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Sunday Morning Book Thread 09-08-2019

Hearst Castle Library 02.jpg
Hearst Castle Library, San Simeon, CA


Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), oddballs, goofballs, eight-balls, hair-balls, lo-balls and highballs. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, writing, and publishing by escaped oafs and oafettes who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which look like they're made from vegetation you might see decorating a saltwater aquarium.


It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

When I first read that, I was immediatelly reminded of these lyrics from the Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb:

When I was a child,
I caught a fleeing glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look, but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child has grown,
The dream is gone.




20190908 book pic 03.jpg



More on Dylan

I took a mental health break from the internet and actually got some books read. First was "Dylan Goes Electric" by Elijah Wald.

How come Dylan caused such a stir when other musicians such as Lightnin' Hopkins and the Chambers Brothers had previously played electric instruments at Newport without giving everybody the vapors? It's complicated, and Wald does a fine job untangling and explaining the complexities of the folk and pop music scenes in the 50s and early 60s.

Posted by: rickl at September 01, 2019 11:14 AM (sdi6R)

There was a good amount of discussion last week's book thread concerning this book, Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night that Split the Sixties. My thought was, why does this even need to be discussed? I thought the answer as to why Dylan did what he did at the Newport Folk Festival was well known. Namely, he pissed off the folky purists who probably didn't care all that much about R&B acts like the Chambers Bros. There is no need to over-analyze it.

However, I was curious about the book, and Captain Hate remarked that the author was an excellent music writer, so I started reading the book this week. And it goes into the early history of American folk music and pop music from the 30s onwards and I'm finding it quite interesting. I'm currently in the beginning chapter that deals mainly with Pete Seeger and it's somewhat disappointing how it plays down the fact that he really was a thoroughgoing rat bastard commie. Whatever cause the Soviets were currently pushing, you could count on ol' Pete being behind it 100%. And if they changed, he changed. Like, he was all for keeping America out of WWII and he wrote and performed many pacifistic songs toward that end -- up until the second when Hitler attacked his former ally Stalin, and then, oh my stars and garters, Seeger pivoted to a pro-war stance so suddenly that the whiplash nearly broke his neck.

However:

As I recall reading, old Commie Pete Seeger went absolutely nuts when Dylan plugged in. trying to cut the cord with an ax. Too bad the devout Stalinist didn't electrocute himself.

This thing proved that they didn't have a love for folk music as it was, but folk music as it could be used to further the Commie agenda and when Dylan plugged in--and hence, went pop or "commercial', Seeger and the other leftists in the audience feared they were losing their most popular and effective mouthpiece.

And they were.

Posted by: JoeF. at September 01, 2019 02:27 PM (NFEMn)

If you're going to analyze Dylan at Newport, I think this is as good an explanation as any.

Also, there is some dispute about the reactions to Dylan. There are claims that he had it cranked up so loud that caused a lot of audio distortion which sounded terrible. And Seeger attempting to cut Dylan's electric cord with an axe to silence his amplified sound is apparently an urban legend. For those interested, the wiki write-up is worth reading.

Here is a longish article on the commercialization of the late 50s-early 60s folk revival, which it calls “a fad sandwiched between the beatniks and the hippies,”, wherein crowds of middle-class kids pretended they were living in hard times:

It’s curious how much the postwar children of prosperity enjoyed hearkening back to hard times. Dylan’s early compositions were full of Dust Bowl references. Odetta was on television rendering the sounds of the chain gang while bathed in a glamorous cabaret spotlight. The Gordon Lightfoot song “Early Morning Rain” (1964) complained that “you can’t jump a jet plane” as easily as you hopped a freight train back in the good old, bad old days. “Green, Green,” Barry McGuire’s 1963 top ten hit, had the perky coeds of the New Christy Minstrels belting out the plea of the Great Depression: “Buddy, can you spare me a dime?”

I don't think the definitive book has been written on the early folkies all being a bunch of rat bastard commies. The closest is probably Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left by Ron Radosh, now OOP.



They Don't Publish Books Like This Any More:

20190908 book pic 01.jpg



Book Readers' Resource

This site looks like it could come in useful:

The goal of this website is simple dudes: to list the series of every book in order.

We provide the book series in order by author(ie: Lee Child), and then in order of the character or series(ie: Jack Reacher) Where applicable, we provide you with both the publication order of the books written, as well as the chronological order of the books.

So, for example, under C.S. Lewis, they have the 7 Narnia books in both publication and chronological order.

Their database of authors appears to be yuuge.

(h/t James Verpoten)



Who Dis:

who dis 20190908.jpg



"For to know a man's library is, in some measure, to know his mind."
— Geraldine Brooks



Moron Recommendations

___________

169 Rereading an old friend.

The Bedside Book of Bastards

Published in 1973. Written by Dorothy M Johnson and TR Turner.

It's a collection of short, and funny, biographies of some of the meanest people in history. None from this century. Sulla, Nero, Parysatis, Gilles De Rais, Blackbeard, Ali Pasha, Liver-Eating Johnson. And more.

Johnson's previous work includes The Bloody Bozeman. About the Bozeman Trail.

Posted by: Winston a dreg of society at August 25, 2019 10:37 AM (yOcNV)

Sounds like fun, but I think this book is OOP. Amazon has some for good prices, as does AbeBooks.

___________

135 In book-reading news, I finished Henry G. Payne's excellent The Spanish Civil War.

Anyhow, full book review on my site (link in my name) and the short version is simply this:

If you want one book that covers the topic and gives you unbiased facts and isn't 1,000 pages long, this is that book.

Payne blows apart soooo many myths, it's crazy. Guernica wasn't a test of Luftwaffe air power, it was a town they were attacking on the front line. Picasso's painting was just about finished and he renamed it to capitalize on the moment. It was a marketing ploy.

No one in Spain used the term "loyalist" to describe the Republicans. That was a propaganda invention for gullible foreigners.

Franco didn't like Hitler or Mussolini, but he needed help. He was a conservative in the European state, all about Throne and Altar and hated Nazism's pagan overtones and Fascism's ultra-modern aesthetic.

Anyhow, Payne's book isn't just informative, it's the perfect antidote to liberals bringing up crap about Spain that's pure fiction.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at September 01, 2019 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

And this is why the left hates men like Franco (and Pinochet). Because they are self-consciously counter-revolutionary. They each threw a monkey wrench into the progressive enterprise. Franco prevented Spain from being one more Soviet satellite and Pinochet kept Chile from being turned into a South American gulag. Progressives hate that. Progressives love gulags (when they're the ones running them).

You can read Lloyd's full review here.

The Spanish Civil War (Cambridge Essential Histories)

___________

40 I finished A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami at the recommendation of someone here a few weeks ago. I don't know if that was the first thing I read by him but it was outstanding; so good that I just stopped reading everything else until I was done with it. It was a Kafkesque tale, although narrated much differently, of a guy being manipulated into doing things that he only partially understands. He eventually figures it out and deals with it accordingly and things are wrapped up as realistically as possible under the circumstances and by circumstances I mean that large portions of the book involve things that are only happening in the main character's mind.

Anyway another outstanding recommendation from the Horde.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 01, 2019 09:21 AM (y7DUB)

This book has been mentioned by more than one of you morons. Here's the plot synopsis:

An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences. Thus begins a surreal and elaborate quest that takes readers from Tokyo to the remote mountains of northern Japan, where the unnamed protagonist has a surprising confrontation with his demons.

This is a stand-alone novel, but it is the third in a series featuring a character known as The Rat.
Browsing Murakami's books on Amazon was kind of a slog, he has so many. I found it easier to look for Murakami on the book series in order site I just mentioned to find the other books in the series. It's supposedly a trilogy, but there appears to be a fourth book:

Hear the Wind Sing
Pinball, 1973
A Wild Sheep Chase
Dance, Dance, Dance

___________

63 Reading Nothing Lost, by John Gregory Dunne, who wrote True Confessions. It's sort of a John Grisham courtroom novel, told from several viewpoints. One of his narrators, Max Cline (a self-described "queer Jew"), even mentions Grisham's novels at one point.

I was really bored by True Confessions -- maybe the movie with DeNiro was better -- but this is at least entertaining.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at August 18, 2019 09:36 AM (4c+5M)

According to the Amazon blurb, Nothing Lost plots the course of:

A grisly racial murder in what news commentators insist on calling “the heartland.” A feeding frenzy of mass media and seamy politics. An illicit love affair with the potential to wreck lives. In his grandly inventive last novel, John Gregory Dunne orchestrated these elements into a symphony of American violence, chicanery, and sadness.In the aftermath of Edgar Parlance’s killing, the small prairie town of Regent becomes a destination for everyone from a sociopathic teenaged supermodel to an enigmatic attorney with secret familial links to the worlds of Hollywood and organized crime. Out of their manifold convergences, their jockeying for power, publicity or love, Nothing Lost creates a drama of magnificent scope and acidity.

I remember seeing the movie adaption of True Confessions when it first came out (1981?). I hated it, but now I think that was because I didn't really understand the story. It's not about the murder so much as it's about the relationship between the two brothers. Anyway, TC was inspired, at least in part, by the gruesome Black Dahlia murder case, which is one of Los Angeles' oldest unsolved murders.

___________




20190908 book pic 05.jpg



Books By Morons

One of Stacy McCain's cobs, Wombat-socho, is an author, and he has just published a new book:

I did want to mention that I have a new book out. It’s a collection of short SF stories titled The Anti-Dog Tank and Other Stories, and it’s available for $1.99 from Amazon. You can also read it through Kindle Unlimited or the Prime Lending Library, if you have access to those. I think if you liked my essay collections, The Last Falangist and What Did You Do In The Cold War, Dad?, you’ll like TThe Anti-Dog Tank and Other Stories.

The Amazon blurb says it's a collection of

Five stories about life in the America of the future: during a new Civil War, societal collapse, and a different kind of alien invasion.

All for $1.99

___________


'Ette author Sabrina Chase has hostaed an evil plot to get you to buy her books.

A sale:

Thought the bookish Horde might be interested to know I have The Scent of Metal on sale for a mere $0.99, from 9/7 to 9/14. At all the usual online sources. It features mysterious alien spaceships pretending to be Pluto! Secrets of the Neanderthals! Computer geeks in space! And there are two more books in the series so if you like it, there's more.

The Scent of Metal is the first in Ms. Chase's Argonauts of Space series:

The expedition ship Kepler races to Pluto, intent on uncovering the secrets of the alien structure recently discovered under the ice. Computer scientist Lea Santorin can’t wait to figure out the alien technology. Instead, she wakes it up … and it continues its long-interrupted journey across the galaxy, taking Lea and Kepler with it.

And if you like, you can continue the series with One Blood and then conclude with Soul Code.

___________

If you like, you can follow me on Twitter, where I make the occasional snarky comment.

___________

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

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




20190908 book pic 04.jpg

Posted by: OregonMuse at 09:00 AM




Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:01 AM (arJlL)

2 OM you cheeky monkey!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:01 AM (kQs4Y)

3 hiya

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:01 AM (arJlL)

4 This week finished re-reading the Evening News by Authur Haily, The Scribbly Man by Terry Goodkind and The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. Now on a re-read of Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein.



Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 09:02 AM (mpXpK)

5 Well done JT!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:02 AM (kQs4Y)

6 hiya Eris

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:02 AM (arJlL)

7 If you want a fast paced, funny, crotch-grabbin’ read, then pick up Mat Best’s memoir “Thank You For My Service”. He was the youngest of six in a military family in California. Two of his brothers joined the Marines, while Mat was a skinny doofus who played base in an emo punk band. Brothers Alan and Davis were set to graduate boot camp on…September 11th, 2001. Their readiness to deploy to a war zone, and brother Alan’s stoicism in dealing with a sudden bout of cancer, really inspired Mat to make more of himself.

“The quest to be a better Best started with learning everything I could about the military. I immersed myself in military culture and quickly became obsessed to a nearly unhealthy degree, like the Japanese are with poop and the Germans are with…well, also with poop. I watched every single war movie I could get my hands on. I studied these war flicks the way conspiracy theorists study the Zapruder film – pantsless.”

Of course he couldn’t just follow in their footsteps, he had to exceed them, so Best became an Army Ranger. This part of the book is a carousel of guns, running sores, explosions, and severed heads. But I’ll let him describe it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6mPewZlKaU

After five deployments he decided not to reenlist. He enjoyed the freedom of civilian life but was appalled at the level of stupidity in his bubble-wrapped and Purelled fellow students, and in 2008 the idiocy scaling Eiger-level heights. He was only in his early twenties but felt like a different species. So he nixed the idea of college and became a contractor for a private security firm in L.A. “I had gone directly from having one of the realest, most authentically important jobs imaginable to living in one of the fakest, vainest places on the planet”. He’s hired by a crazy rich guy of indeterminate Middle Eastern extraction to patrol his mad coke- and EDM-fueled parties and prevent gay-on-gay slap fights that trash up his property. That lasts for one hung over morning and he quits after his first choke-hold.

He does end up working for an actual contact company. Right around this time he began making videos as a lark and to channel his creativity, and they took off. “I wanted the world to know that veterans like me, who loved man shit like beards and whiskey and guns and hot chicks in American flag bikinis, weren’t ticking time bombs ready to explode.”

This book would be a terrific stocking stuffer – much like Mat!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:02 AM (kQs4Y)

8 Who dis? Marylin Monroe?

Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 09:04 AM (mpXpK)

9 Marilyn, of course, who later married the dried up carapace of an author.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:06 AM (kQs4Y)

10 This week I read Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum. This is a thorough look at the Soviet Union's system of concentration camps. The three sections of the book are: The Origins of the Gulag, Life and Work in the Camps, and The Rise and Fall of the Camp Industrial Complex 1940-1996. An interesting read.

Posted by: Zoltan at September 08, 2019 09:07 AM (ZC3fR)

11 Gonna go pack books for a while, with periodic breaks to read a graphic novel version of an Elric novel.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:08 AM (kQs4Y)

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

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 09:08 AM (bmdz3)

13 I visited Hearst Castle many years ago. Sadly I don't remember the library, but I do remember the gold-filagree lined swimming pool that was partially under the house. Plus the bus ride up to the castle was harrowing, if I'm remembering it correctly...the house was perched on a high hill and the driveway would snake back and forth.

I'm reading Hilaire Belloc's Survivals and New Arrivals. I have to say that this book doesn't live up to his other books, such as the Battleground or the Great Heresies.

Posted by: squeakywheel at September 08, 2019 09:08 AM (Sid2N)

14 Yes, very young Marilyn Monroe. Possibly before she married Arthur Miller.
Had a lovely meet-up with a local book club who had read one of my books, and were tickled no end to have the author come for lunch and a round of searching questions - then developed a nasty summer cold which has pretty well sidelined me for the weekend. Sigh.
Hope to recover by Wednesday, for the next day we are due in Giddings for the Word Wrangler event.
http://www.texaswordwrangler.com/

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at September 08, 2019 09:10 AM (xnmPy)

15 Nyah

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 08, 2019 09:11 AM (oWU+C)

16 I don't know what this means but I've noticed that good quality hardcover editions of classic adventure stories are often in short supply on Amazon and B and N., Verne, Burroughs, Rider, etc. A number of them said just one or two copies left and unavailable online. Maybe the companies don't keep much back stock. I like to think people are realizing that good, permanent editions of these books are worth having and preserving. Just an observation.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 09:11 AM (bmdz3)

17 I'm reading this from the hot tub, soaking my sore back. Apologies for the sans pantalones.

Posted by: Muad'dib at September 08, 2019 09:11 AM (uDh3k)

18 It's hard to keep up with all the great new releases. Fenton Wood just released The Tower of the Bear, Book 3 in his YA techno-adventure series, Yankee Republic. Jon del Arroz just released Justified (The Saga of the Nano Templar Book 1). I'm a chapter into it already, and it looks promising. I'm also looking forwad to The Anti-Dog Tank and Other Stories by Kevin Trainor. I enjoyed his "What Did You Do In the Cold War, Dad?" It's a fun memoir of his military experience.

In other news, Daniel Humphreys, author of the Z-Day series, has compiled an anthology, Plase Beyond the Wild, with short stories from Richard Paolinelli, Bokerah Brumley, J. M. Anjewierden, Travis J. I. Corcoran, Jon Del Arroz, Declan Finn, Morgon Newquist, P. A. Piatt, and others I've probably forgotten. My contribution, Timeline Zulu, is a Hidden Truth/Z-Day crossover story that takes place a dozen years after the end of the Brave and the Bold and features Pete Burdell. It should be out for pre-order soon.

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at September 08, 2019 09:12 AM (FXjhj)

19 Elric meet Jon Snow,
Jon Snow meet Elric,
Enjoy being doomed.

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 08, 2019 09:12 AM (oWU+C)

20 English has no one-word equivalent of the Welsh word HIRAETH: a deep, nostalgic homesickness, it refers to a longing to return to something or somewhere now gone (or that perhaps never was), or else a grief felt when someone is lost, changing familiar circumstances beyond repair.

