Sunday Morning Book Thread - 03-31-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary.""
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means "Teacher").
Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.
--John 20:11-18 (NIV)

HAPPY EASTER!

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 (SPOILER: It's not about Jesus). 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...(eggs may contain delicious salmonella filling...)

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

PIC NOTE

This is the floorplan of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. For Christians, this is one of the holiest places in all of Christendom, if not THE holiest place, as it marks the spot of Jesus' grave and his subsequent resurrection. As you can imagine, this site has been witness to quite a lot of history...

WHY READ FICTION?

This video is a bit longer than the ones I usually choose to share, which are around 10-15 minutes or so. However, I believe Tristan has some excellent points about reading fiction that are worth exploring. He argues that fiction does a few things very well when it comes to providing value for us as humans. It gives us a sense of who we are within the larger scheme of the cosmos. Second, it gives us a heightened awareness of our own thinking by directing our brains to focus in on *ideas* that shape who we are as people. Finally, "fiction tells us what it is to be human." Non-fiction is great for many things. It can tell us how to write a great story or even tell a joke or write a limerick. What it cannot do is *experience* the emotions that come from reading a great story, hearing a joke, or sounding out a limerick. Only we humans are capable of deriving emotional experiences from reading and then incorporating that experience into our "self," thus growing and developing as individuals.

The written language found in fiction is rarely exactly the same as how we think or speak. By design, it will be far more organized and coherent than how we normally communicate with other people throughout the day. The dialogue may feel "natural" to a certain extent, but it will not quite mirror a true spoken dialogue between individuals. The author has polished and refined the passages so that they gleam with precision and intent. Our minds will naturally gravitate towards the ideas they wish us to reflect on and we should--if the writer is skilled enough--walk away from our reading experience pondering the author's words for some time afterwards. Fiction, by its very nature, draws attention to itself and you will see the world in a different way through the lens of the writer's worldview. Observing the world, instead of just seeing it. Read Henry David Thoreau's descriptions of Walden pond and then take a walk outside. You may be surprised at how you perceive the world.

His final point is perhaps the most important: the notion that fiction is *insidious* (Tristan uses the word invidious but his usage suggests he meant insidious), seeping past our normal filters into our subconscious so that we are more open and receptive to the ideas that are presented by the author. In other words, we are likely to read in fiction material that we would NOT read in non-fiction, particularly when it comes to ideologies. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein is noted for being a "right-wing" manifesto disguised as military science fiction. How many people have adopted Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy after reading Atlas Shrugged? The Left is very much aware of how fiction can grab the imagination and coerce people to believe contrary ideas against their will. Why do you think they are so determined to keep explicit pornographic stories in school libraries? They *KNOW* that children are the most susceptible to reading fiction and being influenced by the ideas therein. I credit my own mostly moral upbringing to reading books that espoused certain values that helped shape my current social and political outlook. When I grew older, I switched to reading non-fiction books on the subjects, and that helped crystalize my personal philosophy that most people would characterize as "conservative," but it was reading fiction that put me on that path in the first place.

NOTE: We'll discuss non-fiction next week as it is just as important as reading fiction. Reading BOTH are necessary for developing a well-rounded personality...

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KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS

How well do you know your friends and family? Do you fully understand what drives them to do what they do? Chances are, you do not. However, by the time you finish writing a good story (emphasis on "good" here), you should know your main characters quite well indeed. As the YouTuber above explains it, the deepest motivations for change in a character's life will most likely be tied to a fundamental fear. It could be a fear of rejection or of acceptance. Or maybe they are lacking in self-worth and self-esteem and need to find the strength to overcome a key obstacle. Whatever that fundamental fear is, it should be the driving force behind a character's actions and achievements. Note that this can be used by both the protagonists and antagonists in crafting the story.

This lack of character understanding may be why Asimov's characters in his Foundation books seem rather flat and uninteresting at times--Asimov doesn't take the time to really drive the characters based on their fundamental fears and insecurities, though they do come up from time to time. Just not in profound, meaningful ways.

Think of some of your favorite stories. What is driving the main characters? How do they channel their energies into overcoming those fears and triumphing over them via character development?

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

After CBD included a couple of Hudson River School artists in this week's art thread I found The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision at the library. (I was shocked they had it on the shelves.) It's a gorgeous book with high quality color plates of most of the School members and well done text providing information on the artist's life, influences, and techniques. Also, their philosophy. Part of their purpose, bless them, was to get out from under the European attitude about American landscape art, which they regarded as provincial and unworthy. The American artists knew that this country offered glorious views of nature and creation and used their immense talents to show that. I like that 'in your face' approach and love the beautiful art they made. It will takes weeks, off and on, to go through the whole book. That's fine. It should be a slow, pleasurable experience.
I was so impressed with the library edition of The Hudson River School book I went on Amazon to buy a copy. It is out of print but plenty of used copies are listed. My gripe is that the original price Amazon listed was 38 dollars. Not cheap but not bad for this kind of book. I went back less than a minute later and the price had jumped to 52 bucks. Same book, higher price. I ended up ordering a very good condition copy for half that cost. More and more I'm thinking Amazon can go F itself. It can be convenient but isn't always a bargain. I often have better results bypassing Amazon and going through the actual company offering the item. And they don't hike up their prices in the course of a few seconds.
Posted by: JTB at March 24, 2024 09:15 AM (zudum)

Comment: Art books can be a nice way to pass the time, just admiring the skill and talent of the artists who created those amazing works. CBD and Kris bring us a wonderful selection of art on the weekday Art Threads. Some I like and some I don't like, but that's what is so fun about art. In the library where I work (but do not work for) we have a whole shelf of art books outside my office. They are the large, oversize editions so that the reader can get a good sense of the detail in each work. Like reading fiction, admiring works of visual art can stimulate our senses, speak to the soul, and give us an idea of our place in the universe.

+++++

I finished reading Folly and Glory by Larry McMurtry. The book was on sale at the library, and as soon as I saw the author's name, I had to have it. Realized too late that it was Book 4 in the Berrybender Narrative. I'm fastidious about reading books in a series in their proper order but that went out the window with this book. The novel completes the story of the Berrybender family's journey from England to the American West in the early 1800s. The tale weaves a fascinating story of passion, boredom, pain, joy, discovery, and grit. We are introduced to a wide cast of characters and learn that it was not just the Indians who were brutal in this new world: Spaniards, Mexicans and the various white explorers were rough and not always kind to their fellow man. This volume picks up with the Berrybenders in posh confinement in Santa Fe, courtesy of the Mexican governor who is none too pleased to have them there, but who treats this upper crust English family as peers, mostly. The road leads through southern Nuevo Mexico, and ends in the disputed Texas territory. The fall of the Alamo plays a small part. Easy read, recommended.
Posted by: Legally Sufficient at March 24, 2024 09:45 AM (U3L4U)

Comment: I, too, have picked up books at used bookstores and library booksales solely on the strength of an author's name, only to realize later that I had picked up a later book in the series. *sigh* However, now that I'm older--with disposable income--and amazing technology at my fingertips, I can go online and "fill the gaps" in those series. As for the book described above, it sounds like it portrays the people in the story realistically, without "romanticizing" the Native Americans, Mexicans, or Spaniards the characters encountered.

+++++

Just finished Paulette Jiles's Chenneville, set in 1866, a Federal war vet that spent a couple months in a hospital near Richmond recovering from a head injury suffered in the action just post-surrender, conducts a solo mission way south for vengeance.
There is a lot concerning telegraph messages. You went to a telegraph office, wrote out your message, paid 13 cents a word, and it got tapped out.
Telegraph operators DM'd each other. The phrase "OK" as we understand it today, originated with telegraph operators.
Travelers going into states that had rebelled, carried ID papers, and you needed to show them to check into a hotel or rooming house.
Posted by: Mr Gaga at March 24, 2024 09:50 AM (KiBMU)

Comment: Back in those days, a telegraph was the fastest way to get information across the country in record time (sorry, Pony Express). Paying 13 cents a word sounds like a lot of money for the time. I read the blurb for this book on Amazon. Sounds like the protagonist was driven by his overwhelming need to avenge his family. The antagonist tried to hide behind the law while committing numerous atrocities. Remember, the most dangerous men are those who have either have *everything* to lose and those who have *nothing* left to lose--because it's all been taken from them. Those men will hunt you down to the end of the earth to ensure that you can never cause harm again. Think John Wick and you get a picture of this type of man. Piss him off at your own peril.

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.

Foundation's Edge by Isaac Asimov

The Second Foundation has been "defeated" by the First Foundation, though one member of the First suggests that the Second is still alive and well. He is sent off on a quixotic search for them, accompanied by a historian on an equally quixotic quest to search for old Earth, the supposed ancient birthplace of all of humanity. Meanwhile, the Second Foundation believes a third faction may be attempting to implement their own version of the Seldon Plan...

As was pointed out in last week's Sunday Morning Book Thread, Asimov is *not* the most engaging read, as his characters lack a lot of depth. However, he is an *easy* read and explores some interesting ideas on how history could perhaps be shaped if someone just knew the *right* equations to guide humanity on a path towards greatness. I'm enjoying the reading experience, but Asimov will only get a "B" from me for this series. I do see how he has influenced other authors who came later, though.

Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

Golan Trevize, Councilman of the First Foundation, did not find Earth, but now he believes he has some idea of where to look. He brings his companion, the historian Janov Pelorat, with him in his journey. "Gaia" also chooses to come along, though for its own inscrutable purposes. ALL mention of Earth has been deliberately erased from Galactic history and how it's up to Trevize and his companions to find out why...Is Earth truly an uninhabitable radioactive cinder? Or have the mysterious robots taken it over and now rule the Galaxy from behind the scenes? Will the discovery of Earth hinder or help Gaia's designs of creating "Galaxia," a shared galactic consciousness?

Discovering Scarfolk: For tourists and other trespassers by Richard Littler

Needing to find a new vacation destination this year? One that is not riddled with mosquitoes the size of housecats? Try gloomy Scarfolk, located somewhere in northwest Britain! This quaint little town has something for everyone, such as a 2,000 foot cliff where you can embrace a final end to your vacation, and Scarpark where you will not be bothered by nature within the pastoral concrete jungle. In all seriousness, though, this book is hilarious if you have a dark and twisted sense of humor. Though not everyone will find the idea of The Bumper Book of Handicapped and Disabled Jokes, published by Penguin Books, as entertaining as I do. It's a book that has to be read to be believed. Weirdly, it was sitting on the shelf of the library in which I work (and do not work for), as though it was *waiting* for me to pick it up...

Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Written shortly before Asimov's death, this is the final novel in the Foundation series, though it's technically a prequel. It starts out a few years after Prelude to Foundation and documents Hari Seldon's journey of developing psychohistory into a useful tool that will minimize the effects of the collapsing Galactic Empire. It's really a collection of novellas, as each segment of the story takes place after significant time jumps. Within each segment, Seldon has to make use of proto-psychohistory to stave off a Galactic calamity, aided by his wife, his son, and a few trusted individuals who know the truth behind psychohistory.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 03-24-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Sadly, the Easter Bunny never learned to read...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Easter Book Thread! Too bad I'm going to have to cut out early today.

Didn't get around to reading except online last week.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 08:59 AM (0eaVi)

2 I did not read this week.

Posted by: rhennigantx at March 31, 2024 08:59 AM (ENQN6)

3 Good Easter Sunday, horde!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 31, 2024 09:00 AM (OX9vb)

4 Ok, who blew the margins?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:00 AM (0eaVi)

5 Ok, who blew the margins?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:00 AM (0eaVi)
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Guilty as charged...Should be fixed now.

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 31, 2024 09:01 AM (BpYfr)

6 Tolle Lege
Half way through Triumph Forsaken by Mark Moyar
At Jan 1963 and already getting the impression journalist's are Communist sympathizers

Posted by: Skip at March 31, 2024 09:01 AM (fwDg9)

7 Happy Easter Sunday, bibliophiles!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 09:01 AM (3e3hy)

8 As someone who reads mostly historical accounts, there is nothing wrong breaking it up with fiction stories

Posted by: Skip at March 31, 2024 09:03 AM (fwDg9)

9 hiya

Posted by: JT at March 31, 2024 09:03 AM (T4tVD)

10 I read but not a book. I'm trying to finish "Cardinal of thr Kremlin" by Tom Clancy but other things have intervened, you know, sleep, eating, sleeping, cats. Go see the kittens ...

http://tinyurl.com/2rvjn93v

Posted by: Ciampino - wipe it with a cloth or two at March 31, 2024 09:04 AM (qfLjt)

11 Happy Easter!

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 09:04 AM (JYvcN)

12 Happy Easter everyone! Lent is over, so I can resume my interaction with blogs and social media; doing without that wasn't easy, but I suppose that's the point.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:05 AM (g0Y4p)

13 The author has polished and refined the passages so that they gleam with precision and intent.

Er, whut? You're supposed to do that?!

I think non-fiction can do what fiction does, it's just harder to do. And, it takes a very good writer to make you feel the emotions fiction brings out. I know I can find myself in person at a historical event if the author has enough skill to pull it off.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:05 AM (0eaVi)

14 Dammit, the site's gone wonky again. The type as seen on this phone is smaller than agate.

Well, I won't be here long today. Church followed by family activities.

But first ...

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 31, 2024 09:05 AM (p/isN)

15 I had thought I would never hear of anything more horrifying than an oubliette, but A.E.W. Mason tops it with his description of a Sudanese prison in "The Four Feathers."

Men are crammed into a 30' x 30' cell until there is standing room only, and that's how they spend the nights. Anyone who falls is likely to be trampled to death. (Mason doesn't mention bodily functions, but I'm sure that floor is, ahem, filthy.) And when you consider the smell of all those sweaty bodies. ... Ugh.

Happy Easter, fellow bookies!

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 31, 2024 09:06 AM (p/isN)

16 I am a fan of Asimov. However the Foundation series was not to my taste. I found it boring, too complex and didn't know where the author was going with it. Mind you this was late 60s, in my yute days.

Posted by: Ciampino - The trilogy should have been enough at March 31, 2024 09:09 AM (qfLjt)

17 I've done a lot more fiction reading ever since I finished graduate school. I love history, but there's only so much of it you can read at a time before needing a break, especially if it's part of your job.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:09 AM (g0Y4p)

18 The tomb is empty! Come and see!

Alas, illness has swept through Chateau Lloyd so we will do our fellow parishioners a favor and stay home.

I'm almost finished with my replacement copy of The Great Heresies by Hillaire Belloc. I like his writing style and his approach to the spirit world, which I have come to share.

His take on Islam as a heresy is a solid one and given when he was writing (the 1930s), he was quite prescient in noting that militant Islam was down, but not out.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:10 AM (llXky)

19 I would suppose that fiction is as old as humanity. Before there were books, there were stories told to teach and amuse each other.

I don't care if people don't read fiction, but I am annoyed by people who act like there is no value to it.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 31, 2024 09:11 AM (OX9vb)

20 However, now that I'm older--with disposable income--and amazing technology at my fingertips, I can go online and "fill the gaps" in those series.

Wait a minute. You're supposed to be spending money on us!

(looks for a curtain to shred)

Posted by: Perfessor's Cats at March 31, 2024 09:11 AM (0eaVi)

21 Reread Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War by Eliot A. Cohen.

Written in 1990, there could be numerous chapters on recent military history. I do not own the 2006 update.

His analytical approach can be used today.
** Gulp **

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:11 AM (u82oZ)

22 It is May 1940. A has-been old man has just been made prime minister of Britain, and must rally a demoralized country against a foe that has trampled every continental nation it invaded. In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson provides the reader with an inside look at Churchill and his entourage as the Blitz begins. A heroic yet bittersweet evacuation from Dunkirk saves thousands of soldiers to live and fight another day, but retreat is not victory. Churchill knew that an almost impossible slog lay ahead for his country, and it was due to his personality that Great Britain held fast. From previously unreleased war records and personal diaries, Larson reconstructs the period from when Churchill took the reins until the battle of Britain was won. The confidence and charisma that Churchill showed was contagious, and turned a nation from defeatism into a fighting force that eventually caused America to join the fight, and to ultimate victory. Throughout the book, Larson captures the man who transformed the mood of a nation, and who refused to allow the word surrender to be uttered.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 09:12 AM (JYvcN)

23 Finishing Dante's Divine Comeda today - Canto 33 of the Paradiso.

What a coincidence!

*not really - planned it*

Posted by: Tonypete at March 31, 2024 09:12 AM (CLA6r)

24 Back in those days, a telegraph was the fastest way to get information across the country in record time (sorry, Pony Express). Paying 13 cents a word sounds like a lot of money for the time.

That's why it paid to be laconic. STOP

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:13 AM (0eaVi)

25 A Protestant friend of mine is reading Dominion by Tom Holland and he says it has really opened his eyes to the history of the Church, particularly the Reformation. He now realizes that a lot of the Protestant princes didn't give a whit about Luther's theology, they just wanted to loot the monasteries.

