read. When we had him tested for kindergarten enrollment he was reading at a 5th or 6th grade level. So they moved him straight into first grade.

Posted by: who knew at May 12, 2024 11:30 AM (4I7VG)

294 Z

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 11:30 AM (fwDg9)

295 Food and shelter are at the top?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:25 AM (omVj0)

Food and shelter on the bottom, self-actualization at the top. Supposedly unobtainable.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 11:31 AM (FlXxH)

296 So Maslow never had to poop ?

Oh, he did. And tens (hundreds?) of thousands of public policy -- especially public education policy -- professionals take it seriously.

Posted by: Oddbob at May 12, 2024 11:31 AM (/y8xj)

297 you should not hurry through a book just to say you have read it. I find myself guilty of this on occasion because there are some books that I *do* want to say I have read, even if I didn't really enjoy them that much...

We've heard THAT before...

Posted by: War and Peace, Ulysses, The Bible at May 12, 2024 11:31 AM (ycI94)

298 285 Courtesy of Mom and Dad, I learned to read before kindergarten. Trouble was, Mom and Dad would have little recitals with Billy showing off his reading skills to guests. And we're not talking Little Golden Books.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 12, 2024 11:32 AM (V5eKu)

299 When we had him tested for kindergarten enrollment he was reading at a 5th or 6th grade level. So they moved him straight into first grade.
Posted by: who knew at May 12, 2024

***
They (the School Board, I guess) tested me in the summer after my "second" grade year, to see if I belonged in third. I don't know the complete result, but there I wuz in third grade that fall.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:32 AM (omVj0)

300 Well, The Management (aka the beyond-nifty Mrs Some Guy) wants my assistance with something in the real world, so I'm outta here.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 11:33 AM (q3u5l)

301 243 Glad you like them! After the usual "topic burnout" following publication, I've been digging deeper into China again, especially their Kar98k Zhong Zheng rifles. Fascinating stuff.

I have an old hanyang 88, along with 4 zhong zheng (type 24 rifles) I'm restoring. I thought the backwards swastiki's on some of the model 24's were cool. Apparently it was a buddhist symbol and the soldiers desired that variant (as opposed to the star marking) thinking it would offer some divine protection.

I gave one to my SIL, it had 4 marks ( circles) where they took the hot spent shell casing and pressed it into the stock. I thought maybe that was a grunt marking his kills.

The later chinese arms in my collection ( T-53's, sks's and model 54 pistols) are solid and much better built than the early Chinese made mausers.

Posted by: The Walking Dude at May 12, 2024 11:33 AM (cCxiu)

302 The author would then sell the work or not through any platform he wished.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at May 12, 2024 11:26 AM (q3u5l)

That makes perfect sense, and if there isn't an author left?

Public domain.

Someone could make a mint by printing on demand all the out of print/in public domain books.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 11:34 AM (FlXxH)

303 OT: time to go long on Val-U-Rite.

https://instapundit.com/646936/

Posted by: Oddbob at May 12, 2024 11:34 AM (/y8xj)

304 Good morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:37 AM (u82oZ)

305 A couple of people mentioned "Three Men In A Boat," so I picked it up for a casual read.

Mildly amusing, but overlong.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at May 12, 2024 10:37 AM (d9fT1)

Nice take off version here....

https://tinyurl.com/4wnazaf3

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:38 AM (0eaVi)

306 Re: authors going crazy . . . I would not say that about my favorite (after Heinlein) SF author, Larry Niven. But his more recent books have been harder for me to follow. He's always been one for superior clarity in his writing and explanation of concepts like black holes, the way Known Space deals with hyperdrive (faster-than-light) travel, gigantic structures like his Ringworld, etc. And he was always great in collaborations like those with Jerry Pournelle and Steven Barnes. But some of his latest seem a little foggy. He often has super-bright characters, true, and they may be hard for the reader to understand. But his job, as he's always said, is to make that clear to his reader.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:39 AM (omVj0)

307 RE: my 306 . . . Still, Larry Niven's early stuff like Neutron Star, A Gift From Earth, and Ringworld I can recommend to any SF reader who wants a fast-paced, highly imaginative story, often with laugh-out-loud humor, a thing rare in fiction anyway and even rarer in SF. His work with Pournelle is very very good too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:42 AM (omVj0)

