Sunday Morning Book Thread - 4-6-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

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

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

THE POWER OF NAMES

Book-adjacent thought: the Vatican archives are an object of endless speculation, but I have to wonder if there is a Big Book of Demons in there. Diary of an American Exorcist and the Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare note that one of the power exorcists have (and a vital first step) is demanding the demon name itself. IRRC, in "The Exorcist" the demon in question was documented in ancient times.
I mean think about it - we're dealing with creatures made before the world was finished.
Presumably, these incidents recorded and then sent to Rome, where it is added into the tally. Wouldn't it be fascinating to have those incidences mapped out? Surely such knowledge would be Lovecraftian insofar as those unprepared for it would go stark raving mad when they read it.
Could be a book in there somewhere.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at March 30, 2025 10:11 AM (ZOv7s)

I find this comment fascinating. The power of naming things is a staple of fantasy literature, showing up all the time, particularly among necromancers and warlocks who engage with entities best left undisturbed.

There are legends that King Solomon of the Bible was given a magical ring that allowed him to command demons by name. Jesus Christ famously commanded a demon to speak its name ("My name is Legion") and then the demons were driven out of a man into a herd of pigs that drowned themselves (Mark 5:1-11).

In Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga, Elric's magic works by conjuring an elemental spirit by name to do his bidding. In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter franchise, people are terrified of He That Shall Not Be Named (Lord Voldemort) because they fear that naming him would draw his attention down upon themselves.

The Devil--a.k.a. Satan, a.k.a. Lucifer--goes by many different nicknames (Old Scratch, Evil One, Accuser, The Serpent, etc.) because naming the Devil was thought to attract his attention. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series uses this trope extensively, as naming the True Name of the Dark One *definitely* causes a reaction from Shai'tan, so different cultures have a variety of colorful nicknames for the Dark One--Dark Lord of the Grave, Great Lord of the Dark (favored name by Darkfriends), Old Grim, Leafblighter, Grassburner, Heartfang, etc. This also works in the heroes favor as when Rand officially accepts he's now the Dragon Reborn, his own world changes as the Pattern adjusts itself to him, eliminating any rival False Dragons who might be out there.

In F. Paul Wilson's Adversary Cycle/Repairman Jack series, the antagonist is cursed with being unable to fully disguise his name, so all of his aliases are an anagram of his True Name (Rasalom), making it relatively easy to identify him once his enemies know that fact. He's still a treacherous, duplicitous, slippery little bastard, though.

H.P. Lovecraft leans *hard* into the idea that names have power...but also cause insanity. Many of the entities in his works have tongue-twisting names like Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, and Hastur. Shub-Niggurath is often referred to as the Black Goat of a Thousand Young. Nyarlathotep is the Crawling Chaos or the Mighty Messenger, herald of the Great Old Ones. Calling upon them can cause them to appear, but we're not responsible for any consequences. Just learning the name of a book that contains one of these names is guaranteed to cause loss of at least one point of sanity...You've been warned!

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ULTIMATE BOOK LIST (HT: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper)

I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper posted a link to the Ultimate Booklist earlier this week. I looked at the list and was immediately turned off by it, but that's just me. Why should I care what books celebrities and politicians are reading?

I'm much more interested in what YOU are reading!

I'd say the overall quality of reading by the Moron Horde is at least on par with what the folks on the Ultimate Book List are reading, if not a level or two above their recommendations.

In the interest of fairness, I did browse through a few folks' selections and saw some surprising recommendations. I did not know Barack Obama was a fan of science fiction, as he recommends Neal Stephenson's Seveneves and Ted Chiang's Exhalation. People like Donald Trump and Bill Gates have almost no fiction recommendations, as their reading tastes tend to focus on business-related works. Elon Musk, however, does have some fiction recommendations like Harry Harrison's The Stainless Steel Rat Returns and Christopher Rowley's Starhammer. I tried reading the latter book, but it wasn't great.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

For fans of the Sherlock Holmes stories and Doyle's writing in general check out On Conan Doyle: Or, The Whole Art of Storytelling by Michael Dirda. It is a celebration of why Holmes stores remain so popular. It won my heart when he described his first reading of Hound of the Baskervilles which was almost identical to mine: grade school, a stormy night, even snacks to enjoy while reading. Perfect.
Posted by: JTB at March 30, 2025 10:12 AM (yTvNw)

Comment: There's a lot to be said when reading a story whose mood matches the outside weather. When reading a story like Hound of the Baskervilles, you almost *want* the weather to be gloomy and dark, misty and mysterious...Hound has a distinct horror feel overlaying the mystery at the heart of the story.

+++++

Finished reading a graphic novel since last I posted here: Tex: Relentless. It's a black-and-white cowboy comic by some Italians. It features fictional Texas Ranger Tex Willer (he was named for the job!) and fictionalized-real-person Kit Carson as they track down a murderer who escaped from prison and left most of the town's law-enforcement dead in the process. It is, hands down, the best of the Tex comics that I've read.
One minor complaint, though, this story was created specifically as a graphic novel, and not initially published as individual issues. Which means there are no natural official chapter breaks. Scene changes will often correspond with a page-turn, but there are no announced chapter breaks. 200 pages of material, and not a single officially-sanctioned pausing-point. Imagine trying to read a novel that was structured like that; the whole story as single wall of text, with nothing more than a couple of carriage returns to change a scene...
Posted by: Castle Guy at March 30, 2025 09:31 AM (Lhaco)

Comment: The first time I encountered a novel without chapters, I was a bit confused. I kept expecting chapter headings to show up *eventually.* That was Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man, the first Discworld novel I ever read. Then I quickly got used to the lack of chapters as I read more Terry Pratchett. Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim novels also don't have any chapters--just section breaks between scenes. The book I read this week (see below) had lengthy chapters with multiple section breaks within each chapter. I really would have liked more chapter breaks as that makes it easier for me to break up my reading. If there's just section breaks, I tend to feel compelled to keep reading...which is probably the author's intention.

MORE MORON RECOMMENDATIONS CAN BE FOUND HERE: AoSHQ - Book Thread Recommendations

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WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:

A Drop of Corruption: An Ana and Din Mystery by Robert Jackson Bennett - This is the second in a series of Sherlock Holmes-style mysteries set in a very strange world.

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.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

I finally finished this classic work! Overall, I really enjoyed the experience, even more than I thought I would. Although Poe may have invented the analytical detective story, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle took the idea to the next level with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. These stories are highly recommended!

Greatwinter Book 1 - Souls in the Great Machine Sean McMullen

Thousands of years in the future, humanity has been reduced to 19th-century technology, though they are only able to harness animal, human, and wind-power for most energy needs. Although steampower and electrical power are both known, the former is proscribed due to religious edict and the latter no longer works reliably due to remnants of the old world that suppress electromagnetic forces. Now the world plunges back into chaos as a new Greatwinter is imminent and one woman strives to prevent the destruction of the world all over again. Meanwhile, her chief rival seeks to conquer the known world. Oh, and humans have become components in a computer-like system known as a "calculor."

I find this story fascinating in how humans perform the essential operations of a computer, instead of a mechanical system. Basically, humans performs simple calculations like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. More sophisticated calculations based on those foundational operations are performed by humans who grasp more advanced mathematics. Thousands of humans work in the largest Calculor in Libris. Smaller calculors can be used in warfare as "battle computers." Humans are also struggling to reinvent rocketry so that they can take out the orbiting battlestations that have deliberately stagnated human society and culture for thousands of years.

All the action takes place in Australia...The next book takes us to America, which has a very different technology level.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 3-30-2025 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

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

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Will the real Huggy Squirrel please stand up?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 BOING!

Two good friends of our highly recommended JD Vance's book, Hillbilly Elegy.

They lent us their copy. Now on my to-read pile.

Currently reading Scott Adams' "God's Debris - The Complete Works." Not enthused. I suppose it has a lot to do with me not being an atheist. Still it contains some interesting ideas.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 08:59 AM (73s2+)

2 Books!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 09:00 AM (kpS4V)

3 Good Sunday morning, horde!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:01 AM (h7ZuX)

4 Morning, Perfessor.

Howdy, Horde.

And now to the content...

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 09:01 AM (q3u5l)

5 Tolle Lege
Getting very into Patrick O'Meara's Russian Nobility in the age of Alexander I.
It's filling in lots of questions I have about Russian history

Posted by: Skip at April 06, 2025 09:01 AM (ypFCm)

6 lol@francesca

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:02 AM (73s2+)

7 There might be lots of parallels with Russian Nobility and our government employees thinking they are Nobility.

Posted by: Skip at April 06, 2025 09:03 AM (ypFCm)

8 Oh, Francesca...if I were on your jury, I would not convict.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:04 AM (h7ZuX)

9 Morning, all.

Perfesser, if you enjoyed the Holmes stories, the next step, IMO, is to move on to either of the two Annotated Sherlock Holmes collections. The one by Leslie Klinger is more readily available, but I prefer the old William Baring-Gould 2-volume version, myself.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:07 AM (Q0kLU)

10 I went into the past last week with "The Copenhagen Affair," the third book in the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." series. It was below average; just too many tropes, coincidences, and instances of dumb luck for me. Of course the little old lady is a torture specialist. Of course the U.N.C.L.E. ally was in the Danish Resistance, of which of course had built a tunnel to the Nazi underground rocket factory that THRUSH is now using. Of course the captors of the U.N.C.L.E. agent didn't search her thoroughly, so she still had her transmitter to summon help.

And what's with the title "Copenhagen"? Almost all the action takes place in Jutland.

Off the shelf and out of the house. Of course.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 06, 2025 09:07 AM (p/isN)

11 I briefly perused the Ultimate Booklist posted by I Am the Shadout Mapes. I don't care at all about celebrities' lives, but it was still interesting to me to see if they read anything useful or fascinating.

I bookmarked it because I didn't look at everybody's lists, but I want to. Just curious, I guess.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:08 AM (h7ZuX)

12 The louche lowlifes portrayed in Degas' "L'Absinthe" linked by CBD in his art thread reminded me that I have a very good book on my shelves, "Absinthe: History in a Bottle" by Barnaby Conrad III.

Like any decent drug, it had its proponents in the art world, and there are several examples by the greats of preternaturally mellow partakers lounging around seedy cafes staring off into space. But for the fancy hats and sloppy cravats* it could be any stoner pad in the Haight.

And like many drugs it touched off a moral panic that contributed to the eventual push for Prohibition (not just a U.S. phenomenon).

Some absinthe-inspired art:

https://tinyurl.com/bdzk34nr

*"Fancy Hats and Sloppy Cravats" needs to be a Neo-Absinthe band's anthem/album.

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

13 Francesca's methods might be the only way to make sure the lessons really sink in.

I seem to recall reading something that referred to cats having their own secret names, known only to them. Can't recall what though -- Eliot's Practical Cats maybe?

Current reading: revisiting Starship Troopers.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 09:09 AM (q3u5l)

14 The jutland affair doesnt seem exotic enough

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 09:10 AM (bXbFr)

15 Good morning again dear horde and thanks perfessor.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 09:11 AM (RIvkX)

16 Morning, Book Folken!

The names of demons come into play in James Blish's Black Easter. If you've never read it, it's a late Sixties fantasy where an industrialist (in weapons and arms) named Baines wants to release a horde (no pun intended) of Hell's demons for one night, to see what happens. He goes to a professional magician, one Theron Ware, in Italy. Ware is at pains to point out that magic is hard work, and that all magic, "without exception, depends upon the control of demons." And we get the names of demons as they appear.

Black Easter is creepy and unsettling, as unlike Blish's SF or his Trek adaptations as can be imagined, and contains one of the most darkly sensual and erotic scenes (Chapter XI) ever penned. A thinking man's tale of magic.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:11 AM (omVj0)

17 Oh, Francesca...if I were on your jury, I would not convict.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:04 AM (h7ZuX)
-

It will only hurt you more when she stairs at you in disbelief.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:11 AM (73s2+)

18 I read Paul Johnson's Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties, Revised Edition. As the belief in the Christian God wanes after WW I, a huge vacuum results. The history of modern times is in great part how that vacuum has been filled. Johnson agrees with Nietzsche that the most likely candidate is what he called the "Will to Power". Thus we see the rise of the gangster-statesman such as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. As usual with Johnson's works, a well-researched, detailed-rich book.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 06, 2025 09:12 AM (SQp7G)

19 I don't know if I've read a book with no chapters.

How would you ever be able to take a bathroom break? No bueno.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:12 AM (h7ZuX)

20 Thought I'd share this with you for no particular reason, it's just a very cool thing:

https://youtu.be/au30Dogtj-I?si=JeVkn52MMkyBio0I

Posted by: eleven at April 06, 2025 09:13 AM (0HaGk)

21 Ah, the good old days, when teachers beat the lessons into you.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 06, 2025 09:14 AM (lTGtQ)

22 The Big Book of Demons oughta be a pop-up book.

Pazuzu!

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 09:14 AM (kpS4V)

23 My favorite part of Sunday! The Book Thread!

I succumbed to delving through a pulpy shoot-em-up series through the last two weeks. It was fun, but repetitive towards the ending. Now, on to 'The Hieronymus Papers'...

I disliked Stephenson's 'Seveneves' quite a bit. Silly, with thinly-drawn caricatures of real people for characters (people whom I have no respect for), and simply unbelievable developments. Methinks some of this was written to appease the SF "community" at the time, and while it may have checked off some of their boxes it made for tedious nonsense for regular readers. It was, in short, a dopey book. Stephenson was far better with 'Anathem' and competent with 'Reamde' but the latter work did not seem to have a purpose in the end. Just an end.

