Weird_O Bill's Third Vault of Heaven

Will our summer be explosive?

 Current Reading  

 I've not yet given up on...  

Covers of books read, Summer Season 2020

 

Oh, do be patient. I am reading as fast as I can. I know June July August September October was a washout, readingwise. I'll do better. Honest.

 # 72.  # 71.  # 70.  # 69. 

 # 68.  # 67.  # 66.  # 65. 

 # 64.  # 63.  # 62.  # 61. 

 # 60.  # 59.  # 58. 

 # 57  # 56.  # 55.  # 54. 

 # 53.  # 52.   # 51.   # 50.  

 # 49.  # 48.  # 47.  # 46. 

Books Read, Fall Season 2020

October (5 read)
72. The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (10/29/20)
71. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore (10/18/20)
70. Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs (10/20)
69. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal) by Christopher Moore (10/20)
68. Furious Hours by Casey Cep (10/1/20)

Books Read, Summer Season 2020

September (7 read)
67. A Mind to Murder by P. D. James
66. Cover Her Face by P. D. James
65. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James (9/16/20)
64. Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates (9/12/20)
63. The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd (9/8/20)
62. Book of the Dumb by John Scalzi (9/3/20)
61. The Best of the Rejection Collection by Matthew Diffee (9/2/20)

August (7 read)
60. I Only Read It for the Cartoons by Richard Gehr (8/30/20)
59. The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker by Robert Mankoff (8/29/20)
58. The Doonesbury Chronicles by G. B. Trudeau (8/24/20)
57. The Emperor's Snuff Box by John Dickson Carr (8/12/20)
56. Man Ray by Alexander Games (8/5/20)
55. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (8/5/20)
54. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (8/2/20)

July (8 read)
53. Killing Time by Caleb Carr (7/29/20)
52. The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry AAC July (7/25/20)
51. Dark of the Moon by John Dickson Carr (7/24/20)
50. LEWSER! by Garry Trudeau (7/20/20)
49. The Learners by Chip Kidd (7/16/20)
48. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (7/11/20)
47. Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter (7/8/20)
46. Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse (7/4/20)

What I've Read So Far...

      

      

      

      

      

      

      

       

      

      

      

      

      

      

   

Books Read, Winter and Spring Seasons 2020

June (4 read)
45. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (6/28/20)
44. The Paris Mysteries by Edgar Allan Poe (6/20/20)
43. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (6/18/20)
42. Stalin's Ghost by Martin Cruz Smith AAC Wild Card (6/5/20)

May (6 read)
41. Nemesis by Philip Roth (5/31/20)
40. The Overstory by Richard Powers 2019 Fiction Pulitzer (5/28/20)
39. Hombre by Elmore Leonard (5/24/20)
38. The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill (5/23/20)
37. The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston AAC Wild Card (5/8/20)
36. American Gods by Neil Gaiman (5/4/20)

April (9 read)
35. Winston Churchill by John Keegan (4/28/20)
34. Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman (4/22/20)
33. Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman (4/21/20)
32. Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen AAC Wild Card (4/18/20)
31. Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill 1957 Drama Pulitzer (4/15/20)
30. A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey (4/13/20)
29. Berlin Diary by William L. Shirer (4/11/20)
28. Death of a Doxy by Rex Stout (4/4/20)
27. A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley (4/3/20)

March (9 read)
26. Towards Zero by Agatha Christie (3/31/20)
25. Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (3/28/20)
24. Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers (3/26/20)
23. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (3/25/20)
22. The Book Bag Treasury of Literary Quizzes by editors of WaPo's Book World (3/21/20)
21. The Reivers by William Faulkner 1963 Pulitzer (3/15/20)
20. The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough (3/9/20)
19. Of the Farm by John Updike (3/8/20)
18. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis (3/3/20)

February (9 read)
17. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (2/26/20)
16. The Road by Cormac McCarthy 2007 Pulitzer (2/24/20)
15. Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov (2/23/20)
14. Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov (2/20/20)
13. Quichotte by Salman Rushdie (2/18/20)
12. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan (2/11/20)
11. Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry (2/9/20)
10. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick (2/5/20)
9. Agent Running in the Field by John Le Carré (2/2/20)

January (8 read)
8. The Neuroscientist Who Lost her Mind by Barbara K. Lipska (1/29/20)
7. Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale by Adam Minter (1/28/20)
6. When the Women Come Out to Dance by Elmore Leonard (1/24/20)
5. Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin (1/23/20)
4. Masters of Death by Richard Rhodes (1/19/20)
3. Nova by Samuel R. Delany (1/13/20)
2. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt (1/8/20)
1. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1/2/20)

 Chillin' in self-quarantine.

Spring Season 2020 Reading Stats

Books read: 19  1st Q:26  YTD: 45
Authors read: 18  1st Q:23  YTD: 41
Single-read Authors: 17  1st Q:21  YTD: 38
Multi-read authors: 1  1st Q:1  YTD: 2
New-to-me authors: 4  1st Q:12  YTD: 16

Author gender
Male: 16  1st Q:17  YTD: 33
Female: 2  1st Q:6  YTD: 8

Author Birth Country
Germany: 0  1st Q:1  YTD: 1
India: 0  1st Q:1  YTD: 1
Ireland: 0  1st Q:4  YTD: 4
Russia: 0  1st Q:1  YTD: 1
UK: 4  1st Q:4  YTD: 8
US: 14  1st Q:15  YTD: 29

Dead or alive
Currently breathing (afaik): 9  1st Q:15  YTD: 24
R.I.P.: 9  1st Q:8  YTD: 17

First published
1800—1925: 1  1st Q:0  YTD: 1
1926—1950: 2  1st Q:2  YTD: 4
1951—1975: 4  1st Q:10  YTD: 14
1976—2000: 4  1st Q:2  YTD: 6
2001—2010: 6  1st Q:4  YTD: 10
2011—2018: 2  1st Q:8  YTD: 10

Genre
Fiction: 11  1st Q:14  YTD: 25
Non-fiction: 4  1st Q:6  YTD: 10
Sci-Fi: 0  1st Q:5  YTD: 5
YA: 1  1st Q:1  YTD: 2
GN: 2  1st Q:0  YTD: 2
Drama: 1  1st Q:0  YTD: 1

Format
Hardcover: 11  1st Q:10  YTD: 21
Paperback: 8  1st Q:11  YTD: 19
Mass-market paperback: 0  1st Q:5  YTD: 5

Source
Acquired in 2020: 3  1st Q:6  YTD: 9
ROOT: 16  1st Q:20  YTD: 36

Is it safe to go out yet?

Happy new one, Bill!

>3 weird_O: - How cool is that!

(I tried to copy the image but when I do, nothing moves. How do you do that, asks the non-techy...?)

Happy new one!!

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread!

>10 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley.

Re: Your question. My answer is that I don't know what the problem is. I use Google Chrome as my browser. Just now, I opened this thread, moved the cursor onto the image, and right-clicked. On the drop-down menu, I put the cursor on "Save image as..." and clicked. The imagine downloaded to the hard drive. And when I located the downloaded file in Windows 10 file explorer and clicked on it, the image opened and the fingers drummed.

Here's the URL (it's essentially the internet address of the image file): https://media.giphy.com/media/zhJPwGcqrGmas/giphy.gif

ETA: It takes some time for the GIF to (1) download, (2) display, and finally (3) to start moving.

>11 figsfromthistle: >12 drneutron: >13 quondame: Thanks, Anita, Doc, and Susan.

>14 weird_O: - Woohoo! thanks, Bill. I just switched to chrome and followed your instructions and it worked. I usually use Edge as my browser, but do need to use chrome when putting pics into my threads. Live and learn. Thanks again

Happy new thread, Bill!

Happy new thread, Bill!

>9 weird_O: Lovely picture, although the dog does look a bit sad.

Sweet Thursday, Bill. Happy New Thread! What do you think of Evicted? It was a top read for me, a few years ago.



^Have you got one of these yet?

>9 weird_O: *baaawww* No, it isn't, Poochie, but it will be in 2022 (maybe)!

Happy new thread, Bill.

I will get to Evicted this month for sure!

In this difficult year with an unprecedented pandemic and where the ills of the past intrude sadly upon the present there must still be room for positivity. Be rightly proud of your country. To all my American friends, enjoy your 4th of July weekend.

An encouraging sign for reading by me. Finished Leave It to Psmith, a splendid P. G. Wodehouse from 1924.

Now back to one of two already started books.

Happy new thread, Bill! I hope July is a better reading month for you.

>16 katiekrug:, >17 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Katie and Anita. If the poochie looks sad, it's only because she can't go out yet, and probably won't be able to for months. Not safe.

>18 msf59: I haven't fully engaged the reading of Evicted. I've carried it around so, to get the...heft...of it. Benita has been hammering about Glass House all over 75land and I'm kinda dreading a documenting of scumbag capitalists (which is how I view Glass House—scumbag capitalists. I'll get to it, Mark; Paul is going to force me to simply by reading it himself.

Haven't seen that mask. I've got this one and have been using it when I have to go out.

>19 richardderus: 2022? Ohhhhh, say it ain't so, Richard.

>20 PaulCranswick: Oh yeah, sure, Paul. You're going to get to Evicted this month. Ha ha ha. Me too!

>24 karenmarie: Hope so, Karen. I got possibilities zinging around in my head.

>25 weird_O:
Hammering!? I've been Hammering?

Of course I have. Glass House is a darn good book. I thought that nothing investment bankers did would surprise me. What was revealed in this book surprised me - even as cynical as I am. It surprised me. Over on Goodreads there were some heated discussions about the book. As usual some people liked it - some didn't, but turns out that the author has had death threats. Well, according to somebody on Goodreads, there have been death threats. Who knows? It isn't an expose but it sure got my dander up in places.

I have Evicted on the shelves somewhere around here. I may have to dig it out and get it read. But I will have to cool off first, so I am reading Gentleman in Moscow right now.

>3 weird_O: Ha! That summarizes my June reading as well. Here's to a better July!!

>21 weird_O: Amen.

Happy new thread. : )

Wendell Berry is in the news!

      

Skimming through today's New York Times on line, I saw a headline about calls by students to remove a mural being answered has drawn a lawsuit.
Here's a link to the story: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/arts/design/university-of-kentucky-slavery-mu...

In brief, Black students at the University of Kentucky several years ago started voicing objections to depictions of slavery in a long mural painted on the walls of a main building. The mural was created in 1934, commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project. The upshot of the complaints was that the University announced last month that the mural would be removed.



A detail from Ann Rice O’Hanlon’s 1934 mural, which the University of Kentucky has decided to remove. It was commissioned by the Public Works of Art Project and, among other scenes, shows enslaved people picking tobacco.

But now a lawsuit's been filed, contending that because the mural "was created through a government program, it is owned by the people of Kentucky and cannot be removed by the university." And who filed the suit? Wendell Berry.

Read the whole article at the link. What you think?

I'm posting this 'cause Mr. Berry is this month's honoree of the American Author Challenge. But also because Mr. Berry has long been the voice of a kind, gentle, humanitarian sort of Kentuckian (and American).

Finished a book.

