Sunday Morning Book Thread - 02-18-2024 ["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 (watch out for the grue!). 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

I recently discovered that due to an institutional membership with Adobe Creative Cloud I also have access to their vast resources of images in their stock library. So I can delve into a ton of library- and book-related images from Adobe if I really get bored. Today's image is a juxtaposition of a traditional library placed against the modern technology in which we can find that library. I know I've mentioned this before, but it really is a triumph of human engineering when we can cram the sum total of an entire brick building into a device that fits in our pocket. It's just a shame that we as a society are prone to abusing that privilege through censorship and gatekeeping.

WHY IS THE INTERNET OBSESSED WITH THIS BOOK? - House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

This book has been on my TBR pile for years now, mainly because it's going to be a very difficult read. This is not a book that you can read cover to cover and expect to "get it" the first time through. In fact, it might be easier to start at the end and read backwards. That's because the author takes a very creative approach to narrative storytelling. I guess it's supposed to be a horror story of some kind, as there is a house that is also an eldritch abomination at the heart of this story. That's what attracted me to it in the first place. But then I opened it up and realized it's going to take time and effort to figure this story out. It's as much visual art as it is a story because of the way Danielewski plays around with the layout and design on almost every page. How do all these pieces connect together? That's what the internet likes to talk about.

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(HT: Shamelessly swiped from Moron author Francis W. Porretto's Liberty's Torch website.)

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THE LOST ART OF USING A TYPEWRITER

For around a century, the typewriter was the symbol of the professional writer. Whether you were generating stories for the local newspaper or writing the great American novel, you could rely on your trusty mechanical typewriter to deliver legible copy. I learned how to type in high school by taking a "keyboarding" class where we used the good old IBM Selectric typewriters. They made a very distinctive electric "hum" when they were switched on, letting you know they were ready to go! We've replaced the typewriter with the computer, of course, but we still use a lot of the features that have been integrated into the word processing software, like tab stops and automatic line spacing. How many authors today still use typewriters? I know there were several authors who refused to switch to computers when those became available, simply because they were more comfortable using a typewriter. Author Jerry B. Jenkins even set up his computer with a "typewriter" keyboard to give him the tactile sensation of using a typewriter.

BOOKS BY MORONS

Patrick Chiles, author of Frozen Orbit and Escape Orbit, has a new book in a different series coming out on March 5:

Being a paramedic is a tough job; it's tougher when you stumble onto a crashed alien spacecraft.
Melanie Mooney thought she was just doing her job when she came upon an unusual accident in the deep woods late one night. Acting alone, what she found was nothing like she'd expected. What followed was even more unexpected.
Recruited by emissaries of a galaxy-spanning civilization, Melanie is thrust into a world she thought only existed in supermarket tabloids. As the first human in the Galactic Union Medical Corps, she cares for extraterrestrials in desperate need of a medic who can ignore the fact that they're nothing like any patient she's ever seen, even on their best days. And in emergency medicine, it's a given that every patient is having the worst day of their life.
Each run takes her deeper into the galaxy and farther from home, navigating alien cultures that only get weirder with each call. It will take all of Melanie's experience, instinct, and grit to prove herself--and the rest of humanity--to be worthy of the Union. That's a lot to put on a woman who'd just like to end the day with a cheeseburger and a cold beer.
Amazon.com: Interstellar Medic: The Long Run (1): 9781982193287: Chiles, Patrick: Books
This one was a blast to write. It's the first in a two-book series but there could be more to follow; I can easily see ways to leave it open for more if enough readers enjoy this series. While it's not comedy, I did take the opportunity to poke fun at a few well-worn sci fi / alien abduction tropes. It's available for pre-order now, and I'm really excited that the audiobook version will also be available on release day. In the past I've had to wait several months for that.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Again, there were not too many Moron Recommendations in the comments last week...It's like you guys all gave up reading for Lent or something...

Una Woodruff is one of my favorite fantasy illustrators, and I found out she drew the illustrations for Catwitch by Lisa Tuttle. It's a charming tale about a cat who becomes a witch's familiar, and Una's drawings are like Roger Dean for the kid lit set. There's lots of detail, which I loved as a tot. Why do some adults think children want simple drawings? Because that's all they can manage at that age? If I could have laid down the ink and crayon like Arthur Rackham, I would have!
Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 11, 2024 09:21 AM (+RQPJ)

Comment:As a child, I was always fascinated by the more detailed illustrations to be found in books. You can keep your simple line art. I wanted *detail* and lots of it! I don't think we are doing children any real favors by keeping illustrations "simple" for them. Our eyes are one of the main ways we receive input from the outside world. Why not build that into your stories?

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Two unique building projects were underway in 1892. One project involved the construction of hundreds of structures for the 1893 Chicago Exposition. The other was an abattoir for a serial killer to dispose of his victims. This is the theme of The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. The tale of the frenzied construction of the White City in time for the world exposition is intertwined with the story of H H Holmes, one of the first serial killers, who used the bustle of the fair as a stalking ground. The Exposition would introduce a new invention, the Ferris wheel, showcase Buffalo Bill's wild west show, and all of it was lit by a brand new spectacle, thousands of light bulbs powered by electricity. Today, only two buildings remain from the fair, the art museum and the Field museum, and modern detective work is much more sophisticated, but Larson captures the intense labor required to build and run the fair, which welcomed 750,000 people a day, as well as the devious nature of Holmes to entrap, kill, and dismember his victims. As with his other works, Larson manages to tell two stories that mesh with each other in time and space. This is another engrossing book by Larson.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 11, 2024 09:18 AM (rKMQG)

Comment:I have heard about H. H. Holmes, but I did not know that he used the Chicago Exposition as his stalking ground, though it makes sense. Lots of tourists to the city, so they would not be missed right away if they fell into Holmes' clutches. I also know that Holmes had constructed an elaborate maze that he used as his killing ground. Weird, dangerous man.

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 8 - Toll the Hounds by Steven Erickson

If Book 5 (Midnight Tides) was a 900-page prologue to Book 7 (Reaper's Gale, then Book 8 (Toll the Hounds) is a 1200-page epilogue to Book 3 (Memories of Ice) and Book 1 (Gardens of the Moon). We return to the continent of Genabackis and the cities of Darujhistan and Coral, now renamed Black Coral as it's blanketed by perpetual night. Compared to some of the other books in the series, there's not much happening. For me, it's been roughly equivalent to "the slog" in The Wheel of Time. We get introduced to new characters and revisit old characters but there does not seem to be much plot advancement in this book. We do get a few cool scenes here and there and we get to see the inner workings of Anomander Rake's magical sword, which captures the souls of those it kills and chains them to a massive wagon, propelling it ever onward away from a storm of chaos that's always on the horizon. We also learn some of the secrets behind the warrens, which is where magic originates. And we know that the god of death, Hood, has mobilized those under his care for some epic, unknown purpose. Since Dust of Dreams and The Crippled God are the last two books in the series, Erickson has to prepare the reader for the epic conclusion of his magnum opus. Toll the Hounds is a decent read, but not quite as good as some of the other books in the series.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 02-11-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. The dimensions of the margins are not what you think...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at February 18, 2024 09:00 AM (fwDg9)

2 First? Just for once?

Now for the content. Morning, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 09:00 AM (q3u5l)

3 1st

Posted by: Reforger at February 18, 2024 09:00 AM (WHP6G)

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

Mine was very unusual. I didn't read anything by or about Tolkien. (Obligatory mention.)

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:00 AM (zudum)

5 Italicans assemble!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:01 AM (C3L7Q)

6 Grayt thread Perfesser!

Posted by: fd at February 18, 2024 09:01 AM (vFG9F)

7 Aww. I like the grey.

Posted by: fd at February 18, 2024 09:02 AM (vFG9F)

8 On last night's hobby thread I mentioned learning to knit and crochet. The 'these pants' is NOT what I had in mind.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:02 AM (zudum)

9 *sigh* I get to spend time in The Barrel this morning....

Actually, I'm helping out at church again.

As always, please play nicely!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 18, 2024 09:03 AM (BpYfr)

10 Took one look at House of Leaves, thumbed around in it for a while, and decided life is too bloody short. I keep hearing good things about it, but I think of it (and more than a few others) as just another country on the map that I'm never going to visit.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 09:03 AM (q3u5l)

11 Thanks for the heads up on the new Patrick Chiles. He's one of my new favorites.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:03 AM (C3L7Q)

12 On last night's hobby thread I mentioned learning to knit and crochet. The 'these pants' is NOT what I had in mind.
Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:02 AM (zudum)
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Add it to your bucket list!

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 18, 2024 09:04 AM (BpYfr)

13 Those pants are fine. I would wear them on my head for a face mask.

Posted by: Guy with his pants on his head at February 18, 2024 09:04 AM (vFG9F)

14 1/2 way through Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Company
A interesting thing of these book series authors is this book I take while in the series this is in the middle chronology it was one of his first books. How told keeps the time line straight boggles my mind.
The Potter series was written in time line I think

Posted by: Skip at February 18, 2024 09:05 AM (fwDg9)

15 Good Sunday morning, horde!

House of Leaves looks like the kind of book my son would give us for family book club. He likes that sort of thing, so this is the sort of thing he'll like. I'm going to beat him to it when it's my turn to choose.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 09:05 AM (OX9vb)

16 Hiya

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 09:05 AM (T4tVD)

17 Toll the Hounds ?

Do they pay with bones ?

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 09:07 AM (T4tVD)

18 I took a limp stab at "House of Leaves" but just didn't connect. Maybe I'll try again later.

Mark Danielewski is the brother of the singer Poe (Anne Danielewski).

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:08 AM (C3L7Q)

19 The top pic is from the illustrated version of

"Gulliver's Traves Part 2: The Land of the Giganto-Nerds"

Posted by: naturalfake at February 18, 2024 09:08 AM (nFnyb)

20 I'm continuing to work my way through St. Augustine's Confessions, and have reached the point of his conversion. This slows the narrative slightly as he is reflecting on what brought him to this point.

The book I'm reading is not just used, but well-used, with two previous sales stickers on it (which I carefully removed so I could read the back cover and also for tactile comfort).

One of the owners wrote all over the pages, underlining and offering extensive marginal comments, some clearly related to coursework, others are personal opinion. At first I paused to see what they were about, but it is now clear that this person doesn't much care for religion, has no grasp of the material (or even classical literature) and so I ignore it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:08 AM (llXky)

21 Toll the Hounds ?

Do they pay with bones ?
Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 09:07 AM (T4tVD)
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"Beggin' Strips"

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 18, 2024 09:08 AM (BpYfr)

22 The Chiles book reminds me of a Piers Anthony novel, "Prosthro Plus," in which a dentist on Earth is kidnapped by an alien and goes on to have all sorts of adventures in his chosen field. As I recall, Anthony was originally a dentist.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:08 AM (p/isN)

23 I applied to an archive of interviews with people who worked 'for' Organization Todt during WWII, and got approved. This archive is different than a lot of the other kinds, as it was put together under duress: the companies that used forced labor didn't open their records after the war, and politically it was a hot potato that nobody wanted to touch. It's not public; I had to apply and go to the trouble of dropping some references and, they appear to have actually done a check on me before approving my access!
It's not something just anybody can get to, the people controlling it really don't want it truly public. Really interesting.
However some of the records are inadvertantly funny because...

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:09 AM (43xH1)

24 I'm wrapping up "Radio Live! Television Live! When Horses Were Coconuts," a memoir of the early days of television by Bob Mott, a sound effects technician who moved on to become a comedy writer, initially for Red Skelton's TV show. It's interesting but sad to read that Skelton was too insecure to meet with his writers. They even risked career suicide if they were found to have attended his show's "dirty" rehearsals, which were popular throughout CBS' Television City in California.

I focus on Skelton because he is a favorite of mine; I remember watching the show faithfully. And when I learned that he and I share a birthday (July 1

, that was the icing on the cake.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:09 AM (p/isN)

25 Golly, didn't notice it was after 6am.

Read a few more chapters of "Darkship Thieves" by Sarah Hoyt. That's about it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 18, 2024 09:09 AM (Angsy)

26 Happy Sunday No Reading for me

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 18, 2024 09:09 AM (ENQN6)

27 Harlan Ellison was famous for not using a computer for his writing. If memory serves he had a number of typewriters, all the same long-trusted model (an Underwood, I think) and bought extra ribbons whenever possible. Wouldn't use an electric typewriter either. He knew which tools worked for him and saw no reason to change.

I think there are still a few major writers out there who use typewriters, but I'm blanking on names right now.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 09:10 AM (q3u5l)

28 I love that illustration about "A great book gives you no choice." Very true and the artistry is wonderful.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:10 AM (zudum)

29 Oh, typewriting class!

fjf space jfj space.....

We had mostly manuals, but a few Selectrics. Wow, those were smooooooth.

Posted by: JQ at February 18, 2024 09:10 AM (njWTi)

30 That formulation - "the Internet says x, y, or z" - has always creeped me out.

It's just a bunch of people, and as a group, they skew towards being more dysfunctional than the average person, since the more time you spend using it, the more warped and distorted your mind gets.

But at some point, they got reverse-anthropomorphized into some faceless deity that passes its delusional judgments on us meatbags and our meatspace things.

Posted by: Brandon at February 18, 2024 09:11 AM (0FoWg)

31 1/2 way through Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Company
A interesting thing of these book series authors is this book I take while in the series this is in the middle chronology it was one of his first books. How told keeps the time line straight boggles my mind.

Posted by: Skip at February 18, 2024 09:05 AM (fwDg9)
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Historical fiction has its own conventions, and because the 'timeline' is already there (one is simply inserting a character), they can be written out of sequence.

Of course, "prequels" (the curse of our era) lack the same dramatic punch, but in that genre are more about explaining the character's role in previous historic events.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:11 AM (llXky)

32 I'm continuing to work my way through St. Augustine's Confessions, and have reached the point of his conversion. This slows the narrative slightly as he is reflecting on what brought him to this point.

I'm also working my way through it (25%), but on a Kindle. So far, it's kind of dry and jejune. I'm glad it gets into weightier stuff later on.

Posted by: Archimedes at February 18, 2024 09:11 AM (CsUN+)

33 Good afternoon from Bavaria, all.

I've been splitting reading time between a friend's works (currently _Rib to Saint_) and Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:12 AM (DSTSG)

34 Good Morning Book Mormons!!

I got my first smartphone and I spent most of my off time discovering all of the apps. No books read for me this week.

Posted by: p0indexterous at February 18, 2024 09:12 AM (QBwMV)

35 ...some of the interviews are obviously of plain old factory people, and the interviewers are obviously academic types who've never set FOOT in any factory, ever. So you get answers that, well, if you've ever worked in a factory...
"Did you resist the Nazis?"
"What? Huh? Oh, yeah! I did as little work as possible, and I only worked when they were watching me, and sometimes I even damaged the machinery so I didn't have to work!"

Hahaha!
"And, how, exactly, did your 'heroic resistance to the Nazis' different in any way from your average Tuesday, you know, BEFORE the Nazis took over your factory?"

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:13 AM (43xH1)

36 That's because the author takes a very creative approach to narrative storytelling. I guess it's supposed to be a horror story of some kind, as there is a house that is also an eldritch abomination at the heart of this story. That's what attracted me to it in the first place. But then I opened it up and realized it's going to take time and effort to figure this story out. It's as much visual art as it is a story because of the way Danielewski plays around with the layout and design on almost every page. How do all these pieces connect together?
=====

Hello, James Joyce calling from the early 20th Century.

Posted by: mustbequantum at February 18, 2024 09:14 AM (MIKMs)

37 @24 --

So that's how an 8 gets turned into an emoji.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:14 AM (p/isN)

38 I got put on to Foerster's Hornblower series.

They're good. Less literary than O'Brian's Aubrey / Maturin series (Jane Austen for guys) but more so than Cornwall's Sharpe series. Lead character is an interesting man of his time, but dull compared to Frazier's Flashman (but then who isn't).

Posted by: Ignoramus at February 18, 2024 09:14 AM (Gse2f)

39 A.H.Lloyd hadn't thought of the tie in with historical fiction, but even character development has its own problems.

Posted by: Skip at February 18, 2024 09:14 AM (fwDg9)

40 This week I'm reading What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher. My son's book club choice. I am bored. It's basically a retelling of the Fall of the House of Usher, and it's looking like fungi are making everyone sick and crazy.

He wants us to read the sequel, too, so I guess I'm into this story for the long haul. The things we do for our children.

I downloaded another Ed McBain 87th Precinct book on kindle as a palate cleanser. I love those so much.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 09:14 AM (OX9vb)

41 I'm continuing with Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy. This is going to to take several months which is fine. There is so much to absorb from Foote's dense writing style. It's not hurried but each sentence contains so much content both for the descriptions and the attitudes for that moment and place. It is so much more satisfying than the usual 'This happened, then that happened, the end".

