richardderus's second 2022 thread

Uvariopsis dicaprio is the first new plant species to be described in 2022! Apparently the weird-looking thing is related to the ylang-ylang tree, which makes me suspect those flowers smell somethin' fierce. And it seems the entire world population of them is around fifty individuals...so not comin' to a garden center near you.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2303540-newly-identified-tree-species-named...

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

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

And now that I've gotten >6 richardderus: Burgoineing as a habit, I'm going to make a monthly blog-only post with my that-month's Burgoined books. It will appear the last Sunday of each month.



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

Reviews one through eight? Seek them thitherward.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

009 Reckless II: Living Shadows excited, post 67.

010 30 Things I Love About Myself entertained, post 90.

011 Out Front the Following Sea rocked, post 171.

012 Sam delighted, post 173.

013 Fadeout succeeded, post 192.

014 High-Risk Homosexual enlightened, post 225.

015 The Maid pleasured, post 263.

016 How to Love Your Neighbor entertained, post 285.

017

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

This is the list:

1. Read a biography of an author you admire.


2. Read a book set in a bookstore.


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


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


5. Read an anthology featuring diverse voices.


6. Read a nonfiction YA comic.


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


8. Read a classic written by a POC.


9. Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.


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


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


12. Read an entire poetry collection.


13. Read an adventure story by a BIPOC author.


14. Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book).


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


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


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


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


19. Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author.


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


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


22. Read a history about a period you know little about.


23. Read a book by a disabled author.


24. Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!

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

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

I suppose we shall find out.

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

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

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

to post 250 reviews on my blog

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

to complete at least 275 total reviews of all types

Most important to me again this year is to report on DRCs I don't care enough about to review at my usual level. I still don't want to keep just leaving them unacknowledged! There are publishers who want to see a solid, positive relationship between DRCs granted and reviews posted, and I do not blame them a bit.

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

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

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

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

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

Think about using it yourselves!


JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES

8 January Now and Then charmed, post 41.

This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. After realizing five times in December 2021 alone that I'd already Pearl-Ruled a book I picked up on a whim, I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to track my Pearls!

As she says:

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

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

***
Thread 1's Pearl-Rule post: here.

Now you are safe to post.

As much as you ever are, anyway.

LOL! Your placeholders crack me up!

And here I am again, after just posting on your old thread.

Happy new thread, happy Saturday, RD!

From your last thread, I can appreciate the pretty in comfort! Me, too. It's 24F here.

*smooch*

Morning, BigDaddy! Saturday happiness to you.

>9 thornton37814: What she said.

Happy New Thread, Richard.

Going back to your last thread, I can see how my near-departure from this hallowed plane, and Horrible’s misadventures, might inspire more aggressive Pearl ruling.

In my case it inspired a sister who wasn’t speaking to me (for absurd reasons) to become lovey- dovey. Her husband came close to kicking it, too, which helped cause her about-face.

>8 richardderus: You're the first of January's posters, Lori!

I'm glad you enjoyed my placeholders.

Happy New Thread, Richard dear. I am a reed blowing in the wind. Your plant emphasis this year resonates as I am intent on developing a native plant pollinator garden this year.

>11 Crazymamie: Well, whatever it takes, right? I think, if that's what it took to get her down off her high horse, that she was ready to bury that hatchet anyway.

Good weekend-ahead's reads!

>10 karenmarie: *smooch* Thanks, Mamie dearest.

>9 thornton37814: Heh. Hi Horrible, looka me gettin' two visits in a row. It's 24° here, too!

Happy new thread, Richard! I braved the cold (12 degrees F with a windchill of colder) to bring my recycling to the center, but don't plan on going out again if I don't have to. Hope you're enjoying your weekend reads!

Happy new thread!

>17 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

>16 bell7: B-r-r-r!! 12° is bad; windchill-minus is unconscionable.

I'm thoroughly engrossed in PC's Turkish January challenge. Like A Sword Wound delights me; I started The Pasha of Cuisine and am deeply into it. Plus Lisa Henry, an Aussie M/M writer, sent out a long list of freebies in her monthly newsletter...it's clear that I need to become immortal or at the very least shed the need to sleep à la Nancy Kress's Beggars in Spain in order to dent this tsundoku-soaked biblioholism.

>14 ronincats: Hiya Roni! What a great goal: Native pollinators! IIRC monarchs flit through your state, so Asclepias galore wouldn't come amiss.

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

My brother and SIL visited, it was nice. I am exhausted because I have become more of a hermit during COVID.

Congrats on your shiny new thread. I wish you a relaxed weekend and I hope you feel better soon. *smooch*

Happy new one, RD!

>21 katiekrug: Thank you, Katie!

>20 Ameise1: Hi Barbara! Happy to see you here. I'm wishing you all those same lovely wishes.

>19 FAMeulstee: Hi there, Anita, I'm glad they visited but am gladder that they left before your patience snapped. It's always so awkward when the police have to intervene, isn't it.

*smooch*

>22 richardderus: LOL, won't come that far, Richard dear. My brother has a lot of credit, being the only one never estranged. And now he is the last remaining sibling, we both do our best to take good care of my father.

>23 FAMeulstee: Huh! Imagine that...a sibling who does what's best not just what they feel like doing.

Must be a Dutch thing.

Happy new thread, Richard. I am hoping you are done with the doldrums by now and that they will leave you be for a while.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

Happy New Thread, Richard. I hope you start feeling better this weekend. Sue tested negative yesterday and is on the upswing. She will return to work on Monday and she really misses Jackson, which hopefully will be tomorrow. We are a bit warmer here today and fortunately no snow in the immediate forecast.

^I copied this from the old thread.

Alas and alack, my groceries were supposed to be ready for pick-up almost an hour ago. Called the store and they are "re-shopping," their version of quality control. I am not inclined to leave the apartment today but needs must because, much to my dismay, the refrigerator doesn't restock itself.

Upon return I will become one with my book.

I saw your thread with a low number of unreads on it all morning and thought you were otherwise engaged. And then I realized there was a NEW THREAD that was already galloping away. Damn and blast! But okay, all caught up now.

>28 lauralkeet: Ha! Well, can't keep a secret from you, can I Laura. Welcome!

>27 AuntieClio: Become two with your book briefly, dearie, and go get the Gwendolyn Brooks collection from the Kindlebrary.

I hope you didn't tip them.

>26 msf59: All good news, Mark! Very heartened that Sue is so much better so quickly.

>25 alcottacre: I'm just zeroing out the doldrums, Stasia. Altering dosages of things always has odd knock-on effects so I'm going to assume that's what these are and get on with stuff.

*smooch*

Happy new thread, Richard. The new plant is interesting. I like that we don't know everything there is to know.
Hope you're feeling back to tip top form pronto.

>30 Helenliz: Thank you, Helen! I'm redefining the way I feel now as the new baseline because it's been long enough to change if it was going to. A thyroid med got cut from the rotation so permaybehaps that's what caused this.

But in any case, here I am all second-threaded and ready to Burgoine a few things. Whee!

Happy new thread!

>18 richardderus: On e-sale today The Pasha of Cuisine!

>27 AuntieClio: Someday they will fix refrigerators to function as the ought!

>32 quondame: Really! By gum, y'all, go get you one, you won't be sorry!
https://smile.amazon.com/Pasha-Cuisine-Novel-Ersin-Saygin-ebook/dp/B078Z1W9JY/

I got an ARC from Arcade in 2017 so I'm set but go buy!!!

Thank you, Susan, and thanks for the new-thread wishes.

I'm being toyed with by The Global Book Cartel™. Why? I ask. There is no answer.

I ordered two GNs from ammy 'cause the three brick 'n' mortar joints I visited had them not. Didn't have others I was open to buying either. Prime or no, two-day delivery wasn't available. Both promised for delivery today. One is in the hands of UPS, so I may never see it.

"Be careful what you wish for . . . it probably does NOT fit the business model."

I relate. I ordered more underpants...not unusual ones, an ordinary size, no erm embellishments or anything...five weeks to get them.

"But they were in stock!" I wailed at the screen. It blinked back "estimated delivery date Feb. 3 to Feb. 13"

Underpants! Cotton underpants!

Happy new thread Richard my dear friend.

Happy New Thread!

>37 SilverWolf28:, >36 johnsimpson: Thanks, y'all!

An update to >34 weird_O:. Got the GN that Amazon delivered. Vertigo: A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward. Without bundling up and taking a long walk, I can't know if UPS actually delivered on a Saturday (I'm skeptical).

>39 weird_O: Whatthehell, Bill, ya got it so who cares about the details!

BURGOINE #1
Now and Then by Lisa Henry

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A rock star walks into a bar.

Then

Owen Bannister loves his best friend Zach Baldwin like a brother. When Zach auditions for a reality TV show looking for Australia’s next musical superstar, Owen is afraid he’ll lose him forever. But in the end, it isn’t Zach’s talent that tears them apart—it’s a single reckless moment in the spotlight, one that shatters their friendship and sent their lives spinning in very different directions.

Now

They say you can never go back, but when Zach walks into Owen’s pub, they might just have a second chance at getting it right—if only they can forgive each other for what happened between them ten years ago when they were teenagers.

Lovely little shortie, take you about an hour to read, about second chances with first loves. I'm pretty sure there was actually sex in there somewhere but Author Henry took it out so she could give it away without making a Federal crime out of it. What made it so fun to read was that "lost first love" trope between 25-year-olds!

Do it, try it, don't miss a chance to be misty-eyed over a long-delayed HEA.

>33 richardderus: Yes sir!

>3 richardderus: "...I'm still looking for GNs that don't make me want to scream and barf..."
Have you read Good Talk by Mira Jacob?

>43 EBT1002: No, not yet, but it lurks on my tablet leering at me with what I suspect it intends to be a come-hither stare.

>42 quondame: *snaps a salute*

Well, I'm reluctant to suggest it won't make you want to scream and barf but ... it might squeak past your reflexive reaction to graphic works.

>45 EBT1002: *dolefully* oh
okay
sure

Happy new one, RD!

Where else could we come to find out about underpants?
I had a spell favouring boxer shorts (or was it Hani favouring boxer shorts) but I am converted to soft cotton pants with a wee bit of leg. Snug is the word.

Boxer briefs are The Bomb, PC. They're very comfortable.

Boxer guy, myself. The plaider the better.

Happy new thread!

>49 drneutron: Thanks, Droopy Drawers!

>50 richardderus: Almost made me choke on my expertly made arabica!

>50 richardderus: 😂

oh geez LOL

>43 EBT1002: >46 richardderus: I second Ellen's endorsement of Good Talk, RD.

More ((hugs)) and hopes that your underpants arrive sooner than later.

>5 richardderus: Oh! I like this meme. But my memory isn't good enough to answer most of it, not if I need the most recent of anything.

>1 richardderus: Fascinating. Wonder how long it will be before everyone with a garden has one RD.

Kew gardens discovered a prehistoric plant a few years back. Protected, planted, seeded etc, and now you can buy them in their shop!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/may/10/environment.science

Morning, BigDaddy! Like Stasia, I am hoping your underwear arrives sooner rather than later.

'Morning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

Sending out a plea to the Ammy and underpants gods to get your underpants to you sooner than later.

I'm trying to get the energy up to make a chocolate cake today with the no sodium baking powder. My Panthers aren't playing until 4:25, so don't have to rush.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

***UNDERPANTS UPDATE***
Snarling unpleasantly had an effect. The items in question are on an Ammy delivery truck. Clearly the Universe was just messin' with me and when my posse showed they had my back(side), Magic occurred!
***
>58 karenmarie: Something Old Stuff said about your Panthers..."if both teams just stand around and don't do anything, they'll get playoff spots"...stuck in my head. Is this true?

Hoping for cake. *smooch*

>57 Crazymamie: Thank you, Mamie!

>56 Caroline_McElwee: A HUNDRED FEET TALL!??! And nobody noticed it?! Wow.

Cool stuff, Caro! Thanks.

>55 ArlieS: The meme can be done any old way, Arlie. I'm the one who decided to use the most recent. Purely arbitrary decisions can be reversed at will. Or you can use the meme as a reason to go play in your data!

>54 alcottacre: *sigh* I'll go spelunking in the Caves of my Kindle.

*smooch*

>53 AuntieClio:, >52 drneutron: :-)

>51 PaulCranswick: Ha! Now, that would've been an International Tragedy. Spewing Erni's delightful brew?! Thank goodness it's merely a hypothetic.

>59 richardderus: Well, thank heavens!

>59 richardderus: Yay for the snarling and magic.

The Panthers are not in the hunt anymore, but not-playing to a draw could be a strategic move for a team on the edge. Not bad, OS!

