richardderus's fifth 2024 thread

How reading feels to me: the only thing that is real is the book, and the hands holding it; everything else is a black shadow of background noise.

Reviews 001 through 008 are linked here.
Reviews 009 on thru 017 are linked here.
Reviews 018 to 026 are linked there.
Reviews 027 to 033 are linked there.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS

034 An Untouched House in post #41.
035 Searching for Van Gogh: A Novel in post #66.
036 The Butcher of the Forest in post #104.
037 Blue Lard in post #135.
038 Inside the Mirror in post #150.
039 The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters in post #258.
040 A Short History of Flowers: The Stories that Make Our Gardens in post #285.

All my threads in the 75ers linked somewhere here
My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2022 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2023 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

All previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S BURGOINE REVIEWS:

#011

All previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

#005

Seriously...not a great venue for normies here.
My 2023 goals are here, for reference.

See >5 richardderus: for 2023 achievements.
My January 2024 summary is here.

FEBRUARY 2024 IN REVIEW
Decent month. I read twenty-one books, and liked almost all of them. The one I think about most often after having read it is The Wisdom of Plagues: Lessons from 25 Years of Covering Pandemics, though in an angry, despairing way; the one I *liked* the most was Be Not Afraid of My Body: A Lyrical Memoir, though in an angry, despairing way. I really needed the comfort read of Searching for Van Gogh: A Novel. Great litrachoor, no; good story well-told, yes.

I passed fourteen hundred blog posts this month...a cumulative total of 1405 since 5 April 2013! And that is just the *posts* not the reviews. The month was also a lot heftier in people viewing the blog than January...14,200 or 489 a day versus 7,200 or 232 a day. It is always a nice feeling to have more views, but my historical average of between 100 and 300 a day is more than enough to convince me to keep doing what I am doing.

Okay...safe to say whatever is in your mind. Sort of, anyway.

Happy new one, RD!

>7 richardderus: Thank you, Katie!

Have a crown:

Happy new thread! I missed the crown while posting on your old one. *sigh*

Happy new thread, RD.
>1 richardderus: that's a thought provoking image.
getting in quickly before there are a gazillion posts >;-)

Happy new thread, Richard!

Happy new thread Richard!

Happy new thread!

Salutations on your fifth thread dear fellow.

Happy new one!

>10 LizzieD: *there there, patpat* Another thread will be along in a few weeks.

>11 Helenliz: It pulled me in, too, Helen. I tried to find out who created it but the trails goes cold on a deactivated tumblr account.

*smooch*

>12 drneutron: Thank you, Doc!

>13 Owltherian: Thanks, Lily!

>20 richardderus: you're welcome Richard

>14 bell7: Thanks, Mary...hoping your weekend will be less busy than usual so you can get some rest. *smooch*

>15 PaulCranswick: Thank you most kindly, PC. Good-weekend whammys heading your way.

>16 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! *smooch*

Happy new thread, RD!

>1 richardderus: Yes. Hands and book. All else is not consequential.

>5 richardderus: In hindsight, from the vantage point of 70 years and 8 months, I wish I was less of a normie. I have and have had my moments, but still.

*smooch*

>1 richardderus: What an interesting picture! I love that feeling of “just me and the book.” Happy new thread!

Karen O

>26 klobrien2: IK,R?! Thanks for the thread wishes, Karen O. *smooch*

>25 karenmarie: Being your authentic self can mean bring a normie, Horrible, it is not always a cop-out or a knuckling under. It would have been for me, so I do not Do the normal thang.

*smooch*

R--Here for the crowns, the books, the authenticity and the smooches! Love the topper. Happy new one. : )

>29 Berly: Welcome, sweetiedarling! *smooch*

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

Happy New Thread, Richard! Happy Weekend ahead. *smooch*

>31 FAMeulstee: Thank you, dear lady! *smooch*

>32 vancouverdeb: Thanks, Deb, the samr back atcha. *smooch*

Happy New Thread, Richard dear! Being of the same taste as Peggy, I will endeavor to get my library to order the Tolkien GN. *smooches*

Happy New Thread, Richard. Love the topper. We are having a good time with Jack. Grandma kept him at the library for a couple of hours so I could cram some reading in. Good Grandma.

Happy new thread, Richard. You got me with a BB on your last thread for a graphic novel, no less! I didn't read Tolkien either. His books never appealed but a GN about his life looks interesting and the Vancouver library has it on order. I'm the second in the hold line thanks to your book post!

>35 ronincats: Thank you for the thread wishes, sweetiedarling! I am sure you will like the Tolkien when you get to it...just a lovely object. *smooch*

>36 msf59: Thank you, Birddude. The day with Jack no doubt did great for both you and Sue. That topper is really cool, is it not...so evocative.

>37 Familyhistorian: Wow, Meg! Two of the least-likely readers for Tolkien stuff finding his life in GN form too interesting to pass up has to be some kind of LT miracle.

034 An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans (Tr. David Colmer, intro. Cees Nooteboom)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In this dark, unnerving work of wartime fiction, W. F. Hermans exposes humanity’s essential savagery, barely concealed by its mores and morals. The year is 1944, and a Dutch partisan chances on an abandoned estate, where he decides to take refuge during a lull in the hostilities. The house seems untouched by the war, a kind of haven, its ornament and grandeur intact (not to mention its walls), clothes and sheets to spare, a kitchen stocked with food and drink. He settles in, and begins to consider himself the owner. When the Nazis recapture the village and come knocking, they similarly assume the house to be his; they assume, also, its spare rooms, which they outfit as barracks.

It is all and well until the true owner and his wife return to their estate. Horrified at the thought of being caught in his subterfuge, our protagonist finds himself drawn into further deceit—and swept up in the violence that ensues.

Civilization comes face-to-face with brutality, truth meets the duplicity that has upended and challenged its certainty—Hermans’ prose searches for an order to the chaos and nihilism of war and life. What he cannot find is as telling as what he uncovers.

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

My Review: Novellas are, by definition, brief and gestural as opposed to the novel in its deeper dives, its wider emotional landscape. These general observations are, of course, not true of every novel or novella. They serve to define nothing but an expectation of the reasonably experienced reader when picking up one or the other.

I went into this read, then, expecting to get a glancing blow to my interest in the topic of what the Second World War was like for those who lived it, who were involved in the conflict and not observing events from afar. That was an expectation met...but exceeded, at least as the read settled into my brain. The prose, as translated, was not showy or terribly Writerly; the story itself was simple enough, really more suited to a short story than a novella; but as I sat stunned after finishing the read, I realized why the author chose this length of telling for a story this uncomplicated.

Without the novella’s-worth of buildup, the ending would feel artificial and out of proportion to the story itself. As it is, the ending is a shocker. It arrives without fanfare and smacks the complacent, even slightly bored, reader in their readerly chops. At the end of a trip through one devious survivor’s opportunistic manipulations of everyone around him, all in service of maximizing his immediate personal comfort, the situation he has created from his selfish, self-serving and utterly believable actions comes to a loud, permanent conclusion.

The issue I had been nursing against this overgrown short story exploded in the events of the ending. There is a reason for the length the author chose to tell his simple tale. I was not ready for the impact of the ending, which to be clear would always have been powerful. The novella before it, however, was exactly right to create its seismic shifting of my emotional response. An entire novel with this ending would, honestly, have vitiated its power to stun; a short story, even a long one, would make the ending feel artificial and tacked on.

This read is an excellent example of what a novella can do best, when used to best advantage: satisfy the reader’s hunger for a powerful emotional experience in a one-sitting package. So why only four stars? In the end, the manner of telling the story, the simple unfussy writing, works against the needed investment in the story being told. It gets to the stage of thinking, "Really? is this IT?" before the truly impactful payoff occurs. That I soldiered on, finishing the read, was not assured by the manner of storytelling the author used. At times I was ready to jump ship just to be done with this really dislikable man, this solipsistic selfish creep. I am glad that I persevered, but also a little surprised that I did with the truly staggering number of reads I already have lined up.

So, to all who start this read, I say: Do stick it out for the whole distance. It *is* worth your time. But because I feel the need to say that, I can only in honesty rate it four of five stars.

