Sunday Morning Book Thread - 2-16-2025 ["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 (you were warned...). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

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

PIC NOTE

The university library in which I work (but do not work for) had this display near the front entrance to celebrate Valentine's Day. The idea is to select a "blind date" of a book, check it out, and then read it. The books are wrapped in colorful paper and have a short blurb that summarizes the book, but is vague enough that it's very difficult to determine the actual title of the book. I tried it once, but I didn't much care for the book that I selected. Noticeably absent this year is a display celebrating Black History Month. The other display table had various books celebrating "Engineers Week" instead.

TOLKIEN AS A PROFESSOR

J.R.R. Tolkien was not just one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, he was very much an academic as well. Among his many duties as an academic was teaching classes. From the video above, it sounds like students had a bit of a love/hate relationship with him as a professor. Some seemed to really enjoy his classes, while others didn't much care for his teaching style.

At the university where I work, we also have a number of professors like Tolkien. Among my own duties is working with professors who receive low scores on their end-of-course evaluations. One trend we see a lot is that professors who teach both graduate and undergraduate students will often score higher among the graduate students they teach than they do among their undergraduate students. I suspect Professor Tolkien might have seen something similar if he was required to gather that information. Undergraduate students just want to get through the course, especially if the professor has a reputation for being a "hard" professor and if the course is not directly related to their discipline. Graduate students, on the other hand, tend to have a more vested interest in their courses because they all relate directly to their degree program.

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WHAT IS POINT OF VIEW

This video popped up in my YouTube feed recently. It's a basic explanation of the different points of view in literature. The video itself appears to be part of a short lecture series from Oregon State University. The speaker makes an interesting point at the end when he describes the "first person shooter" genre video game as belonging to the "second person" point of view with respect to storytelling, as the dialog and action in the game is directed at YOU, the player, rather than a character that you are viewing over the shoulder (third-person). I had never really thought of games in that way.

THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR

The Unreliable Narrator trope is when the narrator of the story may or may not be telling the truth. Most of the time, we tend to accept the account of a story as the "facts" as the narrator knows them. Now, the narrator could very well be deceived because the narrator doesn't understand the full context of events. It's often used by authors to give readers a BIG REVEAL at the end, as there's a key plot twist that demonstrates that what the reader thought they were reading was not, in fact, what they were reading at all. Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and, naturally, H.P. Lovecraft frequently used this trope in their stories. In Lovecraft's case, the narrator may very well be suffering from true insanity at the horrors he's witnessed.

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MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I read Around the World in 80 Days. I've read it before, but decades ago. I also saw the movie with David Niven, but don't remember it. So here's my review:
Verne starts off giving a description of Phileas Fogg and his strict habits. He has no known means of support, but lives as a gentleman. No one knows what he does, or how he came into his fortune. He's very punctual and never deviates from his plans. That sets up one problem. He fires his valet for bringing his shaving water two degrees cooler than he uses. (A whole two degrees?) Then he hires Passepartout as valet, who, during the story, does a lot worse and makes errors that could cause Fogg to lose the bet. But does nothing to him. Sort of clangs to me. In fact, except for some heroic actions, like a proper British gentleman should do, he acts rather Spockian.
In some ways, he doesn't seem very likeable. He does decide to rescue a young Indian woman, Aouda, from the clutches of her ancient late husbands followers who were about to burn her, although, the actual work and rescue is done by Passepartout.
A lot of the travelog seems correct, especially traveling across the US - city names, their distances from one another, things like that.
As expected, the party meets with things that should derail the trip, but by a lot of coincidences, they aren't stopped, or not for long. Passepartout unwittingly commits an offense in India, and they jump bail after being detained, which didn't cause them any time loss. Fogg also kidnaps a boat's owner and pays the crew to mutiny, but I guess that's forgiven because he buys the boat. I wonder how much Fogg's characteristics may have influenced Conan Doyle, because Fogg acts uninterested towards Aouda, but suddenly marries her?
Of course, there's a false ending, with mistaken information, then the real ending. It's an enjoyable story, but there are a lot of things that just automatically work out, even though the severity of the obstacle shouldn't so easily overcome. But then, the hero has to win, doesn't he? Recommended
OrangeEnt

Comment: I really should get around to reading some Jules Verne one of these days, mainly because of my own interest in science fiction. Verne, along with H.G. Wells, is considered one of the authors that established science fiction as a genre. As I read OrangeEnt's review, I started wondering how long it takes someone to travel around the world today, using only commercially available means? (That is, no private jets or advanced hypersonic military aircraft.) I know the ISS orbits the earth every 90 minutes or so.

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This week I read Edward Ashton's first two books in his Mickey 7 series: Mickey 7 and Antimatter Blues. The story follows a man who volunteered to be an interstellar colony ship's "expendable". This person's brain pattern and physical pattern are scanned, and when a dangerous situation occurs that requires someone to sacrifice themselves to solve (say walking into a high radiation situation to fix something) then that's the job of an expendable. Earlier colony efforts learned that robots and drones can fail and the entire colony (or ship designed to create a colony) can fail, and thus the expendable program was created.
The expendable person uploads their current brain pattern at various points during the colony's mission to keep current, and if they have to die, a new body is grown for them, and their mind/consciousness is restored from the most recent backup.
As you can guess, Mickey is up to his 7th iteration when we join the story in the first book, and it takes a look back at how and why he volunteered for this, his first iterations, and then gets into the main story; too late the colony discovers that the indigenous lifeforms are actually intelligent. Now what?
Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at February 09, 2025 09:00 AM (O7YUW)

Comment: The idea of "expendable" clones shows up in science fiction quite often. There's a two-episode story arc in the Sixth Series of the new Doctor Who that involves "flesh" clones that are struck by lightning and develop their own consciousness. The role-playing game Paranoia makes you create SIX characters instead of the usual ONE because Troubleshooters come in "six-packs." It's not unheard of for half the party to be on their second or third clones before leaving the mission briefing. It's that kind of game.

The idea of uploading consciousness into meatsuits does lead to deep implications regarding who we are as people, though. Are we more than just brains inside organic sacks of fluid? If our consciousness can be stored in a machine, do we lose our humanity? Does death lose meaning?

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Jumped back into reading Dr. Jon Lieff's The Secret Language of Cells, which shows the insane intricacies of human biological systems, proves that we are "irreducibly complex" organisms that cannot possibly have "evolved" in any fashion postulated by the strict materialist Darwinists, and which also shows sentience at the cellular level. Great stuff.
Posted by: Sharkman at February 09, 2025 09:58 AM (/RHNq)

Comment: Life is amazing. From the smallest bacterium to the human body, cells are just incredible little machines, manipulating molecular energy in subtle, powerful ways. Think about a mighty oak tree with its spreading branches. Each of those branches may weight hundreds of pounds, yet they're suspended above the earth by cellular "glue" and we walk underneath them without even paying attention to the fact that when gravity wins out, those branches can kill us. Right now, trillions of cells in your body are all merrily whirling along, conducting their business according to some mysterious plan that we barely comprehend.

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

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WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

The Fortress of the Pearl by Michael Moorcock -- Another Elric adventure...

Lord Valentine's Castle by Robert Silverberg -- Book 2 of the Majipoor Chronicles (I already own Book 2 from a previous library book sale).

Valentine Pontifex by Robert Silverberg -- Book 3 of the Majipoor Chronicles

The Sunset Warrior by Eric Van Lustbader -- Looks like pulpy adventure...

Touched by the Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Classic Dragonlance Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman -- The 40th anniversary omnibus edition.

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.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Dark Journey by Elaine Cunningham

Anakin Solo is dead. Jacen Solo is missing, presumed captured by the Yuuzhan Vong. Coruscant, jewel of the New Republic, seat of galactic governance, has fallen to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Now, the survivors of the Battle of Coruscant are scattered and demoralized from their crushing defeat. Han and Leia Solo and their daughter Jaina retreat to the Hapes Cluster in hopes of finding respite among a nominally allied galactic power. They soon become enmeshed in an internal power struggle as the Queen Mother of the Hapes Cluster seeks to find a suitable heir to her throne. Both Leia and Jaina might fit the bill...

If The New Jedi Order was a four-season television show, this would be the "breather episode" after the second-season finale. In fact, it's easy to imagine this series as a four-season television story arc. The novels came out over the span of four years and the story takes place over about four years in-universe. Now we take a step back from the main action of the story to focus on how the events of the previous book affected a few of the main characters. Han and Leia lost their youngest son and Jaina lost her youngest brother. Their grief is profound at the loss, especially after losing Chewbacca at the beginning of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. This is a reminder of what stakes are involved in warfare. People die.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Enemy Lines I - Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston

Many of the survivors of the Battle of Coruscant flee to the nearby world of Borleias, which they must first reclaim from the Yuuzhan Vong. They successfully reconquer the world, but they know their victory is temporary as the Yuuzhan Vong will soon be along in force again. In the meantime, the remnants of the New Republic government attempt to assert their authority over the military only to be told in no uncertain terms to STFU and STFD by General Wedge Antilles. He and his allies realize they cannot win the war through military force alone, so they fall back on the same strategies that toppled the Empire--a new Rebellion, set up across the galaxy to harass and undermine the Yuuzhan Vong wherever and whenever they can, gathering intelligence that may lead to their ultimate downfall.

In this story, the author leans heavily on the tropes that are characteristic of many Star Wars stories and then subverts them. For instance, the Star Wars galaxy is known for its ludicrous use of superweapons (e.g., the Death Star, the Sun Crusher, Centerpoint Station, etc.). The heroes know this and thus create the illusion of building a new superweapon to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into a trap. Another example is the idea of "Mary Sue" characters, in which a young woman is vastly overpowered. Again, the heroes lean into this trope by deliberately setting up Jaina Solo as a "Mary Sue" to fool the Yuuzhan Vong into believing she's the avatar of their Trickster goddess, Yun-Harla. That's right--the New Republic weaponizes the Mary Sue trope on purpose!

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Enemy Lines II - Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston

Luke and Mara Skywalker return to Coruscant after Luke has a vision of great evil buried under the rubble of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. A powerful entity bristling with Dark Side Force energy has been unleashed and threatens to overwhelm the galaxy if it's not stopped, despite the Yuuzhan Vong. General Antilles continues with his devious schemes to lure the Yuuzhan Vong into a deadly trap at Borleias. Although they lose the planet, they do succeed in crippling the Yuuzhan Vong's leadership by taking out one of their best strategists. It's a galactic game of dejarik (holochess) with the fate of numerous worlds at stake.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Traitor by Matthew Stover

We haven't seen anything from Jacen Solo over the past three novels, but now we get to see what happened to him after he was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong. As usual with Yuuzhan Vong prisoners, he was tortured in the "Embrace of Pain." A mysterious, birdlike alien strong in the Force preys upon Jacen, psychologically torturing him in addition to his physical torture. By the end, it's very unclear where Vergere's loyalties lie, as we are left uncertain about whether or not Jacen has truly turned to the Yuuzhan Vong or if he has held true to the Jedi ideals. Even Jacen admits he's not the best Jedi ever, as his brother Anakin and Master Luke both seemed to exemplify what it means to be a Jedi.

This is a good example of an unreliable narrator. Throughout the story, Vergere will say that she only tells lies or that she only tells truths, depending on her audience. To Jacen, she says she only tells lies. To Executor Nom Anor of the Yuuzhan Vong she claims to only speak truth. Both Jacen and Nom Anor know she's deceptive and manipulative, but are unable to pierce through her shell to find the truth of the matter. All we can know for sure is that Jacen is suffering from PTSD from his ordeal, and his grasp of reality is tenuous at best.

Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams

Jacen Solo has returned to the New Republic, bringing along the enigmatic Vergere, who claims to be a Jedi from the Old Republic. Han and Leia seek allies among the Imperial Remnant. And for once the New Republic scores a decisive victory against the invading Yuuzhan Vong. Has the tide turned at last?

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 2-9-2025 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

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

(Can Huggy Squirrel travel around the world in 80 weeks?)

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Professor Tolkien was unavailable for comment.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Read Around the World in Eighty Days and a couple of short stories, but that's about it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:00 AM (0eaVi)

2 good morning

Posted by: Long night... darkness lifted. at February 16, 2025 09:05 AM (2NXcZ)

3 Good morning book fiends!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 16, 2025 09:06 AM (kpS4V)

4 good morning Perfessor, Horde

Posted by: callsign claymore at February 16, 2025 09:06 AM (Ij+4d)

5 No pimp hat.

Posted by: Mr Aspirin Factory, red heifer owner at February 16, 2025 09:06 AM (dR6yv)

6 Yay book thread!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:07 AM (ZOv7s)

7 One of the best unreliable narrator books I've read is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. There are four narrators, all of which shade their version of the same story, and one of them is insane.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:07 AM (UILbE)

8 The cielcin of ruicchios sunester series are similar to the yuzhang vomg

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:08 AM (dJR17)

9 Perf, the Wiki entry for AtwiED shows different people trying to beat the record.

The current record is 44 days by a Danish boy scout in 1928, although he went through Russia on the Trans-Siberian instead of following Fogg's route.

It looks like most who try it end up around the same number of days. Just short of 80.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:08 AM (0eaVi)

10 I finished "The Two Towers", which concluded with stalwart Sam's battle with Shelob. I of course had to compare this text with "Bored of the Rings" in "Chapter VII: Schlob's Lair and other Mountain Resorts":

"Spam cried out at the sight most horrible to behold. She was a huge, shapeless mass of quivering flesh. Her flame-red eyes glowered as she slogged forward to the narcs, her tatty print shift dragged on the stone floor. Falling upon her fear-frozen victims with her fat body, she ripped them apart with taloned house slippers and sharp fangs dripping great yellow drops of chicken soup."

Can you blame her for spewing ichor? Her ex Sorhed gives her grief and her nine Nazgûl boys never visit their own mother!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 16, 2025 09:09 AM (kpS4V)

11 Note that the record-beaters are all using land/sea travel. The ISS goes around the world every 50 minutes.

Posted by: Trimegistus at February 16, 2025 09:11 AM (47Wct)

12 I teach at a two-year, not a four-year college, but I suspect I'm in the same boat as those who do better with the graduate students. I tend to set pretty high standards and cram as much information as possible into my students' heads, since most of them will probably never take another history class.

I doubt I'll ever get a "Teacher of the Year" nomination, but there it is.

Posted by: Dr. T at February 16, 2025 09:12 AM (lHPJf)

13 I’ve read memoirs and autobiographies and histories featuring unreliable narrators.

Posted by: 13times at February 16, 2025 09:12 AM (/76vR)

14 There is actually a trailer out for the movie Mickey 17. Dunno if it is the same, but the plot appears to be the same. "humorous and dark"

Posted by: Kindltot at February 16, 2025 09:12 AM (D7oie)

15 It is now somewhat obscure, but Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier is a classic example of an unreliable narrator from 1913.

It is told as a reminiscence, but as the story unfolds, the narrator revises the earlier version by saying "Oh, I should have mentioned..." and so everything is under constant revision. Ford has largely fallen into obscurity, but that book remains in print, apparently because feminists have glommed onto it because it's an Edwardian book whose plot is female-centric.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:12 AM (ZOv7s)

16 Well there is a darkness in this notion of being sleeved like richard morgan

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:14 AM (dJR17)

17 Booken morgen horden

Would've been on time but had to take doggeh out to bark at the princess pup next door

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at February 16, 2025 09:16 AM (WIRXc)

18 Morning, Perfessor.

Howdy, Horde.

Not a ton of reading this week. Couple of Joseph Epstein's essays. Couple of Gerald Kersh stories. Instead of making any dents in the Amazing Colossal To-Be-Read Pile, re-read Tim O'Brien's July, July (which I liked a lot--YMMV).

