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Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-07-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]
(HT: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing) (Click image for larger view.)
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 (sonic screwdriver not included). 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, pour yourself a nice cup of eggnog (with a dash of cinnamon and vanilla), and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?
PIC NOTE
MP4, what does your home library look like?
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at November 30, 2025 11:15 AM (kpS4V)
Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (or MP4 for short) is a gentleman, so in answer to All Hail Eris' request he kindly sent me a few pictures of his home library. The one up top is only a portion of his library. If you look at the right side of the photo, you can see that the library extends into the next room. He sent me a picture of those books as well. He also said that there's a lot more books in his attic office space, where he does a lot of his writing. What I love about this library is that it's clearly the library of a scholar. It's meant to be USED, not just there for showing off. It's an amazing library and I appreciate MP4 being willing to display it for the Horde.
He also sent me a picture of his amazing DVD collection. Again, it's overflowing, which is only right and proper.
(Click image for larger view.)
REAL MEN BUILD LIBRARIES
Civilization as we know it today would not be possible without men building libraries. Libraries preserve the knowledge and wisdom of our ancestors, guiding us in our current and future endeavors. When civilization comes crashing down again, as it always does, will we even have access to the digital content in abundance right now? Or will we look to the men who built libraries to save civilization once again?
++++++++++
Admit it...we've all been there.
++++++++++
WHY IS READING SO COMPETITIVE NOW?
In a sense, the video above highlights a point that's opposite of the "Real Men Build Libraries" video. She points out that social media is changing the way we read and interact with books. How many of us read one book after another in order to simply rack up a book count? I know I'm guilty of this. Being the curator of the Sunday Morning Book Thread does impose a certain amount of subtle peer pressure to read more and more books. If I don't read multiple books a week, am I letting you guys down?
A lot of this competitive atmosphere in reading seems to be driven by one thing: FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). People get so focused on what's trending in their preferred reading that they want to keep up with each other, so it really does become a competitive sport of sorts. Especially if you use a reading app that tracks your progress and then lets you see the progress of others. People can also be quite judgemental about others' reading habits and will make themselves known in social media for looking down on someone of they don't read the "right books" or don't read them in the "right way." Lots of social pressure to conform to the current trend of the day.
As for me, while I do try to read quite a few books and I have a standard goal of reading ten books a month, since that's about average for me, I don't worry about what's trendy or cool. That's the nice thing about being 29+. You don't care so much about what others think. Instead, I try to find books that *I* want to read because they sound interesting to *me.* Moron Recommendations are very useful in this respect because I can look for something that interests me AND has a substantial recommendation from one of you to provide evidence that I might enjoy it.
You all know what I read since I post those books every week. Some of it is quality material, but a lot of might be considered "trash" by the literati since it doesn't meet their standard of quality. Whatever. I don't care. It's not about THEM. I read what I like, and so should you. I'm constantly amazed by the breadth and depth of the Moron Horde reading tastes. Collectively, we are among the most well-read group of people on the planet, on par with any BookTok or BookTube community out there. Let's all be proud of that fact.
The only person you should be competing against when it comes to reading is yourself.
+-----+-----+-----+-----+
MORON RECOMMENDATIONS
I love my Kindle (eyesight issues), and this week picked up John Ringo's Not That Kind of Good Guy, part 1 of his new Shadow Path series. First impression,...
OMG, HOLY CHRIST ON A CUPCAKE!!!!!
I say that, not because of the storytelling, but the political/social commentary. This is Illuminati plus Atlas Shrugged mixed with a little Logan's Run.
Ringo delivers an EPIC takedown of crime and social failure in Baltimore right at the beginning of the book. It's vicious and pointed. Living out here, it misses a few things, but the topics he hits on, are items that have been on WBFF for the last couple years.
Only halfway through it, but that's because I've had to re-read some sections because of the depth to make sure I understand what Ringo is really saying. This isn't your normal Ringo book. Sometimes I think sarcastically to myself, "So how do you REALLY feel, John?!?"
-SLV
Posted by: Shy Lurking Voter at November 30, 2025 09:49 AM (e/Osv)
Comment: I'm so glad I live in a small semi-rural community. Sure, we have our problems. Lots of drugs flow through here because we're on a major drug route. Still, it's a nice enough community that you can go to Walmart and accidentally leave your car unlocked and the chances that someone will steal everything in your vehicle are somewhat remote. I would not be surprised if the cities continue to devolve to the point where only those who truly cannot leave remain.
+++++
James Kahn's novelization of Return of the Jedi is brilliant. It formed the core of my inspiration to write the Man of Destiny series, which was a correction to the terrible prequel films.
As in most novelizations, there are some expanded dialogue sequences, thus Luke and Obi-wan go deeper into the history, which was likely in the script but cut. It totally undermines the prequels, which are a direct contradiction. Anakin was not a kid, but an adult, about the same age as Luke when his adventure began.
This was central to my reimagining the story and while I'm biased, others (some in the Horde) will agree with me.
Kahn also has a nice turn of phrase, and the book includes a twist on the Death Star attack, which is that when the shield generator is actually taken out, the Emperor orders the station to destroy Endor in order to further enrage Luke. A bit much for the movie, but a nice touch.
My favorite part was the character portrait of Jerjerrod, the Death Star's commander.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at November 30, 2025 09:59 AM (ZOv7s)
Comment: I'll have to go back and reread this book. It's been sitting on my shelves for decades now. Like a lot of movie novelizations that came out at the time, it includes several full-color photos from the movie, such as a picture of ace in his younger years, as well as the sexiest picture of Sy Snootles ever captured on film, as I'm sure Admiral Ackbar would agree.
+++++
Speaking of James Bond, however: I finished Anthony Horowitz's "continuation" novel, Trigger Mortis, and enjoyed it immensely. He has Fleming's style down pat, and there is plenty of action -- a car race, shootouts, a live burial, and a climactic scene aboard a racing train. It's set in 1957, right after the events of Goldfinger, with a featured appearance by Miss Pussy Galore. Never fear, being "with" Bond, as we saw at the end of GF, has not tamed her or her DC preferences in the least.
Highly recommended for Bond fans. I need to buy a copy for my shelf.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at November 30, 2025 09:17 AM (wzUl9)
Comment: Some authors are able to continue a previous author's works if they are able to capture the spirit of the previous author. Not every author is successful at this. Brian Herbert teamed up with Kevin J. Anderson to continue Frank Herbert's Dune series and I've heard it's a mixed bag. I think to be successful, you really need to understand what made the original work so well. In the example above, it sounds like Horowitz knew how a James Bond novel was supposed to work and then mirrored Fleming's style to bring those elements together. The result is a James Bond novel that works.
I enjoyed Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds, so I went ahead and picked up a few more books in the series. Curiously, two of them are listed as Book 2 of the Inhibitors Trilogy on Amazon, but only one of them counts, I think. Chasm City is a standalone novel set in the same universe (it's referenced quite a bit in Revelation Space).
Inhibitor Trilogy Book 2 - Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Inhibitor Space by Alastair Reynolds
WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:
Mystery Walk by Robert R. McCammon
This is a reread for me, separated by about 40 years. I first read this when I was in sixth grade. My family had just moved to Germany and for our first Thanksgiving my dad decided to take us on a chartered bus trip to Costa Brava, Spain, near Barcelona. It's a long way from Grafenwoehr, Germany to Spain. Naturally I took along several books, among which was Mystery Walk, that was loaned to me by a friend.
Mystery Walk is the story of two young men who are blessed--or cursed--with supernatural abilities. Billy Creekmore is able to see those who are about to die and also assist their weary spirits in crossing over to the other side. Wayne Falconer is the son of a bible-thumping tent-revivalist and he has the power to heal some people, but not everyone. Turns out Wayne and Billy have a deep connection as a result of their supernatural abilities. The evil shape-changer is ever-present in the shadows of their lives, twisting their abilities to serve his own purposes (mostly feeding on them).
As horror books go, the build-up is a bit slow, but it really gets moving in the middle and later parts of the books as the boys age into adulthood and take on the responsibilities and obligations of their powers.
Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz
I decided to stick with horror for the next read after Mystery Walk so I turned to one of my recent favorite authors--Dean Koontz. He rarely disappoints.
Christopher Snow isn't ordinary, but he wants to lead an ordinary life. He's afflicted with a horrible condition that prevents him from enjoying the sunlight. He's extremely sensitive to UV radiation to the point where prolonged exposure will kill him in short order. Nevertheless, he manages to lead a happy, well-adjusted life in Midnight Cove, California. That is, until his father's corpse is body-snatched right out from under his nose. Now Chris is being hunted by shadowy, not-quite-human pursuers through the darkened streets of Midnight Cove. Chris has no idea what's going on, but he suspects his dead parents were hiding secrets from him, though they loved him till the end.
What's really going on in Midnight Cove? Was the nearby Army base shut down eighteen months ago, or is the government continuing mad science experiments in secret down in the bowels of the earth?
Posted by: Archimedes at December 07, 2025 09:02 AM (Riz8t)
9
My wife, God rest her soul, loved "Homicide Hunter". I always mispronounced it as Homie-cide Hunter, as there were a few homies getting killed during the series...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:03 AM (ynpvh)
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (ynpvh)
14As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants
So, pants ARE required, unless you're wearing THOSE pants, which means if you ARE wearing THOSE pants, pants are not required, and therefore you could take them off.
"Illogical", as Spock, son of Sarek, might say (perhaps even with a raised eyebrow!)
I am starting to have some sympathy with certain Commentators who are known non-pants wearers for this Thread. You know who you are.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (0sNs1)
15
How many of us read one book after another in order to simply rack up a book count?
--
I used to maybe but I am too old for that now.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:08 AM (eZ5tL)
18
14 As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants
So, pants ARE required, unless you're wearing THOSE pants, which means if you ARE wearing THOSE pants, pants are not required, and therefore you could take them off.
"Illogical", as Spock, son of Sarek, might say (perhaps even with a raised eyebrow!)
I am starting to have some sympathy with certain Commentators who are known non-pants wearers for this Thread. You know who you are.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (0sNs1)
There seems to be a reason for those pants...seems the wearer has a drainage line of some kind affixed beneath the cut leg...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:10 AM (ynpvh)
I'm still working my way through The Hobbit, and it has been probably 15 years since my last journey There And Back Again, when I read it to my kids. Going through it after reading Waugh, Ford, and other contemporaries, the humor and snark is a lot more pronounced. Tolkien was a brilliant writer, but he had an edge as well. I'm laughing out loud at gags that completely bypassed me.
My primary writing continues to be revisions to Conqueror: Fields of Victory, my fantasy/historical miniatures rules that have sold in the very low dozens of copy (so low I'm barely entitled to use a plural). So likely to be lucrative, but I'm playing games and painting, which is the point.
Also trying to finish up editing the audio for Battle Officer Wolf, which is resulting in a lot of corrections. I'm 2/3 of the way through, so on track to get it done this year.
20
Kindle trys to push that book count but I ignored it
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (Ia/+0)
21
15 How many of us read one book after another in order to simply rack up a book count?
--
I used to maybe but I am too old for that now.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:08 AM (eZ5tL)
I never did; that takes it from a pleasure to a chore.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (ynpvh)
22
I have bookshelves with overstacking like that. I have also commandeered walls in several other rooms besides the library for shelving. I think the books are reproducing.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (0U5gm)
23
20 Kindle trys to push that book count but I ignored it
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (Ia/+0)
Kids today talk about body count; here that has a different meaning.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (ynpvh)
I'm flattered to be quoted by our esteemed group leader here, and to see Trigger Mortis being devoured by our iconic squirrel. TM differs from the continuation novels done by John Gardner in the '80s not least because it's set as a period piece in 1957. Bond as we know him in teh novels is really a Cold War-era hero. He's timeless when it's done right (see Skyfall), but JG's idea, or publishers' mandate, was to update him to the 1980s. Some of it worked, some didn't. But I like TM much better.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (wzUl9)
25
I am reading the Expanse novels -actually listening since I can do audiobooks while working usually.
3rd book - Abbadon's Gate - audiobook is still not ready on libby so I started the print book last night.
Also listening to The Ladies of Grace Adieu on audiobook.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:12 AM (eZ5tL)
26
Some authors are able to continue a previous author's works if they are able to capture the spirit of the previous author. Not every author is successful at this.
I've only read one Bond novel, License Renewed. Can't remember if I liked it, or even had any idea if it matched the Fleming originals.
I have read a few Matt Helms, and they're definitely not like the movies with that other Dino. But I still like them because of the Rat Pack Cool times. Dean Martin was a pretty good actor. You think of the Helm movies and Ocean's Eleven, and Robin and the Seven Hoods, but Dean said he preferred westerns. Did good work in Rio Bravo, a villain turn in Rough Night in Jericho, and comedic westerns like Texas Across the River and Four for Texas.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:12 AM (uQesX)
27
I am starting to have some sympathy with certain Commentators who are known non-pants wearers for this Thread. You know who you are.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (0sNs1)
...
::: looking for a pair of complaint lower-wear :::
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:12 AM (ynpvh)
28
5 And later, I have to give the wife driving lessons after the sun comes up.
--
Please be patient with Mrs OrangeEnt.
Driving lessons to family can be a nightmare.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:13 AM (eZ5tL)
Nice library MPPP I'm pleased to have looked for and found the Richard J. Evans trilogy on your shelves which to me is a mark of completeness.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 09:14 AM (m6HS6)
31He also sent me a picture of his amazing DVD collection. Again, it's overflowing, which is only right and proper.
TJM has an amazing collection. I'm merely a dilettante.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:14 AM (ufSfZ)
32
The family did the century challenge a few times. That is setting a goal of 100 books read in a year for each person. Normally, I just read as much as I can without the competition.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:14 AM (0U5gm)
Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at December 07, 2025 09:14 AM (zdLoL)
34
I read Cascade Failure by L. N. Sagas. It was recommended here a few weeks ago, and it didn't disappoint. The Ambit is a Guild ship captained by an AI, Eoan, with a crew of two, Saint and Nash. Interesting characters, lots of action-adventures, and a captivating story line. What more does one need in a sci-fi book?
Posted by: Zoltan at December 07, 2025 09:15 AM (VOrDg)
35
There seems to be a reason for those pants...seems the wearer has a drainage line of some kind affixed beneath the cut leg...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:10 AM (ynpvh)
It's a circular knitting needle. Pants are mid-construction. Should have been abandoned much sooner.
36
How many of us read one book after another in order to simply rack up a book count?
--
I used to maybe but I am too old for that now.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:08 AM (eZ5tL)
---
Not me. I was perpetually broke as a kid, so tried to choose my books with care. I did hit up the local library, but by the time I was in high school, I'd discovered that you could read history written by people who were there (Livy, Tacitus, etc.) and that became my focus.