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (zudum)

42 That formulation - "the Internet says x, y, or z" - has always creeped me out.

It's just a bunch of people, and as a group, they skew towards being more dysfunctional than the average person, since the more time you spend using it, the more warped and distorted your mind gets.

But at some point, they got reverse-anthropomorphized into some faceless deity that passes its delusional judgments on us meatbags and our meatspace things.

Posted by: Brandon at February 18, 2024 09:11 AM (0FoWg)
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I found a very amusing document Friday that came from a course on How to Read Aquinas' Summa Theologica. It explained his form and then tested it using "a hot dog is a sandwich" using Aquinas' method. It was a hoot, and properly explained that things may be alike in appearance, but different in nature, and the majority opinions are frequently wrong, so no, a hot dog is not a sandwich.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (llXky)

43 Reading this week has been work oriented.
The Metalcasters Bible by CW Ammen.

Nothing to do a review about.

BTW. I'm pondering doing a TXMoMe custom coin. I have everything I need except access to the program to program the CNC table to cut my mold. I started the ball rolling on that last week but am getting resistance from people who are questioning my motives.
Like I'm trying to do something illegal.

That being said, about how many people show up to the MoMe?
I could do about 20 coins in bronze with what I have on hand.
Rest would have to be Aluminum.

Posted by: Reforger at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (AoMz2)

44 Oops, for "nature" read "essence."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (llXky)

45 House of Leaves sounds like an interesting read.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (c2/IZ)

46 I missed last week so I've got a bumper crop of recommendations and comments. First off, a nonfiction work: _Skunk Works_ by Ben R. Rich and Leo Janos. Rich was an engineer at Lockheed under the legendary Kelly Johnson (I think there's a law or something that you have to call him that), and then took over as head of the Skunk Works after Johnson retired.

As one might expect, Rich focuses heavily on projects he was involved with -- the U-2, the SR-71, and the Stealth fighter. Lots of "now it can be told" about the secret stuff. The authors pad out Rich's reminiscenses with short pieces by others involved, especially pilots who flew the planes.

Great stuff if you're a plane buff. The SR-71 section is really amazing: CIA gave Johnson a ridiculous set of requirements, he turned that into a design full of unobtainium, and the engineers made it real.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (78a2H)

47 Took a typing class in high school, and typed a LOT over the next couple of decades on a Sears portable. I was happy to switch to a computer. if I never see a bottle of Wite-Out again it'll be too soon.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 09:16 AM (q3u5l)

48 That's because the author takes a very creative approach to narrative storytelling. I guess it's supposed to be a horror story of some kind, as there is a house that is also an eldritch abomination at the heart of this story. That's what attracted me to it in the first place. But then I opened it up and realized it's going to take time and effort to figure this story out. It's as much visual art as it is a story because of the way Danielewski plays around with the layout and design on almost every page. How do all these pieces connect together?
=====

Hello, James Joyce calling from the early 20th Century.

Any book by Thomas Pynchon has entered the chat.

Posted by: Archimedes at February 18, 2024 09:16 AM (CsUN+)

49 #29 JQ

I took typing as a summer class in junior high between 7th and 8th grade. All we had were manual typewriters.

asdf jkl; (lather, rinse repeat).

It took a few more years for my family to purchase an electric typewriter. What I loved about it over the manual versions was the consistency. The q's, p's, z's and periods looked the same as d, f, j, and k.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:16 AM (DSTSG)

50 This week's primary read is Will McCarty's "Beggar's Sky", which is third in the series after "Rich Man's Sky" and "Poor Man's Sky", about the so-called Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the tech giants and their crazy schemes for world/market domination.

Bazillionaire Igbal Renz (a sort of Elon Musk, but powered by LSD rather than pot) has built an interstellar spaceship to meet with the aliens he's been communing with.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:18 AM (C3L7Q)

51 I took typing class in high school because that was where the girls were.

Posted by: davidt at February 18, 2024 09:18 AM (SYTee)

52 I've been reading about food. The following is an extract from the bill of fare from a San Francisco eating house, circa 1860:

Grimalkin steaks 25 cents.
Bow-wow soup 12 cents
Roasted bow-wow 18 cents
Bow-wow pie 6 cents
Stews ratified 6 cents

I am not making this up.

Posted by: Guy with his pants on his head at February 18, 2024 09:19 AM (vFG9F)

53 I took typing class in high school because that was where the girls were.

Yes, we knew.

Posted by: The Girls at February 18, 2024 09:19 AM (CsUN+)

54 #51 and #53 you win! Well played.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:20 AM (DSTSG)

55 I spent most of my reading time this week with books about drawing, especially with pen and ink. Read a section or technique, then practice it. Sounds dull maybe but every attempt at drawing brings new possibilities. Not necessarily good but new.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:20 AM (zudum)

56 Posted by: SPinRH_F-16

Yeah, no weak-strikes on the "pinky keys" LOL

I took typing as an elective in Jhigh, and then it was *required* in HS but my JH class didn't count, so had to take it again.

Yay for easy 'A'!

Posted by: JQ at February 18, 2024 09:20 AM (njWTi)

57 Typewriters, I have at least 10, all usable and in at least decent condition. For some reason about 10 years ago thrift stores and antique malls around me got a bumper crop of typewriters and sold them for usually about $20 each. Smith-Coronas mostly, 1960s models, so all metal, most of them. Manuals for the most part and also under trade names: Sears, JC Penney. One really, really nice electric in brand-new condition. All with carrying cases.
I sometimes use them to write letters to colleagues in other countries, mailing short missives with those World Stamps. It's fun and people appreciate them: nobody writes letters anymore.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:21 AM (43xH1)

58 Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:15 AM (zudum)

Have you ever read Bruce Catton?

Posted by: dantesed at February 18, 2024 09:22 AM (88xKn)

59 I guess da Pants guy left his weedwhacker at the Gym.

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 09:22 AM (T4tVD)

60 I'm also working my way through it (25%), but on a Kindle. So far, it's kind of dry and jejune. I'm glad it gets into weightier stuff later on.

Posted by: Archimedes at February 18, 2024 09:11 AM (CsUN+)
---
The initial 'benediction' of praise-packed scriptural citations was kind of a slog. Once he started getting into the course of his biography, I was hooked. Part of my enjoyment comes from knowing the era well - I've reach Ammianus Marcellilnus' history, and some of the other works of that period,and of course histories of the fall of Rome.

Seeing that historic era in the first person - through the life of someone who initially was insignificant - was really interesting to me, and I see a lot of parallels with today. Just as then, we have huge institutional schools of rhetoric, logic, and competing philosophies, men of ambition seeking political power, and all of it lies on a precipice beyond anyone's imagining.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:22 AM (llXky)

61 Talk about a doorstop of a book!

I was in the downtown library with my family yesterday when I came across an omnibus of all the Ed Brubaker / Darwyn Cooke Catwoman stories. This is about 3 inches thick!

Now that I know it exists, I'll get it, but I need to clear away some of the backlog of books that I own.

This also shows that it pays to actually peruse the shelves instead of searching the website exclusively as I usually do.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:23 AM (p/isN)

62 Second book this past couple of weeks was C.S. Forester's _Sink the Bismark!_, which I somehow had missed for fifty years. Fun stuff. Lots of stiff-upper-lip British officers drawing circles on maps, brave lads loading guns, German officers making bombastic harangues, and stuff going kaboom.

No mention of any code intercepts, because the book was written when all that was still classified.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:23 AM (78a2H)

63 Dad threw away that old Underwood 5 unit.. A real antique what was in excellent condition.

*sigh*

Posted by: JQ at February 18, 2024 09:24 AM (njWTi)

64 Girls?

We were right here.

Posted by: Home Economics class at February 18, 2024 09:24 AM (AoMz2)

65 #46 _Skunk Works_ sounds interesting. The SR-71 was retired before my time but friends have flown the U-2 and the F-117.

The U-2 was a challenge because there was a very narrow airspeed between maximum and stall (IIRC) at the altitudes they liked to fly.

For whatever it's worth, the most useless traffic call of all time I ever received was "[Viper] Flight, traffic, your nose, FL600, U-2." At that altitude, if his wings had ripped off, we'd have passed him before he fell through our altitude.

The stinkbug was famous for its thirst.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:24 AM (DSTSG)

66 Wish I knew what happened to the Selectric III that Mom got from her mother. Dad must've gotten rid of it after Mom died.

Posted by: JQ at February 18, 2024 09:26 AM (njWTi)

67 They're good. Less literary than O'Brian's Aubrey / Maturin series (Jane Austen for guys) but more so than Cornwall's Sharpe series. - Ignoramus

=====

Good one!

Posted by: mustbequantum at February 18, 2024 09:26 AM (MIKMs)

68 I loved my grandpa's old folding Corona typewriter with the round keys and old-fashioned typeface.

I'm a terrible typist so these creaky steampunk devices are just fine.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:27 AM (C3L7Q)

69 #56 JQ

I feel your pain. Nearly every time I started a new graduate program it required the exact same "How to do research in this field" course. The only actual differences have been which style guide to use.

. . . Uh, or so I hear from "A friend"(TM)

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:28 AM (DSTSG)

70 I was skimming a book review in an old magazine (from 1974) and came across the following sentence:

"The prices, however--with the exception of the first volume, which is 95 cents--are set at an inflationary $1.25, which may dismay some potential readers."

$1.25 was once considered off-putting for a physical product. Now that's a steal even for a digital book. (I just bought an ebook for $4.99, and was happy that the publisher had set a reasonable price!) We have lost so much...

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 18, 2024 09:28 AM (Lhaco)

71 I learned to type on an IBM Selectric, one of the greatest machines built by human hands. Each keystroke sounded like you were slamming a car door. I had to hit 30wpm (total words minus errors) to pass the course. Now I'm considerably faster after four decades of constant practice.

My favorite typewriter anecdote is from the early 2000s. I do a lot of my own writing in coffeeshops, along with other laptop users. But one day this hipster kid (remember them?) comes in and pulls a little stripped-down portable manual typewriter out of his backpack. Proceeds to tap-tap-tap-ding along for about half an hour. I could ignore it (I had two small children at the time and could probably ignore mortar fire), but he got a lot of scowls from the other customers. Don't know if he was just seeking attention, or trying to make some obscure point, or what.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:29 AM (78a2H)

72 I learned to type in high school on an IBM Selectric III. At that time, there was a graduation requirement for "applied skills" and the class was typically senior-heavy.

In college I got one of those new, shiny typewriters with an eight-line screen that saved things in machine code. This was because almost all professors required papers to be typed and refused to accept anything written by a dot matrix printer.

My father had an deluxe electric typewriter that had an actual interface, so he could hook it up on to his computer and it would type out the copy for him. He even set up a roller to use perforated printer paper. Mr Thrifty further cemented his reputation as the cheapest man alive (until me) by taking home used test copy paper from The Detroit News and flipping it over to blank side.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:29 AM (llXky)

73 Thanks for the Book Thread, Perfessor!

This is a great gathering of readers and writers. Truly one of the best places on the interwbz.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at February 18, 2024 09:30 AM (KglbO)

74 As a ute, they still taught typing in my hi skool. The teacher was a very ugly woman who wore tight outfits and she had a FUPA that she would shove into me while correcting my hands. It was frightening and arousing all at the same time as I had no idea what body part was hiding under all that Ban-Lon.

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at February 18, 2024 09:31 AM (R/m4+)

75 My favorite typewriter anecdote is from the early 2000s. I do a lot of my own writing in coffeeshops, along with other laptop users. But one day this hipster kid (remember them?) comes in and pulls a little stripped-down portable manual typewriter out of his backpack. Proceeds to tap-tap-tap-ding along for about half an hour. I could ignore it (I had two small children at the time and could probably ignore mortar fire), but he got a lot of scowls from the other customers. Don't know if he was just seeking attention, or trying to make some obscure point, or what.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:29 AM (78a2H)
---
I spent a couple of years living with my grandparents, and one of the rules was that one could only sleep in for so long. Also: I was a guest, staying in a guest room, which meant her stuff remained where it was.

So it was that at 9 am sharp every Saturday morning, she would come in, sit down, start the electric typewriter, and crank out correspondence for the following week. I got to the point where I could ignore it somewhat, but I knew that I was only digging the hole deeper when I did get up.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:32 AM (llXky)

76 Bad news, everybody.

Seattle English students told it’s ‘white supremacy’ to love reading, writing

http://tinyurl.com/mr34ua2k

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 09:33 AM (FVME7)

77 I started with an ancient Royal portable that my father got at a swap meet and gave me when I was in high school. It is unusual in that it was made with keys for German/Nordic languages (umlauts and all). I saw a picture in a history book of Norwegians prepping an underground newsletter during the Nazi occupation, and using a typewriter identical to mine. (I still have it, BTW.) But I went over to using a computer in the early 1990s, after having used one at work for a couple of years before that. A computer is easier on the hands, even an electric typewriter.
As for reading - going through some of the Lackey files of early pioneer reminiscences, and alternating with a reread of John Biggens' Otto Prohaska series.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at February 18, 2024 09:33 AM (xnmPy)

78 Perfessor,
Thanks for including that video about manual typewriters. If you need legible copy right from the beginning, as opposed to handwriting, manual typewriters are the pinnacle of design and manufacturing. My favorite desk top model, the kind that weigh about 40 pounds, was made in 1939. It has been serviced once and still works like it just came from the Royal factory. I have others not as old but similar quality in long term performance.

I won't go into a long screed but I really believe there are serious advantages to composing on a manual typewriter, especially for a first or second draft.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:34 AM (zudum)

79 _Third_ book this week was a collection by A. Bertram Chandler, an SF writer who mostly worked in the 60s and 70s. It's a combination: a novel, _The Road to the Rim_ and a collection of linked short stories, _The Hard Way Up_. Very Golden Age SF. Chandler himself was a merchant seaman, maybe even a captain, so the stories are very much in the "space is an ocean" idiom. Everybody smokes pipes on spaceships and there are long voyages between exotic ports, with plenty of trouble from the passengers when it's least convenient. Fun stuff, and I probably read the whole thing in just an hour.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:35 AM (78a2H)

80 My favorite typewriter anecdote is from the early 2000s. I do a lot of my own writing in coffeeshops, along with other laptop users. But one day this hipster kid (remember them?) comes in and pulls a little stripped-down portable manual typewriter out of his backpack. Proceeds to tap-tap-tap-ding along for about half an hour. I could ignore it (I had two small children at the time and could probably ignore mortar fire), but he got a lot of scowls from the other customers. Don't know if he was just seeking attention, or trying to make some obscure point, or what.
Posted by: Trimegistus'

I've done this exact thing more recently, just as a joke, and never gotten a negative reaction. Kids especially are fascinated. It'll usually gather a small crowd.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:36 AM (43xH1)

81 The Starbeth family posesses disused Chatterham prison, a castle turned gallows, and each heir must spend an hour of his 25th birthday night in it. The night Martin Starbeth takes his turn, he is found dead outside the walls under the balcony. This is the opening of Hag's Nook by John Dickson Carr. How did Martin, with the only keys, meet his death? What is the curse of the Starbecks? This is the novel that introduces Gideon Fell, Carr's oversized sleuth, who would appear in many more mysteries. Fell, with his American houseguest Tad Rampole try to solve the murder as well as determine the motive using a 200 year old clue in a possible treasure map. There are a lot of themes here that show up in contemporaneous mysteries, and Carr shows why he is a major player in the world of the golden age of crime novels. A clever and well written book.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (c2/IZ)

82 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (NBVIP)

83 Good Morning!

Let's smile & be happy & strike fear into the heart of killjoy leftists everywhere.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (u82oZ)

84 Currently still reading Anne McCaffrey's Elemental Masters series, on book 15 of this series now. I think this will be last one I will read.

Posted by: vic at February 18, 2024 09:38 AM (A5THL)

85 Finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Somehow, I escaped high school and college literature classes without being assigned this classic tale, for which I am grateful because I believe the story was more appreciated now than it would have been earlier.

A morality tale set in Yorkshire, England at the turn of the 19th century; it follows three generations of two neighboring families of the landed gentry. Love, hate, envy, scorn, faith, violence, revenge, and education are all featured in a story I found (surprisingly) gripping. Much easier to read than Jane Eyre although it does feature the never-ending sentence strung together with commas and semicolons that was popular at the time. Still, not difficult to read and comprehend. Recommended.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at February 18, 2024 09:38 AM (KglbO)

86 Viktor Belenko gave us a lot of interesting intel on the Foxbat's strange design and development. He talks about its operational capabilities in his book MiG Pilot. It's frankly impressive that pig even flew at all, let alone at mach speeds at 90,000 feet.

He also did an interview where he told some amusing anecdotes about his defection... He talks about how good his first experience of what he saw as far superior American canned goods, which his CIA handler promptly informed him was cat food, which he found amazing, because there's no such thing as pet food in the Soviet Union.

