richardderus's twelfth 2023 thread

In the US, this is a long weekend that starts the civil definition of fall/autumn. It is, of course, nothing of the kind since the Equinox coming up is the MIDDLE of the twelve weeks of fall, but who cares? There's golden retrievers to ogle.

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.
Reviews 046 through 058 linked here..
Reviews 059 through 068 linked here.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS

069 The Raging Storm in post #71.
070 CONTAINING BIG TECH: How to Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy in post #85.
071 The Easy Life in Kamusari in post #91.
072 THE PERENNIALS: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society in post #92.
073 Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life in post #129.
074 Larry McMurtry: A Life in post #229.
075 The Peculiarities in post #271.

Previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

#19 Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady in post #17.
#20 The Revolving Boy in post #240.
#21 Moonshine: A Cultural History of America's Infamous Liquor in post #249.
#22 The Tesla Gate (The Tesla Gate #1) in post #255.

Previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

PEARL RULE #13 (53%)
The Ibiza Crone Club in post #234.

PEARL RULE #14 (32%)
Talk to Me in post #238.

PEARL RULE #15 (52%)
Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter in post #245.

PEARL RULE#16 (25%)
The Undying (The Undying, #1) in post #260.

PEARL RULE #17 (72%)
Between Two Thorns (The Split Worlds #1) in post #262.

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

last one

Okay, you are free to post now.

Happy new one, Richard -- just posted on your last thread

Looks like I can keep my crown :)

Another wish for a happy new thread, Richard! I'll be here (but behind Queen Reba).

>7 richardderus: So you do, Reba! What could be more appropriate for you in that case than a Phoenix Crown:

>9 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy me lurve! *smooch*

>10 richardderus: Wow a new crown!! I just thought I would be allowed to keep the old one. Never dreamed there would be a magnificent new one!

Happy new thread, RD.

>1 richardderus: Those Golden Retrievers look a bit sunkissed!

>12 RebaRelishesReading: There's no shortage of crowns in the world...why make do when another one's right there?

>14 richardderus: right. of course right :)

>13 PaulCranswick: Thanks, PC.

Getting poochie wet will do that, won't it.

BURGOINE REVIEW #19

Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem (tr. Kristen Gehrman)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Eighteen-year-old Constance is not interested in marriage or in being a "young lady." But for a young woman coming of age in the early 1800s, that's just about all that's available to her. When her parents arrange her a marriage with a man more than twice her age, she's powerless to resist. Stance couldn't possibly find her newfound husband less appealing, but what can she do?

Here's what:
Four months into the marriage, she can slip out of their bed in the middle of the night, and she can put on his clothes. She can look in the mirror and like what she sees. She can sneak out of the house before dawn and visit the baker's scrawny son, who has just been drafted into the army, and offer to take his place. Vive l'Empereur!

Hot on Stance's tail all the while is her younger brother Pieter, determined to bring Stance back home to Ghent where she belongs. (The battlefield is no place for a young lady, after all.)

Ironhead, or, Once A Young Lady is the riotous and powerful story of a fierce renegade, and the silly men who try to bring her down.

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

My Review: I can only say that Stance makes a perfectly good male character...selfish, unthinking, insensitive to the feelings of others...and a generally unpleasant person to read about for those reasons.
I suspect this is not the author's intent. I can't prove that. I was reading along and suddenly had the thought that I wasn't clear why Stance was female to begin with. Does this selfish, thoughtless teenager who's only focused on how ro get what she wants actually need to be female? The message that sounds like it sends to me is "only boys get to do, say, think, and act exactly as they please." I don't like that message.

The translation read very well, in that I was never bored...just squicked out...and I particularly enjyed the oddly specific details of how that era's firearms worked. Not a book I'd give to my granddaugher but fine for adults.

Happy new one, BigDaddy! The image in the topper is so happy making. As you know, I am SO ready for Fall.

From your previous thread, I shall awaits whatever tasty treats you chose to serve up in your reviews. Like Reba, I love reading your writing in general. When is mystery reviewing month?

>5 richardderus: I am VERY impressed with your August results - way to go!! I would not reset your goal, but that is probably just me - whatever you decide, I'll have fun seeing where you land at the end of the year. I am so happy and so thankful that you have recovered so well and so quickly and are back here where you belong. We need you. I need you. *smooch*

>17 richardderus: I like your thoughts on that one.

Happy new thread!

>18 Crazymamie: I'm 100% behind your eagerness for fall weather, though my summer = your fall in most particulars. I'm so glad you like reading my stuff...I enjoy writing it so much that I'm always happy when others like reading it.

August felt like the first month since January that I got back on my feet in my reading and writing life. Honestly grateful just to be able to do it, since it was scarily hard for a while there. Still better to feel my mastery returning.

RE: >17 richardderus: I think this kind of "powerful women are men with wombs" sells us all a bill of goods. Dislike the presumption that male = boor; hate the idea of telling young people the only way to take your power in this world is to be a boor.

*smooch*

>19 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>22 FAMeulstee: *smooch* and thank you, Anita!

Happy New Thread!

Happy new one, Richard. Those look like happy pooches!

Happy new thread.
I'm not sure I am ready for Autumn quite yet. We have our "Summer Festival" next Saturday.

>24 mahsdad: Thank you, Jeff!

>25 jessibud2: Ain't they just? *smooch*

>26 Helenliz: It comes when it comes, Helen...in a few years we'll likely be pining for "old-fashioned cool falltime" temperatures. Besides, in England, what more English thing is there than celebrating something after it's over?

>20 richardderus: "August felt like the first month since January that I got back on my feet in my reading and writing life."
That is very good news.

I've been a muckett about keeping up / posting on LT, but I'm swinging by to say hello from Dublin.

>30 EBT1002: A hearty "Fáilte" to you, then Ellen! How lovely to be in Dublin! I'm hoping you're enjoying the visit to the Motherland of the Book of Kells a/k/a the most perfect artifact ever.

Happy new one, Richard!

Happy new one, Richard. I enjoyed all the Sandhamn reviews. They reminded me of how much I like that series when I read them.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Friday to you.

From your last thread: Oh. Silly me – yes, of course, the fans. They have been known to misbehave in epically violent ways, as opposed to US football fans, who only tend to spend ridiculous amounts to wear weird shit. Yes, Gauff was absolutely right.

Speaking of soccer, Bill just mentioned that Messi has single-handedly made it almost impossible for a family to go to one of Inter Miami’s games. Not his personal fault, but money’s money and the club/venue have jacked up the prices.

I got RMB to sign my seriously tattered mass market paperback of Six of One in 2008, the year she came to our local indie, McIntyre's, to flog one of her darned cat books – which I also don’t read. But I had to buy it as a courtesy gesture to get into the venue, so had her sign both. Her talk was a combination of interesting and weird, but although I won’t potentially wreck my tatty copy of SoO, I have a lovely trade paperback copy that gets read every 4 or 5 years. After Six of One, my favorite book by her is High Hearts.

>10 richardderus: Ah, another juicy tidbit. I had never heard of a Phoenix Crown. Thx.

>17 richardderus: Well. Having mentioned High Hearts above before reading this review, I was interested in what you wrote. Squicked out was a surprise, so I’ll happily pass. There are several Heyer books where girls dress as boys – The Masqueraders and The Corinthian are the two I can think of offhand. And, The Corinthian has the titillating bit at the end where

’Richard, you-you don’t want me! You can’t want me’ she said uncertainly.

‘My darling!’ he said. ‘Oh, my precious, foolish little love!’

The coach lumbered on down the road; as it reached the next end, the roof-passengers, looking back curiously to see the last of a very odd couple, experienced a shock that made one of them nearly lose his balance. The golden-haired stripling was locked in the Corinthian’s arms, being ruthlessly kissed.

‘Lawks a mussy on us! Whatever is the world a-coming to?’ gasped the roof-passenger, recovering his seat. ‘I never did in all my born days!’

‘Richard, Richard, they can see us from the coach!’ expostulated Pen, between tears and laughter.

‘Let them see!’ said the Corinthian.

*smooch*

Happy Friday, Richard. Happy New Thread. Looking forward to more Jackson time, over the next 2 days. The HEAT moves back in tomorrow. Ugh! I plan on getting your book out today.

>32 drneutron: Thanks, Doc!

>33 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg...Sandhamn and Nora and Thomas are charming companions, aren't they? The series on MHz Network isn't as much fun for me, for some reason. A couple episodes, I wasn't drawn to finish the whole thing.

>34 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible...yeah, well, Messi ain't no saint...supremely homophobic...but star power is star power, and greed is good for the owners so who fucking cares about people who can't pay what they can get from rich assholes?

RMB's cat books don't thrill and delight you? Why ever not? *batbat*

High Hearts was okay with me because it's for grown people, and that Fleming's silliness is aimed at teen girls. Don't they get enough messages that boys are "better" in their daily lives? That pseudoliberationist "dress like a boy to be free" stuff isn't something that says what *I* want girls to hear: "You're as free as you make people treat you, so make 'em treat you equally by refusing to be a fake boy" but that's not common.

The Corinthian's scene is in that long silly-fun tradition of Some Like it Hot and Victor/Victoria and those silly Shakespeare comedies. Okay to laugh at because *we* know the truth is it's all completely hetero even though others don't. It is funny but for all the wrong reasons. Culture changes slowly even in progressive times.

>35 msf59: Thanks for th kind wishes, Mark. I'm glad you'll have Jackson to distract you from the awful onslaught...hoping against hope that it'll be your last one of this year.

Yay for mailing, but seriously...no rush. My Kindle didn't die and my mountain of tree-books didn't suddenly get silverfish.

A Thought for Today, courtesy of A Word A Day's Anu Garg:
When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatize those who let people die, not those who struggle to live.
Sarah Kendzior, journalist and author

Happy new thread, RD. ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>40 richardderus: So very true. The balance of my bank account has nothing to do with the content of my character.

>41 alcottacre: Thank you, my dear lady.

I'm reasoonably sure that no rich person will buy into that...the ones I've known were Completely Sure the money was theirs by Right. *sigh*

>42 richardderus: I am reasonably sure right along with you. It is too bad. Something like the divine right of kings - the divine right that the money is mine. *shaking head*

Friday happiness, dear one!

>40 richardderus:, >41 alcottacre: Yes.

>44 Crazymamie: Sadly, it's just true.

*smooch*

Friday fun includes a bad drunken fall, a visit from the nursing staff, and paramedics taking the old souse to the hospital to have his brain scanned.

A joy to be around. Whee. At 1am he'll be rolled back in to wake me up, healthy as ever. Can't wait.

Hiya, RDear! Happy Saturday to you.

>39 richardderus: Ugh. Silverfish.

>40 richardderus: Kendzior has absolutely got it right.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>47 karenmarie: Ugh indeed, Horrible. I'm spared that horror at the least.

She does, and untitl yesterday I'd never heard of her. I like the way she says it, too.

Saturday *smooch*

Happy new thread, and happy weekend, Richard! I won't promise to *stay* more caught up, but things should be a little more back to my normal level of busy-ness this week. *smooch*

>49 bell7: Your normal being my rushed off my feet, I'll expect you when I see you, Mary. I'll be here unless I'm suddenly Called Home.

*smooch*

Aw bummer about the old souse! What a pain in the frickin' butt. Can't something quietly happen to him?

I hope you get a nap or 2 in today. Happy Saturday.

Sorry to see you were awake in the wee hours, RDear. Wishing you a rejuvenating nap or two today. *smooch*

>51 msf59: Something will noisily happen to him eventually, and it won't be by my interference. He had to have stitches from yesterday's drunken fall. I tell myself not to get too upset by the interruption because he won't take too long to have a serious accident at this rate.

But being awakened at 4am stinks.

*sigh* I'll set about reading my Ann Cleeves book.

>52 MickyFine: Thank you, Micky...I'm not good at tolerating stupidity. Confronting it is irritating to me. Anyway, off to read The Raging Storm. I'll feel better after some time with Matthew Venn.

Morning, BigDaddy! SO sorry about the latest adventures of the old souse. What a pain. Hoping the rest of your weekend is MUCH better. *smooch*

>53 richardderus: being awakened at 4am stinks. I bet it does and I am sorry you are having to put up with it, RD!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>55 Crazymamie: Well, we'll find out soon enough...I resent this involvement in the addiction and the life of someone I am not glad that I've met. Dig we must....

>56 alcottacre: Thanks for the sympathy, Stasia! *smooch*

>59 richardderus: - Bwahahahaha!

Hi, Richard

>60 jessibud2: Heh...glad you liked it. *smooch*

>46 richardderus: Well that sound fun. Hope you enjoyed some quiet time until he was rolled back in.

>62 RebaRelishesReading: Rather spoiled by the uncertainty of when and in what kind of mood the old drunkard would be in, but it was quiet and TVless at least.

>1 richardderus: Happy new thread!

>64 ocgreg34: Thank you most kindly, Greg.

