Sunday Morning Book Thread - 04-24-2022 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: Black Orchid)

Good morning, Horde! Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (ht: Fritz(not Fritz)--don't judge!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material, even if it's nothing more than the lyrics of "Mmmbop." As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(wasabi not included)

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, pour some whole milk over those Lucky Charms (side effects may include vomiting and diarrhea), and crack open a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

Baldwin's Book Barn (ht: Black Orchid) is located in West Chester, Pennsylvania. It's a five-story structure that was originally built in 1822. There are some excellent pics of this charming store on the interwebs...I'd love to just spend my days here, summer or winter, reading.

WRITING TIPS

The videos below showed up in my YouTube feed...Enjoy!

+-+-+-+-+

Comment: Both authors point to a central tenet when it comes to writing believable stories (even fantasy or science fiction). Great stories (even good stories) always include strong elements of essential truth from the author's perspective. For example, J.R.R. Tolkien used his experiences as a soldier in WWI, his scholarship as a linguist, and his personal foundations in Christianity to craft The Lord of the Rings, one of the greatest stories in English literature.
++++++++++

BOOKS BY MORONS

Sgt Mom says that the Texas Lone Star Book Festival will be happening on May 28/29 around the Courhouse Square in downtown Seguin, TX (just due east of San Antonio). It's a great opportunity for authors (new and old) to network and share ideas, along with their latest works. Sounds like a lot of fun!

+++++
Regular commenter Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (or MP4 for short) has a new book out.

My new novel, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, is now available in paperback and kindle on Amazon. If you have a chance to mention it in an upcoming book thread, I'd appreciate it.
Here's the back cover blurb:
Hollywood, 1917. Silent movie queen Theda Bara is filming her epic, Cleopatra - "the one they'll remember me for." But when a studio extra turns up dead in a PR stunt gone wrong, Bara finds herself at the center of intrigue, from a friend from the past who isn't at all what she seems to an Egyptian cult that wants her dead. With stars like Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Erich von Stroheim along for the ride, Bara and her loyal friend, makeup artist Toby Swanson, have to find out who is telling the truth, who is lying and whether it spells the end of Cleopatra. . .or of Hollywood itself.

Comment: I like the idea of taking a real character from history and adding to their mystique with some fictional adventures (Doctor Who does this all the time). Theda Bara was a real woman, a silent film star back in the day. In MP4's re-imagining of her life, she teams up with her makeup artist to solve mysteries. The advantage to this is that you can research a real person (so you don't have to make up details) and then "enhance" their biography through some unknown adventure that never made it into the "official" history books.

+++++

Dana Epperson (aka "Secret Squirrel") has published a sequel to his novel Outward Frontier.

ALAMO: The sequel to Outward Frontier
Humanity has been in the fight against the reptilian alien race known as the Mo Tian for almost two years, and they are losing.
An ALAMO message arrives from Sequoia, the furthest American state from Earth, informing the United States Government that it has been destroyed by Mo Tian forces. It is believed that there are no survivors. The team led by Defense Intelligence Agency Special Agent Sanders must continue to unravel the mysterious symbols burned into Dr. Gandiva's son while preparing for the Inner Planets Treaty Organization summit in Seattle, WA. Will humanity unite against the Mo Tian or continue in petty squabbles?
Follow the adventures of the DIA team as their assignments take them undercover to Seattle, WA, and to a research station on Mars. Dr. Gandiva and his family, now safe at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, continues the scientific effort to unravel the mysteries of the Messengers. As the team continues under a tight deadline, other forces are at play: the Chinese Empire. Have they obtained an edge against the Mo Tian? And Celeste Sexton, a survivor of the New Auckland invasion and newly elected Member of the New Zealand Parliament, finds herself in unwanted political machinations.
Who are the aliens? Why did they attack Lorraine and destroy Sequoia and other worlds? Are they truly "Demons from Heaven" as the Chinese described them? Or are they and humanity more alike than we want to admit?
First book, Outward Frontier, saw humanity make first contact with an alien civilization via an invasion. Story is told from three separate character perspectives who then come together to continue the fight against the Mo Tian.
Here is a link to my Amazon author site:
Amazon.com: Dana Epperson: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

Comment: I had the pleasure of reading Outward Frontier recently. I wanted to read the first book before I tackled the second book. The first book does a pretty decent job of setting up the characters and situations that are then going to be explored in more detail in ALAMO. I like that the aliens are pretty weird. They have a very different viewpoint than humans, making it difficult to communicate with them. I also enjoyed how Earth was NOT a unified planet, but still consisted of various factions competing for extrasolar territories and resources.

As always, you can find more Books by Morons HERE!

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Nothing like a great art book when the new puppy leaves you little time to read.
This week's pleasure is "Vermeer: The Complete Works, edited by Karl Schütz.
Vermeer's paintings are scarce, perhaps thirty-five in all (there have been many misattributions), and I seek them out whenever I'm near a museum that has one.
One of the most delightful museums is New York City, the Frick, has *three.*
Posted by: Brett at April 17, 2022 09:50 AM (Sm9Ko)

Comment: We don't give art books enough love around here. There's a lot to be said for large picture books full of beautiful artwork, such as this portrait from Vermeow.

+++++

I'm currently reading Island Infernos by John C. MaManus about WW II in the Pacific and the second volume in the author's yet unfinished trilogy.
These modern histories continue trouble me in two different ways. First would be the amount of infighting in the higher American ranks along with the jockeying for promotions or commands.
Second would be the now seemingly requisite breast-beating about the euphemisms our GIs used to identify their enemies and the American treatment of the Negroes of the day. Meanwhile, the Japanese, who thought lowly of pretty much all the other Asians, seem to get little depth of coverage in their treatment of Philippinos or Chamoros (Guamanians). I used to work with a couple of the latter and they had stories that don't seem to garner anywhere the caterwauling.
Posted by: 11B40 at April 17, 2022 09:57 AM (uuklp)

Comment: Dr. John C. McManus is an exceptional historian, especially with respect to WWII. I actually work at the same institution as him. I don't know him all that well, but I know he's highly regarded by his peers in the History and Political Science department and he is equally well-regarded by his students. When COVID-19 forced us to go home for several weeks, everyone on campus had to suddenly learn how to teach online. It was my job to show him how to use the technology. Island Infernos is on the "New Books" shelf at our institutional library. It's over 600 pages of meticulously researched information.

+++++

I finished G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man this week. Brilliant, as is much of Chesterton's books, but much less meandering. Which is odd, as it pretty much covers all of non-recorded history.
He compares two existential changes in the story of man: the creation of man, and the birth and death of Jesus.
While not arguing against evolution, he does argue persuasively that most evolutionists vastly downplay the difference between man and animal, even, and especially, prehistoric man and animal.
...he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn a picture of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man... Something happened; and it has all the appearance of a transaction outside time.
He argues that the ideas of Christianity are not a natural evolution of religion. They were as out of place at the founding as they are now.
Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars... It is no more inevitable to connect God with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten.... There is really a difference between the man who knows it and the man who does not.
He also does not discount the idea of supernatural evil as a real thing, or at least a thing that people believed was more real than their other mythologies. Though "Whether it be because the Fall has really brought men nearer to less desirable neighbours in the spiritual world, or whether it is merely that the mood of men eager or greedy finds it easier to imagine evil" he doesn't know.
For clothes are very literally vestments, and man wears them because he is a priest.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at April 17, 2022 10:49 AM (U+Oxn)

Comment: G.K. Chesterton is another author I've heard a lot about, but I have never read. One of these days I will rectify that situation. According to Wikipedia, he had a rather odd friendship with George Bernard Shaw, a leading Progressive thinker at the time. I love Chesterson's quote on the difference between Progressives and Conservatives: "The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." He was, of course, talking about politics in his native England at the time, but you could easily update the quote for the modern American political scene to read as: "The business of Democrats is to go on making mistakes. The business of the GOPe is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE!

+-----+-----+-----+-----+
I had a major book haul this week. The university library in which I work (but I do not work for) had a book sale. Managed to walk away with 20 books for the low, low price of $11. Not too shabby.
Here is my haul:

The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination edited by John Joseph Adams

Downtiming the Night Side by Jack L. Chalker

Lord of the Silent Kingdom by Glen Cook

Surrender to the Will of the Night by Glen Cook

Working God's Mischief by Glen Cook

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia

Monster Hunter Alpha by Larry Correia

Star Wars: The Joiner King by Troy Denning (side note: I ordered this on Amazon several weeks ago, but it never arrived. According to the tracking number, it got lost in Delaware, so maybe it was left on FJB's doorstep. But it only cost me $0.50 for the replacement!)

The Dreaming Void by Peter F. Hamilton

The Temporal Void by Peter F. Hamilton

The Abyss Beyond Dreams by Peter F. Hamilton

Gentlemen Takes a Chance by Sara H. Hoyt

Lost in Translation by Wil McCarthy

To Crush the Moon by Wil McCarthy

Wellstone by Wil McCarthy

Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds

On the Steele Breeze by Alastair Reynolds

The Mammoth Book of Steampunk edited by Sean Wallace

Book of the New Sun Volume 1: Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding my Sunday Morning Book Thread. This is a very special place. You are very special people (in all the best ways!). The kindness and generosity of the Moron Horde knows no bounds. Let's keep reading!

If you have any suggestions for improvement, reading recommendations, or writing projects that you'd like to see on the Sunday Morning Book Thread, you can send them to perfessor dot squirrel at-sign gmail dot com. Your feedback is always appreciated! You can also take a virtual tour of OUR library at libib.com/u/perfessorsquirrel. Since I added sections for AoSHQ, I now consider it OUR library, rather than my own personal fiefdom...

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 04-17-22 (hat tip: vmom stabby stabby stabamillion) (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 09:00 AM (2JoB8)

2 BOING!

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:00 AM (k1SMI)

3 hiya

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:00 AM (arJlL)

4 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. Mine was getting started on several books after brief delays.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:00 AM (7EjX1)

5 Curses! Foiled again!

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:01 AM (k1SMI)

6 I haz a sad, no new book

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 09:01 AM (2JoB8)

7 If get to West Chester will look the book store up.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 09:02 AM (2JoB8)

8 Many thanks, Perfesser! Just a slight correction - Bara doesn't solve occult mysteries - that was just one short story of mine, Thirteen Moons. In The Director's Cut and Dreams, the mysteries and murders are decidedly earthbound.

I don't want potential readers to get the wrong idea!

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:03 AM (2JVJo)

9 That hot attic can't be good for the books.

Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at April 24, 2022 09:03 AM (bg3iC)

10 Those writer videos are good. I'm suddenly having trouble writing anything. Maybe I'm just not going to be good at it. Can't seem to show for nothing. Oh well.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 09:04 AM (7bRMQ)

11 Many thanks, Perfesser! Just a slight correction - Bara doesn't solve occult mysteries - that was just one short story of mine, Thirteen Moons. In The Director's Cut and Dreams, the mysteries and murders are decidedly earthbound.

I don't want potential readers to get the wrong idea!
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:03 AM (2JVJo)
----
Thanks for the correction!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:04 AM (K5n5d)

12 Those writer videos are good. I'm suddenly having trouble writing anything. Maybe I'm just not going to be good at it. Can't seem to show for nothing. Oh well.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 09:04 AM (7bRMQ)
---
Don't give up! Find your own truth....

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:05 AM (K5n5d)

13 did not read this week

Posted by: rhennigantx at April 24, 2022 09:05 AM (yrol0)

14 9 That hot attic can't be good for the books.
Posted by: Cat Ass Trophy at April 24, 2022 09:03 AM (bg3iC)
-

The books are cooked.

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:05 AM (k1SMI)

15 Reading "The Anglo-Saxons", by Marc Morris, because I like history.

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:07 AM (k1SMI)

16 After last week's mention of Sarah Hoyt's "Odd Magics" I got a copy. It's a delightful combination of traditional fairy tales with a modern perspective. She uses humor, touches of reality and magic, and poignant moments to give these short tales a satisfying (usually) conclusion. Really pleasant reading.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:07 AM (7EjX1)

17 That Baldwin's Book Barn reminds me of a late, lamented used bookstore on Route 1 in North Hampton, NH. It was, literally, a gigantic barn packed top to bottom with books. It was so large that even one bookcase could have hundreds of books stuffed into it. And, being a barn, there were cobwebs and - when the doors were open in summer - birds flying through.

They went out of business about 5-odd years ago. One dollar bought you as many books as you could stuff into a box. I got an entire Britannica set as well as about 20 old Hollywood books.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:08 AM (2JVJo)

18 Don't give up! Find your own truth....

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:05 AM (K5n5d)

Oh, I won't give up. I'll keep at it until I completely finish something and try to get it out into the public, then when I'm told it's crap....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 09:08 AM (7bRMQ)

19 Reading "The Anglo-Saxons", by Marc Morris, because I like history.
Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:07 AM (k1SMI)

I have that and recommend it highly! Very well written.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:09 AM (2JVJo)

20 Neil says Hi by the way
Tori Amos

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 09:09 AM (2JoB8)

21 After a couple of weeks of life getting in the way, I finally got to MP4's "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of". It's the second of his Theda Bara mysteries. Like his first book (highly recommended) you are immediately immersed in the time of silent films and the culture of the time. I'm just a few chapters in but don't want to stop reading. MP4 has captured the same appeal I find with Cussler's Isaac Bell series, my favorite of his not-Dirk Pitt books. I'll have the book finished in the next couple of days.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:10 AM (7EjX1)

22 I just finished "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of"!

Really enjoyed this outing with Theda and Toby. Interesting how quickly Hollywood became "Hollywood", with its glamour, exploitation, and cultish kooks. I had my copy of Deems Taylor's pictorial history of the movies to accompany the story.

