richardderus's fourteenth 2024 thread

Mark Rothko, Light, Earth and Blue (1954)

Relief from summer.

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.
Reviews 034 through 040 are linked here.
Reviews 041 to 045 are linked here.
Reviews 046 unto 050 are linked here.
Reviews 051 to 059 are linked there.
Reviews 060 up to 064 are linked here.
Reviews 65 up to 78 are linked there.
Reviews 79 through 87 are linked there.
Reviews 088 to 109 are linked there.
Reviews 110 to 112 re linked here.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS

113 Prevailing Wind on post #189.
114 Bright Objects in post #219.
115 Someone Like Us in post #254.
116 Of Saints and Miracles in post #268.
117 Bird Cottage in post #288.

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:

BURGOINE #032 Navola in post #192.
BURGOINE #033 Shades of Mercy (Porter Beck #2) in post #195.
BURGOINE #034 No Road Home in post #197.
BURGOINE #035 Boystown Heartbreakers in post #205.
BURGOINE #036 in post #

All previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:

#015 This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder (@ 38%) in post #206.
#016 The Poverty of Growth (@47%) in post #207.
#017 in post #

Seriously...not a great venue for normies here.
My 2023 goals are here, for reference.
2024 GOALS
If I reviewed 222 books in 2023, why not go for at least 250 in 2024?

So I will.

All but 36 of 2023's reviews were from NetGalley and Edelweiss+, the DRC aggregators I use to get my biblioholism fixes. That's 16% of the total actually read and reviewed. In 2024, I think that percentage is just fine to maintain, so I'll settle on 41 reads not from those two sources as my soft goal...I don't much care if I hit it exactly, but I do need to leave room to read and review books I've been gifted over the years!

2023's #Booksgiving review blast resulted in my blog views for the month being 177% of November's total. So that worked. I only used Twitter for all of November, then for #Booksgiving, added Bluesky and Tumblr. That worked, too. The sadness of my #PrideMonth limp, flaccid performanceless unblast made me realize that, if I'm going to get a big project done, I need to break it down into steps. This is new for me, and a result of the actual limitations that the strokes have imposed on me. Like no longer being able to read handwriting or decode graphics like Wordle, this acquired dyslexia is a limitation I need to acknowledge. Not to say I won't keep pushing against it...but it's real, and planning needs to be based in reality.
***
End of Q1 thoughts on goals
I've had to drop Tumblr from my review-posting because the owner/president/head jerkoff posted transphobic maunderings, then the trans employees said "y'all CTFD he didn't mean it" which well totally relate to needing the gig, but no. THEN announced Tumblr would sell to AI scrapers everything users have posted there...so that, plus their porn ban, means they get axed from me creating anything there, posting or boosting things there. And they don't care, or notice, but I get to keep my own moral high ground.

I don't see, or feel, any reason to adjust any of my annual goals. I've posted 51 blog posts in 2024, or on track for 200 annual posts; but that does not account for the heavy months of June and #Booksgiving to come, and there are already eleven reviews banked for those two.

End of Q2 thoughts on goals
#PrideMonth ended the quarter better than I'd feared, an average of 287 page views a day on the blog. Twitter did me proud all quarter long representing 68% of referred traffic. My annual goal of 250 blogged reviews is still well within reach. The current 117 is down to June's big push of 27 posts, 26 of them single-title reviews. I've learned that the way to get more eyeballs on a review is to post one at a time even if they're short, and save the gang reviews for the end of the month. Adding up unique views on separate posts on the same day of the week versus ganged reviews showed me 151% more views were made than for the individuals. Message received.

There were a lot of surprises this quarter. I just loved Jonathan Corcoran's memoir, No Son of Mine: A Memoir, which was a relief since I really loved The Rope Swing: Stories and would've hated to say lukewarm things about this one. A disappointing surprise was The Ministry of Time, which sold me on one idea and delivered another that I didn't like nearly so well. A happy surprise was Saint Elspeth, new to me author, found via my BookTuber bud Bryce. Its minor flaws in copyediting did not ruin it for me compare to its reasonably hopeful take on postapocalypse US society.

A book of poems that I decline to name and a free Atwood story were, as expected, unloved. I'm more than ever aware that I have fewer and fewer eyeblinks ahead, so I need to get better at putting down thoughts on Pearl-Ruled books to give myself a sense of completion. I get niggly little guiltfish in my brain if I just drop a book with no resolution by review. I'm reinforced in my certainty that posting reviews is a lot easier if I make a few notes after I finish a read, then come back to make that a review when its day comes to be posted. Since I average five or six books on the go at one time, waiting until I finish a book then writing its review THAT MINUTE is daunting, so often doesn't get done. My blog's "scheduled" page is scary, full of bits and snips and stuff I really, really hope I don't die before I can clean up or delete. Otherwise there'll be months of nasty mean ugly-spirited whinges popping up at seemingly random moments into 2025.

On to Q3 in good spirits, eagerly awaiting #WITMonth in August! (Women In Translation Month, an annual event dreamed up by a woman (!) who was fed up with translators not getting any luuuv.)

See >5 richardderus: for 2023 achievements & 2024 goals.
My January 2024 summary is here.
My February 2024 summary is here.
My March 2024 summary is here.
My April 2024 summary is here.
My mid-May 2024 #PrideMonth launch notice is here.
My May 2024 summary is here.
My June 2024 summary is here.
My July 2024 summary is here.
My #August is #WITMonth launch post is here.

It's your turn!

Happy New Thread, Richard!

Happy new one!

>8 vancouverdeb: Thank you most kindly, Thread Queen!

>9 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita! *smooch*

Happy new one, Richard. Stay cool and stay dry!

>12 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley, I'm doing everything technologically possible to achieve exactly that aim.

Bad influence checking in. Happy new thread Richard!

Happy New Thread! *smooch*

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Wednesday and happy new thread.

*smooch*

Happy new thread Richard.
I seem to have entirely missed 13, so I'm making sure I make an appearance in 14!

>14 humouress: Hi Nina!
holy mother of all terrors she's here

>15 ronincats: Hiya Roni! *smooch*

>16 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible...happy weekday and thanks for the thread wishes...I hope the day treats you well.

Richard, I think you must get up early --- nope, not really! Anyway, I wish you joyous reading and reviewing to take your mind off all the nastiness abounding. May it be like a plunge into the Blue in your topper.
*smooch*

>17 Helenliz: Hi Helen, welcome to fourteen! Thirteen was largely political. Maybe you can enjoy this more bookish one more?

>21 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy, I'm glad you saw the leap into the blue as a positive the way I did. It's one of those color-field paintings he seems to have made by the truckload...they speak to me because of that leap I experience in seeing them.

Good morning and happy new thread, Richard.

Happy new thread from sweltering Nyack. (It’s not the heat. It’s the humidity. My basement apartment smells like a mildewy summer house at the lake when it first gets opened up for the season, even with the A/C on nonstop and a window open and fans going 24/7.) Hope the sea breezes are keeping you cool.

>18 richardderus: I wouldn't say that my guys are all the terrors that there are, but we do our best.

Happy new thread, Richard!

Karen O

>24 RebaRelishesReading: Morning, Reba, and thank you!

>25 Storeetllr: *ew* on the musty odour. I'm a/c'd within an inch of my life so it's bearable...so far.

>26 humouress: "Best" in this case might need careful interpretation. Just sayin'

>27 klobrien2: Hi Karen O.! Happy to see you here!