There was also no such thing as Maxi-Pads or very many cleaning products, which caused him to clean his counters with Maxi-Pads, under the misapprehension that the smiling American lady on the box was so happy because of her whiz-bang disposable kitchen towels.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 18, 2024 09:39 AM (0FoWg)

87 When I was in college, Mom got an electric typewriter for me from the county surplus auction. I used it for years.

It did have one flaw -- at the bottom of the page, it would suddenly cant the next line. This got to be a nuisance when I was typing term papers and, later, job application letters. It became a contest: Can I end the page before the next line goes askew?

I so prefer word processors.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:39 AM (p/isN)

88 Oh, I do have a small portable, English language, in a wood, fabric-covered case that's not in the greatest condition but works all right, but it has a baggage decal on it from a German airline of the early 1920s:

'Badische Luftverkehrsgesellschaft mbH'

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:40 AM (43xH1)

89 64 Girls?

We were right here.
Posted by: Home Economics class at February 18, 2024 09:24 AM (AoMz2)

I took Home Economics at UT in 1982. With my best friend. I already had the hours for a Biz degree in Marketing and Eco and he was same in IT and Accounting.
We averaged about 110 on the first 3 or 4 test and would have tutor session at the pub on campus with 5 or 6 of the gals. To make a 100 you had to present a subject so I presented on the future of Home Financing. ARMs, Balloons, Buy down etc. It was on those old acetate slides with frames. The prof asked me for the slides when it was over and she turned it into a lecture.

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 18, 2024 09:40 AM (ENQN6)

90 Good guilty pleasure book. And those pants look like oven mitts to cloth a hobo.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 18, 2024 09:40 AM (u82oZ)

91 Today's RMT had quite the bad trip down Covid memory lane

Posted by: JM in Ill -- Behold the Manchurian Candidate at February 18, 2024 09:41 AM (tsJhI)

92 Aaah! My book is falling apart!

Last week I picked up a new trade-paperback comic collection, and it started falling apart on the first read-through. It was a sewn-bound paperback, where the signatures (stacks of folded pages) were sewn not to a fabric spine, but just to a couple pieces of string. The stack of barely-connected signatures was then set in a bed of glue, which attached it to the paper cover. But the glue was faulty, and separated almost completely from the cover, and is only sticking the signatures in a couple places. I could barely pay attention to the story, because I was constantly worrying about when the glue would fail completely.

In the past, I've fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole of watching other people create custom-bound hardcovers from comics....and it looked neat, but also a lot of work, and risked ruining the comics if you didn't do it right. But now, I'm tempted to tear apart the failing book and try to make a custom-bound book out of its pages. Because in this particular case, I lose nothing but an already-breaking book if I don't do it right.

Or I might just buy a new copy, which would be cheaper and quicker...

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 18, 2024 09:41 AM (Lhaco)

93 I read Thunderstruck by Eric Larson which was recommended here a few weeks ago. The book contains two separate stories which, in the end, intertwine. The first story is that of Gugliemo Marconi and his obsessive quest to establish wireless communication across the Atlantic and between the ships who sail it. The second is the story of Dr. Hawley Crippen, "the kindness of men", who nearly commits the perfect murder. How these two come together is a fascinating story.

Posted by: Zoltan at February 18, 2024 09:42 AM (wtBAT)

94 In the mid-60's, to get an A in a junior high business typing class you had to be able to turn out 70 WPM within a three error per minute window on a Royal long-stroke manual. Misaligned letters and heavy punches counted as errors. After all, this was life in the modern era.

Often overlooked are the many features of IBM electrics before the Selectric wheel. Some had a compositing option with a unique one-and-a-half space, the sort of thing you'd only see now on faked readiness reports in ex-Presidents' pilot files. It took some pretty snazzy mechanical engineering to make a cast-metal chassis do that.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 09:42 AM (zdLoL)

95 71 ... I've used a portable manual typewriter a few times in public. Partly for fun and partly because I needed legible copy. My handwriting isn't bad but it's not good either. No one complained. The older folks came over to talk about the ones they used. The kids were fascinated and I let them try it with some scrap paper. The boys especially liked that it took a little effort to use the keys.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:43 AM (zudum)

96 I so prefer word processors.
Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:39 AM (p/isN)

APA formatting on a typewrite was an ART. My wife finally gave up writing her thesis and paid then the princely sum of $500 to get her ready to publish. SHe also had to furnish the school with 10 or 12 copies bound and numbered etc.

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 18, 2024 09:43 AM (ENQN6)

97 I only tried Pynchon with Gravity's Rainbow because the subject seemed in my wheelhouse. I felt I'd put in too much effort when I quit about a third into it. From the video, House of Leaves looks pretty interesting, but the review is clearly not positive.

Too many other great books to be explored.
Nice illustration, Thanks Perfessor.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at February 18, 2024 09:44 AM (3uc2w)

98 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (NBVIP)
---
LOL, same. A few years ago, someone up in the department decreed that this form of typing had to stop, stop right now!

Being good little bureaucrats, we ignored him and then he retired. Problem solved.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 09:44 AM (llXky)

99 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty
__________

I did that too for years, but now find it annoying, what with text being kerned on computers. Too much space between sentences. One of the dudes older than me at work still does it, but he still uses Courier font, which is not kerned.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at February 18, 2024 09:44 AM (Dm8we)

100 I learned how to type in high school by taking a "keyboarding" class where we used the good old IBM Selectric typewriters. They made a very distinctive electric "hum" when they were switched on, letting you know they were ready to go!
====
A Selectric is not a "good, old typewriter". That would be an Underwood that clack-clack-dinged.

I had an Underwood in h.s. but got a Selectric with a cartridge ribbon and a built in erase function when I got shipped to collidj.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at February 18, 2024 09:45 AM (RIvkX)

101 _Fourth_ book was a bit of a disappointment. Man-Kzin Wars vol. 1, which has two short novels in it: _Iron_ by Poul Anderson and _Cathouse_ by Dean Ing.

The Anderson story was the first novel of his I've actually quit reading. It was just _dull_. It almost felt like someone writing a parody of Anderson because all his old stylistic quirks are in there turned up to 11. But the story is slow and includes way too much introduction to concepts one could be pretty confident the purchaser of a book called Man-Kzin Wars would already know about. A C effort from a writer who routinely wrote A+ stuff.

Ing's story is shorter and zippier, but stretched my suspension of disbelief a little too much. The Kzin are too easily fast-talked, too easily manipulated. And the narrator's alliance with a revived Kzin feminist version of Lady Murasaki just didn't work for me. "Hi, I'm a weird alien being who happens to speak your language. Will you side with me against males of your own kind because of what I've told you about things that happened after you died?"

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:45 AM (78a2H)

102 I only tried Pynchon with Gravity's Rainbow because the subject seemed in my wheelhouse. I felt I'd put in too much effort when I quit about a third into it.

I did the same with his Mason and Dixon. I read about 80 pages and got angrier with each deliberately obscure attempt to show how smart he was. Life is too short.

Posted by: Archimedes at February 18, 2024 09:46 AM (CsUN+)

103 Started reading The Wizard of the Kremlin by Guiliano Da Empoli yesterday, after coming across it at my daughters house. Per the jacket, an "intimate look at Putin's regime", "filled with political insights", etc.
I'm about halfway through it, and it's a damn good novel, pulled me in quick and has held me so far. I'm good with that.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 09:48 AM (4780s)

104
The Brothers Karamazov has been a much easier book to digest as an old man than it was for me 40 years ago.

Was considering buying Dalrymple's Anarchy, but picked up Maleson's Lord Clive Rulers of India instead and ran into this:

"Mr. Fordyce was a coward and a bully, besides being in many other respects an utterly unfit member of society."

Frasier's real life background character for Flashman!

Posted by: Auspex at February 18, 2024 09:48 AM (j4U/Z)

105 Does "an obligatory mention" count in the mention count? I think not.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 09:49 AM (4780s)

106 I've managed to never read Wuthering Heights, myself. Maybe one day...

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 09:49 AM (OX9vb)

107 This is the opening of Hag's Nook by John Dickson Carr. How did Martin, with the only keys, meet his death? What is the curse of the Starbecks? This is the novel that introduces Gideon Fell, Carr's oversized sleuth, who would appear in many more mysteries. Fell, with his American houseguest Tad Rampole try to solve the murder as well as determine the motive using a 200 year old clue in a possible treasure map. There are a lot of themes here that show up in contemporaneous mysteries, and Carr shows why he is a major player in the world of the golden age of crime novels. A clever and well written book.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024

***
It also displays Carr's wonderful ability with both atmosphere and character. The excerpts from "Mad Anthony" Starberth's journal are wonderfully creepy -- and the final scene of the novel (and no, I'm not giving anything away here) is vivid and memorable.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 09:49 AM (omVj0)

108 Children and illustrations: as a kid, I looked at every single detail of the old Richard Scary books. Apparently I wouldn't let my parents turn the page until I pointed out each individual character. I spent a lot of time finding all the gags and silly characters in the crowds of the Where's Waldo books. I loved the cut-away cross-section drawings of castles and other structures in those info-for-kids books. I was a young teen when Dinotopia was released, and I spent ages staring at those painting. And of course, I eventually fell into comic books; where I am a massive art-snob, heavily favoring detailed linework by the likes of John Buscema or George Perez.

So, yeah, I'm the in the camp that says kids deserve complex illustrations.

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 18, 2024 09:50 AM (Lhaco)

109 I did not really read this week. I had a driving trip that took a few days then went right back to work. Anything I've been reading is related to 'projects' that aren't entertainment type reading so...
One of those situations where I have to read excerpts from multiple sources with the final result more of a report than anything fun. Also due to the kind of resources, I'll have to actually cite the sources, instead of just winging it and archiving the sources for any case in which somebody demands a cite.
Ech.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:50 AM (43xH1)

110 Reread one of the older books in my library.

The Mightiest Machine, written in 1934-5 by John W. Campbell. Although Campbell is more famous as an editor, he did write 3 engaging books.
The other two are The Cloak of Aesir and Who Goes there?.

The phrase "to infinity and beyond" jumped off the page.

The story is technologically advanced, breaking ground for wormholes, anti-gravity, and warp drive for faster than light travel. The characterizations are very weak, and I find the invention and manufacturing parts to be absolute howlers.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 18, 2024 09:51 AM (u82oZ)

111 One more comment about typewriters. Stuff I wrote on a typewriter about 40 years ago can still be read. Stuff I did on a computer can't be used on current machines. Not a lot of 5 1/4 floppy disk computers these days. Even the printers back then didn't produce archival quality output.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 09:51 AM (zudum)

112 Some Moron spoke kindly of the Travis McGee series so I read the first book, The Deep Blue Good-by. It is good and I was surprised about his comments about how girls are used and abused by society.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 09:51 AM (FVME7)

113 Those pant's might not be too bad if under a suit of armor.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 09:51 AM (4780s)

114 I had to teach myself to stop double-spacing after periods around 2005 or so because my editor told me to cut it out. There was an interval when I'd do a search-and-replace on every document, turning " " into " " until I broke the habit.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:51 AM (78a2H)

115 82 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (NBVIP)
----

This is the way of civilized people.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:51 AM (C3L7Q)

116 Even as I man a keyboard I'm listening to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've listened to it once before and read it a long time ago.
I found it found it funny and still find it funny.
However, I'm Douglas Adam's aggressive atheism and insistence upon the meaninglessness of life irritating.

Posted by: Northernlurker at February 18, 2024 09:52 AM (xcrUy)

117 Five And a Quarter Floppy needs to be a rapper name.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 09:53 AM (C3L7Q)

118 91 JM in Ill, if that means a reoccurrence, then "Gute Besserung," as they say over here.

88 LenNeal, according to the German wikipedia page, "Badische Luftverkehrsgesellschaft mbH" was a service that flew passengers from Frankfurt via Karlsruhe to Loerrach (I had to look that up, it's now a suburb of Basel) around 1919-1920.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:53 AM (DSTSG)

119 NOT a good porn star name.

Posted by: Guy with his pants on his head at February 18, 2024 09:54 AM (vFG9F)

120 My mother insisted I take typing in high school, which was prescient, as I ended up trading my typing skills for algebra help from my engineering roommate in college. It was said that my HS typing teacher was once a waitress at a playboy club, and I can believe it. Fond memories of her leaning over me to get my hands placed correctly on the keys.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 09:55 AM (c2/IZ)

121 Dean Ing ?

(pictures Robert Mitchum singing "Dean Ing, Dean Ing )

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 09:55 AM (T4tVD)

122 14 1/2 way through Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe's Company
A interesting thing of these book series authors is this book I take while in the series this is in the middle chronology it was one of his first books. How told keeps the time line straight boggles my mind.
The Potter series was written in time line I think
Posted by: Skip at February 18, 2024 09:05 AM (fwDg9)

My impression is that there was an original run of Shape books, Rifles through Waterloo, written in order, and then the author later went back and added in additional stories wherever there was room in the timeline. (My library at one point had a run of the books that all had the same style trade dress, and then other books with radically different dress) Plus, the main character starts the first book with an odd backstory, which basically demanded prequel stories.

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 18, 2024 09:55 AM (Lhaco)

123 Reading a fine Western, Elmer Kelton's 1984 Stand Proud. It's the story of one Texas man's life from young adulthood onward -- riding with the Texas Militia and Rangers in the 1860s to fight Indians and protect settlements while so many men were off at war, then establishing his cattle business. It's framed by the ongoing tale of his trial as an old man, in about the 1890s or early '00s, for murder.

I knew I was in the hands of a master during an early and vivid scene where Frank Claymore, the hero, is caught up in a battle between the militiamen and a band of well-armed Comanches. Odd that, with my love for Westerns, I have never read any of his work before.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 09:55 AM (omVj0)

124 If any of you have young kids, the Charles Santore books have beautiful illustrations.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 18, 2024 09:56 AM (0FoWg)

125 Many, many years ago I was in an overstock book store in Linworth, Ohio. "The Village Book Shop" was in an old church and you could find various treasures there. Anyway, this particular day I found a book Astrodynamics, Volume 2 by Samuel Herrick. Now, as a young lad I was interested in things aerospace and so I bought it. I kept an eye out for Volume 1, but it never appeared.

Fast forward many, many years, and eventually I did the research and discovered that the relatively small print run for Volume 1 sold out, but Volume 2 took forever to be finished, and people just kind of ignored it, which accounts for it being in an overstock book store.

Yesterday, I found my copy of Volume 2, and I have to decide whether to save up the considerable sum required to buy a copy of Volume 1, raise a considerable sum by selling my copy of Volume 2, or just do nothing but read the book thread.

My vote's on reading the book thread. How are you all doing?

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 09:57 AM (iZEhM)

126 I've been putting two spaces between sentences since some time in the late Cretaceous. Like right now, for instance. Submitted a story to an anthology last week, and one of their specifications was to follow a formatting style that said only one space after a sentence. Hadn't run across that before, which shows how out of touch I am.

(Recently had to try to find some way to get data from 5 1/4 and 3.5 floppies. Dear God in heaven...)

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 09:58 AM (q3u5l)

127 Typing class. Selectrics. Took it in 9th grade because my mother made me.
Took it again 11th grade because I had found drugs and alcohol and dropped math and physics. Realized typing class was where the girls were.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 09:58 AM (4780s)

128 I took Home Economics at UT in 1982. With my best friend. I already had the hours for a Biz degree in Marketing and Eco and he was same in IT and Accounting.

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 18, 2024 09:40 AM (ENQN6)

I took it in High Screwel because I was a procrastinator from hell and 2 weeks after "class sign up day" I got in trouble for not signing up for anything (I got stoned and missed it) and it and typing were the only electives with any desks left.

Probably one of my best mistakes. Loved those classes.

Posted by: Reforger at February 18, 2024 09:58 AM (Bukd2)

129 In my country, we would see if that guy can fly.

Posted by: The Man From Afghanystan at February 18, 2024 09:59 AM (vFG9F)

130 _Fifth_ book was a short collection of Bolo stories by Keith Laumer, about giant robot tanks. They're good stories, although Laumer did kind of recycle some tropes and concepts and reading a bunch of them all together makes that very obvious.

That did make me start thinking about why reading old SF seems so much more _fun_ than what's coming out recently. I don't think it's just nostalgia for things I read in my teens -- because some of these stories were pretty old even then. Nor do I think it's the simpler style -- I'm a grown-up and I read grown-up books. I don't have an answer.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 09:59 AM (78a2H)

131 Some Moron spoke kindly of the Travis McGee series so I read the first book, The Deep Blue Good-by. It is good and I was surprised about his comments about how girls are used and abused by society.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wreck'

That was in response to Fenelonspoke asking for recommendations for her son. Did she get back to anybody about that? There was a discussion last week that those books were influential on a lot of young men.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 09:59 AM (43xH1)

132 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (NBVIP)
* * * *
Me too! Plus it is easier to read with the additional space. And I put periods after the "US" because it is an abbreviation. Also easier and faster to read that way.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at February 18, 2024 09:59 AM (KglbO)

133 I was always fascinated by the typewriter from a mechanical perspective, especially the older ancient looking ones. No desire to learn how to use one though.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 18, 2024 09:59 AM (VwHCD)

134 I'm pretty sure that Isaan Asimov wrote on IBM Selectric typewriters. He typed at 90 wpm, and usually made one pass of editing, so a word processor wasn't that much benefit, in his He view. He wrote over 500 books.

