Sunday Morning Book Thread - 07-10-2022 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(click on the image above to see the outside)

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 (who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?). 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 a post-it note with my latest password. As always, pants are required, especially if you are wearing these pants (flaming!)...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, poach some eggs, and crack open a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

The Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library is located at the University of Toronto in Canada. It houses a massive repository of rare books and manuscripts. At the moment it looks like you would need to schedule a "research appointment" in order to visit the collection.

THE PATH TO READING...

Last week, CBD posed the following question:

That might be a fun stand-alone thread: Who was the first author who piqued your interest?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 03, 2022 11:11 AM (XIJ/X)

This made me wonder: How did I start down the path of becoming a lifelong reader? My mother taught me to read from a young age, so in that sense I suppose my destiny was always to become a lifelong reader. Among my earliest memories of reading is checking out Dr. Seuss books from the library. From there, I moved up to fare such as The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. However, I'd say the real catalyst to me becoming a reader would be my fascination with ghost stories. I read those before I ever started reading fantasy and science fiction. I also read a lot of Alfred Hitchcock anthologies of suspense stories when I was a kid, because those stories also fascinated me, even if they didn't have any supernatural elements (a lot of them did, though). Then things just sort of snowballed into my lifelong passion for reading. I think the key to becoming a lifelong reader, other than starting early, is to find a subject about which you are truly passionate. It doesn't have to be fiction. We have a lot of readers on this blog who are extremely fascinated by military history, for instance. Even technical manuals have their charm for some folks.

Authors sometimes describe their own journeys to becoming a lifelong reader. This often gives quite a bit of context to their stories when you see who influenced them in their writing. For instance, just the other day, I was reading the foreward to Philip Jose Farmer's The World of Tiers series on my Kindle and came across this passage:

I search my memory, scan the banks, for why I allotted certain levels of the tiered planet to certain people. Wht did I make the lowest level a paradise, albeit a stultifying one, for beings from ancient Greek mythology and from Homer? Because, I believe, I encountered Homer when I was three years old and never lost interest in him. When I was living in the second story of an apartment building in Indianapolis, the little girl I played with let me look through her parents' library on the ground floor. I came across The Iliad and The Odyssey, both profusely illustrated with black-and-white drawings based on painting from Greek vases. The titles meant nothing to me (I couldn't read, of course), but the girl's father told me they were pictures about the war at Troy and Ulysses' adventures after the war. I never forgot the illustrations or his words.
I still remember the thrill I had at the age of seven when I came across Homer's works in the children's section of the local library. When I opened The Odyssey and saw the illustrations in it (not the same as those I'd seen in Indianapolis), I had a hot flashback of the two books in my friend's parents' library. I don't remember the little girl's name or even what she looked like. I have photographs of me at that time, and it's incredible (almost) that the infant on the tricycle and on the seat of the a Stanley steamer could retain the memory of the Homer books. But it's true. Soemthing stamped that impression deeply.
Jose, P. J. (1965). Author's foreword. The World of Tiers Volume One: The Maker of Universes. Open Road Media.

What was YOUR first step into the wider world of reading?

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(Be honest: Who hasn't had this experience?)

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BOOKS BY MORONS

Dana ("Secret Squirrel") Epperson sent me the following:

I've updated my two children's books, Sir Robert of Cheshire, on Amazon and made them available on paperback.
I'm in the process of continuing the series, and my daughter will illustrate the next books. Anyway, these are non woke books for ages 5-10. They are meant to be read with parents or family members and feature a craft, recipe, a section about the creature in the book, and a discussion on values. Any interest in featuring it next week?
Here is a link to the first book. If you are interested, I will send over both titles to you for review.
OregonMuse featured them when I first published them back in 2012, but I revamped them and added a discussion section on a value from the story.
Sir Robert of Cheshire - Kindle edition by Epperson, Dana, Sullivan, Trina. Children Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Comment: Always nice to know that there is still good, wholesome family entertainment available. Any Morons out there with kids or grandkids should definitely check these out!

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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I just finished Red Horizens, Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief that I highly recommend, written by Ion Mihai Pacepa. He was the highest ranking defector, at that time, of a communist country and immigrated to the United States in '78. His story is fascinating. He was literally a right hand man, the highest of advisors, to Romania's dictator president Nicolae Ceausescu and his ghastly wife, Elena.
The book goes into great detail on Ceausescu's stealing of technology from capitalist countries, and his favorite techniques involving "disinformation" campaigns and the placing of "influence" persons abroad to achieve his goals. I was particularly struck by the web of deception that can be created to achieve any outcome, just through disinformation being injected into the mainstream. Helped along by the press and false documentation. As Pacepa explained, disinformation campaigns can achieve anything. He said it was easy to do, especially with the leftists in America as they were gullible enough to believe anything.
He ultimately came to deeply love America, and in the end, died last year at 92 from covid. Fascinating book. Fascinating man.
Posted by: Lady in Black at July 03, 2022 09:17 AM (sVtYq)

Comment: The story of Ceausescu should be a warning to our elites. But of course it's not. They seem to be "all in" on going down that path...

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Also, I've been thinking about reading Uncle Tom's Cabin here lately. Heard the Warrant song on my streaming service and felt guilty for not actually reading that back in high school when I was supposed to. Mostly feel bad because I really liked and respected the teacher who assigned, but hey, I was a dumb teenager.
Posted by: She Hobbit at July 03, 2022 09:28 AM (ftFVW)

Comment: Uncle Tom's Cabin is one those American classics that everyone should read...And I confess that I have not read it. Fortunately, that's easily rectified, thanks to the fact that this book is in the public domain and readily available online: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/203

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Hello Book Thread Coordinator,
I just finished an inspiring biography of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin by Donovan Moore, What Stars Are Made Of--The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is probably one of the most famous astronomers that you've never heard of. Growing up in Edwardian England in the early 1900's and only expected to learn etiquette, manners and French, Cecilia became the consummate scientist and astronomer, conquering both Cambridge and Harvard with pluck, drive and an unwillingness to give up. At Harvard, weaving together seemingly disparate facts and time-tested physics, she dared the astronomy community with a new theory of the elemental composition of the stars and in doing so, changed the world.
Jim Kerschen, long-time-lurker, seldom commentor.

Comment: It's thanks to Cecilia's doctoral thesis that we now know that stars are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. This was an idea rejected at the time, but then proved correct later. Science Marches On, after all. In other words, she challenged the scientific consensus at the time (1920s) and ultimately won because observations agreed with her theories. Funny how that works...

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Lots of sitting around doing nothing. Re-reading Savage Grace by Natalie Robins and Steve Aronson about the murder of Barbara Baekeland by her son Antony, great-grandson of the inventor of Bakelite.
It's an oral history told by the biggest bunch of vacuous, horrifying people ever assembled. Little mag editors, authors, painters, art gallery curators, socialites and ladies who lunch, all backbiting and name dropping to beat the band.
The worst characters are the family itself. Two of them are dead, but the husband and father Brooks Baekeland takes the cake with stuff like "I was always free. I was always successful in everything I wished to do. But I despised success. I despised money and show. I laughed - a grave offense to those who cannot laugh! I thumbed my nose at my father and at the sheepism of Man." Then the brutal truth comes down from someone sensible: "a brilliant wealthy man who has never actually done any productive work though he made one expedition to South America and wrote an article about it."
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 03, 2022 09:31 AM (/U27+)

Comment: Hmmm. Maybe we should have a contest to see which family is worse: The Baeklands or the Bidens...

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (274 Moron-recommended books so far!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan -- Book 9 in The Wheel of Time. Part of the infamous "slog" in the series. It's part of my goal to re-read the entire series by December. It was much better than I remember!

Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia -- Part of my epic library book haul from several weeks ago. So far, it's pretty entertaining. LOTS of gun fu and quite a bit of unrealistic recuperation from significant injuries, but on the whole I'm enjoying the first book of the series.

Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia -- Also part of my epic library book haul. Second in the Monster Hunter series.

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, generosity, and wisdom 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 - 07-03-22 (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 July 10, 2022 09:00 AM (2JoB8)

2 Reading a Century of Great Western Stories still. Wolfus recommended that I read Sgt Houck, but I can't remember why.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:01 AM (7bRMQ)

3 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to sing "Hot Pants!" Ow!!

Posted by: zombie James Brown at July 10, 2022 09:01 AM (sn5EN)

4 That pic isn't a view of the Enterprise Engineering section?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:02 AM (7bRMQ)

5 Books? I've read a few.

Posted by: Biden's Dog at July 10, 2022 09:03 AM (RctME)

6 Dutifully called nood so I'm done here, no new book.
Got to get to used book store

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:04 AM (2JoB8)

7 Hot Coffee!!!...SuperEgo...!!!

Posted by: Qmark at July 10, 2022 09:04 AM (emnp2)

8 Good morning, fellow book freaks.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 09:04 AM (Dc2NZ)

9 Orwell, Burgess, Heinlein, Asimov

Eventually my 8th grade English teacher demanded I stop writing every essay about A Clockwork Orange

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 10, 2022 09:05 AM (EZebt)

10 Particularly fun reading this week.

Royal Flash, Flash For Freedom and Carl Hiaasen's Star Island.

Thrift books now has my order in for the remaining Flashman Papers books.

Posted by: Bitter Clinger at July 10, 2022 09:05 AM (rtXi/)

11 The Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library is located at the University of Toronto in Canada. It houses a massive repository of rare books and manuscripts. At the moment it looks like you would need to schedule a "research appointment" in order to visit the collection.

The employees of the LA Library stole all of the Rare Books and sold them all over the world. They then burned down the entire building to cover their tracks.

Posted by: rhennigantx at July 10, 2022 09:06 AM (ex2Cx)

12 Mornin'! The path to reading idea is interesting. I'm coming 'round to the idea that we are born with certain inclinations. I can't remember a time I couldn't read. My first three children are like me, natural readers. Then I have a profoundly dyslexic child that has really opened my eyes. I always hear the voice and see the action in my mind's eye while reading. My husband did not have significant trouble learning to read, but does not enjoy it like I do. I am not sure, but I'd wager my dyslexic child is like my husband. I read to him and am teaching him (slowly) to read, but this is a complete 180 from the way I and my older children read.

That said, I can see coordination in his hands that my older children do not have and I think he's a tradesman naturally. Any ideas for books I can read to him about the trades specifically to spark interest in things like that?

Posted by: Catherine at July 10, 2022 09:06 AM (ZSsrh)

13 In other words, she challenged the scientific consensus at the time (1920s) and ultimately won because observations agreed with her theories. Funny how that works...

That won't happen any more. We'll see to that!

Posted by: Scientistisms at July 10, 2022 09:06 AM (7bRMQ)

14 The employees of the LA Library stole all of the Rare Books and sold them all over the world. They then burned down the entire building to cover their tracks.

Posted by: rhennigantx at July 10, 2022 09:06 AM (ex2Cx)

Copycats!

Posted by: Librarians at Alexandria at July 10, 2022 09:08 AM (7bRMQ)

15 That won't happen any more. We'll see to that!
Posted by: Scientistisms at July 10, 2022 09:06 AM (7bRMQ)

*fistbump*

Posted by: Bill Nye, the Scientism Guy at July 10, 2022 09:09 AM (PiwSw)

16 Thanks for the book thread Perfessor.

Why do library buildings look like they belong, were designed, in the old USSR?

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 09:09 AM (ppx0p)

17 Cannot remember who or what I first read on my own. Seems like I always read.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:10 AM (7bRMQ)

18 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:10 AM (Zz0t1)

19 Good morning Bookists! Thanks Perfessor Sq!

Well, I tried - really tried - to like M. Walsh's Last Stands....but ended up skimming about half of it. It is much more psychological musings about "last stands" than historical discussion. That's fine, but I just want the damn stories.

So, on to the next: Fire and Fortitude (US Army in WWII Pacific), and The Last Stand of Fox Company (Chosin Res.).

Happy Sunday, Happy reading!

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:10 AM (APPN8)

20 The inside of that library is dark and dreary.

The outside is damn hideous.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:11 AM (Zz0t1)

21 You'd need a jet pack to move around that library.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 09:11 AM (Dc2NZ)

22 The first author who piqued my interest? Going post Hardy Boys and Danny Orlis I might say Alistair MacLean.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:11 AM (eGTCV)

23 The first author to pique my interest was Dr. Seuss.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:12 AM (llXky)

24 Another great book thread from the Perfessor.

We are truly blessed on this site with the quality of the cobs.

Posted by: Blacksheep at July 10, 2022 09:12 AM (6mvRv)

25 Re-reading Dan Brown's Robert Landon series.

Posted by: vic s/ at July 10, 2022 09:12 AM (mZwKe)

26 She found that silicon, carbon, and other common metals seen in the Sun's spectrum were present in about the same relative amounts as on Earth, in agreement with the accepted belief of the time, which held that the stars had approximately the same elemental composition as the Earth. However, she found that helium and particularly hydrogen were vastly more abundant (for hydrogen, by a factor of about one million).[13] Her thesis concluded that hydrogen was the overwhelming constituent of stars (see Metallicity), making it the most abundant element in the Universe.[14]

Posted by: rhennigantx at July 10, 2022 09:13 AM (ex2Cx)

27 My family always had books, and i really don't remember not being able to read.

The first book of my very own was a gripping saga called "Cowboy Andy", about a kid who visited a cattle ranch. It's out of print, possibly because of the branding sequence. An example of the top-level Joycean wordplay: "Well, that certainly is a brand-new brand!" Get it? Get it?

Not really a classic, but I remember it fondly nonetheless.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:13 AM (bW8dp)

28 Can't remember a time when I didn't have a book in my hands, even if it was only to look at the pictures.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 09:14 AM (Dc2NZ)

29 Another great book thread from the Perfessor.

We are truly blessed on this site with the quality of the cobs.
Posted by: Blacksheep at July 10, 2022 09:12 AM (6mvRv)
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Thank you!

I'm truly blessed to have this opportunity to share my love of books and reading with the greatest Morons on the planet!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:14 AM (K5n5d)

30 Rick Deckard gets his books at that library

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:14 AM (2JoB8)

31 honestly can't remember not loving to read ... first books I can remember include Poky Little Puppy, Cat in the Hat, Winnie the Pooh, all long before I ever got to kindergarten.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - ultra maga ftw ! at July 10, 2022 09:14 AM (a82Er)

32 Our neighbor, Mrs Davis, was our small town librarian. She thought I was a cute kid and set up a special bookcase of children's adventure and mystery books in the library for me to read. Got me hooked.

Posted by: davidt at July 10, 2022 09:15 AM (oTZbj)

33 Well, I tried - really tried - to like M. Walsh's Last Stands....but ended up skimming about half of it. It is much more psychological musings about "last stands" than historical discussion. That's fine, but I just want the damn stories.

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:10 AM (APPN

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Even the good professional conservatives are often mediocre authors and yet all their buddies will give glowing reviews to the work because mutual back-scratching is part of the gig.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:15 AM (llXky)

34 Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:11 AM (eGTCV)

'Caravan to Vaccares' was my first book by MacLean.

Posted by: dantesed at July 10, 2022 09:15 AM (88xKn)

35 "What year is it".
I don't often miss the year; but, I'm often surprised by 'it's dawn!', it's not raining?, or where did the sun go?

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 09:15 AM (ppx0p)

36 Who was the first author who piqued your interest?
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 03, 2022 11:11 AM (XIJ/X)

Must be no one as I don't read books very often at all. The last book I read was by The Angry Pirate, Mike Leach. It wasn't bad. I have his book about Geronimo, but have yet to crack it. I still haven't finished JJ Sefton's book, but that thing is depressing as it's about the day this country died a miserable, painful death.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:15 AM (Zz0t1)

37 I read The Well of Ascension, the second book in the Mistborn series, by Brandon Sanderson. I've started the third in the series, The Hero of the Ages.

Posted by: Zoltan at July 10, 2022 09:16 AM (RgEof)

38 Can't remember a time when I didn't have a book in my hands, even if it was only to look at the pictures.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

If you were male I'd have to ask "Playboy"?

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 09:16 AM (ppx0p)

39 Early early of all the kiddie books, I loved, loved,
"Little Black Sambo". Very wonderfully illustrated and I thought Sambo was so funny and clever. And what a reward! Eating pancakes made with tiger butter!

Anyone who thinks "Little Black Sambo" is a racist tome is an complete idiot or I'm a horrible racist. Take your pick.

I loved science books. Winnie the Pooh. Mythology and fairy tales from all over the world, Tom Swift. Also, the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies(!).

Probably, the first book that really affected me deeply was "The Lord of the Rings". I'd never read anything like that before.

Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 09:16 AM (5NkmN)

40 Another great book thread from the Perfessor.

We are truly blessed on this site with the quality of the cobs.
Posted by: Blacksheep at July 10, 2022 09:12 AM (6mvRv)

Preach!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:16 AM (Zz0t1)

41 Me: Still hacking away (no pun intended) at "The Vikings In History," by F. Donald Logan.

An academic history, not popular history. It can be a slog.

Here's the way it ended, for those who'll never read the book.

The Viking raids turned into settlements in Ireland, Britain, & continental Europe. Over the course of 150 years or so, the Viking kingdoms formed alliances with native polities (i.e., Anglo Saxon kingdoms); intermarried with them; converted to Christianity; & disappeared from history-- except for place names.

I'm old enough to remember when people talked about "the Catholic vote." You never hear that term used now, because Catholics vote like everybody else. Pretty much the same thing happened with the Vikings.

Posted by: mnw at July 10, 2022 09:16 AM (NLIak)

42 Good Morning Perfesser,

Interesting that you mention The Wheel of Time series. Got new copies of the complete collection for Christmas this past year, currently on book 12: The Gathering Storm.

If I had to pick the author that really got me started as a voracious reader, I'd have to say it was Asimov and the Foundation series.

-SLV

Posted by: Shy Lurking Voter at July 10, 2022 09:16 AM (SEa82)

43 I've noticed the proliferation of jacket blurbs by fellow authors, rather than critics.

Spy Magazine used to have a column called "Logrolling in Our Time" pairing up such mutual tongue baths between authors.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 09:17 AM (Dc2NZ)

44 Heinlein's Juveniles -- Have Space Suit, Will Travel

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at July 10, 2022 09:17 AM (PiwSw)

45 My non fiction reading most of my life has focused on national socialism, including Shirer, Arendt, Preminger, Bowman, Mosse, Kershaw, Goldhagen, Freidlander, Evans, Lipstadt but the original authors were most clarifying especially Speer, Rosenberg and Goebbels.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 10, 2022 09:18 AM (EZebt)

46 The writers that hooked me were Ian Fleming, John D. MacDonald and, oddly enough, Kurt Vonnegurt. You really can’t beat James Bond and Travis MacGee.

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:19 AM (uymY4)

47 Last night at dinner I recommended to a friend that he read The 100 Year Old Man who Climbed Out A Window and Disappeared. He's slogging through Grapes of Wrath right now and could use a lighter read!

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (U1eOr)

48 Hitler himself was unreadable except in snippets. But there were lots of speeches, at least in the beginning.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (EZebt)

49 20 The inside of that library is dark and dreary.

The outside is damn hideous.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:11 AM (Zz0t1)

the inside was designed by Hunter

outside, by the J/6 committee

both stink

Posted by: REDACTED at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (us2H3)

50 Oh I also went thru an early Doc Savage and Fu Manchu period

Loved those adventures

Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (5NkmN)

51 Caravan to Vaccares' was my first book by MacLean.
Posted by: dantesed at July 10, 2022 09:15 AM (88xKn)

I think mine was Where Eagles Dare.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (eGTCV)

52 Like a lot of posters, I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. Of course, a lot of that is because I drink like a Kennedy and years of my life have been washed away in booze.

The first book I really remember was 1984. I didn't understand it at first, but the opening line "It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen" caught my eye and always had me coming back.

