Reading Thread 10/19/2025

Howdy Readers! Welcome to the Reading Thread, your Sunday morning source for the insightful, lively and spirited discussion of books 'n stuff. I'm filling in for a while as this space re-invents itself under new management so please set your near-term expectations accordingly low.

What do we have this week? Why, it's none other than Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen and published in 1813. As I mentioned in the other editions of the Reading Thread you may not always get such fabulous selections as this.

Anyhoo, feel free to discuss reading and books in general and share your thoughts on this week's selection if you're so inclined.

I know you're just as excited as I am, so just jump below the fold to get started!

******

click for download options

New procedure for clicking - rather than opening a PDF, a link now takes you to the Gutenberg Project web page for the book with multiple download options.

Also, for those interested, here is the Pride and Prejudice Wiki page link.

******

Special Bonus Topic For Today's Discussion

Do you like reading books in Texas?

***

So that's it for now, guys and gals. Come to class next week prepared to discuss reading 'n stuff, and remember, Reading is FUNdamental!

Posted by: Weasel at 09:00 AM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Tolle Lege

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 09:08 AM (+qU29)

2 Weasel

Posted by: Accomack at October 19, 2025 09:08 AM (FqNtp)

3 Little more than 100 pages to go in Rick Atkinson's The British are Coming, American Revolution 1775-7

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 09:10 AM (+qU29)

4 Thank you, Goode Sir Weasel!

I'm sure you have a lot going on right now.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:10 AM (kpS4V)

5 There is a wealth of books at Gutenberg

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 09:10 AM (+qU29)

6 One MoMee, I'd love to have an enormous book swap.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:11 AM (kpS4V)

7 Good morning fellow Book/Reading Threadists. I hope everyone had a great week of reading. Glad all the Texas folks avoided the nasty storms down there. Could you all read by the light of the lightning strikes?

Posted by: JTB at October 19, 2025 09:11 AM (yTvNw)

8 Big fan of Jane Austen, here. I believe her brother was a Captain in the Navy, iirc.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 09:12 AM (E0dYH)

9 Haven't read Pride & Prejudice in who-knows-when. Another one I hope to revisit before I'm planted.

Think Joseph Epstein mentioned hearing that some critic or historian or I dunno what was asked if he ever read novels, and the guy answered, "Yes. All six." Referring to Austen's six novels.

As to reading books in Texas... Never been to Texas, so can't say. Is it different reading books there, and if so, how?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:13 AM (q3u5l)

10 Finished Orbital Resonance by John Barnes; started The Education of Henry Adams - which had over 30 pages of preliminaries.

Posted by: Nazdar at October 19, 2025 09:13 AM (NcvvS)

11 It's going to be dank, rainy, and windy all day long. Perfect for reading!

Lotta non-challenging reading this week. Just not up for anything too deep.

"Alien: Enemy of My Enemy" - more dastardly hijinks from Weyland-Yutani.

Also read Volume 2 of the "Aliens: Defiance" series by Dark Horse.

A gut-busting tome is "E is for Edward: A Centennial Celebration of the Mischievous Mind of Edward Gorey". As the intro deftly put it, his works are 100 years out of date and 30 years ahead of their time. I love the frappe of Edwardian murder mysteries, penny dreadfuls, and creepy children's cautionary tales.

Clifford Simak's "Waystation". Simak's always been a favorite. He's that rare SF writer that has a rural feel to his writing; quiet, slow paced, and reflective.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:13 AM (kpS4V)

12 Oh, and...

Morning, Weasel.
Howdy, Horde.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:14 AM (q3u5l)

13
Jane Austen was okay, but her cousin Jane San Antonio was better.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 09:14 AM (iJfKG)

14
Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:10 AM (
----
Sorry I was late! I clicked "post" on my phone and nothing happened. Had to break out the laptop.

Very quiet in Texas this morning. Just a few folks left picking up the pieces. Great time had by all!

Posted by: Weasel at October 19, 2025 09:14 AM (hR6jM)

15 Do you like reading books in Texas?

-

Unless I'm on vacation, I read all of them in Texas.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:14 AM (0U5gm)

16 Big fan of Jane Austen, here. I believe her brother was a Captain in the Navy, iirc.
Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 09:12 AM (E0dYH)
---
So she wrote what she knew.

Yay Book Thread!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 09:16 AM (ZOv7s)

17 G'morning again Horde.

I've been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventure / science fiction books about Mars (main character in the first book is John Carter) and I'm up to the fifth book, "The Chessmen of Mars". This one's gotten downright weird, but I still want to keep reading (hallmark of a good story and a good author.)

Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at October 19, 2025 09:16 AM (O7YUW)

18 I've never read any Jane Austin. But I do have the B and N collectible edition of seven of her novels. They do a good job with those hardcover editions, I have several of them. Good values. When I take a break from poetry reading I should start one of them.

Any suggestions which Austin story to start with?

Posted by: JTB at October 19, 2025 09:16 AM (yTvNw)

19 Not only did I miss the TxMoMe, I didn't read any fiction this past week. (Unless news article about swastikas on U.S. flags count.) Work kept me busy.

Come this week, life should return to normal.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 09:17 AM (Ss9ul)

20 As to reading books in Texas... Never been to Texas, so can't say. Is it different reading books there, and if so, how?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:13 AM (q3u5l)

The books are bigger in Texas.

Also they come with an optional pair of silver Longhorn Horns to use as bookmark.

Thirdly, it generally required to drink a Lone Star or Shiner beer while reading.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 09:18 AM (iJfKG)

21 13
Jane Austen was okay, but her cousin Jane San Antonio was better.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 09:14 AM (iJfKG)

ha Jane (does) Dallas da bestest

Posted by: r hennigantx at October 19, 2025 09:18 AM (gbOdA)

22 Not only did I miss the TxMoMe, I didn't read any fiction this past week. (Unless news article about swastikas on U.S. flags count.) Work kept me busy.

Come this week, life should return to normal.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 09:17 AM (Ss9ul)

I only read the back of a Betty Crocker cake mix box.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 09:18 AM (uQesX)

23 Not sure, but I think they named a city in Texas after her.

Posted by: Just woke up at October 19, 2025 09:19 AM (SeSfo)

24 I realized I'd never read a Hemingway novel (just some short stories in high school and college). I started "The Sun Also Rises." I'm enjoying it.

Posted by: Ordinary American at October 19, 2025 09:19 AM (UseAb)

25 If memory serves, Modern Library has a nice 2-volume set of Jane Austen's novels available hardcover and Kindle. Think it's still in print in both formats.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:19 AM (q3u5l)

26 It is quiet in Texas, I agree. And down right chilly, especially for the AZ people!

Posted by: az deplorable moron at October 19, 2025 09:20 AM (4ZrQu)

27 Still working through Josephus and The Jewish War. I've reached the commencement of hostilities and Josephus pulls no punches on denouncing the faithlessness evidenced by the rebels who claim to be all about restoring their religion but defile the Sabbath with massacres of the innocent, often under terms of truce. He's dropping some heavy foreshadowing that they will get what they deserve in the end.

Of course, he switched teams, so he *would* think that, wouldn't he?

The bigger takeaway is that the people of the Levant have always been alternately at each other's throats or enjoying the fruits of peace and prosperity under a larger empire's rule, which of course they never stop complaining about.

And of course: the actually invited the Romans in the first place. Such a silly place.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 09:21 AM (ZOv7s)

28 Mornin' Horde. Love Jane Austen. My cat is named Mr Bingley. Every so often I'll reread P&P (one of the few books/authors that I had to read in school that I now pick up voluntarily). It's the morning after the MoMe so I don't have any erudite criticism to offer.

Posted by: screaming in digital at October 19, 2025 09:21 AM (ZPANb)

29 Ishmael has sailed on the Pequod.
Bildad and Peleg have returned to Nantucket.
I downloaded a Kindle sample of Mere Christianity. We’ll see what happens.

Posted by: Accomack at October 19, 2025 09:24 AM (FqNtp)

30
Currently reading Philip K Dick's novel, "Radio Free Albemuth".

Not quite sure if it's a good one or not. Though several people seem to like it.

PKD, his own self, appears as a major character in the novel with lots of PKD-mythology destroying included.

The meany fascist President ruining everyone's lives sounds like what the Biden Regency would've brought us if continued, buuuuut iOS clearly a stand-in for Nixon.

PKD's good friend in the novel is in contact either with aliens or God through a pink light beam shot from a piece of paper.

Ah well, tune in next week to find out if it's worth your time.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 09:26 AM (iJfKG)

31 A classic still entertaining today is Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. Given it was first published in 1872, it was far ahead of its time in speculating on how transportation was shrinking the world, and what the rest of the world looked like.

Our hero, Phileas Fogg, is a man of constant habits and impeccable timekeeping. His routine is so exacting that he cannot keep a butler long. His latest man, Passepartout, has only been at work a few hours when Fogg accepts a wager at his club that he can circumnavigate the planet in 80 days. With 20,000 pounds on the line, they start out that very evening.

From London, they travel by rail to Italy, across the Med and through Suez to India by steamer, across India by train and elephant, and thence by ship to Japan, the US and the UK. A British detective Fix, thinking Fogg had robbed the Bank of England, sticks with them trying to arrest Fogg on British territory. This novel is part adventure and part travelogue. While most people of the time had not left their birthplace, Verne gave them a sense of what the world was like. If you have seen the 1956 movie with David Niven, it follows the book almost exactly.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:27 AM (0U5gm)

32 Naturalfake at 20

I may have to try that if I ever happen to visit Texas. But most of my reading these days is on the Kindle, so the silver longhorn bookmarks probably won't work. If it makes the screen bigger, cool, because I can always use a big screen and a large font. The beer will still be beer and not some digital abomination, right?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:27 AM (q3u5l)

33 JTB, Pride & Prejudice is a great place to start but I think the one I enjoy rereading the most is Sense and Sensibility. The adaptation with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet is very good.

Posted by: screaming in digital at October 19, 2025 09:27 AM (ZPANb)

34 I have never read any Jane Austen, but my wife has subjected me to every film or TV adaptation she can find. "Bride and Prejudice" (the Bollywood version) is pretty funny but also a remarkably on-point take on contemporary India.

Some years ago I started a story in the style of Jane Austen as a Valentine present for my wife. It has the usual elements of a noble but impoverished family seeking good marriages for its daughters, the tension between wealth vs affection and for a fun twist I set it on a desert planet where the Navy used giant landships.

I subsequently published it as Scorpion's Pass, and it remains my worst-selling book ever. Not a huge market for "Jane Austen's Dune" I guess. Check it out if you dare!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 09:27 AM (ZOv7s)

35 Good morning hungover and alert horde

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at October 19, 2025 09:28 AM (DoBxX)

36 I'm nearly done reading the "Slow Horses" series, with only the newest book (just published) to go. I visited Oxford recently, where the author (Mick Herron) lives. Nice town. Fairly decent coffee shops.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 09:28 AM (g8KqZ)

37 I certainly enjoyed my first Texas MoMe experience which can be summed up in three words: brisket, cigars, and hooch. But mainly cigars.
And I'm happy to report all of the visits paid by the local constabulary were polite, professional and amicable despite the fact that pants are optional.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at October 19, 2025 09:28 AM (SeSfo)

38 Charlie Mackesy's "Always Remember", the follow on to his "The Boy, the Mole, The Fox and the Horse" came out this week. It's as good as the first one, maybe better. Such simple writing that could be read to a child but can lead an adult to much deeper depths of meaning and how they apply to living. To me there is a very Christian underpinning: the individual and his approach to life is important but is strengthened by communion.

