Sunday Morning Book Thread: 01/21/2018

It's certainly beautiful, but I would be drawn inexorably to putting my feet up on that desk if I were reading in that chair. And it's probably some fantastically expensive 18th century English desk with butterfly wing stain and unicorn horn inlay, and the butler would come in and have me ejected from the house by the assistant butler who moonlights at the local pub as a bouncer.

Even when I studied I usually put my feet up on the desk or the window sill or whatever was handy. The higher the better. No ottoman for me. Maybe I needed every bit of oxygenated blood in my brain to absorb the information.

How about you? Can the category of book be discerned by the height of your feet?

******

Here's the blurb from EarlyBird Books about a Woman's Health book. I have no idea whether the book is worth a bucket of spit, but I got a chuckle out of the description, which is just a wonderful example of the cognitive dissonance that the Left suffers whenever the significant psychiatric issue called "Gender Dysphoiria," known to the Left as transgenderism, is discussed.

For decades, medicine saw men and women as essentially the same physically except in the area of reproduction. However, a new and groundbreaking science of gender-specific medicine has discovered astonishing distinctions between male and female bodies. From the thickness of our skin to the signs of a heart attack to ways we metabolize drugs, the sexes have significant physiological differences. But, what do these differences mean to you and your doctor?

So which is it? Are men and women social constructs, or are there profound pysiological differences? Inquiring minds want to know.

Actually, the answer is obvious, and it's embarrassing that our culture has allowed this question any semblance of seriousness.

******
From the AoSHQ Book Thread mail bag:

You folks plugged Rob Avery's first novel, "Close Hauled," some months back, and as I later told you, he saw a dramatic upsurge in sales over that weekend.

Well, his second novel in the series is out. Here's a blub and a link. It's just as good as the first; maybe better. Here's a blurb:
-------
"Broad Reach" by Rob Avery picks up where his first novel, "Close Hauled," left off. Sim Greene has made his way down to the Caribbean with a sailboat -- and a ton of cash -- only to find that his best friend and soon-to-be-dive-shop-partner, Al, is in jail on suspicion of murder. Green has to clear his partner -- if he is indeed innocent -- while staying out of jail himself. Great mystery fun in a merger of Robert Parker and John D. McDonald.
Broad Reach: A Sim Greene Mystery

******
Historical fiction is one of my favorite easy reads. It's not like reading a history book, where concentration is sort of required, so I can breeze through them, comfortable with the historical background but not really worrying whether it is perfectly accurate. The problem is that so many of them are lousy history and lousy fiction. There are wonderful exceptions, and they have been discussed at some length by the Horde. But a few that may have (but probably haven't) escaped your attention are the fine novels by Edward Rutherfurd. He focuses on cities, and the paths that families take through them across the centuries. They are fun reads, and as far as I can tell the history is well researched. Good stuff, especially since they are long, and are great for snowy weekends.

Another author whose fiction I really enjoy is Ken Follett, who has written a bunch of spy novels but has branched out to grand historical novels. One of his early thrillers is unabashedly pro-Israeli, which I like very much, and is a great read. It's called "Triple," and it's about Israel's early nuclear program and its acquisition of uranium. It's one of those books I can pick up and open to any page and be immersed immediately in the story.

But his later historical novels are pretty solid. "The Pillars Of The Earth is the first in a short series, and while I thought the history was reasonably accurate, this reviewer was a bit critical, though not unfairly...

A radical departure from Follett's novels of international suspense and intrigue, this chronicles the vicissitudes of a prior, his master builder, and their community as they struggle to build a cathedral and protect themselves during the tumultuous 12th century, when the empress Maud and Stephen are fighting for the crown of England after the death of Henry I. The plot is less tightly controlled than those in Follett's contemporary works, and despite the wealth of historical detail, especially concerning architecture and construction, much of the language as well as the psychology of the characters and their relationships remains firmly rooted in the 20th century. This will appeal more to lovers of exciting adventure stories than true devotees of historical fiction.

Anyway, what's the historical fiction on your shelf? Not the one that fell down, the one that is firmly anchored with screws that go all the way into the studs!

Posted by: CBD at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Finally

Posted by: Bruce at January 21, 2018 08:55 AM (8ikIW)

2 Impulsively she reached her slender hand out to take mine. “You have won, Melvin Dane!” her soft voice said. “The ship of Mutron is fallen! We shall not be slaves of the Lord of Flame! We shall not die the violet death in the pit of Xath!”

--- from “The Green Girl” by Jack Williamson (1930)

https://tinyurl.com/ybxnqlbj

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 08:55 AM (qJtVm)

3 Ah, a fresh one!

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 08:56 AM (tr2D7)

4 Well done, Bruce.

So, my attention deficit continues apace. Began Michael Moorcock’s Jerry Cornelius series. It’s the kind of read where Hindu cosmology and Courrèges suits are discussed with equal passion. “In his permanently-booked room at The Yachtsman, Jerry Cornelius had woken up at seven o’clock that morning and dressed himself in a lemon shirt with small ebony cuff-links, a wide black cravat, dark green waistcoat and matching hipster pants, black socks and black hand-made boots. He had washed his fine hair, and now he brushed it until it shone. Then he brushed one of his double-breasted black car coats and put it on.” The book thus far is all paragraphs on bespoke suits and hand-rolled licorice paper cigarettes and then someone dies horribly. Some nice ‘ron told me there was a movie made of the story “The Final Programme”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKNrL3sRV4o

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 08:56 AM (qJtVm)

5 Mmmmmmm that new thread smell. The ONT was getting a stank to her.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at January 21, 2018 08:57 AM (wdmm9)

6 I want the map ceiling of that library. *adds a note to the plans for the dream house*

Posted by: right wing yankee at January 21, 2018 08:57 AM (obZ4W)

7 The title is "under-butler."

Posted by: JAS at January 21, 2018 08:58 AM (7JbXq)

8
Anyway, what's the historical fiction on your shelf?

People store newspapers on a shelf?

Posted by: Acme Trucking Enterprises, White Truck Division at January 21, 2018 08:58 AM (2FqvZ)

9 Yay!!! Book thread!!!

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 08:58 AM (hMwEB)

10 Tolle lege
Finished Brian Kilmeade's Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans and would recommend it for younger readers.
Stopped by the used book store and found the entire collection ( I think) of Patrick O'Briens Aubrey/Maturin series so picked up The Fortune of War, The Surgeon's Mate and Ionian Mission. Hopefully the rest will still be there in a few weeks.

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 08:59 AM (aC6Sd)

11 'The ONT was getting a stank to her.'

This is about me isn't it?

Posted by: The Six Million Dollar Vayjay at January 21, 2018 08:59 AM (UdKB7)

12 I love the Health Magazine promo quote for the edition of "Eve's Rib", highlighting their Eureka! moment of realization men and women are different.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:00 AM (ylUqT)

13 Maybe I needed every bit of oxygenated blood in my brain to absorb the information

Well, when you put your feet up the blood runs down to *a* brain, if you're a guy.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:00 AM (fuK7c)

14
It's a beautiful lieberry/study. Once I win the lottery I'm getting one like that

Posted by: TheQuietMan at January 21, 2018 09:00 AM (SiINZ)

15 I read Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World by Eric Metaxas. I found this to be a fascinating book about a subject of which I knew little. As in his Bonhoeffer book, Metaxas well-researched the subject and presents it in a riveting style. The last chapter shows how Luther's faith and courage gave us the beginnings of the ideals of liberty, equality, and individualism that are at the heart of our modern life.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 21, 2018 09:01 AM (T8WeQ)

16 I first thought those were water stains on the ceiling.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 09:01 AM (0+nbW)

17 That chair needs one of those tacky plastic mats underneath.

Posted by: Weasel at January 21, 2018 09:02 AM (Sfs6o)

18 That map on the ceiling is perfect for lying back and thinking of England.

Posted by: The Six Million Dollar Vayjay at January 21, 2018 09:02 AM (UdKB7)

19 Greatly enjoyed Pillars Of The Earth, written a little in the James Michener tradition.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:02 AM (ylUqT)

20 Historical fiction? Like Aubrey/Maturin? Or Danilo Kis's works?

You could argue that large parts of Herodotus were fiction in that he was taking somebody's word for somethings that just weren't true. Btw I'm at the end of Book 1.

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 21, 2018 09:03 AM (y7DUB)

21 I was introduced to Allan Eckerts Winning of America Series after a failed attempt during the transition between 29 and 30.

I especially enjoyed The Wilderness War and The Gateway to Empire. It was very interesting to read about a particular place and then to go and try to locate it in modern day Ohio, NY or PA and trying to imagine it back in the day.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 09:03 AM (tr2D7)

22 Colleen McCollough's Men of Rome novels. Sharon Kay Pennants Plantagenet novels. Margaret George's autobiographical novels. Uris and Michener, too.

Posted by: James Birdwell at January 21, 2018 09:04 AM (SCvwT)

23 Does regency pr0n count as "historical fiction"?

Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Ann at January 21, 2018 09:04 AM (jtHQy)

24 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a pleasant week of reading.

As nice as the office in the top photo is, a lot of it looks very low. Some of us need height in chairs and desks.

I've never been one to put my feet up on desks or window sills. I might have some good qualities (the jury is still out) but flexibility is not one of them. Some kind of foot stool or recliner is about my limit.

Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (V+03K)

25 Wasn't The Pillars Of The Earth made into a mini-series with Rufus Sewell?

Posted by: Grump928(C) at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (WbIyz)

26 Sharon Kay Penman. Damn autocorrect.

Posted by: James Birdwell at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (SCvwT)

27 yo mornin folks

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (BtQd4)

28 The desk doesn't look English and it is most certainly not 18th century

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (4u7kU)

29 Hue 1968 and The Greatest Knight (both recommended here recently) are on sale in Kindle today. Think I'll have Son get them and will pay him back.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM (rp9xB)

30 My favorite Historical fiction author is Steven Pressfield. I've read everything he has written. Ironically he also has written a Future Fiction book called The Profession which has been eerily accurate in some aspects.

He also wrote Legend of Bagger Vance .

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM (2DOZq)

31 Outlander by Diana Gabaldon The entire Series but especially the last 4 books deal with the build up and outbreak of the American Revolution in North Carolina and other colonies.

Also...the first historical fiction I got into was the First Man in Rome Series by Colleen McCullough...basically it goes from 110 BCE through the Rise of Octavian Caesar until about 10 BCE.

All of those books are just outstanding. And, I do not get how Outlander has just been marketed to just women. LOL

Posted by: Robert C Woolwine at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM (G/Iaq)

32 I did like The Pillars Of The Earth.

My favorite historic fiction was The Killer Angels (Michael Shaara).

The part where Longstreet tries to explain Americans to the English Major was nearly perfect.

The old Irish former Sargent was also well done.

Posted by: Big V at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM (MVE/7)

33 I've read three books by Rutherfurd (It's a 'u" not an "o" but Pixy "corrected" me too.) I read Russia, London and Sarum. I guess I should read some more because I enjoyed him very much.

Older historical fiction writers I liked are James Michener and Kenneth Roberts. I had never seen a novel about a loyalist in the American Revolution until "Oliver Wiswell" and haven't seen one since, although they may be out there.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM (8+Ozj)

34 Fen mentioned Rutherford's Sarum, another worth-reading piece of epic historical writing.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:07 AM (ylUqT)

35 Historical fiction I enjoyed:
Aztec
River God
Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris

Posted by: Gref at January 21, 2018 09:07 AM (AMIL/)

36 Historical fiction on the shelves at my house is kind of anglophile. Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, Bernard Cornwell, Patrick O'Brian, Georgette Heyer. The Dunnetts are autographed!

Posted by: Laura Montgomery at January 21, 2018 09:07 AM (IbzI6)

37 I read a lot of historical fiction- Georgette Heyer, Elizabeth Chadwick, Bernard Cornwell, and the like. But I also find it interesting to read books that look like historical fiction but were contemporary at the time. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Jane's Austen's books were seen like we see the current NY Times bestsellers, and that, for her audience, they were set in the present-day.

Like CBD, I've gotten to the point where historical fiction and certain classics are restful reads, because I know the history of the period, so I don't have to concentrate as much on the background and I can enjoy the story.

Posted by: right wing yankee at January 21, 2018 09:07 AM (obZ4W)

38 What distinguishes historical fiction from just fiction set in the past? Would the Hornblower series meet the criteria?

Posted by: Grump928(C) at January 21, 2018 09:07 AM (WbIyz)

39 I will have to read that book on Luther. I liked Metaxas' other books on William Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:08 AM (8+Ozj)

40 World Without End was book 2 in the Follet. I do not think it went anywhere after that. I thot both were optioned but do not remeber TV or movie.

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 21, 2018 09:08 AM (BtQd4)

41 Good Sunday morning, horde!

I read The Whiskey Rebels, by David Liss, a while back. I wasn't especially familiar with the politics of the early American whiskey trade prior to reading it. Hope his history is accurate; I'd have to read other sources to know.

But that's what I like about historical fiction--I learn stuff by reading interesting stories. Does anyone know if David Liss is mostly accurate historian?

Posted by: April at January 21, 2018 09:08 AM (e8PP1)

42 The desk doesn't look English and it is most certainly not 18th century

Ikea.

Posted by: Mr. Peebles at January 21, 2018 09:08 AM (oVJmc)

43 How about you? Can the category of book be discerned by the height of your feet?

I go the opposite direction-

I love reading all-stretched out and laying down on the sofa.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 09:09 AM (9q7Dl)

44 That's one ugly ass room. The light fixture is from hunger

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 09:09 AM (4u7kU)

45 I've tried to find an author who is similar to Pressfield but have been unsuccessful. Guy at the bookstore recommended Conn Iggulden. I read a couple of his but IMO not nearly as good as Pressfield. More fiction than history.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 09:09 AM (2DOZq)

46 Right now i'm reading "The Periodic Table"by Primo Levi. It's short stories/character studes in the life of this Holocaust survivor/trained chemist/author. He shares through elements in the Table, what it was like for an Italian Jew experiencing the slow incursion of Fascism and Nazism into his country before and during WW2, and the chemical mysteries he solved. Somehow he weaves all this into the narratives.

A brave mountain-climbing friend from his student days who became a partisan fighter is in the chapter on Iron. The chapter on Cesium tells how he survived in Auschwitz - by stealing Cesium from the lab so he and a friend could make flints for lighters and buy two months worth of bread rations.

The chapter on Vanadium is especially relevant now. He writes that the Nazis built Auschwitz but those who said and did nothing to stop it built and cleared the roads.

Posted by: vivi at January 21, 2018 09:09 AM (11H2y)

47 I have decided to be extremely judgy.

The chair behind the desk has rollers and it's on carpet. There are no marks on the carpet and I don't think that's because the under-butler vacuums it every two minutes, I think it's because whoever owns the room doesn't actually sit in the chair behind the desk. It's a show desk in a show room and that person has too much money and is an asshat and if it were the 80s he would at least have the decency to die of a cocaine overdose.

A real person would have scuff marks on the carpet and shoe marks from putting their feet on the desk.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:10 AM (fuK7c)

48 Well, that's where we go a-ridin into town, a-whompin and a-whumpin every livin thing that moves within an inch of its life. Except the women folks, of course.

https://strategypage.com/military_photos/
20180120193619.aspx

[You are becoming quite the serial margin-blower! CBD]

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 21, 2018 09:10 AM (BtQd4)

49 "The Final Programme" has a ‘Cockian cast of very unsavory characters, like: “Mr. Cruikshank, the entertainers’ agent, kissed Little Miss Dazzle goodbye. Little Miss Dazzle was quite naked and did not appear on stage like that, if for no other reason than that the public would see that she was in fact equipped with the daintiest masculine genitals you ever saw.”

An updated sleazy 70's version of Thackeray.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:11 AM (qJtVm)

50 We shall not die the violet death in the pit of Xath!

The Pit of Xath.

Is that what we're calling Hillary!'s nethers now?

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 09:11 AM (9q7Dl)

51 Sharon Kay Penman.

Posted by: James Birdwell at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (SCvwT)
I've read some of her stuff and found it a hard slog. Interesting subject matter, but something about her sentence construction trips me up. It's like she's trying to use archaic phrasing for authenticity, but does it in such a way that makes no sense.

Posted by: right wing yankee at January 21, 2018 09:11 AM (obZ4W)

52 David Liss is interesting because he writes economic historic fiction.
A Conspiracy of Paper is about the earliest stock markets and fiat currency.
The Coffee Trader is about commodities.

both are good reads

Posted by: vivi at January 21, 2018 09:12 AM (11H2y)

53 Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronic is my best recommendation. Start with the first book "The Last Kingdom" and work your way through. The BBC miniseries doesn't have the budget to bring these books to the screen without truncating plot lines and characters.

Posted by: The Guy at January 21, 2018 09:12 AM (Kq/OY)

54 I like historical fiction but not some authors (cough philippa gregory cough)

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 09:12 AM (hMwEB)

55 42 The desk doesn't look English and it is most certainly not 18th century

Ikea.
Posted by: Mr. Peebles at January 21, 2018 09:08 AM (oVJmc)

Looks like some late 19th French Empire knock off. The crummy ormolulu is a dead giveaway. Plus, it's a kidney, ugh

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 09:13 AM (4u7kU)

56 Currently reading "Abandoned in Hell:The Fight for Firebase Kate" by William Albracht and Marvin J. Wolf

Very well written account and an amazing story of Captain Albracht's defense and escape from the firebase.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 21, 2018 09:13 AM (EoRCO)

57 I don't really think of Jane Austen as historical fiction, since she's writing about her own time period. I'd also call Georgette Heyer "romance" although the term is much maligned since there's a lot of overwrought and bad fiction in that category, IMO, and I have read everything Heyer wrote except for a few of the detective novels (She's a restful read for me)) and I adore Jane Austen

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:14 AM (8+Ozj)

58 47 I have decided to be extremely judgy.

The chair behind the desk has rollers and it's on carpet. There are no marks on the carpet and I don't think that's because the under-butler vacuums it every two minutes, I think it's because whoever owns the room doesn't actually sit in the chair behind the desk. It's a show desk in a show room and that person has too much money and is an asshat and if it were the 80s he would at least have the decency to die of a cocaine overdose.