The weather here in Kansas has made a turn. I actually opened the doors this morning and in COOL air. They didn't stay open long, but it was in the low 70's this morning. What a relief!

I have been busy since getting here. One job was cleaning the meat out of the freezer in the garage. The poor machine couldn't cope with the hot box it was housed in and the stuff in the freezer was not frozen. Since I wasn't here to use the freezer I don't know how long the stuff had been thawed so didn't salvage anything. It all went out.

My sister and I have been in the process of "gifting" things to people and now we will be sending lots of used clothing to the local Retirement Home. It is the place where my mother spent most of the last year of her life. The social services director told me that they have lots of residents who come with no money and so anything we send will be appreciated. She said socks and shoes could be included as residents need those things too. I am about to head out of the door to see about taking some things to the vintage clothing store in the area.

Another new thread, Richard? You're a posting machine, though some credit must also go to your posse, including me.

Happy new one, RD!

>32 benitastrnad: Cool air! Yay! I speak from experience when I say your gifts of practical needs will make a huge difference.

I'm really glad to know you decided to chuck everything not-quite-frozen. A risk just not worth the taking! Best to be safe.

>33 ArlieS: Folks do show up on the regular, so I expect the speed to stay steady. Coming and going is always fine with me...no one's taking attendance, as I say so often.

>34 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie!

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Happy New Thread. Eerie topper.

>38 msf59: Thanks, Mark!

Eerie? That's very interesting, and proof that Rothko was absolutely right in saying he made these artworks to give people an emotional experience. I'm soothed and relieved by it, so "eerie" wasn't a word I even thought of!

Happy new one, Richard!

>40 drneutron: Thank you most kindly, Doc!

Happy new thread, Richard!

>42 bell7: Thanks, Mary!

>36 richardderus: So now your thread is populated again and we’re getting the credit we deserve for turning up here? ;0)

Happy new thread, Richard!

>44 humouress: Nonsense! There's a loud whistling wind through here because no one bothers to come visit me...I might as well be invisible. ::chinwobble::

>45 atozgrl: Hi Irene! Happy to see you here.

Salutations on your 14th thread dear fellow.

>48 PaulCranswick: Hi PC! I was just at yours hailing you as Paul the Eighteenth!

>49 richardderus: RDXIV has a certain elan, I suppose!

Happy new thread, Richard!

>10 richardderus: That is one gorgeous crown, RD! I couldn't have picked one I liked more than the one you chose. I have a thing for the British Royal Family, and looks similar to what they wear. The diamonds are dazzling!

The Rothko suggests to me an old-fashioned window-shade partly drawn on the deep blue darkness outside. Stunning.

Deborah's crown makes me sigh. If I ever win one, I'd be pleased with a tiara............ *sigh*

Interesting, Linda. I tried a look with your eyes, and I see what you mean.

Good Morning, Richard! We are finally ready to walk!!!

>50 PaulCranswick: Surely you meant to type "éclat", PC: Brilliancy of success or effort; splendor; brilliant show; striking effect; glory; renown.

>51 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg!

>52 vancouverdeb: I'm fairly sure that's Queen Alexandra's crown, Deborah. Your royal spidey-senses are really solid!

>53 laytonwoman3rd: That's a very good image to explain that painting's effect on me! Clearly we have similar ideas about his work.

>54 LizzieD: Tiaras I got. Loads of 'em. Just gotta be in the right place at the right time, Peggy! *smooch*

"...the progressive culture-makers who were originally smitten by the story of Vance’s authentic hard knock life as well as his speedy ascent into the overclass, are as responsible for Vance’s mythos as Peter Thiel and the Republican Party. In this way, Vance is our monster.

Welcome to the Art of the Deal of the Hillbilly.

Trump for much of his career was alternately mocked, admired and amplified by New York’s liberal media. Like Vance, he also peddled what I think of as crappy prosperity populism. (Perhaps all prosperity populism is crappy?) Crappy prosperity populism is the claim that all success is due to individual gifts and efforts, and anyone who tries hard can make it. It’s also the faith that this achievement is best measured in both dollars and entrance into the highest reaches of society." The rest is here:
https://lithub.com/jd-vance-is-the-toxic-byproduct-of-americas-obsession-with-bo...

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Thursday.

>46 richardderus: You’re incorrigible. Fourteenth thread and you’ve got the chin wobble going for sympathy?

*smooch*

>61 karenmarie: ...but...but Horrible! How ever will I best PC in the "Most Active Thread In Christendom" contest when yours is only the sixty-first post on a thread more than twenty-four hours old?

*smooch*

>60 richardderus: It's very easy for a young person who's managed to raise their class status to believe that anyone could do it. They've been busy working on pursuing their ambitions, not on observing peers who tried as hard but didn't make it. They often see their own efforts - which may be considerable - and not the luck that also contributed.

I say this from personal experience.

As a very young child, family myth has it that we were eligible for welfare, but too proud to accept it. From my own memories, I know that we received a Christmas basket from some church or the other; that my mother celebrated my laid-off father's recall to work at the grocery store, buying such luxuries as butter and table cream. I know there was a lot of powdered milk, not to mention the cheapest possible meat - and that somewhat less frequently than Americans consider normal. I also remember the second time I ended up in foster care.

In spite of their poverty, my parents had some good things going for them. They were intellectually oriented - children were read to, education was valued, vocabularies were large, and educational achievement was praised. Mom somehow got me a couple of scholarships giving me better schooling than I'd have found in public schools.

The result of all this, plus innate talent, was Harvard at 15, and a first job that paid about the same as my father was earning by then - and by that time he had lots of seniority in his union, raising the family from poor to successful unionized working class. By luck - not that I saw it that way at the time - I happened to have a perfect set of talents for software engineering. So I got into software engineering near the very beginning of the field's meteoric rise to extremely well paid and decent status.

When I was in my thirties, I found libertarianism persuasive. I didn't see that rises like mine had always been unusual, and were becoming ever rarer. Even rises like my father's have now become vanishingly rare, with the demise of good union jobs. But my 30-year old self didn't see that.

On the other hand, my 66 3/4 year old self sees my good fortune very clearly. I managed my rise at a time when opportunities were more available than currently. I had good advice from someone who had a decent idea of how academic ability could be used to rise. And I was way above average intelligence, due to what amounts to genetic and environmental good luck. So I got where I am - but even at the time people with the same combination of luck-derived-assets and effort didn't make it. Now an even larger proportion of those with similar assets don't make it, and those who try but fail are likely to be saddled with e.g. college debt they'll never be able to pay.

>63 ArlieS: So much wisdom and good sense in that post.

>63 ArlieS: Well said, Arlie. I will also add that I was the beneficiary of low tuition at the public university when I was college age. It was $200-something for a semester at the time. I was living at home, so didn't have campus fees to pay, and my university had a textbook library, where we checked out our textbooks for our courses every semester and did not have to pay exorbitant prices for books we would only use for a few months. My education was very inexpensive. Young people today don't have the same opportunity.

>63 ArlieS:, >64 laytonwoman3rd:, >65 atozgrl: Wise, honest words, Arlie. This all explains why "They" have busily been dismantling this system.

It disgusts me, greed.

>39 richardderus:
I love Rothko. I admit that there are some of his paintings that I like more than others, but as an oeuvre his are outstanding. This one is a little bit more understandable than many of his with a suggestive title to give the viewer some clues, but even so it is very abstract as well. Perfect for the hot summer days we have been having all over the US.