I never cared for the Hardy Boys, but I did like the Tom Swift Jr series. And then as puberty hit, I discovered Venus in Furs and A Man With A Maid, which explain why my psyche is so screwed up.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (2JVJo)

53 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 09:21 AM (kf6Ak)

54 Sure, the Vikings/Normans even took over Sicily at one point. Those boys got around.

I expect conquering Sicily was a bit more of a challenge than Normandy, because let's face it: who hasn't launched a successful invasion of France at some point?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:22 AM (bW8dp)

55 Good Sunday morning, horde!

I grew up in a reading family, and I have older siblings. I have been immersed in reading culture since before I was born. You might as well ask me what was the first food that made me love food!

Reading, like eating, is just something that has always been.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at July 10, 2022 09:23 AM (OX9vb)

56 There's a fungus amongus!

Because I enjoyed "Aurora" so much, I checked out David Koepp's first novel, "Cold Storage", in which a highly mutative organism attached to a chunk of Skylab reproduces wildly and wipes out an isolated town in the Australian Outback. A secret team of U.S. bioterrorism operatives moves in, burns down the remains, and caches a sample in cold storage deep underground in a storage facility in Kansas. Decades later, the dangerous fungus manages to escape its confines, as they are wont to do, and opportunistically gloms onto whatever is at hand.

It sounds like Andromeda Strain but it reads almost like a Hiaasen novel, complete with weird and unsavory denizens. It's a horror story with loads of gruesome humor and well-drawn characters.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 09:23 AM (Dc2NZ)

57 Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (2JVJo)

MP4, K DuT has a pictorial of Theda Bara posted today. You've probably seen the pix already, though.

https://www.kimdutoit.com/

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:23 AM (7bRMQ)

58 I read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" just a few years ago. Really, really great.

The Left hates him because he was a Christian and a Christ-figure.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at July 10, 2022 09:23 AM (lKAqb)

59 I had the time and life series about animals, including marine animals, that as a far as I remember, before being interested in planets and rocket ships,

Posted by: no 6 at July 10, 2022 09:23 AM (i0Lci)

60 Grapes of Wrath sucks.

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:24 AM (uymY4)

61 Right now I'm slowly getting to the end of Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier.

I'm also picking away at The Graves Are Walking, about the Irish Famine and Boston and the Dawn of American Independence by Brian Deming.

https://tinyurl.com/yee7wz8h

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:24 AM (2JVJo)

62 I started reading "The Witches of Eastwick" based, I think, on some discussion here about John Updike. I'm not sure I like it but I will give it some time.

While I'm procrastinating on "The Witches of Eastwick," I picked up book 2 in the "Saint Tommy, NYPD" series. I don't want to zip straight through this series but it's so much fun, it's hard to resist.

My into to the world of reading was The Brothers Grimm. Daddy got a new book every month from the Heritage Book Club, I think it was, and these were the entirely unexpurgated and extremely bloody fairy tales and they are still awesome.

My other childhood obsession was Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Daddy had the version annotated by Martin Gardner (?) and now I have it. I was always told that I had ruined it by reading it so much but it's still in one piece, sitting safely on the living room bookshelves.

Oh, and Black Beauty. Loved that so much but I will still not read the chapter where Ginger died. I know what happens and I don't need to read it to refresh my memory. I now have a very nice annotated copy and until I got this, I did not know why Anna Sewell wrote this.

Posted by: Tonestaple at July 10, 2022 09:25 AM (3qAOE)

63 The feature on short stories a few weeks back inspired me to finally buy Evelyn Waugh's shorter works. The collection I picked up spans his career, from the Smart Set of the 1930s into the 60s.

While I've been sharply limiting my reading to China in a desperate effort to finish my book, I did indulge my curiosity to read "Basil Seal Rides Again."

Basil Seal is one of Waugh's wonderfully amusing characters, an anti-hero if there ever was one. A total rake, he is the main character in a couple of the Smart Set books but always seems to be lurking in the background. Anyhow, we last saw him in Put Out More Flags (in which the Smart Set goes to war) which was written around 1941. Seal manages to land a gig identifying homes for evacuees and he comes across the three worst children in England.

Chronically short of money, he comes up with the idea of forcing householders to bribe him to avoid placing the children with them.

Anyway, the short story is set years later and all I'm going to say is that Waugh is amazing. When I got to the "twist" at the end, I was weeping with laughter.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:25 AM (llXky)

64 The first author I sought out was Robb White. Followed by Alistair MacLean. Then Burroughs (Tarzan) and Howard (Conan). Damn - those are some great reads!

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:25 AM (APPN8)

65 Catalyst for reading...WWI flying Aces...

Posted by: Qmark at July 10, 2022 09:26 AM (emnp2)

66 Grapes of Wrath sucks.
Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:24 AM (uymY4)

I threw that book across the room. Full of dreck.

Posted by: dantesed at July 10, 2022 09:26 AM (88xKn)

67 I noticed the other day that Sarah Hoyt, who is an 'ette, is doing a fundraiser. If you are interested in helping, check out her blog at "according to hoyt'

There are options for online and snail mail donations.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 09:26 AM (kf6Ak)

68 Perfessor Squirrel- thank you so much for featuring my Sir Robert of Cheshire children's book!!

I am currently reading The Gulag Archipelago and just finished The Comfort Crisis.

Gulag Archipelago is one of those books I've heard about and finally picked up. The behaviors of the Soviet government toward their people are pretty horrendous. And, of course, we can see much of that behavior in parts and people in our own government, which is both sad and terrifying.
On a lighter note, The Comfort Crisis was a great non fiction read on bettering yourself. The author wrote for Mens Health and Outside. He explores how we as a society have become soft- and how people need to go on hard journeys and be physically uncomfortable to regain strength and mental fortitude. Highly recommend. Inspired me to pick up my old rucksack and start moving around with it again.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:26 AM (jQkkr)

69 MP4, K DuT has a pictorial of Theda Bara posted today. You've probably seen the pix already, though.

I have seen them, but thanks for the heads-up.

I'd leave a comment pimping my books, but don't feel comfortable doing it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (2JVJo)

70 Wait - Jack London and his dog stories came first.

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (APPN8)

71 Grapes of Wrath sucks.
Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:24 AM (uymY4)

---
Have you tried reading The Cherries of Lust?

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (K5n5d)

72 the G8 series to be specific...

Posted by: Qmark at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (emnp2)

73 The writers that hooked me were Ian Fleming, John D. MacDonald and, oddly enough, Kurt Vonnegurt. You really can’t beat James Bond and Travis MacGee.

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:19 AM (uymY4)
---
I should mention "Basil Seal Rides Again" is prefaced by a letter Waugh wrote to Mrs. Ian Fleming. The guy knew people.

After I calmed down, I explained the story to my wife, and she stared at me in horror and hid under the covers.

Waugh has a very very wicked sense of humor. Not for the faint of heart.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (llXky)

74 I remember reading the Encyclopedia Americana for fun. Also the Information Please year books.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (7bRMQ)

75 Reading a Century of Great Western Stories still. Wolfus recommended that I read Sgt Houck, but I can't remember why.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022

***
Morning, everybody!

"Sergeant Houck" is a textbook example of telling instead of showing -- action, emotional state -- and it leaves you with a strong impression that you know the sergeant and the woman now. The dialog is incomparable, and each scene shows you something about the sergeant as well as advancing the story.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (c6xtn)

76 He's slogging through Grapes of Wrath right now and could use a lighter read!

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 09:20 AM (U1eOr)

I know that Steinbeck gets a lot of flack around here (justifiably), but he was a fine writer when he wasn't preachy and insufferable. I think his short stories are wonderful...

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (XIJ/X)

77 The first author I sought out was Ruth Chew. They were mainly books about witches etc hiding in plain sight in current times. They were fun. A bit later on I read and reread S. E. Hinton books. Good middle school fare. And one day there were no Hinton books in the middle school library, but Hilton was next to Hinton. That's how I ended up finding Lost Horizon and Goodbye Mr. Chips.

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 09:29 AM (U1eOr)

78 I have seen them, but thanks for the heads-up.

I'd leave a comment pimping my books, but don't feel comfortable doing it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (2JVJo)
---
That's rookie talk. Shameless self-promotion is an essential quality all authors should cultivate.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:29 AM (llXky)

79 > The first book of my very own was a gripping saga called "Cowboy Andy"

Used copies go for $50 on the 'zon. A bit much for nostalgia.

The author, Edna Walker Chandler, seems to have specialized in cowboys and Indians books, with one intriguing exception: "Women in Prison".

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:30 AM (bW8dp)

80 I do want to go to something after Russian Revolution and before Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:30 AM (2JoB8)

81 My other childhood obsession was Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Daddy had the version annotated by Martin Gardner (?) and now I have it. I was always told that I had ruined it by reading it so much but it's still in one piece, sitting safely on the living room bookshelves.

I've always loved the Alice books. When I was a boy, I wanted to meet her, because I fell in love with her through the Tenniel illustrations. I too own the Gardner book(s), as he did a sequel called More Annotated Alice. IIRC, he also did The Annotated Mother Goose, as well, although now that I think about it, that might have been Baring-Gould of Annotated Sherlock Holmes fame.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:31 AM (2JVJo)

82 I know that Steinbeck gets a lot of flack around here (justifiably), but he was a fine writer when he wasn't preachy and insufferable. I think his short stories are wonderful...
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (XIJ/X)
---
Agreed. I enjoyed reading Of Mice and Men a few years ago. I hadn't read it since junior high school, so it was interesting to read it with a much more adult perspective.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:31 AM (K5n5d)

83 First book with real impact, MARINE AT WAR, Russell Davis. I still re-read it probably each year after over 40 years. Criminally neglected book by an impressive man.
Currently reading KAPUTT, Curzio Malaparte, as it turns out one story has never been translated into English, and I'm translating that, and another, from the Italian original.
Although I'm going to get that book above about the Bakelite family, sounds interesting!

Posted by: LenNeal at July 10, 2022 09:31 AM (43xH1)

84 The first two books I remember reading were:

The Happy Little Whale (a Golden book) about a whale who is captured from his mother and taken to live with a girl whale in a Sea World-like enclosure.

The other was Noddy, about a little toy who has adventures, including encountering Golliwogs. These were caricatured black people. At the time, I didn't even make the association, not that I ran into a lot of black folks when I was little. Those books have since been condemned for racism.

Even as a sprout, I was politically incorrect.

Posted by: Archimedes at July 10, 2022 09:31 AM (/NCI4)

85 I watched Bonnie and Clyde last night. Did Warren Beatty ever make a good movie?

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:31 AM (uymY4)

86 I read Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books and Readers Digest Condensed books. For whatever reason I remember reading The condensed Day of the Jackal and something about pet otters, perhaps something like A Ring of Blue Water.
The Eagle of the Ninth was an early favorite.
Jumping to about say decade later I read Lilith by George McDonald for a university course. It made a significant impact on my life.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:31 AM (eGTCV)

87 CBD - Steinbeck is good. Cannery Row is a favorite of mine. Not preachy at all - just a chill snapshot of American hobo livin'. Sweet Thursday is also chill.

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 09:32 AM (U1eOr)

88 That's rookie talk. Shameless self-promotion is an essential quality all authors should cultivate.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

If you want hints on how it's done you could go a long way before finding a better example than Kurt Schlichter.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 09:32 AM (ppx0p)

89 When I was a little kid (four?) this nice old (to me) lady would come to our house on some Sundays and tell crazy stories about cyclops and women with snakes for hair and gods who could throw lightning bolts and chariots and walled cities and...

I found out later that she was the chairman of the classics department of the university where my father was doing his fellowship.

So the Greek myths were probably my first exposure to literature.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 09:32 AM (XIJ/X)

90 I'd leave a comment pimping my books, but don't feel comfortable doing it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (2JVJo)
---
That's rookie talk. Shameless self-promotion is an essential quality all authors should cultivate.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:29 AM (llXky)
---
A.H. Lloyd is right. Nowadays you do have to be a shameless self-promoter of sorts in order to sell books. Lots of people show up on reddit just for that purpose, for instance.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:32 AM (K5n5d)

91 Wait, I remember Cowboy Andy! Anybody remember Sir MacHinery!?

Posted by: LenNeal at July 10, 2022 09:33 AM (43xH1)

92 What was YOUR first step into the wider world of reading?

***

I remember climbing our built in bookshelves to get to the storybook collections. Fairytales were my first love. Still love fantasy above all else.
But first "grown up" author to catch my eye - while digging through my dad's books on geology and mining, as a child, I came across an impressive hardbound book with no dust jacket titled The Egyptian, by Mika Waltari. The author's name was intriguingly foreign. I thought it was an archeology book, and I opened it looking for pictures. The first page gave me an unexpected thrill to realize it was a story, about an Egyptian long ago named Sinuhe.
I am not sure how old I was, but somewhere between 7 and 9, probably.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 09:33 AM (kf6Ak)

93 The first "grownup" books I dipped into, mostly for the action scenes, were the Fleming Bond novels. Then, like Perfessor, came my Alfred Hitchcock suspense/terror collections, then Rex Stout and Ellery Queen. John Dickson Carr and Agatha Christie followed, as did Dorothy L. Sayers. Then Alastair MacLean, whose writing and plotting style I imitated for quite a while. Along came Robert Heinlein, and I realized how SF stories were supposed to work!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:33 AM (c6xtn)

94 The Comfort Crisis was a great non fiction read on bettering yourself. The author wrote for Mens Health and Outside. He explores how we as a society have become soft- and how people need to go on hard journeys and be physically uncomfortable to regain strength and mental fortitude. Highly recommend. Inspired me to pick up my old rucksack and start moving around with it again.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:26 AM (jQkkr)

This is white Privilege! Only white people do that! It's racist! At least according to the Guardian or Vox or some other leftist rag.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:34 AM (7bRMQ)

95 Good morning hordelings. Road is torn up so can't make it to church this morning. The first book that made a deep impression on me was a book about a blind boy who obtains a guide dog. Reluctance turns into reliance and love. For the life of me I can't remember its title.

Posted by: grammie winger at July 10, 2022 09:34 AM (45fpk)

96 80 I do want to go to something after Russian Revolution and before Gulag Archipelago.
Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:30 AM (2JoB

Skip- are you reading the Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes? If so, great book. I should re-read it.
That book gave me the background knowledge on how the revolution went down- and its aftermath- to slap down any arguments or gibbering from socialists or commies about how great Marx's theories were or why they should be implemented in 'Merica.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:34 AM (jQkkr)

97 I loved Greek mythology when I was little. It's the basis for so much literature. Two books that are essential and I still have are Edith Hamilton's Mythology, and of course Bulfinch' Mythology.
When son #2 was little I got him interested too, and got him a copy of Bulfinch's Illustrated Mythology, which is illustrated with classical paintings. It's a beautiful book.

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 09:35 AM (sn5EN)

98 *Who was the first author who piqued your interest?*

It was a guy named Suess. I think he was a doctor.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at July 10, 2022 09:35 AM (EKTVg)

99
The Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library is located at the University of Toronto in Canada. It houses a massive repository of rare books and manuscripts.

Allow me to guess that said university has a School of Architecture and that said library building is one of their proudest design accomplishments.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 09:35 AM (ZvxPV)

100 So the Greek myths were probably my first exposure to literature.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 09:32 AM (XIJ/X)
---
That was another area that fascinated me as a child. I read Bullfinch's Mythology several times as well as numerous other books on Greek/Roman mythology as a kid.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:35 AM (K5n5d)

101 What was YOUR first step into the wider world of reading?

Little Toot, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

Posted by: Count de Monet at July 10, 2022 09:35 AM (4I/2K)

102 I'd leave a comment pimping my books, but don't feel comfortable doing it.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (2JVJo)

Where is this?
I'd be happy to leave a comment casually mentioning your books

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 09:36 AM (kf6Ak)

103 I remember staying in my room for an entire day reading A Wrinkle in Time. I was young. It is probably my earliest memory of getting lost in a book. I picked up The Red Pony by John Steinbeck when I was in elementary school because I thought it was going to be a book about a pony. Boy, was I wrong. To this day I have never read another Steinbeck.

Posted by: Quirky bookworm at July 10, 2022 09:36 AM (EbJ6H)

104 Speaking of shameless self-promotion, obligatory China book update.

Broke 70,000 words yesterday, finished the Chinese Civil War. I figure I've got maybe 6,000 words to go. All that's left is Korea, the border skirmishes, internal unrest and a look at the future. Thanks to time off I blasted through about 5,000 words last week, but I'm going to have to pause for some more reading before I wrap this sucker up.

Still no idea for a title. Thinking of buying the Odes and mining them for a cool turn of phrase.

WARNING ORDER: If you volunteered to be a test reader, be prepared to receive a manuscript in the next few weeks. Corrections on this monster are going to be epic, so the more the merrier.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:36 AM (llXky)

105 I have clear memories of reading Fahrenheit 451 in high school. That was back in the days when people believed the threat of censorship came from the right.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (eGTCV)

106 I'd leave a comment pimping my books, but don't feel comfortable doing it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (2JVJo)

I'll do it for you. I've posted on his various sites for years. He should recognize my nic and not think it's spam. Have you seen his site before?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (7bRMQ)

107 98 *Who was the first author who piqued your interest?*

It was a guy named Suess. I think he was a doctor.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at July 10, 2022 09:35 AM (EKTVg)

-------
I loved books by P. D. Eastman when I was a kid: Go Dog Go!, Are You My Mother, The Best Nest, and Sam and the Firefly were all great children's books.

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (U1eOr)

108 That said, I can see coordination in his hands that my older children do not have and I think he's a tradesman naturally. Any ideas for books I can read to him about the trades specifically to spark interest in things like that?
=====

Music? Learning to read music is similar to reading language but has the added benefit of the kinetic element. Start with the fine motor and build from there.

Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (MIKMs)

109 First books I read of significant length were a series my grandparents bought for me. They were hardbound books featuring all of the classics:
Alice in Wonderland, Robin Hood, Black Beauty, Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales- I think there were some 10 books in all. Received them in the 3rd grade. Still have them.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (jQkkr)

110 Oh, this should be good......

"Hackers claim to have breached Hunter's iCloud account."

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:38 AM (Zz0t1)

111 I remember before I was able to read and watching Batman on TV pestering my mom to narrate the captions, "Pow!" "Bam!"

You skipped one, mom! '#%&!#!"

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 10, 2022 09:38 AM (EZebt)

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

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 09:38 AM (7EjX1)

113 Where is this?
I'd be happy to leave a comment casually mentioning your books
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 09:36 AM (kf6Ak)

Right here:

MP4, K DuT has a pictorial of Theda Bara posted today. You've probably seen the pix already, though.

https://www.kimdutoit.com/
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:23 AM (7bRMQ)

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:38 AM (2JVJo)

114 1st serious book;
"Treasure Island" by Rob't. L. Stevenson.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (jTmQV)

115 "Sergeant Houck" is a textbook example of telling instead of showing -- action, emotional state -- and it leaves you with a strong impression that you know the sergeant and the woman now. The dialog is incomparable, and each scene shows you something about the sergeant as well as advancing the story.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:28 AM (c6xtn)

Ok, see I told you my memory is going.

Do you mean showing instead of telling?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (7bRMQ)

116 Speaking of shameless self-promotion....

At the urging of another professional self-promoter, I joined the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA, mwsadispatches.com), and for a fee, entered their annual 'contest' for my book. Sure enough, i am a 'Finalist' for an award. And yep, of the 72 books listed for consideration, 50 are 'Finalists'. LOL

It's like HS Cheer competitions - EVERYONE gets selected to go to 'Nationals.'

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (APPN8)

117 I'd leave a comment pimping my books, but don't feel comfortable doing it.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (2JVJo)

Wait......You write books?