>30 weird_O:. Nice. Did you get any new ones for your birthday?? Happy Birthday!!!

>30 weird_O: Congrats, on finishing a book, Bill. Is it your birthday? If so, Happy Birthday!

>27 benitastrnad: It's been a while, and perhaps you've forgotten that I said you were "hammering" about Glass House. Don't take offense (I don't think you really have). You certainly were not "warbling." I have no doubt Glass House is a significant story, but I sometimes do feel deluged with significant stories. Like Evicted.

>28 Berly: Hi, Kim. At the moment, my July reading pace isn't any better than June's was.

So it goes.

>30 weird_O: The book I finished: Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter.

>31 Berly: Sadly, Kim I did have a birthday, Judi and I did drive to Son the Elder's home for socially distanced sharing of cake and ice cream and sparklers, I did get most of the obligatory birthday wishes telephone calls. And a freshly baked sourdough bread. That's it. Heh heh heh. Probably will spring for those books that I did wait for (as I mentioned on your thread, Kim). To be truthful, I hear a few gifts (NOT books) are in the pipeline.

>32 msf59: Yes, Mark. My birthday has come and gone. I am still here. :-)
_________

I'm less than 20 pages from the end of Exit West. Very interesting book. Perceptive.

Then on to something Wendell Berry.

Followed by Evicted.

# 45. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin Finished 6/28/20

The Weird Report^TM  

James Baldwin's justly respected essays, paired in the 1963 book The Fire Next Time, are solid foundations for all of the antiracist literature published in the almost 60 years since. To put them briefly, the first is written to Baldwin's nephew "on the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation" and offers him advice on growing up Black in a white world. Ta-Nehisi Coates drew inspiration from it in writing a letter to his own son, a letter published in 2015 as Between the World and Me.

The longer second essay was the important one for me. It's Baldwin's account of his growth and maturing, dwelling on, first, his embrace and eventual rejection of Christianity and, second, his consideration and rejection of Elijah Mohammed's Nation of Islam. The following passages are among the many I underlined as I read that second essay.

I was forced, reluctantly, to realize that the Bible itself had been written by men, and translated by men out of languages I could not read, and I was already, without quite admitting it to myself, terribly involved with the effort of putting words on paper.: Of course, I had the rebuttal ready; These men had all been operating under divine inspiration. Had they? All of them?

I realized that the Bible had been written by white men. I knew that, according to many Christians, I was a descendant of Ham, who had been cursed, and that I was therefore predestined to be a slave. This had nothing to do with anything I was, or contained, or could become; my fate had been sealed forever, from the beginning of time. And it seemed, indeed, when one looked out over Christen­dom, that this was what Christendom effectively believed.

…[T]he real architect of the Christian church was not the disreputable, sun-baked Hebrew who gave it his name but the mercilessly fanatical and self-righteous St. Paul.

…[A] civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spine­less.

…[T]he most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose. You do not need ten such men—one will do.

Yet I could have hoped that the Muslim move­ment had been able to inculcate in the demoralized Negro population a truer and more individual sense of its own worth, so that Negroes in the Northern ghettos could begin, in concrete terms, and at what­ever price, to change their situation. But in order to change a situation one has first to see it for what it is: in the present case, to accept the fact, whatever one does with it thereafter, that the Negro has been formed by this nation, for better or for worse, and does not belong to any other—not to Africa, and certainly not to Islam. The paradox—and a fearful paradox it is—is that the American Negro can have no future anywhere, on any continent, as long as he is unwilling to accept his past. To accept one's past—one's history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. [Emphasis mine]

The American Negro is a unique creation; he has no counterpart anywhere, and no predecessors. The Muslims react to this fact by referring to the Negro as "the so-called American Negro" and substituting for the names inherited from slavery the letter "X." It is a fact that every American Negro bears a name that originally be­longed to the white man whose chattel he was. I am called Baldwin because I was either sold by my African tribe or kidnapped out of it into the hands of a white Christian named Baldwin, who forced me to kneel at the foot of the cross. I am, then, both. visibly and legally the descendant of slaves in a white, Protestant country, and this is what it means to be an American Negro, this is who he is— a kidnapped pagan, who was sold like animal and treated like one, who was once defined by the American_Constitution as "three-fifths" of a man, and who, according to the Dred Scott decision, had no rights that a white man was bound to respect. And today, a hundred years after his technical emancipation, he remains—with the possible exception of the American Indian—the most despised creature in his country.

This has everything to do, of course, with the nature of that dream and with the fact that we Americans, of whatever color, do not dare ex­amine it and are far from having made it a reality. There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves. People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal (equal, after all, to what and to whom?) but they love the idea of being superior.

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques,
flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.

Why, for example—especially knowing the family as I do—I should want to marry your sister is a great mystery to me. But your sister and I have every right to marry if we wish to, and no one has the right to stop us. If she cannot raise me to her level, perhaps I can raise her to mine.

There is absolutely no reason to suppose that white people are better equipped to frame the laws by which I am to be governed than I am. It is entirely unacceptable that I should have no voice in the political affairs of my own country, for I am not a ward of America; I am one of the first Americans to arrive on these shores.

This past, the Negro's past, of rope, fire, torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for his women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible—this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful.

The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed that collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way…[O]ne felt that if one had had that white man's worldly advantages, one would never have become as bewildered and as joyless and as thoughtlessly cruel as he.

>35 weird_O: Great quotes. It is too long since I read those essays, but maybe they had something to do with my despising repeated wails about "lost innocence" which accompanied the each stripping of willful ignorance from our ugliness.

>36 quondame: Thanks, Susan. The essay is chockablock with phrases and sentences to underline and quote. I'm awful sorry I didn't read this half-a-century ago.

I didn't expect to take so frequent advantage of Challengemeister Linda's open-ended "wild card" option in the 2020 American Author Challenge. But so far, I've played it three times. I expect to play it several more times til the year is through. I'm out of sync with the honorees, I guess.

I should have played the card in January, when I bailed on Cold Harbor. Also in February when I couldn't connect with Grace Paley. My head was somewhere other than where Ms. Paley's was. March honored David McCullough, and I had saved The Johnstown Flood against just such an occasion. I had a Francine Prose novel on the shelf for April, but my enthusiasm for it expired by the end of chapter two.

At this point, I rescanned the list of 2020 honorees, vowed to eschew denial, and jot down possible wild cards. I came up with the following authors; I have TBRs by each of them and I think each is worthy of challenge status.

Carl Hiaasen
Richard Preston
Martin Cruz Smith
Connie Willis
Michael Lewis
Robert Heinlein
Ibram X. Kendi
N. K. Jemisin
Robert Harris
Katherine Ann Porter
Walter Isaacson
David Halberstam
Jill LaPore
David Sedaris
Dave Eggers

I've already played the three authors topping the list for April, May, and June. That's where I am. Comments on the books I read should follow.

Belated Happy Birthday, Bill!

I’m sorry your July reading pace hasn’t picked up, but you read something amazing in >35 weird_O: and I thank you for sharing so much of Baldwin’s words.

Hey, thanks, Karen. Judi and I polished off the last of the birthday cake. The cake was a team effort: my son found the recipe for a apple spice cake. Granddaughter Claire scouted out the ingredients, pointing out that the required apple cider was very hard to find out of season. Granddaughter Helen baked the cake, pointing out that she had to boil down cider to get the required apple syrup. My son then mixed and applied the icing. I didn't say anything to them, but the damn cake was way too small.

Still, it was tasty.

And now, as the old Pennsylvania Dutch say, it's all.

Before you read Evicted you need to listen to this weekend's On the Media program. This is an NPR show about anything having to do with the media. Media includes, print, TV, movies, radio, newspapers, etc. etc. Brooke Gladstone is a goddesses. Any the program today was on the wealth gap and there was one great big segment about housing. Not just redlining, but the government sanctioned exorbatant interest rates and prices charged to minorities for both purchases and rents. It was a very hateful thing to wake up hearing on the radio this morning, but so worth listening to. It is titled "40 Acres." Matthew Desmond, the author of Evicted is one of the featured speakers.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/40-acres-on-the-media-repeat

Desmond was featured on a series that On the Media did last summer called "the Scarlet E." Here is the link to the earlier series.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/scarlet-e-unmasking-americas-eviction-c...

Excellent review of The Fire Next Time, Bill. I recently snagged the audio version and hope to get to it soon. In that same vein, I just started The New Jim Crow, so keep that one in mind, as well.

Happy birthday, Bill! Cake sounds yummy!

>35 weird_O: I really should read James Baldwin. Thanks for the review, the book is on my list now.

>41 benitastrnad: Thanks for the links and the recommendations. I won't get to the podcasts (or whatever they are) today. But soon. Wendell Berry is crowding Evicted aside for now.

>42 msf59: Thanks, Mark. The New Jim Crow is on the radar. Be interested in your reaction to the book. I have a history of Jim Crow on the TBR by respected historian C. Vann Woodward: The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Reading that might be as worthwhile as (finally) reading The Fire Next Time.

>43 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley. The cake was yummy.

>44 FAMeulstee: :-)

Boy, am I happy to see Wendell Berry's turn in the AAC spotlight. I have a trove of Berry's early books, but there was always something I wanted to read more. The urgency to get at least a couple of them read is high. Here's what I have:

 The Long-Legged House essays 1969

Farming: A Hand Book poetry 1970 

 A Continuous Harmony essays 1972

The Country of Marriage poetry 1973  

 The Memory of Old Jack fiction 1974

The Unsettling of America essays 1982 

 Remembering fiction 1988

What Are People For? essays 1990 

I'm leaning toward starting with The Long-Legged House for essays and then The Memory of Old Jack for fiction. Ye gods! I might even read some poetry.

Oh Bill, please bookhorn in The Unsettling of America in there, it is such a trenchant and tendentious read, so utterly undervalued and so worthy of close and wide study!

That is all.

That's the one that I have read, RD. In 2015. But definitely worth a reread. Thanks for the recommendation.

# 32. Native Tongue by Carl Hiaasen Finished 4/18/20

The Weird Report^TM  

To say that Native Tongue is a typical Carl Hiaasen is to mislead, in that "typical" is too often a pejorative. With Hiaasen, "typical" is laugh-out-loud, head shaking, raucous, outright fun. His plots and the characters that animate them are over the top...and yet very close to truth and reality.

In Native Tongue, what powers the action is a theme park in the Florida Keys, a cheesy low-rent DisneyWorld. The impresario of the Amazing Kingdom of Thrills is Francis X. Kingsbury, a man made wealthy through condo and resort development on environmentally sensitive land that crowds out wildlife, including endangered species, and pollutes coastal waters. Corruption at all levels of government, of course, enable Kingsburg's projects. What no one knows is that Kingsbury, formerly of New York City, is a beneficiary of the Federal Witness Protection Program, under the auspices of which he was whisked from a federal courtroom, in which he testified against fellow mobsters, to Florida. The mobsters betrayed want him dead (once they find him) but an awful lot of Floridians do too.

