richardderus's eighth 2020 thread

Leigh Brackett circa 1960, via IMDb

Leigh Brackett was an *amazing* writer. She wrote the screenplay for The Big Sleep in 1946, aged 30; she wrote the first draft of The Empire Strikes Back in 1978, shortly before she died of cancer. In between those mileposts, she wrote and wrote and wrote: screenplays for another Chandler adaptation, The Long Goodbye; oaters for John Wayne, Rio Bravo and El Dorado and Rio Lobo; and, from being the "Queen of the Solar System" because she wrote so many planetary romances, she adapted her vision by inventing a whole different solar system to set her 1970s entries into the genre so she wouldn't conflict with reality as revealed by NASA.

Brackett's marriage to fellow SF author Edmond Hamilton was apparently untroubled by professional jealousy. It lasted from 1946 to his death in 1977; that's quite an achievement, especially as they worked in the same field. I suspect the reason she's largely forgotten today is toxic Star Wars fandom, the same louts whose screeching stupidity caused George Lucas to get the hell out of the business so he wouldn't have to listen to them whine and bitch and moan; these "fans" to a man say that Brackett wrote a terrible screenplay and nothing of it survived onto the screen, she was a crap hack writer who...etc, etc, etc. With that giant frown over her work, it'll be some time before reality reasserts itself and her real worth and value are rediscovered.

It will be. Any writer who can say these wise words has much to offer:

In 2020, I will post 10 book reviews a month on my blog. I already read a book every other day, as this year's total of 155 (a lot of individual stories don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; guess I should do more to sync the data this year) reads shows; so it's doable, and I've done better than that in the past.

I will Pearl Rule books I'm not enjoying with notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read.







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

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

Reviews 1 through 3 are thataway.

Reviews 4 through 8 reside thitherward.

Reviews 9 through 11 are back here.

Reviews 12 through 20 existen allá.

Reviews 21 through 24? Go here!.

Review 25 in all its lonely splendor is back yonder.

Reviews 26 through 40 are doin' it for themselves.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

41 The Best of the Rejection Collection: 293 Cartoons That Were Too Dumb, Too Dark, or Too Naughty for The New Yorker made Murderbot's absence hurt less, post 14.

42 The Fear Hunter wasn't very good, post 34.

43 Penny Serenade was T.D.YUS, post 73.

PEARL RULED The Code Book bcuz I r uh eedjit n its like super smart, post 113.

ROUND-UP REVIEW of Naguib Mahfouz's magisterial family soap The Cairo Trilogy {Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street} in post 123.

44 I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me is so satisfying to someone who doesn't think Roberto Bolaño is All That, post 126.

45 Mr. and Mrs. Cugat is a real period piece, post 203.

46 The Magic Faraway Tree was trippy, disquieting fun, post 262.

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

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

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

In 2020, I wanted to post 10 book reviews a month on my blog. As of 9 May, I haven't posted nearly enough to make the year-long goal! There are a few mitigating factors (a mild COVID-19 infection is one), but I don't think the deficit's recoverable. Even so, I still read a story every other day, as 2019's total of 155 (a lot of individual stories don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; guess I should do more to sync the data this year) reads shows; so it's doable, and I've done better than that in the past.

I will do better at Pearl Ruling books I'm not enjoying with notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read.

...and that's me done. My reports will continue to be quarterly, the day after the end of the quarter.
1Q20. Twenty-six reads done (two reviews TK), three posted on my blog, or 10% of the goal I set myself. Bad performance. Really bad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every winner of the Booker Prize since its inception in 1969

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

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

Shamelessly nicked from Paul Cranswick: LIT HUB'S 50 CHUNKSTERS & {HIS} 20 ALTERNATIVES

These are the 50 Literary Hub Must Read Chunksters:

1. The Overstory by Richard Powers READ; maybe squeaked to 3*
2. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin owned
3. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco read; probably didn't *understand*, though...4.5*
4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee READ; absolutely loved by the end, though it was a slow process...4*
5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell READ & WATCHED; I'm just not a Mitchell fan for some reason...3*
6. The Witch Elm by Tana French
7. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
8. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr owned
9. Little, Big by John Crowley READ; impressive book, found it immersive and luxurious...4*
10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides READ; another one of those guys whose work blends into one amorphous, self-satisfied, clever-clever wodge...2.5*
11. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
12. Possession by A.S. Byatt READ; a bit humid for me...3*
13. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel READ; it's not to my taste...3*
14. The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
15. The Secret History by Donna Tartt READ; oh dear...3*
16. The Parisian : A Novel ???
17. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie REARL RULED; she doesn't like men and I don't interact with women who don't like men this deeply
18. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters READ; gorgeous...4.5*
19. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami READ; disliked...2.5*
20. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
21. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie READ; loved...4.5*
22. American Gods by Neil Gaiman READ; one day I'll read a Gaiman "novel" with an actual ending, and a character arc that makes sense to me as an arc, but that wasn't this read...3* because I don't wanna hear y'all's mouths
23. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon READ; I really don't like superhero BS at all...2*
24. The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
25. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen READ; ***LOATHED*** 0.125*
26. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
27. A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
28. An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears READ; a bit dry, quite erudite, but lacking in involving storytelling...3*
29. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James READ; failed to grok, need to read again
30. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson owned
31. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe READ; disliked...3* because it's deeply influential and that deserves respect
32. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara REARL RULED; I just can not with this book.
33. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin READ; thoroughly enjoyed, recommend you read it, too...4*
34. JR by William Gaddis
35. Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko READ; of its time, and not really as good as it is portrayed as being...2.5*
36. Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon READ; loved! 4*
37. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany READ; but ya know what, 40 years of accretion means I need to re-read it
38. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett READ; should be called "The Book of the Rapist" yech! 3* for its incredibly interesting architectural stuff
39. The Stand by Stephen King READ; blew my mind c. 1979 but how the hell could I ever read it again?!
40. Underworld by Don DeLillo READ; absolutely totally completely adored...4*
41. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton READ; glorious gorgeous delicious...5*
42. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke READ & WATCHED; loved both versions...5*
43. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
44. 2666 by Roberto Bolano READ; someone someday needs to explain why this is amazing, I thought it was competent and decent and waaayyyy too long...2.5*
45. Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra READ & WATCHED; thoroughly immersive, fascinating, but a very very big ask...3.5*
46. Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann READ; genius. 5*
47. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace READ; contemptible man writes despicable story, loathed...0.125*
48. Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas
49. Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
50. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth READ; stunning, bleak, very challenging...4.5*

& PC's Alternative 20

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (1995) 624 pp READ; another big ask but it is so worth the sadness and woe you will experience because it is sui generis...5*
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2001) 544 pp READ; I don't remember it, but I remember liking it
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (2005) 720 pp READ; dire...2*
The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye (1978) 960 pp READ; every woman in my life c. 1979 was carrying on about it, so I read it and, welllllll...longest romance novel ever...3*
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess (1980) 656 pp READ; *fascinating* story, compelling writing, read soonest! 5*
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000) 560 pp REARL RULED; not to my taste
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman (1982) 896 pp
Saville by David Storey (1976) 560 pp
To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield (1972) 672 pp READ; Mama's favorite book ever, I think, since she read three copies to pieces; I liked it fine...3* based on forty-five year old memories
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (1994) 533 pp READ & WATCHED; pleasant...3*
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (1992) 640 pp
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (1993) 528 pp READ; nice enough, I suppose...3*
Sophie's Choice by William Styron (1979) 656 pp READ & WATCHED; never, never, never again in life...5*
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (2008) 544 pp READ; but damned if I remember a single thing about it!
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1998) 626 pp READ; its colonialism, heteronormativity, and religiosity enraged me so I couldn't enjoy the story...2.5*
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (1989) 656 pp READ; I know why y'all like it, but I don't...3*
The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell (1978) 704 pp
Magician by Raymond E Feist (1982) 864 pp
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy (1986) 672 pp READ; wish I hadn't...3*
A Chain of Voices by Andre Brink (1982) 512 pp

I've read 34 of the 50 list; 14 of PC's 20. 48 out of 70 = 69, a very high D that, since I'm grading myself on a 5-point curve, gets me to a scant C-minus. MUCH room for improvement!

And...GO!

Happy Saturday, Richard. Happy New Thread. Chilly start here but abundant sunshine.

Happy New Thread, Richard!

>7 msf59: And Mark wins the medal for being the first commenter!

It's windy, sunny, and chilly here, too. I mentioned to you before that y'all could keep the cold part for y'all's selves...and yet here it is...*tsk*

You know RD, it is the weekend 75 years after VE Night, and I have been thinking about all the things I am thankful for. Your irascible, fiercely honest, irreverent and articulate self & pal-ship being one of them.

Happy new thread dear fellow.

>8 ronincats: Thanks, Roni, it feels like we're back in March today, but it's brilliantly sunny so I can see the beach. Can't go on it, of course, but it's still lovely.

>10 PaulCranswick: Thank you for that lovely sentiment, PC. I return it heartily!

Happy new one!

Happy new thread, Richard!

41 The Best of the Rejection Collection: 293 Cartoons That Were Too Dumb, Too Dark, or Too Naughty for The New Yorker by Matthew Diffee

Rating: 4* of five

One star off for coming after Murderbot. Yes, it's capricious, arbitrary, and unfair. Suck it up. I'm mourning my precious Murderbot's absence...rereads do not count!...until 27 April 2021. But with that out of the way, this collection of stuff that wasn't quite right for The New Yorker, and not infrequently just Not Quite Right, made me guffaw and grin and generally enjoy myself so much that I mostly got out of the megrims and enjoyed my day.


Why would The New Yorker think this Diffee toon was too weird to publish? Seems pretty hilarious to me....

The inimitable Roz Chast replied to Diffee's "Infrequently Asked Questions" feature:
What would make a really terrible pizza topping?
Stye ointment.
LOL

I mean, seriously! If this isn't The New Yorker's audience's jam, what is?!


This will offend some of you. I do not care. The New Yorker did, unsurprisingly...but Sipress had the last laugh, he still got them to publish it! Ha!


Harry Bliss's failed submission to The New Yorker made *me* laugh...so why not their subscribers? Hmm?


Well. Need one say more about Leo Cullum? It says a lot about The New Yorker that they *didn't* publish this one.


Mick Stevens...equal opportunity offender. Don't @ me.

There are hundreds more, the awfullest ones even *I* won't put up, but believe me when I tell you that this book cured my Murderbot hangover. You just can not stay mired in gloom when The New Yorker's funny folk are after your laugher. No, I didn't misspell laughter. English doesn't have a word for the thing inside you that makes you laugh. And NO, it's not your sense of humor! People laugh at funerals faGawdSake! (Although I've always found it telling that the word "fun" starts the whole thing off....)

Go forth and smile.

>12 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita, and welcome!

>13 harrygbutler: Thanks, Harry! See above...I took a page from your book and absorbed a cartoon collection. It really hit the spot.

Happy new one, RD!

>16 katiekrug: Thanks, Your Katieicity!

Hi Richard my dear friend, happy new thread dear sir. I hope that you have a great weekend, the weather has been very good today but from tomorrow and for the next few days we are going to have a cold spell with the chance of wintry showers.

I must say that we are really missing Hannah and her hugs and cuddles and she is missing her friends and getting a little upset, bless her.

Sending love and hugs dear friend from both of us.

Happy new thread!

>14 richardderus: I'm glad you found a cure for post-Network Effect depression. I took a sip of Bujold, to pep me up, which the Number One Chinese Restaurant was not doing.

>18 johnsimpson: I can only imagine you're both going through Hannah withdrawal, John. It's miserable what this crummy disease is doing to us all.

Sending love and hugs back!

>19 quondame: Thanks!

Whatever works to chase the Murderbot Blues away is a good thing indeed, Susan.

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, RD!! ((Hugs)) and *smooches*

Great day in the evening. The township recycling depot, known to to me for forty years as The Dump, reopened today (after being locked down for a month or more) and I was able to clear all the paper and bottles and cans, and trash/garbage out of the garage. Only took two trips. Oh my, the things that make one happy.

Happy new one, RD!

>14 richardderus: My laugher caused me to laugh uproariously at these.

>22 alcottacre: Thank you, Lori!

>23 weird_O: *smooch* back, Stasia!

>24 karenmarie: A garage that's trashless in two dumps is cause to grin like a skull, Bill.

>25 richardderus: I know, right?! Some comedy gold up in there.

Rest your laugher for now, dear Horrible, you'll need it for Sunday.

Happy new thread Richard!

Did you miss me, darlin'?