>41 richardderus: Interesting, Richard. If it comes my way, I'll read it. I don't know that I'll seek it out though.

Hope your skies are as blue as ours and that your Saturday brings you some joy and satisfaction!
*smooch*

>42 LizzieD: Saturday orisons, Peggy! Skies here are dingy, but it is not raining and I need to go out later so I am the bunny happy.

Seeking out >41 richardderus: is not something I would urge on you but if it goes on $1.99 Kindlesale, it is well worth it. *smooch*

Happy Saturday *smooch*. It's not getting above 34 here today, but the sun is starting to peek out and it's perfect dog-walking weather.

Edited to correct my typing - the sun was not "tarting" but the "s" is a little stuck on my keyboard.

>42 LizzieD: I’ve added An Untouched House to my TBR. It’s not the kind of book I usually read, but that’s probably why I should read it.

Have a lovely weekend, dear Richard!

Karen O

>44 bell7: I kinda like the image of the sun tarting...but duly noted that it started not tarted.

It is 41° just now and that is more or less it for the day. The clouds are the dingy kind not the rainy kind...*sigh*

>45 klobrien2: It is a good read, in the end, Karen O. It does take patience if you are expecting high-action WWII storytelling. *smooch* for a happy weekend.

>41 richardderus: Definitely in my wheelhouse, so I will be checking it out. Thank you for the recommendation, RD!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>41 richardderus: Because I now must know the ending, it's on its way to me.

>48 alcottacre: De rien, ma amie *smooch*

Enjoy the read when you get to it, Stasia. It really is a very interesting read. The idea of it is the biggest draw, IMO.

>49 swynn: Excellent, Steve! I think it will work its magic on you.

I thought I had dropped a wave and a "happy new one" yesterday but I don't see it so I guess not -- just a bit distracted at the moment.

>52 RebaRelishesReading: Howdy, Reba! Glad to see you, no matter when you come around, so *smooch* and thanks for visiting.

>41 richardderus: Very much agree with you, Richard dear. I did read it a few years ago and rated it the same.
My conclusion: A lot is packed in this short novella. It describes the cruel and absurd sides of war, with touches of very black humor.

>54 FAMeulstee: I am not too surprised we agree, to be honest. The translation was not the problem with the story being uninvolving...it was a choice, and it paid off in the end. Happy to see you here, Anita! *smooch*

Happy not-so-new thread, Richard.....

>56 jessibud2: New to you, Shelley, so that is good enough for me! *smooch*

>58 richardderus:- Where is this? I want to move in!

>58 richardderus: *sigh*

Good morning, Richard, and good day too! *smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. Another beautiful late winter day here. This weather is absolutely freaky but I sure can't complain. Other than taking Juno for a walk, I think I will mostly chill with the books today.

>59 jessibud2: Dunno, but I got first dibs!

Hi Richard, how are ya?

>60 LizzieD: *sigh*

Awomen. Have a lovely Sunday pining after that gorgeous space! *smooch*

>61 msf59: Happy Sunday, Birddude...I too am enjoying the worrisomely nice weather. Enjoy that ideal-sounding Sunday you got planned!

035 Searching for Van Gogh: A Novel by Donald Lystra

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Set in Michigan during the tumultuous closing weeks of 1963, "Searching for Van Gogh" is a heart-wrenching story of two young souls bravely navigating life's challenges.

A young woman is inspired by a cinematic heroine to find meaning in a world that has cast her aside.

A teenage math and science prodigy turns to art as he struggles with the pain of losing his beloved elder brother.

Their unlikely friendship is a beacon of hope, reminding us that in tough times the best defense is the help we can give to one another.

Reminiscent of timeless classics like Ordinary People and To Kill a Mockingbird, this story celebrates the power of friendship and understanding in an often unforgiving world.

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

My Review: Do you need a break from the nastiness and unapologetic hatemongering of the world outside your door? Do you want to take a trip back to a world still slowly moving into full awareness of how cruel it has become?

Here's you a read.

Two people carrying a lot of sadness find each other at very vulnerable moments in each one's life. Their entire worlds have narrowed into coping with loss and loneliness. Then...they meet, they connect, and they tentatively learn to communicate.

What on Earth is happening to this old man, I can hear you wondering. This kind of story never appeals to him! Quite true, it is not my native land, well-trodden paths to and fro everywhere one looks in my catalog of reads. I was pleased to read something with the personal stakes of this story...grief, loss, coming to terms with the way the world works, how families fail each other at crucial times. The prose is direct and unpretentious, the voices of the characters distinct, and that plus the storyline and setting gave me what I craved most: Investment and involvement with neither anger nor outrage, just the pleasant sense that this time the world handed these two hurting souls the balm instead of the liniment.

I needed an emotionally real story, uncomplicatedly told, with people in believable emotional pain that was not going to cause Disaster. I needed that story to end believably well without absurd, over-the-top machinations, like it does in the happier passages of Real Life. And I got what I needed. I am glad I read this direct, involving, kind story.

So, kindness seekers, come to Donald Lystra's doorstep and be fed.

>63 Owltherian: Morning, Lily! Just fine today, thanks for asking. You are on your way around earlier, for a weekend, than I ever would have been in my teens.

Hey, buddy. I’m going to take a look at An Untouched House. Did you ever read Babel by R.F. Kuang. I liked her/their? Yellowface, and our son just liked Babel a lot. I’m giving it a go.

Hiya, RDear! Happy Sunday to you.

>28 richardderus: That’s the way I feel about women who truly want to be wives and mothers… if that’s their authentic self then that’s their choice and all the feminist stuff in the world cannot outweigh it. So, I’m mostly a normie, with occasional jumps outside the label.

>41 richardderus: Excellent review, as always. WWII is definitely not my favorite time period, as you know, so I’ll pass. Even for a novella.

>58 richardderus: *whimper*

*smooch*

>67 richardderus: Yep, i may not be online as much due to having to be picked up from my grandmothers.

Dropping off some new week smooches and thoroughly enjoying the vibes in >58 richardderus:.

I love your use of language in the review but I have acquired a LOT of books lately so I'm going to pass on this one.

Happy Sunday, Richard

>66 richardderus: oh, ok that sounds sad but lovely and hopeful. I can get behind that

>68 jnwelch: Im not Richard, but I loved Babel probably my top book of last year. hope you like it too Meaning to read Yellowface but havent gotten to it.

>74 cindydavid4:. Thank you, Cindy. Great to hear. I’m enjoying it and getting excited about reading more.

>68 jnwelch:, >74 cindydavid4:, 75 I have the Kindlebook, but have not cracked it. Kuang was done seriously wrong in this years Hugos, so I went and bought one to show solidarity but its turn has not yet arrived.

>69 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! That bookspace is pretty dreamy, huh, you normie you.

I do not for a second think you would enjoy >41 richardderus:. The diffuse story followed by an intense conclusion would totally not work for your stylistic preferences. No sense wasting eyeblinks like that. I would not aim you at >66 richardderus: either, TBH, since it has the dynamic range of a Gregorian chant and that don’t make me think of you neither. *smooch*

>70 Owltherian: We shall see you when you are here, then, whenever that turns out to be.

>78 richardderus: I'm back, i am now at my dads house

>71 MickyFine: I love that image so much! Happy new-week *smooch* back, Micky.

>72 RebaRelishesReading: I guess that one was for >66 richardderus: Reba...if so, just remember that it is $5.99 on the Kindle....
*smooch* for a terrific Sunday there, too.

>73 cindydavid4: It really is a hopeful story! Very much what I felt the need for,so I hope it will please you, too.

>76 richardderus:. Thanks, RD. Yes, I’ve read that Babel would’ve won if considered. I don’t understand at all what went on behind the scenes, but there rightly has been an uproar about the omissions. I read that some involved have since resigned?

Happy new thread Richard. But you and Paul are insane! I'm still on my first thread, and don't imagine I'll be starting a second until May Day.

