Sunday Morning Book Thread - 10-01-2023 ["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 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...

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?

(NOTE: I realize that there is a very serious situation going on in Israel right now. However, let's try to stay on topic in the comments for the Sunday Morning Book Thread. No doubt CBD's post-Book Thread will address the Israeli situation.)

PIC NOTE

This is the "banned book" display in the library where I work (but do not work for). As usual, it contains a mix of classics such as Harper Lee'sTo Kill a Mockingbird and John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath along with LTBTQ+ literature, as though they are equivalent in quality. Naturally, NONE of these books are actually "banned" in any conventional sense as they are part of our university's collection of literature. No one is raising up a storm to get them removed from the shelves, as far as I know. But I seriously doubt that anyone is lining up to check them out, either.

MORE ON RECOMMENDATIONS (the Moron Recommendation are below!)

The videos below showed up in my YouTube feed recently. The top video shows a young man who finished reading Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time Series and his own recommendations for why you should read the series. The second video is from a woman who recently finished reading Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time (otherwise known as Remembrance of Things Past) and provides her recommendation for why you should read that series. (I would have embedded both videos, but Sarah turned off that ability so I'll just include the links.)

Should You Read The Wheel Of Time? (Spoiler Free)

Why and How to Read the 7 Volumes of Proust's In Search of Lost Time

I was fascinated by both YouTubers' reactions of reading those series, as each series is very, very different from the other. Wheel of Time is a 14-book epic fantasy series. In Search of Lost Time is a seven-volume "autofiction" about one man's life journey through French society and culture. However, their reactions to their reading experience share some interesting parallels. You can clearly tell that each reader has had a transformative reading experience over the course of reading each series.

Conor spent over a year reading Jordan's magnum opus. I did something similar from November 2021 through December 2022, reading one book a month until it was finished. It was my second readthrough, so I already knew what to expect. It was Conor's first time, so he was able to get to know the characters and story with fresh eyes and a new perspective, as someone who is relatively new to the field of fantasy fiction. You can clearly tell that he's emotionally affected by his reading experience--it had a profound impact on him.

Sarah spent two full years reading Proust's magnum opus. Like Conor, she considers it to be a transformative experience for her as a reader. Each volume in the series had more to offer her than the previous volume. She is effusive in her praise of Proust's writing style, even though she admits that the story is relatively "plotless" in comparison to other novels. Mostly it seems to be about one man's recollections of his experiences growing up in France and his interactions with the people around him as he navigates the treacherous social circles of high French society at the time. Like Conor, you can tell that she has been "marked" by this experience, so much so that other books may not hold as much meaning or interest for her by comparison.

Both Conor and Sarah give mad props to Jordan and Proust, respectively, for their depictions of details and characters. They equate the characters to old friends that they are eager to reacquaint themselves with, though Sarah says it may be a decade or more before she re-engages with Proust. Both of these YouTubers also feel that the series that they read had an immensely satisfying ending, that the reading journey they each took over months and years led to a worthy payoff. Should you read either series? I suppose that's entirely up to you and your own interests. Even though I have not read any Proust, I can clearly see how he impacted literature as a whole and the literary fiction genre in particular, just by hearing Sarah describe his style. I also flipped through it a bit as I have two translations on the bookshelves outside my office. Robert Jordan has had tremendous influence on the fantasy genre, regardless of whether or not you enjoy his series. Sometimes it's worth getting to know authors only because of how they have shaped the writers that came after them.

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(Because this thread needs more Proust!)

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BOOKS BY MORONS

We've got a couple of interesting contributions today:

Matt Dunlap (AoSHQ nic: Aewl) with my modest offering to the book thread. My Cancer Journey: Stage 4 to Cured. It is a novella length memoir. Book blurb is as follows:
In May of 2021, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 prostate cancer. I had joined the men's club that no man wants to join. Prostate cancer is the second most frequent cancer diagnosis made in men and the fifth leading cause of death worldwide. This is my story of trials and tribulations of cancer treatment with a surprising alternative cure.
It's available for Kindle now and the paperback version should be available soon. [Looks like the paperback version is available now! - PS]

Comment: Just an FYI, but September is apparently Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Didn't know that until I looked it up...

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Hello all, my name is Isabelle Roberts and I am a long time lurker. I have finally decided to try my hand at writing, and I decided that I would write the kind of book that I love the most, a 19th century book about a young woman going out into the world for the first time. It is called Charlotte Miller, Governess, and I really hope that you enjoy reading it! Here is the summary:
Charlotte Miller is a young girl sent by her mother out into the world of nineteenth century England to make her way as the governess to the grandchildren of the Fifteenth Earl of Derby.
Among the problems of her troublesome students and indifferent employer, Charlotte must navigate a world far above her station while discovering secrets of her own past that she could have never imagined.
Told in the style of Jane Austen and Alice Bronte, Charlotte Miller, Governess is a touching work of a young woman facing the difficulties of the world and forging her own path.
Here's the link: https://amzn.to/3LJDid3
Thanks!

Comment: A couple of weeks ago I wrote a Thread about historical fiction and how one of the defining characteristics is historical accuracy. If you go to the link for Isabelle's book, you can find at least one historical anomaly just by looking closely at the cover.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Woohoooooo
I'm the Number One Book Pimp!
Get off my corner, bitchez!
Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 01, 2023 10:49 AM (8qu4N)

Comment: Because sometimes this just needs to be said. Also, this comment cracks me up whenever I read it!

+++++

Finished the second book in James Rollins' Moonfall series (feels like it will be a trilogy). I enjoyed it for the characters and worldbuilding, but it should come with a Fantasy Trope punchcard:
1. The magical savior child
2. Who is more powerful than she can imagine
3. Quest to retrieve artifacts that can save the world -- OR DOOM IT
4. Flying critter Deus Ex Machina
5. Royals switched at birth
Fun, but at 700 pages it needed some severe pruning.
I appreciate the detailed maps. You can never have enough maps.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 01, 2023 11:03 AM (8qu4N)

Comment: Some time ago, I noted that there's nothing wrong with a book series that seems to hit all the right notes, even if they may be cliche at times. As long as the story is competently told, who cares? Genre fiction can often be formulaic, simply because the readers are *expecting* certain tropes in that genre. A mystery that is solved in the first five pages isn't much of a story, after all, unless that's the leadup to a genre switch or the setup for an even deeper, more complex mystery.

+++++

I am a total sucker for epistolary fiction. Recently reread Dracula, which I had forgotten was epistolary. It's one of those books I read as a kid and COMPLETELY missed all the nuances of. I'd recommend a reread if, like me, you haven't read it as an adult. (I'll note, while there definitely are sexual undertones that went way over my head as a kid, it's nowhere near as much as modern readers make it out to be. There is also quite a lot of Christian imagery that I can tell goes over the head of modern readers.)
(Side note, there's a couple of bits where a Yorkshire dialect is rendered phonetically, complete with all the Yorkshire-unique terms and slang...and I didn't need the translations in the book's endnotes. You know you've read too many old English novels when...?)
Posted by: Mrs. Peel at October 01, 2023 11:04 AM (Y+AMd)

Comment: I may have to add Dracula to my bucket list. I've heard good things about Bram Stoker's version of the vampire legend, and I've greatly enjoyed stories that are based off of Stoker's novel in some way, such as Kim Newman's Anno Dracula, which also has epistolary elements in the form of Dr. Seward's journal entries. (Interestingly, they take the form of voice recordings on wax cylinders, rather than actual diary entries, which is a little weird now that I think about it.)

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I'm flinging convention to the wind and not wearing pants. (I am in a dress, though, so some modesty). My kids picked up a stack of "easy reads" at the library for de-stressing in the midst of our sale/move, and one of the titles was Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz.
I adored the movie with Anton Yelchin, but had no idea Koontz wrote the book it was based on. I'm not a fan of his, but I started reading the book, and it's (gasp) better than the movie! Richer character details, better background writing, my own imagination filling in the holes--which look surprisingly like the movie, because that's what I'm thinking of as I read--I'm thoroughly enjoying it. And it's a series, so I have more. Always a good thing!
Posted by: Moki at October 01, 2023 09:49 AM (JrN/x)

Comment: I remember enjoying the movie with Anton Yelchin. Though I did find the ending to be very sad. Not sure if the book is the same way, or would have the same emotional punch. Still, it may be worth reading. I think I've always pictured Koontz as a Stephen King knock-off or something and have never really given his works a fair shake.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

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WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

The Last King of Osten Ard Book 2 - Empire of Grass by Tad Williams -- Ancient Nabban is on the brink of civil war while an even more ancient enemy threatens all of the lands of Osten Ard in a misguided quest for vengeance.

The Last King of Osten Ard Book 3 - Into the Narrowdark by Tad Williams -- This is really the first half of the last volume, but Tad is incapable of writing trilogies, so the last book is often split into two volumes.

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 - 10-01-23 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

(Huggy Squirrel makes a mental note to get his prostate checked!)

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at October 08, 2023 09:00 AM (fwDg9)

2 I just read two Matt Helm books on Internet Archive. The first one, Death of a Citizen, and the second one, The Wrecking Crew. The Wrecking Crew movie with Dean Martin is nothing like the story in the book, although both were written by Donald Hamilton. Only Helm and his boss, Mac were in both. The story and characters in the movie were not in the book.

Both books read as “modern.” In the sense that the language used could be used today. There was only one or two references that were dated. It was first person past, with Helm narrating. He breaks the fourth wall a couple of times in each, noting things for the reader.

Quick reads. A poster from last week said you don't need to read them in order, but there were references to DoAC in TWC. That's why I want to read them that way, see what other refs are in the later books. Apparently there are either forty or forty-seven Helm novels. I didn't know there were that many.

I'll see what else I can find for free. (the Hordian way) It seems that Dean's movies are available on the internet or free movie sites. I think I'll watch them too. Does anybody know if The Flint movies are based on any novels? For some reason I can't seem to find

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:01 AM (Angsy)

3 no reading this week

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 08, 2023 09:01 AM (lwOKI)

4 Reading J.R.R. Tolkien Silmarillon, haven't all week but going to go find a cozy space and read some now

Posted by: Skip at October 08, 2023 09:01 AM (fwDg9)

5 hiya

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:02 AM (T4tVD)

6 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading as autumn makes its entrance.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:02 AM (7EjX1)

7 3 no reading this week

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Mostly Owners Manuals for me.

Posted by: Sheriff Bart at October 08, 2023 09:03 AM (Z2aTH)

8 I made it through six books of Wheel of Time before giving up. Too many repetitive phrases and too many times that the main character should have pummeled the stupid out of some people got missed.

Posted by: NR Pax at October 08, 2023 09:03 AM (QToQ1)

9 Good morning book nerds. Perfect weather for snuggling up with a good read.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 08, 2023 09:04 AM (Fannw)

10 I wrote an article and am working on getting it published. It was a blast and I'll write more, see if I can manifest a book.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at October 08, 2023 09:07 AM (RIvkX)

11 I've always pictured Koontz as a Stephen King knock-off or something and have never really given his works a fair shake.

Koontz is a better writer. For his standalone stuff, I'd recommend "Watchers," "Twilight Eyes" and "Lightning."

Posted by: NR Pax at October 08, 2023 09:07 AM (QToQ1)

12 Reading "Peace Dividend", Book 9(!!) of the Abner Fortis ISMC series by P.A. Piatt. Excellent military sci-fi.

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 08, 2023 09:08 AM (PiwSw)

13 I've been reading mostly an auto service manual I got for my birthday. I did get this Pliny about a handy use for blue vitriol:

"It has been lately discovered, that if it is sprinkled upon the mouths of bears and lions in the arena, its astringent action is so powerful as to deprive the animals of the power of biting."

Posted by: fd at October 08, 2023 09:08 AM (vFG9F)

14 There is a similar banned book display at my library but it's tall. The Harper Lee and Desmond Morris books are in reach, but the newer LGBTQ books are on the top shelf out of reach except to basketball players.

Posted by: Fozzy at October 08, 2023 09:08 AM (/Jyns)

15 I'm flinging convention to the wind and not wearing pants. (I am in a dress, though, so some modesty).

Posted by: Moki at October 01, 2023 09:49 AM (JrN/x)

Well, you HAD my undivided attention !

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:08 AM (T4tVD)

16 9 Good morning book nerds. Perfect weather for snuggling up with a good read.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 08, 2023 09:04 AM (Fannw)

Good morning, your Pimpiness!

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 08, 2023 09:09 AM (PiwSw)

17 Wonder what the pants guy traded for the pants ?

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:09 AM (T4tVD)

18 Another week of illustrations to enjoy with reading. Thoroughly enjoying, again, the "Complete Brambly Hedge" stories. The writing is charming but the artwork is beyond outstanding: creative, whimsical, botanically accurate, and intriguing. I wish these books had been available when I was a kid. Only missed them by about thirty years. I can get pleasantly lost noting the little details Jill Barklem includes in her watercolors. They may be some of the best children's book ever.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:11 AM (7EjX1)

19 "Wonder what the pants guy traded for the pants ?
Posted by: JT"

His dignity.