Posted by: Brewingfrog at April 06, 2025 09:14 AM (xNqSX)

24 Barnaby conrad was a spy for the oss as one point

Ive never tasted absynthe are its effects as crazy as advertised

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 09:14 AM (bXbFr)

25 good morning Perfessor, Horde

Posted by: callsign claymore at April 06, 2025 09:16 AM (xva+R)

26 Hey, cool, my one of my comments made the main page!

Last December/January, I made a new years resolution to read books faster than I purchased them. I am failing that resolution. Miserably. First I bought a whole stack of Dragonlance novels off of the Humble Bundle website, but at least those are e-books, so they don't further clutter my house. But then on Amazon I found yet another comic book omnibus offered at more than 50% off. However, I feel absolutely no shame about buying this book, as it was "Nightfall Omnibus 2," one of the most famous Batman stories ever penned, by Chuck Dixon and some of the bets writers and artists to have worked on the character. My shelves will make room for a book of that stature.

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 09:17 AM (Lhaco)

27 I went into the past last week with "The Copenhagen Affair," the third book in the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." series. It was below average; just too many tropes, coincidences, and instances of dumb luck for me. Of course the little old lady is a torture specialist. Of course the U.N.C.L.E. ally was in the Danish Resistance, of which of course had built a tunnel to the Nazi underground rocket factory that THRUSH is now using. Of course the captors of the U.N.C.L.E. agent didn't search her thoroughly, so she still had her transmitter to summon help.

And what's with the title "Copenhagen"? Almost all the action takes place in Jutland. . . .

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 06, 2025

***
I'll agree it is one of the weakest of the novels. John Oram reportedly bet a friend he could write a story set in Denmark and sell it, and so he did. But we get a most effective description of Thrush and what it is and does (to be fair, that came from Sam Rolfe's treatment for the TV show); there are some scenes early on which are not lighthearted in the least; and it moves fast.

"Good men or evil men, if you are not a member of Thrush, you are marked to be ruled or destroyed."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:17 AM (omVj0)

28 It will only hurt you more when she stairs at you in disbelief.
Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:11 AM (73s2+)

Ha!

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:17 AM (h7ZuX)

29 The twist in black easter was it was a demon assasin and the target

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 09:18 AM (bXbFr)

30 Good morning fellow Book Threadists. I hoe everyone had a great week of reading.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 09:18 AM (yTvNw)

31 I would assume a book called _The Jutland Affair_ was naval history.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:19 AM (78a2H)

32 Just finished Borgata II -- Clash of Titans by Louis Ferrante. For those unfamiliar, Louis is a former wiseguy who became quite the literary scholar while cooling his heels in the joint (think Images by Tyrone Green).

He's a very good storyteller -- Clash of Titans makes the compelling case that Carlos Marcello of the Louisiana Outfit engineered the JFK assassination to get Bobby off the mob's ass.

Recommend this and his previous book.

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (qwx/I)

33 Just started reading "Exodus: The Archimedes Engine" by Peter F. Hamilton. He of the brilliant, complex intergalactic political, technological, and military empires.

This one has weird "Celestials," humans that have vastly changed themselves after 40K years of expanding civilization, meeting up with Earth humans who've just arrived in the Celestials' empire by "arkship", after traveling at 90% of the speed of light for that 40K years. 903 pages of SciFi writing at its best.

The only SciFi author I like more is Alastair Reynolds. Need to revisit him, soon, as well.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (/RHNq)

34 Art bell and Father Malachi Martin audio.

https://tinyurl.com/3twv6pyb

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (hjCSw)

35 I would assume a book called _The Jutland Affair_ was naval history.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:19 AM (78a2H)
-

Either that or navel history.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (73s2+)

36 read Barbara Walter's How Civil Wars Start: And How To Stop Them. The first five chapters are somewhat readable: there are lots of examples illustrating what is apparently, though not surprisingly, a serious academic and security department (FBI, CIA, etc) subject. It's also not particularly surprising what the answer is. For totalitarian regimes: weak gov't w/weak military/police. For democratic regimes: weak gov't w/citizens who have lost confidence in the "democratic" process.

Where the book goes off the rails, and it shows up in not so subtle ways right off the bat, is that it's relentlessly left of center. All the problems of the US are the fault of the rubes opposing the current state of affairs.

I couldn't finish the book; the first six chapters tainted her expertise to the point that I didn't think she really had a clue that the last two chapters (What a War Would Look Like and Preventing a Civit War) would make any sense.

Avoid this book. I read (most of) it so you didn't have to.

Posted by: yara at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (sdTED)

37 10 I went into the past last week with "The Copenhagen Affair," the third book in the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." series. Posted by: Weak Geek at April 06, 2025 09:07 AM (p/isN)

I ate up those books as a kid. I don't recall the quality of the writing beyond that it engaged me at the time.

Posted by: Ordinary American at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (h/ffs)

38 Huh. I guess Minx beta ate my comment due to the long string. 2nd try...

Since the topic comes up here often, via Insty:

"We promised to publish Boy's Adventure books"

https://is.gd/egzQOt

(link to thelawdogfiles.substack)

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (/y8xj)

39 A few weeks back I ordered some art books directly from the publisher "Flesk." I ordered three books, but they sent me four. Amazon has never sent me a free gift just for ordering from them! Unfortunately, the bonus book was "Alien to Zombie; an ABC Book of Monsters and Spooks." An illustrated kids book, with art not nearly on par with the other books I ordered. Oh, well, I'll either give it to my nieces, or else leave it in the neighborhood free-lending-library next October...

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (Lhaco)

40 Either that or navel history.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (73s2+)
-

Which I assume is in a land where everyone's navel juts out.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (73s2+)

41 I also read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Tey is one of two pen names used by Elizabeth MacKintosh, the other being Gordon David. Her books were published between 1929 and 1952, the year of her death.

In this work, Alan Grant of Scotland Yard is bedridden with a broken leg. To help pass the time, he delves into the case of Richard III. Did he kill his two nephews in the Tower of London? Or did Henry VII have it done and claim the children were already dead when he came to power? Grant is aided by an American scholar working at the British Museum. An enjoyable tale of suspense.

Posted by: Zoltan at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (SQp7G)

42 This week Ive been reading David Bell's Cemetery Girl, which is not a horror story -- at least not a supernatural one. The lead character/narrator and his wife lost their twelve-year-old daughter four years ago; she disappeared from the park one day. It's blown their marriage apart. Then a witness appears to say she is sure she's seen the girl, now sixteen, in the (unwilling?) company of an older man. At the halfway point, the girl reappears -- but she is unwilling to talk about the last four years. So the mystery continues. Not sure if I will like this story overall, but it's keeping me turning pages.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (omVj0)

43 So this week I started a book I found at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago: _The Churchill Factor_, by Boris Johnson. It's basically an appreciation and defense of WSC, by one of the more Churchillian of modern British politicians.

It's great -- Johnson's a good writer himself, and his own background as journalist and politician means he can speak with some real understanding about Churchill's standout qualities.

Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for books about WSC.

But still, recommended, if you can find a copy. I wish I'd heard about this one when it came out in 2014, but I guess Penguin didn't put much effort into promoting it.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:22 AM (78a2H)

44 I also read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Tey is one of two pen names used by Elizabeth MacKintosh, the other being Gordon David. Her books were published between 1929 and 1952, the year of her death.

In this work, Alan Grant of Scotland Yard is bedridden with a broken leg. To help pass the time, he delves into the case of Richard III. Did he kill his two nephews in the Tower of London? Or did Henry VII have it done and claim the children were already dead when he came to power? Grant is aided by an American scholar working at the British Museum. An enjoyable tale of suspense.
Posted by: Zoltan at April 06, 2025

***
Tey was not the first to come up with this idea, that Richard III was not the monster Shakespeare painted him -- but she is the best. And you can keep track of all the historical people and their relationships without a family tree in the back of the book. Amazing.

I also highly recommend Tey's The Singing Sands, her last novel

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:23 AM (omVj0)

45 I want to go Full Francesca when I hear "aks", "libary", "nucular", when people use the article "a" before a word that begins with a vowel...the list is long.

Maybe I have anger issues.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 09:25 AM (kpS4V)

46 This week I read another one of my thrift store finds: "The Shepherd File" by Conrad Voss Bark.

The cover of this paperback, published in 1966, proclaims "This Year's Number One Spy Thriller!!" And I believe it. This was good. A dead man is fished out of the Thames, and it turns out he's MI5. Autopsy points to suicide or accidental drowning while drunk, but Shepherd's friends and colleagues think not.

While the police and the foreign service investigate Shepherd's activity prior to his death, they discover a plot by African revolutionaries to use LSD to screw with British troops. What I found really interesting was the revelation of China's push into Africa even then, to foment communist revolution and exploit African resources. I thought that was a more recent thing, but looks like China has had Africa in its sights for decades.

You Morons probably all knew this already.

Started a bit slow, but it really built into some crazy, heart-pounding action by the end.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:26 AM (h7ZuX)

47 read Barbara Walter's....

===

I see the problem.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 09:26 AM (RIvkX)

48 The other day I came to the realization that, for me, books are the same as alcohol - I have a compulsion to buy / drink, the high is only temporary and I feel rotten afterwards.

I must have at least 30 books scattered around the house that I have bought for the sake of buying within the last few weeks, and I haven't finished a single one of them.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:27 AM (Q0kLU)

49 I went into the past last week with "The Copenhagen Affair," the third book in the "Man From U.N.C.L.E." series. Posted by: Weak Geek at April 06, 2025
*
I ate up those books as a kid. I don't recall the quality of the writing beyond that it engaged me at the time.
Posted by: Ordinary American at April 06, 2025

***
They vary by author. Some writers are more pedestrian, showing U.N.C.L.E. operating as a kind of global FBI (as it was thought of then). Some have more humor. Some, like David McDaniel, have glorious SF stories as the villains' plans. Reportedly Ace editor Terry Carr, an SF writer himself, realized the early books in the series were dull, and recruited McDaniel and writer friends of his. Any of McDaniel's (except maybe the last he published, No. 17) are worth reading and sometimes re-reading for the in-jokes.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:28 AM (omVj0)

50 So this week I started a book I found at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago: _The Churchill Factor_, by Boris Johnson. It's basically an appreciation and defense of WSC, by one of the more Churchillian of modern British politicians.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:22 AM (78a2H)
-

Read it when it came out. Good read.

I would not call today's Boris Johnson "Churchillian." I can't put my finger on the word that best defines him in the present but it isn't complimentary.

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:28 AM (73s2+)

51 Here for roll call, Perfesser!

Posted by: vmom deport deport deporte at April 06, 2025 09:28 AM (OTdqV)

52 As the belief in the Christian God wanes after WW I, a huge vacuum results. The history of modern times is in great part how that vacuum has been filled. Johnson agrees with Nietzsche that the most likely candidate is what he called the "Will to Power". Thus we see the rise of the gangster-statesman such as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. As usual with Johnson's works, a well-researched, detailed-rich book.
Posted by: Zoltan
__________

Great book. As I recall, he put particular emphasis on Freud and Einstein in causing a loss of belief in objective values.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 09:28 AM (Dm8we)

53 I want to go Full Francesca when I hear "aks", "libary", "nucular", when people use the article "a" before a word that begins with a vowel...the list is long.

Maybe I have anger issues.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025

***
You are not alone.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:29 AM (omVj0)

54 45
You meant to say vowel _sound_ of course, as in "a unique idea".

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 09:29 AM (vd6bO)

55 Olivia and Mark Gunnerson are spending their honeymoon at Erebus, an exclusive resort in a remote Colorado valley, when they disappear, leaving only a trail of blood. CBI agent Frances Cash is assigned the case, but finds much more than she expected. Extinction by Douglas Preston follows this investigation in the valley where billionaire Maitland Barrow has de-extincted mammoth, giant sloth, and other prehistoric megafauna as a resort for the wealthy; a place to view history.

While it may sound reminiscent of Jurassic Park, the story definitely turns when one of the mammoths is killed. Cash and her co-investigator Sheriff Colcord realize that the animals in the park are not the problem, and that those in charge of the park are not being entirely truthful with them.

The area where the park lies used to be a gold mining region, and tunnels and shafts are all over. Perhaps a rogue environmental group is using an abandoned mine as a base of operations. As they get deeper into the case, they learn that their quarry are not the hunted, but the hunters. This novel is another where actual science is presented as a frightening mystery.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 06, 2025 09:29 AM (lTGtQ)

56 No fucking way Barack Obama has even picked up Neal Stephenson's "Seveneves" or Ted Chiang's "Exhalation."

Everything about The Emperor Shit Midas is fake, they, and virtue signaling and posturing.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 09:29 AM (/RHNq)

57 Working through the to-be-read stack on the bedside table. I finished "Daughters of Chivalry" by Kelsey Wilson-Lee - a joint biography worked out from medieval letters and household accounts of the four daughters of Edward "Longshanks" and Eleanor of Castile. Interesting, but mostly suppositions based on brief mentions. The four women were minor powers in their own right, with rather interesting but only briefly documented lives. Moved on to the next in the stack - "Manhunt" by James Swanson - an account of the 12-day long hunt for John Wilkes Booth and his fellow plotters after the assassination of Lincoln. That one would make an interesting and gripping movie, were anyone in Hollywierd competent enough to make it.

Posted by: Sgt. Mom at April 06, 2025 09:30 AM (Ew3fm)

58 This week, I have a non-recommendation to make.

Due to a presentation I've been roped into giving at my college, I've been reading, and just finished, "The Flower Sisters," by Michelle Collins Anderson, a novel very loosely based on a real event: the explosion of a dance hall in West Plains, MO, in 1928, an unsolved mystery to this day.

