richardderus's seventh 2023 thread

As we're going into Pride Month here in the US, the need I feel to celebrate my people in all their wild diversity, past and present, makes the choice of Sándor Vay (1859–1918), an easy one. He was a Hungarian poet and journalist. Born as a female named Sarolta, Vay was one of the first Hungarian women to complete university studies. Vay then began identifying as a male journalist, both before and after the sensational trial for his marriage to another woman in 1889. The case drew the attention of noted sexologists of the period, including Havelock Ellis and Richard von Krafft-Ebing, who used it to explore female inversion in the emerging field of sexology. During his lifetime, he was well respected as an author of historical articles on notable figures and cultural topics related to Hungary. Many of his works have been posthumously republished and are considered an important part of his country's literary heritage. More here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1ndor_Vay

Reviews through 017 linked here.

Reviews 018 through 025 (out of order) linked here.
Reviews through 025 linked here.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS

026 The Good German in post #165.

027 Shadow of the Red Moon in post #180.

028 Magnificent Rebel: Nancy Cunard in Jazz Age Paris in post #201.

PRIDE MONTH REVIEWS
029 Tink and Wendy in post #221.

030 Robin and Her Misfits in post #226.

031 Best Men by Sidney Karger in post #260.

032 Sometimes You Just Know in post #267.

033 Pedro & Daniel in post #287.

Previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

BURGOINE #4
The Sense of an Ending in post #26.

BURGOINE #5
UNDER THE SKIN in post #83.

BURGOINE #6
WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES in post #104.

BURGOINE #7
The History Major in post #193.

BURGOINE #8

All the Light We Cannot See in post #237.

Previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:https:
PEARL RULE #6 The Heart's Invisible Furies in post 47.
PEARL RULE # 7 Best Friends Forever in post 290.

Stop where you are!

There's no need to get all worried about it, it's okay now. Post away.

You gave me a nice chuckle, Richard! Thank you!

Karen O

And, neener, neener, I am first to post!

>7 klobrien2: Hey there Karen O.! You are indeed first past the post... have an Austrian Imperial crown:


Enjoy your Saturday, my dear lady. *smooch*

>8 richardderus: Ooh, I love it! Thank you! *smooches* back.

Karen O

>9 klobrien2: As uncomfortable as I am with the whole concept of an "empire" I can't help but feel that the bling is superb, and this one even more than most.

Might get a tad heavy wearing it around while dusting and vacuuming....

Happy new one, RD and a splendid weekend to you dear fellow too.

>11 PaulCranswick: Hiya, PC! Thanks for the well wishes. Hoping for the same all around the globe for us readers.

Happy new thread!

>13 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! *smooch "

Happy new thread, Richard. No pic is showing for me in >1 richardderus:, just a tiny square icon. Just fyi. The bling, on the other hand, is there in all its splendour!

Happy new thread Richard.

>15 jessibud2: I really don't get why that happens, Shelley. I'll go fix it. Thanks for letting me know it's not showing up. *smooch*

>16 ArlieS: Thank you most kindly, Arlie, and welcome to the new digs!

Happy new thread.
I can report the same as >15 jessibud2:.
The bling is there in its full glory, the thread topper image is hiding.

Happy new one -- love the bling

>19 Helenliz: Gadzooks!! I can not figure this out.

Anyway I am glad you are here, Helen.

>20 RebaRelishesReading: Hi Reba... that crown almost makes having an emperor worthwhile. The existence of crown jewels presupposes a crown wearer, after all....

>21 richardderus: whatever it was you did, it's there now.
Always happy to be here. >:-)

Please let me know if you can see Sándor Vay at last.

>23 Helenliz: Perfect! *smooch*

BURGOINE #4

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Real Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse.

This intense novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about - until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, The Sense of an Ending is a brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.

I GOT THIS COPY FROM MY LITTLE FREE LIBRARY, AND IT'S GOING BACK THERE NOW.

My Review: Far and away my favorite read by this author. It's probably my age, but the intro- and retro-spection of our Man Of A Certain Age struck me like I was a bell. While I think anyone can appreciate the prose for what It is, older audiences will resonate to the story more than younger ones. Best read in one long sitting because the cumulative effect of loss, grief, nostalgia, acceptance is very much part of the power of the read.

>1 richardderus: - I see it now, Richard!

As for >26 richardderus: - Interesting, I read this one quite a few years ago. I remember liking the story (even though I don't remember much about the actual story now) but I also remember being annoyed at the ending (ironically, given the title). As I said, I don't remember details but for some reason, that stayed with me. Weird.

>27 jessibud2: I think the reason I love the read is here:

What did I know of life, I who had lived so carefully? Who had neither won nor lost, but just let life happen to him? Who had the usual ambitions and settled all too quickly for them not being realized? Who avoided being hurt and called it a capacity for survival?Who paid his bills, stayed on good terms with everyone as far as possible, for whom ecstasy and despair soon became just words once read in novels? One whose self-rebukes never really inflicted pain? Well, there was all this to reflect upon, while I endured a special kind of remorse: a hurt inflicted at long last on one who always thought he knew how to avoid being hurt— and inflicted for precisely that reason.

As though his solipsism is redeemed by acknowledging his culpability in helping ruin multiple lives! As though he can look his cruelty in the face now and make the past himself better! But how human in his despair and desperation to keep his true level of responsibility as far away as possible... and still he actually does the unthinkable and asks himself at long last... what else have I done wrong?

I think all of us over a certain age have quite quietly asked ourselves that.

Happy new thread!

>1 richardderus: I like the topper idea. I will check out Sándor Vay's poetry.

>29 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita, and welcome. I will be interested in hearing what the poetry is like. Not interested enough to read it myself but definitely enough to hear what you have to say after reading it.

Happy new one, Richard!

>31 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

Happy New thread, Richard! I'm a little jealous that I did not get here in time to win the crown. I confess to being a bit of a fan of the British Monarchy, although I can understand how some think it is all a bit ridiculous in this day and age.

Happy New Thread!

>26 richardderus: I remember liking the book, but less so the film they made of it (not uncommon).

I hope you have a good reading day RD.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Sunday to you. Happy new thread, too.

From your last thread, I’ve always been happy to abandon books with glee, it’s just that now that I’m reading in a very specific subgenre, MM romance, I’ve gotten extremely picky. Kindle Unlimited allows me to borrow and return willy-nilly, otherwise I would have perhaps chosen more carefully. But, KU all the way. I’m reading a very good one right now, Edge of Living by H.L. Day, a hurt-comfort Librarian-Mechanic romance. The premise and writing have gotten me happily to 17%.

Ugh, the Laff Box. Another thing that irritates the you-know-what out of me is the it’s-not-really-music of the NCIS, Law & Order shows (which I irritate Bill with by calling ‘Lawn Order’) shows and others of that ilk. However, whenever I wander through the living room and Mariska Hargitay is on screen, I’m happily reminded that she’s the daughter of Jane Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay.

Helen – abandoning poorly written and frequently self-published crap is easy to do, as I mentioned above with Kindle Unlimited. I rarely soldier on, frankly. Abandoning a book after 200/600 is good – you are then able to read 400 worthy pages, right? I abandoned The Far Pavilions about 50 pages from the end and Crime and Punishment perhaps 100 pages from the end, both a very long time ago.

>1 richardderus: Fascinating man! Thanks for sharing. In one of my recent reads, Bayard Rustin was mentioned, so I went down THAT rabbit hole.

>8 richardderus: One can admire the craftsmanship and physical beauty of something that represents empire, repression, prejudice, and violence. I almost always think of the craftsmen/women who created these gorgeous things.

>26 richardderus: I read this one in March of 2013 and gave it 3.5 stars. I have 3 fiction and a memoir by Barnes on my shelves, and just schlepped The History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters down from the Media Room to the Sunroom. Who knows, I might even read it soon.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>26 richardderus: I loved The Sense of an Ending years ago (a quick search: it was November 2011). The way he played with memory is still fresh in my mind.

>33 vancouverdeb: Greetings Deb! I'm very happy to see you here. To be clear I don't think that monarchy as the Brits practice it today is particularly problematic but then again I don't have a dog in that there fight. I'm not sure that the pageantry is all bad... but the past and its abuse of huge swaths of the people around the globe whose entire existence was changed, and not for the better, can reasonably feel differently to me in my incalculable privilege.

So sorry but it's one crown per 🧵. Stay sharp!

*smooch*

>34 SilverWolf28: Thanks, Silver!

>35 Caroline_McElwee: So glad you are here today, Caro! I hadn't known that a film adaptation was made of The Sense of an Ending. I can imagine that I would hate it... mostly because I think this is a case of story needing to be told in a specific genre to work well. Agatha Christie's Poirot, the TV series on ITV, tried to film The Murder of Roger Ackroyd... it was not a success. It was, in fact, a blot on the escutcheon of all concerned.

Sometimes a story just don't work outside its original format.

>36 karenmarie: Horrible my dear lady, I wish you all the happiness a Sunday can contain. Your current genre of reading and the pace at which you are reading them, makes KU and the enabled abandoning actually crucial. You would be both broke and deeply unhappy if you had to buy all the books in this frequently self-published genre. As my age ticks into ever higher numbers, I realize that abandoning unsuccessful reads is actually self-care and I am delighted to do it.

That history one of Barnes' is one I read but recall very very little about. I should take it down for a flip-through and see if it comes back to me.

Bayard Rustin is a story that makes me vibrate with outrage. Ever so christian the way the civil rights leaders treated him...

*smooch*

>37 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita!

It's a good read indeed, but discomfiting in its ever-changing evocation of mood. He did a great job of leading readers of a certain age down different paths of memory. I hope someone older finds it in the Little Free Library.

Good morning, Richard, with your rapidly growing new thread! I resist thinking about real stuff at the moment, but I have some Barnes and will get to him sometime, I hope.

Sunday *smooch*

>43 LizzieD: Peggy me lurve, I am so pleased you are here. The 🧵 is expanding fast, ain't it.

Don't sprain anything rushing to get to Barnes and his meditations on memory and forgiveness. The subjects are evergreen for a reason and so can be read whenever. Being in the right frame of mind for the read is key to enjoying this book.

Sunday *smooch*

Hi Richard, a holiday weekend here and very smoky from forest fires. I'm glad we had no camping/travel plans.
This morning is a traditional dim sum restaurant meet up. While Covid isn't gone-gone, the panic to stay isolated has abated and it is great to see our usual group of friends for this treat.

Have reached #41 on my 2023-year's reading tally. I'm very satisfied with that and figure that not managing my usual average of 10 books per month is just fine. A lot of things interfered with my usual habits.

Your L-F-L yields much better selections than the ones in our area. I usually check out the closer libraries when I'm on my walks. The The Sense of an Ending seems like an intriguing book ~ your review certainly hooked my interest.

>45 SandyAMcPherson: Hi there Sandy. My Little Free Library is getting the benefits of the library itself clearing out the collection. Sadly to me at least, that means SFF and short stories are going into the box. As I like those genres I'm getting inputs not just outgoings and that's not the point!

I hope you will enjoy Barnes's novel when you do get to read it. The strokes put an end to my plans for 2023's reading. I'm trying to see that as a net positive... so far with mixed success. Still soldiering on...

PEARL RULE #6 (p381)

The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from – and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.

I RECEIVED AN ARC OF THIS BOOK FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: I know a lot of y'all are looking at the text above and wondering if I have had another stroke. I'm Pearl-Rule abandoning a read on page 381?! I don't think I owe anyone explanations but I do want to say this clearly: if something you are reading either isn't or stops working for you, IT IS OKAY TO ABANDON IT RIGHT THEN AND THERE. No one is judging you but you... though if they are, you should heed the warning they're sending you.

So. Page 360. Cyril muses about a few people he's seen die, but reflects that he hasn't seen anyone die of AIDS. Then Boyne has him think, "Not yet anyway."

The preceding three hundred plus pages of "funny" digs at Ireland and its culture, of catholic church hypocrisy, at closeted gay life, should have prepared me for this. But it hit me exactly wrong... for all the reasons I have listed. The tone and tenor of the story is irritating. It's been irritating to me from the get-go. Having a character narrate a chapter from the womb is a risk, and one I don't think he succeeded in landing. The every-seven-years structure of the chapters is arch and borderline twee. Many are the folks who loved Cyril and his slow unwinding of the mummy-wrappings of his awful past.

I am not among those folks. YMMV, as always.

>47 richardderus: Meh, can't say that one is calling out for me. I was fair-to-middling about The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and haven't really felt the need to try any of his others since.

>48 bell7: I don't think I ever read the jammies one but I remember the film made me think I should probably stay away. It was pretty sappy. It's looking like I am just not his best reader. Nor, itp seems, are you! *smooch*

Sunday smooch, Richard! Sorry that The Hearts Invisible Furies did not work out for you. I recall that I gave it 4 stars, so I did enjoy it But as you say, YMMV. I not read the Striped Pajamas, so I can't comment on that one. I hope the offerings from your LFL improve.

>47 richardderus: That sounds awful. Thank you for protecting me from it.

Happy new thread, Richard. You’re a hard man to catch up with!

Popping in to wave, Richard. Back in Singapore but still in the throes of the part renovation, not made easier by one phase of our electricity failing, for the mending of which it is apparently essential to have a large hole in front of our gate. So my car is trapped either inside or outside for the whole day.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Monday to you.

>47 richardderus: hunchbacked Redemptorist nun ?!??!!! Had I been sipping coffee when I read that, I would have spewed it all over my keyboard and monitor. Bravo for finally pulling the plug at page 381.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>50 vancouverdeb: Monday *smooch* back, Deb. I'm sad that the read didn't work for me too, but I think I am just not his reader. The way you responded to the story is the more common way to respond, he's been praised and lauded all over the place... I'm out of step sad to say. Not the first time nor will it be the last.

Happy week ahead's reads!

>51 RebaRelishesReading: It was to me, but permaybehaps its merits won't be lost on you...no, I can't imagine you getting more than the mildest amusement from it, Reba. I don't see you enjoying the arch tone. It reads as phony to be honest.

Lovely week to come!

>52 Familyhistorian: Hey there Meg. I'm slightly breathless from keeping the pace myownself! I'm glad that you found the new digs. *smooch*

>53 humouress: Howdy do, Nina! I'm more than a little gobsmacked that you can find your way around until after the kitchen is completely finished. You get big ups from me for fortitude!

