mahsdad's (Jeff) 2024 Thread - Q1

Welcome to 2024 Q1 and my little corner of the world

Hi, I'm Jeff. I live in San Pedro California. Moved out from Pittsburgh in 1989. I'm an avid reader. My wife might say I'm bordering on the obsessive. But then, I think that could apply to a lot of us in this group. I also enjoy photography, movies, hiking and playing games and hanging out with my family. Book-wise, I have a pretty eclectic taste in what I read and I hope to give you not so much reviews but my impressions about what I read.

What you will find here is mostly my rambling thoughts, my Wishlist and TBR pile temptations and a smattering of my photography. I don't really make a plan for what I'm going to read thru out the year. Its mostly what strikes my fancy from the TBR piles.

Past 75 Threads :
2013 2014 2015 2016
2017 2018 2019 2020
2021 2022 2023

Come in and sit a spell. I'll start of the thread with an image of the Urban Light installation at LACMA

2024 Statistics - Q1

A - Audio
ER - Early Review
GN - Graphic Novel
K - Kindle
LL - Life's Library

March
26. The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl (A) :
25. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII by Iris Chang (A) :
24. Saga, Vol 4 by Brian Vaughan (GN) :
23. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu :
22. Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman (A) :
21. Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (GN) :
20. Danny Champion of the World by Roald Dahl (A) :
19. Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser :
18. The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson (A) :
17. As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem (A) :
18. Saga Vol 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (GN) :

February
15. Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller (A) :
14. Kindred by Octavia Butler :
13. Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros by Michael Chabon (A) :
12. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes : And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughy (A) :
11. Nothing. Everything by Virginia Montanez :
10. The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow/Charles Stross (A) (A) :
9. The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi :
8. Manga Stories #1 by Haruki Murakami (GN) :
7. The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde (A) :
Favorite : Kindred


January
6. IQ84 by Haruki Murakami :
5. The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (K) :
4. Return of the King by JRR Tolkien (A) :
3. Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman (GN) :
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (A) :
1. Two Towers by JRR Tolkien (A) :
Favorite : IQ84

Audiobook Narrators

Andy Serkis - Two Towers, Return of the King
Jake Phillips - A Christmas Carol
Emily Gray - The Woman Who Died A Lot
John Lee - The Rapture of the Nerds
Caitlyn Doughty - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
George Newbern - Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros
Stephen Graybill - Chip War
David Aaron Baker - As She Climbed Across the Table
Donald Corren - The Lost Weekend
Peter Serafinowicz - Danny Champion of the World
Nick Offerman - Where the Deer and the Antelope Play
Anna Fields - The Rape of Nanking
Chris O'Dowd - The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Pulitzer's Read

Ongoing bucket list to read all the Pulitzer winning novels.

Bold : On the Shelf
Strikeout : Completed

Total Read - 38
2023 - Demon Copperhead
2023 - Trust
2022 - The Netanyahus
2021 - The Night Watchman
2020 - The Nickel Boys
2019 - The Overstory
2018 - Less
2017 - Underground Railroad
2016 - The Sympathizer
2015 - All the Light We Cannot See
2014 - The Goldfinch
2013 - The Orphan Master's Son
2012 - NO AWARD
- Swamplandia - Nominee
2011 - A Visit from the Goon Squad
2010 - Tinkers
2009 - Olive Kitterridge
2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2007 - The Road
2006 - March
2005 - Gilead
2004 - The Known World
2003 - Middlesex
2002 - Empire Falls
2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2000 - The Interpreter of Maladies
1999 - The Hours
1998 - American Pastoral
1997 - Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer READ
1996 - Independence Day
1995 - The Stone Diaries
1994 - The Shipping News
1993 - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
1992 - A Thousand Acres
- My Father Bleeds History (Maus) (Special Awards & Citations - Letters)
1991 - Rabbit at Rest
1990 - The Mambo Kings
1989 - Breathing Lessons
1988 - Beloved DNF
1987 - A Summons to Memphis
1986 - Lonesome Dove
1985 - Foreign Affairs
1984 - Ironweed
1983 - The Color Purple
1982 - Rabbit is Rich
1981 - A Confederacy of Dunces
1980 - The Executioner's Song
1979 - The Stories of John Cheever
1978 - Elbow Room
1977 - NO AWARD
1976 - Humboldt's Gift
1975 - The Killer Angels
1974 - NO AWARD
1973 - The Optimist's Daughter
1972 - Angle of Repose
1971 - NO AWARD
1970 - The collected Stories of Jean Stafford
1969 - House Made of Dawn : DNF
1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner
1967 - The Fixer
1966 - The Collected Stories of katherine Anne Porter
1965 - The Keepers of the House
1964 - NO AWARD
1963 - The Reivers
1962 - The Edge of Sadness
1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird
1960 - Advise and Consent
1959 - The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
1958 - A Death in the Family
1957 - NO AWARD
1956 - Andersonville
1955 - A Fable
1954 - NO AWARD
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea
1952 - The Caine Mutiny
1951 - The Town
1950 - The Way West
1949 - Guard of Honor
1948 - Tales of the South Pacific
1947 - All the King's Men
1946 - NO AWARD
1945 - A Bell
1944 - Journey in the Dark
1943 - Dragon's Teeth
1942 - In This Our Life
1941 - NO AWARD
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath
1939 - The Yearling
1938 - The Late George Apley
1937 - Gone with the Wind
1936 - Honey in the Horn
1935 - Now in November
1934 - Lamb in His Bosom
1933 - The Store
1932 - The Good Earth
1931 - Years of Grace
1930 - Laughing Boy
1929 - Scarlet Sister Mary
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1927 - Early Autumn
1926 - Arrowsmith
1925 - So Big
1924 - The Able McLaughlins
1923 - One of Ours
1922 - Alice Adams
1921 - The Age of Innocence
1920 - NO AWARD
1919 - The Magnificent Ambersons
1918 - His Family

Hugos Read

Ongoing bucket list to read all the Hugo winning novels.

Bold : On the Shelf
Strikeout : Completed

Total Read - 41

2023 - Nettle & Bone
2022 - A Desolation Called Peace
2021 - Network Effect
2020 - A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
2020 - This Is How You Lose The Time War - Novella
2019 - The Calculating Stars
2018 - The Stone Sky
2018 - All Systems Red - Novella
2017 - The Obelisk Gate
2016 - The Fifth Season
2016 - Binti - Novella
2015 - The Three-Body Problem
2014 - Ancillary Justice (DNF)
2013 - Redshirts
2012 - Among Others
2011 - Blackout/All Clear
2010 - The Windup Girl
The City & the City
2009 - The Graveyard Book
2008 - The Yiddish Policemen's Union
2007 - Rainbows End
2006 - Spin
2005 - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
2004 - Paladin of Souls
2003 - Hominids
2003 - Coraline (novella)
2002 - American Gods
2001 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2000 - A Deepness in the Sky
1999 - To Say Nothing of the Dog
1998 - Forever Peace
1997 - Blue Mars
1996 - The Diamond Age
1995 - Mirror Dance
1994 - Green Mars
1993 - A Fire Upon the Deep
Doomsday Book
1992 - Barrayar
1991 - The Vor Game
1990 - Hyperion
1989 - Cyteen
1988 - The Uplift War
1988 - Watchmen - category : Other forms
1987 - Speaker for the Dead
1986 - Ender's Game
1985 - Neuromancer
1985 - The Crystal Spheres - David Brin - Short Story
1984 - Startide Rising
1983 - Foundation's Edge
1982 - Downbelow Station
1981 - The Snow Queen
1980 - The Fountains of Paradise
1979 - Dreamsnake
1978 - Gateway
1977 - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
1976 - The Forever War
1975 - The Dispossessed
1974 - Rendezvous with Rama
1973 - The Gods Themselves
1972 - To Your Scattered Bodies Go
1971 - Ringworld
1970 - Left Hand of Darkness
1969 - Stand on Zanzibar
1968 - Lord of Light
1967 - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
1966 - Dune
This Immortal
1965 - The Wanderer
1964 - Way Station
1963 - The Man in the High Castle
1962 - Stranger in a Strange Land
1961 - A Canticle for Leibowitz
1960 - Starship Troopers
1959 - A Case of Conscience
1958 - The Big Time
1956 - Double Star
1955 - The Forever Machine
1953 - The Demolished Man

Retro Hugos - this are given for years when no award was given (more than 50 years ago). Of those...

1939 - The Sword in the Stone
1951 - Farmer in the Sky
1954 - Fahrenheit 451

Nebulas Read

Bold - On the Shelf
Strike - Finished

2023 - - Babel, Or, The Necessity of Violence, An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
2022 - A Master of Djinn
2021 - Network Effect
2020 - A Song for a New Day
2019 - The Calculating Stars
2019 - This Is How You Lose The Time War - Novella
2018 - The Stone Sky
2017 - All the Birds in the Sky
2016 - Uprooted
2015 - Annihilation
2014 - Ancillary Justice DNF
2013 - 2312
2012 - Among Others
2011 - Blackout/All Clear
2010 - The Windup Girl
2009 - Powers
2008 - The Yiddish Policemen's Union
2007 - Seeker
2006 - Camouflage
2005 - Paladin of Souls
2004 - The Speed of Dark
2003 - American Gods
2002 - The Quantum Rose
2001 - Darwin's Radio
2000 - Parable of the Talents
1999 - Forever Peace
1998 - The Moon and the Sun
1997 - Slow River
1996 - The Terminal Experiment
1995 - Moving Mars
1994 - Red Mars
1993 - Doomsday Book
1992 - Stations of the Tide
1991 - Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea
1990 - The Healer's War
1989 - Falling Free
1988 - The Falling Woman
1987 - Speaker for the Dead
1986 - Ender's Game
1985 - Neuromancer
1984 - Startide Rising
1983 - No Enemy But Time
1982 - The Claw of the Conciliator
1981 - Timescape
1980 - The Fountains of Paradise
1979 - Dreamsnake
1978 - Gateway
1977 - Man Plus
1976 - The Forever War
1975 - The Dispossessed
1974 - Rendezvous with Rama
1973 - The Gods Themselves
1972 - A Time of Changes
1971 - Ringworld
1970 - The Left Hand of Darkness
1969 - Rite of Passage
1968 - The Einstein Intersection
1967 - Babel-17
1966 - Dune

National Book Award Winners

2015 - Fortune Smiles
2014 - Redeployment
2001 - The Corrections
1988 - Paris Trout
1985 - White Noise
1983 - The Color Purple - hardback award
1981 - The Stories of John Cheever - paperback award
1980 - The World According to Garp - paperback award
1953 - Invisible Man

Man Booker Books
2023 Prophet Song
2022 The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida
2021 The Promise
2020 Shuggie Bain READ
2019 The Testaments
2019 Girl, Woman, Other
2018 Milkman
2017 Lincoln in the Bardo READ
2016 The Sellout READ
2015 A Brief History of Seven Killings READ
2014 The Narrow Road to the Deep North
2013 The Luminaries
2012 Bring Up the Bodies
2011 The Sense of an Ending
2010 The Finkler Question
2009 Wolf Hall DNF
2008 The White Tiger
2007 The Gathering
2006 The Inheritance of Loss
2005 The Sea
2004 The Line of Beauty READ
2003 Vernon God Little
2002 Life of Pi READ
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang
2000 The Blind Assassin
1999 Disgrace
1998 Amsterdam
1997 The God of Small Things
1996 Last Orders
1995 The Ghost Road
1994 How Late It Was, How Late
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1992 The English Patient
1992 Sacred Hunger
1991 The Famished Road
1990 Possession
1989 The Remains of the Day
1988 Oscar and Lucinda
1987 Moon Tiger
1986 The Old Devils
1985 The Bone People
1984 Hotel du Lac
1983 Life & Times of Michael K
1982 Schindler's Ark
1981 Midnight's Children READ
1980 Rites of Passage
1979 Offshore
1978 The Sea, the Sea
1977 Staying On
1976 Saville
1975 Heat and Dust
1974 The Conservationist
1974 Holiday
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur
1972 G.
1971 In a Free State
1970 The Elected Member
1969 Something to Answer For

International Booker Prize

2023 Time Shelter - Georgi Gospodinov (Bulgaria) : trans. Angela Rodel Read
2022 Tomb of Sand - Geetanjali Shree (India) : trans. Daisy Rockwell
2021 At Night All Blood Is Black - David Diop (France) : trans. Anna Moschovakis
2020 The Discomfort of Evening - Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Netherlands) : trans. Michele Hutchison
2019 Celestial Bodies - Jokha al-Harthi (Oman) : trans. Marilyn Booth
2018 Flights - Olga Tokarczuk (Poland) : trans. Jennifer Croft
2017 A Horse Walks Into a Bar - David Grossman (Israel) : trans. Jessica Cohen
2016 The Vegetarian - Han Kang (South Korea) : trans. Deborah Smith Read

100 SFF/Fantasy Reads as compiled by NPR

https://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/139085843/your-picks-top-100-science-fiction-fant...

1. The Lord of the Rings by Tolkien READ
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams READ
3. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card READ
4. The Dune Chronicles By Frank Herbert READ
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series by George R.R. Martin
6. 1984 A Novel by George Orwell READ
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury READ
8. The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov READ but only the 1st one
9. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley READ
10. American Gods By Neil Gaiman READ
11. The Princess Bride S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure by William Goldman READ
12. The Wheel Of Time Series by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm by George Orwell READ
14. Neuromancer By William Gibson READ
15. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons READ
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov READ
17. Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein READ
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles BY by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five By Kurt Vonnegut READ
20. Frankenstein By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick READ
22. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood READ
23. The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King READ
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey BY by Arthur C. Clarke READ
25. The Stand By Stephen King READ
26. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson READ
27. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury READ
28. Cat's Cradle By Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series by Neil Gaiman READ
30. A Clockwork Orange BY by Anthony Burgess READ
31. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein READ
32. Watership Down by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein READ
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz By Walter M. Miller Jr. READ
36. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea By Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes READ
39. The War Of The Worlds by H.G. Wells READ
40. The Amber Chronicles by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad By David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. Mistborn Trilogy Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld by LARRY NIVEN READ
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin READ
46. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King BY by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere by NEIL GAIMAN READ
49. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact by Carl Sagan READ
51. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust by Neil Gaiman READ
53. Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson READ
54. World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks READ
55. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman READ
57. Small Gods A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal A Novel of Discworld by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle READ
62. The Sword Of Truth Series by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road by by Cormac McCarthy READ
64. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson READ
66. The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Sword of Shannara Trilogy by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series by Robert E. Howard and Mark Schultz
69. The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger READ
71. The Way Of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
72. Journey To The Center Of The Earth by Jules Verne READ
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series by R. A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War by John Scalzi READ
75. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson READ
76. Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke READ
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed An Ambiguous Utopia by Ursula K. Le Guin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire READ
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen series by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde READ
83. The Culture Series by Iain Banks
84. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
85. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon
90. The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man By Ray Bradbury short works collection
92. Sunshine by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel by Isaac Asimov READ
95. The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle READ
97. Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
99. The Xanth Series by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

100 Horror Reads as compiled by NPR

https://www.npr.org/2018/08/16/632779706/click-if-you-dare-100-favorite-horror-s...

1. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
2. Dracula by Bram Stoker
3. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
4. The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
5. Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
6. The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James
7. The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
8. The Monkeys Paw by W. W. Jacobs
9. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
10. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman READ
11. Oh, Whistle, And Ill Come To You, My Lad by M. R. James and Darryl Jones
12.The Werewolf Of Paris By Guy Endore
13. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson READ
14. Let The Right One In By John Ajvide Lindqvist
15. The Vampire Chronicles (First Triology) by Anne Rice READ
16. Minion (Vampire Huntress Legend Series) by L. A. Banks
17. The Hunger by Alma Katsu
18. Those Across The River by Christopher Buehlman
19. Bird Box by Josh Malerman READ
20. Feed (Newsflesh Series) by Mira Grant
21. World War Z by Max Brooks READ
22. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey READ
23. The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft
24. The Ballad Of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle READ
25. The Fisherman by John Langan
26. Laundry Files (Series) by Charles Stross
27. The Cipher By Kathe Koja
28. John Dies At The End by David Wong READ
29. At The Mountains Of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
30. All Our Salt-Bottled Hearts by Sonya Taaffe
31. Uzumaki by Junji Ito
32. Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber OR Majestic by Whitley Strieber
33. The Repairer Of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers
34. The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
35. The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons
36. Burnt Offerings by Robert Marasco
37. The Shining by Stephen King READ
38. House Of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
39. The Elementals by Michael McDowell
40. The Woman In Black by Susan Hill
41. Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis
42. The Bone Key by Sarah Monette
43. Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand
44. Infidel by Aaron Campbell, Jose Villarrubia, Pornsak Pichetshote and Jeff Powell
45. The Ruins by Scott Smith
46. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
47. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates
48. The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan
49. Swan Song by Robert McCammon
50. The Screwfly Solution by James Tiptree Jr.
51. Left Foot, Right by Nalo Hopkinson
52. Come Closer by Sara Gran
53. Furnace by Livia Llewellyn
54. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
55. Through The Woods by Emily Carroll
56. Sandman by Neil Gaiman READ
57. Her Body And Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
58. White Is For Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
59. Goblin Market by Christina Georgina Rossetti
60. Experimental Film by Gemma Files
61. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson READ
62. The Collector by John Fowles
63. The Terror by Dan Simmons
64. Intensity by Dean R. Koontz
65. The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum
66. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite
67. Night They Missed the Horror Show by Joe R. Lansdale
68. Penpal by Dathan Auerbach
69. NOS4A2 by Joe Hill READ
70. Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler
71. Lord Of The Flies by William Golding READ
72. The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood READ
73. Beloved by Toni Morrison
74. Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Octavia E. Butler
75. The Devil In America by Kai Ashante Wilson
76. I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
77. Books Of Blood by Clive Barker READ
78. The October Country: Stories by Ray Bradbury
79. The Weird: A Compendium Of Strange And Dark Stories by Ann Vandermeer and Jeff VanDermeer
80. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
81. Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell, 1961-1991 by Ramsey Campbell
82. Things We Lost In The Fire by Mariana Enriquez
83. Shadowland by Peter Straub READ
84. A Head Full Of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
85. Rosemarys Baby by Ira Levin
86. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
87. The Body by Stephen King READ
88. Its A Good Life by Jerome Bixby
89. The Other by Thomas Tryon
90. The Troop by Nick Cutter
91. Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall
92. Please, Momma by Chesya Burke
93. Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell
94. Goosebumps (Series) by R. L. Stine children
95. Rotters by Daniel Kraus children
96. Jumbies Rise Of The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
97. The House With A Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs
98. Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh
99. Coraline by Neil Gaiman READ
100. Down A Dark Hall by Lois Duncan

The 75'r Chunkster List

1. The Overstory by Richard Powers READ
2. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
3. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco READ
4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell READ
6. The Witch Elm by Tana French
7. The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
8. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr READ
9. Little, Big by John Crowley
10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides READ
11. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt
12. Possession by A.S. Byatt
13. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel DNF
14. The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
15. The Secret History by Donna Tartt
16. The Parisian : A Novel
17. Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
18. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
19. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami READ
20. Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
21. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie READ
22. American Gods by Neil Gaiman READ
23. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon READ
24. The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
25. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen READ
26. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray
27. A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava
28. An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears
29. A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James READ
30. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson READ
31. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
32. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
33. Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin READ
34. JR by William Gaddis
35. Almanac of the Dead by Leslie Marmon Silko
36. Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
37. Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
38. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett READ
39. The Stand by Stephen King READ
40. Underworld by Don DeLillo
41. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
42. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
43. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry READ
44. 2666 by Roberto Bolano
45. Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
46. Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
47. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
48. Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas
49. Women and Men by Joseph McElroy
50. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

Paul's Alternative 20

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon READ
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Far Pavilions by MM Kaye
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman
Saville by David Storey
To Serve Them All My Days by RF Delderfield
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving READ
The Singapore Grip by JG Farrell
Magician by Raymond E Feist
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
A Chain of Voices by Andre Brink

Bill's Alternative Weird Dozen

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis READ
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger READ
Cider House Rules by John Irving
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
The Book and the Brotherhood by Iris Murdoch
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak READ
August 1914 by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams READ
11/22/63: A Novel by Stephen King READ
His Dark Materials Omnibus (The Golden Compass; The Subtle Knife; The Amber Spyglass) by Philip Pullman
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling READ

Jeff's how the heck did this not get on the other lists list
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami Read
Alaska by James Michener Read
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst Read

Weird Books List

From Book Riot - The 100 strange and weird "must read" books. https://bookriot.com/i-got-your-weird-right-here-100-wonderful-strange-and-unusu...

A Jello Horse by Matthew Simmons
After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones
Alligators of Abraham by Robert Kloss
An Exaggerated Murder by Josh Cook
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer READ
Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace
As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem
Bear vs. Shark by Chris Bachelder
Beatlebone by Kevin Barry
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Big Machine by Victor LaValle
Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe (Author), Alexander O. Smith (Translator)
Cat Country by Lao She
Damnificados by JJ Amaworo Wilson
Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
Delicious Foods by James Hannaham
Dendera by Yuya Sato (Author), Edwin Hawkes (Translator), Nathan A Collins (Translator)
Disquiet by Julia Leigh
Duplex by Kathryn Davis
Escape from Baghdad! by Saad Hossain
Fram by Steve Himmer
geek loveGeek Love by Katherine Dunn
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland READ
God Help the Child by Toni Morrison
Half Life by Shelley Jackson
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov (Author), Michael Glenny (Translator)
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King
In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods by Matt Bell
Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe
Just Like Beauty by Lisa Lerner
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis
Long Division by Kiese Laymon
Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis
Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet
Motherfucking Sharks by Brian Allen Carr
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
Mr. Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood READ
Paper Tigers by Damien Angelica Walters
Prodigies by Angélica Gorodischer
Pym by Mat Johnson
Radio Iris by Anne-Marie Kinney
Remainder by Tom McCarthy
Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer
Sister Mine by Nalo HopkinsonSister Mine by Nalo Hopkinson
Slade House by David Mitchell READ
Slapstick or Lonesome No More! by Kurt Vonnegut
Some of Your Blood by Theodore Sturgeon
Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link
Sudden Death by Álvaro Enrigue (Author), Natasha Wimmer (Translator)
The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor
The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
The Bees by Laline Paul
The Blue Girl by Laurie Foos
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders READ
The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
The Daughters by Adrienne Celt
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
The Giant’s House by Elizabeth McCracken
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
The Illumination by Kevin Brockmeier
The Incarnations by Susan Barker
The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
The Last Illusion by Porochista Khakpour
The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Shehan Karunatilaka
The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosely
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry
The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen
The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth Mckenzie
The Rabbit Back Literature Society by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Author), Lola M. Rogers (Translator)
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall READ
The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (Author), Christina MacSweeney (Translator)
The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman
The Unfinished World and Other Stories by Amber Sparks
The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits
The Vaults by Toby Ball
The Vegetarian by Han Kang READ
The Vorrh by B. Catling
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
The Weirdness by Jeremy Bushnell
The Wilds by Julia Elliott
Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail by Kelly Luce
Version Control by Dexter Palmer
Viper Wine by Hermione Eyre
Waiting for Gertrude by Bill Richardson
What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
Zeroville by Steve Erickson

One that they left off that I read this year that was really weird was Help! A Bear is Eating Me by Mykle Hansen

2023 Reading Results

Books Read : 104
# of Authors : 85
Authors of Color : 7 (8%)
Lady Authors : 22 (26%)
Narrators : 43 (Most books - Tie : Emily Gray and Too Many to Name - 5 )
Rereads - 14 (13%)

Pages Read - 14,198 Hours Read - 22 Days, 8 hours, 38 minutes

75th Book Read - Last on His Feet by Youssef Daoudi

Books Purchased/Gifted/Found - 71







A new one for me this past year. I started tracking the home country of the authors I've read. Here's a heat map of where they come from

Scatter Plot

My favorite graphs for some strange reason. Not quite sure they're useful for anything, I just like them artistically. Here's all the books I've read plotted out in order of when they were published

2023 Reads



Everything I've read since I started tracking

2023 Books of the Month

January : Billy Summers by Stephen King
February : Gunfight: My Battle Against the Industry that Radicalized America by Ryan Busse
March : Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
April : The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders
May : Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
June : The Wishing Pool and Other Stories by Tananarive Due
July : The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
August : Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
September: Doom Guy: Life in First Person by John Romero
October: Salt, A World History by Mark Kurlansky
November: News of the World by Paulette Jiles
December: The Cat Who Saved Books By Sosuke Natsukawa









#botm

That's it, welcome in when you stumble across me.

Found and starred!!!

Love all the lists and graphs!! Happy 2024 thread!

Well, I'm in awe of the lists upon lists on this thread. Incredibly useful. Also, I'm astonished that a) you haven't read Frankenstein and b) you DNFed Wolf Hall.
The second must be a matter of taste, but the first is a sin of omission. Get to it this year!

As Douglas Adams would say, thanks for all the fish, and have a great year.

Very ambitious lists! Don't forget your personal "I wanna" list! Good luck with your 2024 reading.

>11 mahsdad: Mr. Fox is in there twice...

>4 mahsdad: I've read 7 Pulitzers? Wow!

The Good Earth
Gone With the Wind
The Grapes of Wrath
The Town (by Conrad Richter? Touchstone goes to a movie)
The Old Man and the Sea
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lonesome Dove

I. Am. In. Awe.
All the tracking, all the charts, all the lists. I'm following your thread for certain. Happy New Year!

>16 fuzzi: >17 Berly: Thanks Fuzzi, Kim

>18 ffortsa: Hi Judy, Frankenstein is definitely a sin of omission, one that will probably be remedied this year, as it was a Santathing give. As far as Wolf Hall is concerned, yeah, it just hit me wrong and I DNF'd it. Maybe it was situational at the time I read it. Maybe I'll give it another go sometime.

>19 Tess_W: Hi Tess, thanks for stopping by. These lists are definitely place holders and have been building over years. My primary list is absolutely the "I Wanna" list. :)

>20 fuzzi: Thanks for the catch Fuzzi. I built that list from copying a webpage, pasting it to a text editor and mucking about with the formatting. Missed that one. And any of these award lists are always good for making suggestions. Of your 7, I've read 3; Wrath, Mockingbird and Lonesome. I have Good Earth on the shelf

>22 elorin: Hi Robyn, thanks for visiting. I'm a computer geek, so all the tracking makes sense to me. I have a spreadsheet that I got from Bookriot several years ago that does all the heavy lifting. I just put in the particulars about each book and it does all the summaries and charts. As far as the lists are concerned, those have been building over many years. Mostly I created them from scraping the winners out of their respective Wikipedia pages. It was only hard building it the first time, now its just a matter of adding in the current year's winners. They're all a challenge I will never complete, but its fun tracking them.

im srry jeff i know this is ur book thread but I FOUND IT https://youtu.be/StHzEuRp3lU?si=gGT-_oxml9CxiToJ

>24 Wings_14: Congrats Vivian for finding whatever video it was that you were searching for.

Needless to say Jeff I will be back again to keep you virtual company and wallow in your stats and the outstanding photography.

Dropped a star.

>1 mahsdad: I was sooo confused by that photo...how'd he get all those streetlights in one tight shot?!...until I read the caption.

Derp.

Anyway, have a great 2024's reads, Jeff.

Happy New Year Reading! I feel quite home here as a lover of lists.

>26 PaulCranswick: Hi Paul, your visits are most welcome. Thanks!

>27 richardderus: Hi RD, glad I could confuse you a bit on this penultimate day of 2023. We all need a little confusion now and then. :)

>28 Kristelh: Hi Kristal! Thanks, glad to have you visiting. I'll keep a look out for any other crazy lists I can start tracking on.

A couple #newbook starts that I forgot to post "last year"...

New Book

Walkaway by Cory Doctorow



From New York Times bestselling author Cory Doctorow, an epic tale of revolution, love, post-scarcity, and the end of death.

"Walkaway is now the best contemporary example I know of, its utopia glimpsed after fascinatingly-extrapolated revolutionary struggle." ―William Gibson

Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza―known to his friends as Hubert, Etc―was too old to be at that Communist party.

But after watching the breakdown of modern society, he really has no where left to be―except amongst the dregs of disaffected youth who party all night and heap scorn on the sheep they see on the morning commute. After falling in with Natalie, an ultra-rich heiress trying to escape the clutches of her repressive father, the two decide to give up fully on formal society―and walk away.

After all, now that anyone can design and print the basic necessities of life―food, clothing, shelter―from a computer, there seems to be little reason to toil within the system.

It’s still a dangerous world out there, the empty lands wrecked by climate change, dead cities hollowed out by industrial flight, shadows hiding predators animal and human alike. Still, when the initial pioneer walkaways flourish, more people join them. Then the walkaways discover the one thing the ultra-rich have never been able to buy: how to beat death. Now it’s war – a war that will turn the world upside down.

Fascinating, moving, and darkly humorous, Walkaway is a multi-generation SF thriller about the wrenching changes of the next hundred years…and the very human people who will live their consequences.

Hubert Vernon Rudolph Clayton Irving Wilson Alva Anton Jeff Harley Timothy Curtis Cleveland Cecil Ollie Edmund Eli Wiley Marvin Ellis Espinoza was too old to be at a Communist party. At twenty-seven, he had seven years on the next oldest partier. He felt the demographic void. He wanted to hide behind one of the enormous filthy machines that dotted the floor of the derelict factory. Anything to escape the frank, flat looks from the beautiful children of every shade and size who couldn't understand why an old many was creepering around.

#newbook

New Book - Audio

Two Towers by JRR Tolkien



This brand-new unabridged audiobook of The Two Towers, the second part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic adventure The Lord of the Rings, is read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director, and author Andy Serkis.

The company of the Ring is torn asunder. Frodo and Sam continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin - alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go. This continues the classic tale begun in The Fellowship of the Ring, which reaches its awesome climax in The Return of the King.

Aragorn sped up the hill. Every now and again he bent to the ground. Hobbits go light, and their footprints are not easy even for a ranger to read, but not far from the top a spring crossed the path, and in the wet earth he saw what he was seeking.

#newbook

>23 mahsdad: I copy and paste, but sometimes stuff will slip through, oh I know!

This year I'm doing all my threads on my iPad, and sometimes it will NOT cooperate...argh.

Happy New Thread, Jeff. I am impressed with all your different challenges. Good luck with them. If you would be up for doing Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer off the Pulitzer, I am in. I managed to read American Pastoral this year. It was excellent.

>33 fuzzi: Good luck to you with managing threads on the iPad. I can type so much faster on a real keyboard that for me doing any sort of posts longer than a sentence frustrate the heck out of me on the pad. I do much better on the laptop.

>34 msf59: And to you too, Mark. Since I'm such a random reader, I hardly ever plan to read something, the lists keep me up on suggestions, but I make no plans with them. But conversely, I would be happy to plan to read Martin Dressler. I see you have a couple joint reads already planned for January, to say nothing of the fact that I'll be kneedeep in IQ84 most of the month anyway, so soon is right out. Pick a month, and we'll go for it. Maybe March or April?

>34 msf59: >35 mahsdad: Since Mark just sucked me into Dressler as well, can we do March? : ) Have fun with IQ84 -- love that one!

>25 mahsdad: its peter griffon singing his iconic burger king song

Welcome back, Jeff!

Happy New Year Jeff!

Hi Jeff!

Wishing you a great one!

Happy new thread and new year, Jeff. Looking forward to another year of great photos!

Happy New Year! Hope 2024 is kind to you

I don't think I've stopped in yet so I'll just say hi, happy new year, and I'll be around. :)

>31 mahsdad:
I have been wanting to get to reading some of the Corey Doctorow books and just haven't done it yet. Oh well, I will get to them one of these days.

I am listening to Seveneves by Neal Stephenson and loving all the science in this huge book.

I did a delightful First Day Walk with two of my cousins this morning. We went to Rock Creek Station Historical park up in Nebraska and spent most of the time talking instead of walking. It was cold but we were plenty warm. We talked about geology (ferruginous sandstone) and cow towns having to do with Wild Bill Hickock. It was a good way to start the day.

Happy new year, Jeff.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Jeff. We decided on March for Martin Dressler, so I will add you to the shared list. Yah!

Have you starred.

>14 mahsdad: Great book of the month list. I have Salt on my shelf so perhaps this will be the year I read it.

Happy reading in 2024, Jeff!

How did I get so far behind in replying... :)

>36 Berly: Martin Dressler, I'm in for March. Looking forward to it

>37 Wings_14: Family Guy just isn't in my wheelhouse, but I'm glad you were successful.

>41 jessibud2: Hi Shelley, hopefully I'll be able to get some good images for you all. :)

>44 benitastrnad: I've read several of Doctorow's stuff back in the early days of podcasts. He used to serialize his books. He's a big anti-DRM guy. Walkaway is pretty good so far.
>45 benitastrnad: I have Seveneves on the shelf. My wife liked it quite a bit. I'll get to it eventually.

>49 figsfromthistle: I hope you get to Salt eventually, its a good read

Happy New Year to all of you who visited me, and a pre-emptive Happy New Year to any one who stumbles across the page after. LOL.

Thanks - I'll take that pre-emptive Happy New Year and wish you the same!

Wow, as others have said - great lists and graphs. Wishing you many great books in 2024!

Starring your thread in the hopes of continued photography. Happy New Year.

>52 streamsong: Hi Janet, thanks for visiting!