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 09:16 AM (q3u5l)

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

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 09:17 AM (yTvNw)

20 Undergraduate students just want to get through the course
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There used to be a pamphlet on campus called "grading the profs" started by an alum (who became a local gadfly, perpetual adolescent and Jabba the Hutt lookalike) that was quite unreliable. Several of the best professors I had got low ratings because they actually taught - with standards and discussions and stuff.

I think I was there close to the inflection point when higher education was something to test you rather than a box to be checked with as little effort as possible by all concerned.

My program used to boast of a 50% washout rate among freshmen; now it celebrates a 95% graduation rate.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:17 AM (ZOv7s)

21 I just re-read Around the World in 80 Days, as it happens. I still really like it, especially the descriptions of different parts of the world.

My only substantive criticism has to do with the ending. Is it really plausible that neither Fogg nor his companions would have noticed the time difference as they returned to London? I get that Verne wanted to set up a suspenseful finish, but still.

Posted by: Dr. T at February 16, 2025 09:18 AM (lHPJf)

22 Since Graham Greene has been mentioned several times in the last few Book Threads, I read his Monsignor Quixote. Published in 1982, the novel is a sometimes humorous account of an elderly priest on vacation in post-Franco Spain. He is driving his old car nicknamed "Rocinante" and accompanied by the ex-mayor of El Toboso.

Monsignor is an innocent, pious Catholic priest that prefers the writings of St. Francis de Sales to the latest theological arguments put forth by clergy with Belgian or German names (a swipe at the Modernists). Several times people marvel that a fictitious character in Cervantes' novel has a descendant.

The priest and his companion (a Communist atheist) have discussions that allows Greene to defend traditional Catholic teachings. Some of the events are a bit absurd, but Monsignor Quixote is a good, kindly man. At one point, he's concerned that he's drinking so much wine that he might become a "whiskey priest" (a nod towards Greene's The Power and the Glory).

After Monsignor Quixote's death, the ex-Mayor ponders that his hatred of Franco has died with his death, but his love of his friend continues after Quixote's death.

A good, quick read.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 16, 2025 09:18 AM (pJWtt)

23 Speaking of Tolkien:
I'm pretty psyched up for the Led Zeppelin movie. It has re-mastered original content, and was put down in an Imax format. Even though I'm (technically: '64) a boomer, I have zero in common with that gen, including an ambivalence towards The Beatles. I've always loved Zeppelin, who acquired their name after Keith Moon, The Who's drummer said the collaboration of Plant, Bonhom, Jones and Page would go over like "a led balloon."
If there was ever a band I could see live again, it would be LZ. Bonhom choked out on booze, so it's impossible, so I have high hopes for this movie.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at February 16, 2025 09:20 AM (lPeS+)

24 Gotta love that cover of Around the World. Fogg doesn't use a balloon in the book.

He does in the movie, but that's not really canon, is it?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:20 AM (0eaVi)

25 I recently read Disclosure by Michael Chrichton, which is a novel about sexual harassment with a twist. Tom Sanders is an executive in a high tech Seattle firm that is in the midst of a merger. The job he was expecting to be promoted to has been filled by an ex-girlfriend, Meredith Johnson. Worse yet, she wants to sleep with him, and when he refuses, she reports him to HR. He must file suit against her.

This is a twist on the usual story; the man is the victim, and the subordinate is treated as the accused. The novel covers the emotional drain of a harassment investigation well, and the business intelligence aspect is also interesting. Being written in 1994, the high tech is a bit dated, but the human interaction is as old as time.

Because of the investigation, Tom loses his access to the network, and must rely on any friends willing to help, along with an expert attorney and her team to build his case. Either Tom or Meredith is lying and one of them is willing to go to any length to win, or is it revenge? The novel is based on an actual case, and gives a lot of factual information on how these cases develop and proceed.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:21 AM (UILbE)

26 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Someone a week or two ago mentioned The Last House on Needless Street, by Catriona Ward. I read it this week, and I think one could include that in the unreliable narrator category.

I don't normally read horror-ish genre, but this was fascinating, and had my heart pounding with reluctant anticipation, but I couldn't put it down.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 09:21 AM (OX9vb)

27 Perf, the Wiki entry for AtwiED shows different people trying to beat the record.

The current record is 44 days by a Danish boy scout in 1928, although he went through Russia on the Trans-Siberian instead of following Fogg's route.

It looks like most who try it end up around the same number of days. Just short of 80.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:08 AM (0eaVi)

I read the book many years ago, and did see the movie. As I recall, what sparked Fogg's bet in the Reform Club was the announced completion of the Trans-India Railway. Don't remember if his sip to India took the Suez Canal.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 16, 2025 09:21 AM (8zz6B)

28 Thanks for the shout out, Perfessor. After four days, sales stand at 116 Kindle Free E-books and 1425 Kindle Paid E-Books. Can we top the 2079 books moved during the Black Friday Sale? Keep browsing and sharing!

Posted by: Hans G. Schantz at February 16, 2025 09:21 AM (FgSu8)

29 Lies tavel around the world at light speed. The truth, meanwhile, is still putting on those boots with a broken lace.

Posted by: Ciampino - Weird eh! at February 16, 2025 09:22 AM (KjLnc)

30 Not much reading this week as I've decided to start writing again. I recognize that my writing inspiration comes primarily from two sources: reaction or completion.

Many of my books are reactions against other stories. Both Walls of Men and Long Live Death were correctives against common myths. Man of Destiny and B.O. Wolf were reactions against the Star Wars prequels and crappy Beowulf adaptations.

The completion side is where I take a failed concept or abandoned project and salvage it. Vampires of Michigan, Scorpion's and arguably Three Weeks with the Coasties (which was built around saved emails) fall into this category. Since I'm not angry about anything at the moment, I'm pursuing this strategy.

As a result, I'm diving into my archives for long-abandoned works that can be recycled into a complete book.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:22 AM (ZOv7s)

31 I just re-read Around the World in 80 Days, as it happens. I still really like it, especially the descriptions of different parts of the world.

My only substantive criticism has to do with the ending. Is it really plausible that neither Fogg nor his companions would have noticed the time difference as they returned to London? I get that Verne wanted to set up a suspenseful finish, but still.
Posted by: Dr. T at February 16, 2025 09:18 AM (lHPJf)

I'd think it at least plausible. The concept of "time zones" was still a fairly new one. Even now, traveling across a time zone can still be a bit disconcerting, much less crossing multiple time zones.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 16, 2025 09:22 AM (pJWtt)

32 AH at 20 --

At the community college where I worked from 1985 on, some of the reports we had to submit to the feds want to know that graduation rate number. If memory serves, accreditation teams wanted to know it too, and they're basically a proxy for the feds anyway. I do believe a school gets dinged if too few of the students graduate.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 09:24 AM (q3u5l)

33 Perry Mason packs a rod! At least he did to lead a raid on a cabin where he thought his secretary, Della Street, was being held in "The Case of the Substitute Face," copyright 1938.

Perry is defending a woman accused of pushing her husband over the side of an ocean liner. By coincidence, he and Della were on the same ship (in separate cabins) returning from China and Indonesia, if it had that name then. The "substitute face" refers to the switching of a photograph in a frame.

I was taken aback by the casual usage of a woodpile reference. Then again, that same term was used in an early Hardy Boys mystery, written around the same time. I'm glad that such phrases have fallen out of favor, even if rappers spout them.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (p/isN)

34 I've never read 'Around the World in 80 Days' but for some reason I thought it was written by H.G. Wells.

Am I the only one who gets authors mixed up?

Posted by: dantesed at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (Oy/m2)

35 Reading -
Lonely Vigil: Coastwatchers of the Solomons.
Sundry Nero Wolfe novels.
Far East Lectures by Liu Zhongjing.

Posted by: 13times at February 16, 2025 09:27 AM (DNLtc)

36 My program used to boast of a 50% washout rate among freshmen; now it celebrates a 95% graduation rate.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:17 AM (ZOv7s)

It's almost like colleges don't have any interest in academic standards anymore. Almost.

Posted by: Dr. T at February 16, 2025 09:27 AM (lHPJf)

37 At the community college where I worked from 1985 on, some of the reports we had to submit to the feds want to know that graduation rate number. If memory serves, accreditation teams wanted to know it too, and they're basically a proxy for the feds anyway. I do believe a school gets dinged if too few of the students graduate.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 09:24 AM (q3u5l)
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Another reason to abolish the Dept. of Education.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:27 AM (ZOv7s)

38 I've never read 'Around the World in 80 Days' but for some reason I thought it was written by H.G. Wells.

Am I the only one who gets authors mixed up?
Posted by: dantesed at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (Oy/m2)
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Next you'll tell me that War of the Worlds was NOT written by Jules Verne...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 16, 2025 09:28 AM (BpYfr)

39 Always Bet The Under - a limerick

The Squirrel is the weekly book authority
He always honors Tolkien's seniority
But I don't like "The Ring"
And all those hobbit-y things
So I guess I'm just a tolkien minority

Posted by: muldoon at February 16, 2025 09:29 AM (/iMjX)

40 I read some very mediocre comics since I last posted here. One was called "Tom Strong," which wanted to play around with the classic tropes from the golden age of pulps. And it does; it uses all the cheesy, stupid, low-effort tropes that popped up in the forgotten dreck of the era. It's a story about a genius written by an idiot, a story that's meant to wow us with its engineering written by a guy who probably couldn't sort out a box of legos. A story by someone too lazy to actually think through the prerequisites or consequences of story elements, who tells a story just for the sake of a story. I did not like it.

The story starts off abominably, but later improves to merely being bland. The art wasn't bad, but it didn't do anything for to make up for the story. My "favorite" plot point involved our hero at the end of WWII, where he encountered a nazi who was 'the product of selective breeding.' As if the nazis were in power long enough to even start a selective breeding program (for people) let alone actually get results from the project. Now, if the story had been about soviets, maybe the timescale could work...but modern comic writers don't use soviets as bad guys...

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 09:29 AM (Lhaco)

41 The last few weeks I've read three books by John Brick:

1. The Eagle of Niagara, the story of a captured colonial soldier's adventures amongst the British and their Indian allies in and around Fort Niagara, NY, in the late stages of the American Revolution. It is excellent.

2. The Rifleman, the fictionalized story of a frontiersman named Tim Murphy, who was a magician with a Kentucky long rifle, and who wasMurphy is reputed to have shot and killed British Army officers Sir Francis Clerke and Simon Fraser during the Saratoga Campaign. He was a member of Daniel Morgan's Rifles. Also excellent, a wonderful description of the Revolutionary War Era frontier, with lots of Indian raids, scalping by both natives and whites, and just the general difficulty of surviving in the wild.

3. The Strong Men, an amazing story of a group of New York frontiersmen who leave their homes to join Washington's army at Valley Forge. I love this book and highly recommend it. Fictionalized American history at its best.

John Brick has a number of other novels, some involving the American Civil War, that I've not read, but I will remedy that soon.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 09:29 AM (/RHNq)

42 I've never read 'Around the World in 80 Days' but for some reason I thought it was written by H.G. Wells.

Am I the only one who gets authors mixed up?
Posted by: dantesed at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (Oy/m2)
---
Next you'll tell me that War of the Worlds was NOT written by Jules Verne...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 16, 2025 09:28 AM (BpYfr)

I thought Charles Dickens wrote that one! /s

I tend to remember the author, but forget the title.

Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 16, 2025 09:30 AM (pJWtt)

43 It's almost like colleges don't have any interest in academic standards anymore. Almost.
Posted by: Dr. T at February 16, 2025 09:27 AM (lHPJf)
---
Alumni from my program have a much-deserved reputation for arrogance, but at the time, it had a basis in fact. At the start of the semester, all the freshmen did an orientation lecture from the faculty and first up was the "look to your left, look to your right, one of you will not be here next year."

The reading load was purposefully unachievable, forcing students to form study groups who could divide the work and prepare summaries for the rest. Failure to pull your weight led to being kicked out, and that mean a washout.

It was fun. Very much like "The Paper Chase" (except without dating the hawt professor's daughter.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:32 AM (ZOv7s)

44 Am I the only one who gets authors mixed up?

*********

Now I'm wondering who in the dickens wrote Oliver Twist

Posted by: muldoon at February 16, 2025 09:32 AM (/iMjX)

45 I seem to recall that Verne found Wells' work annoying. Said he got his people to the moon by firing them out of a huge cannon which he said was plausible, while Wells got his people to the moon with some ridiculous made-up substance called Cavorite.

Picky, picky, picky.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 09:32 AM (q3u5l)

46 I was taken aback by the casual usage of a woodpile reference. Then again, that same term was used in an early Hardy Boys mystery, written around the same time. I'm glad that such phrases have fallen out of favor, even if rappers spout them.
Posted by: Weak Geek at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (p/isN)

Same. A phrase I had never before heard, until I read it in one of the Tommy Hambledon stories by Manning Coles. It was jarring. Though the internet says I'm a white supremacist Christian nationalist nazi, so I don't know why it should have bothered me.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 09:32 AM (OX9vb)

47 My only substantive criticism has to do with the ending. Is it really plausible that neither Fogg nor his companions would have noticed the time difference as they returned to London? I get that Verne wanted to set up a suspenseful finish, but still.
Posted by: Dr. T at February 16, 2025 09:18 AM (lHPJf)

True. Considering how precise Fogg is, you'd think he'd know that. Again, the funny thing is, Fogg didn't figure it out, Passepartout did!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:33 AM (0eaVi)

48 25
Disclosure
Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:21 AM (UILbE)
----
That sounds vaguely familiar. We have, of course, "Fatal Attraction" with Michael Douglas in a similar plot initially, and "Disclosure" with the same actor.

I wonder if that happens in real life. Men are innately conquerors and very easily become fixated on a target for that reason, but I always thought women were different. Any of the Ettes want to comment?

Posted by: Ciampino - Douglas in 3 movies with similar plots at February 16, 2025 09:33 AM (KjLnc)

49 James Chandler has a new one out this week, Justice Bites, co-authored with Laura Snider. He's a judge in real life, and she's an attorney, so their legal thriller ought to be a good one. Shouldn't see any BS like lawyers defending themselves from behind bars, defending cheating spouses, etc.

Posted by: Remarkably Unremarkable at February 16, 2025 09:33 AM (tcdFn)

50 Mickey 17 is based on that Ashton novel, coming out March 7.

I enjoyed the book but I also had issues with the ethical presentation and choice of villain. The idea that we will consider specific class of human being as expendable is morally suspect, no? In addition to the dying and regeneration, they make it clear that a great deal of pain and suffering is expected.

Yet the villain is the supervisor who is required by the company to operate the system, even though he abhors the entire system on religious grounds. He is presented as hating Mickey, when he in fact hates the system and himself for participating in the system.

Mickey's friends, meanwhile, just accept that he is going to be sacrificed occasionally.

Posted by: Candidus at February 16, 2025 09:34 AM (Us3R5)

51 Do we count Phaedrus of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as an unreliable narrator? At the end, we see that he's having a psychotic breakdown so should we trust anything he's told us before that? From that book and what little of Lila I was able to read before tossing it on the not-worth-the-effort pile, I infer that Pirsig considers himself a Thinker of Important Thoughts so I wonder if he's ever addressed it.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 09:35 AM (/y8xj)

52 When it comes to Jules Verne, the translator makes a huge difference. The best I've found is Frederick Paul Walter. He works from the original French texts and avoids the many bad (really bad) translations and the Disney versions. Walter, for me, catches the sense of wonder that Verne brings to his books and the humor that is often just under the surface.

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 09:36 AM (yTvNw)

53 So I guess I'm just a tolkien minority
Posted by: muldoon at February 16, 2025 09:29 AM (/iMjX)
---
Our diocese is hosting a men's retreat in March based around studying three of Tolkien's letters to his children that exemplify his wisdom regarding faith and fatherhood.