Molly McNamara is one such, and she isn't reluctant to take a low road to her goal. The book begins with two low-life numbskulls, driving away from the Kingdom and pitching two ratlike critters out of their pickup's windows. It turns out that Molly hired the pair, Danny Pogue and Bud Schwartz, to steal the two blue-tongued mango voles—the last two of the species, saved from extinction by Mr. Kingsbury's minions. They were supposed to be delivered to Molly. She's not happy when they arrive at her condo without the voles.

"…[T]ell me what happened."
  Before Bud Schwartz could stop him, Danny Pogue said, "There were holes in the box. That's how they got out."
  Molly McNamara's right hand slipped beneath her bathrobe and came out holding a small black pistol. Without saying a word she shot Danny Pogue twice in the left foot…
  "You boys are lying," Molly said.

Mere gunshot wounds can't break up this trio. Molly, Danny, and Brad amble in and out of the storyline right up to the end.

Joe Winder is another. After getting fired from his last newspaper job for being just a little bit opinionated in his reporting, Joe takes a PR job at—most naturally—Amazing Kingdom of Thrills. Joe's self-assigned mission is to bring the kingdom down, by hook or crook. The menace he must dodge is Pedro Luz, the kingdom's security chief, a muscleman so enamoured of steroids that he drags an I.V. stand around with him so he can suck his preferred mix from an I.V. bag.

There's more, but I'll leave it for you to encounter as the story progresses. Hiaasen generates my preferred sort of comfort reading. This 'in gets two thumbs up from me.

      

About Hiaasen: A native Floridian, Carol Hiaasen writes a column for the Miami Herald (and has since 1986), a newspaper he joined as a reporter in the mid-1970s. He's written 19 novels and a half-dozen YA books, all in the so-called "humorous crime fiction" genre and usually focusing on environmental and political corruption. His columns have been collected into three nonfiction books.

His only brother Rob Hiaasen, an editor and columnist at The Capital newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, was killed in a mass shooting at the newspaper's office on June 28, 2018.

>5 weird_O: I just had a freak out moment, looking at all your books and seeing the David Mitchell of Cloud Atlas fame represented by an image of David Mitchell of British comedy fame. I was about to love the comedy David Mitchell all the more thinking that *he* (of one of my favourite comedy shows- Upstart Crow) was also responsible for those awesome books. Looks like the wrong David Mitchell has been pictured. And I can not now return to my usual levels of love for each artist :)

I see Demon in the Freezer on your list too. This was one of the first books that was recommended to me from someone on this site! I enjoyed it a lot.

>35 weird_O: the lines on his forehead are so deep and symmetrical! (how's that for a pointless observation?)

Have a great day.

(Edited for silly typos)

Uh oh. Thanks for the heads-up. Fixed.

I thought there was only one David Mitchell. Gracious.

ETA. Glad you noticed, Megan. I guess my ignorance is a secret between you and me. You're the first visitor here since Hector was a pup.

>51 weird_O: You are not quite so unobserved as you might think. But since many are much less observant than Megan, the slip might still be obscure.

>52 quondame: I'll keep that in mind, Susan.

I finished a book last evening, The Learners by Chip Kidd, who works mostly as a graphic designer. A very curious novel. Now focused on The Memory of Old Jack. As several readers have cautioned, it gets off to a slow start. Very internalized.

I read a piece about Gary Trudeau's collection of Doonesbury strips (in the time of Trump) titled Lewser! Had to immediately order it; delivers tomorrow. Excited.

>53 weird_O: - Oh, I have seen bits of the new Trudeau comic and would love to read it.

Hi Bill!

Hector was a pup on the 11th, right? That was when I last left a message. *smile*

>53 weird_O: I already have Lewser! on my shelves. I pre-ordered it from Amazon on April 29th, forgot I ordered it, and then remembered when it showed up on my doorstep on the 7th of July.

I am dithering over a book to read, so I'll take it down and see if it cheers me up.

Hi Bill!

Hector was a pup on the 11th, right? *smile*

I am really excited about Lewser and think it might be just the right thing for me to read right now. I pre-ordered it on April 29th, forgot about it, and then it showed up on July 7th. In the meantime, I didn't realize that this was the THIRD in the Trump books by Trudeau. Somehow #SAD!: Doonesbury in the Time of Trump escaped my notice. I just ordered it, and I blame you because if I hadn't gone back to Amazon to check on Lewser I would not have realized there was another one.

Thank goodness I already have Yuge.

>56 karenmarie: - Ha! Thank, Karen. I now have all three titles placed on hold at my library. The newest one, Lewser, is still on order but I am only the 6th in line to request it. Yay! I am excited to read these too.

Happy New Thread, Bill.

>5 weird_O: Fun! Lots of good reading there.

I thought Evicted was terrific. I'd love to see a thorough follow-up on what's happened nationally with the problems he so skillfully and convincingly identified in Milwaukee. Pre-pandemic the answer would be, not much. Now we've got pandemic-related eviction moratoriums that are expiring. The book is being widely taught in schools now, but it doesn't mean much unless changes are implemented.

>55 karenmarie:/>56 karenmarie: Hector is ALWAYS a pup, Karen. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

So where is the darn book? Jeff (Bezos, not Mahsdad) emailed me that USPS would deliver it to me today. Four hours or more since the mail was delivered, NO BOOK. Decline and fall of the Amazon Empire. But I'm thinking maybe I should order #SAD!: Doonesbury in the Time of Trump and Yuge.

I'm also contemplating ordering Mary Trump's book, being motivated by Dahlia Lithwick's review at Slate.com.

...Mary Trump begins from the assumption that other analysis tends to end with: Donald Trump is lethally dangerous, stunningly incoherent, and pathologically incapable of caring about anyone but himself. So, what Mary Trump wants to know is: What the hell is wrong with everyone around him? As she writes in her prologue, “there’s been very little effort to understand not only why he became what he is but how he’s consistently failed up despite his glaring lack of fitness.”

I fear that if I buy it, I'll be the "Lewser". But I did note that 950,000 copies were sold on the first day. Mary's gonna be richer than Unca Donnie. Bwahahahaha.

>54 jessibud2:, >57 jessibud2: Well, I ordered Lewser! and Amazon failed to deliver. And yet, I'm contemplating ordering the other two. What's wrong with me? Shelley.

>58 jnwelch: I'm drifting closer and closer to opening Evicted, Joe. You know, with all of Drumpf's vandalism, one can only hope the injustices exposed in Evicted won't fall by the wayside. So much to correct.

I watched Chris Cuomo interview Mary trump last night on his show. It was very interesting. I do plan to read her book but I won't be buying it. I may have to wait awhile, though. My library has it *on order* (though they don't indicate how many copies are on order). And there are nearly 2000 holds ahead of me...

>51 weird_O: Phew- it'll be our little secret! Also, check out Upstart Crow, it is a hilarious Shakespearean comedy :)

>61 jessibud2: 2000 holds
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? Talk about demand for the topical!

Here it is, copied from the Toronto Public Library site. I thought the number was higher than it is. Closer to 1500 holds, as it turns out. With any luck, by the time my turn comes around, it will truly be *history* and he will be long gone:

Too Much and Never Enough : How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man.
Trump, Mary L.
2020, Book , 240 p. Place Hold
1429 holds / 0 copies (copies on order)

# 49. The Learners by Chip Kidd Finished 7/16/20

The Weird Report^TM  

I was enticed to read this by a granddaughter's summer reading list from her school, which in the category Visual Arts • Fiction, listed Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd. It happened that I'd acquired a book titled The Learners by the same Chip Kidd at a library sale a couple of years ago. The author's name—unknown to me at the time—prompted me to pull the book. A look at the front and back (there was no jacket) made me think, "Oh, this could be fun!" and drop it in my tote. Seeing Kidd's name on the reading list reminded me that I had a book by him languishing in the stacks. I retrieved it and googled Kidd.

Yumpin' yiminy, Kidd's not only a native of Shillington, PA, the birth home of John Updike, but is primarily a graphic designer, creating countless book and jacket designs (several Updike books included). No wonder the cover of The Learners got my attention.

This digressive intro led me into a tale of a fledgling graphic designer, nicknamed Happy, fresh out of college, who seeks employment at a small ad agency in New Haven (think Yale) exactly because it was the agency that first employed the design professor who most influenced him. He's actually hired and begins learning real-life graphic design know-how (some of which he records in his story). One ad he lays out—all type, destined for the local newspaper—solicits participants in a study of "memory and learning".



The advertisement for the "study" is presented verbatim with Happy's explanatory text opposite. The text details the ad text from a typographer's viewpoint. As if to say, "Here are the type specifications that 'design' the advertisement."

As the story progresses, Happy reconnects with a college friend, someone he lost touch with when she dropped out of school. He's shocked to learn that she died within days of their reconnection, an apparent suicide. When he gets a cryptic letter from her, he's disbelieving, puzzled, and suspicious. He has reason to believe she participated in the "study" and that the experience led to her death. As he works through this, we get to know more about the ad agency, the creative and not-so-creative types who do the work, and most importantly about that "study". If you didn't already know, you'll learn from the author's note at the end that "all details regarding Professor Stanley Milgram's 1961 'obedience' experiments are historically accurate (including all of the language in the recruitment ad)."

Though I started the read as a kind of lark, I think it paid off. Not perfect in every regard, The Learners both entertained and informed me. I give it a thumb up.
     

Bye the by, the book I bought didn't have the red jacket that masks part of the printed case. Here's what I saw at the glance I gave it when I pulled it from the shelf.

 
                  Front    Back

^looks like a gorgeous book, with some interesting content! A win.

>64 weird_O: What Megan said. I read a historical book about some of the 60s approaches to psych studies (and how they were written up), eye opening. I'll add this one to the pile.

I like the meta use of images / ads - intriguing snippet!

Alright, you got me with that one!

>66 charl08: me too....and the results of some of these research projects are still touted today as valid. It is fascinating to deconstruct their methods, and thing seriously about what else might have been at play to get the results that were 'got'.

>64 weird_O: It does indeed look like a win as Megan says. Checked already and it isn't in the stores here but I may ask SWMBO to have a quick look in the UK before she comes home.

>61 jessibud2:, >63 jessibud2: Oh my. A mere 1429 holds on a book that's not (yet) in the catalog. That's why I might have to buy it. I think Mary has earned the financial rewards a best-seller should rain down on her.

>62 LovingLit: I'll never admit to it, Megan. So I'll look into The Upstart Crow. But tell me, did you finish Zero K? What did you think of it? I've read several DeLillo novels, and I happen to have that one in amongst the TBRs.

>65 LovingLit:, >66 charl08:, >69 PaulCranswick:. Yeah. Look into it. It looked kinda goofy, but I snagged it. Then put it into the ever-rising stack. When I finally pulled it out and started to read, I wasn't exactly sure what I was reading. YA? Was it going to be a clunker? It's obvious that I did like it. Hope y'all try it and also like it.

>68 LovingLit: Ahh, it feels so gooood. After taking all those BBs from the doctor, I finally wing HIM with one.

>66 charl08: You ought to look at the Wikipedia entry on the experiment. Milgram did stage later experiments in different settings and with slightly revised scripts, trying to respond to criticisms of his original report. I think the consensus is that it was intriguing but flawed in a variety of ways.

