Sunday Morning Book Thread - 01-14-2024 ["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?

PIC NOTE

Washington University in St. Louis has a number of interesting collections. One of them is the "Julian and Hope Edison Collection of Miniature Books." The image above is "a set of 40 volumes in a revolving case containing Shakespeare's plays." I'm not sure if the entire text is contained in those books or not, though I suspect they do contain key quotes and phrases from the plays.

THE MIRACLE OF READING

Do you ever wonder how it is that human beings, alone of all creatures on earth, have the ability to look at black and white squiggles on a piece of paper and then create remarkable visions in their heads based solely on what they see on that page? It baffles me how we humans can write down these squiggles and then another human can interpret those squiggles into meaningful context. It doesn't matter if it's directions on how to make a peanut butter sandwich or the technical specifications for one of the Elon Musk's SpaceX rocket ships. It's just amazing how active our brains become when we read. We see far more on the page than we think we do and our brains are constantly going back and forth around the page to determine how we are supposed to make sense of the words that we find there. This may be why Large Language Models struggle to compete with human-created content. LLMs simply don't have the capacity to interpret words in the same way that humans do, so they are unable to process *context* in a way that really makes sense to humans. Sure, they can approximate it to some degree--even enough to fool people. But at their core, they are not *creative* entities, just extremely advanced regurgitators.

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WRITING GUIDES

I don't put a whole lot of faith in "top ten" lists when it comes to books. They are all highly subjective and dependent on the opinions of the creators of those lists. I may or may not agree with their choices, and I often disagree with the order in which they present their lists. I do like the list featured below, though, because it includes subject-specific writing guides. If you are going to be an author and want to include technical information, but do not have a technical background, you are going to need to learn some key ways in which you can fake it. I'm not a medical doctor, so I would be very hesitant to include a tense scene where a character is wounded and has to go to a hospital for treatment. I don't know how medicine works. However, if I have a writing guide on the subject, I might be able to fake it well enough to create a plausible scenario for the reader, even if they have a medical background and can tell that I've made a few mistakes. The same holds true for science, engineering, or any other subject with which I do not have deep familiarity. Within my own meager collection of "writing guides" I do have a few on how to write science fiction stories as well as how to create believable worlds based on actual scientific principles. I might take some creative liberties for the sake of a story, though.

FEATURED MORON REVIEW

Moron Candidus sent in the following review of "prescient fiction:"

For many SMB Threadists, physical books are a necessity, since we know that digital content can so easily be altered or eliminated altogether. But even for physical books, it can be difficult to buy books that do not conform to today's DIE standards. Three books of prescient fiction come to mind: The Camp of the Saints; The Mandibles: A Family, 2020-2047; and Shelley's Heart. This is a combined review of the latter two books; The Camp of the Saints correctly predicts a European problem and is beyond the scope of this exercise.
Prescient fiction is a work of any genre that smuggles non-politically correct predictions into print. In some cases it can be eerie (and sad) to see how well some of these predictions bear out. The first book, The Mandibles: A Family, 2020-2047, was published in 2016 by Lionel Shriver. There are two main themes: the Balkanization of American society through unchecked illegal immigration and demographic changes, and financial collapse. The most prescient part of The Mandibles is the gradualist nature of American dissolution--we aren't going out with a bang, but a whimper. Debt and inflation and the decay of a high-trust society eventually lead to the day we all know is coming: what happens when the US Government holds a debt auction and no one shows up to buy our debt?
The second book, Shelley's Heart, is a thriller written by Charles McCarry and published in 1995. It is a page-turner, with all of the elements of a traditional thriller, with one exception: all the real components of the 2020 election are incorporated into this work as fiction: election fraud, last-minute battles over who the true President is, ubiquitous surveillance, and most of all the incestuous relationship between the hard Left politicians and the NGO complex, the media, the AWFLs, and the guilt-ridden, 'well-intentioned' East Coast WASPs. Eerie. It is really, really eerie. There are a few false notes, but I'll hold them back as spoilers.
What's your most-prescient out-of-print prescient fiction?

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Also, I've started Tress of the Emerald Isles by Brandon Sanderson. Brandon seems to be channeling Terry Pratchett in this one. It's undoubtedly the shortest book in his Cosmere series at 365 pages.
No, really, it reads like Pratchett. I stayed up until 2am reading it, it's that good.
Posted by: p0indexterous at January 07, 2024 09:52 AM (QBwMV)

Comment: I have yet to this or any of Sanderson's other standalone works set in the Cosmere, though I am familiar with the two main series he's been writing (Stormlight Archive and Mistborn/Wax & Wayne.) For those who don't know, the Cosmere is a pretty audacious bit of worldbuilding connecting worlds that seem wildly disparate but have an underlying cosmology that links them all together. Occasionally there will be cross-over characters showing up in other books. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a book that kept me up until 2 a.m. On a side note, a friend of mine mentioned how much he enjoyed this book and so I decided I needed to go ahead and order it, along with the other books in Sanderson's "Secret Projects" series.

Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

+++++

My recommendation for this week is The Flight by Dan Hampton. Hampton is a decorated fighter pilot turned writer, and who better to grasp the audacity that led Charles Lindbergh to fly a small plane solo across the Atlantic in 1927? The Spirit of St Louis was built to his specifications, held 500 gallons of fuel, and had a single window in the door; it had no forward visibility other than a periscope. Think of the single mindedness that it took to borrow money, have this plane built, and attempt a solo crossing of the Atlantic only 20 odd years after the Wright Brothers first flight. Hampton uses the pilot's memoirs, contemporary accounts, and his own experience to put the reader into the cockpit to get a feel for this groundbreaking journey. In an age when Elon Musk's rockets are being launched weekly, it is hard to imagine the enormity of what Lindbergh dared and accomplished. Lindbergh had no radio, and only the crudest charts to guide him from the US to Ireland and on to France. His overweight plane barely cleared the trees at takeoff. The exhaustion, fog, ice, and fuel consumption made this a harrowing journey, and Hampton captures this experience in a very compelling manner.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 07, 2024 09:15 AM (biNg

Comment: It is pretty incredible that a century or so after the Wright Brothers managed to fly their ramshackle plane at Kitty Hawk (held together with baling wire, chewing gum, and a prayer), we now have advanced aircraft that can fly and land themselves with little to no human intervention. But the path towards that was laid down by insane geniuses willing to put their own lives at risk in order to advance aviation technology. I don't know much about Charles Lindbergh, but no question he had a pair if he was willing to fly a plane that *might* make it across the Atlantic without even a prayer of being rescued if something goes wrong.

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:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

Malazan Book of the Fallen 3 - Memories of Ice by Steven Erickson

Status -- COMPLETE

The third book in the Malazan series returns us to the subcontinent of Genabackis. High Fist Drujek Onearm and his army are now on the run from the Empire, so they team up with their old foes Calladan Brood and Anomander Rake (a main antagonist from Book 1) to take on the mysterious religious zealots of the Pannion Domin. In the meantime, the Crippled God is threatening to tear the world asunder as he's finally breaking free of his prison. As is usual for this series, there are quite a few whacky scenes of incredibly weird magic, though I think my favorite subplot involves a table that somehow acquired a magical face of one of the characters, who is now marked by Fate(?). His companions basically all know he's now screwed. It's difficult to identify any one main protagonist, or even a small group of protagonists, as the characters tend to be multidimensional with their own motivations for acting. Most of the "good" characters are shown to have some noble characteristics, such as Whiskeyjack's outright refusal to allow the murder of a fell child that is declared an abomination by High King Kallor, even though the child may end up causing an Apocalypse of her own someday. It's been a pretty wild series so far and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it. They are LONG books, so it will take me at least a week or two to get through each one. I just sit back and enjoy the ride. WARNING: Some of the scenes in this series are extremely *intense* and are probably NOT suitable for younger readers. Savage warfare is HORRIFIC in the extreme.

WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

I do have a couple of books added to my library this week:

Kharkanas Trilogy Book 2 - Fall of Light by Steven Erikson -- After Erikson completed the Malazan series, he started writing more books in the setting to flesh it out a bit. At the moment, there are only two books in the Kharkanas series, though the third and final book will hopefully be released in 2024 (or 2025). The first two books did not sell as well as he'd hoped, so he's been working on other projects. I get the sense that he does want to finish the Kharkanas series, though, if only to check it off his list of things to do. Fingers crossed!

The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction by Justin Whitmel Early -- My pastor at church highly recommended this book during his most recent sermons. It's one of those books that offers a simple set of rules for changing one's behavior for the better. The challenge, of course, is to turn those behaviors into regular habits.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 01-07-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Beware of flying tables bearing the face of one of your comrades.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Restarted reading Scott Adams’ latest book, Reframe Your Brain. I gave away my original copy to one of the pups. Highly recommended.

And now we’ll enjoy our 4PM stove top cappuccino and caramel crunch mocha cream cake.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 14, 2024 08:59 AM (dgZCh)

2 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 08:59 AM (gX32c)

3 I did not read this week

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 14, 2024 09:00 AM (lwOKI)

4 hiya

Posted by: JT at January 14, 2024 09:00 AM (T4tVD)

5 Still reading Alexander Mikaberize German Liberation War of 1813, a second part of a Russian Artillery officer account of the Napoleonic wars

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 09:01 AM (gX32c)

6 Finished the first part of Sarah Hoyt's Darkship Thieves. Had an interesting discussion concerning the writer's "voice" on A Literary Horde.

http://tinyurl.com/4upfu242

Have to be a group member, but you can be e-mailed a link to read it, if anyone's interested.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:01 AM (Angsy)

7 Should we mention Gibbon, in tribute to Captain Hate?

Posted by: Huck Follywood at January 14, 2024 09:01 AM (xTwVZ)

8 Fluctuating

Posted by: Ciampino - Brrrr cold at January 14, 2024 09:01 AM (qfLjt)

9 Those pants are fine. I'd wear them to a barbecue at the asylum.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 09:02 AM (OX9vb)

10 This is the first Sunday Morning Book Thread of 2024!

No, it isn't.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:02 AM (Angsy)

11 Do you ever wonder how it is that human beings, alone of all creatures on earth, have the ability to look at black and white squiggles on a piece of paper and then create remarkable visions in their heads based solely on what they see on that page? It baffles me how we humans can write down these squiggles and then another human can interpret those squiggles into meaningful context.

===
Naaaah.

Posted by: Semiotics at January 14, 2024 09:03 AM (RIvkX)

12 This is the first Sunday Morning Book Thread of 2024!

No, it isn't.

Geez. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:04 AM (CsUN+)

13 I had written a comment about the progress of "The Rhinemann Exchange," which I am enjoying, but then. ...

Events, dear boy, events.

Or in this case, developments. One paragraph that knocks this plot in a completely different direction. I haven't been this gobsmacked since the last page of issue No. 1 of Thunderbolts.

Those of you who don't catch this reference can think of your own shocker.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (p/isN)

14 What can you do to pass the time if you are a policeman laid up in hospital with a broken leg? Why not solve a centuries old cold case? This is the plotline of The Daughter of Time, the last novel by Josephine Tey, a book mentioned here a few months back. Detective Alan Grant needs something to occupy his mind while he heals, and becomes interested in the infamous killing of the Plantagenet boys in the Tower of London during the War of the Roses, officially blamed on Richard III. Grant's friends provide him with documents from the time that contradict the official story, and he collates them and ties the clues together. This novel reminds me slightly of Hunters Lodge by Agatha Christie, where the crime is solved from a sickbed. The clues in Tey's story come from actual historical documents, and provide convincing evidence that Richard was innocent of the murders, and in fact the likely murderer was Henry Tudor. This story sneaks up on the reader, becoming more interesting as it goes. No wonder it was voted the best UK crime story of the last century. Grant slowly builds his case fact by fact, until it seems certain that Richard has been blamed for 500 years for a Tudor crime.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (ec9mh)

15 This is the first Sunday Morning Book Thread of 2024!

No, it isn't.

Geez. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:04 AM (CsUN+)
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The downsides of recycling content. Should be fixed on a refresh...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (BpYfr)

16 I did not read this week
Posted by: rhennigantx at January 14, 2024 09:00 AM (lwOKI)
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Obligatory:

https://youtu.be/RweHu1u__48

(So glad I don't watch any of this nonsense)

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 14, 2024 09:07 AM (dgZCh)

17 Writing guides. Haven't read any, but I've seen a few of McNulty's vids. What's the consensus on this guy? He's had his channel for a few years now, but only seems to have had two books published. Can he know what he's talking about? Any recommendations on other authors with YT vids?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:08 AM (Angsy)

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

Posted by: JT at January 14, 2024 09:09 AM (T4tVD)

19 Morning, Booken Folken!

I'm 3/4 of the way through Nevil Shute's 1958 novel, The Rainbow and the Rose. It's audacious. It begins in then-modern Tasmania where a sixty-ish pilot has had a crash. The main narrator, once a pupil of his, is trying to get a doctor to him (the pilot has a skull fracture) but the weather won't cooperate. But what Shute does is remarkable. He gives us the older pilot's life story in several scenes where the main narrator, the younger man, is falling asleep -- as if the older man's life is being beamed into the younger's sleeping mind, and we are privy to it. These flashbacks/dreams are set in 1917-19, and then in the early '30s in England, featuring the older pilot's marriage and war experience, and then his affair with a young woman whom he teaches to fly.

Shute is low-key. You have to stick with him . . . but it's usually worth it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 14, 2024 09:10 AM (omVj0)

20 It is pretty incredible that a century or so after the Wright Brothers managed to fly their ramshackle plane at Kitty Hawk (held together with baling wire, chewing gum, and a prayer)...
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/boeing managers revise supply order list for 737-9 max repairs

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 14, 2024 09:11 AM (dgZCh)

21 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

Only one. Usually stuff recommended to me fits with what I'm looking for, or to introduce a new way to see the genre I'm trying to write in.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:12 AM (Angsy)

22 As far as processing squiggles on paper -- even more amazing is that humans can comprehend a variety of handwritten squiggles.

My current penmanship would make my second-grade teacher weep. You tried, Mrs. A., you tried!

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 09:12 AM (p/isN)

23 [Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time] sneaks up on the reader, becoming more interesting as it goes. No wonder it was voted the best UK crime story of the last century. Grant slowly builds his case fact by fact, until it seems certain that Richard has been blamed for 500 years for a Tudor crime.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024

***
Brilliant stuff. Tey (I've forgotten her real name) earned a master's (?) in history before she turned to crime writing; no wonder she was good at this. You don't even need a family tree in the back of the book, as she keeps the various people quite distinct.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 14, 2024 09:13 AM (omVj0)

24 Re: reading...I always though this scene from "Black Robe" was great.

http://tinyurl.com/dp72ppy

Posted by: BignJames at January 14, 2024 09:14 AM (AwYPR)

25 Geez. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:04 AM (CsUN+)
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I highly recommend Prof. Benion Netanyahu's book on the subject, "The Origins of the Inquisition."

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 14, 2024 09:14 AM (dgZCh)

26

In honor of OM, can we have more Korea Girl pics?

Man, I miss him. Such a gentleman to talk to...

Posted by: Dirty Frank at January 14, 2024 09:14 AM (JZWH/)

27 Do you ever wonder how it is that human beings, alone of all creatures on earth, have the ability to look at black and white squiggles…

“…he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn a picture of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man…”—G.K. Chesterton

Yup.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at January 14, 2024 09:15 AM (EXyHK)

28 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

It depends on the topic and my interest in it, as well as if the book review provided by the reviewer engages my curiosity.

On the recommendation of a now-forgotten reviewer, I just finished War and Peace and War, an historical analysis of empires and where and why the grow, then fail. It was quite good.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:15 AM (CsUN+)

29 Richard has been blamed for 500 years for a Tudor crime.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (ec9mh)
--------------
Yeah, that was exactly how it happened

Posted by: Edward IV at January 14, 2024 09:15 AM (f9bOi)

30 Sometimes only a single recommendation is needed for me to want a book. Either it's from someone whose taste and knowledge I know I can trust, or the subject is something I've wanted to learn about. (In a few cases, I only realized that I wanted to learn about a subject when I heard about the book.)

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 09:15 AM (78a2H)

31 Been reading Eric Frank Russell short stories collected in Major Ingredients. The NESFA Press edition is comprehensive. It contains one of my absolute favorite SF short stories: Minor Ingredient. Which is hardly SF, but heart-tugging all the while.

