richardderus's tenth 2023 thread

We're almost done with summer, so of course evil old Mother Nature will bake our hides with the worst heat ever to make up for the few seconds of nice weather she's allowed us.

We poked the bear for centuries, now we get the claws.

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.
Reviews 040 to 045 linked here.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS
046 Do Elephants Have Knees? And Other Darwinian Stories of Origins in post #52.
047 Low Expectations in post #77.
048 Thunder Bay (Rebecca Connolly #1) in post #91.
049 The Blood Is Still: A Rebecca Connolly Thriller in post #94.
050 A Rattle of Bones in post #112.
051 Brought to Book (Rona Parish #1) in post #135.
052 A Crime of Secrets (A Donner & Longstreet Mystery #1) in post #167.
053 City of Ash and Red in post #181.
054 The Hole in post #187.
055 The Law of Lines in post #193.
056 Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies in post #212.
057 1794: The City Between the Bridges (Bellman Noir-trilogy #2) in post #260.
058 The Details in post #285.

Previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

#11 THE BITTER PAST in post #17.
#12 The Decagon House Murders in post #32.
#13 The Mill House Murders in post #34.
#14 A Stranger Here Below in post #38.

Previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

PEARL RULE #9 (13%) An Improbable Pairing in post #41.
PEARL RULE #10 (49%) Offerings: A Novel in post #43.
PEARL RULE #11 (42%)Sucker Punch: Getting Killed Can Be The Least of Your Problems in post #44.

My report on the first quarter of 2023's reading.
June in review.
July in review.

You're free to move about the thread.

I'm first, I'm first!
Happy new one!
Love the watermelon, pure and without condiments, thanks.

>6 richardderus: You are indeed! Have a nonsectarian Canadian crown:

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

I'll be happy again when summer is over. June was unusually (record breaking) warm, July is doable so far...

From last thread:
307 ocgreg: My goddesses...that woulda turned me into an onion-hater right quick. I do love a sweet-onion jam, though.

308 Linda3rd: My mother explained food chemistry to me early, so putting salt, a dessicant, onto watermelon, a fruit whose name wasn't given ironically, never made a lick of sense to either of us.

I myownself just swallow the seeds and have, to date, suffered no ill ef

Good morning, and good new thread to you, Richard! *smooch*

I guess I shouldn't do this, but here are some items from my semi-red-neck childhood that I hope I'm never hungry enough to have to eat again....
boiled peanuts - I was always seen as prissy, and this proves it.
clear Karo syrup on a piece of white bread
vanilla ice cream in half a cantaloupe
an onion sandwich - Put a good smear of yellow mustard on your two pieces of light bread and as many slices of yellow onions as you can tolerate.

Underbid thoses

From last thread:
309 Anita: Salt has a taste to me, so I don't tend to shake it all over everything. Thyroid issues for me a well, and an iodine sensitivity, mean salt makes my nose run on top of adding a taste I don't much like.

310 Horrible: Two entire days in a row! Plus about two thousand before that, of course. A day without caffeine is like...Armageddon, really.

Sugared mayo *shudder* is basically Miracle Whip *retch* therefore unthinkable too blob onto an innocent lettuce.

311 Birddude: Have a good Jackson Day, Gramps!

I'm not worse, so that's good. Things always hurt, something's always bleeding, it sucks to have unfixable conditions instead of treatable diseases...the usual....

>9 FAMeulstee: Good Thursday to you, Anita! We're going into a new "normal" and I suspect most of us won't much like it.

Hi Richard, time to drop a line and to see what do think about this (to me, outrageous) renaming of the Kate Greenaway Medal?

I signed this petition to preserve the oldest British literary award focused on illustration. That some small busybody group, without consultation, decided to name a male industrialist instead of keeping the Greenaway name offends on so many levels.

Quoting one of many eloquent comments on the petition, ...Andrew Carnegie did not illustrate any books as far I as I know, and while he did many noble things for books and libraries, I think he has been adequately recognized for his contributions, shows the tone-deaf choice to rebrand this medal.

Your thread has a much greater audience than my tiny following. I'm hoping you don't mind if I borrow 'your' audience to ask folks to participate in this petition.

>11 LizzieD: Karo on white bread??

What the actual F, Peggy?! How do you even have teeth?!

Blue Bell ice cream makes a vanilla-with-cantaloupe flavor. I tried it, went ~meh~, and filed it under "who cares" but now I know it was A Thing before then which I didn't know before.

Yellow mustard's never going to be my first choice. That, however, sounds like a darn good use of it. Pungent onion cut down to size by tangy mustard? I think I'll give that a try! (Only on rye bread with seeds.)

>14 SandyAMcPherson: I don't mind a bit, Sandy. Always happy to see you.

Rebranding medals and awards always strikes me as stupid. I get that you don't like celebrating people you dislike...so I want xian churches, failing their utter disestablishment and prohibition of their ability to spread their vile hate speech, to remove with immediate effect the name "Saint" from all their structures and business entities. A long, long history of fomenting anti-woman and anti-gay violence must not be celebrated! Act now and sign the petition!

We're being diatracted by trifles. The real war is on women and this kind of battle distracts from the urgent necessity to enshrine equality in law.

BURGOINE #11

THE BITTER PAST by BRUCE BORGOS

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the tradition of Craig Johnson and C. J. Box, Bruce Borgos's The Bitter Past begins a compelling series set in the high desert of Nevada featuring Sheriff Porter Beck…

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, north of Las Vegas. Born and raised there, he left to join the Army, where he worked in Intelligence, deep in the shadows in far off places. Now he's back home, doing the same lawman's job his father once did, before his father started to develop dementia. All is relatively quiet in this corner of the world, until an old, retired FBI agent is found killed. He was brutally tortured before he was killed and clues at the scene point to a mystery dating back to the early days of the nuclear age. If that wasn't strange enough, a current FBI agent shows up to help Beck's investigation.

In a case that unfolds in the past (the 1950s) and the present, it seems that a Russian spy infiltrated the nuclear testing site and now someone is looking for that long-ago, all-but forgotten person, who holds the key to what happened then and to the deadly goings on now.

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

CW: torture, misogyny
My Review: Lots of names to keep track of, a shifting timeline, point-of-view changes...there are things to work at in this read, as well as a graphic account of torture and aftermath. They are all necessary, not just stylistic choices.

What I liked the best about the read was the melding of police procedural in the present with espionage thriller in the past told with a good leavening of snark. This is a read that agreed with my desire to be involved in a story not just a passenger on a train to a known destination. The publisher's comparisons to C.J. Box and Craig Johnson are apt. I'm a sucker for a series set in a place I don't want to go, and that included all deserts...especially irradiated ones! I could *feel* the dryness as I read along.

I found the polygamous-Mormons subplot to be tacked-on and found it contributed nothing to my experience of the read.

Happy new thread, Richard.

Happy new thread, Richard! Can't help a couple of comments though...

>1 richardderus: "Almost done with summer" -- in July?!? Being from SoCal I've always considered it summer until at least the end of September.

>11 LizzieD: never had any of those and hope I never will 😝

Happy New Thread, Richard dear! Here in the middle of the country we have had an actually pretty moderate summer compared to our usual. My garden likes it.

>18 ArlieS: Thank you, Arlie. Happy to see you here.

>19 RebaRelishesReading: Summer is an eternal presence in SoCal. Like in Texas, where I'm from, there's really just one season...summer...with a few anomalous weeks tossed in every once in a while. Yuck.

*makes a boiled-peanut CARE package for Reba* Must try new things! *eeeville cackle*

>20 ronincats: The bill will come due, my dear Roni. Let's not think about it...*smooch*

>22 richardderus: I have tried them, Richard. While traveling in the south several (many?) years ago we stopped at a roadside stand and bought a bag -- YUCK!!! I have to admit I'm not a huge peanut fan in any form but if it doesn't at least have some crunch I really don't want it.

I wouldn't say SoCal is summer all year -- there is the rainy (winter) season in January and February ("innocent smile")

Happy new thread, Richard! *Smooch*

Happy new one, RD!

Happy new thread, Richard!

I grew up salting my watermelon -- it was just how we did it.

Mrs. swynn grew up sugaring her watermelon for the same reason.

We spent a couple of years trying to convince each other that one way was correct and the other was a crime against watermelon, until we both realized that a properly ripe melon needs neither. Happy ending, yadda yadda.

>24 RebaRelishesReading: Horrifying things, aren't they, the boiled peanut? The rainy weeks are indeed annual, but a season...? Storms aren't seasons, are they.

>25 bell7: Hiya Mary, happy to see you here! *smooch*

>26 katiekrug: Thank you, Katie!

>27 swynn: Y'all had terrible childhoods filled with unconscionable crimes against nature, obvs.

*there there, patpat*

BURGOINE #12

The Decagon House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (tr. Ho-Ling Wong)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The lonely, rockbound island of Tsunojima is notorious as the site of a series of bloody unsolved murders. Some even say it’s haunted. One thing’s for sure: it’s the perfect destination for the K-University Mystery Club’s annual trip.

But when the first club member turns up dead, the remaining amateur sleuths realise they will need all of their murder-mystery expertise to get off the island alive.

As the party are picked off one by one, the survivors grow desperate and paranoid, turning on each other. Will anyone be able to untangle the murderer’s fiendish plan before it’s too late?

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

My Review: It's And Then There Were None with a Japanese accent. It works the same way, it has the same strengths (puzzles are fun!) and weaknesses (set-up is improbable in the extreme). This iteration is satisfying to me in that it doesn't ignore the conventions as does make use of its own vernacular. The translator chose, for example, not to switch family names and personal names around to suit western usage. I like that, others won't, so be aware of the fact.

The prose, as translated, is a bit flat. The world the tale takes place in is largely nuanceless, so it feels like it's a kabuki performance in front of scenery instead of an equally artificial film set where volumes flicker in front of our eyes fast enough to fool them into thinking they're real. That's not a flaw to me, but it does obtrude when I try to find an emotional resonance to the killings. Maybe that's a good thing? Whatever it is, good or bad, it's a choice that left me without a fourth-star's worth of involvement.

Satisfying read, though not in the ordinary ways of series mysteries. I will, however, read them as Pushkin Vertigo publishes them.

Happy new thread.
>27 swynn: sounds a lot like our pancake day debate. I have brown sugar & lemon juice, he has white sugar & orange juice. Pancakes definitely need something, but we are each convinced the other is wrong. >:-)

BURGOINE #13

The Mill House Murders by Yukito Ayatsuji (tr. Ho-Ling Wong)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Every year, a small group of acquaintances pay a visit to the remote, castle-like Mill House, home to the reclusive Fujinuma Kiichi, son of a famous artist, who has lived his life behind a rubber mask ever since a disfiguring car accident. This year, however, the visit is disrupted by an impossible disappearance, the theft of a painting and a series of baffling murders.

The brilliant Kiyoshi Shimada arrives to investigate. But will he uncover the truth, and will you be able to solve the mystery of the Mill House Murders before he does?

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

My Review: Another more-than-competent hommage à Dame Agatha. This one, though, is much, much more dependent on you to pay careful attention to the dramatis personae on page 11. And pay close attention to the times on chapter opening pages! Most Anglophone readers aren't going to parse the names with the ease of those culturally familiar to us, so bookmark that page and save yourself confusion.

Enjoying, or even solving, it is very dependent on you keeping track of dual timelines, and since all the same characters appear in both, this can be a challenge. It was my mistake to read this book so soon after the first one, The Decagon House Murders...it reinforced my opinion of the prose as flat to my more western reading-ear. The ending of this entry in the ongoing series is, peculisr though it sounds in light of my comments about the prose, melodramatic. Delightfully so, I hasten to add. Made me smile and even lift my hand in a fond salute. After a gap, I will certainly read more of these Pushkin Vertigo-published pleasures.

>295 richardderus: I'll cop to hating boiled peanuts, too

Nooooo!!!! I'm sure you have many, many redeeming qualities, Richard, but this one makes me sad. 😭😭😭

Granted, I grew up in central Florida, where there are also boiled peanut stands all over the place, so I ate them from childhood. They're nonexistent in the Pacific Northwest, and it's even damned hard to find raw peanuts in the stores for me to make them myself. (Asian markets are the only option I've ever found.) But once my dear Jeff made a u-turn at 70 miles an hour on a little side road outside of Bradenton, FL, because I saw a telltale sign. It was when I knew he was a keeper. 😘

>35 PlatinumWarlock: I shall repeat myself here: 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.

>33 Helenliz: Thank you, Helen.

Pancakes without a lot of butter strike me as weird, even though they're not American-style pancakes. That said, brown sugar and lemon does sound more like The Thing than plain sugar.

Burgoine #14

A Stranger Here Below (Gideon Stoltz #1) by Charles Fergus

Rating: 3.5 of five

The Publisher Says: For fans of C.J. Box's Joe Pickett series, a fabulous historical mystery series set in early America.

“Deeply imagined and intricately plotted, A Stranger Here Below marries richly textured historical fiction with the urgency of a mystery novel. Fergus knows certain things, deep in the horses, hunting, the folkways of rural places, and he weaves this wisdom into a stirring tale.” – Geraldine Brooks, author of March and People of the Book

Set in 1835 in the Pennsylvania town of Adamant, Fergus’s first novel in a new mystery series introduces Sheriff Gideon Stoltz, who, as a young deputy, is thrust into his position by the death of the previous sheriff. Gideon faces his first real challenge as death rocks the small town again when the respected judge Hiram Biddle commits suicide. No one is more distraught than Gideon, whom the old judge had befriended as a mentor and hunting partner. Gideon is regarded with suspicion as an he’s new to town, and Pennsylvania Dutch in the back-country Scotch-Irish settlement. And he found the judge’s body.

Making things even tougher is the way the judge’s death stirs up vivid memories of Gideon’s mother’s murder, the trauma that drove him west from his home in the settled Dutch country of eastern Pennsylvania. He had also discovered her body.

At first Gideon simply wants to learn why Judge Biddle killed himself. But as he finds out more about the judge’s past, he realizes that his friend's suicide was spurred by much more than the man’s despair. Gideon’s quest soon becomes more complex as it takes him down a dangerous path into the past.

A Stranger Here Below is so atmospheric, so compelling and convincing, that readers will taste the grit of the dirt roads, cringe at the unsanitary conditions and medical superstitions that inflame a flu epidemic, and marvel at the immensely arduous task of carrying out an investigation using the primitive tools of the early 1800s. Fergus leaves us breathlessly waiting for the next Gideon Stoltz mystery.

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

My Review: Sometimes someone dies who just needed killin'. As this very deliberately paced mystery unfolds, that's the victim. I wasn't sorry he was dead, and was a little peevish about Gideon caring so much as to keep pursuing the matter. Well, anyway, if you're in the mood for a really atmospheric historical read, here's a very good candidate.

The blurb from Geraldine Brooks should tell her fans what they need to know: It's very immersive and has three-dimensional characters. I don't rate it higher because it was slow to get moving and occasionally wandered off down interesting but unnecessary tangents. I will, however, read the next one when Skyhorse Publishing brings it out.

Happy new thread Richard!

>39 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

PEARL RULE #9 (13%)

An Improbable Pairing by Gary Dickson

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: It began as a simple flirtation . . .

In September of 1963, Scott Stoddard, an American graduate student, is traveling to Switzerland, when he meets the Countess de Rovere, a French divorcee; he is smitten, and she is intrigued. What begins as a little coquetry soon becomes a serious love affair, much to the consternation of the Countess's ex-husband and mother, not to mention the Countess's friends of European high society. A meeting of equals poses problems enough, but what about one between two people who seem to have so many differences? And when a man of traditional attitudes couples with an independent and self-confident woman, something's got to give. It won't be the countess. As their liaison transcends an affair that cannot be dismissed, they all agree that something must be done.

