richardderus's fourteenth 2020 thread

1960! It rawked.

In 2020, I wanted to post 10 book reviews a month on my blog. I already read a book every other day, as this year's total of 155 (a lot of individual stories don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; guess I should do more to sync the data this year) reads shows; so it was doable, and I've done better than that in the past. Regrettably, there's no way I'll even approach that goal now.

I've Pearl Ruled books I'm not enjoying, but making notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read has been less successful. I give up. I just don't care about this goal, so out it goes.







My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

Reviews 1 through 3 are thataway.

Reviews 4 through 8 reside thitherward.

Reviews 9 through 11 are back here.

Reviews 12 through 20 existen allá.

Reviews 21 through 24? Go here!.

Review 25 in all its lonely splendor is back yonder.

Reviews 26 through 40 are doin' it for themselves.

Reviews 41-46, plus a Pearl Rule can be seen elsewhere.

Reviews 47 through 68 are back there.

Reviews 69 through 76 present themselves for inspection behind.

Reviews 77 through 94 await your pleasure.

Reviews 95 through 103 cannot be found in this thread, but in that one.

Reviews 104 to 115 (inclusive) are more fruitfully sought here than here.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

116 The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras wasn't good, post 16.

117 Dove Season was an unsuccessful re-read, post 20.

118 The Nowhere Emporium was fun, post 23.

119 Death Keeps His Court was deeply disturbing, post 45.

120 Mapping the Interior gave me serious heebie-jeebies, post 54.

121 The Pursuit of... was short and sweet, post 66.

122 The Doctor's Discretion was a shocker, post 73.

123 Why Save the Bankers? is an excellent, unanswered question, post 88.

124 Why is the Global Economy Like This? about the excellent question, post 111.

125 A Fashionable Indulgence delighted me, post 112.

126 Plan for the Worst is the best of the St Mary's Disaster Magnet series to date, post 168.

127 Ring Shout is delightful, if overloaded with w-bombs, post 187.

128 The Haunting of Tram Car 015 delighted me! post 197.

129 Restored (Enlightenment Book 5) delighted me, post 229.

130 Mammoths of the Great Plains was a deal of fun, post 239.

131 The Only Good Indians is excellent, post 268.

132 The Corona Crash is concise and tendentious, post 282.

133 Beyond Bedlam will be a great movie, post 297.

2019 was a *stellar* reading year! For the first time ever, I had two six-stars-of-five reads: Black Light: Stories, a debut story collection that gave me so much pleasure I read it twice (ever rarer occurrence that), and the wrenching, gutting agony of Heart Berries, a memoir of such honesty and such vulnerability that I was a wreck after I finished it. I went back and forth a dozen times, first Author Parsons was the sixer, then Author Mailhot; neither book could possibly "win" for long because I couldn't get either book out of my mind.

I handed out 34 5- or damn-near-5-star reviews out of 155 reviewed books; that's 22% and that is a LOT. Many, even most of these (10+) were for short stories, for end-of-beloved-series novels, or for story collections. But hold on to something heavy: TWO, yes that's t-w-o dos due deux zwei два were...POETRY COLLECTIONS. Sarah Tolmie's The Art of Dying and the late Frank Stanford's collected poems, What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford. Both were peak reading experiences. Another was cultural monadnock George Takei's graphic memoir They Called Us Enemy, which could not be more important for young people today to absorb.

What a beautiful year it was, to bring so many delights to my door. I hope, greedy thing that I am, that 2020 will repeat this performance. For all of us, really...honest! I didn't just add that on the end of this summing-up to make it sound less solipsistic.

In 2020, I wanted to post 10 book reviews a month on my blog. As of 1 September, I haven't posted nearly enough to make the year-long goal! There are a few mitigating factors (a mild COVID-19 infection is one), but I don't think the deficit's recoverable. Even so, I still read a story every other day, as 2019's total of 155 (a lot of individual stories don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; guess I should do more to sync the data this year) reads shows; so it's doable, and I've done better than that in the past.

I have not done better at Pearl Ruling books I'm not enjoying with notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read. I think I'm going to bag this one, as I am not interested in performing the task. I don't like a book, I close it and discard it. Enough.

...and that's me done. My reports will continue to be quarterly, the day after the end of the quarter, as follows:

3Q20. Forty reads completed and reported for the quarter; two five-star novels read (The Long Dry and The Mercy Seat), and I five-starred I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf because really? How could I not with that title and subject matter?

I re-read two five-star stories, I Stand Here Ironing and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. They are both still exemplars of excellent observation and elucidation, domestic and societal by turns, each making its quiet way down into the core of one's ongoing reading experience. I find their echoes in so many "new" or new-to-me voices.

I have two book reviews on submission, so I won't count them as reads until they're either rejected and I put them on my blog, or accepted. I had to abandon a tree-book read, The Perfect Fascist, because in a month I was able to read 47pp of 528pp. I asked for a Kindle file and was informed no such accommodation would be made...not so long ago, before the latest round of gout-crystal formation, I asked and asked for tree books and was offered Kindle files! Crazy times.

Many very good reads, like Dr. Mary Trump's book about her nightmare family, were simply not tippy-tippy-top quality writing or storytelling. I am not about to dis anyone for needing less challenging reading, considering how much of it I hoovered up. But I was stalled in many superior reads because the world today is for stepped-in dog crap, and I was not prepared to do any heavy thinking.

EXCEPT my two five-star novels, one about capital punishment and one about the slow, sad decline of Life into cold lifelessness. I urge you to read those books, read my reviews to see why I think you should, and to support a world where art is possible by voting on 3 November 2020.

2Q20. Forty-five books read this quarter; I started and finished with five-star reads, lucky me! Sharks in the Time of Saviors was a beautifully made Hawai'ian family Bildungsroman. (Can one have a group Bildungsroman? it's not a family saga but a map of the coming-to-consciousness of a family...well, debate as you will, Imma call it that.) A great way to start the new quarter, with a new author's first book that belted the ball out of the park.

The end-of-quarter delight is You Exist Too Much, the fumbling attempts of a queer Palestinian woman to fix the damage done by a borderline-personality-disordered mother and an ineffectual, uninterested father. Like I could relate much? So much of the story felt like me wandering destructively through my 20s and 30s that the next events felt foreseen, if not predictable.

This quarter also brought my dote, Murderbot, in its first-ever full novel appearance. Oh Murderbot *swoon* you're so dreamy

Anyway, Murderbot did not disappoint (as if!) and Author Martha Wells maintains her standing as my go-to AI-story spinner of webs.

Author Kai Ashante Wilson wrote The Devil in America six years ago, but I just got around to reading it. I loved the bitter tang of the story's search for escape from a curse. It's inevitable that the search ended in defeat because curse. I find the curse-breaking triumphalist fiction so very prevalent today savorless and silly and really quite dangerous. But anyway, Author Wilson (A Taste of Honey, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps) earns my approbation by placing Black queerness at the heart of his fiction. His is a point of view we need to see more of to break free from the curse (!) of Othering in ficiton.

And a different five stars entirely for the coda of a series set in 19th-century London and Scotland, The Bequest: David and Murdo's Epilogue. It's a short piece that ties a neat little bow on the fanny (US sense) of three historical novels featuring lawyer David and aristocrat Murdo as they negotiate the pitfalls of queer love in their world. It's not a recommended-read-now five because it will make no sense whatever if one hasn't read the previous three books. Squeamish straight people should not attempt to summit this mountain, there is significant steamy sex and y'all pretty much lose y'all's shit when gay sex is presented at anything like the frequency or graphicness of straight sex.

Plenty of four-and-a-half star reads and four-star reads.

And the heinous ones. Oh my. The Fear Hunter was severely mistitled. Elise Sax wrote a forgettable and pretty pointless rom-com with a few gestures towards mystery. AWFUL. Penny Serenade barely lifted its dreary stringy mop of dirt-colored hair off that book's place on the basement floor because a film was made of it that was at least pretty to look at. The story was not good reading. I suspect I wasn't in the mood for The Code Book so I won't excoriate it for having AN ENTIRE PAGE OF NUMERALS in a comma-separated-value list. I was recovering from my mild dose of COVID-19 so I'll assume it was me being fussy not the author being a complete putz.

And that, my olds, is a very good quarter's reading.

1Q20. Twenty-six reads done, three posted on my blog, or 10% of the goal I set myself. Bad performance. Really bad.

I re-read the four Murderbot novellas by Martha Wells, and loved them just as much as when I first read them. Because Network Effect is coming in May, YAY!!, it felt like time at last to put down some thoughts about them on my poor, neglected blog. Murderbot is a delightfully antisocial being and I am honestly more impressed by Author Wells's beautiful and deft worldbuilding than I am by the lit'ry stylings of many a crowed-over Next Big Thing.

But this quarter's surprise and joy is reserved for a Smashwords COVID-19 sale find, a freebie I completely accidentally stumbled upon: A Justified State by Iain Kelly, a Scottish television editor about whom I had not heard a peep and from whom I expected not a lot.

He overdelivered on my expectations. This could be a six-stars-of-five read; I have a long way to go, so no decisions yet, but this medium-term futuristic dystopian thriller set in a nightmarish Soylent Green-ish Glasgow is $2.99 and cheap at twice the price. Do your distracted self a favor and get sucked in to Author Kelly's hellish world...ours seems paradisical!

I really hadn't considered doing this until recently...tracking my Pulitzer Prize in Fiction winners read, and Booker Prize winners read might actually prove useful to me in planning my reading.

1918 HIS FAMILY - Ernest Poole **
1919 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - Booth Tarkington *
1921 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Edith Wharton *
1922 ALICE ADAMS - Booth Tarkington **
1923 ONE OF OURS - Willa Cather **
1924 THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS - Margaret Wilson
1925 SO BIG - Edna Ferber *
1926 ARROWSMITH - Sinclair Lewis (Declined) *
1927 EARLY AUTUMN - Louis Bromfield
1928 THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY - Thornton Wilder *
1929 SCARLET SISTER MARY - Julia Peterkin
1930 LAUGHING BOY - Oliver Lafarge
1931 YEARS OF GRACE - Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 THE GOOD EARTH - Pearl Buck *
1933 THE STORE - Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934 LAMB IN HIS BOSOM - Caroline Miller
1935 NOW IN NOVEMBER - Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 HONEY IN THE HORN - Harold L Davis
1937 GONE WITH THE WIND - Margaret Mitchell *
1938 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY - John Phillips Marquand
1939 THE YEARLING - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings *
1940 THE GRAPES OF WRATH - John Steinbeck *
1942 IN THIS OUR LIFE - Ellen Glasgow *
1943 DRAGON'S TEETH - Upton Sinclair
1944 JOURNEY IN THE DARK - Martin Flavin
1945 A BELL FOR ADANO - John Hersey *
1947 ALL THE KING'S MEN - Robert Penn Warren *
1948 TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC - James Michener
1949 GUARD OF HONOR - James Gould Cozzens
1950 THE WAY WEST - A.B. Guthrie
1951 THE TOWN - Conrad Richter
1952 THE CAINE MUTINY - Herman Wouk
1953 THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Ernest Hemingway *
1955 A FABLE - William Faulkner *
1956 ANDERSONVILLE - McKinlay Kantor *
1958 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY - James Agee *
1959 THE TRAVELS OF JAIMIE McPHEETERS - Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 ADVISE AND CONSENT - Allen Drury *
1961 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee *
1962 THE EDGE OF SADNESS - Edwin O'Connor
1963 THE REIVERS - William Faulkner *
1965 THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE - Shirley Ann Grau
1966 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF KATHERINE ANNE PORTER - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 THE FIXER - Bernard Malamud
1968 THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER - William Styron *
1969 HOUSE MADE OF DAWN - N Scott Momaday
1970 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JEAN STAFFORD - Jean Stafford
1972 ANGLE OF REPOSE - Wallace Stegner *
1973 THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER - Eudora Welty *
1975 THE KILLER ANGELS - Jeff Shaara *
1976 HUMBOLDT'S GIFT - Saul Bellow *
1978 ELBOW ROOM - James Alan McPherson
1979 THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER - John Cheever *
1980 THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG - Norman Mailer *
1981 A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES - John Kennedy Toole *
1982 RABBIT IS RICH - John Updike *
1983 THE COLOR PURPLE - Alice Walker *
1984 IRONWEED - William Kennedy *
1985 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Alison Lurie
1986 LONESOME DOVE - Larry McMurtry *
1987 A SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS - Peter Taylor
1988 BELOVED - Toni Morrison *
1989 BREATHING LESSONS - Anne Tyler
1990 THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE - Oscar Hijuelos *
1991 RABBIT AT REST - John Updike *
1992 A THOUSAND ACRES - Jane Smiley *
1993 A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN - Robert Olen Butler *
1994 THE SHIPPING NEWS - E Annie Proulx *
1995 THE STONE DIARIES - Carol Shields
1996 INDEPENDENCE DAY - Richard Ford
1997 MARTIN DRESSLER - Steven Millhauser
1998 AMERICAN PASTORAL - Philip Roth
1999 THE HOURS - Michael Cunningham
2000 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES - Jumpha Lahiri
2001 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY - Michael Chabon
2002 EMPIRE FALLS - Richard Russo
2003 MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides *
2004 THE KNOWN WORLD - Edward P. Jones
2005 GILEAD - Marilynne Robinson
2006 MARCH - Geraldine Brooks
2007 THE ROAD - Cormac McCarthy
2008 THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO - Junot Diaz *
2009 OLIVE KITTERIDGE - Elizabeth Strout
2010 TINKERS - Paul Harding
2011 A VISIT FROM THE GOOD SQUAD - Jennifer Egan
2013 ORPHAN MASTER'S SON - Adam Johnson
2014 THE GOLDFINCH - Donna Tartt
2015 ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE - Anthony Doerr **
2016 THE SYMPATHIZER - Viet Thanh Nguyen **
2017 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD - Colson Whitehead **
2018 LESS - Andrew Sean Greer *
2019 THE OVERSTORY - Richard Powers *

Links are to my reviews
* Read, but not reviewed
** Owned, but not read

Every winner of the Booker Prize since its inception in 1969

1969: P. H. Newby, Something to Answer For
1970: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
1970: J. G. Farrell, Troubles ** (awarded in 2010 as the Lost Man Booker Prize) -
1971: V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State
1972: John Berger, G.
1973: J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur
1974: Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist ... and Stanley Middleton, Holiday
1975: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
1976: David Storey, Saville
1977: Paul Scott, Staying On
1978: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea *
1979: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
1980: William Golding, Rites of Passage
1981: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children *
1982: Thomas Keneally, Schindler's Ark
1983: J. M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K
1984: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac *
1985: Keri Hulme, The Bone People **
1986: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
1987: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger *
1988: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda *
1989: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day *
1990: A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance *
1991: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
1992: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient * ... and Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
1993: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1994: James Kelman, How late it was, how late
1995: Pat Barker, The Ghost Road *
1996: Graham Swift, Last Orders
1997: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
1998: Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
2000: Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin *
2001: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang *
2002: Yann Martel, Life of Pi
2003: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little **
2004: Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty *
2005: John Banville, The Sea
2006: Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
2007: Anne Enright, The Gathering
2008: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
2009: Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
2010: Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question *
2011: Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending **
2012: Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
2013: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries
2014: Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
2015: Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings *
2016: Paul Beatty, The Sellout
2017: George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo *
2018: Anna Burns, Milkman
2019: Margaret Atwood, The Testaments, and Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other

Links are to my reviews
* Read, but not reviewed
** Owned, but not read

And, as you have been so patient, now the next post *IS* yours.