>53 Oberon: Hi Erik, happy you're here. I definitely will be continuing to share my photography! I'll be hopping over and following your thread as well. Not sure how I missed you over the years

Argggg! You and yer darn lists. You maybe ought to plug in a 1001-books-to-read-before-croaking list *snicker*. I don't maintain all the lists you list, but I should update Pulitzers and Bookers, at least. I do have an unread copy of Martin Dressler, perhaps I'll board the march in March.

Tah tah. See you around.

PS: It's weird you have Bill's Alternative Weird Dozen appended to the Chunkster List. I admit to not reading a majority of that, eh, "Dozen."

PPS: Nice use of the LT charts and graphs. Just need them animated.

>55 weird_O: Hey Bill. I am sort of tracking the 1,001 books, but not on my thread. That would just be obnoxious. LOL. I hope you'll join with the Dressler march in March. My reading is so random, it is just nice sometimes to have some "destination" reading.

PS. To be honest, I have no memory of how the Bill's Alternate list got in there. I remember the conversation a couple years ago when Paul put out his Chunkster list, and I think part of that conversation, an alternate list came about. Oh well, more lists the better, right? ;p

PPS. Those are actually my charts (well most are from BookRiot, but I created a few), not LT. They're from my google tracking sheet. This is last years.... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iCFfjfIBa4lm5GSlo0WOgcN4vfrT3RFNlZl_omkn.... Feel free to copy. (I'd share this years, but its pretty much empty, as I'm at least several more days from finishing book 1

Fantastic Photo Friday
Happy New Year! First Friday of 2024. Its also my MIL's 90th Birthday today. We're headed out to Palm Springs to help her celebrate, so I'm starting the year off right by taking Friday off. :)

I'll just start your weekend off with this morning's sky. Enjoy...



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - IQ84 by Haruki Murakami 48%.
Listening - Two Towers by JRR Tolkien 53%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow 8%

Finished Books

No finished books yet. I'm starting the year off a little slow. :)

#ff

Here's an extra spooky sky when I zoomed in. Very ominous

And just because I'm feeling festive, here's another kind of sun for the other day's lunch walk.

>58 mahsdad: looks like the sky's on fire.

>59 mahsdad: nice composition.

>57 mahsdad: Wow, just wow, Jeff.

We have a saying over here that if the morning is very red, it means rain is to be expected. Does it work that way at your place?

>60 fuzzi: Thanks Fuzzi

>61 FAMeulstee: We do. For me it’s Red Sky in the morning, sailor take warning. Red sky at night sailor’s delight.

>58 mahsdad:, >57 mahsdad: Omnibus indeed! Gorgeous, too.

Happier omens for the weekend, like >59 mahsdad:, please!

>57 mahsdad: >58 mahsdad: Striking. Sometimes the second is just what the day's going to feel like. Not today. Today's too cool for that.

>59 mahsdad: Oh yes! More, different sun!

Happy New Year, Jeff!

>62 mahsdad:
The old saying about a red sky at morning only works for certain latitudes - the middle ones. It is not true for the latitudes around the Equator and at the poles.

Lovely bright pics. I can't recall if I asked you before what kind of camera/phone/tablet you use. I'm usually using my phone, because I haven't gotten used to the digital cameras I have. I still long for Kodachrome and manual zooms!

Gorgeous photos!

Happy new year of reading Jeff! >58 mahsdad: Love this photo!

>57 mahsdad: & >58 mahsdad: Glorious skies, Jeff.

Have a great weekend.

We were at my MIL's for the weekend, to celebrate her 90th, so I didn't manage to respond to all you fine folks

>63 richardderus: >64 quondame: >68 ChelleBearss: >70 PaulCranswick: Thanks for the photo love

>65 ronincats: Happy New Year to you too Roni!

>66 benitastrnad: Interesting tidbit, Benita. I didn't know that.

>67 ffortsa: Thanks Judy! Right now, mostly I'm using my phone, an iPhone 13pro (2 iterations old)

>69 WhiteRaven.17: Hi Kro, Happy New Year to You!

Book Haul

I sort of fell of of doing this last year, but I'm going start it up again.

Whenever we come back from Palm Springs, we invariably come back with some books that have just been gathering dust at the MIL's. I used to think that there were 2 book hobbies that you could ascribe to; Buying/Collecting Books and Reading them. I discovered with her, there is a third. Reading ABOUT books. She loves collecting books and watching Book Talk on CSPAN and reading the New York Times Book Review, but hardly ever actually reads the books she has. I on the other hand are mostly interested in the buying and reading. Reviews are lost on me, UNLESS they are coming from my friends around here.

Anyway, this is what we came back with.

5. The Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein by the aforementioned Stein
6. Disgrace - J.M Coetzee. Made the shortlist for the '99 Booker
7. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. There was an exhibit at the Natural History Museum about this book many years ago. Always wanted to read this, but pretty sure I haven't
8. The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. The title of this book is a Mandela Effect for me. I could have sworn it was the Girl with THE Pearl Earring. Weird what your brain does.

#bh

>72 mahsdad: Disgrace did more than make the shortlist, Jeff, it went on to win the thing. It is an easier read than some of Coetzee's other novels and a good one to pick up.

>73 PaulCranswick: oh cool, Paul. I was only going off the blurb on the copy I got. Very cool. A win from the MIL

>1 mahsdad: >58 mahsdad: What incredible photos. You are a natural with a camera!

>72 mahsdad:
There are at least 2 great books in that list of MIL's acquisitions that came home with you. Guns, Germs, and Steel was a favorite of mine and I liked Girl With a Pearl Earring as well.

>72 mahsdad: Jeff, I can relate to your comments about book buying and then the lack of reading them. I really am trying to buy fewer books this year. I'll head to the library more often.

I've read three out of you four books Jeff, all except the Gertrude Stein, and enjoyed all of them. Although I'm not sure if 'enjoy' is the right word in the case of the Coetzee.

Will be following your thread again with interest Jeff.

I hold you personally responsible (in the most complimentary manner) for my LT wishlist increasing a fair amount last year after your 2023 thread, and this is only going to go higher I feel as the year progresses. ...

and then, there was the weird list at the top you brought my attention to ....

Guns, Germs and Steel is a great read btw - the Easter Island section particularly poignant.

>75 Whisper1: >77 Whisper1: Hi Linda, thanks, I appreciate the complement. Book buying is a vice that I can definitely get behind. :)

>76 benitastrnad: Generally, the MIL only gets NF political type books, but when she gets fiction, she does pretty well

>77 Whisper1: Hi Rhian, we've got to come up with a better word than "enjoy". Even the difficult books are worth reading. Maybe "worthy"?

>78 SandDune: Hi Ignatius. Thanks for following along. I'm glad I can be an enabler. Just because I list 'em, doesn't mean you have to read 'em. LOL

Fantastic Photo Friday
We made it a whole 2 weeks, amazing! Not much to report, not sure what's on the agenda for the weekend. Hopefully going to make a better than average dent in IQ84.

We took the MIL to the Palm Springs Art Museum and this is one of my favorite works. I've seen his stuff before and if I had more money than I knew what to do with and plenty of room, I'd buy one. Its by Anthony James and its called 80" Great Rhombicosidodecahedron. Its a big ball of mirrors and lights and its pretty much infinite. :)



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - IQ84 by Haruki Murakami 62%.
Listening - Return of the King by JRR Tolkien 1% Just started it last night
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow 8%
Graphic Novel - Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman 7%. I've been watching What If on Disney and one of the upcoming episodes is based on this book where Gaiman supposes what would happen if all the Marvel superheroes were in Medieval England

Finished Books

1. Two Towers by JRR Tolkien (A) : Yippee, I finished a book. As with Fellowship, read on audio. Narrated by Andy Serkis, who is spectacular. This being the middle book, things don't really resolve, and Tolkien's choice of splitting up the company where the first half of the book is about Aragorn, Merry and Pippen, etc and the second half is all Frodo, Sam and Gollum is more obvious after watching the movie over the years. The movie jumps back and forth more often, I guess assuming that humans can't remember what just happened for more than 5 minutes. I'm not sure which is better, just that I noticed it. There's plenty of Gollum in this book and this is where Serkis, obviously, excels. There's no one else, I think, who could do this better. On to Return of the King

#ff

>81 mahsdad: I love that photo. It's giving me ideas for a textile piece.

I always enjoy looking at your photos--so creative!

>82 arubabookwoman: Hi Deborah, thanks, happy to share.

Here's another one of his sculpture. Its not the same one as the previous one, but it shows more of the whole thing.

That one's very interesting too. I love the complexity of the layers.

Geometric Infinity!! Love it. : ) Congrats on finishing a book -- Whoohoo!

Totally forgot about my #newbook posts. Well I'm 2 weeks into the new year and just starting new books.... sue me. LOL

New Book - Audio

Return of the King by JRR Tolkien



This brand-new unabridged audiobook of The Return of the King, the third and final part of J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic adventure The Lord of the Rings, is read by the BAFTA Award-winning actor, director, and author Andy Serkis.

The armies of the Dark Lord are massing as his evil shadow spreads even wider. Men, Dwarves, Elves, and Ents unite forces to battle against the Dark. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam struggle further into Mordor in their heroic quest to destroy the One Ring. The devastating conclusion of J. R. R. Tolkien’s classic tale of adventure, begun in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers.

Pippin looked out from the shelter of Gandalf's cloak. He wondered if he was awake or still sleeping, still in the swift-moving dream in which he had been wrapped so long since the great ride began. The dark world was rushing by and the wind sang loudly in his ears. He could see nothing but the wheeling stars, and away to his right vast shadows against the sky where the mountains sof the South marched past. Sleepily he tried to reckon the times and stages of their journey, but his memory was drowsy and uncertain.

#newbook

New Book - graphic novel

Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman



Collects Marvel 1602 (2003) #1-8. The year is 1602, and strange things are stirring in England. In the service of Queen Elizabeth, court magician Dr. Stephen Strange senses that the bizarre weather plaguing the skies above is not of natural origin. Her majesty's premier spy, Sir Nicholas Fury, fends off an assassination attempt on the Queen by winged warriors rumored to be in service to a mad despot named Doom. News is spreading of witchbreed sightings - young men bearing fantastic superhuman powers and abilities. And in the center of the rising chaos is Virginia Dare, a young girl newly arrived from the New World, guarded by a towering Indian warrior. Can Fury and his allies find a connection to these unusual happenings before the whole world ends?

#newbook

>81 mahsdad: Oh! Mirror and light sculptures are so magic and you captured that!

>87 mahsdad: Got me with that one!

>88 quondame: Thanks Susan

>89 drneutron:. Heh! Glad to oblige. Its pretty good so far

>83 mahsdad: That one makes me want to lie on the floor and gaze up through it for hours.

Yay for a book finished!

>91 richardderus: Too right (reflection gazing).

The count has gone up to 2, since Friday, but you won't like the second book, as it was written by your hated Chuck. LOL. Actually you might like it, I listened to a podcast called the Cultured Bumpkin. He read the story with a Southern drawl accent. It worked pretty well

>59 mahsdad: Three photos for photo Friday! love it!

>72 mahsdad: Great haul. I have yet to read the Girl with the pearl earring but the reviews seem to be mostly positive.

Happy week ahead :)

Another in what you've come to know and love (or hate) about my page. Lists!!!! Thanks to Robyn (Elorin) and Amanda (amanda4242), I'm now the owner of all (well almost all 39 out of 41) Discworld books. Via a HumbleBundle charity purchase. So here they are grouped by series

Discworld
GOING POSTAL
HOGFATHER
MAKING MONEY
MONSTROUS REGIMENT
MORT
MOVING PICTURES
PYRAMIDS - Read
REAPER MAN
SMALL GODS
SOUL MUSIC
THE TRUTH - Read
THIEF OF TIME
THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS

Tiffany Aching
A HAT FULL OF SKY
I SHALL WEAR MIDNIGHT
THE SHEPHERD'S CROWN
THE WEE FREE MEN
WINTERSMITH

Witches
CARPE JUGULUM
EQUAL RITES
LORDS AND LADIES
MASKERADE
WITCHES ABROAD
WYRD SISTERS

Wizards
THE COLOUR OF MAGIC - Read
THE LIGHT FANTASTIC - Read
SOURCERY
ERIC
INTERESTING TIMES
THE LAST CONTINENT
UNSEEN ACADEMICALS

City Watch
GUARDS! GUARDS!
MEN AT ARMS - Read
FEET OF CLAY
JINGO
THE FIFTH ELEPHANT
NIGHT WATCH
THUD!
SNUFF

If anyone wants a copy, let me know and I'll see if I can put them in a place where someone can get to them.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about this Terry Pratchett oeuvre colossus. I have a single handful of books with his name on the covers, and I know I've read one—Mort. So is this "DiscWorld" book clump all he wrote? I know he collaborated with Neil Gaiman. Anyone else?

Over the weekend, I started contriving plans for the next big bookshelf, and if comes off, I might have space to "grow" a Pratchett collection.

>95 weird_O: Terry Pratchett's biggest and most well known series is the Discworld series (which includes Mort), but he also wrote a few standalone books (Strata, Nation) and some non-Discworld kids books (Truckers, Diggers, and Wings, and the Johnny books (Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny and the Dead, Only You Can Save Mankind)). Towards the end of his life he was working with Steven Baxter on The Long Earth series. There's probably a few I missed.

>95 weird_O: >96 elorin: Plus the Gaiman collab is Good Omens, a most excellent book and the series on Amazon is pretty darn good too. The first season covers the book. The second (and announced third) are all Gaiman, I'd imagine.

The Long Earth series is pretty good. Total Hard Scifi. Five books in that series. Interesting take on the multi-verse.

Good luck with the bookshelf generation. I'm sure that even without adding Pratchett, you can find plenty to fill its spaces. :)

>97 mahsdad: I heard somewhere that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman had discussed continuing Good Omens so it might not be all Gaiman in Seasons 2 and 3. Season 2 was good either way.

>98 elorin: The wife and I have had the same thought. Nothing was published, but there's had to have been conversations. Like you said good either way.

>96 elorin: Thanks for that info, Robyn.

Oh, and you too, Jeff.

Fantastic Photo Friday
Week 3, that's not possible. :) Not much going on. Just looking forward to the end of a long work week.

Today's image is just the unintended abstract art of cup drying...



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - IQ84 by Haruki Murakami 80%. Almost there, another week or so
Listening - Return of the King by JRR Tolkien 40%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow 8%
Graphic Novel - Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman 61%

Finished Books

2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (A) : Listened to this as a podcast by The Cultured Bumpkin. He read the story in a Southern drawl. It worked quite nicely. A classic, surprisingly never read it before.

#ff

>101 mahsdad: How weird! I see an hommage à Mickey in that abstract...how much it was deliberate I decline to guess.

Have fun with Sir Terry!

>102 richardderus: I see it too. Completely undeliberate. :)

That’s a pretty cool shot!

>104 drneutron: Thanks Jim!

After reading Tim's SOTT email today, I joined the 2024 Big Fat Book Challenge that John hosts.

I might not read anything more than IQ84 this year, but it certainly qualifies and I think I'll start posting over there occasionally.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/357596#n8377156

Hey, thanks for pointing that group out! I'm going to start a thread when I read my first one that qualifies. I've got several on tap for the year.

>107 drneutron: Yeah, I don't read too many chunksters, but its fun to track. They have a running tally so that they can see how many the whole group can read. Fun.

Does it count if I listen to it on audio? Just finished The Ink Black Heart by Galbraith and it was 33 hours!!! : )

Loved IQ84 -- hoe you do too.

>109 Berly: Hi Kim, I always say reading is reading. I asked John about the group's philosophy on audio, and he hadn't really thought about it. But I'm going to go to Amazon, pick the Hardback, or whatever the "first" published work is, and use that for the number of pages.

for The Ink Black Heart, the hardback is listed @ 1,024 pages, so I'd say that exceeds the 500 page threshold. It counts! (at least to me)

Fantastic Photo Friday
You'll see from my recap, that I haven't put too many up on the board yet, but I've got quite a few ready to go. February's going to be a big month, numbers-wise.

Today's image is one that I took back in 2013, enjoy



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - IQ84 by Haruki Murakami 95%. Come hell or high water, I'll be finished this weekend. :)
Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts 14% Christmas book from my Mom. Once a Yinzer, always a Yinzer. Its a collection of interviews with famous Pittsburghers about their life growing up.
Listening - The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde 6% The last Thursday Next book. I could have sworn I finished the cycle this time around. I guess not
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow 8%
eBook - The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman 78%.
Graphic Novel - Manga Stories by Haruki Murakami 43%

Finished Books

4. Return of the King by JRR Tolkien (A) : Listened on audio. As I said with the first 2, this was read by Andy Serkis and he does an excellent job. An excellent read that finishes up the trilogy. This time around (probably the 3rd time I've read the series), I made it the furthest into the appendices that I've ever gone, but I ultimately tapped out about 25% the first one. I love LOTR, but I don't LOVE, LOTR. Maybe I don't need to read The Silmarillion 😊
3. Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman (GN) : The ultimate What-If. Marvel asks quirky, weird author Neil Gaiman (who did the quirky and weird Sandman series for DC) to write a series of what would happen if the Marvel characters were in 1602 England. The Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four all come together to fight a force that threatens to end their world. Excellent read.