The pen and ink illustrations, some with watercolor washes, seem loose and simple, even inexact. But they convey the meaning and feel of the text so well. They remind me of the Ernest Shepard illustrations for the original Winnie the Pooh book. High praise by my lights.

The effect of the book, both books actually, is entirely positive. So much so that I'm sure some people will have difficulty with it, not used to so much that is good.

Posted by: JTB at October 19, 2025 09:28 AM (yTvNw)

39 I would have continued reading but no longer have possession on my tablet. I need some other electronic device so I can read when I want.

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 09:28 AM (+qU29)

40 This past week I've been reading _Freedom's Forge_ by Arthur Herman. It's really good -- a history of war production in the USA before and during WWII. Focuses on Bill Knudsen and Henry Kaiser, but with nods to Andrew Higgins and some others. Great stuff, and -- to my surprise -- unabashedly pro-capitalist. If the book has a villain it's not so much the Axis powers as the socialist New Dealers who wanted to use the excuse of the war to create a "centrally planned economy." Herman also notes that a lot of the antiwar sentiment in the late 30s wasn't coming from Republicans but from lefties who bought into the "Arms makers caused WWI" myth.

The book is also just a fun read. Highly recommended.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 09:29 AM (78a2H)

41 Micheal Palin did a Round the World series that I thought of seeing the world as a passenger on a freighter. But, I decided to drink instead.

Posted by: Accomack at October 19, 2025 09:29 AM (FqNtp)

42 I had a busy week, but managed to eke out a little time to make progress into "The Rules of the Game." The collision which killed Adm. Tryon, and the subsequent court martial, have mostly been resolved, so hopefully we'll soon be back to capital ships lobbing massive shells at one another.

Posted by: PabloD at October 19, 2025 09:30 AM (Mme4T)

43 I love reading books in Texas. I even like reading books about Texas. I also loved reading books in New Mexico, where I used to live and where I learned to read in a rural, two room schoolhouse, at the age of five. Pretty much anywhere is a great place to read as long as people will leave you alone to do it.

Posted by: huerfano at October 19, 2025 09:31 AM (98kQX)

44 Is it different reading books there, and if so, how?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:13 AM

The print is bigger.

Posted by: toby928 at October 19, 2025 09:32 AM (jc0TO)

45 Watched Around the World in 80 days a few months ago, nice to know it was close to the book.
Of course if made today it wouldn't be.

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 09:32 AM (+qU29)

46 I read To Wake The Giant: A Novel of Pearl Harbor by Jeff Shaara. This is a well-researched story of the events leading to that fateful day, December 7, 1941.

Posted by: Zoltan at October 19, 2025 09:32 AM (VOrDg)

47 Here's a nice little short on Edward Gorey:

https://tinyurl.com/37u6f3xz

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:33 AM (kpS4V)

48 I've just started reading Lone Star: a history of Texas and the Texans by T.R. Fehrenbach, a Duncanthrax recommendation. I'm in the conquistadores era so a long way to go, but it's really well written and interesting.

Posted by: screaming in digital at October 19, 2025 09:34 AM (ZPANb)

49 I recently "bought" the complete works of Jane Austen on audible with free trial credits.
It's cool coz the readers are BBC actors.

Favorite Austen read: Northanger Abbey
Austen I should re-read to properly appreciate: Mansfield Park

Posted by: vmom deport deport deport at October 19, 2025 09:36 AM (XMjOg)

50 “ “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

Posted by: Marcus T at October 19, 2025 09:36 AM (R1D6K)

51 If you have seen the 1956 movie with David Niven, it follows the book almost exactly.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:27 AM (0U5gm)

Conteflaus was his man servant.

Posted by: r hennigantx at October 19, 2025 09:37 AM (gbOdA)

52 You could navigate around the world in 80 minutes via Google Maps Street View. But you might strain your mouse clicking finger.

Posted by: Quarter Twenty at October 19, 2025 09:37 AM (SeSfo)

53 I would have continued reading but no longer have possession on my tablet. I need some other electronic device so I can read when I want.

Posted by: Skip

If I remember the Sunday school lesson properly, the very first tablet was actually a pair possessed by Moses.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:38 AM (0U5gm)

54 Wicki informs me Austen has two brothers in the Navy, and one (Sir Francis Austen) rose to the rank Admiral Of The Fleet! As a lieutenant he served for a bit on the HMS Shannon, a ship which morons will remember from Patrick O'Brian as being under the command of Jack Aubrey's cousin Philip Broke. Somehow, despite spending the better part of sixty years in the Navy, much of it at sea, Sir Francis and his wife managed to have ten children.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 09:38 AM (chOes)

55 The 80 Days film with David Niven did add a detour through Spain so that Cantinflas could do his comic bullfighting routine.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 09:39 AM (78a2H)

56 @51 Bob Hope told a story about an experience with Cantinflas when they did a performance together in Mexico: The performance was in Spanish, which Hope didn't speak, so he simply memorized both sets of lines, expecting to respond to what he heard.

Cantinflas did a lot of ad-libbing and Hope was completely lost.

Posted by: Nazdar at October 19, 2025 09:41 AM (NcvvS)

57 So much of my reading fits into a web of influences spanning centuries. The Romantic poets, the writings of George MacDonald leading to Chesterton, Lewis and Tolkien. That continues with some nature writers and poets. (Observers, not 'activists')

In this case it is a series of essays by MacDonald in his collection "A Dish of Orts", written in the Victorian period. The two I've read involve the importance of imagination in art, specifically fairy tales, and life. I had to smile when he mentioned how he didn't like allegory. That took me immediately to Tolkien's preface to LOTR where he says he doesn't like allegory but prefers 'applicability'. The connection was strong.

I've been reading A Dish of Orts in an ebook version. I have a good physical copy coming today. This is a book I will reread often and want to hold in my hands. Many notes will be written, I've already started, as I read it.

Posted by: JTB at October 19, 2025 09:41 AM (yTvNw)

58 Do you like reading books in Texas?

I have read many books in Texas including books by Texans like Cedar Sanderson and Jayme Lynn Blaschke.

The history of the Texas Chicken Ranch is especially appropriate for a blog of this caliber.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at October 19, 2025 09:42 AM (lJmmt)

59 Not a lot of reading this week. Was going to start reading Glory by Nabokov, but picked up Simenon's first Maigret novel instead. Could be the translation, or the fact that this was really early in Simenon's career, but it didn't quite do it for me the way his non-series books do; I 've heard the later Maigrets are better so I'll get to those some time over the next few months.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:43 AM (q3u5l)

60 The 80 Days film with David Niven did add a detour through Spain so that Cantinflas could do his comic bullfighting routine.

Posted by: Trimegistus

The movie also skipped some details over how Fogg got to Yokohama to find Passpartout after he missed his ship, but it wasn't all that much of a detour. Maybe that was to make room for the bullfighting.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:43 AM (0U5gm)

61 I second the recommendation of "Freedom's Forge." Excellent book.

Posted by: Art Rondelet of Malmsey at October 19, 2025 09:44 AM (FEVMW)

62 "...Sir Francis and his wife managed to have ten children."

As a friend once noted, it's a wise man who knows who is real grandfather is.

Posted by: PabloD at October 19, 2025 09:44 AM (X5Uxu)

63 I love that Gorey wore vintage raccoon fur coats, just like the gentlemen in his illustrations. With jeans and sneakers, his style was described as "hipster dandy".

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:44 AM (kpS4V)

64 My wife is a huge fan of Jane Austen, and "Pride and Prejudice" remains her favorite book.

So when she left for a work trip last year, I started it. I got through maybe seven chapters.

She's going to Europe next year. While she's gone, I'll try to resume it.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 09:45 AM (Ss9ul)

65 If I remember the Sunday school lesson properly, the very first tablet was actually a pair possessed by Moses.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:38 AM (0U5gm)
---
Obligatory: "I give you these fifteen [crash] ten, TEN commandments!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 09:46 AM (ZOv7s)

66 "Do you like reading books in Texas?"

I like movie about gladiators.

Posted by: Captain Clarence Oveur at October 19, 2025 09:46 AM (i0F8b)

67 With zombies.

Posted by: Eromero at October 19, 2025 09:46 AM (1aFZz)

68 Well, I've never been to Texas, but I kind of like the music ... (e.g., Lyle Lovett is a giant among men and Julia Roberts must be madder than a hatter and dumber than a shovel).

Anyway, it hasn't been lost on me that the Book Thread blog posts have been focusing on The Classics. Always a good idea ... but does anyone agree with me that it's become necessary, as the current book-publishing industry seems to be in utterly helpless free-fall? I mean, with the exception of the well-established Cormoran Strike and Hawthorne & Horowitz mystery series and the new genius Janice Hallett, EVERY new novel from the Big Six (regardless of genre, speculative or mimetic) I've picked up at the library for Sabbath hard-copy reading has been DNF'ed at the 65-page mark at the latest. Only exception: The Art of Vanishing, a first novel that promised a thrilling climax and thoughtful resolution, so I went all the way ... and it delivered nothing but a wasted premise. And it's not due to The Message most of the time, either. Thoughts?

Posted by: werewife at October 19, 2025 09:47 AM (5ayY3)

69 Niven was great as Fogg, and Cantinflas was suitable as Passepartout . . . but who the hell decided to cast Shirley MacLaine as Aouda? She looks about as Indian/Parsi as Mickey Rooney.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 09:47 AM (78a2H)

70 Good morning Book Horde! I went to New York Comic Con last weekend and got some books autographed- Timothy Zahn signed several of his Star Wars novels, as did John Jackson Miller. And I got George RR Martin to sign a copy of "Dark Visions", a horror anthology that contains the first printing of his werewolf novella, "The Skin Trade". He was genuinely impressed that I was the only person who didn't bring anything Game of Thrones for him to sign.

Posted by: Josephistan at October 19, 2025 09:51 AM (FLx59)

71 Mickey Looney in yellowface!

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:51 AM (kpS4V)

72 Here's a nice little short on Edward Gorey:

https://tinyurl.com/37u6f3xz
Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:33 AM (kpS4V)

Saw his drawings on "Mystery" and came across a book, The Ancient City, that he drew the cover for. Didn't know much else about him. Thought he was probably from earlier than he was. 1925 - 2000.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 09:51 AM (uQesX)

73 Niven was great as Fogg, and Cantinflas was suitable as Passepartout . . . but who the hell decided to cast Shirley MacLaine as Aouda? She looks about as Indian/Parsi as Mickey Rooney.