Happy New Thread, Richard. Sorry Invisible Furies didn't work for you but you certainly gave it your best shot. Thanks again for keeping my thread warm while I was happily sleeping in the MI dirt/sand. We had a good time. It could have just been a smidge warmer. Just laying low today and will catch up on a few things around here, including lots of book time. I plan on getting to the PO to mail your book too.

>54 karenmarie: Horrible my dear! Happy New Sunday to you and yours!

I think you might actually be able to find the good in this one... it's not poorly written, but it has a tone that might tickle your funny bone. He's aiming for a Swiftian kind of humor that I don't resonate to, but have seen you enjoy. Check out from the library and see... maybe it's a good read for you.... I can always hope so.

*smooch*

>59 msf59: Heya Birddude! I'm glad you and Sue enjoyed your mudbaths or whatever it is you outdoorsy types get yourselves up to in the "great" outdoors. We're in peak season now aren't we? Few mosquitoes and lots fewer competitors for space? A bit of chill is the price for it, no?

Good morning, Richard. Having given The Absolutist 3½ stars, I haven't hurried to read the other Boyne I own - whatever that is.* If/when I do get back to him, I certainly won't pick up *H'sIF*.

*Just looked --- it's Crippen, and I do hope to get to it some day.

Meanwhile, happy day to you. We started out cool but will warm into the low 80s today. That's OK with me, but I dread what it presages.

>62 LizzieD: Peggy me lurve! I was just over at yours saying Hi... I totally get why you would want to pursue CRIPPEN because the story is a cracker. If I wasn't now sure I am not his ideal reader, I'd give that one a go. If you end up liking it, I still might.

Won't break 70 here today so I am The Puppy Happy. Off to take my daily walk to the Little Free Library to offload the Boyne book and hopefully NOT.ADD.ANYTHING.NEW.

We'll see if that works out. *smooch*

Well I failed to not add anything new... FROM THE MIDWAY, a collection of stories I guess just will not be adopted from the Little Free Library, and JUNCTION by one Daniel M. Bensen, another one that hasn't found a home in over a week. I've brought them home to put in the facility library.

Such a New York weekend I survived. Recovering at home now. Yay! The Grand Helen graduated from Fordham at Lincoln Center on a rainy day bookended by bright sunny days. Of course, the paramount moment—the awarding of diplomas—was outdoors in the hardest rainfall. Other misadventures followed, but an excellent dinner capped the evening.

I did get a few books at The Strand.

>65 weird_O: I am so pleased you enjoyed the visit, Your Weirdness! I find myself shocked! shocked! that you acquired books at the piddling little bookery that is the Strand. I mean, really... you have the entirety of central PA and its library sales all to yourself. What could a mere ten- plus miles of books have to offer one so privileged?

Hey, there! Just want to wish you the start of a great week. Here's hoping the weather stays pleasantly cool and dry for awhile.

I just remembered we have a Little Free Library at the local park on the Hudson near the playground where my daughter takes the kids sometimes. I need to get down there soon, drop off some books, since I missed the library's used book drop-off schedule. And no, not picking any up.

Happy new thread, Richard!

From the last thread: I read The Mathematician's Shiva several years ago, and retain almost none of it except a recollection of underwhelmedness. Checking my notes, I see that I chuckled at some satire of academia, but didn't expect it would last in my memory. As indeed it hasn't.

Never read any John Boyne, though The Sense of an Ending sounds appealing.

>67 Storeetllr: Hiya Mary! Good thing you remembered the Little Free Library nearby. The darn books are multiplying like bunnies and neither of us has enough space for them all.

As to "not picking any up," we shall see what we shall see....

>68 swynn: Greetings, Steve! Good to see you here. Boyne isn't on my buy list but Barnes sure is... so I hope you like ENDING when its turn comes.

>47 richardderus: Yup, that's a pass from me too. I was also un-enthused about The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. In fact >56 richardderus: It reads as phony to be honest. pretty much sums up my feelings about that one as well.

>71 Helenliz: I don't know what exactly it is that just really makes an author's hard work read as just brummagem and faux but there's a tone that I simply can't put my finger on that I dislike in his work. Some people respond to it differently, of course but I'll be giving him a Miss of a mile.

It's that time again... my blog is going totally queer for Pride Month. My first full month of reviews since the strokes...I really want to make this happen again to keep my streak going. Since it's a complete bugger to post images on the blog from the Pixel, I need to crank up the laptop and make it behave itself at last...I really don't look forward to this...

I'll have to check out your blog, Richard. Happy reading in the week ahead. Best of luck with posting the pictures on your blog from the Pixel. I have enough trouble trying to post a picture here on LT.

Happy Tuesday, Richard!

Good luck getting the images onto the blog. May the transfer go smoothly.

‘Morning, Rdear. Happiest of Tuesdays to you.

>60 richardderus: Our Library has it as an electronic resource, and I just may check it out. We’ll see. I was sort of hoping for Kindle Unlimited but won’t spend $14.99 for it on Kindle, that’s for sure.

>73 richardderus: I’m very proud of our Library for lots of reasons, but especially for celebrating Pride Month in a purple county at best, and where there WILL be negative fallout. I can’t resist posting the film schedule for the month. They also always have a prominent display that I may take a pic in June.



Sorry about posting pics to your blog from the Pixel and having to crank up the laptop. Good luck.

*smooch*

Morning, RD!

>74 vancouverdeb: Oh happy day! Someone to read some of the over -2000 reviews I've posted!
Expendablemudge.blogspot.com

>75 figsfromthistle: Thank you Anita! I hope I don't just go entirely mad in the process.

>76 karenmarie: Tuesday orisons, Horrible my dear. Your library does more for Pride Month than mine does so feel that swell of satisfaction at seeing the right thing done for me, too.

DO NOT SPEND YOUR OWN MONEY ON >47 richardderus: whatever you do! Some library somewhere has a file available.

I really hope my laptop cooperates and I don't go loudly insane with frustration. I'm not confident on that eventuating, but I live in hope. The Pixel is a joy in so many ways that I feel churlish complaining about this one issue. Still and all, it's one that genuinely impacts my use of the device.

>77 katiekrug: Howdy do, Miss Katie, ma'am.

Good morning, Richard. I send many hopes that you won't need empathetic encouragement as you jolly along your laptop. I can hear our niece in my mind's ear as she worked on a computer problem for me, "I'm smarter than you are, and I can figure this out." She did. I couldn't have.
*smooch*

BURGOINE #5

UNDER THE SKIN by Michel Faber

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture is suggestive of some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening. Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men-trailer trash and travelling postgrads, thugs and philosophers. But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it's only a question of how long she can endure her pain--physical and spiritual--and their conversation. Michel Faber's work has been described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory-our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion.

I RECEIVED THIS BOOK FOR MY 50TH BIRTHDAY. THANKS FOR THE PLEASURE.

My Review: Both the book and its film adaptation get the same rating from me. A female serial killer who sends the men she targets to a dreadful fate is a terrific inversion of the bog-standard female-as-victim trope that I am mortally sick of. It's telling that the only way this is allowed to happen is if the female in question is an alien. A human female serial killer? Unthinkable!

My eyes finally rolling back to the position where I can see to type, I'll say this for Faber's now -23-year-old novel and its ten-year-old film adaptation: the thoughts each provokes are deep and discomfiting ones about the nature of our unquestioned place as the apex of all things, as males and as humans.

>82 LizzieD: Heya Peggy! Glad that you visited. My intelligence outstrips the computer but I don't think it will be enough because the geeks who made the programming error that caused the problem in the first place are thinking in a way that I simply cannot. I hope it won't be a giant hassle... more than it already has been, that is... but I fear I'm pessimistic about my chances of that coming to pass. *smooch*

>47 richardderus: >48 bell7: I'm with Mary and Richard. John Boyne's work isn't appealing to me. Have tried 2 titles and didn't even get to p. 50. Ah well, no shortage of other reading material and as many LTers say, different tastes create diverse reading choices.

>84 richardderus: It's an article of faith around here that there is a reader for every book but not necessarily you. Some take disagreement with their love of a book as a personal insult; many people take my statement of a strong opinion as an imposition on their tolerance; the two often go hand in hand.

I'll wish you good luck with the computer even though you don't expect it to work -- wouldn't it be a happy surprise if it did?

>80 richardderus: I wish you success with your laptop situation! It’s so frustrating when our tech doesn’t work as it should. I’m reminded of the great TV show, “The IT Crowd, “

Roy: repeated throughout the series
answering the phone
Roy: Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Karen O

Well, the Long Beach PublicLibrary did it to me again. I left Under the Skin and got four more... I'm now up three instead of down one.

ETA the evidence

>88 klobrien2: Hi Karen O.! I didn't watch that show but boy is that ever accurate. I now start every tech related conversation with, "yes I turned it off and back on before I called." It's usually enough to convince them that I am not a noob.

>88 klobrien2: Hi there Karen O. I never watched that show, but boy is that ever relatable. I truly wish it was that easy this time. *sigh*

Re: Boyne - I have serveral on my shelves/Kindle but haven't read any yet. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas came in for some heavy criticism from the Auschwitz Museum and Memorial, so that one has never appealed.

>92 katiekrug: I hadn't heard about that criticism, Katie. I can obviously understand it. Who knows you might be his happiest reader when you finally get to read one. The glorious, mysterious alchemy of reading is unpredictable.

Hi, Richard! >83 richardderus: Hmm, I think I might have read this one, but it was probably pre-2006 when I joined LT. At least it sounds familiar, and I can’t imagine two books with the same premise out there. I’m tempted to check it out and see.

>94 Storeetllr: I'll bet if you download a Kindle sample you will either remember it right away or realize that you haven't read it after all. Quick and easy!

>95 richardderus: Good thinking! I will do that!

>90 richardderus: If you have Netflix, I recommend watching the IT Crowd. Its hilarious, but then I'm a geek. I don't know if this is a plus or a minus, you will see Noel Fielding from GBBO. He features prominently in several episodes.

>96 Storeetllr: 😁

>97 mahsdad: I do have Netflix... it's worth a look, anyway, Fielding or no!

>89 richardderus: Happens to us all.

Hi Richard, dear friend, Happy New Thread mate.

>100 ArlieS: No joy among my shelves, Arlie. They're groaning and creaking.

>101 johnsimpson: Thanks John!

BURGOINE #6

WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES by David Sedaris

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: It's early autumn 1964. Two straight-A students head off to school, and when only one of them returns home Chesney Yelverton is coaxed from retirement and assigned to what proves to be the most difficult and deadly - case of his career. From the shining notorious East Side, When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about...

when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.

Oh, all right...

David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.

THIS BOOK WAS A GIFT FROM MY EX. IT'S GOING TO THE LITTLE FREE LIBRARY NOW.

My Review: Very funny guy writes more very funny observational comedy essays. If you like him, you'll love it; if you are irritated and annoyed by his shtik, you won't. Never read his stuff? Start anywhere. They're all much of a muchness.

>104 richardderus: OK, question: if it is an "external catheter" then what use is that? I hate to think what a recreational use would be. Gives me nauseous heebie-jeebies just thinking about that.

If it wasn't for that "external catheter" bit, I'd be tempted to try out this dark humour novel. It is a novel isn't it?

Happy Wednesday, Richard. I also loved Under the Skin, novel and film. Both are so freakin' original and completely unsettling. I would also like to check out the latest by Sedaris. They make perfect audiobook experiences with him narrating.

>105 SandyAMcPherson: Sandy, that passage is meant to be nonsense... and no, it's not a novel but a collection of humorous essays that resemble Jerry Seinfeld shtiks from his stand-up comedy years. I'm only mildly amused by Sedaris, but read one or two at a time, they're amusing enough.

>106 msf59: Hi Birddude... I can see the appeal of hearing the man himself deliver the humor the way he thunk it up. If this hadn't been a gift I'd've never picked it up. Not a big enough fan.

Hi RDear! Happy Wednesday.

>83 richardderus: I started going down the rabbit hole of female serial killers, both in fiction and in RL, and just had to pull the plug on it, being as how it’s brekkie time.

>88 klobrien2: And, in addition to turning it off and on again, WAITING after turning it off for a good minute before turning it back on.

>104 richardderus: I just looked in my catalog and see that I added When You Are Engulfed in Flames in 2010 and haven’t read it yet. He’s an essayist I have to take in small doses. Calypso is my absolute favorite, because how can one not like a man who names his NC coast beach cottage Sea-Section?

*smooch* from your own Madame TVT and Horrible

>109 karenmarie: Horrible my dear lady! I'm glad to see you here. I was just over at yours saying hi. Your Sedaris consumption is similar to mine, I think. If I could still get to the post office, I'd send my copy to you. Sadly those days are gone.

Serial killers are not a topic I myownself find pleasure in reading about. Especially as they are largely used in fiction to perpetuate the woman-as-victim trope that I find so extremely distasteful.

Happy Humpday, smoochling.

Another good morning from me, Richard! I'm another who doesn't care to take a lot of Sedaris. I listen to Crumpet the Christmas Elf to hear him sing "Away in a Manger" like Billie Holiday, and that's about all. In the years that I miss it, I can sing it myself.

*smooch* for the day!

>104 richardderus: All I remember of Sedaris is his famous The Santaland Diaries. As someone who also worked at Macy's in a similar role, I could relate.

Agree that if you're read one Sedaris you've probably read them all. He can be funny on talk shows on those rare occasions where a talk show books a writer as a guest.

I used to occasionally watch the Bill Mahr show but after a while i found myself anticipating not only the punch lines but the whole of the joke. And i stopped watching.

Your milage may vary.

>112 magicians_nephew: I don't find myself in talk-show watching mode very often, Jim. I get bored and frustrated with the host and the guests very quickly. Sedaris has the perfect humor for that venue but I just don't want to participate.

>111 LizzieD: Peggy me y! Lovely to see you here. *smooch*

Mount Tambora! Yes! (regarding the conversation on my thread).
Thanks for the visit.

>95 richardderus: Yep! I realized from the first sentence of the sample (and thank you for the idea!) that I had read it, and continuing through the next few pages confirmed it. However, I remember nothing about it, though, apparently, it made an impression. I wonder what my rating would have been had I read it after joining LT.

Two out, two in from the Little Free Library on the boardwalk today. The incomers are here: https://twitter.com/expendablemudge/status/1661404021683257346?t=7PEdmslDEuFf8e0...

>115 SandyAMcPherson: I'm glad you provided context for the general public... that comment would be surreal, if not sibylline, without it. **smooch*

>116 Storeetllr: I am really pleased that my suggestion did a good job for you, Mary! It's a real forehead-slapper the first time you think of it, but becomes a habit quickly.