>67 benitastrnad: He stopped titling paintings midway through the color field era, to take away the mediation of concrete ideas about meaning imposed from without, like No. 14, from 1960:

...which has nothing to do with fourteen any old how but people wig out without ANY labels.

The Rothko chapel in Houston is very much worth a visit, even though it's in Houston.
ETA size

>54 LizzieD: Nothing beats the jello crown bestowed on me.

Yikes! I missed a whole thread! But I did like the use of the word 'bibliopushingly' from the 2-threads-ago thread.

This evening I shall settle into Friday, have a vino, watch some sport (the Rugby League of course) and revel in the quiet, warm, relaxedness of it all. I hope you are well :)

>69 humouress: I have seldom seen a crown receive so many strong opinions.

>65 atozgrl: " Young people today don't have the same opportunity." I agree. I went to university at a time of free tuition and a grant for living expenses. I was the first year eligible for a student loan, but it was tiny in comparison to today's loans. Nowadays I don't think I'd have gone at all, what with tuition fees and no support with living expenses. I came out of 7 years of university with some debt, but these days that would be 10x that for the first year alone. So while I might have gone from free school meals to a senior management job, the current generation would only do that with a huge financial burden also being applied.

>70 LovingLit: Morning, Megan! I figure it's safe to wish you that because I'm not even sure what day of the week it will be when you read this in Aotearoa. We're bibliopushing away, so come back soon to be pushed at, eh?

*smooch*

>72 Helenliz: ...thus reducing class mobility and suiting "Them" down to the ground...

Glad I'm not raising kids in this horrifying time.

The North American version of the Republic of Consciousness Prize is open for submissions, through 30 August. I'm eager to see these in its race:
A Muzzle for Witches by the late Dubravka Ugresic, and translated by Ellen Ellias-Bursac, out via Open Letter; The Trial of Anna Thalberg by Eduardo Sangarcía, translated by Elizabeth Bryer, out via Restless Books; Prairie, Dresses, Art, Other by my dote Danielle Dutton, out via Coffee House Press...all going to be included in my blog's annual #Booksgiving Holiday reading recs, along with The Propagandist, which Chris Via (a judge this year) got from New Vessel Press and is touting for the prize.

‘Morning, RichardDear. Happy Friday.

>62 richardderus: Heh. Contender for “Most Active Thread in Christendom”. That’s rich, by the way, since you’re an atheist. *smile*

>74 richardderus: Glad I'm not raising kids in this horrifying time. Me, too. My kid, almost 31, is coming along nicely.

*smooch*

>76 karenmarie: Hey Horrible. Lots going on today so I've been AFK all day.

At 31, your part's well and truly one. It seems iffy that she'll be doing it herself any time soon, so unlikely to impinge on your existence.

Well, PC isn't exactly in Christendom either being in a decidedly non-christian country, hence my selection of neutral territory. I keep hoping for a Great Awakening to the non-existence of gawd and the vile manipulative agenda of religion but honestly I should only live so long.

*smooch*

Happy newish one, Rdear.

'Morning on another day, RD. I hope your day is a good one.

I have nothing official I have to do today, which is fantastic.

I now know what AFK means, having had to look it up. Sheesh.

*smooch*

>78 Ameise1: Morning, Barbara! Happy to see you, but I'm still here in my day:

Coffee is only possible very early in the morning, it's too hot here. From 10am at the latest, only cold drinks, preferably water, sometimes with fruit.

>79 karenmarie: "AFK" was one of my first "what the hell are you talking about?" moments back in the Aughties. Having less access to the internet back then, I just asked. The young man, whose name escapes me but whose callipygian assets I can picture clearly, explained without taking a tone, which is really what made it memorable.

Such weird things matter to me now!

>81 Ameise1: Another reason I say prayers for the soul of Mr. Carrier, the aircon man. If it was all air temperature regulated I wouldn't drink coffee after 6am!

Air conditioning in private houses is extremely rare here. Many public buildings don't have any either.

>84 Ameise1: Makes sense, since your average annual air temperature is only about 17C. Ours is 24C...much much less comfy without cooling.

👍

Rothko is one of those artists you look at and you think that anybody with a can of barn red and a wide brush could do as well

Then you sit and spend time with one of 'em, and the genius just ups and smacks you in the face.

There's an American Masters episode on him that is pretty good. And the play "Red" is worth a look.

>87 magicians_nephew: I've seen that American Masters program, and couldn't agree more that it does a very good job of contextualizing him, and his work, to help people see the hugeness of his achievement.

The Rothko Chapel was the locus of my sudden, intense awareness of his insight. A half hour sitting in the space...well...I was not the same person leaving that I'd been arriving. Not long after that experience I had my first ayahuasca experience. Perspective is such an underused tool in our armory of resistance to regimentation.

Do you remember who wrote "Red"? There are approximately skatey-eight squillion plays that have some variation on that title.

ETA typo

>88 richardderus: Do you remember who wrote "Red"? John Logan. I had to look it up. https://www.librarything.com/work/10047606

>77 richardderus: The Opium of the People is far too useful to be allowed to die. How long before Project whatever number we're up to by then mandates church attendance?

Good early afternoon, Richard. I must run to feed the cats, but I must say that being here has been enlightening this morning with the help of the internet. I had to look up callipygian and now get it. Then I discovered ayahuasca, and thank you for that too. I'd say that even online copies of Rothko's art hint at the complexity of each layer, and that's just a start.

*smooch* for the day!

>89 laytonwoman3rd: Great! Thanks, Linda3rd!

>90 ArlieS: A half-hour after "They" take power. Disgusting.

>79 karenmarie: I had to look up AFK too. Richard is just too cool for the likes of me.😎

>82 richardderus: 😂

>90 ArlieS: One of my ancestors who emigrated here from England in the 1600s had been jailed and fined in England for not attending church. That is what the MAGA crowd wants the US to become. It’s both infuriating and terrifying and really really sad.

>91 LizzieD: Happy Saturday, Peggy me lurve. I'm very good for increasing one's vocabulary, and cultural awareness. The ayahuasca info is very much expanding out into the world, at long last, and might just be allowed to do some good at last. The Rothko luuuv won't do much expansion but I think can do good, too. Just in fewer folks.

*smooch*

>94 Storeetllr: "AFK" is amazingly useful now that you know it, Mary. When having a senior moment, now you can cover it up by saying you were AFK for a minute!

But Biden's so old 🙄 So sick of being told that he's incompetent because he's walks slowly, has to work through his stutter, and occasionally misspeaks. I often call my dog by the cat's name. Give me a fucking break. He's gotten more done in 4 years than most Presidents. And I love the team around him.

(Lucky you, I saw your post while three glasses of wine into my evening 😂)

>97 richardderus: - Ain't that the truth

>97 richardderus: True words, I have so much trouble with a country with only two parties electing a president. All that counts is money and old men as figureheads, regardless of whether they are competent or not. A multi-party system would shake up politics.

Happy Sunday, Richard. So much frustration at the moment, with our misguided country. Time to go to Cleveland with friends and visit a mess of breweries. We will be back Wednesday. 😎

>97 richardderus: Perfect!

>98 katiekrug: Three-glasses Katie's as welcome as no-glasses Katie is, opinions are just fine here. Expect them to be contested only if the host vehemently disagrees. Not the case here.