A real person would have scuff marks on the carpet and shoe marks from putting their feet on the desk.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:10 AM (fuK7c)

Yep. The under butler's role is to keep the dust off the desk.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:15 AM (nBr1j)

59 Read Scorpion's Pass by A.H. Lloyd. Not awful for a first effort (although it was published second). The idea was a mix of Forrester and Austen set on another planet. I think it generally succeeded except where he brought in modern romance phrases instead of keeping to Austen's less explicit style.

His Man of Honor series of mil-sci-fi is certainly better, but that is to be expected since the goal is to grow as an author.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 09:15 AM (rp9xB)

60 Oh there's a map on the ceiling. I like that a lot.

I have decided to fervently hate the owner of this room, so now I've decided that the ceiling map was there when he bought the place with his parvenu fell into nouveau riches.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (fuK7c)

61 "The Periodic Table"by Primo Levi

I picked that up at a used book sale. It was not what I expected. I did enjoy it though. It's quite a collection of stories well worth reading.

Posted by: freaked at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (UdKB7)

62 39 I will have to read that book on Luther. I liked Metaxas' other books on William Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:08 AM (8+Ozj)
---
Fen, I loved "If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty". The chapter "The Wonder of the Age", on the impact the preacher George Whitefield had, is alone worth the read.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (qJtVm)

63 Good morning! Family still recovering from the flu, which I failed to get (after going through it, one after another, with two grandsons and spouse, I hope it is skipping me) but they are well on the mend and I have a little free time.

Every month I get, as all prime members do, that list of 6 books to choose a freebie from. I usually pick one, but rarely read them through despite their high ratings. Am I alone? Are these really pretty damn good?

Today I hope to hit the used book store in Cream Ridge, NJ (biggest one around) and find something interesting to read, and maybe a few old pattern books while I'm there

Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 09:17 AM (5gaNQ)

64 Replace that (lovely) desk and desk chair with a couple of red leather armchairs, ottomans and a good light for each. Now THAT is a library!

Posted by: Rosasharn at January 21, 2018 09:18 AM (PzBTm)

65 What distinguishes historical fiction from just fiction set in the past? Would the Hornblower series meet the criteria
==========================

I think of Historical Fiction as a fictionalized version of historical teaching. In other words, the writer makes an attempt to popularize writing of actual history using the mechanism of popular fiction (to broaden the audience).

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:18 AM (ylUqT)

66 Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Chronicles are a great read. I mean, there are vikings; what's better than reading about that from the comfort of a chair, at a time when they're not likely to visit in person?

I'd also recommended his Warlord trilogy, which delves a little more into fantasy (it's a King Arthur story; it has to be mostly fantasy). Very dark, and a bit of a downer ending, but the journey to the end is a good one.

Posted by: right wing yankee at January 21, 2018 09:18 AM (obZ4W)

67 despite the wealth of historical detail, especially concerning architecture and construction, much of the language as well as the psychology of the characters and their relationships remains firmly rooted in the 20th century.

========

So, lots of focus on intersectionality, privilege and alternative sexualities?

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at January 21, 2018 09:18 AM (/qEW2)

68 I really, really love the map on the ceiling.

It's upside down and I see Europe and Africa on the left.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:19 AM (qJtVm)

69 I was introduced to Allan Eckerts Winning of America Series after a failed attempt during the transition between 29 and 30.

I have those books and thoroughly enjoyed them.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:20 AM (gz5SW)

70 Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (qJtVm)

Thanks; Eveyrtime that Metaxas book is mentioned, I think "Gee, I ought to find it" and of course, George Whitfield was a fascinating man with a captivating style. Even Ben Franklin enjoyed his sermons and Franklin could hardly be described as a very religious person.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:20 AM (8+Ozj)

71 Historic Ficrion novels have to be based on a specific event or historical person IMO. The main structure has to be built around actual facts of the event and the filler can be circumstantial evidence based fiction. Conversations, internal thoughts, etc.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 09:20 AM (2DOZq)

72 The first historical fiction that made an impact on me was Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp. It is what we would call Alt-history SF now.

Then the entire Hornblower saga and some of the Richard Bolitho books by Douglas Reeman. Then other Douglas Reeman books like HMS Saracen. I just saw that Douglas Reeman died less than a year ago. Hand Salute. Two.

37 right wing yankee
For me all Nevil Shute books fit in the category of contemporary stories that are now historical fiction. He was a stellar writer.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 21, 2018 09:21 AM (hyuyC)

73 Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (fuK7c)

This is the owner:

https://goo.gl/images/Bxn9aX

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 21, 2018 09:21 AM (wYseH)

74 I've been in a mood for wonderful, top-notch writing. I started Churchill's "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples". The man, like CS Lewis, can say exactly what he means, clearly and originally. In that vein, I downloaded the first volume of his "Marlborough" biography. If it's as good as Churchill's other writing, I'll keep an eye open for a good copy of the 4 volume set in hardcover.

I finished CS Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet". Again, wonderful writing and he takes an interesting approach to the universe. I probably won't re-read the other sci-fi books now but will go to some of his academic essays about Medieval literature.

Then I'm continuing my SLOW re-reading of LOTR. It's worth every second of time invested.

Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 09:21 AM (V+03K)

75 It was very interesting to read about a particular place and then to go and try to locate it in modern day Ohio, NY or PA and trying to imagine it back in the day.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 09:03 AM (tr2D7)

That was an interesting part of Grant's biography. Having lived in Missouri (near Grant's Farm even, although we never went) and now Texas, it was the first time I was familiar with things mentioned in a biography.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 09:22 AM (rp9xB)

76
I, Claudius and Claudius the God

Posted by: the guy that moves pianos for a living at January 21, 2018 09:22 AM (3DZIZ)

77 My favorite reading place is my big poofy leather sofa that is easy to sink into but beastly hard to scramble out of, like it's actually got suction to drag you back to reading and revery.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:22 AM (qJtVm)

78 World Without End was book 2 in the Follet. I do not think it went anywhere after that. I thot both were optioned but do not remeber TV or movie.

He's currently working on "ONT Without End

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:22 AM (gz5SW)

79 I'm suspicious of newer historical novel - a lot of them have anachronistically progressive main characters. ugh

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (hMwEB)

80 Dava Sobel's books are wonderful (and usually not lengthy) reads. If you haven't read them I suggest Galileo's Daughter and Longitude to start.

Galileo's Daughter

https://preview.tinyurl.com/ybtc68y4

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (ylUqT)

81 I'm reading and listening to Diamond in My Crown by Patty Loveless. Beautiful.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (nBr1j)

82 This is the owner:

https://goo.gl/images/Bxn9aX
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at

If that were true it would entirely change my opinion because I am a very shallow human.

I still have the Lady Godiva painting open in a tab.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (fuK7c)

83 Some nice ron told me there was a movie made of the story The Final Programme...

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 08:56 AM (qJtVm)

"T'was I" said naturalfake adjusting his top hat, made of genuine felted beaver fur, to a junta angle.

He thought for a moment then chose a kilt composed from the pelts of the last three Tasmanian tigers as well as Byronic poet's shirt woven of the finest red Chinese silk.

Birkenstocks completed his outfit.

Thus attired, naturalfake left his humble abode armed with a baseball bat.

He intended to conk Vishnu on the head and take the unconscious god's place among the Hindu Pantheon...

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (9q7Dl)

84 I am sure Obama's eventual post president auto biography will be more historical fiction.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (2DOZq)

85 Longitude

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y8w8re86

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (ylUqT)

86 I’m pondering rereading the Lord of the Rings again – it’s been years – and in preparation I thought I’d peruse Randal Helms’ “Tolkien’s World” and the influence of the Norse Eddas, Beowolf, the Ring Cycle, etc. I haven’t read this since junior high but it’s been traveling with me for years.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (qJtVm)

87 Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 21, 2018 09:21 AM (wYseH)

I need to re-new my card.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 09:25 AM (0+nbW)

88 74: I enjoyed the trilogy and his take on sci-fi, too. CS is a favorite of mine for many years, even went to the off Broadway production of Screwtape.

Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 09:25 AM (5gaNQ)

89 hmmm.

junta = jaunty

Thx a-c!

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 09:25 AM (9q7Dl)

90 Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (ylUqT)

I liked" Galileo's Daughter." I haven't read anything else by that writer.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:25 AM (8+Ozj)

91 Primo Levi spent 11 months in Auschwitz and was liberated by the Red Army. He wrote a book about how he got there and his time there. "If This Is a Man"

Posted by: freaked at January 21, 2018 09:26 AM (UdKB7)

92 Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield about the battle at Thermopylae. Most of the Richard Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwall. Seem to always reread them when I have nothing new to read.

Posted by: Morigu at January 21, 2018 09:26 AM (RjtEf)

93 Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (9q7Dl)

But what cologne were you wearing? What was playing on your car tape deck?

These are the kind of details the reader needs to know.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:26 AM (qJtVm)

94 The chandelier's ceiling medallion looks like it was carved by Billy Gibbons

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 09:27 AM (4u7kU)

95 Historical fiction, for me, starts with Robert Graves -- not just the Claudius novels ("I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God"); but also his lesser-known works: "Count Belisarius", about the great Byzantine general; "Hercules My Shipmate", (British title "The Golden Fleece") which retells the story of Jason and Argonauts; "Homer's Daughter", which retells the story of Odysseus' homecoming but in a very idiosyncratic way; "The Islands of Unwisdom", which describes a doomed Spanish voyage to the South Pacific in the 16th century; "King Jesus", which concerns the life of Christ; the Sergeant Lamb books, which concern a Welsh sergeant during the American revolutionary war -- and many others. All are well researched, beautifully written, well worth reading.

There's the Aubrey-Maturin novels and the Hornblower novels: enough said.

I should also add to those John Roberts' SPQR novels, which concern a minor senator in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar, observing the end of the Republic and its replacement by the imperial system. While these are detective novels, they are excellent historical fiction in their own right, in the portrait they present of life in Rome at its apex: I recommend them most highly!

Posted by: Brown Line at January 21, 2018 09:27 AM (S6ArX)

96 And now its Wayfaring Stranger--oh Lord.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:27 AM (nBr1j)

97 For me all Nevil Shute books fit in the category of
contemporary stories that are now historical fiction. He was a stellar
writer.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 21, 2018 09:21 AM (hyuyC)
======================I remember avidly reading On The Beach as a teenager. Haven't read his stuff in decades.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:27 AM (ylUqT)

98 People store newspapers on a shelf?
Posted by: Acme Trucking Enterprises, White Truck Division at January 21, 2018 08:58 AM

You have shelves? Luxury!

Posted by: @JRandomMoron at January 21, 2018 09:28 AM (DMUuz)

99 I recently read "Night" by Elie Wiesel.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:28 AM (gz5SW)

100 Patrick O'Brian. Hands down, to not coin a phrase.

Posted by: Jake from State Farm at January 21, 2018 09:29 AM (Jj+59)

101 Favorite Historical Fiction novel.

Tides of War by Steven Pressfield. It is the story of the Peloponnesian War told by a soldier and his interaction with the great general Alcibiades.

Others pick Gates of Fire as his best work.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 09:29 AM (2DOZq)

102 I would like to thank whomever recommended Librivox last week. It's an audible app of public domain books. I downloaded it to my phone and am halfway through "Moby Dick". I listen in my work truck.

I've tried to read MD several times and just couldn't do it. The LV version is awesome.

Highly recommend the service and thank you very much to the moron that mentioned it!

If you're on a computer all day at work and can listen to whatever you want, you can "read" books on a regular computer too with LV.

Posted by: weirdflunky at January 21, 2018 09:30 AM (gPqsc)

103 I picked up a bunch of Dorothy Dunnett books a while back but never got around to reading them. Is there one of her series that's a good place to start? I likely to have a LOT of time to read this summer and I'm putting together a list of books to have on hand.

Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 09:30 AM (V+03K)

104 I still have the Lady Godiva painting open in a tab.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM (fuK7c)

There was antique dealer in Chicago that I used to buy from in the 70's. You would have liked her. She watched her shop in a bikini

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 09:30 AM (4u7kU)

105 So, if one "Coins" a phrase, but not in the correct sense, is it a counterfeit phrase ?

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:30 AM (gz5SW)

106 Though it isn't fiction, it reads as such so I recommend The Professor And The Madman by Simon Winchester. It recounts the writing of the first OED.

https://preview.tinyurl.com/yczxgzfo

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:31 AM (ylUqT)

107 106-

Yes; That was a good book.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:31 AM (8+Ozj)

108 At some point in my youth, now long ago and far away, I read a lot of young adult historical fiction by Noel Gerson. Much of his work focused on minor characters of the American Revolution, such as "Light Horse" Harry Lee.

He seems to be mostly out of print these days. Too patriotic?

Posted by: LochLomondFarms at January 21, 2018 09:32 AM (zQ1RI)

109 99
I recently read "Night" by Elie Wiesel.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:28 AM (gz5SW)
==================
Love Weisel's writing, even in his most sobering books.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:33 AM (ylUqT)

110 I remember avidly reading On The Beach as a teenager. Haven't read his stuff in decades.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:27 AM (ylUqT)

Great book, but don't want to read anything else from the author. I don't handle disappointment well.

Posted by: Acme Trucking Enterprises, White Truck Division at January 21, 2018 09:34 AM (2FqvZ)

111 Print is dead.

Posted by: Igon Spengler at January 21, 2018 09:34 AM (Zz0t1)

112 Much of his work focused on minor characters of the American Revolution, such as "Light Horse" Harry Lee.

He seems to be mostly out of print these days. Too patriotic?

Nowadays, it seems Light in the Loafers Lee is getting all the attention.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:34 AM (gz5SW)

113 109 99
I recently read "Night" by Elie Wiesel.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:28 AM (gz5SW)
==================
Love Weisel's writing, even in his most sobering books.
Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:33 AM (ylUqT)

I loved Night. Most recently I read Dawn about the execution of a British soldier.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:34 AM (nBr1j)

114 110: I enjoyed "A Town Like Alice" as well. The British TV production was pretty well done too

Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 09:36 AM (5gaNQ)

115 Straight from the ONT to the book thread....my OCD.....reeee...

Posted by: steevy at January 21, 2018 09:36 AM (LiyEm)

116 re-read "The Perelandra Trilogy" by C.S. Lewis last year - hadn't touched it in 30-odd years, but it still held up - maybe not as exciting as it was, but oddly relevant to these times. Also reccomend "King Jesus" by Graves - also read many years ago and loved it then - need to re-read it I suppose...

Posted by: geezer der mensch at January 21, 2018 09:36 AM (Ng5NT)

117 Posted by: weirdflunky at January 21, 2018 09:30 AM (gPqsc)

Librivox and Text-to-Speech are the only way I got through Moby Dick, War and Peace, Don Quixote, etc. No, I don't catch or remember everything, but it's still far ahead of *nothing* which was the other option.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 09:37 AM (rp9xB)

118 The Pit of Xath.
Is that what we're calling Hillary!'s nethers now?
Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 09:11 AM

I've always imagined it to be more like a sarlacc, as lived in the Great Pit of Carkoon.

Posted by: @JRandomMoron at January 21, 2018 09:38 AM (DMUuz)

119 For me, in the eternal "History v Historical Fiction" debate, it comes down to the central focus of the main characters. If the central characters are fictitious, and they occasionally interact with historical figures, fine (Cornwell, Forester). But if the central figures are historical, with the author projecting thoughts and actions onto a real person (no matter how well researched).... I'd rather stick with a history book.

Posted by: goatexchange at January 21, 2018 09:38 AM (YFnq5)

120 Love Weisel's writing, even in his most sobering books.

I knew going in that it was gonna be gut wrenching,

Simon Weisanthal was a guest speaker at my college back in the day.

THAT guy was a presence.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:38 AM (gz5SW)

121 Going to church this morning. I wouldn't miss it, but I'm afraid it will be too intense.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:39 AM (nBr1j)

122 I still have the Lady Godiva painting open in a tab.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:24 AM

You know you can "Save image as ...", and then make it your wallpaper, right?

Posted by: @JRandomMoron at January 21, 2018 09:40 AM (DMUuz)

123 Off to start my day, since I am on church strike. I'm still upset at the minister's calling Trump a racist in their sermon last week. Very depressing to see where the Episcopal Church is nowadays. I hope the breakaway effort gains steam, and soon.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:40 AM (ylUqT)

124 Perfect timing on this week's light reading since I did pick Close-Hauled by Rob Avery. The protagonist is a U.S. Navy Master-at-Arms who accidentally finds a retired Navy Lieutenant that has been murdered. He winds up investigating a big smuggling operation and is identified as the prime suspect in the murders. Pretty good yarn that kept my interest although the author did telegraph one of the twists and a character that I suspected to be involved in the smuggling operation was revealed at the conclusion of the novel. Rating = 4/5.

Despite being a defense attorney, Avery seems to respect police officers and the U.S. military. I suspect that he might be politically conservative because characters talk about how the government should keep its hands out of people's pockets and the "good Reagan years."

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 21, 2018 09:41 AM (5Yee7)

125 I watched "Tailor, Tinker,Soldier,Spy" last night....having not read the novel, it was a bit hard to follow. Anyone read Le Carre, Ludlum..."Spy genre"?

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 09:41 AM (0+nbW)

126 Mary Renault was an early and outstanding writer of historical fiction centering around ancient Greece. My favorites are The King Must Die, Fire From Heaven, The Mask off Apollo, and The Last of the Wine. (fair warning: she deals with the issue of homosexuality by simply recognizing it as a fact of life - a non-issue).

I second. the recommendations for McCullough's series on the fall of the Roman Republic, and Sharon Kay Penman novels of twelfth through 14th century England/Wales.

Bernard Cornwell has done a lot of stand alones along with his series things re: Napoleonic wars and the Saxon/Dane/Briton saga.
I think he is hit and miss and don't really trust his 'history'.

Actually, if one can get past the 'Western' label, L'Amour's Sacketts are really good historical novels.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 09:42 AM (NIA7/)

127 It recounts the writing of the first OED.

https://preview.tinyurl.com/yczxgzfo

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:31 AM (ylUqT)

========

Ie. the most pointless book since "How to Speak French" was translated into French.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at January 21, 2018 09:42 AM (/qEW2)

128 Librivox and Text-to-Speech are the only way I got through Moby Dick, War and Peace, Don Quixote, etc.

To stay book thread compliant: (a) I love Moby Dick. I read it as an adult a few years ago, so just shy of 29; (ii) I've never read War and Peace, that would be one of my life's failings;

(trois) I absolutely hate Don Quixote and it's not my fault it's Cervantes'. Someone in the book thread a couple of years ago said oh check out the new translation and I did.