I am convinced that Tolkien will be canonized once the Boomers are out of the senior leadership. Lots of Gen X clergy grew up reading him and his works have brought a rich harvest of faith. Arguably the most consequential Catholic of the last 100 years and his fame continues to grow, especially in religious circles.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:36 AM (ZOv7s)

54 It was fun. Very much like "The Paper Chase" (except without dating the hawt professor's daughter.

Professor Kingsfield was hawt?

Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 09:37 AM (/y8xj)

55 I'm in "The Return of the King" now and the war has begun at the enemy's choosing, and there's a desperate scramble to assemble fighters.

I do love that during the Seige of Gondor, Pippin's first thought is "And what of breakfast?"

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 16, 2025 09:38 AM (kpS4V)

56 VTK. Nice keyboard. I always know someone is high quality if they still use a Model M after all these years. It's a serious tool for serious men.

But, the original light IBM color scheme is for squares. I use the dark Unicomp color scheme, because I'm edgy and brooding. Chicks dig it.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 09:38 AM (BI5O2)

57 Another reason to abolish the Dept. of Education.
=========================
Remember when these kinds of comments were automatically filed, in my brain anyway as pure postulation and fantasy? Now that these types of things are not just achievable, but inevitable, it gives new weight to ideas that make complete sense, and leaves me giddy with anticipation and hope.

Posted by: Brave Sir Robin at February 16, 2025 09:38 AM (lPeS+)

58 Another comic I read recently was "Age of Conan: Valeria." When Marvel re-acquired the rights to Conan the Barbarian, the first thing they did was create some female-centric spin-offs books. Because what else would a modern publisher do? This book was an origin story for Valeria, a blond swordswoman who was Conan's companion in the "Red Nails" short story, and in the Schwarzenegger movie.

The story wasn't terrible, which is a major win for a comic from Marvel in 2019, but it wasn't very notable, either. Very bland. The art was okay-ish, sometimes good, often awkward. The artist wasn't ready to draw a full-on adventure story, and was obviously hired because a female protagonist needed a female artist.

However, after reading the comic, I went back and read Robert E Howard's "Red Nails" to compare comic-Valeria with real-Valeria...and the comic had nothing to do with actual character! It didn't contradict anything, but it didn't add anything either. No insight, no explanation, no character consistency...Just an unrelated adventure of someone who happens to be named Valeria.

It's no surprise that the comic didn't get a follow-up.

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 09:40 AM (Lhaco)

59 So I guess I'm just a tolkien minority
Posted by: muldoon at February 16, 2025 09:29 AM (/iMjX)

Haha!

*fistbump

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 09:41 AM (OX9vb)

60 Linday wagner before bionic woman

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:42 AM (dJR17)

61 I read the book many years ago, and did see the movie. As I recall, what sparked Fogg's bet in the Reform Club was the announced completion of the Trans-India Railway. Don't remember if his sip to India took the Suez Canal.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 16, 2025 09:21 AM (8zz6B)

But, it's not really completed. That's why they take the elephant and find Aouda being led to the pyre.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:42 AM (0eaVi)

62 At the start of the semester, all the freshmen did an orientation lecture from the faculty and first up was the "look to your left, look to your right, one of you will not be here next year."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd

I literally had that sane lecture at my university when I started, and recently heard that graduation rates there are around 90 percent. I hope that means acceptance rates are lower now.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (UILbE)

63 I've come to the conclusion that reading is like playing a round of golf time wise.

that's why reading when its raining is the best. You don't feel like you should be doing something productive.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (VofaG)

64 I read Around the World in 80 Days last year, after Midnight's Edge (youtube) did a video complaining about some recent adaptation. It was a fun adventure, but the main hero had that 'not-really-a-person' lack of personality that seemed to plague protagonists of the day. Very Spock-like, as the original post said. Definitely worth reading, though.

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (Lhaco)

65 I was taken aback by the casual usage of a woodpile reference. Then again, that same term was used in an early Hardy Boys mystery, written around the same time. I'm glad that such phrases have fallen out of favor, even if rappers spout them.
Posted by: Weak Geek at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (p/isN)

FWIW, the n***** in the woodpile was understood to be that one sawn section of tree trunk that had a big lump on it where a branch had been cut off, and it could not be stacked neatly, no matter how carefully one tried to place it on the stack. Nor could it be readily split.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (8zz6B)

66 RE: the "blind date" book... No way would I do it. Like anything else in culture, the vast majority of books are dross. I wouldn't do that with music or movies either. And given the fact that the publishing industry is somehow, against all odds, even more Leftist than the rest of media, you can bet you're getting a blind date with gay porno fanfic about Bernie Sanders or something.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (BI5O2)

67 Also suez to aden

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (dJR17)

68 I read a book yesterday, that was really a short story - The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke.
I found it poignant and disturbing and unsatisfying.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (WIRXc)

69 I'd think it at least plausible. The concept of "time zones" was still a fairly new one. Even now, traveling across a time zone can still be a bit disconcerting, much less crossing multiple time zones.
Posted by: Retired Buckeye Cop is now an engineer at February 16, 2025 09:22 AM (pJWtt)

Right. But Passepartout notices the time on his watch doesn't match the time locals say it is. He refuses to reset his watch during the trip and leaves it on London time.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:44 AM (0eaVi)

70 When it comes to "expendables," I'll recommend the comic book "Nodwick" by Aaron Williams. Nodwick is the long-suffering employee of a team of fantasy adventurers. His job is to carry their loot, of which he never gets a share because he's on salary. He also is sent to set off traps and act as bait for monsters.

He survives because the cleric in the group has magic duct tape, which she uses to patch him together. More than once, he arrives at the gates of Heaven, only to be told that it's not yet his time. This causes him great dismay, but he's on a contract.

The series began as a feature in Dragon magazine and grew into its own book. It ended years ago, but the comics and trade collection are available on the online secondary markets. It might still be archived on Williams' website; search for Do Gooder Press.

Posted by: Weak Geek at February 16, 2025 09:44 AM (p/isN)

71 In before the star wars nerds stink up the place.

Damn it!

Posted by: Rev Wishbone at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (hXQfZ)

72 I wonder if that happens in real life. Men are innately conquerors and very easily become fixated on a target for that reason, but I always thought women were different. Any of the Ettes want to comment?
Posted by: Ciampino - Douglas in 3 movies with similar plots at February 16, 2025 09:33 AM (KjLnc)
---
Women have been using HR as a weapon since they entered the workforce, and there have been periodical laments about how men stay away from them, don't socialize with them, etc. Recall the "Pence Rule" of never dining alone with a woman.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (ZOv7s)

73 I read Around the World in 80 Days last year, after Midnight's Edge (youtube) did a video complaining about some recent adaptation. It was a fun adventure, but the main hero had that 'not-really-a-person' lack of personality that seemed to plague protagonists of the day. Very Spock-like, as the original post said. Definitely worth reading, though.
Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (Lhaco)

They did a DEI adaptation movie of David Copperfield not long ago. Wasn't that bad though.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (VofaG)

74 Good Morning

Trying to do more reading, less TV.

Recently read D. Trump's 'Art of the Deal'

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (QGaXH)

75 Thanks for the dandy Book Thread Perfessor!

Always a treat and a learning experience to read this thread.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at February 16, 2025 09:46 AM (rxCpr)

76 Am I the only one who gets authors mixed up?
Posted by: dantesed at February 16, 2025 09:26 AM (Oy/m2)

No. I thought Rex Harrison was Fogg, but I double checked first and noticed it was David Niven in the movie.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:46 AM (0eaVi)

77 In before the star wars nerds stink up the place.

Damn it!
Posted by: Rev Wishbone at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (hXQfZ)
---
Got some bad news for ya...A Star Wars nerd runs this place!

At least for now...Someday that will change, of course...

Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 16, 2025 09:47 AM (BpYfr)

78 Good morning Horde. Thank you Perfessor!

When I saw the top photo before reading the explanation, I thought it was a library fund raiser selling boxes of chocolate to those who needed a Valentine's Day gift.

Posted by: Barney at February 16, 2025 09:48 AM (IQ6Gq)

79 Good Morning

Trying to do more reading, less TV.

Recently read D. Trump's 'Art of the Deal'
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (QGaXH)

If you're looking for non fiction autobiography type books and haven't read it yet, Clarence Thomas's autobiography My Grandfather's Son is a great selection. Its an easy read and the epitome of "Only in a America"

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 09:49 AM (VofaG)

80 Now, if the story had been about soviets, maybe the timescale could work...but modern comic writers don't use soviets as bad guys...
Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 09:29 AM (Lhaco)

It does get tiring, doesn't it? Those guys were in power for only twelve years, but the reds had seventy. Whose influence actually was more pernicious over the long term?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:49 AM (0eaVi)

81 No. I thought Rex Harrison was Fogg, but I double checked first and noticed it was David Niven in the movie.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Haha. I seem to recall that Dr Doolittle came out in the theaters about the same time, and both had disintegrating ships.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:50 AM (UILbE)

82 I don't remember Fogg's mode of travel between east coast of India and San francisco. Was it a single voyage by ship?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 16, 2025 09:50 AM (8zz6B)

83 I finished Len Deighton's Billion Dollar Brain (the last of the Harry Palmer Quartet). This one was the most enjoyable of the 4. It starts to creep into James Bond territory (the movies, I've never read the books) with a private sector villain who has seemingly unlimited funds for his plots. This one may or may not be working for or with the CIA or be allowed his games with a wink and a nod from them. Happily, it stays mostly with regular spy work and the super-villain is just a side-plot. In my Odyssey reread, Ulysses and Telemachos are back in the palace at Ithaca but the slaughter has yet to begin.

Posted by: who knew at February 16, 2025 09:50 AM (+ViXu)

84 Okay, just because the series has been talked about a lot by the Perfessor, Humble Bundle is offering a sale on a whole bunch of Steven Erikson's "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series. So, if you're into ebooks and have an epub compatible reader, that may be for you.

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 09:51 AM (Lhaco)

85 Thank you as always for recommendations.
Currently reading CJ Sansom books. Midway through the series and enjoying it. (Mid 1500’s)
I have to pause when I read the Andrew Taylor ‘s, Marwood and Lovett series in the 1600’s. Love all the details and the intrigue.

Posted by: Paisley at February 16, 2025 09:52 AM (ny1NG)

86 As I continue with LOTR I find myself drawn to legends of King Arthur, Alfred the Great and writers from or about that period. The combination of history, influence on literature and philosophy is appealing. I suspect I'll get too involved in them once started so I'll finish LOTR first.

Books I'm picking up.
- Tennyson's Idylls of the King
- History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth
- Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Mallory
- Ecclesiastical History of the English People by Bede
- Ballad of the White Horse by Chesterton

No doubt others will follow. There's something about the idea of the continuation of virtue, connections to Christianity, and persistence in the face of overwhelming odds that is increasingly attractive. (Not saying the second Trump administration is behind this but it might be a part.)

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 09:52 AM (yTvNw)

87 I'm in "The Return of the King" now and the war has begun at the enemy's choosing, and there's a desperate scramble to assemble fighters.

I do love that during the Seige of Gondor, Pippin's first thought is "And what of breakfast?"
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 16, 2025 09:38 AM (kpS4V)
---
Peter Jackson's adaptation of that book was an atrocity. All the threads came together so perfectly, yet seamlessly. I remember reading the first time, unable to put it down. The way the tension builds, with the evacuation of the city, the revelation that they are under rationing, etc. and then the assault on the Causeway Forts, which should have been a cinematic masterpiece.

Instead of the trumpets breaking the gloom, the Knights of Dol Amroth surging forward while being cheered by the garrison, we got...some sort of weird D-Day street fight.

Don't get me started on Gandalf vs the Witch-King.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:53 AM (ZOv7s)

88 Thanks for the limerick Muldoon

Posted by: who knew at February 16, 2025 09:53 AM (+ViXu)

89 Tolle Lege
Yet haven't gotten another book since finishing my aun's book.
Following Jesus His Way

Posted by: Skip at February 16, 2025 09:53 AM (fwDg9)

90 I once chose a blind date book from the Jackson Hole public library. I enjoyed it enough to read it again a few years later.

It was The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick deWitt. It's set in the mid-1800s. Two brothers, Eli and Charlie Sisters, are hired killers on a journey from Oregon City to Sacramento to find and assassinate their mark. The brothers are nothing alike--one is a natural killer, the other is a lover-not-a-fighter, so their journey is full of conflict.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 09:53 AM (OX9vb)

91 If you're looking for non fiction autobiography type books and haven't read it yet, Clarence Thomas's autobiography My Grandfather's Son is a great selection. Its an easy read and the epitome of "Only in a America"
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth

That is a great story. I would like Thomas Sowell to write his autobiography as well, and I certainly hope Trump gives him the medal of freedom. He is brilliant, and a remarkable story of abandoning Marxism.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:53 AM (UILbE)

92 What are you a sith lord. The prequel trilogy did demystify the jedi sort of like the blsck legend about the templars

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:54 AM (dJR17)

93 I've stopped socializing with women at off-site work events, period. At least young ones. I avoid them and hang out with the boys and married ladies of a seasoned age.

Not because I'm afraid of being accused of impropriety. Nobody would believe it. I have a reputation for probity.

It's because they are generally reckless, they do in fact break all the rules about sexual stuff and drinking, and they're profligate with expenses. I just don't want to be associated with *their* impropriety.

The final straw for me was when I had to pay off a waitress and bartender in a rooftop bar at a fancy hotel in Chicago, and escort these broads out before the staff called the cops on them.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 09:54 AM (BI5O2)

94 >>>And given the fact that the publishing industry is somehow, against all odds, even more Leftist than the rest of media, you can bet you're getting a blind date with gay porno fanfic about Bernie Sanders or something.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice

>I'd settle for one of the Squad naked in a Jacuzzi with a jug of bodywash and a loofah.

Posted by: Rev Wishbone at February 16, 2025 09:54 AM (hXQfZ)

95 Point of view in writing is an interesting topic.

Certain points of view tend to work best in certain genres/types of novel.

My favorite POV, which is used in a lot of comic novels, including my own, is The Close Third.

TCT is basically the storyteller sitting on the main character's shoulder and using that character's thoughts and feelings to color what is happening "in reality", in unexpected ways, which is where the humor comes in. It's also useful in "black humor" where the disconnect between the character's perception/motivations and "reality" can lead to comedy, tragedy, or horror or even a sliding scale between each.

I'm not a fan of "First Person", even though I'm using that in the current book, as writers often violate that by having their narrator suddenly gain third person knowledge.

I suppose the fun of "First Person" is that things can happen outside their wall of perception, which can affect them drastically and take them by surprise.

I've tried reading some Second Person writing, that is pretty much all lousy, but if used in very limited ways might be fun. At least theoretically.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 09:55 AM (iJfKG)

96 13 I’ve read memoirs and autobiographies and histories featuring unreliable narrators.
Posted by: 13times

--
I assume all memoirs are written by unreliable narrators.

I started doing some "memoir writing " this week in the form of stories of our family to share with our far flung next generation of family on messenger group.