Posted by: JM in Ill -- Behold the Manchurian Candidate at February 18, 2024 10:00 AM (jkh9b)

135 The true disciplinarian was the KSR Teletype Machine, which gave one sprung steel fingers after a month of use.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 10:00 AM (C3L7Q)

136 The Brothers Karamazov has been a much easier book to digest as an old man than it was for me 40 years ago.

Posted by: Auspex
__________

I'd agree, aside from Book V, which contains the Grand Inquisitor. The rest of the book is a fairly easy read.

Sure I'm in the minority, but I think The Possessed is his best book.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at February 18, 2024 10:01 AM (Dm8we)

137 Those pants look like the guy wearing them was press-ganged into it by his girlfriend for her Etsy store. His body language is not happy.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 10:02 AM (78a2H)

138 58 ... "Have you ever read Bruce Catton?"

I haven't read Catton. Any suggestions as to which of his books to start with? Turns out our local library has no physical copies of his books, just audio and e-books. I'm sure the used book store will have Catton's books.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 10:02 AM (zudum)

139 I'm a few pages away from finishing "Democracy: The God That Failed." My initial impression has remained largely unchanged - the author identifies the problems with modern western democratic / socialist countries and he provides his own solution (decentralization, conservative social values, and privately provided services in lieu of government services for pretty much everything). Well and good. Can you now explain how we'll get from A to B without a complete breakdown into anarchy, barbarism, famine, civil war, etc? Did you save that for another book? Like a lot of political theory, this all looks good on a chalk board but it looks like Liberia or Kosovo in the real world.

Posted by: PabloD at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (bDE7A)

140 ""Many, many years ago I was in an overstock book store in Linworth, Ohio. "The Village Book Shop" was in an old church...."

Regrettably, The Village Bookstore went out of business some years ago. I lived in Worthington for many years before moving here to TN last year and spent many hours perusing the shelves there.

Posted by: Tuna at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (oaGWv)

141 Some Moron spoke kindly of the Travis McGee series so I read the first book, The Deep Blue Good-by. It is good and I was surprised about his comments about how girls are used and abused by society.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024

***
And that was in 1964! John D. MacDonald said that, having never written a series character in his career before, he wanted one he could live with. So he wrote the first four McGees one right after the other, while Goodby was in the process of being published. By that time he knew he could live with Travis. (If the first couple had not sold well, he could always have turned the basic storyline into something else, so it was never going to be wasted effort.) You can see it; the first four books are relatively short, the fifth (A Deadly Shade of Gold) is much longer and even more developed.

McGee was originally going to be "Dallas" McGee. But then 11/22/63 happened, and that city name had a bad rap. A friend of his suggested using an Air Force base name, since they were cool, and "Travis" the hero became.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (omVj0)

142 Today is the anniversary of the discovery of the only planet found by an American - Pluto.

Posted by: Anna Puma at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (LTGBg)

143 An interesting technological fact about the selectric ball: back in the sixties, government spies were able to measure the fractions of seconds it took for the ball to rotate for each letter to be struck on the page, and thus be able to reconstruct what was typed based on the time it took for each letter to be typed.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:04 AM (c2/IZ)

144 Hiya Berserker !

Hope you're feeling better !

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 10:04 AM (T4tVD)

145 There were two book this week the sequel to ruchman poorman beggeeman thief and another mystery saving sophie that has terrorist themes the first because its set in the south of france where part of my novel is

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 18, 2024 10:04 AM (PXvVL)

146 Launch from NZ went very well.

Posted by: Ciampino - Update #39 at February 18, 2024 10:05 AM (qfLjt)

147 Today is the anniversary of the discovery of the only planet found by an American - Pluto.
Posted by: Anna Puma at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (LTGBg)

I never knew that Pluto was an American !

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 10:05 AM (T4tVD)

148 neighbor apparently has a new yappy dog. And put it outside. next to my bedroom window.
So, yes, starting sometime around 6 am on a Sunday, yappy dog has been yapping incessantly since then. AND yappy dog is located in walled area in front of door and door bell.

Maybe I should record yappy dog and play it back to neighbor at 3am and see if he likes it. In HIS bedroom window.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:05 AM (ynpvh)

149 Some time in the late 70's my parents bought an Apple II computer. Green CRT, two! 5 1/4 floppy drives and a dot matrix printer. I recall using one floppy for the word processor (WordStar or something similar) and the other for the saved documents. I did a junior high paper on it, about a half dozen pages or so, as required and printed it out.

I got an "F" on it because the teacher, a WOC, believed "the computer wrote the paper, not me." She insisted it had to be typed, not printed on a printer to be "real."

It took my parents, and the school administrator over an hour to convince her that someone (me) had to actually type the contents into the computer just like a typewriter before it could be printed.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at February 18, 2024 10:05 AM (Q4IgG)

150 Trimegistus: I read Skunk Works a couple of years ago and thought it was great. The description of the first Stealth tests were great. The Air Force observers were blown away.
My reading is all new, I started the Jesus Cow by Michael Perry (I love his essays and thought it was time to try his novel). At first I thought it was going to be too much like Lake Wobegone, Jr. but it got better quickly and I'm enjoying it. Started and finished a short biography of Gen Pershing. Pretty haigiographic but since I knew practically nothing about the man, it held my interest. Started (sort of, all I've read is the prologue) Ian Toll's history of the pacific war, and I also pulled the Letters of John Keats off my kindle TBR stack. Like Ian Toll, all I've read is the introduction. And as I type this out it all sounds familiar, like I was in the same spot last week and am just repeating myself.

Posted by: who knew at February 18, 2024 10:05 AM (4I7VG)

151 Buddy of mine had an IBM- manufactured M1 carbine from WW2. An "international business machine," indeed.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 18, 2024 10:06 AM (0FoWg)

152 147 Today is the anniversary of the discovery of the only planet found by an American - Pluto.
Posted by: Anna Puma at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (LTGBg)

I never knew that Pluto was an American !

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 10:05 AM (T4tVD)

I think Pluto was Goofy's retarded cousin or something.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:06 AM (ynpvh)

153 Richman poorman its in part of a mystery re thr murder of the protagonistd brother

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 18, 2024 10:06 AM (PXvVL)

154 The Hugo Awards scandal has reached the NYT. It's here if you don't mind the paywall: http://tinyurl.com/yc4ftjsv

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 10:07 AM (78a2H)

155 Well it was a planet until Kneel Degassey Thaisun floundered onto the scene and shatted everywhere

Posted by: Anna Puma at February 18, 2024 10:07 AM (LTGBg)

156 That was in response to Fenelonspoke asking for recommendations for her son. Did she get back to anybody about that? There was a discussion last week that those books were influential on a lot of young men.
Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024

***
They certainly were for me -- teaching me that women were people, not merely "Playmates of the Month." MacDonald has McGee comment sharply on Hefner and the Playboy Philosophy at least once in the series.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:07 AM (omVj0)

157 "Badische Luftverkehrsgesellschaft mbH" was a service that flew passengers from Frankfurt via Karlsruhe to Loerrach (I had to look that up, it's now a suburb of Basel) around 1919-1920.
Posted by: SPinRH_F-16'

I remember I looked it up once and recalled it as very early for an airline, and thinking somebody went to a lot of trouble to bring their own typewriter along!

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:08 AM (43xH1)

158 OK I tell typewriter story and endit.
Long ago I had an office on the top floor of a federal office building. In cleaning out our files, as we called it, I'd come across a standard-issue portable manual that ran when parked. I kept it in my deskwell, thinking that after it got thrown out I might make a fun pistol case out of the outer shell.

Big meeting called, my department had a presentation; we needed a bit of an agenda to keep our stories straight. Right in the middle of printing the checklist, the power went out like in a bad movie. No problem; I was a typist before I took up administratin'. Reached under the desk, reloaded with carbons, and went to town. I was halfway down the page before the first "ding," and in a semi-darkened warren of office space with no computers on, that bell echoes like round one in a prize fight.

I looked up to see the district manager leaning in my doorway, mouth agape, shaking his head. Our typed copy was the envy of the staff at the meeting.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 10:08 AM (zdLoL)

159 132 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 09:37 AM (NBVIP)
* * * *
Me too! Plus it is easier to read with the additional space. And I put periods after the "US" because it is an abbreviation. Also easier and faster to read that way.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at February 18, 2024 09:59 AM (KglbO)

Same here. Hard to let go of what was learned as proper.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:08 AM (ynpvh)

160 Wolfus,

Were you able to find MacDonald's essay "Reading for Survival" at archive.org ?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:08 AM (q3u5l)

161 I got an "F" on it because the teacher, a WOC, believed "the computer wrote the paper, not me." She insisted it had to be typed, not printed on a printer to be "real."

It took my parents, and the school administrator over an hour to convince her that someone (me) had to actually type the contents into the computer just like a typewriter before it could be printed.
Posted by: Martini Farmer'

You've told this story before, but it's all right, it's a great story!

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:09 AM (43xH1)

162 Picked up "A Voyage to Arcturus" by David Lindsay, which is supposed to be a very, very bonkers early sci fi tale that will spin your head around. Looking forward to seeing if that's true.

Also reading "Behold, It is I: Scripture, Tradition and Science on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist" by Stacy A. Trasancos and Fr. George Elliott. So far I'm enjoying its systematic approach to the subject.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 18, 2024 10:09 AM (/RHNq)

163 61 Talk about a doorstop of a book!

I was in the downtown library with my family yesterday when I came across an omnibus of all the Ed Brubaker / Darwyn Cooke Catwoman stories. This is about 3 inches thick!

Now that I know it exists, I'll get it, but I need to clear away some of the backlog of books that I own.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 18, 2024 09:23 AM (p/isN)

Not sure I have a 3" omnibus, but I've got several that push 2 1/2" thick. It actually makes me chuckle when the books become that large!

Sometimes when I get books (from the mail) that are a little bent or warped, I set an omnibus or two on them just to flatten them out. Works out pretty well!

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 18, 2024 10:10 AM (Lhaco)

164 Martini Farmer: your teacher was just ahead of her time. Dr. Mrs. T. now has to deal with some student writing which looks suspiciously like it was done by a chatbot.

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

165 >>139 I'm a few pages away from finishing "Democracy: The God That Failed

Does he fault the huge growth of government as a cause of failure, as I do? (But who the hell am I?) People take power through government, use it to control more and more of society, drawing more people to government, especially elites.

Posted by: JM in Ill -- Behold the Manchurian Candidate at February 18, 2024 10:10 AM (Zxyt3)

166 The worst thing about the Hugo scandal was not that the host country Commies demanded compliance, which is business as usual, but that the Western members on the board willingly self-censored lest they offend.

The Hugos are a joke, and have been for a while.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at February 18, 2024 10:11 AM (C3L7Q)

167 I think there are still a few major writers out there who use typewriters, but I'm blanking on names right now.

Neuromancer, the novel that popularized the whole concept of cyberspace, was famously written on a manual typewriter.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 18, 2024 10:12 AM (sNc8Y)

168 "Bimbos of the Death Sun," murder most fen at a sci-fi/fantasy con. Written way before anime/manga became the 800lb gorilla on the scene. Play by mail, how quaint.

Posted by: Anna Puma at February 18, 2024 10:12 AM (LTGBg)

169 Good morning
I was never very good at typing even though I took the obligatory course. I used to write grants in long hand and a secretary had to type them up. That was a sorry task because my handwriting was atrocious.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:12 AM (t/2Uw)

170 Buddy of mine had an IBM- manufactured M1 carbine from WW2. An "international business machine," indeed.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 18, 2024 10:06 AM (0FoWg)
---
I saw one of those for sale at the gun show yesterday. Mint condition, the dealer wanted $1,800. Beyond my means, alas.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

171 I did not learn to type until I was in my thirties. I had carefully avoided it, despite typing a lot of less-than-deathless prose and school papers on my ancient Underwood standard and wishing I could write faster. Then, in early '88, desperate for a real job, I signed up for the Job Training Partnership Act's Displaced Workers program. Six months of school for a bunch of college credit, plus learning how to type and to use a computer, including WordStar, WordPerfect (I think version 4?), and DBase III Plus.

My first job interview was at the employer where I worked for seven years, and then again since 2002. I got my degree at night and worked in the computer programming/systems analysis field for a few great years. I often wonder what my life would have been like if I had not seen the ad for the retraining program back then, or had not called them. . . .

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:14 AM (omVj0)

172 I still put two spaces between sentences 'cuz I learned it that way in typing class.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty

I still do it as well, even here. I haven't checked, but maybe on posts the second space get edited out. Let's find out.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:14 AM (c2/IZ)

173 Yes, it does.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:14 AM (c2/IZ)

174 Morning, 'rons and 'ronettes.

Turned 29 again yesterday. I honestly never thought I'd make it this far. Frankly, I'm disappointed that I have.

Typewriters: I have an old portable Underwood that still has a "made expressly for RH Macy's" on the side. I hardly ever use it, because all my first drafts are handwritten.

Reading: Not a thing. Depression / boredom / anhedonia. There's a new book coming out on the making of Cleopatra (the Taylor version), but not until April.

Writing: Not a damned thing. D/B/A, as above.

BTW, Perfessor, I wasn't on last week's book thread, but I did skim through it a couple of days later. Thanks for your concern.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at February 18, 2024 10:15 AM (Q0kLU)

175 Wolfus,

Were you able to find MacDonald's essay "Reading for Survival" at archive.org ?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024

***
No; I searched, but that text either plain or as a text string retrieved nothing.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:15 AM (omVj0)

176 I haven't read Catton. Any suggestions as to which of his books to start with? Turns out our local library has no physical copies of his books, just audio and e-books. I'm sure the used book store will have Catton's books.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 10:02 AM (zudum)
---
Catton wrote a history of the Army of the Potomac in three volumes that is quite good. His three-volume history of the war is great. If you like pretty pictures, he also did the accompanying text for the American Heritage Civil War book, which may be the best place to start to get a sense of his writing.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:15 AM (llXky)

177 I tried an experiment. This is a comment by ChatGPT about typewriters:

Ah, the electric typewriter, a symphony of efficiency in the keystrokes and the gentle hum of productivity. I remember the thrill of effortlessly gliding my fingers over those keys, the satisfying buzz signaling each letter's imprint. The smooth, almost silent operation felt like a technological embrace, a departure from the clunky manual counterparts. The automatic return and the convenience of correction tape added a layer of sophistication to the writing process. The electric typewriter, with its unassuming grace, marked an era of transition, bridging the gap between tradition and modernity. Nostalgia hits hard for those sleek, humming machines that made words effortlessly dance on paper.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 10:16 AM (78a2H)

178 I still do it as well, even here. I haven't checked, but maybe on posts the second space get edited out. Let's find out.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024

***
It does. I've tried putting three spaces to see if the software would strip it to two, but it winds up with one.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:16 AM (omVj0)

179 As for doing writing, since I work alone at night, I compose things in my head long before anything is written down. Some of it gets forgotten, sort of, but most of it sticks and ends up in notes.
Last night putting Tide on shelves I remembered the oddest things about the Balkans, early 1990s: the sense not only of being someWHERE else, but of being far back someTIME else. I'm dealing with an organic, pre-Christian belief system from there these days, and it recalled that sense. The feeling that it wasn't just a place, but having been removed from 'Now' and fired back in Time Itself. Not in that 'sense of history' thing from, say, tourism, but really not being in The Now at all. And on exit not only returning to a Place but re-entering current Time.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:16 AM (43xH1)

180 Well and good. Can you now explain how we'll get from A to B without a complete breakdown into anarchy, barbarism, famine, civil war, etc? Did you save that for another book? Like a lot of political theory, this all looks good on a chalk board but it looks like Liberia or Kosovo in the real world.
Posted by: PabloD
____________

Brings me to this quote from a book I cannot recommend enough. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity by JF Stephen.

"If I am asked, What do you propose to substitute for universal suffrage? Practically, What have you to recommend? I answer at once, Nothing. The whole current of thought and feeling, the whole stream of human affairs, is setting with irresistible force in that direction. The old ways of living, many of which were just as bad in their time as any of our devices can be in ours, are breaking down all over Europe, and are floating this way and that like haycocks in a flood. Nor do I see why any wise man should expend much thought or trouble on trying to save their wrecks. The waters are out and no human force can turn them back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god."