Posted by: Trimegistus

There is an unfounded rumor that Rooney turned down the role.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:53 AM (0U5gm)

74 The only thing I'm reading in Texas is this place. Then in a half dozen other states until I get home.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at October 19, 2025 09:53 AM (XTwnC)

75 I read somewhere today, I believe in the Telegraph, that "Lonesome Dove" is having its best sales year in three decades. No idea why it is resurging but I too am a huge fan of Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (and the entire series), and especially a fan of his Berrybender series.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 09:55 AM (aACSV)

76 Morning, Book Folken!

Not a lot of reading this week. Was going to start reading Glory by Nabokov, but picked up Simenon's first Maigret novel instead. Could be the translation, or the fact that this was really early in Simenon's career, but it didn't quite do it for me the way his non-series books do; I 've heard the later Maigrets are better so I'll get to those some time over the next few months.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025

***
JSG, I know you know it's been said that Ross MacDonald's Lew Archer is such a thin character, he disappears if he turns sideways. I found Maigret to be the same, at least in that first novel. If you locate a better one, please let us know!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 09:55 AM (omVj0)

77 The only thing I'm reading in Texas is this place. Then in a half dozen other states until I get home.

Posted by: Berserker

Good to see you yesterday. That was a great thing you did for Theresa and Sponge's wife.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:55 AM (0U5gm)

78 Werewife at 68,

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. The new stuff just doesn't seem to hit the way the older stuff does. I have the impression that if I ever cornered one of the current writers and asked for his thoughts on what might be the reason for that, he'd just say, "Well, I wasn't talking to you when I wrote it."

Mostly, they're not talking to me any more, so these days I'll hang around with the ones who were.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:57 AM (q3u5l)

79 Thoughts?
Posted by: werewife at October 19, 2025 09:47 AM (5ayY3)

We're not very good writers anymore? We've done nothing, seen nothing, been nowhere, so how can we write good books?

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 09:58 AM (uQesX)

80 I've been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' adventure / science fiction books about Mars (main character in the first book is John Carter) and I'm up to the fifth book, "The Chessmen of Mars". This one's gotten downright weird, but I still want to keep reading (hallmark of a good story and a good author.)
Posted by: Grumpy and Recalcitrant at October 19, 2025 09:16 AM (O7YUW)
----

I recently read "John Carter of Mars: Gods of the Forgotten" by Geary Gravel, in which his daughter Tara and the kaldane Ghek return to accompany the warlord on his latest adventure. It was a lot of fun and captured ERB's style.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 10:00 AM (kpS4V)

81 68 ... " but does anyone agree with me that it's become necessary, as the current book-publishing industry seems to be in utterly helpless free-fall? "

Oh my, yes! If it wasn't for a very few ongoing series like the Pendergast books or Cussler's "Isaac Bell" stories (now written by Jack Du Brul), I would rarely touch modern fiction. From my aged curmudgeon viewpoint they are written for woke, mind dead near illiterates. Not that I have an opinion on the matter.

I wonder if the Matt Helm series could be published today.

Posted by: JTB at October 19, 2025 10:01 AM (yTvNw)

82 who the hell decided to cast Shirley MacLaine as Aouda? She looks about as Indian/Parsi as Mickey Rooney.
Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 09:47 AM (78a2H)

Well, of course. Mickey Rooney looks Japanese!

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:01 AM (uQesX)

83 @56 --

Hope has a similar account involving the French comedian Fernandel, with whom he made "Paris Holiday," in his book "I Owe Russia $1200."

I got that from a "neighbor" (rural area, she lived three miles away) when I was a kid. I read that so frequently that I could probably quote sections verbatim.

I'm likely never to read it again, but I'm keeping it because it was a gift.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:02 AM (Ss9ul)

84 I read somewhere today, I believe in the Telegraph, that "Lonesome Dove" is having its best sales year in three decades. No idea why it is resurging but I too am a huge fan of Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove (and the entire series), and especially a fan of his Berrybender series.
Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 09:55 AM (aACSV)
---
I'm going to say that modern fiction is garbage, and young people are discovering older books that are quite good.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:02 AM (ZOv7s)

85 My reading this week involved a revelation. Agatha Christie is one hell of a writer!

We all know her mysteries, and I've delved into a number of them recently. Her exploration of character is very strong, and her handling of clues and deductions is quite good (if not Ellery Queen level). Well, this week I read three of the novels she wrote between 1930 and 1955 under the name "Mary Westmacott." I used to see the paperback editions as a boy. The covers made me think they were Gothic romances.

They are not. They are "straight" (as non-genre novels used to be called) novels -- of drama, exploration of character, life lessons, wit, and colorful events. Giant's Bread, her first from 1930, focuses on the life of a musical artist and his relationships with two women. The Rose and the Yew Tree focuses on a serviceman crippled in an accident, and his life in early postwar Britain. And Absent in the Spring deals with a woman who does not understand the people around her, but thinks she does and thinks she knows best for all of them.

Darn good writing. She wrote six; I need to find the other three.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:04 AM (omVj0)

86 This past week I was once again slapped in the face by modern writing practices. I tried to read a recently published fantasy e-book ("Traitor's Blade" by Sebastion De Castell) and encountered an F-bomb on the third page. I dejected pushed through another page or two, and then gave up and queued up "Dragons of winter Night" instead. And despite the dubious literary quality of that 80's Dragonlance novel, I enjoyed it.

I dislike vulgarity in books/movies in general, but I absolutely despise it in fantasy stories. Regardless of whether it is 'realistic' or not, I find it off-putting and immersion breaking.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:04 AM (Lhaco)

87 So soon before Pride & Prejudice Month???

Posted by: Biden's Dog sniffs a whole lotta malarkey, at October 19, 2025 10:05 AM (4tvN6)

88 Well, of course. Mickey Rooney looks Japanese!
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:01 AM (uQesX)
---
Back in the day, actors had this thing called "range," and it was fun to see them stretch it. Rooney's turns were of course comedically absurd, but that was part of the point.

Fast-forward to the present day, when there is no acting at all. You cast people as themselves, and they just act like themselves, which takes no talent and is boring to watch.

It's right up there with "done nothing, know nothing" but they do check those diversity boxes.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:05 AM (ZOv7s)

89 Need a new idea?
Read an old book.

Posted by: Your grandfather at October 19, 2025 10:06 AM (SeSfo)

90 “The bigger takeaway is that the people of the Levant have always been alternately at each other's throats or enjoying the fruits of peace and prosperity under a larger empire's rule, which of course they never stop complaining about.”

Nailed it.

Ever read Jerusalem: A History by Simon Sebag Montefiore?

Posted by: Cow Demon at October 19, 2025 10:06 AM (pNkJD)

91 OT but I just saw the Boomer hippie demonstrators described as "antique-fa". BWAhahaha!

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 10:07 AM (kpS4V)

92 I'm inclined to believe that many modern authors either don't have any feel for dramatic storytelling, or they've had it beaten out of them in MFA programs. If Linda brings over a novel from the library, and it was published since 1990 or so, I read the blurb, then check two things. Is it written in present tense? Did the writer graduate from an MFA program? If either or both of those is true, I am almost certainly not going to like or finish the book.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:07 AM (omVj0)

93 P.J. O'Rourke wrote an essay about Josephus called "The 2000 Year Old Mideast Policy Expert" which is mostly about how depressingly familiar everything in _The Jewish War_ is to a modern reader.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 10:08 AM (78a2H)

94 I dislike vulgarity in books/movies in general, but I absolutely despise it in fantasy stories. Regardless of whether it is 'realistic' or not, I find it off-putting and immersion breaking.
Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:04 AM (Lhaco)
---
Cursing should be appropriate to the genre. "By Zeus! By Apollo!" etc.

Tolkien was the master of this and so many other things. "Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time!"

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:08 AM (ZOv7s)

95 Modern books all look alike, too - same font, same placement on the cover, same backgrounds on the cover. You can't tell what the book is about.

Posted by: Josephistan at October 19, 2025 10:09 AM (xA1MS)

96 Werewife at 68,

Don't feel like the Lone Ranger. The new stuff just doesn't seem to hit the way the older stuff does. I have the impression that if I ever cornered one of the current writers and asked for his thoughts on what might be the reason for that, he'd just say, "Well, I wasn't talking to you when I wrote it."

Mostly, they're not talking to me any more, so these days I'll hang around with the ones who were.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 09:57 AM (q3u5l)

A big part of the problem, I believe, is that everybody is trying to write for the movies.

Nothing wrong with that if you want to make a buck. On the downside, writing for movies contains its own straitjacket that the writer has to stay strapped into.

A lot of new novels are obvious in where they're going and end up within the first few chapters. I pretty much have stopped reading series or comfortable genres as well. I want a story to surprise me and if it can't surprise me, I want it to make me laugh or grab me with it's pure what's-next story telling or even the writing and description is interesting. And I want characters to change.

So, yeah, classic rereads are a way around that.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 10:09 AM (iJfKG)

97 I dislike vulgarity in books/movies in general, but I absolutely despise it in fantasy stories. Regardless of whether it is 'realistic' or not, I find it off-putting and immersion breaking.
Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025

***
+100. Though in my own stuff, I realized I was dealing with everyday people (a prostitute, a former soldier, etc.); so I made up my own curse words for them to use. By the time you read a chapter of mine, you know what they are saying, and yet (I hope, anyway) it doesn't have that same off-ptting effect.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:09 AM (omVj0)

98 H.W. Brands’s “Lone Star Nation” is also quite good.

I read two bios on Sam Houston, by Marshall de Bruhl and James Haley.

Posted by: Cow Demon at October 19, 2025 10:09 AM (pNkJD)

99 does anyone agree with me that it's become necessary, as the current book-publishing industry seems to be in utterly helpless free-fall?

Posted by: werewife

There are very few authors currently writing that I find worth reading. Anthony Horowitz, Preston & Child, Iain Pears and Jack DuBrul come to mind, and they have all been established for years. I think the industry is controlled at the moment by the same wokesters that have infested Hollywood and many other industries. I sincerely hope that it is a fad that will dissipate.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 10:10 AM (0U5gm)

100 Whenever I travel I go hunt through Project Gutenberg to find some 19th Century Englishman's account of visiting the place I'm going. There's always at least one, and his account is guaranteed to be more interesting than any modern guidebook.

Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 10:11 AM (78a2H)

101 Profanity is the ignorant man's form of emphasis.

Posted by: Your grandmother at October 19, 2025 10:12 AM (SeSfo)

102 Ever read Jerusalem: A History by Simon Sebag Montefiore?
Posted by: Cow Demon at October 19, 2025 10:06 AM (pNkJD)
---
No, I haven't. It's just funny to me how the various factions (Pharisees, Essenes, etc.) are all after each other, they remember the Passover but chiefly use it as Riot Time, either against the foreigner or each other.

"All we want is to worship our God in peace" they say as they invade and loot Samaritan villages over Pentecost.

I enjoyed Pompey's reaction: marching in, sorting everything out to his satisfaction and then forcing his way into the Holiest of Holies. All he did was look around and seeing nothing interesting, left, posting guards to prevent looting and telling one of the priests to do whatever sacrifice is normal for foreigners.

Class act.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:13 AM (ZOv7s)

103 I don't read much published recently, I admit (though I am enjoying "Slow Horses"). But when do we mark the period beginning for "modern fiction"? For example, I love Walter Mosley's writing, especially his Easy Rawlins character, and those were mostly published twenty or so years ago.

Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 10:13 AM (Qt+Tv)

104 Niven was great as Fogg, and Cantinflas was suitable as Passepartout . . . but who the hell decided to cast Shirley MacLaine as Aouda? She looks about as Indian/Parsi as Mickey Rooney.
Posted by: Trimegistus at October 19, 2025 09:47 AM (78a2H)

I thought it was Elizabeth Taylor?