I do not buy books lightly. I do not keep books that displease me. I rarely own books I have not read. If I go long enough without reading them, I sell them for books I will read.
As to a library, I do not have one; my books are distributed throughout the house, each shelf housing a particular topic.
37
I have bookshelves with overstacking like that. I have also commandeered walls in several other rooms besides the library for shelving. I think the books are reproducing.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (0U5gm)
---
Are you letting the fiction mingle with the nonfiction?
Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at December 07, 2025 09:14 AM (zdLoL)
Don't have a Mrs. anymore, so things tend to be a bit...free-flowing...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:16 AM (ynpvh)
39
Re: Reading Slumps -- We've all been there? Jeez, I'm there now and have been for weeks.
Posted by: Just Some Guy
Give audiobooks s try
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:16 AM (eZ5tL)
40
35 There seems to be a reason for those pants...seems the wearer has a drainage line of some kind affixed beneath the cut leg...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:10 AM (ynpvh)
It's a circular knitting needle. Pants are mid-construction. Should have been abandoned much sooner.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at December 07, 2025 09:15 AM (h7ZuX)
So shorts?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:17 AM (ynpvh)
41
TJM has an amazing collection. I'm merely a dilettante.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:14 AM (ufSfZ)
---
Same here.
42
1 Tolle Lege
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 08:57 AM (Ia/+0)
2 Thought I would be asleep at the wheel eh?
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 08:58 AM (Ia/+0)
====
Old Faithful
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 09:17 AM (m6HS6)
43
37 I have bookshelves with overstacking like that. I have also commandeered walls in several other rooms besides the library for shelving. I think the books are reproducing.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (0U5gm)
---
Are you letting the fiction mingle with the nonfiction?
If so, no wonder your books are reproducing...
Nonfiction = Male
Fiction = Female
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at December 07, 2025 09:16 AM (ESVrU)
Glad there are no trannies in the mix...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:17 AM (ynpvh)
44
This week I finished the literary novel Tell the Wolves I'm Home, a debut by one Carol Rifka Blunt. It's entertaining in its way, clearly written (and not in that often-pretentious present tense), and involves complex emotions between a fourteen-year-old girl in 1987 NYC, her gay uncle who dies of the then-new disease AIDS early on, and the uncle's long-time lover who also suffers from the syndrome. And between the girl and her family, father and mother (both accountants!) and her older sister. Despite the AIDS business running through it, it's not dark and grim.
Not my usual fare, and I thought it was a little longer than it needed to be, but it was a good read.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:17 AM (wzUl9)
45
I'm about to finish one book I've been working through for a while. I can't decide whether I'm going to (a) pick an easy read from the TBR pile; (b) make a plan to do an extended deep-dive into the theology books in my "library;" or (c) focus on finishing my self-taught trigonometry course (I have books; it counts!).
Posted by: PabloD at December 07, 2025 09:18 AM (GALGA)
47
Please be patient with Mrs OrangeEnt.
Driving lessons to family can be a nightmare.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:13 AM (eZ5tL)
I taught the first one, I can teach her, too. That's what empty business parking lots are for on Sundays.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (uQesX)
48
The more I read from Eric Ambler the more he impresses me. I recently read Background to Danger, his second book, written in 1937. In this novel, one can see a prototype of a James Bond story, except the protagonist is a British news writer instead of a spy licensed to kill. To me, Ambler is a link between the golden age of mysteries and modern spy novels.
Kenton is in Austria looking for stories, nearly broke and traveling to Linz, hoping to call in a favor from a friend, when he is asked to hold an envelope for a fellow traveler. Little does he know that within hours he will be wanted for the man's murder. He is soon caught between soviet spies and their corporate competitors seeking the envelope he held.
Kenton has to choose which side to be on, despite not wanting to be on either. The novel develops dramatically, as the two sides vie for the documents, and the climax is as dramatic as any modern spy story.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (0U5gm)
I have a vision of AH Lloyd's books perfectly straight on the shelves, quaking with fear as he does the morning inspection.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (eZ5tL)
50
Anybody read "Morning Glory Milking Farm". LOL. I certainly haven't and won't...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (ynpvh)
51Is "Hitler at Home" a cookbook?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (ynpvh)
There probably is a Hitler cookbook somewhere, I wouldn't be surprised, although it would just be a vegetarian tome. Hitler At Home is about his attempts, through architecture, to control his residential spaces and what that tells us about both his persona and the way he wanted to publicly present himself as Fuhrer.
And I wish I did live in an old, rambling Victorian or Queen Anne house. I do live in a nice, cosy 1924 bungalow. And yes, the candlestick phone in the second picture is real and it works.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:20 AM (ufSfZ)
52
I read plenty, just times can't seem to get back to a book I want to read
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 09:20 AM (Ia/+0)
53
I've finished "Thunderball" -- but wait, there's more. The story is in a three-novel omnibus, "Bonded Fleming," which also has "For Your Eyes Only," a collection of Bond short stories; and "The Spy Who Loved Me." I'll reread FYEO but skip the last, because I didn't like it the first time.
As for "Thunderball," Fleming could have shortened it by cutting several scenes, including an entire chapter in which the female lead rolls out a story based on the artwork on the packs of her favorite cigarette. It does nothing to advance the plot. I think Fleming was starting to get literary.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 09:21 AM (p/isN)
I'm not so sure about your WifFi router placement, though.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 09:21 AM (6ydKt)
55
As to a library, I do not have one; my books are distributed throughout the house, each shelf housing a particular topic.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 07, 2025 09:16 AM (ZOv7s)
My wife loved cookbooks...a whole bookshelf of them... although seldom cooked from them...one day I'll donate/sell most of them except a select few that are useful. Many have beautiful pictures of food...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:22 AM (ynpvh)
If I were still taking the occasional long bus trip or attending conferences for work, I'd probably do audiobooks. But retired now and not traveling, and it just doesn't seem to work for me. Buried around here somewhere I've got a set of Harlan Ellison's recordings of his own stories, and I love a lot of those stories and Ellison was a terrific reader; I revisit some of his work now and then, but in print and almost never in audio. Who can say why? When the eyes finally get too bad even for the Kindle, I'll try it again.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 09:23 AM (q3u5l)
57
On my TBR pile, lessee . . . I'm reading Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk, a Sherlock Holmes novel set in 1890, only about three years after Watson met him. It is very much in Doyle's style. And unlike many Holmes adventures, including those of Doyle himself, Holmes has some *real* difficulties in the case -- including being accused of murder and thrown into a London prison!
A Lee Child Jack Reacher is on my pile, along with another Horowitz, The Twist of a Knife, one of his Daniel Hawthorne mysteries; and (for a reread) Robert Parker's first novel about Sunny Randall the female Boston PI, Family Honor.
The Sunny stories are set in the same universe as the Spensers and the Jesse Stones. I wonder why no one has adapted one of them for TV or a movie?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:23 AM (wzUl9)
58
I am starting to have some sympathy with certain Commentators who are known non-pants wearers for this Thread. You know who you are.
Posted by: Duncanthrax at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (0sNs1)
=====
Quite the breeze in here too.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 09:24 AM (m6HS6)
59I have bookshelves with overstacking like that. I have also commandeered walls in several other rooms besides the library for shelving. I think the books are reproducing.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:11 AM (0U5gm)
I sympathize: I have the same problem.
The "Real Men Build Libraries" video really rang true for me. The Old Man was a bibliophile with a voracious appetite -- by the time he died, he owned a personal library of 25,000 books.
As a 'yoot' I had unrestricted access, and I still remember during elementary and high school conducting research for school essays based almost entirely on the books that the Old Man had at home.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 09:24 AM (pJWtt)
60
I do not buy books lightly... If I go long enough without reading them, I sell them for books I will read.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 07, 2025 09:16 AM (ZOv7s)
It must be a regional thing, selling books. I've never lived in a place where bookstores will buy your books. They usually offer exchanges or store credit. Too much snooping about sales to put them on ebay. Why do they think you need to calculate tax on a couple dollar sale?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:24 AM (uQesX)
61
And yes, the candlestick phone in the second picture is real and it works.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:20 AM (ufSfZ)
That's awesome!
Posted by: dantesed at December 07, 2025 09:24 AM (Oy/m2)
62
51 Is "Hitler at Home" a cookbook?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (ynpvh)
There probably is a Hitler cookbook somewhere, I wouldn't be surprised, although it would just be a vegetarian tome. Hitler At Home is about his attempts, through architecture, to control his residential spaces and what that tells us about both his persona and the way he wanted to publicly present himself as Fuhrer.
And I wish I did live in an old, rambling Victorian or Queen Anne house. I do live in a nice, cosy 1924 bungalow. And yes, the candlestick phone in the second picture is real and it works.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:20 AM (ufSfZ)
Turns out you're right, MP4...
on Goodreads, "The Adolf Hitler Cookbook: The Food the Fuhrer Ate" by David Rogers...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (ynpvh)
63
taught the first one, I can teach her, too. That's what empty business parking lots are for on Sundays.
Posted by: OrangeEnt
---
Wait, your WIFE can't drive???
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (Ia/+0)
66
OrangeEnt, Heinlein wrote that teaching a spouse to drive (paraphrasing) was a quick route to divorce. Of course, read that about 15 years after Dad taught Mom to drive - with 4 kids in the back of the station wagon. Spoiler: they did not divorce.
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025 09:26 AM (NcvvS)
67
64 I'm surprised no-one has mentioned that my packed Schickelgruber shelves need some lebensraum.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (ufSfZ)
Well, they haven't invaded the middle shelf yet...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:27 AM (ynpvh)
68As for "Thunderball," Fleming could have shortened it by cutting several scenes, including an entire chapter in which the female lead rolls out a story based on the artwork on the packs of her favorite cigarette. It does nothing to advance the plot. I think Fleming was starting to get literary.
If memory serves, Fleming actually wrote Thunderball as a movie treatment before adapting it to a novel.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:27 AM (ufSfZ)
69
As for civilizations building libraries, that reminds me of "Earth Abides." If you haven't read it, it's about a man, Ish, who is one of the few survivors of a global pandemic or biological attack. He wants to preserve a library he discovers, but ultimately he realizes that it will be lost to time because there aren't enough humans at this point to actually have a civilization - all the knowledge is meaningless without people who can effectively use it.
Posted by: PabloD at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (GALGA)
70
66 OrangeEnt, Heinlein wrote that teaching a spouse to drive (paraphrasing) was a quick route to divorce. Of course, read that about 15 years after Dad taught Mom to drive - with 4 kids in the back of the station wagon. Spoiler: they did not divorce.
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025 09:26 AM (NcvvS)
May portent poorly for brothers teaching their sisters to drive in the deep South...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (ynpvh)
71
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned that my packed Schickelgruber shelves need some lebensraum.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (ufSfZ)
I was going to make a comment about Ace and shelves but then I noticed those shelves are in fine shape.
Posted by: dantesed at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (Oy/m2)
72I'm surprised no-one has mentioned that my packed Schickelgruber shelves need some lebensraum.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (ufSfZ)
Well, they haven't invaded the middle shelf yet...
They'll probably form a pact with the bottom shelf and partition the middle one.
Posted by: Archimedes at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (Riz8t)
73
As for "Thunderball," Fleming could have shortened it by cutting several scenes, including an entire chapter in which the female lead rolls out a story based on the artwork on the packs of her favorite cigarette. It does nothing to advance the plot. I think Fleming was starting to get literary.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 09:21 AM (p/isN)
Ain't no need for that poofy kind of stuff. Dulls down interest. Maybe he did it for word count?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (uQesX)
74I've finished "Thunderball" -- but wait, there's more. The story is in a three-novel omnibus, "Bonded Fleming," which also has "For Your Eyes Only," a collection of Bond short stories; and "The Spy Who Loved Me." I'll reread FYEO but skip the last, because I didn't like it the first time.
As for "Thunderball," Fleming could have shortened it by cutting several scenes, including an entire chapter in which the female lead rolls out a story based on the artwork on the packs of her favorite cigarette. It does nothing to advance the plot. I think Fleming was starting to get literary.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025
***
That last is one of the reasons I think TB is one of his weakest books. Spy Who is an interesting experiment, and he captures the tone of a young Englishwoman in the early Sixties writing about her dangerous adventure and brief affair with Bond. It's truly interesting to see him from an outsider's viewpoint.
The short stories are intriguing, esp. "Risico" and the title story. Be aware that "Quantum of Solace" is not only nothing like the Daniel Craig film of that title, but also not an adventure -- it's more of a Somerset Maugham tale.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (wzUl9)
75
Speaking of MP4's DVD stack, I hinted to Santa that I want the Kolchak television series DVD this year. Fingers crossed.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:29 AM (0U5gm)
76
I still think Bond had one of the nest one-liners in movie history.
Plenty O'Toole:
Hi, I'm Plenty.
James Bond:
But of course you are.
Plenty O'Toole:
Plenty O'Toole.
James Bond:
Named after your father perhaps?
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 09:29 AM (6ydKt)
77 . . . an entire chapter in which the female lead rolls out a story based on the artwork on the packs of her favorite cigarette. It does nothing to advance the plot. I think Fleming was starting to get literary.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025
*
Ain't no need for that poofy kind of stuff. Dulls down interest. Maybe he did it for word count?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025
***
Characterization. Though he usually was able to characterize his heroines just as well in less space in earlier books.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:30 AM (wzUl9)
78
68 As for "Thunderball," Fleming could have shortened it by cutting several scenes, including an entire chapter in which the female lead rolls out a story based on the artwork on the packs of her favorite cigarette. It does nothing to advance the plot. I think Fleming was starting to get literary.
If memory serves, Fleming actually wrote Thunderball as a movie treatment before adapting it to a novel.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:27 AM (ufSfZ)
Does the cigarette carton have anything to do with the plot later on? Seem to violate Chekhov's gun...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:30 AM (ynpvh)
79
The town where my parents live has a Carnegie Library. Why they choose that town I don't know. It would have been a pretty rural area at the time. Still is, relatively.
Posted by: fd at December 07, 2025 09:32 AM (vFG9F)
80
75 Speaking of MP4's DVD stack, I hinted to Santa that I want the Kolchak television series DVD this year. Fingers crossed.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:29 AM (0U5gm)
Hah! I have that! Bought it at a going-out-of-business sale at a local DVD place a decade ago...sadly, haven't cracked it open yet, and SOMEHOW the "new" TV in the living room is dead, and nobody, not even the cats, will admit to breaking it...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:32 AM (ynpvh)
81
50 Anybody read "Morning Glory Milking Farm". LOL. I certainly haven't and won't...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (ynpvh)
I won't even search it for curiosity's sake, as I fear my search suggestions would then be all minotaur porn, all the time.
