Sunday Morning Book Thread - 1-26-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, never get tired of winning, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

I was inspired by TRex's Hobby Thread last week (NOTE: don't comment on old threads!) and found this picture of the locations of all the Presidential Libraries known to man. I was surprised to find out that the Presidential Library System has only been around since Herbert Hoover. However, private foundations have been set up for earlier Presidents. Currently, the official Presidential Library System is managed in whole or in part by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Presidential libraries are a combination of museum and archive, documenting that President's life and achievements. Scholars and researchers can dive into vast treasure troves of official documents and private communications of the Presidents, gaining insights into who these men were and why they made the decisions they felt were necessary at the time.

You can even earn an achievement in the form of a stamped "passport" for visiting all the Presidential Libraries! I thought that was pretty cool. May have to put that on my bucket list.

THE ROTHFUSS/MARTIN EFFECT

Grumpy and Recalcitrant is a huge fan of Jon Van Stry and shared a link to an essay by Van Stry in the comments last week where Van Stry explains how he, an independent author, has been screwed over by Patrick Rothfuss by Rothfuss' apparent inability to finish his epic fantasy trilogy, The Kingkiller Chronicles

Larry Correia, of Monster Hunter International fame, has also commented on this effect at length. Correia suggest fans should "move on" from both Patrick Rothfuss and George R. R. Martin and get over it. Continue to read fantasy authors' works, even if they are in the middle of a series, if only to help motivate them. The failures of both George R. R. Martin and Patrick Rothfuss should not be held against the fantasy-writing community at large.

I tend to agree with that sentiment. Steven Erickson has written two books of a planned trilogy--set in his Malazan world--but he has not written the final book yet. The explanation I've seen is that the first two books did not sell as well as the publisher had hoped. Hmmm...Now that I think about it, I wonder if Erickson is a victim of "The Rothfuss/Martin Effect." Forge of Darkness, Book 1 of The Kharkanas Trilogy, was released in 2012 and the second book, Fall of Light was released in 2015. That's a normal amount of time between books in an epic fantasy trilogy. But maybe fans grew too impatient and have given up on Erikson finishing his series. I dunno. I'll continue to wait for Erikson to finish his series, but I have plenty to keep me occupied until then.

In the meantime, he's begun work on another book series. Now, Erickson, at least, has demonstrated that he knows how to finish an epic book series, so I think he'll do fine. His Malazan books are still very popular and highly rated among the BookTube community, which will help him sell more books.

Going back to Larry Correia, he, too, has finished at least one book series (Grimnoir Chronicles) though his Monster Hunter series is still open-ended at the moment. I expect him to return to those books in the not-to-distant future now that Correia has wrapped up The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior. Correia and Martin have had a very tempestuous relationship over the years, mostly because of the Hugo Awards and how they are selected. Correia is one of the organizers of the Sad Puppies campaign, which sought to bring lesser known, but worthy authors, to the attention of the award-selection committee, instead of promoting the woke garbage that's been winning the Hugo Awards in recent years.

Correia dedicated his most recent book, The Heart of the Mountain, the last book in The Saga of the Forgotten Warrior to the author of the still-unfinished saga A Song of Ice and Fire:

To George R.R. Martin. See? It's not that hard.

Troll level: MASTER

++++++++++

Guilty as charged...

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THOUGHTS ON REREADING

I am very much a re-reader of books. I know several of you re-read J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings on an annual basis. I, too, have read that multiple times. I also know there are people who refuse to re-read books. There's room for both of us around here.

One of the reasons I like to re-read books is because I find many books comforting. I like to explore that world again and again, and every time I do, I find something new to enjoy. I like the characters, I like the setting, I like the plot, etc. For the fantasy and science fiction books I read, it's just nice to settle in and enjoy the story.

I don't re-read quite as much as I used to, but that's mostly because I have a fat stack of books in my TBR that I'm trying to get through. That's going to take some time. However, I have been deliberately re-reading books that I have not read for decades, in part to see how well they've held up over time. Some, like Raymond Feist's Faerie Tale, I've enjoyed much more the second time around because I've "grown into the book," i.e., I have much more knowledge and experience that enhances my reading experience.

I read a lot of books that are part of a series, so I do tend to reread books in any given series when the next book is released. It's often a few years between books, so I need to refresh my memory about what happens. Tad Williams is kind enough to include synopses in his books, so that helps.

One genre that I am less likely to re-read is mystery/crime fiction. The joy of reading a mystery is trying to figure out whodunnit. Once I know the twists and turns, it's difficult for me to reread those stories. Though I have re-read mysteries because they were well-written and enjoyable on other levels as well, such as interesting characters.

What do YOU like to re-read, if you are a re-reader? If you aren't, why not?

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Since we're going to a Mass different from our usual time, I actually get to contribute in real-time this morning. I read Escape from Evil's Darkness by Father Robert Spitzer, S.J. This is the 2nd volume of his "Trilogy."
This book has discussions of the Catholic Church, the primacy of the Pope, spiritual conversion, and moral conversion. Like all of his books, this one has a huge bibliography and lots of footnotes.
I had mixed feelings on this book. The individual sections were quite good, BUT this is a rather thick book and probably would have been better if published as two individual books. However, I think Fr. Spitzer got trapped by his outline for a planned set of 3 books.
Overall rating is 4.25/5.0. If you don't believe in Satan and his minions, you're not going to get the full effect of Fr. Spitzer's arguments.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at January 19, 2025 09:26 AM (pJWtt)

Comment: It's hard for me to dismiss the existence of Satan and his minions. I've had too many odd experiences in recent years that have forced me to recognize their reality.

+++++

On the non-fiction front, I continue with Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies. Would that all Americans would read it. Aside from the substance regarding the compromise of security within the government, there are remarkable parallels between the Democrat politicians' contrived attacks on McCarthy, and on Trump.
Fiction. Just started Out Stealing Horses, Petterson. So far, a very interesting read. Certainly the first Norwegian novel that I have read.
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at January 19, 2025 10:19 AM (XeU6L)

Comment: I think the consensus around here is that McCarthy was *right* about Communists infiltrating government at all levels. We see it *everywhere* in government even now, as we see constant, continuous attacks by the Democrats against President Trump and his Cabinet nominees by people who are not fit to lick their boots. Evil scum infest D.C. like nowhere else in America and have been there for decade-upon-decade. Hercules had an easier time cleaning out the Augean stables.

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

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WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

A professor at the university where I work had a table of "free books" outside her office. She'll be moving offices soon, so I guess she wanted to get rid of unnecessary clutter. (University professors are pack rats.)

Among the offerings:

Sniglets - (snig' lit): any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary but should by Rich Hall and Friends - This is a humorous book of made-up words for everyday things that sound plausible. Notably, at least a couple of words ARE in the dictionary now, like "spork."

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly - Harry Bosch is an LAPD detective who solves cold cases.

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.

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Thanks to the Moron Horde, I've been persuaded to read this classic tale about rabbits. A group of rabbits flee their native warren before it's destroyed by human developers. They seek a new paradise where they can rebuild their warren. Along the way, they have grand adventures, then, when they arrive at their destination, they realize they have a fundamental problem: there are no female rabbits among their group. Thus begins an even more epic quest in search of does so that they can procreate and build a true community of happy, healthy rabbits into the foreseeable future. To do so, they will need to stage a daring raid on a warren that is run like a police state.

When you strip out the beautiful prose and creative worldbuilding/mythmaking, the story can be summed up as follows:

A bunch of dudes want to get laid.

Watership Down is a great book and I can see why it has earned its status as a timeless classic.

Tailchaser's Song by Tad Williams

This is a reread for me. I first read it decades ago when I was a teenager. I reread it now because I wanted to compare and contrast it to Watership Down, which was the inspiration for Tailchaser's Song. It was also interesting to see how elements from this book have found their way into Williams' many other epic series.

This is Tad Williams' first published novel and is quite obviously an homage to Watership Down. Except instead of rabbits seeking a new home, you have a cat seeking his dear friend who has gone missing. Fritti Tailchaser goes on an epic quest to track down Hushpad. Along the way, he gathers an eclectic group of other cats who join him on his adventures. The kitten Pouncequick, the crazed Eatbugs, and the alluring, mysterious Roofshadow. He also befriends squirrels, which is unheard of among the Folk (cats). The story takes a very, very dark turn in the latter half when his quest turns into a Lovecraftian nightmare involving the elder gods of his race.

Like Watership Down, Williams builds a carefully crafted mythology suitable for cats. It turns out cats see humans as their servants because one of the First cats grew prideful, was transformed into the first M'an and his descendants are now cursed to serve the rest of the Folk for all eternity.

Also like Watership Down, the story can be distilled down into: a dude wants to get laid.

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

This is very much a police procedural story. Veteran LAPD detective Harry Bosch solves cold cases. His latest case involves the death of man who was shot ten years ago and it took him that long to finally succumb to his wounds. Now Harry and his junior partner Lucy must determine if Merced was the actual target of that previous crime and how this crime ties into an even older cold case that involves Lucy nearly dying in a fire twenty years ago.

Like Watership Down, this is a story I probably would NOT have read in the past, but thanks to the Moron Horde, I am trying to broaden my horizons a bit, so I thought I'd branch out into crime fiction. The library in which I work, but do not work for, has quite a few of the other Harry Bosch novels available for checkout. I may read a few more of those if I like this one enough.

Unlike Watership Down or Tailchaser's Song, this story does NOT involve a dude trying to get laid. Well, I take that back slightly. The main character is not trying to get laid, but one of the underlying crimes was a result of a dude getting his freak on with a married woman who had a rich, powerful husband. Whoops! Whoopsie!

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 1-19-2025 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Are you tired of winning yet?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 09:00 AM (fwDg9)

2 Finished Martin Gilbert's Churchill a Life
Certainly learned a lot glad I found it

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 09:02 AM (fwDg9)

3 Those pants are fine. I would wear them to Barack Obama's Presidential Library.

Posted by: No I wouldn't at January 26, 2025 09:03 AM (vFG9F)

4 Jim Cantore would love those pants.

THUNDERHO!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:04 AM (kpS4V)

5 I doubt Biden will get a library - maybe a bookmobile.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2025 09:04 AM (7MHHr)

6 Those pants are...striking.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 09:05 AM (OX9vb)

7 And we'll into a Christian Devotion book my aunt wrote.
Perfessor if I can ask after I get done can I send in a bit on it and link to it? It's a free download and she would appreciate readers.

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 09:06 AM (fwDg9)

8 Obama has a library? Is it an empty building?

Posted by: dantesed at January 26, 2025 09:06 AM (Oy/m2)

9 The Biden library will have an entire wing of classified documents.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:07 AM (St5Dt)

10 7 Following Jesus His Way is the title

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 09:07 AM (fwDg9)

11 We were fortunate to have the opportunity to take a year-long road-schooling trip in 2016-2017. We sold our home (and got rid of our mortgage), purged, put the good stuff in storage, and motored around the country with our 9 year old daughter.

The highlights of the trip were the presidential libraries. Great, in-person history lessons. We managed to get to 8 on the map above. Other great places were Memphis for music history and the MLK museum, Dallas for the Schoolbook Depository museum, and Boston for the walking tour and the TEA Party re-enactment.

Posted by: Candidus at January 26, 2025 09:07 AM (PhOuQ)

12 Wonder how different the Presidential Library System would look if the losers had won
Probably would be several in Massachusetts.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:08 AM (p/isN)

13 I don't serve cats but there is a Haitian restaurant downton that might.

Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 09:08 AM (vFG9F)

14 I definitely reread. I think I go back to Kipling's Kim about once a year, and I like to dip into C.S. Lewis again from time to time. When I need encouragement I reread Manchester's Churchill bio.

I confess, though, that some authors are dropping out of the reread cycle. When I read Chesterton nowadays his flaws seem to grate more than they used to, overwhelming the good parts.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:08 AM (78a2H)

15 I read The Fort: A Novel of the Revolutionary War by Bernard Cornwell. In July and August of 1779, there was an actual battle in eastern Massachusetts. American ships and troops tried to remove a recent British landing and fort. Because of delays and indecisions, the battle turns into an utter American defeat. The result has often been described as the worst naval disaster in U. S. history prior to Pearl Harbor. As usual, Cornwell has done his research and has written an interesting story.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 26, 2025 09:08 AM (OAKaM)

16 I'm getting so much more from this re-reading of "The Fellowship of the Ring". I find myself enjoying the passages describing their environs immensely this time around, where before I would impatiently tell Tolkien c'mon, c'mon, Professor, I don't need to hear about every sun-dappled leaf or misty dell! But now, with the wisdom of a 29-year-old's perspective, I quite revel in it.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:09 AM (kpS4V)

17 Dang, how apropos this week's topic is. I was scanning Amazon for a good Kindle book, and found the LOTR, the whole trilogy, for $6. I couldn't pass that up.

I read them last about 50 years ago, and, of course, have seen the movies. I started reading, and found that I was making rapid progress. It really helped that I knew all the names and characters (and let's face it, the plot) from the movies. I finished the whole thing in a bit over a week, without even trying.

It's almost impossible to read the books without envisioning the characters as the actors in the movies. It's an excellent story in terms of the plot, but at times, it's very repetitive. Tolkien seemed to feel the need to describe every day as grey, and I often wondered why he'd included yet another description of yet another day and the progress therein when it didn't really advance the plot.

I didn't feel the magic the way I did when a much younger me first read it. I suppose that's to be expected, since a lot of water and other literature has passed under the bridge since then. It's still very enjoyable, but not the earthshaking experience it once was. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:10 AM (xCA6C)

18 "Posted by: Candidus"

That is great. What an education.

Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 09:10 AM (vFG9F)

19 Yay book thread!

Yesterday I finished Lord Rochester's Monkey, a biography of John Wilmott, 2nd Earl of Rochester by Graham Greene. Knowing nothing about the subject, I just went along for the ride, and Rochester lived up to his reputation - cad, rake, scoundrel, sycophant, bully, vicious gossip.

He was also a talented poet, master of classical languages and - this is the important part, and why Greene wrote it, I think - a deathbed convert.

I got interested in Greene due to mentions in Catholic media (same with Chesterton), and apparently a recurring theme in his work is flawed people trying to find God.

Rochester had been a vocal atheist, converted briefly during his penultimate illness, recanted, but then went all-in, receiving the sacraments (of the English Church) and even convincing his estranged Catholic wife to convert with him so they could take the sacraments together. (cont)

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:10 AM (ZOv7s)

20 Hello, Horde! 😊❤

Mr. TiFW has a cold and was up very early this morning. I fear that his immune system has taken a hit, what with him taking care of/worrying about me....

Posted by: Teresa in Fort Worth, Plucky Comic Relief, AoS Ladies Brigade - Eat the Cheesecake, Buy the Yarn. at January 26, 2025 09:10 AM (SRRAx)

21 I live near the Calvin Coolidge presidential library -- a.k.a. one smallish part of the Northampton public library. The fact that a man could run what was already one of the biggest and most powerful countries on Earth for six years and leave behind about as much papers and memorabilia as a moderately successful country singer suggests that the office and its occupants have gotten way too self-aggrandizing.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:11 AM (78a2H)

22 Watership Down sounds more like the Aeneid. The only books I reread are Moby Dick and the Jeeves and Wooster series.
I have all of Aubrey&Maturin, along with Nabokov, but doubt I will read them again.

Posted by: Accomack at January 26, 2025 09:12 AM (MeckE)

23 I find myself enjoying the passages describing their environs immensely this time around, where before I would impatiently tell Tolkien c'mon, c'mon, Professor, I don't need to hear about every sun-dappled leaf or misty dell! But now, with the wisdom of a 29-year-old's perspective, I quite revel in it.