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 19, 2025 10:13 AM (vQ89V)

105 Aside from Mary Westmacott, this week I am reading one of Joe R. Lansdale's non-series stories. This one is A Fine Dark Line, set in 1958 East Texas and narrated by a boy who as the story begins is about nine or ten years old. His family owns and operates a drive-in movie theatre -- they show John Wayne movies and things like Vertigo. Yes, Lansdale admits, he has compressed some of the release dates of movies and songs for the novel -- Vertigo was not released until '59 -- but that hardly matters. Young Stanley is finding out about the world, and he has a fifteen-year-old mystery to solve, too.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:15 AM (omVj0)

106 Cursing should be appropriate to the genre. "By Zeus! By Apollo!" etc.

Tolkien was the master of this and so many other things. "Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time!"
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:08 AM (ZOv7s)

"Sith-spit!" is used as an explitive in several Star Wars books. And Karen Traviss created Mandalorian curse words in her Republic Commando books

Posted by: Josephistan at October 19, 2025 10:15 AM (xA1MS)

107 P.J. O'Rourke wrote an essay about Josephus called "The 2000 Year Old Mideast Policy Expert" which is mostly about how depressingly familiar everything in _The Jewish War_ is to a modern reader.

-
You know, like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:15 AM (L/fGl)

108 84 ... "I read somewhere today, I believe in the Telegraph, that "Lonesome Dove" is having its best sales year in three decades."

I can believe that. People are starved for good story telling. As an aside, I realized that several of my favorite 'modern' authors all so their drafts on manual typewriters: McMurtry, Loren Estleman, and David McCullough. Shelby Foote wrote with a dip pen. Maybe the medium makes the difference.

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

109 Back in the day, actors had this thing called "range," and it was fun to see them stretch it. Rooney's turns were of course comedically absurd, but that was part of the point.

It's right up there with "done nothing, know nothing" but they do check those diversity boxes.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:05 AM (ZOv7s)

Before I posted my thrice-told joke - it's funny how we all thought of the same thing - I read a bit about his thoughts on the character in Breakfast. He later had regrets about his performance. Sure, it was stereotypical, but none of the entertainment world worthies ever seem to complain about the treatment of rural people, do they? So, (expletive deleted) 'em. Apparently only hillbillies can be comic characters. Everyone else has to be treated with reverence.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:18 AM (uQesX)

110 @95 --

Half of today's books use half the cover for the writer's name and the rest for the title.

Artwork? Hah.

Hell, even the latest Matt Helm reprints consist of a small landscape at the top, a silhouetted sniper underneath that, the title and Hamilton's name, and at the left a photo of a woman in a bikini. Say what?!

Even in resort areas, Helm didn't have time to chase after chicks.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:18 AM (dG78f)

111 A big part of the problem, I believe, is that everybody is trying to write for the movies.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 10:09 AM (iJfKG)
---
No, they're just bad at writing. Lots of great authors wrote novels with movies in mind. Graham Greene actually wrote scripts first and then novelized them.

It's a failure of creativity, a lack of any knowledge of the world. You write what you know, and you know things by either living them or studying them.

Very few people actually do anything before starting to write, and they are too insular and lazy to do actual research, so what they do instead is copy other writhers that they studied in school.

There is a reason that while I wrote lots and lots of stuff going back to elementary school, I could not write a book until my late 30s because that was when I had a deep enough pool of life experience to draw upon, and I had to remain within my bounds. I'm mulling over a manuscript I started in 2012 and before I do anything else, I have to rewrite the whole thing, because my writing style was hot garbage, very much of its time. It is hateful in my sight.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:19 AM (ZOv7s)

112 Well someone stole France's jewels from the Louvre.

Posted by: Anna Puma at October 19, 2025 10:20 AM (azCAX)

113 Older authors got around the matter of characters cursing by simply saying, "He cursed" or "He swore." In David McDaniel's first U.N.C.L.E. novel, he has Mr. Waverly confronted by a stunning instance of Thrush treachery, and tells us, "Mr. Waverly said nothing. There was nothing he could say, since he never swore."

I believe there is a Nero Wolfe novel where in one scene Archie witnesses Wolfe cursing. It disturbs Archie, since Wolfe told him that in his (Wolfe's) case, "Swearing is an expression of a profound desire." I may have mangled that quote. But the point is, the authors told us something about their characters in regards to swearing, without having to tell us the exact off-putting words.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:21 AM (omVj0)

114 In the genre of criminally overlooked mystery/detective novels, you can add Russell Blake's Artemus Black character, a former guitar player in a rock band who goes in to the detecting business, in a five book series:

https://tinyurl.com/5n8mxh6a

Posted by: Huck Follywood at October 19, 2025 10:22 AM (tPXZy)

115 Before I posted my thrice-told joke - it's funny how we all thought of the same thing - I read a bit about his thoughts on the character in Breakfast. He later had regrets about his performance. Sure, it was stereotypical, but none of the entertainment world worthies ever seem to complain about the treatment of rural people, do they? So, (expletive deleted) 'em. Apparently only hillbillies can be comic characters. Everyone else has to be treated with reverence.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:18 AM (uQesX)
---
Actors want to entertain, and when a performance is subsequently regarding as cringe, they naturally recoil from it.

The complainers are the ones go get noticed. People strong enough to take it, laugh. Also - there are professional agitators who just find things to complain about. That wasn't known before, but it is now, so screw all of them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:23 AM (ZOv7s)

116 Well someone stole France's jewels from the Louvre.

Posted by: Anna Puma

I envision some guy in a trench coat in the banlieue saying:

"Psst. You want to buy a crown?"

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 10:23 AM (0U5gm)

117 112 Well someone stole France's jewels from the Louvre.
Posted by: Anna Puma

Hate it when that happens.

Posted by: Chief Inspector Clouseau at October 19, 2025 10:23 AM (SeSfo)

118 "Sith-spit!" is used as an explitive in several Star Wars books. And Karen Traviss created Mandalorian curse words in her Republic Commando books
Posted by: Josephistan at October 19, 2025 10:15 AM (xA1MS)
---
Feldercarb! Frack!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:24 AM (ZOv7s)

119 Half of today's books use half the cover for the writer's name and the rest for the title.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:18 AM (dG78f)

It follows the old lawyer's trick about pounding.

Unknown writer? Large print for the title.

Famous writer? Large print for his/her name.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:24 AM (uQesX)

120 Hell, even the latest Matt Helm reprints consist of a small landscape at the top, a silhouetted sniper underneath that, the title and Hamilton's name, and at the left a photo of a woman in a bikini. Say what?!

Even in resort areas, Helm didn't have time to chase after chicks.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025

***
Say what? There are reprints? Color me amazed.

Yes; the artwork on the original Gold Medal paperbacks featured a scene from the novel itself, often a moment of action depicted in still form. Gold Medal was good at that, and at depicting a beautiful woman, not always in a bikini, on the covers of the MacDonald Travis McGees.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:25 AM (omVj0)

121 I believe there is a Nero Wolfe novel where in one scene Archie witnesses Wolfe cursing. It disturbs Archie, since Wolfe told him that in his (Wolfe's) case, "Swearing is an expression of a profound desire." I may have mangled that quote. But the point is, the authors told us something about their characters in regards to swearing, without having to tell us the exact off-putting words.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:21 AM (omVj0)
---
I recall descriptions of "a solid minute of profound blasphemy and obscenity that rose to the level of poetry."

Describe the cursing, don't repeat it verbatim. It's often more effective.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:26 AM (ZOv7s)

122 the current book-publishing industry seems to be in utterly helpless free-fall?

Posted by: werewife

I've seen several classics lately dumbed down for a "modern" audience. Here, for example, is such an edition for the book of the day, Pride and Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice Modern English Version (Translated, Annotated): Today's English with Yesterday's Eloquence for Easy Reading

https://is.gd/doyl55

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:26 AM (L/fGl)

123 45 Watched Around the World in 80 days a few months ago, nice to know it was close to the book.
Of course if made today it wouldn't be.
Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 09:32 AM (+qU29)

Last year the "Midnight's Edge" youtube channel posted a retrospective about 'Around the World in 80 Days.' That was prompted by a new adaption (probably made for Netflix) that was trashing the main character. I think they gave him an absolute b---- of ax ex-wife who left him, but still occasionally sends him postcards calling him a coward. And that was turned into part of the impetuous of the journey in that adaptation...

One thing the retrospective mentioned about the book; it was originally published as serialized chapters in books/magazines of the day. (And later collected into a novel). And because of that serialization, it was originally published in real time, over the course of 80 days. (give or take, adjusting for publication schedule) I imagine that would have been a really neat gimmick.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:27 AM (Lhaco)

124 The book I’m reading now relates a story about Johnny von Neumann, who while perhaps one of the finest mathematicians and physicists of all time, was not necessarily attuned to domestic concerns.

His wife was sick in bed, and asked for a glass of water. After 5 or 10 minutes he returned. “Where do we keep the glasses?” She explained further they had lived in that particular home for 17 years. LOL

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 10:27 AM (Q9ENj)

125 The good news is that we have this thread every week, to find books that are worth reading. I found several fantastic authors I had not heard of at this place.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 10:27 AM (0U5gm)

126 I recall descriptions of "a solid minute of profound blasphemy and obscenity that rose to the level of poetry."

Describe the cursing, don't repeat it verbatim. It's often more effective.
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025

***
I recall one scene where a police lieutenant's reply to exasperating news "relied heavily on the sort of metaphors used by drill sergeants and dockworkers." When he pauses for breath, the irreverent narrator says, "You know, when you were a boy, language like that would have been unprintable."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (omVj0)

127 You can't judge a book cover by it's décolletage.

Posted by: Especially in the drugstore at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (SeSfo)

128 Good to see you yesterday. That was a great thing you did for Theresa and Sponge's wife.
Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 09:55 AM (0U5gm

You too. Yeah, I had them in a stash for special circumstances, and in this case it was pretty special.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (XTwnC)

129 But the point is, the authors told us something about their characters in regards to swearing, without having to tell us the exact off-putting words.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:21 AM (omVj0)

In older books, like Mulford's Hopalong Cassidy stories, he write a curse like this: "God _____ him!"

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (uQesX)

130 I have condensed and modernized the Bible. "FAFO."

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (L/fGl)

131 There was an episode of Have Gun -- Will Travel in which Fogg and Passepartout travel through California, and Fogg hires Paladin to make sure he gets to his next connection on time so he can win his "80 days" bet.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:30 AM (omVj0)

132 In older books, like Mulford's Hopalong Cassidy stories, he write a curse like this: "God _____ him!"
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025

***
Yes. Or "d__n" or "d____d".

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:31 AM (omVj0)

133 70 Good morning Book Horde! I went to New York Comic Con last weekend and got some books autographed- Timothy Zahn signed several of his Star Wars novels, as did John Jackson Miller.
Posted by: Josephistan at October 19, 2025 09:51 AM (FLx59)

I noticed the Humble Bundle website was doing a sale on Star Wars novels. When I looked at the actual novels offered, I discovered they were all Disney-Star Wars novels, by Chuck Wendig and company. I laughed derisively and promptly closed the tab.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:32 AM (Lhaco)

134 Dear old dad would swear on occasion for emphasis. Usually “bullshit”. The one thing was I only heard him drop the F bomb but very rarely maybe …. 3 times, tops. It was then I knew he was pretty mad. Some people drop F bombs literally in every sentence, rendering it inert.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 10:33 AM (Q9ENj)

135 A big part of the problem, I believe, is that everybody is trying to write for the movies.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 10:09 AM (iJfKG)
---
No, they're just bad at writing. Lots of great authors wrote novels with movies in mind. Graham Greene actually wrote scripts first and then novelized them.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:19 AM

I'll disagree. They're bad writers because they're trying to write for the movies.