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (Zz0t1)

118 Who was the first author who piqued your interest?

Richard Scarry. He was a man who could teach kids anything from someone's job to life in other lands without once talking down to them. Sadly, the newer versions had to be redone in order to not offend delicate sensibilities. So stick to the ones from the seventies and your kids will turn out just fine.

Posted by: NR Pax at July 10, 2022 09:40 AM (WD1fh)

119
No one author sparked my interest, but I enjoyed reading Bruce Catton's books on the Civil War as published by American Heritage when I was young. I have since come to favor Shelby Foote's three volume history far more.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 09:40 AM (ZvxPV)

120 I'll do it for you. I've posted on his various sites for years. He should recognize my nic and not think it's spam. Have you seen his site before?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (7bRMQ)

I have, when it's been linked by others. I remember Kim from back in the day when it was him and Mrs DuToit, of fond memory, posting.

If you'd leave a link to my books, that would be lovely, thank you.

Going to make some more tea. BRB

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:40 AM (2JVJo)

121 I don't know if Francis W. Porretto is lurking this morning (he comments on AoSHQ from time to time), but I'll put in a plug for him:

He's offering FREE downloads of his books through Smashwords all during July (ends on July 31).

https://tinyurl.com/mry5rnp5

Enjoy!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:40 AM (K5n5d)

122 For me it was Edith Hamiltons Mythology. Then the Left Behind series....don't judge...

Posted by: Mishdog at July 10, 2022 09:41 AM (oYPJt)

123 Found it: "Follow My Leader" by James B. Garfield. Made me cry.

Posted by: grammie winger at July 10, 2022 09:41 AM (45fpk)

124
It's like HS Cheer competitions - EVERYONE gets selected to go to 'Nationals.'
Posted by: goatexchange

Go Donkeys!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 09:41 AM (ZvxPV)

125 Perfessor yes finished RR by Richard Pipes.

Said before not first book but probably sent me onward was Hell in a Very Small Place when I couldn't have been but 13yo. Finally bought a copy a few years ago.

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:41 AM (2JoB8)

126 It's like HS Cheer competitions - EVERYONE gets selected to go to 'Nationals.'
Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (APPN

VIA SNAIL MAIL:
"We are happy to inform you that you have been selected as a Who's Who among high school students..."

LOL. Anyone ever get one of those letters in high school? For a mere $50 you will be featured in the annual Who's Who book and entered into a chance for a scholarship....

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:42 AM (jQkkr)

127 The 1st book I remember was Rudyard Kipling's 'Just So Stories'.

I wasn't reading it though, I can still hear my Dad's voice saying "great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River".

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 09:43 AM (ppx0p)

128 Ok, see I told you my memory is going.

Do you mean showing instead of telling?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022

***
My memory is shot too, apparently! Yes, showing rather than telling.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:43 AM (c6xtn)

129 I read Dracula cover to cover one Saturday in 8th grade...felt like that Jumanji scene.

Posted by: Mishdog at July 10, 2022 09:43 AM (oYPJt)

130 The first books that inspired me to love reading were compilations of stories and poetry hot kids called Childcraft Encyclopedia 1939.
There was quite a mix of short stories and bios of great people. The poetry varied from Mother Goose to Robert Louis Stevenson, and many others. The illustrations were magical to little me, and as I bought a set when the kids were young, I found that they were still far above the illustrations of the 80s and beyond. To see the characters can be very important to roping the kids into the story.
I also bought a series called The Story Hour that was lovely.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 09:44 AM (ONvIw)

131 other than skrewlbooks, the first books I bought was at First Monday flea market in Canton, TX

1963, I was 12

it was a 3 volume set, In English Homes by Charles Latham

they were in usable but poor condition

15 bucks, which was a fucking lot of money to a kid of 12

Posted by: REDACTED at July 10, 2022 09:44 AM (us2H3)

132 I, too, was an early reader, but I don't know what kept me reading. Maybe it was because I preferred to stay indoors as a child, an attitude that Mom attributed to an accident I had. She said that until that happened, I liked to play outside.

I recall my early reading consisted of Hardy Boys books that Dad had. Then one day I was in a bookstore and I discovered that the Hardys were still around; those were the volumes with blue spines. I started buying those with much pleading with the folks. Still have many of them.

Oh, and comic strips! Dad would read them to me and my sister, using different voices for the characters. "Captain Easy" was a favorite.

I also read a few comics, but I didn't become a comics fan until college.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 09:44 AM (Om/di)

133 My wife started reading The Pathfinder by James Fenimore Cooper and I started reading The Great Documents of Western Civilization by Viorst.

Posted by: jeff at July 10, 2022 09:44 AM (Tp9d6)

134 The first books I really liked were the Tom Swift Jr. books. I had the entire series. But in a move, my Mom put them all in a consignment/thrift store. Like a valuable set of thick players cards. Sad.

Then my Dad introduced me to Edgar Rice Burroughs. I have all of his books to this day.

Lets see if this goes out, as comms are very spotty, but better than when we are further out at sea.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at July 10, 2022 09:44 AM (TGDgE)

135 flemings books are full of little details, like majesty's secret service, 1957, has the references to the cambridge 3, philby wouldn't defect till 63, another novel you only live twice, concerns a plot to brainwash bond, that horowitz has elaborated on, in his latest,

Posted by: no 6 at July 10, 2022 09:44 AM (i0Lci)

136 Fun fact: "Dr. Seuss" started using that pseudonym when he was in college. Seems he'd been banned from extracurricular activities (including the student newspaper) for having liquor in his dorm room during Prohibition.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:45 AM (bW8dp)

137 first book I ever bought was Dan Carter - Cub Scout. I was admonished by the lady who sold it that "this book is to be read, not looked at". Eventually got all 6 books in the series and three from the Explorers. I read and re-read and re-re-read them all. Handed them down to my son as well.

Progressed on to Altscheler's Young Trailer's and French and Indian War series and murder mysteries. And I can't forget the Little Golden Book Encyclopedia.

Posted by: yara at July 10, 2022 09:45 AM (hBsVD)

138 Some one else posted above they loved Greek Myths. I also read a lot of those in grade school. Two books stand out-

DeLaurie's Greek Myths. They also wrote Viking myths. Bought both books for my kids.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:45 AM (jQkkr)

139 The good thing about reaching the age of 29 is you forget most of the books you've read and you get to read them all over again with no spoilers.

Posted by: grammie winger at July 10, 2022 09:45 AM (45fpk)

140 In terms of adult books, I will shock no one here by saying that I was into books about war. I still have my copy of Weapons and Warfare in the 20th Century I got when I was 9.

Loved looking at the pictures and maps. When I was in fifth grade, a friend off the family died I inherited some of his vintage wargames but also a bunch Bantam paperbacks, which I loved. Fly For Your Life, Reach For the Sky, To War in a Stringbag, A Bridge Too Far - great stuff. Still have them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:46 AM (llXky)

141 (Yeah, I got a late start today.)

I started "Intelligence at the Top: The Recollections of a British Intelligence Officer" by Major-General Sir Kenneth Strong, who was the head of Intelligence for Supreme Allied Command during WWII. The book was published in 1968.

I've gotten to when he has wrapped up a stint as an assistant military attache in Berlin in the mid-'30s, recalled home only because war seemed likely. His German counterparts think otherwise; how wrong they will be.

He drops names of peers with medium rank, then adds "now Field General (name)." He also notes that when he joined the army, promotion came slowly, as underlings had to wait for superiors to retire or die. One guy hadn't advanced in rank for 14 years. Sounds like civilian jobs. Mine, anyway.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 09:46 AM (Om/di)

142 Greetings:

Read "The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine" by a Harvard Professor, Serhii Plokhy, this week. "Ukraine has not perished" as the author reminds us several times but one might also have gone with "The Doormat of Europe" as a title.

I found the reading a bit slow with people and places having at least two names, Urainian or Russian neither
of which I found pronounceable. Also, perhaps being an historian, the author likes to refer to "centuries" as opposed to specific years which kind of stops me in my reading to do the math translations.

But the history was enlightening, in a pessimistic way. There are so many divisions there, religious (3), language (3+), and ethnic groups galore, that it's difficult to figure out where it might all end.

P.S. My first paragraph quote is from the first line of the Ukrainian National Anthem.

Posted by: 11B40 at July 10, 2022 09:46 AM (uuklp)

143
LOL. Anyone ever get one of those letters in high school? For a mere $50 you will be featured in the annual Who's Who book and entered into a chance for a scholarship....
Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:42 AM (jQkkr)

I did, and sent in my $50. I'm in the book way back when.

Gained me exactly dick.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:47 AM (Zz0t1)

144 To test a hypothesis, I popped into B&N yesterday. Just as I thought -- the display of GayGayGay books in the kids' section was gone. Such books were on the regular shelves, although several were positioned to show their covers.

I wonder whether any of them sell for anything other than gag gifts. And I mean gag.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 09:47 AM (Om/di)

145 One pre-Bond book that I know made a major impression on me was a young readers' novel about Roy Rogers, The Ghost of Mystery Rancho. It really jump-started my interest in the classical mystery. Roy, a young Texas Ranger, finds himself battling a bandit leader down on the Texas-Mexico border -- a dangerous killer who wears a skeleton mask and costume, so that no one, not even his fellow criminals, knows who he is.

I actually bought a copy on eBay a few years ago. The story has some plot holes you could ride Trigger through -- but the narrative drive is amazing. And the thunderbolt revelation of the Ghost's identity is held until the penultimate chapter.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:48 AM (c6xtn)

146 I loved books by P. D. Eastman when I was a kid: Go Dog Go!, Are You My Mother, The Best Nest, and Sam and the Firefly were all great children's books.

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 09:37 AM (U1eOr)
---
Are You My Daddy was a lot more controversial.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:49 AM (llXky)

147 Another author that deserves mention: Chip Harrison.
That book made the rounds of 7-8th grade boys like wildfire.

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:50 AM (APPN8)

148 vmom, K duT's site is wordpress. You'll need a sign on.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:50 AM (7bRMQ)

149 I can't remember if I had any particular picture books that I was fond of - but when I did start to read non-illustrated children's books, I was stuck on Walter Brooks "Freddy the Pig" series.
My mother was exasperated by this, but when I had read all of them from the library about three times over, I branched out, and began reading everything I could get my hands on, even my father's anthropology textbooks.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at July 10, 2022 09:50 AM (xnmPy)

150
E. E. "Doc" Smith's Triplanetary series srands out as an early interest of mine in science fiction.

Niven and Pournelle, Robert Heinlein, Gregory Brin and Neal Stephenson were my more recent favorite authors in that genre.

My esteem for Isaac Asimov dropped hugely once he tried to knit together his Foundation and I, Robot franchises. I want to revisit Ray Bradbury; I have begun rereading Brin's first Uplift trilogy.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 09:50 AM (ZvxPV)

151 > I do want to go to something after Russian Revolution and before Gulag Archipelago.

Rand's "We, the Living" and much of "Doctor Zhivago" are set in that time period.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:50 AM (bW8dp)

152 Flemings books are full of little details, like majesty's secret service, 1957, has the references to the cambridge 3, philby wouldn't defect till 63, another novel you only live twice, concerns a plot to brainwash bond, that horowitz has elaborated on, in his latest,
Posted by: no 6 at July 10, 2022

***
They are indeed full of fine details. Though perhaps you mean From Russia With Love, as that was his novel that year, '57. On Her Majesty's Secret Service came out in '63 or so.

And it was The Man With the Golden Gun that features the brainwashing of Bond. The Soviets send him in to kill M.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:51 AM (c6xtn)

153 Mommy Drinks Because You're Bad.

Posted by: Religious Guilt Publishing at July 10, 2022 09:52 AM (EKTVg)

154 It's like HS Cheer competitions - EVERYONE gets selected to go to 'Nationals.'

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (APPN

Win or not, you can still add that to your blurb about the book.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:52 AM (7bRMQ)

155 I actually bought a copy on eBay a few years ago. The story has some plot holes you could ride Trigger through -- but the narrative drive is amazing. And the thunderbolt revelation of the Ghost's identity is held until the penultimate chapter.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:48 AM (c6xtn)
---
Lemme guess...Old Man Witherspoon, trying to drive away tourists so he can make a land grab...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:52 AM (K5n5d)

156 First important book? Such a sharp memory for me. Summer after first grade. The library in our tiny town had a reading contest for first grade through high school. I went there by myself and the main room had tables labeled 1 2 3, 4 5 6 and so on.

I was appalled. 1 year-olds could read? And here I was already 6? Clearly I was retarded. I snuck over to the 4 5 6 table and picked a book, any book. I probably went more by size of type than anything else. And it was Miss Hickory.

I couldn't believe how powerful that world was. Okay, so the heroine was a nut. She was still more real than I had ever understood a book could be. I probably read every book on the 4 5 6 table that summer.

Posted by: Wenda at July 10, 2022 09:52 AM (gPRZb)

157 Like others here, I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. Like Catherine said earlier, I visualize what I am reading so it is like watching a movie. I read everything and anything I could lay my hands on. Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames and then themes, like horses. Reading under the covers with a flashlight. I even read the Sgt Rock comics my father bought.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (Y+l9t)

158 To test a hypothesis, I popped into B&N yesterday. Just as I thought -- the display of GayGayGay books in the kids' section was gone. Such books were on the regular shelves, although several were positioned to show their covers.

I wonder whether any of them sell for anything other than gag gifts. And I mean gag.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 09:47 AM (Om/di)
---
I'm convinced those books are stocked as decorations, not actual merchandise that sells.

People look at them to feel good about themselves, but remember that liberals are also extremely cheap. The only purpose of municipal libraries is to buy liberals books at taxpayer expense.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (llXky)

159 > For a mere $50 you will be featured in the annual Who's Who book

I'd bet money that the school administration got a kickback for selling our personal information to those jackals.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (bW8dp)

160 I read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" just a few years ago. Really, really great.

The Left hates him because he was a Christian and a Christ-figure.
Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse

*The left hates him because they never actually read the book.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (OX9vb)

161 I did, and sent in my $50. I'm in the book way back when.

Gained me exactly dick.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:47 AM (Zz0t1)

LOL

I remember when those letters seemed to hit my city in mass- quite a few kids got them. I think that was my sophomore year of high school. I became highly suspect when a guy I knew got the letter in the mail. The wording was far more seductive- it basically stated that he was going to get some kind of scholarship for being this Top Man of high school and his parents were really jazzed. But my friend had about a 1.5 GPA and zero extra curricular activities. SAD TROMBONE.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (jQkkr)

162 Here's the full title of the book I got for my son.

"Bulfinch's Mythology: the Illustrated Age of Fable : The Illustrated Age of Fable - the Classic Retelling of Greek and Roman Myths Accompanied by the World's Greatest Paintings."

It's a large hardcover coffee table suitable book, illustrated with paintings by the classical great painters. The Greek myths were a great source of inspiration for those guys.

I read a book on Norse mythology once where the writer bemoans the lack of paintings about the Norse myths. He claimed they were every bit as worthy of attention as the "jumble" of Greek mythology.

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (sn5EN)

163 MPPPP, 81, in spite of not being a major fan, I also have the annotated Sherlock Holmes. Maybe if someone did annotated Dickens, I would not find him so atrociously dull. I love the Tenniel drawings but, heresy though this may be, my favorite "Alice" drawing and creature is the Cheshire Cat from the first Disney animated film. I use him as my avatar all over the web.

Posted by: Tonestaple at July 10, 2022 09:54 AM (3qAOE)

164 Another periodical more than book is History of the 2nd World War series from early 70s, I have more than half or them. It's interviews and written of WWII by 1st persons.

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:54 AM (2JoB8)

165 Lemme guess...Old Man Witherspoon, trying to drive away tourists so he can make a land grab...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:52 AM (K5n5d)
---
Great, now you ruined it for everyone!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:54 AM (llXky)

166 Orange - you betcha! The 'society' sells extra "Finalist" stickers, and you get an invitation to the "Awards Convention" in New Orleans!

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:54 AM (APPN8)

167 And I dunno how I could forget, but I read a Whitman Young Readers' edition of Sherlock Holmes when I was about 10. Still have it. The material is almost word for word the original text, except Whitman cut the bits about cocaine use from "The Five Orange Pips." It led me to the first 2 novels and a number of the early short stories.

Oh, and the Fu Manchu novels by Sax Rohmer. He's almost forgotten today, castigated as a racist for his portrait of Chinese and non-white people. But he delivered on story and atmosphere. The Fu Manchu stories have a creepy flavor of sudden death by night, of plots working behind the scenes, that Fleming echoed in Doctor No.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:55 AM (c6xtn)

168 > He also notes that when he joined the army, promotion came slowly, as underlings had to wait for superiors to retire or die.

Hence the old British military toast: "Here's to bloody wars and sickly seasons."

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:55 AM (bW8dp)

169 MP4, I'll do it later today and use your info from amazon with your real name.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 09:55 AM (7bRMQ)

170 The book that started me reading adult material was The Agony and the Ecstasy, but the book that made me the man I am was The Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: Motionview, a National Divorcee at July 10, 2022 09:56 AM (Lg6Bd)

171 Downloaded the Uncle Tom's Cabin from the link.

Quick browse, I see the 'n' word straight away.

How can this be allowed to exist? I mean, DATS RAYCISSS!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at July 10, 2022 09:56 AM (Zz0t1)

172 I was read to copiously as a sprout. I remember the Little House on the Prairie books, and the awe when I realized I did not have to wait for Dad to read the next chapter when I could do it myself! And it was all downhill from there. My love of science fiction and fantasy was, strangely, started at my Grandmother's house. She would have condemned it as satanic if she had known. Some kid (she did babysitting) had left a copy of The Martian Chronicles stuffed under the sofa and I found and devoured it. It took me a while to realize what it was because the cover was missing

My biggest problem was I read FAST so authors could not keep up. So I took the next step in my addiction, writing....

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at July 10, 2022 09:56 AM (BbSpR)

173 Reading the comments, I remembered another source of early reading: the Little Golden Books. We had scads of them. I don't recall seeing Mom and Dad bringing them home; they were just there.

And our grade-school reading books. Jack, Janet, Tip, and Mitten. Dick and Jane were for city folks.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 09:57 AM (Om/di)

174 "Bulfinch's Mythology: the Illustrated Age of Fable : The Illustrated Age of Fable - the Classic Retelling of Greek and Roman Myths Accompanied by the World's Greatest Paintings."
Posted by: fd

Bulfinch's is the BEST retelling of those great myths.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 09:57 AM (ppx0p)

175 122. I loved reading the Greek mythology themes stories. I think that they inspired my enjoyment of Euripides, Aristophanes, and Sophocles. The works are timeless.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 09:57 AM (ONvIw)

176 I actually bought a copy on eBay a few years ago. The story has some plot holes you could ride Trigger through -- but the narrative drive is amazing. And the thunderbolt revelation of the Ghost's identity is held until the penultimate chapter.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022
---
Lemme guess...Old Man Witherspoon, trying to drive away tourists so he can make a land grab...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022

***
Nope. There is smuggling involved -- but the story is not Hardy Boys-like at all. People actually get shot and die.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:57 AM (c6xtn)

177
I also bought a series called The Story Hour that was lovely.
Posted by: CN

We had the first seven of those (there were twelve altogether and my Mom's parents gave the last five to her brother's family -- go figure). They were the go-to books for reading on days you were kept home from school because you were sick.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 09:57 AM (ZvxPV)

178 Oddly enough I've never read an Ian Fleming book, nor have I ever watched a James Bond movie.

This thread is raising many book memories. Now about a book about a boy who gets stranded on an island where he meets and tames a black stallion.
I can't remember the name of the book.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:58 AM (eGTCV)

179 Well, I'm back, but having stepped away, I see it's a lovely day outside, so I think I will shut down and sit on the porch for a couple of hours.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 10, 2022 09:58 AM (2JVJo)

180 Monster Hunter International is fun. The first one was originally written for friends on a gun board, after a thread titled "Lines I'd like to hear in a horror movie."