I’ve taken 2 eggs out of the refrigerator to get to room temp. Kerrygold butter’s already on the counter because it’s always on the counter, and I can get the 1/3 cup needed from that without room-temping any more butter. It just might happen.

*Phew* I thought for a minute there that I'd stumbled on an all-out boxers-or-briefs kerfuffle. But it seemed to peter out. You should pardon the expression.

Hurrah, underpants are go!

>63 laytonwoman3rd: Isn't the point of underpants, Linda, to make sure that peter isn't out most of the time at least?
(sorry).

>65 PaulCranswick: *snort* I can't imagine a venue more à propos than this one for peter humor.

>64 PaulCranswick:, >63 laytonwoman3rd: Heh.

>62 karenmarie: I will not be passing the compliment on.

Mostly because I didn't understand it....

>61 Crazymamie: *smooch*

009 Reckless II: Living Shadows by Cornelia Funke

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Jacob has saved his brother from the Mirrorworld, but now he will pay a terrible price. A fairy's curse is burning in his heart, and to break the spell he must embark upon a perilous journey - with his trusty friend Fox by his side - to seek out the only treasure that could save him.

Jacob's search for the golden crossbow will lead him across hundreds of miles by land and sea, to an invisible, enchanted palace within the Dead City. It will bring him face to face with vicious beasts, bloodthirsty giants, and a deadly stone­faced rival.

It will test his courage like never before.

Living Shadows is the second book in the thrilling Reckless series.

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

My Review: I am convinced that this series is cruelly aimed at obsessive completist readers. The cliffhanger at the end of book one makes this book a MUST-READ NOW and, through the magic of Kindle, I was able to read the books back-to-back. I warn all who come after me: To sign up for this voyage into Mirrorworld is to commit to the whole cycle.

I am in.

What happens during the course of this book is that Jacob comes to understand something he'd never given much thought to: My love for you creates my responsibility for you creates a web of obligation that is endless...and as addictive as any narcotic. While we who have read the first book know what a price Jacob has paid, in fact what a price he paid after making a sacrifice that even he isn't quite aware of the dimensions of yet, we're probably not expecting the antagonist of this book.

In fact, I guarantee we're unprepared for the existence of the antagonist of this book. And that's probably Author Funke's most clever sleeve-ace yet. It plays well.

There are the accustomed delights of reading this series' world-building fillips. These are numerous, though enumerating them for you isn't really something worth doing in a review. There is a Fandom wiki, of course there is!, and I didn't look but am willing to bet there's fanfic on AO3. The reason is that Author Funke used every conceivable fairy-tale source to draw her world out from and has made it into a near-seamless whole. (Where there are seams that I can perceive, eg Goyls' method of transmission, it felt to me as though they were intentional not born of inattention to source material.)

The problem I had wth this entry is how kinetic, nay frenetic, it is. We go from pillar to post and back again; Fox is with us, Nerron the treasure-hunting half-Goyl whose existence is new to this book is against us; we're never for a moment at rest, able to take stock, pause to reflect. It's exactly what Author Funke intends, and it's a valid narrative technique but in this reader it creates a sense of distance from the characters. I'm so deep in the world that I don't get to experience his progress through his (final?) days.

Until I read this:

"If you catch your own children in the circle...then you can use the years you take from them for yourself. You're just taking back the life you gave them in the first place. The more of it, the better."

That was a gut-punch of a trap set for overeager treasure hunters, wasn't it?! And the sheer violence of the stakes set...if you're not a relative of the curse-setter, you're still going to die in the circle but it won't keep the curse-setter alive...could not be more urgent. Now that Jacob has found this evil place, he thinks he's trapped in the curse.

Fox, his shifter gal-pal, isn't having that. As always, the woman's love saves the man from his stupidity and greed. Though let's be fair to Author Funke, this time Jacob's greed was simply the desire to live that we all suffer from. And since Fox very much wants Jacob still alive, she's hardly just going to watch as he dies from a curse she can stop from progressing...if she's willing to do something that's very, very hard to do and commit murder.

Killing someone/thing in a struggle isn't murder. The intent to kill, the set purpose and the planning of the act...that's murder. Will she murder to save Jacob's life?

You'll have to read the book.

The ending is tremendously exciting.

>63 laytonwoman3rd: Your post made me laugh out loud!

>68 Crazymamie: I love when that happens! Hope there wasn't beverage-spitting involved, though.

>65 PaulCranswick: An episode of Friends leaps to mind...

>69 laytonwoman3rd: Luckily I was not drinking anything - I would totally have spit it.

Thanks for the underpants update. LOL.

>63 laytonwoman3rd: Okay, literally LOL

As a bit of an aside, and admittedly a much less funny one, I will say that I believe the delivery issues are not entirely with Ammy. I'm not saying they are innocent but I think the issues are multidimensional. Here in WA, the fact that the passes between western WA (where everyone with any modicum of cool lives) and eastern WA (where yours truly has settled For. The. Time. Being.) have been closed for days due to snow, ice, and avalanche threats. The grocery store shelves are unevenly stocked.

UNDERPANTS ARRIVAL ANNOUNCEMENT
They're here and they're the proper colors. (I was asked to get more blue ones as the black ones depress Rob.) To my surprise, the backordered long-sleeved t-shirts (purple was out of stock) arrived, too.

Thank you all for your interest. Normal activity may resume.
***
>71 EBT1002: I guess it really was the bullpucky I told the customer service lassie it was.

>72 richardderus: Glad about the arrival, Richard dear!

>73 FAMeulstee: Yes, the celebratory conga line snakes around the world.

Praise be! Underpants and t-shirts! It's a big day chez RD.

>63 laytonwoman3rd: I, too, snorted at this. Good one, Linda.

>75 lauralkeet: Giddy. I am giddy, I tell you.

>72 richardderus: Yey, suitably underpanted! So funny.

>77 Caroline_McElwee: I tell ya! Imma need to charge for the popcorn soon.

"the black ones depress Rob" Well sure, if there's no lace...

Happy Sunday, Richard! I had the Giants game on but as they were clearly going to lose and it they are not in the playoffs, I confess I wasn't paying all that much attention. I'll probably put on Sunday Night Football more for background noise than anything else. *smooch*

(Edited to add: this slightly related note to your discussion of football brought to you by my complete inability to have anything to say about the underwear discourse 😂)

>3 richardderus: that looks quite the challenge! I don't quite read enough to be able to arrange my tbr to fit into that. Being a scattershot reader doesn't help either!

>67 richardderus: To sign up for this voyage into Mirrorworld is to commit to the whole cycle.
I can all but hear the friction of the publisher rubbing their hands with glee!

Glad to be all caught up on the underpants saga....I prefer the tight, soft cotton boxer style myself (on others). When my boys graduated from briefs to boxer-style tighties I was somehow happy for them, and still feel some weird satisfaction seeing them all lined up on the washing line all the way from kid-size 10 to men's size L.

>81 LovingLit: I should come visit, the sizes would go all the way to XL...and these latest blue shades are very pleasant indeed.

>80 bell7: I don't imagine you spend a great deal of mental energy on men's underpants, really. Apart from mentioning that I was running low on presentable ones and being informed that blue would be nice, I'd say that this is by far the most interest my underpants have ever garnered.

>79 laytonwoman3rd: lace

*revolted silence*

>82 richardderus: But real men used to wear a lot of lace! It's this degenerate modern times that reduce options on decorative expression!

There are supply chain issues all over, Richard, probably what's holding up the underpants.

>83 quondame: Men can keep the expletive-deleted lace. Too many manufacturers seem bound and determined to stick it on women's undies, nightware etc. Especially the less expensive ones. No thanks!

>59 richardderus: >72 richardderus: Yay for the good Underpants Update!

>67 richardderus: Sounds like I need to get to it sooner rather than later, but I have to be sure that my local library has all the books in the series. I hate to find out too late that one of them is missing!

>85 ArlieS: I don't like that stiff plastic garbage next to my skin, but the real stuff, properly applied, can be quite fetching, and I'd hate to limit anyone else's options. Men's clothing is so boring, well except for Brendan Fraser in Armani and I'm not sure that's the clothes, that it really could use texture and embellishments.

>84 Familyhistorian: - LOL! In my barely awake state, that could sound like chains are holding up Richard's underpants. Sort of like suspenders, I guess. What a visual...;-)

Heavens! Who knew underpants could engender such a lively discussion. Even *I* am not that interested in my undergarments.
***
>88 jessibud2: That...will not be happening. Nope.

>87 quondame:, >85 ArlieS:, >83 quondame: Anyone may wear anything they choose, thank goodness, without my say-so. Lace has nothing to offer me that I want to possess, and has MANY LITTLE HOLES that get hairs in them and thence pinch and pull and generally make themselves unpleasantly known.

>86 alcottacre: Oh my, yes indeed. I think this series will appeal strongly to you, Stasia! Jacob the hero, in particular, should be one for your Good Books.

010 30 Things I Love About Myself by Radhika Sanghani

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When a British Indian woman's life hits rock bottom, she decides to change her stars by falling in love...with herself—a hilarious, heartfelt story from outrageously funny novelist Radhika Sanghani.

Nina didn't plan to spend her thirtieth birthday in jail, yet here she is in her pajamas, locked in a holding cell. There's no Wi-Fi, no wine, no carbs—and no one to celebrate with.

Unfortunately, it gives Nina plenty of time to reflect on how screwed up her life is. She's just broken up with her fiancé, and now has to move back into her childhood home to live with her depressed older brother and their uptight, traditional Indian mother. Her career as a freelance journalist isn't going in the direction she wants, and all her friends are too busy being successful to hang out with her.

Just as Nina falls into despair, a book lands in her cell: How to Love Yourself (and Fix Your Shitty Life in the Process). It must be destiny. With literally nothing left to lose, Nina makes a life-changing decision to embark on a self-love journey. By her next birthday, she's going to find thirty things she loves about herself.

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

My Review: You can't be sure you're reading a novel until Nina actually reads How to Love Yourself (and Fix Your Shitty Life in the Process). Really? A bit on-the-nose to reach her when she's in the clink! I mean, I'd just sit out the sentence before I'd read that. Still, Nina's pretty much looking at her (pretty comedic) arrest as an intervention from the Universe.

But, given her inability even to make a decent choice of only-phone-call recipient resulting in her return to her *truly*ghastly* mother's orbit, that could prove to be life saving. Or losing...it's a close-run thing whether she'll survive Daily Mailish history-chucking-out nightmare Mum. *I* almost didn't survive Mother Mistry. What a gorgon. In fact...just being totally transparent here!...I really didn't like wishy-washy, what's-the-female-nebbish-called Nina. I get it...a mother like that one would kick the sense and the sensibility right out of you. No one knows more or better than she does! Then there's drippy, dreary, depressed closet case Kal. Yeesh!

Why, then, am I reviewing it. Two words: Tantric. Sex.

You'll have to read the book to figure out why. But you'll have a lot of fun doing it, so I'm not wasting my tears for you. You're going to be glad you did, you nutty slacker. Glad you powered past the ex bringing his new squeeze to a party when Nina was guaranteed to be there...because dear ol' Mum dragged her. Glad you ignored the fact that a thirty-year-old online journalist needed her brother to explain doxing to her. Or when her self-immolative attempts to go up against a TV shock jock are so very, so painfully naive....

And let's be honest, folks, the sheer number of us humans who can use...really, really use...the truth behind Andrew Solomon's quoted-in-story quote, "The opposite of depression is not happiness but vitality..." runs into the octuple digits. I suspect, though, that quite a lot more of y'all will follow Nina Mistry, Financial Abundance Manifester, in her (unorthodox but) proven effective plan to get the, um, kitty replenished.

What the heck is all this in aid of...well, my olds, there is absolutely no better time than the New Year to manifest self-love and self-acceptance by reading something that will make you giggle, and squirm, and blush. Cringe comedy lovers, here's you a book! Silly self-help sozzlers, here's you a book! You are in need of grins? You are in luck, here's you a book!

And you know what? Many more books need to have "Namaste, bitches," in them.

Morning, Richard. I hope you had a good pain-free weekend. I had a great day yesterday with birds & Jackson but today is starting out terrible. My son's car jumped gear and hit the side of our house, which includes the garage door frame, so that can't open. At least Sue had left earlier. WTH??

>91 msf59: Oh no! That's just really rotten for Mmmday to throw at you!

Boo hiss Mmmday!

Hiya, RD! Happy Monday to you.

>72 richardderus: Whew! I’m glad that crisis is over. May it be the last of the year for you. How can Rob not like black underwear? My black underwear are my favs.