I'm reluctant to move on from Chip Kidd before sharing some of his jacket designs.

a.  b.  c.  d.  

e.  f.  g.  h.  

i.  j.   k.  l.  

m.  n.  o.  p.  

q.  r.  s.  t.  

a. 1Q84, Haruki Murakami
b. Faster, James Gleick
c. Migraine, Oliver Sacks
d. Gulp, Mary Roach
e. Airframe, Michael Crichton
f. American Tabloid, James Ellroy
g. Schultz and Peanuts, David Michaelis
h. Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky
i. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
j. When the Thrill Is Gone, Walter Mosley
k. Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard
l. Dry, Augusten Burroughs
m. Licks of Love, John Updike
n. The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Jill LePore
o. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
p. Me: Stories of My Life, Katharine Hepburn
q. A Treacherous Paradise, Henning Mankell
r. No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
s. Ada, or Ardor, Vladimir Nabokov
t. Intensity, Dean Koontz

>72 weird_O: Chip Kidd does know how to catch the eye!

>64 weird_O: What a creative mind Kidd has!

>72 weird_O: Yowza. Why isn't his name spoken as often and as reverently as Warhol's?

Well let me jump on the Chip Kidd bandwagon.

Here's his excellent Ted talk from 2012. Its excellent, I've watched it multiple times. The task of book cover designing is fascinating.

https://youtu.be/cC0KxNeLp1E

>73 quondame:, >74 richardderus:, >75 mahsdad: His work absolutely is eye-catching. And Jeff, that Ted talk is marvelous. Somehow you just knew that he'd be a winner as a performer/storyteller.

I put myself at risk today. The empty-ish refrigerator/freezer recommended a grocery store visit. But at 6:20, when the pooch woke me for her first walk of the day, I just couldn't stop myself. The walk a success, I flopped onto the bed and slept some more...oh, until about 9. Ish. Then I had to trudge through the various sites that pop up on the computer screen. Then I had to make some coffee. Then some bangers and eggs. Then some more coffee. A shower. Even fresh clothes. Oh, I went all in.

Ok, to make a short story even shorter, I drifted right with Greenwich Street at I got into town. Had to turn right at the stop sign onto Main Street. And there was a prime parking spot, right at the door to the Firefly Book Store, selling used and new books, open once again. Can't pass that up, now can you? An available spot right there at a store you've been pining to visit. And if you think about it I've been deprived since almost the beginning of the year, my liberty infringed upon, not free to roam the aisles, my eyes unable to see the titles of books I couldn't buy.

So I went nuts in a small way, snagging Circe in a new paperback, Old School by Tobias Wolff in a used paperback, and Dark of the Moon by John Dickson Carr, a used mass-market paperback.

I promise not to do it again. Well, at least not until the next time.

Yah. I did get food too.

Hiya Bill!

>72 weird_O: Very nice. Thanks for compiling. I have some of those covers on my shelves.

>75 mahsdad: Fascinating talk, interesting man. I loved the intro, when he complained about the Lady Gaga skanky mike. Favorite design – My Name is Red.

>77 weird_O: It may have been a risk, but it was a worthy and successful risk. I still drive by the thrift shop and Habitat for Humanity stores, unwilling to take the risk. Thank goodness for LTer recommendations, recommendations from links provided by LTers and the WaPo, and the 2,170 book tagged ‘tbr’ and 53 books tagged ‘started.’ on my shelves.

>77 weird_O: More power to ya. I miss strolling the bookstore lanes. Plus its easier to hide purchases from the wife, rather than justification when she brings yet another package in from the mail. :) JK!

>78 karenmarie: Yeah, it definitely makes me interested in reading it. That and the Life of the Buddha graphic novel set.

Hey, Bill! You risky rascal you! The New Jim Crow continues to be excellent. It will end up being a top read of the year for me. Another eye-opening gut-punch.

>79 mahsdad:
I think I am keeping Alibris in business. I just keep ordering books from them and the USPS keeps delivering them. The good thing is that I don't have a wife to keep tabs on incoming mail.

>77 weird_O:
I broke in June and went to 2nd and Charles, the big used book store in Birmingham back on Memorial Day weekend. That isn't much of a secret. The big secret is that the next day I decided I couldn't live without a couple of titles I had seen the day before so drove back to get them. So what did I purchase the second time around? Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker and Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Our public library has both of these titles but that is not the same as having a copy of it in your house ready to read when you get ready to read it.

>77 weird_O: Hi Bill! Now I don't think that going to a bookstore was a risk. It's more like a necessity:) I know what you mean about the temptation. My local bookstores have now re opened. I can't wait fo get in there! Anyhow, enjoy the rest of the week.

>83 weird_O: Got it in one. Excellent cover.

Finished Dark of the Moon by John Dickson Carr, a mystery I purchased earlier this week at the used book store. Heh; I bought it over two or three others because it was the cheapest one. (Weirdo revealed, the pinchpenny!). Back to "Old Jack"; just 30 pages to go.

Then too, there's this:



July 25, 1970



Not today. But recently.

Happy anniversary, Bill and Judy!

Happy 50th anniversary, Bill and Judy!

>85 weird_O: Happy Golden Wishes. Congratulations on the long run!

>85 weird_O:

Happy golden day, Weird Ones!

Congratulations!

I enjoyed looking at your 50th Anniversary pictures. I am glad you posted them. Congratulations are in order.

>85 weird_O: I love this! Happy Anniversary to you both!

Happy Sunday, Bill. I am thoroughly enjoying American Heiress. I am learning how very little I knew about this incident. If you have not read this one, please keep it mind.

Happy 50th!

I know you are busy celebrating your wedding anniversary this weekend while I went to a Used Bookstore and came out with 6 books for $14.75. Two of them are Penguin Classics - Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner and Heptameron by Marguerite de Navarre. The others were Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck, Last Time I Saw Paris by Lynne Sheene. And lastly, a great old classic that I have not read Turquoise by Anya Seton. I got lucky and only purchased 2 titles that are duplicates in my collection but am not worried to much about it because together they cost me $3.00. I have spent more than that on bad tasting fast food in the last couple of days.

Belated Happy Anniversary, Bill! I love the pictures.

Ok, so a week's gone past, and I've been mostly missing. Haven't responded to any posts on here. I'll do that here and now.

>78 karenmarie: Chip Kidd has a website (naturally) that has a huge display of covers he's designed.I just copied some of them. www.chipkidd.com (I see that in the topper photo, Kidd is wearing a pair of glasses that have temples on both sides, not just one—as in the author photo I used, which was taken at that TED talk).

(re: 77) I'm glad I took that opportunity. I too have an awful lot of TBRs, but I miss the thrill of the hunt. Just now thinking that I used to have a collection tagged "STALLED!" for books I suspended reading (but couldn't admit I was not going to ever restart and finish). My mindset, I realize now, looking at your comment, Karen, was bass awkward; shoulda tagged them "started."

>79 mahsdad: :-)

>80 msf59: The thing about risk-taking is that the person taking the risk seldom perceives the taking as risky. I was actually quite confident that the risk was low. Oh, The New Jim Crow, another bookish projectile.

>81 benitastrnad: There is a 2nd and Charles store in one of the many strip malls hereabouts, Benita. It's open and spacious and tidy, but it struck me that it's a remainder outlet with very few books that aren't "recent." And for one (meaning me) who's been spoiled by the pricing at library sales—Oh! Remember library sales. I miss them so much—the pricing isn't enticing.

>82 figsfromthistle: I share your mindset, Anita. Risk vs. necessity. I'm currently weighing scouting the Goodwill store. I love serendipity, which is what drives shopping at Goodwill.

>86 katiekrug:, >87 FAMeulstee:, >88 quondame:, >89 richardderus:, >90 charl08:, >91 benitastrnad:, >92 msf59:, >93 drneutron:, >95 karenmarie: Thank you one and all, from Judi and from me.

I stopped by a drug store today to pick up a prescription for Judi. The clerk cautiously asked if I was aware how much it cost, and as I slapped down the credit card, I said, "Ah, she's worth it." Which prompted her to ask me how long we'd been married. "Fifty years" prompted the usual question, "What's the secret?" To which I replied, "Don't get divorced. Oh, and don't die." Such a wit, I am.

>94 benitastrnad: I buy copies of books I already own too, Benita. Usually it's because the purchase is an upgrade from what I own. Occasionally, I buy it because I own another book by the same author. Only the other book by that author is the damn title I'm buying. But I like that justification: I have spent more than that on bad tasting fast food in the last couple of days.

I have a trés interesting book list I'm close to posting on my own thread. A summer reading list from the school my granddaughter Gracie attends. Not at all the usual best 100 or 1001 must-reads. I took a lot of BBs going through it. It's pretty long. Collecting jacket images offered a bit more evidence of the book's subject. And by bracketing the title, I get Touchstone links to LT book info, including reviews.

I'm parsing the list into segments so the Touchstones will load more expeditiously.

English • Fiction

  How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
  Jane Eyre (pairs with Wide Sargasso Sea) by Charlotte Bronte
  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  Wild Sargasso Sea (pairs with Jane Eyre) by Jean Rhys

    

English • Nonfiction

  Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
  Tribe by Sebastian Junger
  Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
  Gulp by Mary Roach
  Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  Transcendence: How Humans Evolved Through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time by Gaia Vince

     

= I read it!

Math • Fiction

  The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoki Ogawa
  Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott
  The Fractal Murders by Mark Cohen
  The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt
  Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Betrayal, and Quantum Physics by Rebecca Goldstein

    

Math • Nonfiction

  Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two by Joseph Bruchac
  Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race
    by Margo Lee Shetterly
  Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion (2nd Edition) by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen,
    Harry Lewis, Wendy Seltzer
  What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
  Math With Bad Drawings: Illuminating the Ideas that Shape Our Reality by Ben Orlin

    

Still to come Science, Visual Arts, Performing Arts Music, Performing Arts Theater, History, Physical Education, and Diversity, Equality, Inclusion. It's a hell of a list.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has a book out:

Science • Nonfiction

  The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell
  Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Richard P. Feynman
  A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  The Illustrated Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

   

Visual Arts • Fiction

  Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd



Visual Arts • Nonfiction

  The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
  Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles
  Art and Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlain
  The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde
  Your Inner Critic Is a Big Jerk: And Other Truths About Being Creative by Danielle Krysa
  Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
  Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers by Leonard Koren
  The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait by Freda Kahlo, Carlos Fuentes
  An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration From the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators, and Designers by Danny Gregory
  Ways of Seeing by John Berger
  Annie Leibovitz at Work by Annie Leibovitz

      

    

= I read it!

Performing Arts Nonfiction • Music

  Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece by Ashley Kahn
  Sing for Your Life: A Story of Race, Music, and Family by Daniel Bergner
  This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of Human Obsession by Daniel J. Levitin
  How Music Works by David Byrne
  Evenings With the Orchestra by Hector Berlioz, translation by Jacques Barzun

     

Performing Arts Nonfiction • Theater

  Other People's Shoes: Thoughts on Acting by Harriet Walter
  Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
  Finishing the Hat by Stephen Sondheim
  Look I Made a Hat by Stephen Sondheim
  Sondheim & Co. by Craig Zanan
  Everything Was Possible by Ted Chapin

      

More summer reading suggestions.