Mine! Mine!

Oh, happy new thread!

Yoo hoo! I'm heeeeeeeere!

And Nuala says hi and hopes your run of crummy days have ended. xx (or, in her case, slurp slurp).

>7 quondame: And SUSAN WINS!!

Happy new thread, Richard!

>8 katiekrug: Hiya Katie, thanks for the end-to-lousiness wishes. You and Nuala have lightened my mood considerably.

I'm so wickedly pleased that 45 and the Frozen One have the virus that it would be impossible for me to stop smiling. I know I should be all sympathetic and remember my own misery, but then I *do* remember my own misery and lay the blame for it squarely on them so....

>10 harrygbutler: Thanks, Harry! Happy Friday to you, kind sir.

Happy new thread Richard, Dear Friend.

>11 richardderus: Just remember, we don't want him to die!

Happy New Thread, Richard!

Happy New Thread!

On the sickness front. I don't know what would be worse, He gets really sick and put on a vent, and we have to deal with the constitutional implications, or its really mild and he can lord it over everyone.... SEE ITS NOT THAT BAD, OPEN EVERYTHING BACKUP, NO MASKS

Happy new thread, Richard. *smooch*

116 The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras

Rating: 2* of five

I am not a libertarian. The PoV in this novel is *relentlessly* and in my opinion pointlessly libertarian.

Juvenile "philosophy" like this is disagreeable to me. Celebrating selfishness and self-aggrandizing behaviors ("I know better than you do, librull Deep State bureaucrat!" is just about said more than once in here) isn't pleasant. It's foolish and, when enough people do it, damaging to public institutions. Like the CDC, as we've seen this behavior's results undermine science's lessons to the fatal detriment of over 200,000 Americans.

So read away if you're a 45er. If you're not, I don't recommend it.

>12 johnsimpson: Thank you very much, John!

>13 ronincats: I do. I want him to die slowly and painfully. Choking on the lies he told that cost tens of thousands of *far* better people than he is their lives.

Oh, and thanks!

>14 mahsdad: There are no wins in this situation, Jeff, none. Nothing will be made better whether 45 dies slowly and painfully (as I so urgently desire) or not.

So here we are.

>15 bell7: Thank you, Mary, and a return *smooch*

Happy Friday! Happy New Thread, Richard. You sure got my attention with The Mercy Seat and that was an excellent review to boot.

Happy new one, Richard. Feel better sooner!

117 Dove Season by Johnny Shaw

Rating: 3* of five

Ten years ago, when I first read this, I thought it was a laugh riot. Now I don't.

I was not taken with the casually dismissive treatment of Latinx characters, even...maybe especially...by other Latinx characters. I think I'd've been less grossed out by it had any one of the characters in question questioned their callousness and selfishness. They did not, though it's cloaked in the fog-machine mists of cluelessness. That doesn't cut it anymore, not with me, though it certainly did not all that long ago.

When you know better, do better. I've internalized the full extent of that maxim now, at sixty-one, in a way I hadn't at fifty-one. I guess, anyway, since many if not most of the things that've changed in my life are calendrical. There are more Jimmy Veeder books on my Kindle, but I suspect I'll let them languish since I got so little from this re-read.

I don't, however, want to mislead you. This isn't a poorly executed book, and if you're more open to mildly unpleasant people bumbling about and learning nothing than I am, this is snarky fun. I'm just not there anymore.

It happens, like it or not, and it can't be undone.

Happy New Thread, Young Man!

>18 msf59: Oh, I'm very glad your interest was piqued. I really hope you'll try it out soon, since Katie is burning off bad karma by influencing people (me) to read it, who then influence others (you) to read it.

And goodness knows there is a LOT of burning needed to come....

>19 jessibud2: Hi Shelley! Happy to see you here. I'm nowhere near as bleccchhh as I've been for the past couple days. Bloody bedamned allergies!!

>21 Matke: *smothers Gail in smooches*

she called me young

*happy sigh*

118 The Nowhere Emporium by Ross MacKenzie

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: When the mysterious Nowhere Emporium arrives in Glasgow, orphan Daniel Holmes stumbles upon it quite by accident. Before long, the 'shop from nowhere' -- and its owner, Mr Silver -- draw Daniel into a breathtaking world of magic and enchantment. Recruited as Mr Silver's apprentice, Daniel learns the secrets of the Emporium's vast labyrinth of passageways and rooms -- rooms that contain wonders beyond anything Daniel has ever imagined. But when Mr Silver disappears, and a shadow from the past threatens everything, the Emporium and all its wonders begin to crumble. Can Daniel save his home, and his new friends, before the Nowhere Emporium is destroyed forever?

I RECEIVED A DRC OF THIS BOOK VIA EDELWEISS+ AND I THANK THEM FOR IT.

My Review: I am a great deal older than the target audience for this book. But I am also about ten when it comes to magical-portal adventure stories! This isn't on the same plane as The Chronicles of Narnia, but it's got a boatload of fun trips away from reality.

Well. Let me not mislead you. Fun *for me* and stressful for our young hero, whose relationships are...fraught...throughout the book. Does he understand the rules Mr. Silver sets down? Is he doing it right? Are his friends really his friends or are they going to abandon him?

Perfect for middle-graders, told in challenging-enough language, and made from the magical bones of millennia of fantasies. I don't think anyone could complain that this is uninteresting, even grouchy old men like me. Still less a kid whose most urgent need is to be reassured that feeling unsure and unsteady is normal. And that, at the end of the day, he can and will make good things happen by his own effort and energy. Perfect for your fantasy-loving middle-grader/early teen who's read ALL the latest books and really needs a fix. (Like, I'm betting, you did...I know I did!)

Hi RD, i was slow to realise I was on your new thread!
Anyway, here I am and enjoyed catching up.
Your book #118 at >23 richardderus: sounds quite appealing for teens. I assume correctly I hope that 'middle-graders' are in the 10 to 13 y.o. bracket?

let's hope that 45 survives to see defeat. Now there's an admirable reason to be cheered up!

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread!

>24 SandyAMcPherson: Thanks for the new-thread wishes, Sandy...yep, that magic minute between kidhood and surly horribleness is what this book is aimed at.

Far better, to me, is Atgolf Twitler dying unsure of how anyone will remember him. And *if* anyone will remember him.

>25 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

>26 SilverWolf28: Thanks, Silver!

Happy new thread, Richard! I have to agree with Roni >13 ronincats: and even more with Jeff >14 mahsdad:. A constitutional crisis right now would be awful, and a Pence/Haley ticket awfuler, especially since I imagine they'd be harder to beat. Not to say I don't want him to die a long and painful death, but I'd like him to be in prison while he is doing it after losing the election and being convicted of all the crimes he's committed. It may be a terrible thing to say, but the past 3-3/4 years has sucked me dry of nice.

>28 Storeetllr: I just want these vile people out. Out of office, out of our collective hair, out on every measure except out on parole.

I hear that, Richard, and am right there with you. I just don't want him to die before November 3 is all I'm really saying. And I'd kind of like him to not get too sick until then either because turning him into a sympathetic figure would be against all that is holy and right and would be dangerous to boot.

Today, for the first time in a long time, I had a gin and tonic after dinner because I was so upset about the horrible possibilities inherent in this situation. I feel much more sanguine now. *hic*

>30 Storeetllr: "Sanguine"? Ish tha' wha' th'kidzre callin' it now?

:-P

>31 richardderus: and >30 Storeetllr: ~ I have a poem for you two...