I did mention that I had typed up the first draft and was getting ready to edit. But before I could do that, I needed to refresh my memory of the Taylor murder, to see what details I might have got wrong or what red herrings I could add. As you may or may not know, there are four full-length books about the murder, and I happened to mention to my muse that the thought of going through them and making notes was daunting and I didn't know where I was going to find the energy to do it.
Her suggestion was, why not go back a year and make the plot about the Roscoe Arbuckle case? The problem with that is, that while I can revamp the book, it still requires reading the three full-length books on his case.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:32 AM (ufSfZ)
83 *Well, they haven't invaded the middle shelf yet.*
Das Buchernacht.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at December 07, 2025 09:33 AM (XQo4F)
84
taught the first one, I can teach her, too. That's what empty business parking lots are for on Sundays.
Posted by: OrangeEnt
---
Wait, your WIFE can't drive???
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (VCgbV)
Provincial Filipinas generally don't have access to cars.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:33 AM (uQesX)
85
I'm listening to The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith, aka J. K. Rowling. I find I enjoy the language, its English, of course, but the phrasing and terminology for common things is quite different and I get a kick out of it.
86
81 50 Anybody read "Morning Glory Milking Farm". LOL. I certainly haven't and won't...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (ynpvh)
I won't even search it for curiosity's sake, as I fear my search suggestions would then be all minotaur porn, all the time.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at December 07, 2025 09:32 AM (h7ZuX)
LOL. My elder child had his EweToob tab open and wasn't around, so I looked up as much weird music stuff as I could find. He started getting suggestions for Indian Lesbian rap...LOL.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:34 AM (ynpvh)
87
OrangeEnt, Heinlein wrote that teaching a spouse to drive (paraphrasing) was a quick route to divorce. Of course, read that about 15 years after Dad taught Mom to drive - with 4 kids in the back of the station wagon. Spoiler: they did not divorce.
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025 09:26 AM (NcvvS)
Didn't lead to the first one leaving, doubt it'll make the current one either. I'll just give her the basics, then see how much a driving school charges.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:35 AM (uQesX)
88. . . I do live in a nice, cosy 1924 bungalow. And yes, the candlestick phone in the second picture is real and it works.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025
***
Just the kind of house I want -- though I'm willing to accept a 1940s through 1960s house too. And I'd like a classic 1950s-60s rotary phone, but the candlestick one is great too. Perfect for hanging a fedora on when you come back in from bad weather.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:35 AM (wzUl9)
89
Currently reading Glen Cook's Port of Shadows and stuck in Greg Bear's Anvil of Stars. Gave up on a book for the first time: The Education of Henry Adams - he was talking about Darwin and evolution in religious awe.
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025 09:35 AM (NcvvS)
90
I think there were all kinds of legal go-rounds between Fleming, the producers, and actor Sean McClory (who had been involved in coming up with the story for Thunderball IIRC). Later the story was reworked for Never Say Never Again (which I thought was a lot more fun than Thunderball - YMMV).
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 09:35 AM (q3u5l)
91
Wait, your WIFE can't drive???
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 09:25 AM (VCgbV)
More interestingly, neither could his first.
Where in the world do you shop for wives, OrangeENT?
92
I'm a bookslutaholic and, accordingly, have bought three books in the last few days including a history of WWII German intelligence "honey pot"operations. That's all well and good but I was charged twice for one of the books. I called Amazon and there was some confusion. They asked which book I was talking about. I whispered, "Nazi Sex Spies." The guy, who sounded like he was from Bombay, asked me to repeat. "Nazi Sex Spies," I said. He said he still couldn't understand. "NAZI SEX SPIES!" I shouted. "NAZI! SEX! SPIES!" I finally got my $5 back.
https://is.gd/ByzCJH
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 09:36 AM (L/fGl)
93OrangeEnt, Heinlein wrote that teaching a spouse to drive (paraphrasing) was a quick route to divorce. Of course, read that about 15 years after Dad taught Mom to drive - with 4 kids in the back of the station wagon. Spoiler: they did not divorce.
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025
*
Didn't lead to the first one leaving, doubt it'll make the current one either. I'll just give her the basics, then see how much a driving school charges.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025
***
I taught Mrs. Wolfus No. 2 to drive without difficulties. Our breakup didn't occur until five years later. Miss Linda refuses even to consider the idea of driving, though.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:36 AM (wzUl9)
94
It must be a regional thing, selling books. I've never lived in a place where bookstores will buy your books. They usually offer exchanges or store credit. Too much snooping about sales to put them on ebay. Why do they think you need to calculate tax on a couple dollar sale?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:24 AM (uQesX)
They used to be all over the place around here when bookstores were plentiful.
The stores would buy the books from anybody, usually well-read paperbacks, and resale them for $1 to $5 depending on condition and popularity, I guess.
My mother read a lot of romance novels and she'd take them in by the garbage bag, sell them for whatever, and come back with a much smaller bag full of more to read.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 09:36 AM (6ydKt)
95
88 . . . I do live in a nice, cosy 1924 bungalow. And yes, the candlestick phone in the second picture is real and it works.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025
***
Just the kind of house I want -- though I'm willing to accept a 1940s through 1960s house too. And I'd like a classic 1950s-60s rotary phone, but the candlestick one is great too. Perfect for hanging a fedora on when you come back in from bad weather.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:35 AM (wzUl9)
House electrical wiring in homes pre-1940 are often a mess; paper-wrapped wiring doesn't stay paper-wrapped forever, you know...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:37 AM (ynpvh)
96
Gotta go - I signed up to bring chili (no carrots) to the church potluck, so I need to hit the kitchen. Have a good day.
Posted by: PabloD at December 07, 2025 09:37 AM (GALGA)
97
Wait, your WIFE can't drive???
Posted by: lin-duh
At a previous job, the company was bought out by a New York firm, and they sent down a team to help manage it. When the wives found out that groceries were not delivered to your home daily in Houston and they would need to learn to drive, the wives began a campaign to get out of town. I think the last ones to leave were less than a year later.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:37 AM (0U5gm)
98
Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.
A bit late to the thread. We've been doing some cookie baking.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 09:38 AM (yTvNw)
99
I am at least going to spend today reading David Yallop's The Day The Laughter Stopped to see whether recasting the book will work.
I think it's just the 'research' idea that's dauting me, though I like to research. Or, perhaps, I'm shooting myself in the foot by thinking I need to read all the Taylor books and not just one of them.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:38 AM (ufSfZ)
Does the cigarette carton have anything to do with the plot later on?
Not in the slightest. I'm going to research the image to see what she was yammering about.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 09:38 AM (p/isN)
101
Characterization. Though he usually was able to characterize his heroines just as well in less space in earlier books.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:30 AM (wzUl9)
Maybe he'd just spent a few days with Tolkien before writing that chapter?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:39 AM (uQesX)
102
***
I taught Mrs. Wolfus No. 2 to drive without difficulties. Our breakup didn't occur until five years later. Miss Linda refuses even to consider the idea of driving, though.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:36 AM (wzUl9)
So you'll be Driving Ms. Linda?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:39 AM (ynpvh)
103
Here's a ni e library for those who like all things building from design to construction to interior decorating -
Depending on browser you may have to take out the line break.
Suggest you search by year. They have some old stuff in there.
Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at December 07, 2025 09:39 AM (/lPRQ)
104
I taught Mrs. F. to drive manual and it was...trying.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (m6HS6)
105
>>Didn't lead to the first one leaving, doubt it'll make the current one either. I'll just give her the basics, then see how much a driving school charges.
I'll have to ask Mom, but I think Dad taught her and had her practicing at least 3 weeks in the summertime after dinner in the evening.
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (NcvvS)
106
96 Gotta go - I signed up to bring chili (no carrots) to the church potluck, so I need to hit the kitchen. Have a good day.
Posted by: PabloD at December 07, 2025 09:37 AM (GALGA)
Are you Lutheran? Will it be in a mold?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (ynpvh)
107I think there were all kinds of legal go-rounds between Fleming, the producers, and actor Sean McClory (who had been involved in coming up with the story for Thunderball IIRC). Later the story was reworked for Never Say Never Again (which I thought was a lot more fun than Thunderball - YMMV).
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025
***
Kevin McClory was the fellow who worked with Fleming on the treatment for TB, not the actor Sean. Maybe they were related?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (wzUl9)
109I taught Mrs. Wolfus No. 2 to drive without difficulties. Our breakup didn't occur until five years later. Miss Linda refuses even to consider the idea of driving, though.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025
*
So you'll be Driving Ms. Linda?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025
***
Have been, for more years than she'd like me to tell you about.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:41 AM (wzUl9)
110And I'd like a classic 1950s-60s rotary phone, but the candlestick one is great too.
I don't know about your neck of the woods, but up north, you can usually find one or two in antique stores or large flea markets. Radio Shack used to sell easy conversion kits that allowed you to plug the phone into your regular jack, but I expect you can find the kits on eBay or Amazon.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:41 AM (ufSfZ)
111
You just need to convey the mood of the times, you dont have to go into minutae youre just beating yourself over it admittedly i dont know the details of thr case
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at December 07, 2025 09:41 AM (bXbFr)
112
I went to college at 17 and had only just gotten my license. then I stayed in the city thru college and grad school then worked at an agency for 15 years living in town
so yeah, in a way my husband DID teach me to drive even tho I'd had a license since 16 - re-teach me. I hope I was a good student!
right now I got some good books thru Libby - reading a semi-horror more fantastical anthology called "Get in Trouble" by Kelly Link. I just finished John Langan's fantastically creepy "The Fisherman" - I highly recommend. I have his "House of Windows" on my libby list now too.
Posted by: BlackOrchid at December 07, 2025 09:41 AM (emBoF)
113
Where in the world do you shop for wives, OrangeENT?
* I keed, I keed
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at December 07, 2025 09:36 AM (h7ZuX)
Ask vmom....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:42 AM (uQesX)
114
This past week I finished reading "Ascendant" (Song of Chaos Book 1) by Micheal R Miller. It's a recently-written dragonrider themed fantasy book, which tries to hit all the dragonrider tropes. Before I criticize it, I want to point out that I FINISHED the book. The last time I downloaded a recently-written fantasy novel, I bailed on it within the first couple pages, because it didn't feel like a fantasy. This book at least felt like it took place in a medeval fantasy land, and the prose and story flowed well.
That said, our main characters, both dragon and rider, have quite a bit of Mary Sue in them. In the early-going, the rider breaks all societal rules, and gets rewarded for it with a dragon. The middle of the book drags, as the author lays out all the mechanics of dragon-riding magic (he's obvious a fan of 'hard magic' systems) and then has our rider speed-run through training, figuring out every new task in a day or two. Oh, and the dragon, despite being blind, is super-unique and has never-been-seen-before powers.
But once we pass the training not-montage, the book does pick up significantly. There is a multi-chapter epic final battle, which was pretty satisfying..
Posted by: Castle Guy at December 07, 2025 09:43 AM (Lhaco)
115
85 I'm listening to The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith, aka J. K. Rowling. I find I enjoy the language, its English, of course, but the phrasing and terminology for common things is quite different and I get a kick out of it.
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 09:33 AM (VCgbV)
Rowling is very good at making up words and phrases.
The Harry Potter books are filled with them.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 09:43 AM (6ydKt)
116 Is "Hitler at Home" a cookbook?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:07 AM (ynpvh)
...Hitler At Home is about his attempts, through architecture, to control his residential spaces and what that tells us about both his persona and the way he wanted to publicly present himself as Fuhrer.
...
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:20 AM (ufSfZ)
Rather apropos, I'm currently reading Gods Beasts: The Nazis the Occult, by Dusty Sklar. Published in 1977 (I believe it was reprinted in 1989 just as The Nazis and the Occult), the book examines the influence of paganism (particularly Nordic mythology and Hinduism) and the occult upon the German people both before and after WWI.
I'm only about half-way through, but the book really helps put Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP into perspective. He didn't rise to power in a vacuum: the Germans were already talking about a Messiah that was going to rejuvenate Germany before Hitler came on the scene.
An fairly short book (180 pages), it has an extensive bibliography. However, there is a lack of citations. Rating = 4.5/5.0
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 09:44 AM (pJWtt)
117 Characterization. Though he usually was able to characterize his heroines just as well in less space in earlier books.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:30 AM (wzUl9)
Maybe he'd just spent a few days with Tolkien before writing that chapter?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025
***
Could be! The anecdote is interesting and tells us a lot about Domino, but it could have been handled in a couple of paragraphs. I find TB to be relatively uninteresting because of Bond not operating on his own, which to me is the true JB form -- not with the help of half the U.S. Navy.
And TB has the business of Bond at the health farm -- though Fleming does tie that in with the main adventure.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:44 AM (wzUl9)
118
This week I've been reading an odd one: Hellstrom's Hive, by Frank Herbert.
Apparently it was inspired by a quasi-documentary film called The Hellstrom Chronicle, which features a fictional scientist named Nils Hellstrom talking about how insects will inherit the earth. It looks as though Frank Herbert decided to create the fictional backstory for that film.
In the novel, Hellstrom is one of the leaders of a human hive hidden under a farm in Oregon. His cover is that he makes documentaries about insects. The hive and its members are pretty old -- Herbert doesn't actually explain how it began, but there are offhand references to migrations so presumably Oregon is just the latest home.
The hive is pretty damned creepy -- though since it was written in 1972 the cover copy and the non-hive characters in the book are all pretty excited about the NONSTOP SEX! in the hive. There's also a superweapon because the hive has some dudes with giant heads so it's more advanced than the rest of the Earth.
(to be continued)
Posted by: Trimegistus at December 07, 2025 09:44 AM (78a2H)
119
The town where my parents live has a Carnegie Library. Why they choose that town I don't know. It would have been a pretty rural area at the time. Still is, relatively.
Posted by: fd
I seem to recall that Carnegie purposely built libraries in places where he felt the need was greatest, ie smaller towns.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:45 AM (0U5gm)
You're right. Kevin McClory. Not only are the eyes getting bad (to say nothing of the knees), but the memory is getting twitchy. Don't know if he's a relation, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Driving. Be happy, Orange Ent -- you could be trying to get me to drive. I don't either. Probably could in an emergency, but I probably hold the title for Most Nervous Dimbulb Ever To Take The Wheel. So I don't take the wheel, for which the entire planet should give thanks.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 09:45 AM (q3u5l)
121
Good morning all.
Woke up this morning and realized that I am going on vacation in two weeks for the first time since cataract surgery and have no idea what books to line up. My IPad runs out of electrons after about 2 hours and have trouble reading it outside anyways. I can read paper books during the day but currently do not own any that I can travel with.
Upgrade IPad? Hit bookstore? Probably both?
