Sunday Morning Book Thread - 07-23-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

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 (HT: Emmie) we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(handy when you left your Kindle at home)

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

PIC NOTE

Today's pic is of Chapters on Main new and used bookstore in Arkansas. It's mostly used books, but they do have a few recent releases available. They also have quite a selection of coffees and pastries for patrons to enjoy. I freely admit that I may have spent a few shekels on some used books. Although their fantasy and science fiction section was not as extensive as I might have hoped, they do have a rather impressive collection of Star Trek novels. They have quite a selection of books in other genres as well. Since this store is located in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt, it's no surprise that there are a lot of Christian-themed books available for sale. The following quote by C.S. Lewis (a noted Christian author) is painted on the wall:

"It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between."

All in all, a very quaint little bookshop and highly recommended if you are in that area.

OPEN-ENDED SERIES

Last week we discussed closed, or completed, series of books. Now let's turn our attention to the open-ended series, where the author(s) create an ongoing series of adventures for their protagonists.

I like open-ended series because they are very character-driven stories instead of being plot-driven. In a closed series, characters may not get the full development that you might like to see, especially if they are only a minor character. With an open-ended series, the author may expand on minor characters in later installments to give them a chance to shine and strut their stuff.

Larry Correia's Monster Hunter series is very good about this. Although several of the books are told from the point of view of Owen Pitt, others take up the point of view of secondary characters, such as Agent Franks or even Owen's wife, Julie Shackleford. The books are loosely tied together with an overarching plot of a "big bad" of some kind attempting to destroy the Earth and everything in it. So far there are about eight novels in the series, with more to come as Monster Hunter Bloodlines ends on a cliffhanger. Knowing Correia's attitude towards authors who don't complete a series, it's unlikely he's just going to leave that thread hanging forever. There are also short stories that tie into the main storyline, but I don't think they are necessary for fully enjoying the series.

Some open-ended series can be turned into a closed series if the author decides to reach a stopping point. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files will most likely turn into this. As I understand it, he's planned a closing trilogy of books that will resolve a number of long-running plot threads, such as the importance and circumstances of Harry Dresden's birth. However, at the moment it's still open-ended in that each book up until this point is mostly episodic in nature, though there is a long-running story arc that connects many of the later books.

The fact that open-ended series can be episodic is another reason why they can be enjoyable. You, as the reader, can dive into the series at almost any point. When you encounter references to previous stories, you can then decide if you want to go back and read those books or, if the author is skilled enough, you'll gain enough information about previous events that you can enjoy the current book. That's how the Agent Pendergast novels sucked me in. I read book 4--Still Life with Crows--which stands pretty well on its own. However, there were references to events and characters that intrigued me, so I immediately purchased book 3--The Cabinet of Curiosities. Most of the books after that are intimately tied into book 3 in some form or another, as we find out much more about Agent Pendergast's dysfunctional, psychotic family and his ward, Constance Greene.

The episodic nature works really well for series derived from an existing intellectual property like Star Trek. Those books rely on you already having familiarity with the main characters (Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, etc.), so the author doesn't have to waste much time with character development. The author can also explore stories that would not be possible to do in a television series due to limitations with budgets and special effects. It can be a satisfying experience to explore ideas that way. Weird aliens and even weirder plots.

Finally, some series may be open-ended, yet still converge to a definite endpoint. F. Paul Wilson's Secret History of the World is an example of this approach. Nightworld is the concluding novel of both his Adversary Cycle and Repairman Jack series of books. However, he's continued to write stories that take place in that world even though Nightworld was published in 2012. It was actually published in 1992, but then the Repairman Jack books took off, so Wilson retrofitted Nightworld with a revised and expanded edition in 2012 to take into account all of the events of the Repairman Jack novels. He's even written an entire series that takes place in the Secret History of the World featuring different characters, but are still tied into the events in Nightworld. Makes for an interesting reading experience when you read the books in the chronological order of when events happen rather than the order when the books were released.

Any other unusual characteristics of open-ended series out there?

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(Narrator: The ARMoMe was NOT a wasted trip!)

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BOOKS BY MORONS

Moronette Author RKF Adams has a new release:

Held off submitting this latest island misadventure since the release of Sound of Freedom. Like our intrepid here, I fictionalized an event to make a point. And like our hero, we must face that this is happening with the sanction of our own damned elected officials. Thank you for continuing to post books by morons. My collection grows.
Slack Tide RKF Adams on Amazon
In April of 1865 the cancer of slavery in these United States ended, its price in blood, but not everyone got the memo.
The sweet lady who collects knick-knacks and feeds stray cats runs a brothel out of her lovely suburban home. She rents one of her girls out for a week to a local gangster. The girl is to care for several young boys stolen from their war torn homeland and shipped halfway around the world. These boys will be offered for sale to the highest bidder within days.
That thirteen-year-old prostitute leads retired Marine Jess Archer into the dark heart of modern slavery.
Who will speak for these stolen children? Who will avenge their spilled blood?
When bidding for the orphans begins, Archer has no time to plan an assault to save these children. She must rely on instinct, honor, and pure rage because time has run out for these lost boys.
You cannot defeat an enemy you do not admit exists.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

As part of my current obsession with learning Morse code, I've been reading Chris Rutkowski's The CW Way of Life. The opening story about Rutkowski's father, and his experience during WW2 of surviving a plane crash in Greenland would make a good movie. The plane and crew were located only because his father managed to tap out an SOS and their location after the plane struck a mountain in zero viz conditions and crashed (almost sliding into a crevasse). He then goes into the history of the code, and I'm just starting the portion where he talks about learning the code. NOT recommended unless the subject is of great interest, but for CW nerds the book has become mandatory reading.
Posted by: PabloD at July 16, 2023 09:40 AM (Epuwl)

Comment: Human creativity when it comes to languages is remarkable. Morse Code enabled telegraphers to quickly send messages back and forth around the world until even better methods came along (i.e., the telephone). Telegraph operators were also known to have a distinctive "fist" when they tapped out their code, making them identifiable to those who could recognize the distinctive patterns made by each individual. "SOS" is perhaps the perfect code for emergency situations because it's so simple that anyone can do it: three dots, three dashes, three dots: ...---.../...---.../...---... You don't even need any fancy tools or technology for Morse Code. You can tap it out with your fingers on a hard surface or you can even blink in Morse Code. Depending on your intended audience, it can be a subtle way to alert someone that things ain't quite right...

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I've been reading 221B: Studies in Sherlock Holmes by Vincent Starrett. It's the first (I think) collections of essays by the Baker Street Irregulars. While the members take their interest seriously, they have fun coming up with 'insights' into Holmes, Watson and the other characters. All written with a straight face and plenty of footnotes to lend an academic aura but the silliness of the endeavor underlies the whole thing. It's a lot of fun.
Posted by: JTB at July 16, 2023 09:53 AM (7EjX1)

Comment: When Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child were writing White Fire, book 13 in the Special Agent Pendergast series, they received special permission from the Holmes estate to include a new story involving Sherlock Holmes and Watson based on a supposed meeting involving Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle. Wilde was touring the American west and came across a "true" story involving mutant cannibal miners. Conan Doyle then wrote a "lost" short story referencing this event. The Baker Street Irregulars also make an appearance in the main storyline as Pendergast tracks down this forgotten tale.

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Saw the Siddons horror recommendation.
This put me in mind of Robert Chambers' The King in Yellow. I couldn't find it in the AosHQ library, so I will recommend it here.
Only three things have ever scared me so much I was effected for days afterwards: The movie Jacob's Ladder; Hope-Hodgson's House on the Borderland; and Chambers' The King in Yellow.
I think Jacob's Ladder got me the worst. I was absolutely shook for days.
But The King in Yellow was a close second. There are scenes in that book that still haunt me.
It's the story of a well-to-do youth who becomes involved with a very very dangerous book and occult organization....
If you like Dunsany, I'm 99.9% sure you'll "enjoy" this.
Just rememebered I felt an overwhelming need to watch Lovejoy and read Wodehouse as a curative afterwards.
Being spooked is all very very personal, of course.
I guess that might be a good mini-subject for a book thread?
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 16, 2023 10:29 AM (+rYbb)

Comment: I will absolutely do Book Threads on horror, even though I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. Horror, like comedy, can be highly subjective, and what scares one person doesn't affect others. The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories centered around a fictional play also called The King in Yellow. Reading it (or maybe performing it) drives people mad or leads them to a dark fate. H.P. Lovecraft was directly influenced by this book, and August Derleth suggested that the actual performance of the play is a summoning ritual for an eldritch abomination (Hastur?). It's one of those works that has influenced more authors and content creators than you may realize. Perhaps that's part of its subversive nature...

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Ace's recent coverage of Disney theme park attendance decline inspired me to again recommend Peter Schweitzer's 1998 book Disney: The Mouse Betrayed. To say "kissing off middle class families" with Disney World pricing (and all their other parks) is not the original intention is a vast understatement.
As a boy, Walt Disney was unable to attend the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair because his family did not have the money. So he stood peering through the fence at all the happy children creating memories. This had such a profound impact on him that when his company started building theme parks, he ordered the prices be low so that no poor child would be unable to attend. He didn't care if they lost money. He wanted to ensure that no child experienced what he did.
That ended with the hiring of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner in 1984. Roy Disney objected to Eisner's big price increases, stating Walt's precedent. Eisner told him that Walt wasn't there anymore.
Posted by: Cesspit Pariah at July 16, 2023 11:24 AM (E49AC)

Comment: Ace has covered the issues surrounding the current Disney corporation in exhausting detail. It's really just a shame that a company that once prided itself on being the most family-friendly destination on Earth has devolved to its current state. Schweitzer wrote his book in 1998. I can only imagine what he might write 25 years later. Maybe he should come out with an expanded and updated version that takes into account all of the more recent betrayals of Walt Disney's vision by current "leadership."

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (875 Moron-recommended books so far!)

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WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

*SIGH* Apparently I'm incapable of walking out of a used bookstore without one or more purchases...

The Magic Labyrinth by Philip Jose Farmer

Flinx's Folly by Alan Dean Foster

The Man Who Used the Universe by Alan Dean Foster

Necroscope: Defilers by Brian Lumley

Greatwinter Book 3 - Eyes of the Calculon by Sean McMullen

The Ringworld Engineers by Larry Niven

Gideon Crew 1 - Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Gideon Crew 5 - The Pharaoh Key by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Olympos by Dan Simmons

A Hobbit Devotional by Ed Strauss

Dragonships 3 - Rage of the Dragon by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

The Knights of the Black Earth by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin

Null-A Continuum by John C. Wright

The Changing Land by Roger Zelazny

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- Agent Pendergast must solve the mystery of who killed his son and then dropped the body on his doorstep.

Crimson Shore by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- Agent Pendergast and his ward Constance Greene become embroiled in an ancient mystery surrounding the Salem witch trials in a sleepy New England town.

The Obsidian Chamber by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- Agent Pendergast is MIA, so his trusted bodyguard and manservant, Proctor, must chase down an old foe who has kidnapped Pendergast's ward, Constance Greene.

City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- Agent Pendergast investigates a series of bizarre murders targeting the 1% of NYC.

Verses for the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- Agent Pendergast of the FBI is finally assigned a partner. Spoiler: The partner did it. (just kidding!)

Crooked River by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- Agent Pendergast investigates a bizarre crime involving severed feet washing up on shore

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding the 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 discussion topics 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 - 07-16-23 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 hiya

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 08:59 AM (T4tVD)

2 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. And in case we need to get the ball rolling: TOLKIEN.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:00 AM (7EjX1)

3 Still doing a re-read of the Mitch Rapp series. On book 10 now.

Posted by: vic at July 23, 2023 09:00 AM (A5THL)

4 *frantically searches internet for 'how to press crocheted shorts'*

Posted by: Navy Joan at July 23, 2023 09:01 AM (JvZF+)

5 What's new, pussycats?

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:01 AM (IO+iC)

6 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. And in case we need to get the ball rolling: TOLKIEN.
Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:00 AM (7EjX1)
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*DING*DING*DING*

That's the secret word of the day!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:03 AM (BpYfr)

7 Tolle Lege
Started reading Patrick O'Brian 100 days but didn't read a page this week
https://tinyurl.com/35hbj9y8
Picture is from Historicon yesterday a sailing war game

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 09:04 AM (xhxe8)

8 My favorite open ended series are probably Nero Wolfe and Matt Helm. Oh yeah, throw in Sherlock Holmes.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:04 AM (7EjX1)

9 I remember enjoying Alan Dean Foster's Flinx books. "Ah, he's written more than movie novelizations!"

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:06 AM (IO+iC)

10 I don't understand the advice written on the wall:

"It is a good rule after reading a new book never to allow yourself another 'til you have read an old one in between"

I have peculiarly high retention abilities such where I remember most of what I have already read. So "old" books is that ones already read compared to "new" books which were recently acquired?

The older I get, the less I like "new" books because the skills of this Age's writers are horrible with respect to threading together sentences, making coherent statements and thoughts, and not insulting the intelligence of the reader.

I blame editors since authors who have published over the decades seem to be targeting low-attention span, low-knowledge, low-comprehension, low-literacy demographic when their earlier work was readable.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:06 AM (p8A+W)

11 Oh, the Monster Hunters books are FUN.

Posted by: Lizzy at July 23, 2023 09:07 AM (avru5)

12 Finally finished Vol. I of the Ford Madox Ford biography. Now I just need to track down the door-stopper/couch repair kit that is Vol. II.

While I'm waiting, I decided to re-read the African American of the Narcissus, which is quite good. Conrad doesn't have the racial freight that we do, but the decision to make James Wait a man of color (and an American to boot) adds a level of complexity and ambiguity that having him be Irish or English would lack.

And of course the setting - a sailing ship rounding the Cape in vicious gale - makes great reading on its own.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:08 AM (llXky)

13 Two in five Britons never read a book:

https://tinyurl.com/ydukzrcr

(Daily Mail)

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at July 23, 2023 09:08 AM (tRkUf)

14 Let me add a warning on that Arkansas bookstore: Be prepared to spend a lot of time there because the used books are not shelved in alphabetical order. They are separated by category, but that's as far as it goes.

The competitor across the river uses alphabetical order -- and had the Matt Helms and John MacDonald books in their own section -- but it has no air conditioning.

You takes your chances and you spends your money.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:09 AM (p/isN)

15 I think you made a mistake up there: shouldn't the authors have contacted the estate of John H. Watson? He wrote all the books, after all.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 09:09 AM (QZxDR)

16 9 I remember enjoying Alan Dean Foster's Flinx books. "Ah, he's written more than movie novelizations!"
Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:06 AM (IO+iC)

I think it was BifBewlski that recommended "Relic" to me. Good stuff.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at July 23, 2023 09:09 AM (PiwSw)

17 Busy week so I had little time for reading. I'm closing in on the end of Two Years Before The Mast, and I've got some interesting candidates in the pile after that.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 09:11 AM (QZxDR)

18 "There was some good music in the 90's, but I didn't think the bands were very sexy. Soundgarden had some really cool riffs, and obviously Nirvana had a really iconic figurehead with Kurt Cobain. But nothing had that "let's go in the bathroom and have a quickie" feel to it." -- Nikki Sixx ("Nothin' But A Good Time")

Weirdest thing from the book was learning that Slash tried out for Poison. Can you imagine? It was a tossup between him and C.C. DeVille, and the band was split on who to hire.

I enjoyed the interview format of "Nothin'", which was straight from their filthy mouths. Even though I listened to their archnemeses, Punk, New Wave, and later Grunge/Alternative, I concur with the hair mentalists that the airwaves need more face-melting guitar riffs. Luckily, they have a new generation discovering the joys of Loud along with their parents.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:12 AM (IO+iC)

19 By their nature, mysteries and episodic adventures are open-ended series. Fantasy/SF can be; I'm thinking of Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, in which a minor character in one tale is the star of a later book.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:12 AM (p/isN)

20 Finished Operation Sea Lion: The Failed Invasion that Turned the Tide of War.

This was a comprehensive look at a functioning society, with dedicated and in some cases very far-sighted public officials, office holders, stalwart military leaders, and united subjects defending what is theirs.