>84 ArlieS: I'm also still on my first thread

>83 jnwelch: They have indeed resigned...though I am of the harsh opinion that they should be barred from any and all future participation in any future Hugo or Worldcon related activity. It was appalling what they did. The situation got a LOT worse. Actually, Ms Chang should never have been eligible, that is how horribly these yahoos mishandled the Hugos. The saga is sad and dirty-feeling.

>84 ArlieS: ...if you build it they will come...

Both PC and I post daily, so people tend to come and visit to see what is up. I do more reviewing than PC does, so there is a novelty almost guaranteed here...and whadda ya know, folk like that!

Thanks!

>85 Owltherian: Yes, but you are very new to the grouP, so you will get fewer visitors by the nature of the social milieu. That will change over time.

>88 richardderus: Thats true, i try to be as active on this group as possible

>89 Owltherian: You are very active, and over time many of the folks here will come to your thread to see what you are writing about there. Thing always take time to grow well.

>90 richardderus: yeah, i may go post what i am reading atm

>91 Owltherian: Great habit to get into!

>92 richardderus: I am almost at 100 posts, and i put an 'about me' thingy in my thread so people can know me somewhat better

>93 Owltherian: You are doing the correct things to help others get to know you. That pays off as time goes by.

>94 richardderus: Seems like it

>95 Owltherian: Yep!

>96 richardderus: I made it to 100+ posts!

>66 richardderus: thanks for the extra mention on my thread... I had glanced over your review this morning, but it prompted me to read more carefully, and that does sound very much like my kind of book.

Sunday *smooches*

Keeping current here -- more Sunday smooches.

>76 richardderus: good for you; I cant imagine how they will rectify this situation; several other authors were likely "disqualified"there is money involved as well as standing in the writing community. I see some lawsuits in the future unless they can fix this

>58 richardderus: Topping and Company, a bookstore in Bath, England. A snap on the store's website.

         

>86 richardderus: totally agree with you. When are the hugos scheduled? any chance they can make some changes before that?

Happy new thread, sort of, RD! Only 2.5 days and already over 100 posts. On a normal thread, I wouldn't be late with the new thread wishes, but yours ...

>58 richardderus: >101 weird_O: I too am swooning over the lovely book-space.

036 The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A world-weary woman races against the clock to rescue the children of a wrathful tyrant from a dangerous, otherworldly forest.

At the northern edge of a land ruled by a monstrous, foreign tyrant lies the wild forest known as the Elmever. The villagers know better than to let their children go near—once someone goes in, they never come back out.

No one knows the strange and terrifying traps of the Elmever better than Veris Thorn, the only person to ever rescue a child from the forest many years ago. When the Tyrant’s two young children go missing, Veris is commanded to enter the forest once more and bring them home safe. If Veris fails, the Tyrant will kill her; if she remains in the forest for longer than a day, she will be trapped forevermore.

So Veris will travel deep into the Elmever to face traps, riddles, and monsters at the behest of another monster. One misstep will cost everything.

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

My Review: Being one who really internalized the truism "No good deed goes unpunished" and its corollary "Never reveal how competent you are because then you will always get the job," I was all set to like this iteration of these aperçus. I am happy to say, nothing in the read convinced me otherwise.

Veris, whose shocking, likely unique ability to survive a trip into Elmever forest has landed her the unenviable and possibly lethal job of rescuing kids lost in there, is a good person. Her exploit in Elmever was not last year, or even last decade...she is solidly in her middle years now. She would also like to enter cronehood, thank you very much, and that might not happen unless she gets the stupid kids out of this haunted, evil forest. The stupid kids that belong to the local wicked overlord. The foreign, wicked overlord.

Of course this woman of middle years and possessed of close loving ties to her community of friends and family will drop everything and rush off to rescue this awful man's kids at risk of disappearing into the horrors she overcame before. You just need to ask!

And threaten everyone she loves with horrible deaths.

Thus are the stakes established. This is going to be a Quest with a difference in dramatis personae. Since Quests are about inner discovery through outer-world problem-solving, we are accustomed to seeing them feature young people. This time Verity, who has already solved the puzzle of surviving a day in accursed Elmever forest, must return to figure out the mystery of the place. The difference? A puzzle has one correct answer, a mystery has many possible solutions, varying shades of Rightness.

Part fairy tale with its lessons quietly taught, part adventure horror story with its body horror lightly sprinkled in, part cosmic horror with its universal stakes salted on...this novella packs a lot into its one-sitting length. Enough that it might repay breaking the read into two sessions.

While the ending fits with the story, and concludes the stakes satisfyingly, I do not think the usual audience for Quests will be all that pleased with this iteration of the storyverse because its stakes are...mutable. Veris faces down lots in this tight package. She makes her peace with the past, as all of us around her age must; she does the right thing by her lights, as we all hope to do in life; she learns that her life of answering puzzles and solving mysteries can not prepare her for anything to come except in habits of mind. The answers are, maddeningly, never the same.

Sound like my forties. Yours too, I wager.

>97 Owltherian: All the YAY!

>98 bell7: Excellent news, Mary. I think you will really enjoy the read. *smooch*

>99 Berly: Hiya Berly-boo! *smooch*

>100 cindydavid4: The Glasgow Worldcon committee has already announced changes to their con's reporting of votes and eligibility. The problems are, of course, not remotely the same because the Scottish government does not indulge itself in anything like the level of social control the Chinese one does. Still, they did the right thing. Thank goodness.

>101 weird_O: Wonderful, Bill! Thanks for sleuthing this one out.

>103 atozgrl: The pace has been dizzying, Irene. I expect the spring cool-down will happen soon as people will not be trapped indoors for much longer. In any event, welcome! *smooch*

‘Morning, RD! Happy Monday to you.

>77 richardderus: I actually love Gregorian chant, surprise, surprise.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>111 karenmarie: Somehow, that revelation does *not* surprise me. It should, but where your aesthetic is concerned it is best to leave space for the unexpected.

Happy-Monday *smooch*

actually i do too. Got turned on to it by listening to feather on the breath of god by Hildegard of Bingen, that led me to more of her music as well as Anonymous 4. There are times when nothing helps my stress or anxiety quite like that music does

lFound searching for van gough on kindle for next to nothing, so now reading it. so far so good (why is this title not coming up on LT, but its there under the author?)

Hi Rdear, I hope all is well at your place. Big waves from over the pond. *smooches*

>113 cindydavid4: It affects me with as much force, just in the opposite direction. The droning moaning whining tonelessness is one step above bagpipes in my own pantheon of horror.

>114 cindydavid4: How great is that! Enjoy it.

>115 Ameise1: Hi Barbara! Happy to see you here. All is well in my corner of the world, thank you. *smooch*

>116 richardderus: well as I always say, YMMV :)

Holy moley! I’m AWOL for a couple of days and come back to a long new thread! Sorry, I won’t be catching up. I can’t seem to concentrate right now. Maybe later. Have a lovely week!

>118 cindydavid4: Indeed. The best, maybe only, means to stay in relationship to others online.

>119 Storeetllr: Hi Mary! Never fear your mind will come home soon...it will get hungry and then show back up.

>101 weird_O: Topping & Co is a great bookshop. We frequently go to the Ely branch and have also been to the one in St Andrew’s. Not got to the Bath branch yet though.

‘Morning, RD!

>116 richardderus: Bagpipes make me wanting to run screaming into the night, and Amazing Grace on bagpipes is the ABSOLUTE WORST. I either laugh uncontrollably or get away from the sound stat.

*smooch*

>122 SandDune: ...and it is a chain...

...

...

...life is grotesquely unfair. There is not even a single book store in my city.

>123 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. Happy to see you this Tuesday morning. *smooch*

Bagpipes exist all over the world. Cultures throughout time and space have come up with this idea, and run with it...Humanity is fundamentally cursed and should be wiped from the Universe before we pollute other planets.

Bagpipes have their place - like in the tradition "piping in" of the haggis in Scotland:



(This was on a work trip in 2017. Drum Castle, near Aberdeen.)

>126 katiekrug: I must decline to agree, Katie..."their place" is the vacuum of outer space. Although haggis actually deserves the accompaniment of bagpipes, it is so vile.