I see that my favorite "Prussian" director, Erich von Stroheim, has made an appearance. I hope he becomes a regular.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2022 09:10 AM (Dc2NZ)

23 I read Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win by Peter Schweizer. Many of our politicians, business titans, and academics believe the communist China system is superior to ours, and that China is the future world leader; so they have hitched their wagons to the rising star in the east. They couple this with an active plan to bring the U. S. to its knees. All their idiotic ideas and actions aren't idiotic, but rather a well-designed plan to reach their goal. Schweizer exposes many of them in this book.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 24, 2022 09:10 AM (gJIg1)

24 Theda Bara (Arab Death) was a nice Jewish girl from Newark NJ if memory serves me right. She did cultivate an exotic background for herself.

Posted by: JuJuBee at April 24, 2022 09:10 AM (mNhhD)

25 Just a reminder: remember to leave a review, usually on Amazon, for the books you read. Especially for the Horde authors. I want them to get all the benefit possible from their efforts.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:10 AM (7EjX1)

26 Left hand ... on front cover!

Right hand ... hold book stable!

Fliippp ... open!

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:11 AM (Om/di)

27
g'mornin', 'book-ish 'rons

no reading accomplishments for me this week, but I can report a small beacon of hope for the future:

completely out of the blue, my (not quite) 18yo son asked me if I had a copy of Atlas Shrugged he could borrow

so, there's that...which is nice

Posted by: AltonJackson at April 24, 2022 09:12 AM (DUIap)

28 On the Kindle I read The Amber Project by J. N. Chaney. This is just another average dystopian novel. I will not be reading further in the series.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 24, 2022 09:12 AM (gJIg1)

29 I'm just a few chapters in but don't want to stop reading.

Thank you, JTB, that's high praise, indeed! Please leave a review on Amazon when you finish.

Eris, Von has a large part to play in Dreams. I might have him back in the next full-length book, but I don't know.

And Bara was a self-described "nice Jewish girl from Cincinatti."

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:13 AM (2JVJo)

30 Yay book thread!

Yesterday I went on a comprehensive set of errands and among them I popped into The Archives book shop, which I should photograph because it is *packed* with dusty, obscure books.

It was kind of funny, because by now I know where the China section is and so I walked in and without breaking my stride went to the China section, saw the book I'd been unable to pick up last time, grabbed and and went to check out with calm assurance of someone getting a beer out of the fridge.

What did I get? From Emperor to Citizen, the autobiography of the Last Emperor of China. It's a quick read so far and while I know the Chi-coms had the final edit, it is an important historical source.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:13 AM (llXky)

31 I'm waiting for the Tom Bowers book on Harry's Wife. Gonna be lit AF, much more interesting than Harry's memoir.

Posted by: JuJuBee at April 24, 2022 09:14 AM (mNhhD)

32 I don't think the pants guy owns a weedwhacker. (If you catch my drift....)

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:14 AM (arJlL)

33 I love that bookstore in the top photo. I could get lost in there for days, especially during cold and rainy weather. I always associate that kind of weather with pleasant reading time.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:15 AM (7EjX1)

34 >>> 28 On the Kindle I read The Amber Project by J. N. Chaney. This is just another average dystopian novel. I will not be reading further in the series.
Posted by: Zoltan at April 24, 2022 09:12 AM (gJIg1)

There's a teenage girl with superpowers who has to choose between two cute boys?

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at April 24, 2022 09:15 AM (llON8)

35 MP4, I saw in your Acknowledgements page that you know Robert Avrech. I loved his stories of Silent Era Hollywood in Breitbart's entertainment section, way WAY back when BB used to go deep into the culture and not just bitch about stupid Twitter comments by movie and t.v. stars.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2022 09:15 AM (Dc2NZ)

36 About to start “The War That Made the Roman Empire”, by Barry Strauss. About Antony vs Octavian at Actium. I’ll try to post an update if I can. Roman history is fascinating to me.

Posted by: RetsgtRN at April 24, 2022 09:16 AM (NVtgT)

37 sizzle lean

Posted by: Dr. Varno at April 24, 2022 09:16 AM (vuisn)

38 MP4's new book looks interesting.

I, too, want to start with the first in a series, but the price on eBay is insane -- $38 for a paperback??!!

Then again, I began many of my favorite series in the middle -- first Mack Bolan book I read was "Command Strike," No. 29. I had a lot of searching to get all of Pendleton's stories.

So MP4 may get some of my money. Even if it through Amazon.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:17 AM (Om/di)

39 Those writer videos are good. I'm suddenly having trouble writing anything. Maybe I'm just not going to be good at it. Can't seem to show for nothing. Oh well.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 09:04 AM (7bRMQ)
---
Don't try anything too ambitious. Start small and write what you know. I tried for years to come up with something unique and original and always failed. Then I realized that most work - even original work! - is in some way derivative. So I wrote Battle Officer Wolf because do a 'retelling' is less of a lift.

People liked it, and I liked writing it, and that's how I've ended up with piles of Chinese history books and empty whiskey bottles stacked around my house.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:18 AM (llXky)

40 Agatha Christie includes shout-outs to several mystery writers in "The Clocks," but she forgot Rex Stout -- or did she? Hercule Poirot stays home and gets case data fed to him by a counterespionage officer who just happened to be at the scene of the crime. Shades of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin!

I caught one clue and avoided a red herring, but I didn't positively identify the culprits, nor did I figure out the motive. I didn't even guess the spy. I'll give myself 30 percent.

As for the book itself, 100 percent satisfaction.

I spent this past week re-reading Excalibur comics from the early 1990s, to decide whether to keep them. So far the answer is "no," but I haven't got to the Warren Ellis run yet.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:18 AM (Om/di)

41 Roman history is fascinating to me.
Posted by: RetsgtRN at April 24, 2022 09:16 AM (NVtgT)
-

What would be the first book about the Roman Empire that you would suggest reading? Strauss's book or another?

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:19 AM (k1SMI)

42 MP4, I saw in your Acknowledgements page that you know Robert Avrech. I loved his stories of Silent Era Hollywood in Breitbart's entertainment section, way WAY back when BB used to go deep into the culture and not just bitch about stupid Twitter comments by movie and t.v. stars.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2022 09:15 AM (Dc2NZ)

Eris, sadly, Robert lost his wife around Christmastime and has not posted on his website, Seraphic Secret, since. I've sent him a copy of Dreams and hope he is doing well.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:19 AM (2JVJo)

43 I’m completely jealous of your book sale haul. I have had my eye on about half of those you chose. However, the bride has been reminding about the size of my TBR pile. And I say you cannot have too many books.

Posted by: RetsgtRN at April 24, 2022 09:20 AM (NVtgT)

44 I, too, want to start with the first in a series, but the price on eBay is insane -- $38 for a paperback??!!

I know, I know. The problem is that I didn't publish the first book myself, but went through a third party. I have the whole book on a memory stick and am going to, at some point, reformat it and re-issue it at the same price as the new one.

I'll have an announcement on the thread when I do that, but it won't be for a while yet.

Sorry.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:21 AM (2JVJo)

45 G.K. Chesterton is another author I've heard a lot about, but I have never read.
________

You really need to correct that, and The Everlasting Man is a great place to start. (It was a big influence on CSL, btw.) The other I'd cite is his essay collection All Things Considered.

Posted by: Eeyore at April 24, 2022 09:22 AM (R0Tis)

46 People liked it, and I liked writing it, and that's how I've ended up with piles of Chinese history books and empty whiskey bottles stacked around my house.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:18 AM (llXky)

Whiskey bottles, tres Hemingway.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 09:22 AM (ONvIw)

47 Chesterton would look forward to your future engagements. And that’s the secret of GKC—his writings are timeless sharing wisdom as a grace and virtue. It can be a challenging and for me a slow read given his English literary form and the abundance of his proverbs. His Father Brown short stories are wonderful. Look forward to future reviews.

Posted by: 7man at April 24, 2022 09:23 AM (qwO6y)

48 What would be the first book about the Roman Empire that you would suggest reading? Strauss's book or another?

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:19 AM (k1SMI)
---
The best option for original books would be Tacitus or Suetonius. Very lively and readable. Suetonius did the The Twelve Caesars, which is a series of imperial biographies that are a fun read (be sure to get the Robert Graves translation).

Tacitus' shorter works are Agricola (a biography) and Germania, which is basically a tourist guide to Germany.

I think THE BEST Roman book is The Histories by Tacitus, which is about the Year of the Four Emperors. The pacing and structure is superb, and that's probably why it survived. I'm told that Tacitus' Latin style is also the best evah.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (llXky)

49 Erich von Stroheim? Wasn't he the one in 'Sunset Boulevard'?

Posted by: dantesed at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (88xKn)

50 I made a quick dash into our library's semiannual book sale. It was packed! This is the first one post-plandemic where they didn't let just a certain amount in at a time. It was a free-for-all.

I grabbed a handful of westerns for Mom (McMurtry, L'Amour, Leonard) and a 1949 Popular Mechanics home improvement guide for myself. Don't know why, but the photos and illustrations on every page appealed to me.

Hope somebody picked up that Wind in the Willows illustrated by Michael Hague. That's my favorite version.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (Dc2NZ)

51 People liked it, and I liked writing it, and that's how I've ended up with piles of Chinese history books and empty whiskey bottles stacked around my house.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

You can read Chinese ?

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (arJlL)

52 I finished The Night Sheriff by Phil Foglio (recommended by Moron Mark Reardon). It was an entertaining story about a psychic vampire charged with protecting a Disneyland-style amusement park from criminals and pedos. He eats their fear to sustain himself, while keeping the children safe.

There are numerous shout-outs to Disney (the cryogenically frozen head of the founder is a key plot point). It's also strangely relevant because of how the Zenon Corporation (i.e., Disney) is suffering due to poor management from the new CEO... Great book, glad I read it. The only real flaw is that the story doesn't get started proper until half-way through the book. The front half is a lot of exposition, but it's well done and not boring at all.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (K5n5d)

53 I like the idea of taking a real character from history and adding to their mystique with some fictional adventures
_________

In doing so, it's a good idea to choose Theda Bara, or someone like that, whose style isn't known. The trouble with Lillian de la Torre's Dr Sam Johnson stories is that in them, Johnson just doesn't sound like the guy we know.

(Ronald Knox did get his voice down pat in a small appearance in Let Dons Delight.)

Posted by: Eeyore at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (R0Tis)

54 Whiskey bottles, tres Hemingway.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 09:22 AM (ONvIw)
---
Depends on the season. With the warm weather yesterday (cracked 80!) I got out the gin.

Battle Officer Wolf was fueled by gin, chiefly Bombay Sapphire and Military Special (gah, can't drink that stuff anymore!).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:25 AM (llXky)

55 I am reading another local autobiography by Ione Reed, the second of two. She raised and sold cut flowers and daffodil bulbs in Coos County Oregon off her farm.
She reminds me of my Mom.

Also browsing through Pacific Northwest Foraging by D. Deur, a guide to edible NW plants. It is good to have, but it a bit brief on identifying the plants in the field, and not great on propagation for people who want to try to get more growing.
A far better book for identifying PNW plants is Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast by Pojar & MacKinnon

Posted by: Kindltot at April 24, 2022 09:26 AM (xhaym)

56 You can read Chinese ?

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (arJlL)
---
Only after it has been translated into English.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:27 AM (llXky)

57 Morning everyone!
Perfessor Squirrel, thanks for highlighting ALAMO! Took a while to write the damn thing. Now working on the last book.

In the meantime, am reading WEB Griffin's Brotherhood of War series. On the fourth book, The Colonels.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:27 AM (5m+wy)

58 You can read Chinese ?

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (arJlL)
---
Only after it has been translated into English.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

oh.

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:28 AM (arJlL)

59 I'm re-reading High Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler, just for laughs. I never get tired of hearing accounts of the intrigue and squabbling of Schickelgruber's inner circle as they schemed to inherit power in the wake of the Boss's imminent demise.

The level of delusion was stratospheric as Goering, Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels and the rest maneuvered in the belief that there would be power to be had by high Nazi officials as the Reich burned and collapsed around their ears. Trevor-Roper's overblown rhetorical style fits the quasi-operatic, quasi-comedic tone of the material.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 09:28 AM (XG2Fi)

60 Battle Officer Wolf was fueled by gin, chiefly Bombay Sapphire and Military Special (gah, can't drink that stuff anymore!).
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:25 AM (llXky)

Fires the imagination, and minimizes the inhibitions of the imagination.
******
I started Quo Vadis last night, sad to say that I never read it before. The translation is smooth and easy to read, and it has plenty of footnotes to let you know about the terminology and actual Romans mentioned.

I am intrigued at how the Romans made use of the 1619 projects and made slavery sound so quotidien.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 09:29 AM (ONvIw)

61 MP4's books remind me of a series by Max Collins in which he would choose a real-life event -- first trip on the Hindenburg, for example -- then craft a murder mystery that used both real people and his fictional characters.