He makes fun of an idiot for no reason. Maybe there was supposed to be an allegory about something, but he's just cruel to his protagonist and it's not entertaining. I didn't finish the book because fuck him.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:42 AM (fuK7c)

129 123: I'm with you, except I'm jewish. Our rabbi Sharpton type pisses me off to no end with the "theology is sociology" crap and increasingly red perspective. I am looking elsewhere for religion.

Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 09:43 AM (5gaNQ)

130 I'm taking a brief reading break--just because. I'm thinking of picking up some C.S. Lewis or something really light.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:44 AM (nBr1j)

131 Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM

Thank you for the tip on "Hue 1968" being on sale.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 09:45 AM (GroCc)

132 Now on to Shake, Rattle and Roll by Willy Deville. Love him, if you're not familiar with him, check him out.
He sang the theme song of The Princess Bride.

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:45 AM (nBr1j)

133 Thanks; Eveyrtime that Metaxas book is mentioned, I think "Gee, I ought to find it" and of course, George Whitfield was a fascinating man with a captivating style. Even Ben Franklin enjoyed his sermons and Franklin could hardly be described as a very religious person.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 21, 2018 09:20 AM (8+Ozj)

True, but he did recognize the value of religion in public life, and contributed his own money towards the building of synagogues and Catholic churches in Philadelphia.

Posted by: Coily at January 21, 2018 09:47 AM (ANIFC)

134 Off spring sprite sock!

Posted by: josephistan at January 21, 2018 09:47 AM (ANIFC)

135 Off to start my day, since I am on church strike. I'm still upset at the minister's calling Trump a racist in their sermon last week. Very depressing to see where the Episcopal Church is nowadays. I hope the breakaway effort gains steam, and soon.

Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:40 AM (ylUqT)

========

ACNA (Anglican Church in North America) is a separate Anglican entity from the Episcopal Church, has been for several years.

Last I heard, 4 dioceses in the Episcopal Church broke away and joined it, Philadelphia, Fort Worth, South Carolina and San Joaquin.

ACNA is the breakaway.

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at January 21, 2018 09:48 AM (/qEW2)

136 I'm a fan of historical fiction, too. I've read Rutherford's Sarum and enjoyed it. I liked getting the history of England from pre-history to middle ages (I think). I have Paris and need to get started on that.

I've also read Follett's Pillars of the Earth which I greatly enjoyed. Yes, in some ways the characters were psychologically modern, but Follett also does a good job of making us understand how important the construction of the cathedral was, how that could dominate the people's thinking. I don't think there are any modern-day comparisons to how all-consuming the construction of an edifice for the glory of God could be. My one quibble with Pillars of the Earth was the sex scenes. Thankfully they are few and brief, but they read like a man's idea of what women want to read in a bodice ripper, really leaden and laughable.

Posted by: biancaneve at January 21, 2018 09:48 AM (A/iod)

137 Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 09:39 AM (nBr1j)

My deepest condolences. May your wife's memory be a blessing.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at January 21, 2018 09:49 AM (EZebt)

138 Nevil Shute's masterpiece was Round the Bend. He wrote A Town Like Alice to get funding for that book.

Ruined City, Pastoral and Trustee from the Toolroom are also top notch.

I own all of his books, including his autobiography Slide Rule.

I've even read a book of literary criticism on him. *spit*

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 21, 2018 09:49 AM (hyuyC)

139 Actually, if one can get past the 'Western' label, L'Amour's Sacketts are really good historical novels.

His last book "Last of the Breed" was excellent.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:50 AM (gz5SW)

140 I enjoyed BLOOD ROCK takes place during the great Malta siege of 1565, if you never read about the Malta Siege of 1565 that's very interesting and if the Turks got a foothold onto Malta and used it as a base maybe things would be different in the Mediterranean.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 09:50 AM (dKiJG)

141 Chore await. May every book you read bring you pleasure or knowledge, or speed the day -- both.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 21, 2018 09:50 AM (hyuyC)

142 Like goatexchange, I regard historical fiction as fictional characters and what they do imposed on a known, historical situation. It might be the Napoleonic Wars, Medieval England (Brother Cadfael), settling the colonial era American frontier, etc. If you have any interest in a place or historic time, it is a way to add zest to the topic without distorting the facts. If it's well done, historical fiction is very satisfying reading.

Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 09:51 AM (V+03K)

143 No love for the Flashman novels as historical fiction?

There's footnotes ... and boobs!

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 21, 2018 09:52 AM (pV/54)

144 140 I enjoyed BLOOD ROCK takes place during the great Malta siege of 1565, if you never read about the Malta Siege of 1565 that's very interesting and if the Turks got a foothold onto Malta and used it as a base maybe things would be different in the Mediterranean.
Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 09:50 AM (dKiJG)

In one of those funny quirks of history, the date the Turks were driven away from Malta was September 11th, the same date they would be driven away from the gates of Vienna in 1683.

Posted by: josephistan at January 21, 2018 09:52 AM (ANIFC)

145 Unless I missed it, no one has mentioned George Macdonald Frazier and his Flashman series? Great rollicking fun and pretty good history (as explained by Harry Flashman, anyway).
Also, Wibur Smith wrote some pretty good page turners about Africa, from the Zulu War through (nearly) present day.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at January 21, 2018 09:52 AM (ipyio)

146 No love for the Flashman novels as historical fiction?

There's footnotes ... and boobs!

Ya mean... like popups ?

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:53 AM (gz5SW)

147 Currently reading "Abandoned in Hell:The Fight for Firebase Kate" by William Albracht and Marvin J. Wolf

Very well written account and an amazing story of Captain Albracht's defense and escape from the firebase.
Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 21, 2018 09:13 AM (EoRCO)

I read that book a year or two ao : concur on the recommendation. What he did at Firebase Kate was truly amazing and instead of having his command completely slaughtered, he was able to save most them in a night-time exfiltration while being surrounded. The chapter at the end where he pretty casually mentions, "Oh, yeah, I was in the shit here, there and over there, too," is interesting.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 21, 2018 09:53 AM (5Yee7)

148 So, the wife and I found a tv series, "Murdoch Mysteries" that we enjoy, though the suspension of disbelief is pushed to its limits and beyond. Anyway, just a lot of fun to watch, for the most part.

Anyway, I decided I'd try to read the books upon which the "Murdoch" series is based and it was one of those few times the tv program is better than the book.

Posted by: Blake at January 21, 2018 09:53 AM (WEBkv)

149 I've always enjoyed me some James Michener since highschool and i am old.

Just started 'Texas'....again.

Finished 'Poland' last week.

Posted by: Lone ranger at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (eup66)

150 I know it's the book thread, but could use a few prayers for our friend, George. He had another heart attack yesterday and it's not looking good. We just got back from the ICU.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (Lqy/e)

151 Actually, the under-butler would tell one of the footmen to summon the chauffeur and the gardener and they would throw you out.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez, they are gaslighting us 24/365 at January 21, 2018 09:57 AM (oVWx5)

152 Very depressing to see where the Episcopal Church is nowadays. I hope the breakaway effort gains steam, and soon.
Posted by: Huck Follywood, critic de Cinema Verite at January 21, 2018 09:40 AM (ylUqT)

It's been going on for a long time. Back in the 60s I was an alter boy and the parish minister asked my opinion on attracting young people with folk services. Even though I was young I knew that my response, a cleaned up version of "I think that sucks maximum cock because the liturgy is fine as is without attracting a bunch of fuckheads and cocksuckers while pissing off the existing flock", wouldn't be well received and, since I thought he might exert some influence on whether I went to heaven or Hell, I gave him an extremely tepid response. So he did it and a massive clusterfuck ensued.

The downhill slide was just beginning. I haven't been back in decades. Mrs H is Lutheran so I'd go with her sporadically, it was ok but I found their liturgy very unsatisfying, and then she got pissed off at them for different reasons so we've been heathens for a while.

Posted by: Captain Hate at January 21, 2018 09:58 AM (y7DUB)

153 My local Post Office has a book swap and I picked up "Texas".

I'd read it before and now it's in my que.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 09:58 AM (gz5SW)

154 I've always enjoyed me some James Michener since highschool and i am old.

Michener went to my high school. So did Smerconish. And Pink.

Weird place.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:59 AM (fuK7c)

155 I like today's library, but like one of the commenters above - get rid of the show-set desk and chair, and put in some lovely deep leather-upholstered armchairs (with matching tuffets) and a sofa - and that's a library to die for. Or to live in and hardly ever leave, save for having one of the maids bring in a meal on a tray.
Historical fiction - love-love-love! I would, since I write the stuff myself. From when I could read books without any pictures in them, I vacuumed up HF from the shelves at the public library. My very favorite is Rosemary Sutcliff, who did write a couple of novels for the above-the-age of teens set. Sword at Sunset, which retells the story of King Arthur, as a Romano-British commander of cavalry in the 6th century. Rider on a White Horse, which deals with the English Civil War, and follows Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife, Anne -- who joined him in his campaigns in the North.
I also recommend Dorothy Dunnet's Lymond novels - I first found one of her books on the shelf of the common room in an English youth hostel, and liked it so much that I had to buy the others in the series when I got home. Let's see - I did read a fair number of James Michener's historicals; Centennial and The Source are about the best. After a while, I think his books became rather a formula. Rutherford - Sarum is pretty good, London is a bit of a familiar formula. I'll chime in again in the thread, as other great historical novel titles occur to me.
The thing is - historical novels are a sort of gateway drug into an interest in history, especially if they are well-researched. Get interested in the period or the personalities, and pretty soon you might be doing serious research...

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 21, 2018 10:00 AM (xnmPy)

156 Finished 'Poland' last week.

Posted by: Lone ranger at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (eup66)

So did we!

Posted by: The Wermacht, October 1939 at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (wYseH)

157 30 My favorite Historical fiction author is Steven Pressfield. I've read everything he has written. Ironically he also has written a Future Fiction book called The Profession which has been eerily accurate in some aspects.

He also wrote Legend of Bagger Vance .
Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 09:06 AM (2DOZq)

One of my favorite parts of The Profession was how Trump owned CNN in the future setting. Ended up being true in a metaphorical sense at least.

Posted by: Biggs Darklighter at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (2EYE1)

158 Day #2 Government Shutdown
It is apparent that zoos and wildlife parks in FLA have open their gates and abandoned all hope of government subsidies to feed animals and lure in unsuspecting yankee tourists. Rarely see wildebeest or Thompsons Gazelle this far north and small herd of each were watering at creek/greenspace dividing my neighborhood. Took a yearling wildebeest (120 kg) and gazelle buck (only have 5.56 rounds) so we should have meat through Wednesday. Keep your powder dry and canteens full.

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (BtQd4)

159 For my historical fiction, I just finished "The Scourge of God" by William Dietrich about Attila the Hun and "Innocent Traitor" by Alison Weir about Lady Jane Grey. Poor Jane!

Posted by: jmel at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (OeWgo)

160 Like Salty, my chores await.

Best wishes to my fellow Bookthreadists.

Posted by: JT at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (gz5SW)

161 150 I know it's the book thread, but could use a few prayers for our friend, George. He had another heart attack yesterday and it's not looking good. We just got back from the ICU.
Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (Lqy/e)

Prayers up for your friend

Posted by: josephistan at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (ANIFC)

162 Goatexchange @ 119 -

I'm just the opposite. I want my authors to have done the research necessary to provide 'motivation and character' to significant historical persons and have the discipline to 'color within the lines' of history. I, too, read a lot of straight history and autobiographies; but I have not the wherewithal, time, or access to delve deeply into personalities and circumstances - I rely on others to do that.

Fiction writers have the freedom to create make believe characters and events outside the historical 'lines'. I want my historical fiction writers to be much more restricted and to have some responsibility to historical accuracy.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 10:02 AM (NIA7/)

163 "that look like historical fiction but were contemporary at the time. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Jane's Austen's books were seen like we see the current NY Times bestsellers, and that, for her audience, they were set in the present-day."

The American Winston Churchill--who always gets confused with the British Churchill--wrote both kinds of novels. His Civil War novel "The Crisis" is set in antebellum St Louis and the real life figures who appear in it include Grant in his pre-military days when he was struggling to make a living. It was, in fact, a yuge NYT best seller in its day (1901). His later, contemporary novels like "The Inside of the Cup" and "A Far Country" weren't as popular but they do provide an interesting look into the mindset of pre WWI America.

Posted by: Secret Square at January 21, 2018 10:02 AM (9WuX0)

164 But what cologne were you wearing? What was playing on your car tape deck?

These are the kind of details the reader needs to know.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 09:26 AM (qJtVm)

"Ah, details."

naturalfake waved a hand vaguely, sighed and relaxed into the cushy embrace of his baby rhino skin sofa, which had been hand painted by Peter Max with scenes of naturalfake's various triumphs, such as "The Case of the Russian Centipede".

He started reading "The Conversions" by Harry Matthew.

The ethereal sounds of "Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka" flowed from his Nakamichi cassette tape deck.

The melancholy music presaged the death of Brian Jones, soon to be found floating face down in his swimming pool. Not murdered in a fit of jealous rage as some supposed by Mick Jagger, but rather accidentally drowned by an Irish Each uisge, who was a fan of American Negro Blues sung in cockney accents.

Tying this all together, sofa, book, music, naturalfake himself was the rich ambergris enhanced scent of "The Blackest Soul of the Blackest Rose", the custom cologne, which Creed, perfumery to the famous and wealthy, had created for naturalfake and naturalfake alone...

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:02 AM (9q7Dl)

165 I like Janis Holt Giles. She write about early Kentucky. Her book on the Shakers "The Believers" is especially good.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 10:02 AM (Lqy/e)

166 Posted by: Lone ranger at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (eup66)

I think the first Michener I read was "The Source"...many years ago. I should re-visit it.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 10:03 AM (0+nbW)

167 Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:59 AM (fuK7c)

Bucks County?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 21, 2018 10:04 AM (wYseH)

168

Remember, remember the eleventh of September ... something ... something ... something, a date that should never be forgot.

Has a nice ring to it if you can just fill in the blanks.

Perhaps a mention of the Turks and Cake-o's and pirates in the Caribbean.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:04 AM (GroCc)

169 161 150 I know it's the book thread, but could use a few prayers for our friend, George. He had another heart attack yesterday and it's not looking good. We just got back from the ICU.
Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (Lqy/e)

Prayers up for your friend
Posted by: josephistan at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (ANIFC)

Praying

Posted by: Northernlurker, honestly this is family. I'm not lurking anymore. at January 21, 2018 10:05 AM (nBr1j)

170 From when I could read books without any pictures in them, ...

I would like to propose a sub-thread: what was your first non-picture book?

Mine was "Rascal", by Sterling North. Kid in 1918 Minnesota with the Spanish Influenza and the War and Lutherans in the background adopts an orphaned raccoon and after a year has to let him go.

I recently learned that all of Japan fell in love with that story and brought in raccoons because they somehow missed the entire point of the story which is that raccoons are wild and are not pets.

So Japan is overrun with raccoons now.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:06 AM (fuK7c)

171 Not Historical Fiction but I do enjoy Alternate History. Just got done reading Red Phoenix about North Korea invading the South in 1986 interesting read and since its before the Gulf War when nobody knew how good our Military really was as compared to Soviet tech.

The Sequel was just as good Red Phoenix Burning, I found this more interesting, a Coup kills the Kim's and leaves the North into chaos and factions fight for power. I felt the book was too short I felt it should have had a squad level insights like the first book.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 10:06 AM (dKiJG)

172 Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:02 AM (9q7Dl)

Nakamichi was high end gear....I've still got one in a closet 'round here somewhere.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 10:06 AM (0+nbW)

173 The downhill slide was just beginning. I haven't been back in decades. Mrs H is Lutheran so I'd go with her sporadically, it was ok but I found their liturgy very unsatisfying, and then she got pissed off at them for different reasons so we've been heathens for a while.
Posted by: Captain Hate at January 21, 2018 09:58 AM (y7DUB)

Same here for Mrs. Cop and myself, although we are Roman Catholics ourselves. I remember those folk services when I was kid in the late 60s-early 70s and even then I was thinking, "WTF?" You would think that the current Vicar of Christ would have better things to do about than natter about global warming, the evils of capitalism and giving Pontifical medals to abortionists. He seems to totally ignore the genocide of Christians in the Middle East. History will not be kind to Frankie the Red.

The Leftists have subverted the Catholic church and the leadership has gone all-in for globalism and collectivism.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 21, 2018 10:08 AM (5Yee7)

174 In an earlier comment I mentioned concentrating on wonderful writing and used Churchill and Lewis as examples. I should expand that to effective writing. That would include Louis L'Amour and Rex Stout. L'Amour can let you see the vistas and smell the camp fire smoke. Stout gives us delightful language use (he won my heart when Nero Wolfe used the word 'thaumaturge') and a feel for the time of the story.

Add essays of EB White and the humor of PG Wodehouse and you have years of exquisite reading ahead.

Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 10:09 AM (V+03K)

175 I would like to propose a sub-thread: what was your first non-picture book?

I don't remember my first non-picture book but I do remember my first SciFi book: Spacehounds of IPC by E. E. Smith.

My world was never the same.

Posted by: Grump928(C) at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM (WbIyz)

176 The issue of differences between men and women is really quite simple.

If you are a woman, gay man or mentally ill person who believes you are some gender other than as you were born: please compare, contrast and discuss. Your views are free to vacillate as convenience suits you.

If you are a heterosexual male, particularly a non-Muslim white male, shut up.

Posted by: xnycpeasant at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM (BsGS1)

177 Bucks County?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo

Yup. Was Doylestown High School in Michener's day, Central Bucks West in mine. Same school. Still there.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM (fuK7c)

178 Reminds me of an Episcopalian joke:

A life-long Episcopalian watches as the lesbian bishop processes in fully nude, offers prayers to Isis, Astarte and Moloch and then looks on approvingly as the choir begins an orgy right in front of the altar.

Our Episcopalian turns in disgust to his companion and says, "You know, if they change one more thing about the liturgy, I am outta here!!

Posted by: Steve and Cold Bear at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM (/qEW2)

179 Well done and thanks to the 'rons who mentioned Fraser and Flashman. That series is the epitome of Historical Fiction - the fictitious character interacts with history and historical figures, and provides a delicious explanation for actual events - researched and footnoted, all with a great style. And, as has been mentioned here before, Fraser's "Quartered Safe Out Here" is magnificent.