When GG was writing, the model for storytelling was the novel. It's not a surprise he could fold movie scripts into novels. It would be exactly the same thing as writing an outline.

Today the story telling model is the movie. And today's movies and books if they wish to become a movie must bend to certain rules of movie making. "Saving the cat" and all that. There are literally tons of websites and books telling you all the same thing.

Also writing for a movie today strips out a lot of of the writer's tools because the director/etc will take care of all that.

That said writing is like anything else. It's a pyramid of quality and ability and luck even and very few make it to the top.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 10:33 AM (iJfKG)

136 Describe the cursing, don't repeat it verbatim. It's often more effective.

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

Yes. It is the same theory that is used by the best horror movie makers - let the audience use their own imagination, which is better than anything that can be presented.

Posted by: Thomas Paine at October 19, 2025 10:33 AM (0U5gm)

137 Most memorable curser to me was King Guzzle in the comic strip Alley Oop. It was all done with pictures and typewriter symbols. Guz was colorful.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:34 AM (dG78f)

138 It was a dark and stormy night.

Posted by: Snoopy on top of his dog house typing away at October 19, 2025 10:36 AM (SeSfo)

139 Most memorable curser to me was King Guzzle in the comic strip Alley Oop. It was all done with pictures and typewriter symbols. Guz was colorful.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:34 AM (dG78f)

The wingding curse.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:37 AM (uQesX)

140 >>>@53 I would have continued reading but no longer have possession on my tablet ... Posted by: Skip
============
If I remember the Sunday school lesson properly, the very first tablet was actually a pair possessed by Moses.
Posted by: Thomas Paine
============
Moses was actually the first person to download from a cloud to a tablet [insert giggle face]

Posted by: Kathy at October 19, 2025 10:37 AM (zuKcR)

141 Hail Schlürpo.

Posted by: Cow Demon at October 19, 2025 10:37 AM (pNkJD)

142 One of the things I always found funny in Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero was the all-purpose curse word he invented for the story -- at least I think it was invented because I can't remember running across it elsewhere: bowb.

Thoat-herder Bowb Brown, called Bowb Brown because everyone knows what thoat-herders do with their thoats.

"Boy, are you full of bowb."

"What's this, bowb your buddy week?"

etc.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 10:37 AM (q3u5l)

143 the authors told us something about their characters in regards to swearing, without having to tell us the exact off-putting words.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere

In the Stephen King (Sith spit!) movie Creepshow, Adrienne Barbeau's vulgar character refers to a romantic rival as a "crotch." I thought that was a reasonable compromise.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:37 AM (L/fGl)

144 Older tomes would also render racy parts in Latin. Biddle translated the pornographic descriptions of certain Injun practices in the Journals of Lewis & Clark.

They believed in having lots of sex, to bring Buffalo into the area. It seemed to work, so they worked hard at it.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 10:38 AM (ebH14)

145 I’m reading Sister Wendy’s 1000 Masterpieces.

The word salads to support what is a masterpiece ridiculous. It’s like if Kamala Harris was an art critic.

Out of the 1000 maybe half the horde would consider masterpieces.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 10:39 AM (EYmYM)

146 comic strip Alley Oop

-
One of my favorites.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:39 AM (L/fGl)

147 "Clifford Simak's "Waystation". Simak's always been a favorite. He's that rare SF writer that has a rural feel to his writing; quiet, slow paced, and reflective.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 09:13 AM (kpS4V) "

Yes, indeed!
The first Clifford Simak story I read; completely blindsided me.
re-read it every few years, still enjoyable!

plus, based in rural Wisconsin, which is totally credible!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at October 19, 2025 10:39 AM (kHop/)

148 Older novels which became movies used to be ones which could stand on their own as novels. The Caine Mutiny or Youngblood Hawke by Herman Wouk come to mind. They had strong dramatic and visual components that cried out to be made into films; but they were strong dramatic stories on their own.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:40 AM (omVj0)

149 Well someone stole France's jewels from the Louvre.
Posted by: Anna Puma

Jewels like in stones or balls. If it's balls, we've known they been missing from the French for a very long time.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at October 19, 2025 10:40 AM (g8Ew8)

150 142, LOL! Another book that keeps on giving!

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at October 19, 2025 10:40 AM (kHop/)

151 They believed in having lots of sex, to bring Buffalo into the area. It seemed to work, so they worked hard at it.
Posted by: Common Tater

And now everybody's queer and no buffalo!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:41 AM (L/fGl)

152 When you consider how our current vulgarities come from Greek and Latin, you realize that there is nothing new under the sun.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:42 AM (dG78f)

153 Cursing should be appropriate to the genre. "By Zeus! By Apollo!" etc.

Tolkien was the master of this and so many other things. "Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time!"
Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 19, 2025 10:08 AM (ZOv7s)

I sometimes find the made-up curse words silly (Oh, zorn!) but they aren't nearly as off-putting as real-world expletives.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:43 AM (Lhaco)

154 As a little sock I learned my first cusswords from Papa Eez (born&raised outside Green Bay) watching the chicago bears on the TV.

Posted by: sock_rat_eez at October 19, 2025 10:44 AM (kHop/)

155 Whispering Eye.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 10:44 AM (EYmYM)

156 I think the prevalence of explicit language and explicit sex scenes in modern fiction is because "modern audiences" have no imagination. Those of us who have been around for a while know what was happening when the camera cut away to the burning fireplace.

Posted by: Toad-0 at October 19, 2025 10:44 AM (gAroT)

157 Morning everyone,

Just a reminder for the launch. New T-zero.

SpaceX - Falcon 9 - Starlink 10-17
SLC-40 - Cape Canaveral SFS - Space Affairs Live
Launch Date: October 19, 2025
Launch Time: 1:39 p.m. EDT (1739 UTC, 19:39 CEST)

https://youtu.be/f8C_5Gv57PQ

Posted by: Joyenz at October 19, 2025 10:45 AM (2F0/Y)

158 152 When you consider how our current vulgarities come from Greek and Latin, you realize that there is nothing new under the sun.
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:42 AM (dG78f)

Did I call it or what?

Posted by: Qoheleth at October 19, 2025 10:45 AM (PiwSw)

159 They believed in having lots of sex, to bring Buffalo into the area. It seemed to work, so they worked hard at it.

Well, that's what they told their partners, at least...

Posted by: t-bird at October 19, 2025 10:45 AM (o5jAD)

160 "the authors told us something about their characters in regards to swearing, without having to tell us the exact off-putting words."

This brought back a memory of bracing myself, in 7th or 8th grade Catholic school (mumble mumble years ago), at the point in Lord of the Flies, when Ralph is confronted with the fact that the fire has died.
It said that Ralph used the very worst word he could think of when he pronounced "they let the bloody fire go out".
As an American kid, I got my first sense of "separated by a common language", because I was expecting much worse than "bloody", and I wondered what the connotation was to the English that someone about my age thought it was the worst word out there.

Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 10:45 AM (enw9G)

161 The graffiti in Pompeii shows vulgarity has been common for a long time.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 10:46 AM (EYmYM)

162
I read It Was a Long Time Ago and It Never Happened by David Satter, an examination of why Russia refuses to come to terms with its past and how the Russian state and the people view one another.

Basically, Russia has never seen its citizens as individuals with rights and the state as an organic result of their wishes. Russia - whether Tsarist, Communist or Putinist - views its people not as individuals but as agents of the state. This goes a long way to explaining why its armed forces throws away their lives casually. In the Moscow Theatre Crisis and the Beslan School Crisis, saving the hostages came in well behind vanquishing the terrorists.

In return, the people look to the government to supply basic needs. There's no small amount of nostalgia in Russia for the post-Stalin Soviet state, which provided everything, if badly. You had a job, which paid miserably but at which you didn't have to work. You had an apartment, no matter how shoddy or small. You had food, no matter how wretched and monotonous.

This is the kind of society that Democrats increasingly want. They'll keep you dependent, so long as you don't have any original ideas or get uppity.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at October 19, 2025 10:46 AM (tgvbd)

163 Do you like reading books in Texas?

I like reading books about Texas.

Posted by: Paco at October 19, 2025 10:46 AM (mADJX)

164 Because the indians are gathering firewood like crazy!

Posted by: Just the punchline at October 19, 2025 10:46 AM (SeSfo)

165

Jewels like in stones or balls. If it's balls, we've known they been missing from the French for a very long time.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at October 19, 2025 10:40 AM (

I'm going with balls, because right now outside the hotel in Texas I'm going to say it's high 60s and beautiful. That's after a weekend of feeling like we were camped out in Satan's ass Crack. So yeah, somebody found France's balls because hell has indeed frozen over.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at October 19, 2025 10:48 AM (XTwnC)

166 Wolfus,

If memory serves, the Maigrets don't have to be read in order, so I'll grab one of the late ones next time and see how it goes.
Re: Maigret being a thin character, and Lew Archer likewise (the disappear if he turns sideways is a nice way to put it, isn't it?) -- I'd guess a lot of that may be simply because they're observers or catalysts? The real focus is on the people they're looking at, and the detective's trying to piece together what's going on with them and his presence often affects what they do. So the writer focuses as much or more on the other characters than he does the detective?

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 10:48 AM (q3u5l)

167 As an American kid, I got my first sense of "separated by a common language", because I was expecting much worse than "bloody", and I wondered what the connotation was to the English that someone about my age thought it was the worst word out there.
Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025

***
Yes; "bloody" and "bleeding" (usually spoken and written as "bleedin'") were very strong curse words in England for a long time.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:48 AM (omVj0)

168 @156 --

We sheltered types thought that when the camera cut to a fireplace, the couple was just kissing and cuddling. Anything more? Of course not -- they weren't married!

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:49 AM (dG78f)

169 In older books, like Mulford's Hopalong Cassidy stories, he write a curse like this: "God _____ him!"
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (uQesX)

Ol' Hopalong wore a bizarre hat in the 50's tv series.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at October 19, 2025 10:49 AM (g8Ew8)

170 The first time I heard my father use the F word in front of me I was taken aback . I knew he cursed like the Marine he was but he never did it in front of me. And I grew up cursing more than average but I never cursed in front of my mother.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 10:49 AM (EYmYM)

171 Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at October 19, 2025 10:46 AM (tgvbd)

Weird. That book had been sitting in my Amazon cart for months, and I finally pulled the trigger to buy it before I read your post...

Posted by: I am the Shadout Mapes, the Housekeeper at October 19, 2025 10:50 AM (PiwSw)

172 2000 years ago: Wine Women Song. Much, much more recently: Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll.

I noted in Search for the Manchurian Candidate the CIA noted that the effects of the already powerful L.S.D. were intensified by strobe lights, something also common in San Francisco “Acid Test” festivals, along with those ever changing psychodelic colored blobs displayed on a screen.

Any hordians ever attend such a gathering?