The massive gun nuttery does taper after the first book, somewhat. Although the creative, zany fun continues unabated!

Posted by: Not From Around Here at July 10, 2022 09:59 AM (wrzAm)

181 Several folks have mentioned the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, Jr. I read those, too, and liked them well enough, but for me, I really enjoyed The Three Investigators series of young mystery adventures. Good characters, interesting plots, and generally just good stuff all around...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:59 AM (K5n5d)

182 thanks wolfus,

someone else, pointed out that zhivago book was vigorously anticommunist, but the film by david lean, inveterate lefty, is pro bolshevik, if a cheka general played by guinness is sympathetic,

smersh evolved into spectre, and apparently it's the mysterious 29155 unit in present day,

Posted by: no 6 at July 10, 2022 10:00 AM (i0Lci)

183 My dad used to read to me when I was a toddler. I think I started out reading the newspaper comics and jokes in my mom's Readers Digest. O don't remember my first real book, but it might have been Fire Hunter, by Jim Kjelgaard. I recently reread it, and it still holds up.

Posted by: Toad-O at July 10, 2022 10:00 AM (cct0t)

184 Can't remember not being a reader (supermarket encyclopedias, assorted kid's books -- Sambo was there, something called The Poky Little Puppy, etc -- Kipling's Mowgli stories, some Verne, some Dickens, the Classics Illustrated comics, the backs of cereal boxes...). But the first writer who hit me with "Oh my God, give me more of this! was Robert Heinlein. Found the Signet paperback of The Puppet Masters and read all the Heinlein I could lay my grubby little mitts on. The mass market paperback houses were reprinting a whole bunch of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Bester, Bradbury, Matheson, and others, and I read almost nothing but sf for pleasure for a decade. Found time for Fleming and a lot of Hitchcock anthologies too.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 10:00 AM (JzDjf)

185 So the Greek myths were probably my first exposure to literature.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 09:32 AM (XIJ/X)

What a great experience! I have been meaning to read the Greek myths since I was a teen, but have never found a volume that interested me in the first several pages.

Any recommendations?

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at July 10, 2022 10:01 AM (OX9vb)

186 Monster Hunter International is fun. The first one was originally written for friends on a gun board, after a thread titled "Lines I'd like to hear in a horror movie."

The massive gun nuttery does taper after the first book, somewhat. Although the creative, zany fun continues unabated!
Posted by: Not From Around Here at July 10, 2022 09:59 AM (wrzAm)
---
I'm on Chapter 2 of the second book. Our hero is currently in Mexican police custody after saving a group of Spring Break tourists from a zombie outbreak. The Mexican authorities think he caused the outbreak and is responsible for the deaths of at least seventy people (including the months-old zombie corpses).

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:01 AM (K5n5d)

187 Greetings:

Fenimore Cooper is my earliest memory reading-wise. My father and I went on a two week adventure one summer in the Ticonderoga area of New York visiting the French and Indian War forts and sites. Still a great area to visit.

Also "Classics Illustrated" comics were the only ones allowed in my Mother's house unless you had mastered cover switching technology.

Posted by: 11B40 at July 10, 2022 10:01 AM (uuklp)

188 > I remember the Little House on the Prairie books

Now "canceled", due to Indians being depicted as Indians, rather than the saint-like role models demanded by Today's Young Intellectual White Communist.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 10:01 AM (bW8dp)

189 It's like HS Cheer competitions - EVERYONE gets selected to go to 'Nationals.'
Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:39 AM (APPN

We need the entry fees.

Posted by: Cheer Nationals at July 10, 2022 10:01 AM (4I/2K)

190 Another formative author for me was Edgar Rice Burroughs and Tarzan. (I never got into the Martian stories for some reason.) The best of the books, the first and the sixth (Jungle Tales of Tarzan) and another late in the run in which Jane stars, were very well done. His writing style is dated and he does far too much telling by today's standards. But there is action galore, and he has a grand ability to build fascinating worlds and then explore them. Tarzan the Terrible features a prehistoric world Tarzan finds in Africa with 2 races of humanoids, both tailed (!), and Burroughs provides a working language that Tarzan, and the reader, learn as we go along.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:02 AM (c6xtn)

191 We had the first seven of those (there were twelve altogether and my Mom's parents gave the last five to her brother's family -- go figure). They were the go-to books for reading on days you were kept home from school because you were sick.
Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 09:57 AM (ZvxPV

They are still wonderful. Not a woke moment.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 10:02 AM (ONvIw)

192
My brain is too tired right now to start anything new. I'm functional on three or four hours of sleep but not energetic physically or mentally.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022 10:03 AM (/U27+)

193
Mommy Drinks Because You're Bad.
Posted by: Religious Guilt Publishing

So she goes running for the shelter of her "mother's little helper" ...

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 10:03 AM (ZvxPV)

194 I'm being far too chatty but another early memory is my Grade 1 teacher read Danny Meadow Mouse.

Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 10:03 AM (eGTCV)

195 The book I loved as a child was AC Doyle's Sherlock Holmes

Holmes laser like focus on his vocation, ignoring things not related to his personal endeavors was something I really related to

When Holmes meets Watson for the first time, he explains that the mind is like an attic and it's not to be cluttered with unnecessary objects.

this I took to heart

Posted by: REDACTED at July 10, 2022 10:04 AM (us2H3)

196 Robert Heinlein. Found the Signet paperback of The Puppet Masters and read all the Heinlein I could lay my grubby little mitts on. The mass market paperback houses were reprinting a whole bunch of Heinlein

Posted by: Just Some Guy

Did you check the 'timeline' to be sure you had read about each? When I found the 'timeline' I knew there were books/stories I had missed and went 'on the hunt' to fill in the timeline for myself.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 10:04 AM (ppx0p)

197 My favorite children's book:
"Everyone Poops"

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 10:04 AM (jTmQV)

198 Unpopular opinion inbound: Uncle Tom's Cabin isn't that great.

Or to clarify (since I have in fact read it), its style can be somewhat off-putting. Stowe's writing is very typical of Victorian literature; a lot of moralizing, a lot of breaking away from the narrative to go on lengthy monologues about how awful slavery is. Which, fine, but after the first 50 of those, I think the reader gets it.

Now I think it's a very important book for historical reasons, obviously, and it's much better than some abolitionist literature, in that it doesn't try to demonize the South. Stowe does a good job of showing how slavery is a moral evil in and of itself, not just because bad people are practicing it. But it wouldn't win a literary contest based on technical skill alone.

Posted by: Dr. T at July 10, 2022 10:05 AM (Vgw1E)

199 The only kids book I liked was The Mad Scientist Club. Could never get through a Tom Swift book.

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 10:05 AM (uymY4)

200 True story: my youngest kidlet wanted a Game Boy Color in the worst way. I said fine, Santa would probably bring one if she proved she could read the instructions. Silly Santa thought it would take her a while (just under 4yo), but she really did it and Santa had to make major adjustments to the budget.

Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 10:05 AM (MIKMs)

201 First time I remember losing time to a novel-length book was "The Root Cellar," a story about a girl who travels back in time (through a root cellar...) to the Civil War. I don't remember all of what pulled me in, but as a little girl I was riveted.

My other favorites at a young age were the "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books. Some of the stories were chilling, others were silly. I loved the hearse song and to shiver at the ink drawings.

Posted by: She Hobbit at July 10, 2022 10:05 AM (ftFVW)

202
Tom Swift, Jr. and His Antifa Annihilator

Tom Swift, Jr. and His Limitless Beer Machine

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (/U27+)

203 The only purpose of municipal libraries is to buy liberals books at taxpayer expense.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:53 AM (llXky)

Andrew Carnegie might argue that point.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (XIJ/X)

204 > Any recommendations?

I'll join the others in recommending Bulfinch.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (bW8dp)

205
Any recommendations?
Posted by: April

You should be able to find copies of Bulfinch's (mentioned above) in used bookstores.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (ppx0p)

206 The Indian in the Cupboard. Great book.

And, of course, Choose Your Own Adventure series of books.

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (jQkkr)

207 And it was The Man With the Golden Gun that features the brainwashing of Bond. The Soviets send him in to kill M.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 09:51 AM (c6xtn)

I've read that Fleming planned for "You Only Live Twice" to be the last book (as he had also planned to end the character after "From Russia With Love"). As Amis has pointed out, The Man With the Golden Gun feels a tired grab-bag of story elements from the earlier novels. Oddly it was the one I read at 15, and which hooked me.

Posted by: Ordinary American at July 10, 2022 10:07 AM (H8QX8)

208 Haven't read Burroughs in decades, but recall those books as being a lot of fun. I never got heavily into the Martian books or the Venus series, but enjoyed the Tarzans, the Caspak books, the Pellucidars, and some of the stand alones like The Lost Continent aka Beyond Thirty. Ace Books and Ballantine were reprinting them when I was in my grab-all-the-sf-you-see phase, and the Ace titles had these extra-lovely Frank Frazetta covers. Them was the days...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 10:08 AM (JzDjf)

209 Burroughs provides a working language that Tarzan, and the reader, learn as we go along.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:02 AM (c6xtn)

I liked the Ape-English Dictionary at the back of the book(s).

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 10:08 AM (7bRMQ)

210 Mommy Drinks Because You're Bad.

Posted by: Religious Guilt Publishing at July 10, 2022 09:52 AM (EKTVg)
---
I saw a meme the other day that looked like a screen grab of Franzia blocking a twitter account.

Someone posted it in reply to a rant against wine moms.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 10:08 AM (llXky)

211 I remember going to the local department store (E.J. Korvette) with my parents and they would send me to the book department so I could pick out a kid's book. I gravitated toward the ones about big battles...Midway, Battle of The Bulge, Gettysburg....

They were cheap, hard-bound books with full-color illustrations, and I loved them!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 10:08 AM (XIJ/X)

212 In the late fifties Mom enrolled me in a child's book of the month club. Many of the books were Dr. Suess, but the second book was called Cowboy Andy and that book got me reading for myself before kindergarten.

Posted by: Cosda at July 10, 2022 10:09 AM (FV8Iy)

213 I bought the D'Aulaire Greek mythology book for my kids, and now the grandsons have it. They also loved Aesop

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 10:09 AM (ONvIw)

214 > I never got into the Martian stories for some reason.

I did read a lot of those as a teen, probably because Ballantine was doing a reissue series with a lot of semi-nekkid red Martian chicks on the covers, and I was at That Age.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 10:09 AM (bW8dp)

215
Even technical manuals have their charm for some folks.

In the series "Monk", Adrian's agoraphobic brother, Ambrose, wrote technical manuals. That John Turturro played the character made him memorable.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (ZvxPV)

216 > Any recommendations?

I'll join the others in recommending Bulfinch.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (bW8dp)
---
Turns out it's available for free on Project Gutenberg:

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4928

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (K5n5d)

217 Perfessor Squirrel, thank you again for the plug on my books!

Time to go walk the doggeh. Hopefully when I get back the thread is still rolling!

Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (jQkkr)

218 197 My favorite children's book:
"Everyone Poops"
Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 10:04 AM (jTmQV)
--

I hear Michael Stipe singing that.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (Dc2NZ)

219 > but the second book was called Cowboy Andy

Another witness!

I just remembered another scene for the book. Both Andy and the cook are skeptical that this city slicker kid can handle "cowboy food", which turns out to be pancakes.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (bW8dp)

220 sax rohmer was a frequent visitor to limehouse, so he understood the chinese mindset, well, he employed other rebels of the empire, like burmese dacoits, the counterparts to the thuggees the zakats from the egyptian,

Posted by: no 6 at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (i0Lci)

221 I think I was born with a book in my hand, it must have been painful for my Mom.

Posted by: Debby Doberman Schultz at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (a4EWo)

222 Andrew Carnegie might argue that point.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 10, 2022 10:06 AM (XIJ/X)
---
That's not how it started, but it is how it's going. I still live in my home town, and the library I used to stop in after school has dumped all of its reference books, most of its non-fiction and is basically Karen's reading club financed by a 1 mil property tax levy.

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

223 Longtime lurker, rare commenter with a problem.

There was a fire at our house a couple of weeks ago, and a big chunk of the house burned. House is insured (although adjuster considers it a loss), but a lot of books were exposed to smoke. Autographed Terry Pratchett and Larry Correia novels and other stuff near and dear to Moron hearts.

Does anyone have any advice on how to salvage this mess? I hate to just toss them, especially since some are plain irreplaceable (see Pratchett, Terry, RIP).

I left my email address in the sig line (I think) so as not to clutter the Perfessor's superb book thread. Any advice appreciated.

Posted by: Ex-Copy Editor at July 10, 2022 10:11 AM (wrE3W)

224 AZ -- re the Heinlein timeline.

Yep. Sure did check that, and looked for anything I was missing. Fortunately for my sanity, one of the SF Book Club offerings was the big collection of his Future History stories, The Past Through Tomorrow, which filled in a lot of gaps.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (JzDjf)

225 As Amis has pointed out, The Man With the Golden Gun feels a tired grab-bag of story elements from the earlier novels. Oddly it was the one I read at 15, and which hooked me.
Posted by: Ordinary American at July 10, 2022

***
It does, and Fleming did not have time or energy to proofread it. Bond's secretary Mary Goodnight was described in OHMSS as having blue-black hair, yet in Golden Gun she is unexplainedly a blonde.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (c6xtn)

226 so it was a legion of doom. prefigured,

Posted by: no 6 at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (i0Lci)

227 I think I was born with a book in my hand, it must have been painful for my Mom.
Posted by: Debby Doberman Schultz at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (a4EWo)
---
I just hope for her sake it wasn't the Oxford English Dictionary...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (K5n5d)

228 I love you all, my pretty bibliophiliacs, but it's too gorgeous a day to be indoors.

Have a great day!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (Dc2NZ)

229 Anyone ever get one of those letters in high school? For a mere $50 you will be featured in the annual Who's Who book and entered into a chance for a scholarship....
Posted by: Secret Squirrel, author of the military SCI FI series Outward Frontier on AMAZON

I did, and sent in my $50. I'm in the book way back when.

Gained me exactly dick.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden

Do you still have the letter? Can I get a copy?

Posted by: Elliot Page at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (ftFVW)

230 Rodrigo - if you want a fun book go with the 100 Year Old Man who Climbed Out the Window... I actually laughed out loud many times. Plus you meet many real-world leaders (Stalin, Truman, Mao, de Gaulle, Franco, and Albert Einstein's moron brother).

The most fun book I've read since Confederacy of Dunces.

Posted by: 496 at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (U1eOr)

231 Even as a kid I was a voracious reader, but the earliest stuff I remember getting into were: a picture-heavy dinosaur reference book, some bonus history-of-the-world books that came with a Worldbook Encylopedia set, the dog-adventures of Jim Kjelgaard (try saying that name out loud) The Redwall series, and the Dragonriders of Pern books.

I didn't do anything in the way of serious reading this weak, but I did just pick up "The Flower Man" by Mark Lundy for my niece. It's a picture book (nothing but double-page spreads) of a guy who moves into a dreary neighborhood, makes it cheery, and then moves on. The two gimmicks are that the picture goes from grayscale to color as it gets cheerier, and to look at all the eccentric people populating the neighborhood.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (Lhaco)

232 Semi-Nekkid Red Martian Chicks toured with The Sex Pistols for a while. Not a joke.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at July 10, 2022 10:12 AM (EKTVg)

233 What started me on a lifelong love of reading? That took some thought and parting the mists of the distant past.

It probably goes back to first grade. Eisenhower was in the White House and I was past the 'see Spot run' stuff. I got a copy of "Treasure Island" with the Wyeth illustrations. I knew the book was about pirates and my hometown had a pirate connection. I probably spent more time with a big dictionary than I did with the book but I got through it. Besides enjoying reading for my own sake, all that time with a dictionary created a fascination with words. It probably started a love of maps and charts that continues. A triple play.

After that experience, the Hardy Boys books continued that love of reading, then Heinlein juveniles, Sherlock Holmes, etc. But "Treasure Island" was the catalyst.

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

234 hiya

Posted by: JT at July 10, 2022 10:13 AM (T4tVD)

235 212 In the late fifties Mom enrolled me in a child's book of the month club. Many of the books were Dr. Suess, but the second book was called Cowboy Andy and that book got me reading for myself before kindergarten.
Posted by: Cosda at July 10, 2022 10:09 AM (FV8Iy)

I fondly remember the Weekly Reader Book Club.

Posted by: Ordinary American at July 10, 2022 10:13 AM (H8QX8)

236 198 Dr. T

Completely agree. UTC would be hilariously awful & forgotten, but for its historical importance.

Posted by: mnw at July 10, 2022 10:13 AM (NLIak)

237 I liked the Ape-English Dictionary at the back of the book(s).
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022

***
To this day I remember the language of the Great Apes: Numa the lion and Sabor the lioness, Bolgani the gorilla, etc.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:14 AM (c6xtn)

238 Oh my goodness, I forgot Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames and Sue Barton. Sue Barton was available at the library as I distinctly remember the books all having that crinkly plastic cover over the dust jackets. We got Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames at Haslam's Book Store - a constant round of trade-ins - because our mother already seemed to feel oppressed by the number of books in the house, like it was just too damned many and none to her liking. Although much later after Daddy died, I recall her buying Danielle Steele after Danielle Steel.

Posted by: Tonestaple at July 10, 2022 10:14 AM (3qAOE)

239 Oops, forgot the "mailto" part!

Posted by: Ex-Copy Editor at July 10, 2022 10:14 AM (wrE3W)

240 Harriet Beecher Stowe's preachiness is easier to tolerate if you focus on the book being written in serial. Reading the chapters separately, a week apart probably dulled the lectures a tad.

Posted by: Catherine at July 10, 2022 10:14 AM (ZSsrh)

241 I am going to finish the Divine Comedy, by golly. The rest of the 100 Days of Dante crew finished back on Easter. Currently I am on Paradise Canto 24. Without the commentary, particularly the Notes in the Esolen translation and in the Hollander translation I would be hopelessly bogged down and a miserable failure. Now I'm just occasionally bogged down and an occasional failure.

But speaking of annotations (The Annotated Alice, etc) I am reminded of Mortimer Adler's essay https://stevenson.ucsc.edu/ academics/stevenson-college-core-courses/ how-to-mark-a-book-1.pdf that I recently came across. There is a certain amount of assuaging guilt here because I am marking the hell out of Paradiso -- partly to stay awake while slogging through abstruse theology.

Posted by: sinmi at July 10, 2022 10:15 AM (A5IVt)

242 Jules Verne's Mysterious Island was an early favorite when i was in grade school. Our local library put some of his novels in the "adult" section, so I had to get special permission to check out those books.
Just finished reading The Wonderful Country by Tom Lea. I might read it again -I liked it that much.

Posted by: Glenn John at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (HKku6)

243 Harriet Beecher Stowe's preachiness is easier to tolerate if you focus on the book being written in serial. Reading the chapters separately, a week apart probably dulled the lectures a tad.
Posted by: Catherine at July 10, 2022 10:14 AM (ZSsrh)
----
That's an excellent point about books written in serial format. Could be the cause of why it may seem overly redundant in parts, as you have to remind the reader of key information...Good topic for a future book thread!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (K5n5d)

244 Another youthful reading interest: DINOSAURS!

Still have the Big Golden Book of 'em, with the classic full-page illustrations of very well-fed dinosaurs just sort of standing around.

I have another book from the early 80s that has a different aesthetic and was (I guess) in the first wave of the revisionists who saw them as lean, having bright coloration, at looked at stuff you didn't find in kids' books like mating displays and such.