England was very well prepared and psychologically robust.

To compare and contrast the UK of 1940 and the USA of 2023 is to feel despair. The only commonality is that both governments are ruthless in action. the UK would use poison gas on the Germans, while the US wats to eradicate their own middle class.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at July 23, 2023 09:13 AM (u82oZ)

21 An old book before you read another new book? Hmmm.

Who was it who said that any book you haven't read is a new book?

Morning, all.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 09:13 AM (a/4+U)

22 The combination of declining readership and the explosion of indy publishing reminds me of an old joke about the state of Mississippi: "It's where nobody can read but everybody writes."

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 09:13 AM (QZxDR)

23 Eisner told him that Walt wasn't there anymore.

There is a book "Barbarians to Bureaucrats" that outlines/describes the various stages a company may go through from its nascent years to when it ends up in bankruptcy or is pure evil.

Walt was certainly the "Visionary" while Eisner was the "Aristocrat". There are many steps along the way, particularly when the Professional Class steps in and smothers out the vision and mission of the entity in pursuit of validating the MBA degree.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:13 AM (p8A+W)

24 They could rename it "The Nubian of the Narcissus", although that sounds like an antebellum bodice-ripper.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:14 AM (IO+iC)

25 haven't had a chance to start reading it but my copy of the CW Way of Life arrived yesterday. I'm really looking forward to it. The simplicity of the ways Morse Code can be used, effectively, is amazing. Thanks to PabloD for mentioning it.

There's a reason ham radio operators (at least those of discernment) say "Code always gets through".

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:14 AM (7EjX1)

26 Somebody asked last week that we say why we like (or dislike) a book instead of just naming it. All right. The Retief stories I've been rereading (in the collection "Retief at Large") lend themselves to thls.

This book was my introduction to Retief, way back in college, so I have a soft spot for it. The first story, "Cultural Exchange," had me laughing, so there's the first reason: These tales are humorous and light-hearted. I Iike to laugh.

Much of the humor comes from the way the author, Keith Laumer, writes the ways the different creatures in the galaxy speak. For a wordsmith such as me, this is catnip.

Some examples: Terra's main adversaries, the Groaci (read: Soviets) speak all their verbs in infinitives: "To give only brief quotes. To spare the Horde excess verbiage."

Others reverse the word order -- "Long write you, boy" -- switch syllables, or use soundalike words ("You dry dell me my chob?"). I love Laumer's descriptive metaphor: An angry superior speaks in "a voice like an iceberg sliding into an Arctic sea."

His descriptions of other worlds and their inhabitants are also imaginative.

(continued -- gee, thanks, Pixy)

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:14 AM (p/isN)

27 Finished the latest 'Innocents...' book from Andrew Wareham. While interesting, he has taken to slamming his readers with contemporary lefty nonsense that is becoming extremely annoying. Example: His main character bloviates about all that is wrong with the World (in late 1942), mainly centering on Nazis, Fascists in general, and "America First." We gentle readers are also subjected to vax nonsense thinly disguised as something else entirely. Mr. Wareham is getting tiresome.

Next up: Patrick Chiles!

Posted by: Brewingfrog at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (4Quga)

28 Good Sunday morning, horde.

Last night, I started Trickster by Muriel Gray. It's the family book club selection this month. I'm about 50 pages in--so far, so good. There is a "corkscrew" railroad tunnel somewhere in Canada, and there appears to be some supernatural and scary stuff happening there, for certain people. So, looks like we have a horror selection this month.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (OX9vb)

29 Finally, although we know Retief will outmaneuver his foolish superiors and outwit his adversaries -- his phenomenal luck helps -- that doesn't stop us from cheering him on. Would that we had some real Retiefs.

About that last remark: Laumer drew on his experience as a diplomat in the 1950s for these stories. I think that these days we would call Jaime Retief his Mary Sue.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (p/isN)

30 Morning, bookwormz!

I''ve been on a Lawrence Block kick the last couple of weeks: his new novella A Scattering of Stones, his 1982 classic Eight Million Ways to Die, and a 1961 potboiler paperback reissue of something called A Diet of Treacle. The first features Matt Scudder and his long-time love Elaine, both of them acknowledging that they are no longer young but still happy with each other. Eight Million, also about Scudder, is one of the great mystery-dramas in which part of the suspense is, Will the hero succumb to his disease (alcoholism)? -- and with one of the finest last chapters in literature.

The Diet story I've just started. So far it's only about pot smokers living in Greenwich Village ca. 1960 -- but the blurb indicates crime will be involved.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (omVj0)

31 I'm continuing with "Tales of the South" a collection of short stories of antebellum South Carolina by William Gilmore Simms. His writing is delightful in itself: sprightly, wonderful straight-face humor (reminds me of PG Wodehouse many years later), great characters, and a touch of the supernatural. Everything of Simms that I've read, "The Golden Christmas" and his biography of Francis Marion has been excellent.

Simms was as popular as Poe and Melville in his time. Although he has been 'rediscovered' to a point, I wonder if his 'fall' was because he was from the South. Most of the one star reviews of his books come from snowflakes offended that anything connected to the Confederacy is allowed in print. The others bitched about his 'old' style writing that they find difficult to understand. That alone should mean his books are worth reading.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:16 AM (7EjX1)

32 I then finished War of Supply: World War II Allied logistics in the Mediterranean.

This could have been a dull book, but was not. It showed how strong we were in supplying our forces, what it took to do so, and the positive learning curve in the Mediterranean Theater.

Some deep insights here. And one minor refrain was showing the immense effort it took to equip the French Army in 1943-1945.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at July 23, 2023 09:17 AM (u82oZ)

33 Ace has covered the issues surrounding the current Disney corporation in exhausting detail.

Did you mean exhaustive?

Posted by: ameryx at July 23, 2023 09:18 AM (T15lv)

34 Next up: Patrick Chiles!
Posted by: Brewingfrog at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (4Quga)
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Definitely an interesting and fun read....And a Moron Author as well!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:19 AM (BpYfr)

35 Thanks to recommendations here, I read Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and Birth of the FBI by David Grann. This is a well-researched, detailed account of murders in the 1920's of oil-rich Osage on their reservation in NE Oklahoma. I enjoyed Grann's writing and I'm looking forward to reading The Wager.

Posted by: Zoltan at July 23, 2023 09:19 AM (t98tm)

36 The competitor across the river uses alphabetical order -- and had the Matt Helms and John MacDonald books in their own section -- but it has no air conditioning.

You takes your chances and you spends your money.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023

***
A/C trumps a lot of things. When I was coming back from Palo Duro Canyon in May 2014, I detoured to Larry McMurtry's home town, Archer City, to see it and to visit his bookstores. The town has hardly changed in appearance since Bogdanovich used it as the setting for The Last Picture Show in 1970. But the diner on the main street was hot and stuffy despite fans. As for LM's bookstores, neither had air. I couldn't breathe and escaped back to my car. Probably the only time in my life that I've spent less than an hour in a bookstore.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:20 AM (omVj0)

37 This week I read "The Floating Admiral," published in 1931. Fans of classic British mysteries will recognize this book as a collaborative novel written by members of the Detection Club. The club was an association of mystery writers who met to socialize and talk shop. Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and G.K. Chesterton were the most famous members.

Anyway, each of the 12 chapters of "Admiral" was written by a different club member, although they adhered to a basic set of facts throughout. Christie and Sayers each wrote a chapter and Chesterton an intro, but other than them I'd never heard of the other writers.

The book is okay but not particularly entertaining. To me the slowest part of detective novels is when the detective starts speculating about unknown facts or motives. Well, since each chapter was written by a different person, there's a lot of that in this novel. And each writer put his or her own spin on the facts so it gets exceedingly complex toward the end.

Glad it was a library book because I'd feel ticked if I spent money on it. But now I can say I've finally read this curiosity.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at July 23, 2023 09:20 AM (fTtFy)

38 I think that these days we would call Jaime Retief his Mary Sue.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (p/isN)
---/

The proper term is Gary Stu.

And I don't always agree with the current flailing over Sue-ism. People enjoy reading adventures with ridiculously competent protagonists.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:21 AM (IO+iC)

39 In regard to visiting bookstores in another town --

Prof, I suggest that somebody with more tech skill than me start a list of towns that have used-book stores, with short comments, to assist travelers. Sad to say, many small towns have none. I've wasted time on fruitless searches when I'm traveling.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:21 AM (p/isN)

40 What is a corkscrew train tunnel? Is that a real thing?

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 09:22 AM (QZxDR)

41 I don't think the pants Guy IS a guy.....

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 09:22 AM (T4tVD)

42 I've been reading several books about using a drop spindle and prepping the wool for spinning. For such a simple tool the history and details about technique for various results is amazing. This is stuff young farm girls from hundreds of years ago knew thoroughly and here I'm drowning in the possibilities. In a way, it reminds me of the many permutations used to handload effective ammunition with basic tools.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:22 AM (7EjX1)

43 So, to carry on the theme, my recommendation this week is Old Bones, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Nora Kelly, an anthropologist who was a minor character in the Agent Pendergast series, now has her own story. She is hired to lead an expedition into the Rockies to locate the remains of the rest of the Donner Party based on a recently discovered diary and map. What follows is a twist, as treasure hunting and biomedical research become the focus, instead of history. Like some other characters in the Preston and Child universe, Kelly gets fleshed out when the story has her as the focus. Kelly shares this story with Corrie Swanson, FBI agent and protege of Agent Pendergast who was introduced in Still Life with Crows. Another enjoyable read by Preston and Child. There are two more Nora Kelly books in this series, so more purchases ahead, I'm afraid.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 09:23 AM (QeA2l)

44 Eisner told him that Walt wasn't there anymore.

Which should have also been a clue to everyone that once Eisner sat down, he absolutely didn't care about why anyone else was working at Disney, why Disney was loved by customers or if there was some sort of distinctives that should be preserved for culture's sake.

Disney went from creating fantasies for children to abetting fantasies for pedophiles.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:25 AM (p8A+W)

45 "The Secret Book of Flora Lea" by Patti Callahan Henry is a story set in 1939, when two sisters are sent to the countryside to escape the oncoming Blitz. Fourteen-year-old Hazel weaves stories for five-year-old Flora to keep her happy and distracted -- their own private fairyland, Whisperwood, a secret place they can escape to. But one day Flora vanishes while playing by the riverside. She's never found, and Hazel grows up crippled by guilt.

Twenty years later Hazel, who works at a rare book store in London, unwraps a package with an illustrated copy of "Whisperwood and the River of Stars". They never shared their stories with anyone -- is Flora still alive?

The town of Binsey, where our young evacuees ended up, was a great literary choice for the setting. Per Wiki: "[Binsey's historic oub] The Perch was frequented by author Lewis Carroll and is noted as one of the first places that he gave public readings of Alice in Wonderland. It was also a favourite of C. S. Lewis".

Here's a link on Operation Pied Piper:

https://tinyurl.com/2p8km8j6

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:25 AM (IO+iC)

46 Prof, I suggest that somebody with more tech skill than me start a list of towns that have used-book stores, with short comments, to assist travelers. Sad to say, many small towns have none. I've wasted time on fruitless searches when I'm traveling.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:21 AM (p/isN)
----
That tool already exists. When I search Google for "used bookstores near town X" I get a list of used bookstores in certain radius. I can customize the parameters a bit to expand the radius or filter the results. I also get a map showing where the bookstores are located. I did this for Corsicana, TX. Sadly, there do not appear to be any used bookstores in town or even nearby, though there are a few in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, of course.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:25 AM (BpYfr)

47 I was in Italy and the Adriatic the last couple of weeks. I brought two books appropriate to the journey: The Travels of Marco Polo and Longitude (Dava Sobel).

Travels was fascinating, as it's a very dry read: it really is meant to be simply a recounting of his travels, mostly through the realms of the great khan.

Also, a lot of wife-swapping in it.

Longitude was the story of John Harrison. It’s a classic tale of a good idea that runs against, not the general population, but the scientific elite, such as it was at the time. The problem of how to determine longitude had been placed by the British government in the hands of astronomers, so the assumed solution was always based on the stars, the moon, and so forth. Which has serious problems at sea.

Harrison went for a purely mechanical solution: a clock that kept time even across storms and temperature variations. It probably didn’t help that he was a perfectionist, however.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at July 23, 2023 09:25 AM (EXyHK)

48 Related to reading. Check out the YT videos by Malcolm Guite. He is an Anglican priest, musician, poet, philosopher, and professor. I think of him as the as an heir to CS Lewis for his skills and outlooks. He is erudite, exuberant, funny, insightful, and sometimes poignant. His enthusiasm is addictive. Almost single handedly, he has rejuvenated my enjoyment and appreciation of poetry. Any of his videos are great but look at "An Evening With Malcolm Guite" posted a few weeks ago. It is a good introduction to the man and his thoughts.

If you enjoy language and appreciate the power of words and imagination, I cannot recommend him strongly enough.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:26 AM (7EjX1)

49 I also read Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Dana which was recommended here. This is another classic that I missed during my misspent youth. In 1834 Dana leaves Harvard for health reasons and sails aboard the brig Pilgrim as a seaman for the California coast trade. Dana gives a very thorough telling of the life of a seaman and describes the ports of California from San Diego to San Francisco. A wonderful tale.

Posted by: Zoltan at July 23, 2023 09:26 AM (t98tm)

50 A quick note on technique for authors and aspiring authors. Rereading Block's Eight Million Ways to Die, I see exactly how he works a certain trick I've picked up for my work, and which my writing group people hate. I call it the "summary testimony" method, in which the narrator summarizes part of what someone is telling him, interspersing it with direct quotes from the speaker. I think this makes the scene move faster and never find it confusing, but my group members do.

The trick is, that when you come back from the summary paragraph(s) and start a quote by the character testifying, add a dialog tag. All it requires is a "he said" or a bit of physical business by the speaker with his name, e.g., "Donna sipped her coffee." Or, when you come back to the dialog, have the character address your narrator by name. "You sure you wouldn't like a drink, Matt?" Since there are only two people in the scene, and Matt is the narrator, your reader knows the speaker is the other one. Or should.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:26 AM (omVj0)

51 14 Let me add a warning on that Arkansas bookstore: Be prepared to spend a lot of time there because the used books are not shelved in alphabetical order. They are separated by category, but that's as far as it goes.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:09 AM (p/isN)

I don't understand this. There was a used bookstore near me that had zero arrangement--just pile the books on the shelves, no categories, no alpha sort, no nothing. FFS, you are there all day, why not sort the things?

It's closed now. Small wonder.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 09:27 AM (OX9vb)

52 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes.

Reading here at Stately Poppins Manor has been erratic and desultory. Since I try not to read fiction when I am writing a book, I turn to history, biography and so on. I've been re-reading some of my Jay Robert Nash crime collections (Look For the Woman, Among the Missing and so on).

My 'breakfast' book (the one I read when I go out once a week to the local diner) is Shelby Foote's Stars In Their Courses, his retelling of the Gettysburg campaign.

My own writing is going slowly, but that's more because I'm a really lazy bastard than anything else.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 23, 2023 09:27 AM (AW0uW)

53 I'm nearing the end of Crooked River, an Agent Pendergast novel.

It's taken a pretty dark twist at this point. I won't spoil it for you, but it involves some psychological and body horror combined.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:28 AM (BpYfr)

54 I've recently begun reading books by Mick Herron, who has a couple of series, one of mysteries, the other of espionage.
The espionage series is on a par with LeCarré. His characters are well-defined. The careful reader will find the occasional wink by the author.
It doesn't hurt to have watched Slow Horses and Dead Lions on AppleTV. Gary Oldman prefecture captures the character of Jackson Lamb.