122
Part of my daily reading for the season is malcolm Guite's "Waiting on the Word: A poem a day for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany ". The poems include selections from Spenser, Donne, George Herbert, modern poets like Luci Shaw and many of his own poems. The poems range from delightful to profound and all are worth the time each day to contemplate the season. It has joined the ranks of traditional Christmas readings.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 09:46 AM (yTvNw)
123
Apparently it was inspired by a quasi-documentary film called The Hellstrom Chronicle, which features a fictional scientist named Nils Hellstrom talking about how insects will inherit the earth.
-
I saw that many the year ago.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 09:47 AM (L/fGl)
124
I guess being from Texas, I can't fathom not knowing how to drive. I find it curious that people don't/resist wanting to even learn. Of course, now you can get anything delivered to your house again and can call up an uber/lyft at any time.
125
122 Part of my daily reading for the season is malcolm Guite's "Waiting on the Word: A poem a day for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany ". The poems include selections from Spenser, Donne, George Herbert, modern poets like Luci Shaw and many of his own poems. The poems range from delightful to profound and all are worth the time each day to contemplate the season. It has joined the ranks of traditional Christmas readings.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 09:46 AM (yTvNw)
It's good, but it ain't no gay cowboy poetry...
Posted by: Zombie Harry Reid at December 07, 2025 09:48 AM (ynpvh)
126
Sometimes flemings obsession with research overwhelms i noticed that with tarantino novelization of once upon a time
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at December 07, 2025 09:48 AM (bXbFr)
127
I taught Mrs. F. to drive manual and it was...trying.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (m6HS6)
Well, San Francisco is a good place for it!
I worked on a Victorian renovation on Jones street, near the top, and that was fun! Parking my manual pickup was good practice.
128Just the kind of house I want -- though I'm willing to accept a 1940s through 1960s house too. And I'd like a classic 1950s-60s rotary phone, but the candlestick one is great too. Perfect for hanging a fedora on when you come back in from bad weather.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025
*
House electrical wiring in homes pre-1940 are often a mess; paper-wrapped wiring doesn't stay paper-wrapped forever, you know...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025
***
Oh, I want one that has been modernized in all the important ways, like that and with air-conditioning. The earlier inhabitants would certainly have wanted that if they could have had it or afforded it.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:48 AM (wzUl9)
129Rather apropos, I'm currently reading Gods Beasts: The Nazis the Occult, by Dusty Sklar. Published in 1977 (I believe it was reprinted in 1989 just as The Nazis and the Occult), the book examines the influence of paganism (particularly Nordic mythology and Hinduism) and the occult upon the German people both before and after WWI.
I'm only about half-way through, but the book really helps put Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP into perspective. He didn't rise to power in a vacuum: the Germans were already talking about a Messiah that was going to rejuvenate Germany before Hitler came on the scene.
That sounds very similar to 1985s The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence On Nazi Ideology, by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. It has extensive notes and bibliography and is definitely for the serious reader.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:49 AM (ufSfZ)
I read the first book in the Master Mercurius Mystery Series, Death In Delft, and have begun the second, Untrue Till Death. Master Mercurius is not only an undercover Catholic in protestant 17th century Holland, he's an undercover Catholic priest disguised as a protestant minister. Or maybe vice versa since he was a minister first but became disillusioned with predestination preferring the freedom offered by Catholicism in that man's acts can influence his fate. He's also an introspective somewhat smart ass gifted with a certain amount of intelligence. As such, when three young girls go missing in Delft, he is sent to investigate.
I liked this historical book because it puts you the 17th century with 17th century attitudes with one possible exception. Although he is not a fanatic, he disfavors capital punishment even where, as here, an eight year old is dead. Mercurius takes his religion(s) seriously and questions where his duty lies. He is particularly concerned with honesty, rather ironic given his undercover priest status. I liked this book also because it's an interesting, emotional, well written story.
SPOILER ALERT!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 09:49 AM (L/fGl)
131
Are you Lutheran? Will it be in a mold?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (ynpvh)
Only lime jello with cottage cheese goes in a mold.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:49 AM (uQesX)
132
I find it curious that people don't/resist wanting to even learn.
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 09:47 AM (VCgbV)
Driving is freedom. City folk don't understand that!
When Mercurius discovers the rather sympathetic perpetrator, his dislike of capital punishment causes him to return the girls but let the perpetrator escape and, perhaps doesn't exactly lie but definitely doesn't tell the whole truth and leaves an impression that he knows to be inaccurate. So much for honesty.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 09:50 AM (L/fGl)
134 Read "Cold Storage" a horror novel by David Koepp, the movie script guy.
In theory, there's a movie coming out about it at some date.
I didn't hate it, but I was kinda tired of the whole thing before I reached the end. He really undercuts his hour in an effort, I think, top keep the potential movies budget down.
Anywho, it involves our old pal, the fungus Cordyseps, what is taking over humans now.
CS starts out as Dollar Store "Andromeda Strain" almost directly stealing the opening scene from that classic.
Then it turns into, TEMU Stephen King with all of his faults and little of his propulsive writing.
Finally, it morphs into Roadside Fruit Stand George A Romero.
If they actually make this into a movie, I can't see them keeping much of the original story. The stakes are potentially high, but rather boringly presented.
Though it does get a goodly amount of good reviews.
Check it out if you wish to see what happens when a Hollywood script writer tackles a novel.
Posted by: naturalfake at December 07, 2025 09:50 AM (iJfKG)
I went to school in a town that purportedly is the smallest burg in the U.S. to have a Carnegie Library. A delegation from the town pitched the idea to Andrew Carnegie, and he approved it.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 09:51 AM (p/isN)
136
Driving is freedom. City folk don't understand that!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo
----
Exactly!!
137
Orange ent,
How long has she been here?
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 09:40 AM (VCgbV)
2008, but she worked for the deputy consul in SF until 2011. Didn't start working until kid started school, and I worked grave, so she didn't need to drive while my parents were still here. Now, she needs to because I'm getting tired.
The first one didn't drive because her father was a colonel in the army and he had drivers. They also had maids for everyone.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:52 AM (uQesX)
138
Huh. I just ran into a word I had never read before.
'deracinated'- uprooted from one's natural geographical, social, or cultural environment:
"a deracinated writer who has complicated relations with his working-class background"
Posted by: Aetius451AD at December 07, 2025 09:52 AM (bss/y)
139
128 Just the kind of house I want -- though I'm willing to accept a 1940s through 1960s house too. And I'd like a classic 1950s-60s rotary phone, but the candlestick one is great too. Perfect for hanging a fedora on when you come back in from bad weather.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025
*
House electrical wiring in homes pre-1940 are often a mess; paper-wrapped wiring doesn't stay paper-wrapped forever, you know...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025
***
Oh, I want one that has been modernized in all the important ways, like that and with air-conditioning. The earlier inhabitants would certainly have wanted that if they could have had it or afforded it.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 09:48 AM (wzUl9)
Insulation is often missing or a mess too. Yeah, old homes often need LOTS of upgrading.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:52 AM (ynpvh)
140
I learned to drive when I was about 12 by backing boat trailers down the ramp for my father. I still get a laugh watching people who can't even back a sedan properly. At the oil company I worked for, all parking was backed in for safety, and walking across the parking lot, would see people making multiple efforts to get into a space properly.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 09:53 AM (0U5gm)
Opposing the Hive in the novel is an unnamed government agency, and Frank Herbert deliberately goes out of his way to make the Feds as unpleasant as possible, full of personal feuds, bureaucratic infighting, and some genuine totalitarian tendencies. The reader is left without anyone to "root for" which may explain the book's lackluster sales considering it was by the author of DUNE. I think Herbert was trying to depict the agency as kind of a rival hive of its own, just one without NONSTOP SEX! like Hellstrom's.
The book has all of Frank Herbert's strengths and weaknesses on display. The science is (for its time) solid, and the characters are vivid and well-drawn, if not especially likeable. It does have all his stylistic quirks -- lots of people's internal mental monologs, the viewpoint jumping from character to character within a scene, a touch of woo about evolution leading to some goal.
Worth a look -- I don't know if it's in print any more. I got my copy from a giveaway pile at a science fiction convention a while back.
Posted by: Trimegistus at December 07, 2025 09:54 AM (78a2H)
143
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 09:44 AM (pJWtt)
====
See any number of works authored by Alfred Rosenberg or Houston Stewart Chamberlain, especially The Myth of the Twentieth Century
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 09:54 AM (m6HS6)
144
Here to recommend Chris Pavone's "The Expats," me about 60 percent into it.
Two couples meet in Luxembourgh, American expats, and all are leading double lives. One is a trained assassin.
Posted by: M. Gaga at December 07, 2025 09:54 AM (KiBMU)
145
All three of my kids got their licenses within days of turning 16, given a car, and turned loose on the world. The spawn will travel 45 minutes, two towns over, just to go to the new "dirty" soda shop, on a whim.
146
Took Driver's Ed in high school as it was required then in Chicago. Didn't care for it, but managed not to kill anyone when I was behind the wheel. By then I was used to walking or taking the bus everywhere. When we moved to our current digs far from Chicago and needed a car, I was used to walking or bicycling, and found I couldn't relax behind the wheel -- once I was moving at speeds over my usual max on the bicycle I didn't feel in control at all. Fortunately Mrs Some Guy likes driving. Not real crazy about that state of affairs, but there it is.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 09:55 AM (q3u5l)
147
When my daughters were learning to drive, there was, probably still is, a requirement that they drive 50 hours with me before they can take the test. It was a great time. We drove all over Hell and back talking and listening to music and usually stopped at our arbitrary destination for a bite before heading home.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 09:55 AM (L/fGl)
148
142
...
I think Herbert was trying to depict the agency as kind of a rival hive of its own, just one without NONSTOP SEX! like Hellstrom's.
...
Posted by: Trimegistus at December 07, 2025 09:54 AM (78a2H)
Yes, go on...
Posted by: Peter, Strzoking Himself at December 07, 2025 09:56 AM (ynpvh)
149
It must be a regional thing, selling books. I've never lived in a place where bookstores will buy your books. They usually offer exchanges or store credit. Too much snooping about sales to put them on ebay. Why do they think you need to calculate tax on a couple dollar sale?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:24 AM (uQesX)
---
I live in a college town. Selling books is (or was) an annual event. I guess some texts are digital now.
Usually one can get more credit than money, but money is still on offer.
150
oh my gosh Shy Lurking Voter, you haven't even got to the best bits yet (must! not! give! spoilers! aaahh!) ... and there's a second one (Welcome to the Jungle) that just dropped last month, haven't finished it yet.
Posted by: sock_rat_eez at December 07, 2025 09:56 AM (Cjt/F)
On the comic-reading front, I finished "Conan the Barbarian Omnibus 10," containing issues 241-275. This volume features the return of Roy Thomas as the series writer. Roy Thomas was the guy who first brought Conan to comics, and had written the first 115 issues of the series. His return was most welcome! Although it was sometimes awkward, as he often referenced stories from his first run (more than a decade in the past) and ignored most of what had happened between.
However, it was hard to read any of the book without feeling a tinge of sadness; this is the final book in the series, as the comic was cancelled with 275. While Roy's stories were mostly great, the decade of stories before him were mostly not, had de-valued Conan as a comic character, and made him feel pretty generic. Also, the comic was no longer getting the best artists. Not terrible artists, but not John Buscema. Finally, the series ended in 1993. Marvel was getting out of the licensed-character game at that point. And they were probably starting to make the bad decisions that led to their 1996 bankruptcy...
In sum, it was a fun read, but bittersweet.
Posted by: Castle Guy at December 07, 2025 09:58 AM (Lhaco)
154
Well, I'm off to other stuff. Have a blessed day ,folks.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:58 AM (ynpvh)
155
Did not do a lot of reading this week. Still working on Zelazny #7 Blood of Amber. It is slow going just because of the sheer size of the book which is in a book which contains all 10 books in the series.
I would again recommend The Original by Brandon Sanderson and Mary Kowal. It is short but really good sci fi. Reads like a movie. Terrific world building.
156 I saw that many the year ago.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 09:47 AM (L/fGl)
Yes, Hellstrom - I forgot all about that one!
Posted by: Tom Servo at December 07, 2025 10:00 AM (c7Ygk)
157
I taught my kids to drive manual transmissions, which is how most of my vehicles are. Not only is it a modern anti-theft device, but it makes them concentrate on driving more, and virtually eliminates them letting other kids drive the vehicle.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:01 AM (0U5gm)
158
The other thing I've been doing this past week is trying to figure out what to _write_ next.
Posted by: Trimegistus at December 07, 2025 10:01 AM (78a2H)
I read "Cold Storage" a few years ago. It was recommended in a Book Thread. All the time I kept envisioning the sets for the movie. I enjoyed it, and I'm waiting for the movie.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 10:01 AM (p/isN)
160
House electrical wiring in homes pre-1940 are often a mess; paper-wrapped wiring doesn't stay paper-wrapped forever, you know...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:37 AM (ynpvh)
---
Our previous home was built in 1917 as a kit house and portions of it retained the original knob-and-wire electrical. We had an issue, and the electrician took one look at it and refused to so much as touch it. The part with the fault was modern, so it was fixable.
Rereading a novel by Mackinley Kantor, Andersonville. One of my relatives, Philander R., fought in some of the major battles in the Civil War plus a stint in A'ville near the end of the War, when it was at it's most awful.
Philander was a badass for certain, wounded a few times and coming out well medalled.
Posted by: IRONGRAMPA at December 07, 2025 10:01 AM (vFbHf)
162
I've been reading The Autobiography of Malcom X this week. I'm about halfway through. I have thoughts. I'll report next week after I'm finished.
"The Hellstrom Chronicle: Directed by Walon Green, Ed Spiegel. With Lawrence Pressman, Conlan Carter, Ian McShane, Suzanne Pleshette. A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:02 AM (L/fGl)
164 I learned to drive when I was about 12 by backing boat trailers down the ramp for my father. I still get a laugh watching people who can't even back a sedan properly. At the oil company I worked for, all parking was backed in for safety, and walking across the parking lot, would see people making multiple efforts to get into a space properly.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025
***
I learned to back vehicles when I was with the courier company, only two years after I got my license. Parking an Econoline 150 van with only mirrors and smallish back door glass is a challenge at first.
I still park that way when I can. Though, even using the lines provided in the Buick's rear view camera, I often end up with the car a little crooked in the slot.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:02 AM (wzUl9)
165
Yes, real men build libraries. Even as I pare down the number of books I own, mostly casual fiction I'll never reread, I'm aware of the value of the books I keep, which is still a huge number. Part of my consideration when buying a book is if it will add to the knowledge I think is important to preserve: practical skills, poetry and literature, philosophy, history, fiction that delights, excites, and makes you think, etc.