308 Elon Musk explains the Fed.

https://shorturl.at/chmDQ

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:43 AM (L/fGl)

309 Starting in 2nd or 3rd grade, to keep me busy, I was given open access to the SRA readers. Read the story, take the quiz, move on. By grade level.
By 4th grade I had completed the SRA readers through the 12th grade (end) level.
Kept everyone happy.
Posted by: From about that Time at May 12, 2024 10:39 AM (4780s)

There was a competition between myself and a girl in class for who could read the most before the end of the school year. Don't remember who won.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:43 AM (0eaVi)

310 301 Should save this for the gun thread. A fella back in Ohio we called "the rare collector" (mostly for his collection but you get it, rich guy) had a display at gun shows of "asiatic" pistols, Browning 1900 knock offs. Varying degrees of workmanship, maybe from different cottage industry shops, and all bearing serial numbers of 123456XXX.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 12, 2024 11:43 AM (V5eKu)

311 Late. Internet issues.

In reading I want to talk about an important book about a ferry sinking in British Columbia. The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain's Story
by Colin Henthorne. It is lucid and makes excellent recommendations.

The Captain of the ship wrote about the entire experience, from the ship to investigations, to his two firings, and what needed to be done.

Hrothgar sent me this book. I promised him a review today, but I want to re-read part of the ending before I opine. So next week.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:45 AM (u82oZ)

312 Raylan Givens
@JewishWarrior13
The Washington Post is reporting a BOMBSHELL from the Biden admin. The US is offering Israel a deal as follows: in exchange for Israel ending the Rafah operation and not continuing further, the US will give Israel “specific and high quality” intelligence that will help the IDF locate Sinwar and uncover the remaining tunnels in Gaza. My analysis on this will follow shortly.

-
Yeah, right, like Biden has any intelligence to spare.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:46 AM (L/fGl)

313 In reading I want to talk about an important book about a ferry sinking in British Columbia. The Queen of the North Disaster: The Captain's Story
by Colin Henthorne. It is lucid and makes excellent recommendations.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:45 AM (u82oZ)

What's the North Disaster, and why would it have a queen?

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 11:47 AM (98dBG)

314 Glad you like them! After the usual "topic burnout" following publication, I've been digging deeper into China again, especially their Kar98k Zhong Zheng rifles. Fascinating stuff.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 12, 2024 10:45 AM (llXky)

After you've shot the whole magazine worth, do you feel like doing it again an hour later?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:47 AM (0eaVi)

315 Should save this for the gun thread. A fella back in Ohio we called "the rare collector" (mostly for his collection but you get it, rich guy) had a display at gun shows of "asiatic" pistols, Browning 1900 knock offs. Varying degrees of workmanship, maybe from different cottage industry shops, and all bearing serial numbers of 123456XXX.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at May 12, 2024 11:43 AM (V5eKu)

About 40 yrs ago, a local shop imported Chinese confiscated broomhandles as relics, I suppose. All types of manufacture, including garbage. Still wish I'd gotten one.

Posted by: BignJames at May 12, 2024 11:50 AM (AwYPR)

316 Yeah, right, like Biden has any intelligence to spare.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 11:46 AM (L/fGl)

Here, I speak Biden, lemme interpret: U.S. weapons manufacturers make too much money on perpetual war, don't you go and try to finish this thing.

Posted by: BurtTC at May 12, 2024 11:50 AM (98dBG)

317 neverenoughcaffeine--

I'm a fan of Georgette Heyer's Regency novels as well. I have told my husband that I think he'd like "The Toll Gate" because it's got more action and less romance that a lot of the books.