An Improbable Pairing is a historical romance that chronicles the enduring themes of a young man's coming of age and the rebellious love of the mismatched. This pas de deux, set in the golden years of 1960s Paris, Geneva, Gstaad, and Cannes, provides an insider's peek into the worlds of haute couture, three-star gourmet restaurants, and lavish hotel suites—the domains of rank and privilege. But society's privileged resist when an interloper threatens to upset their cozy structure.

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

My Review: I gave up when, a the end of chapter ten, I read this:

Was there room enough in Scott's life for Geneva's pleasues and scholarly pursuits? Though it might tale a while, he was confident he'd find the right balance between his newfound friends, social diversions, and schoolwork.

His editor needs to be sent back to school. That is a wodge of stodge that couldn't possibly be a worse way to end a chapter...it kills any sense of momentum, debilitates any emotional investment in the character, and, if it's absolutely crucial to the plot later, would've been better phrased as a letter home. It's believable as a twentysomething naïf's epistle to his worried Mama but dear GAWD not as a third-person omniscient narrator's voice!

As the book's now out of print, I guess I am not the only one who thought so.

Hi Richard, Happy New Thread my dear friend.

PEARL RULE #10 (49%)

Offerings: A Novel by Michael ByungJu Kim

Rating: A very generous, probably unwarranted 3* of five

The Publisher Says: The national bestseller that Gary Shteyngart has called, "A potent combination of a financial thriller and a coming-of-age immigrant tale. . . . Offerings is a great book."

With the rapidly cascading Asian Financial Crisis threatening to go global and Korea in imminent meltdown, investment banker Dae Joon finds himself back in his native Seoul as part of an international team brought in to rescue the country from sovereign default. For Dae Joon—also known by his American name of Shane, after the cowboy movie his father so loved—the stakes are personal.

Raised in the US and Harvard Business School–educated, Dae Joon is a jangnam, a firstborn son, bound by tradition to follow in the footsteps of his forebears. But rather than pursue the path his scholar-father wanted, he has sought a career on Wall Street, at the epicenter of power in the American empire. Now, as he and his fellow bankers work feverishly with Korean officials to execute a sovereign bond offering to raise badly needed capital, he knows that his own father is living on borrowed time, in the last stages of a disease that is the family curse. A young woman he has met is quietly showing the way to a different future. And when his closest friend from business school, a scion of one of Korea's biggest chaebol, asks his help in a sale that may save the conglomerate but also salvage a legacy of corruption, he finds himself in personal crisis, torn by dueling loyalties, his identity tested.

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

My Review: When, oh when! will I learn from my own oft-repeated lessons?! IF SOMEONE WHOSE WRITING YOU HATE BLURBS A BOOK, AVOID IT.

At the end of chapter 15, almost halfway through the book, I encountered what was for me the last straw...an extended metaphor of submission to authority in order always to be protected from the hideous dangers of your baser nature, and simultaneously a warning that the most comfortable illusions mask a genuinely threatening reality, in the form of a Korean folktale about a fox-spirit mother guarding her son.

It might work better for you than it did me, because the writing is...competent-plus...and has descriptive passages of some charm; Arcade Publishing is offering it and doing okay with it. I wasn't sufficiently invested to keep going after that smack upside my li'l punkin haid.

PEARL RULE #11 (42%)

Sucker Punch: Getting Killed Can Be The Least of Your Problems by Jim Carroll

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Johnny Mack wanted to be an airline pilot who flew all over the world, made great money and met lots of girls. At 18 that seemed like a fair trade for a few years in the Army.

Johnny found out too late that in 1971 the Army only needed helicopter pilots. And they only needed them in Vietnam.

After an unfortunate incident involving a General’s daughter, Johnny ‘volunteers’ to go undercover on a Medevac crew suspected of selling Army medicines to the enemy.

Johnny’s control officer’s incompetence is deadlier than any enemy. Johnny’s crew are psychopathic pirates.

Then there is the regular job. Coming into hot landing zones. Loading the dead and wounded. Ignoring the screaming and thrashing about in the back. Holding the helicopter steady as bullets rip through the bird. Cleaning out the blood and gore as part of the regular post flight.

There is no one to trust. Death is coming from every direction.

As life spirals out of his control, Johnny realizes that getting killed may be the least of his problems. His sanity, his soul and everything that he believes himself to be, are in as much danger as his life.

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

My Review: A double-agent black-market-busting thriller in Vietnam by the author of The Basketball Diaries? Sign me up!, said my twentysomething avatar within.

I'm sixty-three, and the outer me trudged through horny-straight-boy stuff until he was ready to scream; then, at the end of chapter 23, the final blow to my youthful avatar was struck: "We'd never been called by the Ghost 4 call sign either. Everybody elsw just calld for a Dustoff."

Absent a lot more typing, I can't give you the whole context for that, but it was too much of the same kind of Army-speak in too little space for my tolerance. Which, I think I mentioned was already over-stretched by horny-straight-boy boob-obsessed boringness.

I had the thought, as I read along, that Waino Mellas of Matterhorn fame, never once gave me this kind of eyerolling impatience. It seems not to be the subject matter, then, but the execution I'm not responding well to.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. Happy New Thread. FYI- I did sneak in on your last thread, just before you launched this one. Hope all is well.

>45 msf59: I'm sorry I missed you, Birddude. I expect you enjoyed Jackson Day today and are eager to get out there and insult your ancestors' hard-fought attainments to sleep outside when you ain't gotta.

>36 richardderus: Dear, dear Richard... I'm going to forgive you simply because boiled peanuts are Satan's poop was so funny that I just blew iced tea out my nose. Well done, sir! (And I have to admit that, despite Jeff's high-speed u-turn, he completely agrees with your assessment.)

And on that note... yay, more boiled peanuts for me!!!

(P.S. Happy new thread, Richard! 😀)

Happy New 🧵, Richard . I confess, I had never heard of boiled 🥜 until I read about them on your thread . Just say no!

Happy new one, Richard. I'm like Deb, never heard of boiled peanuts and don't have any need to try them. Skimmed past the watermelon on your opener too. Not a fan. I'm not sure that summer is near the end here. It has been going on forever, no rain in sight. No smoke here either but that probably won't last.

Quick look away and you pile on 50 posts on your new thread. Great to see you well again dear fellow.

Happy new thread.

Happy new thread, RD, and happy Friday!

>1 richardderus: We poked the bear for centuries, now we get the claws. Sigh. Yup.

I’ve been pretty much disappointed with every single watermelon I’ve bought in the last decade or so, and I'm usually good at picking watermelons, BUT hope lives on. I’ll probably buy one this month or early August.

>10 richardderus: I don’t remember why it came up, but when I was 10-ish, one of my parents told me that if I swallowed a watermelon seed I’d get pregnant. This, mind you, was before that was even a possibility. Sheesh.

>11 LizzieD: I read your list to Jenna, Peggy, and she huffed over boiled peanuts but agreed with everything else. We don’t eat white bread, we don’t dis cantaloupe by putting ice cream in it (and God forbid putting cottage cheese in it), and onions are to be used sparingly and only cooked IN things in our house. Except for liver and onions, of course.

>17 richardderus: Sounds a tad too busy for me. I haven’t even read the Longmire books I have, much less a new similar series.

>36 richardderus: Satan’s poop… I’ll mention this to Jenna. She’ll crack up for sure.

>38 richardderus: Meh. I’ve read quite a few books over the years wherein the victim deserved to die and the Powers That Be just blinked and didn’t pursue it… My moral compass doesn't balk at justifiable homicide.

A recommendation from Brooks doesn’t do much for me personally, alas. I’ve either read and not liked People of the Book or completely avoided all Brooks’ books except for Year of Wonder. I do have Nine Parts of Desire on my shelves just waiting for the right time, though.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

046 Do Elephants Have Knees? And Other Darwinian Stories of Origins by Charles R. Ault Jr.

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Thinking whimsically makes serious science accessible. That's a message that should be taken to heart by all readers who want to learn about evolution. Do Elephants Have Knees? invites readers into serious appreciation of Darwinian histories by deploying the playful thinking found in children's books. Charles R. Ault Jr. weds children's literature to recent research in paleontology and evolutionary biology. Inquiring into the origin of origins stories, Ault presents three portraits of Charles Darwin curious child, twentysomething adventurer, and elderly worm scientist. Essays focusing on the origins of tetrapods, elephants, whales, and birds explain fundamental Darwinian concepts (natural selection, for example) with examples of fossil history and comparative anatomy.

The imagery of the children's story offers a way to remember and recreate scientific discoveries. By juxtaposing Darwin's science with tales for children, Do Elephants Have Knees? underscores the importance of whimsical storytelling to the accomplishment of serious thinking. Charles Darwin mused about duck beaks and swimming bears as he imagined a pathway for the origin of baleen. A "bearduck" chimera may be a stretch, but the science linking not just cows but also whales to moose through shared ancestry has great merit. Teaching about shared ancestry may begin with attention to Bernard Wiseman's Morris the Moose. Morris believes that cows and deer are fine examples of moose because they all have four legs and things on their heads. No whale antlers are known, but fossils of four-legged whales are. By calling attention to surprising and serendipitous echoes between children's stories and challenging science, Ault demonstrates how playful thinking opens the doors to an understanding of evolutionary thought.

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

My Review: One third concise, accessible potted biography of Charles Darwin, two-thirds essays offering new, if odd, pathways to contextualizing Darwin's famous Theory of Evolution by means of natural selection. It's enjoyably presented, contains enough illustrative figures to give the reader a sense of what they're reading about, and makes its science plain.

I really don't get the inclusion of quotes from kidlit. It's not always apt, at least it wasn't so to me, but it really didn't ever detract from my reading of Dr. Ault's stories. If you, like I did, think this book is aimed at younger audiences, get that misconception out of your head now. Maybe a high-school senior at the youngest, more likely a not-very-science-oriented twentysomething is at the sweet spot. The older reader whose science education is behind the curve will get a lot out of the read because it's packed with reasonably current science. Really good analogies and examples bring meaning to often abstract concepts. The vocabulary pulls no punches, so have your preferred reference source handy. There are endnotes aplenty, and the index actually functioned as an index...it was, after all, published by a university press. All of this, on top of the popular-science tone of the author's presentation, gave me a very enjoyable reading experience.

>47 PlatinumWarlock: You're more than welcome to that laugh, Lavinia, it's my pleasure.

(PS: thanks!)

>48 vancouverdeb: Thank you most kindly, Miss Deborah, ma'am.

I've said "no" every time I've been offered the opportunity to so much as touch a boiled peanut, never you fear. *urp*

>49 Familyhistorian: Being from the land of igloos and moose-sleds, Meg, I'm not terribly shocked that watermelon doesn't loom large in your cultural landscape. Down here where 40C is just another Wednesday, cold watermelon is heavenly. When I was a kid, there was a place in Manhattan called Schrafft's where one got the most glorious desserts! Vanilla ice cream with a piece of pickled watermelon rind was one of Mama's favorites, and I must say I liked it too.

>50 PaulCranswick: Happy to see you here, PC!

>51 karenmarie: PREGNANT?!?
...
...
...
...words fail me...a ten-year old?! That's over any line I've ever encountered.

I adore calf's liver and onions, and treat myself to it every other year.

Re: >38 richardderus: I don't like Geraldine Brooks very much, either, but she's nailed this pretty lukewarmly endorsed by me book to a T. My goal was to alert both fans and detractors to her opinion. After the awful experience of >43 richardderus: I ain't forgettin' this lesson again.

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard. Stay cool, because of course, you are cool!
*smoocn*

>58 LizzieD: You silver-tongued succubus, you! Actually I'm a bit chilly...it started out rainy today so my room's a/c got it quite, quite cool. I'm wearing long sleeves so as not to get a chill...in July! *bliss*

*smooch*

>28 richardderus: Well, rain tends to come in bunches in CA, generally in January and February -- rest of the year it's bit of an occasion if it rains.

>60 RebaRelishesReading: One of childhood's huge adjustments was the prevalence of rain and the frequency of thunderstorms in Texas as opposed to California!

None of their agenda does my blood pressure any good. This piece makes me panther-screechingly furious.

>62 richardderus: Good morning, Richard. I will not rant. I will not rant. I will not rant. There.

I wish you a very good weekend with quiet in the room and a good book in hand!

*smooch*

Checking in on the new thread before I get hopelessly behind again. ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>63 LizzieD: Quiet, I fear, isn't on my cards for weekend days. Old Stuff watches non-stop stupidity and doesn't eat because the Jews insist on having the kitchen kosher so we get salads. His toothlessness makes those a practical impossibility to consume, and there's zero wiggle room in religion's demands.

Like my offer to buy him headphones, the facility's repeated offers to get him to a dentist to be refitted with unbroken dentures get rudely rebuffed. Dementia is a bugger. White noise in my own headphones is the best I get.

Ranting about women's rights is always safe here, dear lady.

>64 alcottacre: *smoochiesmoochsmooch* Happy to see you here, Stasia!

Hiya, RDear! Happy Saturday afternoon.

>57 richardderus: I don’t remember thinking it pervy or anything… just something they heard when they was young and then repeated. My parents were rather insensitive in most things, actually.

>62 richardderus: Psychos, Gang of.

>65 richardderus: I’d offer sympathy re OS but I know how awful he’s been to you over the years. Payback’s a bitch, I guess.

>67 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! Old Stuff's just a fact of my existence, so reminding myself that it could easily be a lot worse is the best way I can manage my stress levels.

Pervy is all a matter of perspective...you didn't, couldn't, have any as a kid. Now it feels squicky, but in 1760-ish things were very different. They weren't sensitive? Alcoholics? My pearls, my pearls...

Just dropping off some Saturday smooches from where I sit on my warm but shady deck.

>69 MickyFine: Hiya Micky! Welcome, and thanks for the smooches.

Good morning, Richard, with the hope that the whole east coast is enjoying the slightly cooler and dryer weather we're having here this morning. Made the early walk a treat!

I wish you something nice to eat, something nice to read, and a bit of joy! *smooch*

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

>68 richardderus: 1760-ish, eh? *smile*

>71 LizzieD: What Peggy said - I wish you something nice to eat, something nice to read, and a bit of joy!

*smooch*

So, Harry Hole's creator has finally written something I can read without a juvenile snigger distracting me from the story...The Night House. Its details:
Description
From the internationally best-selling author, a chilling fresh spin on the classic horror novel • When the voices call, don't answer.

“In The Night House, the horror begins immediately. And it only keeps calling from there.”—Josh Malerman, New York Times best-selling author of Bird Box and Spin a Black Yarn

In the wake of his parents’ tragic deaths in a house fire, fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote, insular town of Ballantyne. Richard quickly earns a reputation as an outcast, and when a classmate named Tom goes missing, everyone suspects the new, angry boy is responsible for his disappearance. No one believes him when he says the telephone booth out by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver like something out of a horror movie. No one, that is, except Karen, a beguiling fellow outsider who encourages Richard to pursue clues the police refuse to investigate. He traces the number that Tom prank-called from the phone booth to an abandoned house in the Mirror Forest. There he catches a glimpse of a terrifying face in the window. And then the voices begin to whisper in his ear . . .

She’s going to burn. The girl you love is going to burn. There’s nothing you can do about it.

When another classmate disappears, Richard must find a way to prove his innocence—and preserve his sanity—as he grapples with the dark magic that is possessing Ballantyne and pursuing his destruction.