It's an excellent story in terms of the plot, but at times, it's very repetitive. Tolkien seemed to feel the need to describe every day as grey, and I often wondered why he'd included yet another description of yet another day and the progress therein when it didn't really advance the plot.

Heh. Different strokes for different folks.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:12 AM (xCA6C)

24 I look forward to a virtual tour of Teddy's library in the Badlands. He was a voracious reader and I'm curious to see the stacks.

His reading list:

https://tinyurl.com/yjs769av

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:13 AM (kpS4V)

25 The revamped Eisenhower museum is very well done. They have lectures as well. His crypt is unexpectedly moving.

I saw Dick Cole give a talk about his experiences after the Dolittle Raid, in Burma, to a group of history teachers and my friend and I. He was sharp as a tack. The questions from the teachers were all, "How did you feel ...?" He denigrated those questions.

He did like our questions on logistics, maintenance, and morale issues. So I got that.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2025 09:13 AM (u82oZ)

26 I have read a lot of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books. Eventually, I just hit my limit of pedo murderers.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 09:14 AM (JVCkA)

27 This was viewed as a cynical ploy by his old friends and enemies, one last hurrah to be relevant or a symptom of madness brought about by the ravages of alcohol and venereal disease. To quell this, he dictated an eloquent and erudite profession of faith, and had the entire household listen to it as witnesses and make their marks on the document.

Alas, much of his papers were lost because - per his dying instructions - his Puritan mother burned all she could find. Like many converts, he now found his earlier work, which celebrate vice and mocked God, distateful and in his final weeks of life, bitterly remarked how he had wasted his life, dying at the age of 33.

It's a fascinating look at Restoration England, and chock full of period illustrations. Long out of print, but I'm glad I found it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:14 AM (ZOv7s)

28 Does it count as a re-read if you buy a book and then discover you already had it?

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:14 AM (78a2H)

29 Booken morgen horden

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:15 AM (t88zN)

30 When a nation escapes from a downward spiral like America has just done, it is instructive to take a look at what could have been from history. Much of modern leftism traces its roots to the French Revolution, and the insanity and depravity of the left has been surprisingly consistent, going back over two hundred years; modernity only somewhat moderating their actions.

Paris in the Terror by Stanley Loomis traces the stories of three key figures in the French Revolution, and how it ultimately destroyed them: Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Danton, and the ringleader Robespierre. All of them were overjoyed to send thousands of their fellow citizens to the guillotine, and of the three, only Marat escaped that same fate, succumbing to an assassin's knife.

Loomis gives us an in depth look at the attitudes of the three, and how they belittled the lives of their countrymen. Danton once told Robespierre that the Terror was doomed as it was repugnant to the French, yet none of them foresaw that the Terror would make victims of them as well.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (St5Dt)

31 I've reread many books, sometimes not realizing until I'm well into it the second time. It does not bother me. I've also intentionally reread many books, like Lonesome Dove, which I've read at least four times and The Searchers twice.

Posted by: huerfano at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (n2swS)

32 With all the talk of the Panama Canal, I was reminded of Coffee with the General, Greene's account of the treaty negotiations with Carter.

Jimmy really thought he would earn lasting goodwill. What a dope.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (ZOv7s)

33 I bought a book once, started reading it then realized quickly I already had it

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (fwDg9)

34
The most impressive part about the JFK Library is the room with the vast collection of "Trophy Panties" he accrued during his term.

All the major starlets of the day are represented there and there's even a pink frilly pair worn by Nancy Pelosi when she was a Size 4!

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 09:17 AM (iJfKG)

35 I also read Judgment On Deltchev by Eric Ambler. Shortly after WW II, Foster, a British playwright, is hired by an American newspaper to cover the show trial of Yordan Deltchev, accused of treason in an unnamed Eastern European country. Soon, Foster is investigating an assassination plot to kill the head of state. Filled with action, double dealings, and plot twists, Ambler has written a very good read.

Posted by: Zoltan at January 26, 2025 09:17 AM (OAKaM)

36 I know, don't comment on old threads, but I want to recognize Gardner's, the biggest -- and only, sadly -- used-book store in Tulsa. Mr. Gardner also ran a tax-preparation business, and I always thought the store was meant as a writeoff. Yet he's been dead for years, and both businesses chug along.

Such stores seem to die in small towns, but Joplin, Mo., has three, and nearby Pittsburg, Kan., has one. Most seem to be run by retirees -- The Book Guy in Joplin is the exception -- and I wonder what will happen when the proprietors die off.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:17 AM (p/isN)

37 Okay. What's going on here? Trump begins a new admin kicking ass. Cats and dogs living together And the icing on the cake is a "these pants" that I love and would wear.

Is the end of the world nigh?

Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 09:17 AM (JVCkA)

38 The revamped Eisenhower museum still has on display Eisenhower's Order of Victory from the Soviet Union. A rare and valuable medal, with 47g of platinum, 2g of gold, 19g of silver, and 16 carats of diamond. Although Eisenhower said the gems were fake.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2025 09:17 AM (u82oZ)

39 Some books must be better if they're read around the time they are released. Case in point: "Winter Kills" by Richard Condon, copyright 1974.

Nick, an oilman who's tried for years to get free of his wretched tycoon father, has just learned that a dying man claims to have been the second sniper who killed Nick's half-brother in his presidential motorcade several years ago. So despite the conclusion by a special commission that only one man was the killer, Nick is off to learn the truth. First stop: Philadelphia, where the dead man said he cached his rifle.

Yes, Philadelphia. Not Dallas. But hmmm ... this doesn't have the usual "this is a work of fiction" disclaimer.

P.S. Condon is known for his book "The Manchurian Candidate." I tried to read it a few years ago. Maybe I'll try it again some day.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (p/isN)

40
Wrong from the start: The Gerald Ford Library is in Ann Arbor.

Grand Rapids is the home of the Gerald Ford MUSEUM, aka, The Bland On the Grand

Posted by: Auspex at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (j4U/Z)

41 Every year for my winter-time Florida beach vacation, I'll grab one or two of my old John MacDonald / Travis McGee books to re-read. Having first read them when I was a young buck in the 1980s, those books take me back to two places - McGees's Florida, and my own youth when I first read them.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (d9Cw3)

42 2 summers ago wife and I did LBJ, Bush, and W libraries.
Also did the Blanton at UT and the Meadows at SMU.
Best food of the trip was actually in College Station at a cool new tappas bar.

Posted by: rhennigantx at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (gbOdA)

43 Been reading a cozy mystery series that KTE recommended.
It's the Vampire Knitting Club series by Nancy Warren. It's really quite cute. The vampires are nice and safe and spend most of their time knitting.
Some very slow burn romance side stories but so far no sex.
Fun way to escape real life.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:19 AM (t88zN)

44 When a nation escapes from a downward spiral like America has just done, it is instructive to take a look at what could have been from history. Much of modern leftism traces its roots to the French Revolution, and the insanity and depravity of the left has been surprisingly consistent, going back over two hundred years; modernity only somewhat moderating their actions.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (St5Dt)
---
The terms "left" and "right" date from the revolution and it with the notion that secular politics are informed by reason and ideology rather than religion. That is a false belief.

What we call leftism or Marxism is a demonic heresy, and its primary tactic is to rule all religion off-limits in order to separate people from God. Religious leaders used to understand this, but many have become co-opted or corrupted.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:20 AM (ZOv7s)

45 Another book I recently re-read for the first time in over 35 years was Paul Hemphill's "Long Gone" about a D-League minor league baseball team in the Florida-Alabama League back in the 1950s. When the movie Bull Durham came out, I assumed it was somewhat based on "Long Gone."

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at January 26, 2025 09:20 AM (d9Cw3)

46 This past week I learned that Howard Andrew Jones had passed away. I haven't read his work, but some of it (Lord of a Shattered Land) had been on my radar. However, I mostly knew him as the guy who edited/republished "Wolf of the Steppes," and other anthologies of old Cossack-themed pulp stories from Harold Lamb. I had a lot of fun with those anthologies. I guess I'll miss the guy. RIP.

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 26, 2025 09:20 AM (Lhaco)

47 There's a film about Rochester, called The Libertine, with Johnny Depp basically doing his Jack Sparrow schtick in Restoration costume. It's not bad, although the movie makes his big heroic redemption moment when he shows up at Parliament to oppose the Exclusion Bill (which would have denied James II the throne). The film depicts it as a big stand for religious freedom (and boo protestants because Moral Majority amirite?). Except . . . James II? Really? The guy who later bugged out of England? And hooray for Counter-Reformation era Catholicism as the badge of freedom and jolly nonconformity? Huh?

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:20 AM (78a2H)

48
My bad, listed the Gerald Ford library.

The Leslie Lynch King Jr. aka Jerry's Barry Soetoro Dunham name birthplace national shrine is in Omaha.

Posted by: Auspex at January 26, 2025 09:23 AM (j4U/Z)

49 Tailchaser's Song sounds like it was the direct inspiration for the 'Warrior Cats' series of books. At least as for as the naming conventions go. I read one of the books (in graphic novel form) on a whim, and was struck by how ever single character has the two-part noun-verb name. It may have seemed clever at first, but it got monotonous pretty quickly, and pretty soon all the names blurred together...

Anyways, good to hear that another reader discovered and liked Watership Down. Great book.

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 26, 2025 09:24 AM (Lhaco)

50 Finished rereading The Imperial Rebellion by our own A.H. Lloyd. This completed a sorta Wars like universe saga (Man of Destiny series), but with better characters and more plausible narrative.

I liked it, and the ending of the series was quite satisfying. "He shot him in the face!" is a good answer to difficult problems posed by this series.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2025 09:25 AM (u82oZ)

51 A guy in college distilled a ST:TOS episode to "Kirk got laid."

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:25 AM (p/isN)

52 Condon really did think there was no left atrocity that couldnt be surpassed by the right so mccarthy see iselin was not only a chinese tool but he wss just a pawn of his wife, winter kills is convoluted enough they adapted it as a black comedy with jeff bridges as the protagonist

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at January 26, 2025 09:26 AM (dJR17)

53 One more point about that road-school trip: almost every town has some decent museum (or home) that you might otherwise never get to. The Museum of Play. The Shelburne museum. Underground railroad museum. The Kodak Museum, Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt summer home, Mark Twain home, Edgar Allen Poe. And the historical national parks, Gettysburg ++.

Man, I'm starting to get an itchy gas pedal foot again.

Posted by: Candidus at January 26, 2025 09:27 AM (PhOuQ)

54
I totally understand the reluctance to dive into a story that's stretched over a series.

Often there's a ton of filler or the writer gets distracted with side-adventures of no consequence or the ending doesn't really justify the build-up or, as seen...the author can't or won't or doesn't care to finish it.

This is why LOTR is so popular. It avoids all of these pitfalls, except may the Tom Bombadil sequence and perhaps even that serves a philosophical reason as read.

It's also the reason I no longer dive into long series without waiting till the end to see how the audience/consumer reacts to the whole product.

Though I admit all of the positive praise from friends, family, and well everyone got me to watch "Severance" on Apple TV. Though it reminds me of "LOST" in that there's a mystery obscuring motives and overall theme and plot, which makes me wary because that means that your satisfaction with the story and your time spent viewing come right down to the last episode.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 09:27 AM (iJfKG)

55 Morning, Perfessor.

Howdy, Horde.

I re-read (like my other reading, it's haphazard and I'm never quite sure when the impulse to revisit a book will hit). At the moment, when I should be making a microscopic dent in the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile, I'm re-reading Donald Westlake's The Hook. This one would probably appeal to quite a few Hordelings -- think Strangers on a Train meets the Book Business. Like most Westlakes, it's a delight.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 09:28 AM (q3u5l)

56 The film depicts it as a big stand for religious freedom (and boo protestants because Moral Majority amirite?). Except . . . James II? Really? The guy who later bugged out of England? And hooray for Counter-Reformation era Catholicism as the badge of freedom and jolly nonconformity? Huh?
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:20 AM (78a2H)
---
To be fair, the Constitutional protections against the establishment of a state religion and religious tests for public office were always about England. Washington's personal assurance that Catholic emancipation would follow American independence brought a lot of Catholics over to his side.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:29 AM (ZOv7s)

57 I mean, let's be honest. The Church of England was utterly annoying that even Methodists couldn't stand it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:30 AM (ZOv7s)

58 I've never read Watership Down, but the summary makes it sound vaguely similar to the legend of Rome's founding. At least the part about searching for women does.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 26, 2025 09:31 AM (lHPJf)

59 Best food of the trip was actually in College Station at a cool new tappas bar.
Posted by: rhennigantx

You went to College Station and didn't eat at the Dixie Chicken?

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:32 AM (St5Dt)

60 Morning, Book Folken! Is the printer's nik flowing in your veins this day, or is it too cold? (Never too cold for that, at least when you're indoors.)

Finished Agatha Christie's Murder in Three Acts, which is not about the theatre or a specific play. One of the lead characters after Poirot is a celebrated stage actor, though. I was not terribly impressed with the characterization, though it was fine for a whodunit, or with Poirot's solution. Not so much the explanation itself, but as to *how* he arrived at it. I'm jsut used to Ellery Queen's methods, I guess. The final novel in this omnibus is Cards on the Table, and since I know less about bridge than a cow knows about calculus, some of it is puzzling to me. But it's a good setup -- which of the four bridge players murdered their host while they were playing?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:34 AM (omVj0)

61 This is why LOTR is so popular. It avoids all of these pitfalls, except may the Tom Bombadil sequence and perhaps even that serves a philosophical reason as read.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 09:27 AM (iJfKG)
---
I like Bombadil and feel that he not only serves as a narrative bridge between the Shire and the world outside, but also highlights the antiquity and strangeness of Middle Earth. As Gandalf later remarks, the Shire and Bree are within a day's ride of creatures that would terrify everyone in them, and no one knows about it.

Also, the description of the woods in the fall is some of the best of Tolkien's writing. One can almost smells the greenery and hear the rain on the leaves.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:34 AM (ZOv7s)

62 I liked it, and the ending of the series was quite satisfying. "He shot him in the face!" is a good answer to difficult problems posed by this series.
Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2025 09:25 AM (u82oZ)
---
Glad you liked it. And yes, I pondered that problem and after a moment thought "Wait, he's got a gun on his belt!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:36 AM (ZOv7s)

63 The film depicts it as a big stand for religious freedom (and boo protestants because Moral Majority amirite?). Except . . . James II? Really? The guy who later bugged out of England? And hooray for Counter-Reformation era Catholicism as the badge of freedom and jolly nonconformity? Huh?
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:20 AM (78a2H)

Well, James II did try to break the monopoly of the Anglican Church by allowing Catholics and Dissenters to hold public office, and he was a friend and supporter of William Penn. But that all may have been simply a ploy to get the Church's foot through the door, rather than something he really believed in.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 26, 2025 09:36 AM (lHPJf)

64 Lloyd: Sure, I think freedom of religion is one of America's greatest accomplishments. But portraying Rochester's defense of James II as some kind of great principled stand is a pretty big stretch.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:36 AM (78a2H)

65 For me this week I finished up 'The Man Who Saw Seconds' by Alexander Boldizar. I bought this because it was advertised in my X feed as a mix between Pynchon and Neal Stephenson. Gotta take a leap on new authors sometimes.

I give the book 3 Trumps out of five. The writing is mostly good, there is an author stand-in character who is an anti-communist anarchist doing a bit of preaching, but the action is good. The main beef is with the implications of the premise - the lead can see five seconds into the future, which somehow makes him invulnerable and unstoppable. I can suspend disbelief but not logic, and it just never made logical sense to me.