For the Hindenburg tale, he brought in Leslie Charteris, who actually was aboard the airship.

I should try to find those.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:29 AM (Om/di)

62 Speaking of China, I'm still plodding forward, 46,000 words done, no idea of how many are ahead of me. I keep stumbling on new sources and then I have stop, read them, go back and add more info, and then try to move forward again.

I've reached the Boxer Rebellion, so at least the documentation is a lot better than it was during the Tang Dynasty etc.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:30 AM (llXky)

63 A book I can't locate, but know I have - Seven Storey Mountain by Merton. We have everything he ever wrote, most titles multiple copies as both R. and her mother were avid followers of his.

Where oh where are you?

Posted by: Tonypete at April 24, 2022 09:30 AM (Msys3)

64 Battle Officer Wolf was fueled by gin, chiefly Bombay Sapphire and Military Special (gah, can't drink that stuff anymore!).
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:25 AM (llXky)

A.H.,

I have a bottle of Military Special Vodka sitting in my cabinet right now. That is for the Burning Times when I need to clean gunshot wounds. Won't even drink that stuff THEN lol

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:32 AM (5m+wy)

65 Erich von Stroheim? Wasn't he the one in 'Sunset Boulevard'?
Posted by: dantesed

Yes!

Posted by: Tonypete at April 24, 2022 09:32 AM (Msys3)

66 Erich von Stroheim? Wasn't he the one in 'Sunset Boulevard'?
Posted by: dantesed at April 24, 2022 09:24 AM (88xKn)

He was, indeed. He called it "That lousy butler part."

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:32 AM (2JVJo)

67 41. I would recommend The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius (121 AD), translated by Robert Graves as a good starting point. Also, Gladius by Guy de la Bedoyere. It depends on what you find interesting whether it’s the military/government or the daily life of the average citizen.

Posted by: RetsgtRN at April 24, 2022 09:33 AM (NVtgT)

68 I am about half way through "Never" by Ken Follett. Any comparisons of the characters and real-life persons (e.g. Trump) is false. The thing is a fantasy and perhaps can be enjoyed as such. The author has kind of gone woke, there is much bs. E.G. How old were you when you started using the word "fuck?" Thirteen? I was younger when I heard it. But it never became a commonly-used word. My mother would have washed my mouth out with soap if I was stupid enough to use it in her presence. Lots of liberal tropes, even by so-called conservatives.

There are only two characters that I care about. And they just got in big trouble. Stay tuned. I should finish it this week and report back. Don't go out an buy it just yet.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at April 24, 2022 09:33 AM (JVCkA)

69 I've been to Baldwin's Book Barn. My grandparents lived a mile or two away at the golf course, so we went by it all the time. Still beautiful Chester County country around there.

Posted by: t-bird at April 24, 2022 09:34 AM (Mgbo4)

70 I'm re-reading High Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler, just for laughs. I never get tired of hearing accounts of the intrigue and squabbling of Schickelgruber's inner circle as they schemed to inherit power in the wake of the Boss's imminent demise.

James O'Donnell's The Bunker covers the same time period, though not in HTR's style. Fun fact: much of the material in the "Hitler Diaries" was stolen from O'Donnell. And I would recommend Selling Hitler by Robert Harris for a rollicking look at that hoax.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:35 AM (2JVJo)

71 It may be the prepper in my soul but for a while now I've been accumulating paper copies of some classic books. Hardcover or paperback but well-made and carefully printed. I've come across too many supposedly high class volumes that are peppered with typos, unwanted 'analysis', poor binding, and small print. They are not intended for comfortable reading. (Seawolf Press does a good job with their series of first edition reprints with original illustrations.)

I have little confidence that good physical copies of these books will continue to be available whether due to everything online and out of the consumers' hands or because they may upset the delicate sensibilities of the snowflakes. Then there is the indifference of publishers (particularly young staffers) who have no appreciation of the pleasure that well made books bring.

Apparently, I'm not the only one with these concerns. A lot of books of classics, philosophy, and poetry are sometimes hard to keep in stock if the 'only two left' blurbs are accurate.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:37 AM (7EjX1)

72 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to barbecue in front of the Supreme Court.

Posted by: I. M. Molate at April 24, 2022 09:37 AM (vrz2I)

73 Morning all! Today is the last day of the Huntsville comic and pop culture expo in Huntsville, AL. I have sold almost all my book inventory, so I am pretty happy. Already looking forward to the next convention - I have picked up a few ideas from the folks here that I am itching to try out.

Posted by: Long-time Commenter, First-time Reader at April 24, 2022 09:37 AM (K9BmL)

74 I like the idea of taking a real character from history and adding to their mystique with some fictional adventures

-
I've mentioned that I thought I was reading one of Paul Doherty's Ancient Egypt series and it turned out I was reading another of Paul Doherty's Ancient Egypt series. So I've read enough of An Evil Spirit Out of the West to know what it's about and, turns out, it's about a real character from history, specifically, Akhenaten. All this happened some 3500 years ago so much basic information, such as birth and death years, is not known. Combine this with the fact after his reign he was so hated he was often not referred to by name but rather as the Beast or some similar moniker.

He was so hated because he attempt to transform Egypt's pagan polytheism into monotheism. Doherty makes the religion he tried to impose resemble ancient Judaism inherited from he s mother, Tiye, who may have been a foreigner. In a glass half empty or half full circumstance, so little is known that Doherty's imagination is allowed free rein. For example, there is some support in the historical record for the proposition that Akhenaten suffered from a disfiguring . . .

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 09:38 AM (FVME7)

75 There are only two characters that I care about. And they just got in big trouble. Stay tuned. I should finish it this week and report back. Don't go out an buy it just yet.
Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at April 24, 2022 09:33 AM (JVCkA

I really enjoyed Follet's "Pillars of the Earth." He wrote a more of a modern tale, the Century Triliogy about immigrant American families in the earth 20th century up to modern times. Books 1 and 2 were fine, 3 went total woke. I'd stick with Pillars of the Earth and its sequel.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:38 AM (5m+wy)

76 . . . congenital abnormality but that may be the invention of subsequent chroniclers during the age of Akhenaten hatred, similar to Shakespeare making Richard III a hunchback. Regardless, Doherty presents him as a freak.

So far, it is unclear if Doherty is presenting him as good or evil. So far, he is presented as more sinned against than sinning but he has yet to ascend to the throne and has dispatched a number of people with a conspicuous lack of due process.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 09:38 AM (FVME7)

77 Reading "The Stilt House Girls" set in deep-cracker swamps of 1920s Alabama. Has vibes of that one in the Carolina swamps, the girl living by herself, studying bugs.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at April 24, 2022 09:39 AM (KiBMU)

78 Apparently, I'm not the only one with these concerns. A lot of books of classics, philosophy, and poetry are sometimes hard to keep in stock if the 'only two left' blurbs are accurate.
Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:37 AM (7EjX1)

I think a lot of "greats" are going quietly out of print. Their authors were horrific patriarchal monsters or racists, you know. I'm collecting classics, too.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 09:39 AM (ONvIw)

79 I am off to get my haircut, the girl who cuts it has a lot of clients who prefer Sunday salon service. Anyway, thanks, Perfessor for another fine book thread.

Posted by: Debby Doberman Schultz at April 24, 2022 09:39 AM (a4EWo)

80 oh.

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 09:28 AM (arJlL)
---
I don't know Mandarin, but I'm learning a lot about Chinese languages and its structures. One of the things that is an obstacle between China and the rest of the world (it cuts both ways) is their language. Japanese is also difficult, but Mandarin (or any other Chinese language, there are many) are really, really opaque.

Classical Mandarin is all about allusions and literary references. Very hard to understand without all the folk tales and references. A couple of centuries ago, a new style took root of writing things simply, conversationally. What that meant was that if you learned the new way, the old way didn't make sense.

And then the Communists came in and further simplified the characters and vocabulary (and translation), so a lot of Chinese history written in Chinese characters is completely hidden to modern Chinese.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:39 AM (llXky)

81 Greetings, Open Blogger:

RE: John C. McManus

At the risk of appearing contentious, I was not trying to disparage the author's work overall. I am reading his "Fear and Fortitude" this week. The points I was trying to make were these: 1) What justifies raising this issue (GI semantics) to a historical significance in the light of all else that was going on; and 2) Where is the equivalent analysis of the semantics of the "Japs and the Nips".

Respectfully yours.

Posted by: 11B40 at April 24, 2022 09:41 AM (uuklp)

82 Don't try anything too ambitious. Start small and write what you know. I tried for years to come up with something unique and original and always failed. Then I realized that most work - even original work! - is in some way derivative. So I wrote Battle Officer Wolf because do a 'retelling' is less of a lift.

People liked it, and I liked writing it, and that's how I've ended up with piles of Chinese history books and empty whiskey bottles stacked around my house.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:18 AM (llXky)

Thanks. I'm not sure if I "know" anything. The major work in progress is a Western. Just a telling of town threatened by outlaws, does town stand up?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 09:41 AM (7bRMQ)

83
I have little confidence that good physical copies of these books will continue to be available whether due to everything online and out of the consumers' hands or because they may upset the delicate sensibilities of the snowflakes. Then there is the indifference of publishers (particularly young staffers) who have no appreciation of the pleasure that well made books bring.

Apparently, I'm not the only one with these concerns. A lot of books of classics, philosophy, and poetry are sometimes hard to keep in stock if the 'only two left' blurbs are accurate.
Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 09:37 AM (7EjX1)

JTB been thinking the same thing. Although, someone mentioned a few weeks ago that e-books can be changed at a whim or zapped from your kindle or whatever. Not so, at least with Amazon. They have made it nearly impossible for me to alert my readers to a new edition of Outward Frontier. I can't even download it to my kindle which is insane. I'm stuck with my 2015 edition.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:41 AM (5m+wy)

84 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:30 AM (llXky)

The book you're writing...fiction, historical fiction or history? Sounds detailed.

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at April 24, 2022 09:41 AM (+I4ai)

85 Whoa.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 24, 2022 09:42 AM (d0vJg)

86 About to start “The War That Made the Roman Empire”, by Barry Strauss. About Antony vs Octavian at Actium. I’ll try to post an update if I can. Roman history is fascinating to me.
Posted by: RetsgtRN

I've been reading that and like it. I like it much more than Strauss' earlier book, The Spartacus War.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 09:42 AM (FVME7)

87 I was housesitting/dogsitting for the last two weekends, which gave lots of time to spend with my e-reader. Alas, I didn't have the mental energy to jump back into the fantasy epic I was reading last summer, that didn't give a satisfying ending to the first trilogy, and might not end satisfyingly with the second trilogy.

So I started a new fantasy series. "The Keeper Chronicles" by JA Andrews. It was so refreshing to read about the dark lord being defeated in a single book! Even more refreshing for the second and third books to be smaller character-driven quests that were similarly done-in-one.

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 24, 2022 09:43 AM (Lhaco)

88 I'm currently watching a YouTube video on bookbinding. It can be an extraordinary complex process for a true work of art:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55HnM5-l00

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:43 AM (K5n5d)

89 This week I'll finish The Landmark Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander. The Landmark series features extensive maps, footnotes and appendices on ancient Greek & Roman history titles.
I've been plugging the Landmark series for years, but this was first one I read through complete. I'd already read the Penguin Classics versions of most other released titles, but purchased and browsed for supplemental info.
Currently the only Roman title is Julius Ceasar, but Polybius is expected next. ( so nothing Roman Empire anytime soon)

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at April 24, 2022 09:43 AM (C/fpg)

90 What would be the first book about the Roman Empire that you would suggest reading? Strauss's book or another?

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 09:19 AM (k1SMI)

Look up Garrett (no, not that Garrett) Ryan. Told in Stone on You Tube. Has books out too.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 09:44 AM (7bRMQ)

91 How many of you, when you were a kid, would read the back of a cereal box at breakfast?

Posted by: Weasel at April 24, 2022 09:45 AM (0IeYL)

92 I'm getting close to the end of the second book of the Raj quartet and am getting close to saying fuck the rest, which is too damn bad having spent so much time getting to this point. I was hoping it would be as fulfilling as Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet where the reader is able to fully understand a somewhat complex situation through the perspectives of different characters but when half of the characters are whiny pampered Brit skirts my interest level wanes quickly. The Indians slaughtering every fucking one of 'em would be an ideal situation and I don't think that will happen so I'm quite ready to be done with it.

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 24, 2022 09:46 AM (y7DUB)

93 Speaking of saying the word "fuck" in regular conversation, the Kaley Cuoco piece, "The Flight Attendant," new season, is a good example of how women, at least the women Ms Cuoco knows, use an F in just about every sentence.

No, make that every PHRASE. More Fs as a percent of words spoken than "Succession," which I thought was the new high.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at April 24, 2022 09:46 AM (KiBMU)

94 English has also changed in style, but nothing comparable to what happened to Mandarin. So using English translations I think is an advantage over 'native' sources.

However, English translation systems *have* changed, and even within them, there are variations. Since many of the books I am using are decades old, they use the older system (Wave-Giles or Standard). The new Pinyin is less complicated (no hyphens or accent marks) but some of the changes are profound.

The Empress Dowager went from Tzu Hsi to Cixi. Sun Tzu is now Sunzi.