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM (Dm8we)

181 I also finished Simon Scarrow's Blackout about a Berlin Kripo (criminal police) officer dealing with serial killer taking advantage of the wartime blackout to rape and murder women at Christmas time 1939. Gestapo Mueller, head of the Gestapo, and Reinhardt Heydrich, head of the RSHA, are both interested although not necessarily in pure justice. There is a second book in the series, Dead of Night, which I'll probably read but not right now. It's pretty grim stuff watching the crumbling of the justice system. (Thank God nothing like that could happen here!) Both books are set in the dead of winter. I wonder if that's a metaphor for the winter of our discontent of the reign of Nazism.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM (FVME7)

182 Note that my initial prompt brought forth a page-long screed, so I had to impose a word limit.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM (78a2H)

183 JM - yes, he identifies universal access to the levers of governmental power as a huge problem, coupled with the fact that nobody in government owns the nation's resources and therefore nobody hesitates to squander them for personal gain. A king won't piss away his entire treasury to get votes; a senator has no reason to not loot your pockets to buy favors for voters (while skimming off his own cut).

Posted by: The lion at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM (bDE7A)

184 With luck, the Hugo fiasco will keep conventions out of places like China for quite some time to come. Can't help wondering if the willing self-censorship might have been fueled in part by wondering if drugs or other contraband would somehow turn up in their hotel rooms during the convention...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM (q3u5l)

185 125 Many, many years ago I was in an overstock book store in Linworth, Ohio. "The Village Book Shop" was in an old church
Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 09:57 AM (iZEhM)

I've been there several times. If you are fond of cluttered, rambling bookstores with creaky floors, this is your kind of place. Little nooks all over the place.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM (OX9vb)

186 I still have a couple of typewriters scattered through the house, one big old iron underwood, and a couple of those sixties portables, a corona and a sears, I think.
I have considered digging out the old underwood and typing away for ten or fifteen minutes a day to see if it helps the arthritis in my hands and fingers any.
The ribbons are dry as can be, but that's moot for exercise anyway.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 10:18 AM (4780s)

187 I'm a few pages away from finishing "Democracy: The God That Failed." My initial impression has remained largely unchanged - the author identifies the problems with modern western democratic / socialist countries and he provides his own solution (decentralization, conservative social values, and privately provided services in lieu of government services for pretty much everything).

Posted by: PabloD at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM (bDE7A)
---
Yeah, count me out on the "if our police and fire services were run as for-profit corporations, nothing bad would happen" idea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:18 AM (llXky)

188 Long-range sensor scans are indicating that some of you are not adhering to the Book Thread's storied 'pants required' requirement.

To quote the early 21st-Century hashtag vernacular, #BeBetter.

Posted by: Wesley Crusher at February 18, 2024 10:18 AM (a3Q+t)

189 Our "old floppy disks" were EIGHT inches. You are all 29.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (zdLoL)

190 Nostalgia hits hard for those sleek, humming machines that made words effortlessly dance on paper.
Posted by: Trimegistus'

Honestly, not bad at all. I would change the word 'counterparts' to 'predecessors' or maybe 'contemporaries' but otherwise...

For real, that's not bad. Especially now.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (43xH1)

191 I don't think AI will replace Morons. Not yet, anyway. It's not funny, it's vague and has no personal details, and there are no references to hobos or Kaboom.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (78a2H)

192 Greetings!
The funny thing about the qwerty keyboard design is that the keys were placed there in order to slow you down. If you typed too fast the keys jammed up.
Reading? I'm still determined to read everything Michener. He wrote a lot. I interrupted Michener to digest Kurt Schlicter's The Attack, which I can't describe as an easy read because it is frankly, terrifying.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (MeG8a)

193 189 Our "old floppy disks" were EIGHT inches. You are all 29.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (zdLoL)

Sounds ripe for a Paolo rejoinder.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (ynpvh)

194 192 Greetings!
The funny thing about the qwerty keyboard design is that the keys were placed there in order to slow you down. If you typed too fast the keys jammed up.
Reading? I'm still determined to read everything Michener. He wrote a lot. I interrupted Michener to digest Kurt Schlicter's The Attack, which I can't describe as an easy read because it is frankly, terrifying.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (MeG8a)

Ever used Dvorak?

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:21 AM (ynpvh)

195 Thanks for Da Book Thread Perfessor !

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 10:21 AM (T4tVD)

196 "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?"

This:
"But the plan in any case was primarily to “improve the digital transformation”, bring newer generations closer to technology, and prepare a world, with people, inextricably linked to technology, in which future generations would be born. But the whole world, not just half of it. This brings us to the heart of Tucker’s famous interview, the interview of the year, the essence of which no one understood.

The entire interview was to officially announce – and to the Russian, but especially to the Western audience – that Putin and Russia are not against brain chips and genetic modifications “but we need formalization and regulation” (see the part with Tucker’s question about “AI empire”

+ at the same time to consolidate “the reality of the real war in which Russia is right”, thus confirming that Russia is against the plan for the world of Western elites. What happened just a week after the interview?

Russia, shortly after Tucker’s interview, has officially announced ...[word limit]

Posted by: limited at February 18, 2024 10:21 AM (qm+6E)

197 Another fun typewriter story. My grandmother had been a railroad secretary before marriage and when my uncle was newly married and working on his graduate degree, needed someone to type his papers. Meanwhile my grandfather had built his own house and wanted to expand the basement by digging out under the foundation. For each wheelbarrow of dirt my uncle removed, my grandmother would type a page.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:21 AM (c2/IZ)

198 175 -- Wolfus,

That's just weird.

Try reading for survival macdonald

I did that just now at archive.org and it came right up.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:22 AM (q3u5l)

199 Ever used Dvorak?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)'

My ever-eccentric/crazy ex-wife had a keyboard for the home PC set up for Dvorak. In a box in the basement.

...The keyboard.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:23 AM (43xH1)

200 Two good recent reads:
How to Read a Book by Adler & Van Doren. I believe this was probably a very old OregonMuse recommendation. Had a paperback copy handy for years but rarely dipped into it. Was able to get an audio book copy and the format worked great for it.

The other was Black Sunday - When weather claimed the US fifth air force. By Michael Claringbould of Avonmore Books. Many titles from this publisher mostly australia/pacific WW2 related. Usually pictures and plane profiles are highlights of theses titles, but this one has a very comprehensive story of a very bad day for the entire strike force in New Guinea on an April day in 1944. Highly recommended to anyone interested in aviation.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at February 18, 2024 10:23 AM (3uc2w)

201 197 Another fun typewriter story. My grandmother had been a railroad secretary before marriage and when my uncle was newly married and working on his graduate degree, needed someone to type his papers. Meanwhile my grandfather had built his own house and wanted to expand the basement by digging out under the foundation. For each wheelbarrow of dirt my uncle removed, my grandmother would type a page.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:21 AM (c2/IZ)

An Uncle, during WW2, got a better assignment because he had learned to type. Ended up an LT in New Guinea.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:24 AM (ynpvh)

202 176 ... "Catton wrote a history of the Army of the Potomac in three volumes that is quite good. His three-volume history of the war is great."

A.H. Lloyd,
Thanks for the suggestions. I just checked. Turns out I have his two volume set on Grant on Kindle. I had forgotten them. (Sigh!) That happens a lot. A great sale price on an e-book that I get then forget about it.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 10:24 AM (zudum)

203 Hot Coffee!!! Patrick Chiles book pre-ordered!!!

Posted by: qmark at February 18, 2024 10:24 AM (+t9Oi)

204 What am I currently reading? The complete Sherlock Holmes collection, volumes I and II.

Posted by: Infidel de manahatta at February 18, 2024 10:24 AM (+MJqz)

205 That's just weird.

Try reading for survival macdonald

I did that just now at archive.org and it came right up.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024

***
I think I was using the wrong search field. I found it; thanks!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:25 AM (omVj0)

206 I'm sitting out in the shop looking at my Smith-Corona Coronet Electric typewriter that I inherited from my Grandmother in law wondering is the tape readable...

Posted by: Reforger at February 18, 2024 10:25 AM (Bukd2)

207 199 Ever used Dvorak?
Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia)'

My ever-eccentric/crazy ex-wife had a keyboard for the home PC set up for Dvorak. In a box in the basement.

...The keyboard.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:23 AM (43xH1)

I was wondering before you finished with "...The keyboard".
Started to sound like Schrödinger's cat.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:25 AM (ynpvh)

208 My ever-eccentric/crazy ex-wife
Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:23 AM

Possible Moron Rule One violation detected.

Posted by: Wesley Crusher at February 18, 2024 10:25 AM (a3Q+t)

209 My father knew both typing and bookkeeping before he got drafted, so he would up a company clerk. He said all that meant was that in addition to the usual infantry load he had to carry an Underwood manual typewriter as well.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (78a2H)

210 Wolfus,

Tried the tinyurl thing on the MacDonald.

See if this works:
http://tinyurl.com/yrdzta7r

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (q3u5l)

211 I'm reading the second book in Cixin Liu's 3 Body trilogy, The Dark Forest. It was a little difficult to get into because the Chinese names make it hard to remember which character is attached to the name. It is also difficult to do a synopsis of the book if you haven't read the first one because his writing totally out of the box.
So trying not to give any spoilers: How do you think humanity would react if we knew that an alien fleet was on the way but wouldn't arrive for 400 years. That their technology was vastly superior. That they had a way to spy on everything we were doing and interfering with our technology to keep us from making great leaps. They have a single flaw however. They can't read our minds and in their culture everyone can read everyone else's mind so they cannot lie. They do not understand subterfuge. They do not understand strategic planning that uses false premises to fool the enemy.
How will humanity exploit this?
This is an amazing book and I'm only a couple of hundred pages in.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (t/2Uw)

212 I owned a computer that you could switch to the Dvorak layout if you wanted to, but I never used it. Qwerty rules in my brain. I took typing in high school and I got ribbed about being in a mostly female class, which it was. I think I was maybe the only male. I had lots of dates tho'.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (MeG8a)

213 What am I currently reading? The complete Sherlock Holmes collection, volumes I and II.
Posted by: Infidel de manahatta at February 18, 2024 10:24 AM (+MJqz)

Which version?

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (Q0kLU)

214 Sounds ripe for a Paolo rejoinder.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:19 AM (ynpvh)
---
The Paolo, his disk is never floppy, except when he see the Hilary of the Clintons, and then it go into the hiding.

Posted by: The Paolo at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (llXky)

215 "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live."

Romans 8:13

Posted by: Marcus T at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (mp9e7)

216 As for 'fun' reading I've decided that 5-6 hours of driving one-way to any destination is just something I'd rather not do any more. After returning I found I could have taken Amtrak for about the same as I spent for a rental car and gas. I do not use my own vehicle for long trips as I consider the risk/benefit if anything goes wrong with my own car versus a rental.

If I'd done Amtrak I could have read a few books, gotten some work done, etc. instead of being stuck in a hurtling box having to pay at least some attention to the subject at hand the entire time.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:27 AM (43xH1)

217 Putin's historical monologue in response to Tucker Carlson reminded me of a similar monologue from Count Dracula. (I got this from Kim Newman's Anno Dracula but is suspect it is original with Bram Stoker. (This may require two or three posts.)

‘We Szekeleys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland and the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they fought the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 10:27 AM (FVME7)

218 There's a certain irony to having "How to Read a Book" as an audio book....

The paperback edition is in my TBR stack. It was recommended by my pastor. I may pass it off to the kiddo once I'm done, if I think it will benefit her.

Posted by: The lion at February 18, 2024 10:27 AM (bDE7A)

219 Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins? Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland, he found us here when he reached the frontier? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekeleys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, “water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless”.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 10:27 AM (FVME7)

220 Dean Ing ?

(pictures Robert Mitchum singing "Dean Ing, Dean Ing )
Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 09:55 AM (T4tVD)

Dean Ing was a sci fi writer, who focused a lot on "collaspe" and post WWIII books. One that I remember was "sudden impact"
He lived in Ashland Oregon, and his later books were based in part in that area. I think his wife was an announcer on KSOR for a while.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 18, 2024 10:28 AM (D7oie)

221 @193 Sounds ripe for a Paolo rejoinder.

But Jim, that is a Paolo rejoinder!

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 10:28 AM (zdLoL)

222 How will humanity exploit this?
This is an amazing book and I'm only a couple of hundred pages in.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:26 AM (t/2Uw)
---
The Catholic Church will attempt to convert them. Plans are in place.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:28 AM (llXky)

223 Off, feline sock.

Posted by: PabloD at February 18, 2024 10:29 AM (bDE7A)

224 Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the “bloody sword”, or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent, who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery upon them!... Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekeleys – and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains and their swords – can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.’

Count Dracula

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 10:29 AM (FVME7)

225 'I got ribbed'
Posted by: gourmand du jour'

..for her pleasure?

Posted by: LenNeal Not The Paolo at February 18, 2024 10:30 AM (43xH1)

226 190 Nostalgia hits hard for those sleek, humming machines that made words effortlessly dance on paper.
Posted by: Trimegistus'

The electric typewriter is great percussion. The audible "click" you can get on your computer keyboard is only annoying.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 10:30 AM (OX9vb)

227 There's a certain irony to having "How to Read a Book" as an audio book....

I think that is volume two. Volume one is How To Read.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:31 AM (c2/IZ)

228 After returning I found I could have taken Amtrak for about the same as I spent for a rental car and gas.

Huh. Not my (very limited) experience. One time my wife wanted to go from San Antonio to Atlanta and we checked Amtrak just for S&G. It would have cost more than flying and taken three calendar days including stops in Baltimore and, I think, Chicago.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 18, 2024 10:32 AM (sNc8Y)

229 Huh. Not my (very limited) experience. One time my wife wanted to go from San Antonio to Atlanta and we checked Amtrak just for S&G. It would have cost more than flying and taken three calendar days including stops in Baltimore and, I think, Chicago.
Posted by: Oddbob'

It totally depends on where you are going. This was a straight shot from Chicago to St. Louis. Basically a commuter line.

Posted by: LenNeal Not The Paolo at February 18, 2024 10:33 AM (43xH1)

230 It was a little difficult to get into because the Chinese names make it hard to remember which character is attached to the name.

-
It's quite simple. It's just one from column A and 2 from column B.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 10:34 AM (FVME7)

231 If I'd done Amtrak I could have read a few books, gotten some work done, etc. instead of being stuck in a hurtling box having to pay at least some attention to the subject at hand the entire time.
Posted by: LenNeal

If you had used Amtrak, you would probably still be en route. I love trains, and once planned to take one of their signature routes, but they are notorious for not being on schedule. The rails are owned by the freight lines and they always take precedence. Shorter routes may be better than long ones.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:35 AM (c2/IZ)

232 I still have a usb 3.5 inch floppy drive, use it every four or five years for something.
Haven't had to recover anything from a 5 1/4" drive, but behind the furnace I have an old columbia portable with two such drives, which could miraculously fire up, I suppose.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 10:36 AM (4780s)

233 I can dimly remember a time when you could almost set your watch by Greyhound arrivals and departures, or get a bus into and out of most places. Not any more, and not for quite a few years now. Used to get a lot of reading done on bus trips...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:36 AM (q3u5l)

234 Len Neal, your mind is in the gutter LOL!

Posted by: gourmand du jour at February 18, 2024 10:36 AM (MeG8a)

235 I just got Atomic Habits on the Libby app on my OGR (Omniscient Glowing Rectangle) device from my local library.

Because consuming the written word via something the size of a 3X5 card is totally the way of the future, dude.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:37 AM (NBVIP)

236 Happy belated birthday, Mary Poppins, big bday hug!

Posted by: old chick at February 18, 2024 10:37 AM (sOete)

237 I don't think I could survive even an airplane trip if I couldn't read.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:37 AM (t/2Uw)

238 I have never even cracked open 'Dracula' or 'Frankenstein'. No idea what's in either book except for synopses and movies.

Posted by: LenNeal Not The Paolo at February 18, 2024 10:38 AM (43xH1)

239 Twenty leading technology companies, including Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, TikTok, X, Amazon and Adobe vowed Friday to help prevent deceptive uses of artificial intelligence from interfering with global elections.

I dont think that mean what you think it means.

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 18, 2024 10:39 AM (ENQN6)

240 Because consuming the written word via something the size of a 3X5 card is totally the way of the future, dude.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty

Get an IPad. About the size of a book. Two pages displayed. Much easier.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:39 AM (t/2Uw)

241 We've replaced the typewriter with the computer, of course, but we still use a lot of the features that have been integrated into the word processing software…

I recently read Ellen Lupton’s Thinking with Type, which is a sort of bathroom reader of topics on the history of the alphabet and typesetting it. Much of what is in modern word processors dates back to the beginning of setting type.

We may play the text, but it is also playing us.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 10:40 AM (PmqP5)

242 Anonosaurus Wrecks, I don't know why he reminded you of Dracula. He doesn't drink blood, he'll just put some chips on you, and so will Donald. They will compete (so say the experts). But I can't tell you more because of the word restriction that protects against long and annoying texts. It's clear, there's not much to tell.