Well, yeah.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:13 AM (llXky)

26 rabies handwipes?

Posted by: pawn at March 31, 2024 09:15 AM (QB+5g)

27 I suppose I should re-read them now that I am a cynical old coot, but I felt at the time that the later 'Foundation' books were Asimov's way of cashing in. 'Foundation's Edge' was interesting, and my group of College buddies devoured it as soon as it hit the shelves in the Bookstore. Subsequent entries got sloppier, and less compelling. The "end" was most underwhelming, and I never even bothered to pick up whatever that last book was. Asimov had destroyed what respect I had for him with those works.

Posted by: Brewingfrog at March 31, 2024 09:15 AM (E0Ivz)

28 Written in 1990, there could be numerous chapters on recent military history. I do not own the 2006 update.

His analytical approach can be used today.
** Gulp **

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:11 AM (u82oZ)
---
Whenever I meet a Vietnam veteran, I point out that while they are 0-1, my generation is 0-2. It gets a laugh.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:15 AM (llXky)

29 Ciampino

I like some Asimov very much. But he is best in short stories.

His story "In a Good Cause--" resonates with me a lot. As a liberal, he said the story disturbed him.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:17 AM (u82oZ)

30 I read Cyrano de Bergerac last week. I don’t normally read plays. They aren’t meant for reading. But as a Three Musketeers fan and someone who enjoys swashbuckling in general, I really enjoyed it.

It may have helped that I’d already seen the José Ferrer movie a while ago. It follows the play closely.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 31, 2024 09:17 AM (EXyHK)

31 A Protestant friend of mine is reading Dominion by Tom Holland and he says it has really opened his eyes to the history of the Church, particularly the Reformation. He now realizes that a lot of the Protestant princes didn't give a whit about Luther's theology, they just wanted to loot the monasteries.

Well, yeah.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:13 AM (llXky)

Did he think they were all high-minded heroes of the faith wanting only to liberate the Word of God from Roman clutches? It's a nice story, but reality rarely works like that.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:19 AM (g0Y4p)

32 Think of some of your favorite stories. What is driving the main characters? How do they channel their energies into overcoming those fears and triumphing over them via character development?

I thought of Holmes. (I already thought about the Roman Empire today) It seems that everything you know about him was expressed by Watson in the first story, A Study in Scarlet. He doesn't change, except for his estimation of Irene Adler, but you like him, and his lack of evolution doesn't distract from the story. He doesn't have any fear, but his driving force is attempts to escape boredom. He says it himself in some stories, but the use of the seven percent solution cements it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:19 AM (0eaVi)

33 I just finished rereading "Nightfall". I agree Asimov short stories are his best work but the Foundation series is a must read in SciFi.

Posted by: pawn at March 31, 2024 09:21 AM (QB+5g)

34 Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

A bitter laugh.

We were 7-0-1 when I was born. (Ignoring minor conflicts and the Indian Wars).

Now we are 9-2-1. The war on Libya is omitted.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:22 AM (u82oZ)

35 Throughout the book, Larson captures the man who transformed the mood of a nation, and who refused to allow the word surrender to be uttered.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 09:12 AM (JYvcN)
---
Reading all of Churchill's Second World War is quite an undertaking, and for those who want "the good parts" Their Finest Hour is it. Churchill draws heavily from contemporary documents and quotes his speeches. He's also a great writer, and some of his turns of phrase just stick with you. For example, he describes the guns of HMS Warspite echoing through the fjords "like the voice of doom" as they wreck a German destroyer flotilla.

One of Waugh's lesser known works is Put Out More Flags, in which his Smart Set goes to war. Deeply cynical, utterly hilarious. His anti-hero, Basil Seal, gets a gig as an evacuee official, and has The Three Worst Children in Britain as his wards. Naturally, he uses the threat of dropping them off to extort bribes from terrified rural homesteaders, sparing only the lonely wives of deployed soldiers, whom he sleeps with.

Year later Waugh wrote "Basil Seal Rides Again," a short story to complete Seal's life and I was weeping with laughter.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:23 AM (llXky)

36 Been watching a YouTube series on writing by a Jed Herne who has published three fantasy novels and a computer game. He took Brandon Sanderson's writing course and now does editing and writer coaching.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 31, 2024 09:23 AM (XjtdB)

37 25 A Protestant friend of mine is reading Dominion by Tom Holland and he says it has really opened his eyes to the history of the Church, particularly the Reformation. He now realizes that a lot of the Protestant princes didn't give a whit about Luther's theology, they just wanted to loot the monasteries.

Well, yeah.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:13 AM (llXky)

It was bigger than that; just as with Henry VIII, it was about Northern Europe finally feeling strong enough to reject political and religious control by Southern Europeans. The loot was a nice side benefit.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 09:23 AM (q3gwH)

38 I like some Asimov very much. But he is best in short stories.

Yes. I did enjoy the Foundation trilogy, but his short stories are where I more enjoy him. Mainly because he writes so much he has the prerogative to be all over the map. I just read The Winds of Change and much of it just sort of fell down for me, but much of it was great.

And also a couple of his hilariously surprising shaggy dog stories.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 31, 2024 09:24 AM (EXyHK)

39 Of course the left recognizes the danger of letting the masses read unapproved fiction.

Who was it who said "Let me write a country's songs and I care not who makes its laws"?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 09:24 AM (q3u5l)

40 I suppose I should re-read them now that I am a cynical old coot, but I felt at the time that the later 'Foundation' books were Asimov's way of cashing in. 'Foundation's Edge' was interesting, and my group of College buddies devoured it as soon as it hit the shelves in the Bookstore. Subsequent entries got sloppier, and less compelling. The "end" was most underwhelming, and I never even bothered to pick up whatever that last book was. Asimov had destroyed what respect I had for him with those works.
Posted by: Brewingfrog at March 31, 2024 09:15 AM (E0Ivz)
----
According to Asimov, it was his publisher that kept demanding more Foundation books. He felt that the first series was more or less wrapped up, but the publisher kept insisting on more because they claimed that readers wanted more Foundation books. So that may be why the later books are underwhelming in comparison. His heart really wasn't in it (and his health may have been declining in the very last book he wrote.)

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (BpYfr)

41 24
Yes, the telegraph endured while the Pony Express had limited reach and lasted less than 2 years (? ).

Posted by: Ciampino - Horse, Indians and bandit problems at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (qfLjt)

42 I thought of Holmes. (I already thought about the Roman Empire today) It seems that everything you know about him was expressed by Watson in the first story, A Study in Scarlet. He doesn't change, except for his estimation of Irene Adler, but you like him, and his lack of evolution doesn't distract from the story. He doesn't have any fear, but his driving force is attempts to escape boredom. He says it himself in some stories, but the use of the seven percent solution cements it.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:19 AM (0eaVi)

I would have to disagree somewhat about Holmes. Taking the stories chronologically, he does change somewhat in the later stories; the essentials are all still there, but he has more human qualities and is less of, as Watson once called him, a "calculating machine." This doesn't show up all the time, and of course the later stories are less famous, but it's there.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (g0Y4p)

43 Did he think they were all high-minded heroes of the faith wanting only to liberate the Word of God from Roman clutches? It's a nice story, but reality rarely works like that.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:19 AM (g0Y4p)
---
He's a Free Methodist, so yeah. A lot of the smaller, more recent denominations (they broke away in 1850) consider themselves the purest, most holy because with such a short history, they haven't had the chance to be embroiled in scandal.

His cousin was a minister in that church, but during the course of his studies, converted to Catholicism and is now a very traditional-minded priest.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (llXky)

44 41 24
Yes, the telegraph endured while the Pony Express had limited reach and lasted less than 2 years (? ).
Posted by: Ciampino - Horse, Indians and bandit problems at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (qfLjt)

the ponies got tired.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (q3gwH)

45 Thomas Paine, I also enjoyed "The Splendid and the Vile" and so did my husband. It presents a very human side of the early, depressing days of the war in Europe.

I've been rereading "Van Loon's Lives," which I discovered on the book thread several years ago. This is my third time through and been by far the most pleasant. I don't agree with some of Van Loon's takes on some of the historical personages, but he has such distinctive voice and perspective that I enjoy them anyway. The book has given me a renewed appreciation of the richness and vibrance of Western Civilization--and that was pretty darn high even before.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (FEVMW)

46 Finished "Pinup Noir 2", the second of that type of anthology by Raconteur Press. Enjoyable detective based stories with interesting twists, definitely worth a read.

My current read: "The Short Stories: Volume 1" by JL Curtis.

This is a collection of some previously published short stories in other collections, along with a new story written specifically for this one. (Jim writes Science Fiction, Police/Sheriff procedural action + Military, and Western genre stories... so far.)

The opening story is "Zero Dark 30". Cold war era. P-3 sub hunting operations. A full blown crypto key compromise military-wide and a need to operate in spite of that. It's amazing what's packed into this short story. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you lived through the cold war era, you'll get a trip down memory lane.

The second story involves an incursion into the USA by multiple cartels cooperating, and the scale of the support they have is staggering. The story details a counter-attack.

More I can't tell you, I haven't read that far yet! Both stories are wonderfully written, and the collection is worth it for these two alone, but I'm sure the rest will be just as entertaining.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at March 31, 2024 09:28 AM (qPw5n)

47 pawn

The Foundation Trilogy was great as a yut of 16. I have it in hardback (my sign of a keeper) on the bookshelf, with a lot of other Asimov, but I will not re-read it.

I think his most Sci-Fi book was The Gods Themselves.

He is an easy read, and I have read all his early SF output. For whatever reason, I was thinking of "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" just a few days ago.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:28 AM (u82oZ)

48 Currently reading Liane Moriarty's "Apples Never Fall." I like her books. *shrugs*

I've had the books out of order issue with picking up Tony Hillerman, JA Jance and Enders Game series books at the local used bookstore. Kinda gave up on reading in order for them.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 09:29 AM (6IDWi)

49 It was bigger than that; just as with Henry VIII, it was about Northern Europe finally feeling strong enough to reject political and religious control by Southern Europeans. The loot was a nice side benefit.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 09:23 AM (q3gwH)
---
To be sure, it was a win-win for a lot of princes. You break the power of the Emperor and get rich in the process.

And it could only happen because 100,000 Turks were outside Vienna.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:29 AM (llXky)

50 I'm almost finished with my replacement copy of The Great Heresies by Hillaire Belloc. I like his writing style and his approach to the spirit world, which I have come to share.

His take on Islam as a heresy is a solid one and given when he was writing (the 1930s), he was quite prescient in noting that militant Islam was down, but not out.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:10 AM (llXky)

In the Chesterbelloc world, I am solidly Belloc. His "How the Reformation Happened" introduced me to
the importance of understanding how the history affected the People Who Were Not Famous, ie. people like us.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at March 31, 2024 09:29 AM (jN2/U)

51 Re: Rereading Asimov

Presently enjoying many of his short stories. Just slip a story to two in when I get a chance.

My wife found a copy of ‘Isaac Asimov The Complete Stories Vol 1’

Posted by: PMRich at March 31, 2024 09:29 AM (eh5ud)

52 Finished "Pinup Noir 2", the second of that type of anthology by Raconteur Press. Enjoyable detective based stories with interesting twists, definitely worth a read.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at March 31, 2024 09:28 AM (qPw5n)
----
I first read that as "PIMP Noir 2."

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 31, 2024 09:30 AM (BpYfr)

53
Has an interesting Blast from the Past while reading "Prizzi's Glory" by Richard Condon.

In the middle of the novel, germane to nothing in particular, Condon goes on a multipage rant about Ronald Reagan. And contiues to dribble out little snide remarks post-rant like a post-coital wang with the clap.

It's interesting mainly because as you read the rant, you can recognize all of the falsehoods and propaganda techniques being applied to Trump. So much disinformation, so much gullible acceptance of lies.

And this was the guy who wrote, "The Manchurian Candidate"!. You'd think he'd be cynical enough to resist this nonsense or at least smart enough to keep it out of his book.

The net result of all this is to lower your opinion of a very good writer. Maybe not so good of a thinker, though.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 09:31 AM (nFnyb)

54 the publisher kept insisting on more because they claimed that readers wanted more Foundation books. So that may be why the later books are underwhelming in comparison. His heart really wasn't in it (and his health may have been declining in the very last book he wrote.)

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (BpYfr)
---
I've been working on an essay about being an author, and this is one of the points I bring out. Professional authors write to eat, and while they sometimes stumble upon greatness, that's often a byproduct of the pressure to get something into print so they can make the next payment to their creditors.

Part-time authors have less time to write, but the luxury of writing what they want because money is almost beside the point.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:32 AM (llXky)

55 Been reading a lot of comic books lately, mostly of dubious quality. "Barbarella" stars a pretty girl, but I think the premise of the book is just kinda dumb. "The Deadly Hands of Kun Fu" is just painfully 70's. "The Complete Witchblade Volume 2" lost the artist (Michael Turner) who made the first volume so iconic, and the plot feels lost and directionless. "Wolverine Omnibus 2" has many different creative teams, and the quality varies wildly from story to story.

The standout book has been "Spider-Girl" by Tom DeFalco and Pat Olliffe. They took a thought-experiment (What If Peter Parker married Mary Jane and lived happily-ever-after, and raised a daughter) and ran with it for more than 60 issues. I'm only in the teens, but I can why the book was so popular. Naturally, in the 25 years since this book came out (199

Marvel editorial has done everything it can to make sure that this story never happens in mainline continuity.... Brilliant strategy, that...

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 31, 2024 09:32 AM (Lhaco)

56 Read an odd but enjoyable late 90's SF story by Wil McCarty called "Bloom". It's about how man-made self-replicating psychedelic nano-goo called Mycora spread like wildfire across the globe, forcing a frantic evacuation of the planet. Eventually the entire inner solar system was consumed. Now the remnants of humanity live scattered across the asteroid belt and the moons of Jupiter. They've been safe in the bitter cold outer reaches, but a new strain is making inroads. A starship is sent out to return to the heart of the Mycosystem to see what remains of Earth and figure out the shroom's weaknesses.

I liked how each colony had its own flavor, depending on which area of the earth fled there and flourished thence according to a "founders effect". Some outposts dealt harshly with the bloom, ever vigilant, and others just accepted it as part of the new reality and worked with and around it.

Neat details like nobody says "sky blue" (what sky?) but rather "eye blue".

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 09:32 AM (3e3hy)

57 Yes, the telegraph endured while the Pony Express had limited reach and lasted less than 2 years (? ).
Posted by: Ciampino - Horse, Indians and bandit problems at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (qfLjt)

18 months about, Ciampino.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:32 AM (0eaVi)

58 Read the Foundation trilogy in high school and liked it well enough, but never felt any impulse to return to it later. Asimov always worked better at short length for me. Ditto Clarke.

Reading this week -- couple more Simenon non-Maigrets (and I guess I'll have to start hitting those soon, but there are 75 of 'em and I'm not into series these days...) and revisiting some of the stories in the newly released Harlan Ellison's Greatest Hits. Looking forward to 2 Joseph Epstein titles coming in the next week or two (an autobiography and a book of new & selected essays).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 09:33 AM (q3u5l)

59 In the Chesterbelloc world, I am solidly Belloc. His "How the Reformation Happened" introduced me to
the importance of understanding how the history affected the People Who Were Not Famous, ie. people like us.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at March 31, 2024 09:29 AM (jN2/U)
---
That's on my "to buy" list.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:33 AM (llXky)

60 This doesn't show up all the time, and of course the later stories are less famous, but it's there.

It’s especially obvious if you read all the way through to *His Last Bow” at the chronological end of his career albeit not the publication end. It is a very much more mature Holmes in that story than in his earlier adventures.

Mark Steyn does a great reading of “His Last Bow”, btw.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 31, 2024 09:33 AM (EXyHK)

61 Good Easter morning to my fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 09:33 AM (zudum)

62 Well condon though mccarthy and nixon were the evil ones in emperor of america he totally looses it winter kills he does show what a shallow mannikin jfk was

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:34 AM (PXvVL)

63 Yes, the telegraph endured while the Pony Express had limited reach and lasted less than 2 years (? ).
Posted by: Ciampino - Horse, Indians and bandit problems at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (qfLjt)

18 months about, Ciampino.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:32 AM (0eaVi)
---
Anyone still using heliographs? They were big in India.

And of course the Romans had beacons running from the Persian border to Constantinople.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:34 AM (llXky)

64 I think its due to conan doyles training under joseph bell he treated people as a problem to solve

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:35 AM (PXvVL)

65 A blessed Easter to All!

I have found a substack on detaching from the digital machine that I am enjoying.
A recent post was on buying, hoarding and saving books

https://tinyurl.com/4v6brsm5

What is the equivalent of a canoe accident for books?