If, however, the story was inverted, for example, about Bismarck, and his artistic interaction with fictitious characters... well, i'd rather just read his biography.

Posted by: goatexchange at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM (YFnq5)

180 Nakamichi was high end gear....I've still got one in a closet 'round here somewhere.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 10:06 AM (0+nbW)

A younger me would've been jealous.

I aspired to one day having Nakamishi gear like I aspired to have a nice sports car.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:11 AM (9q7Dl)

181 Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:42 AM (fuK7c)

That's how I feel about Don Quixote as well. The side stories were sort of interesting, and he was somewhat less harsh to the main character in the second book, but over all I hated it. I've heard that it was a satire about a lazy, entitled, aristocrat retreating into delusion as a way to give himself an excuse to destroy the symbols of the advancing bourgeois (and can sort of see that and, given the delusions of our self-proclaimed "betters", it may even be relevant) but I don't enjoy satire and especially loathe book-length satire.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 10:11 AM (rp9xB)

182 That chair needs one of those tacky plastic mats underneath.
Posted by: Weasel at January 21, 2018 09:02 AM (Sfs6o)

Yeah, the chair has wheels. This might be the libarry of somebody with wealth, but it's not someone with taste.*

*full discloser, I am typing this whilst sitting on a chair with wheels.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:11 AM (Pz4pT)

183 California lawmakers want to claw back some of the money companies recieved from the Trump tax cuts...

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/286522/

Posted by: steevy at January 21, 2018 10:12 AM (LiyEm)

184 Tying this all together, sofa, book, music, naturalfake himself was the rich ambergris enhanced scent of "The Blackest Soul of the Blackest Rose", the custom cologne, which Creed, perfumery to the famous and wealthy, had created for naturalfake and naturalfake alone...
Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:02 AM (9q7Dl)
---
Please tell me it came in a vial carved from the thigh bone of Algernon Swinburne.

Just say it and you have a book and movie deal.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 10:13 AM (qJtVm)

185 Add me to the admirers of the Patrick O'Brian series of novels. My wonderful wife acquired the full collection for me some years ago and I have read them through 4 or 5 times.
I found the Gettysburg Trilogy by William Forstchen and Newt Gingrich to be an interesting read. Speculative "what-if" stories that alter the events of the Civil War but nonetheless kept me reading for hours. The depictions of battles and strategic considerations I found to be first rate. The three books are: Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat.

Posted by: George V at January 21, 2018 10:13 AM (LUHWu)

186 I would like to propose a sub-thread: what was your first non-picture book?
------------------------------------

I don't remember my first non-picture book but I do remember my first SciFi book: Spacehounds of IPC by E. E. Smith.

My world was never the same.
Posted by: Grump928(C) at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM

"The Stars are Ours" by Andre Norton. Read it at the start of sixth grade and it changed my world view for the rest of my life.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:15 AM (GroCc)

187 Oh, how could I forget the Flashman books - lovely, rollicking reads, extensively researched, with notes and background essays...

First non-picture fiction book: Mary Jane Carr - Children of the Covered Wagon. Still available on Amazon, says there are illustrations. Which I don't recall; maybe chapter heading small illustrations?

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 21, 2018 10:16 AM (xnmPy)

188 Yeah, the chair has wheels. This might be the libarry of somebody with wealth, but it's not someone with taste.

Yep, the picture doesn't look like a lieberry. Looks like a lawyer's office. Law books on the shelves would complete the look.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:17 AM (GroCc)

189 Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 10:09 AM (V+03K)

I do not know if it was my first but I do remember reading the Mouse and the a Motorcycle pretty early.

My all time favorite book as a kid was Captains Courageous.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:17 AM (2DOZq)

190 No ottomans

Posted by: Joan Crawford at January 21, 2018 10:18 AM (q70zf)

191 "The last chapter shows how Luther's faith and
courage gave us the beginnings of the ideals of liberty, equality, and
individualism that are at the heart of our modern life. Posted by: Zoltan

That sounds interesting. The strength to break from any strong social construct (the Borg) is generally admirable, though just being "counter-culture" without a thoughtful process of reason can be its own "cult", as much of the sixties was/became.

Most Catholics here and others I know in the US seem able to think on their own, at least on many issues. It may be that the printing press then, like the internet now, made centralized control difficult.

Posted by: illiniwek at January 21, 2018 10:18 AM (otAqJ)

192 Antemeridian salutations, Horde.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 10:19 AM (NWiLs)

193 I have decided to fervently hate the owner of this room, so now I've decided that the ceiling map was there when he bought the place with his parvenu fell into nouveau riches.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (fuK7c)

The library was designed by Iranian architectural desecrator Haleh Alemzadeh Niroo who "works in partnership with Niroo Masterpieces to conceptualize new quality estates" (translation: noveau riche clients with far more money than taste). Naturally, she is based in Washington, DC and registered as a Democrat. To my eye, her work is almost universally awful, but you can judge for yourself here: http://www.halehdesigninc.com/.

Posted by: cool breeze at January 21, 2018 10:19 AM (2cg7P)

194 I was told there would be James Mitchener.

Posted by: PhilDirt at January 21, 2018 10:20 AM (q70zf)

195 re: to coin a phrase.

Excuse me, but just because a couple of hipster dufus bloggers misuse a word out of ignorance doesn't mean that the definition has changed. That's just de-minted!

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:21 AM (wPiJc)

196 Thanks for the prayers for George. He's been diificult at times but had been trying to live differently since the first heart attack. He's in his fifties but ruined his body with meth. They really can't do anything else for him now. Wish he'd gone to the doctor earlier as he has looked unwell for weeks.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 10:22 AM (Lqy/e)

197 Add me to the admirers of the Patrick O'Brian series of novels. My wonderful wife acquired the full collection for me some years ago and I have read them through 4 or 5 times.

Posted by: George V at January 21, 2018 10:13 AM (LUHWu)

Mrs. Muse loves his seafaring novels, but she once made the mistake of Googling for information with the image search function on and I could hear her cries of disgust three rooms away.

Apparently, there's a gay porn actor named Patrick O'Brien...

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Global Rethinker at January 21, 2018 10:22 AM (79cAK)

198 Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:42 AM (fuK7c)

That's how I feel about Don Quixote as well. The side stories were sort of interesting, and he was somewhat less harsh to the main character in the second book, but over all I hated it. I've heard that it was a satire about a lazy, entitled, aristocrat retreating into delusion as a way to give himself an excuse to destroy the symbols of the advancing bourgeois (and can sort of see that and, given the delusions of our self-proclaimed "betters", it may even be relevant) but I don't enjoy satire and especially loathe book-length satire.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 10:11 AM (rp9xB)

Wow, I think you were misled then. It's not really satire. If you allowed yourselves to be forced to read it that way, somebody misled you.

Bander, Cervantes did NOT make fun of his protagonist. He allowed a man, who was clearly psychotic, to roam the world, having adventures, during which MOST people he encountered tolerated him beyond the point of expectation, and he was indulged in his fantasies way more than THIS world would do. And all throughout, we are treated to a man who, while clearly insane, is also kind and smart and wise and witty. He entertain, and some people use his insanity for their own purposes, but for the most part, he's not really harmed by them. Except when he sorta deserves it.

Cervantes presents Quixote as he is, and allows the world to respond to him. It's not really satire at all! Sure, there's some mild class stuff there, but then in Cervantes' day, there couldn't not be.

And in the end, he's redeemed in peace. Surrounded by people who love him and care for him. And Sancho returns to his family, humbled somewhat, because of the two, perhaps he should have known better, and he is none the worse for his adventure either.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:22 AM (Pz4pT)

199 The library was designed by Iranian architectural desecrator Haleh Alemzadeh Niroo who "works in partnership with Niroo Masterpieces to conceptualize new quality estates"

Wow. That read like parody but I clicked through and ... wow.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:23 AM (fuK7c)

200 We have discussed it before but the Scholastic Book Club was the greatest thing to me as a kid in school. Ordering the books and the anticipation of them being delivered was like waiting for Christmas morning.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:23 AM (2DOZq)

201 pants would be required in that library ... would make me feel too ostentatious.

Posted by: illiniwek at January 21, 2018 10:24 AM (otAqJ)

202 prayers for George, Notsothoreau

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 10:24 AM (hMwEB)

203 Posted by: cool breeze at January 21, 2018 10:19 AM (2cg7P)

I wouldn't call it awful, but it feels prefabricated and predigested for easy consumption. This is what a rich person's house looks like.

If I'm gonna go nouveau riche, it better have some gilt cherubs and maroon velvet flock wallpaper.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 10:24 AM (qJtVm)

204 Please tell me it came in a vial carved from the thigh bone of Algernon Swinburne.

Just say it and you have a book and movie deal.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 10:13 AM (qJtVm)

"The Blackest Soul of the Blackest Rose" was housed in a vial carved from the thighbone of Mata Hari and inscribed with salacious illustrations from the forbidden, and thought to be lost, parts of the Kama Sutra.

(Sorry.

)

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:25 AM (9q7Dl)

205 Bander, Cervantes did NOT make fun of his protagonist. He allowed a man, who was clearly psychotic, to roam the world, having adventures, during which MOST people he encountered tolerated him beyond the point of expectation, and he was indulged in his fantasies way more than THIS world would do.

OK, those are interesting points. I may give him another chance with that in mind.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:26 AM (fuK7c)

206 I would like to propose a sub-thread: what was your first non-picture book?

******

I would guess it was Hardy Boys mysteries

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:27 AM (wPiJc)

207 The library was designed by Iranian architectural desecrator Haleh Alemzadeh Niroo who "works in partnership with Niroo Masterpieces to conceptualize new quality estates" (translation: noveau riche clients with far more money than taste). Naturally, she is based in Washington, DC and registered as a Democrat. To my eye, her work is almost universally awful, but you can judge for yourself here: http://www.halehdesigninc.com/.
Posted by: cool breeze at January 21, 2018 10:19 AM (2cg7P)

The kitchen is cookie-cutter. It's nice but uninspired. It looks like every other kitchen I've seen in recently-built gated community houses. The other rooms are either French aristocracy gaudy or movie-set artificial. There's no soul or personality.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 10:27 AM (NWiLs)

208 Most Catholics here and others I know in the US seem able to think on their own, at least on many issues. It may be that the printing press then, unlike the internet now, made centralized control difficult.

Posted by: illiniwek at January 21, 2018 10:18 AM (otAqJ)

========

FIFY.

Posted by: Messrs. Dorsey, Zuck & Schmidt at January 21, 2018 10:28 AM (/qEW2)

209 Meth has to be the worst drug out there. I wonder if the CIA distributed it to do away with white people? /s

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:28 AM (2DOZq)

210 Yeah, the chair has wheels. This might be the libarry of somebody with wealth, but it's not someone with taste.
--------------------------------
Yep, the picture doesn't look like a lieberry. Looks like a lawyer's office. Law books on the shelves would complete the look.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:17 AM (GroCc)

Behind the chair, a model ship. So... for some reason, I decided, this is the libarry of a highly successful insurance salesman.

Off to the side, where we can't see, a huge plasma tv. Or possibly a pinball machine, with flashy cartoony bikini clad chicks and hot cars.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:29 AM (Pz4pT)

211 The desk doesn't look English and it is most certainly not 18th century
Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 09:05 AM (4u7kU)

The desk and shelving look to be made in the Federalist style.

Posted by: Traveling Man at January 21, 2018 10:29 AM (R5lpX)

212 No way could i remember my first non-picture book... but an early possibility might be "A Boy Ten Feet Tall." The SBC was also a fabulous resource. I am sure i plunged directly into WWII history books by age 8 or so, as my dad and all my friends dad's were WWII vets.

Posted by: goatexchange at January 21, 2018 10:30 AM (YFnq5)

213 Past Obsession by Richard Kieth Taylor. I'm a sucker for time travel. This is about a freelance writer who gets an assignment to do a piece on an unknown artist gruseomely murdered in 1942 who is now becoming very well respected. Seeing her self pPast Obsession by Richard Kieth Taylor. I'm a sucker for time travel. This is about a freelance writer who gets an assignment to do a piece on an unknown artist gruseomely murdered in 1942 who is now becoming very well respected. Seeing her self portrait causes him to become obsessed with her eventually leading him to believe he knew her in life. He decides he must travel 75 years back in time and save her. But writers (Ace excluded) don't have ready access to time machines so he . . . .

I liked this book but was rather dissatisfied by the ending. I didn't know why because I didn't see it coming (although there were clues). I eventually decided it ended too abruptly leaving loose ends I was very interested in following up. Things I did like were the seeming historical accuracy (with one glaring exception), the contrast between LA in 1942 and today, and speculation on the nature of time; is it flexible like a rubberband, set like a bug in amber, or an infinite number of dimensions? The one historical inaccuracy is that in order to convince a character that our hero is a time travelor and not a psycho he describes the results of the Battle Midway which are confirmed in the local paper the day after the battle. Such information was not publicly available and certainly not that quickly.

I recommend this book for any time travel fans. I thought it was well written and excitingortrait causes him to become obsessed with her eventually leading him to believe he knew her in life. He decides he must travel 75 years back in time and save her. But writers (Ace excluded) don't have ready access to time machines so he . . . .

I liked this book but was rather dissatisfied by the ending. I didn't know why because I didn't see it coming (although there were clues). I eventually decided it ended too abruptly leaving loose ends I was very interested in following up. Things I did like were the seeming historical accuracy (with one glaring exception), the contrast between LA in 1942 and today, and speculation on the nature of time; is it flexible like a rubberband, set like a bug in amber, or an infinite number of dimensions? The one historical inaccuracy is that in order to convince a character that our hero is a time travelor and not a psycho he describes the results of the Battle Midway which are confirmed in the local paper the day after the battle. Such information was not publicly available and certainly not that quickly.

I recommend this book for any time travel fans. I thought it was well written and exciting

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Help! The Deranged Beavers Are Trying To Kill Me! at January 21, 2018 10:30 AM (+y/Ru)

214 Missing church because I'm home sick, and reading historical fiction Christmas gift the Killer Angels as we speak.

Speaking of church, God help us all if that "OMG men and women are like, totes different on the inside, guys!" blurb is real.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Bama's Boot Stomping on the Face of College Football Forever at January 21, 2018 10:31 AM (ks6bw)

215 209 Meth has to be the worst drug out there. I wonder if the CIA distributed it to do away with white people? /s

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:28 AM (2DOZq)

You might as well start and spread the rumor.

It would be of a piece with Obama's racist polarization of the FBI, DOJ, etc

and thus........believable!

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:31 AM (9q7Dl)

216 My first non-picture book. Wow! Talk about returning to the misty past!

I am guessing but it was probably one of the Hardy Boys books. I was in second grade when I read Heinlein's "The Rolling Stones" and I know I was reading non-picture books before then. I did keep a dictionary handy as my grandfather required. I wasnt allowed to ask about a word or phrase if I hadn't tried the dictionary first. If it was still beyond me, questions were welcomed. It was an effective approach.

It was a couple of years later that I discovered 'Doc' Smith's Lensman series, then the Skylark series. I've been re-reading and enjoying them ever since.

Posted by: JTB at January 21, 2018 10:31 AM (V+03K)

217 The Killer Angels is excellent, btw.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Bama's Boot Stomping on the Face of College Football Forever at January 21, 2018 10:32 AM (ks6bw)

218 I have to admit that a large part of my reading when I was a kid was Archie and Richie Rich comic books.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:32 AM (2DOZq)

219 And speaking of libraries, my husband has put on a small event at the central Multnomah county library, for about ten years. They have these great old boat magazine in their closed stacks. The guys from the Messabout group go and read the books and talk boats. Some come up from Eugene for it. We have a perfect record for returning the books and it is open to the public.

The guy we've always worked with retired. The new guy gave us a lot of grief. Wasn't going to let us use the room at first, until reassured it was open to the public. Then told us that we had to check out all the books on the morning of the event. Fortunately the folks doing the actual work had it ready for us. It went okay but we think this may be our last time. If we had a get together for transgender boat builders, we'd probably be fine.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 10:32 AM (Lqy/e)

220 Behind the chair, a model ship.

Now if this were a model ship he built from a Revell kit back when he was a kid and he'd saved it because, like, Rosebud, he might have a soul.

I think that Iranian girl designer just bought it off Ebay.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:32 AM (fuK7c)

221 I have decided to fervently hate the owner of this
room, so now I've decided that the ceiling map was there when he bought
the place with his parvenu fell into nouveau riches.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 09:16 AM (fuK7c)

Ask instead why he chose to sit directly under Iceland, ey?

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 10:33 AM (2K6fY)

222 Going to have to say it looks like a girls desk.

Posted by: Weasel at January 21, 2018 10:33 AM (Sfs6o)

223 Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:22 AM (Pz4pT)

Except that he's *not* kind, smart, wise, or witty. At all. He's a jerk who demands others support his delusion. He routinely damaged the lives of those who had done him no harm and left those he "helped" worse off than they had been while preening himself on his goodness. If it isn't satire there's even less use for it.

Yes, in the second book he does better. But that was because Cervantes realized everyone had misunderstood the first book and if *he* didn't profit from turning it into a more straight-forward adventure story someone else would. He says as much in the forward to the second volume.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 10:33 AM (rp9xB)

224 Bander, Cervantes did NOT make fun of his protagonist. He allowed a man, who was clearly psychotic, to roam the world, having adventures, during which MOST people he encountered tolerated him beyond the point of expectation, and he was indulged in his fantasies way more than THIS world would do.

--------------------
OK, those are interesting points. I may give him another chance with that in mind.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:26 AM (fuK7c)

What I know of Cervantes is not much, but I believe he was a p.o.w. at one point, in some war or another with the Turks/Moors/Whatever, and he was definitely writing under the auspices of a wealthy patron.

I wonder how much of this is exaggerated autobiography. How much did Cervantes roam the world (in his youth, not as a senior, as Quixote is), having adventures, observing the insanity and the futility of it all.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:33 AM (Pz4pT)

225 Past Obsession by Richard Kieth Taylor. I'm a sucker for time travel. This is about a freelance writer who gets an assignment to do a piece on an unknown artist gruseomely murdered in 1942 who is now becoming very well respected. Seeing her self pPast Obsession by Richard Kieth Taylor. I'm a sucker for time travel. This is about a freelance writer who gets an assignment to do a piece on an unknown artist gruseomely murdered in 1942 who is now becoming very well respected. Seeing

-

Okay, that was a wonderful accident considering the topic.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Bama's Boot Stomping on the Face of College Football Forever at January 21, 2018 10:34 AM (ks6bw)

226 To coin a phrase, all that glitters is not gold.

Did I do it right?

