richardderus's eleventh 2022 thread

An ancient hawthorn in Belgium
The mayblossom tree, or "common hawthorn," blooms about now over most of Europe. It is a tree with a long pagan history; it has gorgeous flowers:

...that are profuse, lovely in scent, and produce tasty fruits called "haws":

...that don't, to my spoiled American palate, taste like anything special. They *look* amazing! The link above takes you to Wikipedia and that, laddies and gentlewomen, is a rabbit-hole of starting points to find out some very abstruse history. The Mays of Ventadorn is a lovely non-fictional account of the village of Ventadorn or Ventadour, with a long and very, very instructive history of violence. But what a gorgeous place!

For 2022, I state my goal of posting an average of 4 or 5 book reviews a week on my blog, for an annual total of 250. This year's total of ~200 (I need to do more to sync the data on my reads between my blog, Goodreads, and here this year for real) posts in 50 weeks of blogging shows it's doable. My *actual* blogged total for 2021 was 229.

I've long Pearl Ruled books I'm not enjoying, but making notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read has been less successful. I gave up. I just didn't care about this goal, but I need to learn to because I *re*Pearl-Ruled five books after not remembering picking them up in the first place. What I've decided to do is have post >7 richardderus: be the Pearl-Rule Tracking post!

And now that I've gotten >3 richardderus: Burgoineing as a habit, I'm going to make a monthly blog-only post with my that-month's Burgoined books. It will appear the last Sunday of each month.



My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

Reviews one through eight? Seek them thitherward.

Looking for nine through sixteen? Click that link!

Reviews seventeen up to twenty-six? You know what to do.

I know you think reviews twenty-seven to thirty-three are here...well, you're right, they are.

Seekest ye the reviews entitled thirty-four to thirty-eight? They anent just so.

I understand you're curious about thirty-nine to forty-seven. Go back there.

Longing to view reviews forty-eight to fifty-four? Advance towards the rear.

The reviews numberèd fifty-five through sixty-four are por detrás.

Sixty-five, -six, and -seven, eh? Seekest thou in arrears.

Sixty-eight up to seventy-four aren't hard to find by using that link.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

075 Just Like Mother irked, post 14.

076 Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States unnerved, post 60.

077 The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking TRUE Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow F.D.R. chilled, post 70.

078 The Sunset Gang amused, post 78.

079 The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google grated, post 86.

080 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them outraged and infuriated, post 89.

081 Two Nights in Lisbon thrilled, post 138.

082 No Gods, No Monsters slapped, post 147.

083 The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us informed, post 162.

084 Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions educated, post 164.

085 Free: Two Years, Six Lives, and the Long Journey Home educated, post 195.

086 Alone on the Moon: A Soviet Lunar Odyssey enraptured, post 241.

087 Boys Come First pleased, post 243.

088 Even Greater Mistakes: Stories delighted, post 257.

089 The Redshirt amazed, post 263.

090 Gay Giant surprised, post 281.

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea of the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!




MAY 2022's BURGOINES

The Barbary Figs in post 200.

#34 Firefly is in post 59.

#31 through 33 stay linked right here.

***

APRIL 2022's BURGOINES

#25 through 30 are backlinked here.

#20 through 24 are backlinked in this post.

The first two for April are linked here.

MARCH 2022's BURGOINES

The last one for March is linked here.

The first 4 in March are back-linked here.

***

FEBRUARY 2022's BURGOINES (through #12) are here.

***
JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES are here.

This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. I just didn't care about this goal as a separate goal, but I need to learn to because I *re*Pearl-Ruled five books this December just passed after not remembering picking them up in the first place. I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to really track my Pearl Rules!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each thread's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.



MAY 2022's PEARL-RULES

#32 Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation, rev. ed.
is in post 171.

#31 is linked here.

***

APRIL 2022's PEARL-RULES are backlinked here: post 75.

The first one in April is linked here.

***

MARCH 2022's ONLY PEARL-RULE

It's linked in right here.

***

FEBRUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

***
JANUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

I've decided to use BookRiot's 2022 Read Harder Challenge as a spice-me-up of meeting my reading goals. Since I'll post 225+ reviews (posts aren't the same as reviews posted, as some posts cover as many as four books!) on my blog this year *easily* I think I need to get a little more pushy. 225 reviews posted seems like a cheat as a goal since I'm on track for that now. I'm thinking 250...approximately 10% increase over 2021's actual total.

This is the list:

1. Read a biography of an author you admire.


2. Read a book set in a bookstore.


3. Read any book from the Women’s Prize shortlist/longlist/winner list.


4. Read a book in any genre by a POC that’s about joy and not trauma.
   30 Things I Love About Myself FTW!


5. Read an anthology featuring diverse voices.


6. Read a nonfiction YA comic.
   The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is illustrated and that'll have to do.


7. Read a romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40.


8. Read a classic written by a POC.


9. Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.
   Central Station was awarded to me on NetGalley in 2016!


10. Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+).


11. Read a book with an asexual and/or aromantic main character.


12. Read an entire poetry collection.


13. Read an adventure story by a BIPOC author.
    We Could Be Heroes did the business


14. Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book).
    Against the Ice: The Classic Arctic Survival Story out on Netflix now...saved the book for me, no smallest doubt.


15. Read a new-to-you literary magazine (print or digital).


16. Read a book recommended by a friend with different reading tastes.


17. Read a memoir written by someone who is trans or nonbinary.
    High-Risk Homosexual! What a read.


18. Read a “Best _ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice.


19. Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author.


20. Read an award-winning book from the year you were born.


21. Read a queer retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, folklore, or myth.
    Briarley FTW! I can start 2022 with one task accomplished.


22. Read a history about a period you know little about.
    The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking TRUE Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow F.D.R. chilled me with its January 6th parallels only 90 years earlier.


23. Read a book by a disabled author.


24. Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!
    I choose 2018: Read a mystery by a person of color who is also LGBTQ+
    

I liked all of them except the comic and I'm still looking for GNs that don't make me want to scream and barf, so it's a good challenge.

I'm wondering if, in lieu of setting a numerical goal for Burgoines (see >6 richardderus:), I could just agree with myself to use the technique on 3-stars-and-under reads about which I don't much care and count them as reviews here. I've decided that I'll post 'em & collate them in each thread's post #6. Then I'll just blog 'em in gangs, once a month on the last Sunday in the month...I dunno, but I read a lot of books I don't talk about because someone loved it & I loathed it or just didn't care much about it, or I simply have no useful response...it filled time, it failed to offend or delight me. Is that information useful to anyone? Would you care if I did that and gored your reading ox?

I suppose we shall find out.

I stole this from PC's thread in 2020. I like these prompts, so I've decided to re-do them every December!
***
1. Name any book you read at any time most recently that was published in the year you turned 18:
The Street Where I Live by Alan Jay Lerner (2010)
2. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long:
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird
3. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
St. Mary's and the Great Toilet Roll Crisis by Jodi Taylor
4. What is the last book you didn’t finish (and why didn’t you finish it?)
Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple & Anita Anand because I lost interest
5. What is the last book that scared the bejeebers out of you?
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard...how easy it is to fail, to do the wrong thing
6. Name the book that read either this year or last year that takes place geographically closest to where you live? How close would you estimate it was?
Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow by Christina Henry...Sleepy Hollow's about 100mi from here
7.What were the topics of the last two nonfiction books you read?
Queer people's history and the Quaker resistance to slavery
8. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book?
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard which I managed to get several LTers and tweeple to pick up *buffs nails*
9. What was the last book you gave a rating of 5-stars to? And when did you read it?
Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray, a gay WWII-set retelling of Beauty and the Beast, that I finished this week (and reviewed!)
10. Name a book you read that led you to specifically to read another book (and what was the other book, and what was the connection)
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy was a #The1976Club read, and was so disappointing that I went on to read The Malacia Tapestry by Brian W. Aldiss to cleanse my reading palate
11. Name the author you have most recently become infatuated with.
Aster Glenn Gray
12. What is the setting of the first novel you read this year?
The Multiverse in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series
13. What is the last book you read, fiction or nonfiction, that featured a war in some way (and what war was it)?
How to Catch a Vet; the Afghanistan War
14. What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation? And who was the LTer, if you care to say.
There isn't enough space for all the book-bullets y'all careless, inconsiderate-of-my-poverty fiends pepper me with (bold added for emphasis)
15. What the last book you read that involved the future in some way?
The Toast of Time is part of The Chronicles of St Mary's by Jodi Taylor, so it involves the future, the past, and the Multiverse
16. Name the last book you read that featured a body of water, river, marsh, or significant rainfall?
Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
17. What is last book you read by an author from the Southern Hemisphere?
Ife-Iyoku, Tale of Imadeyunuagbon by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
18. What is the last book you read that you thought had a terrible cover?
Your Honor, it is my intention to assert my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to any and all questions pursuing this subject
19. Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die?
Brian Aldiss, 2017
20. What was the last children’s book (not YA) you read?
good goddesses, I don't remember...Goodnight Moon to my daughter?— STET
21. What was the name of the detective or crime-solver in the most recent crime novel you read?
Officially it's part of the Jack Lennon series, though he barely even appears in it, so The Ghosts of Belfast via Stuart Neville gets the nod.
22. What was the shortest book of any kind you’ve read so far this year?
The World Well Lost, ~28pp
23. Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?)
see #4. I just...quit caring.
24. What is the most recent book you added to your library here on LT?
see #9
25. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker, art by David Lester

I liked Sandy's Bonus Question for the meme above, so I adopted it:

26. What is the title and year of the oldest book you have reviewed on LT in 2021? (modification in itals)
The Sleeping Car Murders by Sébastien Japrisot, 1962.

2021's five-star or damn-near five-star reviews totaled 28, a marked decrease from last year's 46. Fewer authors saw their book launches rescheduled, but publishers still had to cancel many of their tours and events because COVID-19. The inflationary pressure that supply-chain issues are exerting causes a lot of economic drag on the market, though there is as of yet a lot less trouble than I expected getting tree-book copies of things.

My annual six-stars-of-five read is Cove (my book review), a perfect, spare, evocative story of the pain of existing when you genuinely can't process what is happening to you, around you, despite your best and most well-practiced efforts there is just no righting the boat. I cannot stress enough to you, this is the book you need to read in 2022. I can not forget this read. I refer to it in my head, I think about its stark, vividly limned images. I am so deeply glad Author Cynan wrote it. To quote myself from my review: "This is the book I wish The Old Man and the Sea had been, but was not."

In 2020, I posted over 215 reviews here. In 2022, my goals are:

to post 250 reviews on my blog

to post three-sentence Burgoines of books I don't either adore or despise

to complete at least 275 total reviews of all types

Most important to me again this year is to report on DRCs I don't care enough about to review at my usual level. I still don't want to keep just leaving them unacknowledged! There are publishers who want to see a solid, positive relationship between DRCs granted and reviews posted, and I do not blame them a bit. To 1 May 2022, I've posted 96 reviews of all types on my blog. That makes an annual total of 288 seem attainable.

Ask and ye shall receive! 'Nathan Burgoine's Twitter account hath taught me. See >6 richardderus: below. I just need to keep getting better about *applying* it!

Very well. I am finished, so you may begin at will.

I'm first! Gimme my crown.

Wordle 334 5/6

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I'm glad I set a list of probables when I "got it" but this took too long. AEONS, RAILS, PLAYS, CLAWS, GLASS.

>9 katiekrug: You can choose:

Geez, I have to do *all* the work...

*chuckle*

Hey, you want it, you work for it.

*smooch*

075 Just Like Mother by Anne Heltzel

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A girl would be such a blessing...

The last time Maeve saw her cousin was the night she escaped the cult they were raised in. For the past two decades, Maeve has worked hard to build a normal life in New York City, where she keeps everything—and everyone—at a safe distance.

When Andrea suddenly reappears, Maeve regains the only true friend she’s ever had. Soon she’s spending more time at Andrea’s remote Catskills estate than in her own cramped apartment. Maeve doesn’t even mind that her cousin’s wealthy work friends clearly disapprove of her single lifestyle. After all, Andrea has made her fortune in the fertility industry—baby fever comes with the territory.

The more Maeve immerses herself in Andrea’s world, the more disconnected she feels from her life back in the city; and the cousins’ increasing attachment triggers memories Maeve has fought hard to bury. But confronting the terrors of her childhood may be the only way for Maeve to transcend the nightmare still to come…

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

My Review: The opening scene...Maeve, locked in a closet (!), hearing hideous screams of agony and being quietly comforted by her cousin Andrea as they go on and on, had me riveted. And that is that! No more folk-horror goodness.

All the momentum drained out of the story for me as we went from following her child-self to the chase narrative laid on for adult Maeve. The reason? I don't like adult Maeve. She's either a bit simple or she's got The Most Trusting nature ever plopped in a human being. Either way I want to shout at her, shake her until the missing connections in her brain click together, until she sees the simplest manipulations are being used on her with appalling regularity and success.

In the story universe, Maeve is one of the girl children in The Mother Collective whose purpose is to control matrilineally all the money and power that men have always controlled. They're using that power and wealth as men always have, to oppress and abuse their opposite numbers. Maeve's rescued/kidnapped by the Patriarchy at the ripe old age of eight and, unsurprisingly, is a Survivor and PTSD sufferer for the rest of her life.

When we rejoin her first person narrative, she's a never-was in her thirties, making her meager crusts of bread as a fiction editor. She's naturally quite wary of relationships, having very few...until Andrea comes back into her life. Andrea, her cousin from childhood, is fabulously wealthy and living a dream life as the big boss of a fertility start-up.

If you've read horror novels, you pretty much know what's coming.

It occurs, over the course of some thirty chapters. I'd say if you don't already have a grasp on the end of the book it will come as a shock to you. It did not do so to me. I was along for the ride, though, because I started to want this idiot woman Maeve to suffer some more right here in front of me as Andrea manipulates and sets her up.

The actual ending of the book was pretty clearly telegraphed from the start. I kept hollering at Maeve, "just LOOK AT ANDREA for ten seconds and you will see it!" But she didn't, and I began to suspect her intelligence truly was subnormal.

When, at around the half-way mark, Maeve's friend-with-benefits pays one hell of a price for her vague, unconnected relationship to life, I was ready to say "sayonara." I decided to do something I don't usually do: I read the epilogue. There was another vile w-bomb aimed by Maeve, there was a moment of clarity for Maeve, and there was something so deeply schadenfreude-inducing that I had to get there step by step.

This is a horror novel for those, like me, who aren't in the Cult of Mother, and whose belief in the goodness of Woman is so frayed and chopped that it can no longer be discerned from a streak of extra-dark dirt etched on my skin. I think Author Heltzel has created a dark, dreadful mirror of the life men have forced, and continue to force, women to lead. There is nothing innate in the desire to Mother someone for many women. Uteruses are not always the only important organ in a woman's body, and her existence should never be presumed to revolve around that organ's use in any way.

If you can read this book and not see that the nightmare is very real, and that its fictionalization is merely cosmetic, then you're at Maeve's level. I don't think I know many folk like that. But if one reads this: Go back and look carefully at every decision Maeve makes. What that will tell you is all you need to know.

Checking in on the new thread, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today. Speaking of which, I should finish Pollak's Arm today, which has thus far proven to be excellent. Thank you again for that recommendation!

>11 richardderus:, >12 katiekrug: Pick the one in the middle, Katie--it's YOU.

>12 katiekrug: Have the tiara, it makes a chin make sense.

Happy new thread, Richard.

I like seeing a hedgerow laden with may blossom. My nose and eyes like it a lot less, my main hayfever trigger. If I can get through May OK, the rest of the season's OK. It may is a pain, it seems to carry on until autumn. A few itches so far this year, so fingers crossed it's not a bad one.

>12 katiekrug: Definitely the middle!

>10 richardderus: Got it in 4 today. And my block looks like the Eiffel Tower. : )

Happy new one! Is the AC complete?

Happy new thread Richard!

>10 richardderus: arise, smash, class, glass

>19 humouress: Hey Nina! Thank you.

>18 Berly: Thanks, Berly-boo, the a/c is in and tested. Today, though, it's unnecessary because it's rainy and a little chilly. Thank goodness! *smooch*

>17 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen! I'm sure mays are torture for an allergy sufferer, since monoecious plants tend to be so very bad for us. We don't have any here, so I just see them in photos and when I visited back in the day.

>16 laytonwoman3rd: I'll let y'all think about that one....

>15 alcottacre: YaY! You like it! I'm so pleased. I found Pollak himself, with his startlingly glittering history, so poignant to follow in this passage of life-in-death.

*smooch*

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>1 richardderus: Yes they are in full bloom here. The Dutch name is "meidoorn", would be maythorn in English.

Glad to see you liked my thoughts about Fado Alexandrino, hope you get to it soon.

Oh, right. I never actually made my selection. Definitely the middle one, thanks.

But Helen (>17 Helenliz:) - what do you mean about a chin?

>22 katiekrug: ...I wondered that, too...

>21 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita! I've narrowed Fado Alexandrino's location down to one of three spots. But it occurs to me that I might be better off borrowing an ebook from the library given how big the darn thing is.

I have read Mays of Ventadorn and heartily recommend it. It made me want to get on an airplane and see the land of Eleanor! Of course, the wish is greater than the pocketbook, but the book took me there instead.

Happy new one, RD. You are safely beyond 3,000 posts on your threads this year, dear fellow.

Happy new one, RDear. *smooches*

Glad to see on your last thread that Sorcery of Thorns wasn't a terrible read for you.

>23 richardderus: That is what I did, borrowed it as e-book from the library. Still thinking if I want the tree book for our own collection, as that is the only way Frank can also read it. There is absolutely no shortage of books on the shelves for him to read, so I probably wait a while before deciding.

>26 MickyFine: Thanks, Micky! *smooch*

Not a terrible read at all! I just...needed more, needed something as thoroughly excitingly compelling as the three-part disharmony of the Invisible Library series. In a lot of ways, I think Rogerson's books would be better for a YA audience than Cogman's.

>25 PaulCranswick: Not too shabby, three thousand-plus. I'm glad to hear it! Thanks, PC.

>24 benitastrnad: Indeed, Benita. It's so much cheaper to read Merwin's words than go lookin' around, and better for the planet, too.