>82 richardderus: Lace works, although I understand the >89 richardderus: ‘many little holes’ problem. From Hair, My Conviction:

I would just like to say that it is my conviction
That longer hair and other flamboyant affectations
Of appearance are nothing more than the male's emergence
From his drab camouflage into the gaudy plumage
Which is the birth right of his sex

There is a peculiar notion that elegant plumage
And fine feathers are not proper for the man
When actually that is the way things are in most species

*smooch*

>93 karenmarie: I decided to put the Lace Issue to Rob who, with becoming alacrity, said "YUCK! why?!"

Apparently the black is, um, low-contrast, and contrast is the desideratum. (It took me a while to figure out how to euphemize what he actually said.) I don't care one way or the other about my plumage, TBH, but this has always worked to my benefit as the gentleman of the hour usually has strong opinions and I'm perfectly content to humor him. This earns me Relationship Points, and costs me nothing.

Win-win!

Morning, BigDaddy! Relationship Points that cost you nothing are da Bomb.

>95 Crazymamie: Ain't that the Gawd's Honest Truth! *smooch*

Given recent comments here, this headline caught my eye and made me think of you :)

"Military conscripts in Norway will be given used underwear amid covid-induced supply chain crisis."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/09/norway-military-underwear-corona...

>97 katiekrug: ...!!!...

Heh.

PErhaps you should offer your services to the Norwegian government to get that supply chain opened up!

>99 katiekrug: ...if they pay me in recruits...

Snort.

>100 richardderus: double *snort*.

>100 richardderus: Apparently, my jest was Poorly Received in Higher Authority's Opinion. A somewhat stiffly worded request for clarification was issued from HQ and the following retraction was didcussed and required:
"In no way did I, with my attempt at humor, mean to imply that I am seeking or intending to seek the attentions of anyone other than my dear and delightful Rob."
I have elected to eliminate his, um, less than flattering characterization of as an "old horndog who ought to know better."

Onward and upward!

>100 richardderus: Hahah - oops. *waves to Rob*

I visited yesterday amid the underpants crisis (glad to see it's been resolved satisfactorily) and thought I'd left a comment, but apparently the discussion broke my computer and I had to shut it down. The computer, not the discussion. Apparently that's still ongoing.

Happy MMMmmmm - Mmmmond - I've been retired for 9 years, and apparently Mondays are still difficult.

>103 richardderus: It had to be said and you got attention. Win-win.

>90 richardderus: Well, my local library has exactly 0 books by Radhika Sanghani, so I am going to have to look further afield for that one.

Happy Monday, RD! Have a great week! **smooches**

>106 alcottacre: Oh yay! I got you with a book-bullet!

>105 quondame: *chuckle* I was a bit surprised he took such umbrage.

>104 Storeetllr: Hiya Mary! Happy to see you out and about this fine Monday! I'm unsure why a simple grouse about some megacorp using the supply-chain issues as a dodge got such traction. Still...whatever makes folks happy.

Except Rob. Sorry, honeybunch.

Happy new thread Richard!

>67 richardderus: I've thus far been able to resist temptation of Funke, but I may have to break down and check her out ...

>109 ronincats: Et tu, Rone?

>108 swynn: I don't recommend the Inkheart books, I found them unbearably tedious; these are much more to my taste, more involving and exciting. So yeah: time to take on the challenge!

Have I gone mad(der)? Did the "Post Message" button suddenly turn blue? As in, it was brown this morning and is blue this evening?

I'm guessing that, if true, is the reason for the brief outage earlier. Interesting.

>109 ronincats: - ROFLMAO!

I turn away for five minutes and I miss The Saga of the Underwear!

Hugs form my side of the world.

>111 richardderus: Oh good, I'm not losing my mind. I noticed that too.

Happy Tuesday, Richard!

>114 bell7: *whew* then it's real...not aliens transreversing my brainstem or something. Damned lizard people! How dare they.

>113 BekkaJo: A long-running musical will be coming to the West End, never fear.

>112 jessibud2: :-P

‘Morning, RDear, and a very happy Tuesday to you.

>103 richardderus: Truly laugh out loud. Belly laughs, even.

*smooch*

Morning, BigDaddy!

>97 katiekrug: What?! Oh, dear!

This thread is completely delightful! Good for Rob for demanding a retraction. Gave me a giggle.

Oh, look. It's Tuesday. I tend to dislike Tuesdays more than Mondays.

Anyway, hope it's a decent one for you. At least the sun is shining!

>117 Crazymamie: - I know, right?!?! Craziness.

>118 katiekrug: I mean, if you are going to serve your country, you should at least be given unused underwear in which to do so. It seems like a basic civil human right.

>119 Crazymamie: - As members of the military, they should just go "commando". Heh. I crack myself up.

>120 katiekrug: *belly laugh*

>121 Crazymamie:, >120 katiekrug: Ha!! I love that joke.

>119 Crazymamie: Heh...I tend to agree. I'd be ticked off if I got someone's leftover underpants to do the thankless job of soldier in.

>118 katiekrug: It is. Tuesday. Oh yes, that sadness. The way it's far enough from the weekend that the memories aren't faded and so far from next weekend that it just won't come fast enough...yeah.

>117 Crazymamie: Happily then, the underpants saga continueth: Rob sent me a photo of himself in plain black briefs captioned "gotta be YOUNG to pull off black ones"

...I trust I don't need to elaborate on my response to that...

>116 karenmarie: It was so weird. I mean, I know he reads my posts here but...? I make so many jokes and not a peep.

However, black underwear and lace. Doesn't surprise me.

>123 karenmarie: It was the Norwegian recruits that seemed to cause Umbrage. Silly lad.

Class. CLASS! You seem to be having too much fun, here. Mr. Derus, pull up your pants and SIT DOWN. And all you ladies, STOP giggling.

Thank you.

>125 weird_O: Cheese it, y'all, the substitute's got the rag on us!

>125 weird_O: - *sings* "Every party needs a pooper, that's why we invited you. Party pooper...."

Hey, RD! Just popping in between some reading and service phone calls. Another brisk one here, so I have no problem hanging at home.

>128 msf59: Hopefully it's all coming along to get the situation handled.

It's SO COLD here that I'm entirely willing to forget there *is* an outdoors. *brrr*

>127 katiekrug: Ha!

I need some deep personal long time with my fuzzy purple blanket today.

>130 AuntieClio: It's the perfect day for it! *smooch*

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD. Sorry to hear about the cold. On the other hand, it was mild enough here today that I could trek to the library, despite the north wind.

Happy Tuesday!

>132 alcottacre: *smooch*

I'm so envious of your mild weather. Today. Not tomorrow, when it will be a perfectly seasonable 38°.

Off to the eye doc to see if macular degeneration's worsened! It probably hasn't, but checking on it once a year can't hurt, can it.

*smooches* all around!

>134 richardderus: Good luck with the exam, Richard! Heres hoping that nothing has progressed.

>135 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita, I'm not expecting that anything has but it's better to know either way.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Wednesday to you.

>125 weird_O: How did you know I was giggling, Bill?

>127 katiekrug: That’s what I sing to Bill all the time when I don’t want to watch something or go to bed early.

>134 richardderus: 🤞 for a good report!

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>134 richardderus: Richard, I very firmly scrolled past everything in order to speak, and then saw that you're checking your macD today. Once a year sounds like you're still dry. I now have wavy lines into the Amsler Chart but not in the middle yet..... saw my doc last week, and this is apparently my new normal. It's irritating for reading, but not really bad. I can live with it. (Both eyes were still clear of the bad stuff.) I'm just a bit fearful that I won't notice progression until it's a lot worse or unless it's sudden. I'm sorry to share this perilous condition with you.
I very much hope for a good report for you. Check That Chart Every Day!!!!!!!!!

Just popping in to say hi while I'm trying to catch up!

Hope you get good results from your eye exam today! *Smooch*

EYE EXAM RESULTS

Not a single bad thing to say. The druzys (I am spelling that wrong but I'm still dilated & can't be arsed to look up the proper spelling) look the same as last time, there's nothing to suggest disimprovement, so I'm done until 2023. I got a printout of my Rx so I can go get some new frames this year.

So All The Yay for me!!

>140 bell7: I did! See above. *smooch*

>139 thornton37814: Hi Lori! Thank you for stopping in.

>138 LizzieD: Oh ICK, Peggy! I'm so sad to have that nastiness in common. Mama went blind from mD and Dad lost 60% of his vision to it...so I am EXTRA cautious. Not smoking was a much better decision than I ever knew at the time.

>141 richardderus: Excellent new RD. Focused on snazzy frames?

Hooray for All the Yay! I don't remember when I've had so much fun catching up on a thread. Except for >91 msf59: Mark, that's awful! Terrible way to start, middle, or end a week :(

The Lizard People have an underground lair at our airport - Denver International. And DIA is all-in on enjoying this. Much of the signage up in the terminal, which has been under unending construction, is about the problems the Lizard People are causing that are causing delays (earlier signs touted the remodel of their lair). Airports are not fun, and airports under construction are even less so, so the Lizard People embrace at ours makes it a bit better.

And the underpants saga! OMG :) But when they're not right (or are delayed) they're not right! And used is never OK. Blech. I've had my own saga as my leg is still a bit swollen from hip replacement surgery and my "normal" underwear still doesn't work for me. I've had to resort to "boy shorts." But just wait to see my 2022 Halloween costume!

>144 AMQS: The Lizard People! 😂😂

>137 karenmarie: Why wouldn't you be giggling, one might not be wise to ask...after all, the theme around here is usually humor of one sort or another.

I'm so relieved. But also confused. I posted a reply to you at 9.16 and it's just not here! I am not to understanding this eventuation.

>145 drneutron:, >144 AMQS: The lizard people have clearly been effin' with us all COVID long with the flight cancellations and the idiotic supply-chain shocks. I'd venture to guess "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" was actually a documentary that They squashed.

>144 AMQS: I can only imagine what shenanigans you're planning, given these new raw materials....

>143 Caroline_McElwee: Snazz isn't the focus...lenses not popping out is. *irritated scowl*

>141 richardderus: Yay!

>148 ArlieS: Indeed! And thanks!

>141 richardderus: Yay! I am glad to hear the good news!

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

>150 alcottacre: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

Yay for the good eye report!

>141 richardderus: That is good news, RD.

There is a young lady in the 118 site office with worse eye sight than me! One of my eyes is short sighted 775 whilst she is 850. Poor thing is squinting into the computer all day updating data and I doubt that she'll see her hand in front of her face when she makes it close to my age.

>153 PaulCranswick: I'm so relieved, and pleased, I don't know what to do! But gadzooks...850?!? How is that not legally blind? Poor lambkin.

Your vision isn't anything to write home about, but *she* is in for a rough ride.

>152 katiekrug: Thank you, Katie! Given history...I get a little anxious...and today was such a treat.

Congrats on passing with flying colours! :-)

>141 richardderus: It is so good to have something not to worry about!

>153 PaulCranswick: My sight has been worse that that young lady's for decades, but I can still thread a needle pretty well, though I must hold it very close to my face! I've spent hours in front of monitors as long as there have been such things, but it was probably as much staying up reading at every opportunity and genetics that have me wearing glasses that are thick even with high tech materials.

>156 quondame: It is, isn't it Susan. Such a burden to feel lifted, too, given my delights are centered in reading.

Thank goodness for those high-tech materials! I shudder to think of the bad old glass-lens says.

>155 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley! It was a genuine joy to hear him be so ebullient.

>141 richardderus: Excellent news! Yahoooooo!

Good to hear the eye test was went as well as can be expected.
And hope you're over the bug.

^I wanted to celebrate your eye exam results with a beautiful '48 Studebaker Land Cruiser, which is featured heavily in my current read The Lincoln Highway. I know how much you love the vintage cars.

>160 msf59: Oh, how gorgeous! And me such a big Studebaker fan, too, so thank you Mark!

>159 Helenliz: It was a good result, and the bug isn't even in it. I'm so healthy it's disgusting.

>158 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita!

Yay for the good eye report, Richard. Hope you were unblurred enough by the time Mark posted that Studebaker. Nice one!

YAY for the good eye report! GOOD for you!

It should go without saying that I am more than pleased with your eye news. :smooch:

>141 richardderus: Hooray for the good eye news!

>141 richardderus: *happy dance*
Celebrating nothing wrong with your eyes, Richard dear!

>163 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy, it really, really feels good to KNOW I'm holding steady in this battle.

>162 Familyhistorian: Isn't it magnificent, Meg? I think that era's Studebakers were some of the best-looking post-war cars.

>166 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita! I am so happy!

>165 bell7: Awomen, Mary, I had a load of anxiety built up around it...for nothing!

>164 AuntieClio: It has so gone. *smooch*

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

Morning, BigDaddy! Hooray for the goodness of the eye report.