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:34 AM (2DOZq)

227 My father gave me 'Robinson Crusoe' by Defoe when i was 7 or 8.
But i think it had illustrations at the begining of each chapter,

I thank the horde for all the authors and books that have been mentioned.

This afternoon shall be spent at the downtown library.

Posted by: Lone ranger at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (eup66)

228 There's a book I really want to read. It's called "The FISA-702 House Intelligence Memo". But Democrats won't let me.

Which is odd because they read it.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (Ndje9)

229 Hmmm Haleh design ~ I am guessing is for those persons at the head of government in the Syrian regime who got out just before the sh*t hit the fan and they are redecorating their $100M (yes I got it from confiscating the oil wealth of those families I raped, tortured and murdered for fun~ How else is a guy supposed to make a living?!) homes in florida. Sort of in the Beauty and the Beast "after the curse got lifted" style. You know: reserved and demure.

Posted by: Publius Redux at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (0YSzp)

230 Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:22 AM (Pz4pT)

Except that he's *not* kind, smart, wise, or witty. At all. He's a jerk who demands others support his delusion. He routinely damaged the lives of those who had done him no harm and left those he "helped" worse off than they had been while preening himself on his goodness. If it isn't satire there's even less use for it.

Yes, in the second book he does better. But that was because Cervantes realized everyone had misunderstood the first book and if *he* didn't profit from turning it into a more straight-forward adventure story someone else would. He says as much in the forward to the second volume.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 10:33 AM (rp9xB)

I'm sorry you see it that way. I mean no disrespect, but it's not because it's not there. It's because you've chosen not to see it.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (Pz4pT)

231 Looks to me like the Chandelier of Damocles.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (wPiJc)

232 Same school. Still there.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:10 AM (fuK7c)

That's a nice part of PA. I have spent some time along the Delaware in that area. And I went to school about 20 miles east of there....

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 21, 2018 10:36 AM (wYseH)

233 209 Meth has to be the worst drug out there. I wonder if the CIA distributed it to do away with white people? /s

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:28 AM (2DOZq)

Meth is the drug our parents warned us about, back in the day. Everything they said about the dangers of marijuana LSD, and cocaine is true for meth. It's almost impossible to exaggerate how bad it is.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Global Rethinker at January 21, 2018 10:36 AM (79cAK)

234 I wish I had a nickel for every time I had coined a phrase.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:37 AM (wPiJc)

235 Meth is the drug our parents warned us about, back in the day. Everything they said about the dangers of marijuana LSD, and cocaine is true for meth. It's almost impossible to exaggerate how bad it is.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Global Rethinker at January 21, 2018 10:36 AM (79cAK)

But does it lead to frenetic ragtime piano playing?

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 10:37 AM (NWiLs)

236 231 Looks to me like the Chandelier of Damocles.
Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (wPiJc)

I saw Frodo and the Rings of Boom open for Chandelier of Damocles back in 1977.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Global Rethinker at January 21, 2018 10:38 AM (79cAK)

237 wish I had a nickel for every time I had coined a phrase.
Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:37 AM (wPiJc)

That was a triple lindy you just pulled off. Impressive.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:38 AM (2DOZq)

238 234 I wish I had a nickel for every time I had coined a phrase.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:37 AM (wPiJc)

I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous.

Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Global Rethinker at January 21, 2018 10:39 AM (79cAK)

239 231 Looks to me like the Chandelier of Damocles.
Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (wPiJc)

Pretty sure that's what happens to tampons when moistened

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 10:39 AM (4u7kU)

240 Brian Jones was murdered by a thug doing construction work for him. There were multiple witnesses but they were too scared to talk. The interesting thing is the thug later claimed to have gotten a death bed confession from one of his workers. The cops knew who did it but couldn't prove it. Can't remember the name of the thug right now.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (Lqy/e)

241 That's is one expensive room. The dude has a frigging world map for a ceiling.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (aMlLZ)

242

Now that the government is shutdown, Planet Earth risks ... an undetected asteroid strike!

That's the warning coming from CNN, anyway.

Reporter Tom Foreman on Friday hyped the threat posed by the government shutdown, citing a pause in some senior nutrition programs, a loss of scientific research, and NASA's asteroid monitoring system. Worse, an asteroid is coming February 4th, he said.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (IqV8l)

243
To my eye, her work is almost universally awful, but you can judge for yourself

The taste ... it is all in her mouth!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (pNxlR)

244 " It may be that the printing press then, unlike the internet now, made centralized control difficult.

Posted by: illiniwek ========

FIFY. Posted by: Messrs. Dorsey, Zuck Schmidt

ha, good point, certainly Google FB the rest are trying to censor and control via such control, even reading our private messages.

BUT overall I think the individual has more access to alternative media. Governments also tried to control the print media, NYSlimes still adjusts their top ten book lists so some don't appear. But today even a moron can be published. (though under a President Hillary that might have been dangerous)

Posted by: illiniwek at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (otAqJ)

245
Worse, an asteroid is coming February 4th, he said.

Do you now see how Pooty-Poot's evil design comes to fruition?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at January 21, 2018 10:42 AM (pNxlR)

246 That's is one expensive room. The dude has a frigging world map for a ceiling.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (aMlLZ)

I have to admit, that is the one thing I really like in that room.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:42 AM (2DOZq)

247 Brian Jones was murdered by a thug doing construction work for him.

That's the story line in a movie that came out a few years ago. If anything, it was an assist. Brian Jones was very thoroughly killing himself at the time.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:42 AM (fuK7c)

248 I missed the Avery recommendations earlier. On the one hand, I'm cool toward Parker and positively dislike Macdonald. On the other, well, it's sailing. I did like John R L Anderson's Death in the North Sea.

When I was younger, my preferred reading position was sideways in an easy chair with rounded arms. Mom kept objecting, though. Claimed it was bad for the chair and my back; I've always believed it was just the maternal hatred of anything not done her way. But I got such a chair in college.

For my money, O'Brian and Graves stand atop historical fiction. I'm not sure there's even a third. Maybe Irving on New Amsterdam.

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 10:43 AM (+TcCF)

249 That's is one expensive room. The dude has a frigging world map for a ceiling.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 10:40 AM (aMlLZ)

I have to admit, that is the one thing I really like in that room.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 10:42 AM (2DOZq)

I know, that's intense. Convenient too.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 10:45 AM (aMlLZ)

250 That ceiling looks a bit like it came from one of those snazzy wallpaper companies.

My Mom, who was an Interior Designer, would occasionally use these really cool wallpapers with historical scenes set in China or Africa or English fox hunts,Indians (both kinds), Morocco, etc.,

that were reproductions of 19th and early 20th century wallpapers.

Sort of like this companies stuff:

http://www.aldiament.com

But, better. Can't remember the companies name right now.

Those would be hellacool assuming you had the vast empty wallspace required.

I don't.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:45 AM (9q7Dl)

251 That's is one expensive room. The dude has a frigging world map for a ceiling.

After those details were pointed out, antique map on the ceiling, model warship behind the desk, I'll have to revise my conclusion. Could still be a lawyer's office but might be third generation trust fund baby who inherited the family fortune made in the shipping industry or in the ship building trade.

Although, insurance salesman is still a good bet. Loyds of London, third generation, perhaps.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:46 AM (GroCc)

252 To my eye, her work is almost universally awful, but you can judge for yourself here: http://www.halehdesigninc.com/.
Posted by: cool breeze at January 21, 2018 10:19 AM (2cg7P)

Ack! I had to stop scrolling. Too much blonde, everywhere. It's like someone threw up cream all over the place.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:46 AM (Pz4pT)

253 Haleh design ~ It's blah in an overdone way. There's an entry hall that looks like typical American design and it's clear the "designers" added a lattice archway just to add something. Looks flimsy and out-of-place.

I'm returning Corey's Leviathan Wakes unfinished. Better luck in the summer, when I have more free time.

I bought a Kindle copy of The Director's Cut and Thirteen Moons, which I just downloaded. I think I may have a better chance of finishing a book if I read it ove4 several Sundays.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 21, 2018 10:47 AM (G8B7r)

254 If I was building that library in the picture the overhead soffits would be secret compartments and there is certainly room for a leather couch off to the right next to the bay window. And the ceramic cat 4th shelf on right real cat is laying in that window.

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 10:48 AM (aC6Sd)

255 So Japan is overrun with raccoons now.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 10:06 AM (fuK7c)

My daughter was reading a story of people trapping raccoons at dumpsters in urban setting and shipping them off to China where they think they are some kind of North American panda bear thing.

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 21, 2018 10:49 AM (BtQd4)

256
The books in that room do not get read, the ceiling map is cloyingly devoid of information (ergo, faux) and her designs in general are for folks who dearly wish for illegal aliens to continue flooding over the border because they are housework horrors.

Off to the gym!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at January 21, 2018 10:49 AM (pNxlR)

257 I wish I had a nickel for every time I had coined a phrase.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 10:37 AM (wPiJc)

I'd give my left arm to be ambidextrous.
Posted by: OregonMuse, AoSHQ Thought Leader & Global Rethinker at January 21, 2018 10:39 AM (79cAK)

My brother is a son of a bitch. He insults our mother!

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:49 AM (Pz4pT)

258 Tim Powers isn't exactly historical fiction. He weaves his stories in between the historical events so that they could potentially explain the known facts. Except his stories are blatantly supernatural. He's often treated as a sci-fi/fantasy writer because of this, but ultimately, he's pretty unique. Actually, now that I say that, I would say that his ideas are pretty similar to Charles Williams, one of the Inklings. I'm currently reading Last Call, which involves the Fisher King in Las Vegas. Everything I've read by him is just great. It's gold, Jerry, it's gold!

Posted by: Jim S. at January 21, 2018 10:50 AM (ynUnH)

259 No ottoman for me.

I'm the king of my Ottoman Empire.

Posted by: That deplorable guy who always reads... at January 21, 2018 10:52 AM (Tyii7)

260 I found the Gettysburg Trilogy by William Forstchen and Newt Gingrich to be an interesting read. Speculative "what-if" stories that alter the events of the Civil War but nonetheless kept me reading for hours. The depictions of battles and strategic considerations I found to be first rate. The three books are: Gettysburg, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat.
Posted by: George V at January 21, 2018 10:13 AM (LUHWu)

Added to my list, William Forstchen wrote the great Lost Regiment series, about a Civil War regiment gets transported to another World where Humans are Slaves

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 10:52 AM (dKiJG)

261
I would have been more impressed if she had placed Tolkien's Map of Middle Earth on the ceiling.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at January 21, 2018 10:52 AM (pNxlR)

262 Re-reading "Vanity Fair" for maybe the 10th time. Could almost be described as historical fiction, since the Napoleonic Wars play such a prominent part. Fantastic novel with wicked satirical wit. Like to read it while listening to concerts on YouTube. Often with a glass of something cheerful in my hand.

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 10:52 AM (QE8X6)

263 Although, insurance salesman is still a good bet. Loyds of London, third generation, perhaps.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:46 AM (GroCc)

I knew a guy who was THE agent for a large insurance agency. One of the higher end companies... swimming in wealth, he was. At one point he went to China. This was a time when going to China wasn't necessarily something Americans did. Was gone for a month. Says he took "a little boat to China," and I never knew exactly what that meant. Not a cruise ship, obviously. Probably chartered. Possibly owned, not by him, but by somebody in his social circle, who was able to invite him for a month to indulge in month-long boat trip to China.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:53 AM (Pz4pT)

264 Those would be hellacool assuming you had the vast empty wallspace required.

I don't.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 10:45 AM

I have nautical maps with courses plotted for the Port Huron-Mackinaw Island race. Cool to look at, but would be expensive to frame and take up the guest room wall.

My grandfather had a huge geological map of Michigan's Upper Peninsula framed and hanging over his basement desk (he had been a mining engineer). I believe he framed it using glass from a picture-window.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 21, 2018 10:53 AM (G8B7r)

265 There used to be a blog by a guy that worked for Allen Klein and with the Rolling Stones. He was convinced Jones was murdered (as was Klein) and that is what got me interested in it. There were two women in the pool with him when he drowned that witnessed it. There were a couple of guys that were outside the fence that saw the man push Jones under. Jones had asthma and always had his inhaler by the pool when he was in the water. It's pretty convincing. Jones definitely screwed up his life with drugs. There's nothing that suggests he was suicidal.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 10:53 AM (Lqy/e)

266 Oh and glad I have 4wd, it gets over the bodies on the road much easier

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 10:53 AM (aC6Sd)

267 I am not reading any historical fiction, though I do love the O'Brien series.

I am now reading Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, which is a condensation of a number of speeches into a book reviewing how capitalism and freedom interact.

Friedman is a very engaging writer, and presents his case very successfully. It had insights that I had not thought of, put in ways that make them accessible.

I recommend it to you all, I think it can be found as a free PDF online

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 10:54 AM (2K6fY)

268 My favorites are The King Must Die

-
I read that in high school and loved it. I also loved the sequel, A Bull From the Sea. It was only later that I learned the historical and mythical basis for these stories.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Help! The Deranged Beavers Are Trying To Kill Me! at January 21, 2018 10:54 AM (+y/Ru)

269 But does it lead to frenetic ragtime piano playing?
Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 10:37 AM (NWiLs)

Ummmmmm....Yes. And Lawn mower disassembly.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 21, 2018 10:55 AM (EoRCO)

270 Notice in the library pic the spines of the books on the desk face the visitor, not the reader at the desk. Poseur.

Ostentatious and actually, the desk, IMNSHO, is very poorly executed - even without a close, detailed exam. I apprenticed in a high end cabinet shop in Boston a thousand years ago. The Master would have said of the piece *it is a well made mess*.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 10:55 AM (tr2D7)

271 >> I've heard that it was a satire about a lazy, entitled, aristocrat retreating into delusion as a way to give himself an excuse to destroy the symbols of the advancing bourgeois.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 10:11 AM (rp9xB)

It's a hilarious satire of something we have almost no concept of today--chivalry, and the spell it cast over the literary imagination for several hundred years.

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 10:56 AM (QE8X6)

272 Neil Stephenson's "Baroque Series" is crackin' good historical fiction -- it's got Newton, Louis XIV, Liebnitz, William of Orange, pirates, Turks, codebreakers, the birth of international finance, young Benjy Franklin, John Churchill, the Spanish Inquisition, and probably some stuff I'm forgetting.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 10:56 AM (owoHM)

273 After those details were pointed out, antique map on the ceiling, model warship behind the desk, I'll have to revise my conclusion. Could still be a lawyer's office but might be third generation trust fund baby who inherited the family fortune made in the shipping industry or in the ship building trade.

Although, insurance salesman is still a good bet. Loyds of London, third generation, perhaps.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 10:46 AM (GroCc)

Or..... an eccentric retard that can build the shit. lol

I built the exact same style of book cases here. I just don't have the upper and lower raised panels because I went ceiling to floor, but the corbels and fluted moldings and crown is the same style, and the book cases are 32" wide. $1500 worth of material. I had to make everything, it took 1 1/2 months to do working almost every day. Over 180 miters just on the top alone. I was spent, I still haven't stained the shelves yet.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 10:57 AM (aMlLZ)

274 Here's a synopsis on the Brian Jones murder theory:

http://reut.rs/2mZBj96

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 10:57 AM (Lqy/e)

275 Neil Stephenson's "Baroque Series" is crackin' good historical fiction -- it's got Newton, Louis XIV, Liebnitz, William of Orange, pirates, Turks, codebreakers, the birth of international finance, young Benjy Franklin, John Churchill, the Spanish Inquisition, and probably some stuff I'm forgetting.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 10:56 AM (owoHM)

So...kind of an early Forrest Gump?

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 10:58 AM (0+nbW)

276 224: We, as a modern society, indulge many fantasies: Islam is peace, transgenderism, and violent or parasitic illegals are sweetie pies.

Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 10:59 AM (5gaNQ)

277 and probably some stuff I'm forgetting.
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 10:56 AM (owoHM)

Huguenots. Stacks of 'em.

Posted by: hogmartin at January 21, 2018 10:59 AM (y87Qq)

278 Jones definitely screwed up his life with drugs. There's nothing that suggests he was suicidal.

No, not suicidal but on the way to killing himself anyway. The Hyde Park concert that ended up being a tribute to him was already planned and he'd already been replaced by Mick Taylor because he couldn't show up and he couldn't do anything coherent.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:01 AM (fuK7c)

279 Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 10:11 AM (rp9xB)

It's a hilarious satire of something we have almost no concept of today--chivalry, and the spell it cast over the literary imagination for several hundred years.
Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 10:56 AM (QE8X6)

As I was reading, I had the sense that chivalry, while it was certainly being satired, it wasn't really taken seriously at the time. It was more like modern day professional "wrestling." Except, instead of tv shows and events that fill arenas, they had those books. And the traveling showmen. Entertainment for the poor folk.

And here we had a gentleman of leisure, believing he was a practitioner of the art! Imagine if your grandpa, after sitting there watching WWF for years, suddenly decided to put on tights, and go right wrongs in this world as a traveling wrestler, with a persona of being a do-gooder.

How would this world treat him?

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:02 AM (Pz4pT)

280 Anonosaurus @ 268

If those are the only two Renault books you've read, you would it to yourself to read the others.

Fire from Heaven and The Persian Boy are Alexander the Great. The Mask of Apollo introduces Plato. The Last of the Wine brings in Alcibiades. These are all prime grade good reads and may send you scurrying to 'real' history.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:03 AM (usxh5)

281 I apprenticed in a high end cabinet shop in Boston a thousand years ago.

That sounds like a really cool thing to do. We should each get a thousand lifetimes so that we could each get a chance to do all the cool things.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:03 AM (fuK7c)

282 Favorite historical novel: Gone With The Wind. It's a damn good piece of writing even if you do want to slap Scarlett with a dead flounder for her Ashley obsession.

Other than that, I've read a ton of Michener, and Uris, and enjoyed both. I've read some Follett but the contemporary stuff, so I just got "Pillars of the Earth" because it sounds right up my alley.

Right now I'm reading about opera as I was toying with the idea of a mystery series, but that's only after I write my intense hatred for Seattle out of my system.

