richardderus's fifth 2022 thread

Full greenery...coming soon!

Fall finery...not soon enough!

The Sugar Maple is, since 1956, the official State Tree of New York (shared with Vermont, Wisconsin, and West Virginia). Acer saccharum is tapped for its sweet sap beginning in a few weeks...it takes thirty-four gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup! But that is a very renewable resource, since individual trees can live three hundred years or more.

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.

Looking for nine through sixteen? Click that link!

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

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

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

034 Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere shocked & awed, post 35.

035 Pollak's Arm ached, post 132.

036 Howard Zinn's Southern Diary: Sit-Ins, Civil Rights, and Black Women's Student Activism slammed, post 228.

037 The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks rocked the Casbah, post 237.

038 An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States impressed, post 244.

039

040

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.
   The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is illustrated and that'll have to do.


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


8. Read a classic written by a POC.


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


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


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


12. Read an entire poetry collection.


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


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


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!


FEBRUARY 2022's BURGOINES

22 February Lamb to the Slaughter piqued, post 271.

15 February Echo terrified, post 165.

11 February Anonymous Sex failed to launch, post 60.

10 February Trans-Siberian Express in post 23.

9 February Mother Nile last thread.

9 February An Editor's Burial: Journals and Journalism from the New Yorker and Other Magazines last thread.

***
JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES are here.

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

As she says:

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

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

FEBRUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES

15 February New Animal hugely let me down, post 168.

12 February The Archive of the Forgotten hugely, hugely disappointed, post 80.

8 February Hide Bound : Les's Bar #2 stank, post 241.

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

You are safe to resume your ordinary activity.

Happy new thread of leafy mysteries, RD!

Happy new thread!

>8 richardderus: My ordinary activity is to read, litter up Richard's thread and add book reviews hither and yon. So much fun! Thanks for the 🇨🇦 maple leaf 🇨🇦 love up top.

>9 PaulCranswick: Welcome, Cranswickulus!

Knowing you, the golden leaves will be shoved out of the way so you can find out what the books are. (Me too.)

>11 SandyAMcPherson: Fun for all of us, I feel safe to say. *smooch*

>10 thornton37814: Thank you, Lori!

>12 richardderus: My first thought was that the books had been hollowed out to make an extremely heavy piece of headwear, but I much prefer your idea, RD.

>14 PaulCranswick: Good goddesses NO! Hollowing out books *shudder* is A Sin.

>15 richardderus: Well the first book atop the pile, RD, is The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard by Anatole France, which I haven't read and certainly wouldn't want hollowed out!

>16 PaulCranswick: ...not until after you've read it...bit of a slog after p4227532. (The book's page numbers did not reflect the actual reality of the reading experience.)

Happy new thread, RDear!

>1 richardderus: A sad reminder that the dread opposite-of-winter season will be upon us sooner than later.

But gorgeous leaves on both sides of it.

>18 karenmarie: Hey Horrible, welcome.

Let's leave the evil times to come at their own speed.

Happy new one!

Happy new thread!

Mmmm....maples are one of my favorite trees. The little winged seeds that twirl through the air before the sugar maples' leaves explode into color. The smell of burning maple leaves in the ditch in front of our house when I was a kid (hated the raking, loved the burning). Maple syrup. Maple moxie (bowlers will get it). Violins.

Burgoine #9

Trans-Siberian Express by Warren Adler

Rating: 3-ish stars of five

The Publisher Says: American cancer specialist, Dr. Alex Cousins is on a covert mission to the USSR. He is tasked with prolonging the life of Soviet Politburo Chief, Viktor Moiseyevich Dimitrov, who is suffering from advanced stage leukemia. But the tenuous confidence between the unlikely colleagues is shattered one night as Alex accidentally discovers Dimitrov’s diabolical plans for a nuclear strike on China. Alex soon finds himself dispatched, homeward bound, on a six thousand mile journey aboard the Trans-Siberian Express; long enough, Alex realizes, to silence him from alerting the U.S. of the imminent destruction.

Reluctant, at first, to embark upon the journey, Alex is beckoned into the Siberian expanse by memories of his grandfather, Aleksandr Kuznetzov, who wove tales of magic and mystery into this seemingly desolate place. As the train lumbers east across snow-cloaked mountains, glimmering past a forest glow, watchful eyes rest on the American doctor. Surrounding him are people beaten and broken by life, each drawn to this emperor of trains in search of a brighter future. But most curious is Anna Petrovna Valentinova, the hauntingly beautiful history professor and Alex’s alluring travelling companion. As Anna captivates Alex with illusions of her homeland, a passionate romance transcending political barriers unfolds under KGB surveillance.

A train attendant yearns for love, a deformed man seeks revenge on an old enemy, and a persecuted Jewish couple runs to a new home as the Trans-Siberian Express roars onward through a cavern of hopes and memories, coloring its tracks with tales of love, loss and nuclear intrigue from one end of Russia to the other.

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

My Review: Cold-War thriller made in the mold Jeffrey Archer or Ken Follett. You know what you're getting plot-wise from the synopsis. What you might not expect, le Carré fans, is the lyricism of the detail lavished on the countryside the train passes through.

What does not get lyrically panegyrized is the the "character" (term of art only) of Dr. Alex Cousins, the US oncologist sent quietly to save an important voice of reason in the Politburo. He is a camera, à la Isherwood ("I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking"), and still Anna Valentinova (his Soviet handler) has this wildly sexual relationship with him as they chug across the immensity of the Soviet Union on the titular train. Frankly I wondered why she bothered.

But it was the 1970s, she was probably told to by her Intelligence-service bosses, and according to the text Cousins was a stud in bed. (Told you it was the 1970s. First pubbed in 1977.) Which at least explains why she did it again, though she did monopolize the conversation from then on, thank the goddesses.

There was a lot of description that, while it was happening, gave me the wistfuls. The reason you're not seeing it here is...I don't remember where it was. This was a DRC and the damned thing lost my highlights when I opened the file on a different device! Gone from BOTH devices.

Anyway, it's a period piece, if you like Cold-War thrillers that move at train speeds instead of cruise missile velocities, this one will suit you. I regret nothing about having made the read.

The issue is I remember the same: Nothing.

>22 laytonwoman3rd: Lovely, Linda3rd. Maples evoke similar feelings and sense memories in me.

Happy new thread Richard!

Checking in on the new thread before I get behind again, RD.

I went for a ride with Jackie and Jose tonight. Then we sat in a parking spot across the street from my apartment and talked. After an hour or so, I said I needed to go. Jose asked, "But I thought you liked riding along with us. Aren't you going to Walmart to pick up groceries?" I was almost charmed into staying longer. Then Jackie looked in the rear view mirror and said, "We don't get to keep her." I piped up with "You get to rent me though." I think it's the most loving, charming thing anyone has said to me. I did hate to part company but my introvert was starting to tell me to make a break for it. :-)

Happy New Thread Richard!

Lovely leaves. we have a maple in the garden, a red leafed variety. It provides lots of interest. Even now, with no leaves, it is being architecturally interesting, with the morning sun on it's branches casting shadows on the neighbour's wall.

>23 richardderus: I have been meaning to ask (as clearly I've missed it), what Burgoyne means RD? Mr Google tells me it is a person from Burgundy...

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>1 richardderus: Maples are beautiful. Providing shade in summer, and lovely colors in fall.
I have two small Japanese maples in the garden. One with dark red leaves, turning into lighter red in fall, the other has green/white leaves, and of course they also turn red in fall.

Happy Friday, Richard! It looks like I missed a whole thread of yours. You will have to pardon me for skipping through much of it. I will never catch up otherwise. I hope you are feeling well and that those books are treating you fine.

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread! Love the maple - it may not be the Massachusetts state tree, but it may as well be in my memory of "helping" my grandfather tap trees and make maple syrup. I also ate a maple leaf as a sort of experiment and it tasted about what you would expect a leaf to taste like (I got a piece of bread and margarine after my mother called poison control; she had the number memorized, can't imagine why).

Nice set of reviews, but I'm staying far away from the horror title.

034 TODAY HONG KONG, TOMORROW THE WORLD: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere by MARK L. CLIFFORD

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A gripping history of China's deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world.

For 150 years as a British colony, Hong Kong was a beacon of prosperity where people, money, and technology flowed freely, and residents enjoyed many civil liberties. In preparation for handing the territory over to China in 1997, Deng Xiaoping promised that it would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. An international treaty established a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with a far freer political system than that of Communist China—one with its own currency and government administration, a common-law legal system, and freedoms of press, speech, and religion.

But as the halfway mark of the SAR’s lifespan approaches in 2022, it is clear that China has not kept its word. Universal suffrage and free elections have not been instituted, harassment and brutality have become normalized, and activists are being jailed en masse. To make matters worse, a national security law that further crimps Hong Kong’s freedoms has recently been decreed in Beijing. This tragic backslide has dire worldwide implications—as China continues to expand its global influence, Hong Kong serves as a chilling preview of how dissenters could be treated in regions that fall under the emerging superpower’s control.

Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World tells the complete story of how a city once famed for protests so peaceful that toddlers joined grandparents in millions-strong rallies became a place where police have fired more than 10,000 rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition at their neighbors, while pro-government hooligans attack demonstrators in the streets. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, author Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation firsthand. As a celebrated publisher and journalist, he has unrivaled access to the full range of the city’s society, from student protestors and political prisoners to aristocrats and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, this book is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time.

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

My Review: It is, in light of China's Xi and Russia's Putin inking a deal for "world domination", beyond urgent that we listen to Author Clifford's personal experience on China's until-now slow, patient, and carefully deniable march towards world domination.

There are simply too many hyperlinks for me to fuss around with...if you'd like to read the rest of my review, please see it at my blog: https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2022/02/today-hong-kong-tomorrow-world-what...

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Friday to you.

>23 richardderus: Pass. Russia and the USSR are evil says my 1950s-1960s upbringing, and although I tried some of the classic Russian literature in my teens/early 1920s, the only way I appreciate Russians now is if they’re the bad guys in a mystery or thriller. Your review, however, was well worth the read, as always showcasing your intelligence and perspicacity.

>35 richardderus: Whew! Hot off the presses. I’d love to read this one, wonder when my ability to focus on nonfiction will return full force, and have added it to my wish list. Russians are still the bad guys, only this time in real life. What a world, what a world.

Morning, BigDaddy! Happy new one. Your maple leaf topper is very happy making - one of my favorite trees. The house where I grew up had a large red maple tree in the front yard, and it was full of gorgeous every Fall.

>36 karenmarie: I concur with your intent to pass on >23 richardderus:, Horrible. What a snooze it was! And permaybehaps get the library to buy >35 richardderus: because I think you'd do well to read it but don't imagine it'll be a Keeper for you.

*smooch* for a happy weekend-ahead's reads!

>34 bell7: Hey there, Mary! Yep...the idea of you reading Jawbone gives me the heebie-jeebies. Run.

What lovely maple-memories! I had no notion of eating a maple leaf...Mama planted a sugar maple in front of our Los Gatos house, and I picked up the pretty fallen leaves, but never once thought to eat one. Maybe I'm glad...?

Happy weekend-ahead's reads! *smooch*

>33 SilverWolf28: Thanks, Silver!

>32 msf59: Hey there, Birddude! Wow...Costa Rica really gave more than you took, eh? Great selfie!

>31 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! Welcome.

I think Japanese maples are so beautiful, their delicate little leaves are so perfectly shaped...but they lack the sugar maple's sweet aroma. I miss that, though the redness of their leaves pleases me.