Posted by: Candidus at January 26, 2025 09:37 AM (PhOuQ)

66 A few weeks ago, author Eric Ambler was mentioned whom I had heard of but never read. I read one and liked it well enough to have now read several. Many are rather formulaic. A British (or sometimes American) proper gentleman of the stiff upper lip and do the right thing persuasion blunders into a situation in which stiff upper lipism and do gooderism are not effective survival tactics. My current novel, The Light of Day, however, is different. It's in the first person and although he assures us that he will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he doesn't so much tell us as show us as he lies, cheats, steals, and weasels his way between two blackmailers, a group of criminals planning a big score and the corrupt police who want him to discover what the crooks are up to. Ambler, a Brit, seems obsessed with Greeks and the Turks, neither of whom he particularly likes. Anyway, I'm enjoying his books.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Rex, Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent Made Glorious Summer By This Son of [New] York at January 26, 2025 09:37 AM (L/fGl)

67 I was helping Mom put away the Christmas stuff this week, and found a box of old magazines--Ladies' Journal, McCalls, Woman's Day, that sort of thing, from 1973.

I've been leafing through those in the evening. I'm amused at the ads--a whole lot of cigarette ads, plus the normal food ads you would expect, plus hair dye, perfume, and fem hygiene products.

But the best thing so far is the 1973 "Dream Kitchen." It's an explosion of yellow and orange!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 09:38 AM (OX9vb)

68 Nothing wrong with those pants. Put on "Thunderstruck" and grab your sweetie.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:38 AM (78a2H)

69 As to re-reading: I do it all the time. During the Sniffle Scare I re-read a lot of the books on my shelves. Even a classic mystery is fun to re-read if I remember the murderer's identity. I like seeing how the clues are planted and how the author makes you look in the wrong direction and manages his/her effects.

From the library this week, I picked up two Ruth Rendell crime novels -- not her Inspector Wexford tales, which oddly don't interest me as much as her stand-alones -- and two novels by Anne Tyler. For somebody who doesn't care for a lot of female writers, modern ones I mean, I have my favorites: these two, along with Anne Rivers Siddons and Dorothy Parker. (Two more dissimilar authors can hardly be imagined.)

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:38 AM (omVj0)

70 I've reread most of the earlier Matt Helm books so often I can recite certain phrases verbatim.

However, I have yet to start the last book. I don't know why, other that I have so much else to read.

Same goes for the Myth-Adventures series.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:39 AM (p/isN)

71 I give the book 3 Trumps out of five.

Is this the new unit of measure? If so, I propose that we enable more precision by using the Vance as a tenth of a Trump.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:39 AM (xCA6C)

72 Some books must be better if they're read around the time they are released. Case in point: "Winter Kills" by Richard Condon, copyright 1974.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (p/isN)
---
Kurt Schlichter's entire literary output is now obsolete.

Ten years from now, all the political and media personalities will be remembered only in trivia contests, if that. Re-runs of the McLaughlin Group will be more relevant.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:39 AM (ZOv7s)

73 Re-runs of the McLaughlin Group will be more relevant.

You have lurched uncontrollably into the truth!

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:40 AM (xCA6C)

74 As for Watership Down, I'm pleased to see more people reading and loving it.

And Fen, if you're here, your compliment to me on the Tech Thread that I could teach English is one of the best I've ever received. A little town in Indiana near Evansville was advertising last year for both substitute school bus drivers and substitute teachers. If I end up living there or nearby, and need a part-time job, the idea of being a sub in a small-town school is oddly attractive to me.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:41 AM (omVj0)

75 Have a great week in reading, everyone.

We are living in one of the great hinges of history, and I am not tired of winning.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at January 26, 2025 09:41 AM (u82oZ)

76 I've been to the LBJ library in Austin. At the time, there was a traveling WWII exhibit that was the best part of the tour. It had two sides, Europe and the Pacific. Those took hours to get through and were very well done. I went through Europe first and then back to the beginning for the Pacific, ending up with the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs with a video recreation of the explosions in a small display. It was amazing.

Posted by: huerfano at January 26, 2025 09:41 AM (n2swS)

77 Lloyd: Sure, I think freedom of religion is one of America's greatest accomplishments. But portraying Rochester's defense of James II as some kind of great principled stand is a pretty big stretch.
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:36 AM (78a2H)
---
Oh, absolutely. Rochester's motive was also purely selfish. He was getting bored with banging whores and was thinking of a new career in politics. His position was carefully selected to maximize his position as a thoughtful moderate.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:42 AM (ZOv7s)

78 But the best thing so far is the 1973 "Dream Kitchen." It's an explosion of yellow and orange!
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs

That would be 'harvest gold' and 'tangerine'.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:42 AM (St5Dt)

79 Kinda fell off the Harry Bosch series several novels ago. It's not that they weren't enjoyable; after a while any series starts giving me a been-here-done-that vibe and I drift away.

How enjoyable are the Harry Bosch books? Lemme put it this way -- they were among the books being offered as ebooks back when Peanut Press (I think that was the name of the operation) was putting up titles to be read on the Palm Pilot. I read 3 Bosch books on that 5 inch screen during a long trip by Greyhound rather than trying to sleep most of the way. Good stuff.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 09:42 AM (q3u5l)

80 Some books must be better if they're read around the time they are released. Case in point: "Winter Kills" by Richard Condon, copyright 1974.

Yes, Philadelphia. Not Dallas. But hmmm ... this doesn't have the usual "this is a work of fiction" disclaimer....

P.S. Condon is known for his book "The Manchurian Candidate." I tried to read it a few years ago. Maybe I'll try it again some day.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (p/isN)

I kind of disagree "Winter Kills" is a fine book to read in this day and age considering what we've seen over the last few years. Although the shock its ment to provoke would've been greater when it was written.

The "Manchurian Candidate" has a good story but Condon isn't the sharp-edged writer he would become in it.

One of Condon's best novels. "The Whisper of the Ax" is one that seemed kinda sorta possible until Trump's (and Our's) Victory back in November.

The story concerns a violent Communist, racial inspired shock and awe revolution in the US. It's a satire but very tightly written and sharp-edged.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 09:43 AM (iJfKG)

81 I read an interesting take on Martin not long ago. It may have been on Twitter, but I honestly don't remember.

The writer speculated that what Martin really wanted to do was give his books a Tolkienesque twist at the end: the kingdoms are confronted by some great outside, supernatural evil, forcing all the players to drop their backstabbing ways and band together. So it would end as a real battle of good versus evil.

The only problem is that since Martin is an atheistic socialist and all, he doesn't really believe in that sort of thing, so he has no idea how to write it. Thus he could never produce the ending he'd intended.

Just one guy's theory, and I've never read the books so I don't know if it's plausible or not. But it's interesting.

Posted by: Dr. T at January 26, 2025 09:44 AM (lHPJf)

82 "One more point about that road-school trip: almost every town has some decent museum (or home) that you might otherwise never get to. The Museum of Play. The Shelburne museum. Underground railroad museum. The Kodak Museum, Susan B. Anthony, Teddy Roosevelt summer home, Mark Twain home, Edgar Allen Poe. And the historical national parks, Gettysburg ++."

The Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie, GA.

Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 09:45 AM (vFG9F)

83 But the best thing so far is the 1973 "Dream Kitchen." It's an explosion of yellow and orange!
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 09:38 AM (OX9vb)
-----

It's like you're sipping coffee on the set of Match Game or the Mike Douglas Show.

Still better than all the grey and ecru that has dominated today's kitchens.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:46 AM (kpS4V)

84 I've reread many books, sometimes not realizing until I'm well into it the second time.
Posted by: huerfano

It's like the feeling at the end of a page
When you realize you don't know what you just read

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 26, 2025 09:46 AM (Dm8we)

85 Books I like to reread - my comfort reads are urban fantasy serieses (seria?) like the Dressden Files, Ilona Andrews, etc.
Also Patricia McKillip's standalone books.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:46 AM (t88zN)

86 The only problem is that since Martin is an atheistic socialist and all, he doesn't really believe in that sort of thing, so he has no idea how to write it. Thus he could never produce the ending he'd intended.

Just one guy's theory, and I've never read the books so I don't know if it's plausible or not. But it's interesting.
Posted by: Dr. T at January 26, 2025 09:44 AM (lHPJf)
---
You write the ending first. It's pretty simple. The ending will evolve, change in focus perhaps as the tale grows, but that polar star always has to stay put.

Too many modern writers (like Martin) want this massively complicated, sprawling epics and then figure that they will all work out somehow. That's part of why trilogies aren't getting finished - it's beyond the ability of the author to do so.

It's really easy to keep adding characters, put in betrayals and stuff, but tying it all together requires a ton of talent and work, which is why so few authors attempted to do it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:47 AM (ZOv7s)

87 I appreciate that the lightning on "these pants" does not originate in the crotch.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:48 AM (t88zN)

88 Dr. T.: I think that's pretty close to identifying Martin's problem. He wants to be the edgiest edgy edgelord "deconstructing" epic fantasy . . . but he's also enough of a pro to know that an epic fantasy series that ends with everyone getting eaten by ice-zombie Scotsmen will be a failure both financially and artistically. So he needs a happy ending but can't make himself write it.

To me it's obvious that the original ending was going to be Jon Snow and Danaerys hooking up and saving the kingdom. It's right in the title, after all. I don't know why he abandoned that idea.

Note to writers: STICK TO YOUR OUTLINE.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:49 AM (78a2H)

89 It's like you're sipping coffee on the set of Match Game or the Mike Douglas Show.

Still better than all the grey and ecru that has dominated today's kitchens.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025

***
Bathrooms too. On those Jacuzzi "we'll redo your shower/bath in one day" TV spots, every example they show is either gray or ecru. I *like* good ol' bathroom-tile blue-green, trimmed in white.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:49 AM (omVj0)

90 There is a Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, VA. I guess it must be privately run. I have never had an interest in going there to find out.

Posted by: bluebell at January 26, 2025 09:50 AM (79pEw)

91 The Tom Mix Museum in Barnsdall, Okla.

And I've never been to the J.M. Davis Gun Museum in Claremore although it's just up the highway. Once again, someday.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:50 AM (p/isN)

92 Still better than all the grey and ecru that has dominated today's kitchens.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:46 AM (kpS4V)
---
My house was built in 1974, and had kind of a woodland feel.

The second owner then bought into the 80s aesthetic: white. White walls and white carpet with white wood.

Very Miami Vice feel when we moved in. We're still working on adding color. I was going to do the carpets when the kids grew up, but with the grandkids here, it would be folly to replace it now.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:50 AM (ZOv7s)

93 That would be 'harvest gold' and 'tangerine'.
Posted by: Thomas Paine

Was that before or after the avocado era?

It strikes me that an illustrated book on the history of color fads would be pretty interesting.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:51 AM (t88zN)

94 Also Patricia McKillip's standalone books.
----

McKillip made me think of McAvoy, and "Tea With the Black Dragon", which I might like to reread at some point.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:51 AM (kpS4V)

95 but he's also enough of a pro to know that an epic fantasy series that ends with everyone getting eaten by ice-zombie Scotsmen will be a failure both financially and artistically.

Would it be better if the ice-zombies were, say, Irish or German?

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:51 AM (xCA6C)

96 Wrong from the start: The Gerald Ford Library is in Ann Arbor.

Grand Rapids is the home of the Gerald Ford MUSEUM, aka, The Bland On the Grand
Posted by: Auspex at January 26, 2025 09:18 AM (j4U/Z)

Eh, glad I missed it.

When I was a kid, the best fun was going to the museum and the Roger B. Chaffee planetarium. For a science geek, that was something I always looked forward to.

Posted by: Additional Blond Agent, STEM Guy at January 26, 2025 09:51 AM (/HDaX)

97 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction? One member of my former writing group hated parentheses and thought they belonged only in non-fiction. Yes, popping such side remarks in more than once on a page is maybe overdoing it. But I think they have their value. What say all of you?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:52 AM (omVj0)

98 It strikes me that an illustrated book on the history of color fads would be pretty interesting.

You should look into the oeuvre of James Lilek. He does food, interior decorating, and other topics. I particularly liked his Gallery of Regrettable Food.

Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:53 AM (xCA6C)

99 McKillip made me think of McAvoy, and "Tea With the Black Dragon", which I might like to reread at some point.
Posted by: All Hail Eris,

I can picture that book but I don't think I ever managed to get a copy and read it. Maybe I should.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:53 AM (t88zN)

100 I wonder sometimes how many of the long-series writers start without a definite end in mind -- starting with an idea about a terrific setting or interesting characters or a nice dramatic conflict, and then just diving in and going from there. Book after book playing with all these wonderful toys, but no conclusion in sight.

It's hard enough to write a single novel by the seat of your pants -- can't imagine trying to do a trilogy or more that way.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 09:54 AM (q3u5l)

101 Still better than all the grey and ecru that has dominated today's kitchens.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 09:46 AM (kpS4V)

Yes, absolutely. I'll take Lemon Whimsy over Nihilist Bistro any day.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 09:55 AM (OX9vb)

102 I wouldn't exactly call this a "book" as in one normally thinks of a book since it is a collection of daily devotionals, but it has been meaningful to me for about 15 years or more, so much so that the cover come off and the pages are warped. I ordered another copy, but then decided that a colleague in the ministry would probably appreciate it and sent it to him.It is " Life Secrets" by Henry Foster. He was a Dr and had a sanitarium in Palmyra in the Finger Lakes region of NY
for depressed clergy and missionaries and others, and he gave talks in their chapel. He loved the Lord and helping other people and his messages are so encouraging for any Christian. Sometimes you read a book by someone long dead and think, " I would really like to meet this person." That is how I feel about Dr. Foster.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 09:55 AM (H+6A1)

103 I have ordered some more Eric Ambler books after reading a few. He is sort of a prototype of modern writers, having written from the 1930s into the 70s and apparently quite influential. So far, my favorites are Journey into Fear and A Passage of Arms, which are quite different from each other.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 09:56 AM (St5Dt)

104 Ice-zombie Germans is a bit on the nose, and ice-zombie Irishmen is pretty much Friday night in Belfast.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:56 AM (78a2H)

105 97 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction?

--

For me it very much depends on the narrative style and execution (i.e. whether the author can pull it off).

I think italics are more common, either as chapter headings on in the text.

But certainly they can interrupt the story flow. Ask yourself why you have a parenthetical segment and if that's better elsewhere or jn a different form on edit.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:57 AM (t88zN)

106 And Fen, if you're here, your compliment to me on the Tech Thread that I could teach English is one of the best I've ever received. A little town in Indiana near Evansville was advertising last year for both substitute school bus drivers and substitute teachers. If I end up living there or nearby, and need a part-time job, the idea of being a sub in a small-town school is oddly attractive to me.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:41 AM (omVj0)

You gonna learn Spanish first, Wolfus? Could hear the wife watching tv and the Indiana AG filed charges against police for not rounding up illegals. Their children are apparently overrunning the schools there.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 09:57 AM (0eaVi)

107 Note to writers: STICK TO YOUR OUTLINE.
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:49 AM (78a2H)

I read somewhere that Martin's original pitch for the ASoIaF was trilogy where Jon and Aria were destined to be together. It's probably for the best that he ditched that particular outline... Although keeping it as a trilogy would have solved a lot of his problems.

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 26, 2025 09:58 AM (Lhaco)

108
I read somewhere that Martin's original pitch for the ASoIaF was trilogy where Jon and Aria were destined to be together.

--

GRRM's incest obsession is gross

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:59 AM (t88zN)

109 (Looks guiltily at my computer files ...) I really have to finish up the Luna City series. The final volume is about a third completed in draft, so I can sort of sympathize with writers who leave a series hanging for whatever reason. Not GRR Martin so much, though. I've always been a fan of Barbara Hambly, who does a historical mystery series set in ante-bellum New Orleans, another about turn of the last century vampires, still another about Hollywood in the 1920s, and a couple of fantasy sword-and-sorcery series. There is a two-book series that I re-read last week, The Rainbow Abyss and The Magicians of Night, which absolutely cries out for a third book to wrap up the story arc ... but she never got around to writing it. Engaging characters, set up several conflicts, created an interesting premise ... and then just left it hanging. It's been a bafflement to me, and to other readers of her books.
This is why my own books are all self-contained, plot-wise. (although there is a teaser at the end, for the next in the series.)