********

Sure we do:

Bachelorhood

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:12 AM (mvenn)

21 HIRAETH is a great word. Thanks.

It could serve as a one-word review of the Welsh-set novel How Green Was My Valley.

I only saw the John Ford movie, which beat out Citizen Kane for Oscar.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:13 AM (1UZdv)

22 Was it the Russians who trained anti-tank dogs, alas the dogs were trained to hunt on friendly vehicles. So in real combat...

Posted by: Anna Puma at September 08, 2019 09:14 AM (oWU+C)

23 "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."

- Groucho Marx, who did Marxism right.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #PurgeProgressivism at September 08, 2019 09:15 AM (HaL55)

24 Hello all, this week hubby and I are not only celebrating our 25th anniversary but we're also making an effort to read more real books. His book was "Die Trying" by Lee Child, which he just finished last night.... he said it was a disappointment because there was waaay too much lengthy description, too little action and lots of plot points that hinged on someone doing something incredibly stupid. YMMV.

The book I am currently reading is a Penguin Classics edition of "Uncle Tom's Cabin". So far I have been pleasantly surprised at how good it is... and how well it explains exactly what people were really thinking about the slavery issue in the early 1850s. I know it gets a bad rap for being racist and overly sentimental, and it is in parts, but it is IMO way better than its reputation and deserves to be read now more than ever. Some of the moral dilemmas and justifications that the slave owners in the book face (not all of them are portrayed as being bad people, by the way; Stowe's treatment of the slaves and their owners is much more evenhanded than one would think) could very easily be applied to issues of today like abortion and illegal immigration.

Posted by: Secret Square at September 08, 2019 09:15 AM (9WuX0)

25 When I was a child,
I caught a fleeing glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look, but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child has grown,
The dream is gone.


To me these are some of the most haunting song lyrics ever.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:15 AM (NWiLs)

26 Currently reading "Northwest Passage" by Kenneth Roberts. Published in 1937 it's good historical fiction as told by Kittery, Maine native Langdon Towne. It's two books in one. Book 1 is Towne's adventures with Major Robert Rogers (of Rogers' Rangers fame) in 1759 during the French and Indian War which includes their harrowing trek before and after the attack on an Indian village in St. Francis, Quebec. Book 2 has Towne in England where he's learning to be a painter and again meets Rogers.

I got my copy in a used book store and it's in beautiful condition. What I like about these old timey books is the language. Often they're more descriptive, and at times almost melodic, than later authors. I also learned some new words. After Rogers pulls himself out of a swamp Towne describes him as a "draggled merman." (a dirty wet male mermaid. I didn't know there were male mermaids). One night Towne sees the glow from "sulphur spunk" on Rogers' face (it's an early matchstick). After the Ranger's starvation march Towne describes them as a "horde of tatterdemalions" (ragged and in a bad condition). A mixed drink called a "flip" was very popular. The main ingredient is rum, then it's heated with a red hot poker causing it to foam up, or flip.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at September 08, 2019 09:15 AM (TDyHc)

27 Good morning to all you admirable people who read for edification.

I read for amusement and escape.

Currently re-reading all of the books written by Anne Rivers Siddons. And the new one by Alexander McCall Smith.

Posted by: Ladyl urgent prayer needed for Laura and Allison at September 08, 2019 09:17 AM (TdMsT)

28 Hello, Horde!

Having finished Henry G. Payne's The Spanish Civil War, I'm taking another look at Hugh Thomas' book of the same name.

With the benefit of vastly more knowledge of the subject, I can say that Thomas needed an editor worse than I do (and that's saying a lot). He throws in detail that positively impedes the flow of crucial information. The constant name-checks are tiresome and he's less detached from the subject matter than Payne.

One deficiency that is more apparent in the re-reading is the neglect of the charitable side of the Catholic Church's position in pre-Republican Spain. Thomas notes that most schools were run by the Church, but completely ignores any charitable activities. This leaves him looking particularly ignorant when he puzzles as to why many of the poorest parts of rural Spain are devoted to their parishes and fiercely defend them.

Could it be that they are the center of the community and the original social safety net?

Thomas does note that Republican leaders were heavily into Freemasonry and that for many of them, hostility to the Church was more important than public welfare (i.e. the wanted to abolish Catholic schools before preparing secular alternatives to replace them).

For those interested in learning more beyond Payne, Thomas is useful, but read Payne first.


Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:17 AM (cfSRQ)

29 Towne describes him as a "draggled merman." (a dirty wet male mermaid. I didn't know there were male mermaids)

Mer-man! Mer-MAN!!!

Posted by: Derek Zoolander at September 08, 2019 09:18 AM (NWiLs)

30 When Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe he's said to have said "So you're the little woman who started this great big war."

Written on the campus of Bowdoin College, Brunswick Maine. Her husband was a professor.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:18 AM (1UZdv)

31 The Dead Never Forget by Jack Lynch

First of a series about a private investigator named Bragg of the traditional hard boiled kind of PI. Some deceit, family business, mob issues all rolled into a nicely paced plot. Never got emotionally involved in plot or life of Bragg or the sometimes cartoonish characters.

Posted by: Charlotte at September 08, 2019 09:20 AM (d6PIl)

32 Mer-man! Mer-MAN!!!

Ethel! Ethel!

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #PurgeProgressivism at September 08, 2019 09:21 AM (HaL55)

33 27 Good morning to all you admirable people who read for edification.

I read for amusement and escape.

Currently re-reading all of the books written by Anne Rivers Siddons. And the new one by Alexander McCall Smith.

Posted by: Ladyl urgent prayer needed for Laura and Allison at September 08, 2019 09:17 AM (TdMsT)

I don't read for fun anymore. I read a lot of self-help books.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:21 AM (NWiLs)

34 Interesting pants.

Posted by: Diogenes at September 08, 2019 09:21 AM (oEKhr)

35 Test

Posted by: Puddin Head at September 08, 2019 09:22 AM (QZCjk)

36 The pants woman looks like the superhero-

OysterWoman!

With the Power To Kick You With Her Powerful Oyster
Shins!!!!


Posted by: naturalfake at September 08, 2019 09:22 AM (mIQCW)

37 211 Reading "Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation against America". The title says it. Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" used in many middle schools, probably bears responsibility for Antifa and a lot of Anti-American sentiment in the MFM and journalists.

Bad history drives out good. Sad.

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 09:23 AM (r28kI)

38 English has no one-word equivalent of the Welsh
word HIRAETH: a deep, nostalgic homesickness, it refers to a longing to
return to something or somewhere now gone (or that perhaps never was),
or else a grief felt when someone is lost, changing familiar
circumstances beyond repair.



********



Sure we do:



Bachelorhood

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:12 AM (mvenn)

Mrs. Muldoon notwithstanding.

Posted by: Vendette at September 08, 2019 09:24 AM (9Eyhn)

39 8 Who dis? Marylin Monroe?

Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 09:04 AM (mpXpK)


Yes.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at September 08, 2019 09:24 AM (+aReV)

40 HIRAETH

*****

Okay, I was just being snarky about bachelorhood.

But isn't the perfect English word for hiraeth actually YESTERDAY?

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:24 AM (mvenn)

41

I don't read for fun anymore. I read a lot of self-help books.
Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:21 AM (NWiLs)


The only self-help book that was any use to me at all was "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," by Dale Carnegie. It was probably written in the 1930s. I've read it many times over the years.

All the others I've read have been either fatuous psychobabble or painfully self-evident.

Posted by: Ladyl urgent prayer needed for Laura and Allison at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (TdMsT)

42 Morning readers!

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (MVjcR)

43 Now that is what I call a lieberry!

Bob should have taken the axe to Pete and rid the world of his untalented ass.

Mama take this axe from me
Cause I can't use it anymore
Pete's head is missing too
It's there rolling on the floor........

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (Z+IKu)

44 30 I've heard that quote many times, but literary scholars now describe it as "apocryphal" because it didn't appear in print until 30+ years later and no one who was actually there when Stowe met Lincoln agreed on what Lincoln actually said.

The edition I'm reading was published in the early 80s and comes with an introduction by a lady professor of feminist bent, who says that people who criticize Uncle Tom for being too submissive and deferential to "Mas'r" are overlooking the fact that Stowe intends for him to be a Christ figure and not an ordinary man. The whole book is very much immersed in a religious sensibility that, for obvious reasons, today's snowflakes have trouble grasping. There are also instances in which Uncle Tom stands up for himself and his beliefs even (ultimately) at the cost of his own life. Additionally, there are other slave characters in the book who are quite militant about gaining their freedom by any means necessary.

Posted by: Secret Square at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (9WuX0)

45 Those pants look like she's got her knickers in a twist

Posted by: cool breeze at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (UGKMd)

46 Another English word for HIRAETH :

REGERTS

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:26 AM (mvenn)

47 Now I'm feelin' so much better I could cake walk in to town...

Posted by: klaftern at September 08, 2019 09:27 AM (RuIsu)

48 If you like the Amazon show the boys

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at September 08, 2019 09:27 AM (dKiJG)

49 The only self-help book that was any use to me at all was "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," by Dale Carnegie. It was probably written in the 1930s. I've read it many times over the years.

All the others I've read have been either fatuous psychobabble or painfully self-evident.
Posted by: Ladyl urgent prayer needed for Laura and Allison at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (TdMsT)

Haven't read that one. There is a lot of useless psychobabble out there, for sure. I have found that "painfully self-evident" is subjective. For people on the more normal end of the curve, a lot of things probably are. For people who are much further away from that end, such as myself, the painfully self-evident isn't always so self-evident.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:28 AM (NWiLs)

50 Zinn's history takes a few select incidents in American history and then extrapolates them to be the whole. All from a narrow distorted viewpoint. It's bad polemic, not history.

e.g., no credit for ending the horror of Japanese expansionism. Instead Hiroshima is the first shot in the USA starting the Cold War against the benevolent Soviet Union.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:29 AM (1UZdv)

51 I've also been collecting Osprey books on the Spanish Civil War. My current titles are:

The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 (MAA 74)
The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 (1) Nationalist Forces (MAA 495)
The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 (2) Republcian Forces (MAA 49
International Brigades in Spain 1936-39 (Elite 53)
The Ebro 1938 (Campaign 60)
Spanish Civil War Tanks (NV 170)

MAA 495 has been the most interesting, simply because Nationalist forces are generally ignored. Most of the press goes to either the "mixed brigades" of the Popular Army (Republican) or the propaganda-heavy International Brigades (Elite 53).

I bought that particular book in college after doing a paper on Americans in Spain. It runs heavy into propaganda because the author had personal ties to the British volunteers. Still, there is a lot of detail on uniforms, organization and interesting photos mixed in with the hagiography.

I will caution that while the uniform detail is good, most buy into the conventional narrative, using terms like "loyalist," treat Guernica as a world-historical atrocity, etc. They are still useful backgrounders.

I'm still reading NV 170, which is by Steven Zaloga, who is my favorite tank expert. He's blown up a lot of WW II myths about tanks, so I'm looking forward to what he has to say in Spain.

The Condor Legion is still on order (Elite 131) and after that I may buy some of the Aces books.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:30 AM (cfSRQ)

52 I love that library in the top photo. That's fantasy stuff.

To my amazement, our local library has a copy of the Dylan Goes Electric book. Thanks for bringing it up.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 09:31 AM (bmdz3)

53 booken morgen horden!

and happy birthday to Hadrian!

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 09:31 AM (+72t1)

54 40 HIRAETH

*****

Okay, I was just being snarky about bachelorhood.

But isn't the perfect English word for hiraeth actually YESTERDAY?
Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:24 AM (mvenn)

HIRAETH
all my troubles seemed so far away

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 09:32 AM (JFO2v)

55 I'm fairly certain train jumping went out of fashion a couple of generations ago. I did it during my college years and the only souls I encountered were a couple of filthy hobos and a hungover conductor.

Posted by: Fritz at September 08, 2019 09:32 AM (kLDv+)

56 If you like the Amazon show THE BOYS, I would recommend the book STEELHEART The Reckonirs The United States is no more since superheroes or Epix have come on to the scene. No cops contain rhem no governments can stop them so the superheroes have become dictators where they have territories carved out and ordinary people have to stop them.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at September 08, 2019 09:32 AM (dKiJG)

57 46 Another English word for HIRAETH :

REGERTS
Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:26 AM (mvenn)

NO REGERTS!

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:32 AM (NWiLs)

58 Those pants actually show a sense of fun and are a pleasant change from the nightmare-inducing specimens that we've seen from time to time.

Thanks, OM, for the additional info on Dylan Goes Electric. I checked it out of the library after last week's discussion, but hadn't started it yet. It just jumped to the top of the "next" list.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at September 08, 2019 09:33 AM (S+f+m)

59 46 Another English word for HIRAETH :

REGERTS
Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:26 AM (mvenn)

NO REGERTS here!

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 09:33 AM (JFO2v)

60 Anna Puma -

Have you ever heard of a Marine Lt. Colonel named Earl Ellis ?

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:34 AM (arJlL)

61 yesterday I learned Gatrunk
today it is Hiraeth

Tying to work both into my Monday AM conf calls

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 09:35 AM (JFO2v)

62 If you like good ol' fashioned syfy space operas I highly recommend Sabrina Chase's "Argonauts of Space" trilogy (although I've not yet read Soul Code) and her "Sequoyah" trilogy.

Posted by: Jake Holenhead at September 08, 2019 09:35 AM (TDyHc)

63 I just finished John Grisham's The Broker

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:36 AM (arJlL)

64 e.g., no credit for ending the horror of Japanese
expansionism. Instead Hiroshima is the first shot in the USA starting
the Cold War against the benevolent Soviet Union.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:29 AM (1UZdv)

---
If you are of Zinn's mentality, the entire world lacks free will. Everything every other country does was because the US goaded them into it.

Japan invaded China because American opened them up. The Soviets were expansionist because of American provocation.

It's fascinating the degree to which all other peoples and cultures are reduced to bit parts and it highlights how ignorant of the world the left actually is.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:36 AM (cfSRQ)

65 50 Zinn's history takes a few select incidents in American history and then extrapolates them to be the whole. All from a narrow distorted viewpoint. It's bad polemic, not history.

e.g., no credit for ending the horror of Japanese expansionism. Instead Hiroshima is the first shot in the USA starting the Cold War against the benevolent Soviet Union.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:29 AM (1UZdv)

And the failure of the USSR (destroyed by Reagan) was not good for the world as left US as only superpower.

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 09:37 AM (JFO2v)

66 I don't read for fun anymore. I read a lot of self-help books.
Posted by: Insomniac

"How to Survive a Pouncing " ?

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:38 AM (arJlL)

67 I remember hearing "Green, Green" as a wee tad and liked it.


This outdo from the anime series "Nichijou" sparked a really strong memory of the song and time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZNIIIqG7GY


So, I looked up the "original" with the New Christie minstrels

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


I think I prefer the Japanese version as that Pete Seegeresque-style singing always irritated me.

"I'm a lusty, ramblin" commie singin' ramblin' commie songs dealio." struck me as false on all levels when I got older.

Dylan's voice couldn't be farther from Seegar phones-baloney workin' man's voice.

Electric was just the next natural step for him, I bet.

Posted by: naturalfake at September 08, 2019 09:38 AM (mIQCW)

68 66 I don't read for fun anymore. I read a lot of self-help books.
Posted by: Insomniac

"How to Survive a Pouncing " ?
Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:38 AM (arJlL)

Oh that's easy. Clean living and exercise.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:39 AM (NWiLs)

69 ugh.

outdo = outro


Thx aC

Posted by: naturalfake at September 08, 2019 09:39 AM (mIQCW)

70 Haven't read that one. There is a lot of useless
psychobabble out there, for sure. I have found that "painfully
self-evident" is subjective. For people on the more normal end of the
curve, a lot of things probably are. For people who are much further
away from that end, such as myself, the painfully self-evident isn't
always so self-evident.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:28 AM (NWiLs)

---
Everyone is a little different, and what works for one may be anathema to others.

My wife is devouring Matthew Kelly books, but I find them obvious and tedious.

Then again, my crisis of faith was solved by Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy. Go figure.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:39 AM (cfSRQ)

71 64 e.g., no credit for ending the horror of Japanese
expansionism. Instead Hiroshima is the first shot in the USA starting
the Cold War against the benevolent Soviet Union.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:29 AM (1UZdv)

---
If you are of Zinn's mentality, the entire world lacks free will. Everything every other country does was because the US goaded them into it.

Japan invaded China because American opened them up. The Soviets were expansionist because of American provocation.

It's fascinating the degree to which all other peoples and cultures are reduced to bit parts and it highlights how ignorant of the world the left actually is.
Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:36 AM (cfSRQ)

Is that not all progressive thinking? One is not responsible for their lives or actions as they are actually feeling or reactions to others. All progressive (non)thinking can be boiled down to.....
YOU MADE ME DO IT

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 09:40 AM (JFO2v)

72 I finished "12 Rules For Life" by Jordan Peterson. Clearly, I already knew of the importance of telling the truth and not lying. But the organization of the material conclusions are great.