>28 richardderus:
But I am glad that Merwin made the trip! And took the time to build/renovate a house there and write about it.

Happy new one, Richard. I too thought today's Wordle took me longer than it should have.

>30 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg! It was another guessing game. *grumble*

>29 benitastrnad: Ha, yes indeed Benita...I'm deeply glad he made those choices and the one to tell us all about it.

I wish NatGeo had kept that series going. I enjoyed them so much.

>27 FAMeulstee: I appear not to have the ebook option in Nassau County. I'll just take a long time to read it, then, since the tree book's here somewhere.

Happy new thread, Richard! Looking forward to seeing what you think of your weekend read *smooch*

>32 bell7: Hi Mary! Thank you...I really hope I keep enjoying it.

HAppy new thread!

>34 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

>22 katiekrug: It's about symmetry. If you wear a tiara, it makes your face more symmetrical about a horizontal plane, by echoing the profile of your chin. And us humans love a bit of symmetry. Not that I own a tiara to be able to put this into practice.

Happy New Thread, Richard. Love may blossom tree! We are enjoying a beautiful day in the Chicagoland.

Happy new one, Richard. Those flowers up in your topper are indeed pretty but I can't imagine anything smelling better than my back yard right now: my lilacs have exploded!

>38 jessibud2: Goodness, I can't think of a nicer smell than that! Enjoy the season, Shelley, and thanks for the well-wishes.

>37 msf59: Oh excellent, Mark, I'm glad the heatwave y'all shipped to us didn't result in the Apocalypse.

>36 Helenliz: ...never occurred to me...

>31 richardderus:
I liked that series too. I read all of them that were published. There were three that I could not find. One by Joyce Carol Oates and one by Alan Gurganus. I can't remember who the other one was. I had to use ILL for lots of them as our library didn't have the entire set.

>40 benitastrnad: Oh, Gurganus was funny about Charleston! I don't know about Oates's contribution at all. I don't think there was any library that had them all, they were never very well-known when they came out.

It took me 5 on today's Wordle also. Those double letters!

>42 thornton37814: Re spoiler, pernicious things indeed. *grumble*

Happy new one! Boy, am I late to the party... 😀

>44 drneutron: Thanks, Jim! I dunno about "late" since I just put it up yesterday...but now you're here, the party's in high gear.

Wordle 335 4/6

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Four yellow squares! That's rare for me to see.
AEONS, MIRTH, CREAM, GAMER

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Friday to you. Happy new thread, too!

From your last thread, I do hope you like The Guncle. I don’t recall if you liked Less or not?

>11 richardderus: If I got to choose, it would be the one with the most jewels, hence the one in the center. I’d pay off my mortgage with them…

>46 richardderus: I got it in three, but do admit to looking at the 2,309 word list to make sure my guesses were valid.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>47 karenmarie: Hey there Horrible! You *can* choose...any time you're here first. (I disliked Less.)

It's no bad thing to look at the list...it's not like you're able to look at the answers there, just the *possible* answers.

Anyway. Happy weekend! *smooch*

Happy Friday, RD!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>49 alcottacre: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

>46 richardderus: Wordle 335 5/6

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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 arise, later, vying, wager, gamer

>46 richardderus: Wordle 335 5/6

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crazy game

>52 mckait:, >51 humouress: Y'all're doin' it right! I'm pleased that there wasn't an X among yinz.

Today's Wordle was one of those chance guessing games for me. Maddening to have three greens and so many choices for the other two. I was all prepared to be defeated. I did better with Quordle and Phoodle, which made me feel better. Yes, it's true, I am doing ALL THE GAMES.



Happy new(ish) thread!

>54 Storeetllr: Well, whyever not, Mary? Your time's your own!

Speaking of which...did you get the a/c installed? The heat's barrelling down on us.

*smooch*

>55 richardderus: Not yet. I got my second booster on Wednesday afternoon, and I've been experiencing the aftereffects ever since. The first night was just mild chills and body aches, but since then I've been beyond fatigued. I wake up fatigued. I could sleep all day and night, except I have things I MUST do, so I get up. I'll have my son-in-law get it out and set up tonight or tomorrow morning. It's a portable unit, so it takes a bit of heavy lifting and maneuvering to get it set up. But thanks for the reminder. It's almost impossible to believe we'll be having a 2-day heat wave between 60F rainy days.

Hello Richard, Happy New Thread dear friend.

>57 johnsimpson: Hello John! Welcome, and thank you.

>56 Storeetllr: Looks like we're not getting the heat wave after all! Here there's a big thunderstorm that's used up all the energy that was going to give us the hot stuff. I couldn't be happier, I admit, since I detest heat.

Burgoine #34

Firefly (Paul Samson series #1) by Henry Porter

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From the refugee camps of Greece to the mountains of Macedonia, a thirteen year old boy is making his way to Germany and safety. Codenamed 'Firefly', he holds vital intelligence: unparalleled insight into a vicious ISIS terror cell, and details of their plans. But the terrorists are hot on his trail, determined he won't live to pass on the information.

When MI6 become aware of Firefly and what he knows, the race is on to find him. Paul Samson, ex-MI6 agent and now private eye, finds himself recruited to the cause. Fluent in Arabic thanks to his Lebanese heritage, Samson's job is to find Firefly, win his trust and get him to safety.

A devastatingly timely thriller following the refugee trail from Syria to Europe, Firefly is a sophisticated, breathtaking race against time from the acclaimed and award-winning author of Brandenburg and The Dying Light.

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

My Review: Paul Samson, Arabophone Brit of Lebanese background, has a gambling problem that got him bounced from the intelligence job he loved. He's an adrenaline junky, so he wasn't unemployed for long; he's fluent in the language and conversant with the culture of one of the world's hotspots, so guess where his now-unofficial work takes him!

Naji is the teenaged son of a Syrian academic who, gentle soul that he was, believed he could help some dissident students of his be found in Assad's brutal regime. He later died from the aftereffects of being tortured. Naji, after this awakening, is quick to see through ISIL's façade of acceptance and gets his family to Turkey preparatory to making it to Germany.

With, because he's very intelligent but not very smart yet, damaging information he got because "he's just a kid" and the violent men paid no attention to him.

His head went under. Seawater filled his nose and mouth; his eyes opened and he saw the black depths of the ocean below him. A moment later something knocked his legs—maybe part of the wreckage, he couldn’t tell. All he knew was that he was going to die. Then it came again. This time there was a distinct shove on his buttocks and whatever it was that moved with such intent beneath him lifted him up so his head and shoulders came out of the water and he was able to grab a plastic toggle on the section of the rubber craft that was still inflated.

Not good for his chances of survival...but Paul Samson, now that British officialdom know Naji exists, is sent unofficially and deniably to make him safe and get him to the point he can give the information to them. Kid's a tyro...he leads everyone a merry chase. Author Porter writes a damn good story here, sets it in places I'm convinced he knows well enough to lead tours, but there's not much horsepower in his characters as people. Their motives are clear and powerful. They are also, unlike real people's and thus unlike the characters I most enjoy reading about, unmixed. Black-hearted people, white-hatted people...not a lot of nuance.

That said I read the book as fast as I could. I wanted this kid to win and I think anyone who needs something more or less unambiguous for a restful but still exciting (weird sentence...but that's how this book came across for me) or at least very action-packed story of implausibly lucky good guys needs this read.

ETA bloody fatfingers!

076 Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich’s Supporters in the United States by Bradley W. Hart

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A book examining the strange terrain of Nazi sympathizers, nonintervention campaigners and other voices in America who advocated on behalf of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II.

Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was deeply, dangerously divided.

Bradley W. Hart's Hitler's American Friends exposes the homegrown antagonists who sought to protect and promote Hitler, leave Europeans (and especially European Jews) to fend for themselves, and elevate the Nazi regime.

Some of these friends were Americans of German heritage who joined the Bund, whose leadership dreamed of installing a stateside Führer. Some were as bizarre and hair-raising as the Silver Shirt Legion, run by an eccentric who claimed that Hitler fulfilled a religious prophesy. Some were Midwestern Catholics like Father Charles Coughlin, an early right-wing radio star who broadcast anti-Semitic tirades. They were even members of Congress who used their franking privilege—sending mail at cost to American taxpayers—to distribute German propaganda. And celebrity pilot Charles Lindbergh ended up speaking for them all at the America First Committee.

We try to tell ourselves it couldn't happen here, but Americans are not immune to the lure of fascism. Hitler's American Friends is a powerful look at how the forces of evil manipulate ordinary people, how we stepped back from the ledge, and the disturbing ease with which we could return to it.

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

My Review: It's always been a failing of the left-wing political folk to see the Apocalypse in each and every thunderation from the Christo-Fascist Right as the ongoing battle for the USA's soul continues. There are now, there were in the 1950s, there were in the 1930s and 1940s, traitorous scum whose personal vision of a Perfect World contains only people like them, who are willing to do anything legal or not to enforce their will on the eternal majority who don't want that. In an article in The Nation, the author of the think piece I've linked to comments most saliently on the Red Scare years' school-textbook battles, book burnings, and other such performative outrage with this pithy remark:

Most Americans don’t think that proponents of critical race theory are secretly spreading “Marxism” in the schools, either, or that woke corporations are somehow supporting the same evil project. The people who make such claims are a small minority, just as they were in the 1950s.

The fact is that our country's been under some form of internal attack from fascist and/or authoritarian right-wing rabble since Day One. So has every other political structure. Let's not forget the fate of Periclean Athens. It's the eternal project of greedy, selfish control freaks to get everything they can into their own hands and to control what they can't possess.

Author Hart made a well-researched and -written alarm call against calm, resigned acceptance of the culture coup attempted during the 45th president's term in this book. He uses the well-documented and clearly overcome existence, activities, and failures of Nazi sympathizers in the US. It is an effective technique; it uses as its organizing principle a simple structure: Each chapter is dedicated to a single organization active in promoting German/Nazi interests in the US, and gives some crucial details about how and why this choice was made. It also characterizes and puts into timely context the people who made up the institution in question. This avoids a common trap in histories of zeitgeists or social movements, the dreaded alphabet soup of initialism and too-similar or too-often-repeated names. That admittedly more synthetic approach can weave a tapestry of details. It more often than that causes severe MEGO disease.

The most disturbing take-away of this entire loudly rung tocsin is that these forces of anti-democratic rage failed because they lacked a credible, powerful leader. Today's versions, it is very frightening to realize, do not suffer from that lack. It isn't that Author Hart is unaware of this, it's that he seemed to feel he shouldn't make as much of the echoes I heard in each chapter of current events as I would've preferred. There is something to be said for taking off the gloves and hitting the enemy within hard. It's something "they" do a lot of (see my review of The Obama Hate Machine) and with a lot less factual basis than Author Hart presents.

Why this book only gets four stars from me is the quite startling number of uncorrected typos that made it from the DRC I read into the library copy I checked out. Scandalous! And, in the end, there were moments that I found myself not quite satisfied with the case the author made for some person or organization's motivation for opposing the US entry into WWII. Mixed motives are more common than pure ones on every gradation of the ideological spectrum, as (for example) morally based pacifism is present among right-wingers, too.

Perhaps the most telling thing that I noticed go underremarked was the utter ineffectuality of Hoover's FBI in going after right-wing terrorism. Red Scare propaganda against our nominal allies the Soviets was rife. How telling that is...British intelligence informed the US government better about domestic threats than Hoover's FBI.

I was still angered and unsettled and unnerved by this read. I am recommending it to all and sundry who think the Right's victory in the 2022 midterm elections is somehow inevitable. We who do not wish to have our country scourged by the hypocrites and religious nuts of this book's modern counterparts should heed Author Hart's dictum: "{U}nfortunately, the merchants of hate always seem to have someone to listen to them." Let's plug the holes in our national awareness. It can only help the side dedicated to the rights and duties of citizens against the Right's attacks on them.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Saturday to you.

>59 richardderus: and >60 richardderus: Excellent reviews as always, but I'm dodging the BBs.

*smooch*

>60 richardderus: - I'll have a look for this one. Sounds interesting.

>62 katiekrug: Paper copies are expensive, I suspect because there's a market...on Their side. But the Kindle edition's only $11.99.

>61 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I'm not surprised the book-bullets missed you because neither of these reads (nor tomorrow's!) are at all in your wheelhouse. But thanks for the kind words.

Happy Saturday! We had a hellacious thunderstorm in place of the heatwave that barrelled down on us from those kind, generous Chicagoons (so willing to share!). Today's weather is muggy but not hot so it's bearable.

Wordle 336 3/6

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Back to pattern-seeking! Yay! AEONS, MIRTH, SCRAP because there are no 5-letter SAR-- or SUR-- words, so there had to be another arrangement...scrap!

>58 richardderus: YOU may not be getting a heatwave, Richard, but it looks like WE still are. *grumpgrumblegrouch* Glad it's missing you. Wish it was missing us. Thing is, while I prefer heat to cold, heatwaves so early in the season are not appreciated. Just once I wish May were, well, May-like and not either blizzarding or heatwaving. (Not sure if you've seen, but it's blizzarding in Colorado. I guess I'd rather have heat than snow at this point - poor Joanne and Anne are having conniptions trying to save their tender spring plants/flowers.)

ETA I got it in 3 today too!

>65 Storeetllr: *there there, pat pat*


My sad sympathy for your misery.

>60 richardderus: Added Hitler’s American Friends to my TBR. Thanks!

Karen O

>64 richardderus: I got today’s wordle in 3, also! I enjoyed this one more than I have lately, so…yay!

Karen O

>68 klobrien2: It was a good experience for me as well...I like puzzle and pattern days.

>67 klobrien2: Oh, thank you for saying so, Karen O. I'm sure many don't come by to see me because they don't like my politics or just don't want to know about political things. I insist that, whether you want to know or not, it's going to come right back into your life. Best make sure you're prepared.

077 The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking TRUE Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow F.D.R. by Jules Archer

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Many people might not know that in 1933, a group of wealthy industrialists working closely with groups like the K.K.K. and the American Liberty League planned to overthrow the U.S. government and run F.D.R. out of office in a fascist coup. Readers will learn of their plan to turn unhappy war veterans into American brown shirts,” depose F.D.R., and stop the New Deal. They asked Medal of Honor recipient and Marine Major General Smedley Darlington Butler to work with them and become the first American Caesar.” Fortunately, Butler was a true patriot. Instead of working for the fascist coup, he revealed the plot to journalists and to Congress.

Archer writes a compelling account of a ploy that would have turned FDR into fascist puppet, threatened American democracy and changed the course of history. This book not only reveals the truth behind this shocking episode in history, but also tells the story of the man whose courage and bravery prevented it from happening.

Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history—books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: The wonder of History as a study is how much of what sounds new and apocalyptically nightmarish to you is, in fact, the latest of many iterations of the same bull. Humans seek patterns, and novelty; "this is unprecedented! and it's just like this thing that happened way back when!" sums it up.

Author Jules Archer (1915 – 2008) was a prolific popular writer on history for all ages. He grew up in New York City during times of great changes and the fomenting of radical opposition to the status quo. He saw, firsthand, the causes of the New Deal's legislation. He spent a lot of time in later life using the free college education that New Yorkers of sufficient academic achievements were at that time entitled to explaining the country, and history itself, to others.

This book was published first in 1973, in the soft, rotten middle of the Watergate hearings. The timing, and the subject, were chosen carefully. Remembering your history, younger-than-50s, you'll recall we as a country were in the throes of indicting and removing an actual criminal from the presidency, as well as losing a war in Asia. That war left the country with a lot of badly damaged men and no jobs for them when they returned to civilian life.

Any of this ringing some bells?

So Jules Archer, explainer extraordinaire (seriously, go look at his bibliography!), reached into his own past for an analogous passage of disastrously concatenated events and found World War I, the Bonus Army, and the very little spoken-of Businessmans' Coup of 1933. "We have been here before," said Archer, "and the country survived."

The hero of this piece is a man of whom I guarantee you have not heard. General Smedley Darlington Butler is one of those figures that appear all too seldom, the Man of Conscience whose principles are strong and whose moral compass, whether or not it's calibrated as is one's own, is clearly aligned with honor on every axis. The plotters of this heinous act of subversion as Archer details it chose exactly and precisely the wrong man to execute their plot. (Goddesses please accept our thanks that they didn't approach Douglas MacArthur!) He blew so many whistles and did so with such enormous credibility and evidence that the entire plot had to be abandoned.

Not to say the idea went away. We've seen that in our own time.

After reading this book, your illusions about this unique moment in history being absolutely the awfulest, most scum-ridden, darkest passage in the US will perforce vanish. But you'll also, I hope, read it and think, "this isn't the first time?! Holy maloley, we'd better pay attention!" Because I'm entirely sure that was the aim of Jules Archer's project in writing many explanatory books about history over many decades.

***There are links to resources for further background on many topics in this review on my blog as well as a non-affiliate link to the Kindle editionof the book for $1.99 (as of 21 May).

>70 richardderus: - The title appears to be missing...

>71 katiekrug: Bad syntax will do that to a post. *sigh* Thanks for letting me know. *smooch*

>72 richardderus: - *smooch back*

>60 richardderus: >70 richardderus: I am resisting these book bullets! I don't want to read anything else right now that will predictably make me angry.

You write: "The wonder of History as a study is how much of what sounds new and apocalyptically nightmarish to you is, in fact, the latest of many iterations of the same bull."

Very true, and once one reaches a certain age, it's hard not to keep noticing.

I use "history never repeats itself, but it often rhymes" as one of my email signatures.

Human nature doesn't change. People aren't all the same, but the range of motivation doesn't change much, for good or ill.

>66 richardderus: So cute!

>74 ArlieS: As I don't know the state of your blood pressure or the condition of your cerebral circulatory system, i won't push against your sensible self-preservationistic response.

Except to mention the $1.99 Kindle sale.

Just mention! Not foist. Your resistance to ereading is not utterly unknown to me.

I love those poochies! They make my heart smile every time I see that image.

Hey there Richard.

>60 richardderus: and >70 richardderus: both look so good and interesting. I'm reading Salt Lick right now. It's set at some unspecified time in the future (after "both" pandemics) and the story hinges on the assumption that White Nationalists, bigots, those whose idea of a good world is one in which only people "like" them get to live, will simply always exist. Always have. Always will. I've been wrapping my head around this reality for a few years now but some part of my brain keeps trying to believe that it just ain't so. Maybe that's my version of thinking the world "should" have only people like me. That is, people who think like me. It's a weird mental pretzel twist.