#ff

>111 mahsdad: Mares' Tails!!!

I tried to read The Silmarillion at least twice, once when it first came out. I enjoyed what I read, but doubt there will be a third attempt. And I am one of those who LOVED LOTR. At one time I estimated I'd read it thirty times.

>112 fuzzi: Image - I know, right?

Hmmm, perhaps the Silmarillion will continue to be on the maybe shelf. To many other things to read. :)

>81 mahsdad: Happy Friday Night . Wouldn't it be nice if one day you were able to acquire Anthony James and its called 80" Great Rhombicosidodecahedron.

Here's hoping, If I had the money, I would love to buy a Prerapelite painting. I have five very large prints on my livingroom/dining room walls.
If it was for sale (currently at the Tate Musuem in London, Englang,) I would purchase The Lady of Shalot. I'm told by those who have seen it, that this J.W. Waterhouse artist painted this so very large that it takes up a large space at the museum wall. Because I doubt it would be on the market, and certainly it would be millions of dollars, but I can dream!

I love me some Jasper Fforde!! And you have even more books going at the same time than I do! LOL Happy Friday.

>111 mahsdad: The desert is such a place for skies and you caught a wild one!

>114 Whisper1: Nice. So many things to buy if I had more money than brains :)

>115 Berly: Hi Kim. Speaking of Fforde, did you know he's finally coming out with a sequel to Shades of Grey, its called Red Side Story. comes out in the UK next month and in the US in May. WooHoo. I guess its time to reread Shades of Grey after I'm done with this TN book

>116 quondame: Hi Susan, you're so right. Thanks!

>2 mahsdad: Some good titles here. Honestly, I don't think that I've actually read "A Christmas Carol" but know the story from all the movies, etc. I want to try it this year...

New Book - audio

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde



The seventh installment in Jasper Fforde’s New York Times bestselling series follows literary detective Thursday Next on another adventure in her alternate reality of literature-obsessed England—from the author of Early Riser

With more than one million books in print worldwide, Jasper Fforde’s beloved series charms a growing number of readers with each new adventure. In The Woman Who Died a Lot, Thursday Next faces her trickiest assignment yet.

When her former SpecOps division is reinstated, Thursday assumes she’s the obvious choice to lead the Literary Detectives. Instead, she’s put in charge of the Swindon All-You-Can-Eat-at-Fatso’s Drink Not Included Library. But where Thursday goes, trouble follows. As the new Chief Librarian faces one-hundred-percent budget cuts and the ever-evil Jack Schitt, the Next children face their own career hiccups—and possible nonexistence.

"The Special Operations Network was formed in 1928 to handle policing duties considered too specialized to be tackled by the regular force.
Despite considerable success in the many varied areas of expertise in which SpecOps operated, all but six of the thirty-six divisions were disbanded in the winter of 1991-92, allegedly due to budgetary cutbacks. By 2004 it was realized that this had been a bad move, and plans were drawn up to re-form the service" - Millon de Floss, A Short History of SpecOps.

Everything comes to an end. A good bottle of wine, a summer's day, a long-running sitcom, on's life, and eventually our species. The question for many of us is not that everything will come to an end but when. And can we do anything vaguely useful until ti does?

#newbook

Book Haul

The family did our annual trip to Vroman's in Pasadena for our Christmas book buying spree. (As an aside, any one want to buy a bookstore? Vroman's , and Book Soup in Santa Monica are apparently up for sale :) )

We gave my credit card a workout.

My picks
48. Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth.
49. Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
50. Kindred by Octavia Butler

Laura's picks
51. Rilkes Book of Hours: Love Poems to God by Rainier Maria Rilke
52. Three Californias by Kim Stanley Robinson
53. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
54. Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
55. Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

the Kid's picks
56. Terminal Boredom by Izumi Suzuki
57. Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval
58. Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
59. Ruination by Anthony Reynolds
60. Dead Take the A Train by Cassandra Khaw

#bh

Jeff, I usually don't read Science Fiction, but The Enceladus Mission looks like something I want to read. Thanks for your reiew.
I've added this to my TBR in 2024 list. Also, thanks for posting the Man Booker Books. I printed the list, and hope to gradually read these books.

>111 mahsdad: This took my breath away! You have quite a talent!!!

>121 mahsdad: What a wonderful book haul.

>122 Whisper1: Hi Linda, I must be having a mental lapse, where did I review The Enceladus Mission? I haven't read it, and its not on my WL. It looks like an interesting book, but I'm not sure where I recommended it. Weird.

Thanks for the photo love!

One thing I forgot to put on my Book Haul list is the PSA that you should always check with your significant other when you are buying books. There's one on my list that I took off because I had to return it.

I had picked up Everyone Knows Your Mother is a Witch by Rivka Galchen. Picked it up, looked interesting, added it to the stack. When we got to the car, Laura was looking thru the bags for one of her books and she pulled it out and said... you know we already have this, right? I bought it the last time we were here. Luckily we were nearby at lunch so I was able to return it before we drove home. I had been checking my LT collections, while browsing, but I was only using my WL collection, not what I already had on the shelf. D'oh.

>117 mahsdad: No, I didn't know that! Red Side Story goes on my WL!! I love Jasper Fforde. : )

>120 mahsdad: Yup. That was a good one.

>123 mahsdad: Good thing you have backup!! LOL

>121 mahsdad: What an excellent haul.

Happy weekend reading ahead!

>124 Berly: Have you read the Dragonslayer books, his YA series? I think its Chronicles of Kazam? I've only read the first, one, but never managed to get to the other three.

As an aside, I saw this on somewhere else, but if you use 3 brackets instead of one or two, the touchstone will point to the Series. Neat

>125 figsfromthistle: Thanks for stopping by

2024 Books of the Month

January : IQ84 by Haruki Murakami



#botm

>127 mahsdad:
You finished? Can't wait to read what you thought. I thought this was very good. Not as good as two of his other books, but really good nonetheless.

>128 benitastrnad: I did. :) It took me 44 days, but I averaged about 26 pages per day, which is pretty good for me

I think I agree with you, I'll have some more thoughts tomorrow on my FF post.

Fantastic Photo Friday
Happy Friday. My moment of gratitude for the week was that though I was called to Jury Duty, I and about 50 other of my fellow citizens dodged the bullet of being "picked" for a trial that involved violations of restraining orders with what undoubtably was going to be a mental health component that I wasn't looking forward to. It dawned on me this time (probably my 5th or 6th time), that they don't pick a jury, they start with a group of people, ask questions eliminate who they don't want and if there's 12 left, voila, that's your jury. In this case, they picked 18 for the initial round, elminated 5, which left them with 12 and an alternate.... All done. TBH, I don't mind doing my civic duty for $15 and mileage. :)


Today's image is one that I took on my lunch time walk last week sometime.



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi : 62%
Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 20%
Listening - The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jasper Fforde: 90%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 18
Graphic Novel - Manga Stories by Haruki Murakami : 73%

Finished Books

6. IQ84 by Haruki Murakami : Boom goes the dynamite. I finished it! Took me 44 days, but it never was really a slog. At its core, its a basic star crossed lovers, who met as children, moved apart and always thought of each other and wanted to find each other. But its Murakami, it can't be that simple, and it isn't. He's a struggling author who ghost writes a book by a girl who escapes from a religious cult, that's about these mysterious creature who are causing havoc. She's a fitness instructor who is also an assassin who grew up in another religious cult and some how gets transported to an alternate earth, maybe as a result of the mysterious creatures that He was writing about? Yeah its very weird but in a very good way. Even though I think it falls under my theory that once an author gets "too big for his britches", his editor can't keep him contained and large tomes are the result.

The book was originally published as 3 separate books, but when combined to 1157 pages, I think it could have used a bit of trimming. Some of the exposition might not have been entirely necessary. Despite that, I still enjoyed the book a lot, would recommend and Murakami continues to be one of those authors I will always read when given the opportunity.

And is that why we joined our bodies? Tengo wanted to ask Fuka-Eri. In that wild storm last night. What did that mean? But he did not ask those questions, which might have been inappropriate, and which he knew she never would have answered.

If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation, Tengo's father said somewhere.

5. The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (K) : A creepy short story written in 1892 about a woman with mental health issues, and her doctor husband thinks the cure is to keep her locked up in her bedroom. The she starts seeing things and then really goes mad. I saw this recommended around Halloween amongst the BookTok'ers on TikTok, as the creepiest story ever. Not sure if it goes at the top of the list, but its definitely up there.

#ff

>130 mahsdad: That color...! What a beautiful not-yellow, not-red, not-orange shade...a reddish gamboge, I guess, but really lovely. The geometry would make a nice painting, too.

>131 richardderus: Thanks RD!

>130 mahsdad: It's like summer anticipated! So orange, so lovely.

Happy Friday, Jeff. Love the family book haul up there. Sure made me smile. Glad you finished 1Q84. It might be second favorite Murakami after Kafka. I also had a good time with Mango Stories. I hope they continue these.

>133 quondame: Thanks Susan

>134 msf59: Hey Mark. Surprisingly, I haven't read Kafka, I'm going to have to remedy that. The Manga stories are pretty good, his stuff does lead itself sometimes to the graphic arts.

New Book - Audio

The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow



A brilliant collaboration from the two defining personalities of post-cyberpunk: Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross.

Welcome to the fractured future, at the dusk of the twenty-first century.

Earth has a population of roughly a billion hominids. For the most part, they are happy with their lot, living in a preserve at the bottom of a gravity well. Those who are unhappy have emigrated, joining one or another of the swarming densethinker clades that fog the inner solar system with a dust of molecular machinery so thick that it obscures the sun.

The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside, but its minds sometimes wander…and when that happens, it casually spams Earth's networks with plans for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems. A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite from the forbidden apple.

So until the overminds bore of stirring Earth's anthill, there's Tech Jury Service: random humans, selected arbitrarily, charged with assessing dozens of new inventions and ruling on whether to let them loose. Young Huw, a technophobic, misanthropic Welshman, has been selected for the latest jury, a task he does his best to perform despite an itchy technovirus, the apathy of the proletariat, and a couple of truly awful moments on bathroom floors.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Huw awakens, dazed and confused. This is by no means unusual, but for once Huw's head hurts more than his bladder. He's lying head down, on his back, in a bathtub. He scrabbles for a hand-hold and pulls himself upright. A tub is a terrible place to spend a night.

#newbook

>5 mahsdad: I just read The Three Body Problem recently, Jeff, and I enjoyed it - but I think it may be an acquired taste. It is definitely different.

I thought I had a lot of reading lists but you have me beat, hands down!

>136 mahsdad: I am going to have to check that one out. Thanks for the recommendation.

>137 alcottacre: Hi Stasia, I think I tried to start 3-body a while ago on kindle but bailed. But we've recently gotten a paper copy, I'm sure I'll try it again at some point.

Lists - They just sort of happened over the years and now I've got to keep them up. It keeps me entertained. :)

Rapture of the Nerds, its an odd story so far, but I'm enjoying it

New Book

Nothing Everything by Virginia Montanez



To her children, her pushy mother, her preacher father and her four seemingly perfect brothers, YA author Ellis Sloan is surviving the sudden demise of her damaging marriage just fine. On the outside, she's her usual irreverent self, helping her teens adjust while working hard on her second novel. But privately, she's paralyzed by panic, the words are all gone, and she has been typing gibberish into a document she deletes every day.

Her depressing monotony is interrupted when her one-time childhood nemesis and eventual first kiss re-enters her life by shouting profanity at a toppled piano outside her bedroom window. Now famous and beloved, Lincoln Hale’s mysterious return resurrects memories Ellis buried deep on the prom night he never came for her and unleashes a chain of events that leads her to discover what it’s going to take to finally get back to who she once was. With equal doses of humor and heart, she learns the secrets of the past, faces her traumatic fears, and tries to repair her brokenness before time runs out on her next book and her first shot at real happiness.

Do you know what happens when your marriage of 17 years falls apart? When you have no choice but to walk away from your second kiss who became your first boyfriend who became your first love who became the man you married at twenty-two with the moon in your eyes and a catch in your breath?
Everything happens. And nothing happens.

#newbook

Book Haul

Not a real big haul. Just an LTer win for last month.

61. Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle

#bh

>140 mahsdad: I wanted to laugh when I saw that title, considering what you may be going through right now!

Stay safe.

>140 mahsdad: Well, it is one more book than you had before, right?

>141 fuzzi: Well for once this WASN'T an unexpected weather event. The powers that be put out more warnings on the past couple days than they did when we were getting an actual hurricane. LOL.

>142 alcottacre: Absolutely. :)

So how are you faring with weather? Your comment in >143 mahsdad: suggests you are faring at least as well as can be expected. That grundsow in western PA predicted an early Spring, which I will be glad of if Phil's predicted accurately. But I guess it follows that Summer will be early (and hot and long).

>144 weird_O: Hi Bill, thanks for asking. Where we are there's no big deal, its just been raining pretty much non-stop since Sunday afternoon. We're on a hill, but nothing like the canyons in the Santa Monica mountains where people were having big issues.

it sort of been like the early days of Covid. I haven't left the house since Saturday. :)

Heck, I guess this is the new normal for Southern California in the winter. Actual weather. As long as they're getting snow up in the mountains, I'm happy

>145 mahsdad: You are so optimistic! I expect us to have even more dry years while I'm still around to notice. But then I was expecting this winter to remain dry, and well, it very much isn't!

Hi Jeff! How are you?

>146 quondame: Yeah, we live in a desert, I forget what the exact statistics are but we pretty much have a majority of years that will be below average with only a couple that are way above. Snow pack wise, I think we're still below average for the year, but after last everything is below. :)

>147 Owltherian: Hi Owl, I see you made it around to my place. Welcome.

I'm trying to get to every thread, its very hard

>149 Owltherian: Ha, I gave up years ago. There's only a few superheroes that can keep up with everyone. I use the Star This Topic option to follow a few and then I might add more as time progresses.

I then just watch the Starred Topics list and watch the unread counter.

Even then I find its hard to keep up with that subset. So, I don't worry about it. Go to the thread, scan thru, jump into the conversation if it calls to you, but don't feel you have to comment to everyone all the time. We all know we're all busy. Heck, if I read right on other threads, you're in HS, which has got to be very hectic.

Take care...

>150 mahsdad: Yeah, it sucks and im in English and i don't understand what is going on at all-

>150 mahsdad: this!

I follow people who read similar genre books, or those who share some of my hobbies like gardening.

I make a point of reciprocating when people show up on my threads and interact.

But I don't know how anyone would have enough time to get to every thread!

>152 fuzzi: This to you too. :) You describe my methodology a lot better.

I think Jim and Paul must be the only ones that do "touch" every thread. Jim, as our fearless leader seems to greet everyone at least once, and Paul as the keeper of the stats does an amazing job keeping track of everyone's book totals

>153 mahsdad: I usually hit all threads that have new messages and at least skim through once a day. I don't comment a lot - usually only when I have something meaningful to add or to flag a review I really liked, that kind of thing. At the beginning of the year, it can be a bit overwhelming. :)

>154 drneutron: And speaking just for me, your visits are most welcome!

Fantastic Photo Friday
Hey we made it to Friday again. Finally saw the sun yesterday, so that was nice. Finally tally, I think the statistic I heard was that the LA area got 60% of its average total rainfall in about 2.5 days. It was pretty intense. But for me personally, all is well.

Our favorite curmudgeon isn't going to like this one, but I couldn't resist today's image. She go anywhere to sit in the sun. :) Have a great weekend all!



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Nothing Everything by Virginia Montanez : 44%
Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 26%
Listening - The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow: 82%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 23%

Finished Books

9. The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi : A really fun easy read. Someone referred to it as a palate cleanser book, and I agree. Every now and then you have to read something that is just fun. In the time of Covid, Jamie gets fired from her startup marketing job and has to work as a "door dash" driver. A customer offers her a job working with a team that works with animals, VERY big animals. Kaiju's are real, they come from a parallel earth, and the KPS is tasked with studying them, keeping them out of our world and helping them survive.

"The last version was almost there. Doc said she definitely saw evidence of a tumescent cloaca." I laughed.
"What's got you chuckling?" Satie said.
"I was just thinking that Edward's Tumescent Cloaca would have been an excellent band name." "Emo, obviously," Kahurangi said. "Their first album glistened with promise, but their follow-up was a little flaccid."
"Their third album was really shitty."
"To be fair, the competition was stiff that year."
"I just thought that they should have shown a little more spunk"

8. Manga Stories #1 by Haruki Murakami : A graphic novel collection of several of his short stories envisioned in comic form. For those into graphic novels and/or Murakami, a good recommended read.