So the first problem I had was which to use. I went with the older ones because I'm more familiar with them and most of my sources use them. I'm sure I'll get grief for that.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:46 AM (llXky)

95 Morning again, folk,

I shall have to buy a copy of The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of. Sounds intriguing. And I need to watch the 2 videos of advice for writers, Neil Gaiman's in particular. I really like his stuff, esp. The Graveyard Book.

I'm reading a 2003 novel by Ruth Rendell, one of her stand-alone thrillers, The Rottweiler. There's a serial killer loose in then-modern London, and everything centers around an antique shop. Fascinating characters as usual w/ Rendell.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 09:46 AM (c6xtn)

96 Donald B Redford wrote Akhenaten the Heretic King, and had excavated Akhenaten's temple.
It is on my list of books to buy, but I did read his Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times which was fascinating. He is a good writer.

It is what got me interested in Hittites

Posted by: Kindltot at April 24, 2022 09:47 AM (xhaym)

97 @91 --

Faithfully.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:47 AM (Om/di)

98 How many of you, when you were a kid, would read the back of a cereal box at breakfast?
Posted by: Weasel at April 24, 2022

***
How do you think I learned the word "riboflavin"?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 09:47 AM (c6xtn)

99 YAY BOOKZZZZ!!!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 09:48 AM (kf6Ak)

100 So the first problem I had was which to use. I went with the older ones because I'm more familiar with them and most of my sources use them. I'm sure I'll get grief for that.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:46 AM (llXky)

Another cultural appropriation by a guailo!!

Interesting you mention that, as I have a good amount of dialog and characters in Alamo from China. I wasn't aware of the Pinyin changes, like Sun Tzu. I also stuck with what I know and used those.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:49 AM (5m+wy)

101 completely out of the blue, my (not quite) 18yo son asked me if I had a copy of Atlas Shrugged he could borrow

so, there's that...which is nice
Posted by: AltonJackson

He might not read the same book that I read or, at least, not in the same way. When I read AS, her predictions of the future which had come true absolutely blew my mind (and my mind is my second favorite organ to be blown) but the crazies have been in charge long enough that your son might not realize that there was once another way.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 09:49 AM (FVME7)

102 Never been to Baldwin's Book Barn - I should check it out

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 09:50 AM (kf6Ak)

103 "I'd stick with Pillars of the Earth and its sequel."

"The Evening and the Morning" (prequel?) is excellent too.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at April 24, 2022 09:50 AM (JVCkA)

104 How many of you, when you were a kid, would read the back of a cereal box at breakfast?
Posted by: Weasel at April 24, 2022
---
Morning, Weasel!

Guilty as charged...Though eventually reading my own books at breakfast became the normal part of my routine. My mom also read to us at breakfast when I was a kid.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:51 AM (K5n5d)

105 Didn't the guy who built the Great Wall burn a whole bunch of books? He wanted history to start with him, or some such nonsense.

Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 09:51 AM (vrz2I)

106 I have a bottle of Military Special Vodka sitting in my cabinet right now. That is for the Burning Times when I need to clean gunshot wounds. Won't even drink that stuff THEN lol

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:32 AM (5m+wy)
---
Some years ago my wife worked for Michigan State's athletic dept and they did a Christmas gift exchange where people put the presents in a pile and drew names who got to pick among them and if someone had something you liked, you could 'steal' it and they had to pick again. Being sports types, alcohol was permitted as a gift.

So I picked up Military Special Bourbon. My wife was horrified but I told her that when the package is opened she has to solemnly intone that you can only get it on base and it's not for civilian purchase. Most can't handle it.

She was skeptical but came home beaming because it was the most-stolen item!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:53 AM (llXky)

107 >>How many of you, when you were a kid, would read the back of a cereal box at breakfast?
Posted by: Weasel at April 24, 2022

Didn't everybody do that?

Posted by: My Life is Insanity at April 24, 2022 09:54 AM (Z/jzm)

108 102 Never been to Baldwin's Book Barn - I should check it out
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 09:50 AM (kf6Ak

---------

I've never been there but it has excellent alliteration.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 09:54 AM (XG2Fi)

109 I still read the back of the cereal box. Most of the time it's woke BS.

Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 09:54 AM (vrz2I)

110 Hey Perfessor Squirrel!

I'm an alumni of your school! Aerospace Engineering c/o 1994 and History c/o 2002.

Next time I'm driving through I'll try to stop by!

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at April 24, 2022 09:54 AM (DSTSG)

111 Agatha Christie includes shout-outs to several mystery writers in "The Clocks," but she forgot Rex Stout -- or did she? Hercule Poirot stays home and gets case data fed to him by a counterespionage officer who just happened to be at the scene of the crime. Shades of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin! . . .

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022

***
That was a late novel for her, wasn't it? 1960s?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 09:55 AM (c6xtn)

112 As this is Sunday, I'll tell you of one source of writing that helped me to read: hymnbooks!

Not only did you learn how words sounded, you also learned beat, pauses, and music. The United Methodist Hymnal also contains the text for a variety of services. (As a kid, I would read those during the sermon.)

I think one of the church's biggest mistakes was to supplant hymnbooks with TV screens. Those are good for camp songs -- not church services.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:56 AM (Om/di)

113 Hey Perfessor Squirrel!

I'm an alumni of your school! Aerospace Engineering c/o 1994 and History c/o 2002.

Next time I'm driving through I'll try to stop by!
Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at April 24, 2022 09:54 AM (DSTSG)
---
That would be cool! I am also an alumni (started in '92, graduated in '01 (long story)).

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 09:56 AM (K5n5d)

114 OK, folks, I guess I have to put some pants on and go out to run some errands. It's gray and chilly, so the sooner I get done, the better.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at April 24, 2022 09:57 AM (2JVJo)

115 @111 --

1962, I think.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:57 AM (Om/di)

116 She was skeptical but came home beaming because it was the most-stolen item!
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:53 AM (llXky)

Nice. One of my friends requested a bottle of Military Special Bourbon for his poker whiskey night. It was set among some its higher class cousins, but the curiosity factor was in its favor. Did everyone try it? Yes. Was the bottle emptied? No.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:58 AM (5m+wy)

117 Speaking of saying the word "fuck" in regular conversation, the Kaley Cuoco piece, "The Flight Attendant," new season, is a good example of how women, at least the women Ms Cuoco knows, use an F in just about every sentence.

No, make that every PHRASE. More Fs as a percent of words spoken than "Succession," which I thought was the new high.
Posted by: Mr Gaga at April 24, 2022

***
The word has lost all its power. Instead of a being a ghost pepper, it's now a pinch of pumpkin spice.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 09:58 AM (c6xtn)

118 The book you're writing...fiction, historical fiction or history? Sounds detailed.

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at April 24, 2022 09:41 AM (+I4ai)
---
It's a military history of China. I don't intend it to be super-long, just a nice, approachable survey for the interested reader. When formatted and you include all the charts, tables, maps and such, it might run 300 pages.

At least that was my original plan.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:58 AM (llXky)

119 I think one of the church's biggest mistakes was to supplant hymnbooks with TV screens. Those are good for camp songs -- not church services.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 09:56 AM (Om/di)
---
Wait, what?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:59 AM (llXky)

120 Nice. One of my friends requested a bottle of Military Special Bourbon for his poker whiskey night. It was set among some its higher class cousins, but the curiosity factor was in its favor. Did everyone try it? Yes. Was the bottle emptied? No.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 09:58 AM (5m+wy)
---
You know, it depends on who has the contract. A decade ago, the gin was Seagram's and the bourbon was Evan Williams - which made it an excellent value.

Whoever got the contract after that put some nasty stuff in there.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:01 AM (llXky)

121 I'm currently reading The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination, a collection of short stories told from the mad scientist's point of view, more or less.

One story postulates that supervillains are necessary to keep Superman's (well, a Superman expy) powers in check, because he has gained so much power over the decades that if he continues on that path, he'd destroy the world by accident.

Another features a supervillain career counselor. She sounds like someone who would show up in The Incredibles or The Tick.

It's darkly humorous and very entertaining.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 10:02 AM (K5n5d)

122 I like Military Special Bourbon.

Some ice. Some water.

Does the job.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at April 24, 2022 10:03 AM (JVCkA)

123 Wait, what?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 09:59 AM (llXky)

The local Reform and Conservative congregations have been doing this with their fake translations of songs and prayers for quite a while now. While you can't easily alter the Hebrew to "modernize and awaken" the texts, you can turn the English into any monster you want.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 10:03 AM (ONvIw)

124 Book report - I've read all the library-available ebooks of the SPQR mysteries by John Maddox Roberts, which is 11 out of 13
Still haven't read, ironically enough, numbers XI & XIII

Why I enjoy them so...here's an example. In one scene the main character, Decius, while out with a group of retainers(I guess is the modern word) is struck by an arrow from an unseen archer. He thinks he's going to die, and he tells his guys to chase the assassin.

"You don't have much future in Roman politics, Manius," I managed to grate out, "if you’d rather nursemaid a soon-to-die praetor than chase a murderer, which at least holds an element of fun."

His guys come back without the assassin, and he says
'Let him get away, did you?" I said bitterly. "I'm going to die without the satisfaction of knowing that I'm at least avenged."

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 10:03 AM (kf6Ak)

125 @119 --

The hymnbooks are still in the pews, but most folks -- me, too -- look at the words as they appear on the screen.

Causes confusion when the operator puts up the wrong frame.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 10:04 AM (Om/di)

126 What would be the first book about the Roman Empire that you would suggest reading? Strauss's book or another?
Posted by: Biden's Dog

Your mileage may vary (or should I say your charge time may vary?) but I quite liked Rubicon by Tom Holland. It begins with the legendary or mythical purchase of the mystical Sybilline Books of prophecy in pre-Republic days, focuses on transformation of Republic to Empire, and ends with the rise of Augustus. History with just a pinch of mysticism.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:04 AM (FVME7)

127 The only liquor I buy nowadays are those little "airline" size bottles at Walmart. And they are used for dipping my pipe cleaners and running the stuff through my pipes to swab them out.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 10:04 AM (c6xtn)

128 Thanks for keeping up the thread Perfessor, you're doing a great job.

I expect I'll be making a trip to Baldwin's Book Barn soon.
My daughter told me about it, and lived only a mile away when at WCU. Checking the location I'd driven by it more than a few times without realizing it was a bookstore. Until the last ~10 years the section of Rt 202 nearby was not very developed, but backroads are still mostly farmland. (Brandywine battlefield is also nearby)

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at April 24, 2022 10:06 AM (C/fpg)

129 Re: the Gaiman vid.

He says he didn't read the same way the writer's workshop people did. He liked or didn't like, the writers were like craftsmen. So, do writers like that only look at the mechanics and style of writing and don't say whether they "liked" the book or not? Is that why reviews talk about that instead of if it was enjoyable to read?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 10:06 AM (7bRMQ)

130 119 --

The hymnbooks are still in the pews, but most folks -- me, too -- look at the words as they appear on the screen.

----------

There's nothing like a well-considered Powerpoint presentation to drive home the fine points of Christian theology.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:06 AM (XG2Fi)

131 Taiwan is similar to Texas history. Like the 6 flags over Texas.
The Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and others had flags there in Formosa.

Posted by: humphreyrobot at April 24, 2022 10:07 AM (CbL5q)

132 Next time I'm driving through I'll try to stop by!
Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at April 24, 2022 09:54 AM (DSTSG)
---
113 That would be cool! I am also an alumni (started in '92, graduated in '01 (long story)).
---
LOL! I started in '88. I'm personally familiar with long stories.

I was driving through on my mid-tour from Korea while trying (ultimately unsuccessfully) to work on a master's from there. I forgot who introduced me to him, but I remember meeting Dr McManus, who had just begun working there as a military historian to replace the late, great Dr. Marvin Cain. I was impressed with him and am glad to see his body of work is getting due recognition.

I'll see you around some August when I'm back in the States!

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at April 24, 2022 10:08 AM (DSTSG)

133 Okay, I looked up Military Special Bourbon. Found this interesting article:

https://vinepair.com/articles/military-bourbon-story/

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 10:09 AM (5m+wy)

134 Taiwan is similar to Texas history. Like the 6 flags over Texas.
The Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and others had flags there in Formosa.

Posted by: humphreyrobot at April 24, 2022 10:07 AM (CbL5q)
---
And during the Manchu conquest of China, a remnant of the Ming loyalists took refuge on Taiwan and spent two decades ravaging the coastlands until the Manchus got a fleet together and invaded it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:09 AM (llXky)

135 He might not read the same book that I read or, at least, not in the same way. When I read AS, her predictions of the future which had come true absolutely blew my mind (and my mind is my second favorite organ to be blown) but the crazies have been in charge long enough that your son might not realize that there was once another way.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 09:49 AM

yeah, I know. I re-read AS in 2010 and watched in real time as TFG & the leftards proved out all of Rand's warnings & points over and over

he's heard my rant about the Seventeenth Amendment many times and my constant drum-beat of "That's not how this works. That's not how any of this is 'sposed to work", so he stand a good chance of "getting it"

Posted by: AltonJackson at April 24, 2022 10:11 AM (DUIap)

136 There's nothing like a well-considered Powerpoint presentation to drive home the fine points of Christian theology.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:06 AM (XG2Fi)
---
So instead of saying "amen" after the reading, do they say "next slide"?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:11 AM (llXky)

137 Alcohol and writing, per Churchill (the real one): "I’ve taken way more out of alcohol than it’s taken out of me."

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 10:11 AM (ONvIw)

138
There's nothing like a well-considered Powerpoint presentation to drive home the fine points of Christian theology.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:06 AM (XG2Fi)

Ok, that was funny. Have been listening to audio books while slaving at Heidi Acres...now its Brotherhood of Spies. About U2 spy plane program. Fascinating. Thanks perfesser and morning all.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob at April 24, 2022 10:11 AM (Xiz4l)

139 Also in book newzzz, my copy of The Didache Bible arrived.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 10:12 AM (kf6Ak)

140 Perfessor,
Thanks, as always, for a wonderful book thread. And for including the C and H comic. They never fail to make me laugh out loud.