Posted by: fd at October 08, 2023 09:12 AM (vFG9F)

20 Took a horde recommendation from last week and picked up John Van Stry's "Stand Alone" which is the 1st volume of his Wolfhounds series.

Very much enjoyed it and look forward to next volume.

-SLV

Posted by: Shy Lurking Voter at October 08, 2023 09:13 AM (e/Osv)

21 Still finding a few minutes here and there to read another story or two in "Saints of Malta", the third in the Malta Anthologies set of 4 from Raconteur Press.

This one seems to have a few leftover "knights" stories from the previous book, "Knights of Malta" (which isn't a bad thing at all.)

Of particular note (and downright coolness factor) is the story "The Knights of Time" by Sarah A. Hoyt (yes, that Sarah Hoyt.) So far this is my favourite story in the book.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at October 08, 2023 09:13 AM (qPw5n)

22 Good morning everyone.

Sadly, not much reading this week other than technical manuals. Well, that, and fighting my way through Dante's Inferno. Hopefully, with cooler weather, I'll make more time for reading.

Posted by: Tonypete at October 08, 2023 09:13 AM (SAX5G)

23 con't and finish.

I'll see what else I can find for free. (the Hordian way) It seems that Dean's movies are available on the internet or free movie sites. I think I'll watch them too. Does anybody know if The Flint movies are based on any novels? For some reason I can't seem to find any, but that could just be my laziness in checking.

I'd definitely recommend the Helm books to those who want a quick read.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:14 AM (Angsy)

24 JT @ 17- wonder what pants guy traded for the pants?
He traded the cow. Same as in town.

Posted by: Eromero at October 08, 2023 09:15 AM (KiuiP)

25 strangling animals
golf
and
masturbating

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 08, 2023 09:15 AM (lwOKI)

26 Just a note about Matt's memoir. Excerpts are posted on A Literary Horde. See what you get when you join? Seeing how a book comes along before it's published.

(sorry for the shameless plug, Perfessor)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:15 AM (Angsy)

27 but the newer LGBTQ books are on the top shelf out of reach except to basketball players.

Posted by: Fozzy

WNBA 'ladies', no doubt.

Posted by: Tonypete at October 08, 2023 09:15 AM (SAX5G)

28 I toy with the idea of trying to obtain a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin at my local Barnes & Noble just to see how they deal with 'banned books'.

Posted by: fluffy at October 08, 2023 09:16 AM (86W+h)

29 Good Sunday morning, horde.

I'll be switching back and forth between book thread and EMT. I hope Israel kicks a**, swiftly and surely, and that's all I have to say about it here.

Now, to reading: A week or two ago someone mentioned Willa Cather's Obscure Destinies. It's free on kindles, so it's been my bedtime reading this week.

It is three stories (I would call them long stories, definitely not short ones), about characters in the Great Plains area, early 1900s I think. I'd forgotten that I like Willa Cather. Her character "Rosicky" in the first story is so likeable--great story.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at October 08, 2023 09:16 AM (OX9vb)

30
The Black Ravine: download .epub or .mobi
https://archive.org/download/the-black-ravine

https://archive.org/details/the-black-ravine

Twenty page short story by Oles Honchar. A mild mannered Soviet bureaucrat decides to dam a ravine. It doesn’t work out the way he had hoped.

I made a new cover and title page for the short story and added an illustration. All of it public domain.

Posted by: 13times for public domain books at October 08, 2023 09:16 AM (Brvs+)

31 I've been enjoying "The Arthur Rackham Treasury" with a selection of the illustrations he did for classic and contemporary literature. While he includes many subtle touches in his drawings the emotional impact is immediate and strong. He really captures the power of the stories whether it's Wind in the Willows or A Midsummer Night's Dream. I would love to see a book describing how Rackham developed the images for his illustrations with preliminary sketches leading to the final result. The Alan Lee LOTR and Hobbit sketchbooks (obligatory Tolkien mention) do some of that.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:16 AM (7EjX1)

32 Mostly Owners Manuals for me.
Posted by: Sheriff Bart at October 08, 2023 09:03 AM (Z2aTH)

truck issues
health issues
bad parts issues
family issues

I am very distracted to say the least

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 08, 2023 09:17 AM (lwOKI)

33 Well, that, and fighting my way through Dante's Inferno.

----------

Say hey to Virgil for me.

Posted by: Sheriff Bart at October 08, 2023 09:17 AM (Z2aTH)

34 Did somebody recommend "The Ninth Metal" by Benjamin Percy? If so, thanks. Fun read.

It's a cosmic horror/crime/SF story about the aftermath of Earth passing through a comet's debris trail and being bombarded by meteorites. Some of them contained a new metal dubbed "omnimetal", which has unusual properties. A tiny mining and lumber town in northern Minnesota is chock full of the stuff and is being transformed by all the money (and industry and crime) flooding in.

Percy describes a protest by the usual NPR crowd and eco-warriors (in the shadow of a forty-foot Paul Bunyan statue):

"This has been standard in Northfall since he was a kid. The region is defined by protest. That's what happens when you live in a place remarkable for its in-betweenness; the extremes yank it in opposite directions. Was it the crown of the United States or the ass of Canada?"

There are a lot of unsavory elements establishing themselves here, including a top secret DoD research facility where a child is being held captive as a test subject for cruel experiments.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 08, 2023 09:18 AM (Fannw)

35 strangling animals
golf
and
masturbating

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 08, 2023 09:15 AM (lwOKI)

Now we know where that poster on the Hobby Thread got it from.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:18 AM (Angsy)

36 I read some more of Wendell Berry's essays. It is slow reading, like Montaigne's essays, because he evokes so many points to consider and explore. Then I added some of his Sabbath Poems which are a delight. He is able to convey the glory and beauty of nature and God's creation in everyday matters. The poems remind me of some of the writing of Malcolm Guite. (If you aren't familiar with Guite, check out his YT videos. They are absolute delights.)

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:18 AM (7EjX1)

37 Oops. 'Scuse me whiles I whip off this sock.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at October 08, 2023 09:19 AM (Z2aTH)

38 Percy is best known as a comic book writer and it shows in the action and snappy dialog, but he is also a dab hand at character and setting. I'm already into the second book in the Comet Cycle, as it's called. It's about a fungus devouring Seattle (no, not Grunge).

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 08, 2023 09:19 AM (Fannw)

39 Silmarillion book might be the only one I own that I never finished.

Posted by: Skip at October 08, 2023 09:19 AM (fwDg9)

40 @#20/Shy Lurking Voter:

So glad you enjoyed that one!

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at October 08, 2023 09:21 AM (qPw5n)

41 Thanks for the Book Thread, Perfessor !

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:21 AM (T4tVD)

42 Now we know where that poster on the Hobby Thread got it from.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:18 AM (Angsy)

I think Monty was pretty good with those throw away lines. I think it is part of most sit comms now.

Posted by: rhennigantx at October 08, 2023 09:21 AM (lwOKI)

43 Late start today. Blame USC for its inability to finish off an opponent in four quarters.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 09:22 AM (rYZAP)

44 Wonder what the pants guy traded for the pants ?
Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:09 AM (T4tVD)

C'mon....you WANT me on that wall !

You NEED me on that wall !

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:22 AM (T4tVD)

45 For "Star Trek Log Eight," Alan Dean Foster resorted to what I'll call consecutive conditions. TVTropes surely has a better name.

Foster had to adapt the episode "Eye of the Beholder," in which Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are abducted on a planet by sluglike beings who put them in a zoo. (Check IMDB to see their captors.) Foster's treatment has the trio earn their freedom by agreeing to help the slugs capture a wandering creature. To do this, they will need the help of beings on another planet. However, those beings are suffering an epidemic that the Enterprise crew must cure. And on it goes.

Unlike the first six "Star Trek Log" books, which adapted three episodes each, the last four used a single episode to which Foster had to essentially add a separate plot. This time, the result is a bland procedural.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 09:23 AM (rYZAP)

46 "Wonder what the pants guy traded for the pants ?
Posted by: JT"

His dignity.
Posted by: fd at October 08, 2023 09:12 AM (vFG9F)

En fuego !

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 09:23 AM (T4tVD)

47 OrangeEnt, glad you found the Matt Helm books.

One quibble: The series consists of 29 books. Not so many compared with some series.

Hamilton wrote a 30th story, but his son chose not to submit it for publication.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 09:28 AM (rYZAP)

48 Haven't followed Koontz for a while, but he's really not bad at all, and he's not a King wannabe. And if you dive into his work, don't skip some of the early thrillers that he did under the Brian Coffey and K. R. Dwyer pseudonyms. SHATTERED, THE FACE OF FEAR, and THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT hold up quite nicely and I believe he's got 'em out there under his own name now. I think the only Koontz books that may be hard to find are his early sf titles.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 09:28 AM (a/4+U)

49 Another week of illustrations to enjoy with reading. Thoroughly enjoying, again, the "Complete Brambly Hedge" stories.

I bought a box set of those on your recommendation for my granddaughter. I'm looking forward to being able to read them to -- and eventually with -- her.

Posted by: Oddbob at October 08, 2023 09:31 AM (nfrXX)

50 If memory serves, the Flint movies were original scripts -- no source novels, though there might have been tie-in novelizations at the time.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 09:31 AM (a/4+U)

51 OrangeEnt, glad you found the Matt Helm books.

One quibble: The series consists of 29 books. Not so many compared with some series.

Hamilton wrote a 30th story, but his son chose not to submit it for publication.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 09:28 AM (rYZAP)

Thanks. I found the forty number on a web site. I didn't think there were that many. I'll keep looking for the other ones, maybe. Twenty nine is a bit of a read, also might not be able to find them all for free either.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:31 AM (Angsy)

52 Read Dead Sand by Brendan DuBois. It had a Robert Parker
(Spenser/Jesse Stone/...) feel to it, which was a good thing. this was the first of his Lewis Cole series, originally written in 1970, now 12 books long. I think they're all on KU.

the mystery wasn't particularly hard to guess at, but the resolution was a bit of a surprise. and some cultural sort-of preachiness that i didn't expect from a book from 1970. (which was part of the resolution, so it was fair) Given that amazon says it was published in 2023, it might be interesting to see if it was edited a bit.

Semi-recommended. I'll probably try the second book to see what's what.

Posted by: yara at October 08, 2023 09:31 AM (xr64u)

53 Koontz has artistic restraint, that which King does not have at all.

Perusing my shelf - and I have not read a lot of Mr. Koontz's work - I rather enjoyed Lightning and Darkfall most of all.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 09:31 AM (8sMut)

54 Say hey to Virgil for me.
Posted by: Sheriff Bart

Thanks for getting me out of that (literal) hellhole.
(Canto 19)

Posted by: Tonypete at October 08, 2023 09:32 AM (SAX5G)

55 I’ve lots of non-fiction lined up to read for fall-winter, so that’s taken care of.

Posted by: 13times at October 08, 2023 09:32 AM (chQtS)

56 Koontz is a better writer. For his standalone stuff, I'd recommend "Watchers," "Twilight Eyes" and "Lightning."
Posted by: NR Pax at October 08, 2023 09:07 AM (QToQ1)

Another vote for Lightning, I see. : o )

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 09:35 AM (8sMut)

57 I read Tennyson's "Ulysses" again but this time aloud and enjoyed it. I've heard a number of readings of the poem and didn't like them. The narrators try for clarity and a solemn, steady tone but there is no life in the recitation. The poem is a declaration and exhortation and should be read with passion. A similar situation exists with Poe's "The Raven". It is typically read like a quiet account, which strips the poem of its power. The poem's narrator, almost comatose at the start, becomes increasingly emotional as realization of loss and regret consume him. He should almost be screaming in despair towards the end which adds power to the unmoving and inevitable 'Nevermore'. Save the even, solemn tone for "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard".

Maybe expressing passion out loud isn't 'proper' or erudite or cool, perhaps embarrassing. And that is a loss for the poem and the reader.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:35 AM (7EjX1)

58 The Hero's Journey journal company is making a planner that comes out this December (they have Tolkien inspired, Hogwarts inspired, and Star Trek inspired "storification" goal achievement journals). I don't want to pay $75 for a yearly planner, although that's sadly not outrageous for a fancy planner, so am trying to make my own using their template.

There are two major difficulties. One is that they have a quote for each week, and so I need to source quotes. The other is the "storification" part. I'm *terrible* at coming up with stories to begin with and these need to be short and easily illustrated. I'm tempted to do a "Zentangle" each week instead, but it would definitely feel like cheating.

I do recommend checking out the journals. They're pricey, but excellent quality.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 09:35 AM (nC+QA)

59 For the second time this season, I received two separate book deliveries on the exact same day. One book was a recently placed ebay order that I was expecting. The other a pre-order placed so long ago that I had forgotten what it even was! So opening it was a bit of a surprise....Anyway, it was just funny how they just happened to arrive the same day. It made the rest of my week look positively dull by comparison.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 08, 2023 09:36 AM (Lhaco)

60 I started reading Roger Zelazny's comic horror novel _A Night in the Lonesome October_ last Sunday. Each chapter is a day in October, so I've been limiting myself to one chapter a day. Obviously I won't finish until Halloween.