>40 richardderus: yes yes and more yes. And in my fair land where an election is looming, we are getting talk that smacks of this. Usually couched in "don't punish me for my success", and "I worked hard for what I've got" rhetoric. Like a broken record....

>66 LovingLit: A broken record of an ugly song, indeed. "Don't punish me for my success" is such a childish and selfish way to look at the transaction of wealth.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

>53 richardderus: Sorry you had such a rude wake up call. Which book by Cleeves are you reading?

>59 richardderus: Giggle.

*smooch*

>68 karenmarie: GMorning, Horrible. The Raging Storm is the third Matthew Venn book, coming out on Tuesday, so this weekend's focus. My review will be up tomorrow. I enjoy these Dorset-set stories because Matthew's past religious upbringing reminds me of the more extreme version of my own. The rejection and belittlement ring so true...and he's fought his way to a happier place while still carrying the hateful awful nasty gawd inside him, gnawing like vermin at the foundations of his life.

So yeah...he's resonant with me.

Sunday orisons, smoochling.

Happy New 🧵,Richard! I’m also reading The Raging Storm. It must have been released a little earlier in Canada .

069 The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—returns with the extraordinary third in the Two Rivers series.

Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions.

When Jem Rosco—sailor, adventurer, and legend—blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.

This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Matthew finds his judgment clouded. As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.

“A friend of mine once joked that the work of Ann Cleeves is the closest the crime fiction genre comes to evoking ASMR—the euphoric, pleasant, spine-tingling sensation that’s all the rage on YouTube. The books never get too dark, never venture too far into dangerous territory, but aren’t outright cozy, either.”—The New York Times

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

My Review: Matthew Venn, Ross, and Jen go to the aptly named village of Greystone to investigate the murder of a has-been celebrity sailor. What happens as the investigation progresses is exemplary of why series mysteries appeal to so many of us: the characters do foolish things we know they're going to do and then need each other to fix the problems appertaining thereto; they confront their separate pasts in ways that both expand the seriesverse and explain the case; they think about their spouses, kids, parents, friends, dinner, what they will and won't do to fix the rent in society that murder represents (tracksuit pants? really?). So the reader who's been here with these people before now is definitely in a better position to appreciate the nuances and to find the little signposts the author leaves for us as to how things will play out.

A LOT of people I know would prefer to eat raw frog embryos rather than read a series out of order. I myownself don't care a whole lot these days, as spoilers are a matter of indifference to me so moving back and forth in a series isn't going to cause my circuitry to fry. Also, there aren't that many plots in the storyverse. Once you've read a few thousand books it pays to turn off the analytical part of your brain. Not everyone can.

Lucky me, I can.

So at {a late-ish point past halfway} into this read when the lightbulb went on and the reasons the murder took place got clear I wasn't unhappy but rather very, very impressed because the one thing Matthew needed to know was carefully kept hidden in plain sight. Well done indeed, Author Cleeves.

Should people who haven't read the first two books start here? I think those people would miss some very pleasure-enhancing nuances in the relationships among the team. It would not affect the solution of the puzzle in a serious way but it might reduce the emotional impact of a very big twist late in the story and that would be a shame. The gentrification of the North Dorset coast and its ramifications plays no small part in the puzzle's solution. That was very enjoyable to me. Seeing the way Jen, a single mother, copes with the pressures of motherhood-v-career is vintage Cleeves. It's all tied in to the way the case develops. Matthew's life with his husband Jonathan isn't neglected or foregrounded in this outing (!), but his loving musings about needing Jonathan (warts and all) ring true to me. For any eww-ick homophobes who somehow or another found themselves reading this review, you should really set your search terms to exclude me but also don't fear. Of sexual intimacy there is none. The focus is on the interrelationship of these men who're very different yet very lovingly connected. Not to say that there aren't worries and issues because that'd be really boring. I don't find these stories boring, in large part because Matthew Venn's background reminds me of a dialed-up version of my own, with a cold, judgmental religious-nut mother. That does increase my willingness to invest in the proceedings. This one was no exception.

The character I love to hate, Ross, just never gets out of the nasty, Babbitty little bro-dawg box he's been drawn inside. Thank goodness. I don't want to have to like him after three books learning to despise him, thanks.

A series-reader's pleasure. I think that, if Jimmy Perez and Vera Stanhope are your jam, Matthew Venn might be, too. He's quieter than Vera, more patient than Jimmy, happier than either.

>70 vancouverdeb: Hiya Deb! Thanks for the new-thread wishes. I think, because Macmillan's UK-based, y'all still get their UK products so as much as a few months before us. Gotta have a few perks to lord it over the giant to the south...like health care and good books sooner, a TV and film industry that does right by its workers....

Hi Richard. Belated happy new thread.

>17 richardderus: There were at one time a lot of books about girls getting to be real people (TM) by passing as male. The masculinity the authors/readers opposed was inherently selfish and self centered. ("I have a dick, therefore I deserve power, choice, agency etc. You on the other hand exist to serve men...") So the masculinity performed by the wish-fulfillment fantasy heroine was often much the same.

Most of the readers (and writers) grew out of this, as did the cultural zeitgeist. But I'll forgive an older story for the original, unsophisticated version of the trope - or for that matter a story from a culture that hasn't advanced beyond that level of primitive feminism.

OTOH, Common Knowledge claims this story was originally published in 2019. It was originally written in Dutch. The Netherlands is a perfectly normal, civilized Western European country, not a hot bed of extreme female oppression. (Are there any under-civilized former colonies where people would write in Dutch?). Moreover, the author's name appears to be male-categorized.

I'll skip this book.

>73 ArlieS: Hi Arlie, and thanks for the well-wishes.

The author is a well-known figure in YA Dutch-language publishing. I suspect a lot of my strongly negative response to the story, setting aside the mitigating factor of its being set during the Napoleonic Wars, comes down to that. Really, he couldn't frame the narrative so that her choice was a response to something more compelling than she didn't like being married to an old man? Whatever; I'm glad it's over.

>71 richardderus: Ugh, it's starting to look like I should read a book by Ann Cleeves. *glares from behind her TBR pile*

>75 bell7: *heeheehee*

#sorrynotsorry

Start with Jimmy Perez in White Nights...or The Long Call...either of those is a great place to get going.

Morning, RD. I hope all is good on your end. Like Mary, I have never read Cleeves. Someday?

Still HOT here. I am doing an Andy Warhol exhibition here, at a local college this AM. Something we have been trying to do together for weeks but the timing didn't pan out. It ends this week and it is supposed to be excellent. Juno and the books in the PM.

Hiya, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

I hope you weren't too inconvenienced by yesterday's revelries at the beach.

We had a quiet day, and today's book fondling sorting, brekkie/lunch, and an errand or two before my cleaning ladies come.

*smooch*

>77 msf59: Hiya, Birddude. I don't think you're much of a mystery reader, are you? Her stuff's good, but it's really very, very much in genre...I'd put the same two on your readar for starters.

Enjoy the Warhols! I'm sure there's something there to make you ponder your place in the Universe, which is what art should do. (Plus it'll be air-conditioned....)

>78 karenmarie: Horrible! *smooch*

The revelries as you so generously describe them were mildly irritating. I don't care for it or about it so headphones plus research podcasts equaled equanimity. People love the beach, which I totally "get" so I try to remember my post-strokes vow to myself to manage my own stress not outsource it to the hoi polloi.

I love that you're going book-fondling again today. Habits like that are the best way to combat the sense that all's falling to bits around us. Some personal pleasures are enduring, eh what?

Popping out of lurkmode to add my nudge to those who haven't read Ann Cleeves yet. GOOD stuff, even for one of those who can't, as RD says, "turn off the analytical part of your brain" after reading sooo many books in a lifetime. It hasn't ruined one of hers for me so far.

>74 richardderus: Hmm, I didn't read it, but being married to anyone non-consensually seems to me to be reason for far more extreme measures. Of course "powerless to resist" in the publisher's blurb could mean a lot of different things.

When I see a young woman "not interested in marriage" in historical fiction, I figure she's either lesbian or ace, unless the story quite explicitly tells me otherwise. Even a prime catch husband would not be appreciated in that case.

But I didn't read the book, and you did.

I was lucky. There were good career paths open to me that did not involve selling my sexual services, whether to a husband or as a whore. The one I choose allowed me to be even more prosperous than I would have been as wife to an average husband of similar class background.

I might not have had such options even twenty years earlier - it's not like anyone would have considered paying a woman as much as a man for the same work, even if they were willing to hire her. (I would probably have been able to support myself as a spinster school teacher, nurse, etc. Just not well.)

>71 richardderus: Excellent review of The Raging Storm, Richard. Since I am about 1/2 through the book, I know that is an excellent review. I do like Ann Cleeves. I read books from the Shetland series, The Vera Stanhope series and this is my second book from the Matthew Venn series. The Matthew Venn series is my favourite.

Yes, it's nice to have a few perks here in Canada, like the earlier release of some books. I confess there is no country I would rather live in!

>73 ArlieS: >74 richardderus: Van Rijckeghem is a Belgian author. I did like his other book A Sword in Her Hand much better than Ironhead.

070 CONTAINING BIG TECH: How to Protect Our Civil Rights, Economy, and Democracy by TOM KEMP

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The path forward to rein in online surveillance, AI, and tech monopolies

Technology is a gift and a curse. The five Big Tech companies—Meta, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google—have built innovative products that improve many aspects of our lives. But their intrusiveness and our dependence on them have created pressing threats to our civil rights, economy, and democracy.

Coming from an extensive background building Silicon Valley–based tech startups, Tom Kemp eloquently and precisely weaves together the threats posed by Big Tech:

the overcollection and weaponization of our most sensitive data

the problematic ways Big Tech uses AI to process and act upon our data

the stifling of competition and entrepreneurship due to Big Tech’s dominant market position

This richly detailed book exposes the consequences of Big Tech’s digital surveillance, exploitative use of AI, and monopolistic and anticompetitive practices. It offers actionable solutions to these problems and a clear path forward for individuals and policymakers to advocate for change. By containing the excesses of Big Tech, we will ensure our civil rights are respected and preserved, our economy is competitive, and our democracy is protected.

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

My Review: We are, as a society, in serious danger. A lot of things that were once difficult to find effective ways to influence and manipulate are becoming trivially easy to do. The perpetrators of this violation of our essential freedom to be safe in our own heads have, in eight concise chapters, each been named and shamed, their tactics analyzed and the consequences of them sketched out, by one of their own.

True, it wasn't like any of them were trying to fly under the radar about this...for a famous example, Jeff Bezos clearly said he wanted to control ecommerce way back when, but really only accidentally:
When his goals did slip out, they were improbably grandiose. Though the startup’s focus was clearly on books,

Davis recalls Bezos saying he wanted to build “the next Sears,” a lasting company that was a major force in retail. {An investor who was also a} kayaking enthusiast...remembers Bezos telling him that he envisioned a day when the site would sell not only books about kayaks but kayaks themselves, subscriptions to kayaking magazines, and reservations for kayaking trips—everything related to the sport. “I thought he was a little bit crazy,” says {the investor}.

(source: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon by Brad Stone)

What this immense ambition created was The Literal Everything Store, used by everyone even marginally online at some point for something they need or want. They might not even realize it's Amazon they're doing business with...how many of even the most committed Amazonphobes know who hosts their online commercial interactions? or where bricks-and-mortar stores buy their stock?...but their data is in some way harvested by Amazon. The other members of Big Tech's five brothers are dealt similar serious blows to their frequently protested innocence of maleficent intent and wrongdoing in the moral if not the legal sense.

It's part of their business plans to amass a chillingly immense digital dossier on every internet user by the entire tech industry. The purpose is to make them incomprehensible piles of money; they then use that money, extracted directly and indirectly from your pockets, to influence the course of world events on political and economic stages to benefit themselves and themselves alone. Refer back to 1953, when the famous kludged-up quote "What’s good for General Motors is good for America" was supposedly said by a GM exec being vetted by the Senate for a senior government job. (The truth is more nuanced, if less punchy.) The usual course of a person interested in the US's economic health is to consult the newspaper or equivalent's reporting of the stock market's performance. How this casino capitalism came to be conflated with the country's overall economic health is outside the book's or this review of it's scope, but is part of the larger picture painted herein of the actions taken by the surveillance economy's owners and drivers.

The means of information gathering and opinion-sharing are increasingly in the hands of the same few corporate entities that harvest your data and the windfalls it generates. The AI revolution we're relentlessly being told is coming has lifted the increasingly fragile casino economy's entirely notional values into new superstratospheric heights. Go look at Nvidia's stock prices then its history to see what I'm talking about. The way to make people believe something is inevitable is to tell them over and over again that it is, and that includes the inevitability of Big Tech's dominance. In these eight chapters, the author presents a very good case for what each player in the surveillance capitalism/totalitarian state apparatus's purpose is in pursuing its goals. In the appendices he outlines the personal, as well as the societal, steps one can take to corral the presently untrammelled ability these corporate actors have to present only information and opinion positively inclined towards them and their agenda.