Doing it I realized that I probably should write down a more comprehensive version for myself

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at February 16, 2025 09:55 AM (WIRXc)

97 osted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 09:53 AM (OX9vb)

They made a movie based on the book.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 09:55 AM (VofaG)

98 I don't recall the 'one of you will not be here' lecture, although it was still possible to flunk out. Later, while going for a computer certificate, the class was told in a lecture regarding employment after certification that most of the graduates found work without much trouble. Placement services consisted of an office that gathered ads from prospective employers so that grads could look 'em over. We were told to stop in if we were still unemployed after six months and they'd try to help us see what we were doing wrong in our resumes and interviews. I kinda liked the assumption that if we hadn't found work that WE were doing something wrong.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 09:55 AM (q3u5l)

99 Also read The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. It’s a strange adventure story.

Blackwood 1907: “The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome or rejection. At first it may not always be apparent, because the busy preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first pause—after supper usually—it comes and announces itself. And the note of this willow camp now became unmistakably plain to me; we were interlopers, trespassers; we were not welcomed“

VK Arsenyev 1907: “Sometimes it happens that mountain and forest have such a cheerful and attractive appearance that one would be glad to linger there forever. In others mountains seem surly and wild. It is a strange thing that such impressions are not purely personal and subjective, but were felt by all the men in the detachment. I tested this several times and was always convinced that it was so. That was the case here. In that spot there was an oppressive feeling in the air, something unhappy and painful, and the sensation of gloom and ill-omen was felt by us all.”

Posted by: 13times at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM (+Pqmf)

100 "Save Our Souls" by Matthew Pearl is the true story of the wreck of the shark-fishing ship Wandering Minstrel on the coral reefs of Midway Island in 1887. Captain Walker, his wife, their three sons, and surviving members of the crew managed to scrabble to shore in the storm.

When the castaways awoke the next morning they discovered the island had one inhabitant already, a giant Dane named Hans, who quickly took them under his wing and helped them survive on the island's meager resources.

But Hans was no mere hard luck castaway. He was a murderer whose crew mates stranded him and left him to fend for himself. And now Hans plotted the death of the captain and sons and to abscond with a repaired boat, bent on getting revenge on the people who marooned him.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM (kpS4V)

101 Morning, Book Folken!

This week I finished Anne Tyler's French Braid, a family saga stretching from 1959 to 2020, with a wide range of intriguing characters. As usual with Tyler, it's quite readable . . . but she has one central character who is unlikeable, by design I think. The wman's own children occasionally say, "I don't think she was cut out to be a mother." In one scene we see exactly why they say that, though none of her children know about the incident. It tells us all we really need to know about the woman. And yet, Tyler makes us want to read on and find out what happens to her. Quite a trick.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM (omVj0)

102 Midwinter was kind of a bond villain but whoelse could rally those type of resources

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM (dJR17)

103 Good morning fellow Bookies. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a book or books about Great Britain’s foray into India. All suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Not much reading this week. Been doing odd jobs around the house.
Again, thanks in advance for any recommendations.

Posted by: RetsgtRN at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM (oY17Y)

104 79 Good Morning

Trying to do more reading, less TV.

Recently read D. Trump's 'Art of the Deal'
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 09:45 AM (QGaXH)

If you're looking for non fiction autobiography type books and haven't read it yet, Clarence Thomas's autobiography My Grandfather's Son is a great selection. Its an easy read and the epitome of "Only in a America"
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 09:49 AM (VofaG)

Thank you Sebastian. I'll check it out.

Another recent read was Travels With Casey by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. Guy spends 4 months in an RV with his dog driving around the country interviewing other dog professionals. Learned about the Marfa Lights which I put on the RV travel bucket list.

I'd also like to find a readable history of the Roman Empire. Not a 20 book set, just something to sort it all out.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM (QGaXH)

105 I'd settle for one of the Squad naked in a Jacuzzi with a jug of bodywash and a loofah.

I'm following the thread in dribs and drabs as I do other stuff so taken out of context, that is a really eye-catching comment.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 09:57 AM (/y8xj)

106 This week I read 'Alien Clay' by Adrian Tchaikovsky. He is a prolific sci-fi writer with a deep background in biology and evolution, and that always comes through in his work. It is a fascinating area to explore - there is such a huge tradition of 'mechanical' and now software sci-fi, the bio side has been under-developed, leaving Tchaikovsky an open playing field.

The second main component of the book is the political system, the Mandate. I'm sure Tchaikovsky, an unabashed leftist, writes this from the perspective that the Mandate is the end-state of anti-science MAGA. Yet to my eyes, he is inadvertently describing the samizdat science the right has had to practice in the COVID era.

Always interesting, sometime frustrating. Occasionally slightly camp for my taste. I'll give is three Trumps and a LittleX out of five.

Posted by: Candidus at February 16, 2025 09:57 AM (Us3R5)

107 Following Jesus His Way is a free read.
Go to https://muchmorefruit.com/
Click on book icon and read. 306 pages.

Posted by: Skip at February 16, 2025 09:58 AM (fwDg9)

108 These goggles do nothing

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 09:58 AM (dJR17)

109 And given the fact that the publishing industry is somehow, against all odds, even more Leftist than the rest of media, you can bet you're getting a blind date with gay porno fanfic about Bernie Sanders or something.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 09:43 AM (BI5O2)

You know, there's probably a not small group of people willing to buy that.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 09:58 AM (0eaVi)

110 I'm about half way through Theft of Fire by Devon Eriks and it's quite a romp. Fun reading.

I saw it mentioned here a while ago as a target of the PC. Quite understandable. The one-line reviews you see for it are correct.

-If you loved the Stainless Steel Rat

-Could have been written by Heinlein

Posted by: pawn at February 16, 2025 09:59 AM (QB+5g)

111 Tom holland is a good guide mary beard has too esoteric a taste for me

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 10:00 AM (dJR17)

112 Currently I'm reading The Graveyard Apartment, a horror story set in 1980s Tokyo. The novel, by one Mariko Koike, was translated from the Japanese, and the person did a fine job. The characters are very likable by Western standards and speak very much like Westerners (though I have no idea how real modern Japanese speak among themselves). A young couple moves into a high-rise apartment building that is situated by a graveyard and an abandoned Buddhist temple, and strange things begin to happen to the people who live there.

As the cover blurb says, you'll never be comfortable in an elevator or a basement again.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:00 AM (omVj0)

113 On the subject of rome

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 10:00 AM (dJR17)

114 speaking of quick and easy non fiction reads, comedian David Spade's autobiography , Almost Interesting is funny and interesting.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:01 AM (VofaG)

115 At least for now...Someday that will change, of course...
Posted by: "Perfessor" Squirrel at February 16, 2025 09:47 AM (BpYfr)

Don't jinx it, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:01 AM (0eaVi)

116
This is about us, isn't it?

Posted by: Hobbit-y things at February 16, 2025 10:04 AM (dg+HA)

117 I don't remember Fogg's mode of travel between east coast of India and San francisco. Was it a single voyage by ship?
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at February 16, 2025 09:50 AM (8zz6B)

No, he made stops in the islands and Japan. Took a private boat to catch up to the ship he'd booked passage on to SF but missed.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:05 AM (0eaVi)

118 I wish Steven Pressfield would pivot and do historical fiction books based on the Roman Empire instead of the Greeks.

I like his writing style. it's effortless to read his work.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (VofaG)

119 Another recent read was Travels With Casey by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. Guy spends 4 months in an RV with his dog driving around the country …
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.

Posted by: 13times at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (I4S4k)

120 I was wondering if anyone could recommend a book or books about Great Britain’s foray into India. All suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Not much reading this week. Been doing odd jobs around the house.
Again, thanks in advance for any recommendations.
Posted by: RetsgtRN

Adventurers by David Howarth is about the history of the East India company. Another interesting book somewhat related is Thug, about the murderous tribe that would join caravans and kill and rob their victims. The book deals with how the British eliminated them.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (UILbE)

121 I'd also like to find a readable history of the Roman Empire. Not a 20 book set, just something to sort it all out.
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025

***
AR, I have on my shelf The Immense Majesty by Thomas W. Africa. I bought it for a class in 1981, and have kept it ever since. He has good phrasing and manages to keep everything clear, and after each big block of history (starting with the early days with the kings and going through the Republic and the Empire), he takes a chapter to sort it out and show us what the everyday people did and thought about their lives in the Republic and Empire. The book must be forty-five years old or more, and may not be in print, but maybe you could find it at your library.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (omVj0)

122 Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:01 AM (VofaG)

I recently heard he has a reputation as one of Hollywood's most notorious lotharios. Like a pasty white Paolo. I never would have guessed.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (BI5O2)

123 Haha. I seem to recall that Dr Doolittle came out in the theaters about the same time, and both had disintegrating ships.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 09:50 AM (UILbE)

imdb says '56 and '67.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:08 AM (0eaVi)

124 Speaking of Britain and India, Read anything by Rudyard Kipling. I think he is in the top five of all time writers.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:08 AM (VofaG)

125 Thug was written by Mike Dash. I think I reviewed it here, so the Perfessor probably has it in his database.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:09 AM (UILbE)

126 I told myself I wouldn't do this when a three volume Collected Poems of JRR Tolkien was issued last year. Not cheap, even on Amazon and I figured I had already read much of his poetry.

I lied to myself. The three volumes in a slip case arrived this week. Nicely bound and each cover features a tree, highly stylized and symbolic, Tolkien drew. The commentary about each poem is by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond who have proven their understanding of Tolkien's writing in previous books.

A nice aspect is I can dip into the books as time and interest allow.

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 10:09 AM (yTvNw)

127 JTB, if you're going to be reading about King Arthur, don't miss "The Once and Future King" series by T. H. White. Yes, it's fiction, yes it was originally pitched at the kiddos, but it is a great retelling of the Arthurian myths and much less juvenile after "The Sword in the Stone"

Posted by: who knew at February 16, 2025 10:11 AM (+ViXu)

128 20 Undergraduate students just want to get through the course
---

My program used to boast of a 50% washout rate among freshmen; now it celebrates a 95% graduation rate.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 09:17 AM (ZOv7s)

I remember freshman orientation at a small but select engineering/science university in upstate NY. Sitting in a room with 1000 of my fellow newcomers. An ancient professor telling us 'look at the man on your left, look at the man on your right, one of you won't be here next year....'

He was right. I was almost one of them.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 10:11 AM (QGaXH)

129 I've tried reading some Second Person writing, that is pretty much all lousy, but if used in very limited ways might be fun. At least theoretically.
Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025

***
I know only one novel written in Second, Bright Lights, Big City, by Jay McInerney (made into a 1986 film with Michael J. Fox). It's not only in Second, it's in present tense (which usually I hate), and it's funny and affecting. I suppose nowadays there might be more Second Person novels, though.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:12 AM (omVj0)

130 Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:01 AM (VofaG)

I recently heard he has a reputation as one of Hollywood's most notorious lotharios. Like a pasty white Paolo. I never would have guessed.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (BI5O2)

yeah him and Scott Baio have an impressive resume.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:12 AM (VofaG)

131 One of the best unreliable narrator books I've read is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. There are four narrators, all of which shade their version of the same story, and one of them is insane.

Posted by: Thomas Paine

That's a great book that I really need to read again. He's got a bunch of other wonderful novels, as well.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 10:12 AM (/RHNq)

132 M R carey tries to deny the Thuggees are bad

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at February 16, 2025 10:12 AM (dJR17)

133 Picked up three books by Dean Koontz because he is an author recommended here. Finished Frankenstein Dead and Alive. If I had to imagine what it would be like to drop acid and then read a novel, I doubt the experience would differ much from my reading this book. Koontz has a vivid imagination and he knows how to spin a gripping tale. The characters are...strange to say the least. It was a well-told tale with characters both likeable and not, and with a door left open to further sequels. The ending was in the form of an epilog, and while it felt a bit rushed, it did tie all the loose ends together while still leaving a tease for another book in this series. Will I go back and read the first two books in this series? Not sure yet. But I can recommend Koontz as an imaginative writer who uses language well and keeps one hanging on the edge of the seat.

Posted by: Legally Sufficient at February 16, 2025 10:14 AM (rxCpr)

134 imdb says '56 and '67.
Posted by: OrangeEnt

Ok, before my time. I may have seen them on television in the same time frame.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:14 AM (UILbE)

135 I'm not a fan of "First Person", even though I'm using that in the current book, as writers often violate that by having their narrator suddenly gain third person knowledge.

I suppose the fun of "First Person" is that things can happen outside their wall of perception, which can affect them drastically and take them by surprise.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 09:55 AM (iJfKG)

I think first person works best in detective novels and stories. It seems to be appropriate.

(begin plug)

Sort of like A Literary Horde's epistolary novel, The Shadow Stalker Murders!

(end plug)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:15 AM (0eaVi)

136 121 I'd also like to find a readable history of the Roman Empire. Not a 20 book set, just something to sort it all out.
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025

***
AR, I have on my shelf The Immense Majesty by Thomas W. Africa. I bought it for a class in 1981, and have kept it ever since. He has good phrasing and manages to keep everything clear, and after each big block of history (starting with the early days with the kings and going through the Republic and the Empire), he takes a chapter to sort it out and show us what the everyday people did and thought about their lives in the Republic and Empire. The book must be forty-five years old or more, and may not be in print, but maybe you could find it at your library.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (omVj0)

Thank you Wolfus

Orange County public library doesn't seem to have it and they usually have everything - they can probably get it for me. If not I'm sure I can find (buy) a copy on-line. I also have a City library I can check.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 10:15 AM (QGaXH)

137 Thank you Perfessor for the Book Thread, and Good Morning fellow Book Lovers!

I finished The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos, which is supposed to be the diary of a young priest in rural France in, I suppose, the early 1900’s. The main character records his thoughts, conversations he’s had, and local parish life. Reading a “diary,” and attempting to pull together the story from the entries was a bit of a slog at times. A second reading might be more rewarding, or not. I had purchased a used copy of the book. The previous owner had various sections underlined in the first chapter or two and then none. I suspect he may have found it a bit lacking and gave up. I’ll keep the book around for a while in case I get the urge to pick it up again.

After all the discussion last week, I decided to again pick up The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I bought the book a while back because my granddaughter was reading it but I somehow found it annoying and put it aside. This time I’m actually finding it to be a fun read. As a bonus granddaughter will be happy that I finished it and I like its message which is so much more positive than many children’s books.

Posted by: KatieFloyd at February 16, 2025 10:15 AM (q/t7t)

138
I'm sorta over the Unreliable Narrator trope.

The first time I read it was a mystery novel, famous in its day for being so surprising. It may have been the first time the UN was used in a popular novel.

I've forgotten the title unfortunately but the narrator was a kindly village doctor in Old Blighty, and so when the rug was finally pulled out from under me, I was "Ahh, it's all been a lie!!!".

Nice trick, the first time you see it.

Now, it's used too much and as a crutch. Like that focus pull that Hitchcock used in "Vertigo". Now you see it in practically every movie that's made.

Like so.

"Hey, look they've got chocolate ice cream."

*vertigo focus pull on baby's face*

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:16 AM (iJfKG)

139 I am still interested in a book on thec1825 Decembrists, saw a book on Amazon coming in March but hasn't come up again. Only want 1 good historical read. So will wait a couple more weeks to search.
Wanted to go to used book store but didn't yesterday

Posted by: Skip at February 16, 2025 10:16 AM (fwDg9)

140 two books this week:
Escape from Shadow Physics (Adam Forrest Kay) about the weakness of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Changed my view of that. Recommended for the physics nerds among us.
Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (John Piper) about the scandal of the evangelical mind and what we can do about it. I didn't like his reliance (references might be a better word) on (to) Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in America, but otherwise good. Even if his target audience is unlikely to read it.

Posted by: yara at February 16, 2025 10:16 AM (FrFKl)

141 Steven Pressfield always has a minor character that is present to narrate his stories.

In his most famous book, Gates of Fire it was a periokos ( a non citizen of Sparta) doing the narration.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:17 AM (VofaG)

142 bent on getting revenge on the people who marooned him.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes

Related. Pure fire thread on Twitchy about the Donks.

https://is.gd/yjoZcW

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:17 AM (L/fGl)

143 Phileas Fogg appeared as a character in an episode of Have Gun -- Will Travel, with British actor Patric Knowles as Fogg. He hires Paladin to get him through a rough stretch of country in the West, I think near San Francisco (Paladin's home base).