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

245 Couldn't name a particular author that "introduced" me to reading. I honestly don't remember a time when I didn't read. We used to have books all over the place in the house, and I remember just grabbing books at random and reading. Some of my favorites growing up were the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Dr Seuss, Richard Scarry, Encylopedia Brown...

Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (CAJOC)

246 The first series that I wanted to read was The Chronicles of Prydain. Only three of the books were in the school library but wow! Nowhere could I get hold of the missing books. I asked for them for Christmas, but the store had only hardbacks, so Mom got me The Lord of the Rings on the recommendation of the clerk. I had just turned 11.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (/+bwe)

247 . . . one of the SF Book Club offerings was the big collection of his Future History stories, The Past Through Tomorrow, which filled in a lot of gaps.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022

***
That was the one that introduced me to Heinlein and real written SF. Of course I'd read and enjoyed the James Blish adaptations of the Trek episodes before that.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (c6xtn)

248
Eventually my 8th grade English teacher demanded I stop writing every essay about A Clockwork Orange
Posted by: San Franpsycho

You wouldn't get on the "man's inhumanity to man" or "power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely" bandwagons, huh?

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars at July 10, 2022 10:17 AM (ZvxPV)

249 MP4 - requires log in huh. *cracks knuckles*
gimme a sec

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 10:17 AM (kf6Ak)

250 Narnia Chronicles for me which then led me to Susan Cooper The Dark is Rising series, Rosemary Sutcliffe Eagle of the Ninth and all her other "historical" fiction books. Many more that I can't remember but which if I could would fill a book of their own. Too bad.

Just finished re-reading the Wheel of Time myself. Very enjoyable. Working on some Sherlock Holmes as it's been a while.

Non fiction: From Strength to Strength by Brooks. About goals as you grow older and can't do the work that you once did either mentally or physically. What comes next?

David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking as I'm working on making some clothes. I never sewed anything in my life other than the occasional button but stumbled into some antique sewing machines (treadle powered not electric) and am now trying to learn to sew, just for fun and something to do.

Posted by: Heresolong at July 10, 2022 10:17 AM (/tYLr)

251 The first series that I wanted to read was The Chronicles of Prydain. Only three of the books were in the school library but wow! Nowhere could I get hold of the missing books. I asked for them for Christmas, but the store had only hardbacks, so Mom got me The Lord of the Rings on the recommendation of the clerk. I had just turned 11.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (/+bwe)
---
Did you ever finish The Chronicles of Prydain? Books 4 and 5 are just fantastic. I reread the series earlier this year and was blown away all over again.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:18 AM (K5n5d)

252 You can get Bulfinch's Mythology on Gutenberg.

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 10:18 AM (sn5EN)

253 244 Another youthful reading interest: DINOSAURS!

Still have the Big Golden Book of 'em, with the classic full-page illustrations of very well-fed dinosaurs just sort of standing around.
...

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

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

I loved dinosaurs as a kid. Unfortunately, I grew up in the era of "smiling dinosaur" merch. I absolutely hated it. It wasn't until Jurassic Park came out that I could get more realistic bedding prints, and by then, I was a bit old for it (still bought the comforter, though, and still have it to this day)

Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM (CAJOC)

254 Jules Verne's novels were illustrated by N C Wyeth.

Posted by: Glenn John at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM (HKku6)

255 Why am I getting an automated message that my post looks like spam?

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM (QZxDR)

256 Oh July is Camp Nanowrimo

Maybe should write something.

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM (ZGvh3)

257 As for standalone children's novels, the earliest title I remember is "The Johnnycake Mine."

Unfortunately, that's all I remember of it. I recall that ir involved mining.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 10:20 AM (Om/di)

258 I don't think I've ever read much of Bulfinch's retelling of the Greek myths, but I have Edith Hamilton's with some illustrations. In 8th grade I had a "recreational reading" class in which we read no-doubt-bowdlerized versions of The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (c6xtn)

259 This past week was our family staycation (with day trips).
KTY wanted to see used bookstores. I think we visited 4 in all, including our first visit to Baldwin's Book Barn

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (kf6Ak)

260 I fondly remember the Weekly Reader Book Club.
=====

I was a deprived child and my parents would not sign me up no matter how I begged. We had a dedicated alcove with filled bookshelves and lived across the street from the library. They neglected us. /s

Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (MIKMs)

261 The book and author that got me started on a lifetime of reading was The Secret Sea by Robb White. The story concerns a young naval officer wounded at the Battle Off Samar (I didn't realize which battle at the time but now it's obvious) and invalided out of the service. Meanwhile, his kid brother is injured and needs expensive care but there's no money. Back when he was still in the Navy, he had been a part of field testing a new sonar set in the Caribbean and came across a suspicious wreck on the bottom and rescued a Spanish sailor, who soon died, clutching an old ship's log describing the last voyage of a Spanish treasure galleon. So he teams up with spunky street kid and goes treasure hunting. But he has competition, an evil guy in a black ship who had sunk the ship of the Spaniard who he had rescued but who had soon died.

I got this book in the Scholastic Reading program through the school. The schools wouldn't touch this book today; it has unfavorable things to say about people of color yellow and features violence and torture not to mention it drips with toxic masculinity. White wrote a metric shit ton of books usually involving sea. Ironically, . . . 1/2

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (FVME7)

262 Yet another source of early reading: hymnbooks and Sunday school songbooks.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (Om/di)

263 255 Why am I getting an automated message that my post looks like spam?
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM (QZxDR)

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

Usually, too many line breaks. It's an anti-troll measure enacted when some idiot decided reposting the entire thread over and over would be so much fun.

Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 10, 2022 10:22 AM (CAJOC)

264 Ok, posted MP4 book recommendation on Kim's site, just in case anyone else wanted to.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 10:22 AM (7bRMQ)

265 It wasn't until Jurassic Park came out that I could get more realistic bedding prints, and by then, I was a bit old for it (still bought the comforter, though, and still have it to this day)
Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 10, 2022

***
The night after I went to see JP, my cat Arizona climbed up onto the pillow, as he usually did, and woke me with a horrible start. His purr sounded just like the sounds the velociraptors made as they were hunting.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:23 AM (c6xtn)

266 I can't remember the name of the book.
Posted by: N.L. Urker, at July 10, 2022 09:58 AM (eGTCV)

Um...The Black Stallion, perhaps?

Thanks for mythology recs; I think I'll try the D'Aulaires for starters. If it was written for kids, it will be about my speed these days. Heh.

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at July 10, 2022 10:23 AM (OX9vb)

267 This witch hunt of Trump proves the wisdom of Ford pardoning Nixon.

Posted by: Anna Puma at July 10, 2022 10:23 AM (ZGvh3)

268 Yet another source of early reading: hymnbooks and Sunday school songbooks.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (Om/di)

There's a whole course in theology in a lot of those old hymns.

Posted by: grammie winger at July 10, 2022 10:23 AM (45fpk)

269 My Grandmother would buy us Highlights For Children subscriptions every year. I know I read them but don't remember much more than Goofus and Galant.

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 10:24 AM (sn5EN)

270 59 I had the time and life series about animals, including marine animals, that as a far as I remember, before being interested in planets and rocket ships,
Posted by: no 6

Ah, yes, and ZooBooks! I seem to recall having a lot of ZooBooks magazines back in the day...

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

271 One early book I remember was Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island. It was an abridged version for kids, and done in the style of a graphic novel. I recall rereading that one several times.

Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 10, 2022 10:24 AM (CAJOC)

272 He, searched of Goofus and Galant and this is the first thing that came up:

https://bit.ly/3aqfZ90

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 10:26 AM (sn5EN)

273 Wolfus, did you get a new cat?

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 10:26 AM (uymY4)

274 Back from a constitutional with the lovely and currently hydrating Mrs naturalfake.

We had a Cold Front come through last night!

It's only going too be 102* today.

Yay!

*passes out*
*skin sizzles like bacon in a hot frying pan*

Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 10:26 AM (5NkmN)

275 The book and author that got me started on a lifetime of reading was The Secret Sea by Robb White.

***
There was one of his about a PT boat crew (not JFK) that I read in high school. Wasn't he also a screenwriter? Wrote The Tingler for William Castle?

Oh, and David Westheimer's Von Ryan's Express I read about the same time. WWII action stories and spy stories I liked quite a bit, and still do.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:26 AM (c6xtn)

276 2/2 Ironically, the only of his books still in print, as far as I know, is about the desser, Deathwatch. Deathwatch has twice been made into movies, neither particularly good. All of his books are about young men who with grit and determination overcome the odds to defeat evil.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 10:26 AM (FVME7)

277 Just got out of Costco, exceedingly displeased.

A bag of frozen chicken breasts that used to cost 24 bucks is now 40 dollars.

Stolen elections have consequences.

Posted by: Thomas Bender at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (X+uX5)

278 *passes out*
*skin sizzles like bacon in a hot frying pan*
Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 10:26 AM (5NkmN)
----
*sniff* MMMM....BACON!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (K5n5d)

279 Perfessor,

Thanks for another great thread. Thinking about how my love of reading started has led to many happy memories.

BTW, I like the interior of the rare book library but the exterior is that damn soulless concrete drab crap I despise. Rare books deserve a cathedral, not an uninspired bunker.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (7EjX1)

280 243 Harriet Beecher Stowe's preachiness is easier to tolerate if you focus on the book being written in serial. Reading the chapters separately, a week apart probably dulled the lectures a tad.
Posted by: Catherine at July 10, 2022 10:14 AM (ZSsrh)
----
That's an excellent point about books written in serial format. Could be the cause of why it may seem overly redundant in parts, as you have to remind the reader of key information...Good topic for a future book thread!
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (K5n5d)

Probably explains a lot of Victorian and Edwardian writing, actually. There's definitely a difference between serials and reading it all at once.

Posted by: Dr. T at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (Vgw1E)

281 A few words here in honor of the temples of my youth in Chicago Lawn -- Penner's Drugs at 63rd & Kedzie, Rexall's Drugs at 62d & Kedzie, Dad's Pipe Shop at 59th & Kedzie, Walgreen's (not the current one) at 63d & Kedzie, and Cameo Bar & Grill at 59th & Western. They all had good paperback racks, and those racks had everything from Heinlein and Burroughs and Hitchcock to Shaw (both Irwin & G.B.), Orwell, Nabokov, Anthony Powell, Pasternak, Salinger, Huxley, Conrad, Dostoyevsky, & Henry James. The variety you could find on drug store mass-market racks in the early & mid-60s damn near makes me cry when I see a rack in a grocery store or WalMart these days.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (JzDjf)

282 "267 This witch hunt of Trump proves the wisdom of Ford pardoning Nixon."
******
But we don't necessarily want to see Trump pardoning Biden in 2025.

Posted by: Cosda at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (FV8Iy)

283 "Everyone Poops"
Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 10:04 AM (jTmQV)
--

I hear Michael Stipe singing that.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, Analog Hipster at July 10, 2022 10:10 AM (Dc2NZ)

Sometimes.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 10, 2022 10:27 AM (NWBBy)

284 Wolfus, did you get a new cat?
Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022

***
I did indeed. Saw a black kitten on Petfinder and drove 4 hours to meet him and pick him up. He's about 4 months old, a bundle of energy, and I hope he will grow into a good-sized medium-haired cat. His name is Stirling!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:28 AM (c6xtn)

285 Probably explains a lot of Victorian and Edwardian writing, actually. There's definitely a difference between serials and reading it all at once.
Posted by: Dr. T at July 10, 2022

***
"Previously, on Bleak House . . ."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:29 AM (c6xtn)

286 Good on you, Wolfus. My cats have me trained to a tee.

Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 10:29 AM (uymY4)

287 251 The first series that I wanted to read was The Chronicles of Prydain. Only three of the books were in the school library but wow! Nowhere could I get hold of the missing books. I asked for them for Christmas, but the store had only hardbacks, so Mom got me The Lord of the Rings on the recommendation of the clerk. I had just turned 11.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at July 10, 2022 10:16 AM (/+bwe)
---
Did you ever finish The Chronicles of Prydain? Books 4 and 5 are just fantastic. I reread the series earlier this year and was blown away all over again.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:18 AM (K5n5d)

I'll bet Prydain gets skipped over for Lord of the Rings a lot. Not a bad trade for the reader, but its a raw deal for Prydain. ....I read those books as an adult, and book 4 was probably my favorite. It 'subverted' a bunch of fantasy tropes, but not in a way that ticked off the reader...

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 10, 2022 10:30 AM (Lhaco)

288 My link is 100% safe. Seriously. I am not joking. My word as fd. I will stake my reputation on it.

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 10:30 AM (sn5EN)

289 BTW, I like the interior of the rare book library but the exterior is that damn soulless concrete drab crap I despise. Rare books deserve a cathedral, not an uninspired bunker.
Posted by: JTB at July 10

The exterior reminded me of the asylum in the 1999 remake of House on Haunted Hill. Not a good look for a library.

Posted by: She Hobbit at July 10, 2022 10:31 AM (ftFVW)

290 The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright. I got the book through scholastic reader in the fourth grade - good heavens I loved ordering books through those little paper leaflets!

Anyway, although I enjoyed reading, this book was special: four kids in the 1940's who decided to pool their weekly allowances and give each child one Saturday a month to do something special. The ensuing chapters described their adventures, the people they met, and how that changed their perspectives. It was a lovely, sweet book and I am quite certain I read it weekly for a couple of years.

If you have preteens, it might be worth looking for this book as a respite from a lot of the stuff published of late.

Posted by: Moki at July 10, 2022 10:31 AM (JrN/x)

291 "80 I do want to go to something after Russian Revolution and before Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:30 AM (2JoB

"

not history, exactly, but set in that time period:
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - ultra maga ftw ! at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (a82Er)

292 Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM

Because you look shifty like your selling something

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (2JoB8)

293 I was a deprived child and my parents would not sign me up no matter how I begged. We had a dedicated alcove with filled bookshelves and lived across the street from the library. They neglected us. /s
Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 10:21 AM (MIKMs)

Eggs Zackly!

All those companies that came into schools, tempting kids with shiny new things. Old stuff is useless, you see. There's nothing to be gained by adhering to the old things. Everything new is better.

And you DON'T want your children to be left out, when everyone else is doing it... do you??

Posted by: BurtTC at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (NWBBy)

294 Used to have some of the Classics Illustrated comics. Gone now They were mostly of Jules Verne novels.

I also had some of the illustrated science books (Golden?). Loved the one on the planets. Also, I probably had the dinosaur book.

Posted by: Glenn John at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (HKku6)

295 288 My link is 100% safe. Seriously. I am not joking. My word as fd. I will stake my reputation on it.
Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 10:30 AM (sn5EN)

Confirmed.

That's a classic!

Posted by: April--dash my lace wigs! at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (OX9vb)

296 A.H. Lloyd

My suburban library in the midwest is nothing like the one you describe above. I haven't bought a book in 60 years, & I can get anything I want through the interlibrary loan system-- no matter how obscure.

When I was an undergrad, back when Grover Cleveland was President, my classmates & I once helped a professor move all his books to his new house, & we shelved them for him too. Literally THOUSANDS of books. He didn't have room for furniture! I wouldn't care to live like that-- hence the good old public library for me.

Posted by: mnw at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (NLIak)

297 Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM

Because you look shifty like your selling something
Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (2JoB

I here tell he has a trunk full of books. Says he got them cheap. From a little old lady who needed to pay for an operation.

Sure she did.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 10, 2022 10:33 AM (NWBBy)

298 My understanding is that Fleming died while "The Man With the Golden Gun" was still in draft condition, and somebody else completed it.

I enjoyed the first few chapters, which had to do with the backstage operations at HQ.

My first Bond book was "You Only Live Twice," the penultimate book in the series.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 10:34 AM (Om/di)

299 Literally THOUSANDS of books. He didn't have room for furniture! I wouldn't care to live like that-- hence the good old public library for me.

Posted by: mnw at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (NLIak)

You are describing my dream home!

Posted by: Moki at July 10, 2022 10:34 AM (JrN/x)

300 Dick and Jane influenced my love of reading.

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - the ungrateful colonial at July 10, 2022 10:34 AM (gao0c)

301 There was one of his about a PT boat crew (not JFK) that I read in high school. Wasn't he also a screenwriter? Wrote The Tingler for William Castle?

-
I did not know that but yes. He colaborated Castle, wrote a bunch of Perry Masons, and a bunch of other Hollywood stuff. Up Periscope was another of his books made into a movie.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 10:35 AM (FVME7)

302 And in high school, too, I read some of the Hornblower novels by C. S. Forester. Lieutenant Hornblower, written later but second chronologically, contains a fascinating portrait of a Captain Bligh-type who is not just a martinet, but mad as well -- frighteningly paranoid. And as British ship captains did, he holds the lives of his men, including the young Hornblower, in his hands.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:35 AM (c6xtn)

303 I'll bet Prydain gets skipped over for Lord of the Rings a lot. Not a bad trade for the reader, but its a raw deal for Prydain. ....I read those books as an adult, and book 4 was probably my favorite. It 'subverted' a bunch of fantasy tropes, but not in a way that ticked off the reader...
Posted by: Castle Guy at July 10, 2022 10:30 AM (Lhaco)
---
If true, that's a shame because Prydain is a *great* way to move up to Lord of the Rings. And yes, Taran Wanderer is one of the best fantasy books ever written because of how it deals with "The Chosen One" trope...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:35 AM (K5n5d)

304 Dogs have owners, cats have staff

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 10:35 AM (2JoB8)

305 297 Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 10:19 AM

Because you look shifty like your selling something
Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (2JoB

I here tell he has a trunk full of books. Says he got them cheap. From a little old lady who needed to pay for an operation.

Sure she did.
Posted by: BurtTC at July 10, 2022 10:33 AM (NWBBy)
-----------------------

I'm sure she did, once he showed up to get the books. He can be very... persuasive...

Posted by: No One of Consequence at July 10, 2022 10:37 AM (CAJOC)

306 I finsihed Horned Armadillos and Rafting Monkeys by Darin A Croft, which is a text listing fossil mammals in South America, from the beginning of the Paleogene through to the megafaunal extinction at the Younger Dryas.
I found it originally because I wanted information on various sloths, including an aquatic species.

Anyhow, it discusses paleoclimates, species, and gives an estimate of what niche each critter lived in, and gives illustrations to describe the critter and interesting parts of the fossils.
I am now replete with information on litopterns, xenartha, extinct clades of rodents and pretatory marsupials.
Oh, and apparently there was a period in the early Eocene when monkeys and a few other African species arrived in South America, and is considered to have been from giant masses of trees being washed into the ocean in Africa and rafting across to South America in what is called the Trans Atlantic Dispersal Interval

Posted by: Kindltot at July 10, 2022 10:37 AM (xhaym)

307 279 With the great canceling taking place, maybe books need bunkers.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 10:37 AM (ONvIw)

308 reading everyone's recollections of their early reads has reminded me of so many other books that I enjoyed ! thank you everyone !

also, thanks for doing the thread, "perfesser" ! I enjoy reading it every week but usually after it is over ... usually busy with either hiking or the honeydew list at this time so I don't comment.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - ultra maga ftw ! at July 10, 2022 10:38 AM (a82Er)

309 So relax, find yourself a warm kitty

And if anyone needs a warm kitty, my sister is trying to home some pretty black kittehs.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at July 10, 2022 10:39 AM (OeBYn)

310 Dogs have owners, cats have staff
Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022

***
Stirling thinks of me not just as a manservant, but as his mother. He keeps trying to suckle milk from my neck. I took a leaf from real mom cats this morning and scruffed him, moving him from my throat to my side. After about 4-5 repetitions, he calmed down. Maybe it'll work.