A book that blares alarms at you without offering actionable items to prevent or mitigate the warnings taking place or effect isn't doing a service but simply further harm. I think the author here is doing a great service by performing both the warning function about the problems we're facing and the directions they're approaching us from, and outlining potential solutions on actionable on multiple fronts.

I'd like to stress that my use of "actionable" with such regularity is intentional and meant to convey my personal sense of urgency in addressing these issues. I think reading this book will convince many to stop wondering if it's even worth paying attention to these issues of surveillance and manipulation, and start taking steps to mitigate the harms being caused by the overreach of an identifiable coterie of bad actors.

That means I'd really like you to read it. Get it from the author's website linked above. Get it from Amazon, they sell it. Get your local library to buy one or two and check one out. Just get it and its ideas in your heads.

It's not exaggerating to say that, if the AI future being drummed into us as inevitable comes to pass, we're going to need the checks and balances in this book to survive with even a whisper of autonomy intact.
*my blogged review contains links to sources

>81 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda3rd. I'm sure anyone reading Cleeves for the first time from here is going to be willing to look at her work with a solidly readerly eye. I have confidence that she'll win most over!

*smooch*

>82 ArlieS: My issue isn't with the facts or the drivers. It's with the marketing decision to put it forward for young women. The message that pretending to be a boy is the path to independence and self-determination is reinforcing the endless drumbeat of "women are victims and men aren't" that I find incredibly insultingly reductive. Of course I feel the same way about the "ladies first" kind of "respectful mannerly behavior" I was taught, so maybe I'm oversensitive.

The only of Cleeves' books I have read is A Bird in the hand. I wasn't thrilled by it, while it had some positive elements. But it was her first novel, so I ought to give one of her later works a go.

>83 vancouverdeb: Thank you most kindly for the compliment, Deb! I'm glad you're pleased with how I presented the case for the book.

I confess that I'd've liked to live in Canada, warts and all, rather than 45land for the past decade. Oh well....

>84 FAMeulstee: I think I referred to him as a Fleming...he's not Dutch nor presented as Dutch by the publisher, though I suspect that most Anglophone Americans wouldn't really care a lot where the foreign guy's from.

*smooch*

>88 Helenliz: Helen, I recommend the same starting places as in >76 richardderus: and encourage you in that direction with all due speed.

Morning, BigDaddy! I loved your review of The Raging Storm and hope to get to that one soonish. I am a fan of Ann Cleeves - she has yet to disappoint. Her Shetland books are my personal favorite. I just love that setting. And Jimmy.

071 The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura (tr. Juliet Winters Carpenter)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From Shion Miura, the award-winning author of The Great Passage, comes a rapturous novel where the contemporary and the traditional meet amid the splendor of Japan’s mountain way of life.

Yuki Hirano is just out of high school when his parents enroll him, against his will, in a forestry training program in the remote mountain village of Kamusari. No phone, no internet, no shopping. Just a small, inviting community where the most common expression is “take it easy.”

At first, Yuki is exhausted, fumbles with the tools, asks silly questions, and feels like an outcast. Kamusari is the last place a city boy from Yokohama wants to spend a year of his life. But as resistant as he might be, the scent of the cedars and the staggering beauty of the region have a pull.

Yuki learns to fell trees and plant saplings. He begins to embrace local festivals, he’s mesmerized by legends of the mountain, and he might be falling in love. In learning to respect the forest on Mt. Kamusari for its majestic qualities and its inexplicable secrets, Yuki starts to appreciate Kamusari’s harmony with nature and its ancient traditions.

In this warm and lively coming-of-age story, Miura transports us from the trappings of city life to the trials, mysteries, and delights of a mythical mountain forest.

I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE PRIME LENDING SERVICE. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY PAY AUTHORS FOR OUR USE.

My Review: Perfectly adequate.

Teen boy is more-or-less shoved out the door of his house as he reaches productive working age. Choosing, in its loosest possible sense, a life as a forester, he learns the utterly weird and slightly icky traditions of the forest culture. This makes him the perfect PoV character for me because I was curious about that part of the story.

The problem for me is in the original, not the translation. Yuki's a generic kid, one asked quite roughly to make his own way in the world. He's not developed that much, nor do I get the feeling this was unintentional. This is a story about 1) making your way and finding your place, b) a fascinating corner of Japanese reality I doubt many Japanese people know about let alone us in the US, iii) what the reality of life can do FOR you as well as TO you.

All of these are worthy aims. They aren't especially interesting to me personally. They most likely would find their most receptive audience among my grandchildren.

072 THE PERENNIALS: The Megatrends Creating a Postgenerational Society by MAURO GUILLÉN

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In today’s world, the acceleration of megatrends—increasing longevity and the explosion of technology among many others—are transforming life as we now know it.

In The Perennials, bestselling author of 2030 Mauro Guillén unpacks a sweeping societal shift triggered by demographic and technological transformation. Guillén argues that outmoded terms like Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have long been used to pigeonhole us into rigid categories and life stages, artificially preventing people from reaching their full potential. A new postgenerational workforce known as "perennials"—individuals who are not pitted against each other either by their age or experience—makes it possible to liberate scores of people from the constraints of the sequential model of life and level the playing field so that everyone has a chance at living a rewarding life.

This multigenerational revolution is already happening and Mauro Guillén identifies the specific cultural, organizational and policy changes that need to be made in order to switch to a new template and usher in a new era of innovation powered by The Perennials.

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

My Review: I'm well into my geezerdom. I think this gent's insight is a corker. Not just because he acknowledges the role of experience in a functioning world but because he says it's really the only way out of the looming crises of employment, productivity, and collapsing ecology. Well, I added the last one, but it seems to me that the problems the planet is facing are best faced with all hands on deck.

Most people don't live in the way I grew up, or likely that my readers did: A mother, a father, some siblings, one house, a couple cars; some orbiting family from the parents' siblings, closer or farther from us with whatever degree of connection our families could/chose to maintain; maybe grandparents on big family occasions. Life was preordained to follow that pattern through our generation, and we thought beyond it, too. Varying political movements and social pressures began to change the tiny, nuclear-family model...not least a reality of the nuclear world is that fission is easier and more common than fusion, and produces very, very toxic waste with a hugely long lifespan.

As a result of demographic realities the huge boost of living standards after World War II across most of the globe produced a gigantic population bubble. Better lives for "all" keep coming about, and all meant so many more than ever. The sociological changes wrought by the various liberation and empowerment movements around the world meant that there were huge numbers of people who needed jobs that had little or no family component. University educations became necessary (in theory anyway) to get ahead, to make a decent living. Maybe, if you wanted to, have a family of your own. It was the choice of many not to do so much of that old model, but the world's picture of school then work and then finally retirement...the whole structure of the twentieth century's body politic...has changed very little. Our lives within it are, however, being lived in a more flexible and inclusive way than ever.

What the author propounds in his fascinating look at how we could all benefit from adapting our model to lived reality is the acceptance that people live longer and need to live better. All of us need challenges and face the reality that those challenges ae changing. He proposes the deeply pragmatic solution of adopting a life-long learning model. This means we're not In A Job for life but in a habit of honing skills we have and acquiring new ones.

Addressing the looming labor shortages as people get older and stay fit longer means second, third, or fourth careers for many of us will have to be planned for by employers. Age discrimination is very much a reality. The companies that emulate BMW in their age-blended team models will make a big bonus for their shareholders. The entire landscape of work will need to change (see my review of THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN for some background on this; also that author, Mohammed El-Erian, approves of this book and its thesis) to accommodate different needs and desires, like the work-from-home lifestyle that most people prefer and Big Tech is leading the charge to reverse in the wake of the pandemic's accidental proof of concept that it works.

Possibly the most resonant part of the book to me was its model of exchanging skills among the generations. I know that, in my own life, my Young Gentleman Caller has helped me remain more comfortable with information technology and its many nuances than almost all the people I live among. I know also that my experience has alerted him to some less-than-honorable intentions among his acquaintance. It's a joy to be able to both learn and be taught. And I don't exaggerate when I use the word "joy." In my own life, as in his, learning stuff is a source of real joy for each of us...it's one reason we remain in relationship in supervention of the challenges we face.

The author's thesis is particularly informative of th challenges the world being summoned into being by Big Tech (see review above) being met with effective control. It will take an intergenerational conversation of great depth and serious intent to prevent the dystopic possibilities of surveillance capitalism and totalitarian governance from happening.

Reading these books together was one of the most challenging emotional rides of 2023 for me. There's a lot to be deeply concerned about in the direction that our present system of inaction and wasteful misdirection of energy is following. There are ways to solve it, and this read's author has one of the best structural models for directing growth into sustainable channels I've read. This is largely, I suspect, because I already implement the lifelong learner model of being. It's paid such huge dividends in my own life. Not least by giving me the mental framework and the emotional push needed to recover faculties many like me lose when they have the multiple strokes that I had in January 2023. I'm slower, and quicker to tire, than before my problems got worse; but unlike those whose retirements or simply aging lifestyles aren't focused, I had something to recover for and get back to doing: This. Reading. Thinking about what I've read. Thinking about how to support the changes I want to see and resist the ones I don't want to see effectively. Communicating those thoughts on this little blog I've run for ten years, that still attracts about two hundred viewers on an average day.

I think more people would find ways to do what I've done if they read these two books: the first to learn what's at stake and how to get a handle on it; the second to learn why it's a good use of your time to overcome inertia and restart your mind's journey.
*my blogged review contains links to sources

>85 richardderus: Your BB has scored

>87 richardderus: You have a point there. We're all victims, at least some of the time.

Dropping in to wish you a happy mid week

A Thought for Today via A Word A Day's Anu Garg:

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. Robert M. Pirsig, author and philosopher (6 Sep 1928-2017)

I thought Pisig was a pseudoprofound bloviating bore when I read his famous book. I still think that. But here's proof that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

>93 ArlieS: ...and no one's made by biology into one.

I think you'll really enjoy the read...plenty to examine, and ponder.

>94 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! *smooch*

>90 Crazymamie: Smoochling! I'm so delighted to see you here. I'm with you on the Shetland books being wonderful because Jimmy and because setting, but my deepest cravings are satisfied by Matthew Venn. Identifying with a character really does matter, it turns out.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Wednesday to you.

>80 richardderus: I try to remember my post-strokes vow to myself to manage my own stress not outsource it to the hoi polloi. Good stuff.

I love book sorting, especially when I find book marks or other ephemera. Yesterday I rejected a book because of pencil markings – an automatic rejection – but then brought it home for my own shelves. It’s called The Abduction of a Limerick Heiress by Toby Bernard and it turns out that it’s got more intrinsic value than I would have expected. *shrug* I started erasing the pencil markings to give it back, but there are too many, and I have made a second decision to keep it for my ownself.

>85 richardderus: Digital surveillance was proved to me again yesterday when I asked Jenna to find our copy of Amadeus so a friend could borrow it. It was found, is blu-ray, but our friend does not have a blu-ray player. Okay… Later, Jenna texted me (cuz we do a lot of in-house texting) that it was free on Prime Video. I assumed she looked for it on a hunch, but she said she was on Prime for another reason and it just magically appeared as an option. *shudder*

So today, while we were talking about it, she mentioned a test someone did at one of her jobs years ago by talking about snake food, and sure enough, the boss started getting offers of snake food. I just may have said ‘snake food’ in the direction of my cell phone, and we’ll see if I get snake food offers.

>89 richardderus: I think every country has good bits and bad bits. I can’t think I’d like to move anywhere else unless I miraculously became a billionaire and bought an island, built a wonderful house, had excellent internet access and air-conditioned space for my books and the ability to get anything delivered there as quickly as Prime or its equivalent allowed.

>92 richardderus: Most people don't live in the way I grew up Oh man, you nailed my way of growing up, too.

>95 richardderus: Oh my. I had to look up the Bible verse. *shudder* I sent this off to a Christian friend of mine who is appalled at what’s being done in the name of Christianity these days.

*smooch*

>71 richardderus: I really need to read some Ann Cleeves. I own several of her books, but I have yet to read them. *Sigh*

((Hugs)) and **smooches**, RD. I have missed you in my LT-less world for the past couple of days.

>99 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! I'd never heard of The Abduction of a Limerick Heiress so am now officially Intrigued...then I saw the price. I'll stay Intrigued.

All places have Humans in them. That means noplace is Paradise (More coined "Utopia" with that in mind), as it's a sad truth that gangs of people are nasty brutes in one way or another, creating division, hierarchy, and exclusion wherever they go. I'll do my best to take the rough with the smooth with all the equanimity at my command. Precious little that it is some days (or on some topics)....

That verse, and its context, feels eerily prescient in today's degenerate climate of radical rightist totalitarian putsch-attempting horror. What's being done in the name of that religion is what is explicitly condoned and encouraged in their spurious "holy" book. On their own heads be it for following such a vile creed.

>100 alcottacre: How do, Stasia! The few days of LTlessness were hard to endure, being cut off from one's fellow cultists/addicts is always nasty. I go back to >76 richardderus:...go get started!