7. The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde : The last (at least so far) book in the Thursday Next series. Listened on audio. Thursday has to come out of retirement to help prevent the end of the world and the domination of the Goliath Corporation. Typical, hilarious, punny stuff.

#ff

>156 mahsdad: I love everything about your Friday post! Your kitty just glows in the sunlight, your booklist is so good (I loved "Kaiju"!) and you let us know what we get to look forward to (or "to what we get to look forward"?) Have a great weekend!

Karen O

>157 klobrien2: Thanks! :)

>156 mahsdad: Great picture of the kitty! And thank goodness the wind and the rain have stopped...hopefully it will last! The rain forced a few squirrels into the attic above our apartment, and they are noisy little buggers...

>156 mahsdad: Hey Greg, Yeah, the wind on Sunday night was the worst of it for us. Luckily we didn't have any tree damage. And no freeloaders in the attic so that's good. We always wonder where all the critters go to hunker down. One of the nights, my wife saw a skunk walking across the patio. Its been probably 15 years since we've seen one in the neighborhood.

>156 mahsdad: That surely is a handsome cat photo!

>156 mahsdad: She's beautiful, glowing in the sun.

New Book - audio

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

'

A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession.

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty―a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre―took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

A girl always remembers the first corpse she shaves. It is the only event in her life more awkward than her first kiss or the loss of her virginity. The hands of time will never move quite so slowly as when you are standing over the dead boy of an elderly man with a pink plastic razor in your hand.

#newbook

>161 quondame: >162 elorin:. Thanks Susan, Robyn!

New Book

Kindred by Octavia Butler

'

The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise” (New York Times).

I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm. And I lost about a year of my life and much of the comfort and security I had not valued until it was gone.

#newbook

>165 mahsdad: Whereas Whitehead's Underground Railroad worked spectacularly well for me, Kindred did not. I must turn my eyes to The Water Dancer soonish...it's been on my shelf since it was published.

>166 laytonwoman3rd: Hi Linda. You know what is interesting. I've read both Underground Railroad and The Water Dancer. Loved Railroad, Dancer was just okay for me.

Maybe Kindred will work well for me (30 pages in, I'm liking it so far) and Dancer will work well for you. Plenty of books to go around. :)

>167 mahsdad: I've heard people say Dancer suffered from having read Underground first....like maybe you only "need" to read one or the other?

>168 laytonwoman3rd:
Well, they are by two different authors so is it really fair to compare them to each other? Ta-Nehisi Coates isn't really known as a fiction author. All of his previous books were nonfiction. Maybe he will get better the more fiction he writes. I was excited to see Water Dancer published because it marks more entries into the world of scifi/fantasy from minority authors. I have a copy of Water Dancer and plan to get to it soon.

>168 laytonwoman3rd: >169 benitastrnad: I agree with you Benita, it isn't really fair to compare authors, but sometimes its unavoidable.

I read both Railroad and Dancer in 2020. Yes, I read Railroad first, then about 4 months later I read Dancer. I also read Blonde Roots around that time too. Its a different take on the slavery experience where the races are reversed. All kinda of alternate history/scifiy in different ways. I didn't really review them too much, but I gave Railroad 8/10, Dancer 6/10 and Roots, 7/10.

All worthy reads, in my mind. Anything over 5/10 was definitely worth my time.

>165 mahsdad: I love Octavia Butler and Kindred was a really good one!

Hi Kim. I do too. I've read Parable of the Sower and I have Talents on the shelf. My wife recently read Lilith's Brood, which is a trilogy, that I've got to get to eventually.

New Book - audio

Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros by Michael Chabon



In Bookends, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon offers a compilation of pieces about literature - age-old classics as well as his own - that presents a unique look into his literary origins and influences, the books that shaped his taste and formed his ideas about writing and reading.

Chabon asks why anyone would write an introduction or, for that matter, read one. His own daughter Rose prefers to skip them. Chabon's answer is simple and simultaneously profound: "a hope of bringing pleasure for the reader". Likewise, afterwords - they are all about shared pleasure, about the "pure love" of a work of art that has inspired, awakened, transformed the reader.

Ultimately, this thought-provoking compendium is a series of love letters and thank-you notes, unified by the simple theme of the shared pleasure of discovery, whether it's the boyhood revelation of the most important story in Chabon's life (Ray Bradbury's "The Rocket Man"); a celebration of "the greatest literary cartographer of the planet Mars" (Edgar Rice Burroughs, with his character John Carter); a reintroduction to a forgotten master of ghost stories (M. R. James, ironically "the happiest of men"); the recognition that the worlds of Wes Anderson's films are reassembled scale models of our own broken reality (as is all art); Chabon's own rude awakening from the muse as he writes his debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh; or a playful parody of lyrical interpretation in the liner notes for Mark Ronson's Uptown Special, the true purpose of which, Chabon insists, is to "spread the gospel of sensible automotive safety and maintenance practices".

Galaxies away from academic or didactic, Bookends celebrates wonder - and like the copy of The Phantom Tollbooth handed to young Michael by a friend of his father he never saw again, it is a treasured gift.

"I never read introductions," says Rose, the younger of my two daughters. She thinks its over for a second, frowns; the statement doesn't quite ring true. She emends it: "Well, I've read two," se says.
One turns out to be Jack Kerouac's introduction to Robert Frank's The Americans, required reading for a photography class: "But it was fine because I like his style." The other is Sherman Alexie's introduction to his own The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (a favorite boo, and author, of Rose's), because "it felt like it would be rude not to."

#newbook

Fantastic Photo Friday
Here we are again with my weekly habit to make sure I'm at least posting something here in our wonderful book world. LOL

Nothing new to report other than to show an image I took the other day when the skies cleared after our 3 day deluge. See we get snow. I just have to zoom in to see it.



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Kindred by Octavia Butler : 24%
Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 30%
Listening - Bookends by Michael Chabon : 17%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 26%

Finished Books

12. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes : And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughy (A) : A good, albeit morbid memoir of Doughy's early life in the mortuary business. Its a good mix of her experiences intercut with the history of the business. If you've every seen the Ask a Mortician channel on Youtube, you've seen the author. A good read if you're curious about the subject

11. Nothing. Everything by Virginia Montanez : A first novel by a blogger/historian in Pittsburgh that came to local fame several years ago as Pittgirl. This is a really fun, romantic comedy story. Ellis is a struggling writer dealing with her divorce and trials of life with 2 kids on her own. Her childhood nemesis, Lincoln, who is now a famous actor moves in next door and it upsets her world even more. The story is told in an interesting way. Current time is in the first person from her perspective. Her past with Lincoln is told in 3rd person, and her future sessions with her psychiatrist, is told in an epistological (if that is such a word) way with transcripts of their sessions. It was a quick read that I really enjoyed.

10. The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow/Charles Stross (A) : This was a weird story that I wasn't sure of, until the last 3rd of the book. After the Singularity, most humans have uploaded themselves into the cloud and are off-world. Huw is one of the ones that remain dirtside. Somehow he is tapped to speak for humanity to keep an alien intelligence from destroying and absorbing our world (think Vogon contructor fleet). It was the odd post-cyberpunk fare that I'd come to expect from Doctorow. A decent listen.
#ff

Hi Jeff how are you today?

I'm just fine Owl. Just happy that its Friday, just counting the hours til the end of the work day.

Hope all is well with your day.

>176 mahsdad: I may be developing a cold and have a headache but other than that I'm good.

>174 mahsdad: What a great, ie catless, image! Your latest reads have been better than most of mine...latest aside.

>177 Owltherian: That's too bad. Drink plenty of fluids and get off the phone if you can, its probably acerbating your headache. But then you're a teenager, you pretty much live on your screen. :)

>178 richardderus: Thanks for the photo love. I do try to curtail my kitty images, as I do like when you visit. That's too bad that your current reads have not been hitting right lately. Plenty out there to turn things around.

>179 mahsdad: Yeah, i spent a few hours off my comp but it still didn't help sadly

>175 Owltherian: It's not that we don't get snow, it's just that it's usually behind a curtain....

Great photo of our fleeting phenomenon.

>181 quondame: I got snow now and i almost froze going out into it.

>174 mahsdad: I love the photo (I so miss mountains) and I am intrigued by the Cory Doctorow

>181 quondame: Thanks Susan

>182 Owltherian: One of the reasons I moved West many years ago, don't have to go out in the snow unless I want to go visit it. LOL

>183 elorin: Thanks Robyn. Doctorow is an intriguing writer. My current eBook is by him as well; Walkaway. Its on a similar subject, post cyberpunk, societal differences between the haves and the ones who chose to walkaway. This one is a little more engaging so far than Rapture of the Nerds.

>184 mahsdad: It was very cold for sure.

>173 mahsdad: I usually don't read forewards/introductions, either. If I do, it is usually after reading the book. I read more afterwards, if I feel the story wasn't "finished." Have a great day!

>184 mahsdad: Hi Owl, hope you stayed bundled up. :)

>186 Tess_W: Hi Tess, I don't normally read them either. But in this format, especially in audio, its working pretty well. Its a short book, I'll be done today.

>187 mahsdad: I did for sure until i had to go get my sibs.

>153 mahsdad: and here I am 11 days later...oops.

>156 mahsdad: fantastic, indeed!

>174 mahsdad: what bridge is in the background?

>188 Owltherian: Ah life would be perfect without having to go shuttle the siblings. LOL. Just joking

>189 fuzzi: No worries, I'm just as bad, if not worse at commenting on other people's threads.

The bridge you are seeing in that picture is the Vincent Thomas Bridge. It goes from San Pedro over to Terminal Island (La Harbor) and then there's another bridge that goes from Terminal Island into Long Beach. Here's a better image...

>190 mahsdad: My siblings suck honestly

>190 mahsdad: thanks for the clarification. It sort of looked like the Golden Gate but I was pretty sure you weren't in San Francisco.

>191 Owltherian: That's too bad. I don't think I liked my sister too much when I was your age, MANY moons ago. But now we have a great relationshiip. Hopefully as you grow older things will change.

>192 fuzzi: Nope not in SF. :) The VT bridge is the 4th longest suspension bridge in CA. The biggest being the aforementioned Golden Gate.

>193 mahsdad: Maybe they will, and i cried in front of two teachers today so that makes my life not very nice

>193 mahsdad: It is iconic for sure that bridge, Jeff.

Did you know the only suspension bridge that exceeds 2 km in length/span is the Cannakale bridge in the Dardanelles, Turkey.

The Humber Bridge is East Yorkshire, UK is the 12th longest at 1,410 metres.

The Golden Gate Bridge is 19th in the list and second overall in the US at 1.280 metres

>194 Owltherian: Sorry to hear this Owl. Hang in there.

>195 PaulCranswick: Hey Paul, thanks for visiting and for the bridge education. Love it!

>196 mahsdad: Luckily i havent cried today and one of my teachers said to stop 'self hating' myself or something like that so i have to say 'i want to go home BUT'

>160 mahsdad: The past set of rain caused a few opossums to scurry into our attic. I think the pest control man caught three of them. Not to mention the many squirrels scurrying around up there...

I have seen skunk and raccoons here in Long Beach, too.

Hi Greg. We haven't seen opossums for quite a while around my neighborhood. No skunks this time, just the usual trash pandas. :)

No more rain forecasted until Monday. Maybe we'll get some more then.

New Book - audio

Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller



An epic account of the decades-long battle to control what has emerged as the world's most critical resource—microchip technology—with the United States and China increasingly in conflict.

You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves, smartphones to the stock market—runs on chips. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower. Now, America's edge is slipping, undermined by competitors in Taiwan, Korea, Europe, and, above all, China. Today, as Chip War reveals, China, which spends more money each year importing chips than it spends importing oil, is pouring billions into a chip-building initiative to catch up to the US. At stake is America's military superiority and economic prosperity.

Economic historian Chris Miller explains how the semiconductor came to play a critical role in modern life and how the U.S. become dominant in chip design and manufacturing and applied this technology to military systems. America's victory in the Cold War and its global military dominance stems from its ability to harness computing power more effectively than any other power. But here, too, China is catching up, with its chip-building ambitions and military modernization going hand in hand. America has let key components of the chip-building process slip out of its grasp, contributing not only to a worldwide chip shortage but also a new Cold War with a superpower adversary that is desperate to bridge the gap.

Illuminating, timely, and fascinating, Chip War shows that, to make sense of the current state of politics, economics, and technology, we must first understand the vital role played by chips.

The destroyer USS Mustin slipped into the northern end of the Taiwan Strait on August 18, 2020, its five-inch gun pointed southward as it began a solo mission to sail through the Strait and reaffirm that these international waters were not controlled by China - at least not yet. A stiff southwestern breeze whipped across the deck as it steamed south. High clouds cast shadows on the water that seemed to stretch all the way to the great port cities of Fuzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong and the other harbors that dot the South China coast.
To the east, the island of Taiwan rose in the distance, a broad, densely settle coastal plain giving way to tall peaks hidden in clouds. Aboard ship, a sailor wearing a navy baseball cap and surgical mask lifted his binoculars and scanned the horizon. The waters were filled with commercial freighters shipping goods from Asia's factories to consumers around the world

#newbook

>200 mahsdad:
I already have this one on my TBR list or it would have been a BB. I believe that this book was the winner of the 2022 Financial Times Business Book of the year.

>201 benitastrnad: I think you're right (winner). It was a BB for me from Oberon. I had put it on Hold at the library and it came in, right as I was finishing my last audio.

Its really good. He's going thru the whole history of the semi-conductor industry. Early in the book, in the 60's he's talking about people flying over to Asia from Fairchild and TI to the factories they already were working with (they outsourced very early) and they would look out of the plane down on Vietnam seeing the smoke of the war. Wild. Also, fact that never dawned on me, they had Sparrow missiles that were radar guided, but they were pretty inaccurate because the guidance systems were built with vacuum tubes, soldered by hand in a missile shot from a plane. The defense department LOVED semi-conductors. :)

I thought I had Chip War on my WANT! List™, but no. I didn't (until today). I've seen the book on lists. The image of the cover is familiar.Something to check out.

Interesting stats about bridges from Paul. Doesn't surprise me that he'd have such factoids at his fingertips.

I'm pretty sure you've read Redshirts, especially given its status as a Hugo winner. I'm through the main text and enjoying the first of the codas. I like it far more than I did The Kaiju Preservation Society. (I'm bearing in mind that he says in the KPS acknowledgements that he ground out the book in 90 days. A book for which he had a contract and a deadline blew up, and Tor was amenable to a different story but adamant about holding to the deadline.)

Bit of trivia: Scalzi published a book titled Uncle John's Presents: Book of the Dumb in 2003. I read it in 2020. A collection of squibs on the dumbass things people (usually men) have done. Bathroom reading. What you have to do to build experience.

>203 weird_O: Chip War is definitely a good one to fill any non-fiction, current history, techy book niche you might have going on.

Of course, Paul would have the large public works construction facts. Love it.

I have read RedShirts and I think I agree with you it is better than KPS (even though I liked it quite a bit). I've read quite a bit of Scalzi's stuff, but I hadn't heard of the Book of the Dumb. I'd hazard a guess it was a paycheck book to keep him going before he got his big Tor contract. Hey, more power to him.

I'm sure lots of famous authors have those types of books in their bibliographies. Neil Gaiman's first book was a biography of Duran Duran, as an example.

I agree your assessment of Book of the Dumb being a "paycheck book." Gaiman on Duran Duran. I can see a compatibility between author and subject. Ha!

Touché!

>198 ocgreg34: while opossums in the attic is bad, having them foraging in your yard at night is a good thing, they eat ticks, LOTS of ticks. And they are almost 100% immune to rabies.

Yeah, I think they got a bad rap in the looks department. The "huddled masses" think that they're bad cause they look so creepy, but they're really beneficial.

>207 fuzzi: >198 ocgreg34:

Our Little Perry Possum comes to the front porch nearly every night, even through the winter,
to eat her big bowl of fruit and nuts.

We see her only rarely - I call her after dark so she knows her treat is ready.

Fantastic Photo Friday
Well here we are again, its Friday! To paraphrase the esteemed Loverboy... I'm just working for the weekends. :)

Today's image comes from our visit to the South Coast Botanic Gardens, over the winter they've had this evening program called Astra Lumina. Its a guided walk thru the gardens where they have all sorts of lights setup and music playing. There was one section where we were walking thru all these rotating laser lights, with the evening fog and some added smoke they seemed almost tangible. It was almost a little vertigo inducing, in a good way.

Anyway, here's to a great weekend.