Posted by: ameryx at July 23, 2023 09:28 AM (T15lv)

55 I did this for Corsicana, TX. Sadly, there do not appear to be any used bookstores in town or even nearby, though there are a few in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, of course.

Depending on what you mean by “close” there are a few nice ones in the Waco area: Golden’s Book Exchange and Brazos Books.

I do an occasional review of “bookstores less traveled” and have collected them at the link in the nic.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at July 23, 2023 09:28 AM (EXyHK)

56 Starting The Unthinkable. Who Survives When Disaster Strikes --And Why, by Amanda Ripley.

This is a very, very interesting book. This resonates with me, because I was involved in the Loma Prieta earthquake and 9/11 less than a mile from the Pentagon. And because I have faced many risky situations in my life, including driving for a living.

So far, a lot of insights and deep dives into events and human psychology. I'll report back next week, after I finish the book.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at July 23, 2023 09:29 AM (u82oZ)

57 The proper term is Gary Stu.

And I don't always agree with the current flailing over Sue-ism. People enjoy reading adventures with ridiculously competent protagonists.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:21 AM (IO+iC)
---
Don't presume his/her/xer gender, hater!

The problem with Mary Sue is that she isn't competent, she just wins. Actual competent characters will be shown employing specific knowledge in a clever way. Mary Sue writers don't know enough about the world to manage that, which is why they fall back on "I just need to accept how awesome I am!" and generally use magic or force of personality as the path of success.

Also, Mary Sue characters are flawless (other than low self-esteem, which they naturally defeat). Interesting heroes have weaknesses (women, drugs, drinking, etc.).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:29 AM (llXky)

58 I have been musing about dialog in fiction lately.

Most fiction I read, the characters all seem to have the exact same vocabulary and phrasing (similar to the author's narrative style). Variations may include more cursing between characters.

One author tried to use the inarticulate slang and phrasing of some gutter trash character. While it seemed semi-authentic (though lacked the crutch words, guttural sounds and mismatched metaphors and idioms used by people in the street today) it was annoying to read.

Is there any rule on this?

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:30 AM (p8A+W)

59 I tried to find a reference book on crocheting at that Arkansas bookstore, but was told those kinds of books are hard to keep in stock because they immediately sell out.

Posted by: Emmie at July 23, 2023 09:31 AM (Emce2)

60 The problem with Mary Sue is that she isn't competent, she just wins. Actual competent characters will be shown employing specific knowledge in a clever way. Mary Sue writers don't know enough about the world to manage that, which is why they fall back on "I just need to accept how awesome I am!" and generally use magic or force of personality as the path of success.

Also, Mary Sue characters are flawless (other than low self-esteem, which they naturally defeat). Interesting heroes have weaknesses (women, drugs, drinking, etc.).
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023

***
Plus the whole thing is easier to take if the story is a comedy or otherwise light-hearted -- meaning, it actually is funny and was intended to be.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:32 AM (omVj0)

61 Not much to report from Pliny this week. I did learn another Latin word, "inauro", which means to gild with gold, or to make rich.

Example. "We all know that the President used Ukraine to inauro his family."

Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 09:32 AM (iayUP)

62 40 What is a corkscrew train tunnel? Is that a real thing?
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 09:22 AM (QZxDR)

I had not heard of such a thing, myself. But it's a thing:

https://tinyurl.com/2vd9w63h

I think the idea is similar to switchbacks going up a mountain. The route is lengthened, but the ascent is more gradual.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 09:33 AM (OX9vb)

63 I then finished War of Supply: World War II Allied logistics in the Mediterranean.

This could have been a dull book, but was not. It showed how strong we were in supplying our forces, what it took to do so, and the positive learning curve in the Mediterranean Theater.

Some deep insights here. And one minor refrain was showing the immense effort it took to equip the French Army in 1943-1945.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at July 23, 2023 09:17 AM (u82oZ)
---
It's interesting to reflect on the effort the US government once expended to ensure wartime production capability. That went away when the Cold War ended, and it's biting us in the ass.

Russia, by contrast, never gave that up, and it's interesting to see them ramp up arms production by doing the same things we used to be able to do: switch production lines, add additional shifts, etc.

It also proves once and for all that GDP is a terrible measure of national productive capability. The Russian GDP is much smaller than ours, but it produces actual things, not real estate deals and vaporware. Take out the market cap for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc., and the US economy looks much, much smaller.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:35 AM (llXky)

64 One author tried to use the inarticulate slang and phrasing of some gutter trash character. While it seemed semi-authentic (though lacked the crutch words, guttural sounds and mismatched metaphors and idioms used by people in the street today) it was annoying to read.

Is there any rule on this?
Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023

***
The modern take is to hold dialect, deliberate misspellings of dialog words, to a minimum. And as much as I love older books, some of them are pretty hard to read when they rely heavily on misspellings to show how the characters sound. You can have a word here and there, and the standard contractions or dropped final letters ("settin'," "workin"). It's part of why I have a little trouble with Elmore Leonard's later, crime-oriented books. He reproduces the way street people and criminals talk so well that I have trouble understanding what they mean. (Cont.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:35 AM (omVj0)

65 The most egregious example I can think of where the characters all spoke in the same voice, with the same sense of humor and vocabulary, was "Kaiju". It was hilarious because the cast of characters was strenuously diverse. It was by the "Red Shirts" author.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:35 AM (IO+iC)

66 Thanks for the hat tip, Perfessor! Actually, that book title is a bit creepier these days than it probably was when it was written.

Posted by: Emmie at July 23, 2023 09:36 AM (Emce2)

67 The reason we get "Mary Sue" stories is because nobody wants to read a story about a dull ordinary no talent person who fails.

Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 09:37 AM (iayUP)

68 Some examples: Terra's main adversaries, the Groaci (read: Soviets) speak all their verbs in infinitives: "To give only brief quotes. To spare the Horde excess verbiage."
....
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:14 AM (p/isN)
===
If they have 2nd person plural we're toast.

Posted by: Navy Joan at July 23, 2023 09:37 AM (JvZF+)

69 So Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" is genius, but it has little of the waspish fun of the novel. Young Master Lyndon really is a (severely reduced) Upper Class Twit.

"I have met more learned bookworms in the world, especially a great, hulking, clumsy, bleary-eyed old doctor, whom they call Johnson, yet I pretty much silenced him in an argument. "Sir," said I, in reply to the schoolmaster's great thundering quotation in Greek, "you fancy you know a great deal more than me, because you quote your Aristotle and Pluto, but can you tell me which horse will win at Epsom Downs next week? Can you shoot the ace of spades ten times without missing? If so, talk about Aristotle and Pluto to me."

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:38 AM (IO+iC)

70 (Continued) The best trick I've seen to avoid dialect-spelling is to have your viewpoint character tell us how another speaker's words came out, e.g., a Dutchman says "I am going," and your hero tells us, "It came out goingk." If you do that maybe twice, and the rest of the time just reproduce his word choice and pattern (e.g., a Russian speaks mostly without articles) without misspellings, the reader should get it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:39 AM (omVj0)

71 Have a great day, everyone.

May your books illuminate and entertain. Have a great day of pleasing sunshine and zephyrs.

Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at July 23, 2023 09:39 AM (u82oZ)

72 Plus the whole thing is easier to take if the story is a comedy or otherwise light-hearted -- meaning, it actually is funny and was intended to be.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:32 AM (omVj0)
---
Another variation on this is a cad or scoundrel who succeeds despite any skill other than being a cad or scoundrel.

Evelyn Waugh's Basil Seal is like this, a delightful anti-hero who is quite competent, but refuses to exert himself other than for personal amusement. He's a complete heel.

In Put Out More Flags, he manages to get a gig assigning evacuee children and uses it to extort money from homeowners, threatening them with the three worst children in England. He also seduces wives whose husbands have been deployed.

Yet you can't help but cheer for him when he realizes that he could literally get away with murder by becoming a Commando and enthusiastically volunteers.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:39 AM (llXky)

73 I see we have some ArkanOklaMoMe attenders here this morning.

It was a great honor and privilege to have you present and participating at our little MoMe. It's always good to see fellow Morons out in meatspace. Thanks for coming!

Posted by: Emmie at July 23, 2023 09:39 AM (Emce2)

74 Most fiction I read, the characters all seem to have the exact same vocabulary and phrasing (similar to the author's narrative style). Variations may include more cursing between characters.

My Theda Bara novels are generally set in the 1910s, so vocabulary is necessarily limited in that your characters can talk semi-modernly (for example, mine swear much more than anyone in that time period would), but you do have to watch what words you use and how you phrase conversations so as to not throw your reader completely out of the time.

My first drafts are generally all written in the same voice (unless I have a very good hold of a character such as Erich von Stroheim) and then given their own quirks of speech in successive rewrites.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 23, 2023 09:42 AM (AW0uW)

75 The reason we get "Mary Sue" stories is because nobody wants to read a story about a dull ordinary no talent person who fails.

Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 09:37 AM (iayUP)
---
No, it's because we have achieved so much prosperity that any idiot with connections can get a writing gig.

And politics trump talent.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:42 AM (llXky)

76 /disinherited grand daughter sock off

Posted by: San Franpsycho at July 23, 2023 09:43 AM (JvZF+)

77 Started reading Jeff Guinn’s “War on the Border.” It’s about Pershing and his expedition into Mexico to capture or kill Pancho Villa. I’m a short way in but I have a sneaking suspicion that the book will be woke which will make it a not fun read. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Posted by: RetSgtRN at July 23, 2023 09:44 AM (RqUF/)

78 I read somewhere (so it must be true) that those 19th Century novels had so much dialect (usually comic Irishman and Negro dialect, from what I've perused) because people read the stories aloud.

Kipling employed lots of Cockney voices for his Tommies, naturally. It's fun but it can make reading slow going for us moderns.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (IO+iC)

79 Most fiction I read, the characters all seem to have the exact same vocabulary and phrasing (similar to the author's narrative style). Variations may include more cursing between characters. . . .

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023

***
I try very hard to avoid this. In several of my fantasy stories, the wizard is a lumbering, lusty, much-married wine-drinker who speaks in a peculiar mishmash of malapropisms, lack of articles, and Cajun word choice, e.g., "Ah, I am too old for such things, me," or "Amulet is yours, hah?" Nobody else in those stories speaks even a little like him. You always know it's him.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (omVj0)

80 52 ... "
My 'breakfast' book (the one I read when I go out once a week to the local diner) is Shelby Foote's Stars In Their Courses, his retelling of the Gettysburg campaign."

MP4,
You probably know this but be careful reading "The Stars in Their Courses". When I read it a few years ago it led to my third rereading of Foote's three volume Civil War. Worthwhile but it does take some time and it leads to so many rabbit holes that need following.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (7EjX1)

81 Oh, the Monster Hunters books are FUN.
Posted by: Lizzy at July 23, 2023 09:07 AM (avru5)

Correia is also a very capable writer. His prose is very clean, very clear, and he can write complex action sequences clearly and plainly.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (xhaym)

82 A corkscrew tunnel sounds to me like the reverse of those spiral inclines used in pit mining. Instead of going lower, it takes you upward.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (p/isN)

83 Another variation on this is a cad or scoundrel who succeeds despite any skill other than being a cad or scoundrel.

Evelyn Waugh's Basil Seal is like this, a delightful anti-hero who is quite competent, but refuses to exert himself other than for personal amusement. He's a complete heel.

In Put Out More Flags, he manages to get a gig assigning evacuee children and uses it to extort money from homeowners, threatening them with the three worst children in England. He also seduces wives whose husbands have been deployed.

Yet you can't help but cheer for him when he realizes that he could literally get away with murder by becoming a Commando and enthusiastically volunteers.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023

***
And Fraser's Flashman!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:46 AM (omVj0)

84 A book I am adding to my list after seeing it in Fortean Times magazine is Unfortunate Ends: On Murder and Misadventure in Medieval England by Soren Lily.

How can you not want to read a book with chapters like "The Penetrated Fundament: The Death of Henry Constantin" or "A Pit Full of Shit: The Death of John Funke?"

https://tinyurl.com/3b4vcsx3

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 23, 2023 09:47 AM (AW0uW)

85 Pancho was after all a SJW looking for Equality after all
I hope it's not

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 09:47 AM (xhxe8)

86 "I'm continuing with "Tales of the South" a collection of short stories of antebellum South Carolina by William Gilmore Simms"

For a counterpoint, check out "The Nasby Letters" by Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby.

Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 09:47 AM (iayUP)

87 Sadly, there do not appear to be any used bookstores in town or even nearby, though there are a few in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, of course.

If you are going through Dallas, plan a stop at the Half Price Books just off US 75. Half Price is the Buccee's of used books.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 23, 2023 09:48 AM (nfrXX)

88 In Texas, one can do a search for used bookstores, or just type in Half Price Books.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 09:48 AM (QTR/U)

89 Recreational reading this week - Red Sky at Morning, which was mentioned/recommended here a few weeks ago. I had known of this book, but never read it until now. A lovely, observant, witty book, and a lesson to modern readers that teenagers were always curious, rebellious, sarcastic, and that many parents were also just as observant, witty, and caring about their offspring. (Mother and wife of an OB doctor to teenage son: "Why can't you get your sex education in the gutter, like everyone else?") Also - a wonderful evocation of small-town New Mexico during WWII.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at July 23, 2023 09:48 AM (xnmPy)

90 The best trick I've seen to avoid dialect-spelling is to have your viewpoint character tell us how another speaker's words came out, e.g., a Dutchman says "I am going," and your hero tells us, "It came out goingk." If you do that maybe twice, and the rest of the time just reproduce his word choice and pattern (e.g., a Russian speaks mostly without articles) without misspellings, the reader should get it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:39 AM (omVj0)
---
I rely on word choice (vocabulary) and sentence structure, which includes bad grammar.

"I put it on, but it come off again," vs "The attachment isn't quite secure."

I always "hear" dialog as I'm writing it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:49 AM (llXky)

91 I seem to recall Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus stories quite a slog when I tried to read 'em as a kid. There are times when I think that dialect in fiction dates faster than milk in the grocery store. A sprinkle here and there just for flavoring, but just the minimum.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 09:49 AM (a/4+U)

92 Poppins, that sounds like my kind of book.

Like the king who died "of a surfeit of eels".

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:49 AM (IO+iC)

93 MP4,
You probably know this but be careful reading "The Stars in Their Courses". When I read it a few years ago it led to my third rereading of Foote's three volume Civil War. Worthwhile but it does take some time and it leads to so many rabbit holes that need following.
Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (7EjX1)

Thanks for the warning, but I'm already halfway into Volume 2 of The Civil War, which is on my kindle and I read at diner breakfasts. I'm only reading Stars right now because I picked up a cheap used copy.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 23, 2023 09:49 AM (AW0uW)

94 Half Price is the Buccee's of used books.

A warning that’s probably necessary for anyone coming to the TxMoMe: I’m pretty sure that every Half-Price Books in Texas only allows criminals to carry firearms in their stores.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at July 23, 2023 09:50 AM (EXyHK)

95 And Fraser's Flashman!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:46 AM (omVj0)
---
Yes. I haven't read him yet (soo much stuff yet to read!), but he fits the bill of an invincible anti-hero.

BTW, the short story "Basil Seal Rides Again," which concludes Basil's story arc, had me weeping with laughter. Waugh has such a wicket sense of humor.