History • Fiction

  The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
  The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundati Roy
  The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
  The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coats
  The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
  The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
  Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
  Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
  The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer

     

     

History • Nonfiction

  New England Bound: Slavery and Colonization in Early America by Wendy Warren
  The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America by John Demos
  The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol Karlsen
  The Boston Massacre: A Family History by Serena Zabin
  Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
  Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
  Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
  The Blood of Emmett Till by Timothy B. Tyson
  Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City by Tanya Talaga
  Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters by Kate Brown
  American Dialogue: The Founders and Us by Joseph Ellis
  Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein

      

      

= I read it!

Because reading is so much less sweaty than physical exercise.

Physical Education • Nonfiction

  Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
  The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
  Fast into the Night by Debbie Clarke Moderow
  Wild: From Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed
  Strong by Kara Goucher*
  Norwich by Karen Crouse*

      

*LT seems to not have Touchstones I can find for these two books.

= I read it!

These lists are great, Bill. My high school did a really good job of providing extensive summer reading lists with lots of options for all interests. I'm always interested to see what are on lists these days.

Wow, those lists should keep the young ones busy for a while! Everyone's reading the autobiography Airhead as the welcome book at the university where I work. I'm waiting impatiently (as usual) for my free copy to arrive in the post. Intrigued how NF will work as previously all the nominated books have been fiction.

Reading about math and PE, not doing them, *still* fills me with rage and dread.

Last but definitely not least...

Diversity, Equality, Inclusion

  Black Feminist Thought by Patricia Hill Collins
  Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Dr. Brittany Cooper
  Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon
  How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
  Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
  Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad
  Raising Our Hands by Jenna Arnold
  Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
  Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
  So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindess by Michelle Alexander
  The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
  The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga
  When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson
  White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo

              
     

= I read it!

"I've been mostly missing." We all just assumed it was a second (or 4th or 10th) honeymoon. Congratulations, you two. We'll be celebrating that milestone in 2022, the good Lord willing, and the creeks don't rise. (Well, and there's that viral thing to avoid...)

HI Bill, I hope all is well with you.

>109 laytonwoman3rd: Hi, Linda. Just got back from Missing, but I may get the call yet again. One never knows. Thanks for the good wishes. You have only two years to go. Can't guess that the Lord is, but I confident that sometime in those two years, the creeks WILL rise. Not sure why, but the GOP does seem bent on everyone catching the virus. Here's hoping they won't get their way.

>110 Whisper1: Hi, Linda Too. :-) We are fine, thanks for asking. I seem to be lurking more than posting. I do drop by your thread from time to time so see how you are doing. Just not very voluble.

>105 katiekrug:, >105 katiekrug:, >107 richardderus: These reading suggestions, to me, are windows into realms I don't "see" ordinarily, and quite a few of these books are wish-worthy. How many of these titles have you read? I've read 15 of them, and I have 6 others in the TBR catacombs. And 9 on my wish list (I'm trying to be restrained).

>111 weird_O: I've read somewhere north of twenty of these titles, Their Eyes Were Watching God being listed twice but I only counted it once...abd Hidden Figures is *NOT* about math!! That calumny shall not stand!! It is a deeply enjoyable work of social history! Racism in science! Anything, anything except *retch* math!

Your rejection of math just doesn't add up, RD.

Really enjoying To Say Nothing of the Dog.

>111 weird_O: - I've only read 13, counting the Hurston and Just Mercy each only once.

>113 weird_O: *chuckle* Well played, sir.

>115 richardderus: Heh heh. :-)

I read of a rumor that now it's August. Wha' happened to July?

Well, anyway, progress through To Say Nothing of the Dog is excellent. Might dial up All the Kings Men once the time traveling is completed.

Finished To Say Nothing of the Dog. Epic!

Just for so, I'm going to re-read Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, which is one of the inspirations for the book I just finished. I first read Jerome's book in 2013, so it's been a while.

Then I'll pick up All the Kings Men for the August AAC. I have an edition that's labeled "Restored Edition." I read it a long time ago, I think in high school. A re-read is in order.

Ha! I'm glad you liked To Say Nothing of the Dog (touchstones not working), Bill. Good 'un!

More congratulations on your Happy 50th - let's continue the celebration for a year or so. Great photos in >85 weird_O:.

Loving all the book covers! >72 weird_O: - impressive! Chip Kidd has some chops, doesn't he.

P.S. Did you review Cloud Atlas and I missed it? What did you think of it?

I enjoyed To Say Nothing of the Dog. It was my introduction to Connie Willis. It was an ALA Alex Award winner back in the day. I have never read Three Men in a Boat and maybe I should.

Hahaha. I got a haircut. I got a haircut.

First one this year.

Last time my hair was cut was a week before Christmas 2019.

I looked in the mirror after I got home. Oh well. The idea was good.

>70 weird_O: But tell me, did you finish Zero K? What did you think of it?
Alas, I am stalled on Zero K- funnily enough on the same page that I am stalled at on A Spool of Blue Thread! - page 86!! (what are the odds??!!!) It was a slow start, and I know from experience that momentum with DeLillo is a good indicator of success in finishing :)

Oh, and >98 weird_O:....all the way to >104 weird_O:... You are killing me with all these beautiful books. Imagine, just imagine if I could *read them all*. Le sigh. I want to read them ALL.

Yipeeee! Got electric back about an hour ago. It went missing Tuesday afternoon, just about the time the deluge ended. Just tossed most of the stuff from the refrig. Hey, and we get more rain beginning in about three-four hours that should extend until midnight. Well, that's just what we need.

How did you other east coasters fare?

ETA: It's gonna take the weekend to catch up. I've got a good start in All the Kings Men.

Glad you got your power back, Bill! We lost ours Tuesday afternoon and got it back Wednesday night (which was earlier than they initially predicted).

>123 weird_O: Rained very hard here; some parts of adjacent counties had some flooding, and there were lots of tornado watches and warnings, but no associated damage that I heard of. No power outage here, for which we're mighty grateful. We're keeping two fridges and their freezer compartments over-stocked these days, and I'd hate to lose all that.

>123 weird_O: Rained a lot in central Maryland, but not too much wind. So we never lost power and the temperature dropped to a really pleasant level.

If you don't open the door of a freezer food will stay good for 72 hours. The secret to that is DON'T open the thing up. Even after that only food on the outer edges will thaw and need to be tossed. Stuff that is still frozen can be kept.

When I was growing up the electricity went out regularly. We kept a cooler into which we put ice and the few things that had to stay cool in order to be useable. Veggies went on the counter and were used up ASAP. We did that so that we didn't open the door to the refrigerator as often and food could stay cooler longer.

Happy Saturday, Bill. Glad to hear you have your power back on. Things getting back to normal there? How are those current reads treating you?

Hi Bill!

Thanks for posting the books on Gracie’s school reading list. My goodness. It’s impressive and comprehensive. I’ve read 7 and have 6 on my shelves.

>100 weird_O: I’d say LOL except everything she does is just plain wrong unless you’re rich and white and Republican.

>123 weird_O: Sorry your power was out so long. We had a few flickers here in NC, daughter lost power for 12 hours in Wilmington NC and was under a tornado warning at one point. She only told us after it was over, for which I’m grateful.

I have wanted to read All the King's Men for years. I think about 3 or 4 times a year when I drive past Clarksville, Tennessee. That is Robert Penn Warren's birthplace. His childhood home is now a historical site. I have passing through the town for 28 years and I keep thinking I will stop and just never do. One of these trips I will make a stop. I do wonder what else he wrote that is well regarded in the literary world.

Funny that I am just now discovering some of these wonderful writers of the 50's and 60's. Authors like William Maxwell, Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Lawrence Durrell. I wonder if it is because of LT and the additional exposure to these works by people who talk about the books they read? or a function of my age?

Gotta catch up here.

>119 jnwelch: I did like To Say Nothing of the Dog, Joe. I'm impressed with Willis' attention to details, especially since she's a Coloradan relying on deep musing and extensive research. I loved, for example, Ned Henry's fretting about shaving with a straight razor, and his relief when Baine naturally does it for him.

I do want to read the last two volume of travel travels; Blackout and All Clear.

>120 benitastrnad: You ought to give Three Men in a Boat a look, Benita. Apparently it was initially intended to be a guide to boating on the Thames, and you can see much of that guidance material still in the text. You can also see it as the map Willis followed.

>122 LovingLit: I still have Zero K on the corner of my desk. Hmmm. So it never seized you. I still may sample it; I've read quite a few of De Lillo's books and was baffled by only two or three of them. :-) [M]omentum...is a good indicator of success in finishing. Yes, and not with De Lillo alone. I've enjoyed several Anne Tyler book, but not A Spool of Blue Thread; I think I have a copy, but I ain't gonna look right now.

I just wanted to share that list, Megan. I viewed it as a juried list into realms that intrigue but are a little too removed from my experience. As I mentioned to KatieKrug (in >111 weird_O:), I've read 15 of them, and I have 6 others in The TBR Catacombs^TM. And 9 on my wish list (I'm trying to be restrained).

>124 katiekrug:, >125 laytonwoman3rd:, >126 drneutron: Sorry you had a night in the dark, Katie. But glad it was only one. Glad to hear, Linda and Jim, that you didn't experience real disruption. I'm happy that the frig was pretty empty and tossing some of the stuff made it easier to clear the thing before restocking. (Happening soon!)

>127 benitastrnad: I hear ya, Benita. We've lived in this township for 45 years, and outages aren't uncommon. It's rural (no, not RURAL as in north and central PA, and certainly not like Kansas), and the power grid is like a scribble. Wooded hillsides, winding narrow roads, scattered housing. I'm a stick-in-the-darkness about buying a generator, viewing a generator as another expensive tool that'll mystify the only-occasional user on the one hand, and fail to start on the single time annually you want to use it on the other. We do have two or three 5-gallon jugs of water in the garage.

>128 msf59: Getting there, I aver.

>130 benitastrnad: " I wonder if it is because of LT and the additional exposure to these works by people who talk about the books they read? or a function of my age? " I refuse to blame or credit my age for ANYTHING. I read a lot of these authors in the late '60's and early '70's, because they were on my parents' bookshelves (current BOMC authors, I suppose). I have just inherited a pair of lamps that are identical to ones I see in photographs of Eudora Welty's bedroom. I told my mother if I didn't get them when she died, that I would chase after her to know the reason why. I don't believe she KNEW Miss Eudora had the same ones when she bought them way back when. I don't have much use for much of Robert Penn Warren's fiction outside of All the King's Men, which I admire enormously. And I can't do with his poetry at all. But I'm reading some of his non-fiction now, and that's a different matter. Who Speaks for the Negro is potent stuff from 1965, and still relevant, unfortunately.

>134 laytonwoman3rd:
I know that age has changed the way I look at books. I am more willing to read and think about what I have read. I read more to learn now than I did. I think when I was younger I read for entertainment and to get lost in the world the author created. I don't think either one of them is bad. I think it just shows that my reading has changed. It has also affected the kind of books I read. I still read for entertainment (I love mysteries and spy thrillers) but I also savor the creation of real people and lives in books that isn't so much of and in-your face kind of entertainment. I am sure that LT has upped my reading of nonfiction of all kinds. I have read and completed huge works of nonfiction that I would not have even attempted in the past.

