richardderus's eighteenth 2022 thread

The October Glory cultivar of our glorious Acer rubrum, native to the continent, and one of the most generously abundant trees we have. What a joy these trees are...they smell nice, they look wonderful, they're tough bastards that live everywhere and anywhere...even Texas! even Newfoundland!...and add value to any location that has one, on every level.

Happy Fall!

Exorcism by Luna Ana.

For 2022, I upped my goal of posting an average of 4 or 5 book reviews a week on my blog to an annual total of 288. 2021's total of 229 (I need to do more to sync the data on my reads between my blog, Goodreads, and here this year for real NB this goal's officially dead because Goodreads has implemented its hideous user-unfriendly redesign and lost portions of my data) posts in 50 weeks of blogging shows it's doable.

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

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



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

Reviews one through eight? Seek them thitherward.

Looking for nine through sixteen? Click that link!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are reviews numbered seventy-five through ninety, you know. This post links you to them.

Ninety-one through one hundred ten? Try that link, it'll sort you out.

111 through 131? Go back there.

Those reviews numbered 132 up to 142 will be found at the linked post.

Reviews 143 up to 150 can be found in a specific post back there.

Oh, are you looking for 151 up to 165? Follow that link!

Interested in 166 on through 178? This post should be your goal.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

179 Trampling in the Land of Woe developed, post 54.

180 Red Right Hand worked for me, post 56.

181 Manhattan Cult Story: Abuse, Crime, Sex, and My Life inside a Secret Organization disturbed, post 78.

182 Do What They Say or Else rocked, post 99.

183 The Lindbergh Nanny rolled, post 135.

184 Hester did its task, post 137.

185 The Resting Place disquieted, post 272.

186 The Lost Village unsettled, post 273.

187 Blood Moon Prophecy passed, post 289.

188 Little Eve creeped, post 290.

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!




OCTOBER 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #70, Eternal Sonata: A Thriller of the Near Future, in post 31.

Burgoine #69, The Helpline, is in post 20.

***

SEPTEMBER 2022's BURGOINES

All (through #68) are linked in this post right here.

***

AUGUST 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #53 through Burgoine #58 are linked in this post right here.

***

JULY 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #52, is in this post here.

#44 through #51, are linked in this post here.

#37 through #43, are linked in this post here.

JUNE 2022's BURGOINES

***

#37 through #43, are linked in this post here.

#36 is in thread twelve, post 279.

***

MAY 2022's BURGOINES

#34 and #35 are linked in this post here.

#31 through 33 stay linked right here.

***

APRIL 2022's BURGOINES

#25 through 30 are backlinked here.

#20 through 24 are backlinked in this post.

The first two for April are linked here.

MARCH 2022's BURGOINES

The last one for March is linked here.

The first 4 in March are back-linked here.

***

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

***
JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES are linked 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.



OCTOBER 2022's PEARL-RULES started on Day 1. *sigh*

Pearl Rule #42 (13%, early Chapter 3), Truck Stop Earth, in post 36.

Pearl Rule #41 (30%; the chapter's entitled "In the Shadow of the Titty Bar"), Rivers of Gold: A Novel, in post 34.

SEPTEMBER 2022's PEARL-RULES

There weren't any! I love months like this.

AUGUST 2022's PEARL-RULES

Pearl Rule #37 up to Pearl Rule #40 are linked in this post right here.

JUNE & JULY 2022's PEARL-RULES

#36 is in this post right here.

Pearl Rule #33 through #35 are linked in this post here.

***

MAY 2022's PEARL-RULES

#32 is linked in this post right here.

#31 is linked here.

***

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

The first one in April is linked here.

***

MARCH 2022's ONLY PEARL-RULE

It's linked in right here.

***

FEBRUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

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

I've decided to use BookRiot's 2022 Read Harder Challenge as a spice-me-up of meeting my reading goals. Since I'll post 225+ reviews (posts aren't the same as reviews posted, as some posts cover as many as four books!) on my blog this year *easily* I think I need to get a little more pushy. I've set 288 reviews as the new goal.

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.

Flying Solo is close enough.

8. Read a classic written by a POC.


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


10. Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+).
    The Fourth Courier, though sadly not a supergood read


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


12. Read an entire poetry collection.


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


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


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


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


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


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


19. Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author.
    Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda is just flat terrifying!


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


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


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


23. Read a book by a disabled author.


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

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

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

I suppose we shall find out.

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 288 reviews on my blog

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

to complete at least 320 total reviews of all types

Most important to me again this year is to report on DRCs I don't care enough about to review at my usual level. I still don't want to keep just leaving them unacknowledged! There are publishers who want to see a solid, positive relationship between DRCs granted and reviews posted, and I do not blame them a bit. To 1 June 2022, I've posted 136 reviews of all types on my blog. That makes an annual total of 275 requiring only 139 more posts (almost exactly the same amount!), and a goal of 288 seem attainable.

Ask and ye shall receive! 'Nathan Burgoine's Twitter account hath taught me. See >3 richardderus: above. I just need to keep getting better about *applying* it, being less prolix and more productive!

I'll be planning in this spot...though my plans all too seldom turn into reality, don't they.

The current plans for October/Spooktober posts of DRCs from NetGalley
Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese Done!
The Téuta's Child by S. G. Ullman
Little Eve by Catriona Ward Done!
The Storyteller's Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal
Sea Fever by Elsie Sze

And from Edelweiss+
The Law of Lines by Hye-Young Pyun
City of Ash and Red by Hye-Young Pyun
Eternal Sonata by Jamie Metzl Done!

Midterm project titles I didn't get to:
from Edelweiss+:
Denial: How We Hide, Ignore, and Explain Away Problems by Jared Del Rosso — pairing with Gun Barons
When Time Is Short: Finding Our Way in the Anthropocene by Timothy Beal
from NetGalley:
The Grand Illusion by Eoin Dempsey
Gun Barons: The Weapons That Transformed America and the Men Who Invented Them by John Bainbridge Jr. — pairing with Denial

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.

Very well, your time has come. Please come in.

Happy New Thread!!!

Happy new one!

>10 ronincats: Welcome, O Autumn Queen.

>11 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie! I'm astonished the last one went by so fast.

Happy new one, Richard. I LOVE AUTUMN!

>14 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley! I. Do. TOO!

*smooch*

Happy new thread Richard.

>16 ArlieS: Hi Arlie! Thank you for the kind wishes.

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

Like you, I love this time of year, and the Acer rubrum is beautiful. Especially in fall I think.

>18 FAMeulstee: I am glad to see you, Anita...we share a love of the cooler, more colorful seasons, don't we. They're such spectacular trees!

Burgoine #69

The Helpline by Katherine Collette

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: An eccentric woman who is great with numbers—but not so great with people—realizes it’s up to her to pull a community together in this charming, big-hearted debut perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and The Rosie Project.

Germaine Johnson doesn’t need friends. She has her work and her Sudoku puzzles. Until, that is, an incident at her insurance company leaves her jobless—and it turns out that there are very few openings these days for senior mathematicians with zero people skills.

Soon enough though, Germaine manages to secure a position at City Hall answering calls on the Senior Citizens Helpline. But it turns out that the mayor has something else in mind for Germaine: a secret project involving the troublemakers at the senior citizens center and their feud with the neighboring golf club—which happens to be run by the dashing yet disgraced national Sudoku champion, Don Thomas, a celebrity of the highest order to Germaine.

Don and the mayor want the senior center closed down and at first, Germaine is dedicated to helping them out—it makes sense mathematically, after all. But when Germaine actually gets to know the group of elderly rebels at the senior center, they open her eyes to a life outside of boxes and numbers and for the first time ever, Germaine realizes she may have miscalculated.

Filled with an eccentric, totally unique, and (occasionally) cranky cast of characters you can’t help but love, The Helpline is a feel-good page-turner that will make you reexamine what it means to lead a happy life—and is bound to capture your heart along the way.

I SNAGGED THIS FROM MY LOCAL LITTLE FREE LIBRARY! (then gave it back)

My Review: As a value proposition, this read was outstanding...Little Free Library finds don't get better than this. And the weekend I found it, I also found out it's got a follow-up coming out early in May 2023! The characters and the story were exactly, precisely delineated with my sense of humor in mind. The writing's got that wry, amused-that-you're-amused edge that I appreciate and approve of. If you need something to scratch Loretta Nyhan or Christopher Brookmyre itch, try this one on for size. Bonus: Australian setting, meaning the atmospherics are enough different from US stories to add another edge. (PS I disagree about the Oliphant book's comparability, since I found it unpleasant; Dear Mrs. Bird is much closer to the vibe you'll get, I think.)

Happy new thread!

>1 richardderus: What a glorious fiery orange!

>21 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! Thank you...yes, those orangey-reddish-terra-cotta colors look so beautiful with the light coming through them, don't they?

Hurray for new thread and Autumn!! Smooch!!

>23 Berly: *smooch* back, Berly-boo!

Happy new thread Richard.
Love the acer in >1 richardderus:. They are such a delight, and come in such gorgeous colours.

I will quietly ignore the half a thread I've missed while on holiday and jump back on the fast moving train that is your thread. >:-D

>25 Helenliz: Hi Helen! I'd say "you do that" with a whole heart except I think you're missing a book that you would enjoy: https://www.librarything.com/topic/344051#7940082 The Sleeping Car Porter is up for the Giller Prize this November, and I'm pretty confident it has a better-than-even chance of winning.

Anyway, welcome home and may you recover from all the fun you had well and soon.

New thread smooches! Always so envious of the fall colours you get out your end of the continent. Here it's all yellows and browns - which are lovely but not quite the same.

>27 MickyFine: Hey Micky...yeah, the fall colors are breathtaking here. I love that last gasp of lovely brightness. Winter's brights aren't quite so intense.

Happy new thread, dear fellow.

Autumn is my favoured season and has me regretting the absence of any in this tropical "paradise". The autumnal colours up top are nostalgia inducing for someone who hasn't gone home for simply too long.

Happy New Thread!

Burgoine #70

Eternal Sonata: A Thriller of the Near Future by Jamie Metzl

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A few dead bodies are a small price to pay in the quest for immortality.

In 2025 America, it’s hardly news when a renowned octogenarian scientist dying of cancer disappears from a local hospice, but when Kansas City Star reporter Rich Azadian begins to dig, he discovers that other elderly scientists around the world have also vanished recently—all terminally ill and receiving the same experimental treatment from a global health company. His investigation leads him to the reclusive Noam Heller, a brilliant researcher exploring new technologies to reverse-age cancer and other cells. Using revolutionary stem cell treatments and snippets of DNA from rare, immortal Arctic jellyfish, his breakthrough promises the genetic equivalent of the fountain of youth.

But when Heller is murdered and his lab destroyed, Rich and his girlfriend Antonia become targets themselves. With the local police and federal authorities failing to see the big picture, he realizes he must take matters into his own hands to survive and stop the killing. His only hope is to mobilize his network of brilliant misfits and infiltrate the vast and lethal race—among cutthroat corporations, national intelligence services, rogue scientists, and a mysterious international organization—to control the new technologies and perhaps the secret of life itself.

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

My Review: Plausible-enough technothriller set in 2025, only ten years after it was written. Events have, um, overtaken the planned shocking stuff...I've had multiple mRNA vaccines developed in a matter of months to help me fight off a lethal plague, so this posited accelerated medical-research stuff isn't as impressive as it would've been just a short time ago.

The thriller parts, featuring intrepid reporter Rich Azadian and his gal-pal Antonia Hewitt, are solidly paced. Alzheimer's research shading into immortality research worked well as a spine for the thrillery bits. Fast paced, Pattersonesque chapters plus dialogue and descriptions that are very focused and taut lead me to wonder why y'all haven't bought millions of 'em. The author's voice works, the plot speeds, and the stakes are convincing. Don't wait, thriller readers.

>30 mahsdad: Thanks, Jeff!

>29 PaulCranswick: Oh, you're so right...I went back to Texas after 15yrs here and I pined and pined and pined for snow, winter, even ice faGawdsake. I'm sure lots of people love heat and humidity. I am not that guy, however.

Your desire to have actual seasons makes perfect sense to me. Anyway...soon enough, right?

>32 richardderus: Plans are still plans but I can see it pretty soon, RD.

Pearl Rule #41 (30%; the chapter's entitled "In the Shadow of the Titty Bar")

Rivers of Gold: A Novel by Adam Dunn

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: RIVERS OF GOLD is the first in the "More" series of dystopian thrillers featuring MARSOC operator Everett "Ever" More and NYPD Detective Sixto Santiago. The series is set in the Second Great Depression. The primary locale is New York City. The economy is shattered, the government is helpless, and crime and disease run rampant. An underground party circuit has developed, wherein rival cartels use a network of taxicabs to move contraband around the city. The only remaining obstacle to complete mobocracy is an experimental NYPD unit which relies on tough undercover detectives in taxicabs who try to keep the rising tide of chaos at bay. Detective Sixto Santiago is one of these cops, who is grudgingly partnered with a newcomer named Everett More, who does not seem to be aware of any rules governing police conduct. The brutal murder of a cab driver draws them into an increasingly complex investigation that eventually gives them a lead into the gang war between the party cartels. But as the case grows seedier and more dangerous, Santiago is forced to investigate his own partner, and is shocked to discover he is part of a covert CIA operation to infiltrate the NYPD. More is no cop he is something altogether more dangerous. But he is the only one Santiago can rely upon when their case leads them to the rising stars of New York's underworld, whose connections range from immigrant cab drivers to the captains of the finance industry.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY.

My Review: At 18%, Renny (our narrator) says:

The best/worst news is that Tony Quinones will be back from Cannes in time to
be our stylist. Tony Q did the costumes for The Snake, a drama about a love triangle of gay sewage workers in Manila that's this year's odds-on favorite for the Palme d'Or. Tony is the kind of gay caricature who gives other gays a bad name (though he's always good for a few Specials for himself and his so-called Queue-terie.)

"Specials" are the narrator's other-career products: Drugs. My. How very edgy of the author, no?
Then, at 30%, Renny (our narrator) says:

She softly aligns her fingernails in perfect formation along my scrotal seam and arcs the tip of her tongue unerringly into my urethra.

My God, this girl.

And I realized how very much has changed since I downloaded this book in 2016; and how much MORE has changed since it was first written, and published by Bloomsbury, in 2008.

And I am so, so glad it has. I hate the homophobia; I hate the sexism (I excerpted the least condescending one I could I find); I hate the endlessly mindlessly habituated into lazy writers' heads use of New York City as dystopia-in-waiting. Use Birmingham, or Wichita, or Salt Lake City for a change.

>33 PaulCranswick: I know you're ready, PC, and so's Hani. Ties are falling away steadily!

Pearl Rule #42 (13%, early Chapter 3)

Truck Stop Earth by Michael A. Armstrong

Rating: 2* of five, and I feel damned magnanimous about giving it so much

The Publisher Says: Read about the mother of all alien bases! The big one, the mega-base, the center of the Alien Occupation Government: the headquarters, the brain, the nerve center, the absolute pinpoint big base, is right here on Earth, just outside Della, Alaska. Forget Roswell. Forget Machu Picchu. Forget Stonehenge and Tikal and all those alleged alien bases -- abandoned, every one of them. This is the big one, right here on Planet Earth, right now, the source of all the world's troubles, the whole solar system's troubles. Right here. Finally, the unflinching truth about aliens on Earth is exposed in Truck Stop Earth, as told by an alien abductee to award-winning reporter, Michael A. Armstrong.