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 10:13 AM (7EjX1)

141 @121 --

Prof, John Kovalic -- whose webcomic "Dork Tower" I quit cold turkey (and with regrets) when he insulted Trump supporters -- put out another comic, "Dr. Blink, Superhero Shrink." It ran for only three issues.

Damn, I miss "Dork Tower," although by now, most of the gamer references would be lost on me.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 10:14 AM (Om/di)

142 I just finished the First Sino-Japanese War and I thought it would be useful to highlight how Japan was able to Westernize when China could not.

As part of this, a friend prevailed upon me to watch that awful, awful film The Last Samurai, which I will shortly destroy at bleedingfool.com. One of the curses of studying history is that you start having seizures watching movies that get it so terribly wrong.

Anyhow, the more I study China, the more pro-Japanese I'm becoming.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:14 AM (llXky)

143 140 Perfessor,
Thanks, as always, for a wonderful book thread. And for including the C and H comic. They never fail to make me laugh out loud.
Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 10:13 AM (7EjX1)

Ditto

I love Calvin & Hobbes

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 10:15 AM (kf6Ak)

144 Alcohol and writing, per Churchill (the real one): "I’ve taken way more out of alcohol than it’s taken out of me."

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 10:11 AM (ONvIw)
---
Same. I also like Hemingway's advice: "Write drunk. Edit sober."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:16 AM (llXky)

145 105 Didn't the guy who built the Great Wall burn a whole bunch of books? He wanted history to start with him, or some such nonsense.
Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 09:51 AM (vrz2I)

The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, or however you choose to spell it, supposedly burned all the philosophy books that espoused a philosophy different than his own, as well as the philosophers! That included everything written by Confuscius, and all his followers. So everything we have of him was hidden away or re-written after Qin's relatively short reign.

History is always brutal, but China's history is especially brutal.

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 24, 2022 10:16 AM (Lhaco)

146 The Japanese plot holes are some of history's largest holes.

Posted by: humphreyrobot at April 24, 2022 10:17 AM (CbL5q)

147 Wasn't Qin the terracotta soldier emperor?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:17 AM (XG2Fi)

148 I read that school's will not teach Shakespeare anymore and the list of librarian requested banned books contains some of my most treasured books. Books that librarians want taken out of circulation in their library! To Kill a Mockingbird, the usual Mark Twain, 1984 etc. They want them banned. I think it will be sooner rather than later, books we know and love will begin disappearing, replaced with more "correct" books. If people will even read books.

Posted by: Megthered at April 24, 2022 10:18 AM (Y8Olf)

149 in their library! To Kill a Mockingbird, the usual Mark Twain, 1984 etc. They want them banned. I think it will be sooner rather than later, books we know and love will begin disappearing, replaced with more "correct" books.

----------

Imagine an entire library filled with works by luminaries like Ta-Nehisi Coates!

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:20 AM (XG2Fi)

150 yay! hat tip to me! Thanks Perfessor!

just got back from some more college visits (this time New England) am wiped out today

Posted by: Black Orchid at April 24, 2022 10:20 AM (j9HX3)

151 History is always brutal, but China's history is especially brutal.

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 24, 2022 10:16 AM (Lhaco)
---
Yes, the remarkable thing about the Rape of Nanking was not its brutality, but that foreigners did it.

The Chinese have some remarkably awful ways of dealing with rebellions.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:22 AM (llXky)

152 When McManus finishes the final volume of his US Army in the Pacific War trilogy, there's going to be one hell of a nine volume history of the American military in WWII:

1) McManus's US Army in the Pacific trilogy
2) Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy
3) Rick Atkinson's US Army in Africa and Europe trilogy.

So - how would you round that out? I'm thinking an Army Air Corps history, and one for the CBI theater. What would the history Morons recommend? And am I missing a front?

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at April 24, 2022 10:22 AM (5YmYl)

153 They want them banned. I think it will be sooner rather than later, books we know and love will begin disappearing, replaced with more "correct" books. If people will even read books.
Posted by: Megthered at April 24, 2022 10:18 AM (Y8Olf)

This ties in nicely with the idea of collecting hardcopies of books, and with the horrid practice of putting hymns and sections of services on a screen. I have found that congregations are adopting prayerbooks with large sections of fake translations which are "suggested by" or "based on" the original text. I can see some classics being edited into having modern views.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 10:23 AM (ONvIw)

154 I really would like to know what the horde's all time favorite book is. I know that's as hard to pick as your favorite kid. Based on a number of factors mine is Captains Courageous.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 24, 2022 10:23 AM (rWvc2)

155 Good morning book people.
In the middle of the second book in Sanderson's Wax and Wayne series, Shadows of Self. It is a terrific fun read. Kind of like a sci fi Western with lots of action involving guns and cross bows and and bad guy chases.
Highly recommended.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 24, 2022 10:25 AM (Y+l9t)

156 154 I really would like to know what the horde's all time favorite book is.

----------

HINT: It's a cookbook!

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:26 AM (XG2Fi)

157 I think it will be sooner rather than later, books we know and love will begin disappearing, replaced with more "correct" books. If people will even read books.
Posted by: Megthered at April 24, 2022 10:18 AM (Y8Olf)

You can, of course, find many examples of this online with some sites that claim to archive and study bits of Americana. For example, I was looking up the origins of the poem "On the Range" and the website (balladofamerica.org) stated up front that some of the lyrics were offensive and culturally inappropriate- and would not be featured on the site. A quote from their site:
"Ballad of America, Inc. acknowledges that numerous problematic historical issues are reflected by and embedded in the music and culture of the United States. "Home on the Range" is especially troublesome... "

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 10:26 AM (5m+wy)

158 Greetings, Taro T.:

RE: 152 above

China, Burma, India theater could use, if not a trilogy, certainly a comprehensive volume.

A while back, I saw a documentary on PBS, no less, that General Stilwell still has a bit of a fan club in southern China.

Posted by: 11B40 at April 24, 2022 10:26 AM (uuklp)

159 Wasn't Qin the terracotta soldier emperor?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:17 AM (XG2Fi)
---
Qin Shihuang (aka Shin-huang-ti). The use of statues was a considerable advance in terms of respect for human dignity. Prior to that, they buried the actual people with the dead ruler.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:26 AM (llXky)

160 Well, time for Mass.

Great thread as always!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 24, 2022 10:28 AM (llXky)

161 me this week:

The War That Made the Roman Empire
(subhead) Antony, Cleopatra and Octavian at Actium

by Barry Strauss

This is a popular history, not an academic one, although the author is a professor, specializing in ancient military history at Cornell. It's newly published, & I'm reading it because VDH recommends it.

The book is very good on the sociopolitical background to the struggle. If it was all triremes and swords, I wouldn't have bothered with it.

Posted by: mnw at April 24, 2022 10:29 AM (NLIak)

162 I've posted about Paulette Jiles writing before, but it is so good, IMO, it needs to be restated. Her character's are so developed, complicated and...real. She has a knack for having her stories and character's obliquely come back into, and out of her other narratives. "Enemy Women" is a fascinating story of the Civil War in Missouri. Also, if you have a wife, daughter or female friend looking for (realistic) female heroes, start here. BtW, Tom Hanks royally fubarred "News of the World".

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 10:31 AM (7Fj9P)

163 @157 --

Home on the Range" is especially troublesome... "

What??!!

Are the bison complaining over the use of "buffalo"?

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 10:31 AM (Om/di)

164 i was at Baldwin's Book Barn many years ago. More than I can even remember. My recollection is that I only had an hour or two and w/o a lot more time I shouldn't have bothered.

Unless you live close and can visit often.

(how do you eat an elephant?)

Posted by: yara at April 24, 2022 10:32 AM (hBsVD)

165 I seem to recall Anthony Burgess talking about the casual use of 'fuck' or 'fucking' -- when he was in the service, he said, nobody ever said 'Pass the butter,' they said 'Pass the fucking butter." He decided that the word 'fucking' really meant that there was a noun coming up in the sentence.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 24, 2022 10:33 AM (JzDjf)

166 I really would like to know what the horde's all time favorite book is. I know that's as hard to pick as your favorite kid. Based on a number of factors mine is Captains Courageous.
Posted by: Anti doesn't matter

A few of my favorites:

The Secret Sea by Robb White. The first chapter book I ever read and it began me on a life of reading.

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Forget the movies. Although there is a political setting, this is not a political book. One sentence summary: I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.

Radical Son by David Horowitz. Part autobiography, part political polemic, part history, and part murder mystery.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:34 AM (FVME7)

167 Are the bison complaining over the use of "buffalo"?
Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 10:31 AM (Om/di)

They were whining about the Indian Wars etc. So, you know, do the most appropriate thing as a supposed curator of historical Americana- suppress and hide any mention of the lyrics so as not to offend.

Cultural Revolution 2.0 baby!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 10:35 AM (5m+wy)

168 I'm trying to finish up _The Principles of Scientific Management_ by Frederick Taylor this week. My plan is to begin _General and Industrial Management_ by Henri Fayol next week.

After reading many books and papers that reference these texts, I figured it was time for me to read the originals myself.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at April 24, 2022 10:36 AM (DSTSG)

169 What??!!

Are the bison complaining over the use of "buffalo"?
Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 10:31 AM (Om/di)

It’s the those deer and antelope.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 24, 2022 10:36 AM (wgJpD)

170 Until the last ~10 years the section of Rt 202 nearby was not very developed, but backroads are still mostly farmland.

Beautiful stuff if you just take 926 west from 202 and just go. Beautiful Revolutionary War landscape everywhere. The West Chester blight disappears after fifty yards.

Posted by: t-bird at April 24, 2022 10:36 AM (kT5Bb)

171 Finished the second section of CP Snow's Time of Hope, the story, of part of an eleven volume series, of the life of Lewis Eliot and how difficult it is for a reasonably intelligent person in early 20th century England to advance economically. Although Lewis diligently applies himself to studying law, it requires a lot of just dumb luck and money, often from sympathetic friends, to advance where nothing is guaranteed. The narration is done in a way that effectively points out that Lewis constantly has one foot on a banana peel and the other on a trap door. The book has an odd appeal to discover just how things work out. His friends are suitably quirky while being on a tightrope without a net. As I said before, this series is interesting enough that I plan on intermittently finishing it between other books.

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 24, 2022 10:37 AM (y7DUB)

172 I just bought MP4's new novel! Woot, looks so good.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 10:37 AM (7Fj9P)

173 Book store pic looks like the Book Barn in East Lyme, (aka Niantic) CT

I miss browsing the books there, but was always mystified that they didn't keep the books in a more protected place. Piles of books stacked in roofed, open shacks, many unconditioned sheds, and a huge old farmhouse stuffed with thousands and thousands of books. Cat hair on all of them. Still cool, tho.

Posted by: squeakywheel at April 24, 2022 10:37 AM (KWgKr)

174 People are trying to Archive so-called forgotten books online at this website. Please pass it along to all interested parties and I would say download anything you want to keep to your personal air-gapped hard drive. Actually I'm not sure if you can download from it but check out this website.

https://www .forgottenbooks.com/en

Remove the space.

Posted by: Beverly at April 24, 2022 10:38 AM (SrjkF)

175 All time favorite book? Varies from year to year (or month to month or nanosecond to nanosecond or...you get the idea). When I was 13 it would have been Heinlein's THE PUPPET MASTERS (still for my money the best alien invasion novel ever). Now (in my early 70s) I'm not sure I could pick a single all-time favorite, but if I had to make a list of likely candidates, Don Robertson's MYSTICAL UNION would be high on that list.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 24, 2022 10:38 AM (JzDjf)

176 HINT: It's a cookbook!
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 10:26 AM (XG2Fi)

To Serve Man?

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at April 24, 2022 10:38 AM (ZSK0i)

177 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. Forget the movies. Although there is a political setting, this is not a political book. One sentence summary: I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see. . . .

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022

***
As I recall, Warren's book is a classic as to how you set up the main character's conflict. He wants to continue his career working for Senator (?) Stark, but to do so would mean destroying someone who means a lot to him (and not a love interest either -- though I think there is one in the story).

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 10:39 AM (c6xtn)

178 Whoops! Better get ready for church. Back after lunch.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 10:39 AM (Om/di)

179 MP4 says "My new novel, The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of, is now available in paperback and kindle on Amazon."