011 Out Front the Following Sea by Leah Angstman

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Out Front the Following Sea is a historical epic of one woman’s survival in a time when the wilderness is still wild, heresy is publicly punishable, and being independent is worse than scorned — it is a death sentence. At the onset of King William’s War between French and English settlers in 1689 New England, Ruth Miner is accused of witchcraft for the murder of her parents and must flee the brutality of her town. She stows away on the ship of the only other person who knows her innocence: an audacious sailor — Owen — bound to her by years of attraction, friendship, and shared secrets. But when Owen’s French ancestry finds him at odds with a violent English commander, the turmoil becomes life-or-death for the sailor, the headstrong Ruth, and the cast of Quakers, Pequot Indians, soldiers, highwaymen, and townsfolk dragged into the fray. Now Ruth must choose between sending Owen to the gallows or keeping her own neck from the noose.

Steeped in historical events and culminating in a little-known war on pre-American soil, Out Front the Following Sea is a story of early feminism, misogyny, arbitrary rulings, and the treatment of outcasts, with parallels still mirrored and echoed in today’s society.

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

My Review: I've been acquainted with, and even published by, Leah Angstman for the past decade. I am absolutely sure that I'd've rated this book even more highly if I hadn't been...such are the wages of sin, I'm afraid. I'm extra sure that nothing I've read in this COVID year has affected me as much as the tale of Ruth, a child of sixteen!, suffering under the sheer violent rage of an entire community of religious nuts. Regulars will recall my affection for the comic book Prophet Against Slavery, which trod similar outcast-for-being-honest ground. At least the Quaker prophet Lay was outcast, cruelly treated, with more than one slender reed of lovingkindness to support him...and I think Ruth's belovèd Owen, his oft-professed love for her notwithstanding, was a slender reed indeed...while being *actually*guilty* of what they accused him of.

That is not the case in this story.

Ruth's powerful mind, her greatest curse in a society that mistrusts women whole and entire but smart women most of all, also leads her to the only possible solution to her impossible conditions (given that the local Pequots aren't going to risk a world of trouble to take her in although they do offer her more honorable assitance than she had a right to expect)...and straight into a situation where she's in the path of life-storms and STORMS!!

It is as breathless a ride of a read as I'm able to take at my advanced age.

What made me invest myself so deeply in this unflattering depiction of theocratic society from the outside was my antipathy towards That Kind of Person. What kept the pages turning was my need to know: Are Ruth and Owen going to make it to the last page? will their love be rewarded with togetherness? And, this being a romantic novel not a category romance, there is no way to be sure. And I'll not spoil that for you.

(That was me being very cruel, but only to be kind...you need to read this book.)

>170 Crazymamie: Hiya Mamie! Thanks, it was a treat indeed to get such an enthusiastic response. The doc sounded so pleased as he delivered the news. It pays to go see the same folks for six years.

>169 FAMeulstee: Thor's Day orisons, my dear Anita!

012 Sam by Lonnie Coleman

Rating: 4.25* of five

The 1959 Reviewer Said: In ONE Magazine (pp23-24), "M.J.B." said of this surprising book:
Lonnie Coleman's satisfactory new romance is a perfect example of misconception, one held to a certain extent by the author, of realism: it is not, simply because the author is on occasion more specific than otherwise as to situation and explicit as to word, life without glamor and an expose of the sordid. SAM is a good honest love story wherein the hero finds or appears to find the man of his dreams. In the trappings of 20th century New York it is still the Victorian drama of Love Triumphant, and I, for one, am all for it.

Sam (the name is an obviously homely touch) is Samuel Kendrick, a publisher by disposition as well as heritage who lives luxuriously in Greenwich Village with his faithful man-servant, Custer, an old family retainer. Custer rightly disapproves of Walter Roland, a handsome but untalented actor who satisfies Sam's physical needs for the sake of his own comforts. His dearest friend is a former employee, Adeline, pregnant by her irate husband, Toby, who rightfully but unfairly and even viciously reacts to their friendship with brutality and sadism going beyond the pale.

Sam gives a large party to help Walter get a part in a new show, even though he is aware that if the part is Walter's he will have to give Walter up to the leading lady, an aging actress with a large following and a larger penchant for men younger than herself. The party crystallizes all the ill-feeling pent up in Toby, in Jane, a former girlfriend of Walter's, in the McKenzies (she is to produce the new play), and in Walter and Sam. Reeve Keary, an aging tante appears as a gadfly to worsen the situation. Walter goes off to the aging actress and Sam to the Turkish bath.

It is the adroit and capable handling of the situations that now evolve, the tragedies that ensue, the loves that slowly begin to emerge that makes SAM the pleasant reading that it is. For the people are recognizable and for the most part rather true to life, or to those portions of life that Mr. Coleman here has chosen to confine himself. Sam is a little wooden, Richard (who appears late in the book) is almost too good to be true, Toby is not completely realized and has all the cards against him, but with all this there is a certain native honesty that gives the book some distinction.

Unfortunately, the library of homosexual literature is so small that SAM will shape larger on our shelves than it might otherwise. In any case it would earn the space it took!

Think of it, a happy ending, and a touch of humor, too!

KINDLED IT UP ON A WHIM.

My Review: First, read this:

"I don't like people the way I used to. I look at them sometimes on a street or in a theater and think: 'My God, what doltish sons of bitches you all are.' I get along with them, but they don't mean anything to me. You do. Walter does. Most of the others bore me. It's dangerous to feel that way about people. When you do, you've begun to die. Poor Reeve today. He was trying to be nice, and I've laughed with him a thousand times over just such things as he was saying. But I don't have the desire or energy any more."
–and–
He had known pain, but only his own. It was the first time he had felt another's pain, and he would never be entirely happy again. Happiness supposes security, and there is no security when mortality is comprehended.
–and–
Some hurts heal slowly, some quickly, and some never. Quickness of healing is not a measure of superficiality in a wound. Deep wounds may leave a negligible reminder, and slighter ones may, by their scars, proclaim a Civil War. So is it with emotional wounds and scars.

I don't know about you, but I feel Seen. Sam Kendrick, the hero either speaking or thinking these lines, is a younger...ouch...version of me. And the wonderful part is that I can shut the Kindle on him if he gets tiresome! Can't do that on your own sweet self, can you.

This book was not a hit in 1959, and it came out from a publisher not of the Top Drawer like Author Coleman worked for...Collier's...but did he know his people or what! I'll bet there wasn't a gay guy's coffee table that didn't sport that gawdawful lavender cover with its limp wrist on the front practically screaming, "FAGGOT!!" in Anno Domini 1959. It sported that rarest of things, a happy ending for its queers, and it was not the least bit shy or reticent about it. I don't know of many, if any, contemporaneous tomes with that claim to fame. The wonderful thing about that was the same then as now: A future is only possible when we believe it is, and seeing it in a book can be a lifeline. Someone GETS me! Someone IS me!

I'd like to think that, in the ten years between SAM coming out (!) and Stonewall, it helped men who flat could not imagine that people like them (load some extra venom on it, you know, so they don't miss the point!) could even aspire to happiness with someone they loved. I'd like to believe that it crept out of old boxes into young hands and entered young minds...nothing seriously salacious in these pages...to show them there's a future that is not bleak, solitary, miserably alone.

I surely hope it did.

And then, mirabile dictu, there is the almost-divinely-inspired definition of what we now call Found Family, or Made Family:

There was something else between Addie and Sam, something she could not explain but that she knew. It was what they meant when they said they were family to each other. It was a special intimacy provided by the sensitivity they felt to each other's thoughts and looks and words. The mystery of why it happened between Sam and Addie, and not between Sam and someone else, or Addie and someone else, would remain a mystery to the end of their days.

Probably the most important concept in the whole novel. Knowing that people could matter to you, could love you, could be there with you and for you because you're you not in spite of your being yourself, probably saved more lives than any other thing in these pages. Certainly not the smoking that literally everyone does on almost every page! Gawd has that not aged well.

There are characters in SAM whose very existence one wants to deny, but I'm here to tell you I've met every single one of these people in the flesh. Often had to be nice to them in spite of having the urge to fling them into the East River. I will say that, to a one, they got their just deserts in these pages and I couldn't be happier. There are people whose lives change after the almost criminally unfilmed Grand Party Scene so utterly, in such a contrived fashion, that I wonder how Author Coleman (he of Beulah Land fame, or infamy) thought he could get away with it. Oh, that reminds me: Gender and race relations are very much of their time. Author Coleman was one of those who called women "ladies" and Black folks "Negroes" but he was no forerunner of PC/Woke culture.

So, for a buck and knowing that it's not going to overload you with politics, I'd call this straight people safe and a worthwhile read for all of us 21st-century denizens who imagine this passage in history is Utterly Unique. Back when Cadillacs and glasses frames had fins, the world we think of as ours was pushing itself into being. Go on, risk the buck and the three hours!

Hiya RD, and happy Thursday to you!

Belated joy at your excellent macd results.

>173 richardderus: Kindled it up for the 99¢. Thanks!

>174 karenmarie: Hey there, Horrible, happy Thurs. I'm so so so pleased!! (Bet you couldn't tell.)

I hope you'll enjoy Sam! I did.

Well, you got me with the Angstman.

>176 drneutron: I really do not think for a second that you'll regret the read, Jim, it's a fascinating corner of history illuminated by the light of a burning woman!

>171 richardderus: On the list it goes Richard. Bruised by another of your bullets.

>178 Caroline_McElwee: Heh. My aim is true, Caro. And you'll probably enjoy it as much for the light it shines on King William's War as any other facet!

So, all y'all who read >171 richardderus: need to hear the news! Silly, silly Author Angstman...fell into my Twitter trap...

Leah Angstman | Preorder #FollowingSea!
If you don't want to murder everyone by the end of my books, then you're doing it wrong, lol.

ExpendableMudge (He/him)
Not *everyone* but certainly a plurality of the cast was in danger of grievous biblio-body harm at some point.

Leah Angstman | Preorder #FollowingSea!
Most of them at least deserve a hard slap at some point in the book, I agree. Don't worry, I'll make them all pay in the sequel!
***
Y'all heard it here first.

>173 richardderus:
"I don't like people the way I used to. I look at them sometimes on a street or in a theater and think: 'My God, what doltish sons of bitches you all are.' I get along with them, but they don't mean anything to me. You do. Walter does. Most of the others bore me. It's dangerous to feel that way about people. When you do, you've begun to die. ... But I don't have the desire or energy any more."

I don't think it means I've begun to die. It means I don't have the energy to put up with stupid people any more. It means I found my boundaries and am willing to enforce them with any means possible. We live our younger lives being taught we have to be nice to everyone and to listen to their prattle when what they need is for us to firmly walk away. The only thing good to have come out of COVID is working from home which has saved me from spending my energy on surviving a day at the office where some of the stupid people were. It's freeing not to have the desire or energy to put with up that unnecessary claptrap anymore.

>181 AuntieClio: I can support that use of the realization that one simply can't with people anymore. It's down to what happens as a result of that realization...retreat or retrenchment or recoiling in horror or....

Dickens cats chocolate black underwear lace Norwegian recruits

I got nuthin'. Oh, wait. Hooray for a good eye exam! 'Cause ... I mean....your EYES.

>173 richardderus: 1959! Oh.

>184 quondame: Yeah, exactly! All those cigarettes. *shudder* He died of lung cancer in 1982, at a mere 62. But the guy is proof that people thinking "Found Family" is just as real as born ones have always existed.

>183 laytonwoman3rd: Hoorays for good eye exams are more welcome and important than any other hoorays!

Just a Friday check in - to add to the eye hoorahs :)

Oh and to add myself to the completely myopic brigade. I got up to the mid -8s at one point. They've improved a little over the last few years but still utterly rubbish (high -7s). Throw in a dreadful astigmatism and some oxygen deficiency - well, I'll just cling on to my bottle tops glasses and be eternally thankful for being born in an age when I could have them!

>82 richardderus: I should come visit
By all means! I'd love you to....but be warned that you will have to wash your own XL smalls :)

Glad your eyeballs aren't deteriorating...seeing is blimmin useful! And pretty awesome, if we're honest.

>180 richardderus: Oooh, twitter convos going well! That's a nice buzz :)

'Morning, RichardDear! Happy Friday to you.

I hope you're still basking in the good macd report. I saw my cardiologist yesterday and had a productive visit. There's a link on my thread to the details that I posted on the Here's to Our Health in 2022 thread, just in case you're interested.

Today's quiet with Bill at work - reading, puttering, and etc.

*smooch*

>188 karenmarie: Ah, well then I shall coddiwomple thitherward for my news update.