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

My Review: So, after this guy Jimmo cadges a ride from a couple lesbians (one of whom he's just, um, been with *nudgenudge winkwink*), he gets out of their elderly VW Bus and says:

"Thanks for the other night," she whispered. Her cute little tongue, with that little gold stud, flicked into my ear. "Take care, Jimmo."

"Yeah. Hey, thanks for all the rides." I looked at Margo, looked at Lilly, and somehow I knew I'd never see Margo again, which wouldn't rip me up much. Lilly I wasn't sure about, and if I did, now that would be a whole other story.

This is 1970s-level creep-you-out adolescent straight boy fantasy fan-fic stuff. I am NOT here for it. I'm out, it's deleted, and good riddance.

Happy new thread, Richard! We have a couple of those maples at our house and they are truly glorious in fall. Some of the aspen trees in the high country are starting to turn, but the maples down the hill where we live are as green as ever... for now!

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday. xx

Happy Sunday, Richard. Happy New Thread. Love the fall toppers! The colors are starting to show here, in a few spots.

>34 richardderus: >36 richardderus: Ouch! Hope your next read is a four star one!

>39 figsfromthistle: Ha! Thanks, Anita...it's shaping up that way. I'll let y'all in on it soon.

>38 msf59: Sunday, Sunday...and the color-change bit of Fall...well, do it get better'n this? Interesting book I'm reading, so yep!

>37 AMQS: Hi Anne! The image of the intensely goldyellow aspens as background for the hot-firey orangereds of the maples...*happy sigh*

Have a lovely week ahead!

Wordle 470 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, TWINE There really was, after all the letters I eliminated, only one answer.

>8 richardderus: (and the pix at number 1 are gorgeous)...
I like that you keep adding this bonus! Fun to see 'old pubs' get a special shout-out.
I'm currently re-reading The Man-Eaters of Kumaon (Jim Corbett). I first read this story when I was about 12-years old. What a blood-thirsty adventure-loving kid ~ I had no idea! My copy (now) is a rare edition published in 1945 in India, with a poor cardboard-ish cover and low-quality paper (also produced in India, at the Mysore Paper Mills).

As for the story, the writing isn't so much dated as it is tedious. Corbett repeatedly disrupts the flow of the adventures with backstory of little relevance in the middle of tracking rogue tigers. I hadn't noticed that when I first read it but understandably now have a high bar. I expect I'll not finish the re-reading, having lost my interest and perhaps regrettably, the memory of youthful enjoyment. Always a risk, when one revisits books from childhood.

>42 SandyAMcPherson: Interesting! I don't think I'll join you in a mini-group read of it, but an edition printed in India in 1945 would be the kind of object I would badly want to possess.

Back in the Day, when I worked as a production manager at Bantam Doubleday Dell, we did a co-edition with an Indian publisher. They wanted a very specific paper used, or matched...and we literally could not find a US-sourced paper that was as low-quality and as poorly made as the paper they insisted be matched.

Such a weird world, isn't it.

I'll quit using the added question on >8 richardderus: when it quits speaking to me....

>43 richardderus: Beats me why anyone would want to use such flimsy material in publishing a book. How strange, since only the most careful of handling allows such books to remain in at least "very good" if not "near fine" condition.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy new thread.

Yay to Fall, my favorite season. Beautiful photos of maples.

From your last thread:

Excellent review of the Proulx book. I’ve read a lot of fiction, usually English, where swamps, bogs, or fens play a major role – thinking here of Dorothy L. Sayers and at least one recent romance series.

Congrats on a stellar September.

LOL to ‘driver of the struggle bus’, and please, tell us what you really think about GBBO. *smile*

>7 richardderus: Great lineup.

>34 richardderus: I probably would never have even seen this one, but thanks for taking one for the team and properly abandoning it.

>36 richardderus: Just The Publisher Says is enough to make me run screaming into the night.

>41 richardderus: I got it in 3, too! Yay us.

*smooch*

>41 richardderus: Now how did you know that your answer was the right one when I tried thine first? I was going in alpha order. Please explain!

Oh! Good morning, Richard. We have a gorgeous day. Hope yours is too.

>46 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! The H is eliminated by my 2nd word, MIRTH, so it couldn't be THINE.

Cloudy and drizzly here today, but it's fall and that weather works fine for fall.

>45 karenmarie: Hi Horrible...I get such a kick out of The Sticky Bun Boys and their GBBO podcast, such snark and cleverness is always fun for me. "Driver of the Struggle Bus" just *slays* me!

My Spooktober line-up is pretty awesome, no? The Neolithic-set one, The Téuta's Child, is one I'm especially looking forward to reading. The double-plus ungood ones, well...comes with the territory when you're reviewing.

Stay dry, sweetiedarling.

>44 SandyAMcPherson: Mostly down to protectionism, Sandy. Keep the jobs local by making sure no one has any comparable stuff made better abroad to choose. Actually a necessary step in evolving a robust economy, just ask China.

Bongiorno, Richard. Happy New Thread! Our daughter really gets into Spooktober reading, lining up Halloween-y reads, and this year I talked her into trying Something Wicked This Way Comes. She previously got me to read Turn of the Screw, which I found surprisingly un-wordy and entrancing.

I hope you have a delicious Sunday.

>48 jnwelch: Hi Joe! Spooktober's current two reads, Sea Fever and Anna Katherine Green's The House in the Mist, are both cracking good page-turners indeed. You might should recommend the Green to Becca, she might be hooked by the narrative voice.

Happy new one, Richard!

>50 drneutron: Thank you, Kind Sir. Happy Spooktober!

Hiya, RDear, and happy Monday to you.

Jenna left for work a while ago and Bill's staying home. Coffee in hand, Federalist #42 posted.

*smooch*

>52 karenmarie: Monday, Monday, eh what, Horrible? I'm still topping up my caffeine tank, too. I'll be along directly to see what #42 has to say to my 235-year-younger self.

Two reviews to come for my Spooktober reading. Stand by.

179 Trampling in the Land of Woe by William L.J. Galaini

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: While the First World War rages on Earth's surface, Hephaestion discovers the ideal opportunity to rescue his general, king, and soulmate Alexander the Great from the lowest ring of Hell. The problem? No one’s ever dared such a feat before, and only a madman would try.

As Hephaestion descends into the pit of eternal torment, he discovers unlikely accomplices willing to assist his impossible plan…but complications and subterfuge leave Hephaestion and his allies scrambling for footholds in a world governed by demons, devils, and opportunists. Soon the fires of Hades are the least of his worries as he must outrun, outgun, and outmaneuver beasts and monsters hell-bent on his destruction.

With a cast of unexpected characters from civilizations long buried and historical figures you only thought you knew, Hephaestion must answer the true question of his quest: What does it mean to be known, to be remembered...and perhaps, to be human?

Loyalty, commitment, and love ignore the bounds of death and time in an adventure that explores culture, history, and obsession through the lens of a man who defies reason.

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

My Review: Spooktober starts with a crashing, steam-billowing bittersweet battle-heavy CRASH. Hell, where Alexander of Macedon, genocidal psychopathic horndog, has been spending his afterlife, is gonna have to give him up...Hephaestion, Alexander's earthly lover, best friend, confidant, and now rescuer, has had entirely enough of hanging around in Purgatory waiting for Alexander's sins to be expiated and for him to join up with the patient, still-loving man whose death precipitated Alexander's own.

But you, O Reader, already know...be careful what you wish for, lest the answer be "Yes."

Hephaestion's decision, now that the whole planet's gone mental and tossed itself a mechanized slaughter in the form of the Great War (as WWI was known then...really, it's obvious that our name for it is a retronym if one gives it even a minute's actual thought), is worthy of some demented I Love Lucy-in-Hell weirdness...dead bodies as disguises, inevitable exposure, meeting a new, improved Scooby-group. But it takes us quite a while to get to this point...we're in Hell, not Purgatory, but nowhere near finding Alexander.

The action is, while magisterially slow, quite well-thought-out, and Hephaestion's motives for his quest elicit a lot of push-back from many sources both helping and hindering him. (All the Jesuits in History ending up in Hell was one of my happiest reading-life moments. I love, love, love the little easter-egg moments Author Galaini chucks into this stew!) One character in particular, Yitz the Jew, was perilously close to a stereotype. I got the impression, fortunately, that the author was actually aiming for archetype and, being in Purgatory, then Hell, wasn't saying this is how Jews are but this is how Jews are seen as part of the horribleness of Hell.

The truly delightful conception of the Afterlife as a place where there are all periods of History and all levels of technology intermingling, to be like Doctor Who's episode where Winston Churchill is Caesar and Morris Minors fly through the air under giant balloons was designed: Wrongness, but playfully presented, is still wrongness and still evokes unease. As the struggle to reach his belovèd Alexander continues, Hephaestion remains obsessed with achieving his millennia-held goal of reuniting with him. All around him are people warning, hinting, offering other views. Blinders on, Hephaestion pursues his goal.

And achieves it.

This is not The Song of Achilles. There is no beautiful ending for anyone in Hell. And, as Hephaestion finally achieves his reunion, the full and terrible truth of the answer to a prayer being "Yes" is, at last, borne in upon him.

That is why I gave the story four stars in spite of its too-slow-for-me pace, in spite of its occasionally unpleasant characterizations, in spite of its flaws whatever they might be to you or me. The love one bears for the heart's own darling is not always the feeling the heart's own darling deserves.

A bitter dreg to drink. A truly powerfully importantly real, urgent Truth. Falling in love is not always, or even all that often, the happy end.

Wordle 471 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, STING It's lovely when it's made so easy for one.

180 Red Right Hand by Levi Black

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Charlie Tristan Moore isn’t a hero. She’s a survivor. Already wrestling with the demons of her past, she finds herself tested as never before when she arrives home one night to find herself under attack by three monstrous skinhounds straight out of a nightmare. Just as hope seems lost, she is saved by a sinister Man in Black, dressed in a long, dark coat that seems to possess a life of its own and wielding a black-bladed sword in his grisly red right hand.

But her rescue comes at a cost. The Man in Black, a diabolical Elder God, demands she become his Acolyte and embrace a dark magick she never knew she possessed. To ensure her obedience, he takes her friend and possible love, Daniel, in thrall as a hostage. Now she must join The Man in Black in his crusade to track down and destroy his fellow Elder Gods, supposedly to save humanity from being devoured for all eternity.

But is The Man in Black truly the lesser of two evils–or a menace far more treacherous than the eldritch horrors she’s battling in his name?

Red Right Hand is the first book in the fantastically creepy Mythos War series by Levi Black.

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

My Review: Nyarlathotep! The Crawling Chaos!! I am so so sold on this read. People using ol' H.P.'s stuff in ways that'd probably make him scowl and whine? Bonus points! And Charlie Tristan Moore is someone who would make ol' H.P.'s hackles rise. A woman, a mutt, a person without a pedigree? *gasp* Bring it, say I, and fling it on his grave.

So in this trilogy-starting story, Charlie (our narrator) meets with some really scary, very weird...dog-things...inside her front door as she stumbles in drunk from a binge trying to drink a boy she liked off her mind. The action, in other words, is reported in first person and starts from the get-go, never slacks, and keeps getting higher and higher stakes riveted to it.

What works best about this is that Charlie (Charlotte, really) Tristan Moore's learning what the ruddy hell's going on at the same time we are. She's not narrating from either the Afterlife or a cozy chair in front of a fire, a brandy balloon a-swirl in her hands, relating her youthful wild adventures.

What slightly less impressed me was Charlie Tristan Moore's gradually revealed psych history...it was all a bit too pat, and too obviously engineered to make her the proper tool for Nyarlathotep. It led to the feeling that she was a created tool instead of what I understood her to be, a fortuitously shaped stick that Nyarlathotep found here in ordinary reality and co-opted for his use. If the former is the case, then what the heck would an entity that could exert its will so powerfully *need* with a hench-rat?

Well, no matter, what kept me happily reading was the pace of events once the Man in Black gets his hooks into her and sets her her tasks. I was in the mood for horror, it's Spooktober, we've got truly awful people trying to screw up reality even more than they've managed to do in the past six years...gimme the fake kind, with excitement but no danger, please. This first-of-three violent, gory supernatural-horror-defeating stories filled the bill admirably, used the Lovecraft Universe very creditably while still ringing changes on the themes so they didn't feel leaden and overburdened with MEANING. This is never easy. Author Levi did it well. I know I've slammed those dragon-tattoo books for their repugnant sexual violence against women before. It's not a subject I invite into my entertainment these days.

What made me respond differently to this story is that the violence of Charlie Tristan Moore's past is not presented pruriently, is not downplayed in its effects on her and her life as I felt was the case in those Swedish stories. As she puts herself into terrible situations to serve a man and his needs in this story, Charlie's furiously ragingly hating him, and expressly making herself remember why what happened to her is making Nyarlathotep's abuse of her worse.

It felt, then, for once like her pain was her enemy not her secret power.

And she still succeeds, she still lives, she still has Love to save. It worked for me. If Spooktober's going to mean something to you, try slotting this read into it.

Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back. Gore Vidal, who isn't wrong, but...when has this ever happened? To get elected, all politicians must lie. It's a job requirement. "Your taxes are going up to make Mr. Musk a few billion richer" isn't going to get her a slot at the trough, so she says "TAX THE BILLIONAIRES!" to get elected and then votes for your taxes to go up not theirs.

Happy new thread, Richard.

>55 richardderus: I also got today's in three, more as a fluke than anything else.

Monday *smooch*

>58 bell7: Hi Mary! Happy Moon's Day. I'm enjoying my new thread, thank you for visiting it. *smooch*

>57 richardderus: Why am I missing the referent? A news story I missed? A Vidal novel?

We planted at least four red maples on our hillside. The one at the bottom hasn't started to turn yet, but the three half-way up the hill are turning. A lot of oaks in the woods hereabouts, and they are about the last species to turn.

>60 weird_O: You're missing the referent because I didn't put it in. It's the snappy end of a longer quote from Imperial America: Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia, to wit:

I complain about the United States not being Athens. I certainly say we are a very good Roman republic, and the lies are based upon the most advanced techniques of advertising, which is the only art form my country has ever created—the television commercial—and we sell soap and presidents in the same fashion. Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back.

It was published in 2004 by The Nation's book publishing arm. I don't know if it was purpose-made or a collection of previously published essays because it's been a eally, really long time since 2004.

Hi, Richard! Happy new thread. Sorry for my prolonged absence. I’m reduced to using my iPhone to go online, and it’s a real pain.

Two BBs, both for the Spooktober books you reviewed.

Who’s the “she” in >57 richardderus:? There are so many it could be.

>62 Storeetllr: Hiya Mary! Ugh to websurfing on phones, may whatever crisis/spiritual-debt-repayment induced you to do it be over soon.

"She" is "A Corrupt Politician"...we aren't using "he" for unspecified people anymore and I'm reserving "they" for gramatically demanded or personally requested purposes.

Morning, Richard. I spent some time with Jackson yesterday and I am heading over there this AM. I had to call in for my Wildlife Rehab stint because Bree needed me. We are getting ready for our camping trip to Kentucky on Thursday- hitting the Bourbon Trail. I just started Remarkably Bright Creatures. I know you liked it and I think I will too.

Hiya, RDear, and happy Tuesday to you.