Biden's record is excellent, up there with James Knox Polk for most accomplished in the teeth of bitter opposition.

>99 jessibud2:, >100 Ameise1:, >101 msf59: It's a sad truth that doesn't get the play I want it to get. I believe most of the US is genuinely appalled by 34/45 as a person but support his lies about the country being in terrible decline. This artifact of oligarchic control of the mass media is part of a long-term and carefully crafted agenda. Hillary Clinton said it in the 1990s: "There is a vast right-wing conspiracy", she said and she was roundly mocked in the media for it.

>100 Ameise1: I think ranked-choice voting is our, the US's, best hope for some sort of PR.

Hi RDear. Happy Sunday.

>91 LizzieD: I looked up both words, too, Peggy.

One cup of coffee down, the rest of the thermos to go.

*smooch*

That's only because you don't know any other system.
I'm glad that it's different here and that we have many parties.

>97 richardderus: >98 katiekrug: Truth.

>105 Ameise1: I used to think the 2-party system was our strength, Barbara. That's certainly not so right now, and you may - probably do - have a point.

Good morning, Richard! Good afternoon and evening to you too! *smooch*
I scrolled through images of Rothko's paintings yesterday and fell in love with a dark green/blue/green-blue/blue-green one that I could get lost in. (He obviously didn't love green as much as I do.)

>104 karenmarie: I'm a cicerone for y'all, apparently.

My coffee hours are done but good gracious did I need them more than ever!

>105 Ameise1: We're not likely to change to a parliamentary system any time soon, so ranked-choice will introduce people to the idea of being actually represented by their "representatives."

>106 LizzieD: There's nothing good about the two-party system, and never has been, Peggy. We're living in the world that it inevitably leads to, fascism, and I know you like it as little as I do.

Rothko's work is subtle. It takes time to see what he was trying to say to you. NMost people don't want to spend that kind of time learning about things that have no narrative payoff.

*smooch*

>103 richardderus: It seems to me that the country *is* in decline. Lots of infrastructure isn't being repaired. Most people have less discretionary spending power than their parents at the same age - aka they make less in inflation adjusted dollars. (The averages hide this, because of increasing inequality.) Security and stability are hard to attain - jobs are too often part time, temporary, and short lived. Most claim they expect they'll never be able to afford to retire.

Conservative "solutions" to these problems will predictably make them worse, and in some cases take primary responsibility for causing them. But the problems are real. And climate change will make some of them significantly worse.

(Crawling out from under an overturned wagon)

Has the new thread welcoming post storm abated?

Looks like it blew down the windmill.

>97 richardderus: Once again you put it so well!!
>98 katiekrug: as do you, Katie
>100 Ameise1: I too think parliamentary systems are more representative but we're stuck with this 18th century compromise ... sigh.

>110 ArlieS: That isn't the decline "Make America Great Again" refers to...that decline is real, and can be fixed with progressive programs, so it's the antithesis of their purpose. "American Exceptionalism" is the great they mean. I'm of the Build Back Better school.

>111 magicians_nephew: Exit the conestoga at your own risk, as always!

>112 RebaRelishesReading: Thanks, Reba, you're on a roll with us. I'm as always repulsed by the kludged-together non-system being venerated to the point of ossification. I do my tiny bit to chip away at the system's monolithic eternity and inevitability.

A very dark day indeed. The President has ended our narrow window of hope that we could avoid returning to 45's vile cabal.

OMG -- just got the news on my phone!! A year ago I would have thought this great news -- we would have had time to select a younger more viable candidate -- but now!?!?!

Golly. In sporting terms that sounds like a hospital pass.
Is there any precedent for that?

>117 RebaRelishesReading: Disaster.

>118 Helenliz: Only sort of...1968, LBJ was railroaded out by the same MSM whining campaign. His veep, Hubert Humphrey, was like Harris: honorable, slightly out of his depth, and lost to Nixon.

Those who refuse to learn from history will repeat it.

>120 richardderus: Those who refuse to learn from history will repeat it All the journalists over here have been saying the opposite, even those that have been historically pro-Biden. That Biden can't win now (especially post-shooting) and so he has to stand down for the Democrats to have any chance of keeping Trump out?

I have heard many say it today - and I agree - Biden seems to have come to terms with the fact that he can't continue, and he is putting the good of the country first. Something trump is unequivocally incapable of doing, under any circumstances. This is going to be a rough ride, but I think it is the wisest and best thing he (Biden) could have done. But that's me, an outsider, weighing in.

>121 SandDune:, >122 jessibud2: Harris is...don't think this won't be made much of on the right...a woman.

History from 2016 teaches us a woman will lose.

>120 richardderus: I agree with that, RD. One of the Rust Belt/Mid-West governors surely could still whup Trump. It isn't misogyny it is reality to suggest that they have a better chance than Harris whose job approval ratings frankly are in the can.

By the way the last post was the 4,000th on your threads this year dear fellow.

Facts. Look at 45's out-of-proportion success while lying, lying, lying.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Monday to you.

>107 richardderus: Darn it, off to duckduckgo again… and you’re absolutely right. You are. I stop drinking coffee when the thermos is empty or it gets 11ish. I do waste some coffee, admittedly, when the 11ish cutoff occurs, but oh well.

>108 richardderus: I love ranked-choice, wish it became more common here in Amurrika. Third party attempts have never, ever worked here. I think they started with T. Roosevelt, but am not sure.

>110 ArlieS: My daughter is cynical about being able to retire, thinks she’ll have to work forever. However, she’s in a better position than most because of some of the things we’ve set up for her for after we’re gone.

>120 richardderus: I thought LBJ chose not to run again… Hmmm. Another thing to research from your thread.

*smooch*

Wishing you an excellent reading week. 😘

>123 richardderus: OK I'm an optimist by nature. but at least a tiny part of me hopes there are enough people out there who were on the fence because of Biden's age, but basically don't like Trump, that they may move to Harris -- younger folks perhaps? Please God... Of course, "it's God's will that Trump win because he was shot at and barely hit" -- BARF!!

>126 karenmarie: There's choosing, and choosing. LBJ had the choice made for him by "hey hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" and the riots in Detroit and Watts.

Third-party campaigns go all the way back. Before the Civil War, there weren't only two choices, so we have that asshole J.W. Booth to thank for the present nightmare.

Have a lovely day, Horrible. Rest up...we need to have all our strength to go out and change History.

>127 Ameise1: *smooch*

>128 RebaRelishesReading: If that is indeed gawd's will, she's as evil as I've always said she is. Either way I win my bet that she deserves no respect let alone worship.

We need to get ourselves moving, and get the dead hand of Fate off our country's future.

No wisdom from me if I ever have offered any. I wish that the Democrats could learn to shoot themselves only in the foot. That would be an improvement if we get time to improve.
From my POV the MAGA message centers on the AGAIN. Let's all go back to 1955 when everybody knew who was who and what was what, and those who didn't get it, didn't get anything.

I can't wait for R. Caro to send out his last LBJ bio! I realize that he's elderly and can't be counted on, but I will read the book when it appears however it appears.

Good day to you anyway, Richard. *smooch*

>132 LizzieD: We need to make sure the world keeps creeping forward, smoochling, so let's shout the sleazy creeps down. Giving up's too easy a solution.

I took crave Caro's last volume, he made a HUGE impact on the world (more good than bad) so I'm eager to see him get his honest take on the man into the world.