Posted by: limited at February 18, 2024 10:40 AM (qm+6E)

243 Because consuming the written word via something the size of a 3X5 card is totally the way of the future, dude.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:37 AM (NBVIP)

I'll read on my phone if that's what's available, but the larger screen of my iPad makes the reading feel much less disjointed.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at February 18, 2024 10:40 AM (ashFY)

244 I have never even cracked open 'Dracula' or 'Frankenstein'. No idea what's in either book except for synopses and movies.
Posted by: LenNeal Not The Paolo at February 18, 2024

***
Both are kinda slow reads, but at least Stoker's is (melo)dramatic (he was in the theatre business and new what audiences like) and exciting in some places. I tried Mary Shelley's a long time ago and got bogged down by all the long speeches, both from Frankenstein himself and by his creation.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 10:40 AM (omVj0)

245 It was a little difficult to get into because the Chinese names make it hard to remember which character is attached to the name.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)

In HS instructor gave a list of books and we would be tested on our choice, my choice was "The Brothers Karamazov". The people in the book change names when they change ages ie child, young adult, adult.
I read it in 3 days and went to the instructor and asked how I would be tested. He said I couldn't have read it in 3 days and asked me about one of the character's lives. I answered describing the 3 names, then asked about the test again. He said I passed.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at February 18, 2024 10:41 AM (B7bb6)

246 I still have an electric typewriter, and maybe a manual. I don't think ribbons are available anymore, so they are probably boat anchors.

By the way, spell check had no suggestions to auto complete this strange word "typewriter" the first few times I typed it.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 18, 2024 10:41 AM (c2/IZ)

247 Here's a great read about riding the train across the country which the author cleverly describes as entering into the world of Amtrakistan.

http://tinyurl.com/5daucrjc

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:41 AM (NBVIP)

248 I don't think I could survive even an airplane trip if I couldn't read.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)'

Not in that sense, but I wonder every time I'm on Turkish Airlines how in the hell some of those people even manage to get on the plane. A large percentage are either illiterate in any 'World Language' or illiterate, period. I had one older lady who neither spoke nor read any language the stewardess and myself tried on her.
Gagauz from Moldavia, heading to Evanston, Illinois.

Posted by: LenNeal Not The Paolo at February 18, 2024 10:42 AM (43xH1)

249 I don't think I could survive even an airplane trip if I couldn't read.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:37 AM (t/2Uw)

If you couldn't read, you'd be the pilot. But there's always other positions. Do you know what gender you are? If not, we probably have something in the C-Suite.

Posted by: United's DEI Department at February 18, 2024 10:42 AM (0FoWg)

250 My dad had the advantage of having been a trucker before the war, so he never carried full pack after Camp Maxey (he was 'promoted' from clerk to driver on an LST in The Channel, just before the doors opened). Army drilled a two-fingers-and-thumb typing system that would yield 35 WPM, pretty impressive.

In the withdrawal in front of Elsenborn Ridge, the 393rd lost all the records with which they were impedimented, and all personnel in Service Company typed night and day to reconstruct them, for weeks. Just as the job was done, they recaptured the files from the retreating Germans.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 10:42 AM (zdLoL)

251 238 I have never even cracked open 'Dracula' or 'Frankenstein'. No idea what's in either book except for synopses and movies.

Posted by: LenNeal Not The Paolo at February 18, 2024 10:38 AM (43xH1)

Dracula makes mention of Kodak cameras.

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 10:43 AM (ynpvh)

252 More about his expression of russian mindset vs the turks

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 18, 2024 10:43 AM (PXvVL)

253 Rejoinder? I just met her!

Posted by: Rimshot at February 18, 2024 10:43 AM (NBVIP)

254 The other was Black Sunday - When weather claimed the US fifth air force. By Michael Claringbould of Avonmore Books. Many titles from this publisher mostly australia/pacific WW2 related. Usually pictures and plane profiles are highlights of theses titles, but this one has a very comprehensive story of a very bad day for the entire strike force in New Guinea on an April day in 1944. Highly recommended to anyone interested in aviation.
Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike

The latest episode of Masters of the Air tells the true story of a very bad day over Munster for the 100th. SPOILER ALERT!!! Only one bomber from the entire group made it back and it was shot to shit.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 10:44 AM (FVME7)

255 I only tried Pynchon with Gravity's Rainbow because the subject seemed in my wheelhouse. I felt I'd put in too much effort when I quit about a third into it.

I did the same with his Mason and Dixon. I read about 80 pages and got angrier with each deliberately obscure attempt to show how smart he was. Life is too short.
Posted by: Archimedes at February 18, 2024 09:46 AM (CsUN+)

I like Thomas Pynchon and his smarty-pants "Hop on aboard, groove on my vibe and we'll have fun" way of writing.

Yeah, he's pretty much the smartest guy in the room so he can carry it off. Most can't.

But, if you don't like that kind of thing, yeah, hop off and read what you like.

I suppose I like him because I like the olde picaresque novels (like "Barry Lyndon" to give a well-known example). They often have a similar Pynchonesque vibe of hop aboard and let's have fun.

If I were to recommend a Thomas Pynchon novel to read first,

I'd suggest "V". It's got all the Pynchon style and quirks and fun but in an easier and more humorous form.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 18, 2024 10:45 AM (nFnyb)

256 --Because consuming the written word via something the size of a 3X5 card is totally the way of the future, dude.
Posted by: Quarter Twenty--

In my early ebooking days, I did a lot of reading on a Palm Pilot. Long bus trip, got through the first two Harry Bosch novels on that freakin' 3x5 handheld. Of course, the eyes were better then. Couldn't do it now. Spoiled by the kindle.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:45 AM (q3u5l)

257 Well, time for Mass. Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:47 AM (llXky)

258 I have three typewriters. I keep the most modern, a Brother daisy wheel (I always had a soft spot for daisy wheel typewriters and printers ever since getting a cheap daisy wheel printer out of the old DAK catalog) upstairs on my project workbench. I use it mainly for typing mailing labels or labels for spice jars.

I have an old (ca. 1950?) Underwood Champion Portable in my study. It is an invaluable tool for getting stuff down now without having to await for a screen to clear or an app to start up and then have to make choices about opening a new document.

I have a beautiful Olivetti Underwood PRAXIS 48 mostly for decorative purposes in the living room next to my writing desk. It works, but has a skip around column 30. I need to open it up and look at it. It is a beautiful machine.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 10:48 AM (PmqP5)

259 The Russian name thing in 'Literature' drives me insane. Italians do it with 'titles': every character has at least 4 descriptives. It's absurd.
Serbian is easy: two names. That's it. Except there are only like 20 first names and another 40 last names, so after a while they all look alike.
But in fiction with limited characters it's easy.
Few diminutives. Also, that Russian thing where the 'nickname' is three times longer than the original: WTF?
'His name is Aleks, but we call him Aleksaderovitchovitchmoskovovitch. For short.'

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:48 AM (43xH1)

260 Once, flying back from Texas, there was a woman obviously an illegal alien by dress and the hobo bag at her feet who sat the entire flight with a sleeping child on her lap and literally did not move. I was convinced the child was drugged because the child didn't move either. She and other similarly dressed family members or at least members of the same ethnic tribe, all entered and at down after the flight was boarded.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:48 AM (t/2Uw)

261 Because consuming the written word via something the size of a 3X5 card is totally the way of the future, dude.

Yeah, but it's a 3x5 card that you have with you almost all the time. The phone is my reading device of availability and convenience, not of choice. Before every trip or vacation I think about getting a dedicated Kindle device but keep deciding that it's not worth it; I can live with reading on the phone for a few days.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 18, 2024 10:49 AM (sNc8Y)

262 Kathy Hochul tells NY businesses not to fear about Trump verdict: "Nothing to worry about"

I dont think that mean what you think it means.

Posted by: rhennigantx at February 18, 2024 10:50 AM (ENQN6)

263 If your typewriter uses standard ribbons you can still get them off Amazon and possibly some dedicated typewriter sites of unknowable provenance. The quality isn’t up to when typewriters were common but they do work.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 10:50 AM (PmqP5)

264 246 ... "I still have an electric typewriter, and maybe a manual. I don't think ribbons are available anymore, so they are probably boat anchors."

Ribbons are still available. A search should bring up the sources. If you get any, avoid the ones with white correction sections. That stuff flakes off and gets into the mechanism. Better to use Wite-Out fluid.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 10:51 AM (zudum)

265 PabloD, I have listened to a number of lectures by Hoppe, and I do like his analysis of how things are not working. In description he is very good, he is historically grounded. In his argument that royalty would handle things better I am surprised since he lives in Turkey, the land of "the Sultan owns everything and the Grand vizier and Beys steal everything and mismanage it for him"

Posted by: Kindltot at February 18, 2024 10:51 AM (D7oie)

266 Speaking of prequels-

I'm currently reading Richard Condon's "Prizzi's Honor" which is a fun book and movie.

After PH's huge success, he wrote a prequel titled, "Prizzi's Family" that filled in the gaps as to why Maerose ran away and this gal who's mentioned like in three sentences in PH was important.

But, here's the thing:
1) Condon has to retcon his own story to get a novel out of it for the prequel
2) It winds up being a total shaggy dog story becuz nothing of consequence can happen due to the story of "Prizzi's Honor" that it's trying to prequelize.
3) Just a well-written cash grab

An unnecessary prequel where nothing happens, I mean-

people criticize the Star War prequels but at least they end with Darth Vader being smothered in volcanic gravy.

At least that happens.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 18, 2024 10:52 AM (nFnyb)

267 I was convinced the child was drugged because the child didn't move either. She and other similarly dressed family members or at least members of the same ethnic tribe, all entered and at down after the flight was boarded.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice)'

Mexico has very lax adoption laws internally. They still do 'gift children' with no state intervention and it's legally recognized. I personally know a case where a local druggie handed her kid to the neighbors because she 'couldn't care for her' and the family took the girl in, took her to school and explained, no questions, all good. No official paperwork at all. It can create HUGE problems when that family goes to other countries, believe me.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:52 AM (43xH1)

268 "Hop on aboard, groove on my vibe and we'll have fun"

Pretty accurate, though not everybody has fun on Pynchon's vibe.
Melville did that -- it's what makes Dick so Moby -- and so did Victor Hugo. There are those who say that big-scale writing in Russian and French consists of little else. There's subplots, and there are divergent arcs, and then there are chapters that are just plain about something else.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 10:53 AM (zdLoL)

269 I have found myself eyeing old manual typewriters for one simple reason: My handwriting is decent, but addressing an envelope is messy and I have several "lost" letters out there in the aether that are likely the result of a misunderstood letter or number. While it is said that envelopes can be run through a printer, I have yet to experience such a thing, as every envelope I have attempted to print has wound up mangled and jammed in the worthless machine. Ditto those little stickers, which seem to stick wonderfully to rollers and gears. No, I want an old typewriter, damnit! One that strikes out letters with a hammer, through inky ribbons! One that I don't have to plug in! One that I don't have to chase the cat off of when I want to use it (O.K. Sometimes is is fun to watch them jump...)

Posted by: Brewingfrog at February 18, 2024 10:53 AM (zX+j0)

270 237 I don't think I could survive even an airplane trip if I couldn't read.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:37 AM (t/2Uw)

Ditto that!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 10:53 AM (OX9vb)

271 I'm not a fan of ""Steven Erickson"". I owned all his books at one point and gave them ALL away.

He does have some good novels in there, Deadhouse Gates with the Chain of Dogs plot actually has a beginning, middle and end, rare for his books. But I eventually walked away from him and rejected his output. I have lots of problems with his themes, his writing style and more but the straw that broke the camel's back was Karsa Orlong. Karsa now only shits all over Conan (and bites his style) but he's a completely vile character who is given OP chosen one power levels and I hate him. He's one of my most hated fictional characters.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at February 18, 2024 10:54 AM (xcxpd)

272 The phone is my reading device of availability and convenience, not of choice.

This is exactly right. It’s a giant library, always available, that literally takes no space because it’s part of a device I already have.

I even scan my old cookbook pamphlets so that I have them when traveling.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 10:55 AM (PmqP5)

273 Anyway I hope Fenelonspoke saw the Travis McGee recommendations and at least looked into it.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:55 AM (43xH1)

274 With all the Sci fi fans here, no comment on the Three Body Problem?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:57 AM (t/2Uw)

275 The typing envelopes with a typewriter is in fact an excellent reason to own one. Yes, I've done it with international letters, it's far, far better than my artist's impression of handwriting and printing.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 10:57 AM (43xH1)

276 >>Kathy Hochul tells NY businesses not to fear about Trump verdict: "Nothing to worry about"
--------

She's practically admitting that Trump, and only Trump, is being targeted.

Posted by: JQ at February 18, 2024 10:57 AM (njWTi)

277 Kindltot - yep, Hoppe's analysis of the problem is accurate. I fall back on the axiom, I think from Thomas Sowell, that there are no solutions, only trade-offs. We probably went irreparably off the rails as a nation once the Supreme Court did a 180 on the Commerce Clause, thus unleashing a tidal wave of federal legislation and control over every aspect of life. We're not fixing that at the ballot box.

Posted by: PabloD at February 18, 2024 10:58 AM (bDE7A)

278 I want an old typewriter, damnit! One that strikes out letters with a hammer, through inky ribbons! One that I don't have to plug in!

You can still get them at vintage and antique stores, usually with a sign that says don’t touch.

I recommend rethinking the “don’t have to plug in” requirement. For labeling envelopes electric typewriters tend to be much easier and more legible. And you can get one for practically nothing in thrift stores.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 10:58 AM (PmqP5)

279 Back when dirt was new some of the lowest paid office staff were in the typing pool. Then Bill Gates came along and turned everyone into typists, including senior engineers, managers and directors.

So since this is the Book Thread and many of you are writers, I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:59 AM (NBVIP)

280 I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty'

Yes, I edit them but usually within a short time.
Unless I'm drunk; then Off they go!

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 11:01 AM (43xH1)

281 One Kid travelled halfway across the country by Amtrak and said the other passengers are either people who are really, really into trains; and people who aren't allowed to fly any more.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 11:01 AM (78a2H)

282 So since this is the Book Thread and many of you are writers, I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:59 AM (NBVIP)

Only super important emails, mostly no. But very rarely, I've done this.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at February 18, 2024 11:01 AM (xcxpd)

283 With all the Sci fi fans here, no comment on the Three Body Problem?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:57 AM (t/2Uw)

Is it as good as its rep?

I'm fairly suspicious of modern SF after having been burned a few times.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 18, 2024 11:01 AM (nFnyb)

284 Have a great day, everyone.

Dipping my toes into a book about young dentists in the US Naval Dental Corps, Wearing the Cat by moron author Natural Fake. Brings back memories of my Naval Service, when testosterone was in full bloom.

On deck: the first Manchester biography of Winston Churchill Visions of Glory, 1874–1932. Interesting style.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 18, 2024 11:02 AM (u82oZ)

285 So since this is the Book Thread and many of you are writers, I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024

***
Not really. I make changes on the fly, as I do with posts here, and go back to edit. Unless it's a super-crucial email, one that I *have* to get right in every detail, I usually send very soon after composition.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 18, 2024 11:02 AM (omVj0)

286 274 With all the Sci fi fans here, no comment on the Three Body Problem?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:57 AM (t/2Uw)

It's interesting, very Chinese in some ways. It's a "neat" look at various totalitarian solutions to big problems. It reminds me of David Wingrove in that way. Solid sci-fi but not my cup of tea.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at February 18, 2024 11:03 AM (xcxpd)

287 Thought I'd share: Illinois hands out driver's licenses, too.
Link on the State Website:
Temporary Visitor Driver's License (TVDL) For Undocumented (Non-Visa Status) Individuals Driver

Posted by: JM in Ill -- Behold the Manchurian Candidate at February 18, 2024 11:03 AM (si3ji)

288 And Greyhound is for people who are not allowed on both planes and trains. It's helpful to have good peripheral vision while riding Greyhound so you can read the parole paperwork for your seat mate. You need to know if he just did time for stealing cars or getting all stabby.

Posted by: PabloD at February 18, 2024 11:03 AM (bDE7A)

289 I spent the better part of an hour a few weeks ago figuring out how to print an address on an envelope and even then it came out printed on a bit of a slope instead of straight across. I bet if I wanted to do it again today, it would still take almost as long to figure it out again.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 18, 2024 11:03 AM (sNc8Y)

290 Edit emails? Can't remember letting one sit as long as overnight. Usually it's a quick reread right after composition, and maybe (not often) changing something, and hit the send button. After hitting send, I think about the email and tell myself that maybe that wasn't quite what I wanted to say or that some portion of it was exceptionally stupid even for me.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 11:04 AM (q3u5l)

291 For those with typewriters, especially manuals, your biggest enemy is dust. Most portables, even the bigger ones, came in a hard case. But a lint free towel or plastic cover thrown over the machine when not in use will do the job. A stiff brush and a kneaded eraser will keep the strike faces clear of accumulated ink from the ribbon.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 11:04 AM (zudum)

292 do you edit your emails?