In the back of each decision is would the book be of value to pass along when I'm gone. Younger family members have already asked to be included in that distribution even if it, hopefully, takes a long time. Glad they are willing to wait.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 10:02 AM (yTvNw)
166
Usually one can get more credit than money, but money is still on offer.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at December 07, 2025 09:56 AM (ZOv7s)
Of course, I wasn't including school bookstores in it. That was the only place I ever received money back from a bought book, the campus bookstore.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 10:03 AM (uQesX)
167
My youngest is burning through Lord of the Rings. We read it as a family some years ago, but she admitted that she mostly skimmed it because it felt like a school assignment and she knew she could bluff her way through the final exam.
She's now digging deep into it, and changing her view on the Peter Jackson movies, from loving them to realizing their many flaws.
168Rather apropos, I'm currently reading Gods Beasts: The Nazis the Occult, by Dusty Sklar. Published in 1977 ..., the book examines the influence of paganism (particularly Nordic mythology and Hinduism) and the occult upon the German people both before and after WWI.
....
That sounds very similar to 1985s The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence On Nazi Ideology, by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. ..
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:49 AM (ufSfZ)
Dusty Sklar's book is definitely for the general reader. I don't doubt her quotations, but citations would have been nice.
For example, she makes a casual, almost throw-away, comment about the Gospel of John being regarded by Biblical scholars as a Gnostic gospel. I suspect she meant 19th C. German Biblical scholars but I'm not certain.
This was in connection with a large banner featuring Adolf Hitler's portrait with a quotation from John, "In the beginning was the Word." If the Gospel of John was Gnostic, that would neatly side-step the "Jewishness" of the Synoptic Gospels.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 10:03 AM (pJWtt)
169
Lately I’ve been into Irish crime fiction, the latest being he first in the Ed Loy detective series called The Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes. I highly recommend it.
Posted by: GeoNC at December 07, 2025 10:03 AM (wOaji)
170
Driving is freedom. City folk don't understand that!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at December 07, 2025 09:50 AM (n9ltV)
=====
They have successfully transformed private vehicles and drivers into pseudo-criminals here.
Closed roads, closed lanes, no turns, removed parking, speed "cushions"
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 10:03 AM (m6HS6)
171
I still park that way when I can. Though, even using the lines provided in the Buick's rear view camera, I often end up with the car a little crooked in the slot.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius
When I back in, I roll down the window and put my head out. People ask me, "why don't you use the camera?" and I tell them it just doesn't look right that way. I guess I am too set in my ways.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:04 AM (0U5gm)
I may have completed all 10 Conan the Barbarian omnibuses, but there's still more to read. There are still some Savage Sword of Conan (a black-and-white sister series that was 'unrated') omnibuses to read, and half of that series has yet to be reprinted in omnibus form. Plus some King Conan omnibuses, written when the comics were in their prime, but taking place later in Conan's life.
Plus, I can also focus on the currently-running rebooted Conan comic. I haven't heard anything bad about that series. Plus, it's written by Jim Zub. He doesn't wear his politics on his sleave, but he sat for an interview with the Midnight's Edge YouTube channel, so he's definitely doesn't have the hate-the-audience mentality that most creatives have...
Posted by: Castle Guy at December 07, 2025 10:05 AM (Lhaco)
173
Orange ent,
Ah, I see. My dad's second wife was from where your wife is from. Retire Air Force so I've been around a bit growing up.
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 09:58 AM (VCgbV)
I always thought it was weird, as well. It used to be only people from NYC didn't drive.
Got my license at 16. Driving ever since. Until you know someone from other countries, you think everyone drives, but the poor in the RP don't because they have no money.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 10:06 AM (uQesX)
174
City folk and driving . . . I always loved Woody Allen's observation (in Annie Hall?) that, despite his friends' exhortations, he refused to move from NYC to LA. "I refuse to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light."
I thought the line was funny, and just meant that driving for an LA dweller was considered super-important, not for an NYC person. In 1998, visiting NYC, I found that it was literally true: A driver is not permitted to turn right on red after a stop. (It's the only way a pedestrian there would ever have a chance to cross a street.)
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:07 AM (wzUl9)
175
Of course, I wasn't including school bookstores in it. That was the only place I ever received money back from a bought book, the campus bookstore.
Posted by: OrangeEnt
---
My oldest is a freshman in college. Engineering School... not a single Physical textbook. I told him if it was an option always get a physical copy since you can sell it back. Apparently, everything is digital now.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (L/fGl)
177
Good morning, fellow bibliophages. Woke up to see snow gently falling outside.
MP4, thanks for (re)posting photos of your book collection for my voyeuristic pleasure. And I love that your DVD collection has Pola Negri and "Häxan" cheek by jowl with Kolchak and Star Trek. I'd never leave the library.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (kpS4V)
178
Good morning, Professor! *puts a walnut on desk instead of an apple*
I gave up trying to keep up with my online book club. Even before my energy level crashed, I put books down and returned them without finishing them. I read a little in the evening, an Advent essay and a chapter or two.
In my continuing quest for to read award-winners, I picked Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby, Age 8. (Newbury Award) I vaguely remember reading her books about Henry Huggins and his dog Ribsy.
There's a forward in Henry Huggins. Cleary explained that she wrote it because of a dilemma she'd had as a librarian. She was helping boys select books and found the best she could do was dog stories, "which they found acceptable if the dog did not die at the end". The boys were from modest homes and had ordinary lives, so that is what she wrote about.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (Io7m1)
179When I back in, I roll down the window and put my head out. People ask me, "why don't you use the camera?" and I tell them it just doesn't look right that way. I guess I am too set in my ways.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025
***
I do use the mirrors as much as the camera. But I tend to line the car up with the vehicle parked on my left, and if he is parked crooked, the Buick winds up that way too. Still within the painted lines, but noticeably off.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:09 AM (wzUl9)
180
121 Good morning all.
Woke up this morning and realized that I am going on vacation in two weeks for the first time since cataract surgery and have no idea what books to line up. My IPad runs out of electrons after about 2 hours and have trouble reading it outside anyways. I can read paper books during the day but currently do not own any that I can travel with.
Upgrade IPad? Hit bookstore? Probably both?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at December 07, 2025 09:46 AM (t/2Uw)
If you use the iPad for mostly reading you might like a Kindle Paperwhite more. They are much easier on the eyes for reading and due to the type of screen used, a lot easier to read outside in sunlight.
https://shorturl.at/AmZeA
(Amazon)
If you're using the iPad for more than that, than an upgrade will possibly get you more battery life and better screen brightness depending on how old yours is.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 10:09 AM (6ydKt)
181
Woke up this morning and realized that I am going on vacation in two weeks for the first time since cataract surgery and have no idea what books to line up. My IPad runs out of electrons after about 2 hours and have trouble reading it outside anyways. I can read paper books during the day but currently do not own any that I can travel with.
Upgrade IPad? Hit bookstore? Probably both?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)
You might like Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:11 AM (0U5gm)
182
Of course, I wasn't including school bookstores in it. That was the only place I ever received money back from a bought book, the campus bookstore.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 10:03 AM (uQesX)
---
I wasn't referring to those, either. But their presence also provides considerable fodder for used book stores, particularly in literature. Even the chain book stores buy used and pay cash.
My point is that it is part of the local culture that you can get cash for books.
184They have successfully transformed private vehicles and drivers into pseudo-criminals here.
Closed roads, closed lanes, no turns, removed parking, speed "cushions"
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025
***
And paying to park -- the city proper has live meters even on Saturdays. it's part of why I prefer the suburbs, and love to make a road trip jaunt to someplace far out of town.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:11 AM (wzUl9)
185"The Hellstrom Chronicle: Directed by Walon Green, Ed Spiegel. With Lawrence Pressman, Conlan Carter, Ian McShane, Suzanne Pleshette. A scientist explains how the savagery and efficiency of the insect world could result in their taking over the world.
So, basically, Empire Of The Ants.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 10:11 AM (ufSfZ)
186
I always back in when possible and I drive a suburban. All my kids were taught in it and hubby's crew cab, full length bed truck, so they can drive big vehicles..
187You might like Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025
***
The one I have here, The Twist of the Knife, is part of that series.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:12 AM (wzUl9)
188
The boys were from modest homes and had ordinary lives, so that is what she wrote about.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (Io7m1)
====
I read them a little early but Henry Higgins led a life that I could barely comprehend.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 10:13 AM (m6HS6)
189
I will add that Walls of Men got a major boost by the fact that a retired professor in the history department decided to sell off his library of Chinese books, many of whom would have been all but impossible to track down.
Once the book store owner learned of my interest, he expedited placing them on the shelves since he knew they would sell. It's packed with crazy liberals, but I love this town.
191
When I back in, I roll down the window and put my head out. People ask me, "why don't you use the camera?" and I tell them it just doesn't look right that way. I guess I am too set in my ways.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:04 AM (0U5gm)
My current car has a feature that makes me want to punch someone. When I put it in reverse, the side mirrors tilt downward. I guess it's to check for obstacles on the ground? But the result is, I can't see obstacles to the side, like the vehicles I'm parking between, or posts and the like.
It's especially unhelpful when backing into an inclined driveway in the dark.
192
In honor iof MP4's Reich-rich stacks, here's "Springtime for Hitler":
https://tinyurl.com/ek7nnmjw
"Heil myse-e-e-elf!"
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025 10:14 AM (kpS4V)
193
It's Sunday December 7th and there's a nip in the air!
Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at December 07, 2025 10:15 AM (Kt19C)
194For example, she makes a casual, almost throw-away, comment about the Gospel of John being regarded by Biblical scholars as a Gnostic gospel. I suspect she meant 19th C. German Biblical scholars but I'm not certain.
This was in connection with a large banner featuring Adolf Hitler's portrait with a quotation from John, "In the beginning was the Word." If the Gospel of John was Gnostic, that would neatly side-step the "Jewishness" of the Synoptic Gospels.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 10:03 AM (pJWtt)
I've never come across a Gnostic interpretation of John, although I'm in no way an expert. As far as "In The Beginning Was The Word," I have never seen it connected to John explicitly - I believe the artist Herman Hoyer used that quote simply because he was showing Hitler haranguing a small crowd, referencing the Party's early days when Hitler's only weapon was his mouth.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 10:15 AM (ufSfZ)
195
When it comes to modern trends for anything, especially reading, my natural curmudgeon attitude really helps me avoid getting caught up in such stupid, transitory crap. Those 'I read [X number] of books in a month' videos are a symptom of those trends. I can understand getting excited about a book series or topic but speed reading, especially as a competition, denies the pleasure of reading and the knowledge that can be garnered. Since I don't give a hoot in hell about those people or their 'contests', fashion statements, or whatever they claim is important, (it's not) I can go my own way without the distractions.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 10:15 AM (yTvNw)
196
My current car has a feature that makes me want to punch someone. When I put it in reverse, the side mirrors tilt downward. I guess it's to check for obstacles on the ground? But the result is, I can't see obstacles to the side, like the vehicles I'm parking between, or posts and the like.
It's especially unhelpful when backing into an inclined driveway in the dark.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs
----
You can change that in the settings.
198
Not only do I not read competitively, I don't understand why any one would. Seems kind of self defeating to read for any other reason than that the book seems interesting. So I'm to learn and for enjoyment. That's enough. I do keep track of what I read and every year it's from 30-50 books.
I'm still reading Terry Teachout's Louis Armstrong bio and started Adam Bede. Adam Bede looks like a long on and may last the rest of the year. I've been working through Plutarch's parallel lives as well and just finished Cato the Younger. He may have had the most interesting life albeit in a losing cause.
Posted by: who knew at December 07, 2025 10:16 AM (+ViXu)
199 If the Gospel of John was Gnostic, that would neatly side-step the "Jewishness" of the Synoptic Gospels.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025
***
Refresh my memory here. Are they called "Synoptic" because they narrate pretty much the same story -- the events were "seen together," as it were, by the writers?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:16 AM (wzUl9)
200
My IPad runs out of electrons after about 2 hours and have trouble reading it outside anyways.
-
Kindle Paper Whites are fairly cheap, maybe $150, and can be read in full sunlight. Battery life is, I don't know, 10 -12 hours.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:17 AM (L/fGl)
201
Never have much cared to keep a count of the books I read.
I'm reminded of a Woody Allen comment re speed-reading. Something like: "I read War and Peace over lunch yesterday afternoon. It's about Russia, isn't it?"
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 10:17 AM (q3u5l)
202It's Sunday December 7th and there's a nip in the air!
Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at December 07, 2025
***
Eighty-four years ago, there were a lot more than just one!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:17 AM (wzUl9)
203MP4, thanks for (re)posting photos of your book collection for my voyeuristic pleasure. And I love that your DVD collection has Pola Negri and "Häxan" cheek by jowl with Kolchak and Star Trek. I'd never leave the library.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (kpS4V)
You're welcome, dear lady. You're welcome to visit any time.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 10:18 AM (ufSfZ)
204They have successfully transformed private vehicles and drivers into pseudo-criminals here.
Closed roads, closed lanes, no turns, removed parking, speed "cushions"
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025
***
And paying to park -- the city proper has live meters even on Saturdays. it's part of why I prefer the suburbs, and love to make a road trip jaunt to someplace far out of town.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:11 AM (wzUl9)
The madness has even spread to my suburban city is SW Ohio. In their infinite wisdom, the city gov't has narrowed a main street from five lanes (there was a dedicated center turn lane) down to three: all to make room for a very wide bike lane.
The bike lane is separated from vehicular traffic by narrow plastic "sticks" glued to the road surface. This neatly prevents the electric company from getting easy access to the power poles.
Every I time I drive this road, I rant to Mrs. Cop about the stupidity and cost (I assume grant money was used to fund this boondoggle).
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 10:18 AM (pJWtt)
205
>>Some authors are able to continue a previous author's works if they are able to capture the spirit of the previous author. Not every author is successful at this.
Correct, not every author is successful at that. Take Lee Child's woketard brother, Andrew, as an example.
And don't give me that whole "he was brought in only as a co-writer on the Jack Reacher series" business. No he wasn't. Andrew took over sole writing of the series when Lee left it to him to pursue other monetary interests involving the Reacher saga.
Posted by: one hour sober at December 07, 2025 10:18 AM (Y1sOo)
206My current car has a feature that makes me want to punch someone. When I put it in reverse, the side mirrors tilt downward. I guess it's to check for obstacles on the ground? But the result is, I can't see obstacles to the side, like the vehicles I'm parking between, or posts and the like.
It's especially unhelpful when backing into an inclined driveway in the dark.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs
***
I think I had that in the BMW 3 Series. It was a setting you could turn off, and I did, but I found it useful *sometimes.*
The BMW also had a setting that folded the mirror housings inward when you parked, so they wouldn't get whacked off easily by a bicyclist.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:19 AM (wzUl9)
207
You can change that in the settings.