Starkle, starkle Little Twink
Who the Hell you are I think.
Up Above the World so High...
....Ummm?
I'm not drunk,
Though some Thinkle Peep I am.

~~~~~~~~
Apparently I sang this as The Hubby was dragging me away from a party.
I was all of 28 years old and I still haven't lived it down in some circles.

Mercifully I had no recollection of the signal event. I am assured that "No, we're not making this up".

Hope y'alls feel better about everything soon ♡

Happy new one dear fellow.

On Chump, I of course want the fellow out of office but I'll stay there. Would do even more damage to your country if he passed away and passed on to Pence. I don't wish him dead, i just want him gone.

Happy new thread, RD. 1960 did rawk. I turned 7 in June, so finished up first grade with Miss Albamonte and then had her again for 2nd grade. School was fun.

I don't know what I want except for it to be a non-Trump, non-Republican era. Every week since he won the Electoral College in 2016 has been pure D hell in one way or another.

*smooch*

>32 SandyAMcPherson: I was so lucky! My mother sent me on a tour of Europe after I graduated high school and whatever drunken (or other) trouble I got into there never made it back to my home town.

Brilliant poem, though! Dionysus is proud!

>35 quondame: Thank you Susan, for saying the poem was brilliant. Ahem. Not that it was or that I was...
Fortunately my parents were living overseas and only heard second-hand very edited versions of my misspent youth.

Happy new thread Richard!

"2019 was a *stellar* reading year! ... What a beautiful year it was, to bring so many delights to my door. I hope, greedy thing that I am, that 2020 will repeat this performance. For all of us, really...honest! I didn't just add that on the end of this summing-up to make it sound less solipsistic.

Did you get your wish ;0)

I was driving and had BBC WS on the radio when the news came on. 'President Trump, who is 74 years old and overweight, has tested positive ...' said the announcer. Both my son and I thought it was hilarious (after picking our jaws up off the floor).

Happy new thread, Richard!

Not much at add lately, wishing you a lovely Saturday.

October Is The Longest Decade, COVID In The White House, And A 20-Foot Skeleton: Here Are The Week's Best Tweets on Digg. About peed myself laughing, I admit, when I read that title.

Fun to look at your Pulitzer Prize list.

>4 richardderus: I think Booth Tarkington - though dated as a dodo - is still worth a read. I like The Magnificent Ambersons still read Seventeen. and i like other of his books also. I gave Seventeen to a Chinese girl at work who was trying to improve her English. She loved it.

Would love to have my book club tackle Edna Ferber - either So Big or Showboat

>23 richardderus: have to give The Nowhere Emportium a look. I love YA and and all that kind of yes Magic is real but yes Magic has rules and you better larn 'em. Right on the wish list.

>32 SandyAMcPherson: Ha! Most excellent poem! Thank you, Sandy. And bless Mnemosyne's healing gaps....

>33 PaulCranswick: Thank you, PC, and may the week ahead bring some relief from the madness that is this wretched decade called 2020.

>34 karenmarie: Happy Saturday, Horrible! May your wishes be granted soon. *smooch*

>35 quondame: Wasn't Dionysus partly honored on the Bacchanalia? Seems like he should've had his own holiday. ...oh wait...he *WAS* Bacchus. Yeesh, guys, clean up the pantheon overlap!

>36 SandyAMcPherson: *smooch*

>37 humouress: Not so far. There've been some high points but, well, no.

Ya know, this bit from the Intelligencer website says it all: "This has been the story from the White House today: to downplay 45’s diagnosis just as he has downplayed the country’s diagnosis for the past nine months.

It goes without saying that this was avoidable. While it’s true that even the most cautious person could be unlucky and could contract the virus despite going to great lengths to avoid it, 45 was, proudly, very much not that."

>38 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita, and the same wishes happily returned. I'm sure the world will be such that we're back to our old ways again.

>40 magicians_nephew: Oh, great news Jim! I hope you'll find it a pleasure to read. It was so deeply evocative of that uncertainty, that out-of-balance feeling, that the best YAs do well but don't overdo.

>39 richardderus: Hahahaha, what a ride there at the end.

>43 Storeetllr: Agreed, Mary!

119 Death Keeps His Court: The Rule of Richard II by Anselm Audley

The Publisher Says: A tyrant on the throne...

Richard II was young, handsome, and elegant. Last living child of the brilliant Black Prince, he came to the throne bearing the hopes of his people on his shoulders. His court glittered; his tastes were refined; his portraits shone with gold. Regal, composed, aloof, he was the very picture of majesty. He became a murderous, capricious tyrant. His favourites plotted against his family. He rewrote the laws of England to give himself absolute power. He raised an army against his own subjects.

His subjects deposed him. Twice.

This is the story of the forgotten civil war of 1387, which saw Richard set against his brave, ill-starred uncle Thomas of Woodstock. Of how a boy’s bright promise turned deadly, provoking his nobles to fear, flight, and finally open war. Of how a humiliated King set out on a course of vengeance which would cost him his life and sow the first fatal seeds of the Wars of the Roses.

From royal banquets to battles in the mist, Death Keeps His Court tells a tale of real-life tyranny, treachery and tragedy in the age which inspired A Game of Thrones.

Anselm Audley holds BA and Master’s degrees in ancient history from Oxford, as well as a degree in planetary science from University College London. He is a published fantasy novelist, the author of Heresy, Inquisition, Crusade, and Vespera.

My Review: Never, ever fail to believe a tyrant:

The King was the revolutionary, twisting law and justice into weapons, setting his own arbitrary whims above the settled custom of the realm, and giving not only protection but honours and riches to men whose conduct had been reprehensible. He had not the slightest respect for the laws of the land or the rights of his subjects, yet he was still the King – great Edward’s grandson and anointed monarch.

When low, cunning men and women gain power, they bluster and threaten and posture. Good, reasonable people who want to believe the best of them say that they don't mean what they are saying.

To show his friendship and appreciation for his favourites, Richard had given them everything they had asked for. He had bent laws, misused his power as King for their benefit, made himself the friend of France and the enemy of his own people. He had protected them no matter what they did.

They do. Always and without fail, they are truthful in their lies. What they intend to do is always in the bluster. And good people will never, ever believe them.

Thwarted, Richard instead resorted to one breach of faith after another: refusing to turn up to a council meeting, trying to delay the writs for Parliament, using every trick he could think of to keep the Appellants from acting. There could no longer be any doubt; de Vere was coming, and he had an army. All Richard’s delays, all his stratagems, had been attempts to buy time, to keep the Appellants’ eyes fixed on London.

So, here we are!

Even now, it seemed, the King believed he had the power to make reality conform to his will. –and– Richard was incapable of forgiving and forgetting. His tender sense of his own regality, still bruised, was one reason.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, mes amis.

Happy new thread, Richard!

>46 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

>45 richardderus: Wow, that looks really good!

>48 Storeetllr: And for $3 it's a bargain.

>45 richardderus: I keep saying I want to read more about the Medieval period, feudalism, etc. I really need to get that "very short introduction" to give me an overview before I dig into specific countries and rulers though. It's been far too long since I've read extensively in that period.

Happy Sunday, RDear.

>45 richardderus: I was trying to avoid thinking about the dumpster prez...

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>50 thornton37814: This is a series that could be very, very helpful towards your goal, Lori. I hope you'll enjoy them.

>51 karenmarie: *mighty snort* Good luck with that.

Happy Sunday! *smooch*

Happy New Thread, Richard!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, mes amis. Ain't that the truth.

Good review of the Richard II book. I was nodding along, yup, this sure sounds familiar - our prez thinks he's King Richard II.

I hope you've been having a good weekend, and that you're enjoying your Sunday.

120 Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

Is this the real life? Or is it just fantasy? (Thank you, Queen, for the eternal ear-worm.) If this is just fantasy, be damned good and grateful you're not able to escape from reality.

To sleepwalk is to be inhabited, yes, but not by something else, so much. What you’re inhabited by, what’s kicking one foot in front of the other, it’s yourself. It doesn’t make sense, but I don’t think it’s under any real compulsion to, finally. If anything, being inhabited by yourself like that, what it tells you is that there’s a real you squirming down inside you, trying all through the day to pull up to the surface, look out. But it can only get that done when your defenses are down. When you’re sleeping.

A twelve year old isn't exactly a kid, isn't a teen yet, can't quite be anything because nothing...literally no thing...is stable, permanent, fully itself in his head. And we all know that Reality is just a shared fantasy. At least, all of us whose lives have changed because impossible, fantastic, unreal things have happened to us.

I figured that’s maybe what had happened to me the night before—my feet had been asleep but I’d walked on them anyway, into some other . . . not plane, I don’t think, but like a shade over, or deeper, or shallower, where I could see more than I could otherwise.
–and–
There was a line of glare in the dead television screen from the lamp and I watched it, blinking as little possible, because as soon as that line of light broke, that was going to mean something had passed between me and it. And, if it came from the right, that meant Dad was done with fixing Dino. And if it came from the left, that meant he was just getting started.

Make no mistake, this story will not leave you unchanged. It might, if you're a particular kind of person, leave you alone with memories you didn't much want to believe were still there. It could, for a different kind of person, be terrifying and strange to mentally see a dead person walking through a room.

Was that I was supposed to do, to save me and Mom? Leave Dino like an offering? Trade him for both of us? None of the cops on my shows would ever do that. Even for the worst criminal. Because of justice. Because of what’s right.
–and–
...he was looking across the room like an animal, right into my soul. His eyes shone, not with light but with a kind of wet darkness. The mouth too—no, the lips. And curling up from them was smoke.

You won't know which you are until you read these hundred-plus pages. Which you need to do.

Because—I had to say it, just to myself—because he’d been feeding on Dino, I was pretty sure. The wet lips. The empty eyes. Dino’s seizures had started before I’d seen Dad walking across the living room, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been making that trip for three or four weeks already, then, did it?

Still here? Go get this story! Scoot!

(But, no matter what, don't do this:

I’d never smoked—you need your lungs if you dance—but after that night, I kind of understood why Mom always had. It makes you feel like you have some control. You know it’s bad for you, but you’re doing it on purpose, too. You’re breathing that in of your own volition, because you want to.

When you don’t have control of anything else, when a car can just go cartwheeling off into the horizon, then to even have just a little bit of control, it can feel good. Especially if you hold that smoke in for a long time, only let it out bit by bit.

)

>45 richardderus: Two Book Bullets from you in two days.

The Shakespeare version of Richard II is a minor work but Ive seen it done well and the story can be thrilling. He's such a asshole in the first half of the play but achieves some measure of understanding and even nobility but the end. Be curious to see how this guy tells the tale

Let us sit upon the ground
and tell sad stories of the death of kings

You know in Shakespeare's time the deposition scene where Richard gives up the crown was sometimes omitted in the playing -- to avoid giving people ideas. Even the Queen thought at times that the play was written to encourage rebels against her.

>53 jnwelch: I doubt 45 knows who Richard II was, but he definitely would identify with his 'tude.

Thanks for the good wishes, heartily returned, and may we all be shed of these jackanapes before too long.

>55 magicians_nephew: Ha! My aim is getting better.

I'm not in the least bit surprised a tyrant like LizOne was reluctant to see that scene staged. Way too many subtle appeals to honor over power. Never a dictator's idea of a good message, that.

Here is a solution. Quite brilliant, I think: ;-)

https://birdsandbeespsa.com/

>57 jessibud2: Anjelica Huston's outro was damned near brilliant! Thanks for posting that.

>58 richardderus: - yep, that and the *tweet*... right on ;-)

"The historical data series on top incomes that we have created with the British economist Tony Atkinson, which now tracks the annual evolution of inequality in twenty-three countries throughout the twentieth century, shows unambiguously that financial crises, as such, have no lasting effect on inequality: it all depends on the political response to them." – Why Save the Bankers?: and Other Essays on Our Economic and Political Crisis by Thomas Piketty

>59 jessibud2: Made me chuckle. Ruefully. A thing that, until now, I thought was a figure of speech used by old-fashioned snobby writers.

I appear to be made from the cloth woven by the fiction of Louis Auchincloss and Stephen Birmingham. Oh dear.

"Tiling of hyperbolic space by ideal octahedra"
dullest title ever; I'd call it "Swords in Space" or summat li' tha'

>62 richardderus: oooh, I like that, whatever it's titled

>62 richardderus: Lovely

>62 richardderus: Nope, not the ideal title, but it made me look for them.

121 The Pursuit of... by Courtney Milan

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: What do a Black American soldier, invalided out at Yorktown, and a white British officer who deserted his post have in common? Quite a bit, actually.

• They attempted to kill each other the first time they met.
• They're liable to try again at some point in the five-hundred mile journey that they're inexplicably sharing.
• They are not falling in love with each other.
• They are not falling in love with each other.
• They are… Oh, no.

The Pursuit Of… is about a love affair between two men and the Declaration of Independence. It’s a novella of around 38,000 words.

My Review: Lord Henry's long-tongued prattle gets him into boatloads of trouble, from before we meet him to the worst possible moment: he's a British aristocrat behind enemy lines, a man's been murdered, and he's in the wrongest place possible.

The more loquacious...possibly better described as "an oyster"...John, a Black freedman in the Rhode Island Regiment (real thing, Author Milan explains in her Author's Note), also in the wrong place at the wrong time, finds himself saddled with a redheaded enemy chatterbox for a five-hundred-mile WALK home to Rhode Island!

John trusts no white people (one finds it hard to blame him) and Henry, emotionally abused child of parents who ignored him, never met a stranger. Along this long walk they acquire and lose many things, including a cheese of truly repellent odor, flavor, and existence. This misbegotten milk product, ever riper and less appealing to the senses, grows more rank as Henry talks more and more sweetly, saving the men from trouble, managing to open his ever-more exasperated oyster's mind and heart, and generally making himself necessary to John's world.

For his own part, Henry's decided that John is everything he wants in life: quiet, proud, honorable, and deeply focused on the success of the Revolution that earned him his freedom. Henry needs to return home to England or risk being shot as a spy. John needs to reconnect with his own family. Parting is most definitely not sweet, but a great sorrow to them both; any 18th-century parting, let alone one that involved an ocean and warring nations, was as likely as not to be permanent.

It's a romance! You already now that's not The End. But the way they come back together was rushed, since this is a novella. I forgave it for that reason, and for the better reason that the men didn't compromise so much as accommodate each other's realities. It feels very good when people of true hearts come together,which is why romances exist at all. That this one features a color divide, a Revolution of one's country against the other's, and an inventive solution to the societal disapproval of gayness issue, all harmonized to make this a pleasurable read for me.

It is sex-free, so the eww-ick homophobes may enter this world without that sandbar awaiting them. At all. Ever. For $3, and with The Plague running us all through our TBRs at lightning speed, bookhorn this one in and see what the fuss is about.

Hey, Richard. I hope you had a swell, book-filled weekend. Mapping the Interior sounds interesting. I will add it to the list. I have been wanting to read his novel, The Only Good Indians.

'Morning, RD!

>62 richardderus: Love it - especially as it has 8 in the title. I looked up tiling of hyperbolic space and didn't understand a single word of it.

Wishing you a coffee-infused, book-and-other-media filled day.

>67 msf59: Thanks, Mark, it was a lot busier reading-wise than is my current usual.

I think you'll enjoy Mapping the Interior if you get to it soon. It's a great Halloween read.