I like the idea of your Eudor Welty lamps. I hope you get much pleasure and use out of them.

Mark your calendars, folks! You won't want to miss this event.


   

Gotta love the graphics...

Here I go: Thinkin' again.

When I got my hair cut at the beginning of last week, it'd been 7 and 1/2 months since my previous haircut. Won't need another until 2021!

>137 laytonwoman3rd: Yes, the graphics. Hasn't cannabis always been associated with fabulous graphics?

>130 benitastrnad:, >134 laytonwoman3rd:, >135 benitastrnad: My reading has absolutely evolved over the years.

Benita wrote: I wonder if it is because of LT and the additional exposure to these works by people who talk about the books they read? or a function of my age?

I'd argue it is both. When I was in my early teens, I had a passion for WWII books. Not dry histories, but the personal tales of soldiers in battle, on land, sea, and in the air. That war had ended only a decade before. And I had no appreciation of the awful, visceral side of war. The ladies at the Mt. Lebanon Public Library would give me looks, give each other looks, when I'd check out war stories, both fact-based and fiction. The entire Vietnam impact on society and on me sure changed my thinking. Maturation certainly played a role in my changed thinking.

Unlike Linda—I refuse to blame or credit my age for ANYTHING—I'm quite content to attribute almost everything to my age. My age is advanced, ergo my thinking is advanced.

:-)

>135 benitastrnad: If Bill will indulge me, I'll share a photo here of one of the lamps in place in my study:



It won't be terribly useful there, but as I sit at my desk (like now) I can look over at it, and it makes me very happy to see it there. The second one doesn't have a home yet, but its cord needs to be replaced anyway, so I can think about it a while.

Just for fun, Here's a link to a photo of Miss Eudora's own lamp next to her bed. How about that green princess phone, huh? I won't be having one of those.

>136 weird_O: Ooh, I like that poster but I will not be attending that event.

Happy Sunday, Bill. I am completely immersed in All the King's Men. Honestly, I did not expect to like it this much. The writing is stellar.

"I am completely immersed in All the King's Men. Honestly, I did not expect to like it this much. The writing is stellar." *nods wisely*

>142 laytonwoman3rd: To heck with it then I'm gonna start it soon too.

Hi, Bill!

I am semi-here. Yes.

We lost a family member yesterday. Bridie, our Wheaten terrier, died at 14. We knew she was at her life's end and had an appointment last evening to speed her into oblivion. But life left her without the vet's assistance. We miss her.

Aw, so sorry, Bill. it's never easy, whether you are *prepared* or not. I am was there last summer at this time with my Mia and am inching closer now with my 20+ year old Lexi. This is a very sweet photo.

RIP, sweet puppers.

>145 weird_O: Bill, sorry to hear about Bridie. Always tough to lose a pet. As someone who has had to take a beloved family member to the vet for the last time, I would view her departure pre-vet visit as a last parting gift to you as she spared you that process. Condolences.

>145 weird_O: I'm sorry for your loss. Pets are more than pets and are really like another family member.

>145 weird_O: I'm so sorry for your loss. Good canid companions are such soul's ease.

Sorry for your loss, Bill.
Vale Bridie.

My condolences, too, Bill. It's got to be tough to lose a furry family member like Bridie. That's a lovely photo of her in >145 weird_O:.

>145 weird_O: Oh...look at that sweet face....I'm so sorry, Bill.

>145 weird_O: Vale, Bridie, now you *know* you were a good girl.

I’m sorry about Bridie, Bill. Thanks for sharing the pic of her. Such a sweet face.

Thank you all for your kind condolences on Bridie's passing. It wasn't unexpected, but still. We miss her. Doubtful that we'll be looking for a new pooch for a while. So thanks again...

>146 jessibud2:
>147 katiekrug:
>148 Oberon:
>149 figsfromthistle:
>150 quondame:
>151 FAMeulstee:
>152 jnwelch:
>153 laytonwoman3rd:
>154 richardderus:
>155 karenmarie:

Cartoons saved my bacon reading in August, and yesterday I had an AMAZING opening paragraph about how that came to be simmering in the Add a message box, when something happened that vanished my prose. It wasn't a mini-stroke; WAS NOT! I am the healthiest member of the 75 group...EVAH...I was checked out by my doc and she was flippin' ASTONISHED at my health.

Anyway, I'm here on the August 3 block but really back on the 1 block.

A cartoons report is coming together. Meanwhile, I closed the back cover on Book of the Dumb by John Scalzi. Yes, that John Scalzi. On the order of "Darwin Award" books. I bet Scalzi is more ashamed for writing this than I am for having read it.

Back reading All the King's Men.

>159 weird_O: That's good, Bill. You know the timeline is only a guideline....highly flexible. Carry on.

Finished another Chip Kidd graphic design novel. His first, called The Cheese Monkeys. The book I read in July, The Learners, is a sequel to this on. Lot of tension in his protagonist's first year at college. Not particularly likable, but a good try. I liked the art instructor's articulation of some overriding graphic design principles. Left then right. Top to bottom. Big vs. little. Foreground/background.

I'll read another chapter of RPW now.

Happy Tuesday, Bill. I hope those books are treating you fine. Sorry to hear about Bridie! Always tough losing a pet. We had to put down our Riley about 6 weeks ago.

Thanks, Mark.

CARTOONS

Cartoons not only roused some laughs, they got me off my mental duff. I'm doing some reading again. (Yay!) Here's how that happened: I saw a squib somewhere about Garry Trudeau's newest Doonesbury collection, LEWSER!, and I sprang for a copy (and learned Trudeau published two previous collections of strips from "the Time of Trump"; didn't buy those). Paging through the strips after the book arrived, I realized that I've completely lost touch with Trudeau's community. Holy smokes! Who are these characters?

The Weird Report^TM  

After launching a fruitless search for the copy of Doonesbury Chronicles listed in my LT catalog, I moved on, and read a good half-dozen books. Looking in boxes of books in the furnace room for a particular title, there...there..right on top...was DC. It is the first collection of Doonesbury strips, embracing everything from the very first through 1975.

Wowie! I started reading the strips immediately, and the character names came back to me. Mike Doonesbury, of course. BD, football hero, Conservative. Boopsie, BD's somewhat scatterbrained squeeze. Mark Slackmeyer, perpetually at odds with his father. Joanie Caucus, a wife and mom seeking freedom from those labels, anxious to enroll in law school, finding welcome in the Walden Commune. And of course Zonker Harris, the hippie freak, good-hearted, cheerful, kind and helpful, but not always reliable.

In time, some readers—just the ones you'd expect—took umbrage with the issues pondered by the characters and the opinions they expressed, and in some cases these readers got newspaper publishers to move the strip from the comics page to the editorial page. This change of venue didn't derail Trudeau, his characters, or his readers. Fifty years have passed since these strips were conceived, penned, and published. BD feels compelled to enlist and volunteer for service in Vietnam. But there he meets a young, savvy VC named Phred, who guides him through a variety of skirmishes, ambushes, and...well...picnics, rest, and relaxation. Mark resists following in his father's life path, to the disgust of said parent. Joanie rejects her husband's entreaties, finds employment in a daycare center, elicits the love and trust of the children, but pursues her dream of law school. Mike can't get a date.

Almost tentative are the introductions of Zonker's Uncle Duke (easily confused with writer Hunter S. Thompson) and a dim but cocksure reporter named Roland Burton Hedley Jr., just back in the States from a stint in Vietnam, where he covered sports. Viewing this collection, you see both characters as having considerable potential, but you don't see them as full members of the ensemble. We also get our first look at Trudeau set pieces—four static images of a character viewing TV news, with some sort of mute reaction in the final panel, e.g.:

  Today at a press conference, the president lashed out at the television media for what he called biased coverage of the Watergate affair.
  Said Mr. Nixon, "In all my years of politics, never have I seen such outrageous, vicious, distorted, and erroneous reporting!"
  He went on to condemn television commentators for "the vindictive leers and sneers directed at the great office of the presidency."
  Most reporters agreed the president was being his usual asinine self. [Mike shows a discrete smile.]

Or the White House depicted in four panels, dialogue lettered overhead, e.g.

  Leonard, as my counsel, I think it's about time you took a look at these transcripts of the secret tapes.
  As you can see, there are many frank and candid remarks which, if taken out of context, might create a false impression.
  Yessir. I can see one here on page two.
  Which one's that?
  "Well, John, how's the cover-up going?"
  Right! A good example.
  Yessir. It could be misinterpreted.

Jump 45 years, well into the 21st century, we see a Doonesbury with older characters (some with children), a different president, but the same bite.

LEWSER! taught me that Zonker's grandkids were righteous.

But that's no surprise.

The missed the entire era, RD, where Zonker fathered a child so's he could have grandchildren now.

I read well into chapter III of All the King's Men, but I'm taking breather by reading JCO's Hazards of Time Travel. Doc Neutron liked it. Not at all like Connie Willis' time travel.

>166 weird_O: It is astounding how much there is to pay attention to, so a cartooniverse falling off the radar is more than understandable it's inevitable.

JCO has so many, many, many titles out that I can't begin to imagine having read all of them and having any other reading life. I'll look forward to triangulating my adding the book to the TBR off your and Doc's reviews.

Hi Bill!

>164 weird_O: Excellent report. So cool that you found DC right on top while looking for another book.

Interesting that the introduction is by Garry Wills. I have one book by him, Lincoln at Gettysburg, which I now feel I should read some time this year. It’s all your fault.

>167 richardderus: Good points, Richard, about cartooniverses and about JCO.

>168 karenmarie: Check out Benita's take on Lincoln at Gettysburg. https://www.librarything.com/topic/315098#7238521
Read her commentary at the link, then scroll down through the thread. I have the book on my bedside shelf, and Benita fleshed out her comments for me.

Years ago, I had a copy of Nixon Agonistes, a Garry Wills book, but I never read it. (I was just showin' off when I bought it.) I believe I discarded it in a period of derangement. That sometimes afflicts otherwise good people. :-)

I think I am otherwise good, too, but have gotten rid of way too many books in periods of derangement. I think I had Nixon Agonistes and also didn't read it. Thanks for the link to Benita's comments on Lincoln at Gettysburg.

>166 weird_O:, >167 richardderus: Yup, I did! Will be looking for your thoughts on it.

Done! With Hazards of Time Travel. Yes, I am. An experiment in behaviorist psychology by ruthless people.

What shall I read now? Maybe finish the next chapter in All the King's Men.

So. Spent yesterday being only occasionally focused. Spent an hour or so monitoring the Eagles football contest with The Football Team. Apparently the coach neglected to mention to the players that they'd be expected to play both halves. Oops.

Noodled with some comments of the JCO book. It got mixed reviews here and elsewhere, but I liked it. I'll explain soon.

Also, I'm continuing to neglect All the King's Men. Started An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by J. D. James, and moved James Ellroy's American Tabloid into the on-deck circle. The latter will be my Wild Card read for September's AAC.