Posted by: JAS at September 08, 2019 09:40 AM (dT9VH)

73 "Marxist Minstrels: Communist Subversion of American Folk Music"

I bought that back around 1980, never read the whole thing, but the title is clear enough ... it should be clearer to us now than ever, that the Soviet infiltration was a coordinated subversion of our culture, well funded by the Soviets, mostly. It took on a life of its own within America as "capitalism" enriched the music industry, Hollywood, media ... and as the commie mafia took control of cities and DC. Stoned 20 somethings perverted a couple generations, but were led by the nose, mostly.


This is audio from the author, about his book from 1974.
"Topics: Folkways records Bob Dylan Joan Baez Pete Seeger Communism Lenin Stalin bolshevism"
https://tinyurl.com/yxmdrfny

Posted by: illiniwek at September 08, 2019 09:41 AM (Cus5s)

74 Japan invaded China because American opened them up.
---
Wait, I thought it was because we forced their hand when we cut Japan off from natural resources. That's what a coworker (with a Japanese wife) told me.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:41 AM (kQs4Y)

75 "And the failure of the USSR (destroyed by Reagan) was not good for the world as left US as only superpower."

Now you can criticize the USA, but imagine what would happen if any other nation was left as the only superpower.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (1UZdv)

76 Is that not all progressive thinking? One is not
responsible for their lives or actions as they are actually feeling or
reactions to others. All progressive (non)thinking can be boiled down
to.....

YOU MADE ME DO IT

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 09:40 AM (JFO2v)

---
Partially. There's also the notion that there are no permanent principles, simply means to an end.

Which is total power.

Free speech is good until its bad. Women are empowered except when they claim they're not. And so on.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (cfSRQ)

77 24 ... Secret Square, Happy Anniversary!

Thanks for mentioning "Uncle Tom's Cabin". I never read it. It's been considered a melodramatic joke for so long, reading it seemed pointless. Yours is the first one that said it has literary value. Another one for the 'to-be-read' pile.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (bmdz3)

78 I am currently reading Yellowstone Kelly the book that the movie was based on.

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (arJlL)

79 just read Come Seeking Night , book 3 in the Paxton Locke series by certified Moron Daniel Humphreys.
Fun, took an unexpected turn midway.

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (+72t1)

80
REGERTS

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 09:26 AM

NO REGERTS!

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:32 AM


AVERT ME!!!

Posted by: Mr.Eckert at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (KCxzN)

81 50 Zinn's history ... It's bad polemic, not history.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:29 AM (1UZdv)

I take your point, but the problem is too many people think it is history. For example, a 2017 Harvard Graduate School of Education post on teaching about Columbus listed Zinn's "history" as a resource for teachers.

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 09:43 AM (r28kI)

82 Now you can criticize the USA, but imagine what would happen if any other nation was left as the only superpower.
---
Countries also criticize the US as a stand-in for criticizing their own.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:44 AM (kQs4Y)

83 Wait, I thought it was because we forced their hand
when we cut Japan off from natural resources. That's what a coworker
(with a Japanese wife) told me.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:41 AM (kQs4Y)

---
That's the standard explanation for Pearl Harbor, but it ignores the Japanese intervention in China going back to the 1890s.

And their bloody occupation of Korea.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:44 AM (cfSRQ)

84 Seeling, not Seeking, damn otto korekt

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 09:45 AM (+72t1)

85 I think I like that little reading nook with the picture windows even more than the grand library up top.

Back to packing. I have to take a break between stacking boxes -- dang but books are heavy!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:45 AM (kQs4Y)

86 Before getting out of bed to make breakfast for the grandkids, I would also put a plug in for other Kenneth L Roberts books. My favorite is Rabble in Arms closely followed by Oliver Wiswell.

Rabble follows Peter Merill as he ends up with Benedict Arnold during the battles at Quebec through Valcour Island and Saratoga.

Wiswell follows the Revolution from the point of a loyalist.

Posted by: Beartooth at September 08, 2019 09:45 AM (duxRF)

87 I don't read for fun anymore. I read a lot of self-help books.
Posted by: Insomniac

"How to Survive a Pouncing " ?
Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:38 AM (arJlL)

Oh that's easy. Clean living and exercise.
Posted by: Insomniac

Well, yeah.

After all, ya don't want a big belly to whap unsuspecting young ladies on the bus.

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:46 AM (arJlL)

88 That's the standard explanation for Pearl Harbor, but it ignores the Japanese intervention in China going back to the 1890s.

And their bloody occupation of Korea.
Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:44 AM (cfSRQ)
---
Our inherent racism caused it!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:46 AM (kQs4Y)

89 They Don't Publish Books Like This Any More:

How To Sext, an e-pamphlet, #1 at Amazon this week!

Posted by: Jonha Glodbreg at September 08, 2019 09:47 AM (oVJmc)

90 I just finished the POPPY WARS it's a very interesting take on magic using martial arts and instead of calling them wizards their shaman. It's a very interesting book but I just have a hard time with the main character, she's very uninteresting and she makes such stupid decisions. She gets her menstrual cycle instead of dealing with it she takes potion that more or less destroyed her womb. Maybe it's just me but I just can't get over that. World building is amazing and it's a very interesting book on why the war started what's going on mix of using modern warfare and magic and eastern style fighting. The story is really about China versus Japan in a fantasy type setting.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at September 08, 2019 09:47 AM (dKiJG)

91 Countries also criticize the US as a stand-in for criticizing their own.



Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:44 AM (kQs4Y)

---
Yes, and liberals project onto conservatives constantly.

The standard trope that conservative men are heels and brutal and mean is easy to explain once one understands that liberal feminist men are creepers and predators.

"Gosh, of the men on our side are this bad, how awful must conservatives be!" Thus spake liberal women.

But it's not true. Creepy guys are attracted to liberalism precisely because it gives them a veneer of legitimacy and trust. OF COURSE super-feminist Joss Whedon used the casting couch and OF COURSE Harvey Weinstein was a perv.

That's why I tell my daughters never to date liberal guys. They're creepers and perverts. Apolitical is fine, but any man who calls himself a feminist is a passive-aggressive snake.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:49 AM (cfSRQ)

92 Wait, I thought it was because we forced their hand when we cut Japan off from natural resources. That's what a coworker (with a Japanese wife) told me.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage

If he gets in an argument with her, does he worry that his wife will commit Harry Carey on him ?

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:49 AM (arJlL)

93 Happy Birthday, Hadrian!

Currently reading the Hemingway/Severino book 'Justice On Trial.'
I followed the nomination process closely and am surprised how much new information the book is providing. I would recommend this as a "must read" book.

Posted by: RICO aka msm/democrat/msm at September 08, 2019 09:49 AM (x6XkS)

94 The word power example, hiraeth, has haunting connotations. I wonder if it is connected to 'wraith'.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 09:49 AM (bmdz3)

95 . Secret Square, Happy Anniversary!


Seconded !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (arJlL)

96 Hiya Book People!

I am still here despite the apocalyptic lightning storm that tried to obliterate Seattle last night. We rarely get thunderstorms; this one tried to make up for the previous omissions. It was an epic lightshow.

Speaking of Uncle Tom's Cabin, I have a story... I always thought it was precious sentimental treacle preaching to the choir and didn't have as much real effect as, say, Huckleberry Finn reaching and changing the unconscious racist mind. Then my aunt told me about the time she was given the book as a child. She grew up in the Jim Crow south, and it was just part of the environment to her. She thought the black neighbor's kids didn't HAVE to go to school and was jealous of them. The book changed that.
And she got mad. Especially when she found out those neighbor boys didn't know how to read. So she sat them down in front of her little chalkboard easel and TAUGHT them. She was seven years old. The kids then taught their father, who was also illiterate. *Four people*, given the gift of reading, by one little girl. Who grew up to become a school district head librarian.
My aunt died this year at the ripe old age of 92. She was an amazing battle-axe of a woman who did not put up with shit, ever. And I stopped badmouthing Uncle Tom's Cabin

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (Ek5TW)

97 If he gets in an argument with her, does he worry that his wife will commit Harry Carey on him ?
Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:49 AM (arJlL)
---
The correct word is hellokitty.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (kQs4Y)

98 "We should have expected it after the oil embargo."

Posted by: Zombie Consigliere Tom Hagen at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (1UZdv)

99 Good Sunday morning, horde!

What a lovely library. I could live in there and never come out.

I finished The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. Someone here recommended it, I'm pretty sure. Basic plot is a poor orphan girl is determined to get into the best school in the kingdom and be a star warrior. She gets in, but diverts from martial arts to spiritual arts, discovering a whole subculture that will be instrumental in the coming war.

Mostly, I liked it. I did keep thinking Kung Fu Harry Potter, though.

Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (OX9vb)

100 Happy Birthday, Hadrian!

Seconded !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:51 AM (arJlL)

101 After all, ya don't want a big belly to whap unsuspecting young ladies on the bus.
Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:46 AM (arJlL)

Absolutely not. That would be a serious faux pas, even on public transportation.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:51 AM (NWiLs)

102 Hiraeth is a good word for what we felt when we would visit home while on leave from the AF: My favorite pizza parlor/movie theater had burned down, our high school remodeled and got rid of its iconic driveway, and our college got rid of the grassy area where we would stargaze (I had Astronomy homework that Pooky would "help" me with).


Progress, I guess.

Posted by: pookysgirl, scrivener extraordinaire at September 08, 2019 09:51 AM (XKZwp)

103 Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (Ek5TW)
-----
That is a great story!

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 09:52 AM (MVjcR)

104 The correct word is hellokitty.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (kQs4Y)

I was gonna say hairy curry but that's purrfect

did you know that the Hello Kitty empire all started with a simple coin purse abd a salesman that wouldn't quit?

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 09:54 AM (+72t1)

105 Personal rant:

I am currently working on book one of what I hope will eventually be a four-book YA series on Mary Todd, before she married Lincoln. The...THE...primary source material for her early life is her niece, Katherine Helm's, biography of her. It is absolutely useless dreck!

Half the dating of her "stories" doesn't check out. For example, she recounts a story of a 76 year old woman leading a dance...but the woman died at 72. Or Mary's "best friend" who wasn't born until Mary was in her late teens. I have to check Ancestry for every single person she mentions.

Why do people feel compelled to write BS biographies of famous family members? Don't they know they are driving future researchers mad?

Posted by: Linn Ridge at September 08, 2019 09:54 AM (9zLHS)

106 My aunt died this year at the ripe old age of 92. She was an amazing battle-axe of a woman who did not put up with shit, ever. And I stopped badmouthing Uncle Tom's Cabin
Posted by: Sabrina Chase

She sounds like the Kathryn Hepburn character in Rooster Cogburn !

God bless her and thanks for sharing that !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (arJlL)

107 104 The correct word is hellokitty.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (kQs4Y)

I was gonna say hairy curry but that's purrfect

did you know that the Hello Kitty empire all started with a simple coin purse abd a salesman that wouldn't quit?
Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 09:54 AM (+72t1)
-------
HelloKitty gets a brief mention in the gun thread tonight,

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (MVjcR)

108 102 Hiraeth is a good word for what we felt when we would visit home while on leave from the AF: My favorite pizza parlor/movie theater had burned down, our high school remodeled and got rid of its iconic driveway, and our college got rid of the grassy area where we would stargaze (I had Astronomy homework that Pooky would "help" me with).


Progress, I guess.
Posted by: pookysgirl, scrivener extraordinaire at September 08, 2019 09:51 AM (XKZwp)

I don't have a lot of nostalgia for childhood. I envy those who can look back with fondness.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (NWiLs)

109 Anyhow, regarding my reading...

Two takeaways that stick with me.

1. The Spanish left never had any intent to share power. The implemented elections because they thought they would always win. When they lost, they worked hard to ensure that the next ballot was rigged (it was) and then they rigged it more after the fact, forcing re-votes to turn a razor-thin majority into a super-majority. There was zero interest in policy, just power.

2. The Republic's leadership wanted a civil war. They knew what they were doing because they figured an uprising would give them a chance to utterly crush their enemies once and for all. Liquidation was the goal.

I see a lot of echoes in this today, as well as key differences. Spain was much more socially divided and (fortunately for us) the left's militias were both competent and willing to die for the cause.

Antifa is largely a bunch of LARPers who only operate where they know the cops will leave them alone.


Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (cfSRQ)

110 I finished The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. Someone here recommended it, I'm pretty sure. Basic plot is a poor orphan girl is determined to get into the best school in the kingdom and be a star warrior. She gets in, but diverts from martial arts to spiritual arts, discovering a whole subculture that will be instrumental in the coming war.

Mostly, I liked it. I did keep thinking Kung Fu Harry Potter, though.
Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (OX9vb)

I just couldn't get over the fact that she destroyed her womb because she didn't like how it made her feel. It left me feeling what dumb decision to make.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (dKiJG)

111 After all, ya don't want a big belly to whap unsuspecting young ladies on the bus.
Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:46 AM (arJlL)

Absolutely not. That would be a serious faux pas, even on public transportation.
Posted by: Insomniac

When I saw that, I could NOT stop laughing !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (arJlL)

112 107 104 The correct word is hellokitty.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (kQs4Y)

I was gonna say hairy curry but that's purrfect

did you know that the Hello Kitty empire all started with a simple coin purse abd a salesman that wouldn't quit?
Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 09:54 AM (+72t1)
-------
HelloKitty gets a brief mention in the gun thread tonight,
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (MVjcR)

I like the Hello Kitty AR-15.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (NWiLs)

113 Huh, Patrick, I didn't see your post before I posted. I love it when someone else is reading the same book, because I get different perspectives.

The Japan vs. China thing went right over my head.

Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (OX9vb)

114 HelloKitty gets a brief mention in the gun thread tonight,
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (MVjcR)


I've thoroughly enjoyed finding all the Hello Kitty mentions scattered through every week's gun thread. It's like a little scavenger hunt.

Posted by: hogmartin will be sad if you don't register for the fall MIMoMe at September 08, 2019 09:58 AM (t+qrx)

115 The correct word is hellokitty.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage

LOL !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:58 AM (arJlL)

116 When I saw that, I could NOT stop laughing !
Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (arJlL)

Pretty damn funny I must admit, despite the serious cringe factor.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:58 AM (NWiLs)

117 I don't have a lot of nostalgia for childhood. I envy those who can look back with fondness.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (NWiLs)

---
Same.

But I hang onto the moments I did enjoy and I have made a point of giving my kids more than I had. My father is a great guy, but not good with children.

I tried to do better and I think I have, but the price for that is the kids tend to take me for granted. Oh well.

When I was in the hospital they freaked out and we'll see how long their determination to be nice to me lasts.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:00 AM (cfSRQ)

118 Thanks, y'all. I believe a big part of the reason Uncle Tom's Cabin got the reputation of being nothing more than sentimental slop was not because of the book itself, but because of all the stage adaptations of it that fixated on the dramatic scenes like Eliza fleeing across the frozen Ohio River, Little Eva dying, etc. In fact more people probably saw it on stage than actually read it, although it ended up being the best selling fiction title of the entire 19th century. There were also several silent films made of it, but the only other screen adaptation of it since was done by Showtime in the late 1980s.

Posted by: Secret Square at September 08, 2019 10:01 AM (9WuX0)

119 I'm continuing with Cornwell's "The Winter King". After my little diatribe last week about not staying with novels and being too easily distracted, this has been lovely reading. It is a struggle not to let myself jump to something else: email, hobby stuff, headlines on AOSHQ, one of the other 14 gazillion books spread around the house and so on.

Cornwell has a talent for bringing the reader into the time of the story. Description of places, attitudes, and even subtle quirks of the characters draw you in. In this case, the story is told as the recollections of an old man who lived through the action. It's the same approach Umberto Eco used so effectively in "Name of the Rose". And there isn't even a nod to SJW crap.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 10:01 AM (bmdz3)

120 "... the book hasn't been written on all the early folkses bring rat bastard commies."

maybe they weren't. there was a search for authenticity that drew people to actual folk music, from the mountains as well as the delta, young middle class kids, especially. they were more interested in hootenannies than labor strikes.

Posted by: musical jolly chimp at September 08, 2019 10:01 AM (Pg+x7)

121 Then my aunt told me about the time she was given the book as a child. She grew up in the Jim Crow south, and it was just part of the environment to her. She thought the black neighbor's kids didn't HAVE to go to school and was jealous of them. The book changed that.
And she got mad. Especially when she found out those neighbor boys didn't know how to read. So she sat them down in front of her little chalkboard easel and TAUGHT them. She was seven years old. The kids then taught their father, who was also illiterate. *Four people*, given the gift of reading, by one little girl. Who grew up to become a school district head librarian.
My aunt died this year at the ripe old age of 92. She was an amazing battle-axe of a woman who did not put up with shit, ever. And I stopped badmouthing Uncle Tom's Cabin

That would make a Great Book!