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

311 That might be a fun stand-alone thread: Who was the first author who piqued your interest?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 03, 2022 11:11 AM (XIJ/X)

P.D.Eastman (go dog go) and Dr Seuss.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at July 10, 2022 10:39 AM (VwHCD)

312 I really read and reread A.B. Guthrie's The Big Sky and The Way West. It led to me being in my twenties and spending an inordinate amount of time on horseback in Rocky Mountain wilderness areas.

Posted by: Cosda at July 10, 2022 10:39 AM (FV8Iy)

313 I don't know if this is typical but I always disliked stories for children that preached. It was always something like So and So did some minor dereliction and made up for it then did something more in further expiation. How subtle. Especially when that theme is used repeatedly. I remember complaining about that to my second grade teacher, who was shocked by this literary criticism. Lessons like that were supposed to come from my family or in church. I wanted to read for enjoyment, excitement and information.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 10:39 AM (7EjX1)

314 Terrible trigger discipline

Posted by: weirdflunky at July 10, 2022 10:40 AM (cknjq)

315 P.D.Eastman (go dog go) and Dr Seuss.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at July 10, 2022 10:39 AM (VwHCD)

Did you read The Indian in the Cupboard?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 10:40 AM (7bRMQ)

316 I have a 1900 anniversary edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin, complete with color plates.
Still haven't gotten around to reading it though...

Posted by: Dr. Varno at July 10, 2022 10:41 AM (vuisn)

317 There was one of his about a PT boat crew (not JFK) that I read in high school. Wasn't he also a screenwriter? Wrote The Tingler for William Castle?

-
I did not know that but yes. He colaborated Castle, wrote a bunch of Perry Masons, and a bunch of other Hollywood stuff. Up Periscope was another of his books made into a movie.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022

***
The PT Boat story, I think, was Torpedo Run from 1962.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:42 AM (c6xtn)

318 Did you read The Indian in the Cupboard?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 10:40 AM (7bRMQ)

Oops! I mean The Harley-Davidson in the Cupboard!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 10:42 AM (7bRMQ)

319 Santa would probably bring one if she proved she could read the instructions. Silly Santa thought it would take her a while (just under 4yo), but she really did it...

There's an important lesson here for parents who think that they can't homeschool their kids: BRIBERY WORKS!

Posted by: Oddbob at July 10, 2022 10:42 AM (nfrXX)

320 My grandmother had been an elementary school teacher and still had her books, and the one that I got and started to read at her house was a reader that had the myths in it, I suspect it was based on the Bullfinch book.
I liked the Norse and Finnish stories best, the Greek ones were not relatable, and the Roman ones didn't get my attention. the Ring stories were OK, but only because they reflected on the Norse stories
Thor's stories were the best though, competing with the Giants, and spending a night in a giant's glove, pretending to be Freya to get back his hammer, fishing for the Midgard serpent with whales. Thor I suppose spent most of his time dicking with the Jotun, and I suppose that is why I didn't like the comic books.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 10, 2022 10:47 AM (xhaym)

321 Grapes of Wrath sucks.
Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:24 AM (uymY4)

---
Have you tried reading The Cherries of Lust?
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (K5n5d)

"The Mangoes of Sloth" is his best book.

Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 10:48 AM (5NkmN)

322 290 The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright
I loved this one too, and its sequels "The Four Story Mistake" and "Then There Were Five."
After reading Little Women in sixth grade I became obsessed with Louisa May Alcott. Read everything else by her that I could find, then when I was older got into Thoreau and the history of transcendentalism because of their connection to her.

Posted by: Linnet at July 10, 2022 10:49 AM (CUD0M)

323 Another benefit of constantly needing a dictionary to read a book above my 'years'. I loved going down through all the definitions and, especially, the etymologies. By third grade I got my own paperback copy of Roget's Thesaurus. My future as a confirmed word nerd was assured. Then I discovered LOTR in junior high which cast my nerdiness in granite. Thank goodness.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 10:49 AM (7EjX1)

324 Well, time to go to Mass.

Parting thought on early readers: I think my first paperback was John Toland's The Flying Tigers. I got it through the school book order program in 4th grade. I still have it. Wonderful cover featuring the P-40 with teeth. Even came with pictures.

Can't imagine that happening now.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 10:49 AM (llXky)

325 The Black Stallion books were my first reading obsession. I was in 6th grade and they were recommended to me by the school librarian. I read one after another and haven't stopped reading since.

Posted by: Tuna at July 10, 2022 10:50 AM (gLRfa)

326 I remember my mother reading The Little Red Hen to me. Boy, that's an idea that didn't take!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 10:50 AM (FVME7)

327 Grapes of Wrath sucks.
Posted by: Head puddi at July 10, 2022 09:24 AM (uymY4)

---
Have you tried reading The Cherries of Lust?
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 09:27 AM (K5n5d)

Grapefruits of eternal peril.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at July 10, 2022 10:50 AM (VwHCD)

328 Even technical manuals have their charm for some folks.
-------
In the series "Monk", Adrian's agoraphobic brother, Ambrose, wrote technical manuals. That John Turturro played the character made him memorable.

Some of my best friends have been tech writers. And Ambrose Monk taught me the difference between sarcasm and sardonicism. Or at least that there was a difference.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 10, 2022 10:50 AM (nfrXX)

329 My first Bond book was "You Only Live Twice," the penultimate book in the series.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 10:34 AM (Om/di)

The richest novel in the series, I think. Fleming was at his best writing about local flora and fauna and he has a field day in Japan. Also, great characterizations and dialogue.

Posted by: Ordinary American at July 10, 2022 10:51 AM (H8QX8)

330 Some of my best friends have been tech writers. And Ambrose Monk taught me the difference between sarcasm and sardonicism. Or at least that there was a difference.
Posted by: Oddbob at July 10, 2022 10:50 AM (nfrXX)
---
I'm a tech writer...(seriously)

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:51 AM (K5n5d)

331 David Westheimer's Von Ryan's Express

-
Ryan makes it in the book but the movie guns him down.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 10:54 AM (FVME7)

332 Posted by: Ex-Copy Editor at July 10, 2022 10:11 AM (wrE3W)

So terribly sorry to hear this. My family used to have a construction business working for an insurance company that came in after fires. Very tough on the families.

I know you posted your email and asked for suggestions there, but I wanted to make sure you saw that we had not missed your request.

I'd suggest you a get a few of those foldable wooden clothes hanging racks and get the books fanned out, running a fan over them for a day at least. Then seal each book into a big zip-lock baggie with a charcoal filter for a week or so. You may have to repeat.

Please let us know if you've had any other emailed suggestions, and thanks for de-lurking.

Posted by: motionview, divisive arch-conservative at July 10, 2022 10:56 AM (Yuudf)

333 Grapefruits of eternal peril.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at July 10, 2022 10:50 AM (VwHCD)

Capers of Covetousness

Posted by: Kindltot at July 10, 2022 10:56 AM (xhaym)

334 JTB - your reference to the paperback Roget's reminded me of something else you could find on mass market paperback racks in the early and mid-sixties. One of the books I carted around in my bag in high school was a paperback printing of the Columbia Desk Encyclopedia. Mass market paperback. Think it cost two or three dollars at a time when most mass market pbs were 50 cents. So thick I was surprised it held together after all the use I got from it, and print size I'd never be able to handle today. But there it was -- a compact one-volume encyclopedia on a drug-store paperback rack. Them was the days...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 10:56 AM (JzDjf)

335 I'm glad to see I'm not alone in not caring overmuch for Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck's East of Eden is a much superior book. And his Wayward Bus, Cannery Row, and Sweet Thursday are marvelous works as well. If you'd told me in high school that I would someday not only read but love Steinbeck, I'd have said you were nuts, but it's true.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:57 AM (c6xtn)

336 I can't remember not reading. I do remember some of the classics - Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Suess. I remember going to the branch library all the time, with my mom until I was old enough to ride my bike there myself (back when that probably meant 4th grade). In 5th or earlier I wanted to take a book out of the adult section and the librarian wouldn't let me. My dad wrote a note (or maybe even showed up at the library) to tell them I could take out any book I wanted and that was the end of the Children's section for me. Shortly after that I read an Andre Norton book and was hooked on SciFi for years.

Posted by: who knew at July 10, 2022 10:57 AM (4I7VG)

337 Heresolong, 250, you cannot go wrong with David Coffin. His method of putting together cuffs and collars so that you get truly square corners is brilliant and simple and deliciously precise. I can't recall if he mentions it but when you the outer cuff/collar is attached to the shirt and you are about to attach the inside one, make sure you measure carefully to turn under the edges, baste with a single thread, and press, press. And this is key: buy a yard of white silk organza and use that as your press cloth. You can see through the silk so you can tell what you are doing, and it will absolutely prevent iron shine.

PS: I love sewing.

Posted by: Tonestaple at July 10, 2022 10:58 AM (3qAOE)

338 David Westheimer's Von Ryan's Express
-
Ryan makes it in the book but the movie guns him down.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022

***
Looking back, I think Charlton Heston would have made a better Ryan than did Sinatra, as good an actor as he was.

Plain WWII combat tales don't interest me much, but spy adventures and stories told out of the usual box, like Von Ryan's escape from an Italian POW camp, are much more my style.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 10:59 AM (c6xtn)

339 328 Even technical manuals have their charm for some folks.

There is a very funny scene about this in the Norwegian movie In Order of Disappearance, which is awesome (and later remade, not as well, in the US with Liam Neesom).

Posted by: motionview, divisive arch-conservative at July 10, 2022 10:59 AM (Yuudf)

340 Shortly after that I read an Andre Norton book and was hooked on SciFi for years.
Posted by: who knew at July 10, 2022 10:57 AM (4I7VG)

the first Scifi book I read was Moon of Three Rings, which was pretty much the first "full sized" book I ever read too.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 10, 2022 11:00 AM (xhaym)

341 After reading all the books kids my age were supposed to read, I chose Thomas Hardy as my favorite HS writer. I always had some novel close at hand, whether I was babysitting, at the lake, or just at home. I read a lot as a teen. I was blessed with minimal interest in TV and only transient interest in popular music. I had albums, most were gifts, but I spent my money elsewhere. I loved going to the library and was happy that we had books at home. A lot of die hard public library types had little.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:01 AM (ONvIw)

342 Hey -- don't knock technical manuals.

Posted by: Montgomery Scott at July 10, 2022 11:02 AM (JzDjf)

343 David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking as I'm working on making some clothes. I never sewed anything in my life other than the occasional button but stumbled into some antique sewing machines (treadle powered not electric) and am now trying to learn to sew, just for fun and something to do.
Posted by: Heresolong at July 10, 2022 10:17 AM (/tYLr)

In the play You Can't Take It With You, the mother of the family writes Gothic Novels because a typewriter was once misdelivered to the house.

This is almost exactly the reason why I sew.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 10, 2022 11:03 AM (xhaym)

344 Early to mid-'60s paperback racks: You could find the Ballantine Books re-issues of the Tarzan series, the latest printing of the Fleming Bonds, and the Man From U.N.C.L.E. paperback originals. Right next to more literary fiction like William Goldman's Boys and Girls Together, some non-fiction thing called You Are All Sanpaku (?), and yes, reference books like The Home and Family Medical Encyclopedia and dictionaries.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:04 AM (c6xtn)

345 335 I loved East of Eden. Sadly I had a patient once who considered Cathy Ames a role model.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:04 AM (ONvIw)

346 I do want to go to something after Russian Revolution and before Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 09:30 AM (2JoB "

not history, exactly, but set in that time period:
The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov
Posted by: sock_rat_eez - ultra maga ftw ! at July 10, 2022 10:32 AM (a82Er)

"Petersburg" (or St Petersburg depending on the translation) by Andre Bely,

is a great banquet of a novel set right before the Russian Revolution, concerning a young man who gets involved with commie terrorists and is assigned to kill his Father.

Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 11:06 AM (5NkmN)

347 Scholastic Paper Back books that you were able to order in school was what got me reading. It was my most exciting time in elementary school. The ordering , the anticipation of their arrival and then it was like Christmas .

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:07 AM (aToww)

348 I loved East of Eden. Sadly I had a patient once who considered Cathy Ames a role model.
Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022

***
Mrs. Wolfus No. 2 was something like her. I doubt she ever murdered anybody, let alone her parents, but the lack of conscience -- well, whenever I reread the sections with Cathy, I get the shivers.

Jane Seymour in the 1981 TV mini-series really embodied the character for me, despite Cathy being described as blonde. Audrey Totter's older Kate in the James Dean film was effective too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:07 AM (c6xtn)

349 I learned to read sitting on my Mom’s lap as she read me The Adventures of Rupert the Bear. The top half of the page was what was read to you. The bottom had pictures and underneath each picture were a couple of lines describing the action in ‘kids words’. So, 1st you looked at the pictures, learned the small words, and eventually read along with Mom. I started school at 4 (Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire) and could read before that.

Posted by: Akua Makana at July 10, 2022 11:08 AM (CJVha)

350 Wolfus -- yep, I remember all those on the racks that I haunted (except for the Sanpaku thing -- missed that one). Some of the titles I saw but didn't grab then (wish I had, 'cause I'd clean up on 'em in the collectors' markets) were Donald Westlake's first Parker novels from Pocket Books under his Richard Stark pseudonym. 35 cents. Them were the days...

Posted by: Montgomery Scott at July 10, 2022 11:08 AM (JzDjf)

351 Our elites don’t know and don’t care who Nicolas Ceaucescu is.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 11:08 AM (CdZ4i)

352 Her thesis concluded that hydrogen was the overwhelming constituent of stars (see Metallicity), making it the most abundant element in the Universe.[14]
Posted by: rhennigantx at July 10, 2022 09:13 AM (ex2Cx)

It's the buoyancy of the hydrogen that enables the Sun to float very high above the Earth, and not fall into it and burn us all up.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 10, 2022 11:09 AM (8bkII)

353 I'm a tech writer...(seriously)

And I expect that we would get along well. I know the "some of my best friends" line is usually used sarcastically (or is it sardonically?) but I'm completely sincere. One such friend, now sadly passed, was a true polymath having earned degrees in English, chemistry, and computer science. I think maybe one reason that I like hanging out with the tech writers (besides our jobs being mutually dependent) is that tech writing must be clear and clear writing only comes from clear thinking. Even when we disagree on something, we can almost always discuss it on even terms. That is a vanishingly rare thing these days.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 10, 2022 11:10 AM (nfrXX)

354 Our elites don’t know and don’t care who Nicolas Ceaucescu is.
Posted by: Cow Demon

They're building paradise!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:10 AM (FVME7)

355 Wolfus -- yep, I remember all those on the racks that I haunted (except for the Sanpaku thing -- missed that one). Some of the titles I saw but didn't grab then (wish I had, 'cause I'd clean up on 'em in the collectors' markets) were Donald Westlake's first Parker novels from Pocket Books under his Richard Stark pseudonym. 35 cents. Them were the days...
Posted by: Montgomery Scott at July 10, 2022

***
The G.G. Fickling novels about private eye Honey West were reissued when the Anne Francis TV series was on. I read a couple, but was not that impressed with the writing or plotting. But the cover shots of Anne as Honey really grabbed you from the drugstore rack.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:11 AM (c6xtn)

356 334 >>> One of the books I carted around in my bag in high school was a paperback printing of the Columbia Desk Encyclopedia. Mass market paperback. Think it cost two or three dollars at a time when most mass market pbs were 50 cents. So thick I was surprised it held together after all the use I got from it, and print size I'd never be able to handle today. But there it was -- a compact one-volume encyclopedia on a drug-store paperback rack. Them was the days..."

Hi JSG,
Yeah, I remember those (and agree about the print size problem nowadays). I didn't get one only because we had the World Book Encyclopedia at home and my school bag was already pretty full. I like the idea that an enjoyable paperback book could be paid for by redeeming a couple of days' worth of soda bottles found on the street. My lawn mowing and snow shoveling money went for more expensive books. You know, the ones that cost a whole dollar or maybe dollar and a half. But I've always been extravagant with books.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 11:11 AM (7EjX1)

357 348. I have never understood why dreadful, evil characters are so inspiring for some. But they are.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:11 AM (ONvIw)

358
Ryan makes it in the book but the movie guns him down.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 10:54 AM (FVME7)

_________

Sinatra insisted so there wouldn't be a sequel.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022 11:11 AM (/U27+)

359 I read this when I was 8...don't know if I've enjoyed anything as much since.

tinyurl.com/3nh2amt4

Posted by: BignJames at July 10, 2022 11:12 AM (AwYPR)

360 So, 1st you looked at the pictures, learned the small words, and eventually read along with Mom. I started school at 4 (Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire) and could read before that.
Posted by: Akua Makana at July 10, 2022

***
My mother did the same with comic books. I started school at 7 (long story), and a week into 1st grade my teacher asked me to stay behind one day. I thought I was in trouble. But she said, "You know how to read, don't you?" I thought everybody was supposed to before starting school.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:13 AM (c6xtn)

361 359 Great little series!

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:14 AM (ONvIw)

362 Haven’t been reading much: a soul destroying endless job search where you are either ignored or ghosted by practically everyone will put a damper on things. Anyways, I’d recommend “Checkmate In Berlin by Giles Milton if you want a fast look at Berlin, 1945-1949. It features conflicts of personality as much as it does of different sides; not even the Allies agreed on much until the Soviets’ behavior concentrated minds. It’s not long, readable, and I grabbed my copy at B&N a few months back.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 11:14 AM (CdZ4i)

363
Just my worthless opinion

Sinatra the Actor >>>> Sinatra the Singer

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022 11:14 AM (/U27+)

364 My mother slipped me a slim volume, "archy and mehitabel," by Don Marquis, thereby revealing an unexpectedly roguish sense of humor. A true wit, that man.

Posted by: Beverly at July 10, 2022 11:15 AM (5gv4f)

365 363 I enjoy them both.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:15 AM (ONvIw)

366 It's the buoyancy of the hydrogen that enables the Sun to float very high above the Earth, and not fall into it and burn us all up.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 10, 2022 11:09 AM (8bkII)

Now, wait a minute.

Everyone knows that it's Counter-Earth, 180* opposite on the other side of the Sun that keeps the Sun from falling into the Earth due to balancing gravitational fields.

Sheeesh!

Posted by: naturalfake at July 10, 2022 11:16 AM (5NkmN)

367 Sinatra insisted so there wouldn't be a sequel.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022 11:11 AM (/U27+)

Coming in November, Von Ryan's Express II. The thrilling story of an unknown son of Von Ryan and an Italian Resistance lover, who, during the Cold War, kidnaps Soviet Dissidents and returns them to Stalin for execution.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 11:16 AM (7bRMQ)

368 JTB

Paid for many paperbacks by scrounging up bottles, shoveling walks, etc. Most of the ones I tended to buy ran anywhere from 35 to 50 cents. When Heinlein's Glory Road came out in paperback, I stewed for days about buying it because the publisher (Avon, I think) slapped a 75 cent cover price on it.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 11:16 AM (JzDjf)

369 Ordered Pedergast book #20, Bloodless, from Ebay. $3.99 with free shipping. It will be here next week. A hardback book which is fine. Once I'm done reading it, off it will go to the local community library.

Posted by: Beartooth at July 10, 2022 11:16 AM (u9Awk)

370 My mom was an enormous reader. An insatiable appetite for books that had my dragged into many a bookstore when I was young. I wasn't much of a big reader until I hit my late teens. I read mostly Lawrence Sanders' Deadly Sins books, and read some bodice rippers Mom was partial to, like Victoria Holt. But ultimately, I got addicted to true crime in my 20s, and then a huge foray into historical accounts...non-fiction books.

Posted by: Lady in Black at July 10, 2022 11:17 AM (sVtYq)

371 In my day a lot of books were being made into movies. Steinbeck's books was one of them. East of Eden caught my eye for the fact that it seemed to be quite a large volume compared to the length of the movie. Ha, that was when I learned about the slicing and dicing of a book to fit the movie format.