And about time, too. BIAB

Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 10:39 AM (cTCuP)

180 Radical Son by David Horowitz. Part autobiography, part political polemic, part history, and part murder mystery.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:34 AM (FVME7)

My favorite non-fiction is American Caesar by William Manchester. Honorable mention is My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas. It summed up American Exceptionalism for me. An emotional read at least for me.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 24, 2022 10:40 AM (rWvc2)

181 Another book that I never hear mentioned (but maybe it has been), is William Rose Benet's The Reader's Encyclopedia. It has an a compact form: in one volume pretty much everything you should have learned in a classical liberal arts college education circa 1975.

Get one of the earlier editions before they got woke and you will not believe how many Treasures are in it.

Posted by: Beverly at April 24, 2022 10:41 AM (SrjkF)

182 https://www .forgottenbooks.com/en

Remove the space.
Posted by: Beverly at April 24, 2022 10:38 AM (SrjkF)

Thanks Beverly- book marked!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 10:42 AM (5m+wy)

183 that was the subject of fahrenheit 451 and the martian chronicles related short, bradbury was very far sighted to see this even back in the 50s

Posted by: no 6 at April 24, 2022 10:42 AM (hMlTh)

184 I like browsing in used book stores, it's hit or mostly miss but do find gems often enough to be worth it.

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 10:42 AM (2JoB8)

185 The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, or however you choose to spell it, supposedly burned all the philosophy books that espoused a philosophy different than his own, as well as the philosophers!"

An old Chinese legend holds that the First Emperor was in fact a demon, and the giant mountain tomb built for him was actually a prison that must never be reopened.

It's a bit fascinating that even the current Chinese government has never allowed any excavations on the site that is almost certainly his tomb.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2022 10:44 AM (r46W7)

186 Was on vacation in East Tennessee and not reading much. Went an saw Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge in Chatanooga, can't believe the Union troops tried (and succeeded at the ridge) to fight their way up those. Wanted to see where the 24th Wisconsin fought. Turned out to be the far left of Missionary Ridge. Started Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography and Swann's Way. Now I know way too much about Proust's bedtime.

Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 10:46 AM (4I7VG)

187 Literary homocide.

A transgender novelist has come under fire after penning a self-confessed "depraved psychosexual horrorshow" in which J.K. Rowling is burned alive in her home.

Gretchen Felker-Martin's debut novel, "Manhunt," follows two trans women ".attempting to survive in a world ravaged by a plague which transforms anyone with enough testosterone in their system into a shrieking monstrosity."

https://bit.ly/3rPWr3k

Future Pulitzer Prize winner?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:47 AM (FVME7)

188 I really would like to know what the horde's all time favorite book is. I know that's as hard to pick as your favorite kid. Based on a number of factors mine is Captains Courageous.
Posted by: Anti doesn't matter

One of my favorites:

Vanity Fair was a very pleasant surprise on how fresh it seems for being written in 1848. It is 848 pages long and never seemed to drag. And was really really funny.

Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 24, 2022 10:47 AM (y7DUB)

189
As I recall, Warren's book is a classic as to how you set up the main character's conflict. He wants to continue his career working for Senator (?) Stark, but to do so would mean destroying someone who means a lot to him (and not a love interest either -- though I think there is one in the story).
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 10:39 AM (c6xtn)

Jack Burden is an aide to Willie Stark, a popular and populist governor of a southern state. Stark's life, manner and governance resemble those of Huey Long of Louisiana.

When the influential Judge Irwin (close friend of the Burdens) endorses another candidate for Senator, Stark tells Burden to dig up dirt on him. Burden, a former reporter, finds that Irwin took a bribe to pay off a pressing mortgage.

When Burden confronts Irwin with the information, Irwin doesn't back down but kills himself after Jack leaves. When Jack's mother (a neighbor) hears the news she becomes hysterical and tells Jack that Irwin was his father.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at April 24, 2022 10:48 AM (/U27+)

190 Gretchen Felker-Martin's debut novel, "Manhunt," follows two trans women ".attempting to survive in a world ravaged by a plague which transforms anyone with enough testosterone in their system into a shrieking monstrosity."

Write your beliefs, they said, you will find a measure of success, they said, if you know it you should write it, they said . . .

Posted by: Kindltot at April 24, 2022 10:49 AM (xhaym)

191 My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas.

-
A great and inspirational book.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:50 AM (FVME7)

192 Infighting in the ranks in the Pacific?

Hoyt already did that with a book on Nimitz and his commanders.

I am also reminded of a quote from Nimitz's widow on why he never wrote his biography - "Chester would have to hurt people." So he didn't.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 24, 2022 10:51 AM (FdWxF)

193 Gretchen Felker-Martin's debut novel, "Manhunt," follows two trans women ".attempting to survive in a world ravaged by a plague which transforms anyone with enough testosterone in their system into a shrieking monstrosity."
https://bit.ly/3rPWr3k
Future Pulitzer Prize winner?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:47 AM (FVME7)
I just looked it up on Amazon. Four stars, 192 reviews. Unbelievable. The amount of degenerates consuming that "libterature" that is astounding. The description even mentions murderous TERFs. Okay, now I'm wondering if its a huge troll?

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 10:52 AM (5m+wy)

194 Favorite?
War and Peace offhand but need to think if anything better

Posted by: Skip's phone at April 24, 2022 10:53 AM (2JoB8)

195 Wanted to see where the 24th Wisconsin fought. Turned out to be the far left of Missionary Ridge. Started Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography and Swann's Way. Now I know way too much about Proust's bedtime.
Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 10:46 AM (4I7VG)

A relative of mine, Harrison C. Hobart, was Colonel in command of the 21st Wisconsin, although that unit was destroyed and he was taken prisoner at Chickamauga, a few months before Missionary Ridge. I've walked both battlefields, they are spectacular.

And I'm well aware of the most famous member of the 24th!

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2022 10:55 AM (r46W7)

196 Then there were the squabbles between MacArthur and Nimitz on who should set strategy in the Pacific.

For a secondary front the US still managed a two prong assault against Japan under both commanders. MacArthur even gained his own fleet.

Posted by: Anna Puma at April 24, 2022 10:57 AM (FdWxF)

197 In science news, the Large Hadron Collider started up a couple of days ago. This means we shifted to a new timeline or jumped back into the one we were supposed to be in

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 10:57 AM (5m+wy)

198 Write your beliefs, they said, you will find a measure of success, they said, if you know it you should write it, they said . . .
Posted by: Kindltot at April 24, 2022 10:49 AM (xhaym)

A perfect example of fantasy->delusion-> malignant, sinister action

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 10:57 AM (ONvIw)

199 I just looked it up on Amazon. Four stars, 192 reviews.

-
Yeah, well, I'll wait for the movie.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:57 AM (FVME7)

200 Favorite book? "One Hundred and One Famous Poems"

And I'm not a big poetry fan. But these were written back when people knew how to write poetry. I have two copies of the book. The first one was printed in 1929.

From "The gingham dog and the calico cat side-by-side on the table sat" to "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these...'it might have been'" it's all there. This book is simply the best poetry ever written.

Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 10:57 AM (cTCuP)

201 In regard to fuck, in "A Marine's War Diary" (sorry I can't recall the author's name) which is about the Korean War there is this quote about the language of marines that I can still repeat verbatim (and do so regularly): "Fuck you fucker, I was driving a fucking diesel before you fucking well learned how to fucking drive". I was a little shocked when I read it off my dad's bookshelf in 7th or 8th grand and again when I saw the book on the shelves in my high school library.

Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 10:58 AM (4I7VG)

202 In science news, the Large Hadron Collider started up a couple of days ago. This means we shifted to a new timeline or jumped back into the one we were supposed to be in
Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO

So there is hope?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:58 AM (FVME7)

203 Favorite books, or just first books I thought of that made a lasting impression:

Tale of Two Cities (could never get my kids interested; pity)

The Scarlet Letter (ditto)

The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution, by Kevin Weddle

I like the third one because it was for all the marbles. A different writer said of Saratoga (appx) that: "Before this battle, it wasn't possible to see the future. But the first Sunrise at Saratoga, following this battle, revealed that a great nation had been born."

Posted by: mnw at April 24, 2022 10:59 AM (NLIak)

204 In science news, the Large Hadron Collider started up a couple of days ago. This means we shifted to a new timeline or jumped back into the one we were supposed to be in
Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO

So there is hope?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 10:58 AM (FVME7)
---
Or we are stuck in a stable time loop...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 10:59 AM (K5n5d)

205
In regard to fuck, in "A Marine's War Diary" (sorry I can't recall the author's name) which is about the Korean War there is this quote about the language of marines that I can still repeat verbatim (and do so regularly): "Fuck you fucker, I was driving a fucking diesel before you fucking well learned how to fucking drive".

I read somewhere that if the word didn't exist, the Canadian Army in World War II would have been unable to communicate.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at April 24, 2022 11:00 AM (/U27+)

206 Muy nose is running like a tap so I'm not heading to church. Maybe I'll get some extra reading in.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 24, 2022 11:00 AM (eGTCV)

207 202 In science news, the Large Hadron Collider started up a couple of days ago. This means we shifted to a new timeline or jumped back into the one we were supposed to be in
Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO

Elon Musk is a multi-dimensional waverider.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 24, 2022 11:01 AM (r46W7)

208 Favorite book? LOTR. Big surprise, huh?

Posted by: JTB at April 24, 2022 11:02 AM (7EjX1)

209 Favorite fiction books are probably all of the ones by James Clavell. Really enjoyed Shogun and Tai Pan- read them numerous times.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 11:03 AM (5m+wy)

210 The Frick is one of my all time favorite museums. Also, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. That place alone practically excuses the rest of the city.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2022 11:03 AM (UGDPW)

211 I like the third one because it was for all the marbles. A different writer said of Saratoga (appx) that: "Before this battle, it wasn't possible to see the future. But the first Sunrise at Saratoga, following this battle, revealed that a great nation had been born."

Posted by: mnw at April 24, 2022 10:59 AM (NLIak)

All for naught?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 11:05 AM (7bRMQ)

212 Chesterton's quote holds up because politics is a racket in most times and places.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2022 11:06 AM (UGDPW)

213 154 I really would like to know what the horde's all time favorite book is. I know that's as hard to pick as your favorite kid. Based on a number of factors mine is Captains Courageous.
Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 24, 2022 10:23 AM (rWvc2)
-----
Going to have to say the back of a Cap'n Crunch box.

Posted by: Weasel at April 24, 2022 11:07 AM (KdDwp)

214 Marine with a busted MG:

"Fucking fucker's fucking fucked! Fuck!"

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at April 24, 2022 11:09 AM (5YmYl)

215 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court

https://bit.ly/3rOXSyL
-
Ironic considering he gave no thought to the effect of his death's carbon footprint on the climate.

P.S. See his photo. Looks like you'd expect a pseudo intellectual environazi to look

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 11:09 AM (FVME7)

216 I spent my reading time this past week listening to the first CD of the BBC adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings." Obviously different because it's a radio-play, it's also very good so far.

I also convert a number of Lighthouse Talk CDs to MP3s so I could load them on an iPod.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at April 24, 2022 11:10 AM (/+bwe)

217 215 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court

----------

Recalls the guy who nailed his nutsack to the pavement in Red Square, protesting something or other.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:11 AM (XG2Fi)

218 Favorite book as a young kid: Swallows and Amazons.
As an older kid, I was babysitting and digging into my older cousin's collection of Thomas Hardy.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:12 AM (ONvIw)

219 Favorite all time book? "Gates of Fire: The Battle of Thermopylae". Yeah, it's hackneyed, however the deeper philosophical discussion about fear, (phobos) and its opposite is fascinating. The most testosterone infused book, ever.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 11:12 AM (7Fj9P)

220 The Fountainhead
100 Years of Solitude
War and Peace
The Chronicles of Narnia

Posted by: nurse ratched at April 24, 2022 11:12 AM (U2p+3)

221 Perfessor Squirrel, thank you for featuring ALAMO today, and thank you all who purchased it or Outward Frontier.

Mary Poppins good luck on your book as well!

Off to Dry Falls to go hike the extinct waterfalls from the Ice Ages. Maybe fly my drone up there and get some good shots.

Have a great day everyone!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of ALAMO at April 24, 2022 11:14 AM (5m+wy)

222 As a kid, I think Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End was probably the best fiction I ever read, followed closely by Dune.

Now I never read fiction anymore.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:15 AM (XG2Fi)

223 My bible.

Posted by: SMH at God's grace at April 24, 2022 11:15 AM (bHvPK)

224 So - how would you round that out? I'm thinking an Army Air Corps history, and one for the CBI theater. What would the history Morons recommend? And am I missing a front?
Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at April 24, 2022 10:22 AM (5YmYl)

Yes. Definitely Army Air Corp. And don't forget one of the longest and bloodiest battles of WWII: The battle of the Atlantic.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at April 24, 2022 11:15 AM (Qhnrt)

225 The "Writing Advice From Neil Gaiman is interesting. His description of "journalist" is diametrically opposed to what "journalism" is today.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 11:16 AM (7Fj9P)

226 67 RetsgtRN -- Regarding your recommendation for Guy de la Bedoyere's book, Gladius, on matters historical Roman: de la Bedoyere was a frequent contributor to Tony Robinson's Time Team BBC series.