Posted by: Infidel at September 08, 2019 10:02 AM (BLFnH)

122 Now you can criticize the USA, but imagine what would happen if any other nation was left as the only superpower.
---
Countries also criticize the US as a stand-in for criticizing their own.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage

While surfing the web I saw a t-shirt that said "Support the Country You Live In and Live In the Country You Support"

With an American Flag at the bottom.

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 10:02 AM (arJlL)

123 So Bhussein was spying on Israel to see if they knew anything about the illegal Iran giveaway scheme and would spill the beans.

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 10:03 AM (JFO2v)

124 Having finished Henry G. Payne's The Spanish Civil War, I'm taking another look at Hugh Thomas' book of the same name.

--------

Looking through my library, I don't have either of those, but do have Beevor's book, also with the same title. You think their editors could have tried to help come up with different titles?

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 10:03 AM (Izzlo)

125 I am still here despite the apocalyptic lightning storm that tried to obliterate Seattle last night. We rarely get thunderstorms; this one tried to make up for the previous omissions. It was an epic lightshow.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 08, 2019 09:50 AM (Ek5TW)


Dang! I miss a good thunderstorm. You guys up in Seattle have all the fun.

All we got down here in Oregon was rain. Which was welcome, but nothing beats crash flash boom.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at September 08, 2019 10:04 AM (+aReV)

126 Looking through my library, I don't have either of
those, but do have Beevor's book, also with the same title. You think
their editors could have tried to help come up with different titles?

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 10:03 AM (Izzlo)

---
How is he? I was thinking of picking him up but wasn't sure if he was worth it.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

127 48 If you like the Amazon show the boys
Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at September 08, 2019 09:27 AM (dKiJG)

I kinda do. I know some really don't like it but it's probably the most realistic depiction of what supers would be like in the real world - spoiled, venal, narcissistic, callous and above the law. Like real-life Hollywood, politicians, and celebrities are.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:04 AM (NWiLs)

128 110 I just couldn't get over the fact that she destroyed her womb because she didn't like how it made her feel. It left me feeling what dumb decision to make.
Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (dKiJG)

I can totally understand that. It wasn't that she destroyed it because she didn't like how it made her feel--it was because she understood that monthly cycles would interfere with her success as a warrior.

Since being a warrior was the most important thing to her, she killed that part of her.

Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 10:05 AM (OX9vb)

129 Oh, and degenerate. I left out degenerate.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:05 AM (NWiLs)

130 " but imagine what would happen if any other nation was left as the only superpower."

The Chileans are the Germans of South America. Efficient, humorless, with a will to power. But for the Andes they would have overrun all of South America decades ago.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 10:05 AM (1UZdv)

131 The Rape of Nanking was in 1937, well before the US embargo on resources to Japan.

I bring that atrocity up every time some shithead starts bemoaning Hiroshima.

Which is worse? Dropping a bomb on a city that kills fifty thousand people in (literally) a flash?

Or ten thousand Japanese infantrymen waking up, having a bowl of rice, then spending the next twelve hours bayoneting innocent Chinese civilians (and maybe raping some before killing them), going to sleep, and doing it again for three goddamned days. The Tokyo papers were covering one "beheading contest" between two officers like it was the Tour de France or something.

I love Japan, but fuck them. They deserved Hiroshima.

Posted by: Trimegistus at September 08, 2019 10:06 AM (wBMpg)

132 The Japan vs. China thing went right over my head.
Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 09:57 AM (OX9vb)

The Rape of NanKing was what I thought of when they went to the Capital city and saw the carnage. I also thought of the US dropping the bombs on Japan to end the war was another anology.

I like the other characters but I really can't stand the Main Character, she whines too much.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:07 AM (dKiJG)

133 Since being a warrior was the most important thing to her, she killed that part of her.



Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 10:05 AM (OX9vb)

---
That's actually quite honest. Certainly a rebuttal to the "you can have it all" single-mom boosterism.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

134 Ive seen steelheart bleed. Steelheart was nice interesting read in a trilogy by Sanderson. Mostly set in Chicago where everything is turned to steel. The final battle at soldier field interesting. The rub is superpowers drive you insane. The second book is set in Manhattan the glow in the dark garden and the third in walking salty Atlanta.

Posted by: Dread0 at September 08, 2019 10:08 AM (thwGF)

135 Some great periodical reading this week. The 2020 Old Farmer's Almanac came out on Tuesday and it's always a fun and informative read. Even some of the ads, especially the ones that look like snake oil products, are amusing.

The current issue of Early American Life has a great article about the weapons pirates in the 17th and 18th century used and why. There's always enjoyable content in the magazine and it's likely available in many local libraries.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 10:08 AM (bmdz3)

136 Currently reading "Northwest Passage" by Kenneth Roberts. Published in 1937 it's good historical fiction as told by Kittery, Maine native Langdon Towne. It's two books in one. Book 1 is Towne's adventures with Major Robert Rogers (of Rogers' Rangers fame) in 1759 during the French and Indian War which includes their harrowing trek before and after the attack on an Indian village in St. Francis, Quebec. Book 2 has Towne in England where he's learning to be a painter and again meets Rogers.

I've read that ; it was very good.

The movie was good as well.

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 10:09 AM (arJlL)

137 @60:
Have you ever heard of a Marine Lt. Colonel named Earl Ellis ?

JT, he was one fascinating character, whose adventures could inspire quite a few blood and thunder '30s pulp novels. Sadly for him, although a genius in his own way, he could never overcome the alcoholism that did him in. He took too many chances.

"It wasn't the Japs that killed poor Pete; it was the bottle that killed the Beast."

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at September 08, 2019 10:09 AM (wZ9cV)

138 What I found amusing about my aunt's story was she never mentioned, y'know, *asking* the three boys if they wanted to learn to read. It was not an option for them I think she could have intimidated a grizzly. Good skill to have if you are a school librarian.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 08, 2019 10:09 AM (Ek5TW)

139 Vic with three books finished in one week and started a fourth. I'm retired and I still don't get enough reading done. Maybe I need to try to speed it up?

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:10 AM (r28kI)

140 South Carolina's @MarkSanford tells Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday that he will launch a longshot bid to challenge President Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination in 2020.

Posted by: Tami at September 08, 2019 10:10 AM (cF8AT)

141 I (re) discovered I have a copy of "Amazing Journeys", a collection of five popular Jules Verne books translated by FP Walter. He's considered the finest translator of Verne's stories capturing the sense of wonder and sly humor Verne used. This would make great 'snowed-in' reading.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 10:10 AM (bmdz3)

142 Have you ever heard of a Marine Lt. Colonel named Earl Ellis ?

JT, he was one fascinating character, whose adventures could inspire quite a few blood and thunder '30s pulp novels. Sadly for him, although a genius in his own way, he could never overcome the alcoholism that did him in. He took too many chances.

"It wasn't the Japs that killed poor Pete; it was the bottle that killed the Beast."
Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen

Do you know where I could read more about him ?

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 10:12 AM (arJlL)

143 140 South Carolina's @MarkSanford tells Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday that he will launch a longshot bid to challenge President Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination in 2020.


Posted by: Tami at September 08, 2019 10:10 AM (cF8AT)

or bang his argentinian mistress

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 10:12 AM (JFO2v)

144 All we got down here in Oregon was rain. Which was welcome, but nothing beats crash flash boom.
Posted by: OregonMuse.


*******

We had a big lightning storm here two nights ago. One strike was about 100 yds from the house. Crash flash boom were simultaneous. Buckley, the 60 lb Australian shepherd tried to jump into my lap, which was awkward as I was busy trying to jump into HIS lap! Exciting moment.

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (mvenn)

145 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (MVjcR)

146 I kinda do. I know some really don't like it but it's probably the most realistic depiction of what supers would be like in the real world - spoiled, venal, narcissistic, callous and above the law. Like real-life Hollywood, politicians, and celebrities are.
Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:04 AM (NWiLs)

STEELHEART is like THE BOYS without the anti religious elements.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (dKiJG)

147 I kinda do. I know some really don't like it but it's probably the most realistic depiction of what supers would be like in the real world - spoiled, venal, narcissistic, callous and above the law. Like real-life Hollywood, politicians, and celebrities are.
Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:04 AM (NWiLs)

I like it too. Hope Amazon doesn't screw up season 2

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (+72t1)

148 From 41: The only self-help book that was any use to me at all was "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living," by Dale Carnegie. It was probably written in the 1930s. I've read it many times over the years.

All the others I've read have been either fatuous psychobabble or painfully self-evident.
Posted by: Ladyl urgent prayer needed for Laura and Allison at September 08, 2019 09:25 AM (TdMsT)

A fictional take on this is told in Josephine Tey's book, Miss Pym Disposes. The ending is either ironic or painful, probably depending on some arcane influences.

Posted by: yara at September 08, 2019 10:14 AM (rde8g)

149 That's actually quite honest. Certainly a rebuttal to the "you can have it all" single-mom boosterism.
Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:08 AM (cfSRQ)

That was my take on it, also. I agree with her philosophy, and have always felt that women who want to be warriors should probably take the birth control pills that stop their menses until they leave the service. Would solve a few problems.

Patrick, I agree that Rin is a whiner, though. This seems to be a theme lately, with the main character wanting to do great things but having to get through the whiny, reluctant phase first.

Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 10:14 AM (OX9vb)

150 117 I don't have a lot of nostalgia for childhood. I envy those who can look back with fondness.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 09:55 AM (NWiLs)

---
Same.

But I hang onto the moments I did enjoy and I have made a point of giving my kids more than I had. My father is a great guy, but not good with children.

I tried to do better and I think I have, but the price for that is the kids tend to take me for granted. Oh well.

When I was in the hospital they freaked out and we'll see how long their determination to be nice to me lasts.
Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:00 AM (cfSRQ)

It wasn't so much a matter of stuff, but the constant campaign to break me spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:14 AM (NWiLs)

151 And Seeger attempting to cut Dylan's electric cord with an axe to silence his amplified sound is apparently an urban legend.

I'm pretty sure I've seen Seeger say he did it (tried). It wasn't that the music was aesthetically unpleasant, it was that it hurt his ears. And I think maybe his aged father was there and Seeger wanted to make it stop but something distracted him or someone called him off.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 10:14 AM (tT7gy)

152 school administrator tells student you have no free speech rights until we give you rights.

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=13677

Posted by: rhennigantx at September 08, 2019 10:15 AM (JFO2v)

153 It troubles me that Zinn has become part of the AP American History curriculum.

You can draw a straight line from Zinn's sensational polemical thinking to belief that the USA is killing Gaia with global warming.

Too many of our college graduates have internalized this. They got As for going along uncritically. Which is why they hate Trump so much.

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 10:15 AM (1UZdv)

154 Looking through my library, I don't have either of
those, but do have Beevor's book, also with the same title. You think
their editors could have tried to help come up with different titles?

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 10:03 AM (Izzlo)

---
How is he? I was thinking of picking him up but wasn't sure if he was worth it.
Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:04 AM (cfSRQ)

Honestly, I don't remember . It's been awhile, and I can't have been too impressed since I want to read Payne's book after your review. But I do remember enjoying Beevor's history of Stalingrad, and can recommend it.

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 10:15 AM (Izzlo)

155 134 Ive seen steelheart bleed. Steelheart was nice interesting read in a trilogy by Sanderson. Mostly set in Chicago where everything is turned to steel. The final battle at soldier field interesting. The rub is superpowers drive you insane. The second book is set in Manhattan the glow in the dark garden and the third in walking salty Atlanta.
Posted by: Dread0 at September 08, 2019 10:08 AM (thwGF)

I just started book 2 so don't spoil it for me. I think after I read the series I am going to read his other books MYSTBORN where the heroes failed and the Villian has won.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:18 AM (dKiJG)

156 OK, I guess I'll go to church. BBL

Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 10:18 AM (OX9vb)

157 145 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (MVjcR)
---
I remember my older sister tracing words in the condensation on cold windows, and I (maybe three?) scribbled stuff and saying "Look, I can write too!" and sis sneering "Those aren't words!". It sure looked like legit cursive to me.

"The" was the first word I understood because it was always largest and had illuminated ruffles and flourishes in the story books, along with "Once".

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:18 AM (kQs4Y)

158 Here at casa de adobe, the book thread is a valuable resource. Thanks. Much is available thru the LAPL.
Where we tried "wastelands, the new apocalypse", a collection of stories. Whata waste of paper and ink. The only Real Heroes have vaginas and/or are ghey. Murdering the only other survivor for his remark that they wouldnt want to have been in the D.C. neighborhood they were in before the apocalypse as it was "pretty dark" makes totes sense bcuz racisms n stuff. Dont waste time with this'un.

Enjoying the sci-fi of Alastair Reynolds. Try "Revenger".

Almost done with "Paris in the terror" (Loomis). Them froggies wuz plum nuts!

Posted by: adobe juan kenobe at September 08, 2019 10:19 AM (78osX)

159 145 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (MVjcR)

I remember my mother reading Tom Sawyer to me at four or five, and I can still hear her saying "Tom! You Tom!". I got her to sign that old, tattered copy of the book for me while she was still living.

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:20 AM (r28kI)

160 Hello Kitty powder horn?

Posted by: klaftern at September 08, 2019 10:21 AM (RuIsu)

161 145 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (MVjcR

I remember my older sister trying to teach me to read on a little blackboard we had - she wanted me to know how before kindergarten
she was very frustrated
I don't remember how or when I actually learned

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 10:22 AM (+72t1)

162
I remember my older sister tracing words in the condensation on cold windows, and I (maybe three?) scribbled stuff and saying "Look, I can write too!" and sis sneering "Those aren't words!". It sure looked like legit cursive to me.

"The" was the first word I understood because it was always largest and had illuminated ruffles and flourishes in the story books, along with "Once".
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:18 AM (kQs4Y)
------
My first word, as I recall, was STOP from the road signs. I also distinctly remember a page from a reader with "boy" and "ball" and "blue".

Shut up you perverts.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:22 AM (u/o2C)

163 Too many of our college graduates have internalized this. They got As for going along uncritically. Which is why they hate Trump so much.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 10:15 AM (1UZdv)

Parents do this to their kids, too, and churches to their members. Rewarding blind obedience and submission isn't exclusive to the academy.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:22 AM (NWiLs)

164 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel

Hiya Weasel !

Both of my parents were avid readers (neither graduated H.S.)

My Mom took me to the library when I was 4 and checked out some kid books and read them to me as I look at the pictures.

I was amazed at what a book could contain, and I was hooked for life.

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 10:23 AM (arJlL)

165 My first word, as I recall, was STOP from the road signs. I also distinctly remember a page from a reader with "boy" and "ball" and "blue".

Shut up you perverts.
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:22 AM (u/o2C)

You needed the $20, I get it.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:23 AM (NWiLs)

166 My first word, as I recall, was STOP from the road signs. I also distinctly remember a page from a reader with "boy" and "ball" and "blue".

Shut up you perverts.
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:22 AM (u/o2C)
-----------------

We're the perverts yet you brought it up?

Posted by: blake - used pronoun salesman at September 08, 2019 10:23 AM (WEBkv)

167

That was my take on it, also. I agree with her philosophy, and have always felt that women who want to be warriors should probably take the birth control pills that stop their menses until they leave the service. Would solve a few problems.

Patrick, I agree that Rin is a whiner, though. This seems to be a theme lately, with the main character wanting to do great things but having to get through the whiny, reluctant phase first.
Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 10:14 AM (OX9vb)


Have you read DRAGON REPUBLIC yet, I just started it

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:24 AM (dKiJG)

168
We're the perverts yet you brought it up?
Posted by: blake - used pronoun salesman at September 08, 2019 10:23 AM (WEBkv)
-----
Well, yeah. Just trying to keep it classy.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:25 AM (u/o2C)

169 *re-evaluates "little boy blue come blow your horn" nursery rhyme*

hiraeth moment for innocence lost

Posted by: vmom happy to have read a good book! at September 08, 2019 10:25 AM (+72t1)

170 Continuing my obsession with all things Apollo 11 and space travel, I am reading Astronaut Michael Collins' autobiography called Carrying the Fire.

Lots of technical detail I had never heard before, and written with a ton of self-deprecating humor, I am really enjoying it.

Turns out he was plenty happy with his role being stuck orbiting the moon in the command module while Armstrong and Aldrin chased glory in the LM.

Why? Because he felt he was so incredibly lucky to be involved in Apollo and also that he was continually amazed that he'd actually been selected to be an astronaut, that he accepted his role without worrying about glory.

Really an excellent read.

Posted by: Sharkman at September 08, 2019 10:26 AM (Mo1SD)

171 145 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (MVjcR)
----------------

I spent the first 10 years of my life in and out of hospitals. Reading helped me survive and escape that nightmare.

I can't necessarily remember when I learned to read but I know why I learned to read.

