richardderus's ninth 2023 thread
This is a continuation of the topic richardderus's eighth 2023 thread.
This topic was continued by richardderus's tenth 2023 thread.
Talk 75 Books Challenge for 2023
Join LibraryThing to post.
1richardderus
For those silently wondering why there is such a fuss about "Pride Month," here's a little reminder that abuse requires proportional response. Put another way, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Witness the targeting of gay men, lesbians, transgender folk, and other not-heterosexual people across the country we're seeing right now...this is the cycle of abuse used to keep non-conforming people quiet by those who simply don't want to deal with anything not just like themselves.
"Don't shove it in my face!" say the quietly homophobic, meaning "shut up and take what you're given and like it."
Never again.
2richardderus
Reviews through 017 linked here.
Reviews 018 through 025 (out of order) linked here.
Reviews through 025 linked here.
Reviews 026 through 033 linked here.
Reviews 034 up to 039 linked here.
THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS
040 Spring in Siberia in post #17.
041 Tarry This Night in post104.
042 Brother Alive in post 219.
043 The Kingdom of Sand in post 237.
044 Dead of Winter in post 271.
045 Queen Wallis in post 289.
Reviews 018 through 025 (out of order) linked here.
Reviews through 025 linked here.
Reviews 026 through 033 linked here.
Reviews 034 up to 039 linked here.
THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS
040 Spring in Siberia in post #17.
041 Tarry This Night in post104.
042 Brother Alive in post 219.
043 The Kingdom of Sand in post 237.
044 Dead of Winter in post 271.
045 Queen Wallis in post 289.
6richardderus
Your turn!
9jessibud2
Happy new thread, Richard. I should be following with a new one, myself shortly. I hope...
10PaulCranswick
Happy new one dear fellow.
>1 richardderus: Coming from a convinced heterosexual let me say that I support every adult's right to express their sexuality however they desire without fear of being victimized, prejudiced against or even being patronizingly tolerated so long as they don't force that sexuality on others who don't have corresponding impulses. Pride month? I'm proud of you every day my friend.
>1 richardderus: Coming from a convinced heterosexual let me say that I support every adult's right to express their sexuality however they desire without fear of being victimized, prejudiced against or even being patronizingly tolerated so long as they don't force that sexuality on others who don't have corresponding impulses. Pride month? I'm proud of you every day my friend.
12RebaRelishesReading
Amen to love in all of its forms!
14Storeetllr
>1 richardderus: đ„â€ïžđŻ
I am so damn tired of this rain!
Happy New thread!
Voting day today and me without a car. Iâm going to try to get there before the polls close. Wish me luck.
I am so damn tired of this rain!
Happy New thread!
Voting day today and me without a car. Iâm going to try to get there before the polls close. Wish me luck.
16richardderus
040 Spring in Siberia by Artem Mozgovoy
PRIDE MONTH REVIEW #11
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: 1985. Russia. As the Soviet Union disintegrates and Western capitalism spreads its grip across their land, the Morozov family finds itself consigned to the remote, icy wastes of Siberia. It is here that their only child, Alexey, is born.
A sweet and gentle schoolboy, Alexey discovers that reciting poetry learnt by heart calms his fears. That winter gales can be battled with self-invented games, and solace found through his grandmotherâs rituals and potions. But when Alexeyâs classmate, the son of KGB agents, confesses his love, the desire of two boys to be together clashes violently with the mad world around them.
Exploring the healing power of literature, the magic of first love, and the ways our family and homeland can save (or shatter) us, Spring in Siberia is a coming-of-age novel that, in the darkest of times, glows with hope and the yearning for freedom to be oneself â completely.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: A sweet, gentle childhood spent among adults who love him doesn't mean Alexey/Artem wasn't always made aware of how different he was from other boys. His father's mother, whose earthy peasant lifeway he came to root inside, never made anything easy but always taught him that he, and he alone, was responsible for his life by never excusing him from the work of wrestig food for his supper from the unforgiving Earth of Siberia. She taught him to accept the gift of belonging where you plant yourself with her stories of her own early life spent in the Russian west before she was sent to Siberia to care for her brother and then made her life there.
This lesson, above all, would serve the young man well: Make your own life, and thus your own happiness.
The entirety of Artem's...do pardon, Alexey's...life was spent in upheaval and dislocation as the old Soviet Union collapsed and a new old country Russia was (re)born. Being a child with a firm grounding in self-reliance, he takes the new world in his stride. I found his mother's transformation from a depressed, moping lump into a purposeful and energetic capitalist very interesting...and Alexey's trotting right along behind her, using the first money he ever earns by selling flower arrangements on a set of beautifully bound Pushkin books he sees in the local post office. It challenges this planned-economy-raised kid's willpower to save his money instead of spend it well beyond its breaking point, which everyone here should probably relate to. He sees his very first TV commercials and nothing on this wide green Earth will do but he must have some vile, neon-colored sludge to drink...much to his grandmother's appalled confusion, as he's been working with her to pick and preserve wild berries his whole life. What is suddenly so appealing about this new stuff?
In this quiet little moment in a boy's life, the entire tragedy-to-come of Russia: An old, bad system ends with nothing to replace it and a new on with inscrutable rules that aren't like the old rules confuses the bejabbers out of most people who aren't like Alexey's freshly liberated mother.
Her love for her son isn't smooth...he's mistaken for a girl a lot, is clearly a femboy, and is bullied mercilessly. Alexey's father, less successfully capitalist than his wife, is repulsed by the growing strangeness of his only child; the family disintegrates under the many stresses of the world. As Alexey enters adolescence, his isolation from his peers is ameliorated by the love of Anton, expressed in a sweet, sweet, strange and menacing scene on a balcony. Things for th young lovers go poorly, as one would expect them to, given the world's homophobia. Anton and Alexey, eventually, are driven apart by adult cruelty and hatred. How that plays out is so deeply sad, and so universally relatable, that I wanted to jump into the story and shepherd them through the hateful nastiness of small-souled bigots.
Alexey, smart as a whip and hell-bent on not being like Them, goes to university on a "red diploma"âa free pass into the higher education system. He chooses, as did Artem the Author, to train as a journalist in a country about to lose even its unfree statee-supported press. He's trained to observe from birth by being Other, so he has a clear vision of how unfair the new system is to the old system's relicts. Here, then, is the main pleasure I got from reading this sad, oft-told tale of growing up Other in a world that genuinely and utterly, in a bone-deep way, hates you for being yourself.
It's not just gay people, it's not just smart people, it's Them...whoever it is that isn't like the one hating with all their tiny soul's capacty...and every living one of us is Them to someone. Alexey realizes this in a blinding, road-to-Damascus moment in a school hallway.
Life is cruel to Others. This well-honed spear of a story is thrust into one's readerly guts. You'e never again going to look at that butch girl or that femme of a boy and think "Other" after reading this story. Artem/Alexey is a human being and, as we follow him through a rough and turbulent upbringing in a hostile world without a safety net of any material, social, or spiritual sort, we can no longer pretend that we're not all guilty of glossing over the costs of our own quiet little prejudices. Emma Goldman, social activist and poet whose lines are on the Statue of Liberty in New York's front door to the USA, said:
PRIDE MONTH REVIEW #11
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: 1985. Russia. As the Soviet Union disintegrates and Western capitalism spreads its grip across their land, the Morozov family finds itself consigned to the remote, icy wastes of Siberia. It is here that their only child, Alexey, is born.
A sweet and gentle schoolboy, Alexey discovers that reciting poetry learnt by heart calms his fears. That winter gales can be battled with self-invented games, and solace found through his grandmotherâs rituals and potions. But when Alexeyâs classmate, the son of KGB agents, confesses his love, the desire of two boys to be together clashes violently with the mad world around them.
Exploring the healing power of literature, the magic of first love, and the ways our family and homeland can save (or shatter) us, Spring in Siberia is a coming-of-age novel that, in the darkest of times, glows with hope and the yearning for freedom to be oneself â completely.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: A sweet, gentle childhood spent among adults who love him doesn't mean Alexey/Artem wasn't always made aware of how different he was from other boys. His father's mother, whose earthy peasant lifeway he came to root inside, never made anything easy but always taught him that he, and he alone, was responsible for his life by never excusing him from the work of wrestig food for his supper from the unforgiving Earth of Siberia. She taught him to accept the gift of belonging where you plant yourself with her stories of her own early life spent in the Russian west before she was sent to Siberia to care for her brother and then made her life there.
This lesson, above all, would serve the young man well: Make your own life, and thus your own happiness.
The entirety of Artem's...do pardon, Alexey's...life was spent in upheaval and dislocation as the old Soviet Union collapsed and a new old country Russia was (re)born. Being a child with a firm grounding in self-reliance, he takes the new world in his stride. I found his mother's transformation from a depressed, moping lump into a purposeful and energetic capitalist very interesting...and Alexey's trotting right along behind her, using the first money he ever earns by selling flower arrangements on a set of beautifully bound Pushkin books he sees in the local post office. It challenges this planned-economy-raised kid's willpower to save his money instead of spend it well beyond its breaking point, which everyone here should probably relate to. He sees his very first TV commercials and nothing on this wide green Earth will do but he must have some vile, neon-colored sludge to drink...much to his grandmother's appalled confusion, as he's been working with her to pick and preserve wild berries his whole life. What is suddenly so appealing about this new stuff?
In this quiet little moment in a boy's life, the entire tragedy-to-come of Russia: An old, bad system ends with nothing to replace it and a new on with inscrutable rules that aren't like the old rules confuses the bejabbers out of most people who aren't like Alexey's freshly liberated mother.
Her love for her son isn't smooth...he's mistaken for a girl a lot, is clearly a femboy, and is bullied mercilessly. Alexey's father, less successfully capitalist than his wife, is repulsed by the growing strangeness of his only child; the family disintegrates under the many stresses of the world. As Alexey enters adolescence, his isolation from his peers is ameliorated by the love of Anton, expressed in a sweet, sweet, strange and menacing scene on a balcony. Things for th young lovers go poorly, as one would expect them to, given the world's homophobia. Anton and Alexey, eventually, are driven apart by adult cruelty and hatred. How that plays out is so deeply sad, and so universally relatable, that I wanted to jump into the story and shepherd them through the hateful nastiness of small-souled bigots.
Alexey, smart as a whip and hell-bent on not being like Them, goes to university on a "red diploma"âa free pass into the higher education system. He chooses, as did Artem the Author, to train as a journalist in a country about to lose even its unfree statee-supported press. He's trained to observe from birth by being Other, so he has a clear vision of how unfair the new system is to the old system's relicts. Here, then, is the main pleasure I got from reading this sad, oft-told tale of growing up Other in a world that genuinely and utterly, in a bone-deep way, hates you for being yourself.
It's not just gay people, it's not just smart people, it's Them...whoever it is that isn't like the one hating with all their tiny soul's capacty...and every living one of us is Them to someone. Alexey realizes this in a blinding, road-to-Damascus moment in a school hallway.
Life is cruel to Others. This well-honed spear of a story is thrust into one's readerly guts. You'e never again going to look at that butch girl or that femme of a boy and think "Other" after reading this story. Artem/Alexey is a human being and, as we follow him through a rough and turbulent upbringing in a hostile world without a safety net of any material, social, or spiritual sort, we can no longer pretend that we're not all guilty of glossing over the costs of our own quiet little prejudices. Emma Goldman, social activist and poet whose lines are on the Statue of Liberty in New York's front door to the USA, said:
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another.
17FAMeulstee
Happy new thread, Richard dear!
19richardderus
>7 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie! *smooch*
20richardderus
>8 klobrien2: Happy to see you here, Karen O.! *smooch*
21richardderus
>9 jessibud2: Isn't it shocking how fast things move? I'm no sooner comfy with something than it needs to be changed!
*smooch*
*smooch*
22richardderus
>10 PaulCranswick: Very kindly meant, PC, so thanks!
23richardderus
>11 mahsdad: Thanks, Jeff!
24richardderus
>12 RebaRelishesReading: Dionne Warwick sang Burt Bachrach's words decades ago when we were young:
What The World Needs Now (1966)
*smooch*
What The World Needs Now (1966)
*smooch*
25richardderus
>13 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen! *smooch*
26richardderus
>14 Storeetllr: I'm grateful that today's not rainy here, since doing my civic duty would be soggy otherwise. Get out and vote, me lurve! *smooch*
27richardderus
>15 ArlieS: That indeed, Arlie! Glad to see you here.
28richardderus
>17 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! *smooch*
29msf59
Happy New Thread, RD! We have smoky hazy day today, drifting down from Canada. Winds must have shifted. Bree is unexpectedly dropping off Jackson here for the afternoon. There goes my PM reading but he will certainly keep me entertained.
30richardderus
>18 PlatinumWarlock: it surely is, Lavinia, though so very many just do not subscribe to this belief.
thanks for dropping in!
thanks for dropping in!
31richardderus
>29 msf59: Thank you, Gramps...I know you're secretly thrilled that Jackson's going to be around to play with. The books will still be there when he isn't.
34jnwelch
Happy New Thread, brohammer. (brohammer? We used to say it occasionally back in my high school days. Ah, adolescents).
I just finished A Line in the Sand by Kevin Powers and, like you, loved it. He didn't get caught up in being writerly, and told one crackerjack story.
Suzanne (Chatterbox) swung by with Brother Mark on Sunday and left me an ARC of Tan Twan Eng's newest. I've been waiting (just me, nobody else as important) for more than a decade, and I can't wait to start it!
I just finished A Line in the Sand by Kevin Powers and, like you, loved it. He didn't get caught up in being writerly, and told one crackerjack story.
Suzanne (Chatterbox) swung by with Brother Mark on Sunday and left me an ARC of Tan Twan Eng's newest. I've been waiting (just me, nobody else as important) for more than a decade, and I can't wait to start it!
35richardderus
>32 RebaRelishesReading: Lovely song and sentiments, eh what?
36richardderus
>33 drneutron: Thank you most kindly, Doc!
37richardderus
>34 jnwelch: Hey there, Joe! I'm not at all vibrating with outraged jealousy at your possession of an ARC of Dr. Tan's new book. Nope, not even an erg of energy expended on suchlike nonsense...'scuse me, this hatpin got too hot and is melting the wax dolly too fast....
Powers isn't a high output author, but he is one fine wordsmith. I love his way with an image!
Tell Debbi I wish her a long and happy widowhood once I get done with this spell, here.
Powers isn't a high output author, but he is one fine wordsmith. I love his way with an image!
Tell Debbi I wish her a long and happy widowhood once I get done with this spell, here.
38Familyhistorian
Happy new thread, Richard. You're in fine form. Hope that means that life is treating you well or at least as well as can be expected.
39johnsimpson
Hi Richard, Happy New Thread my dear friend.
40jnwelch
>37 richardderus:. đ
41richardderus
>38 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg! The world's a better, brighter place because my gum isn't hurting anymore. A tiny bit of residual tenderness because it's been through the mills, but bo more acheacheache...that there's a win in my book.
42richardderus
>39 johnsimpson: Thank you, John!
43richardderus
>40 jnwelch: I do hope you've had the self-preservation instinct to leave it to me in your will...curses work fine in The Beyond, y'know....
44vancouverdeb
Happy New Thread, Richard! Many happy days and reads ahead!
45richardderus
>44 vancouverdeb: Thank you most kindly, Deb! So far so agreeable...
46figsfromthistle
Happy new thread, Richard!
47karenmarie
Happy new thread, RDear! Happy Wednesday.
*blinks* I forgot to visit yesterdayâŠ
>1 richardderus: Iâm sad that the homophobic whack jobs are still at it.
>5 richardderus: Queer-affiliateâŠ
*smooch*
*blinks* I forgot to visit yesterdayâŠ
>1 richardderus: Iâm sad that the homophobic whack jobs are still at it.
>5 richardderus: Queer-affiliateâŠ
*smooch*
48richardderus
>47 karenmarie: ...I...I...knoooowww
Their little, tiny hate-filled souls demand that they never slacken their efforts to Let Everyone Know that they Hate (target fungible). It's a deeply human characteristic, and one we should all strive to overcome in behavior if not in emotion. I believe the jesus crew say it as, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Simplest, best, most memorable formulation of the one irreducible tenet of morality that I know of...in English anyway.
*smoochiesmoochsmooch* for my favorite ally!
Their little, tiny hate-filled souls demand that they never slacken their efforts to Let Everyone Know that they Hate (target fungible). It's a deeply human characteristic, and one we should all strive to overcome in behavior if not in emotion. I believe the jesus crew say it as, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." Simplest, best, most memorable formulation of the one irreducible tenet of morality that I know of...in English anyway.
*smoochiesmoochsmooch* for my favorite ally!
51richardderus
>49 bell7: Thanks, Mary! *smooch*
52richardderus
>50 ArlieS: I know, right?! It's notable to me that as I brushed my teeht this morning, I didn't even wince!
53richardderus
My elderly review of THE BAD-ASS LIBRARIANS OF TIMBUKTU continues its inexplicable-to-me, unexplained march to world domination for the fourth week. It's 138 of today's 316 views, or 44% of the total...I am pleased, of course, but truly uncomprehending. Whatevs, I'll take it!
54LizzieD
>53 richardderus: Congratulations! May your visitors find another review or two to send viral. I see that I am going to have to make time to read both the review and the book.
>1 richardderus: Those faces convict any mensch of the deep need for basic respect and justice. I can't begin to say what I feel and mean.
*smooch*
>1 richardderus: Those faces convict any mensch of the deep need for basic respect and justice. I can't begin to say what I feel and mean.
*smooch*
56richardderus
>54 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy! I wish I understood what caused the flurry of excitement. Unexplained enthusiasms on the internet make me nervous.
Heaven only knows a bookish person can find SOMETHING to enjoy with 2,000-plus titles to choose from.
Horrifying, isn't it. And still not uncommon.
Heaven only knows a bookish person can find SOMETHING to enjoy with 2,000-plus titles to choose from.
Horrifying, isn't it. And still not uncommon.
57richardderus
>55 swynn: Thanks all around, Steve!
58RebaRelishesReading
>52 richardderus: HOORAY!!
60richardderus
>58 RebaRelishesReading: Thank you, Reba! It's been an ordeal...this is not going to be my favorite year ever. In fact, YUCKICKPTUI is my overall opinion.
61richardderus
>59 AMQS: Hi there Anne! How lovely to see you here! Many thanks re: Pride. It's important for me, to remind myself that things are far better for me than they were for my gay uncle, and for my descendants than they were for me.
62RebaRelishesReading
>60 richardderus: Let's hope the second half does its best to make up for the first half.
63richardderus
>62 RebaRelishesReading: Your keyboard ⥠the Goddesses' inbox
64FAMeulstee
Happy Thursday, Richard dear!