THe narrator is Snuff, whose master is named Jack. There's also a witch, the Count, the Good Doctor and his Experiment Man, a mad monk, a druid, a sinister vicar, the Great Detective, and a fellow named Larry Talbot. All of the humans have animal companions (except Larry) and Snuff interacts with them as they all get ready for the Opening on October 31. Some of them are trying to Open the Way, others are trying to keep it closed, but nobody is sure who is on which side.

Fun stuff, made more fun by Gahan Wilson illustrations.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023 09:36 AM (QZxDR)

61 I have technical manuals, but I have not consulted them in ages. I actually have one for each vehicle I have ever owned.

I didn't even consult the one for my truck for changing the spark plugs. I just watched YT videos.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 09:37 AM (8sMut)

62 Welp.

Into the Narrowdark by Tad Williams just took a twist...

No spoilers, but I admit I didn't see it happening just yet. We'll see how it plays out.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 08, 2023 09:38 AM (BpYfr)

63 Posted by: Castle Guy at October 08, 2023 09:36 AM (Lhaco)

I got my pre-ordered next volume of Bride Stories but keep forgetting to actually read it. That's embarrassing.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 09:40 AM (nC+QA)

64 Re-read Hungry as the Sea by Wilbur Smith. This is the story of Nicholas Berg, a man who ran a shipping business and owned several ships, but due to the machinations of another is down to only one vessel, The Warlock. This is an ocean going salvage tug, and the most powerful one afloat. Berg was raised in the world of shipping and salvage, and is known as a daring captain and normally shrewd businessman. One of his former ships is in danger, and he races from port in South Africa to effect a rescue. In the nautical salvage world, the salvor gets fifty percent of the value of the vessel and cargo, and Berg can use the money to begin rebuilding his empire, but little does he know what is on board. Wilbur Smith has a way of creeping up on you. His novels don't always start with a bang, but they always end up grabbing your attention. His knowledge of the ocean, ships, and the rules of the sea are presented in a very readable fashion.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 08, 2023 09:42 AM (VLC8t)

65 Book Thread!!!

My weekly reminder I didn't read enough last week.

Posted by: Reforger at October 08, 2023 09:43 AM (Nk1k0)

66 Finished The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide for the Armed Citizen by Andrew Branca. This is the hardback signed copy the author provided to the Horde at a discount. Clear and lucid, it flows easily.

The take home messages are: Protect your life and those close to you. Strangers are on their own. Do not protect strangers. Don't protect property.

Calling 911, give name and location, and three phrases:
I was attacked. I was in fear of my life. I had to defend myself. Request medicinal help, if needed.

When police arrive: Identify yourself. The same three phrases. Identify evidence that helps you, and witnesses.

At the police station: "I assert my right to silence. I assert my right to counsel." Then shut up until you have a lawyer present.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at October 08, 2023 09:44 AM (u82oZ)

67 Good morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear in the hearts of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at October 08, 2023 09:46 AM (u82oZ)

68 There are two major difficulties. One is that they have a quote for each week, and so I need to source quotes. The other is the "storification" part. I'm *terrible* at coming up with stories to begin with and these need to be short and easily illustrated.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 09:35 AM (nC+QA)

Are you talking about quotes in general, or relevant to the theme? There's this place called the internet....

I always thought I'd write non-fiction stuff because I couldn't think of any "story." But now, I find I come up with a lot of ideas for fiction. Maybe the time just isn't "right" yet.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:46 AM (Angsy)

69 I have read the entire Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. One or two of the books are the basis for the movie Master and Commander:The Far Sude of three World ( a truly great movie).
Each book of the series was very satisfying. I grew to like the characters and when one or two of them died I felt the loss.
Sadly the series had ended when the author died. They had released a final book that were just the notes or outline of what he was looking to happen.
Of all the book series I have read the was the most enjoyable.

Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 09:50 AM (fe7in)

70 2 ... OrangeEnt,

There are 27 books in the Matt Helm series IIRC. If possible, read the books in order. That isn't critical but Helm's character does develop over time and there are some references to events from earlier stories. Watch the Dean Martin movies for fun but they have almost nothing to do with the books. I've said it before, Donald Hamilton wrote some excellent westerns , adventure stories and some nonfiction books that are worth reading.

I vaguely recall that there were books for the Flint movies but they were probably novelizations of the movies. I enjoy the two films, they are so much over the top fun.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:50 AM (7EjX1)

71 A similar situation exists with Poe's "The Raven". It is typically read like a quiet account, which strips the poem of its power. The poem's narrator, almost comatose at the start, becomes increasingly emotional as realization of loss and regret consume him.

I once saw (on PBS, couldn't find it on youtube) Rene Auberjonois and a couple of others do a dramatic reading of Poe "The Bells" that was done in that fashion. I had read the poem before but it wasn't until that that I realized "Oh, the narrator is going insane. That makes it a whole different poem than I thought."

Posted by: Oddbob at October 08, 2023 09:50 AM (nfrXX)

72 The banned book displays will soon only consist of books with gay themes.

Because There Is Nothing More Important Than Being Gay.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 09:50 AM (8sMut)

73 A Night in the Lonesome October is a treat to read.

Posted by: 13times at October 08, 2023 09:51 AM (chQtS)

74 "Perfessor" Squirrel

Thank you again for a illuminating and engrossing book thread.

Have a great day, everyone.

Reading SF short stories this week. Amidst the chores.

May your chores be light on your shoulders. And acknowledged beauty all around you.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at October 08, 2023 09:52 AM (u82oZ)

75 57 I read Tennyson's "Ulysses" again but this time aloud and enjoyed it.

Interesting approach. I rather enjoyed "Ulysses". But, to me at least, Tennyson's poetry is accessible, easily understood. His writing just works for me somehow.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 09:52 AM (8sMut)

76 Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:46 AM (Angsy)

I might actually have a copy of Bartlett's Quotations on my Kindle, it's more about the time needed to look through them and choose what to use.

I'm thinking of using my Two Card World Generator for story starts. It would at least give me a framework to build on and might spark ideas. The stories don't necessarily have to go together, which makes it a little easier.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 09:53 AM (nC+QA)

77 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 09:53 AM (Zz0t1)

78 When I first read "Dracula" a few years ago, I too was surprised by how adamantly Christian it was in many places (in fact, about as crypto-Catholic as it could be in Victorian Britain).

I'm sure that has nothing to do with why the modern adaptations are so different from (and inferior to) the original.

Posted by: Dr. T at October 08, 2023 09:54 AM (m9hmt)

79
My weekly reminder I didn't read enough last week.

--------

You know, you CAN take credit for street signs and cereal boxes.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at October 08, 2023 09:54 AM (Z2aTH)

80 A similar situation exists with Poe's "The Raven". It is typically read like a quiet account, which strips the poem of its power. The poem's narrator, almost comatose at the start, becomes increasingly emotional as realization of loss and regret consume him.

There is a reading of The Raven by Christopher Walken on the tubes. Interesting, to say the least.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 08, 2023 09:54 AM (VLC8t)

81 This is the "banned book" display in the library where I work (but do not work for).

Is this library in an elementary or middle school? If not, mostly no one cares.

The biggest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world it's not about protecting the innocence of children.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 09:54 AM (Zz0t1)

82 I have a vague affiliation with our local library, and so of course we've been hearing a lot about Banned Book Week and the terrible menace of Scary Christians trying to censor books, yadda yadda yadda.

It's all a huge con.

When parents don't want books in the Children's Section about how to masturbate or YA novels about how swell it is to transition, that's CENSORSHIP! It's WORSE THAN HITLER!

But when the librarians decide there are too many books by Dead White Men and start getting rid of them, that's just "collection management." No censorship here.

In short: keep your mouth shut, Comrade, and let the Library Commissars decide what you can read.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023 09:54 AM (QZxDR)

83 I vaguely recall that there were books for the Flint movies but they were probably novelizations of the movies. I enjoy the two films, they are so much over the top fun.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:50 AM (7EjX1)

Thanks. I'm going to keep looking for free Helm books and see about Flint.

Back in a bit.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 09:55 AM (Angsy)

84 It seems to be my year for reading books that I had heard of for a long time, assumed were not for me, and never picked up. First it was Hammet and Chandler and Parker, At the moment it’s Wouk.

Finished The Caine Mutiny[/] and enjoyed it tremendously, and am now 3/4 of the way through the first of his two giant WWII series books, The Winds of War[/]. I am finding it both engrossing and enlightening. I’m getting much more of a perspective of where the American people were before Pearl Harbor, and many other angles of the war I did not get from reading Shirer and Manchester.

Posted by: Splunge at October 08, 2023 09:55 AM (O1uuu)

Posted by: Splunge at October 08, 2023 09:55 AM (O1uuu)

86 Plenty of the dead, wounded, and hostages are also Americans.

Posted by: Nevergiveup at October 08, 2023 09:57 AM (pmmLi)

87 85
Posted by: Splunge at October 08, 2023 09:55 AM (O1uuu)

Understandable correction, however, I think the style guide has changed here where you're supposed to add your HTML tag, sock Mitch McConnell and leave several blank spaces as your comment.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 09:58 AM (Zz0t1)

88 Plenty of the dead, wounded, and hostages are also Americans.
Posted by: Nevergiveup at October 08, 2023 09:57 AM (pmmLi)

Winning!!!

Posted by: Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 09:58 AM (Zz0t1)

89 Ooh, banned books. It's like we're in the Third Reich all over again.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at October 08, 2023 09:58 AM (Z2aTH)

90 Hot Coffee !!! Finished Grants Memoirs ... not what I expected ... his diction is very odd but curt.. to the point very dry .... which is completely different to words and expressions of today 👍
Onto Mr Chiles Perigee ...

Posted by: Qmark at October 08, 2023 09:58 AM (+t9Oi)

91 Thanks for getting me out of that (literal) hellhole.
(Canto 19)
Posted by: Tonypete at October 08, 2023 09:32 AM (SAX5G)
------------

I've been in Purgatorio for years.

Posted by: bluebell at October 08, 2023 09:59 AM (pTb/Z)

92 Is this library in an elementary or middle school? If not, mostly no one cares.

The biggest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world it's not about protecting the innocence of children.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 09:54 AM (Zz0t1)
----
University library. So no one cares.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 08, 2023 10:00 AM (BpYfr)

93 In the current week of putting off ANNA KARENINA and BLEAK HOUSE, I read A HAUNTING ON THE HILL by Elizabeth Hand. It's set in Hill House (yep, THAT Hill House), and while it ain't Shirley Jackson -- what is? -- it's not a bad read and there are some nicely creepy moments to it. Jackson's estate was on board with Hand doing the book, and while I think some of the blurbs on its Amazon page are just a tad extreme, it's a good one. A nice Halloween season read.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 10:00 AM (a/4+U)

94 The Vatican banned a shitload of books but, to its credit, it never did a thing against busty lesbian pr0n.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at October 08, 2023 10:00 AM (Z2aTH)

95 I love Dracula -- maybe I should re-read that in honor of October as well as the Zelazny book.

One thing which disappoints me horribly about film adaptations of Dracula is that they skip over the middle. The "Jonathan Harker in the Castle" sections are usually rendered pretty well, and Lucy in Whitby, but there's the whole procedural section in which the heroes are hunting Dracula's hidden refuges in London which would be enough for a whole season of a Netflix series.

The other thing that pisses me off is how terribly movies treat Jonathan Harker. At best he's a mutton-headed stiff (as in the older films) and modern adaptations have to make him an actual villain so that Mina can be a Strong Independent Woman and get it on with Dracula.

Because there's nothing more empowering than having sex with a corpse, I guess.

I want Book Harker, who fought his way out of a vampire-haunted castle single-handed and is stalking the King of Vampires around London with a Gurkha dagger.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023 10:00 AM (QZxDR)

96 When I unexpectedly survived advanced ovarian cancer I considered writing about it, with the title "Cancer: Making a Song and Dance about It." I wrote a couple of poems and asked my poetry professor from college to take a look and see if I was making a fool of myself. She encouraged me, but I found myself looking forward instead of back, and that was the end of it.

Though there was one sweet outcome. A few years later out of the blue I heard from my professor. She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service.

Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:01 AM (5bUjq)

97 “They were two desperate scavengers in a no-man's land of radiation and death.

THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES
By FRITZ LEIBER

Found this public domain ebook at project gutenberg.

Posted by: 13times at October 08, 2023 10:02 AM (mOsyf)

98 ----
University library. So no one cares.
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 08, 2023 10:00 AM (BpYfr)

So, none of those books have been banned by the university and that's just straight propaganda.

Got it.

All while the books on that display should simply be filed away where they can be found via normal library fashion and adults can make their own decisions.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:02 AM (Zz0t1)

99 "This is the "banned book" display in the library where I work "

Babylon Bee: Courageous Dissident Reads Banned Book He Bought From The 'Banned Books' Section Of Barnes & Noble

*sigh*

Posted by: Kindltot at October 08, 2023 10:02 AM (xhaym)

100 Is Huck Finn on the "banned books" display?

Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at October 08, 2023 10:03 AM (63Dwl)

101 Posted by: Qmark at October 08, 2023 09:58 AM (+t9Oi)

Grant's discussion of Spain's economic system in Mexico helped me understand why they are such a mess today, although not moving past that is on them. Reading his memoirs and Churchill's WWII memoirs brings out how easy it is to feel that *if course* a given side won, but in the moment there was major uncertainty (and sometimes near certainty of losing).