*smooch*

>95 richardderus: Thank you for that -- most clever -- but sad

>103 RebaRelishesReading: I'm very glad it resonated, Reba. I think it's so sad as to be depressing. *sigh*

I am reading a very good work of nonfiction that is making me stop and think about what I do when I eat out. The book is Next Supper: The End of Restaurants as We Knew Them, and What Comes After by Corey Mintz. For instance, he has made me stop and think about why I tip in restaurants, and what I think I am accomplishing. Mintz is a Canadian food reporter and his take on the restaurant industry is very interesting. The book was written in 2020 and 2021 so the question of the survival of restaurants was very much on his mind. He covers labor issues, and to my surprise (shouldn't have been surprised, but...) immigration issues. The issue of sexual discrimination in the restaurant business is also covered. I don't want to believe that my choice of place for eating out is a political issue, but this author is making me rethink my attitude about this industry.

I am not sure where I ran across the review for this title but I am glad that I did. Very interesting book. Maybe you can get a DRC of it and review it?

>102 richardderus: Unfortunately, the series that I have by Cleeves is the one that begins with and my local library is not helpful here.

OK, yes boss. I've added one more to my library reservation list. What's one more between friends?
As long as they don't all come in at once, when I'd need a pick up truck to collect them!

>105 benitastrnad: Well, a DRC from PublicAffairs for a 2021 book isn't likely to happen but I have asked. Tanks for the heads-up, Benita.

>106 alcottacre: Oh well...things always change so let's hope they change in your favor.

>107 Helenliz: Worst that can happen is you don't remember why you asked for it when it comes in, so it goes back...

>108 richardderus:
Darn! I checked mine out from a library so maybe you can get it from your local library. Who knows you may get lucky at the library! :-) I did.

>111 benitastrnad: We shall see. Odder things have happened.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

Heat has returned here, it should not be 30°C in September...

>113 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita. It should *NEVER* be 30C, ever, anywhere. Unconscionable! You're right there near The Hague and not bringing lawsuits against Old Mother Nature for roasting you in your own juices? Get on that!

*smooch*

A Thought For Today via A Word A Day's Anu Garg:
We offer great rewards to a man who can tame a tiger, admire those who can train horses, monkeys, and elephants, and praise to the skies the author of some modest work. Yet we neglect women who have spent years and years nourishing and educating children. -François Poulain, author, philosopher, and priest (1647-1723)

Almost 400 years old and he's still right. It's infuriating. Also sickening.

Hiya, RDear! Happy Thursday to you.

>101 richardderus: If you were in the UK you could get it for £10.00. Abebooks has it for US$ 11.57. Now I don’t feel so bad. I wonder why bookfinder doesn’t list Abebooks?

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Sweet Thursday, RD. Glad you got the McBride. Well, it is cooling off to 70F today and Jackson arrives here around noon, so all good here. Hope to read a chunk of The Gift of Rain before he gets here.

>95 richardderus: I LOVE IT!!

>95 richardderus: *snerk* I should never read your thread in a meeting.

>116 karenmarie: I can't read tree-books anymore, Horrible, so it's basically money thrown out the window. *smooch*

>117 msf59: Heh...wait'll you see what I left on your thread just now.

>118 drneutron: Especially not where you work! The decorum breach...*tsk*

>71 richardderus: I have watched series based on Cleeves' novels, but not got to the novels. I have the Shetland ones on Kindle. Maybe Autumn reading.

>122 Caroline_McElwee: Raven Black is perfect for this time of year! Happy discovery reading, Caro! *smooch*

>71 richardderus: I didn't know a new Matthew Venn book was out. As soon as I read your review I went and got the second in the series, The Heron's Cry from my stacks. This means that I can read that now and look forward to getting to the next and third book. It's my favourite Ann Cleeves series. I wasn't much taken with Shetland and won't read Vera (I can hear the actress's voice and it grates.)

>85 richardderus: The book on big tech looks timely especially given the fight between Meta and the Canadian government.

>115 richardderus: Almost 400 years old and he's still right. It's infuriating. Also sickening. Very, very true - and very, very infuriating!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>124 Familyhistorian: It's definitely got the behavior that that fuck Zuck embodys in it sights, Meg.

I hope young Inspector Venn ensorcels you, too. Cleeves does quozy! Go know from this.

>125 alcottacre: the truth ain't set us free yet...when's that gonna happen, anyway?

*smooch*

>126 richardderus: The tactic was to block news on Facebook sites in Canada. Not the most benign act when local governments were using that site to convey info about wildfire evacuations to people in their area.

073 Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life by Brigitte Benkemoun (tr. Jody Gladding)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Merging biography, memoir, and cultural history, this compelling book, a bestseller in France, traces the life of Dora Maar through a serendipitous encounter with the artist’s address book.

In search of a replacement for his lost Hermès agenda, Brigitte Benkemoun’s husband buys a vintage diary on eBay. When it arrives, she opens it and finds inside private notes dating back to 1951—twenty pages of phone numbers and addresses for Balthus, Brassaï, André Breton, Jean Cocteau, Paul Éluard, Leonor Fini, Jacqueline Lamba, and other artistic luminaries of the European avant-garde.

After realizing that the address book belonged to Dora Maar—Picasso’s famous “Weeping Woman” and a brilliant artist in her own right—Benkemoun embarks on a two-year voyage of discovery to learn more about this provocative, passionate, and enigmatic woman, and the role that each of these figures played in her life.

Longlisted for the prestigious literary award Prix Renaudot, Finding Dora Maar is a fascinating and breathtaking portrait of the artist.

This work received support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States through their publishing assistance program.

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

My Review: A very interesting look at the inspiration of one very curious person to dig into the life of a largely forgotten figure from the fringes of art history. The discovery of the address book, the many pathways the author's curiosity led her down, the wonderfully creative way she was able to overcome spaces left in the record of the time...all very good. I enjoyed that aspect of the book.

I actively despise Dora Maar, homophobe and antisemite.

I don't want to know more about her, and am sorry that I now know what I do. If I could dig her up and kill her again, I would. The author doesn't frame her unhappiness with the discoveries she makes about the woman in such outraged terms because, one assumes in the absence of explicit statements on the subject, she isn't gay or Jewish. As a product of the modern world she shares none of Maar's unpleasant ideology, and makes it quite clear this is the case.

What her project did was recenter attention on Dora Maar, artist, person, woman; up to now her one piece of fame was as Picasso's mistress and muse, "The Weeping Woman" of Picasso's iconic painting:

...whose mental health was terribly damaged by him during their relationship. So, in other words, her only existence even in her mind's functioning was centered on the man Picasso. No room for Maar the suffering person. No blame attached to her "friends" populating this address book for essentially dropping her as she declined. After all, her claim to their attention waned when her connection to Picasso receded into memory. Of course it would.

Given Maar's own merits as an artist, the decline in her circle of friends wasn't as abrupt as it would've been had she not been socially acceptable before her troubles manifested themselves. The author is much more direct about blaming Maar's unpleasant personal beliefs on others than about blaming those others for exacerbating her depression by isolating her. They had scads of reasons to do so, given her unpleasantly judgmental and deeply dyed-in-the-wool fascist ideas and ideology...and no, Author Benkemoun, trying to explain that away with her desire to provoke and satirize the leftists she knew via Picasso isn't an excuse. It's not even much of an explanation. That level of indifference she displayed to the Final Solution and her framing of it as a threat to her personally as someone of Croatian ancestry smacks more of sociopathy than of some kind of artifact of depression, as is suggested in here.

What about this truly dreadful human being made you care for her so deeply, I kept asking Author Benkemoun as the pages turned. What resonated in you to this, to my eyes, justly forgotten and uncelebrated hateful person? Her femaleness? I think she, and her lover Picasso, both deserve desuetude. That it was only her lot is unjust. But let's try to use the weapons of attention to attack Picasso not re-evaluate Maar. Put him, his sexism, his abusive narcissism in the bin with her and let's move on.

Happy Friday, Richard. I enjoyed my time with Jack yesterday and he is getting so smart. Sue is taking her turn today, while I run around doing various things. Only 70F today..ooh, la, la.

>128 Familyhistorian: It got condemnatory coverage here, too, as a colossal dick maneuver. Not enough coverage, and largely in leftist or techie new venues, but it made a goodly number of people very, very mad here, too.

>130 msf59: Omigawsh...70°? You must be ready for your cardigan and corduroys to come out of storage. I'm so glad that you and Sue are enjoying Jack's company so much!

Friday orisons, Birddude.

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

>129 richardderus: Yikes. Averting my eyes and moving on.

*smooch*

>133 karenmarie: Happy Friday, Horrible...your eye-averting is the proper respone to the well-written but truly repugnant Dora Maar book. Too much else to read that won't make your gorge rise. *smooch*

>129 richardderus: I don't read many art biographies, but the setup for that one, of an unjustly forgotten artist eclipsed in Picasso's shadow might've caught my eye --- so thanks for the nope.

>130 msf59: I want it to be 70F here! It is currently 97 on its way to 100 again!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD. Make it a fantastic Friday!

>135 swynn: I think you're better for avoiding it, no matter the tempting premise. I was suckered into it by my curiosity and its weird angle of entry. Ick all over la Maar and let's quit unquestioningly celebrating that prickbiscuit Picasso while we're at it.

>136 alcottacre: It'll be 70° there soon. Like, Thanksgivingy kind of soon. Awful weather y'all got down there.

*smoochiesmoochsmooch*

>138 richardderus: "Awful weather" is rather an understatement, but still 100 is about 7-9 degrees cooler than it was last week :)

>139 alcottacre: 100 is about 7-9 degrees cooler Je suis trop, trop appalled.

I think I can safely skip Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life , given your review, though art and biographies are not really my thing , anyway. I'm still enjoying my time with Matthew Venn and company. I wish I could read a little faster. Today I am to get my hair cut etc and tommorow of grandson Miles 3 rd birthday.

It's about 68 - 70 F here today, just perfect in my books.

>141 vancouverdeb: You are missing nothing in my eyes that would enrich your life. Miles is three! What a great time that is. Enjoy the celebration.

PS I HATE YOU FOREVER FOR IT BEING PERFECT WEATHER THERE

'Morning, RD, and happy Saturday to you.

All's quiet in the Karen-central-NC front. I'll be making the errands run 'cuz Bill got no sleep last night and I don't want him driving without sleep. Other than that, staying in. Temps are lower today, fortunately, but we might get rain/storms this afternoon.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>143 karenmarie: Hi Horrible. Running errands sound like a good use of time if it means keeping a sleep deprived husband off the roads. Glad as I am that your temps are lower, it's lower than unconscionably hot; improvement room still copious. Why weren't the 1970s terrors of a new glaciation cycle the correct ones? I hate this heat.

Anyway, *smooch*

>144 richardderus: I hate this heat I agree. Yesterday was ugly hot and humid till around 3 pm when we had a glorious thunderstorm. The house shook and the temp dropped 10 degrees. The storm scared the kids, but I loved it. Its cooler today but still humid, which is what gets me. (Yes, dry heat is more tolerable to me.) Happy Saturday!

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

You all have my deepest sympathy for your miserable weather! Please remember that we were at 104 not very long ago and try not to hate us for the beautiful 70's weather we're having now :)

>145 Storeetllr: Yes indeed, Mary, sticky is always a worsening factor. We didn't get much in the way of rain, even, still less a storm.

*smooch*

>146 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! Thanks, and you do too.

>147 RebaRelishesReading: I fear your present weather-grace arouses my intense primitive jealousy of the luck others are enjoying...my loathing is faaar too deep-rooted to be controlled. Away with all y'all cool, comfy souls to the Lake of Fire!

*smooch*

Happy Sunday *smooches*

Happy Sunday, RD. Waking up to 50F. It will be chilly for my bird walk this morning but it will eventually get up to 80F. I will go over to Bree's later to watch the Bears game with the boys. Even if they lose, Jack will make me smile. Enjoy your day.

Less hot here than it has been, (mid to high 20s, rather than hitting 30s). We're due thunderstoms this afternoon, so expect a mad dash for the washing line at some point! Next week, low 20s, and nice all week again (well currently that's the forecast!)

>151 bell7: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

>152 msf59: 50° sounds heavenly, Birdduude, but that birdwalk must've been a shock to your system....

Have fun with the Bears! Oh, and your grandson, of course.

>153 Helenliz: That's about perfect, Helen, as long as it stays under 30C you should be comfy. Storms just add excitement, really, so long as there are no strong winds.

Enjoy your lovly summer week!

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Sunday to you!

>144 richardderus: Yup, sleep deprived husband off the roads is a good thing. We decided that I need to learn how to drive his 2022 Escape – it’s so different from my 2012 Escape as to make it a wonder they’re even from both from Ford.

I’ll have to look up the 1970s terrors of a new glaciation cycle… don’t remember.

I've got book club today for a book I haven't read. Not out of the norm for me, but uncomfortable because the hostess is bringing the author in for a Zoom call at the end of the meeting. Ugh.