>52 richardderus: That is great progress! :-)
>53 richardderus: A review going viral, and the rest is well viewed as well. Nice number of visitors you have.
>52 richardderus: That is great progress! :-)
>53 richardderus: A review going viral, and the rest is well viewed as well. Nice number of visitors you have.
65karenmarie
âMorning, RD! Happy Thursday to you.
>52 richardderus: Well, finally! Some good news on the teeth front for you. Not wincing is fantastic.
>53 richardderus: On my shelves since 2018, as yet unread. Congrats on your march to world domination.
*smooch* from your own Horrible
>52 richardderus: Well, finally! Some good news on the teeth front for you. Not wincing is fantastic.
>53 richardderus: On my shelves since 2018, as yet unread. Congrats on your march to world domination.
*smooch* from your own Horrible
66richardderus
>64 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! Thank you most kindly for the congrarulations. The blog's been a great success on my terms, though it's vanishingly small on internet terms. The problem that Blogger has always presented is its very poor platform for engagement. That was never good and, as Google tries its damnedest to run off the remaining bloggers by just not doing more than the minimum to keep it mostly operational, it won't be getting better.
*smooch*
*smooch*
67richardderus
>65 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! No wincing is excellent, isn't it?
Do get the book down and flip through it. Quire a satisfactory read for bookish people.
Do get the book down and flip through it. Quire a satisfactory read for bookish people.
68LizzieD
Good afternoon, Richard! It is almost the second half of the year, and I join in all the hopes for general improvement all around! I'm happy your mouth seems to be getting back to normal.
I almost posted on the "What's this book?" thread, but I think I may have seen it in a throw-away comment here or on Tui's thread, so I thought I'd try both places first. Recently, somebody recommended a fantasy about a prince (I think) forced to marry a widower (ambassador, maybe?) for the good of his country. I looked at it, could afford it, didn't put it on my Kindle because I have no idea when I might read it. Now I want it, and I can't remember what it was.
Can anybody help?
*smooch* for the day
I almost posted on the "What's this book?" thread, but I think I may have seen it in a throw-away comment here or on Tui's thread, so I thought I'd try both places first. Recently, somebody recommended a fantasy about a prince (I think) forced to marry a widower (ambassador, maybe?) for the good of his country. I looked at it, could afford it, didn't put it on my Kindle because I have no idea when I might read it. Now I want it, and I can't remember what it was.
Can anybody help?
*smooch* for the day
69richardderus
>68 LizzieD: Hey Peggy...this might be the one, though it's a long shot:
WED TO THE BARBARIAN
KEIRA ANDREWS (The Barbarian Duet #1)
KA Books
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Will an innocent prince forced into marriage choose passion?
Sheltered in the palace with his books, Jemâs life is peaceful. Even if heâs lonely and yearning for romance, the big, strong men he wants donât crave small, timid princes.
Then heâs forced to marry a mysterious barbarian.
Jem must do his dutyâeven if it means being stuck with Cador, a brute who dismisses him as weak. Even if it means a fake marriage in name only for the sake of their homelands. Even if he must leave behind everything and everyone to journey to a forbidding island of ice and stone.
Even if thereâs only one bed.
Alone with this wildâyet tender?âman, Jem discovers desire that burns hotter than he ever imagined. Can two strangers learn to trust, or will dangerous lies tear them apart?
***
Maybe?
WED TO THE BARBARIAN
KEIRA ANDREWS (The Barbarian Duet #1)
KA Books
$4.99 Kindle edition, available now
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: Will an innocent prince forced into marriage choose passion?
Sheltered in the palace with his books, Jemâs life is peaceful. Even if heâs lonely and yearning for romance, the big, strong men he wants donât crave small, timid princes.
Then heâs forced to marry a mysterious barbarian.
Jem must do his dutyâeven if it means being stuck with Cador, a brute who dismisses him as weak. Even if it means a fake marriage in name only for the sake of their homelands. Even if he must leave behind everything and everyone to journey to a forbidding island of ice and stone.
Even if thereâs only one bed.
Alone with this wildâyet tender?âman, Jem discovers desire that burns hotter than he ever imagined. Can two strangers learn to trust, or will dangerous lies tear them apart?
***
Maybe?
70LizzieD
Thank you, Richard. That isn't it although I remember that one of the men's names does begin with Je but more fantasy-er than Jem. In this one the mate isn't a brute, I don't think. He was married to the prince's older brother/cousin? who died. I'll keep looking. Thank you for thinking!
71richardderus
>70 LizzieD: Oh wait...do you mean this one?
CAPTIVE PRINCE
C.S. PACAT (Captive Prince #1)
Berkley Books
$15.00 trade paper, available now
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone elseâŠ
CAPTIVE PRINCE
C.S. PACAT (Captive Prince #1)
Berkley Books
$15.00 trade paper, available now
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave.
Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country.
For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone elseâŠ
72LizzieD
Richard, you're too good! This isn't the one either. I think it is a pretty recent book. I'm still trying.
WHY, when I need it, does Ammy not pull up all the books I've looked at over the past month?????
Thank you with a *smooch*
WHY, when I need it, does Ammy not pull up all the books I've looked at over the past month?????
Thank you with a *smooch*
73LizzieD
Got it! Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell, out in '21. Ammy did come through for me when I looked more carefully. Now that I've found it, I'm wondering again whether I really want it. Off to give it some thought.....
74msf59
Happy Friday, RD. Getting ready to launch on another Michigan camping trip. This time to the UP. A pretty campground, right along the north shore of Green Bay. We will bring Juno along this time. See how she does.
I am getting close to finishing Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Not a stellar read but a fun entertaining one.
I am getting close to finishing Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Not a stellar read but a fun entertaining one.
75richardderus
>73 LizzieD:, >72 LizzieD: Yay for finding it! I'm not familiar with Maxwell's work. I look forward to hearing what you end up thinking about it.
76richardderus
>74 msf59: I wasn't impressed, either, Mark. Perfectly pleasant read, but nothing outstanding in it.
Enjoy the trip! See lots of pretty birds, chase Juno out into the lake a few times, have all that outdoorsy fun y'all weirdos batten on....
Enjoy the trip! See lots of pretty birds, chase Juno out into the lake a few times, have all that outdoorsy fun y'all weirdos batten on....
77richardderus
JUNE IN REVIEW
Fourteen books read and reviewed; not as bad as I was expecting, given the very painful Tooth Events. 2023 has not been the best year. Nothing got five stars, but several got more than four. Of those, my two favorites were:
Open Throat...based on the imagined life of California wildcat P22, who lived most of his life in LA
Los Nefilim...a fantastical reimagining of the real stakes of the Spanish Civil War plus superrnatural doins.
The rest of 2023 might be better than its first half (with forty-seven reviews posted of all sorts), but I'm officially setting my sights on posting 100 reviews on my blog as the total I'll be satisfied with.
Yesterday and today are normal-total days on my blog...today 204 views, yesterday 234...but June ends with my daily average at 840 per day. Timbuktu's lost its magic at last, but what a month! over 25,000 views!
Fourteen books read and reviewed; not as bad as I was expecting, given the very painful Tooth Events. 2023 has not been the best year. Nothing got five stars, but several got more than four. Of those, my two favorites were:
Open Throat...based on the imagined life of California wildcat P22, who lived most of his life in LA
Los Nefilim...a fantastical reimagining of the real stakes of the Spanish Civil War plus superrnatural doins.
The rest of 2023 might be better than its first half (with forty-seven reviews posted of all sorts), but I'm officially setting my sights on posting 100 reviews on my blog as the total I'll be satisfied with.
Yesterday and today are normal-total days on my blog...today 204 views, yesterday 234...but June ends with my daily average at 840 per day. Timbuktu's lost its magic at last, but what a month! over 25,000 views!
78Familyhistorian
2023 may not have been a very good year for you, Richard, but, in the grand scheme of things, I think you got through a lot of bad things by the skin of your teeth and should be thanking your lucky stars or whatever deserves the credit.
79karenmarie
'Morning, RDear. Happy First of July to you.
>77 richardderus: Given strokes and the Tooth Event, I'd say that you've done a great job and your realistic goal of 100 reviews.
*smooch*
>77 richardderus: Given strokes and the Tooth Event, I'd say that you've done a great job and your realistic goal of 100 reviews.
*smooch*
80LizzieD
Here we go! Wishes for the best in the second half of the year! I echo Karen and Meg.
*smooch*
*smooch*
81richardderus
>78 Familyhistorian: Stars are as good as any objects to attribute agency to...luck is luck and goodness knows it's been a huge player in my 2023, Meg. *smooch*
82richardderus
>79 karenmarie: Canada Day orisons, Horrible! *smooch* Thanks for the supportive wishes!
83richardderus
>80 LizzieD: Gracious goodness me...this second half of 2023 is starting with positivity overload! *smoochings*
85richardderus
>84 weird_O: Your keyboard ⥠the Goddesses' inbox, Bill.
86RebaRelishesReading
Happy second half, Richard -- may the good stuff continue and no new bad stuff arrive
87Storeetllr
Happy July! Echoing everyoneâs wishes that the second half of 2023 will be a whole hellavalot more fun than the first half! (I almost wrote âhellavalot better than,â but really, for all the sh*t that was thrown at you, you overcame it inspiringly, and I canât think of a better outcome.)
88richardderus
>86 RebaRelishesReading: Thank you most kindly, smoochling!
89richardderus
>87 Storeetllr: *blush* truthfully, it doesn't seem to me there was anything more at work than great good luck pushed on by stubbornness, Mary.
*smooch*
*smooch*
90Helenliz
I'm sure that sheer bloody minded stubbornness is a much under rated attribute. More power to you elbow, RD.
91The_Hibernator
Hi Richard! It's been a while! I hope you've been better than you were the last time I visited your thread. You seem to be in a better mood. :)
92richardderus
>90 Helenliz: Hi Helen! Happy to see you. Stubbornness is my one and only superpower, it seems, but it's really useful.
93richardderus
>91 The_Hibernator: Rachel!! Goodness, it's good to see you around! *smooch* The world feels brighter again.
94vancouverdeb
Thanks for the Canada Well Wishes, RD! I did have a nice day. Nothing special, just headed into an area of my city where they had Canada Day Celebrations. Music, food, crowds, that sort of thing. I took our dog, Poppy along with me for a walk, so we just took in the sights and sounds. There are fireworks this evening, but I'll skip that.
95richardderus
>94 vancouverdeb: Hi Deb! Being on the beach here, we've got the inevitable crowds and the celebratory fireworks right here tomorrow...all holidays on the Federal calendar are celebrated on Mondays...so it's just down to hiding indoors for me when the jollifications are on. The Canada Day doins sound very pleasant...and escapable...but there's me repeating myself.
*smooch*
*smooch*
96LizzieD
Peace to us all over this holiday weekend in the states. I wondered about the strange thunder last night until I remembered the town's fireworks. We used to be able to see them, but apparently trees grow over 52+ years. I dread the neighborhood celebration. They set off at least two window and dishes on the shelf rattling bombs + other smaller stuff - poor, terrified little animals!
I trust that you have books! *smooch*
I trust that you have books! *smooch*
97Familyhistorian
I hope you have plenty of reading material to hide indoors with tomorrow, Richard. Happy 4th of July in advance!
98figsfromthistle
Happy long weekend, Richard!
>77 richardderus: Heres to you having a more normal second half with nothing but good excitements.
>77 richardderus: Heres to you having a more normal second half with nothing but good excitements.
100richardderus
>97 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg! I'm not planning any trips out-of-doors, and am hopeful that Old Stuff will find it all mesmerizing and thus be out amongst his fellow hoi polloi all day.
101richardderus
>98 figsfromthistle: Your keyboard ⥠the Goddesses' inbox, Anita. *smooch*
102karenmarie
'Morning, RDear. Happiest of Mondays to you. I hope OS goes out to be amongst the hoi polloi, giving you peace and quiet.
I'm just one sip into my first cup of coffee.
*smooch* from your own Horrible
I'm just one sip into my first cup of coffee.
*smooch* from your own Horrible
103LizzieD
I echo good wishes for the day, Richard, with efficient AC, white noise if you need it, good reading, and an appetizing meal or two!
*smooch*
*smooch*
104richardderus
041 Tarry This Night by Kristyn Dunnion
Rating: 4* of five
The Publsher Says: In this dystopian, eerily relevant novel, a civil war is brewing in America. Below ground, a cult led by the deluded and narcissistic Father Ernst is ensconced in an underground bunker, waiting out the conflict. When "The Family" runs out of food, Ruth, coming of age and terrified of serving as Ernst's next wife, must choose between obeying her faith and fighting for survival. In this unsettling modern Lilith tale, spirited women resist their violent, racist culture and, in so doing, become outlaws.
I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.
My Review: Another call-to-arms for the young women of the US. It's dystopian, all right, but in the six years since its publiction it's only bexome more prescient.
The profound evil of religious belief is its de facto division of the world into Us and Them. There's no need to be saved if everyone is, regardless of their behavior and/or diet and/or sex life,right? So it must be that some people aren't saved; therefore they must be wicked for not following the way to salvation, because of course everyone who's good wants to be saved, and if you explain how to be saved and they don't do it, they're Bad...They are Bad, because WE are Good! This being the least talked-about part of religious belief, it's fertile ground for Author Dunnion to poke around to see what kind of struggle-bugs come out of the dark, smelly pit underneath the pile of unexamined Articles of Faith.
The horror of this system is its endless supply of unquestioning followers, perpetuating abuse and calling it love.
That might be the single most evil thing ever done by one human to another.
My issue with this story isn't the story itself, or the worldbuilding the Canadian author does for the US South, but the pacing of the plot. Reading the first half of the book, one is trapped in a slooow-motion car crash, awaiting the inevitable explosion. It all takes far longer to reach ignition than it should to keep readers engaged...it took me six years and a nagging sense of unfinished business to get back to it.
In spite of that serious misgiving, though, I think the experience by the end is one of horrified and outraged identification with the situation and the characters, and should fill a void in your trapped-indoors-by-the-heat summer 2023 reading.
Rating: 4* of five
The Publsher Says: In this dystopian, eerily relevant novel, a civil war is brewing in America. Below ground, a cult led by the deluded and narcissistic Father Ernst is ensconced in an underground bunker, waiting out the conflict. When "The Family" runs out of food, Ruth, coming of age and terrified of serving as Ernst's next wife, must choose between obeying her faith and fighting for survival. In this unsettling modern Lilith tale, spirited women resist their violent, racist culture and, in so doing, become outlaws.
I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.
My Review: Another call-to-arms for the young women of the US. It's dystopian, all right, but in the six years since its publiction it's only bexome more prescient.
The profound evil of religious belief is its de facto division of the world into Us and Them. There's no need to be saved if everyone is, regardless of their behavior and/or diet and/or sex life,right? So it must be that some people aren't saved; therefore they must be wicked for not following the way to salvation, because of course everyone who's good wants to be saved, and if you explain how to be saved and they don't do it, they're Bad...They are Bad, because WE are Good! This being the least talked-about part of religious belief, it's fertile ground for Author Dunnion to poke around to see what kind of struggle-bugs come out of the dark, smelly pit underneath the pile of unexamined Articles of Faith.
The horror of this system is its endless supply of unquestioning followers, perpetuating abuse and calling it love.
That might be the single most evil thing ever done by one human to another.
My issue with this story isn't the story itself, or the worldbuilding the Canadian author does for the US South, but the pacing of the plot. Reading the first half of the book, one is trapped in a slooow-motion car crash, awaiting the inevitable explosion. It all takes far longer to reach ignition than it should to keep readers engaged...it took me six years and a nagging sense of unfinished business to get back to it.
In spite of that serious misgiving, though, I think the experience by the end is one of horrified and outraged identification with the situation and the characters, and should fill a void in your trapped-indoors-by-the-heat summer 2023 reading.
105richardderus
>102 karenmarie: Horrible! Thanks for the good wishes. OS is sleeping, so almost as quiet as when he's gone.
I am impressed that you were able to think clearly enough to type sense before your first full pot!
I am impressed that you were able to think clearly enough to type sense before your first full pot!
106richardderus
>103 LizzieD: Hiya, Peggy! Lunch was a favorite, latkes, and my a/c is on "desert conditions" setting so a cardigan is de rigueur. A good problem to have when it's 80° outside. *smooch*
107Storeetllr
>104 richardderus: Not sure I have the emotional bandwidth just now for this one, though it does sound compelling.
Hope you have a peaceful week. I personally am hoping for a downpour here tomorrow, as aggravating as heavy rain is for me. (I get flooding every time it rains so have to be on top of it and turn the pump on when needed.)
Hope you have a peaceful week. I personally am hoping for a downpour here tomorrow, as aggravating as heavy rain is for me. (I get flooding every time it rains so have to be on top of it and turn the pump on when needed.)
109Helenliz
Actually Tuesday {hugs} >:-)
Do I wish happy 4th of July? I'd offer that we'd take you back, but I can't guarantee that we're in any better state, so it mightn't be an improvement. There's something rotten in the state of *insert state here*
I spent a year of my degree in Texas (go Longhorns). We had to take set courses, but had freedom to take whatever we wanted (as long as the tutor would have us) to fill up our credit hours. I did History from 1492 (because clearly that's when History starts) to 1865. Includes the war of independence. Which had a rather different slant from what I'd been taught. We had to write an essay on the significance of Yorktown, where the British surrendered. At which point I stopped being diplomatic. "It was the first time that a world power had surrendered to an upstart bunch of colonial rebels" may have been the thrust of my argument. But the marker was very fair, none of my facts were wrong. I came back with 4.5/5 "interesting viewpoint" at the bottom. >:-)
Do I wish happy 4th of July? I'd offer that we'd take you back, but I can't guarantee that we're in any better state, so it mightn't be an improvement. There's something rotten in the state of *insert state here*
I spent a year of my degree in Texas (go Longhorns). We had to take set courses, but had freedom to take whatever we wanted (as long as the tutor would have us) to fill up our credit hours. I did History from 1492 (because clearly that's when History starts) to 1865. Includes the war of independence. Which had a rather different slant from what I'd been taught. We had to write an essay on the significance of Yorktown, where the British surrendered. At which point I stopped being diplomatic. "It was the first time that a world power had surrendered to an upstart bunch of colonial rebels" may have been the thrust of my argument. But the marker was very fair, none of my facts were wrong. I came back with 4.5/5 "interesting viewpoint" at the bottom. >:-)
110richardderus
>107 Storeetllr: Not permaybehaps just now, indeed...this wasn't a jollification if a read but it was very involving. For your list, Mary, the future yawns before us in its booklessness.
111richardderus
>108 bell7: Already-Tuesday *smooch* back!