# 64. Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates Finished 9/12/2020

The Weird Report^TM  

A dystopian society in the future, run by a paranoid and repressive government, is the trigger of this story. In the turmoil following the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, a facist government transformed the nation and its culture. Each citizen is monitored now and, as in the narrator's case, questioning the authorities or expressing attitudes remotely out of sync with the official line gets one into deep trouble. The narrator is 17-year-old Adriane Strohl, who travels through time just once, and her journey is booked by the state to correct her behavior. As class valedictorian, she prepared the speech she wanted to read during graduation ceremonies. She resisted any and all advice, and she prepared a list of questions she had as she headed off to college. At rehearsal, she's arrested, charged with "Treason-Speech and Questioning of Authority", and spirited away. The school principal and several teachers seem to Adriane to be pleased about her arrest. After endless interrogation, she's sentenced to four years of Exile.

The unspoken presumption is that she'll reflect on her conduct and change her behavior. Re-education. Shades of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China!

The exile is abrupt and absolute. She doesn't say goodbye to her parents or pack a bag with clothes and personal items. She's assigned a new name, Mary Ellen Enright, and handed The Instructions. Off she is "teletransported" to northeastern Wisconsin, an area known to exiles as Zone 9. Mary Ellen will matriculate at Wainscotia State University under a full scholarship. She's instructed not to roam beyond a 10 mile radius of her housing, not to reveal her real name, not to seek out other exiles, not to reveal where she came from. Violation of these and other rules could warrant her summary vaporization.

One of Mary Ellen's courses is Psych 101, conducted by a renowned and respected "behaviorist", who gives the lectures, while several section instructors lead discussions, answer student questions, and administer and grade tests. Ira Wolfman is Mary Ellen's section instructor, and she is smitten with him. She suspects he also is an exile. She blurts a remark about "Zone 9", alarming him. His reaction convinces her that he is an exile. In time he confirms his status but implores her to avoid unnecessary contact.

I think behaviorism is key here; emphasis on it give by the psych course. According to Wikipedia, behaviorism theorizes that all behaviors are learned through interaction with the environment through a process called conditioning. Behavior, thus, is simply a response to environmental stimuli. If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger. It's the essence of Psych 101, and the section instructors accept it unquestioningly. The Wainscotia student who explores other theories is the Wainscotia student who will flunk. It is almost as if the NAS authorities exile non-conformers to Zone 9 specifically to adjust their behaviors. Embrace the behaviorist psychology of the 1950s, without the distractions of computers and cell phones and the internet.

In Oates story, it works. For NAS, not for Ariane Strohl a.k.a. Mary Ann Enright. She and Wolfman connect, but as their relationship develops, their behaviors diverge. As he becomes increasingly reckless, she becomes more restrained. In the penultimate moment, they're separated forever. And the story couldn't end better (for NAS.) It is dystopian.

Finished the P. D. James novel, the first in her Cordelia Gray series. Adam Dalgliesh plays a pivotal role. Good story.

Plunging next into American Tabloid.

>174 weird_O: - Nice review, Bill. I have this one on my shelf. I've liked most of Oates' work that I've read (which, given her output, has barely scratched the surface!).

>174 weird_O: It definitely sounds like one I need to read. Glad to know it's got real meat on its narrative bones.

Nice review! I’m glad you liked it as much as I did.

Hi, Bill.

I enjoyed being reunited with Doonesbury in >164 weird_O:. Those Nixon criticisms of the media reporting reminded me of another prez . . .

I'm glad you enjoyed An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. That was the first of hers I read, and was the start of reading many more.

I'm just not a Joyce Carol Oates reader. I read one, and that was enough. But the breadth and depth of her output is astonishing.

>179 jnwelch: - I'd love to know which you read that put you off, Joe! She writes such varied stories and in varied genres, that I go hot and cold on her depending. But when I like something of hers, I really like it!

Hi Bill!

Got a bag of these on order. Yes, several packs of needles too. Just in case. (Sure hope my order arrives before June!)

>181 weird_O: HA!!!

>181 weird_O: I've got pins and I'm not afraid to use them! But DT gives Cheetos a bad name!

>181 weird_O: Snort!

I loved the Cordelia Gray books, I wish she had written more of those.

>179 jnwelch:, >180 katiekrug: I read two previous JCO novels, Blonde and Black Water, and I have several others in The Stacks. Including We Were the Mulvaneys, which my wife read on an enthusiastic recommendation of a friend and hate, hate, HATED it. I much liked the three JCO's I've read.

I'm trying to establish a beachhead in some damn book, just about any book, but my ADD is amped up. To #11 on the dial.

Hi Bill. Fall approaches, and I hope this equates to more time to read. I've been changing the color of the walls, the carpet, and the outside deck. Mainly, I hire people to help, but I also enjoy the changes are I assist as well.

Life flows onward. I'm in the place I've always been, but for some time, the bread's been landing butter-side down. Just lots of little things that turn the mood sour.

Okay, here's a good thing. I called the Ford dealer for an appointment for state inspection of a Ranger pickup I bought new, 10 years ago. Got in just three or four days later, and got out in maybe an hour at a cost of roughly $35. No emissions test needed because the truck has less than 19,000 miles on it. I smiled all the way home.

On that note, I'll read on.

All bits of good news are welcome in these butter-side-down days. Congrats on the inspection. I'm getting my car serviced Tuesday because the idiot light said "Oil change needed". The car says jump, I say how high.

I hope you've got some good reading going.

Another good thing. This one yesterday. I made mac 'n' cheese. From scratch. 'Twas epic. Still some left for today.

Reading: Focus for now on a trio of P. D. James novels, because I have a book called A Suitable Job for a Woman, which is an omnibus volume issued by the Mystery Guild comprising Cover Her Face, A Mind to Murder, and An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. I picked the volume because I wanted to read that third novel (I did have a reason for wanting to read it, but now I forget what it was. Typical.)

Anyway, what the hell, I've got the book in hand, I'll just read the other two. So that's what I'm doing.

>189 weird_O: I love homemade mac and cheese!! Sounds splendid.

>190 figsfromthistle: Had some yesterday, again today, and little bit for two tastes tomorrow. Comfort food is what we need.

Wow! Huge New York Times story on federal income taxes paid and NOT paid by the Orange Cheeter.

Just recently, I read An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P. D. James. Since it was in an omnibus volume of three novels issued by The Mystery Guild, I figured I should press on and read the other two novels in the book, those being Cover Her Face and A Mind to Murder. The former isn't all that long, but I keep dozing off. Ye Gods! It isn't that bad. Ah, but it is 2020.

>181 weird_O: LIKE!

Happy Sunday, Bill. I have returned from my whirlwind Carolina trip. It was a busy one but enjoyable. I hope all is well with you. If you ever get in the mood for dark, gritty stories, give Tiny Love: Stories a go. I am nearly done with it and it will be a 5 star read. Have you read Brown?

Hey, Mark. I read a few brief reports on your adventures. I had the idea you were headed into the tail end of Beta, and I was wondering why you would be traveling into it. Glad I had it all wrong.

Speaking of the Orange Cheeto, did you see that The New York Times got hold of The Trump Organization's federal tax returns up to 2017. Lots and lots of manipulations. Very very little actually paid to our government. But very complicated. I hope we'll see a few simple but incontrovertible nuggets extracted from the trove and hammered into every GOP skull.

>193 weird_O:
Our local Tv station said that he paid $750.00 in income taxes in 2016 and 2017. This was on the 10:00 p.m. news! WTF? Orange Cheeter is an exact description. I can't decide what to call that despicable Mitch McConnell. Somehow Moscow Mitch isn't bad enough - or sarcastic enough.

Missing you. Or did I miss a new thread?

Where you at, Bill?

Bill, I'm hoping the butter-side-down bit has ended and you're busily licking the beaters of their silky smooth whipped cream.

Do let us know, okay?

>195 benitastrnad: >196 laytonwoman3rd: 'Allo, ladies. >197 richardderus: Oh, and you also, Richard. Thanks for inquiring about my whereabouts. At the end of September, I did just one more stupid thing that triggered a cascade of, to me, bad and bad happenings. Two weeks later, some of the bads are rectified, and now I'm back.

>198 weird_O: oh dear....sounds ominous. I hope you are well, and that those around you are as well!

>198 weird_O: Yikes, Bill. I hope you and your loved ones are well.

I also hope there's some good reading going on.

Rats. Sorry about the rough patch, Bill. May there be better and better days ahead.

Wishing you better days ahead than behind, Bill.

What did you get read during that time? Please give us a report.

 End of September.

Sorry to hear things have been grim, Bill. Wishing you a better month.

Look. Here's the deal. On Sunday, September 27, whilst I prepped for the weekly Zoom chat with the offspring, my evil twin Buford squirted Windex directly on my MacBook screen. The display went straight to Hell. Next day, with the Mac entrusted to techs to evaluate, I deployed my mercurial backup, Toshi. Later that same day, Toshi smacked me with that infamous Blue Screen of Death with the lone word "Locking..." Cut to black. Had to be some evil malware. I jabbed the power-on button again and again, but Toshi was mute.

Now I was really off line.

Wow, you've really had a run of bad experiences with computers lately. I hope things get back to normal soon!

I also hope that they get back to normal because I miss you here on LT.

Lemme wrap this up. The Mac needs only a couple of parts, $900 worth of parts, which no one has in stock. Hmmmm. In a chemically induced coma, so to speak.

"Locking..." is not a bug or a virus. In Windows 10, it's a FEATURE. Having learned that, and also that Toshi doesn't like having its on-off button jabbed, I got me back into computerworld.

But whilst I stewed about computers, I brewed up a terrific cold and just had to share it with my wife. (She doesn't like it any better than I do.) Despite a laugh-riot of missteps, we did get us to a medical facility and did get medications. Yes, and COVID tests. Be the end of the week 'til we get results.

It just wears ya out. Fogs yer perspective.

READING: I got through five books during the siege.

Furious Hours/Casey Cep
Cover Her Face/P. D. James
A Mind to Murder/P. D. James
Lamb/Christopher Moore
Possible Side Effects/Augusten Burroughs

I've invested reading time in several other books without really getting traction. Considering several others. Hmmm.

Computer woes on top of health woes are just awful. I'm so sorry you've been going through it. And sharing your germs with your wife isn't nice.

If you liked Furious Hours as much as I did, then at least you got some damned fine reading in. I have Lamb on my shelves but haven't heard it call out to me yet. PD James is always good.

My sister just got back a negative Covid test, and I hope the you'll have the same.

I have had my own share of computer issues. I purchased a new iPad back in June. Tried to get it up and running and hooked into the library system. That was a big whopping failure. The thing is locked up now so I have to take it to the Apple Doctor. However, the Apple Store is closed due to Covid and no reopening date in sight. That means I have to take it to the second tier of Apple repairers. I can't get an appointment with them until next week and I made the appointment around September 1. This is sort of like trying to get an appointment with a real people doctor. You have to make it six months ahead of time. Last week I got a letter in the mail that my eye doctor was retiring, so I called to see what they had done about my annual appointment. Of course, they had done nothing, so I had to make a new appointment. Seems like everything I do lately has to be at somebody else convenience and that doesn't match up with mine.

The news is good. Both my wife and I flunked the virus test. Neither of us has it.

 

Great!