Yesterday I was here and about to speak and even say something although I can't recall what it might have been. Then I heard Mama moving and had to move myself.
Hi, Richard! Our heat isn't as awful as it has been, and I hope that you can say the same. I don't want to wish any part of my life away, but I am eager for October!
*smooch*

>150 richardderus: lol -- and, remember, we had a turn not too long ago

>157 karenmarie: Cars of th 20s aren't really cars anymore, they're computers on wheels. They need to be, of course, because they can better be managed to reduce emissions and decrease fossil-fuel use...but it's unnerving to me and makes me glad I don't drive anymore.

Good luck finding anything about the idea of cooling nowadays...public sources are all now aligned with the warming model. There's no history of the process that doesn't align with present-day understanding. I se why, the idiots would seize on it, but it bothers me and it feels dishonest.

I'd hate a book club meeting with an author there for any part of it! *smooch*

>158 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy! *smooch* Hoping Mama's keeping well in this summer of hot'n'awful. I'm always ready for October, TBH. The fall is the season of my purring contentment. Today's another sticky one here, but not grotesquely hot. Thank the goddesses for smallish mercies.

>159 RebaRelishesReading: Hi Reba! *smooch* Hoping you're enjoying MY weather while *I* swelter through yours.

>161 richardderus: Count me as another who loves fall.

Hi Richard, my dear friend, a belated Happy New Thread.

>162 richardderus: now hold on Richard dear. I live in the NW for several reasons, one of which is I don't like hot weather and that's the way things are supposed to be here so this is "my" weather too!!!

:)

>164 johnsimpson: Hello John, or should I say "sentient puddle of goo that used to be John"? I'm impressed you found the keyboard in the Spain-plus heat you've got going on there!

>165 RebaRelishesReading: *hmmmf* Well, I *suppose* we can share...as much as it hurts my Gollumly soul....

>161 richardderus: I have to agree in hypothetical terms. No seasons as such over here but back in Blighty, autumnal was my favourite state of being climate-wise.

>168 PaulCranswick: The tropical seasons do restrict themselves to hot and raining or hot and humid, but the rest of us do enjoy the variety...soon enough you'll be among us again, Gramps. How's Meemaw liking the baby duties?

>169 richardderus: Hahaha RD, I wish I had read your post before speaking to Hani. Just come off the phone to her and would have loved to have used Meemaw! She is reveling in being a Grannie.

>170 PaulCranswick: I hope she likes the yclepture, PC. The fun of grandparenthood is large.

Hiya, RD. Happy Monday to you.

>160 richardderus: I agree about computers on wheels and why they need to be.

We have had one other meeting with the author being there, and she was there for the entire meeting. I didn’t like the book at all, and had to find something honest to my feelings that didn’t eviscerate the book. I hated it, so when Judy suggested we get Marjorie for the meeting, I said to please only have her at the end, after we’d privately discussed it. She agreed, and I actually loved listening to Marjorie and the interaction with those who’d read the book.

>169 richardderus: and >170 PaulCranswick: I’d never heard of Meemaw before moving to the South.

>171 richardderus: thanks for the reminder about yclept.

*smooch*

>172 karenmarie: *smooch* How lovely that Marjorie was such an agreeable guest!

I grew up calling my maternal grandmother "Mamaw" and my paternal grandmother "bubbe" so I was very much not the normal US boy of the 1960s.

As you're a recipient of my yclepture, Horrible, I thought that word would've branded itself on your brain!

Hi again.

Heh. Mamaw and Bubbe. Love it.

I called my paternal grandmother Mom because she apparently thought 'grandmother' made her sound old - strange given that she was 71 when I was born. My maternal grandmother was called Grandma. Jenna called her paternal grandmother Gran per her request, my mother Grandma per her request, and Bill's Stepmom Kayma, per her request. It's all over the place, isn't it?

*another Monday smooch*

BTW, I just read and posted about The Federalist No 50.

>174 karenmarie: Oh, interesting. I shall coddiwomple thitherward here directly.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD.

Have a marvelous Monday!

I love how different grandparents adopt a different name. His mother was Granny Train to his nieces & nephews. I had Granny & Grandma, but both grandfathers were Grandad. Typical men, can't get it sorted out. >;-)

Hope Monday is playing fair.

Hi Richard, the sentient puddle of goo is whole again now it has dropped cooler late in the day, lol.

>176 alcottacre: Hiya, Stasia! *smooch*

>177 Helenliz: I think most men aren't particularly jazzed about grandfatherhood....

Monday's done little of note, TBH. Fine by me!

>178 johnsimpson: Your gooeyness! Welcome back!

>74 richardderus: I have officially lost my mind. I discovered that our local library had Ironhead, or, Once a Young Lady by Jean-Claude van Rijckeghem, and decided to bring it home to find out just how bad it is ;-)

Mostly I'm curious about whether our different starting points - older male vs female - would cause us to experience the book very differently.

Given your review, the most likely outcome is Pearl ruling it. But my memories of being a female tween may make me identify very strongly with the protagonist.

I really didn't want a career as any combination of sex-object, brood mare, and servant, whether that was called wife, call girl, waitress, nurse, secretary or nun.

‘Morning, RD! Happiest of Tuesdays to you.

>175 richardderus: coddiwomple thitherward is a wonderful way of indicating a visit, and I’m glad you did so. Your message made me feel less insecure about my inability to grok #50.

>180 richardderus: In honor of the grandfatherhood note, I’ve (re-)posted a photo of my dad holding Jenna when she was 2 1/2 months old on my thread.

*smooch*

Morning, RD. Lots of rain yesterday. We needed it. It has moved on and should inch up to 70F today. We leave for our next camping trip on Thursday. Heading to WI, near Green Bay. It should be gorgeous up there. Lots to get ready. I hope your week is off to a good, painless start.

>183 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. I've read #50, looked at an essay about it, and I still don't understand it. Or, for that matter #49. The pair of 'em are circular and self-referential, and deal with something I *think* resembles the referendum-style "democracy" that Cali indulges itself in every so often and that results in the hoi polloi slapping their shit-stained fingers all over the faces of progressives. Prop 13, f/ex, which worked against the people who voted for it.

Anyway. I still want a time machine to go back to 1781 and make sure the British kill Andrew Jackson.

>184 msf59: Greetings, Birddude. We've had some rain, and a little teeny thunderstorm, out of a system that was going to blow us into the North Atlantic according to climate models. Reality wins again. Enjoy Wisconsin!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today. Have a terrific Tuesday, RD!

>187 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia. I'm at the eye doctor now so I'm hoping it'll be a good day after I'm done.

Glad to know that your eyes are still behaving and letting you read as much as you can! You can a lot!!!
Be cool. *smooch*

>189 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy...it's a relief every time I get a decent report. When the word surgery is followed by soetime later, it's even better.

Good to see over on Peggy's thread, and now here, that your eyes are still operational to reading standards. Big phat phew on that one, right?

Glad that your eye doctor visit has gone well, Richard. Tuesday * smooch* .

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.

>185 richardderus: Good way to look at 49 and 50 – circular and self-referential. I did not own a home in California before Prop 13, but my parents did. I’ll have to look at Prop 13 and what I’m paying here in NC, but not now since I’ve got half an hour before the guy and the truck show up to start cleaning out the garage.

Absolutely agree about needing to kill Jackson in 1781.

>190 richardderus: Decent report with surgery ‘sometime later’ is good news.

*smooch*

>193 karenmarie: Hey there, Horrible! I'm well chuffed about the cataracts not needing surgery yet...not even an appointment with the cataract guy until 2025! The blurriness is mildly annoying, but the surgery needs to wait until it's truly necessary, not merely to make things a little more pleasant for me.

My father's house in Los Gatos was taxed to the hilt. He loved Prop 13 but the old psychopath thought his taxes should be spent only on him, directly, not shoved into a general pot. I am the way I am because of my parents...the opposite of them in every way I could manage to make myself be.

You live near a high concentration of boffins...go recruit somme physicsists to get on that time machine!

>191 LovingLit: Goodness, I issed you this morning. How weird this day feels...started waaay too early but at least it was so I could talk to Rob. It's deffo a big phat phew! *smooch*

>192 vancouverdeb: Wednesday *smooch* back, Deb. My early start meant missing two posts, apparently, so I must learn to be more careful.

Glad for your good news. Sight is a wonderful thing to have!

>197 Storeetllr: Ain't it just! *smooch*

Now that anyone in the US can watch GBBO seasons 1-6 again (via the Roku Channel, if you didn't know they were there) I've started a re-watch of the whole show before Netflix starts season 13 (!). If you've been around GBBO for a while, you'll remember season 11's marvelous David (who won) and Michael now the delightful podcasters called the Sticky Bun Boys. They're re-watching the show and critiquing it as well. They're very funny, though not for those who don't like double entendres. The first series wasn't like the later ones, and less to my taste; though the winner utterly charmed me all the way through. Seeing GBBO Rob in season 2 is a little weird since I do my watching with my Rob.

Must say I really miss the history lessons that came in each episode. Also miss Mel and Sue. Never was a Fielding fan.

>193 karenmarie: I'm probably benefitting, on net, from proposition 13. Of course some of what I gain from lower property taxes (home purchased in 1997), I lose to slowly degrading civic services, notably with regard to trash pickup.

The root cause, IMNSHO, is that the US system of funding certain things primarily with local property taxes has all kinds of side effects, many of them undesirable.

One of those is pricing home owners out of their homes via ever increasing realty taxes, based on their unrealized gains due to local rises in property prices. We can of course argue about whether this is worse than pricing tenants out of their homes due to local housing cost inflation. (IMO it's not.)

Proposition 13 is one reaction to the home owner case. Rent control is a common reaction to the case of tenants. Both have similar side effects - the entity (municipal government, school board, landlord) receiving the money gets less, and is likely to cut back its useful activities. And people who'd prefer to move somewhere else - larger, smaller, or nearer some new activity - find they can't afford to do so, leaving e.g. empty nesters rattling around in homes bigger than they want or need.

Another problem with funding via realty taxes is of course that the poorer the area, the less the local government can do for the residents. Some countries use transfer payments to local governments, and/or fund things like schools nationally rather than locally to avoid some of the effects of local-source funding.

As someone who benefits, I see the issues - but I've built proposition 13 into my retirement planning. Because I'm "stuck" where I am, I'm making upgrades to get my home closer to what's appropriate for both my current age and local climate change. And that's money already spent; if proposition 13 were repealed, I might well move, but I wouldn't recoup that money as increased home value. (Most likely, prices would drop locally for several years, as those unable to afford their new tax bill - or simply no longer "stuck" - sell out and move away.)

Put another way, everything is always path dependent. We've now had proposition 13 for 45 years. The only half way sane way to repeal it would either be over a period of years (decades) or applying market-rate tax increases only to new purchases. Unless, of course, its politically desirable to "eat the rich", in the form of anyone who owns their home.

Sadly, when politics isn't simply people screaming at each other, and actually does anything useful, it's remains the art of the possible. Proposition 13 had predictable bad side effects, as well as the advertised benefits that convinced the voters, but so would repealing it.

>200 ArlieS: There are no good answers. Someone will always suffer. I know where my choice lies, but one voter can only do so much.

Funding things like essential services eg schools, trash pick-up, or anything else except local politicians' salaries and benefits via local property taxes is what needs to be kicked to the curb.

>194 richardderus: Prop 13 was the child of a group of large apartment owning companies/individuals -- no surprise because those properties are sold much less frequently than average for residential. It worked for them but not for many other people and led to a great deal of inequity.

I'm glad you aren't needing surgery yet but I must say that I had mine done several years ago and am still delighted by the results. I have 20/20 vision for everything beyond my fingertips and can read/compute/etc. very comfortably with my glasses for things nearer to me. So...when you DO need it, it will be OK.

Jackson...indeed

>202 RebaRelishesReading: We really need to revise our use of the 14th Amendment to create corporate personhood. The horrors of the untrammelled greed of vulture capitalists must be reined in or the unthinkable is on track to happen...species extinction for us is a very real possibility if we don't take real action in spite of the banksters wanting to prop up the failing economy.

I am very glad to hear that the eye report is a good one!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

The heat is finally gone here, although a brief flare up is expected in the weekend. I hope for nice and cool weather at the end of the month, when we go on vactaion at the next stage of the Pieterpad.

>129 richardderus: "If I could dig her up and kill her again, I would"

No don't hold back, tell us what you really think :)

Great line. Pity about the book. Although it seems the author perhaps did well, with difficult material, to keep you reading.

I think that will be a "did not pick up" for me. Thanks.

>205 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita, and may your heat event be brief and mild. Finishing the Pieterpad? Or getting closer? Either way, enjoy the walk. *smooch*

>207 richardderus: Thank you, Richard dear.
Not finishing the Pieterpad yet, almost. If all goes as planned there will be 40 km left to walk next March.

>206 sirfurboy: Hi Stephen...I'm very glad I could warn you off some potentially quite offensive subject matter. I'd agree that the author wrote the story well and, while trying to explain away some of her subject's unappealing qualities, did some entertaining mental gymnastics. They distracted me from my loathing of Maar enough to make finishing the book possible. That's not nothing.