Posted by: blake - used pronoun salesman at September 08, 2019 10:27 AM (WEBkv)

172 @142:

There isn't much written about Pete Ellis - there are no biographies that I know of. The Marine Corps University website has a biographical sketch of him, but doesn't have a lot of detail.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at September 08, 2019 10:27 AM (wZ9cV)

173 In the boy, blue, ball story I also remember a teacher sittin* next to me tracing the words with her finger and sounding out the words with emphasis on the B.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:27 AM (u/o2C)

174 I remember reading to kidlet. Then I read 'twas the night before Christmas. Gah, at two she could recite the whole thing. She started recognizing words shortly after that. I demanded we try ALL the other books after Christmas.

Posted by: Infidel at September 08, 2019 10:28 AM (BLFnH)

175 Too many of our college graduates have internalized this. They got As for going along uncritically. Which is why they hate Trump so much.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 10:15 AM (1UZdv)

The book "Debunking Howard Zinn..." has a long "Introduction" that gives example after example of how pervasive this garbage history, this polemic, is in our education system. It is frightening and it explains a lot of anti-American sentiment in this country.

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:29 AM (r28kI)

176 * = g

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:29 AM (u/o2C)

177 IT, Chapter 2, Pitch Meeting:

https://youtu.be/dlIU0VYNcrA

Posted by: Sharkman at September 08, 2019 10:30 AM (Mo1SD)

178 Posted by: blake - used pronoun salesman at September 08, 2019 10:27 AM (WEBkv)
-----
That's rough, bro.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:31 AM (u/o2C)

179 I was dog-sitting last weekend, so I had a lot of time for e-book reading.

Finished off 'For Steam and Country' by Jon Del Arroz. Very clearly the first in a series, as there were a lot of set-ups that were not fully paid off. The critic in me feels like the heroine is a bit too young/inexperienced to end up in the position that she did....but it was still a fun read.

Because you can only read so much fiction at a time, I also started 'The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes' by Raoul McLaughlin. The opening talks a lot about the Chinese Han Empire, and even more about some of the forgotten inland empires between China and Rome. I'm starting to get a grasp of that area's geography (Okay, so what the heck is this 'Tarim Basin'?) which is kind of a necessity for understanding the material...

And this week, there's a Humble Bundle for Red Sonja comics! I'm excited. Only two volumes are written by the hack Gail Simone. And there are 4 or 5 volumes from the original 70's run that made the character what she is! So there should be actual readable stories to enjoy under all the pin-up art!

Posted by: Castle Guy at September 08, 2019 10:31 AM (Lhaco)

180 It wasn't so much a matter of stuff, but the constant campaign to break me spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:14 AM(NWiLs)

---
I'm not talking about material items, but emotional support.

My dad didn't (and doesn't) relate well to children, so I tried to be more accessible. I think it's worked.

We had several years where I was effectively a single parent, and it was tough, but I always kept my goal to give the kids a better childhood than I had in terms of parental involvement. They know they can count on Dad, which is why they freaked out when I fell ill.

Speaking of which, off to mass. Later!

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:33 AM (cfSRQ)

181 170 I am reading Astronaut Michael Collins' autobiography called Carrying the Fire.

Posted by: Sharkman at September 08, 2019 10:26 AM (Mo1SD)
I read that, too. It was good and I recall learning a lot about the pilot experience Mike Collins had before Apollo. Sadly, I cannot remember much else. More luck recalling "The Right Stuff", but I read that two or three times.

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:33 AM (r28kI)

182 Has anyone read 'How the World was One', non-fiction by Arthur C. Clarke on the laying of the first trans Atlantic cables? Very good!

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:34 AM (u/o2C)

183 I can remember before being able to read but never think of it that way. There were too many little boy things to do: chasing bugs in the grass, examing stuff in the back yard, coloring books and blunt scissors to cut out whatever. I'm pretty sure I started recognizing certain words when three. Also, trying to copy my dad's handwriting which looked like a medical heart read out. But those sharp, slanting lines that connected together sure looked correct.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 10:35 AM (bmdz3)

184 Sabrina Chase's amazing battle-axe aunt story - may one reprint on nother blog? Links to AoS & chaseadventures of course.

Posted by: Bandicoot Bandito at September 08, 2019 10:35 AM (qdbnQ)

185
The book "Debunking Howard Zinn..." has a long "Introduction" that gives example after example of how pervasive this garbage history, this polemic, is in our education system. It is frightening and it explains a lot of anti-American sentiment in this country.
Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:29 AM (r28kI)

Hernan Cortes did nothing wrong. The crap he saw, Human sacrifices and the other horrors he saw. The Aztec empire needed destroyed. People don't understand how he could be religious, own slaves and kill tons of people.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:35 AM (dKiJG)

186 "the late 50s-early 60s folk revival. which it calls "a fad sandwiched between the beatniks and the hippies,", wherein crowds of middle-class kids pretended they were living in hard times"

That was the precursor to the Smollett Era of weaponized faux- victimhood. These kids have been taught by their commie professors that being a victim is the highest calling in life. If nobody else will stab them or vandalize them, they'll do it themselves.

It's gotten to such a point that they are actually hurting race relations in this country, even though it is their professed aim to help. Because its not about other people--it's about getting a selfie of themselves as the next Martin Luther King, even if they have to agitate a race war to do it.

It's sick.

Posted by: The Gipper Lives at September 08, 2019 10:36 AM (Ndje9)

187 It's Stanley G. Payne.
I took Europe Between the Wars from him at the UW Madison, which was basically a class on the Spanish Civil War.

Not a great teacher but definitely emphasized the religious aspect of that war. The Commie atrocities against the church were pretty vicious.

Posted by: DavidUW97 at September 08, 2019 10:36 AM (KWYbg)

188 I read The Case of the Seven Sneezes by Anthony Boucher. Published in 1942 (but from context set in 1940), it is a mystery novel in which the protagonist is a private investigator involved in the investigation of a 25-year-old murder. The suspects are stranded on an island and the killer is stalking them. Boucher puts in a couple of twists that kept me guessing the identity of the killer. Rating = 4.0/5.

A interesting point is that Boucher mentions that there was a bit of a panic in Hollywood after the Germans invaded France. Since he lived in Los Angeles at the time, I found it a piece of casual information that he assumed contemporary readers knew.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at September 08, 2019 10:37 AM (5Yee7)

189 I'm not talking about material items, but emotional support.

My dad didn't (and doesn't) relate well to children, so I tried to be more accessible. I think it's worked.

We had several years where I was effectively a single parent, and it was tough, but I always kept my goal to give the kids a better childhood than I had in terms of parental involvement. They know they can count on Dad, which is why they freaked out when I fell ill.

Speaking of which, off to mass. Later!
Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 10:33 AM (cfSRQ)

Good for you, seriously.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:37 AM (gAZx+)

190 It's fun to go through all my books and reacquaint myself with all my children.

Ha! "Where The Deep Ones Are", a Lovecraftian children's book. Not as good as "Good Night Dune", but what is?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:37 AM (kQs4Y)

191 140
South Carolina's @MarkSanford tells Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday that
he will launch a longshot bid to challenge President Donald Trump for
the GOP presidential nomination in 2020.





Posted by: Tami at September 08, 2019 10:10 AM (cF8AT)


He no longer has a rich wife to support and finance his campaigns, so where is he getting his money? Soros?

Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 10:37 AM (mpXpK)

192 183 I can remember before being able to read but never think of it that way.
Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 10:35 AM (bmdz3)

I recall spending a lot of time in front of the TV (Mom was busy raising six kids, four after me). I wonder if Sesame Street had been on then. Would I have watcher it? Or changed the channel to "I Love Lucy"?

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:38 AM (r28kI)

193 I can't really remember a time when I couldn't read, at least on some basic level.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 10:39 AM (gAZx+)

194 Welp, not much to contribute, off to take care of real life.

Keep reading, folks!

Posted by: blake - used pronoun salesman at September 08, 2019 10:39 AM (WEBkv)

195 There isn't much written about Pete Ellis - there are no biographies that I know of. The Marine Corps University website has a biographical sketch of him, but doesn't have a lot of detail.
Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen

While reading The Devil' s Anvil - The Assault on Peleliu he was mentioned in a footnote.

"The Marine Officer was the brilliant, but eccentric, Lt. Colonel Earl Ellis, who predicted the details of a Japanese attack on the U.S. with startling accuracy - 20 years before Pearl Harbor.Traveling as a businessman, he died on Koror in 1923; whether he was murdered by the Japanese,committed suicide died of alcoholism has never been satisfactorily established."

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 10:40 AM (arJlL)

196 Bandicoot Bandito (cool name, bro!) permission to reblog granted.
I made sure to record my aunt telling the story. I think it is important to remember and preserve history as it was actually lived, and how people change. Also I think my aunt was a very cool person.

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at September 08, 2019 10:40 AM (Ek5TW)

197 WeaselWoman will sometimes get books for her class delivered to the house and I recall some from when I was little; Stickman, Are You My Mother and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel to name a few.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (u/o2C)

198 I am reading another Chruchill biography (Andrew Roberts) which I am quite thoroughly enjoying. He loves his subject, which is refreshing in a biography.

But there's one passage that reads like that scene in Life of Brian where they start bitching about "what have the Romans ever done for us?"

He writes (paraphrasing) "Churchill was an unabashed supporter of colonialism. He admired the way the Empire brought administrative justice and ended honor killings, rooted out corruption, and spread the concept of universal education.

Of course, today we know that colonialism was racist and morally reprehensible".

So, Roberts, wanna go back to honor killings?

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (tT7gy)

199 IDK who the woman is, but she must be really bored to be standing in stacks of books and reading Death of a Salesman.

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (kamD5)

200 I can't go back in time with my being-able-to-read brain and imagine myself trying to puzzle out words, because I can read the words my past self is trying to understand.

Understand?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (kQs4Y)

201 So, Roberts, wanna go back to honor killings?
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (tT7gy)

Bring back suttee and thugee. This colonialist oppression of native religious practice must end!

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 10:42 AM (kamD5)

202 Has anyone read 'How the World was One', non-fiction by Arthur C. Clarke on the laying of the first trans Atlantic cables? Very good!
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:34 AM (u/o2C)


I had never heard of that one. I'll have to keep an eye out. There's a 1996 article from Neal Stephenson that spans from the first undersea cables to modern telecom that's a pretty good primer; brief but comprehensive and written in late 20th century Neal Stephenson vs. the newer style.

https://tinyurl.com/zoe5t5c

"Mother Earth Mother Board

In which the hacker tourist ventures forth across the wide and wondrous meatspace of three continents, acquainting himself with the customs and dialects of the exotic Manhole Villagers of Thailand, the U-Turn Tunnelers of the Nile Delta, the Cable Nomads of Lan tao Island, the Slack Control Wizards of Chelmsford, the Subterranean Ex-Telegraphers of Cornwall, and other previously unknown and unchronicled folk; also, biographical sketches of the two long-dead Supreme Ninja Hacker Mage Lords of global telecommunications, and other material pertaining to the business and technology of Undersea Fiber-Optic Cables, as well as an account of the laying of the longest wire on Earth, which should not be without interest to the readers of WIRED."

Posted by: hogmartin will be sad if you don't register for the fall MIMoMe at September 08, 2019 10:43 AM (t+qrx)

203 Maybe I should write a protest song.

The Commie rat bastards tell nothing but lies
Lord, the Commie rat bastards tell nothing but lies
And if I don't pretend to believe them they'll try to take my job and call me names and get their moron (not the good kind) mob all up in my face.

Needs work.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 10:43 AM (+y/Ru)

204 Hiraeth perfectly captures the ineffable sense of loss and longing I've had so often since my wife died.

It's also captures the feelings of the elves of The Lord of the Rings.

I love that word.

Posted by: N.L. Urker. I will urk until I can't urk anymore. at September 08, 2019 10:43 AM (Uu+Jp)

205 STEELHEART the Reckoners

I liked how every Superhero has a weakness and I was totally wrong about STEELHEART's weakness.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:44 AM (dKiJG)

206 Did we get the "Who Dis?" yet?
Morning all...

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at September 08, 2019 10:44 AM (ty7RM)

207 200 I can't go back in time with my being-able-to-read brain and imagine myself trying to puzzle out words, because I can read the words my past self is trying to understand.

Understand?
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (kQs4Y)
------
I get it! That's sort of why I posted the original question - thinking about the little black chirrun' not being able to read and what that was like for me.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:44 AM (u/o2C)

208 Did we get the "Who Dis?" yet?


Well, she's reading Arthur Miller. It's not subtle.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 10:45 AM (tT7gy)

209 So, Roberts, wanna go back to honor killings?

-
A week or so ago, Ratshit Taliban blamed on honor killing on white privilege.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 10:45 AM (+y/Ru)

210 What are you having your young charges read, Bander?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:47 AM (kQs4Y)

211 He no longer has a rich wife to support and finance his campaigns, so where is he getting his money? Soros?

====


My guess? He's Cuckfunded.

Posted by: Tami at September 08, 2019 10:47 AM (cF8AT)

212 Zinn's history takes a few select incidents in American history and then extrapolates them to be the whole. All from a narrow distorted viewpoint. It's bad polemic, not history.
...
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 09:29 AM (1UZdv)


Zinn was even more dishonest than that. Ms. Grabar dived into his sources and found where he deleted passages and selectively edited quotations to change meaning. As an example, in regards to Christopher Columbus' logbooks, Zinn used ellipses ("...") to edit out the part where Columbus instructed his crew to treat the Indians well and pay/trade from what they obtained.

Zinn constantly used that technique. This allowed him to give the appearance of being honest in his presentation of information, but actually to actually present falsehoods to advance his Marxist theme.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at September 08, 2019 10:48 AM (5Yee7)

213 It probably goes without saying that I was never a fan of folk music.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at September 08, 2019 10:48 AM (9Om/r)

214 What are you having your young charges read, Bander?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:47 AM (kQs4Y)



Read? Hardly. I had to send a letter to the parents explaining why that scary Herr Bander speaks German in German class.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 10:49 AM (tT7gy)

215 My Mother was a teacher before she had us. We used to go on long road trips on summer vacation.

Mom would read to us on the trip. She would get to the good part put the book down and say she was tired and let us fight over who got to read the book.

We could all read before kindergarten.

Posted by: Nearsighted Cyclops at September 08, 2019 10:49 AM (B06Zw)

216 South Carolina's @MarkSanford tells Chris Wallace on @FoxNewsSunday that.he will launch a longshot bid to challenge President Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination in 2020.

-
Campaign slogan: LET HIM BE YOUR SOULMATE!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 10:50 AM (+y/Ru)

217 Hernan Cortes did nothing wrong. The crap he saw, Human sacrifices and the other horrors he saw. The Aztec empire needed destroyed. People don't understand how he could be religious, own slaves and kill tons of people.
Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:35 AM (dKiJG)

Hernan Cortes was a criminal. He launched his expedition because he heard the people of this place called "Mexico" had shitloads of gold and he wanted it, along with the titles and glory and Royal kudos that would come with adding to the King's holdings and delivering a fifth of said shitload of gold to him. For God, for Spain, and to get rich.

HOWEVER, he is also an example of 'the wrong person doing the right thing', albeit unintentionally. The Aztec Empire desperately needed destroying and he happened to be the guy in the place with the stuff to unite all the Aztecs' enemies (AKA everyone who ever met them).

Recommended: The Conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz de Castillo. Very long but good.

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 10:50 AM (kamD5)

218 https://preview.tinyurl.com/y5bax9q8

This news article is so incredibly slanted. I'm glad the couple got off I'm tired of Antifa being portrayed as just orotestors. They are dangerous thugs.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 10:51 AM (Lqy/e)

219 Read? Hardly. I had to send a letter to the parents explaining why that scary Herr Bander speaks German in German class.
Posted by: Bandersnatch

Go ahead : grow the mustache.

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 10:51 AM (arJlL)

220 Swan Knight 's Son
Book One of The Green Knight's Squire

Wright.

Posted by: Simplemind at September 08, 2019 10:51 AM (ZuGkg)

221 While reading The Devil' s Anvil - The Assault on Peleliu he was mentioned in a footnote.

"The Marine Officer was the brilliant, but eccentric, Lt. Colonel Earl Ellis, who predicted the details of a Japanese attack on the U.S. with startling accuracy - 20 years before Pearl Harbor.Traveling as a businessman, he died on Koror in 1923; whether he was murdered by the Japanese,committed suicide died of alcoholism has never been satisfactorily established."

Check out the link in my nic.

Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen at September 08, 2019 10:51 AM (wZ9cV)

222 Should read protestors. This phone gets harder to type on every day.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 10:52 AM (Lqy/e)

223 This book would be a terrific stocking stuffer - much like Mat!

Posted bt: All Hail Eros

I grabbed Thank You For My Service the day it was published and loved it. I especially liked the parts about he and his buddies starting Black Rifle Coffee and putting together the terrible yet funny zombie movie Range 15.

Great stuff.