Finally catching up! Happy new thread, Richard. That New Yorker sounds right up my alley. I read another one last year, called How About Never - Is Never Good For You? by Bob Mankoff (former cartoon editor for The New Yorker).

>26 humouress: If You Leave Me, Can I Come Too?

>27 jessibud2: "Nope, Thursday's out." I love the Mankoff cartoons! Make me giggle every time I read one. Happy Sunday, Shelley.

Happy new thread! Great cartoons... 😂

>29 drneutron: Thanks, Jim! They are, aren't they?

I'll be anti-social today. I'm not visiting threads to see all the happy-happy crap aimed at mothers.

Mine was a nightmare. And I've lost the Othermother, the one adult female who loved me without rejecting anything. So shove your happy-happy and keep it there.

You know what I remember about my mother? YOU MAKE ME SICK and AREN'T YOU ASHAMED BECAUSE GOD IS and YOU'RE AN EMBARRASSMENT shouted...screeched...at the top of her tobacco-scented breath.

My decade-older sisters, who spent no time with either one of our parents as a single parent: "she wasn't that bad" and "well, you are out of obedience to..." (that last is Winter, not Lynne) and so on. One sister spent an hour telling me how she *hated* to hear about other people's sex lives and then how gay men are so obsessed with sex...got it, sis, won't be calling you anymore...etc etc etc ad nauseum. To me the wonder of life is that I speak to women at all, still less make close friends of them.

I lost my job, was unemployed for 16 months, ran out of savings and lost the house. Winter's response when I called to say I was moving? "Well, you can't come here." 1) didn't ask 2) would be dead under a bridge before I moved to Cali OR in with her and the dreary dull dog. Lynne's was, "don't even think I'll give you money." 1) She owns income property all over Decatur 2) didn't ask 3) why the hell would I even think about it?

There's decades more. I talked about it with several therapists. But I'm not a Mother person and seeing all the greeting-card crapola makes my gorge rise. Rather than make y'all's world a little darker, I'll be back on Monday.

Hiya, RD!

*smooch*

Good morning Richard!

Hope all is well! Have a fantastic Monday!

42 The Fear Hunter by Elise Sax

Rating: 2.5* of five

The premise is fun. The first couple chapters are fun. Then the muddle hits: Agatha is centuries old (she says this in the first chapter) and a virgin (see above) and her Aunts are even older, apparently immortal, but one of them dies somehow. And Agatha has to go run the stereotypical wacky-neighbor small town's soup shop-cum-book store.

And the wack continues...there's an Area 51 analogue called Area 38 that everyone knows about, a bunch of basement-dwelling conspiracy theorists, a hot boxer-cum-police detective (in a rinkydink little town?!), I will now bring up the NINE (9) w-bombs the author drops, a couple of dirtbags with a clear criminal plot get murdered (so what?), and the ghost who lives with the Brights does something at the very end that is just so...damn...squicky.

It wasn't well organized, the author lost sight of aspects of her premise, the title relates to absolutely nothing that I can see, and the whole Salem Witch Trials thing at the ending wasn't making the squicky actions of the ghost better in any way.

So, in a nutshell, not so much. I won't be reading more in the series. Darn it!

>32 karenmarie: *smooch* Happy Monday!

>33 figsfromthistle: Happy Monday to you, too, Anita, and hoping for a rewarding day all around.

Hi Richard. I'm still waiting for Book 1 in the Sebastian St. Cyr series, a BB from your thread wa-a-a-ay back, I think. *big sigh*
Right now would be a good time for the e-books to be loaned out for a max of 10 days or something. But nope, people seem to keep them for the full 3 weeks.

Yeah, apologies, I'm being whiny...

>36 SandyAMcPherson: As whines go, that one's a piker...no need to worry. I'm glad you're succumbing to the St. Cyrs because they are good fun.
***
The British Museum has made over 1 million (1,000,000) items freely available to view online. ::boggle::

Isn't that shell jewelry *stunning*? Howinahell did some poor yutz in the 18th century, before the dremel tool was a gleam in Albert Dremel's Depression-addled eye, get this inkydinky open work done?! I mean, my eyes cross thinking about it.

The collection's a.maze.ing. Go look!

I'll remember the British Museum tip. our next virtual tour (we did the Musee D'Orsay) will be the Louvre.

Happy New Thread, Richard!

After reading about your aggravation at Unnamed Parent's Day, I'm guessing this is a rare Mumbleday that is welcome rather than un-.

I get to start a mystery I've been wondering about called Bluebird, Bluebird - I hope it's as good as it sounds.

Hallo, RD!

I love the British Museum. The Wayne and I spent a lovely 6 hours there last summer and would have stayed for more if my feet hadn't been killing me :) It was my 3rd time there, his first. I expect we'll be going back whenever we get back to London.

>38 jnwelch: - Joe, Bluebird, Bluebird is very good. I hope it works its magic on you.

Stopping by with Happy New Thread and Happy Monday wishes, RD!

>38 jnwelch: These fabulous musea are all on my Yule card list! I'm so grateful for the internet I could plotz. Mama aside, Monday holds no terrors for me this past decade...not working is a great leveler in terms of days of the week. *laaaleeeelaaa*

Ooo...Bluebird, Bluebird is waiting for me, too, and I really look forward to it. She's written another series that starts with Black Water Rising and that was really involving.

>39 katiekrug: I spent eight full hours in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City with my older sister one year. After that, I've set entry and exit times and enforced them. I can not!! Do!! It!! The exception is the Cloisters. I head for the colonnaded garden, park on the wall, and read until I get the urge to go look at the Unicorn Tapestries again. Don't care how long the other goer wants to stay then.

>40 lkernagh: Hi Lori! Happy Monday back at'cha.

I only had a quick look at the anthropology museum in MC when I was doing a site visit for a Board meeting. I really wanted to have our dinner there, but alas it didn't happen.

The Cloisters is lovely. I haven't been since I was a teenager - keep meaning to go with The Wayne and then forgetting. Sooooooon......

>37 richardderus: Beautiful piece.
Can you provide a direct link to this item of gorgeousness or an ID number?

I tried the online collection at the BM, but nowhere does this piece appear. I used 'shell' and various other descriptors to no avail.

>42 katiekrug: The Museum is a stunner. And I speak as one with a far more intimate acquaintance than most. But seriously...pace yourself. Like three hours or so a day, spread a whole tour over a week. It's Mexico City! There's a lot to do, and some utterly superb food. Xochimilco's canals are fascinating and wonderfully weird.

>43 SandyAMcPherson: No, I snagged it from Atlas Obscura. I suggest using the search criteria from the image's Wikimedia entry:
Set of conch shell jewellery ( detail ), from Naples ( Italy ), circa 1860. British Museum, room 47.

Copy and paste into the Search field in the BM's site. It should work.

Oh, exciting! I got the last two Thingaversary fifteen-book haul requirements!

A Velocity of Being, beautiful illustrated love letters to books from famous-ish people all over the world; and
Capital and Ideology, the latest Piketty book. My Thingaversary excuse obligation is met!

So why do I not feel guilty about the *other* book in the box? The Prometheus Man by Scott Reardon also arrived.

I'm doing my civic duty to stimulate!

Jeff posted this first! Darn. Well, anyway, after the kitten-squishers list that LitHub posted (see above for mine), here's the list of gnat-squishers, reads under 200pp, for those who are in shell-shocked distraction mode:

https://lithub.com/the-50-best-contemporary-novels-under-200-pages/

Mary Robison - Why Did I Ever
Jenny Offill - Dept. of Speculation
Denis Johnson - Train Dreams*
Han Kang - The Vegetarian*
Milan Kundera - Slowness
Kazuo Ishiguro - A Pale View of Hills**
Clarice Lispector - Near to the Wild Heart
Susanna Moore - In the Cut
Samanta Schweblin - Fever Dream
Garth Greenwell - What Belongs to You
Ben Lerner - Leaving the Atocha Station**
Don DeLillo - Point Omega*
Thomas Bernhard - The Loser*
Danielle Dutton - Margaret the First–this is one of my most favoritest reads of all time and you should all go buy it right now
Leonard Michaels - Sylvia
Renata Adler - Speedboat
Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending**
Jenny Erpenbeck - Visitation
Yuri Herrera - Signs Preceding the End of the World*
Marguerite Duras - The Lover
Rachel Ingalls - Mrs. Caliban
Sandra Cisneros - The House on Mango Street*
Sayaka Murata - Convenience Store Woman
Edward St. Aubyn - Never Mind
Anne Carson - Autobiography of Red
Donald Antrim - Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World
Fleur Jaeggy - Sweet Days of Discipline**
Sara Levine - Treasure Island!!!
César Aira - Ghosts*
Elena Ferrante - The Days of Abandonment
Nicholson Baker - The Mezzanine*
Andrés Barba - Such Small Hands
Susan Steinberg - Machine
Julie Otsuka - The Buddha in the Attic
Paula Fox - Desperate Characters
William Maxwell - So Long, See You Tomorrow
Toni Morrison - Sula*
Jeanette Winterson - The Passion
James Welch - Winter in the Blood
Max Porter - Grief is the Thing with Feathers*
Valeria Luiselli - Faces in the Crowd
Tobias Wolff - Old School
Lorrie Moore - Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Penelope Fitzgerald - The Bookshop
Stephen Graham Jones - Mapping the Interior**
Ron Hansen - Mariette in Ecstasy
Grace Krilanovich - The Orange Eats Creeps
Justin Torres - We the Animals
Marie Redonnet - Hôtel Splendid
Ottessa Moshfegh - McGlue

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

AND NOW FOR SOME CROWD-SOURCED FAVORITES

Cynan Jones - The Long Dry*
The Dig*
Edith Wharton - Ethan Frome
Alan Bennett - The Uncommon Reader
Stewart O'Nan - Last Night at the Lobster*
Michael Seidlinger - The Fun We've Had
Larry Watson - Montana 1948
Mary Costello - Academy Street
Patricia MacLachlan - Journey
John Fuller - Flying to Nowhere

>46 richardderus: And I've only read 14 of the fifty! I own five more, so that's 19...that's a miserable 38%! EW~~

>46 richardderus: - I loved both Train Dreams and Sula. If I could add two, both Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan and Academy Street by Mary Costello are among my favorite reads of the past several years...

>48 katiekrug: Oh, poor Manny! That's an excellent addition. I'd add The Fun We've Had by Michael Seidlinger and Journey by Patricia MacLachlan, The Long Dry and The Dig by Cynan Jones, Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, Montana 1948 by Larry Watson...oh, the list could go on and on, and I have no idea how or why to stop it.

I will explore the list more thoroughly, as I find few things more satisfying than a really well done short work.

The Uncommon Reader!

>50 katiekrug: Oh my HECK yes! Okay, I gotta go add notes.

>48 katiekrug: >49 richardderus: Lobster and Montana, two excellent additions, that I have also read and loved.

And you are right, RD, there's no way to stop this list (probably more so than the big ones)

>46 richardderus: - Hum.... a look through that list and the only ones I have read are The Sense of an Ending which I loved - 4.5 stars, The Days of Abandonment which I hated - 1.5 stars and Ethan Frome which was a "middle of the road" read for me.

>46 richardderus: Don't you feel the absence of Ursula K. LeGuin? If being in a book of short stories or being published in a magazine disqualifies, there are a lot of overlooked oysters.

>52 mahsdad: It's largely because it's such a target-rich environment. I mean, how many squillions of novellas are getting published the past 10 years? That alone raises the waters.

>53 lkernagh: Well then! There's you a starter kit, no effort required!

>54 quondame: The shorter Le Guins are almost all short stories. I have a collection of her novellas that I'm slowly reading through, but she was a novels-or-nothin' kinda writer most of the time.

>44 richardderus: Thanks for the specifics. Worked a treat... Intricate but doesn't look comfortable to wear. Not that I have "events" to attend, where such a decoration would be appropriate.

>31 richardderus: I feel for you, Richard dear, having similair feelings...
(((hugs)))

Well, it is Monday now, a much happier day!

>56 SandyAMcPherson: It's a definite "statement" parure. I wouldn't want to wear it, it looks to me like it would itch like mad.

>57 FAMeulstee: Thank you, dear one, I know it was an unhappy time for you (childhood, adolescence) as well. It's just fine today, though our weather was a bit on the gloomy side. Tomorrow will be sunnier, I'm promised.

Hmm, I know I've read books of under 200 pages. None from your list, though, and I just can't think of any others I have read, except maybe the Murderbot Diaries books 1-4, which is currently on my mind because I just finished rereading them and want to read them again.

Happy new thread, Richard, and Happy Monday!