It was a quiet morning here, no one got hauled out in an ambulance or shot by an irate husband or anything remotely interesting. Hardly need my corrected vision, there's so little to look at. *mournful sigh*

>187 LovingLit: I was amused by Leah saying that. She's published my listicles in The Coil before so we developed a palsy relationship. She's actually pining after a movie deal...to which I wanted to say, "yeah...no," but restrained myself.

Thanks re: eyes! *smooch*

>186 BekkaJo: It's hard for me to fathom that, being born in 1600 instead of 2000, I'd've been disabled from birth by astigmatism!

*smooch*

TGIF smooches.

>190 katiekrug: *smooch*

013 Fadeout by Joseph Hansen

Rating: 5* of five

The Re-Publisher Says: Published fifty years ago, a time when being gay was illegal in 49 out of 50 states, Joseph Hansen’s first Dave Brandstetter novel shattered stereotypes and redefined the Private Eye novel as we know it.

Five decades after its original landmark publication, Joseph Hansen’s Fadeout is as fresh and important as ever. Preceded only by a handful of gay protagonists in crime fiction, Hansen’s Dave Brandstetter, a ruggedly handsome World War II vet with a quick wit, faultless moral compass, and endless confidence, shattered stereotypes and won over a large reading audience, a feat previously considered impossible for queer fiction.

Set in the mid-1960s, Fadeout centers on the disappearance of a southern California radio personality named Fox Olson. A failed writer, Olson finally found success as a beloved folksinger and wholesome country raconteur with a growing national audience. The community is therefore shocked when Olson’s car is found wrecked, having been driven off a bridge and swept away in a fast-moving arroyo on a rainy night. A life insurance claim is filed by Olson’s widow and the company holding the policy sends their best man to investigate. The problem is that Olson’s body was never found. Not in the car. Not further down the river. As Dave Brandstetter begins his investigation he quickly finds that none of it adds up.

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

My Reviews: First, a 2013 rumination:

I've recently completed a re-read of all twelve Brandstetter books. Why the heck not, it beats writing a new ending for my own book, right? Especially a book I thought of as done, but...oh heck, never mind.

My crazy mother bought this book when it came out because she liked mysteries. It was a little too hard-boiled for her, but she got the next three or so because she just loved the writing. When I was about 12, she handed this one to me when I expressed my joy at reading The Maltese Falcon with the offhand remark, "oh well then, this one'll slay ya."

Wow. A gay OLD man! People like me before there was a me!!

That really mattered to me, since there was such a lack of public and accepted gayness in the Austin of 1971. I remember knowing there were gay guys at the University because the sister who went there complained about it. I remember knowing the term "gay" from a friend of that same sister's who used it, and explained it when asked. The sister in question said, "oh geez he means queers, Rich, the faggots who mince around yelling about rights."

My mother is not the only judgmental and nasty woman I grew up with.

Well, that sort of interchange made Brandstetter all the more pleasurable for me to read! I loved him for being himself, despite his own father's disapproval, and for being a widower...a relationship ends before the series begins, and it was a revelation to me that such a relationship was *possible*. What a wonderful man Joseph Hansen must be, I thought, to create this unicorn of a character.

As the mystery unfolds, Dave Brandstetter does too. He learns so much about the victim, and so much of that resonates with him...Dave just can't stop the grieving he's going through for his dead love from connecting him to the people in his life, even as he makes the honorable choice not to take comfort that's offered to him by someone even more vulnerable than he is.

What I know now as someone older than the old man I thought Dave was in the book...Hansen knew what he was talking about when the subject is grief and grieving. Dave's pain made me weep as a kid. It does so much more to the grief-veteran old-man me...makes me sit, shocked, as I'm taken in to this most personal and intimate of places. Sex is less intimate than a person sharing this passage with you. As a re-reader, I had my initial youthful response in mind. Then the reality hit, and the impact was profound.

When there's writing like this, storytelling like this, out there in the world, why are so many people gobbling down so much crap?

My present-day response to re-reading this glory of a noir story:

Revisiting this read still more decades later, I am much more impressed with Author Hansen's feat of derring-do in writing the absolutely ordinary Dave as a queer gent of a certain age. These are excellent California Noir novels, as Michael Nava says in his Introduction, and it is homophobia and nothing else that keeps Hansen off the lists of the great practitioners of this art.

I thank you, Soho Syndicate, for republishing the series. Thanks, Edelweiss+, for the DRC. Most of all, and most heartfelt indeed, are the thanks I offer to my forerunner Joseph Hansen for holding the spiky branches back and showing my ever-searching eyes the safest path to being a good man was the honest one.

When all is said and done, when this mystery is...not solved, exactly...resolved, let's say, one feels that Justice has been served and the world's wicked, awful ways aren't triumphant when it really mattered. This time.

>192 richardderus: That series hadn't been on my radar but it sure is now. Thanks for the rec!

>193 swynn: I'm delighted to have book-bulleted you with it, Steve!

>192 richardderus: yes, yes, you got me with that one too. 😂

>192 richardderus: Interesting! I put a hold on the ebook at the library.

ETA I found the audiobook on Hoopla and was able to borrow it!

>196 Storeetllr: Oh, cool! I understand the narrator, Keith Sarabaika, is quite good. I hope he is.

>195 drneutron: Oh. Really? Isn't that nice.

>181 AuntieClio: Wow! Love this 'tude. I am seen as RD has recently said. Stephanie has nailed it ~ an opinion I have privately thought but hadn't the courage to follow in the workplace. I don't have the energy to hide my opinion any more, either. Not that I am rude about it, it's more a shrug and walk away thing.

>192 richardderus: I upthumbed your review (after seeing comments on drneutron's thread). I found a copy of Fadeout on Overdrive, surprised! Older books are rarely in our library and the reprints never seem to make it there for ages, if ever.

I finished A Rising Man today and gave it a bit of a lambasting in the review.
Having said that, I will try book 2.

>198 SandyAMcPherson: I decided to stop after book 1. Not painful, just not enough.

>192 richardderus: BB for me.

Have a happy weekend

Happy Saturday, Richard. I remember loving Fadeout, when I read it many years ago. I used to read a lot of crime/mysteries in the 80s and 90s and Hansen was always a favorite. I have a 3 book collection on shelf, featuring Skinflick. I should revisit these. Great review!

>201 msf59: Happy Saturday, Mark. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed the re-read this time, given my overall bad attitude towards re-reading. His skill as a writer was so much more evident to me this go-round.

That said, I'd never have picked it up on my own so I'm happy to have got a DRC.

>200 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita, and the same weekend wishes! I'm glad you got zinged with book-bullet too.

>199 quondame:, >198 SandyAMcPherson: I thought you were pretty restrained, Sandy. I thumbs-upped the really quite restrained review for the slight snark of your tone.
heh.

Susan's "not quite enough" makes sense to me based on the tenor of the review: he didn't focus on what would make you want to come back again and again to his world.

>202 richardderus: Thank you, I appreciate that you were happy to be on my 'snark' page.
It is also satisfying to see others joining you in enthusiasm for Hansen's Fadeout, yeah?

>203 SandyAMcPherson: I'm delighted that Fadeout was so fast to find its feet indeed. I'm hoping all y'all will make your will known at the check-out counter, either at the library or the bookery of your choice.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Saturday to you.

>189 richardderus: How dare the denizens LBAL not provide you with opportunities to use your corrected vision.

We’ve had a little kerfuffle out here – there’s been a news blackout but serious rumors of a shooting/death in the bathroom at my grocery store 2 weeks ago. People chattering on a county-centric webpage on both sides of the issue – we need to know vs give the family privacy. Just as long as I wasn't in the store at the time, I am happy to avoid the details.

I have astigmatism, too. Yup. Disabled.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Happy weekend smooches. That's it. That's the post.

Pretty photo up top, Richard. When you were telling us about the “ylang ylang tree” i found myself catapulted into the world of Dr.Seuss, with his distinctive waving palm fronds. Maybe it’s time I see a professional about this kind of problem?

Great fun catching up on your thread. I’m another one who enjoyed the Saga of Your Underpants. (Words I never expected to hear myself say). Maybe you should start a podcast?

Happy news on your eye exam. Must be hard to have the degeneration possibility hanging over you.

I don’t know how you manage to do so many book reviews! I had trouble just getting three short ones done. I was talking to Madame MBH about so often feeling pressed for time - weird, since I’m a retiree, for gods’ sake.

Hope your weekend is off to a good start. Ours started with some emotional tumult from one of our children, but now I’m quaffing java with the new Sharpe’s Assassin in front of me.

>207 jnwelch: It's interesting about time, Joe. I've always seen it as factually limited but practically infinite. "There are so many hours in a day" is a true statement whether baldly said as a fact (23:56:04) or moaned as a burden (how to fill them all?!) or as a torment (how can I put everything I want to do in?). I fall on the practical side: "Given the eighteen hours I'm going to be awake, what do I want to put my effort into?"

I want to read; then write; then eat; then talk to people (first and foremost Rob); then go back to sleep. Other stuff is dilly-dallying and can be squeezed in or out as mood and whim dictate.

A podcast?!? Naynaynay!! They're expensive and I wouldn't pay for one if I could pay for one. Advertising makes me itchy so I couldn't do that to support it, not to mention the disability system requires that one earn less than zero or they stop supporting your meds. Fucking Republicans.

>206 MickyFine: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

>205 karenmarie: The *miracle* of glasses going on my face that first time...! I was able to SEE! A thing that had never happened to me before.

A news blackout?! That sounds outrageous to me, but I live in NY so it's not like anyone needs to black out news just bury it in the avalanche of other doings.

Happy Saturn's Day! *smooch*

A remarkable synergy between Hench and Unwarrented: Policing Without Permission jsut popped up in my reading. The author of Unwarrented made this statement:
"Cost-benefit analysis is - outside the area of policing - one of the primary tools of good government. It is what is used to ensure the public that rules made in their name actually make sense. Yet applying cost-benefit analysis to policing is very much in its infancy. For example, there is no measure whatsoever that counts the costs of police tactics ike stop-and-firsk, or consent searches - or SWAT."

Sounds like we need "The Auditor" to start making her appearance known in the world of law enforcement. That might bring about change faster than any protest.

>209 benitastrnad: Heh...The Auditor is a great solution to out-of-control policing, indeed, given how she started her climb to supervillainy.

Or whatever we're calling the morally gray universe Her Henchness created....

>210 richardderus:
Thanks for that correction in her supervillian name. I made the change in my message. I love it when books aligne. It makes me think there might be messages in the stars!

>211 benitastrnad: One does wonder...

I need a supervillan name. Oh I come with cake

>213 BBGirl55: Ooo, cake...and pretty cak, at that! Your supervillainess name is The Patissière! Fattening and occluding the arteries of your blissed-out victims.

>186 BekkaJo: A lot of us - including certainly me - would be blind as bats were it not for current medical miracles in the eye care front. I try to remember to be grateful

>202 richardderus: >203 SandyAMcPherson: >204 richardderus: I'd guess the snark to straight ratio in my reviews strains the tolerance of the some. But it's my contribution and the frequency of 5* ratings for average entertainment boggles me.

>208 richardderus: Yes, that grass was made up of individual blades! Wow. And they wondered why I was slow and difficult in school before that.

>216 quondame: Remember that your ideas of average, above average, and so on, are not necessarily the standard candles used to calibrate all others. Your sacred cow Tolkien, by my reckoning, was a deeply dull academic who made up stuff to cloak the same tired old legends in and conned generations of wanna-bes into thinking it was Genius. Which, from a business perspective, it was; creatively, not a bit of it.

So, with that reality check on board, keep snarkin'.

>217 richardderus: Well, yeah. But there is the series bias, where anyone reading the nth book, n>2 richardderus: is predisposed to like this stuff (i.e. Tolkien) and so higher ratings sometimes go to less interesting books because people who rated #1 at 1-3 aren't around to drag down the ratings of #2-50.

Happy weekend *smooches* and hope you're reading something excellent.

>219 bell7: *smooch* High-Risk Homosexual ATM and yes, it's excellent (if very emotionally resonant).

>218 quondame: ...rather glossing over the "who are these ratings *for* and what purpose do they serve?" debate, which is where my response to your statement of "Rating book 1 low on the scale and skipping books two-forward is, in effect, rating them as not worth one's time" comes into play.

My own purpose in reviewing is simple. I'm a reader-response reviewer. I haven't the credentials or, frankly, the patience to create/learn/accept elaborate critical theories, claim they are The Lens, and present them to others as somehow Important.

The next argument, "so who cares what you think?" gets the answer, "anyone who reads the piece and gets value from it." It's hard for me to imagine why that question is even necessary but it gets posed a lot.

Hi, Richard! Have a great weekend! Nothing bookish to say here, except for, hope you get lots of time for reading!

Karen O.