Posted by: Tonestaple at January 21, 2018 11:05 AM (V15Jb)

283 Read that link about Brian Jones, I get unsolved murder mystery but its a bit like looking into Jack the Ripper.

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 11:05 AM (aC6Sd)

284 We, as a modern society, indulge many fantasies: Islam is peace, transgenderism, and violent or parasitic illegals are sweetie pies.
Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 10:59 AM (5gaNQ)

Excellent point.

Not the same types of insanity, but insanity nonetheless.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:05 AM (Pz4pT)

285 Notice in the library pic the spines of the books on the desk face the visitor, not the reader at the desk. Poseur.

Ostentatious and actually, the desk, IMNSHO, is very poorly executed
- even without a close, detailed exam. I apprenticed in a high end
cabinet shop in Boston a thousand years ago. The Master would have said
of the piece *it is a well made mess*.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 10:55 AM (tr2D7)

---

Ha. That's an interesting point. I'd still love to have the ability and facility, but I wonder if this one is ever used other than for the same reason you buy a pretty painting.

Posted by: Moron Robbie - Bama's Boot Stomping on the Face of College Football Forever at January 21, 2018 11:05 AM (ks6bw)

286 Lurking Cynic & Anonosaurus, Mary Renault was one of my very first favorite writers.

I discovered a copy of Fire from Heaven in our house as a kid. Later I found The King Must Die. That along with a battered copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology really kept me fascinated with Ancient Greece.

Another book I found on my dad's shelves was The Egyptian by Mika Waltari.

Posted by: @votermom @vm pimping great books usually free or sale at January 21, 2018 11:05 AM (hMwEB)

287 284: And Cervantes' Spain was not beset with PC

Posted by: CN at January 21, 2018 11:06 AM (5gaNQ)

288 Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 10:56 AM (QE8X6)

The article I read was (I think) by Big Fur Hat, but it could have been a Russian emigre at Volokh's. Their contention was that Didn't n Quixote was often used by socialists/communists as an example of class warfare but that, if one thought about it, Don what's-his-face was actually part of a *governmental* class that was losing its stranglehold on both financial and social status and he didn't want to do the hard work now required to compete. So he withdrew into a fantasy that allowed him to both salve his pride and destroy the property of those who were supplanting him.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 11:06 AM (rp9xB)

289 I would love a deep blue ceiling with a map of the moon that glowed when you turned the Chihuly chandelier off.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 11:06 AM (qJtVm)

290 18 That map on the ceiling is perfect for lying back and thinking of England.
Posted by: The Six Million Dollar Vayjay at January 21, 2018 09:02 AM (UdKB7)

I expect that Victoria's love of sex (and that she did love it is clear) may have been helped by the fact that the Empire was hot shit in her day.

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 11:07 AM (+TcCF)

291 "you would do it to ..." arrrrgggghhhhh - -- You owe it to yourself.

Sorry, edit, edit, edit.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:07 AM (usxh5)

292 If this is the Library Thread, where's the hoop?

Posted by: Barack Obama at January 21, 2018 11:08 AM (8cvCt)

293 I built the exact same style of book cases here. I just don't have the upper and lower raised panels because I went ceiling to floor, but the corbels and fluted moldings and crown is the same style, and the book cases are 32" wide. $1500 worth of material. I had to make everything, it took 1 1/2 months to do working almost every day. Over 180 miters just on the top alone. I was spent, I still haven't stained the shelves yet.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 10:57 AM (aMlLZ)

I'm not sure how to say with without it sounding weird, but you seem to embody almost everything I wish I could've been. I have both admiration and envy.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:08 AM (NWiLs)

294 Speaking of Fire from Heaven, I never forgave Colin Farrell and Oliver Stone for butchering it on-screen.

Posted by: @votermom @vm pimping great books usually free or sale at January 21, 2018 11:09 AM (hMwEB)

295 I would love a deep blue ceiling with a map of the moon that glowed when you turned the Chihuly chandelier off.

You are the one, sole, and only writer on the HQ for whom I don't have to look at the byline to know who it is.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:10 AM (fuK7c)

296 >>How would this world treat him?
Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:02 AM (Pz4pT)

Yes, that's what it is. It's kind of a tricky question, because the idea of chivalry was still very popular in Cervantes' time--see "Orlando Furioso," an incredible, rollicking book. In fact even Milton was very interested in writing an Arthurian epic a hundred years later. But of course chivalry with its knights-errant was nothing like real life, as Cervantes wanted us to see.

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 11:10 AM (QE8X6)

297 259 No ottoman for me.

Pouf ??

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 11:11 AM (4u7kU)

298 Votermom ....

Mika Waltari introduced me to historical fiction in Jr. High School. From historical fiction I graduated to 'real' history and biographies. 75% of my reading now involves history in some way/shape/ or form.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:11 AM (usxh5)

299 I forgot Gwen Bristow: her stuff is more historical romances but the history is fairly solid and the books were written long enough ago to be entirely politically incorrect on slavery. My favorite is "Celia Garth" about the Revolutionary War in Charleston.

Another one I like was "Steamboat Gothic" by Francis Parkinson Keyes, set in post-Civil War Louisiana, running all the way up through WW I.

Posted by: Tonestaple at January 21, 2018 11:12 AM (V15Jb)

300 Cervantes was satirizing earlier romances, like the Orlando's by Ariosto (fun) and Boiardo (haven't read).

Also, Pollywog, of course the commies say that Quixote was "part of a *governmental* class that was losing its stranglehold on both financial and social status". That's their model and they're sticking to it. But that model - the perpetually rising new class supplanting the decaying old - has been a pox on historians since it took hold.

Fortunately, there's been strong pushback. I just read J H Hexter's evisceration of Christopher Hill, for instance. N A M Rodger is suitably skeptical about this, too. Because of the history of our nation's founding, we tend to be sucker for it, though.

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 11:13 AM (+TcCF)

301 I will never forgive Oliver Stone.

It needs no limiting phrase.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:14 AM (usxh5)

302 Meth has to be the worst drug out there. I wonder if the CIA distributed it to do away with white people? /s

I've been wondering about exactly this for opioids in fact.

Posted by: boulder terlit hobo at January 21, 2018 11:15 AM (6FqZa)

303 You are the one, sole, and only writer on the HQ for whom I don't have to look at the byline to know who it is.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:10 AM (fuK7c)
---

*blushes fetchingly*

Wait, you mean that as a compliment, right?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 11:15 AM (qJtVm)

304 Not sure if the setting was sufficiently past tese at the time it was written to qualify as historical fiction but the first Arkady Renko novel, Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith, was great. Much like Aztec, mentioned above, it put you into a different world.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Help! The Deranged Beavers Are Trying To Kill Me! at January 21, 2018 11:16 AM (+y/Ru)

305 I'm sorry you see it that way. I mean no
disrespect, but it's not because it's not there. It's because you've
chosen not to see it.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (Pz4pT)

I took a Cervantes class because it was required as part of my degree, and that is how Cervantes' Don Quixote was taught in a liberal arts section of a very liberal college. And that is fairly common modern insight into Cervantes' master work.

However, I recently got to review some outlines of lectures for a Cervantes course from the Universidad de Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala (they had a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) ) and that one stresses Cervantes' support of liberty and his understanding of the Spanish Scholastics of the Salamanca school, and his use of that understanding to run his plotting and his characters.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (2K6fY)

306 How would this world treat him?
Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:02 AM (Pz4pT)

Yes, that's what it is. It's kind of a tricky question, because the idea of chivalry was still very popular in Cervantes' time--see "Orlando Furioso," an incredible, rollicking book. In fact even Milton was very interested in writing an Arthurian epic a hundred years later. But of course chivalry with its knights-errant was nothing like real life, as Cervantes wanted us to see.
Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 11:10 AM (QE8X6)

Yes, I would imagine chivalry as a value, was still very present in that world, but not the form it took in those books.

Much like we might say about professional athletes of all sorts. They "go into battle," and we have master strategists who are coaches "commanding the troops."

Many of us can appreciate the sacrifice it takes to become professional athletes, but it would be, and is, silly to equate it to actual warfare.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (Pz4pT)

307 ...and that has to be the first time ever that "Orlando Furioso" was cited twice within 5 comments at the AOS HQ.

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (QE8X6)

308 Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 11:13 AM (+TcCF)

Actually, the usual take by socialists is that Quixote was fighting against "The Man" as opposed to *being* "The Man". Much like they see themselves as the eternal revolutionaries.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (rp9xB)

309 I love the fact that Cervantes was contrasting the grubby, cynical, unromantic world of his present with the glorious adventures of chivalric romances.

Cervantes was captured by pirates and saw off the Spanish Armada. That's pretty damned adventurous and romantic.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 11:20 AM (owoHM)

310 Thanks CBD,
Not been a good morning for trimming down the book wishlist.
Eric Metaxas book looks like it will definitely make its way into my library.

Definitely recommend Hornblower or any C.S. Forester title.

Posted by: Southeast PA lurker at January 21, 2018 11:20 AM (vFHFh)

311 I know Brian Jones was an asshole. I've read that he was cruel to Anita Pallenberg. He was also a talented musician and it's unlikely the Stones would have gotten their start without him. I actually saw the Stones in concert when he was with the band. He was as much of a focus then as Mick.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 21, 2018 11:20 AM (Lqy/e)

312 >>Many of us can appreciate the sacrifice it takes to become professional athletes, but it would be, and is, silly to equate it to actual warfare.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (Pz4pT)

Yes, I am not agreeing with Cervantes, just pointing out his provenance. Chivalry, as an ideal of behavior based on courtesy and gentleness, goes far beyond the knight-errant. See a beautiful old book called "The Book of the Courtier."

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 11:21 AM (QE8X6)

313 Is tilting at windmills anything like tipping cows?

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:22 AM (wPiJc)

314 One might remember that The Three Musketeers is Historical fiction. A few of John Dickson Carr's books are, as well. And of course most of Scott and Cooper would qualify. (Many, including C S Lewis, believe Scott really invented historical fiction.) I think the decisive question of definition would be that the story have an historical setting, and not just be placed in the past.

I did recall a few other sailing mystery/adventure novels. One of the Mr Moto's is (Last Laugh, I think), and there's one by Andrew Garve (a conservative Brit) called A Hero For Leanda.

Combining the historical and sailing, and you get O'Brian. A landlubber friend of mine says he really likes the way Stephen functions as a bridge for readers like him - a reason to have the officers and men to be explaining constantly how sailing ships work. Of course, there's also the humor that engenders, in Stephen's idiot savant status with the crew. He can bring you back from the dead if the tide hasn't turned, but mustn't be left on deck unattended.

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 11:23 AM (+TcCF)

315 I'm sorry you see it that way. I mean no
disrespect, but it's not because it's not there. It's because you've
chosen not to see it.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:35 AM (Pz4pT)

I took a Cervantes class because it was required as part of my degree, and that is how Cervantes' Don Quixote was taught in a liberal arts section of a very liberal college. And that is fairly common modern insight into Cervantes' master work.

However, I recently got to review some outlines of lectures for a Cervantes course from the Universidad de Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala (they had a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) ) and that one stresses Cervantes' support of liberty and his understanding of the Spanish Scholastics of the Salamanca school, and his use of that understanding to run his plotting and his characters.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (2K6fY)

That's interesting. I have none of that perspective, so I'd have to say my reading of the book was not polluted with the lefty perspective.

However, I have watched a couple movie versions, and one was in Russian. I thought their version included waaaay too much class struggle nonsense, with the Duke and his wife as being way more cruel than Cervantes portrayed them.

My view of that entire section of the book is that these were rich people who had way too much time on their hands, had way too little understanding of how their indulgences affected others, and of course had way too much money, and way too many servants... but I saw that as quite as unrealistic as Quixote's knight errant role. it was so over the top, these people were able to put on such an elaborate hoax on those poor fellas, it was impossible for me to take it seriously. It was fun. The author was indulging in his own fantasy, in a most entertaining way.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:24 AM (Pz4pT)

316 I'm not sure how to say with without it sounding weird, but you seem to embody almost everything I wish I could've been. I have both admiration and envy.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:08 AM (NWiLs)

You know what it is? I don't have kids, and I get bored fast, so I just move from one thing to the next. As soon as I learn how to do something I move on to the next thing. The other thing is I learned a few different things really good, and other things spider webbed of from there. I learned cabinet making out of high school along with the home improvement thing. 90% of the old world classical guitar builders had cabinet making in their background, so like them it was easy for me to take on building guitars because the a lot of the tools were already there and the wood knowledge. Once you learn wood tools you open up the world. You can build a palace on the cheap.

The Harley thing. I started learning that when I was 16, when half my friends started building them in high school, the other half did cars. Soooo, between working with master carpenters, plumbers, and electricians, and Harley and car guys, I learned enough to be dangerous.

The main thing, never having the money to actually pay somebody is pretty motivating. I had to learn how to do it, or do without.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 11:24 AM (aMlLZ)

317 I wonder how much of this is exaggerated
autobiography. How much did Cervantes roam the world (in his youth, not
as a senior, as Quixote is), having adventures, observing the insanity
and the futility of it all.
Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 10:33 AM (Pz4pT)

Cervantes was at Lepanto, where the massed forces of Christian navies (and their new Caravel ship) crushed the galleys of the Ottomans. Cervantes was injured and lost the use of one hand, so he got the nickname "Manco (crippled in the hand) of Lepanto". He was also captured at one point.
He got a position as a tax collector later in Spain, and that required him to travel all over Spain in all weather to shake down delinquent accounts, and when his accounts came up short he was jailed for that.

He had a great desire for liberty, and as a modern soldier seeing the modern world, did have a love for chivalry, but Quixote voices why such a system is impossible in a modern world.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 11:25 AM (2K6fY)

318 O/T headed to The Bahamas in Feb for our corporate trip. I've never been before. Anyone have firsthand knowledge, things to enjoy/avoid?

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at January 21, 2018 11:25 AM (ty7RM)

319 Cervantes was captured by pirates and saw off the Spanish Armada...

*****

In the year sixteen seventy two
The Brits had that Spanish to-do
Said Grenville at Granada
Re: the Spanish Armada
"I don't know! What's armada wit' choo?"

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:26 AM (wPiJc)

320 In high school I had a english course in historical fiction, to me its taking historical events and fleshing out what we do not know or has never been written. War and Peace, And Patrick O'Brien fit this. In Desolation Island the Dutch 74 Waakzaamheid was real and was lost in a storm with all hands, was it chasing a British frigate?who knows?

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 11:26 AM (aC6Sd)

321
@280 Those Mary Renault books are on Amazon (of course) and the used hardbound prices are reasonable for most. I don't know just how 'used - good' translates, but I took a chance on three of them.

Thanks for the tip.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 11:27 AM (GroCc)

322 Muldoon you crack me up.

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 11:27 AM (aC6Sd)

323 Is tilting at windmills anything like tipping cows?
Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:22 AM (wPiJc)

Only if the cows have horns, and you catch the wrong end of one of them.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:27 AM (Pz4pT)

324 On the Episcopalian front, long ago when I still was one, there was an ad in the Richmond paper that one parish was having a revival(!) May have been the last straw. Lesbian bishops were one thing, but if there's anything Episcopalians ever stood for, it was NOT holding revivals.

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 11:28 AM (+TcCF)

325 Is tilting at windmills anything like tipping cows?

Oh, this has nothing to do with books but I'm going to tell a cow tipping story.

I went to Penn State, which is a cow college. It has a famous dairy where they make ice cream from cow stuff. It was a land grant university from back in the 1850s when they decided that cows should have a college.

So one night we decided to go out cow tipping because we were drunk and it seemed like the thing to do. We couldn't find a cow. They put then inside at night or something. We were literally at a literal cow college and we couldn't find a cow.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:28 AM (fuK7c)

326 Added to my list, William Forstchen wrote the great
Lost Regiment series, about a Civil War regiment gets transported to
another World where Humans are Slaves

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 10:52 AM (dKiJG)
I read a one of the Lost Regiment novels maybe 20+ years ago! I had forgotten the author. It was a great read. I was a contract project manager at the time and a client had a little honor-system library in the break room. I tried to find the other books by checking local stores and book sales with no luck. Thanks for the reminder. Now that we have the internet I'll take another run at finding them.

Posted by: George V at January 21, 2018 11:29 AM (LUHWu)

327 Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 11:24 AM (aMlLZ)

Whatever the reasons, you've done a lot of cool shit and know how to do a lot of cool shit.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:30 AM (NWiLs)

328 I just picked up Mitchner's book "Caravans" for something to read. What I found instead was a lyric depiction of Afghanistan prior to the Taliban. It was fascinating.

Posted by: Akua Makana at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (YkUJb)

329 Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:28 AM (fuK7c)

I don't remember the name of the dairy in Boalsburg. We got our milk there and went for ice cream a couple times. Had good prices and great milk 20 years ago at least.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (rp9xB)

330 Skandia --- enjoy. Let me know what you think. These are/were formative books for me.

(I hope you didn't get 'The Charioteer' - that is a contemporary paen to homosexuality. NOT historical fiction.)

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (usxh5)

331 Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:26 AM (wPiJc)

You truly have a gift.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (NWiLs)

332 He had a great desire for liberty, and as a modern soldier seeing the modern world, did have a love for chivalry, but Quixote voices why such a system is impossible in a modern world.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 11:25 AM (2K6fY)

Yes, the reason why it is such a disservice to the character, to consider him a buffoon or a nutjob, is that he recites long soliloquies, during which the truth and beauty of his point of view are so fully fleshed out, that it's impossible to not appreciate the man. Even if his next act is going to be stabbing some poor innkeeper's wine bags.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (Pz4pT)

333 So one night we decided to go out cow tipping because we were drunk and it seemed like the thing to do. We couldn't find a cow. They put then inside at night or something. We were literally at a literal cow college and we couldn't find a cow.
Posted by: Bandersnatch
---
B, should have made the drive to Ohio State. We had cows all over. Mostly sunbathing on the Oval.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 11:32 AM (tr2D7)

334 Hooked on The Expanse. I'm reading the books and following up with the videos; it's making a lot more sense now.

Posted by: RI Red at January 21, 2018 11:32 AM (4E1nt)

335 I usually tip cows 15% for good service.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:33 AM (NWiLs)

336 Exquisite luxury.

Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:33 AM (+lOpA)

337 Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (Pz4pT)

Thing is, I don't care about lyrical rhetoric when his *actions* damage the lives of the people he is supposedly helping.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 11:34 AM (rp9xB)

338 True Grit. Read it out loud.

Posted by: Les Kinetic at January 21, 2018 11:35 AM (U6f54)

339 I usually tip cows 15% for good service.

Pfft. If you've ever worked for tips you spend the rest of your life tipping 20% for just being there.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (fuK7c)

340 I don't remember the name of the dairy in Boalsburg. We got our milk there and went for ice cream a couple times.

*******

As a kid one time, on our way to Grandma's house we stopped by the Poudre Valley Creamery for ice cream. 30 miles on down the road my parents realized we were one kid short, and had to turn around. My brother never did reveal how much ice cream he got to eat while waiting for us to come pick him up, but he didn't seem the least bit upset when we finally got there.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (wPiJc)

341 A secretary that looks like Helen Mirren works at that desk.

Opening letters with an exquisitely luxurious letter opener.

Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (+lOpA)

342 338 True Grit. Read it out loud.
Posted by: Les Kinetic at January 21, 2018 11:35 AM (U6f54)

Uh, OK. "TRUE GRIT." Now what?

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (NWiLs)

343
Is tilting at windmills anything like tipping cows?
Posted by: Muldoon

I never tip a cow unless the service was good.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at January 21, 2018 11:37 AM (IqV8l)

344 Uh, OK. "TRUE GRIT." Now what?
Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (NWiLs)

---------

Read it three times, clap, and you'll summon Papa Legba.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (KEGIV)

345 You tip them when they give cream.

Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (+lOpA)

346 Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM

Nope, got the ones you suggested, except for the more expensive titles. The very good conditions, and collectibles were 'way outa my price range.

Going to the library is ... uh, problematic for me. First, I would have to leave the house twice, and I would have to order the book (most likely) from inter library loan. Then I would have to go get it, and then take it back. I'd rather just have a 'cheap' copy on the shelf, which is why I like Kindle.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (GroCc)

347 I know I read Orlando F in school, but don't remember a blamed thing. Must not have hit me at all. The first nonpic book I really remember is 'Boxcar Children'. My parents claim I was reading nonpic books well before kindergarden, but that is the one I remember. Never slogged through DonQ, don't know how I avoided it, but managed it neatly.

Even enjoying the fog in this January thaw in North Illinois. Cleared the ice dam and leaves from the gutters yesterday without accident and not too sore today. All my very tall children and the oldster has to get up on the ladder. Sad!

Posted by: mustbequantum at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (MIKMs)

348 Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:31 AM (Pz4pT)

Thing is, I don't care about lyrical rhetoric when his *actions* damage the lives of the people he is supposedly helping.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 11:34 AM (rp9xB)

But he's not supposed to be "helping" anybody. He's supposed to be an old man, and he's supposed to do nothing but live out his days, in quiet peace, not really having any meaningful interaction with anybody. Instead, he decides he's a famous knight, and he's going to go save a world that really, doesn't need saving.

I'm not sure why you would think he's doing all that much damage.

Most of the "damage" is financial, and most of that is repaid. One way or another.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (Pz4pT)

349 I only tip cows if the service was good.

Posted by: Amy Schumer at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (KEGIV)

350 >>I never tip a cow unless the service was good.
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at January 21, 2018 11:37 AM (IqV8l)

Someone named "Cabot" should certainly be tipping his cows. Maybe some marmalade in the corn hash.

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 11:39 AM (QE8X6)

351 Cows are like gyroscopes, they don't tip, but they may begin to wobble in a regressive spiral as they wind down

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 11:39 AM (2K6fY)

352 my parents realized we were one kid short, and had to turn around.

I am an only so all of this makes only theoretical sense to me, but I married into a horde of Irish Catholics and apparently kids fell out of moving cars sometimes until people remembered to go back and look for them.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:39 AM (fuK7c)

353 Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world who couldn't find Limerick on a map if Emma Lazarus' life depended on it.

I don't know what that means.

Posted by: Fakie Award-Winner Jim Acosta at January 21, 2018 11:39 AM (Ndje9)

354 Pfft. If you've ever worked for tips you spend the rest of your life tipping 20% for just being there.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (fuK7c)
---

The seedy underworld of exotic dance leaves scars that never really heal.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 11:40 AM (qJtVm)

355 156 Finished 'Poland' last week.

Posted by: Lone ranger at January 21, 2018 09:56 AM (eup66)

So did we!
Posted by: The Wermacht, October 1939 at January 21, 2018 10:01 AM (wYseH)

Where were you in May of 1945?

And today.....Poland or Germany? Which is more pragmatic?

Posted by: Lone ranger at January 21, 2018 11:40 AM (eup66)

356 Cow tipping, oats or money?

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 11:41 AM (aC6Sd)

357 ...kids fell out of moving cars sometimes until people remembered to go back and look for them.

*****

I'm the youngest of seven boys. We could easily be down 2 or 3 before anyone noticed.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:41 AM (wPiJc)

358 A secretary that looks like Helen Mirren works at that desk.

Opening letters with an exquisitely luxurious letter opener.
Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:36 AM (+lOpA)

A letter opener she's used to stab many a deserving fellow in the neck. Thoroughly cleaned, and then returned to its proper service.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:41 AM (Pz4pT)

359 Whatever the reasons, you've done a lot of cool shit and know how to do a lot of cool shit.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:30 AM (NWiLs)

Its never too late dude. I'm betting you are younger than me. If you are single, you have the ability/freedom to grab the world and swallow it whole. The rest of the shit comes later. Life constantly involves reinventing yourself. If one part of your life goes to shit, it don't mean you are done. Get the fuck out there and do what you want, before you truly do get old.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 11:42 AM (aMlLZ)

360 First sorta sci-fi book: Freddy (the pig) and the Men from Mars. I liked it so much I liberated it from the elementary school library. I wonder what the overdue charges are on it by now?
First real sci-fi book was Johnny and the Magic Ball From Mars. Anyone remember that one? It had a Martian giving Johnny a marble that did lots of things. The spooks in Washington try to kidnap him. I think I'll look it up on amazon.
Then, the Mr. Bass and the Mushroom Planet books.
Then Heinlein.

Posted by: RI Red at January 21, 2018 11:43 AM (4E1nt)

361 Cows are like gyroscopes, they don't tip, but they may begin to wobble in a regressive spiral as they wind down

****

Well, you've put a whole new spin on that theory, to coin a phrase.

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:43 AM (wPiJc)

362 It has a famous dairy where they make ice cream from cow stuff.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:28 AM (fuK7c)

I would hope that "stuff" is milk.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 11:43 AM (0+nbW)

363 What's interesting about historical fiction is how one can usually tell when it was written. The preoccupations and habits of the author's era creep in. When I read the Hornblower books I can't really ignore how Hornblower is a 1950s Royal Navy man in a cocked hat. He bathes every day!

It's equally instructive to compare, say, Chandler or Hammett stories written in the 1920s and 1930s to modern harboiled pastiches. One obvious difference is race: it's invisible in the period fiction and an obsession to modern authors.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 11:43 AM (owoHM)

364 Meanwhile, CNN is still CNNing:

CNN: Shutdown Risks Undetected Asteroid Strike...

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Help! The Deranged Beavers Are Trying To Kill Me! at January 21, 2018 11:44 AM (+y/Ru)

365 Well, you've put a whole new spin on that theory, to coin a phrase.

Re-begun, the coin of phrase wars have.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:44 AM (fuK7c)

366 Skandia -

Having copies on your shelf is good. Easier to reread that way.

BTW - I have similar library access problems. Use the internet library access for most of my reading - only buy when titles I want aren't on -line.

Posted by: Lurking Cynic at January 21, 2018 11:45 AM (usxh5)

367 Has anyone mentioned Gillian Bradshaw yet? She does great historical fiction, focusing on classical antiquity- the Roman empire, the Hellenistic world, Byzantium. One of my favorites is called Island of Ghosts, and it deals with the Sarmatian cavalry auxiliaries who were stationed in Britannia. Good stuff, and about a period of history that I don't know much about.

Posted by: right wing yankee at January 21, 2018 11:45 AM (obZ4W)

368 I am an only so all of this makes only theoretical sense to me, but I married into a horde of Irish Catholics and apparently kids fell out of moving cars sometimes until people remembered to go back and look for them.
Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:39 AM (fuK7c)

We were a large Catholic family. Stuffed like sardines in a tin Country Squire station wagon... if sardines are stuffed with the windows open, that is, in the back where all the dust kicks up from the dirt roads, and at the end of the ride the four or so unluckiest (read youngest) of the horde look like they were just rescued from the aftermath of Mt. Pinatubo's eruption.

I really don't remember any of us ever having been left behind. And we took many trips.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:45 AM (Pz4pT)

369 Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Divison at January 21, 2018 11:42 AM (aMlLZ)

It's good advice.

Posted by: Insomniac - mostly stable at January 21, 2018 11:46 AM (NWiLs)

370 Meanwhile, CNN is still CNNing:

CNN: Shutdown Risks Undetected Asteroid Strike...

--------

Besides having some time to worry, is there any difference between being killed by an asteroid by surprise versus being killed by one you knew was coming?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:47 AM (KEGIV)

371 I have never in my life used the word "pastiche."

I live vicariously through those that do.

Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:47 AM (+lOpA)

372 I'm the youngest of seven boys. We could easily be down 2 or 3 before anyone noticed.
Posted by: Muldoon
---
Yep - oldest of eight here. Left youngest sister at Howard Johnsons on the PA turnpike once.

Oops!

Posted by: Tonypete at January 21, 2018 11:48 AM (tr2D7)

373 I tried a Tim Powers book once, forgot which, but I put it down.

What's a good one to give him another try?

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 11:48 AM (hMwEB)

374 Everyday the sun comes up we risk being hit by a surprise asteroid.

Posted by: John Marston at January 21, 2018 11:49 AM (SkuXa)

375 I have never in my life used the word "pastiche."

I live vicariously through those that do.
Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:47 AM (+lOpA)

I pride myself on not knowing what some words mean. That would be one of them.

I will also intentionally mispronounce words like ennui (En-YOU-ee!), because it pisses off the french and pretentious English speakers.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:49 AM (Pz4pT)

376 All these sci-fi fans and nobody mentioned Tom Swift? We only had one (lotsa Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins) and I whined and the librarians got all that were published under that series logo. Bless those incredibly elderly ladies for really trying to make sure they had all kinds of fiction available. I think I started with Andre Norton rather than Heinlein.

Posted by: mustbequantum at January 21, 2018 11:50 AM (MIKMs)

377 >>363 What's interesting about historical fiction is how one can usually tell when it was written.

Dr. Johnson complained that all Shakespeare's classical characters talked like Elizabethan Englishmen. But I think that's kind of inevitable, to some degree. Imagine trying to put dialog into the mouth of, say, Julius Caesar. How in the world would you do it, if not from your own frame of reference?

Posted by: Caliban at January 21, 2018 11:50 AM (QE8X6)

378 Besides having some time to worry, is there any difference between being killed by an asteroid by surprise versus being killed by one you knew was coming?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:47 AM (KEGIV)

Well, we like our fear-mongering.

Posted by: BignJames at January 21, 2018 11:51 AM (0+nbW)

379
Well, I, for one, have to quit reading this thread as I have blown my budget all to hell and gone, to coin a phrase.

But it's been fun.

Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 11:51 AM (GroCc)

380 I have never in my life used the word "pastiche."

I live vicariously through those that do.

********

Heh - a limerick

Said Poirot through his dapper mustache
And an accent, to give it panache
Alas, mon ami
The secret, you see
is to mispronounce the word as "pistache"

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:51 AM (wPiJc)

381 A pastiche is a classed-up hodge-pudge.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:51 AM (KEGIV)

382 Read The Zero Stone and got hooked on Andre Norton.

Posted by: eleven at January 21, 2018 11:51 AM (+lOpA)

383 374 Everyday the sun comes up we risk being hit by a surprise asteroid.
Posted by: John Marston at January 21, 2018 11:49 AM (SkuXa)
-------
We expecting a surprise asteroid?

Posted by: Weasel at January 21, 2018 11:52 AM (Sfs6o)

384 Or hodge-podge.

Fricken auto-correct.

Whatevz.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:52 AM (KEGIV)

385 Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:49 AM (Pz4pT)

Pilates: pie-lates.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 21, 2018 11:53 AM (wYseH)

386 Besides having some time to worry, is there any difference between being killed by an asteroid by surprise versus being killed by one you knew was coming?
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:47 AM (KEGIV)

Oh, there are so many things I will regret being responsible about, if I am surprised by an asteroid.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:53 AM (Pz4pT)

387 Eat too many pistaches and you get hodge-pudgy.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:53 AM (KEGIV)

388 A hodge podge is classed up jimjaws and gewcracks.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:54 AM (fuK7c)

389 Going to the library is ... uh, problematic for me. First, I would have to leave the house twice, and I would have to order the book (most likely) from inter library loan. Then I would have to go get it, and then take it back.
Posted by: Skandia Recluse at January 21, 2018 11:38 AM (GroCc)

My local library system lets me put holds on materials online. They'll deliver them to my local branch when they're available and then call or email to let me know I can pick them up. I don't know if yours offers the service, but it's probably not uncommon, and it does save you at least the first trip.

Posted by: hogmartin at January 21, 2018 11:55 AM (y87Qq)

390 Oh, there are so many things I will regret being responsible about, if I am surprised by an asteroid.

--------

Don't worry. You won't regret them for long.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:55 AM (KEGIV)

391 I really like both Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. I especially liked Hayley Atwell in the TV production, although she was actually quite chubby in POTE.

Posted by: pep at January 21, 2018 11:55 AM (LAe3v)

392 My Rep. Meehan has been targeted by the commies. He settled a harassment case filed by a staffer. He denies wrongdoing, says he followed directions from House legal counsel to settle. He has called on the complainant to break confidentiality so the public can review testimony. She refused.

Posted by: kallisto at January 21, 2018 11:55 AM (UsFoH)

393 ...if I am surprised by an asteroid.

******

Don't worry. We're on it.

Posted by: Preparation H at January 21, 2018 11:55 AM (wPiJc)

394 Baby, I'll kick your asteroid.

Posted by: Bruce Willis at January 21, 2018 11:57 AM (QE8X6)

395 Threads over. Everyone out of the pool.

NOOD

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 21, 2018 11:57 AM (KEGIV)

396 I tried a Tim Powers book once, forgot which, but I put it down.

What's a good one to give him another try?

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 11:48 AM (hMwEB)

Declare is by far his best, in my opinion.

Posted by: cool breeze at January 21, 2018 11:58 AM (2cg7P)

397 Guess all the loons who said it was a given that the dims would take the house are recalculating about now. Third poll in afew days showing dims lead shrinks to 5-6. They have to lead by 5-6 just to break even. Another RED wave in the Senate for sure but could the GOP do the unheard of, pickup seats in the first midterm of a Republican Presidency ??

Posted by: coffee, stove, dogs, coffee at January 21, 2018 11:58 AM (4u7kU)

398 All Hail Eris, saw your comments on the movie thread.

I had seen it once when TCM was doing a few shows on Disney.

Did you find it as neat as I did? And do I want to know how much Amazon charged to watch it?

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at January 21, 2018 11:58 AM (2+EWn)

399 Currently reading "Only Dead on the Inside: A Parent's Guide to the Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse" by James Breakwell, better known as @XplodingUnicorn on Twitter. So far, it's hilarious and just what I needed when snowed in with the kids.

Posted by: roamingfirehydrant at January 21, 2018 11:59 AM (THS4q)

400 Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:49 AM (Pz4pT)

Pilates: pie-lates.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 21, 2018 11:53 AM (wYseH)

I really don't know what pilates is. I picture that game where the Euros play indoor tennis with bowling pins, or whatever.

Posted by: BurtTC at January 21, 2018 11:59 AM (Pz4pT)

401 Threads over. Everyone out of the pool.

What? You hate apostrophes?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:59 AM (fuK7c)

402 /sock

Posted by: Muldoon at January 21, 2018 11:59 AM (wPiJc)

403 An asteroid strike means I can finally put my prepping plan to work. It is a win win.

Posted by: Roc Ingersol at January 21, 2018 11:59 AM (3QAtO)

404 George W. Bush was merely going to blow up the planet -- Trump is actually forcing our intergalactic betters to destroy us!

Okay, name some SF stories where aliens were lobbing asteroids at Earth.

- Starship Troopers
- the Firestar saga

...any others?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 11:59 AM (qJtVm)

405 Footfall

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at January 21, 2018 12:00 PM (2+EWn)

406 I believe Meehan. He is a former county attorney and US attorney with not a whisper of scandal through his career. He won our district handily,even though Satan's buttgirl trounced Trump. I hope he fights.

Posted by: kallisto at January 21, 2018 12:01 PM (UsFoH)

407 I have so many books, but they are all stored in those 18 gallon totes in an out building. Unfortunately, there is so much crap in front of them, I can't get to 'em.

So I have a handful of books on my night stand that I have re-read turnabout a half a dozen times.

Posted by: Traveling Man at January 21, 2018 12:01 PM (R5lpX)

408 304 Not sure if the setting was sufficiently past tese at the time it was written to qualify as historical fiction but the first Arkady Renko novel, Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith, was great. Much like Aztec, mentioned above, it put you into a different world.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Help! The Deranged Beavers Are Trying To Kill Me! at January 21, 2018 11:16 AM (+y/Ru)

Anonosaurus, I'd agree. Just read the next one, Red Square, last week. Setting is 1991 as Soviet Union is crumbling. Great read.

Posted by: RI Red at January 21, 2018 12:01 PM (4E1nt)

409 388 A hodge podge is classed up jimjaws and gewcracks.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 11:54 AM (fuK7c)

Reverend!

Posted by: Gabby Johnson at January 21, 2018 12:02 PM (NL6wI)

410 I was thinking about that false alarm in Hawaii and wondering if they will see a bulge in the birth rate 9 months hence due to "missile sex".

Posted by: navybrat at January 21, 2018 12:03 PM (7NKxb)

411 Did you find it as neat as I did? And do I want to know how much Amazon charged to watch it?
Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at January 21, 2018 11:58 AM (2+EWn)
---
Anna, it's a tad hokey but the inside scoop on how movies were made is really interesting. I had read about the complex camera they used with several tiers for producing the effect of depth and movement in backgrounds, but to see it in action is fascinating.