Read Black Mischief while you still can!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:51 AM (llXky)

96 If you are going through Dallas, plan a stop at the Half Price Books just off US 75. Half Price is the Buccee's of used books.
Posted by: Oddbob at July 23, 2023 09:48 AM (nfrXX)
----
If I did that, I would never make it to Corsicana!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:51 AM (BpYfr)

97 The modern take is to hold dialect, deliberate misspellings of dialog words, to a minimum.

Thanks. Now for a twist.

Lets say that a contemporary author is writing a period piece book such as a story taking place in 18th Century Great Britain.

One of the annoying things in reading contemporary writers dialog of 19th Century westerns, or 22nd Century space adventures is the use of late 20th century idioms and phrasing. I know its readable, but some of the statements are very pop cultural.

So does the author, (targeting the 18th century UK) use the speech patterns of that era for the dialog, and if so, could that same pattern be used for the narration so that there is continuity?

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:52 AM (p8A+W)

98 "A Pit Full of Shit: The Death of John Funke?"

Is this where we get one of the definitions of "funk"?

Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 09:52 AM (iayUP)

99 Time for a walk. Back later, book fags.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:53 AM (IO+iC)

100 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 23, 2023 09:53 AM (vHIgi)

101 I'm continuing with "Tales of the South" a collection of short stories of antebellum South Carolina by William Gilmore Simms. His writing is delightful in itself: sprightly, wonderful straight-face humor (reminds me of PG Wodehouse many years later), great characters, and a touch of the supernatural. Everything of Simms that I've read, "The Golden Christmas" and his biography of Francis Marion has been excellent.

Simms was as popular as Poe and Melville in his time. Although he has been 'rediscovered' to a point, I wonder if his 'fall' was because he was from the South. [ . . . ]
Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:16 AM (7EjX1)

If you like the stories, you might be interested in the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 09:56 AM (xhaym)

102 Margery Allingham was a master at capturing the variations in dialog from different characters in the Campion series of mysteries (highly recommended by the way) but of course, with the wide variations in dialects in the UK to choose from, that made it easier. There was a BBC series of Campion mysteries in the eighties that is available on DVD that are very enjoyable, not just for the stories, but also for capturing the subtle nuance of dialect and stereotypes of various regions of England.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 09:56 AM (BLGmd)

103 59 ... "I tried to find a reference book on crocheting at that Arkansas bookstore, but was told those kinds of books are hard to keep in stock because they immediately sell out."

I've found a similar situation. The big used book store by us has always had a large number of books on crafts like knitting, crocheting and other fabric arts. Over the last several years that section has shrunk a lot. An employee said such books, especially 'classic' references, don't last a day. It's similar for other hands-on hobbies.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 09:56 AM (7EjX1)

104 Having the Perfessor highlight your book recommendation feels like the AoSHQ equivalent of being "mentioned in dispatches."

I need to catch up on the Monster Hunter series. I think I'm maybe two books behind. My favorite thus far was the one that focused on Agent Franks. Franks is such a bastard, and he'll kill someone without a second thought, but he's also morally driven and determined to hold the government to its promise to never make another being like him.

Posted by: PabloD at July 23, 2023 09:56 AM (95Dyf)

105 Recreational reading this week - Red Sky at Morning, which was mentioned/recommended here a few weeks ago. I had known of this book, but never read it until now. A lovely, observant, witty book, and a lesson to modern readers that teenagers were always curious, rebellious, sarcastic, and that many parents were also just as observant, witty, and caring about their offspring. (Mother and wife of an OB doctor to teenage son: "Why can't you get your sex education in the gutter, like everyone else?") Also - a wonderful evocation of small-town New Mexico during WWII.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom at July 23, 2023

***
A truly laugh-out-loud book. It's a model for me when it comes to funny dialog. And it manages to be a coming-of-age story that is not dark and unpleasant.

The scene where Josh and the other boys at the high school have to sit through a sex-education lecture and a film about VD is an utter classic.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:57 AM (omVj0)

106 A warning that’s probably necessary for anyone coming to the TxMoMe: I’m pretty sure that every Half-Price Books in Texas only allows criminals to carry firearms in their stores.

Yes, all HPB stores are 30.06 posted. So by definition, only criminals are armed even if they have no bad intent. I may or may not have been one such.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 23, 2023 09:58 AM (nfrXX)

107 Just finished Crooked River...Now onto Bloodless...

Incidentally, I've currently finished 80 books so far this year, with a combined page count of 34,637...

But who's really counting, eh?

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:58 AM (BpYfr)

108 I was listening to a podcast about Tolkien, and the guest was a fantasy writer who is also a deacon (Russian Orthodox), who writes Russian inspired fantasy.
He said he tries to write, like Tolkien, from a Christian worldview. I will probably try to check out one of his books.

https://nicholaskotar.com/

Anyone here read any of his books?

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 23, 2023 09:58 AM (vHIgi)

109 @87 and 88(!) --

I have ordered books from Half Price Books through AbeBooks. I'm taking an extra day for this year's TxMoMe just to get time to hit Dallas bookstores. (I found out last year that they are closed on Sundays.)

Thanks for the recommendation.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:58 AM (p/isN)

110 I rely on word choice (vocabulary) and sentence structure, which includes bad grammar.

"I put it on, but it come off again," vs "The attachment isn't quite secure."

I always "hear" dialog as I'm writing it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

I personally like the style that keeps Word from using the red squiggle but layers on the blue double underlines.

For those of us who speed read or are used to proof reading, misspellings are speed bumps and distracting.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:59 AM (p8A+W)

111 OT: Warm and gusty this morning -- looks like more rain. Wouldn't ya know it, I just washed the car.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 09:59 AM (omVj0)

112 Disneyland originally had a picnic area with trees, to the left of the entrance. Families could get their hands stamped, go to their car and get lunch (much cheaper than meals in the park). Then enjoy their lunch and return to the park for more fun.

I know because that's exactly what we did in 1960.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at July 23, 2023 10:00 AM (jgJfd)

113 My impression from Allingham is that unless the accent is very cockney, extreme spelling isn't necessary, just phrase the dialog based on the idioms or sentence structure a character would use based on their background.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 10:01 AM (mwk/O)

114 92 Poppins, that sounds like my kind of book.

Like the king who died "of a surfeit of eels".
Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:49 AM (IO+iC)

Same here! I trotted right over to thriftbooks to order it, but it's backordered. I'm sure I can get it at the library, but that looks like one I'd like to read a little at a time, so I'll need my own copy.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 10:01 AM (OX9vb)

115 Wisdom from Petroleum V. Nasby on printing money:

"It cost jest ez much to print a 10 cent note ez it does a dollar, and we bleeve in economizin"

Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 10:01 AM (iayUP)

116 Got the Open playing in another tab...looks like a typical July day in NW England.

Posted by: BignJames at July 23, 2023 10:02 AM (AwYPR)

117 Speaking of open-ended series, those used to be very common, especially for young readers. Such series as Tom Swift, the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew (with her baby-blue roadster), Doc Savage, and the Bobbsy Twins were very popular. L. Frank Baum's "Oz" books had a story that evolved and deepened over dozens of books but without a definite end, as did Edgar Rice Burroughs' series about Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. The closest thing nowadays are comic books; though the canon in some of them has become so convoluted over decades of monthly publication that the character is pretty much tied up in knots.

As for recommendations: My son started Paul Johnson's "Birth of the Modern" and said he can't put it down; which reminded me of what an outstanding book that is. Well worth reading, and re-reading.

Posted by: Nemo at July 23, 2023 10:02 AM (S6ArX)

118 So does the author, (targeting the 18th century UK) use the speech patterns of that era for the dialog, and if so, could that same pattern be used for the narration so that there is continuity?

If you decide to go that way, you're likely to come off as a bad parody of Sterne, Fielding or Walpole. My advice would be to use time-specific speech pattern very sparingly, but keep the dialogue "semi-modern" enough not to throw your readers off.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 23, 2023 10:03 AM (AW0uW)

119 For those of us who speed read or are used to proof reading, misspellings are speed bumps and distracting.
Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023

***
This misspellings, typos, and other editorial failures is why I gave up on Xavier DeSoto's Mardi Gras Madness. This is the author who has his narrator tell us that so-and-so is "rich as Creases [sic]."

(He's the group member who complains about certain of my techniques, and claims he used to be a copy editor. Hmph.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:04 AM (omVj0)

120 Since books stores -- especially indy book stores -- tend to be owned and operated by a "type" which we need not go too far into here, many of them will be 30.06 posted. [internet expert voice] Tekkkkkknickly, [/internet expert voice] if you do violate the intent of the sign, you are not actually trespassing until you've been asked to leave and you refuse. Not that I'm recommending that, of course.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 23, 2023 10:04 AM (nfrXX)

121 Some deep insights here. And one minor refrain was showing the immense effort it took to equip the French Army in 1943-1945.
Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ) at July 23, 2023 09:17 AM (u82oZ)

Fwiw, I really enjoyed:

Donald W. Engels
Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army

Svechin in his Strategy has some typically brilliant things to say about the interaction of the national economy and logistics and transportation types post wwi and pre wwii.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:06 AM (1ais2)

122 @119 --

Someone could have been a copy editor without having been a good copy editor.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 10:08 AM (p/isN)

123
Someone could have been a copy editor without having been a good copy editor.
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023

***
Unfortunately true.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:10 AM (omVj0)

124 From the "rich as Creases" bit, I'd guess that he was one of those folks who could spot a misspelling but not necessarily realize that the wrong word was being used.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 10:10 AM (a/4+U)

125 You need a 1977 World Book or a first run book try this guy.

https://forgottenlorebooks.com/

Posted by: rhennigantx at July 23, 2023 10:10 AM (BRHaw)

126 https://nicholaskotar.com/

Anyone here read any of his books?
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at July 23, 2023 09:58 AM (vHIgi)

Idk that guy. But Alexey Pehov is fantastic. He's definitely in the Tolkein style but with a lot of Glen Cook influence. It's very sane stuff just good straightforward fantasy done at the master craftsman level. There's very little if any theological themes though... or, if there are they went over my head.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:11 AM (1ais2)

127 Three refreshes, nothing new -- that's a sign to get ready for church. 'Bye, all.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 10:11 AM (p/isN)

128 101 ... "If you like the stories, you might be interested in the Uncle Remus stories by Joel Chandler Harris."

Kindltot,
Turns out I have that on Kindle but never read the stories. (Makes note to self.) Thanks.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 10:11 AM (7EjX1)

129 (He's the group member who complains about certain of my techniques, and claims he used to be a copy editor. Hmph.)
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:04 AM (omVj0)

Yeah...I was not impressed. Well, not favorably, anyway.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 10:11 AM (OX9vb)

130 Armchair generals talk strategy. Real generals talk logistics.

Posted by: Old Pentagon saying at July 23, 2023 10:12 AM (NBVIP)

131 OK, folks, it's a lovely sunny day and I have errands to run.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing at July 23, 2023 10:13 AM (AW0uW)

132 Armchair generals talk strategy. Real generals talk logistics. The Party Military's generals talk about diversity and climate change

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 10:14 AM (p8A+W)

133 From the "rich as Creases" bit, I'd guess that he was one of those folks who could spot a misspelling but not necessarily realize that the wrong word was being used.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023

***
He says he's going to advertise on Craigslist for a "co-writer" -- someone who matches with his writing and plotting style, so they can produce more books. I am suspicious as to what will happen with this.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:14 AM (omVj0)

134 127 Three refreshes, nothing new -- that's a sign to get ...

moar coffee.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at July 23, 2023 10:14 AM (NBVIP)

135 From the "rich as Creases" bit, I'd guess that he was one of those folks who could spot a misspelling but not necessarily realize that the wrong word was being used.

So just like spill chick?

Posted by: Oddbob at July 23, 2023 10:15 AM (nfrXX)

136 130 Armchair generals talk strategy. Real generals talk logistics.
Posted by: Old Pentagon saying at July 23, 2023 10:12 AM (NBVIP)

DC Generals talk tailors and steakhouses.

Posted by: rhennigantx at July 23, 2023 10:16 AM (BRHaw)

137 Kipling employed lots of Cockney voices for his Tommies, naturally. It's fun but it can make reading slow going for us moderns.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:45 AM (IO+iC)

It is really spooky how Brit soldiers would report again and again how in fatally tight spots some Cockney Tommy would show up and lead them out and then just disappear.

Seemed to be as prevalent as our current UFO sightings.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:17 AM (1ais2)

138 looking for the authors name of the Jacobs Ladder horror story mentioned in todays book thread. Horror is not generally my thing. As I do after most book threads,today, I immediately went to the kindle store with a shopping list. Too many books titled Jacobs Ladder, including more than a few bodice-rippers. Rather than make that mistake, I am here, depending on the kindness of strangers.

Posted by: Shavedape at July 23, 2023 10:18 AM (hA9ic)

139 Oh, and this week I read Hiss Me Deadly, a cozy-with-a-cat "mystery" by one Miranda James. James (a male author, I think, using a feminine name) has produced multiple books about a male librarian with a pet Maine Coon cat who solves murders on an amateur basis in a small town in Georgia. The writing is pedestrian, with little humor and a tendency to have characters repeat pieces of info we've already been told, and to have his/her hero tell us about his breakfast and how he spends time reading in his recliner with his cat.

Not impressed with his style, dialog, or mystery plotting. And as much as I love puns, I'm coming to hate the cozy genre's tradition of pun-titles, like this one or The Pawful Truth.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:18 AM (omVj0)

140 I'm reading "Alaska" by James Michener. A rare detour into the realm of fiction, for me. I'm enjoying it!

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 23, 2023 10:19 AM (MeG8a)

141 Good morning Perfessor.
I'm sorry I didn't have my book report.
The dog ate it.
Yeah. That's it. The dog ate it.
Darn dog

Posted by: Diogenes at July 23, 2023 10:20 AM (aMWJ5)

142 One author tried to use the inarticulate slang and phrasing of some gutter trash character. While it seemed semi-authentic (though lacked the crutch words, guttural sounds and mismatched metaphors and idioms used by people in the street today) it was annoying to read.

Is there any rule on this?

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 09:30 AM (p8A+W)

I'm a bit behind in the comments, but my way is start out the character speaking in slang, then slowly change to a more standard speech.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 10:20 AM (Angsy)

143 Armchair generals talk strategy. Real generals talk logistics.
Posted by: Old Pentagon saying at July 23, 2023 10:12 AM (NBVIP)

I think Moltke was an autistic "train guy". And didn't really like military life and was pretty disconnected from the army until they put him in charge.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:20 AM (1ais2)

144 Advertising on Craigslist for a co-writer?

Okay...

Not really the same thing, but for some reason that has me flashing on Dennis Etchison's short story "Talking in the Dark" in which somebody who sends his favorite writer a fan letter gets an in-person visit from the writer. Things don't go well, to put it mildly.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 10:20 AM (a/4+U)

145 On second thought, "Croesus" -> "Creases" sounds like the kind of error created by spell check instead of one missed. Still a human error to let it slip by though.

Posted by: Oddbob at July 23, 2023 10:21 AM (nfrXX)

146 Too many books titled Jacobs Ladder, including more than a few bodice-rippers. Rather than make that mistake, I am here, depending on the kindness of strangers.
Posted by: Shavedape at July 23, 2023 10:18 AM (hA9ic)

If you mean me, I meant the movie. Idk if there was a book.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:21 AM (1ais2)

147 There's a fascinating essay by Robert Graves called "The Search For Tommy Atkins," going into the question of why that particular name got used as the generic British soldier -- rather than, say, "John Smith" or something equally generic. He traces it back to the sample identity card for 19th-century soldiers (a precursor of dog tags?) which used "Tommy Atkins" as the sample name. From there he tracks back to the officer who created that card design, and finds a Thomas Atkins served under him in the Napoleonic wars. Graves speculates that Atkins may have been the officer's "batman."

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 10:22 AM (QZxDR)

148 Advertising on Craigslist for a co-writer?

Okay...