The event itself is interesting. The book is....bad.

Partly I dislike its politics; there's a lot of hackneyed modern feminism in the story, and it frequently runs down small-town Missouri, which I resent. But then again, a leftist colleague of mine, who's also been reading the book, doesn't like it either. More than anything, it's just badly written--the prose sounds totally out of place in the mouths of the characters, and they themselves are just caricatures. There're a few interesting sections, but on the whole, it's just not good.

Posted by: Dr. T at April 06, 2025 09:30 AM (lHPJf)

59 47 read Barbara Walter's....

===

I see the problem
_-_-_
Oh, that Barbara Walters? I was about to look up the name, assuming it was another.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 09:32 AM (vd6bO)

60 Something I read from our library's ebook offerings -

The Tiger, by John Vaillant, which recounts an episode of a tiger that got a taste for humans in Siberian Russia. The history of the region, and the role of tigers in local legends, was as interesting as the actual recounting of the events.

I said this in a random thread already, but you really really really don't want to wound a big cat that has locked in on your scent.

Posted by: 2009Refugee at April 06, 2025 09:32 AM (8AONa)

61 Yay book thread! Not much change from last week. Still reading Bulfinch, still reading Graham Greene, still reading about the Battle of Warsaw.

Last night (at the insistence of my youngest) I watched "Interstellar" and it reminded me of The Forever War, not just because it involved time distortion but also be cause it seemed to last forever. I forgot how much I loathe Anne Hathaway. I shall not forget it again.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 09:33 AM (ZOv7s)

62 I don't know that Einstein really deserves any blame for the way that Marxist assholes tried to co-opt his work. His Theory of Relativity is a work of rigorous mathematical analysis based on experimental data. Marxists and stoners and woo enthusiasts never read past the title and promptly tried to claim "See? Everything's relative, you know?"

Freud, on the other hand, deserves all the criticism he gets, and probably some extra.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:34 AM (78a2H)

63 Continuing with Malcolm Guite's "Word in the Wilderness". His approach that Lent and Easter are like going on a journey with Jesus is proving to be enlightening and adds depth to the meaning of the season. The choice of poetry, some his, some by others like Coleridge, Herbert and Seamus Heaney, is matched by his insights into the poems and why they resonate. It strengthens the sense of communion and community with Christ. Wish I had found it long ago.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 09:34 AM (yTvNw)

64 Anthony Burgess is included an afterword in 1985 entitled "Worker's English" in which he wrote about the vernacularization cum bastardization of English grammar.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 09:34 AM (RIvkX)

65 In regard to books with few or no chapters, I look for obvious places to pause. Because I read mostly during the evening and night, a scene in which a character goes to sleep is an obvious stopping point.

Fortunately, most books have chapters. Authors a d publishers figured out early on that breaking a story into chunks improved sales because most readers have outside lives.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 06, 2025 09:34 AM (p/isN)

66 A book I am trying to read right now is The King Is Dead, Long Live The King!, which is an account of the last years of Edward VII, his death and the accession of George V. The central point of the book is the famous "Black Ascot" of 1910, where, because England was in mourning, every attendee at Ascot dressed in black.

Beyond that, it's also a look at the politics, people and events of 1901 - 1910. I'll say it's OK, but that might just be because of my current depressive state. You might enjoy it more than I am.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:35 AM (Q0kLU)

67 About ten days ago I bought a 1996 paperback edition of Ray Bradbury's short story collection The October Country, and have been dipping into it. I acknowledge and admire his skill at handling words, but his style does not always sit well with me. The classic "Skeleton" I read many years ago, and remembered the zinging last line -- though I was not sure it was a Bradbury until I re-read it in this collection.

Miss Linda brought me a novel from the library by Paula Hawkins, the author of The Girl on the Train. This one is called The Blue Hour, and apparently features not a locked room, but a locked island as the location for whatever crime happens. I'll get to it this week.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:35 AM (omVj0)

68 As the belief in the Christian God wanes after WW I, a huge vacuum results. The history of modern times is in great part how that vacuum has been filled. Johnson agrees with Nietzsche that the most likely candidate is what he called the "Will to Power". Thus we see the rise of the gangster-statesman such as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc. As usual with Johnson's works, a well-researched, detailed-rich book.
Posted by: Zoltan

Johnson is always excellent, and I especially like "Modern Times." In fact, I relied on it pretty extensively in shaping the lectures for my Modern European and World History courses. The passage where he uses Hitler's invasion of the USSR to tear down any notion of historical determinism, and highlight the importance of individual decision-making, is *chef's kiss*.

Posted by: Dr. T at April 06, 2025 09:35 AM (lHPJf)

69 MP4 at 48:

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. I've often done that myself (and still do). Using a Kindle makes it easier to hide the evidence, though.

The contents of my shelves and Kindle library are probably more a display of aspiration than accomplishment.

I revisited a few Maugham short stories this week, among them 'The Book Bag,' and in its early pages he describes something like the same syndrome.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 09:35 AM (q3u5l)

70 Started Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers." I saw the movie based on it, "Who'll Stop the Rain," and while not a great movie it suggested that it came from some rich source material beyond the grasp of the filmmakers.

Posted by: Ordinary American at April 06, 2025 09:35 AM (h/ffs)

71 >>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.

Check, check (pup), and check.

Started Dick Francis' "Straight."
Can't go wrong with his books.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 06, 2025 09:36 AM (Cki93)

72 Is there a non-fiction book dedicated to camp followers?

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 09:36 AM (hjCSw)

73 Didn't somebody notice, back when Chicago Jesus was President, that whenever he was photographed heading off to Camp David or some billionaire's estate for a vacation, he was always carrying the same book?

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:36 AM (78a2H)

74 I must have at least 30 books scattered around the house that I have bought for the sake of buying within the last few weeks, and I haven't finished a single one of them.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:27 AM (Q0kLU)

I think many of us share this problem.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 09:36 AM (h7ZuX)

75 I recently received and started reading 'Portfolio' from artist Mark Schultz. It's an art book from the Flesk publisher, and it has a bunch of finished and in-progress illustrations from Schultz, along with occasional anecdotes about the works. 400-some pages! There's a lot to go through...

One neat thing, Schultz did the illustrations for Del Rey's edition of "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian," which is the first of three volumes of Robert E Howards original Conan the Barbarian short stories. I bought the Conan collection a decade ago, and now I get to see some in-progress shots of the some of the illustrations in it. It's kind of fun to have a book collection big enough to cross-reference itself.

I do have on complaint, with the book, though. It's a hardcover with sewn binding, folded paper, sewn through the fold to a flexible inner spine, but there is also a bed of glue between the paper and the 'flexible' spine. So, the spine isn't truly flexible, and the book doesn't fully lay open on its own. Disappointing. Because art books are meant to lay open so you can linger over the illustrations. Also, because other books by Flesk don't have that bed of glue!

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Lhaco)

76 I'm guessing that every day at that kids library they have to vacuum up cheerios and graham crackers crumbs.
Looks cozy, though. . .

Posted by: Lizzy at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Cki93)

77 Currently reading 'The Age of Napoleon' by Durant.

Interesting background on the French Revolution ( The Terror). Any good books on the French Revolution?

Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

78 Started Dick Francis' "Straight."
Can't go wrong with his books.
Posted by: Lizzy at April 06, 2025

***
His early novel Flying Finish is a favorite of mine.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:38 AM (omVj0)

79 >>Thought I'd share this with you for no particular reason, it's just a very cool thing:

https://youtu.be/au30Dogtj-I?si=JeVkn52MMkyBio0I

Have you seen "Flow?"
https://tinyurl.com/yc45dh5s

Posted by: Lizzy at April 06, 2025 09:39 AM (Cki93)

80 Paul Johnson is indeed excellent. You can tell by the way he's ignored by media and academia. They don't dare try to tackle him head-on. Instead he just . . . doesn't exist.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:39 AM (78a2H)

81 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

I've always found the story of Charlotte Corday interesting, and recently read "The Angel of the Assassination." It was good.

Posted by: Ordinary American at April 06, 2025 09:39 AM (h/ffs)

82 Either that or navel history.
Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (73s2+)

That would imply it is an "outie"

Posted by: Kindltot at April 06, 2025 09:39 AM (D7oie)

83 Javier Milei is often photographed carrying Austrian school of economics /Mises.org books.

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 09:40 AM (hjCSw)

84 Theres a sequel to catch a thief by mark o neil (the one with cary grant and grace kelly) authorized by david dodge estate

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 09:41 AM (bXbFr)

85 >>His early novel Flying Finish is a favorite of mine.

Ooh, haven't read that one.
Francis would have made a fabulous criminal - his bad guys were really creative thieves and fraudsters.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 06, 2025 09:41 AM (Cki93)

86 A mild misty rain today, though warm. Supposedly we're to get drier and cooler conditions tonight and tomorrow. But a rainy day is always a good reason to sit indoors with a book.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:41 AM (omVj0)

87 Partly I dislike its politics; there's a lot of hackneyed modern feminism in the story, and it frequently runs down small-town Missouri, which I resent.

My local library had a new bio of Helen Holmes, who was a daredevil stuntwoman of the early silent era and who starred in one of the earliest serials, The Hazards of Helen.

I was leery of the book because of the author photograph (young, sullen and tatted up), but knew it was bad when, in the introduction, she called on both MeToo and the J6 'insurrection' as part of her reason for writing.

FTS. Took the book back the same day. I'm too old to listen to some snot-nosed goth wannabe lecture me about the role of women in Hollywood.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:42 AM (Q0kLU)

88 Finished Roman Holidays and Others by William Dean Howells. A lovely travel miniature (it's only 167 pages long) recounting his trip to Rome and other spots on the Mediterranean in 1908.It's not his first visit so it mixes memories with current impressions of the area. Highly recommended. Barely a hundred pages left to go in The Birth of the Modern, and it continues to be fascinating. Also highly recommended.

Posted by: who knew at April 06, 2025 09:42 AM (+ViXu)

89 The importance of knowing and using names is woven into our culture. Doesn't Genesis have God bringing the animals to Adam to be given names? It is an ongoing theme in LOTR through Tom Bombadil and Treebeard and in other ways. In the post, Perfessor mentioned other places in literature where it applies. I believe it is a factor in some of the original Conan stories. Even the tale of Rumpelstiltskin uses the idea.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 09:43 AM (yTvNw)

90 read Barbara Walter's How Civil Wars Start: And How To Stop Them. The first five chapters are somewhat readable: there are lots of examples illustrating what is apparently, though not surprisingly, a serious academic and security department (FBI, CIA, etc) subject. It's also not particularly surprising what the answer is. For totalitarian regimes: weak gov't w/weak military/police. For democratic regimes: weak gov't w/citizens who have lost confidence in the "democratic" process.

Posted by: yara at April 06, 2025 09:20 AM (sdTED)
---
Much of the leftist commentary on preventing civil wars comes down to the belief that that they are not being repressive enough.

Just a bit more authoritarianism will do the trick.

Obviously, I recommend my book on the Spanish Civil War, but if you want to delve into the broader topic, check out the many books by Stanley G. Payne. He is probably the leading authority on the subject, and I drew heavily on his work and even corresponded with him (an even that put me into total fangirl mode).

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 09:43 AM (ZOv7s)

91 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed

The Terror by Graham Fife was good.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 06, 2025 09:43 AM (lTGtQ)

92 @59: Yea. I thought maybe it was clear (Walter's, not Walters') but should've mentioned it. Barbara Walter is an academic from New York/California.

I should've also mentioned that the book (How Civil Wars Start) is from 2022 and obviously doesn't reflect any changes from the 2024 election.

Also, based on her thesis (maybe examples is a better term) I could see why the US and European security establishments think that "right-wing" domestic terrorism is the real threat and not BLM, etc riots and Rotheringham grooming aren't.

Posted by: yara at April 06, 2025 09:44 AM (sdTED)

93 THE POWER OF NAMES...
"The power of naming things is a staple of fantasy literature, showing up all the time..."

Ok, I'll take the risk of being the holier than thou jerk who insinuates biblical illiteracy but of course there's power in naming things.
Duh. It's right there in Genesis Chapter 2. It's the first job God gave to Adam:

"And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name."

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at April 06, 2025 09:45 AM (dg+HA)

94 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

I have no interest in the subject, but have heard that Simon Schama's Citizens is a good history.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:45 AM (Q0kLU)

95 The importance of knowing and using names is woven into our culture. Doesn't Genesis have God bringing the animals to Adam to be given names? It is an ongoing theme in LOTR through Tom Bombadil and Treebeard and in other ways. In the post, Perfessor mentioned other places in literature where it applies. I believe it is a factor in some of the original Conan stories. Even the tale of Rumpelstiltskin uses the idea.
Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025

***
"He who knows your True Name has power over you."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:48 AM (omVj0)

96 92
Yep. The details matter. Thanks for the extra hint.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 09:49 AM (vd6bO)

97 @90: thanks ALH. I did read Long Live Death and have appreciated greatly its contents.

"Much of the leftist commentary on preventing civil wars comes down to the belief that that they are not being repressive enough:"

but only repressing the right people.

Posted by: yara at April 06, 2025 09:49 AM (sdTED)

98 The other day I came to the realization that, for me, books are the same as alcohol - I have a compulsion to buy / drink, the high is only temporary and I feel rotten afterwards.