So, on that note, I hear you're having heat waves. Damn. We have not yet hit 70F this spring. People grouse about the cold, wet weather but I rejoice because it should mean a less brutal fire season. We shall see.

Hoping you are otherwise well. *smooches* as always.

Happy weekend *smooches* and hooray for the lack of heat wave! It was pretty hot today, but fortunately my house has stayed comfortable and tomorrow I'm leaving for a hotel with AC.

078 The Sunset Gang: Inspirational Short Stories That Reshape the Meaning of Aging by Warren Adler

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: In America, where "old" is a dirty word, people over sixty-five are often shut out as if growing old were some kind of contagious disease. But you cannot shut the Sunset Gang out of your heart.

With time running short, these intrepid residents of Sunset Village in Florida continue to thirst for life and love.

"The Sunset Gang" is as lively, fun, and courageous a group as you'll find anywhere this side of the Last Reward. The fact that you'll find them at Sunset Village, a condominium retirement community in Florida - where an ambulance siren is the theme song and cycling at a stately pace is strenuous exercise - does not mean that they are ready to pack it all in. Not by a long shot.

Sex and romantic love keep Sunset Village bubbling with activity.

If you were to walk down one of its well-tended paths, you might spot Jenny and Bill sitting on a bench, acting like young lovers, and never suspect that they are married - to other people! And at the pool, Max Bernstein, with an expertise that comes from five decades of skirt chasing, is singling out attractive widows.

But the true beating heart of Sunset Village is the love of family and friends. Widowed Molly Berkowitz learns that although her son and daughter may be failures in the eyes of the world, they are well worth bragging about, and Isaac Kramer begins to feel truly at home when the gray-haired boys down at the Laundromat start calling him by his old neighborhood nickname, "Itch."

This short story series about aging in America that inspired the PBS American Playhouse TV trilogy produced by Linda Lavin and starring Uta Hagen, Harold Gould, Dori Brenner and Jerry Stiller, garnering Doris Roberts an Emmy nomination for 'Best Supporting Actress' in a mini-series.

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

My Review: Waitaminnit waitaminnit whereinahell's the Bryce Method, you ask...I hear you, don't front! I'll tell you the truth: much as I say "blahblah isn't a novel, it's a récit or braided stories or a syncretism of Egyptian death-spells with upanishads or whatever," I am equally likely to say this is a novel when told it's stories.

Just that the chapters are a funny length.

For funny old Jewish people, that shouldn't be a problem. And honestly it isn't. This is a comfort read. I got lots and lots of laughs, and as I live in a building full of old Jewish folk, I was frequently trying not to read chunks of it aloud to...no one in particular (it says here). The late Warren Adler knew exactly what he was doing writing this entertaining chronicle of aging and its indignities hidden behind a very slippery figleaf. Laughing at people is frowned on, rightly so, in today's world. But laughing at yourself, and with your friends, is the way to stay sane in a world that won't listen to you, doesn't much want you, but still has your heart walking around in it.

That's everyone in here. While the author first published it in 1977, when a lot of the world's prejudices were different, the list of concerns of the Greatest-Generation cast of Jewish folks sounds exactly the way my neighbors sound. It's a little odd, when I think about it, that the immigrants raised in the 1930s on the Lower East Side and Brownsville who mostly populate the book are darn near clones of the Long Island facility I occupy. But I think it shows cultural continuity is very much a feature of Jewish identity. I know several of my friends here are children of Auschwitz and other camp survivors...only recently, early in COVID, did our last survivor resident die. (Vale Arthur, quit nagging Yhwh about what she needs to do better.)

Oh, okay. I can't resist the power of Tradition in this context. Bryce, your method lives...but only on my blog!

>77 bell7: It got warm, Mary, but not hot-hot.

Have a great time! *smooch*

>76 EBT1002: Hiya Ellen, I'm happy to see you here!

"I've been wrapping my head around this reality for a few years now but some part of my brain keeps trying to believe that it just ain't so. Maybe that's my version of thinking the world "should" have only people like me."

Very familiar to me, too...but honestly is it possible to avoid such a mental state entirely? We're all basically that solipsistic. "Obviously *I* know best so why won't They just see sense already?" Goodness knows I'm guilty of it.

Honestly I think you'll really want to get Monday's book for sure. *smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. We have some sunshine, after an all day rain-fest yesterday. I think I will slip out for a solo walk shortly, since I am feeling better. Enjoy your day.

The Sunset Gang looks like a fun one.

Wordle 337 3/6

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Can't say it was all that interesting...AEONS, NOVEL, MONEY...but it was fast!

I forgot to play yesterday ... oops.
Nail biter for me
Wordle 337 6/6

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>82 mckait: Oops indeed! I guard my streak like it's my eyesight. I'm sure you're tired of this, as so many things I say, but 6 > X. *smooch*

>80 msf59: Hi Mark! Happy Solo-walkin' Sunday.

It was a relief to me to get, here by the North Atlantic, a hellacious thunderboomer instead of the heatwave. So I'm guessing I'll get the rain-soaked Wednesday it sounds like you're shipping my way. I ain't mad at ya for it, neither.

I'm just glad you're recovering already from that cold. It definitely means it's not COVID. I don't wish that on anyone except...well. Anyway.

Be well-er by the hour!

Hiya, RDear, and happy Sunday to you!

>70 richardderus: Ya got me! I just bought it on Kindle for the $1.99 you mentioned. I didn’t know about this event in US history, and thanks for bringing this book to my attention. I just love it that the hero is a man named Smedley Darlington Butler.

>78 richardderus: Excellent review, as always. I will, however, resist, even though I should probably spend the $4.99 on Kindle.

>81 richardderus: I got it in three today, too. And I didn’t even cheat by using my Wordle spreadsheet. For some reason I tend to not use M or N as frequently as I could.

>83 richardderus: I don't wish that on anyone except...well. *smile*

>84 karenmarie: Hey there Snuffleuppagus. I'm glad you liked Smedley Darlington Butler's yclepture as much as I did...I wanted him and Manly Wade Wellman to somehow cross generational lines and become partners in...some kinda somethin' honestly I don't care what.

Not many people bother to learn about the Businessmen's Coup. It's just not taught, for some strange reason! I can not conceive of why John Brown's actions are trumpeted and these poltroons' evils are not. Hm.

I don't think you're missing much with the Warren Adler. It's entertaining. That's all. And I think I'm probably more entertained than you might be because I'm so immersed in Jewish culture. But hey, who knows, it's only $5.

That you could spend on two $1.99 specials. Like, ummm, I got nothin' this very moment but it wouldn't take me long to rustle up a temptation or two!

*smooch*

079 The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google by Scott Galloway

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The acclaimed NYU business professor's tour-de-force on the true nature of technology's titans, and what happens next in their struggle to dominate our lives.

Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook are in an unprecedented race towards a $1 trillion valuation—and whoever gets there first will exert untold influence over our economy, public policy, and consumer behavior. How did these four become so successful? How high can they continue to rise? Does any other company stand a chance of competing?

To these questions and more, acclaimed NYU / Stern professor Scott Galloway brings bracing answers. In his highly provocative first book, he pulls back the curtain on exactly how Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google built their massive empires. While the media spins tales about superior products and designs, and the power of technological innovation, Galloway exposes the truth about these "Four Horsemen":

- None of these four are first movers technologically; they've either copied, stolen, or acquired their ideas.
- Each company uses evolutionary psychology to appeal to our basest instincts: Amazon, our need to hunt and gather; Apple, our need to procreate; Facebook, our need for love; and Google, our need for a God.
- These companies are uniquely successful at leveraging competitive advantage built by digital and then protected by analog moats, from an empire of retail stores (Apple) to the world's most efficient physical distribution network (Amazon.)

Through analysis that's both rigorous and entertaining, Galloway outlines the path for the next trillion-dollar company (the Fifth Horseman) and points to which companies are in the running. (Uber, sure; less obvious, Microsoft and Starbucks.) As with Peter Thiel's Zero to One, readers will come away with fresh, game-changing insights about what it takes to win in today's economy.

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

My Review: There is no spectacle more repugnant, even repulsive, than naked greed being slaked without shame or even modesty. That is where we are now, as a society, in large part because these four corporations have enabled this behavior in their minions as well as demonstrated it in themselves. A trillion-dollar valuation as a business? It's the avowed goal of all four of these metastatic money pits.

Go watch this explainer on the difference between a million somethings and a billion somethings. It's sobering. Even chilling. And a trillion is yet another order of magnitude greater!

Now think about what this represents...what staggering greed it represents to pursue this goal of creating that much excess at the expense of any and all other goals or principles. Author Galloway has done that thinking. He does not like the principles The Four have utterly abandoned, flouted, or subverted. It is incredible to me that this naked greed, this pathology of psychological orientation, is so celebrated. To the point that the business news cycles are dominated by the horse-race between these bloated-bank-account barons of bad business practice.

I confess that Author Galloway isn't a cicerone I enjoyed being led by. I suspect I'd deeply dislike him if we met in person because he is, while intelligent and savvy, nowhere near as witty or insightful as he seems to think he is. He's boastful and he's arrogant. What he isn't is wrong. He is quite clear that the way these corporate scum (my term, not his) are in fact harming the very economy that they rely on for their income. In the end, that will be their challenge and he (like me) is dubious about their ability to change their course: Change, or die in a welter of your own hemorrhaging money.

Schadenfreude leads me to laugh a hearty bray of triumph. Except I won't fail to suffer in their gargantuan collapse.

On Wednesday, 29 July 2020, and days forward, the four horse-manuremen of the datapocalypse will testify before Congress about their insane, untrammeled greed and its deleterious effect on Society. I presupposed a more condign end result of the hearing here because I am under no obligation to hide my own opinion of these nauseating monopolists...but now, in May 2022, Congress is looking beadily at them again with an eye to figuring out how much their greed has fueled our present 8%-plus annual rate of inflation.

Happy We're-Not-Having-A-Heatwave Sunday, Richard!

>70 richardderus: I didn't know about this, and I definitely need to. Since I tend to ignore completely Kindle books that I buy, I went to my library (actually, I use two public libraries for ebooks and went to both). I was gratified that both libraries had holds on the book, which means people are reading it.

Enjoy the warm but not hellishly hot weather!

>87 Storeetllr: *sticks a shivering hand out from under his blanky*

Hi Mary! I'm so so glad people are paying attention to the Jules Archer book. I want this episode to make an impact on people at long last.

*smooch*

080 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason F. Stanley

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE • With a new preface • Fascist politics are running rampant in America today—and spreading around the world. A Yale philosopher identifies the ten pillars of fascist politics, and charts their horrifying rise and deep history.

As the child of refugees of World War II Europe and a renowned philosopher and scholar of propaganda, Jason Stanley has a deep understanding of how democratic societies can be vulnerable to fascism: Nations don’t have to be fascist to suffer from fascist politics. In fact, fascism’s roots have been present in the United States for more than a century. Alarmed by the pervasive rise of fascist tactics both at home and around the globe, Stanley focuses here on the structures that unite them, laying out and analyzing the ten pillars of fascist politics—the language and beliefs that separate people into an “us” and a “them.” He knits together reflections on history, philosophy, sociology, and critical race theory with stories from contemporary Hungary, Poland, India, Myanmar, and the United States, among other nations. He makes clear the immense danger of underestimating the cumulative power of these tactics, which include exploiting a mythic version of a nation’s past; propaganda that twists the language of democratic ideals against themselves; anti-intellectualism directed against universities and experts; law and order politics predicated on the assumption that members of minority groups are criminals; and fierce attacks on labor groups and welfare. These mechanisms all build on one another, creating and reinforcing divisions and shaping a society vulnerable to the appeals of authoritarian leadership.

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

My Review: The reason I want to review this right now is the 14 May Buffalo mass shooting and its root cause, the idiotic and racist replacement theory. It is a pernicious and evil set of beliefs demanding that white people remain in power forever because it's theirs by right. Colonialism and racism and fascism are in lock step, and their grip on the unintelligent, badly educated, and ill-informed is only strengthening.

I make no apologies for my opinions, or for expressing them in strong and probably insulting terms, as those who subscribe to these idiotic beliefs make no apologies for theirs or their own method of expressing them. I oppose these views. I oppose their open, uncontested expression. I oppose people who make their own need to control others, body, mind, and soul, their purpose for public action. And no, demanding that these True Believers NOT be allowed to dictate the continued lives, personal liberties, and rise to political power of those who are not them, is not at all the same thing.

This book is a compendium of pithily expressed, carefully researched, and very well-sourced conclusions that are not readily dismissable based on modern evidence. I cede the floor to Author Stanley:

Fascist politics does not necessarily lead to an explicitly fascist state, but it is dangerous nonetheless. Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies: the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, appeals to the heartland, and a dismantling of public welfare and unity.

On fascism's roots:

In book 8 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates argues that people are not naturally led to self-governance but rather seek a strong leader to follow. Democracy, by permitting freedom of speech, opens the door for a demagogue to exploit the people’s need for a strongman; the strongman will use this freedom to prey on the people’s resentments and fears. Once the strongman seizes power, he will end democracy, replacing it with tyranny. In short, book 8 of The Republic argues that democracy is a self-undermining system whose very ideals lead to its own demise. Fascists have always been well acquainted with this recipe for using democracy’s liberties against itself; Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels once declared, “This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed.” Today is no different from the past. Again, we find the enemies of liberal democracy employing this strategy, pushing the freedom of speech to its limits and ultimately using it to subvert others’ speech.

–and–

In a 1922 speech at the Fascist Congress in Naples, Benito Mussolini declared: We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality….Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total reality, we subordinate everything. Here, Mussolini makes clear that the fascist mythic past is intentionally mythical. The function of the mythic past, in fascist politics, is to harness the emotion of nostalgia to the central tenets of fascist ideology—authoritarianism, hierarchy, purity, and struggle.

On racism's roots and branches:

“Check your privilege” is a call to whites to recognize the insulated social reality they navigate daily.

–and–

Hutu power movement was a fascist ethnic supremacist movement that arose in Rwanda in the years before the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

–and–

Nixon’s chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman: “You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks,” Haldeman quoted Nixon as saying in a diary entry from April 1969. “The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.”

–and–

Mussolini denounce{d} the world’s great cities, such as New York, for their teeming populations of nonwhites. In fascist ideology, the city is a place where members of the nation go to age and die, childless, surrounded by the vast hordes of despised others, breeding out of control, their children permanent burdens on the state.

See also my review of Cockroaches for extra and personal information about the racist roots of Rwanda's genocide. See my review of The Man Who Lived Underground for a prescient prefiguring of the Othering that racism relies on's horrific costs.

Author Stanley doesn't, I think I've shown, pull punches. He also sources his claims with admirable clarity. There are dozens of notes in each chapter; there are dozens of reputable scholars cited. In his Epilogue, Author Stanley considers the hazards and risks we're running simply by normalizing (or really continuing to normalize) the ongoing fascist politicizations we see around us now.

Pratap Mehta wrote: 'The targeting of enemies—minorities, liberals, secularists, leftists, urban naxals, intellectuals, assorted protestors—is not driven by a calculus of ordinary politics….When you legitimize yourself entirely by inventing enemies, the truth ceases to matter, normal restraints of civilization and decency cease to matter, the checks and balances of normal politics cease to matter.'

–and–

In fascist politics, women who do not fit traditional gender roles, nonwhites, homosexuals, immigrants, “decadent cosmopolitans,” those who do not have the dominant religion, are in their very existence violations of law and order. By describing black Americans as a threat to law and order, demagogues in the United States have been able to create a strong sense of white national identity that requires protection from the nonwhite “threat.”

–and–

The dangers of fascist politics come from the particular way in which it dehumanizes segments of the population. By excluding these groups, it limits the capacity for empathy among other citizens, leading to the justification of inhumane treatment, from repression of freedom, mass imprisonment, and expulsion to, in extreme cases, mass extermination.

What's happening now is not the Will of the People. It's not the inevitable outcome of "them" becoming a threat. This is proof of "...a growing body of social psychological evidence substantiates the phenomenon of dominant group feelings of victimization at the prospect of sharing power equally with members of minority groups. A great deal of recent attention has been paid in the United States to the fact that around 2050, the United States will become a 'majority-minority' country, meaning that whites will no longer be a majority of Americans," threatening “...the lengthy history of ranking Americans into a hierarchy of worth by race, the “deserving” versus the “undeserving.” And I feel confident I need not say directly that deserving = white for you to get the full, appalling picture. If you're up for more, there's On Tyranny, which I've reviewed; it's another, and shorter, work of synthesis and explication.

Where do we go from here? How do the majority of US citizens resist this ever-worsening attack on our bodies, our minds, our freedoms and rights?

First, VOTE. Second, read and learn from the folks farther along the trail through the thickets of trouble and outrage meant to scare and dishearten you. Nothing about the fascism threatening reason and freedom in the US is inevitable or unstoppable or, most importantly, right and correct. You've watched The Handmaid's Tale and read Christian Nation...you know what's at stake for women, and every single one of you knows a woman; also for QUILTBAG folks, and if you're reading this you know at least one of those (me). Act like this is an emergency.

Because it very much is.

>89 richardderus: - Excellent, sobering review. Sadly, I don't think the people who most need to read the book - those who are disengaged or "don't like" politics or find it all "depressing" - will do so. And the rest of us will be considered hysterical and paranoid until we're proven right.

>89 richardderus: Definitely a good review. Unfortunately, like Katie, I don't think this will reach the audience that most needs it - and even if it did, wouldn't stir people to action. Nonetheless, it's what we all need to hear.

>91 drneutron:, >90 katiekrug: I'm afraid you're perfectly correct about those most in need. I just hope for those not quite committed yet, wavering on the brink, to find this somehow.

Read Author Stanley's Guardian piece...he's still sounding the tocsin!

>91 drneutron: Thank you, Jim. It's really, really scaring me to be where we are now.

>90 katiekrug: Thank you, Katie...I know you, like me, hear those things a lot and I've gone from faintly impatient to outraged at the selfishness of those views.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Monday to you.

>86 richardderus: Excellent review, sad that every word you write is about organizations we’re in thrall to.