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 37%
Listening - Chip War : 39%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 29%

Finished Books

14. Kindred by Octavia Butler : This is one I've been meaning to read for a while, and boy am I glad I did. Butler uses sci-fi to explore the slave experience in the early 1800s. Dana is a young black woman living with her new white husband in 70's era Los Angeles. One day she gets dizzy and finds herself transported back to 1815 Maryland and finds the young son of a Plantation owner drowning. She saves him, but in doing so she is threatened with a gun and is transported back. She becomes linked to this boy. Whenever he's in trouble she goes back to help him. Whenever she's threatened in the past, she is sent home. Time hardly moves in LA, but years go by in Maryland. Each time she goes back it becomes harder and harder to reconcile the free and independent woman she is with the slave she needs to be. A fascinating read.

13. Bookends: Collected Intros and Outros by Michael Chabon (A) : Read on audio. Chabon put together a collection of various Introductions and Outroductions and Liner Notes that he's written over the years. I usually don't read these, but in this case it was very interesting to get a sense of both him and the various books he was introducing. Not many of which, I have read. From a coffee table book about Wes Anderson, to several graphic novels, Michael Moorcock, Ray Bradbury and several of his books. For the Michael Chabon completist, its a worthy read.

#ff

>210 mahsdad: WWWWWWWooooWWWWWWWWWWW

cool

Happy Friday, Jeff. I remember really enjoying the audio of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, when I listened to it a number of years ago. I also enjoyed Kindred. My current audio is Fire Weather. Keep this one in mind. It is a dandy.

^A March reminder. I snagged my copy from the library.

>210 mahsdad: Surreal!

I really should re-read the Octavia Butler books - I remember finding them very original and very uncomfortable as a 30-40something. I've read ever so much more intense "body horror" since then that maybe my overall impressions would be different.

>211 richardderus: Thanks RD

>212 msf59: >213 msf59: Fire Weather, hmmm, that one might be a little to close to home for me. We're well aware of fire weather. Not sure if I'll actively look for this one. Glad you're liking it tho.

I am ready for Martin. I'll start it up next weekend.

Hope this weekend is a good one.

>123 mahsdad: Jeff, please accept my apology for the message regarding a book you did not read. My brain is foggy. I was in the hospital for three nights...

>215 mahsdad:
Fire Weather is really about climate change and why that means more forest fires.

I liked the Friday picture. It reminded me of a couple of Chihuly garden exhibits that I have done at night. It was a great nighttime photograph. I am glad you took it.

>216 Whisper1: No need for an apology, Linda. We all read so much, books and threads on here that sometimes its hard to keep track. Sorry to hear you were in the hospital. Hope you are on the mend.

>217 benitastrnad: Thanks for clueing me in a little more about it. Still not sure I'll actively look for it, but its good to know its out there.

Thanks for the photo love. I love Chihuly, I've been able to see his stuff a couple times. Love it.

I've launched myself into the first of four chunkster reads for 2024. Lethal White by jo-bob. I've scratched the surface, being now on page 122.

>219 weird_O: Congrats Bill. I like you're term jo-bob. It seems apt. Never really was drawn to read her non-Potter stuff. Hope it works for you.

New Book - audio

As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem



Philip is in love with Alice. As the novel opens, he is beginning to lose her. Not to another man, as he fears, but to, literally, nothing. Alice is a physicist, and a team at the University where both she and Philip work has created a hole, a vacuum, a doorway of nothingness inside the laboratory. They call it "Lack." Alice becomes obsessed with Lack, as Philip is obsessed by Alice.

The novel is at the same time an astute and wise portrait of unrequited love (albeit of a very unusual kind) a hilarious academic parody, a novel of ideas and a social satire. It is utterly original, but in the school of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Katherine Dunn, and David Foster Wallace.

Passion, humor, yearning and knowledge, blended together in a suspenseful love story that could be characterized as "American Magical Realism."

I knew my way to Alice. I knew where to find her. I walked across campus that night writing a love plan in my head, a map across her body to follow later, when we were back in our apartment. It wouldn't be long.

#newbook

is it just me or does anyone else get nervous when you have people working on your house and they're cutting into the walls right outside your office and you have an irrational fear that they're going to cut right into the room. :)

We're having our electric upgraded and the guys are opening up the wall to install the new breaker box and meter the Sawz-all was a little noisy when they were cutting thru the stucco.

The house is only 60 years old and its a wonder the original breakers haven't burnt down the place yet.

>221 mahsdad: Uh oh. A Lethem. Another Lethem. And the description makes it sound attractive. I think we've talked about Lethem, and how we were prompted to seek out one or another of his books by Nancy Pearl's interview with him in The Writer's Library. The only book I found was Amnesia Moon, which was pretty strange. Just a couple of weeks ago I got Gun, With Occasional Music and read it right away. In shelving it, I discovered a copy of The Feral Detective, which I forgot I had. Oh, I also got The Arrest recently. Yi yi yi. Now this!!

>222 mahsdad: I remember reading an article in a trade mag for contractors that posited that anyone can cut their way into a commonplace residence with a utility knife. Lots of houses I see being sided with vinyl siding. Cut it with a utility knife. A cost-conscious builder will use plywood at corners, but use lighter, insulating, composition board to sheath most of the structure. And that stuff you can slice though with a knife. Pull out the insulation from the stud-space, and slice through the interior drywall. Have the thinnest thief squeeze through the stud space, then go and open a door for the others.

*spoken brightly* Good luck with your upgrade, Jeff.

>223 weird_O: Yeah, this one was a serendipitous find. I hadn't heard of it. I was just searching thru Libby looking for a new audio book and it came up. Its a weird one, in a good way. Its a short one, only about 5.5 hours. I just started it yesterday and I'm about 40% done, but then I read audio books at 1.4x. He's on automatic authors list. Read it no questions asked. I have Feral Detective on the shelf along with a short story collection that I'll get to eventually.

House - now with me and my house, just easier to just break a window. 3 sides of the house are stucco with 60 year old boards, and the front of the house is concrete composite siding. No cutting thru these walls. But if they did, no worries about insulation. Don't have any. :)

>222 mahsdad: It's hard not to be nervous when someone "random" is in your territory, and if what their doing has destructive components, that's well....

Fantastic Photo Friday
Welcome to March. Was it just the end of January yesterday? Geesh. I'm off today, in anticipation of my power being off for a good portion of the day, so Laura and I will probably just doing some errands and going out to lunch. In other words, treating Friday like a Saturday.

Today's image was an interesting night shot I took from my front door, looking at the full moon thru my tree. My phone does a surprisingly decent job at taking low light shots.



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 39%
Listening - As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem : 46%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 52%
Graphic Novel - Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan : 0%

Finished Books

16. Saga Vol 1 by Brian K. Vaughan (GN) : I was perusing Libby and realized that there are some new Saga books that I haven't read, so I decided to start over and read them all again. As good as I remembered

15. Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller (A) : . Listened to this on audio, at the recommendation of Oberon. This was an excellent read. Miller goes thru the history of the semi-conductor industry from the start when Silcon Valley wasn't a thing and Gordon Moore was just coming up with his "law". To the evitable off-shoring of manufacturing (which happened much earlier than I suspected) to the current economic and national security battles that are ongoing with China and the US and where the much needed chips that drive our society need/can be made. Its the new Cold War. Excellent read.

#ff

2024 Books of the Month

January : IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
February : Kindred by Octavia Butler



#botm

February Recap

Books Read - 9 (16)

Overall sources
DTE - 25%
Audio - 50%
Digital - 25%

Unique Authors - 14
Lady Authors - 4
Authors of Color - 1

Rereads - 4

This was a good reading month for me. While I picked Kindred as my favorite, there are 4 others that could have just as easily been my top pick

>226 mahsdad: What a surprise that your phone does such a good job of low-light image capture. Impressive.

Good February, so better March!

>226 mahsdad: Terrific photo! Great camera on your phone, and wonderful photographic skill of the photographer!

There are new Saga books? Thanks for the heads-up! I must go to see if I am up-to-date.

Have a great weekend!

Karen O

>209 m.belljackson: >207 fuzzi: If only they would stay outside, though the noise doesn't see to bother the cats anymore. I'm glad that it's not raccoons, though.

Happy Friday, Jeff. I will watch for your final thoughts on As She Climbed Across the Table. I have a copy on shelf. I loved Saga. I don't remember how far I got by I read a nice chunk of this series.

Great Friday photo!

Powers back, yippee! All told about 6 hours without power. But we left and ran some errands, lunch and a nice harbor walk, so relatively pain free. Its amazing how nice electricity is. Very much taken for granted. :)

>229 richardderus: >230 klobrien2: Its an iPhone 13pro and I love the camera. Its not too great on the zoom, Laura's Samsung is better, but close up and night shots it does really well. What it does, is essentially takes a 2 or 3 second video and somehow interpolates it all into one image.

>231 ocgreg34: Yeah those trash pandas can be a nuisance. :)

>230 klobrien2: >232 msf59: Saga. I think I got up to collection #9, my first go round. Collection #10 came out in '22 and Collection #11 came out late last year.

Mark, so far As She Climbed... goes, it is pretty good, probably not my favorite of his but engaging and odd as his stuff usually is. Halfway thru and I think its definitely worth the time. I'll let you know how it finishes.

Book Haul

When we were out and about today, we had to visit San Pedro's indie book store; Sunken City Books. We just picked up a few. Have to support local businesses, right?

The bookseller immediately noticed our alliterative selection of authors

62. Concrete Island by JG Ballard
63. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
64. Scions of Shannara by Terry Brooks

#bh

>233 mahsdad: I'm sorry about your power loss and glad you managed it so stylishly. I do not take electricity for granted at all. That's one reason we are on solar.

>235 quondame:, it was a planned outage. We had to upgrade our breaker panel (so that we could get solar, and/or electric car) and in doing so found that our meter is in the wrong place. So they had to move the meter and install a new breaker box. Yesterday they did all the demo and today, they had to move all the lines. Home ownership is so much fun. isn't it? :)

>236 mahsdad: Renting in no way prepares one, that's for sure. Good luck with your solar! We installed for an EV though we aren't there yet.

>228 mahsdad: Excellent stats!

Glad that the power outage was relatively short. We had a power outage last year that lasted 3 days. It was not fun as the water pump for the well needs electricity.

>226 mahsdad: Who would have thought that a camera on a phone would turn out such a good quality? My phone is old so the camera is not the greatest.

I am finding out all about home ownership as well. I inherited the house on the death of my mother and just before she died she decided that the windows on the north side of the house should be replaced. They windows came, were installed, and now need to be paid for. Unfortunately, her savings account was frozen until we got the death certificate and her retirement account can't be used because on her death the funds have to be dispersed. We are now doing the paperwork to get access to the retirement account so that we can pay outstanding bills. However, the bill for the work has to be paid for, so I ended up writing a check. Gosh, it made me wish for a landlord so I could just call and say the window installers just finished up, so you will be getting a bill soon. I wonder if home ownership is all it is cracked up to be?

>239 benitastrnad: "However, the bill for the work has to be paid for, so I ended up writing a check." That bill is a claim against your mother's estate, and not your personal responsibility in the meantime. If you got advice to the contrary, it was poor. Be sure you get reimbursed and it doesn't come out of your share of the disbursement. (If you're the sole heir, of course, this is all moot, but you still shouldn't have had to put out your own money before the estate funds were available to you.)

>237 quondame: An EV or at least a plug-in hybrid is next on the agenda for me. But I'm not looking forward to a car payment again. I haven't had one for almost 10 years. My car is a 2009, and Laura's is a 2010. But its coming, I know.

>238 figsfromthistle: Hi Figs. 3 days without power would be awful, I'd think Glad you survived. Yeah, I almost don't use my big camera anymore.

>239 benitastrnad: Yeah, its definitely a trade-off. Right now with the way home prices and rental costs are, I'm just glad I've been in my house 25 yrs, paying next to nothing for my mortgage, relatively.

>240 laytonwoman3rd: Yeah, what Linda said. That's too bad you had to come out of pocket. Dealing with the fiscal aftermath of the loss of a loved one is not a fun thing. 5 years later, and my wife is still dealing with the occasional issues with her sister's estate. Just recently she got a check from a class action lawsuit settlement we had no idea about. Then the question is, how to you cash a check that's made out to a dead person who's estate has long since been closed? Luckily, the law firm did have a way to switch the payee, but its just a hassle to go thru.

>241 mahsdad: "Just recently she got a check from a class action lawsuit settlement we had no idea about. Then the question is, how to you cash a check that's made out to a dead person who's estate has long since been closed? Luckily, the law firm did have a way to switch the payee, but its just a hassle to go thru." This happened to me too. It was a small check, which came payable to my mother, directly from the class settlement administrator; I sent it back, explaining that my mother was deceased and her estate closed. So they resent the check payable to the estate! I've tried three times to get through to a human to see what can be done, but I may give up.

>242 laytonwoman3rd: That's unfortunate, in Laura's case, the administrator did have a process. She has to send a copy of the death certificate, I think and they're going to reissue the check. It was big enough for the hassles.

New Book

Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser



PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • The author of Voices in the Night reveals the mesmerizing journey of an American dreamer as he walks a haunted line between fantasy and reality, madness and ambition, art and industry.

“This wonderful, wonder-full book is a fable and phantasmagoria of the sources of our century.” —The New York Times Book Review

Young Martin Dressler begins his career as an industrious helper in his father's cigar store. In the course of his restless young manhood, he makes a swift and eventful rise to the top, accompanied by two sisters--one a dreamlike shadow, the other a worldly business partner. As the eponymous Martin's vision becomes bolder and bolder, a sense of doom builds piece-by-hypnotic piece until this mesmerizing journey reaches its bitter-sweet conclusion.

There once lived a man named Martin Dressler, a shopkeeper's son, who rose from modest beginnings to a height of dreamlike good fortune.
This was toward the end of the nineteenth century, when on any streetcorner in America you might see some ordinary-looking citizen who was destined to invent a new bottlecap or tin can, start a chain of five-cent stores, sell a faster and better elevator, or open a fabulous new department store with big display windows made possible by an improved process for manufacturing sheets of glass.

#newbook

Starting up the joint read (or maybe parallel read, some of us read faster than others. :) ), along with Mark, Bill, and several others that I can't remember. 20 pages in, its a fun read.

>226 mahsdad: WOW! What a fantastical spooky photo. I've said it before, but it bears repeating, you have an amazing gift!

>245 Whisper1: Thanks Linda, I really appreciate that!

Trailer for Paramount+'s new series for A Gentleman in Moscow. Starring Ewan MacGregor. Looks interesting

https://youtu.be/AAeV6GVF11o?si=mP2VkutrbZsoMDQo

Might have to get Paramount+ for a while

>247 mahsdad: Great choice to play the count! I disliked the book, in fact I seem to bounce of his writing for some reason that I just can not comprehend...it seems like it should be totally my jam, yet it in no way is. Why ever, I cannot guess.

Oh that's too bad, but as we've always said around there, there's plenty of other books and not enough time to get overly sad that it just ain't for you.

I hope you hang in there with MD, Jeff. I am curious what your final thoughts will be. It sure sounds like Bill was underwhelmed.

Hooray for A Gentleman in Moscow. I sure hope they pull it off. 🤞

>247 mahsdad: The A Gentleman in Moscow show looks very good to me! Thanks for posting the trailer!

Karen O

New Book - audio

The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson



Reprint of a modern classic originally published in 1944 by Farrar & Rinehart, Inc. A classic tale of one man's struggle with alcoholism, this revolutionary novel remains Charles Jackson's best-known book - a daring autobiographical work that paved the way for contemporary addiction literature.

It is 1936, and on the East Side of Manhattan, a would-be writer named Don Birnam decides to have a drink. And then another, and then another, until he's in the midst of what becomes a five-day binge.

The Lost Weekend moves with unstoppable speed, propelled by a heartbreaking but unflinching truth. It catapulted Charles Jackson to fame, and endures as an acute study of the ravages of alcoholism, as well as an unforgettable parable of the condition of the modern man.

"The barometer of his emotional nature was set for a spell of riot." These words, on the printed page, had the unsettling effect no doubt intended, but with a difference. At once he put the book aside: closed it, with his fingers still between the pages; dropped his arm over the edge of the chair and let it hang, the book somewhere near the floor. This in case he wanted to look at it again. But he did not need to. Already he new the sentence by heart: he might have written it himself.

#newbook

One’s too many and a thousand’s not enough.

>241 mahsdad: I just got a hybrid and I love it, but it doesn't plug in. The battery recharges when I brake. And since it also has a combustion engine I don't have to go looking for a charging station.

>253 dianeham: this. My son just passed his 12 years sober mark and I am so proud of him.

>254 fuzzi: that’s fabulous. I’m approaching 45 years.

>253 dianeham: Well said. For me, I've never had the not enough craving

>253 dianeham: >254 fuzzi: Congratulations on the sobriety. I admire it.