I must have at least 30 books scattered around the house that I have bought for the sake of buying within the last few weeks, and I haven't finished a single one of them.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 09:27 AM (Q0kLU)
---
Hmmm, I resemble this remark.

However, my treatment of books/alcohol is markedly different. I purchase both only after careful consideration, and (particularly in the case of alcohol) when I am assured of the best possible price. I then consume them gradually, but regularly. I have been known to stay up late with both and sack out on the couch as a result, but the resulting rest relaxes and rehabilitates me.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 09:49 AM (ZOv7s)

99
FTS. Took the book back the same day. I'm too old to listen to some snot-nosed goth wannabe lecture me about the role of women in Hollywood.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025

***
In a similar vein, MPPPP, Miss Linda brought me a locally-published novel called Vieux Carre Voodoo, a supposed private-eye story set, guess where. I can't tell you how many Nawlins novels *have* to work voodoo or Cajun or French Quarter into their stories. Despite the cliches, I was willing to give it a chance.

The narrator, the detective, tells us on page three that he's gay, and his live-in partner is "one of the most beautiful men I've ever met." Book got closed and set aside for return. Gay characters are fine; I've done it myself. Somebody who trumpets their lifestyle that way? Uh, no.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:52 AM (omVj0)

100 Since about 2020 I've had the worrying sense that this present era feels a lot like the 1850s in America. Attitudes hardening, violence ramping up, etc.

There was a brief respite from about last November to about the beginning of March. My theory is that the Lefties had spent so much time making up scary shit about "what Trump's going to do" that they actually frightened themselves into keeping quiet for a while.

But now that they've seen he's not _literally_ Literally H*tler, they feel free to resume their campaign of political terrorism. And of course it always has to ratchet up. If you firebombed a Tesla dealership last month, you won't get the same rush by doing it again. You'll have to get more and more violent.

The good news is that the Dems seem to still be shedding centrist support. My hope is that they may tantrum themselves into a position where it's actually politically feasible to start really investigating and prosecuting them.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 09:52 AM (78a2H)

101 Is there a non-fiction book dedicated to camp followers?
Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 09:36 AM (hjCSw)

No, but I have read a couple of stories devoted to the "hors de combat"

Posted by: Kindltot at April 06, 2025 09:52 AM (D7oie)

102 "This is Arrowroot-"

"I have many names."

"And he has many names."

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 09:52 AM (ZOv7s)

103 "This is Arrowroot-"

"I have many names."

"And he has many names."
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025

***
Arrowroot of Arrowshirt! Farahslax and The River Anacin!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:54 AM (omVj0)

104 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

There are various specialist works out there, but as a good general history, I strongly recommend "Citizens," by Simon Schama. Very lengthy, but also very informative, and it has a devastating indictment of the Jacobins and the mob rule they relied upon, while also explaining that the Old Regime was neither as corrupt nor as ineffective as most have claimed.

Totally destroys any notion that the American and French Revolutions were two peas in a pod.

Posted by: Dr. T at April 06, 2025 09:55 AM (lHPJf)

105 Ohhhh, that Barbara Walters. That's totally different.
/no idea

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (RIvkX)

106 I heard an interview on the John Batchelor radio show with Eleanor Barraclough about her book "Embers of the Hands: Hidden Histories of the Viking Age. When hearing the word Viking most people only think of fierce warriors coming ashore to ravage the countryside. She uses the artifacts recovered from areas both pre-Viking and later, to uncover the lives and culture of the rest of the population: women, children, slaves, merchants, and all the parts that aren't based on combat. Danish Viking warriors might have established the beachhead in what became Normandy but it was the rest that settled the area and made it livable.

This is the kind of history I most enjoy. Not just a few individuals or events, convenient to catalog for history textbooks, but a wider scope of the culture and technology that made the time and place worth knowing about. Although it's a recent book, I haven't been coming across wokeness or other stupid judgemental pronouncements, which has been a pleasant and welcome surprise.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (yTvNw)

107 Is there a non-fiction book dedicated to camp followers?
Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 09:36 AM (hjCSw)

No, but I have read a couple of stories devoted to the "hors de combat"
Posted by: Kindltot
___________

Is it true that "hooker" comes from Gen. Joe Hooker?

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (Dm8we)

108 ...politically feasible to start really investigating and prosecuting them.
_-_-_
I have heard a lot of people saying, "I want to see arrests!", but politically feasible is an important consideration. Pull that lever too early, and the left gets away with saying, "See? Just like Hitler!"

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (vd6bO)

109 @101...
"BON JOVI'S DETRITUS"

Posted by: Elrond Hubbard at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (9INg6)

110 Books
Finally finished Ice Limit by Preston & Douglas. Cool idea but I did not connect either any of the characters.

Oh well are starting a book study - the Case for Jesus by Brant Pitre.

Posted by: vmom deport deport deporte at April 06, 2025 09:57 AM (J5RCE)

111 but only repressing the right people.
Posted by: yara at April 06, 2025 09:49 AM (sdTED)
---
The actions taken by the Biden regime was almost a textbook example of how to create an insurgency. First, you make an overt show of military force that accomplishes nothing other than to emphasize that you are a bully.

Then you start random arrests of sympathetic people, and declare church ladies dangerous and subject to FBI surveillance.

At the same time, you undermine military discipline by imposing trannies, diversity training, and purge the officer and NCO ranks by various methods, creating an unemployed reserve army in waiting with a serious grudge against the government.

The biggest difference between USA 2024 and Spain 1936 was the strength of our civil society and institutions, which were degraded but not destroyed, as happened in Spain.

I think the danger has largely passed because the military is being restored, the three-letter agencies purged, and the left is run by paste-eating idiots.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 09:57 AM (ZOv7s)

112 Going to jump right in and say that I find that library picture at the top really disconcerting. The fact that there's only one child reading in a pretty uncomfortable spot and there are no other comfy reading spots in sight for other age groups makes me think this is the way AI conceives of a library. Lots of open space which should be filled with stacks of books, magazines, even puzzles and games. Things that make one think and wander and look for other sources.
I don't visit my classic library that often but there are always people there on computers, in the stacks, reading in comfy chairs, chatting with staff.
A library is not just books.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 06, 2025 09:58 AM (t/2Uw)

113 Is it true that "hooker" comes from Gen. Joe Hooker?
Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (Dm8we)
---
This was once believed to be the case, but the advent of online newspaper archives proved that it had seeped into the vernacular before his rise to fame.

I think it is still possible that it became more popular because of him. The example I saw was British, and I don't think a lot of Americans were reading British papers, though their slang may have carried over here.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 09:59 AM (ZOv7s)

114 This is about us, isn't it?

Posted by: Paste eating idiots at April 06, 2025 10:00 AM (dg+HA)

115 Is it true that "hooker" comes from Gen. Joe Hooker?
Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 09:56 AM (Dm8we)

I read a book on the Civil War that said while the term came into use around that time, it actually originated from an NYC neighborhood called "The Hook," where many women of that, er, profession operated. However, he added, the fact that so many people believed it came from General Hooker doesn't say much for his morals.

Posted by: Dr. T at April 06, 2025 10:00 AM (lHPJf)

116 The biggest difference between USA 2024 and Spain 1936 was the strength of our civil society and institutions, which were degraded but not destroyed, as happened in Spain.
====

The ability to use technology to shape and manipulate mass opinion, manufacture consent, spread disinformation, create mass formation psychosis and such is orders of magnitude different.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 10:01 AM (RIvkX)

117 "One colonel, Charles Francis Adams Jr., wrote that 'During the winter (1862-63), when Hooker was in command…the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac was a place to which no self-respecting man liked to go, and no decent woman could go. It was a combination of barroom and brothel.'"

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 10:03 AM (Dm8we)

118 >>However, he added, the fact that so many people believed it came from General Hooker doesn't say much for his morals.

Heh, knew a descendant of his back in HS. Yeah, the landline phone number was unlisted.

Posted by: Lizzy at April 06, 2025 10:03 AM (Cki93)

119 That would imply it is an "outie"

Posted by: Kindltot at April 06, 2025 09:39 AM (D7oie)
-

Did you miss my follow up comment, no. 40?

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at April 06, 2025 10:04 AM (73s2+)

120 Yes thats not library its a honeycomb like in that battlestar galactica episode

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 10:05 AM (bXbFr)

121 The ability to use technology to shape and manipulate mass opinion, manufacture consent, spread disinformation, create mass formation psychosis and such is orders of magnitude different.
Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 10:01 AM (RIvkX)
---
Not really. Newspapers were much more important back then, and used very effectively for propaganda. Radio was also capable of shifting public opinion, and of course newsreels were probably more pervasive then television since movie-going was hugely popular. People basically went every week.

I will also note that J6 and other media creations are easily debunked, but the myth of Guernica being some sort of atrocity/war crime persists among academics almost 90 years after the truth was revealed. Antony Beevor actually treats it respectfully, and can't bring himself to admit that it is total crap from top to bottom. No, they did not fly down the streets strafing kids because it was in the MOUNTAINS. There were no straight roads. Casualties were 1/10 of what was quoted and of course the bomb tonnage was less than the payload of four B-17s. But it's a useful lie, so it survives.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:06 AM (ZOv7s)

122 For the bee like aliens on carrillon

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 10:06 AM (bXbFr)

123 A book I read recently, My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, fits in with the demon theme. In the late 80s, four teenage girls drop acid at a lake house. Gretchen disappears into the woods. Abby finds her the next morning and she says she's fine, but her best friend thinks otherwise. She believes her friend is possessed by a demon and is determined to save her. It's funny and totally 80s. As a former teenage girl, I can tell you he gets girl friendships just right, with the pettiness and squabbling, but also love and loyalty and the need to save your friend, no matter what.

Posted by: huerfano at April 06, 2025 10:07 AM (n2swS)

124 Currently reading 'The Age of Napoleon' by Durant.

Interesting background on the French Revolution ( The Terror). Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed

I read Simon Schama's Citizens not long after it came out in 1989 and was impressed. I recently found a copy in a used bookstore and it's on my t be (re)read pile. Be forewarned, it's a doorstop of a book.

Posted by: who knew at April 06, 2025 10:07 AM (+ViXu)

125 Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 09:52 AM (omVj0)

Wolfus, have you ever read any of the Valentin St Cyr novels by David Fulmer? They're set in early 1900s Storyville, and St Cyr is a Creole detective who tries very hard to keep the scandal of his blood secret.

I read a couple and really enjoyed them.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 10:07 AM (Q0kLU)

126 For the bee like aliens on carrillon
Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 10:06 AM (bXbFr)
---
I was five when that show was on TV. Loved it but that scared the hell out of me.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:07 AM (ZOv7s)

127 One of Stephenson’s early books was centered on naming of things and glossolia.

Posted by: candidus at April 06, 2025 10:08 AM (uBRcO)

128 111
Well-stated, as usual. I worry a little about "the three-letter agencies purged". I would be more content with a cold-boot of these agencies. Simply retire everyone, tell them "Thank you for your service, your pensions are intact.". Start over a bit more carefully.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:08 AM (vd6bO)

129 After many months of slow progress, I finally finished reading the "Luke Cage Omnibus," a collection of comic books featuring, of course, Luke Cage. "Hero For Hire" #1-16, and then the re-named "Power Man" #17-48. It was a slog, and the book (sadly) peaked in issues 1 and 2.

It's basically a blacksploitation comic set in the Marvel superhero universe. Our hero doesn't look quite like a superhero, just a very outlandish 70's black guy. And he tries to do street-level stuff. As the 'hero for hire' moniker entails he acts like a private investigator/bodyguard, and the book is at its best when it focuses on that. Unfortunately, the book often suffers for adhering to the tropes of the superhero genre. Too often Cage has to fight bad buys in full-supervillain-costumes with overly gimmicky powers. If it could have stayed a subdued book where Cage fought super-powered or overly eccentric thugs and crimelords of New York's ethnic enclaves...

The "Hero For Hire" issues are good, if flawed. But after it becomes "Powerman" and some new writers take the helm, the book vacillates between okay at best, and unreadable at worst. Alas, I cannot recommend the book.

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 10:09 AM (Lhaco)

130 Speaking of Einstein, a few months ago I heard about a Netflix (yeah I know) series the Three Body Problem. One of the scenes is set during the Chinese Cultural Revolution where a physicist is forced to renounce Einstein in a public struggle session, refuses, and is beaten to death.

A reminder that atheist communism is "pro-science."

Posted by: Big Fat Meanie at April 06, 2025 10:10 AM (qwx/I)

131 One other quick comment about the "Luke Cage Omnibus" comic I read, in one of the later issues (I can't remember exactly which one) the narrator made a reference to a cat poster with a 'hang in there' message. I had no idea that trope has been around since the 70's!

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 10:11 AM (Lhaco)

132 A book I read recently, My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix, fits in with the demon theme.

Posted by: huerfano at April 06, 2025 10:07 AM (n2swS)
---
There is an important distinction between possession and oppression. Being possessed by a demon requires some sort of action on the part of the victim. It is impossible for someone to be possessed without doing something (intentional or not) to facilitate it.

Oppression, on the other hand, is far more common and countless saints have suffered from it. I think a lot of people who are considered mentally ill suffer from demonic oppression.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:11 AM (ZOv7s)

133 Last week CBD used a painting by John Frederick Kensett in the art thread. I so enjoyed it I looked up his other works. He was considered part of the Hudson River School of artists, also a Luminist, two schools of painting I really enjoy. I got two Kindle books of his works (inexpensive) and a hardcover edition from 1985. The book provides some commentary and context on his life and process and excellent prints and a good number of sketches by Kensett and contemporaries. It gives a nicely complete picture (no pun intended) of an artist and school of painting I enjoy.