>89 richardderus: Another excellent review. I do believe I’d qualify it a bit further from white people to white MEN as women’s bodies are more under attack than in the last 50 years. I still can’t believe that there are women out there who support this attack – zygotes over living, breathing, human beings. Sigh.

*smooch*

Wordle 338 3/6

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Very interesting word choice today! AEONS, MIRTH, HINGE

>93 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible, happy Monday. Thanks re: reviews. I'm not sure your qualfier passes muster...I see women hating with revolting, stomach-churning fervor right here on this site. So....

I own nothing whatsoever Apple has made. I was offered an iPhone and declined as politely as my utter loathing for the Aynholes' fave-rave corporate malefactor would allow. Apart from that, the other three really do dominate my commercial life. It's distressing but poverty is a strong pressure on a weak will. I'm afraid I'm no Bobby Sands.

*smooch*

I'm ever so pleased to say that A MASTER OF DJINN WON the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Novel! The full list is here: https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-winners-of-the-57th-annual-nebula-aw...

"O2 Arena" was another excellent winner.

Author Clark also got my 4* #BookRecommendation here: https://tinyurl.com/mpkhs5y5 if y'all forgot.

But best of all, now it's ONLY $2.99 (it's cheap at regular price) for your Kindle-reading pleasure:
https://smile.amazon.com/Master-Djinn-P-Dj%C3%A8l%C3%AD-Clark-ebook/dp/B08HKXS84...

>96 richardderus: Cool! It was definitely a fave of mine.

>97 drneutron: It's an excellent story in a really rich, and I hope expanding, storyverse. I had issues with its pacing, since I think Author Clark does his very best work at novella length. But overall, it was too much fun to go on this ride to squawk too loud about little stuff.

>94 richardderus: It took me one more, although I had all letters in guess 3.

>99 FAMeulstee: Heck, Anita, four in your second language is a terrific result!

>94 richardderus: arise, mince, hinge for me.

>98 richardderus: Arthur C. Clark was a sci-fi writer ;0)

>89 richardderus: FWIW, I'm still trying to understand what the words "fascism" and "fascist" *mean* in modern political discourse. (Also whether "fasc" is or is not a synonymn for the other two.)

I think I know what they *meant* when my mother was a child - an ideology that privileged the state over the individual, where the "state" might not include all official citizens, thereby providing a convenient enemy to unite against. (Perhaps I should use the term "nation", in the sense that Italy and German were both nations even before becoming political units.)

Some idealistic modern youth plainly use "fascist" to mean "anyone to the right of me" aka "evil person".

Others may be using it to replace the older meaning of "racist". (Since we are all racist now - i.e. participate in systemic racism - we need a new term for a person who explicitly and consciously chooses to favour their own race and/or attack others because of their race.)

And then of course there are edgelords and generic rebels who've hit on espousing nazism as their way of freaking the mundanes and/or expressing their anger and desire to hit back at anyone they can blame for their own misery. Those of course range from otherwise-civilized rock bands with swastika logos to mass murders with manifestos referencing Hitler.

Bottom line though, if person A calls person B a fascist, all I know is that A doesn't like B, and is probably politically left of B.

>102 ArlieS: I don't think the modern usage of "fascist" is in any way incongruent with the Merriam-Webster definition: "a political philosophy, movement, or regime...that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" is pretty much the way it's getting used now. It's easy for me to see that its overuse is spreading, like "woke" and "liberal" have metastasized. But it's still used to mean some right-wing belief complex like the one above is what the so-labeled person/utterance seems to represent.

>101 humouress: CLARKE was indeed. AUTHOR CLARK is not. He's a fantasist of the powers most amiably realized. (I read a Poirot story last night, have a hangover.)

Hiya, Richard. Happy somewhat matured thread. More excellent reviews and I appreciate your thoughts on facism and democracy. Yes, as a democracy we’re constantly opening the door and inviting destruction, but it’s way better than any alternative. The urge to blindly follow some charismatic authoritarian and not to thoughtfully address difficult problems will always infect a lot of folks, unfortunately.

One of your reviews raises the question of whether a hero really can be named Smedley. Apparently the answer is yes.

I see we have a new Less book coming from Andrew Sean Greer: Less is Lost. Do you know anything about it?

>104 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe, it's nice to hear you say you appreciated the reviews...not all have been so positive, though far fewer nasty things than simply thunderingly silent ones are the norm.

Less is Lost is coming out in September. I will not be reading it...I'm of the "less Less is more better" school. I hope you enjoy it at least as much as you did Yours Cheerfully! When one book was fun I always root for the second one to be as much or more than the first.

>89 richardderus: Good review. Thank you. I've borrowed this from the library. Because you're right: it IS an emergency.

Happy week-of-reading, Richard! Stay warm. *heh*

>103 richardderus: IIRC, someone up thread linked fascism with absence of a social safety net. Whereas in practice some fascist governments (Hitler's Germany, at least) have been ahead of the curve on taking care of their poor. (At least those that otherwise counted as true members of the nation...)

AFAICT, if anything fascism favors making sure the right kind of people grow up to be the best soldiers etc. they can be. A truly fascist US might well forbid abortion, at least by those with desirable genes, but it would *not* have more care for the fetus than for the infant or child.

>96 richardderus: Thanks for reminding me about the Nebula's Richard. I don't read as much SF as i used to but its good to keep at least one toe in that water.

Didn't realize they gave an award in memory of Kate Wilheim. Good on them.

>108 magicians_nephew: I agree, Jim, it's heartening to know her founding of Clarion etc etc is honored by the modern beneficiaries of it and her other supports and expansions of the authorial community.

>107 ArlieS: ...depending on whose child it was...

>106 Storeetllr: *shivershiver*

Heh. *smooch*

I just finished reading The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1944 - 1945 by the historian Ian Kershaw. It is not a book about Fascism like the one you read. It is a lesson on what happens when Fascism rules. In this case, Hitler's will was able to be projected onto the people until the minute he died because of the policies of fear and obedience that were in place. Those under Hitler who could have rebelled months before didn't do so because they couldn't due to the policies in place. It was amazing to read about how the wheels of the machine ground on and on and on until all of a sudden Hitler was gone. It was scary and I kept wanting to shout at mayors of small towns - just surrender. And they didn't. Just kept marching because they felt helpless to do anything else, knowing that if they did they would die. It is frightful, what happens when the laws and justice system bend to the will of a cause like fascism.

>93 karenmarie:
I agree with your assessment of this being more of a White Male thing, as I am very fearful of what is happening to women in today's world. Women are under attack and seem unable to see it.

>103 richardderus: Now since you were talking about A Master of Djinn (which I did buy BTW, thanks for the nudge), and since Djeli Clark wrote it, I thought you were saying the AUTHOR of the book, whose name is Clark. :) Was it because there's too many accents in his name? Or am I just reading too much into it.

Fun fact that I just learned looking him up, because I didn't know if he was a man or woman, P. Djeli Clark is a pen name. His given name is Dexter Gabriel. The P stands for Phenderson, which I love.

>112 mahsdad: Gotta think that the marketing mind dreaming up DW Griffith's role in creating "Ku Kluxes" as transdimensional Mythos monsters recognized "Dexter Gabriel" was a non-starter of a jacket-copy name.

I call pretty much everyone who is one "Author Phlabloogle" at some point.

>111 benitastrnad: ...or unwilling to confront it...

>110 benitastrnad: A decade lived under dehumanizing norms is a long-lasting scar on a person's psyche.

Hi Richard!
I have returned from the land of no hydro to wish you a great week ahead. Stay cool!

A slew of excellent reviews that is extremely dangerous to the impressionable book buyer, RD.

Your review of the FDR plot - Book Bullet
Your review of 'How Fascism Works' - Book Bullet

Reeling but enthralled by your double barrelled book intros.

The FDR plot is something that, whilst I wasn't aware of, could sort of guessed at.

Fascism's return will come in many guises as the world is polarising:
The rights of minorities and those "different" from what society mistakenly dictates as the norm needs to be protected but by an expansion of rights not an impinging of the rights of others.
Debate needs to be similarly expanded not cudgelled and stifled. Those with dissenting views should be engaged not denounced.

There have been many strides forward in my lifetime but there is a danger on all the gains being squandered as politicians of all hues fail us completely.

Sensible moderation needs to prevail in public policy - I believe that I am with the majority in favouring a woman's right to choose when it comes to abortion within certain reasonable parameters - i.e. not full term when life would be sustainable but a determined point before that that provides a reasonable opportunity for a woman to make a considered choice considering a number of factors private to her and her family.

As a heterosexual white man of middle years I do get a little bit tired of being blamed for so many of the things that need to be changed but generations of heterosexual white men of middle years have contributed to my being placed under such a cloud!

Thanks for your excellent and thought provoking reviews, dear fellow.

>96 richardderus: Just stopping by to be sure you knew A Master of Djinn had won the Nebula! Of course you had!

>116 ronincats: Yes, I was really pleased to learn that! I heard nothing about any acceptances, though. *smooch*

>115 PaulCranswick: Yeup. This is the "check your privilege" moment, o Biblioholic tsundoku-spreader of epic proportions..

Rights are rights...what one has, everyone should have. Gender, sex, color of skin shouldn't be a consideration. All the current system does is reinforce the common idea that there are no rights, only privileges that someone can grant.

Anything granted can be rescinded.

>114 figsfromthistle: Happy you're back online & well!

>117 richardderus: Very nicely said, RD, even though it is a sobering indictment of the "current system".

>89 richardderus: Just de-lurking to add my kudos for your fine review.

Hey, RD. I hope your week is off to a good start. Great review of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Not sure I could stomach it right now.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Tuesday to you.

>95 richardderus: Oh, I agree that there are “women hating with revolting, stomach-churning fervor right here on this site”. Several years ago, I ran smack up against it with a woman in the ROOTs group. Fortunately, she left for more hateful LT groups, ones I don’t visit. My point should have been more fully developed that this country is still almost completely run and controlled by white men. Less so than in the past, but still token regarding white women, POC men, POC women, non-Christians, and folks in the QUILTBAG community. I don't think I left anybody out. One of the problems now, of course, is that a subset of white men - those in power and those who are insecure and ripe for brainwashing/proselytizing - see their domination challenged and are lashing out. The US will become minority-majority by the middle of this century. I hope to live to see it.

>105 richardderus: I won’t be reading Less is Lost unless a free copy is given to me. You don’t want to continue something you didn’t like and I don’t want to ruin the joy I felt in the first book. And really, another road trip book? I’m still glaring at The Lincoln Highway on shelf S22, very unhappy that I broke down and bought it.

>117 richardderus: Anything granted can be rescinded. Sad but true. Very true right now.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>103 richardderus: I can empathise with literary hangovers; I get them sometimes.

I knew there was an 'e' there. The auto correct - either in the post or in my fingertips - obviously got to work.

>122 humouress: ...autocorrect in Singapore is American...? Or is it one of the pernicious half-bit fruit peoples' devices?

>121 karenmarie: Hey Horrible! *smooch*

Yep...old white guys should've had their last hurrah under Shrub. The country does worse every time it moves backwards...45 was older than Obama, Biden is older than 45, and things ain't headin' in a good direction.

I don't mean inflation. That was inevitable, and it's all down to the pandemic and the greedy mo-fos whose idea of "help" only comes as a modifier to "yourself". I mean the Afghanistan horror, I mean the utter idiocy of a former Senator not twisting arms and making threats to his former colleagues whose pressure points he should know like the inside of his eyelids, not making VOTING RIGHTS his top priority. He's a crap president and his one and only term will usher in a debacle that will make 45 look like FDR.

Since I loathed Less we got to the same place by opposite roads again.

>120 msf59: I don't know what could make you want to read it, but the case for reading it anyway is pretty darn urgent, Mark.

>119 lauralkeet: Hi Laura! Happy to see you, and thanks for those kudos.

>118 PaulCranswick: The current "system" is a closed one that's infected with stinking rot. It needs opening, flushing out, some debridement, and a hefty splash of antiseptic while the infection's agents scream and writhe in their (metaphorical) (darn it) death throes.

Wordle 339 3/6

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Guess #3 was a total, utter, not-based-on-anything, GUESS and I got it in 3. AEONS, MIRTH, ALBUM

>125 richardderus: - Nicely done!

>126 katiekrug: I admit it doesn't feel satisfying but it *does* keep my streak alive, so....

*smooch*

>89 richardderus: On to the list it goes.

Never surprised to add to my vocabulary when I visit your thread RD. Is 'Quiltbag' a US term? Is it appropriate if used by non-quiltbag persons?

>128 Caroline_McElwee: Hi Caro! Happy to see you here.

AFAIK it's US-centric and replaces the hideous "LGBTQIA+" acronym. Which is impossible to recall in the "correct" order, and uses a mathematical operator in its effort to recognize its awkward incompleteness.

I just refuse to use it.

>125 richardderus: I had to really work for it today but pulled off a 5. I hope your Tuesday isn't too sticky.

*smooches*

>123 richardderus: 45 was older than Obama, Biden is older than 45, and things ain't headin' in a good direction. That is something that is really noticeable for an outsider looking at U.S. politics. Everyone seems so old! Do no politicians ever retire? (Not that our own politicians aren’t complete basket cases as well, of course, but they just seem to do it when they’re younger.)

>1 richardderus: Happy new thread!!

>132 ocgreg34: Thank you, Greg!

>131 SandDune: BoJo ain't no pullet. But our elders are there because the quiet money does not like the next generation's liberal bias, and is trying to limit the scope we have to change things until they get the next cohort of young fascist haters trained up on their ignorant, aggressively vile ways.

>130 MickyFine: Thank you, Micky! *smooch*

>133 richardderus:
You have it exactly right with the OWG's biding their time. They are going to have everybody's hand's tied for a long time to come because younger people don't get out and vote them OUT of office.

>134 benitastrnad: It's all in the generational battle to roll back as much of the social safety net as they possibly can. Eighty years and counting they've been beating the steady drumbeats about "can't afford it" and "what about the blacks" and the rest of the ugly, greedy nay-saying the media's owners have fed the great unwashed.

Author Nina de Gramont of The Christie Affair is interviewed by Mother Superior Nancy Pearl here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rofAp6-xn-4

>125 richardderus: I also got 3 on that one!! Mine was great detective work though. ; )

081 Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: You think you know a person . . .

Ariel Pryce wakes up in Lisbon, alone. Her husband is gone—no warning, no note, not answering his phone. Something is wrong.

She starts with hotel security, then the police, then the American embassy, at each confronting questions she can’t fully answer: What exactly is John doing in Lisbon? Why would he drag her along on his business trip? Who would want to harm him? And why does Ariel know so little about her new—much younger—husband?

The clock is ticking. Ariel is increasingly frustrated and desperate, running out of time, and the one person in the world who can help is the one person she least wants to ask.

With sparkling prose and razor-sharp insights, bestselling author Chris Pavone delivers a stunning and sophisticated international thriller that will linger long after the surprising final page.

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

My Review: Unreliable narrator tells unbelievable story with murky stakes attached to its outcome. And here I am giving it four stars.

Doesn't make sense, does it. Or does it....

What Author Pavone does is set the reader up for something from the get-go. Unlike many thriller writers, that "something" isn't glaringly obvious. What sets this thriller in motion is an older woman married to a handsome younger man. Who ups and disappears from their hotel room on an international trip.

Prepare the violins, right? Welllll...yes but not for her, as you'll see. Her fear at this catastrophe seems...performative...to the authorities who look at her late-middle-aged self, see the muffin she's so recently married, and all but say out loud, "well, little lady, what exactly can you expect? Men do stray...and he's been gone less than a day. Give him time to sober up and pay the, um, lady. He'll be back." But she's not having it.

Why is she not having it? It does, after all, make a grim kind of sense. Before their short marriage, she didn't know her husband well...he's a relative stranger, so why is it she's carrying on so?

Wheels within wheels, and here we are rollin' along beside Ariel...has that name, one the lady chose for herself, made its real force felt in you yet?...as the story's necessary force carries us along, stopping for some info-dumpy conversations/monologues/set pieces. It's not like there's any point where Author Pavone sticks it to us, the sad little readers wondering what the living hell possessed this hard-edged survivor to do something so stupid as this mishegas results from. And both parties are hard-edged survivors. So what's the situation underlying the story? It's a thriller! You *know* there is one.

The phrase "ripped-from-the-headlines" is a cliche to my generation of Movie of the Week veterans. It got a bad name for shoddy, indifferent storytelling. But it never needed to be that way, did it. What happens that makes the newspapers is a joyous rioting street party of story plots. Read this one and find out what the right dance partner can give.

I can't give the book all five stars because, despite the clarity of storytelling purpose that snaps into focus as the ending twists us up, there is a prolixity of speechifyin' that really grated on me. (I'm lookin' at you, Griffiths.) And the Epilogue is just a shade over the top I most wanted not to go over. But the story is a deeply, involvingly, satisfyingly real one, and I encourage y'all to read it.

Wordle 340 5/6

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*stinkin alphabet fetish* AEONS, MIRTH, COUCH, POUCH, VOUCH

>137 Berly: Conga-rats! I don't mind blinding flashes of inspiration but shot-in-the-dark guessing is irksome.

Hiya, RDear.

>138 richardderus: Sounds fantastic. I am currently still in a bodice ripper phase, so put a hold on it at our Library for June 15. I hope to be out of the bodice ripper phase by then. *smile*

>139 richardderus: Yup. Alphabet soup. Took me 5, too

*smooch*

>141 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! *smooch*

I'm sure you'll appreciate the twists and turns as the events take on different lights at different times. It surprised me, how invested I got.

>138 richardderus: - Onto the library list!

I also eked out a 5 today in Wordle....

>143 katiekrug: I am so pleased. I really think it's one you'll enjoy, even savor.

A lot of us took 5! Karen O, you, Horrible...all 5s!

Took me 6.

Not surprising, 5 or 6 is down to luck when it's a guessing game.

082 No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

Rating: 4* of five

FINALIST FOR THE 2022 LOCUS AWARD—BEST FANTASY NOVEL! Winners announced 25 June 2022.

FINALIST FOR THE 34th Lambda Literary Award—BEST LGBTQ SPECULATIVE FICTION! Winners announced 11 June 2022.

A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY 2021 BEST BOOK FOR ADULTS RECOMMENDATION!