112thornton37814
I'm embarrassed by how many threads behind I am. I decided to just try to keep up better from this point forward! I think my life is slowing down a bit so hopefully that is achievable.
113richardderus
>109 Helenliz: Happy Tiw's Day, Helen. There's a hideous tide of backward, regressive, repressive, reactionary stupidity and fear engulfing the spoiled rich kids of the global North. Their long, comfy adolescences are coming to an end and the hard slog of adulthood is looming and the whole culture is throwing an ugly-faced, screaming tantrum.
Adolescents are hard to tolerate anyway but when they're adults with "rights and privileges," it's appalling.
We divide history very differently from the Colonial Masters, it's true. The legacy of millennia of actual natives is unimportant; a greedy Genoese guy kickstarted History. Which, to be fair, isn't entirely untrue. It's certainly the mindset of the society that's taken root like kudzu in this country and thence been spread around the world.
Long ago, I student taught an American history class. I numbered the kids' desks and, as they sat down, announced that all the 1s were British newspaper writers, and all the 2s were American ones. They got the same sheet with bare facts on them about Yorktown, and had to write a paragraph to go into their newspaper. I was called out for it by the teachers, but the kids LOVED it and discussed how very much the place you are colors how you see things.
Adolescents are hard to tolerate anyway but when they're adults with "rights and privileges," it's appalling.
We divide history very differently from the Colonial Masters, it's true. The legacy of millennia of actual natives is unimportant; a greedy Genoese guy kickstarted History. Which, to be fair, isn't entirely untrue. It's certainly the mindset of the society that's taken root like kudzu in this country and thence been spread around the world.
Long ago, I student taught an American history class. I numbered the kids' desks and, as they sat down, announced that all the 1s were British newspaper writers, and all the 2s were American ones. They got the same sheet with bare facts on them about Yorktown, and had to write a paragraph to go into their newspaper. I was called out for it by the teachers, but the kids LOVED it and discussed how very much the place you are colors how you see things.
114richardderus
>112 thornton37814: Hi Lori! I'm so happy to see you! Whenever you'd like to visit here it's a welcome treat. Drawing lines and then standing on them is a very solid strategy.
Welcome *smooch*
Welcome *smooch*
115karenmarie
âMorning, Rdear. Happy Tuesday and whatever other day you want to call it.
>104 richardderus: Ugh. Hard pass. it took me six years and a nagging sense of unfinished business to get back to it. So did you re-read and finish or continue from your original stopping point? Enquiring minds and all that.
>113 richardderus: a hideous tide of backward, regressive, repressive, reactionary stupidity and fear
Social media facilitates like-minded folks getting together. The crazies and whack jobs are only doing the same as intelligent forward-thinking, expansive, and fact-based folks in finding their happy place on their devices. Unfortunately many of them think that violence and guns should be part of the equation. And yes, young rich spoiled kids are part of whatâs imploding our culture.
My fear is the think-they're-entitled white men of all ages and those theyâve ensorcelled with their warped view of reality to try to take us back to the racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious and social conformity, and control of womenâs bodies that should not be part of humanity's search for some or all of the 7 capital virtues of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.
Not bad for only half a cup of coffee, right?
*smooch*
>104 richardderus: Ugh. Hard pass. it took me six years and a nagging sense of unfinished business to get back to it. So did you re-read and finish or continue from your original stopping point? Enquiring minds and all that.
>113 richardderus: a hideous tide of backward, regressive, repressive, reactionary stupidity and fear
Social media facilitates like-minded folks getting together. The crazies and whack jobs are only doing the same as intelligent forward-thinking, expansive, and fact-based folks in finding their happy place on their devices. Unfortunately many of them think that violence and guns should be part of the equation. And yes, young rich spoiled kids are part of whatâs imploding our culture.
My fear is the think-they're-entitled white men of all ages and those theyâve ensorcelled with their warped view of reality to try to take us back to the racism, misogyny, homophobia, religious and social conformity, and control of womenâs bodies that should not be part of humanity's search for some or all of the 7 capital virtues of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.
Not bad for only half a cup of coffee, right?
*smooch*
116richardderus
>115 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! Goodness me, look at you making sense before you're caffeinated fully.
Every Boomer everywhere's a spoiled, entitled adolescent, Horrible. We were raised with the idea that obscene abundance was our birthright, that Others were invisible "machines with voices" (the ancient Romans described slaves this way), and are now finally bumping into the biggest reality check of them all...society-ending climate catastrophe. That means, in the magical thinking of children, if we make people behave like they used to, the world will be like it used to be.
It won't work...look at Augustus's Rome.
Every Boomer everywhere's a spoiled, entitled adolescent, Horrible. We were raised with the idea that obscene abundance was our birthright, that Others were invisible "machines with voices" (the ancient Romans described slaves this way), and are now finally bumping into the biggest reality check of them all...society-ending climate catastrophe. That means, in the magical thinking of children, if we make people behave like they used to, the world will be like it used to be.
It won't work...look at Augustus's Rome.
117benitastrnad
I consider myself to reasonably well educated but every-so-often a book comes along that rocks my world. A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory by Claudio Saunt. This book has been on my mind ever since I got through the first 100 pages or so. It is an academic tome and dry as a bone to read, but the ideas in it have really set me to rethinking the pre-Civil War era of history. I never stopped to think about why the U.S. would evict people who were peaceful and prosperous, not to mention industrious, from the lands that they owned. I also did not connect that eviction with the spread of slavery (where was my logical thinking?) pre-Civil War.
To compound the problem, the part of Kansas that I am from is not that far from the Sax and Fox Reservation. Why do we have counties named Potawatomie and Shawnee in Kansas? These are not Plains tribes. This book really helped me to understand how all of this happened. I have a long history of being critical of the way the U.S. teaches history, but now I am even more so. History should not be the story of Manifest Destiny. It should be the story of what happened and how the Southern Slave holding block wanted to keep the power majority that they held in Congress. To do that, slavery needed to be and ever expanding enterprise. The slave holding South needed that 3/5th's rule and the slave population had to keep increasing in order to keep their hold on political power in the U.S. Senate. As a Kansan I was familiar with Bleeding Kansas and the struggle between it being a slave or free state. Kansans kept voting to come in as a free state and that entry was blocked by the Southern states. I knew that it finally was allowed to enter the Union in January of 1861 after the Southern states had seceded. I am rather ashamed of myself for not connecting all of those dots with the spread of slavery between 1820 and 1850 having to do with all that available land that was stolen from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole tribes in the Indian Removal Acts of the 1820's. I visited the National Battlefield at Horseshoe Bend soon after I came to Alabama and that started my intellectual journey, but I never pursued finding out more facts about the Indian Removal of the 1820's. Professor Saunt (of the University of Georgia) did that with statistics from census, land deed filings, and legal case records. It is dry reading, but it was very eye-opening.
The book is very provocative. It never calls them Plantations. Instead they are slave labor camps. Or slave camps. That alone is going to set most of the population of Alabama and Georgia's teeth on edge, but I think this is a book that needs to get some air time in classrooms all across the country. I fear that in the world of today it will be one of those outlawed from use in the state of Alabama and probably already is in Texas and Florida. If this continues what will the U.S. look like in ten years?
To compound the problem, the part of Kansas that I am from is not that far from the Sax and Fox Reservation. Why do we have counties named Potawatomie and Shawnee in Kansas? These are not Plains tribes. This book really helped me to understand how all of this happened. I have a long history of being critical of the way the U.S. teaches history, but now I am even more so. History should not be the story of Manifest Destiny. It should be the story of what happened and how the Southern Slave holding block wanted to keep the power majority that they held in Congress. To do that, slavery needed to be and ever expanding enterprise. The slave holding South needed that 3/5th's rule and the slave population had to keep increasing in order to keep their hold on political power in the U.S. Senate. As a Kansan I was familiar with Bleeding Kansas and the struggle between it being a slave or free state. Kansans kept voting to come in as a free state and that entry was blocked by the Southern states. I knew that it finally was allowed to enter the Union in January of 1861 after the Southern states had seceded. I am rather ashamed of myself for not connecting all of those dots with the spread of slavery between 1820 and 1850 having to do with all that available land that was stolen from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole tribes in the Indian Removal Acts of the 1820's. I visited the National Battlefield at Horseshoe Bend soon after I came to Alabama and that started my intellectual journey, but I never pursued finding out more facts about the Indian Removal of the 1820's. Professor Saunt (of the University of Georgia) did that with statistics from census, land deed filings, and legal case records. It is dry reading, but it was very eye-opening.
The book is very provocative. It never calls them Plantations. Instead they are slave labor camps. Or slave camps. That alone is going to set most of the population of Alabama and Georgia's teeth on edge, but I think this is a book that needs to get some air time in classrooms all across the country. I fear that in the world of today it will be one of those outlawed from use in the state of Alabama and probably already is in Texas and Florida. If this continues what will the U.S. look like in ten years?
118richardderus
>117 benitastrnad: If I could go back in time with one goal in mind, and be assured I could accomplish it, I would assassinate Andrew Jackson in 1781 when he was captured by the Brits.
119RebaRelishesReading
>113 richardderus: Great assignment for those kids!! Wish history were taught that way more often.
120richardderus
>119 RebaRelishesReading: You, my students, and I all agreed...the staff did not. Off the approved curriculum, plus popular, made them very anxious and upset.
121SandDune
>113 richardderus: That looks a great lesson. My history teaching husband approves (and says that that's how he does it). But why did the staff not like it? It sounds a really engaging lesson.
122magicians_nephew
>118 richardderus: Hear! Hear! regarding killing off Old Hickory,
Perhaps a less dramatic intervention would be to go back and spare the live of his beloved wife Rachel. Would it have changed things? who da heck knows.
cf. R A Lafferty's classic time travel story Thus we Frustrate Charlemagne
Perhaps a less dramatic intervention would be to go back and spare the live of his beloved wife Rachel. Would it have changed things? who da heck knows.
cf. R A Lafferty's classic time travel story Thus we Frustrate Charlemagne
123richardderus
>121 SandDune: Yay! Real teacher approved.
The two main reasons it ticked them off were Texas and its syllabus fetish...one is meant to teach to the standardized test because that's a big part of how funding is allocated...and they didn't like how an interloping student got their kids all fired up, so they fired me.
The two main reasons it ticked them off were Texas and its syllabus fetish...one is meant to teach to the standardized test because that's a big part of how funding is allocated...and they didn't like how an interloping student got their kids all fired up, so they fired me.
124richardderus
>122 magicians_nephew: Surprisingly, reversing Rachel's death wouldn't, IMO, have kept him out of the White House, or her shade would've had the same effect. The mud slung in that campaign...cannibalism! racial profiling!...makes today's online slanging matches sound very second-rate in comparison.
He won because he was, like 45, a faux outsider whom promised to kneecap The Rich Yankees, and the recently enfranchised War of 1812 vets luuuved how that made them feel Powerful for the very first time in their lives.
There are many wonderful PoDs in history, but this one is a hobbyhorse of mine.
He won because he was, like 45, a faux outsider whom promised to kneecap The Rich Yankees, and the recently enfranchised War of 1812 vets luuuved how that made them feel Powerful for the very first time in their lives.
There are many wonderful PoDs in history, but this one is a hobbyhorse of mine.
125vancouverdeb
I do love your comments about Old Stuff and the hoi polloi, Richard! I wish I was using my iphone so I could find the suitable emoticon. We are lucky here indeed. In my city, fireworks and firecrackers are illegal all year round. But the city does set some off for Canada Day, and Halloween, so you can choose to enjoy, or keep your distance. I remember when they were legal and things would get really out of hand.I remember picking my eldest son up from a part time job at the Dairy Queen one Halloween, and it was a like a scene from a riot. A bit scary. Firecrackers being tossed into the DQ, a car flipped over, a big mob of youth and lots of police. No thanks.
126richardderus
>125 vancouverdeb: Not the kind of 'fun' I enjoy, and never did. OS spent the last couple days sleeping, actually. Worrisome since it's not that long ago that he fell and had to be scraped off the sidewalk while beery beery boozed. The hospital did the minimum, and the fact is he's never been quite right since.
Actually makes me feel resentful that it's down to me to advocate for the benefit of someone not my sort of human...but human he still is. The facility director and I talked about it today, so someone officially Knows.
Actually makes me feel resentful that it's down to me to advocate for the benefit of someone not my sort of human...but human he still is. The facility director and I talked about it today, so someone officially Knows.
127karenmarie
'Morning, RDear. Happy Wednesday to you.
I have imbibed the entitlement Kool-Aid, true. How could I not, having been born in 1953 in Southern California, to a middle-class white couple? I'd like to think that while I definitely am entitled, I'm only living my best life in my little corner of the world and trying to respect all people at all times within the scope of the law and everybody's right to state her/his opinion but not do the illegal stuff. I'm not beating myself up too much for working hard in my life and having what I have, while recognizing the fact that most people do not have this cushion against calamity. I've never lived paycheck to paycheck, as an example.
I have clean water, enough and more than enough food, a roof over my head, cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and feel as safe as possible in this crazy world of ours. Any or all of it could change, of course.
In the meantime, coffee, brekkie, book sorting, treadmill, and etc.
*smooch*
I have imbibed the entitlement Kool-Aid, true. How could I not, having been born in 1953 in Southern California, to a middle-class white couple? I'd like to think that while I definitely am entitled, I'm only living my best life in my little corner of the world and trying to respect all people at all times within the scope of the law and everybody's right to state her/his opinion but not do the illegal stuff. I'm not beating myself up too much for working hard in my life and having what I have, while recognizing the fact that most people do not have this cushion against calamity. I've never lived paycheck to paycheck, as an example.
I have clean water, enough and more than enough food, a roof over my head, cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and feel as safe as possible in this crazy world of ours. Any or all of it could change, of course.
In the meantime, coffee, brekkie, book sorting, treadmill, and etc.
*smooch*
128richardderus
>127 karenmarie: Morning, my dear Horrible...happily we're here to see it.
If all possessors of privilege used it as you're doing, there'd be a lot less performative outrage over Others displacing them in the hierarchy. There's a big difference between knowing and acknowledging, thus owning, one's privilege and beating one's breast in guilt orgies over it...another performative act of the privileged. That centers the orgiast not the existence of the orgy.
Think we've got a rotten system? Read Sandi Toksvig's Guardian piece about the UK's upper house.
*smooch*
If all possessors of privilege used it as you're doing, there'd be a lot less performative outrage over Others displacing them in the hierarchy. There's a big difference between knowing and acknowledging, thus owning, one's privilege and beating one's breast in guilt orgies over it...another performative act of the privileged. That centers the orgiast not the existence of the orgy.
Think we've got a rotten system? Read Sandi Toksvig's Guardian piece about the UK's upper house.
*smooch*
129msf59
Happy Wednesday, RD! I hope you are doing fine and I hope the fireworks weren't to annoying. We are back. Juno was very well-behaved but she is not a fan of the water. Sue tried. Not lab in this rott.
Taking it easy today with this heat.
Taking it easy today with this heat.
130richardderus
>129 msf59: Hiya Birddude! I was just over at yours wishing you well in your new digs.
The fireworks were largely imperceptible from indoors this year. I guess they moved the launch site...permaybehaps because it's annoying the local sharks.
The fireworks were largely imperceptible from indoors this year. I guess they moved the launch site...permaybehaps because it's annoying the local sharks.
131benitastrnad
I cooked up a Red, White, and Blue breakfast casserole last night. It had raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and oatmeal, bulgar, pecans, and dried cranberries in it. It turned out wonderful when I had it for breakfast this morning. This recipe is a keeper. It might be easy to make in your slow cooker in your room. It did have whole milk in it so permaybehaps you wouldn't be able to eat it?
132richardderus
>131 benitastrnad: Hi Benita...it sounds like a good feed indeed, though not something I can make due to not being able to afford fresh fruits at all. Thanks for the thought!
133ArlieS
>125 vancouverdeb: AFAIK, they are illegal here too, but that didn't stop some number of my neighbours, both the night before and in the evening of the actual holiday. But I'm in the US, so as well as having a different date and name for the early July fireworks holiday, we also have a different attitude to the law. My poor dog spent the holiday evening terrified by the loud bangs, even inside our house.
134ArlieS
>132 richardderus: I use frozen fruit a lot in dishes like this. But that might not be any more affordable.
135richardderus
>134 ArlieS: No, sadly not. If it doesn't come out of a can, it's beyond my reach. The facility's, too, since fresh fruits are very costly and when they make it here, are un- or over-ripe.
136PaulCranswick
>135 richardderus: Fruit is plentiful here and the tropical stuff - bananas, lychees, star fruit, mangoes, melons, dragon fruits, pomelo, rambutans, and even the dreaded durian are exceptionally cheap. Chinese pears and apples and mandarin oranges are also not bad price wise.
Berries can be pricey. Blueberries, strawberries and cranberries are grown in some of the country's highlands and are affordable but the imported stuff is extremely expensive.
Berries can be pricey. Blueberries, strawberries and cranberries are grown in some of the country's highlands and are affordable but the imported stuff is extremely expensive.
137Familyhistorian
The history lesson you taught sounds great to me, Richard. But I can see where getting teenagers to think there were at least two ways to look at an issue might have been a problem there.
138FAMeulstee
Happy Thursday, Richard dear!
A short note, as I have to go back to my garden to clear the remains of our plumtree. It went down yesterday in a rare summer storm. Most of it went into our neighbor's garden, they said they would clear out themseves, so that saves some time for me.
A short note, as I have to go back to my garden to clear the remains of our plumtree. It went down yesterday in a rare summer storm. Most of it went into our neighbor's garden, they said they would clear out themseves, so that saves some time for me.
139karenmarie
Hiya, RDear, and happy Thursday to you.
>128 richardderus: I love Sandi Toksvig â I love her on QI and loved her blog. I have Toksvigâs Almanac and have fetched it from the Library to peruse. The article is fascinating. I did not realize that the House of Lords has 26 Anglican Bishops. Ugh.
*smooch*
>128 richardderus: I love Sandi Toksvig â I love her on QI and loved her blog. I have Toksvigâs Almanac and have fetched it from the Library to peruse. The article is fascinating. I did not realize that the House of Lords has 26 Anglican Bishops. Ugh.
*smooch*
140sirfurboy
>118 richardderus: That would make for a great story.
142richardderus
>136 PaulCranswick: The basic issue is, PC, I have no money to spare after meeting basic needs for consumables. There's no way to do more than replace what I've used up, but believe me, I'm pleased I can do that! US supply chains are very long all over, which guarantees prices will, over time, creep ever upwards. *sigh* Capitalism has many flaws butt they're all down to one human irreducible: Greed.