Other easy to read and thoughtfully entertaining stories are And Then There Were None,” “Dear Devil,” “I Am Nothing,” and “Jay Score. These are fun stories, and I read them wistfully, for the vibrant culture that illuminates the stories is gone in real life.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 14, 2024 09:15 AM (u82oZ)

32 Booken morgen horden!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 14, 2024 09:16 AM (bxgno)

33 Late. Slow reader. Took me a while to parse that wall of text Krak posted.

Good Morning, BookRons.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 14, 2024 09:16 AM (3CCua)

34 Geez. I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:04 AM (CsUN+)
----
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Posted by: Ciampino - Brrrr, were the dungeons warm? at January 14, 2024 09:16 AM (qfLjt)

35 I picked up but haven't started "The Blazing World - A New History of Revolutionary England 1603-1689". Always been confused and fascinated by what exactly was going on in this period - Catholics and Protestants, English and Scots, Royalists and Republicans. And let's throw some Dutch in for extra disorientation.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 09:16 AM (xHAJg)

36 Tolkien is receding into the rear-view mirror as I've moved on to other religious fare. First up was G.K. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi. This is not a biography so much as a series of musings on the famous saint, some of which become intolerably long-winded. Chesterton was writing to a purpose and he wanted to make his critics' rubble bounce. Not sure if they accepted that, but it still provides a worthwhile lens to consider the good saints and other religious people.

Put simply, Chesterton challenges the ability of modern people to comprehend pre-modern ones. We think of ourselves as rational, emprical, open-minded, yet we are incredibly narrow-minded, categorically excluding whatever doesn't mesh with our preconceptions.

Pre-modern people, on the other hand, ruled nothing out. If a man came to them and said he could fly, they'd accept that at face value and then say do it. Moderns would just lock him up.

Very timely given the resurgence in spiritual warfare and the utter failure of modern approaches to explain what is going on (other than to just throw up their hands and say people are nuts, which explains nothing).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:17 AM (llXky)

37 My current penmanship would make my second-grade teacher weep. You tried, Mrs. A., you tried!

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 09:12 AM (p/isN)

I was excused from final exams in 5th grade...but I failed penmanship.

Posted by: BignJames at January 14, 2024 09:17 AM (AwYPR)

38 Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (ec9mh)

Colin Dexter did the same thing in "The Wench Is Dead," in which Morse is laid up with a bleeding ulcer, and looks into the murder of a young woman along the Oxford Canal in the Nineteenth Century. It was based on the murder of Christina Collins. Two men were hanged and another deported to Australia after their convictions.

Dexter said he was inspired by Tey's book.

Posted by: Wethal at January 14, 2024 09:17 AM (NufIr)

39 I won't be able to stay long today. Miss Linda and I are taking a small road trip to an outlet mall and Cracker Barrel about an hour up the highway, and she ought to be here in about fifteen minutes. (Unlike some women -- and men -- I've known, she is usually punctual.)

At my library visit yesterday, I picked up a couple of recent Dennis Lehane novels, and Elmer Kelton novel about early Texas, and a novella Stephen King has written with a collaborator. Plus I have another Nevil Shute that will not be due for much longer than the three weeks the library gives you. I'm set for a while.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 14, 2024 09:18 AM (omVj0)

40 Phillipa gregory has taken up the argument alison weir still follows thr tudor propagandists

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:18 AM (PXvVL)

41 The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction by Justin Whitmel Early -- My pastor at church highly recommended this book during his most recent sermons. It's one of those books that offers a simple set of rules for changing one's behavior for the better. The challenge, of course, is to turn those behaviors into regular habits.
-

Let me save you some money. Put the phone down and pay attention to the sermon, dagnabit!

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 14, 2024 09:18 AM (dgZCh)

42 Good morning everyone.

Finished David Grann's The Wager this week. A very enjoyable read for me dealing with mutiny and the shipwreck of the HMS Wager during the mid 1700's. Excellent descriptions of privation, illness and human nature when under duress.

I could have done without the whining about Spain and England's colonization of the world - you know: England bad (no matter what), indigenous peoples good (no matter what) but what should I have expected from a work selected as a NYT's bestseller.

Continued my slough through Mandelbaum's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy - I'm currently still in Purgatory. My lovely wife presented me with a copy of Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain to read side by side with Dante but haven't made it far at all yet.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:18 AM (qoGsy)

43 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

It depends on the topic and my interest in it, as well as if the book review provided by the reviewer engages my curiosity.

OTOH, I will never read some books, no matter how many recommendations. For example, I'll never again attempt anything by James Joyce or Thomas Pynchon.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:19 AM (CsUN+)

44 The downsides of recycling content. Should be fixed on a refresh...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (BpYfr)

I thought Claudine Gay hijacked the thread.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:19 AM (Angsy)

45 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:17 AM (llXky)

I listened to Chesteron's "The Everlasting Man" on audiobook and was blown away by his insight and foresight wrt things to come. He was a visionary.

Posted by: kallisto at January 14, 2024 09:19 AM (oM+Q7)

46 Sparked by both Chesterton and interest here, I picked up my wife's copy of The Holy Angels by Mother Alexandra. I'm about halfway through it. It is a quick read.

Mother Alexandra was a Romanian princess, married into Austrian royalty, and might have had a nice fairy-tale existence raising their six children to be good-mannered and marry well, except for that whole World War II thing and Soviet troops rolling across the border. A very devout Orthodox Christian, she ended up in the United States and when her children were grown, became a nun and used what remained of her resources to found a cloister in Pennsylvania.

She claims to have had her first encounter with an angel at age 7, and this book is an exploration of angels through scripture, how they are described, what they do, their orders, names, actions and so on. While the liturgical references and translations of scripture are slightly different, this seems fully in line with the Catholic understanding of angels and the spirit world. She was a wonderful writing voice and you can imagine this old lady full of faith and wisdom who has known great sorrow happily describing angels to you over some tea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (llXky)

47 I've started on Will and Ariel Durant's Story of Civilization series. As a historian, I probably should have done that long ago, but--well, we have to read a lot of things.

The series is a bit dated (having started in the 30s), and the writing reflects a bit of an Old Left bias. However, the Durants were masters of turning a phrase, and the unexpected one-liners alone make it worthwhile.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (g0Y4p)

48 I picked up but haven't started "The Blazing World - A New History of Revolutionary England 1603-1689". Always been confused and fascinated by what exactly was going on in this period - Catholics and Protestants, English and Scots, Royalists and Republicans. And let's throw some Dutch in for extra disorientation.

You should try the Thirty Years War, by C.V. Wedgewood. It has the more European perspective. At the end of it all, you conclude they're all rats in a sack thrown in the river.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (CsUN+)

49 Been reading Eric Frank Russell short stories collected in Major Ingredients. The NESFA Press edition is comprehensive. It contains one of my absolute favorite SF short stories: Minor Ingredient. Which is hardly SF, but heart-tugging all the while. . . .

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 14, 2024

***
I'm no big Isaac Asimov fan. But his short "The Ugly Little Boy" has got to be the champ at making you feel "It's too dusty in here," as the expression goes. I think anybody who reads it, whether he likes SF or not, is going to be affected.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (omVj0)

50 Gibbon blamed christianity for the empires fall but why did the east last for a 1000 years

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (PXvVL)

51 Finished David Grann's The Wager this week. A very enjoyable read for me dealing with mutiny and the shipwreck of the HMS Wager during the mid 1700's. Excellent descriptions of privation, illness and human nature when under duress.

I could have done without the whining about Spain and England's colonization of the world - you know: England bad (no matter what), indigenous peoples good (no matter what) but what should I have expected from a work selected as a NYT's bestseller.

I also finished The Wager. Your review is spot on.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (CsUN+)

52 I finished Kinky Friedman's mystery Greenwich Killing Time. I pretty much enjoyed it but I'll delay reading the next in the series possibly forever. It is a cleverly written and humorous mystery but I tired of the nihilism. All the characters do is preceed from one bar to another eventually going home where they drink. (In fairness, there's also a lot about smoking cigars.)

In a more recently written introduction, Kinky tells us, "I wrote it in 1984 and it was published in 1986. I was doing a lot of Peruvian marching powder at the time so I don’t remember too much about writing it . . ." In text of the book, he writes, "No drug dealer ever thought of himself as a drug dealer. If you asked him what he did for a living, he couldn’t very well answer. ‘I suck away about seventy percent of your life blood, your spirit, and your energy. Then I suck away about eighty percent of your income. Then I suck away about one hundred percent of whatever little chance you have of finding any happiness in life.’" So it seems a bit of a hypocritical contradiction.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 09:23 AM (FVME7)

53 This is the first Sunday Morning Book Thread of 2024!

No, it isn't.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Clearly, artistic license was invoked.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:23 AM (IaTa3)

54 Thank you for highlighting McCarry's "Shelley's Heart," Perfessor. A great read, and very prescient.

There is a also prequel to that book, "The Better Angels," on how the election is stolen.

Posted by: Wethal at January 14, 2024 09:24 AM (NufIr)

55 I picked up but haven't started "The Blazing World - A New History of Revolutionary England 1603-1689". Always been confused and fascinated by what exactly was going on in this period - Catholics and Protestants, English and Scots, Royalists and Republicans. And let's throw some Dutch in for extra disorientation.
Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 09:16 AM (xHAJg)

Och, don't ye be forgetting us noo!

Posted by: The Scots at January 14, 2024 09:24 AM (g0Y4p)

56 Don't think I read by recommendation, if it's a subject I am interested in has more weight involved. If recommended then certainly will get it.

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 09:24 AM (gX32c)

57 And let's throw some Dutch in for extra disorientation.
Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 09:16 AM (xHAJg)
====
Those cheese-eating bastards are everywhere!

Posted by: The Spaniards at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (RIvkX)

58 This week I'm shuttling between _Treason's Harbor_ by Patrick O'Brian, and a collection of John M. Ford short stories and poems called _Heat of Fusion_.

The O'Brian book is mostly a spy story with naval interruptions, which is fine by me. I just like playing tourist in Napoleonic-era Malta and Egypt. Oh, it's also a romantic farce as everyone thinks Jack is having an affair with a woman, Jack thinks Stephen is banging her, and in actuality she's a French spy Stephen is trying to flip.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (78a2H)

59 Finished Schlicter's "Attack" last night. He imagines an Oct 7 type event here in the USA, this year, hundreds of jihadi sleeper cells begin at noon on 3 successive days, ending in 175,000 innocents killed, raped, bodies desecrated. Day 3 are attacks on infrastructure. Refineries, power grid, communications.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (KiBMU)

60 Someone at work sent around an email asking for newish book recs, as their NY goal is to read 12 book that someone else recommended. (I'm guessing meaning books they'd never try on their own)

That's kinds cool. Trying to come up with a muggle-friendly range my recs were The Will of the Many by James Islington, Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher, A House with Good Bones by T Kingfisher, Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas and Tress of the Emerald Sea by Sanderson.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (bxgno)

61
I listened to Chesteron's "The Everlasting Man" on audiobook and was blown away by his insight and foresight wrt things to come. He was a visionary.

Posted by: kallisto at January 14, 2024 09:19 AM (oM+Q7)
---
Yes, he's "prescient non-fiction". Scary at times. The left hasn't actually gotten any smarter, the right simply quit fighting.

I'm encouraged by the overwhelming response by Catholic clergy to the weird, heretical and incoherent letter about blessings to "irregular" (read: sinful) couples. "Nice" Christianity has failed. Good riddens.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (llXky)

62 I think ive mentions the better angels and shelleys heart on more than one occasion by the time the second was written history has caught up

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:26 AM (PXvVL)

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

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 09:26 AM (zudum)

64 Dirty Frank

That is the Chess and Dress thread. Not the book thread.

Son Youn Ju, OM's Korean model, is still alive and around 32. A very similarly names Korean model committed suicide, but not our muse. Her facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/SonYounJu

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 14, 2024 09:26 AM (u82oZ)

65 I've started on Will and Ariel Durant's Story of Civilization series. As a historian, I probably should have done that long ago, but--well, we have to read a lot of things.

The series is a bit dated (having started in the 30s), and the writing reflects a bit of an Old Left bias. However, the Durants were masters of turning a phrase, and the unexpected one-liners alone make it worthwhile.
Posted by: Dr. T at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (g0Y4p)

I found one volume of that in the books the neighbor left for me when she moved. One liners? Maybe I should dig it out and start on it. Could be some joke worth stealing in there....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:27 AM (Angsy)

66 The eye of gaza had become al queda digital voting was not a thing yet

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:27 AM (PXvVL)

67 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

-

Only one, if the subject or author intrigues me. Especially here. The horde is good at giving book suggestions when someone requests books on a certain subject or additional titles by a certain author.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 09:27 AM (ec9mh)

68 Recommendations? Growing up I had few other "big reader" friends to suggest stuff to me. My recommendations to try something by a given author would come from books about books -- essays on the mystery story, for example, who would mention what a dazzling writer John Dickson Carr was, so I'd try him. Ellery Queen I chanced across, though I'd seen the name on the magazine for years. But his/their scholarship about the mystery led me down various rabbit warrens to people like Melville Davisson Post and Dorothy Sayers.

Pretty much it's, "I like this writer. He was influenced by So-and-So? Let's try So-and-So, then."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 14, 2024 09:29 AM (omVj0)

69 I took a break from reading the Zion Covenant series to read Unwoke: How To Defeat Cultural Marxism In America by Senator Ted Cruz. Senator Cruz details the long, slow Marxist march through our institutions: government agencies, universities, primary education, our news organizations, big tech, corporate America, the entertainment industry and sprots, and "The Science". He has a final chapter on the influence and clout China has on all of this. At the end of each chapter, Cruz offers a course of action to comat this infiltration. An interesting read.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 14, 2024 09:30 AM (wfdP+)

70 Should we mention Gibbon, in tribute to Captain Hate?
Posted by: Huck Follywood

Gibbon was a monumental fraud that distorted history for far too long. I'm glad he is getting his long deserved comeuppance.

RIP Captain.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 09:30 AM (ec9mh)

71 I read Robert Galbraith's (JK Rowling) book, The Running Grave, which has been recommended by other readers here and is the 7th book in the series, all of which I've read. It's 900+ pages long but never boring and my biggest complaint is that it's difficult to read while lying down because my arms are too short for a book that long.

Posted by: huerfano at January 14, 2024 09:30 AM (Q4KYm)

72 Bookish Problem #444 is so true. I keep several books in the car at all times to grab for just that reason. Those are for emergencies. Normally I would take the extra one from the house or double check that I have my Paperwhite in my pocket and that it is charged up. (One of the advantages of being a guy is that we can have breast pockets and needn't worry about disturbing a bust line.)

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 09:31 AM (zudum)

73 Ive sent some furthet samples of my writing and i havemt gotten back an znswer

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:31 AM (PXvVL)

74 I found one volume of that in the books the neighbor left for me when she moved. One liners? Maybe I should dig it out and start on it. Could be some joke worth stealing in there....
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:27 AM (Angsy)

Well, they're very much of the highbrow variety. The volume I started with (not the first) included a passage on Milton and his works. The authors described Paradise Lost and the frequent monologues by the characters, notably Lucifer, and commented, "It is rather depressing to learn that even in Hell we shall have to listen to speeches." That sort of thing.

Posted by: The Scots at January 14, 2024 09:31 AM (g0Y4p)

75 Off, sock

Posted by: Dr. T at January 14, 2024 09:32 AM (g0Y4p)

76 Gibbon blamed christianity for the empires fall but why did the east last for a 1000 years

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:22 AM (PXvVL)
---
Yes, let us pour one out for Captain Hate.

Gibbon started well, and his keen wit does excellent service as he describes the various intrigues and follies of the Augustan Age and turns to the Empire's descent into despotism.

However, once Christianity emerges as a force, he loses the plot because he hates Christians and is also smarter than all the Church Fathers combined. The book takes and extended digression where we learn that Popery is dumb, Gibbon is Smart, and so the Empire fell.

Gibbon seems to realize this because after 476, he's got an even more ornate, icon-centric Christianity that continues to wrangle over doctrine and that manages to hold both barbarians and Muslims at bay. It's a problem for him.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:32 AM (llXky)

77 That's kinds cool. Trying to come up with a muggle-friendly range my recs were The Will of the Many by James Islington, Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher, A House with Good Bones by T Kingfisher, Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas and Tress of the Emerald Sea by Sanderson.
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (bxgno)

Vmom, is this person biased towards new books? Maybe suggest something older, or classic? Pitch a classic Western or hard-boiled. Or would this person prefer a fantasy book, like Obama's autofakeography?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:32 AM (Angsy)

78 Well, they're very much of the highbrow variety. The volume I started with (not the first) included a passage on Milton and his works. The authors described Paradise Lost and the frequent monologues by the characters, notably Lucifer, and commented, "It is rather depressing to learn that even in Hell we shall have to listen to speeches." That sort of thing.
Posted by: The Scots at January 14, 2024

***
I'd call that kind of thing "wit" rather than one-liners, but yes.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 14, 2024 09:32 AM (omVj0)

79 "Finished Schlicter's "Attack" last night."

I'm trying to decide whether to read it or not. Mentally I've been in a pretty reasonable place lately.
(This is due to the lack of homicidal ideation I've enjoyed lately.)
It seems that would change quickly if I read it.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at January 14, 2024 09:33 AM (MeG8a)

80 Yesterday, I read Dumb, Dumb, Dumb: My My Mother's Book Reviews, by Mary Jo Pehl.

After her mother passed away, Mary Jo and her father found a box of index cards that she had used to keep track of what she had read, and a rating from 1 to 10.