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at March 31, 2024 09:35 AM (jN2/U)

66 The Foundation Trilogy was great as a yut of 16. I have it in hardback (my sign of a keeper) on the bookshelf, with a lot of other Asimov, but I will not re-read it.

I think his most Sci-Fi book was The Gods Themselves.

He is an easy read, and I have read all his early SF output. For whatever reason, I was thinking of "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" just a few days ago.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:28 AM (u82oZ)

I don't think I've ever read Asimov, but I think I'd stay away from Foundation. I need to find some of his other work.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:35 AM (0eaVi)

67 Asimov is much like Vonnegut in that it really makes an impression when you are younger and just figuring out how the world works.

Posted by: pawn at March 31, 2024 09:37 AM (QB+5g)

68 Happy Easter, everybody. I am currently reading The Theocratic Kingdom by George Peters, a 2000-page treatise arguing for the literal second coming of Jesus Christ. I’m about half-way through volume 3. Peters uses the “plain grammatical sense” of the Bible, a favorite phrase of his, to refute the arguments of hundreds of church scholars who since the time of Origen have sought to metaphorize Biblical end-times prophecy, showing them to be ridiculous and contradictory, an impressive work of scholarship in the pre-internet age. He predicted the nation of Israel in the late 19th century when the Zionist movement was in its nascent stages. To my knowledge he has not been substantially refuted, though there have been plenty of ad hominems against us pre-tribs, but Peters argues those are themselves a sign of the nearness of the end times. To my mind there are a lot of such signs these days.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at March 31, 2024 09:38 AM (hsWtj)

69
Currently reading Liane Moriarty's "Apples Never Fall."...

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 09:29 AM (6IDWi)

Fake News in title.

0/10

Would not read.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 09:38 AM (nFnyb)

70 Speaking of fiction being insidious, when I read Agatha Christie's Sad Cypress I was too young to realize that the guy who wanted his fiancee to be 'stiff upper lip and unemotional' was *bad* and a jerk. Reading it again as an adult I saw where I had taken the attitude to heart and it had caused real problems between John (first, late) Husband and myself. It made me wonder how many other bits I had incorporated into my character that were false and harmful.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 31, 2024 09:38 AM (XjtdB)

71 What is the equivalent of a canoe accident for books?
-----

A hidden library.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 09:39 AM (3e3hy)

72 Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

These days, large universities have taken the place of the monasteries. Be something if they got the same treatment today as was applied back then.

We are in a world that needs sound thinkers, keen doers, and reinforcing success. Most universities only produce a small part of that, mostly in STEM.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:39 AM (u82oZ)

73 I found this trashy book from 1931 in an antique shop, and had to pick it up for the "weird books" shelf we keep in the guest bedroom/Zuzu's bedroom.

https://is.gd/1vbIHi

It's kinda weird what was considered "hot" in 1931.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at March 31, 2024 09:40 AM (9yUzE)

74 Finished "Pinup Noir 2", the second of that type of anthology by Raconteur Press. Enjoyable detective based stories with interesting twists, definitely worth a read.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at March 31, 2024 09:28 AM (qPw5n)

It would have been better if they bought my story.

(insert sad face here)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:40 AM (0eaVi)

75 One book never discussed on this thread are the versions of The Bible.
I making another attempt at thermodynamics. This time with JP Holman's textbook. I tried the Dummies but found it condescending. Holman writes mature English.

Posted by: Jamaica at March 31, 2024 09:40 AM (IG7T0)

76 Part-time authors have less time to write, but the luxury of writing what they want because money is almost beside the point.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:32 AM (llXky)

Or, no point at all.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:41 AM (0eaVi)

77 Yes asimovs characters are really not the point its the setting

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:43 AM (PXvVL)

78 Disclose.tv @disclosetv 47m
NEW - Trump: "On Easter Sunday, we proclaim with joy, Christ is Risen."

https://tinyurl.com/bddk6udb
11 seconds

Posted by: andycanuck (2yu8s) at March 31, 2024 09:44 AM (2yu8s)

79 These days, large universities have taken the place of the monasteries. Be something if they got the same treatment today as was applied back then.

We are in a world that needs sound thinkers, keen doers, and reinforcing success. Most universities only produce a small part of that, mostly in STEM.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:39 AM (u82oZ)
---
Monasteries also supported the poor and indigent; universities are oases for the affluent.

Their day in the sun is almost over. Higher ed is hopelessly bloated and the demographics no longer exist to support them. I follow college football as a silly distraction and there is a steady drumbeat of D2 and D3 schools that are closing their doors.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:44 AM (llXky)

80 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to hide Easter eggs in.

Posted by: Guy with Easter eggs in his pants at March 31, 2024 09:44 AM (vFG9F)

81 If anyone is looking for an Asimov short story collection to read, I might recommend Buy Jupiter and Other Stories. Not only does it contain some really nice stories, his introductions to each story are also fun reads.

Posted by: Stephen Price Blair at March 31, 2024 09:44 AM (EXyHK)

82 Certainly not in foundation more in the robots series

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:45 AM (PXvVL)

83 Peters uses the “plain grammatical sense” of the Bible, a favorite phrase of his, to refute the arguments of hundreds of church scholars who since the time of Origen have sought to metaphorize Biblical end-times prophecy, showing them to be ridiculous and contradictory, an impressive work of scholarship in the pre-internet age.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at March 31, 2024 09:38 AM (hsWtj)
---
Is he using the "plain grammatical sense" of Greek, Hebrew or English?

Also: telling the actual compilers of a book that they don't know what it means is a hell of a flex.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:46 AM (llXky)

84
Well condon though mccarthy and nixon were the evil ones in emperor of america he totally looses it winter kills he does show what a shallow mannikin jfk was
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:34 AM (PXvVL)

Well, I have to admit that my favorites of his novels that I've read were

"Winter Kills" - about the JFK assassination
and
"Whisper of the Axe" a violent revolution in America via urban guerrilla warfare(coming soon to a city near you)-

where he really lets his freak flag fly through his story telling and not with little bitchy asides dumped in for virtue points.

Both are excellent should you want to read some paranoid fiction.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 09:46 AM (nFnyb)

85 Fiction? You mean like parables?

Posted by: A sower went out to sow at March 31, 2024 09:47 AM (dg+HA)

86 Sal, that's an interesting article on the permanence of the printed world. It's not just about the fluidity of the outer political world. A book can be a nice fixed point when I myself change my views over the years, and that same book reveals new insights.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 09:47 AM (3e3hy)

87 I think i vaguely recall the last one.

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:47 AM (PXvVL)

88 For the ardent bibliophile, serendipity usually plays a big role. Many times I've taken a flyer on an author previously unknown to me, and been rewarded in a big way.

One such instance occurred years ago, when I was perusing the 50-cents-a-book racks at the main public library in Richmond, Virginia. I bought a work of historical fiction entitled A Sailor of Austria, by John Biggins, based largely on the information on the dustjacket, and the intriguing topic: the Austro-Hungarian Navy. I embarked on a delightful journey of discovery as I read of the adventures of Otto Prohaska, a captain in the Austro-Hungarian submarine service in WWI. I went on to acquire all the books in the series and thoroughly enjoyed them all. A great pay-off for an initial investment of only 50 cents.

Posted by: Paco at March 31, 2024 09:48 AM (njExo)

89 FIRST!!!!!

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 09:48 AM (Zz0t1)

90 I also read The Foundation Trilogy as a teen. As well as (I think) a two-book sequel. The only thing I remember about it now is the Mule and the 'hand-on-thigh' principle. Aka, sometimes what is appropriate/inappropriate is entirely dependent on the circumstances.

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 31, 2024 09:48 AM (Lhaco)

91 >>What is the equivalent of a canoe accident for books?

"flooded basement"?
All I can imagine is a safe room like what was used in "Equilibrium" to hide books, records, art, etc..

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 09:49 AM (6IDWi)

92 Or, no point at all.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:41 AM (0eaVi)
---
I think a lot of part-time authors just want to have written a book. That was my original motivation. And after that, I wanted to write another one to prove it wasn't a fluke. After that, I was addicted.

Alas, the home situation has my stymied, so I do a bunch of stuff at Bleedingfool.com, which is kind of funny, because it's most geared to comic books, which I don't read. I met the editor through the Movie Thread. He liked my Flash Gordon writeup, which remains my only guest blog at the HQ.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:49 AM (llXky)

93 Just finished Lin Enger's "The High Divide," which I read for free on my Kindle using Libby as my go-to source for digital content.

It's 1886 western Minnesota, the protagonist a married guy, wife, two boys, he's a carpenter, veteran of the Civil War, and he slips away without announcement, to do some kind of runner, reason unknown to anyone.

I love these novel set in the wild cowboys and indians west, and this is a good one. For me, some of the most memorable were True Grit, Shane, Lonesome Dove, and Blood Meridian.

We lived out in Colorado from '13 through '17, and I solo-motorcycled all over the intermountain parts of CO, NM, UT, WY, SD, ID, MT, out into WA, OR, and CA, and east and south into KS, OK, and TX. All of that landscape, all of that sky, from the Missouri breaks to the Columbia river to the reservations and the Grand Canyon, to the llano estacado, through the high passes, the canyons, it all is so magical for me. I loved every mile of it, every sunrise and sunset, imagining the days when there was no one there save a few bands of hunter-gatherers and explorers and traders.

The central character of this one is driven by a terrible guilt. Read it and see.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at March 31, 2024 09:49 AM (KiBMU)

94 57 Yes, the telegraph endured while the Pony Express had limited reach and lasted less than 2 years (? ).
-------
The telegraph will have no effect on the business world.
-- Thomas Friedman

Posted by: andycanuck (2yu8s) at March 31, 2024 09:49 AM (2yu8s)

95 Happy Easter, Hordeians.

He is Risen.

Honor today's blessing. Give thanks. Know your faith will lead to everlasting peace, love and happiness.

The Bible is the greatest book ever transcribed.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 09:51 AM (Zz0t1)

96 All I can imagine is a safe room like what was used in "Equilibrium" to hide books, records, art, etc..

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 09:49 AM (6IDWi)
---
You put a bookcase in the wall *behind* a bookcase.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:51 AM (llXky)

97 Friedman is such a moron not in a good way

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 09:52 AM (PXvVL)

98 Steady progress on all my books, except John Keats' letters. Only read a couple this week. I was a big Asimov fan as a teenager but gave up on him by the time I was in college, except for his monthly science column in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I quote him all the time: "All math is obvious, and when you reach the level where it's not obvious to you you can pass the class but never really get any farther" True for me. Algebra was obvious, calculus was not and sure enough calculus was as far as I ever got in the math game.

Posted by: who knew at March 31, 2024 09:53 AM (4I7VG)

99 based on somebody's comment (recommendation?) last week, i got a bunch of Nevil Shute's books on Kindle. Finished In the Wet, 'bout 1/3 through Ruined City. In the Wet was "interesting". (potential spoiler) was it SFF or an exploration of re-incarnation? Did like the details on flying though.

gotta stop reading this thread. my TBR list is too long. I also got Vernor Vinge's Rainbow's End and Bova's Cyberbooks. Not to mention the others I'm in the middle of: New Roman Empire and Lenox's 6 Days That Divide the World and Jimmy Webb's Tunesmith.

Posted by: yara at March 31, 2024 09:53 AM (jwDtS)

100 Their day in the sun is almost over. Higher ed is hopelessly bloated and the demographics no longer exist to support them. I follow college football as a silly distraction and there is a steady drumbeat of D2 and D3 schools that are closing their doors.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:44 AM (llXky)

Which in my way of thinking is regrettable, as one's often far more likely to get a substantive education in D2 and D3 colleges than at the big R-1 universities. It doesn't seem right that the most rotten parts should last the longest, but there you go.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:53 AM (g0Y4p)

101 @55 --

I remember buying and enjoying Spider-Girl. That entire line was entertaining.

I don't think I have those issues anymore; they went out in a rare round of winnowing.

The only thing I remember about May "Mayday" Parker's book is that Peter had lost a leg.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 31, 2024 09:54 AM (p/isN)

102 It's kinda weird what was considered "hot" in 1931.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at March 31, 2024 09:40 AM (9yUzE)

"You'll have to admit she's good company." LOL

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at March 31, 2024 09:55 AM (OX9vb)

103 Hidden bookcases would be useful when you've lined the walls of the house down to the studs.

Layers!

I visited my father last week intending to steal some of his Nabokov. I knew he had some in his home office, but since I had last been there he had put a second layer on the shelves and stacked stuff up against them, making any attempt to find them a lengthy process. Having limited time, I made off with what I could find in haste, but I know that Pale Fire and Speak, Memory are in there somewhere.

He's turning into a hoarder, though not by choice. He and my stepmom used to travel and since she's been stricken with dementia, they can't go anywhere, so he just buys books and stuff. He has 10 crates of vinyl LPs. Cleaning that place out will take effort.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:55 AM (llXky)

104 The tomb, so I recall, was simply an east-facing niche in the hillside. From the map of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, looks like it's not so simple nowadays. Wonder if they have a souvenir shop there. (hmmmm)

Not exactly a book, just a webwork: Years ago, I did a toon, kinda steampunkish: mainstream media (Temple News Network) reports on the "Jesus freaker" cult that week in Jerusalem. Not exactly scripture-accurate but resurrection-respectful. Linked in nic.

Posted by: mindful webworker - Jerusalem Report at March 31, 2024 09:56 AM (poNS8)

105 Happy Easter everyone.

Posted by: banana Dream at March 31, 2024 09:57 AM (AtzG4)

106 Protestant princes didn't give a whit about Luther's theology, they just wanted to loot the monasteries.

Well, yeah.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

They were Bidentarians.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 09:57 AM (FVME7)

107 I seem to remember reading an Isaac Asimov book in high school for a project.

I also seem to remember I didn't like him, not one bit.

I don't remember what I read, however, so I don't really put a lot of stock into those memories.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 09:58 AM (Zz0t1)

108 "Back in those days, a telegraph was the fastest way to get information across the country in record time"

"The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage came out about 10 years ago. It's about the development and importance of 19th century telegraph. I recall it was a good read and as a ham radio guy I was interested. ("CW always gets through.") Thirteen cents a word seems expensive for that time but you were paying for a huge copper wire network that spanned the continent and, eventually, the ocean. One of the Sherlock Holmes stories mentioned that he preferred the telegraph because it forced a person to be direct. (Perhaps if only gto keep costs down?)

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 09:59 AM (zudum)

109 I've been rereading "Van Loon's Lives," which I discovered on the book thread several years ago.
Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at March 31, 2024 09:26 AM (FEVMW)

I have a copy of his 'The Arts" that I booklegged from the local thrift store. If you volunteer, you can pick over the donations before they go downstairs. As an ex-volunteer, I can still do that.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at March 31, 2024 09:59 AM (jN2/U)

110 Which in my way of thinking is regrettable, as one's often far more likely to get a substantive education in D2 and D3 colleges than at the big R-1 universities. It doesn't seem right that the most rotten parts should last the longest, but there you go.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 09:53 AM (g0Y4p)
---
It's kind of a mixed bag from what I can see. A lot of the small religious-based colleges got horribly woke and are nothing more than finishing schools for kids who didn't have the grades to go elsewhere. They rebranded themselves as universities, built a football stadium and took on a lot of debt that they can't pay back.

A lot of what people thought was permanent growth and prosperity was just a very large and prolonged bubble.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:00 AM (llXky)

111 75 One book never discussed on this thread are the versions of The Bible.

Posted by: Jamaica
========
Sectarianism tends to make such discussion nasty and shallow in a sense that the past is a foreign land that requires substantial knowledge of those long departed civilizations BEFORE argumentation.

Most people involved in the worst behavior leave off the prior knowledge and jump right into argumentation.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:01 AM (G0ieF)

112 Trying yet to convince my 17 year old grandson, our oldest, to NOT go to college and instead work a couple years before deciding to go or not.

I just sent him via Amazon, Henry David Thoreau's "Walden, or Life In The Woods."

He was having a terrible time adjusting to life after a move, two time zones, right after the start of his junior year of high school, into a highly regarded public high school in Mt Lebanon, PA. He's finally made some new friends, one with a firepit in the woods behind his house, and grandson likes the setting and comradery sitting on rocks looking at the bonfires.

I told him the book should be kept in his backpack for reference and inspiration, to help see with new eyes, his wild surrounds, both woodsy and paved and inside the walls of the high school, the one whose buildings and campus rivals an ivy league u.

Posted by: Mr Gaga at March 31, 2024 10:02 AM (KiBMU)

113 30 I read Cyrano de Bergerac last week. I don’t normally read plays. They aren’t meant for reading. But as a Three Musketeers fan and someone who enjoys swashbuckling in general, I really enjoyed it.