143richardderus
>137 Familyhistorian: It was never a culture of seeing both sides or even acknowledging there are many angles of view on a situation.
144richardderus
>138 FAMeulstee: Poor plum tree! I'm sad for its demise and grateful to your neighbors for doing more than they absolutely had to do...more time for you to read!
145richardderus
>139 karenmarie: She's a treasure to me, too, Horrrible! Her wit and erudition make discover even more fun than it always has been for me.
Puts rather a different light on the GOP, doesn't it? Imagine if the Southern Baptist Convention got a Senate seat just because it existed. The horror, the horror!
Thursday *smooch*
Puts rather a different light on the GOP, doesn't it? Imagine if the Southern Baptist Convention got a Senate seat just because it existed. The horror, the horror!
Thursday *smooch*
146richardderus
>140 sirfurboy: I thought so, too, but it was rejected as an idea when I pitched it at an anthologist working on one of those "Alternate Leaders" books...an absence isn't interesting and it's not about WWII. This was, to be fair, the 90s.
147richardderus
>141 sirfurboy: No worries, it's not a holiday I support being celebrated...like Thanksgiving, it commemorates the wrong things and enshrines a triumphalist attitude I think poorly of.
148LizzieD
Too little time to catch up, but just enough to speak. Hi, Richard! I wish you cool and quiet and a good book or two! *smooch*
149richardderus
>148 LizzieD: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*
150Caroline_McElwee
>113 richardderus: Great class RD.
151richardderus
>150 Caroline_McElwee: ...if only you'd been on my faculty review team...
152alcottacre
Checking in on you, RD. ((Hugs)) and **smooches**
153richardderus
>152 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! *smoochiesmoochsmooch*
154Helenliz
>139 karenmarie: and others.
She's not wrong, if one religion has seats then either all the others should or none of them should.
On the plus side, having non-politicians in the House of Lords helps the upper chamber hold the lower chamber to account and places limits of their ability to wreak the world. It's the upper house that has been pushing back against the plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda, for instance.
Having said that it is 26 out of a current house membership of 777.
She's not wrong, if one religion has seats then either all the others should or none of them should.
On the plus side, having non-politicians in the House of Lords helps the upper chamber hold the lower chamber to account and places limits of their ability to wreak the world. It's the upper house that has been pushing back against the plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda, for instance.
Having said that it is 26 out of a current house membership of 777.
155msf59
Happy Friday, Richard. A cooler, more comfortable weekend ahead and it is Jackson day. Yah! I miss the little bugger. Just started my reread of East of Eden. I enjoy being in his world.
156jnwelch
Happy Friday, Richard. Iâm halfway through the Tan Twan Eng I left you in my will, and will be starting the wife-recommendedLibrary of Lost and Found. I hope youâre enjoying your current reads and have a great weekend.
157richardderus
>154 Helenliz: I'll go for none, not all, to keep the fantasy novel fanfolk from influencing real-world decisions unduly.
777 is utter chaos in the making, to my US-trained eyes. We've capped our entire national legislature at 535 all-in. That's too few for ~330mm people and growing. But there are far more egregious issues the US needs to get busy and address to worry with that one just now.
777 is utter chaos in the making, to my US-trained eyes. We've capped our entire national legislature at 535 all-in. That's too few for ~330mm people and growing. But there are far more egregious issues the US needs to get busy and address to worry with that one just now.
158richardderus
>155 msf59: Happy Jackson Day, Birddude! I expect East of Eden re-reading will tell you a lot about the book as well as about your younger self. Enjoy the read!
159richardderus
>156 jnwelch: Hiya Joe! Debbi has solid taste...Phaedra is a very good writer. I hope she tickles your fancy.
I'm relieved to hear I can repurpose the voodoo dolly at last. Dr Tan is one helluva writer, if a low-output one. Happy weekend-ahead's reads.
I'm relieved to hear I can repurpose the voodoo dolly at last. Dr Tan is one helluva writer, if a low-output one. Happy weekend-ahead's reads.
160karenmarie
'Morning, RDear! Happy Friday to you.
Today is puttering and reading and a few errands.
*smooch*
Today is puttering and reading and a few errands.
*smooch*
161richardderus
>160 karenmarie: Was just over at yours expressing those very wishes! *smooch*
162karenmarie
Great minds, and I already replied over there. *smooch*
163LizzieD
>113 richardderus: So late to the party! That was a great assignment!!!!! I'm sure that when your students think about good classes in high school, yours will be on every list. When my cousin (who is my education hero) taught his first year in the Raleigh area, they gave him 9th grade General Science, which he had taught in Wilmington. The principal came in the second week of school and said, "Chip, I hear you're not teaching the prescribed curriculum."
Chip: "That's right."
Principal: "Why not?"
Chip: "It's not good enough. It doesn't give them what they need."
Principal: (holding up a thick pile of printed e-mails) "These are the complaints from parents so far this year." (pealing off a sizeable portion) "These are about you...... WAY TO GO!"
I wish you and I had gotten that kind of support.
*smooch* for the day!
Chip: "That's right."
Principal: "Why not?"
Chip: "It's not good enough. It doesn't give them what they need."
Principal: (holding up a thick pile of printed e-mails) "These are the complaints from parents so far this year." (pealing off a sizeable portion) "These are about you...... WAY TO GO!"
I wish you and I had gotten that kind of support.
*smooch* for the day!
165richardderus
>163 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy! My sister Lynne the elementary-school teacher, remembered by her students decades later, inspired me...the System fired me. Oh well, we all have lives not lived....
*smooch*
*smooch*
166vancouverdeb
Sorry to read that you don't get fresh fruit where you live. I'm not sure what the situation is here. I do recall my younger days when we regarded canned Fruit Cocktail as treat! My sibs and I would all want the cherry ( cherries ?) in the can. I also remember , as I suppose you must too, the days of canned peaches for dessert. I actually craved canned peaches a few weeks ago, but purchased a nectarine instead. I was a bit shocked to find that 1 small nectarine was $1.69.. Startling how prices have gone up . * smooch" Wishing you good reads over the weekend.
167richardderus
>166 vancouverdeb: $1.69 for a nectarine doesn't surprise me at all, Deb. The distances they come from to get to us make the prices, relative to costs, reasonable. Just not affordable for me (or millions upon millions of others). Fruit cocktail! I havent thought about that since grade school. Canned peaches as dessert always pleased me because my mother made whipped cream with the canning liquid in it and that was *heaven* together. Another thing I haven't had in eons!
168richardderus
Y'all should go watch this YouTuber, Veritasium, explain and demonstrate fireworks...they're gorgeous and he's in the middle of a desert so there's no real fire risk...but the big draw is the drone-in-the-fireworks footage that starts here.
169katiekrug
>166 vancouverdeb: - Oh, yes! I remember the canned fruit cocktail with the cherry to be fought over :)
I always keep diced peaches and/or pears (in their own juice) stocked in my fridge. Not as good as really good fresh, but more consistent in quality (middling, but netter than spending money on crappy fresh whole fruit!).
I always keep diced peaches and/or pears (in their own juice) stocked in my fridge. Not as good as really good fresh, but more consistent in quality (middling, but netter than spending money on crappy fresh whole fruit!).
170richardderus
>169 katiekrug: Middling but reliable is the biggest selling point of canned fruit, and as pantry staples they're hard to beat. My favorite is the pineapple-papaya blend in passion-fruit juice. No interest in the cherries from me, so y'all can do the cage match over who gets it without me.
171katiekrug
Oh, I can't stand those cherry-like things now. But as a kid....
I've not seen that pineapple blend, but if I did I'd be all over it!
I've not seen that pineapple blend, but if I did I'd be all over it!
172richardderus
>171 katiekrug: I was even weirder as a kid than as an adult. I didn't like corn, or chocolate, or glacé cherries then either.
173Crazymamie
Morning, BigDaddy! I'm hoping that your Saturday is happy making.
174richardderus
>173 Crazymamie: Thanks, Mamie! Me too....
175karenmarie
Hiya RD! Happy Saturday to you.
I survived going to the dump and getting a to go order from a different-than-usual restaurant since Bill wasn't up to going. Most of the restaurants around here take the week of 4th of July off, so we were glad to have an option that had something we'd all eat.
I just finished a boy book where Long Beach AND The Shack at One Pacific were mentioned.
Off to find another book to read.
*smooch*
I survived going to the dump and getting a to go order from a different-than-usual restaurant since Bill wasn't up to going. Most of the restaurants around here take the week of 4th of July off, so we were glad to have an option that had something we'd all eat.
I just finished a boy book where Long Beach AND The Shack at One Pacific were mentioned.
Off to find another book to read.
*smooch*
176richardderus
>175 karenmarie: Hey Horrible...how unusual for you to do the chore run! I bet you had an ulterior motive...did you start a new audiobook?
Fun to see old haunts in new books, no? I'm sure SOMEthing will call to you from the few paltry titles available to you...that sadly understocked library of yours must have a least one unread tome to offer....
Fun to see old haunts in new books, no? I'm sure SOMEthing will call to you from the few paltry titles available to you...that sadly understocked library of yours must have a least one unread tome to offer....
177SandDune
The only tinned fruit I consistently buy is tinned peaches. I don't have them often, but I think they are the only fruit which rivals the fresh ones in taste. And Jacob likes them. Oh, and we usually have grapefruit as well. I am a bit addicted to grapefruit so I try to have some tinned in the cupboard for the odd occasions when we run out.
178karenmarie
âMorning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.
>176 richardderus: Yup, probably the first time Iâve done the chore run solo since Bill had his bypass surgery in 2002. I didnât start a new audiobook, but happily continued with Career of Evil, 3rd in the Cormoran Strike series.
Iâm reading a really fun boy book, The Real Baxter by Lane Hayes. It takes place in LA, so my old haunts. This Long Beach is YOUR Long Beach. I have 2,595 books tagged âtbrâ and 16 titles checked out from Kindle Unlimited, 2 of which need Lightning Round reviews and to be returned.
I like canned pineapple rings and currently have a can chilling down in the refrigerator. Iâve gotten to where I only like Dole, not the store brands. I occasionally like unsweetened applesauce, but thatâs not canned, that now comes in cute little one-serving plastic tubs.
*smooch* from your own Horrible
>176 richardderus: Yup, probably the first time Iâve done the chore run solo since Bill had his bypass surgery in 2002. I didnât start a new audiobook, but happily continued with Career of Evil, 3rd in the Cormoran Strike series.
Iâm reading a really fun boy book, The Real Baxter by Lane Hayes. It takes place in LA, so my old haunts. This Long Beach is YOUR Long Beach. I have 2,595 books tagged âtbrâ and 16 titles checked out from Kindle Unlimited, 2 of which need Lightning Round reviews and to be returned.
I like canned pineapple rings and currently have a can chilling down in the refrigerator. Iâve gotten to where I only like Dole, not the store brands. I occasionally like unsweetened applesauce, but thatâs not canned, that now comes in cute little one-serving plastic tubs.
*smooch* from your own Horrible
180richardderus
>177 SandDune: Peaches and pears are the perfect posterfruits for canning. Their season is a blink long, and out of season/early season/shipped from afar they're unappealing bullet-hard munitions-strength pellets of expensive tasteless fiber. Far better to harvest at peak and preserve as best as possible for future enjoyment.
Grapefruit! We have canned JUICE, but not the fruits, here.
Grapefruit! We have canned JUICE, but not the fruits, here.
181richardderus
>178 karenmarie: *smooch*
Canned pineapple is one fruit I prefer to fresh because the canning process mitigates the juice's digest-your-flesh qualities. I get terrible sores from eating more than a nibble or two of fresh pineapple.
You're enjoying the read, obvs, so any plan to go back to Starting from Zero to pick up Seb and Gray's fuller backstory? Long Beach, CA, was where Mama went to have an abortion in 1949 when she and Dad got caught short in their timing before they decided to get married...it wasn't until the 1970s, after the divorce, that Dad took me there to visit some cousin of his. Mama completely decompensated all over me when she found out.
I'll never go back to CA anyway, but Long Beach paricularly, for obvious reasons.
Canned pineapple is one fruit I prefer to fresh because the canning process mitigates the juice's digest-your-flesh qualities. I get terrible sores from eating more than a nibble or two of fresh pineapple.
You're enjoying the read, obvs, so any plan to go back to Starting from Zero to pick up Seb and Gray's fuller backstory? Long Beach, CA, was where Mama went to have an abortion in 1949 when she and Dad got caught short in their timing before they decided to get married...it wasn't until the 1970s, after the divorce, that Dad took me there to visit some cousin of his. Mama completely decompensated all over me when she found out.
I'll never go back to CA anyway, but Long Beach paricularly, for obvious reasons.
182richardderus
>179 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie, same back at'cha!
183LizzieD
Hope eyes and reading are good, Richard. (I was just at Karen's thread.)
I have a stock of canned fruit that I'm planning to chop up and put in cottage cheese for lunch this week. Mama will prefer that to the vegetables with a lot of pepper that I prefer if I'm to eat the stuff. Anything to avoid cooking at this point! I AM going to the grocery store Monday for the first time in 3 years and 3+ months. I never expected to be this excited about grocery shopping.
*smooch*
I have a stock of canned fruit that I'm planning to chop up and put in cottage cheese for lunch this week. Mama will prefer that to the vegetables with a lot of pepper that I prefer if I'm to eat the stuff. Anything to avoid cooking at this point! I AM going to the grocery store Monday for the first time in 3 years and 3+ months. I never expected to be this excited about grocery shopping.
*smooch*
184richardderus
>183 LizzieD: Hey there Peggy! Being one with a fondness for cottage cheese, it's unlikely you'll see me turn away from either of those preparations. Since the waste of pickling liquid is anathema to me, it lives in my fridge and gets whatever fresh veggies the farmer's market folk will let me have cheap (the broken ones, the wilted and almost bad ones) so they don't have to pack them up...after a few weeks at the back of the fridge they go onto cottage cheese.
185karenmarie
'Morning, Rdear! Happy Monday to you. I hope your eyes are better today.
Well, just ugh to cottage cheese. You and Peggy can split my portion of what the food goddesses and gods have allocated to me in this lifetime.
*smooch*
Well, just ugh to cottage cheese. You and Peggy can split my portion of what the food goddesses and gods have allocated to me in this lifetime.
*smooch*
186richardderus
>185 karenmarie: I'll take your cottage cheese rations with relish, Horrible. Eyes still stinging and sore...out of things to do that weren't being done, so now it's a waiting game. *sigh*
Have a lovely Monday.
Have a lovely Monday.
188ArlieS
Count me as another cottage cheese fan. I like it plain, with fruit (cottage cheese and apple sauce was a standard lunch food in my childhood home), and sometimes put it in soups and stews (when serving).
189richardderus
>187 ronincats: Thank you, Roni! I'm very happy to see you here and posting. *smooch*
190richardderus
>188 ArlieS: Tomato soup with 50% cottage cheese is an old favorite of mine, Arlie. I was just over at yours commenting on your excellent recent reading.
191RebaRelishesReading
I'm fairly neutral on cottage cheese but with the right fruit I can get close to excited about its -- tomato soup with 50% cottage cheese turns my stomach just thinking about it however!!
192laytonwoman3rd
>188 ArlieS:, >190 richardderus: I have never heard of doing that with cottage cheese...if I had any on hand I'd have to try it! My mother used to do something with onions and chives, and maybe some other stuff, that made a lovely cottage cheese variation. I don't have the recipe though.
193LizzieD
I'm back from the commercial food world and about to make up our first batch of summer's cottage cheese with pineapple, peach, pear (all canned), and fresh cherry bits. Hmmm. Maybe a blueberry or two. I overbought the cherries because they were relatively cheap for cherries, and I love to have them while we can get them.
I hope your eyes don't keep you waiting long, Richard. *smooch*
I hope your eyes don't keep you waiting long, Richard. *smooch*
194The_Hibernator
I'd never thought of putting cottage cheese in soup. Interesting! I like my tomato soup pretty chunky, though, and I imagine that works better with smooth soup.
196thornton37814
I love fresh tomato with cottage (or peaches, pears, etc.).
197PlatinumWarlock
You guys are making me hungry.
198richardderus
>193 LizzieD: Fresh cherries are a huge indulgence because of their microscopic season...but how wonderful to have 'em!
*smooch*
*smooch*
199richardderus
>194 The_Hibernator: I too prefer chunky soups, really very sloppy stews if I'm honest, and the cottage cheese makes those even more satisfying to me. Watery soups just ain't fer me.
200richardderus
>195 katiekrug: Summer glory! Melons that aren't so hard you can kill people by chunkin'em at they haids.
201richardderus
>196 thornton37814: Always luscious, a tomato with the cottage=cheese stuffer!
202richardderus
>197 PlatinumWarlock: Awomen, Lavinia! I had a slice of bread and butter after reading all this.
203bell7
I buy my cottage cheese with pineapple chunks in it, though that's a treat I haven't had in a awhile. Almost Tuesday *smooches*
204richardderus
>203 bell7: Hi Mary! ust over at yours commenting on your new Fire! *smooch*
205vancouverdeb
Canned juice, but not the fruits, eh Richard. I liked cottage cheese as kid, but I've not eaten it in many years. I think it may have lost its appeal for me . Some of the fresh fruits should come down in price briefly this summer. In the interior of my province, they grow peaches, nectarines, apples, berries etc. And yes, fresh cherries too. My city grows strawberries, blueberries , and raspberries as well as a lot of cranberries.
206karenmarie
âMorning, RDear. Happy Tuesday, and I hope your eyes are cooperating better today.
>193 LizzieD: Oh yes, the cherries are wonderful right now. I got some Rainiers at the store yesterday for only $3.99/lb, had some yesterday afternoon and will have some this a.m.
Bookfondling sorting this morning, then some of us will go to a local hangout for brekkie if itâs before 11 or lunch if itâs 11 or after. Either way, Iâm looking forward to this morning.
*smooch*
>193 LizzieD: Oh yes, the cherries are wonderful right now. I got some Rainiers at the store yesterday for only $3.99/lb, had some yesterday afternoon and will have some this a.m.
Book
*smooch*
207msf59
Morning, Richard. I hope the week is off to a good start. After a busy weekend, I have a more chill week ahead, which I don't mind. Has the flooding hit your area at all? This climate disasters are really beginning to pile up.
208SandDune
>180 richardderus: Oh Iâve never been that keen on tinned pears - something about the texture. And tinned grapefruit isnât that popular here (old-fashioned) but most supermarkets will at least have a few tins.
209LizzieD
Good morning, Richard! I wish you a lovely day, and that's about all I have this morning!