Posted by: sinmi at April 24, 2022 11:17 AM (A5IVt)

227 Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 11:12 AM (7Fj9P)

Definitely in my top five.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at April 24, 2022 11:17 AM (rWvc2)

228 Some of the "forgotten books" sort of deserve it. The list is full of occult shit and obsolete medical texts and "treatments", which may be interesting in an evolution of treatment sense, but are not good to "try at home". I have no problem with spells and incantations going extinct.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:18 AM (ONvIw)

229 The "Writing Advice From Neil Gaiman is interesting. His description of "journalist" is diametrically opposed to what "journalism" is today.
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 11:16 AM (7Fj9P)

---------

The problem is "journalist." "Journalist" is to "reporter" what "Educator" is to "teacher." It implies an exaggerated importance and complexity that isn't merited by the work itself.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:18 AM (XG2Fi)

230 I have no problem with spells and incantations going extinct.
Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:18 AM (ONvIw)

-----------

So you wouldn't give alchemy a second look?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:19 AM (XG2Fi)

231 I would love a history of the AAC. mr. creeper and his fellow airmen were quite insistent that they were NOT members of the Air Force and corrected anyone who made that mistake.

Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 11:19 AM (cTCuP)

232 I'm not a big fiction guy. I'd have to go with Théodicée and The Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2022 11:20 AM (UGDPW)

233 225; 229

RE: journalism:

"Endorsements, Falsehoods and Attacks on Democrats Highlight Trump's Rally"

NBC4 TV (Columbus, OH)

Posted by: mnw at April 24, 2022 11:21 AM (NLIak)

234 So you wouldn't give alchemy a second look?
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:19 AM (XG2Fi)

LOL. Interesting as history, but with spells and incantations, the fantasy can easily become sinister. I know I'm in the minority with that, but I don't care.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:22 AM (ONvIw)

235 The "Writing Advice From Neil Gaiman is interesting. His description of "journalist" is diametrically opposed to what "journalism" is today.
Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at April 24, 2022 11:16 AM (7Fj9P)

---------

The problem is "journalist." "Journalist" is to "reporter" what "Educator" is to "teacher." It implies an exaggerated importance and complexity that isn't merited by the work itself.
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:18 AM (XG2Fi)

Balderdash!

Posted by: Sanitation Engineer at April 24, 2022 11:22 AM (4I/2K)

236 "Was on vacation in East Tennessee and not reading much"

Did you see Rock City? That's where Ruby Falls.

Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 11:23 AM (vrz2I)

237 I was reminded of the Venus Equilateral stories by George O. Smith a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately for my old eyes, it wasn't available on Kindle, and the used paperback just arrived. I'll try to remember to report on how well it holds up after more years than I can remember.

Posted by: Ann Wilson, aka Empire 1 at April 24, 2022 11:23 AM (y0zVi)

238 Favorite fiction book: "The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything"

Mindless piece of drivel from John D. MacDonald that will have you laughing from cover to cover. And it's a fantasy, too--something else I don't normally read.

Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 11:23 AM (cTCuP)

239 232 I'm not a big fiction guy. I'd have to go with Théodicée and The Gulag Archipelago.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2022 11:20 AM (UGDPW)

Gulag Archipelago is a great. I remember it coming out in the US. Every family I knew had a copy.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:24 AM (ONvIw)

240 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court

I think Jeremy Clarkson sums up my attitude towards this pretty well:

https://youtu.be/9S8eNZ4fw5I?t=3

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at April 24, 2022 11:24 AM (ZSK0i)

241 My favorite book as a kid was a Houdini biography. Eric Weiss. I thought he was the coolest guy ever.

Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 11:25 AM (vrz2I)

242 The Tomb of Theragaard
Fantasy book with Christian themes, Necromancer comes to a city looking for details on ancient spells or books about a great mage, a young Monk that hasn't taken his vows really want to be a warrior.

Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at April 24, 2022 11:25 AM (dKiJG)

243 222 Cicero

"No-one over 40 reads a novel." (attributed to Oscar Wilde, I THINK)

Posted by: mnw at April 24, 2022 11:25 AM (NLIak)

244 LOL. Interesting as history, but with spells and incantations, the fantasy can easily become sinister. I know I'm in the minority with that, but I don't care.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:22 AM (ONvIw)

You're not. I have no interest in magick or elves or fairies or wizards. Sorry Horde writers in that genre.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 11:25 AM (7bRMQ)

245 Another good Book Thread
Thanks Perfessor Squirrel

Posted by: Skip's phone at April 24, 2022 11:25 AM (2JoB8)

246 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court

In case you ever wondered whether these people are sane, there's your answer.

Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 11:26 AM (cTCuP)

247 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court
*****

Unless he used green energy to set himself on fire, how much of an activist could he have been?
Again the danger of fantasy (green energy) turning sinister.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:26 AM (ONvIw)

248 Favorite book. For years it was Moby Dick, then I read Tristram Shandy and now I'm torn. But it's one of those two.

Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 11:27 AM (4I7VG)

249 92 I'm getting close to the end of the second book of the Raj quartet and am getting close to saying fuck the rest, which is too damn bad having spent so much time getting to this point. [...] The Indians slaughtering every fucking one of 'em would be an ideal situation and I don't think that will happen so I'm quite ready to be done with it.
Posted by: Captain Hate won't forget Michael Byrd Murdered Ashli Babbitt at April 24, 2022 09:46 AM (y7DUB)

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this review! I had allocated space on my bookshelf for 30 years to these books, hoping that some day I would re-read it and discern what the big deal was. Now, I can cull without shame.

Posted by: sinmi at April 24, 2022 11:28 AM (A5IVt)

250 In case you ever wondered whether these people are sane, there's your answer.
Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 11:26 AM (cTCuP)

Delusional, and it was fed to them by the spoonful until it became real for them. Al Gore, on the other hand, peddles this shit and buys mansions.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:28 AM (ONvIw)

251 B"Unless he used green energy to set himself on fire, how much of an activist could he have been?"

He would have gotten more press and interviews if he had sous vide'd himself.

Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 11:29 AM (vrz2I)

252 fd: I din't see Rock City or Ruby Falls but maybe next time. I really lked what I saw of East Tennessee and will be going back. This was a flying visit and I ws only there two and 1/2 days

Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 11:30 AM (4I7VG)

253 247 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court
*****

Did he scream in paIn? I hope he screamed in pain.

(Actually what I hope is that one second after he lit himself up he realized how stupid AGW is.)

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at April 24, 2022 11:31 AM (Qhnrt)

254 Delusional, and it was fed to them by the spoonful until it became real for them. Al Gore, on the other hand, peddles this shit and buys mansions.
Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:28 AM (ONvIw)

---------

Al Gore is a great example of how you can spend your entire life never doing a single productive thing and get filthy rich at it.

Only in America!

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at April 24, 2022 11:31 AM (XG2Fi)

255 He would have gotten more press and interviews if he had sous vide'd himself.
Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 11:29 AM (vrz2I)

Interviews? Here comes the occult again. I was thinking he could use solar energy and a magnifying glass to start the fire.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:32 AM (ONvIw)

256 Currently reading the Landmark edition of Anabasis by that Xenophon dude. Got interested not just because of the military history aspect, but because he got distracted while trying to get home to Greece by these massive ruins in Mesopotamia, described accurately enough that later archaeologists knew exactly where and in what condition they were. Fun stuff!

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at April 24, 2022 11:32 AM (Ueqns)

257 I haven't been to Rock City in 25 years and it had not changed much from when I was there 25 years before that. Not really worth it unless you have little kids. I guess. I don't know anymore. They used to have a bunch of fairy tale and nursery rhyme stuff. Nowadays they probably only have the fairies.

Posted by: fd at April 24, 2022 11:33 AM (vrz2I)

258 fd again: I read a Houdini bio in around 6th grade and agreed with you, he was the coolest guy ever.

Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 11:33 AM (4I7VG)

259 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court
*****

They swear it’s not a cult.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 24, 2022 11:33 AM (wgJpD)

260 Favorite fiction book: "The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything"

Mindless piece of drivel from John D. MacDonald that will have you laughing from cover to cover. And it's a fantasy, too--something else I don't normally read.
Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 11:23 AM (cTCuP)

I remember that. Agreed. It is funny. Was Pam Dawber the girl in the movie?

Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 24, 2022 11:36 AM (eGTCV)

261 "And don't forget one of the longest and bloodiest battles of WWII: The battle of the Atlantic."

-------

Ah, yes, how could I have overlooked that. You are correct, sir. Long, bloody and decisive.

Posted by: Taro Tsujimoto at April 24, 2022 11:36 AM (5YmYl)

262 They swear it’s not a cult.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at April 24, 2022 11:33 AM (wgJpD

Cultists always say that.
Earth is the Balance, Inconvenient Truth...just scripture to these nuts.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 11:37 AM (ONvIw)

263 Good Dr. Perfessor, I beg leave to quibble with one juxtaposition in your excellent post. According to orthodox Christian tradition (not sure about wider Judaeo-C trad), "supernatural evil" is a contradiction in terms. The finite being(s) at the source of evil lost the chance to participate in supernature.

Word you're reaching for is "preternatural".

Posted by: random artsnark at April 24, 2022 11:38 AM (TjMft)

264 I remember that. Agreed. It is funny. Was Pam Dawber the girl in the movie?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 24, 2022 11:36 AM (eGTCV)

Yep. The leads were Robert Hays and Pam Dawber.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at April 24, 2022 11:40 AM (ZSK0i)

265 There is a humble bundle for writers:

No Plot? No Problem! Revised and Expanded Edition
Pep Talks for Writers
Creative Block

and so on ... Other types of creative books are included too.

The charity is NaNoWriMo. $25 for 33 books.

Posted by: banana Dream at April 24, 2022 11:42 AM (QzpS1)

266 Kevin Sorbo
@ksorbs
If CNN+ had pronouns they'd be was/were.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 11:42 AM (FVME7)

267 >>> I remember that. Agreed. It is funny. Was Pam Dawber the girl in the movie?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 24, 2022 11:36 AM (eGTCV)

I liked the movie a lot. I haven't seen it since I was a kid when it was on broadcast tv. I wonder how it would seem now?

Posted by: banana Dream at April 24, 2022 11:43 AM (QzpS1)

268 Favorite: Lord of the Rings

I really tried to come up with another that I love as much as I do that. I've re-read it so many times I've lost count. Read it again just last summer when I was caring for my dad in Montana. Read it to the boys when they were wee.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at April 24, 2022 11:44 AM (x8Wzq)

269 I remember that. Agreed. It is funny. Was Pam Dawber the girl in the movie?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 24, 2022 11:36 AM (eGTCV)

Nanu naaaaaanu baby!

Posted by: banana Shazbot! Dream at April 24, 2022 11:45 AM (QzpS1)

270 Good Dr. Perfessor, I beg leave to quibble with one juxtaposition in your excellent post. According to orthodox Christian tradition (not sure about wider Judaeo-C trad), "supernatural evil" is a contradiction in terms. The finite being(s) at the source of evil lost the chance to participate in supernature.

Word you're reaching for is "preternatural".
Posted by: random artsnark at April 24, 2022 11:38 AM (TjMft)
---
There are various definitions for both words. Lots of wriggle room.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 11:47 AM (K5n5d)

271 Posted by: Sanitation Engineer

How does one go about pursuing a career in the Custodial Arts?

Posted by: Bender at April 24, 2022 11:48 AM (C9esc)

272 Actually I do have a second favorite: Lonesome Dove. I love McMurtry's writing voice.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at April 24, 2022 11:48 AM (x8Wzq)

273 Wriggle room - very jesuitical!

Posted by: random artsnark at April 24, 2022 11:49 AM (TjMft)

274 Does anyone have a series they start, lose steam, then start again, then lose steam, and so on ...

I've made continually diminishing progress in WoT over the past decade or so. I get through less each time. I enjoy it, but I think rereading is destroying it for me. I don't know how to get back in. There's hesitancy because I know it gets so big and complex that the first time in I gave up, around the 6th or 7th. I just couldn't keep track of everyone with my piss-poor memory. I think taking notes, as crazy as that sounds, would get me involved more. I've thought about doing that next time if I try.

Posted by: banana Dream at April 24, 2022 11:50 AM (QzpS1)

275 Posted by: Sanitation Engineer

How does one go about pursuing a career in the Custodial Arts?
Posted by: Bender at April 24, 2022 11:48 AM (C9esc)

'Twas crossing the streams just now. I heard that with Futurama Bender's voice.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at April 24, 2022 11:51 AM (x8Wzq)

276 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court

The hot takes are en fuego!

Posted by: Drink Like Vikings at April 24, 2022 11:51 AM (C9esc)

277 I've actually been reading a couple of books recently! Due to current events, I felt a re-reading of Revelation and C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength would be illuminating.

Yep. Mind is blown. God and C.S. Lewis knew all about how evil manifests when humans, especially the intelligentsia decide to serve it as their god.