The reviews are amusing, but the book is really about reading, food, and family. It is a tribute to the author's mother, and the author is quite funny. It was about a three-hour feel-good read.

My non-serious review:

Dumb.
She should have used Goodreads.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 09:33 AM (OX9vb)

81 Are those the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that started appearing mid- sixties with the printed covers? I preferred those with the paper covers myself. Had quite a few of the 30's printings from the various family attics while growing up.

Posted by: From about that Time at January 14, 2024 09:33 AM (4780s)

82 Cruz offers a course of action to comat this infiltration.
Posted by: Zoltan at January 14, 2024 09:30 AM (wfdP+)
-

How many more House committees will it take?

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at January 14, 2024 09:33 AM (dgZCh)

83 The eye of gaza had become al queda digital voting was not a thing yet
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:27 AM (PXvVL)

The other big flaw in Shelley's Heart in my view is that there might be anyone of integrity to the Constitution left in the Dem party.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 09:33 AM (xHAJg)

84 As to the John M. Ford collection, _Heat of Fusion_, it's a mix of his short stories -- some fantasy, some SF -- and his poems.

Now, normally I'm not a poetry guy. I like Kipling and Ogden Nash and Browning, but most modern poetry leaves me cold. I do enjoy Ford's stuff, though. Maybe because he's writing nerd poems, about alternate worlds and fantasy and stuff. He wrote a roleplaying game supplement for GURPS Traveller and included a sestina in it. I'm reasonably sure that's the only game book with a sestina, and probably always will be.

His most famous poem is probably "110 Stories," written after 9/11. One oddity in this collection: every other time I've seen that poem in print, it's formatted as two parallel columns, and I assume Ford did it that way on purpose. But whoever edited this collection just did it as a single column, maybe to avoid tiny print.

He died in 2006 and a lot of his stuff has been out of print because of complications with rights and permissions. There was a story going around that his family was trying to suppress his writing, but it appears that's not the case.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 09:34 AM (78a2H)

85 " [Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time] sneaks up on the reader, becoming more interesting as it goes. No wonder it was voted the best UK crime story of the last century. Grant slowly builds his case fact by fact, until it seems certain that Richard has been blamed for 500 years for a Tudor crime.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024"

Please look for the recent British movie, " The Lost King", which is about the search and discovery of Richard III's place of burial. Very entertaining.

Posted by: Tuna at January 14, 2024 09:34 AM (oaGWv)

86 I'm encouraged by the overwhelming response by Catholic clergy to the weird, heretical and incoherent letter about blessings to "irregular" (read: sinful) couples. "Nice" Christianity has failed. Good riddens.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (llXky)

I read that Bishop Vigano publicly called on the Swiss Guard to arrest Francis and that other priest who wrote a pamphlet on gay sex.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:35 AM (Angsy)

87 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

Some subjects I will avoid entirely but for those I am open to, 'three'. Then shalt thou count to three, no more–no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:35 AM (IaTa3)

88 officially blamed on Richard III.

-
This 7 minute video about the death of Richard is interesting particularly the scoliosis of his skeleton's spine at 4:20. There has been much speculation that Shakespeare indulged in a little heavey handed metaphor (or something) by making him a hunchback but, it seems, there is at least some basis in fact.

http://tinyurl.com/58hps6w4

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 09:36 AM (FVME7)

89 Captain Hate did note that Gibbon has one solid virtue - he correctly noted that there is no contemporaneous evidence of Mohammed's existence. He's quite thorough, and of course he could write without fear of reprisal.

This is something to keep in mind when you see modern books doing the same thing - no, it isn't revisionist history, it's actually something others have noticed. In every incident where a great conqueror crashed into Europe, some eccentric adventurer sets out to have dinner with him and the the conqueror obliges, for this will spread the legend of his fame ever farther.

Cyrus the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Saladin - name your flavor, someone sat down and wrote about his dining room. Mohammed? Nothing. Gibbon picked up on this.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:37 AM (llXky)

90 Tey references the tudor propagandists like merton whi shakespeare took his cues from

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:38 AM (PXvVL)

91 I finished Malazan Book of the Fallen 3 - Memories of Ice.

I'm now about 10% of the way through Book 4 - House of Chains.

Starts out in a very different part of the world, with very different characters.

I have confidence Erikson will pull everything together in a major way in the end, based on the previous three books...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 14, 2024 09:39 AM (BpYfr)

92 I read that Bishop Vigano publicly called on the Swiss Guard to arrest Francis and that other priest who wrote a pamphlet on gay sex.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:35 AM (Angsy)
---
Vigano was a valuable whistleblower but seems to have gone over the edge (not uncommon at his age) and this unfortunate casts questions on his earlier statement. The Swiss Guards have no authority to remove a pope and he knows it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:39 AM (llXky)

93 Well, they're very much of the highbrow variety. The volume I started with (not the first) included a passage on Milton and his works. The authors described Paradise Lost and the frequent monologues by the characters, notably Lucifer, and commented, "It is rather depressing to learn that even in Hell we shall have to listen to speeches." That sort of thing.
Posted by: The Scots at January 14, 2024 09:31 AM (g0Y4p)

Perfect for here, then!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:39 AM (Angsy)

94 "irregular" (read: sinful) couples.

-
Didja see that Sweethearts is coming out with special, ambiguous candy heart messages for people who are in "situationships" and don't want to harsh their mellow with any creeping reality?

http://tinyurl.com/2a7c4mrb

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 09:41 AM (FVME7)

95 Malazon Book of the Fallen warning:

Erikson goes full postmodern / critique of capitalism around book 7 or 8. This was of course around 14 or 16, just like every other science fiction writer pretty much. It's a little bit nauseating, and I doubt I'll read the last books in the series again.

In fact I probably won't read the series again. It's a bit like Robert Jordan : the first three books are the highlight, the next three are pretty damn good, and then they fall way off... Except to trite bullshit politics instead of senility, and Brandon Sanderson never comes in to finish it off.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The first three books are absolutely incredible.

Posted by: "Content" at January 14, 2024 09:42 AM (/5tY4)

96 Vigano was a valuable whistleblower but seems to have gone over the edge (not uncommon at his age) and this unfortunate casts questions on his earlier statement. The Swiss Guards have no authority to remove a pope and he knows it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

True - but neither does any other department of the Vatican.

And yet, they did it.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:42 AM (IaTa3)

97 81 Are those the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books that started appearing mid- sixties with the printed covers? I preferred those with the paper covers myself. Had quite a few of the 30's printings from the various family attics while growing up.
Posted by: From about that Time at January 14, 2024 09:33 AM (4780s)

First book I ever read cover to cover was "The Mystery of Cabin Island." It was one of the plain brown hardbacks. One of the annuities of older siblings was a trove of hand-me-down books.

Posted by: Ordinary American at January 14, 2024 09:43 AM (UseAb)

98 Good morning fellow easing enthusiasts.

Re: Sanderson
The Stormlight Archive is a brilliant work. I am a petty avid reader and this ranks at the top of my list of all time incredible reads. It is the first set of Sanderson books I read so the next set had a lot to live up to. The Mistborn series is just as good but completely different. It was a joyous romp with incredible dialog and memorable characters.
I subscribed to the Secret Project.
Tress of the Emereld Isles is the best of the lot. To me it felt like The Princess Bride and Sanderson kind of alludes to that. It is a fun read. It is good, not great. The Frugal Wizard and The Sunlit Man are also good but none of the three are in the same class as Stormlight or Mistborn. I have yet to get into the last one, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It is boring.
Maybe my mistake was reading his best books first?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 09:43 AM (t/2Uw)

99
True - but neither does any other department of the Vatican.

And yet, they did it.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:42 AM (IaTa3)
---
Oh, there are ways, many, many ways!

I think the best course is honestly to let things play out. Francis just uncloaked a bunch of heretics and/or apostates. No Grand Inquisitor could have done better.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:44 AM (llXky)

100 livestream of eruption in iceland...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knd8EexlTrg

Posted by: davidt at January 14, 2024 09:44 AM (SYTee)

101 I did a major splurge this week. There is a twelve volume series of History of Middle-Earth books by Christopher Tolkien. (Obligatory mention.) Over the years I have gathered up about half of them. It takes a fanatic to appreciate these books but that's OK. I am one.

There is a hardcover three volume set with all twelve books issued in a slip case. Not cheap although less expensive than getting the books individually. It arrived this morning. It is a well made set. My single copies will go to our nephew and his wife who are developing into Tolkien enthusiasts.

Some comments on Amazon didn't like that the volumes are so heavy but these aren't the kind of books I would lug around. They will be read in comfort with a pipe and satisfying drink at hand.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 09:44 AM (zudum)

102 I went back to finishing Pliny's Natural History. I learned a new word, "horologe". Without looking it up, can you discern what it means? It seems obvious once you know.

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 09:44 AM (vFG9F)

103 Instead of the Swiss Guard he should be calling on the ultimate arbiter of the Papacy: the Roman mob.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 09:45 AM (78a2H)

104 I don't read books on how to write since I don't write. much. well, anyway. I mentioned this here once in the far distant past. Lin Carter (I'm pretty sure) wrote a book on how to write fantasy whose title I still can't remember, but vmom or somebody remembered. IMHO, it was the best thing Carter wrote of the small handful of stuff I'd read.

it's fascinating to me how often Tey's Daughter of Time keeps reappearing in the discussion here. Like Thomas Paine says it's no wonder it was voted the best, etc.

Read Bujold's Demon Daughter this week, the next novel, novella really, in her Penric series. I have a hard time not recommending Bujold's books; this one is no exception. read Nitay Arbel's On Different Strings which wasn't as good as I remembered it, but still interesting.

Posted by: yara at January 14, 2024 09:45 AM (xr64u)

105 Reading by recommendation? I'm a sucker for titles like Horror: 100 Best Books or Joseph Epstein's books of essays on writers. I'll check blurbs too. I'll usually ignore blurbs simply signed as 'New York Times' or some other newspaper/magazine; but if the blurb is from a writer whose work I like, I'm a lot more likely to take a closer look.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 09:45 AM (a/4+U)

106 71 I read Robert Galbraith's (JK Rowling) book, The Running Grave
Posted by: huerfano at January 14, 2024 09:30 AM (Q4KYm)

Still waiting for my turn to come up on this one in the library's audio queue. A few more weeks.

I've listened to all of the others, and the reader is great, and that's the voice I want for this book. So, I won't read it myself.

But, I totally understand the heavy book problem, especially for bedtime reading. I have to put a pillow on my belly and prop the book on that.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 09:45 AM (OX9vb)

107 I learned a new word, "horologe". Without looking it up, can you discern what it means? It seems obvious once you know.
Posted by: fd

Something to do with timekeeping or a clock?

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:46 AM (IaTa3)

108 I went back to finishing Pliny's Natural History. I learned a new word, "horologe". Without looking it up, can you discern what it means? It seems obvious once you know.

Horological is to do with clocks, so I'll guess it's some sort of time log or a list of clocks.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:46 AM (CsUN+)

109 Yes, it's a timekeeper, like a sundial.

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (vFG9F)

110 Son Youn Ju, OM's Korean model, is still alive and around 32. A very similarly names Korean model committed suicide, but not our muse.

-
Apparently, Son Youn Ju is Korean for Jane Smith.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (FVME7)

111 Did any rocket aficionados watch the launch very early this morning (3AM Central)?

Later today
SpaceX Launch
Falcon 9 - Starlink Group 6-37 -
SLC-40 - CCSFS
Launch time: January 14: 7:27 p.m. EST,
(00:27 UTC, and 01:27 CET, January 15)

http://tinyurl.com/4z9aux4k

Posted by: Ciampino - Want to go on a date in Space? No pressure. at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (qfLjt)

112 the Roman mob.
Posted by: Trimegistus

"Yeah, he's gone."

Whadda mean?

"You know, he's gone. And there was nothing anyone could do about it."

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (IaTa3)

113 White House staff "relocated" last night after pro-Palestine protesters tore into barricade and confronted police in "mostly peaceful" protest

http://tinyurl.com/mw6dhnzz

How did the J6 protesters get out of jail and to the WH?

Chances these people will be punished: zero point zero.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (CsUN+)

114 I've started on Will and Ariel Durant's Story of Civilization series.

I have volumes 1 through 9 on this set. Still need the last two to complete it.

Posted by: dantesed at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (88xKn)

115 Instead of the Swiss Guard he should be calling on the ultimate arbiter of the Papacy: the Roman mob.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 09:45 AM (78a2H)
---
I'd say the *remaining* one, because The Kings of France and the Emperor also had a bit to say about who got the Throne of Saint Peter.

Interestingly, Eduard Habsburg is the current Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See. Maybe he can conjure up some old Imperial magic and get a crown out of it!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:48 AM (llXky)

116 Erikson goes full postmodern / critique of capitalism around book 7 or 8. This was of course around 14 or 16, just like every other science fiction writer pretty much. It's a little bit nauseating, and I doubt I'll read the last books in the series again.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. The first three books are absolutely incredible.

Posted by: "Content" at January 14, 2024 09:42 AM (/5tY4)
----
Thanks for the warning.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at January 14, 2024 09:48 AM (BpYfr)

117 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes. Read three books this past week, all of them disappointments.

The first, A Rome of One's Own, by Emma Southon, is a history of various women who helped make Rome and the Empire what it was. Southon continually harps on the fact that these are 'forgotten' or 'erased' women, but if you've had a decent education, you should already have heard of most of them.

It's gen-pop history, which has it's place. But I would not recommend this book, for three reasons:

1. The use of the execrable "CE" and "BCE;"

2. An insistence on embracing modern imbecility by waxing rhapsodic over 'gender fluid' men and women;

3. She's vulgar. 'Fuck,' 'shit,' 'cock' and other nasty words are sprinkled liberally throughout the pages. I know she thinks she's coming across as hip and fun, turning dryasdust Rome into an interesting read, but it comes across as nasty and irritating.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 09:48 AM (Q0kLU)

118 Acquired and reading this month: Gulag Archipelago. Timely again. Beginning of first volume is essentially a description of how a society should not respond to tyrants. Solzhenitsyn bemoaned: if only we fought back and didn’t walk like mute lambs to the slaughter.

Posted by: Java Joe at January 14, 2024 09:48 AM (WaLgG)

119 Cyrus the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Saladin - name your flavor, someone sat down and wrote about his dining room. Mohammed? Nothing. Gibbon picked up on this.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:37 AM (llXky)

Well, to be fair, young girls at that time probably couldn't read or write....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:49 AM (Angsy)

120 Finished Schlicter's "Attack" last night. He imagines an Oct 7 type event here in the USA, this year, hundreds of jihadi sleeper cells begin at noon on 3 successive days, ending in 175,000 innocents killed, raped, bodies desecrated. Day 3 are attacks on infrastructure. Refineries, power grid, communications.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (KiBMU)

I just finished it myself last night at nearly 1:00 AM.

Disturbingly plausible is the simplest way I'd describe this work.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at January 14, 2024 09:49 AM (/HDaX)

121 So next I see a sundial, I can impress people by saying "Oh look, a horologe".

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 09:49 AM (vFG9F)

122 Justin Whitmel Early

Early-->Earley

Posted by: m at January 14, 2024 09:49 AM (dvbwR)

123 the one liners in the Durant series are more aphorisms. some people claimed his real talent was writing those. My favorite from Vol 1 was:

A nation's soul is its religion and seldom survives philosophy.

Posted by: yara at January 14, 2024 09:50 AM (xr64u)

124 I went back to finishing Pliny's Natural History. I learned a new word, "horologe". Without looking it up, can you discern what it means? It seems obvious once you know.

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 09:44 AM (vFG9F)
---
Augury by examining bits of wood?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:50 AM (llXky)

125 I don't do much 'prescient reading' because it can be depressing, especially if accurate. Dystopian stories are not appealing. The one that comes to mind is from Heinlein's Future History collection. I suspect it was mostly a list of things he considered weird enough to be shocking when he wrote them. Turns out a lot of them have either happened or far exceeded his ideas.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 09:50 AM (zudum)

126 "Erikson goes full postmodern / critique of capitalism..."

What all the cool kids are doing. Essential to join the club.

Posted by: Ordinary American at January 14, 2024 09:51 AM (UseAb)

127 One of the annuities of older siblings was a trove of hand-me-down books.
Posted by: Ordinary American
====
And uncles and aunts. The grandparent's houses were treasure troves.
I read Tom Swift and Tom Swift Jr. books concurrently.

Posted by: From about that Time at January 14, 2024 09:52 AM (4780s)

128 "1984" is not out of print (yet) , but it's pretty damn prescient.

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 09:52 AM (vFG9F)

129 Were deep into the crazy years

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:53 AM (PXvVL)

130 Finished Schlicter's "Attack" last night. He imagines an Oct 7 type event here in the USA, this year, hundreds of jihadi sleeper cells begin at noon on 3 successive days, ending in 175,000 innocents killed, raped, bodies desecrated. Day 3 are attacks on infrastructure. Refineries, power grid, communications.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at January 14, 2024 09:25 AM (KiBMU)

I just finished it myself last night at nearly 1:00 AM.