The Publisher Says: One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother was shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.

At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?

The world will soon find out.

I GOT THIS BOOK FREE WITH KINDLE CREDITS. SHOP OFTEN! THE REWARDS ARE REAL. (/irony)

My Review: I think the worst part of reading this book was realizing that the monsters, the not-villainous villains of the piece, are me, my friends, my lover, all of us Othered by...so many factors.

“I’m sorry to do it this way, but I had to be safe,” Melku explains. “I won’t waste any more time. Our collective’s mission is to support the solidarity movement. Often, that has meant supporting marginalized peoples. Some of you are part of the queer and trans community, like me. Many of the most valuable monsters are also a part of these communities, which is why redefining to include them is so important. In that spirit, I think we should extend our support to monsters since it is likely that they’re already in the movement but have chosen to remain silent.”

A political meeting of anarchists in a collective...votes to include literal monsters...the kind that actually DO eat people...in its aims. This book...its imagination shames me.

I've never, ever once thought, "well, civil rights for werewolves should absolutely be guaranteed."

What is left for me to learn over the remainder of my life never, ever stops expanding. ...Yay...? And before anyone says it, no there are not actually werewolves or any other creatures we call monsters, but there are a LOT of humans I'd unhesitatingly call monsters all over the country where I live. All over the only planet we know of that has life on it. So there's clearly no god, either, because if so they're either weak or malevolent since they can't or won't fix things they broke. The book's title, then, snaps into focus: "NO GODS, NO MASTERS," the anarchist chant goes; now that "monsters" are real and have come out of their socially imposed hiding, it needs refreshing: "NO GODS, NO MONSTERS," or a simple acknowledgment that we are all on this lifeboat in the middle of a deadly environment and had all better get busy saving ourselves and each other from paying the ultimate price. No one above means no one below. And that, somehow, is terrible, bad, threatening...why, exactly? Because monsters are Evil? Because, if no one is In Control, things will be...worse? ("For whom" is left unstated. Obviously things will be worse for the ones who benefit from the way they are now.)

But the truth is, it never turns out that way. Marriage equality didn't turn Society into limp-wristed men in feather boas, or women in plaid shirts and bad haircuts. It resulted in a revolting boom in the wedding industrial complex. A lot of bigots making noise about being asked to bake cakes for people they didn't like much. COVID kills us all (in the USA, a million in two years which is more than the 698,000-plus AIDS has killed in 42), and capitalism couldn't care less about who's zoomin' who as long as the survivors consume consume consume.

The principal problem for me is the story's diffusion of narrative drive among so many characters. I do understand this fits the anarchist genesis of the story. But it plays into a problem that trumps political concerns: How am I supposed to sustain momentum in the read? I was able to make my way through the book but it took me longer than it usually does to finish it...almost a month. For fewer than three hundred pages.

I overcame that issue by remembering this phrase that I've entered into my commonplace book:

As he walks with the crowd, he understands what he had forgotten: that a march is not just a voice against violence and trauma, but also a reminder that even in a cause that is stacked against them, no one is alone.

Remember the Tiananmen Tank Guy? He is the reason governments work so hard to suppress free media; he is the reason many of us bother to protest in whatever ways we can. He stood alone, but crowds of protestors aren't when he appears in our minds' eyes. This is also why crowds become mobs, and why protest is something that deeply disturbs the Powers That Be.

When cops kill innocent people nowadays, we as a society are almost sure there will be protests. But now there is a complicating factor of monsters, creatures we're afraid of and whose means of making a living is violent by their very nature; they are, by the definitions we've all come to understand and possibly even accept, but certainly internalize, unnatural:

Near Ridley, a man yells, “No Gods.”

“No monsters,” the crowd chants back.

The chant is an evolution of an anarchist slogan: “No Gods, No Masters,” the original version meaning no human above. It is a call against hierarchy. Ridley assumes the variation means no human above, no human below, or something like it. A call against hierarchy and discrimination.

Simon-pure anarchist speak. Like being in a steering committee meeting for any politics at the local level organization. It is, in other words, bedrock truth that this story rests on. It is this meticulous inclusiveness by dint of hard-fought local battles that gives me little moments of happy recognition and pleasurable fellow feeling, of not being alone as I face a hostile-to-me world.

Go with Author Turnbull on the hunt for the truth of Power through these many points of view. Power resisted, power obtained, power flouted and abused...there is all the power any one being or group can ever use in the simplest truth of them all: Mystery exerts power in ways nothing else can hope to equal, still less surpass.

It's time to get outraged, folks:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ginni-and-clarence-thomas-steal-2024...

>139 richardderus: took me five as well

>147 richardderus: already on my list... And my Kindle

>149 bell7: Hiya Mary! I'm glad I'm in such good company, seeing as there were so many choices of first letters.

I'm not surprised you've got No Gods, No Monsters, given the huge push they made to get it into as many professional hands as possible!

*smooch*

>147 richardderus: Looks Tasty

>151 magicians_nephew: I think you'll enjoy it a lot, so don't hesitate!

Hey, Richard. Once again, we are reeling from another appalling tragedy. Our new norm...I am glad we can take comfort in our books.

>153 msf59: Uvalde is so nauseating to me...a kid killing infants!...that there's no comfort comforting enough.

>147 richardderus: I already have that one in the BlackHole, but sadly my local library still does not have a copy!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and thanks for the computer advice.

>138 richardderus: Sounds like a good one, Richard. I’m now on my library’s long hold list.

>156 Copperskye: Oh excellent, Joanne! I hope it'll work well for you.

>155 alcottacre: *sigh* already got you, and not even a glimmer for poor ol' Pavone in >138 richardderus:...just my luck.

I hope it helps at least a little bit. *smooch*

>157 richardderus: It might, if I can ever get below 160 pounds and start buying books again!!

Wordle 341 2/6

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Can't sleep. Wordle's now going behind their paywall on 9 June. Of fucking course. AEONS, ASSET

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>159 richardderus: I hope you got some sleep.
Wordle is fun as long as it lasts, we still have two weeks to go :-)

>160 FAMeulstee: Napped a bit, but not really. Thank goodness it's therapy day tomorrow.

You make a good point, and it's not like there are no other choices!

*smooch*

083 The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us by Alice Roberts

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: The presenter of the BBC's The Incredible Human Journey gives us a new and highly accessible look at our own bodies, allowing us to understand how we develop as an embryo, from a single egg into a complex body, and how our embryos contain echoes of our evolutionary past.

Bringing together the latest scientific discoveries, Professor Alice Roberts illustrates that evolution has made something which is far from perfect. Our bodies are a quirky mix of new and old, with strokes of genius alongside glitches and imperfections which are all inherited from distant ancestors. Our development and evolutionary past explains why, as embryos, we have what look like gills, and as adults we suffer from back pain.

This is a tale of discovery, not only exploring why and how we have developed as we have, but also looking at the history of our anatomical understanding. It combines the remarkable skills and qualifications Alice Roberts has as a doctor, anatomist, osteoarchaeologist and writer. Above all, she has a rare ability to make science accessible, relevant and interesting to mainstream audiences and readers.

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

My Review: A narrative approach to a complex scientific study that's occupied Humanity for millennia is going to fall short in both rigor and scope. In that sense, Dr Roberts was doomed from the outset. What anyone who undertakes such an enterprise anyway chooses, then, is to fail in a particular way. In the case of Dr Roberts, an actual, practicing scientist, the choice was obvious: rigor, begone therefore to allow me the scope to speak directly to the audience for this book.

I'm quoting this bit from the chapter entitled "RIBS, LUNGS, AND HEARTS":

When I look at an archaeological skeleton, the first thing I do is lay out the bones in an anatomical arrangement, as though the individual were laying on {their} back, arms by the sides, palm uppermost. Then I make an inventory of the bones, before moving on to look at each bone more carefully, taking note of features that might help me to determine the age and sex of the individual, as well as any telltale signs of disease.

Ribs can be a real pain—they're often broken into short fragments—but after some patient work on this jigsaw puzzle, it's possible to put them in order. A human chest is shaped like a barrel that has been squashed front to back, and the shape of the individual ribs reflects their position.

Careful, clear, and just a bit humorous...you got the "pain" play on words, right?...but the next sections are peppered with "rectus abdominis muscles" and a list of hominin names like Homo rudolfiensis and Homo habilis and we're way out of most people's comfort zone. This explains, I hope, my mingy-seeming rating.

What this book is doing, that is presenting the astounding evolutionary development of the Homo sapiens writing and reading this review, is very valuable. In and of itself, the existence of this project is heartening and necessary. There is an audience for science stuff that wants to know a lot of the material in here. But there aren't that many of us. Dumbing down, as any scientist wishing to communicate with laypersons absolutely must do, is a process of selection and elision. Author Roberts (I typoed "Riberts" and thought long and hard about just leaving it to see if anyone noticed) chose well, for me at my level of interest and information. But what about everyone else?

Choices, in any event, were made and they were illustrated with interestingly detailed line drawings and they were developed to a deeper level than I would've advised she take them; but Professor Doctor Author Roberts is a skilled communicator and (if one is willing to put in the work) will reveal to her readers an astoundingly inspiring story of unlikely events that came up with the form and function of the Homo sapiens she wrote this fascinating, but dense, book to inform and educate.

Ammy is freaking out that I've been posting so many reviews. I got a polite little note asking me to verify I'm actually the one doing the posting, which I did, and got a polite little note confirming that they know it's me now so carry on.

I think I understand why I haven't seen so many nasty reviews. I'm actually quite glad.

084 Racism, Not Race: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions by Joseph L. Graves & Alan H. Goodman

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The science on race is clear. Common categories like "Black," "white," and "Asian" do not represent genetic differences among groups. But if race is a pernicious fiction according to natural science, it is all too significant in the day-to-day lives of racialized people across the globe. Inequities in health, wealth, and an array of other life outcomes cannot be explained without referring to "race"--but their true source is racism. What do we need to know about the pseudoscience of race in order to fight racism and fulfill human potential?

In this book, two distinguished scientists tackle common misconceptions about race, human biology, and racism. Using an accessible question-and-answer format, Joseph L. Graves Jr. and Alan H. Goodman explain the differences between social and biological notions of race. Although there are many meaningful human genetic variations, they do not map onto socially constructed racial categories. Drawing on evidence from both natural and social science, Graves and Goodman dismantle the malignant myth of gene-based racial difference. They demonstrate that the ideology of racism created races and show why the inequalities ascribed to race are in fact caused by racism.

Graves and Goodman provide persuasive and timely answers to key questions about race and racism for a moment when people of all backgrounds are striving for social justice. Racism, Not Race shows readers why antiracist principles are both just and backed by sound science.

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

My Review: Author Graves is a biologist; Author Goodman is a biological anthropologist. These are scientists answering a series of questions that have, for over a century, pretended to be scientific excuses for the hate-based ideology of racism.

There is one race: Human. Homo sapiens is the genus and species of each and every one of us.

The format of this book is supremely simple. Its chapters, titled eg "Everything You Wanted to Know About Genetics and Race" and "Intelligence, Brains, and Behaviors" (bonus points for not forcing me to retrofit the series/Oxford comma, gents!), are organized around questions, eg "What do geneticists mean by the structure of human variation?" and "In the twentieth century, were Jews, Italians, and Irish thought to be separate races?" and "When doctors, epidemiologists, and other medical scientists say that race is a risk factor, what do they mean?" There is, at the very front of the Kindle book, a hyperlinked list of all the questions raised in this book. It could not be easier to use if it was an audiobook that read itself to you.

The Notes section, which (I realize and suspect the authors do, too) you aren't all that likely to read, is more than a simple list of people and projects cited; the authors also provide some editorial comments worth your time to follow the hyperlinks to see. There are quite a lot of them, but there's such a thing as telling too much (in fiction, called "spoilering" and apparently a thing I do a lot despite trying to think like a spoilerphobe).

I'll conclude with a ringing endorsement of this exercise in calm, logic- and fact-based debunking of enduring hate-based myths. The authors said it best of all:

Antiracism starts with understanding what race is and isn't. Antiracism is not just an ethical and scientifically correct position; it is necessary for our survival.

‘Morning, RDear.

>147 richardderus: Powerful review, my friend. Your eloquence in extending beyond the book’s premise resonates… makes me weep… unwomans me. I’m feeling a tad weepy this morning what with all the major sh** in the US right now.

>159 richardderus: Congrats. And, of course. Will it be behind their separate games paywall? I have a subscription to the NYT and have so far resisted paying extra for games.

sad *smooch*

>159 richardderus: note that there is a (so far) free Wordle app in the Google Play Store if you have an Android tablet or phone

>166 magicians_nephew: That's where the announcement came from, Jim. It's the usual thing. Give us money or else.

>165 karenmarie: I don't know that answer, obvs. But I suspect it'll be behind every paywall they can throw up. It ain't cheap to run an organization that big!

It's the proper response, being weepy is, because it's a situation that only tears can give relief to. I'm afraid I think nothing will *help* or *fix it* after Uvalde and the Thomas trolls nakedly showed their hands. Moscow Mitch and Mealymouth McCarthy (there's a name that already lives in American political infamy) are their henchrats. It does not look hopeful to me.

Anyway. Nothing I can do that I'm not already doing so on I go through this Thursday.

>162 richardderus: I've seen a number of her tv documentaries over the years RD. Noting this.

>164 richardderus: This too.

>168 Caroline_McElwee: I think you'll really like Alice Roberts' book, Caro, because it's like reading her thoughts. She's a very clear writer and I expect you have the patience to learn what she's teaching.

I think the subject of racism is one you'll benefit from having ideas to confront its reality in your hip pocket.
***
Oh FUCK no!
"Elon Musk upped his equity commitment to fund his takeover of Twitter to $33.5 billion, and scrapped plans to partially finance it through a margin loan tied to his Tesla shares. Maybe this deal is going to happen after all?"
—via Morning Brew. Pretty much my worst fears put into words.

>164 richardderus: Good review. I've borrowed the ebook from the library. I hope at some point in the near future I will be able to get to all the ebooks I have languishing on my Kindle.

>169 richardderus: I've pretty much quit Twitter. I think, in the past 3 weeks (since the Musky Rat made public his plans for world domination taking over Twitter, I've been on the site 4 times, all of them because I heard some breaking news and wanted to see if there was more info on Twitter. It's funny, but although I am still stressed, there has been a lessening of stress that I only realize when I think about going back to Twitter and feel my stress level rise.

Edited to correct typo

PEARL RULE #32: Pearl Ruled at 13%

Children Who Remember Previous Lives: A Question of Reincarnation by Ian Stevenson

The Publisher Says: This is the revised edition of Dr. Stevenson's 1987 book, summarizing for general readers almost forty years of experience in the study of children who claim to remember previous lives. For many Westerners the idea of reincarnation seems remote and bizarre; it is the author's intent to correct some common misconceptions. New material relating to birthmarks and birth defects, independent replication studies with a critique of criticisms, and recent developments in genetic study are included. The work gives an overview of the history of the belief in and evidence for reincarnation. Representative cases of children, research methods used, analyses of the cases and of variations due to different cultures, and the explanatory value of the idea of reincarnation for some unsolved problems in psychology and medicine are reviewed.

My Review: Two things you should know up front: I believe reincarnation, of some sort, is real; I have little faith in the direction of brain and neurological research as of 2022 answering the question, "what is your mind? what is the soul?" That does not require belief in some sort of supernatural bookkeeper whose Ledger tots up, infallibly and constantly, your personal record of naughty-vs-nice behaviors. It means there is nothing to explain why you're you in the structures of your brain and firings of your nerves. Science isn't looking into the subject because it's like the third rail in a drunken subway pissing contest: contact will be unpleasant and possibly fatal.

And neurological research is crucial, leads to amazing insights into a host of issues, but no one can yet tell us based on neurology or brain anatomy what your mind is. We need to develop the questions before science can apply its astonishingly powerful array of tools to discovering the answers. Not, at present, happening.

So I Pearl-Ruled this book not because it was trying to skip scientific steps and present unfounded answers but because it literally cannot, and does not claim to be able to, answer anything. That got old fast. I'm on board: My Jesus-freak mother was my source of early information about past-life memories. My oldest sister was apparently quite garrulously willing to talk about her bizarrely sophisticated memories of things she couldn't have known about (she remembered having sex as a man but had no idea what any of it was, for example) from age two until she was about four.

As those conversations were memorable to me, I wasn't in need of any persuasion to accept the possibility that these are actual memories of some strange sort. So just watching the evidence pile up was, frankly, tedious. I bailed because I was already on board not because I disagreed, in other words. I don't know if these case studies are the sort of material a skeptic would care about, and a fence-sitter would do well to take it in doses. It's not without value; it's just not designed to meet my need for deeper context.

>170 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! I think you'll, um, appreciate this book.

Twitter affects people so strongly...I see why. I myownself refused to pay to get the scumbag scammers to give me back my Facebook profile, and find that I am absolutely delighted not to be there.

Happy to see you here, dear! *smooch*

>172 richardderus: Hmm, so if I'm not on Twitter and you're not on FB, the only place we'll meet is on LT (or RL). That's not so bad!

>173 Storeetllr: Long as we can find each other somewhere, I'm fine with it being here. Or RL!

>154 richardderus: Too true.

>162 richardderus: Got me, though with some nervousness that it may turn out to duplicate other recent works.

Note that it's not a romance, so you still have some work to do to implement your project. ;-)

>164 richardderus: Go away! Don't you know that I'm subject to backaches, and if I put holds on everything you've hit me with, and collect them all at once, I'll be running from physiotherapist to cheiropractor.

Note - the above is *supposed to be* humour. Except the part about getting me with this BB.

>173 Storeetllr: I'm also an abstainer from F*c*book and Twitter.

In my case, a lifetime abstainer. Neither one had a plausible use case for me, when they were new, and by the time they might have provided some upside, they'd developed really bad reputations.

>178 ArlieS: It's not really necessary for someone not employed in the wider world at present, not interested in being instantly au fait with what the hoi polloi are yammering about, and not engaged in some commercial (or quasi-commercial, like me) enterprise that requires publicly touting one's self.

>177 ArlieS: *snerk*

No.