>99 richardderus: (IT Crowd) Dammit, they took it off at the end of the last month. I was going to comment that because its a British series, they are nice compact episodes only 6 or 8 per season. But its moot. The bastards took it away. Why can't we have anything nice. :)

Ah, but there's always Youtube. Search for IT Crowd Full Episodes. Here's EP 1

https://youtu.be/fU14GSc_mzA

>120 mahsdad: Well, whenever you notice something is gone from where it was, the first question should always be, who profits from it not being here?

The agreement must've ended between Netflix and the British show runners. Thank you for the link!

>121 richardderus: Yeah, I heard some discussion around that. Specifically with HBO and Disney and such taking off their own shows. Why, one would ask, its their own stuff, just play it. I guess its cheaper to take a loss on the property, rather than have to pay residuals and such. 🤷‍♂️

>122 mahsdad: Plus don't forget that the broadcast rights on those shows might be all they have, so they have no reason to put them out if they get no second revenue stream.

Capitalism sucks wookiee balls.

>66 richardderus: I DID write an eloquent reply shortly after you posted your comments on shopping "at that piddling little bookery." But I managed to blast it to smithereens before posting it. LT gone. Just a blank screen. I know you've never encountered such.

The gist of my post: Library book sales are fleeting, and quite few and far between. The inventory is unpredictable. It's highly unlikely you will find a specific title you want. Wanting a particular book? Amazon, yes. I tried two local bookeries, looking for a particular book: no luck. (And I know from experience that that very book takes a couple of weeks to be released from whatever warehouse it's hidden in.)

So I was going to NYC, and The Strand is but a few blocks from where I was to be lodging. I got The Book. A few others for myself. Had I snagged everything on The Want List™ I would have exceeded the credit limit on my Amazon credit card. I was happy.

>124 weird_O: Imagine such a rinkydink operation as that having your precise desideratum! You can protest the inadequacy of the library sales in your bailiwick but you give yourself the lie every time you post those tottering towers of times on your thread.

Nice try, though.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

I haven't read anything by David Sedaris. My library does have some books by him. I might start with Squirrel seeks chipmunk or Me talk pretty one day, both available at the e-library.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you.

All quiet here on the central NC front. Coffee, LTing then reading, then various and sundry.

I haven't even gone down any rabbit holes (yet) today.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>126 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita. I'd suggest that you try ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY. It's a very funny cultural observation collection.

*smooch*

>127 karenmarie: Horrible! Is everything really okay?! Not so much as a bunny trail yet? It's after 9am! By now you've usually had time to get into the history of the Bogomils, the Cathar "heresy" and the influence of Buddhism on the early christian "fathers". I'm worried...

*smooch*

>128 richardderus: One the list for next month, I just took it from the e-library :-)
*smooch*

>130 FAMeulstee: All the YAY!

Today's Little Free Library visit was the first time yet I've gone there to put in a book but haven't come back with more than I left! One out, none in. Hooray!

>132 richardderus: That's impressive!

>132 richardderus: Better consider giving up your LT membership.

>132 richardderus: What a sad thing!

I know I was here earlier, but I remember now that I couldn't catch up and didn't even speak. Hello, Richard. Hope your day is going to suit. We are just back and fed from getting our Covid booster, so we're good until CDC decides we're not.

*smooch*

>133 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen! I'm quite chuffed.

>134 humouress: No.

Nyahnyahnyah

>135 LizzieD: Sad?! Oh my heck, Peggy, I am far far far from getting to the dangerous point of having under 1,000 books on my TBR. Fewer than that and I get antsy.

I got boosted last year and the guidelines say no need for another just yet. The flu shot I'll get in September. Every year like clockwork...

‘Morning, RichardDear, and happy Friday to you.

>129 richardderus: Everything’s fine – just nothing grabbed my attention enough to warrant a dive on duckduckgo. Even later in the day, nada.

Finished a book yesterday, abandoned 126 pages in another, and have happily started another.

edited to add: Just read all about Rob's nomadic summer, credentialed-ness, and being close-enough-in-Philly on Katie's thread. Yay for him and you.

*smooch*

Happy Friday, Richard. I will be going to Bree's shortly and scooping up Jackson. We will keep him for the day and night. We also hit the trails with him, along with our girl Juno.

I am glad you have such good luck at your Little Free Library box. Your neighborhood must have some well-read folks. I never seen anything I am interested in whenever I visit one of those.

>140 msf59: If anybody in my benighted town has a Little Free Library, I don't know about it. I doubt I'd want what would appear there either. Our public library keeps romances and romances and James Patterson mysteries and romances circulating. Before my friend was passing her books on to me, they would kindly buy a new book I wanted and put my name first on the list for it. They did that with The Underground Railroad for sure and a few others I couldn't afford.

Anyway, happy day to you, Richard! I hope it's satisfying wherever your attention turns. *smooch*

>139 karenmarie: I hope the weekend ahead goes well for you, Horrible dearest.

Funnily enough, I was therapy chatting today and my therapist asked me the name of the restaurant in Cobble Hill where Rob works..
I have absolutely no idea! We don't talk about it in those terms ever. I just don't need to know so I have actually never asked. I can't go there and can call Rob without using a landline so it's irrelevant. Plus I don't like the people he works for as people so I have even less impetus to remember data I don't need.

It seems weird to my therapist, I could tell. To me, it's just clutter. Am I weird for this?

Your gay abandon in abandoning reads is exemplary. I'm putting three self-published novels in the Little Free Library today because I will never in this incarnation have enough eyeblinks to spare for this poorly copyedited un-proofread farrago.

*smooch*

>140 msf59: Friday orisons, Birddude! Your Jackson time will be the joy of your weekend I know. No reading time, I feel sure.

The boardwalk attracts people from all over the county so I get a lot of widely varied tastes leaving their unwanted books.

Enjoy.

>141 LizzieD: I am sure my local branch is going to be moving down market, so to speak, as the stuff they are deaccessioning is stuff I like. Well I don't really have a lot to say about that because I stopped using the physical books a while ago. I do bring them home because I just don't want to waste the chance to get things I want to read but don't want to buy. I quite slow to pick up tree books though. It's painful to hold them and the reading pillow is only so much help.

Friday *smooch*

All three out and nothing came in... that's two days in a row with more out than in. I'm on fire!

>145 richardderus: I guess I should say "good for you" since it seems to be your goal but I mourn books when I left them go so I just keep buying more bookshelves :> I have, once or twice, left a book at a LFL and not taken anything. We have several in the neighborhood and one in front of "my" gym but they rarely have anything that interests me :(

>142 richardderus: To me, it's just clutter. Am I weird for this?

You and Einstein, my friend. Wish I could declutter my memory sometimes. As well as my house.

Congrats on releasing books without taking any in!

>132 richardderus: I'm proud of you.

>146 RebaRelishesReading: If I hadn't already read them I would feel differently, Reba, but once it's either in my head or rejected, why keep it? I'm not a re-reader particularly as I get older. Let someone else enjoy the read. I'm especially pleased that I am actually reducing the overall census because my space is so minimal.

Happy weekend ahead's reads!

>147 Storeetllr: I feel better already, Mary, from being compared to Einstein!

>148 ArlieS: I appreciate your vote of confidence, Arlie!

A terrible headache later, my eyes have been seen by my usual ophthalmologist for the first time post strokes. Blepharitis, and worsening cataracts is the diagnosis... but the macular degeneration is not distinguishable from the 2022 visit! I'll see their cataract specialist in September. Then back to this guy in May.

Now I need to get Blink, artificial tears brand name, and a USB-powered heat mask to use on my eyes a couple times a day for the next three months. He didn't like the way the eyelid glands looked. Anyway, my duty is done and I feel much better because the macular degeneration is not worse.

>149 richardderus: My mind thinks yours is the healthier and more appropriate attitude buy my heart disagrees.

Happy weekend reading to you too and congratulations on macular degeneration being stable.

>152 richardderus: No worsening of macular degeneration, dry, I assume - GREAT GOOD NEWS!!!! Long may that be the case for our Richard!

Sleep well and lose the headache!

>153 RebaRelishesReading: I totally get why your heart disagrees, Reba, because mine did too. It took many long years for my ideas about book-keeping to change. In 2008, I left Texas and, due to some very unplanned and unexpected problems, my entire container of worldly goods vanished. I needed to reorient my thinking about Stuff after that. It's not like I want to go back to the old attitude because I really don't miss most Stuff when I don't have it anymore.

Thank you re: macular degeneration. I live in terror of my mother's fate... she lost the ability to read about two years before she died due to macular degeneration.

>154 LizzieD: Hey there Peggy! Yes, as you posited, it's dry macular degeneration and the great news is that the scans of my eyes are practically indistinguishable from year to year. Also Dr Sigler told me about some new treatments recently developed for the scarring that more severe cases of the condition are prone to, and reassured me that I don't need them but they are continuing to develop treatments all the time.

He's great about mansplaining stuff to me to reassure me about my fate still being changeable. I find it very helpful and feel reassured that he understands my anxiety over the topic.

Sunday *smooch*

>156 richardderus: - You used the term "mansplaining"! I am shocked.

Glad for the good eye news!

>157 katiekrug: I am starting a campaign to reclaim the insult from its wielders. Like we are doing with queer and faggot.

Thanks re eyes... it really is a big source of anxiety for me, so the relief is enormous when the news is good. The jitters don't go away, really, but I can shut the internal doom-scrolling down much more readily.

>158 richardderus: - I understand. I have incipient glaucoma, and every pressure test twists me into a bundle of nerves...

I'm really happy for you and your eyes, Richard. I see my doc next Thursday, and I'll be relieved to get the shots as he tries to find the right time between treatments that keeps me good without over-treating.

>158 richardderus: What word would you like me to use to characterize, for example, my husband's instructing to me that cutting off the toggle of a power strip is the same as unplugging it?

We're windy and damp and cool today. We need several inches of rain, so I wish it would get on with it. I wish you a happy one even if you have to stay inside!

Hiya, RDear. Happy Saturday to you.

>142 richardderus: Doesn’t your therapist recognize the value/need for cell phones? Whyever would you need to get in touch with Rob at the restaurant? You are not weird. Therapist seems out of touch and focused on irrelevancies regarding your being able to communicate with Rob in the way that works for both of you.

Heh. Poorly copyedited un-proofread farrago. I occasionally think I should note every wrong word, sentence fragment, wrong-name-of-character-because-the-author-changed-it-mid-write-but-didn’t-catch-this-one, wrongly-placed comma, awkward phrasing, and etc. but never do. I probably notice 95% of crap, though.

>147 Storeetllr: I occasionally bemoan having brain cells tied up in things I don’t want or need…

>152 richardderus: I’m sorry, RD, that on top of cataracts and macular degeneration, you’ve got blepharitis, which I’ve never heard of before. But, yay for no worsening of the macular degeneration.

>160 LizzieD: What word would you like me to use to characterize, for example, my husband's instructing to me that cutting off the toggle of a power strip is the same as unplugging it? Good question, Peggy. I anxiously wait for RD’s answer.

*smooch*, RD

>159 katiekrug: Wouldn't you think we'd be more Zen about it by now? It's not like it's new to either of us but here we are, nervy and on edge every time....

>160 LizzieD: What's wrong with irritating, Peggy? I no longer have the ability to refer to an annoying, overbearing woman as a "bitch" so why do you need a gendered term to refer to your husband's annoying habits?

ETA To be utterly clear, I don't think you're an overbearing, annoying woman, so the example isn't a passive-aggressive dig!

*smooch*

>161 karenmarie: I've been unclear about the therapist and her concern regarding my interest in the name of Rob's employer, Horrible. It's more that she realizes that I can be oblivious to Rob's concerns, like the unfortunate blindness to the racist BS he was putting up with earlier. I simply didn't see the ways he was trying to communicate this stuff to me without coming out and saying it... for all sorts of reasons it was clear that he and I were on different wavelengths. This seemed to her to be another example of that. (It isn't, as I've confirmed with the man himself.)

I'm actually glad that she pays such close attention to my relationship!

Blepharitis is a common condition that often gets diagnosed as dry eyes. The treatment for blepharitis is a little more involved than it is for basic dry eyes, but one regimen in common is the drops, and they will often help the blepharitis enough to make it invisible to the sufferer. Unless, of course, it gets really bad. I'm not in the really bad camp but it's reached clinical diagnosis level so it's time to clear up the symptoms.

026 The Good German by Joseph Kanon

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: With World War II finally ending, Jake Geismar, former Berlin correspondent for CBS, has wangled one of the coveted press slots for the Potsdam Conference. His assignment: a series of articles on the Allied occupation. His personal agenda: to find Lena, the German mistress he left behind at the outbreak of the war.

When Jake stumbles on a murder -- an American soldier washes up on the conference grounds -- he thinks he has found the key that will unlock his Berlin story. What Jake finds instead is a larger story of corruption and intrigue reaching deep into the heart of the occupation. Berlin in July 1945 is like nowhere else -- a tragedy, and a feverish party after the end of the world.

As Jake searches the ruins for Lena, he discovers that years of war have led to unimaginable displacement and degradation. As he hunts for the soldier's killer, he learns that Berlin has become a city of secrets, a lunar landscape that seethes with social and political tension. When the two searches become entangled, Jake comes to understand that the American Military Government is already fighting a new enemy in the east, busily identifying the "good Germans" who can help win the next war. And hanging over everything is the larger crime, a crime so huge that it seems -- the worst irony -- beyond punishment.

At once a murder mystery, a moving love story, and a riveting portrait of a unique time and place, The Good German is a historical thriller of the first rank.

THIS WAS A GIFT FROM THE CLEAR OUT AN OLD FRIEND HAD A FEW YEARS AGO. THANK YOU.

My Review:Not my favorite kind of reading. I don't care about straight people and their hook-ups, their infidelities, or whether or not they get their HEAs.

The murder-mystery aspect of the story was well done, involving, and clever. The historical setting was genius! It not only made the mystery possible in the first place, it was essentially a second layer of novel unto itself. This is a very difficult feat to pull off. Two layers, inextricable from each other, are still somehow different registers of story. This self-harmony is the whole reason I give the read four instead of two and a half stars. Quite an achievement.

>155 richardderus: "entire container of worldly goods vanished" -- OMG! I think, actually, that I would be OK/could survive losing much of my "stuff" but I would struggle a lot with losing my books.