*smooch*
*smooch*
210jnwelch
Happy Not-Monday, Richard. I am indeed enjoying Phaedraâs Library of Lost and Found. Go Martha and Zelda! (And Suki! And Maybe Owen!). I found myself wanting to harm (and shut up) Marthaâs father Thomas.
House of Doors was most excellent. Youâll enjoy it after my voodoo-less passing.
Do you like Black Mirror on tv. Iâd gotten turned off, but a friend urged me to try the current season, and Iâm liking it. Salma Hayak certainly had a blast in her episode.
House of Doors was most excellent. Youâll enjoy it after my voodoo-less passing.
Do you like Black Mirror on tv. Iâd gotten turned off, but a friend urged me to try the current season, and Iâm liking it. Salma Hayak certainly had a blast in her episode.
211richardderus
>205 vancouverdeb: Your province's produce production resembles New York State's, Deb. The distance from the place they're grown to me on Long Island means the Farmer's Market is a good place to get really fresh fruit. I can't afford to go but every once in a while, but it does mean I can get really satisfyingly ripe ones when I do splash out.
I avoid grapefruit because it's a source of something that interferes with some of my meds. Don't really miss it, TBH.
I avoid grapefruit because it's a source of something that interferes with some of my meds. Don't really miss it, TBH.
212richardderus
>206 karenmarie: Tuesday *smooch* Horrible me lurve. Blepharitis is still painful, so I don't go outside. Rainiers and Queen Annes are some of the most delicious cherries!
Enjoy your book fondling!
Enjoy your book fondling!
213richardderus
>207 msf59: We're so close to the ocean that fresh-water flooding's reserved for hurricane conditions, Mark. The streets and their storm sewers can get overwhelmed when the bay on the north side of our little barrier island gets all riled up but that takes a whole lot more energy than all but the most powerful downbursts can muster. Thank goodness that hasn't happened yet!
Climate change isn't real, you lib'rul dupe! *snort*
Climate change isn't real, you lib'rul dupe! *snort*
214richardderus
>208 SandDune: Canned pears are like regular ripe ones on steroids, Rhian, that gritty, grainy quality is brought to the fore by the heat-sterilizing process. I honestly can't think of a time I've ever eaten the canned grapefrut I've seen...the Rio Grande Valley, where my childhood was spent, produces the best grapefruit anywhere so I got spoiled. Then, of course, age and infirmity prevent me from partaking now.
215richardderus
>209 LizzieD: More than enough, Peggy me lurve. *smooch*
216richardderus
>210 jnwelch: Hey there Joe! Thomas needs to rot in Hell, no? Phaedra's talent for making multidimensional evil folk is exemplary.
I haven't watched the current season of Black Mirror. Rob's falling asleep a lot faster than episodes last, so we're still slowly rewatching Heartstopper before season 2 drops in August.
Eagerly awaiting further developments....
I haven't watched the current season of Black Mirror. Rob's falling asleep a lot faster than episodes last, so we're still slowly rewatching Heartstopper before season 2 drops in August.
Eagerly awaiting further developments....
217PlatinumWarlock
>203 bell7: Mary, that's my favorite way to eat cottage cheese too! Definitely a treat. :)
218richardderus
>217 PlatinumWarlock: Treat y'all's selves more often! It's too easy to get and too fun to eat to stay away from.
219richardderus
042 Brother Alive by Zain Khalid
Rating: 4.5* of five
FINALIST for the second annual Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction. Winners were announced on her birthday, 21 October, last year, so might be again this year, but no formal announcement of that was made that I found.
The Publisher Says: From the winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award and the CLMP Firecracker Award, and finalist for the NBCC John Leonard Prize, comes an astonishing debut novel about family, sexuality, and capitalist systems of control, following three adopted brothers who live above a mosque in Staten Island with their imam father
In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and live in a shared bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Islandâs most diverse and precarious neighborhoods, Coolidge. The three boys are an inseparable if conspicuous trio: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef indeterminately Middle Eastern. Nevertheless, Youssef is keeping a secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother.
The boysâ adoptive father, Imam Salim, is known for his radical sermons, but at home he is often absent, spending long evenings in his study with whiskey-laced coffee, writing letters to his former compatriots back in Saudi Arabia. Like Youssef, he too has secrets, including the cause of his failing health and the truth about what happened to the boysâ parents. When Imam Salimâs path takes him back to Saudi Arabia, the boys will be forced to follow. There they will be captivated by an opulent, almost futuristic world, a linear city that seems to offer a more sustainable modernity than that of the West. But they will have to change if they want to survive in this new world, and the arrival of a creature as powerful as Brother will not go unnoticed.
Stylistically brilliant and intellectually acute, Brother Alive is a remarkable novel of family, capitalism, power, sexuality, and the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'll start with a quote, though not one from the book:
âUrsula K. Le Guin in her 2014 National Book Award speech
It seems to me that UKL was thinking of Zain Khalid.
In his debut novel, he takes on a lot...A LOT...of terribly important subjects of immediate world relevance. As a result of this, some storytelling basics don't get their arguably necessary due, eg howinahell does a single Saudi man enter the US and live in New York City with not one soul thinking it odd he's raising kids of wildly disparate ethnic backgrounds? Social services would be involved in these kids' lives in the real NYC.
So, okay, I'm not going to go too hard after that kind of stuff because it's just not that relevant to the author's purpose. Be aware that details like this are left open, and decide if that matters a lot to you. I decided it didn't and moved on to Youssef, Iseul, and Dayo's life with Father. Salim, their radical reformist of a father, is ironically named something that means "correct, free from error, safe, intact, unharmed, unblemished, healthy" while also drinking whisky in his coffee (much against his religion's explicit orders) as he pens famously incendiary sermons on Muslim identity. (See what I mean about Child Protective Services? There'd be a home visit or two.) What makes this more important is that it's Youssef who's narrating this story...his benignly neglected son notices the father's behavior that doesn't quite fit with the mesage. He and his brothers (and Brother, his possibly real/probably imaginary/not quite sure if he's corporeal other, sometimes animal sometimes human self. The boys, like siblings do, just accept the way things are, and move on with growing up and growing apart. Youssef questions the origins of his family but never the reality of it; they, in turn, seem to know about Brother but find their own concerns...who were their parents? Where did their Imam-dad get them?...more compeling and involving than some imaginary friend of their brother's. That same brother who is the one whose non-standard thinking unearths the secrets they've wondered about.
A parent worth his salt would notice this kid's persistent and consistent hallucination and get him some help...not Salim. He's got bigger problems. He wants these boys to be models of what he thinks is right-thinking, morally correct men! While demanding they conform, he models the opposite in his Westernized behaviors, and ignores a sign of burgeoning mental health issues in Youssef. Which is why this section of the story involved me so deeply. I was malignly neglected, while being told I was not who they wanted me to be, by my family (especially my parents) and was re-experiencing the outrage I now feel at their dereliction of duty on these boys' behalf. It kept me fanning the pages for sure.
The action shifts from lower-class Staten Island in post-9/11 world to Salim's story of from whom and why he got these kids. This is interesting, but it's really lightly gone over, and is the set-up for the final section set in The Line, Saudi Arabia's astounding city of the future that they're building with the oceans of money petrochemical exploitation has given them permission to create using slave labor from around the developing world. (This isn't foregrounded, but there's a strong streak of anti-capitalism in Zain Khalid's anti-colonialism. These are very agreeable qualities to me, but note their presence before deciding to make a run at this long, magisterially paced book.) It is in this last section that I lost my sense of the author being in full control of his narrative. A disease process, the shift of Brother from a child's fantasy key to a very different one as Youssef, now a gay young adult, resumes the narrative's reins.
This near-future Paradise is poorly thought out, to me as a long term reader of speculative fiction. The satirical, I suppose, take on the use of state power melded to religious coercion (not the author's words), made me think of so many literary writers' attempts to use genre conventions in not-new, not-fresh ways to make their points. I like ambiguity, and I approve of the author's politics, but I wanted the end section to finish before it did because too many simple snips that could've brought the purpose of the piece into focus weren't made. The result is meandering and unfocused ideas veiled by some fantastical, only-slightly-exaggerated elements. Go big or go home, Author Khalid: It's SF or it's not.
What it was, as a whole read, was beautifully written on a sentence level family saga with a gay undercurrent. It really deserves praise and support because it's hugely ambitious and frankly uninterested in your whiteness. It merits your eyeblinks because it's got a solid core of story that, my crotchets and misgivings aside, is draws the story-hungry reader along.
I'm very glad I read it. I hope you will, too.
Rating: 4.5* of five
FINALIST for the second annual Ursula K. LeGuin Prize for Fiction. Winners were announced on her birthday, 21 October, last year, so might be again this year, but no formal announcement of that was made that I found.
The Publisher Says: From the winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award and the CLMP Firecracker Award, and finalist for the NBCC John Leonard Prize, comes an astonishing debut novel about family, sexuality, and capitalist systems of control, following three adopted brothers who live above a mosque in Staten Island with their imam father
In 1990, three boys are born, unrelated but intertwined by circumstance: Dayo, Iseul, and Youssef. They are adopted as infants and live in a shared bedroom perched atop a mosque in one of Staten Islandâs most diverse and precarious neighborhoods, Coolidge. The three boys are an inseparable if conspicuous trio: Dayo is of Nigerian origin, Iseul is Korean, and Youssef indeterminately Middle Eastern. Nevertheless, Youssef is keeping a secret: he sees a hallucinatory double, an imaginary friend who seems absolutely real, a shapeshifting familiar he calls Brother.
The boysâ adoptive father, Imam Salim, is known for his radical sermons, but at home he is often absent, spending long evenings in his study with whiskey-laced coffee, writing letters to his former compatriots back in Saudi Arabia. Like Youssef, he too has secrets, including the cause of his failing health and the truth about what happened to the boysâ parents. When Imam Salimâs path takes him back to Saudi Arabia, the boys will be forced to follow. There they will be captivated by an opulent, almost futuristic world, a linear city that seems to offer a more sustainable modernity than that of the West. But they will have to change if they want to survive in this new world, and the arrival of a creature as powerful as Brother will not go unnoticed.
Stylistically brilliant and intellectually acute, Brother Alive is a remarkable novel of family, capitalism, power, sexuality, and the possibility of reunion for those who are broken.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'll start with a quote, though not one from the book:
âHard times are coming, when weâll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. Weâll need writers who can remember freedomâpoets, visionariesârealists of a larger reality.â
âUrsula K. Le Guin in her 2014 National Book Award speech
It seems to me that UKL was thinking of Zain Khalid.
In his debut novel, he takes on a lot...A LOT...of terribly important subjects of immediate world relevance. As a result of this, some storytelling basics don't get their arguably necessary due, eg howinahell does a single Saudi man enter the US and live in New York City with not one soul thinking it odd he's raising kids of wildly disparate ethnic backgrounds? Social services would be involved in these kids' lives in the real NYC.
So, okay, I'm not going to go too hard after that kind of stuff because it's just not that relevant to the author's purpose. Be aware that details like this are left open, and decide if that matters a lot to you. I decided it didn't and moved on to Youssef, Iseul, and Dayo's life with Father. Salim, their radical reformist of a father, is ironically named something that means "correct, free from error, safe, intact, unharmed, unblemished, healthy" while also drinking whisky in his coffee (much against his religion's explicit orders) as he pens famously incendiary sermons on Muslim identity. (See what I mean about Child Protective Services? There'd be a home visit or two.) What makes this more important is that it's Youssef who's narrating this story...his benignly neglected son notices the father's behavior that doesn't quite fit with the mesage. He and his brothers (and Brother, his possibly real/probably imaginary/not quite sure if he's corporeal other, sometimes animal sometimes human self. The boys, like siblings do, just accept the way things are, and move on with growing up and growing apart. Youssef questions the origins of his family but never the reality of it; they, in turn, seem to know about Brother but find their own concerns...who were their parents? Where did their Imam-dad get them?...more compeling and involving than some imaginary friend of their brother's. That same brother who is the one whose non-standard thinking unearths the secrets they've wondered about.
A parent worth his salt would notice this kid's persistent and consistent hallucination and get him some help...not Salim. He's got bigger problems. He wants these boys to be models of what he thinks is right-thinking, morally correct men! While demanding they conform, he models the opposite in his Westernized behaviors, and ignores a sign of burgeoning mental health issues in Youssef. Which is why this section of the story involved me so deeply. I was malignly neglected, while being told I was not who they wanted me to be, by my family (especially my parents) and was re-experiencing the outrage I now feel at their dereliction of duty on these boys' behalf. It kept me fanning the pages for sure.
The action shifts from lower-class Staten Island in post-9/11 world to Salim's story of from whom and why he got these kids. This is interesting, but it's really lightly gone over, and is the set-up for the final section set in The Line, Saudi Arabia's astounding city of the future that they're building with the oceans of money petrochemical exploitation has given them permission to create using slave labor from around the developing world. (This isn't foregrounded, but there's a strong streak of anti-capitalism in Zain Khalid's anti-colonialism. These are very agreeable qualities to me, but note their presence before deciding to make a run at this long, magisterially paced book.) It is in this last section that I lost my sense of the author being in full control of his narrative. A disease process, the shift of Brother from a child's fantasy key to a very different one as Youssef, now a gay young adult, resumes the narrative's reins.
This near-future Paradise is poorly thought out, to me as a long term reader of speculative fiction. The satirical, I suppose, take on the use of state power melded to religious coercion (not the author's words), made me think of so many literary writers' attempts to use genre conventions in not-new, not-fresh ways to make their points. I like ambiguity, and I approve of the author's politics, but I wanted the end section to finish before it did because too many simple snips that could've brought the purpose of the piece into focus weren't made. The result is meandering and unfocused ideas veiled by some fantastical, only-slightly-exaggerated elements. Go big or go home, Author Khalid: It's SF or it's not.
What it was, as a whole read, was beautifully written on a sentence level family saga with a gay undercurrent. It really deserves praise and support because it's hugely ambitious and frankly uninterested in your whiteness. It merits your eyeblinks because it's got a solid core of story that, my crotchets and misgivings aside, is draws the story-hungry reader along.
I'm very glad I read it. I hope you will, too.
220bell7
Morning, Richard! Hope you're keeping cool and glad to see you're reading good books.
>219 richardderus: Hmmmm, it does sound interesting. I may have to look up that award shortlist.
>219 richardderus: Hmmmm, it does sound interesting. I may have to look up that award shortlist.
221richardderus
>220 bell7: Thanks, Mary! So far, so cool...
The list is here: https://lithub.com/here-is-the-shortlist-for-the-25000-ursula-k-le-guin-prize/
The list is here: https://lithub.com/here-is-the-shortlist-for-the-25000-ursula-k-le-guin-prize/
222msf59
Happy Wednesday, Richard. Excellent review of Brother Alive. I will add it to the obese TBR. It is teetering at the moment. Rain here, so staying put with books and Juno.
223karenmarie
'Morning, RD! Happiest of Wednesdays to you.
>219 richardderus: You're back to Full Review Form here, my dear, although it probably won't surprise you that I'm passing.
Today's an errands day for me - treadmill and picking up a 23-volume set of homiletics for friend Karen in Montana that I made the mistake of mentioning to her. I'll be fronting the money and picking up the books today from a retired pastor here in the Pitt. Goodness knows when I'll mail them to her, having just mailed two boxes last week.
*smooch*
>219 richardderus: You're back to Full Review Form here, my dear, although it probably won't surprise you that I'm passing.
Today's an errands day for me - treadmill and picking up a 23-volume set of homiletics for friend Karen in Montana that I made the mistake of mentioning to her. I'll be fronting the money and picking up the books today from a retired pastor here in the Pitt. Goodness knows when I'll mail them to her, having just mailed two boxes last week.
*smooch*
224richardderus
>222 msf59: Thanks, Birddude! You're quite likely to enjoy the lovely, pithy writing in the book.
Happy Midweek-day's reads as you watch the rains feed the flowers.
Happy Midweek-day's reads as you watch the rains feed the flowers.
225richardderus
>223 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible, that review felt kind of inadequate to me so it's good to hear that it makes a good impression. Your passing on it does not cause me to reach for my pearls, no.
It mildly repulses me that there *are* 23 volumes of homiletics at all, unsurprisingly.
Errand well, me lurve.
It mildly repulses me that there *are* 23 volumes of homiletics at all, unsurprisingly.
Errand well, me lurve.
226LizzieD
Good morning, good Richard. BB at me for Brother Alive, not to be healed anytime soon, I'm afraid. Onto the wish list it goes with thanks for the le Guin list!
*smooch*
*smooch*
227richardderus
>226 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy! I'm sure you'll enjoy Brother Alive when it comes to the top of the pile.
The Le Guin Prize is such a great way for her son to memorialize a very fine creative talent and a deep thinker. I hope Zain Khalid wins.
The Le Guin Prize is such a great way for her son to memorialize a very fine creative talent and a deep thinker. I hope Zain Khalid wins.
228FAMeulstee
Happy Thursday, Richard dear!
>219 richardderus: Sounds good to me, I hope it gets translated in the near future.
>219 richardderus: Sounds good to me, I hope it gets translated in the near future.
229richardderus
>228 FAMeulstee: I think you would like it, Anita, so I hope y'all get it soon. It's won some heavyweight prizes, so the chances should be good.
Thursday orisons! *smooch*
Thursday orisons! *smooch*
230richardderus
Sunshiney Thursday greetings to all who enter here. I'm having a little gout exacerbation, minor because it's not hugely inflammatory thank the goddesses, but it's really hurting. I'll probably be spotty in my attendance as a result. More Kindle-reading of books and less laptop or phone time.
Distribute *smooches* fairly amongst yourselves!
Distribute *smooches* fairly amongst yourselves!
231karenmarie
'Morning, RDear, and I'm sorry to hear about the Dread Gout making an appearance. Sorry for the pain. Read away!
I'll take one of the smooches and give one back to you.
*smooch*
I'll take one of the smooches and give one back to you.
*smooch*
234RebaRelishesReading
Sorry about the pain :( I hope it clears up soon. Have you tried eating cherries? (from advice Hubby got years ago when he was having a gout attack)
235bell7
I, too, am taking it easy at home due to pain (menstrual, in my case, though that's no joke either). *Smooches* and hope your gout pain goes away quickly.
236richardderus
Thanks, all, for the sympathies! *smooch*
If you don't listen to PostModernJukebox you're sleeping on one of music's great pleasures.
Like a rockabilly cover of "Stayin' Alive":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emgP1ULVSKo
If you don't listen to PostModernJukebox you're sleeping on one of music's great pleasures.
Like a rockabilly cover of "Stayin' Alive":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emgP1ULVSKo
237richardderus
043 The Kingdom of Sand by Andrew Holleran
Rating: 4* of five
LONGLISTED for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction!