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 10:04 AM (nC+QA)

102 Is Huck Finn on the "banned books" display?
Posted by: Bertram Cabot, Jr. at October 08, 2023 10:03 AM (63Dwl)

Sneak in a copy of "Rules for Radicals" and "Mein Kompf" just for shits and giggles.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:04 AM (Zz0t1)

103 Though there was one sweet outcome. A few years later out of the blue I heard from my professor. She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service.
Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:01 AM (5bUjq)
------------

Wow, Wenda, that's quite an honor! Your poetry obviously impressed her.

Posted by: bluebell at October 08, 2023 10:05 AM (pTb/Z)

104 So, none of those books have been banned by the university and that's just straight propaganda.

Got it.

All while the books on that display should simply be filed away where they can be found via normal library fashion and adults can make their own decisions.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:02 AM (Zz0t1)
---
This is exactly correct. They are not "banned" in any normal sense of the word. The university bought them with money paid by student fees and the taxpayers in the state. Any student, faculty, or staff can access them at any time.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 08, 2023 10:05 AM (BpYfr)

105 The Winds of War[/]. I am finding it both engrossing and enlightening. I’m getting much more of a perspective of where the American people were before Pearl Harbor, and many other angles of the war I did not get from reading Shirer and Manchester.
Posted by: Splunge at October 08, 2023 09:55 AM (O1uuu)

One of the things I appreciated the most about both of Wouk's WWII epics was that it captured how people reacted to hearing of the various events in real time. As I said when historical fictions came up, far and away they are both my favorite historical fictions.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:05 AM (8sMut)

106 Sneak in a copy of "Rules for Radicals" and "Mein Kompf" just for shits and giggles.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:04 AM (Zz0t1)
---
Hmmm. If I can find them in the library, I might just do that!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 08, 2023 10:06 AM (BpYfr)

107 I've been a Dean Koontz fan since way back and just finished After Death about a guy who works for an intelligence agency and dies in a sort of industrial accident along with all his co-workers, but comes back from the dead with a personal connection to the internet and a desire to not be a lab rat for the scientists at his agency.

Stephen King lost me after The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. That was his least bloated and overblown book ever and the last of his that I enjoyed. I haven't even tried one of his books in years.

Posted by: huerfano at October 08, 2023 10:07 AM (cs21Z)

108 O/T: Five year old child used by Pediatrician father as vaccine propaganda tool dead at age eight from cardiac arrest in bathtub.

https://is.gd/eodewo

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:08 AM (Zz0t1)

109 Sneak in a copy of "Rules for Radicals" and "Mein Kompf" just for shits and giggles.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:04 AM (Zz0t1)

Now there's some good pie-in-the-face tactics for you.

Posted by: Dr. T at October 08, 2023 10:08 AM (m9hmt)

110 I bought but haven't yet read an Anthony Horowitz short story about shenanigans in the art world because of the title, Vermeer To Eternity.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 10:09 AM (FVME7)

111 The Benjamin Percy Comet trilogy looks like a good pick.

Posted by: 13times at October 08, 2023 10:09 AM (k/Ohw)

112
Stephen King lost me after The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. That was his least bloated and overblown book ever and the last of his that I enjoyed. I haven't even tried one of his books in years.
Posted by: huerfano at October 08, 2023 10:07 AM (cs21Z)

I think I stopped reading him sometime around Cujo.

F*ck that guy.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:09 AM (Zz0t1)

113 Though there was one sweet outcome. A few years later out of the blue I heard from my professor. She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service.
Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:01 AM (5bUjq)

That easily beats out my experience with writing: I was tasked to write my father's obituary (the entire family singled me out while meeting the funeral director as "the writer in the family"). I did it stream of consciousness, a little bit of editing, and no organization. I just wrote. The hardest writing project I ever embarked on.

How freaked out I was to hear people referencing it for days after it was "published".

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:10 AM (8sMut)

114
Now there's some good pie-in-the-face tactics for you.
Posted by: Dr. T at October 08, 2023 10:08 AM (m9hmt)

Although Kompf might be too big a book to just sneak in there since its 12,000 pages long.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:10 AM (Zz0t1)

115 I think I stopped reading him sometime around Cujo.

F*ck that guy.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:09 AM (Zz0t1)

I read The Dead Zone, It, Needful Things, Four Past Midnight, and one of my favorite novels of all time, The Stand. But after that I came to the conclusion I read all the King I needed to read.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:12 AM (8sMut)

116 MOrning, Book Creatures!

Regarding Dracula and Dr. Seward's diary entries -- doesn't Stoker tell us he was recording them on wax cylinders, an early version of the dictaphone or tape recording? I know 1891 seems pretty early for that, though, and I'm not sure.

The only other story I've read where recording cylinders are important to the plot is Rex Stout's 1947 The Silent Speaker. By that time the cylinder recording tech was well established, apparently, and people in offices used it all the time.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:12 AM (omVj0)

117 Hmmm. If I can find them in the library, I might just do that!
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at October 08, 2023 10:06 AM (BpYfr)

Probably boohmarked and on the librarian's desk.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at October 08, 2023 10:12 AM (I8crj)

118 So one of the books I got this week was a sketchbook by Italian comic-book artist Michele Rubini. 60 pages of pencil sketches of monsters, or mythological characters rendered in an action/monster style. As I went through it, I was pleased to note that of the 60 pictured characters, there were only four-and-a-half that I was unfamiliar with. And two-and-a-half of those characters were clearly foreign, so I have a reasonable excuse for my ignorance.

The mythic characters that were new to me: The Troop of Herlethingus (Viking, I assume), Wakan Tanka (clearly Plains Indian), Kyubi No Kitsune (this is the half, I know what a kitsune is, but I can't pretend to be familiar with this particular one), Ao Guang (an eastern dragon or some sort) and Dagda (a Celtic-looking giant).

Though I must admit, some of the characters I only know by reputation (Anansi) or by dubious movie/tv adaptations (Kalima and Sun Wukong, loosely adapted by Indiana Jones and DBZ, respectively). Anyways, it's a cool sketchbook, and I'll likely spend a lot of time paging through it while watching tv or a movie...

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 08, 2023 10:13 AM (Lhaco)

119 Another couple of Koontz books I liked, One Door Away From Heaven and From the Corner of His Eye. One Door has much more humor than is typical of Koontz. Much of the humor derives from misunderstandings of an alien as he tries to fit into Earth society.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 10:13 AM (FVME7)

120 I have a copy of the German corporal's bestseller -- it's a 1930s English translation put out by an American anti-NSDAP organization. They wanted everyone to see what he was saying openly in big print.

Note how cagey we all are about avoiding specific words in our posts in case some totalitarian swine claims to be "offended" by something.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023 10:13 AM (QZxDR)

121 I read The Dead Zone, It, Needful Things, Four Past Midnight, and one of my favorite novels of all time, The Stand. But after that I came to the conclusion I read all the King I needed to read.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023

***
DZ and The Stand are marvelous. Before you give up on SK, though, try the Different Seasons collection. It has the stories which became the films Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (omVj0)

122
Probably boohmarked and on the librarian's desk.
Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory at October 08, 2023 10:12 AM (I8crj)

You likely must be a member of the Secret Socialist Club of Communistic Integrity to gain access. Or wear a Biden / Harris button when entering the library.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (Zz0t1)

123 I found a "Garrett, P.I." collection of the first three books in the series by Glen Cook in the secondhand bookstore in my old stomping grounds. The owner had it with the mysteries.

I moved it to the fantasy/SF section, but it didn't fit. I put it on the shelf sideways. I doubt the proprietor will notice.

Next time I'm there, I'll check for it.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (rYZAP)

124 I finsiwhed The Long Earth, a parallel Earth story by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. It is about the universe exposed when someone released the plans on the internet of an electronic device that allowed one to transfer one universe over, or make one "step" "sideways". The device, of course, is powered by a potato. And using it makes you puke.

Since the device seemed silly, it was mostly whipped up by adolescents who mostly got lost and stranded on a unpopulated world. Joshua Valienté is an orphan who lives in an orphanage in Madison WI run by nuns, and discovering that he is is a natural stepper, he winds up rescuing lots of other lost children who were not as careful with their wiring.

Most of the story is about Joshua being hired by a recognized Human AI, to explore how far out the parallel Earths go, by means of a stepper enabled dirigible, and go to the "High Megs" worlds. The step-wise worlds vary by minute changes in probability, in spectrum from glacial periods to Cretaceous like climate, with "Joker" worlds slipped in due to meteorite strikes, massive erruptions and in the case of the Datum Earth, intelligent life. Only Datum Earth appears to have humans

Posted by: Kindltot at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (xhaym)

125 This is the first book I have read in a long while that I plowed through in a couple of days. It is highly entertaining and very well written, and very,very Pratchett. He began writing this series after being diagnosed with Alzhiemers, and felt it the book he wanted to write.
Long Earth is probably mostly Pratchett, the last ones may be mostly Stephen Baxter.

Pratchett must have delighted in creating characters. Long Earth is full of them, including Sister Agness who ran Joshua's orphanage. Pratchett would at times indulge in a deep description of a character.

"Sister Agness was definitely religious, in a wierd kind of way. At the Home, Sister Agnes had two pictures on the walls of her cramped room: one of the Sacred Heart, the other was of Meat Loaf. And she played old Jim Steinman records louder far too loudly for the other sissters. Joshua didn't know much about Harleys, but Sister Agnes's Harley looked so old that St. Paul had probably once ridden in the sidecar. Sometimes extremely hairy bikers mad interstate pilgrimages to her garage at the Home on Allied Drive/ She gave them coffee, and made sure they kept their hands off the paintwork."

Posted by: Kindltot at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (xhaym)

126 I am working my way through my wife's book ("Junk Love", which was duly pimped by our Literary Squirrel a few weeks ago). I'm pretty sure I'll be beaten if I'm caught reading anything else before finishing it. In the meanwhile, I'm accumulating more books and piling them on my dresser, as is The Way.

I used to tear through books at lightning speed, but at some point (probably law school) reading became a chore. Or maybe I needed other types of activities to distract me. I need to reprogram myself to be more of a reader and less of a passive consumer of video entertainment.

Posted by: PabloD at October 08, 2023 10:16 AM (x8oLC)

127 I found a "Garrett, P.I." collection of the first three books in the series by Glen Cook in the secondhand bookstore in my old stomping grounds.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (rYZAP)

Was he wearing Crocs?

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:16 AM (Zz0t1)

128 I can't see reading a 14 volume fantasy series. I tried to read Proust and was defeated after about 300 pages of someone describing his bedroom and not getting out of bed. Summarize Proust? Nothing happens. LOL

Posted by: leber at October 08, 2023 10:17 AM (JfWkS)

129 Summarize Proust? Nothing happens. LOL
Posted by: leber at October 08, 2023 10:17 AM (JfWkS)

But boy do you get an accurate picture of that nothing.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (Zz0t1)

130 Regarding Dracula and Dr. Seward's diary entries -- doesn't Stoker tell us he was recording them on wax cylinders, an early version of the dictaphone or tape recording? I know 1891 seems pretty early for that, though, and I'm not sure.

-
Kim Newman's book Anno Dracula features a new take on Dracula and said cylinders.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (FVME7)

131 DZ and The Stand are marvelous. Before you give up on SK, though, try the Different Seasons collection. It has the stories which became the films Stand By Me, Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:14 AM (omVj0)

I haven't read anything by SK in decades - not since HS, and that was (cough, cough) years ago. But I wouldn't mind giving Different Seasons a spin.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (8sMut)

132 One thing which disappoints me horribly about film adaptations of Dracula is that they skip over the middle. The "Jonathan Harker in the Castle" sections are usually rendered pretty well, and Lucy in Whitby, but there's the whole procedural section in which the heroes are hunting Dracula's hidden refuges in London which would be enough for a whole season of a Netflix series. . . .

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023

***
I think the 1970s PBS series with Louis Jourdan as the count retains all that. I know the climactic sequence with the heroes wielding Winchester rifles against Dracula's gypsy minions is there.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (omVj0)

133 Dean Koontz's "Jane Hawk" series was great. It's about an evil cabal (aren't they always nefarious?) developing a sort of biological template they can use as an injectable mind control device.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (Fannw)

134 Wenda that is a touching honor I think

Posted by: Skip at October 08, 2023 10:19 AM (/sNjX)

135 Reading "The Liquid Sun" by asshole German (BIRM) physicist Alexander Unzicker, who, though an arrogant, atheist prick, writes a lot of books ("Bankrupting Physics", "Einstein's Lost Key", "The Higgs Fake") about how modern physics is utterly lost and has been for almost 100 years.

The Liquid Sun is Unzicker's explanation of Pierre-Marie Robitaille's theory that the Sun is comprised of Liquid Metallic Hydrogen rather than gaseous plasma. I have to say the evidence presented is compelling.