Disturbingly plausible is the simplest way I'd describe this work.
Posted by: Additional Blond Agent

I can feel it like a train coming down the track.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 09:53 AM (ec9mh)

131 >>I have yet to get into the last one, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It is boring.
Maybe my mistake was reading his best books first?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 09:43 AM

I tried it. I got in about 50 pages and said, nope, no more. Life is too short to read things you don't enjoy when you are old and retired.

Posted by: huerfano at January 14, 2024 09:53 AM (Q4KYm)

132 Well, to be fair, young girls at that time probably couldn't read or write....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:49 AM (Angsy)
---
And that brings up another point, which is that generally the farther removed you are from a historical figure, the less people recall. Later chroniclers will just refer in passing because of course all the juicy details were written down by contemporaries.

In Mohammed's case it is reversed - the later Hadiths provide the most details about his personal life.

Think about that - the Greeks are getting hammered by this guy and not a mention of him. And don't say the Greeks were being patriotic or anything like that - Greeks invented the whole idea of "who is the bold conqueror on our frontier?!" style of writing.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:53 AM (llXky)

133 Continued my slough through Mandelbaum's translation of Dante's Divine Comedy - I'm currently still in Purgatory.
Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 09:18 AM (qoGsy)

Do you like it? I currently have the Musa, but am always open to another translation.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 14, 2024 09:53 AM (fDjFn)

134 Still working my way through the first section of "A Canticle for Liebowitz" and enjoying it so far.

Also reading "Only the Dead" by Jack Carr. It's Terminal List/James Reece book 6.

And last but not least, reading Trent Horn's "The "Case for Catholicism, Classic and Contemporary Answers to Protestant Objections". Horn is an excellent Catholic apologist who has Masters Degrees in Theology, Philosophy and Bioethics. He's a very good writer and a very, very deep thinker, indeed, who explains things very calmly and clearly and without animosity even when presented with the most outrageous Protestant calumnies issued against the Church.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 14, 2024 09:54 AM (/RHNq)

135 Second disappointing book: Elvis and The Colonel, by Greg McDonald and Marshall Terrill. McDonald was a record producer and Nashville insider who was a confidante of 'Colonel' Tom Parker for many years.

It isn't a bio, it's a hagiography. McDonald is bound and determined to portray Parker as a genius promoter who give his all in service to Elvis, never cheated the King and was above board in all his dealings. Oh, and Elvis wasn't just a hick from Tupelo - he was smart and canny and never let Parker make him do anything he didn't want to do.

I couldn't get past the first 20 pages.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 09:54 AM (Q0kLU)

136 As we learn from the first volume of the red wheel the okrana was doing a bang up job of ssbotaging nicholas 2rd

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:54 AM (PXvVL)

137 I think the best course is honestly to let things play out. Francis just uncloaked a bunch of heretics and/or apostates. No Grand Inquisitor could have done better.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:44 AM (llXky)

Oh yeah?

http://tinyurl.com/59n82678

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 09:55 AM (Angsy)

138 They havent published the 3rd volume to great acclaim but they did do lenin in zurich

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:56 AM (PXvVL)

139 I don't do much 'prescient reading' because it can be depressing, especially if accurate. Dystopian stories are not appealing. The one that comes to mind is from Heinlein's Future History collection. I suspect it was mostly a list of things he considered weird enough to be shocking when he wrote them. Turns out a lot of them have either happened or far exceeded his ideas.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 09:50 AM (zudum)
---
It will get here soon enough, so I'm going to spend my time on other things. Besides, I believe the center of gravity isn't ideology or politics but the spirit world. Communism isn't an economic theory, or a political system, it's a heresy promising paradise in this world. That is why it endures despite repeated empirical failures.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 09:56 AM (llXky)

140 I recently finished writing a novel that could be termed “prescient”. It’s set a few years from now, and there is a civil war in this country between a tyrannical central government and freedom-loving elements mainly in the South. The West has become depopulated due to a drought, causing challenges for two Iowa farm boys who find a map of an abandoned Colorado mine, and decide to check it out. I’ve just sent it to a publisher. I know there are long odds b/c it’s a first attempt.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 14, 2024 09:56 AM (hsWtj)

141 The History of Middle-Earth books by Christopher Tolkien is some 'heavy' reading, but interesting for Tolkien enthusiast like me. I find the earlier versions of his stories fascinating.

For example, the first version of Strider was a hobbit with wooden feet named Trotter clip-clopping along the road.

Posted by: davidt at January 14, 2024 09:57 AM (SYTee)

142 >>>http://tinyurl.com/mw6dhnzz

How did the J6 protesters get out of jail and to the WH?

Chances these people will be punished: zero point zero.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM

And now we know why they dragged Joe's wrinkled ass to Camp David this weekend.

Posted by: huerfano at January 14, 2024 09:57 AM (Q4KYm)

143 Time for a rereading of Fahrenheit 451 as well as 1984. Given what's happening with Dahl and Fleming, I can see print editions of 1984 and F451 outlawed and digital editions easily available. Of course in the digital editions Winston Smith and Montag are the bad guys.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 09:57 AM (a/4+U)

144 Guten Morgan! I'll be heading to late mass today to give the roads a chance to warm up. Meanwhile I'll be finishing up Joe Heschmeyer's book, "The Early Church was the Catholic Church" and also "Killers of the Flower Moon." Quite different genres but I recommend both books.

Posted by: LASue at January 14, 2024 09:58 AM (bLe0J)

145 livestream of eruption in iceland...
======
There goes who knows how much spent on CO2 remediation up in smoke.
Totes unexpected.

Posted by: From about that Time at January 14, 2024 09:58 AM (4780s)

146 Had a very long solitary drive yesterday, and the perfect audiobook for it: Gulag Archipelago (Vol 1).

I've read many excerpts from Solzhenitsyn before, but most of the content was new to me. Made a big dent into a very large book, but it kept my attention. Like Atlas Shrugs, I fear the opposition uses it as a text book instead of a lesson of what to avoid.

I'm hoping unlike Atlas, there'll be no patches that will derail the reading.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at January 14, 2024 09:58 AM (3uc2w)

147 Malachi martins windswept (the rest escapes me ) turms out very prescient

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 09:58 AM (PXvVL)

148 59 Mr Gaga I don't think it's possible in a long time, hasn't happened in Europe and they are way more involved in a Jihad than we are. Yet in England gangs of Muslims ran all over the English judicial system raping girls.

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 09:59 AM (gX32c)

149 I recently finished writing a novel that could be termed “prescient”. ... I’ve just sent it to a publisher. I know there are long odds b/c it’s a first attempt.
Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 14, 2024 09:56 AM (hsWtj)

Sounds interesting Norrin. You might consider joining our writer's group and give us a chapter or two.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 10:00 AM (xHAJg)

150 tried it. I got in about 50 pages and said, nope, no more. Life is too short to read things you don't enjoy when you are old and retired.
Posted by: huerfano
Yes, exactly. Sad part is it is doubtful I will pick up another Sanderson.
Meanwhile, I discovered James Islington due to a recommendation here. Read The Will of the Many. Then The Shadow of What Was Lost. Waiting for book 2 An Echo of Things to Come. Terrific world building and relatable characters on an adventure.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 10:00 AM (t/2Uw)

151 Third disappointing book: Diary of A London Call Girl. This began as a blog by "Belle de Jour," a young London woman who decided that she needed money for her studies in forensic pathology and signed up with an escort service. Once she was outed (Brooke Magnanti), she expanded the posts into a full-length book. Apparently, she has continued to write about her experiences, as Amazon notes five books in the series.

Magnanti is an awful person. Selfish, utterly self-centered, shallow and superficial - a literate Spice Girl, as it were. And as far as the sex scenes go, if there is a duller way to write about fisting or anal sex, I have not yet found it. Hard, HARD pass.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 10:00 AM (Q0kLU)

152 *Besides, I believe the center of gravity isn't ideology or politics but the spirit world. Communism isn't an economic theory, or a political system, it's a heresy...*
Posted by A.H. Lloyd

We battle not against flesh and blood...

Posted by: Ephesians 6:12 at January 14, 2024 10:00 AM (NBVIP)

153 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?

For Young naturalfake, zero.

When I first started reading SF as a thing, a "cool" or title could easily get that novel a purchase.

I eventually learned *ahem* that was not the best way of choosing reading material.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 14, 2024 10:01 AM (nFnyb)

154 I imagine that amazon and Abe Books are noticing a spike in book orders on Sunday afternoons.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:01 AM (ec9mh)

155 She's vulgar. 'Fuck,' 'shit,' 'cock' and other nasty words are sprinkled liberally throughout the pages. I know she thinks she's coming across as hip and fun, turning dryasdust Rome into an interesting read, but it comes across as nasty and irritating.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 09:48 AM (Q0kLU)

That's the sign of a low mind, in my book. I don't use any nasty words like that. Glad to see you don't either, MP4.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:01 AM (Angsy)

156 I have chosen many books based upon recommendations made here by fellow Morons. My TBR shelves are creaking under the strain.
Currently reading “Masters of the Air” and a book about Paul the Apostle.

Posted by: RetSgtRN at January 14, 2024 10:02 AM (eTkTC)

157 Orwell didn't foresee everybody carrying around their own little telescreen(smartphone), but in Bradbury's 451 nearly everybody had a radio plugged into their ear.

Posted by: davidt at January 14, 2024 10:02 AM (SYTee)

158 okay, in late, but I too was up into the wee hours finishing Schlichter's The Attack.

"disturbingly plausible" is bloody well right. Also, clearly set in 2024; it's not stated, but obvious from the characters.

Schlichter's signature style, applied to a fictional oral history, rocks.

3 months in the making, from 10/7 to 1/8/24 release, impressive!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying for decades at January 14, 2024 10:03 AM (WsTvr)

159 Apparently, Son Youn Ju is Korean for Jane Smith.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 09:47 AM (FVME7)

Viet girl I know said they really only have five family names. That's why you never know who you're talking about unless you know them.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:03 AM (Angsy)

160 But against principalities and powers of the air

So when lenin silencdd the menshevik assembly or was it the failed rising of the latvian guard the kornilov challenge

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 10:03 AM (PXvVL)

161 When did the Hardy Boys enter the thread? I was a Hardy fanatic in grade school. Read most of the blue spines. Still own about two dozen of them.

Also have a few of the 1930s(?) printings, sans jackets. In some cases, only the title was the same -- the plots were much different.

Also, when did the news about Captain Hate come out?

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 10:03 AM (p/isN)

162 Use the latin equivalent sheesh

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 10:04 AM (PXvVL)

163 Okay, pants are on.

*looks heavenward to OregonMuse*

So, not much of note this week. I zoomed through the second in a "grey goo" SF trilogy. I was skimming a lot by the halfway point, so by the end I just read a synopsis of the final book in the series, and the alien ex machina explanation soured me for the whole thing.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:04 AM (+RQPJ)

164 Time for a rereading of Fahrenheit 451 as well as 1984. Given what's happening with Dahl and Fleming, I can see print editions of 1984 and F451 outlawed and digital editions easily available. Of course in the digital editions Winston Smith and Montag are the bad guys.
Posted by: Just Some Guy

I bought nice hardback original versions of these and similar books for just that reason.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:04 AM (ec9mh)

165 Last weekend

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 10:05 AM (PXvVL)

166 But, I totally understand the heavy book problem, especially for bedtime reading. I have to put a pillow on my belly and prop the book on that.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 09:45 AM (OX9vb)

In the late summer of 1987, I read "Lonesome Dove" lying on the couch with the book propped up on child #4.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 14, 2024 10:05 AM (fDjFn)

167 Do you like it? (Mandelbaum's translation of Dante) I currently have the Musa, but am always open to another translation.
Posted by: sal

This translation was recommended to me by an old HS buddy who is now an Archbishop. He claimed it is the premier English translation - since I honestly have no knowledge of translations of others, I went with this one.

But, to answer you directly, yes. I've also gone back and concurrently viewed the appropriate video for the Canto I'm reading from the '100 Days of Dante' series put together by Baylor University. I need multiple sources of interpretation to help with my understanding.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 10:05 AM (IaTa3)

168 I mentioned last week that I'm reading Coleridge's "Biographia Literaria" on an e-reader. I'm still enjoying it but find I always want to make notes. I know notes can be done on an e-reader but that is too limiting. I have a physical copy coming tomorrow that will probably be drowned in marginalia.

BTW, I had to order a copy. The local bookstores, used and new, didn't have copies. The used book store didn't have anything by Coleridge, not even a collection of poems. If people are buying them or not turning them in, that's good. But the county library has only four copies of Coleridge: three audio versions of Rime of the Ancient Mariner and an electronic copy of the old Classic Comic version designed for children. Not one damn physical book by or about Coleridge in the entire system.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:05 AM (zudum)

169 And as far as my own writing - nothing.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (Q0kLU)

170 Last week I read "The Naked Clone" by the collective writers of RiffTrax (a Mystery Science Theater 3000 successor). It's a comedy book, a long-form version of one of their running gags: where they re-imagine Nick Nolte as a demented hobo. And for the book, they also imagine Hobo-Nolte as a private investigator, mostly so that they can have him narrate the story in first person, which allows him to go off on tangents/vignettes describing the pathetic desperation that is the hobo-life.

The novel stretches the premise farther than it should be taken, and the story gets way to ridiculous for its own good, but I can't deny that I did laugh at it.

And I should mention that Hobo-Nolte lives an Ace-of-Spades-approved-lifestyle, as it only takes until the second paragraph of chapter one for him to have woken up from a drinking-induced stupor. It's that kind of book...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (Lhaco)

171 OrangeEnt, I think towards newish books, mainly because that's what the library would have available.

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (bxgno)

172 I eventually learned *ahem* that was not the best way of choosing reading material.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 14, 2024 10:01 AM (nFnyb)
-----

Duh! It's the cover art!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (+RQPJ)

173 what, a new Penric book from Bujold? and no one told me?

thx, yara!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez - these lying bastardi e stronzi have been lying for decades at January 14, 2024 10:07 AM (WsTvr)

174 I picked up but haven't started "The Blazing World - A New History of Revolutionary England 1603-1689". Always been confused and fascinated by what exactly was going on in this period - Catholics and Protestants, English and Scots, Royalists and Republicans. And let's throw some Dutch in for extra disorientation.
Posted by: Candidus
______________

Check out David Crowther's The History of England podcast. He's in the middle of the Civil War right now. But it'll probably take him another year to get to the Glorious Revolution.

A bit of a lib, but it doesn't grate.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 14, 2024 10:07 AM (Dm8we)

175 Finished the 8th and last book in Robert B Parker's Cole and Hitch Western series mostly written by Robert Knott. Knott wrote the screenplay for the movie Appaloosa based on Parker's first book and was inspired by Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of the characters that he wrote them into the books.
I am totally into escapist literature these days. These fit the bill.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 10:11 AM (t/2Uw)

176 I also have some (hopefully-not) prescient fiction on the market, at Amazon. https://shorturl.at/elA23 Instead of worrying about LLM and OpenAI, have you considered what would happen if your spam filter got smart and took over the world?

Frankly not very good. A sloppy adaptation of the screenplay, but first effort and learned quite a bit in the process. The screenplay itself is constantly being re-written, IMO is much better, and ready to go into development at a moment's notice.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 10:12 AM (xHAJg)

177 I ran across an audiobook of the Divine Comedy, the Wicksteed translation. Haven't tried it yet.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:13 AM (ec9mh)

178 121 So next I see a sundial, I can impress people by saying "Oh look, a horologe".

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 09:49 AM (vFG9F)
----
A watch in Italian is 'orologio'; a bedside (alarm) clock is 'la sveglia' which translates to 'the wake-upper' .

Posted by: Ciampino - The hairs on my wrist say the time is .... at January 14, 2024 10:13 AM (qfLjt)

179 I'm on another improving my Latin kick so I searched for books in Latin that I could read. I found a translation of The Little Red Hen which is the basis for my economic, social, an political philosophy. I also found a translation of Paradise Lost. My Latin is not good enough to read that. I probably read Latin at a third or fourth grade level.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 10:14 AM (FVME7)

180 I'm still catching up on my hefty backlog of unread ebooks (or, in some cases, books I read once and didn't make any notes on, like the mom mentioned earlier). Just finished Alone on the Ice, about Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition, and now reading Murderous Minds, a book about psychopathy. I also read the latest Ascendance of a Bookworm, which came out on Wednesday.

Side note, I've never spent a whole year on a language and still been as inept as I am in Japanese. I'm making progress on both reading and speaking, and I'm starting to be able to write, but it has been a WHOLE YEAR and I still can barely stumble my way through extremely basic interactions at stores or hotels. "Hello! Sorry, no speak Japanese! Size?? Cute! I will buy!! Thank you!"