I’m not a fan of bagpipes at all , but my late father in law was . Perhaps the result of fighting in WW11. Who can know. Tuesday morning *smooch* . Off to the tooth grinders at 1 pm for a crown and back again next Monday for a filling . Altogether too much time at the tooth grinder’s . And I was there last week for the temporary crown . Mercy me .

>128 vancouverdeb: Oh,yikes! I am so sad to know it will take so much of your time! Hope it will all be over after this.

*smooch*

Is it bagpipes you like?

https://youtu.be/K-Op1Mng4oY?si=hNjShcQxW-c2E2AS

I do love the sound of Balkan folk music and the Bulgarians have a bagpipe called ,The kaba gaida ('large gaida') or rodopska gaida (Rhodope gaida), the bagpipe of the central Rhodope mountains, is a distinctive symbol of Bulgarian folk music. It is made from wood, horn, animal skin and cotton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcuWOpyhU4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke73B6rCblk

>124 richardderus: There are only four of them (I think). Next time we go to the one in Ely i will take a photo for you.
We are fairly blessed with bookshops here. There is a decent sized Waterstones in Bishop’s Stortford, then the next town along has a good independent bookshop and after that is Cambridge, which has several big book shops.

*grumbles* okay, made it over *puff, pant*

Heyyy Riccardo! Happy new thread! You seem to be having an unusually good run, judging by the stars on your reviews.

>5 richardderus: I don't know about 'influence' but I've been called a super villainess (by someone or other, I forget whom ...) so I suppose we can be friends? Or some such?

ETA: >58 richardderus: >101 weird_O: I visited Toppings in Bath in 2022 but we were just overnighting on our way back to London from Cornwall so I didn't get to browse. We did take time to wallow in the Roman Baths (not literally in the waters, of course) but my husband knew better than to let me in through the doors of a bookshop when we had a drive back and had to return the hire car by a certain time. I did take a video of the front and a bit inside the ground floor but this is a photo from the Visit Bath site (the outside is almost as good as the inside):

I feel very pleased that we still have an independent book shop in the next town. I feel obliged to use it regularly. >;-)
They have a second shop which is a stationers, which is also a delight.

037 Blue Lard by Vladimir Sorokin (Translator Max Lawton)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The Russian master's most infamous novel, a dystopian fever dream about cloning, alternative histories, and world domination.

Vladimir Sorokin’s Blue Lard is the most iconic and iconoclastic Russian novel of the last forty years. Thanks in part to its depiction of Stalin and Khrushchev having sex, which inspired a Putinist youth group to throw shredded copies of the author’s books into an enormous toilet erected in front of Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater, Blue Lard is the novel that tore Sorokin out of the Moscow Conceptualist underground and into the headlines.

The book begins in a futuristic laboratory where genetic scientists speak in a Joycean dialect of Russian mixed with Chinese—peppered with ample neologisms—and work to clone famous Russian writers, who are then made to produce texts in the style of their forebears. The goal of this “script-process” is not the texts themselves, but the blue lard that collects in the small of their backs as they write.

This substance is to be used to power reactors on the moon—that is, until a sect of devout nationalists breaks in to steal the blue lard, planning to send it back in time to an alternate version of the Soviet Union, one that exists on the margins of a Europe conquered by a long-haired Hitler with the ability to shoot electricity from his hands. What will come of this blue lard? Who will finally make use of its mysterious powers?

Blue Lard is a stylistically acrobatic book, translated by Max Lawton into an English idiom just as bizarre as the Russian original. Evoking both Pulp Fiction and the masterpieces of Marquis de Sade, Sorokin’s novel is a brutal, heady trip that annihilates all of its twentieth- (and twenty-first-) century competition in the Russian canon—and that annihilates Russia itself in a resounding act of heavy-metal dissidence.

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

My Review: Unquestionably the weirdest NYRB book I have yet read...and the second-weirdest alternate history book I have read this century.

It requires serious effort to engage with the first third or so of the book, as you are in medias res without even the usual linguistic snowpoles showing you where the obstacles are. You are, as is so often the case in Life, in a strange place with strange people you do not know or even understand as they have conversations around you.

After that point, there is a shift in the linguistic register that brings us closer to normal conversational tones. Not normal-normal, mind you, though closer. (There is a partial Glossary at the end for the desperately confused.) Claude Simon’s nouveau roman novels, there is a difficult beginning that requires you to make an investment of concentration. We have left the normie-world of relatable plots, ordinary characters you could meet at the supermarket, sentences that start and finish in the same paragraph, and other such bourgeois fripperies. This is not a read that rewards being treated as a novel. This is writing that needs to be experienced and absorbed for itself not its meanings.

Sorokin, like so many truly inventive folk, is a natural iconoclast. At twenty-five, in 1980, he was baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, at that time still under Communist-Party suspicion. The nature of iconoclasm is always to resist, so in this era of Church/state rapprochement, he opposes Putin’s war against Ukraine. It is not as though his work work was ever popular with the regime, what with Hitler raping Stalin’s daughter, Stalin and Khruschev sexing it up (ewww!), and a variety of body-horror tropes, that Little Vladdy Pu-Pu just could not ever be on board with. This, among other not-socialist-realist flourishes, will mean no invite-to-dinner from the Kremlin. Now, being good little bourgeois decoders, we too like our novels to Mean Something, like socialist realist work...but that is not on offer here.

Sorokin does not Make Sense, he makes you think about how a story is more than just the beginning-middle-end structure we are ingrained to expect. He offers not one kind of Sense, but multiple ways to experience words and ideas forming into stories. This, and the transgressive nature of the words and ideas he does present us, makes a lot...A LOT...of people really, really angry. This being a feature of the Sorokin brand. I do not get the point of their outrage and negativity being performed. Giving the man the thing he tried to get from you? The point of that is...?

A read that demands effort, does it an awful lot of the time, and allows you to decide for yourself if it means anything at all.

Like Life itself, it makes you the Author’s apprentice. You can decide if that is your jam, but I am here to say that it is a read very much worth my time and effort and could be for you as well. Remember how mad it made the Russian overlord. Buy it to be ornery, to oppose the banning/forbidding/controlling ethos that increasingly envelops the information-delivery world.

I bet lots of y’all end up liking it.

>130 weird_O: It most decidedly is not. Unclicked. Evil wretch.

>131 cindydavid4: The Balkans are welcome to all the bagpipes there ever are. I shall not beparticipating in their appalling din, thanks all the same.

>132 SandDune: There is no book culture in Nassau County...there is a giant Buns and Nubile in Carle Place, about eight miles from here, but I have no car and not much interest in the Barnes & Noble chain’s stock. Luckily all this is lessened in impact because my hands do not do the hand thing too well anymore, and ebooks are all sold online.

The Waterstones in Bishop’s Stortford will see a lot of you when the youffs move there! I would love to see the Ely branch and see if it is as luscious as the Bath one!

Happy Wednesday, Richard. A major front passed through last night, causing severe storms, hail and tornado sightings, dropping our temps from the low 70s yesterday to a 30F high today. This weather is bonkers. Getting lots of Jackson time in. I think Sue is getting worn out. We are hoping our Aunt is healthy enough to start helping next week. That said, he is being a good boy. I have been busy this week and won't get in any proper birding until the weekend.

>133 humouress: Oh my heck...to be so close and yet not go in...well, can’t fault Rama on the know-thy-supervillainess front. If once the wallet walks in, the time vanishes in direct proportion to the cash. The outside is, in fact, a gorgeous as the inside! Did they photoshop in blue skies?

I will be very interested to see what-all your GBBO bake-along resulteth in, O Baking Supervillainess! The end-up swiss-roll struck me as very odd until I thought the challenge through...the filling has to be structurally sound, so no bland little creams will do, and buttercream can be overwhelming and greasy if it is not thought through carefully. Clever old home economists!

>139 msf59: WOW! What a change. Wednesday is not a hump day so much as a hillock day. The day here is dank, with moldy-grey skies like I knew there would be from my aches and pains. It is about 50 and mostly staying there...or April weather, worryingly enough. I really hope yall get a bit of help on the Jack front...everyone needs some rest, including all moms, right?

Enjoy the day!

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Wednesday to you.