The series was famous for doing things like that. Alfred Nobel appears in a story where a shipment of nitroglycerine for his famous dynamite is stolen. And while his name was altered, a composer modeled on Franz Liszt (renamed to "Lister") pops up in a story about his custom piano being stolen for ransom, and he hires Paladin to get it back.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:18 AM (omVj0)

144 The book must be forty-five years old or more, and may not be in print, but maybe you could find it at your library.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (omVj0)

It's on Amazon, and inexpensive. Just ordered a copy

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:18 AM (BI5O2)

145 33 ... "Perry Mason packs a rod! At least he did to lead a raid on a cabin where he thought his secretary, Della Street, was being held in "The Case of the Substitute Face," copyright 1938."

The Perry Mason in the books and the movies from the 30s or 40s is very different from the TV show. Mason is more of a rogue and conniver although his legal knowledge and skill is deep. I prefer the version from the books.

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 10:19 AM (yTvNw)

146 One of the best unreliable narrator books I've read is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. There are four narrators, all of which shade their version of the same story, and one of them is insane.

Posted by: Thomas Paine

That's a great book that I really need to read again. He's got a bunch of other wonderful novels, as well.
Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 10:12 AM (/RHNq)

His Jonathan Argyll mystery series is great. Argyll is a British art historian who gets involved in the cases of two Italian police officers in the Art Squad - one officer is a wily old detective who knows how thing "work" in Italy, and the other is a young woman detective learning the ropes.

Posted by: Wethal at February 16, 2025 10:19 AM (NufIr)

147 The first time I read it was a mystery novel, famous in its day for being so surprising. It may have been the first time the UN was used in a popular novel.

I've forgotten the title unfortunately but the narrator was a kindly village doctor in Old Blighty, and so when the rug was finally pulled out from under me, I was "Ahh, it's all been a lie!!!".

Nice trick, the first time you see it.

Now, it's used too much and as a crutch. . . .

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025

***
Naturalfake, if I'm right about which novel you mean, it was written more than twenty years before the United Nations was formed, so I'm not sure which one you are talking about.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:20 AM (omVj0)

148 M R carey tries to deny the Thuggees are bad
Posted by: Miguel cervantes

Criticizing the Thuggees is white supremacist!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:21 AM (L/fGl)

149 I was going to say Good Morning but it is already dark and rainy so don't know how good it is yet.
My second library sent me another ecopy of Winds and Truth so I have dived back in but it is still slow going. I am now 750 pages in to this 1300+ page tome. Sanderson trying to tell what is going on with 5 different story/character arcs that take place simultaneously over an 8 day period. Each section of the book is a day. This means everyday he has to cover all 5, in different locations and different realities and sometimes different timelines.
It is pretty crazy.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at February 16, 2025 10:21 AM (t/2Uw)

150 (begin plug)

Sort of like A Literary Horde's epistolary novel, The Shadow Stalker Murders!

(end plug)
Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:15 AM (0eaVi)

What?

You didn't title it-

"Naked Came the Moron"?*

It think you missed a bet there.

*Ancient reference no one gets and so joke dies a pitiful lonely death.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:21 AM (iJfKG)

151 29 Lies tavel around the world at light speed. The truth, meanwhile, is still putting on those boots with a broken lace.
Posted by: Ciampino - Weird eh! at February 16, 2025 09:22 AM (KjLnc)

Lies travel around the world in the time it takes the truth to put on it's pants....

Kind of on-topic with the Around the World in 80 days discussion

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 10:21 AM (QGaXH)

152 I've forgotten the title unfortunately but the narrator was a kindly village doctor in Old Blighty, and so when the rug was finally pulled out from under me, I was "Ahh, it's all been a lie!!!".

-
See also Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:23 AM (L/fGl)

153 127 JTB, if you're going to be reading about King Arthur, don't miss "The Once and Future King" series by T. H. White. Yes, it's fiction, yes it was originally pitched at the kiddos, but it is a great retelling of the Arthurian myths and much less juvenile after "The Sword in the Stone"
Posted by: who knew at February 16, 2025 10:11 AM (+ViXu)

That is one of those books I remember reading as a teen, although I barely remember any details about it. Just that it was grittier and messier than the kid-friendly Arthur stories I had encountered. But, compared to Game of Thrones and all the grimdark or deconstuctivist stories I've encountered since, it would probably seem tame and wholesome if I re-read it now...

Posted by: Castle Guy at February 16, 2025 10:24 AM (Lhaco)

154 That's a great book that I really need to read again. He's got a bunch of other wonderful novels, as well.
Posted by: Sharkman

His novels are always complicated and clever. He has a new one coming out this summer.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:24 AM (UILbE)

155 Naturalfake --

Around this place, we're probably all old enough to get the joke. But I could never bring myself to read the 'Penelope Ashe' epic. Anyone else? I thought I read that the group that wrote the thing ruthlessly blue-pencilled out any trace of good prose.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 10:25 AM (q3u5l)

156 127 ... "if you're going to be reading about King Arthur, don't miss "The Once and Future King" series by T. H. White"

Thanks for the reminder. It goes on the list to pick up. I've heard the title for decades but never read the book.

Part of my interest is Malcolm Guite, I've mentioned him often, will publish a 3 volume epic poem about Arthur and legends about him starting late this year. I've heard him reading excerpts and they are exquisite.

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 10:26 AM (yTvNw)

157 His Jonathan Argyll mystery series is great. Argyll is a British art historian who gets involved in the cases of two Italian police officers in the Art Squad - one officer is a wily old detective who knows how thing "work" in Italy, and the other is a young woman detective learning the ropes.

Posted by: Wethal

Yep, and his novels "The Dream of Scipio," "The Portrait," and "Stone's Fall" are all excellent.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 10:27 AM (/RHNq)

158 Naturalfake, if I'm right about which novel you mean, it was written more than twenty years before the United Nations was formed, so I'm not sure which one you are talking about.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:20 AM (omVj0)

That's probably the one, Wolfus.

It's considered one of the jewels of the golden age of mystery novels.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:29 AM (iJfKG)

159 His novels are always complicated and clever. He has a new one coming out this summer.

Posted by: Thomas Paine

"Parallel Lives: A Love Story from a Lost Continent," coming out May 8, 2025. I'll be on line at the local Barnes and Noble to pick up the hardback.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 10:30 AM (/RHNq)

160 I read a book in junior high, so circa 1965, that was a spy novel about a detector (or there might have been a pair) who attempt espionage but are eventually caught. The last sentence of the book revealed that they were not America spies in Russia but Russian spies in the U.S. So all this time we'd been pulling for the bad guys.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:30 AM (L/fGl)

161 Saw a video from a US forestry worker that had been fired. She was still in the probationary period so she was hit by one of the rounds of DOGE layoffs and a few things struck me.

1) She complained you can't just lay people off without doing X,Y, and Z and as a private sector worker well that is exactly how most of my layoffs have come - the company is performing poorly and it just shreds some non-trivial percentage of its employees.

2) She claimed this made her start taking anxiety drugs. And again, I've been laid off. It sucks. But...WTF? You should *expect* you will be laid off multiple times in your career, especially if you work for poorly performing businesses (and FedGov is the worst performing business of all time)

Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 10:34 AM (t0Rmr)

162 Speaking of Arthur, I am in the middle of The Winter King by Cornwall.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at February 16, 2025 10:34 AM (lhenN)

163 Yep, and his novels "The Dream of Scipio," "The Portrait," and "Stone's Fall" are all excellent.
Posted by: Sharkman

I reread Stone's Fall every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Its that good. It covers so many things that interest me, finance, great power politics, and the military industrial complex. Plus, the story moves backwards in time to reveal the mystery.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:34 AM (UILbE)

164 *Ancient reference no one gets and so joke dies a pitiful lonely death.
Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:21 AM (iJfKG)

Must have been before my time, or, because I was reading Ace during breaks overnight at work, I never saw it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:35 AM (0eaVi)

165 The book must be forty-five years old or more, and may not be in print, but maybe you could find it at your library.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (omVj0)

It's on Amazon, and inexpensive. Just ordered a copy
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:18 AM (BI5O2)

I've been thinking about this "out of print" idea, in the context of reading one of the older Rolling Stone Record Guides (ironically, probably out of print) that I ordered off Amazon.

The book references many albums that are out of print, as its reviews are only those that are available (at the time of the printing of the book). At this point I haven't really been challenged by trying to find albums that are no longer "in print," but I wonder... is such a thing even possible anymore?

I remember going to record stores and not finding albums that were less than mainstream. Such a thing doesn't seem like it should ever be a concern these days.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:37 AM (HcAMH)

166 Naturalfake, if I'm right about which novel you mean, it was written more than twenty years before the United Nations was formed, so I'm not sure which one you are talking about.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:20 AM (omVj0)

That's probably the one, Wolfus.

It's considered one of the jewels of the golden age of mystery novels.
Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:29 AM (iJfKG)

?

I thought Wolfus misunderstood UN to mean United Nations instead of Unreliable Narrator.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:38 AM (0eaVi)

167 You should *expect* you will be laid off multiple times in your career, especially if you work for poorly performing businesses (and FedGov is the worst performing business of all time)
Posted by: 18-1

In all of my dealing a with government employees, there is an almost universal belief that they cannot be laid off, ever. It is their primary reason for taking the job. That, and a remarkably convenient 'work life balance'.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:38 AM (UILbE)

168 Naturalfake, if I'm right about which novel you mean, it was written more than twenty years before the United Nations was formed, so I'm not sure which one you are talking about.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025
*
That's probably the one, Wolfus.

It's considered one of the jewels of the golden age of mystery novels.
Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025
*
?

I thought Wolfus misunderstood UN to mean United Nations instead of Unreliable Narrator.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025

***
I did take it to mean United Nations!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:40 AM (omVj0)

169 I can tolerate first person, as long as it's not present tense. Second person is usually right out, though it was used to a limited, and effective degree, in a novel I read not too long ago.

In "Kala," by Colin Walsh, the second person tense is used for a single character, and the reason for it made sense to me once I finished the book.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (OX9vb)

170 In all of my dealing a with government employees, there is an almost universal belief that they cannot be laid off, ever. It is their primary reason for taking the job. That, and a remarkably convenient 'work life balance'.

The stat that 94% of them were WFH still amazes me.

Yes, paper pusher and software jobs can do fine with that but aren't a significant number of them supposed to be doing physical work? Because that seems to indicate AT most 6% of fedgov workers are border inspection, or ACTUAL forestry workers that go into the woods, or the stuff that government actually does of value...

Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (t0Rmr)

171 The last sentence of the book revealed that they were not America spies in Russia but Russian spies in the U.S. So all this time we'd been pulling for the bad guys.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:30 AM (L/fGl)

This being now, one could argue the Russian spies WERE the good guys, and our spooks, CIA and whatnot, the baddies.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (HcAMH)

172 41 ... "The last few weeks I've read three books by John Brick"

I have a vague notion that I read them as a youth. Certainly the Revolutionary War connection would have appealed. Thanks for mentioning the books. My list for the next trip to the used bookstore just got longer.

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (yTvNw)

173 Naturalfake, if I'm right about which novel you mean, it was written more than twenty years before the United Nations was formed, so I'm not sure which one you are talking about.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius

Well, give us the title.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (UILbE)

174 I have to keep my bookshelves in the basement and in my office (which is in an outbuilding).

My wife doesn't mind books being around the house. But she's never been a big reader, and she views stockpiles of books as clutter and wasted space. It's bizarre to me, because my homes were always crammed with books before I met her.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:42 AM (BI5O2)

175 The stat that 94% of them were WFH still amazes me.

Yes, paper pusher and software jobs can do fine with that but aren't a significant number of them supposed to be doing physical work? Because that seems to indicate AT most 6% of fedgov workers are border inspection, or ACTUAL forestry workers that go into the woods, or the stuff that government actually does of value...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (t0Rmr)

I suspect those kinds of stats are way over-estimated.

Yes, there are clerks who don't have to be in offices, pushing paperwork, but I've been on federal properties over the course of my career, and they have always been buzzing with people wandering here and there. I haven't seem THAT much change since the Covid years.

But I'm nowhere near DC, so.....

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:44 AM (HcAMH)

176 I always thought 'last hired, first fired' was one of the fundamental laws of the universe in any line of work. Didn't even think about buying a house until my position was no longer dependent on federal grant funding. Apparently they're not telling people that any longer?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 10:44 AM (q3u5l)

177 I did take it to mean United Nations!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:40 AM (omVj0)

So, now we need naturalfake to say which he meant! I read the comment to be about the unreliable narrator of the book he read.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:44 AM (0eaVi)

178
'returning from China and Indonesia, if it had that name then. '

Dutch East Indies

Posted by: Dr. Claw at February 16, 2025 10:44 AM (3wi/L)

179 172 41 ... "The last few weeks I've read three books by John Brick"
---
I have a vague notion that I read them as a youth. Certainly the Revolutionary War connection would have appealed. Thanks for mentioning the books. My list for the next trip to the used bookstore just got longer.
Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (yTvNw)

They never shoulda killed his dog.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:45 AM (HcAMH)

180 Saul Sadka
@Saul_Sadka
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has broken his silence on Sasha Troufanov:

Team,

I’m incredibly relieved to share the news that our AWS teammate, Sasha Troufanov, who had been held hostage since the October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel, has been released from captivity. ....
10:07 AM · Feb 15, 2025
====

Bullsh*t. You said nothing until now. You did nothing. Shut up.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at February 16, 2025 10:45 AM (RIvkX)

181 Done pushing around a few tons of slush before it freezes.
Would prefer snow.

Posted by: From about That Time at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (n4GiU)

182 "Perfessor" Squirrel

I liked Touched by the Gods by Lawrence Watt-Evans a lot. I've reread the last half of the book twice, it is so much fun.

And I appreciate the motive of the hero. Very refreshing in today's world.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (u82oZ)

183 So I finished Lloyd Lewis' 'Captain Sam Grant' and it was very, very good. A look at Grant's life up to the start of the Civil War. Lewis died before the rest of his planned Grant biography was written. His widow selected Bruce Catton to continue the work (the second books are 'Grant Goes South' and 'Grant Takes Command') and the difference is sadly stark between the two authors.

Lewis lays out the life story very straightforwardly, with lots of wonderful detail and insights from other Grant contemporaries. All the opinions, in other words, come from other people who knew Grant.

Bruce Catton, on the other hand, is a catty bitch. He is constantly putting in his own observations and comments about events or people. It's pissing me off a little.

But the research Lloyd Lewis did do is impressive and Catton's work is based on Lewis' notes.

I have other works by Catton and they have that same gossipy style. Catton isn't dry, at least. So he's readable, I just don't enjoy his comments.

I'm starting Lloyd Lewis's biography of Sherman now, 'The Fighting Prophet', looking forward to that.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (xcxpd)

184 Bullsh*t. You said nothing until now. You did nothing. Shut up.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at February 16, 2025 10:45 AM (RIvkX)

Yeah. Ross Perot sent mercenaries to Iran to break his engineers out of jail and exfiltrate them. That's how you get it done.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (BI5O2)

185
he last sentence of the book revealed that they were not America spies in Russia but Russian spies in the U.S. So all this time we'd been pulling for the bad guys.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:30 AM (L/fGl)

This being now, one could argue the Russian spies WERE the good guys, and our spooks, CIA and whatnot, the baddies.
Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:41 AM (HcAMH)

Can't possibly be CIA cooperating with Ukranian Nazi war criminal that escaped the allies (Russians in this case), can it ?

https://tinyurl.com/bdeh9nk9

"From 1946 through 1948, American intelligence officials in Washington were
ambivalent, if not wary, of establishing contact with Ukrainian emigres in Germany.1
They regarded the exiled groups as splintered and vulnerable to Soviet penetration. At
the same time, American intelligence officers at Headquarters realized that these groups
had a record of employing terrorist measures and supporting the Nazis. "

But they did anyway...