>217 richardderus: Tolkien had me fooled then too, RD, because I loved The Fellowship of the Ring with a passion when I read it at 11 years old. One of the things great about books is that we can agree on one book or author and then go completely the other way with another and both of us are right.

Have a great weekend dear fellow.

>220 richardderus: I can't think of any way a review wouldn't be "reader-response" based however different the standards are. I personally go ballistic over "historical" fiction that reeks with modern sensibilities and fantasies that take the genre classification to ignore every rule of economic and social convention.
I do believe there is good writing and bad writing, but not all badly written books are trash nor well written ones worth the effort.

>223 quondame: It's a handy lit-crit term I've adopted. Won't take long to Google it.

>222 PaulCranswick: We're only ever right when we agree that our opinion isn't The Truth.

Have a lovely, almost over, weekend.

>221 klobrien2: Hi Karen! I spent a lot of the afternoon writing up a review (below) of a book I really enjoyed reading.

014 High-Risk Homosexual by Edgar Gomez

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Gomez’s witty memoir follows a touching and often hilarious spiralic path to embracing his gay, Latinx identity against a culture of machismo—from his uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua to cities across the U.S.—and the bath houses, night clubs, and drag queens who helped him redefine pride.

I’ve always found the definition of machismo to be ironic, considering that pride is a word almost unanimously associated with queer people, the enemy of machistas . . . In a world desperate to erase us, queer Latinx men must find ways to hold on to pride for survival, but excessive male pride is often what we are battling, both in ourselves and in others.

A debut memoir about coming of age as a gay, Latinx man, High-Risk Homosexual opens in the ultimate anti-gay space: Edgar Gomez’s uncle’s cockfighting ring in Nicaragua, where he was sent at thirteen years old to become a man. Readers follow Gomez through the queer spaces where he learned to love being gay and Latinx, including Pulse nightclub in Orlando, a drag queen convention in Los Angeles, and the doctor’s office where he was diagnosed a “high-risk homosexual.”

With vulnerability, humor, and quick-witted insights into racial, sexual, familial, and professional power dynamics, Gomez shares a hard-won path to taking pride in the parts of himself he was taught to keep hidden. His story is a scintillating, beautiful reminder of the importance of leaving space for joy.

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

My Review: What makes a memoir worth reading? This is not an idle question: I don't read many memoirs because, when I ask myself what makes *this* memoir worth expending some of my ever-shrinking supply of eyeblinks on, the answer is "not this" more often than not. Coming-of-age novels get the same call and readerly response. I, too, was a tacky young slut...do I need to know how that felt to you?

Turns out I do. This time.

We meet young Edgar in the back seat of a taxi in Nicaragua, riding along to wave his mother goodbye as she flies back to Orlando, where he is from. He's thirteen. He's clearly figured out he's queer, even if the details are...a bit hazy. But what isn't hazy, at all, is the rage and loathing that "being queer" will subject the young man to, so he does what so many do: He shuts himself, his full authentic real self, into a sealed, invisible space and just powers through whatever bullshit awaits him.

Think about that. Just stop posturing and sit with the reality that you, either through homophobic action or indifferent inaction, are requiring children, teenagers, vulnerable dependents unable to save themselves, to endure the mental-health-destroying reality of sealing away a part of themselves simply in order to survive in this world they did not make. (Yes, you did and do make the world, you adult about to click away, every time you say or silent agree with some asshole's homophobic crap.)

Edgar Gomez survived by making his sealed prison an egg, a seed, where his flamboyantly feathered and exuberantly sexual self could gestate and form. How many whose strength isn't as adamantine as his fail at this? What's the suicide rate among teens? Those are closely linked. And thankfully less often, what are the rates at which the fagbashing culture produces mass murderers? Omar Mateen? He could have, given a different amount of strength, been Edgar Gomez. The similarities between the upbringings of the two disturbs Gomez, he says explicitly.

About explicitness...the title of this memoir probably makes many of y'all wince and cringe. Now...imagine that title is instead A DIAGNOSIS and applies to you when you seek PReP meds like Truvada, potentially life-saving means of not contracting HIV. The way not to die? Be officially sick...this is the world that laughing at fag jokes and failing to challenge laws that don't apply to you because you don't much like the people they *do* apply to leads to. Failing to vote for politicians whose mandate included equal civil rights for all has led us to a place where court-mandated rights are under threat because the scumbags have finally got their pet judges, the ones who let idiotic laws like the Texas Bounty Hunter Enabling one stand, onto the Supreme Court. This is the world that a title like this one, its in-your-face "this is my reality and you no longer get to pretend you didn't know" like some 1930s German, has urgency and necessity multiplying the force of its legitimate demand for your eyeblinks and dollars.

I thought you might like to know that one of the characters in American Gods is reading Gravity's Rainbow. The annotation says in the original manuscript the character was reading Dahlgren. A change which made me cheer, although I've not read Pynchon.

>223 quondame: I studied with a LitCrit mentor for almost two years and while it wasn't the perfect relationship, it did strengthen the way I thought about reading and my writing. I could write a reader's response of Pamela Sargent's Shore of Women which was advertised to me as a classic work of feminist SF/F. Said reader's response would be along the lines of what most book bloggers write, "a short synopsis,I didn't like this, I give x stars, etc."

However, due to my work in feminism and learning to read books from that perspective, my review would not be a reader's response. I haven't written my review yet but I take great umbrage at this book being called a "classic" of any kind, much less anything worthy of a reader's limited time and energy.

I could have stayed in the reader response pool but I wanted a different way to look under the hood, so to speak, of what I read. You may say my feminist critique of Sargent's book is a readerly response. But I wouldn't have known how to look at it from a feminist perspective had I not learned a few things along the way.

Which is a long way of saying, "We all have our ways." I am in the camp of Tolkien and Heinlein were utter hacks. I can now articulate why instead of just saying, "ugh!"

What does my opinion on any book mean? Nothing, except the opinion belongs to me and I am the only one who can express it.

(Sorry for hijacking your thread Richard)

>227 AuntieClio: No worries...if you're going to "hijack," at least be interesting!

>226 AuntieClio: Ha!!

It seems to me that we all could just read the books we want to read, share whatever comments we have, assign whatever stars we think appropriate and be done with it without criticizing how someone else does any of those things. *shrug*

>229 katiekrug: Simply put. Brava.

Hiya, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

I remember having to walk to the front of the classroom to see the board from 3rd grade ‘til 5th grade, when my parents finally got glasses for me. Of course I got the standard '4 eyes' cruelties. Ugliest olive-green-with-rhinestone cat eye glasses in the universe. I wore them ‘til college, when I got wire-rim aviator glasses.

>214 richardderus: LOL

>215 magicians_nephew: Oh yes, Jim. Cataract surgery 6 years ago was a blessing.

>217 richardderus: I forgot that you are not a LoTR fan. Me either…

>220 richardderus: I rate books for my own satisfaction and although I wrote 30 reviews on 103 books last year, I stopped posting my reviews to LT out of sheer laziness.

>226 AuntieClio: I read Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 for book club in 2017 and only finished it because it was short and I could then discuss it intelligently. I kept Mason & Dixon around for a while, but eventually got rid of it without reading it. No more Pynchon for me.

>229 katiekrug: 👍 Years ago Richard and I decided that we could ATD – agree to disagree – about a book and still be good friends.

It’s been sleeting since about 4 a.m., will eventually transition to freezing rain. Ugh.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

"From bad to worse" is what I read in that forecast. Barf. Well, at least you're going to be out of it soon, if the Weather Goddess's votaries are correct. I hope they are.

*smooch*

The Sci-Fi writer Spider Robinson once said "A Critic tells you if it's Literature -- a reviewer tells you if it's worth reading".

Keep the reviews coming Richard.

>223 quondame: >224 richardderus: >227 AuntieClio: My brain is begining to collect itself to clear out the foam in the works, but until that happens educating it re reader response theory and practice here and on google is on hold.

When a book or set of books is such a hit as to open the flood gates for an entire genre, as Lord of the Rings did and has continued to do over decades and generations, its literary qualities aren't what it's primarily valued for. It is part of our culture, and that isn't such common an achievement nor limited to works universally lauded by all - The Christmas Carol comes to mind, along with The Three Musketeers and Gone with the Wind.

I just started Being Seen about a deaf blind woman and you might find it interesting. Just saying. Smooch.

>235 Berly: I've already noted that on your thread, and bustled off to the library site to request that they give me access to it in three readers' time. *smooch*

>234 quondame: Certainly it's part of the cultural furniture! The damned thing *invented* the publishing category "fantasy" and has made the careers of an astonishing number of people possible.

It still sucks.

>233 magicians_nephew: Try'n'stop me, Jim. Or don't, actually, yours would be a body somewhat challenging for me to dispose of discreetly.

>234 quondame: It's the gatekeeping which puts me off. It took me years to feel comfortable saying I didn't like a number of genre authors because I would be told in no uncertain circumstances that I was WRONG.

Absolutely, Tolkien and Heinlein have their places in genre history. I can appreciate that Tolkien wrote a sprawling adventure story filled with beings and tales we'd never really read before. Heinlein inched feminism forward with his smart, educated women who worked as scientists, etc. But he also held us back, because the women also had to wear heels and lingerie and serve the men at home. They were both a product of their time.

Genre authors seem to be stuck in their adoration of those who came before and keep re-writing the same tales. I've heard authors say, "The great thing about SF/F is you can do anything." Then do that, write that.

I didn't particularly like N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series but what she did was very different and winning a Hugo 3 years in a row makes me respect her work.

Well-loved books and authors aren't always good. Michael Moorcock's Wizardry and Wild Romance is a great resource. I think I'm due for another read.

If we all liked the same things and all agreed the same books were excellent it would be a boring world.

Marc Janson, the Belgian surrealist, has died just shy of his 92nd birthday.

His alien-underwater-fireworks style was greatly to my taste.

>237 AuntieClio: :-)

>238 richardderus: A sign of special work when you can look at it for minutes on end and see different things and then realise - crikey I have been staring at this for minutes!

>237 AuntieClio: I really disliked Heinlein's portrayals of women because any abilities they had were just to service the quest of the male protagonist and the few girls were too precious.

As to doing any thing is SF and Fantasy, well a lot of women have. And have done the same old same old, because genre is about going where you'll find your comfort. Terry Pratchett went off and did his own thing as did Lois McMaster Bujold. Sheri Tepper and Jo Clayton kept it up until they keeled over. Yes, they repeated motifs, they were earning a living and publishers hate to put out money for something different. I follow several authors who have been told not to continue series I like because the other series, usually the less unusual one, is selling better.

For me it beats middle class white guys realizing they haven't made IT somewhere in middle age. Or the super rich making bigger more glittery messes but realizing they haven't found IT. Or the vastly deprived coming up brutally against barriers between them and IT. And I purely hate women who throw themselves under trains.

>216 quondame: With me, it was seeing that trees weren't really green lollipops on a trunk - they had individual leaves!

>227 AuntieClio: After a provocative post like this, I just had to find your thread and drop a star on it.

Perhaps I'll learn something about LitCrit there. (Fair warning - I'm arriving biased against it, but also aware of my ignorance.)

And as for Tolkien and Heinlein - I've spent many enjoyable hours with each of their works. Which is more than I can say for most of the people who win literary prizes, or even get short listed for them. (Not that I know whether you approve of prize winners, or regard the sort of writers who get short listed for prizes as ipso facto non-hacks.)

(And Richard, my apologies for joining the hijack.)

>233 magicians_nephew: This!

>237 AuntieClio: "If we all liked the same things and all agreed the same books were excellent it would be a boring world." - Indeed!

>216 quondame: for me the vision revelation was that the house across the vacant lot was made of individual bricks, not just a reddish blue.

>243 ArlieS: I don't think prizes automatically make a book worth reading. Marlon James' Black Leopard Red Wolf was nominated for a National Book Award in 2019 and I thought the book was awful. Neither my mentor or I understood why it was getting so much energy.

As for being biased against LitCrit, no worries. I definitely am not one to think the blue curtains over the windows mean the author was depressed. As Freud is thought to have said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Morning Richard. Just checking in. Hope all is good on you side of the pond.

>246 BekkaJo: Hi Bekka! So far, so good. I think, but I haven't been awake that long.

>245 AuntieClio:, >243 ArlieS:, >241 quondame: A very rewarding discussion! Not a hijack.

>244 Helenoel:, >242 ArlieS: I could find the car in the parking lot for the first time...very exciting for 9-year-old me.

>240 PaulCranswick: Completely agree, PC, it's a source of great pleasure to me to discover new things, ones I never noticed before, in visual art.

>237 AuntieClio: I guess you have to put Heinlein in context of when he was writing. His early novels made me think and taught me a lot. I was a kid. I was only annoyed to discover in a later work that Podkayne of Mars didn't end up a starship captain as she wanted to.