{{{hugs}}}

>59 Storeetllr: It could be you're not interested in stories that length, Mary. I know all sorts of people who refuse to consider reading kitten-squishers or short stories because of the length.

>46 richardderus: I will probably look through the list and see which ones appeal to me. I can tolerate most things under 200 pages.

>61 thornton37814: It's a great starting place for discoveries to happen, Lori.

>55 richardderus: Well, yes, but they do exist, as you said, a whole book full. And the early books were short, the Earthsea and the Worlds of Exile and Illusion.

Happy new thread, Richard. Another list of which I have not read any. I'm not sure what I read because the lists on LT just showing me that I'm not that well read.

Morning, Richard. I hope your week is off to a good start. I loved A Thread of Grace. MDR rules! I am also enjoying a terrific thriller on audio, The End of October, so my books are treating me fine, as well as the birds. Now, if I could get the weather to cooperate. Sighs...

>63 quondame: I found Vaster Than Empires, and More Slow to be a very good novella, but not Earth-shattering; I'm a big fan of Earthsea and the early Hainish stuff, but they're all over 200pp in my editions anyway.

>64 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg...being widely read and having a magpie brain that needs lots of shiny shiny newness isn't being well-read, either. But it's always a shock to me when I run across a list of X and haven't read a damn thing on it. Unless it's, I dunno, untranslated Danish feminist theory books.

>65 msf59: Hi Mark! I'm *so* glad that A Thread of Grace was a good read for you. It was a long and deep read for me, I think it took me at least a month to get it in my eyes. Too much substance to be gawped and swallowed.

Good morning, Richard!

>46 richardderus: Heh. Gnat-squishers list. I love it. I’ve only read two and only have one of the others on my shelves. I don’t know what that says about me exactly, but it’s nothing I’m going to worry about any time soon.

>67 karenmarie: Happy Whatever-Who-Caresday, Horrible, enjoy the May lovelies while we have them.

I think it says precisely nothing, myownself, but hey...whatever floats your boat. *smooch*

>46 richardderus: my favorite Edith Wharton will always be The Custom of the Counrtry with Summer coming in a close second

I used to read a lot of short stories in magazines even Science Fiction and Mystery short stories, but i don't read many of them any more

>69 magicians_nephew: For someone with eye issues, short stories have got to be clearly worth the effort expended, I'm sure. And how does one know that in advance?

The Custom of the Country...Undine Spragg's up there with Narcissa Benbow of Flags in the Dust as a memorably vile woman.

>66 richardderus: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea - the whole book is less than 200 pages. Also The Birthday of the World.

>71 quondame: Mine has 208pp. Oh wait! You mean the story itself? It's ~58pp.

43 Penny Serenade by Martha Cheavens

Rating: 2.5* of five

Author Martha Cheavens sold this story to McCall's Magazine, originally titled "The Story of a Happy Marriage," for its August 1940 issue. After hot director of the moment George Stevens found out about the story, he bought the rights and convinced his recent major star Cary Grant to appear in it. To no one's surprise the story was retitled by McCall's to the film's projected title of "Penny Serenade." (There are online places one can see the facsimiles of old magazines. Find them yourself, I won't lead anyone down the path of unrighteousness.) Cheavens received $125,000...in 2020 dollars, that's around $2.3 MILLION!...to "consult" on the script. So she wasn't going to need to work any time soon.

The story itself is bog-standard ladies' fiction of the era, sentimental hoohah implying that a woman's fulfillment is Being A Mother, that Father is only to be tolerated while he is Father, a mere male adjunct to a woman (couched in the self-abnegating terms of "Fulfillment = Family"), that children are not hellspawn with horror-movie imaginations and an intense need to act out when you're least able to cope with it, etc etc blahblahblah. Tedious. The writing is, well, "serviceable" springs to mind. So search it up, by all means...don't say I didn't warn you.

Now about that film...well...it made over $800,000 at the box office ($15.6MM in 2020) and is *still* discussed with fondness by filmy types and garnered an Oscar nom for Grant. I think it stinks. I like it a little less than the story, which (see above). My mother was a married lady with kids when it came out in 1944 and was misty-eyed talking about it in the 1970s. It's really goopy-ploopy-moistly sappy. It's just really painful to watch two hours of it, which for some masochistic reason I did, and that's after hunting up the story!

I need to get out of the house more, plague or no plague.

>72 richardderus: I was referring to the book, but the Amazon supplied page count.

>74 quondame: OIC

Well, my HarperPerennial edition from ~2006 disagrees, but I never know how Ammy gets their data. Sometimes I think they just wing it.

I've read a measly two of your gnat-squishers, The Bookshop and The Buddha in the Attic. Of the crowd-sourced favorites I have read Montana 1948 and The Uncommon Reader. The latter I may need to reread at some point, as I think some of it was lost on me as an audiobook.

>76 bell7: Well then, there's you a shoppin' list! And I'd strongly encourage you to get to The Uncommon Reader in text. It's so droll.

This made me guffaw.

>78 richardderus: I'm reading The Lathe of Heaven, so this has a different bite.

>79 quondame: HA! Indeed it would *shiver*

>60 richardderus: You're right, short stories and novellas don't usually do it for me. There are, of course, exceptions, and I'm always willing to try. The Murderbot Diaries and The Paper Menagerie, Ken Liu's collection of short stories, both come immediately to mind as notable exceptions.

>78 richardderus: Heh.

>81 Storeetllr: What I can't even imagine is someone not liking Murderbot because of the length...so no worries there, you pass the sanity test. When next I adore a gnat-squisher, I'll let you know (always assuming I think you'd like it).

>78 richardderus: :-)

‘Morning, RD, and happy Wed-nes-day to you.

>73 richardderus: Well, I’ll pass on everything related to this article and movie. Thanks for the head’s up.

Any chance of sneaking out and getting a breath of fresh air?

>83 Familyhistorian: Indeed, Meg, indeed.

>84 karenmarie: Woden's blessings of language and wisdom be bountiful to you on this, his day. We're observing serious quarantine restrictions since 20+ people from here have died of the plague. It makes people a wee tidge nervous to see us oldsters skatin' around outside. I'm just grateful my journey through it was so mild!

I hope your email migration isn't too awful, Horrible. *smooch*

I forgot to *smooch* you back in >84 karenmarie:. Thanks re the migration. I've asked the opinion of the tech guy who's helping Friends do things with Wild Apricot membership software.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Hey, RD.

Attica Locke is the author of Black Water Rising, too. That's another one I want to read. So far Bluebird, Bluebird is really good.

>79 quondame: The Lathe of Heaven has a special place in my heart.

Have a good Wednesday, buddy.

Sounds crazy to hear that your sickness was "mild" compared to some of the cases at your facility. Sorry to hear, though not unexpectedly, that it's been such a rough road and indeed caused the deaths of several. I read recently that the loss of smell/taste is a generally good indicator of how bad of a case you'll get - the greater loss, the worst it tends to be.

Wednesday *smooches* and hope you're hope you're getting some good reading in.

Hello!



From here.

>78 richardderus: I am guffawing along with you at that one, RD.

((Hugs)) and *smooches*

>86 karenmarie: Heh. *smooch* again

>87 jnwelch: It was wonderful! I was about to brain Old Stuff with the refrigerator, so I went to buy Ammy cards to spend my COVID money on a new HP Chromebook. This refurbished Acer one is showing signs of collapse. This makes me sad, but the btand-new HP is only $150 more than the refurb was, though in the new one I've only got 4GB instead of 8GB.

Anyway, a long walk to three stores later, I'm all set. By the 20th I should have the new one.

>88 bell7: I spent three weeks unable to smell or taste, fevers off and on during the day, the left upper lung aching like mad; no cough, no other symptoms, and it went away.

I read nothing, see above post...after my long walk, I came back for a long nap.

>89 quondame: I LOVE IT!! How perfect. If I had a sofa, I'd order two. Thank you, Susan!

Yay for getting a new computer!

Glad you were able to get out and enjoy the fresh air.

Yah, getting a new computer? Awesome!

>93 figsfromthistle:, >94 drneutron: I know, right?! The HP Chromebook 15 wasn't expensive, is brand new, and was Rob's idea.

*happy happy, joy joy*

So they are letting you out. Good luck with the new tech.

I'm glad your case was relatively mild Richard.

>89 quondame: Those are wonderfully realistic. Will you be selling the octopi you make or keeping them for yourself? I could take one off your hands, if the quality is acceptable. I can't do yarn crafts myself - I couldn't do more than eleven lines knitting a scarf because I always picked up a heap of stitches, probably dropped one or two and the wool was too tight on the needles to be able to continue.

>96 Familyhistorian: No, not exactly "letting"...more that I just chose my moment and walked out, all masked up, acting like one of the smokers.

It's easier to get forgiveness instead of permission.

>97 humouress: It certainly was and so am I! Now I'm extra careful...only seeing Rob on his way TO the hospital, f/ex...about getting reinfected with that second strain by sanitizing my hands all the time, masking up, etc etc.

-American Redstart (NMP)

Sweet Thursday, Richard! I am stuck home on my day off, with storm after storm rumbling through. At least I am getting some LT time in. I am also glad I decided to take a couple extra days off too, so you know I will be pounding the trails tomorrow, in search for more warblers. I did see another redstart yesterday too.

>78 richardderus: Love it! Harry Bliss is a treasure.

'Morning, RD!

Congrats on the Chromebook purchase.

We haven't gotten our stimulus money yet. :(

>99 msf59: Pretty birdie! Sorry about the storms. It's not a lot of fun to be off work and not able to do the fun stuff!

>100 karenmarie: Thanks! I've never owned an HP computer before. Mostly it's been Acers since my switch to Chromebook, and Dells in the Windows days. There was an Asus netbook in there...don't remember much about it, TBH.

Hiss boo on the delayed check. I hope it hits soon.

>100 karenmarie: Karen - Have you logged on to the IRS site and gone to their stimulus page and put in your information? For the longest time, it kept telling me, that they couldn't determine my status (I haven't had a refund recently so they didn't have my banking info), then one day it switched and asked me to put in my bank numbers. Then no updates for several more days before it switched and said that the payment was coming on such and such a date. I think they're slow boating the paper checks in hopes that people will do it electronically.

Good luck!

>91 richardderus: Congrats on the new Chromebook, RD! I am sure you will have fun with it!

((Hugs)) and *smooches* for today.

>102 mahsdad: :-)

>103 alcottacre: Thanks! It's my third one, I think though possibly fourth, since The Great Switch in 2010. It's surprising to me that I've spent less than one iProduct of any description on all 3 or 4 added together.

And by surprising I mean "completely unsurprising and deeply satisfying." *smooch*

>97 humouress: Alas, I do not crochet. I am only willing to forgive my daughter who does, because, well daughter, even though she refuses to do a baby Yoda for me. I used to knit, and supplied yarn and hooks to the ungrateful offspring, but she crochets only for her own circle and is sticking to her principles.

>105 quondame: One would think that 9 months' residence inside your body would, pace the violent eviction process, gain you eternal presence in her circle....

>106 richardderus: We chose to evict the morsel at 8.5 mo due to a prior still birth at 9.5 mo. She wasn't happy about it then but can't wait to move out now, having saved up for a down payment on a car and a deposit for an apartment. I'll miss her acerbic presence.

>107 quondame: Heh. She'll be a lot less happy about it than she imagines she will be. Or so says my memory.

>108 richardderus: She's been on her own with roommates at college, so she has some idea - and she will have roommates as well this time. I figure the problems are most likely to arise from trying to live with friends and what life in the late 20s early 30s does to friend groups.

>109 quondame: That's a major sea-change, and one that doesn't arrive steadily but in choppy waves.

>110 richardderus: I still remember the nausea!

>111 quondame: And the disorientation and the confusion, too.

PEARL RULED The Code Book by Simon Singh (p79)

The development of the telegraph, which had driven a commercial interest in cryptography, was also responsible for generating public interest in cryptography. The public became aware of the need to protect personal messages of a highly sensitive nature, and if necessary they would use encryption, even though this took more time to send, thus adding to the cost of the telegram.

When I awoke from my coma, I realized: 1) sesquipedalian verbiage needs must be read while fresh and hale, 2) I don't care as much as I thought I would, 3) hot Spring afternoon sunshine feels good.

Also, I might not be as smart as I thought I was. The graphs and tables preceding this page caused me to whimper and curl into a fetal ball. Ahead (I peeked) were *entire*pages* of comma-separated numbers. That is unconscionable. It is a replay of Tau Zero, the SF novel with equations in it, that I could not even bring myself to hurl at a wall I was so paralyzed by outraged betrayal at picking up a novel to discover EQUATIONS in it.