*blinks*

Coffee, check. Small amount of prep for this afternoon's post-mortem on book sale, check. Pain relief for Bakers Cyst in left calf/knee. Check and sigh.

Jenna's at work, Bill's asleep. There is peace in the kingdom.

*smooch*

Wordle 472 5/6

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Guessing-game day. Irritating. AEONS, MIRTH, COUGH, DOUGH, BOUGH

>65 karenmarie: Tuesday orisons, Horrible. I'm not clear about how the heck it came to be October when it was March last week. *sigh*

Hope your Tuesday goes well.

>64 msf59: Oh, you poor abused soul! How *awful* of Bree to call you to help care for that unloved grandchild of yours! Although, in seriousness, I know it was a sad choice to make between the really interesting work and the needed help...these things happen.
***
Well, y'all saw the Wordle results. Ugh. I am not ever happy with the Columbus Method (find a key, land on it) of doing the puzzle.

>63 richardderus: Have you considered "It", particularly for virtual people you despise?

>68 ArlieS: My computer is an "it"...so is my phone...I will not insult things that have no agency to object to my verbal abuse of them. They are important and necessary.

>69 richardderus: Fair enough

Hi Richard, Happy New Thread dear friend.

>71 johnsimpson: Thank you, John!

>66 richardderus: Agree RD. When we get one of those that has umpteen possible right answers all skill goes to the winds.

#GBBO warbles
REBS IS GONE THANK YOU JEEBUS REBS IS GOOONE (I mean, tequila AND scotch bonnet chilis?!? and burning your caramel was just careless.)
Gay-Scot hadda go...his tres leches cake was absolutely awful looking, sounding, and apparently tasting, and what the ever-loving hell was that fraisier doing on top?! Plus the, erm, splats from earlier...just as well he went now.

Maxy's glorious tres leches tower won her star baker, and justly so; her technical was the best (I guess) and her conchas were *stellar* looking. Though if I'm honest, just on looks, I think Abdul's weirdo cake might've won it. Had he done just a weeeeeee bit better a bit earlier...those conchas were only blah not bad, the "technical" performance wasn't great...well. Anyway, I'm glad he's still here and making weird choices like Día de los Muertos calaveras on a tres leches cake.

Cinnamon-roll Sandro is having fun with this. I hope he stays focused, it'd be a shame if he Jürgened at the wrong moment. I fully expect Lizzie-haired oldster to fall next week after that uninspiring performance on each and every single challenge this week. Had gay-Scot and Rebs not been so very dismal it would've been this week.

Blah-haired oldster got some great props! I hope she stays for a while. Syabira, as always, put herself into everything she did, and her telling-off for putting corn (urp) into her cake was weird to me. What they objected to seemed to me to be just...aesthetics? prejudice? I do not get it. They didn't say it tasted foul or made the cake inedible. Hmf, on her behalf.

And, of course, sweet podgy Polish Pooh-bear Janusz. *happy sigh* I hope his spouse is ready to defend the hill he occupies...bearcubs are circling Brighton as we speak. And they will all shout for a slice of his Horchata fruitycake with lots of leche! (that joke's funnier if you speak Mexican Spanish)

>73 PaulCranswick: Yeah...I'm only laughing hollowly with the "Columbus method" gag. Guess, guess, guess.

Hiya RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>66 richardderus: I had the same problem with the first letter. I got it in 4 though.

181 Manhattan Cult Story: Abuse, Crime, Sex, and My Life inside a Secret Organization by Spencer Schneider

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: “We were invisible. We had to be. We took an oath of absolute secrecy. We never even told our immediate families who we were. We went about our lives in New York City. Just like you. We were your accountants, money managers, lawyers, executive recruiters, doctors. We owned your child’s private school and sold you your brownstone. But you’d never guess our secret lives, how we lived in a kind of silent terror and fervor. There were hundreds of us.”

Right under the noses of neighbors, clients, spouses, children, and friends, a secret society, simply called School—a cult of snared Manhattan professionals—has been led by the charismatic, sociopathic and dangerous leader Sharon Gans for decades. Spencer Schneider was recruited in the eighties and he stayed for more than twenty-three years as his life disintegrated, his self-esteem eroded, and he lined the pockets of Gans and her cult.

Cult members met twice weekly, though they never acknowledged one another outside of meetings or gatherings. In the name of inner development, they endured the horrors of mental, sexual, and physical abuse, forced labor, arranged marriages, swindled inheritances and savings, and systematic terrorizing. Some of them broke the law. All for Gans.

“During those years,” Schneider writes, “my world was School. That’s what it’s like when you’re in a cult, even one that preys on and caters to New York’s educated elite. This is my story of how I got entangled in School and how I got out.”

At its core, Manhattan Cult Story is a cautionary tale of how hundreds of well-educated, savvy, and prosperous New Yorkers became fervent followers of a brilliant but demented cult leader who posed as a teacher of ancient knowledge. It’s about double-lives, the power of group psychology, and how easy it is to be radicalized—all too relevant in today's atmosphere of conspiracy and ideologue worship.

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

My Review: I'm going to reproduce the author's "Nine Tell-Tale Signs You're in a Cult":

You give an inordinate amount of time and money to the group.

The group's ideology is strict, exacting, and unforgiving.

Your life is highly regulated by the group.

You cannot challenge the leaders or the ideology—their word is final.

The leaders will punish you for breaking the rules of the group.

Former members are ostracized and denigrated.

The group isolates you from your friends and family.

The group discourages you from thinking for yourself.

You are afraid to leave the group.

I was tense and uneasy as I read this book...I know lots of people like the author from my years living in Manhattan. It could easily be any one of them, any one!, who tells this awful, painful story. I don't think I know the author, though honestly it doesn't matter, the poor guy's been through so much and in service of so little.

His cult experience reminded me of my mentally ill mother's tactics and techniques for controlling others. I don't see that as a nurturing thing, though I suppose I can see why someone who felt...unmoored...would see it as such. It's a cruel world out there, and to be told...convinced...that the cruelty you're experiencing is actually lovingkindness replicated religious nuts' favorite tactic of "love, it's all done from love"...just not for you, vile sinner, but for the little animatronic cultist they are trying to free you to become! (I think they actually have the balls to call it "your best self.")

So his decades of serving the whims and needs of capricious, demanding, judgmental Others are a bitter recapitulation of the way my experience of christian and jewish religious nuts tried to grab hold of me in my youth. It was a chilling, dreadful reminder of how easy it is for others who have Othered you to convince you to give up the real, authentic you and submit to them and their warped, perverted will.

That said, the author's clearly got something to say about how he feels vis-a-vis gay people. No mention ever comes without his vigorous denial that he's gay. Okay, so...why bring it up? It kinda-sorta goes along with my main dissatisfaction with the read as a read. It feels scattershot. It takes time to explain a life, and I think that time was laser focused on the axe he quite genuinely and necessarily grinds against Sharon Gans and her vile School. It left me feeling like I was looking at the hole where that guy had been, not the guy who'd climbed out of said hole.

It's #Spooktober. Read something factual...and still truly, inescapably, chilling and horrifying.

This.
Wordle 473 3/6

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Has. Never. Happened. Before! AEONS. MIRTH, MARSH

>77 thornton37814: Hi Lori! It was a very weird day today, all five letters in my first two words! That's never happened to me before.

>76 karenmarie: Hi Horrible...it's a Humpday, all right. I forgot it was a Jewish holiday. Some things are impossible without the people who took off today. Oh well, no one will die.

>79 richardderus: Very nice! 4 for impulsive old me.

I can't catch up, but I skimmed and look forward to more from your spookfest. I dug out my copy of The Quick just because, but I doubt I'll get to it. I can always come back here for a bit of shiver.

>81 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! I'm intrigued by The Quick, which I don't think I've heard of before. I've gone off into Three Nights with the Manny for a respite...though a heavily tattooed manny in charge of a six-month-old might give motherly persons a shiver.

>74 richardderus: I won’t read your GBBS rant until I see it on Netflix on Friday. I’m really enjoying the show—I see why people like it so much.

Where do you see it early?

Have a great week!

Karen O

>83 klobrien2: Hi Karen O.! I'm glad to see you here.

There exist things called "virtual private networks." There are many uses for them.

Happy newish one, Richard. You got me with a BB for The Helpline which sounds like a feel good book. I have enough of the other kind and am pretty much ignoring the spooky season. It doesn't really feel like autumn here on the west coast, our highs are in the 70 F and above range (20 C +).

>85 Familyhistorian: I'm happy we're hitting highs of 12C or thereabouts. It's lurvely to me despite that endless cloudy drizzle coming out of the heavens.

Glad I zapped you with that BB, and happy to see you here.

>63 richardderus: Thanks. But now I have another wound. Still, thanks. I'll be avoiding that cult thing. Thanks.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>79 richardderus: Wow, and such a nice pattern!
I needed one more, but had no yellow letters :-)

Sweet Thursday, Richard. We are off to the Bluegrass State. Wish us the best. We also brought plenty of warm clothes. It may dip down into the 30s, a couple of those nights.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you.

>78 richardderus: I cannot fathom giving over control of my life to someone else. I won’t read this book. I’ve read enough about cults with the Manson Family and even spent time with a cult in 1973 in Los Angeles at the Hare Krishna Temple for 3 days/2 nights for a sociology class at Peppy Tech. They made it seem so reasonable, but they worked hard to bring me into the fold and I saw first hand how they isolated you from your family/friends.

>79 richardderus: Congrats on three! I got today’s in three.

*smooch*

Happy Thursday, Richard! Should be a gorgeous sunny 73 degrees here today, and I'll probably take a walk outside on my lunch break to enjoy it while I can. *smooch*

Wordle 474 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, SLOTH Another "gimme" day! That was fun.

>91 bell7: Your today is my tomorrow...today it will touch 70°, then go up slightly.

>90 karenmarie: Me three! (on both counts) heh

Feeling umoored, angry, and rootless will give you the *need* to find a firm anchorpoint. I myownself had to battle against so very much negativity and deeply personal dislike within my family that others really had less chance to get their hooks in...it had to be *severe* for me even to notice except intellectually that they were trying to be abusive.

>89 msf59: *hic* take...hic...good care now!

>88 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! I'm so glad you see the pretty pattern, too...it is my favorite thing about the game.

>92 richardderus: You did one better than me, Richard. Hope you continue to enjoy your weather. We will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner when it still feels like summer - so strange.

>94 Familyhistorian: It's weird when that happens. It used to occur when I lived in Texas about every other year...but that's US Thanksgiving at the end of November. If it was in October down here, it would *always* be a summer weather holiday!

I made it to your thread! But it's not shiny and new anymore. lol *smooch*! Hope you're doing well!

>66 richardderus: COUGH, DOUGH, BOUGH....it's always a case of "do I just go for it?" (and end up taking 4 guesses) or "do I systematically find the first letter by making a word out of all the possibilities?". When I am feeling rash, I just go for it and from time to time it pays off.

>92 richardderus: I think I took 5 guesses for that Wordle! Humph.

Happy new thread Richard!

182 Do What They Say or Else by Annie Ernaux (tr. Christopher Beach, Carrie Noland)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Originally published in 1977, Do What They Say or Else is the second novel by French author Annie Ernaux. Set in a small town in Normandy, France, the novel tells the story of a fifteen-year-old girl named Anne, who lives with her working-class parents. The story, which takes place during the summer and fall of Anne’s transition from middle school to high school, is narrated in a stream-of-consciousness style from her point of view. Ernaux captures Anne’s adolescent voice, through which she expresses her keen observations in a highly colloquial style.

As the novel progresses, and Anne’s feelings about her parents, her education, and her sexual encounters evolve, she grows into a more mature but also more conflicted and unhappy character, leaving behind the innocence of her middle school years. Not only must she navigate the often-confusing signals she receives from boys, but she also finds herself moving further and further away from her parents as she surpasses their educational level and worldview.

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

My Review: In this early and seemingly often overlooked entry into Nobel Laureate Ernaux's œuvre, I found a lot to wonder about. I think the entirety of an author's career is often set by the earliest works, either in action or reaction. In this case, Author Ernaux never moved her focus away from her Self, her essential project becoming refining and redacting and recalibrating the instrument of her creativity as she maintained a solid lock on what she knew best.

A woman writing in a cultural space wherein a man's wife is "sa femme"..."his woman"...is going to see her sex as a defining quality. Author Ernaux's fifteen-year-old protagonist, Anne, is...bewildered. She's reading The Stranger, and thinking of how she would create her own feminine take on the subject...teenagers and fanfiction go back a long, long way, but I am really hard-pressed to see how Meursault could be portrayed as female...she's trying to interpret her male cohort's weird, contradictory actions and words, she's trying to find some context into which her parents, the eternal enemies of our self-defining selves, fit recognizably. In short, she's fifteen.

Mme Ernaux delves into this maelstrom of bewildered and beleaguered self-ness with refreshing honesty, in that she doesn't overlay an adult's re-vision of the whole horrible mishegas of being fifteen. What happens as a result...keeping in mind the author was thirty-seven when the book came out...is what I'd call a sociology of adolescent femaleness in flux. Everything, necessarily, is related to Anne's Self in this book, since the project adolescents are engaged in is defining the Self in opposition to some Other, "I AM this" requiring "therefore I am NOT that," or it loses its solidity. It's Anne's frustratingly true-to-life Self-formation that makes me want to scream at the pages. I am not an adolescent and haven't been in a good long time. I do want to restate, though, that Anne is involved in the central project of adolescence and therefore gets her space to create only as and when afforded it. My adult(ish) male impatience is directed at my memories of the emotional devastation of the project on me, as called forth whole and entire from my own adolescence.

This is how one knows Author Ernaux was wise to stick to her focus, set so early in her writing career. A journeyman effort, decades old, brings an experienced reader into a powerfully emotional state by evoking uncertainty and angst and confusion.

The translators of this edition are to be lauded for their near-invisible work. The separate phrases are impressively wrought, the cumulative effect that Author Ernaux's writing is famous for is never out of their view:

Céline is going out with a guy from our high school, a junior. He's waiting to meet her at four o'clock on the corner next to the post office. At least it's clear what her secret is. If I was her I wouldn't even hide it. But the person who I am has no shape. Just thinking about it makes me feel heavy, like a real fatso. I'd like to sleep until a time when I could understand myself better—maybe when I'm eighteen or twenty-one. There must come a day when everything is clear, when everything falls into place.

The act of self-definition's agonies are limpidly clear. The course Anne will take is set. The problems are already present and the solutions are, to her, as yet unknowable. By the end of this under-150-page story, she's not clear but she knows clarity exists:

I have nothing to say about the topic the teacher gave us, just disordered thoughts. If I let myself go, I'd write about whatever I wanted, I would write about blood and cries, and there would be a red dress too, and jeans. People don't suspect the importance of clothes in what happens to us. And there would be meals in the kitchen. My father would say something he had heard somewhere, and my mother would stretch out a tired leg. I would write about anything, as long as it made a tight knot around me.

That evergreen of young life, the "come-here-go-away" approach avoidance dance! It's never more than that, though. This is an early work, and as such lacks some of the whole-brain fineness of resolution that would, eg I Remain in Darkness (an account of her mother's descent into Alzheimer's), Getting Lost (the diary of a passionate love affair she had with a married man), characterize the more recent work from her pen. None of it is ever less than personal. None of it is ever less than brutal, honestly, in it effects on the unsuspecting. But it all became more deft, less observational and intellectual, as her métier became her mind.