Then again, Richard may not be the most reliable narrator of his own story . . .
***
It's a weentsy bit weird to read my own name as often as I will be in this book. >71 LizzieD: & >72 karenmarie: y'all's good-book wishes came true in spades! I'm really enjoying my two mysteries...Brought to Book (Rona Parish, #1) by Anthea Fraser, and A Crime of Secrets by Ann Aptaker (no touchstone), both very very involving.

>71 LizzieD: Morning, Peggy. It's pretty pleasant here today. Such a treat not to feel like I'm slimed in sticky, icky humidity.

See >73 richardderus: for the reading report...the eating bit ain't happenin' unless you're sending a CARE package...hey-ho, I'm not hungry so it's all good.

>72 karenmarie: Howdy do, Smoochling. Well, you were born in '53, right? soooo '60 makes sense, right? *smooch*

047 Low Expectations by Stuart Everly-Wilson

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: I begin to record the history of it all, because if I don’t I will explode, leaving nothing to tell of me but a pile of ash. In this history I will try to leave nothing out, but I will also be careful not to incorporate any extraneous unnecessary shit. Like objectivity. Objectivity is for those who don’t have a point to make, or a side to take. There is only one side to this story and that’s mine.

1970s, Western Sydney. A boy and his mum living in a street where neighbours keep an eye on everyone else’s business. A detested bully. And a family secret, barely hidden.

Devon Destri flies under the radar. He doesn’t talk to anyone, calls himself hard of speaking, and doesn’t correct anyone’s assumptions of his low intelligence. If no one knows otherwise, no one will expect anything of him, and maybe he won’t need to expect anything of himself—that is, beyond running a highly lucrative porn-magazine racket. Only his fiercely loyal friend Big Tammy and Krenek the Hungarian refugee know that Great Expectations is his favourite book, or that he can read at all. But when Devon starts to piece together his mother’s secret, his intellect and charm are put to startling and devastating use.

Stuart Everly-Wilson’s Low Expectations is a heartbreaking and hilarious story of resilience, revenge and love that captures the complexity of vulnerability and bravado. Devon Destri, with his sharp wit and gift for one-liners, is a character you’ll never forget.

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

My Review: Anyone who's read anything I've written here in the past ten years knows that I admire one thing about Dickens: nothing. A chore to read at best, an excruciatingly twee sentimental boor at least, he's famous wherever English is spoken because he makes average people feel smart, and smart people feel godlike, for "getting" his stories and their layers. To me, that's like congratulating yourself for knowing tomatoes are fruits but having the sense not to put them in fruit salad.

Low Expectations stars a teen, one with multivalent social and physical challenges, whose favorite book is Great Expectations. So coming of age, Dickens veneration, and Australian setting. Not an immediate fit for my US-centric, anti-Chuckles the Dick self, then.

I got within an ace of giving it five stars just for being raucously its ownself.

You who belong to the Church of Chuckles know he's fond of the sesquipedalian sentence, the orotund ekphrasis, the hifalutin verbiage. Quite why Devon, our PoV character, loves him, then is Dickensianly (in the "stop-hitting-me-with-the-message" sense) clear. He's "hard of speaking," a beautiful little Dickensian (in the best sense of fulfilling a need for a phrase that no one knew was there except him) creation for someone who simply doesn't want to speak much. Better not to let anyone in on his secret: he is a smart, observant, sensitive guy stuck in a world that just has no place for that kind of time-wasting, but expects people to be hard, both -working and -hearted, to make it in their working-class world. Devon feels safe in his hidey-hole with the special needs kids, he refers to it as the "spaz Gulag" and now let's talk about lanuguage. Diametrically opposite to Dickens, Devon's narrative voice is choppy and frequently heavy on the "worty dirds," as a teacher of mine called them. He absolutely has no respect for anyone who isn't worthy in his eyes, including himself. For the 2020s US audience this can lead to pursed lips and furrowed brows. Either check your fifty-years-later, wildly different culture expectations of politeness at the door, or don't pick the book up...and I straongly encourage the former choice. The alchemy of the story is, like Devon's favorite story, in the way the entire experience of reading it subverts the thoughts and expectations you started out with so often that the wonder is you emerge with any expectations left.

This bitter draft of gall and wormwood comes about because our hard-of-speaking narrator learns a truly life-changing secret about the mother he disrespects and denigrates. As she's raised him by herself, I don't think you need a lot of brainpower to figure out what it's about. I will say that it didn't seem hugely surprising to me when it was revealed; I was by that time exasperated with Devon for not picking up on it before he did. What matters in this rough-tongued kid's world is keeping himself a small enough target to avoid more than the irreducible minimum of abuse and also attention. It makes him a more-than-ordinarily solipsistic adolescent. His eyes are sharp...his attention is not focused outside his self-defined sphere of defense. As he's breaking the law, he's wise to keep his thoughts from straying too far afield. Adult readers who're parents will, I'm sure, think the right thoughts about how the family-related things end up before they do.

With the laundry list of CWs, why would I rate this book so highly? Because I'm Devon's age and, even though I grew up in Texas, the culture of cruelty wasn't a lot different there. Instead of someone telling a loudly pruriently foulmouthed and prejudiced tale of the modern day in order to shock and appall and titillate, this story recounts the way it was in that time and place, and does so with clarity and purpose. The world was what it was, but Devon is a work in progress, and by the end of the book the Devon we met is appreciably more adult in the postive ways than I ever expected him to be.

But for all that, peruse the CWs and make sure you're not going to pass out when they come to pass because they all do.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Monday to you.

>73 richardderus: Richard and Karen, eh? It won’t come out ‘til October, alas, and I’ve put it on my wish list. I abandoned the Harry Hole series, but this one sounds good.

>76 richardderus: I’ve seen this or one similar to this before.

>77 richardderus: Well. Added to my wish list. Church of Chuckles… the whole review made me smile.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>78 karenmarie: I thought that >73 richardderus: was amusant, too, Horrible. I just can't with Harry Hole. Just...nope, can't take this seriously. I hope this book is a good read.

Low Expectations will benefit from you lowering yours, especially as regards caustically foul language. It took me a couple false starts to get past the misogyny...but the time and place were being excoriated and there was no slightly wistful whiff of "the Good Old Days." That saved it, in my eyes. I'm glad it sounded tempting to you.

Monday *smooch*

Been working on building a fire pit in the back yard, so I'm way late... Happy new thread!

I chuckled at your description of Dickens -- I've never liked him either and, actually, had never finished a book of his until I read David Copperfield earlier this year in preparation for reading Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. It did help me appreciate her book.

Their war against women isn't new...the battles just still rage.

>80 drneutron: Greetings, Jim! As your apology for ignoring me, I expect an invitation to join you and Danita around the fire pit. I'll bring the bourbon.

>81 RebaRelishesReading: I've had a hate/loathe relationship to Chuckles the Dick since the time in 1972 I was forced to read A Tale of Two Cities. HATED it. So very Victorian and in all the most judgmental, pro-establishment ways that wounded my budding leftist's soul.

>83 richardderus: Oh, that's a given!

>76 richardderus: Haha.

>82 richardderus: The sorry state of affairs continues.

Hi RD, hope you had a good day.

>85 drneutron: Excellent!

>86 Caroline_McElwee: It's not as though it's a new phenomenon, Caro. The suffragettes of 1903 would chuckle at the prissiness of our discourse, given their post-box-exploding, hunger-striking battles to get the right to vote. Why we have to keep fighting this battle is the bit that makes me seethingly furious. Progress never sticks!

>77 richardderus: For me, it's learning about what an awful human being Dickens was that turns me off of his work. But the Everly-Wilson sounds good. Adding it to the Swamp.

>89 swynn: I'm very pleased you'll try it out, Steve. It's very much an equal-opportunity offender.

048 Thunder Bay (Rebecca Connolly #1) by Douglas Skelton

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Stoirm’s secrets are worth killing for in this gripping thriller for readers of All the Missing Girls and Neon Prey.

When reporter Rebecca Connolly gets a tip that suspected murderer Roddie Drummond will be returning to the island of Stoirm, she smells a story. Though never convicted in the death of his girlfriend Mhairi fifteen years earlier, Drummond is still guilty in the eyes of many islanders, and his return for his mother’s funeral is sure to stir up old resentments, hatreds, possibly even violence. Rebecca has another reason for going to Stoirm. Her own father came from there, but he never went back, and he always refused to speak of it or say what drove him away.

Defying her editor, Rebecca joins forces with local photographer Chazz Wymark to dig into the mystery surrounding Mhairi's death and her unexplained last words, “Thunder Bay”—the secluded spot on the west coast of the island where, according to local lore, the souls of the dead set off into the afterlife. When a string of violent events erupts across the island, Rebecca discovers the power of secrets, and she must decide what to bury, and what to bring into the light.

Longlisted for Bloody Scotland's McIlvanney Prize for best crime book of the year.

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

My Review: Journalists make great sleuths for a series because asking questions and poking into stuff others would prefer to leave alone is literally their job description. They're also, by training, very, very sensitive to being lied to and misdirected. Plus the police know they really need what journalists have...the public's attention...so they tend to understand that cooperation is the best way forward if both sides are to get what they want and need.

This series opener relies on an investigative journalist, Rebecca Connolly, ignoring her editor's instructions to leave a juicy story about a past crime alone. A murder happens, the perp...in everyone's eyes a guilty man...fled his little gossipy island community after the Scottish verdict is handed down (loosely translatable as "not guilty but don't do it again"), leaving all islanders convnced that he absolutely murdered the beautiful, popular girl he was living with. Now, fifteen years later, he's back. Things on the island are changing, luxury vacation destination development is being proposed, opposed, and debated, and here's Roddie coming home to a place that emphatically does not want him.

What unfolds is a corking raking-up of old secrets, including some from Rebecca's family that's from this island. There is an expected amount of anti-social behavior, mostly in the past, but the homophobia and domestic violence here could offend a sensitive reader. It isn't prurient in its use but it is present and neither downlayed nor valorized. Your personal thresholds for this kind of action should be your guide in picking the book up.

The very best thing about this story is the intensity of place in it...the island, the islanders, the outsider (Rebecca) come to stir things up and ask questions about her own family connection to the place...all vividly described and strategically deployed to lure the reader in and cause the readerly radar to see false images and think they're facts. This requires Author Skelton to deploy an unweildy cast of characters and to require the undivided attention of his reader. The late Connolly père backstory, and its deep-past relationship to the story told here, felt like that one-too-manyeth bite of pecan pie with whipped cream...so tasty but just should've stayed on the plate because now it's all a wee bit much. The rhetorical palate-cleansing swig of coffee that is Rebecca's full comprehension of her father's reason for being so closemouthed about his youth on the island wasn't quite enough to keep the fifth star on this stellar debut effort. The big reveal of it was, to be honest, anti-climactic to me because I thought "...really...? this is what you were traumatized by, with all the other stuff going on?"

So, not a perfect read but, as a series-starter, darn good entertainment. Worth your eyeblinks and your gold.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

>82 richardderus:

1. I can still remember the joy in my mother’s voice when she got her first in-my-name-only-your-dad-didn’t-have-to-sign-with-me credit card
2. I remember being asked if I had plans on starting a family any time soon at an interview as late as 1986
3. Open door policies became common when I was interviewing
4. I never, ever made as much as any man in the same position I was except for my last position, Master Scheduler, which I transferred to from the more lucrative field of IT
5. I’m grateful I was never in the position to need that Act
6. Just in time for me to get birth control as a single woman in 1973…

>88 richardderus: Sigh. Yes. Progress never sticks.

*smooch*

>92 karenmarie: In your lifetime, every one of these acts have come into law...and it enrages some (and not only men) that they exist. I do not like my species a whole lot at the best of times, but these examples of hateful, small-souled wrongheadedness offend me on every level.

Because it never sticks, we can never stop.

*smooch*

049 The Blood Is Still: A Rebecca Connolly Thriller by Douglas Skelton

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Investigative journalist Rebecca Connolly returns in this riveting, immersive thriller from the author of Thunder Bay—for readers of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, and Denise Mina

When a man in eighteenth-century Highland dress is found dead on the site of the Battle of Culloden, where Bonnie Prince Charlie led his forces to a rout seared into Scottish memory, Rebecca Connolly takes up the case for the Chronicle. A controversial film about the rebellion and battle is being shot nearby, and it has drawn the ire of the right-wing nationalist movement Spirit of the Gael. Is there some link between the murder—the weapon used to impale the man leaves no doubt it was murder—and Spirit of the Gael or the shadowy militant group New Dawn, thought to be associated with them?

Meanwhile, in the working-class part of town, Rebecca's assignment to cover a protest against the placement of a convicted child molester into the community leads her to Mo Burke, the unlikely protest leader. Mo is a formidable woman, but she is also the matriarch of a known crime family and usually prefers to shun the spotlight. What has drawn her out? And what of her two grown sons, who share in the family business? The older one, Nolan, with Ben Affleck good looks, is clearly intrigued by Rebecca, as she is by him, despite her better instincts to steer clear of their dangerous, violent world.

And then another body is found, this one wearing the Redcoat uniform of the victorious British army.

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

My Review: There's a theme developing here...huge casts of characters, this time with lots of Scots Gaelic spellings for many things, people, organizations. Rebecca, our sleuth, stumbles into another community buzzsaw as she covers the protests against a convicted pedophile being housed in a working-class neighborhood that happens to be the turf of a crime family...in its most literal sense. The matriarch, Mo, is an understandably publicity-shy person. She has broken her public silence to lead the protests against the pedophile's housing among her people. Add in a right-wing politico out to woo voters to his vile cause by stoking paranoia (*sigh* in Scotland, too?) to a terrorist organization sowing fear and distrust plus a major motion picture using the touchy site of the Battle of Culloden and we're away!
The narratives are as expected loaded with wonderfully observed and described moments, people, emotions, and places. Possibly a bit harder to take in with equanimity are the anonymous narratives of a survivor of sexual assault. I was put off by them, but as the ending unfolded, I understood why Author Skelton made that particular choice. Be aware that it exists in the narrative, but also that it serves a plot purpose beyond prurience.

Journalism is undergoing a lot of changes in the internet age. Rebecca's job is, she feels, unstable because there have been some executive ownership shifts at her paper. What that means for her future is, clearly, to be determined...along with her interesting taste for local crime-family man Nolan. His mother, redoubtable Mo, isn't at all pleased with her son because he's done with crime and because he's been clear with her that he's not going to back away from fascinating, exciting Rebecca. This conflict is very clearly going to cost all concerned a lot of tears, stress, and heartache. *eager hand-rubbing*

The deaths at Culloden and the ugly truths undergirding their choice of methods and victims are part and parcel of the changes Brexit and the forces underlying it have revealed in Scottish society. The passions that nationalism, or I suppose tribalism is closer to the meaning I want, evokes in people are never more blatant than when History puts on her Mythmaking apron and brews up social poisons of stunning strength. What Author Skelton does with this, as with Mo and her criminal family, is scrape off the filthy film of facile propagandizing (he reserves that for Finbar the politico) for a clear-sighted look at why people adhere to often deeply destructive Causes and ideals. Means are never separable from ends. Ends are never separable from needs. Needs dictate the means at one's disposal. Round and round we go, where we'll stop nobody knows...even up to the moment that death results from in/actions that seem perfectly reasonable on their face.

There's a truly terrible sacrifice demanded by Justice, of course, and it strains everything in Rebecca's journalistic world, as well as in her emotional core. The journalist's liaision she of necessity maintains with the police is costing her dearly, and won't stop in the future. Her enemies have chosen her, as she would prefer not to make enemies at all. But that's what makes the complexity and enmeshment of the reader's intellect in the casuistries Rebecca must purvey, or puncture, or both in turn, so worth the effort.