>68 karenmarie: I'm presently ensconced in front of the fourteenth season of Time Team. It's perfect for this cool, sunny day!

I don't understand "hyperbolic space" except as "thing I can't see that physicists coo and purr over."

Coffee HO!!!

>62 richardderus: Wow - that's trippy! As a physicist, I'm cooing and purring... 😀

>70 drneutron: Isn't it spectacular? I think Rob's name for it, ceiling of the Cathedral of Science, is the best one yet.

>62 richardderus: made my brain hurt when I looked it up. As a reader of books about physics, I know how hard it is to wrap my head around many (most) concepts, but this one is particularly pretzelly, for all that the image is actually beautiful. I'm glad some folks (>70 drneutron:) get it.

122 The Doctor's Discretion by EE Ottoman

Rating: 3.75* of five

Transgender persons have been among us throughout time, just like lesbian or gay persons have. What is different now is that we have the vocabulary to identify, to label them; this is both a blessing and a curse. I know, from my own experience of growing up Other in a world (South Texas in the 1970s) and in a family of mostly unsupportive women, the incredible power of naming yourself: "I am gay. Not a faggot, not a queer. I am gay."

What, then, is one to do when a transgender person has the clawing need to name themself? How to find the courage and the model? For millennia, that wasn't on offer; there was no way to explain a transgender person to themself. With few exceptions, societies where the trans people came out and lived as they ought to have had the freedom to live were reviled, subjected to psychological and physical violence at even greater rates than the merely homosexual. Most of us who are cisgender but queer (and it took a long time for me to warm back up to that label, let me tell you) can, at a pinch and for a minute, hide it well enough to pass if trouble looms. Not so a man in women's clothing, or a woman trying to pass as a man.

This is becoming a thing of the past. Bodies are plastic; we are able to sculpt and mold them in many ways once impossible. We understand the endocrine basis of gender a great deal better than ever before. How we're failing the transgendered persons in our midst is less and less medical and more social, political. MANY folk feel they are being abused by being asked to refer to and address the trans community by the gendered pronoun of their identity, not their biology. These are usually also the people whose faces turn red and mouths spew hate when asked to wear masks to help keep everyone safe during a plague whose causal virus is *demonstrated* to be airborne.

Idiots, in other words; deeply ignorant and utterly unworthy persons without a shred of worth or value to add to society.

That being both self-evident and inarguable, the book I review here is one in which a transgender person is "discovered," arrested, and subjected to the full brunt of the hateful and misguided legal and medical regimes in place in the US during the 1830s. These truly are enlightened times, as much room for improvement as there remains; we should all be grateful we live in them as well as practice kaizen, the path of pride in accomplishment melded to continual striving for improvement.

Mr. Moss, the person in question, is lucky enough to be rescued by Dr. Augustus Hill, a gay Navy veteran without a hand due to combat injuries. Dr. Hill's maiming hasn't disabled him; he practices medicine at New York Hospital. He must, given his limitation, accept the other work that comes to him. For example, as we meet him, he is busily cataloging and organizing a collection of medical books and objects. With him in this task is Dr. William Blackwood, a trained physician of free African descent. The men meet in the book stacks, sparks fly, they begin what must be a clandestine relationship of great tenderness, passion, and intimacy.

So when Hill impulsively rescues Mr. Moss from the humiliations and horrors attendant on being shown to be a transvestite, he is by no means sure Dr. Blackwood will assist him in arranging an escape. This is a romance, so we all know that he will; but the author effectively conveys the uncertainty of Hill's anguished waiting for Blackwood to decide.

In the end, the to-ing and fro-ing of this rescue-cum-escape is resolved a bit too neatly; the idea of their assistance to a wanted fugitive possibly rebounding on them is snipped at the same time. One can see the appeal of such a symmetrical bounce of the ball. It wasn't particularly satisfying to me.

What worked very well was the atmosphere, the world-building of sights and sounds and customs and coping skills. I was immersed, I was enfolded, and I was invested in the Happily Ever After that must follow such a lot of stress and battling of demons.

What gave me great pause was, in this deeply unenlightened passage in US history, the fearful recognition that this story could become a cautionary tale and not just a thumping good read if too many people, for whatever reason, do not get themselves up off their hindquarters and vote 45 and his fellow kakistocrats out of office on 3 November 2020.

>72 Storeetllr: Quiet around here, eh Mary? Hope you had a lovely day today.

MEEP! MEEP! HONK! CLANK! SCREEE! PLOSH! DING! DING DING!

'Morning, RDear.

>73 richardderus: Excellent review.

*smooch*

>66 richardderus: Damn. Got me with a...well...musket shot, I guess.

>45 richardderus: Almost like you are really describing #45 in your (coincidentally? Ha!) post number 45...
Or maybe I'm just being a tad too prone to seeing parallels.

>57 jessibud2: Absolutely brilliant idea.
Excellently posted, Shelley.

>75 quondame: Ah...Southern Cali is heard from. Music to thy ears, dear?

>76 karenmarie: Thank you, Horrible. *smooch*

>77 laytonwoman3rd: It's a short read, maybe an afternoon, but it will entertain you. I hope, anyway, since you'll blame me if it doesn't!

>78 SandyAMcPherson:, >79 SandyAMcPherson: It was serendipity, Sandy, but lovely for all that. And yeah, the 45 solution is about perfect, no?

*slips in quietly*

*waves*

*trudges off back to work*

>81 katiekrug: HIIIIIII KATIE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey, Richard! Nothing much to report on my end. Just birds and books. I hope you are having a good week.

>83 msf59: Hey there, Birddude, no one's dead who shouldn't be and nothing's giving off lethal doses of radiation that I can find, so....

>45 richardderus: Death Keeps His Court: The Rule of Richard II sounds like something I would like but unfortunately not available in a format that I have access to. So does that make it half a BB?

Came to see if you needed a band-aid and a smooch after taking a book bullet on my thread, Richard dear.

>85 Familyhistorian: Not to be a purity-pooper, Meg, but your computer, pad, and phone can all support Kindle reader apps from Google, Apple, and Amazon....

>86 ronincats: Oh. It's you, is it, the biblio-free-fire-zone lady.

Flee, everybody, flee or be riddled in the book budgets!

123 Why Save the Bankers? and Other Essays on our Economic and Political Crisis by Thomas Piketty

Rating: 5* of five

Any rational person sees the world's injustice. Few come up with commonsensical, tried-and-true solutions as does Thomas Piketty, week by week, in his newspaper column for Libération, a Socialist-aligned daily.

You'll remember Piketty's name from his monster bestselling tome, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which The Belknap Press brought out in 2014. It's sat unread on many a poseur's coffee table. (I've owned it since 2015, and have reached p310: Wage Scales and the Minimum Wage, which begins: "There is no doubt that the minimum wage plays an essential role on the formation and evolution of wage inequalities, as the French and US experiences show." Out of 577 pages of text plus a hundred or so more of back-matter, I can't claim to be whipping through this one...not least because OWWW my hands!)

And still, I say with his, among other reasonable voices (I'm looking at you, Yanis Varoufakis), pointing and waving their arms to drag the world's attention to these solutions, what's the problem with fixing the seriously, badly broken economic stuff the 99.9% endure?! Here's the problem. Piketty wants to tame greed and mitigate inequality. That does not suit the Economic Royalists in control of the modern world.

See the rest on my blog, Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud, on 8 October.

The Nobel Prize for Literature goes to Louise Glück. Apparently she commits poetry.

At least it wasn't Atwood or Murakami.

>89 richardderus: Haha I thought you'd be pleased.

As you say at least not Atwood.

'Morning, RD! It's Thursday. It's reading day. Have a good one.

*smooch*

>89 richardderus: Yeah, with you (and Paul) on that one (At least it wasn't Atwood).

I had to look up "Murakami" and am still uniformed since so many names came up. I'm guessing you are referring to Haruki M. I never heard of him...

>90 PaulCranswick: *whew* I'll take some poetaster over La Marge any ol' day. The Handmaid's Tale was brilliant, and Alias Grace was top notch; the rest, the ones I've read? Okay. At best.

>91 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! *smooch*

>92 SandyAMcPherson: If you're joking about Haruki-kun, hahaha! If you're not, I am SO EXTREMELY JEALOUS of you right now I could plotz. Although I dislike Ryu Murakami almost as much as Haruki.

>93 richardderus: I Pearl ruled In the Miso Soup. Ugh! No other Murakamis on my lists.

>94 quondame: A stance with which I can heartily concur, Susan, and the lack of Murakami on your shelves seems a well-thought-out decision to me.

>93 richardderus: Like I said, I'm totally unfamiliar with any and all authors having the name "Murakami".
I'm missing the joke here, I guess.

>96 SandyAMcPherson: It's just that he's discussed frequently round and about here in this group, and has some enthusiasts among us, so your not having heard of him seemed unlikely. (I rather enjoyed The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.)

>96 SandyAMcPherson: Not being a Haurkista myownself, I will make no attempt to dissuade you from this course. I'd advise not giving it any more thought.

>97 laytonwoman3rd: You did? I don't remember that...must've closed the other eye and scrolled on.

I'm proud of the work I've done at https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/
Almost 800 posts, over 900 reviews written or revised especially for it in the last 8 years. That's pretty darn good going.
But I really *love* when someone new finds it & likes it, leaving bootprints of 1-view old posts like tracks in snow!

>98 richardderus: I believe I called it Faulkner in Japan overlaid with magical realism. It was years ago. A decade, even.

>100 laytonwoman3rd: OIC

Well, I excuse myself from guilt for not remembering since I don't remember quite a lot of books *I* read 10 years ago.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Friday to you.

>99 richardderus: Your blog is impressive and I follow it. Rarely comment here, never comment there, but you've got an impressive body of work over there!

I'm still trying to wake up. I made the mistake of going back to sleep when I woke up at 6:30 and am groggy. Coffee's helping, but hasn't really kicked in yet.

semi-coherent *smooch*

>103 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! Happy Friday to you, sleeper...I did much the same thing this morning and feel it for sure. Blessedly, coffee is still available despite this administration's trade-relations ineptitude.

I brought up my blog because someone from Twitter found it, and browsed thirty old reviews. Some very old, like 2013; my analytics show me the reviews accessed and how many times, so it was interesting to see so many one-view reviews.

I know, I am rather late with my Happy New Thread wishes, RD. Sorry to learn things were not so good since I last stopped by. Happy to see the book reviews continue to be flying around!

>62 richardderus: - Very pretty!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. {smooch}

Hi Lori, good wishes are never late. Aren't those unspeakably-boringly-named things gorgeous?!

*smooch*

>99 richardderus: Impressive work on the blog, and nice job continuing it as long as you have. I bet seeing those review hits put a smile on your face.

Friday *smooches* and hope you have a fabulous weekend!

>107 bell7: Hi Mary! Thanks for all the good wishes and smooches. I'm pretty sure there's no superior feeling to getting discovered by someone new who then wanders through the meadow like a butterfly.

Happy reads this weekend.

Hiya, RD!

We're already getting the outer bands of what will be a weekend of rain from Hurricane/now TS Delta. Not a lot of rain, but apparently persistent.

Coffee, reading, take out lunch, general laziness.

*smooch*

>109 karenmarie: Perfect Saturday, then. I'm doing much the same, and it suits me fine.

*smooch*

124 Why is the Global Economy Like This? by Cornelis Bal

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Have you ever wondered just how our current global economy came about—and how its laws and regulations rule and influence our lives?

In this commonsense discussion of world economics, author Cornelis Bal presents a brief exploration of these questions and offers suggestions for how we might change our economic system in order to improve our lives. His explanation draws a comparison between the laws of nature and the laws of economics, considering how the rapid development of technology in the last century has drastically affected how we work and live and these technological developments will continue to influence our lives beyond imagination in the very near future. Rather than presenting elaborate mathematical models to support his conclusions, he relies on straightforward language and observations that anyone might make. Bal explains that the present global economic system does not seem to have a sustainable future unless we make drastic changes, we will continue to experience increasing anarchy.

My Review: Super basic, entry-level discussion of a complex problem aimed at complete novices to the topic.

Although the economy is growing, the number of people and corporations involved in the money-generating process is shrinking. This means that the number of people depending on the people generating money will grow, leading to an imbalance.

See? We're talkin' basic-basics here. Most anyone reading my reviews will smirk and pass on, utterly uninterested and unmoved.

BUT!

Author Cornelis takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world as it is. The concepts are barely sketched in. The issues are skeletonized. The usefulness of the piece is to present barebones basics to the absolute novice to the topic.

The economic laws have been created by a relatively small number of people who had and have both the power and selfish interest to create the rules and regulations as we now know them. ... The first question I ask is this: why do we continue to accept current economic rules and regulations without question?

Do you begin to sense the reason I wanted to bring this to your attention? And, for the persons not of a progressive bent, the author offers this self-assessment: "I want you to know that I am not a socialist; I am a realist!", and to prove it, he goes on, "The design parameters of any new system must include greed and envy otherwise it is bound to fail." This, he asserts, is what sunk the "communist" experiment in the Soviet bloc. Since I agree with that assessment of the USSR's primary failure, I am willing to suggest an audience for this short, inexpensive piece.

Is your high-school kid or college freshman driving you bonkers about how awful everything is (like this is a newsflash to adults, but hey, we all start somewhere)? Give them this short, readily understood piece. Then they can go to bat with better questions. And really, isn't that all we can ask of each other? Ask better questions and find better answers, case by case and bit by bit?

125 A Fashionable Indulgence by K.J. Charles

Rating: 4.75* of five

Don't dismiss Romances without reading at least one KJ Charles romantic novel first. This Regency possesses all the charms of the best in the field at conveying the sense of an exquisitely beautiful lifestyle lived by rather dreadful people being, nonetheless, quite extraordinarily tempting an offer. Harry Vane, legitimate son of a pair of narcissists from wildly different social milieux, has that offer made:

No, I don’t want to be sober and restrained
{like his older Vane cousin}. I want to be beautiful. Bright. Confident. Perfect. I want to be you.
he thinks of his mentor, Julius, lusting and admiring and trying so hard to please:
“Again. No. With grace.”

Harry bowed hopelessly, a clumsy movement. “I don’t feel graceful.”

“Of course you don’t. You aren’t. You resemble a cart horse attempting to caracole. Very well, stop.”

Harry's noble father ran away from power, money, position to marry his mill-owner's daughter of a mother, and neither was ever going to be welcomed home because they embraced the Ned Ludd radicalism that led to them racing ahead of the hangman's noose to France. Napoleon's France. The one still reeling from their aborted revolution.

Harry, in short, was never ever going to feel safe anywhere...but then his fortunes changed when his paternal grandfather needed him, now that he's twenty-three and has lived hand-to-mouth in London after the parents had the balls to die at the same time) to carry on the family name. And it is here, my olds, that the action springs to life.

Julius is a man in misery, sadly, and the kind that warps one's view of humanity as much as Harry's uncertain upbringing does: He is Other, a queer gent in a time when that was a hanging offense; he is not on good terms with his family, not for his sexuality (one receives the distinct impression that they are in the dark about the subject), but for a tragic accident that took place at Waterloo. (No, not talkin' about it here. Read it for y'all's selves.) These two men, so young...Julius turns thirty during the story, and that's a big, big part of the story...and so damaged, gravitate together.