Keep your filthy math out of my fiction!

Anyway, this book. It's non-fiction so there's no reason to be sniffy about numbers and junk, right? Sorta right. I need something to give me the will to drag myself over the glass shards atop the bed of coals and in this read there wasn't anything at stake from moment to moment. Overall, yes; secrecy/privacy is a major part of the online world both in its presence and absence. But in this book the stakes are abstract and waaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy above my li'l punkin haid.

I'll keep it in case it calls to me this winter. Now, no.

>14 richardderus: weiner cat!!!!

>89 quondame: I am scared of that.

^ *entire*pages* of comma-separated numbers. That is unconscionable.
What the actual?
A history if encryption should not be encrypted!

>114 LovingLit: It made me holler, too!

The encryption pages are meant to...um...show the now-broken cypher's, erm, complexity? maybe its simplicity? I dunno and I don't wanna know. Jeesh. Maybe just not the book for me.

>113 richardderus: I am somewhat sad that The Code Book beat you. Don't sell yourself short, however, I think you're smart enough to connect with it one day, but appreciate that it ain't this day. I loved it, as well as his other math-y book Fermat's Last Theorem (about the quest to solve the famous equation), though admittedly, the math is this one is WAY above my pay grade. :)

Have you read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon? It might satisfy your crypto-itch, but still stay fictional.

>116 mahsdad: Well, I'll keep it, but the pages and columns and charts and....

...I need a lie-down, back later.

>113 richardderus: You know, when I was skimming your thread, I saw "when I woke from my coma" and I'm like "woah! Richard's been in a coma! I hope he's ok!" That's what I get for skimming rather than reading. But when you're as behind as I am on the threads, it's hard to do much else.

>118 The_Hibernator: Heh! I know it's likely to scare the unwary, but I admit that this gave me a hoot.

Happy to see you around, Rachel, I hope all's going better than it absolutely has to.

Hallo, RD, and happy Friday to you.

>113 richardderus: This does sound like a book that needs to be abandoned until desperate in mid-winter.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Happy Friday, Richard!

>89 quondame: is a keeper. Nothing better than scaring the hell out of guests.

Bluebird, Bluebird was indeed excellent. Darren is an intriguing character - but what a sock to the choppers at the end. I almost want to read the newer one right away to find out how that plays out, but I think I'll read her Black Water Rising next, as I've been thinking of trying that one for quite a while.

>120 karenmarie: ...it will have to be a very blizzardy winter indeed...but the day is ahead of us, the events thereof yet to reveal themselves, so let's go see what's what. *smooch*

>121 jnwelch: Scaring? Really now, Joseph, I would expect better from you than spreading anti-Tentacled American sentiment! *tsk*

Attica Locke knows her storytelling onions, no? *whew*

LIGHTNING ROUND
These three books emerged from my hardest-to-reach bin as I was hunting down the !&$$#&^@&@$!!! mouse. I can't believe I've never reviewed them!

About thirty years ago, I worked in the Production department of Delacorte Books for Young Readers. One of the many lovely side benefits of the job was the endless supply of books that floated around the place. I vacuumed the Cairo Trilogy up as it appeared in the halls, outside the doors of the various production managers.

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz

Rating: 4* of five

The first of three books about deeply if mendaciously pious Al-Sayyid Ahmad's family, his abused and long-suffering wife Amina whose position as his favorite target of rage and venom leads to shocking behavior; his sons Yasin, whose sensual appetites are unleashed early in the story; Kamal, youngest and most left alone, a Westernized scholarly man seeking Truth and Knowledge where his father wants him to seek a job; and Fahdy the wild-eyed passionate revolutionary whose fate kicks off a major series of changes in the family's life; his daughters. Well now. Author Mahfouz put a surprising amount of thought into these women.

Khadija, the eldest daughter, isn't snapped up on the marriage market...she's a wild sparking woman in a world where just being a woman is grounds for suspicion of ill intent. Thus her younger sister Aisha, much more to their world's taste, has to decline a marriage proposal as their father will not countenance the younger marrying before the older. As she's more like Amina than her father, where Khadija is the reverse, the reader knows she won't die an old maid. (And she doesn't. But believe me, her arc is pretty damn dull.)

The whole family, petit bourgeois brats that they are, don't ever need to wonder where their food is coming from and can indulge themselves in frivolous idiocy like religion and whoring around. Two of the boys are politically deviant; one is a sexual predator. Unusually for the day, Yasin the predator actually suffers for his conduct...he loses his place in their society. But, much like Rabbit Angstrom of book:Rabbit, Run|85386 , he doesn't see the trade-off as a come-down. The revolutionary sons are the ones who come out best, and when the events of Egypt's Revolution occur with their bitter consequences for Ahmad and Amina's whole family, the truth is they're all better off for it.

And I don't think all but one of them knows it.

What a fantabulous, exciting, amazing ride this story is! I offer one warning: Don't start reading this book without having all three on hand. The sudsy but satisfying story is just famous in the Arabic-speaking world.

Palace of Desire by Naguib Mahfouz

Rating: 3.5* of five

This story was very, very dramatic. Lots happens. The nastiness of Ahmad to his wife Amina, which we'd grown accustomed to, enters a more virulent phase with cold, calculating musician/mistress Zanuba's appearance. Barely grown son Kamal sows the seeds of his separate, Westernized, science- and socialism-based future with an act of public disobedience that I was astounded he found the courage to perform. Oldest son Yasin, divorced and falling into the sensual traps that a repressed hedonist isn't equipped to resist, spends the book hoping and praying for an end to his hated father's tyranny; be careful what you wish for.

And then there's Khadija. Hers is the lot I found myself most empathetic with. She's married...a woman must be...and locked in constant battle with her vicious, evil mother-in-law. She does everything she knows how to do to make the place she is better...for herself. In the end, she's her father's daughter.

The ending of the book is a bit too lovingly lingered over. It felt cruel and prurient in equal measure. So we lost that half-star, and I went warily to the next installment.

Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz

Rating: 3.5* of five

So by the time I got to this book, I was primed. I wanted Kamal's story to reach what I thought the ending should be. I'd spent two books before with him, I was fully invested in his life and agreed that being like his father would be a Fate Worse Than Death. Educated in the Western philosophy and world-view of the Interwar period, Kamal was pretty much a fish out of water on every front. His wretch of a tyrant father is utterly horribly dead at last, but he's still not happy...and he shouldn't be, given what the world showed him!

Kamal's poor sister Khadija! She's a trouper, she is; Kamal's female student cadres are not a patch on her, submissive to her father's will and married to a man I can't remember at all; yet through her entire story arc, she seriously attempts to make the world more comfy. Her sons, unsurprisingly, have her fire; they lack her domesticity. The men they become are going to come into violent conflict, readers of the 21st century know; but at the time so did Author Mahfouz. He wasn't wrong.

Yasin's son is quite boldly coded as a gay man, rising fast in the world thanks to his sugar (!) daddy Pasha Isa, and no one spends undue amounts of effort to stop or interfere; ahead in the world = good, especially to Yasin. Kamal's thoughts aren't gone into. He is, subtly but inaccurately, perceivable as gay himself being a bachelor looonnng past the time men in his society married. In fact, he's a Western man in search of a Western wife in a country where they aren't thick on the ground. He's not going to Settle Down the way Khadija did, because he's not a woman and although he's Looked At, he's protected by his gender from the worst of society's expectations.

Fishes out of water weren't popular in non-comedic entertainment in Author Mahfouz's Egypt. This book came out in 1957, the year after the Suez Crisis and a scant five years after the Republic of Egypt was established by perennial US target Gamal Abdel Nasser. It wasn't a settled and comfy time; I don't believe anything official was said to Author Mahfouz to make him aware of how his Western-leftist sympathies would play with Officialdom, but the ending of this book is...well...tacked on. A pity, that; but the trilogy is a deep and delicious dive into a period, a class, a lifestyle now vanished and then obsolete, with its replacement uncertain and the future more hazy than is always the case.

'Morning, RD! Happy Saturday to you. It's going to get to 87 here today - yuck - but not too much humidity.

Today's lookup based on the !&$$#&^@&@$!!! mouse: Now I know how the computer mouse got its name.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>124 karenmarie: OH MY GAWD 87°

Nasty. I am so sorry. We'll get modestly above 70° but nothing close to that! *there there, pat pat*

44 I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me by Juan Pablo Villalobos THIS WAS AN EDELWEISS DRC. THANK YOU.

Rating: 4.5* of five

I did not know how I was going to review this latest satirical, bitter-as-bile delight from Juan Pablo Villalobos. Now I not only don't have to review it, I wouldn't dare. Robert Rea of estimable literary magazine The Southwest Review​ has already done everything I wanted to do, only he did it better. You can't see me, but I am vibrating with a Day-Glo orange jealous ragey hatred.

If you liked THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES by Roberto Bolaño (here unsubtly parodied and lovingly honored), or any of Villalobos's previous books (QUESADILLAS or DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE for example), you should rush to the Kindle and download this gem or get the paperbook from your favorite bookery. Wherever you source it, y'all literary readers will most likely never feel a moment's regret that you read it.

Perfect day here, Richard; 76 degrees with 62% humidity. Been out picking flowers and taking pictures, now I'm catching up here. Tame that poor little mouse!

>127 ronincats: That does sound gorgeous indeed. We're almost identical...72° and 65%...so it's just about the best day ever! *smooch*

>126 richardderus: Isn't it awful when your expressions are left to such comparisons! >128 richardderus: At least the weather is good!

Hi Richard.
Laffed my head off at that conversation you and Susan had about her daughter. Yup, nothing like moving out and having to cope with roommates in your late 20's/early 30's.
What was tolerable at Uni is *not* so much by the time you're heading into the post-college years.

I'm thoroughly enjoying A Spool of Blue Thread, as you suggested I probably would (on my thread, I think that was).
It is different to Redhead by the Side of the Road but still an excellent story. I admire Tyler's ability for incisive character development. As per your suggestion, I have searched for Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and will have to be patient.

>129 quondame: Hi Susan! I'm sort-of enjoying the weather, since I can't get out in it.

>130 SandyAMcPherson: Oh goody good good! I hope Homesick Restaurant is as good a read as the others. Anne Tyler's gone a bit out of fashion. I know lots of people *still* love her work, but there don't seem to be as many newbies entering the fold as for, say, Margaret Atwood or Elizabeth Strout.

>123 richardderus: when Darryl read these years ago I placed them on my WL....managed to purchase (second hand) the second and third of the trilogy, and have been stymied ever since by my inability to get a hold of Palace Walk. (By inability, I mean an inability to access the exact right copy at the exact right price...there is always the library, I know.)
So, congrats for reviewing them....how did you remember them so well?? I can barely remember what I had for breakfast these days.

Looks like you had quite a few great reads in a row.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

>132 LovingLit: Thanks! But they were right there, with all my old stickynotes poking from pages I wanted to quote from (I was going to review the series but never did), so it's not like it was some perfect recall or something weird like that. Also, as a general observation, old stickynote stickum stains pages if left on for ~20 years.

>133 figsfromthistle: I have had indeed, Anita. I will do my damnedest to, and I hope you will too.

>123 richardderus: Sounds good, Richard, they are on the list.
Right now no time to read all three in a row, so I reserved Midaq Alley at the library.

>135 FAMeulstee: Great news! I think you'd also enjoy his Egyptian historicals, like Thebes at War.

Spend a lovely week ahead!

‘Morning, RD! Have a loverly Sunday.

>126 richardderus: I’m sorry that Robert Rea beat you to writing the best possible review of I Don’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me. It’s a given that your review would have been insightful, snarky, informative and a joyous experience.

I’ve had Quesadillas on my wish list since 3/22/18. It was a BB from Ellen. It is still a BB from Ellen. I’m too lazy to add this one to my wish list, but since I have one by him, I figure if I read Quesadillas and love it I’m going to go for the rest of his stuff anyway.

-Tree Swallows

Happy Sunday, Richard. Loving my LONG weekend. The rain is keeping me inside today, but I need to catch up on things here. These tree swallows were from my bird ramble on Friday. I wish the vibrant blue on their wings would have stood out more in the photo, but it was against an overcast sky.

Caught a couple BBS- Both Palace Walk & I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me got my attention.

>137 karenmarie: That makes perfect sense, I'm slightly worried to report. I think you'll like Quesadillas, so I won't stress about you liking Ellen more than me.

*sniff*

>138 msf59: Unlike Mark, who pays attention to my reviews.

Cool tree swallow photo! I am impressed at the composition, so hard to achieve when the models are so busy and utterly uninterested in the concept of posing for the camera.