Posted by: runner at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (g47mK)

186 Unrelated to anything, I notice while typing that my wrists are sore. From all the screwing I've been doing...

Stop it! I'm putting together a piece of furniture.

Perverts.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:48 AM (HcAMH)

187 Expendable clones?

Glen Cook "Dragon Never Sleeps" I think is the title.

Posted by: Anna Puma at February 16, 2025 10:48 AM (gXiuU)

188 I'm also reading some David Gemmell because I'm usually re-reading one of his books. Currently 'The Swords of Night and Day', mostly because Druss (my favorite character of Gemmell's) has a smallish role in it.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo at February 16, 2025 10:48 AM (xcxpd)

189 Those are declassified papers from the C eye A, btw.

Posted by: runner at February 16, 2025 10:49 AM (g47mK)

190 187 Expendable clones?

Glen Cook "Dragon Never Sleeps" I think is the title.
Posted by: Anna Puma at February 16, 2025 10:48 AM (gXiuU)

That's a great sci-fi novel. It should have been a trilogy.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo at February 16, 2025 10:49 AM (xcxpd)

191 I did take it to mean United Nations!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:40 AM (omVj0)

So, now we need naturalfake to say which he meant! I read the comment to be about the unreliable narrator of the book he read.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:44 AM (0eaVi)

A naturalfake Three Second Mystery:

"The Inscrutable Appreciation"

naturalfake entered the thread dressed in his silk pajamas proceeded by his Kerry Blue Terrier, Barkels, that was smoking a Meerschaum pipe filled with diasdies and dog food.

"UN was meant to signify, Unreliable Narrator.", he said gravely.

Then he turned and left everyone better informed and educated.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:49 AM (iJfKG)

192 162 ... "Speaking of Arthur, I am in the middle of The Winter King by Cornwall."

I have that series although haven't read it yet. But Cornwell may be incapable of bad writing so it should be excellent.

Should have mentioned this on last night's hobby thread about bargain hunting. I was able to get clean hardcovers of almost all of Cornwell's books for a buck each at the used bookstore. Same place I got all the Patrick O'Brian books for the same price. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Posted by: JTB at February 16, 2025 10:50 AM (yTvNw)

193 But they did anyway...
Posted by: runner at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (g47mK)

The CIA was corrupt from the start. I bet we have no idea just how corrupt they really are.

And I say this, having no doubt they killed the Kennedys.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:50 AM (HcAMH)

194 18-1

Contrast that with the US Patent and Trademark office. Until Trump, one quarter of federal firings were of Patent or Trademark Examiners. Who only numbered about 3,000.

Every two weeks your work output was looked at. You had to meet a high benchmark. With quality. Or else. As you get promoted, you are expected to do more. On the clock every moment. I and many others took annual leave to go to work, and worked all federal holidays. Because you were off the clock, then. You could catch up.

You actually earned your salary in the fees the applicants pay. But Congress took some of it for waste.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 16, 2025 10:52 AM (u82oZ)

195 As a kid, I always confused "80 Days" with "5 Weeks In a Balloon".

Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 10:52 AM (Yj6Os)

196 Done pushing around a few tons of slush before it freezes.
Would prefer snow.
Posted by: From about That Time at February 16, 2025 10:47 AM (n4GiU)

I remember snow. That's when rain gets too cold, right?

We got some rain the other day, I had forgotten what that was too. Sunny and upper 50s today though. Still too chilly for me. Brrr!

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:53 AM (HcAMH)

197 Started "Nemesis", Gregg Hurwitz's new Orphan X novel. Evan's mission this time is revenge and it's directed at his best friend.

Posted by: Tuna at February 16, 2025 10:54 AM (oaGWv)

198 And I say this, having no doubt they killed the Kennedys.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:50 AM (HcAMH)

I thought you and I killed the Kennedys.

Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 10:54 AM (Yj6Os)

199 119 Another recent read was Travels With Casey by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. Guy spends 4 months in an RV with his dog driving around the country …
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 09:56 AM

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.
Posted by: 13times at February 16, 2025 10:06 AM (I4S4k)

D-L mentions that he is basing his adventure on Steinbeck several times in the book.

The author is 'gay' which doesn't come out until about 50 pages in but I suspected earlier. There's also a little 'gay' romance which I didn't care for but didn't let it spoil the book for me. It's not 'graphic'.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 10:54 AM (QGaXH)

200 BignJames

Johnson and his crew ordered the hit.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 16, 2025 10:55 AM (u82oZ)

201 Unreliable narrators.

Elizabeth Warren
Richard Blumenthal
Barack Obama
Bill Clinton

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 10:55 AM (L/fGl)

202 While looking for Old Friends in my local used bookstore (Redbird Books in Victoria), I found a 1st Edition of 'The Book of Merlyn' by T.H. White. It finishes the tale began in 'The Once and Future King' with dashed hopes, broken dreams, and reminders of lessons learned.

What was odd, is that it was published here in the States by The University of Texas press! Go figure! Apparently, no Big Publishing House would touch it, and that left the academic press. Not quite Chilton's (The car-repair gurus) publishing a fledgling Frank Herbert's magnum opus, but darned close...

And another Old Friend finds it's way back into my bookshelves.

Posted by: Brewingfrog at February 16, 2025 10:56 AM (l8kUU)

203 A naturalfake Three Second Mystery:

"The Inscrutable Appreciation"

naturalfake entered the thread dressed in his silk pajamas proceeded by his Kerry Blue Terrier, Barkels, that was smoking a Meerschaum pipe filled with diasdies and dog food.

"UN was meant to signify, Unreliable Narrator.", he said gravely.

Then he turned and left everyone better informed and educated.
Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 10:49 AM (iJfKG)

I've never seen a dog smoke before!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:56 AM (0eaVi)

204 No new books read this week.

Have a great week indoors reading, in the warmth.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at February 16, 2025 10:56 AM (u82oZ)

205 Finished "Extinction " by Douglas Preston. A newly promoted Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent is given her first assignment which is a mysterious and bloody double homicide at an exclusive resort in a Colorado Rockies Valley.

The valley is home to de-extinct ice age animals such as a family of wooly mammoths.

With the help of her forensics team and the local county sheriff, they discover that something else was de-extincted and was being used to secretly enhance babies for large sums of money.

Posted by: Beartooth at February 16, 2025 10:56 AM (UpGHA)

206 >You should *expect* you will be laid off multiple times in your career, especially if you work for poorly performing businesses (and FedGov is the worst performing business of all time)

>In all of my dealing a with government employees, there is an almost universal belief that they cannot be laid off, ever. It is their primary reason for taking the job. That, and a remarkably convenient 'work life balance'.

The difference between a ponzi scheme and a business has nothing to do with anyone's intentions. The puffed up mandarin is encouraged by past excesses, and cocooned by mandarin friends and neighbors. These bugmen will not self-correct without being forced.

It was either going to be Trump, or Soviet-type collapse that ended their rein, and that sooner than we expect.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at February 16, 2025 10:56 AM (lhenN)

207 For something different, I read "The Lake Michigan Cottage cookbook". Nothing really grabbed me, but the photos and commentary were entertaining.

I'm beginning my spring cleaning; I checked out "365 Quick & Easy Tips" to inspire me. Someone suggested Swedish Death Cleaning, but it's unhelpful. My heirs want an empty house they can sell quickly and a strongbox containing my will, cash, and car title.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 16, 2025 10:57 AM (M5F4v)

208 s a kid, I always confused "80 Days" with "5 Weeks In a Balloon".
Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 10:52 AM (Yj6Os)

you're missing 45 days.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 10:57 AM (VofaG)

209 Aw, crap. Someone wants to go somewhere. I'm gonna miss the last hour of the Book Thread!

insert sad face here

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 10:57 AM (0eaVi)

210 And I say this, having no doubt they killed the Kennedys.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:50 AM (HcAMH)

I thought you and I killed the Kennedys.
Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 10:54 AM (Yj6Os)

Our tax dollars, to be sure. But that wouldn't really fit in a song.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 10:58 AM (HcAMH)

211 I have a vague notion that I read them as a youth. Certainly the Revolutionary War connection would have appealed. Thanks for mentioning the books. My list for the next trip to the used bookstore just got longer.

Posted by: JTB

Good luck finding them. Amazon has all of his novels in small hardback, but they aren't particularly reasonably priced.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 10:58 AM (/RHNq)

212 Do I spy a wonderful original IBM keyboard there, being supervised by the cat in VTK's pic? I have one of those, with a USB adapter, for whatever computer I might be on; such a pleasure to use.

Anyway, I read Trump’s' Art of the Deal shortly after he was elected the first time . Interesting read, but I really had nothing to compare it to. This time around, I have started to think I recognize strategies from it and want to read it again. I just bought an original release hardback copy on eBay and am waiting for it to arrive.

Posted by: wifey of ShainS at February 16, 2025 11:00 AM (9anEi)

213 I would be horrified with where is the bathroom spending 5 weeks in a balloon basket?

Posted by: Skip at February 16, 2025 11:00 AM (fwDg9)

214 Guess I'll read the rest of the thread after I come back. Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025 11:01 AM (0eaVi)

215 Oh, and I just had the new Ignatius Catholic Study Bible delivered on Friday, but I haven't cracked it yet as I'm on my 72 hour group home shift at the moment.

It's yuge and luxurious, as it should be. Dr. Scott Hahn, of whom I always speak glowingly, Dr. Brant Pitre, and Dr. John Bergsma all worked on it, amongst many other stellar Catholic theologians and academics.

Posted by: Sharkman at February 16, 2025 11:01 AM (/RHNq)

216 I always thought 'last hired, first fired' was one of the fundamental laws of the universe in any line of work. Didn't even think about buying a house until my position was no longer dependent on federal grant funding. Apparently they're not telling people that any longer?

When I bought my first house I not only saved the full 20% but enough salary to pay the mortgage for months if I did lose my job.

Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...

Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM (t0Rmr)

217 I really enjoyed Sunset Warrior. It is pulpy. I remember it had a fantastic cover and design so I bought it in a used book store.

In re "unreliable narrator". Glen Cook's absolutely brilliant Black Company employs this. But he does it very subtly and one can ignore it. I think that's the best way to use it. I dislike being beaten over the head with the conceit. I much prefer it when it is not necessary to keep in mind but adds extra pleasure.

I still remember the moment during reading of Black Company that a little thing happens and I realized just how "unreliable" the narrator was and in what way. Brilliant moment and didn't invert anything or ruin any enjoyment I had had up until then. But, it did leave me in awe. Hard to discuss w/o spoiling it.

Gene Wolfe is obv the more overt in your face "you'll have to work to understand my story" virtuosic deplouer of it. Which is fine, just not my thing. Wolfe's technique is stunning.

Posted by: Thesokorus at February 16, 2025 11:03 AM (z6Ybz)

218 The CIA was corrupt from the start. I bet we have no idea just how corrupt they really are.
-------

One of America's problems was that we would get in a big war, build a formidable military machine ex nihilo in the middle of it instead of beforehand, make up our losses and eventually win, then scrap the military machine, and start the cycle anew. We did this in four wars by my count.

After WWII and Korea, with the Soviet enemy looming, we broke that pattern and started maintaining an enormous, always-ready military and permanent intelligence agencies.

As horrendously shortsighted and wasteful as the old way may have seemed, it yielded better results, with far less damage to the citizenry.

Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 11:04 AM (BI5O2)

219 My wife doesn't mind books being around the house. But she's never been a big reader, and she views stockpiles of books as clutter and wasted space. It's bizarre to me, because my homes were always crammed with books before I met her.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 10:42 AM (BI5O2)

We've run out of shelf space, and book acquisition continues apace. I have clutter. Clumsy stacks of books all over the place. I better be looking for a new bookshelf.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:06 AM (OX9vb)

220 Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM (t0Rmr)

I always had a big aversion to debt so I always prepared for the worse. The only drawback is avoiding debt is not the recipe to become wealthy. I am comfortable and relatively financially stress free but not wealthy based on my definition.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:07 AM (VofaG)

221 When I was at Vanderbilt, the chairman of the English Department lamented to me that was sick and tired of students asking him if what he was teaching in a given lecture was going to be on the exam.

Preppy drones.

Posted by: Beverly at February 16, 2025 11:07 AM (Epeb0)

222 " Didn't even think about buying a house until my position was no longer dependent on federal grant funding. Apparently they're not telling people that any longer?"

Interviewed for a job @ "research triangle" in NC back in late '70s. Guy told me upfront the position was dependent on Gov. funding year to year.

Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 11:08 AM (Yj6Os)

223 The spy game requires the absence or suspension of most moral standards found in public life. it is inevitable that it would leak into how the organization is run.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:10 AM (VofaG)

224 Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM

Same, here. I've never been laid off *knocks wood* but survived so many mergers and "right-sizing" purges that having a mortgage was terrifying.

Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 16, 2025 11:10 AM (M5F4v)

225 As horrendously shortsighted and wasteful as the old way may have seemed, it yielded better results, with far less damage to the citizenry.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 11:04 AM (BI5O2)

In part because, whether we're comfortable with the notion or not, war and killing and spying tend to attract psychopaths and sociopaths who love it.

There's the famous quote attributed to Lee (whether he actually said it or not) about war being so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it. That really only applies if you are a man of high moral character, like Lee.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:10 AM (wy5wi)

226 156 127 ... "if you're going to be reading about King Arthur, don't miss "The Once and Future King" series by T. H. White"

I was riding the public bus to my Catholic HS in another town, reading something, when a ~20 year old male stranger dropped that book in my lap on his way off the bus without a word. Strangest thing, never had a chance to thank him for a wonderful and somewhat formative tale.

Posted by: Candidus at February 16, 2025 11:11 AM (Us3R5)

227 I did take it to mean United Nations!
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 10:40 AM (omVj0)

So, now we need naturalfake to say which he meant! I read the comment to be about the unreliable narrator of the book he read.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at February 16, 2025

***
I didn't want to give away the solution to the murder . . . but the novel is about 100 years old now, and just about everybody knows The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In fact, I knew the solution before I even read the novel myself at age fifteen. Didn't spoil my enjoyment of Agatha Christie's skill, though.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:15 AM (omVj0)

228 I didn't want to give away the solution to the murder . . . but the novel is about 100 years old now, and just about everybody knows The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. In fact, I knew the solution before I even read the novel myself at age fifteen. Didn't spoil my enjoyment of Agatha Christie's skill, though.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:15 AM (omVj0)

No, it wasn't TMoRA(!).

I believe it was written before that.

I'll look around and see if I can find it.

Posted by: naturalfake at February 16, 2025 11:17 AM (iJfKG)

229 Weak geek, most folks won't get the "woodpile" reference. W.C. Fields's version was "there was an Ethiopian in the fuel supply..."

O tempora, O mores...

Posted by: Beverly at February 16, 2025 11:17 AM (Epeb0)

230 I would be horrified with where is the bathroom spending 5 weeks in a balloon basket?
Posted by: Skip at February 16, 2025

***
Chamber pot. Empty as needed over water or hostile natives.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:17 AM (omVj0)

231 197 Started "Nemesis", Gregg Hurwitz's new Orphan X novel. Evan's mission this time is revenge and it's directed at his best friend.
Posted by: Tuna at February 16, 2025 10:54 AM (oaGWv)

That's a good series. I read the first four in quick succession, then stopped to read some other stuff. Thinking about rotating the fifth into my bedtime reading.

I wonder why I don't sleep.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:17 AM (OX9vb)

232 After WWII and Korea, with the Soviet enemy looming, we broke that pattern and started maintaining an enormous, always-ready military and permanent intelligence agencies.