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 10:51 AM (nK972)

173 In older books, like Mulford's Hopalong Cassidy stories, he write a curse like this: "God _____ him!"
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:29 AM (uQesX)

In some old pulp stories I've read, they dash out 'devil.' "the d---- take you, Harold!"

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:51 AM (Lhaco)

174 I love Walter Mosley's writing, especially his Easy Rawlins character

-
They ought to follow Justice Jumanji's advice and dumb those down for modern audiences.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:52 AM (L/fGl)

175 Re: Maigret being a thin character, and Lew Archer likewise (the disappear if he turns sideways is a nice way to put it, isn't it?) -- I'd guess a lot of that may be simply because they're observers or catalysts? The real focus is on the people they're looking at, and the detective's trying to piece together what's going on with them and his presence often affects what they do. So the writer focuses as much or more on the other characters than he does the detective?
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025

***
Probably so. The R. MacDonalds are lauded for doing just that. I guess I am used to having a colorful main character, private detective or police detective, to read about and share the adventure with.

On the other hand, nowadays I've found I prefer Ruth Rendell's non-series crime/psychology novels to her series about Kingsmarkham and Chief Inspector Wexford.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:52 AM (omVj0)

176 Dad never swore, and his mother once spelled "poker" in front of 7-year-old me.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:52 AM (dG78f)

177 I'm going with balls, because right now outside the hotel in Texas I'm going to say it's high 60s and beautiful. That's after a weekend of feeling like we were camped out in Satan's ass Crack. So yeah, somebody found France's balls because hell has indeed frozen over.
Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at October 19, 2025 10:48 AM (XTwnC)

Yes. The weather is quite nice in the southern plains this morning.

Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at October 19, 2025 10:53 AM (g8Ew8)

178 Wolfus, given the demographic of most of the castaways in Flies, I wonder if it is a classist thing too?

Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 10:53 AM (enw9G)

179 Reading The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood 1910.

"The story is set in the remote wilderness of Northwestern Ontario and follows a group of adventurers on a moose-hunting trip."

Write what you're familiar with. Blackwood must've spent a lot of time in the remote outdoors - he captures instances of dread and isolation he had to have felt while camping - and then successfully transfers those feelings to his readers.

Posted by: 13times at October 19, 2025 10:53 AM (bV6dh)

180 One solution to the problems of foul language (including but not limited to offensiveness, lack of imagination, and inappropriate context) is to have one's own catchphrase to express frustration, astonishment, disappointment, rage, etc., differentiated by tone, gesture, inflection, etc. For some years now, "Oh, for the Love of Life Orchestra!" has served me very well in daily life.

Posted by: werewife at October 19, 2025 10:54 AM (5ayY3)

181 If the camera cuts away, or the asterisks or dots appear in the text, then clearly something has to be put there to fill that space. Much easier to show some skin. And given that a bunch of fiction seems to be sold by the pound these days, well, dot dot dot.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 10:55 AM (q3u5l)

182 Any hordians ever attend such a gathering?
Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 10:51 AM

I left California when I was about a week old, and I've never been back. Not to mention the fact that I was like three years old when those 'acid tests' were taking place.

Posted by: Cybersmythe at October 19, 2025 10:55 AM (lJmmt)

183 122 the current book-publishing industry seems to be in utterly helpless free-fall?

Posted by: werewife

I've seen several classics lately dumbed down for a "modern" audience. Here, for example, is such an edition for the book of the day, Pride and Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice Modern English Version (Translated, Annotated): Today's English with Yesterday's Eloquence for Easy Reading

https://is.gd/doyl55
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:26 AM (L/fGl)
_______
That is appalling. Shocking but not surprising. I recently went to YouTube to listen to Allen Sherman's "Ballad of Harry Lewis". In the comments, normal (older) people were raving about his best line, about "the drapes of Roth". There was a question from someone if we could explain it "to a younger audience".

Do they know ANYTHING?

Posted by: Eeyore (Is, Eum) at October 19, 2025 10:56 AM (s0JqF)

184 Any hordians ever attend such a gathering?
Posted by: Common Tater

I haven't been in decades but used to go the Lazer light show at the Denver Museum of Natural History' planetarium where chemical enhancement was tolerated if not encouraged. Of course, that was science.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:56 AM (L/fGl)

185 142 One of the things I always found funny in Harry Harrison's Bill the Galactic Hero was the all-purpose curse word he invented for the story -- at least I think it was invented because I can't remember running across it elsewhere: bowb.

Thoat-herder Bowb Brown, called Bowb Brown because everyone knows what thoat-herders do with their thoats.

"Boy, are you full of bowb."

"What's this, bowb your buddy week?"

etc.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 10:37 AM
****
Echoed in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series, where the most appalling swear-word in the Galaxy is "BELGIUM!" ... except in one place where they don't know what it means. (This was also the most elegant revenge ever taken upon inhospitable people in the history of popular culture.)

Posted by: werewife at October 19, 2025 10:57 AM (5ayY3)

186 Wolfus, given the demographic of most of the castaways in Flies, I wonder if it is a classist thing too?
Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025

***
That might be part of it. I haven't reread Flies in years. Aren't they all what would be considered working-class boys?

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:57 AM (omVj0)

187 That is appalling. Shocking but not surprising. I recently went to YouTube to listen to Allen Sherman's "Ballad of Harry Lewis". In the comments, normal (older) people were raving about his best line, about "the drapes of Roth". There was a question from someone if we could explain it "to a younger audience".

Do they know ANYTHING?
Posted by: Eeyore (Is, Eum) at October 19, 2025 10:56 AM (s0JqF)

I’m sure a lot of the puns they use in Bob’s Burgers are over a lot of younger heads.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 10:57 AM (EYmYM)

188 Leslie Charteris' Saint stories would refer to cursing:

"The story came with profane trimmings that need not be recorded."

"What she had to say cannot be reprinted without severe danger to the publisher."

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:58 AM (dG78f)

189 Just got a text from our nephew. He is in his mid-30s. He has started reading Moby Dick and is enjoying it so far and asked my opinion. As this is a text I kept my response pithy instead of my usual 8 page essay approach. (Also, it's tough to type on a phone with gorilla sized fingers.)

I am thrilled, both that he is starting and asked for my opinion. I've already infected him, his wife and his sister with love for LOTR and Tolkien in general. I foresee Count of Monte Cristo (Robin Buss translation) and Homer (Robert Fagles translation) in his future. May take a while. They are expecting their third boy in February.

Posted by: JTB at October 19, 2025 10:58 AM (yTvNw)

190 Ol' Hopalong wore a bizarre hat in the 50's tv series.
Posted by: Dr. Pork Chops & Bacons at October 19, 2025 10:49 AM (g8Ew

His hats changed from the early movies. The first movies he wore a high crowned hat with a crease sloping toward the front and a large brim: they typical "cowboy hat" of the time. In his later work, he wore the more typical rancher hat. He also never "threw" his gun either, like most western actors did.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 10:59 AM (uQesX)

191 George Carlin, and many like him, for all his vulgar witticisms and 7 words bizness, could tell many hilarious jokes without resorting to profanity whatsoever. The censorship restrictions on profanity forced the writers to be more creative.

Has Steven Wright ever told a dirty joke? Couldn’t imagine. Maybe.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 11:01 AM (lqKtE)

192 Maigret being a thin character

-
PBS has a new Maigret series that sucks and blows.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 11:02 AM (L/fGl)

193 Not sure, but I think they named a city in Texas after her.

Not that I can find on google maps but I hear that they erected a statue of her in Canton.

Posted by: Oddbob at October 19, 2025 11:03 AM (3nLb4)

194 Leslie Charteris' Saint stories would refer to cursing:

"The story came with profane trimmings that need not be recorded."

"What she had to say cannot be reprinted without severe danger to the publisher."
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025

***
That would be called "telling" nowadays, instead of "showing" the reader what happened. The standard modern reader's complaint is that "It took me out of the story." People, we *know* we're reading a book; we shouldn't mind if, once in a while, the writer (wittily) inserts a comment like that. Not political posturing or lecturing, now, but a sharp little aside.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 11:03 AM (omVj0)

195 They are all "public school", i.e. private school boys.
Jack's choir, which becomes the hunter tribe, all retain vestiges of their choir uniform caps, with badges.
As Head Boy of the choir, Jack is the natural leader of that subgroup.
Part of what fuels the conflicts between the boys are their stratification as boys of differing prestige schools/ranks.

Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 11:04 AM (enw9G)

196 The Wendigo,

For those sensible enough to be members of the Mark Steyn Club his reading of this story is near perfection.

Pride and Prejudice,

There is considerable pleasure in simply handling a beautifully bound book. I hope so because I’ve bought the British Library reprint of the first edition (three volumes) along with various Austen letters etc as a Christmas gift for my niece, an avid reader and collector. I’m feeling pretty confident about this one.

Posted by: John at October 19, 2025 11:05 AM (qGqKu)

197 I think Anthony Burgess once said that during his time in the service nobody ever said "Pass the butter." It was always "Pass the effing butter." Got to the point that whenever you heard the word effing, all it meant was that there was a noun coming up in the sentence.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 11:05 AM (q3u5l)

198 (hence, "bloody" being a word NONE of them should use, it being a lower-caste filler)

Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 11:06 AM (enw9G)

199 Speaking of Edward Gorey... here's a vid done by someone adapting one of Gorey's storey's:

https://tinyurl.com/4c4p9rfu

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 11:06 AM (uQesX)

200 200

Posted by: Eromero at October 19, 2025 11:06 AM (rrYP0)

201 George Carlin, and many like him, for all his vulgar witticisms and 7 words bizness, could tell many hilarious jokes without resorting to profanity whatsoever. The censorship restrictions on profanity forced the writers to be more creative.

Has Steven Wright ever told a dirty joke? Couldn’t imagine. Maybe.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025

***
Carlin's earliest stuff was clean, because it had to be (mid-'60s), and funny. His Al Sleet, the hippy-dippy weatherman. "Radar indicates a line of thundershowers five miles either side of a line extending north-north-east from Fond du Lac. . . . It's also picking up a squadron of Russian ICBMs, so I wouldn't sweat the thundershowers. . . ."

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 11:07 AM (omVj0)

202 All this talk about swearing remind me of Jean Shepard’s “A Christmas Story “ and the cloud of profanity still floating over Lake Michigan. Also, of “A Marine’s War Diary” (sorry, don’t remember the author) wher he describes the typical marine conversation as “f...k you f...Kurt, I was driving a f..king diesel before you f..caking well learned to f...king drive”. That made quite the impression on my 6th grade self when I pulled that one of my dad’s bookshelf. Heck, 50 years later and I can still quote it exactly

Posted by: Who Knew at October 19, 2025 11:07 AM (pBkFY)

203 In some old pulp stories I've read, they dash out 'devil.' "the d---- take you, Harold!"
Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 10:51 AM (Lhaco)

Of course. Wouldn't want to be conjuring him.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 11:07 AM (uQesX)

204 Saw a description and trailer for that new PBS Maigret. I'll pass.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 11:09 AM (q3u5l)

205 167 As an American kid, I got my first sense of "separated by a common language", because I was expecting much worse than "bloody", and I wondered what the connotation was to the English that someone about my age thought it was the worst word out there.
Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025

***
Yes; "bloody" and "bleeding" (usually spoken and written as "bleedin'") were very strong curse words in England for a long time.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 10:48 AM (omVj0)
_______
Yes. IIRC, Churchill quotes Beatty at Jutland as saying "There seems to be something wrong with our ------ ships."