Not really the same thing, but for some reason that has me flashing on Dennis Etchison's short story "Talking in the Dark" in which somebody who sends his favorite writer a fan letter gets an in-person visit from the writer. Things don't go well, to put it mildly.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023

***
Advertising on Craigslist for a good writer around here is like advertising for a virgin on the Las Vegas Strip. You won't find one, but you might have a little amusement while you do it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:22 AM (omVj0)

149 He says he's going to advertise on Craigslist for a "co-writer" -- someone who matches with his writing and plotting style, so they can produce more books. I am suspicious as to what will happen with this.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:14 AM (omVj0)

This sounds like a book plot in itself. Not a good one, because books about people writing books are typically a bore, but it has treachery and murder written all over it. Right up his alley.

*we're slowly turning this into the "bash Xavier" thread, aren't we?

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 10:23 AM (OX9vb)

150 When I was in the fourth grade (centuries ago now), I read two books that I loved with all my heart: "The Little Grey Men" by D. J. Watkins-Pitchford who went by the pseudonym B.B., and "The Borrowers" by Mary Norton. For years I searched for those books for my children but it seems they went out of print. Then, to my delight, they must have been re-released and I found them on Amazon (yes, I know, gak, pfui), and the sequels as well. They were written for children, but I've been reading them and I discover that they encompass some themes you wouldn't imagine would be in children's books (at least not in those written before the current Age of Decadence). They're fairy tales, and like the old fairy tales, they don't pull punches. I'll give them to my grandchildren for their children when I've done with them.

Posted by: RebeccaH at July 23, 2023 10:24 AM (JI6AV)

151 I see Phillip Jose Farme on your list of new acquisition. I haven't seen that name in a long long time. I remember reading his stuff when I was addicted to SF but I don't remember if his writing was as cool as his name. On the other hand, I managed to finish off one of the Russians (Devils by Dostoyevsky) so I can start the last book in Hilary Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy.

Posted by: who knew at July 23, 2023 10:24 AM (4I7VG)

152 American cities produce nothing. They are pits of consumption: Keynes' shovels and holes. I have started Cline's " When Civilization Collapsed". I will see if how relevant it is to today.

Posted by: Jamaica NYC at July 23, 2023 10:25 AM (Eeb9P)

153 Thank you Thesokorus, same issue, just did a search quite a few movies of that title. If the story is set in a lighthouse, I have a few to choose from.

Posted by: Shavedape at July 23, 2023 10:26 AM (hA9ic)

154 *we're slowly turning this into the "bash Xavier" thread, aren't we?
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023

***
Didn't mean to. It's just that, even with multiple universities here, finding someone who can produce readable English prose is not going to be easy.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:26 AM (omVj0)

155 There's a surprisingly good Japanese animated film adaptation of The Borrowers, called The Secret World of Arietty. It's from Studio Ghibli, and they know how to do childlike wonder without descending into twee.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 10:27 AM (QZxDR)

156 Didn't mean to.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:26 AM (omVj0)

I did.

No more mean girl. I repent.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 10:28 AM (OX9vb)

157 Disneyland originally had a picnic area with trees, to the left of the entrance. Families could get their hands stamped, go to their car and get lunch (much cheaper than meals in the park). Then enjoy their lunch and return to the park for more fun.

I know because that's exactly what we did in 1960.

Posted by: Chatterbox Mouse at July 23, 2023 10:00 AM (jgJfd)

It's still there. Passed by it Thursday.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 10:31 AM (Angsy)

158 I discover that they encompass some themes you wouldn't imagine would be in children's books (at least not in those written before the current Age of Decadence). They're fairy tales, and like the old fairy tales, they don't pull punches. I'll give them to my grandchildren for their children when I've done with them.
Posted by: RebeccaH

Some of my favorite books as a child became my children's favorites as well. I recall we both really enjoyed The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, and the Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Invesigators series.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 10:32 AM (nv0lC)

159 It also proves once and for all that GDP is a terrible measure of national productive capability. The Russian GDP is much smaller than ours, but it produces actual things, not real estate deals and vaporware. Take out the market cap for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc., and the US economy looks much, much smaller.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at July 23, 2023 09:35 AM (llXky)

I agree. Svechin (Russian) makes the point that while the economy does need to be "militarized" it can't be too much so and the definition of "militarized" is important.

He was in favor of what we think of as a Swiss approach. Extensive training of the population and teaching a reverence for military service with a bad ass transportation and communication system and a moderate arms industry built with the intention of quick scale up. Stockpikes sufficient for a lightning strike offensive or preliminary defense.

The USSR disregarded this and I think was putting 60% of gdp into the military. Which got it a world historic military and societal collapse.

We've seemed to have started to ignore his advice since 2008.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:33 AM (1ais2)

160 There's a surprisingly good Japanese animated film adaptation of The Borrowers, called The Secret World of Arietty. It's from Studio Ghibli, and they know how to do childlike wonder without descending into twee.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023

***
I think Hallmark Hall of Fame did a version long ago, with Eddie Albert in the lead. I'll research it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:33 AM (omVj0)

161 There is a "corkscrew" railroad tunnel somewhere in Canada, and there appears to be some supernatural and scary stuff happening there, for certain people. So, looks like we have a horror selection this month.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 09:15 AM (OX9vb)

Yes. The famous spiral tunnel on the Canadian Pacific main line, near the eastern border of British Columbia, in Yoho National Park. Building the tunnel in a spiral allowed them to keep the grade of the track at the right level.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 10:33 AM (ZPLkc)

162 (He's the group member who complains about certain of my techniques, and claims he used to be a copy editor. Hmph.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:04 AM (omVj0)

WA, did he claim to be a good copy editor?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 10:34 AM (Angsy)

163 Thank you Thesokorus, same issue, just did a search quite a few movies of that title. If the story is set in a lighthouse, I have a few to choose from.
Posted by: Shavedape at July 23, 2023 10:26 AM (hA9ic)

Tim Robbins stars in it. Sorry for being unclear.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:34 AM (1ais2)

164 150 ... RebeccaH,

I recently got a hardcover collection of all The Borrowers book in one volume, with the original illustrations. It's a well made edition and cost 16 bucks on Amazon. I think it is a good deal. I'm enjoying the stories, even as a old guy who didn't read them as a kid.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 10:34 AM (7EjX1)

165 There was a film of the Borrowers with Eddie Albert and Tammy Grimes. Turns up on disc and may be available on Amazon Prime video. If memory serves, quality of the reproductions isn't great.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 10:35 AM (a/4+U)

166 More books that are timeless are The Secret Garden and Charlotte's Web.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 10:35 AM (nv0lC)

167 Re: The King in Yellow. In The Annihiliation Score, Charles Stross uses a sonata called The King in Yellow, as part of a calling invocation for the self-same 'King in Yellow'. The invocation fails at the last instance due to the powers of the protagonist, 'Mo', and the calling vector, a possessed violin named Lecter is cast into the nether domain as the gate to nether-world closes.
I wondered where Stross came up with the idea. Now I have to find a copy of 'The King in Yellow'.

Posted by: Dyspeptic Curmudgeon at July 23, 2023 10:36 AM (glUj6)

168 I can heartily second Cesspit Pariah's recommendation of "The Mouse Betrayed": the groomer issues have been around for a lot longer than people want to admit, and Eisner may have headed the golden renaissance of Disney movies, but he ushered in the hidden filth, brought in Weinstein with Miramax, and created a socio-economic barrier to enjoying the parks. Things went down from there. The book was deemed a "church lady" type attack against the park, probably by Mouse lawyers, yet here we are.

Posted by: Moki at July 23, 2023 10:36 AM (JrN/x)

169 Good morning Perfesser! I have a funny coincidence for you! After reading the book thread last weekend, I went to my favorite little vintage store at the beach. It sells a wide variety of things, with all proceeds going to a battered women's shelter. There's a great little book nook in the corner of the shop where I've found lots of interesting reading material. So, what should I see on the shelf right in front of me? Six Preston and Child Pendergast novels! I'm guessing you put them there for me! They were only 99 cents each so I bought all of them. The books are not in consecutive order so I'm not sure how to start or whether I might need to buy "Relic" and "Reliquary" and read them first. The books I have are: "The Cabinet of Curiosities", "Dance of Death", "The Book of the Dead", "Blue Labrynth", "Crimson Shore" and "The Obsidian Chamber". Any advice on how I should proceed?

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 10:36 AM (rbKZ6)

170 (He's the group member who complains about certain of my techniques, and claims he used to be a copy editor. Hmph.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023
*
WA, did he claim to be a good copy editor?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023

***
A fine distinction, and an important one. No -- which is why I put "expert copy editor" on my resume, just to make it clear.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:37 AM (omVj0)

171 Now I have to find a copy of 'The King in Yellow'.
Posted by: Dyspeptic Curmudgeon at July 23, 2023 10:36 AM (glUj6)

I think the concept "Carcossa" comes from King in Yellow as well.

And Yellow is not the usual royal color. That's Purple. But Yellow is very evocative of The East and Asia.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:38 AM (1ais2)

172 I pre-ordered a comic off Kickstarter this week. "Beyond the Western Deep" Volume 3. Its basically the closest thing to "Redwall" I've found in comic form.

The first two volumes were really good. A slow burn, the story gives scenes and conversations time to breath. I just worry that it's too much of a slow burn. The story is still in the 'expansion mode,' sending each character off on their own individual adventure. With the slow pace of the story, I sometimes worry that the creators will move on before they bring all the characters back together and conclude the story. But, hey, you can't go through life assuming that every author is George RR Martin...

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 23, 2023 10:40 AM (Lhaco)

173 That tool already exists. When I search Google for "used bookstores near town X" I get a list of used bookstores in certain radius. I can customize the parameters a bit to expand the radius or filter the results. I also get a map showing where the bookstores are located. I did this for Corsicana, TX. Sadly, there do not appear to be any used bookstores in town or even nearby, though there are a few in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, of course.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at July 23, 2023 09:25 AM (BpYfr)

It would not surprise me to learn that Google, which is untrustworthy, has "filtered" searches of Corsicana, because of the TXMoMee.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 10:41 AM (ZPLkc)

174 Good morning. Late to the party as usual.
Decided to try another Robert Parker as Looking for Rachel Wallace was a bit of a disappointment but people here were encouraging so read God Save the Child which I think is his second Spenser book. It introduced Susan Silverman who has a serious effect on Spenser. She is a kind of psychologist and her conversations with Spenser bring out more of who he is and makes the character come alive.
But...
To be continued

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 10:41 AM (t/2Uw)

175 The books I have are: "The Cabinet of Curiosities", "Dance of Death", "The Book of the Dead", "Blue Labrynth", "Crimson Shore" and "The Obsidian Chamber". Any advice on how I should proceed?
Posted by: Moonbeam

You already have them in the proper order. Though you should look for Brimstone as it precedes Dance of Death.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 10:41 AM (nv0lC)

176 >>And Yellow is not the usual royal color. That's Purple. But Yellow is very evocative of The East and Asia.

Yellow is the color of royalty in China. The center of Yin and Yang.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 23, 2023 10:42 AM (ZLI7S)

177 Now we know where Ace spends his weekends!

‘EWOK VILLAGE’ Homeless Encampment Appears In Trees High Above Seattle
Seattle vagrants have now constructed a homeless encampment in the trees above the crime-ridden city, prompting one stunned local to liken it to the Ewok Village from Star Wars.

Local journalist Jonathan Choe stumbled across the ramshackle treehouse high in the city’s trees on Friday, and deployed a drone to get a closer look.

The Ewok encampment has a wooden stepladder to let its residents reach the ground below it. Its floor appears to be comprised of foam blocks, with a net supporting the soft material, which likely gives the shelter’s residents a comfortable sleeping experience.

Posted by: andycanuck (krqg6) at July 23, 2023 10:44 AM (krqg6)

178 Been eons since I read God Save the Child, but as I recall it that one and Promised Land were the ones that made the Spenser series must reading for me. It's not a Spenser but Parker's stand-alone suspense novel Wilderness ain't bad either (and why nobody's filmed it yet is beyond me).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 10:44 AM (a/4+U)

179 No yellow.

Posted by: Hunter at July 23, 2023 10:44 AM (NBVIP)

180 Much of the humor comes from the way the author, Keith Laumer, writes the ways the different creatures in the galaxy speak. For a wordsmith such as me, this is catnip.

Some examples: Terra's main adversaries, the Groaci (read: Soviets) speak all their verbs in infinitives: "To give only brief quotes. To spare the Horde excess verbiage."

Others reverse the word order -- "Long write you, boy" -- switch syllables, or use soundalike words ("You dry dell me my chob?"). I love Laumer's descriptive metaphor: An angry superior speaks in "a voice like an iceberg sliding into an Arctic sea."

His descriptions of other worlds and their inhabitants are also imaginative.

(continued -- gee, thanks, Pixy)
Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 09:14 AM (p/isN)

Sound like the author is a bit of a language nerd. There languages here on earth that switch word order (subject-verb-object like us vs subject-object-verb languages). There are a whole bunch of other quirks out there that would make neat alien-tells, if only you have the werewithall to wrap your head around how to use them.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 23, 2023 10:46 AM (Lhaco)

181 >>> 92 Poppins, that sounds like my kind of book.

Like the king who died "of a surfeit of eels".
Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 09:49 AM (IO+iC)

Why didn't he order his minions to load the eels into his hovercraft?

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at July 23, 2023 10:46 AM (llON8)

182 He says he's going to advertise on Craigslist for a "co-writer" -- someone who matches with his writing and plotting style, so they can produce more books. I am suspicious as to what will happen with this.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:14 AM (omVj0)

Easy. Create the characters and outline the story, leave the actual writing to the co-writer, get author credit. Money.

You can see that on the Reedsy site, people offering ghosting.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 10:47 AM (Angsy)

183 Yellow is the color of royalty in China. The center of Yin and Yang.
Posted by: JackStraw at July 23, 2023 10:42 AM (ZLI7S)

Right. Poor drafting by me. Europe royalty is purple. China is Yellow. As is Taoism. Yellow turbans.

Guenon argued taoism was the esoteric "Brahmin" core of China and Confuscianism was the Noble/Kshatriyan variation. Yellow Turbans an attempt to take back power by chinese "brahmins".

So, King in Yellow is in one sense about an esoteric order's actions and initiations.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:47 AM (1ais2)

184 Groachi is prob variation of Gracchi from Rome. With tendentious connection to commies.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:48 AM (1ais2)

185 Hmmm... wherewithal you have. Wrap your head around them, you will.

Posted by: Yodaspeak at July 23, 2023 10:49 AM (NBVIP)

186 Then I got a Raymond Chandler novel, Farewell, My Lovely. I loved The Big Sleep and this one did not disappoint. I am only half way through and although Spenser resembles the Marlowe character in some ways, here the story is compelling as well as the detective trying to solve it. Written in the 40's it is also some what of a historical document of the time. I am looking for clues as hard as Marlowe is.
Highly recommended if you like mysteries.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 10:49 AM (t/2Uw)

187 an iceberg sliding into an Arctic sea.
------------
Global warming!!

Posted by: andycanuck (krqg6) at July 23, 2023 10:50 AM (krqg6)

188 Why didn't he order his minions to load the eels into his hovercraft?
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at July 23, 2023 10:46 AM (llON

China Swedes too busy dealing with their females being obsessed with riding their hobbyhorses around in typucal autistic china swede mania.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:50 AM (1ais2)

189 Robert W. Chambers created the fictitious play "The King In Yellow," referenced in several of the short stories in his collection _The King In Yellow_. He never actually wrote a story called "The King In Yellow," just the anthology.