"dry macular degeneration" - haven' heard of that. How is that different from "regular" m.d.?

I had cataracts and the doctor who did the surgery did tell me I had "chosen" the best of the three possible eye problems. I'm glad to hear treatments for m.d. are improving because that one isn't easy to deal with.

>152 richardderus: I use Blink. IIRC, it has two variants - one for milder and one for worse dryness. My doc recommended (actually, gave me a sample of) the milder one. (Your problems may be worse and need the other, about which I know nothing.)

It can be a bit of a PITA to find, particularly if you don't want (or need) the more expensive single-use vials (which naturally generate lots more plastic waste). Be aware that some places charge as much for the half ounce size as others do for the harder-to-find one ounce size. I've been mail ordering it from whichever Target-like chain has the best price at the time. Usually several at a time, so as to get free shipping.

>166 RebaRelishesReading: The wet kind of macular degeneration is caused by a blood vessel being where it shouldn't be behind the eye which results in fluid buildup and/or bleeding into the retinal fluid. It progresses quickly and is often harder to treat.

Cataracts are very easy to treat when they get bad enough to cause real trouble. Mine are still pretty mild, thank goodness, but are beginning to impinge on my clarity of medium distance vision.

I was upset when everything just vanished. But I realized that I wasn't lacking anything I could not replace. Hauling Stuff around the country is just a giant PITA. I'm honestly better off.

>167 ArlieS: I use the mild-to-moderate strength half-ounce size and buy them in four-packs. So far at least they are best bought from Ammy because the multi pack will be used up based on current usage directions in just under a month. I've been instructed not to get the one ounce size because the risk of eye infection is higher.

There’s a lot of stuff I’d be more than fine with losing, but it would hurt me to lose some of my things, especially my old photos, art, LP collection, and my grandma’s bed and desk—which I used when I was a little kid and still do—and her books. And the other books I own that are, in fact, irreplaceable (signed copies, out-of-print hardcovers, etc.). I’ve been thinking of doing some Dostadning (Swedish death cleaning), because my daughter has absolutely zero interest in anything I own.

Congratulations on your AMD not getting worse. I’ll be seeing my ophthalmologist ins couple of weeks and hope to be able to say the same about mine. It’s one of my greatest fears—going blind from it. What are the symptoms of Blepharitis?

>163 richardderus: The thing is, Richard, some folks of the XY persuasion seem to believe that those of the XX persuasion are stupid and can thus be taken advantage of. Case in point, the man whose company currently 'takes care' (for want of a better description) of our garden has always tried to persuade me to throw away the plants I've installed so he can sell me his stuff or do extra things that we have no desire or need of. If only they would do the gardening properly instead of trying to charge us for other services. With this renovation, I also want to put some grass in the back garden so I sent the man a text to ask what we would need to do to prepare the ground, to which he replied he would 'like to see the space'. So, on the day I said I'd be at home, I was waiting upstairs since the downstairs was all wrapped in plastic and he not only walked in through my front gate (which was open for the workmen to bring stuff in) without ringing the bell and not just walked in through my front door (which is always open for Jasper, since the front gate is usually closed) without ringing the second bell, he came all the way up the stairs. I doubt he would have done that if he had thought my husband was at home or if he had realised that my older son was at home too. Anyhow, we went out to the back to discuss the grass and then, of course, he assumed we'd be getting rid of our fence (why?) so he offered to replace it, suggested we throw out my precious frangipani tree which shades half the back garden etc etc.

There are further instances which I won't bore you with (right now) but I was grumbling to my friend who had asked for a gardener to help with a one-off project last year and, though I offered to give her his number, I'd said I wasn't happy with his company (I forget exactly what it was at the time I wasn't keen on) so she had said 'no thanks'. Then she sheepishly admitted that she'd got fed up with her plants escaping their beds and had recently called him for a quote - only to get back one day to find three gardeners from his company waiting to start work. Being far more soft-hearted and nicer than me, she let them get on with it but when she got the bill, it was twice as much as she had expected it would be (remember, she had never got the quote) and though she did quibble with part of it she ended up paying most of it. And really, I think he pulled a fast one just because he was dealing with a woman. Plus, we live in Asia where - in some cultures - the gender inequality is exacerbated.

So, okay, not exactly mansplaining but I needed to rant. And I do admit that when my husband mansplains, he does it to anyone and everyone and it's probably not because he's a man; it's just a thing he does. Ad nauseam. (Not to worry - he doesn't frequent LT.)

>170 Storeetllr: I understand about the desire to hold on to some Stuff, Mary... I just don't share it anymore. After everything disappeared, I just quit caring about Stuff. Really a relief.

I'm delighted to have a cleaner bill of ocular health than I had feared. Blepharitis is characterized by red, itchy eyelids and excessive production of eye-boogers or whatever you want to call those things appearing in the corners of your eyes every morning. All very interesting, at least to me, but weird and new because I had only vaguely heard of the condition before.

>171 humouress: What you're describing isn't mansplaining it's bog-standard con man tactics. Pick your mark, separate them from external input and sell them the Thing. It's used by millions of phone sales people daily, of all gender identities. Being a runner of cons is a very big and profitable business. My mother got taken for more than $50K by an Aussie woman selling her lottery tickets, of all things. Your husband's explaining stuff is, as you say, just him being himself... he doesn't aim his talk at women but at people who don't know what he is explaining. Why, if I can't call someone if female presentation who is doing the passive-aggressive thing of blaming others for not knowing that she doesn't need or want to know something before being told by her not to annoy her further with boring facts irrelevant to her interests a bitch, should you or anyone else use a gender-specific insult with impunity?

Sorry to read about your blepharitis, Richard. i don't have it , but I have occasionally have short bouts with sore, puffy, red eyelids and it's really uncomfortable. My bouts just last a few days, but I have found using Systane Eyelid wipes twice a day really helps for me. But they are expensive , so your plan makes much more sense for an extended period of time. Sorry to read about the macular degeneration, but I'm glad it's not worsening. Dave ( my husband ) came home from work with a headache and not having a full field of vision a few years ago, and thought , it's just a headache and I'll have a nap. Luckily I remembered that Dave's dad had had a detached retina and had to have surgery for that. So I took him off to Emergency, where a an ultrasound diagnosed a small tear in his retina, and we referred onto another hospital where they did laser surgery for him. It's all good now, but he'll have to watch his ocular health too. Wishing you a good weekend .

>174 vancouverdeb: Happy Sunday, Deb! You did Dave a huge good turn with your quick thinking... the consequences of an untreated retinal tear could easily have been very nasty. I'm glad you don't have blepharitis, but do watch for it...if you have to use those wipes more often than usual, see the ophthalmologist, please! It's surprising that something as simple as your eyelids' natural lubricant can turn troublesome. A dear, departed friend lost the vision in one eye because her blepharitis went undiagnosed and therefore untreated and an infection took her sight. This was long ago but it's a risk I don't think any of us should ignore.

I'd forgotten about blepharitis being the cause of her sight loss until I was chatting with her daughter last night. Sobering reminder to stay on top of eye health!

My heated eye mask arrives tomorrow so I will look like a 1950s movie mom that night. My mother never had an eye mask, and once said she thought they were ridiculous, and here I am going to wear one!

'Morning, RDear. Happy Sunday to you.

I was in the mood for scratch buttermilk pancakes with real maple syrup today, so Jenna helped. We all three had a plateful, and now I'm sipping on coffee. Today will be mostly lazy unless I get a bee in my bonnet about cooking lemon chicken (with Jenna's help) for dinner. Laziness may win, however.

*smooch*

>176 karenmarie: How do, Horrible! I was just over at yours saying how much I want a kitchen when I read about lemon chicken preparations. Mama always roasted chicken with a whole lemon chucked inside it with oregano stems galore. The garlic cloves were in the roasting pan, getting soft and yummy. Then the pan drippings with the garlic, and the soft lemon, all got whirled up into gravy. Love it to this day!

Happy Sunday, Richard. Another beautiful day in Chicagoland. We had a lovely visit with Jackson. He can be a handful, but we miss him as soon as he leaves. We are celebrating our anniversary today and going out with good friends for dinner. They share the same date.

>178 msf59: I was just over at yours, Mark, leaving you and Sue anniversary wishes! Plus your recent Wideman read that you enjoyed came in for happy clapping. His style is not for everyone, as you noted, but it is very satisfying to me, so I am extra glad you liked it, too.

027 Shadow of the Red Moon by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Christopher Myers

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Master storyteller Walter Dean Myers' remarkable fantasy

If it had been up to Jon, he never would have left Crystal City. But the Fen children had finally broken through the city walls. And the Okalian way would survive only if some of the Okalians survived.
So Jon sets out into a strange new world. He's been told to find the Ancient Land, where Okalian civilization began. But he hasn't been told of the horrors he will have to face in the cold Wilderness in order to get there. Now he must face the fact that everything he's been taught might be a lie -- a lie he must face for everything to survive.

I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS PRETTY HARDCOVER GOT ONTO MY SHELF BUT IT'S GOING TO THE LITTLE FREE LIBRARY TODAY.

My Review: A deeply affecting and beautifully written post-apocalyptic tale of survival and discovering the will to thrive in spite of the complexities of growing out of your comfort zone. In the post-COVID years, stories of young people coming to terms with the failings and failures of the adult world, and learning to get on with their own adulthoods in an illusion-free space that enables them to act on their own principles, are invaluable. I hope you can find one of these sturdy kids to inspire with the gift of this read. There are really beautiful woodcuts throughout the text, that enhance the atmosphere the author is telling the story within.

Perfect for 12 and up readers.

Hi RD. Caught up on some LT today. It's been very busy here from the yard-care pov. Finally had lots of rain showers, so the ground was perfect for replanting the things we did divide and had in buckets for awhile.

I managed to finish a few titles this month that were library loans. My fave read this end of the month was Lavender House. The story was layered and has complexities so I am processing my thoughts before writing a review. It might seem like a tame narrative to you, but I am impressed with the author's writing about life for the queer folk in the 1950's. It is a source of grief and perhaps some anger that society (here, anyway) has not made enlightened progress.

I think the loan expiring is one of the biggest incentives to devote time to reading when it is springtime and the weather is so lovely (despite mosquitoes).

>172 richardderus: Thanks for the info, Richard. I’m going to Meg Byron mention it to my ophthalmologist when I see him because I’ve got similar symptoms.

>163 richardderus: Please grant me one more response, dear Richard, and then I'll let it go. I don't think your annoying, overbearing woman is equivalent to the belittling and condescending treatment that I've swallowed from men my whole life. In my experience, your woman will be annoying and overbearing to everybody although I'm sure some women do reserve that attitude for men.
However, I'm thinking that very few men take a tool out of another man's hands and say, "Let me show you how to do that," and then do exactly what the other person was doing. Very few car salesmen likely say to another man, "You're going to have to keep an eye on the fuel gauge to be sure you don't run out of gas." Endless examples from my life, and I'm of an age when I might have looked my disgust but didn't call the person on it (except for my husband, who has learned better). Nine years younger than I am, Karen has never been silent, I'll bet.
You, Richard, are an advocate for other marginalized people. I'll forbear giving further examples, but women deserve to name what the live as they experience it and have that experience acknowledged.

Out of my system. I wish you a cozy, pleasurable day if you're still a bit, chilly, windy, and damp as we are - and even if you're not!
*smooch*

>180 richardderus: This one sounds interesting. The title seems really familiar but I haven't read it. I have added it to my TBR

>165 richardderus: Your review intrigues me. A second book bullet I think, although it appears to have no ebook version. The paperback is cheap enough though, so I will add this to my TBR too.

>181 SandyAMcPherson: Hi Sandy! I haven't read anything by Lev Rosen, but that's a story needs telling indeed. I am very glad it spoke to you. Enjoy the spring-ing you're finally getting to do!

>182 Storeetllr: Wise decision, Mary. There's no sense in not learning from someone else's experience!

>183 LizzieD: Happy Sunday, Peggy, from the sunshiny boardwalk...it's a little hard to see, so I'll be brief.

In what way does the reality of misogyny make using a gendered insult yourself okay?

>185 sirfurboy: No ebook version?! There's a Kindle edition in the US, so that really surprises me. Regardless, I think you'll enjoy the read, Stephen.

>184 sirfurboy: Might be a wee bit on the young side for you...it's aimed at the lower end of the YA market. But it kept me interested, so one never can be safe in dismissing the reach of a good story. Happy weekend's reads!

028 Thirteen Moons: A NOVEL by Charles Frazier

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: This magnificent novel by one of America’s finest writers is the epic of one man’s remarkable journey, set in nineteenth-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life.

At the age of twelve, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home.

In a card game with a white Indian named Featherstone, Will wins—for a brief moment—a mysterious girl named Claire, and his passion and desire for her spans this novel. As Will’s destiny intertwines with the fate of the Cherokee Indians—including a Cherokee Chief named Bear—he learns how to fight and survive in the face of both nature and men, and eventually, under the Corn Tassel Moon, Will begins the fight against Washington City to preserve the Cherokee’s homeland and culture. And he will come to know the truth behind his belief that “only desire trumps time.”

Brilliantly imagined, written with great power and beauty by a master of American fiction, Thirteen Moons is a stunning novel about a man’s passion for a woman, and how loss, longing and love can shape a man’s destiny over the many moons of a life.

I GOT THIS BOOK OUT OF MY LITTLE FREE LIBRARY. NOW, BACK IT GOES!

My Review: Frazier's writing, line by line, agrees with me. Lookee here at how the story starts:

THERE IS NO SCATHELESS RAPTURE. LOVE AND TIME PUT ME IN THIS CONDITION. I am leaving soon enough for the Nightland, where all the ghosts of men and animals yearn to travel.

It's like a ringie-dingie on the private line to my sweet spot, that kind of careful scene-setting: Man thinking about his mortal end is very much in my wheelhouse, which should surprise no one given my recent health events. Frazier's way with putting word-clothes on his thoughts doesn't get less agreeable to me:

Survive long enough and you get to a far point in life where nothing else of particular interest is going to happen. After that, if you don’t watch out, you can spend all your time tallying your losses and gains in endless narrative. All you love has fled or been taken away. Everything fallen from you except the possibility of jolting and unforewarned memory springing out of the dark, rushing over you with the velocity of heartbreak. {Someone} walking down the hall humming an old song...or the mere fragrance of clove in spiced tea can set you weeping and howling when all you’ve been for weeks on end is numb.

All this in fewer than five pages!