Starting here, with a teenaged girl's life still inchoate but sensed and sought within her mind and life, will ground you in the enormous pleasures to come. I think anyone who reads an Ernaux story and doesn't want more is simply and sadly missing out.

>98 humouress: Thanks, Nina!

>97 LovingLit: I solve that issue with an unthinking application of alpha-order rule. It's easier than trying to suss out the Times's nefarious intentions. I save that for their Opinion page.

>96 The_Hibernator: "Shiny and new" is all relative, Rachel. After buying a super-citrus-scented 1977 Gremlin, I never bought another new car again. Lease-end trade-ins were new enough pour moi. So think of it this way: Other people paid your depreciation costs for you! *smooch*

Wordle 475 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, CRAZY, DANDY Fully caffeinated, therapized, and ready to rock on this one.

>99 richardderus: Thank you for your timely insights into Ernaux's work, Richard. I was wondering.

Meanwhile, 6 for me today. I'm over it and moving on. See you tomorrow!

>101 richardderus: nicely done! Mine took five with a couple of guesses on the first letter. Friday *smooch*

>103 bell7: Hi Mary, happy weekend-ahead's reads!

>103 bell7:, >102 LizzieD: I was right pleased about this one's solution. It was a good puzzle in that I got a chance to open the filing-cabinet drawers more than once while thinking it through.

>102 LizzieD: I suspect Ernaux's later writings might appeal to you, Peggy, but not too terribly much. I think her close, intense self-examination is interesting but I am not, myownself, a woman so I appreciate what little guidance is available to the inner workings of the mysterious creatures.

>104 richardderus: I am not, myownself, a woman so I appreciate what little guidance is available to the inner workings of the mysterious creatures. No mystery, just common sense ... ah, I see your point.

Wordled in 6 today so a bit disgruntled; mind you, yesterday was a 3, the day before was a 2 and I had another 2 on Sunday.

>105 humouress: yesterday was a 3, the day before was a 2 and I had another 2 on Sunday

Belt up about a 6day, then! Good heavens! What a great week this has been for your results averages.

>106 richardderus: I was trying to ... gruntle?.. become undisgruntled?.. cheer myself up.

Wordle 476 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, RIGOR, VIGOR Interesting words. I like these two!

>107 humouress: Good word, isn't it...gruntle isn't one you'll hear that often but it's a good, solid English word.

>108 richardderus: Pity you "Murrikans" who take English as a foreign language!

>110 PaulCranswick: Huh! Very odd coming from a representative of the people who add French spellings to simple words, eg "centre" instead of the correct "center" or "vigour" in place of the self-evidently superior "vigor," to demonstrate their cultural debt to a country they say they hate...?

>111 richardderus: I was fairly sure that we would not quite be in accord on that one, dear fellow! English owes much of itself to so many influences just as it has then influenced so much of modern international parlance (there is the French again!) - French, German, Latin, Greek, Dutch, Hindi, Arabic all helping mould or as you may say "mold" the language we love. In the Commonwealth countries generally we acknowledge that contribution to our language in our spelling whilst Americans choose to redefine it. More clarity less character.

'Morning, RDear.

Happy Saturday.

Coffee, jammies, reading, possibly take out for lunch. Major excitement here in central NC.

*smooch*

>113 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! *smooch*

>112 PaulCranswick: ...yes..."character"...like "Gloucester" being mangled into "gloster" and "Chiswick" into "chizik"...the kind of "character" that's, just incidentally of course!, useful for oh, let's just pull one out of the hat, gatekeeping for example, just to take one easy one.

English is most definitely y'all's best gift to the world, don't get me wrong, but like any living language its growth and its health aren't tied to its Permanence (cf. French) and Immutability (cf. Latin). Only dead things stop changing at the speed of life.

>114 richardderus: As a book lover I would say that the gift of the language was the greatest thing we gave the world but telephone, television, jet engine, radar, DNA profiling and the world wide web were pretty decent ones too.

I get the living language point, RD, and it is a good one but simplification isn't always an improvement when you spent miserable days at school being lectured on "correct" spelling!

>115 PaulCranswick: ...thus making my point about the wrongness of language gatekeeping even stronger. There is no incontrovertibly correct way to do language. I'm always in favor of making it easier by making it follow logical patterns...including patterns of inheritance.

It's interesting that word 3 doesn't take the u while word 4 does.
I broke the habit on holiday and have since deleted the shortcuts. I now just watch your various triumphs and disasters from the sidelines.

>117 Helenliz: "Rigor" is the nominitive case of rigorem, which is the earliest root of our word rigor "harshness, severity in dealing with persons; force; cruelty," which even the French did not dare to gum up with unnecessary, inconvenient, ugly, and unpleasant superfluous lettres. Oops, I mean letters since I'm speaking English.

Really! You've decided not to entre the lystes any longueure! I am stunned.

>95 richardderus: The thing is that Texas is known to be warm. BC is known for its rain forests, so not warm in October.

Bleugh! Did not get Wordle today. I thought of it for my 4th word but dismissed it.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Sunday to you.

>115 PaulCranswick: and >116 richardderus: I’m still personally a stickler for word usage and spelling as they were taught to me, but after listening to The Story of Human Language by John McWhorterm I accept his arguments for the validity of pidgins, creoles, pronunciations based on region or cultural/ethnic background, and the evolution of languages.

Wordle in 4, on my second cup of coffee.

*smooch*

Wordle 477 5/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, VOUCH, HOLLY, HOWDY

Really.

Good morning, Richard. Same Wordle result today by a different path, and same comment. Really.

>123 LizzieD: Weird choice, right Peggy?

>121 karenmarie: Took me 5, but I got there. Word usage and spelling and pronunciation are always in flux. It has to be that way or things go all Aramaic on your ḥmrʾ.

>120 humouress: Ha! Well, it took me 5 if it gives you any satisfaction.

>119 Familyhistorian: Yes. Exactly.

Hi. Just passing through. Your thread is usually a pleasant stop on the journey.

>125 weird_O: Hi Bill! Happy to see you stopping in.

>122 richardderus: I didn't believe that was the word either. Maybe Wordle is trying to weed out non-Americans?

Ha! I had a similar reaction to today's wordle.

>122 richardderus: really?! Congratulations on getting that.

>129 Helenliz:, >128 jessibud2:, >127 Familyhistorian: It was...odd, and guaranteed to be divisive, but I guess it gets people to talk about the game so that's a good thing.

I come to Richard's (Germanic name/ French pronunciation) for the books. I never acquired the habit so ignore the game.

>131 benitastrnad: And I'd expect no different from you, Benita, as I've never seen you participate in any of the games that periodically sweep the internet. Nor heard you discuss any of them even in passing. And I do review a LOT of books. (I'm actually over 50% reviewed for books I've read this year! That's unheard of for me!)

>130 richardderus: I'm not discussing it. I mean, really!

4 today and I like this word.

>134 PaulCranswick: What's wrong with Aramaic?

183 The Lindbergh Nanny by Mariah Fredericks (available 15 November 2022)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Mariah Fredericks's The Lindbergh Nanny is powerful, propulsive novel about America’s most notorious kidnapping through the eyes of the woman who found herself at the heart of this deadly crime.

When the most famous toddler in America, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., is kidnapped from his family home in New Jersey in 1932, the case makes international headlines. Already celebrated for his flight across the Atlantic, his father, Charles, Sr., is the country’s golden boy, with his wealthy, lovely wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, by his side. But there’s someone else in their household—Betty Gow, a formerly obscure young woman, now known around the world by another name: the Lindbergh Nanny.

A Scottish immigrant deciphering the rules of her new homeland and its East Coast elite, Betty finds Colonel Lindbergh eccentric and often odd, Mrs. Lindbergh kind yet nervous, and Charlie simply a darling. Far from home and bruised from a love affair gone horribly wrong, Betty finds comfort in caring for the child, and warms to the attentions of handsome sailor Henrik, sometimes known as Red. Then, Charlie disappears.

Suddenly a suspect in the eyes of both the media and the public, Betty must find the truth about what really happened that night, in order to clear her own name—and to find justice for the child she loves.

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

My Review: A lot of ink is still spilled about this dreadful criminal act, ninety years on; it has everything we love in a public spectacle: a pretty woman, a handsome hero, a quiet young girl with big dreams. That these won't survive contact with the ever-increasing celebrity culture that mass media, only recently including newsreels and radio broadcasts, with its invasive tentacles shoving into each and every cranny of the principals' lives, thoughts, actions before, during, and after the events described, is the darkest tinge of tragedy.

As part of this non-fiction novel coming this November, Author Fredericks presents her research in epitome..."this is true, this bit's been changed but is mostly true"...which to my mind is the proper way to handle a researched work of fiction that is based on fact. I do not care for the research-paper lists of sources, citations, and so forth, that some authors provide so as to spike the many, many guns aimed at creators in internet culture. "Appropriation! Inaccuracies and falsehoods!" ::eyeroll:: It's called FICTION, people, CTFD.

My personal axe now ground to my own satisfaction, let me tell you what I enjoyed most about the read:

It's not clear where I'll be living. I'm part of the Lindbergh household, but they have no house of their own yet, which is why they're living with her parents. They've not even been married two years and seem to have spent most of that time in the air.

That's Betty's voice from the beginning of chapter three. She's direct. She's concise. She does not shilly-shally, not ever and not once. I like that in a person, I appreciate that in a character, and I am glad to say that Betty was (despite the media circus that she endured without much in the way of role models to guide her) a delightful companion in her own life as well. (The author speaks of her meeting with A. Scott Berg when he was writing his Lindbergh biography, what transpired during that meeting, and this informed her awareness of how she wants Betty's voice to sound. She nailed it.)

This being a factual story, and the author giving no hint that she intended to pull a fast one at the end, I was deeply pleased to feel invested in the unfolding tale. It's really easy, with a story not exactly underreported, and about which there is quite an extensive trove of writing already. (Ye gawds some of what's been said...!) No, the ending hasn't changed; yes, the guilty party's guilt is evident; but there are so many cockroaches scuttling for cover in any person's existence if an arc-lamp like the one aimed at the Lindberghs is trained on it that there's room for a lot of juicy speculation.

How can you not be impressed when someone takes ninety-year-old facts and makes a solid, well-made story out of them?

But...I hear the Gotcha! Gang clearing their throats...this is a four-star review and you're describing a five-star experience. Well, no thing made by human hands is perfect, is it. I rankle mightily at the author's choice to ascribe a certain suspect's furtive, secretive, and frankly unpleasant suspiciousness as down to that suspect's gayness. Yes indeed, the suspect's actual sexuality was not ever even hinted to be "deviant" in the parlance of the day. In the endnotes, the author says she made this deliberate choice to give the character a "need for privacy that would be instantly understandable to the modern reader."

Uh-huh.

That star-losing choice aside...Yes, I'm impressed. Yes, I'd say go pre-order one. I'm so glad I was able to read it as a DRC because the wait for the library's inevitable copy will be long. Get on it soon.

>134 PaulCranswick: It's the oldest language in which I know the word for "ass."

>133 humouress: *chuckle* Well, it can't be for the spelling, so I'm curious to know what it is. Post-coffee, though, which I ain't yet.

184 Hester by Laurie Lico Albanese

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A vivid reimagining of the woman who inspired Hester Prynne, the tragic heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, and a journey into the enduring legacy of New England's witchcraft trials.

Who is the real Hester Prynne?

Isobel Gamble is a young seamstress carrying generations of secrets when she sets sail from Scotland in the early 1800s with her husband, Edward. An apothecary who has fallen under the spell of opium, his pile of debts have forced them to flee Edinburgh for a fresh start in the New World. But only days after they've arrived in Salem, Edward abruptly joins a departing ship as a medic—leaving Isobel penniless and alone in a strange country, forced to make her way by any means possible.

When she meets a young Nathaniel Hawthorne, the two are instantly drawn to each other: he is a man haunted by his ancestors, who sent innocent women to the gallows—while she is an unusually gifted needleworker, troubled by her own strange talents. As the weeks pass and Edward's safe return grows increasingly unlikely, Nathaniel and Isobel grow closer and closer. Together, they are a muse and a dark storyteller; the enchanter and the enchanted. But which is which?

In this sensuous and hypnotizing tale, a young immigrant woman grapples with our country's complicated past, and learns that America's ideas of freedom and liberty often fall short of their promise. Interwoven with Isobel and Nathaniel's story is a vivid interrogation of who gets to be a "real" American in the first half of the 19th century, a depiction of the early days of the Underground Railroad in New England, and atmospheric interstitials that capture the long history of "unusual" women being accused of witchcraft. Meticulously researched yet evocatively imagined, Laurie Lico Albanese's Hester is a timeless tale of art, ambition, and desire that examines the roots of female creative power and the men who try to shut it down.

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

My Review: A book about passion elicits passionate responses. Thus The Scarlet Letter from its date of publication to the present. What Author Albanese did was meld a fact of Hawthorne's life...all his novels save this one sprang from known biographical incidents..and said, "...except...? Hmmm" and ran with it.

Thus we have this novel, which I stress so loudly because I've seen a lot of responses to the book that take exception to the author's assumption that Hawthorne was always a writer working from his own biography. I fail to understand this. It's a novel, and novels are fiction. The way they get their lives is someone thinking, "hey, what if..." and running with it. "Oh it's unsourced in anything from the time" well now, our little firebug Hawthorne might've hidden many a secret forever in his purgings, mightn't he? What he didn't want us to know, we do not know. ...that sounds weird but I don't know how to fix it.

Anyway, considering the story on its own merits...I like it okay. I don't love it.

Too much, too much, I thought as Isobel synesthesia came to the fore, then as we whizzed back into the seventeenth century again.... It's just another thing to mark her out as weird, this strange sensory disorder. Her life was eventful and her loves bone-rattlingly deep wasn't enough? When I read novels I want to think about how the life unfolding before me is moving, not how it's making me move between emotional registers. That's when I begin to feel a bit like a footstool, moved here, plopped there, and all in service of someone else's visions and needs.

Yes yes, I know, that is what novelists do. But the ones whose work I treasure do it with less grunting and heaving.

Setting the novel in Salem, and with Hawthorne...well, the parallels to his probable state of guilt and discomfort over the history even then looked on as brutal and his treatment of Isobel aren't challenging to form are they. I wasn't particularly enamoured with the author's take on Hawthorne, finding him a dreary sort of navel-gazing git. I'm not all the way sure that he could've been as quivery as a blancmange and still written the work he did. I could, of course, be wrong. After all, I suspect that Melville's obvious tendresse for Hawthorne was not entirely unreciprocated and I am *loudly*assured* this is unthinkable.

Back to Hester. I wish it was less hectic. I would've enjoyed a more uncluttered interior for the novel to present itself to me; one colored less hectically and decorated less thoroughly with lovely bibelots and literary objet d'art. But the read as it was, distractingly stuffed into a space a bit too small for it, was a deeply interesting and quite soundly reasoned story. The passive little Hawthorne falling for the intensely alive Isobel? Yes, I see it. The quivering awakening of the young people to bodily pleasure? It is ever thus, and so always involving to me. The resolution of the matters that, quite inevitably, come from the aforementioned awakening? Fortuitous! And, as the epilogue-y thing at the end makes Ever. So. Clear, it all came good.