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at January 26, 2025 10:00 AM (Ew3fm)

110 You should look into the oeuvre of James Lilek. He does food, interior decorating, and other topics. I particularly liked his Gallery of Regrettable Food.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:53 AM (xCA6C)

I still have that, it is great! It’s a shame that Lileks was another that succumbed to TDS, haven’t looked at him in a while.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2025 10:00 AM (7MHHr)

111 I love parentheses when I'm writing fiction, and my proofreader makes me take almost all of them out.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 10:00 AM (78a2H)

112 The Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie, GA.
Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 09:45 AM (vFG9F)

Run by a person named Sarah, right?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:00 AM (0eaVi)

113 You gonna learn Spanish first, Wolfus? Could hear the wife watching tv and the Indiana AG filed charges against police for not rounding up illegals. Their children are apparently overrunning the schools there.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025

***
I studied Spanish foryears in school, but was always better at reading than speaking it. The town I was thinking about was reportedly very low on the "die-versity" scale a year ago. Maybe that's changed.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:01 AM (omVj0)

114 Lileks beat his case of TDS -- or at least recognized that Trump's opponents were worse.

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 10:01 AM (78a2H)

115 I'm not much of a re-reader. LOTR of course. Dune. Neuromancer. That's about all that come to mind.

Posted by: Oddbob at January 26, 2025 10:01 AM (/y8xj)

116 Yes, popping such side remarks in more than once on a page is maybe overdoing it. But I think they have their value. What say all of you?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:52 AM (omVj0)
---

I like it when they're used for explanations, asides and conversational digressions. Tolkien uses them, so they must be okay, right?

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 10:02 AM (kpS4V)

117 I've reread most of the earlier Matt Helm books so often I can recite certain phrases verbatim.

However, I have yet to start the last book. I don't know why, other that I have so much else to read.

Same goes for the Myth-Adventures series.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:39 AM (p/isN)

The last book isn't really the LAST book. Hamilton finished "The Dominators" four years before he died, but his estate has never had it edited and published. It would be interesting to see how he finished off the series.

Posted by: Wethal at January 26, 2025 10:02 AM (NufIr)

118 For me it very much depends on the narrative style and execution (i.e. whether the author can pull it off).

I think italics are more common, either as chapter headings on in the text.

But certainly they can interrupt the story flow. Ask yourself why you have a parenthetical segment and if that's better elsewhere or in a different form on edit.
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025

***
True. I take some of them out even when commenting here, before I hit "post."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:02 AM (omVj0)

119 33 I bought a book once, started reading it then realized quickly I already had it
Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 09:16 AM (fwDg9)

Glad to know that I am not the only one who has that.

Recently been re-buying a LOT of books that I already have in Kindle format now. Mostly so I can increase the font size (it's HELL getting old). Have donated several boxes of books to the USO as I clean out the garage.

-SLV

Posted by: Shy Lurking Voter at January 26, 2025 10:03 AM (e/Osv)

120 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:41 AM (omVj0)

You're welcome, Wolfus. You'd be a wonderful English teacher. You love to read and you write very well and I think you'd make the lessons fun. If you went to a private school chances are you wouldn't have awful "woke" books or could design your own curriculum.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:03 AM (H+6A1)

121 Re: Connelly's "The Burning Room". My father was an NYPD detective for many years. At one point he was involved with a homicide case stemming from a knife assault that had taken place about 20 years prior. The victim, a juvenile at the time, had been stabbed in the in the heart area around the aorta. Over the years the scar tissue had built up until it interfered with blood flow, enough that the man collapsed and died from heart failure. So another instance of art imitating life (or death, in this case).

Posted by: Darles Chickens at January 26, 2025 10:03 AM (vOKvj)

122 I am able to be on the book thread because I am off from church today.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:04 AM (H+6A1)

123 Note to writers: STICK TO YOUR OUTLINE.
Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 09:49 AM (78a2H)

Not necessarily. I'm working on a short story that I completely outlined before I started writing it. (I usually pants it) I have cut so many characters and scenes out that it's heading in a different direction. The ending may or not be the same. I don't think that makes it a failure to change the storyline.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:05 AM (0eaVi)

124 As far as book series go, I prefer it if each book can stand on its own. Preston and Child books have complete stories in their novels that are continuations of an overall arc, and Orson Scott Card wrote some Ender books that told the same story from a different character's perspective. If the story needs more space, write a longer book, in my opinion.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 10:05 AM (foPCA)

125 Good morning fellow enthusiasts

I am currently a little over 300 pages into the Sanderson epic and finally starting to remember who everyone is and what they are up to. I wish there were a few more illustrations to help remember all the different ethnicity of the different groups occupying Roshar or an index with terms and definitions.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 10:05 AM (t/2Uw)

126 Okay, back to Rivendell.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 10:06 AM (kpS4V)

127 I like Bombadil and feel that he not only serves as a narrative bridge between the Shire and the world outside, but also highlights the antiquity and strangeness of Middle Earth. As Gandalf later remarks, the Shire and Bree are within a day's ride of creatures that would terrify everyone in them, and no one knows about it.

Also, the description of the woods in the fall is some of the best of Tolkien's writing. One can almost smells the greenery and hear the rain on the leaves.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 09:34 AM (ZOv7s)

My view of Bombadil has grown more kindly than when I first read LOTR.

Mainly because, Tolkien is doing something that I love in a writer (and totally use in my own novel, "Wearing the Cat" and the upcoming one).

He's telling us something without posting a YUGE intrusive authorial message. Instead, he tells us through the bones and sinews and action of the story.

Bombadil is basically Tolkien's explanation of why God allows evil in the world and more to the point...who's job it is to face and defeat it.

Bombadil is a sort of combination of a "Watchmaker God" and Tolkien's ideal, the English Yeoman concerned (con't)

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:06 AM (iJfKG)

128 And I've never been to the J.M. Davis Gun Museum in Claremore although it's just up the highway. Once again, someday.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:50 AM (p/isN)

Will Rogers used to hand around there a lot. My grandma said she knew him.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:07 AM (0eaVi)

129 I would also like credit for posting the Correia quote on last week's thread in my expected rant about how much I detest JRR Martin while defending Rothfuss.😉

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 10:07 AM (t/2Uw)

130 Bathrooms too. On those Jacuzzi "we'll redo your shower/bath in one day" TV spots, every example they show is either gray or ecru. I *like* good ol' bathroom-tile blue-green, trimmed in white.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:49 AM (omVj0)

Bathrooms should be either blue, seafoam green, or white subway tile.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:08 AM (0eaVi)

131 (con't)

with his land and life and the preservation of that land and life. And a lack of concern about "the wider world".

I suppose after being in WWI, England as a Simple Yeomanry would seem like the ideal. Still, there's evil to fight.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:09 AM (iJfKG)

132 Great teachers make a huge difference to getting kids to read as do parents who encouraged reading. Fortunately, I had both. I went to school in the dark ages before the schools get awful woke drivel. The problem is that now I have too many books.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:09 AM (/rqjZ)

133 You're welcome, Wolfus. You'd be a wonderful English teacher. You love to read and you write very well and I think you'd make the lessons fun. If you went to a private school chances are you wouldn't have awful "woke" books or could design your own curriculum.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025

***
Thanks, Fen. Yes, I'd recommend Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford and Sweet Thursday by Steinbeck, maybe The Left Hand of Darkness by LeGuin, and (if there's time) Watership Down. I think both boys and girls would like them all.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:11 AM (omVj0)

134 Has anyone read the complete endworld saga. Its 31 books or so. I stopped after about the first 20. Is it worth it to finish up the series?

Do the last 10 books or so add anything to the story?

Posted by: Someday I'll choose a nick and stick with it but not today. I'm a dangerous radical. at January 26, 2025 10:12 AM (89Sog)

135 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction? One member of my former writing group hated parentheses and thought they belonged only in non-fiction. Yes, popping such side remarks in more than once on a page is maybe overdoing it. But I think they have their value. What say all of you?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:52 AM (omVj0)

I don't think I've ever done it. Don't think I would, either, not in something to be published. I can (and do) use them in certain places, but not in literature. I think it can take a reader out of the story, putting the "here's the author saying something" vibe to it. (but others do, I'm sure)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:12 AM (0eaVi)

136 Bathrooms should be either blue, seafoam green, or white subway tile.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:08 AM (0eaVi)

Oh, I don't know. I am fond of that 1950s pink, when it's still in good shape.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 10:13 AM (OX9vb)

137 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:11 AM (omVj0

I have a friend who's an academic librarian who's crazy about rabbits ( I guess, in part, because he read all those Beatrix Potter books, or had them read to him as a child) and he loves "Watership Down." I haven't yet admitted to him that I have never read that.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:14 AM (fNsu4)

138 Parentheses don't bother me -- if somebody's good at the game, and not shovelling them in so much that there's more parenthetical comment than story.

The use of parentheses that comes immediately to mind is William Goldman's The Princess Bride. Heavily used in some sections of that book. Some people hate the parenthetical bits -- me, I loved 'em and laughed my kazoosis off throughout.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 10:14 AM (q3u5l)

139 The problem is that now I have too many books.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke

I can't fathom that. I have bookshelves in nearly every room in the house, even though I also have a dedicated library - it just got filled up long ago.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 10:14 AM (foPCA)

140 You should look into the oeuvre of James Lilek. He does food, interior decorating, and other topics. I particularly liked his Gallery of Regrettable Food.
Posted by: Archimedes at January 26, 2025 09:53 AM (xCA6C)

Pro tip. Don't tell him you like that weird blue that seems to be in every ad and tv show. He doesn't like it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:15 AM (0eaVi)

141 "The Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie, GA.
Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 09:45 AM (vFG9F)

Run by a person named Sarah, right?
Posted by: OrangeEnt"

She would be right at home there.

The Rural Telephone museum is not far from Andersonville, which also has a interesting POW museum, not just Civil War era. Then it's a thirty minute or so ride over to Plains, if you are so inclined.

Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 10:16 AM (vFG9F)

142 Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 10:14 AM (foPCA)

But the problem is, if you want to downsize what does one do with all these books.? I don't want to throw them in a dumpster. My mother would probably haunt me.😉

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:17 AM (fNsu4)

143 The Rural Telephone Museum in Leslie, GA.
Posted by: fd

I once read an autobiography about an American airman in WWI who had grown up as a cowboy in north east Colorado. Their telephone wires served double duty as they also acted as fencing to keep their cattle in.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Rex, Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent Made Glorious Summer By This Son of [New] York at January 26, 2025 10:17 AM (L/fGl)

144 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction? One member of my former writing group hated parentheses and thought they belonged only in non-fiction. Yes, popping such side remarks in more than once on a page is maybe overdoing it. But I think they have their value. What say all of you?
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 09:52 AM (omVj0)

As a general principle esp if you're writing in a straight third person style..no, just no.

Now if you're writing in a chatty first person style with the sort of person who can't really keep their mouth shut and offers asides about well, everything and everyone, then sure. But don't overdo it.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:17 AM (iJfKG)

145 The problem is that now I have too many books.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke

Do you have a Catholic Bible? I would be willing to buy/sell/trade.

Posted by: Someday I'll choose a nick and stick with it but not today. I'm a dangerous radical. at January 26, 2025 10:17 AM (89Sog)

146 GRRM's incest obsession is gross
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:59 AM (t88zN)
---
As is his fixation with killing off all the admirable characters.

Martin highlights the fact that when you get down to it, subverting expectations is inferior to fulfilling them.

Having the heroes gather at the end of the quest to party is for the readers as well, congratulating them on finishing an epic tale.

When one departs from that, readers feel cheated, and future sales will tank - not only of that title, but all the other ones as well. Martin did a great job of wrecking his reputation.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 10:17 AM (ZOv7s)

147 I want to reread Modern Times by Paul Johnson. I've read The Lord of the Rings 12 times including the audio version and the Bible seven times. I've been through Bobby Fischer's My 60 Most Memorable Games so often it's breaking apart, though I don't know if a chess book would count.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 26, 2025 10:18 AM (tRYqg)

148 Book rec: Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series (source for the movie Master and Commander). Simply superb books that will consume the reader. O'Brian was an English eccentric of the first order and a bit of a cad as a father. But, his command of the history of the Royal Navy (self taught) was so complete that he was granted complete access to the RN archives even though he was not an academic of any kind. Those books were so engrossing to read that I could not pick anything else up for almost a year.

Posted by: ChuckinTX at January 26, 2025 10:18 AM (WefwP)

149 It's hard enough to write a single novel by the seat of your pants -- can't imagine trying to do a trilogy or more that way.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 09:54 AM (q3u5l)

I'll get an idea in my head and pants the beginning, but there's no way to do a complete novel that way. I have to start outlining a third of the way in to get it finished. I do have a planned ending when I start, though.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:19 AM (0eaVi)

150 I don't use parentheses, I just throw in random clauses, but I don't write anything gut comments.

Posted by: From about That Time at January 26, 2025 10:19 AM (4780s)

151 As a general principle esp if you're writing in a straight third person style..no, just no.

Now if you're writing in a chatty first person style with the sort of person who can't really keep their mouth shut and offers asides about well, everything and everyone, then sure. But don't overdo it.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025

***
Right; if you're writing in first, a natural tendency of your narrator might be a tendency to smart side remarks or reactions. Though Rex Stout's Archie Goodwin rarely if ever used parentheses, and his narration is famous for side comments and Archie's (often funny) reactions.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:21 AM (omVj0)

152 But the problem is, if you want to downsize what does one do with all these books.? I don't want to throw them in a dumpster. My mother would probably haunt me.😉
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:17 AM (fNsu4)

Donate them to the thrift store. I look for books there all the time, as I'm sure lots of people do.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 10:21 AM (OX9vb)

153 But the problem is, if you want to downsize what does one do with all these books.? I don't want to throw them in a dumpster. My mother would probably haunt me.😉
Posted by: FenelonSpoke

My project for when I retire is to build floor to ceiling bookshelves. I could fit all of the books in one room if I can stack them that high. I just need one of those rolling ladders.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at January 26, 2025 10:22 AM (foPCA)

154 good morning Perfessor, Horde

Posted by: callsign claymore at January 26, 2025 10:22 AM (FD/hn)

155 Not necessarily. I'm working on a short story that I completely outlined before I started writing it. (I usually pants it) I have cut so many characters and scenes out that it's heading in a different direction. The ending may or not be the same. I don't think that makes it a failure to change the storyline.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:05 AM (0eaVi)
---
Should I ever become famous enough for people to want to see my outlines, they will be amused to see that I never followed them. It's like I wrote them down, and then rejected each turn.

But the ending stayed intact. I think that was part of it, I realized there were better ways to get where I wanted to be.

One can tweak it, add some details, subplots, but to me the ending is the whole point. It's why I'm even doing this writing thing. So, pace Martin, if you want to do this grand tale and have it be a love story, DO THAT. Love stories are wonderful, and everyone cheers when the happy couple is together at last.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 10:23 AM (ZOv7s)

156 I still have that, it is great! It’s a shame that Lileks was another that succumbed to TDS, haven’t looked at him in a while.
Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2025 10:00 AM (7MHHr)

He seems to have gotten over it. He probably caught that disease by hanging out too much with the National Review guys.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:23 AM (0eaVi)

157 -- Continue to read fantasy authors' works, even if they are in the middle of a series, if only to help motivate them. --

Yes, please. I wrote the first two books of my "Realm of Essences" trilogy in the late '90s, but ran out of motivation due to low interest. All it took was one reader contacting me to convince me to write the third volume. (P.S.: That reader was Martin McPhillips, a brilliant writer in his own right. If you like thrillers, try his book "Corpse In Armor.")