And I will fight any man (or women) in this bar who says that A Christmas Carol isn't a wonderful beautiful deeply moving novel and work of fierce social criticism.

And I will fight any man (or women) in this bar who says that A Christmas Carol isn't a wonderful beautiful deeply moving novel and work of fierce social criticism.

Dickens on Richard’s thread? *gets the popcorn ready* 😀

>249 drneutron: Chuckles the Dick did ONE thing right: Christmas. If not for him, the holiday we know and love would be a German oddity, like Krampus.

>248 magicians_nephew: ...but that is NOT a license to discuss the ponderous, overly chewy verbiage Chuckles the Dick spewed forth with such vigor.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Mmmday to you. Sorry it's gluccchhhy in your part of the world.

>250 richardderus: Agree with you about C the D's influence on Christmas. Ugh, Krampus. My sister and I have a long-runnning joke about the movie. We watched it together in 2016, were appalled at what we were seeing, and have been mailing a DVD of it back and forth as a Christmas present ever since. Last year I mailed it to her in taped together scraps of paper with various bits of ribbon hanging off it - the ugliest present of all time. This year it came back to me sealed up in a bag of low-sodium chocolates - sealed from the bottom so I didn't even realize the bag had been tampered with. I don't know how I'll be able to top that.

*smooch from your own Madame TVT Horrible

>251 karenmarie: Ha! That's perfect...low-sodium chocolates...you'll have to send her some eco-friendly t.p. made from bamboo with Krampus hidden in it.

Grey skies...misty-drizzle...not-warm (not-quite 40°) temps...the classic case of gluccchhhy weather. I hate it deeply. Thank the goddesses I've got my little heating pad!

Very interesting take on why *NOT* to read 100 books in a year: https://bookriot.com/100-books-in-a-year/

I'm always interested in the way goals affect others. Why they set them, why they meet, exceed, or miss them...all very interesting.

Hey, RD. Are you hunkered down and keeping warm & snug? I am still debating whether to venture out. There have been a couple interesting bird sightings but it is also cold & cloudy. Decisons, decisions...

>253 richardderus: I alway set my goals low, Richard dear, as I know that putting pressure can make me freeze completely. I do read a lot, just because I have a lot of time that I can spend on reading.

I feel for the writer of that article. I did that once, not with an exact goal, but just read as much as I could for a month, ignoring other things in life, to see how far I could get. It was fun in a way, to know how far I could stretch my readings. But indeed NEVER again. It was exhausting, and lowered my love for reading for a while.

>255 FAMeulstee: It's that angle of the piece that made me stop sneering..."100! Pshaw! I can do that standing on my eyelashes!"...and pay attention to the process she's responding to. I'm pretty sure I got more out of that than I would have another "rah! rah! GOALS!!" article.

I set a stretch of a goal for myself this year because I'm capable of meeting it and haven't got a seriously interruptive issue (like out-of-control thyroid or The Plague) looming over me. The background of it all is not as important so I'm not focusing on it.

>254 msf59: I'm settled in for the duration of the ugliness, Mark. It's supposed to snow this afternoon, but it feels more like it's going to rain...either way it's icky and I'm comfy so there's an end to it. Me for the reading.

>238 richardderus: So ethereal! Beautiful! I'll have to look up the artist. (I always thought abstracts must be ridiculously easy to paint, until I started painting. I can execute a detailed still life that actually looks pretty good, but I can't paint an abstract to save my soul - except maybe by accident. I'm going to keep trying, but I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon.)

>253 richardderus: I usually make a plan to read a certain number of books in a year, usually 100, but it's "not so much a plan as a statement of hopeful intent," as Murderbot said. Also, "I don't care" (again, Murderbot) whether I reach the goal, though I usually exceed it. Life sometimes throws curveballs, some of which makes it impossible to read, and lately I've fallen into reading slumps for no real reason that have lasted weeks.

Happy Mmmmmday, Richard! The sun broke through the gloom for a brief, shining moment about an hour ago. Before I could get my coat on, it had turned all dreary again. Hope this dismal soggy weather ends soon.

>257 Storeetllr: Same wishes, Mary...I understand that tomorrow's set to be sunnier than today, if about the same temps.

Abstraction that isn't ghastly to look at is like anything else in any art: the better it looks, the harder it was to make. Marc Janson swam into my awareness in the early 1980s, though I don't now recall why. The internet's immense reach meant I could reacquaint myself with him and see much much more of his work starting in the early 2000s. It's a pleasure to see others appreciating him as well.

Murderbot's my idol!

>252 richardderus: Ha. I don’t have bamboo tp but can buy some at whogivesacrap.org, which is where I get my tp. @EBT1002 got me started on mail-order tp last year in the midst of the tp crisis. I buy their 100% Recycled Toilet Paper.

100% Recycled Toilet Paper - Made from 100% recycled fibers, each roll will immediately turn your bathroom into that eco-friendly paradise you’ve been longing for (personal waterfall not included). The soft, 3 ply sheets make for a super comfy wipe. Competitively priced with supermarket rolls, they feel good on your bum and your budget.

They do have bamboo tp, but it’s too expensive for me to consider it:

Premium 100% Bamboo Toilet Paper - These 100% bamboo rolls are 100% the most elegant toilet paper ever. They’re as soft and strong as a unicorn’s mane (minus the split ends) and look majestic in your loo. Fancy toilet rolls without the fancy price tag – how posh!

Heating pads are quite wonderful. I found mine last night and now need to take an extension cord upstairs so I can wrap my knees in it at night.

>253 richardderus: I set my usually-100-books goal to 75 this year because of my health issues and knowing that trying to reach a goal can be stressful. Admittedly this is a low-negative-repercussions goal, but I want to meet it anyway.

>259 karenmarie: I can certainly empathize with health challenges impacting one's actual ability to read and/or write! And meeting a goal is an almost indescribable boost to one's emotional altitude.

I'm not sure how much a goof on someone is allowed to cost....

>253 richardderus: That is an interesting read, Richard. Though 100 for me is closer to her 50 (I know I will attain the goal), I do agree with her discussion of the process. There's a certain amount of unneeded stress that too much of a stretch goal - particularly, for me, a number goal like "reading 150 books" would be when we're not in a pandemic shutdown - introduces, and reading loses its fun. Am I delighted when I read 20 books in a month? Indubitably. Am I ever going to try to reach that number? No.

Ironically enough the one goal this year I've made no progress so far is the BookRiot Read Harder challenge. If I don't read a couple of books for it by the end of February I may drop it to concentrate on others.

>253 richardderus: I know what she means. I sit at around 70 to 80 books a year. I did hit 100 once and I found myself eyeing up how a big a book was and putting back the chunkies, because they'd slow the reading rate. That shouldn't be why I read, it shouldn't be a numbers game and I shouldn't feel under pressure to finish quickly. So I no longer set a numbers goal.

We've had a string of lovely January days, clear, crisp & bright. And I am now finally over the dreaded bug and testing negative again, so I am allowed out! We had a celebratory trip to the supermarket, which was quite exciting. >:-)

015 The Maid by Nita Prose

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Molly Gray is not like everyone else. She struggles with social skills and misreads the intentions of others. Her gran used to interpret the world for her, codifying it into simple rules that Molly could live by.

Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life’s complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly’s orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what’s happening, Molly’s unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it’s too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.

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

My Review: This is a locked-room mystery, narrated by a naïve narrator who genuinely, unfeignedly does not understand what is happening or why it unfolds the way it does. Its bones, then, are excellent. A well-trodden path is a gift and a curse for writer and reader. What makes or breaks the reading experience is the voice the author tells the story in.

Having edited books for a living, Author Prose is very much aware of this reality. It makes her achievement in creating Molly the Maid, ironically surnamed "Gray", contextually appropriate but nonetheless impressive. Molly loves her world, the job of being a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel.

There’s nothing quite like a perfectly stocked maid’s trolley early in the morning. It is, in my humble opinion, a cornucopia of bounty and beauty. The crisp little packages of delicately wrapped soaps that smell of orange blossom, the tiny Crabtree & Evelyn shampoo bottles, the squat tissue boxes, the toilet-paper rolls wrapped in hygienic film, the bleached white towels in three sizes—bath, hand, and washcloth—and the stacks of doilies for the tea-and-coffee service tray. And last but not least, the cleaning kit, which includes a feather duster, lemon furniture polish, lightly scented antiseptic garbage bags, as well as an impressive array of solvents and disinfectants, all lined up and ready to combat any stain, be it coffee rings, vomit—or even blood. A well-stocked housekeeping trolly is a portable sanitation miracle; it is a clean machine on wheels. And as I said, it is beautiful.

There is nothing about a housekeeping trolley that has ever creased my cranium before now. I'll never be so blind again. It's a rolling chemistry experiment, though I don't see that with Molly's appreciative eyes.

What strikes the neurotypical reader is how very clearly Molly isn't One of Us. She has her meltdowns, logically enough, when overwhelmed by the chaos of Life (which of necessity includes death); we'd do the same if Chaos obtruded on our day the way it did Molly's as she discovers the lifeless body of repeat hotel guest Mr. Black. The fact is, Black is well named. His death wasn't an accident or an illness...he was Murdered and the police, unfamiliar with Molly's, um, state of being, rapidly assign her the role of Suspect.

And then the Universe springs into action.

Molly, you see, is a gem. She's being used by some bad people whose moral compasses aren't calibrated right, she's being set up to take a fall she can't even see, and she is...crucially...possessed of seriously good luck in her friends. There is no question that she is the proof one always wishes for that there are some Forrest-Gumpian stories that aren't cloying. However, I will not lie to you: anyone...and I mean ANYone...who says "we are all the same in different ways" to me is going to get a truly Tongan response.... Still there is a beauty in the repetition and reassembly of cliché in service of a Message. Well, when that Message is a positive and a constructive one, which is what this fun read exemplifies to the point of being the illustration in the dictionary under "message fiction." It is, though, this Message-y nature that leaves a fifth star off my rating. I could hang with the repetitive reminders of Molly's neurodivergence. I was not quite so willing to overlook the "different ≠ bad" catechism, or the "pretty ≠ good" catechism. Learning to see beyond surfaces? Yes, yes, a maid whose oft-repeated mantra is to "return your suite to a state of perfection" is the perfect messenger for it, got it, stop now. But there was no Stop button....

What happens as a result, though, is the unraveling of a long and ugly strand of American society, a series of horrible crimes that are so...repellent...to persons and so easy to distract institutions from pursuing, that it really isn't on for me to go into it. I will say that there's not one miscreant who gets through this wringer unsqueezed. That's enough about the crime parts. The resolution parts are shaped to suit Molly the Maid's comprehension level, which expands exponentially as she navigates the shoals of her grieving for her Gran's death, for her sad coming-to-awareness of the venality of people, and her sudden awakening to the fragility of Truth and Innocence in a world that needs answers instead of solutions.

Molly and Gran used to watch Columbo reruns together, so Molly's primed for a policing style that doesn't exist in reality when she's enmeshed in a dreadful web of lies and betrayals in her safe place, The Regency Grand Hotel. She's arrested for a crime she knows she didn't commit, and her tormentors aren't even slightly interested in her life-long passion for truthfulness. The issue is, of course, that even her truthfulness is weaponized against her by the miscreants using her innocence to cover their crimes. But, crucially, Gran's long shadow nurtured relationships that Molly, all unknowing, can depend on for her very life. Right there in the hotel! And she surprises herself by being able to reach back to the hands held out to her. Though there is a serious difficulty in that she doesn't immediately see them as helping hands.

Seeing is a recurring theme for Molly. Her being seen, being acknowledged, is a huge issue in her life...people don't see maids, and even her co-workers don't as a rule see Molly. The names of the characters are almost all colors or qualities of sight...Stark, Rosso, Green among others...and Molly's perceptions of the Regency Grand are of its colors and presentations of shiny, glossy surfaces. It's not subtle, goodness knows, but it's very effective because of the narrator's neurodivergence. It's very easy to see that this brightness of vision is intentional and it's all down to interpretation for Molly to be able to present what she's so clearly seen in self-exculpatory ways.

The final scene, a lovely piece of courtroom theater, will make Florence Pugh a bigger star than she is when the film is eventually released. It is so very,very satisfying that I can only blush while reporting the honest truth that I cheered a little and even had a humidity condensation event around my ocular area.

Don't tell anyone.

>253 richardderus: Like the article's author, I typically read 50-60 books a year. And reading more books was a fairly natural result of the pandemic - less outside activities meant more time to read, which I did, hitting 98 books in 2020 and 130 books in 2021. But I work from home (so not commute) and am semi-retired, working only during the tax season, so it's different than when I was a full-time, away from home worker.