You won't be surprised that I can't give five stars to a series mystery, given the nature of the beast is to scratch the ma'at rash that murder represents erupting on the body politic. Treading the same ground comes with costs. One of them is breaking new ground, so this four-and-a-half star read is as close to five as I myownself feel I can come.

I will say that the ending is both condign and very sad. It sets us up for some dark future probabilities and honestly I can't wait to see them.

>94 richardderus: - Sounds good! I see it is 2nd in a series. It's currently $1.99 for Kindle, but the first is $16.99. I *hate* that!

>95 katiekrug: One thing about the series, now that I've read it, is that Skelton is very careful to give you all the info you need, and to craft his character interactions in such a way, that you really can read them as stand-alones.

Greedy damn thing to do, ain't it? Trapping completists into spending hugely more than is reasonable....

Flying by for morning good wishes and a Tuesday *smooch*. Off to get #2 in the series with Katie's information. Thanks!

>82 richardderus: Thanks for reminding us all of that history. My feelings on those issues are firm but it doesn't hurt to have them fired up a bit from time to time. Things are different now, though. Hubby and I each have our own credit cards and bank accounts plus we have one of each that we use jointly. I'm the primary on the joint credit card although it is issued by the bank he uses rather than "my" bank. He has always done the bookkeeping for our joint stuff but recently "his" bank has decided that he isn't allowed to do anything with that account (other than use his copy of the credit card) because I'm the "primary". Seems times have changed in the banking world at least.😊

Tuesday *smooch*

>97 LizzieD: All the yay! I gt Peggy with a book-bullet! I hope the books work well for you. The library probably has the others, or would be willing to get 'em.

>98 RebaRelishesReading: There are so many ways in which the present is vastly superior to the past. It never hurts to remind us all of what once was normal but now feels bloody outrageous.

*smooch*

>99 bell7: Howdy do, Miss Mary, ma'am. *smooch*

>91 richardderus:, >94 richardderus: OK, the library seems to have several of these, including the first 2. Are they very violent? Not a huge fan of thrillers or gore (like a wuss)

>96 richardderus: that is reassuring. I like an author that can write a series that's inclusive to readers dipping in and out.

>76 richardderus: LOL! Kerry and I were just talking about the last yesterday :)

>77 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation!

>91 richardderus: That one too!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>103 Helenliz: I have a hard time calibrating an answer to that one, Helen...harm to them as deserves it isn't violence to me. Animals, children, and targeted-by-prejudice victims are sources of outrage, not squeamishness, when violence comes to them. So my response of "not really" should be taken in that framework. They're delightfully evocative of place, and the sleuth's powerful sense of justice, are my main take-aways.

>104 alcottacre: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

LAST CALL: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York by Elon Green got my all-but-5* #BookRecommendation here and on my blog:
https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2022/06/last-call-true-story-of-love-lust-a...
NOW it's a documentary series on Max (as we're now supposed to call HBO's streaming tentacle)! Watch the trailer here: https://celadonbooks.com/last-call-hbo/

>55 richardderus: Not sure that I'd lump myself with those "from the land of igloos and moose-sleds", Richard, but yes, watermelon didn't feature highly among our tea and crumpet cuisine either.

>94 richardderus: The Blood is Still looks like a good one and my, even better, my library has it and a lot of other books by the same author.

>94 richardderus: Four and a half stars is good for a series investigative thriller. At least for me. Generally I find them pretty fluffy.

>108 Familyhistorian: ...but Meg! Everyone Knows that the Arctic Circle begins at 49° 02' 58" latitude and there are regular blizzards in August and only moose-drawn sledges are practicable for traversing the glaciers y'all use as streets!

The Skeltons are very much worth your library's money and your eyeblinks. This is the only series I've read by him to date but the chops are very much there. Rebecca's a treasure.

>109 The_Hibernator: I won't say they aren't fluffy, Rachel, but they have enough heft in their ideas to keep the execution from mindlessness. That ain't nothin'.

*smooch*

050 A Rattle of Bones by Douglas Skelton

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1752, Seamus a’Ghlynne, James of the Glen, was executed for the murder of government man Colin Campbell. He was almost certainly innocent.

When banners are placed at his gravesite claiming that his namesake, James Stewart, is innocent of murder, reporter Rebecca Connolly smells a story. The young Stewart has been in prison for ten years for the brutal murder of his lover, lawyer and politician Murdo Maxwell, in his Appin home. Rebecca soon discovers that Maxwell believed he was being followed prior to his murder and his phones were tapped.

Why is a Glasgow crime boss so interested in the case? As Rebecca keeps digging, she finds herself in the sights of Inverness crime matriarch Mo Burke, who wants payback for the damage caused to her family in a previous case.

Set against the stunning backdrop of the Scottish Highlands, A Rattle of Bones is a tale of injustice and mystery, and the echo of the past in the present.

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

My Review: First, read this:

              Near Ballachulish, the Scottish Highlands, 1755
The red-coated soldier was a bloodstain against the dull sky and drab scrub on the hill.

It had a name, this desolate lump above the waters, a heathenish Scotch concotion of sounds, but he was damned if he could pronounce it. To him it was little more than a pox-ridden mound of dirt that drew the elements like a hedge whore did corn-faced beard-splitters.

The waters of the lake shivered as chill breeze weaved its way up the hill to find his solitary figure standing post. Private Henry Greenway huddled deeper into his coat, watching the small ferry being rowed across the narrows. He wished he was in his billet, a cup of hot grog in one hand and a mutton pie, warm from the oven, in the other. This was a pointless duty, a punishment for not taking proper care of the Brown Bess he now crooked loosely in one arm. His sergeant would be displeased to see him cradle the gun so carelessly, except there was no one here to bear witness, except the blasted elements and the one he guarded, who was beyond caring, Greenway wagered.

There's no question that scene sets a very clear tone...and it's one that very much resonates through this third entry in the Rebecca Connolly thriller series.

With the new life she lucked into at the end of book two lurching into gear, Rebecca Connolly can truly feel the cold truth of freedom on her neck: No one can say no but no one needs to answer her questions, or give her leads, or so much as consider offering her the chance to do what she most wants to do: fix stuff.

She's got to build her reputation all over again, in a new and different world of newsgathering, and she loves it. When Rebecca's last adventure ended in so much loss, yet so much opportunity being spread before her, this story is the one that unfolds to her horrified fascination. James Stewart, Tanist of Clan Stewart and a wrongfully convicted victim of judicial murder, has a strong resonance with an imprisoned modern-day James Stewart convicted of murdering his politician lover...though to be honest there's pretty much no sensible motive (at least to my mind) for him to have done so, and he insists that he didn't, just as the eighteenth-century James did. Because I am indifferent to spoilers, I wikied up the long-ago story and spent the rest of the book looking for the ways the current story resonated with it. Rebecca, not having my information, gets involved in this fearsomely complex muddle blind to these clues. This situation is, unsurprisingly, one that draws in her old foes from the last book. It was handled in what I found to be a plausible way.

The main character is one I love spending time with, and love sharing troubles with. This outing into the world of crusading journalism is as deeply satisfying as before. Rebecca has a difficult group of folks whose involvement in her current investigative project is central...the mother of a jailed innocent, for example, has every reason not to respond positively to a journalist...but no access to an established powerbase to give her an effective lever to prise open their minds. All she's got is her tenacity and her inability to admit defeat.

These qualities work wonders. They usually do. Afua, the mother of the present-day innocent James Stewart, is a vividly drawn rageball, betrayed and abused by those with power over her and her son's fate. She's inflexible...it's cost her a lot, but when you have no one to turn to you need to be strong...and she's got a mother's outrage at her child's ill treatment fueling her. Watching as she learns to tolerate Rebecca's "interference" in her own chaotic efforts to free her James was frustrating for me. Stiff-necked inflexible people are maddening!

What makes The story satisfying to read is the usual tension between a homophobic culture and the reality of the ease with which anyone Othered can be used to hide real criminals on the one hand, and Author Skelton's clear and unwavering presentation of these gay people as ordinary, average people. It's distressing but refreshing to see the sexual nature of the characters simply be a fact, and only the bad actors and evildoers investing in their Othering for the lowest of motives.

Literally everything about these reads is immersive...landscapes, relationships among the characters, the background concerns of twenty-first century Scotland and of news media outside major cities and underneathe international radar, which is of course where all of us live our real lives. They're present and they're intentional but they aren't competing for your readerly attention. Author Skelton makes the propulsive story much richer by allowing the reader to choose how much thought to devote to these interrelated parts while assuring the main focus is always what we saw on the marquee.

Far and away my favorite of the three reads to date.

'Morning, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.

>94 richardderus: and >112 richardderus: Pass for now, but noted. Excellent reviews, and as I mentioned recently, you've really gotten your review mojo back.

*smooch*

>113 karenmarie: Thank you for the kind compliment, Horrible. It's amazing me more than ever that the multiple strokes were six months ago, and I am here living my life almost exactly as I was before.

That sentence shocks me.

I am So Deeply Lucky!!

>114 richardderus: You are the MAN, Richard, and I'm most grateful and happy for you yourownself!

The more you read the Rebecca books, the more eager I am to get to the cheapy one I have on my Kindle. Thanks! Can't do it now, but thanks! My mostly-Scots heart looks forward to them.

*smooch* for the day and for the healing

>114 richardderus: We are all so lucky that you have recovered in such a wonderful way! Have a spectacular day!

Karen O

>115 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy! I'm astounded afresh at how much, yet also how little, things have changed in my world.

The Rebecca Connollys are a very good investment in a satisfying storyverse. I hope you'll enjoy as much as I have...my review of #4 will come out in October, when it's published.

>116 klobrien2: Lovely to hear, Karen O., and thank you. I'm pretty much in my usual groove of reading, websurfing, thinking evil thoughts about and wishing awful fates upon the usual lowlifes, etc etc

*smooch*

>105 richardderus: yup, fair enough. I'm going to give the first one a go and see how it lands. You're back on Dead-eye Derus form again. >:-)

>119 Helenliz: *preens*

>114 richardderus: Yes you were lucky but you have lots of determination which helped you get through PT. It is nice to see you back in full groove.

* smooch*

>121 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita. Seth, one of the PTs who helped me get mobility back up to speed (he'd laugh at that phraseology given how often he ordered me to slow down) said I'd be fine because I had a strong mind so I would be able to keep going where so many just give up.

That's flattering, of course, but the further I get from the events, the more I see exactly what he meant.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>114 richardderus: I am here living my life almost exactly as I was before
This sentence makes me so happy!

>123 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita, it is a very happy-making sentence to type as well. Thursday orisons, dear lady.

Happy Thursday, Richard, and glad to see you're enjoying your recent reads. I started We Could Be Heroes, a book that made it on my list due to your recommendation, yesterday and it looks like it's gonna be a fun one.

Old-movie lovers! YouTube has lots of channels that cater to our interest in the old, the wierd, and the bad for free but the good and classic often cost rental fees. PrimeSiteUK has excellent films like Blithe Spirit, Our Man in Havana, and today's outstanding choice, the 1940 Rebecca! They don't interrupt with ads, just a pitch for their services as online marketing consultants at the beginning with a creepy AI "woman" doing the pitching. I am loving the bait on their hook and I just scrub past the pitch, so it's a win-win. They get eyeballs for the algorithm to count and I get classic films!

For free, why not try it out?

>125 bell7: I am so glad that Mike Chen is on your playlist at last. May it be as good a read for you as it was for me.

*smooch*

>123 FAMeulstee: Indeed very happy making and a testament to your strength, Richard.

>128 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba! I took full advantage of my tremendous good fortune, but A LOT of my success in doing so is down to blind luck.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you.

Another hot'un here today, so thank goodness for AC.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>130 karenmarie: Thank you, Angel Flower. I'm getting a review of Brought to Book (Rona Parish #1) by Anthea Fraser ready for tomorrow. It's not going well...I keep scrapping it and starting againbut ending up the same place.

Well, you got me with A Rattle of Bones. But really? Skelton? 😀

I missed a visit here today, so I'm making it up at the literal 11th hour + 59!

Good night/Good morning! *smooch*

'Morning, RD! Happy Friday to you.

I hope the review wrangling has been more successful.

Another stinky hot one here today. Not much planned beyond reading and etc.

*smooch*

051 Brought to Book (Rona Parish #1) by Anthea Fraser

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: When Rona Parish is asked to write the biography of an acclaimed thriller writer who drowned in unusual circumstances, is she diving into danger?

Biographer Rona Parish is exhausted after finishing her latest project on Arthur Conan Doyle, but her hope for a break between jobs is dashed when the wife of late bestselling thriller writer, Theo Harvey, asks her to write his biography.

Theo Harvey drowned mysteriously six months ago. No one knows why . . .

Theo’s inexplicable death six months ago left many unanswered questions. Why did he retreat from the limelight six years ago, only to reappear three years later and produce two outstanding, if much darker, novels? And what is the truth behind his mysterious drowning? Rona Parish is determined to uncover the truth behind his death, but at what cost?

Intrigued, and with her golden retriever Gus by her side, Rona starts to piece together the author’s life. But someone doesn’t want her to uncover Theo’s secrets. And they’ll go to any lengths to make sure they stay hidden . . .

A page-turning cosy mystery set in the fictional English market town of Marsborough in the stunning Chiltern Hills.

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

My Review: First published twenty years ago, this supremely cozy, very definitely page-turning first-in-series mystery introduces a biographer sleuth...first time I've run into that one!...with a happily unconventional home life, a tidy income from her main career, and a bottomless well of curiosity. It felt to me like a story, and is told in a style, from sixty years ago.

I do not intend an insult with this statement of an observation.

Gender politics will derail any discussion of why I personally find myself squicked out by stalkery behavior. The cultural conversation about this behavior was only just getting started back then, so I can't really point a shaming finger at it; just something I myownself find unpleasant to read. This book, like some of the ones we labeled "romantic" many decades ago, valorizes some things I characterize as really stalkery behavior. That's a very big nope from me. I get it, in the sense that, at a point near the end of the story, the plot really needed something to happen at precisely that juncture. Why the other something that was in already set in motion by a different character and was, in fact, in progress and that occurs with near simultaneity wasn't enough for the author only she knows. A choice she made that I was appalled by, and it really caused me to reassess the prior appearances of the stalkery character in a much less flattering (to the author) light.

A trope that just won't die is the villain infodump. There is one of these at the end. I really rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain as the guilty party settles in for a cozy chat with people whose murders are essential to the sociopath's happy getaway. The sociopaths I've known wouldn't be that careless. This is, from their point of view, a necessary act not to be lingered over because the risk to them getting away with their awful decision decrease with every delay or diversion from its accomplishment. I've never known a stupid sociopath.

The age of the story shows in multiple ways, eg the fact that Rona goes to her publisher's office and hands him an envelope with a printed version of an article she's submitting. Wow, does that take me back...no one even five years later would conceptualize this as a possibility! It's actually a bit wistfully charming. It dates events, but that's not necessarily bad...just a passing note for informative purposes.

The series character's world is most charmingly set up, and I would absolutely love to live in that village. I would be seriously surprised if a revelation that genuinely shocked me regarding Rona's twin wasn't going to loom large in a future installment. The changing technology of the day wasn't ignored, because Rona does look up the subject of her proposed biography on the Internet (still capitalized back then) and discusses what she's found with the subject's widow. Rona also notes the biography subject's lack of a computer to the widow. So it became even more odd in my eyes that she submitted her article on paper.

There is an instance of an animal being harmed, but it is set up so that the event, while bad, doesn't kill the animal in question. It is used, I felt, gratuitously, though it's later revealed to have been the last straw for the one committing the harmful act. It fell short of my slam-the-book-shut threshold because it's clear there's not going to be fatal outcome very soon after it occurs.