And everything he hated, the saliva, the fleshiness, the taste of other people’s food and breath and teeth and sweat, was here. Harry’s skin was as flawed as anyone’s close up. He had wide pores and what looked like red pinpricks, hairs in his nostrils and the sharp brown points of stubble, the first hints of what would be wrinkles when he aged, and stray hairs under his thick brows that could have been plucked away. He was imperfect flesh, like any man, and Julius buried himself in that imperfection because it was alive.

Harry's imperfections bother Julius; Julius's perfection bothers Harry:

“When my namesake, the great Caesar, rode in triumph,” Julius said, “he was accompanied by a slave whose role was to whisper to him, You are but mortal. To remind him he was merely a man who would one day die like any other.

If I could, I should have you at my side to remind me that I am alive, because I have not felt alive in so damned long, and with you, I do. No, I don’t want you to marry, any more than I want you to return to your dirty democrats. I want to show you the world, and see you smile, and keep you with me while my soul grows back. Don’t gape like that.”

The last line is directed at a completely overawed, overjoyed Harry, slackjawed that someone who opens his mouth and just spills this kind of guff verbiage would consider taking him as a pupil, still less as a lover!

So there are plot twists; Harry is banished forever (lasts about two weeks) from Julius's side because he wasn't completely honest once; Julius and the other men in their circle rally round Harry as some exceedingly horrible events transpire; a murder, a suicide, a long-awaited restoration of ma'at all occur. In short, it's a romance. And a fine one, replete with period details (look up "gamahuche"! Haw), and like all Author Charles's books, agreeably smutty and louche. (Straight-straight people: NO.)

The usefulness of any read is what the reader needs from it at the time of the reading. I needed something to help me combat crippling wretchedness by reminding me that there is love, compassion, and commitment in the world. This story was exactly that for me. Is it Dostoevsky? No. I didn't want Litrachure and its many, many tedious foibles, as I needed to be convinced that the world has always been filled with better people than I am used to seeing on the news.

Success!

>111 richardderus: For a parallax view there's The Mushroom at the End of the World.

>96 SandyAMcPherson: >97 laytonwoman3rd: & >98 richardderus: I have plenty of both Muras on the shelves and little feeling that I want to read any more of them anytime soon if I am being entirely honest.

>99 richardderus: And rightly proud.

Have a good weekend, RD.

>114 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. That I hadn't even *known of* this author let alone read anything by that name... feels like Kismet.

>115 SandyAMcPherson: I do see why so many enthusiastically like Haruki Murakami but, although I didn't hate Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore, they didn't change my life either.

>113 quondame: For some reason that book rings a faint bell in my cranium. I don't own it, I haven't read it that I can remember, but it's familiar....

>114 PaulCranswick: Thank you, PC, it's been perfectly blah, therefore to my taste; I hope it ends in a few hours while maintaining its blah streak. I get so much more reading done.

Hi RD, I was looking at a map of the predicted rainfall from Hurricane Delta ~ looks as if Long Island area is in for quite a drenching. Hope all is snug with you.

>115 SandyAMcPherson:, >116 PaulCranswick: Well, chacun à son goût of course, but the writer in question has far too many rabid groupies to safely say anything critical of his work.

>118 SandyAMcPherson: No worries, Sandy, we're just in for a darn good soaking. I don't see anything that leads me to believe there's more than that headed my way. Thanks for checking in!

>112 richardderus: - Walking away with a BB for A Fashionable Indulgence!

Hi, Richard! Hope you're having a good weekend. I for one am looking forward to a bit of moisture - it's been so dry here! Not too much, of course. An hour or two and then sunshine and balmy breezes. (I know, I'm hoping for the improbable, if not the impossible.)

>66 richardderus:, >112 richardderus: I enjoyed your reviews. Love a good romance, tho I'm not much one for sex scenes no matter the orientation. I usually just skip over those parts and simply enjoy the romance story.

>120 lkernagh: Oh, that's lovely! I expect you'll enjoy it, so many interesting historical details.

>121 Storeetllr: Move quickly on the page-turn taps, Mary. And, well, if the dratted rain would *start*already* so I can get rid of these aches from changing pressures That'd be great.

Hi Richard. You have been doing some interesting nonfiction, politics and economics and current events reading lately. I feel like I "should" read more to understand what is happening but all I have energy for is Heather Cox Richardson's daily newsletter. :-D

Anyway, I'm swinging by to say *smooch* and I hope you are hanging in there.

Oh, and you got me with >112 richardderus:. A Fashionable Indulgence sounds like just what I need for reading material!

>123 EBT1002: Hi Ellen! "Should" is the pleasure killer. I will not "should" myself into unhappiness.

Repeat every time you get your hair-shirtiness on!

I will mention to you again that the sex scenes are XXX; but I know that your sense of honorable and correct behavior will lead your attention to the characters whose lives are dedicated to that very thing. Those men will make you feel like there's some hope for humanity after all.

Lovely weather we're having: nice soaking rain. The vegetation and I are very pleased with this.

*smooch*

Oh, my poor heart. Shellackings of Haruki Murakami, faint praise, and Sandy's never even heard of him. I must drown myself in coffee.

>125 jnwelch: *there there, pat pat*

Here you go. Feel better soon!

Rainy Monday smooches. xx

>127 katiekrug: Hiya Katie! Ain't this the best? I can feel all the fruiting trees battening on this lovely steady precip.

>125 jnwelch: Can I share some of >126 richardderus:?
Then you can explain why my reading is remiss in not having heard of Haruki Murakami.

Happy rainy Monday, RD!

>126 richardderus: I love croissants but have never attempted to make them. I just looked at one recipe and it said 30 T of butter....

I've read 1Q84, Kafka on the Shore, both 4.5 stars, and The Wind-Up Chronicle Bird, 3 stars. I think reading HM right now would hurt my brain irretrievably.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>129 SandyAMcPherson: Help yourself, the croissant supply is endless.

And you're not remiss so much as fortunate to have missed experiencing his stuff, pace all the Harukistas around here.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was as clear a demonstration of the man's stuff as any, maybe poke around a bit about that one?

>130 karenmarie: *contented rumble* I do love a soaker.

And we're going to ATD on Le Murakami until the planet melts, I fear.

>130 karenmarie: There are the Pillsbury type pre-made pre-cut doughs that you just unpeel, roll up and pop in the oven. You still feel like you've made croissants even though you haven't done the hard work and you still get to eat them.

'Morning, RDear. Happiest of Tuesdays to you. ATDing with you is not a hardship at all. *smooch*

>132 humouress: Hi Nina. Christmas dinner at our house would not be Christmas dinner without Pillsbury crescent rolls. They are yummy and I usually bake two packages to satisfy my crescent roll-loving daughter. I bake pretty much everything else from scratch, though, so wanted to see what kind of effort scratch croissants would take.

More soggy-day smooches.

>132 humouress: I used to roll (!) the perforations of the dough back into a sheet of the puff stuff, cut 3cm/1.5" strips, butter'n'cinnamon 'em, and lay little slices of blanched-45-sec apple slices onto the midline. Rolled up and baked in muffin/cupcake tins, they're pretty and tasty.

>133 karenmarie: *smooch*

Puff pastry is hard enough to make, but yeast too...!

>134 katiekrug: Mother Nature's gettin' her sog on fer sher. Again happy for the plants; a wee bit less so for the people. This is gloom not rain.

I am pretty much crap when it comes to making any kind of pastry. The only thing I seem to have gotten a good handle on is scone dough (and that you work it as little as possible!).

Happy Tuesday Richard. It is a soggy one where I am. Hope you have drier weather.

>136 lkernagh: Scones/biscuits (the US kind) are so delightful when made with just exactly the right touch. I count that as a deeply enviable talent, Lori.

Soggy here, too. Rained most of yesterday and today's weather is misty/dank. At least it's not hot!

>129 SandyAMcPherson: Man! You should really read something...anything by that author. You will not be disappointed.

Hi Richard! Happy Tuesday!

>138 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita, happiness achievement unlocked and thanks!

Hey, RD! Just checking in. I hope all is well. Getting back into the groove, after our camping trip. For some reason I have been distracted today, (and I didn't even get out to bird) so very little reading has been getting done. Hope to get back on track.

Scattered is a common condition just now, Mark, so I'm not terribly surprised you're there. Hard to focus when 3rd-wave plague tsunamis are being predicted for the whole winter and 45 is threatening an actual coup.

>133 karenmarie: It doesn't look like it would be that much more work in the recipe books?.....

>135 richardderus: If you did that much work, you might as well have made the dough from scratch too :0) Sounds yummy. Were you ever a chef?

>136 lkernagh: The only time I made scones, they were more like rock cakes. Must have overworked them. I can bake cakes, though.

>142 humouress: Hi Nina, happy Thursday to you.

No, never a chef but my mother ran the catering for a couple fancy venues in Austin, then the Scottish Rite dorms at the University of Texas. Plus she loved to make the holiday feasts (though never dinner on Tuesday). I absorbed a lot from her.

Puff pastry is a LOT of work. Add yeast to it and it becomes a crap shoot whether the damned stuff will rise sufficiently. What comes outta the cans is chemically perfect and that, ma amie, is entirely good enough for moi.

'Morning, RD! Happy Wednesday to you.

Well, thank goodness that my interest in home-made croissants has passed. I'm now diverted by lizzied's husband making her a pound cake for her birthday and have just printed out my favorite regular pound cake and my favorite chocolate pound cake. I just have to decide which to make and when. The idea of pound cake as part of a nutritious breakfast for the next several days is particularly appealing.

>144 karenmarie: Ooo chocolate poundcake toasted with cream cheese and scrambled eggs is a great breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or snack. The only variable is the number of eggs scrambled, and with what.

*smooch*

Scrambled eggs with chocolate cake? I take my previous cheffy comments back.

AND on last night's cold pizza. Yum!

>141 richardderus: Yes it is, Richard.
I am in a second wave reading dip, from today we are almost back at lockdown as the virus goes around fast again and like before the hospitals are filling way to fast.
Thanks Goddess we have no 45!
Wait... coup? What did I miss?

>148 FAMeulstee: The coup began in 2017 when 45 was inaugurated and began tossing executive orders around. The way 45 is inciting the scum who follow him to do idiotic things like plan to kidnap a seated Governor, put out fake ballot drop-off boxes to intercept mailed-in votes, and threaten armed conflict if 45 is not re-elected.

Wednesday *smooches*

Interesting seeing the mixed reactions to Haruki Murakami. I had noticed the accolades he receives from many in this group, learned enough about his books to determine they are probably not for me (and definitely NOT this year), but that the brother closest in age to me would like him. I recommended over and over again - he wouldn't listen to his librarian sister - so I finally took matters into my own hands and bought him The Wind-up Bird Chronicles for Christmas one year. And what do you know? He LOVED it.

But again, interesting to see how an author or style works for one reader and not another.

>150 bell7: Harukistas are as fervent in their admiration as Franzenites or Wallaceans. I am simply not one of them, so can't see whatever it is that they do.

But theirs is a minor peccadillo compared to Followers of Chuckles. *shudder*

Happy Thursday thrills, and good news from the inspection.

'Morning, RD!

Fun and games - major changes to Talk.

I hope you have a loverly day. I'm off to have a second mug of coffee and read a bit before heading out to perform some errands.

*smooch*

Hello, Ricardo!! I am a big fan of Murakami and Atwood, but we won't talk about that here and ruin your day. : ) So glad your blog is getting the love it deserves--you do have a way with words and your reviews are the best, even if the book isn't! We are getting a day of sunshine in Portland, which will be washed away by rain again tomorrow. Sigh. It's good for our business and for putting out the forest fires, but I really do prefer some sunshine. Smooches.

>152 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! Have a lovely day of erranding. Then, of course, reading a bit. *smooch*

>153 Berly: Hi Berly-boo! I'm so happy to see you out'n'about. It's a good thing for us all to get in at least a cyber-social swing. There's enough isolation in this plague-ridden time.

*smooch*

I re-read Hospital Station because I needed to be reminded that there were times when we as a species thought Better Days would (could) come; I'd like to say that the medicine-for-profit and disease-as-political-weapon age we live in comes off decidedly the worse for comparison to this fix-up book of stories where these vile, reprehensible attitudes are not on display.

I would like a one-way trip back to that reality for any holiday you care to name.

'Afternoon, RDear.

*smooch*

>155 richardderus: I certainly would like to go back to the days before for-profit hospitals!

Something for you, my dear!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XzEvXCq5gs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR...

>156 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! Dr. Kendi is kickin my skinny butt. And it's ALL YOUR FAULT!

>157 ronincats: Oh, Roni, thank you! What a perfect movie for me to watch today. *smooch*

>149 richardderus: I heard about the Governor, Richard, but missed the other two.

>159 FAMeulstee: All part of one ugly, nasty picture I fear.

>155 richardderus: Did you join Roni's group read?

Weekend *smooches*

Good morning, RDear! Happy Saturday to you. Yay for Autumn – one of my favorite things is switching out Summer Bed Linens for Winter Bed Linens, and today’s the day. Simple pleasures for simple minds, right?

>158 richardderus: I don’t know which is better. Kickin’ our butts or tearing our heads off. That’s the way I felt while reading it. Either way, I’m glad you’re reading it and will definitely be interested in one of your always thoughtful and perspicacious reviews.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Happy Saturday, Richard. I hope you are doing well and have a relaxing weekend planned, with the books.

>161 humouress: Oh yes indeed, Nina, i think that was the reason I dug it out in the first place. It's a quick read, so it fits perfectly in the "I just can't" moments that come into every reader's life.

>162 bell7: *smooch*

>163 karenmarie: Heydeho there, Miss Horrible, hoping for the will to read on to surface here pretty quick.

A lovely thing, switching out, isn't it? And the Weather Goddess decided to shift from third to overdrive today...sparking sun and definite chill after the dankfest that was yesterday.

>164 msf59: Thanks, Mark, same back at'cha!

Just popping in to wish you a happy weekend! Hope you're enjoying today's lovely cool sunshine after a few days of dreary rain.

>166 Storeetllr: Hi Mary! Isn't this gorgeous? It doesn't last very long but it's glorious as long as it's here.

126 Plan for the Worst by Jodi Taylor

Rating: 5* of five

Hands down...best of the lot

Because, sooner or later, authority always lets you down. Always. Politicians, church leaders, bankers, captains of industry, everyone. They say one thing and do another. It’s always all about them. I’d been stupid to think there could ever be any exceptions.

There are few books that, in the downhill slide portion of the ride that's been my life, I would consent to re-read at all. I finished this one, sort of, while in COVID fog. So I needed to re-read it, and also wanted to.

I wonder how you poor things who haven't read it yet can bear to slog through your pitiful, meager "lives." Don't start here, though, or History will be on you like a raptor on a rabbit. In order, there's a good thing, and soon.

>168 richardderus: How have I not read that yet! Ack! None of my three libraries even admit it exists, much less have it available. Absolutely authority always lets you down - even such benign authority as libraries!

Wishing you a great Sunday, RD, or at the very least a passably fantastic one.

Happy Sunday, RDear.

*smooch*

>169 quondame: Oh, disappointing about the library. I'm so sorry! And, lest this info trip you up soon, Another Time, Another Place is book #12 and is due out early next year.

>170 PaulCranswick: Thank you, PC, it is a beautiful day and I'm sure something ghastly is happening somewhere but you can't prove it by me as I'm not looking at anything except a book and book-related bookishness.

>171 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! *smooch*

>168 richardderus: Okay, how is that quote thing done, because I've been seeing it a lot and like the look of it but don't know how to make it happen.

>173 bell7: {blockquote}TYPE OR PASTE QUOTED TEXT HERE{/blockquote} and replace the curly braces with pointy brackets.

Note that copied text might not preserve the original formatting, so be sure to use the "preview" function!

>174 richardderus: Thank you....I like that formatting too.