Posted by: Sharkman at October 08, 2023 10:20 AM (ZVkju)

136
I haven't read anything by SK in decades - not since HS, and that was (cough, cough) years ago. But I wouldn't mind giving Different Seasons a spin.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (8sMut)

Borrow it from your local library. Don't give that POS any money.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:20 AM (Zz0t1)

137 “Rex Stout's 1947 The Silent Speaker“

The USB connection on my Kindle paperwhite has ceased working and the battery is at 0.0%.

Of course my complete Nero Wolfe collection is on that device. I’ll get around to fixing it since there are tons of unread ebooks on it.

Posted by: 13times at October 08, 2023 10:20 AM (oCktO)

138 Dean Koontz's "Jane Hawk" series was great. It's about an evil cabal (aren't they always nefarious?) developing a sort of biological template they can use as an injectable mind control device.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at October 08, 2023 10:18 AM (Fannw)

Or, "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation."

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (Zz0t1)

139 I've fallen off King's novels over the last decade or so. In the conversation between writer and reader, he ain't talking to me any more. These days he seems stronger at shorter lengths -- if he puts out another collection of short stories or novellas, I'll lay my money down as soon as the book comes out because there will be enough good stuff there to make it worth my while even if the collection's uneven.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (a/4+U)

140 Dammit, wrote out a long list of book series I have read and it would not post because it looked like spam. 🤬🤬🤬

Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (fe7in)

141 I haven't read anything by SK in decades - not since HS, and that was (cough, cough) years ago. But I wouldn't mind giving Different Seasons a spin.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023

***
The fourth novelette, "The Breathing Method," has never been filmed, and I don't know why. It's a great evocation of 1930 New York among other things. It's got the supernatural in it, unlike the other three, but it's much less "in your face" about it than a lot of SK's works.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (omVj0)

142
I used to tear through books at lightning speed, but at some point (probably law school) reading became a chore. Or maybe I needed other types of activities to distract me. I need to reprogram myself to be more of a reader and less of a passive consumer of video entertainment.
Posted by: PabloD at October 08, 2023 10:16 AM (x8oLC)

This was HS for me. I graduated in the bottom quarter of my class. Why? Reading everything else. I tore through books constantly. (Just nothing assigned.) As an adult with much on my plate this is harder to do. The Sam Adams bio I am reading I am more or less saving for flying when I will have little to do and no desire to randomly BS with strangers around me.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (8sMut)

143 71 ... "I once saw (on PBS, couldn't find it on youtube) Rene Auberjonois and a couple of others do a dramatic reading of Poe "The Bells" that was done in that fashion."

Ho Oddbob, Wish I could have seen that reading. The Bells is great example of how words can represent various tones and sounds. In college, I helped a friend prepare a dramatic reading of the poem and it was a lot of fun.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (7EjX1)

144 Dammit, wrote out a long list of book series I have read and it would not post because it looked like spam. 🤬🤬🤬
Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (fe7in)

Copy and paste from Word. That should do it.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:23 AM (Zz0t1)

145 Next month is NaNoWriMo

Posted by: Anna Puma at October 08, 2023 10:24 AM (c/KMW)

146 18 Another week of illustrations to enjoy with reading. Thoroughly enjoying, again, the "Complete Brambly Hedge" stories. The writing is charming but the artwork is beyond outstanding: creative, whimsical, botanically accurate, and intriguing. I wish these books had been available when I was a kid. Only missed them by about thirty years. I can get pleasantly lost noting the little details Jill Barklem includes in her watercolors. They may be some of the best children's book ever.
Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 09:11 AM (7EjX1)

I bought a hardcover of the complete collection thanks to the Horde's recommendation (and having seen "The High Hills" floating around my parents' house) I agree that the illustrations are great. However, having grown up on Redwall, I wish the costumes and world was more Medeval and less....Victiorianish. Ah, well, it's a minor complaint.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 08, 2023 10:25 AM (Lhaco)

147 She encouraged me, but I found myself looking forward instead of back, and that was the end of it.

Though there was one sweet outcome. A few years later out of the blue I heard from my professor. She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service.

Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:01 AM (5bUjq)

Sounds more like a beginning to me.

Posted by: Reforger at October 08, 2023 10:26 AM (B705c)

148 I am about an hour's drive from Willa Cather's Red Cloud Nebraska. I'd planned to drive out there this year. Don't know if I will still make it.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at October 08, 2023 10:27 AM (Ds/Wi)

149 144 Copy and paste from Word. That should do it.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:23 AM

On my mobile currently. Copied it to a noted function. Will see if that works

Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 10:27 AM (fe7in)

150 Booken morgen horden. Thanks for the thread Perfesser.

Headache morning
I read Matt's cancer memoir as a draft - it is gripping and well written.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at October 08, 2023 10:27 AM (vHIgi)

151 She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service.
Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:01 AM (5bUjq)

That is a nice honor.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at October 08, 2023 10:29 AM (OX9vb)

152 Or, "The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation."
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:21 AM (Zz0t1)

That series sounds like "Midnight - The Series". Which you could also argue the above. The villain is very reminiscent of Bill Gates, and this was before we saw this current, evil incarnation.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:29 AM (8sMut)

153 Though there was one sweet outcome. A few years later out of the blue I heard from my professor. She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service.
Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:01 AM (5bUjq)
------------

"Clap your hands
and nod your head
the witch is finally dead....

That one ?

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 10:30 AM (T4tVD)

154 Part 1O series that I have read.
The Longmire series.
Pretty much anything Tom Clancy wrote.
The Mitch Rapp series
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series
The John Carter of Mars series
Most of the Xanth series
The Dresden Files
Jack Reacher series
A lot of the Dirk Pitt books
The John Milton series and Rose books
All of Sherlock Holmes
All of James Bond
The Gray Man series

Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 10:30 AM (fe7in)

155 I had no idea Rene Auberjonois was dead, or that he was in his mid 50’s when he played Odo in DS9.

Posted by: 13times at October 08, 2023 10:30 AM (oCktO)

156 There are 27 books in the Matt Helm series IIRC. If possible, read the books in order. That isn't critical but Helm's character does develop over time and there are some references to events from earlier stories. Watch the Dean Martin movies for fun but they have almost nothing to do with the books. I've said it before, Donald Hamilton wrote some excellent westerns , adventure stories and some nonfiction books that are worth reading. . . .

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023

***
One of my Fawcett Gold Medal paperbacks in the Helm series has a line from a review of the time: "Your reading diet lacks essential vitamins if you skip [Helm]." True enough. Matt Helm is almost an anti-hero in some ways; he's as tough an operative as the Communist agents he deals with. In one story, he has been captured and is flying in a four-seater plane with two of the villains and a non-agent woman. I forget how the pilot dies, but there they are, pilotless. Helm asks the other Soviet agent, "Can you fly this plane?" She babbles, "My God, no!" And so he shoots her -- horrifying the non-agent. But it makes sense: He can't leave her loose while they're up in the sky!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:31 AM (omVj0)

157 63 Posted by: Castle Guy at October 08, 2023 09:36 AM (Lhaco)

I got my pre-ordered next volume of Bride Stories but keep forgetting to actually read it. That's embarrassing.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 09:40 AM (nC+QA)

I don't think that was part of my two-orders-in-a-day, but I did recently order volumes 12, 13, and 14. Volume 13 genuinely surprised me. All the rules of narrative fiction told me the story was going in a particular direction, but, then it.....didn't. Now I'm curious if the story goes off in a different direction, or if the author finds a way to double back and return to the obvious conclusion...

I'll almost certainly be reading volume 14 this week. If not later today...

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 08, 2023 10:31 AM (Lhaco)

158 Part 2 series I have read.

Stainless Steel Rat series by Harry Harrison who also did an alternative history series of the Civil War wherein the North and South stop fighting to band against a commen enemy, Great Britain.
Orphan X series
The Ryan Drakes series by the one and only Critical Drinker
Man of Destiny series by our own A.H. Lloyd
The Case Lee series
The Kelly Turnbull series by Kurt Schlicter
Most of the Brad Thor books ( stopped reading about 4 books ago)
The Driver series by Robert L Turner, think of this paying homage to the Transporter movies.

And of course the one that started it all, The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit.

And of course there are certain authors o follow. That can be another thread

Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 10:32 AM (fe7in)

159 I bought one of TJM's books a while back. Still haven't cracked it open yet.

I really suck about reading books.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:32 AM (Zz0t1)

160 I never finished reading JJ Sefton's book, but that's because it's too painful and depressing.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:33 AM (Zz0t1)

161 Told in the style of Jane Austen and Alice Bronte, Charlotte Miller, Governess is a touching work of a young woman facing the difficulties of the world and forging her own path.

***

It's an unfortunate cover. Rule number one for new writers - you have to catch the eye of readers of your genre. The simplest way is to have a cover that is in the style of your "if you like" author, in this case Austen or Bronte.
It looks like the cover for a book about estate gardens.

Finally, who is Alice Bronte? Do you mean Anne Bronte?

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at October 08, 2023 10:33 AM (vHIgi)

162 154: showoff.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:33 AM (8sMut)

163 I'm thinking of using my Two Card World Generator for story starts. It would at least give me a framework to build on and might spark ideas. The stories don't necessarily have to go together, which makes it a little easier.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 09:53 AM (nC+QA)

Never heard of TCWG. My ideas just pop into my head, usually from reading a headline, or a news story, and of course, classic story lines. I have two competing story ideas in a sci-fi I'm working on. If I can make it long enough, I can use both. They're taken from any type of trope I can recall.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 10:33 AM (Angsy)

164 Catch 33, don't sell yourself short. My son wrote my husband's obituary. He managed to convey so much of John's kindness and humor, I'll treasure it always. And many people felt the same way.

Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:34 AM (5bUjq)

165 162 154: showoff.
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 10:33 AM

But wait, there's more. 😁😁😁

Posted by: Scuba_Dude at October 08, 2023 10:35 AM (fe7in)

166 Finished the series, Children of Time, Children of Ruin and Children of Memory.
1st is spiders becoming sentient and intelligent. Creepy.
2nd is octopuses, how they seem to have a central brain and tentacle brains chaoticaly working together. Fascinating. And a borg-like wholly-alien life. As creepy as the spiders.
3rd is ... well, I can't say without it being a spoiler.

They're thinking books. Like the ideas explored stick with you, rolling around your thoughts long after.
Interesting exploration of how the body defines and shapes the intelligence. What is "life," "self" and "being."

I don't think we have even come close to understanding how our self is intimately tied our body/form.
Which is, that not just the trannie hysteria destroys the self but even deeper--things you do that destroy your body, destroys who "you" are, e.g. sin.

Posted by: People's Hippo Voice at October 08, 2023 10:37 AM (TzW+Y)

167 My long-standing habit is: if I think I'll want to read it, I'll probably buy it right then. If I wait, it'll go out of print and then I'll have to scrounge for a copy (habit formed well before Amazon, abebooks, or fast interlibrary loan). This contributes heavily to the size of the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 10:37 AM (a/4+U)

168 This literature professor (who bitches about how hard it is to find time to read) recommends five short stories every writer should read in this 12 minute video. The stories are Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants, The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, Thank You, Ma'am by Langston Hughes, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Twain, and Poe's The Tell Tale Heart.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KnLierBwyQA&t=467sL

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 10:37 AM (FVME7)

169 I read 'More Than They Promised', a history of Studebaker Motors by Thomas Bonsall. I was going to just peruse it and look a the pictures but ended up reading the entire thing! A good read and on archive.org. I learned 'Planned Obsolescence', so vilified by Leftie types starting in the 1950s and condemned as Corporate Weaseldom to bilk the public, in fact was a Roosevelt Administration government edict started in the Depression in an attempt to boost interest in new cars. Planned Obsolescence was started as basically a Central Planning program, and then just continued. Before that companies developed products, then improved them over time, like most other products. Roosevelt changed that.
I did not know this!

Posted by: LenNeal tells the cat to accept it. at October 08, 2023 10:38 AM (/BBNv)

170 Thanks for the dandy Book Thread, Perfessor!

Always enjoy reading what other Morons are reading and picking up good recommendations. I'm still hooked on a series of romance/suspense/murder mysteries by Sandra Brown, Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb and Jayne Ann Krenz/Amanda Quick. With winter coming on, I will have to make sure my library is well-stocked. While I enjoy re-reading books, since childhood I have had this latent fear that I will run out of reading material.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at October 08, 2023 10:38 AM (Zb5iS)

171 Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 10:33 AM (Angsy)

TCWG is my own creation. It's actually the *result* of a story idea about Gunslinging Dinosaurs in an "Old West" world. I went on to create a system where that result was one possibility.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 10:39 AM (nC+QA)

172 80 ... "There is a reading of The Raven by Christopher Walken on the tubes. Interesting, to say the least."

Thomas Paine,
Thanks for mentioning that video. Walken's emotional narration is brilliant in the way he brings out the power of Poe's use of alliteration, pacing, and repetition. An excellent rendition.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 10:39 AM (7EjX1)

173 @156 --

That scene is in "The Menacers," one of my favorites. The pilot is killed by a stray bullet, accidentally fired, I think, by the other enemy agent during a tussle.