A special treat is that Kensett did several paintings of the coast of my home island. It was fun to see places i played and frequented as a youngster as they appeared almost a century before I was born. I could easily identify them by the rocks and land contours that make up the area. They haven't changed.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 10:11 AM (yTvNw)

134 Libraries aren't what they once were. Not just a building full of books any more. Librarians, and Library trustees, are obsessed with the notion of "staying relevant" and of "Libraries as community spaces." So they've got computers for Internet use, and game consoles to check out, and a "library of things" to lend out tools and random stuff, and "teen spaces."

Librarians cull the books more ruthlessly than the stockers in Barnes & Noble. If it hasn't been checked out in x months, out it goes! Got to make room for the next round of celebrity memoirs, ghostwritten political screeds, and Oprah Book Club recommendations.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 10:12 AM (78a2H)

135 I am still reading The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham.

1876-1912

That was a bizarre time.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at April 06, 2025 10:12 AM (ftD+B)

136 >>Started Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers." I saw the movie based on it, "Who'll Stop the Rain," and while not a great movie it suggested that it came from some rich source material beyond the grasp of the filmmakers.

Posted by: Ordinary American at April 06, 2025 09:35 AM

I read that at least forty years ago. I remember it, so I must have liked it.

Posted by: huerfano at April 06, 2025 10:13 AM (n2swS)

137 I am still reading The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham.

1876-1912

That was a bizarre time.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt

I really enjoyed that book. So much history that isn't well known. I may need to revisit it.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 06, 2025 10:14 AM (lTGtQ)

138 The US civil war "many women were entrepreneurs serving as sutlers; those who sold products and supplies for profit to the soldiers."

There must have been hundreds upon hundreds of Napoleonic or Athenian or Roman army camp followers, but peasants rarely write memoirs.

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 10:14 AM (hjCSw)

139 Just trolled some reddit shitposters having orgasms over yesterday's astroturf protest in my town. I drink their irrational hate...

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at April 06, 2025 10:14 AM (ftD+B)

140 @97: arrgh. AHL, not ALH

Posted by: yara at April 06, 2025 10:14 AM (sdTED)

141 Speaking of Battlestar Galactica, I have the photo-book of the opening episode/TV movie. It's like a comic book but uses actual scenes and then has dialog boxes plugged into it.

That was a thing, along with comic-book versions of movies. This is the only one that survived, my comic-books all fell apart due to overuse. I think this anticipated the home video market, because once the movie left theaters, if you wanted to experience it again, this was how you did it.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:14 AM (ZOv7s)

142 Its surprising the great war didnt start in africa with flashpoints like fashoda and agadir

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 10:15 AM (bXbFr)

143 I’m a big fan of the book “The Three Body Problem”. A story I’d read is that the author put that scene somewhere in the middle of the original Chinese publication, counting on the laziness of the censors to quit reading and approve the book before getting to it.

Posted by: candidus at April 06, 2025 10:15 AM (uBRcO)

144 I can tell you he gets girl friendships just right, with the pettiness and squabbling, but also love and loyalty and the need to save your friend, no matter what.
Posted by: huerfano at April 06, 2025 10:07 AM (n2swS)

It's on audio; that might be a good light listen while I'm working in the kitchen. I had a delightful group of girlfriends in high school, and I appreciate a good book that takes me back there in a good way. I'm not one of those women who claims to hate women.

"The Secret Place" by Tana French did that for me, too. If you generally find stories about teenaged girls annoying, you'll want to avoid it, but this is a good story about some Irish boarding school girls who are involved in the murder of a boy from a nearby school. They protect and defend each other, obfuscating and misdirecting the investigation. I liked it.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 10:16 AM (h7ZuX)

145 You meant to say vowel _sound_ of course, as in "a unique idea".
Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 09:29 AM (vd6bO)

Speaking of grammar foo poises, what's with using underscores where quotes or italics would be more appropriate? Or is that the joke?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 10:16 AM (8zz6B)

146 134
What you said. I have mostly replaced libraries in my world with used bookstores. Some of my favorite books are out of print, not available at the local library, and hard to get even on Amazon, but I found them at a used bookstore while browsing with my children.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:16 AM (vd6bO)

147 Ace-endorsed Author, I like your attitude towards alcohol and books. It tracks with mine. Chianti and Paul Johnson kept me up till 1;30AM last night.

Posted by: who knew at April 06, 2025 10:17 AM (+ViXu)

148 I think many of us share this problem.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs!

I have so many unread books on my Kindle that i.camt possibly read them all even if I live another 25 years, which is possible (I'm 61 now).

And, yet, I continue buying new books.

I'm a Book Nerd/Addict!!!!!!!

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 10:17 AM (/RHNq)

149 Also, the villains in TTBP book are Western de-growth environmentalists.

Posted by: candidus at April 06, 2025 10:18 AM (uBRcO)

150 from MT-BT Denzels' movie FALLEN ...names will be named one of the best demon movies,,,

Posted by: qmark at April 06, 2025 10:18 AM (+t9Oi)

151 I think I'll go take a nap. Don't have the energy to do much of anything today.

Hope you all have a lovely day.

Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025 10:19 AM (Q0kLU)

152 89 The importance of knowing and using names is woven into our culture.
Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 09:43 AM (yTvNw)

Not even just our culture. When Confucius was writing in ancient China, one of his big concerns was 'the rectification of names.' Basically, making sure people's titles matched their actual jobs/powers. Because if you/society can't be honest about who rules, then there's a whole lot more that you/society won't be honest about. At least that is how ol' Confucius allegedly felt...

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 10:19 AM (Lhaco)

153 41 I also read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. Tey is one of two pen names used by Elizabeth MacKintosh, the other being Gordon David. Her books were published between 1929 and 1952, the year of her death.

In this work, Alan Grant of Scotland Yard is bedridden with a broken leg. To help pass the time, he delves into the case of Richard III. Did he kill his two nephews in the Tower of London? Or did Henry VII have it done and claim the children were already dead when he came to power? Grant is aided by an American scholar working at the British Museum. An enjoyable tale of suspense.
Posted by: Zoltan at April 06, 2025 09:21 AM (SQp7G)

I read this book as a teen and became a lifetime fan of the author and a Richard III sympathizer. Henry had a lot more motive than Richard to get rid of the kiddos. We think propaganda is a modern invention.

And Rumpelstiltskin...defeated by his true name. Demon? My favorite ending of the fairytale is his stamping his foot so hard he cracks through the crust of the earth and falls into hell.

Posted by: Gem at April 06, 2025 10:20 AM (e85zz)

154 Its surprising the great war didnt start in africa with flashpoints like fashoda and agadir

Posted by: Miguel cervantes

There were some interesting campaigns in Africa during WWI. The German Konigsberg sank some British vessels, and was finally caught hiding in a river and sunk itself. I believe the final surrender of Germans in that war came a month after the armistice, in Africa.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at April 06, 2025 10:20 AM (lTGtQ)

155 The funny thing about the 1880-1900 Scramble For Africa was how none of the actual colonial powers at the time really wanted it. The British, French, and Portugese were pretty happy to just control some coastal enclaves, trade with the interior, and let the Africans do unto each other.

Then Bismarck realizes this is a great wedge issue to keep France and Britain from being too chummy. So Germany starts making some claims, and Otto calls a big conference to "solve all the problems" -- which basically created all the problems of the next generation.

Carving up the continent with lines on a map meant that the colonial powers had to actually go into the interior and try to impose authority -- and that meant finding a way to create a money-based economy generating enough tax income to pay for all that.

Otto's masterstroke was giving the real prize -- the Congo River basin -- to a private company run by the king of Belgium, which was totally incapable of handling the job. I suspect Bismarck figured the Congo Company would get their asses handed to them and then Germany could generously offer to go in and fix things.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 10:21 AM (78a2H)

156 Its surprising the great war didnt start in africa with flashpoints like fashoda and agadir
Posted by: Miguel cervantes
__________

Sean McMeekin argues that in a way, it did. The Italians, with tacit approval from Britain and France, attacked Libya in 1911, leading to the Balkan states launching the First Balkan War in 1912 while the Turks were distracted. All of it ending with a greatly enlarged and aggressive Serbia.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 10:22 AM (Dm8we)

157 The World's Worst and Least Dramatic Exorcism:

...

Priest: Tell me your name demon!

Demon: Puddin Tane. Ask me again and I'll tell you the same.

P: Demon, in the name of all that's holy, What is your name?

D: Puddin Tane. Ask me again and I'll tell you the same.

P: Your name, demon! Now!

D: Puddin Tane. Ask me again and I'll tell you the same.

...

...

...and so forth.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 06, 2025 10:22 AM (iJfKG)

158 Your Mother sews socks that smell !

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 10:23 AM (VofaG)

159 I think the writing was on the wall for the public library when we started to see the 'more than just books' line more and more often. The mission creep suggested by that line is probably fatal for the institution as it once was.

I can go into my local library and find a meeting room, tax forms, movies and tv shows, computers... but if I want to find more than one or two of Hemingway's novels I'm SOL (multiple copies of all of James Patterson's stuff, though).

If he could see the place, Burgess Meredith would break his glasses deliberately.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 10:24 AM (q3u5l)

160 Thousands of unskilled unemployable Democrats flood the streets seeking Democrat dollars...

Posted by: Richard McEnroe at April 06, 2025 10:24 AM (OeyNM)

161 I’m a big fan of the book “The Three Body Problem”. A story I’d read is that the author put that scene somewhere in the middle of the original Chinese publication, counting on the laziness of the censors to quit reading and approve the book before getting to it.
Posted by: candidus at April 06, 2025 10:15 AM (uBRcO)
---
The Cultural Revolution has been roundly condemned in official Chinese circles, and this is why they are so resistant to wokeness. The CCP has rediscovered the value of Chinese history as a unifying element and as part of writing Walls of Men, I obtained a copy of an illustrated guide to China's emperors which drew heavily on official Chinese photos.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:25 AM (ZOv7s)

162 Its surprising the great war didnt start in africa with flashpoints like fashoda and agadir

What gets me is the cavalier attitude (at least to me) towards the subject countries. Take Egypt in the 1880s. Britain and France just decide to run it jointly. (Of course, protecting the Suez was their primary issue).

The Great Powers just did whatever tf they wanted, LOL.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at April 06, 2025 10:26 AM (ftD+B)

163 Sorry, wrong thread

Posted by: Richard McEnroe at April 06, 2025 10:26 AM (OeyNM)

164 where quotes or italics would be more appropriate? Or is that the joke?
_-_-_-_
Pure ignorance of how to do that here. Does this do it? HTML?. When wondering what's up with something I say, you can usually count on ignorance or stupidity.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:27 AM (vd6bO)

165 Started to read Conn Iggulden's The Fields of Swords. A historical fiction on Julius Caesar. It's not a page turner thus far but not enough to give up just yet.

I'm also reading Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 10:28 AM (VofaG)

166 Read about the career of the German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. He led the Brits a merry chase all over southeastern Africa, and was still fighting when the Kaiser called it quits.

Film adaptations of that campaign inevitably try to make the Germans the big bad evil guys opposed by a plucky band of Brits, but in reality the reverse was true. Plus von Lettow was genuinely admired by his men, and spent several decades trying to get the German government to pay his African soldiers for their service. He was too big a hero for the Nazis to mess with. When he died the Federal Republic finally coughed up the marks for his surviving askaris from 50 years earlier.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 10:28 AM (78a2H)

167 Nope. That didn't work, either. How does one do italics in these comments text boxes?

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:28 AM (vd6bO)

168 'Ey! You looka for us? What'sa matta you?

Posted by: Some Italics at April 06, 2025 10:30 AM (78a2H)

169 Nope. That didn't work, either. How does one do italics in these comments text boxes?
Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:28 AM (vd6bO)
====

Depends what membership level.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 10:30 AM (RIvkX)

170 The African Queen is the limit of my knowledge of WW1 in Africa.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 10:30 AM (VofaG)

171 Otto's masterstroke was giving the real prize -- the Congo River basin -- to a private company run by the king of Belgium, which was totally incapable of handling the job. I suspect Bismarck figured the Congo Company would get their asses handed to them and then Germany could generously offer to go in and fix things.
Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 10:21 AM (78a2H)

The short bit about Leopold in the book posits that he believed the Congo was full of wealth, and wanted a piece, and started his international group with the intent to create his piece of Empire. It took a bit of effort to woo Stanley away from the British.

Posted by: Deplorable Ian Galt at April 06, 2025 10:31 AM (ftD+B)

172 The Great Powers just did whatever tf they wanted, LOL.
Posted by: Deplorable Ian
___________

Most of the time. There's Isandlwana and Khartoum, and a host of smaller disasters.

Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 10:32 AM (Dm8we)

173 Lloyd, I think you miss the main reason the Spanish civil war had become unavoidable was the degree that the Spanish culture and people had been buggered and impoverished to support the Spanish empire, and that the defeat of the Span-Am war destroyed the pretext to maintain that condition. The literary movement, The Generation of '98 with voices like Lorca have been pillories as examples of depravity, but what it attempted was a re-imaging of Spanish identity in the face of the loss of the basic assumptions of Spain as an Empire. (Lorca's adoption of English meter and prosody styles to Spanish poetry is inspired, for example, though much of the movement is more flash than accomplishment - the curse of 'vangaurdismo / avant garde")
the political chaos from 1900-1930 was an attempt to control the the future of Spain by the politically and socially active elites who were finding they were surplus to the requirements of the new Spain. There was no real plan B for them since there was no real middle class. The cost of empire was 500 years of stasis, and the lower classes were recognizing it and getting involved too.
The US is probably not there yet

Posted by: Kindltot at April 06, 2025 10:32 AM (D7oie)

174 The real story of the African Queen is much weirder and hilarious. Look up "Geoffrey Spicer-Simson" for details.

Posted by: Some Italics at April 06, 2025 10:32 AM (78a2H)

175 112 ... Sharon,
I hope things are coming along after your cataract surgery. I still have to use reading glasses but the astigmatism was corrected along with the rest. For the first time in years I can read for long periods without eye strain and I'm seeing depths of color I had forgotten about.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 10:33 AM (yTvNw)

176 The 3Body Problem is just a brilliant, thought provoking work of literary art. Constantly surprised by where the story took me. It is a rare find. The second book as well. The third book kind of trails off into some for me, incomprehensible ideas and have not been able to get into some of his other writing but that doesn't negate how strongly I feel about the first books.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 06, 2025 10:33 AM (t/2Uw)

177 Wolfus, have you ever read any of the Valentin St Cyr novels by David Fulmer? They're set in early 1900s Storyville, and St Cyr is a Creole detective who tries very hard to keep the scandal of his blood secret.

I read a couple and really enjoyed them.
Posted by: Mary Poppins' Practically Perfect Piercing (aka Eloquent Depression) at April 06, 2025

***
Storyville would at least be something really different. I'll look for one.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 10:34 AM (omVj0)

178 141 Speaking of Battlestar Galactica, I have the photo-book of the opening episode/TV movie. It's like a comic book but uses actual scenes and then has dialog boxes plugged into it.

That was a thing, along with comic-book versions of movies. This is the only one that survived, my comic-books all fell apart due to overuse. I think this anticipated the home video market, because once the movie left theaters, if you wanted to experience it again, this was how you did it.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:14 AM (ZOv7s)

I think photograph-comics were a big thing over in Europe (Italy) in the 60's and 70's. I can't cite any sources on that, but I think I remember hearing/reading it.

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 10:34 AM (Lhaco)

179 Love the cartoon about the English teacher enraged by the misuse of 'than' and 'then'. My sympathy is with the teacher.

For my taste, the word balloon could have said "This is for saying 'awesome' one too many times".

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 10:37 AM (yTvNw)

180 You can ride on the real African Queen movie boat which is located in Key Largo. It has been refurbished of course but like George Washington's hatchet that the handle was replaced and then subsequently the toe and bit were replaced, the original still occupies the space.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 10:38 AM (VofaG)

181 The Italian photo-comics were called "Fumetti" (because the speech bubbles looked like smoke). Apparently a great many of them were quite racy.

Posted by: Some Italics at April 06, 2025 10:38 AM (78a2H)

182 I'm a Book Nerd/Addict!!!!!!!

Posted by: Sharkman

Case in point. Just saw that Dan Simmons (yes, he of the Hyperion Cantos) has a Sherlock Holmes novel called "The Fifth Heart" on sale for $1.99 on Kindle, down from $26.99. Description:

"In 1893, Sherlock Holmes and Henry James come to America to solve the mystery of the 1885 death of Clover Adams, wife of the esteemed historian Henry Adams -- member of the Adams family that has given America two Presidents. Clover's suicide appears more than it first seemed; the suspected foul play may involve matters of national importance.

Holmes is on his Great Hiatus -- his 3-year absence after Reichenbach Falls, when the people of London believe him to be deceased. Holmes faked his own death because, through his powers of ratiocination, the great detective has concluded that he is a fictional character.

This leads to complications for James -- for if his fellow investigator is a work of fiction, what does that make him? And what can the master storyteller do to fight against the sinister power -- possibly named Moriarty -- that may or may not be controlling them from the shadows?"

OF COURSE I BOUGHT IT!!! I CAN DO NO OTHER!!!

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 10:41 AM (/RHNq)

183 104 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

'The Scarlet Pimpernel' would probably be in top 5 of most popular period's novels, and it's a classic that holds up.

I've come close a few times to a reread of 'A Tale of Two Cities', but the 'to be read' pile keeps getting modified & taller. It's been a long time since it was a required read in Junior High.

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at April 06, 2025 10:42 AM (L1omb)

184 Nope. That didn't work, either. How does one do italics in these comments text boxes?
Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:28 AM (vd6bO)

Italics, bold, and strikethrough are obtained by placing an "i", "b", or "s" in square brackets (no spaces) preceding the word or passage to be so displayed, followed a forward slash plus the same letter (e.g. /i ) following the word or passage. That's called the "close tag", and if forgotten, may cause one to bold the entire subsequent thread, resulting in a trip to the barrel.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 10:42 AM (8zz6B)

185 @181 --

Marvel put out a few fumetti books during the '80s.

Posted by: Weak Geek at April 06, 2025 10:42 AM (p/isN)

186 An excellent treatment of demon possession is given in Episode 1 of Season 1 of The Chosen. It begins the entire series by introducing us to Mary Magdalene who is not portrayed as a harlot, but as a woman spiritually afflicted and tells her story using a flashback to her childhood.
Erick Avari gives an excellent performance as Nicodemus, and of course Jonathan Roumie is Jesus. And the whole concept of the importance of her name is central.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at April 06, 2025 10:43 AM (dg+HA)

187 You can ride on the real African Queen movie boat which is located in Key Largo. It has been refurbished of course but like George Washington's hatchet that the handle was replaced and then subsequently the toe and bit were replaced, the original still occupies the space.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 10:38 AM (VofaG)

This sounds like the set-up for a Borges short story.

Though the true object no longer exists, the true space for the object does exist and is found or must be found for some reason or is stumbled upon unknowingly.

Like so.

Posted by: naturalfake at April 06, 2025 10:43 AM (iJfKG)

188 JTB, surgery is Thursday. Supposedly going to correct astigmatism and doing both eyes. I want it done but still nervous about not being able to see for a couple of days. Being retired my main source of entertainment is being here and books. By next Sunday's thread I should be able to,report.
Send positive thoughts on Thursday.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 06, 2025 10:43 AM (t/2Uw)

189 It was pretty good sort of working off the twist with the seven percent solution (where the real villain is a thinly disguised kaiser wilhelm)

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 10:44 AM (bXbFr)

190
I think photograph-comics were a big thing over in Europe (Italy) in the 60's and 70's. I can't cite any sources on that, but I think I remember hearing/reading it.
Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025

***
The paperback "FotoNovels" featuring stills from Trek episodes and the dialog (or a simplified version) that went with each scene were around in the '70s, I think.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 10:45 AM (omVj0)

191 >> It has been refurbished of course but like George Washington's hatchet that the handle was replaced and then subsequently the toe and bit were replaced, the original still occupies the space.

The hell you say.

Posted by: Theseus Shipbuilders, LLC at April 06, 2025 10:45 AM (SAnJ/)

192 Hen Mazzig
@HenMazzig

Alice Nderitu: Fired after refusing to lie for the UN and label the war in Gaza as genocide.

Francesca Albanese: Contract renewed for 3 more years after denying Hamas’s sexual crimes, accusing Israel of carrying terror attack in Paris, and implying that Israelis eat human flesh.
6:24 AM · Apr 5, 2025
====
In case there was any remaining question about the UN.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at April 06, 2025 10:46 AM (RIvkX)

193 Yep, the 70s for the Star Trek FotoNovels -- I was still working Kroch's & Brentano's in Chicago when Bantam started putting them out. I forget how many they did, though, and am too lazy to look it up.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 10:47 AM (q3u5l)

194 I've never heard of "George Washington's Hatchet." But I do know of an old saying "This is my grandfather's axe. My father gave it a new handle and I have replaced the head."

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 10:48 AM (78a2H)

195 At first I was disturbed at the library photo at the top of the thread. Then I realized that a kid having a place to curl up with a book is important. And that kid looked comfortable while reading.

That doesn't take away my irritation about libraries culling their collections to make room for current best sellers and Michelle Obama type crap. Don't discard the physical books, expand the library. They should be repositories of civilization, not just fashionable ephemora.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 10:48 AM (yTvNw)

196 That's called the "close tag", and if forgotten, may cause one to bold the entire subsequent thread, resulting in a trip to the barrel.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 10:42 AM (8zz6B)
=====
Waiting right here bro. Go for it.

*opens gigantic maw wide*
*odors and faint cries emanate*

Posted by: The Barrel at April 06, 2025 10:48 AM (RIvkX)

197 I think a lot of people who are considered mentally ill suffer from demonic oppression.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 10:11 AM (ZOv7s)

Last week, Blonde Morticia posted an article she wrote about a delusional friend. I've been reading bits of it off and on all week, just when I've got the laptop out, and it's fascinating. It would certainly seem like a demonic oppression.

Article here, if you missed it:

https://is.gd/Ewmg1U

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 10:48 AM (h7ZuX)

198 That's an interesting photo at the top of your post, but when I looked for more info, I noticed there's no Pic Note.

So what's the story?

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 06, 2025 10:49 AM (klJTj)

199 How does one do italics in these comments text boxes?
Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025
*
Italics, bold, and strikethrough are obtained by placing an "i", "b", or "s" in square brackets (no spaces) preceding the word or passage to be so displayed, followed a forward slash plus the same letter (e.g. /i ) following the word or passage. That's called the "close tag", and if forgotten, may cause one to bold the entire subsequent thread, resulting in a trip to the barrel.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025

***
I'd add this to AOP's explanation, that "the forward slash plus the same letter" must also be included in square brackets with no spaces.

You can always put a "left square bracket-forward slash-formatting letter-right square bracket" combo in your signature line too, to make sure you close off anything you opened in the comment.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 10:49 AM (omVj0)

200 I just got another ecopy of Wimd and Truth, the giant Sanderson tome. Now that I'm 1000 pages in, it is starting to come together, but my reading speed is slower than usual. The story is very dense. I think I read fast because I skip stuff without realizing it. When every word counts I have to slow down.

Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 06, 2025 10:50 AM (t/2Uw)

201 No, if thrush or hydra were real theyd be unwra

Posted by: Miguel cervantes at April 06, 2025 10:50 AM (bXbFr)

202 JTB, surgery is Thursday. Supposedly going to correct astigmatism and doing both eyes. I want it done but still nervous about not being able to see for a couple of days. Being retired my main source of entertainment is being here and books. By next Sunday's thread I should be able to,report.
Send positive thoughts on Thursday.
Posted by: Sharon(willow's apprentice) at April 06, 2025 10:43 AM (t/2Uw)

Perhaps Fabio could be recruited to guide you around, and do chores for you while your eyes are healing. Of course, if you cannot see, a short dumpy guy would work too.

(sends hugs)

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 10:50 AM (8zz6B)

203 Busy working, but 'tis the season for Bach!

https://youtu.be/quBYEomIAZM?si=i7aHxPFPi84CLfbe

(Gave up pop music for Lent)

Posted by: logprof at April 06, 2025 10:52 AM (cKPoE)

204 Protip: put the close tag (with slash) in your comment first, then the open tag. That way if you get distracted, you won’t create a Barrel-able offense.

Same thing applies to HTML.

Posted by: Theseus Shipbuilders, LLC at April 06, 2025 10:52 AM (SAnJ/)

205 184
Thanks, AOP. Please pardon me for taking up thread space for remedial education. I was trying to use angle brackets instead of square brackets.

Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:53 AM (vd6bO)

206 I can believe those that were mentally ill and then without treatment or medication became normal could have been possessed by demons.

I have no first hand knowledge of such people though.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 10:54 AM (VofaG)

207 You can see a model of the African Queen that was used to film certain scenes of the movie in a hotel lobby somewhere in Annapolis. I saw it a few years ago. It's about 15 feet long.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at April 06, 2025 10:54 AM (dg+HA)

208 The naming of true names is a central theme of Ursula K. LeGuin's absolutely classic Earthsea Trilogy.

Another set of books i really need to re-read.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 10:55 AM (/RHNq)

209 I'm guessing the big African Queen model is from the shot where the boat goes over the rapids. In the film it's pretty obvious there aren't any real people on board.

Posted by: Trimegistus at April 06, 2025 10:56 AM (78a2H)

210 Highest praise for Charlie Jane Anders' near-future sci fi/fantasy mashup "All the Birds in the Sky", about the intertwined lives of a magic prodigy and a science prodigy. I just finished the last chapter. So good.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 10:56 AM (kpS4V)

211 188 ... "surgery is Thursday. Supposedly going to correct astigmatism and doing both eyes. I want it done but still nervous about not being able to see for a couple of days. Being retired my main source of entertainment is being here and books. By next Sunday's thread I should be able to,report.
Send positive thoughts on Thursday."

Sharon,
Understood. I was nervous as well but it was life enhancing. I had one eye done at a time. Kind of weird since I still needed glasses for one eye. I used audio books for the short period before things settled in.You will stay in our prayers.

Posted by: JTB at April 06, 2025 10:56 AM (yTvNw)

212 Thanks, AOP. Please pardon me for taking up thread space for remedial education. I was trying to use angle brackets instead of square brackets.
Posted by: Don in SoCo at April 06, 2025 10:53 AM (vd6bO)

You're welcome! Yeah, angle brackets work, or worked, on some other sites. Pixy works his wonders in mysterious ways.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 10:56 AM (8zz6B)

213 Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM

Should double check but try Christopher Duffy

Posted by: Skip at April 06, 2025 10:57 AM (ypFCm)

214 Perfessor - " I find this story fascinating in how humans perform the essential operations of a computer, instead of a mechanical system. Basically, humans performs simple calculations like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. More sophisticated calculations based on those foundational operations are performed by humans who grasp more advanced mathematics."