Posted by: sidney at July 10, 2022 11:17 AM (itAo5)

372 Our elites don’t know and don’t care who Nicolas Ceaucescu is.
=====

Interesting how the wives are worse (in depiction) than the dictators themselves. Imelda and shoes; Winnie and tire necklaces; Evita and fashion; and

Lady MacBeth.

Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 11:17 AM (MIKMs)

373 Loved the Richard Scary books. Funny. I also remember all the old adolescent books sitting on my grandma's book shelf - lots of 40-50's stuff about space travel.

"WARNING ORDER: If you volunteered to be a test reader, be prepared to receive a manuscript in the next few weeks. Corrections on this monster are going to be epic, so the more the merrier.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 10, 2022 09:36 AM (llXky)"

A.H. I just finished Zeihan's "the End of the World is Just the Beginning" and he is not very optimistic about what is in store for SE Asia, especially China. I'm late to the party, but please keep us up to date on your book. I'd like to see what you have to say about it.

Posted by: Black JEM at July 10, 2022 11:18 AM (xWZcb)

374 Plain WWII combat tales don't interest me much, but spy adventures and stories told out of the usual box, like Von Ryan's escape from an Italian POW camp, are much more my style.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius

Another such novel I loved was Kings Go Forth by Joe David Brown also made into a Sinatra movie (not to mention the luscious Natalie Wood). Brown was a disabled veteran so knew whereof he wrote although the book is fiction.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:18 AM (FVME7)

375
Sinatra the Actor >>>> Sinatra the Singer
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022

***
He was great at both. But his best performances in Man With the Golden Arm among others really stand out.

He was the first to play the character Joe Leland, the hero of The Detective by Roderick Thorp. Thorp's second novel about Leland, some 12 years later, featured terrorists occupying a high-rise building, and Leland's attempts to stop them. Yes -- Nothing Lasts Forever became Die Hard. Sinatra's contract required that he be offered the role of Joe Leland in any sequels, but of course he was too old in 1988 to play the character (renamed John McLane).

It's always amused me to think how good Sinatra would have been if Die Hard could have been filmed in 1960.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:18 AM (c6xtn)

376
Coming in November, Von Ryan's Express II.

___________

Westheimer actually did write a sequel Von Ryan's Return..

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 10, 2022 11:18 AM (/U27+)

377 A part of early reading came from my grandfather. Gramps always had current copies of the World Almanac, Old Farmer's Almanac, and a big world atlas available for his grandkids to use when they visited, which was often. He didn't mind answering endless questions from inquisitive kids but knew that finding the information on our own would be more valuable. Of course, this was long before the internet or computers smaller than buildings. Those volumes got a serious workout.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 11:19 AM (7EjX1)

378 Sinatra's Tony Rome movies were pretty good.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:20 AM (aToww)

379 You know, I thought everyone was supposed to know how to read before starting school too. But, my otherwise unimaginative barely reading themselves parents taught my two older sisters to read so when I came along I had four people teaching/showing me reading. So I took to it immediately. So much for our vaunted teachers. Public school’s reaction was interesting too. In TX they put me in an advanced reading program in 2nd Grade. Then we moved to Germany and the American schools there decided that I wasn’t nearly far along in reading to justify such a thing.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 11:20 AM (CdZ4i)

380 Interesting how the wives are worse (in depiction) than the dictators themselves. Imelda and shoes; Winnie and tire necklaces; Evita and fashion; and

Lady MacBeth.
Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 11:17 AM (MIKMs)
==
The Murdock sons' wives.

Posted by: Black JEM at July 10, 2022 11:20 AM (xWZcb)

381 Ha, that was when I learned about the slicing and dicing of a book to fit the movie format.
Posted by: sidney

heh, heh, on the way home from seeing the 1st Harry Potter movie the kids mentioned 'They skipped a lot'.
I asked them how long the book covered they answered 'an entire school year". I then asked them how long the movie would have to be cover the book.
They figured it out and understood from then on that books were better.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 11:20 AM (ppx0p)

382 I think our "elites " know exactly who Ceaucescu was. It is not for nothing that the younger people aren't taught his story in school, just as the media's coverage of Sri Lanka is muted and often includes nothing about the fertilizer ban.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:20 AM (ONvIw)

383 I enjoy them both.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:15 AM (ONvIw)

I liked Tony Rome and Lady in Cement. He sings ok too. I always kid MisHum and ask for a Sinatra song in his ONTs.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 11:21 AM (7bRMQ)

384 East of Eden caught my eye for the fact that it seemed to be quite a large volume compared to the length of the movie. Ha, that was when I learned about the slicing and dicing of a book to fit the movie format.
Posted by: sidney at July 10, 2022

***
The film with James Dean really only focuses on the last third of the novel, with young Dean finding out that the town madam, "Kate," is his mother Cathy (who'd shot her husband in the arm and abandoned their kids years before).

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:22 AM (c6xtn)

385 372>Christmas day 1989, they put nasty ole Nicolas and his wife up against a wall and shot them to death. Will never forget it. Now there was a "just" punishment.

Posted by: sidney at July 10, 2022 11:22 AM (itAo5)

386 At least Ceaucescu told Stalin and the USSR to FO. I like when commies fight each other.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:23 AM (aToww)

387 As a beginning reader I was very fond of the Dr. Doolittle books by Hugh Lofting. Great stuff. I understand the pink-haired censors are burning them now because they have black people and Indians in them.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:24 AM (QZxDR)

388 378 ... " Sinatra's Tony Rome movies were pretty good."

The movies were good but Jill St. John and Raquel Welch spectacular.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 11:24 AM (7EjX1)

389 383. There used to be a radio guy in Philly who did Sinatra music on the weekend Friday with Frank, Sunday with Sinatra. I tuned in regularly.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:24 AM (ONvIw)

390 And dogs licked their blood? Like Ahab and Jezebel?

Posted by: Eromero at July 10, 2022 11:24 AM (DXbAa)

391 By the way, I've got a lot of potted meat product if anyone wants to buy any.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:24 AM (QZxDR)

392 The albums Sinatra did with Antonio Carlos Jobim are a delight. And The Manchurian Candidate has been a favorite of mine forever.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 11:25 AM (JzDjf)

393 Biden Transportation Secretary Defends Protestors Forcing Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh From Restaurant

-
Buttgiggity says if you oppose paradise you get what you dessrve and deserve what you get.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:25 AM (FVME7)

394 387. We must be made to unknow that Africa remained primitive for a long time.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:25 AM (ONvIw)

395 385> True. If people never read the book and only went by the movie version then they would have never learn about the other family-Hamilton- that live on the non-fertile side of the Salinas valley. Quite sad, but a good read.

Posted by: sidney at July 10, 2022 11:25 AM (itAo5)

396 The movies were good but Jill St. John and Raquel Welch spectacular.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 11:24 AM (7EjX1)

What about me? Didn't I look good in that bunny suit?

Posted by: Dan "Bonanza" Blocker at July 10, 2022 11:26 AM (7bRMQ)

397 Grapes of Wrath sucks.
Posted by: Head puddi

Have you tried reading The Cherries of Lust?
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel

Grapefruits of eternal peril.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division

Peaches of Hate was pretty good, especially for summertime fare.

Posted by: Count de Monet at July 10, 2022 11:26 AM (4I/2K)

398 There used to be a radio guy in Philly who did Sinatra music on the weekend Friday with Frank, Sunday with Sinatra. I tuned in regularly.
Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022

***
Apparently Sinatra had no peer when it came to phrasing a song, inserting pauses and emphases exactly where they were needed to bring out the flavor of a song. See "It Was a Very Good Year" as well as "My Way."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:27 AM (c6xtn)

399 The Kumquats of Ennui.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:27 AM (QZxDR)

400 Buttgiggity says if you oppose paradise you get what you dessrve and deserve what you get.
=====

These Boots are made for walkin', and that's just what they'll do, one of these days these Boots are gonna walk all over you.

Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 11:28 AM (MIKMs)

401 Interesting how I found what I wanted to read though. Looking back I suppose I was always destined to read vast amounts of history. Berlin fascinated me early on but the answers I had to my question about Berlin were ultimately to be found in history so it was in that direction I went. As for fiction, my beloved fourth grade teacher murdered whatever interest I had in fantasy by reading us The Chronicles of Narnia. (I was inclined to SF anyways, Dune eventually becoming a top five novel of mine). For years I found fiction to be chick-oriented anyway until I discovered the novels of Tom Clancy at the age of 15. Then I started reading much more fiction.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 11:28 AM (CdZ4i)

402 398. Cole Porter hated him for it.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:28 AM (ONvIw)

403 Raisins of Envy

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:28 AM (aToww)

404 Bananas of Lust.

Posted by: Eromero at July 10, 2022 11:29 AM (DXbAa)

405
~~Yippie-Ki-Yay, motherfucker!~~

Scoobee-doobee-do, chicky-baby!

Posted by: Sinatra's "Die Hard" at July 10, 2022 11:29 AM (5NkmN)

406 And The Manchurian Candidate has been a favorite of mine forever.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022

***
Now imagine the Sinatra of that age playing John McLane. Yes, in 1962 we'd have had to do without "Yippie-ki-yay, M*Fer" and other curse moments, but he would have done a fine job.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:29 AM (c6xtn)

407 My golfing buddy went on a date with Nancy Sinatra when he was in High School.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:30 AM (aToww)

408 Biden Transportation Secretary Defends Protestors Forcing Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh From Restaurant

-
Buttgiggity says if you oppose paradise you get what you dessrve and deserve what you get.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:25 AM (FVME7)
==
You know, by the time they are done, they will turn Roe v Wade into a huge electoral bump for the GOP. The GOP is dumb, but this current version of dems - call them Obama 2.0 - are really beyond the pale for just how tone-deaf they are, and how blissfully ignorant they are about what is coming.

Posted by: Black JEM at July 10, 2022 11:30 AM (xWZcb)

409 The Kumquats of Ennui.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022

***
Don't forget the Kumkwatz Hagendasz, "He Whose Soul Is Tempered to a Soft Fruit-Like Consistency."

Posted by: Doon at July 10, 2022 11:30 AM (c6xtn)

410 For phrasing, timing and pure drama, Sinatra was really great.
Then watch Sammy Davis Jr. with some of the Rat Pack shows to see the real master. Probably his vaudeville background, and tap dancing, of which he was a champ.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 11:30 AM (jTmQV)

411 CN - Cid Marks

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 11:31 AM (2JoB8)

412 It's the buoyancy of the hydrogen that enables the Sun to float very high above the Earth, and not fall into it and burn us all up.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 10, 2022 11:09 AM (8bkII)

C'mon fess up AOP. You can trace your lineage back to Sir Bedevere, can't you? 😃

Posted by: Count de Monet at July 10, 2022 11:31 AM (4I/2K)

413 Probably Sid Marks

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 11:31 AM (2JoB8)

414 My golfing buddy went on a date with Nancy Sinatra when he was in High School.
Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022

***
A lovely girl she was. No actress or singer, but lovely all the same.

Posted by: Doon at July 10, 2022 11:31 AM (c6xtn)

415 The Turnips Of Sloth

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 11:31 AM (sn5EN)

416 311 That might be a fun stand-alone thread: Who was the first author who piqued your interest?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 03, 2022 11:11 AM (XIJ/X)

D. H. Lawrence

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at July 10, 2022 11:32 AM (Qhnrt)

417 I don't remember the first books I read, but by the 5th grade I was reading Guadalcanal Diary, and by the 8th grade I was reading Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I have a lot of WWII and Korean War books in my library. Right now I'm reading Stalin's War and Downfall.

Posted by: Old Blue at July 10, 2022 11:32 AM (VNmG1)

418 377: in fourth grade I got a book order form and used it to get my first World Almanac. This was in the mid 1980s. I’ve gotten one each year since then.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 11:33 AM (CdZ4i)

419 Well, I have chores to do, a nap that won't take itself, and some more recreational reading (John Mortimer's Summer's Lease from 198

to deal with. Take care, all!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:34 AM (c6xtn)

420 410 For phrasing, timing and pure drama, Sinatra was really great.
Then watch Sammy Davis Jr. with some of the Rat Pack shows to see the real master. Probably his vaudeville background, and tap dancing, of which he was a champ.
Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 11:30 AM (jTmQV)

You could see how a white girl could fall for him. Not me. But you could see how some girls could. Like that Swedish girl.

Posted by: Dr. Varno at July 10, 2022 11:34 AM (vuisn)

421 Apparently Sinatra had no peer when it came to phrasing a song, inserting pauses and emphases exactly where they were needed to bring out the flavor of a song. See "It Was a Very Good Year" as well as "My Way."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:27 AM (c6xtn)

Sinatra was pretty open about where he got his phrasing. Billie Holiday.

Posted by: IllTemperedCur at July 10, 2022 11:34 AM (KYKwc)

422 Interesting how the wives are worse (in depiction) than the dictators themselves. Imelda and shoes; Winnie and tire necklaces; Evita and fashion; and

Lady MacBeth.
Posted by: mustbequantum at July 10, 2022 11:17 AM (MIKMs)
---
You know the old saying..."Behind every psychopathic dictator is a doubly-psychopathic wife who needs new shoes..."

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 11:35 AM (K5n5d)

423 411 Sid Mark! Yes. He had a nice speaking voice. Was a Sinatra encyclopedia. Could always tell you which album a song came from.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:35 AM (ONvIw)

424 410 For phrasing, timing and pure drama, Sinatra was really great.
Then watch Sammy Davis Jr. with some of the Rat Pack shows to see the real master. Probably his vaudeville background, and tap dancing, of which he was a champ.
Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 11:30 AM (jTmQV)

All the Rat Pack were well-establishment professionals that decided to have some fun in life.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at July 10, 2022 11:35 AM (Qhnrt)

425 398. Cole Porter hated him for it.
Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022

***
How come? Did he think Sinatra ruined his songs, or did Porter want to be a singer as well as a composer?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (c6xtn)

426 Haven't read any books this week. I did spend a while doing a deep dive into research on the US Space Force. Learned a lot of interesting stuff.

The short version is: everything you think you know about the Space Force is probably wrong.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (QZxDR)

427 "everything you think you know about the Space Force is probably wrong."

You mean they don't have a spacecraft shaped like female genitalia?

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 11:37 AM (sn5EN)

428 How come? Did he think Sinatra ruined his songs, or did Porter want to be a singer as well as a composer?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (c6xtn)

Because it got him all the girls. Porter hated that. He had such poor success with women.......

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 11:37 AM (7bRMQ)

429 Cole Porter hated him until he got his royalty check.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 11:37 AM (jTmQV)

430 You could see how a white girl could fall for him. Not me. But you could see how some girls could. Like that Swedish girl.
Posted by: Dr. Varno at July 10, 2022 11:34 AM (vuisn)

He had the devil help him for a bit. Church of Satan member.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:38 AM (aToww)

431
Did you read The Indian in the Cupboard?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 10:40 AM (7bRMQ)

Great book! I used that for a literature circle with my students, back in the day.

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - the ungrateful colonial at July 10, 2022 11:39 AM (gao0c)

432 He had the devil help him for a bit. Church of Satan member.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:38 AM (aToww)

Wait! I thought he was Jewish!!??

Posted by: Josephus at July 10, 2022 11:39 AM (7bRMQ)

433 425. He often didn't like Sinatra's emphasis on certain words and phrases. And detested when Frank added or changed a word. In one book, I read that he preferred Ella's forgetting words to Frank's occasional ad lib style.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:39 AM (ONvIw)

434 Two other movies that killed off a major character who lived on in book sequels, The Blue Max and LA confidential.

In the Blue Max, it was another character who took the death plunge and Stachel lived on to oppose and escape from the Nazis. (The book is largely about Stachel's alcoholism and his and others' attempts to deal with it. Although I like the movie, I like the book more.)

In LA Confidential, Dudley Smith survives to commit more evil until he's eventually killed a couple of books later, in White Jazz if I remember correctly.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:40 AM (FVME7)

435 The short version is: everything you think you know about the Space Force is probably wrong.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (QZxDR)
----
Wait. They are NOT going to defend the Earth from rampaging alien menaces? Or stage a Rebellion against an uber-powerful Galactic Empire?

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 11:40 AM (K5n5d)

436 What was YOUR first step into the wider world of reading?
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel

This was also one of my earliest books, just after I had learned to read. There were others, of course, but that far back they sort of jumbled together. As time went on, these stories were buried under a mound of other tales, not forgotten, but unused.

About 10 years ago, I was at the home of some friends recovering from a wonderful dinner when our hosts' children dragged me to a chair imploring me to "read them a story!" Into my hands was pushed 'Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.' I read to the kids, who were giggling and enjoying the tale, as my mind brought forth so many memories long left silent: the old house, my old dog, my Father when he was young and strong, all of the wonder and beauty of the world as it lay before me...

"Uncle Robert, why are you crying?"

Posted by: Brewingfrog at July 10, 2022 11:41 AM (e9hdJ)

437 I'm kind of jealous of y'all with the parents reading to you to help pique your interest in reading. My mom had (has) health issues and was in a pretty down state when I was learning to read. My dad loves literature, but likely had a degree of undiagnosed dyslexia (especially likely given that my sister and her son are in the same boat), so reading was difficult for him. Nowadays he listens to a lot of audio books to feed his desire for stories without the struggle. Anyway, I could read pretty well at a relatively young age, but was sort of a late bloomer in becoming a voracious reader. I've probably recovered that lost time by now, but I'm still discovering so many books I would have liked as a younger child, thanks in part to the Horde's wonderful recommendations. Great thread, Perfessor!

Posted by: She Hobbit at July 10, 2022 11:41 AM (ftFVW)

438 Great book! I used that for a literature circle with my students, back in the day.

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - the ungrateful colonial at July 10, 2022 11:39 AM (gao0c)

Heh, was joke for Berserker. He's a Harley guy.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 11:42 AM (7bRMQ)

439 I've got a feeling Space Force sits around playing Asteroids all day. They dang sure ain't going into space.

Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 11:42 AM (sn5EN)

440 425. Apparently re writing the cochise related section of I get a kick out of you, was an abomination to old king Cole.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:42 AM (ONvIw)

441 "That might be a fun stand-alone thread: Who was the first author who piqued your interest?"
--------

First books I remember reading on my own outside of school were the tramp steamer books, adventures of Tom Moran by Howard Pease.

Posted by: Javems at July 10, 2022 11:42 AM (AmoqO)

442 About 10 years ago, I was at the home of some friends recovering from a wonderful dinner when our hosts' children dragged me to a chair imploring me to "read them a story!" Into my hands was pushed 'Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel.' I read to the kids, who were giggling and enjoying the tale, as my mind brought forth so many memories long left silent: the old house, my old dog, my Father when he was young and strong, all of the wonder and beauty of the world as it lay before me...

"Uncle Robert, why are you crying?"
Posted by: Brewingfrog at July 10, 2022 11:41 AM (e9hdJ)
----
Now it's dusty in here...Thanks for sharing that!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 11:42 AM (K5n5d)

443 Back in the 80's there was a radio show on Saturday night out of Philly- called-Saturday night with Sinatra- hosted by Sid Mark. Four wonderful hrs. of Sinatra. My friends and I would drink heavily and smoke lots of fantastic India hashish. When the fourth hr. came around Sid was say "okay, it's time to turn your pillow over to the cooler side."

Posted by: sidney at July 10, 2022 11:43 AM (itAo5)

444 Wait! I thought he was Jewish!!??
Posted by: Josephus at July 10, 2022 11:39 AM (7bRMQ)

I think he converted to Judaism after the accident where he lost his eye and then eventually joined the Church of Satan. I think he left them some at some point.

Posted by: Anti doesn't matter at July 10, 2022 11:43 AM (aToww)

445 The Eggplants of Verisimilitude

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at July 10, 2022 11:43 AM (XG2Fi)

446
The short version is: everything you think you know about the Space Force is probably wrong.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (QZxDR)

So the men and women don't shower together?