>176 ArlieS: June, Arlie...Juuuunnnne. The Pride Month Cavalcade of Queerness begins in Juuuunnnne. And Alice Roberts does go over things that will ring long-ago class bells, but it's never bad to have a real, live multi-talented expert come and tell one what is the what.

>175 ArlieS: Awomen.

I am also a life-long abstainee from any social media. Heck, I don't even have internet at home. That may have to change when I retire, but for now it is a nice quiet place with only TV, radio, and my land-line phone.

I still do FB occasionally, never a Twitter fan, and I'll be sad to lose Wordle. And I already believe in past lives, so skipping that book, too. So there! Happy Thursday. Smooch.

>181 Berly: I probably would do FB, too, but when they reset stuff to be unavailable to me I accepted the nudge from y'all's gawd and shook its dust from my sandals. I don't miss it.

Happy Thursday, Berly-boo! *smooch*

>180 benitastrnad: You'll most likely need home internet when you're not in the office, but not until then. Not everyone needs the same things, goodness knows!

Have a lovely weekend-ahead's reads, Benita.

Happy Thursday *smooch*. Bummed about Wordle but I finished a book tonight.

>183 bell7: I saw that, Mary! I hadn't heard of this project of Novic's.

Very cool. *smooch*

Heh. I started with Facebook to keep in touch with my daughter who lived across the country and sometimes forgot my phone number. I started with Twitter in 2009 when Obama was trying to get the ACA passed. I didn't have cable, and I found Twitter very helpful in getting quick updates on how the debates were going. It wasn't as insane as it is now, though there were a lot of Tea Party idiots. Today's MAGAts make the early Tea Partiers look like leftwing radicals. (No, not really that, but certainly less poisonous than what they've turned into today.)

I too am bummed about Wordle, but I still have Phoodle and Quordle, and those will have to do.

>185 Storeetllr: Well, let's just keep playing using that revised link until they freeze non-subscribers out. No sense being sad before trouble actually arrives...that's my specialty, I'm afraid.

>171 richardderus: I Pearl Ruled this review after the first line. Heh heh.

>187 weird_O: LOL

You devil you

>159 richardderus: Oh man. I did not know that it's going to ba a thing you have to pay for. *sigh* Just as I was nicely addicted.....

Such a shame about Wordle. Definitely not going to pay for a subscription for it. I like the sound of the Alice Roberts book - I read quite a few books on that topic at one time but it was a long time ago and I’m very out of date.

Not finding any information about NY Times Wordle going behind a paywall?

Sorry to hear if this is true. Can't say I would be much surprised

‘Morning, RDear.

We’ve lost power and are under a tornado watch. Sigh. Thank goodness for my UPS, and Bill will get the generator going when this first major wave of storms has gone by.

>171 richardderus: I believe in reincarnation, too. I don’t have past life memories per se, but have an unreasonable terror of certain types of water dripping sounds and am convinced that it relates to a past life. I also believe that my sister, my daughter, and I were together in past incarnations.

Amazing about your sister. I don’t know how reincarnation can be ‘proved’.

>172 richardderus: and >173 Storeetllr: Here and RL works fine with me. I’m on FB, stopped taking quizzes and liking things a decade or so ago, have only posted one time in about 15 years, and don’t go on there anymore except to respond to the few folks who send me Messenger messages. I don't feel like I'm missing enough to overcome my aversion to it.

*smooch*

Wordle 342 3/6

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Well, well, well...my queenly aspirations came in handy. I thought I was being funny! AEONS, MIRTH, TIARA

>192 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! "Reincarnation" is so many different things in so many different traditions...past-life regressions being the latest, most Western, phase...that it suggests to me we're all "on to something" without knowing exactly what. It's like "the soul"...we all know there's something that makes you you but no one can quite formulate what the something is in a provable way.

>191 magicians_nephew: I don't imagine it's being mooted about by the Times. I was able to circumvent their "buy this subscription" ad/demand after some determined effort.

>190 SandDune: Hasn't happened yet, Rhian, so let's enjoy it while we got it.

Roberts' TV appearances are probably her best calling card in the UK. The Celts: Blood, Iron, and Sacrifice with Neil Roberts might not've been the *best* idea....

>189 figsfromthistle: Let's not borrow troubles from the future! Enjoy it now. And keep refreshing if their advert refuses to be dismissed...it worked for me!

085 Free: Two Years, Six Lives, and the Long Journey Home by Lauren Kessler

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: 95 percent of the millions of American men and women who go to prison eventually get out. What happens to them?

There's Arnoldo, who came of age inside a maximum security penitentiary, now free after nineteen years. Trevor and Catherine, who spent half of their young lives behind bars for terrible crimes committed when they were kids. Dave, inside the walls for 34 years, now about to reenter an unrecognizable world. Vicki, a five-time loser who had cycled in and out of prison for more than a third of her life. They are simultaneously joyful and overwhelmed at the prospect of freedom. Anxious, confused, sometimes terrified, and often ill-prepared to face the challenges of the free world, all are intent on reclaiming and remaking their lives.

What is the road they must travel from caged to free? How do they navigate their way home?

A gripping and empathetic work of immersion reportage, Free reveals what awaits them and the hundreds of thousands of others who are released from prison every year: the first rush of freedom followed quickly by institutionalized obstacles and logistical roadblocks, grinding bureaucracies, lack of resources, societal stigmas and damning self-perceptions, the sometimes overwhelming psychological challenges. Veteran reporter Lauren Kessler, both clear-eyed and compassionate, follows six people whose diverse stories paint an intimate portrait of struggle, persistence, and resilience.

The truth—the many truths—about life after lockup is more interesting, more nuanced, and both more troubling and more deeply triumphant than we know.

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

My Review: I'm the sort of bleeding-heart liberal who wrote to prisoners in for long stretches back when my hands could still write. I had one guy parole to my address. He was one of the luckier ones...his dad's car was his, he had a nest egg from dad's death, and he made it okay through re-entry. (Explaining ATMs was the mind-blowing moment of complete freak-out for him...a few years later it was the cellphone that utterly destroyed his brain.) But he was very, very lucky and knew it.

Many more aren't. We, as a society, have made our laws such that anyone who went to prison was effectively unemployable and unusable after that. Now, having read my reviews of How Fascism Works and Racism, Not Race, do some threads come together in your privileged mind?

Not one iota of this is accidental. It is designed carefully to have the effects it does. And on whom it does. You who vote for GOP candidates are disproportionately to blame for this tragic, wasteful, and hideously costly disaster that unfolds out of sight. "Law and order" is second only to "horrified and heartbroken" in the right-wing litany of useless at best, and harmful at worst, mealy-mouthing.

What Author Kessler has done with her trademark facility is immerse herself into situations hitherto privately endured, suffered through, floundered deeper into. It's her gift. From the ridiculous (Raising the Barre: Big Dreams, False Starts, & My Midlife Quest to Dance The Nutcracker, 2015) to poignant (Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer's, 2007) to flat-out hilarious (My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, a Daughter, a Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence, 2010), she's been in the thick of stuff lots of us endure without guidance, and brought back either—or more often both—wisdom or insight. She does it again here, with the afterlife of prisoners as "free" people. I know you're shocked.

A big part of what led Author Kessler to this topic was her frequent writing classes taught to incarcerated people. It's a shocking, unfathomable truth that teaching people to reach into themselves and bring out stories...their own or made-up ones...is a giant benefit to them! Imagine such a thing! And now imagine how comparatively few prisons offer such a simple, inexpensive thing....

I digress. So Author Kessler knew firsthand what was going to happen before she decided to do her party trick and get into the nitty-gritty. When she does that, she brings the reader a volume of emotional reality that is hard to endure, but impossible to ignore. There are statistics. There is research and its concomitant eye-smartingly dull prose (that missing half-star making sense now?). But mostly, there's Arnoldo and Vicki and Leah and Sterling...there's a solid undertone in even the least scintillating passages that ties it to a person whose real life this is, and thus made this reader care deeply.

It's hard to reach in and grab one's tiny remaining blossom of empathy to pluck and give to troubled, law-breaking people. And that's why I keep trying. I don't want to, but I also don't want to live in that world. The one that has room only for Me and Those Like Me. Because that world's never done a good turn for this particular reader and writer, has conditionally accepted what I offered only to eject me from its benefits when I wasn't able to keep giving.

I'm hugely lucky, compared to the folks who're leaving prison. I have a lifeline they lack: The System works for old white men like me because it's meant to work for us. So I do this. I read their stories, I tell you about that reading, and say "you should read this, it's important that you know what's happening in your name."

Consider it said.

Happy Friday, Richard. Rain will keep me off the trails today, so I can do chores and food shopping. Jack is coming by later for an over-night stay so that will bring us both a little sunshine. The kid has been an absolute hoot lately.

Have a great holiday weekend, my friend.

>196 msf59: Hi Mark! Thanks for the long-weekend wishes. I'm glad y'all're getting Jack for a visit, nothing brings sunshine like a grandkid.

Have a dry and well-beered weekend's reads after.

Morning, RD!

>198 katiekrug: Cheers, mate, what's new?

BURGOINE #35

The Barbary Figs by Rashid Boudjedra (tr. Andre Naffis-Sahely)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the 2010 Arab Book Prize.

Two old friends and cousins find themselves side by side on the flight from Algiers to Constantine. There is a lot of history between them, as well as bad blood. The flight will last only an hour—an hour during which both their stories will be told, interspersed by anecdotes of Algeria's struggle to release itself from France's colonial grip. The title, The Barbary Figs, is a symbol of the "old" Algeria, since their grandfather used to grow them on his estate. The "new" Algeria is far less straightforward, and has produced far more bitter fruit.

My Review: Algeria was considered a part of France, not a mere colony, from 1830 to 1962. It was not like the country treated the Algerians as French people, for all they were officially citizens. After the war for independence was won, the country began the process of yeeting itself into a civil-warring mess.

Interrogating this process of disintegration is a life-long project for Author Boudjedra, born in 1941 and still with us as of this writing. He attempts to encapsulate his own life by trapping two estranged cousins, Omar and Rashid, on a one-hour flight from Algiers to Constantine, Algeria's second city. They reminisce, as we're all prone to do; they talk about love, sex, and death, and they don't shy away from the anger these conflicting needs and desires evoked then. The issue is repetition, as it is in all life stories. Are we here again, the reader wonders wearily; as I am an old man with some young people in my life, I cringe a little in self-reflective recognition. Sorry, Rob, I'll try to rein this behavior in.

Most of all, though, I want others to know that this is a story of great resonance, that its title is its organizing metaphor for fecundity and sweetness in many colors and shapes that no longer appear with regularity in public markets. Author Boudjedra's long, fatwa-filled career as resister of the colonizers, then resister of the religious mobs, is summed up in this rumination on what the past offers and what it does not. I think he said it best and most succinctly in a letter from the 1990s quoted in the translator's Afterword:

All great literature has incorporated history as a fundamental element of the interrogation between the real and the human, operating in a more subjective mode than one would think in so far as it is the one fruitful and interesting mode of inquiry, becoming far more than just a reading of the past that is immediate, official, fossilized, academic, mechanistic and opportunistic, always co-opted, distorted, and travestied for the sake of the cause.

His eloquence and his fighting spirit shine through a translation that I can't say scintillates, though it is not pedestrian or plodding. I doubt it's inspired, though, as the source text won a literary prize. Albeit, I must say, one that appears to have vanished as of 2012....

>199 richardderus: - Not much. Livin' the dream... :-P

>200 richardderus: - Still not much!

Somewhere upthread you mentioned that Amazon had contacted you regarding your reviews. I am curious about why they would do that? I don't post anything to Amazon, but I do use the books part of it as a sort of Books-In-Print kind of database so I am in and out of it for that reason almost every day. I don't like to use it to purchase stuff, but once-in-awhile I have to do so, especially when I am out in the wilds of Kansas and far from real stores. Are they watching people who post or something?

>202 benitastrnad: I think they're the Evil Empire of Surveillance Capitalism, Benita, but they're absolutely using their surveillance powers to combat harassment and review-bombing. I've posted literally thousands of reviews so I'm on their radar. When someone whose history goes back to 2000 suddenly changes habits, it makes a strand of their spiderweb vibrate and prompts a query to the last known address about one's health and state of mind.

>201 katiekrug: Heh...I reused my duplicate post for a Burgoine! *smooch*

I like Quora user Shailesh Yadav's differentiation between critics and reviewers:

The key difference between the two is that a review can be compiled by anyone and consists of a subjective opinion of a work, unlike a critique which is written by an expert in the field with a technical comprehension.

Succinct. I can't find the source who said, "A critic tells you if a book is literature; a reviewer tells you if it's worth reading."

>204 richardderus:

"A critic tells you if a book is literature; a reviewer tells you if it's worth reading."

Spider Robinson the Science Fiction author of the Stardance books was fond of saying this - not sure if he originated the remark.

>205 magicians_nephew: I feel sure he's the one I read it from, but I can't find the citation!

>204 richardderus: I couldn't find the source either - Google just gave me links to how-to sites for reviewers, and/or for people looking for books they like. But I'm going to add it to my list of email signatures - my mail client randomly selects one for each message I send, and I override its choice manually if I want something in particular instead.

>207 ArlieS: It's a terrific quote, worthy of a spot in the rotation. I wish we could narrow down an attribution.

>164 richardderus: Immediately went and purchased this for my Kindle after reading your review.

And I have just finished the book that should win this year's Hugo award over A Master of Djinn. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. Read it!

>209 ronincats: I have added it to my list, Roni! I'm glad you've bought Racism, Not Race...it never hurts to have glib ripostes to ignorant folk!

Wordle 343 5/6

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Too early...stupid screw-up at #4. AEONS, MIRTH, TRUCE, CREEK, CREPT

I always thought Paul Lynde was a hairpin-scattering old queen...now I know it's true: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx8Gbzkl4GQ7S7QW2f2d13-TkNuQFYUryy

>211 richardderus: Sorry about the missed guess on #4. I've definitely done that before pre-coffee.

>208 richardderus: My memory is that it was in his first book review column for Galaxy and reprinted in God is an Iron and Other Stories but i can't find my copy right now

>212 richardderus: There was a play a few years ago called The Nance with Nathan Lane about men who played the swishy effeminate comic stereotype in vaudeville and suchlike.

Made me think about Paul Lynde - a funny talented actor trapped in an image that made his fortune and eventually killed him, too.

>214 magicians_nephew: Can't find it...but I found this gem!

The delusion that one's sexual pattern is The Only Right Way To Be is probably the single most common sexual-psychosis syndrome of this era, and it is virtually almost always the victim's fault. You cannot acquire this delusion by observing reality.
Spider Robinson Source: Lady Slings the Booze (1992)

>215 magicians_nephew: What killed Paul Lynde was a taste for rough trade. Sad, but not unique (Sal Mineo, Monty Clift).

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Saturday to you.

>195 richardderus: Excellent review. Even as an old white woman I benefit from the system, although not quite as much as OWM do. I’ll take this one under advisement, because I’ve never had to deal with the prison system except as a juror on a death penalty murder trial in 1995 and don't have the emotional energy to do so now.

>200 richardderus: Tantalizing but I’ll pass. I’m still in a bodice ripper phase and already have a huge wish list.

>203 richardderus: strand of their spiderweb vibrate… vivid.

>218 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! At least you're keeping a list for when the ripped bodices no longer appeal.

Have a lovely weekend's reads! *smooch*

'Morning, RDear and happy Sunday to you.

I've also start reading The Federalist because I'm listening to Alexander Hamilton in the car, so there is more to my reading life than just Kindle Kandy.

*smooch*

>220 karenmarie: Nothing in the least wrong with Kindle-Kandy reading. There's a gracious plenty of idiocy to avoid being upset by.

Enjoy your Sunday's reads, Horrible! *smooch*

Wordle 344 4/6

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I'm glad I'm from the US South. AEONS, MIRTH, PYLON, BAYOU

>222 richardderus: ha!

I didn't play for a few days...busy with this and that, and reading ...

I got yesterday's in 3 and today
Wordle 344 3/6

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>223 mckait: Hey Kath, happy that thing we don't mention on Sunday. *smooch* for being your archvillainous self and knowing the answer even when you shouldn't.

yes i have a copy of the Federalist Papers i like to dip into now and then - (a) because it's fascinating to revisit the debates that shaped our Constitution and (b) because Hamilton is such a terrific writer. (And Madison and Jay are no slouches either)

I have Ron Chernows book on Hamilton autographed, but it's a chunkster.

Still gobsmacked that Lin-Manual Miranda read it and heard people "rapping" and then wrote the musical play.

>225 magicians_nephew: Well-timed visit! After deciding, if we couldn't nail down a Spider Robinson attribution,to contact Spider Robinson.

I got his reply today:
Spider Robinson
May 28, 2022, 8:49 PM (14 hours ago)
to me

Dear Mr. Derus,

Sorry; I have no idea. It sounds like something I might have said, but that was decades ago, in another country. I always considered myself a reviewer rather than a critic. I never met a writer who, if I'd said I had some critical remarks about his book, wouldn't have immediately assumed I meant criticisms. This may be because so few critics ever remember to say an occasional positive thing.

All I really feel entitled to say about a book is whether and how much I enjoyed reading it. If my tastes are reasonably consistent, it should be fairly easy to tell from that what a reader's own reaction would be. Placing any given work in the context of world literature is of no interest to me. Seven years earning a B.A. as an English major cured me of that. I never want to be one again, even at gunpoint.

Hope this helps. Nobody's opinion of a book is worth more than your own unless you think it is, and I try hard not to do that any more. Thanks for writing.

—Spider
***
I enjoyed his perspective on the matter delivered first-hand, and am going to roll with "attributed to Spider Robinson" ever after when using that quote because he didn't disavow it and did expand upon it.

>224 richardderus: ha! thanks. And serious guessing was what got me there. Maybe it helps that I am past caring if I get it or now?

I've been lucky in some book choices lately, so reading has most of my attention in my free time.

>227 mckait: I think not caring about outcomes anymore is the most powerful weapon us oldsters possess.

Excellent news re: books...what were they? And where can I get them?

>222 richardderus: I'm from the U.S. North, and I GOT TODAY'S IN TWO (2)!!!!! My first 2. *pats self on back, even though arthritis makes that painful*

(I got lucky because there aren't many words that end in "u", and my first word is usually one that ends in that letter.)