It may have helped that I’d already seen the José Ferrer movie a while ago. It follows the play closely.
Posted by: Step
****
Avoid the dreadfully wrong-headed 2022 musical (with sub-mediocre music!), starring Peter Dinklage, AT ALL COSTS. A word to the wise is sufficient.

Posted by: werewife, princess of Delray Beach at March 31, 2024 10:02 AM (SPNTN)

114 I making another attempt at thermodynamics. This time with JP Holman's textbook.

Posted by: Jamaica

Never done a true thermodynamics course. Had a cut-down version in Navy Nuc school. That has served me well as a process troubleshooting resource over the years. Also the quick / easy descriptions of how this stuff works are great for teaching new operators.

The nuc school curriculum I took is actually freely available via the DOE, despite being still listed as CLASSIFIED by the Navy

Posted by: PMRich at March 31, 2024 10:02 AM (eh5ud)

115 They are not all concerned about colleges and universities closing. Each state having a megacity university and a bunch of tech and CC's gives them a lot of control over who goes where.

Posted by: Jamaica at March 31, 2024 10:02 AM (IG7T0)

116 One book never discussed on this thread are the versions of The Bible.

Posted by: Jamaica

Side note: The koran was written centuries after Biblical times and should be considered one of the greatest tricks The Devil ever pulled.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (Zz0t1)

117 Sectarianism tends to make such discussion nasty and shallow in a sense that the past is a foreign land that requires substantial knowledge of those long departed civilizations BEFORE argumentation.

Most people involved in the worst behavior leave off the prior knowledge and jump right into argumentation.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:01 AM (G0ieF)
---
That and the fact that the subject has come up multiple times so the regulars don't have much left to add.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (llXky)

118 I think a lot of part-time authors just want to have written a book. That was my original motivation. And after that, I wanted to write another one to prove it wasn't a fluke. After that, I was addicted.

Alas, the home situation has my stymied, so I do a bunch of stuff at Bleedingfool.com, which is kind of funny, because it's most geared to comic books, which I don't read. I met the editor through the Movie Thread. He liked my Flash Gordon writeup, which remains my only guest blog at the HQ.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 09:49 AM (llXky)

I started because I was bored with the imposed retirement. I've always thought about it, but expected to do non-fiction. Everything I've done now is fiction. Three novels, a novella, and a bunch of short stories. Haven't sold a one, I have tried however. Once I complete the current one, I'm going to seriously start editing to see if I have the ability to sell. We'll see. There's plenty of vids out there by authors, and Sarah Hoyt's sites that I'm looking at to see if I can get the job done. But, still not too broken up if I never have a best seller.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (0eaVi)

119 the intriguing topic: the Austro-Hungarian Navy. I embarked on a delightful journey of discovery as I read of the adventures of Otto Prohaska, a captain in the Austro-Hungarian submarine service in WWI. I went on to acquire all the books in the series and thoroughly enjoyed them all. A great pay-off for an initial investment of only 50 cents.
Posted by: Paco at March 31, 2024 09:48 AM (njExo)

Fun Fact: Georg von Trapp, the father of the Trapp Family, was also a sub commander in that Navy. He won the Maria Thereserien Cross and was made a baron for his service.

Posted by: sal: tolle adversarium et afflige inimicum at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (jN2/U)

120 Asimov: The only thing of his that I really liked was the short story "Nightfall." All of his novel-length stuff (including the novelization of the movieization of "Nightfall") bored me.

Scarfolk: A co-worker clued me into the Scarfolk website years ago. It's definitely not for everyone's sense of humor.

Posted by: Oddbob at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (/y8xj)

121 I've been out of town, so less reading and less Sunday Morning posting.

I did read Les Johnson's _The Spacetime War_, a pretty routine exploding spaceships book. What's curious is that Johnson is an actual rocket scientist himself, but the novel is pure Star Trek rubber science. I believe with perfect faith that Johnson has played Traveller at some period in his life.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 10:04 AM (78a2H)

122 I was in the middle of a Vernor Vinge story when he died.

Weird.

For all those "A Fire Upon the Deep" fans out there, there is a sequel "short-story" named "The Babbler" that is quite good. It's in his Collected Stories book.

He actually wrote it first before the Deep novel which is really weird because of all the detail in The Babbler you find later.

Posted by: pawn at March 31, 2024 10:04 AM (QB+5g)

123 Soooo, we were watching an excellent Nicholas Cage movie last night titled, "Butcher's Crossing", which-

follows a young Harvard graduate as he goes West for adventure and signs onto the buffalo hunting equivalent of "The Treasure o0f Sierra Madre" and/or "Moby Dick".

In the credits, I noticed that the movie was taken from the novel, "Butcher's Crossing" by John Williams.

Has anyone here read "BC"? I think I'll put it on my reading list.

But, would like conformation of it's excellence or lack thereof.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 10:04 AM (nFnyb)

124 "Something can be described as invidious when it is resentful, discriminatory or envious, as in: "Fred was angered by the invidious gossip about his divorce being spread by his ex-wife's allies."

Seems close to insidious. It does seem that the choices we make for children should be carefully considered, since the infiltration of the brain is "inevitable". And the reading choices we make for ourselves as well.

"Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good". (some Bible verse). So when we read anything, we must be aware of the bad thoughts the author is trying to insidiously insert in our brain ... because to not recognize the bad/evil, is to allow it to penetrate our thought processes and become part of us.

The whole gay/trans celebration, or the "get the vax, don't kill your grandma" thing and more, are all such insidious messages, aka propaganda. The Devil never rests.

Posted by: illiniwek at March 31, 2024 10:04 AM (Cus5s)

125 The only thing I remember about May "Mayday" Parker's book is that Peter had lost a leg.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 31, 2024 09:54 AM (p/isN)

Peter lost a leg, grew a goatee, and had a single streak of grey and there very front of his hairline. It was a.....unique way a showing that the character had gotten older.

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 31, 2024 10:04 AM (Lhaco)

126 Disclose.tv @disclosetv 47m
NEW - Trump: "On Easter Sunday, we proclaim with joy, Christ is Risen."

-
He also said we must make America pray again.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:04 AM (FVME7)

127 yara

That was my and Wolfus recommendations.

Round the Bend by Nevil Shute is apropos for Easter. The ending, like the ending in[i[] Ruined City, is a surprise.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (u82oZ)

128
Scarfolk: A co-worker clued me into the Scarfolk website years ago. It's definitely not for everyone's sense of humor.
Posted by: Oddbob at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (/y8xj)

Got a meme sent to me the other day.

"How dark is your humor?"

"It picks cotton."

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (Zz0t1)

129 106 Protestant princes didn't give a whit about Luther's theology, they just wanted to loot the monasteries.

Well, yeah.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
======
That is a pretty big distortion of history there. Lots of factors including the whole Holy Roman Emperor, wealth flows from Germany to Italy, and so on.

Spend enough time reading about most eras of human history including sectarian disputes, you will come out with an appreciation that at times, historical works are as much narrative as they are allegedly objective. There are enough heroes and villains at that time in Germany that it is unwise to encapsulate the argument as four legs good and two legs bad.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (G0ieF)

130 Morning, book folk! Back from my errands at last. After last week's recommendations of Robert Jackson Bennett's American Elsewhere, I purchased a copy on ThriftBooks. It's supposed to be here tomorrow, along with Nevil Shute's No Highway. I'm looking forward to both.

I'm almost finished Elmer Kelton's The Smiling Country, the sequel to his The Good Old Boys. The blurb says the latter was filmed with Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek in '95, and I can see the casting for sure. Still I picture his protagonist, Hewey Calloway, an old-school cowboy still clinging (in 1910) to the wild outdoor life in his late middle age, as Sam Elliott.

Oh, and Stephen King's Just After Sunset collection from 2008 has some solid short stories and novelettes in it. No preaching or Trump hatred, not that early, just good storytelling.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (omVj0)

131 yara

Have fun.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (u82oZ)

132
Round the Bend by Nevil Shute is apropos for Easter. The ending, like the ending in[i[] Ruined City, is a surprise.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (u82oZ)

I've got my eye on you........

Posted by: The Barrel at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (Zz0t1)

133 Side note: The koran was written centuries after Biblical times and should be considered one of the greatest tricks The Devil ever pulled.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:03 AM (Zz0t1)
---
It's funny how much of the English-speaking world knew that Islam was something of a hoax. There's no contemporary record of him, no physical description, the Koran underwent substantial revision and the older ones were all burned and Ottoman might ensured that there's only one version in circulation.

One of the weird tics about it is the presence of problem words, which also occur in the Bible, but that's because its oldest parts have words no longer in use. The Koran is written in Arabic, so how did the gibberish get in?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (llXky)

134 Have a great day, everyone.

May your books illuminate and entertain.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 10:07 AM (u82oZ)

135 Disclose.tv @disclosetv 47m
NEW - Trump: "On Easter Sunday, we proclaim with joy, Christ is Risen."

-

Compare/contrast Joe Biden's 'Trans visibility day.'

Blasphemous asshole.......

God didn't get it wrong. They did.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:07 AM (Zz0t1)

136 It's kind of a mixed bag from what I can see. A lot of the small religious-based colleges got horribly woke and are nothing more than finishing schools for kids who didn't have the grades to go elsewhere. They rebranded themselves as universities, built a football stadium and took on a lot of debt that they can't pay back.

A lot of what people thought was permanent growth and prosperity was just a very large and prolonged bubble.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:00 AM (llXky)

In the case of religious schools whose founding denominations went woke, that can often be true: Augsburg in Minnesota (ELCA) is a particularly bad example.

However, there are a lot of smaller schools out there that maintain much higher levels of scholarship for the average student than what you see at the largest institutions. Collectively, though, I suppose it's all a dying star.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 10:08 AM (g0Y4p)

137 Critical Drinker made an interesting comment in a recent podcast - he was asked about partnering with prolific author James Patterson on a book. He seemed initially thrilled at the opportunity, it ended up being him writing 99% of the book and probably Patterson's editor doing the remaining 1% - never met or worked with Patterson. Said (paraphrasing) that he hadn't realized Patterson had essentially become a publisher instead of a writer.

Powerhouses like Patterson are an interesting thing, they put out so many books that you know there is an assembly line like process they've developed that makes it a collaborative effort, IYKWIM.
https://tinyurl.com/37fcwdw5

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:08 AM (6IDWi)

138 Men are crammed into a 30' x 30' cell until there is standing room only, and that's how they spend the nights. Anyone who falls is likely to be trampled to death. (Mason doesn't mention bodily functions, but I'm sure that floor is, ahem, filthy.) And when you consider the smell of all those sweaty bodies. ... Ugh.
Happy Easter, fellow bookies!
Posted by: Weak Geek at March 31, 2024 09:06 AM (p/isN)

there was a book I read that was from the 1900's of the supposed reminiscences on a German who joined the French Foreign Legion in Algeria and he described the stockade of the fort he was at like that, though the troops were allowed also to smoke.

Posted by: Kindltot at March 31, 2024 10:09 AM (D7oie)

139 That is a pretty big distortion of history there. Lots of factors including the whole Holy Roman Emperor, wealth flows from Germany to Italy, and so on.

Spend enough time reading about most eras of human history including sectarian disputes, you will come out with an appreciation that at times, historical works are as much narrative as they are allegedly objective. There are enough heroes and villains at that time in Germany that it is unwise to encapsulate the argument as four legs good and two legs bad.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:06 AM (G0ieF)
---
What I wrote was objectively true - "a lot" is not all. Lots of motivations were at work, and the point is that theology was only one - and in many cases the least important.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:09 AM (llXky)

140 Napoleon III used the telegraph from Paris to overrule his field generals in the Crimea in 1853-56.

Posted by: andycanuck (2yu8s) at March 31, 2024 10:09 AM (2yu8s)

141 Napoleon III used the telegraph from Paris to overrule his field generals in the Crimea in 1853-56.
Posted by: andycanuck (2yu8s) at March 31, 2024 10:09 AM (2yu8s)

He should've just sent them an email like I did.

Posted by: Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:10 AM (Zz0t1)

142 'Gleamed with precision and intent'

Well lah di dah! Haha

My own fiction writing has been described by hardened Literary Types as 'brutal, blunt, profane, and disturbing'.

My non fiction analyses as 'cold, unfeeling, inhuman, and dismissive'.

Both as mostly 'unpublishable', but that's literary types for you, all extended pinky and no raging hardon.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:10 AM (43xH1)

143 oh, the book was IN THE FOREIGN LEGION by Erwin Rosen, and it is in the Gutenberg .org website

Posted by: Kindltot at March 31, 2024 10:11 AM (D7oie)

144 You look at the second name like brian sitts who seems to be doing the shadow series brendan dubois who is taking up some of alex cross etc

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 10:11 AM (PXvVL)

145 120 Asimov: The only thing of his that I really liked was the short story "Nightfall."
Posted by: Oddbob
-----
Asimov was an odd duck but his science educational books are quite well done for people that want to educate themselves or their children.

Foundation series was an attempt to argue that social sciences could be as determinative for cause and effect as natural sciences. At the time, behavioralism was riding high in the saddle in the social sciences by its triumph over formalism and dry discussion of institutions. And yeah, I know he included the Mule as the exception to the rule but it is largely a secret kings sort of series that I find less appealing as a future history series than his robot series books.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:11 AM (G0ieF)

146 In the case of religious schools whose founding denominations went woke, that can often be true: Augsburg in Minnesota (ELCA) is a particularly bad example.

However, there are a lot of smaller schools out there that maintain much higher levels of scholarship for the average student than what you see at the largest institutions. Collectively, though, I suppose it's all a dying star.

Posted by: Dr. T at March 31, 2024 10:08 AM (g0Y4p)
---
That's true. I like to listen to one of the local college radio stations, that plays Christian rock. They very much are true to the founders' intent.

In some ways, "woke" is part of their heritage. Olivet College was founded by abolitionist and suffragette Christians. So it being woke is perfectly consistent. They just no longer have a corner on that particular market.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:12 AM (llXky)

147 Powerhouses like Patterson are an interesting thing, they put out so many books that you know there is an assembly line like process they've developed that makes it a collaborative effort, IYKWIM.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:08 AM (6IDWi)
---
Tom Clancy went from being an author to a brand name.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:13 AM (llXky)

148 He is Risen!

Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion at March 31, 2024 10:14 AM (TirNb)

149 He is an easy read, and I have read all his early SF output. For whatever reason, I was thinking of "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda" just a few days ago.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at March 31, 2024 09:28 AM (u82oZ)

I don't think I've ever read Asimov, but I think I'd stay away from Foundation. I need to find some of his other work.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024

***
His short stories are well done. Look for his Nine Tomorrows collection. It has a short story called "The Ugly Little Boy" that will, well, whenever I re-read it the room I'm in gets pretty damn dusty.

Also, his I, Robot collection is exciting and stimulating. Somehow he managed over many years to wring an enormous number of changes and implications out of his Three Laws of Robotics. One, "Little Lost Robot," is not only SF but a mystery too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:14 AM (omVj0)

150 'Woke' has nothing to do with Christianity its a marxist conceit

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 10:15 AM (PXvVL)

151 I've been reading Through Shakespeare's Eyes by Joseph Pearce. He uses a Christian viewpoint (specifically Catholic) to infer Shakespeare's moral stories which are sometimes quite different from the popular take. For example, Romeo and Juliet is not about two kids' evil parents standing in the way of true love but rather is about Romeo and Juliet's tragic flaws leading to their downfall.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:15 AM (FVME7)

152 Oh, it's Western Easter, Othodox Easter this year is May 5. It's just another day for me, except for all the commotion at the Catholic church behind my house, complete with Mexicans dressed as centurians which is actually kind of cool looking.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (43xH1)

153 Asimov was my absolute favorite author when I was fifteen years old, but time has not treated him well. Even at the time I could see his politics were rubbish, but it was only years later that I learned his jokes about ass-pinching women weren't actually jokes.

But the real sadness has been discovering he wasn't as good a writer as I thought as a teen. By Second Foundation, the series was already getting too static and talky, and all the later books are just people sitting in rooms lecturing each other. Sometimes they fly to another planet and sit in a different room.

I've also become disillusioned about Asimov the polymath. His understanding of history isn't nearly as deep as I thought at age 15, and now I can see his political biases dramatically warping his presentation of events. His understanding of Shakespeare is embarassingly superficial. And of course his notions of "psychohistory" and the development of human societies are creepily totalitarian. I still trust him on the hard sciences, but that's all.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (78a2H)

154 'Woke' has nothing to do with Christianity its a marxist conceit

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at March 31, 2024 10:15 AM (PXvVL)
---
They are both heresies.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (llXky)

155 Asimov was also capable of a dry, poker-faced kind of humor. His short, supposedly non-fiction pieces about a substance called "thiotimoline" are hilarious. Thiotimoline, you see, has a molecular bond that is twisted into the future. It dissolves *before* you add water to it. . . .