>135 richardderus: I absolutely cannot get past the title. I am hanging my head down, shaking it, and giggling uncontrollably. Blue Lard. Nope. Explosive laugh. Just… And yes, sometimes I’m five.

*smooch*

>142 karenmarie: I expect that response would please Sorokin no end, Horrible. He does not take this stuff so seriously as most authors do...and this book is Absurd. But, honestly, just leave it...I think it would grate on your nerves.

>137 richardderus: point taken and understood. Its sure a ton of fun dancing to them tho!

Hi Richard, Happy New Thread dear friend.

>145 johnsimpson: Hi there John! Thank you for coming to visit.

>144 cindydavid4: *shudder*

knock yaself out

>147 richardderus: :)

>140 richardderus: Actually, no; the skies were just as blue on the day we visited Bath. And, of course, there are no high rises in the middle of the town.

I was a bit wary of filling the cake with buttercream so I went with a cream cheese/ double cream type thing and it's still holding well now that the cake is half eaten. Of course, it does have to sit in the fridge, which helps. And I added a bit of tanginess with lemon juice as well as a layer of lemon curd and a few berries.

>144 cindydavid4: I wonder if we could find a video of cats dancing to bagpipe music for Richard's delectation?...

038 Inside the Mirror by Parul Kapur

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Winner of the AWP Prize for the Novel
Ms. Magazine's Most Anticipated Feminist Books of 2024

In 1950s Bombay, Jaya Malhotra studies medicine at the direction of her father, a champion of women’s education who assumes the right to choose his daughters’ vocations. A talented painter drawn to the city’s dynamic new modern art movement, Jaya is driven by her desire to express both the pain and extraordinary force of life of a nation rising from the devastation of British rule. Her twin sister, Kamlesh, a passionate student of Bharata Natyam dance, complies with her father’s decision that she become a schoolteacher while secretly pursuing forbidden dreams of dancing onstage and in the movies.

When Jaya moves out of her family home to live with a woman mentor, she suffers grievous consequences as a rare woman in the men’s domain of art. Not only does her departure from home threaten her family’s standing and crush her reputation; Jaya loses a vital connection to Kamlesh.

Winner of the AWP Prize for the Novel, Parul Kapur’s Inside the Mirror is set in the aftermath of colonialism, as an impoverished India struggles to remake itself into a modern state. Jaya’s story encompasses art, history, political revolt, love, and women’s ambition to seize their own power.

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

My Review: A debut novel that won the right to come out from a very distinguished press (see the link to the prize details above), this read is treading a well-worn path in its use of twin sisters on opposite sides of the eternal struggle for freedom of self-definition. Resisting patriarchy, Jaya refuses to knuckle under to her father's will for her future. It is of course the case that she suffers personal and social consequences for her self-willed rebellion.

Her obedient sister Kamlesh suffers, too...but the issues she faces down count for less in the storyverse because they are those faced down by multitudes of women around the world. The main take-away for me was that the father's quite surprising resistance to the women's desire for autonomy came from a genuine concern for them and their future happiness, not from mustachio-twirling meanness. He did, after all, make a radical (for the time) choice to educate his daughters. It isn't a development completely out of the blue, though...their grandmother was an active anti-colonial force, and the old saying about apples and trees is an evergreen for a reason...and still they face intrafamilial resistance to their using their educations for themselves.

Author Kapur is a former travel writer, UN press officer, and a current resident of the US. Her travels and her extended residence in Mumbai have all honed her observational skills to a great degree, resulting in a read that feels more immersive than I ever expected it to feel. Evoking so vividly a place as alien to my privileged white US upbringing as the India of the 1950s is a great feat of craft. To do this as deftly and effortlessly as Author Kapur does is to feel myself in talented hands indeed.

The feminist agenda in the story is the best bit for me. I am all in on the role of patriarchy being limned in completely unflattering shades. It does not like gay men, possibly even more than it does not like women. We have a common enemy. As the possibly well-intentioned old man tries to squash his already-unusually educated daughters' desires for control over their own futures, I nodded along and even felt a lot of empathy for Kamlesh...I too knuckled under for the sake of harmony and found only dissatisfaction and a deep sense of injury.

So why am I so mingy with my stars? I admire the story, the storytelling voice, the character-building...sounds like a solid five, right? Nope. I rolled my eyes so hard I saw my brain at the fact that the women formed a love triangle with a man I can't even recall the name of. I was actively irked by the powerful, freedom-fighter grandmother's odd powerlessness in guiding the women to more, and better, uses of their minds with full family support.

It just didn't come across as well thought-out to me. So the inevitable first-novel longueurs are indeed present. The fact of them means I really can't give the last star. It is a read I recommend because it hits more sweet notes than clanging ones, and tells a very interesting, involving story well.

>150 richardderus: - This one sounds interesting. I'll keep my eye out for it.

(PS: the touchstone is wrong...)

>151 katiekrug: Thank you for letting me know! I fixed it.

I think you will like the read, Katie, though you would likely have to request the library to get it for you.

>149 humouress:, >148 cindydavid4: Y'all're evil. Pure-D unadulterated Evil. Bagpipes and...Them...
...
...
...well, that's my March nightmares sorted.

>149 humouress: Cream cheese frosting has the same structural qualities as a hefty buttercream, so it should work. Though I am hard-pressed to think of a reason NOT to want huge amounts of buttercream inside any cake....

>153 richardderus: You could be right about the buttercream. For some reason I decided on something different. Mind you, my buttercream is 1:1 butter and icing sugar, pretty much (to cope with the heat) and it is nicer whipped in the stand mix because then it’s nice and light.

I shall make a note for (the hypothetical) next time. For the record, I went for tanginess but both husband and number 1 son voiced their dissatisfaction with that line. 🤗

February in review is in >6 richardderus: above.

>153 richardderus: Now, see, I myownself would've voted for tang every time with most flavors of sponge. Fruit flavors, maybe not so much, but that would have to be case-by-case. 1:1 is exactly what a solid, structural buttercream needs to be, which is why I like jams/conserves in them. Though it is easier to use fruit extracts and powders from https://www.olivenation.com/ because they add no moisture.

>150 richardderus: You're right, that does sound like my cup of tea, except I get as annoyed with love triangles as you do with winking. Is it super central to the story or more of a subplot?

>157 bell7: I found it irritating enough to mention it, but it did not ruin my read. I would say it is a subplot with more heft than I would prefer it to have.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Thursday to you.

>143 richardderus: Honestly, pretty much everything’s grating on my nerves except MM romance. Although, I did read Amor Towles’ short story You Have Arrived At Your Destination. I don’t know how much speculative fiction he’s written, but I liked this short story a lot. And me reading short stories? Very Unusual.

>149 humouress: I wouldn’t abuse you-know-whats by making ‘em listen to air whistling through animal guts and a reed, but for Richard it’s a double whammy, of course.

>150 richardderus: You lost me at 1950s Bombay.

*smooch*

>159 karenmarie: I suspect that the you-know-what’s would be singing along.

>159 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. I do not think the suffering of...Them...is enough of an inducement to get me to listen to bagpipes being utilized. Close, very close indeed, but not *quite* enough.

You read a short story! Well, well, well...and even liked it! I am surprised and pleased.

>160 humouress: ...and I thought March’s nightmares were sorted already....

Hi Richard, how are ya?

>162 Owltherian: Good morning, Lily! I am COLD. The sun is out but the wind is howling, so it feels a lot colder than it is...even indoors.

>163 richardderus: Yeah, i feel a cold coming on and i couldn't sleep until 6:06am EST because of it and i had to wake up at 6:30am EST as well.

I come and go and mostly leave no echo. I'm leaving with BBs whizzing around this time though. I'll have to come back because titles will have escaped my tiny brain before I can hunt them down.

Hope you get to read in peace today, Richard! *smooch*

>161 richardderus: You underestimate me.

>164 Owltherian: Boo-hiss all over a cold. Feel better soon!

>165 LizzieD: *SMOOCHIESMOOCHSMOOCH*

>167 richardderus: I hope i do and oml i may have a pep rally soon and all they cause me is panicccc-

>166 humouress: *sigh* I forget sometimes how deep the supervillainy runs.