For any of you Murakami fans in the room, he (or more accurately, I'm sure, his people) posted in FB about a March Madness bracket that they're doing in advance of his new book coming out. He's bracketing all his books to see which will come out on top. Its neat, but it just made me realize how many of his books I HAVEN'T read

🐈🍝 Welcome to Murakami March! ⚾️🎷
In anticipation of #Murakami’s forthcoming novel, THE CITY AND ITS UNCERTAIN WALLS, we are hosting a fan tournament to determine which Murakami book reigns supreme. Every Wednesday in March, tune in to VOTE for your faves. (Maybe it’s even time for a reread😉). Round one is open now:

https://bit.ly/MurakamiMarch2024

>254 fuzzi: Regarding Hybrids, yeah, I think no matter what I get, I'm going to want to still burn some gas on occasion, the electric charging infrastructure just isn't there yet for full EV, IMO

>253 dianeham: Hoo! The Fabulous Thunderbirds: One's too many and a hundred ain't enough.

>258 mahsdad: I had a ride in a Tesla from Easton, PA to Boston and back. The tank doesn't hold enough juice for the trip one way. You can access info about charging stations on the car's touchscreen, and the computer makes calculations as to mileage the car is delivering and translating that into finding a station you can get to. For what that's worth.

Both my brother and sister own Priuses. Me? A Subaru Forester (and no interest AT ALL in making car payments).

>260 weird_O: I live near Easter PA.

>260 weird_O: I think that's my point with EVs. You have to plan where you're going to stop and when, whenever you make a significant trip. With gas, you don't really have to think/stress about it that much. Unless you're in the middle of Utah or something, you're pretty much guaranteed that a gas station is with in a mile or two of wherever you are. Not so much with chargers. 🤷‍♀️

sweet deal having no interest on the car payment

Fantastic Photo Friday
Happy? Daylight Saving Time for us in the US. Ugh, losing an hour on Sunday. Never looking forward to swinging this way. Fall back is "okay", not the Spring forward. Oh well. Go to bed early on Saturday :)

Since we've been having a little bit of car conversations lately, today's image a palindromic milestone I hit the other day in my car. Oddly satisfying



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 42%
Reading - Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser : 56%
Listening - The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson : 65%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 57%
Graphic Novel - Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan : 67%

Finished Books

17. As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem (A) : Read this on audio. It was a random pick when I was searching thru Libby for a new audiobook. I like Lethem a lot, and this was one I hadn't heard of before. Its a short (under 6 hours) but weird tale that is essentially a love triangle story where Philip is in love with his physicist girlfriend Alice, but he is losing her, not to another man, but to nothing. Actually nothing, an anomaly in a lab, a hole, or perhaps a doorway, that they call "Lack". Is it sentient, or is there someone on the other side? Philip doesn't know and he's very concerned for Alice. One of his early works. Third, after Gun, with Occasional Music and Amnesia Moon. A very odd, but enjoyable read

#ff

>255 dianeham: >256 mahsdad: thank you. He also quit smoking Cold Turkey about ten years ago. Then he went back to school and got a degree. Momma is happy.

>263 mahsdad: oh, nice. Make and model?

My Accord has 329k, the Highlander hybrid I just got has over 200k. It should run for another 100k.

>265 fuzzi: Its an 09 Toyota Corolla. I thought I was good with 170, both of your cars put me to "shame". LOL.

I've been working at home since 2017. Before that I was driving 80 miles round trip every day. I racked them up quick and now I hardly drive 5K a year.

Hiya Jeff, how are you today?

>266 mahsdad: the Honda had one owner before me, another customer of my mechanic. It's been on synthetic oil since 2006. My son drives a 2000 Camry that has close to 200k as well.

I love well-made cars.

>263 mahsdad: Cool! And completely agree about the Lethem. Happy weekend.

>267 Owltherian: Happy Friday Lily. What's on the reading agenda for the weekend?

>268 fuzzi: Me too, well made cars. The car before the Corolla was a Saturn. Long story, short, I almost turned it back in via Lemon Laws, due to major computer failures, but it turned out the the problem was with their parts catalog. I had a V6, but their catalog kept telling them to put in the CPU for a 4-cyl and they kept breaking. They even sent someone out from the factory. I ended up keeping it, but got rid of it as soon as I paid it off.

Thanks RD!

>270 mahsdad: I probably wont be reading this weekend as i have a whole week till the end of the quarter and i barely have any good grades, so i will be doing as much work as i can.

261 Cape May (I looked at your profile.) Cape May is on one of the two primary eastern migratory routes used by hawks and other raptors. The other route follows the Appalachian ridge and crosses nearby (to me) Hawk Mountain. The terrain at Hawk Mountain makes it an excellent lookout for hawk admirers. So good for both of us.

>262 mahsdad: Heh. I'm not interested in having a car payment; that's what I meant, Jeff. I've got two vehicles free and clear, no car payments. I'm not planning to get into that business again.

>273 weird_O: D'oh. Dope slap for me. No interest loan, how much wishful thinking. Ha. Given my age, I'm probably going to have to do it at least twice more. One for me and one for Laura. Unless, of course, I win the lottery (that I never play) and can buy something brand new outright. :)

>270 mahsdad: huh. Saturns had a good reputation for reliability. I considered buying one but I think it didn't have AC. Working AC is a must here.

My Dad's RV had issues, no one could figure out what was wrong. Finally a local small town mechanic replaced the motherboard and bingo! Problem solved.

Happy Friday, Jeff. How are you coming along with MD? Getting any better?

>263 mahsdad: Noticing that sort of thing is so satisfying!

>275 fuzzi: It was a decent car. The issues I had were right after I got it and being a computer geek, I recognized that as soon as they were able to figure out the right part for the thing, all was well. I had it for about 5 years or so.

>276 msf59: Hey Mark. MD is still readable, I'm about 60% thru. There is some things that just don't age well. I see that even tho it was written in the 90's, he was trying for a sensibility of the 1800's. It makes sense, but at times it seems a little forced. Its still engaging enough, but like you all have said, not sure how it was Pulitzer worthy.

>277 quondame: Too right. I was mad at myself for missing out on 169961 :)

>263 mahsdad: I love it when the car gets to nice numbers. We sometimes drive to nowhere to get to such a point, so I won't miss it, as Frank drive a lot on his own ;-)

>279 FAMeulstee: Yeah, we do that too. We sometimes walk a little further on our evening strolls just to make the GPS tracker tick over one more tenth.

(small) Book Haul

Laura and I went out for lunch and then for a walk at the botanic gardens. In between we went to Sandpiper Books (a little indie/used book store in Torrance). We got...

66. The Natural by Bernard Malamud. Always loved the movie, thought I'd read the book.
67. The March by E.L. Doctorow. This is my very first book I added to my WL here on LT. I added it on 5/23/2007
68. Emperor: The Field of Swords by Conn Iggulden. This was what Laura picked.

I have enjoyed each Bernard Malamud book I have read. Even though they tend to be depressing. (go figure.)

Well the "enjoyment" of a book shouldn't necessarily have anything to do with how depressing a story is. I've read plenty of books that haven't necessarily been feel-good stories yet am glad I read them. :)

New Book - audio

Danny, The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl



From the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG!

Danny has a life any boy would love—his home is a gypsy caravan, he's the youngest master car mechanic around, and his best friend is his dad, who never runs out of wonderful stories to tell. But one night Danny discovers a shocking secret that his father has kept hidden for years. Soon Danny finds himself the mastermind behind the most incredible plot ever attempted against nasty Victor Hazell, a wealthy landowner with a bad attitude. Can they pull it off? If so, Danny will truly be the champion of the world.

When I was four months old, my mother died suddenly and my father was left to look after me all by himself. This is how I looked at the time.
I had no brothers or sisters. So all through my boyhood, from the age of four months onward, there was just us two, my father and me.

#newbook

Hey Jeff, i have a question. If your a teen would you still count as a child?

>285 Owltherian: Hi Lily, Sorry I didn't respond yesterday. I guess it depends on the context, my child is 23 and will always be my child or my kid. :) And I'm 57 and I'm sure I'm still my Mother's child to her.

Legally, I guess you are still a child until you're 18

But neither of those matter in your context. I found the person you were referring to (on your posts on Paul's thread), and #1, they are now showing as suspended, so I think they were probably just a troll. And #2 they also asked the same question of Elorin, who is a married person in their 40's. To me, it seems they were just trying to get a rise of out people. I'd say just ignore them.

>286 mahsdad: Yeah, i was just confused why they even said that in the first place since all i said was a simple hello.

New Book

Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu



NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • “A shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood” (Vanity Fair) and a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?

After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.

INT. GOLDEN PALACE
Ever since you were a boy, you've dreamt of being Kung Fu Guy.
You are not Kung Fu Guy.
You are currently Oriental Guy Making a Weird Face, but you've been practicing.
Maybe tomorrow will be the day

#newbook

>288 mahsdad: Hi Jeff - what else have you read by Yu. I read the How to live safely book.I had been considering this book.

Hi Diane,

I've read How To Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe, which I read, which I didn't indicate my rating, but if I recall, I enjoyed it a bit. I read Sorry, Please, Thank You, his collection of stories a couple years ago and I gave it 4.5 stars, so I must have really liked it.

Interior Chinatown is pretty interesting so far. Its written in a 2nd person and kinda of like a screen play where the main character of the book is a character in an ongoing TV show.

Hello Jeff.

>289 dianeham:
I read How to Live Safely and didn't think much of it. I read it back in 2020 and thought it was hard to follow and very hard to get interested in. I did finish it but only rated it two stars and haven't recommended it to anybody else for the reasons stated. That doesn't mean that Interior Chinatown wouldn't be good. It is just that I didn't have a good read of How to Live Safely.

>291 Owltherian: Hi Lily

>292 benitastrnad: That's too bad Benita. Though I will never begrudge anyone's opinion of a book. To pile on the memes... different strokes for different folks.... your mileage may vary... plenty of other fish (books) in the sea. LOL.

I am currently rereading Danny Champion of the World and its interesting how opinions change over the years. It was always one of my favorite reads when I was a kid. Its still very good, but reading it from a different perspective, as an adult and a father, it just hits a little differently. And I my memory of it, is that it was a lot longer than it actually is.

New Book - audio

Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Obersvations of One ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman



A humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by three journeys undertaken by actor, humorist, and New York Times bestselling author Nick Offerman

Nick Offerman has always felt a particular affection for the Land of the Free—not just for the people and their purported ideals but to the actual land itself: the bedrock, the topsoil, and everything in between that generates the health of your local watershed. In his new book, Nick takes a humorous, inspiring, and elucidating trip to America's trails, farms, and frontier to examine the people who inhabit the land, what that has meant to them and us, and to the land itself, both historically and currently.

In 2018, Wendell Berry posed a question to Nick, a query that planted the seed of this book, sending Nick on two memorable journeys with pals—a hiking trip to Glacier National Park with his friends Jeff Tweedy and George Saunders, as well as an extended visit to his friend James Rebanks, the author of The Shepherd's Life and English Pastoral. He followed that up with an excursion that could only have come about in 2020—Nick and his wife, Megan Mullally, bought an Airstream trailer to drive across (several of) the United States. These three quests inspired some “deep-ish" thinking from Nick, about the history and philosophy of our relationship with nature in our national parks, in our farming, and in our backyards; what we mean when we talk about conservation; and the importance of outdoor recreation, all subjects very close to Nick's heart.

With witty, heartwarming stories and a keen insight into the human problems we all confront, this is both a ramble through and celebration of the land we all love.

"Jesus is Lord." Uh, okay. This was the message that greeted me, emblazoned across a large billboard, as I pulled out of the Kalispell, Montana, airport in July of 2019. I mean, wow. I had just flown in from Los Angeles for a week of hiking and camaraderie in nearby Glacier National Park, and my mood at that moment could not have been better.

Added by me. This is read by Nick Offerman, I was laughing within about 10 minutes of starting this book. He is a national treasure, I am only an hour into this and its a 5-star read.

#newbook

>288 mahsdad: Added this to my list. I will see if my library has it.

>294 mahsdad: Me, too, for Where the Deer. Looks good!

Karen O

help i made a sarcastic remark now i have to do four reports on space sciences

>296 klobrien2: So good. Offerman is a national treasure.

>297 micathe.local.femboy: Hello. I'm not sure what you are talking about. I'm not going to be able to help you.

>252 mahsdad: This is a great book, one of my favorites.

>299 ocgreg34: Its funny, I had always heard of it, but only from the Ray Milland movie (which I've never see, except in clips) Just kinda stumbled over it. It was an excellent read.

Whoo-Hoo 300 posts in a thread. I've never had so many, but I'm going to stick with my current pattern. When I first started posting, I would create a new thread when it got somewhere over 220. But over the last couple years posting volume on my thread has gone down (not that I'm complaining), so I started just creating one thread for each quarter. That's worked out pretty well.

This year, for some reason, the volume has increased, but we've only got 2 weeks or so till the new quarter, so I'll just stick out here with a bloated thread. (⌐■_■) (I was going to see what kind of "fat" emojis there were, but in Chrome, as soon as I started searching for "fat", the only thing it found was Santa Claus. Too funny

haha- thats funny.

>301 mahsdad: let's see what I can find...

🐖🐖🐖

🐷🐖🐽🐗

Of course, PIG, I should have thought of that. I'm too old, or too disconnected for proper emoji games. :)

Okay, I have to share this now, cause I'm listing on audio, and I'll forget it by the time I finish.

So Offerman is taking about school mascots the fact that we name them after violent-like animals (cougars, bears, gators, etc) and Native American's and add in plenty of scalping and tomahawks, etc. and he says

Later in this book, we'll hear a bit about scalping, but only a very little bit, because it is truly fucked up and I am a humorist not Cormac McCarthy

Too funny

>304 mahsdad: probably just woolgathering...I'm older than you!

>306 fuzzi: Ha!

Fantastic Photo Friday
Very busy day, so just a drive by post. Here's some flowers...



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 46%
Reading - Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu : 37%
Listening - Where the Deer and the Antelope Play by Nick Offerman : 32%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 58%
Graphic Novel - Saga Vol 3 by Brian K. Vaughan : 20%

Finished Books

21. Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (GN) :
20. Danny Champion of the World by Roald Dahl (A) :
19. Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser :
18. The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson (A) :

Big week this week. Reviews, however are going to have to hold up til tomorrow.

#ff

>308 mahsdad: The Cape daisies are lovely, Jeff, that color really benefits from the de-emphasis on the weird geometry of the leaves and stems.

Happy weekend-aheads reads!

>308 mahsdad: What great colors, and I love the mood of the photo!

>309 richardderus: >310 quondame: Thanks!

Little Book Haul

Some retail therapy @ Barnes and Noble

68. The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
69. Your Utopia by Bora Chung

#bh

>308 mahsdad: Lovely blossoms, such interesting colors.

Finished Books - the long awaited (yeah right :) ) ramblings about the books I finished last week.

21. Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (GN) : A reread of this excellent series. If you like sci-fi graphic novels and you haven't read these, do it.

20. Danny Champion of the World by Roald Dahl (A) : This was one of my favorite books as a kid. I last read it 15 years ago. Read it on audio this time. Its about Danny and his Father and the hijinx they get up to, sticking it to the rich snobbish landowner. Still an excellent book, but it seems a lot shorter than my memory of it as a kid. Well, I guess, after all it is a children's book.

19. Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser : Read this Pulitzer Prize winning book as part of a shared read around here. Martin is a young kid in a growing New York City at the end of the 19th century. He works in his father's cigar shop but has ambitions. He becomes a bell boy at a hotel, then a clerk then an assistant manager, then he opens a lunch room, then his own hotel. It seems like everything he touches is a success, until its not. This was an okay read. Its not a very deep story, I'd say. He gets one success and immediately moves on, and he seems to leave those who helped him behind. Then in the later part of the book, there's his weird relationship with his wife, who seems to almost be a robot and her sister who becomes his best friend and almost right hand associate. I'm not sure I would recommend it, but if you're on a journey to read all the Pulitzers, you should.

18. The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson (A) : This is a wild ride of a book. Don is a struggling writer, and a massive alcoholic. His brother reluctantly leaves him alone for a long weekend, and Don goes on a bender. He does whatever he can to make sure he has his next pint of booze, lie, steal, borrow if he can. It is a definite cautionary tale for the toll that alcoholism can take on a person. Excellent read.

>312 elorin: My apologies Robyn for missing your post yesterday. Thanks for the photo love and for stopping by

Dropping in to say hello and add to the bulk ;)

>301 mahsdad: ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ🍰🍔🍕

>313 mahsdad: Looks like you had a productive reading week!

Hi Figs, a most welcome visit!

Those are good emojis as well.

Not going to repeat that book count this week. LOL.

New Book - audio

Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang



In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.

The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: that of the Japanese soldiers who performed it; of the Chinese civilians who endured it; and finally of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. It was Iris Chang who discovered the diaries of the German leader of this rescue effort, John Rabe, whom she calls the "Oskar Schindler of China." A loyal supporter of Adolf Hitler, but far from the terror planned in his Nazi-controlled homeland, he worked tirelessly to save the innocent from slaughter.