Confusingly, Raymond Chandler _did_ write a short story called "The King In Yellow," about the murder of a jazz musician, wearing yellow silk boxer shorts at the time of his demise.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 10:51 AM (QZxDR)

190 Sound like the author is a bit of a language nerd. There languages here on earth that switch word order (subject-verb-object like us vs subject-object-verb languages). There are a whole bunch of other quirks out there that would make neat alien-tells, if only you have the werewithall to wrap your head around how to use them.
Posted by: Castle Guy at July 23, 2023 1

***
Romanian pops the definite article on the end of the noun, e.g., lupul is "the wolf," with the -ul being the article. Your aliens would thus say "go to ship-the." German likes to stick the verb at the end of the sentence, and I've been told Spanish will sometimes fasten the subject of the sentence to the end.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:52 AM (omVj0)

191
Confusingly, Raymond Chandler _did_ write a short story called "The King In Yellow," about the murder of a jazz musician, wearing yellow silk boxer shorts at the time of his demise.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023

***
And his forerunner Hammett had a Continental Op story called "Dead Yellow Women." Ooops, probably not PC to mention that title today, so sorry. (And there's another cultural appropriation! Where will it end?)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:53 AM (omVj0)

192 Yellow had some mysterious significance for the "decadent" school of writers and painters at the end of the 19th century. Chambers was at the edge of that scene.

Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 10:53 AM (QZxDR)

193 Highly recommended if you like mysteries.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 10:49 AM (t/2Uw)

We had a really good discussion here a ways back about Noir and what it was in essence.

I like Spillane and Thompson the most. But it is a fantastic period of creativity. Rivals the Howard/lovecraft/Ashton-Smith thing.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:54 AM (1ais2)

194 175 The books I have are: "The Cabinet of Curiosities", "Dance of Death", "The Book of the Dead", "Blue Labrynth", "Crimson Shore" and "The Obsidian Chamber". Any advice on how I should proceed?
Posted by: Moonbeam

You already have them in the proper order. Though you should look for Brimstone as it precedes Dance of Death.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 10:41 AM

I put the titles that I have in order but there's a big gap between The Book of the Dead and Blue Labyrinth. I was mostly interested in whether I should read the first two before I read The Cabinet of Curiosities. Also, The Book of the Dead and Dance of Death are part of a trilogy that is completed by a book that I don't have (Brimstone).

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 10:55 AM (rbKZ6)

195 Moonbeam as a reader of a couple long series look them up and surly you will see the order to read them.
Sometimes books are printed out of order in the time line if it matters

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 10:56 AM (xhxe8)

196 Yellow had some mysterious significance for the "decadent" school of writers and painters at the end of the 19th century. Chambers was at the edge of that scene.
Posted by: Trimegistus at July 23, 2023 10:53 AM (QZxDR)

Yes. It ties into secret societies and occult wisdom from the "East". Perrenialism and some persisting Ur Tradition superior to current "religions".

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 10:56 AM (1ais2)

197 . . . read God Save the Child which I think is his second Spenser book. It introduced Susan Silverman who has a serious effect on Spenser. She is a kind of psychologist and her conversations with Spenser bring out more of who he is and makes the character come alive.
But...
To be continued
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023

***
She's a school psychologist at that point in her career. Later she goes back to school at Harvard for a Ph.D. GStC gives us Susan, and the fourth novel, Promised Land introduces Hawk -- the two characters who symbolize the two essential parts of Spenser's character, the empathic man and the tough scuffler.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:56 AM (omVj0)

198 Ooops, TP, Sorry I overlooked your recommendation re: Brimstone. I'll get that one.

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 10:58 AM (rbKZ6)

199 I'm a bit behind in the comments, but my way is start out the character speaking in slang, then slowly change to a more standard speech.

Fiona Glenanne, the "Irish" partner in the USA Network TV series "Burn Notice" played by Gabrielle Anwar started out with a convincing Irish brogue for the first handful of episodes. It was completely gone by the end of the season, never to be heard again.

I sort of wished she kept it, but fully understand the stress of doing so and why it was abandoned. Nonetheless, Hugh Laurie managed to keep out his heavy British accent throughout the whole series.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 10:58 AM (p8A+W)

200 The essential difference between Parker's Spenser and Chandler's Marlowe is that the former *likes* his life. There are things about it that depress him, but he likes being Spenser. Marlowe seems to hate nearly everything about his life.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:58 AM (omVj0)

201 From the "rich as Creases" bit, I'd guess that he was one of those folks who could spot a misspelling but not necessarily realize that the wrong word was being used.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 10:10 AM (a/4+U)

That's a spelling mistake I would never make, as I don't pronounce the words the same way. Creases: krees-ez. Croesus: kree-shus.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 10:59 AM (KhPbM)

202 Been eons since I read God Save the Child, but as I recall it that one and Promised Land were the ones that made the Spenser series must reading for me. It's not a Spenser but Parker's stand-alone suspense novel Wilderness ain't bad either (and why nobody's filmed it yet is beyond me).
Posted by: Just Some Guy
Promised Land is next in my queue. ❤️

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:00 AM (t/2Uw)

203 "I remember enjoying Alan Dean Foster's Flinx books. "Ah, he's written more than movie novelizations!""

I loved his "Taken" trilogy. Great fun.

Posted by: Tuna at July 23, 2023 11:02 AM (Yc3jl)

204 That's a spelling mistake I would never make, as I don't pronounce the words the same way. Creases: krees-ez. Croesus: kree-shus.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 10:59 AM (KhPbM)

How do you pronounce your Latin "v"?

Do you say Biggush Diccush as opposed to the British Biggus Diccus?

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:02 AM (1ais2)

205 The reason I bring up the methods of writing dialog in period pieces is that I have an ongoing project with the working title "Nephilim Theory" that is sort of a Speculative Theology meets Tom Clancy sort of genre and a substantial part of setting up a key plot element, the Ark of the Covenant, requires story telling five centuries before Christ.

My impulse is to use NASB dialog stylings of the History books of the OT where the speech is very concise except when it needs rhetorical flair.

Wondering if my narrative style should also match.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 11:03 AM (p8A+W)

206 That's a spelling mistake I would never make, as I don't pronounce the words the same way. Creases: krees-ez. Croesus: kree-shus.

Similar to when Al Sharpton referred to Goebbels as "Gurgles".

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 11:05 AM (p8A+W)

207 "Decided to try another Robert Parker as Looking for Rachel Wallace was a bit of a disappointment..."

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 10:41 AM (t/2Uw)

Harrumph!

That is one of my favorite Parker/Spenser books.

Chacun a son gout!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 23, 2023 11:06 AM (PHmov)

208 Romanian pops the definite article on the end of the noun, e.g., lupul is "the wolf," with the -ul being the article. Your aliens would thus say "go to ship-the." German likes to stick the verb at the end of the sentence, and I've been told Spanish will sometimes fasten the subject of the sentence to the end.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 10:52 AM (omVj0)

Mixing sentences was used very well with the child community in one of the Mad Max movies.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 23, 2023 11:06 AM (BdMk6)

209 195 Moonbeam as a reader of a couple long series look them up and surly you will see the order to read them.
Sometimes books are printed out of order in the time line if it matters
Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 10:56 AM

I'm not brain-damaged. I already have the list. I took note of Perfessor's comment in this thread that they don't need to be read in order, but I was mostly interested in whether I should read Relic and Reliquary first. I thought that since he has dedicated so much of the past two book threads discussing the series, it would be a quick question.

I'm not in any great hurry for an answer. I'm smack in the middle of "Hamilton" right now, so I would have time to buy any books that enhance my understanding of the Pendergast character.

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 11:07 AM (rbKZ6)

210 I remember reading the Spenser books as they came out, and I ran with it for quite awhile.
But eventually, too much Susan, and too much taming Hawk, I let them drop.

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:07 AM (4780s)

211 How do you pronounce your Latin "v"?

Do you say Biggush Diccush as opposed to the British Biggus Diccus?
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:02 AM (1ais2)

I don't pronounce Latin "v's". I have standards, you know.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (KhPbM)

212 Good morning, Perfesser Squirrel and all bookies!
That bookstore in Arkansas was awesome and very well taken care of - I enjoyed perusing the stacks.

As perfesser did, so I read Still Life with Crows. With each new book in the series we learn more about agent Pendergast; an interesting fellow for sure. From the first page to the last page it was very clear the two authors, as well as any editors, never actually experienced corn fields. Other than that, a fun read.

Posted by: SnailRacer at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (Etqa/)

213 May your books illuminate and entertain. Have a great day of pleasing sunshine and zephyrs.
Posted by: NaCly Dog (u82oZ

Oh. I read that as "sunshine and zippers."

What's a zephyr ?

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (T4tVD)

214 Recently I have been reading some poems by Tennyson, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and others. For some reason, with few exceptions, I have not read poetry in decades.
Some is really good. I especially enjoyed "Morte d'Arthur" by Tennyson.
Being caught with other business and sometimes lacking the time to enjoy a longer story, I find that poems have the right size for a short break.

Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (84jHt)

215 What are the opinions of reading order for series that were not composed sequentially?

Do you follow the publishing order or go by narrative chronology?

I ran into this with the Druss novels. I chose narrative order which was cool but led to stylistic contrasts.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:10 AM (1ais2)

216 Chacun a son gout!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo

Gesundheidt !

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:11 AM (T4tVD)

217 The essential difference between Parker's Spenser and Chandler's Marlowe is that the former *likes* his life. There are things about it that depress him, but he likes being Spenser. Marlowe seems to hate nearly everything about his life.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius
That is an interesting point. Not sure I agree but need to think about it more. I think both characters are a product of their time. Marlowe's era is not a happy one. Yet, he does not seem to caught up in the prejudices of his time. He also loses fights, which Spenser, kind of like Reacher, never loses. His vulnerability makes him more realistic somehow.
Chandler also does not waste time with page after page of scene description.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:11 AM (t/2Uw)

218 I don't pronounce Latin "v's". I have standards, you know.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (KhPbM)

Gordian Knit Status: CUT

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:11 AM (1ais2)

219 Thank you, Perfessor, for another enlightening and enjoyable Book Thread.

Didn't get much reading done last week. I had begun Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant series and found the first book, The Man in the Queue interesting, if a little bit hard to follow in a couple of places. Still, I enjoyed it enough to buy A Shilling for Candles on my Kindle. Again, the story is interesting but I find it a little bit difficult to follow at times. I'm not sure if it's her writing style or if there are things that I'm not familiar with that would have been common knowledge at time the story was written. Then again, it may be because I'm reading on the Kindle. I will definite finish it, though.

I appreciate the convenience of downloading books on the Kindle whenever I want and the number of books I can carry around with me on one little device. Yet, somehow, it changes the reading experience for me, though not enough to never use it if there is a book I want in a hurry or if it's hard to find otherwise.. All in all, not a bad problem to have.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at July 23, 2023 11:12 AM (ob77J)

220 Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 10:55 AM

Brimstone, Dance of Death and Book of the Dead are a trilogy, as are Fever Dream, Cold Vengeance and Two Graves. Outside of that, the books are written so that they stand alone as stories.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 11:12 AM (nv0lC)

221 What's a zephyr ?
Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (T4tVD)

https://tinyurl.com/bdfpk9ha

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 11:12 AM (KhPbM)

222 195 Moonbeam as a reader of a couple long series look them up and surly you will see the order to read them.
Sometimes books are printed out of order in the time line if it matters
Posted by: Skip

Don't call her Surly !

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:13 AM (T4tVD)

223 Recently I have been reading some poems by Tennyson, Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and others. For some reason, with few exceptions, I have not read poetry in decades.
Some is really good. I especially enjoyed "Morte d'Arthur" by Tennyson.
Being caught with other business and sometimes lacking the time to enjoy a longer story, I find that poems have the right size for a short break.
Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (84jHt)

I've never liked poetry. The same goes for Shakespeare.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 23, 2023 11:13 AM (BdMk6)

224 All the winds have names. Zephyr is the greek god of the west wind.
Not to be confused with a shit ass TV show.

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:13 AM (4780s)

225 What's a zephyr ?
Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (T4tVD)

$20, same as in town.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (UnDu0)

226 I appreciate the convenience of downloading books on the Kindle whenever I want and the number of books I can carry around with me on one little device.

Makes sitting in a waiting room or standing in queue much more tolerable.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (p8A+W)

227 Followed the Spensers for a long time. Stopped somewhere around Walking Shadow if memory serves.

After a while a long series, or just books by a favorite writer whether series or not, seems like a familiar neighborhood that you always liked -- some of it may get a bit old and run-down but you're always glad to visit and there's always something about the place that makes you happy you stopped by. Even the Spensers that weren't up to the top of Parker's game always had scenes or characters that made them worth the price of admission. Can't recall ever feeling that I'd wasted my cash by purchasing one. Ditto for a number of other writers I've read for a long time.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (a/4+U)

228 AOP, Plymouth?

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (4780s)

229 What's a zephyr ?
Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (T4tVD)

https://tinyurl.com/bdfpk9ha
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon

Whoa !

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (T4tVD)

230 I don't care, 'Hiss Me Deadly' is a hilarious book title.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (43xH1)

231 220 Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 10:55 AM

Brimstone, Dance of Death and Book of the Dead are a trilogy, as are Fever Dream, Cold Vengeance and Two Graves. Outside of that, the books are written so that they stand alone as stories.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at July 23, 2023 11:12 AM

Thanks!

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (rbKZ6)

232 I sort of wished she kept it, but fully understand the stress of doing so and why it was abandoned. Nonetheless, Hugh Laurie managed to keep out his heavy British accent throughout the whole series.

Posted by: Reuben Hick at July 23, 2023 10:58 AM (p8A+W)

Slang and dialect are easier to listen to than read. I wonder if the dialect speak of the "lower classes" and "race" characters is to keep them subservient to the "hero" of the piece, even if they are smart enough to recognize important information? Old Jimmy Lileks has a section of Frank Reade, Jr. material on his website. He was two sidekicks, Barney, an Irishman, and Pomp, a black. They both act and speak in stereotypical ways. One of my back burner ideas is to have my character interact with FR,J. and end up punching him in the face. Lileks has FR,J. subtitled "punchably smug."

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (Angsy)

233 CBD, your recommendation was why I read it and although not my favorite, it has led me to others and also to explore the genre. Isn't that what this thread is all about. It is because of the Silverman character in that book that I decided to read her origin story.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (t/2Uw)

234 Being caught with other business and sometimes lacking the time to enjoy a longer story, I find that poems have the right size for a short break.
Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (84jHt)

I'm a poetry guy. And I feel the same. I also think the greater restraint put on an artist the better. Perhaps paradoxically but I think it is true.

Shakespeare's Sonnets are even more mindblowing than the plays. To the extent that I think the plays were just working out ideas given final form in the Sonnets.

Shakespeare famously didn't really care about preserving the plays but he did work to preserve the Sonnets.

Shakespeare was a group of lawyers and judges btw.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (1ais2)

235 What's a zephyr ?
Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:09 AM (T4tVD)

$20, same as in town.
Posted by: BurtTC

lol.

That train's never late !

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (T4tVD)

236 A zephyr is a light wind.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:16 AM (t/2Uw)

237 Chandler also does not waste time with page after page of scene description.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023

***
Parker doesn't do that to excess. I recall in an early one, possibly GStC, he drives to an outlying town beyond Boston and reflects (in the early '70s, yet) on the clutter of endless strip malls and businesses along the highway. He concludes, "Maybe Squanto made a mistake."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:17 AM (omVj0)

238 A zephyr is a light wind.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)

So, the opposite of a Beer Fart ?

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:17 AM (T4tVD)

239 67 The reason we get "Mary Sue" stories is because nobody wants to read a story about a dull ordinary no talent person who fails.
Posted by: fd at July 23, 2023 09:37 AM (iayUP)

Nah, the reason we get "Mary Sue" stories is because certain authors love their creation too much, and they write the story in order to glorify their character, rather than tell a fun/engaging/believable story.