Happy weekend-ahead's reads!

Morning, RD!

>210 katiekrug: Greetings, Katie! Happy to see you here.

*smooch*

>208 FAMeulstee: I hope all goes as planned, then. It's quite the journey and the two of y'all have assured remission of your sins by completing it.

‘Morning, Rdear! Happy Thursday to you.

>194 richardderus: I had to look up boffins, and yes, I am. UNC Chapel Hill, Duke, Research Triangle Park. I had a great aunt and uncle who lived in Los Gatos, still have cousins up in that area along with my aunt and uncle, who live in Aptos. My sister and her progeny/familes live in SoCal.

>200 ArlieS: Thanks Arlie! I appreciate your post.

>201 richardderus: I’ve never minded my taxes going to essential services, even those I didn’t use at the time – schools. I don’t use schools again, but still consider them money well spent. I live outside the town limits, so don’t pay for trash/sewer/water. I take trash to the dump weekly, have a septic system, and a well. Our property taxes are set to be revalued next year, and with Chatham Park in the county, they'll definitely go up.

>203 richardderus: I absolutely agree. Corporate personhood is evil and would have appalled the Founding Fathers.

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard. I find myself skimming through posts and saying, "Yep, yep, yep, yep dammit, yep, etc." Glad you had your early morning coffee with Rob! I'm off for mine with my ma.

Delightful weather this morning with more delight on the way, they say! Hope yours is and that you get some outdoor time to balance reading and writing!!!!! *smooch*

>213 karenmarie: Hey there Horrible! I'm so glad you and I agree that hte Founders would've given up their collective ghosts at the mere notion of corporate personhood. After the boffins slingshot me back to 1781 and I make sure Jackson's dead as a haddock, it's on to 1904 and make sure TR eviscerates corporate personhood and has a third term.

I don't mibd taxes going to essantial services. I mind them being tied to property values. It gives the lowest and nastiest people fig leaves for their calculated greed and selfishness.

>214 LizzieD: Yaay for nicer weather. My pretty day won't quite get to 80° so I am the boy happy.

>216 richardderus: It’s wonderful, isn’t it! Enjoy! I know I am.

>217 Storeetllr: Absolutely astounding...from sticky to lovely, and all in one front coming through.

*smooch*

>214 LizzieD: me to with the yep yep yep as I scroll. (like minds!)

And, good morning to you RD from me and my strong coffee. I am working from home today, doing 4 online interviews to gather data for my latest research project on food security. Onwards!

>219 LovingLit: A deeply worthy topic to get data on, hoping your report will help make positive change. *smooch*

Hi there, RDear! Happy Friday to you.

>215 richardderus: Oh, how I wish TR had run again! He regretted not running again, too. And independent parties just don’t work here in the US.

Off to get hair cuts and have lunch in Winston-Salem in half an hour.

*smooch*

>221 karenmarie: TR would've won a third term in 1908 for sure...the reason there aren't third parties here is in the phrase itself, assuming there are two and only two parties suits the PTB because it's easier and cheaper to buy the legislation they want. Lots and lots of issues we should, as a country, address but won't because the way things are suits too many people down to the ground.

Happy hairing and suchlike goins on!

More yepping.

I hope that Lee is far enough away that you're getting this crisp air and sunshine, Richard.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD. I hope you have a fantastic Friday!

I'm playing catch-up today on threads! Hope you have a great Friday.

>223 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy, it's a lovely day indeed and the surfers are out in force...much to Rob's disgust, hecan't come enjoy the waves. *smooch*

>224 alcottacre: *smooch* back at'cha, Stasia!

>225 thornton37814: Hi there, Lori! I'm glad to see you here. Hoping this means you're well and happy and disfruiting the good things in life.

074 Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A biography of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry from New York Times bestselling author Tracy Daugherty.

In over forty books, in a career that spanned over sixty years, Larry McMurtry staked his claim as a superior chronicler of the American West, and as the Great Plains’ keenest witness since Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Larry McMurtry: A Life traces his origins as one of the last American writers who had direct contact with this country’s pioneer traditions. It follows his astonishing career as bestselling novelist, Pulitzer-Prize winner, author of the beloved Lonesome Dove, Academy-Award winning screenwriter, public intellectual, and passionate bookseller. A sweeping and insightful look at a versatile, one-of-a-kind American writer, this book is a must-read for every Larry McMurtry fan.

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

My Review: First, I want to salute Tracy Daugherty, fellow Texan and indefatigable researcher. This is a thoroughly sourced book withe compendious endnotes hyperlinked in the DRC I read. Some things didn't really need so much sourcing, being opinions of interviewees, but too much beats too little all hollow in non-fiction. More especially in the notes because reading them is entirely optional. I do it because I'm a fussbudget. I don't often comment about it either way, but here it's appropriate...a William Zinsser opinion from The American Scholar Magazine impressed me by being so niche a quote and being checkably sourced, I felt compelled to bring it up.

Then, I want to diss Larry McMurtry, petulant whiny adolescent of great age. No matter where he was, he was dissatisfied by it; no matter who he knew, he critiqued them with a flensing-knife of an eye; yet his curmudgeonliness gave the world some impressive art and a lot of filler. He had honesty enough to know it, though, that's a saving grace.

He was an inveterate lover of women. Married or not, he was always glad to meet another lady...with predictable results for the existing relationship...but he wasn't always sexually involved with them. He really just loved women as beings. His writing partner was Diana Ossana, and their closeness created a collaboration that made Annie Proulx's story "Brokeback Mountain" into a delight of a screenplay (one well worth reading on its own). He was friends with Merry Prankster and fellow novelist Ken Kesey, whose widow Faye he married in 2011—a decade after Kesey's death in 2001. This was a man who, in spite of a pretty spiky personality, could sustain a friendship!

He identified as a Texan. That in spite of his flensing-knife eye seeing, and his venom-filled pen chronicling, the failings of his fellow Texans in the gloriously angry The Last Picture Show, and his honest appraisal of Texas's self-aggrandizing mythology in the most famous book of his career Lonesome Dove. I think it's weird that people misinterpret Lonesome Dove as a celebration of the West, but that's another project that I can't tackle here. I rated this book more highly than my enjoyment of its subject would've led me to do because I so enjoyed reading McMurtry's opinions of the fans of his books. I'm not going into details because spoilers but this was one serious curmudgeon.

That's where I ran into a problem. I ended up knowing McMurtry better but not liking him more. This wasn't promised to me, so I'm not complaining that I was led to believe something was going to be offered that was not. I wasn't his biggest fan, actively disliking Texasville and the sequels to Lonesome Dove; but I always admired his clearsightedness. Now I know what I do about him as a person, I don't see it as clearsightedness any more. He was a chronic fault-finder who made, so far as I could tell or the author reported to me, no effort to use this in any constructive way in his own life. The consequences are predictable, and largely suffered by others.

That moody snort aside, I am sure that my world is enriched by his work, and I'm glad that this fascinating, difficult man came along to tell us all about our dirty, grubby, grasping, grouchy selves. I expect my Young Gentleman Caller is on to something when he remarked, "he reminds me of you."

>229 richardderus: Makes me want to know more. 👍🏻

>230 Storeetllr: Oh good, Mary. I hope you're going to enjoy it. *smooch*

‘Morning, RD, and happy Saturday to you.

>222 richardderus: The hairing went well. The de-hairing, actually. Lunch was a joy. Jenna and I got the exact same thing we each had when we went to Village Tavern in Reynolda Village NC in August, and were as pleased this time as we were that time.

>229 richardderus: Excellent review, a joy to read. Will I get the book? No. Will I put it on my wish list? No. But I just read the Wikipedia entry about McMurtry, and am happy to know he was a collector of books and owned antiquarian book store businesses.

*smooch*

Many thanks for the McMurtry review, Richard. Like Karen, I doubt that I'll read the book. I may not even read McMurtry, but he is a name a middlebrow ought to know at least a little about.

*smooch* for your day. Ours will be even better than yesterday!

PEARL RULE #13 (53%)
The Ibiza Crone Club by Josephine O'Brien

The Publisher Says: In the wonderful White Isle of Ibiza, magic begins when three women meet in the emergency room of a hospital and realise that more than their medical issues need help.

Tanit, the goddess of women, fertility, and water is on hand to help.

Pot, Prosecco, pals, and the paranormal, what more does a woman need?

Occasionally bawdy, often hilarious but always touching and heartfelt, a truly feel-good read.

"A book with real emotional heart and a fab sense of place."

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

My Review: I gave up at the end of chapter twenty, when the Scoobygroup of older women toast their decision to become the Crone Goddesses in order to have for themselves exciting and interesting lives by topping up their glasses of wine.

Getting drunk together now that you're free of the Awful Men who've been So Nasty and Ruined Your Lives could, by now, be the subtitle of all the mediocre uninteresting "women's fiction" in the world. I'm not the target audience so the appeal is lost on me, and the writing isn't deft or original enough (really, at all) to draw me along in spite of my utter lack of interest in this kind of story.

>232 karenmarie: Happy Saturday, Horrible! I'm glad you liked the review. I definitely don't think the book's one for you. Glad the day went well, and hope today will as well. *smooch*

>233 LizzieD: Yay for even better days! I'm grateful to Lee for sucking the wet air into its vortex.

Like Horrible, I don't think 560pp about a writer whose work doesn't scream for your attention's a good time-investment, but glad you liked my review. A happy *smooch* back!

>229 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Richard.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

PEARL RULE #14 (32%)

Talk to Me by T. Coraghessan Boyle
The Publisher Says: From bestselling and award-winning author T.C. Boyle, a lively, thought-provoking novel that asks us what it would be like if we could really talk to the animals

When animal behaviorist Guy Schermerhorn demonstrates on a TV game show that he has taught Sam, his juvenile chimp, to speak in sign language, Aimee Villard, an undergraduate at Guy's university, is so taken with the performance that she applies to become his assistant. A romantic and intellectual attachment soon morphs into an interspecies love triangle that pushes hard at the boundaries of consciousness and the question of what we know and how we know it.

What if it were possible to speak to the members of another species—to converse with them, not just give commands or coach them but to really have an exchange of ideas and a meeting of minds? Did apes have God? Did they have souls? Did they know about death and redemption? About prayer? The economy, rockets, space? Did they miss the jungle? Did they even know what the jungle was? Did they dream? Make wishes? Hope for the future?

These are some the questions T.C. Boyle asks in his wide-ranging and hilarious new novel Talk to Me, exploring what it means to be human, to communicate with another, and to truly know another person—or animal…

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

My Review: Gertrude Trevelyan's Appius and Virginia in the twenty-first century. She was riffing on Frankenstein, and honestly just about everything that riffs on Frankenstein these days sets off resistance responses in me. We're busily destroying the planet with the hubris Mary Shelley wanred us about two hunded years ago, and if you're following in those footsteps, you'd best have something more urgent to say than this oft-told take on miscommunication and the essence of personhood being universal.

I gave up during the trip by car down to meet a woman Tonight Show producer wherein she's described as wearing enough mascara to paint a mural, the academic ponders his male privilege without seeing it, his assistant goes off with Sam the chimp and "cleans him up"...and then we go into an extended riff on how J. Fred Muggs stole Dave Garroway's fame which sent him spiraling into depression. Afraid it's going to happen to him...well, let's just say that I understand this isn't being played as a good person's musings but I just don't find it compelling when I'm aware, from long use, how this is going to play out as a plot. The execution is as always Boyle's selling point, and I wasn't sold.

YMMV, of course, but for me this isn't a hit.

>237 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! Thanks for the thanks...how circular is that...and enjoy the read when it comes up. *smooch*

BURGOINE REVIEW #20

The Revolving Boy by Gertrude Friedberg

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Man had always sought a meaning beyond Earth. Lonely, even with the company of his fellow Man, he had sought another spark of life, somewhere out there. But by the end of the century, the gates of exploration had shut. The Earth was constricted by a radioactive belt of Man's own making.

Yet scientists still searched the skies through radio probes for a signal, a hope that intelligent life beyond our galaxy might exist. But the Universe yielded no emissions.

And unless a strange young boy was allowed to develop and understand his baffling "wild talent," a talent frightening but with no apparent purpose, they might never find an answer.

I RECEIVED A COPY FROM A SCI-FI FIEND FRIEND. THANK YOU, STEVE.

My Review:Set in the unimaginably different, advanced, supercool world of 2002, this YA novel pretty much did nothing for me. Awkward and stilted, bizarrely pessimistic yet so deeply sure of Humanity's ability to do better and better, the tone was problem one. Problem two was the exceptionalism...one person saves us from ourselves!...that I find so deeply troubling and destructive in superhero stuff. Religion and its "saviors" ring the same alarm bells in my head.

I gave it an extra half-star because the thing trapping us on the planet was of our own making, and while it's not radiation, we are in fact about to suffer that fate.

Repulses me that this pile of steaming turds is allowed to present their outgassings as journalism.