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at January 26, 2025 10:25 AM (Nmmyc)

158 > It's probably for the best that he ditched that particular outline..

Of course, it turned out that she was his cousin, not his sister.

Small potatoes for the Targaryen family.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:26 AM (W5ArC)

159 Fen, most libraries take donations. My local library has a shelf where all the used books are $1.00.
I will go against the grain here, but I don't reread. It's like once I know how the story ends, not interested anymore. I almost always donated my books to the library once read. Sitting on a shelf in my house just seemed a waste when someone else might enjoy them. Now I literally don't have room so ebooks are wonderful and the library's ability to get me almost whatever I want to read is perfect.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 10:26 AM (t/2Uw)

160 Fen, if your library has book sales, then donate to them.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 10:27 AM (kpS4V)

161 Rereading
I have been revisiting books I read when I was younger. Raymond Feist, Robert Asprin, and then I saw the Drizzt series hanging out there which I never read. I never liked Salvatore, but I knew that Drizzt was popular. When I saw it was based on D&D, I read it, and it was great.

Writing Inspiration
At archive.org, you can download from the texts many of the D&D game materials such as the first edition Deities and Demigods with the Cthulu and Elric mythos.

While reading Drizzt, I looked up some of the beings in the Monster Manual. The illithid/mind flayers for example.

Finishing a Series
I admire the Rigneys for finishing the Wheel of Time for Tor.

Seeing into the Future
Sanderson incorporated that idea in his Mistborn series.

Sticking to the Outline
The last time I looked, many years ago, you could submit to Tor with a synopsis, an outline, and three chapters, or something similar.

Writing to see Where it Goes
That's fun like traveling to a new place.

---
While there may be no frigate like a book, there is no book like a person.

Posted by: meh at January 26, 2025 10:27 AM (kK7U2)

162 I can’t write, I can barely read. I’m capable but…….

Posted by: Eromero at January 26, 2025 10:28 AM (NpLSW)

163 I stumbled across the fred saberhagen series, Berserker. 3/4 way through the first one, Blue Death, and enjoying it. Any book morons have opinions on the whole series?

Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at January 26, 2025 10:29 AM (OA79/)

164 I re-read some of the Nero Wolfe novels every year. Sometimes I've forgotten who the murderer was. He was not a dazzling plot/clue manager like Queen or John Dickson Carr. More often, though, it's a desire to spend time in that famous brownstone house and to enjoy Archie's irreverent narration, and to see what kinds of social commentary from him or Wolfe I missed when I was twelve, or twenty-four, or even later.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:29 AM (omVj0)

165 Posted by: ChuckinTX at January 26, 2025 10:18 AM (WefwP)

I had a seminary professor who gave me the first two O'Brian books as well as a book on theology when I graduated from seminary.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:30 AM (MQJVv)

166 .
A) That bad orange "45" should've declared his peepee, (i.e. presidential papers,) storage room to be his presidential library.

B) He would've made the map before Barry and Barry's sidekick, Joe (Kerr) Biden.

Posted by: Marooned at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (kt8QE)

167 > GRRM's incest obsession is gross
Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at January 26, 2025 09:59 AM (t88zN)

IRL, the parents of the last Habsburg monarch of Spain were nominally uncle and niece, though due to all the other inbreeding they were genetically closer than a normal brother and sister.

Then there were the dynasties of Egyptian pharaohs who married brother to sister, son to mother, or daughter to father for thousands of years.

Martin may have an obsession with it, but it's not something he made up... there have been a lot of royal families that actually did behave that way, even in modern times. I believe the late Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were both first AND second cousins, or maybe it was second and third cousins.

Recent generations of the European royals seem to have finally gotten the messag -- there have been a lot of commoner marriages in the last few decades.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (W5ArC)

168 [i[I stumbled across the fred saberhagen series, Berserker. 3/4 way through the first one, Blue Death, and enjoying it. Any book morons have opinions on the whole series?
Posted by: Cuthbert the Witless at January 26, 2025

***
I have read only a few of the Berserker tales. His fantasy, Empire of the East, is truly fine -- one big book with three novelettes tied together, not a trilogy -- and his later Books of Swords series is good stuff too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (omVj0)

169 I will go against the grain here, but I don't reread.
Sharon(willow's apprentice)

I do. Like a jigsaw puzzle that was fun 2 or 3 years ago, a book can be different 5 or more years later.
I recall being aghast at Dickens re-read as an adult.
I also generally always have a Aubrey/Maturin book open somewhere in the house.

Posted by: MkY at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (cPGH3)

170 @117 --

I know about that. My guess is that his son Gordon thought it was lousy and didn't deserve to see print.

Like the "Frasier" episode in which he and Niles sneaked a read of the manuscript of the second book by an author whose first (and only) published book they loved. The second story was terrible, and they were crushed.

Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (p/isN)

171 Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at January 26, 2025 10:27 AM (kpS4V

The local library discontinued that, but one farthet on has a coffee shop inside along with a used bookstore. I had forgotten about that one. Thanks.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:32 AM (MQJVv)

172 Just finished Washington Square. I can't recall the last time I read a book in 2days . Great characterizations and interesting to compare with the movie.

Posted by: Vivi at January 26, 2025 10:32 AM (Egz6Y)

173 I should add that some books are the entree, and some books desert.

Posted by: MkY at January 26, 2025 10:32 AM (cPGH3)

174 I was at the local man-hating Wiccan-managed Barnes and Noble last week, engaged in my monthly charade with the staff.

Me: Is there a new release section for science fiction?

Blue-haired tatted nose ringer: Those four sections you're standing in front of are all science fiction!

Me: Those 120 books are all fantasy except for 1.

BHTNR: That's what the manager ordered.

Me: OK. Where's the occult section?

BHTNR: Right over there by Young Adult.

Posted by: Candidus at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (PhOuQ)

175 I can’t write, I can barely read. I’m capable but…….

Posted by: Eromero at January 26, 2025 10:28 AM (NpLSW)

Now see...this is why right here.

You get to the point in your writing where you should deliver a concluding thought or "answer" to what you've written and yet, you abandon your thought, so that nothing concrete is said.

You need to let us know what you think or you've said nothing.

No offense or sarcasm meant...honestly.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (iJfKG)

176 Who was it who said you spend the first half of your life accumulating your possessions and the last half getting rid of them so you can die unencumbered?

A lot of my books went to area libraries and assorted second-hand dealers and some to the local seniors center. A number of those remaining might be worth serious coin, so I'm not interested in giving 'em to the public library (especially since the place doesn't seem that interested in the books these days -- they're weeding more than they're adding). Eventually I'll find good homes for them or sell a bunch off to specialty dealers; whatever's left, my offspring will have to deal with 'cause it won't be my problem any more. I should sell most of it now, having found quite a bit of it for the Kindle, but I just don't want to have a man-cave without a nicely stocked couple of bookcases.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (q3u5l)

177 Morning, all and thanks, Perfesser!

In my older age, I read less and less modern fiction.
I will re-read almost anything- unless I really disliked it the first time. In that case, it's probably no longer in the house.
Some books are just so enjoyable and comfortable that they have a real purpose our lives- especially in the last few years.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (f+FmA)

178 > Book rec: Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey & Maturin series

One of the very few series that's worth rereading multiple times, IMO. I find new pleasures with every "circumnavigation" (as the O'Brian fan community calls a complete read of all 20 1/4 novels).

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (W5ArC)

179 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. Mine has been wonderful.

Late to the thread. Overslept after an interrupted night between reading late and a needed dog walk. (She's a good girl and didn't want to make a mess in the house.)

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (yTvNw)

180 So, I finished the second volume of Eisenhower's Lieutenants (HT, NaCly) and would judge it a 2/5 for my expectations and 4.5/5 (4 Trumps and 5 Vances?) for overall. As I said last week, Eisenhower seems to be almost a bit player in the book.

No time for anything else.

I re-read lots of books if I like the characters.

Posted by: yara at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (fUPOV)

181 Oh, I don't know. I am fond of that 1950s pink, when it's still in good shape.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 10:13 AM (OX9vb)

I don't care for that color too much. I know it fits a certain era, but meh.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:34 AM (0eaVi)

182 > (especially since the place doesn't seem that interested in the books these days -- they're weeding more than they're adding)

The Woko Haram have taken over most libraries, and are busy putting books with CrimeThink down the memory hole, while promoting books that teach children how anal sex works.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:35 AM (W5ArC)

183 I want to reread Modern Times by Paul Johnson.
Posted by: Norrin Radd
___________

When did you read it? He did an updated version. I also recommend his book, Intellectuals.

And I'm hurt that no one got my Missing Persons lyric. *sniff*

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 26, 2025 10:35 AM (Dm8we)

184 Hello Horde and thanks Perfessor!
Most of my reading this week has been PDJT Executive Orders...

Posted by: TRex at January 26, 2025 10:35 AM (IQ6Gq)

185 The Rural Telephone museum is not far from Andersonville, which also has a interesting POW museum, not just Civil War era. Then it's a thirty minute or so ride over to Plains, if you are so inclined.
Posted by: fd at January 26, 2025 10:16 AM (vFG9F)

Sounds like an interesting area, but I'm nowhere near there.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:36 AM (0eaVi)

186 I like to re-read Austien's "Persusasion every so often, not because I've forgotten the ending, but but because I love the language and can relate to the heroine who- like me-is an introvert. I know people have comfort foods. I do too, I suppose, but I also have "comfort" books.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:37 AM (MQJVv)

187 The kids got together and gave us a Sharing Library box for Christmas- we (well, me) are beyond excited.
We're checking with the city for installation rules and will have to get the pro fencer to dig us a hole in the limestone.
We live across the street from the town educational complex, so we're in a good location.

They inherited his gift-giving skillz.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 10:38 AM (f+FmA)

188 Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 26, 2025 10:18 AM (tRYqg)

Any movement on your book?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:38 AM (0eaVi)

189 I finished "Escape From Shadow Physics" and it is excellent. It's nice to know that there may be a way out of the spooky world of action at a distance and all the other bizarre phenomena of quantum even if at this point they appear to be just hints at a possible way out. I also started Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time" and I it is excellent so far. Those were both moron recommendations and thank you all for steering me in their direction.

Posted by: who knew at January 26, 2025 10:38 AM (+ViXu)

190 "Perfessor" Squirrel: Thank you. :-)

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at January 26, 2025 10:39 AM (O7YUW)

191 I am a Connelly fan and the Perfessor has highlighted an intriguing story, but new readers should probably read the series in order so the character backstory can be understood. One good thing about Connelly is he has written a number of other series as well, so you won't run short of books once you start.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at January 26, 2025 10:39 AM (TSxyS)

192 Continuing with my reread of LOTR. Glad I'm not in a hurry to finish because I am savoring the word choice and flow a the story develops. Also, in the back of my mind are all the many ways that I see influences on Tolkien's writing; things I've been learning in the last few years. Especially the way Tolkien and George MacDonald can use description to set a mood in the reader.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 10:39 AM (yTvNw)

193 No books to recommend but I am going to do my damnedest to knock out another chapter or two of a story I've been working on.

Posted by: NR Pax at January 26, 2025 10:41 AM (lXCUP)

194 Love stories are wonderful, and everyone cheers when the happy couple is together at last.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 10:23 AM (ZOv7s)

That's why there's so much interest in the Clintons and Obamas!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:42 AM (0eaVi)

195 Saberhagen's best Berserker works are the short stories. He invented them for a couple of "puzzle stories" and then realized they were a huge and popular concept.

He worked his love of medieval and Early Modern history into the series: the story "Stone Place" is basically the Battle of Lepanto, and the novel Brother Assassin features analogs of Galileo and St. Francis IN SPACE!

One of the best Berserker books is Berserker Base, an anthology of stories by other writers. Once again Roger Zelazny does the Johnny Cash trick of writing a better Berserker story than anything Saberhagen ever did (just as RZ wrote the best Larry Niven "Magic Goes Away" setting story for a similar collection).

Posted by: Trimegistus at January 26, 2025 10:44 AM (78a2H)

196 If I buy a book, it's usually because I read it and liked it enough to keep around for re-reading. So it would be remarkable if I bought a book and then found I already had it.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:44 AM (omVj0)

197
Tailchaser's Song was enjoyable. Good mental chewing gum.

Currently rereading books 1 through 14 of The Phoenix Initiative, which is a Four Horsemen Universe series by Chris Kennedy and a ton of other indie authors. If you like space marine, and solid world building check out any of the Four Horsemen Universe stand alone or series books. Some of the series alternate between full length novels and 25 to 30 short stories to build the universe and flesh out characters in the universe.

All authors are indie so you aren't giving the publishing industry a dime too.

https://is.gd/XKynGp
Your shortened URL goes to:
https://chriskennedypublishing.com
/book-series/the-phoenix-initiative/

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2025 10:44 AM (MsrgL)

198 Sitting on a shelf in my house just seemed a waste when someone else might enjoy them.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 10:26 AM (t/2Uw)

This is also the story of kids and their outgrown toys....

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:44 AM (0eaVi)

199 who knew at January 26, 2025 10:38 AM (+ViXu)

Great to hear you liked Shadow Physics and it led you on to Tey. I'll give that a try. For me it led to the Bohm 1952 Pilot Wave papers. It can sometimes take me a full day to get through one equation, and I don't have the math or physics to confirm or dispute, but what a paper, and a mind.

Posted by: Candidus at January 26, 2025 10:44 AM (PhOuQ)

200 I don't reread much but I have read Moby Dick at least 6 times and Focault's Pendulum at least 3. I'm not much of a poetry reader but there are a very few I reread occasionally, one of which is Yeat's "An Irish Airman Meets His Death" that I found in an anthology and just love.

Posted by: who knew at January 26, 2025 10:45 AM (+ViXu)

201 Except for Tolkien and a few books involving Christmas time, my rereading is varied and sporadic. At any time I might pick up a Matt Helm book, original Conan stories, even some of the MASH books. There is comfort in the familiar sometimes and it can be fun to experience the enjoyment I felt on first readings. And, of course, the complete Calvin and Hobbes never gets old.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 10:46 AM (yTvNw)

202 Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (W5ArC)

What was the point of all that inbreeding? To keep the bloodline "pure"?

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2025 10:47 AM (Yj6Os)

203 whoknew
Oops, sorry, from your note I thought Tey was a popular text on the physics of time. Maybe I'll try anyway.

Posted by: Candidus at January 26, 2025 10:47 AM (PhOuQ)

204 . . . I also started Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time" and I it is excellent so far. Those were both moron recommendations and thank you all for steering me in their direction.
Posted by: who knew at January 26, 2025

***
Tey's crime/mystery novels are another example of a woman writer whose work I like. It's not that I dislike having a woman lead character or narrator. It's the modern "Men are doofuses when they're not evil" and "Women are superb creatures, always superior to men, and if they do something evil it's because men forced them into it" attitude that I hate. In the decades prior to about 1970, women writers played fair and told a good story first.

Tey's The Singing Sands and Brat Farrar are both excellent.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:49 AM (omVj0)

205 Time to go! Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at January 26, 2025 10:49 AM (ZOv7s)

206 Read LotR in high school -- the unauthorized Ace Books paperbacks -- and recall just about zip. Don't know how soon I'll get to it, but had a gift card balance at Amazon and the one-volume edition is available in the Kindle store at 1.99, so have laid in a copy for the TBR pile.