>230 Storeetllr: Two! Fancy that!
drags out voodoo-dolly making kit
That's simply splendid!
preps the special joint-pain inflictor

>229 richardderus: Says it all RD.

>232 Caroline_McElwee: To my shamefaced disgust, it does.

>229 richardderus: - Geez. And sadness.

>234 jessibud2: I'm long, long past sadness.

Hey, RD. We had a nice weekend with Jack & Co. And thanks to you, I started Pollak's Arm, which I am enjoying it. I snagged an ebook copy, after you warbled about it.

>229 richardderus: Nailed it!!

>228 richardderus: last week I read

Unprotected: A Memoir
by Billy Porter

Ten Steps to Nanette: A Memoir Situation
by Hannah Gadsby

The two memoirs just happened to come in together so..

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Seed Keeper: A Novel
by Diane Wilson ... which I read Saturday/Sunday and is five big stars for me

and a random fluff something or other or two.

Today I'm starting The Wise Women: A Novel which is light fiction.

Haven't even looked at wordle yet because walked B, garden chores and quick trip out for a few items. Whew.

Maybe after my iced coffee?

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Monday to you.

>225 magicians_nephew: I’m completely enamored of Alexander Hamilton right now, Jim. I admire you for reading the book. I have a paper copy and have looked at all the photos and other items that Chernow thought interesting enough to include.

>226 richardderus: Nobody's opinion of a book is worth more than your own unless you think it is Of course. Nice to see it stated so succinctly.

>229 richardderus: Wow. Devastating. I rarely wear t-shirts outside the house anymore, preferring button down cotton shirts; but I’d wear that on a t-shirt without hesitation, although it would be more provocative in the southwestern part of my county than in the northeastern part of my county.

*smooch*

>237 mckait: Oh, the memoirs were good? I checked Unprotected out but somehow its turn never came up and I forgot about it. I'll carve a place into the Cavalcade of Queerness.

I know Piranesi was good, but The Seed Keeper: A Novel got so much hootin' and stompin' from them as don't read my way that I avoided it. Sorell's book the same way. Thanks!

I'm not caffeinated yet so the mere notion of Wordle makes me shiver. *smooch*

>236 msf59: Hey Mark! I'm so glad y'all enjoyed the weekend with Jack. And I'm confident that Pollak's Arm will make its subtle way under your boredom radar. :-)

>239 richardderus: I forgot to add The Candid Life of Meena Dave
by Namrata Patel

I hated the main character but it was a good read, most others were nice...

086 Alone on the Moon: A Soviet Lunar Odyssey by Gerald Brennan

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: May, 1970. A two-person Soviet crew approaches the moon, ready to accomplish the greatest feat in human history—provided they can overcome their own petty jealousies, and the unforgiving harshness of space.

Alone on the Moon chronicles a Soviet moon mission through the eyes of Boris Volynov, a backup who’s been pressed into service helping Alexei Leonov (a man he despises) attempt humanity’s first lunar landing. Thoroughly researched, it’s a detailed and plausible rendition of two larger-than-life personalities facing incredible challenges. It’s also a meditation on luck, trust, the nature of observation, and the burden of being chosen—plus the way our personal narratives can shape (or poison) our perceptions of the present. Do the stories we tell ourselves shape our fate, or can we write a new chapter? The answer awaits.

The titles in the Altered Space series are wholly separate narratives, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Each one is an ensō of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Remember Mary Robinette Kowal's Lady Astronaut of Mars series? Alternate space race with hugely accelerated stakes, a lot of international and interspecies cooperation? Like, even women going to the stars?!? Well, that tore it. I had to have more space-but-not-this-way stories.

So here I am reviewing the next most different take on the Space Race...a Soviet first-lunar-landing story! And I hated it!

More precisely, I hated the narrator: Bitter Boris the Bore. Banging on about how unlucky he is, how a Jew is always held back, how deeply he hates Alexei the Golden Boy...his nickname's fuckin' BLONDIE facryinoutloud!...and his tedious wife, the chilly withholding climber.

I'll never read this book again. But goddam what a story! What a sheer, pulse-pounding rocket ride of a story!

The whole burden of the refrain "unlucky" is simple: Don't be different. Don't stand out. Be there but never be noticeably better than anyone in power unless you're so good there's not a corner that they can sweep you into. Because they will. In other words, big organizations are all alike and whatever alphabet the nameplates are printed in the behaviors are the same.

What happens to Boris is utterly terrifying. At every turn, his shot is blocked. His spot is taken. When he gets to do anything, it goes wrong. Not just people, then, but gawd hates him. And it's no wonder they do, he never met a joy he couldn't squelch or a happiness he couldn't chill to absolute zero. Even his son is being raised by this dark, unhappy cloud of a belief that nothing goes right because it's inevitable.

Yuck.

What this does for Blondie, the first man on the moon, is give him a partner in space who believes it's all going to shit anyway but he's going to check, recheck, then check the recheck so no one can say it was his fault. He calculates things Control has already fed into his computer. He's always got a finger on the cut-off switch so he can make the computers and the thrusters and the machinery of every sort obey his calculations. Which are, of course, correct. Blondie's always been the fair-haired boy and the lucky one so he's just indifferent to the details.

And do you know what? He shouldn't've been *quite* so sanguine. I delight in that bit. I thrilled to the ways the inevitable problems that crop up got handled, solved, and Boris vindicated. There's a reveal at the end of the book that wasn't a surprise to me, there's a lot of technical stuff that will likely put off a casual reader, and there's the basic problem of feeling whined at for almost 300pp. But there was no damned way I was closing this book until I was sure the story ended...well.

And that's why it gets four whole stars.

ETA touchstone

>240 mckait: Happily I can skip something that has a narrator you don't care for. I'm fully paid on those dues after Alone on the Moon: A Soviet Lunar Odyssey.

>238 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! *smooch*

I'm sure that would be, um, unpopular in huge swaths of your state. Maybe best not to seek it out in the name of a quiet life....

Spider was a gentleman and a scholar to write back at all and I'm quite pleased he's so very commonsensical.

087 Boys Come First by Aaron Foley

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Suddenly jobless and single after a devastating layoff and a breakup with his cheating ex, advertising copywriter Dominick Gibson flees his life in Hell's Kitchen to try and get back on track in his hometown of Detroit. He’s got one objective — exit the shallow dating pool ASAP and get married by thirty-five—and the deadline’s approaching fast.

Meanwhile, Dom's best friend, Troy Clements, an idealistic teacher who never left Michigan, finds himself at odds with all the men in his life: a troubled boyfriend he's desperate to hold onto, a perpetually dissatisfied father, and his other friend, Remy Patton. Remy, a rags-to-riches real estate agent known as “Mr. Detroit,” has his own problems—namely choosing between making it work with a long-distance lover or settling for a local Mr. Right Now who’s not quite Mr. Right. And when a high-stakes real estate deal threatens to blow up his friendship with Troy, the three men have to figure out how to navigate the pitfalls of friendship and a city that seems to be changing overnight.

Full of unforgettable characters, Boys Come First is about the trials and tribulations of real friendship, but also about the highlights and hiccups—late nights at the wine bar, awkward Grindr hookups, workplace microaggressions, situationships, frenemies, family drama, and of course, the group chat—that define Black, gay, millennial life in today’s Detroit.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: There's no such thing as "reverse racism." There's just racism, with shifting targets. Dom, Troy, and Remy all say, and feel, really racist things. And guess what: Unlike white people, these Black men have reasons to feel angry and frustrated and dispossessed. Their skin color marks them out as targets for lunatic racist white scum.

And guess what else? Black folks ain't perfect. These are three gay men, in a social milieu that really, really does NOT want their men to be gay. At all. So can you see what leads these loving, flawed, hurting, sadder-looking-for-wiser guys to be mouthy? It's like women of all colors rolling their eyes so hard they see their brains when men of any color start legislating what they can and can't do with their own bodies. There's a lot of anger built up at a lot of groups. Most with reason and justice on their side.

A lot of that anger is faced up to in this story of hurt, betrayal, and abuse. Dom and Troy, in their different ways, are reeling from domestic drama that is instantly relatable. Remy, not part of the kidhood bond shared by Dom and Troy, is probably the most personally insulated from domestic drama since he's in a "situationship," a neologism (it was to me, at least) I really like for a long-distance, still love-based, relationship. Not like I understand that from the inside or anything....

Remy's job as a real-estate hustler leads to a major fracture in his friendship with Troy and, to an extent, Dom, because his work is threatening to repurpose Troy's employer, a school, into gentrification's profitable arms. Detroit's decades of economic woes are a huge part of this story's rage-fuel. Would Dom have left Detroit for New York (and by extension met his cheating ex) had Detroit been capable of sustaining his ambitious need for a media market commensurate? Troy's domestic woes are fed, at least in part, by the economic struggles inherent in pursuing a teaching career. And here's Remy about to make a bundle of cash off the city's redevelopment....

I think the major take-away from this story is that there's no room for racism's corrosive effects in any society we need to support the creation of; and the other hate-isms, like homophobia and colorism, have to go in the dumpster too. When these Black, gay men face so much trouble from outside, it makes their work to fix the problems inside so very much harder. And that stops them not at all, doesn't even slow them down much, as they fight and fuck and work themselves up to fever pitch. These men, messy lives and sad hearts and powerful spirits in them all, make every day count. They don't, by the end of the story, waste what they've got anymre in wanting what they can't have.

But that does not mean they take second best. Not for long, anyway. It makes them great companions for a summer laze on the beach.

Just...maybe skip ahead over the smexytimes. Until you get home, anyway.

Thus beginneth the Cavalcade of Queerness y'all call June and we call Pride Month up here. Other countries, those few that even notice the subject, might place it in other months, but most of the US puts it here because the biggest queer communities are in cities where June's by far the nicest month of the year. Oh, and Stonewall. (That was the 28th, if your history needs refreshing.)

I'm planning thirty-three reviews this month. I'm already swimming in my own flop-sweat when I say it...but that's what's on the agenda. Yes, four or five are planned to be Burgoines. I'm not completely mad! But it'll still be a stretch. Wish me luck!

Wordle 345 3/6

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The wonders of proper caffeination! AEONS, ABORT, ATOLL

MAY IN REVIEW

Looks like I'll finish my May with 28 (a possible 29th is a story collection so it's only contingent until I finish reading it) reviews posted. Not too shabby...and decent prep for my Pride Month goal of thirty-three. *ow* Lotsa typing! I might post two reviews in all of July!

I was happy with my women-in-translation total going over my men-in-translation total, despite there only being three all told. I loved reading my friend Rob Greene's space-race alternate history trilogy-starter, Mercury Rising; today's Soviets-on-the-Moon review Alone on the Moon: A Soviet Lunar Odyssey was more guy-adventure oriented though I'm down with that. Good stuff, though no jaw-dropping great reads. How Fascism Works was the one that sticks with me the most because I am really running more scared than ever that the idiot right-wingnuts are paving the way for an entire generation of misery. There's no painting a happy face on the armed insurrection headed our way now, after Uvalde proved there can be no common ground on common sense with ammosexual fascist asshats.

By my latest count I'm at 136 posted reviews of 275 planned. That leaves 139 to go, or twenty a month. If that's correct, and if my #PrideMonth posts total the thirty-three I've got planned, then whoopee I'm coasting home to a met goal for 2022.

I wish I felt more like celebrating.

"Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.”
― Alan Alda, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

I've always admired Alan Alda's curiosity. His eager absorption of new information is a trait I want to emulate my whole life. My alcoholic-dementia suffering roommate is my living reminder never to get trapped inside my own head. It's dark in there. Monstrous, weird-looking things are everywhere! Let me out!!

>231 richardderus: Wow! You must have some strong juju - I was almost crippled with joint pain yesterday. Whatever you did, don't do it again (unless you do it on a TFG et al. doll).

Back to the usual four today, so I should be safe(ish) from your voodoo curses.

*smooches*

ETA >243 richardderus: Sounds a powerful novel. In that I get annoyed even with a chaste(ish) kiss between a herero couple, am I likely to throw my Kindle across the room if I start this?

>248 Storeetllr: My Powers are fearsome indeed. (I can read a weather map!)

re: >243 richardderus: do not approach more closely than a mile. Absolutely not. No nix nyet nein.

>89 richardderus: That is one excellent review.

And now I'm ready for the Cavalcade of Queerness! :-)

>250 EBT1002: Thank you, Ellen! I think it's all set up for the 1st to the 5th. *whew*

I'm glad you liked >89 richardderus:...I've had a sad fiftyish views on my blog. Disappointing, but predictable.

Impressive stats for May, Richard, and here's hoping that you're able to meet your review goal for June.

>252 bell7: Thanks, Mary! I'm a little flummoxed at how the month turned out, given that the plan was to review short-story collections all month long. Well, other things were called for so I did them instead.

June's another chance to follow the plan. *glances fearfully skyward* if'n it please yer honour

>245 richardderus: Got it in two today, Richard, only because I suspected a theme after yesterday. I almost blew yesterday's because I am definitely not from the South and, given our current weather, can't even pretend that I am.

jumping in to share, I got an early start

Wordle 346 3/6

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I need to start a new book today, not sure what it will be.

>255 mckait: Hi Kath! Hoping your book-selection tops even the good stuff you've been reading.

I haven't Wordled yet. I'll be caffeinated soon enough, I hope. *smooch*

>254 Familyhistorian: Given your current weather, Meg, you're the object of envy and longing for Southerners! I'm impressed that it was just two.

088 Even Greater Mistakes: Stories by Charlie Jane Anders

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In her short story collection, Even Greater Mistakes, Charlie Jane Anders upends genre cliches and revitalizes classic tropes with heartfelt and pants-wettingly funny social commentary....

The woman who can see all possible futures is dating the man who can see the one and only foreordained future.

A wildly popular slapstick filmmaker is drawn, against his better judgment, into working with a fascist militia, against a background of social collapse.

Two friends must embark on an Epic Quest To Capture The Weapon That Threatens The Galaxy, or else they’ll never achieve their dream of opening a restaurant.

The stories in this collection, by their very outrageousness, achieve a heightened realism unlike any other. Anders once again proves she is one of the strongest voices in modern science fiction, the writer called by Andrew Sean Greer, “this generation’s Le Guin.”

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

My Review: This is a collection to dip into not slurp down greedily. I mean, where else do you find, "A whole book of short stories can be overwhelming, like imaginative speed dating." This isn't even in a story! It's in the opening act, the Introduction! She's not keepin' her powder dry, unlikely for a seasoned campaigner who's founded geeky websites; or she's just got that immense an arsenal and knows she doesn't need to pace herself.

The best thing I can say of this epitome of Author Charlie Jane Anders's career is that you are unlikely to become bored. A story about time travel that includes, as I've never seen any other place, the fact that the Earth is moving in space; the Sun is moving in space; and not one bit of that enables a careless time-traveler to land where they began. Another story about time travel, but for an extremely specific time, and how that affects a love affair. Love, in every guise you can imagine, underpins every story. Love unspoken, love requited, love rejected...love all over the shop. Seriously. Get some towels.

You'll note that you're denied the story-by-story breakdown...you must venture blogwards to bring you the flavor of the tales.

Wordle 346 3/6

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I wasn't sure what to make of that pattern. AEONS, TALON, MANOR

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Tuesday to you.

>246 richardderus: Congrats on 28 or 29 reviews in May. Not shabby at all.

>247 richardderus: You haven’t mentioned OS much recently, but I’m sorry he’s still his not-wonderful self.

>256 richardderus: I Wordle before starting LT. It’s one of a few things I’m rigorous about.

>258 richardderus: Congrats on 3. It took me 4, but I didn’t have to resort to my work-it-out spreadsheet or look at the list of 2,309 words. Did it all on my own, in my head.

*smooch*

>257 richardderus: sounds like a fun collection. The problem of the Earth and other astronomical bodies moving has always been a hang up of mine with time travel stories. Much less the general expansion of space-time as the universe expands. 😀

>260 drneutron: It really made reading that story more fun for me. It's always the first thing I steel myself to ignore in time travel stories.

>259 karenmarie: I'm not rigorous about Wordle because, well, that's a job to me when I need to be rigorous.

Old Stuff is depressing. I know I didn't do the things he still does but I'm still forced to reckon daily with the yucky parts of old age. I've trained him not to talk to me unless he's got a question, or needs something. At least he's less gabgabgabby than before.

It was 28 for May, so I'm right pleased!

>257 richardderus: Too bad about >243 richardderus:, but this looks like a good replacement for that one.

Got today's Wordle in 4, so no need to pull out the voodoo doll and needles of pain. I got Phoodle in 4 too, and all four of the Quordle puzzles in 4, 5, 7 and 9. Like karenmarie, I always do Wordle before jumping on LT. Not because I'm disciplined, but rather because I'm not; if I see a spoiler for today's Wordle, I am unable to resist peeking.

Hope your A/C is doing its job and you're bearing up under this heatwave.

089 The Redshirt (University Press of Kentucky New Poetry & Prose Series) by Corey Sobel

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Shortlisted for 2020 Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize

Corey Sobel challenges tenacious stereotypes in this compelling debut novel, shedding new light on the hypermasculine world of American football. The Redshirt introduces Miles Furling, a young man who is convinced he was placed on earth to play football. Deep in the closet, he sees the sport as a means of gaining a permanent foothold in a culture that would otherwise reject him. Still, Miles's body lags behind his ambitions, and recruiters tell him he is not big enough to compete at the top level. His dreams come true when a letter arrives from King College.

The elite southern school boasts one of the best educations in America and one of the worst Division One football programs. King football is filled with obscure, ignored players like Miles—which is why he and the sports world in general are shocked when the country's top recruit, Reshawn McCoy, also chooses to attend the college. As brilliant a student as he is a player, the intensely private Reshawn refuses to explain why he chose King over other programs.

Miles is as baffled as everyone else, and less than thrilled when he winds up rooming with the taciturn Reshawn. Initially at odds with each other, the pair become confidants as the win-at-all-costs program makes brutal demands on their time and bodies. When their true selves and the identities that have been imposed on them by the game collide, both young men are forced to make life-changing choices.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Let's start with the easy bits: Clearly Author Sobel, football alum of DUKE University, knew the sports parts inside out. Clearly he understood the racism and exploitation inherent in King/Duke University inviting Black players to its program, and campus. And I strongly suspect he knew some closeted players. He himself is not gay, and it shows.