Related from Andrew Klaven:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mEw-Eb2TeM

Commentary:

https://tinyurl.com/yck9ysyz

Posted by: Emmie at April 24, 2022 11:53 AM (6RgRK)

278 I've made continually diminishing progress in WoT over the past decade or so. I get through less each time. I enjoy it, but I think rereading is destroying it for me. I don't know how to get back in. There's hesitancy because I know it gets so big and complex that the first time in I gave up, around the 6th or 7th. I just couldn't keep track of everyone with my piss-poor memory. I think taking notes, as crazy as that sounds, would get me involved more. I've thought about doing that next time if I try.
Posted by: banana Dream at April 24, 2022 11:50 AM (QzpS1)
---
I'm currently on a reread of WoT right now. Just finished Book 6 and will start Book 7 in a week or so. I'm only reading one book a month. I think that helps, breaking it down into more manageable time chunks. Also, it helps that I've read the whole series at least once, so I am now going through and savoring it more because I am looking for all of Robert Jordan's foreshadowing of later events.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at April 24, 2022 11:54 AM (K5n5d)

279 How does one go about pursuing a career in the Custodial Arts?
Posted by: Bender

Begin by throwing coffee grounds on the carpet. Cleaning it up is like Chang Caine snatching the pebble from Master's hand.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 11:54 AM (FVME7)

280 276 Climate Activist Commits Suicide By Setting Himself On Fire Outside Supreme Court

Posted by: Drink Like Vikings at April 24, 2022 11:51 AM (C9esc)
-

Cagney did it better in White Heat.

Posted by: Biden's Dog at April 24, 2022 11:55 AM (k1SMI)

281 After a bit of an interruption, I am back to reading Master and Commander. It's taken a bit to become accustomed to O'Brian's prodigious use of nautical jargon, but I've always been pretty good at that (A Clockwork Orange por ejemplo). I am past the halway point and the story is becoming very good, and I find myself less and less bogged down by slang.

The dialogue is very fun to read.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at April 24, 2022 11:58 AM (x8Wzq)

282 Favorite book. For years it was Moby Dick, then I read Tristram Shandy and now I'm torn. But it's one of those two.
Posted by: who knew
------
Heh. Kindred spirit. I last week quoted an excerpt from Tristram Shandy on the ONT.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 24, 2022 11:59 AM (dx9uU)

283 World's smallest violin.

David Hogg
@davidhogg111
I'm working on setting up a LLC right now and this whole process is stupidly complicated and expensive. The government should be making it easy for people to start companies- not hard. Also there shouldn't be this many regulations and paper work to work across state lines.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 11:59 AM (FVME7)

284 Readers wanting to dip into G.K. Chesterton's writings might enjoy sampling his Father Brown detective stories.

Posted by: Emmie at April 24, 2022 11:59 AM (6RgRK)

285 That climate activist is just one of a million points of darkness... The sheer amount of mental illness in this country is just amazing. When I look back, I think the surge of madness has been building for two or three decades. But it seems to have hit a critical mass in the last ten. The unhinged are everywhere now. An atomic tranny dogboy is in charge of waste disposal at DoE, for instance.

I know that the kind of widespread insanity you see in people today wasn't present when I was a kid. Even in the dark days of the early '90s, when this city was plagued by crime and poverty, the street people, the vagrants and whores, the pimps and pushers and button-men - they were not so... crazy. And not nearly as numerous as during this much more "prosperous" period.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2022 12:00 PM (UGDPW)

286 Good morning, Horde!

Great book thread, Perfessor Squirrel!

Congratulations on the completion and publishing of your book, MP4. I can't wait to read it!

Posted by: Ladyl at April 24, 2022 12:00 PM (IeKh5)

287 Also there shouldn't be this many regulations and paper work to work across state lines.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 11:59 AM (FVME7)

rofl

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 12:00 PM (ONvIw)

288 283 World's smallest violin.

David Hogg
@davidhogg111
I'm working on setting up a LLC right now and this whole process is stupidly complicated and expensive. The government should be making it easy for people to start companies- not hard. Also there shouldn't be this many regulations and paper work to work across state lines.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at April 24, 2022 11:59 AM (FVME7)

Did anyone point out to him that this is exactly the type of world he's agitating for?

Posted by: Emmie at April 24, 2022 12:01 PM (6RgRK)

289 CBD IS HERE TO TAKE US INTO THE AFTERNOON
NOOD

Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 12:01 PM (2JoB8)

290 77 I've actually been reading a couple of books recently! Due to current events, I felt a re-reading of Revelation and C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength would be illuminating.

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

Reading C. S. Lewis is a bit frustrating for me. He's wheels inside wheels trying to intellectually rationalize God. I've found believing much more simple than his version. It's more of a leap of faith.

Believing in God shouldn't be an academic exercise.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at April 24, 2022 12:01 PM (Qhnrt)

291 Did anyone point out to him that this is exactly the type of world he's agitating for?
Posted by: Emmie at April 24, 2022 12:01 PM (6RgRK)

He's fine with the ideologically pure not being subject to silly things like "the law", which are for the peasantry and wrong thinking.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 12:03 PM (ONvIw)

292 >>> the vagrants and whores, the pimps and pushers and button-men
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at April 24, 2022 12:00 PM (UGDPW)

You left out a few...

Posted by: Walter Kovacs at April 24, 2022 12:04 PM (QzpS1)

293 Favorite book. For years it was Moby Dick,

--------

I humbly submit my new novel, "Moby Dick II: Dick Harder," a shocking and transgressive romance about forbidden love off the coast of Georgia, wherein Captain Ahab learns that the only thing hotter than his hatred of white whales is his passion for black ones.

Posted by: Stacey Abrams at April 24, 2022 12:04 PM (UGDPW)

294 Believing in God shouldn't be an academic exercise.
Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at April 24, 2022 12:01 PM (Qhnrt

He was an academic, and like so many academics, he often wrote for his own kind.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 12:04 PM (ONvIw)

295 Favorite fiction book: "The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything"

Mindless piece of drivel from John D. MacDonald that will have you laughing from cover to cover. And it's a fantasy, too--something else I don't normally read.
Posted by: creeper at April 24, 2022 11:23 AM (cTCuP)
*
I remember that. Agreed. It is funny. Was Pam Dawber the girl in the movie?
Posted by: N.L. Urker, the Phillips screwdriver of the gods at April 24, 2022

***
Pam Dawber was, with the lead fellow from Airplane! as the hero. Though I think Ken Berry might have been even better casting. Anything by John D. MacDonald is worth reading, and more than once.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at April 24, 2022 12:05 PM (c6xtn)

296
Unless he used green energy to set himself on fire, how much of an activist could he have been?

Big magnifying glass

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at April 24, 2022 12:07 PM (63Dwl)

297 CBD IS HERE TO TAKE US INTO THE AFTERNOON
NOOD
Posted by: Skip at April 24, 2022 12:01 PM (2JoB

Did he arrive with his Partridge Family Bus??

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Gen X Ne'er-Do-Well at April 24, 2022 12:19 PM (x8Wzq)

298 World's smallest violin.

David Hogg
@davidhogg111
-------

Oh, boo-hoo, boo-hoo. What a childish crybaby.

Odd, how inconvenient the Progs find Real Life.

Gosh, Davey, may Trump was onto something in removing bureaucratic morasses. Dumb ass kid. Harvard indeed.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc at April 24, 2022 12:20 PM (dx9uU)

299 to Stacey Abrams: Moby Dick II is on the TBR list. The title alone made me literally LOL.

Posted by: who knew at April 24, 2022 12:21 PM (4I7VG)

300 Greetings:

Me, I'm wondering if St. Peter will go for that Global Climate Warming Change guy's pitch.

Posted by: 11B40 at April 24, 2022 12:23 PM (uuklp)

301 Greetings:

"I was just standing outside the SCOTUS, trying to light my cigarette when Clarence Thomas ran up and threw a bucket of gasoline on me, honest."

Posted by: 11B40 at April 24, 2022 12:25 PM (uuklp)

302 MP4, I placed your novel into a Wee Free Library and a hot MILF grabbed it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at April 24, 2022 12:26 PM (zWOPO)

303 Stacey wins the thread.

Posted by: weirdflunky at April 24, 2022 12:26 PM (cknjq)

304 302 MP4, I placed your novel into a Wee Free Library and a hot MILF grabbed it.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at April 24, 2022 12:26 PM (zWOPO)

I thought you were an 'ette.

Posted by: CN The First at April 24, 2022 12:32 PM (ONvIw)

305 I am! But I figured Poppins would appreciate that.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at April 24, 2022 12:52 PM (zWOPO)

306 "One of the most delightful museums is New York City, the Frick, has *three.*"

The Frick is a wonderful museum: not a huge collection, but each one a gem. And best of all, you can walk up the street to the Metropolitan Museum, and see *another* three Vermeers!

BTW, the movie "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" is well worth seeing on a high-def TV or in a theater, because the cinematographer did a wonderful job of re-creating Vermeer's light and palette. Watching it is like walking into one of his paintings.

As for what I'm reading, my wife (Annalucia) and I recently finished reading aloud the two "Nile" books by Alan Moorehead: "The White Nile" and "The Blue Nile". Moorehead is a gifted storyteller and historian, and the books are wonderfully readable. It's interest, too, to compare Moorehead's description of the British invasion of Ethiopia in "The Blue Nile" with George MacDonald Fraser's account in "Flashman on the March". The books are 60 years old now, but still well worth reading: Highly recommended.

Posted by: Nemo at April 24, 2022 01:04 PM (S6ArX)

307 I, too, read a biography of Houdini in late grade school. I wonder whether we all read the same one.

Mine explained the "Metamorphosis" illusion.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 02:02 PM (Om/di)

308 All Hail Eris

Very good. Did you have a sticky on the book saying 'Groupies welcome'?

I may ask our library to order one for me.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 24, 2022 02:02 PM (u82oZ)

309 @271 --

Step One: Fill out an application.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 24, 2022 02:06 PM (Om/di)

310 "The British invasion of Ethiopia."

Very interesting logistical achievement. For once the British put the right guy (Robert Napier, originally commissioned as an engineer in Indian Army, Bengal Presidency) in charge of an expedition and he did what was needed with minimal loss of life.

A good history of the expedition is Frederick Myatt's "The March to Mandala," part of a good 19th century British Colonial history series that includes books on the Anglo-Sikh wars, the War with Kandy (Ceylon), etc. There's also a G.A. Henty I Was There-type YA book with the same title. Robert Napier (not sure what relationship he had with the more famous Peninsular War Napiers, Napiers were all over British military history in the late 18th and 19th centuries), as was often the case with British military types in the 19th century, had a very interesting history. In addition to the Abyssinian Campaign he served in both Anglo-Sikh wars, on the Northwest Frontier, during the Mutiny, in the 2nd China War, as Commander in Chief of the Indian Army, as Governor of Gibraltar and was picked to lead an expeditionary force to invade Russia in case of war in 1878.

Posted by: Pope John the 20th at April 24, 2022 02:11 PM (xi3bI)

311 Nemo

Alan Moorhead's best books were the two Nile books, The White Nile and The Blue Nile. The Blue Nile is in my list of foundational works.

His The Desert War: The classic trilogy on the North African campaign 1940-1943 is also very good. As is the sequel, Eclipse, which opens with a very amusing story about General Montgomery and the 231st Brigade, if you can believe that.

And he summarized Russia in 1917 well in The Russian Revolution. Not as well as Richard Pipes, but good enough.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 24, 2022 02:27 PM (u82oZ)

312 I keep refreshing to see if there are any new comments on bookzzz

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 02:43 PM (kf6Ak)

313 I keep refreshing to see if there are any new comments on bookzzz

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 02:43 PM (kf6Ak)

No.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 02:54 PM (7bRMQ)

314 I keep refreshing to see if there are any new comments on bookzzz

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 02:43 PM (kf6Ak)

No.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

No ?

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 02:56 PM (arJlL)

315 No ?

Posted by: JT at April 24, 2022 02:56 PM (arJlL)

Nope. Not for a while. They're waiting for the Gun Thread.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at April 24, 2022 03:03 PM (7bRMQ)

316 Good afternoon!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

For vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at April 24, 2022 03:11 PM (u82oZ)

317 Thanks Salty!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at April 24, 2022 03:14 PM (kf6Ak)

318 If you're still reading Mary 4Ps, I've left a short but hopefully useful review at Amazon. Dreams was really enjoyable.

There were half a dozen places where the formatting was goofy (wrong typesize, line break, etc.) Do you want to know? and how?

Posted by: Peter (my friends call me Pete) Zah at April 24, 2022 08:39 PM (a4vvV)

319 Rereading the entire 24 book saga of Bob's Saucer Repair. Bob, a hillbilly in Missouri, comes home one day and finds a beautiful woman with a broken down flying saucer in his garage. The books are funny and insightful about what constitutes good behavior. Great escape reading, and then you realize you desperately want to start working for Bob! Also, they have a way to keep their dogs young forever. That broke my heart. Available on Amazon -- free if you've got Kindle Unlimited. I pay for them because I want Jerry Boyd to get more money and never stop writing. I have read science fiction all my life and this series is right up there for pure pleasure.

Posted by: Doc at April 25, 2022 05:33 AM (02K3U)

320 G. K. Chesterton never fails to satisfy & was ahead of his time. From his 1908 metaphysical thriller: The Man Who Was Thursday: "As you also know, his death was as self-denying as his life, for he died through his faith in a hygienic mixture of chalk and water as a substitute for milk, which beverage he regarded as barbaric, and as involving cruelty to the cow."

Posted by: Linda Roberts at April 25, 2022 08:40 AM (NPfdt)

Processing 0.06, elapsed 0.0647 seconds.
15 queries taking 0.0201 seconds, 329 records returned.
Page size 206 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.