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 10:15 AM (VCgbV)
208
"I have a vision of AH Lloyd's books perfectly straight on the shelves, quaking with fear as he does the morning inspection."
---------
Dog ear! Give me twenty!
Torn dust jacket! Two weeks KP!
HIGHLIGHTING?!? How the Hell did you even get into my beloved Corps?
Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at December 07, 2025 10:20 AM (5YmYl)
209
50 Anybody read "Morning Glory Milking Farm". LOL. I certainly haven't and won't...
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (ynpvh)
Most certainly not...
But your comment did put me in mind of a YouTube video; Greg Owen recently posted a long video that did a deep-dive into some of the more-reputable Romantasy books. (Well, slightly more-reputable, one of the books was placed in a haz-mat bag whenever Greg was holding it). Greg isn't a book-tuber, but he was looking into why Strong Female Characters are starring in best-selling fantasy novels but are failing and utterly destroying franchises in tv and movies. He has some interesting things to say... He didn't convince me to read A Court of Thorns and Roses anytime soon, but maybe I won't be as dismissive to it...
Posted by: Castle Guy at December 07, 2025 10:21 AM (Lhaco)
210
Somebody with more literary talent than me should write a book: "Europe 2050".
Mark Steyn raised the alarm about the impending Islamization of Europe twenty-five years ago, and was proven to be absolutely correct - what will happen in the next twenty-five years?
In many big cities in Western and Central Europe, a substantial fraction of the school children are Muslim, and you have the European elites are frantically imposing political and speech controls to keep the indigenous inhabitants of Europe from effectively opposing the ongoing social changes.
Michel Houellebecq wrote "Submission" ten years ago, but there really hasn't been anything since then.
.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at December 07, 2025 10:21 AM (xTIDn)
211
When I was young, I had the disgusting habit of dogearing books. Now, I find it abhorrent.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:22 AM (0U5gm)
212
I can't say I have a library, but I've got plenty of bookshelves. The main ones are in my living room and entirely cover one wall. I might have to start culling those as what I've got more books on the TBR than will fit. Nothing goes on the shelf until it's been read. I've got a second bookshelf in the spare room/den that is dedicated to books by Wisconsin writers or about Wisconsin (preferably both) and a third lawyers bookcase full of 'collector' books (various first editions I stumbled on at used book sales, Churchill's 6 volume WWII, Sandburg's ? volume Life of Lincoln and others)
Posted by: who knew at December 07, 2025 10:23 AM (+ViXu)
213Refresh my memory here. Are they called "Synoptic" because they narrate pretty much the same story -- the events were "seen together," as it were, by the writers?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:16 AM (wzUl9)
Yes, each is giving a 'synopsis' of the same story.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 10:24 AM (ufSfZ)
214If the Gospel of John was Gnostic, that would neatly side-step the "Jewishness" of the Synoptic Gospels.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025
***
Refresh my memory here. Are they called "Synoptic" because they narrate pretty much the same story -- the events were "seen together," as it were, by the writers?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:16 AM (wzUl9)
Yes, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke seem to be based on a common oral source. (I don't hold with the idea of a lost document - called "Q" - as the basis). Mark and Luke were essentially the secretaries for Saints Peter and Paul, respectively, and were recording what they heard preached.
We moderns underestimate the importance of oral traditions. In a world where the majority of people are illiterate, stories are going to be recited by trained people with excellent memories.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at December 07, 2025 10:24 AM (pJWtt)
215 You can change that in the settings.
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 10:15 AM (VCgbV)
I can??
*scurries off to read the manual
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at December 07, 2025
***
Most modern gadgety features can be turned off. However, one reason I refused to buy a 2017 Buick LaCrosse in '19, though the asking price was almost the same as my '16 and I loved the car's look, was that the auto stop-start could *not* be turned off. My '16 doesn't have it.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:24 AM (wzUl9)
216
When I ask 20 or even 30-somethings if they’ve read this or that classic and they say ‘no’ that makes me sad.
Posted by: Eromero at December 07, 2025 10:24 AM (DXbAa)
217
198 Not only do I not read competitively, I don't understand why any one would.
Posted by: who knew at December 07, 2025 10:16 AM (+ViXu)
If competition is getting youngsters to turn off tiktok for a while and pick up a book, I'm ok with it. They will inevitably find things that interest them, and set them on a quest for more books that interest them. It's all right.
218
When Morning Glory etc was mentioned some weeks back, I looked at the description on Amazon (on an incognito window -- hate to think what recommendations would look like otherwise). Blecch. What was really scary to me, though, was that this thing had IIRC something like 20K ratings and reviews.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 10:25 AM (q3u5l)
219
and a third lawyers bookcase full of 'collector' books (various first editions I stumbled on at used book sales, Churchill's 6 volume WWII, Sandburg's ? volume Life of Lincoln and others)
Posted by: who knew
Every once in awhile, I take a look at the expensive books on Abe Books or similar, and see a book on the list that I found somewhere cheap that is going for $200 or more.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:26 AM (0U5gm)
220When I ask 20 or even 30-somethings if they’ve read this or that classic and they say ‘no’ that makes me sad.
Posted by: Eromero at December 07, 2025
***
Even aspiring writers. At an SF convention in the '80s, I found fans who hated the downbeat-but-heroic ending of Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, even the wannabe writers, had never read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls and didn't understand what Heinlein was doing.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:27 AM (wzUl9)
221The madness has even spread to my suburban city is SW Ohio. In their infinite wisdom, the city gov't has narrowed a main street from five lanes (there was a dedicated center turn lane) down to three: all to make room for a very wide bike lane.
The point of bike lanes on major arterials is to impede traffic and force people onto bikes and mass transit.
There is a major street in Portland (that serves as the main street for the Asian community in Portland) that the city government intends to cut from four car lanes to two, with one lane reserved for bikes and the bus that comes by once every fifteen minutes.
The only thing giving the city government pause is the certainty that this street will be gridlocked for most of the hours of the day, and there might be a political reaction to that.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at December 07, 2025 10:29 AM (xTIDn)
222
>>It's packed with crazy liberals, but I love this town.
East Landfill?
Great place to attend college as long as you avoided doing anything to attract the attention of the local police.
But you couldn't pay me to live there post graduation.
Posted by: one hour sober at December 07, 2025 10:29 AM (Y1sOo)
223
They put in raised concrete medians for the first time on a road I frequently travel, because the idiots running the county decided that opening up permitting for a huge new development of tens of thousands of new homes was a better idea than worrying about the traffic situation.
So now I have to make u-turns where I used to be able to pull into a median to make a left turn but I can't do that now because of the huge increase in traffic and the occasional idiot who makes a left turn right into another vehicle they should have seen coming.
Here's an idea; build the roads to handle the traffic first and then worry about building new subdivisions to add to that traffic afterwards.
But there's no money in that for the county, so here we are.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 10:30 AM (6ydKt)
224
I've assembled a few books that have become traditional Christmas season reading besides the Malcolm Guite book mentioned above. A Golden Christmas by William Gilmore Simms (all his books are worth reading), Washington Irving's Old Christmas, and The Christmas Cantata by Mark Schweizer (part of his Liturgical Mysteries series). They are rather short reads but really help set a pleasant seasonal mood.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 10:32 AM (yTvNw)
225
For example, I found and purchased the first edition of A History of the English Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill in pristine condition; $20 for all four. The pages are still immaculate.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:32 AM (0U5gm)
226
Europe 2050 would be an interesting read, and probably depressing as hell. Not sure it needs to be written, though -- can probably get the gist of it just looking at the news these days.
* Imagines that something like Islam would arise in any intelligent species and ultimately lead to its stagnation, thus answering the old SETI question of Where Is Everybody *
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 10:33 AM (q3u5l)
227
"Cold Storage"... Anywho, it involves our old pal, the fungus Cordyseps, what is taking over humans now...
-----
Sounds like the same plot as "The Girl with All the Gifts", an excellent book that was made into a terrible movie (because the director race-swapped the two main characters and turned it into an SJW message movie).
Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at December 07, 2025 10:34 AM (5YmYl)
228
Happy Valley has gone traffic circle mad and my daughter is fit to be tied. She has always turned left from her street onto the highway to get to work BUT NO!!! Now she has to turn right, drive maybe two blocks, and navigate the new traffic circle to get turned around and headed toward work.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:37 AM (L/fGl)
229
City planning was a solved problem two thousand years ago, but modern developers and planning commissions keep un-solving it.
Local governments have a weird phobia about new road construction. They'll widen an existing road to absurd proportions rather than build a parallel artery to handle increased traffic -- with the result that eventually they have to spend insane sums to build the parallel artery anyway, only now the route is all built up and must be eminent-domained and bulldozed.
Meanwhile developers hate the idea of "wasting" land area on extra roads, so they create these structures of endless branching ending in cul-de-sacs rather than a F*****G GRID THE WAY THE F*****G BABYLONIANS DID IT.
A "safety" based legal requirement that every dwelling should be reachable by emergency vehicles over two non-overlapping routes would go a long way toward fixing that, and then the grid would allow better circulation which would mean the main roads wouldn't have to keep being widened.
But that wouldn't be utterly retarded so we don't do it.
Posted by: Trimegistus at December 07, 2025 10:37 AM (78a2H)
230Europe 2050 would be an interesting read, and probably depressing as hell. Not sure it needs to be written, though -- can probably get the gist of it just looking at the news these days.
But what happens if this goes on for another twenty-five years?
Steyn notes that twenty-five years ago, it would have been possible to stop things by blocking mass immigration, but there are now so many young Muslims in the big Western and Central European cities that the social changes will occur even in even if immigration is sharply reduced.
Interestingly, Trump's new defense policy posture paper acknowledges that, which is why the EU-types are screaming.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at December 07, 2025 10:37 AM (xTIDn)
231Happy Valley has gone traffic circle mad and my daughter is fit to be tied. She has always turned left from her street onto the highway to get to work BUT NO!!! Now she has to turn right, drive maybe two blocks, and navigate the new traffic circle to get turned around and headed toward work.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025
***
Diagnosis: too many damned people. Cure? Unknown.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:38 AM (wzUl9)
Posted by: callsign claymore at December 07, 2025 10:38 AM (E7tow)
233
Thanks for the advice. Got to figure this out this week while trying to finish Hannukah shopping due to early party. Sigh. I will be happy when January arrives and normal,life resumes.
I don't know if it is due to being 29 but so,etimes things seem a bit overwhelming..
234
There's a forward in Henry Huggins. Cleary explained that she wrote it because of a dilemma she'd had as a librarian. She was helping boys select books and found the best she could do was dog stories, "which they found acceptable if the dog did not die at the end". The boys were from modest homes and had ordinary lives, so that is what she wrote about.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (Io7m1)
Yeah, I never had good memories of books where the dog died in the end. I would (and did) re-read any of Jim Kjeljaard's dog stories before going back to "Where the Red Fern Grows."
Posted by: Castle Guy at December 07, 2025 10:40 AM (Lhaco)
235
Posted by: PabloD at December 07, 2025 09:28 AM (GALGA)
I re-read Earth Abides every few years or so. A true classic, and really packs some emotional punch at the end.
My only complaint is that the cross-country trip to search for other survivors that two of Ish's many children embark on turns out to be rather anti-climactic. Always wished that part had been further developed. But, that minor quibble aside, it's a great, great book. The kind of book that leaves you thinking about it for weeks afterwards.
Posted by: Delurker at December 07, 2025 10:40 AM (xNHSX)
236Happy Valley has gone traffic circle mad and my daughter is fit to be tied.
Happy Valley? You live in Amherst?
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 10:41 AM (ufSfZ)
237* Imagines that something like Islam would arise in any intelligent species and ultimately lead to its stagnation, thus answering the old SETI question of Where Is Everybody *
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025
***
Unless some good-hearted aliens land here; the Moslems enslave them and take their technology (without understanding it); and Islam spreads to the stars.
Now *I'm* depressed.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:41 AM (wzUl9)
238
200 My IPad runs out of electrons after about 2 hours and have trouble reading it outside anyways.
-
Kindle Paper Whites are fairly cheap, maybe $150, and can be read in full sunlight. Battery life is, I don't know, 10 -12 hours.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:17 AM
****
I recommend the standard Kindle instead. Also perfectly legible in full sunlight and long-lived battery, but about $50 cheaper.
Posted by: werewife at December 07, 2025 10:42 AM (5ayY3)
239I re-read Earth Abides every few years or so. A true classic, and really packs some emotional punch at the end.
I lived in the Berkeley neighborhood described in "Earth Abides" for several years, which amused me.
Posted by: The ARC of History! at December 07, 2025 10:43 AM (xTIDn)
240Yeah, I never had good memories of books where the dog died in the end. I would (and did) re-read any of Jim Kjeljaard's dog stories before going back to "Where the Red Fern Grows."
Posted by: Castle Guy at December 07, 2025
***
When I was writing a fantasy novel some years ago, the people in my writing group said I could kill off any of the characters I wanted, but not the griffin. He was decidedly un-doglike -- difficult and prickly, as well as paranoid -- but they loved him anyway.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:43 AM (wzUl9)
241When I was writing a fantasy novel some years ago, the people in my writing group said I could kill off any of the characters I wanted, but not the griffin. He was decidedly un-doglike -- difficult and prickly, as well as paranoid -- but they loved him anyway.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025
***
And no, I didn't kill him off.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:44 AM (wzUl9)
242
Does the stand alone Kindle have two pages on the screen? This is why I like the IPad. It ends like a book swiping right when you complete the two pages.
244
Wordsmith Eric Swalwell has chosen a slogan for his quest to become governor of California.
Eric Swalwell
@ericswalwell
It’s time to get shit done, California.
-
And I thought the problem with California was that shit was done!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:47 AM (L/fGl)
245
Does the stand alone Kindle have two pages on the screen?
-
No.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:49 AM (L/fGl)
246
Good morning! I have to go get ready for church, but wanted to wish everyone a great day.
Posted by: Piper at December 07, 2025 10:50 AM (OoFl2)
247 I've been working hard on my book (a technical work on a field of considerable industrial significance), but I haven't written a single word yet.
The whole thing is a puzzlement to me. It has to be some kind of compulsion. I find myself not greatly caring if anyone reads it. I don't care if I ever get any feedback. I hope never to read a review if anyone does read it ("A dull and pedestrian effort"). The accumulation of 40 years of information is bringing back horrible memories of a time I look back on with shame and a Hadrian I despise.
Maybe I just want, in the twilight of my life, to do one single thing I can be proud of. Maybe I'm the only person with the time to work on it and the interest in seeing the patent literature on the subject given the same weight as the journal articles. Maybe, even though I feel fine, I won't live long enough to see it through.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 07, 2025 10:50 AM (tgvbd)
248
Happy Valley has gone traffic circle mad and my daughter is fit to be tied.