>30 Caroline_McElwee: Hello Caroline! Welcome. The Burgoine I mention is in post >6 richardderus: above...his name is 'Nathan Burgoine, and he codified an easy three-sentence format for writing helpful reviews. I'm not strict about the three and only three sentence part, as you'll have noticed, but the spirit is there.

>29 Helenliz: Welcome, Helen! I think maples in general, but specifically sugar maples, are architecturally interesting in or out of leaf. Lovely creatures, harmoniously proportioned and handsomely accoutered.

>28 SandDune: Hi Rhian! Happy to see you here.

>27 AuntieClio: How wonderful! I'm delighted that they have both space and desire for your company. *smooch*

>26 alcottacre: Hi Stasia, welcome. And remember there's no behind...this isn't a race. You're here when here's where you want to be.

>25 humouress: Your Supervillainessness! You dishonor me with your attendance. *smooch*

>37 Crazymamie: You slipped in while I wasn't looking, Mamie, and you're so short I didn't see you there until now.

Maples are, I've noticed over the decades, real memory-making trees. No one seems to be indifferent to them, and I haven't heard anyone say anything hateful or spiteful about them that I can ever recall.

*smooch*

Today's Wordle...I hated it.
Wordle 237 6/6

⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜🟨⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟩🟩
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

*grumble* Got one from it, too.

>42 richardderus: I totally get that. Thanks for not stepping on me. *smooch back*

You are not alone in your Wordle disgruntlement:

Wordle 237 6/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩⬜⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

At least you got the first letter right once. This one was just rank.

*smooch* on the top of your pointy li'l haid

>41 richardderus: Always happy to dishonour you, Richard.

>43 richardderus: Oh dear; that letter causing you problems?

Wordle 237 3/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
⬛⬛⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

>46 humouress: I hate you.

A real lot.

>47 richardderus: Not what a supervillainess likes to hear. Oh, wait ....

So many rabbit holes. So little time. I'm staying well clear of that word game rabbit hole. At your insistence, will shall soon dive into Mr. Jones' rabbit hole. I have merely to finish Macbeth, Animal Farm, and The Sea of Monsters. Nothin' to it. Y'all have a swell weekend.

>48 humouress: Chapeau!!

Wordle 237 4/6
⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
🟨🟨🟨🟩🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Sorry about the Wordle today, but I hope the sunshine-y weather and warmer temps will cheer you up. xx

>51 katiekrug: It's only my second-ever sixer. I'm just ego-bruised is all. Thanks for the sympathy!

>50 Helenliz: Excellent. Really. Superb work. Go you.

>49 weird_O: Move Cynan to the top of the pile...short, beautiful, perfect for something to succeed at, enjoy, and make your life more accomplished!

Happy weekend-ahead's reads, Bill.

>48 humouress: *hmph*

Here for speaking...... I might be tempted to the train (I read the Eric Newby Big Red Train Ride long ago and still cherish Wanda's last line), but I know I'll never read the important book. I can't deal with the intelligence I have.

Wordle 237 4/6

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My power seems to be choosing good first words, but then I'm not a closer.

I thought I'd crash and burn on today's Wordle, but I managed to get it on the 6th try. First time for me getting it in 6. It's usually 4 or 5 with an occasional surprising 3.

Love the maple tree! We had one in our front yard growing up in Chicago. Never tapped it for syrup, but I remember as a child hugging it because I loved it so much. (I know, I was a weird kid.) Now we have one in our back yard here in New York.

Yikes! I turn my back for a minute, and I'm 82 posts behind on you.

Happy new thread!

>55 ArlieS: Hi Arlie! Well, you're zero-deficit now, so it's all good. *smooch*

>54 Storeetllr: Hi Mary, I'm honestly just glad you're still healthy and have he bandwidth to Wordle away. I suspect that we don't do as well on initial-vowel words for some reason.

I didn't, until >34 bell7:, know personally anyone who's done more than been to a demonstration of sap-tapping. I think it might be the immense amount of concentration necessary to make anything useful from it that deters most of us from ever doing home sap-tapping.

>53 LizzieD: Oh. Well. Hello there to the Wordle-ator, whose prowess exceedeth that of the less gifted peons more usually encountered here.

The Adler book's only $4.99 on Kindle, but there are so many *better* Kindlebooks for even less....

Hi Richard, Happy New Thread dear friend.

>57 johnsimpson: Hello John, hope you're well!

>58 richardderus:, Hi Richard, we are both fine my friend, we are steadily getting used to having Elliott from Wednesday morning to Thursday afternoon, i think we have forgotten how tiring 9 month olds are.

Hope all is well with you my friend and we both send love and hugs dear friend.

Burgoine #10

Anonymous Sex by Hillary Jordan & Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A bold and playful collection of erotic stories written by some of the world’s finest writers. The twist? Each story is “anonymous,” allowing for tales as subtle or explicit, strange or familiar, tender or fierce as each writer wishes—leaving readers to guess who wrote what.

Welcome to the ultimate literary parlor game—a collection of unattributed erotic stories written by a stellar list of authors, including winners of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Awards, PEN Awards, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, Edgar Awards, and more. Anthology editors Hillary Jordan and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan present an elegant, international collection of erotica, that explores the diverse spectrum of desire. There are stories of sexual obsession and sexual love, of domination and submission. There’s revenge sex, unrequited sex, funny sex, tortured sex, fairy tale sex, and even sex in the afterlife.

This seductive anthology is true to its name: while the authors are listed in alphabetical order at the beginning of the book, none of the stories are attributed, providing readers with a glimpse into the landscape of sexuality as explored by twenty-seven of today’s best-known authors.

NB I left off the list of contributors. It's long, I'm lazy. Sue me.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU (SORT OF).

My Review: Point one: I'm queer as the proverbial three-dollar bill. Point two: I'm old. Sex, while it still entertains and even once in a while delights me (given that the party of the second part is far away ATM that's not the most common occurrence), I'm not as, um, invested in the subject as I once was. Point three: I've internalized a lot more of the 21st century's norms and mores than I thought I had, as I discovered reading this.

A woman whose fantasy life is spent imagining her "ethnic" next-door neighbor, for example, made me a little...uneasy...because that just feels weird these #MeToo days. However, that self-same story contains some lines that made me snort my ramen:

...maybe I won't even ask them to talk about Things Fall Apart, which tends to startle and tongue-tie my almost-entirely-white-and-well-off wards. Not that I don't share their good fortune, though I, bookish girl from a big Irish Italian Catholic family, married into this seaside haven of college professors & financiers, skim-milk Unitarians who wouldn't know original sin from artisanal gin.

There is a startling absence of men as actors. Not just gay ones, men as the point of the story. That got it a half-point, though we can't remotely consider this a Bechdel-test win! Heterosexuality is common, goodness knows, but it's common as pig tracks here in this collection.

There are twenty-seven stories in this collection. I can actually remember reading three of them:

One Day in the Life of Josephine Bellanotte Munro does what I hope all women do: tosses itself off in any handy corner while seriously violating her Proper Matron Status by fetishizing the "ethnic" neighbor, wondering how the hell to convince her still-eager husband to go the fuck away with that thing, and scare her teenage daughter into a week's celibacy by threatening to expose her sex life to her dad.

Ick. Just...ick.

What the Hands Remember poignantly meditates on that one paralyzingly terrifying, utterly ensorcelling, always humiliating First: a boy's first sex with a living, breathing partner. In this case, as the man remembering it has lost all other memories, all other connections to life. This is the moment he relives.

Josephine will, somehow, somewhere, still feel you, will be back there with you...and that is the real Kiss of Death. A horndog you surely were, but in the end we are our final and authentic selves. SO: Vale, sir.

Vis-à-Vis 1953 suspends two bored, unhappy people in the gladsome cage of shared need and always sought, never satiated desire.

On a train from L. A. to Wichita, Kansas.

Ends, beginnings, they're the exciting bit. Middles can wear on you; there's no middle here.

>60 richardderus: A friend told me about this collection just last night. The premise is interesting, but the more I think about it the less excited I am just for the sake of the anonymity - it feels like slut shaming. I dunno. I think it may be one I skip.

>61 London_StJ: Skip it. Really just not worth the eyeblinks, even for a twenty-nine-year-old like yourself. At my age it would've been a criminal waste of libido had it not been so resolutely bland.

Rob was just slightly outraged when I told him about it; then I read him some of Vis-à-Vis 1953 and he said, "straight people think that's sexy?" Completely calmed him down.

You're missing nothing.

>59 johnsimpson: Nine month olds are more work than one can afford to remember in the childbearing years! It's only at our age that we can honestly assess the energy cost of parenting. *whew*

>35 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Richard. I know, even without reading the book, that it is "beyond urgent" that we pay attention to the relationship between China and Russia.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today.

>63 alcottacre: *smooch* Feel increasingly better Stasia!

>64 richardderus: I am trying, if only my body would cooperate!!

>65 alcottacre: She's got lots of work ahead, so be kind to her.

>66 richardderus: I don't wanna. I don't work any more anyway since she gave out on me. Unless reading is "work," in which case, I have a full-time job.

>67 alcottacre: Well, is there any reason *not* to think of it as a job?

>68 richardderus: Yeah, because I do not like to think of my hobbies as work. Then they become work and they are just not as fun anymore. I know it makes no sense whatsoever but there you go.

>56 richardderus: I mean, my grandfather really did the work, but yeah, he would tap and collect the sap in old milk gallon jugs and boil it down. There were several years in my childhood that he did that, and occasionally my parents tapped a few trees at our house to add to his production. It takes something like 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup (more or less, depending on how thick you like it), and you need the right weather to keep the sap moving (warmer in the day, cool at night), both of which can be prohibitive, I think.

Wordle 238 6/6

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>35 richardderus: I tried to leave a comment on your blog but apparently had to be a "team member" whatever that entails, RD. This is what I would have commented:

I must go and look for this book, Richard. It is a subject that has been a hobby-horse of mine for 30 years. It was the cause of some dissent from me when I was much more active in Blair's New Labour Party and I was a pretty lonely conference voice grumbling impotently about the foolishness of raising the China phoenix from its ashes.
I am immensely admiring of the Chinese peoples but their government is a tyranny without current parallel. The West needs to unite economically against China before it is too late - if it isn't already and it needs to seek redress for the pandemic they almost certainly but quite possibly unintentionally foisted on the world.

I do wonder at the state of acquiesce that seems to characterise the United States' approach to its current relations with China. Instead of addressing the balance of payments deficit with them it has just been announced to have grown substantially. We should be calling them out, building up alternative supply-chains and holding them to account.

Have a great weekend, RD.

Happy Saturday, Richard!

Good luck with the wordle today :)

>71 PaulCranswick: Wordle is a bit tough today; looks like the NYT is being sneaky.

Wordle 238 5/6

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Getting the middle letter in position was the principle driver of figuring this one out. I struggle every single time there's a vowel at the front of the word. Even reminding myself it's possible, I just do not do well with it.

*sigh*

But my streak is alive!

>73 humouress:, >72 figsfromthistle:, >71 PaulCranswick: See my comment under spoiler tag in >74 richardderus:.

>71 PaulCranswick: The "Comment" function on Blogger is wretchedly cranky. I've totally given up trying to make it work. I should've chosen WordPress all those years ago...they charge for every tiny little thing, though it's nice to *have* the things they charge for.

Your points about China are well-taken. My geopolitical view has always been that Tibet was doomed by its water control when its neighbor's population crested 500MM. Xinjiang has the source of the Yangtze, so it was likewise doomed...though the über-racist Han are being complete dicks about it. And, now that there's more value in "rare earths" plus petroleum deposits in unstable failing -stans, it's not like the Han are going to give up control of it, either. The best we can hope for is to embarrass them into not being such shits about how they go about it.