Posted by: Sharkman at September 08, 2019 10:52 AM (Mo1SD)

224 Love letters, The wife digging through the barn found an old chest I have that contains souvenirs, artifacts and various Marine gear I collected long ago as A young Marine, she came across some unsigned loved letters and asked me, "Just who wrote those love letters to you, she must have been serious?"I said, "You did."Married going on 46 years now.

Posted by: obsidian at September 08, 2019 10:53 AM (7+yqP)

225 Bander, did you have to give trigger warnings to the parents?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:54 AM (kQs4Y)

226 I know this is shallow, but the idea of "conversational German" makes me giggle.

Oh Bander, what is your accent? Please tell me it's Prussian!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 10:55 AM (kQs4Y)

227 On plane at gate in Memphis TN

Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 08, 2019 10:55 AM (CMa0j)

228 Greetings from Quechee Gulch, Vermont. I'm on vacation but will have book reports later or next week.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 08, 2019 10:56 AM (D68Uf)

229 I was looking for MARIE

Posted by: Nevergiveup at September 08, 2019 10:56 AM (CMa0j)

230 It sure looked like legit cursive to me.

-
Dude, I don't read spaghetti.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 10:56 AM (+y/Ru)

231 Was it the Russians who trained anti-tank dogs, alas the dogs were trained to hunt on friendly vehicles. So in real combat...

Posted by: Anna Puma


Yes.

Own Goal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Sharkman at September 08, 2019 10:56 AM (Mo1SD)

232 The Chileans are the Germans of South America.
Efficient, humorless, with a will to power. But for the Andes they
would have overrun all of South America decades ago.
Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 10:05 AM (1UZdv)


More like Norway of South America. But hardly humorless.

Like Norway, Chile is a long country that has difficult inner transportation and communication lines. It has relied on the ocean for transport, and most roads, traditionally, go from the coast to inland. It considers itself one of the oldest democracies in South America, and along with that tradition, the military is one of the uniting and equalizing forces in society. It is also traditionally thought of as a guarantor of liberty for the country. The Prussian spit and polish comes from using Prussian models and a lot of German immigrants in the 20s.
In conflicts with it neighbors, it has taken territory that was economically useful, like the guano mining sites in the north, but did not go for conquest, probably because it would cost too much.

I would not listen to the voices claiming that Chile is some military superpower fueled by Prussian dedication to war. It ain't true, and most of it was created by people attacking the Pinochet years in retaliation for making economic success where Allende created economic chaos and failure. Remember, Chile is also the puppet of the CIA and Anaconda Copper and Richard Nixon too.




Posted by: Kindltot at September 08, 2019 10:58 AM (xG/b0)

233 Now that we're over 200 comments I want to mention that today marks limerick #365 at the Limerick-A-Day site (link in my nick). A silly little diversion, but a personal challenge to myself. I already have about 30 new ones queued up for year two.

Enjoy!

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 10:59 AM (mvenn)

234 Yesterday, I attended an auction (I do that a lot) and bought a WWI era poster related to The Armenian massacres. Does anyone have a recommendation as to the best book on that subject. I am currently considering the Morgenthau related books.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 10:59 AM (U7k5w)

235 It probably goes without saying that I was never a fan of folk music.


I have always been a fan of folk music. Yes, from the 30s-50s you had people actively trying to hijack it for communism and the labor movement ("Which side are you on, boys, which side are you on?". Not yours, Pete) but that's not the totality.

Woodie Guthrie wasn't a communist, he collected and retold the stories of the common man. Dylan came along adopting some of Woodie's cadences but also bringing true old folk poetry (A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall is basicaly Lord Randall, My Son) into a modern context.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 11:01 AM (tT7gy)

236 On the topic of the Spanish Civil War, my husband's cousin's husband fought on the Republican side and was one of the biggest anarchist jerks I ever met when discussing politics. He wrote a couple of books on the topic which were not translated.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:01 AM (U7k5w)

237 A film called Cuck just put out a trailer. Pretty sure the usual suspects are behind this film.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NpOWaT31wKY

Posted by: jennifer anniston's perky nipples at September 08, 2019 11:02 AM (QwmrN)

238 Hernan Cortes was a criminal. He launched his expedition because he heard the people of this place called "Mexico" had shitloads of gold and he wanted it...
Recommended: The Conquest of New Spain, by Bernal Diaz de Castillo. Very long but good.
Posted by: Vanya


I read Matthew Restall over two trips to Estes Park, where - being me - I spend most that time in the library. When Montezuma Met Cortes. He says it probably wasn't even Cortes' fault. Cortes was a weenie who just did what people told him to do, first the Cuban governor Velazquez and then Cortes' own ship captains - who were little better than pirates. And soon they were waaay over their heads in Mesoamerican power-politics.

Cortes did have the ability to survive, and the Mexican civil war which his arrival sparked off did, in the end, get rid of the murderous regime(s) in the area.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 11:03 AM (ykYG2)

239 199 IDK who the woman is, but she must be really bored to be standing in stacks of books and reading Death of a Salesman.
Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (kamD5)

Funny.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:03 AM (U7k5w)

240 Oh Bander, what is your accent? Please tell me it's Prussian!


Alas, I wouldn't know a Prussian accent. There hasn't been a Prussia or Prussians in my lifetime.

I speak a very neutral high German unless you have a pronounced accent and then I find myself mirroring a little.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 11:04 AM (tT7gy)

241 WWI era poster related to The Armenian massacres. Does anyone have a recommendation as to the best book on that subject

Benny Morris and Dror Ze'evi, "The Thirty-Year Genocide". It goes to the late Ottoman policy to rid the whole empire of all Christians.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 11:05 AM (ykYG2)

242 241:
Many thanks

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:06 AM (U7k5w)

243 ...unless you have a pronounced accent and then I find myself mirroring a little.

********


Guten Tag, y'all.

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 11:06 AM (mvenn)

244 Yesterday, I attended an auction (I do that a lot) and bought a WWI era poster related to The Armenian massacres. Does anyone have a recommendation as to the best book on that subject. I am currently considering the Morgenthau related books.
Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 10:59 AM (U7k5w)

On the subject of the Armenian massacres or WW1 posters?

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 11:06 AM (Izzlo)

245 the South American country that wasted everyone's time trying to CONQUER THE WORLD would be Paraguay.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 11:07 AM (ykYG2)

246 Trump wants to classify ANTIFA as a terrorist organization but the Democrats are fighting him tooth and nail on that.

Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 11:07 AM (mpXpK)

247 There is a discussion of the Massacres in The Beauty and the Sorrow, but not a lot of background.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 11:07 AM (Lqy/e)

248 246 Trump wants to classify ANTIFA as a terrorist organization but the Democrats are fighting him tooth and nail on that.
Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 11:07 AM (mpXpK)

Of course. Antifa is the Democrats' domestic terror wing.

Posted by: Insomniac at September 08, 2019 11:08 AM (NWiLs)

249 244: The Armenian Massacres/Genocide. My knowledge of WWI posters is pretty good. One auction, I sat with a man who worked with one of the Antiques Roadshow appraisers, he taught me a lot.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:08 AM (U7k5w)

250 Read Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico. Cortez was definitely no weenie -- remember, he's the one who burned (well, dismantled, because he wasn't totally crazy) his ships so that his men could either conquer or die.

He wasn't a criminal, though. He had legal authorization for everything: when he and the boys landed in Mexico they established the colony of Vera Cruz (H. Cortez, mayor). The colony council then authorized Cortez to conquer the fuck out of Mexico. As legal as anything else in history.

Posted by: Trimegistus at September 08, 2019 11:10 AM (wBMpg)

251 I got In Celebration of Simplicity by Penelope Wilcock this week. I've read a few books on simplicity. This one is different. It's Christian focused, rather than just anti-consumerist.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 11:11 AM (Lqy/e)

252 Time for me to get ready for church. I told my doggie that if she's been ripping the cotton batting out of my blanket while I've been preoccupied she'll be getting a stern talking to.

Posted by: N.L. Urker. I will urk until I can't urk anymore. at September 08, 2019 11:12 AM (Uu+Jp)

253 Check out the link in my nic.
Posted by: That Deplorable SOB Van Owen

WOW !

Thanks !

Posted by: JT at September 08, 2019 11:12 AM (arJlL)

254 People forget that when Cortez sacked Tenochtitlan his army was between 75 and 90 percent Mexican. The Spanish may have been weird-looking aliens out to steal everyone's gold, but the Aztecs were worse.

"You cut off her skin so your priests could WEAR it? What's WRONG with you people?"

Posted by: Trimegistus at September 08, 2019 11:12 AM (wBMpg)

255 I don't have a memory of being read to as a child. The closest thing would be pointing to a word I saw frequently, like road signs and the name of our town, and asking what it meant. Not surprising. My parents and grandparents were in business so time was limited. And I was the oldest. The three of us were all born within three and a half years so when I might have been read to there were infants to care for. Not unusual for the time.

I wonder if that situation led to my learning to read earlier than is typical (and a certain independent attitude).

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 11:13 AM (bmdz3)

256 The Armenian Massacres/Genocide. My knowledge of WWI posters is pretty good. One auction, I sat with a man who worked with one of the Antiques Roadshow appraisers, he taught me a lot.
Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:08 AM (U7k5w)

Cool! I spent most of my working years as the assistant in the rare book department of an auction house. I purchased a WWI poster from a sale we had years ago.

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 11:14 AM (Izzlo)

257 Trimegistus , again, Prescott like Diaz relies on the sources they had hundreds of years ago. Restall points out that Cortes didn't, actually, scuttle his navy; he had to draw the boats further inland because they were rotting in the harbour. The Gulf Coat is hot, humid, buggy and prone to storms. He only burnt the ships he couldn't use anymore.

Cortes and his son wrote a self-serving biography long after the fact because the family of that governor of Cuba, Velazquez, kept suing him.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 11:14 AM (ykYG2)

258 I also got The Homemade Kitchen by Alana Chernila. I had it on Knidle but that wasn't enough. She's my favorite cookbook author. She was raised by a mom that was clearly into hippie dippie food but in her cookbook, she'll even give you a recipe for Twinkies. There's a lot of interesting recipes and they all taste great.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 11:15 AM (Lqy/e)

259 Just finished "Justice On Trial, by Mollie Hemingway & Carrie Severino, about the Kavanaugh defamation hearings.

I think it's a must-read for conservatives, but it will make you even angrier than you already were.

Posted by: mnw at September 08, 2019 11:15 AM (Cssks)

260 I believe that Dylan realized that he had become the slave in chains. The chains of the expectations and rigid rules of the old left. He threw them off, declared his freedom and independence publicly at Newport and the Seegerists went berserk because quite consciously, they knew the jig (and the gig) was up.

Posted by: Thomas LaBelle at September 08, 2019 11:15 AM (XHdLb)

261 ... I would love it if someone in the HQ could write a full refutation of Restall's "When Montezuma Met Cortes". Or link to one.

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 11:16 AM (ykYG2)

262 I watched a rather animated discussion between David Horowitz and Eric Metaxas on Horowitz' new book, Mortality and Faith, on CSPN. It was very interesting although somewhat annoying in that each talked over the other. Metaxas' main disagreement with Horowitz is that he believes that Horowitz is not being honest with himself when he describes himself as agnostic since he clearly is a believer. Horowitz admits that he is gun shy about religion having been burned by his previous one true religion, Marxism. It was very interesting and I bought the book although I haven't even begun it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 11:16 AM (+y/Ru)

263 I'm interested in reading about "Operation Nemesis" the Armenian retaliation for the massacres,in which they hunted down and assassinated Turks responsible for the WWI massacres

Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 11:18 AM (Izzlo)

264 Cool! I spent most of my working years as the assistant in the rare book department of an auction house. I purchased a WWI poster from a sale we had years ago.
Posted by: Josephistan at September 08, 2019 11:14 AM (Izzlo)

I have a good time and meet a lot of people who many don't expect to attend off brand auctions. That's where the bargains are.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:19 AM (U7k5w)

265 I remember learning to read. We started with the alphabet and how to sound each one. It's also where writing began. Then we put the letters together to form words.

And it was only after that we started reading about Dick and Jane.

And this was all done in the first half of the 1st grade.

Posted by: Sooner at September 08, 2019 11:19 AM (Fs5vw)

266 Just finished "Fall, or Dodge in Hell" by Neal Stephenson. As some of you know it's a quasi sequel to Reamde. Reamde was very unusual book for the author as it was a relatively light actioner with near future tech ideas. It was a much faster paced book than his other works. If you are expecting more of the same... You will be disappointed. Its dense. It's huge. It veers around to several different subplots that don't always work. It spends considerable time world building a distopian America at one point (one that is very contemptuous of middle America and gun culture) but this huge set up is completely abandoned halfway through the novel. The main part of the story is great: it explores the whole idea of uploading your brain into a computer network after you die, but it takes about two hundred pages to get there, and there are many other subplots competing for the readers attention. I'll give this fascinating book a low B-, there's so much to love here, but it's a huge sloppy mess in some ways. One of my favorite books by the author is Anathem, a tightly orchestrated masterpiece. This is kind of the opposite, a sloppy joe of a book. Delicious but kind of a gross mess.

Posted by: Max Power at September 08, 2019 11:20 AM (llxrS)

267 Posted by: Trimegistus at September 08, 2019 11:12 AM (wBMpg)

One of the reasons I recommend The Conquest of New Spain is that Diaz was on two smaller expeditions to the Mexican coast before he signed on with Cortes. He describes one of the first times they went into a coastal village and found the local... Church, I guess. A stone room with an altar with a line of human hearts on it, the floor, walls and CEILING covered with dried blood; the entire place stinking (jungle, no A/C) and swarming with flies.

The Spaniards were definitely out for what they could get, but they were also legitimately horrified at what the Aztecs were doing.

And, IIRC, Cortes' original force was like 500 guys.

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 11:21 AM (kamD5)

268 the South American country that wasted everyone's time trying to CONQUER THE WORLD would be Paraguay.
Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 11:07 AM (ykYG2)


Solano Lopez just was trying to be Louis Napoleon III in South America and intervening militarily into Uruguayan politics while the Argentines and Brazilians decided they wanted to be the only ones interfering. His great mistake was thinking Argentina would not react to Paraguayan troops crossing into Argentina to intervene in a coup the Argentines were managing in their long time economic rivals, Uruguay

The amazing thing is that Paraguay lost 2/3 of its male population fighting to the death against the Brazilian and Argentine forces.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 08, 2019 11:22 AM (xG/b0)

269

Dick and Jane - a limerick

Said Jane, "Dick I'm counting on you."
My dog died!What shall we do?"
Dick said, "Let's build a fire
A doggie funeral pyre
And then we'll have a Spot of BBQ!"

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 11:23 AM (mvenn)

270 Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and the Sinking of the Lusitania: Why We Deserved It by Howard Zinn.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 11:23 AM (+y/Ru)

271 Morning, horde. I finally finished the complete Sherlock Holmes a couple of weeks ago. Then I read The Lost World and now I'm reading A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I've been sick all week so I haven't gotten very far. I've been mostly laying on the couch binge watching Downton Abbey.

Posted by: Jordan61 at September 08, 2019 11:24 AM (SFh6K)

272 269: Boooooo, gross

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:25 AM (U7k5w)

273 Horowitz admits that he is gun shy about religion having been burned by his previous one true religion, Marxism. It was very interesting and I bought the book although I haven't even begun it.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler


That was an excellent interview.

You can't go wrong with Horowitz. Or Metaxas.

Posted by: Sharkman at September 08, 2019 11:26 AM (Mo1SD)

274 Orthadoxy by GK Chesterton I am almost done with.

Next will be Heratics.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at September 08, 2019 11:26 AM (LxTcq)

275 ETA for Pointy Elbows? Asking for a friend.

Posted by: Federal Elbow Inspector at September 08, 2019 11:30 AM (EW5Rb)

276 I don't remember ever NOT being able to read, but the first book I remember reading, at age 4, was, get this, the 1968 edition of Illinois Rules of the Road... the booklet they handed out at the driver's license station to help you prepare for your driving tests. Must have got it when mom or dad had to renew their license. I was totally fascinated by all the colorful road signs and the pretty picture on the front cover of a country road in the fall. I read it so eagerly that I could have passed the written driving test before I started kindergarten....

Posted by: Secret Square at September 08, 2019 11:30 AM (9WuX0)

277
Said Jane, "Dick I'm counting on you."
My dog died!What shall we do?"
Dick said, "Let's build a fire
A doggie funeral pyre
And then we'll have a Spot of BBQ!"
Posted by: Muldoon


His dog up and died
He up and died
After twenty days we still eat

Posted by: Mrs. Bojangles at September 08, 2019 11:33 AM (aKsyK)

278 I learned to read at home b4 kindergarten. On the 1st day of kindergarten, I taught myself how to write in cursive while the other kids were eating play-doh and scribbling in the library books.

Posted by: Beefy Meatball at September 08, 2019 11:33 AM (EW5Rb)

279 C-SPAN's Book TV has an interview with Mattis:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4815417/mattis-interview

I'll listen later.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 11:33 AM (kQs4Y)

280 203 Maybe I should write a protest song.