I agree that Heyer's meticulous attention to detail in her use of language and descriptions of Regency life are some of the things I enjoy most about her books.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at May 12, 2024 11:51 AM (FEVMW)

318 Wolfus, the author is A.J. Cronin. His famous novel about the mining town is The Citadel.
Posted by: Linnet at May 12, 2024 10:58 AM (9pwvn)

Gene L Coon. No, that was Lee Cronin.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:52 AM (0eaVi)

319 It looks like a newspaper. But it's not.

Posted by: The Washington Post at May 12, 2024 11:53 AM (dg+HA)

320 I love Georgette Heyer

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 11:53 AM (yD62l)

321 229 ... CBD,

Three Men In A Boat is one of those books that always makes me laugh out loud. I was reading it in a waiting room one time. Since my laughter sounds like a combination of Mephistopheles and Darth Vader, I was making people nervous so I stopped. I only read it in private these days. But some of the expressions on their faces were priceless.

Posted by: JTB at May 12, 2024 11:53 AM (zudum)

322 I bought a Koba this week.

I am liking Amazon less and less, especially as a box full of gifts was delivered to Manhattan, Kansas, then sent to the next town over to the West. My address was correct, but that box was stolen. Alas.

I used that device to read The Cosmic Computer by H. Beam Piper.

I liked the story. Rather exuberant in the way capitalism can make a dying, impoverished world with no hope left into a thriving planet and people.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:54 AM (u82oZ)

323 I had hardbacks of all of Georgette Heyer's novels.

I shipped them to FenelonSpoke.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:55 AM (u82oZ)

324 And I'm not really Southern in any sense. When I drive up to Indiana, I'm bringing a pic of a crawfish ("crayfish") with me. If I show it to locals and they go, "What IS that thing?", I'll know I'm among My People.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (omVj0)

Where do "crawdads" fall on that scale?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 11:56 AM (0eaVi)

325 JTB

I got that ILL, and it was dry British humor at it's best. To say nothing about the dog.
It talked deeper for me based on my river navigation time in my yute.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:57 AM (u82oZ)

326 Have a great day, everyone.

May your reading illuminate and entertain.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at May 12, 2024 11:58 AM (u82oZ)

327 "“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Matthew 3:3

Posted by: Marcus T at May 12, 2024 11:59 AM (L6Ng2)

328 He always leaned left but totally lost his s*** after the hit and run accident in 1999 that put him in the hospital for about three weeks.
Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at May 12, 2024 11:21 AM (/HDaX)

Stupid car. I would have finished the job.

Posted by: Christine at May 12, 2024 11:59 AM (0eaVi)

329 Bio weapons are the future. Plausible deniability. Just ask the ChiComs and the CIA.

Posted by: Ignoramus at May 12, 2024 12:00 PM (Us+fq)

330 312 Raylan Givens
@JewishWarrior13
The Washington Post is reporting a BOMBSHELL from the Biden admin. The US is offering Israel a deal as follows: in exchange for Israel ending the Rafah operation and not continuing further, the US will give Israel “specific and high quality” intelligence that will help the IDF locate Sinwar and uncover the remaining tunnels in Gaza. My analysis on this will follow shortly.

I imagine the Israelis have that info... If not agree, get the info then bomb the hell out of Raffa

Posted by: It's me donna at May 12, 2024 12:00 PM (Akjoo)

331 We haz a NOOD

Posted by: Skip at May 12, 2024 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

332 And I'm not really Southern in any sense. When I drive up to Indiana, I'm bringing a pic of a crawfish ("crayfish") with me. If I show it to locals and they go, "What IS that thing?", I'll know I'm among My People.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:09 AM (omVj0)

Where do "crawdads" fall on that scale?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024

***
They are the same unearthly creatures. I suspect they are the immature life stage of a much larger being that got stranded here from a wide-ranging starship millions of years ago. (And voila, there's a story idea --!)

Avram Davidson has a short story in which he posits that paper clips, wire coat hangers, and bicycles are different life stages of the same alien life form. He cites as evidence his observation that when you see lots of paper clips (larval stage, I guess), there are few coat hangers (the pupal stage) and almost no bicycles (the adult stage) to be seen. If there are lots of bicycles, you'll hardly ever see a paper clip, and very few coat hangers. Et cetera.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 12:01 PM (omVj0)

333 Is it that Hierarchy of Needs thing? Food and shelter are at the top?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 11:25 AM (omVj0)

Come on, man!!