>70 bell7: 38 gallons, apparently, but I wonder why it's worth so much effort! How much does one tree give? ("It depends" is the answer, I know, but the question was really meant rhetorically.)

>69 alcottacre: *smooch*

>74 richardderus: - I got it in 4. My stats have disappeared so I am starting anew.

>76 katiekrug: I was just chez vous and told you to get on the horn and make some noise about your data! Outrageous.
***
The Times newsletter I read today made me grin:
If you’re awake at odd hours, consider a book “that luxuriates in the seedy spaces of late night, ‘when the straight world slept and the bent got to work.’”
Heh.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Saturday.

>60 richardderus: Short stories are low on my list anyway, and these don’t sound like they’d appeal, even if they were free for Kindle.

>74 richardderus: I got it in 5, too. All of a sudden I just knew what the word was.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>78 karenmarie: Hey Horrible! Happy Saturn's Day.

The solution was inescapable for me once I got the one letter in proper position. I just *never* think of the spoiler-tagged thing, no matter how often I get my fingers slammed in that drawer.

No matter what, you are missing nothing by avoiding Anonymous Sex. I mean, twenty-seven times and only three were memorable?! Poor R.O.I.

Pearl Ruled at ~20%

The Archive of the Forgotten (Hell's Library #2) by A.J. Hackwith

I think there should be some sort of penalty for a writer who can do this:

“They burn them first, the stories. Humans always come for the stories first. It’s their warm-up, before they start burning other humans. It’s their first form of control, to burn the libraries, to burn the books, to burn the archives of a culture. Humans are the stories they tell. If you want to destroy your enemy, destroy their stories. Even if the people survive, it will be as if they never existed at all.”

...not getting all the institutional support and community funding necessary to find a mentor to teach them to find a plot and work it into prose that pithy and aperçu-able.

I am beyond bitter that this societal failure has deprived me of what was all set to be a superlative read in a practically infinitely expandable I.P. I went through the quotes attributed to this title and wept in frustration that I simply could not invest in the actual story deeply enough to cause me to stay up past my bedtime devouring it.

>80 richardderus: *shudder*

>81 karenmarie: Precisely.

Happy new thread! Don't let the Wordle get you down.

>74 richardderus: Got the Dutch Woordle in four today.
Then went on with the English Wordle, and got it in five, but I didn't get the share option :-(
I was redirected from powerlanguage.co.uk to www.nytimes.com, maybe no share option there?

Happy reading weekend, Richard dear!

Dutch Wordle

When archaeologists unearth relics of this time and place this will have a lot of then scratching their heads

or writing dissertations

>80 richardderus: I wasn't able to finish it either, Richard. I tried too, because I enjoyed the first. It was very disappointing because it's such a promising premise.

>86 Storeetllr: It was Rocket Jim whose review reminded me to write something up. I have a bad habit of forgetting that there are reasons I abandoned some reads, then picking them up again, and forcefully remembering...oh yeahhhh....

>85 magicians_nephew: Many, many dissertations, I predict. Do you remember the old "bookshelf games" that were popular in the 60s? One of them was based on senet, only recently conquered by archaeologists. I think it was marketed as Oh-wah-ree, for some peculiar reason. That came from a dissertation on having figured out an ancient game....

>84 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita! *smooch*

I'm looking forward to the time I have enough of a Dutch vocabulary to play Woordle.

>83 witchyrichy: Thank you most kindly, Miss Karen, ma'am.

G' morning RD. I am lazing today on TALK 'cos I'm avoiding chores and besides I wanted to tell you that I'm re-reading a few flagged pages in The Secret Lives of Introverts, a BB from Auntie Clio's thread.
I liked it so much, that I have it on order from a local Indie bookshop. It really augments Susan Cain's book, Quiet.

I reviewed the book but avoided adding emphasis on personal discoveries. For example, what amazes me is that I couldn't figure out why Wordle (and a couple other puzzler computer games I like) were so addictive. I discovered that it is a dopamine effect. OK, I guess I'm late to the party but I hadn't recognized what drove me to seek playing and for some years I thought it was due to a screen-digital effect. According to more insightful research, the reward centre in the brain releases dopamine in response to a pleasurable experience or hyperarousal of pleasurable feedback loops. Apparently this is what underlies a gambling addiction. OMGosh. The pandemic (I read elsewhere following up this info) has generated soothing our anxious brains while being socially isolated with such resources.

Guess I better cut down on the screen time! I really need to finish some other work. Really. In a minute... I'll just finish this game of Solitaire first.

>88 SandyAMcPherson: I've upgethumbèd your Introverts review...I'm vibrating with Day-Glo orange loathing for your ability to be succinct.

Dopamine release underlies Gambling Addiction?! The very few times I've ever gambled I just feel unspeakably stupid. I've won and lost, and the only sensation I ever have is "...and just how stupid are you to hand your money over to people who should be jailed for what they're doing to addicts?"

I justify buying a lottery ticket a couple times a year as paying the bad-at-math tax, and the mathematical certainty that you will not win if you do not play.

>80 richardderus: Wow, Tui recommended that series so I have the first one set aside to read at some point this year. It will be interesting to see on which side I land.

Have a wonderful Saturday, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today.

>90 alcottacre: The first one's amazing, Stasia, so be prepared for that lovely high.

Let's wait to see what it does for you.

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Real Rating: 4.75* of five, rounded up because there aren't many of this caliber out there

The Publisher Says: In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant—and that her lover is married—she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters—strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis—survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER AT MY REQUEST. THANK YOU.

My Review: I read this in the Bad Year. It was, and from my latest speed-through, remains a gloriously textured, fantastically layered, and brutally traumatizing read. If at any time you read and found pleasure in War & Peace or Gone With the Wind or Les Miséserables, this book deserves a shot at you. There are too few powerfully affecting reads to pass this one by.

The Half-bit Fruit People should get a semi-kudo for using their RICO pilf for making this into a beautiful-looking limited series. It premieres on 25 March 2022, then every Friday through 29 April 2022. Of course it will stream at the end, and episodes are continuously available after their release time.

>89 richardderus: Thank you for the kudos ~ *preen*.
I have rarely managed a succinct review that was of note.

I dislike gambling, feels so stressy unless we're at home with poker chips and no cash! I believe it is always true that the house wins.
Anecdote: Yul Brynner and Omar Sharif
This famous pair declared that was so (the house wins) but! then went out and, by playing Black Jack (prodigious memory required), beat the house too often. Ultimately they were banned from casinos, in Europe at least.

I had the great privilege once, of watching Yul Brynner and Omar Sharif play at the Casino du Liban. I watched them win hand after hand. So charming they were and having much hilarity. I only learned afterwards that they wouldn't be cashing in their chips. They were playing for display and the Casino management was featuring them as guests (it was New Year's Eve).
OK, 'nuff irrelevant chatter on my part...

>93 SandyAMcPherson: Whoever convinced you that your anecdotes and stories are irrelevant needs not to be alone in a room with me. They amuse and entertain *ME* and it's my thread, so tell 'em all whenever one occurs to you.

Brynner and Sharif earned more that way than had they gambled, I am sure.

My Reading Group did Pachinko a couple of years ago it was a good book and a great discussion.

Big Book and all over the map but tells the tale and tells it well

Be curious to see the TV version. All these streaming services starving for content. They'll be making a mini series out of the back of Wheaties boxes next.

>95 magicians_nephew: They'll be making a mini series out of the back of Wheaties boxes next.

...so you watched Foundation....

Nice review of Pachinko! I read it the semester my sister was in South Korea, and I really enjoyed it too.

>62 richardderus:, Hi Richard, when he gets walking and then running, we will have our work cut out, at the moment he crawls as a means to get to the furniture to stand up and we have to watch him so that he doesn't bump his head on the Oak coffee table, don't want to get in trouble with mum and dad for any bruises, lol. I think Felix will give him a wide berth when he is walking, at the moment he gives him some leeway as he knows he is a baby and he goes up to Elliott to let him stroke him although sometimes he forgets and pulls Felix's fur but Felix has not retaliated but i do watch them both.

Hope you are having a good start to the weekend dear friend and we both send love and hugs.

>98 johnsimpson: Felix isn't a baby-friendly one, I'd venture, because he hasn't grown up around babies...but there is always a first, right?

Enjoy the (effortful, but) magic moments!

>97 bell7:, >95 magicians_nephew: It's a magisterial achievement to make a reader invest so completely in such a patchwork. But it felt as though it was bubbling up, arising somehow through Author Lee up to us. It was a heady experience.

>35 richardderus:
>92 richardderus:

The Burgoines I can resist, but the Clifford sounds like one I shouldn't, and the Lee sounds rewarding. Swamp'd.

Wordle 239 4/6

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More relaxed about today's (for you tomorrow's puzzle, I think). Still on a winning streak.

>92 richardderus: I really must get that book off the shelves soon.

Have a great weekend, dear fellow.

>92 richardderus: ...all 512pp of it...don't sprain anything.

Well done you!

>100 swynn: Agreed on all counts.

Happy weekend's reads!

Happy Saturday, Richard. I have had a good day of birding (despite the frigid temps) and reading. Good review of Pachinko. A rare instance of you, liking a book more than I did.

>103 msf59: Thanks, Mark! It might have been the timing...2016 wasn't a great year in my life. The book played off that to perfection, and offered redemptive pleasures.

>92 richardderus: Excellent review. I've had this one on my shelf for a long time but was not sure about it. I will move it into my read soon pile. I think it's part of a trilogy so I will have to read Free food for Millionaires first.- which is also on my shelf somewhere ;)

>92 richardderus:, yes, this is a great review, and it is on my list, as is FreeFood for Millionaires, but >105 figsfromthistle: I hadn't realized they were part of a trilogy?

>98 johnsimpson: You might want to get foam bumper corners to attach to your furniture temporarily, John. They should be easy to find in baby shops like Mothercare or DIY shops or even IKEA.

>107 humouress: :-)

>106 AMQS: Thank you, Anne!

>105 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

I had no idea that this was part of a trilogy, like >106 AMQS:. I *can* say it does not "show" in any way as you're reading it.

>101 PaulCranswick: Today's word was funny!
Wordle 239 3/6

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I don't think Free Food for Millionaires and Pachinko are parts of a trilogy as we normally think of one, as in there are shared characters and it helps to read in order. They are on the same theme - the Korean diaspora - but I think that's the only link.

Morning, RD!

>109 katiekrug: OIC

That's certainly how Pachinko reads.

Morning! Enjoying the snow after yesterday's 50s?

>110 richardderus: - Love me some snow! It's pretty much stopped here. I just took Nuala out and she got to frolic...

>111 katiekrug: Doggie frolics are the best, aren't they? Snow makes me happy. Ice, OTOH, does not, and that appears to be tomorrow's probable result here. I can wait to go outside.

>112 richardderus: - Yes, it's supposed to be cold tomorrow, and this snow is so wet, it's definitely going to leave a film on everything. Ugh.

>113 katiekrug: Perzackly. Go enjoy it while you can! Revel in that snack pick-up!

‘Morning, and happy snowy Sunday to you, RDear!

>87 richardderus: We played Oh-wah-ree, but we either played it wrong or we mastered it quickly because there didn’t seem like much strategy.

>92 richardderus: On my shelves, waiting for the right time… sigh.

>108 richardderus: Congrats on 3! Took me 4.

*smooch*

>115 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I'm sure Oh-Wah-Ree changed to accommodate a modern audience. I don't recall much about the game except the basics...scoop the rocks, drop them, scoop the next lot if {some condition} is met; keep the third scoop's in your treasury.