Love the cartoon -- appreciate you taking to the time read and comment on the books (and for not adding to my Mt. TBR)

It was 92 degrees here yesterday.

Happy weekend, RDear. Dropping off some very important smooches.

>243 MickyFine: Hiya Micky! Your important message received and smiled about.

PEARL RULE #15 (52%)

Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter by Stefan Weitz

The Publisher Says: Search is as old as language. We’ve always needed to find something in the jumble of human creation. The first web was nothing more than passing verbal histories down the generations so others could find and remember how not to get eaten; the first search used the power of written language to build simple indexes in printed books, leading to the Dewey Decimal system and reverse indices in more modern times.

Then digital happened. Besides having profound societal impacts, it also made the act of searching almost impossibly complex for both engines and searchers. Information isn’t just words; it is pictures, videos, thoughts tagged with geocode data, routes, physical world data, and, increasingly, the machines themselves reporting their condition and listening to others’.

Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter, the first in the Greenhouse Collection, holds up a mirror to our time to see if search can keep up. Author Stefan Weitz explores the idea of access to help readers understand how we are inventing new ways to search and access data through devices in more places and with more capabilities. We are at the cusp of imbuing our generation with superpowers, but only if we fundamentally rethink what search is, how people can use it, and what we should demand of it.

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

My Review: Ten years ago, I'd've lapped this up; now, using Pandora and Watson as examples of cutting-edge machine learning would require a history lesson for most under 40. I sort of get the idea the author would agree with this statement because he predicts glorious glowing things will come from AI as search technology improves and algorithms get sharper and sharper in their focus. Absent a decade's awareness-building curve, there's just no way to put the book on an equal footing with later projects. I came to the conclusion that, honestly, my eyeblinks would be better spent elsewhere. This book was an overview of search engines' capabilities and the possible future use of them.

That future came and went.

You should know that the author headed Bing, Microsoft's response to Google. He is, based on internal evidence and a quick peek at his biography, a True Believer in Markets and Tech being forces for good. Since I believe neither of those things, take stock of my PoV on the book with that information in mind.

>234 richardderus: A very hard pass on that one for me

Hope your Sunday brings better reads!

>229 richardderus: I’ve added Larry McMurtry: A Life to my TBR. Your review is terrific!

I somehow missed getting my star on your latest thread! Woe was me! I’m all set now.

Karen O

Looks like your latest reads aren’t up to par, Richard. I hope you find a read that you enjoy soon.

BURGOINE REVIEW #21

Moonshine: A Cultural History of America's Infamous Liquor by Jaime Joyce

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Nothing but clear, 100-proof American history.

Hooch. White lightning. White whiskey. Mountain dew. Moonshine goes by many names. So what is it, really?

Technically speaking, "moonshine" refers to untaxed liquor made in an unlicensed still. In the United States, it’s typically corn that’s used to make the clear, unaged beverage, and it’s the mountain people of the American South who are most closely associated with the image of making and selling backwoods booze at night—by the light of the moon—to avoid detection by law enforcement.

In this book, writer Jaime Joyce explores America’s centuries-old relationship with moonshine. From the country’s early adoption of Scottish and Irish home-distilling techniques and traditions to the Whiskey Rebellion of the late 1700s to a comparison of the moonshine industry pre- and post-Prohibition and a look at modern-day craft distilling, Joyce examines the historical context that gave rise to moonshining in America and explores its continued appeal.

Even more fascinating than the popularity of the liquor itself is moonshine’s widespread effect on U.S. pop moonshine runners were NASCAR’s first marquee drivers; white whiskey was the unspoken star of countless Hollywood film and television productions; and numerous songs inspired by making shine have come from such musicians as Dolly Parton, Steve Earle, Metallica, Ween, and others. While we can’t condone making your own illegal liquor, reading Moonshine will give you a new perspective on the profound implications that underground moonshine making has had on life in America.

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

My Review: Two hundred-ish pages of text is barely an overview of a subject this vast...how and why the US has always loved them some illegal highs...so I went in to the read knowing I wasn't going to get everything there is to know, and was fine with that. In point of fact, I gave the book a lower rating than I might otherwise have done for the tediously drawn-out NASCAR stuff.

Briefly and concisely, Author Joyce wends ahead of us through a thicket of propaganda, misinformation, snobbishly dismissive social condemnation of the use of intoxicants, and clueless judgments to show the true impact of moonshine on the US cultural landscape. “Heritage is what moonshine is all about. Moonshine is tradition. It’s family. It’s folk art, and people are invested in keeping the art alive.” The damn-near innumerable craft breweries and microdistilleries littering the US are the tax-payin' health-and-safety obeyin' great-grandchildren of the moonshiners.

For her clarity and absence of condescension I think she deserves awards. A bookish landscape littered by J.D. Vances (Hillbilly Elegy) and Nancy Isenbergs (White Trash) that broadcast judgments from title to content, this is very refreshing. I will say, though, that my interest in NASCAR...the truest, most direct descendant of the moonshiners' need for speed...gave out long before the chapter was over. The Whiskey Rebellion, OTOH, has been the subject of book after book, including a novel by the fine writer David Liss, so its chapter being short failed to rouse my ire despite the fascinating subject.

There are lots of photos to illustrate key concepts and put faces with names. The Kindle edition displayed them well enough on my tablet, but the hardcover's the same $25.00 that the Kindle file is. Why not treat yourself to the tree-book? Treat yourself, however, you should.

Hiya, RDear! Happy Sunday.

>234 richardderus: Ugh.

>241 richardderus: Yup.

*smooch*

>246 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! I genuinely think you're going to remain happier without it in your life. One more really craptastic read to come. But Monday will be better. A LOT better.

>247 klobrien2: Oh...hello Karen O. I'm glad to see you here because *chinwobble* I assumed you'd dumped me at the curb with the *sniff* other recycling. So pleased that's not the case.

*smooch*

>248 Familyhistorian: The read I've been slugging through is enjoyable, Meg, but these mediocre-minus books needed to be got done first. Clearing the decks for Oktoberdeath and then Booksgiving.

>250 karenmarie: Sunday orisons, Horrible. Both Ugh and Yup are les mots justes. *smooch*

BURGOINE #22

The Tesla Gate (The Tesla Gate #1) by John D. Mimms

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A cosmic storm reunites a father with his lost son—but another kind of disturbance awaits them—in this science fiction novel with “a real emotional core” (Publishers Weekly ).

Thomas Pendleton loves his wife, Ann, and six-year-old son, Seth, more than anything, but his job often makes him an absent husband and father. One day, after Thomas leaves on a business trip, his wife and son are killed in a car accident. Thomas shuts himself off from the world and is at home grieving when a cosmic storm enters Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists are baffled by its composition and origins, but not nearly as much as they are by the storm’s side Anyone who has died and chosen not to cross over is suddenly visible and can interact with the living.

Ann does not return, but Seth does, and Thomas sees it as a miraculous second chance to spend time with his son and keep the promises he had previously broken. They set out on a trip to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, but little do they know that they are traveling headlong into a social and political maelstrom that will test Thomas in ways he could never imagine. Along the way, they come face to face with armed kidnappers who want Seth for his supernatural abilities, meet up with a medium, the ghost of a slave boy, and encounter none other than Abraham Lincoln.

Citing an overpopulation problem caused by the “Impalpables,” the government begins to take drastic measures. Military scientists have a device called the Tesla Gate that is said to return “Impals” to where they were before the storm. Many have nicknamed the controversial machine “the shredder” because no one really knows if it will do what it is reputed to, or if it will instead shred the Impals—effectively destroying the soul. Thomas is determined to do everything possible to save Seth, or at the very least, ensure that Seth doesn’t have to endure his sentence alone...

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

My Review: A first novel, with all that implies; you're getting the tremolo stop on the organ pulled open throughout, and quite a few plangent violin solos, and a sturdy staff of oboe riffs to give it emotional resonance. The author apparently stopped reading SF in the 1950s when psychic phenomena were cool istead of cause for muffled giggles.

The father/son stuff was like listening to Harry Nilsson's famous song just that little bit too often, so it desensitizes the recipient to the message. Author Mimms is a paranormal researcher and thus thinks there's an afterlife into which we merge, or upload, or ascend, or something. As I don't think that's a realistic explanation for ghosts to exist it wasn't like I was all on board for the reveals. When the Impalpables show up I just put the book down and forgot about it for most of a decade. Having now finished it, I think the sentimental story of a dad getting a second chance to love his son out loud appealed to me more than it did then.

It's $7.99 on Kindle, but honestly I don't think it's going to light most SF readers up in the 21st century...maybe more for the religious folks? There's no explicit religiosity but it's pretty culturally christian.

A fair few Pearl Rulers these days RD, but you did fit in an excellent review of the McMurtry bio. :

" I am sure that my world is enriched by his work, and I'm glad that this fascinating, difficult man came along to tell us all about our dirty, grubby, grasping, grouchy selves. I expect my Young Gentleman Caller is on to something when he remarked, "he reminds me of you."

Love that.

Have a great weekend, dear fellow.

PW has a very trenchant article on the affordability crisis in YA publishing. Young people aren't usually able to fork over $22 with tax for a book. We need to rein in the greed, laddies and gentlewomen...publishers especially.

>256 PaulCranswick: Hi PC! Yes, the not-great quotient is high this month because last month was Women In Translation month, so I cherry-picked the best stuff to review. Next month is Oktoberdeath, mysteries, thrillers, true crime galore because I don't really get horror books...what's so scary about insubstantial things that jump out at you and go BOO?...people scare me a lot more than phantasms.

As we read the book together, Rob skated that line off and it rang me like a bell. Somehow he sees that and still loves me. How lucky am I.

Happy week-ahead's reads.

Here and gone! Happy to hear you happy, Richard. *smooch*

PEARL RULE#16 (25%)

The Undying (The Undying, #1) by Ethan Reid

The Publisher Says: THEY HAVE COME FROM THE STARS…
In this riveting apocalyptic thriller for fans of The Passage and The Walking Dead, a mysterious event plunges Paris into darkness and a young American must lead her friends to safety—and escape the ravenous “undying” who now roam the crumbling city.

Jeanie and Ben arrive in Paris just in time for a festive New Year’s Eve celebration with local friends. They eat and drink and carry on until suddenly, at midnight, all the lights go out. Everywhere they look, buildings and streets are dark, as though the legendary Parisian revelry has somehow short circuited the entire city.

By the next morning, all hell has broken loose. Fireballs rain down from the sky, the temperatures are rising, and people run screaming through the streets. Whatever has happened in Paris—rumors are of a comet striking the earth—Jeanie and Ben have no way of knowing how far it has spread, or how much worse it will get. As they attempt to flee the burning Latin Quarter—a harrowing journey that takes them across the city, descending deep into the catacombs, and eventually to a makeshift barracks at the Louvre Museum—Jeanie knows the worst is yet to come. So far, only she has witnessed pale, vampiric survivors who seem to exert a powerful hold on her whenever she catches them in her sights.

These cunning, ravenous beings will come to be known as les moribund—the undying—and their numbers increase by the hour. When fate places a newborn boy in her care, Jeanie will stop at nothing to keep the infant safe and get out of Paris—even if it means facing off against the moribund and leaving Ben—and any hope of rescue—behind.

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

My Review: Jeanie and Ben are TSTL. Zou Zou and Günter are ciphers. Paris itself is more a real character than the people are. This is bog-standard vampire-plague stuff and that isn't my jam. I have other uses for my eyeblinks than another iteration of tis story...it's a lot like The Passage, only better written, and that isn't for me.

YMMV, as always. For $4.99 on Kindle, vampire-plague fans will have a treat.

>259 LizzieD: Greetings, Peggy me lurve. I'm contented, so all is well. My various reads and reviews are a wee bit crotchety for reasons I mentioned to PC in >258 richardderus:. One more Pearl-Ruler and I'm done with my grumbling reviews.

PEARL RULE #17 (72%)

Between Two Thorns (The Split Worlds #1) by Emma Newman

The Publisher Says: Beautiful and nuanced as it is dangerous, the manners of Regency and Victorian England blend into a scintillating fusion of urban fantasy and court intrigue.

Between Mundanus, the world of humans, and Exilium, the world of the Fae, lies the Nether, a mirror-world where the social structure of 19th-century England is preserved by Fae-touched families who remain loyal to their ageless masters. Born into this world is Catherine Rhoeas-Papaver, who escapes it all to live a normal life in Mundanus, free from her parents and the strictures of Fae-touched society. But now she’s being dragged back to face an arranged marriage, along with all the high society trappings it entails.

Crossing paths with Cathy is Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds treaty with a dislocated soul who polices the boundaries between the worlds, keeping innocents safe from the Fae. After a spree of kidnappings and the murder of his fellow Arbiters, Max is forced to enlist Cathy’s help in unravelling a high-profile disappearance within the Nether. Getting involved in the machinations of the Fae, however, may prove fatal to all involved.