As horrendously shortsighted and wasteful as the old way may have seemed, it yielded better results, with far less damage to the citizenry.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 11:04 AM (BI5O2)

The United States chose the path of empire, and republics do not work as the core of an empire since the demands empire places on the members is greater than the individual parts are willing to support. The Roman Senate chose to turn away from the republic and embrace empire, we may have chosen differently this time.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 16, 2025 11:18 AM (D7oie)

233 Thanks for sharing your info. I truly appreciate your efforts and I will be waiting for your
further post thank you once again.

Posted by: online marketing at February 16, 2025 11:19 AM (LhvN0)

234 When I was at Vanderbilt, the chairman of the English Department lamented to me that was sick and tired of students asking him if what he was teaching in a given lecture was going to be on the exam.

Preppy drones.
Posted by: Beverly at February 16, 2025

***
I thought that mostly occurred with education majors.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:19 AM (omVj0)

235 After WWII and Korea, with the Soviet enemy looming, we broke that pattern and started maintaining an enormous, always-ready military and permanent intelligence agencies.

As horrendously shortsighted and wasteful as the old way may have seemed, it yielded better results, with far less damage to the citizenry.
Posted by: Yudhishthira's Dice at February 16, 2025 11:04 AM (BI5O2)
---
That was fine. Necessary, even. The problem was that after the Cold War, we kept it all largely intact. We should have cut the Regular Army down to no more than 100,000 and then relied on a much larger reserve force that could rapidly be mobilized. Same for the Air Force. Only the Navy needs a big permanent establishment.

CIA should have been shut down, and much of the intelligence community laid off, because they inevitably amused themselves by doing bad things, and with all that capability just sitting there, it was going to be abused.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:19 AM (ZOv7s)

236 God is telling me to stay inside and finish my novel.
https://tinyurl.com/544j2yvy

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at February 16, 2025 11:20 AM (9yUzE)

237 Downsizing: I just bought this house a few months ago. We moved from the rental, and all my books were packed up, loaded in the garage, ready to find their final home.

When my son died, I started thinking about moving again, although surprising myself, not out of the area. Just maybe to a smaller house. I don't need this space.

I finally pulled the book boxes out of the garage yesterday. I guess I'm not moving. But I also don't need to be piling more books. There's enough here for me to read, for the rest of my life. Let the next move be the final downsize.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:22 AM (WwJXd)

238 The spy game requires the absence or suspension of most moral standards found in public life. it is inevitable that it would leak into how the organization is run.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:10 AM (VofaG)

yes, the forever conundrum. supporting Talibs who later came back and bit us in the ass in the form of Al Qaeda. Supporting the nazis and their descendants, in ukraine, in particular, to infiltrate and spy on the Soviets. And now with that generational hatred, they are willing to do anything to "stick it" to the Russians. A number of years ago, I watched an interview with a proud Ukranian hero, who was relating how his saintly grandfather fought the Russians (that would make it in the 1940s which begs the question, whose side was his beloved grandpa on circa 1941-45) and how excited he was to follow in his path.

Posted by: runner at February 16, 2025 11:22 AM (g47mK)

239 Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM

Same, here. I've never been laid off *knocks wood* but survived so many mergers and "right-sizing" purges that having a mortgage was terrifying.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 16, 2025 11:10 AM (M5F4v)
---
It's right there in the name: "probationary period."

Sheesh.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:22 AM (ZOv7s)

240 93
'they do in fact break all the rules about sexual stuff and drinking, and they're profligate with expenses'

Protracted immaturity resulting from lack of consequences.

Posted by: Dr. Claw at February 16, 2025 11:22 AM (3wi/L)

241 We've run out of shelf space, and book acquisition continues apace. I have clutter. Clumsy stacks of books all over the place. I better be looking for a new bookshelf.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:06 AM (OX9vb)

We finally started off loading hundreds of books to our local volunteer library. We realized we were never going to re-read 98% of them ever again. We know that our daughter and son-in-law will just toss them after we die.

The library has quarterly book sales which helps their budget and we get a deduction. We often find some of our donated books showing up in the nearby little library box.

Posted by: Beartooth at February 16, 2025 11:22 AM (UpGHA)

242 "The Unreliable Narrator trope is ... often used by authors to give readers a BIG REVEAL at the end, as there's a key plot twist that demonstrates that what the reader thought they were reading was not, in fact, what they were reading at all.

"The Old Man," in Daphne du Maurier's, "The Birds and Other Stories," has a beautiful plot twist at the end.

Wikipedia: "The Old Man" follows a family history as told by a neighbour who suspects the father of killing one of their children.

Posted by: Marooned at February 16, 2025 11:22 AM (kt8QE)

243 My heirs want an empty house they can sell quickly and a strongbox containing my will, cash, and car title.
Posted by: NaughtyPine at February 16, 2025 10:57 AM (M5F4v)

A couple of years ago, Mom was stressing about all her stuff, and feeling like we needed to go through every possession, sort it, see if anyone wants it, then put the rest in the ever-imminent-but-never-materializing yard sale.

At this point, I'm like: screw it. Let her enjoy her stuff, even if it's six hundred empty margarine boxes. We'll deal with it when she's gone.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:23 AM (OX9vb)

244 Weak geek, most folks won't get the "woodpile" reference. W.C. Fields's version was "there was an Ethiopian in the fuel supply..."
O tempora, O mores...
Posted by: Beverly at February 16, 2025 11:17 AM (Epeb0)

I think a lot of Fields' patter was based on David Ross Locke's character Petroleum V. Nasby, a truly ignorant and a jumped up, self important fool. At the time it was understood to be a caricature of a blowhard and done in fun.
We can't have that sort of thing any more, we have to comply with what the scolds demand from us, otherwise we are not "nice" in their eyes.

Posted by: Kindltot at February 16, 2025 11:23 AM (D7oie)

245 While looking for Old Friends in my local used bookstore (Redbird Books in Victoria)...

Victoria, Texas? My dad's whole family is from Victoria. Small world, eh?

Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 11:23 AM (/y8xj)

246 The spy game requires the absence or suspension of most moral standards found in public life. it is inevitable that it would leak into how the organization is run.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:10 AM (VofaG)
---
This is why we need to use the death penalty more often. Not only does it remove dangerous people, but it gives other dangerous people a safe and humane way to channel their murderous urges into something productive and moral.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:25 AM (ZOv7s)

247 216 I always thought 'last hired, first fired' was one of the fundamental laws of the universe in any line of work. Didn't even think about buying a house until my position was no longer dependent on federal grant funding. Apparently they're not telling people that any longer?

When I bought my first house I not only saved the full 20% but enough salary to pay the mortgage for months if I did lose my job.

Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM (t0Rmr)

I was laid off once, two years into my engineering career and the only time I strayed from aerospace. After that, I spent the next 40 years living in dread of being laid off. I was never laid off again.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:26 AM (QGaXH)

248 And I say this, having no doubt they killed the Kennedys.

Speaking of which, when are we supposed to get those files that were supposedly declassified during week 1? Seems like someone is dragging their feet again like they did during PDJT v1.0 and getting away with it, at least so far.

Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 11:27 AM (/y8xj)

249 231 197 Started "Nemesis", Gregg Hurwitz's new Orphan X novel. Evan's mission this time is revenge and it's directed at his best friend.
Posted by: Tuna at February 16, 2025 10:54 AM (oaGWv)

That's a good series. I read the first four in quick succession, then stopped to read some other stuff. Thinking about rotating the fifth into my bedtime reading.

I wonder why I don't sleep.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!

Yeah. It is a good series. I never miss a new release.

Posted by: Tuna at February 16, 2025 11:28 AM (oaGWv)

250 At this point, I'm like: screw it. Let her enjoy her stuff, even if it's six hundred empty margarine boxes. We'll deal with it when she's gone.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:23 AM (OX9vb)
---
My mother is the exact opposite. All her life she hated clutter, hated stuff. I'm sure the divorce was at least in part because my father is a terrific collector of books, while my mother either reads disposable paperback or - later in life - had the library buy them for her (she's on the board).

So on the one hand, her estate will be easy-peasy to go through, but that's because there's nothing to inherit. She even lives in a rental.

My father will make up for that, though. Enough books to open his own store.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:29 AM (ZOv7s)

251 I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time.

My spouse works for the Govt and my job is Govt-adjacent. We're both bracing for impact.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at February 16, 2025 11:29 AM (9yUzE)

252 When the Soviet Union fell, mu first instinct was “Uh-oh. I bet we’re fooked now, ….somehow” and/or “It’s a trap”.

In retrospect this was the correct view

Posted by: Common Tater at February 16, 2025 11:30 AM (l+ype)

253 Speaking of which, when are we supposed to get those files that were supposedly declassified during week 1? Seems like someone is dragging their feet again like they did during PDJT v1.0 and getting away with it, at least so far.
Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 11:27 AM (/y8xj)
---
The appointees aren't all in place, and they have to fire a bunch of people for insubordination first.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:30 AM (ZOv7s)

254 A couple of years ago, Mom was stressing about all her stuff, and feeling like we needed to go through every possession, sort it, see if anyone wants it, then put the rest in the ever-imminent-but-never-materializing yard sale.

At this point, I'm like: screw it. Let her enjoy her stuff, even if it's six hundred empty margarine boxes. We'll deal with it when she's gone.
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:23 AM (OX9vb)

My mother "complains" when there appears to be some disagreement between her daughters, as to who is going to get this or that.

What really chaps her behind, is when I say I don't really want any of it.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:31 AM (twpKt)

255 When we moved here from Chicago, we shipped just over 100 cartons of books (publishers shipping cartons meant to hold 25-50 hardcovers, or 50-100 mass market paperbacks -- large boxes). We had bookshelves in every room (including the basement), except kitchen and bathroom. We've done a lot of downsizing over the years, and the libraries & second-hand shops have done fairly well off us. But an awful lot of what we unloaded in print we replaced with ebooks; so all that stuff isn't really gone, it's just not crowding us out of the house. And of course, I'll never catch up with getting all of it read...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 11:33 AM (q3u5l)

256 Speaking of which, when are we supposed to get those files that were supposedly declassified during week 1? Seems like someone is dragging their feet again like they did during PDJT v1.0 and getting away with it, at least so far.
Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 11:27 AM (/y8xj)

I'm like many others, I'm not expecting we're going to get any big revelations. Even if we do get "everything they have."

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:34 AM (twpKt)

257 Victoria, Texas? My dad's whole family is from Victoria. Small world, eh?
Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 11:23 AM (/y8xj)

The same!

Posted by: Brewingfrog at February 16, 2025 11:36 AM (l8kUU)

258 I would like to give my sons dibs on picking over my book collection when I go, and I'll ask the rest to be donated.

Posted by: Victor Tango Kilo at February 16, 2025 11:36 AM (9yUzE)

259 Almost finished with Germany, A History. It's extremely dense for its ~350 pg, and every man is named Charles, Louis, or Carloman. And I thought Henry VIII's wives having only 3 names among them was bad. I needed a detailed timeline and map to follow the earlier chapters, which sadly the book did not provide. ("A few years later..." In what year?? And last page you were talking about Pope Innocent and now we're on Gregory?? When did Gregory get the job?? And WHICH Innocent and which Gregory are we talking about???)

Before that, I read Blind Descent, a book about two men each trying to find the deepest cave in the world. Interesting how different the two men were. Also, I concluded that I have 0 interest in caving.

Posted by: Mrs. Peel at February 16, 2025 11:37 AM (Y+AMd)

260 when I recently moved I gave Goodwill about 150 books. Of those books were the complete library(up to when they first stopped publishing them) of the Readers Digest Condensed Books.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (VofaG)

261 256 Speaking of which, when are we supposed to get those files that were supposedly declassified during week 1? Seems like someone is dragging their feet again like they did during PDJT v1.0 and getting away with it, at least so far.
Posted by: Oddbob at February 16, 2025 11:27 AM (/y8xj)

I'm like many others, I'm not expecting we're going to get any big revelations. Even if we do get "everything they have."
Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:34 AM (twpKt)

I feel the same way about the UFO stuff. There's been too many people involved over too many years and with too much potential money to be made for nothing to have ever leaked out.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (QGaXH)

262 Dash my Lace Wigs said: "At this point, I'm like: screw it. Let her enjoy her stuff, even if it's six hundred empty margarine boxes. We'll deal with it when she's gone." I just went through that with my mother. She wanted to get rid of/give away everything and I kept telling her that she should keep it and enjoy having it around and I'd deal with it later. If she knew how many boxes of her stuff are still sitting in my basement waiting to be gone through and mostly disposed of, she'd probably be appalled, but what the heck.

Posted by: who knew at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (+ViXu)

263 When the Soviet Union fell, mu first instinct was “Uh-oh. I bet we’re fooked now, ….somehow” and/or “It’s a trap”.

In retrospect this was the correct view
Posted by: Common Tater at February 16, 2025 11:30 AM (l+ype)
---
In the immediate aftermath, I went to college and studied international relations (an oddly useful, yet useless degree). Anyhow, among the debates about the new world order, I came up with the term "global oligarchy," which turned out to be oddly prescient.

Wish I had the same gift with lottery numbers.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (ZOv7s)

264 Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM (t0Rmr)

Spelunking ( which I first heard reading Calvin and Hobbes)

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:40 AM (VofaG)

265 I feel the same way about the UFO stuff. There's been too many people involved over too many years and with too much potential money to be made for nothing to have ever leaked out.
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (QGaXH)
---
UFOs were a Soviet intel op. Right after the Wall came down, a bunch of now-unemployed spooks raced to find publishers.

After a couple of years, they all clammed up because they were wrecking their new gig of being UFO experts.

Anyway, it was a way to get Americans with clean records and no ideological bent to spy for the Soviets. The Soviets fakes UFOs, "smuggled" blurry film out of the countr, and bankrolled newsletters and meet-ups.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:41 AM (ZOv7s)

266 Sorry that was not the comment I meant to attach.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:41 AM (VofaG)

267 Interesting discussion about owning physical books. I have many books on my TBR pile that will last me for awhile. I think I going to try moving to a Kindle and see how that works out. Thanks for the thread Perfesser and all who share their thoughts here.

Posted by: Rufus T. Firefly at February 16, 2025 11:41 AM (mEJdU)

268 Stanley Ellin's "The Question My Son Asked" from the '60s could be said to be a case of Unreliable Narrator. He certainly saves a big revelation for the final line of the story -- one that will make you jump.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:41 AM (omVj0)

269 264 Why? Because I work in the dread private sector and I knew irrespective of getting high review marks at work that I could be laid off at any time...
Posted by: 18-1 at February 16, 2025 11:02 AM (t0Rmr)

Spelunking ( which I first heard reading Calvin and Hobbes)
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:40 AM (VofaG)

Heh heh! I miss Calvin and Hobbs. And comics in general. One of the things about not getting a newspaper anymore is no comics/puzzle page.