The Japanese strategy for Nanking was simple. The imperial army exploited the fact that the city was blocked by water in two directions.
The ancient capital lay south of a bend in the Yangtze River that first coursed northward and then turned to flow east by south east, the Japanese could use the natural barrier of the river to complete the encirclement of the capital and cut off all escape.

#newbook

>317 mahsdad:
WOW! You have courage. I have had this book on my TBR pile for years and have never had the courage to read it. It is a story that needs to have more publicity, but I pity you. It will be a heavy read.

>318 benitastrnad: Yeah, I've had it on my radar for a long time. It filtered to the top recently with some news article or TicToc video or something that reminded me. It just happened to be available. At least with audio, I won't have to subject myself to the pictures that I'm sure are in the paper version of the book.

I'm sure its going to be a tough read, I'm just shy of 25% and there has been some pretty shocking things in there already. People are awful.

>317 mahsdad: I read this a few years ago. Very good book.

>320 ocgreg34: So far a really good, although troubling read

New Book - Early Review

Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle



A new collection from award winning author, Erin Pringle.

With Midwestern practicality and deft lyricism, award-winning author Erin Pringle has constructed UNEXPECTED WEATHER EVENTS, a collection of stories following irrepressible characters facing tough situations--cancer, mental illness, death. Set against winter landscapes and fading small towns, this collection illuminates how joy can flicker within unpredictable tragedy.

"Erin Pringle is my favorite living author. This breathtaking new collection more than solidifies that opinion. Her writing is soul-rich with wonder and terror, tapping into a child's dream-like experience of family, change, and death. These are not only stories; each piece is a spell swirling with grief, love, and the bitter-strong beauty of being alive."--Owen Egerton, author of Hollow and How Best To Avoid Dying

Before they knew of the cancer, finding a goldfinch dead in the frost was not a sign of cancer.

#newbook

Fantastic Photo Friday
Happy Friday folks. Just clock watching til the end of the day. We're headed out to Palm Springs to see the MIL, so there won't be much LT time this weekend.

Today's image is from our visit to the Disney Concert Hall. We went there last Sunday for a matinee to hear the LA Phil play with bassist Victor Wooten. It is probably my favorite building, we don't get up here enough. You can't take a bad picture of the place, here's just one...



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 48%
Reading - Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle : 6%
Listening - Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII by Iris Chang : 41%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 61%
Graphic Novel - Saga Vol 3 by Brian K. Vaughan : 81%

Finished Books
23. Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu : Very interesting book. Its told entirely like a script of a TV show (he uses a typewriter font type and the page numbers are all on the upper right of each page, like it was a type-written script - annoying in book form when looking for the page number on the left hand side of the book ;) . Willis lives in tenement apartment building and works in a Chinese Restaurant, but he's part of an endless production of a police procedural drama called Black and White. He and his friends and family are part of the actors and extras for this show. Young Asian Man, or Egg Roll Chef, Silent Henchman; all the tropes that we've grown up with. But he's never been a main character, his dream is to be Kung Fu Guy. I was never quite sure if the show was real, or it was an alternate universe, or just a narrative device. Ultimately its Yu's examination of the history of Asian culture in American and how its depicted in popular media. I enjoyed it quite a bit, recommend.

22. Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman (A) : Listened to this on audio, read by Offerman himself. First, I'd listen to him narrate the phone book, he's excellent. Second, I loved this book, but from reading some of the reviews afterword, I might be in the minority, but this book so worked for me. In the first section he tells the tale of his trip to Glacier National Park with Jeff Tweedy (Wilco) and George Saunders. The second part is the experiences he and his wife, Megan Mullaly have with a new RV as they travel across the country to visit their families during the pandemic. Sure he's part of the "liberal elite", he recognizes his privilege in his stories and he wear's his politics on his sleeve. But his love of nature and his pull no punches, folksy style was very engaging for me. Recommend

#ff

>323 mahsdad: Your Disney center photo pulls in all the cold LA is capable of.

>317 mahsdad: I've also had that one lingering unread for years. Can I deal with it? I just don't know.

Thanks Susan! It was actually quite a nice warm sunny day last Sunday. But it felt really weird actually having to put on "nice" clothes. We never go anywhere. LOL. But then it is LA. You could have someone in shorts and flip flops sitting next to someone in a sequined gown.

Here's another one.

>325 laytonwoman3rd: I'll share my thoughts when I'm done, but it did get pretty much exponentially worse when she started describing "things". Its horrific

>323 mahsdad: I’ve got the Nick Offerman book coming to me soon! Glad to see your review.

The Disney Concert Hall reminds me of the Weisman Art Museum at the the U of M(innesota).

Rats! Couldn’t get a picture to post. Maybe a link? https://wam.umn.edu/

>328 klobrien2: Offerman - cool, hope you like it.

Buildings, as well it should. Designed by the same guy... Frank Gehry. Disney in 2003, the Weisman in 2011

Here's an article of his top buildings. He has a certain style, does he not. :)

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/best-of-frank-gehry-slideshow

Happy Friday, Jeff. Lots of good books being read over here. I loved Interior Chinatown and you got me with a direct hit with Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. So much so that I already snagged the audio from Libby and most likely I will start it today. You might also inspire me to finally read The Rape of Nanking, which has been on my TBR for ages. Your work is done, my friend.

>330 msf59: Hey Mark. I think you will really enjoy the Offerman, at least I hope so. Nanking, I think it is an important read, but tread lightly. The audio is pretty good, I like the narrator.

>326 mahsdad: Pretty.

>328 klobrien2: Weisman does look like. Interesting place

Beautiful photos of what looks like a remarkable building. I've been captivated by the bare trees this winter. Combined with the building, a wonderful picture. And the colors are spectacular.

Thanks Susan, Judy! I appreciate your comments

New Book - Audio

The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl



Fantastic Mr. Fox is on the run! The three meanest farmers around are out to get him. Fat Boggis, squat Bunce, and skinny Bean have joined forces, and they have Mr. Fox and his family surrounded. What they don’t know is that they’re not dealing with just any fox–Mr. Fox would never surrender. But only the most fantastic plan ever can save him now.

Down in the valley there were three farms. The owners of these farms had done well. They were rich men. They were also nasty men.
All three of them were about as nasty and mean as any men you could meet. Their names were Farmer Boggis, Farmer Bunch and Farmer Bean.

#newbook

You will not be at all surprised, but I am LOVING Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. Wonderful audiobook. It helps that I am also a fan of George Saunders and Jeff Tweedy (Wilco). I have seen his band 2 or 3 times. It also helps that we are going to Glacier NP in September, for the first time. Camping it!

Excellent. Big fan of Saunders too. TBH, I haven't listened too much to Wilco.

Ooo Glacier NP camping trip, sounds awesome!

New Book - Audio

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukfka



In the tradition of Long Bright River and The Mars Room, a gripping and atmospheric work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life—from the bestselling author of Girl in Snow.

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.

You are a fingerprint. When you open your eyes on the last day of your life, you see your own thumb. In the jaundiced prison light, the lines on the pad of your thumb look like a dried-out riverbed, like sand washed into twirling patterns by water, once there and now gone. The nail is too long. You remember that old childhood myth - how after you die, your nails keep drowning until they curl around your bones.

#newbook

Funny, in the second essay, where Offerman visits the sheep farm- I know of this author. He wrote Pastoral Song which I really enjoyed on audio. This has been awesome.

Small world. LOL.

Fantastic Photo Friday
Happy Friday folks. Last one of the quarter. I promise I'll create a new thread over the weekend. Even tho Q2 doesn't actually start until Monday, I'm not going to be finishing any books until then, so its time to shift. This weekend will be spent doing two tasks I've been putting off. Yard work, and taxes. Whee fun.

Today's image is the first of what I'm sure will be many images I share with you all on these little posts. We went out to Palm Springs to visit the MIL, and we took her out to Joshua Tree for a little drive. We were hoping to see some wildflowers, but we were a little early, but we saw some nice scenery instead. Here's one of the aforementioned Joshua Trees...



Book Update
>2 mahsdad: Q1 Books
>3 mahsdad: Audiobooks

Reading - Growing Up Yinzer: Memories from Beloved Pittsburghers by Dick Roberts : 51%
Reading - Unexpected Weather Events by Erin Pringle : 56%
Listening - Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka : 43%
eBook - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow : 61%
Graphic Novel - Saga Vol 4 by Brian K. Vaughan : 36%

Finished Books
26. The Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl (A) : Read this on Audio. A classic, very short, children's novel (but I would really term it a novella) about Mr. Fox (who happens to be fantastic) sticks it to the man, 3 men actually, who are trying to kill him. After having just reread Danny Champion of the World, I can see that Dahl really likes it when the little guy gets one over on the the rich elite. Its a very cute story. If you haven't read it, do. I would also recommend the animated movie version that Wes Anderson did. Love that. A note about the narrator, it was actor Chris O'Dowd, who did an excellent job. I'm pretty sure he was channeling Matt Berry (his co-start on the IT Crowd) for the voice of Mr. Fox. Really well done, IMO.

25. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WWII by Iris Chang (A) : Read on Audio. This was the story of the really disturbing history of the atrocities that occurred in Nanking by the Japanese during WWII. In the first quarter or so, where the main descriptions of what went on were given was a really intense read. There are images that I'm sure I'll never be able to scrub out of my brain. The rest of the book was about the aftermath and what the world knew, what the US and the other allies knew. Almost as tragic is the fact that even to this day, there is efforts to ignore, obfuscate and deny that this ever occurred. While Germany has paid billions of dollars in reparations for the Holocaust, Japan has never paid anything to China and the city of Nanking for what went on (a Holocaust in its own right). As I said in an earlier post, people, in general, are awful. One amazing high point that I learned was that John Rabe, who worked for Siemans in China and was a Nazi during the war, did much to save thousands of Nanking citizens, created the Nanking Safety Zone and documented and filmed some of the atrocities. It is an important subject that we should all know about. Not for the faint of heart, but I recommend it.

24. Saga, Vol 3 by Brian Vaughan (GN) :

#ff

and as an added bonus, here's my face...

2024 Books of the Month

January : IQ84 by Haruki Murakami
February : Kindred by Octavia Butler
March : Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside by Nick Offerman



#botm

>341 mahsdad:
I finished my taxes this morning and will be putting them in the mail this afternoon. Not a whole lot of fun this time. It is getting harder and harder to file them on paper, but since I have neither reliable internet service or a printer, combined with a philosophical outlook that says that I shouldn't have to pay for a e-filing a simple state income tax form, and I find that paper, pencil, and a stamp is the cheapest way to go. All the time I was working on this I was wondering whatever happened to the good old reliable telephone filing system the IRS had for years?

Oh well - mine is not to question why. Mine is to do and die. (paraphrase of Tennyson) I do wonder why the feds and the state yahoos try so hard to make filing taxes as hard as they are making voting? Don't they realize that it only hurts them and undermines our democracy?

>343 benitastrnad: Hi Benita. I totally agree with your not wanting to pay for e-filing. As an option (not that it matters now cause you're done), could you print the forms to a PDF and then print them at your library?

I do have a reasonably reliable printer and I have printed and mailed my CA taxes, but e-filed Fed.

>344 mahsdad:
I went to FedEx and printed there. I had to stand in line and they have four copiers. Sometimes I think that those in our government should be made to go do their laundry at a laundromat once a year. That would change their minds about how easy it is to do everyday tasks. It is the same thing for doing things electronically. It is easy to do things electronically here in Tuscaloosa - population 160,000. Not so easy in Munden, Kansas - population 127, or Republic County, Kansas population - 4366. I had started them when I was in Kansas last week and finished them in Tuscaloosa, so getting to FedEx was as easy as starting my car and driving 6 blocks. The nearest copier in Munden is the one my Aunt owns and donated to the church in Munden. (there is only one church in Munden.) I just think there are too many assumptions made about the way people actually live, by those in positions of power who make these decisions.

Besides, I also believe the the USPS is a VITAL service that is still needed and used by a great many people in our population. The destruction of the USPS is one of the things that the Repulsicans are using to keep people from voting. I use myself as an example. I had no trouble with my mail until Trump appointed a new Postmaster General in August of 2020. In September of 2020 all of a sudden everything I did by post was delayed, delayed, delayed. That included voting. It took 5 days to get my ballot from the courthouse in Kansas to Tuscaloosa at the end of September. But it took three weeks to get my ballot from Tuscaloosa to the court house in Kansas when I mailed it October 1. Yes, it got there, but I that is the first time in 26 years in Alabama it took that long. Coincidence?

Now I send an email about twice a year to the US senators and representatives from Kansas and Alabama complaining about the poor USPS service. I have mixed feelings about that because I may be contributing to the demise of that venerable 250 year old institution with my complaints because they will say it doesn't work, so let's junk it. (They are all Repulsicans - except for Terry Sewell here in Tuscaloosa.)

And don't worry - I only vote in Kansas. Not in Alabama. Alabama is hopeless but my vote does sometimes count in Kansas.

>341 mahsdad: thank you again for the Great Photographs!

Re: taxes - I tried my intelligent best to comprehend the Social Security exclusion page - it was totally impossible
so I'm sending it with blanks.

Speaking of taxes, I'm wondering about how taxes are assessed and collected in other nations. I saw an anecdote recently about a European clucking at an American acquaintance about all the hassle that American had in filling in forms and computing the tax owed. The American retorted and asked, "How do you do it?" And the European replied, "I'm Swiss. The government already has all that information. It computes the tax and sends me a bill."

I just CANNOT remember where I read that, and I want to know if it is true. I'm an easy mark, and I'm likely to believe that appealing proposition, just because it's what I want to believe.

>345 benitastrnad: The NYTimes ran a story around Christmas about the volume of deliveries made by the USPS for non-government carriers and the impact of that on rural postal deliverers. UPS and Fed-Ex and other carriers pay a modest fee to USPS to make that last leg of the parcel delivery, because that's cheaper than buying a truck and hiring a driver and navigating sparsely populated sections of the country. I suspect the rural mail carriers get something like a flat fee to deliver along a prescribed route, which might be fair if all the deliveries can be completed in one circuit. But when the volume exceeds the capacity of the carrier's vehicle, multiple trips are required.

Oh, hi Jeff.

>341 mahsdad: They are extremely eye-catching, and you've certainly caught that!

>347 weird_O:
What you described in the NYTimes story is exactly true in the rural areas. It started before the lockdown in 2020. UPS announced that they would no longer do daily deliveries into Republic County, Kansas. They would come once a week. You can imagine the impact of that on my cousins car repair shop. Several of the businesses banded together and went to the state and US representatives with their complaints about the package delivery service. It is better now that the rural mail carriers are doing the package delivery, but ...

Here in Tuscaloosa it has a different impact. I was coming home at about 6:30 PM and low and behold, my local mail carrier was ahead of me on the street. he stopped at a house and got out running a package onto the front door. A couple of days later when I saw him at my mail box I asked him about it. He just shock his head. he said that Monday's are the worst. They have had to hire extra mail carriers just to handle the business from UPS and FedEx. I wonder how that makes economic sense for the USPS?

>341 mahsdad:
Joshua Tree and Palm Springs is one of the places I want to visit soonish. I wanted to go this summer because the ALA summer conference is going to be in San Diego. I wanted to go to that but my finances aren't going to allow that this summer.

You should think about going to the ALA Conference. It will cost $75.00 to get into the exhibits, but all those free books might pay for that fee and the trip down.

Happy Friday, Jeff. I LOVE the Friday photo! I wish I had more audiobook time- of course I am loving Where the Deer and the Antelope Play.

Hiya Jeff.

>345 benitastrnad: Laura and I have a similar take on our government. We think they should personally have to do their own taxes when they're in Congress. Think how streamlined things would be if they had to do what we do. LOL.

>346 m.belljackson: Hi, thanks for the photo love. SSI and Medicare bureacracy are two things, I don't think I'm looking forward to in retirement.

>347 weird_O: Hi Bill ;)

>348 quondame: Thanks Susan. There's more to follow. For the first time in a while, I actually brought out the "big boy" camera. Took some panoramas. Had to find a new tool for creating stitches, but that is a story for another thread.

>351 msf59: Hi Mark, thanks a bunch. You know, with audiobooks, it just now my habit. If I'm not working, or hanging out with Laura. if I'm doing pretty much anything by myself, I am listening to an audiobook. its the bulk of my reading. This quarter, 54% of my reads are audio.

>352 Owltherian: Hi Lily

>353 mahsdad: How are you today? I would try to explain my day, but it would be pretty long.

>354 Owltherian: So its 5:30 on Friday, which means its the weekend and that puts an excellent capper on the day. No need to explain your day here. Just hope you have a nice weekend

>355 mahsdad: Yep, im home with my mum now, and ACK- my computer is 9%!

>347 weird_O: Almost true here in the Netherlands, Bill.
I have to go to the tax website, there my earnings are pre filled. I have to check it (it is always right) and do some additional questioning about our house (house owners have some extra deductables & taxes). Then the same for my husband, and send in.
People with assets and investments have a bit more work to do, we don't have any of those ;-)