My starter words gave me four of five letters and the answer seemed obvious instantly...this time I was correct. Unlike a certain not-to-be-mentioned time. *muted grumble*

Morning, BigDaddy! Like Karen, it took me four for today's Wordle:

Wordle 239 4/6

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I think my word progression will make you chuckle, so: steam, cloud, boing, robin.

>117 Crazymamie: LOL

They're wonderful, as words and even moreso as a progression.

My daddy was a great lover of games of all sorts. When he got Shoot the Moon, he stayed up until he conquered it at about 4:00 AM. Then he was through with it. I'm sorry he didn't live long enough to play Tetris or Wordle. I can believe the dopamine!

Wordle 239 3/6

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for me today too with stein and royal.

Happy Sunday! Enjoy the snow!

>119 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! Well, we started with different words and got to the same place double-quick. I do love when that happens.

*smooch*

>119 LizzieD: I'm going with the words Peggy used from now on. Took me 4 tries today with my usual words.

Hi, Richard!

>121 Storeetllr: Yoo-hoo!

Happy Sunday, Richard. I had a perfectly lazy day with the books. Now I am watching the game. I will have a GN in my lap as I watch. I hope you had a good one too.

>123 msf59: I've been having a wonderful time reading POLLAK'S ARM for tomorrow's review. I love it. I hate it. It makes me desperately sad. It's wryly amusing.

So, yeah. Your idea sounds less stressful....

Wordle 240 6/6

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Snort!

Wordle 240 4/6

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My path to the win was an unusual one to say the least with the first ten letters a complete washout.
I went with water, holds, pinky before having to think for an age of the most probable answer

I split the difference between you with a 5 today. That one had me badly stumped. Word 4 was just to try and get some more letters!
Wordle 240 5/6

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>92 richardderus: I have that one on my list to get to this year. I am glad to see that you liked it, RD.

I hope you have a wonderful week, Richard. ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

Wordle 240 5/6

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Seems to be harder this week.

>129 humouress: It was surprising to me that it took me so much effort to think of that word!

>128 alcottacre: I did, I did...I hope you will as well.

*smooch*

>127 Helenliz: I did the same thing! Maddening that it took me so long to think of it with so much of it in place already. *sigh*

>126 PaulCranswick: You came through just fine, PC. It's not half bad, a four this puzzle.

035 Pollak's Arm by Hans von Trotha (tr. Elisabeth Lauffer)

Real Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: October 16, 1943, inside the Vatican as darkness descends upon Rome. Having been alerted to the Nazi plan to round up the city’s Jewish population the next day, Monsignor F. dispatches an envoy to a nearby palazzo to bring Ludwig Pollak and his family to safety within the papal premises. But Pollak shows himself in no hurry to leave his home and accept the eleventh-hour offer of refuge. Pollak’s visitor is obliged to take a seat and listen as he recounts his life story: how he studied archaeology in Prague, his passion for Italy and Goethe, how he became a renowned antiquities dealer and advisor to great collectors like J. P. Morgan and the Austro-Hungarian emperor after his own Jewishness barred him from an academic career, and finally his spectacular discovery of the missing arm from the majestic ancient sculpture of Laocoön and his sons. Torn between hearing Pollak’s spellbinding tale and the urgent mission to save the archaeologist from certain annihilation, the Vatican’s anxious messenger presses him to make haste and depart. This stunning novel illuminates the chasm between civilization and barbarism by spotlighting a little-known figure devoted to knowledge and the power of artistic creation.

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

My Review: First, read this:

Rome is so eerie these days. The city seems caught in the chokehold of some immense, capricious beast, especially at night. Pollak said the same thing, worded a little differently, but similar. A monster lying in wait, outwardly quiet, but ready to strike at any moment. Every monster strikes eventually. It's in its nature. Those of us harbored here in the Vatican feel a wave of gratitude and relief whenever we reach a building that the German embassy has marked as Vatican property. It's like a magic spell keeping the monster at bay. One may feel safe here.

In a nutshell, that's the book's burden of meaning. In this tightly paced read, you'll be subjected to a high level of frustration because it's just not possible not to be. These are Jews fleeing Nazis by hiding behind the Vatican's skirts. ... Talk about emotional whiplash.

The man narrating the book, K., to Monsignor F., is the one sent on the delicate, but very important for the Vatican, mission to see that Ludwig Pollak is brought to safety in the Vatican's boundaries. Pollak, a Jew, is about to be deported and, as we reading the book know from before we so much as blink, that means death for an elderly man, his diabetic wife, and his disabled progeny. K. is busily trying to instill in an elderly man who's been exiled from his Roman home before (for being an Austrian subject during World War I), who's lost his first wife during exile and been forced to serve an Emperor he had no slightest regard for, but who's been fêted and celebrated by that Emperor before and who now wants nothing to do with the Jew...there are simply too many miles on the clock, K. Pollak winds his hours down by emulating Sheherezade and using K.'s ears to pour his meaning into. After all, K. will survive and Pollak, well...the past means more to him:

One tends to think the weather was nicer and people were friendlier when remembering the past, and although it's not true, there is some truth to it. Every memory has its own truth; otherwise it wouldn't exist.

So we're going down the garden path with a man who's been mistreated many times, in many ways, for being a Jew. For being an Austrian in Italy, for being Czech in Austria, and a Jew to boot. This is a man whose life is Art. He's been ushered in ahead of Barons to the presence of J. Pierpont Morgan because he has, knows, can connect the dots...

What could possibly surpass the exhilaration a collector experiences after making a significant find or finally acquiring a piece he has long coveted and lost sleep over? This realm of terrific, silent joys has revealed itself to me as well, Pollak said; it may be the only joy that truly exists. Collectors, he continued, are the most passionate people on earth. People prepared to venture into the foulest corners of the criminal code to take possession of a teacup, a painting, or some other objet d'art.

And Morgan is not the first powerful man who has used Pollak's art-sense to make something extraordinary his own, or explain why what he has is extraordinary from Pollak's vast stores of knowledge. It is this quality of Pollak's mind that K. is called upon by the gods, via the peculiar institution of the Vatican, to witness. It is this extraordinary votary of Art who is, at long last, saying out loud why his life mattered and what he has done cannot be undervalued because of his Jewishness. It is there, in all its glory, the objet d'art and the sculptures and...and...and...it's physical. While Pollak as a name might vanish (not really, though not for lack of the world trying) his work remains:

Pleasant memories cannot exist, Pollak stated for no reason I could figure, if the experience itself wasn't pleasant. Or, he asked, can they? He didn't think so; he had written down everything important, or at least, everything that seemed important to him, because who knew what would prove important in the long run?

False modesty, or real, we the readers know that Pollak always knew what was always going to be important in the long run: Art. He was correct. This récit gets its title from a discovery Pollak made in the early 1900s, a piece of a sculpture made in Greece in times most ancient, and spoliated by the Empire's vast greed for Art and what were, even to them, antiquities.

from the Musei Vaticani

They {their arms} are not, however, extended in pride but in a fight against death, to fend off the snakes. Their death is certain. Whether one is fighting death or fighting certain death makes all the difference. Is it noble? Pollak asked. Naïve? Quiet? Grand? Or is it just terrible, plain and simple?

This is the sculpture in question. The right arm, the one bent at the elbow ever so slightly, is the one recovered by Pollak, and then donated to the Vatican Museum...he explains why in the text, but that is something you'll need to read for yourself, there's no way to excerpt it without typing many paragraphs. For this splendid act of generosity, he is awarded all sorts of attention and perks in the archeological community, and his (barely post-Dreyfus Affair) Jewishness is grandly overlooked as the crowned heads pin medals of merit all over him. The arm completes the emotional arc of the story of Laocoön as the gods mete out punishment for his unforgivable act of hubris. Read the story, I am not discussing it here.

When Pollak returned from his Austrian exile, he resumed his life-long career in service to the culture industry. His life spent as an art dealer, now spent being the director of a museum dedicated to sculpture, a collection assembled by an old friend of Pollak's. I don't imagine it will surprise you to know that there were vicissitudes...and betrayals...and that Pollak, in the end, cared less for any of that than he cared for the art, and for the stories inherent in caring for Art. The Vatican (for better or worse) has a very long memory. They sent K., a car, and their urgent invitation to Pollak and his family to accept rescue from certain death.

It's different in the Vatican, I quietly offered, and you know it. ... You will be safe there. And they're expecting you. I sleep very little, he said, barely at all now. It must be nice. How could I possibly wake them when the world they'd wake up to is the world they'd wake up to? I didn't know how to respond. We sat there in silence until he, rather than getting up and rousing his family, resumed his tale.

Despite the urgency, the despairing urgings of K., the certainty of death...is not troubling Pollak. He knows, from his connection to Laocoön, that the gods send what they will and it's not up to puny mortals to complain. He saw what was coming. He was, at sixty-plus years of age and in frail health, not going to argue with the gods again. Men, as he has bitter cause to know, are not creatures of reason. They are snakes, they are beings without character but with brute, brutal strength, when they serve their passions:

Not one of them wrote about what they saw; instead, they wrote about what they thought. And when a man thinks long enough about what he wants, it eventually becomes what he sees.

It is nothing but the truth, put in the mouth of Ludwig Pollak, guilty of the crime of Jewishness in a world where the powerful hate you for that unforgivable breach.

It is no accident that New Vessel Press chose this title to come out hard on the heels of The Vanished Collection. Fiction and non-fiction about spoliation. The parallels between Pollak and Jules Strauss, the parallels in our own times' spoliation crisis and restitution failings. There is so much to be said about the concept of "Museums" in today's world, the one where facing up to the past is at last becoming effective...and the immensity of the hate-stoking that is working against the deepening of the many, many overdue reckonings with the Imperial Past (not to mention present). The world is, sadly for some and confusingly for all, changing. The problem with resisting that change is it does not work. It merely stores energy to be released in the eventual great change. 1789 ring any bells?

We live in interesting times. Read this slender, one-sitting meditation on just how interesting, just how much there is still to be accounted for and dealt with. You will be glad you did.

This review has lots of hyperlinks. Since they aren't impossible to understand the story without having, I reproduce the whole review here without them. The whole linked-up version is here: https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2022/02/pollaks-arm-beautiful-maddening.htm...

>130 richardderus: I had the same thought.

Happy Monday!

Wordle was annoying today! I was thinking that it would have more to do with some cliche about love or happiness considering it's Valentines day. . It took me four tries with the first two tries as no hit.

>134 figsfromthistle: No kidding, Anita! After yesterday's I tried all the sappy words I could think of I was sure it was "lyric" but nope.

*sigh*

>133 humouress: Yeah...some serious failing of self-awareness goin' on there.

>135 richardderus: I was a little disappointed it took so long once I finally worked it out.

I, uh, got it in 3 using Peggy's words (>119 LizzieD:). Not bragging really. I mean, there aren't many 5-letter words that include those letters with that particular letter in the fourth position.



>132 richardderus: Good review. Compels me to read the book, and I don't normally enjoy books about that horrifying time period. Aside: I saw The Laocoön sculpture when I visited the Vatican in '03. It is stunning and horrifying (to me), in equal measure.

Smooches to you on Valentines Day, Richard!

>137 Storeetllr: Quickly, before I Stop Speaking To You Forever, I'll say the Laocoön Group is exactly the perfect metaphor for the entire story of Pollak. It's just so darn wretched. It has such a resonant meaning around the Holocaust.

*smooch*

and the Iron Curtain of Silence descends

>132 richardderus: Pre-ordered from Ammy. Thanks for the review and recommendation, RD!

Happy Valentine's Day, Richard. I hope you have a wonderful day!

Excellent review of Pollak's Arm, Richard. Big Thumb. It is now on my radar.

>140 msf59: I'm awfully glad you've enjoyed it...and I'll bet you're just as happy with the read when it gets to you nightstand.