And that's when I thought, uh-oh...I'm in danger of overload on the aperçus...which usually means the story isn't going to get the momentum going to keep the pages turning...

I fear I hit that one on the head.

My opinion was that if hogs are biting you so often that you have to stop and make up a specific word for it, maybe lack of vocabulary is not your most pressing problem.
–and–
What I wanted to do was slap him down a bit with wit and words. Grammar and vocabulary as a weapon. But what kind of world would it be if we all took every opportunity presented to us to assault the weak?
–and–
We all reach a point where we would like to draw a line across time and declare everything on the far side null. Shed our past life like a pair of wet and muddy trousers, just roll their heavy clinging fabric down our legs and step away. We also reach a point where we would give the rest of our withering days for the month of July in our seventeenth year. But no thread of Ariadne exists to lead us back there.
–and–
All I can say is that we are mistaken to gouge such a deep rift in history that the things old men and old women know have become so useless as to be not worth passing on to grandchildren.

Sterling stuff, I call that; agreeable to me in content, expression, and pithiness proving the writer is a clear thinker; but as a story, it all adds up to too much of a good thing and too little actually happening to keep me interested for very long at a stretch.

While that reality kept me from racing through the read, and from feeling that I'd like to pick it up every night until I'd finished it, I never once thought of abandoning ship for good. Stuff like this was my reward:

I CANNOT DECIDE WHETHER IT IS AN ILLNESS OR A SIN, THE NEED TO write things down and fix the flowing world in one rigid form. Bear believed writing dulled the spirit, stilled some holy breath. Smothered it. Words, when they’ve been captured and imprisoned on paper, become a barrier against the world, one best left unerected. Everything that happens is fluid, changeable. After they’ve passed, events are only as your memory makes them, and they shift shapes over time. Writing a thing down fixes it in place as surely as a rattlesnake skin stripped from the meat and stretched and tacked to a barn wall. Every bit as stationary, and every bit as false to the original thing. Flat and still and harmless.
–and–
In the end, {Bear} said he judged the Bible to be a sound book. Nevertheless, he wondered why the white people were not better than they are, having had it for so long. He promised that just as soon as white people achieved Christianity, he would recommend it to his own folks.

Quality writing at the expense of quality storytelling.

>188 richardderus: Is the expression of an unpleasant truth an insult?

O.K. I've said enough about this.

Re: mansplaining, it's a gendered term because the behavior is gendered. That's the point.

I was going to share a favorite joke here, but I think I'd better put it on my thread 🙂

Happy week ahead!

BURGOINE #7

The History Major by Michael Philip Cash

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: After a vicious fight with her boyfriend followed by a night of heavy partying, college freshman Amanda Greene wakes up in her dorm room to find things are not the same as they were yesterday. She can't quite put her finger on it. She's sharing her room with a peculiar stranger. Amanda discovers she's registered for classes she would never choose with people that are oddly familiar. An ominous shadow is stalking her. Uncomfortable memories are bubbling dangerously close to her fracturing world, propelling her to an inevitable collision between fantasy and reality. Is this the mother of all hangovers or is something bigger happening?

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE AUTHOR. THANK YOU.

My Review: More of an eerie, unsettling read than a horror novella, the point of the tale is to recognize how little we actually pay attention to our busy existence...our one and only life doesn't get our full attenention very often. Which of course leaves a lot of room for unexpected events to catch up, or just plain catch, us. There is a lot going on in this short span. It's not always an avantage to be quite this concise as details can feel more like clutter when they simply accumulate but aren't made integral to the central storyline.

Fans of time-travel tales and aficionados of past-life fiction are strongly encouraged to give this one-sitting novella a whirl.

Today's luxurious lounging on the boardwalk post-virtuous Little Free Library visit was a delight...I got to reconnect with a local friendly soul who I hadn't seen in a while. He came ambling up behind me as I was putting my two donations in, and picked up the historical mystery (A Season of Knives) that I decided to try out. Since all I saw was an arm reaching for my new book, I whipped around ready to be pissed off and reecognized his grin right away. It was a fun, unplanned meet-up, and gave me a good-mood booster shot. Plus the book is really enjoyable so far!

>194 richardderus: Sounds like a pretty darn good day for you! That's terrific!

Karen O.

>194 richardderus: I love meeting fellow bookworms in unexpected places, RD. Taking the air with books is a delightful way of spending an afternoon.

>173 richardderus: I thought I had posted a reply but maybe it’s one of those that have disappeared into the ether. The specific term you mentioned feels to me like there’s some viciousness behind it when it’s used (though my sons seem to use it across genders these days) and I don’t use (or try not to) words like that, gender-specific or otherwise.

I don’t see ’mansplaining’ as being as offensive. It makes me roll my eyes because (in agreement with >192 katiekrug:) it’s accurate. But you may never perceive it because it’s unlikely to happen to you or even in your presence. The funniest example was when my mum, who’s a doctor, was having a medical term explained to her by a layman (because, as an older woman, she’s obviously uneducated). We just lapped it up, all wide-eyed and innocent, and had a good laugh afterwards.

I’m glad your eyesight is on the right track. My dad has macular degeneration (I think the wet type) which has, thankfully, been halted by more recent advances in medicine than when he was diagnosed. A bit earlier and it could (possibly) have been reversed but at least it doesn’t seem to have impacted his lifestyle very much.

>195 klobrien2: It was a lovely surprise to reconnect with someone I'd thought long-gone from the area, indeed. There's never been a boardwalkable day I didn't see as a pleasant change from being more or less trapped indoors by infirmity! Today will be aother one, which is very pleasant indeed. Thanks for stopping in, Karen O.

>196 PaulCranswick: Hiya, PC! I don't think he's a bookish person, but he was kind and helpful when my old phone had issues I couldn't figure out. He did comment that if he ever needed to find me, he'd always know where to look...wherever there's a book.

>197 humouress: That's what Dr. Sigler was saying to me about macular degeneration, Nina, it's been the subject of a lot of recent advances...your dad's one lucky man. This is the moment to have this condition, if you're going to b e so afflicted.

I had no idea your mother was a doctor! What's her area of practice?

028 Magnificent Rebel: Nancy Cunard in Jazz Age Paris by Anne de Courcy

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Anne de Courcy, the author of Husband Hunters and Chanel's Riviera, examines the controversial life of legendary beauty, writer and rich girl Nancy Cunard during her thirteen years in Jazz-Age Paris.

Paris in the 1920s was bursting with talent in the worlds of art, design and literature. The city was at the forefront of everything new and exciting; there was no censorship; life and love were there for the taking. At its center was the gorgeous, seductive English socialite Nancy Cunard, scion of the famous shipping line. Her lovers were legion, but this book focuses on five of the most significant and a lifelong friendship.

Her affairs with acclaimed writers Ezra Pound, Aldous Huxley, Michael Arlen and Louis Aragon were passionate and tempestuous, as was her romance with black jazz pianist Henry Crowder. Her friendship with the famous Irish novelist George Moore, her mother’s lover and a man falsely rumored to be Nancy’s father, was the longest-lasting of her life. Cunard’s early years were ones of great wealth but also emotional deprivation. Her mother Lady Cunard, the American heiress Maud Alice Burke (who later changed her name to Emerald) became a reigning London hostess; Nancy, from an early age, was given to promiscuity and heavy drinking and preferred a life in the arts to one in the social sphere into which she had been born. Highly intelligent, a gifted poet and widely read, she founded a small press that published Samuel Beckett among others. A muse to many, she was also a courageous crusader against racism and fascism. She left Paris in 1933, at the end of its most glittering years and remained unafraid to live life on the edge until her death in 1965.

Magnificent Rebel is a nuanced portrait of a complex woman, set against the backdrop of the City of Light during one of its most important and fascinating decades.

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

My Review: How the hell do I rate and review this book? Author de Courcy writes very well, has clearly done research I have no reason to suspect contains careless errors (ie, I as a non-expert possess no knowledge that contradicts anything contained in here), and clearly understands the role of conflict and drama in non-fiction...yet I hated every minute of the read.

Let me explain.

Nancy Cunard knew everyone, went everywhere, did everything adventurous and fun one can dream up to do when there is a giant pot of cash under one's checkbook. She was also a narcissist, and probably a sociopath. She had no moral compass I could discern from any anecdote herein. She was "mad, bad, and dangerous to know," because she could and did turn on people who had given her no cause to dislike them.

And men flocked to her orbit! They wanted sex, of course, but quite a lot of them fell for her! All the mor amazing because of her one reasonably good quality, by modern standards: she never bothered herself to dissemble. As the great majority of people prefer to be told pretty little lies by their lovers, I'd say this shows that the men who fell for her really, truly fell, to accept her honest and usually very scathing opinion of them and keep coming back. Her "honesty" (which, as presented herein, is really just brutal unnecessary unkindness) comes in for a helping of praise I don't feel is warranted. She did many laudable things in pursuit of social justice, which no one should try to minimize. Her addiction issues and mental illness, which the author is careful to make unmistakable for the reader, is obvious in hindsight from the present century's ludicrously low "heights" of enlightenment, do not excuse the abusive and manipulative behaviors she displayed. To Author de Courcy's credit, she makes no excuses for the troubling behviors but goes out of her way to explain how the Cunards were less a family than threesome of selfish, oblivious rich people. How else could Nancy have turned out?

So I liked the book. But I loathed the subject. I am not glad I know more about her than my previous awareness of her name and sterling literary taste and activities. I feel...soiled...by the knowledge that this awful person is a feminist icon to some because she was as free as the male abusers and rotters of her day. Yuck! "But they were worse!" hardly seems like a justification for someone to behave badly.

I've settled on four stars, all for the felicity of Author de Courcy's discourse, and none for this awful, abusive human being.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Monday to you.

>177 richardderus: I saw your comment, especially re lemon and chicken and artichoke hearts… yum. Just yum. I haven’t made a whole roasted chicken in way too many years. Something to think about.

>183 LizzieD: Since I’m named here, I’ll simply say that sometimes I’ve stayed silent yet nearly incapacitated myself with serious eye rolls, sometimes I’ve snarled, sometimes I’ve been articulate and coldly polite. There have even been times that the information has been helpful and then I’ve said “Thank you.”

>194 richardderus: Yay for old acquaintance reconnect at the LFL.

*smooch*

>202 karenmarie: That's what I wanted to say; that lemon chicken sounds delicious. One for the recipe books - when I have a kitchen again.

>200 richardderus: My dad would have been even luckier if he could have waited a few years to develop MD but I'm grateful that it could at least be halted. My mum is a psychiatrist; very frustrating if we (her children) ask for her maternal advice on anything other than a medical question because she invariably replies with 'What do you think/ feel?'

ETA: I found out what happened to my initial response that time; it was sitting, unposted 🙄, on my laptop whereas I had come back to this thread on my tablet.

>202 karenmarie: Monday orisons, Horrible!

The chicken francese with lemon and artichoke hearts recipe makes me drool a little whenever I think about it...I've been cooking for so long that the first thing I think of is how I'd do it differently after the first go-round. Their sauce prep struck me as wasteful in that they say to drain the artichoke hearts. And do what with the liquid drained? Chuck it out? Ummm, no, I'll be using it, thanks. I don't have a subscription to the Cooking site so I couldn't copy-and-paste the recipe for you and my typing is pretty poor so transcribing it is out. I must say that, being back on the laptop, I've come to really miss the predictive text feature. I'm much slower on the laptop and the typos are hilarious but frustrating! I do love the adblock extension that isn't allowed on the Pixel. Trade-offs, trade-offs....

Dadbod was a lot of fun to reconnect with indeed...though Rob was pretty unenthusiastic about it. "Oh, that's nice," in the deadest of deadpan voices. It doesn't help his mood rhat he's still in Philly and can't keep a beady eye on me. Funny that he, the young pretty one, is the jealous one.

Happy Monday!

Glad to see some excellent reviews from you! also glad that you passed the eye check up!

>177 richardderus: Yummy....lemon chicken.

>194 richardderus: What a great surprise at the boardwalk. Seeing old friends can sometimes be a welcome or non welcomed experience. Glad it was the former!

>203 humouress: I am not even a little jealous of you having a psychiatrist for a parent. It would be maddening to need mom-comfort and get the 'what do you think/feel' response!

The technological trap! Using more than one device does have that effect at the weirdest moments.

Better had Dad not developed it at all, of course, but even being halt-able is a huge impovement over the nothing medicine could do in the not-distant past.

I'mma haveta order a delivery of chicken francese as next month's indulgence....

>205 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita! I need to speed up on my reviewing because Pride Month cometh, bringing with it the need to post frequently....

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard! I'm not sure what a holiday means in your situation, but I hope it's something good. We do our best as usual, whatever that best may be.

*smooch*

>208 LizzieD: Annoyingly, Peggy, it meand civic festivites in the parking lot outside my window...so lotsa noise and trash and smoke of different sorts...but it's not that often that it happens so I just close the window, crank the fans up to high, and turn up the volume on my rain-sounds app.

*smooch*

Somewhere up-thread you talked a bit about Boy In the Striped Pajamas and the controversy about it. The American Library Association even talked about this book and its historical inaccuracies. Several of the ALA committees recommended that it not be used in classrooms due to the inaccurate portrayal of the Holocaust. The eminent children's and Young Adult critic Hazel Rochman has also recommended that it not be used in classrooms.

I have not read it, but I know that millions of readers have read it. I don't plan on reading it because I just don't go there anymore. I am always reluctant to tell people they shouldn't read something, but given the strength of the arguments against it and the discussion about it among children and YA librarians, I am going to just say no.

>210 benitastrnad: There are too many well-made books covering the Holocaust to spend precious resources on sentimental, inaccurate ones, Benita. Expert guidance is as close to unanimous as I've ever seen in rejecting that book.

Two out, none in today at the Little Free Library! It was such a relief that I wasn't even tempted by anything. Thank goodness the festivities ended earlyish...it was VERY windy here today. All 210lb/95kg of me actually got blown off-balance several times.

Two Pride Month reviews done, too! My typing speed is slowly getting back to normal. But I really miss predictiv text on the Pixel. If only it wasn't actively awful at posting images....

>175 richardderus: Thanks Richard for the info on Blepharitis. I had no idea it could lead to loss of sight! How shocking.I'm sorry about your friend's sight loss. I'm sure your eye mask doesn't look bad at all. Well, I guess it was okay that the Little Free Library had nothing to offer today. We don't have any little free libraries in my area that I am aware of. There used to be a little free library not too far from me, but it is now gone. We live in a townhouse and the by- laws would forbid me putting out my own Little Free Library, otherwise I would do that myself. I think they are such a good idea. At least I have two used books store fairly close by.