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

My Review: Mundanus? Exilium? Really. That's some on-the-nose stuff. Still, not for nothing did I get to 72%. The writing clearly didn't offend me...the plot was a little eye-rolly, with Cathy being very much a modern, sweary woman in pseudo-eighteenth-century times...snappish, ready to lash out at everyone including her future husband whom she very much does not want to marry despite falling in love with him...who just for added eye-rollyness makes an effort to understand her which she repays with unkindness and every attempt to drive him away.

The last straw for me was a major infodump about how the world we're in works to a mundane. Honestly, I shit you not. At SEVENTY-TWO PERCENT into the book. Had it happened at twenty-two or even forty-two percent I'd be a lot less annoyed.

Still and all, this sort of urban fantasy has squads and fleets of admirers. At $7.99 on Kindle you fans will really jam on this tale.

>245 richardderus: FWIW, I cringed just at the title. "Made us smarter" managed to hit two of my warning buttons - one for referring to "us" (the author and who else? not me, surely, or anyone too low on the social totem pole) and the other for implying that a surfeit of information has anything to do with whether or not someone counts as "smart".

Your review gave substance to my instinctive aversion.

I don't maintain an "avoid this book list", but if I did, I'd be adding this one.

>263 ArlieS: It might be worth starting one, Arlie, this book would make you completely mad with its sweeping generalizations and unfounded assumptions. I did mention, didn't I, that his tone's pretty bro-dawg and so utterly cringe to me and most in my age cohort?

Definitely need the moonshine book… 😀

>265 drneutron: Hahaha I have some choice single malt being delivered to my door today:

1. Tobermory
2. Abelour
3. Teeling

All three are 18 years old and the first two are Scots with the Teeling being Irish.

Though I have not have time to post on the threads much this weekend, I have read and enjoyed and thumbed one of your reviews. Your reviews are excellent and best yet, humourous! Monday * smooch* I had some family in town in the weekend. I have just one aunt and uncle as my dad was an only child, and my mom has just one sister, who is married, so that is my uncle. I had not seen them in about 20 years, so it was great to see them. My uncle will be 80 in January and my aunt just turned 76. Their son remarried on Friday, so they were out to Vancouver from Winnipeg for the wedding. It was so nice to see them!

>265 drneutron: I had that exact thought as I was reading along, Jim! I wished it was the hardcover so I could send it to you. You'll enjoy it when Danita gives it to you.

>266 PaulCranswick: I.

HATE.

YOU.

*commence barely sub-lethal drooling*

>267 vancouverdeb: What a lovely weekend, Deb! They won't be here forever so it's best to enjoy them while you can. I'm so pleased that you're enjoying my reviews. I think the best thing I ever did for myself is start fixinf books in my memory by writing down what I thought about them.

Have a wonderful week-ahead's reads! *smooch*

075 The Peculiarities by David Liss

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: From popular historical alternate history author David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper) comes the tale of a clueless young man embroiled in a deadly supernatural mystery in London. Rooted in strange conspiracies and secret societies, this absurdist comedic romp combines strange bedfellows with murderous creatures, resulting in an unexpectedly delightful consequences.

All of his life, Thomas Thresher has been free of obligation and responsibility, but that is over now. He is a twenty-three-year-old man whose best days are behind him. Thomas's older brother Walter has trapped him in a tedious clerical job at the family bank in London, and Thomas is expected to wed a wealthy young woman in whom he has no interest.

But Thomas has more serious problems than those of a disaffected young man. There are irregularities at the bank he cannot explain. His childhood friend has mysteriously turned up dead. Worse, a verdant skin malady has infected him: leaves have begun sprouting on his skin. Thomas must conclude that it is due to the long-rumored Peculiarities. London's famous grey fog has been concealing a rash of unnatural afflictions—and worse, the murderous Elegants.

As Thomas grows leafier, the conspiracies surrounding him become more apparent. He cannot determine whom to trust: his own family; his banking co-workers and superiors; the beautiful widow of his companion; the woman he is to marry. Or perhaps a lycanthropic medium; the members of a secret occult society...or even Aleister Crowley.

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

My Review: Clueless whiny nepo baby Thomas Thresher, clerking at his family's London bank and living a really cushy life, starts to grow leaves from his body. Promising start to a David Liss story. We've got London, though in the early twentieth century not the eighteenth, we've got business shenanigans at the bank, and a world in which there are children with lobster claws, women giving birth to rabbits, killer fogs of supernatural origin, and a werewolf psychic. Oh, and Aleister Crowley.

Why does Walter, Thomas's brother, have such wood for Thomas's marriage to Esther, a Jewish woman with pots of money? What is driving the oddball events in the bank (seriously dodgy loans and very odd property acquisitions) that aren't in service of making money? And, last but not least, what the hell are all these leaves doing on Thomas's body?

The way Thomas sets about trying to make sense of the Peculiarities, the way he simply rolls up his sleeves, picks a few leaves off, and starts looking around for information that could help him...these are positives. They do lead, quite naturally, to a slightly off-putting disconnected style, episodes instead of one smooth narrative. That wasn't entirely to my personal liking but I got accustomed to it.

What I very much didn't get used to was Esther's being the butt of so many nasty, mean-spirited jokes not least from Thomas...the man she's set to marry. It made me very uncomfortable and was absolutely never addressed...Esther ends the way she began, a one-note anti-Jewish joke. I couldn't figure out why she was so awful, compared to Thomas's suddenly acquired love interest who was a cypher.

That, and a really cringey sexual assault scene, are the source of my lower-than-expected rating.

I was very taken by the Peculiarities themselves. The fact that we don't find out what the hell's going on here isn't a major issue for me because the verve of Author Liss's tellings of the supernatural events was the actual point. There's no need to explain strange doings if the point of them is to be strange. What Author Liss does overexplain is the world of 1899 London and its many and various restrictions on women and Others. That's really overdone.

Something that might be overdone for some readers is the pseudo-Victorian locutions of Thomas's narration. I myownself found it fun and just on the good side of stilted, but others might feel differently. If you opt to read a sample of the Kindle edition, you'll know right away if this is for you or not. What nearly scuppered my interest, and greatly slowed my reading, was the chest-pokey second-person narration parts.

I must say that, with the different historical luminaries swirling through the story, I was a little bit let down that none of them played a big role in the solution to the strange issues in the book. (Well, except Aleister Crowley.)

Not a perfect read, but a good one; a lot of stuff gets wrapped up in the last ten percent of the book but not, by any means, even close to everything. That is, for me, perfectly okay because very few things in life are wrapped up in tidy little bows. The Peculiarities remain peculiar. And most enjoyably so.

Whew! I think I'm all caught up with your reviews now. I liked Search better than you, but I 1. read it closer to when it came out, so we were still kinda figuring out what some of this might look like (or, what we wanted it to look like) and 2. I sometimes read against his optimism, but thought that was still an important conversation to have. I daresay I'd have a different take on it reading it again now.

Anyway, happy New Sunday to you and *smooches* for the day.

>271 richardderus: Hiya Mary! I'm sure that, if I'd read the book when I got it I'd've thought like you...but truthfully, I suspect the time to have this conversation's over because AI is looming over all things searchy.

New Sunday *smooch*

I'm here, and I've skimmed reviews. Honestly, I wouldn't be reading anything you've Pearl Ruled amyway, and I have never been able to like David Liss. I keep wishing that I did, but nope; hardly at all.

>266 PaulCranswick: Oh.Oh.Oh. I'll never hate Paul, but I just can't imagine getting 3 bottles of single malt at the same time. *sigh* and *drool*

*smooch* for the week.

>249 richardderus: Ok, that's the kind of micro-history that appeals to me.
Not the whisky though. That's not my cup of tea.

Went on holiday to Scotland many years ago with the then squeeze. Visited a distillery, like you do. Got the end and they give you a rather generous measure. I took a sip and said to him, I don't like it. he said that they'd be offended if I didn't drink it. So I slammed it.
*shudder*
Burnt all the way down.
Not had whisky since.
*shudder*

Happy Monday. Thunderstorms here over night, but they've blown over and it's clear now.

Wow! A lot of disappointing reads in a row for you, RD. I hope you can latch on to something worthwhile soon!

((Hugs)) and **smoochies** to add to those I left on my thread for you.

>274 LizzieD: That's okay, Peggy, I can hate him enough for both of us...and I do.

Interesting about David Liss...is this something that's just an alchemical mismatch, or does something specific turn you off?

>275 Helenliz: I'm not surprised after slamming a single-malt down! That's gonna leave a truly awful memory. For me it was love at first sip.

Thunderstorms! My favorite rain events! *smooch*

>276 alcottacre: I'm cleaning up the unposteds, Stasia. It's nowhere near as grim as it looks from here!

*smooch*

When I was around 18, I tried a taste of scotch and hated it. My mom said, in a condescending way, that scotch is an acquired taste. So, being a stubborn kid, I set about acquiring a taste for it. (It’s a miracle I didn’t become an alcoholic.) I no longer drink, because alcohol of any kind makes me ill, but I’ve still got a shot or two of Glenfiddich single malt that someone gave me for Christmas 20 years ago in the cupboard that I’m saving in case of an emergency.

Interesting Pearl-ruled books, Richard. Somehow I don’t picture you reading famtasy/horror fantasy, though it is almost Spooktober so…

>260 richardderus: The only zombie horror I’ve ever found worth reading is The Girl With All the Gifts and its sequel. It’s on the list for next month.

‘Morning, RD, and happy Monday to you.

>255 richardderus: I love what publishers write - “a real emotional core” . I giggled at what you wrote: The author apparently stopped reading SF in the 1950s when psychic phenomena were cool instead of cause for muffled giggles.. Nope, not one for me.

>260 richardderus: And nope again. And this Nope is with popping the P.

>266 PaulCranswick: I wish I had someone to tutor me on Single Malts. I currently don’t have any appreciation for whiskey.

>271 richardderus: Lots of David Liss at the book sale set up yesterday, all set aside for when we set out Science Fiction/Fantasy late Wednesday. I liked but did not love A Conspiracy of Paper and have The Coffee Trader and A Day of Atonement on my shelves waiting for the right time or the CULL pile. The jury’s still out…

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>280 Storeetllr: Zombie stuff in general is just not my jam, Mary. Spooktober is Oktoberdeath for me, mysteries and thrillers and true crime. I don't drink anymore because my meds really don't play well with booze. Still crave single-malt every so often....
***
Roku Channel has the Masterclasses AND the Celebrity Bake-Offs, as well as the American one...might even need to subscribe to this one.

>281 karenmarie: Really? Lots of Liss? How interesting. I do think you'll like The Coffee Trader, so encourage you to get that one off the donate pile.

The book was self-published, as though you'd not spot that. *ew*

Happy New-Sunday *smooch*

>283 richardderus:
I would second your vote for Coffee Trader that was one that I enjoyed when I read it. His earlier books interested me, but his mystery series just didn't catch my eye. I have a copy of Spectacle of Corruption but it is just sitting quietly on my shelves - waiting.

>284 benitastrnad: You never know when its time might come, so just leave it there. Honestly, though, I suspect you'll be fine without it for the most part.
***
Someone knows my name and address, and has sent me leather-care products out of the blue. I don't need 'em or want 'em. Don't own anything but one pair of leather shoes that might use them ever. So...if this was you...the second delivery arrived and has been discarded, as was the first. I have no room to keep things I don't need. If they were meant as gifts, it would've been wise to ask me before spending that kind of money on things I've got no need or desire for.

Dark o'clock greetings, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

Insomnia again, after a blissful sleep on Sunday night. Oh well, it lets me play around here on LT, and read and drink coffee with the house quiet and peaceful.

*smooch*

>286 karenmarie: Oh hell, Horrible, I'm so sorry. I so seldom have that kind of trouble but it stands out in my memory as AWFUL.

The rest of Tuesday going well is the best revenge on the evil spirit that kept you awake. Something extra-good on your TBR that you've been saving up?

Morning, Richard. Yep, I am back and slipping right into my usual routine. I read very little on the camping trip, (no surprise at all) so my main focus will be the books today, after tending to Juno of course.

I hope all is well with you, my friend. Very strange on the leather goods. Secret admirer?

>288 msf59: Welcome back, Mark! I'm pleased that you had such a good trip. It's the time of year when my vicarious travel tourism needs kick into High. This way I get to scratch the itch without doing the work!

Books and Juno sound pretty fabulous to me, too, though. Schmoozle her doggie-ears from me!

It's likely a "brushing scam"...where a company scrapes your info from somewhere and then sends you unsolicited stuff in hopes you'll be thrilled by it and review it on Ammy and other places. I'm a high-volume reviewer, so they picked me. They didn't do it via Ammy because the info is just slightly off from what I use there, nor Lands End because some details are entirely missing. So wherever however they did it, it didn't work.

Hi Richard! I'm so far behind on the threads, as usual, so just dropping a bookmark.

Greetings, Nina! Glad you're here, but here's moving to there now.

>279 richardderus: It's nowhere near as grim as it looks from here! Well, that is good!

>291 richardderus: *sigh*

But thanks for the golden retriever love.