What I most want to convey to you is how high my hopes were set up, and then to be let down by the issues I've detailed above was a deep disappointment. There was every reason to think I'd found a ten-book series that's clearly complete (the most recent was published in 2017) to dive into.

Unfortunately that's not to be. I don't care to risk my own money on books that bid fair to repeat these kinds of unwelcome to me tropes.

>132 drneutron: It made me snicker, too, Doc. Like Harry Hole still does.

>133 LizzieD: Hi there Peggy! *smooch*

>134 karenmarie: I guess so...see >135 richardderus:

I'm sorry it's summer so very thoroughly down there. It's going to be hot here, too, but I won't rub your face in the fact that 83° is hot to me.

oops

>135 richardderus: Sorry it was a disappointment, Richard. I'll be spared that series thanks to you.

>135 richardderus: And a morning good-morning from me, Richard. I'm another who will gladly skip that series however charming the village may be. Thanks and *smoocn*

>139 RebaRelishesReading: Good, I think...anyway, Reba, you're making your decision based on information not in other reviews I've found of the books. No one talked about the stalkery ex-husband in any review I saw and that, IMO, is an indictment of the reviewer's conscientiousness.

>140 LizzieD: Happy that my irritation is saving yours, dear lady. *smooch*

It's Good Omens 2 Day on Prime Video. Off to immerse myself in Crowley and Aziraphael's arch madness.

>126 richardderus: Sounds great! I will have to check it out. I am most definitely in the "old movie fan" department. I could not even say the last time I was in a movie theatre.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>143 richardderus: Oh Yippee! We'll have to add that back into the rotation. Thanks for the reminder!

>144 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! Today's complete surprise is a film I'd forgotten existed called Father Gose. Cary Grant as the old letch whose uninterest in little girls shocks his British overseers. Supposedly funny, doubt I'd find it so now.

*smooch*

>145 mahsdad: Break time from the first-to-second episode...trying not to binge them all in a row because who knows if there'll ever be a 3.

Superb word worth adding to one's vocabulary from merriam-webster.com:
Words Worth Knowing: ‘Unasinous’
This week’s word worth knowing is unasinous, defined in our 1934 Unabridged Dictionary as “alike in stupidity.” Sometimes you need to describe something (or someone!) that is every bit as stupid as some other thing (or person!) that is very stupid, and this is the word for that. It is a useful word, and we hope that you use it well.

'Morning, RDear. Happiest of Saturdays to you.

>135 richardderus: Excellent review, hard pass for everything you pointed out and the fact that I can't think of any cozy mysteries I'm interested in reading these days. I really only like Miss Marple and Ariadne Oliver by Dame Agatha.

*smooch*

>149 karenmarie: Saturday *smooch* dear lady.

I don't think you're missing any life-altering revelations by skipping this series, TBH. The good-enough-to-finish end of the reading spectrum is so immense that any individual constituent thereof is interchangeable with the others. Goodness knows they serve a purpose, and I don't scorn them, but they are thick on the ground and so hard to get worked up over.

Good morning, Richard, with thanks for "unasinous." Do we say that A is unasinous with B? I'd like to use it properly because I noticed over the years that non-readers misuse prepositions when they write.

I wish you more reading and Prime videoing for the day! *smooch*

ETA: I just corrected my question. I'm not sure how much longer I'll function.

This is a test to see if I can do this. If so, smooch! If it doesn't work, just know that it's the thought that counts:

>151 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy...I'd use it as a term of combination, so "with" would be my go-to. I don't think even the English would use "to" in this case, and "from" is kinda antithetical to the purpose of the word as far as I can tell.

My current read, A Crime of Secrets (A Donner & Longstreet Mystery, 1) by Ann Aptaker, is keeping me engaged and pleased. Lesbian sleuthing couple in Gilded Age Manhattan? Yes please.

>152 jessibud2: Isn't that ADORABLE! Thank you, Shelley! *smooch*

>148 richardderus: Thank you for that addition to my vocabulary. I love it.

>155 ArlieS: Most welcome, Arlie. I'm very taken with it myownself.

We went to our local Botanic Gardens, and they have an sculpture exhibit throughout the place of marine animals made of plastic refuse collected along the Oregon coast.

I saw this one and thought of you...

Love that critter, Jeff.

>157 mahsdad: what >158 weird_O: said! I love it!

Happy Sunday, Richard. We are back. Nice to be home but it was a great trip. We gained a lot of experience along the way, which was definitely a bonus. I hope you are doing well and keeping out of mischief.

Thanks for keeping my humble thread warm and cozy, while we were away.

Sunday orisons, RD, to quote a dear friend.

I'm looking forward to a calm day with perhaps steak, fries, and salad for supper. Other than that, I'm enjoying a streak of Romeo Alexander books, mostly his standalones.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>160 msf59: Happy Sunday, Birddude. "Doing well" and "keeping out of mischief" are polar opposites, can't do both. I pick "doing well" and gleefully commit mishchief whenever possible.

>161 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! What a summer, eh what? Steak weather for sure.

Romeo Alexander's œuvre is unexplored territory to me, so I'll look forward to your guidance through the forest. *smooch*

>110 richardderus: Snow in August? At least it might dampen the wildfires.

>112 richardderus: You got me with the Skelton review, Richard, and my library has the first in the series.

Dropping by to wish you well dear fellow.

>148 richardderus: The word could be modified to become a very agile young lady friend :
Una Sinuous.

052 A Crime of Secrets (A Donner & Longstreet Mystery #1) by Ann Aptaker

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: New York City, 1899.

A city on the cusp of a new century. A city growing taller, faster, a city of new inventions, new ideas—and old dangers on its shadowy streets where crime, misery, and murder lurk.

When Pauline Godfrey, a young woman embodying the coming modern age, is viciously murdered, her throat cut, private inquiry agents Finola “Fin” Donner and Devorah Longstreet must navigate a world of violence and passion, lust and betrayal, where duty is twisted into bitter obedience and love is soiled.

Fin, a tough survivor of the dockside slums, and her beloved companion, the elegant, intellectual socialite Devorah, probe deep into the festering secrets of a family, the rot and corruption of the police department, and the sinister world of the city’s thieves, whores, and thugs to find the killer.

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

My Review: Sapphic sleuths in Gilded Age Manhattan? ANN APTAKER penned?! Sign me right the *bleep* up! Do I particularly care whose murder this concerns? Nope! I want the pleasure of watching as Author Aptaker upends the worldview of the hoi polloi with two people who decline to participate in their tedious little black-or-white, top-or-bottom nuanceless tosh.

That, comme d'habitude, she does. *happy sigh*

A new historical fiction crime series is always a welcome development for me.I like the QUILTBAG worlds that they inhabit to come back alive and crack the false front of heteronormative society's homogeneity without our homosexuality into flinders. Author Aptaker has done this before with the Cantor Gold Crimes series in New York's pre-Stonewall art world. They're refreshingly nonconformist and still part of the long mystery novel tradition of upholding ma'at.

I don't use "law and order" here, because cruel, immoral laws are passed daily all over the world, and vicious repressive order maintained by the small-souled pursey-lipped fear-driven fools that abound in every single time period of human history. Ma'at means something altogether more agreeable to me (and I suspect to most others): The rightness and fitness of things in the world; the always joyous sense of your world running well. Ma'at herself is the center of the Afterlife as the one who weighs the dead person's heart against her feather; if the heart is heavier than the feather, that person is utterly expunged; is prevented thereby from participating in an eternal existence of harmony and pleasure. I wonder often how many righteous crusaders for Truth God and Justice will pass this test....

Certainly the outwardly, conformally Proper and Good Citizens in this story won't. How this series will take that inner-vs-outer duality ball and run with it is set up with clarity and simplicity in the choice of main charcters. Fin and Dev are from wildly different milieux, one a rough-and-tumble survivor of the wild and violent streets and the other a Lady of Quality. Very much like Nick and Nora, Author Aptaker's couple are beautifully suited in ways they continue to discover as their time together expands and their experience of each other's kindness and blindness deepens. In this initial outing, the glossy surfaces are just not quite ever matched by smooth underpinnings. Rough exteriors can, and most likely will, smooth out. Long-unquestioned shibboleths fall, leaving no thick coatings of dust just light blurrings of their outlines. It's a gift to be allowed to see a character's growth instead of meeting them fully formed here in the first book. Well chosen, Author Aptaker!

The web of lies and vileness that Fin and Dev unravel in 1899 Manhattan is nothing if not relevant to today's world where misery is considered the proper condition of the poor, the disabled, the Other. The horrible perpetuators of that misery appall and offend these upright people, who subscribe to the ma'at I described above. The fact that they come at it from very different starting points gives rise to some of the most relatable conflicts in the story: Dev feels, for example, the ugly gnaw of jealousy; Fin the hollowness of insecurity. These being inevitable in any long-term relationship, it's good to see them here, and see them seen off by the women...together.

What I most needed on a hot July weekend when going outside was, for multiple reasons, not a great idea. It kept me engaged in, interested by, rooting for, our ma'at-maintaining duo. There's not a lot stronger recommendation I can give you.

>165 Familyhistorian: The permafrost is burning? Oh dear! This...could just possibly mean that maybe the climate crisis is real! Or it's a huge Canado-lib'rul conspiracy.
/MAGAt-bashing

Enjoy the Skeltons! Rebecca's a good companion and he creates involving side-trails you can follow or not as the spirit moves you. A very agreeable-to-me quality in a series.

>166 PaulCranswick: Greetings PC, you and Una are welcome. Heh.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Monday to you.

>163 richardderus: I’ll update my Smut spreadsheet and report back on Romeo Alexander. *smile*

>167 richardderus: Onto the wish list it goes.

*smooch*

>170 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! *smooch*

I'm pretty confident you'll enjoy the Aptaker because her strength as a writer is in the depth of field her characters have. The 1899 Manhattan she writes about is as well-thought-out as Caleb Carr's Alienist series was. I think of those as the gold standard of period New York novels.

I'll repine here, then, until it pleases you to enlighten me about Romeo Alexander at last. I can't fault you for taking care of your own needs first. Despite the fact that I have literally nothing to read.

*mournful sigh*

Literally nothing to read. *snort*

You remind me of a friend of mine, who has literally 6000+ books in her house, spends more than her total disposable income on more, and jokes about only having 10 books on one shelf.

>172 karenmarie: Only ten books on one shelf? What's the subject matter it's dedicated to? I mean, I can see that being okay if it's the shelf with State Banking in Early America by Howard Bodenhorn on it....

>167 richardderus: You got me, Richard. Aptaker is now on my wish list.
Enjoy your Monday. Hope your weather has cooled a bit! *smooch*

JULY IN REVIEW
Eighteen books read; my 2023 total reviews-posted: 65 to date, of a downscaled goal of 100 reviewed books. Of course I hope to blow past that because tsundoku is less guilt-instilling more satisfying if one's actually getting books read not just piled up.

July's best read: Brother Alive. Fascinating, and moreso in hindsight. It's won awards, and deserves them all. The prose woos and ensorcels, the story involves and enfolds. The take-aways are worth the eyeblinks to discover: how very much guilt and regret rule the world, how blind the driven are to the cost of their drive, how deep the bonds of love truly bite into one's spirit.

July's least enjoyed read: Sucker Punch, a terrible read about man-stuff that just couldn't stop drooling over boobs. Ick.
***
August is #WITMonth, social-media-speak for "Women In Translation"...a now-annual event celebrating women writers working in all the languages there are, as well as the women working to translate the polyphony of the world's voices into other languages to extend the reach into, and expand the awareness of, other cultures. It seems that this is an increasing interest among Anglophone youth, according to The Guardian. I'll be posting reviews of these projects all month long. I have five reviews written and tee'd up so far, and three more read with reviews in progress. I hope to keep that pace going forward.

>174 LizzieD: ::nail-buff::

My aim is true. Happy Monday, Peggy! *smooch*

>172 karenmarie: I'm jealous. I'm not really sure how many books I actually own - still busily cataloguing - but I doubt it's as many as 6000. Worse, I've been reducing the horde recently. (Current catalogued count: 2586.)

>167 richardderus: I like your distinction between ma'at and "law and order", and am tempted by the book, but not quite enough.

>178 ArlieS: I don't know if you library might buy it, but that'd be my suggestion to keep it on your cultural radar.

Enjoyed having your visit, Arlie.

Hi Richard! I'm so behind! I've been enjoying summer, Dave's on holidays, so I've neglected LT. Dreadful! Tomorrow the Booker Long List is announced. I won't be too surprised if The Sleeping Car Porter is on the list, but who knows. I remember you really liked it, and it's has been in my TBR list for some time. Esi Edugyan is one of the Booker Prize judges and she is Canadian, so some you tubers think a bit of Can Lit might be on the list , but who knows. I hope you are keeping well, my friend. *smooch"

053 City of Ash and Red by Hye-Young Pyun

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: NAMED AN NPR GREAT READ OF 2018

Distinguished for his talents as a rat killer, the nameless protagonist of Hye-young Pyun's City of Ash and Red is sent by the extermination company he works for on an extended assignment in C, a country descending into chaos and paranoia, swept by a contagious disease, and flooded with trash. No sooner does he disembark than he is whisked away by quarantine officials and detained overnight. Isolated and forgotten, he realizes that he is stranded with no means of contacting the outside world. Still worse, when he finally manages to reach an old friend, he is told that his ex-wife's body was found in his apartment and he is the prime suspect. Barely managing to escape arrest, he must struggle to survive in the streets of this foreign city gripped with fear of contamination and reestablish contact with his company and friends in order to clear his reputation.

But as the man's former life slips further and further from his grasp, and he looks back on his time with his wife, it becomes clear that he may not quite be who he seems. From the bestselling author of The Hole, City of Ash and Red is an apocalyptic account of the destructive impact of fear and paranoia on people's lives as well as a haunting novel about a man’s loss of himself and his humanity.

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

My Review: First, read this:

...the health inspector placed the thermometer directly against the man's right ear. An electric hum buzzed in his ear like an alarm. He barked out a loud cough as if in response to the sound, and the health inspector jumped back.
The inspections were due to the recent outbreak. An illness had been spreading fast, from country zero to most of the rest of the world, like fire jumping from roof to roof. No one knew exactly how it was spreading, treatment was still in the developmental stages, infection rates were high, and there was talk of a growing feud among countries to secure the limited supply of vaccines. And yet, luckily, there'd been few fatalities so far. The man figured the news back home was right: no matter how strong the virus was, he had nothing to worry about as long as he kept his hands clean.

This isn't going to hit the same way in 2023 as it did in 2018.

The unnervingly prescient pandemic thing aside, the story rings its tocsins of warning louder about the hazards of global totalitarianism turned up to eleven in a world with Modi, Xi, and Kim sharing a continent...not to mention Putin squatting just to their north.

Again, setting the essential-to-the-story geopolitics aside, the truly horrifying and visceral descriptions of the unnamed exterminator's environment during his quarantine (presaged in the above quote) and subsequent descent-cum-escape into the utter devastation and foulness of the literal, as well as figurative, underworld beneath the foreign city (whose language he can't speak) that his bosses have sent him to to ply his exterminator's trade are intensely and economically presented. There is no wasted veriage in this book.

There is also no memorable character. The two have always seemed to me to go hand-in-hand. In many ways this is intentional...no one in a totalitarian state should stand out as a memorable individual, or else...but it ended up feeling to my readerly sensibilities a bit foreshortened, lacking in explorable depth.

Accepting that this is almost certainly intentional and not a lack of ability (see The Hole below), I had to acknowledge the intended effect of alienation was simply not to my taste and rate the read a full four stars.