Morning, Richard. Hooray for luxurious lounging! Glad to see you can make that part of your day. I called in at the Rehab assignment today. Still not feeling up to par. I will hang with Juno and the books, which have been treating me just fine.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Tuesday to you.

>204 richardderus: I always think of what to do different after a first recipe try too. Not using the artichoke heart liquid is just wrong. Since neither Bill nor Jenna will eat artichoke hearts (*sob*!) I won’t be making that recipe. I appreciate the thought, though.

I’m amused that Rob is the jealous one. Is Philly a longish-term stint?

>212 richardderus: My typing speed is slowly getting back to normal. Bravo for all your hard work with its subsequent success.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>213 vancouverdeb: Your by-laws forbid a Little Free Library? Wow. That's extreme to me. How are they about birdhouses and birdbath structures?

I would be bereft if I didn't have the Little Free Library. I miss it every winter when they take it down...very sensible because the storms right here on the North Atlantic can get pretty blow-y... and look forward to the day it's restored to its rightful place.

Have an excellent Tuesday, Deb, and thanks for visiting. Pride Month and its review a day schedule means I won't be visiting quite as much, so I appreciate your gift of time all the more.

>214 msf59: Ho there Birddude! I know that you're poorly indeed if you couldn't make it to your rehab gig. I know how much you enjoy that time among the critters.

But lounging with Juno and your books isn't a bad way to get the best out of a Tuesday. Feel better soon!

>215 karenmarie: Horrible me lurve! Tuesday orisons to you and all yours. Thanks for the acknowledgement of the work part of my astonishing and very lucky recovery from strokes that were expected to result in my being in a nursing home for the rest of my life. I've simply refused to accept that as my fate. I want a life not an existence, so it's up to me to go get it.

Rob's unenthusiastic response to other men interacting with me on any but the most superficial level is, as I mansplained to him, unflattering. Not because he sees me as attractive enough to pull a guy but because he thinks that I *would*. What the heck does some rando have that Rob doesn't? Novelty? I'm 63! Novelty is waaay too much work. He does recognize that he's not in danger of me looking for love in all the wrong places, but still gets antsy...so I do my best to rein in my tendency to act like a Cylon and ogle every man on the boardwalk.

Philly is unknown at the moment. Could be forever, could end in a year. New restaurant openings are at high risk of failure. If it's permanent, I'll have to consider what to do...as will he. For now, there's nothing to do about it yet. I never thought I'd be this tolerant of uncertainty.

No artichoke hearts?!? What outrageous deprivation! I'm sad for you. I am routinely scandalized at the wasteful chucking out of stuff that is perfectly usable in the kitchen. But I'm the freak who, when juicing a lemon, zests it first, and measures a teaspoon of the zest into an ice-cube tray, then fills it with a tablespoon of bottled water to use in recipes later. (This blew Rob's mind.)

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard. What a great idea to zest the lemons first! You have a convert.
I join Karen in continuing respect for your determination to determine your own level of ability. You continue to be the Man.

Glad yesterday's festivities didn't go on and on, and I wish you a good, normal day. I wish we were going to have one. It's likely that my cousin, who now lives in Canada, and who has drunk most deeply of the FOX Kool-Aid, will be coming to sit outside the front door and talk to Mama. She is preserving her DNA by not getting the Covid vaccines. (She has pushed every button and pulled every chain I own within 5 minutes of contact all her life, which is but three years less than mine.) Courage and patience to me. I was rude when she called yesterday, and that didn't touch her nor help me.

*smooch*

>219 LizzieD: Oh, Peggy! That's AWFUL. What a crummy way to spend any part of a day! Does your Mama like this silly goose? Is there any way you can encourage her to be "too tired" to spend more than a minimum of time allowing the Kool-Aid pitcher to be poured all over your porch?

I feel you about the being rude making your day worse without accomplishing anything practical. It's a big reason I float through this den of Fox-watchers without interacting with any of them. I *will* be rude and they won't care, but I will. If I can catch him around this week, I'll take a photo of one of the local 45ers and his flag-bedecked car. My eyes roll so far back I can see my brain every time he hoves into view.

Strength and courage *whammies*

029 Tink and Wendy by Kelly Ann Jacobson

Rating: 4.5* of five

Pride Month #1

The Publisher Says: What happens when Tinker Bell is in love with both Peter Pan and Wendy? In this sparkling re-imagining of Peter Pan, Peter and Wendy’s granddaughter Hope Darling finds the reclusive Tinker Bell squatting at the Darling mansion in order to care for the graves of her two lost friends after a love triangle gone awry. As Hope wins the fairy’s trust, Tink tells her the truth about Wendy and Peter—and her own role in their ultimate fate. Told in three alternating perspectives—past, present, and excerpts from a book called Neverland: A History written by Tink’s own fairy godmother—this queer adaptation is for anyone who has ever wondered if there might have been more to the story of Tinker Bell and the rest of the Peter Pan legend.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: Never for a moment have I believed that the story of Peter Pan and Wendy and the Lost Boys was sweet and Innocent and all on the up-and-up. There is a seedy adult-mediated sexuality in the whole concept of the story. The Lost Boys and Peter trapped in that eternal tween-age: where parents can comfortably if mendaciously Not Know that their kids are steadily, stealthily beginning the sad journey into adolescent sexual awakening. They're busily putting together hints and clues, and feeling weird new things without possessing words to explain them yet. Wendy, here as always the odd creature out, has a body the Boy and his boys don't know inside out already. She has a mind they can't fathom and she can't explain, because who can explain how they are built different from you? And because no one really talks to kids about what they want to know regarding sex and sexuality, parents keep giving kids the original deeply subversive story about the tragedy that befalls the innocent when Innocence is finally and forever lost. Never mind that the kids don't want this Innocence we're determined to protect in them. Having no idea of what Innocence means, the Innocent can't wait to get rid of it.

"It's harmless," goes the reassuring hiss of the lying snake within the well-meaning adult. "After all, it's got a tiny fairy standing between them, so Nothing Can Happen."

That's what this book is about: what happens when the tiny fairy, sick of being Between too many things and having no ground of her own, takes her rightful place in the action. As seasoned readers we know that's the starting gun for tragedy to unfold. This book is about the price that loving one, being in love with the other, exacts on the lover. Also what terrors there lurk within the armor-plated ignorance of being the belovèd. This story rips the dishonesty off the older story of wanting to keep your cake but eat it too...that evergreen source of unhappy resolutions to love triangles. Teach them young that there is no frictionless way to be in love: If you care enough to make it count, like Tink does, you will suffer most when your belovèd suffers. Teach them before they create disaster by refusing to choose, by declining to believe they can, they truly can! have happiness if they bravely reach out for it. It's better done like this than the Innocence-celebrating original.

These readers come away clear about what prolonging Innocence costs. What they probably don't—maybe eevn shouldn't yet— see is the pale and semi-conscious illness-ridden compromised and dishonest simulacrum that will, like here in this story, become the best you can have if you waver betwixt and between, refusing to make a choice.

As stories for youths go, this one is honest, well-told, and contains what looks like a happy ending that is, in fact, a dire warning. I'd time-travel to give this morally complex, intellectually serious retelling of a deeply problematic story told by a very sketchy source I wouldn't let near anyone under twenty-five to every teen I knew when I was one myself.

Windy, sunny day today. Not conducive to having a nice sit-down on a boardwalk bench...but perfect for leaving a book. I'm irritated with myself that I just couldn't leave behind a terrific copy of The Library Book by Susan Orlean but it was there all unwrinkled, shining its red and gold cover at me...what else was I supposed to do? Of course I brought it home.

‘Morning, Richard. I rarely use your official, real name, but so it is today. Whenever I mention you to Jenna, which is frequently, I assure you, I always call you Richard, but for some reason here it’s usually RD or RDear. Well. Anyway, happy Wednesday to you.

>218 richardderus: You’re welcome re my acknowledgement. Your hard work has to be an inspiration to anybody facing a reduced-quality of life until they shuffle off this mortal coil.

Yes, the ‘would’ bit is unflattering. Trust is important. The other day on the way home from the Senior Center, I told Bill that I’d talked with an interesting man named Donald – has lost 70 pounds, has 3 more weight goals, and is at the Senior Center 3 times a week. We discussed weight loss, heart attacks and low-sodium diets (mine), and the recent loss of a dear friend (his). Plus audiobooks and reading and etc. and he’s my age – 70. Bill’s reaction? “Oh, so you’ll talk with other men but not me?” So I reminded him that he and I talk a lot every single day but he is not interested in books or working out or my low-sodium requirements. Sheesh. Unflattering for sure.

Ah, Philly and uncertainty. You’re tolerant because it’s your YGC, of course. 💞

Artichoke hearts in oil are not bad sodium-wise. But undefined liquid canned artichoke hearts are high in sodium… sheesh.

We always keep a 3-lb bag of lemons in the house. Zesting material is always available, and about 5 years ago I finally figured out that the long grate-y thing I inherited from Bill's Mama is an extremely high-quality microplane. It works a treat on lemons and nutmeg. I have another cool thing, inherited from Bill's Great Aunt Eloise - her rotary cheese grater.

*smooch*

>224 karenmarie: YOU POSSESS A ROTARY CHEESE GRATER?! Horrible! This is the desideratum of all desiderata...if it works, unlike modern ones that just don't for very long. My 1950s one died in 2011 and my mourning for it hasn't ceased.

I don't think anyone in a long-term relationship ever really knows what the heck is going on in the party of the second part's li'l punkin haid. It's ever so much more difficult across the species boundary, of course.

The canned-in-metal artichoke hearts need the sodium to keep the darn things from reacting with the metal and ruining the flavor. I like the oil-packed ones better for cooking and dip-making, but the canned ones for baking. Since I use the high-sodium liquid, I just cut out all the other salt in recipes where I am using it. Like canned soups. I make rice with them and get twice the servings with half the sodium and sugar.

I can imagine Jenna would find it peculiar if you referred to me as "RDear"...but should we all ever meet, you can expect Rob to address you as "Horrible" as I don't ever refer to you as "Karen." I have, as gently as I can, reminded Rob of the offensiveness of referring to all seriously bitchy obnoxious women as "Karens" because that is the restaurant industry standard reference. The battles we fight....

030 Robin and Her Misfits by Kelly Ann Jacobson

PRIDE MONTH REVIEWS #2

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A roving female gang of fun-loving rebel bikers, street racers, and bandits led by Robin agree to give back to queer girls in need of help in this stunning modern reimagining of the Robin Hood legend.

Robin and her four Misfits—Little John, White Rabbit, Daisy Chain, and Skillet—have run away from their families in order to live off the grid on their own terms. For a while, they’re hidden, safe, and happy as they commit petty crimes that provide enough to get by. All that matters is keeping their small clan alive. Then, one mission proposed by an unfriendly associate from their past reminds them of their former lives and motivates the group to a new purpose. The five Misfits develop into a league of strong individuals united by a fresh goal: do whatever it takes to help queer girls rise above oppressive laws and attitudes.

Kelly Ann Jacobson, the author of the award-winning LGBTQ+ young adult novel Tink and Wendy, is back with another diverse twist on a popular legend.

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

My Review: I love Daisy Chain the best because her sibylline utterings aren't remotely clear to her listeners, fellow very young women, except by accident; or, I suspect, by her deeply sneaky inner sibyl wishing to make clear messages only occasionally.

The Prologue, by its nature, is a giant spoiler. Even I, deeply indifferent to spoilers, thought as we then moved back in time for the bulk of the novel, "what's suspenseful now that I know what I know?"

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

In that Daisy Chain-uttered Shakespearean truism, laddies and gentlewomen, lies the essential truth of this book. Every runaway runs out of steam at last. All lies are signposts aimed directly at the truth. And when eternal runaway Daisy Chain at long last finds herself, she then finds the greatly belovèd carved-granite mass that is Robin right where she left her.

So that Prologue? What does it spoil? Does knowing where mean how has no value? Or is "Don't waste your love on somebody who doesn't value it" more than one lie told in one sentence? That hand is always pointing its curled fingers directly at the truth of love never being wasted because it is valued...if, perhaps, differently than one would ask for it to be...but still valued.

What's on offer here is this: A story designed to be eaten up by young, questioning women in search of Identities in a world awash with given, never chosen, names. It's going to offer those young women snow chains for the tires on the unchosen, unsuitable dune-buggy that in their ill-suited design keep slipping on the glaciers where they inexplicably find themselves. This story can be their Nottingham of the spirit while their bodies work out how to steer their unstable, utterly unreliable transportation on to as-yet-unseen safer paths.

Highly recommended for those young women among your graduating family who could use a nudge to become Robin Hood not the Pretty, prized-but-powerless Maid Marian.

I possess several high-quality old kitchen things courtesy of Bill's family. I have my own good knives, pots/pans, and baking things courtesy of Bill and myownself.

Species boundary... you mean hetero, right?

You're smart re altering salt depending on what else you're using. My low sodium lifestyle has eliminated most Italian, Beau Monde Chicken, most processed foods, most restaurant foods, and quite a bit of the baking I used to do. I do admit that I didn't use the no-sodium baking powder or soda with Sunday's Buttermoo Pancakes, just ate less sodium the rest of the day.

Heh re Jenna and RDear. Oooh, I'd love to meet Rob and put up with Horrible because it has such a wonderful backstory.

I am still seriously upset with using Karen as a pejorative, and if you can get Rob to stop using it and tell him to simply call them bitches behind their backs, that'd be great. I'm forever boycotting M&Ms because of the 2021 Super Bowl ad. Even the peanut ones, which I love.

I've worked hard to get Bill to stop calling women bitches when he thinks they've done something stupid. I've started calling men assholes or bastards when they do something stupid, and he doesn't like it one bit. *sly smile*

*smooch* from your and Rob's Horrible

>226 richardderus: hmm. I love me a good retelling. And in those, it becomes the route taken, not the destination, that is important. You already know the ending (the shape of it, if not the detail), the interest is in how you get there.

>227 karenmarie: I think "bastard" and "asshole" are probably accurate assessments and not gender-specific. What's Bill's issue with calling a spade a spade?

I don't need salt the way lots of people do. In fact, I react very poorly to iodine in general, so I use kosher salt when I use salt at all. iF I minimize the salt in packaged foods, I don't trigger the iodine sensitivity which is always good...schnerkling and tearing up lead people to think I'm having an emotional breakdown not an allergic response. It can be amusing but is more often just irritating.