Please don't tie bows and smack 'em on the butts of my stories. I'd like some room to put my own thoughts into the story's likely continuation.

These are the things that kept me from warbling my fool lungs out about this read. Others will, I do not doubt, feel differently. I expect so, in fact, and hope I'll be seeing the author's gorgeous cover art in many a gift pile this Yule.

>99 richardderus: Thanks for posting this Richard. Wanted to look in on our new Nobel laureate - maybe this will be my starting point

>137 richardderus: Curious to read Hester although the source novel is now Hawthornes best. Sexuality and witchcraft - or witch hunts - seem often to go together.

>138 magicians_nephew: It's a good first Ernaux, I'd say, though I'd go from there to A Man's Place right away.

Hester is...okay. I liked it well enough to read it in two sittings but I don't think it'll blow your socks off, Jim.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Monday to you.

>132 richardderus: Impressive stat – over 50% reviewed for books read this year. Congrats.

>135 richardderus: Excellent review, as always, but I’m dodging it.

Monday morning blues. Coffee to try to make them go away.

*smooch*

Wordle 478 3/6

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AEONS, NOBLE, ENJOY I followed my three-letters rule and applied the Mary's Troublesome Letter™ algorithm to get here in 3.

>140 karenmarie: Hi Horrible. Sorry about the blues, it's a perfect fall morning here so I don't feel inclined to complain about anything.

Thanks re: reviews stat! I'm getting a lot of mileage out of the Burgoineing. I added an average of seven books a month reviewed to my total on that stick.

What?!? You DARE to ignore my Warble of Joy?! Madam! You reach above your appointed station. Go forth and preorder.

>141 richardderus: I had also Wordle in three today. peony, money, enjoy
It made me happy after all sixes and fives last week (and a four).

Morning, Richard. You got me with the nanny. Thanks and *smooch* for the day.

Four for me ---- impulse not reined in.

(What is "ass" in Aramaic????)

>141 richardderus: Took me five today, but I'm okay with that. Heck, I'm okay with anything, the Giants pulled a win over Green Bay out of their hats.

>145 bell7: I expected your mood to be elevated, Mary...that was pretty bloody amazing wasn't it.

...hats...yeah, sure, why not.

>144 LizzieD: It's ḥmrʾ. Also means "donkey" or "domesticated animal." "Ride/ing a ḥmrʾ" was understood by Aramaic speakers to be idiomatic for "low class" or "plain ol' po'folks."

4days are not to be scorned!

>143 FAMeulstee: Isn't it nice when *that* kind of streak gets broken? I'm not sure it means much in the end, but we gather our rosebuds while we may.

>146 richardderus: I almost went with "butts" (I know, I know, don't laugh) but decided I liked the magic reference of "hats" ;)

>147 bell7: *chuckle*

>135 richardderus: - Sounds good!

>149 katiekrug: It really, truly was. I was very impressed, especially vis-a-vis Hester. There was no contest as to which I'd choose to read of a fall nook-sitting.

Well they both sound well worth a look.

>141 richardderus: Excellent!

>151 Helenliz: I'm thinking you'd like Hester better than I did, Helen, but both are better than average reads for certain.

Hiya, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

>142 richardderus: Well, since all your warbles are Warbles of Joy, I’d be in serious trouble if I got BB’d by them all. (Is the brownnosing working?)

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Morning, Richard. We are back. We got a lot of experience under our collective belt, along with a few delectable pours of our favorite bourbons. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip but I am glad we did it. The fall colors were beautiful.

Wordle 479 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, DAILY, VALID That was interesting. From nothing, something! And Mary's Troublesome Letter™ didn't help for once!

>154 msf59: Whirlwind trips are really good times, in my experience. No dithering, just "we've got x hours so let's spend 'em here" usually makes for a better time.

>153 karenmarie: Tuesday orisons, Horrible. I'm recovering from my shot yesterday...ghastly few hours in the middle of the night, cold and shaky, but now it's over so I'm calling it good.

*hmf* re: your attempt at sucking up.

Good sunshine-y morning to you, RD!

Happy fall gorgeousness! I'm eager to greet the leaves this weekend, my sweetiedarling Valerie is going to be here for a few days. I'm planning to get us out to Suffolk where the leaves are changing colors in bits and patches.

Anyway, hoping all is well chez vous, smoochling.

>155 richardderus: We had a similar path today, though my guess #2 was DIARY, and you're absolutely right that the Y didn't help.

>159 bell7: I'm completely surprised that the Troublesome Letter didn't help us today! Nonetheless, it was a satisfying puzzle.

*smooch*

'Morning, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you. I hope you're fully recovered from Monday's shot and ghastly overnight time.

*hmf* only on my attempt at sucking up to you? I'll have to try harder and will patiently wait for another opportunity.

*smooch*

#GBBO opinions
Buh-bye now, Purplehaired Whozits! This is the first series where I can't remember several peoples' names this far in. Anyway, Applecatchers is gone and a week too late. Even though Gay Scot deserved the boot, they shoulda kicked this'un to the kerb (note intentional misspelling) earlier. Those, um, splats that she produced for steamed pudding were horrendous. I was surprised she wasn't last on the lemon-meringue challenge, TBH, though poor Syabira (who was last) really had a huge disadvantage not even knowing what the hell they were on about.

Dame Prudence was truly mean giving as the entire instructions, "Make a lemon meringue pie." But the best bakers in the UK really shouldn't need more than a list of ingredients to manage something edible, if not extraordinary. (I think blowtorching meringue is just fine, BTW, because it's all going to end up scraped onto the plate anyway.)

Abdul's and Janusz's downfalls were flavors, though Syabira didn't really stand a chance after using watermelon flavoring in her adorable steamed puds. Janusz's coconut flavored sponges had the same issue, using flavoring, when I actually think a piña colada steamed pudding sounds good. Abdul's flavor choices were...off...somehow, both the signature fig and date puds and the spice cake just missed somehow. They looked really fine, especially Abdul's amazing mirror glaze! (Sidebar: I think mirror glazes are pretty but they taste, and feel, yucky to me. Luckily they peel off easily enough.) Janusz's signature was So Very Gay (appropriate for Coming Out Day airing!), tasted okay, but Sandro...oh my heck. Pull out the stops, Sandro, vibe your way to Star Baker!

That Earth sculpture...wow. I honestly wouldn't care if it tasted like cardboard when it looked like that! And it tasted great, you could see the judges' faces appreciating the way it all came together. His decent showing on the lemon-meringue challenge served him well. If it'd been Syabira (poor lamb! all that arranging work splodged to chaos!) who served up that planet she *still* couldn't've been star baker. Those apple/cherry steamed puds look scrummy and the custard...so smooth, rich, and warm...*drool*

So all's well in the Bake Off Tent. I can not WAIT to hear the Sticky Bun Boys David and Michael go after the disasters this week!

>161 karenmarie: *hmf* indeed, Madam. *hmf* and *hmf* again.

Honestly it was just the one nasty patch then nothing. I'm delighted of course, feeling punk when Valerie's visiting from Texas would just stink. I'm eager to see her this evening!

The nasty night meant I didn't get today's reviews done, though. I'm aiming for Friday. I'm so glad you're not going to have to wait much longer to get the Baker's Cyst dealt with...no fun at all having that kind of sharp/ache/throb pain in one's knees. *smooch*

Wordle 480 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, IONIC *squee*

I literally looked at the positions of the letters I got right, thought "ah what the hell, it'll be five not four but let's try this" and it was a THREE day!!

>164 richardderus: Similar to my thought process and three for me too.

>164 richardderus: That was a shutout for me.

You got me with your review of The Lindbergh Nanny. Looks like I was early too, only 5 ahead of me in the holds line.

>165 humouress:, >166 Familyhistorian: Yay!/Sorry!

It was one of those "do ya feel lucky, punk?" words.

>166 Familyhistorian: Oh good, I think you'll enjoy your time w/Betty Gow, Meg.

Hi, Richard! I’ve been MIA lately. Got a terrible cold—sore throat, congestion, headache, intestinal issues—from the grandkids and have been ugh since Sunday night. (NOT covid, thank all the stars.) One of the worst things is not being able to help my daughter with both her kids sick.

You got me with the Lindbergh Nanny. I vaguely recall my grandparents talking about the kidnapping when I was very young. It was such a huge deal people were still talking about it 20 years later.

Got Wordle in 3 today too, with only the i and the o in the wrong places. It was a complete guess on my part. I was kinda shocked.

>168 Storeetllr: Hi Mary...boo hiss on your cold, but I know what you mean about it being a foul one. My allergy attack morphed into a gross cold, too. I'm boostered for covid and tested negative for it, so...ptui on colds!

You'll enjoy Betty Gow a lot, I wager. Her voice is completely charming.

Congrats for your excellent luck Wordleing! *smooch*

'Morning, RD! Happy Thursday to you.

Congrats on your Wordle in 3. I got it in 3 today, and I was pleased, too.

It's still early, Jenna's off to work, Bill's sleeping. I have coffee.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Happy Early Morning!
Wordle 481 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, QUALE, EQUAL
I'm up and caffeinated and needing to get on with Valerie's visit's pleasures. If I have a chance to check in later, I'll do so, but sending hugs all around.

>170 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! Coffee = Life. I'm gurgling it down to keep myself from losing the head of steam that having in-person fun builds up.

Have a fab time with Valerie.
>:-)

>173 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen! It's going to be a Practical Stuff day but in good company.

Have fun with Valerie, o caffeinated one.

>99 richardderus: lovely review RD! You've sold me, anyway :)

>139 richardderus: I too, plan to read A Man's Place; whether it'll be my first or second Ernaux, I am yet to know.

>164 richardderus: squee indeed! I missed out on that one entirely! One of my rare misses :(

>171 richardderus: I got it in three after some hard thinking. Your guess #3 would never have occurred to me so I'll have to put that one in the back pocket as an option.

Hope you had a great time with Valerie today!

Much happiness! Visitors!

Valerie and I shopped for clothes, a task we BOTH hate. I needed to try stuff on because I've lost so much weight in the past two years and, no matter what I eat or how much, I'm still down over 30lb from pre-covid weight. We went into Land's End Outlet in Garden City, and she bought me a lot of good stuff that I know fits the new body.

Tomorrow it's going to be a trip to Old Westbury Gardens, I think, if we can motivate out the door in time.

I'm too pooped to do more than say "thanks for the good wishes" and now collapse into snores.

*smooches* all around.

Happy Friday, Richard dear!
A day late, as I completely forgot to do my Thursday rounds.

>179 richardderus: Shopping for clothes is no fun, glad it is done. Enjoy the gardens, if you get there.

*smooch*

Happy Friday, Richard. Glad your shopping excursion went well with Valerie. We are in for a chilly stretch here. A lot of Jackson time today, which means no birds and very little reading. Oh, well...

Hi y'all! I'm dropping my Wordle, and toddling off to go to the gorgeous gardens after breakfasting with Valerie.
Wordle 482 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, CROWD, FLOOR

It's a *perfect* fall day! *smooch*

Hi RD, and happy Friday to you.

Having someone help with the Dread Clothes Shopping chore makes it go better.

edited to add: Congrats on 4. It took me 5 today.

Have fun with Valerie!

*smooch*

Dropping in to wish you a wonderful weekend! Glad you had a great time shopping with Valerie!

Glad to hear weather was perfect for your excursion, RDear. I hope it remains that way for the rest of Valerie's visit.

Happy Saturday, RichardDear!

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Do you use NetGalley as well as Edelweiss? I find that Edelweiss has better nonfiction selections. But I am currently only on NetGalley.

Hooray for new well-fitting duds, and Hooray for Valerie, for helping you get them. I haven't in-store shopped for clothes in so many years I would probably collapse and die if I tried it alone now.

Wow...whirlwind day. It's so hard to say goodbye, but we had a great visit and a lovely last afternoon of EATING!!! I got my annual porkfest breakfast (bacon, 3 kinds of sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs precisely the way I like them, bacon, home fries, bacon), and we each enjoyed gargantuan amounts of our preferred sweets...hers are chocolate mousse cake, chocolate fudge cocoa chip cake, breakfast granola bars with chocolate chips, all the stuff I genuinely dislike; I got my cinnabon pancakes, carrot cake from my favorite diner, and...drum roll please...seven layer bars. I graciously (it says here) allowed her half of one of the four bars in the case that I made her buy all of.

A lot lot lot of time talking through our childhood hurts, validating the memories no one else shares, dissenting as necessary, and all safely, without anger or blame. Discussing medium and long term plans, the fears of each of ours that keep us from making changes we need to make, and drawing the love and energy together from our abiding and powerful connection to work on the solutions we discussed. (I cried a lot.)

So we packed a lot into three nights and four days, and they were hard-fought to schedule in the teeth of so much change in her life. Her husband is such a fine person and kind man that he *made* her reservations and said, "I did this, start packing," when her genuine and valid worries about his health were leading her to quavering on the brink of cancelling. I was saying, "heck no, stay home while this is going on, 2023's fine!" and he said, "Nope. You need to recharge. Time with Richard will recharge you."

We all got lucky when they found each other 40 years ago.

Anyway. I am uncomfortably full, quite tired, and have already sent her a nagging text to get busy making the album so I can post some pictures she took of us and our perfect day at Old Westbury Gardens.
***
Wordle 483 3/6

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That was easy. AEONS, MIRTH, CATCH I did it this morning and thought, "great word for my day today!"

I hope y'all forgive me for not responding personally, but I will tomorrow.

I am so glad that you had a wonderful time with a good friend. I have been single all my life and I find that I take great strength and comfort from my friendships.

I went in-store shopping today and found a dress I really liked. It fit well so I bought it. I put it on when I got home and I like it so well, that tomorrow I am going to go back and buy it in a second color. This one will be gray since the first was light blue. Then that's it for shopping in stores. I am like you, I don't like shopping in stores. I do all of my buying from catalogs (that means Lands End and LL Bean.) I thought that my wardrobe is getting staid and boring and I needed something different so it was time to go to a store. I need some kind of professional dress for my retirement party. I found it - in two colors! Huzzah! That will be the last professional dress I will need to buy.

I've enjoying your lovely time with Valerie. Thank you for letting us participate a bit!

Sleep well and move into the new week in joy and gratitude!!!!!!!!! *smooch*

>189 richardderus: Goodness me; you should feel stuffed! I stopped being envious halfway through the list.

Glad you could all recharge.

>190 benitastrnad: I like window shopping just for the fun of browsing and I can say 'I don't need that' or 'I wouldn't pay that much for that' ... but then I see something that's 'Well, I might try it on just to see what it looks like' or 'I think I was looking for something along those lines' and then I'm caught. I don't like the trying on part of it, having to shed clothes and then get dressed again constantly (worse in winter with all the layers - at least I don't have to do that anymore). Unfortunately, being petite and a tad wider than I ought to be, I can't shop out of a catalogue. And the 'return within a certain time' doesn't work for me, even if I didn't live on the other side of the world from where I'd buy from.

That sounds like an excellent visit all round.
Shopping for clothes is terrible. So glad you had someone one hand to help out with that. Once I find something that I like and fits I tend to buy more of it. Which might be why I have the same dress in 7 different colourways. If it works, why not... Finding the thing that works, now that's quite a different battle.

Looking forward to pictures, when you can share them.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Sunday to you.

>189 richardderus: Yum to all the food. I love 7-layer bars and actually have all the stuff to make them here… You are a gentleman and scholar for sharing what she paid for. 😁

The visit sounds perfect for both of you, so glad it happened. Kudos to Valerie’s husband for taking care of her and thus you.