Posted by: $20 at May 12, 2024 12:01 PM (0eaVi)

334 Confound it! The BT is over, and I haven't caught up on all the comments yet!!!

Thanks, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at May 12, 2024 12:03 PM (0eaVi)

335 Didja see that Colorado has out California-ed California? The Town of Nederland granted "fundamental and inalienable rights" to water. Water is people too. They had to take it back (Indian givers?) because, turns out, people need to drink water to live.

https://shorturl.at/hktFK

Nederland is a small town above the People's Republic of Boulder and is Boulder squared.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, I've Been Through the Desert On a Horse With No Shame at May 12, 2024 12:05 PM (L/fGl)

336 Mindful Webworks are not books. Some might translate to print. Many would not, at least not very easily. Web pages allow long-tall panels, for example - would have to have fold-out pages in print. 🙂

Some works incorporate lots of collage and 'borrowed' images which might invoke copyright challenges in a commercial print form, more than the donations-requested hobby form of the personal website.

Here's an example. N.B., Not a quick read.

Getting From Here to There
Past, present, and future of getting around

Exploring the history, current state, and future of transporting people and stuff from here to there.
Collection published to web 2021 Jan 29.
Originally presented in the "Daily Doodles," Jun 1-28, 2013.

Intro page linked in nic.

Posted by: mindful webworker - from here to there at May 12, 2024 12:05 PM (944rR)

337 Yet another Book Thread goes down in history! Thanks, Perfessor.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at May 12, 2024 12:07 PM (omVj0)

338 Spent a lot of time reading to escape some of the realities of growing up in a crazy household. So lucky that the library was close to home.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at May 12, 2024 09:51 AM (2NHgQ)

Reading is the best escape. Hugs.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at May 12, 2024 01:34 PM (yD62l)

339 Interested to know what is driving the revamping of geophysics courses. I know there is an unsettling loss of interest in traditional tech fields that universities are struggling with. Need to get kids interested somehow without diminishing the topics too much.

Posted by: drp at May 12, 2024 01:44 PM (eOUy5)

340 Read Catastrophe Theory. Excellent. Highly recommend.

Posted by: iandeal at May 12, 2024 02:32 PM (rm+nU)

341 "I sometimes wonder if there are lurkers out there that peek in on the Sunday Morning Book Thread and are just gobsmacked by the quantity and quality of reading that we engage in on a week-to-week basis."
- - - - - - - -
Something to consider - There is SO much content out there. Book form, video form, audio form, gaming form. Stuff from centuries past to a decade ago, aside from Copyright/IP concerns, is usually easily available, and growing more over time.

On the flip side, how much content nowadays is also lost, much like the first episodes of Dr. Who? From either stupidity or malice (¿por que no los dos?), MySpace lost over a decade of users' content. The Progressive Inquisition has been digitally altering new content to confirm to their new mores and morals, when not trying to shadowban it.

In the gaming world, publishers have somehow moved to the "Games As A Service" model, constantly updating games games, which requires both ongoing development and an online/cloud service. And when they cannot manage one and/or the other anymore, it's just gone. The games are unavailable, because the content was never stored on the user's side.

Posted by: Another Anon at May 12, 2024 03:33 PM (QNMaY)

342 How long you gonna be gone ?
You takin' a Rowboat to China ?
Posted by: JT
---------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3XmGuC2WGY

Posted by: buddhaha at May 12, 2024 03:40 PM (oTdrk)

343 150 The speaker at my college graduation was the university's chancellor. More schools should do that.

A cousin of mine had to sit through an address by some cluck who devoted all his text to ripping Reagan.
Posted by: Weak Geek at May 12, 2024 10:05 AM (p/isN)

Late to the party, but that's what I get for working nights. Ed Garza, then the mayor of San Antonio, spoke at mine. Boring as hell. Maybe not a popular opinion, but screw it: graduations are grossly overrated.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 12, 2024 03:43 PM (8sMut)

344 329 Bio weapons are the future. Plausible deniability. Just ask the ChiComs and the CIA.
Posted by: Ignoramus at May 12, 2024 12:00 PM (Us+fq)

Plague doesn't care who it kills.

Posted by: Project Blue at May 12, 2024 03:58 PM (8sMut)

345 My parents had their first, my oldest sis, and she was read to.

Then they had another, and my middle sis was read to by my parents and her sis.