The Publisher Says: One of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse.
The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dreadâAndrew Holleranâs first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parentsâduring the height of the AIDS epidemicâand has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor, he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town.
At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl, whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years, he has been visiting Earl to watch classic films together and critique the neighbors. Earl is the only person in town with whom he can truly be himself. Now Earlâs health is failing, and our increasingly misanthropic narrator must contend with the fact that once Earl dies, he will be completely alone. He distracts himself with sexual encounters at the video porn store and visits to Walgreens. All the while, he shares reflections on illness and death that are at once funny and heartbreaking.
Holleranâs first novel, Dancer from the Dance, is widely regarded as a classic work of gay literature. The Kingdom of Sand displays all of Holleranâs considerable gifts; itâs an elegy to sex and a stunningly honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection, especially as we count down our days.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'm getting older. No, let's not be American about it: I'm old. Stories are very comforting when they tell you about yourself as you'd like to be. They're less comforting when they hold a mirror to ourselves as we are.
This isn't a comforting story for me to read.
Dancer from the Dance was the roadmap for how I wanted to be in the 1970s: Rooms full of men fucking each other's brains out? Parties with mind-altering substances galore?! Sign me up! I'm ready to start this kind of life! This book, not so much.
Mostly because illness, isolation, and the slightly tedious repetitiveness of sex are my reality, and aren't very interesting to me unless they're freshly observed. Let's be honest, what's ever going to make this stuff fresh to those within it? It is not, as far as I can see, possible to make excitement and anticipation from the routine, mundane, quotidian life of Getting Old. Bearing in mind as I do daily that getting old is a privilege denied to most people, it is a curiously samey process. I'm aware that there are people aging vigorously and pursuing, in their seventies, activity levels I never attained. I'm also aware that I am stunningly lucky not to be dead or permanently cognitively impaired after January 2023's strokes. I don't mean there's only one way to get old: I mean getting old, no matter which way you slice it, has certain common themes that don't rev my readerly engine above idle speed.
I looked over what I've just written, thought "this doesn't sound like a four-star review," and called my Young Gentleman Caller to read it to him. Thank goodness I did! After A Long Silence, he finally said, "Tedious repetitiveness? Thanks a lot." Explaining to him what I actually meant, aside from reassuring his bruised feelings about my real opinion of his prowess, clarified the subject that's bothered me about the book since I read it.
Holleran's over a decade older than I am. As I read about the life he was describing, I thought about the sameness of the unnamed PoV character's life as repetitive, even...perhaps especially...his unchanged relationship to sex. The expectation of desire for the same kind of sex into one's older age isn't a sign of vigor to me, but a sign of arrested adolescence. The concerns about isolation, in that context, also read as adolesent fears of not being Hot, of never finding friends/boyfriends/partners when it feels like everyone around you has them, in general of FOMO.
Seriously? You're still on about this? is what I'd say to this guy if I met him. I don't want an orgy or a three-way anymore, I want to spend that hour and a half in the more rewarding, interesting leisurely touching, stroking, and communing with Rob, the man I know and want to know better. That's a whole different experience from cruising the porn store as does our aging Casanova. Part of that is, again, down to my good luck. There is someone in my life who elicits these feelings from me, and is willing to reciprocate them. That's what I thought Earl meant to our PoV character, whose lack of a name feels to me like a reinforcement of this guy's utter and complete adolescent narcissism. "Only I am Real, everyone else is an extra in the movie of my life." And this is in spite of the fact that PoVman is basically spending the whole of his time in this book narrating Earl's decline and fall into the Endless!
Oh dear, again I'm veering into the not-highly-rating territory.
This is why I've had such trouble reviewing the book. It's a much better literary experience than I'm making it sound like. Look at the thoughts it's causing me to examine! Look at the depth of attention it summons out of me! I'm having interesting, important conversations with my Young Gentleman Caller because I need his help to process my feelings about the read.
Author Holleran is a fine wordsmith, with an opera librettist's ear for sentences that sing in my ear:
There's a lot of this kind of thoughtful, careful observation in the book. Given the gargantuan tragedy and Black-Death-level reaping of the men in his generation's cohort, observing is safer than involving. The porn store isn't a casual or haphazard choice for the narrator's sex life. The reporting of life is safer than the living of it:
I didn't find my life changed by this book but I did find in it much to interrogate, about myself, my present, my past; and that's a very rare thing for a book to do in a world of escapism and avoidance of the depths of experience. That Author Holleran did this while using surfaces and appearances and absences made it impressive to me on a literary level while keeping me at a greater distance from PoVman's life than I'd require to give the book my highest accolades.
Make no mistake, this is a good book. It's not great, but it's good, and I hope you'll read it one day soon.
Maybe borrow it from the library, though.
Rating: 4* of five
LONGLISTED for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction!
The Publisher Says: One of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse.
The Kingdom of Sand is a poignant tale of desire and dreadâAndrew Holleranâs first new book in sixteen years. The nameless narrator is a gay man who moved to Florida to look after his aging parentsâduring the height of the AIDS epidemicâand has found himself unable to leave after their deaths. With gallows humor, he chronicles the indignities of growing old in a small town.
At the heart of the novel is the story of his friendship with Earl, whom he met cruising at the local boat ramp. For the last twenty years, he has been visiting Earl to watch classic films together and critique the neighbors. Earl is the only person in town with whom he can truly be himself. Now Earlâs health is failing, and our increasingly misanthropic narrator must contend with the fact that once Earl dies, he will be completely alone. He distracts himself with sexual encounters at the video porn store and visits to Walgreens. All the while, he shares reflections on illness and death that are at once funny and heartbreaking.
Holleranâs first novel, Dancer from the Dance, is widely regarded as a classic work of gay literature. The Kingdom of Sand displays all of Holleranâs considerable gifts; itâs an elegy to sex and a stunningly honest exploration of loneliness and the endless need for human connection, especially as we count down our days.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'm getting older. No, let's not be American about it: I'm old. Stories are very comforting when they tell you about yourself as you'd like to be. They're less comforting when they hold a mirror to ourselves as we are.
This isn't a comforting story for me to read.
Dancer from the Dance was the roadmap for how I wanted to be in the 1970s: Rooms full of men fucking each other's brains out? Parties with mind-altering substances galore?! Sign me up! I'm ready to start this kind of life! This book, not so much.
Mostly because illness, isolation, and the slightly tedious repetitiveness of sex are my reality, and aren't very interesting to me unless they're freshly observed. Let's be honest, what's ever going to make this stuff fresh to those within it? It is not, as far as I can see, possible to make excitement and anticipation from the routine, mundane, quotidian life of Getting Old. Bearing in mind as I do daily that getting old is a privilege denied to most people, it is a curiously samey process. I'm aware that there are people aging vigorously and pursuing, in their seventies, activity levels I never attained. I'm also aware that I am stunningly lucky not to be dead or permanently cognitively impaired after January 2023's strokes. I don't mean there's only one way to get old: I mean getting old, no matter which way you slice it, has certain common themes that don't rev my readerly engine above idle speed.
I looked over what I've just written, thought "this doesn't sound like a four-star review," and called my Young Gentleman Caller to read it to him. Thank goodness I did! After A Long Silence, he finally said, "Tedious repetitiveness? Thanks a lot." Explaining to him what I actually meant, aside from reassuring his bruised feelings about my real opinion of his prowess, clarified the subject that's bothered me about the book since I read it.
Holleran's over a decade older than I am. As I read about the life he was describing, I thought about the sameness of the unnamed PoV character's life as repetitive, even...perhaps especially...his unchanged relationship to sex. The expectation of desire for the same kind of sex into one's older age isn't a sign of vigor to me, but a sign of arrested adolescence. The concerns about isolation, in that context, also read as adolesent fears of not being Hot, of never finding friends/boyfriends/partners when it feels like everyone around you has them, in general of FOMO.
Seriously? You're still on about this? is what I'd say to this guy if I met him. I don't want an orgy or a three-way anymore, I want to spend that hour and a half in the more rewarding, interesting leisurely touching, stroking, and communing with Rob, the man I know and want to know better. That's a whole different experience from cruising the porn store as does our aging Casanova. Part of that is, again, down to my good luck. There is someone in my life who elicits these feelings from me, and is willing to reciprocate them. That's what I thought Earl meant to our PoV character, whose lack of a name feels to me like a reinforcement of this guy's utter and complete adolescent narcissism. "Only I am Real, everyone else is an extra in the movie of my life." And this is in spite of the fact that PoVman is basically spending the whole of his time in this book narrating Earl's decline and fall into the Endless!
Oh dear, again I'm veering into the not-highly-rating territory.
This is why I've had such trouble reviewing the book. It's a much better literary experience than I'm making it sound like. Look at the thoughts it's causing me to examine! Look at the depth of attention it summons out of me! I'm having interesting, important conversations with my Young Gentleman Caller because I need his help to process my feelings about the read.
Author Holleran is a fine wordsmith, with an opera librettist's ear for sentences that sing in my ear:
I believed somehow in the absurd idea that if you ate right you could live indefinitely. Even when, a decade after my motherâs death, I began getting skin cancers, all I could think of was: how could this be? Given all the broccoli Iâve eaten? It must be loneliness, I concluded, the lack of a person to live for other than myself, since we are also told that health is psychosomatic.
âandâ
The town to which Earl and my father retired was not one of those artificial communities created for people in the last stage of life with which Florida is associated. But it had its share of the elderly. It was good to be reminded by the Regular of another stage of life, especially when I stopped off at the post office on my way home from his shack. The people moving slowly toward the post office on walkers when I went to get the mail induced both pity and admiration; pity for their condition, admiration for their determination to keep going.
âandâ
The Church believes in the Resurrection, and at the Resurrection the body and soul are united. What age the body is, and exactly how the two are rejoined , I donât know; when I asked my friend, he said, âIâll have to get back to you on that one.â
There's a lot of this kind of thoughtful, careful observation in the book. Given the gargantuan tragedy and Black-Death-level reaping of the men in his generation's cohort, observing is safer than involving. The porn store isn't a casual or haphazard choice for the narrator's sex life. The reporting of life is safer than the living of it:
One of the great appeals of Florida has always been the sense that the minute you get here you have permission to collapse.
âandâ
Leaving Florida, nevertheless, I always felt regret; though when I found myself back in New York my mother's voice on the telephone seemed so shrunken and small, I vowed that I would never waste time in that town again. How could I? I was not responsible for her happiness; she wanted me to live, and life was wasted every day I was there. Look how the noiseless spider, the relentless metronome, the secret thief, had staked their claim on even these two people, these once glamorous parents who had turned into a pair of country mice.
âandâ
Florida was where they lived, where I kept coming back, though nobody asked me questions anymore about what I was doing. One day, when I was sitting in the back seat of the car as we were waiting for a railroad train to go by on our way to the mall, my mother turned back to me and said, apropos of something I forget, "You are a separate person, you know," but I felt I wasn't. I couldn't get away from them, which is why I kept coming back to Florida.
âandâ
I see in the distance on streets I donât usually take, merely because I can see the glow of blue and green lights, the two most satisfying Christmas colors, no doubt because they are so melancholy.
I didn't find my life changed by this book but I did find in it much to interrogate, about myself, my present, my past; and that's a very rare thing for a book to do in a world of escapism and avoidance of the depths of experience. That Author Holleran did this while using surfaces and appearances and absences made it impressive to me on a literary level while keeping me at a greater distance from PoVman's life than I'd require to give the book my highest accolades.
Make no mistake, this is a good book. It's not great, but it's good, and I hope you'll read it one day soon.
Maybe borrow it from the library, though.
238msf59
Happy Friday, Richard. Yep, it is Jackson Day and then I will bring him back here and we can enjoy him for the rest of the day and night. We may be beat by the end of it, but I am sure it will be worth it.
Have a great weekend.
Have a great weekend.
239Caroline_McElwee
>183 LizzieD: >184 richardderus: I too like good cottage cheese (thick, not runny as some supermarkets sell). They sometimes sell it either with chives or pineapple in here.
240richardderus
>239 Caroline_McElwee: I'll always opt for chives myownself. If the cottage cheese is a bit more liquid than I prefer, I chuck dried herbs into it, shake it up, and let it sit a couple days then eat it on tomatoes or a green salad. Subideal, but keeps me from chucking it out and wasting the money.
241richardderus
>238 msf59: It is indeed very worth it, Gramps. Kids are exhausting but the energy expended is in service of making memories and that's worth it every time!
Happy weekend-ahead's reads.
Happy weekend-ahead's reads.
242karenmarie
Hiya, RDear. I hope you're doing better today.
>237 richardderus: Excellent review of a book I'll never read.
*smooch*
>237 richardderus: Excellent review of a book I'll never read.
*smooch*
243richardderus
>242 karenmarie: Horrible! *smooch*
THank you for the kind words about a book I didn't enjoy reviewing anywhere near as much as I enjoyed reading. The endless adolescence that we were raised to believe was the ne plus ultra of Living has less appeal to me than ever. Makes me impatient, frankly...but it made me think, and gave me some very pretty sentences and images, so it was a good book.
Or so I'm telling myself.
THank you for the kind words about a book I didn't enjoy reviewing anywhere near as much as I enjoyed reading. The endless adolescence that we were raised to believe was the ne plus ultra of Living has less appeal to me than ever. Makes me impatient, frankly...but it made me think, and gave me some very pretty sentences and images, so it was a good book.
Or so I'm telling myself.
244LizzieD
>237 richardderus: >243 richardderus: I'm in agreement with Karen and with you. I have a lot of things to like about this age, I'm relieved to say. (I thought I was going to live forever, but I wasn't ever going to get old.) I remember praising Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont to my aunt, who was then closer to your age than mine, thinking that she'd like commentary/comparison with her own situation. She explained to me that she was living an older life and didn't need to read about it. I don't know that I agree, but I certainly see her point.
Cheers for your day! *smooch*
Cheers for your day! *smooch*
245ArlieS
>243 richardderus: I wonder sometimes whether I'm still living that endless adolescence. I'm not playing musical beds, but I never got into a state of never-ending responsibility for the needs and wants of even some selected set of people. (I subsidize my housemate financially, but she contributes to our household in ways I really don't want to.)
Why do I associate adulthood with semi-mandatory service to others? Partly because I was raised female, aka to be some man's helpmate, nursemaid to his children, etc., all motivated by "love". (I never saw the relationship I was supposed to want as remotely balanced - he would provide money, at least until he got around to dumping me for a younger, prettier female, and I'd provide *everything* else, AFAICT.)
But it's more than that. If I listen to the talking heads, I need "meaning" in my life, which should take the form of something greater than myself, preferably some kind of spirituality, but a cause might do in a pinch. Yet I don't feel that need. I've done my bit for contributing, paying my way for life, and I'm done now. I don't owe society anything, but especially I don't owe them my time. If I could fix what I see as broken, I probably would - but no need to strive vainly to fix things that seem impossible to change. And mostly the things I *can* fix are personal, with myself as the sole beneficiary; societal problems are far beyond me. So let's hear it for hedonism, even if that makes me adolescent ;-)
I'm having a nice retirement, currently focussed on reading and nesting, where nesting includes such things as dealing with idiotic software updates *eyeroll* but only on my own behalf. (I'm always willing to advise others facing similar problems, but not about to tilt at windmills trying to make a decent reliable software suite available to anyone who wants it - that project needs far more people than I can motivate to help, and heavens knows I tried to recruit people as retirement approached.)
Why do I associate adulthood with semi-mandatory service to others? Partly because I was raised female, aka to be some man's helpmate, nursemaid to his children, etc., all motivated by "love". (I never saw the relationship I was supposed to want as remotely balanced - he would provide money, at least until he got around to dumping me for a younger, prettier female, and I'd provide *everything* else, AFAICT.)
But it's more than that. If I listen to the talking heads, I need "meaning" in my life, which should take the form of something greater than myself, preferably some kind of spirituality, but a cause might do in a pinch. Yet I don't feel that need. I've done my bit for contributing, paying my way for life, and I'm done now. I don't owe society anything, but especially I don't owe them my time. If I could fix what I see as broken, I probably would - but no need to strive vainly to fix things that seem impossible to change. And mostly the things I *can* fix are personal, with myself as the sole beneficiary; societal problems are far beyond me. So let's hear it for hedonism, even if that makes me adolescent ;-)
I'm having a nice retirement, currently focussed on reading and nesting, where nesting includes such things as dealing with idiotic software updates *eyeroll* but only on my own behalf. (I'm always willing to advise others facing similar problems, but not about to tilt at windmills trying to make a decent reliable software suite available to anyone who wants it - that project needs far more people than I can motivate to help, and heavens knows I tried to recruit people as retirement approached.)
246richardderus
>244 LizzieD: The desire to locate one's self in a frame can be well-met by the books that're like this; just that, for me, they located me outside the narrator's solipsism. That meant a lot of thinking, a lot of assessing, and that's a great sign of quality literature.
I'm not going to be any younger-feeling anytime soon...so find someone bemoaning lost youth irritating. Anyway, it's beautifully written. That's enough, really, innit? *smooch*
I'm not going to be any younger-feeling anytime soon...so find someone bemoaning lost youth irritating. Anyway, it's beautifully written. That's enough, really, innit? *smooch*
247richardderus
>245 ArlieS: Not really sure that's adolescent, Arlie, solipsistic though it sonds. You've got meaning in your life, just not that which is shoved down your gullet by The Overculture...and that's apparently part of a life-long pattern of rejecting expectations for self-directed goals and purposes. If anything it's the antithesis of adolescence.
248Helenliz
Welcome to the weekend, RD.
In a return to a classic British summer, the rain has been lashing it down, we've got high wind warnings and it is currently sunny out. >:-)
We're going out, I am taking a waterproof!
In a return to a classic British summer, the rain has been lashing it down, we've got high wind warnings and it is currently sunny out. >:-)
We're going out, I am taking a waterproof!
249richardderus
>248 Helenliz: The Gulf Stream might warm y'all up in winter but it sure as heck makes y'all's summers weird!
Hoping for few high winds and more sunshine.
Hoping for few high winds and more sunshine.
250karenmarie
Hiya, RDear, and happy Saturday to you. I hope the gout crystals have done an Elvis â left the building, so to speak.
>244 LizzieD: living an older life and didn't need to read about it Thatâs mostly the way Iâm feeling about it these days. One old-grumpy man-gets-feisty book (A Man Called Ove), and two old lady books Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and the Olive Kitteridge series are enough for me in recent years.
*smooch*
>244 LizzieD: living an older life and didn't need to read about it Thatâs mostly the way Iâm feeling about it these days. One old-grumpy man-gets-feisty book (A Man Called Ove), and two old lady books Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk and the Olive Kitteridge series are enough for me in recent years.