>139 alcottacre: I hope you love it, Stasia. Happy VD!

*smooch*

>129 humouress: Wordle 240 5/6

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So pretty much average for today here.

>142 ronincats: I'm still grouchy about the word they chose today, Roni.

>143 richardderus: You should be honoured. But I know what you mean; should have got that one first go.

>144 humouress: Pardon? Désolée, madame, mais je ne vous comprends pas....

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Tuesday to you. I had a post all written for yesterday, thought I posted it, but guess I didn’t. I miss my mind…

>132 richardderus: I don’t know why, because my dad served honorably in WWII, but in the last decade or so I have stopped wanting to read about the ~1938-1950 time period in European history, roughly meaning WWII. I’m sure your review is wonderful, and I’m sure the book is wonderful, but… skippety-skip-skip this time. I know, my loss.

edited to add: I got Wordle in 3. *preens*

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>146 karenmarie: Well! I played a silly trick on myself because it made me laugh, but I got it in four:
Wordle 241 4/6

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And my giggle earned me a very interesting tidbit: the "word" amour is one of the 13,000 recognized five-letter acceptables!

There's no reason to get even a frisson of FOMO about passing over any read, Horrible, there are so so many still clamoring for your eyeblinks.

*smooch*

>147 richardderus: I had the same today, Richard dear, both in English and Dutch.
Where did you find that number of recognised five-letter words?

>148 FAMeulstee: I watched a YouTube video on how information theory can be explicated using Wordle and the source code was gone into. There are over 12,000 but fewer than 13,000 five-letter words in their database, and the video even shows you how to find tomorrow's word.

Which I see no point to knowing, myownself, what's the fun of playing if you have to cheat? It's not a win if you know the answer by "gaming the system."
***
Today is Book Birthday! LitHub lists 15 highly anticipated ones and I have reviewed two: Pollak's Arm and The Selfless Act of Breathing (Friday).

>149 richardderus: I'd never go that far, to actually look in the code and see the words (which will probably go away when the NYT's takes over). But I do "game" the system a bit. I use the same 5 words every time. They use every letter in the alphabet once (except for X). Then it's up to me. Today, for example was a little bit tricky.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, Richard. I hope you have a great one!

>151 alcottacre: *smooch* Thank you, Stasia!

>150 mahsdad: The Times has already changed the list to exclude words they find complicated, abstruse, offensive or scary. But what you're describing is called "strategy" not gaming the system in its pejorative sense.

*tosses hat through door*

Igotitin4today.

Is it safe to come in?

Afternoon, BigDaddy!

>132 richardderus: A direct hit. Excellent review!

I got yeterday's Wordle in 3, but today it took me 4.

Wordle 240 3/6

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Wordle 241 4/6

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*aside to Richard* Now why was 240 so much easier for her than it was for us? 🧐

ETA: Oh - the Valentine's Day treasure hunt is on.

Hi, Richard! Quick *speak* and *smooch* while you're occupied elsewhere.

(Wordle: Nobody has asked (or cares), but I change words every day, choosing 2 with as many vowels as possible + r, s, t, and l or n. Lately, one word has been enough to work from without having to try my second word. I fully expect to fail every day, but so far doing this has been good enough. Can there be a strategy to get it in two???)

>141 richardderus: Oh my, Richard. I don't think VD is ever happy. It's an interesting (unpleasant) coincidental whateveryacallit (oh, you know but I don't). VD for Valentine's Day and VD for venereal disease.

And for something completely different:

Thanks for calling Pollaks Arm to my attention, Richard.

"And they, being the ones not dead, turned to their affairs"

Woefully behind. Smooches! : )

>159 Berly: Hi Berly-boo! *smooch*

>158 magicians_nephew: The living need to live; but it ill becomes us not to reflect on the dead and their unexistence.

>157 weird_O: *snerk* Um, not me! I don't think VD's supposed to be happy...Lupercalia wasn't a joyful time, either.

>157 weird_O: I am definitely in the control group, Bill, since I have no interest in the game whatsoever :)

*waving at Richard* before getting tossed out

>156 LizzieD: Hi Peggy!

A very, very lucky guess? I can't think of anything likely to result in a two-and-only-two outcome.

>155 humouress: *shrug* Some people are Wordle-ators. I hate them.

Have fun with the treasure hunt.

>154 Crazymamie: Hiya, Mamie! *smooch* Enjoy Pollak's Arm when its turn arrives...such a shocking way to think of the world ending.

>153 Storeetllr: wicked Wordle-ator

Mary. I trust I find you well.

terrible Puzzle Princess

I'm glad to see you here.

>161 alcottacre: No interest is a perfectly ordinary response. I can understand simply not caring about something quite popular, as you can imagine.

>99 richardderus:, Hi Richard, Felix will be three at the end of May and is a bit of a tearaway which is not unusual in a Tuxedo Cat.

Burgoine #11

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: NATURE IS CALLING—but they shouldn't have answered.

Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakes from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. Nick’s own injuries are as extensive as they are horrifying. His face wrapped in bandages and unable to speak, Nick claims amnesia—but he remembers everything.

He remembers how he and Augustin were mysteriously drawn to the Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps.

He remembers how the slopes of Maudit were eerily quiet, and how, when they entered its valley, they got the ominous sense that they were not alone.

He remembers: something was waiting for them...

But it isn’t just the memory of the accident that haunts Nick. Something has awakened inside of him, something that endangers the lives of everyone around him…

It’s one thing to lose your life. It’s another to lose your soul.

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

My Review: I can't quite believe this is a translation. Its prose rings like a crystal wineglass.

Every year, climbers—sometimes entire teams—disappear into deep glacial voids and die in their frozen darkness. If the mountain is merciful, the drop is deep enough to smash them into silence in one go. Most victims, however, are trapped between blue, narrowing walls of ice, and as their body warmth melts the ice, they sink slowly deeper and deeper, until they die very consciously of asphyxiation.

I can't quite believe I have a son named Sam (he's so much like me it's scary) who lives in a novel. By a Dutch guy. Whom I've never met.

There are November mornings when the cold is clear, crackling, and crisp, but this cold was sticky, syrupy, clung to you. Like it was begging you for help. You, the first organism to have crossed its path, and would you please take it with you and protect it from what's about to happen, because that was much, much worse than the cold itself.

Jesus. The Morose hadn't even got started yet and my metaphors were already going haywire.

I can't quite write a real review yet...still stunned, too scared to go back and figure out why...but it's a week ago the book came out and honestly I'm still shook that all y'all ain't got it on your nightstands yet.

You’ve often asked me why I climb mountains. You’ve also often asked me (I wouldn’t say begged, though it’s not far off the mark) to stop. Our worst argument was about this, and it was the only time I was really afraid that I would lose you. I’ve never been able to fully explain it to you. I wonder if it’s at all possible to fully explain to someone who isn’t a climber. There’s an apparently unbridgeable gap between the thought that I risk my life doing something as trifling as climbing a cold lump of rock and ice…and the notion of traveling through a floating landscape, progressing with utmost concentration while having absolute control of the essential balance that keeps me alive and that, therefore, lets me live. Conquering that gap is possibly the most difficult climb in the life of any alpinist who is in a relationship.

What is wrong with people?! Go get this terrifying, propulsive, exquisitely personal and depressingly universal horror-adjacent thriller. Go on! March, young scalawag.

>164 johnsimpson: I'm never surprised at the wilfulness of Felis domesticus, John. They are, after all is said and done, still the Limbs of Satan, and His Perverted Majesty's most personal creations.

>149 richardderus: Three stand out for me from the Lit Hub list, RD. The new Marlon James book, Pyre by Perumal Murugan and the novel/memoir on Hong Kong, The Impossible City.

>165 richardderus: That is one added to the wishlist.

PEARL RULED @ 53%

New Animal by Ella Baxter

Absolutely not.

She's just told you her mother's funeral is today, Leo, and this is the first time you've met her. She's clearly fragile. Your job as a dom is to understand that consent in that frame of mind IS NOT CONSENT and you are now abusing a psychologically vulnerable person. The tremendous, exciting promise of the first half went out the window and I am so very out of here.

>167 PaulCranswick: I'm impressed that you're interested in Pyre! I didn't think it'd appeal too much to your Marxist sensibilities.

Any road, I'm still reeling from Today Hong Kong so I can't see much past that in Chinese terms, and Echo is such a strong and passionate and truly unnervingly folk-horror inflected Battle Royal that all else recedes before it.

>165 richardderus: I’ve got Echo requested, Richard. Looks good, and a rave from you is all I need!

Karen O

>170 klobrien2: I hope you enjoy it, Karen O. You're in for a scary ride.

Catching up a little after the past few very-busy days. Happy Tuesday!

>172 bell7: Hiya Mary! *smooch*

>165 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole - as long as it is not too horror-ish. If it Universal monster horror scary, that is one thing.

>174 alcottacre: No! Remove it immediately! Very, very not Stasia-friendly...super-unease-inducing body horror. Run away!

>165 richardderus:. Yes please. 🤘

>176 mahsdad: I expect you'll be quite gruntled by the read when you get to it, Jeff.

Wordle scandal! Apparently there were two different solutions to Tuesday's Wordle.

>178 humouress: Yes, the Times decided there were words not Wordle-able. *sigh*

Wordle 242 4/6

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This one was a weirdo!

>165 richardderus: Thomas Olde Heuvelt is very popular over here, Richard dear. I haven't dared yet to read him.
Glad to see you enjoyed Echo, you might also like his book Hex.

ETA: >179 richardderus: That was a word I didn't recognise. I had to use the online dictionary when I had 4 of the letters, and got it in 5/6.

>169 richardderus: I am a fairly reformed Marxist, RD, these days - I get less and less confident every year that capitalism will wither and die and am becoming content just to do what little bits I can around the edges! It looks a very interesting read.

Wordle 242 4/6

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It was in fact a corker

>181 PaulCranswick: 'Twas.

I'm losing hope that the withering will occur in my lifetime but tech will accidentally destroy the system by rendering value unrecognizable to today's bank-account-hoarders. Democratic socialism looks less appealing than social democracy to sneakin-up-on-seventy me.

>180 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! I'll just bet you were confused by today's word. I really sat a minute, wondering how the heck they think "agora" is more confusing than this one.

Hiya, RDear, and happy Wednesday.

>165 richardderus: Nope. Since I’m not a young scalawag, I shall ignore your command. *smile*

>168 richardderus: *shudder*

I'm still confused that the old Wordle site is still going. And now that the words have diverged, people who don't realize it will be posting results for different words from the rest of us? It just messed up the whole social aspect of the game, which is what made it popular.

As for the Times curating words, the Spelling Bee is the worst for this. Infuriating at times...

Anyhoo, good morning RD!

>184 katiekrug: It's typical corporate overreach, me lurve, they wanted, they bought, but they didn't think through.

Happy Humpday!

>183 karenmarie: No indeed...youth has receded, my fellow relict yew tree. Besides, you are supernatural-proof in entertainment terms...the joke wouldn't work on you.

*smooch*

Morning, BigDaddy! Also took me four today.

>186 Crazymamie: How's by you, Mamie? It's chilly here today but it's going to be far, far, far too close to 70° tomorrow. The perimenopausal Weather Goddess needs to stop having hot flashes.

I think you'd enjoy >165 richardderus: so go take a gander. *smooch*

I'm guessing you got a different Wordle from Paul and me; I'm still using the powerlanguage uk site. Was your Tuesday Wordle 'aroma'? (It should be safe now, since my sister is already in Thursday.)

ETA: >187 richardderus: 21ºC in mid February? Gosh.

Global warming.

>165 richardderus: Oh crap. I read Hex a few years ago and enjoyed it but wasn't bowled over by it; when I saw the ads for Echo I figured I could skip it.