>169 quondame: I never heard of the series until I saw a catchy review of Just One Damned Thing After Another. It's on my WL at the PL's "Overdrive" catalogue.
Since the book at >168 richardderus: is a 2020 publication, Susan, perhaps the library has suspended buying or choosing new titles just now?

Good thing we have RD keeping us on our toes, bringing chaos and informed reading into our lives (chaos because I already have too many books on my WL to ever get to read them before the next year's excitement hits).

>175 laytonwoman3rd: That's perfectly okay, I like the ability to help people who need it.

>176 SandyAMcPherson: *smooch*

Hello Richard dear.

I read the first in the Jodi Taylor series and thought it was pretty good. I keep thinking it's a series to which I might return.

I hope you have a good week ahead of you!

I am starting to like this new format. I can actually do thread with my laptop, my iPad, OR my iPhone (I know). And I like this font.

>178 EBT1002: I hope we both have good weeks ahead, and recommend re-Tayloring yourself to make that happen.

i'm good with the new format. Mostly for me it's not being offended daily by the colors. Plus the font agrees with me. Apart from some odd instability of the "cancel" button, I've had zero issues since the very earleist days. And one expects those, so in fact none.

“Boy, time sure flies when every day is joyless and exactly the same.”

>180 richardderus: Joyless days seem to drag time for me.

BTW, I didn't like the Amelia Peabody books either, apropos your comment earlier.
I'd rather read TinTin exploits (since the one book I did read, The Mummy Case stylistically mimicked a graphic novel one of my kids was reading at the time, Cigars of the Pharaoh). C of P was more fun.

>180 richardderus: LIKE!

I enjoyed the first few Jodi Taylor books but felt like that was enough. Glad to hear she is still buzzing along.

>181 SandyAMcPherson: Joylessness just means I can't tell the difference between the days; I guess it's more simultaneous drag-n-drop: "why won't this muggy, dank Wednesday afternoon end? What do you mean, it's still 2020?! It must be 2028 by now? Wait, it's Monday? Are you sure?"

It's been a horrible year. I want it to be over AND better.

Yeah, Emerson and Peabody stopped shining bright in my firmament pretty darn quick. Oh well, I'm not runnin' outta readin'!

>182 msf59: I can understand that feeling, Mark, as I hit series fatigue eventually with them all. Just not with her. Yet!

New York Magazine used my response to their survey! "How did {the Supreme Travesty Chat Night} affect your mood?"
“They elevated my blood pressure. Like every other goddamn thing in 2020.”

>180 richardderus: Story of my life right now...

>184 richardderus:, >185 drneutron: It's hard to chill out when we have no personal experience to guide our emotions, reduce our anxiety. The "when will this be over" is currently an unquantifiable situation, no?

127 Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Rating: 4* of five

Would been five stars without the damned w-bombs. Nine, maybe even ten! Crapped on my loving like seagulls on a picnic.

Anyway, it wasn't *all* bad. Go look.

And THANKS, NETGALLEY!! (And Tor.com Publishing, of course.)

>174 richardderus: THANK YOU! :D

>187 richardderus: I've been hearing good things about that one and may have to add it to The List, especially since the w-word doesn't bother me as much.

I definitely notice when people raise one eyebrow, though. I know it's possible, but there are way more people who can only raise both eyebrows than reading books would have led me to believe.

Edited to correct my numbering.

>185 drneutron:, >186 SandyAMcPherson: I've sort of become inured to the things that're making most folks insane, like limited mobility et alii; what I can't endure is the eternal heavy-heavy-hangs-over-your-head miasma of 45's vile reign. That's what *I* want to be over and NOW please.

Note that please was added to make my demand sound less arrogant. Not in any way to indicate it was a request. Because it shit-sure wasn't one.

>188 bell7: NO PROBLEM!!

And the eyebrow thang has been transparent to me prior to this; we shall see if it begins to irk me now.

ETA Oh, Ring Shout needs to be on your List!! Yes indeed, and no doubt it should make its way to the top immediately!!

>187 richardderus: Oh goody, that's on my wait list! Sorry about the w**ies.

>188 bell7: >189 richardderus: Having grown up with someone who raised the occasional - single - eyebrow, I know the actual impact. Some members of my family have a good deal of facial control of eyebrows, ears and scalp.

>190 quondame: Well, given our star-awarding disparity, I expect it'll be 2.875* for you, Starless. But I hope you'll be utterly gobsmacked by its startlingly good voice.

>188 bell7: I can do the eyebrow thing and as someone with a soft speaking voice I find that I waggle them a lot. I find that a glare across the room at one of my kids is more effective than yelling - which is to say barely as opposed to not at all.

My younger son is double jointed and can contort his fingers in ways that I can’t anymore and can triple roll his tongue whereas I can only single roll mine (all genetic, apparently) but it’s amusing to watch him try and raise a single eyebrow rather than both, which his older brother can do. Although maybe there’s some element of learning or age ability because he seems to be starting to get it now.

Good morning, RDear, and a very happy Tuesday to you.

Series no-go was with Taylor and Camilleri and Ide when the first was enough and others I can't think of off the top of my head, series fatigue was Amelia Peabody, VI Warshawski, and others I can’t think of off the top of my head.

>184 richardderus: Congrats on having your survey response posted.

>192 humouress: Apparently I have a soft speaking voice unless I actively shout...which I *loathe* doing, I was raised by shouters...and have no idea whether my eyebrows move independently. I tend not to focus on them unless they get shaggy and Rob says, "plucky-pluck-pluck, sweetiedarling."

>193 karenmarie: The dear ol' series read doesn't work for everyone's reading style; but your voracious consumption of them means you've got a really clear idea of what works and what doesn't, although it might be tough to articulate what that is.

Thanks! I typed it in frustration and they picked it after I'd mostly forgotten I took the survey.

Bitches, please!!

>168 richardderus: Midwayish through it now.

Reading is challenging at the moment. . .

I am so damned grateful for Jodi Taylor!

>195 mckait: Honest to goodness, I don't know anything that *isn't* challenging at the moment. Can't stay awake during the day, can't stay asleep at night....

*smooch*

Stay safe and don't kill anyone.

128 The Haunting of Tram Car 015 by P. Djeli Clark

Rating: 4* of five

I RECEIVED A COPY OF THIS DRC FROM TOR.COM PUBLISHING. THANKS.

When I asked for more after reading A Dead Djinn in Cairo, I sorta-kinda vaguely hoped that there would, one day, maybe be more. Then this book came out. It doesn't feature Fatma as the main Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities agent on the case, but Hamed and Onsi grew on me fast. And, of course, the inclusion of Siti was welcome as it assured me this was well and truly part of a Cairo I absolutely believe is real and wish to emigrate to now, please.

Ahem.

And now there's a lovely new title, A Master of Djinn, coming on 11 May 2021! In fact, we'll get Fatma and Siti back at the center of the doings, so all will be extra-special right with my reading world.

This story, of a spirit entity (NOT like a Djinn, as Zagros the Ministry's librarian Djinn bristles at Hamed) called an "al" (plural "alk") that's arrived from Armenia to ply its evil, baby-stealing ways; it involves graft (a Transportation ministry bureaucrat doing what he didn't oughta), confusion (Hamed seeking help from a sheika and a sexy transgender Djinn to perform a Zal exorcism-y thing), and a lot of humility instead of humiliation. Hamed and Onsi do a deeply shocking thing to slip past the al's nervous vigilance, something their patriarchal upbringings wouldn't find agreeable, but to them it's far superior a choice than failing to protect Cairo's mothers.

There are scenes of action with the men pursuing the al, there are scenes of fun, deep brain-work where the author gets to infodump you about this delicious anti-colonial alternate history without feeling like it's him forcing you to eat your spinach, and there's a beautifully queer undertone to the proceedings that agrees with me. If you know it won't agree with you, skip on.

Now, it's clear that I love this world. Anyone who has read my deep and caustic growls about majgickq in my alt-hist will even now be sharpening their quill to jab out a "GOTCHA!!" message. This series has majgicqk in it, yes; the magjicqk is integral to the action, yes; and no, I am not fleeing at top speed. So before the ringing cries of "hypocrite!" begin their rise from ill-mannered and poorly bred peoples' keyboards, listen up: I'm not interested in medieval-Europe-with-monsters, WWII-with-werewolves/aliens, or their like. Tired of those stories. Cultures not European? You interest me strangely, Tale-spinner, come and say on.

I wouldn't say you should read this book first, but definitely before the new one comes out. And definitely read it. I know it's a quick hit, and it's hard to invest in something this concentrated when you wonder if you can come home again. Now you know you can, indulge! (But be alert for the one, and only one, w-bomb.)

>196 richardderus: I bought an exercise bike yesterday (well it was actually a present from a satisfied client) and walked home from work. Slept like a top and woke up to find SWMBO making full use of the machine. She is complaining about her bum hurting this morning which made me smirk as she often considers me her main pain in the ass.

>197 richardderus: Nice review! I loved it too and am waiting for the next with bated breath.

Richard, have you read any of the new Olive Editions (I am sure you have).
I'm particularly curious about The Free, The Queen of the Tearling, and The Golem and the Jinni. A member of my old book group back in Seattle read and loved The Queen of the Tearling and I wasn't sure it was my cup of tea. Are you familiar?

>197 richardderus: Sold me on The Haunting of Tram Car 015. Adding that one to the wish list!

>197 richardderus: I've like the 2 P. Djèlí Clark Djinn books I've read and The Black God's Drums and of course I'm looking forward to Ring Shout. The worlds are so rich they require more windows for us to watch the stories unfold.

Happy Wednesday, RD!

>194 richardderus: Voracious consumption describes what I do quite well. And as far as abandoning a book/series, even with standalone books I sometimes reach the point where I say to myself “This isn’t working any more” or “This is crap” and I give it the old heave-ho. Sometimes the old heave-ho is back to the shelves for another attempt down the road, sometimes it’s deaccessioning and putting the book or entire series on the little yellow table for eventual book sale or thrift store donation.

>198 PaulCranswick: Well, be happy you're second on the list for one brief, shining moment, PC. Your re-promotion is, I know you already know, inevitable...wives are like that.

>199 drneutron: Thanks, Jim, and that wait til May is a *killer*. Why not today? Just press the "publish" button and let the ebook crowd begin the feast.

>200 EBT1002: I've read all three of those. I like Willy Vlautin's writing..."A girl with abscessed legs lay in a hospital bed staring at the wall" starts off one chapter of this deeply crisis-formed book...but the story's not pandemic-friendly. The Golem and the Jinni is more subtle, less frenetically eager to smack your face with its lit cred:

“All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how many people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears. Add to that the effects of physical desire-and the excitement you spoke of-and all good sense and judgement fall away." The Rabbi paused, then said, "But love founded only on loneliness and desire will die out before long. A shared history, tradition and values will link two people more thoroughly than any physical act.”

I don't agree with the Rabbi's conservative position, but I know why it appeals to so many (especially parents).
The Queen of the Tearling barely scraped to a 2.5* rating and I remember one thing I couldn't stop feeling about it: "Stop cussin', you silly twit, you sound like an idiot."

So.

>201 EBT1002: Thanks! This one's a book you will surprise me if you don't enjoy.

>202 quondame: Perfectly observed. They do indeed require more windows for us to observe, though I'd've thunk all day and not seen it that way.

>203 karenmarie: You're the most ruthlessly practical reader I know, Horrible, and I envy you your adherence to your own standards. I do fall off that wagon and read things I'm not enjoying much because I still think I *should* know what people are seeing in something.

Foolishness. If I can't see it, what's the difference?

*smooch* Happy Humpday!

>126 richardderus: I feel much better now - thank you!

>129 SandyAMcPherson: Hi, Sandy. Of course - please have as much as you want. I'm sure Richard won't mind if we need to rummage some more through his pantry here.

No aspersions meant about your not knowing Haruki Murakami. As Richard knows, he's one of my favorite authors, and maybe the favorite, although there's stiff competition. Some of his stories are straightforward, but he's known for his own brand of weird, magic realism. It suits me to a T. But that's not true for lots of other readers, as was so amply and humble-makingly demonstrated on this thread.

Hi, Richard!

Since I'm a fan of Murakami, Chuckles and poetry, I'm grateful that you still speak to me. :-)

>205 jnwelch: "To make a friend, close one eye; to keep your friend, close both."--I have no memory of whose aperçu that is, but it's *always* true.
***
Joanna Chambers just sent me, as a surprise giftie, a Kindlebook of her latest Regency-men-gettin-busy series: Restored (not pubbed yet, no touchstone)! A lovely note saying how much she loves reading my reviews (and not just the ones I write of her books) set me up for the afternoon.

>206 richardderus: Awesome kudos to hear that lovely accolade from an author!

>206 richardderus: "A lovely note saying how much she loves reading my reviews (and not just the ones I write of her books) set me up for the afternoon." Awww....nice! 'Course a free book is better than a sharp stick in the eye too.

>207 SandyAMcPherson: Yeah, it really is...someone who does this for a living thinks my comments are fair and balanced!

>208 laytonwoman3rd: I have seldom turned down free books. Very seldom. But unsolicited compliments beat 'em all hollow.

>200 EBT1002: I didn't find anything special about The Queen of the Tearling but I quite liked The Golem and the Jinni.

>206 richardderus: Oh now that sounds like a good thing happening! What fun!

Congrats on the kudos, Richard. Unexpected treats like that always multiply the positive effects they have on one's day, don't they? :-)

>206 richardderus: Wow! That's quite nice. Enjoy the read!

>210 quondame: I liked it, too, but as the years pile up I find I don't think about it very often.

>211 quondame: Thanks! It really was.

>212 jessibud2: They do! I almost smiled at my roommate. Unprecedented. *smooch*

>213 figsfromthistle: I was until my Fire died. I hadn't juiced it up, apparently. *growl*

>202 quondame: Tor's free book this month is The Haunting of Tram Car 015 if you're interested.

>206 richardderus: Good for you. I suspect that I won't be getting any freebies from Regency romance writers any time soon though.

>202 quondame: I can find The Haunting of Tram Car 015 on Tor's website, but it takes me to Amazon which will be happy to take $3.99 thanks. I read it before I read A Dead Djinn in Cairo, though after I read The Black God's Drums.

>216 quondame: Oh. It's from their eBook Club; I get sent their e-mails.

Happy Wednesday, RDear.

>204 richardderus: I do fall off that wagon and read things I'm not enjoying much because I still think I *should* know what people are seeing in something.

Foolishness. If I can't see it, what's the difference?

You're just a young pupper, and when you get to be as old as I am, you might get to be more practical. *smile*

>215 humouress: I don't think authors notice reviewers that often out of self-defense. I happened to make my pleasure in her work obvious enough to get a smile bestowed upon me from on high.

>216 quondame:, >217 humouress: Follow this link to the freebie, Susan, before 24 Oct.

>218 karenmarie: I'm not sure a mere mortal can aspire to such longevity...how much I would've loved to be there for William the Conqueror's coronation! *envious sigh*

Lovely Thursday reads, Horrible. *smooch*

>215 humouress: >219 richardderus: Thanks for the reminder. I'm signed up, but for some reason I don't get the emails anymore. I'll just start setting a calendar reminder.

I like to grab them whether or not I'm interested. I have a case of Tsundoku even for ebooks.

The Golem and the Jinni took a while to get airborne for me but when it got going liked it quite a lot. Rachael The Hibernator put me on to it

>217 humouress: >219 richardderus: I guess I don't always read the Tor emails. And now my sent-to-kindle app is giving me grief as the system claims it's malware!

>222 quondame: I've never had success with the App. I send the MOBI files to my kindle email address. I do generally get a verification email back from Amazon, after I click the link, it appears in my content list.

Weirdly, they always appear as Docs instead of Books.

I'm compiling a list of all of the files I have that I'll post on my thread. If anyone wants any of them, I'll send them out...

>221 magicians_nephew: It's a very, very interesting book, and talks a lot about things I'm interested in...but somehow it just didn't lodge in any of the alarmingly multiplicative cracks in my memory. No idea why.

>220 mahsdad:, >222 quondame:, >223 mahsdad: The malware thing is one of their favorite dodges. The more annoying they make the uninstall-reinstall frequency for users, the more likely they think you are to buy whatever it is they want you to buy.