I got today’s Wordle in 3, so am pumped. Simple pleasures. It and coffee and doing it for me right now.

*smooch* from your own Madame TVT Horrible

Happy Sunday, Richard. Your visit with Valerie sounds wonderful. It looks like both of you needed it. I am enjoying a lazy day with the books and football. I am glad I don't have to watch my mediocre Bears. B.A.G.

>195 msf59: Morning Mark, if only just! I'm going to copy your idea today and be all about the books (not the football) and the laziness. I'm a lot surprised that I can't seem to rustle up any sorry for not being able to get out and run around today.

Boo Bears' badness! (Never the team, of course.)

>194 karenmarie: Thank you, Horrible, for your acknowledgment of my magnanimity in sharing seven-layer bars, of all the incalculable generosities of spirit to display at this age. It...was embarrassingly difficult to do, but Puppy-Dog Eyes do indeed work on me.

Today I had Trader Joe's oat milk for my coffee and feel so much less glurgly than moo-milk's begun to make me feel. No more massive feasts to report...sadly-but-goodly. *smooch*

>193 Helenliz: Hiya Helen...oh my heck, I detest clothes shopping. It absolutely HAD to be done in person because I've realized that the body I have now is staying. Eight months of two-pound fluctuations equals, well, stasis. Trying stuff on is still not possible via Meta. Thank GOODNESS.

>192 humouress: I hate being in those covid-catching places and only went to this one double-masked. I've long, long had a bad case of tinnitus that gets worse in the presence of squillions of crowded-together people.

It's my annual oinkfest, both in foods eaten and in behavior displayed. Je ne regret rien.

>191 LizzieD: "Sleep well" must've been you casting a spell, Peggy. I slept for nine hours! Nine! I don't like to do that too often but I really was exhausted from all the *ickshudder* shopping *ptooptoo* I really needed to do.

The joy and the gratitude, my dear, are standard features up in here. I have good friends at every turn, and there is nothing on Earth that can substitute for that happiness and security.

>190 benitastrnad: Land's End and LL Bean have been my go-tos for new clothes since who-knows-when. I love their reliable, repeatable quality level and I've always seen their service from the "satisfied consumer" angle so I don't really know what it's like.

Benita! SO EXCITING that work-life is finally, finally receding into the rear-view mirror! Are you planning to skedaddle back to Kansas within 36 hours of your manumission becoming final?

"Last work dress" has such a nice ring to it.

>188 laytonwoman3rd: Hi Linda3rd! It's not something I would do again unless some further physical thing changes and I need another in-person fitting. Fingercross I don't get there any time soon...being a skinny old man is weird enough.

*smooch*

>187 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! I'm on both services and have transitioned to using them almost exclusively to get my DRCs. Very occasionally one I want to read isn't available via them, and I go case-by-case to see if I want to contact the publisher.

Edelweiss+ has a FAR better non-fiction and literary-fiction selection. Many University presses are on both, but I've found they are more active (for the most part) on Edelweiss+. And Edelweiss+ is making a more serious attempt to develop user communities. I haven't found it necessary to join them because I bore too quickly for tiny groups to work for my online socializing needs.

>186 karenmarie: Horrible! You came! *sniff*

>185 MickyFine: It was the most extraordinarily ideal weather patch...it rained the day we went to the mall, so going to the mall was the only good use of our time, and the rain got steadily worse, so the fact that I was utterly and totally *wiped*out* mattered not at all since all we were going to do was sit around the suite chatting, and eat in the hotel. The other days, and today, have been so heart-hurtingly perfect for fall days that all our fun stuff was highly option-rich to fit times and energy levels.

*smooch* thank you for visiting!

>184 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! The great part was Valerie...the shopping was miserable, I hate it, and I worked HARD not to act as grouchy as I felt...I really hope I succeeded. Thank you for stopping by, and I hope you're getting some beautiful-fall stuff like I've got now.

>183 karenmarie: Horrible! You came! *sniff*

>181 msf59: Hi Mark...the excursion was fine. I loathe clothes-shopping trips because, well, clothes. Still, I sucked it up and now I have the new sizes I can go back to *good* shopping... *click* *click* *click* proceed to checkout

Stay warm.

>180 FAMeulstee: Howdy do, Anita! I was so very busy this past few days, and you clearly needed a Thursday off, so Yay! for both of us getting what we needed.

We did get to the gardens and I am thrilled to say Valerie got a few good shots of the gorgeousness. As soon as I have access to the album I'll post a few pictures.

>179 richardderus: Hi Richard! Fancy seeing you here.

>178 bell7: It was such a perfect visit, Mary...you won't be surprised to learn that option #3 was the word I was absolutely *sure* it was, and...well...*disappointed sigh*

Thank you for coming to see me! *smooch*

>177 LovingLit: Megan me lurve, may I suggest that Ernaux's A Woman's Story should be your first, and A Man's Place your second? The flow of ideas between the two and their relative places in Ernaux's work make them *chef's kiss* as an intro for your reading interests as I know them.

I'm so glad you came to visit! *smooch*

>175 humouress:, >173 Helenliz: Valerie's last-day-of-shopping giftie to me was a trip to Trader Joe's to get my favorite of their coffees...and miserable realization set in: I no longer have, or in fact want, a coffee grinder. But I got as close as I could among their limited selection of ground coffees. It was a highlight of the trip, despite being in Trader Joe's on a Saturday because I got their supremely scrummy dark-pumpernickel bread!

In fact, I kind of pushed it at Valerie because I know she would love the stuff...it worked! A few sniffs as she pushed the cart convinced her to scan the item into her phone for her next trip to their local TJ's. *munches dark-pump heel with sunbutter in triumph*

This might very well be the latest I've Wordled yet.
Wordle 484 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, SCALE, SPADE And it still took me four. Streak alive day!

Happy Sunday, Mr. D! Wow, lots of good reading and reviews. I particularly enjoyed the Ernaux one, and found it inspiring. Reading her is in my future. I’m currently doing a re-read of Haruf’s Plainsong trilogy.

I’m glad your visit with Valerie went so well, and was recharging. Those kind of in-depth talks are so hard to encounter and so valuable.

Ready to (maybe) be envious? We walk to our Trader Joe’s; it’s about ten minutes. I’m usually a Gevalia coffee guy, but I get TJ’s for visitors.

GBBO: thanks to Becca and Debbi, I’m actually current with it. I agree with you about the weird, unwarranted criticisms of Sybaria’s sweet corn cake.
Becca and Debbi are quite taken by the handsomeness of Sansa (right name?), the Brazilian fellow. I urged them to pay more attention to the baking.

>204 jnwelch: I urged them to pay more attention to the baking. LOLOL

Sandro is a cinnamon-roll hero and completely adorable. He's the borderline between heteroflexible and metrosexual, therefore irresistible to women. You are King Cnut commanding the waves on this one, Sir Joseph.

We need people in our meatspace who can do what the good, kind group of 75ers does for us online, and must count ourselves double-blessed to have all these energy-restoring relationships!

Ernaux yourself up! There's no bad place for you to hop in.

I shall Loftily Ignore your unkind, crass, and cruel statement. *hmf*

It’s good to be King! Am I supposed to unite the 3 kingdoms and direct their attention to the baking? I suspect two of them will still be talking about Sandro when they think I’m not listening.

Come visit, and we can meander over to TJ’s.

>206 jnwelch: I fear my flying days are long gone, but you are tempting me....

I will promise you they will be doing that very thing. And rightly so. *dreamy sigh*

Sounds like you had a wonderful time with your friend. October is a perfect month for adventures, as the weather is more often pleasant than not, at least here it is. Glad to hear that you got some new duds and had a feast or three. Now you can start to plan for next year. I look forward to photos

edit /typo

>208 mckait: It was a great visit, and next year I'm sort-of hinting I'd like for her to come when Rob comes home in April...like maybe May, possibly June, to see what a summer that doesn't get to 100° in March feels like.

*resumes evil scheming to get Valerie up to Long Island*

So maybe two visits a year?
:)

Her life is WAAAAAAY too complex for that. I want a permanent change when life events indicate them.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Monday to you.

>196 richardderus: Jenna uses oat milk. So we keep moo milk and oat milk in the house at all times.

>202 richardderus: Yum to dark pump.

*smooch*

Wordle 485 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, STEIN ...when you get all the letters in the wrong places...

>212 karenmarie: Hi Horrible, happy Monday right back at'cha! I think a lot of generational households use both dairy and non-dairy milks. I've come to prefer the oat milk but it's not always necessary, so I use moo milk a lot more often because the facility provides it. Valerie gave me the luxury of choice by enabling me to get to the place they have the one I like!

Yes. Dark pump. YESSSSSSSS

*smooch*

Your time with Valerie sounds terrific, Richard, and yay for that! Quality time goes a long way, even if it's never enough. Congrats, and the photos will surely help prolong the sublime memories.
Smooch!

>213 richardderus: Also Wordle in three today, Richard dear, the same except for my first word.
peony, mirth, stein

I didn't know the word, so I found it by random trying "words" with those letters, until Wordle found the right one acceptable.

Alas, no Trader Joe's within a 90 mile radius as far as I know. (I cared enough to check, and I was right.)

>198 richardderus: I wish I did have an effective sleep spell. I'd use it on Stasia and Karen every night and you and Roni when you need it.

At last! Wordle in 3 for me too. Hooray for all of us!!!!!

>217 LizzieD: Now THAT is a perspective check for me...it's about two and a half miles to TJ for me, but it might as well be 90 because there's no way my walking is up to that. I can't reliably make it to Stop'n'Shop and back, and that's a total round trip of 1.1 miles.

I'm not sure you couldn't whammy them up a little shut-eye with your "sleep well" posts....

Yay for a 3day!! *smooch*

>216 FAMeulstee: It's a good strategy, Anita. Wordle's list of ~2300 words isn't even a drop compared to the 11,000+ actual defined English 5-letter words. Can't be sure which one they're looking for....

>215 jessibud2: Hi Shelley! It was so lovely to be together, not just texting/talking on the phone. All of those are ways to stay in touch but not ways to be together, which is necessary to the *full* endorphin hit.

Happy reading week ahead!
***
Mariah Fredericks really liked my review!

Mariah Fredericks☮️ @MariahFrederick
Replying to @expendablemudge @MinotaurBooks and @NetGalley
Thank you so much for your insightful, thoughtful review. And I love your twitter handle.

And then she followed me! I was proper chuffed.

Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets. Arthur Miller
***
That's my experience of getting old in a nutshell.

>219 richardderus: ...and I decided I needed to write an essay about it.
https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2022/10/i-didnt-review-book-today-i-reviewe...

A little bundle of eight or so new people came to my blog to read my newest post and each one of them started clicking around like *mad*! In just two hours, I've accumulated as many page views (for wildly different reviews) as I had all day yesterday.

The Universe's sense of humor is weird, isn't it.

>218 richardderus: That is very nice said, Richard dear. Always good to hear your review is appriciated.

>221 richardderus: I think Mariah Fredericks liking your review gave you the new visitors browsing around.

Hi RDear! Happy Tuesday to you.

>217 LizzieD: and >218 richardderus: Not quite as far away as Peggy, but Trader Joe’s is either 28 miles away in Chapel Hill or 33 miles away in Cary. Whole Foods? 28 miles to Chapel Hill, 33 or 34 miles to one of two locations in Cary. Haven’t been to either in years.

And congrats on Mariah Fredericks complimenting and then following you.

*smooch*

Hey, Richard. Very cold here. Only 32F at the moment. Ugh! I have Rehab duties this AM and most of it will be outside. My afternoon will be in the warmth, with books and my sidekick Juno.

Wordle 486 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, EXIST Another gimme-day for me!

>224 msf59: BRR to being outside in non-metaphorically freezing weather. It's a good thing you're doing, without a doubt, but wow it's a challenge at moments like this. Good on ya for keeping it up.

Schmoozle Juno's ears from me.

>223 karenmarie: It's just a store...I like some things they have better than others available elsewhere, and was able to get them without knotting myself into a pretzel, and that was a great treat.

>223 karenmarie:, >222 FAMeulstee: I so appreciated Fredericks' evident sincerity...she could've done as so many other well-mannered authors have and tap out a quick note then move on with her day...in the act of following me. She clearly read the review and *got* that she'd made a mistake with her, erm, questionable choice of gayness as a hiding impetus. Period appropriate, no smallest question...but the factual person she lumbered it on was emphatically not gay.

Not exactly a deal-breaker, but it wasn't great; and she *still* followed me!

>222 FAMeulstee: I know her retweeting the review come-on gave me fourteen new viewers, which is not at all bad for a little book-review blog. Those came much earlier in the day, however.

I'm in full agreement w/you about being appreciated...it's always a pleasant thing! When someone you've tutted at mildly says they appreciate your efforts it is even more enjoyable.

#GBBO thoughts
The deeply deserving Syabira did it! She got star baker because she made an apple in a witches' hat and a spider tangled in its own web. Brava!

Blah-haired Oldster left, yeah whatevs see ya.

Sandro's Dead Disco Ball made of grey skulls? Wack! Loved it, and him in his costume...Black Wings Has My Angel come to life.

Puir wee Straight Scot really is lucky Blah-haired Oldster really stank up the place. He'd've gone for sure if not. ETA I just rewatched it on Netflix & Straight Scot got in a great line that I didn't notice before: "{My greatest fear} is like any musician...child prodigies." I LOLd this time!

And y'all? Can I just say, Janusz's crickets were perfectly on brief and the hysterics are hugely misplaced?

Abdul and Maxy (handshake! handshake!) did exactly enough but they best be flexin' this coming Custard Week! I loved this week, but it is a real disservice to long-reverèd Helena and her fabOO bakes from 2019 to call this "the first Halloween week." I am done now.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Wednesday to you.

I made the mistake of setting an alarm for a pain meds schedule - must have been high on said meds - and so was blasted awake at 5:30. My brain went into coffee mode rather than stay in sleep mode, so here I am.

Wordle 487 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, QUICK, QUIRK And just like that my uncaffeinated attention "span" cost me another 3day. *sigh*

>228 karenmarie: Hi Horrible. I'll speak softly so I don't annoy you in this way-too-early morning that began inauspiciously. *there there, pat pat*

*smooch*

Glad to hear that you had such a good visit with Valerie, and that her husband was so kind as to make her take what sounds like a very-needed vacation.

Also, what lovely comments from an author on your review. It's always nice to have an appreciative response!

Good morning, Richard! Of course, Ms. Fredericks appreciated your review! The fine thing is that she took the time to tell you so. I must read your blog, but I don't know when. My loss.

Ahem. My win. Wordle in 3 today because for once I sat on my hands until it came to me.

Stay warm!

>232 LizzieD: Three!! Excellent Wordleing, Peggy. I'm glad you could sit on your hands until your mind could come up with the right answer.

It's not particularly cold yet...56° today...but it's headin' that way! I lurve the cold, so it's really not painful for me. *smooch*

>232 LizzieD:, >231 bell7: Author Fredericks impressed me because she clearly read my criticism of her handling of the Gay Issue and accepted that I had a valid PoV on it...and then followed me! I expect she'll get tired of the come-ons to read reviews of books that aren't hers and unfollow me, but she made the effort to do everything to show she was accepting of me and my opinion of her hard work.