So thanks a lot for changing that plan.

>187 richardderus: Whoops! Lost track of what I was doing - I meant to mention that I'm adding that one to The List. A most excellent review, darling.

Weather - today it's going to 78F, and tomorrow will be 83F. How's that for nauseous making?!

>190 Crazymamie: Sweetiedarling, I adore you until the sun burns out, but Georgia is nauseous making. Awful, awful place.

Enjoy Echo...it's very, very creepy!

>189 swynn: *smooch*

>188 humouress: Yes, AROMA was the NYT-approved word...the *gasp* confuzzle-me oo oo too hard one was AGORA. then they use CAULK today! ::eyeroll::

I know, right?! Anything close to 60° is simply Not On for us global Northerners.

>191 richardderus: That's the word I got today; I'm not sure what your issue is with it, though.

Huh; was aroma the NYT one? I specifically went to the old site - or are they migrating it in batches?

Now that you mention the weather (and global warming), today was cool enough that I didn't even use the fan in the daytime and it didn't register until evening, which is when we close the doors (mossie chow time) and I usually turn off the fan.

>192 humouress: It would seem so. Are/were you a subscriber to the regular paper at any point in the past few years? That might have something to do with it.

Wow! No fan! That's very odd indeed.

Wordle 242 3/6

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NYT Word.

>194 Helenoel: In three! Impressive, Helen.

>195 richardderus: it took a little thought but it is a word i know well.

>196 Helenoel: Haha, it's a word I know well, too, though it was a bit of a miracle I got it in three.



*ducks and runs*

>165 richardderus: Holy Moly, Richard. I'm attracted to that one like bird to a snake. I'm glad that it will be some time before I can buy it. Richard-caliber, review though, and I thank you.

>179 richardderus: Do you do schadenfreude?

Wordle 242 5/6

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>198 LizzieD: Schadenfreude, saudade, sangfroid...you name it. :-D Good work on Wordle!

Isn't "Nature called...they shouldn't have answered" a great tag line?

>197 Storeetllr: Brava, Mary! I'm sure the other Wordle-ators will rally round to protect you from the zombified hordes my mouth-breathin' cohort and I unleash to feast on y'all's brains!

>196 Helenoel: I'm less familiar with it, I guess, having spent most of the last decade in The Home. Easy to dismiss those sorts of details, it seems.

>193 richardderus: No..o...o; I don't think I've ever subscribed to the NYT.

>200 humouress: Huh! I'd say you're just supervillainessly lucky, then.

The issue between the NYT site and the old one has to do with redirects and page refreshes and bookmarking and other things I don't fully understand. But the helpful NYT Games Twitter account monitor got me all sorted in no time, with my stats restored.

>202 katiekrug: Brilliant! They're very wise to make sure real help is available and allowed to be effective. Big goodwill points even for bystanders when they do what you're describing.

>175 richardderus: OK, taking it back out of the BlackHole. Thanks for letting me know, Richard.

Have a wonderful Wednesday (now that it is half over). Oh well. ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>204 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia, it was blah. That works for me. *smooch*

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

*smooch*

>206 FAMeulstee: Merry Thursday, Anita!
Wordle 243 5/6

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it seemed to me that I was resistant to the letter order that made this word up, dismissing the correct answer twice in a row. "Naaahhh it's not that" and by gum it was that.

So my hubby seems to have somehow ended one day ahead of me - and ruined it for me today. Or rather, I got it on one, but it was no fun.

But he then got Covid, so that's karma for you :/

Happy Thursday, Richard! Sorry it's a little too warm for you. Though unseasonal (and I'm sure ultimately not great for our present or future), the high of 60 today is going to make dog walking so much more pleasant than earlier this week.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. I hope the week is sailing along for you. We had a mild day yesterday, although it was windy and rainy, but today it turns on a dime and we are going to get some snow. Fingers crossed it is a lesser amount.

>207 richardderus: I made nice patterns with this one.

Morning, RD!

Wordle 243 3/6

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>212 katiekrug: WOW! How did you do that???????

Wordle 243 6/6

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‘Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you.

>202 katiekrug: I don’t know what I did, because it certainly wasn’t getting in touch with anybody at the NYT, but my stats recently caught up.

>207 richardderus: Harrumph. I had 4 of 5 letters correct on the second guess, but had an epic fail with shape, shame, shave, shale, and shape. I am seriously disgruntled.

>214 karenmarie:, >213 LizzieD:, >212 katiekrug: I was correct after #3, and would've had a 4 if I'd typed it in. I just somehow refused to believe they'd use that word! "No no, they'll use this one, not that tired old beige thing."

*sigh*

>214 karenmarie: They're very interested in making sure your stats are accurate! No effort on your part required...it's a big piece of what they bought, that collection of data-points that motivate folk to keep coming back to the REAL Wordle. *smooch*

>212 katiekrug: *silent stare*

>211 humouress: Heh. I was looking at mine as a draft needlepoint pattern.

>210 msf59: We're cloudy and warm, and while if I were >209 bell7: I'd be thrilling to it, I'm just staring at the barrier-island world I live in wondering when I'll be three feet underwater.

>209 bell7: Hiya Mary! If I had to go outside and do what you are doing, I too would revel in the warmth. I'm a bit nervous about what it all implies for my future...I do think I'll manage to die before it becomes a pressing problem here, though.

>208 BekkaJo: Ucchhh on the Plague! I'd say "serves him right" but it doesn't. Miserable stuff, this.

Anyway, glad to see you! *smooch*

>215 richardderus: - *blows a kiss*

>213 LizzieD: - Luck. It's always luck, people! My first word was NORTH, so I got the H. SO my mind when to S, since T was already attempted. Second word was SHAPE. No dice. Next one that popped in my head was SHAKE. Done and done. But I could easily have thought of SHAVE next, or SHALE or whatever. Luck, luck, luck.

>217 katiekrug: I was terribly unlucky to have such a judgmental brain, then. It refused to believe the correct choice was correct. *grumble*

I seem to have some sort of mental connection to the machine that is the NYT Wordle. Scary thought.



>216 richardderus: There are times I look down the hill I live on to the Hudson River and feel gratitude that it will be awhile before our house ends up underwater. Probably long after I'm gone. At those times, I especially miss living in Colorado.

>219 Storeetllr: It won't be quick where y'all are, Mary, but here by the beach....

Good gracious! You and the Machine are At One, no?

Wordle 244 4/6

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I was sure it was douce but 'twarnt.

Reading Observer Food Monthly this morning, I ran across mention of a "cheesy, spicy, flaky Kimchi Bear Claw" and now my life can not continue on its present meandering trudge to the grave until I have a kimchi bear claw.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Friday to you.

>221 richardderus: I got it in 3, which is fairly unusual for me. I've been using the same starting word every day for a week now, so by the second word I have all the vowels figured out. Today was adieu, drove, dodge.

>222 richardderus: You can have mine, too! *smile*

Housecleaning guy coming around 10, so that's pretty exciting.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>223 karenmarie: My Starters are aeons and mirth so I don't usually miss more than two letters...but today's was a little more complicated for me. I have half as many six-tries as five- or three-tries. Four is now the second most-common score for me.

>224 richardderus: I usually get it in 4 but today did it in 3. My starting word helped this time but doesn't always.

Have a great weekend, Richard.

Happy weekend reads, Richard!

I think I'm the only avid reader not doing wordle every day. Oh well. I just don't need another addiction so I'm staying clear.

On the other hand, I'm enjoying (is that the right word?) The Memory of Love and we saw whales. Lots of whales.

036 Howard Zinn's Southern Diary: Sit-Ins, Civil Rights, and Black Women's Student Activism
by Howard Zinn, Robert Cohen (editor); Foreword by Alice Walker

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: How young black women fought paternalism on campus and Jim Crow downtown, and how Howard Zinn was fired for supporting them

In the 1960s, students of Spelman College, a black liberal arts college for women, were drawn into historic civil rights protests occurring across Atlanta, leading to the arrest of some for participating in sit-ins in the local community. A young Howard Zinn (future author of the worldwide best seller A People’s History of the United States) was a professor of history at Spelman during this era and served as an adviser to the Atlanta sit-in movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Zinn mentored many of Spelman’s students fighting for civil rights at the time, including Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman.

As a key facilitator of the Spelman student movement, Zinn supported students who challenged and criticized the campus’s paternalistic social restrictions, even when this led to conflicts with the Spelman administration. Zinn’s involvement with the Atlanta student movement and his closeness to Spelman’s leading student and faculty activists gave him an insider’s view of that movement and of the political and intellectual world of Spelman, Atlanta University, and the SNCC.

Robert Cohen presents a thorough historical overview as well as an entrée to Zinn’s diary. One of the most extensive records of the political climate on a historically black college in 1960s America, Zinn’s diary offers an in-depth view. It is a fascinating historical document of the free speech, academic freedom, and student rights battles that rocked Spelman and led to Zinn’s dismissal from the college in 1963 for supporting the student movement.

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

My Review: There is no quisling like a race quisling. Spelman College, an institution of higher education for wealthy Black families, operated "in loco parentis" and, in typical midcentury overreach, became the controlling patriarch of its woman students' every single act. They were aiming for a complete absence of any breath of scandal. A Spelman alumna was Caesar's wife, blameless in all ways, and President Albert Manley (don't think that name didn't suit him to a "T") was going to make sure the women at 1960s Spelman were perfectly prepared to be housewives and helpmeets for Black executives, free of radical notions about race equality and gender parity.

Along comes new History professor Howard Zinn, radical New York Jew....

What makes this a good read is what makes any personal story a good read. The diary of a very interesting person, a person who's entire being is dedicated to breaking bad stuff and gluing it back together into better shapes, is going to be of interest to at least a few of us. When that person is someone whose way with words is demonstrably snappy, merging erudition with sarcasm and bypassing facetiousness to jab sharp elbows of truth-telling into the soft midriffs of the Status Quovians, chances are you're in for a good read.

Robert Cohen had access to Zinn's diaries before others in order to annotate and analyze the source material aided by a grant from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The purpose of the grant was to support research that could illuminate previously unknown connections and bring to light buried facts in Cohen's area of scholarship, social movements in higher education. This project combines the diaries of a major cultural figure with interviews of some women whose lives he touched (eg, Alice Walker) and the profound changes he catalyzed in some of them. It is hard to overstate Zinn's personal charisma. It is hard to overestimate the role contact with such a live wire has on a person beginning to form an identity. And Zinn's desire to assist the USA in birthing a fairer, more inclusive culture in all ways should've found friends in Spelman's hierarchy.

It very much did not.

Zinn was harassed and abused by senior colleagues, going so far as Spelman President Manley threatening him with an entirely fabricated sex scandal, for having the audacity to try to prepare his charges for the world of equal rights that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was advocating across the street at Morehouse College. Ultimately, Zinn was forced to leave Spelman after seven years without tenure and was handed over to Boston University for a twenty-four year career of pushing aside the nostrums and asininities of US "education" in the History and Social Studies fields.

What makes this book fun to read is Editor Cohen's trenchant annotations and explications of the diary herein. The thing about a diary is that it's not usually meant for other eyes...but there's a hint that Zinn was slyly glancing over his shoulder at us from beyond the grave. What I enjoyed most were the moments that Cohen asks Zinn's former students about events in the diary. The putative subject of Zinn's "sexual harassment" was floored that this had ever been mooted! Manley, the President, was so desperate to protect what he saw as Spelman's selling point to wealthy parents...the oppressive in-loco-parentis system, the focus on high-brow, low-conflict education...that he would stoop to telling a lie that (had Zinn not caved and left the school) would've destroyed both lives.