Ha. No 'liking' comparisons allowed. Here are the BBs I've gotten from you, as yet unsatisfied - I've also acquired quite a few books because of your recommendations. I've only got 3 BBs from Ellen, including Quesadillas.

Peter Godfrey-Smith Other Minds 1/29/2018
Bobbie Ann Mason The Girl Sleuth 8/30/2019
Waubgeshig Rice Moon of the Crusted Snow 12/29/2018
John Scalzi The Dispatcher 8/10/2019
Ken Wheaton Sweet as Cane, Salty as Tears 10/23/2019

Happier now?

>140 karenmarie: Mollified. Barely.

*smooch*

Congratulations on the new Chromebook purchase! On the book front, interesting trilogy of reviews for the Mahfouz books.

Happy Sunday, Richard. Well, what's left of it, any ways.

>142 lkernagh: Thanks, Lori! I should get it Wednesday, though I keep hoping it'll be earlier.

The Mahfouzes were really good reads. I've always enjoyed family sagas set in places and times I'm not familiar with, so they were almost destined to be favorites. I hope the week ahead treats you well.

>14 richardderus: OMG, I think most of those are hilarious.

>126 richardderus: I have Savage Detectives on my shelves but have not yet read it. Noting that, once I do so, I need to read I Don't Expect Anyone to Believe Me. I quite enjoyed Quesadillas.

>123 richardderus: Great Lightning Round. I both struggled with and appreciated this trilogy. I think I would appreciate it now more than when I first read it. Perhaps it goes on the "when I'm retired" list. I seem to have this notion that when I retire I will (a) have lots more time for reading and (b) be able to mentally handle more reading challenge. I suspect the former is truer than the latter. Regardless, I can hardly wait to find out!!!

>131 richardderus: Good observation on Tyler. She is a little bit unfashionable these days but her novels are always readable.

>132 LovingLit: You should speculate to accumulate, Megan. Palace Walk is one novel definitely worth it as RD in >123 richardderus: deftly explains.

>144 EBT1002: Oh good! I'm glad you're enjoying the reviews. I think you're going to be surprised how difficult it will be to guard your reading time against well-meaning encroachment.

Have a wonderful week!

>145 PaulCranswick: Thanks for the kind vote of confidence, PC. Spend a productive week ahead!

'Morning, RichardDear, and happy don't-have-to-go-to-work-first-day-of-the-week.

You should move The Gene up on your watch list.

Off to drizzle some icing on freshly made cinnamon-raisin scones and enjoy with a fresh cup of coffee...

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>147 karenmarie: Oh WOW cinnamon-raisin scones with icing oh yumyumyum that sounds amazing and I want some too!!

*smooch*

Be well today!

Morning, RD!

I missed a thread. Or more. I'm awful but just stopping in to wave.

>149 katiekrug: Hiya, Katie! Just stopped by yours.

>150 BekkaJo: Bekka, it's lovely to see you whenever you get here. No worries!

New HP computer arrived, and whaddaya know! It's refurbished, despite not saying so anywhere in the Ammy ad for it. BUT the gloire that is France, I mean Chrome, means I have a negligible amount of annoyance setting it up...device-specific downloads to migrate, getting used to the touch screen, reinstalling AdBlock which is the MOST annoying thing...and golly is it nice to have a numberpad again!

And the screen is so big...15.6"...and *bright* with its 4K capability. I already have the nighttime setting on Chrome, so the blinding whiteness doesn't fry my retinas, and I've never been gladder. Also lovely: Restored to me are delete, home, and end keys!! Frabjous day, callooh! callay!

Although it seems awfully expensive for a refurb...and I really don't approve of only ONE single lonely USB port...I do love the screen quality.

Yay for the new hardware! Re: the USB port, I'm not sure how spendy they are, but you might look into the thingy (technical term) that plugs in to the USB port and gives you multiple ones. I like to travel with one of them.

>153 katiekrug: I'll see if I can find one...shall I Google "thingy"? :-)

Thingy should work. I'd call it a thingy.

Smart ass.

This is similar to the one I have:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/insignia-4-port-usb-3-0-hub-black/4333600.p?skuId=4...

>155 humouress: Hmm...this is what the Goog thinks a "thingy" is:


>156 katiekrug: I got this one for $10:

NOICE!

>158 katiekrug: :-) I was pleased as punch.

Hi Richard, hope you had a good weekend my dear friend, and hope the Chromebook works well for you. We had a nice steady weekend with a nice walk yesterday and today it is Karen's birthday so it has all been about her today. Have a good week ahead and sending love and hugs from both of us and a smooch from darling Hannah.

>157 richardderus: I like both thingys! very useful and decorative thingys!

Felicitations on your new hardware!

It's a bit early, but this was made yesterday by an SCA artisan I know:

>160 johnsimpson: Oh, I do hope Karen had a lovely personal new year today! I'm fine, relieved to be free of even my pretty mild symptoms, and thoroughly enjoying our warm spring sunshine.

Be well!

>161 quondame: It's never early to show me such a gorgeous Tentacled American! Wow, that is really intricate.

Hardware...well, I'm annoyed that it's actually refurbished when I went back to the listing on Ammy and saw it was *headlined* as "NEW"...and the battery life of 10hrs? Ha! Barely 4hrs. I suspect that's why it went into the refurbish bin and the problem is still here.

Anyway. I like the touchscreen and I *adore* the picture quality. I doubt the vendor will notice my squawk about the excessive cost for a refurbished not new one.

>162 richardderus: If I sent you every octopod that catches my eye you'd have to spawn new threads at twice the rate. I prefer to space them out. Mostly I don't like the woman's glasswork, but I think she's onto something with this latest enthusiasm.

Sorry that the new toy isn't a complete jackpot. It's good to be able to go untethered I would imagine. I'm a desktop user but I know that's on one edge of the curve.

>163 quondame: I haven't had a desktop in a decade! I mean I possessed one, and still have the CPU somewhere. But used as primary? Nope. It's down to the sitting problem that I have. Even a wifi keyboard wasn't good enough for long as I had to keep my legs bent to use it and, well, that's different from sitting how?

Nothing in this life is free from disappointments. Certainly no technological thing.

>113 richardderus: Sounds like I enjoyed that one more than you, RD. I also really liked Fermat's Enigma by the same author :)

>123 richardderus: I have already read Palace Walk so I get to dodge that BB. I still need to read the other two.

>126 richardderus: Absolutely am going to have to get that one! I did like The Savage Detectives.

((Hugs)) and *smooches*

>165 alcottacre: Permaybehaps you're not among the persons whose experiences with *shudder* math *flinch* did irreparable damage to both self-esteem and ability to sleep. I am among those persons.

Lickety split on the Mahfouzing! Hup hup!

And the Villalobosing, too!!

Have fun with the new tech, Richard. >98 richardderus: Good to see that those masks are helpful in positive nefarious ways!

Morning, Richard! Hooray for the Chromebook, refurbished or not. Once you get used to it, I hope it is clear sailing.

Working on another short week, since this is my long weekend, teamed up with the holiday. All ready itchin' to get out for a long bird ramble. I NEED to stop looking at the local daily eBird reports. It just makes me crazy.

>167 Familyhistorian: Heh. Thanks, Meg, it's always useful to have that extra split second while the person watching over you has the "...wait...is that...?" internal debate. Then, of course, the recriminations and hangdog "so sorry"s begin, neither party fully invested in the proceedings.

>168 msf59: I say it's best regarded as "practicing the retirement routine," Mark, not "driving yourself mad with the need to get out." After all, The Golden Moment is a-comin' fast!
***
Tech report: As long as the old Chromebook lasts, I should be fine. Its external speakers are superior to this one's. This one's touchscreen is a huge improvement for someone whose hands aren't as functional as they once were. The two together make a perfectly wonderful isolating soundscape with browsing capabilities.

'Morning, RD!

>152 richardderus: Glad the screen quality, touchscreen, keypad and other keys, and brightness are working out for you. Yay that you bought a usb thingie – I need one, too because my old laptop had 4 usbs and the new one has 3 and this laptop doesn’t have a cd/dvd player (which I knew) so need one additional usb port for that too.

*smooch*

Congratulations on the new hardware!

I’m back...like the penny or that gum that just will not leave one’s shoe.

>170 karenmarie: At $10 and free shipping, it's got to be the best bargain I've ever found. Utterly practical and the tech is old therefore unfancy therefore not susceptible to cost-cutting quality issues. It'd be more expensive to source bad quality parts than just use the same parts everyone else.

Thanks for visiting! *smooch*

>171 Matke: I'm just glad you're fixed, or cured, or whatever one should call it. Rebooted? Anyway. Long as you're here and healthy, all's well with my world.

New laptop/tablet sounds good.

About that accessory in >157 richardderus:, looks good for people like me who has an aversion to cloud storage. Does it work on ordinary machines with a 2.3 GHz processor? I could see overloading the capability of this old Mac.

I still have my 2012 Mac Notebook and had to have the battery replaced a year ago. It was apparently a real slog and I was forever grateful that the techie who did it gave me a break on the real amount of time he spent fighting the old batt out. I shudder to even think of having to replace this old reliable.

>173 SandyAMcPherson: It's back-compatible, Sandy, meaning that it will work with any and all USB ports in any and all machines. It's what you plug into it that could present a problem to your old flivver. I expect that anything Apple makes will tell you whether it can be used with your model.

Spend a lovely Tuesday.

Franco Americano's Man Reading says it all for me. Diagnosed with *shingles* mere moments ago. A message from the nurse, "come get your shingles medication," was my clue.

So I join the lucky 1/3 of the US population that has it! Thank goodness there are drugs to knock it down.

OH, shingles, yikes! Hope it's a mild case.

A friend of mine had shingles in her eye last year. I can't even imagine....

>176 katiekrug: So far it's pretty mild, but bear in mind I'm on Fentanyl for the gout pain. I need to be walloped HARD to know something hurts!

...in...her...eye...
*faints*

>177 richardderus: - Ah, well, silver linings....

Yes, the poor thing. This is the same friend who got terribly sick earlier this year and was in a coma for 6 weeks and had to have a number of toes and fingers amputated. One day, she'll catch a break....

>178 katiekrug: That is *horrible*nand if there is a gawd she needs chastisement over her treatment of Job-Ann!

Agreed.

>175 richardderus: That's awful. I hope the medicine works a well as the acyclovir my Dr. sent me for in the day after the first itch and skin shedding. Is this vaccine failure or haven't you done the shingles vaccine.

>181 quondame: The vaccine isn't covered in NY State by Medicaid or Medicare. It seems completely stupid to me. But here I am all rashed up and nowhere to go.

Yikes! Shingles! Gentle hugs and lots of sympathy.

>183 karenmarie: Yeah, it stinks. Stinks on ice. Yeccchhh!

omg, RD. Shingles is horrid. I hope your medical people caught it fast. That's the best bet for the meds to work.
Sending sympathy. And best wishes for the gout. Up here, folks are prescribed 'allopurinol' for treating the condition. And avoiding certain foods. Not that I know this personally or that this is a health blog...

>185 SandyAMcPherson: Heh...I've been on gout drugs for 40 years, so no surprises for me there! The foods thing is great advice...for normal people. I've got what amounts to congenital gout. My first attack was when I was 20.

I'm not thrilled with my new owwies. It's a big boo hiss.

Boo 😒

Not to mention "hiss"

Crossing all fingers, toes, eyes, etc for a very mild case, Richard. I had a mild case about 20 years ago or so. I got the first vaccine and then, when the new one came out, a 2-doser, I got those, too. I can't remember if it was fully or only partially covered but having experienced the *mild* case, I would have paid for the vaccine anyhow. I hope you escape with just a bad memory and nothing more.

>189 jessibud2: The doc was all sympathy, which is pretty unusual, so I was prepared for something not-nice...but this?! REALLY, 2020?!?

Oh man! Sorry to hear about the shingles. I hope that it's not too painful and that it will pass quickly.

>191 figsfromthistle: It's painful all right, Anita, but the prescription is likely to make it a short-duration misery instead of a nightmare.

>182 richardderus: The shingles vaccine isn't covered by Medicare in NY? WTAF?!? Thankful it was covered in Colorado by Medicare and that I got the shots in, I think it was, 2017.

ETA I'm glad yours is not in your eye *shudder* and that it is, apparently, not as bad as it could be. I've known people who've had bad cases of it, and it can be debilitating.

Adorable little tentacled thingy (another use for that very useful word). Thought of you as soon as I clapped eyes on it.