One of the greatest features of Eudora was the scheduling of e-mails. I regularly scheduled emails to go out several hours later or in the morning. Partly to get the email in front of its recipient at an optimal time, but mostly so that I could edit it later when I realize “I should have said that” or “I should have said it that way”.

Modern email software claims to have the same feature, but it doesn’t seem to be reliable.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 11:04 AM (PmqP5)

293 284 Have a great day, everyone.

Dipping my toes into a book about young dentists in the US Naval Dental Corps, Wearing the Cat by moron author Natural Fake. Brings back memories of my Naval Service, when testosterone was in full bloom.

On deck: the first Manchester biography of Winston Churchill Visions of Glory, 1874–1932. Interesting style.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 18, 2024 11:02 AM (u82oZ)

I like the pulp novels the main character is reading in Wearing the Cat. I'd read those if he published them.

The books sorta go off in a direction I didn't expect after the first book. Loved the slice of life bits in Japan though.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at February 18, 2024 11:04 AM (xcxpd)

294 OK, all, I guess I had better get going and find something to do, otherwise I'm going to spend the day getting blind drunk, which is not a good thing.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at February 18, 2024 11:05 AM (Q0kLU)

295 PabloD, there are three books I decided I needed to get and read, Hoppe's Democracy, Jesus Huerta de Soto's Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles, and Saifedean Ammous' The Fiat Standard.

I expect fun will be had by all.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 18, 2024 11:05 AM (D7oie)

296 A man's gotta really love his wife to wear those pants.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 18, 2024 11:06 AM (W/lyH)

297 We had a Royal manual typewriter that sat in it's own case. Then, there was an IBM that looked like their Selectric model, but wasn't electric. Harvest gold too.

That Royal had little round keys you really had to pound on. And a reel-to-reel ribbon.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at February 18, 2024 11:08 AM (Q4IgG)

298 One Kid travelled halfway across the country by Amtrak and said the other passengers are either people who are really, really into trains; and people who aren't allowed to fly any more.
Posted by: Trimegistus'

I rode Amtrak once from Chicago to Philly with a retired New Jersey cop who took trains because he couldn't sneak his gun onto airplanes anymore.

Posted by: LenNeal at February 18, 2024 11:09 AM (43xH1)

299 Kindltot - If you want, I'll send you Hoppe's book in a few days after I finish it off. You should have my email still; I'll just need a mailing address.

Posted by: PabloD at February 18, 2024 11:09 AM (bDE7A)

300 Once upon a time, a Greyhound snafu put me at a station with a considerable number of fellows being released from the Graybar Hotel and all of us waiting for the next bus after the one that was originally scheduled was cancelled. The crowd was annoyed, to put it mildly. Fun trip...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 11:09 AM (q3u5l)

301 Gonna re-read Shogun...can't believe it's been nearly 50 years.

Posted by: BignJames at February 18, 2024 11:10 AM (AwYPR)

302 You want confusing character names? Try reading the Tale of Genji. All the male characters are referred to entirely by their title. Minister of the Second Pavilion, Inspector of the Southern Quarter, whatever. And when they get shifted to different positions, the author starts using the new title -- so if you missed something, you no longer know who anyone is!

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 11:11 AM (78a2H)

303 So since this is the Book Thread and many of you are writers, I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty
___________

Definitely for work emails, because I'm often pissed and responding to something that wasn't clear or never should have been sent in the first place. Would have been fired long ago if I sent many of the first drafts.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at February 18, 2024 11:12 AM (Dm8we)

304 Three Body Problem, I thought first book was really good with very different structure, but current science.

I felt book two the party took over.
Book 3 was cynical & depressing.

I don't regret reading any of them.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at February 18, 2024 11:12 AM (3uc2w)

305 Is it as good as its rep?

I'm fairly suspicious of modern SF after having been burned a few times.
Posted by: naturalfake

I just found it completely different from anything else I had read. It may be that the author, being Chinese, comes from a completely different background. The first book, The 3 Body Problem, is just mystifying. Because the people are Chinese, the book raises all kinds of societal issues about politics, religion, technology. I found this glimpse into another culture fascinating blended with the sci fi theme.
This second book is even better(as my son who recommended the books advised) as it gets deeper in to the psychological ramifications of being faced with an alien technology superior to ours. Not only are we not the only creatures in the Universe, but they are more advanced than we are. Are they Gods? Some might think so...

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 11:13 AM (t/2Uw)

306 Yeah, count me out on the "if our police and fire services were run as for-profit corporations, nothing bad would happen" idea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:18 AM (llXky)

Whatever do you mean?

Posted by: M L Crassus at February 18, 2024 11:13 AM (Angsy)

307 H.S. typing teacher, Mr. Burdick (we called him Mr. Bird Dick behind his back because of course we did) would play music so that we would get used to typing in rhythm. The one that stuck in my memory is Roy Rogers and Dale Evans signature tune "Happy Trails". Went something like this:

Happy Trails (typety type)
To You (double space, type)
Until (type), we meet (type), again (carriage return!)

Posted by: Muldoon at February 18, 2024 11:14 AM (991eG)

308 That Royal had little round keys you really had to pound on.

My mom had a little bright blue plastic-cased Royal portable. Tiny. I used it once to type up a high school paper. Bought a TRS-80 Model I used with a dot matrix “line printer” a few months later which I used from then on. I have no nostalgia for that Royal. It was a pain to use and even the early Radio Shack dot matrix was more legible!

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 11:14 AM (PmqP5)

309 Recommendations?
- Half-past Human and The Godwhale. T.J. Bass -- excellent story of a dystopian future Earth. Author was obviously educated in medicine. I started with the latter and would recommend that.

- Babel 17. Samuel Delany -- lots of "far-out" SciFi, but absolutely outstanding story about how language influences thought.

Posted by: Aingon at February 18, 2024 11:15 AM (9ppvE)

310 I should write something up for the BT.

Just finished The Sea Wolf and a reread of Treasure Island. Going to start The Wager by David Grann.

Aaaaargh!

Posted by: nurse ratched at February 18, 2024 11:15 AM (asZ+E)

311 They can't read our minds and in their culture everyone can read everyone else's mind so they cannot lie. They do not understand subterfuge. They do not understand strategic planning that uses false premises to fool the enemy.
=====

Sounds like the fantasy tropes of Tuatha De whatever, Irish stories of the Fae.

Posted by: mustbequantum at February 18, 2024 11:15 AM (MIKMs)

312 Yeah, count me out on the "if our police and fire services were run as for-profit corporations, nothing bad would happen" idea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

Speaking of which, not all police services are expendable.

http://tinyurl.com/ycxkrnmc

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:16 AM (FVME7)

313 From pre email days..."memo's".

Posted by: BignJames at February 18, 2024 11:16 AM (AwYPR)

314 I learned to type on an Olympia Travelleur de Luxe manual typewriter. When it was time to take a typing class on an IBM Seletric when I was 12 the typing teacher was horrified at how hard I hit the keys. Well, I learned on a manual typewriter. That requires hard hitting.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at February 18, 2024 11:17 AM (Bn2JH)

315 I was thinking about the typewriter as musical instrument and of course, one must experience The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson. Many renditions are on youtube but look for the ones where the carriage return has the audible bell tone upon completion. This is mandatory.

Posted by: gourmand du jour at February 18, 2024 11:17 AM (MeG8a)

316 306 Yeah, count me out on the "if our police and fire services were run as for-profit corporations, nothing bad would happen" idea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:18 AM (llXky)

Whatever do you mean?
Posted by: M L Crassus at February 18, 2024 11:13 AM (Angsy)

About 75% of fire services in this country are run as non-profit VFDs.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at February 18, 2024 11:18 AM (Bn2JH)

317 When I was 17 my parents bought a basic Smith Corona typewriter for me to type out papers on. My late father wanted to get a typewriter with a 50,000 word dictionary. Because HE couldn’t spell. : o )

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at February 18, 2024 11:20 AM (Bn2JH)

318 Yeah, count me out on the "if our police and fire services were run as for-profit corporations, nothing bad would happen" idea.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 18, 2024 10:18 AM (llXky)

As long as it wasn’t run like the USPS it might have a chance.

Snark aside unfortunately you are right though if for profit prisons are any indication.

Posted by: Sap Green at February 18, 2024 11:20 AM (MNhXM)

319 Oh. Sorry. Y'all are ticking along about typewriters.

Happy returns!

Posted by: nurse ratched at February 18, 2024 11:20 AM (asZ+E)

320 "horrified at how hard I hit the keys"

Driver's ed. Mid-60s. First time behind the wheel. About to leave the parking lot and go into street traffic. Instructor says, "Stop here before you turn out." Everybody is thrown forward, probably whiplashed for life. Instructor glares and says, "Haven't you ever heard of power brakes?" Me: "No." We didn't get on too well...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 11:21 AM (q3u5l)

321 I didn't get hung up in the science. Maybe that is the difference in reaction to the books. I am astonished at how the author even talks about the physics of what the scientists are trying to do. Being completely unmathematical, it is not important to me. It is how the different segments of society react to what is going on and how the author conceives these reactions. How the military defines their different objectives and the unique way they go about trying to deal with this problem they've been presented with.
I think it needs to be read as a unique addition to sci fi genre.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 11:21 AM (t/2Uw)

322 For amusement, do a search for typewriters used by famous authors. The xavier.edu site has a comprehensive list and many with photos of the writers with their machines. Kinda fun.

Posted by: JTB at February 18, 2024 11:22 AM (zudum)

323 I typed my MBA class papers on a manual typewriter. I couldn’t afford the $2 a page charge that student typists were charging.

Posted by: Sap Green at February 18, 2024 11:22 AM (MNhXM)

324 321 I didn't get hung up in the science. Maybe that is the difference in reaction to the books.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 11:21 AM (t/2Uw)

I found it really technical and hard to read at the time I was trying to read it. Probably not the best choice for me for a bedtime book. I'm going to try it again one of these days for daytime reading.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 11:25 AM (OX9vb)

325 Speaking of the police . . .

Breaking911
@Breaking911

DELUSIONAL: After Chicago scraped its gunshot detection system, Mayor Johnson says the answer is, "a non-police response to respond to emergency."

http://tinyurl.com/mr28ujbc

-
Send out the dance squad!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:25 AM (FVME7)

326 I will take you up on that PabloD.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 18, 2024 11:25 AM (D7oie)

327 Of course, I know some writers who still do first drafts by hand, then enter into the computer.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 11:25 AM (78a2H)

328 Regrettably, The Village Bookstore went out of business some years ago. I lived in Worthington for many years before moving here to TN last year and spent many hours perusing the shelves there.
Posted by: Tuna at February 18, 2024 10:03 AM

I lived where East Powell Road crossed over I-71. Spent many hours at the Worthington and Westerville libraries.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 11:26 AM (iZEhM)

329 Believe Jonathan Carroll does a longhand first draft. Can't recall if he types it up himself or has it done.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 11:28 AM (q3u5l)

330 I'm out.
Range day. Need to get ready.
Maybe more people will have read books next week. 😏

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 11:28 AM (t/2Uw)

331 I bought Gracie: A Love Story at a thrift store a few days ago. Lovely book, and hilarious (so far). Very good bedtime reading. Wipes the mind of troubles.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 11:29 AM (PmqP5)

332 Since I eventually went into IT, the touch typing skill turned out to be pretty useful. I can still do it. The spelling, not so much.

And speaking of spelling... why isn't AI being "trained" to actually autocorrect by inferring what a word should be based on the other words around it?

It's probably one of the most useless additions to word processors and web apps... ever.

Posted by: Martini Farmer at February 18, 2024 11:29 AM (Q4IgG)

333 Send out the dance squad!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:25 AM (FVME7)

Will they have guns?...arrest powers?

Posted by: BignJames at February 18, 2024 11:29 AM (AwYPR)

334 Here's a little riff about Dorothy Parker and her typewriter:

*Marion Meade notes that she (Parker) was “obsessively careful” in her writing, and that she “thought out each paragraph beforehand and then laboriously wrote it down in longhand sentence by sentence.”

Afterwards, she would bring her story to the typewriter, “a tool that frustrated and mystified her.”

One time, she was having trouble changing the ribbon (for you young ones out there, the ribbon is a strip of fabric that contains ink). She couldn’t figure it out, so she bought a whole new typewriter instead.*

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 11:30 AM (NBVIP)

335 Hello, James Joyce calling from the early 20th Century.
Posted by: mustbequantum at February 18, 2024 09:14 AM (MIKMs)

Sounds more like Christopher Nolan in book form.

No thank you.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 18, 2024 11:31 AM (GtZ7X)

336 So since this is the Book Thread and many of you are writers, I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:59 AM (NBVIP)

Edit while writing, then read it two or three times before sending.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 18, 2024 11:31 AM (Angsy)

337 With luck, the Hugo fiasco will keep conventions out of places like China for quite some time to come. Can't help wondering if the willing self-censorship might have been fueled in part by wondering if drugs or other contraband would somehow turn up in their hotel rooms during the convention...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 10:17 AM

I suspect it will wind up finally killing WorldCon for good. For many years, WorldCon has been slowly turning into a means for a small group of relatively wealthy fans to get someone else to pay for their overseas vacations.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 11:33 AM (iZEhM)

338 Well, off to take care of some annoying reality stuff. After that, back to Simenon and maybe some scribbling of my own.

Perfessor, thanks for the thread.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 18, 2024 11:33 AM (q3u5l)

339 Breaking911
@Breaking911

DELUSIONAL: After Chicago scraped its gunshot detection system, Mayor Johnson says the answer is, "a non-police response to respond to emergency."

http://tinyurl.com/mr28ujbc

-
Send out the dance squad!
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:25 AM (FVME7)

The story's even funnier than that. The compnay that supplies it, their contract is up, and Shitcago announced they were going to renew it for about six months... up to just after the Demoncrap National Convention. Then cancel it.

So the company said yeah, no bro. We're out now.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 18, 2024 11:34 AM (GtZ7X)

340 I had a typing class in high school, was getting reasonably decent at typing without looking but haven't typed much since had my tablet

Posted by: Skip at February 18, 2024 11:35 AM (fwDg9)

341 I've been re-reading Dan Willis "Arcane Casebook" series

http://tinyurl.com/2twvy32s

It is the adventures of Alex Lockerby, a private eye in an alternative 1930s New York, where magic exists as alchemy, runes, and sorcery. Sorcerers are fortunately rare, New York has only six of them, and Alex makes a precarious living as a Runewright Detective.
The mysteries are quite good, suitably noir, and the writing is very well done.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at February 18, 2024 11:35 AM (YRK4R)

342 I second the suggestion of T J Bass' The Godwhale. The dystopian world of The Hive has its literary roots in Brave New World, but it also has a prediction of collapse and a sort of plan to escape it.
I have heard people consider the resolution to be incredibly stupid, though I can't see choking on that after accepting a world of buried arcologies, the entire surface devoted to gardens barely able to keep up with calorie demands, and half mile long, sentient plankton harvesting ships

Posted by: Kindltot at February 18, 2024 11:36 AM (D7oie)

343 “I don't think we are doing children any real favors by keeping illustrations "simple" for them. Our eyes are one of the main ways we receive input from the outside world. Why not build that into your stories?”

IMHO, the reason is related to the “Whole word” method of teaching reading. Students are encouraged to use the pictures to figure out what the words on the page mean. I think that’s one reason why manga and graphic are popular for elementary students. They don’t have the skills or the reading stamina they need to get through more challenging literature. Complex illustrations only confuse them—what parts of the picture are important to the story?

Sadly, most young teachers did not learn to read using phonics, so think that teaching phonics is difficult and boring for the students and themselves. So their efforts to teach it are half-hearted and, therefore, ineffectual.

Posted by: March Hare at February 18, 2024 11:37 AM (jfX+U)

344 Heh. This is said to be Dorothy’s response to an editor inquiring about why she was missing deadlines:

“Too f*cking busy and vice versa.”

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 11:37 AM (NBVIP)

345 Late to the party this AM. Thank you for the book thread Perfessor!,

Posted by: SuperMayorSuperRonNirenberg-I Was On Meet The Press, You Weren*t, Still Buff at February 18, 2024 11:37 AM (45aek)

346 Somehow (between me and my six brothers) I ended up with my mom's old Underwood manual typewriter. Just last fall we pulled it out of a loft space where it had sat for 20 years. She used to bang out legal-size, single-spaced narrow-margin 6 or 7 page letters (basically a blow-by-blow account of her and my dad's daily events), then mimeograph copies to mail to each of us boys in our far-flung lives. She was something else!!