Happy August, RD. You got me City of Ash and Red. Sounds like my cuppa. Off to Rehab duties soon. Juno and books in the PM. I am not far into Chain Gang All Stars but I am already hooked.

>180 vancouverdeb: Good morning, Deb! It was a peaceful night, thanks. Summertime's always a low-engagement time on all platforms, no need to worry about it. Particularly important to me is that you know I'm not taking attendance or judging anyone by whether or how often they come say hi to me. That's never going to be any fun for either me or those who do visit. Fun is why we're here, right?

*smooch*

>182 msf59: Rehab those critters well, Birddude! I think you'll love Pyun's books...more coming soon.

Chain Gang All Stars is a bitter, rageful book. I'll be recommending it this Booksgiving. What a writer Adjei-Brenyah is.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Tuesday.

>173 richardderus: It will be 10 of the more esoteric religious books, a subset of the perhaps 300 books I’ve sent her in recent years. But it’s a joke of course, considering that she's got perhaps 6000+ books. She has her own personal Dewey Decimal System for how she stacks her books and in which room. Me – location tags and books fitting where they can regardless of subject matter or genre. I’m still impressed with Hamilton’s setting up of the Treasury department, the First Bank of the United States, and indeed pretty much the entire original banking structure, taxation system, and etc. Still working on The Federalist…

>175 richardderus: Congrats on a good reading month. I need to figure out and post my stats and Lightning Round for July in addition to The Romeo Alexander Report, but they will have to wait since I need to get ready right now to go to book sorting.

>181 richardderus: Added to my wish list.

*smooch* from your own Madame The Vile Temptress and Horrible

>185 karenmarie: Hamilton's an undersung hero of the modern US. The Jefferson/Jackson/libertarian fantasyland of educated Sons of the Soil ruling themselves by moral precepts suited to communities and sodalities not nations was never gonna work. And, as we see in the red states, doesn't work. Yet the idiots not only persist despite widepread misery, but seem Hell-bent on spreading wretchedness and poverty ever more widely.

*pats foot awaiting Romeo Alexander Report post book-fondling*

054 The Hole by Hye-young Pyun

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award
Named One of the Top 10 Thrillers to Read This Summer by Time Magazine.

In this tense, gripping novel by a rising star of Korean literature, Oghi has woken from a coma after causing a devastating car accident that took his wife's life and left him paralyzed and badly disfigured. His caretaker is his mother-in-law, a widow grieving the loss of her only child. Oghi is neglected and left alone in his bed. His world shrinks to the room he lies in and his memories of his troubled relationship with his wife, a sensitive, intelligent woman who found all of her life goals thwarted except for one: cultivating the garden in front of their house. But soon Oghi notices his mother-in-law in the abandoned garden, uprooting what his wife had worked so hard to plant and obsessively digging larger and larger holes. When asked, she answers only that she is finishing what her daughter started.

A bestseller in Korea, award-winning author Hye-young Pyun's The Hole is a superbly crafted and deeply unnerving novel about the horrors of isolation and neglect in all of its banal and brutal forms. As Oghi desperately searches for a way to escape, he discovers the difficult truth about his wife and the toll their life together took on her.

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

My Review: First, read this:

It was difficult and exhausting, but he quickly accepted the fact that life had to go on without her. He’d lost love, and yet the world was not the slightest bit shaken by his loss. The part of his life that had had J in it went away, leaving behind a cavity, a hollow, and still the world was unmoved. Nothing would ever fill in that empty space. But Oghi’s world would keep on spinning regardless.
–and–
Oghi looked lovingly on his wife’s shallow vanity. She knew exactly what her goals were, and though she believed in them, she failed at nearly everything she set out to do. Yet she brushed off each failure, hardly any worse for the wear. Then quickly found herself a new role model and extolled their virtues ad nauseam. By doing so, she seemed to come to an understanding of the difference between longing and ambition.

Poor, crippled Oghi has survived a horrific car crash only to be confined to his head. He can barely communicate. He is cluaustrophobically trapped in a nightmare of dependence on others for his existence...a man accustomed to being the center of power in his own life and the delineator of Reality itself (he was a cartographer in his previous existence).

Ironic, that...as a mapmaker he relies on others to provide him data so he can graphically represent reality, yet he was completely and utterly uninterested in learning any single thing about his now-dead wife. I'd be surprised if he could describe her knees or fingers, things marital partners know very intimately about their spouse. He certainly took no trouble to learn a single thing about her wants and needs.

While this all sounds pretty tediously familiar to a generation raised on feminist screeds against the awfulness that is Man, it manages not to be the same old, same old by giving us enough of her thoughts by proxy. Oghi remembers things she said, or did; it's more than enough to reveal to the reader the depths of this man's appalling sense of entitlement to all his wife's energy and attention with no hint of reciprocation. As this is clearly something not reserved for his wife (his career success is clearly down to cheating and chicanery), we learn from his own memories he is that worst of all possible characters: the skilled manipulator of the feelings and needs of others, the sociopath.

This is a novella, so it won't eat your time making its effect on you any less powerful with foreshadowing. It's memorably, involvingly written and translated. It offers no moral uplift, or hint of redemption. Instead it breathes life into the very essence of its titular...object, subject, shape, space?...as well as, with its condign ending, gives us schadenfreude lovers of the world a huge chuckle.

The world’s oldest map, the Babylonian Map of the World, had a little circle bored through the center. Scholars explained that the hole had come from using a compass to trace the two outer rings of the map. Oghi was captivated more by that hole than by the geometric shapes engraved in the clay tablet, and had stared at it for a long time in the darkened exhibit room of the British Museum. That dark, narrow hole went as deep as the memory of an age that no one could ever return to. The only way to reach that lost age was through that hole, but the hole itself could never be reached.

>187 richardderus: Ooh, you got me with The Hole! I've already got it requested at my library. Anytime you rate something a 5-star, I have to read that book!

Karen O

>167 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation, RD!

>181 richardderus: I think I am going to give that one a miss.

>187 richardderus: That one too. Maybe later on down the line when this abyssmal year is over.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>187 richardderus: looks interesting!

>189 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! *smooch*

You decided well with your skippers. You, of all people, do not need to get yourself into an even worse mood until and unless Life finally gets her foot off the loud pedal for you and yours.

>190 The_Hibernator: Definitely interesting, Rachel...not specially uplifting, but very interesting indeed.

Thanks for visiting! *smooch*

055 The Law of Lines by Hye-Young Pyun (tr. Sora Kim-Russell)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of several of Korea's top literary awards, The Law of Lines follows the parallel stories of two young women whose lives are upended by sudden loss. When Se-oh, a recluse still living with her father, returns from an errand to find their house in flames, wrecked by a gas explosion, she is forced back into the world she had tried to escape. The detective investigating the incident tells her that her father caused the explosion to kill himself because of overwhelming debt she knew nothing about, but Se-oh suspects foul play by an aggressive debt collector and sets out on her own investigation, seeking vengeance.

Ki-jeong, a beleaguered high school teacher, receives a phone call that the body of her younger half-sister has just been found. Her sister was a college student she had grown distant from. Though her death, by drowning, is considered a suicide by the police, that doesn't satisfy Ki-jeong, and she goes to her sister's university to find out what happened. Her sister's cell phone reveals a thicket of lies and links to a company that lures students into a virtual pyramid scheme, preying on them and their relationships. One of the contacts in the call log is Se-oh.

Like Hye-young Pyun's Shirley Jackson Award–winning novel The Hole, an immersive thriller that explores the edges of criminality, the unseen forces in our most intimate lives, and grief and debt.

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

My Review: First, read this:

When does evil intent become evil itself? Is it evil simply to imagine and harbor an idea? Does it begin when a thought is put into action? And if that action fails, then did evil never exist to begin with? If indeed there was no evil, then is it okay to allow bad intentions to make you change your behavior, move to a new place, change your lifestyle? Does that mean that evil thoughts are no worse than a daydream, a mere fantasy? Even fantasies and daydreams can sometimes alter reality.
–and–
There'd been good, and there'd been bad. That was all. At the time, she'd thought that all of it was bad. Because happiness had flitted on by while bad things had a way of lingering.
–and–
She'd felt the unfamiliar thrill that comes only when you amplify your malice.

Nothing in life ever prepares us for the rude awkakening to our utter insignificance and unimportance to others. The day someone, known to us or not, acts in a way that utterly changes our world and not for the better, for no reason that has anything to do with us, our needs or wants or just deserts, is hideously and often disfiguringly painful:

Those sounds and sentences were lost to her now. His unconditional love, his wordless yet tender gaze, his steely look of fatherly responsibility. All gone. They were each different, but to her they were all synonyms for a father.
–and–
The future was a dark corridor. And though she would grope her way through it, the door at the end would be locked tight.
–and–
The whole time she had stayed locked up at home, she had imagined the outside world as a place that could swallow her whole at any moment. But in truth, it was a place that paid her no attention at all.

The pain of changing from innocent to worldly is not to be underestimated. It is the primary driver of the action in this story of two women, disadvantaged by the mere fact of their sex, coming to terms with the knowledge that they are tiny, worthless objects in a world that belongs to venal, cruel, or simply indifferent men. The horrifyingly sadistic way poor people are treated and thought of (when they even are) rang exactly true to me after my experiences living as a poor person in Texas.

Both women set out to answer questions about their fresh life-losses because it's completely clear no one else will bother. Both women become entangled in the horrifying world of endless indebtedness that is many, many people's downfall, and was proximately responsible for their losses. The Dantean underworld of edging-on-illegal, all-the-way immoral collection tactics presented here should open some privilieged people's eyes.

Bleak and dark and unhappy as the story is, the reason it is worth reading is both the light it shines on live not like one's own, and the trademark incisivenss of the author's observations of people and places. Some of the darker characters do, unfortunately, veer into mustachio-twirling villainy. Hence that missing half-star. There are several predictable set-ups for the women to fall into. These aren't constantly appearing, or I'd be a lot harder on the work than I am. They're undeniably there, and I couldn't imagine that these characters were really THAT foolish so as to fall into them.

The end of the read, however, left me with the certainty that this is a book saying things I really want people to hear. The last word, then, is:

People don’t end up poor because they’re stupid. They end up poor because the system is fucked.

Happy hump day!

*smooch*

Happy Wednesday, RD. Wow, The Hole sounds really good. Another one for the list. Rehab duties went well yesterday. I got to hang out with some pretty cool birds. I am meeting my birding buddies this AM before the heat arrives.

>194 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita! *smooch*

>195 msf59: The heat arriving is the problem everywhere now. Are there heat-stressed animals in rehab now?

Enjoy it all, and good reading once you're home.

Huh. I already have City of Ash and Red and The Hole on Kindle. Must have picked them up when they were cheap. I'll have to bump 'em up.

>198 swynn: I'm counting 'em as book-bullets, then. *preens*

I'd encourage you to start with The Hole for sure...so deeply creepy! She's got a good line on how to suggest without clonking.

Rushing through but not without a stop and a *smooch* for your day!

>200 LizzieD: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

Looks like you've had some good reading RD.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!
Your August reading has started really well :-)

*smooch*

>202 Caroline_McElwee: I have indeed, Caro, and more to come. What a relief!

>203 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita! I'm so pleased about the way it's turned out so far for #WITMonth. *smooch*

>183 richardderus: "I'm not taking attendance or judging anyone by whether or how often they come say hi to me."

Good thing to read that. Been awhile since I delurked. I've devoted a lot of my time to reading the 'not your thing' genre of YA.

Collected very few BB's in July, but did follow up with some titles on my LT-BB list from previous months. Cheers.

>206 SandyAMcPherson: Hiya Sandy! Glad you decloaked, you book-Romulan you. ;-P

I saw your most recent middle-grade book reviewed, and it made me angry at the lazy writing. Clarity is even more important in writing for that demographic than it is in writing for adults. I suspect many kids are turned off reading by that very kind of murkiness.

>207 richardderus: Well, ya know the old saying: don't get angry, get even
My way of countering poor writing is to call it out in a book review. Not caring whether this is perhaps not appropriate 'revenge' for being inflicted with someone else's writing style.

I'm aware that it is simply *my* opinion that it was poorly constructed work, but all I've got to offer (obviously, I guess) is my perspective.

>208 SandyAMcPherson: It's depressing that your expression of your opinion, which is what a review is, needs to be defended. Don't bother with me...I get it. Opinions aren't facts. You're not expressing it as such.

>209 richardderus: Hope you know I wasn't defending my review to you. I was thinking in re-reading that I wrote post #208 poorly, perhaps as if I was implying that 'not caring' phrase was directed at you.

Some days my brain fogs over and I am the one not writing with clarity. Cue *laughter*.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Friday to you.

>186 richardderus: Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, along with Andrew Jackson, were insufferably smug in their prejudices and short-sighted vision for what was good for the United States. I’m still so sad that Hamilton got ensnared by Maria and James Reynolds, too stupid to not have an affair with her. This is an over simplification, but except for that, he might have been President.

The Romeo Alexander Report is only as good as July plus one book in January that only got 2.5 stars. I do have a few more of his I want to read.



>187 richardderus: Pass, which shouldn’t surprise you at all.

>193 richardderus: Another pass, however People don’t end up poor because they’re stupid. They end up poor because the system is fucked. is something that I absolutely believe is true.

*smooch*

056 Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies by Stefania Maurizi (tr. Lesli Cavanaugh-Bardelli)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: An uncovering of the terrifying depths of authoritarian power that hide behind the infamous story of WikiLeaks.

*Winner of the European Award for Investigative And Judicial Journalism in 2021 and Premio Alessandro Leogrande Award 2022*

'I want to live in a society where secret power is accountable to the law and to public opinion for its atrocities, where it is the war criminals who go to jail, not those who have the conscience and courage to expose them.'

It is 2008, and Stefania Maurizi, an investigative journalist with a growing interest in cryptography, starts looking into the little-known organisation WikiLeaks. Through hushed meetings, encrypted files and explosive documents, what she discovers sets her on a life-long journey that takes her deep into the realm of secret power.

Working closely with WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange and his organisation for her newspaper, Maurizi has spent over a decade investigating state criminality protected by thick layers of secrecy, while also embarking on a solitary trench warfare to unearth the facts underpinning the cruel persecution of Assange and WikiLeaks.

With complex and disturbing insights, Maurizi's tireless journalism exposes atrocities, the shameful treatment of Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, on up to the present persecution of WikiLeaks: a terrifying web of impunity and cover-ups.

At the heart of the book is the brutality of secret power and the unbearable price paid by Julian Assange, WikiLeaks and truthtellers.

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

My Review: I dislike what I know of Julian Assange as a human being. That doesn't make what's been happening to him acceptable, still less justifiable. WikiLeaks has been a force internationally for sixteen years now; it's got a pretty spotty record, but that's not a huge surprise given its antipathy to Authority...that kind of puritanism leads the best-intentioned and most honestly passionate defenders of individual liberty down some deep, dark rabbit holes. This is not accidental, or without outside baiting. The use of agents provocateurs and disinformation is an old, effective means to hide actual, factual embarrassments in loud, distracting noise (see: the lives and work of Paul Linebarger and Edward Bernays).

The author is an established investigative journalist. She's won major European awards for her work in this often thankless, always risky role. All this as well as her undeniable personal drive to take on Power on behalf of the ordinary person's right to dictate what they will and won't tolerate from their governing institutions is what made this retelling of the events surrounding the scandals they've caused trustworthy to me. The mass media have, at best, glossed over and/or slanted their coverage uniformly negatively against Assange and WikiLeaks. Books like this are welcome correctives to that kind of Authority-supporting heavily biased coverage.