To which my response is a cordial "fuck you, the horse you rode in on, and the one Bezos did, too."

All things you send to your Ammy storage locker are docs because they don't want you to be able to use the features that come with Books, like sharing notes and searching for things by title. Same reason (and response) as above.

>244 richardderus: That makes sense...Ammy being Ammy. I guess that's also way your progress is always by location and not page number, cause its technically not a book. :)

>224 richardderus: Dude! What did the horses do to you? It's not like they had a choice in the matter.

>225 mahsdad: Yes, sadly unsurprising, unsurprisingly sad.

>226 humouress: Guilt by association.

What a lovely comment about your reviews, and a gift book to boot! Wait, that didn't sound right. A gift book to read, that's more like it.

I read one P. Djèlí Clark and liked it a lot; I need to remember to read more.

Happy Friday, buddy. I hope you have a groovadelic weekend filled with tie-dyed clothing.

129 Restored (Enlightenment Book 5) by Joanna Chambers

Rating: 4.75* of five

I am much closer to seventy than I am to fifty. As hard as that fact is to swallow...Alanis Morissette and her bloody "Jagged Little Pill" begone!...it is the truth. And a corollary of that truth is that one becomes pretty much invisible at this age. My Young Gentleman Caller, unwilling to lie to my face, spins it as his insurance policy: Pretty young things don't look at me, so he doesn't have to stalk them with murderous intent!

I might be an old bastard, but I'm a *lucky* old bastard. And here I am bragging about it to the world. It feels right to do that in a review of Restored, though, because while neither of the heroes (they are indeed heroes) are anything like as old as I am, they're old for their time (fifty was elderly in Regency times, and Henry's forty-seven) and not slowing down a bit. Henry, Duke of Avesbury, and Christopher Redford shared a passion as young men and, after two decades, find each other and wonderingly work their way through a shared past that never went as either would've wanted it to.

Gawddam, it feels so fucking good to read something Romance-wise that mirrors so many of my own experiences being an old crock!

That's really it, and I ought to belt up and go have some hot milk and toast for my supper, but there is quite a bit to say yet. And I say it here. (Too long, y'all won't likely read it all anyway.)

>228 jnwelch: Hi Joe! I'm glad you've enjoyed the Clark, and man do I ever mean to tell you there's a lot more and even better awaiting your gift of time.

*eep* Tie-dye! Wouldn't that be grisly, if tie-die recrudesced?! *ptooptoo* *makes the horns against evil eye*

But yes, I expect I'll have a pleasant weekend without *shudder* any 1970s fads.

Oh, look. Another dreary day. I need some sun, dammit!

Friday greetings, RD (grumpy ones, sorry...)!

>231 katiekrug: I'd take "not so humid that your bath-towel grows mold" but I ain't picky if it ain't hot.

*smooch*

I got my ballot yesterday, immediately marked it up, made sure I hadn't screwed up and voted for 45 (checked 3x), and gave it to a friend to find a mailbox outside the county to send it in.

I live in a majority-GOP county. I ain't takin' even one chance with my ballot.

"I live in a majority-GOP county. I ain't takin' even one chance with my ballot." Smart move.

Happy Friday, Richard. Chilly and damp here. Good day to stay in with the books. I am enjoying the story collection, Lost in the City. You might like this one too. Have you read Mr. Jones?

>234 msf59: Agreed re: weather; it's *vile* here, too. I'm innocent of Mr. Jones's work, at least that I can recall. I had a copy of All Aunt Hagar's Children for a while but recall not a thing about it. I don't think I read it, and suspect it went upstairs to the library at some point.

Spend a lovely weekend indoors booking.

>227 richardderus: I spent Friday afternoon volunteering at Riding for the Disabled (and my older son is now old enough to join me) where, this term, I’m leading a horse. Tapadita is beautiful and sweet and does everything our rider or I ask her to and I resent you maligning horses. So there.

>233 richardderus: I think it’s the arriving at the counting place and how it’s counted rather than the post box you have to worry about though.

I heard that your potus, the other week, was offering to go to rallies and spread his virus now that he thinks he’s immune. So lucky you are.

>229 richardderus: If you’d posted a bit more here I would have read it. I very rarely follow links on LT though because I’m always already so far behind on the threads. 🤗

Hey Richard, have you decided who to refer for the LT Project Specialist position?

>236 humouress: I don't malign horses! They're actually quite lovely to look at, and are most savory when properly marinated.

45 can go fuck himself with a baseball bat.

Not likely to happen, since I'd need to trim the text and, well, if I hadn't wanted to say something I'd've already edited it out, wouldn't I. Of course you *could* subscribe to the blog by email....

>237 quondame: I recommended my daughter, but she said she was too busy. Silly thing!

130 Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason

Rating: 4* of five

There are three pieces in this mini-collection: The title novella, an essay on what SF's social duty is, and an extended interview with the *fascinating* Author Arnason. All are worthy of your $8 and your eyeblinks. About that novella:

Honestly, I think I should simply put this in front of you:

"The thing your teachers may not have told you is how full of hope the late '60s were. Yes, there was violence. The police and FBI and National Guard were dangerous. Plenty of people—good people—died in fishy ways; and plenty went to prison for things they almost certainly did not do. But the times were changing, and many of us thought we were building a new world in the shell of the old. As it turned out, we were wrong, at least for the time being. The '60s wound down slowly through the '70s, and in 1980 Ronald Reagan began a long period of reaction."

...issue an apology for my entire generation for allowing the calamity that was Reagan's rule, and go quietly away. In fact, I suspect many (some even related to me) would like that a lot. So I won't do it.

But you *will* need to visit Ye Olde Blogge for the full text. That much trimming isn't worth my time.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Saturday to you. According to weather.gov you are fog-free, but feet on the ground are a much better weather forecast. I hope it's sunny.

>239 richardderus: Ronny Raygun always made me sick, even before he won the Presidency. He ended up shilling for GE and was a turncoat for switching parties. And I just read that he was an FBI-informant who provided info on actors during the McCarthy era.

>240 karenmarie: Hi Horrible, and happy Saturn's Day back at'cha. No fog is true...cloudy, though, and still a widge sticky. Blech!

I was *appalled* when Hinckley botched the damn assassination. 41 wasn't a great president, or person, but he was marginally sane on matters economic.

Happy Sunday, RD.

Am I crazy (what a bad set-up to this question - we can stop and answer "Yes" right there), or is this a majority Democrat country where not enough Demos voted in 2016 when we needed them? I feel like all the Repub attempts to suppress voting and even their anti-immigration policies are designed to keep the Democrats from taking over, and, gods forfend, this become a minorities majority country in just a few years.

Just asking...

Are you going to launch a new thread soon. So I can jump in at the outset and be current. You started this one when my back was turned, I swear for only a day or two, and that quick (*fingers snap*), the thread has more posts than I can read at a single sitting.

Mipsipipsi All right!

>242 jnwelch: Your political acumen is untarnished, Joe, so you're not keepin' it in a drawer. The reason 45 has targeted the Census for interference is to prevent the Official Stats from revealing the abso-bloody-lute truth: the country's white folk are firmly and forever in the minority.

That gives these vile cretinous nobs the collywobbles. Like the COVID news...stop counting, the numbers will magically go down!...they do not want to know.

>243 weird_O: I won't be starting a new thread until 290-300 posts, so ~5 days...?

Good afternoon, RD, happy what's left of Sunday to you.

>241 richardderus: Trump makes any Republican President back to and including Ronny seem sane. I would even welcome Nixon these days, as crazy as THAT sounds.

*smooch*

>245 karenmarie: Nixon.

Well...ya know...at least he could be shamed.

*smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. I hope you are having a good weekend. I stayed in the Marky-Mark Man-Cave today. Being lazy with the books, with some football on in the background. Having a good time with Righteous.

My touchstones are not behavin'...

Happy Monday, RD!

>246 richardderus: There's a lot to be said for shame. Too bad the Republican cabal doesn't even know what that word means.

*smooch*

>247 msf59: Thanks, Mark, it was a perfectly pleasant Sunday indeed. Keep enjoying Righteous this hectic-week's beginning.

>248 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible, maybe "happy" is a bit overstated but "perfectly adequate" works. Bit too wordy, I guess.

Abso-bloody-lutely on the shame question. If one can be shamed, one can be taught.

*smooch*

Isn't this amazing.

>244 richardderus: "~ 5 days"?? Day after tomorrow methinks. Ha ha.

Looking forward in any case.

>250 richardderus: Yes.

>251 weird_O: Heh! We'll see whose prediction is correct very soon.

>252 quondame: I know, right?!

I'll have to post a lot of comments today and tomorrow. Heh heh.

>254 weird_O: Hey! No thumbs on the scale!!

>242 jnwelch: >244 richardderus: So what you ordinary folks need to do is get together and get rid of the electoral college (is that what it’s called?) system because it’s obviously non-representative. Easy.

>250 richardderus: LIKE!

>244 richardderus: Got in in one! - or was that two?
>250 richardderus: !!!!!
>256 humouress: Please, God, give us another chance at it.

Happy to do my part here.

'Morning, RD! Happiest of Tuesdays to you.

I'm playing ostrich and am on a temporary news boycott.

*smooch*

>256 humouress: Amending the Constitution is *hard*—the Equal Rights Amendmenthas been stalled since ~1978—but there's a nationwide move to amend *state* laws to award that state's electoral votes to the popular-vote winner. The current tally of electoral votes awarded this way is still under 200, with 270 needed to win.

>257 msf59:, >258 LizzieD: I know, right?!

>258 LizzieD: I'm eager to make the dinky little states irrelevant again, Peggy. Permaybehaps you could fire up the ol' cauldron, put some curses on some politicians...?

>259 karenmarie: Hey Horrible, Tuesday egg-laying benisons be upon thee, Struthio-camelus-lady.

>260 richardderus: If I ever had any mojo, it was used up almost exactly four years ago.
Wishing you a good day.

>255 richardderus: Ok, no thumbs. How about fingers?

Voting mechanism stuff. It is telling, to me anyway, that the minority Democratic senators represent 14+ million citizens more than the majority GOP senators.

>261 LizzieD: *sigh* I was afraid of that. Well, dig we must, so let's get to it. :-*

>262 weird_O: It was the entire purpose of the Senate from the beginning. "Minority views must be protected."

Hm. A very fruitful debate could be had in that regard.

However we undermine or eliminate the electoral college, I am all for it. One person, one vote. But don't get me started.... this week has been one of the more infuriating in a year full of infuriating weeks!

On the other hand, a movie is coming out with Baby Yoda in it. Cute he definitely is.

>260 richardderus: um ... closing in. And while you're there, mend the 2nd or 5th or whichever amendment the 'gun rights' one is and get rid of it. Or can't you amend amendments?

Hallo, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.

The fog has migrated down to us. Indoors, without having to drive through it, it's a pleasure to see.

>264 EBT1002: That travesty of the much-vaunted "will of the people" the Senate perpetrated with the Supreme Court "confirmation" killed whatever lingering hope I had that this horror could be averted.

>265 humouress: The Second. They can only be repealed or revised by the same mechanism as they're confirmed by, popular vote. I do not favor giving states with ~1MM population the same weight as states with ~15MM in deciding the fate of tens of millions of gun-violence victims.

>266 karenmarie: Hi Horrible. It sure is Wednesday! My goodness, the Wednesday is permeatin' the place, ain't it.

131 The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Rating: 5* of five

I RECEIVED A DRC OF THIS NOVEL FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

Y'ALL. AIN'T. FOUND. HIM. YET. I mean, in your millions who buy Clive Barker and Stephen King. That's the audience that Stephen Graham Jones merits. Major film franchises. TV development deals. The whole shootin' match.

Because this is top-quality writing, using the bones of the genre fleshed out in new and interesting ways. Psychological splatterpunk. Rez Noir. Gore with more.

And now the literary crowd is making "get-up-and-leave" noises. No, no! Sit down. This book isn't another exploitation of "Noble Savages Get Revenge Via Folklore" (seriously, go to Goodreads and search "the wendigo" to see what I mean about exploitation...monsterporn galore and white people writing from their deep personal knowledge of Native American life as far back as 1910). It is #OwnVoices do horror. The point of #OwnVoices is moot if it is construed by the very white people who celebrate it so vocally if it can't be applied to *sniff* mere genre fiction. (And for the record I'm all down with white people reading more Otherwork. I just find the labeling a bit depressing and not a little bit condescending. Do y'all really need roadmaps to find an interest in people who are-but-aren't like you?)

You are defined by the worst thing you've ever done. We all are. But what if the worst thing you've ever done offended not only the social norms and personal dignity of the community you live in, but the very powers of the Universe your community resides among? (There are different powers in every community...?) What the hell is wrong with you, first...you can't not know what you're doing is offensive when you are sneaking around...and second, when you're going against the Universal powers that little sick feeling in your gut should tell you to break the hell off, abort, and go back to where you were before. I speak from experience. As does our point-of-view character, Lewis. One of four buddies who need to get their freezers full before winter hunger attackes their families, these goofuses trespass on the Elders's land to bag an elk. They do that, alright, so strike one. It's a female, strike two. She's pregnant, strike three. The game police, the tribal councils, AND the Universal powers are all lined up to take turns beating up these criminals.

The rest of the review is on my blog.

>268 richardderus: The worst thing you've ever done, hum. I've often wondered what resources there could be for someone who knows they've gone past the edge, but has some notion but maybe not the will to recover some of their life. People do have mental breakdowns in which they do great damage, but the only resources have been or still are permanently as damaging as blundering on save that the victims must resolve a different set of pains and breaks.

>269 quondame: The problems you elucidate are, at least to me, not representative of the worst because the existence of breakdown mitigates the worst-ness. My mother abused me in fugue states; I forgave her to clear my path forward; my father knew, did nothing, and was unforgiven at his death because the worst thing he did was done without any mitigating psychological trauma response.

>270 richardderus: It's true bystanding is many times a crime of it's own - but in a way it can also be taking the wrong of several bad choices, but the worst is not acknowledging that it was a crime. There is the acknowledgement of the wrong by celebrating it cleverly as family lore that's rankled me from childhood.

>271 quondame: That's truly, truly vile.

>268 richardderus: Wow! This is great news! Big Thumb! I hope to get to The Only Good Indians before year's end.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Hooray for loons and the new Watson novel.

>268 richardderus: Ok, you got me with Rez splatterpunk. 😀

>273 msf59: Haste haste, Mark, time's a-wastin'! Loontastically yours, Me

>274 drneutron: Author Stephen liked "gore with more" the best. It's lovely when they tell you these things!

'Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you.

Sipping my way to consciousness. Tropical Storm Zeta, 80F today, wind, then a cold front and possible tornadoes. Gotta be NC...

>276 karenmarie: Here's to hoping you don't get too Zeta'd. It's cold and rainy today, but I'm down with that. Wasn't planning to do much more than slumber, read, and blog anyway.

*smooch*

Happy mid-day, Richard!
You may or may not have me with the SGJ. I'll have to think. However, you and Susan may break my heart with your discussion. That is all.

>277 richardderus: We got Zeta'd. Lost power, estimate is 5 p.m. 25% of the customers in my county are without power.

>278 LizzieD: Just the facts, ma'am. Everyone has some sort of Story, and seldom if ever is it all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows. It's kind of you to feel for others, and it speaks well of your empathetic faculties, but guard against taking on others' pain!

>279 karenmarie: Ick. I'm sorry to learn this but delighted there's a generator chez vous.

>278 LizzieD: I'm sorry for any assault on your heart. Mine at least is somewhat stitched together by examining what emotions and motives moved the events and narrative. Generations of damages build complicated dams which can be exploded or left behind to preserve decedents from the worst and I'm not sure which works better.