>228 Helenliz: You're likely to enjoy both of Kelly Ann Jacobson's books, then, Helen! They're definitely not about thr destination, since it's known, but the journey and who's taking it...the girl on the back of the motorcycle is, this time, putting her arms around the heroine's waist. It's a very refreshing change.

Are we talking the Mouli Grater Made in France????? I remember when my daddy ordered this one for Mama early in the 50s. I use it at least a couple of times a week.

Robin and Her Misfits sounds well-nigh perfect, and your review is pure, classic Richardesque. Thank you!

I don't think anyone in a long-term relationship ever really knows what the heck is going on in the party of the second part's li'l punkin haid. Amen to that. The longer we go on, the less I know and the more eager I am to find out.

*smooch*

>222 richardderus: I got to page 20 before I realized that I've already read this book! Another case of "don't write a review and it'll vanish from your memory, you fool!" The paperback is so pretty and so spiffy that I was seduced into picking it up.

Maybe it's time to write that review and release the book back into the wild.

Saw this and thought of you Richard:

>231 LizzieD: Morning, Peggy! I don't remember where my old rotary grater was made, if I ever knew...I bought it at a garage sale in the 1970s, but I love the idea that it would be a "mouli" or mill-brand one. I loved it for its consistent, trouble-free usability until the day it utterly failed by falling into pieces. I think some welds failed.

Thanks, I think, re the review...I couldn't be more delighted that stories like this are being rejiggered to include the formerly excluded and foreground the previously backgrounded. The world needs every single one of us to give what we have, not what we're told to, if we're going to make it as a civilization. Things're changing fast and not for the better and we need all hands doing their dead-level best not looking over their shoulders to guard against attacks from the Oughta-holes.

>233 Caroline_McElwee: As well you might, Caro! It's gorgeous! I'd totally put that next to my sofa with this lamp on it:

Lovely walk to the Little Free Library...where I left one but took none again! I am well chuffed by my newfound restraint.

BURGOINE #8

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

Rating: 3* of five

It's not fashionable to not love this tale of a plucky blind girl and a lucky orphan boy, but I just don't. It's long, it's uncomplicatedly sentimental, and it's set for no obvious reason in World War II. It could as easily have been set in the Thirty Years' War or the Afghan War, nothing would've been changed except names.

Definitely for those in search of an immersive historical read that doesn't demand much except that you be willing to go where the author leads you without questioning why you're going there again. For the millionth time.

>236 richardderus: Perfect companions RD.

>237 richardderus:
I wasn't a big fan of All The Light We Cannot See either. I couldn't understand all the hype and accolades. Good story? yes. But not extraordinary. I didn't even think the writing was that exceptional. Cloud Cuckoo Land - now that's a different story.

Happy Thursday, Riachard dear!
And good for you, only putting books in the Little Free Library, not taking books home.

>237 richardderus: Rated it the same back in 2016. Has kept me from reading Doerr since.

'Morning, RD! Happy Thursday to you.

For some dumb reason the rotary cheese grater is in a box somewhere upstairs. Grrr. I do have a very nice box grater that does a good job of finely grating hard cheeses, so I'm not deprived when needed. It's not nearly as much fun, though.

I've been up since crack o' dawn. This is only tolerable, of course, because I can nap later if I need to.

*smooch*

>238 Caroline_McElwee: Completly agree, Caro.

>239 benitastrnad: I wasn't enamored of Cloud Cuckoo Land, either. It felt to me like it was the Canal-Street version of Cloud Atlas. I just don't jibe with his writing, it seems.

>240 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita! I don't think you're missing much in not reading more Doerr TBH. I'm certainly not rushing around tryin' to get on his ARC list.

*smooch*

>241 karenmarie: Box graters are excellent kitchen tools...a rotary grater is a wonderful table prop. Bpth do what they do well.

Nap well...

*smooch*

It's #PrideMonth starting today! Here's my social media come-on for my first reviews:

@threeroomspress's two calls-to-arms #YA novels by @KellyAnnJacobson show young women what being the one calling the shots looks like...and costs...
ROBIN AND HER MISFITS & TINK AND WENDY get almost-5* #bookreviews for #PrideMonth here:
https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-kelly-ann-jacobson-page-for.htm...

Two out, none in, again today! I feel very virtuous...though my Idaho sister sent me three books that I got today. The get-out clause for these is that they were Mama's cookbooks, which I've decided exemptss them from the Purge.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy second day of Pride Month.

>246 richardderus: Congrats on your first two reviews up.

>248 richardderus: Your Mama’s cookbooks? Wow, just wow. Lucky you. I’m fortunate to have been the recipient of my mom’s and both of my MiL’s cookbooks, along with their recipe card boxes. Exemption from the Purge, of course!

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Happy Pride Month, Richard, and looking forward to your reviews.

I personally really liked All the Light We Cannot See, but could see it's not for everyone and I see your point about it could've been set almost anywhere and anywhen and still been the same story.

Happy Friday, Richard. Yep, we are off again. We are visiting friends in WI for the weekend. They have a lovely house, set back in the woods with lots of feeders. I should be in my glory. We will be back later Sunday.

Have a good one, my friend.

>249 karenmarie: CookBOOK, Horrible me lurve. The Frances Parkinson Keyes Cookbook from 1955, to be precise. Plus an old 1970s spiral notebook with a couple dozen recipes Mama copied and developed from Goddesses only know where. I can't read the notebook very well, handwriting is still very hard for me to decode. More interesting than the book itself, probably, is the stuff she used as bookmarks: a birthday card envelope from me, her membership notice from the National Society of Magna Charta Dames (an hereditary order) made out to "Winter Martin Derus Allen" which surprised me since I never knew about any marriage to Mr. Allen (whose existence I had honestly completely forgotten), a postcard from my paternal grandparents postmarked 1954, the badly worn fromt dustjacket from the book itself....

Thanks re reviews...I'm working on #3 now.

It's barelly begun and already I'm scrambling! *smooch*

>250 bell7: Hiya Mary! I'm glad you can see my points sbout Doerr's Pulitzer-winning book...a Goodreads friend said of my review: "I was very interested in your phrase ‘uncomplicatedly sentimental.’ Of course that’s exactly the element that floated it to the highest heights and made it a ‘literary’ blockbuster but it’s also the thing about this novel that makes it so disappointing" which I honestly think says what I meant more clearly than I did.

Pride-Month *smooch*

>251 msf59: Oh BOY are you two ever migratory birds in your second round of life-freedom. Have a safe trip and a great time, Birddude!

Back again........ Count me as another who got what she didn't want in *All Light*. I kept waiting for it all to mean something. Silly me.

I wish your day may be useful and satisfying with a touch of delight here and there!

*smooch*

>252 richardderus: handwriting is still very hard for me to decode You need an AI to help you. Although in my (limited) experience with anything of the sort it just turns it into a different type of unintelligible.

>250 bell7: Well, I suppose it has to be set somewhere. Although I once read a book (urban paranormal fantasy) that purported to be set in London but, apart from about one mention of the city's name, had no landmarks or personality that indicated it was set in England and mentioned some nonsense about the characters walking a few blocks. NYC, DC, Sacramento and so on with their grid systems of streets (a blessing to navigate) have blocks. London does not.

>256 humouress: Not to mention the faff of getting the AI to reognize the handwriting at all, the sheer pointlessness of giving away more data to our future executioners prevents me from pursuing such a course.

Well, I suppose it has to be set somewhere EXACTLY! So he shoulda set it somewhere, not just a blank featureless anywhere, anywhen.

Blocks in London LOLOL clearly never been there or seen a map of it. Blocks!

>255 LizzieD: How do, Peggy! I'm glad I'm not totally alone in my unfond response to the book. It's Old-Stuffless until he drinks his money up, so I'm callin' it good. Once I ripped him up one side and slashed him down the other for coming in drunk and unloading his rage and self-loathing on me a couple times, he's learned to be silent or get a heapin' helpin' of my unbridled hostility. As I am smarter and quicker thinking than he is, I dominate the volume wars and know exactly what horrible secrets to smoosh his nose directly into if he fills my air with his nasty.

A truly awful way to be but someone on the cusp of 80 ain't changin' his ways unless you force him to and I did not sign up for Martyrdom 101 in school so here we are.

>243 richardderus:
I hesitated a long time before I read Cloud Cuckoo Land because of my rating of All the Light We Cannot See. There were parts of Cloud Cuckoo Land that I thought shouldn't have been there as they messed up the story (like the Cloud Cuckoo Land play itself) and I thought that, as much as I liked the story about the library in Idaho, it just melted into sentimentality too easily at the end. I really really liked Cloud Atlas so perhaps, I was looking for something along that line and that might be why Cloud Cuckoo Land appealed to me. In the end I thought that Cloud Cuckoo Land was a better book than All the Light We Cannot See and I liked Cloud Cuckoo Land enough to make it one of my top books for 2022, but I also wonder what all the fuss has been about these books as I don't see Doerr as an exceptional author. I may think differently at some point in the future as we all know our personal reading tastes change over time, but for now sentimentality is the word I am associating with Anthony Doerr.

031 Best Men by Sidney Karger

Pride Month Reviews #3

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: When two best men in a wedding party fall for each other, they realize love isn't a piece of cake in this hilarious and heartfelt romantic comedy debut by screenwriter Sidney Karger.

Max Moody thought he had everything figured out. He's trying to live his best life in New York City and has the best friend a gay guy could ask for: Paige. She and Max grew up next door to each other in the suburbs of Chicago. She can light up any party. She finishes his sentences. She's always a reliable splunch (they don't like to use the word brunch) partner. But then Max's whole world is turned upside down when Paige suddenly announces some huge news: she's engaged and wants Max to be her man of honor. Max was always the romantic one who imagined he would get married before the unpredictable Paige and is shocked to hear she's ready to settle down. But it turns out there's not just one new man in Paige's life--there are two.

There's the groom, Austin, who's a perfectly nice guy. Then there's his charming, fun and ridiculously handsome gay younger brother, Chasten, who is Austin's best man. As Paige's wedding draws closer, Max, the introverted Midwesterner, and Chasten, the social butterfly East Coaster, realize they're like oil and water. Yet they still have to figure out how to coexist in Paige's life while not making her wedding festivities all about them. But can the tiny romantic spark between these two very different guys transform their best man supporting roles into the leading best men in each other's lives?

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

My Review: Max, 35, is Old. He tells us so himself. As I am damn near twice that age, I got right tired of hearing that nonsense. Max has a disastrous love-life. Max has one friend, Paige, for most of his life, and she is what I would call a collector: someone who gets a lot of people into her orbit and then keeps them there without paying a lot of attention to them. Max himself points this up by mentioning their friendship habit of going to a specific diner and Paige does the same trick of focusing all attention on herself with even the waitstaff...who, like Paige, basically ignore Max.

I am familiar with this kind of "friendship." It happens to a lot of gay guys I know, not the best-looking, not the most outgoing, but who still crave affection and settle for this dark twin of it because it's obvious that the friend is doing them a favor. It's so pervasive in Max's life that he has a friends-with-benefits deal going with his ex...who literally makes the booty call and then tells Max he just needed to get off before his date with the new guy in his life so he wouldn't come across as too sexually demanding!

It's all Max knows, being second-best, so he rolls with witty sarcasm as his defense mechanism. There are lists and texts and all sorts of not-story documents larded in to this too-long but very relatable story of modern friendship among the generation where gay is just a thing you are. These are the people who piss off the old white men who wear traitorous flags to show what patriots they are the most. It's not important that anyone is gay until Paige gets among the older people she needs to make herself different from.

I liked the snark, I liked the honesty about Max's Paige-provided employment and its soul-sucking banal cruelty...which Max is a big part of delivering!...and I liked the scene on Fire Island with Max as the very, very obvious fish out of water. I got no chemistry to explain why Max and Chasten were into each other, it seemed to take forever before anything happened and then it was as though they'd never been at odds or felt aggrieved by the other's presence in Paige's court of admirers. Shall we say there's no real tension resolved and be as discreet as Max himself is about details of his more lurid energies. The narrative is all-Max all the time and for over 300 pages it's a kind of strange thing that we never once see anything but the barest surfaces of Max's responses to anyone.

Self-loathing ≠ introspection.

I'd've preferred a shorter version of the story, or more delving into the real feelings behind Max's witty, bitchy narration. It's okay as a com, but the rom part left me wondering what more there was to all these characters. What makes the read fun is the snark; what needed moe thought was the length. I'll be on the lookout for Author Karger's next book with high hopes.

Hiya, RD! Happy Saturday to you.

>252 richardderus: Wonderful what people use for book marks. Very nice for you. I went down the Frances Parkinson Keyes rabbit hole just now because I read one or more of her novels when I was a teenager but can’t remember which ones. Irritatingly, her last name rhymes with eyes not keys, according to Wikipedia, ruining a lifetime of how I pronounced her name. And, because I always check now, I have Dinner at Antoine’s and Came a Cavalier on my shelves, both as yet unread. Interesting that your mama was apparently married a time you didn’t know about…

>260 richardderus: Hmmm. My current genre of choice, obviously, but your review is tepid at best and, I’m cheap, it’s just out, and it’s not on Kindle Unlimited.

*smooch*

>259 benitastrnad: I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not Doerr's reader. Everyone likea what they like, and I won't ever claim to be immune to the tugging on heartstrings of a solidly sentimental novel, but his stuff is mawkish and overdone. He veers into self-parody in Cloud Cuckoo Land, with three separate and distinct appeals to the sentimental reader. The one thing you didn't care for, the play, was my favorite bit because it was an idea I really liked, the rediscovery of a "lost" piece of literature! Shows ta go ya we none of us read the same book.

>260 richardderus: Hey Horrible! Happy Saturday back atcha. Mama was a Keyes fan from way back and so I had several of her books sitting around to tempt me as a kid. I know I read Dinner at Antoine's more than once the Watergate summer when there was NOTHING else on TV. I remember liking it better after I'd read and cogitated over it, then re-read it. Couldn't tell you now what the hell happens in it, though....

I'm so glad I got the tepid tone on that review. If it wasn't Pride Month and he wasn't a debut author, I'd've handed him his ass. Don't sprain anything getting it when it does go on KU.

*smooch*

All caught up with you again!