*drives through in a fancy convertible* Smooches, dahling!

>134 MickyFine:
Sweetiedaaahliiing! *airkiss*

>125 richardderus: I've enjoyed the odd volume of poetry over my lifetime , but yes, true enough. * smooch*

>125 richardderus: Heresy!>.............but funny too.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Tuesday to you.

I have some books of poetry on my shelves. I do have a few favorites - E.E. Cummings, Ogden Nash, O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman, most of the sonnets of Shakespeare, Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker, and etc. Mostly poetry doesn't speak to me unless it rhymes because otherwise, IMO, it's prose.

*smooch*

>137 vancouverdeb: Soul sibling! *smooch*

>138 PaulCranswick: And when, in all these years, have you ever known me to be other than heretical, PC?

>139 karenmarie: Tuesday, oh my goddesses, Tuesday! We're almost done with July! *smooch*

Poetry isn't the artform I'll save in The Collapse. I'll be very, very quiet in my little corner and hope enough poets are flash-fried that everyone will just...forget about it. *happy sigh*

I am not even going to try and catch up to you, RD, just dropping by for ((hugs)) and **smooches**

>143 alcottacre: Welcome home, Stasia! *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

'Morning, RD! Happy Wednesday to you.

>142 richardderus: I have 2652 books tagged 'tbr' and 27 tagged 'abandoned'. 84 of the tbr books are tagged 'poetry', so it's safe to say I have more than enough for The Collapse without resorting to new poetry.

Chiro and PT today, along with a quick visit to the grocery store for Necessary Things, then soccer. Full grocery store trip on the weekend, I suppose, although I might make that one an online order.

*smooch*

Good morning, Richard. I hope for a nothing day today so that I can read. I won't be reading poetry, but I could. My taste is still locked in the early to middle years of the last century though with a few exceptions.
Anyway, best wishes for your day with a *smooch*!

>145 karenmarie: Permaybehaps your poetry TBR (I feel dirty just typing it) could keep you going through the Collapse, Horrible. 84 books of poetry is 500 more than I ever want to see.

Sounds like a lovely day's plan...hope it all disfruits as intended. *smooch*

>146 LizzieD: Nothing-day hooooo!

Was there something un-loathsome about poetry committed during those years? I seem to recall TS Eliot and Ezra Pound were operational at that time. Two more insufferably English Englishmen it is difficult to imagine.

Well, ATD as Horrible and I frequently say. Lovely-day *smooch*

I'm not a big fan of poetry either, but I figure that in my case it's an idiosyncratic quirk born of family dynamics. I was fine with poetry as a schoolchild; my avoidance came later.

The year I started college, my mother decided to basically upend her life - and by extension, the lives of everyone in her household. One of the least drastic changes was visibly writing poetry and considering herself a poet. (She may or may not have been doing both all along.)

Unfortunately, my mother believed herself to be 100% right about everything, including matters of taste. Not getting the value of her oeuvre was not OK. It was also not OK not to agree with her on the relative value of more well known authors. It was easier simply to "not have much interest in poetry". Worse, before I figured out that workaround, I'd had enough unpleasant experiences that I wound up with a strong association between poetry and fraught, un-winnable emotional dynamics.

So for me reading poetry is a bit like reading the political news, except less useful: being aware of political news might someday allow me to escape a bad situation before it can happen to me.

I prefer the alliterative style of poetry than the te dum te deum te dum. Have come to that later in life though. Had to learn Owen's Dulce et decorum est at school. Some 40 years later I can still recite it by heart. Funny how some things stick, isn't it.

>149 ArlieS: I can totally understand your aversion's roots, and I shelter my own distaste under its validating branches. Rigidity is always fraught with trouble. Understanding that is a key factor in my own battle to retain flexibility...meaning, if I'm rigid (eg rejecting poetry) it's with intent and conviction behind it. Still doesn't mean I won't challenge myself, to avoid your mother's sad fate.

>150 Helenliz: Bloodstains, for example...ticks, leeches, remoras...dung. All well-known for their adhesive qualities.

I will have to join in and say that I'm not a big fan of poetry either. My tastes run more along the same lines as Karen's (>139 karenmarie: ), and I really don't get a lot of recent poetry at all. I do like The Rime of the Ancient Mariner though.

However, abstract art as in >1 richardderus: hits me the same way as most poetry. I don't get it. Though I have never sat in a room with a Rothko in front of me, and I suppose that might make a difference.

Poets that I like (because you need to know, obviously): Donne, cummings, T. Roethke, WC Williams, W. Stevens, R. Wilbur, M. Oliver --- a lot of dead white men and Mary.

To each as each desires!

We have got quite a few soul siblings in our dislike of poetry ( in my case, most poetry). There is the odd poem I like, partly because the teacher in my grade 6 class made us memorize poetry and some it sticks in my mind after all these years. I'd didn't mind memorizing it at the time, and then we had to recite in front of the class. Talk about old fashioned teaching. It was very hard on some of my class mates to recite the poetry back then. I recall one poor girl lost her bladder. Thankfully I think no one in the class quite realized what was happening and no one said a word to Beth. I can't quite remember what the teacher did, I think he suggested she might like to leave class afterwords. So awful , that.

Hey, RD. Sweet Thursday. The birddude is back home, although I been playing more PB than birding. The Midwest has been enjoying a very nice stretch of weather. I hope you are enjoying the same thing.

I saw some of the poetry comments being shared over here. It reminded me that I need to post a couple over on my thread. 😜

Swinging by to thank you for the recommendation of Day Boy. While I did not like it as much as you did, I did enjoy it and am hanging on to my copy for a reread in future.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>153 atozgrl: I suspect Rothko is a niche taste even among art fanciers, Irene. Abstract art repels some people on a cellular level, its structures and tropes are deliberately obscure and often obscured. Do that with paint, I'm with you; do it with words, I'm walkin' away.

>154 LizzieD: Wallace Stevens I like..."Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" appeals to me. Mary Oliver's lines are routinely good but the poems don't do much for me. The others...well...more for you.

*smooch*

>155 vancouverdeb: I had to deliver Shakespeare;s Sonnet LV to my drama class in tenth grade.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.

As I was IN LOVE that year, with that hideous adolescent intensity, I delivered it forth to thunderous silence.

Had fun reciting it to him, though.

>156 msf59: Ben tornata in casa! I know Cleveland's breweries are hanging black crepe and turning their mirrors to the wall knowing you're not coming back soon.

Post away! I scroll fast.

>157 alcottacre: Hi Stasia! I'm glad you enjoyed the Jamieson read. I don't think I'd reread it, but then I'm not too much of a rereader. The subject matter is the appeal IIRC.

Stay cool today.

I'm off to the dermatologist's office for a follow-up visit. I expect all will be well since nothing hurts or oozes or sticks out.

So far, anyway.

‘Morning, RDear. I hope the follow-up visit to the dermatologist’ office goes well.

>150 Helenliz: I read Dulce et decorum est in high school, too, Helen. It gave me a love of his poetry and a love of WWI poetry in general. I could never recite it by heart, but felt it in my bones.

>153 atozgrl: I re-read the Rime of the Ancient Mariner several years ago, and it didn’t hold up for me.

>154 LizzieD: I forgot Langston Hughes, what with you mentioning dead white men. Jenna had to do a report on him in 4th grade, and I learned about him and read his poetry then. So, 2001ish?