Can a zillion Hordelings be wrong?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 10:49 AM (q3u5l)

207 Found a copy of "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and Carl van Doren at the thrift store.
Without looking inside, I took "book" to mean "novel", but no- it's divided into strategies for reading all sort of books.
They cover history, science, technical works and philosophy. "Imaginative writing" gets one small section, the gist of which is "don't do all that stuff we told you to do in the rest of the book, it won't work here."
Looking forward to reading the whole thing. It's the 1972 revision of the original 1940 work, which dealt with the effect of cinema and radio on reading. This one takes TV into consideration.
I wonder what they would thing of home computers?

It's the '72 revision of the work, which was published in 1940.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 10:49 AM (f+FmA)

208 This is also the story of kids and their outgrown toys....

I relate

I have a handmade dollhouse with shutters and windows as well as furniture. Who's going to want that? Kids are probably mostly on I-phones. 😕

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:50 AM (tklPu)

209 Good morning Hordemates.

Posted by: Diogenes at January 26, 2025 10:50 AM (W/lyH)

210 Now see...this is why right here.

You get to the point in your writing where you should deliver a concluding thought or "answer" to what you've written and yet, you abandon your thought, so that nothing concrete is said.

You need to let us know what you think or you've said nothing.

No offense or sarcasm meant...honestly.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (iJfKG)

Oh my! (intake of breath)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:51 AM (0eaVi)

211 In starting to read a new series, at my age it sometimes occurs to me that I might not live long enough to see the end of it. I'm much more likely to commit if each episode is a complete story arc.

Posted by: Toad-0 at January 26, 2025 10:52 AM (cct0t)

212 PSA: For all of you anti-authoritarian Morons not wearing pants (and you and I both know who you are l), and shivering because of it, a leopard-print onesie will keep you warm, while still sticking it to The Man.

Posted by: Bob from NSA at January 26, 2025 10:52 AM (Xnrdt)

213 Haven't read "The Singing Sands" but Ive read "The Daughter of Time" several times and "Brat Farrah" as well.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:53 AM (YmRqZ)

214 If you want to find out if demons are real, all you have to do is read out an audiobook about some saint that put the slap down on demons, or one of the relevant chapters of the Gospel where Jesus makes demons run away.

All of a sudden, things will happen, and they will be annoying things. Because demons are sore losers.

Stay in a state of grace, kids.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at January 26, 2025 10:53 AM (p2GXS)

215 Oddly, I can't get into the actual prose of Jane Austen. I've tried; my long-time favorite Rex Stout loved her work. But there is something about the denseness of the prose that makes it an uphill slog for me. Clearly she told a good story; the fact that her works have lived on, and have been adapted for film (and reworked for modern times in the "Bridget Jones" novels), tells us that.

Same with Dickens, for me. Though I'e read his shorter works, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities, and liked 'em no end. And he was the master at naming characters. "Sairey Gamp," "Mr. Micawber," "Mr. Tulkinghorn," and others are classics.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:54 AM (omVj0)

216 Haven't read "The Singing Sands" but Ive read "The Daughter of Time" several times and "Brat Farrah" as well.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025

***
Singing Sands was her last novel -- a pretty good mystery, and a textbook example of giving the hero a personal problem which he needs to work out in the course of the story as well as solving a puzzle.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:55 AM (omVj0)

217 > What was the point of all that inbreeding? To keep the bloodline "pure"?
Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2025 10:47 AM (Yj6Os)

Yep.

You see a small-scale version of this in the Middle East today. It's very strongly encouraged for you to marry your cousin, so that property doesn't leave the family.

The "Palestinians" have been marrying their cousins for around a thousand years now. Explains quite a bit, dunnit?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:57 AM (W5ArC)

218 Found a copy of "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and Carl van Doren at the thrift store. . . . It's the '72 revision of the work, which was published in 1940.
Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025

***
Humorist Will Cuppy in the 1940s mentioned the book in one of his essays, and added, "It was too late; I'd already read one."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:57 AM (omVj0)

219 Now see...this is why right here.

You get to the point in your writing where you should deliver a concluding thought or "answer" to what you've written and yet, you abandon your thought, so that nothing concrete is said.

You need to let us know what you think or you've said nothing.

No offense or sarcasm meant...honestly.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:33 AM (iJfKG)

Oh my! (intake of breath)
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 10:51 AM (0eaVi)

Ah, well. Did I say too much or too little?

Not meant offensively.

If I remember my morons correctly (IIRMMC)-

Eromero was a Navy Chief. He should have zero problem communicating his thoughts or wishes.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:57 AM (iJfKG)

220 Lesser known crime series the horde might enjoy are:

Russell Blake's "Black" series, featuring detective Artemus Black, an LA detective and former rock band musician with issues and a therapist.

Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" series, the best known of which is probably "Devil In A Blue Dress" (because it was made into a Denzel film), and the series is a good one. Mosley writes mainly about postwar segregated LA, but he occasionally visits Houston as well. Outstanding writing.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at January 26, 2025 10:58 AM (QRFy7)

221 Remember when you're reading LOTR, that a lot of the nature description bits are actually "And then one of the Valar or Maiar, or one of the evil spirit guys, was sticking his nose in."

There's a lot of this in the Barrowdowns section.

And that's why reading the Silmarillion really helps with rereads of LOTR, because you notice the background Valar action.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at January 26, 2025 10:58 AM (p2GXS)

222 I had thought, briefly, that I might just get through LOTR uninterrupted, like I did that first time so many decades ago. That lasted until I came to the first poem, Bilbo's walking song in chapter one. That made me think of poetry in general, especially poetry with a Christian aspect like Rime of the Ancient Mariner. That prompted me to pick up a copy of "Mariner" by Malcolm Guite, part biography of Coleridge, part study on how his life developed in the same way as the poem although he couldn't have known that when he wrote it at 25 years old, part discussion of the Romantic movement, and how these matters are so pertinent to us today. It sounds dull perhaps but Guite brings insight and enthusiasm to the topic and it's easy to get swept up in that enthusiasm and information.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 10:58 AM (yTvNw)

223 The two less formulaic Ambler novels I've found are "The Schirmer Inheritance," in which a young lawyer back from WWII and working in a big Wall Street law firm gets the seemingly mundane job of checking on whether there are any heirs to an estate. He ends up in Europe and finds out the Schirmer family has an interesting history and a few secrets.

"A Kind of Anger" has a Dutch journalist with a stalled career trying to find the mistress of a murdered Iraqi general, and finds out she is a con artist with one last con to pull off.

Posted by: Wethal at January 26, 2025 10:58 AM (NufIr)

224 215 Oddly, I can't get into the actual prose of Jane Austen.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:54 AM (omVj0)

This is why I haven't read much of her books, also. The thing is, my reading time is usually a couple of hours at bedtime, and it's too dense for that. I don't remember anything the next day.

I'll try Austen for next summer's porch reading, when I'm awake and outside, away from the irritating tv.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at January 26, 2025 10:59 AM (OX9vb)

225 The "Palestinians" have been marrying their cousins for around a thousand years now. Explains quite a bit, dunnit?

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:57 AM (W5ArC)

They could use some "hybrid vigor".

Posted by: BignJames at January 26, 2025 11:00 AM (Yj6Os)

226 Don't think I've ever recommended the great Charlotte Armstrong as a mystery writer here.
Great plots, vivid characters and engaging writing.
She is available on Kindle and in used books.

Her "Mischief" was filmed as "Don't Bother to Knock", an early Marilyn Monroe movie.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 11:00 AM (f+FmA)

227 I have a handmade dollhouse with shutters and windows as well as furniture. Who's going to want that? Kids are probably mostly on I-phones. 😕
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 10:50 AM (tklPu)

There should be a market for things like that. I have the dust covered kids dolls and mismatched lego tubs and little kid games I can't get rid of because... "I want to keep that!!!"

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:01 AM (0eaVi)

228 Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:01 AM (0eaVi)

I think I still have "Candyland" and "Mousetrap" both of which I loved playing with son when he was little.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 11:04 AM (95/F9)

229 Cuthbert the Witless @163 re Saberhagen's Berserker series: I highly recommend them. Interestingly Saberhagen did not intend to write a series. His first Berserker story ("Fortress Ship" AKA "Without a Though") was a simple stand alone puzzle story with the Berserker ship as the menace that had to be outwitted. Then he wrote more Berserker stories and invented a background for the Berserkers. He went on to full novels as well as short stories. He did not have a unifying plot line for these. He simply presented them as episodes in humanity's long war against the Berserkers. Some characters appear in more than one story or are referred to as historical figures. Some of the short stories that I particularly enjoyed are "Pressure", "Smashers" and "Wings Out of Shadow".

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at January 26, 2025 11:04 AM (aYnHS)

230 The ~~"Palestinians"~~ British upper class have been marrying their cousins for around a thousand years now. Explains quite a bit, dunnit?

Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 11:05 AM (JVCkA)

231 We were in Indianapolis not for the races once, and had a group tour of the "Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site," his house. It is just what you'd expect, a very nice urban manse of its time with very high ceilings and pretty darn stuffy interior decoration. Real candy for the doily and antimacassar set.

Our guide had enthusiasm, but she was too obviously an underclassman of Modern Museum Studies, and at one point ek-shu-ally said, "What can you say about a president's term when basically nothing happened?" Hooboy.

And that's how I read up on the how and why of Grover Cleveland getting his second term, and better, The Baltimore Affair, during which Harrison walked softy and wielded The Stick that T.R. later immortalized. I hope the guide finished her degree and got eddicated on all that.

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at January 26, 2025 11:06 AM (zdLoL)

232 “You see a small-scale version of this in the Middle East today. It's very strongly encouraged for you to marry your cousin, so that property doesn't leave the family.”

There’s an even more destructive issue than that in Arab culture, not so much in Gaza but seen in the wealthier states, and this the issue of multiple wives. A wealthy man is encouraged (expected!) to support a stable of women to enhance is own prestige; but each woman he accumulates means one more young poor man with no one, no family of his own, no motivation, no roots. It’s why Arab countries accumulate large numbers of young men with nothing to do and who prefer death to going on with their meaningless, useless lives.
And their heads are filled by Imams who tell them this is the best way out for them. No wonder they never run out of jihadis willing to die.

Posted by: Tom Servo at January 26, 2025 11:06 AM (wyMQY)

233 Humorist Will Cuppy in the 1940s mentioned the book in one of his essays, and added, "It was too late; I'd already read one."
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 10:57 AM (omVj0)

Love it!

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 11:07 AM (f+FmA)

234
Recent generations of the European royals seem to have finally gotten the messag -- there have been a lot of commoner marriages in the last few decades.

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at January 26, 2025 10:31 AM (W5ArC)

__________

Line breeding is for dogs.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025 11:08 AM (dxSpM)

235 Ah, well. Did I say too much or too little?

Not meant offensively.

If I remember my morons correctly (IIRMMC)-

Eromero was a Navy Chief. He should have zero problem communicating his thoughts or wishes.
Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 10:57 AM (iJfKG)

No. I was just trying to be funny. I've mentioned a few times about things I'm doing and writing, but no one seems to care. So, I'm not going to say much about how far along I'm getting in writing particular stories. I'll still comment on writing things, but I know some people just seem to want this thread to be about reading books and not interested in hearing about the writing of books. I think this thread can cover both, because there are plenty of writers here. The Perfessor can chime in here, if he wishes.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:08 AM (0eaVi)

236 The Tom Mix Museum in Barnsdall, Okla.

And I've never been to the J.M. Davis Gun Museum in Claremore although it's just up the highway. Once again, someday.
Posted by: Weak Geek at January 26, 2025 09:50 AM (p/isN)

I have been to the Tom Mix memorial along the highway south of Florence, AZ. Nice little spot to stop and view the outdoor posters and stuff. Very near the site of his fatal car wreck.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 26, 2025 11:10 AM (8zz6B)

237 Speaking of rereading, my go-to for many years was "Gone with the Wind." As the acquiring editor with McMillan said, after meeting Margaret Mitchell, "if she writes like she talks, it'll be a honey of a book."

Folks nowadays don't realize that she won the Pulitzer Prize for that book and it was the number one bestseller for many years, second only to the Bible. A friend of mine who is a very sophisticated gay man who worked for Paramount and CBS et al., said to me, "Gone With the Wind really is the Great American novel isn't it?" And I said yes it is because it gets the whole scope and sweep of the war between the states, it has marvelous character portraits of folks from all walks of life (including the slaves), and Mitchell had a delicious dry wit: which they couldn't get into the movie.

She researched the historical background for ten years, and drew on the firsthand accounts she'd heard growing up of the war and Reconstruction (sic), because she wanted to create a true, unvarnished portrait of that cataclysmic era. Mitchell scorned the "moonlight and magnolias" school of Southern fiction. And she was a powerful storyteller, Dickensian in scope.

Posted by: Beverly at January 26, 2025 11:10 AM (Epeb0)

238 My cat pushed my Kindle Fire off the kitchen table and busted the screen. It was $20 more to just buy a new one.

Alleluia. I reloaded all the books I like.

I am currently reading Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein." Very interesting.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 11:10 AM (JVCkA)

239
Back from my White Supremacist Christian Nationalist get-together.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025 11:11 AM (dxSpM)

240 226 Don't think I've ever recommended the great Charlotte Armstrong as a mystery writer here.
Great plots, vivid characters and engaging writing.
She is available on Kindle and in used books.

Her "Mischief" was filmed as "Don't Bother to Knock", an early Marilyn Monroe movie.
Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025

***
I always get Armstrong mixed up with British writer Christianna Brand.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:12 AM (omVj0)

241 How was the homily at Mass?

Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 11:12 AM (JVCkA)

242
Eromero was a Navy Chief. He should have zero problem communicating his thoughts or wishes.

Posted by: naturalfake

Wash his coffee cup. He'll speak right up on what he thinks, clearly and succintly.

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2025 11:13 AM (MsrgL)

243 I am going to Good Shepherd Church in Mira Mesa today. Mostly Filipinos.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 11:13 AM (JVCkA)

244 Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:08 AM (0eaVi)

I'd like to hear about what you're writing and doing The issue is, I rarely get to comment on this thread because of church responsibilities.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 11:14 AM (bevB2)

245 and better, The Baltimore Affair, during which Harrison walked softy and wielded The Stick that T.R. later immortalized.
Posted by: Way,Way Downriver
_________

We didn't have much of a stick. The US Navy was still a joke, the first couple of New Navy battleships being more for coast defense. Maybe the Olympia was commissioned by then. Not sure.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 26, 2025 11:15 AM (Dm8we)

246 I have never read "Gone With the Wind" . I guess that I should.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 11:16 AM (bevB2)

247 "Gone With the Wind really is the Great American novel isn't it?"

-
My literature teacher in high school said that no author could be considered great based upon one book except for Gone With the Wind.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Rex, Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent Made Glorious Summer By This Son of [New] York at January 26, 2025 11:17 AM (L/fGl)

248
How was the homily at Mass?
Posted by: no one of any consequence at January 26, 2025 11:12 AM (JVCkA)

________

Very good. Fr. Daniel spoke on gossip, detraction and calumny. Very enlightening. As a bonus, we got to listen to the whole sermon again in Spanish

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025 11:17 AM (dxSpM)

249 Regarding series getting gummed up, it is an occupational hazard of writers. Perfectly innocuous decisions in Book 1 or 2 come back to haunt you in book 3 or 4, and it can paralyze the story. Especially non-pantsers, or writers who have to have EVERYTHING planned out and detailed and secret histories going back a thousand years ... yeah, you aren't going to write your way out of that easily. My secret? Don't put a detail in unless it advances the story or provides atmosphere. Mounds of unnecessary detail just gets in the way. And it makes it much easier to pull the story thread and weave it back into the plot, and the reader never knows!