What matters in the world at large is that people like Assange and Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and Reality Winner are punished, not for being bad people, but for refusing to be silent and complicit in crimes committed by terrible people for vile aims and in service of reprehensible purposes. Author Maurizi makes this crystal clear, which is why the book appeared via Pluto Press not, eg, Random House. Big Business and Big Government are symbiotes.

I still think Assange, the man, is a creep. After eading this book, I am more convinced than ever that he will be made to pay and pay and pay for daring to reveal what the blandly evil rulers are really getting up to. As will, eventually, Author Maurizi and Bill Browder and Jessikka Aro the other people who hold the powerful's crimes up for the public to see clearly and judge.

Happy Friday, Richard. You asked about the Rehab animals- the staff does their best to keep the animals comfortable in the heat and the cold. These are regional critters anyway and should be accustomed to our weather.

It is Jackson Day! And we will have him until tomorrow. Really looking forward to it, although it will probably be exhausting. Glad we can team-up.

>210 SandyAMcPherson: No, no, Sandy, I never thought I was the audience. I'm irked that the possession of an opinion is now considered so volatile a topic. Whatever became of "assume good will?" The precursor to "agree to disagree?"

>211 karenmarie: Thank you, Horrible! My September gift cards are spent. You're a dear sweet soul trapped in a reasonable person's body, and that's just not fair.

After I use the time machine to prove there was no Jesus, I'm comin' for the despicable Reynoldses. A Hamilton presidency probably means no Jackson, but I ain't takin' chances. Death by Brit in 1781.

Enjoy your Friday, you reading-chicken you. *smooch*

>213 msf59: Jackson Day! I know it's the highlight of your week. I'm sure everyone needs a break from the extremes we've been having lately...why, it almost got to 80° here yesterday. Imagine such a thing by the ocean. Outrageous.

Well, that'll larn me.

~ I should have read this review
This is the cheapest, crappiest thing for a 21st-century writer to pull that I can imagine
before checking out Come Hell or Highball (Maia Chance) a couple days ago.

I was disgusted with the storyline by page 50, and fortunately skipped to the last quarter to see if it really was as awful as it seemed (yup). Then I looked up the reviews, to confirm abandoning the read. I up-thumbed the review quoted above. Thank you for a candid, saved-me-from-stupid, review.

Good Friday Morning, Good Richard. News of the day so far: DH says it's "sprinkling." We walk in what I call a steady light rain, but we walk, and that's good. My shoes will be dry in a couple of days..... This less-hot break has been a real treat. Hope it reaches as far north as you are!

>217 SandyAMcPherson: I warn't just whistlin' Dixie, now were I? I'm so sorry that you ran into that buzzsaw. I hope it was a library borrow, not even a sale purchase could make that okay.

>218 LizzieD: Hey there Miss Peggy Ma'am. I'm glad there's a respite from your heat at least, though rain = humididity later I myownself agree with you that turnin' off the blast furnace is Job 1.

*smooch*

>219 richardderus: Rest assured, I'm always "about a library borrow" these days.

>208 SandyAMcPherson: +1 Bad reviews are my revenge for bad writing.

>214 richardderus: "Assume good will" always was applied only to people-like-us. As the definition of "us" shrinks, so does the set of people presumed to have good will.

>222 ArlieS: "... bad reviews are my revenge for bad writing"
Did you intend to say you write bad reviews a a revenge?
What ever you meant, I agree that to call out poorly written work is perhaps "our" obligation.
I can enjoy a story, but still say the workmanship was poor. I generally use 3-stars for those books.

>221 SandyAMcPherson: Thank goodness!

>222 ArlieS:, >223 SandyAMcPherson: I kind of shy away from being harsh unless it's egregiously bad, like the Collins in >44 richardderus:

It ends up not being helpful. If it gets your blood pressure down, go for it. It ends up feeling not fun or productive of my skill-sharpening needs.

>223 SandyAMcPherson: Yep. Writing the bad reviews is my revenge ;-)

My worst reviews are reserved for non-fiction.

I think my worst ever, at least on LibraryThing, was for The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets.

I don't like lies, liars, or lying.

>226 ArlieS: Seemed pretty commonsensical to me...calling someone writing non-fiction out for poor sourcing isn't a bad review to me. It's a public service.

>227 richardderus: Y'all will understand my dissing one of Temple Grandin's books awhile back.
Gave it one star... I detest fake scientists or science-trained folks wading in on topics they're unqualified to write as an authority. Bah.

>228 SandyAMcPherson: Memoir ≠ science.

I love a review of a book someone's not enjoyed, they can almost be more fun to read than the book. Keep it up, y'all.

Happy weekend, RD. Raining and a trip to see his mother are on my horizon, hope your Saturday is looking slightly cheerier.

>230 Helenliz: LOL

I live to serve, Helen!

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Saturday to you.

>212 richardderus: Sigh. A BB, already bought and on its way, due tomorrow by 10 p.m.

>215 richardderus: Aww, shucks. And glad I helped you spend your September gift cards.

The first alternate history novel I ever read was Fatherland. It stunned me. I don’t dip my toes into the genre often, but my favorite so far is 11/22/63.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>229 richardderus: Exactly!

>232 karenmarie: I loved 11/22/63! It's my favorite King book, hands down. I'm a lot deeper down the alt-hist rabbit hole than thou, and don't particularly want to reverse my course. Jo Walton's Small Change series is a newb-friendly intro to the deeper pleasures of the genre.

Maurizi's book bid fair to cause me further CVAs. I'm glad I exported a few onto your shoulders because I don't see enough conversation about the REAL problem of WikiLeaks. Another fact that doesn't get nearly enough attention:

>233 SandyAMcPherson: :-)

>234 richardderus: Okay, drat you. Two BBs today – I just bought the Kindle version of Farthing, the first in Walton’s trilogy. I have had the second one, Ha’Penny, on my shelves since March of 2012. *smooch*

>236 karenmarie:

"At a Republican Party dinner Friday night in Alabama, Trump repeated his claims that the latest criminal case he faces is an “outrageous criminalization of political speech,” and said his “enemies” were trying to stop him and his political movement with “an army of rabid, left-wing lawyers, corrupt and really corrupt Marxist prosecutors,” “deranged government agents and rogue intelligence officers.”"

I think this is more scary than anything else I've read about 45's insanity and reality-denying cultists. The rest is here if you feel responsible-citizeny:
https://apnews.com/article/trump-indictment-justice-department-takeover-democrac...

>238 richardderus: - I didn't think he knew that many *big* words. Surely, he doesn't own a thesaurus! Must have paid someone to write that bullshit for him.
No thanks, reading what you quoted was more than enough for me, no need for me to click further. I am trying hard to hang on to my sanity these days... Unless they eventually toss him into the slammer, all the *indictments* in the world are meaningless, aren't they?

You got me with the Aptaker review, Richard. I love a good historical mystery. Hope your weather is more walkable now.

>240 Familyhistorian: Hi Meg! Glad to see you, and very satisfied to have smacked you withsuch a good book-bullet. Humid here, so walking the boardwalk feels pretty stifling until the next windy day...maybe tomorrow.

I hope you have breezier weather tomorrow, Richard. It was humid here today with a high of 29C but we hardy people of the tundra foraged out for a walk anyway. Looks like I'll have to buy the book you got me with as my library doesn't have that particular series although they have other Aptaker books.

>242 Familyhistorian: Hang on to the title...it only came out this month. I expect the library that has Aptaker will keep having he books around, in due course.

>234 richardderus: That is a fantastic tid-bit but sadly it won't change one poisoned mind.

Happy Sunday, Richard. Very quiet around here without Jack. We love being with him but a nearly silent house is a pretty good thing too. Nearly finished with Chain-Gang. Good, dark stuff. He is a talent.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

>237 richardderus: Your evil plan is working. I absolutely needed an additional 2 books to add to the 2,588 I have tagged 'tbr' on my shelves and in my Kindle.

>238 richardderus: Sigh. I just don’t have it in me right now to read anything about Trump’s f***ery. I may come back to it.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>244 msf59: Deprogramming cultists is not easy nor can it be done to more than one at a time. The fact is it can't ever succeed 100% of the time and success isn't always permanent. But one mind's doubts can be spoken to, and that CAN happen broadly and publicly. There's no way to know which straw will do it or how the straw will be delivered.

So I make it my business to blow straws in lots of directions.

Meanwhile, we can enjoy the fact that treason and sedition have been the straws on 86 backs. That is so deeply happy-making to me I can't adequately express it.

Adjei-Brenyah speaks loudly AND wields a very big stick. I'm glad he's getting the attention he is.

>245 karenmarie: Sunday orisons, Horrible. Don't rush...someone (maybe Charles Hummel?) said something along the lines of "only gossip is urgent; the news has staying power."

45 can ruin my mood simply by being reminded that his cult exists. I feel so helpless in the face of Belief so overpowering that mere facts can't penetrate it. I don't have that experience myownself so I have no way in to discuss it with Believers. My attempts to discuss it routinely end up reinforcing the cultist's Belief because it's starkly clear I do not Believe. Better I wear my own ideas loud and proud to get my own a little better supported.

It's never enough. It's not always the right way for some, and it makes others angry or unhappy. I am not in charge of their feelings about me or anything else, so am ready to let go of people who like me if or when. Better for me and, I suspect, them as well.

>238 richardderus: That man is terrifying and horrifying

TIME FOR AN OVERSHARE

I watched s2 of Heartstopper with Rob...last night we finished thee series, and a lot of what happened in it brought up unresolved crap from Rob's family past. So I shared a deep, dark secret with him and we both had a good long cry over Zoom or whichever one it was (I just click the links, he does the setting-up). Old Stuff, usually lightly snoring, was listening. This morning he asked me, for possibly the third rime since he moved in six years ago, a personal question and listened to the answer.

::gobsmacked::

The facility is putting in new carpets room-by-room, and it's possible they'll be in here neext week. They gave one woman I'm friendly with absolutely no notice whatever, just came in and started chucking her stuff into bags while she was out. There was, I assure you, Drama. I learned from her experience and decided to spend the weekend chucking out stuff and corralling loose books in more plastic milk crates I liberated from the kitchen garbage. Of course that means every-damn-thing has to be put into some kind of unscrewuppable order. AND there's no guarantee they'll get to it this week. My anxiety levels are sky-high. Poor or more accurately no communication is the norm here, but this is next-level uncertainty...but I'm using it to get rid of things I can't use anymore or just wonder what the hell I was thinking when I acquired them.

Lemonade from lemons...but now I've got a tiny ratpath and I hate living like that for any length of time. And no guarantee I will be treated one shred more respectfully than my friend was...

Can anyone explain the concept of an "uneventful life" to me, please? I'd like to start building one but I don't know where to start.

>248 RebaRelishesReading: ...and repulsive and repugnant and narcissistic and ignorant and....

>250 richardderus: Yep

>238 richardderus: Sig Heil!

>247 richardderus: I grew up in the presence of Christianity, aka "Belief so overpowering that mere facts can't penetrate it". (Plenty of believers in other religions have the same kind of Faith(TM), of course, but my local true believers identified as Christian.)

Trump's particular brand of lunacy doesn't seem significantly worse than many of the other True Beliefs (TM) I've encountered, nor significantly more popular. (Surely you remember e.g. the "Moral Majority".)

>259 richardderus: Ouch, that really sucks. Good luck.

>239 jessibud2: I missed you last night, Shelley, I'm sorry....No doubt 45's intellectual capabilities are, to be polite, limited. To be precise about it...never mind. Anyway, all sensible politicians pay speechwriters to make them sound smart. As a matter of personal policy, I judge their speeches by the quality of the speechwriters they hire. I don't ever believe they believe what they're saying to save bitterer disappointments down the line.

>251 RebaRelishesReading:

I am terrified of the upcoming election. I have such a sick feeling in my gut. It's not even anger anymore. Just a horrible sickness.

>252 ArlieS: Thanks for the sympathies, Arlie. *sigh*

That Faith™ is non-denominational. "Worse" isn't a reasonable standard because there's no one metric, let alone a universlal one, to apply; it certainly isn't any more widespread than the 80s "Moral Majority" or their various ancestors in US politics and Kultur. I think it's an inevitable part of jamming a lot of people together and saying "now everyone play nice, k?" Some won't be happy unless others aren't.

>255 The_Hibernator: It's existentially horrifying, isn't it, Rachel? Well...dig we must. Spread whatever level of anti-45 rhetoric you can bring yourself to, wherever you can. No one ever knows which seed will do what.

>249 richardderus: So sorry about the facility putting in new carpets with no regard to the residents at all. I hope your anxiety levels decrease soon and that there is minimal disruption to your stuff. I'm glad you and Rob had such a deep and meaningful visit.

>258 vancouverdeb: Thanks for commiserating, Deb. It's one of the frustrations of living in a care home run by those who don't much care. Beats the street all hollow.

The fun thing about being close to him is how much it matters that we talk about things, though I'm worse at it than he is. Always "tamping it down" as he grumbles. We've got such a huge age gap that I don't always like to make it worse by oversharing. Turns out I'm not a great judge of what's oversharing to him.

Thank the goddesses for TV, I guess.

057 1794: The City Between the Bridges (Bellman Noir-trilogy #2) by Niklas Natt och Dag (tr. Ebba Segerberg)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A #1 international bestseller, this atmospheric and breathtaking sequel to the “cerebral, immersive page-turner” (The Washington Post) The Wolf and the Watchman explores the darkness hidden beneath the splendor of 18th-century Stockholm.

Stockholm, 1794: A young nobleman, Eric Three Roses, languishes in a hospital as the rest of the city claims that he belongs in a madhouse. Riddled with guilt, he writes down the memories of his lost love—his beautiful wife who died on their wedding night.

The young woman’s mother also mourns her death and, desperate for justice, begs for help from the only person who will listen to her: Jean Mickel Cardell, the one-armed watchman. But she isn’t the only person seeking him out.

Emil, younger brother to the brilliant lawyer and detective Cecil Winge, finds the watchman to demand his late brother’s pocket watch back. Instead, Cardell enlists Emil’s help to discover what really happened at the Three Roses estate that dreaded wedding night.

The City Between the Bridges: 1794 is a suspenseful race for the truth before it’s too late from an author with a “thrilling, unnerving, clever, and beautiful” (Fredrik Backman, #1 New York Times bestselling author) voice.

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

My Review: Splendidly grim; staggeringly brutal.

Really, I could stop typing right there. What you need to know is: The first book isn't a necessity to read before this one, but I recommend it. If that book's truly dreadful crimes don't cause you to blench, this one's won't either plus you'll already know Mickel Cardell...he's central to the point of view of Enlightenment-era Stockholm from below our usual ten-thousand-foot aerie of aristocracy of the mind or the law. History glosses over so much.

The author and the translator must have worked closely together on this series to maintain such a clear sense of the language being used with great exactness and concision. The way the imagery unfolds is gripping, especially in the more awful parts...and there are plenty of them!...so I'm not going to spend a lot of keystrokes specifying the CWs. Trust me, if you need a content warning, you might shouldn't pick this series up. Bodies and minds are abused, ground down, commodified. No one in this book has a shred of a chance at happiness.

If that matters to you, shop elsewhere.

What you'll get in this shop is a very trenchant take on the role of power in corrupting the powerful's souls. What happens when no one can say no to you is never pretty. What happens to others is downright horrifying. It behooves the reader willing to come down the fetid alleys and swim across the reeking canals to realize what dehumanizing and Othering costs the Othered, but also those passively complicit in it.

The manner in which the story is constructed, multiple apparently disconnected viewpoints, isn't at first obviously going to lead us to Stockholm and Mickel. Be patient...it will. But that polyphony that feels so alienating early on is, in the end, an effective tool for conveying the reality of the story to the observing eye of the reader.