There's an argument for reading the books in order. "The Menacers" brings back one character and introduces one of Helm's allies and an adversary will who return to pose problems for Helm's agency.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 10:39 AM (rYZAP)

174 Thomas Paine,
Thanks for mentioning that video. Walken's emotional narration is brilliant in the way he brings out the power of Poe's use of alliteration, pacing, and repetition. An excellent rendition.
Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 10:39 AM (7EjX1)

I love him. I think it's fantastic how he can be a slight caricature of himself, yet still pulls it off without looking silly.

The fact that Mel Gibson says he's The Devil is slightly offputting, however.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:41 AM (Zz0t1)

175 Was he wearing Crocs?
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 10:16 AM (Zz0t1)

Detective Fantasy is an odd genre. John Campbell, the editor of Analog Magazine declared that it was an impossible genre to write well, since magical rules changed everything. So Randall Garrett wrote the Lord D'Arcy stories to prove him wrong.
Hugh Cook's Garrett, P.I. stories are Noir detective novels in a fantasy world and work very well both as fantasy and detective novels. As a genre, however, they are whatever the opposite of "magical realism" is.

Magical realism is stories of the flash of ineffable fantasy realm appearing in a humdrum world (a very Spanish literature concept by the way), and whatever Cook and Pratchett write is the story of people trying to grind out their lives in the face of magical reality that keeps happening around them like raccoons getting into the garbage cans when you put them out on trash day.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 08, 2023 10:41 AM (xhaym)

176 Will look for the Walken reading of "The Raven."

And it's tacky of me to ask, but does his reading have enough cowbell in there?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 10:41 AM (a/4+U)

177 Also reading 'Attack at Chosin', Xiaobing Li (and others), a view of the Chosin Reservoir battles in the Korean War from the Chinese point of view, with accounts from surviving PLA veterans. It's a fascinating read, and while very likely 'not-quite-the-whole-story' (it is China, after all), the majority of it rings true and matches accounts from the American/UN side.
Really interesting and very highly recommended.

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 10:42 AM (/BBNv)

178 126 I am working my way through my wife's book ("Junk Love", which was duly pimped by our Literary Squirrel a few weeks ago).
I used to tear through books at lightning speed...
Posted by: PabloD
I read and enjoyed her book, and have left my review on amazon and goodreads. It's outside of my usual fare, but I did actually tear through this one. It was a real feel-good, and I think I needed that in these times.

I had only a couple of minor quibbles, and they regard language. For instance, multiple use of the word "ginormous," which seems like a cartoon word to me, but it's only a matter of preference.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at October 08, 2023 10:42 AM (OX9vb)

179 This literature professor (who bitches about how hard it is to find time to read) recommends five short stories every writer should read in this 12 minute video. The stories are Hemingway's Hills Like White Elephants, The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin, Thank You, Ma'am by Langston Hughes, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Twain, and Poe's The Tell Tale Heart.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KnLierBwyQA&t=467sL
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023

***
Huh. I've only read the Poe, heard of the Twain, and know the authors of the other stories. But I've never read them.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:42 AM (omVj0)

180 96 ... "A few years later out of the blue I heard from my professor. She had died, and had left a request that one of my poems be read at her memorial service."

Wenda, That is such a compliment to you and incredibly touching.

Posted by: JTB at October 08, 2023 10:45 AM (7EjX1)

181
That scene is in "The Menacers," one of my favorites. The pilot is killed by a stray bullet, accidentally fired, I think, by the other enemy agent during a tussle.

There's an argument for reading the books in order. "The Menacers" brings back one character and introduces one of Helm's allies and an adversary will who return to pose problems for Helm's agency.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023

***
Ah, that's it. Yes, in order would be good. But I first made Helm's acquaintance in high school with Book 8, The Ravagers, also a fine entry in the series, and picked up the others as I found them.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:46 AM (omVj0)

182 Planned Obsolescence was started as basically a Central Planning program, and then just continued. Before that companies developed products, then improved them over time, like most other products. Roosevelt changed that.
I did not know this!
Posted by: LenNeal tells the cat to accept it. at October 08, 2023 10:38 AM (/BBNv)

It waned in the 60's and 70's then with the enviromental stuff made a return in the Mid 70's. Mostly with the intention of keeping what's on the road up to current emmisions standards.
Along with this also came the special tools needed to work on anything. Which was an attempt to kill the backyard mechanic by making it to expensive.
See current "right to repair" lawsuits.
Another thi

Posted by: Reforger at October 08, 2023 10:47 AM (B705c)

183 Actually met Kim Newman in 2011 on the Ile de Rey in France ... had already read Anno ... in the kitchen drinking ... I gave him an actual solo standing ovation ... absolutely brilliant idea Bro !!
🍺

Posted by: Qmark at October 08, 2023 10:48 AM (+t9Oi)

184 DMLW - thanks for the kind words and review of my wife's book. I'll pass it along.

Posted by: PabloD at October 08, 2023 10:49 AM (x8oLC)

185 @181 --

"The Ravagers" has a great opening line:

"It was an acid job, and they're never pretty to look at ..."

I started with "The Interlopers," the twelfth book, but I don't remember its opening.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 10:50 AM (rYZAP)

186 Thank you, Perfessor, for yet another amazing book thread. Again, another weeks of too little reading. I'm still working on the Sherlock Holmes collection. With a little luck there will be more time for reading and relaxation. Thank God for long weekends!

Posted by: KatieFloyd at October 08, 2023 10:50 AM (9HFVI)

187 I finally read the two The Saint paperbacks on my shelf: The Saint in Europe and The Avenging Saint. The former was a post World War II breeze through Paris, Lucerne, etc., righting wrongs, teaching the youngsters how to enjoy life, and stealing from criminals.

The Avenging Saint, however, was written in 1930, and includes a note by Charteris saying, basically, yeah, we had no idea what was going on or what was coming. The novel focuses on someone trying to restart World War I, and by engineering events similar to “the assassination of an Austrian Archduke in 1914”.

That will “seem rather naive and outmoded today… when even the assassination of a President of the United States by an ex-Marxist and Cuban sympathizer did not even trigger a general mobilization”.

It definitely features a very different and younger Saint than is in the later novels. Both books were a lot of fun, btw.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 10:51 AM (YA6th)

188 I've done little writing this week. Not sure why. I have to organize a pile of chaotic input from a colleague who has never structured a book before and it's a chore.
I'm not sure what's going on with me, not getting much done on the 'creative' front. I think there are too many projects that got finished and then all the components are laying all over the place and I've not gotten around to archiving them, and that's up to... six completed projects?
My files are a huge mess.
I'm also supposed to proofread and edit an academic paper, Archeology, by a person whose first language isn't English. The subject material is super interesting (the collection of fossils by prehistoric Neolithic cultures in South-East Europe) but it has to be done a 'certain way' and that's always a PIA.

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 10:52 AM (/BBNv)

189 The other nice thing about the Matt Helm series is that we are given an origin story on him. In Novel 1, Death of a Citizen (1960), we glimpse him as a youth being recruited for Mac's Nazi-hunter spy group; and then we see how he is yanked out of his comfortable postwar life to become a government agent again.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:53 AM (omVj0)

190 Catch 33, don't sell yourself short. My son wrote my husband's obituary. He managed to convey so much of John's kindness and humor, I'll treasure it always. And many people felt the same way.
Posted by: Wenda at October 08, 2023 10:34 AM (5bUjq)

Wow.

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 10:54 AM (T4tVD)

191 Huh. I've only read the Poe, heard of the Twain, and know the authors of the other stories. But I've never read them.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

I've read three of the five but not The Story of an Hour nor Thank You, Ma'am. He goes on about how, in Hills Like White Elephants, Hemingway never tells us the subject about which the couple are arguing (and it's been decades since I read it) but I thought the man was trying to convince the woman to get an abortion. Maybe I just hallucinated that.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 10:54 AM (FVME7)

192 "The Ravagers" has a great opening line:

"It was an acid job, and they're never pretty to look at ..."

I started with "The Interlopers," the twelfth book, but I don't remember its opening.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023

***
Hamilton, like all the top Fawcett Gold Medal writers, knew how to grab you and haul you into a story.

Interlopers opens quietly, I think, with Helm boarding the Canada-Alaska coastal ferry together with the black Labrador dog who is part of his cover.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:55 AM (omVj0)

193 Greetings! I learned a new word! Epistolary. I figured it had something to do letter writing, I was correct. The only book of this sort I've ever read is The Collected Letters of Mozart. As the title suggests, it is all the letters to, from and about Amadeus Mozart, all in one place. The book was tough reading, beginning when his parents first discovered what a gifted young lad they have and ending with a letter from his mother to the King of Prussia for enough funds for a proper burial, a request which was denied.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at October 08, 2023 10:56 AM (MeG8a)

194 I finished “Throne of Jade” by Naomi Novik this week. It is the second in her Temeraire series, about dragons in England (and elsewhere) in the Napoleonic era. It’s partly alternate history and partly fantasy (dragons!) I quite enjoyed it – lots of character development and good use of dialogue, also good descriptions of the settings, this time in Imperial China. Only a couple of big action sequences, set toward the end of the book. I’m beginning to see this as a trend, at least in the first two books. Will probably continue to the third book, “Black Powder War,” but not right away. I have a couple of other e-books (ok, more than a couple) lined up ready to go.

Posted by: NCDave at October 08, 2023 10:57 AM (39nDP)

195 Currently awaiting my eyeballs:

Kathy Valentine, All I ever wanted

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1477312331

Posted by: JEM at October 08, 2023 10:59 AM (8erNz)

196 Not a Horde but a Hun, I also read Laura Montgomery’s Out of the Dell this week, the second in her Waking Late series about a handful of semi-ex-military brought out of cryogenic sleep much later than they should have been due to political infighting, and on the wrong planet.

It was fun and fascinating, as was the first in the series, Sleeping Duty.

I did start thinking, “this ought to be a roleplaying game” about halfway through, mainly when she introduced the “Pan”.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 10:59 AM (YA6th)

197 Adrienne Mayor wrote a couple of books about prior civilizations collecting fossils and dinosaur bones, etc. that are really cool:
'The First Fossil Hunters' and 'Fossil Legends of the First Americans', both fun and interesting reads, recommend them very much!
I was asked to pick them up by the above-mentioned colleague, who has made a name for himself in those circles (despite not being an archeologist) by noting the presence of fossils in Neolithic sites he found near his house in Serbia. He managed to prove that people then were deliberately collecting them for reason or reasons. He'd find fossils mixed in with stone tools and pottery shards, far from their original locations.

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 10:59 AM (/BBNv)

198 I'm trying to think of five short stories that every writer should read, and keep coming up with genre fiction. Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing," for example; du Maurier's "The Birds" and "The Blue Lenses." I'm sure there ought to be a Hemingway on the list and a Poe. But some of the most effective short fiction I've ever read has been in horror or science fiction. One of Bob Shaw's "slow glass" stories should be there or his novelette "Skirmish on a Summer Morning," and Stephen King's "Battleground" or "Trucks."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:01 AM (omVj0)

199 "The Avenging Saint" showed me the importance of knowing the era in which the book was written. References to "the King" threw me.

Same with "The Logical Adventure," in which the Saint flies a "vice trader" around Europe, including a stop in Leipzig. I keep an atlas handy when reading such stories. I finally found the city -- in East Germany, which didn't exist at the time of publication.

For that matter, the only aircraft that existed then had open cockpits.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:02 AM (rYZAP)

200 As much as I hate to admit it, the epa's 50k mile emissions warranty requirement did more for modern vehicle reliability than almost anything else.

Mostly attributable to weathersealed electrical connectors.

Posted by: JEM at October 08, 2023 11:03 AM (8erNz)

201 Short stories? I'd put in something by Gogol, like 'The Overcoat' or 'The Nose'.

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 11:04 AM (/BBNv)

202 Before that companies developed products, then improved them over time, like most other products. Roosevelt changed that.
I did not know this!

Posted by: LenNeal tells the cat to accept it. at October 08, 2023 10:38 AM (/BBNv)

He was a nasty bastard and I'm glad he's dead. I'm glad he's dead. (not really)

-- paraphrasing Jack Napier

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:05 AM (Angsy)

203 And maybe a short story by Dorothy Parker, like "Glory in the Daytime" or "Horsie" or "The Custard Heart" or "Big Blonde."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:05 AM (omVj0)

204 As much as I hate to admit it, the epa's 50k mile emissions warranty requirement did more for modern vehicle reliability than almost anything else.

Mostly attributable to weathersealed electrical connectors.
Posted by: JEM at October 08, 2023 11:03 AM (8erNz)

*cough*electronicfuelinjection*cough*

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at October 08, 2023 11:06 AM (Zz0t1)

205 He managed to prove that people then were deliberately collecting them for reason or reasons.

It fascinates me how staid and boring most archaeologists/anthropologists assume people in the past were. Nobody had weird hobbies, nobody collected, and thus moved around as he noticed, weird relics—mucking about with the past is assumed to have started in modern times.

And it’s a joke but true: if they can’t come up with a prosaic explanation, it is “possibly religious in origin”. Which may be true, but ignores the full gamut of strange things humans get up to in their spare time.