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (omVj0)

156 During our anniversary camping trip last weekend, I was able to actually spend some quiet time getting some sun and reading.

I read our own TJM's The Battle of Lake Erie end to end. First completed book in a long time for me. I don't read books very often, so I felt it as an accomplishment.

The book itself was a reasonably fast read as it's not long and not difficult to get through at all. It's very descriptive and does a good job of setting up the characters and giving you a mental picture of time and place. Once things get going, you can immerse yourself into the story and get the sense of being there. It's not overly descriptive but gives you what you need to feel a part of the action.

I enjoyed reading it and thought it was well done.

Typos aside.....

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (Zz0t1)

157 I have a book , Warplanes, weighs more than than a box of .308. I enjoy just looking beautiful airplanes.

Posted by: Eromero at March 31, 2024 10:17 AM (DXbAa)

158
"...but examine everything; hold firmly to that which is good..."

Posted by: 1 Thessalonians 5:21 at March 31, 2024 10:18 AM (dg+HA)

159 Norrin Radd - What the preterists do to scripture is indeed wrong. Those who push the replacement theology to go along with are heretics. I don't have time to go into that further right now. Just that they're calling God a covenant breaking liar should be enough.

And while I am premillennial, the "pre-trib" view is also unbiblical. No time to shorten the link but if you go to utube and search 7 Pre-trib Problems and the Pre-wrath Rapture you get 2hrs 15min plus of why. From the horses mouths as opposed to people misrepresenting it to be able to tear it down.

I gotta get. Worship beckons.

Posted by: TeeJ at March 31, 2024 10:20 AM (dWUm0)

160 Trimegistus,

The fact that you though he was great when you were 15 is all that really matters.

Hindsight is Golden.

Posted by: pawn at March 31, 2024 10:20 AM (QB+5g)

161 What I wrote was objectively true - "a lot" is not all. Lots of motivations were at work, and the point is that theology was only one - and in many cases the least important.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
======
It is about as correct to argue that 'a lot' of the Church's concern was maintaining the flow of wealth from Germany to Italy for the purposes of the Church and for the political games surrounding the Holy Roman Emperor selection.

There are some profound issues of Christian theology that were at the root of the conflict and those same issues had risen before. There are also some profound issues involved during the whole Reformation regarding how institutions, even holy ones, can become essentially prisoners of their own pasts and too intent on preserving itself rather than those it serves.

If I was bored enough, path dependency analysis of institutional policies and beliefs would probably be a fruitful avenue to pursue if one really wanted to objectively study such phenomenon. Once an institution makes a choice as a group to do something, that institution tends to try to conserve its errors as well as its virtues from those choices.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:21 AM (G0ieF)

162 148 He is Risen!
Posted by: vmom stabby stabby stabby stabby stabamillion

He risen indeed!

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at March 31, 2024 10:21 AM (dg+HA)

163 >>Tom Clancy went from being an author to a brand name.

Oh yeah.

I volunteer at a used bookstore and it's always interesting to see what comes in. A lot of James Patterson books. Was speculating with the gal who sorts mysteries - she was marveling over how many we get, and how little they move, and we suspect that these are leftover gifts.
Comparing the shape books are in is fun -- let's just say that the copies of those disposable DC memoirs ("A Higher Loyalty," "Persist") look brand new/unread, while others are so well-worn you just know they were enjoyed by many/on many occasions.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:22 AM (6IDWi)

164 By Second Foundation, the series was already getting too static and talky, and all the later books are just people sitting in rooms lecturing each other.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (78a2H)
---
I read a lot of sci-fi as a teenager and Asimov never interested me because both the cover art and the back cover text was so self-important. Dune at least had cool sandworms.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:24 AM (llXky)

165 Yes, if I hadn't loved Asimov's stuff at age 15 and been inspired by the fact that he sold his first story at that age, I probably wouldn't have followed the path I have. If I hadn't I would certainly be a lot richer, but I like the life I've got.

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 10:26 AM (78a2H)

166 It is about as correct to argue that 'a lot' of the Church's concern was maintaining the flow of wealth from Germany to Italy for the purposes of the Church and for the political games surrounding the Holy Roman Emperor selection.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 10:21 AM (G0ieF)
---
Yeah so as I said, my friend wasn't aware of this aspect, and now he is. He now understands it as more than a religious dispute.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:26 AM (llXky)

167 This week read 'Stalins War Of Extermination', Hoffman.

Minimizes Nazi mass murder, which I'm willing to overlook in this specific case as a device to emphasize how murderous the USSR really was.
I do not believe every single individual book on the Eastern Front is required to devote any time to the Holocaust if that event is not it's focus, and this book focuses on the Red Army's philosophy and behavior.
It's not a great book, and either it, or it's probably unauthorized translation, is rather poorly written. But it fits with the other book this week which was...

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:26 AM (43xH1)

168 152 Oh, it's Western Easter, Othodox Easter this year is May 5. It's just another day for me, except for all the commotion at the Catholic church behind my house, complete with Mexicans dressed as centurians which is actually kind of cool looking.
Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (43xH1)

On a similar note, I seem to remember reading that there was a time in the early middle ages when the Irish Church calculated the date of Easter differently than the recently than the recently-re-established English Church. And due to noble-intermarriage, there were mixed-faith households. So you could have situations where an English-born-and-raised husband was celebrating Easter, while his Irish-born-and-raised wife was still observing Lent, with all the associated fasting.

That's not enough to carry a story, but it might make for an interesting backdrop, to make the setting feel more exotic...

Posted by: Castle Guy at March 31, 2024 10:27 AM (Lhaco)

169 Comparing the shape books are in is fun -- let's just say that the copies of those disposable DC memoirs ("A Higher Loyalty," "Persist") look brand new/unread, while others are so well-worn you just know they were enjoyed by many/on many occasions.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:22 AM (6IDWi)
---
I bet those don't sell at all. Our local used bookstore has a shelf full of that crap, all gleaming like new. I can't imagine wanting to refight the 2004 election.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:28 AM (llXky)

170 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:14 AM (omVj0)

Thanks, Wolfus. I'll see if the library has it.

By the way, did I send you something to read?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 10:28 AM (0eaVi)

171
That's not enough to carry a story, but it might make for an interesting backdrop, to make the setting feel more exotic...
Posted by: Castle Guy at March 31, 2024 10:27 AM (Lhaco)

And lead to some sagacious quarreling.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:28 AM (Zz0t1)

172 I've also been reading the so far two book series of police procedurals by Simon Scarrow set in Nazi Germany. He has a very interesting character, naive, idealistic Gestapo officer Liebwitz. He is socially awkward but is talented and just wants to do the right thing. Has a little trouble discerning which thing is right, however. The books are entitled Dead of Night and Blackout.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:29 AM (FVME7)

173 It's not a great book, and either it, or it's probably unauthorized translation, is rather poorly written. But it fits with the other book this week which was...

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:26 AM (43xH1)
---
The only book I ever put-down in mid-read because of the subject matter was The Bloodlands. Too depressing. Usually if I quit a book it's because of bad writing - either style or the story sucks. This was just too dark to get through.

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

174 One could build an outhouse from discarded James Patterson books and have both reading and wiping material right at hand.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 10:31 AM (3e3hy)

175 Good morning, Perfessor Squirrel, Horde.

Christ is Risen!

Top of the reading list: The Testimony of the Evangelists: The Gospels Examined by the Rules of Evidence. The author was a professor of law at Harvard, back when Harvard was still sane.

Posted by: callsign claymore at March 31, 2024 10:31 AM (JcnCJ)

176 "Once an institution makes a choice as a group to do something, that institution tends to try to conserve its errors as well as its virtues from those choices." Posted by: whig

Selling indulgences was a helluva racket. Today one just has to get the vax and praise the trannies (and hate MAGA) ... to be in the new "worldly heaven".

Posted by: illiniwek at March 31, 2024 10:33 AM (Cus5s)

177 What I wrote was objectively true - "a lot" is not all. Lots of motivations were at work, and the point is that theology was only one - and in many cases the least important.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:09 AM (llXky)

The "complications" continued well into the 18th century, with the case of Fredrick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel as an example. Frederick, whose father was George II of England, was a Calvinist. In 1749, accompanied by his father, Frederick was received into the Catholic Church. His principality remained Calvinist and his children were raised as Protestants by his estranged wife.

Posted by: mrp at March 31, 2024 10:33 AM (rj6Yv)

178 By the way, did I send you something to read?
Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024

***
Don't think so, sir; I was just checking my email. Send it along!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (omVj0)

179 Happy Easter morons.

Oddly enough, the wife and I are reading the Bible this year. I'm going straight through and she's hopping around following a study plan.

It's been a while and I'm finding a lot of stuff that didn't come up in church, I'll put it that way. In a weird way, it's been a (good) challenge of faith.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (xcxpd)

180 Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:08 AM (6IDWi)

IIRC Alexander Dumas was the first guy to go the Patterson route.

Once he gained his fame, he set up an assembly line for writing novels. I theory, it worked like this:

Dumas comes up with plot idea.
Feeds plot to writing crew with instructions
Different people write different parts of book
Dumas reads and edits end product.
Publishes book as Alexander Dumas novel
$$$$$$$

It's a method that apparently works, loo0k at how many novels "Dumas" and/or "Patterson" have cranked out.

By the way, Patterson originally worked in advertising. My guess is that he thought up- the idea of using his name as a Brand Name like Hersey's or Pringles only applied to books.

Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (nFnyb)

181 She turned toward him and cried out in Italian "Ravioli!" ( which means "Lunchtime" ).

...and now you know the rest of the story.

Posted by: Paul Harvey at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (4wwcE)

182 Typos aside.....
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:16 AM (Zz0t1)

TJM must not have had Anachronda proofread for him. Sabrina Chase's books are a joy to read not just because of the writing but because Anachronda insures there are none of those jarring typos that throw me out of the story.

Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (XjtdB)

183 ...The Rzhev Slaughterhouse', Gerasimova.

Along with some other first-person accounts it becomes apparent the USSR 'motivated' it's combatants through threats and mass murder. There was no morale, no patriotism. If the soldier didn't advance the GRU murdered their entire extended family.
The absolute inhumanity of the Marxist Left gets to be hard to read about. The cynicism is so profound it takes on a negative quality all it's own, like a Black Hole in Space.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (43xH1)

184

Asimov was a pimp.

Also anal receptive curious.

Posted by: Just Sayin at March 31, 2024 10:35 AM (Fmmqy)

185 >>I bet those don't sell at all. Our local used bookstore has a shelf full of that crap, all gleaming like new. I can't imagine wanting to refight the 2004 election.

They don't. I have seen a lot of copies of various Thomas Freidman books go into the "give away" pile. Same for Patterson and Clancy.

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:35 AM (6IDWi)

186 Selling indulgences was a helluva racket. Today one just has to get the vax and praise the trannies (and hate MAGA) ... to be in the new "worldly heaven".

Posted by: illiniwek at March 31, 2024 10:33 AM (Cus5s)
---
I call them Yard Sign Calvinists - by their signs they are saved.

Because they are the Elect, everything is okay when they do it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:35 AM (llXky)

187 Other reading lately:
-TJM's Corstae
-David Powell's three book series looking in depth at the --Battle of Chickamauga
-Some Richard Laymon trash
-and Frank Herbert's Dune. Which is way, way better than the movie(s)

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:35 AM (xcxpd)

188 Compare/contrast Joe Biden's 'Trans visibility day.'

Blasphemous asshole.......

God didn't get it wrong. They did.
Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden

He may have even offended muslims, hindus, etc. with that.
Some may be thinking, "If he treats his own faith like that what repect does he have for others..."

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 10:36 AM (cOq4q)

189 Breaking news from Clown World!

Climate Activists Pour Oil Over Electric Truck at Auto Show in Protest of EVs

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:37 AM (FVME7)

190 Off topic but this seems like the right crowd to ask: any recommendations for stuff to do in Austin next weekend?

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 10:39 AM (78a2H)

191 I think if you visit the Church of Holy Sepulchre that go through two or three churches in order to get to the actual tomb of Jesus.

Each church is built over the earlier one. At least, that's the way I understand it.

Correct me if I wrong in explaining that.

Posted by: dantesed at March 31, 2024 10:39 AM (88xKn)

192 Usually if I quit a book it's because of bad writing - either style or the story sucks.

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

Hmmm, maybe we could designate A.H. as the Horde's official reader. Then we could know if our books are good or not. I'm sure he's way too busy, though.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 10:39 AM (0eaVi)

193 >>>Selling indulgences was a helluva racket.

The Chinese communist party sell social credit score indulgences.

Posted by: 13times at March 31, 2024 10:39 AM (0oM0J)

194 190 Off topic but this seems like the right crowd to ask: any recommendations for stuff to do in Austin next weekend?
Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 10:39 AM (78a2H)

*Fights urge to quote Office Space*

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:40 AM (xcxpd)

195 "I call them Yard Sign Calvinists - by their signs they are saved. Because they are the Elect, everything is okay when they do it."

ha yeah ... "Hate (and discernment) has No Home Here"

Posted by: illiniwek at March 31, 2024 10:41 AM (Cus5s)

196 Don't think so, sir; I was just checking my email. Send it along!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (omVj0)

Oof. It was a while ago. I'll check my sent folder and see. Anyway, gotta go. Will check the rest of the thread later.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 10:41 AM (0eaVi)

197 There's a hilarious book about Catholic relics being stolen, it's at home, it's a RIOT hang on

'Futa Sacra', Patrick J. Geary.

Terrific read and funny as hell.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:41 AM (43xH1)

198 >>Breaking news from Clown World!

Climate Activists Pour Oil Over Electric Truck at Auto Show in Protest of EVs

And then there's this:
Electric vehicle explodes in Boulder garage Saturday

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:42 AM (6IDWi)

199 David Powell's three book series looking in depth at the --Battle of Chickamauga

-
I saw a CSPN presentation on Braxton Bragg which rather humorously ridiculed him for screwing up his one unequivocal victory by depriving himself of the fruits of victory by failing to follow up.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:42 AM (FVME7)

200 I read plenty of fiction as a kid but changed to more nonfiction in my teens and later. (Tolkien and a few others were notable exceptions.) At about fifty that changed. I had plenty of 'education' but little learning or appreciation for what feeds the soul. I cut out most political and current events reading which was easy as I realized it was 90 percent BS. Most modern fiction left me uninspired. (Thank goodness for Donald Hamilton, Cussler, O'Brian, Cornwell, etc. They were great exceptions.) Taking the time for Moby Dick, Count of Monte Cristo, Kipling, Haggard, and many others changed that. Then I discovered 'childrens' classics that were new to me. Wind In The Willows and similar, with their wonderful creativity and fantastic illustrations added richness. Most of my nonfiction reading these days is historical or how-to hand crafts and I'm picky as hell about them.

Thinking about the topic I realized my nonfiction fixation went with my strongest agnostic attitudes. As awareness of faith became more important, my appreciation of creativity and imagination began to drive my reading. To my benefit.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 10:43 AM (zudum)

201 TJM must not have had Anachronda proofread for him. Sabrina Chase's books are a joy to read not just because of the writing but because Anachronda insures there are none of those jarring typos that throw me out of the story.
Posted by: Polliwog the 'Ette at March 31, 2024 10:34 AM (XjtdB)

I've found printers errors in MP4s and Sarah Hoyt's books. It is jarring.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 10:43 AM (0eaVi)

202 I seem to remember reading an Isaac Asimov book in high school for a project.
I also seem to remember I didn't like him, not one bit.
------------------------------
Got the Foundation trilogy back in HS based on a lot of people liking it.

Read the whole thing... a month later all I could recall was the name Seldon, psycho-history whatever and that's about it... found it boring.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 10:43 AM (cOq4q)

203 "Hate (and discernment) has No Home Here"
Posted by: illiniwek

My sign is Haiti Has No Home Here.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:44 AM (FVME7)

204 >>IIRC Alexander Dumas was the first guy to go the Patterson route. . .

Interesting, naturalfake - had no idea!

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 10:45 AM (6IDWi)

205 I could use a proofreader. The MS editor is adequate, barely, but definitely does not catch everything.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at March 31, 2024 10:45 AM (9yUzE)

206 205 I could use a proofreader. The MS editor is adequate, barely, but definitely does not catch everything.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at March 31, 2024 10:45 AM (9yUzE)

Try reading your work aloud after the spellchecker has done its job. You'll be surprised at what you catch that way.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:46 AM (xcxpd)

207 1. Who knew: problems with math can be the way the teacher frames it. I was terrified of calculus too, tho I did well in it. But I thought I was cheating all the way. It wasn't till I read this very blog that Jay Guevera made me understand: he said calculus was the dividing line between This Is How You Do It and This Is The Way It Must Have Happened. And I thought, that's what I was doing. I thought I was cheating!