>169 Owltherian: A pep rally! Horrors. I hope they cut it short for some reason. Courage, Lily, the noise will not last forever as much as it feels like it should.

>171 richardderus: Its an entire 50 minutes of my day and I'm really not ready for that.

>172 Owltherian: That seems waaay too long to me. I would hate it, too.

>173 richardderus: yeah its from 2:00pm EST to 2:50pm EST

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!
Not much to say, just finished my last February book and working on my stats now.

>174 Owltherian: *gaaak*

>175 FAMeulstee: Thursday orisons, Anita! *smooch*

>176 richardderus: I will literally have a panic attack- even if I'm wearing my headphones

100+ posts behind again, RD, so I am not even going to try and catch up

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today

>178 Owltherian: Try not to let the idea of stress make you feel more stressed.

>179 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! *smooch*

>180 richardderus: Yeah- maybe that will help but i always have one at them.

You're slipping, Richard. Nothing remotely resembling a book bullet from you recently. ;-)

Have a great day/week/month.

>183 ArlieS: Time for literary seppuku, then.

Farewell.

>184 richardderus: That's excessive!

>182 Owltherian: The best thing you can do is just not go to them, then. Allowing you not to have an anxiety attack ought to be doable for the staff...have you asked them for an exemption?

>185 ArlieS: My Honor is on the line. Nothing can be excessive in safeguarding my Honor.

>186 richardderus: No, not yet but one of the teachers said if i get overstimulated i could go take a break from all the noise

‘Morning, RD. Happy Friday to you.

>183 ArlieS: and >184 richardderus: Guffaw.

*smooch*

Morning, Richard. Welcome March! I am spending some time with Jack today and then books in the PM. We are also warming back up, which is always a joyful thing.

Happy Friday & hello to March.

>188 Owltherian: Good! Remember to ask for permission to avoid them altogether in preparing for the next one.

>192 richardderus: yeah, the pep rally is getting closer by the minute

>189 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible, happy Friday. I hope it is as gorgeously sunny and nice there as it is here! *smooch*

>190 msf59: Morning, Birddude. I know you are looking forward to your Jack time. Have a lovely day with him!

>191 Helenliz: March! It scares me how quickly the year is flying by. Hope it is a beautiful one there, Helen.

>193 Owltherian: *gaak* Headphones ho!

>197 richardderus: I forgot to charge themmmmm- they ded nowww :(

>198 Owltherian: Good way to ingrain the habit of charging them...too bad it had to be so painful.

>199 richardderus: I usually do charge them but i forgot before i went to bed

>200 Owltherian: Habits are always in need of reinforcement...here is a solid reinforcement of a good habit.

>201 richardderus: Guess so, i didnt really sleep the night before though

>202 Owltherian: That is the glory of habits, Lily. They just *happen* without you having to plan for them and mostly occur without the need to worry about them.

yeah, it sucks though

>204 Owltherian: It does. Handing yourself a lesson in what to do better next time ALWAYS does.

yep, so i will make sure they are plugged in every night for now on

>206 Owltherian: Great habit to form, given how much they contribute to your quality of life, Lily.

They always help me most of the time- especially when i have to deal with annoying people

Even this might not help today.

>209 richardderus: I'd go with this instead.

>210 humouress: ...except, of course, the TERF wench who owns those copyrights gets richer if I do...and no support from me for her transphobic BS.

Hiya, RD! Happy Saturday.

>194 richardderus: It was overcast and drizzly. Today it’s just overcast.

>211 richardderus: It wouldn’t be a day without having to use duckduckgo after visiting over here. I know what a TERF is, just not the acronym for one.

*smooch*

>211 richardderus: Hokay then, something stronger. Though this particular one is apparently a best approximation of the one from Universal Studios, who have not released their secret recipe.

Take your pick:

>212 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! Happy seeing you here. Also glad you are now au fait with the awfulness that is TERFdom. Saddens me that such hatefulness is now the lady's brand.

It's raining and around 40° here...yucky. Old Stuff fell on a low brick wall while drunk yesterday and refused to go to the hospital...spent the whole night in agony...wanted to go to the hospital when no one was here to assess him in the middle of the night...and just now, finally, got carted off. Systems and procedures, you know. *sigh*

Hiya Richard!

>213 humouress: *shudder*

If alcohol, whisky or wine. No colorful sugary slop for moi!

>215 Owltherian: Morning, Lily. Enjoy the weekend because it literally can not have pep rallies.

>217 richardderus: i will, and the pep rally was a lot quieter than they were last year when i was in middle school- except for when we had to yell the year we were graduating

>216 richardderus: *sigh* There's just no pleasing you. You're a real bundle of joy today.

>214 richardderus: Ah, this explains it.

>218 Owltherian: As noisy nonsense goes that is fairly minor. Thank goodness.

>219 humouress: Annoying day. *grrr*

>220 richardderus: Yeah, but i cried the same day due to news my grandmother gave me

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Sunday.

>214 richardderus: Yikes. Made your night awful, for sure. I hope you got some private time in your not private room yesterday before he was returned.

*smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. It was a guy's day yesterday. Bree, Sue and Jack went to some outdoor event- Sean and I and another friend went out for lunch, then came back to Sean's, sat in the back yard and enjoyed some bourbon pours and a very fine cigar. The weather was perfect.

I hope you get some sunshine today.

Remember this:

Well, it comes in a $22 tee-shirt version here:
https://viralstyle.com/errami/read-fast-die-old-leave-a-maddening-laby

>223 karenmarie: Sunday orisons, Horrible. Sleep-deprived today. You can guess why. *grumble*

It frustrates me because I want to finish this review, and I can't brain today, I haz the dumm.

>224 msf59: I'm glad you enjoyed your lad's day, Mark, since it means you got to use the weirdly pleasant weather. It is sunny as all get-out today, so that is nice after the soaking rain.

>1 richardderus: Yup, me too RD.

>66 richardderus: Think you got me with this one.

Happy Sunday, Richard. We’re getting a bit of a welcome warm-up here, into the 60s F.

Babel continues to be mighty good. I’m also reading my first Claire Keegan, Foster. I can see why she’s well-regarded by Anne (Narratorlady).

Hope all is going well for you.

>228 Caroline_McElwee: I hope you enjoy >66 richardderus: if you can source it in the UK, Caro. It was a pleasant read. Sunday orisons.

>229 jnwelch: Hi Joe...Old Stuff damaged himself in his most recent drunk, so he has been extra trying and sleep is not as plentiful as I prefer. Kuang is one helluva writer, indeed! Glad she meets with your approval, too.

I bounced off Keegan for some reason. No idea why. It seems like the kind of stuff I would enjoy but somehow....

“Thirty percent of Americans claim, despite all evidence to the ­contrary, that the last presidential elections were “rigged”. Millions are sure that the “deep state” is plotting to import immigrants to vote against “real ­Americans” in the future. Meanwhile in Russia, the majority of people claim that the Kremlin is the innocent party in its brutal invasion of Ukraine. When Ukrainians call their relatives in Russia to tell them about the atrocities, all too often they hear their own kin parrot the Kremlin’s propaganda lines: the atrocities are faked, or false flags, or necessary in order to impose Russia’s greatness.

Across the world we see the growth of propaganda that promotes an alternative reality where black is white and white is black, and where truth is cast away in favour of a sense of superiority and ever more murderous paranoia.”
Please go read the rest of this review of How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/02/the-man-who-tricked-nazi-germany-l...

>233 richardderus: that was an interesting read, RD.
Hope Sunday improves from its beginnings.

>234 Helenliz: THanks, Helen, I solved the immediate issue once I realized that it was easy. Still issues I can not resolve, but one down....

Good article indeed, and I want to give this book to lots of journalists.

>209 richardderus: I need one of those.

Do you also have a shirt with "I cannot adult today" on it? Mine's been worn so much that the text has faded to near unreadability.

>214 richardderus: *sigh* The poor bastard reminds me too much of my late mother.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Monday to you.

>225 richardderus: I’ve just stolen this, properly crediting you of course, for my thread headers. I love it. I've also sent the link to friend Karen in Montana, who has even more books than I do, but fewer than Paul.