Posted by: Muldoon at February 18, 2024 11:38 AM (991eG)

347 The magazine of the Studebaker Drivers Club once had a feature about a man who was The World's Fastest Typist in the 1930's. The typewriter company sent him on tours every year, to demonstrate the newest models, the fine points of his technique, and lobby corporate purchasing agents. He was very well paid, very well-dressed, got a new Studebaker President every year, and from the looks of the adoring typing pool girls surrounding him in the PR shot out in front of the Admin building, must have been up to his hips in their good will.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at February 18, 2024 11:40 AM (zdLoL)

348 Well, off to work on my own book!

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 18, 2024 11:40 AM (78a2H)

349 The story's even funnier than that. The compnay that supplies it, their contract is up, and Shitcago announced they were going to renew it for about six months... up to just after the Demoncrap National Convention. Then cancel it.

-
They had to cancel the racist ShotSpotter system because it kept locating gunshots in diverse areas.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:40 AM (FVME7)

350 About 75% of fire services in this country are run as non-profit VFDs.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at February 18, 2024 11:18 AM (Bn2JH)

I was on one for a couple years. Dudes wanted to be there, were gung-ho and kicked ass. A few days ago the dept in my brother's neighborhood watched a truck burn to the ground in the driveway while taking half the house with it as each officer showed up one by one with their finger in their ass. Took forever to get water on it. Fucking clown show. The dept I was on would have have answered the call, killed the fire, and be rolling up hoses in under 5 min.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 18, 2024 11:40 AM (VwHCD)

351 I'm going to try to find a quiet place to read today.

I'm longing for warm weather and porch reading.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 11:41 AM (OX9vb)

352 146 Ciampino

I tried to get a job with those folks!

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 11:42 AM (t0cxj)

353 The story's even funnier than that. The compnay that supplies it, their contract is up, and Shitcago announced they were going to renew it for about six months... up to just after the Demoncrap National Convention. Then cancel it.

-
They had to cancel the racist ShotSpotter system because it kept locating gunshots in diverse areas.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:40 AM (FVME7)

And gunshot victims.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 18, 2024 11:42 AM (GtZ7X)

354 She used to bang out… letters… of her and my dad's daily events… to mail to each of us…

There are a lot of ghosts in old typewriters.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at February 18, 2024 11:42 AM (PmqP5)

355 *Students are encouraged to use the pictures to figure out what the words on the page mean.*

You mean like Dr. Suess' moss-covered, three-handled family gradunza?

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 11:42 AM (NBVIP)

356 Mayor Johnson says the answer is, "a non-police response to respond to emergency."

-
Remember, the existence of the police is why we don't need a second amendment.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:44 AM (FVME7)

357 Hey, Berserker!

Are you out of the hospital? Hope you're recovering quickly.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 11:44 AM (OX9vb)

358 I'm longing for warm weather and porch reading.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 11:41 AM (OX9vb)

I'll take either...or both.

Posted by: BignJames at February 18, 2024 11:45 AM (AwYPR)

359 356 Mayor Johnson says the answer is, "a non-police response to respond to emergency."

-
Remember, the existence of the police is why we don't need a second amendment.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at February 18, 2024 11:44 AM (FVME7)

Remember, the existence of federal forces is why we need a second amendment

Posted by: jim (in Kalifornia) at February 18, 2024 11:45 AM (ynpvh)

360 I'm reading The Canterbury Tales and just read the line "he grabbed her by the quim".
It made me chuckle. And though I don't know why it brought the Horde to mind.

Posted by: Northernlurker at February 18, 2024 11:45 AM (xcrUy)

361 6 brothers? Damn.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at February 18, 2024 11:45 AM (R4t5M)

362 I cannot decide if, come the fifth chapter that I realize I've read the book before, that it is a good thi g or a bad thing. Is it good because the story is good, or bad because my memory sucks?
Oh well.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 18, 2024 11:46 AM (W/lyH)

363 307
Muldoon, I hope he played the Quicksilver Messenger Service version of Happy Trails for you.
Very well done, and respectful. Last cut on a great album.

Posted by: From about that Time at February 18, 2024 11:47 AM (4780s)

364 There are a lot of ghosts in old typewriters.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair

********

That's an interesting thought..

Posted by: Muldoon at February 18, 2024 11:47 AM (991eG)

365 Good afternoon from Bavaria, all.

I've been splitting reading time between a friend's works (currently _Rib to Saint_) and Stowe's _Uncle Tom's Cabin_.
Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 09:12 AM (DSTSG)
***

Ahhhh!!!! Augsburg! I loved it there.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 18, 2024 11:48 AM (W/lyH)

366 Hey, Berserker!

Are you out of the hospital? Hope you're recovering quickly.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 11:44 AM (OX9vb)

I got home Wednesday. I guess I was in 9 days. However fast I'm recovering, it isn't fast enough. lol

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 18, 2024 11:49 AM (VwHCD)

367 There are a lot of ghosts in old typewriters.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair

********

That's an interesting thought..
Posted by: Muldoon at February 18, 2024 11:47 AM (991eG)

BOO !

Posted by: JT at February 18, 2024 11:49 AM (T4tVD)

368 Ahhhh!!!! Augsburg! I loved it there.
Posted by: Diogenes at February 18, 2024 11:48 AM (W/lyH)

I confess, I'd like to have visited Germany, but never did.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 18, 2024 11:50 AM (Angsy)

369 However fast I'm recovering, it isn't fast enough. lol
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at February 18, 2024 11:49 AM (VwHCD)

Sure enough!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 18, 2024 11:51 AM (OX9vb)

370 There are a lot of ghosts in old typewriters.
Posted by: Stephen Price Blair

********

That's an interesting thought..
Posted by: Muldoon at February 18, 2024 11:47 AM (991eG)
***

No kidding!!!
That could be the focus of a good story, a song, or even a poem.
Not sure about a limerick though.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 18, 2024 11:52 AM (W/lyH)

371 "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

Posted by: The Ghost of Smith-Corona Past at February 18, 2024 11:53 AM (NBVIP)

372 NOOD Tucker.

Posted by: AZ deplorable moron at February 18, 2024 11:55 AM (B7bb6)

373 Know who else liked Bavaria?

Posted by: The guy who always asks you know who else questions at February 18, 2024 11:55 AM (NBVIP)

374 "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"
Posted by: The Ghost of Smith-Corona Past

They can be a Royal pain.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at February 18, 2024 11:55 AM (R4t5M)

375 I think I have three manual typewriters, all Smith Coronas from the mid 60s. One is a Skywriter, very laptop like. I did NanoWriMo on one.

There used to be a group that did "typecasting". They would type a blog post, scan it and post rhat image on their blog. I miss those folks. Was a fun group.

Posted by: Notsothoreau at February 18, 2024 11:55 AM (USTAS)

376 The type did write of many queer sights
But the queerest it 'ere did prose,
Twas on a night with a boast
Of the strangest ghost
That put a twitch in your very nose.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 18, 2024 12:01 PM (W/lyH)

377 >254 The latest episode of Masters of the Air tells the true story of a very bad day over Munster for the 100th. SPOILER ALERT!!! Only one bomber from the entire group made it back and it was shot to shit.

My father-in-law was a baby. They got enough warning before a night raid (not sure, but possibly as a result of the mission you mention) that the family got to shelter. There were five buildings left standing in Muenster after that.

One of the B-17s from that raid is in the Pima Air Museum. You should have seen the look on my FiL when he realized that.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:12 PM (t0cxj)

378
The Ghost in the Machine - a limerick

My ma died in twenty-thirteen
But to this day is occasionally seen
Her wisdom for the ages
Still dances 'cross the pages
Of her Underwood writing machine

Posted by: Muldoon at February 18, 2024 12:14 PM (991eG)

379 >258 . . . a Brother daisy wheel

SPB, I had a portable Brother daisy-wheel as well. It was the typewriter that I picked up right as I started college. I couldn't afford an entire computer and a word processor at that point.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:17 PM (t0cxj)

380 >279 do you edit your emails?

It depends. If I'm writing to a relatively large audience or to clients I definitely do. I don't hold them overnight, but I can take quite awhile to craft an e-mail if I need to ensure I "communicate in such a way to not be misunderstood."

If I'm writing to a friend or an acquaintance, then no, I don't edit.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:22 PM (t0cxj)

381 >378

Good one, Muldoon!

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:23 PM (t0cxj)

382 >373 Know who else liked Bavaria?

The _Grundschule_ in our neighborhood was built because Heinrich Himmler lived here.

His house was torn down long ago. Which is lucky for him because I'd've taken a whizz on it.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:25 PM (t0cxj)

383 336 So since this is the Book Thread and many of you are writers, I'll ask: do you edit your emails? Do they sit in the Drafts folder overnight where they can get cold, and then you reread them the next day and make changes before you hit Send?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at February 18, 2024 10:59 AM (NBVIP)

Editing emails is a lost art. Or just an ignored art... Writing emails for work takes forever since I re-read them several times for check for completeness, clarity, and the impossibility-of-misinterpretation. And after all that, I still sometimes misspell the name of the person I'm sending it to.

I generally don't leave 'em overnight, though. But I have been known to handwrite a checklist of all the elements that need to be addressed before actually composing it.

Personal emails and comments don't get that level of attention, but I can usually at least give them a re-read.

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 18, 2024 12:29 PM (Lhaco)

384 >365 Ahhhh!!!! Augsburg! I loved it there.

Augsburg is nice. Or at least it looks nice from the A8 when I drive through it on the way from home to K-town and back.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:34 PM (t0cxj)

385 Late to the thread again. Just started reading Space Cowboys 3 from Raconteur Press, the 12th anthology out of a growing total (currently 21) from that small publishing group. (I doubt they're going to remain small for long at the rate they're getting stuff to market!)

In "The Cards on the Table", you'll love the ethics and circumstances that play out regarding a poker hand with a long dead man (yes, you read that right.) Seriously, loved how Rick Cutler wrote this short story.

In "Showdown at Dehydrated Gulch" (Joe Long), there's a scene that plays out in a bar with some truly different species (3 in all, and humans are the third and a minority, but they're the ones that are bringing western ballads as entertainment to the audience.)

The modified song lyrics (interspersed with the story playing out) were very creatively written and crafted so the cadence was spot-on. I had the biggest grin as I was comparing the modified lyrics to the original, and mentally was singing along. Nope, not gonna spoil it for you what famous ballad it was, go read the story! :-) (If you played Fallout New Vegas, you'll get it in a second, and no it wasn't Johnny Guitar.)

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 18, 2024 12:34 PM (qPw5n)

386 I had some clerical jobs in my early working life when we were still using typewriters. I have absolutely no nostalgia for those machines.

I worked in a computing center at a medical school for a while and was one of the first people to use the new word processing programs. (This was in about 1977 and everything was on the mainframe.) I felt like a bird out of a cage! The keyboard was so much easier to use and correcting errors was a breeze. I've never looked back.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at February 18, 2024 12:35 PM (FEVMW)

387 Several years ago I suggested a MoMeet at Oktoberfest. Unfortunately the idea never went anywhere.

I should probably show up at the TXMoMe and sell the idea in person.

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:37 PM (t0cxj)

388 Time to get back to the stone o' grindin'.

Bis zum naechsten Mal, Horde!

Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:39 PM (t0cxj)

389 Emails for work are read over once, maybe twice and sent on their way. If I don't just send them I will pick them apart endlessly for spelling, tone, clarity, and so forth.

I can't recall the last time I wrote a personal email. Everybody in my circle seems to text which, although I do it, I despise. It has its place, but a quick phone conversation would usually be more efficient than typing out a message. It requires more effort and so much is lost or difficult to convey such as nuance and tone. At least for me.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at February 18, 2024 12:50 PM (YlOJF)

390 With all the Sci fi fans here, no comment on the Three Body Problem?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 18, 2024 10:57 AM

The most depressing book I ever read (the way he's set it up, humanity has no chance at all) and I have absolutely no desire to read any of the sequels.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 12:58 PM (iZEhM)

391 The anthology I just finished is "Your Honor, I can Explain" which is a collection of stories featuring the central character of "Andrew Spurgle". Lawdog introduces the character thusly on his blog:

For those who may not yet be in on the joke, “Andrew Spurgle” is something we made up to introduce some whimsy, levity, and/or chaos into a subject that tends to run fairly dry.

The rules are that “Andrew Spurgle” must be:
1) Incompetent, inept, bungling and/or cack-handed; and
2) Otherwise a creation of the individual author’s fiendish little minds.

He can be the main character; or a supporting one; or even just a brief walk-through a scene, but he must be in each story.

Our authors took this concept, and ran with it. Boy, howdy, did they run with it.

The stories of Spurgle do not end with just one volume. There are two more anthologies detailing his tales:
"You See, What Happened Was..." and
"He was Dead When I Got There"

Another may be forthcoming. Most of us have come into contact with an Andrew Spurgle. If you don't know one, you might want to ask yourself, "Am I the Spurgle?"

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 18, 2024 01:01 PM (qPw5n)

392 I managed to finish 2 books last week and begin a third.

I first finished Jay Richard's Eat, Fast, Feast, which recommends a keto diet as a way to fast easier (and improve health). Following Richard's recommendations did make my Ash Wednesday fast much easier. I plan on trying longer fasts using this methods. We'll see how that goes.

I finished the second book in the Nicholas Kotar's Raven Son series which is based on Russian fairy tales. This story focuses on Llun the villiage smith and the part he plays in the ongoing coflict between good and evil. I must've enjoyed it because I immediately bought the third book The Heart of the World. It brings forward the characters from previous books and now introduces Khaidu, a crippled 16 year old girl and her nomadic people. So far, so good..

Posted by: KatieFloyd at February 18, 2024 01:02 PM (tSjER)

393 Augsburg is nice. Or at least it looks nice from the A8 when I drive through it on the way from home to K-town and back.
Posted by: SPinRH_F-16 at February 18, 2024 12:34 PM (t0cxj)

Ah, K-town.

Just 35 km north of Pirm on B270.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at February 18, 2024 01:52 PM (Bn2JH)

394 @370 Diogenes wrote that the idea of a ghost in a typewriter could be the basis for a good story. The late, great Avram Davidson did write a story "Selectric Six-Ten" inspired by the experience of writing for the first time with an electric typewriter. It is written in the first person in form of letters to one of his editors and has a rather shocking twist ending.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at February 18, 2024 02:17 PM (jjfDF)

395 JTB @138 asked for recommendations for the work of Bruce Catton. One I will add to the ones already made is Catton's memoir "Waiting for the Morning Train". He was born in 1899 and grew up in a small town in Michigan. Among other things he talks about listening to veterans of the Civil War telling their stories of the war. An experience that was one of the key factors in his becoming a writer of American history and his focus on the Civil War.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at February 18, 2024 02:24 PM (jjfDF)

396
125. . . .Yesterday, I found my copy of Volume 2, and I have to decide whether to save up the considerable sum required to buy a copy of Volume 1, raise a considerable sum by selling my copy of Volume 2, or just do nothing but read the book thread.

My vote's on reading the book thread. How are you all doing?

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 09:57 AM (iZEhM)

*****

A little late to the thread, but why not read both?

You may be able to read it free online at Archive.org if you open an account:

http://tinyurl.com/5cdfh2bk

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at February 18, 2024 04:44 PM (G8nnv)

397 A little late to the thread, but why not read both?

You may be able to read it free online at Archive.org if you open an account:

http://tinyurl.com/5cdfh2bk
Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at February 18, 2024 04:44 PM

Oh, I don't want to read it. I have taken orbital mechanics twice and it no longer holds any mystery for me. It just seems wrong to have volume 2 without volume 1.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 05:12 PM (iZEhM)

398 397 . . . I have taken orbital mechanics twice and it no longer holds any mystery for me. It just seems wrong to have volume 2 without volume 1.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 05:12 PM (iZEhM)

*****

I salute you! I took orbital mechanics in 1989 and still find it mysterious (at least my slumbering brain cells do).

I think the only way I applied what I learned in orbital mechanics was in complaining to friends and family about why I hated the movie Gravity so much. I received much deserved eye rolls and reminders that "You know it's a sci-fi movie, right?"

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at February 18, 2024 05:50 PM (G8nnv)

399 I salute you! I took orbital mechanics in 1989 and still find it mysterious (at least my slumbering brain cells do).

I think the only way I applied what I learned in orbital mechanics was in complaining to friends and family about why I hated the movie Gravity so much. I received much deserved eye rolls and reminders that "You know it's a sci-fi movie, right?"
Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at February 18, 2024 05:50 PM

1989 is about the last time I took it. I've published some code to do satellite predictions, but that's the part everyone else seems to want to work on, so I haven't done much with that in many years. I avoided "Gravity" because, well, it didn't look like something I would be interested in.

Now, if you could find a copy of the "deep space subroutine", as referred to in "Spacetrack report number 4" I'd be interested.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at February 18, 2024 06:00 PM (iZEhM)

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