Posted by: Castle Guy at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (Lhaco)

240 This morning I am not reading anything, I got off work at 07:00 and arrived at the office to effing finish this Sci-Fi Book That Won't Die. It needed a ton of continuity edits because I wrote the original parts separately, so characters were sitting, standing, walking, doing things out of order. It's jarring when you have a paragraph describing a character sitting down when three paragraphs earlier he's already sitting down.
Then, dumping in a few interesting asides and clarifying a few things, none of it's major but add it all up and it's a CHORE that takes For. Ev. Er.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (43xH1)

241 "Shakespeare's Sonnets are even more mindblowing than the plays."
Yes, there is a lot to read and catch up with for me, especially Walter Scott's and Byron's poetry, but Shakespeare's too.

Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (84jHt)

242 >>> 234

==
Shakespeare was a group of lawyers and judges btw.
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (1ais2)

I thought Shakespeare was akshually Francis Bacon.

Posted by: Helena Handbasket at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (llON8)

243 I've never liked poetry. The same goes for Shakespeare.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 23, 2023 11:13 AM (BdMk6)

Fair. But unfortunate. Shakespeare really needs a historical awareness of the subject matter. The good news is even slight familiarity of the subject matter is enough. And the more the better obviously.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:19 AM (1ais2)

244 AOP, Plymouth?
Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:14 AM (4780s)

Lincoln. Had a V12 engine. Pretty car.

British Fords also used the Zephyr name. Dumpy little cars.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at July 23, 2023 11:19 AM (KhPbM)

245 I don't understand this. There was a used bookstore near me that had zero arrangement--just pile the books on the shelves, no categories, no alpha sort, no nothing. FFS, you are there all day, why not sort the things?

It's closed now. Small wonder.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at July 23, 2023 09:27 AM (OX9vb)
---------------------------------------------
In my store that's the doing of the customers. Fiction sections start out alpha by author, history is roughly chronological, geography by country, etc.

I'll look around and find Lewis next to Wolfe, Jance between the Brontes, US Civil War hiding in with 1700 plague books, etc.

Also, I TRY to shelve books with spines along the edge of the shelf. By the end of a day, half the shelves have the books all randomly in an out. It's a conspiracy, I tell you.

Posted by: My friends call me Pete at July 23, 2023 11:19 AM (a4vvV)

246 I thought Shakespeare was akshually Francis Bacon.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (llON

He was part of it. But just a part.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:19 AM (1ais2)

247 That was supposed to be 17th century plague books, NOT 1700's.

Posted by: My friends call me Pete at July 23, 2023 11:20 AM (a4vvV)

248 I thought Shakespeare was akshually Francis Bacon.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (llON

Think Monty Python if the principals didn't act in it.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:21 AM (1ais2)

249 I don't care, 'Hiss Me Deadly' is a hilarious book title.
Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023

***
It woudn't be bad if it actually reflected something in the story. But there are no snakes, and the cats don't hiss at anything. I know, the original was a Mike Hammer story (Kiss Me, Deadly), but you could hardly imagine two stories more different from each other than HMD and KMD.

Unless it was The Wind in the Willows and Kiss Me, Deadly.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:21 AM (omVj0)

250 Yes, there is a lot to read and catch up with for me, especially Walter Scott's and Byron's poetry, but Shakespeare's too.
Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (84jHt)

Kipling bro. Kipling. I love that stuff.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:22 AM (1ais2)

251 My dog Joe was ripping some heavy zephyrs this morning. Whew!

Posted by: Diogenes at July 23, 2023 11:22 AM (e4fEA)

252 books on the shelves, no categories, no alpha sort, no nothing. FFS, you are there all day, why not sort the things? It's closed now. Small wonder.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!

Weird little bookshops in Guadalajara, Mexico and one in a cellar in Belgrade, Serbia are like this. Piles of books in huge jumbles.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:22 AM (43xH1)

253 I always thought of The King in Yellow to be a science fiction story or a future prediction story with Wilke Collins like character studies, with the added supernatural element of the Yellow Sign.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 11:22 AM (xhaym)

254 I always thought of The King in Yellow to be a science fiction story or a future prediction story with Wilke Collins like character studies, with the added supernatural element of the Yellow Sign.
Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 11:22 AM (xhaym)

It is a cycle of short stories in a book. I think the first is the primary one for me.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:24 AM (1ais2)

255 Wolfus, I beg to differ. He literally names every store he drives by on Route 1 for two solid pages. I got the idea after the first paragraph. He also walks a lot and names every street he walks down. It did not add anything to the story. I like the books, really, but I know Boston and it just got to feel like filler.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:24 AM (t/2Uw)

256 Nah, the reason we get "Mary Sue" stories is because certain authors love their creation too much, and they write the story in order to glorify their character, rather than tell a fun/engaging/believable story.
Posted by: Castle Gu'

This sounds like aspiring Comics creators, who (at least they used to, back in The True Nerd Days, when a female appearance at a Comic Convention was a legendary event) devise a Character with a Power, then come up with foes for him to fight. Story? What's that?

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:25 AM (43xH1)

257 Firesign Theatre in their bit on Noir has the narrator name every street and turn in LA that the protagonist takes.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (1ais2)

258 Moderator please remove my last comment.

Really as someone who has mixed up long series I am not throwing stones. Thought I needed to find Patrick O'Brian 100 days to finish the series and found I own 2 copies already. Bought them so long ago twice and forgot I did.

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (oxuwr)

259 Alberta Oil Peon beat me to it at 221. Lincoln's finest

Posted by: who knew at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (4I7VG)

260 "Kipling bro. Kipling. I love that stuff."
I have read "Kim" and "If" many times, but you're right, there should be so much more.

Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (84jHt)

261 Wolfus, I beg to differ. He literally names every store he drives by on Route 1 for two solid pages. I got the idea after the first paragraph. . . .
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023

***
Was that the scene I referred to, where he ends by commenting that "Squanto made a mistake"? I thought I recalled that as being one long paragraph at most.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (omVj0)

262 I thought Shakespeare was akshually Francis Bacon.
Posted by: Helena Handbasket at July 23, 2023 11:18 AM (llON

Frankly, it's a topic I find about as interesting as the question, who was Jack the Ripper. There's a new book on that topic now, by the way.

Don't care. And your new theory isn't going to convince me.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (J4UmJ)

263 That was supposed to be 17th century plague books, NOT 1700's.
Posted by: My friends call me Pete
====
What's a hundred years between friends.

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (4780s)

264 OT: Rain has stopped. Sun may come out again. Grrrr.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:27 AM (omVj0)

265 They call the zephyr Marian.

Posted by: Out here in Oklahoma at July 23, 2023 11:27 AM (NBVIP)

266 *Mariah

Posted by: Out here in Oklahoma at July 23, 2023 11:28 AM (NBVIP)

267 My book should be out in mid-October! I envisioned it as episodic, so that you could read any of the books in any order, but there is a through-line for the first four.

Each book involves the protagonist visiting a new world where his job is to resolve issues with the alien species so that they can trade with the rest of the galaxy.

Challenge level: They're all insect-based life forms, and their reproduction is "r" instead of "K". The r/K selection theory was the germ of the idea, and how this character grew as he was exposed to radically different POVs.

Posted by: moviegique at July 23, 2023 11:28 AM (lpWi1)

268 Really as someone who has mixed up long series I am not throwing stones. Thought I needed to find Patrick O'Brian 100 days to finish the series and found I own 2 copies already. Bought them so long ago twice and forgot I did.
Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (oxuwr)

I've done that. Found I already had a copy. With music and movies too.

Posted by: BurtTC at July 23, 2023 11:28 AM (J4UmJ)

269 222- Don't call her Surly !
Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:13 AM

You get me, JT!

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 23, 2023 11:28 AM (rbKZ6)

270 I have read "Kim" and "If" many times, but you're right, there should be so much more.
Posted by: PG at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (84jHt)

Sorry. I wasn't unloading a "should" on you. I just really really like Kipling's poetry.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:28 AM (1ais2)

271 I am anxiously awaiting Karin Slaughter's new Will Trent novel. That is an open ended series where the character just gets more and more fascinating the more you know about him. I remember writing here how I was in love with this character. It has been a while since her last one and I do not like her stand alone murder mysteries. They are very very dark.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:29 AM (t/2Uw)

272 Firesign Theatre in their bit on Noir has the narrator name every street and turn in LA that the protagonist takes.
Posted by: Thesokorus
----
And Nick Danger enters the room.

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:30 AM (4780s)

273 Rocky Rah-cohhh-co

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:30 AM (1ais2)

274 222- Don't call her Surly !
Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:13 AM

You get me, JT!
Posted by: Moonbeam

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 11:30 AM (T4tVD)

275 I experienced a bit of a literary surprise this week. Decided to listen to some of "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

I was convinced I wouldn't be able to tolerate more than 30 minutes because the author had to be a rabid left wing tree hugging environmental whacko feminist who was going to tell me how evil white people are and the Earth will be going up in flames any minute now.

I've been pleasantly surprised. It's read by the author and her voice falls easy on the ear. Her family background is from one of the Indian tribes of New England relocated to Oklahoma. She's a PhD level botanist and an excellent storyteller.

As I'm anticipating a major change in lifestyle that will involve lots and lots of camping, I'm interested in my relationship to nature, especially trees and plants.

I've had to swallow my pride and tell myself to lighten up, Francis.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at July 23, 2023 11:31 AM (NBVIP)

276 Firesign Theatre in their bit on Noir has the narrator name every street and turn in LA that the protagonist takes.
Posted by: Thesokorus'

I immediately thought of the Californians SNL skits...

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:31 AM (43xH1)

277 Well, I was disappointed this week. I've been reading LA Dobb's Sam Mason murder mystery series about a small town chief of police and his dog. In the latest, the murder is solved when the dog recognizes that putative bicycle tracks at the scene were, in fact, walker tracks. I'd accept that from Perry Mason but the dog is not even a high school graduate! Further, our hero decides to cover up the now deceased murderers crime to avoid besmirching her reputation thereby depriving an innocent boy of his inheritance.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks at July 23, 2023 11:31 AM (iTNoC)

278 One of the many nice things about my visit to LA and Culver City in 2014 was that now, when I read a Chandler or other story set there, I can actually picture the landscape (Santa Monica near the pier, Pacific Coast Highway up to Malibu) and the kind of buildings they have. When I drove up PCH from Santa Monica, I passed under a pedestrian bridge over the highway. That apparently is the point where Marlowe mounts the steps in the early part of Farewell, My Lovely to meet his client Marriott.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:31 AM (omVj0)

279 "No anchovies? You've got the wrong man, fella. I spell my name Danger."
"Hah??"

Laughed my backside off all the way through the Nick Danger part of that album.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 11:33 AM (a/4+U)

280 It is a cycle of short stories in a book. I think the first is the primary one for me.
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:24 AM (1ais2)

Yes I know, but it was set in a future of when it was written and the character development were like Wilke Collins' with added grotesqueries,

Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 11:33 AM (xhaym)

281 Firesign Theatre in their bit on Noir has the narrator name every street and turn in LA that the protagonist takes.
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:26 AM (1ais2)

LOL. I think I remember that. I liked Firesign Theater until I didn't. I think it correlates with when I quit smoking weed.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 23, 2023 11:35 AM (BdMk6)

282 Yes I know, but it was set in a future of when it was written and the character development were like Wilke Collins' with added grotesqueries,
Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 11:33 AM (xhaym)

Ah. Yes. It is technically a sci-fi like you say. Set in an alternative future in re the author.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:35 AM (1ais2)

283 Oh, and for 'hard-boiled' stuff, yes Jim Thompson; but interestingly I didn't find 'The Killer Inside Me' particularly interesting, compelling, or scary, although it seems to fascinate a lot of readers.
His 'unreliable autobiography' 'Bad Boy' did me in, though. I read a bunch of his stuff but stopped after that one. I genuinely could not see a purpose in reading any more of his material after that specific book. I felt like it explained everything he had to say, and anything after it was redundant.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:36 AM (43xH1)

284 Anyhow, my week will include trying to find information on the Model 32-20 Viking sewing machine I got for free. It was made by Husqvarna probably in the early 60's and really does have that Swedish-K feel it it.
The needle alignment is [messed] up and I will have to pull the back plate off to see if I can figure out how to fix it.

Posted by: Kindltot at July 23, 2023 11:37 AM (xhaym)

285 Was that the scene I referred to, where he ends by commenting that "Squanto made a mistake"? I thought I recalled that as being one long paragraph at most.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius
Pretty sure but unlike most of you, my memory is not what it used to be and I read so much, they tend to fade pretty quickly. I just remember deciding to skip ahead because it was so boring.
Parker's writing just seems so light compared to Chandler. I dunno. Just seems like there are more layers to Marlowe and the book has more depth. Like the kind of book you would want to sit around and talk about with a group and take apart.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:39 AM (t/2Uw)

286 I'll join in spreading the love for Firesign Theater. They were the best. At one point n my freshman year I'm pretty sure me and my friends had the entire "How Can You Be In Two Places At Once, When You're Not Anywhere At All" album memorized.

Posted by: who knew at July 23, 2023 11:39 AM (4I7VG)

287 CBD, your recommendation was why I read it and although not my favorite, it has led me to others and also to explore the genre.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:15 AM (t/2Uw)

I remember suggesting it. There is a lot to like in his early and middle Spenser books. The ones toward the end become unpleasantly formulaic, but are still worth a read on a plane or a boring wait for the dentist.

One thing that really bothers me about Parker is that he didn't know a damned thing about guns.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 23, 2023 11:39 AM (PHmov)

288 There's a reason it was free.

Posted by: Something your grandfather would say at July 23, 2023 11:40 AM (NBVIP)

289 I felt like it explained everything he had to say, and anything after it was redundant.
Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:36 AM (43xH1)

Fair point. I think of After Dark, My Sweet and Pop. 1280 and The Grifters mostly. It is kinda one trick pony to be honest. But a good pony and a good trick.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:41 AM (1ais2)

290 Anyhow, my week will include trying to find information on the Model 32-20 Viking sewing machine I got for free. It was made by Husqvarna probably in the early 60's and really does have that Swedish-K feel it it.
The needle alignment is [messed] up and I will have to pull the back plate off to see if I can figure out how to fix it.
Posted by: Kindltot'

A surprising number and variety of manuals and exploded diagrams are available on Tha Interwebz as pdfs for free. Or on CD-ROM off ebay for often low prices. My 1950s(s) vintage Kenmore manual came on a CD-ROM off ebay. Diagram off Web.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:41 AM (43xH1)

291 Model 32-20
----
Shouldn't this be the gub thead? S&W, wasn't it?

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:42 AM (4780s)

292 One thing that really bothers me about Parker is that he didn't know a damned thing about guns.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo'

I DESPERATELY want to do a story sometime featuring a character 'flicking off the safety on his revolver' and making everyone mad, then revealing it's a 9.4mm Dutch Police revolver.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:44 AM (43xH1)

293 Can You Be In Two Places At Once, When You're Not Anywhere At All" album memorized.
Posted by: who knew
----
Your friends were my friends. Two or three really good albums in quick succession.

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:44 AM (4780s)

294 Several disturbing lack-of-pants violations have been observed, recorded, and reported.

Posted by: United Nations AoSHQ Book Thread Pants Observers at July 23, 2023 11:45 AM (a3Q+t)

295 Model 32-20, 32-21. Whatever it takes.

Because someone had to say it.

Posted by: Diogenes at July 23, 2023 11:45 AM (e4fEA)

296 One thing that really bothers me about Parker is that he didn't know a damned thing about guns.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo

And on that note, time to go preload mags.
Range day!