*smooch*

>164 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. I'm in the office waiting right now.

Langston Hughes is at the least tolerable... and reminds me of Henry Dumas, whose "kif"s I liked.

>160 richardderus: Shakespeare goes without saying, so I didn't say him. WE had to memorize the first 14 lines of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in what passed for Middle English pronunciation. Most of us can still get through it with a little help from our friends.

I like other poets too, including Langston Hughes and the WWI poets. Oh! I don't know but a couple of Henry Reed's poems, but "Naming of Parts' is one of my all-time favorites. I just checked again and see that I can get the slender volume of his poems for $20. I do believe I'll do it. Happy Day! Then I MUST STOP BUYING BOOKS!!!!!!!!!

Hope your visit is going well and that you're home soon and pleased with your consultation! *smooch*

I hope the report from the doc is good and you reward yourself with a delicious read.

This is the view from my dermatologist's office parking lot. Hope I get more infected ickies.

...and here I am there, hot and sweaty but in a better mood than my face suggests:

>166 LizzieD: I myownself do not like reading Willy Shakes. But we've established I'm very weird.
>166 LizzieD: & >167 MickyFine: Nothing sticking up, oozing, or painful; one more cyst popping up but not surfaced and might just never turn into anything. All in all a good visit.

>168 richardderus: Nice view. But maybe you could visit the area without the excuse of another infection.

>170 ArlieS: Not really...no transportation I can afford that isn't for medical reasons only.

>171 richardderus: awww

That's quite the Sonnet , Richard. Glad you enjoyed delivering the sonnet even if there was no applause. My grade 6 class had to memorize and recite High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, If by Rudyard Kipling and I Wandered as Lonely as Cloud by William Wordsworth. At least the poems have stayed with me. Great pic of you @168 . No fairly cheap buses in the area for travel ? Or a disability pass for free ? Too bad. Glad you enjoyed your outing to the dermatologist.

>168 richardderus: Well, that does look worth seeing since you had to go to the dermatologist. Glad there was a bright side!

>169 richardderus: I'm generally not a poetry fan, as you know, but William Shakespeare is one of my major exceptions to the rule. I haven't gone back and read his sonnets since college, but I enjoy reading a play every now and again and it's one of my lifetime reading goals to get to all of them. So I'm weird too ;)

Hiya, RD! Happy Friday to you.

>165 richardderus: Kif? State of dreamy tranquility?

>168 richardderus: Beautiful view, nice to see a current you.

>169 richardderus: Glad the visit was a good one, even with one more cyst popping up.

*smooch*

>172 ArlieS: *sigh*

>173 vancouverdeb: I enjoyed delivering it to the man I was in love with...the class was awful.

The investment of pain in sitting for two hours on buses, hobbling from bus stop to bus stop, isn't worth it, not to mention I could possibly afford to do it if I was extra frugal and gave up two sale books a month, once every third month.

So, no.

Thanks re: my grouchy-faced picture!

>174 bell7: I always feel so inadequate talking about Willy Shakes...I enjoy no part of reading the plays; I hate poetry; and still the praise and adulation flows through me leaving a bathtub ring of awareness that I'm missing something that others are crooning and cooing over.

Oh well, I detest Chuckles the Dick, too. I'm irredeemably flawed I guess.

>175 karenmarie: Hi Horroble! *smooch*

The cyst is no surprise, there's some structure that gives rise to them in that spot and that has been drained, curetted, excised, and frozen over the past forty-two years. The longest it went without popping something up is four years after the most painful thing I've ever had done, about eight years ago; but that flensing was not worth the temporary result.

Honestly I never looked up "kif" as I'd only ever known it from Knees of a Natural Man: Poetry.

A loose or powdered form of cannabis resin used especially for smoking.

The euphoria caused by smoking kif.

A kind of cannabis smoked in Morocco and Algeria, for narcotic or intoxicating effect.

This makes the most sense, given who Dumas was and when he was writing.

Lovely weekend-ahead's reads, smoochling.

>168 richardderus: I don't see grouchy-ness, RD. I see intense concentration.

       

>150 Helenliz: >160 richardderus: Happy Saturday to you, Good Richard!
I'm not surprised that Wallace Stevens has a poem for you. In fact, I'd think I had justified my existence if I had written a line like "Icicles filled the long window/With barbaric glass." I'm guessing that that isn't only why the poem appeals to you. Anyway, you resparked my Stevens love, which always begins with me chanting to the end, "Chieftan Ifucan of Azcan in caftan of tan/with henna hackles, halt!" (I sort of put that here for Karen who says she likes poetry to rhyme.) I'll read a poem or so for a day for awhile now. Thanks.
That's what I don't do with Shakespeare even though I say I love him. I do hope that I will make time to read a lot in the plays before I lose my faculties. I say the same for the Jacobean dramatists. Hmmm. The same is true for Richard Wilbur. Long distance love, I guess.
*smooch* for the day!

AND - I'd say the the photo sort of says, "What? I was looking at the water."

>171 richardderus: I was afraid of that.

Gustav Raud Library (1936)
I adore this image.

>180 weird_O: Thank you, Bill. It's a much more generous interpretation.

>181 LizzieD: Ha! A different kind of kinder interpretation.

"Henna hackles?" What the actual fuck does that literally mean, what the hell's it meant to evoke other than a curled lip? *sigh* Not much of a poetry reader, me.

Enjoy your trip back through Stevens's œuvre. Sizable field for operation! *smooch*

>182 ArlieS: It informs all facets of my life's decision-making.

Happy Saturday, Richard. I love the view from your dermatologist's office. I am meeting my birding buddies this AM. I have been neglecting the birdies. Chores and books a little later on.

>183 richardderus: LIKE!!

Good morning, Richard! I'm out to the garden early, as we have the heat again. *smooch*

113 Prevailing Wind by Thomas Dolby

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: On the eve of WW1, amidst the turbulence of the Ludlow Massacre and the Triangle Shirt Factory fire, the young Haskell brothers Davey (16) and Jacob (21) dream of escaping the poverty of their lobsterman life in Deer Isle, Maine. Their sailing talents catch the eye of the powerful New York Yacht Club, with a chance for glory in the prestigious America's Cup race series.

However, the brothers' bond is tested as they both fall for Edith, a captivating Irish maid. Family loyalty is at stake, and now the pursuit of sporting fame threatens to drive them apart. Complicating matters further, someone must stay behind to care for their ailing parents. When a near-fatal accident leaves one brother hospitalized and consumed by revenge, a compassionate Latina nurse helps him heal, showing him a path beyond bitterness. Meanwhile, the millionaire yachtsmen harbor dark secrets. A glamorous concubine is hidden away on a luxury yacht, leading to blackmail and scandal.

As the bachelor heir to the Vanderbilt railroad fortune grapples with his future, preferring the freedom of the sea over his family's wealth, the Haskell brothers must navigate their own choices between love, family, and ambition. Can they overcome the trials that threaten to tear them apart, or will the winds of change leave them stranded in the past?

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

My Review: Dolby, whose 1980s music I listened to frequently on and off the radio, decided to tell us a story that compels and entertains; what lies under that hood, like with his music, is clever and quiet social commentary.

When one wishes to comment unfavorably on the accumulation of wealth, one is well advised to create a story of talented underdogs succeeding. That's exactly what this story is. I'm not recapitulating the plot, go read the synopsis abpve, but I will say that every single beat is hit. The straight-people sex is there, though it was never so in-your-face as to cause me to put the book down.