Happy Valley? You live in Amherst?
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression)
The Grand Valley in Western Colorado.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 10:52 AM (L/fGl)
249 When I was young, I had the disgusting habit of dogearing books. Now, I find it abhorrent.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at December 07, 2025 10:22 AM (0U5gm)
Dog show ribbons, of which we have thousands, make excellent bookmarks.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 07, 2025 10:53 AM (tgvbd)
250
Hadrian, since you say the topic is of considerable industrial importance, is it possible your work might become a standard handbook on the topic? That would be flattering.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:53 AM (wzUl9)
251
If you're a cat lover, I think you'll enjoy "Cat Tales, A History: How we learned to live with them... and they learned to live with us" by Jerry D. Moore. He starts in prehistory when it was a predator/prey relationship on both sides, then on to mutually beneficial relationship of granary owner/mouser, and finally to fuzzy object d'art/slavish admirer.
He notes that there is an asymmetry in our relationships with other domesticated beasts that tips the relationship in humans' favor -- we use their meat, pelts, plumage, or power -- but not so with cats. We love their "intriguing indifference" to us humans. They don't perform as directed, and as for hunting rodents, terriers probably do a better job. So I guess we like them because they are Cool.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025 10:53 AM (kpS4V)
252
The order to destroy Endor in ROTJ was apparently filmed and deleted.
Posted by: steevy at December 07, 2025 10:54 AM (YwEeS)
253He notes that there is an asymmetry in our relationships with other domesticated beasts that tips the relationship in humans' favor -- we use their meat, pelts, plumage, or power -- but not so with cats. We love their "intriguing indifference" to us humans. They don't perform as directed, and as for hunting rodents, terriers probably do a better job. So I guess we like them because they are Cool.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025
***
Yes, and even cat-haters (under pressure sometimes) admit that cats are very good-looking animals.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:55 AM (wzUl9)
254
I've just started book 5 in the Suneater series, by Christopher Ruocchio, called "Ashes of Man."
I like this series, but it does seem to be dragging on a bit. I wish I didn't ha e to read another 2800 pages to get to rhe end of book 7, to find out why the protagonist is called the Suneater. I will soldier on, however, Book Nerd that I am.
Posted by: Sharkman at December 07, 2025 10:55 AM (/RHNq)
255
247 Best of success to you, Hadrian the Seventh
Posted by: callsign claymore at December 07, 2025 10:55 AM (E7tow)
256
I taught three kids to drive (and two of them to drive stick, by the time Number 3 was ready I had sold the Mustang so no stick shift car around to teach on). I thought it was a breeze. My ex-wife tried one lesson with the oldest and came back a nervous wreck. Driving is indeed freedom and I can't imagine not being able to jump in the car and go. After 42 29th birthdays i have to contemplate the possibility that I will have to give it up someday and I don't like it.
Posted by: who knew at December 07, 2025 10:56 AM (+ViXu)
257I taught three kids to drive (and two of them to drive stick, by the time Number 3 was ready I had sold the Mustang so no stick shift car around to teach on). I thought it was a breeze. My ex-wife tried one lesson with the oldest and came back a nervous wreck. Driving is indeed freedom and I can't imagine not being able to jump in the car and go. After 42 29th birthdays i have to contemplate the possibility that I will have to give it up someday and I don't like it.
Posted by: who knew at December 07, 2025
***
Though I'd loved cars since I was eleven, maybe earlier, I did not learn to drive until I was almost 23. Maybe it made me a more careful driver than I would have been at 16.
I love driving still.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:58 AM (wzUl9)
258
Haven't read it in eons, but John D. MacDonald wrote a book about his household's cats (may have been a couple of other pets in there too, can't remember) called The House Guests.
His cats tended to walk all over his work table whenever they felt like it IIRC, and he dedicated one of his best novels, The End of the Night, "To Roger and Geoffrey, who left their marks on the manuscript."
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 10:58 AM (q3u5l)
259 Hadrian, since you say the topic is of considerable industrial importance, is it possible your work might become a standard handbook on the topic? That would be flattering.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:53 AM (wzUl9)
There have been a good many books on the subject, but they're all collections of contributions "edited by". That means the books are a compilation of snapshots of topics that can be written, not that need to be written.
There has never been a single, comprehensive treatment of the topic. Nothing that looks at the historical perspective of how it evolved. Nothing that doesn't ignore at least half the disclosures about it.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 07, 2025 10:59 AM (tgvbd)
260
Well, I suppose I'd better make some tea and read. Thanks for highlighting my library, Perfesser!
Hope you all have a wonderful day.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 10:59 AM (ufSfZ)
Nazi Sex Spies is by Al Camino, and if you believe that you had astro-turf in the back of your Chev.
Edited by Delray Belair?
Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at December 07, 2025 11:00 AM (zdLoL)
262
Unless some good-hearted aliens land here; the Moslems enslave them and take their technology (without understanding it); and Islam spreads to the stars.
Now *I'm* depressed.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 10:41 AM (wzUl9)
That’s roughly the setup for the Star Trek Mirror Universe. With humans stealing Vulcan Tech.
Posted by: Tom Servo at December 07, 2025 11:00 AM (c7Ygk)
263
I tried, unsuccessfully, to teach my second wife how to ride a bicycle. She never could get that you have to lean when making a turn. We tried it in a school playground and it looked like she might get it, but as soon as she saw the fence she froze, unable to turn until she rolled right into it. That was her last lesson.
Posted by: Toad-0 at December 07, 2025 11:01 AM (3d4tv)
Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7
https://is.gd/h7Cvj5
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:01 AM (L/fGl)
265
Thomas Paine. I've gotten all my first editions the same way. I never paid attention to what edition a book was until one day I was in a used bookstore and saw a first edition of Elmer Gantry on the expensive book shelf. It looked familiar so I checked when I got back home and sure enough, I had a first edition of Elmer Gantry that I had paid a quarter for. Over the years I've found more. I've got a first edition of Out of Africa that has a beautiful binding (but no dust cover so probably not worth as much as I'd like to think).
Posted by: who knew at December 07, 2025 11:02 AM (+ViXu)
266
I added a book this week: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Stories. It's the B and N Collectible edition. Hardcover, silver gilt pages, and type that is easily read. It's over a thousand pages and includes about everything Lewis Carroll wrote. This is the kind of writing worth preserving in a good physical volume. And it uses the John Tenniel illustrations.
I'll peruse this over time when I'm in the mood for whimsy.
Posted by: JTB at December 07, 2025 11:03 AM (yTvNw)
267
My reading slumps were a result of reading so much material at work I had no desire to read on my off time.
Now that I’m retired , golf ,painting and TV get in the way. But I still manage to read a book a month give or take.
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:04 AM (KDPiq)
268
A better law would be that all libtards must wear a kick me sign.
Posted by: Toad-0 at December 07, 2025 11:04 AM (3d4tv)
269
I tried "The Dragon's Prophecy" by Jonathan Cain, about the grand historic threat against Israel. Dinesh D'Souza made a documentary of it I understand. I couldn't make sense of it. Seemed like a lot of gobbledygook based on Revelations.
Posted by: Ordinary American at December 07, 2025 11:04 AM (WHfpM)
270
I tried, unsuccessfully, to teach my second wife how to ride a bicycle. She never could get that you have to lean when making a turn. We tried it in a school playground and it looked like she might get it, but as soon as she saw the fence she froze, unable to turn until she rolled right into it. That was her last lesson.
Posted by: Toad-0 at December 07, 2025 11:01 AM (3d4tv)
Should have had Papa Bear teach her. He's good at teaching a kid to ride a bike....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 11:05 AM (uQesX)
271
The boys were from modest homes and had ordinary lives, so that is what she wrote about.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 10:08 AM (Io7m1)
====
I read them a little early but Henry Higgins led a life that I could barely comprehend.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 10:13 AM
To me, it was a fantasy because I lived outside the city limits. My BFF lived in town but there were no public busses except Dial-A-Ride and no public pools or anything kid-friendly like that.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 11:05 AM (Io7m1)
272
Nazi Sex Spies is by Al Camino, and if you believe that you had astro-turf in the back of your Chev.
-
Maybe his momma had a sense of humor.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:06 AM (L/fGl)
Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7
https://is.gd/h7Cvj5
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:01 AM (L/fGl)
I would do that except I don’t wear a hat when I sleep.
Wearing a hat would identify these nutcases for justified disposal .
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:07 AM (KDPiq)
274
Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7
Because that wouldn't at all be Nazi-like.
Posted by: Ordinary American at December 07, 2025 11:08 AM (WHfpM)
275here have been a good many books on the subject, but they're all collections of contributions "edited by". That means the books are a compilation of snapshots of topics that can be written, not that need to be written.
There has never been a single, comprehensive treatment of the topic. Nothing that looks at the historical perspective of how it evolved. Nothing that doesn't ignore at least half the disclosures about it.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 07, 2025
***
Then it sounds like yours is a new take on the subject. Essentially you are writing a book *you'd* like to read, or use.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:09 AM (wzUl9)
276
Imagine how that lady would fill when she saw almost 100 million people wearing a Trump hat (Trump supporters have Trump supporting kids too)
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:10 AM (KDPiq)
277
"Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7"
And damned if she doesn't look just like I imagined she would.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:10 AM (q3u5l)
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:11 AM (KDPiq)
279
I finished Anthem by Ayn Rand. I have complained that Rand needed an editor, and I got more from reading the Cliff notes, but Anthem is the Cliff notes that needed expanding.
The Narrator, Equality 7-2521, lives in a controlled world that is post-restructuring to extirpate individua thought and existence, commits the sin of falling in love, examining things on his own, improbably discovering ancient knowledge, and discovering that he is an individual, and sets out his findings in a manifesto in the end, declaring individualism and denouncing collectivism.
As a story it is thin, and as an exploration of the concept of rejecting collectivism it needs a plot to carry it. However it does have echoes in subsequent dystopian science fiction, so Rand did manage to accomplish that.
At least it was short.
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:11 AM (rbvCR)
Is it me or does auto-cucumber seem to be getting even more intrusive and annoying by the day?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:12 AM (q3u5l)
281e their technology (without understanding it); and Islam spreads to the stars.
Now *I'm* depressed.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025
*
That’s roughly the setup for the Star Trek Mirror Universe. With humans stealing Vulcan Tech.
Posted by: Tom Servo at December 07, 2025
***
And the implication -- or maybe it's stated in one of the Man-Kzin Wars volumes -- is that Larry Niven's big cat-like Kzinti did the same to another star-traveling species, then set out to create an empire.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:12 AM (wzUl9)
282
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:12 AM (q3u5l)
The worst is when it tries to correct proper names.
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:13 AM (KDPiq)
283
At least it was short.
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:11 AM (rbvCR)
I've always found her a much better essayist, polemicist and speaker than a storyteller.
Posted by: Ordinary American at December 07, 2025 11:13 AM (WHfpM)
284"Woman Says There Should Be a Law That All Trump Voters Wear a Trump Hat 24/7"
And damned if she doesn't look just like I imagined she would.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025
***
Ain't it something, that these AWFLs or screaming libtards are so predictable.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:14 AM (wzUl9)
MS NOW Downplays $1 Billion Minnesota Somali Welfare Fraud, Says It’s “Isolated”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:14 AM (L/fGl)
286
And it doesn’t recognize the word ill. It will always try to change it to i’ll .
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:14 AM (KDPiq)
287
Now that I have seen the photo up close, I covet
MP4's bog bookshelf. My house is too small for a bookshelf that size unless I paid a very clever carpenter to remove a livingroom wall and build it in the closet behind. Hmmm...
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 11:15 AM (Io7m1)
Watchdog Report Uncovers “Large-Scale Systemic Failures” Leading to Obamacare Subsidy Fraud
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:17 AM (L/fGl)
291 To me, it was a fantasy because I lived outside the city limits. My BFF lived in town but there were no public busses except Dial-A-Ride and no public pools or anything kid-friendly like that.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025
***
As a boy, reading the Whitman "Lassie" books, whether with Jeff as his human or Timmy, they too seemed fantasy to me in reverse from yours. I lived in the city with public busses and the like. Jeff and Timmy and their families were Midwestern farm people, and going to the "big city," the capital of their state, was some hours' drive in the pickup.
Delightful fantasy, though.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:17 AM (wzUl9)
292
Also reading the surviving officer statements regarding the sinking of the USS Arizona. Pretty harrowing.
Posted by: Sharkman at December 07, 2025 11:18 AM (/RHNq)
293
Isolated to the Somali community. Does MS Now not realize that they are confirming Trump’s statements?
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:19 AM (KDPiq)
294
MS NOW Downplays $1 Billion Minnesota Somali Welfare Fraud, Says It’s “Isolated”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:14 AM (L/fGl)
====
Straight from crisis communications handbook.
1. It was an isolated incident
2. It is unacceptable
3. There is no known motive
For example, "This type of crime is unacceptable and we will prosecute to the full extent of the law!"
Posted by: San Franpsycho at December 07, 2025 11:19 AM (sF9Ts)
295I taught the first one, I can teach her, too. That's what empty business parking lots are for on Sundays.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 09:19 AM (uQesX)
Go get a bunch of boxes for pylons to drive around, and later she can run over them practicing parking between the lines.
Make sure she understands ahead of time this is fun, and you are using boxes because they are cheaper than using Volvos
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:19 AM (rbvCR)
296
Does MS Now not realize that they are confirming Trump’s statements?
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:19 AM (KDPiq)
They don't realize anything. They're unrealizable people.
Posted by: Ordinary American at December 07, 2025 11:19 AM (WHfpM)
297
It's Sunday December 7th and there's a nip in the air!
Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at December 07, 2025
The Japs still hadn't attacked PH yet by this time of the day here on the mainland.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at December 07, 2025 11:20 AM (g8Ew8)
Trump Sides With Soccer, Says NFL Should Drop the Name “Football”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:22 AM (L/fGl)
300
I mentioned this yesterday during the Pet Thread. Lassie the TV series was a pioneer in what we call "rebooting" today. Each time, after several seasons, the cast of humans changed, but Lassie herself continued on. We had Jeff Miller, his mother, and her father Gramps. Then came Timmy, his father and mother (originally played by Cloris Leachman, as someone pointed out to me), then by June Lockhart; adopted parents, I think I was told. After that Lassie went to live in an even more outdoor environment with bachelor forest ranger Corey. Each time the background changed, but the central canine remained.