Thanks, Jay, wherever you are, and however badly I've paraphrased you.

2. Do men ever read Colette? She may be the most sensuous writer I've ever read, even when she writes about writing. She once described a sentence as an unruly animal who refused to be put in place, and even when she thought she had won, he rippled up again.

Posted by: Wenda at March 31, 2024 10:46 AM (G1K9S)

208 >>>Selling indulgences was a helluva racket.

The Chinese communist party sell social credit score indulgences.
Posted by: 13times

I'll sell you a carbon credit for 75% off!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:47 AM (FVME7)

209 I put 'Nine Lives', Waldemar Lotnik back in the shipping envelope and haven't opened it in at least a year due to a first person description of behavior in Galicia WWII.

So atrocious, so disgusting, I can barely even keep the book in my house on my shelves. Makes 'The Painted Bird' look like an old Silly Symphony.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:48 AM (43xH1)

210 ...-Some Richard Laymon trash...

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:35 AM (xcxpd)

Laymon's an interesting horror writer. Either complete crap or pretty darn good.

My 3 faves of his are:

The Traveling Vampire Show

One Rainy Night

Night in the Lonesome October

Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 10:48 AM (nFnyb)

211 >>>Selling indulgences was a helluva racket.

The Chinese communist party sell social credit score indulgences.

Posted by: 13times at March 31, 2024 10:39 AM (0oM0J)

Al Gore sells carbon credits.

Posted by: BignJames at March 31, 2024 10:49 AM (AwYPR)

212 199 David Powell's three book series looking in depth at the --Battle of Chickamauga

-
I saw a CSPN presentation on Braxton Bragg which rather humorously ridiculed him for screwing up his one unequivocal victory by depriving himself of the fruits of victory by failing to follow up.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:42 AM (FVME7)

Bragg is almost a tragic figure. He has some of the most strategic success of any Southern general. But he was undercut by his own lack of nerve at the 'sticking point' and by subordinates that...weren't. Not to mention his personality flaws. Stars in their courses....

He'd have done well, I think, in a Henry Halleck role if he could have been emplaced there early in the war.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:50 AM (xcxpd)

213 A blessed Easter to all.

Posted by: Sharkman at March 31, 2024 10:50 AM (/RHNq)

214 Laymon's an interesting horror writer. Either complete crap or pretty darn good.

My 3 faves of his are:

The Traveling Vampire Show

One Rainy Night

Night in the Lonesome October
Posted by: naturalfake at March 31, 2024 10:48 AM (nFnyb)

Those are 3 of his best. I can't stand The Cellar because of Roy. But the creation of The Beasts is...vivid and horrific. He deserves more credit that he gets. But with a few exceptions (like the above) most of his stuff really is trashy.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:51 AM (xcxpd)

215 I've read Collette.
Tendrils Of The Vine is... not my Thing but I respect it, and if I recall she had a very sexy signature.
Good signatures are a Lost Art.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:52 AM (43xH1)

216 The big library in the suburbs, which I usually visit right after my haircut every three weeks, is revamping its fiction shelves in some major way. They say the entire section will be off-limits until sometime in May. I can reserve something online and come in and get it, but there's no browsing the stacks. Grrrr.

It has a branch on my side of the river, smaller but occasionally useful. I can always drop in there.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 10:52 AM (omVj0)

217 Good morning.
Overslept because I was up late trying to finish the third book in the 3Body series. Didn't. Still 100 pages to go. Taking me longer to finish for two reasons. The main one is I have been watching the series on Prime. It is pretty good even though they have swapped a lot of the Chinese characters for Americans. It makes sense from a show runners perspective. But they do a pretty good job of explaining the complex science in the book.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 31, 2024 10:52 AM (t/2Uw)

218 Sipping coffee, listening to Saint Matthew Passion, reading a slender volume on the life of Christ.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 10:52 AM (3e3hy)

219 Speaking of indulgences, I'll be happy to sell any takers my holey socks.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:54 AM (43xH1)

220 Meanwhile, in Germany, a Good Friday sand dance.

https://tinyurl.com/yjuc8jx8

I liked the part where she ran out of the room.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:55 AM (FVME7)

221 65 ..."
I have found a substack on detaching from the digital machine that I am enjoying.
A recent post was on buying, hoarding and saving books"

sal, Thanks for that link. A good read and it ties in with a number of attitudes I'm noticing the last few years about not trusting or relying only on the latest technology. And realizing the 'elites' want us dead or at least subservient.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 10:55 AM (zudum)

222 I saw a CSPN presentation on Braxton Bragg which rather humorously ridiculed him for screwing up his one unequivocal victory by depriving himself of the fruits of victory by failing to follow up.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
------------------------------
I maintain the belief that Ft Bragg (est 191

was given the name as poke in the eye of The South, not to honor them. Tell everyone it is an honor (pee on their backs and tell them its raining).
Same with the other southern installations established when Reconstruction was still a living memory. Fairly certain that no installations outside the south are named after Confederate generals.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 10:56 AM (cOq4q)

223 Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, anti-Marxist, buy ammo and keep your rifle by your side at March 31, 2024 10:51 AM (xcxpd)

Good to see you, sir.

Posted by: Sponge - F*ck Joe Biden at March 31, 2024 10:58 AM (Zz0t1)

224 I could use a proofreader. The MS editor is adequate, barely, but definitely does not catch everything.
Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at March 31, 2024 10:45 AM (9yUzE)

I used to read police reports for a job I had. My main conclusion was "autocorrect is not as useful as we might hope"

Posted by: Kindltot at March 31, 2024 10:59 AM (D7oie)

225 The second reason is that the author is too hung up in his descriptions. He has basically created entire new "worlds" half way through the book, spends a lot of time describing how they function. I didn't get why it was important and got bored. He finally gets to what is pretty much the entire point of the book and I couldn't keep my eyes open.
Hit is surprising because the first two were engrossing. With the way he has divided the books, it seems he could have planned it better.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 31, 2024 10:59 AM (t/2Uw)

226 Speaking of indulgences, I'll be happy to sell any takers my holey socks.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 10:54 AM (43xH1)
---
There is a line of socks that feature the saints on them with decorative images. They are called Sock Religious, and my wife loves them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:01 AM (llXky)

227 To the poster about Austin:

THE RANGE AT AUSTIN rents machine guns.
Your choice is obvious.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:01 AM (43xH1)

228 Meanwhile, in Germany, a Good Friday sand dance.

She makes Elaine Benes look like Josephine Baker.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at March 31, 2024 11:01 AM (9yUzE)

229 Meanwhile, in Germany, a Good Friday sand dance.
https://tinyurl.com/yjuc8jx8
I liked the part where she ran out of the room.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 10:55 AM (FVME7)

Reminds me of The Dude's landlord dance scene.

https://tinyurl.com/3wf8aywr

Posted by: Hairyback Guy at March 31, 2024 11:02 AM (R/m4+)

230 Same with the other southern installations established when Reconstruction was still a living memory. Fairly certain that no installations outside the south are named after Confederate generals.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 10:56 AM (cOq4q)
---
A lot of them sprang up to train the Army of the United States in 1916 and the names were typically of generals from that state. Thus Camp (now Fort) Custer in Michigan.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:02 AM (llXky)

231 191 I think if you visit the Church of Holy Sepulchre that go through two or three churches in order to get to the actual tomb of Jesus.

----------

I didn't see any sign of separate churches, at least not physically. Custody of the church is shared by four different sects, IIRC. Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian (???) and something else.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (bo7UB)

232 Post
See new posts
Conversation
Steve McGuire
@sfmcguire79
A Princeton student argues that some courses are unfair because not everyone is equally prepared:
“In order to effectively address this disparity, Princeton needs to re-evaluate the difficulty of the STEM introductory courses and implement equity-oriented solutions that directly address the different levels of student preparation. After all, the level of academic rigor at Princeton can only be truly effective if all students are first able to work on a level playing field.”

-
Just say it. Science, tech, engineering, and math are racist.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (FVME7)

233 HAHAHA Sock Religious, the whole site is genius funny.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (43xH1)

234 I read a Patterson book once to find out why he was popular. That was enough.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (t/2Uw)

235 Happy Easter to all and thank you Perfessor for the Book Thread.

I'm currently juggling 3 books. I'm rereading Glitter Girl by James Bartlett for fun and, because it was Holy Week, I started The Devil in the Castle: St. Teresa of Avil, Spiritual Warfare, and the Progress of the Soul by Dan Burke, and The Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St Therese of Lisieux.

The Devil in the Castle, at least in my case, has allowed me to recognize where I've been getting some things right and also, how much further I have to go spiritually. It's tone is not doom and gloom but more of a roadmap and I'm finding it encouraging and useful.

I think I'm only about 2 chapters in on The Story of a Soul (I'm reading on the Kindle, so I'm never really sure). So far it's been an easy read and a sweet story. If I still feel the same after I finish, I might actually buy a hard copy for my granddaughter. Whether she will read it or not, I'm not sure, but you never know... The copy I'm reading, translated by Thomas N Taylor is free for the Kindle on Amazon in case anyone is interested.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (RGDs9)

236 As for copy editing, I have a test reader who finds a lot of stuff. I then do a hard copy edit, but I think the best method is to read it aloud to my wife. Even reading it aloud you can miss stuff, but if someone who doesn't know the story is listening, it gets caught.

The first book I did that with was The Vampires of Michigan. Walls of Men has far fewer errors than Long Live Death (which I've edited three times as they are found).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:05 AM (llXky)

237 One easy aid to proofreading: change to a different font. You'd be surprised what you see in Times New Roman that you miss in Courier.

Posted by: Wenda at March 31, 2024 11:06 AM (G1K9S)

238 I have a book , Warplanes, weighs more than than a box of .308. I enjoy just looking beautiful airplanes.
Posted by: Eromero

I think I have all of the Jane's books now, on aircraft as well as ships.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:08 AM (JYvcN)

239 Just say it. Science, tech, engineering, and math are racist.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (FVME7)
---
The assumption is that college is for everyone, therefore everyone should pass.

My alma mater used to do The Paper Chase thing during the first class session: look to your right, look to your left, one of you will wash out by the end of this year.

Now it brags about 95 percent graduation rates.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:09 AM (llXky)

240 "After all, the level of academic rigor at Princeton can only be truly effective if all students are first able to work on a level playing field.”

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (FVME7)

I hereby call for the creation of a "Handicapper General."

Posted by: BignJames at March 31, 2024 11:09 AM (AwYPR)

241 One easy aid to proofreading: change to a different font. You'd be surprised what you see in Times New Roman that you miss in Courier.
Posted by: Wenda at March 31, 2024

***
I hadn't heard of that one, Wenda. I'll have to try it.

One classic method of proofreading, I was told, is to read the material backwards -- start at the end of the sentence and work your way to the beginning. That way you are not anticipating the next word in a familiar phrase, and each one will stand alone.

Still, reading the work out loud is just as effective, and a lot more fun.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 11:10 AM (omVj0)

242 Now it brags about 95 percent graduation rates.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:09 AM (llXky)

-----------

70% of diplomas are participation trophies. I read it on the internet.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:10 AM (bo7UB)

243
Funny, Asimov never penned "Foundation: Enough Already".

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at March 31, 2024 11:10 AM (xG4kz)

244 HAHAHA Sock Religious, the whole site is genius funny.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:04 AM (43xH1)
---
One element of Catholicism that has always appealed to me is its profound sense of humor.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:11 AM (llXky)

245
I hereby call for the creation of a "Handicapper General."
Posted by: BignJames

This ought to have been socked as "Diana Moon Glampers".

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at March 31, 2024 11:12 AM (xG4kz)

246 To clarify, the Orthodox Dogma is:

-No Chosen People
-No Holy Land

So while Eastern Orthodox Christian outfits/sects may occupy a regional or sectarian Church, technically, any given Church or Place has no special meaning due to some geographical accident or even choice.

Technically. Actual autocephalous practice may vary. Tribalism is rife and is the bane of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
I did spend the last few months writing essays for my Diocese about how autocephelous Churches aren't supposed to be Nationalist Bastions...

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:13 AM (43xH1)

247 This ought to have been socked as "Diana Moon Glampers"

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at March 31, 2024 11:12 AM (xG4kz)

I couldn't remember her name.

Posted by: BignJames at March 31, 2024 11:13 AM (AwYPR)

248 Funny, Asimov never penned "Foundation: Enough Already".

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at March 31, 2024 11:10 AM (xG4kz)
---
One could probably do a funny satire version of that.

Bored of the Rings is hilarious and Doon has some pretty good jabs.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:13 AM (llXky)

249 Completely OT. I'm listening to a guitarist I never heard of before. His name is Mak Grgic. The Mak I understand but Grgic?

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 11:13 AM (FVME7)

250 Not a big sci-fi guy but my favorite SciFi book is still Armor by John Steakley. The opening chapters and story is still the most immersive and intense opening story I have ever read.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:14 AM (AIm4E)

251 243:

Tom Clancy, 'Enough Already, I'm Done Spinning'

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:15 AM (43xH1)

252 Speaking of books and words and stuff, I learned a new collective noun this week. It's a terror of tyrannosaurs.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? at March 31, 2024 11:17 AM (FVME7)

253 The Mak I understand but Grgic?
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks

There is a vowel shortage going on.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:18 AM (JYvcN)

254 Grgic is Slovenian. To pronounce his name imagine there are no vowels.
He's obviously Slovenian because in The Balkans anyone the next town over is a completely different race of human being.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:18 AM (43xH1)

255 There is a vowel shortage going on.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:18 AM (JYvcN)
---
Either Welsh or Polish.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:18 AM (llXky)

256 Slovenian telegraph messages must have looked like the operator was having a seizure.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:20 AM (llXky)

257 There is a vowel shortage going on.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024
---
Either Welsh or Polish.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024

***
Vowels? An unnecessary bourgeois luxury.

Posted by: Illya Kuryakin at March 31, 2024 11:20 AM (omVj0)

258 With Tom Clancy you get fiction and non fiction . Man he likes the technical details. Like reading an operating manual.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:21 AM (AIm4E)

259 There is a vowel shortage going on.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:18 AM (JYvcN)

Pssst.. Hey youse wanna buy an "E"?

Posted by: Puppet in a fedora at March 31, 2024 11:21 AM (B705c)

260
252 Speaking of books and words and stuff, I learned a new collective noun this week. It's a terror of tyrannosaurs.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

As told to you by Barney, I am guessing?

Q: Why did the T. rexes never form hockey teams?

A: Short arms!*

* an insult applied to an ice hockey player who wiffs on a shot -- the stick passes over the puck without touching it -- especially a slap shot.

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars (TM) at March 31, 2024 11:22 AM (xG4kz)

261 With Tom Clancy you get fiction and non fiction . Man he likes the technical details. Like reading an operating manual.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:21 AM (AIm4E)
---
I remember devouring The Hunt for Red October. A couple of years later I re-read it and was amazed at how awful the writing was. I quit reading him after Jack Ryan became Mary Sue.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (llXky)

262 Pssst.. Hey youse wanna buy an "E"?
Posted by: Puppet in a fedora at March 31, 2024 11:21 AM (B705c)

I thought the sock was going to be Pat Sajak.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (AIm4E)

263 176 "Once an institution makes a choice as a group to do something, that institution tends to try to conserve its errors as well as its virtues from those choices." Posted by: whig

Selling indulgences was a helluva racket. Today one just has to get the vax and praise the trannies (and hate MAGA) ... to be in the new "worldly heaven".
Posted by: illiniwek
======
There are all sorts of examples historically of trying to buy one's place in heaven. I am reminded of the magician in the Good Book that was so impressed by the Apostles working miracles that he wanted to 'buy' into that racket as good business.

The older I get, the more I believe humility in all things is one of the cardinal virtues.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (G0ieF)

264 There is a vowel shortage going on.
Posted by: Thomas Paine
=======
The Welsh have refined it to a high art.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:24 AM (G0ieF)

265 Butcher's Crossing -- movie was okay, but not a keeper for me. Book's probably a lot better, but haven't gotten to it; it's somewhere in the depths of the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile. I did read Williams' novel Stoner some years back, and that one was good enough that I put his others into the Amazing etc etc Pile.

One of the non-fiction titles Asimov did was called Quick and Easy Math, back in '62 or '65. I never ran across this one during my school years, finding it only when I was helping the grandtots a little with math when they were being home-schooled. The one I did find when I was in high school was called The Trachtenberg Speed System of Basic Math, if memory serves. I don't think any such titles are suggested for grade or high school students these days; the math curricula seem more interested in making sure that nobody gets out of school able to make change unassisted by the register.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 11:25 AM (q3u5l)

266 The Welsh have refined it to a high art.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:24 AM (G0ieF)
---
Welsh games of Scrabble must be incredible.