That is Class.

>231 bell7: We had such a lovely visit, Mary...she's a wonderful friend, and a valued confidante. That her husband is the same caliber of person is a happy gift from the Universe. He is a kind and loving husband, and a good man.

...that's One....

Important Amazon news: THERE IS NO LONGER AN OPTION TO LEND ANY KINDLEBOOK.
Source: https://bookriot.com/amazon-changes-kindle-ebook-return-policy/

>234 richardderus: Fellow is making so much dough, RD, that is simply mean!

>235 PaulCranswick: AND sneaky AND stupid AND noxiously greedy.

>234 richardderus: Yet another crack in the illusion of ownership of digital media.

>237 MickyFine: I lost that illusion when Ammy reached into my Kindle and yanked a book I'd paid for w/o so much as a by-your-leave b/c copyright was *alleged* to be violated. And when they "updated" books without the option of opt-out. Maybe they were correcting typos...this time...but showed they could do what they pleased with the content of "my" device.

I don't expect it will ever be addressed, still less changed.

>234 richardderus: Yet another reason to prefer physical books.

And I'm shocked, just shocked, to find Bezos being ever more rapacious.

>237 MickyFine: The only things "owned" are the customers.

>240 ArlieS: *sigh* I would argue if I could.

>239 ArlieS: I know, right?! It's simply shocking! Astonishing! Bezos being greedy, go know from this.

>238 richardderus: That is so wrong, Richard dear.

I don't have my Kobo connected to the internet. If I do it is to get some updates.
I use Adobe Digital Editions to pick up my e-books, and transfer them from there to the Kobo. I make a copy of each purchased e-book, and store it on my external harddisk. I hope this is enough precaution...

Happy Thursday, *smooch*

Sweet Thursday, Richard. I am meeting my birding buddies and we are heading to the lakefront. We have a warm-up coming. Hallelujah! Close to 60 today and 70s over the weekend.

>243 msf59: Hey Birddude! Whoopee on the warm-up back to perfect-fall temps! The migrations should be, IIRC, just about flood stage. Mid-November on was Texas's major southward pulse, so that math makes sense to me. Enjoy it either way.

>242 FAMeulstee: Absolutely wrong. I am glad that your Kobo plays nice with ADE. I wish I hadn't committed to Kindle back in the day, but here we are.

Happy-Thursday *smooch*

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Thursday to you.

>234 richardderus: Outlier here - I don’t have a problem with this policy, and think that even allowing returns for 10% read is generous. Ammy makes money on Kindle Books, but more important, so do the authors.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Wordle 488 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, DENIM Another day where I had four of five from 1 & 2, crucially one letter in the correct place. The word just appeared!

>245 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I'm with you on returns being changed...it takes some brass ones to return a book you've *read* for credit!...but *lending* a book? That's just Ammy's greed.

Congrats on your follow by Mariah Fredericks. I just finished one of hers—my first but not my last. I’ll have to slip on over to your blog to see the review.

>249 Storeetllr: Thank you, smoochling!

'Morning, RD! Happy Friday to you.

I just read a very good mystery/romance set in West Texas, Never Stay Gone. Texas has never had much appeal for me except as the home of Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, and now Beto O'Rourke, so this was a happy surprise. And, Texas Rangers... swoon.

*smooch*

Wordle 489 6/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, DROLE, FROZE, GROPE, GROVE PHEW!

>251 karenmarie: Wow! Big Bend is WEEEEEST Texas! Like, Baja New Mexico-style West. It's quite gorgeous, the desert does some astounding stuff there, and there's an extinct volcano's caldera, and there's also a lineage of snakes (*I* say rattlesnakes, my boyfriend of the day said it was a gopher snake) so extremely traumatized by seeking heat on a tall redheaded man's crotch while he was complainingly sleeping in the fucking dirt in a sleeping bag, and then being flung about, burned with a lamp, and having size 11 boots chucked at them, that they have never since been seen near a human.

Oh, and that is my one and only camping story. I made him take me to a motel RIGHT THEN (about 11pm) and, several weeks later, unfroze enough to accept his apology.

Happy Friday, Richard. It should be a good day. I have Jackson duties and it will inch up to nearly 70 today. We will be going for a walk. Life is good.

>253 richardderus: What a story!!!!! Yikes! If I had ever done hash-tags, I'd do one now: too old to camp.

Wordle in 4 for me with 3 in the correct place on first try. I just said to Karen that I need a bigger bowl for my alphabet soup.

Have a happy day!

>255 LizzieD: Ha! Well Peggy, I must say that (by that hashtag) I was born too old to camp...this happened in 1978! It is still my sole camping trip. I do not intend, ever ever again, to do that awful activity. If I'm forced to it will mean civilization will have come to an end and it will be of the briefest imaginable duration.

Pass the bowl, would ya?

>254 msf59: That sounds like a happy Friday indeed, Mark. I'm glad you'll be enjoying good weather during it, too. I'm amazed at how pretty it is today, sunshine and lower 50s and a light breeze...perfection! I do so love fall weather.

Life is, indeed, good.

>252 richardderus: I dropped a bit luckier than you today and managed it in 4. Interesting that our preceding word guess before we got the right answer was the same too.

>253 richardderus: I'm completely with you on the not camping thing. *shudder*. We've had our work away day at a glamping site the last few years. I will point out that glamorous camping is still camping. And report that I'm still not a fan.

>258 Helenliz: I would simply decline to be among the sleepers, in that case; arrive, participate, go home or to a hotel for the night. Just NO. "Glamping" always struck me as appallingly privileged people heaving their wrinkles and paunches about for younger, fitter, poorer people to clean up after, but then I'm that kind of killjoy.

>257 PaulCranswick: Heh! I suspect most males would think of that word...puzzling that their targets don't seem to, in fact.

>227 richardderus: My #GBBO thoughts got revised after rewatching on Netflix today.

>189 richardderus: That sounds like a precious get together RD.

>261 Caroline_McElwee: It very much was, Caro. I had a wonderful time!

I have to admit I have not watched a single episode of the GBBO. Perhaps I will start with this season when it's over so I can binge watch it. Sounds like a fantastic show!

Happy weekend reads, Richard!

Wordle 490 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, SPICE, SPIEL That was an unusual choice, but well within my wheelhouse.

>263 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita! I hope you'll give this season a binge...or season 7 (on Netflix), because it's one of my favorites. The competition aspect is quite low-key, and most all the bakers are very supportive of each other (a few exceptions over the years, to be expected) so it feels...welcoming...when I need something to compel my attention without demanding my partisan self comes to the fore.

Hiya, RDear. Happy Saturday to you.

>253 richardderus: I’ve always appreciated the desert, although I love living where it’s not desert here in central NC. I love your one-and-only camping story. I stopped appreciating camping when I was 13 and we rode horses for 8 hours and took pack mules up to the Pioneer Basin in the Sierra Nevadas for 10 days and I had no feeling in my posterior for most of that time, recovering in just enough time to ride another 8 hours out.

>264 richardderus: My second guess, grief, got me the proper vowel stuff, so I got it in 3 today.

*smooch*

>266 karenmarie: It was...memorable. I do not care to challenge myself to overwrite those memories. Nuh uh.

I'm pleased with my 4...I liked the word choice, it was weird enough to pique my curiosity and still within my ordinary vocabulary.

*smoochiesmoochsmooch* Happy weekend!

>266 karenmarie: I remember that feeling - I had a numb bum for three months after having an epidural for the delivery of my second child. Strangely, we stopped at two kids. Hmm ...

>264 richardderus: Lest du deutsche ('scuse spelling - it's been a while).

>264 richardderus: I like today's word. It made me think of the children's librarian I volunteered for when I was in high school because she had what she called the volunteer spiel that she gave to all of us, and I can't help but think she'd be pleased with the word choice as a result.

Should I have had your camping adventure, I'm sure I would also have your aversion to ever doing it again. My parents don't even have that excuse but so loathe camping that when our church group growing up would have a camp week, they would set up one of those at-home open tent-thingummies to set up food and stuff, but then they'd hightail it back to a hotel for the night. I used to talk one of my friends into letting me sleep in their tent for the week so I could hang out longer. But I'm getting to old for real tent camping - my back protests after a night on the ground or air mattress.

Happy Saturday *smooches*

>269 bell7: I regard sleeping in the dirt as an affront to millennia of ancestors whose sweat and hard graft was all aimed at creating a way for us humans to have fire, light, and heat on demand, and sleep in safety away from all the yucky things that abound on the hard, cold, filthy ground.

I have far too much respect for, admiration of, and gratitude towards each and every one of them to, to flout their sacrifices by demeaning myself through sleeping outside on the ground when I do not have to.

Room service? I need a rare cheeseburger on rye, and a side of fries. Charge it to the room.

>268 humouress: How very peculiar of you to stop at two! That it is the sane and responsible thing for a Planet-Earthian to do suggests to me you'd've had eleven before deciding to stop, La Overkill.

(Doesn't that sound hellish?!)

Yes.

'Morning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

>268 humouress: Yikes, Nina. 3 months? I might have had more than one kidlet except that I didn't have Jenna 'til I was 40. She's my blessing.

>270 richardderus: Funnily enough, I have far too much respect for, admiration of, and gratitude towards each and every one of them to, to flout their sacrifices by demeaning myself through not taking advantage of drugs during childbirth. Same concept.

*smooch*

185 The Resting Place by Camilla Sten (tr. Alexandra Fleming)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A spine-chilling, propulsive psychological suspense from international sensation Camilla Sten.

The medical term is prosopagnosia. The average person calls it face blindness—the inability to recognize a familiar person’s face, even the faces of those closest to you.

When Eleanor walked in on the scene of her capriciously cruel grandmother, Vivianne’s, murder, she came face to face with the killer—a maddening expression that means nothing to someone like her. With each passing day, her anxiety mounts. The dark feelings of having brushed by a killer, yet not know who could do this—or if they’d be back—overtakes both her dreams and her waking moments, thwarting her perception of reality.

Then a lawyer calls. Vivianne has left her a house—a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died, suddenly. A place that has housed a dark past for over fifty years.

Eleanor. Her steadfast boyfriend, Sebastian. Her reckless aunt, Veronika. The lawyer. All will go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. But as they get closer to bringing the truth to light, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.

A heart-thumping, relentless thriller that will shake you to your core, The Resting Place is an unforgettable novel of horror and suspense.

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

My Review: I've known someone with prosopagnosia well, and for a lot longer than I have known the word or the condition existed. It's one of the reasons I was really eager to get this book's DRC and devour it. I was so happy to see this under-represented and misunderstood disability represented at all. I hoped, of course, to see it represented well.

It was. The condition of "face-blindness" was truly well established, in a complex and multivalent way; it was also chillingly effectively woven into a deeply unsettling, even unnerving, plot.

Prosopagnosia, face blindness. It means my brain doesn’t process human faces the same way others’ do. I can’t recognize faces, so have to memorize distinguishing features instead.

What happens, as you've seen in the book description, is a scene of brutal violence that simply can't be forgotten by anyone who's experienced anything remotely close to it. But, in Eleanor's case, it's a scene that lacks a very important resonance. She's seen a murder, and a murderer, and she can't forget it but can't process it, can't help assign guilt to the guilty because she is biomechanically incapable of the necessary function. And then what happens? She inherits the house her grandmother failed to tell her that she owned. Way to lard the stress into the liver of the story...another set of unknown people, faces ever unknown to her and markers to somehow fasten onto their identities.

From that point on, I was so very sold on this read. I could not WAIT to see how this awful psychological double bind would resolve.

The things I liked were, like the things I liked in The Lost Village, the ones that brought the character to life:

...it’s the body that panics first, the brain that follows. If I can just keep my breaths slow and force myself to relax then I can trick my mind into calm.
–and–
“Your fear is valid, but that doesn’t make it real. The fear may be true, but it doesn’t have to be your truth.”

They're present, they're satisfyingly numerous, but in the end the thing that will make or break the read is one's response to the ending. The entire book is a set-up to the set-piece in the last, say, thirtyish pages. It's a big ask from a sophmore novelist. I was rewarded by it because its resolution was so very timely and so personal to me. I can't say more because the Spoiler Stasi will descend on me with malice and fury. This post will clue you in to the direction we're heading if you care to be enlightened.

I thought the use of a big, old, dark manor house in the country was going to be a silly distraction, a gewgaw meant to distract me from something...it wasn't, and it was; the big winter storm, another gothic-storytelling staple, was similarly used. These weren't my favorite moments in the book. I will say they didn't "ruin" my experience of the story as can happen with such inessentials. The nature of the story is so basically well-crafted that Author Sten could've chosen any one of an array of settings and accomplished her task.

I confess that, as I read along and Eleanor kept doing her Eleanor thing, I was half-dreading the need to slap an "ableism" content warning on the review. I was so relieved that I did not feel Author Sten had crossed my own mental threshhold for use of a disability shading into the old, dark "crippled" territory I've still been hit with in the twenty-first century.

I'm going to leave the last words to Eleanor, via Author Sten. I think they say more about what I derived from this read than I can.

She says that wounds can leave scars on our souls just like on our bodies, and that we have to learn to live with them rather than try to rid ourselves of them completely.

186 The Lost Village by Camilla Sten (tr. Alexandra Fleming)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The Blair Witch Project meets Midsommar in this brilliantly disturbing thriller from Camilla Sten, an electrifying new voice in suspense.

Documentary filmmaker Alice Lindstedt has been obsessed with the vanishing residents of the old mining town, dubbed “The Lost Village,” since she was a little girl. In 1959, her grandmother’s entire family disappeared in this mysterious tragedy, and ever since, the unanswered questions surrounding the only two people who were left—a woman stoned to death in the town center and an abandoned newborn—have plagued her. She’s gathered a small crew of friends in the remote village to make a film about what really happened.

But there will be no turning back.

Not long after they’ve set up camp, mysterious things begin to happen. Equipment is destroyed. People go missing. As doubt breeds fear and their very minds begin to crack, one thing becomes startlingly clear to Alice:

They are not alone.

They’re looking for the truth...
But what if it finds them first?

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

My Review: Author Camilla is a Force. Her storytelling chops, in this her debut novel!, are truly impressive. Usually split timelines, here denoted by labeling chapters "Now" and "Then", give me pause. It so seldom adds impetus to the natural pace of the story. In Author Sten's case she overcame this. By itself that merits praise...but to use it, as here, in setting a perceptual "trap" for her readers, is extraordinarily tough to pull off.

The framing device that threatened, at first, to derail my enjoyment of the story was also the biggest surprise to me: A long stretch of "Now" spent reading letters discovered in the Lost Village. While that by itself isn't bad, so very often it is a deus ex machina and so feels like a cheat to me. I re-read parts of the section to see if I could find the seams but I couldn't...I kept running across images I lingered over (eg doubts creeping up on a character like "stinging little devils") and action I wanted to follow right now. That's good horror writing...good writing, period.

Much of the seemingly inevitable comparison-to-known-things marketing has borne down hard on Midsommar, a stunningly beautiful folk-horror film whose story is stretched to the point of snapping in order to make its beautiful scenes...seriously, go look at it, the stills should be sold as art!...work. Also harked back to is The Blair Witch Project, whose shakycam found-footage horror story was, to put it mildly, a farrago but whose fascinating editing (predictable and pedestrian aren't necessarily ineffective in horror storytelling) has deeply influenced the entire field of visual horror storytelling. This comparison is, to me, fair and reasonable; the Midsommar one is a stretch and honestly a disservice to the story here told.