The Commie rat bastards tell nothing but lies
Lord, the Commie rat bastards tell nothing but lies
And if I don't pretend to believe them they'll try to take my job and call me names and get their moron (not the good kind) mob all up in my face.

Needs work.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Tyrannosaur Wrangler at September 08, 2019 10:43 AM (+y/Ru)


But it's full of truthiness!

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at September 08, 2019 11:34 AM (+aReV)

281 145
I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the
time before you could read? Or learning your first words?

I don't. My mother told me the babysitter once came with a bag of pennies to teach me how to count when I was about four. I could have as many pennies as I could count. I cleaned her out.

When she asked how I learned my numbers, I told her it was from the numbers on the kitchen calendar.

Reading might have come from Romper Room or Captain Kangaroo before I started kindergarten. Can't remember not knowing how to read.

Posted by: Wethal at September 08, 2019 11:36 AM (3RspO)

282 His dog up and died
He up and died
After twenty days we still eat

Posted by: Mrs. Bojangles at September 08, 2019 11:33 AM (aKsyK)


You're a sick f*ck.

I can't stop laughing.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at September 08, 2019 11:36 AM (+aReV)

283 I don't remember ever NOT being able to read, but the first book I remember reading, at age 4, was, get this, the 1968 edition of Illinois Rules of the Road... the booklet they handed out at the driver's license station to help you prepare for your driving tests. Must have got it when mom or dad had to renew their license. I was totally fascinated by all the colorful road signs and the pretty picture on the front cover of a country road in the fall. I read it so eagerly that I could have passed the written driving test before I started kindergarten....
Posted by: Secret Square at September 08, 2019 11:30 AM (9WuX0)
-----
How funny is that?! The thing I remember about the kids books I mentioned up above somewhere were the covers. Seeing them again brought back a flood of early memories. It's funny how the brain and memory works.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 11:36 AM (MVjcR)

284 I learned to read at home b4 kindergarten. On the 1st day of kindergarten, I taught myself how to write in cursive while the other kids were eating play-doh and scribbling in the library books.

-
And yet I was vice president and am the next President of the United States and you're not! NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH NYAH!

Posted by: Joe Biden at September 08, 2019 11:36 AM (+y/Ru)

285
My first memory was of having a pin saying "I'm 4 Today". So I have no memory of not being able to read.

Now going through "The Count of Monte Cristo" again. Good read.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at September 08, 2019 11:38 AM (7rVsF)

286 My wife and I toured Chichen Itza a few years ago. It was odd the way the tour guide tried to justify the Mayan religion with its human sacrifice.

I remember the hair on the back of my neck rising as I walked past a burial pit. I honestly would say I could sense the evil in the place.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, champion of Urkers everywhere at September 08, 2019 11:39 AM (Uu+Jp)

287 Currently reading Robert Conquest's "The Great Terror" and Hugh Thomas's "The Spanish Civil War," both of which of course are set in the same period, and which interact quite strongly with each other, as Stalin extended the Great Terror to purge the Republican ranks.

Highly recommend both books.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:40 AM (YqDXo)

288 Posted by: Wethal at September 08, 2019 11:36 AM (3RspO)

When I learned to read I didn't tell anyone.

My parents always read to us, and I liked it; my older sister, who is very very gifted, also learned to read very young and added to the count of people who read to me. Being small, I somehow got the idea that if everyone found out I could read, that nobody would read to me anymore-- How I got this idea, I have no clue, because nobody ever said that.

So I didn't say anything. Then one day, I was walking through the grocery store with my mother and sister, and I looked down into a refrigerator case with meat in it. I saw something that completely grossed me out, and without thinking I said, "Skinless sausages? That's gross!" My Mom looked down in shock and said, "Did you read that?!"

I tried to deny it for a minute, but the cat was out of the bag. Turned out I was wrong; we still read aloud as a family on rainy days and after dinner.

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 11:42 AM (kamD5)

289 My mom taught me to read using phonetics. I must have been 4. I remember classmates in first grade accusing me of lying about how fast I could read. I read everything.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 11:42 AM (Lqy/e)

290 The Spaniards were definitely out for what they could get, but they were also legitimately horrified at what the Aztecs were doing.

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 11:21 AM (kamD5)


Prescott talks about that in his definitive history: the Spaniards WERE horrified by the Aztecs' culture, and the Spaniards weren't exactly pansies themselves.

Bonus question: why hasn't San Diego State changed its mascot from the Aztecs? They were basically Stone Age Nazis.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:43 AM (YqDXo)

291 Have any of you read "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose? I read it years ago and was fascinated by the details.

Posted by: Grannymimi at September 08, 2019 11:43 AM (u5LFV)

292 I found quite a few books on the Armenian genocide. I downloaded a few samples and will get the one that seems best documented.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 11:44 AM (U7k5w)

293 I have memories of a time before I could read, but no distinct memory of wanting to read but not being able to.

A lot of my old books are annotated with incomprehensible scribbling in ballpoint pen, but none of it is legible or meaningful, it's what a toddler thinks cursive looks like.

Posted by: hogmartin will be sad if you don't register for the fall MIMoMe at September 08, 2019 11:45 AM (t+qrx)

294 289 My mom taught me to read using phonetics. I must have been 4. I remember classmates in first grade accusing me of lying about how fast I could read. I read everything.
Posted by: Notsothoreau at September 08, 2019 11:42 AM (Lqy/e)


People will sometimes urge others to read to become more intelligent, clearly not grasping that people read because they ARE intelligent, not the other way around.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:45 AM (YqDXo)

295 I also recall a period where I could read but didn't know the meaning of very many words. Did a lot of looking things up for myself.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 11:45 AM (u/o2C)

296 Dick and Jane

So glad we didn't do that song Friday night.
Still recovering. Did manage to get about an hour and a half of walking behind the mower yesterday but 3+ hour shows with 2, 5 minute breaks can take it out of an old man.

If anyone knows someone as good as Ludlum was in the spy vs spy genre, please school me on em.
Need to start reading again, though my eyes can't take the long stretches like they did in years gone long by.

Posted by: teej at September 08, 2019 11:45 AM (gJ3Vg)

297 28
For those interested in learning more beyond Payne, Thomas is useful, but read Payne first.


Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 09:17 AM (cfSRQ)
_______

Why not read together? That is, chapter by chapter covering the same periods/topics. I often do that with history. I've even found a case of outright plagiarism which I didn't see anyone mention when the book came out.

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 11:46 AM (VaN/j)

298 291 Have any of you read "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose? I read it years ago and was fascinated by the details.
Posted by: Grannymimi at September 08, 2019 11:43 AM (u5LFV)
-----
Absolutely! I'm fascinated by the topic of westward exploration and expansion.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 11:47 AM (u/o2C)

299 Mumsey Dearest taught me how to read when I was about 4. The military school I went to would have us buy all the classroom books about a month before the year started. I read all of my first grade books before we started.

Dick and Jane had it going on.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #PurgeProgressivism at September 08, 2019 11:50 AM (HaL55)

300 Just sayin' "Hi." I enjoyed Jonathan Kellerman's The Wedding Guest--crime fiction/mystery. It was my first Kellerman book, so I will read more of his works.

Posted by: Violet at September 08, 2019 11:50 AM (9ppMC)

301 Mattis was on the show Uncommon Knowledge

https://youtu.be/zlOWx7Ft3SQ

What he put up with, the press pressuring Bush to end the battle of Fallujah made me so angry. Bush has what Kipling called the "white man's burden" and this attitude manages to be a liability to America and Iraqi civilians. Everyone but terrorists.

We've have terrible presidents continuously from 1992 to 2016.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at September 08, 2019 11:51 AM (LxTcq)

302 Currently reading Robert Conquest's "The Great Terror" and Hugh Thomas's "The Spanish Civil War," both of which of course are set in the same period, and which interact quite strongly with each other, as Stalin extended the Great Terror to purge the Republican ranks.


Martin Amis wrote a short book on the awfulness of Stalin, Koba the Dread. Conquest was a family friend. When The Great Terror was written it was controversial, as lots of lefties were still denying the purges and massacres and famines. When the book was re-released for a 25th edition the Soviet archives had been opened and it turned out that things were worse than Conquest had reported.

According to Amis, when the editors asked Conquest if he wanted to change the title for the re-release he suggested "I Told You So You Fucking Morons".

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 11:51 AM (tT7gy)

303 233 ... " want to mention that today marks limerick #365 at the Limerick-A-Day site (link in my nick). A silly little diversion, but a personal challenge to myself. I already have about 30 new ones queued up for year two."

Congrats on completing the year, Muldoon. We check the site every few days and enjoy it.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 11:51 AM (bmdz3)

304 287 Jay

As u probably know, Orwell ("Homage to Catalonia") argues that the Spanish Republicans were NOT dominated by the NKVD until quite late in the war.

Setting aside the normal risks of death in combat, Orwell was fortunate to escape BOTH the NKVD, AND the vengeful Falangists after the war ended. Had he not been a UK citizen, he might not have lived to become a famous writer.

Posted by: mnw at September 08, 2019 11:51 AM (Cssks)

305 Grannymimi- you may also want to look at books by Bernard DeVoto or Allen Eckert.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 11:52 AM (u/o2C)

306 There have been several attempts to get the "Aztecs" removed as San Diego State's nickname, and the mascot himself [Monty Montezuma] is changed or gone, I think. One attempt failed a few years back, I recall being stunned at the idiocy of it all - literally 3 or 4 people claiming they were offended somehow, acting up at a meeting. Back then the attempt was turned away, but the inertia of common sense, tradition, and alumni wrath by this point may have been overwhelmed by ignorance and the peculiar idiocy of today's academia, so another attempt might succeed.



Posted by: rhomboid at September 08, 2019 11:53 AM (QDnY+)

307 Dick and Jane had it going on.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy


**********

I always suspected as much.

Posted by: Muldoon at September 08, 2019 11:55 AM (mvenn)

308 I assume due to sheer numbers, the Hearst Castle tours have been ruined. Now there are 3 different tours, each so rushed that it's almost comical [in my experience]. Old enough to have been through the old system, one long tour of the pools, grounds, and much of the main house.

Posted by: rhomboid at September 08, 2019 11:56 AM (QDnY+)

309 When The Great Terror was written it was controversial, as lots of lefties were still denying the purges and massacres and famines. When the book was re-released for a 25th edition the Soviet archives had been opened and it turned out that things were worse than Conquest had reported.


I'm reading the original, 1968 version, because that's what our library had to hand. An audiobook version of the re-release - read in a somewhat annoyingly plummy accent - can be found here:

https://tinyurl.com/y6zp4mec

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:56 AM (YqDXo)

310 I, like many of you, learned to read by looking at the words when my parents read to me and figuring it out.

When I got to school and they tried to "teach" us to read I was outraged. See Dick run. Who talks like that? And the dog says "bow wow". No it doesn't. No dog has ever said bow wow.

And eggs were white in books. (I grew up in brown egg country). It was all lies. Lies! I knew from Kindergarten that adults were full of shit and just goofing on us.

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 11:58 AM (tT7gy)

311 306 rhomboid

When the American Indian Movement (AIM) & other leftists leaned on Florida State to drop the team name "Seminoles," the elected governing council of the Seminole Nation told them quite emphatically to F off!

Posted by: mnw at September 08, 2019 11:58 AM (Cssks)

312 308 I assume due to sheer numbers, the Hearst Castle tours have been ruined. Now there are 3 different tours, each so rushed that it's almost comical [in my experience]. Old enough to have been through the old system, one long tour of the pools, grounds, and much of the main house.
Posted by: rhomboid at September 08, 2019 11:56 AM (QDnY+)
-----
The DuPont house Wintertthur is like that. They were prolific collectors and there are highly specialized tours.

Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 11:58 AM (u/o2C)

313 I rely on that Books In Order site quite often, it seems to be the authoritative site on the internet for its kind.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 08, 2019 11:58 AM (KZzsI)

314 Back then the attempt was turned away, but the inertia of common sense, tradition, and alumni wrath by this point may have been overwhelmed by ignorance and the peculiar idiocy of today's academia, so another attempt might succeed.

Posted by: rhomboid at September 08, 2019 11:53 AM (QDnY+)


Ignorance? I think that this is a rare case where changing a name is entirely appropriate, and proper. The name is like the Technische Hochschule in Munich having "Storm Troopers" or "Brownshirts" as their mascot.

Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:59 AM (YqDXo)

315 Early reading.

I remember learning letters and sounds early on but not sure of grade.

While in second grade I think, mom asked me to tell her the word on a jar while a lady friend was over.

I clearly remember pronouncing it... may-on-a-cise.
Chuckles then 'That was pretty close.'

4th grade, pulled my nose out of a book to see the entire class including teacher looking at me and chuckling.
Teacher had called on me, a few times I guess, to answer a question.
Probably Twain's, London's or Zachary Ball's fault.

Posted by: teej at September 08, 2019 12:01 PM (gJ3Vg)

316 From the President and Carpe Donktum...

https://twitter.com/CarpeDonktum/status/
1170552985602199552

Posted by: andycanuck at September 08, 2019 12:01 PM (Dh1wo)

317 313
I rely on that Books In Order site quite often, it seems to be the authoritative site on the internet for its kind.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 08, 2019 11:58 AM (KZzsI)


What a cool site it is! I just found a few books I didn't know I hadn't read in series that I follow. Clickity click right over to Amazon!


Posted by: AlaBAMA at September 08, 2019 12:02 PM (//Pcr)

318 198 I am reading another Chruchill biography (Andrew Roberts) which I am quite thoroughly enjoying. He loves his subject, which is refreshing in a biography.

But there's one passage that reads like that scene in Life of Brian where they start bitching about "what have the Romans ever done for us?"

He writes (paraphrasing) "Churchill was an unabashed supporter of colonialism. He admired the way the Empire brought administrative justice and ended honor killings, rooted out corruption, and spread the concept of universal education.

Of course, today we know that colonialism was racist and morally reprehensible".

So, Roberts, wanna go back to honor killings?
Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 10:41 AM (tT7gy)
_________

I just got it. Have been reading the naval bits, of course. Frankly, Roberts isn't doing a great job in that area. To give one example, he omits the degree to which the Dardanelles expedition - or something like it - was being mooted at the Admiralty BEFORE Churchill went all aboard. Yet Roberts does cite Adm Richmond's* journal (in Portrait of an Admiral) for other things.

I am always confused when that happens.

*Then only Captain, of course.

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 12:02 PM (VaN/j)

319 My mom taught me to read using phonetics. I must have been 4. I remember classmates in first grade accusing me of lying about how fast I could read.

Yeah mom tells the story to me (which I do not recall) of my crawling into my father's lap while he read the newspaper at age 3 demanding he teach me to read. All three of my older brothers were reading and apparently I wanted a part of this action. By the time I started school I was reading fluently because they taught me at home. The librarians at the little country school said that they thought I had read everything in the library.

Then for a while I stopped reading so much, I was focused on running around in the forest and drawing, but I got back to it later in life and now I go through about 75-100 books a year. And the funny thing is... I never run out.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 08, 2019 12:02 PM (KZzsI)

320 Time for me to get ready for church. I told my doggie that if she's been ripping the cotton batting out of my blanket while I've been preoccupied she'll be getting a stern talking to.
Posted by: N.L. Urker. I will urk until I can't urk anymore. at September 08, 2019 11:12 AM


What we say to dogs: "Okay, Ginger! I've had it! You stay out of the garbage! Understand, Ginger? Stay out of the garbage, or else!"

What they hear: "blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah GINGER blah blah blah blah blah blah"

Posted by: Gary Larson at September 08, 2019 12:03 PM (zCabI)

321 291 ... I read Undaunted Courage years ago and enjoyed it. Some reviews thought it spent too much time on politics and not enough on the expedition. I liked the context.

I haven't read it (yet) but I've heard that the Bernard De Voto edit of the Lewis and Clark Journals is excellent.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 12:04 PM (bmdz3)

322 Hey Mick, thought the US wanted no foreign influence in our elections.

Posted by: REDACTED at September 08, 2019 12:06 PM (AQBtr)

323 309 When The Great Terror was written it was controversial, as lots of lefties were still denying the purges and massacres and famines. When the book was re-released for a 25th edition the Soviet archives had been opened and it turned out that things were worse than Conquest had reported.


I'm reading the original, 1968 version, because that's what our library had to hand. An audiobook version of the re-release - read in a somewhat annoyingly plummy accent - can be found here:

https://tinyurl.com/y6zp4mec
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:56 AM (YqDXo)

I do audiobooks so thank you

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 12:07 PM (dKiJG)

324 254 People forget that when Cortez sacked Tenochtitlan his army was between 75 and 90 percent Mexican. The Spanish may have been weird-looking aliens out to steal everyone's gold, but the Aztecs were worse.

"You cut off her skin so your priests could WEAR it? What's WRONG with you people?"
Posted by: Trimegistus at September 08, 2019 11:12 AM (wBMpg)
_________

Yes. It's pretty clear that the Indians he met on route all said "You want to attack the AZTECS! How can I help."