The unsuccessful, in my opinion, facet of the tale is the brotherly rivalry. There's a solid motivation for it. The resolution of their feelings is handled in a way I myownself found facile and oddly dissonant, like a different story was going on that I had not noticed until it popped up at a weird time.

All that said, I'd've felt amply rewarded if I'd picked the book up solely based on the author's name recognition. He knows exactly what he's talking about. He has a clear vision for his plot. He created characters I never doubted were founded in the reality of human experience, not forged on the anvil of plot necessity. I do wish the key change in the brothers's rivalry at its resolution had not rung false in my own ear.

A read I'd recommend to anyone who likes historical novels about rich people and their milieu...from a different angle.

>187 msf59: Saturday orisons, Birddude! Have a great time peeping at the birbs. Chores, ew; books, yay! Slide a few brews in to make the chores less tedious, says me.

>188 ronincats: Morning, Roni! I'm glad you visited me before the heat saps your will to do anything except exist in the a/c. I'm pretty much there, only for me it's less heat than humidity today. *smooch*

BURGOINE #032

Navola by Paolo Bacigalupi

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From the New York Times best-selling author of Wind-Up Girl and The Water Knife comes a sweeping literary fantasy about the young scion from a ruling class family who faces rebellion as he ascends to power.

"You must be as sharp as a stilettotore’s dagger and as subtle as a fish beneath the waters. This is what it is to be Navolese, this is what it is to be di Regulai."

In Navola, a bustling city-state dominated by a handful of influential families, business is power, and power is everything. For generations, the di Regulai family—merchant bankers with a vast empire—has nurtured tendrils that stretch to the farthest reaches of the known world. And though they claim not to be political, their staggering wealth has bought cities and toppled kingdoms. Soon, Davico di Regulai will be expected to take the reins of power from his father and demonstrate his mastery of the games of Navolese knowing who to trust and who to doubt, and how to read what lies hidden behind a smile. But in Navola, strange and ancient undercurrents lurk behind the gilt and grandeur—like the fossilized dragon eye in the family’s possession, a potent symbol of their raw power and a talisman that seems to be summoning Davico to act.

As tensions rise and the events unfold, Davico will be tested to his limits. His fate depends on the eldritch dragon relic and on what lies buried in the heart of his adopted sister, Celia di Balcosi, whose own family was destroyed by Nalova’s twisted politics. With echoes of Renaissance Italy, The Godfather, and Game of Thrones, Navola is a stunning feat of world-building and a mesmerizing depiction of drive and will.

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

My Review: Most reading my reviews will know who Author Bacigalupi is, and might have read at least one of his SF novels. If not, they're readily borrowable. They're worth reading because the author has a deft hand at characterization and a solid world-building technique. All of those skills are on display here. He's using them on an Italian-Renaissance fantasy world that feels like historical fiction with fantasy elements lightly sprinkled on.

What works is the eternal verity of identity formation in opposition to one's family's expectations; what doesn't is the great, oversized length.

Knopf offers the ebook at $14.99. I'd borrow it.

Good morning, RDear! Happy Saturday to you.

>183 richardderus: Ooh, lovely indeed. Here’s another lovely image. I must have been a librarian or bibliomanic in another lifetime, because this is drool-worthy.



>189 richardderus: Excellent review. Your 3.5 puts it solidly in my wish list.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>162 richardderus: I re-read on a regular basis. I love visiting my old friends :) To each their own!

>183 richardderus: I can see why you adore it!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes that you have a wonderful weekend!

BURGOINE #033

Shades of Mercy (Porter Beck #2) by Bruce Borgos

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the usually quiet high desert of Nevada, Sheriff Porter Beck faces one of his greatest challenges—a series of unlikely, disturbing and increasingly deadly events of unknown origins.

Porter Beck is the sheriff in the high desert of Nevada, doing the same lawman's job his father once did now that he's returned home after decades away. With his twelve person department, they cover a large area that is usually very quiet, but not of late. One childhood friend is the latest to succumb to a new wave of particularly strong illegal opioids, another childhood friend—now an enormously successful rancher—is targeted by a military drone, hacked and commandeered by an unknown source. The hacker is apparently local—local enough to call out Beck by name—and that means they are Beck's problem.

Beck's investigation leads him to Mercy Vaughn, the one known hacker in the area. The problem is that she's a teenager, locked up with no computer access at the secure juvenile detention center. But there's something Mercy that doesn't sit quite right with Beck. But when Mercy disappears, Beck understands that she's in danger and time is running out for all of them.

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

My Review: Like last year's series debut The Bitter Past, this entry in Borgos's Porter Beck mystery/thriller series blends fast action, violence, and a powerful sense of time and place. The times are changing, the threats are evolving, and the guardrails on technology do not match human motivations to evade them in pursuit of selfish goals. Borgos uses all this to fashion a take on the reality of policing to bring the Porter Beck series into closer contact with the thriller genre...so be aware that hot-button issues like cybercrime, drug smuggling, and money laundering feature in this read. One more violent scene and I'd push it out of mystery-series territory entirely!

I recommend reading the series starter first, though it's not crucial. This is great for Cotton Malone or Delta Force fans who want something more personal and intimate that still keeps the pace fast and the emotional pitch furious.

>193 karenmarie: I'm very glad that's the case, Horrible, I think Dolby will deliver the goods for you.

Isn't that library...just, well...I mean...WOW-worthy? I want one like it!

Saturday *smooch*

BURGOINE #034

No Road Home by John Fram

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A young father must clear his name and protect his queer son when his wealthy new wife’s televangelist grandfather is found murdered in this binge-worthy locked-room thriller from the acclaimed author of The Bright Lands—perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Paul Tremblay, and Alex North.

For years, single father Toby Tucker has done his best to keep his sensitive young son, Luca, safe from the bigotry of the world. But when Toby marries Alyssa Wright—the granddaughter of a famed televangelist known for his grandiose, Old Testament preaching—he can’t imagine the world of religion, wealth, and hate that he and Luca are about to enter.

A trip to the Wright family’s compound in sun-scorched Texas soon turns hellish when Toby realizes that Alyssa and the rest of her brood might have some very strange plans for Toby and his son. The situation only grows worse when a freak storm cuts off the roads and the family patriarch is found murdered, stabbed through the heart on the roof of the family’s mansion.

Suspicion immediately turns to Toby, but when his son starts describing a spectral figure in a black suit lurking around the house with unfinished business in mind, Toby realizes this family has more than murder to be afraid of. And as the Wrights close in on Luca, no one is prepared for the lengths Toby will go in the fight to clear his name and protect his son.

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

My Review: Fun, unbelievable Gothic suspense tale. I liked it best when Dad-mode was engaged, and Toby was fiercely defending Luca and his right to exist from fundy jerks. I was completely appalled that Toby would've gotten himself and his son tangled up with these assholes in the first place. Still, suspension of disbelief and all that...but that's what happened to my fourth and fifth stars.

The half-star I put back is down to the Texas-ness of it: the freak storm resembles one I experienced in my own decades in Texas, the supernatural-adjacent events also rang my atmosphere bells, and Author Fram's characters each have voices I relate to. In fact, I have relatives who sound like Aly's entire clan. I fully delighted in this Dad-beast, protective story's object, too. Luca's predicament is achingly familiar, and I liked the ending.