I don't for a second think too many will see the ending coming. That is praise, coming from me. I can't honestly say I felt ma'at upheld in the resolution. Because nothing on this wide green Earth can redress the balance of horror and misery unleashed on the people in it. But it doesn't stop being worth the trip.

So no happy happy, joy joy. But a lot of seriously good points being made in prose more than up to the task of delivering the burden of the tale in unforgettable ways.

Just stopping by to say “Hiya!” (A la Robin in C B Strike) and “Mind how you go” (a la DI Thursday in Endeavour). I think I’ve been watching a lot of British detective shows! Have a great week!

Karen O

>261 klobrien2: Ha! I was just over at yours wishing you the same things! Great minds, etc. *smooch*

>262 richardderus: I laughed when I saw that you’d just been at my thread! Always a treat to “talk” with you!

Karen O

‘Morning, RD.

>249 richardderus: I’m so sorry they’re doing this the way they’re doing it, because new carpeting is not a bad thing. Sky-high anxiety levels are not good for you but all I can say is I hope you’re there when they attack your room so you can help manage/control it. Sending calming thoughts and positive mojo for their doing a respectful and good job. OS asking a personal question and listening to the answer is a surprise, but could have gone so much worse.

>260 richardderus: Nope, but of course that won’t surprise you.

*smooch*

>260 richardderus: - Sounds like a good one!

>264 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible. My anxiety levels are sky high indeed, but I feel very fortunate that I saw what was happening and took control of my reactions by taking action. Of course, now I've torn stuff up and there's no guarantee that it was their plan to do this recarpeting in my hallway any time soon.

I'd still hugely prefer to have done something than to have sat still and fretted. Will you look at me, figuring myself out at the time of life when most of us are ossifying!

Even if you'd seemed interested, Horrible, I'd've warned you off. This book, this series, is so very Not For You!

*smooch*

>265 katiekrug: You, OTOH, will likely enjoy the way this story unfolds...but be prepared for that multiplicity of voices to take time to cohere into the Story. I hope the series will find its way onto your Kindle one day.

*smooch*

from today's A Word A Day newsletter:

No amount of belief makes something a fact. -James Randi, magician and skeptic (b. 7 Aug 1928)

I'm weary too, and I have no reason to be. I've spent about 10 minutes assessing the fact that I don't KNOW that what I am told by news sources that I respect and believe is true. I've decided that they have been reliable as far as I know for years and that they aren't asking me to believe that children are enslaved under the Capitol or that global slave trade is being run from a pizza parlor in wherever it was, etc. They just expect me to believe that a former POTUS is out to make himself dictator. I don't think you could make up 45, so I believe what they say.
Meanwhile, the fact that Smith has subpoenaed all Republicans proves that he is corrupt and the Devil Incarnate. He should have gone after Hilary, Joe, et al. Isn't that what they are saying?

I hope you get your new carpet soon with some warning. Meanwhile, you've done what you can, so maybe you can read.

I'll try to come back when I'm in a better frame of mind. Peace and *Smooch*

>269 LizzieD: That existential angst you're in the midst of, Peggy, is part and parcel of the 45 Effect. Disrupting trust in institutions isn't necessarily bad, but if it's only offering other institutions that require more investment in blind, unquestioning faith is a naked, ugly power ploy that can never end in a net benefit to actual societies.

I'd like to go back to the good timeline, please, the one where Shrub Bush failed to steal the 2000 election.

Recharge you batteries, my friend. See you when I see you and with a happy welcoming smile.

The big baddie boss told me today that the carpet replacement will be later this week for sure. They gave me a specific place to begin moving all my crates of books into, and were very clear about how the process will work...they will move all the furniture into a specific spot the day before installation. No idea where we'll sleep that night, but it'll be fine. That the three people responsible for this took the time to come in here to explain to me personally what would happen means that they learned from the unforced errors of last week.

Not even going to try and catch up, RD. ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today!

>272 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! What, you don't want to know about the alien abduction/Rapture experience I had and am now required by the godlike Masters to share with you? *tsk*

>271 richardderus: Glad you got a decent explanation and hope it all goes well. New carpet will be nice though I imagine.

>274 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba! It will be lovely indeed to have clean carpet. This stuff is truly ghastly at this point.

Hope the carpet replacement goes well Richard! Slightly at a tangent, i think my earliest memory is of carpet fitting. It was obviously very exciting when I was 3 or 4.

>276 SandDune: Hi Rhian! It's pretty exciting at 63-about-to-turn-64, too. Just not so much in the FUN way. *smooch*

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Tuesday to you.

>271 richardderus: I hope the execution of this revised-‘cuz-of-the-flack shite methodology goes well.

>273 richardderus: Glad I wasn’t actually in the process of swallowing coffee – I don’t have time to clean the keyboard and desk before heading off to book sort.

>277 richardderus: 64 will be a good year for you because 8’s my lucky number and 8 squared is magical and I am bestowing some of that 8 karma on you, starting now but definitely continuing next month.

*smooch*

"It's pretty exciting at 63-about-to-turn-64..."

I just did it, RD. Piece of cake. I just can't get my head around the idea of turning 70 in a mere 6 years.

>278 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I'm saddened that you-of-all-people react to my Revelation to Saint Mudge the Expendable with amusement. The Masters are going to execute the Rapture any day now. (I might be early to that party since I'm moving my book crates into the hall in front of my room so the maintenance guys can just hand-truck them to whichever spot they plan to keep them while the carpeting does its thing. STRESS!)

All good fortune gratefully accepted. 8 being your lucky number, and me about to turn 8-squared, I hope for positive resonances. Every ten or fifteen minutes of work gets followed by a lie-down and cool-off. Old Stuff has literally complained not one time about the mess or disruption...I suspect because he heard the Big Baddie say he was expecting me to get my stuff organized before they came to move it out. It's a lovely surprise no matter why it's happening.

Okay, break over. Have fun book-fondling today. *smooch*

>279 msf59: Morning, Mark! You're Beatles-years-old, too? I always think you're younger than me!

When I'm Sixty- Four

Great to 'see' you over on my thread. Thanks for the rapport regarding re-reads. Naturally I babbled on at some length. Then went on to expound on other topics *at even greater* length.

I have a paucity of in-person companions to whom I can chatter (unsure of my grammar as usual). The lack is a traditional exit (in Saskatchewan, despite the confounded wild fire smoke) when "everyone" goes to the lake (camping, RV-ING, or cabins). We stay home, 'cause 'summer in the city' is actually very nice (and not so gritty). Heh.

>260 richardderus: Scary thoughts here. Appreciated the review, despite my feeling I would meltdown trying to read this book (or its preceding one). I so, _so_ agree: History glosses over so much.

>282 SandyAMcPherson: Hiya Sandy! You're not alone in finding here what isn't common to find IRL: Conversation on one's preferred level regarding books and ideas. I'll coddiwomple thitherward here directly to see what's exercising your mind ATM.

+1 on your wide berth around Natt och Dag...I expect the cruelty wouldn't work well for you; no matter how well-written it's still pretty graphic.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Hump Day to you.

Yes to positive resonances. I’m glad OS is not complaining. No additional stress is good to hear about.

Ooh yes, book fondling went well. I got a rejected copy of Babbit and Giant that needed good homes, and a book about Paul, he of the Bible, for friend Karen in Montana.

Off to get ready for the Reynolda House Museum of American Art field trip with Jenna and 2 friends on the Book Sort Team. Busy day, but … books! Art books!

*smooch*

058 The Details by Ia Genberg (tr. Kira Josefsson)

Rating: 4* of five, rounded up from three-an-a-half for the pleasure of its company

The Publisher Says: An acclaimed Swedish author makes her English language debut with this intoxicating novel in the vein of Rachel Cusk and Sheila Heti, about a woman in the throes of a fever remembering the important people in her past, her memories laid bare in vivid detail as her body temperature rises.

A woman lies bedridden from a high fever. Suddenly she is struck with an urge to revisit a novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription: a get-well-soon message from Johanna, an ex-girlfriend who is now a famous television host. As she flips through the book, pages from the woman's own past begin to come alive, scenes of events and people she cannot forget.

There are moments with Johanna, and Niki, the friend who disappeared years ago without a phone number or an address and with no online footprint. There is Alejandro, who gleefully campaigns for a baby even though he knows their love has no future. And Brigitte, whose elusive qualities mask a painful secret.

The Details is a novel built around four portraits; the small details that, pieced together, comprise a life. Can a loved one really disappear? Who is the real subject of the portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush? Do we fully become ourselves through our connections to others? This exhilarating, provocative tale raises profound questions about the nature of relationships, and how we tell our stories. The result is an intimate and illuminating study of what it means to be human.

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

My Review: Ecru silk damask, if it were a novel.

Fine sentences, trenchant observations, but all a bit samey. The nature of Love is, I guess, pretty much to be variations on a theme for most all of us. Like the damask I opened with, it's details that change not the shape of the central concerns of the lover. Her apparent life-long bisexuality simply is, from beginning to end; there's zero mention of coming out, except a tiny nod at the very end when her father's calm reaction to it in the past gets a sentence fragment. Nor is there a single soul whose response to her bisxeuality is...well, to be honest, even present.

This being the way I think things should be, I got no kick with that.

What doesn't excite me then? I have the sneaking suspicion that there's not more than meets the eye here, that the meanings are all present and accounted for, that one's meant to be exactly where we're left. I'm perfectly ready to stipulate that this could be my failure to dig deeper. Honestly the prose and the story don't invite me to do so...Nor do I, a lifelong US citizen, feel I'm led to see and feel the map coordinates throughout the text. Because I'm not Swedish nor am I familiar with them, the towns and neighborhoods of Stockholm that are named gave me no extra information, no deepened shadows or illuminated spots from their mentions.

The events of her life of love coming to her as fragments in a malarial fever gets little enough play that I never had a chance to develop a response to it. It's merely a framing device and no more. I found that to be a good thing because it didn't require a lot to use it effectively. Mentions here and there. No more than might occur in a letter one sends to a friend recalling shared moments from the past.

If your present mood calls for something meditative, something thoughtful without being stressful, here's a short, pleasant trip to Sweden with an honest hearted companion. Let her tell you some of her secrets. Your day might be enriched even more than mine was by my bisexual sibling. One small tic in the corner of my eye was caused by Alejandro,in the blurb above, campaigning for the narrator to have a baby with him. It is Kristian, whom Alejandro displaced in the narrtor's love, that wanted to have babies with the narrator. *tsk* on the copywriter!

>284 karenmarie: Your book-fondling week continues apace, I see! An enviable lot to do today. The sheer scope of the potential pool...! Wow! I hope everything is wonderful, exciting, and will sell in one season's sale.

The move-out is looming, and despite the amount I've gotten done I'm a heap of breathless anxiety. I literally can not wait for new, clean carpet. I literally can not stand this disruption and the inevitable loss and/or breakage of something(s).

I don't know that it's any better that it's happening literally right this second, but at least the waiting's over.

Peace, Richard. I understand that it's happening now, and I wish it may go smoothly and that you may get all your stuff back promptly and in good order, and (I guess I can say it now) that the new carpet doesn't smell. (My mama and my DH and my own prissy world-view don't allow me to say "stink," but that's what I mean.)

*SMOOCH*

>287 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy. All the stuff's been in and out, so there's only organizing to re-do. The Big Baddie has been through the room. He of course found fault with what remains...almost all of my books are now in storage rooms back behind the basement area, but that's fine with me because it was so cramped before and now it isn't. So much more light in here now!

Hope things can settle now the new carpet is in. Space and light are always good.

Do you like the new carpet?

>288 richardderus: Well, I hope the organizing goes quickly and to your satisfaction. Yay for more light!

**Smooches** and ((Hugs))

Sounds like your stuff survived with no damage and I'm glad you're good with having many books in a storage room. Do you like the carpet as well as the lighter/brighter room?

Hi RD. I dropped by to see if the ol' homestead has settled down.
Here's hoping the chaos is lessening as your possessions re-enter the new space.

I-my-own-self *resent, deeply* the uproar that renovations entail. The chaos is too much to tolerate anymore in my over-stressed mind so I will countenance essential repairs inside, only if the house maintenance truly requires the work. Outside, usually doesn't require massive upheaval.

Otherwise, nothing cosmetic unless we do it ourselves. Saving a lot of money this way because I am so not having our 1980's kitchen renovated. Our kids seem to be the same. The materials alone have doubled and tripled in the last 3 years. Ridiculous.

>289 Helenliz: Thanks, Helen. I'm so knackered at this point, all I care about is the big stuff being back in the correct places...the piddly littles I'll torment Old Stuff by working on. How he'll hate that! *whee*

>290 jessibud2: It's clean, so it's gorgeous.

>291 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia! *smooch*

>292 RebaRelishesReading: See >295 richardderus:...hard to work up any enthusiasm for plain grey carpet, but more light is nice...until 4pm. The blinds need replacing.

>293 SandyAMcPherson: I worked what little butt I had off today, so I am totally in that frame, too. Even the maintenance manager commented on how hard I worked. I Made Sure to say to all the staff I met in my travels that I wanted praise for working so hard six months after having three strokes...also reminding them thereby that I fully expect good-boy points to follow me around for this.

Inflation is driven by those very price increases...and people act amazed that profits are up...it's enough to deepen one's misanthropic contempt exponentially.

Happy Thursday, Richard, I hope your belongings are back in place now.

>249 richardderus: an "uneventful life"
Only for very short times I have known some uneventful times. The concept of a whole uneventful life is unknown to me as well.
Lately it was good for a few months, but now my sister is harassing my father again :-(

>260 richardderus: Ah, the second book has finally reached the English reading world.
I must confess it was at the edge of what I can take, as I can take a bit more in historical settings. And Natt och Dag is a very good writer! Now I hope the third book will come soon for you.

>299 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita! I'm not finished with the little-stuff organization but the big thing are now where they will stay. It feels fine...I really, really hate not having my books around me, but my recent strokes taught me that a clear access to my bed could, in the end, save my life.

I still hate it, though.

Natt och Dag and his translator did a very fine job indeed. His imagination is GRIM. Were I married to him, I'd be very nervous all the time!

So sorry to learn that your sister's begun her antics again. I wish she will find another hobby to engross her clearly capacious attention. *smooch* for better days to come!

>295 richardderus: - Even if it's gray, clean and fresh FEELS good and that is worth a lot more than looking good.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. The carpets look great. Glad you survived the chaos. Enjoy the smell and the tidiness.

>301 jessibud2: Awomen, Shelley! Fresh is all-improvingly pleasant indeed. The smell isn't the way new-carpet smell used to be, either, thank the goddesses.

>302 msf59: Thanks, Mark. Mostly I'm enjoying the LACK of smell from dirty-old-carpet! Honestly that was the worst part of it and I can't tolerate that cleaning product used to shampoo carpets, it's instant blinding headache city for me.

Hiya, RD! Happy day-after-carpet-installation day to you.

>294 richardderus: and >295 richardderus: I’m glad the big stuff is back in the correct places and that you have OS Torment material to work with.

Jenna just sent this to me and I thought you’d appreciate it:



*smooch*

>305 karenmarie: I love that indeed, Horrible, Jenna has a great eye!

I need to get some organizing supplies it's very clear. *sighs* I'll be so glad when I win the next billion-plus jackpot. Heh.

*smooch*

Glad that carpet is sorted RD, hope your stress levels are dropping. So frustrating these folks don't understand how to make such things more manageable. Communication, notice, care....

>308 Caroline_McElwee: I really can't complain about the notice, Caro. The notice debacles other people had taught them a lesson, and it was always going to be a major production number to get my stuff sorted. Honestly I have no kick about anything except I hate the process of change.