Thanks Perfessor.
Have a great day all.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at July 23, 2023 11:46 AM (t/2Uw)

297 Model 32-20
----
Or maybe the music thread. Johnny Winter, for one.
Do we have a music thread?

Posted by: From about that Time at July 23, 2023 11:46 AM (4780s)

298 But a good pony and a good trick.
Posted by: Thesokorus'

Thompson explains 'The Killer Inside Me' with the truly bizarre encounter with the gunless deputy.
That was some creepy shit.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:46 AM (43xH1)

299 They call the zephyr Marian.

Posted by: Out here in Oklahoma at July 23, 2023 11:27 AM (NBVIP)

I thought it was Wildfire??

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 11:48 AM (Angsy)

300 🛁
Cleaned ✔️
Filled ✔️

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 11:50 AM (xhxe8)

301 Thompson explains 'The Killer Inside Me' with the truly bizarre encounter with the gunless deputy.
That was some creepy shit.
Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:46 AM (43xH1)

I don't think I've read that one.

But the French liked Thompson for reasons. Dude was out there. Always makes me wonder if Jerry Lewis was just over my head. Because Poe and Thompson make sense but Jerry Lewis?

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:50 AM (1ais2)

302 Several disturbing lack-of-pants violations have been observed, recorded, and reported.
Posted by: United Nations AoSHQ Book Thread Pants Observers at July 23, 2023 11:45 AM

Typical U.N. effectiveness. Your report only lists 6.7% of the violations.

Posted by: Bob from NSA at July 23, 2023 11:50 AM (XL3oF)

303 Suppose I should go act like I'm trying to accomplish something. (I won't actually accomplish anything, but it'll look like I am.)

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Bests to all. Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at July 23, 2023 11:51 AM (a/4+U)

304 Next 'writing project' is to finally get reviews up for AH Lloyd on Amazon, which I keep not doing not because I'm lazy or that I hate writing reviews of anything (which I do), but because the Spain book is, while laid out a little strangely and has some sketchy editing/proofreading, a for-real very good book.

I'm prevaricating because I don't want to write something lame, but something actually positive and helpful, which is resulting in my not doing it at all.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:51 AM (43xH1)

305 "Antelope Freeway, one half mile"

Posted by: gourmand du jour at July 23, 2023 11:51 AM (MeG8a)

306 Typical U.N. effectiveness. Your report only lists 6.7% of the violations.
Posted by: Bob from NSA at July 23, 2023 11:50 AM (XL3oF)

Alleged "lack of pants" clearly psy-op meme for subversion by blue helmets

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:51 AM (1ais2)

307 Friends, I once unironically wore parachute pants and a sleeveless t shirt with the Jap flag on it.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:52 AM (1ais2)

308 I don't think I've read that one.
But the French liked Thompson for reasons. Dude was out there. Always makes me wonder if Jerry Lewis was just over my head. Because Poe and Thompson make sense but Jerry Lewis?
Posted by: Thesokorus'

It's an episode in 'Bad Boy', the gunless deputy. He arrives at an oil rig and traps Thompson at the top of a tower by taking a nap at the base. He isn't armed at all because, he states, 'He has never needed a gun'. Thompson describes the guy, rather young, as being the scariest person he'd ever met in his entire life.

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:53 AM (43xH1)

309 Friends, I once unironically wore parachute pants and a sleeveless t shirt with the Jap flag on it.
Posted by: Thesokorus'

Hmm... laugh, cry, both at once?

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:55 AM (43xH1)

310 DeSantis' schools don't even cover the Great Switcheroo!

Carlos Guillermo Smith
@CarlosGSmith
Oh no. How will I ever recover from your devastating tweet (about the 1957 Florida legislature, which was almost 100% Democrat voted to condemn Brown v. Board of Education) which conveniently forgot to include how fights over civil rights in the ’60s caused a dramatic party realignment where Republicans and Democrats effectively switched platforms.
I just don’t know how I can go on living

-
The Great Switcheroo is essential to our understanding of today's politics.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at July 23, 2023 11:56 AM (FVME7)

311 But the French liked Thompson for reasons. Dude was out there. Always makes me wonder if Jerry Lewis was just over my head. Because Poe and Thompson make sense but Jerry Lewis?
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:50 AM (1ais2)

My older brother loved Jerry Lewis. In adulthood, I always accused him of being a Frenchman.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at July 23, 2023 11:56 AM (BdMk6)

312 The Great Santini > The Great Switcheroo

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 11:57 AM (43xH1)

313 >>>Friends, I once unironically wore parachute pants and a sleeveless t shirt with the Jap flag on it.
Posted by: Thesokorus'

Hmm... laugh, cry, both at once?

Posted by: LenNeal

>Unironic because this can be expected from a 1980s tittybaby.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at July 23, 2023 11:58 AM (KVGVf)

314 A suggestion for those (re) discovering poetry. Try reading them aloud. I found it made the alliteration and cadence clearer and more effective and brought out nuances I had missed. I found it especially helpful with Shakespeare's sonnets and Tennyson.

Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 11:58 AM (7EjX1)

315 True, Parker did not seem to know, or care, about guns. Spenser is not a big-time gun person; a revolver seems to be about the main thing he carries; it's a tool and not much more. He is the same way about cars. Parker has him mention whatever car he happens to be driving, but he doesn't enthuse over it or mention much in the way of detail.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:58 AM (omVj0)

316 >Unironic because this can be expected from a 1980s tittybaby.
Posted by: Dr. Bone at July 23, 2023 11:58 AM (KVGVf)

Seethe boomer seethe!

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:59 AM (1ais2)

317 *Try reading them aloud.*

Might as well. My lips are already moving.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at July 23, 2023 11:59 AM (NBVIP)

318 Yet another fine book thread!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at July 23, 2023 11:59 AM (omVj0)

319 Looks like the saddest part of Sunday morning is here again. The end of the Book Thread. Thanks, Perfessor.

Guess I'll just spend the rest of the day staring at the wall.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at July 23, 2023 12:00 PM (Angsy)

320 307 Friends, I once unironically wore parachute pants and a sleeveless t shirt with the Jap flag on it.
Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 11:52 AM (1ais2)
----

Chess King had an army of tens of thousands back in the day.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 12:00 PM (IO+iC)

321 Thanks Perfessor !

Posted by: JT at July 23, 2023 12:00 PM (T4tVD)

322 Thanks for another fine book thread, Perf!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at July 23, 2023 12:01 PM (IO+iC)

323 We haz a NOOD

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 12:01 PM (oxuwr)

324 A suggestion for those (re) discovering poetry. Try reading them aloud. I found it made the alliteration and cadence clearer and more effective and brought out nuances I had missed. I found it especially helpful with Shakespeare's sonnets and Tennyson.
Posted by: JTB at July 23, 2023 11:58 AM (7EjX1)

Completely endorse this.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 12:01 PM (1ais2)

325 A Tale of Woe

Randi Weingarten
@rweingarten
Remember the beginning of the pandemic? Parents showered praise on teachers and school staff. People saw just how essential the connection is between educators and public schools with kids, families and communities. And then the far right-wing started their smears. #TEACH23

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at July 23, 2023 12:01 PM (FVME7)

326 Thanks again PS!

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 12:01 PM (1ais2)

327 Here I thought the sadness thread was Gun thread, the end of the weekend

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 12:02 PM (xhxe8)

328 Back from mass in time for the Book Thread! A great day indeed!

I'm reading (re-reading) Little Women. I remember almost none of it and frankly, it's comforting but not particularly compelling. I do love the personalities of the girls and their innocence and true sweetness of character - things that don't seem to exist anymore.

Posted by: LASue at July 23, 2023 12:04 PM (Ed8Zd)

329 Personal sartorial crimes? Well, when maybe 17 I got a position weekends at a health care place and I had to wear a tie, but didn't own one, so I cheaped out and bought one at the Salvation Army; I did not see until it was pointed out to me at work that the dark blue with white 'scrollwork' was actually cursive letters, arranged vertically and 'mirrored', and said, 'ELVIS IS KING'

Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 12:04 PM (43xH1)

330 The thread, it is supercededed, y'all.

-____--____-
"The underlying cause of most psychological problems is one thing… FEAR. Fear of the known. Fear of the unknown.

So… I understood why everyone had such nigh-miraculous transformations when we …lost our fear. I still don't know how."

Posted by: mindful webworker - click for a story at July 23, 2023 12:05 PM (qUw/L)

331 Personal sartorial crimes? Well, when maybe 17 I got a position weekends at a health care place and I had to wear a tie, but didn't own one, so I cheaped out and bought one at the Salvation Army; I did not see until it was pointed out to me at work that the dark blue with white 'scrollwork' was actually cursive letters, arranged vertically and 'mirrored', and said, 'ELVIS IS KING'
Posted by: LenNeal at July 23, 2023 12:04 PM (43xH1)

Dread Zepplin's Immigrant Song plays in background.

Posted by: Thesokorus at July 23, 2023 12:06 PM (1ais2)

332 Since books stores -- especially indy book stores -- tend to be owned and operated by a "type" which we need not go too far into here, many of them will be 30.06 posted.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how few indy used book stores are posted in Texas. While the corporate stores (Half-Price Books, Book People in Austin) tend to only allow criminals to carry firearms in their stores, I’ve rarely if ever seen an individually-owned used bookstore post 30.06 or even 30.07 signs.

For visitors counting on reciprocity with their home state, a great resource is texas3006.com. It’s easy to use and in my experience comprehensive.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at July 23, 2023 12:12 PM (EXyHK)

333 124 From the "rich as Creases" bit, I'd guess that he was one of those folks who could spot a misspelling but not necessarily realize that the wrong word was being used.
Just Some Guy at July 23,
-------------------------------------

My favorite example of why to not rely on spelling checkers, came from the Seattle Times back in the 1990's when they editorially saluted as local soldier who had won the "Meal of Honor".

Posted by: My friends call me Pete at July 23, 2023 12:12 PM (a4vvV)

334 I totally forgot, and not because it was bad, that though not a book I was reading. Getting emails of academic PDF and had one in total and a great read. On Napoleonic Wars

Posted by: Skip at July 23, 2023 12:15 PM (xhxe8)

335 I checked out some Alan Gardner books based on a recommendation. "Cavalcade of Goblins" collected folk tales and poems related to supernatural. It was fairly good, but I skipped around because more of the same gets tedious.

Also read "The Stone Book", which was presented to me as a children's book because the protagonist is a child and it's only 60 pages. It interested me because the girl's father sends her into a secret space in a mine - my grandfather's family were miners. But there's a whole passage answering her question "What's the difference between Church and Chapel?" that lost me because it required insider knowledge of the Church of England.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at July 23, 2023 12:54 PM (/+bwe)

336 Regarding Matt Helm, the style and philosophy of Helm and Travis McGee (Donald Hamilton, John D MacDonald) are nearly indistinguishable. In a good way.

Posted by: Pouncer at July 23, 2023 01:33 PM (F8RBU)

337 I know we've been nooded, but surely someone will stop by here now and then over the years, so:

1. "Meal of Honor" (#333). Ancient Athens had a place downtown where military heroes and Olympic victors got free meals for the rest of their lives. It must have served better food than modern government cafeterias.

2. The C. S. Lewis quotation on the bookstore wall: I don't think he meant "old books" as in books you've read before, as commenters seem to be assuming. I think he meant books that had been written in and for previous generations. I'm pretty sure he's saying that every time you read a hot-off-the-presses new book by a contemporary author - even if he or his friend Tolkien just wrote it - you should follow it up with an old book. Not necessarily Homer or Shakespeare or Milton, or even Jane Austen or George Eliot, but maybe a Conrad novel, or an Evelyn Waugh, just to keep from getting too wrapped up in the culture of the moment.

Posted by: Dr. Weevil at July 23, 2023 02:39 PM (1vT5G)

338 "This misspellings, typos, and other editorial failures is why I gave up on Xavier DeSoto's Mardi Gras Madness. This is the author who has his narrator tell us that so-and-so is 'rich as Creases [sic].'"

Wodehouse would occasionally have Bertie Wooster say that someone was, "rich as creosote." I suppose it's unlikely that DeSoto was deliberately writing what you've quoted as a parody.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 23, 2023 02:52 PM (cYrkj)

339 Morse Code appears in an interesting (and useful!) way in that Korean movie Parasite from a year or two ago. Weird movie, good but never sure what one is supposed to think.

But the Morse Code part was good.

Posted by: jocon307 at July 23, 2023 02:55 PM (EuROc)

340 Never start a series until you know the ending. A story can be explored, via exploration writing, but if you're writing a series, I feel you need to know the end state for the main character. Otherwise things just dribble on, getting worse or more overpowered, as time goes on.

Know your ending and you can work towards it.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, buy ammo, food, water at July 23, 2023 02:57 PM (xcxpd)

341 I’m not sure if “Outlander” by Diana Gabaldon counts as an “open” series. She does plan on concluding it soon, as Claire and Jamie are getting old. However, she has written some spin-offs, notably her “Lord John Grey” novels. She’s also written some novellas that fill in some of the gaps about minor characters. Ms. Gabaldon numbers those as “x.5” where “x” is the number of the regular novel that precedes the novella. I find I really enjoy these stories, especially “A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows,” which is about Roger’s father, a pilot in the RAF during WWII.

Posted by: March Hare at July 23, 2023 03:17 PM (WOU9P)

342 The academic left's colonization of the field of military history has resulted in lots of not-so military, works of military history in the past few years that are pretty much worthless for any filed except, maybe, gender studies and the like.

On the other hand, there has also been a trend for true military historians to look beyond the great men and battles reporting that constituted so much of military history in the past. This has resulted in some very interesting books and articles on logistics and the effect of economics on the military. In addition to Engels, who I believe was one of the first to write a popular treatment of historical logistics, (cont)

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 23, 2023 03:17 PM (cYrkj)

343 some other interesting books on this area are: R. Bowler's "Logistics and the Failure of the British Army in America, 1775-1783."-actually published a few years before Engles. John Brewer' "The Sinews of Power, War, Money and the English State 1688-1783." And D.W. Jones's "War and Economy in the Age of William III and Marlborough." I recommend all of the above. There are also some interesting books on the development of the British Navy with some emphasis on the work done by Samuel Pepys.

Lest I be accused of a British bias, books focused on countries other than Britain include, "The Contractor State and Its Implications, 1659-1815," a collection of papers from a symposium including, for example, "Victualling Louis XV’s armies. The Munitionnaire des Vivres de Flandres et d’Allemagne and the military supply system." And "Fighting for a Living, A Comparative History of Military Labour 1500-2000,"-another symposium work, which includes the article, "Military employment in Qing dynasty China."

For those interested, Hollandspiel Games also has several games modeling logistics in the American War of Independence.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 23, 2023 03:34 PM (cYrkj)

344 @340 --

I see you've read 1980s X-Men.

Posted by: Weak Geek at July 23, 2023 03:37 PM (p/isN)

345 Still working my way through the works of JL (Jim) Curtis.

Finished book 4 "Diplomatic Immunity" and his newly released book 5 "Diversions" in the Rimworld series.

Then caught up on some of his short stories/novellas: "Country Boys (and Girls) will Survive", "April Fool", and "A Rifle A Pistol and a Good Horse".

Then I realized I'd read books 1 through 6 of his Grey Man series, but I'd missed the prequel in the timeline (book 0 if you will, "The Grey Man- Down South" so I'm reading that now.

Next up will be the "The Grey Man- Generations" which seems to be "The next generation in the Cronin family" so that could end up being a whole new series!

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at July 23, 2023 05:26 PM (nRMeC)

346 343- There are also some interesting books on the development of the British Navy with some emphasis on the work done by Samuel Pepys.
Posted by: Pope John 20th at July 23, 2023 03:34 PM

I think "Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War" might be the supreme read on this topic.

Posted by: Moonbeam at July 24, 2023 04:07 AM (rbKZ6)

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