Posted by: Eeyore (Is, Eum) at October 19, 2025 11:09 AM (s0JqF)

206 An author who was very easy to read for me was Pat Conroy.

The Great Santini and Lords of Discipline are two of my favorite books.

The Great Santini movie did justice to the book.Lords of Discipline not so much.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 11:10 AM (EYmYM)

207 I also checked out a YUGE book on the Bayeux Tapestry (the tapestry is 70 meters long!) with each page showing a segment. The Latin and translation is available in the back of the book.

Hey, that arrow is heading straight for Harold's eye...

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 11:10 AM (kpS4V)

208 Got to the point that whenever you heard the word effing, all it meant was that there was a noun coming up in the sentence.
Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 11:05 AM (q3u5l

I think I'm from that country.

Posted by: Berserker-Dragonheads Division at October 19, 2025 11:10 AM (XTwnC)

209 G'day, reading Hordelings. Clocking in late again. 🕙

Here's a nice little short on Edward Gorey:
https://tinyurl.com/37u6f3xz
Posted by: All Hail Eris

My first thought seeing this was, I'd really like to read Gorey (there's a book of his somewhere here in the catacombs), more than watch a vid about him, but I really like this video. Only halfway through it, but stopped to watch it from the start with MiladyJo. Thanks, Eris.

Posted by: mindful webworker - distressed mess at October 19, 2025 11:12 AM (KDyF9)

210 Leslie Charteris' Saint stories would refer to cursing:

"The story came with profane trimmings that need not be recorded."

"What she had to say cannot be reprinted without severe danger to the publisher."
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:58 AM (dG78f)

He never was injured either, if I'm not mistaken. Or, shot, I think. Charteris wouldn't allow it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 11:12 AM (uQesX)

211 Damn spellcheck. No idea how Kur’s name got into the marine conversation. Or should I have said f...king

Posted by: Who Knew at October 19, 2025 11:13 AM (pBkFY)

212 I like Bill Burr's bit on it being racist depends on whether you use MF as an adjective or a noun .

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 11:13 AM (EYmYM)

213 I love Pat Conroy too.
Great Santini movie did do it justice, but book is even better.

Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 11:13 AM (enw9G)

214 I recently went to YouTube to listen to Allen Sherman's "Ballad of Harry Lewis". In the comments, normal (older) people were raving about his best line, about "the drapes of Roth". There was a question from someone if we could explain it "to a younger audience".

Do they know ANYTHING?
Posted by: Eeyore (Is, Eum) at October 19, 2025 10:56 AM (s0JqF)
-----

My mom used to play the record "My Son the Folk Singer" (hilarious) and even I, as a kid, knew what the pun riffed on.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 11:15 AM (kpS4V)

215 That would be called "telling" nowadays, instead of "showing" the reader what happened. The standard modern reader's complaint is that "It took me out of the story." People, we *know* we're reading a book; we shouldn't mind if, once in a while, the writer (wittily) inserts a comment like that. Not political posturing or lecturing, now, but a sharp little aside.
Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 11:03 AM (omVj0)

I never thought of it like that. I inserted a line like that in the ALH Epistolary - which is still a going concern! - It just seemed to fit, even though it's the narrator of that section that does it.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (uQesX)

216 On an episode of Penn and Teller's [redacted] they addressed profanity and were (surprise!) pro. However an anti profanity woman was interviewed. She suggested that instead of the humble one finger salute, we could adopt a "turkey" salute consisted of one hand fist with thumb extended esembling a turkey's neck and the other hand with fingers spread resembling a turkey's tail held against the opposite end of the fist. Might lead to more traffic accidents, though, what with neither hand on the wheel.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (L/fGl)

217 I just spent 3 days with some of the coolest people you could ever meet and, believe it or not, not all of them cussed.

Posted by: Eromero at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (rrYP0)

218 Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 11:13 AM (enw9G

Robert Duvall wasn't far off for who I pictured in my head when I read the book. That helped a lot to make the movie not suck compared to the book.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (EYmYM)

219 another good film from Conroy material is Conrack.

Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (enw9G)

220 207 I also checked out a YUGE book on the Bayeux Tapestry (the tapestry is 70 meters long!) with each page showing a segment. The Latin and translation is available in the back of the book.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 11:10 AM (kpS4V)

the Bayeux Tapestry (along with the Luttrell Psalter) is one of those medeval artifacts that I frequently hear referenced (in books and audio lectures), but that I have rarely actually seen. I really should do something about that. The book mentioned seems like a neat way of addressing that deficiency.

Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 11:19 AM (Lhaco)

221 another good film from Conroy material is Conrack.
Posted by: barbarausa at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (enw9G)

Yes . The Water is Wide is another good Conroy book.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 11:20 AM (EYmYM)

222 The Saint was grazed by bullets, lashed, gassed, and other ways hurt -- but he always recovered.

Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 11:24 AM (dG78f)

223 I've been surprised by how many Jane Austen books I sell. The Penguin paperbacks are popular and when I can get hard covers, they are usually gone within a week or so.

Posted by: My friends call me Pete at October 19, 2025 11:24 AM (afP1r)

224 I just spent 3 days with some of the coolest people you could ever meet and, believe it or not, not all of them cussed.
Posted by: Eromero at October 19, 2025 11:18 AM (rrYP0)

Well, gol' dang. I'll be a sonofa bitch. That would have surprised me, too. Considering how purty most of the commenters here use their mouths.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 11:24 AM (uQesX)

225 Thanks Weasel, as usual the Horde provides recommendations adding & bumping titles up the queue.

My favorite read of the week: The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks, and the Gods: A Tale of the Persian Wars. By Tom Holland. A short retelling based around the princess Gorgo, wife of Leonidas. Sold as young adult, it mixes mythology with history. Very entertaining,

I know several of Holland's "adult" books have also been mentioned on the book thread

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at October 19, 2025 11:25 AM (KaHlS)

226 Well, time to shut down this here telegraph machine, and hit the trail back to the desert Southwest. Was sure nice to meet and greet a flock of genial Morons and 'Ettes here in Corsicana. And many thanks going out to Ben Had, Rancher Bob, and Cow Horse Queen, and all the others who hosted us, and ably provided food and swag. A better group of folks simply cannot be found.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at October 19, 2025 11:26 AM (vQ89V)

227 Posted by: werewife at October 19, 2025 10:54 AM (5ayY3)

Mother Hubbard is my substitute.

Posted by: the way I see it at October 19, 2025 11:26 AM (EYmYM)

228 Bayeux Tapestry (the tapestry is 70 meters long!)

-
Yeah? Well, Trajan's Column is long and spirals up!

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 11:26 AM (L/fGl)

229 " I found the crown in the gutter, and picked UT up"
Jewel thef

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 11:28 AM (+qU29)

230 I never thought of it like that. I inserted a line like that in the ALH Epistolary - which is still a going concern! - It just seemed to fit, even though it's the narrator of that section that does it.
Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025

***
If it's the narrator, then nobody would complain.

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 11:29 AM (omVj0)

231 The Wolf-Girl, the Greeks, and the Gods: A Tale of the Persian Wars. By Tom Holland. A short retelling based around the princess Gorgo, wife of Leonidas. Sold as young adult, it mixes mythology with history. Very entertaining,

-
Reminds me of one of my favorite books I read as a yute, Mary Renault's The King Must Die and the sequel The Bull From the Sea about Theseus.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 11:32 AM (L/fGl)

232 It's 10:30 Central already? Oh, my paws and whiskers!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 11:33 AM (omVj0)

233 I think Anthony Burgess once said that during his time in the service nobody ever said "Pass the butter." It was always "Pass the effing butter."
——-

Oh, it gets better. Paul Fussell commented on the ubiquitous-ness of the F bomb as the catch all word, could be a noun, verb, adjective, whatever. He said he watched some Brit mechanics working on a jeep or whatever. Something broke, and one guy said: “Fuck! The fucking fucker’s fucking fucked!” and everyone knew exactly what he meant.

Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 11:33 AM (KP4aP)

234 (sigh)

Chauffeur duty calls again. Thanks, Weasel. I'll sadly miss the rest of the thread.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at October 19, 2025 11:37 AM (uQesX)

235 Near-death experiences make a man weigh his words before they leave his mouth. Those words could be his last.

Posted by: Eromero at October 19, 2025 11:38 AM (rrYP0)

236 Common Tater at 233

I'm picturing an unabridged dictionary of the future. Maybe 6 or 8 pages, counting a brief introduction, title page, and copyright notices. There will be one entry, and that entry will be for the f-bomb, and there will be examples of its use as noun, verb, adjective, whatever. "Modern" versions of classic works should be interesting. Films and plays, modern and productions of classics, will all resemble the scene in a first season episode of The Wire in which detectives are trying to reconstruct a murder and every word for a good five minutes is a variation of the f-bomb. It will be a glorious time for culture.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 11:40 AM (q3u5l)

237 Since we moved from the 100-year old house to the new one we built nearby, we have only slowly been cleaning out the clutter (and moving clutter to the new house) preparatory to refurbishing it. Health problems have been caused distracting delays.

This past week, MiladyJo and Daughter tackled the four tall bookshelves that were overstuffed. Sorted into boxes of what would come to the new house, what would later be reshelved in the old house, and what would be given away. This on top of boxes of books still unpacked since we left Chicago three decades ago. Someday to all be reshelved in the refurbished old house, is the plan.

They couldn't have me helping sort through the books. Were I in on that project, the "to give away" box would remain empty.

Posted by: mindful webworker - shelf-aware at October 19, 2025 11:40 AM (KDyF9)

238 There's some folk etymology on "bloody" and its cognates:
Amiens and Ypres have very nice French pronunciations, but to WWI Brits they were "A-meenz" and "Wipers," the two worst battles in history. Veterans of Amiens referred to it as "Bloody A."
The mention of having outlived that day put you in a special brotherhood. Over decades, as language coarsened further, that evolved to "fukkin-A," and moved to Brooklyn.

Posted by: Way, Way Downriver at October 19, 2025 11:43 AM (zdLoL)

239 Just boarded my flight home to Seattle.

tcn, the Pickle Queen, and her husband are on the same flight! They are a hoot and it was an absolute joy to meet them!!!

Whoot!

Posted by: nurse ratched at October 19, 2025 11:43 AM (SCK5C)

240 Safely aboard our flight along with Nurse Ratched, headed home from the absolutely fabulous TXMoMe. Exhausted and satisfied. Vague smiles descending into Bloody Marys…😀

Posted by: tcn, Pickle Queen of AK at October 19, 2025 11:44 AM (pSzdp)

241 220 207 I also checked out a YUGE book on the Bayeux Tapestry (the tapestry is 70 meters long!) with each page showing a segment. The Latin and translation is available in the back of the book.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 11:10 AM (kpS4V)

the Bayeux Tapestry (along with the Luttrell Psalter) is one of those medeval artifacts that I frequently hear referenced (in books and audio lectures), but that I have rarely actually seen. I really should do something about that. The book mentioned seems like a neat way of addressing that deficiency.
Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 11:19 AM (Lhaco)

Well worth seeing it in person. Took the family to Europe last year, and one of our destinations was Bayeux/Normandy - saw the tapestry in its most recent display building. Nicely done moving sidewalk + audio device to explain all of the scenes, at not too quick of a pace. I hope the new exhibition facility will do as well.