This is folk horror as only a Swede setting her story in Sweden would, possibly could, produce. But it's much, much more unnerving to me, more frightening, than Midsommar because this story is about the intersection of mental illness and religious fanaticism that is its own form of mental illness...but grounded in a solid, meaningful, and thoughtful take-down of capitalism and patriarchy.

We perceive women suffering from mental illness with a sort of paradoxical double-sidedness; both victims and monsters, simultaneously infantilized and feared. A certain level of dysfunction is accepted—after all, women who are suffering mild depression and starving themselves aren’t going to leave their husbands or start revolutions, which is very practical indeed.
–and–
We view a depressed upper-class woman from a stable family background dealing with depression as “having the blues,” while the homeless woman on the street corner battling auditory hallucinations is a thing to be feared, a threatening monster. Not a person in need of help. Not someone with thoughts, dreams, fears, and needs of their own. Not a fully formed human being with agency and identity, suffering from an illness and doing their best to function as well as they can.

Author Sten is singin' my song; Translator Fleming is wrapping it in stylish English.

Several friends of mine who read and reviewed the book, all of them women, weren't impressed with the author's feminist take as presented, and to a woman they were dismissive of the "folk horror" trappings the US publisher wrapped around the story. In that latter I hesitantly join them, but as a man I felt the feminist, or more accurately anti-patriarchal, views the author quite clearly espouses by way of contrast to the "Then" action and more clearly espouses in the "Now" if via a dark means, rang me like a bell.

Permaybehaps I'm settling, in the sense that it might not be as clear to the women because it's not enough of a feminist standpoint. I can't say; I can say that, to me, this read bound together creepy, scary real-life threats and challenges with a social and political slant I am in sympathy with. You should give Author Camilla Sten a shot, see what you think.

Morning, Richard. Happy Sunday. Yesterday was beautiful- high 70s, sunny and breezy. The fall colors are popping too. Making things even brighter, we had Jackson over for the night. Sure, he is exhausting, (how does Bree do it?) but he continuously cracks us up too. Enjoy your day.

>274 msf59: High 70s!! I'd be *royally*pissed* if it got over 70° here in October. But sunny, breezy days in fall are to be treasured.

Babies are tiring...toddlers are exhausting. Lotsa fun ahead!

>271 karenmarie: Yeup, drug 'er up and save the screaming. I think a lot of the world's ills come from the US population's overdose of Puritan genes: "SUFFER or it doesn't count, except me because gawd luuuvs me" is the refrain that's run through so many social movements we've exported.

*smooch*

Wordle 491 6/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, MUCKY, MUDDY, MUGGY, MUMMY *phew* indeed! Guessing-game day is always irritating and unsettling.

>272 richardderus: Ooh, you got me with your review of The Resting Place. Onto the TBR it goes!

Karen O

P.s. I had the same guessy-guessy with Wordle today. Ugh! Got it in 6.

>277 klobrien2: I'm satisfied that my 137-day streak is alive, Karen O., BUT the damned guessing game days really grate on my nerves. *sigh* It's inevitable, of course, but I can't get past feeling put-upon when it devolves into "and which of the seventeen options that fulfill this pattern are you looking for?"

*grumble*

I got it in 5 today, Richard, but only because I lucked out on the right use of the consonant after my 4th as-many-consonants-as-possible-that-could-work guess.

Benisons for your Sunday! *smooch*

>279 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy! I just commented on your 5, so I'll not re-grumble here. *smooch* for your gracious benisons.

>276 richardderus: I was very lucky today, Richard dear, and got it in three. After my usual first two words, I considered (peony, mirth) mammy, but then thought mummy was more usual.
I ruined my Dutch Woordle streak three days ago, so my longest streak there is now 77. Wordle streak is now at 101!

Happy Sunday!
*smooch*

>281 FAMeulstee: Oh, good instinct on your word substitution! When the Times bought Wordle, they struck off many potentially offensive words that were otherwise acceptable. I can't imagine that mammy, a racist term for a Black enslaved woman forced into child care for her owners, wouldn't've gotten the chop.

>282 richardderus: Oh, that meaning never crossed my mind!

>283 FAMeulstee: I wouldn't suspect it would, Anita! It's a very specific cultural artifact and thankfully unexported as of now.

Nice review of The Lost Village. You put my thoughts on it much better than I could.

Oh, and your Wordle today looked a lot like mine… *whew* for the last-minute diving catch!

The Lost Village looks interesting! Do you review your galley copies on a blog or social media? Or is reviewing on LT and Goodreads enough?

>276 richardderus: We got the same score again dear fellow. A bit of an upper-class Anglo-ism I guess; sure to throw both of us, me more for the first reason than the second.

‘Morning, RD, and happy Monday to you.

>275 richardderus: The Puritans have much to answer for, not much of it positive, IMO.

>276 richardderus: Sorry about the 6.

I got today’s in 4.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

187 Blood Moon Prophecy by Dilani Kahawala

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Eleven years ago, Tilly Nyx did something she wasn’t supposed to. As a result, her mother was killed. Her village was destroyed. Her sister disappeared. And an ancient horror sent her into hiding.

Now sixteen years old, Tilly is determined to go home, even though she doesn’t know where home is or how to get there. All she has is the map that her mother made her swear to protect with her life.

Tilly soon finds herself plunged into the world where it all began—a world of oceans, sailing ships, and feuds between ancient magical families. She joins a fleet in search of the secret that her map holds, the secret that has been guarded by her family for thousands of years.

As Tilly learns how to cast sprites and make potions, she and her three friends must follow the trail of murky clues left by her ancestors before time runs out. But the closer they get to their destination, the more Tilly learns about her true identity–and everything is not as it seems.

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

My Review: Young-adult fantasy with cosmic horror overtones isn't my go-to genre reading. This debut novel got in under my radar because I liked the cover and the storytelling voice lulled my concerns about the subject matter.

Because most of the story is told in short chapters heavy on description, I wasn't asked to "listen" to a chosen-one teenaged girl. That was a huge plus to me. I still came away from the read wanting to swat this bratty child for being so completely and unwarrantedly willing to be guided only by her own thoughts and feelings. She never consulted anyone with more information than she possessed, she never changed her mind until her stubborn skull got thumped and hard...she is, in short, a typical smart teen. That made me nutso!

The reason I finished the read was that I liked the found-family aspect, I found the author's descriptions and world-building were very well done, and the cover art. Oh my heck. I am such a fool for a gorgeous cover. This one really fits the story being told...you'll see why. So much of the story's action is sea-borne that I mention it as a possible deal-maker or -breaker, depending on whom the read is destined for; the ships aren't, for once, the relation- type but the wooden type. The author's grasp of sailing is probably superficial but, as mine is too, I found nothing eye-rolling in her depiction of life aboard them. The sailing themes served as handy reasons to bring characters together but only briefly...as that is a deeply rooted feature of chosen-one quests, that worked very well.

Mei, James, and Nav, Tilly's scooby-group, are all standard characters. The vibe one gets from the read is very much Harry Potter and those Mortal Instruments books; the side characters, though very much side characters, are more than furnishings for the heroine's story. That dubious honor goes to the immense cast of secondary characters, seemingly dozens of them, all serving one and only one purpose. These are features of YA fantasy stories, I hasten to add, not bugs. The author is quite clear about her purpose for each one of the secondary characters. When the occasional one pops back up in a later chapter I felt quite surprised.

If you're looking for something to please your classical-magic loving tween/early-teen niece/cousin/grandchild, this introductory volume in what I expect to be a successful series will earn you early-adopter points. This is an author to watch...her journey, beginning here, can go to much greater heights.

188 Little Eve by Catriona Ward

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From Catriona Ward, author of The Last House on Needless Street, comes the Shirley Jackson Award-winning novel Little Eve, a heart-pounding tale of faith and family, with a devastating twist

STARRED reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist! A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick! Winner of the (2018) Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel!

“A great day is upon us. He is coming. The world will be washed away.”

On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to bring about the end of the world and its imminent rebirth.

The Adder is coming and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all want the honor, but young Eve is willing to do anything for the distinction.

A reckoning beyond Eve’s imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong.

And soon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered.

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

My Review: The #Spooktober reading this year has made me feel quite gruntled. That said, however, I'm glad I read Sundial first among Author Catriona's work...the domestic-horror vibe, added to the all human all the time cast of horror-bringers, made me feel comfortable with her voice. I had no additional hill to climb to get past the cosmic-horror tropes I wouldn't necessarily choose to read.

But psych the cosmic-horror tropes I was expecting, given that this is a story about a cult whose organizing principle is the end of the world, "cleansed" by sea-serpent, were absent. Instead this was an historical fiction with seriously gothic overtones, set at the end of World War One and containing the usual gothic elements. It wasn't a *bad* surprise. It was, however, definitely a surprise.

Author Catriona received the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel in 2018 for this story. I think that's one helluva great accolade to get for one's second published novel. That we in the US are getting it only now suggests someone fell asleep at the switch back in 2018. I can't say I felt this was a perfect novel, it relied a wee bit too heavily on ghastly punishments for its unsettling-bordering-on-scary stuff and its cult aspects felt worn out pretty quickly. What I found to enjoy was Author Catriona's word-sorcery:

My heart is a dark passage, lined with ranks of gleaming jars. In each one something floats. The past, preserved as if in spirit. Here is the scent of grass and the sea, here the creak of wheels on a rough path, here a bright yellow gull’s beak. The sensation of blood drying on my cheek in the wind. Abel crying for his mother, Uncle’s hand on me. Silver on a white collarbone. The knowledge of loss, which comes like a blow to the heart or the stomach. It does not reach your mind until later.

The opening of the book...we know the Dark Sorceress Catriona has rattled her bone-bag of words and will be casting irresistible spells soon. And she does.

Just not the ones I expected.

The manner of unfolding the story was intriguing. The setting was wonderfully gothic. The characters weren't as fully realized as the ones in Sundial were, but that is entirely understandable and was not unexpected...a second book isn't going to have the same polish as a fourth one does. At least, if the writer is developing authorial chops, it won't; and she most definitely is a writer developing fast and well. What that meant to me, as I read along, was that I could see details that were not the ones I think Author Catriona would emphasize now (eg, some of Delilah's behaviors, and Uncle's almost mustachio-twirling one-note-ness). I will say that this is why I landed on the four-star key instead of a fraction higher. The four stars are, however, fully merited based solely on the plot's cohesiveness and its appropriately increasing pace. A headlong rush would not have served this story the way it did Rob's story in Sundial.

While the ending is, I've tried to think of a different word but no other one fits, condign, it isn't necessarily the one you-the-horror-reader are thinking it will be. That, above all things, was the reason I recommend this story to my horror-reading friends: It's good not to know.

>288 karenmarie: I'm still caffeinating, Horrible, so no Wordle for me just yet. The Puritans were *so* awful the English kicked them out! The people who gave us Margaret Thatcher and Queen Victoria, monadnocks of nasty, judgmental, small-minded cruelty both, kicked the Puritans out for being insufferable!

Jeez. Doomed from the get, us.

sad little *smooch*

>287 PaulCranswick: Oh, that hadn't occurred to me! I thought "dead Egyptian" not "bad mother."

>286 The_Hibernator: It was interesting, Rachel, and might be just the ticket for your limited me-time.

I'm about to celebrate my 10th blog-a-versary this coming April. Plus, now that surveillance capitalism is absolutely in control of our lives, I've gone back to reviewing books on Amazon. I'll post about reviews on Twitter and (now) Facebook, but not the reviews themselves. Then, of course, here and Goodreads.

>285 drneutron: Thank you, Jim! It was an interesting reading experience. "Phew" works just fine for me...I'm shifting towards a long game of streak-keeping instead of score-keeping.

Wordle 492 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, FATTY, FAULY Thanks to Mary's Troublesome Letter™ I got it in 4 not 5!

I also got it in 4. (though I think you typoed in listing your final word, ;-))

>293 jessibud2: Ha! So I did. Funny one, though, so I'll leave it.

Good morning, Richard. I thought I'd commiserate about the sciatica here on your own thread rather than on Karen's, and I don't see that you mentioned it. I'm sorry and sympa/empathetic. I devoutly hope that it lets up soon.

As to yesterday's word and the choice, my daddy and his brothers called their parents "Pappy and Mammy" all their lives. Now, that's the South!

And --- I don't care enough to research, but you may know.... Are Camilla and Viveca Sten related?

>295 LizzieD: Peggy me lurve! How scrummy to see you here today. I'm glad to have sympa/empa wherever it's left. The owwies aren't getting better fast enough despite my stretches and icing. *grumble*

The Sten ladies are not related. It's along the lines of "Williams" as a last name in frequency among the Swedes.

>291 richardderus: The people who gave us Margaret Thatcher I do a French class on a Monday and for homework we had to write about a female historical figure (I thought it was supposed to be a French female historical figure, but anyway). My partner chose Margaret Thatcher to write about. I felt so judgemental that that would be someone's choice!

>297 SandDune: I am right there with you on those negative-judgment hustings, Rhian. Thatcher was an historical figure of startling evil and callousness. *ptooptoo* makes sign against evil eye

I really need to get a new thread up, don't I. Trouble is I don't feel energetic enough to do the research. Anyone got a tree idea for me? December will be the Yule evergreen...I got nothin' for this'un. Help?

>299 richardderus: Horse Chestnut. We're a just a little past season for conkers. The World Conker championships were held recently, a beautifully niche sport.

>292 richardderus: But... my troublesome letter was not in the answer today, no?

>290 richardderus: Hm, not sure if that would be *my* kind of horror or not (I like classics like Dracula and Frankenstein but steer clear of Stephen King? I like Gothic but not really to be kept up at night), but I'm glad you're enjoying your reads lately.

I had to Google "kinds of trees" to find some you may not have used already (I first thought of maple and catalpa, which you have). How 'bout weeping willow, coconut or palm? Or sycamore, which I know nothing about but it's fun to say.

Not sure if this is classified as a tree or a bush, but it's gorgeous in autumn and I saw a ton of them yesterday on my walk: flaming sumac. A great autumn addition. The leaves can be large or small and variegated in autumn colours and I doubt I have any books without a few pressed between the pages. Just an idea

>299 richardderus: Two trees in our garden that I both love: the winter-flowering cherry (prunus x subhirtella), and the Atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica).

Have you done a bristlecone pine yet? They are extremely extreme--you can hardly believe they are a living thing.

Here's a link: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS1jZ_hQu3QaiYiagfbNoOskflA...

Karen O

>291 richardderus: ROLMAO re Puritans, Thatcher, Victoria et al.

Though I feel sure the Puritans would insist they'd left voluntarily, at the behest of their Gawd.

>305 ArlieS: Not *quite so sure, Arlie...they luuuved them some grievances, and clutched those to their collective white meat with fervor and self-righteousness.

>304 klobrien2: What a great idea!! I might do that in lieu of the Yule evergreen this year! Thanks, Karen O.

>303 FAMeulstee: Both beautiful trees indeed, Anita. Maybe I'll do this again next year.

>302 jessibud2: *dingdingding* Perfect choice! It's up now.

>301 bell7: Weeping willow is a contender...or coconut palm if I need one after the Yule evergreen, just for a change. Thank you, Mary!

Aaand the new thread's up: https://www.librarything.com/topic/345384