Then I came along and I was read to by everybody. I remember well reading what I could even if I couldn't understand it. Helped with kindergarten, where I was already ahead of the game when I showed up. One thing my parents allowed and encouraged: in day care and kindergarten whenever we drove anywhere I read the highway signage aloud wherever we went. (Dad had to tell me what the abbreviations meant though.)

By second grade my school in TX put me in an advanced reading class. My reading teacher had some reading assignments in class she kept for extra credit and I didn't think I'd be reading them; by Thanksgiving I started reading them. Bored, I guess. I was well on the way to finishing them. Then we moved to Germany...

So it began.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 12, 2024 04:03 PM (8sMut)

346 "Worse, young boys are actively being discouraged from reading because the only stories they are taught in school involve women central characters, instead of positive male role models."

This is NOTHING new. I remember librarians and reading teachers hand wringing over this in the 1980s. The solution is simple: come up with things boys are likely interested in. Problem solved. I wasn't introduced to The Odyssey until 8th grade. But I was hooked. Hook line and sinker. But reading fiction was still boring AF (I was already reading histories) until I ran into a little novel called The Hunt For Red October. Then the one I read after that was Red Storm Rising. I was 15. These sold me.

(Side note: this obsession over what sex is what...earlier this week, while subbing, and telling a teacher about my plans to get a teaching certification, she gushed about how important it was for me to go through with it because "we need more male role models". I've been told straight up that I was hired in the cohort I was hired in some time back because "we need more men in the classroom." The individuality thing just cannot be done.)

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 12, 2024 04:10 PM (8sMut)

347 Funniest thing about #345 is that the most unimaginative person on earth was my late father. The second most unimaginative person on earth is my mother. And yet. This is one of those weird things I marvel at looking back.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at May 12, 2024 04:15 PM (8sMut)

348 "Military history sections are generally critiques and revisions, and even supposedly new and fresh stuff is really just recycled from other sources."

As Bruce Gudmundsson once told me, we live in a golden age of military history. The stuff in ordinary bookstores may not amount to much, but if you cast your net wide enough it's amazing what's available.

Small publishers such as Helion and Pen and Sword are cranking out new stuff at a great pace (half a dozen or more new books from Helion in my areas of interest alone this spring) as well as reprints of relatively modern works that had fallen out of print such as, for example, reprints of Chris Duffy's books on the Seven Years War and the Jacobite Rebellion. In addition to some new scholarship, there are also new books about topics not covered in recent publications (the battles between the bailli de Sufferen and Admiral Hughes in the Indian Ocean for example) or books based on foreign language sources not generally used in English language histories (Helion's books on the Thirty Years War and the Italian Wars for example).
cont below...

Posted by: Pope John 20th at May 12, 2024 10:02 PM (cYrkj)

349 Military History cont...

Add to that the more scholarly stuff (doctoral dissertations by Sam Willis and others, or published collections of papers from symposia on topics like the comparative history of military labor from 1500-2000 or the military contractor state from 1569-1815, or dozens of papers and books by Hungarian profs on the Hapsburg-Ottoman wars, or papers analyzing flintlock ballistics from field experiments), and older books and memoirs now available online that were accessible only to a few privileged scholars when I studied history in college (for example, works by and on James Brooke and the White Rajas of Sarawak that run to more than a dozen books in hard copies and pdf copies, or the complete British Naval Chronicles, or British regimental histories); we're spoiled for choice, even though they are not available in the corner book store. Of course some of it's crap (Ted Sturgeon said 90% of everything is), but that still leaves tremendous amounts of stuff that isn't. It's raining soup, grab a bucket...

Posted by: Pope John 20th at May 12, 2024 10:31 PM (cYrkj)

350 Dad would read the newspaper comics, excluding the continued stories, to my sister and me. (I'm older than her.)

He used his talent with voices to distinguish the characters.

Even after I was reading on my own, I always enjoyed listening to him.

In his final months, our roles were reversed -- I was reading gag strip cartoons to him.

Posted by: Weak Geek is posting only to get an even number of comments in the thread at May 12, 2024 10:41 PM (p/isN)

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