TV guides and Comics pages are things you just can't replace on-line.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:42 AM (QGaXH)

270 In 1994 or 95 I had a class on Cold War espionage, and the UFO hoax was one of the lecture topics.

Our government got into the act for the same reason: get Americans to spy on each other and keep them distracted and afraid.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:43 AM (ZOv7s)

271 Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 1

Ive been a Fermi Paradox advocate for years.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:43 AM (VofaG)

272 when I recently moved I gave Goodwill about 150 books. Of those books were the complete library(up to when they first stopped publishing them) of the Readers Digest Condensed Books.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025

***
I'm going to have to choose what to take along when I move. Most of what I keep on my shelves are things I enjoyed very much when I first read them, or even when I reread them, or ones that I think are very important works like Steinbeck's East of Eden. And some I keep because I bought them when I was eleven or twelve. But a lot are probably going to be donated.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:44 AM (omVj0)

273 If she knew how many boxes of her stuff are still sitting in my basement waiting to be gone through and mostly disposed of, she'd probably be appalled, but what the heck.
Posted by: who knew at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (+ViXu)

Right. When they're gone, they won't know we gave away their stuff. No one is harmed.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at February 16, 2025 11:44 AM (OX9vb)

274 Those blind date book packages up top, I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion about them.
My guesses about their contents:
"The Wit and Wisdom of Kamala Harris" by herself.
"How to Keep Your Husband Faithful" by Hillary Clinton
"How to Transgender Your Children the Hollywood Way"
" " by Mitch McConnell

Posted by: Idaho Spudboy at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (Ai3df)

275 Wolfus, that Ellin story is a wonder -- can't recall if he took an Edgar award for it, but if he didn't, he should have.

Years ago, at some function here, I did a reading of that story and the audience did indeed jump at that last line. It's every bit as terrific a kicker as the closing line of Bradbury's "The October Game."

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (q3u5l)

276 I don't recommend it, as I think they're more likely to be fallen angels than life that developed on another planet, but apparently you'll soon be able to invest in technology derived from recovered UFO wreckage.

https://tinyurl.com/2d2cam6w

Posted by: Methos at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (Dnobf)

277 I finished Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein." It's a shame that nobody has every done a mini-series with complete coverage of the source material.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (ZmEVT)

278 265 I feel the same way about the UFO stuff. There's been too many people involved over too many years and with too much potential money to be made for nothing to have ever leaked out.
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (QGaXH)
---
UFOs were a Soviet intel op. Right after the Wall came down, a bunch of now-unemployed spooks raced to find publishers.

After a couple of years, they all clammed up because they were wrecking their new gig of being UFO experts.

Anyway, it was a way to get Americans with clean records and no ideological bent to spy for the Soviets. The Soviets fakes UFOs, "smuggled" blurry film out of the countr, and bankrolled newsletters and meet-ups.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:41 AM (ZOv7s)

I worked on a space-based sensor program where we actually had people get fired over the years for leaking info to the UFO crowd.

One of the guys was so big into UFOs that when he retired he moved to Moab to be with his fellow weirdos - er I mean enthusiasts.....

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (QGaXH)

279 Stanley Ellin's "The Question My Son Asked" from the '60s could be said to be a case of Unreliable Narrator. He certainly saves a big revelation for the final line of the story -- one that will make you jump.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:41 AM (omVj0)
---
One of the good things about The Good Soldier is that there isn't so much a big reveal as a gradual one, and the surprise ending comes organically out of the story, rather than being a big reveal.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:46 AM (ZOv7s)

280 260 My family got the Readers Digest Condensed Books. Also, Mom and Dad sent me a subscription to the magazine during both trips to Vietnam. Handy reading, like paperbacks, fits in your pocket and you can share with the rest of the class.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at February 16, 2025 11:48 AM (gm9Sb)

281 "The Old Man," in Daphne du Maurier's, "The Birds and Other Stories," has a beautiful plot twist at the end. . . .

Posted by: Marooned at February 16, 2025

***
Her "The Blue Lenses" does too. It would have made a fine Twilight Zone episode except for the special effects needed, which didn't exist yet, or were outside the budget for TV.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:48 AM (omVj0)

282 272 when I recently moved I gave Goodwill about 150 books. Of those books were the complete library(up to when they first stopped publishing them) of the Readers Digest Condensed Books.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025

***
I'm going to have to choose what to take along when I move. Most of what I keep on my shelves are things I enjoyed very much when I first read them, or even when I reread them, or ones that I think are very important works like Steinbeck's East of Eden. And some I keep because I bought them when I was eleven or twelve. But a lot are probably going to be donated.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:44 AM (omVj0)

My Boy Scout Handbook and my copy of Alas Babylon fall into that 'keep to the end' category. Also my dad's childhood encyclopedia from the early 1920's.

I also have some 1920s era National Geographics with very interesting advertisements for radios and the like.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (QGaXH)

283 I feel the same way about the UFO stuff. There's been too many people involved over too many years and with too much potential money to be made for nothing to have ever leaked out.
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:38 AM (QGaXH)

Well, whether there are or are not alien beings visiting this planet, I remain agnostic.

But I don't have any doubt in my mind, our government killed the Kennedys, and covered it up. What doesn't exist in their files, is not because it was never there to begin with.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (dVaoo)

284 I don't recommend it, as I think they're more likely to be fallen angels than life that developed on another planet, but apparently you'll soon be able to invest in technology derived from recovered UFO wreckage.

Posted by: Methos at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (Dnobf)
---
Yes, that is also part of it. People have no understanding of the spirit world and so have been trained to process supernatural events in "scientific" terms.

Thus, all of recorded human history which chronicles spiritual activity is wrong, but Close Encounters is right.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (ZOv7s)

285 With all the private telescopes pointed into space as well as government funded telescopes , both radio and visual , you would think there would be some type of evidence of extraterrestrial contact if it existed.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (VofaG)

286 One of the guys was so big into UFOs that when he retired he moved to Moab to be with his fellow weirdos - er I mean enthusiasts.....
Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at February 16, 2025 11:45 AM (QGaXH)

Moab's a lovely place. Unfortunately, it is overrun with idiots.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:50 AM (dVaoo)

287 "How to Transgender Your Children the Hollywood Way"

-
Musk's "daughter" went on another rant about how horrible he is the other day.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 11:50 AM (L/fGl)

288 Wolfus, that Ellin story is a wonder -- can't recall if he took an Edgar award for it, but if he didn't, he should have.

Years ago, at some function here, I did a reading of that story and the audience did indeed jump at that last line. It's every bit as terrific a kicker as the closing line of Bradbury's "The October Game."

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025

***
Ellin's story won a top honor that year from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine at least. I know I've read "The October Game," but I can't recall specifics. It was in one of the Alfred Hitchcock anthologies I read so avidly as a boy -- but not one I have on my shelves now. I'll have to see if I can find a Bradbury collection with it in there.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:51 AM (omVj0)

289 Roses are red
Violets are blue
If I were The Force
I'd be with you.

Posted by: Diogenes at February 16, 2025 11:51 AM (W/lyH)

290 Somewhat book related - anyone here go to the Tucson Festival of Books? I'll be there this year.

Posted by: InZona at February 16, 2025 11:52 AM (Xltsu)

291 With all the private telescopes pointed into space as well as government funded telescopes , both radio and visual , you would think there would be some type of evidence of extraterrestrial contact if it existed.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (VofaG)

What? You've never seen "Ancient Aliens?

Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 11:52 AM (Yj6Os)

292 With all the private telescopes pointed into space as well as government funded telescopes , both radio and visual , you would think there would be some type of evidence of extraterrestrial contact if it existed.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (VofaG)

I don't find that a compelling argument. As others have noted, if the tech exists, these other civilizations would easily be able to observe us without us really noticing.

Sort of how we have all sorts of wilderness footage obtained, of animals existing in their environment without noticing us.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:53 AM (dVaoo)

293 Well, whether there are or are not alien beings visiting this planet, I remain agnostic.

But I don't have any doubt in my mind, our government killed the Kennedys, and covered it up. What doesn't exist in their files, is not because it was never there to begin with.
Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:49 AM (dVaoo)
---
In addition to getting otherwise apolitical people to burrow into US military bases and try to photograph secret technology, it also helped foster distrust in the US government. The lame-brains running the show then came up with the phrase "conspiriacy theory" which obviously has not worked out well.

When the Soviets went away, the Deep State took over the operation, and that's why you have "whistleblowers" bringing this crap up so much.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:53 AM (ZOv7s)

294 How to Transgender Your Children the Hollywood Way"

-
Musk's "daughter" went on another rant about how horrible he is the other day.
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Covfefe Today, Covfefe Tomorrow, Covfefe Forever! at February 16, 2025 11:50 AM (L/fGl)

I know some parents love their children no matter what and will never give up on them but it would be difficult for me if my child hated me so much to not just cut the cord completely.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at February 16, 2025 11:54 AM (VofaG)

295 Somewhat book related - anyone here go to the Tucson Festival of Books? I'll be there this year.
Posted by: InZona at February 16, 2025 11:52 AM (Xltsu)

Is it being held in Tucson?

Then no.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:54 AM (dVaoo)

296 Bradbury's "October Game" is in Long After Midnight and should be in The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Also in Hitchcock's 13 More Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV and also in Hitch's Hangman's Dozen.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 11:54 AM (q3u5l)

297 Ellery Queen and Hitchcock magazines are the best eveh for four hours or more airline flights. And leave them with the airline and hotel propaganda so the next guy has something to read.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at February 16, 2025 11:55 AM (gm9Sb)

298 On that happy note, this kid's outta here.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 2025 11:56 AM (q3u5l)

299 Almost time to wind things up again this morning. A quick note to toot my own horn: An online magazine, Black Cat Weekly, has asked for a revision and resubmit of a fantasy story I sent them in January. The editor had three specific points, and I agree with two and can fix those with a little work. I think I already covered his third one. Maybe I just need to heighten it a little.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:56 AM (omVj0)

300 Moab's a lovely place. Unfortunately, it is overrun with idiots.
Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:50 AM (dVaoo)
---
People are spiritual creatures. We fancy ourselves to be rational, but we're not. So if you take away religion, you replace it with something else.

The Soviets liked UFOs because it also struck at religion, and their propaganda emphasized how spacemen aren't in the Bible.

It speaks to this human need that even though a thing is debunked, we have the proof, they've even written about how they did it, and it all lines up perfectly, people still insist that its true.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:57 AM (ZOv7s)

301 Phillip Jose Farmer's "The Other Log of Philias Fogg" is a different telling of the Verne story.

Posted by: patg at February 16, 2025 11:57 AM (gGa0X)

302 When the Soviets went away, the Deep State took over the operation, and that's why you have "whistleblowers" bringing this crap up so much.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:53 AM (ZOv7s)

Yeah, I've mostly avoided those people. I figure I've had enough experience with humans, so when someone asks "why would they lie," I just look at them, and think... are you for real?

Tucker seems to have been taken in by some of these charlatans. But then, he also had some CIA guy on a few months ago who told him he knew who shot JFK (it was Cubans).

Yeah, you're a liar.

Posted by: BurtTC at February 16, 2025 11:57 AM (dVaoo)

303 Bradbury's "October Game" is in Long After Midnight and should be in The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Also in Hitchcock's 13 More Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do on TV and also in Hitch's Hangman's Dozen.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at February 16, 202

***
The last two were probably where I read it originally. I have Twelve Stories but not the Thirteen More, and I don't have Hangman's Dozen.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:58 AM (omVj0)

304 It's almost that time. Thanks again, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 11:58 AM (ZOv7s)

305 Musk's daughter pitching a bitch. All he has to do is follow the Shaquile doctrine. Shaq's kid was hooting and hollering "we're rich" and Shaq reminded the kid that he was rich and kid should consider getting a job.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at February 16, 2025 11:59 AM (gm9Sb)

306 A tip of the chapeau to you again, Perfessor. Keep doing what you do!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at February 16, 2025 11:59 AM (omVj0)

307 256 Speaking of which, when are we supposed to get those files that were supposedly declassified during week 1?

Posted by: BurtTC

Kash is coming.

I expect there's a few shredding parties and armed resistance dead-enders holed up around D.C.

Posted by: Auspex at February 16, 2025 11:59 AM (j4U/Z)

308 I believe in demons more than aliens.

The distances are truly astronomical.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at February 16, 2025 12:00 PM (ZmEVT)

309 Shaq reminded the kid that he was rich and kid should consider getting a job.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at February 16, 2025 11:59 AM (gm9Sb)

Like maybe at a pizza joint.

Posted by: BignJames at February 16, 2025 12:01 PM (Yj6Os)

310 Nood. I got a first. LOL. Been awhile. But I have been there before, so I have act like I have been there before.

Posted by: no one of any consequence at February 16, 2025 12:01 PM (ZmEVT)

311 307 I pray that when Kash is sworn in by whoever, the nine notes from the beginning of Dragnet play when his hand leaves the Bible.

Posted by: bill in arkansas, not gonna comply with nuttin, waiting for the 0300 knock on the door at February 16, 2025 12:02 PM (gm9Sb)

312 I believe in demons more than aliens.

The distances are truly astronomical.
Posted by: no one of any consequence at February 16, 2025 12:00 PM (ZmEVT)
---
I mean, we've all encountered demons, especially in the past few years.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at February 16, 2025 12:09 PM (ZOv7s)

313 There’s a spiritual realm wholly resistant to scientific inquiry. Modernity divorced us from that ineffable sensation of other.

Blackwood 1907: “The psychology of places, for some imaginations at least, is very vivid; for the wanderer, especially, camps have their "note" either of welcome or rejection. At first it may not always be apparent, because the busy preparations of tent and cooking prevent, but with the first pause—after supper usually—it comes and announces itself. And the note of this willow camp now became unmistakably plain to me; we were interlopers, trespassers; we were not welcomed“

VK Arsenyev 1907: “Sometimes it happens that mountain and forest have such a cheerful and attractive appearance that one would be glad to linger there forever. In others mountains seem surly and wild. It is a strange thing that such impressions are not purely personal and subjective, but were felt by all the men in the detachment. I tested this several times and was always convinced that it was so. That was the case here. In that spot there was an oppressive feeling in the air, something unhappy and painful, and the sensation of gloom and ill-omen was felt by us all.”

Posted by: 13times at February 16, 2025 12:11 PM (Dyy84)

314 > Several of the best professors I had got low ratings because they actually taught - with standards and discussions and stuff.

Probably a good rule of thumb would be to look for the professors with a bimodal distribution of student ratings.

If everybody says they suck, they probably suck. If a lot of students say they suck, but there are also non-trivial numbers who give them high ratiings, those are likely the good ones.

One of my undergrad math professors said this explicitly. "If you go look at the student evaluation books, you'll see two opinions: avoid me at all cost, or take me at all cost."

He was right, too. His classes were very, very rigorous, but by God you'd either learn the material or perish in the attempt. Outstanding professor.

(this was long enough ago that the student evaluations were printed out and put in binders -- yeah, I'm old)

Posted by: Rodrigo Borgia at February 16, 2025 12:33 PM (W5ArC)

315 Jules Verne was, to me at least, a great way to dip a toe into science fiction. He's not too deep, not too intellectual, and the stories are actually believable (if you consider the time they were written). 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and The Mysterious Island are my personal favorites.
I should revisit them, since I last read them in my teens - 50 years ago!

Posted by: sharps45 at February 16, 2025 01:25 PM (jiPFw)

316 RIP Aaron Allston. I inherited some work he did for our game and it’s daunting to try to mesh that with new content. He was very talented, and kind.

Posted by: H at February 16, 2025 01:51 PM (4N/0w)

317 1STWP

Posted by: Skip at February 16, 2025 02:01 PM (fwDg9)

318 Thank you all for the recommendations.

When my parents downsized, they had tons of books. Glad they kept many of them but wished I had our old encyclopedias and some of the old National Geographic’s when they werent all in on climate crap.

Posted by: Paisley at February 16, 2025 02:30 PM (Z31Wr)

319 For western fans- The Apache Hunter by Gordon D. Shirreffs

all around action adventure w/humor-anything by Nelson DeMille

Military fiction- Men at War series by WEB Griffin

Posted by: sharps45 at February 16, 2025 07:34 PM (jiPFw)

320 test

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Posted by: buy hetzner account at February 17, 2025 08:06 PM (oxyQ+)

323 The audience Verne wrote was the French, and they love(d) making fun of hyper particular English gentlemen. Hence the character of Phileas Fogg, whose name alone sounds rather ridiculous in English, not to mention when spoken in French.

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