Octopoteuthis deletron aka Octopus Squid

>193 Storeetllr: I was appalled to discover the vaccine wasn't covered as well, but...well...the cost is $1350 for the two. That's more than half my annual income.

Nauseates me, the greed.

I love the octosquiddie!!

>134 richardderus: sticky notes. Genius.

>175 richardderus: shingles....did you tell the nurse you didn't order them, and that she should return them asap? I'm sorry you have them. An irritant on top of irritants, I am sure.

>195 LovingLit: Thanks. Yes, I was an early adopter of the sticky note-as-memo-to-self.

If she could have read my mind she'd've made for the door, not the phone to return them! Blaming the Messenger: fun since Classical Greece.

Cripes! I misunderstood on my thread, and didn't realize you're the one with shingles. As I mentioned, Debbi was miserable with it. My sympathy! I'm glad your existing pain meds provide help, and that it seems relatively mild.

Good reviews, although the bbs zipped past me. (I knew about the Mahfouz from Madame MBH, and reading Quesadillas didn't levitate me).

Happy mid-week; I hope you have a good one.

'Morning, RD! I hope the meds have decreased the pain.

*smooch*

>197 jnwelch: I'm here shingling away. I suspect my Fentanyl load means I'm suffering a lot less than many, or most, would. I don't have much of a way to know if my case is mild, since I can't see the outbreak, but it doesn't feel as unendurable as many I've heard discuss their cases.

Villalobos isn't to *everyone*s taste, and I suspect it's down to that weird alchemical thing between writer and reader. The more idiosyncratic the writer, the more the chemistry matters.

>198 karenmarie: Hey Horrible! Nope. Not a sign of it yet, but the meds aren't meant for symptom relief so I was expecting them to shorten the life of the outbreak not make it easier to sleep.

*smooch*

Shingles! Ouch! My mom had it, was a mess for weeks. It sounds like maybe you're doing a bit better - I hope so!

>200 drneutron: Thanks, Jim, but it's early days yet. I'm hopeful that, since I went to the doc almost the day I noticed it, it'll respond completely to the acyclovir.

JFYI our dote Tom Gauld is doing a Reddit Ask Me Anything at noon EDT. If you're interested, this is the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

45 Mr. and Mrs. Cugat by Isabel Scott Rorick

Rating: 3 nostalgic stars of five

I was perusing Neglected Books's "Reader Recommendations" to wile away a leaden hour of restless twitching as the nasty shingles stabbed my nerve endings for their amusement and ran across this ancient humorous collection of sexist nonsense from 1941. It was the source material for I Love Lucy among other things; Mama had a hardcover of it that I, for some reason (forgot to go to the library? summertime lull? don't remember), picked up and finished in a Watergate-hearings-deadened 1973 afternoon.

The Mahfouzes (see >123 richardderus: above) were all piled atop something, and seeing this title caused the bulb to flash: This book is a rare survivor of the various losses my library has seen over the years! Why in the heck these various and random weirdos survived I do not know. At some point I evdently flung a few things in a box that never got reopened until I landed in New York, but whatever.

So I flipped through this time capsule of gender politics and came away no more and no less amused than I was fiftyish years ago. It's amusing. The setting isn't I Love Lucy's Upper East Side, it's some midwestern place; the Cugats have a comedy-accent foreign maid with the usual "naive peasant" beliefs; Mr. Cugat isn't as funny as Ricky was, though he has a larger cast of sidekicks ("tell {your drunken friend} he can go have his DTs all over someone else's house!" says Mrs. C in a true cringe moment); it's a period piece and is well-enough written that I didn't want to hurl, it or my lunch, at a wall.

I do have an issue, the same one that makes me dislike rewatching the sitcom, with Mrs. Cugat's tendency to lie her way into trouble. Mr. Cugat calls it "whiffling" instead of lying, which is what it is, and does (like Ricky) flip-flop between covering madly and shouting at...well, chastising...Mrs. Cugat for it. If I were reading it for the first time today, I'd give it two stars and a ripping good flensing. But it was funny as hell once, it spawned a movie, a radio show, and two TV shows, all of which I've partaken of (Old Time Radio! gotta love them guys), so it's sorta (great-)grandfathered in.

Don't sprain anything finding and reading it, though. Best appreciated from a safe distance.

Yay for delivery of Chromebook, even if it is refurbished and Boo (and hiss) to the shingles diagnosis!

Sorry to hear about the shingles, RD. I had them over 30 years ago and still have post-herpetic neuralgia from them. You have my sympathy! I do hope that you recover quickly.

Tons of ((hugs)) and *smooches* for today!

>169 richardderus: It's like that saying, it's always better to ask for forgiveness than permission. (or something like that.)

Sorry to see you have shingles and hope that it is over quickly since it was caught early. I did at one point ask my doctor about the shingles vaccine but he wasn't too keen from that I interpreted that it wasn't too effective so I'm hoping for a mild doze if mine reappears (I had a super mild doze when I was 13.)

Thanks for the message on my thread but you got your wires crossed. My son wasn't involved in an accident. He doesn't even drive.

>204 lkernagh: Hi Lori! Thanks, and happy to see you here.

>205 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia. You didn't have the advantage of my killer-diller pain meds, so it must've been wretched indeed. *smooch*

>206 Familyhistorian: The vaccine, in people who don't live in groups, can actually provoke the problem it's trying to prevent. People with resident grandkids and schoolteachers over 60 are, like congregate-care residents, more likely to benefit than suffer.

I didn't think I was that dozy! I did, indeed, fall asleep for two hours because the pain's whippin' my (US meaning) fanny.

I want this to be over. Gaak.

Dang it, get well from one disease and then get shingles? I hope the meds kick in and you feel better soon, from what I hear it's no fun.

>208 bell7: You hear right. It is colossally No Fun At All. And I already have the best painkillers there are!

*smooch* Thanks for the well-wishes.

I'm very sorry to hear that you have shingles, RD. That sucks. I'm glad to hear that the pain meds are helping. Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Yay for your new(wish) computer and USB port thingy. Boo & hiss for the shingles. I'm not sure exactly what they are and from the posters up in my GP's office I'm not inclined to find out more. I hope you recover soon.

I just came by to wave *hello*.

Sweet Thursday, Richard! Last work day of the week. Yah! And it will be much warmer for my long weekend. I hope to finally switch to shorts for work and pleasure. My current reads aren't blowing my socks off, but they are passing the time, in a decent manner.

I hope you are having a good week.

>210 vancouverdeb: Thank you kindly for coming by to say so! I'll hope that your speedy-recovery wishes are part of the plan.

>211 humouress: It is at this point that my demons begin to battle it out for supremacy. Do I post a photo of a shingles outbreak here...or on your thread?

Neither, shouts the tiny, fading voice of lovingkindness, so long locked away, left to rot in a dank underground pit like the child in Omelas.

Watch this space to see who wins....

>212 msf59: Yuck on the reads, yay on the shorts weather, and YIPPEE for the long long-weekend break!

I hope some version of me, out there in the multiverse we now have a reason to feel sure is Reality, who is having a good week.

'Morning RDear!

So far so good - not seeing pics of a shingles outbreak. Keep up the good work.

*smooch*

>214 karenmarie: The battle is ongoing. Victory is by no means assured for either side.

*evil laugh*

Spend a lovely day, Horrible!

Just checking in on you. Glad to see your sense of humor remains intact. xx

>216 katiekrug: heh...yep, worry when there's not a trace of humor. The sign of impending trouble in truth.

I had shingles at age 58, two years before the age recommended and covered for the shot. Right next to my left eye, still have a scar there, and had terrible headaches. My brother had it on his auditory nerve in his ear and it permanently affected his balance. My sister had it on her back, bad rash but no aftereffects. I hope yours is short and scarless, Richard.

Thought of you when I saw this:

>218 ronincats: On his auditory nerve! AAARRRGGGH

Well, mine's on my back-ish...left side, from back onto ribs...and it's over an old surgical scar (don't ask) so the scarring bit's just fine.

Katie told me she knew someone whose shingles were *IN* the eye, so here I am trying to find a comfy position to sleep in and feeling VERY BLOODY LUCKY INDEED.
***
Noise-canceling headphones arrived. Won't pair via Bluetooth with Chromebook. Back to using a wire...annoying...but, if all I want is noise-cancelling use, they work fine without the wire and are OUT.STAND.ING.LY. effective. My blood pressure must've dropped 10pts in the past hour from the gorgeous sound quality and the Cone of Silence that I carried outside my door.

*bliss*

>213 richardderus: Never. Never post such a picture. I've seen it - my mom had it in the same place as >218 ronincats: and I'm stuck with an image no one should have, just as no one should have the disease. My hip, which was barely even lightly shingled still has weird itches.

>220 quondame: So, here it is! I shall post the gnarliest shingles photeaux I can locate!

*evil Muttley laugh*

This effin' herpes virus is the absolute least fun thing childhood has left me with.

Well crap on toast! Shingles! Yech! I had them in approximately the same place you do; woke up with itch and pain one morning, felt the mess, immediately knew it was shingles. Headed to dr at once, got a quite aggressive course of acyclovir plus pain meds and thus a relatively mild case. Very occasionally there’ll be a mild nerve thingy, but not often. My older brother, OTOH, had them *on his eye* (shuddering in sympathy). They never went away completely; he had horrible treatments for years, and finally a cornea transplant.

Made me glad mine were at least tolerable.

Stay strong, Young Man.

>222 Matke: I'm hoping that the early response, plus 2x/day acyclovir, means I'll be done with this nasty thing soon.

*smooch* Glad you're okay and mobile!

Following the instructions of one of my city's loveliest librarians, the OverDrive loan of The Sacrament by Olaf Olafsson was effected with the absolute minimum of fuss and bother. The county's instructions, which Julie read with me, are *use*less* but she told me what to do and in less than 50 seconds I had the book on my Kindle.

Lesson: Always, always, always ask a librarian.

Does anyone here still like the Three Pines/Chief Inspector Gamache books by Louise Penny? You can watch them on Amazon Prime soon(ish)! Details:
https://deadline.com/2020/05/three-pines-left-bank-amazon-louise-penny-adaptatio...

Black-Throated blue Warbler (NMP)

Happy Friday, Richard. Getting ready to head out, on a bird ramble. This blue beauty is one of my target birds. I haven't seen one in 2 plus years. The warblers will be heading north very soon, so we got to get out there and thrash through the brush. Nice day here too, pushing 70F.

>226 msf59: Ha! Saturday for you...Friday for the rest of us, but for me I don't care.

I hope you see the warbler of your life out there in the pretty weather. Hellish cold has departed for the time being, and this little lull of loveliness is something to savor.

>225 richardderus: Nope. In fact, yesterday I made a list of where each of the 13 books of hers I have is located in the house and am going to cull them from my library soonish. I started grumbling that the quality of her writing was deteriorating 4 or 5 books ago and abandoned the newest one A Better Man, after 50 pages last year.

Yay for hellish cold departing. It’s 60F here going to a high of 78F which will be humid after 4” of rain in 3 days.

*smooch*

>228 karenmarie: We're having much the same weather for the next few hours...a bit sticky, 60°-ish, but then the difference in latitude shows: High of 64° expected. A few showers later, maybe.

Perfect spring weather, and all the more meaningful to me since it means people won't be crowding the beaches today. Re-opening them for Memorial Day was inevitable, but that's a bad idea that'll lead to many, many more deaths by August.

>213 richardderus: No need to be posting any pictures, thanks Richard; I've seen enough descriptions of the affliction by other posters on your thread now not to need any more illustrations.

However, if you are still inclined, your post on Paul C's thread prompts me to threaten to retaliate by inventing and inflicting poetry on you.

>230 humouress: Your poeticall vapidities hold no terrors for me, La Overkill. *I* have read Hello Sunshine by the unbearably untalented Ryan Adams.

*convulsive shudder*

Hiya, Richard.

I finally fell off the Inspector Gamache train a couple of books ago, but I'd give a tv adaptation a chance. I'll have to see who's playing Gamache.

I really enjoyed the BBC's adaptation of the J.K. Rowling Cormoran Strike and Robin books. Really good casting in that one, IMO. They're supposedly working on Lethal White, although I don't know what kind of wrench the pandemic throws into the works.

Hi RD. Just letting you know I'm reading threads. Not posting much, but finding some fun sillies.
NSP, ok?

(N, no; S, shingles; P, please)

>232 jnwelch: Hey there, Joe. I'm waiting to see if one of the streamers I already have gets the Strike adaptation, but getting another one is just a no-go for me.

>233 SandyAMcPherson: I shall do my best not to activate your shingles remotely, Sandy, I promise.