I need to check out that book about the princes in the Tower - sounds interesting.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at January 14, 2024 10:14 AM (Y+AMd)

181 No physical books by or about Coleridge in the system...

Once upon a time when I was working in bookstores and libraries, it was pleasant to imagine the library as preserving the books and knowledge of the past. And maybe some of the universities and the biggest publics will do a bit of that. But if that Burgess Meredith Twilight Zone episode were being done today, those stacks of classics he piled up before breaking his glasses would be awfully small indeed.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 10:14 AM (a/4+U)

182 I really, really, really* want to pick up the entire Ancient Christian Writers series published by Paulist Press, someday.

76 hardback volumes of all the primary early Christian writings that were not made part of the New Testament, from the anonymously penned Didache, through Clement, Polycarp, Ireneaus, Justin Martyr, Athanasius, Augustine, Jerome, etc. etc.

These learned and devout fellas battled dozens of heresies whilst grappling with Who Jesus really was and WHAT IT ALL MEANT. I love reading these ancient tomes.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a complete set to purchase, though you can buy them individually, or as a software bundle. I want hardcovers.

http://tinyurl.com/Ancient-Christian-Writers

*I rilly rilly do.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 14, 2024 10:14 AM (/RHNq)

183 ...David Crowther's The History of England podcast...
Biff Pocoroba

Well, that's the second independent recommendation for that podcast so I guess I'll give it a try.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 10:14 AM (xHAJg)

184 Caftans are not pants, and do not qualify as appropriate Book Thread apparel.

No need to call out specific nics, you who you are.

Posted by: Duncanthrax at January 14, 2024 10:14 AM (a3Q+t)

185 But, to answer you directly, yes. I've also gone back and concurrently viewed the appropriate video for the Canto I'm reading from the '100 Days of Dante' series put together by Baylor University. I need multiple sources of interpretation to help with my understanding.
Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 10:05 AM (IaTa3)

Thank you! I should look into that.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 14, 2024 10:15 AM (fDjFn)

186 OrangeEnt, I think towards newish books, mainly because that's what the library would have available.
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (bxgno)

Missing a lot of good stuff that way.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:16 AM (Angsy)

187 A watch in Italian is 'orologio'; a bedside (alarm) clock is 'la sveglia' which translates to 'the wake-upper' .
Posted by: Ciampino

When you were a kid, did your Nonno and Nonna refer to a telephone as an 'Ameche"? It took me years to figure out that one.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 10:16 AM (IaTa3)

188 172 I eventually learned *ahem* that was not the best way of choosing reading material.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 14, 2024 10:01 AM (nFnyb)
-----

Duh! It's the cover art!
Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (+RQPJ)

*kicks rock*

That "cool" in my comment should've had a "cover" attached to it.

Definitely, the cover art!!!

How's about record album cover art?

I learned the same lesson there too.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 14, 2024 10:16 AM (nFnyb)

189 Richard Austin "the colonist" left England on a ship called The Bevis during Cromwells theft of... everything. In fact Cromwell stole the very land for which the Austin name founded on. Austin Friars London. He built a huge house there out of the remnants of several Monestaries he "disolved".
Sometime refered to as the second Mayflower the Bevis had almost entirely Puritans on board. One passenger being the last death related to the Salem Witch Trials. She died in jail before being burned at the stake... For wearing scarves not suited to her status.
One of the other passengers was also the owner of the pub where the trials took place.

I have a feeling there is a whole book to be written about what caused Richard Austin to bail on England. Beings that, if given the chance, I believe could prove he was first born son of Edward the Black Prince and Joan Countess of Kent. Concieved sometime between the establishment of the Knight of the Garter and her relase from imprisonment in Agincourt castle. Locked up there by one of her two husbands awaiting the Pope to say which marriage was the real one.

But alas part of "disolving" monestaries involved burning all their books.

Posted by: Reforger at January 14, 2024 10:16 AM (dkG8Z)

190 Other easy to read and thoughtfully entertaining stories are And Then There Were None,” “Dear Devil,” “I Am Nothing,” and “Jay Score. These are fun stories, and I read them wistfully, for the vibrant culture that illuminates the stories is gone in real life.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 14, 2024 09:15 AM (u82oZ)

Eric Frank Russell is a gem, and Dear Devil and And Then There Were None are some of the best scifi shorts ever written, Most of his stuff can be found on Gutenberg, and a lot of the stuff he wrote can also be found on Archive.ORG in the digitized pulp "area"

Another two writers in much the same vein are Theodore Cogswell (who wrote like Lloyd Biggle Jr but with more character driven plots) who's short story Spectre General is an outstanding short story both in what it does and how it does it. (Imagine: Pulp sci-fi is just westerns, but this one is done well)
Another great writer was Murray Yaco, who seems to have only done about three short stories and one novel, but since the shorts were such great quality, I think it was a pen name.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 14, 2024 10:17 AM (D7oie)

191 Life events often push me toward books. After 9/11 I was ashamed of how little I knew about the military charged with keeping us safe. That led me to Victor Davis Hanson and he led me to John Keegan. I will read anything John Keegan wrote.

Also my characters frequently insist on knowing things I don't, so then I have to find out about.

Posted by: Wenda at January 14, 2024 10:17 AM (ApuU/)

192 Slightly off-topic: I've come to realize that the real problem we're facing isn't the Lefty extremists and Marxist true believers. No, they would be trivial and powerless without the huge legions of normie liberals and unthinking Democrats. The people who get their news from CNN or the New York Times and simply believe everything they hear. Orange Man Bad, Palestinians Good.

How to crack their adamantine bubble? Any news which doesn't include The Narrative is obviously right-wing extremist Russian disinformation denialist propaganda, and probably racist. Attacking the credibility of the lying media shits just bounces off. How to get through to them?

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 10:18 AM (78a2H)

193 Caftans are not pants, and do not qualify as appropriate Book Thread apparel.

No need to call out specific nics, you who you are.
Posted by: Duncanthrax

Just don't tell me that kilts are forbidden.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (ec9mh)

194 And as far as my own writing - nothing.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 10:06 AM (Q0kLU)
---
You'll perhaps have noticed that I don't even bother to mention that these days. Grandkids are staying with us and that means no new books while it lasts.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (llXky)

195 "Richard Austin "the colonist" left England on a ship called The Bevis..."

???

Posted by: Butthead at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (SYTee)

196 My first thought on reading comments on Schlicter's book is that he's got it backwards.
Infrastructure would be first. Especially communications, to keep first responder types, and us civies, from coordinating.
Haven't really mulled it over yet though.

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (O/WaE)

197 I finished Tress of the Emerald Isles and the ending felt a bit rushed but I still recommend it.
Thanks to a moron recommendation I put a hold on Red Harvest by Dashiel Hammet. When I picked it up the two librarians were so excited that I had placed a hold on it. "It's so nice to see you read a real classic" and "I can't believe you're reading Dashiel Hammet!" were tossed around the counter. They were like a couple of hens with newly hatched chicks.
To say that hey were dissapointed when they saw my blank stare of ignorance would be quite an understatement. I haven't opened the book and I can't remember the exact recommendation so I'm still clueless about what's in store for me.

Posted by: p0indexterous at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (QBwMV)

198 (Ascendance of a Bookworm is translated from Japanese, if people were wondering what the connection was. A little over two years ago, I considered trying to learn Japanese because it's finished in Japanese and it's killing me waiting for the translations, but my husband, who took Japanese in college, said there was no chance I could learn it faster than the translator could work. He seems to have been correct, but at least I'd have another year under my belt if I'd started then. (I got a new job last year where we are working very closely with the Japanese and traveling to Japan frequently))

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (Y+AMd)

199 Sounds interesting Norrin. You might consider joining our writer's group and give us a chapter or two.
Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 10:00 AM (xHAJg)

If you mean ALH, he is a member. Had a post about the book around Thanksgiving.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:20 AM (Angsy)

200 Of possible interest to the Book Thread inhabitants -- Humble Bundle is offering 38 (!) of Terry Pratchett's books for the minimum price of $18. (These are all ebooks, of course).

http://tinyurl.com/mr7k2amz

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at January 14, 2024 10:20 AM (P+D9B)

201 I will read anything John Keegan wrote.

Posted by: Wenda
_____________

You made it to The Face of Battle yet?

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 14, 2024 10:20 AM (Dm8we)

202 When you were a kid, did your Nonno and Nonna refer to a telephone as an 'Ameche"? It took me years to figure out that one.

No, but I know what that means.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 10:20 AM (Q0kLU)

203 149 I’ve been following the writers’ group and plan on jumping in and doing that.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 14, 2024 10:21 AM (hsWtj)

204 Speaking of audiobooks, I see they now have an AI reader known as Virtual Voice. In my experience, Virtual Voice is OK but if there is any non-standard turn of phrase, particularly if intended humorously, it is less than perfect.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 10:21 AM (FVME7)

205 133 ... "I currently have the Musa, but am always open to another translation."

I used the Mandelbaum version of the Divine Comedy when I did the 100 Days of Dante a while back. I also have the Dorothy Sayers translation. The Musa version gets good reviews. There always seems to be a divide between fans of more literary translations and 'vigorish', less flowery translations when it come to these classic works.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:22 AM (zudum)

206 All right, folks, just wanted to stop in for a few. I've got errands and chores, so probably (certainly) no writing today.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 10:22 AM (Q0kLU)

207 166...In the late summer of 1987, I read "Lonesome Dove" lying on the couch with the book propped up on child #4.
Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at January 14, 2024 10:05 AM (fDjFn)

Haha! How convenient!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 10:23 AM (OX9vb)

208 How to crack their adamantine bubble? Any news which doesn't include The Narrative is obviously right-wing extremist Russian disinformation denialist propaganda, and probably racist. Attacking the credibility of the lying media shits just bounces off. How to get through to them?

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 10:18 AM (78a2H)
---
You recover moral language, which the right handed over without a fight, dropping references to God and sin in an effort to appear cool and with it.

That is why sodomites are good and wholesome, while people who oppose grooming are haters. Our "Convervative Thought Leaders" decided to celebrate "liberty" rather than faith, and so we got "bake the cake, hater!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:23 AM (llXky)

209 Wanted to bring up that Matthew Lomhmeier was in on Tweets on Bad Blue and had a 5 minute speech in front of Congress on how DIE is destroying the Military.
His book I read and expands on his comments

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 10:24 AM (gX32c)

210 I remember seeing a short telefilm of "The Ugly Little Boy". It's on YT if you want to watch it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:25 AM (+RQPJ)

211 *How to get through to them?*

Politely and gently ask them simple open ended questions.

So now that it's 2024, how do you feel about the COVID lockdowns?
Should the kids just go to school via Zoom on snow days?
What should happen to the 51 "intelligence officials" who signed the letter?
Then just be quiet and let them talk. Don't argue, but just plant seeds. Eventually they'll come around. If they don't, why are you hanging out with them?

Posted by: Ephesians 6:12 at January 14, 2024 10:25 AM (NBVIP)

212 If this is your first run in the Malazan book of the fallen, I sincerely envy you

Posted by: Dassem at January 14, 2024 10:25 AM (NfF8V)

213 Oops. Off sock.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at January 14, 2024 10:26 AM (NBVIP)

214 Life events often push me toward books. After 9/11 I was ashamed of how little I knew about the military charged with keeping us safe. That led me to Victor Davis Hanson and he led me to John Keegan. I will read anything John Keegan wrote.

Also my characters frequently insist on knowing things I don't, so then I have to find out about.
Posted by: Wenda

Keegan was brilliant. I consider The Price of Admiralty and The Face of Battle must reads.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:26 AM (ec9mh)

215 A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned reading the latest Reacher so I started reading it. I have read all the previous ones. I haven't finished it yet as unlike some of his, Flynn's, early ones, this one is insipid. It has fallen into the 'stronk woman' trap with a 90lb blonde overpowering 4 CIA henchmen - in your dreams. Also follows the tired old plot line where the 'baddy/ies' can do no wrong, are infallible. Also the characters are shallow. His best book was #1, "The Killing Floor" and the next best was "Worth Dying For". The last 5-6, those written with his Son, are not up to par with early Reacher.

Posted by: Ciampino - The hairs on my wrist say the time is ... at January 14, 2024 10:27 AM (qfLjt)

216 Note how the right's language of liberty and freedom is now turned into a Crowley-esque "Do what thou wilt!"

Also notice that the right has no answer to prevent satanic displays in public, or to prevent Drag Queen Story hour. This was wholesale surrender, the field wasn't even fought, because you can't use secular reasoning for moral arguments.

To defeat the left, we have to reconnect with the foundations of natural law, actual morality and say that "liberty be damned, you can't do it because IT IS WRONG!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:27 AM (llXky)

217 Definitely, the cover art!!!
How's about record album cover art?
I learned the same lesson there too.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 14, 2024 10:16 AM (nFnyb)

As a Ute I remember the trashy paperbacks on the bookracks in the drug store with the buxom wench tied up in the desert and the biker gang getting ready to do all kinds of nefarious deeds with the hero just stumbling onto the scene.

Never bought one as the gawking at the covers was free. Yeah! Oh Yeah!

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at January 14, 2024 10:28 AM (R/m4+)

218 Are hot pants really pants?

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:28 AM (+RQPJ)

219 In response to one of the Perfessor's questions. last year I read a comic series based on 2 data-points: a single image that was just too good to pass by, and a general consensus (from like three youtube reviews) that the series did not suck.

In general, though, I think I'd need:
-some interest in the setting/genre.
-some neat hook for the premise, or just something about it to grab my attention.
-some assurance that it won't suck/be insulting to read.
-decent price point. But this depends on my mood at time of purchase. I've bought many a book that is way too expensive....

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 14, 2024 10:30 AM (Lhaco)

220 195 "Richard Austin "the colonist" left England on a ship called The Bevis..."

???
Posted by: Butthead at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (SYTee)

I couldn't stop giggling at that myself. Bevis was a medieval hero of some sort. I haven't dove too deep into that story yet.
Not really in line with my research, just a boat name.

Posted by: Reforger at January 14, 2024 10:30 AM (dkG8Z)

221 "Sometime refered to as the second Mayflower the Bevis had almost entirely Puritans on board."

That's interesting. I have some Bevis ancestors that supposedly go back to Aurendel. There is a sword at a castle there called "The Bevis Sword".

"His sword, which goes by the name of Morglay is 5 ft 9 in tall and is currently kept in the armoury (or library) of Arundel Castle"

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 10:31 AM (vFG9F)

222 "Antarctica and the Secret Space Program" by David Hatcher Childress is a big box of crazy chocolates. I'm pacing myself. This week I read about how the "UFOs from the Hollow Earth!!" foofaraw was just a cover story for the very real postwar Nazi secret Black Fleet/Air Force made up of their experimental one-offs and u-boats of captains who refused to surrender and escaped to secret bases in Norway, Greenland, the Canary Islands, Argentina, Chile, and of course Antarctica.

The secret sub base in the Canary Islands was the one hinted at in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", and according to one German language article was used to spirit away scientists for Operation Paperclip.

Just learned a new word: Macaronesia, which is comprised of the four volcanic archipelagos of the North Atlantic: the Azores, the Madeiras, the Canaries, and the Cape Verde Islands.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:31 AM (+RQPJ)

223 The right also has to rediscover the language of moral disapproval. Talk about sin, evil, how things are disgusting and stop pretending that there is anything natural in perversion.

I grew up with the whole "go along to get along/live and let live" concept, and it has failed. They couldn't get at me, so they targeted my kids, trying to brainwash them to hate God and will themselves into a different gender and when I even questioned this, I was the bad guy. Unleash the state! Send in the investigators!

Firm moral conviction backed by the language of courage won the day 40 years ago and it will win again.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:31 AM (llXky)

224 The last 5-6, those written with his Son, are not up to par with early Reacher.
++++

Yes and even the second season of Reacher on Prime has fallen into the trap.

And it is not his son but his younger brother who is an author in his own right Andrew Grant.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 10:31 AM (t/2Uw)

225 13 I had written a comment about the progress of "The Rhinemann Exchange," which I am enjoying, but then. ...

Events, dear boy, events.

Or in this case, developments. One paragraph that knocks this plot in a completely different direction. I haven't been this gobsmacked since the last page of issue No. 1 of Thunderbolts.

Those of you who don't catch this reference can think of your own shocker.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 09:06 AM (p/isN)

I do get that reference, which means I should be looking at that book...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 14, 2024 10:32 AM (Lhaco)

226 How to get through to them?
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 14, 2024 10:18 AM (78a2H)

I've essentially written that off. You have to be cognizant of the fact that it's a religion.