This is not an unusual thing for a boss to have done, or even to do still. But the proof that it was being fired UP is what wonderful and important stuff happened at Boston University afterwards.

The problem with reading a book like this is the inevitable overage. Overexplaining. Overreaching to grasp a conclusion. Overdoing the support of a point of view. In the case of this book's subject, this book's timing, these were inevitable and expected. I was left wishing for less not more. But I appreciated the Catch-22 the simple existence of this book represents. Scholars need more, more proof more sources more citations, in order to survive as scholars. You can bet you'll see this book cited a great deal. The primary sources it relies on are brand new to scholarship. The interviews Editor Cohen conducted will, within a depressingly short time, be impossible to repeat due to aging and mortality. Luckily for the reader, this is not a painful overabundance of blah, bland, beige verbiage. I would caution not-scholarly readers to use the Oystercatcher Method: Fly in, skim catch crunch, swallow and move on; then wade through, dig, scuff up lower levels of tasty morsel, repeat later.

I won't give it five stars simply because there's so much information that requires additional effort to contextualize, but I will give it four-and-a-quarter because it's lively, trenchant, and conversational when it matters most to be those things for the story being told.

>227 EBT1002: Hiya Ellen! Happy you're able to rinse off the whalebreath long enough to visit. I can't think of a better term than "enjoy" for the Forna; "savor" maybe? *smooch*

>226 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita, see above.

>225 Familyhistorian: I'm amazed at how much of Wordle is luck. (But don't tell Katie!)

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Saturday to you.

>228 richardderus: And onto the wish list it goes!

*smooch*

>227 EBT1002: 💓

>227 EBT1002: Nope, I tried wordle a couple of times, but the website was frustrating in various ways, perhaps because I used Safari to access it. It isn't remembering my history, and it seems to be confused about when my day starts, with the result of giving me the same word twice in a row.

>232 ArlieS: Aaahhh...Safari *ptooptoo* is the problem. Still, It's not Required that everyone Wordle, so no harm no foul.

>231 humouress: :-)

>230 karenmarie: I think you're about the perfect reader for this one, Horrible. I hope and expect it'll give you all the feels!
***
I'm reading Pushkin Press's fancy-schmancy edition of Carmilla and whee dawggy is it Viciously Victorian! Right purty with it, but zounds!

Well, after a couple days of spring, it's deep winter again. Hope you're keeping warm on this snowy Saturday.

Saw this and thought of you. Because doesn't everyone feel like this sometimes?

>234 Storeetllr: Snow! It's 42° here and so sunstruck it gives me a bit of a headache! Only 50mi and we're on different continents.

My dear Tentacled American clearly got up on the wrong side of the aquarium. And yeah...that fish had it comin', Legs.

Dang! Just 50 miles yet here we are.

037 The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis and adapted for YA audiences with Brandy Colbert

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: This definitive biography of Rosa Parks accessibly examines her six decades of activism, challenging young readers perceptions of her as an accidental actor in the civil rights movement.

Presenting a corrective to the popular notion of Rosa Parks as the quiet seamstress performed a single act that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and birthed the modern civil rights movement, Jeanne Theoharis provides a revealing window into Parks' politics and decades of activism. She shows readers how the movement radically sought--for more than a half a century--to expose and eradicate the American racial-caste system in jobs, schools, public services, and criminal justice and how Rosa Parks was a key player throughout. The original text is fully adapted by the award-winning young adult author Brandy Colbert, for middle-grade and young adult readers to include archival images and personal papers of Rosa Parks, and to provide the necessary historical context to bring the multi-faceted, decades long civil rights movement to life. Colbert creates an engaging and comprehensive narrative centered on Parks' life of activism, to encourage readers not only to question where and who their history comes, but to search for histories beyond the dominant narratives.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU. CONTENT WARNING FOR RAPE.

My Review: Author Theoharis's 2014 Image Award-winning adult biography of civil rights icon Rosa Parks has been adapted for younger readers! Brandy Colbert's work for YA audiences has been on Los Angeles Public Library's Best YA Fiction lists, and has won a Stonewall Book Award in 2010. Between these two powerful writers, the project couldn't have been in better hands.

The story of Mrs. Parks's lifetime of struggle against the racial prejudice she was subjected to routinely, and the sexism that all women were subjected to while she was growing up, makes for sobering reading. The fact that both of these issues remain prominent in 2022's US national conversations does not speak well of our ability, as a body politic, to learn from our errors and omissions of thinking.

One of the city’s first responses to the boycott was to portray the problem as the actions of a handful of “bad apple” bus drivers. Officials insisted the problem was not segregation but rude drivers. City leaders said they wished the Black community had approached them sooner with the problem so they could have disciplined these drivers. Of course, this wasn’t true at all. Black people had been highlighting bus segregation that entire year and even before then, and each time, they’d been ignored. But this way, the city was able to blame the issue on a few bad people rather than a rotten system.

Lie, cheat, obfuscate...then lie some more. After all, it doesn't matter if you tell lies when you're Right.

The major issues that Mrs. Parks drew attention to are still present in US society. It really bids fair to wrap one's soul in a fog of despair, sixty-seven years after this brave woman made a stand against being treated as less than, other than, another person simply because of her skin color, and we're facing the same issues over and over again.

Wordle has been behaving itself perfectly well using Safari on my computer. 4/6 today. And now I'm hooked on Worldle as well. It is really good you can only play one puzzle a day on these, or they'd be a monster time sink!

>238 ronincats: I'm delighted all works as it should, Roni...though of course you *can* play wordlegame.org as much as you'd like, so....

*smooch*

Dropping by to wish you a great weekend, dear fellow.

>237 richardderus: Enjoyed your review and the last paragraph was particularly well said.

>228 richardderus: You got me with Howard Zinn's Southern Diary. I well remember in loco parentis, being locked in at night in the university dorm. We didn't have sit-ins there. That came later when I worked for Canada Post. Those were different times.

Happy Sunday, Richard. We had a good time at the birding event yesterday but damn it was COLD. We going to the RV/Camper Show today, to check out some campers we may be interested in. Not getting much reading in, so I will have some catching up to do. I hope the weekend is going well for you.

>234 Storeetllr: LOL.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Sunday to you.

I got Wordle in 3...

The rest of the Turtlecake will go into the freezer - I do not know if it will survive, but it's better than throwing it away. Mom's Cheesecake will make its appearance today - I recall that you remember this cheesecake too, right?

*smooch* from your own Horrible

038 An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States (ReVisioning American History #6) by Kyle T. Mays

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The first intersectional history of the Black and Native American struggle for freedom in our country that also reframes our understanding of who was Indigenous in early America

Beginning with pre-Revolutionary America and moving into the movement for Black lives and contemporary Indigenous activism, Afro-Indigenous historian Kyle T. Mays argues that the foundations of the US are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present. He explores how Black and Indigenous peoples have always resisted and struggled for freedom, sometimes together, and sometimes apart. Whether to end African enslavement and Indigenous removal or eradicate capitalism and colonialism, Mays show how the fervor of Black and Indigenous peoples calls for justice have consistently sought to uproot white supremacy.

Mays uses a wide-array of historical activists and pop culture icons, “sacred” texts, and foundational texts like the Declaration of Independence and Democracy in America. He covers the civil rights movement and freedom struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, and explores current debates around the use of Native American imagery and the cultural appropriation of Black culture. Mays compels us to rethink both our history as well as contemporary debates and to imagine the powerful possibilities of Afro-Indigenous solidarity.

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

My Review: What a great idea for Beacon Press to do this series, ReVisioning History. Selecting creators for the almost infinite numbers of topics available to expand our existing explanations of US History must be a nightmare. Author Mays is a scholar of Popular Culture (Hip Hop Beats, Indigenous Rhymes: Modernity and Hip Hop in Indigenous North America, SUNY Press 2018), African American culture, Indigenous culture...among other things...working out of UCLA. In this book, he makes very plain the roots of racism in capitalist profit-seeking, and highlights the Indigenous dispossessions as another facet of capitalist settler colonialism's project to entrench white supremacy.

So is this something to give your sugar dumplin' for a romantic read-along? Probably not. Is it something to give your sugar dumplin'? Yes. We're well past the stage of needing any help "feeling comfortable" my fellow white folk. The need now is for us to get with the program of what needs to come next. The subject this book has in its sights is how we got where we are, what where we are means, and how to move forward in a positive and inclusive direction.

In the time of #BlackLivesMatter, I'm not sure I see a way forward that isn't plagued by violence. I'm not at all eager to find out I'm correct, of course. What I suggest to all reading this is, go get the book and see what got us here before opining upon the ways we should or should not proceed. Believe me when I tell you that the way you think we got here is, in fact, not that whole story and to effectively influence the course of future events you'd best be fully au fait with the full spectrum of facts.

The toughest part of the read for me was the simultaneous sense that the author's boiling mad and icy furious, and reaches for the facetious blade in those circumstances. While it's not unjustified, the overall more controlled, academic prose suddenly breaking out in snark is jarring (eg, an early use of the pejorative "hotepness" made me wonder where this was going to recrudesce).

Guns aren't the only weapon of choice for police officers. We must ask this question: Where do police officers learn the techniques that lead to the violent brutalization and death of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx peoples? The martial arts community. When we see a police officer mounting a Black person and controlling their wrists and legs, holding them in a chokhold, putting their knee on someone's neck, you know where they learned that from? A martial artist. They learn chokeholds from Brazilian jujitsu experts. ... In this regard, we also have to hold the martial arts community accountable. ... I've been to at least a few gyms in my life and always see someone who has all the signs of a white supremacist. Don't train them. I understand you have bills to pay and deserve to be paid for your labor, but you are actively teaching people who commit violence against Black and Indigenous people. If you want to help someone, actively recruit and train the people who are suffering from police violence in order that they can defend themselves.

The end does not support the beginning. "I understand you have bills to pay" is pretty snotty...if I, over-sixty white guy, said it to the author, he'd be incandescent with rage...and there's absolutely no recognition that the end of the clause does not contain any sort of mechanism for the beginning to be dealt with.

Anyway, while there's a lot to address in the world, there's also a lot to address in this book. It makes for a good read because perspective changes are urgently needed all around, and there's no bad place to start working toward a new, more flexible way of framing your personal conversation with it.

>243 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I hope the turtlecake is a rough, tough survivalist of a dessert, though considering what a finicky, fiddly birth it had....

I haven't Wordled yet. I might not today. I might be aboard some transportation device heading your way for an orgy of Mom's Cheesecake...and coffee...

*smooch*

>242 msf59: Hi Mark! Have a great shop at the camper show. These dream machines are well worth drooling over, no?

It blew for a while here, and that made it feel so much colder, but today's back to ordinary February. Apparently there were places that got snow but this wasn't one...some freezing precip stung faces for just a minute. Not a huge amount of drama overall.

>241 Familyhistorian: Hi Meg! I think a light re-live of the era would repay you, from the perspective of one whose memories of it weren't unmixed with anger.

Enjoy the week-ahead's reads!

>240 PaulCranswick: Hi PC! It does seem that white people are in love with their hate of Others and that depresses and disgusts me.

>244 richardderus: Putting on the list RD. I've read much about the civil rights movements over the years, and am always interested in lost histories, or bits that have been missed or 'forgotten'. I also like to read about potential solutions.

>246 Caroline_McElwee: Hi Caroline, happy to see you here...a lot of Mays's solutions are of the negative sort, "don't do that" like in the example above; but he's really not wrong about any of them!

The Howard Ziin books looks like a good 'un.

>248 magicians_nephew: I expect it will be a good read for you, Jim. The subject matter and the factual tone don't dampen the evident pleasure all concerned take in the reliving of the moments long gone.