This is not a fun day. Power outage. Try being sweaty with shingles.

>235 richardderus: I hate it when it actually does get worse. Arrgh! and Bletch! May it soon get cool in your shell.

>227 richardderus: LOL. It still feels like a Saturday to me RD. Wait until retirement, I will really be confused then. No black-throated blue but still a great birding day.

>236 quondame: Yep, it's colossally no fun when that happens. It only lasted an hour. It's chilly now, bordering on dank. I'll take dank and electrically lit.

>237 msf59: Heh. You'll discover right quick how deeply uninteresting the concept "Monday" really is. "ONOZ it's *barf* Monday again!" "mmm that's nice dear" "YOU AREN'T LISTENING TO ME!" "Don't you need to be at work or something? Why are you hollering?"

*smoooooch*

>239 ronincats: Hey there Miss Roni! *smooch* right back.

Happy weekend Richard!

'Morning, RD!

Reading, coffee, hanging out on LT - that's my morning so far.

Sorry about the temporary power outage yesterday. Glad it was only an hour.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>241 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel, happy to see you here!

>242 karenmarie: Hey Horrible. The outage turns out to have been a temporary turn-off of a circuit so maintenance could be done and I just failed to hear about it. An hour is nothing, so moving on....
***
This shingles thing is getting a lot better. Weirdly, it swelled up yesterday, a thing I'd never seen shingles do before. The nurse has a list of "see him first" patients to give the doc, and put me on it, so Monday I'll be up there first thing; but this morning the swelling has gone down. Can't hurt to see the doc anyway. Bonus: after the swelling went down the pain did too.

Today was Rob's dad's Zoom memorial. He very, very much didn't want to do it, so he stayed on Skype with me instead. He's really glad his dad isn't suffering but is in no mood to slap a happy face on the abuse he endured. His stepmother will be upset with him, but when I brought that up, he said, "yeah well, that's too bad, isn't it."

It makes me so so sad that he's been wounded so badly by the three parental figures he had. I understand his anger. I can't even fathom how it must have felt to have NO ONE there for him...I had my stepmother, and my mother's best friend, and my dear departed friend Jo, from childhood, and I give those ladies all the credit in the world for helping me see that the world was not filled *only* with rage. I am in their role with the older Rob, but how I wish I could've found him earlier in his life.

We do what we can when we can do it. At least he's got an older man telling him he *can* heal and give some pointers on how.

It is so desperately sad not to feel seen and loved; so many of us don't ever, and I am deeply grateful that I can do this essential supportive thing for Rob.

I guess I missed that Rob's father passed away. I'm glad he's Skype-ing with you instead of being hypocritical at the memorial.

>244 karenmarie: I didn't mention it, so you didn't miss it. I don't always remember to mention things, I fear, because sometimes it's Big to someone else...I was happy when the bastard died, and gloating isn't attractive anywhere or anytime. May he rot in the Hell he wanted his own son (and me, but I don't care) to go to.

I hope Rob is doing okay. Even when there's no love, there can be strong feelings.

>246 karenmarie: He's doing a lot better than I was expecting, but this is going to be a long process. You don't suffer abuse for the first 20 years of your life and shut off the feelings because the abuser's dead. It will be part of his pathology always. I'm so so glad I can be here to say "I survived, you will too," with authority and evidence.

People stink, you know? Just rotten barstids one and all. (Except thee and me, of course; but thou hast thy days... :-P)

Happy Sunday Richard.

I'm sorry that things were so difficult for Rob. Healing is never complete in those circumstances...

At this time of the end of Ramadan I want to give thanks for your friendship in this wonderful group, RD. Heaven knows how this place has helped me retain sanity these last few years especially.

Enjoy your long weekend and give Rob a hug from this over-sized Yorkshire Teddy Bear.

>248 humouress: You too, Nina, and a happy week ahead.

>249 mckait: It's not a great time for the guy, but I'm here for him so he is not bumbling through unaided. That makes me feel much better.

>250 PaulCranswick: Kind words indeed, PC, and thank you for them. I'll tell Rob he's got some Malaysian hugs coming next time we're able to see each other F2F.
***
Noise-canceling headphones are excellent at isolating me from the noise around me; they do little for body pain. Drat.

>251 richardderus: I had a group whatsapp call with the gang, across three countries, this morning and we felt closer than we have for some time despite the distance. We did talk about the coming year and our plans to travel - SWMBO is convinced that I am going to be back in the money soon. Don't know what has convinced her of that in these dark days but her witchcraft is appealing. If so I'll give those hugs in person.

>252 PaulCranswick: I think Hani's mojo is not to be discounted. Happy to know she's working for you with the goddesses!

>253 richardderus: White magic, I hope!

I am sorry to hear about Rob, Richard. I am so glad that he has you there for him. I am sure that there will be a lot of ups and downs.

Gentle ((hugs)) and *smooches* for today!

Happy Sunday, Richard. A gorgeous morning here in the Midwest. I love it, when I can wake up and throw open the windows and doors. I decided to stay put, from a bird ramble and go tomorrow morning instead. Maybe, I can actually spend some time with the books, although, unfortunately, Panopticon has become a bit of a slog. That will be two disappointing reads for me in a row. That doesn't happen very often.

Very sorry to hear about Rob. Bummer.

I'm so sorry to hear about Rob and the rough time he's having.

Sunday *smooches* and hope you're getting some relief from the shingles.

I’m sorry for Rob in this very hard time. Even if one hates a person, their loss can leave an enormous empty hole. And then one has to find a way to deal with all the negative feelings while learning that a huge burden has been lifted.

I’m glad you’re there for him, and do give him a hug from me.

>254 PaulCranswick: Heh...I hope so too.

>255 alcottacre: It's a misery to love the parent you needed most to mend bridges with. But I gave Rob some advice that he took about how to do some of that work; now he can at least know that he said he forgave his father into his father's ear.

Now the work starts. Fun fun fun. *smooch*

>256 msf59: It is indeed, Satanic Book Warbler with your Lily King trolling.

I hope tomorrow's birding shows you vultures, you fiend.

>257 bell7: He's got support...more than I had in dealing with my mother...so I know that, hard as it is, he'll be a bit better off for it.

*smooch*

>258 Matke: I will pass that hug along, Gail, and thanks. His losses are, luckily, in the past, and the holes were there in him already; but now we can set about putting fences around them that won't need much adjustment. *smooch*

'Morning, RD, and happy Sunday to you.

*smooch*

>260 karenmarie: Happy Sunday, Horrible my dear. *smooch*

46 The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton

Rating: 4* of five

Really, how could anyone not enjoy this trippy wartime (published in 1943) tale of escape to magical places with truly interesting residents? The Faraway Tree was introduced in The Enchanted Wood, which I didn't know before picking this one up. I don't know if I'm missing some crucial stuff by not having read that book first, but I never felt more than the ordinary sense of needing to know what was going on that comes with reading a new-to-me book.

What happens in the course of the kids' adventures in the various faraway fairy realms was fun...I ***really*** want to visit the Land of Topsy-Turvy!...but not a patch on the fact that these childrens' mother/aunt, the Responsible Party of Record for their safety, blithely lets them go off for an entire day, no idea where they are, and when they come home and share their adventures, she doesn't reach for the phone to get a shrink STAT but indulgently laughs and allows them to do it again! (After they finish all their chores, of course. Which they do uncomplainingly. Which is how you know this is a novel.)

And then, then!, she allows one of them to SPEND THE NIGHT in parts unknown to her! Now times were different in 1943, but that one's just not on. No responsible adult has *ever* let a kid spend the night somewhere without knowing 1) where and 2) who and 3) when and how Sweetums will be going there and coming home.

So while this is a fun little fantasy of life in worlds where people are called Moon-Face and Dame Washalot and trees grow the fruits that will best suit your needs at that moment to a kid, to a grandpa it's an astoundingly different and really quite uneasy-making fantasy.

I decided to read this book because Henry Bird, of the 10th season of The Great British Bake Off, made a showstopper cake using this book as its theme. He is, or was depending on when you're reading this review, a literature student at university, and this book was one of his childhood favorites. So why not, it's only $3.99 on the Kindle, and getting out of my usual literary haunts is always a good idea.

I didn't love it, but I didn't expect to; in fact I liked it quite a bit more than I expected to and that is a wonderful thing for a reader in his seventh decade of reading.

Condolences to Rob, because no matter how he felt about his father, or what rotter the old boy was, it's a loss, and there's some form of grief to deal with. Blessings on you, Richard, for being what he needs right now (and you thought he was a gift to you!) Also healing vibes for your itchies and owies.

I am quite a few posts behind on your thread. It looks like I missed a lot. My condolences to Rob. It is not easy to lose a parent even if it was a toxic relationship.

I am glad that the shingles are easing.

Hi Richard, glad to read that the shingles are easing and hope that you are having a good weekend and wish you a good week ahead and send love and hugs from both of us dear friend.

The Faraway Tree books are some of my favourite childhood books ever. In fact I’ve got The Faraway Tree Collection sat next to me on my windowsill right now. It may be time for yet another comfort reread. They’re excellent escapism and may be responsible for my everlasting desire for a treehouse.

Hope the shingles clear up soon. My mom said they were the most painful thing she'd ever experienced.

>263 laytonwoman3rd:, >264 figsfromthistle:, >265 johnsimpson:, >267 thornton37814: The owies are, I'm happy to say, subsiding. They ain't gone, but it's better. I will happily take that as a win! And Lori...these are *nowhere*near* as painful as a gout attack! I must've caught the outbreak early.

>263 laytonwoman3rd: He's a wonderful man, and I am grateful for his many kindnesses, but this time it's him who needs to be given help and here I am! It's wonderful for me to be able to offer the results of my screwed-up life to shorten his way as much as it can be.

>264 figsfromthistle: It's never easy to say goodbye. To do so before you're able to make an effort to rebuild bridges isn't any fun at all.

>266 lunacat: Ha! I can certainly see that the books would inspire treehouse envy. What a dream, climb a tree and end up in a magical realm with an elf called Silky!

Thank you all for stopping to condole. Rob and I send hugs and thanks to each and all.

>262 richardderus: >266 lunacat: Me too, me too! I loved that book. Bugged heck out of Father to Pleeeease can we have a tree house?

I was spitting mad when my busy-tidy up mother gave away all the childhood books, assuming that my brother and I had ostensibly outgrown.

And RD, newsflash: we kids did indeed disappear for the day and parents had only a general idea where we were (the southern end of Vancouver Island*).

We would go off (in a group of 4 to 5 usually) on our bikes with packed sandwiches and could have gone just about anywhere in those days and been just fine. We swam and fished and hung out on all kinds of beaches (not lakes, polio was rampant). Maybe life was less fraught 'back then' because we didn't have a daily dose of suggestive 'bad things' shoved in our faces?

* for those who are strangers to those parts, Vancouver. Is. is bigger than you'd probably realise.

Funny thing is, I totally do not remember The Enchanted Wood. Maybe we didn't have any idea there was a prequel book. What a fun book to trip over...

Sad for Rob's loss(es); glad he has you to help him through.

Can't hang out for long just now (bird is calling me to put her to bed). Just wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you. I'll be back tomorrow and will do more than skim your thread then.

A librarian I respect posted this on her feed today--are you aware of it?

https://ericcervini.com/book/?fbclid=IwAR3dbb1IaAWz3kW4W6zBDGjlzwH46g4Xpa65N7NIs...

Ooh, reading Enid Blyton, Richard! I remember her books from when I was a wee one.

Sorry to hear about Rob's dad and the long recovery he has ahead. It never ceases to amaze me what people do to each other. He is fortunate to have support to help him heal.

>262 richardderus: That startled me. I even thought you'd found the same title by a different author but it is Enid Blyton.

Your review made me chuckle.

Although I didn't have Sandy's kind of childhood, a high proportion of the books I read then had children going off unsupervised - Swallows and Amazons, a heap of Blytons of course, The Lone Pine Adventures, even the Peter and Jane books I was taught reading with. I suppose most of them were written by British authors in the wartime era but there were also the Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys and Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.

Hiya, Richard. Good review of The Magic Faraway Tree. I've thought about reading one of those an Enid Blyton Faraway Tree book) for ages, because she's a favorite author for so many Brits. I'm still undecided after reading your review. E. Nesbit and P.L. Travers and Hugh Lofting and I imagine other British authors were favorites of mine growing up, but something keeps holding me back from EB. The low price and your having a good time with it makes this one more tempting.

P.S. Sorry to hear about Rob's turmoil over his deceased, abusive father. Oy, adults who prey on kids are the lowest of the low. What a constant burden for poor Rob (and you, with what you suffered). I'm glad you're there to help him work his way toward a happy life despite it.