This is not a knock. The man understands viscerally the cost of hiding and sneaking. But he doesn't get the longing for a man to touch you and be touched by you because I'll wager he's never felt it. What he does get is the way love, real true first love, makes a man out of a boy. That part is absolutely crystal clear, and is the heart of my appreciation for this story. Reshawn the phenom's hatred for the entire enterprise of college football, possibly the game itself, gets serious exploration. It's counterpointed to Miles's "I-am-a-camera" absorption in the colors and the personalities and the panoply of the game's celebrants, as Author Sobel directly describes them:

Here came the celebrant. Coach Zeller's vestments were a purple polo shirt, pressed white khakis, and unscuffed tennis shoes he reserved for games. He took his place at the head of the half circle, and once the last people squeezed inside and the doors closed he began his first pregame speech as King's head coach.

It's not necessary to reproduce Zeller's blather about either rising or sliding, about choosing and losing. It's not like it makes any difference, but it does show the author's clear grasp of the milieu and his own keen perception of the performative and ritualistic elements of football at this school.

What the author also gets is what it takes to be Other in a world that has no room, no time, no oxygen for Otherness. What happens is cruel and vicious and mean-spirited. Miles is the most intensely tested character in this book and it is unbelievable to me that his power and strength could go unnoticed by the people around him. The adults clearly see it and clearly want it...but on their own terms.

The end of the story is not at all what one would expect it to be. The end of the story is, in so many ways, the end of childhood's sweet spot in adolescence and the entry of Miles...and Reshawn...into the dark, cold, stinking pool of adulthood. Reshawn is, like Miles himself, tested and comes through a man. The others? The team, the coaches, not one of them is anything other than a dupe. They're fools caught on the deck of Plato's ship of fools, all the worse because they see it and choose it.

I can't imagine all that many of my fellow queer gents are football-mad enough to want to wade through the games and practices. There's no compensatory sex to make the enterprise less...cishet...and that is deeply too bad. I think, if y'all can pry open your rage-sealed hatred for the way team sports treated you, you'll find a story about personal power, about truly accepting yourself and your place in this world, and about how important it is to know your friends are fully, completely there for you if you're to make any kind of success out of adult life. And thus how very satisfying Miles's story is. That is what you get; you should come experience it; and take some time to appreciate that this is not some lame fantasy of The Lockerroom, but the voice of experience telling you how it goes when it goes right.

>263 richardderus: - Onto The List.

This made me think of you:

"On Friday, though, she joins me around lunchtime with veggie sandwiches from Mug + Shot that are about eighty percent kale. With a full mouth, she says, 'This sandwich tastes exceptionally unplugged.'

'I just got a bite of pure dirt,' I say.

'Lucky,' Libby says. 'I'm still only getting kale.'"

(from my current read, Book Lovers by Emily Henry)

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.

>261 richardderus: Ah yes, train ‘em right. Glad you’ve gotten him to that far. I seem to remember that you at least got him to read at the point you mentioned it? I hope he’s still reading.

>263 richardderus: I would have loved a boy child as much as I love my girl child, but admit that I am glad I never had to fight the oh-yes-it-would-have-been-fought battle to keep a boy child out of Pop Warner and etc. football.

>264 katiekrug: Gads. A BB from a visitor to RD’s thread. Kale's evil.

*smooch*, RD

Wordle 347 5/6

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I was absolutely sure guess #3 was correct. The answer surprised me. AEONS, MIRTH, RELAY, BREAK, CREAK

>265 karenmarie: *chuckle* And what a battle it would've been! In Nawth Ca'lina, sweetiedarling, you'd've been fighting HIM too. Imagine a blocker/tackler (I've seen Billhoney's photo) with your brains going unscouted. Ha!

Oh my yes, if I hadn't reminded (polite fiction) him that the library is between here and the liquor store and they have a much better selection than I do, he was off to the races. James Patterson, mostly, but CJ Box and William Kent Krueger too.

This is the target range of books, m'love, you'll never see it comin'. *smooch*

>264 katiekrug: HA!! I see why it made you think of me! *snort* Perfection.

I'm glad you got smacked with that book-bullet because, if the book ever makes it into your possession, I think you'll really like it. You are about the perfect reader for it...empathetic to the goals, and to the people striving for them. Plus a fan. With a conscience. Yep. Sobel was writing this specifically to you.

>262 Storeetllr: I got it in 5 today, Mary, so no worries. It was a heatday here, not a wave, and really not even that awful. I think it touched 85° briefly here on the boardwalk. Today it's about 70°, which is the normal temp.

*smooch*

Happy hump day!

You are on quite an excellent reading roll. Lots of great reads.

>268 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! I've been really lucky reads-wise. I'm amazed at how few real duds I've been subjected to. Must be due for a deadly-dull stinker that's also a huge disappointment.

Sufficient unto the day, however, so Imma keep readin' and hopin'.

I think I need a two-tiered server. What I'll serve, or to whom, isn't really terribly important.

Happy hump day, Richard! It's cloudy and in the 60s today, so I'm taking advantage and mowing my lawn.

>270 richardderus: That is gorgeous.

>263 richardderus: Well, you got me. I think I saw it on my library's recent acquisitions list - will check.

>272 drneutron: *self-satisfied giggle* I'm always absurdly pleased with myself when I smack Fearless Leader with a book-bullet.

>271 bell7: It's only a tiny bit warmer here, Mary, and for all of me it can stay like this until Thanksgiving. *sigh* Of course it won't, but a lad can dream.

I'm glad you appreciate my discovery! It's so elegant....

>263 richardderus: Huh. This actually looks interesting to me, Richard. I think I'll go take my temperature and get back into bed. I must be coming down with something.

Happy First of June/Pride Month! 🌈

Happy Wednesday, Richard. I got some birding in this morning with my AZ birding buddies and now I am hustling around getting things done. I finished cutting the lawn and soon I will start packing the truck. We leave early tomorrow AM. I will probably be offline for the entire week, since Wi-Fi is spotty there. Hold down the fort, my friend.

>263 richardderus: Yeah. I can see why you like the book, but football - ycch.

>257 richardderus: I'm behind on Anderses. Thanks for the reminder.

>263 richardderus: Dang, you made a football novel sound appealing. Still, football.

>277 swynn: It's got an excuse: A friendship between a Black phenom and this white gay kid that DOES NOT TURN ROMANTIC which, frankly, astounded me. It's worthwhile for The Twist....

>276 ArlieS: Avoid! Abort! Desist! Go not near it! You'd be angry and rightfully so if you tried to read this.

>275 msf59: Cheers, Birddude! Enjoy, be safe, and take lots of photos!

>274 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! I, um, I don't quite know...I mean, there's nothing to squick you out but I don't...I mean...not really a football person, are you? And that would cause *untold*agony* to a reader of the book, not to be a football person.

Happy Thrursday, Richard dear!

You have been reading some interesting books, sadly none available for me yet. I will keep an eye out on translations.

>279 FAMeulstee: Good Thor's Day, Anita! I'm happy to say I *have* been reading a preponderance of good stories well told here lately. It's a pleasure and it's all too rare to keep a streak going this long. (Oh, Wordle! I need to get over there.)

Anyway, I send smoochings to you and hopes for at least some of these goodies to be Dutched soon.

090 Gay Giant by Gabriel Ebensperger

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A child who feels like an outsider in a world that’s set against him. A boy who sings on the playground instead of playing soccer, who likes Barbies, and whose secretly favorite toy car is the one called Tutti Frutti.

Gabriel Ebensperger shares with us his struggles with his own inadequacy, his feelings of guilt, and above all, his fear that his “difference” will be discovered. The vibrant bright pink pages of Gay Giant paint a picture of what it was like to grow up being gay in the ’90s. The author, along the way to becoming an adult, realizes that the scrutiny of the world never ends, and that true acceptance must come from within yourself.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Chile isn't exactly famous for its history of QUILTBAG rights protections. The country legalized same-sex, um, relations in 1999. But like everywhere else on Earth, at every time since there have been humans on Earth, people been usin' what they got to get their groove on since forever.

What Author Ebensperger experienced, then, as a youth in a macho culture, wasn't external affirmation or even acceptance. He was, well, weird. And weird kids suffer at the hands of their peers. It's the hands of their parents that do the most damage, though it looks like Author Ebensperger's parents were either remarkably chill, if significantly out of their depth, or he glossed over some stuff. Frankly I don't think that is the case because he and I share a favorite car: The godlike Citroën CX. He prefers the first year, 1974; where I idolize the 1978 Pallas model. Probably because I drove one and had A Crisis. *shiver*

How do I know this about him? He draws all of his cars very carefully, so I can see them vividly. (I confess I don't understand why his parents' 1967 Peugeot was evil; but I totally support his assessment of the W114 Mercedes-Benz as the Vehicle of the Antichrist.) And at a crucial moment, the aforementioned Citroën CX does a Back-to-the-Future-esque cameo. And that explains why I rated this graphic memoir a full four stars when 1) I HATE PINK and b) I ain't wild about sequential-art storytelling in general.

Look:


Under normal circumstances, I'd struggle to find something polite to say about the pinkness of the exercise, despite the really wonderfully clear message of self-acceptance and a dropping of one's internalized homophobia about "nelly queens" or "femmes" or, generally, men who don't fit the masculine stereotype. I mean, no one's asking you to marry the guy! Just don't sneer at him, or belittle him, or even (if you simply can not keep your heteronormative judgments to yourself) pollute his air with your breath. (Pink was the only color my mother could really love so I was surrounded by it. I hate it for that reason.)

But let me say again for the rare newcomer to my ambit: I am always looking for ways to challenge my habits and patterns and prejudices because I am hell-bent on not dying above the neck before I do below it. I get lovely rewards, like reading this charming essay in knowing your true self and working until you're in a love relationship with that self. I get to look at people from countries so very far away from my own perch in the Northeastern US tell stories that were true for me, thirty years before these stories took place. I am not alone; neither is the author; we are connected in an experience of the world as outsider other unwanted and, as a result, damaged in ways no one should be.

Here we are, in a new century, in a world that keeps trending towards a better, brighter future (if you ignore climate change) and yet there are always people who don't fit and whose pain is crippling. Yes, Our Flag Means Death was renewed, and there's a lovely clap-back against the vile racism recrudescing in the Star Wars stewpot, and still we hear the lunatic right-wing idiots braying their teeth out about pedophile faggots (almost exclusively a heterosexual crime, pedophilia, but we all know how much that crowd respects facts). I am still gruntled and kempt as I contemplate Street Noise Books's list in all its truth-telling glory. I am still wreathed in happy smiles as I leaf again through this 256-page bath of pinkness, because it tells me that my story is shared...right down to the survival and thriving of its main character.

Who has awesome taste in cars.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Thursday to you.

>267 richardderus: Yes, I might have fought the boy child, too. BillHoney’s barrel-chested and a big man, but surprisingly slender in his teenage years, like his dad was. Bill got onto the ‘fat boy’ list in the Navy, much to his mother’s despair. He’s never gotten back to his slender silhouette, but has lost 20 pounds since my heart attack – a combination of stress about me, even fewer meals out than we'd cut down to Covid-wise, and eating more low-sodium efforts from the kitchen.

I’m very happy to hear about OS’s reading. Patterson – well. But CJ Box and WK Krueger are not too shabby at all.

>281 richardderus: Here we are, in a new century, in a world that keeps trending towards a better, brighter future (if you ignore climate change) and yet there are always people who don't fit and whose pain is crippling. Yes, Our Flag Means Death was renewed, and there's a lovely clap-back against the vile racism recrudescing in the Star Wars stewpot, and still we hear the lunatic right-wing idiots braying their teeth out about pedophile faggots (almost exclusively a heterosexual crime, pedophilia, but we all know how much that crowd respects facts). I am still gruntled and kempt as I contemplate Street Noise Books's list in all its truth-telling glory. I am still wreathed in happy smiles as I leaf again through this 256-page bath of pinkness, because it tells me that my story is shared...right down to the survival and thriving of its main character.

Who has awesome taste in cars. You have a serious way with words, you silver-tongued devil. You almost got me. My real reservation is, as you’re probably already thinking, that it’s a GN, which is my least favorite medium, although Westerns are my least favorite genre.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Wordle 348 5/6

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I was doing the guessing game again, to my irritation. Streak's alive! 44 and counting. AEONS, MIRTH, SHOVE, SHOCK, SHOWY

>282 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! You're very kind to say such flattering things about my wordsmithery. I'd be all blushy if Kim Fay and the University Press of Kentucky hadn't said very similar things after retweeting my come-ons for their respective books. I'm on validation overload! Battening on it for the times when I can't even get an eyeball on a review.

But honestly, just don't even with Gay Giant. It's not going to do a single thing for you. You're already ahead of where you need to be on matters queer, and its artwork ain't aimed at us. (Good LORD I need to rejigger those images!! Goodreads took 'em just fine.)

I do not care what the man reads as long as he does. Even Patterson's better than TV for retaining some verbal command.

*smooch*

I came over to make sure you'd seen the news about OFMD :)

>285 katiekrug: Hm? What? What news, about what now?


Care for some cake, dear?

Both those images sure brightened up my day!

>287 katiekrug: ...sorry, what? I was off injecting some insulin from looking at those...bright...things. Thank the goddesses it's time for a new thread later today.

>281 richardderus: Ohhh, our favorite too!
We owned a Citroen CX back in the days, a black one, sadly totalled by the police going through red traffic lights without sirens, quiet on their way to an alarm, they said. At least Frank wasn't hurt...
Thanks to his customs uniform he had in the back, the police was very quick to pay all damages. Frank was rather high ranked, the few years he worked at the customs, until he got ill and was dismisssed without any pay.
It was the best car we ever owned.

>283 richardderus: I did better today ;-)

Wordle 348 3/6

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peony, wrath, showy

>289 FAMeulstee: Ha! I *knew* there was a reason we have been friends for so long!

They are spectacularly good cars, Citroëns, if one is faithful about maintaining them. Soooo comfortable!

Look at you with your Wordle 3! Why, if I was a lesser kind of jealous man, I'd be making voodoo dollies with all your major organ systems on them!
*stirs cauldron*

>283 richardderus: >289 FAMeulstee: I came in at 3 today too, thanks again to my trusty second word (story). (Watch out, Anita. He's probably got his voodoo dolls prepped and ready to get pinned, and his juju is strong!)

>286 richardderus: Oh! That cake! I'm getting a sugar rush just looking at it. I do like the rainbow explosions, though.

>286 richardderus: Happy almost the weekend day! If you're interested in the source of your explosion GIF, here it is...

Its from a YT channel called the Slo Mo Guys. They do many fun and cool things with highspeed cameras. The explosion in the GIF is at about 7:30, I think

https://youtu.be/0vUgGSLTtOg

>292 mahsdad: I like the Slo Mo Guys! They make me giggle like a kid a lot of the time. A way to waste a few minutes with relaxing destruction. Y'know, as us Y's do. ;-)

>291 Storeetllr: Hiya Mary! *extra cauldron stir* Have as happy a day as you can! *smooch*

My new thread? Why yes, of course you may join me there: https://www.librarything.com/topic/342123

>264 katiekrug:. Love that excerpt (preferring dirt over kale sounds right to me), and I enjoyed Book Lovers, although not as much as I hoped after her Beach Read.

Many thoughtful and thought-provoking book reviews, Richard. I’m tempted by the Chris Pavone book and The Redshirt. Slow poke that I am, I hadn’t
seen the word “cishet” (pronounced cis-het) before, but I see its usefulness.

>293 richardderus: Yea! Another connoisseur of sophisticated time wasters. Their latest was very trippy. Gallium (just like mercury but not as toxic, liquid at room temps) in a blender

>296 mahsdad: That was the latest? I thought there was something this afternoon. Huh.

>295 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe, it's been a good, productive June...I'm working on Sunday's review and still reading Tuesday's book. Might need to do the switcheroo....

"Cishet" is useful indeed. I myownself am "cisqueer" because I have descendants. I get a little weary of the endless parsing but the truth of the matter is we need to make room for more identities and the only way to do that is to keep stuffing labels into the space.

>297 richardderus:. The blender is the latest. loaded a couple days ago. At least that's what I'm seeing.

>298 mahsdad: I went to look, you're correct.

>290 richardderus: The Citroën CX was by far the most comfortable car we ever owned. I remember driving to Paris, and getting out of the car almost as fit as when I started the drive. Sweet memories of an other time, an other life, in fact an other century!

So glad you are not jealous at all ;-)

>300 FAMeulstee: That's exactly what the senior Citroëns all did, that effortless and utterly delightful distance driving. It's too bad they stopped making the big cars. Left the market to BMW and Audi. Not the same, and nowhere near as comfy.

*smooch*

>300 FAMeulstee: Oh I always loved the Citroen. When I was in HS (probably 16 or 17), I went to Europe as a part of a youth symphony, seeing them driving around Paris was so exotic to my young impressible mind.

>302 mahsdad: It would be indeed...when a young guy from Spain came to Austin, our high school's 2600 students blew him away...and that almost half of us had cars...and the cars were HUGE...but what caused his absolute collapse was the fact that my 1968 Bonneville had a 7-liter engine. (428cid) He just...sat there...could not process.

>297 richardderus: Personally, I'm happy to have my own individual identity, rather than picking a group or groups to identify with. Most of the time, what I have in common with various identities ascribed to me is shared oppression.

But that's now, after more than 60 years of not properly matching any description that begins with "xxx (type of) people are ...", and of inevitably having someone either demand that I behave like a real xxx, or insist that I'm not in fact xxx (unlike them) and have no right to claim that identity. (Usually I have *both* experiences, for the same xxx.) Also after finding that I rarely understand myself better after learning a list of traits common among some xxx that can reasonably be applied to me, though I may think I do when that way of seeing myself is new to me.

In my experience, people at least 25 years younger than me seem much more likely to want to find labels for themselves, with the tendency increasing as their age decreases.

OTOH, I don't much care what Joe or Jane Random identifies as. If they want to focus their sense of self on some group they belong to, that's certainly their right.

>304 ArlieS: People need identities and not many people have the resources or the information to form one of their own. Labels are a shortcut and, not infrequently, a stop on a road heading for Otherhood.