Posted by: Sabrina Chase at January 26, 2025 11:17 AM (SH29h)

250 . . . "Gone With the Wind really is the Great American novel isn't it?" And I said yes it is because it gets the whole scope and sweep of the war between the states, it has marvelous character portraits of folks from all walks of life (including the slaves), and Mitchell had a delicious dry wit: which they couldn't get into the movie. . . . Mitchell scorned the "moonlight and magnolias" school of Southern fiction. And she was a powerful storyteller, Dickensian in scope.
Posted by: Beverly at January 26, 2025
*
And her portrait of Scarlett is one of the great ones of fiction. It's been suggested that Scarlett is something of a psychopath in the way she goes about achieving her ends and trampling on people along the way.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:18 AM (omVj0)

251 237 Speaking of rereading, my go-to for many years was "Gone with the Wind." As the acquiring editor with McMillan said, after meeting Margaret Mitchell, "if she writes like she talks, it'll be a honey of a book."
...
And she was a powerful storyteller, Dickensian in scope.
Posted by: Beverly at Janua

I've been re-reading this for nearly 60 years. I was way too young to really understand it the first time and of course my appreciation of it has matured over the decades with life experience.
I love your comparison of her with Dickens.
Scarlett reminds me in some ways of another favorite fictional character, Kristin Lavransdattor.
You want to tell them both "Oh, no Baby- what is you doing?"
But then there wouldn't have been a story.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 11:19 AM (f+FmA)

252 243 I am going to Good Shepherd Church in Mira Mesa today. Mostly Filipinos.

Maayo!
Magaling!

Posted by: meh at January 26, 2025 11:19 AM (kK7U2)

253 I would interested to know what Calvin Coolidge read because he is my favorite "modern" President aside from Trump. Some stupid leftist online joked about Trump being illiterate. I suspect Trump may have read more books than that person had.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 11:19 AM (cnNG+)

254 She researched the historical background for ten years, and drew on the firsthand accounts she'd heard growing up of the war and Reconstruction (sic), because she wanted to create a true, unvarnished portrait of that cataclysmic era. Mitchell scorned the "moonlight and magnolias" school of Southern fiction. And she was a powerful storyteller, Dickensian in scope.
Posted by: Beverly at January 26, 2025 11:10 AM (Epeb0)

And never published another novel again.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:20 AM (0eaVi)

255 Beverly @ 237, spot on about Mitchell and GWTW and her research and wit. I read that to shreds, literally, when I was a kid, and just finished rereading the paperback I subsequently bought. Probably my favorite novel ever..

Posted by: skywch at January 26, 2025 11:21 AM (uqhmb)

256 According to Kindle, I have less than 2 hours of reading left to finish Hans Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy, the God that Failed." It has been a pleasure to read and it fills in a lot of the mystery around how society might work in the absence a state. He makes Hobbes's claim that government provided protection is an improvement over man's natural state look foolish:

"In order to peaceful cooperation among individuals A and B, a third party, S, is required to be the ultimate judge and peacemaker... S is not just another individual...Rather, S is sovereign and has as such two unique powers. ...S can insist that A and B not seek protection from any but S; and S can determine unilaterally now much A and B must spend on their own security."

Javier Miles claims Triple H as a major influence.

Posted by: Oglebay at January 26, 2025 11:21 AM (ogTiX)

257
I would interested to know what Calvin Coolidge read because he is my favorite "modern" President aside from Trump.

__________

He translated Dante for his wife, if that's any indication.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025 11:21 AM (dxSpM)

258 [Margaret Mitchell] researched the historical background for ten years, and drew on the firsthand accounts she'd heard growing up of the war and Reconstruction (sic), because she wanted to create a true, unvarnished portrait of that cataclysmic era. Mitchell scorned the "moonlight and magnolias" school of Southern fiction. And she was a powerful storyteller, Dickensian in scope.
Posted by: Beverly at January 26, 2025
*
And never published another novel again.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025

***
I seem to recall Mitchell died in a car accident not long after the movie premiered.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:23 AM (omVj0)

259
I seem to recall Mitchell died in a car accident not long after the movie premiered.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:23 AM (omVj0)

_________

Died in 1949 after being hit by a car.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025 11:25 AM (dxSpM)

260 A couple of Mitchell's biographers have posited that she was overwhelmed by the novel's success, as who would not have been in those days, and also that she tried to answer so much of her fan mail personally.

Posted by: skywch at January 26, 2025 11:26 AM (uqhmb)

261 The Joseph R. Biden Presidential Library Fund has announced that the library will contain President Biden's personal collection of Archie comic books and Hustler magazines.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at January 26, 2025 11:26 AM (gm9Sb)

262 I know this puts me at odds with the popular culture and the general mood of the public, but I don't think George Martin is that great an author and couldn't stand the Game of Thrones books. To be fair, I only read the first and stopped halfway through then skimmed the rest.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 11:27 AM (2VST1)

263 -
My literature teacher in high school said that no author could be considered great based upon one book except for Gone With the Wind.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Rex

In graduate school, i took 700 and 800 level Literature electives whenever I could. I learned a lot of my favorite classic authors communicated between each other, much as we do here, but via letters.

For example Herman Melville regularly exchanged letters with Nathaniel Hawthorne. In one, he was giving Hawthorne crap about his style in hats (he wore a tricorn hat). In Hawthorne's return, he gave Melville crap about not finishing 'the whale'. Some of those letters can be found here: http://www.melville.org/corresp.htm

Posted by: BifBewalski at January 26, 2025 11:27 AM (MsrgL)

264 And her portrait of Scarlett is one of the great ones of fiction. It's been suggested that Scarlett is something of a psychopath in the way she goes about achieving her ends and trampling on people along the way.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:18 AM (omVj0)

It would be interesting to debate that.
To me, the hinge of the novel is not the "I'll never be hungry again" scene, but a bit later when she's in Atlanta, trying to raise the tax money and attends a wedding of old friends, now living in a wrecked house but carrying on as if nothing has changed. She realizes that she is so different now that she can't go back to her former self.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 11:27 AM (f+FmA)

265 He translated Dante for his wife, if that's any indication.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025 11:21 AM (dxSpM)

I could have done that, but I just didn't want to.

Posted by: President Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. at January 26, 2025 11:27 AM (PiwSw)

266 I have never read "Gone With the Wind" . I guess that I should.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 26, 2025 11:16 AM (bevB2)

Thanks. Oh, and you don't have to read that long book. There's a short version online....

https://tinyurl.com/2vwn4ndr

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:28 AM (0eaVi)

267 She researched the historical background for ten years, and drew on the firsthand accounts she'd heard growing up of the war and Reconstruction (sic), because she wanted to create a true, unvarnished portrait of that cataclysmic era. Mitchell scorned the "moonlight and magnolias" school of Southern fiction. And she was a powerful storyteller, Dickensian in scope.
Posted by: Beverly at January 26, 2025 11:10 AM (Epeb0)

Also my favorite book (and movie). My mom gave me the program from the movie opening in Seattle in 1939 (40?), which I keep with my ancient hard back copy of the book she gave me when I was about 10. A few years ago I was lucky enough to visit the GWTW exhibit at the Ransom center at UT where they had Scarlett's green and white bar-b-q dress and some other iconic wardrobe pieces, as well as Margaret Mitchell's and David Selznick's many letters and notes about casting and shooting the movie. Incredible fun.

Posted by: LASue at January 26, 2025 11:28 AM (lCppi)

268 Another favorite book of mine to reread is Dorothy Sayers's best novel, "Gaudy Night," which she dryly described as a love story encumbered by a mystery plot. Marvelous depiction of the delicate and passionate dance of two intellectuals falling in love.

Posted by: Beverly at January 26, 2025 11:30 AM (Epeb0)

269 Comment: It's hard for me to dismiss the existence of Satan and his minions. I've had too many odd experiences in recent years that have forced me to recognize their reality.

Comment: I think the consensus around here is that McCarthy was *right* about Communists infiltrating government at all levels.

My Comment - and I'm pretty sure of it. We'd have to invent Satan and Communists, if we didn't already have the words. Its expressions of Human Nature. Humans are, get this, not good. The more I see of Human Nature, the less I trust of Humans.

I don't think there's an external force, political or spiritual, stopping us in Western Civ from collectively enjoying all this obvious prosperity. We, collectively, do all the stopping ourselves.

Posted by: Easy at January 26, 2025 11:30 AM (dmCwa)

270 Now Divine Services for all hands.

Posted by: Eromero at January 26, 2025 11:31 AM (DXbAa)

271 I seem to recall Mitchell died in a car accident not long after the movie premiered.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:23 AM (omVj0)

Died in '49, per Wiki

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:32 AM (0eaVi)

272 If you're a fan of GWTW and Scarlett O'Hara,

check out what was more than likely a model for both with

"Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray and it's main character Becky Sharp.

Posted by: naturalfake at January 26, 2025 11:32 AM (iJfKG)

273 Javier Miles claims Triple H as a major influence.
Posted by: Oglebay at January 26, 2025 11:21 AM (ogTiX)

So, heel turn coming soon?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:33 AM (0eaVi)

274 My literature teacher in high school said that no author could be considered great based upon one book except for Gone With the Wind

I think you could have said the same thing for Harper Lee but then she wrote a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird and it sucked.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 11:33 AM (2VST1)

275 GWTW: Ann Rutherford, who played the youngest sister, stepped in to convince TPTB to leave Leigh's eyebrows alone, as they were in character.

Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025 11:34 AM (f+FmA)

276 Except is another word like But. Don't believe a single word before it.

Posted by: Easy at January 26, 2025 11:36 AM (dmCwa)

277 @245 The other fellow blinked first.
The Influence of Sea Power upon History.

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at January 26, 2025 11:37 AM (zdLoL)

278 An undercurrent of much of my reading the last few years involves the dichotomy of the Enlightenment and science versus imagination, especially poetic imagination. Science may be a way to garner information in a sterile world view but human imagination, a gift to man from God, is the means to wisdom and meaning. And poetry is one important way to express such matters. There is an element, at least, of this in Tolkien's idea of 'subcreation' and in the Romantic's philosophy. That the Romantic's approach fell from popular favor or has been twisted into the current tree hugger view of nature doesn't make them completely wrong. I wonder if aspects of this helps explain a resurgence of interest in Christianity and, especially, Catholicism.

I was surprised to learn that the word poetry/poem derives from the Greek word for 'to make'.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 11:39 AM (yTvNw)

279 I don't know how good the book is but I found the film of Gone With The Wind to be excessively long melodrama. Like a soap opera that goes on 3 hours. Nobody in the entire movie is likable.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 11:39 AM (2VST1)

280 I would interested to know what Calvin Coolidge read

Fen, you are in for a treat. Coolidge wrote his own translation of Dante (from 'proto-Italian'?) and translated Caesar's Gallic Chronicles!

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at January 26, 2025 11:40 AM (zdLoL)

281 I know this puts me at odds with the popular culture and the general mood of the public, but I don't think George Martin is that great an author and couldn't stand the Game of Thrones books. To be fair, I only read the first and stopped halfway through then skimmed the rest.
Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025

***
His early '80s vampire historical novel, Fevre Dream, is a top-notch thriller and adventure story, as if Mark Twain had collaborated with Stephen King at his best. It features an unusual take on vampires, too -- no, not making them exotic and attractive and misunderstood; quite the opposite. Martin was capable of producing dynamite stories. I think maybe he bit off more than he could chew with the Thrones series.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:40 AM (omVj0)

282 I'm rereading the "Bob and Nikki" series of "Bob's Saucer Repair" stories from the late Jerry Boyd. 52 novels in the series, but they are light reading even for space operas.
One of the perils of rereading such fare is you get impatient for the protagonists to spot the obvious spies and ruses that are opposing them. You want to yell "That man is a Squirrel agent!" at the characters a lot.

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at January 26, 2025 11:40 AM (PH3st)

283 Good morning, Book Folk! I read several novel aimed at Middle Graders (4th, 5th, 6th Graders). I've noticed several patterns, the most prominent being the novels are told from several alternating viewpoints. The characters are male and female, no romance among the characters (thankfully), and the conflicts among the characters are due to personalities, not race or "gender.". The characters have the appropriate maturity level for their ages. The plots are rather formulaic, but is probably new to it's intended audience, I.e., not me.

Posted by: March Hare at January 26, 2025 11:40 AM (jfX+U)

284 Am reading We Who Wrestle with God, an analysis of how the psyche interprets the Bible. So fun! It will make me a hit at all the parties!

Posted by: Field Marshal Zhukov at January 26, 2025 11:42 AM (wBaIH)

285 Thanks. Oh, and you don't have to read that long book. There's a short version online....

https://tinyurl.com/2vwn4ndr

I haven't seen that in ages and had forgotten how hilariously over the top Vicki Lawrence was as Prissy. Probably couldn't parody a black character like that anymore.

Posted by: Oddbob at January 26, 2025 11:42 AM (/y8xj)

286 I seem to recall Martin's novel The Armageddon Rag as being a pretty decent read as well. Some of his short fiction was a lot of fun. If you haven't read it, "Sandkings" is worth a look.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 11:42 AM (q3u5l)

287 The other fellow blinked first.
The Influence of Sea Power upon History.
Posted by: Way,Way Downriver
__________

That's my point. They really didn't need to since our navy was still pretty much for shit in 1891. Not much of anything in terms of ocean going warships.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 26, 2025 11:42 AM (Dm8we)

288 There is a Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, VA. I guess it must be privately run. I have never had an interest in going there to find out.
*********
we've been. I don't believe it's an official Presidential Library, rather a birthplace with items from his Presidency in it.

Posted by: Grateful - the range bag lady at January 26, 2025 11:43 AM (IQ6Gq)

289 @279 Another big disappointment, then: The Wizard of Oz was a political allegory, all about prairie fire and monetary standards, and was read in its original popularity as a philosophical tome. TJM will clarify but the 1939 movie was the second or third try at making it into a movie. They said it couldn't be done.

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at January 26, 2025 11:43 AM (zdLoL)

290 And her portrait of Scarlett is one of the great ones of fiction. It's been suggested that Scarlett is something of a psychopath in the way she goes about achieving her ends and trampling on people along the way.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025
*
It would be interesting to debate that.
To me, the hinge of the novel is not the "I'll never be hungry again" scene, but a bit later when she's in Atlanta, trying to raise the tax money and attends a wedding of old friends, now living in a wrecked house but carrying on as if nothing has changed. She realizes that she is so different now that she can't go back to her former self.
Posted by: sal at January 26, 2025

***
There is her cold-blooded marriage to the former plantation owner who has retained some of his property and money and has always loved her, just so she can leverage herself upward. She treats him like dirt and drops him (or maybe he dies?) when she no longer needs him.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:43 AM (omVj0)

291 An undercurrent of much of my reading the last few years involves the dichotomy of the Enlightenment and science versus imagination, especially poetic imagination. Science may be a way to garner information in a sterile world view but human imagination, a gift to man from God, is the means to wisdom and meaning. And poetry is one important way to express such matters.

We are at this point, in no small part, because the knee-jerk reaction away from the "New Soviet Man" - that was pushed under different names from both sides during the Cold War - is this idea that "if you can dream it, you can do it".

Both views are bullshit.

Posted by: Easy at January 26, 2025 11:44 AM (dmCwa)

292 @287 You're right then. Nothing at all happened in the 1890's.
The world then ended, and everybody died. The End.

Posted by: Way,Way Downriver at January 26, 2025 11:45 AM (zdLoL)

293 I seem to recall Mitchell died in a car accident not long after the movie premiered.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:23 AM (omVj0)

_________

Died in 1949 after being hit by a car.
Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at January 26, 2025

***
Ten years later? I had the impression from something my mother once told me that Mitchell was just starting to enjoy the money and fame from GWTW when she was killed. I always imagined she was run down right after the premiere of the film or something!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:46 AM (omVj0)

294 My literature teacher in high school said that no author could be considered great based upon one book except for Gone With the Wind.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Rex, Now Is the Winter of Our Discontent Made Glorious Summer By This Son of [New] York at January 26, 2025 11:17 AM (L/fGl)

I've heard they made that into a movie some time ago.