Happy weekend reading :)

Happy Sunday, Richard! Happy Pride Month. Yes, living in a townhouse does come with " by-laws" created by the those on the strata commitee - of which my husband is a member for maybe 10 of the past 23 years that we have lived with. I think it's to keep property values up, so that people don't just do any old thing, like be really noisy, vary the outside of their places too much ( we are all supposed to have neutral coloured drapes/ blinds etc ) Or, you cannot create a suite downstairs ( unless it for family ) or run and AirBNB. Overall, I actually love it here. The by laws do not specifically forbid a LFB, but I would have to ask the strata council and see it was okay. We don't have a front yard, just small back yards, so I'm not sure where it would go, or if they would allow it. I think it may be worse for a friend of mine who moved from Vancouver to a suburb of Atlanta GA. She lives in a detached home with her partner, and the HOA mandates they own a gun and keep it in there home. That is shocking to me.

As far bird baths and bird feeders, I am sure a bird bath in your back yard would be fine, as would a humming bird feeder. I'm less certain about an bird seed feeder for two reasons - in our area we have had an outbreak of salmonella in birds, so the government has asked us not to put out bird feeders beyond humming bird feeders , trying to limit the disease. I'm also not sure if bird seed might create a problem in that they tend to attract small critters, like rats and mice etc. But I can't see into other folks backyards, so I am not sure on that.

>252 richardderus: I love finding things like that in books. I have the family bible, dating back to the 1850s (when it was given to Ann on her marriage - in the dedication on the inside cover he doesn't get a mention, so you have to wonder what the giver thought of him). It has a number of page markers of different vintages, and part of me wonders which relative tucked that piece in.

>265 vancouverdeb: In the UK restrictions on what you can or can't do to a house are usually covenants and they exist in the deeds to the house. They're typically written into the deeds when the house is built and continue regardless of who owns is. Our last house had several; we couldn't keep a caravan or a boat between the house line and the road and we couldn't keep anything outside the realm of the normal domestic pet. So no chickens in the back garden for us!

032 Sometimes You Just Know by Bill VanPatten

PRIDE MONTH REVIEWS #4

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Can a thirty-year-old man overcome his fears and find love? Arnie Violet is the son of an alcoholic mother and a father who abandoned him at the age of ten. Believing himself unlovable, he lacks self-confidence in everything from work to romance. Then, Arnie meets eighteen-year-old Peter Jordan. Peter is the opposite of Arnie: self-assured, frank, and assertive.

There is an instant attraction between them, but warning bells sound in Arnie’s head. His relationships never last long, there is a major age difference between the two men, and most importantly, Peter is his boss’s nephew. With the help of a new friend, Arnie embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns to let go of the past and lean into life.

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

My Review: The synopsis is very precise and on-point, so we go into this read with a clear roadmap of the journey. It's not suspenseful...it is compelling to me, whose experiences of life are very close to Arnie's minus the maternal alcoholism. Abandoned by a father whose selfishness was complete? Check! Emotionally abused by a codependent mentally ill mother? Check! Involved in an age-gap romance? Check!

I know from reading the author's bio that he's telling us a story rooted in his own gay-male experience. This comes through in many facets of Arnie's story, and none more clearly than the opening scene where Arnie is raked over the coals by his supervisor, Rachel, not for the first or even tenth time, in the cruelest and most belittling way. This sets the tone for the read: Arnie in an awful and humiliating position, painfully unable to defend or extract himself from it.

As the narration is all third-person limited, we're privy to all the ways the action mirrors his past abuse. It can feel a bit repetitive, but it definitely sets the stakes. This is a man with a huge hill to climb just to get up to "bad." When glimmerings of good things come to him, if he even recognizes them, he's immediately on the alert for the fuckening. This being a romantic story, we know this is what we're here to watch him triumph over.

And do that he does...he's handed a dinner invitation by his boss hot on the heels of his very public humiliation by Rachel, and of course is all set for it to turn into a fiasco...especially when he meets the boss's handsome, sparkling dominant nephew. Who is all of eighteen. And beautiful.

And interested in thirty-year-old Arnie.

That CAN'T be right.

What follows is the journey to self-acceptance and to learning about accepting acceptance. Arnie is, at long last, among people who want to be with him. That's an intoxicating feeling to someone not accustomed to it. Arnie blossoms into a happy, still-nebbishy middle-aged guy. I'd've been a lot less kind if he'd suddenly changed completely, but he's a better-adjusted version of himself at the end of the book—not someone suddenly tured into a confident, self-motivated dudebro.

I liked this read just fine, and appreciated its positive resolution that stayed within realistic outcomes. A lot of guys could identify with nebbishy Arnie Violet. His trajectory, while pat (as expected in this genre), is never incredible. It's a warm comforting thing to see this ordinary no one much get to live out his happy dream.

No matter how banal the dream may be.

>264 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! Glad to see you here. I hope all's well in your end of the world.

*smooch*

'Morning, Rdear! Happy Sunday to you.

You're doing well with your Pride Month reviews.

>267 richardderus: Aha! It's on Kindle Unlimited and is now on my Kindle.

*smooch*

>265 vancouverdeb: Hi there Deb! I am always amazed at what people think is okay in the places they live...your Georgia friend particularly shocks me. Mandated gun ownership?! That's a place I'd refuse even to visit, let alone live. I think, without front garden space, the LFL wouldn't fly in your development...maybe there's one in the community near-ish by? They make great places to offload the already-reads.

Bird feeders in most urban and light suburban settings do end up being squirrel feeders. The number of bird-borne issues in the environment like bird flu and salmonella does seem to militate against the provision of food for them outside a nature reserve. The population density of Long Beach is about the same as Manhattan, so we get lotsa pigeons around here. Old Stuff had a pet pigeon, Freckles, for years. She got hit by a car during the COVID times, and he's only now getting around to training a replacement for her. Thank goodness he can't bring the critter inside. The proximity to the beach also means we get pied oystercatchers nesting in the lee of the boardwalk, and feeding in the surf along the jetties. Pretty things but not greatly interested in humans. The seagulls, now, think we're the bee's knees. The residents here feed them bread crusts...vey bad for the birds...and the darn things practically mob anyone coming out of our building's boardwalk door.

Spendid Sunday orisons when your coast wakes up, Deb! *smooch*

>266 Helenliz: The older the book, the weirder the finds...my weirdest one came from a 1943 hardcover copy of Islandia, which had the user's manual from a Leica M3 camera...very expensive item from the early 1950s and proof that only people of taste and discernment read that book. (Which has hugely problematic racist nonsense in it.)

One does rather come back to the fact that the groom merited no mention in what was obviously intended to become a family bible...

Sunday orisons, Helen!

>269 karenmarie: Horrible! I'm glad you could get it free. It's deffo worth a read at that price-point. Thanks for the support re my Pride Month reviewing. It's more effort this year than last. Stamina Я not me these days. I'm brought up short aevery day by some reminder or another that I had several strokes four and a half months ago and that I've recovered better than I was ever expected to in record time!

Sunday *smooch*

Good morning, Richard, and good day to you! It's been four and a half months? You are a wonder.
*smooch*

>265 vancouverdeb: Dear goddess.

>266 Helenliz: Maybe it was he who gave it to Ann?

>273 LizzieD: Morning, Peggy! I am a source of wonder for many a medical professional because this was not the most probable outcome. Lucky lucky me! Treatment has gotten better and better and better over the years, but I really still beat the odds very handily. Hugely grateful for my avoidance of a truly awful outcome. I saw those in the rehab and I think my brain got scared into healing itself. I'm still working on stamina. I'm still reminding myself to do unnatural to me things like slow down, like carry my phone everywhere...it's practical-detail stuff now, not the huge conceptual leap of "recovering from strokes."

I take my meds very carefully because I might not be this lucky next time so best do everything I can to avoid there being a next time.

>274 humouress: IK,R?!

Of course he *might* have given it to Ann but one would think he would've, in that case, have inscribed it.

>265 vancouverdeb: Yikes! Remind me not to even visit Atlanta.

Dropping by to wish you a splendid Sunday, dear fellow.

>265 vancouverdeb: I can't even.

Hi, Richard! Hope you're having a fantastic Sunday!

>265 vancouverdeb: OMG!! My mind is boggled and my mouth agape!!! Simply horrified at the very idea of mandated gun ownership.

>277 ArlieS: +100,000,000,000,000,000,000

>278 PaulCranswick: Thanks, PC! I return the sentiments heartily!

>279 Storeetllr: I can't either, Mary. Sunday's been okay around here...Monday's review had a fine line to walk so it took me a long time to formulate.

>280 RebaRelishesReading: I say it again: not even visiting such a place! Horrifying! Wonder how many abused spouses live there....

>274 humouress:, >276 richardderus: Its definitely not from the groom, it's from a couple. I'll pop & check the wording later.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Monday to you.

>267 richardderus: I finished Sometimes You Just Know last night, and everything you said is spot on, alhough I'd quibble a bit about calling Arnie middle-aged even at the end, when he's 34 and Peter is 22. Thanks for such a wonderful read.

>272 richardderus: Stamina Я not me these days. I'm brought up short aevery day by some reminder or another that I had several strokes four and a half months ago and that I've recovered better than I was ever expected to in record time! Points for your amazing recovery, regardless of stamina not being your superpower these days.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

033 Pedro & Daniel by Federico Erebia

PRIDE MONTH REVIEWS #5

Rating: 4* of five, doubtless the full five or even more for its target audience

The Publisher Says: Pedro and Daniel are Mexican American brothers growing up in 1970s Ohio. Their mother resents that Pedro is a spitting image of their darker-skinned father; that Daniel likes dolls; that neither boy plays sports. Both are gay and neurodivergent. They are alike, but they are dissimilar in their struggles, their dreams, their approach to life.

Pedro & Daniel is a sweeping and deeply personal novel that spans from childhood, through their teen years, and into adulthood. Theirs is a bond that won’t be broken. Together they endure an abusive home life, coming out, first loves, first jobs, and the AIDS pandemic, in a coming-of-age story unlike any other.

Despite everything, there is much joy in the stories in the book. Their resilience and special bond help the boys face one evil after another. While Pedro suffers more at home, Daniel is particularly susceptible to the malevolence of the outside world.

They are similar: gay, neurodivergent Latinos in love with all things Mexico.

Son tal para cual.
They are cut from the same cloth.

They are different: Pedro is darker-skinned, oppressed, repressed, introverted, and agnostic. Daniel is precocious, carefree, mischievous, religious, and unguarded.

Mismo perro, distinto collar.
Same dog, different collar.

CW: References to domestic violence, child abuse, homophobia, colorism, racism, clergy abuse, suicidality, sex, and death.

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

My Review: The survivor always writes the history. Pedro, the in-book pseudonym for Dr. Federico Erebia, a retired physician, who is also an artist, a woodworker, an author, and an illustrator, here tells the story of the horrifying, abusive family life led by himself and his late brother Daniel. Their boyhood having roughly coincided with my own, and their immigrant parents being much like the immigrant parents I knew in South Texas, the dichos and the interspersed poetry with prose, the cultural touchstones were all bone-deep familiar. What added to my sense of coming home was the young men's comings-out, internal and public, between themselves quietly and subtly; being gay in a deeply religious and brutally homophobic culture, during the peak terror of the AIDS crisis, only added to my anxious sense of identification with them.

What makes this story ideal for its youthful intended market is the absolute honesty and clarity of Author Erebia's prose; he couldn't tell a lie in these words, or even invent too much, because the ring of truth is absent when he does. He also never softens any blow, or pretends what hurt wasn't that bad, or helped grow him up, as other authors have in pursuing similar themes. He never takes the tack that it will all turn out okay; his belovèd brother dies of AIDS.

Love does not conquer all. What Love does is help one bear all that misery hateful bigots heap on you from before you know why they hate you. This is honest and it is helpful to young people to be told the truth. Things can hurt so bad in the moment that no one is surprised that you would consider ending your life. No one who's experienced hatred and rejection, however it's presented, is at all ever going to judge you for that. I do enjoy a story that tells young gay boys and girls all that, as well as implicitly supports the knowledge of no you aren't imagining it; yes, they do mean it; but crucially importantly you can and are wanted by others you haven't met to survive all of it. This story says loud and clear the truth: IT DOES GET BETTER.

Why I only rated it 4 stars of five is I found myself almost chanting the metrical dichos and poetic snippets, in that read-aloud to infants cadence. I don't enjoy that sensation. It's not aimed at me, so I present this as a reason, not an excuse. Others have other ideas about this facet of storytelling, and it works in the rap/hiphop/modern spoken word generation a treat. For me and those of my tastes, exercise caution in your consumption.

>285 Helenliz: It will be very interesting to hear what the actual words are, Helen, thanks for that.

>286 karenmarie: I *don't* think he's middle-aged in years, I think he's someone prematurely middle aged by the abusive environments that're all he's ever known, Horrible. I'm so glad the read pleased you! It's not the deepest meditation on Love I've ever read but it was very sweet.

I hope your week-ahead's reads are terrific! *smooch*

PEARL RULE # 7

Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner (p72)

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Addie Downs and Valerie Adler were eight when they first met and decided to be best friends forever. But, in the wake of tragedy and betrayal during their teenage years, everything changed. Val went on to fame and fortune. Addie stayed behind in their small Midwestern town. Destiny, however, had more in store for these two. And when, twenty-five years later, Val shows up at Addie’s front door with blood on her coat and terror on her face, it is the beginning of a wild adventure for two women joined by love and history who find strength together that they could not find alone.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I POSSESS A HARDCOVER OF THIS BOOK. I DON'T ANYMORE. LITTLE FREE LIBRARY HO!

My Review: Chick-lit is never going to be aimed at me, and it shouldn't be. I have no idea why, however, this tediously predictable, barely-serviceably-written story of emotional manipulation and abusive behavior is considered good. When Valerie abandoned Addie after manpiulating her into a situation that guarantees she will encounter serious legal trouble, and that Valerie knew was going to do so, I bailed. Not for me.

Image of the inside flyleaf of the family bible. My Great granny was a Pattingale, this would be her grandparents generation.



I think it reads as follows:
Anne Pattingale
on her marriage
May 1st 1856

With the sincere wishes and prayers of Mr & Mrs Potcourt(?) for her spiritual and temporal welfare.
Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Like I say, I'm not sure that they approved of him at all!

>291 Helenliz: With that quote on it?! THey didn' come right out and say, "good luck with that whole eating and having a house thing, cuddles, cause he ain't a-gonna do much supportin'." But they meant it.

June's thread is up! https://www.librarything.com/topic/351292