Books--

Finished Birth of the Modern by Paul Johnson. Very good, highly recommended. I'm about halfway through his book Intellectuals, which discusses various Great Minds of the last 300 years. So far I've completed:

Rousseau - Patient zero for every feelings-over-facts liberal since then, grifter, liar, abandoned his five children in an orphanage with a survival rate lower than a Russian lumber camp
Percy Shelley - AKA the reason "Nice Guy" is a derogatory term among women
Karl Marx - grifter, liar, plagiarist didn't bathe, shit on actual Workers of the World
Henrik Ibsen - Weirdo Scandi playwright, elitist, probable sociopath
Tolstoy - Self loathing degenerate gambler, serial womanizer
Hemingway - Alcoholic, serial liar, wannabe tough guy, another POS womanizer
Bertolt Brecht - Communist who made sure he kept an Austrian passport and copyrighted his plays in West German because he wasn't about to give up those sweet, sweet royalties
Bertrand Russell - Self appointed Wise Man

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 10:32 AM (H5IZ1)

227 A friend of mine gave me a trove of TSR-era D&D books to sell off, including dungeons and such. Among them was one of the Dragonlance books, Legend of Huma.

I read a stack of them back in the day. What trash.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:32 AM (llXky)

228 Are hot pants really pants?
Posted by: All Hail Eris

Hmmm. I was just thinking that in the summer I almost always wear shorts. Are those considered pants or have I been breaking the rule depending on the season?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 10:34 AM (t/2Uw)

229 Just learned a new word: Macaronesia, which is comprised of the four volcanic archipelagos of the North Atlantic: the Azores, the Madeiras, the Canaries, and the Cape Verde Islands.
Posted by: All Hail Eris

I had macaronesia once. Totally forgot that I had already eaten lunch.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:34 AM (ec9mh)

230 Hmmm..."Legend of Huma" would be a very different book today, no?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (llXky)

231 218 Are hot pants really pants?

Hang on. I'm still looking up "adamantine."

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (NBVIP)

232 @182 - Sharkman.

I'm no authority but I've watched a video by Dr Michael Weis titled What the Early Church Fathers Believed, or really close to that.
There were a number of quotes from the Didache that were attributed to the individuals who wrote them.
Seemed to me that the Didache was simply a compilation of their writings.
If the utube link isn't so long as to blow the margins I'll grab it for you if you'd like.

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (O/WaE)

233 Huh. Queen Margaret of Denmark has abdicated, making her son King. Didn't have that on my 2024 scorecard.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (ynpvh)

234 A master of foreign policy.

Biden Stresses U.S. Doesn’t Support Taiwan Independence

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 10:36 AM (FVME7)

235 Do, what does "Ameche" mean? The internet is stumped

Posted by: Jamaica at January 14, 2024 10:36 AM (Eeb9P)

236 I’ve been following the writers’ group and plan on jumping in and doing that.
Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 14, 2024 10:21 AM (hsWtj)

Good. It's been a little slow there lately.

If anyone else is interested, there's still a link on the sidebar to join.

We accept writers, readers, critiquers, etc. You never know who you'll find there.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:37 AM (Angsy)

237 It's not like we have an inferiority complex or anything.

Posted by: Micronesia at January 14, 2024 10:37 AM (NBVIP)

238 It's not like we have an inferiority complex or anything.
Posted by: Micronesia at January 14, 2024 10:37 AM (NBVIP)

Did she tell you you were a good size?

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 10:37 AM (H5IZ1)

239 "Do, what does "Ameche" mean? The internet is stumped"

Don Ameche starred as Alexander Graham Bell

Posted by: Tuna at January 14, 2024 10:38 AM (oaGWv)

240 "Ameche" is a movie reference.

Posted by: What isn't? at January 14, 2024 10:38 AM (NBVIP)

241 Birth of the Modern is magnificent

Posted by: Jamaica at January 14, 2024 10:38 AM (Eeb9P)

242 "Are hot pants really pants?"

Are assless chaps really chaps? I say yes.

Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 10:38 AM (vFG9F)

243 Is "ameche" possibly a phonetic spelling of "amici," which is Italian for "friend"?

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 10:39 AM (p/isN)

244 235 Do, what does "Ameche" mean? The internet is stumped

Posted by: Jamaica at January 14, 2024 10:36 AM (Eeb9P)

Google Translate says it's Swahili for "Wake up!"...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:39 AM (ynpvh)

245 Are hot pants really pants?
Posted by: All Hail Eris

Well, it says so right in the name.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 14, 2024 10:39 AM (ec9mh)

246 We accept writers, readers, critiquers, etc. You never know who you'll find there.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:37 AM (Angsy)

I wrote 3 sci fi action future history things in 2016-2017. First one got rejected by a couple of places and then work picked up so I put them aside. I should join and see if I can clean them up. They'll never make me money but they might entertain.

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 10:40 AM (H5IZ1)

247 Chaps are both assless and crotchless.

Posted by: Ben Had at January 14, 2024 10:40 AM (POc8X)

248 Tuna, I thought, Don Ameche? But would never have gotten that reference in a thousand years. How old are you people?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 14, 2024 10:40 AM (t/2Uw)

249 I've been reading "Nordic Tales", a collection of folktales from various Scandinavian countries compiled and translated in the mid-1800s. Thoroughly enjoyable and it's interesting to see how some have survived and some forgotten and the tone of the stories versus what they would probably be like today.

I sometimes (often) despair of reviewers on Amazon. Nordic Tales gets great reviews overall. But the one star reviews often complain about the 'awkward' English and how difficult it was to read. No thought that these were translated nearly two hundred years ago and try to retain the Scandi feel of language. These are the same imbeciles who bitch about how difficult it is to read Shakespeare or Chaucer.

Mini-rant off.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:41 AM (zudum)

250 Correction Sharkman -

What the early church fathers believed about the end times is title but what I wrote and Dr Michael Weiss in utube search box will bring it up.
Focus is timing of the rapture in relation to the 70th week of Daniel.

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 10:41 AM (O/WaE)

251 "If the utube link isn't so long as to blow the margins I'll grab it for you if you'd like."

Helpful hint: start at the left end of the link and delete everything including the question mark.

Posted by: The More You Know at January 14, 2024 10:41 AM (NBVIP)

252 How to get through to them?
Posted by: Trimegistus
=====
It'll take something like what Schindler's new book describes.

Posted by: From about that Time at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (4780s)

253 222 "Antarctica and the Secret Space Program" by David Hatcher Childress is a big box of crazy chocolates.
Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:31 AM (+RQPJ)

I just put this on the list for Mr. Dmlw!'s birthday. He's an Ancient Aliens aficionado. At least it's an interest--doesn't hurt to encourage it. Heh.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (OX9vb)

254 Grrr, and the link is long so...

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (O/WaE)

255 Oops. Start at the RIGHT end.

Posted by: The More You Know at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (NBVIP)

256 I read one of Charles Todd's Inspector Rutledge mysteries "The Watchers of Time" and was rather disappointed in it. The constant presence of ghostly side-kick Hamish is just too much, the mystery itself was just too far-fetched, when it was FINALLY gotten around to ... honestly, I think that the author had the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania all mixed up, the motivation for the murder/disappearance was awfully far-fetched ... I don't think I'll read any more Inspector Rutledge ... I'll go back to my collection of Robert Barnard mysteries, which are much, much better constructed.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (xnmPy)

257 249
...
These are the same imbeciles who bitch about how difficult it is to read Shakespeare or Chaucer.
...
Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:41 AM (zudum)

::: King James Version has entered the chat :::

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (ynpvh)

258 255 Oops. Start at the RIGHT end.

Posted by: The More You Know at January 14, 2024 10:42 AM (NBVIP)

The correct end is the right end?

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:43 AM (ynpvh)

259 "The Legend of Huma and her Weiner"
By H.R. Clinton

Posted by: p0indexterous at January 14, 2024 10:45 AM (QBwMV)

260 To defeat the left, we have to reconnect with the foundations of natural law, actual morality and say that "liberty be damned, you can't do it because IT IS WRONG!"
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:27 AM (llXky)

That way could lead to Ahnuld's "F your freedoms," though. You need to have both together.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:46 AM (Angsy)

261 Last thing I read: "Oxygen and Medical Equipment Care Manual"...short read, but very important. Lots of cleaning needed on a regular schedule...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:46 AM (ynpvh)

262 259 "The Legend of Huma and her Weiner"
By H.R. Clinton

Posted by: p0indexterous at January 14, 2024 10:45 AM (QBwMV)

Any suicides in that one?

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:46 AM (ynpvh)

263 Hot Chaps, dude.

Posted by: The Duke of Ted at January 14, 2024 10:47 AM (82rfG)

264 260 To defeat the left, we have to reconnect with the foundations of natural law, actual morality and say that "liberty be damned, you can't do it because IT IS WRONG!"
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:27 AM (llXky)

That way could lead to Ahnuld's "F your freedoms," though. You need to have both together.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:46 AM (Angsy)

When a majority of yuts thing shoplifting is A-Okay if it's a big chain store, we no longer have the morality for a Constitutional Republic.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:47 AM (ynpvh)

265 Mornin' Horde.

University of Wyoming also has a miniature book collection: http://tinyurl.com/nrb4wbtj

Sorry to report I didn't get to catalog any of it.

Posted by: screaming in digital at January 14, 2024 10:49 AM (CL9FV)

266 141 ... "The History of Middle-Earth books by Christopher Tolkien is some 'heavy' reading, but interesting for Tolkien enthusiast like me. I find the earlier versions of his stories fascinating."

Absolutely agree. In a similar way I enjoy "Tales From the Perilous Realm" which includes a number of non-LOTR Tolkien stories and poems. It includes background on how and when these charming stories were written. Several started out as playful tales for his young children that were rewritten into their final forms, sometimes decades later.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:49 AM (zudum)

267 Huh. Queen Margaret of Denmark has abdicated, making her son King. Didn't have that on my 2024 scorecard.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (ynpvh)
---
Talk about your slow news day.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:49 AM (llXky)

268 Are hot pants really pants?"
_________

Shants. Not shorts, not pants.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 14, 2024 10:49 AM (Dm8we)

269 Thanks for the Sunday Morning Book Thread, Perfesser!

The thread is one of my Sunday guilty pleasures. Always interested to see what folks are reading.

I can totally identify with feeling the need to have the next book "on deck" when I am getting close to finishing the book I am currently reading. Sudoku puzzles can only tide me over for a short time!

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at January 14, 2024 10:50 AM (a8Rgt)

270 I'll try this again.
To shorten a YouTube link, starting at the RIGHT end of the link use the backspace to delete everything including the question mark.

Posted by: The More You Know at January 14, 2024 10:50 AM (NBVIP)

271 This week I finished read "The Taking" by Dean Koontz. I bought a pb copy for 53 cents from a thrift store so I'd have something to read while waiting for my tire repair.

It was missing the last chapters, so I waited on a library loan.

A decent book, although a bit philosophically retreaded for Koontz readers. I think the ending was a bit too neat, but I liked the protagonist's closure.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at January 14, 2024 10:50 AM (zIvMl)

272 Before I forget --

Late in last week's thread, Katja (I think) posted a link to a piece re: culling one's personal library. Link went to a blog entry at

www.millersbookreview.com

Some nice stuff there. It ain't the Sunday Morning Book Thread (what is?) but worth a look.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 10:50 AM (a/4+U)

273 NY Times, yes that rag, has these two amusing articles - check the dates:

http://tinyurl.com/2zw53cr6

Posted by: Ciampino - Children in England won't see snow again at January 14, 2024 10:51 AM (qfLjt)

274 3. She's vulgar. 'Fuck,' 'shit,' 'cock' and other nasty words are sprinkled liberally throughout the pages. I know she thinks she's coming across as hip and fun, turning dryasdust Rome into an interesting read, but it comes across as nasty and irritating.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at January 14, 2024 09:48 AM (Q0kLU)

Maybe I'm just a prude, but I see no reason to ever swear in a non-fiction book. When you're writing dialogue in fiction, I understand (even if I don't like it when it goes overboard) but in non-fiction? Yeah, I think I'd find that 'nasty and irritating' too. And maybe insulting,...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 14, 2024 10:51 AM (Lhaco)

275 267 Huh. Queen Margaret of Denmark has abdicated, making her son King. Didn't have that on my 2024 scorecard.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (ynpvh)
---
Talk about your slow news day.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:49 AM (llXky)

Well, Taiwan gave China a big "FU" in their elections on Saturday...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:51 AM (ynpvh)

276 These are the same imbeciles who bitch about how difficult it is to read Shakespeare or Chaucer.
...
Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:41 AM (zudum)

::: King James Version has entered the chat :::
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)

The Book of Matthew is fairly straight forward with reasonably simple language and I find it fairly easy to read in Latin. Now John, on the other hand . . .

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 10:52 AM (FVME7)

277 Has anyone here ever read the books by Caroline Graham on which Midsomer Murders was based?

Posted by: Northernlurker at January 14, 2024 10:52 AM (NvyWM)

278 Percy Shelley - AKA the reason "Nice Guy" is a derogatory term among women

Well, with a name like Percy....

Henrik Ibsen - Weirdo Scandi playwright, elitist, probable sociopath

I always liked his poems. Holding a flower was a nice touch.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:52 AM (Angsy)

279 That way could lead to Ahnuld's "F your freedoms," though. You need to have both together.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:46 AM (Angsy)
---
No. Freedom as classically understood was the freedom from coercion. Thus, freedom from confiscatory taxes, or having troops quartered in your home. So freedom from crushing mandates.

The left turned this into freedom to DO things, like parade naked in the street, or put pornography in school.

In the process, they also destroyed the earlier meaning of freedom, because unless you mask up, I can't feel safe. My freedom to feel safe supersedes your freedom to not wear a nasty cloth on your face or get poison placed in your veins.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:52 AM (llXky)

280 270 I'll try this again.
To shorten a YouTube link, starting at the RIGHT end of the link use the backspace to delete everything including the question mark.

Posted by: The More You Know at January 14, 2024 10:50 AM (NBVIP)

I hover over the link and with my mouse highlight from left to the questionmark and then copy (ctrl-C). Then again some people say I'm weird...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:53 AM (ynpvh)

281 Reply to #277 - I have read Caroline Graham's Midsomer series. They're pretty good - or at least, I liked them.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 14, 2024 10:54 AM (xnmPy)

282 Well, Taiwan gave China a big "FU" in their elections on Saturday...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:51 AM (ynpvh)
---
Funny how things speed up and slow down. When I was working on Walls of Men, I was afraid we'd be at war with China before it could be published. Well, that was a year ago, so I guess I was overreacting. Indeed, panics like that are why I stopped following the news.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:54 AM (llXky)

283 Are hot pants really pants?
Posted by: All Hail Eris

Just barely. It's interesting to me how, during the 70's I was all for them and, after a time, barely even noticed them. Now that my granddaughters and young women in my circle wear the equivalent, they are tawdry and indecent.

It's funny what a few years will do to one's morality.

Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 10:54 AM (IaTa3)

284 273 NY Times, yes that rag, has these two amusing articles - check the dates:

http://tinyurl.com/2zw53cr6

Posted by: Ciampino - Children in England won't see snow again at January 14, 2024 10:51 AM (qfLjt)

That's okay. According to some folks from about 20-30 years ago, we no longer have any glaciers.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:54 AM (ynpvh)

285 276 These are the same imbeciles who bitch about how difficult it is to read Shakespeare or Chaucer.
...
Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 10:41 AM (zudum)

::: King James Version has entered the chat :::
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)

The Book of Matthew is fairly straight forward with reasonably simple language and I find it fairly easy to read in Latin. Now John, on the other hand . . .

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 10:52 AM (FVME7)

Like yuts today read Latin...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:55 AM (ynpvh)

286 Huh. Queen Margaret of Denmark has abdicated, making her son King. Didn't have that on my 2024 scorecard.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (ynpvh)

See! Even she knows the Queen for the job is a King!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:55 AM (Angsy)

287 When a majority of yuts thing shoplifting is A-Okay if it's a big chain store, we no longer have the morality for a Constitutional Republic.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)

Just yesterday had a conversation with Grandma, trying to talk me out of a reasonable, measured, calmly determined punishment for my teen daughter's (rare, mild) misbehavior.

Followed two hours later by Grandma ranting on how shoplifters do what they do because there are no consequences for their misbehavior.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (xHAJg)

288 As I've mentioned (yeah, I won't be able to shut up about it) I'm traveling to England this summer on an Inklings literary tour. I've started on a pre-trip reading list.

At the moment I'm reading Till We Have Faces.

I've read a fair bit of Lewis,* but very deficient in Tolkien except for reading LOTR only once, about the time the Peter Jackson movies came out. Ashamed to admit it here, but I've never read The Hobbit. That's next on my list.

*For those who've lost a spouse... I highly recommend A Grief Observed

Posted by: screaming in digital at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (CL9FV)

289 And let us not forget the switch of freedom OF religion to freedom FROM religion. You can worship, just don't do it in public, don't refer to it, don't quote from it, and above all, don't expect any deference to your beliefs whatsoever. You can believe whatever you want, so long as you obey the state.

And there is definite demonic energy in the endless efforts to sue Catholic hospitals and make them perform abortions.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (llXky)

290 277 - Haven't read the Caroline Grahams myself, but Mrs Some Guy has read them and liked them a lot.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (a/4+U)

291 My middle name was "Bysshe."

Posted by: Ahem at January 14, 2024 10:57 AM (NBVIP)

292 282 Well, Taiwan gave China a big "FU" in their elections on Saturday...