DNA uplifted ants are the primary AI computing component in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin/Time/Memory trilogy.

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 11:03 AM (hjCSw)

215 DNA uplifted ants are the primary AI computing component in Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Ruin/Time/Memory trilogy.

Posted by: 13times

A wonderful trilogy, second only to his "Shards of Earth/Eyes of the Void/Lords of Uncreation" trilogy (official trilogy title: "The Final Architecture").

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:09 AM (/RHNq)

216 Had an interesting discussion with someone the other day about writing.

We ended up talking about books that made us feel like "I've never read anything like this before. This is something completely new."

I picked the opening of the first book in Nine Princes in Amber. The narrator wakes up in a hospital and begins to do things he doesn't fully understand but moves towards learning who he is.

The other thing we agreed on is that it isn't possible to write something completey new. My choice wasn't actually new at all, it just made me feel like it was.

Fwiw, I am not at all someone who thinks about or is bothered by "tropes" or "theft" or "copying". Thank god.

I don't care at all if author X uses author Y's "ideas" or "world" or "character types".

It is interesting what works make/made people experience that "This is like nothing I have ever read before!" feeling.

Posted by: Thesokorus at April 06, 2025 11:09 AM (z6Ybz)

217 Good Morning Perfessor, and fellow Hordemates.

Posted by: Diogenes at April 06, 2025 11:10 AM (W/lyH)

218 test italics /i

Posted by: Toad-0 at April 06, 2025 11:10 AM (cct0t)

219 I hope that worked

Posted by: Toad-0 at April 06, 2025 11:10 AM (cct0t)

220 I hope that worked
Posted by: Toad-0 at April 06, 2025

***
The italics didn't carry over, so I guess so!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 11:13 AM (omVj0)

221 Francesca could be quite useful around here...just saying.

Posted by: Angzarr the Cromulent at April 06, 2025 11:13 AM (XMwZJ)

222 Lloyd, I think you miss the main reason the Spanish civil war had become unavoidable was the degree that the Spanish culture and people had been buggered and impoverished to support the Spanish empire, and that the defeat of the Span-Am war destroyed the pretext to maintain that condition.
Posted by: Kindltot at April 06, 2025
---
I'm aware of all of that. You're talking about the Hugh Thomas version that does a deep dive into the cultural impact of the Enlightenment, the class between liberal modernism and tradition, Spain's unique fixation with Anarchism, etc.

But the immediate cause was the unwillingness of the Spanish left to be content with democratic politics. The wrote the constitution and then undermined it. This inability to observe even the basic functions of government and to permit violence and even assassinations was what directly precipitated the July Rising. There are other works that delve deeper, but that is beyond the scope of what most people want to know, and certainly beyond the focus of my book.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:14 AM (ZOv7s)

223 day after the election I thought of reading Hillbilly Elegy; went to the library to get a copy ... across our system every copy was out, I was 74th on the hold list, apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, lol.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at April 06, 2025 11:14 AM (/Ghsb)

224 I finished Stone's Fall by Iain Pears, a 600+ doorstopper, in three weeks and quite liked it. Set in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries during the height of the fruits of the English industrial revolution, it explores the accident, murder, or suicide of a fabulously wealthy titan of industry who died by falling from a windows and the search for an heir. The writing itself is good which caused me to wince only occasionally. Example: "a horse rider understands his steed, and can make it obey him without use of whip or stirrup." I assume he meant spur. Written from three distinct points of view, each informs the others such that events you understood in a particular way become entirely different. There are more twists and turns than a Rocky Mountain road. I never could have guessed the ending. So if you're up for 600 pages of high finance and low motives, this is the book for you.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Soldier of the Persistence at April 06, 2025 11:15 AM (L/fGl)

225 Speaking of libraries . . . when we were in Franklin, LA, last Thursday, we visited the city library (which is oddly right next to the City Hall). It had open spaces, yes, but lots and lots of books, chairs to relax in, even some free coffee at a little station . . . and a bookcase full of Harlequin Romance novels. I guess they know their clientele.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 11:15 AM (omVj0)

226 Article here, if you missed it:

https://is.gd/Ewmg1U
Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 10:48 AM (h7ZuX)
---
I'll take a look. Thanks!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:16 AM (ZOv7s)

227 Testing

Italics

Bold

strikethrough

~~Testing.~~

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:16 AM (/RHNq)

228 Unexpected and great: "Oil prices crumble as Saudi Arabia throws in the towel on restricting supply"

https://tinyurl.com/4939jfpe

From April 4

Posted by: JM in Illinois at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (QWosr)

229 Francesca probably could be useful here, but I think I'd almost be afraid to post. The thought of Francesca leaping out of the screen and putting me in some bizarre judo pretzel hold because I ignored basic punctuation rules would send me straight into lurk-only mode.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (q3u5l)

230

~~Didn't work as instructed.~~

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (/RHNq)

231 @77, Thomas Paine was invited to France by the Revolutionaries, and in the turbulence of the times he wound up on trial for his life. He wrote about it: 'Reflections on the Terror: Thomas Paine’s Lost Manuscript on the French Revolution'.
I also remember a book, perhaps by Garry Wills (?) following Paine's time in France. Old brain no workee... Anyway, these books provide an interesting view of the Revolution.

Posted by: Brewingfrog at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (xNqSX)

232 Oh goody. Please turn it off

Posted by: JM in Illinois at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (QWosr)

233 Most of the time. There's Isandlwana and Khartoum, and a host of smaller disasters.
Posted by: Biff Pocoroba at April 06, 2025 10:32 AM (Dm8we)
---
Adowa has entered the chat.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (ZOv7s)

~~234~~

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 11:17 AM (omVj0)

235 Though the true object no longer exists, the true space for the object does exist and is found or must be found for some reason or is stumbled upon unknowingly.

Like so.
Posted by: naturalfake at April 06, 2025 10:43 AM (iJfKG)

The Ship of Theseus. The ancient Athenians kept a ship so named around, and debated if it could called such since every piece of it had been replaced several times over.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 06, 2025 11:18 AM (ngbZu)

236 To the barrel!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:18 AM (ZOv7s)

237 _-_-_-_
Pure ignorance of how to do that here.

[ i ]italics[ /i ]

Except remove the spaces within the brackets

Similarly, u for underscore, b for bold, s for strike.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:18 AM (/y8xj)

238 /I
/b
/s

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:19 AM (/RHNq)

239 That right there is why I never attempt italics, bold, or any other formatting. You all will just have to abide by my quotation marks.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at April 06, 2025 11:19 AM (h7ZuX)

240 Unexpected and great: "Oil prices crumble as Saudi Arabia throws in the towel on restricting supply"

https://tinyurl.com/4939jfpe

Posted by: JM in Illinois at April 06, 2025 11:20 AM (QWosr)

241 It's not a bad idea to put all of the close tags before your nic in the Name field although some prefer to perform without a net.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:20 AM (/y8xj)

242 I listened to Hillbilly Elegy via audiobook while on a long road trip.
I can recommend it, but I have to warn you, there is a long sequence of disfunctional family stories to get through.
I remember thinking WILL WE EVER GET OUT OF SEVENTH GRADE?

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at April 06, 2025 11:21 AM (dg+HA)

243 I've added the close-strikethrough combo to my nic.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (omVj0)

244 Okay, those instructions sucked.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (/RHNq)

245 It would be nice to have a daily test thread where you could post any nonsense without fear of annoying others with your mistakes or of being accidentally banned by posting to an old thread.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (/y8xj)

246 An excellent treatment of demon possession is given in Episode 1 of Season 1 of The Chosen.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at April 06, 2025 10:43 AM (dg+HA)
---
I am increasingly convinced that the biggest problem with our age is that we've gone completely irrational with regards to religion and the reality of the spirit world. We are at a point where people think it is more rational to believe that aliens are flying through the skies using technology we cannot explain, for reasons we do not know, than it is to acknowledge the massive compendium of evidence going back to the dawn of the written word.

It is the definition of illogic. Freud exemplified this, and his entire schtick was to tear down religion and come up with bogus fixations and therapies, basically bastardizing the confessional in order to legitimize kinky crap.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (ZOv7s)

247 I remember thinking WILL WE EVER GET OUT OF SEVENTH GRADE?
Posted by: Quarter Twenty at April 06, 2025

***
That was just my reaction when I really *was* in seventh grade!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (omVj0)

248 Hey, barrels need to eat too.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 11:23 AM (kpS4V)

249 245 It would be nice to have a daily test thread where you could post any nonsense without fear of annoying others with your mistakes or of being accidentally banned by posting to an old thread.
Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (/y8xj)

----

Just post on a thread that was closed earlier in the day

Posted by: JM in Illinois at April 06, 2025 11:24 AM (ZNcI8)

250 FWIW, I don't object to using _underscores_ to indicate emphasis. It's how we used to do thing back in the pure ASCII days of Usenet and BBs.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:25 AM (/y8xj)

251 Italics

Bold

Underscore

~~Strikethrough~~

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:26 AM (/RHNq)

252 It appears that every European country has had to go through the madness of ideological totalitarianism. France was the first, but the rest have allowed followed in thei time, save for England. Are they heading for it now?

I give Italy credit for doing the weakest version, and getting sick of it as soon as it clearly wasn’t working out.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 06, 2025 11:26 AM (ngbZu)

253 Finished the first two of three Arthur cycle Warlord. Loving it, and loving Merlin.

The pagans talk about Christianity the same way I am hearing now, as being toothless, although it is shown to be quite different in the year ~500 than it is today. A lot weirder ... although this turns out to be mild compared to the Isis Osiris cult that Gwynever is a part of.

Bernard Cornwall hates Gwynever and Lancelot, and by extension the French.

Posted by: BourbonChicken at April 06, 2025 11:26 AM (lhenN)

254 Now do a combination of Bold Italic Underscore.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 11:26 AM (kpS4V)

255 Now I get it.

Sorry, folks. I've been posting on here since 2004, but never tried to do that before.

Probably for good reason.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:27 AM (/RHNq)

256 A Moron put together a page of commenting tips. The advantage is he was able to spell out the open and close tags which is difficult to do here in the comments.

http://mindfulwebworks.com/art-of/ace
-of-spades-blog-commenters-survival-guide

Posted by: Anon Y. Mous at April 06, 2025 11:27 AM (klJTj)

257 Unexpected and great: "Oil prices crumble as Saudi Arabia throws in the towel on restricting supply"

====

Prices in the 60's aren't truly 'crumbling',, but it's a good start.

Once in In the 40's, various geopolitical assholes are forced to spend their time dealing with internal threats instead of exporting their asshole-ery.

Go frackers go!

Posted by: 2009Refugee at April 06, 2025 11:27 AM (X6AM8)

258 Sorry, folks. I've been posting on here since 2004, but never tried to do that before.

Probably for good reason.

Hey, somebody's gotta keep us entertained.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:28 AM (/y8xj)

259 If I ever do meet His Ultimate Serene Awesomeness, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., I am definitely going to ax him ( ducks shoe thrown by Eris ) what he thought about the Three Body Problem, a book he recommended.

I am reasonably certain he could not discuss the book, in all likelihood never having read it....

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 06, 2025 11:28 AM (PiwSw)

260 FWIW, I don't object to using _underscores_ to indicate emphasis. It's how we used to do thing back in the pure ASCII days of Usenet and BBs.
Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:25 AM (/y8xj)

So that's whre it came from! It just looks weird to me.

You know what would be handy? A foot-pedal shift key. It would be a boon to us two-fingered typists.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 11:29 AM (8zz6B)

261 It appears that every European country has had to go through the madness of ideological totalitarianism. France was the first, but the rest have allowed followed in thei time, save for England. Are they heading for it now?

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 06, 2025 11:26 AM (ngbZu)
---
The English like to preen about being the Mother of Parliaments, but they had their share of tyrants. Henry VIII literally made himself head of both church and state, killed anyone who didn't go along with it, including close friends and allies.

Cromwell was another British tyrant who, as Churchill memorably put it, killed a lot of people and was therefore a Great Man.

To put it another way, the Crown arresting people for the crime of praying is nothing new.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:30 AM (ZOv7s)

262 The Final Architecture
Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 11:09 AM (/RHNq)

I just read his books Alien Clay which was pretty good and The City of Last Chances which was mediocre.

The first book is a play on the totalitarian prison planet/island theme. The second is a fantasy magic themed novel but feels like a table top D&D campaign.

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 11:30 AM (hjCSw)

263 A question re comments. If I go to the sidebar to look at, say, a book thread from March, I can bring up the content. At the end of the content, there's a link to access comments. When I click on that link, I get a blank screen with no comments.

Is it just me (using a Chromebox and chrome browser), or can comments from old threads not be seen? Do I need to try a different machine? Or am I missing something obvious, for which Francesca would devise a suitable punishment?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 11:31 AM (q3u5l)

264 You know what would be handy? A foot-pedal shift key. It would be a boon to us two-fingered typists.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at April 06, 2025 11:29 AM (8zz6B)
---
Every use a manual typewriter? Same vibe.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:31 AM (ZOv7s)

265 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed
---------

'Paris in the Terror', Loomis

Moron-recommended.

Goodreads review:
http://tiny.cc/2blf001

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 06, 2025 11:35 AM (XeU6L)

266 Is it just me (using a Chromebox and chrome browser), or can comments from old threads not be seen? Do I need to try a different machine? Or am I missing something obvious, for which Francesca would devise a suitable punishment?