Killing and eating your neighbors - and on such an industrial scale - is NOT the way to win friends and influence people.

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 12:08 PM (VaN/j)

325 "157 145 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel at September 08, 2019 10:13 AM (MVjcR)"
****
Three years old in 1958, a book called COWBOY ANDY. My mother says I could say the book aloud, but she couldn't tell if I was reading it or reciting from memory until I started reading other books myself

Posted by: Cosda at September 08, 2019 12:08 PM (MnTyn)

326 Have you read DRAGON REPUBLIC yet, I just started it
Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 10:24 AM (dKiJG)

Just put it on hold at the library. Maybe she'll be less whiny in this one.

Posted by: April at September 08, 2019 12:11 PM (OX9vb)

327 I haven't read it yet but I got a Hammond Innes book about the Cortez campaign in Central America. He's kind of a forgotten author but was very praised and loved in the past. He wrote No Highway In The Sky which was later made into a Jimmy Stewart film. Innes was an aircraft engineer and designer from Australia who worked on planes in WWI and afterward became an author. I am not a huge fan, for some reason he does not connect with me as a writer but he's very highly regarded.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 08, 2019 12:11 PM (KZzsI)

328 Killing and eating your neighbors - and on such an industrial scale - is NOT the way to win friends and influence people.
---
Artisanal small-batch cannibalism is the way to go.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 12:11 PM (kQs4Y)

329 325: I was taught to read before school began. My father had many faults, but had impeccable taste in babysitters. Mine was a woman with two adolescent sons who longed for a little girl.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 12:13 PM (U7k5w)

330 Another great website for folks who remember a book's plot but cannot remember the title (this happens to me a lot, more than I care to admit, which I guess I just did. )
https://on.nypl.org/2Jo38V1
Several links to crowdsourcing websites to try and find that book you read at 13 years old!

Posted by: AlaBAMA at September 08, 2019 12:13 PM (//Pcr)

331 309 When The Great Terror was written it was controversial, as lots of lefties were still denying the purges and massacres and famines. When the book was re-released for a 25th edition the Soviet archives had been opened and it turned out that things were worse than Conquest had reported.


I'm reading the original, 1968 version, because that's what our library had to hand. An audiobook version of the re-release - read in a somewhat annoyingly plummy accent - can be found here:

https://tinyurl.com/y6zp4mec
Posted by: Deplorable Jay Guevara at September 08, 2019 11:56 AM (YqDXo)
________

I've read that when it was reissued, Kingsley Amis told Conquest it needed a zippier title: "I Told You So, You Fucking Bastards."

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 12:16 PM (VaN/j)

332 Artisanal small-batch cannibalism is the way to go.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 12:11 PM (kQs4Y)

Where's Cannibal Bob?

SANDWICHES

The Noisy Neighbor
Choice of light or dark meat, brioche bun.......12

The Long Pig
Free range wild caught, brioche bun, cilantro..15

Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 12:17 PM (kamD5)

333 Those are very reasonable prices for wild-caught hobo!

What is the provenance? Seattle? Because those SF hobos are raised in a cesspool.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Literate Savage at September 08, 2019 12:20 PM (kQs4Y)

334 I loved reading the boxcar children as a kid. Can't remember I time I couldn't read.

Posted by: Infidel at September 08, 2019 12:20 PM (BLFnH)

335 My grandmother taught me to read, while reading to me. A A Milne. She had me follow the words with my finger, and taught me to "sound it out." The latter appalled my teachers when I went to school. That was heresy then. (I imagine it's even worse now.)

There is more humor in the single word "heffalump" than in all the grade school primers they inflicted on us.

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 12:21 PM (VaN/j)

336 I have two visual memories from before I could read. In both cases, I described them to my mother, and she confirmed that I was clearly describing the house they left while I was two. Neither was possible in the house my parents lived in for the rest of their lives.

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 12:24 PM (VaN/j)

337 "There have been several attempts to get the "Aztecs" removed as San
Diego State's nickname, and the mascot himself [Monty Montezuma] is
changed or gone, I think."

Paying some "tribute" to the Indians here before us can make sense, though some were less worthy than others. The Illini Chief was kicked off the field, but was presented honorably. I don't really know much about how honorable the old Illini tribe actually was, but Aztecs strike me as more savage. But the local Indians hunted and gathered, and I find their arrowheads still today.


Our new manifest destiny would be to remove the DeepState invasion by the "seditious white man", that infiltrated the Christian culture/institutions of our forefathers. Some "savagery" may be required.

Posted by: illiniwek at September 08, 2019 12:25 PM (Cus5s)

338 The Long Pig

Free range wild caught, brioche bun, cilantro..15
Posted by: Vanya at September 08, 2019 12:17 PM (kamD5)


Try a little priest.

Posted by: Kindltot at September 08, 2019 12:29 PM (xG/b0)

339 I mentioned that I didn't remember being read to. But my parents and grandparents would always take the time to help me sound out the words. That phonetic approach worked as it has for centuries, probably. Fortunately, grade school back then, 1950s, used the same approach. I assume they have adopted whatever piece of shit approach is current and futile.

One of many side benefits of the phonetic system is recognizing how words are assembled and interrelated.

Posted by: JTB at September 08, 2019 12:31 PM (bmdz3)

340 Illini were pissed off because they even did a contract with the school and smoked on it and the school backtracked on the deal.

Posted by: Patrick from Ohio at September 08, 2019 12:31 PM (dKiJG)

341 Learn how to write "thrilling" love letters? OK, I thought love letters would be "romantic" or something like that.

Then there's the companion book for women; How to Write a "Dear John" Letter.

Posted by: BackwardsBoy - #PurgeProgressivism at September 08, 2019 12:33 PM (HaL55)

342 {i]I've read that when it was reissued, Kingsley Amis told Conquest it needed a zippier title: "I Told You So, You Fucking Bastards."


I read that, too. At #302.

;-)

Posted by: Bandersnatch at September 08, 2019 12:40 PM (tT7gy)

343 "Hiraeth" reminds me of the dominant theme of a good part of Lovecraft's Dreamland stories, as well as being a background theme of Lovecraft the person.

Posted by: Sam at September 08, 2019 12:41 PM (ohyxL)

344 "Turned out I was wrong; we still read aloud as a family on rainy days and after dinner."

Vanya, being read to is one of the most precious memories of my childhood. I was sickly as a child, with frequent lung infections, asthma, and all sorts of allergies. Once, when I was five or six, I was laid up on a rainy, miserable Saturday with one of my illnesses. My older brother and sister read "The Wizard of Oz" to me, cover to cover. They alternated chapters, and it took them all day. To this day, I remember the story vividly. Reading aloud to a child, or just telling the child a story, is a gift for a lifetime.

Posted by: Brown Line at September 08, 2019 12:43 PM (S6ArX)

345 That photograph is NOT the Hearst Castle library. It is the Gothic Study. The Castle's library looks completely different.

Posted by: Rusty Nail at September 08, 2019 12:50 PM (/OqVH)

346 I always loathed that untalented Commie hack Pete Seeger with his "aw shucks" demeanor --he was a Harvard graduate and from a branch of the Vanderbilt's.
He couldn't sing or play and everything he ever "wrote" was "adapted"--ripped off--from others. Woody Guthrie was a Commie, but he did write a few original songs at least.

Bob Dylan was probably on the Left as well, but he must have figured out that Seeger and the rest of the Newport crowd were too Commie for him.

Posted by: JoeF. at September 08, 2019 01:05 PM (NFEMn)

347 I'm among those who can't remember not being able to read, so when I did or how I learned are complete mysteries to me. Given that both my parents were avid readers, I'd guess Mother taught me at a fairly young age, but I don't know for sure.

Posted by: Empire1 at September 08, 2019 01:14 PM (BbRH0)

348 I'm in the middle of "Napoleon's Pyramids" by William Dietrich. It's a ripping yarn taking place in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. An American gets accepted as one of Napoleon's group of savants although he is more of a rogue than a savant; and thus far winds up inside a square at the Battle of the Pyramids and on a doomed ship at the Battle of the Nile. The young General Napoleon is a major character who is portrayed accurately in my opinion, otherwise I couldn't read the book.

Posted by: microcosme at September 08, 2019 01:22 PM (B+xWY)

349 347 I'm among those who can't remember not being able to read, so when I did or how I learned are complete mysteries to me. Given that both my parents were avid readers, I'd guess Mother taught me at a fairly young age, but I don't know for sure.
Posted by: Empire1 at September 08, 2019 01:14 PM (BbRH0)

Lucky you! My parents paid others to do the parenting or gave me to my grandmothers when this was not possible. I was taught to read by a babysitter, an older woman who lived a few houses away. Perhaps this was a good thing.

Posted by: CN at September 08, 2019 01:24 PM (U7k5w)

350 Weasel at September 08, 2019 11:52 AM (u/o2C)

Thanks, Weasel. I'll do that.

Posted by: Grannymimi at September 08, 2019 01:30 PM (u5LFV)

351 139
Vic with three books finished in one week and started a fourth. I'm
retired and I still don't get enough reading done. Maybe I need to try
to speed it up?

Posted by: FloridaMan at September 08, 2019 10:10 AM (r28kI)


I am retired too and lets not forget 4 or 5 hours playing Civ III. But I read novels fast especially those that I have already read before.

Posted by: Vic at September 08, 2019 01:35 PM (mpXpK)

352 I should have said "young General Bonaparte"

Posted by: microcosme at September 08, 2019 01:37 PM (B+xWY)

353 Why not read together? That is, chapter by chapter
covering the same periods/topics. I often do that with history. I've
even found a case of outright plagiarism which I didn't see anyone
mention when the book came out.

Posted by: Eeyore at September 08, 2019 11:46 AM (VaN/j)

---
Payne is a faster read and many of his chapters follow particular themes while Thomas is strictly chronological.

Payne is the perfect primer to Thomas. I learned a lot reading Thomas first, but going back I'm finding Payne clearer and a more lucid writer.

Posted by: Convalescing Author A.H. Lloyd at September 08, 2019 01:42 PM (cfSRQ)

354 Like so many other morons, I learned to read very young, sometime before the age of 3, by memorizing the shapes of words when my mother read to me (also A.A. Milne!!) and then later recognizing them in other books.

I could read quite well by first grade and was given library privileges long before other students. I could not believe that I could check out any of those thousands of books and take it home with me. Almost intoxicating.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at September 08, 2019 01:50 PM (S+f+m)

355 Book Readers' Resource

This site looks like it could come in useful:
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/
-----------

Wow! I'll say...

I first tried Mazo De La Roche, my standard for serial novels. Bingo.

Moved on to C.S. Forester. Yup, no sweat. Interestingly also lists the Hornblower novels by chronological sequence also, i.e., the order in which they ought to be read, which they did not do for De La Roche's series.

WTH, let's go for the biggie, Wodehouse. Heck, I discovered books I did not know that he had published. Dammit. Off to shop.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 08, 2019 01:52 PM (cg4r6)

356 I do not remember ever being read to. I know that other kids in the neighborhood *did* have parents that read to them.

That aside, my sister and I were supplied with plenty of books, starting with Little Golden Books. If I suffered from not being read to, it certainly isn't obvious to me.

Both of my fraternal grandparents were avid readers, and I could count on a book at Christmas, and my birthday. My father would give me books that he thought would steer me towards what today is fashionable to call STEM.

As it was for others, the elementary school library was a sort of literary ambrosia.

Many of the books were from an earlier era, but were founts of knowledge, 'The Boy Mechanic', 'A Boys Book of Electricity', etc., etc.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at September 08, 2019 02:05 PM (cg4r6)

357 Oh my gosh, I just found the very edition of Rules of the Road I was talking about on eBay. The fall scene was actually on the BACK cover; the front cover is an aerial shot of Chicago expressways.

https://tinyurl.com/yy8dgrw4

Fun fact: the public official who published the book -- Secretary of State Paul Powell -- became infamous, after his death in 1970, when a stash of $800,000 in cash was discovered in shoeboxes in his Springfield hotel room.

Posted by: Secret Square at September 08, 2019 02:38 PM (9WuX0)

358 Woodie Guthrie wasn't a communist, he collected and retold the stories of the common man.

I can't wait a week to refute this. He was a lazy asshole who never worked an honest day in his sponge life. He was real good at making people do things for him, though, and believe in him; just like Gaylord.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 08, 2019 03:11 PM (JGY3u)

359 We've have terrible presidents continuously from 199288 to 2016.
Posted by: BourbonChicken at September 08, 2019 11:51 AM (LxTcq)

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 08, 2019 03:20 PM (JGY3u)

360 "Who Dis:"

You mean "Who dem?" right?

Posted by: GWB at September 08, 2019 03:41 PM (JJCAp)

361 "The Scent of Metal is the first in Ms. Chase's Argonauts of Space series"

I've read it (I think because of a link on Sarah Hoyt's blog), and can recommend it. It *is* a little different from your normal sci-fi first contact stories. I'm now reading the sequel: One Blood.

Posted by: GWB at September 08, 2019 03:49 PM (JJCAp)

362 @360 LOL

Posted by: Ignoramus at September 08, 2019 03:51 PM (1UZdv)

363 I've used the KDL What's Next Database for years, but the Books In Series Order seems to have newer authors. I just spent an hour updating my Excel Reading Record with everything that Lindsay Buroker has written. Thanks!

Posted by: Oscar is my clarinet at September 08, 2019 04:09 PM (HOEbO)

364 Cortes' Indian "allies" - actually, masters, at first - weren't much better than the Aztecs. The massacre of Cholula was ordered by Tlaxcala. Tlaxcala used to be the head of its own 'triple alliance' and Cholula had recently left it.

Cortes (and Diaz) had to somehow figure out how to take credit for the victory and to excuse themselves from the massacre. They didn't succeed.

The attitude most Mesoamericans had to the Aztecs was : "how dare you sacrifice all these guys. only WE should be going that!"

...

Personally I'd like to see less of a concentration on Cortes, who was a little bitch, and on the Spanish invasion, who created a horrible bloody mess; and more on the Church, which reformed the survivors out of the rut they were in. But hey. Papist :^)

Posted by: boulder t'hobo at September 08, 2019 04:52 PM (ykYG2)

365 Good thread today.

Still in the world of Perry Mason. About to start "The Case of the Silent Partner."

Grabbed three comics trade collections from the library. One is in the "Criminal" series. "My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies." I love "Criminal," and I learned a couple of weeks ago that the series has been restarted. Yay!

Speaking of comics, that's what Dad would read to my sister and me. Newspaper strips. He'd say, "Let's read the funnies," and we'd gather around him. He did this into our grade school years, well after we had grown past Jack, Janet, Tip, and Mitten. (Dick and Jane? That was for city kids.)

First book I read on my own was "The Big Green Thing," at age 4, according to a note Mom jotted on the inside cover. I assume they still have the book stashed away somewhere in their house. I would hate to have lost it.

Posted by: Weak Geek at September 08, 2019 05:09 PM (zbyVY)

366 164 I think we've discussed this before, but how many of you remember the time before you could read? Or learning your first words?
Posted by: Weasel

My parents are allergic to reading beyond print media. That said, they allowed and encouraged me to read. I chuckle at the insistence of teachers that they alone teach literacy. They never met my parents.

Back in day care and kindergarten, I remember well reading every - single - road sign on the road. My parents made no effort to stop me and taught me what the abbreviations meant. So it began.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at September 08, 2019 07:19 PM (H++7c)

367 He wasn't a criminal, though. He had legal authorization for everything: when he and the boys landed in Mexico they established the colony of Vera Cruz (H. Cortez, mayor). The colony council then authorized Cortez to conquer the fuck out of Mexico. As legal as anything else in history.
Posted by: Trimegistus at September 08, 2019 11:10 AM (wBMpg)

So if it's legal, it's moral?

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at September 08, 2019 07:35 PM (H++7c)

368 Mom and I used to sit and read the same book together, she'd read the narration and we'd read the parts dialog. She would help me with tough words, and it was lots of fun. I remember specifically reading Charlotte's Web and struggling over the word "Chevrolet" and trying to sound it out Chev -row - lette?

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at September 08, 2019 08:16 PM (KZzsI)

369 358 Woodie Guthrie wasn't a communist, he collected and retold the stories
of the common man.

I can't wait a week to refute this. He was a lazy asshole who never worked an honest day in his sponge life. He was real good at making people do things for him, though, and believe in him; just like Gaylord.
Posted by: Captain Hate at September 08, 2019 03:11 PM (JGY3u)


I can't wait, either, but it's probably too late now: Guthrie wasn't a commie only insofar as he did not actually join the Communist Party. But his commie sympathies are not in dispute. He even wrote a column for the Daily Worker commie rag for a brief period of time, 1939-40.

Posted by: OregonMuse. AoSHQ Thought Leader & Pants Monitor at September 08, 2019 10:11 PM (+aReV)

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