I liked the coloring lab and the chemistry girls making paints for the cells. I read that they tried to paint rosy cheeks on Snow White but it looked clownish and opaque on the celluloid, so one of the girls used her blush and it was perfect. But can you do that in exactly the same way all the time?, she was asked. What do you think I've been doing my whole adult life?, she answered.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 12:07 PM (qJtVm)

412
Okay, name some SF stories where aliens were lobbing asteroids at Earth.

- Starship Troopers
- the Firestar saga

...any others?
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

Rowdy boys on the Moon were lobbing rocks at the Earth in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at January 21, 2018 12:25 PM (IqV8l)

413 Well yeah the story is a bit thin and silly, but there needed to be some action and quest to keep the audience interested. Or it would have been a dust dry documentary as about as interesting as watching paint dry. IIRC when Robert is shown all the statues, there is one character model in there for a movie that had not been released when the short was made.

Traditional cel painting really does not lend itself to soft edges even if you hide the ink lines. Only other way would be to airbrush, not sure when the airbrush was invented though paint sprayers did exist, each cel or wait for the computers to arrive.

I probably should watch it again. So what was it called and how much does Amazon want to charge?

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at January 21, 2018 12:27 PM (2+EWn)

414 My favorite series by far is the Owen Parry hexalogy (is that the right word? series of 6 books) set during the Civil War, beginning with Faded Coat of Blue. They are murder mysteries, but oh so much more. They capture the social and psychological atmosphere of America during the Civil War as few other books have.

All six books are written in first person by a fictional narrator named Abel Jones, a Welsh immigrant who had earlier served in the British forces during the Sepoy Rebellion in India. The narrator's voice is what MAKES these books. Abel Jones is one of the most appealing characters you'll ever meet.

Each of the six books takes Abel to a different locale as an investigator for the Union government. We see wartime Washington, D.C., upstate New York, northern Mississippi, England/Scotland (where Charles Francis Addams was serving as our ambassador), coal-country Pennsylvania, and New Orleans.

I admit that I haven't yet read the sixth one, because it's the final one, and I just can't bear to FINISH this series. I wish there were ten more volumes to read, not just one! So I am saving that sixth one, like a precious treasure box I am waiting to open.

By the way, this is one of those series where you really do have to read the first one first.

Posted by: Kathy from Kansas at January 21, 2018 12:33 PM (DWW7j)

415 Oops, forgot to include a link. Here it is:
https://tinyurl.com/y9v3exug

Posted by: Kathy from Kansas at January 21, 2018 12:33 PM (DWW7j)

416 My favorite to purposely mispronounce was

calling Sade, "Say-dee".

When she was popular, that would drive some friends and acquaintances totally insane.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 21, 2018 12:35 PM (9q7Dl)

417 If you call your 6-book series a Sexology I bet you get more Amazon sales.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 12:35 PM (owoHM)

418 I live in Massachusetts, where idiosyncratic local pronunciations for town names are nearly universal. My son and I enjoy coming up with new ways to pronounce towns so we can correct people.

"It's wor-SES-ter, not wooster!"
"I believe that's pronounced 'Walt-ham,' not wall-tham."
"We say it 'Camberish' around here."

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 12:40 PM (owoHM)

419 I probably should watch it again. So what was it called and how much does Amazon want to charge?
Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at January 21, 2018 12:27 PM (2+EWn)
---
"The Reluctant Dragon" for $3.99.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 12:43 PM (qJtVm)

420 JTB: I picked up a bunch of Dorothy Dunnett books a while back but never got
around to reading them. Is there one of her series that's a good place
to start? I likely to have a LOT of time to read this summer and I'm
putting together a list of books to have on hand.

She wrote series around 3 different main characters. I love her Lymond Chronicles, and they start with Game of Kings. They should really be read in order or you'll get spoilers you will wish you didn't have. The Niccolo books are good, but not as good as the LC. Finally, she wrote a bunch of mysteries featuring a painter. They were fine, but I only read them because I'd read her grocery lists if you gave them to me.

Posted by: Laura Montgomery at January 21, 2018 12:47 PM (IbzI6)

421 so many great recs on this thread

cool breeze thanks for the tip on Declare, will check it out

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 12:47 PM (hMwEB)

422 I have never in my life used the word "pastiche."

==

a pastiche is a mash-mish

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 12:49 PM (hMwEB)

423 96 I tried a Tim Powers book once, forgot which, but I put it down.

What's a good one to give him another try?

Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 11:48 AM (hMwEB)

Declare is by far his best, in my opinion.
Posted by: cool breeze at January 21, 2018 11:58 AM

One of my favorite books! However, I'd go with Three Days to Never or the Anubis Gates if you don't like spy novels.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 21, 2018 12:49 PM (G8B7r)

424 I read an interesting Microsoft pdf this week. Some of you, those interested in artificial intelligence and its role in society, might find it worth a few minutes.
140-ish pages long.

https://msblob.blob.core.windows.net/ncmedia/2018/01/The-Future-Computed.pdf

Posted by: goon at January 21, 2018 12:56 PM (EaQ6/)

425 Votermom: a good Tim Powers book to start with is The Anubis Gates. Time travel is involved.

Posted by: Jim S. at January 21, 2018 12:58 PM (ynUnH)

426 Thanks All Hail Eris, after work something to watch, enjoy, and learn again.

Posted by: Anna Puma (HQCaR) at January 21, 2018 01:00 PM (2+EWn)

427 My first home library looked nothing like that, but then again I was 3 and had to make do.

Posted by: geoffb at January 21, 2018 01:01 PM (zOpu5)

428 For fiction with a historical background, I recommend "The Kents," a comics maxiseries (also in trade paperback) written by John Ostrander. It tracks the story of the Kent family, ancestors of Clark Kent's adoptive father, during the days of Abolition. The family moves to Bleeding Kansas, and we learn about the era. The Kents consist of a father and two sons, one of them shadier than the other.

Ostrander's interpretation of the circumstances behind the decisions that shaped Kansas/Missouri history made me wish that he had written textbooks in addition to comics and plays. The man puts blood into the figures of the era.

And to top this off, the art is by Timothy Truman.

Highly recommended.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 21, 2018 01:03 PM (PWPy3)

429 This week I started and finished The Bomb Maker, by Thomas Perry. When he has a new offering the TBR stack takes a backseat. It was excellent as usual. I'm a pathetically slow reader, so for me to finish one thick book in a week is saying something. Highly recommended.

Posted by: SandyCheeks at January 21, 2018 01:09 PM (ihzOe)

430 Good morning Horde! (It's still the AM in the West.) I'm looking for a book with a story or stories of whites captured by Indians and living among them, suitable for reading aloud with a 10yo. Do any of you have a favorite?

Posted by: The Inexplicable Dr. Julius Strangepork at January 21, 2018 01:13 PM (4IjGx)

431 #430 - Try "Indian Captive-The Story of Mary Jemison" by Lois Lenski. It's written for kids about that age.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 21, 2018 01:22 PM (xnmPy)

432 430 a week ago or so on Pennsylvania channel a talk from a professor exacting on that around the French and Indian War.
Check back here in a few and see if I can figure out who and his book he wrote.

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 01:22 PM (aC6Sd)

433 I read a one of the Lost Regiment novels maybe 20+ years ago! I had forgotten the author. It was a great read. I was a contract project manager at the time and a client had a little honor-system library in the break room. I tried to find the other books by checking local stores and book sales with no luck. Thanks for the reminder. Now that we have the internet I'll take another run at finding them.
Posted by: George V at January 21, 2018 11:29 AM (LUHWu)

If you liked the Lost Regiment, DESTROYERMEN is in the same vein but with a WWII destroyer being transported to an alternate universe where Humans are not they only Intelligent species.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 01:32 PM (dKiJG)

434 Not having any luck, I'm sure it was only a week or 2 ago and on the Pennsylvania Channel book tv but they are not showing new books since before Christmas so must have been a repeat. This is the last showjng the F&I war but don't think this was the History Professor
"French and Indian War: War in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Kittanning Raid of 1756" with Brady Crytzer

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 01:43 PM (aC6Sd)

435 Interesting of this Lost Regiment series that I never heard of it but kinda suggested it in a war game question. Someone asked about the Final Countdown movie of the USS Nimitz going back through time to just before Pearl Harbor. I suggested maybe a modern combat squad going back to WWII or I in the same sort of way.

Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 01:47 PM (aC6Sd)

436 One obvious difference is race: it's invisible in the period fiction and an obsession to modern authors.
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 21, 2018 11:43 AM (owoHM)

One thing I got out of Ariosto (and also Chaucer) is the realization that, in their day, the racist attitudes the left thinks inherent in the West, just weren't present. One of Ariosto's objects was ingratiating himself with the Este family. He has them descended from Ruggiero - a moor who converts, and marries Bradimante. Race was not an issue, religion was.

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 01:49 PM (+TcCF)

437 tried a Tim Powers book once, forgot which, but I put it down.

What's a good one to give him another try?
Posted by: votermom pimping great books! at January 21, 2018 11:48 AM (hMwEB)

Tim Powers can be really fun, and I liked his books from the 80's an d 90's.
Lots of action, lots of excitement, lots of slapstick and farce.

Personally, I suggest any books from Dinner at Deviant's Palace through The Stress of Her Regard.

Anything before Deviant's Palace is essentially the plot of Deviant's Palace without the technical skill (well, The Skies Dethroned is a picaresque novel placed in space, but . . .) and is post apocalyptic LA with an alien invader;

The Anubis Gate is Romantic Lit professors getting involved with time travel and ancient Egyptian wizardry, werewolves and the introduction of the very puzzling romatic poet William Ashbless, and is fun;

The Drawing of the Dark is Arthur recalled for the siege of Vienna and has a hard bitten poetic Irish mercenary, a hunchbacked artilleryman, Ambrosius, demons called from Turkish mythology, a mad artists who paints the future, a brewery built over the resting place of Finn MacCool, and Vikings;

On Stranger Tides has Pirates, the fountain of youth and Ponce de Leon who is now a drunkard, Voodoo, black wizardry, and the Royal navy;

and The Stress of Her Regard which has romantic poets including Byron and Shelley, a male midwife accused of crushing his wife to death on her marriage eve, the secret masters of the world, and Lamiae.

After that he gets on the whole Fisher King and ghosts thing and that gets recursive, and I didn't like Declare because everyone was miserable, and it felt like it was either a massive conspiracy theory that tried to explain everything or else I was being punked. But that's me and my personal issues.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 01:53 PM (2K6fY)

438 Interesting of this Lost Regiment series that I never heard of it but kinda suggested it in a war game question. Someone asked about the Final Countdown movie of the USS Nimitz going back through time to just before Pearl Harbor. I suggested maybe a modern combat squad going back to WWII or I in the same sort of way.
Posted by: Skip at January 21, 2018 01:47 PM (aC6Sd)

There is a book like this but a task force gets sent back and the USS HILLARY CLINTON launches an attack on the Japanese. I saw the name of the Carrier and didn't buy the book, too much SJW crap according to the reviews. The ships of present have mixed races crews where the WW II don't and the author beats the premise to death.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 01:55 PM (dKiJG)

439 "Cervantes was at Lepanto, where the massed forces of Christian navies (and their new Caravel ship) crushed the galleys of the Ottomans."

Uh, no. Caravels were (a) not that new, and (b) didn't win Lepanto. The only non-galleys to have any effect were galleasses, and that wasn't decisive. Lepanto was to the galley what Navarino was to the ship of the line, the last great battle.

(Now, the Portuguese had, early in the century, defeated an Ottoman-Gujarati galley fleet at Diu. But that was with carracks, not caravels, though they had both. And it's not clear of the "galleys" they used were of Mediterranean quality.)

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 01:56 PM (+TcCF)

440 That desk really comes alive when there is a button that locks the door in it.

Posted by: Matt Lauer at January 21, 2018 02:01 PM (Xr58H)

441 308 Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 11:13 AM (+TcCF)

Actually, the usual take by socialists is that Quixote was fighting against "The Man" as opposed to *being* "The Man". Much like they see themselves as the eternal revolutionaries.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at January 21, 2018 11:18 AM (rp9xB)

They can change whom they think the good guys/bad guys, but they cannot change the basic framework. One of the points Hexter makes in the essay I cited was that, for Hill, he CANNOT "misrepresent" the evidence, because Hill's socialist model forces all evidence to confirm his thesis.

What troubles me is that most right wingers, too, have internalized the Marxist model of history. Not that they agree with the conclusions, but they cannot help but see patterns in history which closely parallel Marx's. Often they see the same "rising bourgeois" pattern, but differ in thinking more highly of it.

The trouble is variously described as "lumping", "pattern history", "historicism", or "the Whig interpretation". (But note that Hexter self-identified as Whig.) The common thread is the belief that there is a model of how history develops, and a resulting Procrusteanism in approach to the facts and their interpretation.

But then, I'm a full-bore "splitter" or Butterfield man. I like to keep my philosophy and my history separate; they are studying different things, in different ways. (I majored in both, btw).

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 02:05 PM (+TcCF)

442 Sgt. Mom and Skip, thanks.

Posted by: The Inexplicable Dr. Julius Strangepork at January 21, 2018 02:19 PM (4IjGx)

443 Uh, no. Caravels were (a) not that new, and (b)
didn't win Lepanto. The only non-galleys to have any effect were
galleasses, and that wasn't decisive. Lepanto was to the galley what
Navarino was to the ship of the line, the last great battle.

[ . . .]
Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 01:56 PM (+TcCF)

My mistake, I thought the success at Lepanto was due to technological improvements the Western navies had over the Turks, especially the development of ships to carry cannon and their employment as a fleet. I will have to revisit that.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 02:20 PM (2K6fY)

444 Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 21, 2018 01:55 PM (dKiJG)
---
Wasn't this written by an Australian?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 21, 2018 02:26 PM (qJtVm)

445 So let me show my full geek here.....

"but I would be drawn inexorably to putting my feet up on that desk if I were reading in that chair. And it's probably some fantastically expensive 18th century English desk with butterfly wing stain and unicorn horn inlay"

So I build my own furniture and I notice different furniture designs. I have opinions dammit. IMHO, the inlay "doesn't go" with the legs. The shape is all wrong. I couldn't believe it was really a Federalist style desk which is seems to imitate. Shonuff, I found it on the interwebs: http://www.halehdesigninc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ES11.jpg It is a modern interpretation of a classic look.

Sorry.

Posted by: inflammable at January 21, 2018 03:30 PM (aKxP+)

446 I enjoy historical fiction. Patrick Obrians Aubrey Maturin series is the best historical fiction written in my opinion. Beautiful writing, excellent characters and action. Shogun and Lonsesome Dove are also incredible historical fiction reads with great plots and characters in vivid historical settings. I also enjoy Cornwell and am currently reading the Sharpe series. Hornblower and Flashman are also favorites.

I am considering reading The Hisotry of the English Speaking Peoples by Churchhill. Anyone recommend those books? Should i start somewhere else with Churchill?

Posted by: Thought at January 21, 2018 03:31 PM (YoPLu)

447 My mistake, I thought the success at Lepanto was due to technological improvements the Western navies had over the Turks, especially the development of ships to carry cannon and their employment as a fleet. I will have to revisit that.
Posted by: Kindltot at January 21, 2018 02:20 PM (2K6fY)

The west did have a tech edge, having heavier guns on the galleys, and more small arms. Like the English, the Ottos were late to switch from bows, although the Turks had more success in doing so.

For a discussion of the ship types of the century, you can't do better than N A M Rodger's Safeguard (and the sources he cites there).

Posted by: George LeS at January 21, 2018 03:35 PM (+TcCF)

448 I am considering reading The Hisotry of the English Speaking Peoples by Churchhill. Anyone recommend those books? Should i start somewhere else with Churchill?

I keep being surprised when people say books, plural, but I just looked it up and there are four. I thought I had read it (as in the single volume that isn't) years ago.

What I remember from years ago is that I was hoping for a history of the English language and the people who speak it. What I read was a propaganda piece about why England and the Commonwealth should always hang together with America.

Which is a fine point, but not a great book. For books in his own hand I've read the six-part WWII memoirs a couple of times and do recommend them. "The Gathering Storm" is the first among them.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 21, 2018 03:41 PM (fuK7c)

449 VDH had a chapter on Lepanto in "Carnage and Culture."

Posted by: geoffb at January 21, 2018 04:12 PM (zOpu5)

450 Nobody's mentioned Celia Haye's stuff, start w/either Deep in the Heart or The Adelsverein Trilogy. All of her books maintain a permanent place in my current and future Kindles.

446: Yes. At one time, HotESP was on my list of the top ten books I've ever read. When my parents distributed the stuff in their house to the kids I was disappointed that I didn't get that set.

Posted by: yara at January 21, 2018 04:17 PM (W+vNk)

451 But, I think as Bandersnatch indicates, make sure you get the whole 4 volume set.

Posted by: yara at January 21, 2018 04:18 PM (W+vNk)

452 For an off the wall historical fiction, try The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. It's a fictionalized account of whether Richard III was really such a bad guy.

Posted by: yara at January 21, 2018 04:28 PM (W+vNk)

453 Hi, Yara - thanks for the up-vote! I try and limit my own horn-blowing on the book thread to the occasional mention, you know?

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 21, 2018 06:04 PM (xnmPy)

454 Disraeli, Portrait of a Romantic was, IIRC, the basis of the British series with Ian McShane as Victoria's favorite PM. It was the first book I'd read on the man who is now my favorite historical figure. And I've read most of the "real" bios ever since.

So I know the "history" part is accurate, and the fiction is compelling.

Posted by: Shopgirl: #FreeAgencyisStressful at January 22, 2018 12:45 AM (/GvEZ)

455 There are two series that I would recommend. The first may have been recommended already, and is the Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser. Frasier follows the adventures of Sir Harry Flashman, who was a character in the novel Tom Brown's schooldays, through most of the major happenings of the Victorian age. The first book follows the anti-hero through the British retreat from Afghanistan. Later books deal with the sepoy mutiny, the Boxer Rebellion, Custer's Last Stand, Etc.

The other set is the adventures of Sidney Sawyer, by David smeltz. This is a series in progress, and follows Tom Sawyer's half-brother Sydney through Antebellum West Point and through the Western theater of the Civil War. It's written in a similar style to the Flashman papers, as reminisces by the protagonist in his old age. Both series are available on Amazon and at the Kindle store.

Posted by: ninjaTED at January 22, 2018 11:05 AM (2nKX8)

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