Maybe buy two sets and swap the vowels out for the Italian version's consonants.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:25 AM (llXky)

267 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (llXky)

I know others love him but he never clicked for me.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:26 AM (AIm4E)

268 The older I get, the more I believe humility in all things is one of the cardinal virtues.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (G0ieF)
---
Many vices are simply misused virtues. Charity is a good thing, and those who have more should give more, but it's not simply a financial transaction.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:26 AM (llXky)

269 The Hawaiians stole all the vowels!

Posted by: Trimegistus at March 31, 2024 11:27 AM (78a2H)

270 I thought the sock was going to be Pat Sajak.
Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (AIm4E)

Mines Vowels is cheaper. Only a Nickle.

Posted by: Puppet in a fedora at March 31, 2024 11:27 AM (B705c)

271 254 Joe Btfsplk, Al Capp character.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at March 31, 2024 11:27 AM (0EOe9)

272 At home on the shelves is the most useful language book I own: a Russian-English pocket dictionary that begins with diagrams of where to place the tongue in the mouth and in relation to teeth (if complete, or if any) to properly make Slavic consonant connections.
That slim volume is why my Slavic language skills overall can suck, but the few words I know are pronounced perfectly.

Insert tongue skill jokes here!

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:28 AM (43xH1)

273 Also this week I dipped into a colorful overview of costuming in television called Dressing the Part, by Nat Rubenstein, a former editor at InStyle magazine. He takes several of the major genres of TV shows, examines four or five successful shows in each, and discusses the clothing and costuming choices made. The good thing is that he does not limit himself only to programs of the last twenty or thirty years; he actually has The Avengers, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and Wild Wild West in there, along with That Girl and The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Of course he could hardly interview the costumers from shows that old, so most of the quotes from the actual people involved behind the scenes come from shows since the '90s. Still, the book is well done (if you ignore his howling error in saying that, after U.N.C.L.E., David McCallum "left Hollywood for good").

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 11:28 AM (omVj0)

274 No faith related reading this week. I was in the mood for casual, fun stuff so I indulged in original Conan stories, the first Liturgical Mystery books, and some Pat McManus. Adventure and laughs make a good combination.

A minor point is I smoked one of my churchwarden style pipes while reading the Conan material. Made me feel like I was hearing the story, told with wonderful skill, listening in a cozy tavern. An adult beverage by my side completed the impression.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 11:28 AM (zudum)

275 The older I get, the more I believe humility in all things is one of the cardinal virtues.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (G0ieF)
---
Many vices are simply misused virtues. Charity is a good thing, and those who have more should give more, but it's not simply a financial transaction.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:26 AM (llXky

My favorite Churchill insult quote.

He has all the virtues I despise and none of the vices I admire.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:29 AM (AIm4E)

276 A lot of them sprang up to train the Army of the United States in 1916 and the names were typically of generals from that state. Thus Camp (now Fort) Custer in Michigan.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
-----------------
Not familier with Michigan military installations, except maybe maybe Selfridge ANGB. That was named after a signal corps LT that died in an early plane crash. Pope AAF (co-located with Ft Bragg) was also named after a signal corps LT who also died in a plane crash. I don't think Selfridge or Pope were natives of the states their namesake bases are located.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 11:29 AM (cOq4q)

277 Welsh games of Scrabble must be incredible.

Maybe buy two sets and swap the vowels out for the Italian version's consonants.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
=====
Wales is a wonderful place to visit but unlike other foreign countries, I could never see a Welsh word and get the gist of it as it has scant relationship to the latin family of languages.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:31 AM (G0ieF)

278 With Tom Clancy you get fiction and non fiction . Man he likes the technical details. Like reading an operating manual.
Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024

***
He was a strong admirer of SF writer Larry Niven, who handles technical details too but does it in a very entertaining way. Too bad they never collaborated on something.

ike A.H. Lloyd, I was less than whelmed by the book version of Red October; everything that was dramatic and effective in the film version seemed muffled.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 11:32 AM (omVj0)

279 Discussing which books to ban next?

Posted by: Sid at March 31, 2024 11:32 AM (u6DEa)

280 Not familier with Michigan military installations, except maybe maybe Selfridge ANGB. That was named after a signal corps LT that died in an early plane crash. Pope AAF (co-located with Ft Bragg) was also named after a signal corps LT who also died in a plane crash. I don't think Selfridge or Pope were natives of the states their namesake bases are located.

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 11:29 AM (cOq4q)
---
The Air Corps wouldn't have had any favorite sons, so honoring pioneers of flight was common.

Michigan has no active duty military bases left, just some National Guard installations.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:32 AM (llXky)

281 Time to putter about in the yard...

Posted by: Itinerant Alley Butcher at March 31, 2024 11:32 AM (cOq4q)

282 "There is a vowel shortage going on."

That's a common symptom of irritable vowel syndrome.

Posted by: callsign claymore at March 31, 2024 11:32 AM (JcnCJ)

283 The really scary part is I saw his name and knew instantly he is Slovenian. Each consonant has meaning: the grg gave it away.

I can show my Serbian Brothers name in Serbia and everyone instantly knows its actually Montenegro.

I'm inevitably asked my name: "Neal."

Hilarity ensues.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:33 AM (43xH1)

284 Many vices are simply misused virtues. Charity is a good thing, and those who have more should give more, but it's not simply a financial transaction.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
=====
Charity is a good example where if you want to be recognized for your 'gift' then it becomes more of a personal pride puffery than a gift from the heart.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:33 AM (G0ieF)

285 Wales is a wonderful place to visit but unlike other foreign countries, I could never see a Welsh word and get the gist of it as it has scant relationship to the latin family of languages.
Posted by: whig

It is funny how little pockets exist in the world where a very different culture and language exist. Finnish, for example, is closer to Turkish than any language nearby.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (JYvcN)

286 Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:31 AM (G0ieF)

I assume it all derived from the Picts.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (AIm4E)

287 Why is illiterate Sid allowed on the book thread?

Posted by: Northernlurker at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (zARpI)

288 273:

I'll dress vintage Markie Post.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (43xH1)

289 Discussing which books to ban next?
Posted by: Sid at March 31, 2024 11:32 AM (u6DEa)

Yes.

Sucking Tranny Dick by Sid the Troll is on the list .

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:36 AM (AIm4E)

290 And to Sid, No, Sid, we're not discussing what books to ban next, that's really more your department.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:36 AM (43xH1)

291 My favorite Churchill insult quote.

He has all the virtues I despise and none of the vices I admire.
Posted by: polynikes
======
Churchill was far from humble and at times stumbled over that very fact. Nevertheless, he possessed personal and professional courage and for the most part was an agent of truth in government. He did what he believe was the right thing though the political heavens might fall to his detriment and he was a tireless worker on behalf of his ideals.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:36 AM (G0ieF)

292 It is funny how little pockets exist in the world where a very different culture and language exist. Finnish, for example, is closer to Turkish than any language nearby.
Posted by: Thomas Paine
=======
Very true.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:38 AM (G0ieF)

293 287 Why is illiterate Sid allowed on the book thread?
Posted by: Northernlurker at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (zARpI)

comic relief.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 11:38 AM (q3gwH)

294 Charity is a good example where if you want to be recognized for your 'gift' then it becomes more of a personal pride puffery than a gift from the heart.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:33 AM (G0ieF)
---
For the last few years, an anonymous donor in our parish has put up matching funds for all donations made during Advent.

I report my donations on my tax forms not because I want credit, but because I want to give the government as little as possible, especially now, when it will likely be used to spread blasphemy and sinfulness.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (llXky)

295 Why is illiterate Sid allowed on the book thread?
---

Comic relief? A negative example? We left the door unlocked so just anyone wanders in? I dunno...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (q3u5l)

296 278 ... "I was less than whelmed by the book version of Red October; everything that was dramatic and effective in the film version seemed muffled."

In the film the personalities and backgrounds drive the story. In the movie, the technology and geo-political aspects are foremost. The first is emotional, the second is intellectual. The emotional with some technology is more effective. Otherwise, it's like reading a wargame scenario.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (zudum)

297
I'll dress vintage Markie Post.
Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024

***
He didn't choose to talk about Night Court or WKRP, unfortunately.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (omVj0)

298 Tom Servo,

Ya beat me to it...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (q3u5l)

299 Churchill was far from humble and at times stumbled over that very fact. Nevertheless, he possessed personal and professional courage and for the most part was an agent of truth in government. He did what he believe was the right thing though the political heavens might fall to his detriment and he was a tireless worker on behalf of his ideals.

Posted by: whig

Churchill was considered a washed up old fool in the thirties when he began warning about Hitler. When his predictions came true, the people who criticized him had to turn to him.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:40 AM (JYvcN)

300 Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:36 AM (G0ieF)

That was a Churchill quote if I made it confusing by using' insult as an adjective.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:40 AM (AIm4E)

301 technology and geo-political aspects are foremost. The first is emotional, the second is intellectual. The emotional with some technology is more effective. Otherwise, it's like reading a wargame scenario.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (zudum)
---
It was wargamed, and it shows. Lots of Clancy's scenarios were worked out with commercial wargames. He was a big fan of Harpoon.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:41 AM (llXky)

302 286

Nobody can understand any of the language so,

PICT-ures.
It's so obvious.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:41 AM (43xH1)

303 287 Why is illiterate Sid allowed on the book thread?
Posted by: Northernlurker
======
To mix a metaphor, "Into every thread, a little spate of idiocy must fall."

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:41 AM (G0ieF)

304 287 Why is illiterate Sid allowed on the book thread?
Posted by: Northernlurker at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (zARpI)

-----------

Are you still illiterate if you read comic books?

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:42 AM (bo7UB)

305 "I was less than whelmed by the book version of Red October; everything that was dramatic and effective in the film version seemed muffled."

In the film the personalities and backgrounds drive the story. In the movie, the technology and geo-political aspects are foremost. The first is emotional, the second is intellectual. The emotional with some technology is more effective. Otherwise, it's like reading a wargame scenario.
Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024

***
JTB, I'm unclear. Did you mean the novel focused more on the technology and geopolitics? Because it seemed to me that the film had the emotional range, the novel did not.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 11:43 AM (omVj0)

306 When his predictions came true, the people who criticized him had to turn to him.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:40 AM (JYvcN)

And when they were done with his usefulness they threw him out.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:43 AM (AIm4E)

307 285 Wales is a wonderful place to visit but unlike other foreign countries, I could never see a Welsh word and get the gist of it as it has scant relationship to the latin family of languages.
Posted by: whig

there's actually a surprising amount of Latin in Welsh - the language appears to be a fusion of early Brittonic and classical Latin, as spoken when Britain was a Roman province. The Latin influences didn't come through French as in standard English, so they look foreign. It's most likely derived from the language widely spoken when Britain was still a Roman province.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 11:43 AM (q3gwH)

308 Churchill was considered a washed up old fool in the thirties when he began warning about Hitler. When his predictions came true, the people who criticized him had to turn to him.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:40 AM (JYvcN)
---
Folks who want a lighter taste of his history will enjoy the abridged version of The World Crisis. This was an edit Churchill himself made in anticipation of The Second World War being published. Other useful books are The Story of the Malakand Field Force for info on Afghanistan and of course The River War.

His autobiography is also a good read.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:44 AM (llXky)

309 He is Risen. Hallelujah! A very happy Easter to all!!

Posted by: LASue at March 31, 2024 11:44 AM (Kcw7x)

310 And when they were done with his usefulness they threw him out.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:43 AM (AIm4E)
---
And then brought him back in! A lot of people forget that he had another go at being PM.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:45 AM (llXky)

311 Churchill was considered a washed up old fool in the thirties when he began warning about Hitler. When his predictions came true, the people who criticized him had to turn to him.
Posted by: Thomas Paine
======
William Manchester's middle volume of his trilogy, Alone, captures that period well. But Churchill also argued against setting India on its road to independence through Dominion status as prelude to a bloodbath when the Brits left. He disagreed with the defenestration of King Edward due to Wallis Simpson as well. We have to rate his political stance there in error using hindsight as I think even he recognized over time.

Eddie would have been a horrendous war time King for Britain.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:45 AM (G0ieF)

312 Charity.
Probably the worst thing my brother ever did was, when he agreed to accept a payment on my behalf for a project I felt was corrupted, and I insisted the money be handed to our Church anonymously, didn't do it and instead made a huge fucking show of it.
I was (actually still am) PISSED about that.
It was embarrassing and inappropriate.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:46 AM (43xH1)

313 there's actually a surprising amount of Latin in Welsh - the language appears to be a fusion of early Brittonic and classical Latin, as spoken when Britain was a Roman province. The Latin influences didn't come through French as in standard English, so they look foreign. It's most likely derived from the language widely spoken when Britain was still a Roman province.
Posted by: Tom Servo
======
Thanks for that clarification.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:46 AM (G0ieF)

314 There is a very obvious disconnect on the left. They decry restricting pornography from children as book banning, while at the same time, are happy to ban anyone who presents evidence that a leftist tenet is incorrect.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:47 AM (JYvcN)

315 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:45 AM (llXky)

Yes and brings me to another of his quotes.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

( they attribute to Churchill)

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:47 AM (AIm4E)

316 And when they were done with his usefulness they threw him out.
Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:43 AM (AIm4E)

The British people hated the Baldwin-Chamberlain Tories more than they appreciated Churchill. That trade is part of the parliamentary system as practiced in Blighty.

Posted by: mrp at March 31, 2024 11:47 AM (rj6Yv)

317 there's actually a surprising amount of Latin in Welsh - the language appears to be a fusion of early Brittonic and classical Latin, as spoken when Britain was a Roman province. The Latin influences didn't come through French as in standard English, so they look foreign. It's most likely derived from the language widely spoken when Britain was still a Roman province.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 11:43 AM (q3gwH)
---
I've come to really appreciate my Welsh heritage. One can't help but admire a people who so stoutly resisted cultural assimilation.

"Delilah" (a song about domestic violence) is the unofficial national anthem, and their flag has a red dragon on it. What's not to like?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (llXky)

318 Eddie would have been a horrendous war time King for Britain.
Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:45 AM (G0ieF)

-----------

Edward VIII was practically if not actually a traitor to England. He was a royal POS.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (bo7UB)

319 I like young Winston Churchill as he seemed to really enjoy shooting people.
Just seemed so cheerful about it, kind of infectious.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (43xH1)

320 A very Happy Easter hordemates!

Posted by: Diogenes at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (W/lyH)

321 The British people hated the Baldwin-Chamberlain Tories more than they appreciated Churchill. That trade is part of the parliamentary system as practiced in Blighty.

Posted by: mrp at March 31, 2024 11:47 AM (rj6Yv)
---
The last parliamentary election before 1945 was in 1935, so it wasn't surprising that voters wanted a change. After Labour made a mess, the Tories got back in and Winston got his job back.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:49 AM (llXky)

322 314 There is a very obvious disconnect on the left. They decry restricting pornography from children as book banning, while at the same time, are happy to ban anyone who presents evidence that a leftist tenet is incorrect.

----------

Leftist "principles" are entirely situational and tactical. Don't bother searching for coherence.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:50 AM (bo7UB)

323 PICT-ures.
It's so obvious.
Posted by: LenNeal
=====
Spider Robinson in his Callahan's bar series had contestants on 'PunDay' aka Monday compete on making the others present groan in appreciation of a good pun.

Yours would be considered very worthy in that endeavor.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:50 AM (G0ieF)

324 William Manchester's American Caesar is one of my favorite biographies.

Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:50 AM (AIm4E)

325 Well, off to deal with non-book-thread stuff. Good Easter to all.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 11:51 AM (q3u5l)

326 295 Why is illiterate Sid allowed on the book thread?
---

Comic relief? A negative example? We left the door unlocked so just anyone wanders in? I dunno...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at March 31, 2024 11:39 AM (q3u5l)
----

It's like truck stop hobos wandering into our nice, clean little library and peeing in the stacks.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 11:51 AM (3e3hy)

327 Eddie would have been a horrendous war time King for Britain.
Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:45 AM (G0ieF)

Duke of Gloucester would have been better, and his surviving son seems more stable.