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at July 10, 2022 11:43 AM (Qhnrt)

447 In Metallicity everyone is fluent in cookiemonster, throw horns is a common greeting, and they play Soilwork on elevators.

Posted by: banana Dream at July 10, 2022 11:46 AM (eubJX)

448 CN WWDB was the start of a life long talk radio fantastic

Posted by: Skip at July 10, 2022 11:47 AM (2JoB8)

449 The short version is: everything you think you know about the Space Force is probably wrong.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (QZxDR)

My son said it was kind of a nothing burger, just an extension of the Air Force. Was he wrong?

Posted by: Bonnie Blue - the ungrateful colonial at July 10, 2022 11:47 AM (gao0c)

450 Seen the DM? The Tories are busily eating their own.

Boris Johnson's fall was a coup by the pointless against the useless
_Peter Hitchens

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 11:47 AM (Mh7Nr)

451 Thanks for today's thread, Perfesser, and bests to all here.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 10, 2022 11:47 AM (JzDjf)

452 >>> I've got a feeling Space Force sits around playing Asteroids all day. They dang sure ain't going into space.
Posted by: fd at July 10, 2022 11:42 AM (sn5EN)

Like everything, it will only be used to control us and bring our masters more power.

Posted by: banana Dream at July 10, 2022 11:47 AM (eubJX)

453 Morning Hordemates.
I'm starting book 3 of the series The Terminal List.
Excellent reading.

Posted by: Diogenes at July 10, 2022 11:48 AM (anj39)

454 Speaking of Sinatra and his phrasing, I once read that composers loved the way Fred Astaire sang their songs because he followed the music as written, no elaborating.

Posted by: JTB at July 10, 2022 11:49 AM (7EjX1)

455 My son said it was kind of a nothing burger, just an extension of the Air Force. Was he wrong?
Posted by: Bonnie Blue - the ungrateful colonial at July 10, 2022 11:47 AM (gao0c)
-----------

NASA is one of the liberals cash cows. Easy to imagine them either appropriating or cutting it off at the knees.

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 11:49 AM (Mh7Nr)

456 443 Sid Mark only died in April of this year. The program continues still

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:50 AM (ONvIw)

457 The Great Brain series when I was a kid.

Posted by: Jamaica NYC at July 10, 2022 11:50 AM (b+v9B)

458 Maggie Haberman@maggieNYT
Fairly certain Trump just dropped his first ever F-bomb from a rally stage. Corrections welcome if I’m wrong.

-
OMG! First "pussy" and now this! He's a barbarian!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:52 AM (FVME7)

459
NASA is one of the liberals cash cows. Easy to imagine them either appropriating or cutting it off at the knees.

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 11:49 AM (Mh7Nr)

NASA is just another one of DC's money laundering services.

Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at July 10, 2022 11:53 AM (Qhnrt)

460 Thanks for the Red Horizons recommendation!

2 others in this genre:

Washington Station: My Life as a KGB Spy in America

and

Red Plenty

Red Plenty is not a spy story but it provides insights into the downfall of the Soviet Union. Interesting reading.

Posted by: madmike at July 10, 2022 11:53 AM (PTEZ/)

461 NY Times suggests Joe Biden is too old to run for re-election and says he now shuffles with White House staffers fearing he will trip on a wire

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 11:54 AM (Mh7Nr)

462 Little Golden Books.
When we were quite small, my baby sister and I spent many months with my paternal grandparents after our mother died.
Every evening, when he got home from work, Paw-Paw and I would sit in his crunchy wide-armed chair and he would read to me until it was time for supper.

I read many of those same books to my own children when they were young.

Learning to read was one of the most significant and best-remembered parts of my life. It was like magic, and I would read anything that came my way.

Posted by: sal at July 10, 2022 11:54 AM (y40tE)

463 >>> Maggie Haberman@maggieNYT
Fairly certain Trump just dropped his first ever F-bomb from a rally stage. Corrections welcome if I’m wrong.
-
OMG! First "pussy" and now this! He's a barbarian!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Discontent at July 10, 2022 11:52

There is a nothing point nothing percent chance that this is the first time that the trumpman has said that on stage at a rally.

Posted by: banana Dream at July 10, 2022 11:54 AM (eubJX)

464 The author, Edna Walker Chandler, seems to have specialized in cowboys and Indians books, with one intriguing exception: "Women in Prison".
Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at July 10, 2022 09:30 AM (bW8dp)

Which inspired many fine movies.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 10, 2022 11:55 AM (vgYXJ)

465 he now shuffles with White House staffers fearing he will trip on a wire
Posted by: Braenyard

Don't they actually mean puppet strings?

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 11:56 AM (ppx0p)

466 The Great Brain series when I was a kid.
Posted by: Jamaica NYC at July 10, 2022 11:50 AM (b+v9B)
---
I was hoping someone would mention this series! I also enjoyed it immensely. Highly recommended for kids!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 11:56 AM (K5n5d)

467 463. Hate old Maggot Habermam

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:58 AM (ONvIw)

468 I have a contigo thermos that refuses to let go of its vacuum in order to deliver coffee into my mouth. Started last week and it's only four years old. I think I got a knock-off because it has a slightly different configuration than most. I only got it four years ago because someone at work stole my first contigo. Sad.

Posted by: banana Dream at July 10, 2022 11:58 AM (eubJX)

469 Another recommendation for Skip, if you're still here--

Journey into the Whirlwind by Yevgenia Ginzburg (her first name is sometimes rendered Eugenia)

It's a memoir of a gulag survivor. There is a sequel but I haven't read it yet.

Posted by: screaming in digital at July 10, 2022 11:58 AM (pkAcY)

470 How come? Did he think Sinatra ruined his songs, or did Porter want to be a singer as well as a composer?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius at July 10, 2022 11:36 AM (c6xtn)

Because it got him all the girls. Porter hated that. He had such poor success with women.......
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 11:37 AM (7bRMQ)

I believe Porter was a raging queen. Why would he care how many girls Sinatra got?

Posted by: ghost of hallelujah at July 10, 2022 11:58 AM (sJHOI)

471 Late to the party but I wanted to thank Perfessor for collecting the moron recommendations in one place. I went through them last week and my reading (and husband's) are planned for the foreseeable future. Husband just finished "Hero of the Empire," and in record time considering he's a pretty deliberate reader.

A special thank you to MP4 for the recommendations of the two Baroness Orczy books. I first read "The Scarlet Pimpernel" in 7th grade and loved it, but haven't read any of her other stuff. I am almost done with "Lady Molly of Scotland Yard." Very entertaining.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at July 10, 2022 11:59 AM (fTtFy)

472 Well I'm off to whip up some lunch, then back to Hemingway. I hesitate to mention reading him as someone is always quick to shit on Papa. Lol

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 11:59 AM (ONvIw)

473 470 true. Cole was as gay as can be. Linda was a beard.

Posted by: CN at July 10, 2022 12:00 PM (ONvIw)

474 My favorite series when I first started to read was Encyclopedia Brown. I identified with him a lot. I was destined to be such a nerd.

Posted by: banana Dream at July 10, 2022 12:01 PM (eubJX)

475 Oberlin College is hit with FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in interest charges for dragging its heels in paying $36m defamation damages to family-run bakery over false racism claims _DM

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 12:01 PM (Mh7Nr)

476 Joe Mannix ( not the cop) NOOD

Posted by: Skip advising you of your Nood threads at July 10, 2022 12:01 PM (2JoB8)

477 NOOD.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at July 10, 2022 12:01 PM (ppx0p)

478 Sunday news is usually blah but today's is full of goodies.

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 12:02 PM (Mh7Nr)

479 I'm out, thanks for another great thread, Perfesser!

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 10, 2022 12:02 PM (jTmQV)

480 Did you ever finish The Chronicles of Prydain? Books 4 and 5 are just fantastic. I reread the series earlier this year and was blown away all over again.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 10, 2022 10:18 AM (K5n5d)

I did. During college, I got turned around in the library stacks and opened a door to find myself in the adorable children's section of the library. I ended up reading and re-reading a lot of books there. The two books I missed out on were The Castle of Llyr and The High King, BTW.

Re-reading them as a young adult and at middle-age, I appreciate Alexander Lloyd's work ethic and attention to plot, detail, and word choice. There was no retconning, killing off side characters just to be edgy, or preachiness. Also, the side characters are consistent, which is a feat in and of itself. I still appreciate the fate of Achren because she's not a
sadistic bitch who has a change of heart based on maternal instincts or sexual attraction (and because an author had a need for a redemption arc).

Maybe you already know, but he didn't plan to write Taran Wanderer. His editor said that there seemed to be something missing between the last two books.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at July 10, 2022 12:02 PM (/+bwe)

481 Walter Kirn in the sidebar. lol

"Tell me you overthink things without telling me you overthink things..." must have been the prompt for that tweet

Posted by: BlackOrchidOfDerp at July 10, 2022 12:02 PM (w0NJk)

482 Perfessor, I was also a big fan of the Three Investigators. Haven't thought about those books in many years, maybe I'll go see if they're still available anywhere.

Posted by: screaming in digital at July 10, 2022 12:06 PM (pkAcY)

483 As children, Mom started us out on a beautifully illustrated Children's Bible Stories book (like, the illlustrations were legit gorgeous paintings), Beatrix Potter, and "A child's garden of verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

"All these names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, shepherd's purse,
Bachelor's buttons, lady's frock,
And the lady hollyhock"

You want your kids to develop good aesthetic sense? Give them picture books that are more than crude cartoons.

Posted by: FeatherBlade at July 10, 2022 12:11 PM (ZKF/3)

484 Oberlin College is hit with FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in interest charges for dragging its heels in paying $36m defamation damages to family-run bakery over false racism claims _DM
Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 12:01 PM (Mh7Nr)
==
Small private liberal colleges aren't very good at math it seems.

Posted by: Black JEM at July 10, 2022 12:23 PM (xWZcb)

485 One of my early books, and I still have it, was the then-brand-new revised edition of the US Army Survival Guide. It still has dad's dedication in the front: "Let's learn this together. Dad."

I didn't think it had that much formative experience on me. Except for the whole childhood orienteering, and hiking, and later as an adult mountain climbing, and moving to Alaska and flying up there for ten years, and...

I learned along the way that not everyone else considers it important to know all the plants (edible, poisonous, and useful) and snakes/insects/animals and geological formations and weather patterns of the areas in which they live and travel. Or how to make shelters with local materials, and dress for the weather, not the destination, and always have survival gear on hand. It made life off-grid a lot easier in Alaska, although living without hot running water on demand did leave me with a severe addiction to hot showers.

Okay, maybe it was really formative.

Posted by: Not From Around Here at July 10, 2022 12:33 PM (wrzAm)

486 23: one of the first books I remember my parents buying for me was “Oh Say Can You Say?” by Dr. Seuss. A book of tongue twisters.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 12:35 PM (CdZ4i)

487 Good morning Bookists! Thanks Perfessor Sq!

Well, I tried - really tried - to like M. Walsh's Last Stands....but ended up skimming about half of it. It is much more psychological musings about "last stands" than historical discussion. That's fine, but I just want the damn stories.

So, on to the next: ... The Last Stand of Fox Company (Chosin Res.). ...

Posted by: goatexchange at July 10, 2022 09:10 AM (APPN

I, also, was rather underwhelmed with Walsh's book. But I suppose part of his purpose is to push-back against the "toxic masculinity" trope of the Leftist. I also suspect if you already know a lot of military history, you're not in the target audience for this book.

"Last Stand of Fox Company" is an outstanding book. An infantry company is positioned as a rear guard for the rest of the 1st Marine Division retreating from Chosin. An epic story of about 250 Marines holding back hordes of Chi-Coms in brutally cold weather. Rating = 5.0/5.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at July 10, 2022 12:36 PM (pJWtt)

488 Another such novel I loved was Kings Go Forth by Joe David Brown also made into a Sinatra movie (not to mention the luscious Natalie Wood). Brown was a disabled veteran so knew whereof he wrote although the book is fiction.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now the Summer of Our Disconten

I have that book AND the DVD !

Posted by: JT at July 10, 2022 12:51 PM (T4tVD)

489 Light is the biggest enemy of old paper, so having only clerestory windows into a rare book repository makes sense to me. The architect should have done something to decorate the exterior but I will bet the librarians who work there love it.

Posted by: Rick T at July 10, 2022 12:51 PM (Bn6JN)

490 Probably Sid Marks
Posted by: Skip

Not to be confused with Skid Marks.....

Posted by: JT at July 10, 2022 12:58 PM (T4tVD)

491 I believe Porter was a raging queen. Why would he care how many girls Sinatra got?

Posted by: ghost of hallelujah at July 10, 2022 11:58 AM (sJHOI)

I know. It was joke.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 10, 2022 12:58 PM (7bRMQ)

492 The comments are interesting reading...didn't realize how many similar readers we had here.
Earliest memories are of picture books with words, ber Rabbit, Little Black Sambo, etc. As some one said, anyone who thinks they are racist books see races behind every Bush. Earlist pure "reading" book memories were the Asimov's, Lucky Star series, Tom Corbett - Space Cadet and, of course, the Hardy Boys stories. I think I have read everything that Asimov, Heinlein and Clark wrote. I'm not a big fantasy reader but loved the Zelazny Amber Chronicles. Later in life, I discovered WEB Griffin. I loved his Marine and Army series, not so much the Police series. His later works were hit or miss, some excellent and some not.

Posted by: madmike at July 10, 2022 01:05 PM (PTEZ/)

493 475, Oberlin College is hit with FOUR MILLION DOLLARS in interest charges for dragging its heels in paying $36m defamation damages to family-run bakery over false racism claims _DM

This is so delicious. I would pay money to be a fly on the wall in various offices at Oberlin College right about now, desperately trying to figure out how on earth they would be able to pay back the surety company when the surety has to pay on their bond.

When bad things happen to awful people, it's a very good day.

Posted by: Tonestaple at July 10, 2022 01:12 PM (3qAOE)

494 Who was the first author who piqued your interest?

I don't remember the first AUTHOR who peaked my interest, but I remember BOOKS I loved as a child: My favorite was "A Golden Treasury of Children's Literature," ed. by Bryna and Louis Untermeyer. The stories in there led me to read more: Rudyard Kipling, "The Hobbit," Ray Bradbury...

Another favorite book was Bennett Cerf's Houseful of Laughter. That had some great humor stories I still find funny. (Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry, How Beautiful With Mud, by Hildegard Dolsen, How We Kept Mother's Day, by Stephen Leacock, Clarence Day, Robert Benchley, Art Buchwald...)

I was also child binge reader...

My mom was in grad school and would plop me down in the library where she took classes and I worked my way through pretty much every Andrew Lang Fairy Tale book.

My taste for suspense fiction coupled with my binge-reading got me through a bunch of the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies with alliterative titles: Haunted Houseful, Sinister Spies, Monster Museum, Ghostly Gallery...

Plus of course Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton.

Posted by: Lee Also at July 10, 2022 01:13 PM (YPgjG)

495 Obviously, I was a youthful anthology fan. But books I still remember from my childhood are:

"The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I mean, Noel" by Ellen Raskin
"The Return of the Twelves" about the Bronte's toy soldiers, by Pauline Clarke
"Mine for Keeps" by Jean Little

Posted by: Lee Also at July 10, 2022 01:22 PM (YPgjG)

496 OK, I am eating while reading the thread. Cold pizza.

(see Saturday's ONT)

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 01:35 PM (Om/di)

497 Authors sometimes describe their own journeys to becoming a lifelong reader. This often gives quite a bit of context to their stories when you see who influenced them in their writing.
-----------
Over the years, I've never devoted much serious thought about that. There has been an awareness of the lives of some prominent authors, Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, etc., but not much thought about the actual relationship between authors and the substance of their writing/content. I suspect that for most contemporary authors, it just isn't a factor. They write on basis of reader appeal, rather than personal zeitgeist. Consider Stephan King.

Lately, as I have mentioned here, I have been blitzing on P.D. James. After a couple of books, I found myself focusing on her writing , as much as the plot. By that I mean developing an awareness of the way in which characters are developed and presented. There seems to be much there that reflects on her life and experience.

I have ordered a copy of her autobiography, and am looking forward to it. Here's the review at GoodReads:
https://tinyurl.com/2xu5rh5d be sure to click the 'more...' button.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at July 10, 2022 01:44 PM (tAjbr)

498 Stephen...'Stephen King'

I need an editor...

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at July 10, 2022 01:46 PM (MrUzB)

499 Yikes! I remember walking past that building in Toronto and having no idea what it was other than it being on the University of Toronto campus.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 01:58 PM (CdZ4i)

500 When bad things happen to awful people, it's a very good day.

Posted by: Tonestaple at July 10, 2022 01:12 PM (3qAOE)

I'm gonna steal that

Posted by: yara at July 10, 2022 01:59 PM (hBsVD)

501 @424 --

All the Rat Pack were well-establishment professionals that decided to have some fun in life.

I have a Dean with Frank and Sammy on Vegas CD. Dean, modifying lyrics, tells the audience, "If you want to hear me sing it straight, go buy a record."

Told later by Sinatra to quit kidding, he retorts: "I quit kidding, and all I could get was construction work."

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 02:00 PM (Om/di)

502 Hey! We broke 500! Been too long since that last happened!

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 10, 2022 02:01 PM (Om/di)

503 I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder. Everything about that pioneer world fascinated me! It helps that I have about 12 billion pioneer ancestors, so I was already interested from a young age, but I loved those characters and that world was just beautifully crafted.

Posted by: FollyHerself at July 10, 2022 02:08 PM (aLK/J)

504 The Sunday Funnies certainly motivated me to learn to read. Both parents were fans, but would only read aloud the strips that were short. My dad loved “Prince Valiant” (anyone remember that one?) which had very detailed drawings and a lot of words. Once I learned phonics in 1st Grade, it didn’t take long before I was reading the Funnies and anything else that was printed.

Posted by: March Hare at July 10, 2022 02:38 PM (lwrAe)

505 Found out much later, reading the Funnies was a similar motivator for my mother when she was a kid.

Posted by: March Hare at July 10, 2022 02:39 PM (lwrAe)

506 504: Prince Valiant was just too much for me at the time. But I do remember that one.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 02:58 PM (CdZ4i)

507 459
NASA is one of the liberals cash cows. Easy to imagine them either appropriating or cutting it off at the knees.

Posted by: Braenyard at July 10, 2022 11:49 AM (Mh7Nr)

NASA is just another one of DC's money laundering services.
Posted by: Pork Chops & Bacons at July 10, 2022 11:53 AM (Qhnrt)

More than you know. Check out Robert Zimmermann's blog Behind The Black. (http://behindtheblack.com) I think people here will see him as a kindred spirit; a guy who could post here as well as any other Moron.

Posted by: Cow Demon at July 10, 2022 03:01 PM (CdZ4i)

508 Posted by: Ex-Copy Editor at July 10, 2022 10:11 AM (wrE3W)

I'll ask around

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 03:39 PM (kf6Ak)

509 Ex Copy Editor, check the first video out

https://blogs.k-state.edu/hale/2018/07/17/
what-happens-to-smoke-damaged-books/

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 05:18 PM (kf6Ak)

510 I think they used "chemical sponge for soot" on soot damaged books

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 10, 2022 05:24 PM (kf6Ak)

511 I might still have some of the stripped-down versions of The Three Musketeers and collected Poe short stories I read in grade school, but the first book I really remember not being to get enough of was The Kid Who Only Hit Homers by Matt Christopher. I'm pretty sure I was the only kid who got to read my school library's copy while I was in second grade because I kept checking it out to re-read.

Posted by: Octochicken at July 11, 2022 10:42 AM (oCS0o)

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