Just checking in on this dreary morning, RD.

Do the shingles continue to improve?

Hi Richard. I thought I already posted this but apparently, I must have forgotten to hit *post* (smacks head)

Just wanted to add my kudos to you for being there for Rob at the time he most needed someone to be there for him. Timing is everything and you did good. As much as I know it means to you, I am equally sure it means at least as much, if not more, to him. {{hugs}} to you both.

hi all doing this on my tablet so will fix responses later.

no the shingles are not improving so i am now waiting to get seen by a dermatologist bc they are infected.

thank goodness that was doable on a holiday and the facility doc knows her. he should since he is her dad.

later on

I'm sorry that the shingles are now infected. I hope the dermatologist sees you quickly and can provide relief.

*smooch*

Bloody shingles!

That's all I've got :(

My condolences to Rob, I hope he can heal with you around for some help .

Sorry about the shingles, even more about infected shingles :'(
very gentle (((hugs)))

ME: *contemplates retail therapy of buying The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 for only $2.99 on my Kindle*
ME: quit hyperventilating it'll still be there when you have more money
ME: *clicks through to Ammy before the waffling is even over*
AMAZON: Your Cost: $0.73 after book credits
ME: *stares suspiciously at goddesses*
ME: okay what horror do I have to endure to earn this?
***
So I saw the dermo and got an antibiotic to knock down this infected shingles patch. She said, "see Daddy in a week unless the area develops streaks," and then I'll have an appointment to get any sort of residual crud out from under the patch.

>269 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy, I knew that in frontier times mothers were so busy milking the cows and supervising the house slaves that watching where the kids were at all times wasn't practical, but there were only about a million people in all of Canada back then so how bad could the danger be?

When you do decide to read The Enchanted Wood, I'll look forward to hearing about it!

>270 Storeetllr: He's amazed at how little upset he's feeling and said, "this is it? really, this is what everyone says is so hard to deal with?"

Ya know what, Mary, I didn't have the heart to say more than, "things change a lot over time, but that's normal," instead of enjoy it while you got it kid cuz this ain't lasting. I'll be here to help him find the pieces when he goes there.

>271 ronincats: Oh yes indeed, Roni, it's on my list! *smooch* for thinking of me!

>272 Familyhistorian: Your acquaintance with her being of long standing, may I ask: Is she really this oblivious to parenting in all her books?

Thanks for the good wishes, Meg, and I too am appalled daily at the damage I see inflicted on people all around me. No apparent awareness on the damagers' part that they're being utterly awful to an actual human being!

I really should stop saying "you're not dead yet?!" to the neighbors....

>273 humouress: Good point, Nina, not a one of the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew books has a parent worth the name. I guess it's down to the fact that almost all of us wish we could escape from parenting. I'm glad I merited a chuckle instead of the usual curled lip and snort of derision.

>274 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe, he's really in for it and I'm watching carefully for the crack-up. After all he's the one who saw the shingles and made me *swear* I'd go to the doc the instant he hit the building. My main goal is to be the one who helps him onto the rock he'll stand on, so this looks like the first BIG test of it.

So far, so good. He's calling me as much as when he lived here in Long Beach, and with the various meeting-call services out to convince customers to try them out, we're able to feel more in-touch than just phone calls.

Yes. I've had a lot of loss in my life, and have been with others as they suffered loss, and grief strikes everyone differently at different times. I'll say it again, I'm glad Rob has you to help him through.

As for the shingles, *boo hiss* and I hope it goes away pronto.

{{{socially-distanced-for-more-than-one-reason hug}}}

>275 katiekrug: Um. No, see above, but what does improve is my mood. The doctor's daughter's a dermatologist, she agreed over the weekend to see me on Monday, said yes it was that urgent when I asked as I saw her and then got the antibiotic...Cipro!...so score one for nepotism!

>276 jessibud2: Hi Shelley, happy to see you! I'm happy that I can make a positive difference in a young person's life. I hate wasting stuff. I've got a metric ton of knowledge about surviving abuse, so I want to use it to help someone who needs it. Rob's decided that he wants to be that someone, so YAY for us both.

>278 karenmarie: *smooch* Thanks, Horrible. It's all done now until the course of antibiotics is finished. Unless some other horror hits in the meantime....

>279 BekkaJo: Too right, "bloody shingles"! *smooch* and DO NOT GET THEM

>280 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita, and you're spot-on about my help. I am grateful to him for allowing me to be there, fully present, as his personal world-building goes on. He thinks he's being a pain in the, um, a royal pain, but I keep reassuring him I mean it with all my heart when I say "I want to help."

>284 Storeetllr: Heh...more than one reason is right! Carrying the virus to Ruby would be awful.

And your keyboard must be connected to the goddesses' inbox for those wishes to take effect, so I like my chances.

*smooch*
***
Worn out now, need a nap and a ticket back to the good timeline. I can get the nap. *sigh*

>286 richardderus: Rob is lucky to have you. But it really great that he can accept help. So many people with damage scar over so deep that they sense efforts to help as attacks, anything that can reveal vulnerability to be avoided. Nothing can undo wounds set by parents, but knowing that parents are just flawed and damaged people is one rung of the ladder out of the pit.
I glad you're receiving some extra help banishing shingle damage.

>288 quondame: Thanks, Susan, he says he's lucky as well. For him, the process of opening up was less troublesome because, *I* think, we met when he was only 22. He was seeking out an older man specifically, someone who would offer affection unlike his father.

It will, I really hope, pay off in shortened duration and lessened troubles.

>282 richardderus: Hardie-har-har...
In 1960, Canada had a population of 17.9 million people.
My mother never milked cows but was raised in a rural area until she attended University (we are a 3rd generation-now family of Univ. graduates).

I'm in the happy position of being raised when kids were allowed to roam -- as subsequent generations of kids came along, there was some ridiculous helicopter-parenting going on. I never did that to my kids but I usually knew where they "generally" were because their philosophy was "What Mom doesn't know won't alarm her". So they'd say who they were hanging with and there ya go. They could of been anywhere, I betcha!
And my kids never stayed home living in the basement after high school. So weird to hear about this phenomenon. I have friends with kids in their 30's for heaven's sake, STILL in the basement.

Also, I do want to commiserate with you about the infected shingles sores. I wish I had more than sympathy to send. And in case you didn't see my saying this earlier, I'm so impressed at your philosophy for bolstering Rob: "I'll be here to help him find the pieces when he goes there." Smart approach, giving him a chance to find his way with you as his 'ace in the hole'.

Oh yes, also... It isn't so much a case of deciding to read The Enchanted Wood, as actually finding a copy. But if I do, I'll review it on Talk!

>290 SandyAMcPherson: In 1960, New York had 16.8MM and the US as a whole 179.3MM. The power disparity between our countries is as much about the population as anything else, though y'all's fresh water will be the source of conflict here pretty soon.

I don't mind the idea of the kid in the basement as much as I mind the usual reason: Debt slavery for that degree. (At least here in the US.) And I whole-heartedly support the "what she doesn't know won't give her migraines" idea...give enough checkable detail to be sure your hiney is covered and then do as you will.

The infection is just the barf icing on this shit-cake of a month.

I've had this policy for a long time: Wait. When they figure out how bad the problem is, wait. When they need an ear, listen. Then when they ask, help. Advice solicited is always more successful than given. (Except on practical stuff like cooking/baking problems! I wade right in. Oh, and once someone I didn't know before on LT was howling at the moon and I waded in; luckily it worked out.)

Rob's denial/numbness will end, and I hope like anything I'm there or reachable when it does. This is the last decade I can reasonably expect to see the beginning AND the end of, so he'd best collapse relatively soon. (People with chronic mobility-limiting conditions will not live as long as healthier peers.)

I had a whole valley in which to roam as a child, sort of. With no trees outside the housing area and bare mountains all around, it would have been hard to get lost, though we were escorted home more than once from restricted (for military reasons) areas, like the old stables, or 'B' mountain. The freedom lasted into my early teens, but then somehow crashed down. My mom sobering up probably was a factor. I didn't know, and I don't think my parents knew, about the neighbor who had raped some girls my sister's age - 7 years older than me, but various concerns and the fact that I had an off-base friend probably brought down restrictions.

>292 quondame: How typical of sobriety to make giant changes, hm? But it was not everyone who had those freedoms at that time, or so I remember.

We rode our bikes everywhere as kids (no helmets, etc) and were told to be home by supper time. Or at least to phone home if we went to someone's house. As kids, we had a lot of freedom in the summer time, after school and in the evenings until it got dark. I remember riding my bike to the park or through the forest behind my elementary school, and never thinking twice about it. There were no helicopter parents, as far as I knew. I don't know if the world got scarier, parents got more frightened (or controlling) or what, but I'm almost glad I don't have kids because I'd hate for them to grow up so restricted. Even the kids on my quiet little street in the suburbs are seldom seen without an adult hovering close by. It's tragic, really.

Morning, Richard. Back to the grind after a lovely, long weekend. Hell, I could get used to those. It is nice to have warmer weather finally too, although it is going to feel more like July than may. Did you ever read Her Body and Other Parties? I really liked that collection and I am starting her memoir.

'Morning, RD!

In suburban LA in the late 50s and 60s my brother, sister, and I sort of came and went as we wished within the drop-dead limit of having to be home by 6 for dinner. No fear, no helicoptering. I let Jenna roam our rural neighborhood here in NC too. Now, I'm not sure I'd be as sanguine.

*smooch*

>294 jessibud2:, >296 karenmarie: The times are different, for one thing; but for another, people are *bombarded* with fear messaging about food and strangers and diseases and death so they have no space to gain perspective. Is it likely my kid dashing around the neighborhood will be snatched, raped, and murdered? Am I likely to come into contact with the effluvia of an Ebola victim? But the constant fear-messaging prevents this logic from taking hold.

I can't help feeling that this is deliberate, as pervasive as it is.

>295 msf59: Not yet, Mark, but soon. Happy double-lifer weekend!

>296 karenmarie: *smooch*

>262 richardderus: the E. Nesbit books are like that - kids are kids but they are given therir independence to run around and have adventures and all will be well. "I can go down to the end of town and be back in time for tea!"

If you haven't poked a nose into E. Nesbit - highly recommend. "Five Children and It is my long time favorite.

Edward Eager seemed to have picked up her mantle in early 20th century America with Half Magic and Seven Day Magic} and other classics I'm sure you have already read.

Sympathies to Rob - who was it who said "Death ends a life - not a relationship" Glad you're there to lend a hand.

Hope the shingles are in retreat. old chum.

>298 magicians_nephew: Thank you, Jim, for the well-wishes and the idea of an "in" into E. Nesbit! I shall follow up as soon as practicable.

Yep, life &nequal; relationship...I still have Mama all over my life and she's dead 20 years!

I hope the infection goes straight the way of the dodo and the shingles follow.
***
Many of y'all love Marilynne Robinson immoderately. I have never been among you. However, her essay "What Kind of Country Do We Want?" in the New York Review of Books has made me willing to purchase her entire catalog simply to express my support for what she writes. For example:

How is it that we can be told, and believe, that we are the richest country in history, and at the same time that we cannot share benefits our grandparents enjoyed? When did we become too poor to welcome immigrants? The psychology of scarcity encourages resentment, a zero-sum notion that all real wealth is private and is diminished by the claims of community. The entire phenomenon is reinforced by the fact that much of the capital that accumulates in these conditions disappears, into Mexico or China or those luridly discreet banks offshore.

I want to sob and cheer and generally create a ruckus as I read this. Simple, direct statements of our shriveled vision of our country's wealth and potential have never had the effect of eliciting the emotional response that these questions have had.

I encourage all, especially the anti-immigrant, pro-"liberty" persons, to read this essay by one of your best apologists.

Sorry to hear you had to deal with an infection in the shingles. Ugh! Hoping you're feeling better soon.

'Morning, RD!

I've read about half the article, will read the second half when I can come out of the spiral it's put me in. She's articulate and thorough and astute.

*smooch*

>294 jessibud2: Your younger days sound a lot like mine, Shelley. And like you said, and I agree, "I don't know if the world got scarier, parents got more frightened (or controlling) or what".

A group, "Free range kids" as a reaction to the perception that parents had of safe/unsafe. But it is still not the same culture we had. I think that's true of every generation, no? And girls have had increasing freedom compared to the historical norm. Maybe not all is lost.

I wrongly assumed you'd read E. Nesbit up above. I join Jim in recommending her books. Five Children and It is a great place to start. I loved all of hers, but another favorite is The Phoenix and the Carpet.