132 The Corona Crash by Grace Blakeley

Rating: 4* of five

The UnHoly Trinity of metastatic capitalism: financialization, monopoly, stagnation. We're seeing the results of around forty-five years of neoliberal nightmare-fodder economic and social policy: A US state, a UK state both hobbled by incompetent and apparently actively evil governments whose vision of how to control the pandemic is to punish the people who live in their states.

In the absence of a rational, harmonious vision for the changes we want to see come to the world, the capitalists will sow dissension and scream about irrelevancies like tradition, continuity, the sacredness of institutions...which they've been subverting for decades, largely and ineffectively when done unopposed. The tech giants whose dominance in the financialized capitalism of the 21st century achieved such glittering heights of social and societal control have done so largely frictionlessly. This is the naked, ugly ass that the capitalists are showing the world, and this is a clear sign that this election cycle in the US truly is an existential choice between more of what we had versus less of everything we've earned.

While I'm no fan of any tech giant, and I am sure that these companies possess monopoly powers that urgently need curbing, what the hearings in the Senate demonstrated was that the right-wing party here wants the monopoly powers to remain in place and thus be usable by them to make their propaganda the only accessible viewpoint. That would mean that their worldview would, for many unsophisticated consumers, become to all intents and purposes, Reality.

If you ever needed a proof that the monopolistic inevitability of capitalism is extremely bad for you and me, that should be it.

The Green New Deal gets a lot of play in this book. What that means is never spelled out in there, and the fact is that's a sign of how quickly this book was put together. Representative democracy that includes representatives of the laboring classes has largely been dismantled by the neoliberal austerity hawks. The few remaining vestiges of that era of workers' unions with actual power are increasingly, in this crisis, seeing their agenda picked back up: extensive polling in the US and UK (eg, YouGov) that a solid plurality of the people want a Green New Deal. Now what will happen post 3 November 2020? The Biden campaign has a consistency issue, but is broadly aware that the time to act is now. A Left-led charge, using the Covid Crash as a combination crowbar and bludgeon, stands some chance of making substantial progress. If 45 is re-elected, there's no point in worrying about it because the Apocalypse is assured.

There's more at my blog.

>282 richardderus: No, really, please may I have no more, sir?

>283 quondame: Suit yourself...you're not likely to need encouragement to stay active in politics after 3 November anyway.

Late night, perusing the LT threads... way behind.

Got lost following Susan and RD's back and forth. It all sounded difficult and deeply scarring. Hug. Be as well as you can. Be safe here. I sure do know about "family stories" that retell a remember when and it's as if that was amusing. When it wasn't funny at all.

RD, your review at >268 richardderus: sounds like one I would personally have to avoid, but a story that needed telling.
Your comments remind me of a very excellent book from around 2001, On the Rez. I later saw an older, made-for-TV movie called Dance Me Outside. The movie predated Ian Frazier's book, but both painted such realistic and informative lives for the people.
OK. Maybe not entirely relevant to Jones' The Only Good Indians... but it brought back some stellar reading memories for me.

Thanks. (Yeah, I did plow through the blog. I am a sucker for popping over 'there' from 'here'). I wonder when my brain will let me go to sleep now?

'Morning, RD!

>282 richardderus: White men want to stay in power. Nothing new in that at all. I'm hoping that one white man in particular, Biden, is elected because if he is and even a small part of the 2020 Democratic Party Platform can be proliferated throughout the system, there's hope for us.

edited to add *smooch* from your own Horrible

>285 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy! I'm glad you enjoyed your tiptoe through the tulips of EMMA. I'll have to look into On the Rez, if it reminded you of the reading experience I had.

Good week ahead!

>286 karenmarie: He's far from perfect, he's NOT my first, second, or third choice, but I voted for him because he isn't 45.

*smooch*

Back again, turning up like the questionable penny and not about to tackle the Blakeley, but I appreciate your review instead.
Our hearts beat as one about Biden. If he is able to clean up some of the abominable mess that 45 has made of the bones of our government, I'll be satisfied. Likewise, I voted for the absurd Cal Cunningham because he's not Thom Tillis. We have a long, long way to go in a short, short time.
Dear Richard and Susan, I did not mean to put my fragility on display, but I thank you for caring. I guess I just don't feel that anything I have to say is a balm for old wounds or sufficiently expresses respect for your integrity and courage.
In fact, the heaviest thing I can handle right now is The Obelisk Gate, and that has a lot to suggest about abuse on several different levels.

>288 LizzieD: Well, the fact that you read the review of The Corona Crash is more than most folks will do. It can only reach so many eyes; fewer receptive eyes; and a review like mine gives at least a chunk of the argument in the book.

Your fragility is perfectly welcome here, Peggy, no one needs to be anyone they aren't in this space. If you're not being harmful or disruptive, come as you are and stay as long as you like.

Reading the news out of Texas...my old-home state...made me smile. For the first time I can remember, a major candidate is visiting McAllen (near my childhood home, Mercedes)! The Mexican-American voters are pretty darn conservative gawd-n-country folk, but Kamala Harris can speak their law-n-order language so she could very well do Biden a power of good.

Happy Friday, Richard. I skipped any birding today, so this gave to some ample time to hunker down with the new Watson. It will probably not be one of my favorites but even average Watson is worth the time. Have you tried out "The Queen's Gambit" on Netflix? If not, you might like it.

Hi Richard!

I am crossing my fingers for everyone in is USA. I hope the election brings the results that everyone wants.

Have a wonderful weekend!

>290 msf59: I haven't yet checked the show out. I've been so wrapped up in the GBBO fun.

Too bad about the new Watson, but no one bats 1.000 and, as you sat, even the ~meh~ ones have more oomph than most others' best. (I myownself really didn't like Laura much.)

>291 figsfromthistle: There is no way for everyone to be happy with an election, and with choices as starkly divergent as these, the best I hope for is "no armed insurrection."

But anyway, that's next week's problem. I'm good with focusing on this week's!

Guys.

I might faint.

I just found out that N A N C Y P E A R L follows me on Twitter!!

>293 richardderus: Oh that's great! What ego-boo!

>293 richardderus: Awesome (and deserved) recognition.

Thanks for telling us, so we can have a happy moment ~

>293 richardderus: Whee!!

(smooch)

133 Beyond Bedlam by Wyman Guin

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Book Report: (adapted from The Science Fiction Encyclopedia)
A brilliant novelette describing an Earth about a thousand years hence where Drugs enforce a strictly regulated schizophrenia in every human being in a five-days-on, five-days-off routine, each body inhabited alternately by two personalities. The balance created between the two personalities' divergent aspects ends up serving to nullify Humanity's subconscious aggressions, thus eliminating the "paranoid wars" of the "ancient Moderns" aka "us." But passion and art likewise disappear. The good and evil of this system are explored with a literacy and verisimilitude that make it a startling, propulsively readable and interesting variation on Aldous Huxley's vision of drug-enforced stability in Brave New World.

My Review: This antique survivor of the post-war optimism about advances in medicine and psychology takes a radical turn on the medicate-me-well paradigm. Very unusual to read a story that celebrates schizophrenia as the savior of humanity, as the road out of the Mutually Assured Destruction deterrent days.

Author Wyman Guin was certainly a man you'd trust to tell this story of a future, beautifully functional schizophrenic society balanced into cultural stasis by lifelong usage of psychoactive drugs. He was a Big Pharma man as his career, and so uniquely well placed to create a story of hyperalters and hypoalters (dominant and recessive personality traits) cohabiting in the same brain.

Of course there is no story in a happy, smoothly functioning world. Something must go pear-shaped, and in this instance it's the emergence of a man's love for a completely, utterly forbidden-to-him woman. The wife of the one person he absolutely can not get away with cuckolding.

His hypoalter.

Bill Walden, bookish and genius-level smart, has a wife (there clearly is no room for queer folk in Guin's future) and a child. All three of them are hyperalters, the different bodies' dominant personalities. He isn't getting much deeply drug-addled emotional juice from the wife, and simply cares nothing for the child. He somehow decides his hypoalter's wife (who is his own wife's hypoalter) is The One. She agrees, naturally, and they embark on the Grand Passion journey that absolutely never ends in sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.

They needed each other as each had been, before fear had bleached their feeling to white bones of desperation.

(This is why affairs always end badly, or turn into replacement primary relationships, or not infrequently both.) This outcome being their world's major promise to its schizophrenic folk, there is a power structure...the Medicorps...with dictatorial powers and uberinvasive surveillance monitoring the individuals in each body, assuring that they are all in medical compliance or else. The Medicops (don't you just love this idea? The Medicops! What a donnybrook that concept would start in 2020 Merica!) are arbiters of the thousand-year peace that "Better Living Through Chemistry" as a social system has enabled (enforced) at very, very significant cost. That cost being in the rather distant past, the ancient "Moderns" of the 20th and 21st centuries, Bill and his fellows are truly well-established in a working, stable, functionally fulfilling society.

But here's Bill Walden, in love with Forbidden Fruit. Human beings will not just stop being the chaos vectors we started out to be. So Bill, as a tragic hero must, sows the seeds of his downfall...not the wife-shagging part that unglues the armature, but the neglected and unloved child. Out of the mouths of babes comes truth, and that is almost never a good thing for adults. In this case it's a gigantic chaotic reckoning of the transgressors, the victims, and the entire model of the society that has held sway on Earth for most of a thousand peaceful, unwartorn years.

All it took to create it was the suppression (however partially successful, however massively destructive) of human nature by drugs.

Listen, I'm not ever going to complain about psych drugs. Anti-depressants literally saved my life after a suicidal break six years ago; months and months in a locked hospital ward being treated with psych meds enabled me to put myself back together, and here I am. I will say that, as this story came out in 1951, the drugs I took were but fantasies to the doctors of the day. So the idea central to the story, that pharmacology could fix psychological problems, is even more believable now than it was then. Yes, there are many who rail against medicalizing psychological issues. I won't get into that debate; but I'll point out that dead people don't use many psychological services and there would be more dead people (me, for one) without the help the drugs can be.

Another strand of this story that resonates strongly today is the Medicorps. We're in a pandemic where people are refusing to follow the informed and reasonable plans made by educated subject-matter experts. In the story, this issue was explicitly dealt with in a kind of flashback sequence. I approved. Since the ebook is free and short enough to read in an afternoon, maybe you'll take a look and see if you do as well. Like all Utopias, especially medicalized ones like this and Brave New World, there is a repressive government in charge of everything. Unlike Brave New World, there is no pocket of defiantly Other people. The simple truth is that no human being believes we can be trusted to run our own lives in such a way as to minimize conflict with other human beings. I know I don't.

But the yearning for freedom, for unfettered experiences, is powerful and motivates many of our species' most enduring creations. For good and ill, of course. Like the drugs that accidentally harmonize the formerly disabling condition of schizophrenia into the basis of a stable society. The drugs that were invented led to a centuries-long breeding program resulting in humans with two and only two personalities. The social structure, rigid of course, built on this discovered binary has a lot of tech backing it up, like the drugs designed to enhance, enforce even, the bifurcation of the hyperalters and hypoalters into separate and un-overlapping lives. In a 21st century where we have fMRI and CAT and PET scanning technologies, the dénouement of this piece is a lot more believable than it was in 1951.

Like all humans, Bill wants to be his unmediated self. But in a society where everyone is a binary, sharing bodies and faces, what keeps confusion from reigning supreme? Of course there is a shift-based apartheid system to ensure minimal social overlap of hypers and hypos; as the hypers are the dominant personalities, the hypos are waging a cultural battle to retire those denigratory terminologies:

Those idealists—they were almost all hypoalters, of course—who wanted the old terminology changed didn't take {the stability of society} into account. Next thing they'd want children to live with their actual parents!

But the system has more elaborate ploys! Makeup, for one: Everyone wears it; everyone is ashamed to be seen without it; and in cases like Bill's, where he has anti-socially "forced a shift" on his hypoalter to spend time with the man's wife, wearing the alter's makeup and clothing is repugnant to the other, socially conditioned to see that other as unreachable.

She pulled the sheet tighter about her and said icily, "I will not wear that woman's clothes." ... {Bill} shifted! He left me with...Oh, I'm so ashamed!"
There was no way to escape the conditioning of childhood—sex relations between hyperalter and hypoalter were more than outlawed, they were in themselves disgusting.

There is a lot more depth to this world than can possibly be contained in the under-100 pages of the written tale. No sequel or other work was ever written in the man's lifetime, nor was this story ever filmed (as best I can tell).

And that, my friends, is a damned shame. This would be a *superb* movie, with big names and lush effects and a biting wit to the screenplay. It could even be a terrific little morality tale for the present climate of fear and distrust of Experts. Does anyone here know how to reach Ryan Reynolds? He'd be *awesome* as Bill!

>293 richardderus: - WOW! Congrats!! Did she leave you a message???

>293 richardderus: Wowzer. I hope she doesn't decide to cancel after reading only 50 of your posts.

I'm sure not dear fellow. Have a splendid weekend.

>293 richardderus: Wow, we’re in the presence of a true star!

‘Morning, RDear!

>293 richardderus: Congrats. Major compliment to you.

*smooch*

I know I am in a minority of probably 1 or less, not being a fan of Halloween, but even I can get into the spirit occasionally:

>302 jessibud2: Very clever, Shelley.

Maybe a little hard to see, but over next to her name it says "Follows You" and that has made me up!
>294 quondame: >295 SandyAMcPherson: >296 ronincats: >298 jessibud2: >299 PaulCranswick: >300 drneutron: >301 karenmarie:
It's a sad commentary on just how celebrified the world is when a nice little old lady librarian gets so famous that a stranger gets fantods when she accidentally notices him!

And I do not care. It still feels great.

Sunshine today, dimmed by the loss of 007.

His Oscar-winning role in The Untouchables...and that speech! Played the cheap Scotsman:

"In winning this award, it creates a certain dilemma because I had decided that if I had the good fortune to win, that I would give it to my wife, who deserves it. But, this evening, I discovered backstage that they're worth $15,000 — now I am not so sure," he joked. "Micheline, I am only kidding. It's yours."

Ave atque vale, Sir Sean. Ninety years young.

>302 jessibud2:, >303 SandyAMcPherson: Haw! I love that.

>304 richardderus: Aww. I actually never saw "The Untouchables' but I loved Sean's role and the theme of The Hunt for Red October. Never a fan of James Bond movies, always admired his support of Scottish nationalism.

>304 richardderus: Congratulations stranger.

Vale Sir S.

>306 SandyAMcPherson: He was a good actor, and a decent man; Bond made him, he made Bond, but there was much more good stuff about him.

>307 humouress: Thanks!! *smooch*

New thread is up!

>304 richardderus: Proves once again that Ms. Pearle has good taste! Meanwhile, GOOD for you!!!!!

>309 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy!

>308 richardderus: Hmmmm.....decent men don't advocate slapping women when "you've tried everything else".

>311 laytonwoman3rd: ...nooo...?

>312 richardderus: Oh....missed that, did you? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo0d1zTAFKA

>313 laytonwoman3rd: Ew.

Just wanted to say on this since-surpassed thread what a good review of Beyond Bedlam that is. And congrats on Nancy doing the opposite of Pearl-ruling you on Twitter. Very cool.

>315 jnwelch: >315 jnwelch: Thank you, Joe.