Chesterton noticed and commented on the same thing in The Everlasting Man.

I once knew a lady who half-humorously suggested that the cave was a crèche, in which the babies were put to be specially safe, and that coloured animals were drawn on the walls to amuse them; very much as diagrams of elephants and giraffes adorn a modern infant school. And though this was but a jest, it does draw attention to some of the other assumptions that we make only too readily. The pictures do not prove even that the cave-men lived in caves…

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 11:07 AM (YA6th)

206 TCWG is my own creation. It's actually the *result* of a story idea about Gunslinging Dinosaurs in an "Old West" world. I went on to create a system where that result was one possibility.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 10:39 AM (nC+QA)

You should completely develop it and sell it. Before Bill Gates steals it and claims he did it.

Gunslinging Dinosaurs?? There's a market for "weird westerns," you know.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:07 AM (Angsy)

207 Same with "The Logical Adventure," in which the Saint flies a "vice trader" around Europe, including a stop in Leipzig. I keep an atlas handy when reading such stories. I finally found the city -- in East Germany, which didn't exist at the time of publication.

For that matter, the only aircraft that existed then had open cockpits.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:02 AM (rYZAP)

I'll never forget getting ready to leave Manas, when I stopped by the passenger terminal to find out what the next stop of the flight was. He couldn't pronounce the city, so he showed me the screen.

"Ah, Leipzig!", I enunciated, in German. : o )

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 11:08 AM (8sMut)

208 Based on recommendations here, I read Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun (4 books).

A joy when reading through the words themselves (keeping a dictionary handy). Wonderful mini episodes along the way. A really well imagined universe and future.

But when I got to the conclusion I was totally underwhelmed. Not quite a waste of time since the journey was fun, but a really unsatisfying finale with a lot of unanswered questions.

Posted by: Bayesian Prior at October 08, 2023 11:08 AM (q1I67)

209 I did start thinking, “this ought to be a roleplaying game” about halfway through, mainly when she introduced the “Pan”.
-----------
Does a Magic Pan give you +3 to a crêpe of concealment roll??

Posted by: andycanuck (krqg6) at October 08, 2023 11:09 AM (krqg6)

210 For that matter, the only aircraft that existed then had open cockpits.

Hah! Yes, Charteris noted this in his introduction, too:

You may stub your toes on other oddities. Such as the handling of an airplane towards the end, which would give any jet pilot hysterics. But flying, in those days, was like that: I can vouch for the fact, with my own pilot’s license which I earned in 1929, which in the sublime confidence of the future which characterized those days authorized me to fly “all types” of aircraft. One day I hope to show it to the captain of a supersonic Concorde and ask if I may play around a bit…

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 11:11 AM (YA6th)

211 Received from Amazon lately: The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales, 1948 translations by Padraic Colum, woodcut illustrations by Josef Scharl.

Once you're used to Colum's translations, the others are unsatisfactory. German and English both are idiomatic languages. Some translations are very literal, so you can at least translate the idiom yourself. Other translations lose the idioms completely in "modern" translation; think Disney or Golden Books style.

Colum translates idiom in a way nobody else can. It preserves the original sense of the language, it takes you to a different time and place, and you don't have to do the work yourself. Once you've tried it, you won't go back.

Posted by: Tom Perry at October 08, 2023 11:11 AM (MX0bI)

212 Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:07 AM (Angsy)

If you come to a Tx MoMee I can give you a copy. Perfessor Squirrel and a couple other of the Book Thread Horde helped me test it at the last one.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 11:13 AM (nC+QA)

213 Huh. I've only read the Poe, heard of the Twain, and know the authors of the other stories. But I've never read them.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:42 AM (omVj0)

Used to live next county over from Calaveras. Always like going to the Gold Country. You should find some Bret Harte to read, if you want more western stories.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:13 AM (Angsy)

214 Does a Magic Pan give you +3 to a crêpe of concealment roll??

Almost. Add a “t” to the beginning of “roll”.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 11:13 AM (YA6th)

215 I'd hate to have to come up with a list of five stories every writer should read. But if I had to, yeah, Hemingway would be on there. If including a King, I'd probably go with "The Last Rung on the Ladder." There would be a Theodore Sturgeon, but there are a ton of his to choose from -- he could take up the list all by himself. Isaac Bashevis Singer, ditto. And ditto Ray Bradbury.

I grew up on sf and horror, so there would be plenty from those genres in any list I could draw up. Zelazny, Silverberg, Ellison, Brown, Matheson, Leiber, and Kersh.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 11:14 AM (a/4+U)

216 Trolls or Swedish "Santa" gnomes??

Posted by: andycanuck (krqg6) at October 08, 2023 11:15 AM (krqg6)

217 167 My long-standing habit is: if I think I'll want to read it, I'll probably buy it right then. If I wait, it'll go out of print and then I'll have to scrounge for a copy (habit formed well before Amazon, abebooks, or fast interlibrary loan). This contributes heavily to the size of the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 10:37 AM (a/4+U)

This.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 11:16 AM (8sMut)

218 If you mean the Pan, they’re definitely in the troll/orc niche, physically.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 11:16 AM (YA6th)

219 See you later, alligators. Shopping to do, finally.

Posted by: andycanuck (krqg6) at October 08, 2023 11:17 AM (krqg6)

220 I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about Hunter here. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.

Washington Examiner
@dcexaminer
Hunter Biden cheated on his sister-in-law with hookers funded by his daughter's college fund

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 11:17 AM (FVME7)

221 Thanks, Stephen, for the 'Pan' explanation.

Cheers; later.

Posted by: andycanuck (krqg6) at October 08, 2023 11:18 AM (krqg6)

222 Good book to read in light of current events is Steven Pressfield’s The Lion’s Gate.

Posted by: Drive By at October 08, 2023 11:18 AM (MNhXM)

223 The other nice thing about the Matt Helm series is that we are given an origin story on him. In Novel 1, Death of a Citizen (1960), we glimpse him as a youth being recruited for Mac's Nazi-hunter spy group; and then we see how he is yanked out of his comfortable postwar life to become a government agent again.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 10:53 AM (omVj0)

I only noticed that when I read TWC. It dawned on me how young he was during the war. Heck of a lot of action for someone under 21.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:18 AM (Angsy)

224 Yes, Leipzig's always been in Germany.

LIPE-zig.

Hour and a half until the Qatar GP? PDT anyway. Awkward bit of the world for it right now...

Posted by: JEM at October 08, 2023 11:20 AM (8erNz)

225 Gunslinging Dinosaurs?? There's a market for "weird westerns," you know.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

The OK Corral In Jurrasic Park.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 11:21 AM (FVME7)

226 Had a thought after reading The Wrecking Crew. Matt Helm seems to indicate TWC was supposed to be the org he worked for. It wasn't named in the two I've read, but I know in the movies he worked for ICE. (drinking Dino joke I suppose) Was the org ever named? I thought after reading book number two that the titles of the book was referring to Helm, not the villains. Anyone know?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:23 AM (Angsy)

227 I only noticed that when I read TWC. It dawned on me how young he was during the war. Heck of a lot of action for someone under 21.

What was the youngest bird colonel in the USAAF? Be interesting to know.

Posted by: JEM at October 08, 2023 11:24 AM (8erNz)

228 And it’s a joke but true: if they can’t come up with a prosaic explanation, it is “possibly religious in origin”. Which may be true, but ignores the full gamut of strange things humans get up to in their spare time.'

Yeah, he got the old 'Possibly used for some ritual purpose' line. He worked hard on it, and it is finally becoming accepted; he was decades ahead and he's only an interested amateur. Before that the professionals thought they were just 'mixed in' and had no meaning. I won't get 'paid' for the paper but I do get a Neolithic tool souvenir when I return, so that's pretty cool!

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 11:25 AM (/BBNv)

229
I grew up on sf and horror, so there would be plenty from those genres in any list I could draw up. Zelazny, Silverberg, Ellison, Brown, Matheson, Leiber, and Kersh.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023

***
Your suggestion of King's "The Last Rung on the Ladder" is a very good one. Gerald Kersh was a favorite of Harlan Ellison's, and I've read a few of his (including one purporting to be the last statement of Ambrose Bierce!), but I can't find any of his works in libraries here. I'll have to look on Abebooks.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:26 AM (omVj0)

230 Haha! We had a funny conversation during which he showed me a few Neanderthal pieces he has and then asked, "So, what do your Neanderthal artifacts look like?"

Forgetting completely that America didn't have Neanderthals!

I said, "Uh, yeah, we don't have those..."

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 11:27 AM (/BBNv)

231 @210 --

Oh, I've got to find an edition with that introduction.

Some of my Saint paperbacks were spoiled by an incontinent cat. "The Logical Adventure" was in one of them.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:29 AM (rYZAP)

232 Had a thought after reading The Wrecking Crew. Matt Helm seems to indicate TWC was supposed to be the org he worked for. It wasn't named in the two I've read, but I know in the movies he worked for ICE. (drinking Dino joke I suppose) Was the org ever named? I thought after reading book number two that the titles of the book was referring to Helm, not the villains. Anyone know?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023

***
I don't think Helm ever names the organization except to call it "Mac's group" or the like, after their M/Mr. Waverly figure. It was supposed to be a very tiny sliver of U.S. intelligence, the guys the govt. called on when extreme force ws needed. The titles in the early novels were about Helm's group -- "Wrecking Crew," "Removers," "Murderers' Row," etc. Later they began to refer to the villains or important characters in the stories, like "The Interlopers."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:29 AM (omVj0)

233 Dean Koontz's "Jane Hawk" series was great. It's about an evil cabal (aren't they always nefarious?) developing a sort of biological template they can use as an injectable mind control device.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

The videogame Cyberpunk 2077 has a similar feature. There are "dolls" who have brain implants making them compliant with whatever their Johns desire but then they won't remember it. Of course, things go badly.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 11:31 AM (FVME7)

234 Wolfus, re Kersh

Easiest way to get Kersh these days is on Kindle. But Valancourt Books has a few excellent collections available in both ebook and reasonably priced paper. Among them, you'll find the collection Ellison edited -- NIGHTSHADES AND DAMNATIONS (an excellent place to start). Faber did some collections too, including THE BEST OF GERALD KERSH; pricey for an ebook but worth it, and it may still be available in paper as well if it hasn't gone o.p. The original editions can cost a bundle. And if you want a real price shock, check abebooks for his first novel JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH (after a lawsuit, the printing was withdrawn almost immediately after publication and only a few copies survived).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 11:32 AM (a/4+U)

235 "It has been lately discovered, that if it is sprinkled upon the mouths of bears and lions in the arena, its astringent action is so powerful as to deprive the animals of the power of biting."
Posted by: fd at October 08, 2023 09:08 AM (vFG9F)

Sort of negates the utility of having lions and bears in the arena at all, doesn't it?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 11:32 AM (uySVM)

236 Too many useless threads on Ace anymore... books, coffee... hobbies... Americans were killed and kidnapped by Hamas less than 24 hours ago. Time to focus on the task ahead of us and quit with the distractions.
Posted by: PaddyO'

Check the first dozen or so threads on Twitchy for all the horror and despair you can take.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 11:33 AM (FVME7)

237 Posted by: PaddyO' at October 08, 2023 11:30 AM (XYJZE)

Thread below this one for all your non-book needs.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 11:33 AM (nC+QA)

238 I only noticed that when I read TWC. It dawned on me how young he was during the war. Heck of a lot of action for someone under 21.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023

***
He might have been only 18 or 19 in 1944-45, which would put his birthdate at 1926 or '27. Mac liked Helm's background of having been a hunter and used to guns in his native New Mexico. He'd have then been about 33-34 at the time of the first novel when he gets yanked back into the counterintelligence world.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:33 AM (omVj0)

239 @218 --

After a while, bibliophile.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:33 AM (rYZAP)

240 If you come to a Tx MoMee I can give you a copy. Perfessor Squirrel and a couple other of the Book Thread Horde helped me test it at the last one.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at October 08, 2023 11:13 AM (nC+QA)

Texas is a far piece for me. Thanks for the offer. But, really get it perfected and to market. There's always someone looking for help generating ideas.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:34 AM (Angsy)

241 233 Too many useless threads on Ace anymore... books, coffee... hobbies... Americans were killed and kidnapped by Hamas less than 24 hours ago. Time to focus on the task ahead of us and quit with the distractions.
Posted by: PaddyO' at October 08, 2023 11:30 AM (XYJZE)

New hear?

Posted by: Reforger at October 08, 2023 11:35 AM (B705c)

242 233 Too many useless threads on Ace anymore... books, coffee... hobbies... Americans were killed and kidnapped by Hamas less than 24 hours ago. Time to focus on the task ahead of us and quit with the distractions.
Posted by: PaddyO' at October 08, 2023 11:30 AM (XYJZE)

What did FDR do when he found out about Pearl Harbor?

Continued lunch, as he knew there was nothing he could do at that moment.

Maybe leave the high horse?