Posted by: GOP sux at March 31, 2024 11:51 AM (Zzbjj)

328 Leftist "principles" are entirely situational and tactical. Don't bother searching for coherence.
Posted by: Cicero
-----
Coherence is seizing power for themselves and then fighting amongst themselves to be the 'one'. Sort of like a less humorous Highlander movie.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:52 AM (G0ieF)

329 Edward VIII was practically if not actually a traitor to England. He was a royal POS.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (bo7UB)
---
There is a great TV drama of the affair: Edward and Mrs. Simpson. Came out in the 1970s with Edward Fox as the monarch.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:52 AM (llXky)

330 324 William Manchester's American Caesar is one of my favorite biographies.
Posted by: polynikes
=======
Have not read that and always meant to. Haven't read Manchester's book on JFK's death and not likely to either.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:53 AM (G0ieF)

331 And I have some chores to handle before I crash for a bit of a nap, with more tasks on the far side. (My Saturdays and Sundays are full of junk like this. I hope it gets better, i.e., the chores can be spread out over the week, once I retire.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at March 31, 2024 11:53 AM (omVj0)

332 304

No. One is not 'illiterate' if one reads 'comic books'.
A huge disconnect between East and West Culture is the proper place of imagery, and the dismissal of images as slave to the Magical Word has cost Western christianity badly.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:53 AM (43xH1)

333 Duke of Gloucester would have been better, and his surviving son seems more stable.
Posted by: GOP sux
======
Don't remember who that was in that historical context. Please enlighten me.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:53 AM (G0ieF)

334 Leftist "principles" are entirely situational and tactical. Don't bother searching for coherence.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:50 AM (bo7UB)
---
The demons they worship are fickle, and the only consistency is self-gratification. Personal sacrifice of any kind is anathema to them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:54 AM (llXky)

335 I like young Winston Churchill as he seemed to really enjoy shooting people.
Just seemed so cheerful about it, kind of infectious.
Posted by: LenNeal

I read a book called Young Winston Churchill in grade school. Churchill was fearless to the point of stupid. For example, playing a game of tag, he got trapped on s footbridge. Rather than get caught, he jumped from the bribe and tried to land in a tree. He missed and broke a few bones.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at March 31, 2024 11:54 AM (JYvcN)

336 Edward VIII was practically if not actually a traitor to England. He was a royal POS.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (bo7UB)

Are big globalists Charles and William much better? Time will tell, but Wills and Jacinda exchanging air kisses like a couple of old tarts speaks volumes.

Posted by: GOP sux at March 31, 2024 11:55 AM (Zzbjj)

337 318 Eddie would have been a horrendous war time King for Britain.
Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:45 AM (G0ieF)
-----------
Edward VIII was practically if not actually a traitor to England. He was a royal POS.
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (bo7UB)

In The Crown, which was approved of by the current Royal Family, they very strongly hint that Edward was a well known Nazi Sympathizer, and that this was the real reason he was ousted. (Simpson being the convenient and face saving excuse)

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 11:55 AM (q3gwH)

338 329

Was Wallis Simpson played by Markie Post?

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:56 AM (43xH1)

339 No. One is not 'illiterate' if one reads 'comic books'.
A huge disconnect between East and West Culture is the proper place of imagery, and the dismissal of images as slave to the Magical Word has cost Western christianity badly.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:53 AM (43xH1)
---
Vatican II ruined a lot of beautiful churches. Our cathedral had a breathtaking mural, side-altars and then everything was stripped out and painted white.

I'm happy to see all that coming back, and our formerly hippy-dipped campus parish has icons again.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:56 AM (llXky)

340 "Delilah" (a song about domestic violence) is the unofficial national anthem, and their flag has a red dragon on it. What's not to like?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
========
I find the Welsh people more friendly and outgoing than their English or Scots compatriots. Absolutely beautiful country there as well but still a fair amount of poverty as you leave the cities.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:56 AM (G0ieF)

341 Regarding the comments above about King Edward VIII a good recent book regarding his role during WWII is "The Windsors at War
The King, His Brother, and A Family Divided
by Larman, Alexander" 2023. The Brits really dodged a bullet when he quit the throne in a fit of royal petulance.

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at March 31, 2024 11:56 AM (jjfDF)

342 Was Wallis Simpson played by Markie Post?

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:56 AM (43xH1)
---
Cynthia Harris.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:57 AM (llXky)

343 He's obviously Slovenian because in The Balkans anyone the next town over is a completely different race of human being.
Posted by: LenNeal

* hides in caves *

Posted by: every Slovak at March 31, 2024 11:57 AM (IG4Id)

344 Don't remember who that was in that historical context. Please enlighten me.
Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 11:53 AM (G0ieF)

The brother after Albert, who became George (snaking the name of the fourth brother, Duke of Kent)

Posted by: GOP sux at March 31, 2024 11:57 AM (Zzbjj)

345 Ugh, I remember those hippy guitar services with the corduroy-jacket-with-elbow-patches pastor rapping about Jesus to The Youth.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 11:59 AM (3e3hy)

346 In The Crown, which was approved of by the current Royal Family, they very strongly hint that Edward was a well known Nazi Sympathizer, and that this was the real reason he was ousted. (Simpson being the convenient and face saving excuse)

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 11:55 AM (q3gwH)
---
Marrying a divorcee was a big deal in the pre-woke Church of England. As Head of the Church, he could not be anointed in a state of mortal sin.

Plus, an AMERICAN. Absolutely not.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 12:00 PM (llXky)

347 303

Ooh, mixed metaphors!

"A glass half full broke the camel's back!"

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 12:00 PM (43xH1)

348 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at March 31, 2024 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

349 The Brits really dodged a bullet when he quit the throne in a fit of royal petulance.
Posted by: John F. MacMichael at March 31, 2024 11:56 AM (jjfDF)

-----------

A fit of royal petulance?

*sniff*

He did it FOR THE WOMAN HE LOVED

*cue the swelling orchestral music*

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 12:01 PM (bo7UB)

350 Edward VIII was practically if not actually a traitor to England. He was a royal POS.
Posted by: Cicero (@cicero43) at March 31, 2024 11:48 AM (bo7UB)

In The Crown, which was approved of by the current Royal Family, they very strongly hint that Edward was a well known Nazi Sympathizer, and that this was the real reason he was ousted. (Simpson being the convenient and face saving excuse)
Posted by: Tom Servo
=====
Sort of revisionist history there. Stanley Baldwin used the kerfluffle over Eddie and his floozy to make sure that Churchill stayed out of the Cabinet. Churchill made a Pyrrhic and pointless sacrifice of his political credibility by taking up Eddie's banner in Parliament at the time.

Baldwin was an excellent politician but a very poor political leader. Chamberlain was a lousy politician as such but a very good infighter to get the inside track to become Baldwin's successor after the Eddie fracas ended.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:02 PM (G0ieF)

351 Wales is a wonderful place to visit but unlike other foreign countries, I could never see a Welsh word and get the gist of it as it has scant relationship to the latin family of languages.

We used to have a Welsh Corgi. She was named "Ren" when we got her. We kept the name but spelled it "Wryn" just to get the extra consonant in there.

Posted by: Oddbob at March 31, 2024 12:02 PM (/y8xj)

352 Ugh, I remember those hippy guitar services with the corduroy-jacket-with-elbow-patches pastor rapping about Jesus to The Youth.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 11:59 AM (3e3hy)
---
Yeah, I skipped that era. Entered the Church in 2006 when the traditions were being restored.

I think Pope Francis knows that no matter what he does, it will be overturned, so now he's just throwing a tantrum.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 12:02 PM (llXky)

353 I've read that Wallace Simpson had serious doubts about marrying Eddy but by that time felt pressured into it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 12:02 PM (3e3hy)

354 We used to have a Welsh Corgi. She was named "Ren" when we got her. We kept the name but spelled it "Wryn" just to get the extra consonant in there.

Posted by: Oddbob at March 31, 2024 12:02 PM (/y8xj)
---
Needs an extra 'n'. I've seen variant spelling of my surname as "Llwydd."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 12:03 PM (llXky)

355 Thanks for another fine Book Thread, Perf!

Posted by: All Hail Eris at March 31, 2024 12:04 PM (3e3hy)

356 We used to have a Welsh Corgi. She was named "Ren" when we got her. We kept the name but spelled it "Wryn" just to get the extra consonant in there.
Posted by: Oddbob
======
Appropriate. Bet it messed with the vets records.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:05 PM (G0ieF)

357 352 Ugh, I remember those hippy guitar services with the corduroy-jacket-with-elbow-patches pastor rapping about Jesus to The Youth.

Posted by: All Hail Eris
-----
Tide seems to be going out on that particular anathema.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:06 PM (G0ieF)

358 Baldwin was an excellent politician but a very poor political leader. Chamberlain was a lousy politician as such but a very good infighter to get the inside track to become Baldwin's successor after the Eddie fracas ended.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:02 PM (G0ieF)
---
I see it the other way round - Baldwin was a first-rate campaigner and won lots of votes, but he had no idea what to do with his power. Chamberlain was more determined, but had an overly high opinion of himself, and figured he could work with Hitler.

In the conclusion to Long Live Death, I ponder what would have happened if the Reds won in Spain. At that time, Krystallnacht hadn't happened yet, and Hitler and Mussolini were both respectable. Could the UK have formed an alliance with them against the Reds, hoping to keep France from falling into the Bolshevist grip?

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 12:06 PM (llXky)

359 "The frog in the pan said to the scorpion, 'Why did you sting me?'"

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 12:07 PM (43xH1)

360 I mean, if the Reds attacked Portugal, the UK was bound by treaty to respond.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 12:08 PM (llXky)

361 357 352 Ugh, I remember those hippy guitar services with the corduroy-jacket-with-elbow-patches pastor rapping about Jesus to The Youth.

Posted by: All Hail Eris
-----
Tide seems to be going out on that particular anathema.
Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:06 PM (G0ieF

now lets talk about Liturgical Dance.

Posted by: Tom Servo at March 31, 2024 12:08 PM (q3gwH)

362 Whoops, past noon. Thanks again, Perfesser! Happy Easter!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 12:09 PM (llXky)

363 >>>One book never discussed on this thread are the versions of The Bible.
I making another attempt at thermodynamics. This time with JP Holman's textbook. I tried the Dummies but found it condescending. Holman writes mature English.

Posted by: Jamaica

>I'm not one to pimp resources generally, and I've never owned a bible. But I find biblegateway dot yada to be a great resource for people who are impatient with short memories.
That site has actually given me access and now I like reading the bible.

Posted by: Dr. Bone at March 31, 2024 12:10 PM (WtvCN)

364 363

Well, she was a washed up aging divorcee, it was her last shot at any kind of fame and notoriety is a European kind of fame, and what's some dressing like a schoolboy and some butt stuff anyway in the greater scheme of things.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 12:10 PM (43xH1)

365 Yes, I as well found that volume of theoretical thermodynamics condescending.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 12:13 PM (43xH1)

366 I see it the other way round - Baldwin was a first-rate campaigner and won lots of votes, but he had no idea what to do with his power. Chamberlain was more determined, but had an overly high opinion of himself, and figured he could work with Hitler.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
=====
I meant excellent politician as that Baldwin had his finger on the pulse of what the voters wanted at the time which was peace and a restoration to prosperity which made him an excellent politician but he inevitably led from behind which made him a poor political leader because he could not and would not risk his political capital for doing what should be done.

Getting rid of Eddie was more an issue from the backbenchers leading Baldwin to that conclusion for example rather than Baldwin leading from the front.

A good political leader molds and prepares people for the inevitable unpleasant circumstances to come.

Leaders, including politicians, should lead from the front by making it clear what the choices and consequences of those choices will be.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:16 PM (G0ieF)

367 now lets talk about Liturgical Dance.
Posted by: Tom Servo
---------
A shocked silence across the Baptist contingent will follow.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:17 PM (G0ieF)

368
A good political leader molds and prepares people for the inevitable unpleasant circumstances to come.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:16 PM (G0ieF)

Like Schumer saying, pay up or we'll send your sons to their deaths for Zelensky?

Posted by: GOP sux at March 31, 2024 12:19 PM (Zzbjj)

369 In the conclusion to Long Live Death, I ponder what would have happened if the Reds won in Spain. At that time, Krystallnacht hadn't happened yet, and Hitler and Mussolini were both respectable. Could the UK have formed an alliance with them against the Reds, hoping to keep France from falling into the Bolshevist grip?
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd
--------
One never knows but my read is that Tories under Baldwin viewed foreign policy as a distraction to rebuilding Britain's economic power than necessary. They loathed the Reds by and large but seemingly viewed that particular threat as domestic rather than coming from countries falling under the Red banner. The Cliveden set probably did view the Germans and to some extent Italians as a buffer to Russia and its Comintern but someone like Baldwin was probably incapable of actually formulating government policy based on an alliance to take out the Reds.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:25 PM (G0ieF)

370 Like Schumer saying, pay up or we'll send your sons to their deaths for Zelensky?
Posted by: GOP sux
=======
Better for Schumer to actually say it and campaign on it as an open issue than to rely on constantly poking the Russian bear using the CIA and more and better arms to reach inside Russia.

I prefer to totally stay out of it but a stealth strategy is a stupid one because wars are easy to get into but hard as heck to extricate a country from because the enemy always gets a vote on that.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:28 PM (G0ieF)

371 I'll dress vintage Markie Post.
Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 11:34 AM (43xH1)

From Buck Rogers? : o )

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 31, 2024 12:30 PM (8sMut)

372 >>I hereby call for the creation of a "Handicapper General."

"My time has come!"
-- Diana Moon Glampers

Posted by: Lizzy at March 31, 2024 12:30 PM (6IDWi)

373 {74} ... It would have been better if they bought my story.

(insert sad face here)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at March 31, 2024 09:40 AM (0eaVi)

If the story was rejected, try again with another submission in the future. Don't lose heart. The first few stories an author writes are usually going to be rough around the edges and in need of polish, which comes with writing more stories.

Even Harlan Ellison had a box of unpublished manuscripts. He asked his wife to destroy them on his death because he felt they were unfit for publication. I doubt anyone would question Ellison's writing talent and capabilities.

Now if you didn't hear back at all, then there's some kind of technical problem between you and them. These people won't ignore a story submission. In that event, write them again to ask if they got your submission, and check your spam folder. Add their email address to your whitelist to ensure you get the reply. They've had a problem where they want to use a story, but the author doesn't respond to the contract letter in time and there's only so many attempts they'll make before they have to pick another story to fill one of the 10 slots in a given anthology.

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at March 31, 2024 12:32 PM (qPw5n)

374 I quit reading him after Jack Ryan became Mary Sue.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 11:23 AM (llXky)

Which he never was. But whatever feeds your hatred of Clancy I guess.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 31, 2024 12:33 PM (8sMut)

375 In The Crown, which was approved of by the current Royal Family, they very strongly hint that Edward was a well known Nazi Sympathizer, and that this was the real reason he was ousted. (Simpson being the convenient and face saving excuse)
Posted by: Tom Servo

This is more than hinted at in Andrew Roberts bio of Churchill. (Although Edward did cough up the crown over Simpson, the Nazi sympathizing came later)

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 31, 2024 12:37 PM (8sMut)

376 I prefer to totally stay out of it but a stealth strategy is a stupid one because wars are easy to get into but hard as heck to extricate a country from because the enemy always gets a vote on that.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:28 PM (G0ieF)

And I don't want to risk lives for the purpose of saving Fink's investments in Ukraine. Let that bastard buy Zelensky men and arms

Posted by: GOP sux at March 31, 2024 12:41 PM (Zzbjj)

377 Next week I'll link what I've been working on for nearly a year. I have a substantial I'll post it there.

Posted by: LenNeal at March 31, 2024 12:54 PM (43xH1)

378 Tom Clancy went from being an author to a brand name.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 31, 2024 10:13 AM (llXky)

Due to his failure to control his creation via copyright.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 31, 2024 12:57 PM (8sMut)

379 305 Hi Wolfus,

Yep. The film had the emotional range. The book emphasized the technical aspects.

Posted by: JTB at March 31, 2024 01:00 PM (zudum)

380

324 William Manchester's American Caesar is one of my favorite biographies.
Posted by: polynikes at March 31, 2024 11:50 AM (AIm4E)

I need to read that.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 31, 2024 01:15 PM (8sMut)

381 376 I prefer to totally stay out of it but a stealth strategy is a stupid one because wars are easy to get into but hard as heck to extricate a country from because the enemy always gets a vote on that.

Posted by: whig at March 31, 2024 12:28 PM (G0ieF)

And I don't want to risk lives for the purpose of saving Fink's investments in Ukraine. Let that bastard buy Zelensky men and arms
Posted by: GOP sux at March 31, 2024 12:41 PM (Zzbjj)

I prefer we drill a lot of oil and open up more oil leases.
1) Impoverish the Russian government, which bases its budget on the price of oil.
2) Reduce inflation by having some money absorbed by goods. Because to reduce inflation, have your money spent to the greatest extent possible on a) a good or b) a service, neither of which is government.
3) Win win. Transportation costs here drop, the world scene is stabilized (Iran won't be screwing around much either), economy at home expands, etc.

But this makes sense so our government will not do it.

Posted by: Catch Thirty-Thr33 at March 31, 2024 01:19 PM (8sMut)

382 The people who costumed Herb Tarlek are probably still in therapy.

Posted by: Weak Geek at March 31, 2024 02:47 PM (p/isN)

383 Can I get Discovering Scarfolk in electronic format. I'm allergic to paper.

Posted by: oleandersalad at March 31, 2024 03:26 PM (sB5dv)

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