The broken archive links are a relic of the great AOS crash of several years ago. When the site got restored/rebuilt, the archives moved from minx.cc to acecomments.mu.nu. So to access an archived thread, follow the links as you descibe, then change minx.cc to acecomments.mu.nu in the URL box and reload.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:38 AM (/y8xj)

267 Cromwell was another British tyrant who, as Churchill memorably put it, killed a lot of people and was therefore a Great Man.

To put it another way, the Crown arresting people for the crime of praying is nothing new.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:30 AM (ZOv7s)

I’m actually quite a fan of Cromwell, although he had some tragic character flaws. He played much the same role as Trump is playing today, but the fact that he was very skilled at War - better than anyone else at the time - made things play out quite violently.
He’s probably the best example of how absolute power will corrupt someone with the best beliefs, and best intentions.
His greatest flaws were when he let his anger and frustration at being opposed get the better of him, and that’s when he would start chopping heads until everyone agreed to do things his way.

Posted by: Tom Servo at April 06, 2025 11:38 AM (ngbZu)

268 The runaway bolded strike through. lol!

Posted by: 13times at April 06, 2025 11:38 AM (hjCSw)

269 FWIW, the broken links could probably be fixed in one or two lines of HTML or CSS but I suspect that TPTB find the brokenness charmingly quaint.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:40 AM (/y8xj)

270 It would be nice to have a daily test thread where you could post any nonsense without fear of annoying others with your mistakes or of being accidentally banned by posting to an old thread.
Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:22 AM (/y8xj)

That's what the ONT is for.

Posted by: Dr Pork Chops & Bacons at April 06, 2025 11:41 AM (g8Ew8)

271 "Most of the time. There's Isandlwana and Khartoum, and a host of smaller disasters."

The Brits tried to space out their colonial disasters. Otherwise, as Lt. Bromhead (Michael Caine) said in Zulu, it, "Looks bad in the newspapers and upsets civilians at their breakfast[.]"

Posted by: Pope John 20th at April 06, 2025 11:45 AM (JZ/46)

272 However, he added, the fact that so many people believed it came from General Hooker doesn't say much for his morals.
Posted by: Dr. T at April 06, 2025 10:00 AM (lHPJf)

I don't know if it says anything about HIS morals. He was said to be a terrific division commander, just not a very good army commander.

Camp followers were common everywhere soldiers gather. It's the nature of these things. No more or less stoppable around military installations than it is anywhere else in the world.

Posted by: BurtTC at April 06, 2025 11:46 AM (5tnEC)

273 Thanks, Oddbob. Will give that a try.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 11:47 AM (q3u5l)

274 Any good books on the French Revolution?
Posted by: dantesed
---------

'Paris in the Terror', Loomis

Moron-recommended.

Goodreads review:
http://tiny.cc/2blf001
Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 06, 2025 11:35 AM (XeU6L)
>>

Edmund Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"

Posted by: mrp at April 06, 2025 11:48 AM (rj6Yv)

275 Pizza-gate pants for the children's library? 😬

Posted by: BonnieBlue at April 06, 2025 11:48 AM (/X1S2)

276 one thing that does aggravate me is judging people in the past based on today's standards and culture. Presentism.

Make no mistake though, there are historical figures who were evil based on the standards and culture of their days.

Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 11:48 AM (VofaG)

277 FWIW, the broken links could probably be fixed in one or two lines of HTML or CSS but I suspect that TPTB find the brokenness charmingly quaint.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:40 AM (/y8xj)

No. None of TPTB are amused by those broken links.

Complain to Pixy!

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at April 06, 2025 11:49 AM (L5An7)

278 Well, errands to run, disasters to cause, so this kid's outta here.

Thanks for the thread, Perfessor.

Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at April 06, 2025 11:50 AM (q3u5l)

279 Good morning everyone.

Once again, I am presented with the problem of getting rid of hundreds of books. Our church library is being turning into a different type of room and many of the books in there have to go. No one wants all of them and only a few want any. Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity (Restore), and our version of Half Priced Books don't want them.

It pains me but it looks like I'll have to recycle them.

Posted by: Tonypete at April 06, 2025 11:50 AM (cYBz/)

280 Off to seize the day. Thanks again Perf and Hordelings for a lovely book thread.

Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at April 06, 2025 11:50 AM (kpS4V)

281 No. None of TPTB are amused by those broken links.

Complain to Pixy!

Like an Olympian god, Pixy is deaf to the pleas of mere mortals.

Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:51 AM (/y8xj)

282 Any good books on the French Revolution?

Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM (Oy/m2)

"Citizens," by Simon Schama.

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (with a beret and a Gauloises) at April 06, 2025 11:51 AM (L5An7)

283 Good morning, Bibliophiles!

I have been subbing frequently this school year in a 6th Grade class. The teacher reads a chapter and the class discusses it or writes about it. They have read several books by Gordon Korman, who tells the story from the POV of several characters in alternating chapters. I asked the students whether they enjoyed the novels (they do) and whether they find the alternating POVs confusing (most don’t). From an adult perspective, the novels are well-written, although the vocabulary is not too challenging, and the plot is compelling enough that I check them out from our local library. I would say Mr. Korman satisfies his target audience.

Posted by: March Hare at April 06, 2025 11:52 AM (O/GSq)

284 I don't know if it says anything about HIS morals. He was said to be a terrific division commander, just not a very good army commander.

Camp followers were common everywhere soldiers gather. It's the nature of these things. No more or less stoppable around military installations than it is anywhere else in the world.
Posted by: BurtTC at April 06, 2025 11:46 AM (5tnEC)
---
Hooker spent time out west under Sherman, and like Oliver Howard, performed much better than he did out east.

The Army of the Potomac had a uniquely awful command environment, no doubt because of all the politics. Other armies were much more functional. Some question Grant's tactics and capability, but I think he understood that hammer-strikes in the Overland Campaign were the most that he could get out of his generals, and even these miscarried and failed.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:53 AM (ZOv7s)

285 It pains me but it looks like I'll have to recycle them.
Posted by: Tonypete at April 06, 2025 11:50 AM (cYBz/)

Maybe you can find somewhere nearby to give them a home?

https://booksalefinder.com/index.html

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 06, 2025 11:54 AM (PiwSw)

286 Looks like noon is almost here. Thanks, Perfesser!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at April 06, 2025 11:54 AM (ZOv7s)

287 one thing that does aggravate me is judging people in the past based on today's standards and culture. Presentism.

Make no mistake though, there are historical figures who were evil based on the standards and culture of their days.
Posted by: Sebastian Melmoth at April 06, 2025 11:48 AM (VofaG)

Like Martin Luther.

Posted by: Dr Pork Chops & Bacons at April 06, 2025 11:54 AM (g8Ew8)

288 Like an Olympian god, Pixy is deaf to the pleas of mere mortals.
Posted by: Oddbob at April 06, 2025 11:51 AM (/y8xj)

The fix is in Minx 0.9354 beta

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at April 06, 2025 11:55 AM (PiwSw)

289 Not sure it's Churchill who put Cromwell as a Great Bad Man

Posted by: Skip at April 06, 2025 11:57 AM (ypFCm)

290 Time to hustle off and do some chores. Thanks to the Perfessor and all of you for a fine Book Thread!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at April 06, 2025 11:58 AM (omVj0)

291 'I read Paul Johnson's Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties'

I have re-read this many times. It was very consequential to my world view

Posted by: Dr. Claw at April 06, 2025 11:58 AM (3wi/L)

292 It pains me but it looks like I'll have to recycle them.
Posted by: Tonypete
------

Our local library accepts 'Give away' books, which occupy shelves at the entrance. If you have the time, even a neighborhood table (Free Books!) would be better than grinding them to paste. Of course that, 'If you have the time' is the big sticker.

Posted by: Mike Hammer, etc., etc. at April 06, 2025 12:00 PM (XeU6L)

293 WE HAZ A NOOD

Posted by: Skip at April 06, 2025 12:01 PM (ypFCm)

294 For those interested in unusual aspects of World War I in Africa, there's Byron Farwell's "The Great War in Africa 1914-1918," "Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika," by Giles Foden (the "Battle" provided the underlying story for the Africa Queen book and movie), and "The Battle for the Bundu, the First World War in East Africa," by Charles Miller, about the adventures of Colonial von Lettow-Vorbeck fighting the Brits in east Africa. Farwell's book, as was typical for him, has lots of interesting minor details like the visit of a German Zeppelin sent to deliver supplies to von Lettow-Vorbeck; the supply mission was aborted at about Khartoum. The Battle of the Bundu is available to borrow at the Internet Archive, but is otherwise a bit hard to get. The other two are available as used books.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at April 06, 2025 12:01 PM (JZ/46)

295 Two books on the French Revolution I enjoyed, one fiction and one nonfiction, are Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly and Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert.

Revolution is a young adult novel about a high school student from an elite family who learns that her problems are not so different from the aristocrat's during the Revolution by reading a diary. This is partially a time travel story. My daughter loved it and I liked it, too.

Days looks at ten or a dozen turning points during the Revolution. It was just one damn thing after another. It is amazing that on a number of occasions, fate was balanced on a knife edge.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Soldier of the Persistence at April 06, 2025 12:04 PM (L/fGl)

296 I write in italics, Boldly, to Underscore my serious lack of ability, though I attempt to ~~Strike through~~ my insecurities in commenting on this Blog, to reach another plane of existence.

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 12:38 PM (/RHNq)

297 Heh

Posted by: Sharkman at April 06, 2025 12:41 PM (/RHNq)

298 "213 Posted by: dantesed at April 06, 2025 09:37 AM

"Should double check but try Christopher Duffy
Posted by: Skip at April 06, 2025 10:57 AM"

Skip, to the best of my knowledge (and it's pretty good, as I knew Chris for years) Christopher Duffy wrote a bit about the Napoleonic Wars-e.g. "Eagles Over the Alps" about Suvorov, but nothing about the French Rev per se. His main specialities were the Seven Years War and, in later years, The Jacobite Rebellion. He also did a scattering of books, and translations (he began his book career, IIRC, translating Rommel) on other topics like the WW I battle of the Somme, a bio of the Austrian Field Marshall Ulysses von Browne, books on siege warfare, and so on. Duffy's area of expertise was military history-he taught at Sandhurst with Chandler, Griffith and Keegan-and was fluent in German, so his books capitalized on those strengths.

You might be thinking of Duffy's book, "Military Experience in the Age of Reason 1715-1789" which covers European military development up to the French rev, but that's about it. BTW, for those interested in the subject matter, Duffy's books are good histories of the various periods.

Posted by: Pope John 20th at April 06, 2025 12:44 PM (JZ/46)

299 I have started reading John Wright's latest "Starquest" series. It is a re-imagining of the next generation of "Star Wars" by a better (in all meanings of the word) and more thoughtful writer.
What happens after the war against evil is won and the old heroes hang up their swords? Can the victory live up to its promise? Absent a great evil that has to be fought, how do get moral clarity? Is it ever fine to fight fire with fire?
John Wright saw the lost opportunity (due to the mediocrity of the writers, hobbled by ideological blinders) and jumped in. The result is this engaging and thought-provoking series, now finished, which he is releasing one book at a time.
The characters are well-written, with understandable motivations (without giving anything away, one is avenging his dead brother, another her parents) and the narration is fun and full of interesting touches.
I have really enjoyed it so far and look forward to more.

Posted by: PG at April 06, 2025 01:02 PM (Ohm5I)

300
191 >> It has been refurbished of course but like George Washington's hatchet that the handle was replaced and then subsequently the toe and bit were replaced, the original still occupies the space.

The hell you say.
Posted by: Theseus Shipbuilders, LLC at April 06, 2025 10:45 AM (SAnJ/)

***

This is why I come here.

Posted by: Elinor, Who Usually Looks Lurkily at April 06, 2025 03:18 PM (SWA0S)

301 Pure ignorance of how to do that here.

[ i ]italics[ /i ]

Except remove the spaces within the brackets

italics

Posted by: JM in Illinois at April 06, 2025 07:23 PM (xTnJ1)

302 Test

Posted by: JM in Illinois at April 06, 2025 07:23 PM (xTnJ1)

303 152 When Confucius was writing in ancient China, one of his big concerns was 'the rectification of names.'

Posted by: Castle Guy at April 06, 2025 10:19 AM (Lhaco)

Beat me to it. Interesting contrast to the modern separation between sign & signified in Saussure, Wittgenstein, etc. But a name is not just the sound, but also "where you draw the lines" (Cf. "cutting" in Zhuangzi), connotation, relation to other words. . . .

Read Lost Horizon recently, because it was mentioned in The Heart of the World (which I'm 3/4 through).

A little while ago I read The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. Sprinkled throughout were moments when a character would speak as if addressing the author or otherwise reveal that they knew they were a character in a book. The passages came without warning and disappeared without leaving a mark. It made me do a double take a few times. Does anyone know other books that do that?

Posted by: pjungwir at April 07, 2025 01:25 AM (q4wrI)

304 excellent publish, very informative. I'm wondering why the other experts of this sector don't notice this.
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huge readers' base already!

Posted by: painters Littleton at April 07, 2025 04:17 AM (hgigh)

305 Just want to say your article is as astonishing. The clarity in your post is simply great and
i could assume you're an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission allow me to grab your feed to
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Posted by: qq88 at April 07, 2025 07:09 AM (sXwqV)

306 I am currently re-reading The Women of Genesis by Orson Scott Card. It is fictionalized biographies of Sarah (wife of Abraham), Rebekah (wife of Jacob), and Rachel and Leah. Interesting biblical stories brought to life.

Posted by: Dagny Taggart at April 07, 2025 07:11 PM (Ywa9B)

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