*smooch*
251LizzieD
Amen to gout and Elvis!
I wish you cool and peace and joy in some wonderful book! *smooch*
I wish you cool and peace and joy in some wonderful book! *smooch*
252richardderus
Gout ain't Elvis'd, y'all. I'm powering through as best I can. This damned condition....
*smooch* thanks for visiting!
*smooch* thanks for visiting!
253Helenliz
>249 richardderus:. It's a mixed blessing, true.
Drive through some torrential rain, but it had stopped by the time we arrived and while it was windy enough to blow over a cafe table, it stayed dry. So we'll call that a win.
Hoping your weekend is going sufficiently well.
Drive through some torrential rain, but it had stopped by the time we arrived and while it was windy enough to blow over a cafe table, it stayed dry. So we'll call that a win.
Hoping your weekend is going sufficiently well.
254msf59
Happy Sunday, RD. I hope you are doing better today. Sorry you have to deal with this excruciating condition. Not a whole lot planned for today- probably lots of Juno and book time.
255richardderus
>253 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen. It's been tolerable, and given the gout, that's about as good as I was expcting it to be.
256richardderus
>254 msf59: Juno-and-book-time sounds lovely to me. Schmoozle her ears from me!
257karenmarie
(((hugs))) and ***smooches***
I found all the Mason and Ball jars and all the lids that were various places in the garage and have them in one place for Louise's gardening guy to come get for his wife Maxine. I told him he could have them as long as I got at least one sample of something she puts up. *smile*
I found all the Mason and Ball jars and all the lids that were various places in the garage and have them in one place for Louise's gardening guy to come get for his wife Maxine. I told him he could have them as long as I got at least one sample of something she puts up. *smile*
258LizzieD
Hope you're having better than a tolerable day, Richard. *smooch*
>257 karenmarie: You know how to wheel and deal, Karen!
>257 karenmarie: You know how to wheel and deal, Karen!
259richardderus
>257 karenmarie: You clever sausage you! Get something you don't need or want hauled away and get some homemade scrummyness back!
I wanted one of my favorite nurses in rehab to come get my collection of xmas-tree ornaments, since I can't put up a tree and Old Stuff pitched a fit about my stringing a light-enhanced garland with them on it up on the sprinkler system's pipes. Sadly, that hasn't happened, so it's unlikely to.
*smoochiesmoochsmooch*
I wanted one of my favorite nurses in rehab to come get my collection of xmas-tree ornaments, since I can't put up a tree and Old Stuff pitched a fit about my stringing a light-enhanced garland with them on it up on the sprinkler system's pipes. Sadly, that hasn't happened, so it's unlikely to.
*smoochiesmoochsmooch*
260richardderus
>258 LizzieD: Ain't she a wise gal?
Tolerable will do, Peggy, since it's nasty out and Old Stuff is staring at the idiot box...already had the turn-it-down orders issued and even had to escalate to removing the plug entirely to enforce compliance. Tolerable is enough in those parameters.
Tolerable will do, Peggy, since it's nasty out and Old Stuff is staring at the idiot box...already had the turn-it-down orders issued and even had to escalate to removing the plug entirely to enforce compliance. Tolerable is enough in those parameters.
261vancouverdeb
Sorry to hear the gout is acting up again, Richard. It is very hard to have to share a room with what is essentially a stranger. Wishing you a tolerable day and the lessening of the gout. I hope Old God's Time will prove to a good read. Sunday *smooch*
262The_Hibernator
>230 richardderus: Hope your gout is better! I've heard it can be very painful. I was treated for gout once, but I'm not 100% certain it really was gout. I was in a lot of pain in my toe and thumb, but I'd always assumed I just had toe-and-thumb arthritis until it occured to me it might be gout. It's actually acting up a bit recently, but just a teensy bit. Do you get gout in your thumbs? Or just your toes?
263karenmarie
âMorning, RDear! Happy Monday to you. I hope youâre doing well this morning.
>259 richardderus: I love being a clever sausage! Makes me think of Dame Edna for some reason. Sad that Humphries died this year.
*smooch*
>259 richardderus: I love being a clever sausage! Makes me think of Dame Edna for some reason. Sad that Humphries died this year.
*smooch*
264richardderus
>262 The_Hibernator: Hello Rachel, and happy Monday.
My kind of gout isn't limited to specific body areas because it's from a different root cause altogether than yours. The filtering mechanism that's at fault when one's toes or thumbs get red and painful isn't the reason I have gout. So it presents itself entirely differently, and in many places.
Today's a bit better, thank goodness! *smooch*
My kind of gout isn't limited to specific body areas because it's from a different root cause altogether than yours. The filtering mechanism that's at fault when one's toes or thumbs get red and painful isn't the reason I have gout. So it presents itself entirely differently, and in many places.
Today's a bit better, thank goodness! *smooch*
265richardderus
>263 karenmarie: Better than yesterday, Horrible, so it's a good day.
Actually I think I learned "clever sausage" from Dame Edna. Humphries was an equal-opportunity offender, and made sure the world knew it. His brand of humor is one I enjoy in small doses, a bit like salted caramel. Rob and I watched Syabira's season of GBBO together last night and he's looking into adapting her unpopular-with-the-judges sweet-corn cake for his own use. I said, snarkily, "great...now use salted caramel for the icing and you'll have a complete gag-fest."
Bad backfire later, he's trying to come up with a way to make salted-caramel meringue AND sweet-corn cake. *shudder*
Actually I think I learned "clever sausage" from Dame Edna. Humphries was an equal-opportunity offender, and made sure the world knew it. His brand of humor is one I enjoy in small doses, a bit like salted caramel. Rob and I watched Syabira's season of GBBO together last night and he's looking into adapting her unpopular-with-the-judges sweet-corn cake for his own use. I said, snarkily, "great...now use salted caramel for the icing and you'll have a complete gag-fest."
Bad backfire later, he's trying to come up with a way to make salted-caramel meringue AND sweet-corn cake. *shudder*
266bell7
Salted caramel meringue... hmmmm... I would try that. And I'm not a huge fan of meringue.
*smooch*
*smooch*
267richardderus
>266 bell7: I hate meringue. I tolerate salted caramel. I abhor corn. Nothing, not even the Power of Luuuv, will convince me to put fork to any one of those things.
I hope everyone else feels differently, of course, but *eeeewwww*
I hope everyone else feels differently, of course, but *eeeewwww*
268richardderus
via Anu Garg's A Word A Day newsletter:
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind. -Hannah Senesh, poet, playwright, and paratrooper (17 Jul 1921-1944)
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind. -Hannah Senesh, poet, playwright, and paratrooper (17 Jul 1921-1944)
269jessibud2
>268 richardderus:- I've saved that quote, too, Richard. Have you ever read her memoir or seen the doc on her? Truly a gone-too-soon heroine. I am blanking on the titles but will edit them in after I search a bit. I am not home right now so can't just go check, as I own both.
Hope you are on the mend by now.
Edited to add:
Hannah Senesh : Her Life and Diaries (so maybe it's not exactly a memoir)
Documentary film: Blessed is the Match
Hope you are on the mend by now.
Edited to add:
Hannah Senesh : Her Life and Diaries (so maybe it's not exactly a memoir)
Documentary film: Blessed is the Match
271richardderus
044 Dead of Winter by Darcy Coates
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: From bestselling author Darcy Coates comes Dead of Winter, a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness thriller that will teach you to trust no one. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run.
When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.
She couldn't be more wrong.
Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing...only to be discovered the following morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport...and they're far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
If you need trigger warnings, this is not the read for you.
My Review: What you need to know is that this author's already famous, and has done this work for over twenty books now. This means there are Expectations from Darcy Coates readers, plus the hook is baited with care and attention to the creation of more Darcy Coates readers. This effort is successful, and pays off. The sentences flow past you, making perhaps only a modest impression separately. The cumulative effect, like the river's flow of my metaphor, is powerful and impressive. I'm not all that impressed with the author's effort until I step back and consider what the journey I've been on has left me to feel and think about.
There are always, always comparisons of "stranded together, death stalks them" stories to And Then There Were None. Inevitable; unfair. The standard-setter of the subgenre will usually win because that's the nature of literary analysis. When one is held up to a known standard, one is seldom going to be the one coming out on top in the comparisons. So let's get this out of the way: Darcy Coates isn't Dame Agatha. And you know what? That's just fine with me. I enjoy the set-up enough to get the story on its terms, not my literary snobby standards.
One of those standards is mysteries don't reveal the gore; thrillers do. Author Coates, then, delivers a thriller. Given a lot of her work is horror, that isn't in any way out of character. Also notable is the truism that thriller characters live to die, and more often than not aren't givena lot of development before or after their deaths. Another tick in the thriller column.
The freak-storm trope always decreases my pleasure in a mystery/thriller. If it was unexpected, how did the miscreant plan and execute (!) all these elaborate endings? How were these people, all with vile secrets that meant I was utterly indifferent to their murders (in a couple cases, actively pleased they'd died horribly), assembled with the assurance that they'd be incommunicado? That was always the flaw in my own pleasure when reading this particular set-up by anyone. It means I've literally never rated one of these reads above four stars.
Looking above, you'll see all four of those stars. I loved the experience of being chilled to the bone by Author Coates's wintertime evocation. I was, ironically, delighted with the nurderer's choices of victims. The issue for me was there were too many of them for the sketchy chsracterizations to keep me interested in their fates. Being inside Christa's head made the technique inevitable. The use of very short chapters suits the need to keep the story moving but ultimately make that action, propulsive as it is, feel more repetitive than it should in order to propel the story to greater-than-the source heights. The tragedies, as I've said above, seem less effective as character establishing mechanisms than as justifications for the briyality inflicted on these rotters because there isn't the scope to do more than report them.
Cavils like these aside, I join the chorus of Goodreads readers wondering where the hell the movie isâI can already see it, done by (say) Guy Ritchie...it's got his blend of violence and moral ambiguity and visual power.
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: From bestselling author Darcy Coates comes Dead of Winter, a remote cabin in the snowy wilderness thriller that will teach you to trust no one. There are eight strangers. One killer. Nowhere left to run.
When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.
She couldn't be more wrong.
Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing...only to be discovered the following morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport...and they're far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
If you need trigger warnings, this is not the read for you.
My Review: What you need to know is that this author's already famous, and has done this work for over twenty books now. This means there are Expectations from Darcy Coates readers, plus the hook is baited with care and attention to the creation of more Darcy Coates readers. This effort is successful, and pays off. The sentences flow past you, making perhaps only a modest impression separately. The cumulative effect, like the river's flow of my metaphor, is powerful and impressive. I'm not all that impressed with the author's effort until I step back and consider what the journey I've been on has left me to feel and think about.
There are always, always comparisons of "stranded together, death stalks them" stories to And Then There Were None. Inevitable; unfair. The standard-setter of the subgenre will usually win because that's the nature of literary analysis. When one is held up to a known standard, one is seldom going to be the one coming out on top in the comparisons. So let's get this out of the way: Darcy Coates isn't Dame Agatha. And you know what? That's just fine with me. I enjoy the set-up enough to get the story on its terms, not my literary snobby standards.
One of those standards is mysteries don't reveal the gore; thrillers do. Author Coates, then, delivers a thriller. Given a lot of her work is horror, that isn't in any way out of character. Also notable is the truism that thriller characters live to die, and more often than not aren't givena lot of development before or after their deaths. Another tick in the thriller column.
The freak-storm trope always decreases my pleasure in a mystery/thriller. If it was unexpected, how did the miscreant plan and execute (!) all these elaborate endings? How were these people, all with vile secrets that meant I was utterly indifferent to their murders (in a couple cases, actively pleased they'd died horribly), assembled with the assurance that they'd be incommunicado? That was always the flaw in my own pleasure when reading this particular set-up by anyone. It means I've literally never rated one of these reads above four stars.
Looking above, you'll see all four of those stars. I loved the experience of being chilled to the bone by Author Coates's wintertime evocation. I was, ironically, delighted with the nurderer's choices of victims. The issue for me was there were too many of them for the sketchy chsracterizations to keep me interested in their fates. Being inside Christa's head made the technique inevitable. The use of very short chapters suits the need to keep the story moving but ultimately make that action, propulsive as it is, feel more repetitive than it should in order to propel the story to greater-than-the source heights. The tragedies, as I've said above, seem less effective as character establishing mechanisms than as justifications for the briyality inflicted on these rotters because there isn't the scope to do more than report them.
Cavils like these aside, I join the chorus of Goodreads readers wondering where the hell the movie isâI can already see it, done by (say) Guy Ritchie...it's got his blend of violence and moral ambiguity and visual power.
272richardderus
>269 jessibud2: I had absolutely no conception she existed before today, Shelley...a poet and playwright? Two artforms I don't consume voluntarily.
My mending is, shall we say, done in fits and starts.
My mending is, shall we say, done in fits and starts.
273richardderus
>270 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy! *smooch*
274jessibud2
>272 richardderus:- But she was a very brave fighter in the resistance movement during WWII
275swynn
>271 richardderus: Hm ... it seems I have a couple of Coates' works on Kindle already, almost certainly acquired when they were free or almost so.
Ought to bump 'em up.
Ought to bump 'em up.
276richardderus
>274 jessibud2: Now I know that, I'll pay attention to her!
277richardderus
>275 swynn: Don't sprain anything getting it done, but tey're there and aren't likely to make you wonder why you're giving them Kindleroom.
278karenmarie
âMorning, RDear. Happy Tuesday and Iâm glad that yesterday was better than Sunday. Obvs, I hope todayâs better than yesterday.
I like watching Dame Edna videos on YouTube every once in a while, but youâre right â small doses. Ugh forever to salted caramel. Canât stand the stuff in any way, shape, or form. Salt on chocolate? Ugh, too.
>268 richardderus: Sigh. 23 years old, a victim of manâs insatiable need for territory, control, killing.
>271 richardderus: Before I scrolled down far enough, I thought of And Then There Were None, with its horrible original title in my mind too. Youâre right, nothing will ever compare; however, every once in a while an author makes a noble effort. Iâm too cheap to spend the $4.99 on Kindle right now, but Iâve added it to my wish list.
*smooch*
I like watching Dame Edna videos on YouTube every once in a while, but youâre right â small doses. Ugh forever to salted caramel. Canât stand the stuff in any way, shape, or form. Salt on chocolate? Ugh, too.
>268 richardderus: Sigh. 23 years old, a victim of manâs insatiable need for territory, control, killing.
>271 richardderus: Before I scrolled down far enough, I thought of And Then There Were None, with its horrible original title in my mind too. Youâre right, nothing will ever compare; however, every once in a while an author makes a noble effort. Iâm too cheap to spend the $4.99 on Kindle right now, but Iâve added it to my wish list.
*smooch*
279msf59
Morning, RD. I hope your week is off to a more comfortable start. I called off Rehab today, to take care of some things. We are gearing up for our next extensive camping trip, this Friday. We are also enjoying a very nice stretch of weather. All good here.
280richardderus
>278 karenmarie: Morning, smoochling! I don't think you'll enjoy Coates's writing, TBH, so maybe the library's the way forward with this book.
I can tolerate salt on my caramel once in a while, but not often and not much at a time. Haven't had salted chocolate for obvious reasons but am not tempted. I hope today's better, too...so far, nope.
Hannah's fate is so immensely wasteful.
Be well and happy today!
I can tolerate salt on my caramel once in a while, but not often and not much at a time. Haven't had salted chocolate for obvious reasons but am not tempted. I hope today's better, too...so far, nope.
Hannah's fate is so immensely wasteful.
Be well and happy today!
281richardderus
>279 msf59: That's excellent news, Birddude! Nice weather makes camping so much better an experience.
...waitwaitwait...you're giving up a JACKSON DAY to go sleep on the dirt?! Dude! Is everything really good or are you sending out a coded cry for help?
...waitwaitwait...you're giving up a JACKSON DAY to go sleep on the dirt?! Dude! Is everything really good or are you sending out a coded cry for help?
282katiekrug
>271 richardderus: - Sounds pretty good. I'll have a look for it at the library...
283richardderus
>282 katiekrug: Yay! I think you'll really enjoy it.
284RebaRelishesReading
Wow!! Way behind here!! Need to ask a couple of things though. (1) understanding there is more than one kind of gout, Hubby has trouble there and was advised to try cherries (fresh, canned, frozen -- doesn't matter) and finds they help him when he has a flare up (2) I don't much like the gooey meringue that sits on pies but the hard kind is heaven -- ever tried it?
Hope you have a lovely day.
Hope you have a lovely day.
285LizzieD
Good afternoon, Richard. The laundry has washed and is languishing in the machine while I investigate Darcy Coates. Of course, I had never heard of her, but the first title on her LT list (meaning, I think, the most popular of her works) is The Haunting of Ashburn House. Does that mean that she's taking golden and silver age mystery/thrillers and giving them a contemporary look? I'm not going to pursue this further right now, but I'm intrigued.
I also tentatively offer you Kelley Armstrong's Rockton series for its Yukon setting and page-flipping pace. Rockton is some flying time out of Dawson City in uninhabited wilderness with unspecified technical camouflage that keeps casual (?) nosey-parkers unaware of its existance. The 200 or so residents all needed to escape something and have paid a hefty sum to disappear for a couple of years. Unfortunately, the council that oversees the town is not resident and definitely not above taking a good deal of money to admit white-collar criminals.
I get on a roll and have a hard time stopping.... *smooch* for the rest of your day!
I also tentatively offer you Kelley Armstrong's Rockton series for its Yukon setting and page-flipping pace. Rockton is some flying time out of Dawson City in uninhabited wilderness with unspecified technical camouflage that keeps casual (?) nosey-parkers unaware of its existance. The 200 or so residents all needed to escape something and have paid a hefty sum to disappear for a couple of years. Unfortunately, the council that oversees the town is not resident and definitely not above taking a good deal of money to admit white-collar criminals.
I get on a roll and have a hard time stopping.... *smooch* for the rest of your day!
286richardderus
>284 RebaRelishesReading: Black cherries, Reba, are effective at flushing out uric acid by several means. They're useless to me because I can't afford to buy cherries and they're never going to be effective at the flushing of the amount of uric acid I produce...normal is >5 richardderus:, I've never in adulthood measured under 9, and usually 11-14.
I've had the crispy kind of meringue in pavlovas...not a fan...the stuff is just too darn sweet for my taste. Even with acidic fruits it's tooth-grittingly sweet for me.
Look at it this way, there's always going to be more for you!
*smooch*
I've had the crispy kind of meringue in pavlovas...not a fan...the stuff is just too darn sweet for my taste. Even with acidic fruits it's tooth-grittingly sweet for me.
Look at it this way, there's always going to be more for you!