The Whitman "TV adventures for young readers" books had several about Jeff & Lassie, and at least two about Timmy & Lassie. I don't know if there was ever a "Corey the Ranger & Lassie" tie-in novel; I'd outgrown those books by then.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:23 AM (wzUl9)
301I taught the first one, I can teach her, too. That's what empty business parking lots are for on Sundays.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025
***
You still have stores closed on Sundays and empty parking lots? Luxury!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:24 AM (wzUl9)
Trump Sides With Soccer, Says NFL Should Drop the Name “Football”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:22 AM (L/fGl)
I would start watching the NFL again if they renamed it Murderball or Battleball but then they would have to go back to the old rules and get rid of the flag football rules.
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:26 AM (KDPiq)
Ellen Barkin Cruelly Attacks Charlie Kirk’s Widow, Calls Her a “Dog”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:28 AM (L/fGl)
308
It's stopped raining here, but the streets are still damp and dirty. Until the sun comes out and dries them a bit, it would be pointless to wash the car. I can check the tires and see if they need air, though.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:28 AM (wzUl9)
You can't pull yourself away!
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025 11:21 AM
True! Going into a bookstore is like willingly stepping into a tar pit...
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 11:28 AM (Io7m1)
310
Waiting for tea water and either book time or movie, not sure which
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 11:28 AM (Ia/+0)
311
Love seeing library pics, and MP4 has a nice one.
When Mrs Some Guy and I moved here from Chicago, we shipped over 100 cartons (large cartons) of books. Bookshelves in every room except kitchen and bathroom. Mostly gone now -- the libraries and second hand shops did quite well in that purge -- quite a few replaced with ebooks. Her books are now on one case and mine are on a couple of others. Oddly, even after the purge, we don't seem to have much extra space; Mrs Some Guy has quite a few glass figures and display cases. Oh, well. Pics of my current physical library would not be nearly as impressive as MP4s, either in size or content.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:29 AM (q3u5l)
312
>>And damned if she doesn't look just like I imagined she would.
They always do.
Posted by: one hour sober at December 07, 2025 11:29 AM (Y1sOo)
313
Kirk’s reply if any should be ‘ who’s Ellen Barkin? ‘
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:29 AM (KDPiq)
314
Go get a bunch of boxes for pylons to drive around, and later she can run over them practicing parking between the lines.
Make sure she understands ahead of time this is fun, and you are using boxes because they are cheaper than using Volvos
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:19 AM (rbvCR)
I'm thinking instead to get ugly women who think Trump supporter should wear hats to stand up and we'll play hit the pylon. She can rack up some good points that way.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 11:30 AM (uQesX)
315
Huh. I just ran into a word I had never read before.
'deracinated'- uprooted from one's natural geographical, social, or cultural environment:
"a deracinated writer who has complicated relations with his working-class background"
Posted by: Aetius451AD at December 07, 2025 09:52 AM (bss/y)
Get yourself some John Buchan novels, The Thirtynine Steps, and several others. That word shows up in several, I am sure. Also ripping good yarns.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at December 07, 2025 11:30 AM (npFr7)
316 The Whitman "TV adventures for young readers" books had several about Jeff & Lassie, and at least two about Timmy & Lassie. I don't know if there was ever a "Corey the Ranger & Lassie" tie-in novel; I'd outgrown those books by then.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:23 AM (wzUl9
Lassie: Woof
Human: Timmy fell into a well?
Lassie: Woof
Human: AND THE FARMHAND IS FUCKING MY WIFE?!
Lassie: Woof
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at December 07, 2025 11:31 AM (g8Ew8)
Ellen Barkin Cruelly Attacks Charlie Kirk’s Widow, Calls Her a “Dog”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:28 AM (L/fGl)
So, she's barking at the moon?
Posted by: dantesed at December 07, 2025 11:31 AM (Oy/m2)
318
MS NOW Downplays $1 Billion Minnesota Somali Welfare Fraud, Says It’s “Isolated”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:14 AM (L/fGl)
Local news story
Posted by: ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, et al at December 07, 2025 11:31 AM (Y1sOo)
319Her suggestion was, why not go back a year and make the plot about the Roscoe Arbuckle case? The problem with that is, that while I can revamp the book, it still requires reading the three full-length books on his case.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at December 07, 2025 09:32 AM (ufSfZ)
Jerry Stahl wrote I, Fatty about Roscoe Arbuckle. I never read it, but I heard him talk about it when it first came out. Stahl was a heroin addict (like Arbuckle) and that seems to have been his interest in the case.
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:32 AM (rbvCR)
320True! Going into a bookstore is like willingly stepping into a tar pit...
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025
***
The old used paperback bookstores were like that for me. Now, the independent bookstores I see mostly have hardbacks, and recent ones at that, all sort of pricey if I haven't read the one I'm interested in and know it's good. And older authors, say the '30s to the '70s, are rarely represented. It's hard to find a John Dickson Carr or an Ellery Queen in such a store; the young proprietors often have never heard of either.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:32 AM (wzUl9)
321
You still have stores closed on Sundays and empty parking lots? Luxury!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:24 AM (wzUl9)
Sure, the corporate office centers are all deserted on Sundays, other places, not so much. Shoot, even the churches around here are open on Sunday!!
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 11:32 AM (uQesX)
322
My favorite word is still Petrichor, not because of how it sounds but the definition immediately has your brain recall that sense.
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:33 AM (KDPiq)
323
Meme for the Horde writers:
https://shorturl.at/ZhJwm
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at December 07, 2025 11:34 AM (ULPxl)
324
Get yourself some John Buchan novels, The Thirtynine Steps, and several others. That word shows up in several, I am sure. Also ripping good yarns.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at December 07, 2025 11:30 AM (npFr7)
Ripping Yarns is a good book, too. And TV series.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 11:35 AM (uQesX)
325
Confirmation that Ellen Barkin is just as ugly on the inside as she is on the outside.
Posted by: one hour sober at December 07, 2025 11:36 AM (Y1sOo)
326
Speaking of words , I never heard or knew the definition of the word Spelunking until I read Calvin and Hobbes.
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025 11:36 AM (KDPiq)
327323 Meme for the Horde writers:
https://shorturl.at/ZhJwm
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at December 07, 2025
***
All too true.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:36 AM (wzUl9)
The segments for surfing the net, reading for inspiration, and binge snacking may vary in size from Hordeling to Hordeling, but -- yeah, spot on.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:40 AM (q3u5l)
332329 All too true.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:36 AM (wzUl9)
Except for the binge snacking. Can't do that anymore.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025
***
A segment of my snacking would include smoking my pipe. And part of the circle should include exercise -- sadly, even smaller a slice than the "Actual Writing."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:41 AM (wzUl9)
333 “My job as Vice President is NOT to look out for the interests of the whole world. It's my job to look out for the people of the United States.”
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at December 07, 2025 11:38 AM (L/fGl)
If the world's media could figure out that they do not represent the moral order of the universe we might actually get somewhere.
Posted by: SpeakingOf at December 07, 2025 11:42 AM (6ydKt)
Posted by: Ok, I'll ask at December 07, 2025 11:43 AM (XQo4F)
335Not in the slightest. I'm going to research the image to see what she was yammering about.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 09:38 AM (p/isN)
Hope it is not the same story as in Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. Someone should apologize to the pulpwood trees cut down to print that book .
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:43 AM (rbvCR)
336
A segment of my snacking would include smoking my pipe. And part of the circle should include exercise -- sadly, even smaller a slice than the "Actual Writing."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:41 AM (wzUl9)
I include exercise in it. I've gotten a few ideas and dialog thinking about the WIP while on the elliptical.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 11:43 AM (uQesX)
337
The media were probably headed downhill after they started to believe that bit about their job being to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:44 AM (q3u5l)
Posted by: Nazdar at December 07, 2025 11:44 AM (NcvvS)
340
Would "deracinated" also include someone who is *not yet in* his natural social or cultural environment? I don't know if I've been uprooted from it. All I know is where I am now isn't it.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:45 AM (wzUl9)
Posted by: Auspex at December 07, 2025 11:46 AM (Y8DZL)
344
The media were probably headed downhill after they started to believe that bit about their job being to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:44 AM (q3u5l)
All references to the press should be as follows:
The Streicherite network ABC News, or the Streicherite newspaper Washington Post....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 11:47 AM (uQesX)
345
'bout chore time, I'm afraid. It's been a fascinating Book Thread, one of the highlights of my online week, as usual. Thanks, Perfessor and all you bibliophages, as Eris called us!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:47 AM (wzUl9)
346
National Socialism is for the country
Marxism for the world
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 11:48 AM (Ia/+0)
347 The media were probably headed downhill after they started to believe that bit about their job being to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025
***
But but but . . . once the Afflicted get rescued from that status and become Comfortable, does that mean they'll be in line to be afflicted again? This sounds like an endless loop here. . . .
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:50 AM (wzUl9)
348
College Football Playoff teams announced starting in a few minutes on ESPN.
Near as I can figure, there are two slots available with three teams in the running -- Miami, Notre Dame and Alabama.
Posted by: one hour sober at December 07, 2025 11:50 AM (Y1sOo)
Posted by: ERMAHGERD! NERTZERS! at December 07, 2025 11:53 AM (TbWk/)
355
The old used paperback bookstores were like that for me. Now, the independent bookstores I see mostly have hardbacks, and recent ones at that, all sort of pricey if I haven't read the one I'm interested in and know it's good. And older authors, say the '30s to the '70s, are rarely represented. It's hard to find a John Dickson Carr or an Ellery Queen in such a store; the young proprietors often have never heard of either.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:32 AM
You aren't kidding! Plus, the bookstores near me have games and toys taking up shelf space.
I use the library loan system and limit myself to three requests. Once, eleven books arrived on the same day and it was like getting hit with a homework assignment.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at December 07, 2025 11:54 AM (Io7m1)
356
Thanks for another nifty book thread, Perf and Horde!
Time to do stuff.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at December 07, 2025 11:54 AM (kpS4V)
Posted by: Just Some Guy at December 07, 2025 11:56 AM (q3u5l)
358
Some folks just don't have the wits to drive and shouldn't.
Posted by: no one at December 07, 2025 11:58 AM (W7XSX)
359Funny thing, I just recently learned to parallel park and I'm still bad at it.
Posted by: lin-duh is offended at December 07, 2025 10:14 AM (VCgbV)
Driving forklift will make you a champ at that!
Posted by: Kindltot at December 07, 2025 11:59 AM (rbvCR)
360My favorite word is still Petrichor, not because of how it sounds but the definition immediately has your brain recall that sense.
Posted by: the way I see it at December 07, 2025
***
So you *can* get blood from a stone!!!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 12:00 PM (wzUl9)
361
Saddest time of Sunday morning. The end of the Book Thread. Thanks, Perfessor.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at December 07, 2025 12:01 PM (uQesX)
Posted by: Skip at December 07, 2025 12:01 PM (Ia/+0)
363
I hate to tell you, but there were several Lassies.
Posted by: no one at December 07, 2025 12:10 PM (W7XSX)
364
297 It's Sunday December 7th and there's a nip in the air!
Posted by: Commissar of plenty and festive little hats at December 07, 2025
The Japs still hadn't attacked PH yet by this time of the day here on the mainland.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at December 07, 2025 11:20 AM (g8Ew
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii must have seemed like a distant and exotic place to mainland Americans on a Sunday afternoon in fall-winter 1941.
Posted by: Joemarine at December 07, 2025 12:11 PM (y171U)
365
313
'Kirk’s reply if any should be ‘ who’s Ellen Barkin? ‘'
Or
"You're barkin' up the wrong tree, lady.
If I throw a stick, will you run away?"
Posted by: Dr. Claw at December 07, 2025 12:14 PM (fd80v)
366
300 I mentioned this yesterday during the Pet Thread. Lassie the TV series was a pioneer in what we call "rebooting" today. Each time, after several seasons, the cast of humans changed, but Lassie herself continued on. We had Jeff Miller, his mother, and her father Gramps. Then came Timmy, his father and mother (originally played by Cloris Leachman, as someone pointed out to me), then by June Lockhart; adopted parents, I think I was told. After that Lassie went to live in an even more outdoor environment with bachelor forest ranger Corey. Each time the background changed, but the central canine remained.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at December 07, 2025 11:23 AM (wzUl9)
I remember watching the Ranger Corey episodes on CBS Sunday nights, and Lassie somehow got lost from the Miller family, it was very disturbing as a child that Lassie never found her way home.
Posted by: Joemarine at December 07, 2025 12:17 PM (y171U)
367
focus on finishing my self-taught trigonometry course (I have books; it counts!).
Posted by: PabloD
----
Aside:
Geometry is science, trig is engineering.
Posted by: buddhaha at December 07, 2025 01:15 PM (E2vqx)
368
Re when statesiders learned of the Pearl Harbor raid:
Dad said the news came on the radio at the time he and his brother wanted to listen to Charlie McCarthy. Their father, a gentle man, snarled at them to shut up.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 01:55 PM (p/isN)
369
My favorite book for many years now has been "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Arthur Miller, Jr … it seems, in a way, almost prescient in its regard for the 'whiz-dumb of them po' Hoo-Mons'. Fiat Lux. Fiat Lex. Ecce Homo. Yeah … right.
Posted by: Dr_No at December 07, 2025 02:11 PM (ayRl+)
370
368 Re when statesiders learned of the Pearl Harbor raid:
Dad said the news came on the radio at the time he and his brother wanted to listen to Charlie McCarthy. Their father, a gentle man, snarled at them to shut up.
Posted by: Weak Geek at December 07, 2025 01:55 PM (p/isN)
Great story. Be quiet about Pearl Harbor news to hear Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
Posted by: Joemarine at December 07, 2025 02:25 PM (y171U)
371
Thank you to the Moron/-ette who recommended "The Original" by Sanderson & Kowal. Well structured novella. Interestingly, this was released as an audiobook before a print version. The reader is quite good.
RE: Real men build libraries. In "Earth Abides," by George R. Stewart, the main character, Ish, spends a lot of time repairing Doe Library, the main library at UC Berkeley, to preserve the knowledge contained there in. The novel was written in 1949, so no digital media. And Stewart discusses the difficulty in teaching people to read who need to develop more practical physical survival skills.
Posted by: March Hare at December 07, 2025 03:31 PM (O/GSq)
372
I have to say, life in cities varies widely. I live in a relatively small city, only about a quarter of s mile from the center of town.
Now crime exists, and idiots are idiots anywhere. But over 90 % of it is within a very small section of town.
I live in a stable neighborhood, almost all homeowners, employed/retired, and many vets. The worst we get is kids littering, or a loud party. Even with those, they settle down if the police make a visit.
The teens next door sometimes play basketball later in the evening, but what the heck, they're home and not up to no good.
A lot of the ambience is that neighbors are outdoors, and know who belongs and who doesn't. We keep an eye on the people around.
People keep up their property; lawn care, repairs, the like. Its like living in a small town, but with the convenience of being close to excellent medical care.
Posted by: Linda S Fox at December 07, 2025 07:49 PM (7Rs+y)
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