Sorry about the computer woes, but glad you both flunked the test! And I approve of your recent reads--all of them! : )

>212 weird_O: Well done on the fail! (Now there's a sentence.)

Happy Friday, Bill. Glad to hear you are virus free and I hope your collective colds have moved on. I loved Furious Hours. I imagine you would feel the same. I am having a great time with Utopia Avenue.

*Whew* Negative test results are the best.

Still looking for that groove.

Less than 100 pages to go in The Secret History of Wonder Woman. (Coincidentally, I noted a few minutes ago that Jill Lepore has an op-ed in the WaPo titled "Let history, not partisans, prosecute Trump". Running with an opposing viewpoint: "The country can’t recover from Trump’s presidency unless he’s held accountable". Haven't read either piece, but I will).
So many book cover photos are not displaying. Busy work to fix 'em. Have to update my inventory of books read, too.

Thanks to all of you who posted during my absence. Grateful grins for one and all.

Wishing you all the best for your Sunday, Bill.

Finished The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore. Excellent book, and timely too in so many ways. Humans are soooo influenced by foolish labels, sooo afraid of ideas.

Going from a "secret history" to an expose of "hidden life": The Hidden Life of Trees.

>220 weird_O:
I have both of those books on my TBR list. I have 2 copies of Hidden Life of Trees. Not sure how that happened, but it did. I heard the author of Hidden life of trees talk on an NPR show on one of my trips back to Kansas and was intrigued. I didn't think I was so intrigued that I purchased two copies of it, but ...

>221 benitastrnad: I have a lot of duplicates. I get in a place—a library book sale (Gawd, how I miss those events!), or a Goodwill store, whatever—and can't remember if the book I'm looking at is a book I already own or one that I've wanted. In those venues, I'll venture a buck. If I already have it, well, I've blown a buck. Can't say I've managed to buy two copies of a "new" book.

I think I've brought my lists of books read up to date. I neglected to write down the dates I finished four books; I'm getting over it.

My next step in recovering from my self-induced digital meltdown I made yesterday (Monday); I ordered a new MacBook Air to succeed the Mac Pro I torched. Today, it was delivered, and tomorrow I will see about getting my files poured from the late Pro into the new laptop.

Congrats on failing the Covid-19 test, both you and your wife.

>223 weird_O: Good luck with the new computer and getting stuff transferred.

Hi, Bill. I loved Lepore's Wonder Woman book. I'll have to look for that article. How is the computer transfer going? Good luck!

Hello, Kim. Lepore's Wonder Woman book is marvelously entertaining. I read her article derived from the book in The New Yorker several years ago. Dr. Marston was kinda-sorta a Mormonesque polygamist. Small scale. Hmmm.

Fun Fact I saw the other day. Brigham Young, religious leader with many, many wives, dodged having to pay alimony to a wife who divorced him, by arguing in court that since polygamy was against the law, he was never legally married to her. (stream of misconsciousness; sorry.)

Computers are still a headache, but I do have one working most of the time. I bought a new MacBook Air for $100 more than the cost of the parts needed to repair the Mac I killed. The techs have had it two days, endeavoring to transfer files from the old to the new. So the aggravation drags on, aggravatingly so.

I noticed on another thread that you will be voting on Election Day. I love voting on Election Day and wish that I had not spent 30 years voting with an absentee ballet. However, we have to do what the job requires, so I had to leave my polling place. I vote by mail now, and so have to worry that the venerable USPS will get my ballot to Republic County Kansas by November 3. I am really angry at the blatant attempt by this Orange Idiot to undermine the USPS. I got so angry about it after standing in line at the Post Office one day, that I e-mailed the two senators from Alabama and told them to fix this problem. I got a long and rambling reply from some functionary in Richard Shelby's office about the USPS not being a government agency and there was nothing that he could do to fix the problem. I replied and said that I wasn't listening to that nonsense. He was in the senate when they ripped the USPS out of the government monopoly category and made it compete with private companies. He had voted for that change. He had messed up an agency that had worked well for 150 years, so I was holding him responsible. Since he voted for the change, he could darn well vote to fix it. If he didn't I wasn't going to vote for him. OF course, I am not going to vote for an 88 year old senator anyway.

I got a better reply from Senator Doug Jones' office. They told me they were aware that there was a problem, and that Senator Jones' was trying to raise awareness among his colleagues in the senate that rural states needed the USPS and so government funded reforms were necessary.

I also sent an e-mail to my congresswoman, and got a very nice reply from her about how she was aware of the problems and was deeply troubled by it since she represents the western half of the black belt in Alabama. She went on to say that she was trying to get somebody to start hearings in the appropriate places in the House to get reforms done. Her's was the nicest letter. She is a 40 year old Black Woman. A democrat who represents a largely democrat part of the state of Alabama.

Bill, I am so very sorry about the passing of Birdie. It is such a hard, hard emotional thing to go through.

>227 benitastrnad: Now let me get this straight, Benita. You vote via absentee ballot in Kansas. But "your senators" and "your congressperson" are Alabamians. Wouldn't the senators and congresscritters on your absentee ballot—living in and representing Kansas—be your actual elected representatives? Huh.

My mileage on that would differ. But it doesn't matter, does it?

>228 Whisper1: Thank you, Linda. Bridie was our puppy for 14 years, and we do miss her.

=============

So I'm pretty much over the computer blues. Picked up my two Macs from the repair shop after having the files "migrated" from the Mac I killed to the new one. The shopkeepers had the new one two "business" days (really four calendar days). But I'm whining.

Now I can retire Toshi to the stacks in the basement and can work untethered from an electrical outlet. Yea!

Ave atque vale, Toshi.

>229 weird_O:
Yes. Confusing isn't it? I said that I was going to vote in Kansas until we voted that sob Bob Dole out of office. That never happened. (He resigned.) so that means that I have to keep voting in Kansas. As for Alabama. There is no hope for this state - and I mean that kindly - and I won't retire here. In most cases my vote in Alabama is wasted, but when I vote in Kansas I can vote for senators, state officers, and school board members, that I do care about. I intend to retire to Kansas when I enter that exalted state of being. I will not retire in Alabama. If I had married and had children I would not have stayed in Alabama. There is something rotten at the core in this place. On my first trip home after taking the job here, I told my parents that at the bottom of every problem in Alabama was the race issue. It is here and it is buried in everything. everything here is built on that one issue. Not good. I often wonder why there is a single black person still living in this state. Besides - I don't like the weather here.

There has been confusion about just exactly where I live. I vote in Kansas. My bank account was in Kansas until 10 years ago. I had a Kansas driver's license until 2008. And - drum roll - my home address on my passport - KANSAS! and the passport trumps all!

>232 benitastrnad: I feel sad that you can't feel hope for the place you live. It must take terrific strength to go about your business outside your work. I felt something the same about race during the few stops we made in Missouri. Though I found a couple of things to love in St. Louis, I cannot imagine spending much time there.

Hi Bill. Glad to see your computer woes are in the rear-view.

I wanted to tell you about a documentary film I just saw, called Very Semi-Serious. Scroll down for the blurb, and twice to the right for a trailer clip.

It's a behind-the-scenes look at the cartoons and cartoonists of The New Yorker. I know you recently read some compilations, as I have as well, and this was a thoroughly delightful doc. I don't know if it's on netflix, or if it is, if you get netflix. I watched it through the streaming at my local doc cinema, of which I am a member. This was one of my freebies and it was great f un. I figured you'd enjoy it if you can find it. You can thank me later...;-)

Hiya, Bill.

Sorry to hear about the computer and health woes, and I'm glad you're on the other side of it. I also join Linda in giving you condolences for the passing of your furry pal Birdie after 14 years.

"Very Semi-Serious" sounds like a fun one. I'll try to find it.

I passed on your thoughts about The Secret History of Wonder Woman to my wife, who has that one on the tbr, and I'll be interested to hear what you think of The Hidden Life of Trees, as I have that one on my tbr shelf.

>180 katiekrug: Katie, my first and last Joyce Carol Oates book was Them, a National Book Award Winner. I've never been back to Taco Bell after one of their bean burritos made me sick, and this was similar. :-)

>235 jnwelch:
I never was much of a fan of Joyce Carol Oates. I think I have read 3 of her books, but I am very careful about which ones of hers I read. Somehow the subject matter just doesn't appeal to me.

William. I bear greetings.

Greetings.

Goodbye now.

>231 weird_O: Amen, to that!

Happy Friday, Bill. I am having a good time with The Lives of Edie Pritchard. Are you a fan of Watson? If so, I can pass this one along to you.

Hiya Bill.

>231 weird_O: Evil man, evil man.

>232 benitastrnad: Kansas is in you, Benita, but you aren't (physically) in Kansas any more. I think I understand how you feel about 'Bama. An awful lot of Pennsylvania is, as James Carville famously quipped, Alabama. And I was born in and still live in 'Bama-like territory.

>233 quondame: The Show-Me state. Blech!

>234 jessibud2: Thanks for the heads-up Shelley. I would definitely like to watch that, but I'll have to figure out how. Don't have HBO.

>235 jnwelch: Still we miss her, Joe. Sniff sniff.

The Wonder Woman book isn't perfect, of course, but it tells of a hell of a quirky family unit. The character Marston invented and championed was popular and profitable during the years of WW2. He (Marston) was more intriguing than Wonder Woman herself. The Hidden Life of Trees is slow-going, I'm sorry to saw. Very intriguing stuff, but kinda dry. I'll get 'er read.

I'll add, BTW, that The Difference Engine was curiously unsatisfying to me.

Your assessment of JCO's Them made my wife laugh. She hated We Were the Mulvaneys.

>236 benitastrnad: Judicious selection is paramount to enjoyment of JCO, Benita.

>239 karenmarie: I sure wish he'd be turned out by Kentuckians, but I doubt it's happen.

>238 msf59: I've read only Montana 1948, Mark. It was good. I think I just read that you were somewhat disappointed by Watson's latest. But if you're trying to unload it, I'd be a willing recipient.

>237 richardderus: The last time I got "Greetings", RD, was on the Saturday before my college graduation (scheduled for Monday) in 1966. It was singular, "Greeting", and invited me to the local Salavation (sic) Army at 7 am on July 5 for a bus trip to Wilkes-Barre and an induction ceremony such as only the U.S. Army could mount. How could I decline?

>241 weird_O: With rapidly moving feet aimed Canada-ward!

Happy Sunday!

Sorry to hear of Birdies passing.

Halloween trick or treating was a bust. I spent a lot of money for a great costume, but once I got it on... I, I just lost my gumption. Seemed like a lot of effort would be needed just to get outside. Never mind dragging along a pillow case filled with candy.

>244 weird_O: Slothful old man! Shame, shame be heaped upon you.

>244 weird_O: - LOL - love it!

>244 weird_O: Love it. I think a sloth would hang out in a hammock and whine for candy from passers by.

>247 quondame: I think a sloth would hang out in a hammock and whine for candy from passers by.

You've described me to a T, Susan. But when you're alone on an isolated hillside, no one can hear your mewlings.

>246 katiekrug:

>245 richardderus: Oh poo, RD. Saturday was my day off. I could be a little bit indolent if I wanted.

The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. "The horror! The horror!"