Posted by: Dr Pork Chops & Bacons at January 26, 2025 11:46 AM (g8Ew8)

295 Ten years later? I had the impression from something my mother once told me that Mitchell was just starting to enjoy the money and fame from GWTW when she was killed. I always imagined she was run down right after the premiere of the film or something!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 11:46 AM (omVj0)

That could make an interesting book.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 11:48 AM (0eaVi)

296 TJM will clarify but the 1939 movie was the second or third try at making it into a movie. They said it couldn't be done.
_____

Wizard of Oz was finally successful because they made it a musical. Something I've been saying for years should be done with filming Ayn Rand's oeuvre.

/jk

Posted by: Chuck Martel at January 26, 2025 11:48 AM (fs1hN)

297 Well, things to do and people to annoy...

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at January 26, 2025 11:49 AM (q3u5l)

298 You're right then. Nothing at all happened in the 1890's.
The world then ended, and everybody died. The End.
Posted by: Way,Way Downriver
__________

Not quite sure what you're saying. The only point I'm making is that in 1891, we had a few cruisers, but no battleships that could have made it to the Chilean coast.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at January 26, 2025 11:52 AM (Dm8we)

299 G'morn. Or noon as it may be. A very late start to my online day. Presume the book thread is about to expire. Just wanted to wave hi and send good heart to alla y'all.
❣️

Posted by: mindful webworker - have a day at January 26, 2025 11:53 AM (Wp9EI)

300 I love Watership Down. Yes, it's a book about a bunch of damn bunny rabbits. It's also a great novel.

I am definitely a rereader. I find that books grow with me and I can appreciate them so much better with more knowledge and with the perspective of age. (One of my great regrets is that I didn't discover The Blue Castle as a kid. Meeting Valancy for the first time when I was only twelve would have been such a wonderful experience, and coming back to her story over and over as I grew would have given it richness and personal meaning even beyond what it means to me today.)

Haven't reread GWTW in a while. Maybe I'll pick that up once I get through these Benedict Society kids' books that I'm reading before I hand over to the kids.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at January 26, 2025 11:54 AM (Y+AMd)

301 TJM will clarify but the 1939 movie was the second or third try at making it into a movie. They said it couldn't be done.

They made Maltese Falcon twice before the John Huston classic came out, some of that was that they had to learn how to use film and get the art of direction down until they knew how to make that kind of film. Plus, one of the efforts was a sort of romantic comedy which completely misses the point.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 11:56 AM (2VST1)

302 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction?

Bulwer-Lytton used them extensively

Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2025 11:56 AM (D7oie)

303 Just about every book in my library has been reread at least once.
I have even reread LOTR up to about page 80 then I quit. Just cannot get into it.
At all.

Posted by: Diogenes at January 26, 2025 11:58 AM (W/lyH)

304 "if you can dream it, you can do it".

Both views are bullshit.
Posted by: Easy at January 26, 2025 11:44 AM (dmCwa)

New age hippies: visualize, materialize.

Posted by: 13times at January 26, 2025 12:00 PM (5haTy)

305 Oh man! End of the book thread again! Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 12:01 PM (0eaVi)

306 McCarthy should have been President, not that fool Eisenhower. History shows that the Democrats back then weren’t much different than today. They fabricated evidence to cover up an unpopular communist subversion of our government while screaming the 50s equivalent of “disinformation!”

I view Trump as McCarthy’s revenge in some ways. McCarthy wasn’t very ideological and was fairly moderate (he was a liberal Republican) but he wanted to keep the country safe from enemies foreign and domestic. The deep state destroyed McCarthy and they’ve tried to destroy Trump.

Posted by: Disinterested FDA Director at January 26, 2025 12:01 PM (FC8SQ)

307 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction?
*
Bulwer-Lytton used them extensively
Posted by: Kindltot at January 26, 2025

***
That's not a good recommendation. Of course the standard in his time was for the author to inject his comments on the action and on the characters -- to "tell" rather than "show," which we prefer nowadays. To which I say, sometimes you *gotta* tell instead of show. If you do, keep it short and move on.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 12:01 PM (omVj0)

308 A question for the writers among us, and the readers too. Do you object to the occasional use of parentheses in fiction?

Its about how you use it. Excessive use will be annoying, use that breaks the flow of thought won't work, etc.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 12:01 PM (2VST1)

309 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

310 WE HAZ A NOOD
Posted by: Skip at January 26, 2025 12:01 PM (fwDg9)

Eeek! A masher!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 12:02 PM (0eaVi)

311 Thanks to the Perfessor and all of you for a great Book Thread!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at January 26, 2025 12:03 PM (omVj0)

312 New age hippies: visualize, materialize.

Manifesting, such a lame and dumb idea. We supposedly live in this enlightened, scientific age of reason and people are still trying to use magic.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 12:05 PM (2VST1)

313 60 I remember an Agatha Christie mystery about four bridge players, and I thought it should be easy b/c there were only a few suspects but she still managed to throw me off the trail.

Posted by: Norrin Radd, sojourner of the spaceways at January 26, 2025 12:07 PM (6Z3+e)

314 CRT, you are not alone in your disgust with the Martin books. I read all 5. He did not finish a single story line. I always had the impression he had no idea where he was going. I always thought that authors knew the story they were telling and had it somewhat mapped out ahead of time. But he was just making it up as he went along .
Am I wrong about that? Do you authors know how the story ends when you start to write it?

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 12:08 PM (t/2Uw)

315 The Dead of a Book Thread by Overwrought Politics.

Posted by: 13times at January 26, 2025 12:09 PM (5haTy)

316 Am I wrong about that? Do you authors know how the story ends when you start to write it?
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 12:08 PM (t/2Uw)

Still here for a few. Generally, I know the ending. Sometimes I even know the last line. But how you start and where you end up can be different than what you planned.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 12:10 PM (0eaVi)

317 There once was a boy who was born without a body. All he had was a head and neck. From the time of his birth his parents sought the fest medical care available. Finally, when he was nine years old his parents found a surgeon in Europe who had developed a technique for implanting a head onto a body and he had agreed to take on the boy's case. A few days before his 10th birthday the boy's parents excitedly told him that for his birthday this year they had a very, very, special surprise.

He rolled his eyes and said, "Good grief, I hope it's not another f**ing hat!"

I feel the same way about epic fantasy series.

Posted by: muldoon at January 26, 2025 12:12 PM (991eG)

318 There are three types of writers, Sharon.

1. The outliner who plans everything in advance and follows it.

2. The pantser who writes however it comes out.

3. The hybrid who will outline, but also just write and see where the story goes.

I'm number three. Most of the time.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 12:13 PM (0eaVi)

319 I feel the same way about epic fantasy series.
Posted by: muldoon at January 26, 2025 12:12 PM (991eG)

No, no, Muldoon.

The story is the kid gets a whole body, but something bad happens at the end. The moral: quit while you're a head.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 26, 2025 12:14 PM (0eaVi)

320 No, no, Muldoon.

The story is the kid gets a whole body, but something bad happens at the end. The moral: quit while you're a head.
Posted by: OrangeEn

*********

That's a different joke entirely, but that said, the punch line could apply equally to fantasy epic series writers.

Posted by: muldoon at January 26, 2025 12:18 PM (991eG)

321 Thanks OE. I think #3 is probably the best as sometimes a character can take on a life of it's own. I've also read that sometimes authors fall in love with a character. I think this is fine.
What I hate is when a writer is just trying to con his readers. He is actually a talentless hack who goes off on tangents because he has no idea of whee he wants to take the story. I saw a story that Martin had a group of supyncophants who tried to keep,track of the different story lines to remind him of what he had already written.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 12:28 PM (t/2Uw)

322 I don’t know if George RR Martin was ruined by spending his talents on reworking his books for TV, but the last book he finished in the Song of Ice and Fire series was nothing but a tedious travelogue through his fictional world. I trudged through it to the end and can’t remember a thing about it except for Tyrion riding a pig for the circus (a total disrespect for the best character in the series). Martin will probably never finish the series because he’s lost his mojo.

Posted by: RebeccaH at January 26, 2025 12:29 PM (Nvors)

323
Tyrion was an odious gnome
Rode a pig everywhere he did roam
The speed was subsonic
But I find it ironic
'Twas the bacon that brought Tyrion home

Posted by: muldoon at January 26, 2025 12:36 PM (991eG)

324 Except for the first book which was shocking because he killed off a major character that I had grown to like and looked forward to seeing what he would do, the rest of the series is trash. Each chapter is a difference character so there is no continuity to the story. You have to read through 3 or 4 chapters to find out what happened a 100 pages ago. That is what I took away from the books and swore never to read another.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at January 26, 2025 12:44 PM (t/2Uw)

325 Regarding presidential libraries, why does Gerald Ford get both a library and a museum? Ford is basically remembered for pardoning Richard Nixon, which likely cost him reelection.

Ford was a decent guy, but he was never elected either president or vice president, and his accomplishments as president were minimal.

Posted by: Ralph at January 26, 2025 12:46 PM (TysyT)

326 The discussions about Tom Bombadil sometimes surprise me since I always liked that sequence. When I first read the book as a preteen I thought Tom and Goldberry were at least interesting and entertaining and leant some mystery to Middle-Earth. As a much older reader I see them as representing, among other things, the power of hope and understanding and light against encroaching darkness. My first enjoyment never faded but it has been enriched as I aged and learned.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 12:50 PM (yTvNw)

327 186 ... "I know people have comfort foods. I do too, I suppose, but I also have "comfort" books."

Fen, That's an excellent way to describe rereading.

Posted by: JTB at January 26, 2025 12:58 PM (yTvNw)

328 If you have trouble getting through a book, consider trying it as an audiobook.

If an audiobook narrator is good at his/her trade, the conversations and narrations will be brought out in an entertaining way, by someone who "gets" the rhythms of the book.

The same thing is true with poetry.

Remember that all literature was originally meant to be heard and remembered, more than read out. Audiobooks bring us back to that idea.

Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at January 26, 2025 01:08 PM (p2GXS)

329 I do have to disagree with you about re-reading murder mysteries.
Agatha Christie is one of the exceptions; others are Josephine Tey and Daphne du Maurier.
All of them have well written the atmosphere of their time (or even past times), and, in Agatha's case, written stories so clearly showing the customs and thinking of the Elite of past eras, that reading them takes me back to the Brits that I had known in my youth.
Just as Fitzgerald and Hemingway did for the times they lived in, the above writers used their settings to both explore the then-popular genre, but also to skewer the more exaggerated trends of their time.

Posted by: Linda S Fox at January 26, 2025 01:14 PM (7Rs+y)

330 Late to the thread, but here I am.
Still working through 'Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies'. An incredible recounting of the 'McCarthy hearings' and the surounding events. Extremely well documented and, I think, a 'must read' by political observers.

The Democrat playbook has not altered. When a genuine patriot shows up with questions, launch ad hominem attacks against that person, rather than investigating the facts. Do anything to deflect from those facts, well-being of the country does not figure in.

Also still reading 'Out Stealing Horses', Petterson. A very unusual and thoughtful novel about an aging Norwegian, reflecting on the events in his life. I think my female friends would describe this a 'boy book', and they would be correct in that I don't know how most women regard books with only male characters. I have been struck by how evocative the book has been for me, in that I can relate to many of the circumstances that arise. Excerpt:
"I believe we shape our lives ourselves, at any rate I have shaped mine, for what it’s worth, and I take complete responsibility. "

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at January 26, 2025 01:23 PM (XeU6L)

331 Biden’s Library will be a teleprompter in an empty room.

Posted by: Kenneth King Neil at January 26, 2025 01:23 PM (/g9JB)

332 The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

I've read all of Connellys books, you will have to grit your teeth over some of his California liberal politics that seep in to his prose, but he is a solid writer.

Posted by: Pupster at January 26, 2025 01:42 PM (DuqHK)

333 There is a lot of woke nonsense being written today. It seems like every book needs to have a gay couple of some sort, if not two gay couples. Sometimes the gay couple is the subject of the books.

I don't mind an occasional reference to gay couples, but how many gay couples do you know? I know of only one out of the hundreds of people I know.

And I won't even begin to talk about the global warming nonsense in today's books.

Posted by: Ralph at January 26, 2025 02:12 PM (TysyT)

334 As much as I am a huge Larry Correia fan (which is a bit of a pun, since the guy is effing enormous), I would really prefer that he spend the next year as ATF director winding down the organization. He has the qualifications, he has the attitude, and he wants to go home afterwards.

(Knowing him, he'd probably still write his books while in DC, just slightly slower.)

Posted by: bittergeek at January 26, 2025 02:31 PM (NFXcl)

335 256 According to Kindle, I have less than 2 hours of reading left to finish Hans Hermann Hoppe's "Democracy, the God that Failed." It has been a pleasure to read and it fills in a lot of the mystery around how society might work in the absence a state. ....

Javier Miles claims Triple H as a major influence.
Posted by: Oglebay at January 26, 2025 11:21 AM (ogTiX)

I had to re-read the comment to make sure you were refereeing to some author, and not pro-wrestler Hunter Hearst Helmsly, who has been using the Tripple H moniker for nearly three decades. That being said, I could actually believe that Javier Miles might take a lot of (metaphorical) influence from a guy who hits his enemies in the face with a sledge-hammer...

Posted by: Castle Guy at January 26, 2025 02:38 PM (Lhaco)

336 Am I wrong about that? Do you authors know how the story ends when you start to write it?

Generally, although a lot of authors (such as myself) will write "by the seat of our pants" where we have a concept and a really vague idea of the story, and just write whatever comes to us as we write. I had no idea how Life Unworthy was going to end, and that worked out okay.

But for a book series like Song of Fire and Ice... you need notes and an ending.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 03:28 PM (2VST1)

337 Regarding presidential libraries, why does Gerald Ford get both a library and a museum? Ford was a decent guy, but he was never elected either president or vice president,

Posted by: Ralph at January 26, 2025 12:46 PM

Seriously, who did Gerald Ford think he was? John McCain?

Posted by: Rusty Nail at January 26, 2025 05:08 PM (TdCYS)

338 Most of what Ford did was veto the outrageous insane extremes of the Democrat-controlled congress. They figured with Nixon down it was time for the Red October revolution and went absolutely nuts. Ford just vetoed the hell out of them.

Posted by: Christopher R Taylor at January 26, 2025 05:31 PM (2VST1)

339 Bluebell (#90):
Yes, the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton is privately run and financed. All the older ones are.

I've lived literally next door for 16.5 years and also never had any desire to go inside. The man was a terrible president and a horrible human being. I used to like to say that I had never set foot inside, but I did go into the gift shop a few years ago to tell them to tell their buildings and grounds guy that he had a tent caterpillar infestation in the black walnut trees in the gardens. I only cared because I was worried they would spread to the trees in my (well, my landlord's) back yard. I do walk around the garden, now and then, but you have to be careful in the fall: the osage orange trees would definitely knock you cold and maybe fracture your skull when they drop their heavy fruits from 50+ feet up.

If you are ever in Staunton, do walk by. You can see Wilson's 1916 Pierce Arrow convertible through the picture window without paying admission. Or you could just look at pictures of it on the web. You do need to come to Staunton for the Blackfriars Playhouse, one of the best Shakespeare theaters in the world.

Posted by: Dr. Weevil at January 26, 2025 09:29 PM (43XUo)

340 Oops. I think Wilson's car was actually a 1919.

Posted by: Dr. Weevil at January 26, 2025 09:30 PM (43XUo)

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