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 11:35 AM (8sMut)

243 Posted by: PaddyO' at October 08, 2023 11:30 AM (XYJZE)

You need to relax, Hoss.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Identifying as Welsh at October 08, 2023 11:35 AM (T/Lqj)

244 Oh, I've got to find an edition with that introduction.

Mine is a “Fiction Publishing Company” mass market paperback. It doesn’t say when it was published (it just has the 1930/31 date of the original), but it has a photograph of Roger Moore on the cover. And an attempt to fool people into thinking it’s a modern novel with the subtitle “The Saint Fights Behind The Spy Curtain”. Which I can’t see no matter how much I squint at the plot.

(And with that I’m off to Mass. Will check in again when I return.)

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at October 08, 2023 11:37 AM (YA6th)

245 @226 --

The agency had no official name. "The wrecking crew" was a euphemism. But surely the paychecks had some name on them.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:38 AM (rYZAP)

246 I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Now With Pumpkin Spice! at October 08, 2023 11:17 AM (FVME7)

A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich

Posted by: Alice Childress at October 08, 2023 11:38 AM (Angsy)

247 Another vote for Lightning, I see. : o )
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 09:35 AM (8sMut)

Oh yes. Especially for the ending. It would make an excellent movie.

Posted by: NR Pax at October 08, 2023 11:38 AM (QToQ1)

248 A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich
Posted by: Alice Childress at October 08, 2023 11:38 AM (Angsy)

So Bonnie Tyler was just hungry?

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 11:41 AM (8sMut)

249 I'm reading The Real War - The Anakin Threat.
Its an interesting spin on syfi. And I know the author.
Retired David Hale with Amy and James Purdy.
Not bad.

Posted by: Diogenes at October 08, 2023 11:41 AM (uSHSS)

250 194 I finished “Throne of Jade” by Naomi Novik this week. It is the second in her Temeraire series, about dragons in England (and elsewhere) in the Napoleonic era.

Posted by: NCDave at October 08, 2023 10:57 AM (39nDP)

Love the Tremeraire series. If I coould find my copies, I'd definitely re-read them (again). I'm pretty sure they are in one of the (many) book boxes in the garage....

-SLV

Posted by: Shy Lurking Voter at October 08, 2023 11:42 AM (e/Osv)

251 I won't get 'paid' for the paper but I do get a Neolithic tool souvenir when I return, so that's pretty cool!

Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 11:25 AM (/BBNv)

But, it should give you plenty of interesting information you can use in your fiction work.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:42 AM (Angsy)

252
So Bonnie Tyler was just hungry?
Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023

***
"Holding Out For a Sub" or "Holding Out for a Po-boy" just didn't poll well.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:43 AM (omVj0)

253 "Holding Out For a Sub" or "Holding Out for a Po-boy" just didn't poll well.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:43 AM (omVj0)

She tried Holding out for a Gyro, but there were arguments on how to pronounce it.

Posted by: Pug Mahon, Identifying as Welsh at October 08, 2023 11:45 AM (T/Lqj)

254 Koontz is a better writer. For his standalone stuff, I'd recommend "Watchers," "Twilight Eyes" and "Lightning."
Posted by: NR Pax at October 08, 2023 09:07 AM

I second (possibly third) those recommendations. Koontz is also, quite often, a funny writer. Odd Thomas is a good example.

I'm currently rereading "Life Expectancy," which takes the "killer clown" concept as a starting point, features an oddball family, uses a heist for a "meet cute" moment, and has all sorts of absurd things that somehow work because the protagonist is such a self-effacing straight man. Not even "The Stand" is as rereadable for me, and I LOVED the original.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at October 08, 2023 11:45 AM (JwROe)

255 I've read a few of his (including one purporting to be the last statement of Ambrose Bierce!), but I can't find any of his works in libraries here. I'll have to look on Abebooks.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:26 AM (omVj0)

It seems to me that if Bierce got killed in the Mexican Revolution, that his last statement would have been "Ouch!"

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:45 AM (Angsy)

256 I want Book Harker, who fought his way out of a vampire-haunted castle single-handed and is stalking the King of Vampires around London with a Gurkha dagger.
Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023 10:00 AM (QZxDR)

A Webley revolver, loaded with silver bullets, would have been a nice touch.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 11:47 AM (ui7OP)

257 I don't think Helm ever names the organization except to call it "Mac's group" or the like, after their M/Mr. Waverly figure. It was supposed to be a very tiny sliver of U.S. intelligence, the guys the govt. called on when extreme force ws needed. The titles in the early novels were about Helm's group -- "Wrecking Crew," "Removers," "Murderers' Row," etc. Later they began to refer to the villains or important characters in the stories, like "The Interlopers."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:29 AM (omVj0)

Ah, see, I haven't read any other than the first two. Thanks for the info.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:47 AM (Angsy)

258 Thanks to Ye Olde Book Thread I learned of Herman Wouk's The Winds of War miniseries which I was able to consume via the UToobz. After I finished it last night the feed prompted me with Judgement at Nuremberg which looks excellent including quite the cast.
I know this isn't the Movie Thread, but I always learn a lot here.
(Also looking forward to consuming War and Rememberance.)

There's a principle I learned at Toastmasters that also applies to The Book Thread: you can't go wrong hanging out with people looking to improve themselves.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at October 08, 2023 11:48 AM (NBVIP)

259 I'm checking out, too. Although I'm not home, our church streams its services, and our pastor delivers great sermons.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:48 AM (rYZAP)

260 He might have been only 18 or 19 in 1944-45, which would put his birthdate at 1926 or '27. Mac liked Helm's background of having been a hunter and used to guns in his native New Mexico. He'd have then been about 33-34 at the time of the first novel when he gets yanked back into the counterintelligence world.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:33 AM (omVj0)

Wolfus, he says, if he wasn't lying, that he was thirty-six in TWC. So, '24 or '25.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:51 AM (Angsy)

261 "Holding Out For a Sub" or "Holding Out for a Po-boy" just didn't poll well.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 11:43 AM (omVj0)

She tried Holding out for a Gyro, but there were arguments on how to pronounce it.
Posted by: Pug Mahon
------

'Cuban'...holding out for a Cuban.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at October 08, 2023 11:52 AM (XeU6L)

262 What did FDR do when he found out about Pearl Harbor?

Continued lunch, as he knew there was nothing he could do at that moment.

Maybe leave the high horse?

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at October 08, 2023 11:35 AM (8sMut)

People didn't even stop gambling on 9/11.

Pretty funny that someone complaining about the reg threads uses a fake name to post. Unless his name is really Paddy O.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:53 AM (Angsy)

263 Holding out for a muffuletta.

Posted by: On Chartres Street at October 08, 2023 11:55 AM (NBVIP)

264 By the way...CBD is not writing the noon post. Buck Throckmorton has been kind enough to take that slot today while I enjoy the delights of jet airplane travel!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 08, 2023 11:55 AM (3dEij)

265 The agency had no official name. "The wrecking crew" was a euphemism. But surely the paychecks had some name on them.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 08, 2023 11:38 AM (rYZAP)

Cash drop: behind the third cactus on the left in Palo Duro canyon.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 11:56 AM (Angsy)

266 By the way...CBD is not writing the noon post. Buck Throckmorton has been kind enough to take that slot today while I enjoy the delights of jet airplane travel!
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at October 08, 2023 11:55 AM (3dEij)

At least your arms aren't tired.

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 11:57 AM (T4tVD)

267 A Webley revolver, loaded with silver bullets, would have been a nice touch.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 11:47 AM (ui7OP)

Should have called me.

Posted by: The Lone Ranger at October 08, 2023 11:58 AM (Angsy)

268 Real world beckons.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 08, 2023 11:59 AM (a/4+U)

269 I have a copy of the German corporal's bestseller -- it's a 1930s English translation put out by an American anti-NSDAP organization. They wanted everyone to see what he was saying openly in big print.

Note how cagey we all are about avoiding specific words in our posts in case some totalitarian swine claims to be "offended" by something.
Posted by: Trimegistus at October 08, 2023 10:13 AM (QZxDR)

There was a copy of an English translation of Mein Kampf in my high school library. I tried reading it. Turgid nonsense.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 12:00 PM (ui7OP)

270 Safe travels CBD !

Posted by: JT at October 08, 2023 12:00 PM (T4tVD)

271 A Webley revolver, loaded with silver bullets, would have been a nice touch.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023

***
No silver -- but in David McDaniel's first Man From U.N.C.L.E. novel, The Rainbow Affair, Mr. Waverly does carry and use a Webley revolver. I guess he found it more effective for close-up work than the 9mm U.N.C.L.E. Special derived from the Walther P-38.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 08, 2023 12:01 PM (omVj0)

272 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at October 08, 2023 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

273 I tried reading it. Turgid nonsense.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 12:00 PM (ui7OP)

Oh, so you've read some of my stuff?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 12:01 PM (Angsy)

274 Yeah, he got the old 'Possibly used for some ritual purpose' line. He worked hard on it, and it is finally becoming accepted; he was decades ahead and he's only an interested amateur. Before that the professionals thought they were just 'mixed in' and had no meaning. I won't get 'paid' for the paper but I do get a Neolithic tool souvenir when I return, so that's pretty cool!
Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 11:25 AM (/BBNv)

I think the reason that Magical Realism has such a hold on our imaginations is because of the sudden eruption of unexplainables in our lives. A shell in a stone, unknown bones, rocks that are clear, wood that is stone. It intersects with both our ability to imagine things that don't exist, and things like this show that we can't imagine far enough. If a shell can be set in stone, how is that different from a voice on the wind, or the darkness speaking in tongues?
I think it also has something to do with painting, making the visions and imaginations and tales real.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 08, 2023 12:07 PM (xhaym)

275 Some comments about Wouk as historical fiction. Just a quibble, and maybe purely personal, but I don't think it counts as historical fiction if it was written by someone who lived through it. I feel that the author has to be writing about events at least two generations before his time to qualify.

Posted by: who knew at October 08, 2023 12:07 PM (4I7VG)

276 Saddest part of Sunday morning, again. The end of the Book Thread. Thanks, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 08, 2023 12:10 PM (Angsy)

277 I was asked to pick them up by the above-mentioned colleague, who has made a name for himself in those circles (despite not being an archeologist) by noting the presence of fossils in Neolithic sites he found near his house in Serbia. He managed to prove that people then were deliberately collecting them for reason or reasons. He'd find fossils mixed in with stone tools and pottery shards, far from their original locations.
Posted by: LenNeal at October 08, 2023 10:59 AM (/BBNv)

Well, nicely-preserved fossils are interesting to look at. Some are even beautiful. Noting unusual things in one's environment is an indicator of intelligence.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 12:15 PM (HZA8l)

278 A Webley revolver, loaded with silver bullets, would have been a nice touch.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 08, 2023 11:47 AM (ui7OP)

In The Stress of Her Regard, by Tim Powers, Lord Byron used a sliver ball transfixed by a wooden coret while hunting Nephelim and other dangers

Posted by: Kindltot at October 08, 2023 12:19 PM (xhaym)

279 161 sorry if that was harsh.
I don't know if it's possible to change at this point, but if it is I suggest putting on a new cover and editing the blurb, it woukd be a good idea to do so.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at October 08, 2023 01:23 PM (vHIgi)

280 258 There's a principle I learned at Toastmasters that also applies to The Book Thread: you can't go wrong hanging out with people looking to improve themselves.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at October 08, 2023 11:48 AM (NBVIP)

Don't know about others, but I don't read to improve myself. I read because I must. I love reading, and am addicted to it.

Posted by: Splunge at October 08, 2023 01:32 PM (O1uuu)

281 I was pleasantly surprised by the latest issue of American Short Stories: a great historically informed story about the search for the perpetrator of the Great Fire of London, and another about a man taking his father from his home to be put in assisted living but the mother's ghost is resisting. I might start reading more short stories. Otherwise, about to start HW Brands' bio of Woodrow Wilson that I bought yesterday at Wilson's house in Washington DC. It is surprisingly short for Brands.

Posted by: Malia Jenness at October 08, 2023 02:18 PM (BYPtp)

282 And I am pleased to report that the Wilson House has as of yet escaped wokification. I mean, you'll see the required "social justice" page on the website, but the tour is resolutely respectful to the memory of the dead. I was fine with the non-politicized tribute to the African-American couple who anchored the domestic staff, if only because they had to go up and down that circular steep back stairs probably a dozen times a day. Their niece still lives nearby in their house, the guide said.

Posted by: Malia Jenness at October 08, 2023 02:21 PM (BYPtp)

283 "66 Finished The Law of Self Defense: The Indispensable Guide for the Armed Citizen by Andrew Branca. This is the hardback signed copy the author provided to the Horde at a discount. Clear and lucid, it flows easily."

THANKS for the kind mention!

FYI, the current edition of this book, "The Law of Self Defense: Principles" is available for FREE at: law of self defense (dot) com (slash) free book (take out the blanks)

Posted by: Law of Self Defense at October 08, 2023 06:28 PM (MXeuy)

284 >>Chief of Staff of Pentagon Counterterrorism Office served the Iranian mullahs. She’s still on the job, with security clearances. Consider our special ops forces to be compromised.

AYFKM?!?!?

Posted by: Lizzy at October 09, 2023 09:25 AM (izj35)

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