>226 richardderus: Sorry you had the dumm yesterday. I hope your brain is online today.

*smooch*

>237 ArlieS: That is a great saying on the mug, agreed.

I do not have the said shirt, but most likely should given my tired aversion to adulting these days.

>238 ArlieS: Depressing, is it not. Entirely self-inflicted, entirely preventable. I do not like being the one who does the looking-after. He is not my friend or anything close, but he is a human being and I can not ignore his legit needs.

>239 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. *smooch*

The dumm is still vom kopf. Hard time sleeping, unusually for me. You and Montana should each get one of those shirts! They suit you both...and Le Cranswick is the poster-boy for them.

>239 karenmarie: Do we know anyone with as many books as Paul?

>243 humouress: Did Bluetyson retire from LT? I believe he has Le Cranswick beat on total book-census, but he is a lot older.

((Hugs))) and **smooches** and hopes that you have a wonderful week, RD. Mine is going to be a noisy one - the foundation work started this morning.

>245 alcottacre: Yay for the work being done! boohiss on the noise, but the house needs the foundation, so....

*smooch*

I just have to vent. I got back from Kansas to Alabackwards and went to the public library to return some books. I was shocked to find a notice on the door that the library is now closed on Monday. (It is also closed on Sunday) That is just ridiculous for Tuscaloosa. This city has 160,000 people living in it and a big state university with an enrollment of 35,000. What is wrong with these people?

Of course, I should have expected this. The city cut the library budget at the same time that they are trying to build the Saban Center. The Saban Center is partially funded by that glutinous, now retired, (thank god) football coach, but the city still has to find 10 million dollars. The Saban Center is going to have a Children's Museum and an entertainment/convention center in it. Why can't they just have a fully funded library?

Even my small town in Kansas has a library that is open 6 days a week.

Happy Monday *smooches* and hope your week is full of good reads.

You have a very belated package coming your way, it's been in progress for weeks and I finally made my way down to the post office today.

>247 benitastrnad: Those who read are dangerous. Make it ever-harder for them to dent their ignorance, make sure it has a plausible fig-leaf to distract the stupids, and keep the lid on smart people by giving them lots to resist and react to.

Appalling, because it works.

>248 bell7: Hey there, Mary. I will let you know when your most unchristian incitement to lust and avarice arrives.

*smooch*

>247 benitastrnad: That is very sad. When I moved from Tennessee to Ohio (and then back to a different part of Tennessee), I noticed the difference in funding levels for libraries. Ohio, at least when I last moved away from there, had much better funding. I am thankful that the library here in Morristown seems to be better funded than in many of the cities in the state, but I do supplement my Hamblen County card with one I pay for out of Knox County. That helps me with the electronic and audio collections at least. I have driven to Knoxville to check out a book a time or two, but I try not to do that unless I have to do so.

>247 benitastrnad: Sorry to hear about the library closure on Monday. It is interesting as the bigger city where I live, all the public libraries are closed on Monday's and the university libraries are open. However, the small town 20 min away is open 7 days a week. Go figure!

Increase to library budgets are small compared to other organizations requests for funding. Libraries serve as multipurpose community spaces and are essential.

Anyhow, I hope you have a great week ahead, Richard * smooch*

>225 richardderus: That's the plan, Richard!

Hiya Richard

Happy Thursday Tuesday, Richard dear!

>244 richardderus: BlueTysonSS looks to be still around with 23,586 books, at #106 of largest LT libraries in Zeitgeist (some large libraries contain mainly wishlists, so the list of largest LT libraries is debatable).
Paul resides on #316 with his 14,980 books.
And I just fell out of the top 2,000 last year.

Hey, RD. I am battling a bit of a cold, so I have been laying low with the books. Storms rolled though here last night, cooling things off, so I have no problem hanging indoors with Juno.

>225 richardderus: >232 richardderus: I love both of these.

>233 richardderus: Wow! Shudders...

>247 benitastrnad: Fortunately our library is open 7 days a week. Another plus of being in a Blue state.

‘Morning, RD!

>242 richardderus: Sorry about the problems sleeping and dumm. Yes, Paul is the poster boy for that shirt.

>243 humouress: I can’t think anybody in the 75ers offhand. I only keep books in my catalog that are on my shelves or that are ER books that I got rid of but had/have to keep so the reviews stay there. I think Paul also only keeps books in his catalog that he owns, but I’m not 100% sure.

>247 benitastrnad: Sorry, Benita. Cutting funding for libraries is so shortsighted. Our little town’s library is open 6 days a week, although they started cutting back weeknight evening hours in recent years. Population 4,537. County population 76K.

>255 FAMeulstee: Just went to Zeitgeist, Anita. At 5680 books I’m #2424. 19 of those are ER books not owned.

*smooch*

039 The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters by Laura Thompson

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The contrasting lives of the Mitford sisters—stylish, scandalous and tragic by turns—hold up a mirror to upper-class life before and after the Second World War.

The eldest was a razor-sharp novelist of upper-class manners; the second was loved by John Betjeman; the third was a fascist who married Oswald Mosley; the fourth idolized Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain declared war on Germany; the fifth was a member of the American Communist Party; the sixth became Duchess of Devonshire.

They were the Mitford sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah. Born into country-house privilege, they became prominent as ‘bright young things’ in the high society of interwar London. Then, as the shadows crept over 1930s Europe, the stark—and very public—differences in their outlooks came to symbolise the political polarities of a dangerous decade.

The intertwined stories of their lives—recounted in masterly fashion by Laura Thompson—hold up a revelatory mirror to upper-class English life before and after World War II.

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

My Review: I have read The American Way of Death. I have read Love in a Cold Climate. That these books were written by sisters never fails to astonish me. If you have not yet, read them to see just how little two sisters can share...the folks in Nancy’s novels own the corporations that rip off the bereaved in Jessica’s book.

The gossipy goodness of a big family that has oodles of money and wildly talented members is a cultural icon these days, thanks to Succession and its imitators...but honestly, what kind of world would we live in if we couldn’t look at the source material with a more compassionate eye? The Mitford sisters were not villainesses. They disagreed on a lot of things...but won’t any six people when examined as closely as their fame enabled the Mitfords to be? Nancy, the eldest, was not overtly political, yet spent her life among the people she grew up among, the wealthiest in the world. That did not prevent her from shopping Diana and her repugnant fascist husband Oswald Mosley to the Intelligence services during WWII. She might have been rich and upper class, but she had limits that could not be transgressed, including treasonous actions against the UK that the fascists led by her brother-in-law were planning. That did not extend to Decca, Jessica’s family nickname, and her leftist principles...despite Jessica being so committed to those principles that she allowed her own child to die rather than accept help from her family.

So, clearly, this is a juicy, gossipy read. Does that make it a worthwhile one? We are, as of this writing, in a time of wealth inequality as stark as the one in the Mitford sisters’ lives. The natural consequence of battle-lines being drawn is depersonalizing the Other Side, attributing inhuman levels of focus to Them, all against what Our Side...clearly the side of God and the Angels, self-evidently Right in all ways and destined to prevail over Them...thus excusing ourselves in advance from the annoying burden of empathy with people we disagree with.

What Author Thompson does in this book is give us the gory details of rich people’s lives, while bringing our attention to the immutable nature of Family in forming its members...would Nancy, the eldest, ever have been able to turn into the radical that late-in-order rebel Jessica, or middle-child Diana, did? Likely not. Her world, Thompson shows, is that much different from theirs. Like any big family, the Mitfords were a very mixed bag of people formed by the pressure cooker of differing expectations and opportunities into very, very different people. What looks from the outside like a bloc of wealth and privilege is, from a closer view, a forest of unique trees.

This is a useful reminder now, when we look at the Othering that is so prevalent in modern society. They are not Them, they are all part of Us. We are, in fact, always an Us, just like the Mitfords were.

>230 richardderus: It landed today RD. Will get to it this month.

>251 thornton37814: It is infuriating to me because its fig-leaf of its-too-costly is such a bad cover for we do not want Them to have access to knowledge.