>262 Helenliz: Hi Helen! I'm envious of your beautiful January days. I'm pleased, however, that you're able to enjoy them by getting out and about safely.

>262 Helenliz:, >261 bell7: I'm glad y'all're backing away from unproductive goal-setting. The main thing is to retain the pleasure that reading needs to bring us.

>261 bell7: That's the thing to focus on, for sure. Just having a list of "suggestions" used to give me a serious case of mule-kickin' meanness. I'm finding it's not that severe anymore, to my pleasure.

>264 ChrisG1: These are all important factors, Chris. The commute effect can either bump up or suppress the numbers, depending on one's consumption of audiobooks. But for sure, not working full-time is the primary driver of numbers inflation for most of us.

Hi Richard, I read 134 books last year which is the most I've ever read but I don't really push myself. I don't care how many books I read but I do listen to a lot of audiobooks which blows the number up.. that happens when you walk outside and listen to books just about every day. I won't read that many this year because I have plans to read more long books (over 500 pages). By the way, I have both Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov on my shelf. As a more well-read reader than I am, which would you read first?

>267 brenzi: I'd deffo go for The Brothers Karamazov first! Alyosha is a sweet-cheeked delight, Dmitri's me, Ivan's a prig; a cast like that, how can you go wrong? And plenty of time to let this baggy suit of a novel enfold you is perfect.

Crime and Punishment's aptly titled. Raskolnikov's a grim trudge of a companion, and I know I'm supposed to be sweet on Sonya but I want to blow her nose for her and give her some hot milk so she can get some rest.

>263 richardderus: I've been seeing a LOT of buzz for this title, and there are already over 200 holds in my library system. Glad to see it was a solid read.

>269 bell7: Buy more. The word-of-mouth will keep this one going for a minute and, bet me!, this adaptation will be fast-tracked into a 2023 release. There will be holds for-blinkin-ever.

A ton of thoughtful and really interesting posts here since I last wandered by.
For instance these (and not excluding others)...

>227 AuntieClio: I like this ~ Writing so clearly about perspectives, insights on crafting what should be mentioned (or not) in reviews. I appreciated the reminder that the opinion belongs to me and I am the only one who can express it when writing reviews.
>229 katiekrug:, Katie made it simple (wr reviews) and I liked that too.

Then there's >253 richardderus: and >255 FAMeulstee: I am so on that page. I think I did the 'pressure' to myself (letting Talk thread maintenance and objectives get to me). I love that I have more time to drift around enjoying threads where interesting perspectives are discussed and I can delurk or not.

BTW, >263 richardderus: is a BB for me. RD did the heavy lifting for me by writing the review because I have an early start ---> our PL has it on order, so maybe I'll snag one of the copies without too long a wait.

>271 SandyAMcPherson: Since I'm of the opinion that LT should be a place where one is safe to do whatever whenever however one wants, I'm glad you're finding this method of being here is working on those levels.

I'm pleased to have BB'd you with such a good read! Happy Tuesdaying, wherever it may take you.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Tuesday to you.

I'm on my first cup of coffee, trying to wake up. Nothing that has to be done today, hurray, so can be all sorts of lazy.

*smooch*

>273 karenmarie: *aaahhh* The nothing-required-of-thee day. How I love that. I hope it's a good-read-filled one, too.

*smooch*

I remember a girl i was sweet on in college telling me i reminded her of Pierre in "War and Peace". So I had to go read the book.

My reading and discovering the joys of "W&P" outlasted my relationship with said girl

>275 magicians_nephew: I can see why! Condescending git.

But the read is, if intense and endurance-testing, sublime. (For the record, you remind *me* of Osip the Freemason.)

Tuesday *smooches*

So many interesting discussions on so many topics here...as usual. Wish I had the brain power to participate, but I'm late to most of it anyway, so I'll just say "thanks" for all the provocation, which will probably spark some internal dialog if I ever come out of this cloud.

>278 laytonwoman3rd: Clouds always lift, Linda3rd. And the wonder of forums is that talking to absent people isn't considered weird since we all do it!

Read hearty this Tuesday.

>277 bell7: *smooch*

>208 richardderus:. I like your time priorities. Mine are much the same, although Rob probably would be surprised to hear from me. I’m not a podcast kind of guy either, although the rest of my Chicago family sure is.

>209 benitastrnad:. Agreed. Hench’s cost benefit analysis of policing should be applied in real life. The police also should adopt the doctor’s maxim “First, do no harm”.

Have you ever read Ilona Andrews? Should I?

>263 richardderus:. Oh my, I sure enjoyed your review of The Maid. Sold. I’ll never look at a housekeeping trolley the same way again either.

>280 jnwelch: Everyone, it seems to my sour embittered self, wants to have people yapyapyapping at them 24/7/365. Podcasts, audiobooks, TV, talk radio...noise! *aaarrrgggh* I hear my neighbors entirely too clearly (I don't like you either, Rose), so I'm forced to use a white-noise generator simply not to be bombarded with non-stop blather.

I'm not Benita, but my experience of Ilona Andrews was soured by its rampant, repetitive heterosexuality. *shudder* As that is likely to be a feature, not a bug, to you, there's another data point.

Enjoy The Maid!

>280 jnwelch: >281 richardderus: Ilona Andrews manufactures nice salty popcorn books. That is one stage lighter than potato chip books, but pretty much the same sort of thing. And yes, RRP for sure, that's the target market.

>280 jnwelch:: >281 richardderus:: >282 quondame:
I haven't read Ilona Andrews. I read lots of trashy fantasy type novels, but haven't read a thing by this author.

Richard - I kinda enjoy rampant repetitive heterosexuality - from time-to-time. :-) But I realize that it is not to every person's taste. Whatever kind of rampant repetitive ... a person enjoys is OK with me. It could be just the thing with a cup of hot tea and a snowy gloomy afternoon.

Dropping in to say hello! You have been on a roll with fantastic reads!

016 How to Love Your Neighbor by Sophie Sullivan

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Enemies-to-lovers meets HGTV in this frothy, effervescent romantic comedy from Sophie Sullivan, author of Ten Rules for Faking It.

Interior Design School? Check. Cute house to fix up? Check.

Sexy, grumpy neighbor who is going to get in the way of your plans? Check. Unfortunately.

Grace Travis has it all figured out. In between finishing school and working a million odd jobs, she’ll get her degree and her dream job. Most importantly, she’ll have a place to belong, something her harsh mother could never make. When an opportunity to fix up—and live in—a little house on the beach comes along, Grace is all in. Until her biggest roadblock moves in next door.

Noah Jansen knows how to make a deal. As a real estate developer, he knows when he's found something special. Something he could even call home. Provided he can expand by taking over the house next door—the house with the combative and beautiful woman living in it.

With the rules for being neighborly going out the window, Grace and Noah are in an all-out feud. But sometimes, your nemesis can show you that home is always where the heart is.

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

My Review: When Irresistible Force Met Immovable Object is a romantic-fiction staple. The reason it works, time upon time after time, is that the plot never stops feeling...probable, plausible, possible. "Surely *I* will succeed where others have failed," we think with the point-of-view character. The gendered expressions of this...a man who needs to Fix It, a woman who needs to Change It...are both present here.

Why does it work? Because we're told it will, does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy? Um...how's that workin' in real life, then....

So reading this iteration of the old story is pointless, then? Nope. Not a bit of it, as you'll find out when you settle in for a dank winter's afternoon of page-borne cheerfulness. Two people with frankly selfish agendas meet with no obvious path to compromise, only of necessity the victory of Party A over Party B. For most of human history that set-up plays out that way. Given the nature of Grace's upbringing I expected it to be that way this time too, with her gladly giving up her utterly unknown grandparents' little bungalow for the handsome prince's home. Why, there's a way we can subvert expectations, thinks Author Sullivan...so instead of making Grace a gracious loser who wins the bigger prize, the neighbors mend their fences (figurative and literal) in more lasting ways. Therein the way the subversion works best.

What plays well with me, maybe predictably, is Grace's (ugh) gracious (sorry) inclusion of elders in her life. Her deeply toxic mother wasn't a mom, and her thus-inevitable lifelong search for found family is relatable to me. What makes it even sweeter, in the sugary sense, is that she volunteers for caretaker duties with older men who need her for practical reasons...Morty's the proverbial old fool whose unwillingness to grow up even as he grows old will be the death of him much to his gal-pal (NOT "girlfriend" ugh!) Tilly's disgust...but whom she in her turn needs for the long-missing and urgently needed sense of Belonging that older people anchor younger ones with. It is something I've played out from both sides at different times in my life, and it's always worked out well. So far.

So that's the plus side...the downside is real too. The two characters alternate viewpoints, which I approve of as a device in these "he-said-she-said" narratives. The execution...

"You're a very curious and capable woman."

She beamed at him. "Thank you."

He just laughed. Maybe the women he usually hung out with liked different compliments.
–and–
Biting his cheek to keep from smiling, he nodded, then asked, "You think I'm handsome?"

She turned away before her eyeroll was complete. "I'm about to Julia Roberts your credit cards so make sure you're prepared."

No points for guessing which is from whose point of view. Grace gets the best lines...it is really her book, so fair enough...but if you go to the trouble of setting up the dichotomy, even out the benefits for it to work as well as it can. I was more convinced that these insta-luuuv sufferers were being presented to me this way so I would really understand why the lust each quite justifiably fell into went deeper. This was undermined by the aforementioned inequality of quality, if you'll forgive the excursion into recursion.

There is quite a cast of characters to keep track of...Rosie, Chris are the BFFs but Chris is also a sibling; Kyle's a contractor whose life as a dad we're treated to glimpses of but Josh is another whose appearances are frequent enough that I was left wondering why he wasn't a bigger part of the story...though I myownself don't see that as a problem, it does contribute to what I honestly feel is a big one: It's too long. I'm interested in Grace's interior design process, I'm appreciative of that layer of verisimilitude offered me, and I still want less of it. The exchanges with Morty and Tilly are amusing, but honestly? Less is more, emulate Le Corbusier when you're inching up on 400pp. And, I realize this is probably just me, but good goddesses please no more painting-as-foreplay! I got headaches from it.

In the end, as one knows it will, the story's HEA comes as no surprise but does come wrapped in a semi-lethal dose of feel-goodish sweetness. It's a lovely moment, the one that ends the book, and would film well...something I don't doubt was in the author's mind...and it gives us the thing that romantic fiction readers need: closure without foreclosure. The parties are together, big shock; but they're not on shaky ground, there's no magical elimination of the obstacles in their world. That always means to me that the author's got respect for her readers. Using deus ex machina is always a cheap trick and it's one that Sophie Sullivan did not succumb to the obvious pointers to use. Kudos for that, and could you please use your PowerPoint skills to wean other authors off it?

>284 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! I have, though it is slowing down a bit. See below.

>283 benitastrnad: It can indeed be. I wonder if Ilona & Andrews will appeal to you? Do report back when you've read one. I believe their character is "Mercy Briggs," IIRC.

>282 quondame: :-)

>285 richardderus: - Sounds right in my wheelhouse :)

>285 richardderus: Surprised you were able to wade through the syrup there, RD.
You are getting soft on us, dear fellow.

>288 PaulCranswick: My reader's-thigh muscles are *awesome* after that workout.

>287 katiekrug: Yes indeedy do! I think you'll really enjoy it because it's a genuinely well-written one. So much revolves around the way she presents the story...and she does it well.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Wednesday to you. Looks like you've got snow coming this week, same as us.

>285 richardderus: Well. Biting one's cheek and eyerolls are sort of my equivalent of the 'w' word for you... pass, but kudos for a well-written review, as always!

Bill and I are going to go grocery shopping this afternoon after I get home from rehab to avoid getting rained on tomorrow before the snow comes in Thursday night-Friday. We sure are getting lots of winter weather in January.

*smooch*

>281 richardderus:, >282 quondame:. Thanks, Richard and Susan. Sometimes salty, popcorn books are just the ticket.

I finally started Project Hail Mary, not wanting to be the very last person in the country to do so, although I may be, anyway. So far, so good.

>291 jnwelch: Hey there, Joe. Enjoy them when you read them. And Project Hail Mary might give you a mood-boost, since it's so very wonderfully hopeful!

Happy Humpday.

>290 karenmarie: Hi Horrible, hoping against hope that Saturday's snow won't be really bad. Tomorrow's pretty certainly won't, since it'll be almost 40° that day and it's expected to rain in there. Which, well...UGH but at least it should mean no drifting. Saturday, now...20s! That could get unpleasant.

Anyhow. *smooch*

And with that, the new thread is activated: https://www.librarything.com/topic/338892

...and the first review posted!