*smooch*
287richardderus
>285 LizzieD: I think you've hit on Coates's secret plan, Peggy. She's an adept enough writer that her evil plot is largely invisible to most readers, and charms those who do catch on.
I'll look into the Rockton series! *smooch*
I'll look into the Rockton series! *smooch*
288Helenliz
Catching up. Sorry tp hear the gout is not going, like it should.
Urgh to salted caramel. I just cannot get behind that as a good idea - it just tastes like salt to me.
Urgh to salted caramel. I just cannot get behind that as a good idea - it just tastes like salt to me.
289richardderus
045 Queen Wallis by C.J. Carey
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: The thrilling sequel to Widowland, a feminist dystopian novel set in an alternative history that terrifyingly imagines what a British alliance with Germany would look like if the Nazis had won WWII.
London, 1955. The Leader has been dead for two years. His assassination, on British soil, provoked violent retribution and intensified repression of British citizens, particularly women. Now, more than ever, the Protectorate is a place of surveillance and isolationâa land of spies.
Every evening Rose Ransom looks in the mirror and marvels that she's even alive. A mere woman, her role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry, where her work now focuses on poetry, which has been banned for its subversive meanings, emotions, and signals that cannot be controlled.
A government propaganda drive to promote positive images of women has just been announced ahead of a visit from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first American president to set foot on English soil in two decades. Queen Wallis Simpson will be spearheading the campaign, and Rose has been tasked with visiting her to explain the plan. When Rose arrives at the palace, she finds Wallis in a state of paranoia, desperate to return to America and enjoy the liberty of her homeland following her husband's death. Wallis claims she has a secret document so explosive that it will blow the Protectorate apart. But will the last queen of England pull the trigger on the Alliance?
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Fahrenheit 451 meets The Handmaid's Tale and they then mind-meld with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in a world where Edward VIII with his Nazi sympathies never abdicated.
As a life-long devotee of alternative history, I've seen so damn many "Germans win WWII" ideas that I refelxively shy away from reading yet another one. This one, being the second in a series I didn't read the first one of, would usually get zero attention from me for both those reasons. The way this subverted my defenses was to offer me a golden moment: My abiding contempt for the Windsors leads me to be amused and more than a little pleased that things turn out badly for them in this story.
The idea that the American Queen Wallis, a rapacious, greedy person whose grudges were legendary, would want to give up her life atop the heap is so unlikely as to be risible; but this isn't rigorous allohistorical scenario design, it's tendentious warning-blaring. It's meant for the world with ErdoÄan, Orban, Modi, and Putin trotting around unassassinated in it, to detail a few of the not-at-all unlikely societal effects thereof on decent human beings. Most especially women. Author Carey is excellent at the evocation of the personal costs of totalitarian rule based on religious "principles" and there's no doubt that the cult of eugenics, written into law, would function quite well as a "moral" force like religion.
It delights me that the job our PoV character, Rose, does is to bowdlerize literature and history books to conform with the prevailing power's ideological needs. The Power of Literature is immense and very, very scary to the Powers That Be. One thing I don't see discussed in pop culture is how extremely easy Rose's job would be now: Push a patch to all Kindles and Kobos, and the "subversive" text is in compliance with Their needs. Think that's far-fetched? Read some Cory Doctorow links.
The topics Author Carey deals with in this book are so very timely that I could feel them pulling me along as the pace slackened after about 35% of the way through (a converation between Rose and Queen Wallis). The last about 15% was fast-paced and exciting, but without my deep identification with the author's evident desire to bring home the existential threat women and Others face in today's increasingly fascistic world, I'd've taken longer to finish the read.
While I have cavils on the history front (why is Eisenhower president in a 1955 where WWII wasn't like ours? why is there no mention of presumably vanished millions of Jews?), I have none on the timeliness and urgency of the author's purpose in writing the book. I'll say that I felt slightly at sea occasionally. I put this down to not having read Widowland, so I recommend you do that first.
Rose is no superheroine. She's a very slightly moist, sometimes even drippy, everywoman whose moral compass isn't aligned with her culture's. She has the decency to follow it, and not the mob. She is, then, who we can reasonably aspire to be if the worst happens.
Well worth your time and treasure.
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: The thrilling sequel to Widowland, a feminist dystopian novel set in an alternative history that terrifyingly imagines what a British alliance with Germany would look like if the Nazis had won WWII.
London, 1955. The Leader has been dead for two years. His assassination, on British soil, provoked violent retribution and intensified repression of British citizens, particularly women. Now, more than ever, the Protectorate is a place of surveillance and isolationâa land of spies.
Every evening Rose Ransom looks in the mirror and marvels that she's even alive. A mere woman, her role in the Leader's death has been miraculously overlooked. She still works at the Culture Ministry, where her work now focuses on poetry, which has been banned for its subversive meanings, emotions, and signals that cannot be controlled.
A government propaganda drive to promote positive images of women has just been announced ahead of a visit from Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first American president to set foot on English soil in two decades. Queen Wallis Simpson will be spearheading the campaign, and Rose has been tasked with visiting her to explain the plan. When Rose arrives at the palace, she finds Wallis in a state of paranoia, desperate to return to America and enjoy the liberty of her homeland following her husband's death. Wallis claims she has a secret document so explosive that it will blow the Protectorate apart. But will the last queen of England pull the trigger on the Alliance?
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Fahrenheit 451 meets The Handmaid's Tale and they then mind-meld with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four in a world where Edward VIII with his Nazi sympathies never abdicated.
As a life-long devotee of alternative history, I've seen so damn many "Germans win WWII" ideas that I refelxively shy away from reading yet another one. This one, being the second in a series I didn't read the first one of, would usually get zero attention from me for both those reasons. The way this subverted my defenses was to offer me a golden moment: My abiding contempt for the Windsors leads me to be amused and more than a little pleased that things turn out badly for them in this story.
The idea that the American Queen Wallis, a rapacious, greedy person whose grudges were legendary, would want to give up her life atop the heap is so unlikely as to be risible; but this isn't rigorous allohistorical scenario design, it's tendentious warning-blaring. It's meant for the world with ErdoÄan, Orban, Modi, and Putin trotting around unassassinated in it, to detail a few of the not-at-all unlikely societal effects thereof on decent human beings. Most especially women. Author Carey is excellent at the evocation of the personal costs of totalitarian rule based on religious "principles" and there's no doubt that the cult of eugenics, written into law, would function quite well as a "moral" force like religion.
It delights me that the job our PoV character, Rose, does is to bowdlerize literature and history books to conform with the prevailing power's ideological needs. The Power of Literature is immense and very, very scary to the Powers That Be. One thing I don't see discussed in pop culture is how extremely easy Rose's job would be now: Push a patch to all Kindles and Kobos, and the "subversive" text is in compliance with Their needs. Think that's far-fetched? Read some Cory Doctorow links.
The topics Author Carey deals with in this book are so very timely that I could feel them pulling me along as the pace slackened after about 35% of the way through (a converation between Rose and Queen Wallis). The last about 15% was fast-paced and exciting, but without my deep identification with the author's evident desire to bring home the existential threat women and Others face in today's increasingly fascistic world, I'd've taken longer to finish the read.
While I have cavils on the history front (why is Eisenhower president in a 1955 where WWII wasn't like ours? why is there no mention of presumably vanished millions of Jews?), I have none on the timeliness and urgency of the author's purpose in writing the book. I'll say that I felt slightly at sea occasionally. I put this down to not having read Widowland, so I recommend you do that first.
Rose is no superheroine. She's a very slightly moist, sometimes even drippy, everywoman whose moral compass isn't aligned with her culture's. She has the decency to follow it, and not the mob. She is, then, who we can reasonably aspire to be if the worst happens.
Well worth your time and treasure.
290richardderus
>288 Helenliz: Hi Helen! I'll tell the gout it's supposed to go, maybe that'll work. I'm out of new things to do to get rid of it.
I'm always a bit bumfuzzled by salted sweets. Like Mexicans putting chili powder on corn and cantaloupe, it seems to me if it's too sweet for you as is, maybe just don't eat it. But there we are, humans love to make things over to suit themselves.
I'm always a bit bumfuzzled by salted sweets. Like Mexicans putting chili powder on corn and cantaloupe, it seems to me if it's too sweet for you as is, maybe just don't eat it. But there we are, humans love to make things over to suit themselves.
291bell7
Wednesday *smooch* and lovely to see you posting great reviews, even if I'm not *quite* tempted to read the books myself.
I offer myself as tribute and will take ALL the salted caramel y'all don't want. It's one of the most delicious flavors to my mind (tongue?)... and it's not the masking of the flavors, it's the interplay of opposing flavors that tastes delicious to me. Just sayin' :)
I offer myself as tribute and will take ALL the salted caramel y'all don't want. It's one of the most delicious flavors to my mind (tongue?)... and it's not the masking of the flavors, it's the interplay of opposing flavors that tastes delicious to me. Just sayin' :)
292karenmarie
'Morning, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.
I'm enjoying the last of the Rainier cherries with 6 Hint of Salt triscuits with some pepperjack cheese with morning coffee.
>290 richardderus: My dad always put salt on his watermelon and cantaloupe, and without ever telling her that her grandpa did it, somehow or another Jenna tried salt on her cantaloupe and watermelon and that's the way she eats both. She likes having this weird connection with this grandpa, and also has a weird food connection with her other grandpa - he loved boiled peanuts and she loves boiled peanuts. I find them totally disgusting, even fresh out of the salted boiling water.
I'm enjoying the last of the Rainier cherries with 6 Hint of Salt triscuits with some pepperjack cheese with morning coffee.
>290 richardderus: My dad always put salt on his watermelon and cantaloupe, and without ever telling her that her grandpa did it, somehow or another Jenna tried salt on her cantaloupe and watermelon and that's the way she eats both. She likes having this weird connection with this grandpa, and also has a weird food connection with her other grandpa - he loved boiled peanuts and she loves boiled peanuts. I find them totally disgusting, even fresh out of the salted boiling water.
293LizzieD
Good morning, Richard! I don't think I've ever eaten highly salted caramel, so I can't take a stand. >292 karenmarie: I grew up eating a little salt on watermelon, but I don't do it now. I also used to put black pepper on cantaloupe, and I have no idea where that came from! de gustibus... and all that.
I wish you a good day with noticeable less trouble from the gout.
I wish you a good day with noticeable less trouble from the gout.
294richardderus
>291 bell7: *smooch* back, with bashful thanks for the kind words about my reviews.
"Interplay of flavors"? Okay, that's more interesting than my version, but it's still weird.
"Interplay of flavors"? Okay, that's more interesting than my version, but it's still weird.
295richardderus
>292 karenmarie: Salt...on...watermelon...
*eeewww*
I was blissfully unaware there were these perversions of the natural order all over the place. I'll cop to hating boiled peanuts, too. My dear departed Betsy and I always flew into Atlanta and drove to Fontana Lake for vacations there. Boiled peanut stands are literally everywhere on the way up. One year we stopped and bought some...one bite and the rest went into the trash. Horrific!
Pepperjack and Triscuits is lovely as a light meal or heavy snack!
Caffeinate well, Horrible. *smooch*
*eeewww*
I was blissfully unaware there were these perversions of the natural order all over the place. I'll cop to hating boiled peanuts, too. My dear departed Betsy and I always flew into Atlanta and drove to Fontana Lake for vacations there. Boiled peanut stands are literally everywhere on the way up. One year we stopped and bought some...one bite and the rest went into the trash. Horrific!
Pepperjack and Triscuits is lovely as a light meal or heavy snack!
Caffeinate well, Horrible. *smooch*
296richardderus
>293 LizzieD: De gustibus only works when it's not surtout dégoutant.
I'm sending the gout an eviction notice.
I'm sending the gout an eviction notice.
297PaulCranswick
Congratulations RD, as you have sauntered beyond 3,000 posts on your threads already this year - a year of health tribulations during which you were well able to see how many of us held you in high esteem.
By the way I don't add sugar or salt to anything at all (although I know SWMBO and Erni do when I am not looking!). Pepper now, I would add to almost everything!
By the way I don't add sugar or salt to anything at all (although I know SWMBO and Erni do when I am not looking!). Pepper now, I would add to almost everything!
298richardderus
>297 PaulCranswick: Wow! 3,000 posts! I'm gobsmacked. It's been a year of less-than-amusing challenges, but overcoming them is a genuine pleasure. Long may it continue.
Adding sugar or salt to stuff isn't something I do much of, either. I add butter to oatmeal but seldom sugar and never salt. I don't like sweet drinks in general so no sugar in my coffee and no tea in my mouth no way nohow. Fizzy drinks aren't my jam, either, I'll take water instead. Alcohol is off the menu for me since it interacts leathally with some of my meds, so no more beer.
Pepper, now...that's something I'm fairly liberal with.
Adding sugar or salt to stuff isn't something I do much of, either. I add butter to oatmeal but seldom sugar and never salt. I don't like sweet drinks in general so no sugar in my coffee and no tea in my mouth no way nohow. Fizzy drinks aren't my jam, either, I'll take water instead. Alcohol is off the menu for me since it interacts leathally with some of my meds, so no more beer.
Pepper, now...that's something I'm fairly liberal with.
299ArlieS
>295 richardderus: Hmm, maybe salt would make that fruit I've never liked actually palatable. But I doubt it.
I'm fine with boiled peanuts too - at least as implemented by me, which involves putting raw peanuts in stews early in the cooking process. (I haven't done it in a while though.)
I'm fine with boiled peanuts too - at least as implemented by me, which involves putting raw peanuts in stews early in the cooking process. (I haven't done it in a while though.)
300katiekrug
I like salted caramel and a few grains of fine sea salt on chocolate is also nice.
My life changed for the better when I tried sprinkling Tajin on watermelon. DELISH.
My life changed for the better when I tried sprinkling Tajin on watermelon. DELISH.
301weird_O
Thanks for the Ascending Peculiarity BB...from some months back. Got a shiny like-new copy for $2.50 at a library book sale, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through it. Fun, but pretty repetitive. I'm focusing on the fun part.
302RebaRelishesReading
>291 bell7: I agree, Mary, the combination of salty and sweet enhances both to my taste buds :) I agree with you, Richard, about salt on melon and I tried boiled peanuts once --- OMG so disgusting!!!
303richardderus
>299 ArlieS: Boiled peanuts in stew? I can sorta see that being okay. Just not as the thing itself.
Fruit plus salt doesn't Go on my palate.
Fruit plus salt doesn't Go on my palate.
304richardderus
>300 katiekrug: Tajin on watermelon? Well, you do you, boo. As to chocolate, whatever you like since I ain't eatin' it no way nohow. But salted caramel? Kittens implode and angels rend their garments when people eat that stuff!
305richardderus
>301 weird_O: All the yay, Weirdness! He's interesting, no?
306richardderus
>302 RebaRelishesReading: They truly are The Devil's Own, Reba. People often like contrasting flavor profiles...if I do eat chocolate, it's going to have jalapño or orange or something equally powerful to make the chocolate a subordinate flavor...but fruit is so light and delicately flavored, why smack it down with stronger tastes?
Well, weirdness abounds.
Well, weirdness abounds.
307ocgreg34
>295 richardderus: My dad used to enjoy putting salt on onions--specifically the Walla Walla Sweets (large yellowy onions)--then bite into them as if they were apples. He never offered that to us kids, for which I'm thankful.
308laytonwoman3rd
Butter and brown sugar on oatmeal...learned that from my grandma. Mmmm....
Peanuts in stew---West African thing.
Salt on watermelon---yup, that's the way we ate it when I was a kid. Always. I'm not much of a fan of pink water with black seeds in, though, so I don't eat it at all these days.
Salted caramel is ... OK.
We used to sprinkle sugar on a damp leaf of lettuce, roll it up and eat it as a snack. Kinda good, actually.
Peanuts in stew---West African thing.
Salt on watermelon---yup, that's the way we ate it when I was a kid. Always. I'm not much of a fan of pink water with black seeds in, though, so I don't eat it at all these days.
Salted caramel is ... OK.
We used to sprinkle sugar on a damp leaf of lettuce, roll it up and eat it as a snack. Kinda good, actually.
309FAMeulstee
Happy Thursday, Richard dear!
No salt on fruits or sweets for me, I have been always modest with salt. Used to dislike all hot spices, until my thyroid issues were fixed. Then I found out I could like them.
Never came across boiled peanuts, so I have no idea how that would taste.
No salt on fruits or sweets for me, I have been always modest with salt. Used to dislike all hot spices, until my thyroid issues were fixed. Then I found out I could like them.
Never came across boiled peanuts, so I have no idea how that would taste.
310karenmarie
âMorning, RDear! Happy Thursday to you.
>295 richardderus: I agree about the *eeewww* review of salt on watermelon. Ditto boiled peanuts. I did caffeinate well, and am in the process of doing so again today. Caffeine two days in a row? Whoâda thunk it?
>308 laytonwoman3rd: I agree â brown sugar and butter on oatmeal. And my grandmother, born in 1882 in Nebraska, would take a wedge of lettuce, put a dollop of mayonnaise on it, then sprinkle it with sugar. I donât remember trying it, and certainly wouldnât eat it now.
*smooch*
>295 richardderus: I agree about the *eeewww* review of salt on watermelon. Ditto boiled peanuts. I did caffeinate well, and am in the process of doing so again today. Caffeine two days in a row? Whoâda thunk it?
>308 laytonwoman3rd: I agree â brown sugar and butter on oatmeal. And my grandmother, born in 1882 in Nebraska, would take a wedge of lettuce, put a dollop of mayonnaise on it, then sprinkle it with sugar. I donât remember trying it, and certainly wouldnât eat it now.
*smooch*
311msf59
Sweet Thursday, Richard. I will be leaving shortly to spend the morning with Jackson. Yah! I will then come home and continue to pack and load for our camping trip. We leave tomorrow.
How have you been feeling this week?
How have you been feeling this week?
313PlatinumWarlock
This message has been deleted by its author.
314richardderus
>313 PlatinumWarlock: Lavinia...sweet lady and friend to readers everywhere...boiled peanuts are Satan's poop. All right-thinking folk know this.
I shall offer up sacrifices for your family's shared curtain of benightedness to be lifted.
I shall offer up sacrifices for your family's shared curtain of benightedness to be lifted.
315alcottacre
>219 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thank you for the recommendation, RD!
((Hugs), **smooches**, and wishes for a wonderful weekend!
((Hugs), **smooches**, and wishes for a wonderful weekend!
316richardderus
>315 alcottacre: Stasia! How lovely to see you here! *smooch*
Glad to book-bullet you with such a good read.
Glad to book-bullet you with such a good read.
This topic was continued by richardderus's tenth 2023 thread.