Posted by: MD_Mike at October 19, 2025 11:44 AM (9AGjP)

242 My favorite Jane Austen novel is "Persuasion" and there is a lovely film of it from about 1995 with Amanda Root and the handsome Ciaran Hinds.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at October 19, 2025 11:45 AM (7RYym)

243 I've been reading Constantine at the Bridge by Stephen Dando-Collins, the Bridge in question being the Milvian Bridge where, it is said, Constantine saw a cross in the sky and the legend In Hoc Signo Vinces ("you conguer through this symbol") before achieving a miraculous victory. That victory legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire. Dando-Collins doesn't believe that, though. For one thing, early sources say the mandate to conquer was in Greek, not Latin.
Dando-Collins is a rather ambiguous, and prolific, author. I often find his conclusions dubious but attention to detail is informative and entertaining. For example, his book Blood of the Caesars, about the mysterious death of Germanicus, suggests that the stoic moral philosopher Seneca may have conspired with Germanicus' wife, Agrippina the Elder, to murder him. That conclusion is more speculation than deduction but all the stories about all the characters are very interesting.
I've only begun but I expect this book to be as entertaining and, so far, it has been.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 11:47 AM (L/fGl)

244 Re: large type on book covers. We used to buy books in bookstores, holding something 5x7 or 7x9 in our hands. The type on the cover didn't have to be large.

Now we more often buy on a site like Amazon, based on a print of the cover the size of a thumb. The type has to be big to be readable.

Posted by: Wenda at October 19, 2025 11:48 AM (7IeTt)

245 I finished Gun Runner by Larry Correia and John D Brown.
It is in short, a Sci-Fi action adventure with smugglers, covert assaults, revolutionaries, and mech warriors slugging it out in an orbital above a hell-planet filled with Kaiju.

Jackson Rook is a Mech warrior who survived a battlefield hacking attack, and now is crew on a smuggling ship, Tar Heel, providing resistance movements with arms and supplies. They are running one high end Mech and sundries to the ruler of the planet Swindle, where colonists harvest CX in a toxic landscape where everything will kill you, and the largest predators can be the size of a sky-scraper.
During a recreational hunt on the surface with the ruler Warlord, Rook is separated from the party and is picked up by the Originals, the colonists who Warlord is vying for control of the planet surface. The Originals send Rook back to the Orbital with a bomb in his back and the demand that he steal or destroy the Mech that he delivered before the bomb goes off.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 19, 2025 11:49 AM (rbvCR)

246 I mentioned books about Texas a while ago; two I can recommend are Paul Horgan's epic Grear River: The Rio Grande in North American History, and Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers, by Robert Utley.

Posted by: Paco at October 19, 2025 11:50 AM (mADJX)

247 "Pride and Prejudice" the first romantic comedy.

Boy meets girl. Girl hates boy...

Posted by: no one of any consequence at October 19, 2025 11:50 AM (ZmEVT)

248 Well, off to bleep up various bleeping bleeps here at bleeping Casa Some Guy.

Thanks for the thread, Weasel.

Sounds like everybody had a great time at the TXMoMe. Have a good one, gang.

Posted by: Just Some Guy at October 19, 2025 11:50 AM (q3u5l)

249 I mentioned this on another thread a few days ago, but there's a new book called Myth-Busting in Science and Religion: An Introduction for Ignorant Intellectuals. He quotes Thomas Sowell in the preface.

Posted by: Blahblahblah at October 19, 2025 11:51 AM (oV7lS)

250 Years ago, my ex-army cousin, daughter of my first cousin, was visiting my Mom while I was there. In a long sittin'-on-the-porch conversation, her every third word was "frigging." She was trying not to curse, in front of her great-aunt, but Mom and I agreed afterward that with that kind of repetition and emphasis, the "substitute" word came across as being as bad as the F-bomb.

We found it amusing.

Posted by: mindful webworker - frickin frackin razzem rissm rabbit at October 19, 2025 11:53 AM (KDyF9)

251 Can they still call it first class with me, tcn and nurse in it?

Posted by: Alaska viking at October 19, 2025 11:53 AM (pSzdp)

252 Can they still call it first class with me, tcn and nurse in it?
Posted by: Alaska viking at October 19, 2025

***
No.

It's "Superior" Class!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 11:54 AM (omVj0)

253 We sheltered types thought that when the camera cut to a fireplace, the couple was just kissing and cuddling. Anything more? Of course not -- they weren't married!
Posted by: Weak Geek at October 19, 2025 10:49 AM (dG78f)

Same here. And I'm absolutely okay with that.

Posted by: Emmie at October 19, 2025 11:54 AM (FMtrg)

254 I mentioned books about Texas a while ago; two I can recommend are Paul Horgan's epic Grear River: The Rio Grande in North American History, and Lone Star Justice: The First Century of the Texas Rangers, by Robert Utley.

"Great" River, I meant to write.

Posted by: Paco at October 19, 2025 11:54 AM (mADJX)

255 I've also been reading a new generation of Flashman, Flashman and the Knights of the Sky by PF Moore, the first in the upcoming Flashback series. Beginning in 1906, Harry Flashman has many characteristics similar to his famous grandfather including prodigious appetite and moral flexibility.

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 11:55 AM (L/fGl)

256 He said he watched some Brit mechanics working on a jeep or whatever. Something broke, and one guy said: “Fuck! The fucking fucker’s fucking fucked!” and everyone knew exactly what he meant.
Posted by: Common Tater at October 19, 2025 11:33 AM (KP4aP)

As a mechanic I use MFer as a measurement on how dificult a job was. As in how many times I utter l, mumble or scream it doing the job.
"That was a 31 MFer project right there."

Posted by: Reforger at October 19, 2025 11:59 AM (SG6eL)

257 241 220 207 I also checked out a YUGE book on the Bayeux Tapestry (the tapestry is 70 meters long!) with each page showing a segment. The Latin and translation is available in the back of the book.

Posted by: All Hail Eris,, coming to you live from the Roller Disco of Discord! at October 19, 2025 11:10 AM (kpS4V)

the Bayeux Tapestry (along with the Luttrell Psalter) is one of those medeval artifacts that I frequently hear referenced (in books and audio lectures), but that I have rarely actually seen. I really should do something about that. The book mentioned seems like a neat way of addressing that deficiency.
Posted by: Castle Guy at October 19, 2025 11:19 AM (Lhaco)

Well worth seeing it in person. Took the family to Europe last year, and one of our destinations was Bayeux/Normandy - saw the tapestry in its most recent display building. Nicely done moving sidewalk + audio device to explain all of the scenes, at not too quick of a pace. I hope the new exhibition facility will do as well.
Posted by: MD_Mike at October 19, 2025 11:44 AM (9AGjP)

One of the naturalfakes, who is a direct ancestor is on part of the Bayeaux Tapestry with the family name as well.

Posted by: naturalfake at October 19, 2025 11:59 AM (iJfKG)

258 NOOD

Posted by: Skip at October 19, 2025 12:01 PM (+qU29)

259 Chores time, I guess. Thanks to Weasel and all of you for a fun Book/Reading Thread!

Posted by: Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere at October 19, 2025 12:01 PM (omVj0)

260 We sheltered types thought that when the camera cut to a fireplace, the couple was just kissing and cuddling. Anything more? Of course not -- they weren't married!
Posted by: Weak Geek

I watched Bogart's The Big Sleep after having read the book. In one scene, he finds Carmen being photographed in a compromising position to produce pornography. In the book, she's bare ass naked but in the movie, released in 1946, she's fully clothed which must have caused several movie fans to scratch their heads wondering about what the big deal was

Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 12:04 PM (L/fGl)

261 Trying to catch up to date 19 in A Night in the Lonesome October by Zelazny. I forgot this year and started late. Such a wonderful book.

Posted by: Are you sure about this sir? at October 19, 2025 12:05 PM (U/7CP)

262 I've seen several classics lately dumbed down for a "modern" audience. Here, for example, is such an edition for the book of the day, Pride and Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice Modern English Version (Translated, Annotated): Today's English with Yesterday's Eloquence for Easy Reading
[ . . . ]
Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Fat, Dumb, and Happy at October 19, 2025 10:26 AM (L/fGl)

I recently cracked open a book from my father's library, The Comedic Blackstone Vol. 1 which is a series of essays on the law from the English humor magazine Punch. It is very readable, but with an incredibly intricate pattern of writing. The book was an American edition published in 1898

Some Edwardian and late Victorian writing is so erudite, one must feel as though perusing each rococo sentence and dependent clause require both the archeologist's camel hair brush, and a thesaurus of the greatest heft and breadth; the desire to hunt down and exterminate the author for overuse of the subjunctive becomes a mania.

Posted by: Kindltot at October 19, 2025 12:19 PM (rbvCR)

263 I have an irrelevant question. Are Muslims threatening to impose Sharia Law or just Sharia? Is law implied in the word Sharia?

Posted by: Northernlurker , Maple Syrup MAGA at October 19, 2025 12:23 PM (Sh3dj)

264 You can scroll through the entire Bayeux tapestry here: https://tinyurl.com/4xbj5kc7
The story of Harold and William is fascinating, but I particularly enjoy the little scenes of Anglo-Saxon daily life that are stitched into the lower border, some of which (like the one just before panel 13) are most definitely NSFW.

Posted by: Nemo at October 19, 2025 12:29 PM (4RPgu)

265 "Pride and Prejudice" is a wonderful read; in some ways, it's the perfect novel. (And the BBC mini-series from the 90s is almost as good.)

But my favorite Austen is one that doesn't get much respect: "Mansfield Park". Unlike P&P, it isn't a comedy; one might call it a treatise on how NOT to raise children. It's an intriguing book; in addition, it's the only one in which Austen alludes to s*x, and the only one in which a character uses a double-entendre. Well worth reading!

Posted by: Nemo at October 19, 2025 12:34 PM (4RPgu)

266 But my favorite Austen is one that doesn't get much respect: "Mansfield Park". Unlike P&P, it isn't a comedy; one might call it a treatise on how NOT to raise children. It's an intriguing book; in addition, it's the only one in which Austen alludes to s*x, and the only one in which a character uses a double-entendre. Well worth reading!

Posted by: Nemo at October 19, 2025 12:34 PM (4RPgu)

I like Mansfield Park, except for the ending.

The characters and their relationships all seem so carefully built and developed and then it suddenly turns into a car crash out of nowhere. I get that Austen was going for a bit of a morality play ending, but it just ends up so awkward and unsatisfying.

Pride and Prejudice otoh, feels like everything was much more properly set up and paid off.

Posted by: Sjg at October 19, 2025 01:24 PM (aqZN1)

267 All the Jane Austen references today remind me of something I heard Patrick O'Brian say. He was doing a book promo tour for his latest Aubrey/Maturin novel. During the question and answer portion of the program someone asked him what he thought of woman writers. His answer "You must remember that without women we would have no Jane Austen
1".

Posted by: John F. MacMichael at October 19, 2025 01:56 PM (aYnHS)

Processing 0.04, elapsed 0.051 seconds.
15 queries taking 0.013 seconds, 276 records returned.
Page size 172 kb.
Powered by Minx 0.8 beta.