>252 figsfromthistle: I hope so, too, Anita, thanks! *smooch* for a solid one for us all

>253 Familyhistorian: Indeed! I am well on my way to achieving it.

>254 Owltherian: Hi Lily!

>255 FAMeulstee: I guess the list will always be dynamic...we do not have to follow some restrictive Rule about much of anything, thank goodness, so what counts as a library should not be any different. *smooch*

>263 richardderus: How are you on this very drab and cloudy Tuesday afternoon?

>256 msf59: The information in >233 richardderus: is *chilling* and it is not new. That makes it all the more chilling, at least to me.

Feel better soon!

>257 karenmarie: Hi there Horrible...glad you are feeling good enough to be out and about. Your county library system is a rarity in the red states. That is the good, and the bad, news....

Feel better and better! I am still a bit tired from Old Stuff being actually infirm, thus interrupting my sleep. The doc will be here Thursday, and I will take him up to see the guy by the hand if I must!

>259 Caroline_McElwee: Yay! I am so pleased for you!

I'm as curious as can be, so I checked that Zeitgeist. I'm a solid #2413 in the shelved-books ranking. Yeehaaaa.

>269 weird_O: Iiiiiinteresting, Your Weirdness. I assumed you would be higher up than that given the concupiscence stirred within me by your shelves. Still, it’s an extraordinarily good census by anyone’s standards.

>258 richardderus: Is this a new book because it sounds like one I read some years ago, including the title. I've read a bit about the Mitfords and find them fascinating. How can they come from the same parents/household?!?

>271 RebaRelishesReading: No indeed, it is not new...from 2016 IIRC. It suits the current political climate rather well, so today was its turn in my limelight! *smooch*

Driveby *smooch*!!

>265 Owltherian: Distracted, it seems, since I never answered you!

>273 Berly: Hiya Berly-boo! *smooch*

>258 richardderus: looks good. They are such a fascinating family.
>271 RebaRelishesReading: I've got The Mitford Girls on the shelf having read it a while ago.
I've also got Debo's memoir, Wait for me, which I've not yet got to.

I just realised I wished you the wrong happy day yesterday, Richard dear.
In >255 FAMeulstee: out of habit Tuesday became a Thursday ;-)

So now I'll wish you a happy Wednesday, and will correct my mistake.

>274 richardderus: Heh, its totally fine, and i honestly could have gotten completely soaked with the amount of rain we got, and its going to rain more today as well.

>257 karenmarie: It was a kind of rhetorical question but now >255 FAMeulstee: Anita et al have sent me down a rabbit hole (the more so because I have to work out where to look). Come and find me if I don't return ...

>276 Helenliz: I, being who I am, liked Decca's memoir Hons and Rebels the best.

>277 FAMeulstee: Mixing up a day is a very small sin, Anita, and pretty much invisible to me...I live the kind of life where days of the week are tags of convenience when relating to the outside world. *smooch*

>278 Owltherian: Stay dry!

>279 humouress: You'll be fine, no labyrinth can contain you.

‘Morning, Rdear!

>258 richardderus: I love checking out my catalog to see if I have books or authors mentioned since I can't keep track any more, and it turns out that I have Madame de Pompadour by Nancy Mitford on my shelves, tbr.

>267 richardderus: My state is, unfortunately, red, but my county is purple. Sorry OS is still recovering from his drunken fall, sorry that you have to deal with him at all.

*smooch*

040 A Short History of Flowers: The Stories that Make Our Gardens by Advolly Richmond

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Garden and social historian Advolly Richmond (of Gardener’s World) unravels the surprising histories of 60 flowers that shape our gardens.

Have you ever wondered where your favourite garden flowers came from? Where their names derived? Or why some cultivars go in and out of favor? Every flower in your herbaceous border has a story, and in this book Advolly Richmond takes you on a tour of the most intriguing, surprising and enriching ones.

Tales of exploration, everlasting love and bravery bring these beautiful flowers to life. Advolly has dug down to uncover the royalty, scholars, pioneers and a smuggler or two that have all played a part in discovering and cultivating some of our favourite species. From the lavish and exotic bougainvillea, found by an 18th century female botanist in disguise to the humble but majestic snowdrop casting a spell and causing a frenzy. These plants have played pivotal roles in our societies, from boom to bust economies, promises of riches, and making fashion statements. These unassuming blooms hold treasure troves of stories.

With specially commissioned artworks from award-winning botanical illustrator Sarah Jane Humphrey, which sumptuously bring each flower to life – this is a beautiful compendium for every garden lover.

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

My Review: I needed something uncomplicatedly pretty. I expect y’all do, too.



There. Springtime sorted.

Of course, this being Reality, there are no uncomplicated pleasures. The stories of how your favorite flowers got to your garden is tied up with colonialism, capitalism, and the endless intertwining of greed and ownership between them.

Advolly Richmond does a far more deft job of making the connections than I have. She had a lot more room than I did:

This table of contents is like a really good garden’s plan, expansive and filled with beautiful sights. Richmond’s expertise is writing about the domesticated plants we adorn our built environment with, aka gardening. She has practiced the craft long enough to have honed her execution of it into art.

The fact that I myownself find the flower-gardening madness that so many of y’all suffer from inexplicable, and the money y’all lavish on it borderline obscene, does not mean I do not see and appreciate the beauty of the plants themselves.

I still think that the water, fertilizer, and hours of labor *should* be spent on growing vegetables.

>282 richardderus: i tried

>285 richardderus: Luscious!

>284 karenmarie: Have a lurvely Wednesday, Horrible.

NC is a test case in what I want to expunge from the Body Politic, with its cruelty, disenfranchisement, and religiosity. The People have spoken, though, and want it the way it is. Which is why I live where I do.

>286 Owltherian: Dry off soon, then.

>289 richardderus: I am somewhat dry now, but after 2:50 i will have to go back into it sadly

>287 humouress: Sumptuously illustrated for sure and certain.

>290 Owltherian: Raincoat, rainhat, and running then.

>292 richardderus: Yep, i will make sure to wait inside until my mother is at my school, so all i have to do is run to her car

>293 Owltherian: A good plan indeed, Lily.

>294 richardderus: Yeah, although tomororow if i have my book club then i will have to sprint to my fathers car, which he usually parks somewhere different.

>285 richardderus: I love the flowers, loathe and despise the work, but thank you for the illustrations, Richard!

>258 richardderus: That's one I don't have and don't need, being enamored of all things Mitford and having an unread shelf, but will likely get at some point.

Hi, Richard! I'm late for rousting my mama, but I've been days and 100 posts behind in speaking here. It's a grade A gray day here, so I hope we've traded again and you have sunshine and gentle breezes. *smooch* *smooch* *smooch*

>295 Owltherian: A plan is a good thing to have.

>296 LizzieD: Hi there! I am sad to report that the grey drizzly grossness is here, too. *eccchhh* I need to go out but I cannot force myself to do this when it is so unpleasant. I am staying inside and reading something new and exciting...as soon as I decide what it will be.

I will be making a new thread later. The speed of Life and the speed of light are converging most unsettlingly.

*smooch*

>297 richardderus: Yep, and i have to do english now :( i am kind of failing her class-

>299 Owltherian: Do your absolute best to attend the classes you are sitting in...it really matters to learn that habit early in life. Not that you always will, or even can, but get in the habit of making that your deliberate intention every classtime.

>300 richardderus: I now have to completely restart a project in history- greattttttt

>301 Owltherian: chin up! you did it once, doing it differently will be less difficult than for the first time.

>302 richardderus: Now people have just deleted things i fixed spelling in! I'm never going to get this finished!

Next thread is https://www.librarything.com/topic/359074

>285 richardderus: Looks like one I’d love to read as I’m of the mostly veggies but some flowers persuasion. My favorites tend to be useful flowers (marigolds, nasturtiums, bee balm), but I love lilacs and roses. Once all my troublesome joints are replaced and I become the Bionic Old Lady, I hope to get back to gardening. Until then, botanical gardens are the way to go.

Now to scoot on over to your new thread and see what’s popping.

>305 Storeetllr: That is a good order of operations, Mary...read, suffer, act. *smooch*