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:51 AM (ynpvh)
---
Funny how things speed up and slow down. When I was working on Walls of Men, I was afraid we'd be at war with China before it could be published. Well, that was a year ago, so I guess I was overreacting. Indeed, panics like that are why I stopped following the news.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:54 AM (llXky)

Then again we are living in interesting times and have come to the attention of this regime.
2 out of 3 chinese curses ain't bad.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:57 AM (ynpvh)

293 When a majority of yuts thing shoplifting is A-Okay if it's a big chain store, we no longer have the morality for a Constitutional Republic.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)

California Stores Now Locking Up Underwear Due to Theft
-
J Crew the Latest Retailer to Pull Stores From San Francisco
-
Washington Wizards Ryan Rollins Charged With Larceny After Allegedly Stealing From Target, Cut From Team

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 10:57 AM (FVME7)

294 I'll try this again.
To shorten a YouTube link, starting at the RIGHT end of the link use the backspace to delete everything including the question mark.
Posted by: The More You Know

Or, just email me the link and I'll put it in tinyurl for you. I'm using the laptop, so easy peasy.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 10:58 AM (OX9vb)

295 "His sword, which goes by the name of Morglay is 5 ft 9 in tall and is currently kept in the armoury (or library) of Arundel Castle"
Posted by: fd at January 14, 2024 10:31 AM (vFG9F)

That castle is beyond awesome. There is a YT vid of a tour inside that I've watched probably 20 times.
If I ever (probably won't happen) get back across the pond I intend to tour it and Canturbury. Which also, coincidentally, has an Austin Friary outside of it.
Outside The Queen's Gate. Queen in question, I think, being Joan of Kent. She had a soft spot for some reason for the Austin Friars.
I think because that's where her first born kid was. Being taken and handed over to the monks due to consaquinuity.
If true. The Princes in the Tower were not the last of the Plantagenent line.

Posted by: Reforger at January 14, 2024 10:58 AM (oquV0)

296 And let us not forget the switch of freedom OF religion to freedom FROM religion. You can worship, just don't do it in public, don't refer to it, don't quote from it, and above all, don't expect any deference to your beliefs whatsoever. You can believe whatever you want, so long as you obey the state.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (llXky)

Unless you're a Muslim.

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 10:59 AM (H5IZ1)

297 You will not be disappointed, Dash! Like all great conspiracy "literature", the more you read the more plausible it seems. Especially in 2024.

Maybe it's just the mind control beams the Space Nazis are transmitting from their secret base on the moon.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:59 AM (+RQPJ)

298 *I hover over the link and with my mouse highlight from left to the questionmark*

What is this "mouse" of which you speak?

Posted by: 'cuz I'm on my phone at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (NBVIP)

299 287 When a majority of yuts thing shoplifting is A-Okay if it's a big chain store, we no longer have the morality for a Constitutional Republic.
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)

Just yesterday had a conversation with Grandma, trying to talk me out of a reasonable, measured, calmly determined punishment for my teen daughter's (rare, mild) misbehavior.

Followed two hours later by Grandma ranting on how shoplifters do what they do because there are no consequences for their misbehavior.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (xHAJg)

There have to be consequences for bad behavior, otherwise you get more of it. I guess Grandma has forgotten what measures she took with her kids?

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (ynpvh)

300 I have been reading "Cutting For Stone," by Abraham Verghese for a while. It wonderfully written, but the characters are hit and miss. Some are described well, with real depth, but others seem like caricatures. And the book veers into reportage, which is okay because the topics are fascinating, but still...

Anyway, I finished it a few days ago and I think I can recommend it as an excellent read with some frustrating flaws.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (EXR5U)

301 264 260 To defeat the left, we have to reconnect with the foundations of natural law, actual morality and say that "liberty be damned, you can't do it because IT IS WRONG!"
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:27 AM (llXky)

That way could lead to Ahnuld's "F your freedoms," though. You need to have both together.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 10:46 AM (Angsy)

When a majority of yuts thing shoplifting is A-Okay if it's a big chain store, we no longer have the morality for a Constitutional Republic.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:47 AM (ynpvh)
----
I'm old fashioned. Before we can make a moral argument and win those yutes over, a few have to be shot while looting a store. First comes fear (so it doesn't happen again) then we can teach morality to a NEW generation.
BTW this group looting is a new phenomenon partially fueled by bad DAs - if you steal less than $950 you get off scot-free - because in older days someone would have been shot.

Posted by: Ciampino - looting or plundering? at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (qfLjt)

302 I wrote 3 sci fi action future history things in 2016-2017. First one got rejected by a couple of places and then work picked up so I put them aside. I should join and see if I can clean them up. They'll never make me money but they might entertain.
Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 10:40 AM (H5IZ1)

Click on link in sidebar, I'll send you an e-mail with instructions to join.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 11:01 AM (Angsy)

303 289 And let us not forget the switch of freedom OF religion to freedom FROM religion. You can worship, just don't do it in public, don't refer to it, don't quote from it, and above all, don't expect any deference to your beliefs whatsoever. You can believe whatever you want, so long as you obey the state.

And there is definite demonic energy in the endless efforts to sue Catholic hospitals and make them perform abortions.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:56 AM (llXky)

Which, of course violates Freedom of Speech. Just because I'm talking doesn't mean you have to listen, but at the same time doesn't give you the ~~right~~ power to shut me up.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:01 AM (ynpvh)

304 "...human beings, alone of all creatures on earth, have the ability to look at black and white squiggles on a piece of paper and then create remarkable visions in their heads based solely on what they see on that page."

Reading is a miracle from God. How else would man be able to read and enjoy the Bible? It's all part of His divine plan and I thank God for the miracle of reading!

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at January 14, 2024 11:01 AM (a8Rgt)

305 There have to be consequences for bad behavior, otherwise you get more of it.

-
Just look at the Democrats.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 11:02 AM (FVME7)

306 Maybe it's just the mind control beams the Space Nazis are transmitting from their secret base on the moon.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:59 AM (+RQPJ)
---
Focault's Pendulum is the ne plus ultra of conspiracy stories.

You'll never look at the Templars the same way again.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:02 AM (llXky)

307 I'm old fashioned. Before we can make a moral argument and win those yutes over, a few have to be shot while looting a store. First comes fear (so it doesn't happen again) then we can teach morality to a NEW generation.
BTW this group looting is a new phenomenon partially fueled by bad DAs - if you steal less than $950 you get off scot-free - because in older days someone would have been shot.
Posted by: Ciampino - looting or plundering? at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (qfLjt)

You cannot maintain order or law in a consequence free environment. Simple as. if there is no pushback on people doing whatever they want, a large percentage of them will, in fact, do whatever the hell they want.

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 11:02 AM (H5IZ1)

308 298 *I hover over the link and with my mouse highlight from left to the questionmark*

What is this "mouse" of which you speak?

Posted by: 'cuz I'm on my phone at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (NBVIP)

Those critters making a mess in my garage. Somehow, if you plug their tails into the USB port on your computer, it makes moving the cursor on the computer screen easier.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:03 AM (ynpvh)

309 MP4, Thanks for the three book warnings. It will save me some time. Two words that make me sick these days: 'hip' and 'trendy'. Bad enough in fiction but inexcusable in nonfiction.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 11:03 AM (zudum)

310 Thanks to a moron recommendation I put a hold on Red Harvest by Dashiel Hammet. When I picked it up the two librarians were so excited that I had placed a hold on it. "It's so nice to see you read a real classic" and "I can't believe you're reading Dashiel Hammet!" were tossed around the counter. They were like a couple of hens with newly hatched chicks.
To say that hey were dissapointed when they saw my blank stare of ignorance would be quite an understatement. I haven't opened the book and I can't remember the exact recommendation so I'm still clueless about what's in store for me.
Posted by: p0indexterous at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (QBwMV)

When you do read it, let us know what you thought. Because you......may find the story...familiar....

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 14, 2024 11:03 AM (Lhaco)

311 *Indeed, panics like that are why I stopped following the news.*

Amen. Heartily agree.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at January 14, 2024 11:03 AM (NBVIP)

312 OrangeEnt - Received, will do.

Work to do. Stay warm, all.

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 11:04 AM (H5IZ1)

313 . I guess Grandma has forgotten what measures she took with her kids?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (ynpvh)

She might have forgotten but my backside remembers the belt 50 years later.

Though I am only 29 of course.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 11:04 AM (xHAJg)

314 301
...
----
I'm old fashioned. Before we can make a moral argument and win those yutes over, a few have to be shot while looting a store. First comes fear (so it doesn't happen again) then we can teach morality to a NEW generation.
BTW this group looting is a new phenomenon partially fueled by bad DAs - if you steal less than $950 you get off scot-free - because in older days someone would have been shot.

Posted by: Ciampino - looting or plundering? at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (qfLjt)

I think it's the Soros DAs that need to be shot first, then replaced with REAL DAs, then what you mention above.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:04 AM (ynpvh)

315 Good morning, SiD!

I read Till We Have Faces waaay back when I was in high school. I should read that again, now that I have a few decades of worldly experience under my belt. I don't remember my interpretation of it then, but I'll bet I'd get more out of it now.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 11:05 AM (OX9vb)

316 While I appreciate the tips on shortening links, I'll try this again...
I'm on a phone that won't allow me to do any of that.
Unless maybe I copy the entire link here and then backspace it all through the ? before posting.
Is that it?

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:06 AM (O/WaE)

317 277 ... "Has anyone here ever read the books by Caroline Graham on which Midsomer Murders was based?"

I've read a few. They are generally a bit tougher than the show, especially concerning sexual matters, but not too much. I enjoy the shows more.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 11:07 AM (zudum)

318 313 . I guess Grandma has forgotten what measures she took with her kids?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:00 AM (ynpvh)

She might have forgotten but my backside remembers the belt 50 years later.

Though I am only 29 of course.

Posted by: Candidus at January 14, 2024 11:04 AM (xHAJg)

At one point, one of my brothers tried to intervene with a punishment my mother was giving my sister. She told him,
"She's my child, I'll punish her how I see fit. When you have children, you can punish them how you see fit."
Fast-forward a decade, and that brother had two daughters that were fighting. He went to punish them, and Mom says,
"Oh, don't spank them."
Brother's response?
"These are my kids, I'll punish them as I see fit. You have no say in this."
LOL. Turnabout is fair play.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:08 AM (ynpvh)

319 Are hot pants really pants?
Posted by: All Hail Eris

Just barely. It's interesting to me how, during the 70's I was all for them and, after a time, barely even noticed them. Now that my granddaughters and young women in my circle wear the equivalent, they are tawdry and indecent.

It's funny what a few years will do to one's morality.
Posted by: Tonypete at January 14, 2024 10:54 AM (IaTa3)

Eh, well you know the thoughts that hot pants inspire in young men, and...

the thoughts that young women are hoping to inspire in young men, so

you seen this circus before.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 14, 2024 11:11 AM (nFnyb)

320 Re: looters need to be shot.

Definitely. But at some point the notion that "But lives are more important than mere property" will have to be dealt with. Think it was Heinlein who once said that the man who won't respect your property rights won't respect your right to live either, and such a person should be removed as quickly and efficiently as possible. How to get across the idea that people's lives depend on property rights not being interfered with.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:11 AM (a/4+U)

321 Apparently there's a documentary called "Umberto Eco: A Library of the World", in which we get a tour of his collection.

I need to dig this up.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 11:12 AM (+RQPJ)

322 320 Re: looters need to be shot.

Definitely. But at some point the notion that "But lives are more important than mere property" will have to be dealt with. Think it was Heinlein who once said that the man who won't respect your property rights won't respect your right to live either, and such a person should be removed as quickly and efficiently as possible. How to get across the idea that people's lives depend on property rights not being interfered with.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:11 AM (a/4+U)

Simple; looters value their lives LESS that the stuff they try to steal when they can be shot dead for stealing. It's not your fault they value their lives so little.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:13 AM (ynpvh)

323 Good day to reread some Dick Francis

Posted by: Ben Had at January 14, 2024 11:14 AM (POc8X)

324 As far as recommendations go, it depends on who is making the recommendation and the type of book. One recommendation from a trusted source may be enough. I have many, many books on my "to read" list, mostly based on recommendations.

As I grow older, I've come to realize that life is too short to read garbage. Also, I've had it to the gills with all the woke poison that so much of our entertainment is infused with, either subtly or, lately, more brazenly. I read for enjoyment, not to be lectured or brainwashed.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at January 14, 2024 11:14 AM (CPYpr)

325 Unless maybe I copy the entire link here and then backspace it all through the ? before posting.
Is that it?
Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:06 AM (O/WaE)

That's how I do it, and I use a real computer.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 14, 2024 11:14 AM (tkR6S)

326 196 My first thought on reading comments on Schlicter's book is that he's got it backwards.
Infrastructure would be first. Especially communications, to keep first responder types, and us civies, from coordinating.
Haven't really mulled it over yet though.
Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 10:19 AM (O/WaE)

They live for blood and body counts. Infrastructure doesn't satisfy either. They'll get to it but they want bodies first.

Posted by: Ordinary American at January 14, 2024 11:15 AM (UseAb)

327
Which, of course violates Freedom of Speech. Just because I'm talking doesn't mean you have to listen, but at the same time doesn't give you the right power to shut me up.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:01 AM (ynpvh)
---
But free speech now includes the freedom to libel, slander, and spread pornography, none of which was included in its original definition.

Without some kind of moral framework, freedom becomes a different form of tyranny.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:15 AM (llXky)

328 I do Tinyurl.com from phone almost daily, or a YouTube link as it is, they are often short anyway

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 11:16 AM (gX32c)

329 Definitely. But at some point the notion that "But lives are more important than mere property" will have to be dealt with.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:11 AM (a/4+U)

Yeah, because someone looting Walmart is doing it to pay for medical school so he can cure cancer, right? (not directed at you, of course).

America has done two things: Reduced the minimum skill level required to survive to basically zero, and largely removed consequences for destructive actions. The result has been that certain classes have simultaneously developed both a totally unearned sense of entitlement and seething resentment against those who are higher on the social strata than they are (which is everyone). The only question that now remains is how long the system that enables this will continue to function.

And now, I really do have to get to work.

Posted by: Vanya at January 14, 2024 11:17 AM (H5IZ1)

330 288 ... "As I've mentioned (yeah, I won't be able to shut up about it) I'm traveling to England this summer on an Inklings literary tour. I've started on a pre-trip reading list."

I'm not much of a traveler but that Inklings tour would tempt even me. Please keep us apprised as your reading list develops and details, LOTS of details, when you go on the tour.

I've been reading Tolkien for the better part of sixty years. I wish my background with Lewis was as extensive. I don't expect to ever plumb the profound depths of their writings since they improve and become more impressive as I get older and more knowledgeable.

Posted by: JTB at January 14, 2024 11:18 AM (zudum)

331 327
Which, of course violates Freedom of Speech. Just because I'm talking doesn't mean you have to listen, but at the same time doesn't give you the right power to shut me up.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:01 AM (ynpvh)
---
But free speech now includes the freedom to libel, slander, and spread pornography, none of which was included in its original definition.

Without some kind of moral framework, freedom becomes a different form of tyranny.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:15 AM (llXky)

defamation leads to being sued, where the accused defamer has to prove his/her allegations. Now, the laws have been tweaked so that some organizations (MSM) are almost entirely immune to defamation (which is wrong), but nonetheless it's there. Same for the other things. You have freedom to speak, but you are also accountable for the veracity of it. Current laws also make it illegal to distribute pornography to little kids (I guess the court knew what porno was when they saw it...)

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:20 AM (ynpvh)

332 I currently have a bookmark strategically placed in Hawking's A Brief History Of Time

from time to time my mind gets bent reading this book, and I have to stop for a while to let it return to its regular shape

Posted by: Don Black at January 14, 2024 11:21 AM (geLO8)

333 Welp, time to check up on the wife. Have a good Sunday.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 11:21 AM (ynpvh)

334 Started and finished Animal Farm. "...but some animals are more equal than others" Animal Farm has been required reading in high schools and colleges for years but no one seems to have earned anything from it.

Posted by: who knew at January 14, 2024 11:22 AM (4I7VG)

335 "not your fault they value their lives so little."

True. But somehow the discussion will inevitably turn to the property owner valuing his property more than he values the life of the looter, whose agency in the act of looting will be denied (he's a helpless victim of society just trying to survive capitalist brutality, after all). I doubt it'll turn around until a big majority of people are willing to say that a looter's life is worthless.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:24 AM (a/4+U)

336 I am thinking of reading my copy of Animal Farm returned to me from the 1980s.
It is a training manual used by Leftists after all

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 11:24 AM (gX32c)

337 Started and finished Animal Farm. "...but some animals are more equal than others" Animal Farm has been required reading in high schools and colleges for years but no one seems to have earned anything from it.