>233 richardderus: Ah but I trust Google even less than I trust Apple, so I avoid Chrome. And some of my results with firefox have been "special", though to be fair it was probably a downrev version of firefox.

>236 Storeetllr: I hope you stayed home.

>244 richardderus: BB received.

Dunno, Richard. Post 239 is inexplicably missing.

>251 humouress: Oh dear! That's the post where I mentioned https://wordlegame.org/ the free, frequency-unlimited version of Wordle! This is catastrophic. https://wordlegame.org/ is the best, and the only reliable, practice venue for Big Wordle. Without https://wordlegame.org/ I'd never've made it through the first Big Wordle game at all.

I'm sure https://wordlegame.org/ will appear if you squint a bit.

>250 ArlieS: The half-bit fruit people are run by Aynholes, and vacuum irrationally exuberant souls' bank accounts dry with their vile marketing of a few bucks' worth of parts and some exclusionary social messaging. The worst thing Google does is spy on you 24/7/365 and then violate your increasingly notional "right to privacy" for obscene profits.

Well, I couldn't just *not* so I did:
Wordle 246 3/6

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>244 richardderus: Not to mention I didn't realize I needed someone's permission to pay my bills. And yes, by all means, let's only pick students based on how they look.

Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is sure to resurface this year. I set it aside because it was just jaw droppingly anger making the list of atrocities across all non-white male roles, at one point I thought I was going to explode.

>254 AuntieClio: I do believe that's called "racial profiling" and gets decried regularly by Dr. Mays and his contemporaries.

Still, much to learn from in the book, so....

Zinn wasn't about the increase of personal peace in his writing. At all.

Gosh, it happened again at 252.

‘Morning, RDear, and happiest of Mondays to you.

>245 richardderus: I decided against trying to freeze the turtlecake. Mom’s Cheesecake is infinitely better and less expensive and difficult to make. Bill was appreciative yesterday, and we have more than ¾ of it left for after dinner tonight.

*smooch*

>257 karenmarie: Oh well, turtlecake *could* have been the new Mom's but no need to keep a reminder of disappointment around indefinitely.

*smooch*

>256 humouress: *chuckle*
***
I went wide on Wordle, tried to fake 'em out by using the weird one first, but got it in four:
Wordle 247 4/6

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Three and four are now tied for my most-common counts.

Happy Tuesday, Richard!

I've finally succumbed to Wordle, and was inordinately proud of myself for getting it in 3. I started with "admit", then "trope".

Hey, RD! Just popping in. I hope the week is off to a good start. It is raining here, so no birding for me but I do have several errands to run and then back to the books. I am enjoying Moonglow. Have you read that one?

'Morning, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

I've started doing Wordle before even coming over to LT, and got it in 3 today.

*smooch*

My first-ever two, and it's on Twosday 2-22-22!
Wordle 248 2/6

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*inordinately* pleased.

>261 karenmarie: It's quite habit-forming, isn't it. See above. *buffs nails*

>260 msf59: Hi Mark, happy Twosday. Nope, I haven't read a Chabon book in a long time. I liked The Yiddish Policeman's Union and deeply disliked Kavalier & Klay, which his fans loved, so I figured I was better off stopping while I was 50-50.

>259 bell7: Welcome to the cult club, Mary! Three is an excellent result indeed.

>262 richardderus: oh well done!

>264 bell7: I'd buy a lottery ticket if I didn't feel it was such a giant waste.

>263 richardderus: LIKE! Where's the Like button?

Wordle 248 3/6

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>266 ronincats: Oh, excellent result Roni! I'm quite pleased with myself. This is the very first time I've gotten the answer in only two tries.
***
I get the Sunday digest of LA Review of Books every week and usually poke around at it all week long. This week I ran across this gem: https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/340966/
entitled "Words: Technologies of Power" and thought y'all might wanna check that out.

And I got Worldle in one because they used a next-door country from yesterday!

It's 8 degrees here with a dusting (no more) of snow. Big change.

>268 ronincats: Frosty freezy cold indeed, Roni. I'm hoping the weather sorts itself into the new normal before too much longer, since instability is the primary source of my pain response to it.

I am NOT INTERESTED IN WORLDLE! NOT NOT NOT!!! INTERESTED!!!

*stamps foot*

Not!

>262 richardderus: Wordle 248 3/6

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I hate that I got sucked in, lol

Burgoine #12

Lamb to the Slaughter by Joanna Chambers

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Unapologetic rake, Lucien St. Villiers, meets his match in young ingenue, Marcus Lamb

Lucien St. Villiers is a cynical rake with a taste for the young and innocent.

When he encounters the beautiful and inexperienced Marcus Lamb, he is determined to teach the young man every wicked pleasure in his repertoire. But will Lucien simply discard Marcus afterwards, or is he finally—shockingly—about to have the tables turned on him, once and for all?

My Review: Joanna Chambers: noun (improper) 1 wicked, wicked writer without a shred of decency or a scintilla of self-restraint.

2 being best be busying herself with certain other novel-length projects before returning to this one. "Lamb to the Slaughter" begins with a *shudder* w-bomb and ends long, long, long before it should.

In any case, a wicked temptress who decides to turn the tables on a rake and roué responsible for the debauchment of numerous young, virginal men (lucky boys!) and then shut off the story-spigot just as things are getting to the most interesting part...the morning after's fun, but the Wednesday after that is much, much more interesting...deserves public pillorying and contumely-heaping. You cannot buy this, this Torquemadan torture, but must sign up for her mailing list.

>270 mckait: *chuckle*

Welcome to the dark side. *smooch*

xo

>262 richardderus:. *applause*

>269 richardderus: Could I interest you in Quordle instead? https://www.quordle.com
4 simultaneous Wordles to solve in 9 guesses.

Tuesday *smooch*

A belated happy new thread!

>262 richardderus: Wow! That's amazing! I'm envious and impressed, in equal measure.

>250 ArlieS: Always! If I leave the house once a week to hit the grocery store, that's one time too many, imo.

>242 msf59: :)

Worldle? Quordle? Nope, nope, nope. *lalalalala* Not listening.

Burgoine #13

Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in the sexual tension between two young women and gothic romance.

A deluxe gift edition of the cult classic that predated and greatly influenced Dracula and much vampire literature that followed, including Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.

In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, teenaged Laura leads a solitary life with only her father, attendant and tutor for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest—the beautiful Carmilla.

So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her entrancing new companion, one defined by mysterious happenings and infused with an implicit but undeniable eroticism. As Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day...

My Review: You know the story already, even if you've never read it. You've seen a Dracula movie. Same stuff, different dresses. It's pretty, um, humid, and the device of anagramming "Carmilla" is lame as all hell, but frankly if you expect modern writing from someone working in the 1870s you're ill-advised to pick it up in the first place. It's an acquired taste. Let the language and the attitudes...considered old-fashioned when the tale came out...subsume your 21st-century-ness and take a mental vacation.

Lesbian Dracula story with built-in plausible deniability. LeFanu insisted his vampyre couldn't be lesbian because she was dead therefore by definition incapable of sexual activity. Great dodge, Sheridan! I can just see the tut-tutting moralists trying to figure out a response to this. Like people complaining about nudity in Maus, it's a smoke-screen for imposing *their* view of what's "nice" on others.

Don't like something? Move along! No one's making you focus on it. And your kids seeing it? Lock 'em up if you want to prevent the world from having its way with them. *SPOILER ALERT* It does not work. Stop trying, rely on your parenting to warp them into the shape you want. And leave normal people alone.

The deluxe (and is it ever!) hardcover for your Goth belovèd is available from the publisher.

>277 Storeetllr: Heh. So said I once upon a time....

*smooch*

>276 ocgreg34: Thank you, Greg, glad to see you here.

>275 katiekrug: *smooch*

>274 Helenliz: ¿Qué? Lo siento, señora, pero no hablo el inglés.

>273 mckait: :-)

You got me with a BB on Howard Zinn's Southern Diary. That probably happened because I stayed up too late last night to watch the PBS American Experience episode about the Freedom Riders. I thought I knew that story, but it turns out that I just knew the highlights. I did find myself intrigued with the amount of time and effort that SNCC put into training their members to react nonviolently. I was also disgusted at the duplicity of the governors of Alabama and Mississippi and the reluctance of MLK, and the Kennedy brothers to get involved. Eventually, due to the persistence of the SNCC students their hand was forced and all of them had to come out of their hidey-holes. It was a fascinating story and this book sounds like it would tag right along with that of SNCC and the Freedom Rides.

>280 benitastrnad: I'm quite sure you're correct! A companion read about the ethos would, it seems to me, offer a lot of depth.

>279 richardderus: Yo tampoco, señor. (I think)

>278 richardderus: I've never read a word of La Fans though a college friends of mine doted on him.

And I do like vampire stories. Might give this one a look

Jewell Gomez i think has cornered the market on Lesbian Vampire sort-of erotica.

>262 richardderus: Congrats on getting today's Wordle so speedily, Richard. I did got it in two twice in a row when I first became addicted but that soon passed.

I'm late to your Wordle celebration, but hearty congratulations on your first "2"!

>285 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura!

>284 Familyhistorian: It is a lovely feeling, Meg, but I'm not expecting to become accustomed to it.

>283 magicians_nephew: It's very much of its Victorian time....

>282 Helenliz: "también" is, I think, le mot juste.
***
Polishing up two reviews for tomorrow...Monday's got pushed back...so that's done, and tomorrow's going to be new thread day, too!

Good job on the wordle result! Perhaps you will be able to repeat those results tomorrow :)

I came for the book talk and stayed for the Wordle scores...I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully to brag advise of my score.

Eta: My Wordle #270, I coulda shoulda got it on try three!

🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Back to frigid temps, so that might keep me off the trails for the next couple of days. Hey, nothing wrong with hanging with the books and watching the feeders, right?

Hiya, RDear! Happy Wednesday to you.

>278 richardderus: I didn’t realize Le Fanu was a real person until I bought and read Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories. I found the stories overwrought. I thought he was a madeup author written into Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. I watched the first two seasons of the modernized Carmilla, then lost interest.

*smooch*

>278 richardderus: Carmilla is one of the earliest reads documented by me here on LT. I was only mildly impressed at the time, and really have no recollection of it now. But your mention of the anagramming did bring that bit back.

Last night on PBS there was a documentary on Fannie Lou Hammer. It was done in her own words and her own singing. No narrator, just Fannie Lou herself. My goodness that woman was tough. Her fight with the Democrat party was very interesting and she and others from the Freedom Party had a great point about who the National Democrat party should be seating as delegates at its convention. I am starting to pick up on all the nuances of the Civil Rights Movement and wondering what has taken me so long to do so.

Maybe living down here in Alabama for thirty years is what has done it?

There's a new thread up! https://www.librarything.com/topic/339796/

>292 benitastrnad: Maybe, Benita, but it's more likely that it just never occurred to you to wonder about more than the broadest possible strokes. We're not impacted by racism in any significant way with any great frequency.

>291 laytonwoman3rd: It's a mild sort of story to people whose lives have seen Fight Club and American Psycho considered literary mainstream novels and even had only lightly bowdlerized filmed versions.

Carmilla is quaint compared to those sorts of themes.

>290 karenmarie: *chuckle* We get educated by reading, ready or not, don't we.

*smooch* for a happy New-Booksday.

>289 msf59: Nothing indeed, Mark, it sounds like a lovely plan as opposed to freezing yourself into an icicle simply to say that you did.

>288 LovingLit: Hiya Megan! I haven't Wordled yet...my score will be in the new thread.

*smooch*

>287 figsfromthistle: We shall see...we shall see...it's never assured, is it, Anita. One day 2, the next X...