Posted by: who knew at January 14, 2024 11:22 AM (4I7VG)
---
It's a nice simplification of "who, whom."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:25 AM (llXky)

338 I read Till We Have Faces waaay back when I was in high school. I should read that again, now that I have a few decades of worldly experience under my belt. I don't remember my interpretation of it then, but I'll bet I'd get more out of it now.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!
---
Dash! These days I usually take forever to get through anything because I don't have much time to read (and I spend too much time reading the HQ instead of books), but I'm really absorbed in it.

As it happens, I'm also reading the book of Job (chronological read-the-Bible-in-a-year plan).

Posted by: screaming in digital at January 14, 2024 11:26 AM (CL9FV)

339 I'll give it a shot AOP.
But me? Pay for internet? When I moved here 16 years ago, cable plus internet was over $100 per/mo. Had a computer then but no way. Computer has since died.
Besides, saving those $ over time allowed for the purchase of a very nice Taylor accoustic.

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:26 AM (O/WaE)

340 In the process, they also destroyed the earlier meaning of freedom, because unless you mask up, I can't feel safe. My freedom to feel safe supersedes your freedom to not wear a nasty cloth on your face or get poison placed in your veins.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 10:52 AM (llXky)

Well, your op used "liberty," you can't throw away liberty. License is what the leftists mean. You can't have licentiousness with a moral people. But the left turns any word into what they want it to mean. And the GOPe goes along with it. At least, John Adams understood. How can we get it back, without harsh words concerning evil and evildoers? No euphemisms for perverts is a start.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 11:27 AM (Angsy)

341 True. But somehow the discussion will inevitably turn to the property owner valuing his property more than he values the life of the looter, whose agency in the act of looting will be denied (he's a helpless victim of society just trying to survive capitalist brutality, after all). I doubt it'll turn around until a big majority of people are willing to say that a looter's life is worthless.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:24 AM (a/4+U)
---
Theft is a crime because you are stealing someone's life-effort, which is why people who want it decriminalized don't expect that will effect *their stuff.*

Also, none of these changes were made by a vote, they were unilaterally imposed by prosecutors in single-party areas, so rigging the primary decided the general.

That lets you know just how popular all this stuff is. That's how the left has always worked: impose unpopular policy by fiat, then declare the matter decided and closed.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:28 AM (llXky)

342 Day 3 are attacks on infrastructure. Refineries, power grid, communications.

Posted by: Mr Gaga

On Day 4, 30 million well-armed rednecks kill every single Muslim in America, and then start killing every Democrat politician they can find. And secure the border. And Biden audibly shits his pants during an Oval Office address to combat the anti-islamic backlash.

Posted by: Sharkman at January 14, 2024 11:29 AM (/RHNq)

343 Here goes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch

What the early church fathers believed about the end times

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:30 AM (O/WaE)

344 How can we get it back, without harsh words concerning evil and evildoers? No euphemisms for perverts is a start.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 11:27 AM (Angsy)
---
Absolutely use the language of morality and evil, that's what the left does. They've been very successful, too. Rather than be called a hater, Christian pastors abolished their denominations! Look at the Archbishop of Canterbury, excommunited by the Global Anglican Communion. He would rather be considered "tolerant" than actually adhere to the laws of his own faith.

So the first step is yes, accept that the Spirit of the Age hates you, always has, and always will.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:31 AM (llXky)

345 Might want to let me try that before you do folks.

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:31 AM (O/WaE)

346 1984 is the dystopia that is actually happening right before our eyes. it is scary how specifically prophetic it is. The Left have absolutely no self awarness.

Posted by: Titanium White at January 14, 2024 11:33 AM (MNhXM)

347 I'm not much of a traveler but that Inklings tour would tempt even me. Please keep us apprised as your reading list develops and details, LOTS of details, when you go on the tour.

I've been reading Tolkien for the better part of sixty years. I wish my background with Lewis was as extensive. I don't expect to ever plumb the profound depths of their writings since they improve and become more impressive as I get older and more knowledgeable.
Posted by: JTB
---
Will do, and please feel free to email me if you are interested. When I signed up there were only 3 slots left on this year's trip, but it's an annual thing.

Posted by: screaming in digital at January 14, 2024 11:34 AM (CL9FV)

348 Didn't work. Pasted into you tube main page and it just brought up the main page again.
Besides, how stinking hard is it to type a line into y-tube search box anyway?

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:34 AM (O/WaE)

349 By the way, this is how we know that none of the Communists/Marxists/etc. actually believe in it, because it's selectively applied. "Eat the Rich! (but not me)"

Free criminals! (Attack my house and you get life in prison)

It's a heresy rooted in Yard Sign Calvinism, where the Elect can do as they want because their salvation is assured. (Thomas Sowell called them The Anointed, same diff.)

There is also a clear line from the Puritans to the Progressives, who may give lip service to democracy, but want it hedged by the Elect who alone understand what is good for everyone else. They can also do whatever they want because they're the Elect. I'm reminded of Karl Barth concluding that adultery for *him* was okay because he was doing such important Christian work and God understood that he needed his mistress to be living with him and his family.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:35 AM (llXky)

350 osted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:35 AM (llX. ky)

and someone should have told him he was nothing but a modern day Pharisee that Jesus warned us about.

Again, no self awareness.

Posted by: Titanium White at January 14, 2024 11:39 AM (MNhXM)

351 Will zoll offers a whole lot of rabbit trails gojng back to hapsburg influence

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 14, 2024 11:39 AM (PXvVL)

352 Didn't get a lot of reading done last week. I'm still working on Tey's Daughter of Time. I'm enjoying it and don't want to rush through it.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at January 14, 2024 11:40 AM (rfDRL)

353 Well, reality intrudes...

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:41 AM (a/4+U)

354 Is it this one, Teej?

http://tinyurl.com/yc6wx2kw

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 14, 2024 11:41 AM (OX9vb)

355 Regarding Tolkien compilation books, I just finished The Fall of Numenore.

If you have not built up a decent library with Unfinished Tales and some of the other History of Middle Earth books, it will seem fresh and new to you. Even if you have much of the material, it is nice to have it all in one place, arranged sequentially so that one can see both the tale and its evolution.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:41 AM (llXky)

356 and someone should have told him he was nothing but a modern day Pharisee that Jesus warned us about.

Again, no self awareness.

Posted by: Titanium White at January 14, 2024 11:39 AM (MNhXM)
---
And yet he was until recently considered the greatest Reform theologian of the 20th Century because the adultery was kept secret by his peers.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:42 AM (llXky)

357 Finished Sabrina Chases’ latest in the Red Wolf series: RedWolf: Scout (part 1) and really enjoyed it. So much so that I’ll probably get the eARC of the whole book to gnaw on while I’m hunkering down from all the Global Warming in the Midwest.

She writes small unit/commando tactics well for a civilian (afaik) and makes her protagonist tough and resourceful without crossing the line into Mary Sue Action Hero.

She’s also a fellow moron, so go support her!

Posted by: Phat at January 14, 2024 11:43 AM (Azq47)

358 I'm still working on Tey's Daughter of Time. I'm enjoying it and don't want to rush through it.
Posted by: KatieFloyd
---
I just finished that! I really liked it. Sort of a departure from my usual fare, but that can be a good thing.

Posted by: screaming in digital at January 14, 2024 11:43 AM (CL9FV)

359 True. But somehow the discussion will inevitably turn to the property owner valuing his property more than he values the life of the looter, whose agency in the act of looting will be denied (he's a helpless victim of society just trying to survive capitalist brutality, after all). I doubt it'll turn around until a big majority of people are willing to say that a looter's life is worthless.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 14, 2024 11:24 AM (a/4+U)

If a hoodlum gets shot by a victim of the attempted crime, you always see "Justice for blank" being bandied about.

The victim should stand up in court and say, "Blank got his justice. The wages of sin is death. He knows what he was doing is wrong, therefore he got paid out. Justice has been done." Wonder if anyone would ever try it?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 11:46 AM (Angsy)

360 I'm in two minds about reading much more than the sample of Kurt Schlicter's latest. (And dystopic 'fall of America' fiction generally.) Just too likely a grim future - because I can see something like an October 7th terrorist mass attack happening too readily, given how many illegal aliens are now scattered all over the US.
It's too depressing a prospect.
I did notice one thing, in reading the sample - it's supposed to be a collection of narratives from many different people, and yet, they all sounded the same. They had the same 'voice'. Generally, in reading genuine oral history compilations, you get a sense of an individual's very differing background, education, experience, etc. That didn't come through to me in the sample - they all sounded alike.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 14, 2024 11:47 AM (xnmPy)

361 I'm finishing the third of a three book series of The Republic of Texas.Navy by Brock. If Mr Brock isn't a moron, he should be. An alternate history set in the early days of WW 2. Well written, funny in spots, and definitely a good way to spend a frozen day indoors with your feet up and some hot chocolate.

Posted by: Diogenes at January 14, 2024 11:48 AM (W/lyH)

362 Dash! These days I usually take forever to get through anything because I don't have much time to read (and I spend too much time reading the HQ instead of books), but I'm really absorbed in it.

Posted by: screaming in digital at January 14, 2024 11:26 AM (CL9FV)

Looks at greasy, finger marked keyboard.

You ain't the only one.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 11:48 AM (Angsy)

363 @354 - That's it Dash! Thank you so much!!
Now to put phone on the charger and fix breakfast.

Posted by: Teej at January 14, 2024 11:49 AM (O/WaE)

364 Re: Caroline Graham: I agree with whoever said the books are tougher than the shows.

It was said that her neighbors considered her eccentric. She was outraged. She said, "I have a neighbor who wears one of her dogs on her head instead of an umbrella when it rains. THAT's eccentric."

Posted by: Wenda at January 14, 2024 11:51 AM (ApuU/)

365 If a hoodlum gets shot by a victim of the attempted crime, you always see "Justice for blank" being bandied about.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 11:46 AM (Angsy)
---
I think a key factor in the latest madness was that crime had fallen so far for so long, that people assumed it was the natural state of things.

I saw this up close in my liberal college town. The school police officer was kicked off campus, a citizen commission was imposed on the department because of events elsewhere. Guess what? Cops quit or retired, and the high school was overrun with gangs. The superintendent insisted that cops on campus were super-bad, and got deposed because Karen was not happy about guns in school.

A bunch of kids got expelled, others suspended, and order was finally restored, but it literally took parents pulling their kids out in protest before anyone was willing to address it. They initially described the violence as "known groups of male students who had disagreements with each other." Yeah, gangs.

So I think the tide is turning. Even flatworms flinch from pain.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 11:52 AM (llXky)

366 Today could be your lucky day!

Joe Biden
@JoeBiden
Hey, big head.
If you order a sign from our campaign store, you could receive one signed by me.
Get yours today: http://joe.link/yardsign

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2024 at January 14, 2024 11:57 AM (FVME7)

367 mrs. peel--

You mentioned a book about the princes in the tower. There are two non-fiction books that I have read, one of which I would recommend and one which I would not.

I read Alison Weir's book a few years ago and remember liking but don't remember many specifics.

I recently read--although I couldn't bring myself to finish--Philippa Gregory book which was highly disappointing. I enjoyed her book about the search for Richard III's grave. If you've read that, you'll know that she's a Ricardian: pro-Richard all the way. Well, that bias pretty much ruins the book about the princes. It's very repetitive and hardly objective. Inferences made by other historians are rejected shoddy and illogical while her own inferences are treated as sound, well reasoned, and thoroughly supported.

I got so annoyed by the intellectual dishonesty of it I was actually angry at the book by the time I quit reading it.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at January 14, 2024 12:00 PM (FEVMW)

368 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at January 14, 2024 12:02 PM (gX32c)

369 The saddest part of Sunday morning has arrived. The end of the Book Thread. Thanks, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 14, 2024 12:04 PM (Angsy)

370
Mammaries of Ice: Tales Told by the Proverbial Witch's Tit

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at January 14, 2024 12:04 PM (xG4kz)

371 Quick question for the Horde...How many recommendations or "data points" does it usually take for you to read a recommended book?:
Just one today. Ordered The Better Angels and Shelly's heart just now.

Posted by: who knew at January 14, 2024 12:05 PM (4I7VG)

372 Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 14, 2024 12:07 PM (llXky)

373 Are hot pants really pants?
Posted by: All Hail Eris at January 14, 2024 10:28 AM (+RQPJ)

Depends who is wearing them. If it was the Rhodesian Light Infantry, then they are just "issue"

Posted by: Kindltot at January 14, 2024 12:10 PM (D7oie)

374 Huh. Queen Margaret of Denmark has abdicated, making her son King. Didn't have that on my 2024 scorecard.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 10:35 AM (ynpvh)

to recycle an old joke: Why will the Danes have Queen Margarit no longer? Anser: She is long enough already.

(All the royal family are over 6' you see)

Posted by: Kindltot at January 14, 2024 12:19 PM (D7oie)

375 As recommended by Pixy, I bought the Discworld Humble Bundle.
I used to have almost all these books, but they were in some stupid format that was locked to a specific computer. When I changed to a newer computer, I did not bother to transfer them. The transfer needed to be done individually, book by book. In practice they are lost.
I am happy to have them again (and a couple more that I did not bother buying the first time) and will hopefully re-read them slowly.

Posted by: PG at January 14, 2024 12:40 PM (7lWn8)

376 375 As recommended by Pixy, I bought the Discworld Humble Bundle.
I used to have almost all these books, but they were in some stupid format that was locked to a specific computer. When I changed to a newer computer, I did not bother to transfer them. The transfer needed to be done individually, book by book. In practice they are lost.
I am happy to have them again (and a couple more that I did not bother buying the first time) and will hopefully re-read them slowly.

Posted by: PG at January 14, 2024 12:40 PM (7lWn

Terry Pratchet. Great fun to read.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at January 14, 2024 12:42 PM (ynpvh)

377 Tolkien (free space), Shute, Lewis, Gibbon, and now Pratchett.

Bingo!

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 14, 2024 02:01 PM (p/isN)

378 "Keegan was brilliant. I consider The Price of Admiralty and The Face of Battle must reads."

For a time John Keegan, David Chandler ("The Campaigns of Napoleon," etc.), Paddy Griffith ("Forward Into Battle," etc.) and my friend Chris Duffy (tons of stuff on Seven Years War and the Jacobite Rebellion) all taught together at RMA Sandhurst. Pretty much anything written by any of them is worth reading if you're interested in military history.

As for "Red Harvest"; not sure if it was intentional or not, but lots of the Coen Brothers' film "Miller's Crossing" looks like it was based on "Red Harvest."

Posted by: Pope John 20th at January 14, 2024 03:19 PM (cYrkj)

379 147 Malachi martins windswept (the rest escapes me ) turms out very prescient

I read Windswept House last year - very prescient, but a monster of a read, as it's over 600 pages of very dense stuff. What does he have in there, a story taking place in at least a dozen locales and involving over 70 characters? I'm not even sure that the "Centennial City" stuff had much to do with the plot apart from Martin wanting to make clear that Joseph Cardinal Bernardin was (allegedly) into some very bad stuff.

So what do I do? I turn around and start Martins "Hostage to the Devil". It's a lot different though. A lot of it reads like straight-up horror.

Posted by: Katja at January 14, 2024 05:50 PM (GDvjU)

380 @274 Maybe I'm just a prude, but I see no reason to ever swear in a non-fiction book. When you're writing dialogue in fiction, I understand (even if I don't like it when it goes overboard) but in non-fiction? Yeah, I think I'd find that 'nasty and irritating' too. And maybe insulting,...

I found a podcast about aviation stuff, much of it is very technical, but two of the three podcasters would make a sailor blush with their foul mouths - but then these are people who start off with introducing themselves with their pronouns du jour, so I can't say I'm really surprised. It's just more than a little irritating when I've tuned in to learn about what happened in an airline accident, and not only is there the overall vulgarity, but the two rainbow snowflakes can't mention Reagan without saying "Ronald f****** Reagan", etc. It's not even like they were alive with the air traffic controller strike, and it's very likely they weren't even born when he was in office. It makes the who podcast unlistenable.

Posted by: Katja at January 14, 2024 06:01 PM (GDvjU)

381 @p0indexterous
Brandon Sanderson Cosmere books - Tress was a well written (but of course) tight book that was good to read. Not a classic, more of a popcorn novel. Yumi started a bit slow, but was again tight and a good read.
I do not use popcorn disparagingly, sometimes you need a good book to make you think, and other times a popcorn novel that entertains and takes you away from the world around you is just the ticket. Both invaluable in their own ways.

Posted by: Diana Pool at January 15, 2024 07:47 AM (CrtM/)

382 Hаve you ever thought about publishing ɑn ebook
or guest authoring on other siteѕ? I have a bⅼog based upon on the same subjects you discuss and woᥙld really like
to have you share some stories/information. I know my аudience would enjoy your work.
If you are even remotely interested, feel free to shoot me an email.

Posted by: tasting at January 15, 2024 03:23 PM (4n0/g)

383 Link exchange is nothing else however it is simply placing the other person's weblog link
on your page at suitable place and other person will also do similar for you.

Posted by: outlet online at January 17, 2024 03:09 PM (iw72O)

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