>194 alcottacre: Hiya Stasia! Thanks for visiting, even though you bizarrely choose to reread so much...ATD, as Horrible says to me so often and so rightly. *smooches*

Good morning, Richard! I made it through your latest postings without any BBs. That is quite rare!

Have a great weekend!

Karen O

>186 richardderus: *sigh* Poverty sucks. But I tend to forget how frightful public transit is in the US, and how expensive it's become everywhere. I still remember it costing me 8 1/3 cents per bus trip - on a children's ticket, buying a book at a time.

Lovely selfie, Richard (concentration face and all).

Looks like the books have been treating you well this week. *smooch*

>199 klobrien2: Really?! Oh dear...my self-esteem is on the line. I need to focus better, clearly. Still glad you visited, Karen O., despite your sadistic cruelty.

*smooch*

>200 ArlieS: The US hasn't had a decent public transportation system in a good long time. It's really stupid not to build one given how very much we need to lower pollution levels.

>201 MickyFine: Thank you, Micky dear. "Well" might be more praise than is warranted. They've failed to stink, and that's not nothing for sure; but only Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age really stands out as something I want others to read.

*smooch*

BURGOINE #035

Boystown Heartbreakers by K.C. Carmichael

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Chicago hairstylist Bastian Russo has only three things to his name: a pair of $1,200 shears, a Boystown studio apartment, and a list of men's names written on his closet wall. His constant worry that he's not good enough and his chronic inability to trust are what leaves him heartbroken time and again.

After he adds the latest name, he turns to his best friend, Andres Wood, for solace. But instead of treating Bastian to dinner, drinks, and the usual effortless banter, Andres makes an interesting suggestion: that Bastian should get over the breakup by dating ... Andres.

Sure, Andres is successful and attractive, but he also knows everything there is to know about Bastian—including what an insecure pain in the ass he is. Meanwhile, everyone in Bastian's life, from his mother to his co-workers, thinks he's an idiot for not having dated Andres already. So, what could go wrong?

Everything.

Now Bastian has to sort out his inadequacy and trust issues to prove he's worthy of transitioning from Andres' best friend to his lover. Otherwise, it's a matter of time before one or both of them end up on Bastian's list of Boystown Heartbreakers.

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

My Review: Fun, frothy summer read about a waffling, anxious gay guy grabbing his balls and manning up to exit the Friend Zone. It was a relatable source of anxiety. My issue about this iteration of that story is how extremely annoying I found Bastian. This could be a mood-driven thing, since the writing's okay, so I'm just not warbling about it instead of slagging it off.

Angst-friendly romance readers likely won't have this issue. Anyone who read and loved Boyfriend Material should at the very least sample it. It's more prolonged angst but it's got the same kind of HFN payoff.

Rising Action Publishing asks you for $16.99...borrow it, says I.

PEARL RULE REVIEWS #015

This Ordinary Stardust: A Scientist's Path from Grief to Wonder by Alan Townsend (38%)

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: A compassionate, vulnerable, and transformative exploration of the nurturing and spiritual power of scientific wonder, as illuminated through the tragic dual cancer diagnoses of author Dr. Alan Townsend’s wife and daughter.

A decade ago, Dr. Alan Townsend’s family received two unthinkable pieces of catastrophic news: his 4-year-old daughter and his brilliant and vivacious wife developed unrelated, life-threatening forms of brain cancer. As he witnessed his young daughter fight during the courageous final months of her mother’s life, Townsend – a lifelong scientist – was indelibly altered. He began to see scientific inquiry as more than a source of answers to a given problem, but also as a a lens on the world that could help him find peace with the painful realities he could not change. Through scientific wonder, he found ways to bring meaning to his darkest period.

At a time when society’s relationship with science is increasingly polarized while threats to human life on earth continue to rise, Townsend offers a balanced, moving perspective on the common ground between science and religion through the spiritual fulfillment he found in his work. Awash in Townsend's electrifying and breathtaking prose, This Ordinary Stardust offers hope that life can carry on even in the face of near-certain annihilation.

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

My Review: I very badly want to find books to recommend to those skeptical of science who are religious. This book deals with one man's frief and rage about a truly horrendous dual blow delivered by cancer. He retains his faith and uses his extensive education in science to inform his healing, coping journey.

Since I lost any hope of finding faith (a doomed project, given my rejection of religion dates to 1965...it's older than most people on planet Earth!) watching religious-nut moms coming to their dying AIDS-stricken sons' bedsides (never once saw a dad) to reject them again one last time for the road, all *I* got from this read was disgusted and outraged that the author puts his name among the "faithful" despite being well-educated. I can't tell you if it's well-written or not because my rage-blinders are blocking any clear view of his writing. A look at reviews of those of the opposite persuasion suggests to me that the anecdotal, snippety style that deals very little with science means this isn't the book I was looking for, the one to bridge faith and reason, from inception to execution.

PEARL RULE REVIEWS #016 (@47%)

The Poverty of Growth by Olivier De Schutter (foreword by Kate Raworth)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: How do we combat poverty and rising inequality? In our age of impending climate catastrophe, the conventional wisdom around GDP and economic growth is no longer fit for purpose; a rising tide sinks all boats.

Oliver De Schutter argues that we must rethink the fight against poverty. The quest for economic growth not only clashes with the need to remain within planetary boundaries, but in fact creates the very social exclusion it is intended to deteriorating human rights, widening the gap between the richest and the poorest, and merely modernising poverty without eliminating it.

The Poverty of Growth makes a clarion call to social movements, trade unions and environmental NGOs alike to forge a new pathway towards a 'post-growth' development, and a narrative of progress that is no longer orientated around wealth and profit.

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

My Review: I reached the end of Part 3, realized I was *dreading* Part 4, and stopped reading.

Well-sourced, tediously written klaxon of warning that was meant to be...and presented as...a clarion call drawing attention to a different approach to the process of running an economy. It does the depressing, and depressingly common, leftist thing of assuming you will agree that this solution is THE solution. That feels like bullying to me, no matter if the arguments and solutions presented make their case or not. (I think a little more "not" in this case.) I do not expect this book to convert even those on the fence, still less those not terribly interested in making changes but aware there's a problem.

You could easily feel differently.

Pluto Press offers the ebook for 1¢ so go get one.

>207 richardderus: Hell no. If it was too depressing for you, it's far too depressing for me. I'll pass.

>208 ArlieS: ...not even for a penny, Arlie? It was depressing but a penny is really cheap.

>209 richardderus: Nope. If I bought it I'd feel I had to read it.

Don't let the MAGAts run away from this evil, terrible plan. Hang it on 'em no matter what they call it next.

>210 ArlieS: I encourage every reader to emulate my most slothful habit: Buy a kindlebook because you might one day want to read it and let it languish for fifteen years if its time hasn't come.

This works better if you have collections set up, but it's perfectly legit and well within your legal rights.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Sunday.

>207 richardderus: through >210 ArlieS: Pass. If YOU won’t finish it, I can’t imagine finishing it. Not even for 1¢, and I’m with Arlie. If I owned it, I’d at least feel guilty about not reading it. At this point, in one ear, out the other.

>212 richardderus: I have 490 books on my various Kindles, not all of which are in my catalog. Sigh. Do I add them? Do I spent the time adding them and then getting a non-Amazon cover? Gads.

*smooch*

>213 karenmarie: Hi Horrible, Sunday orisons! I'm not enough interested in cataloging my books anymore to worry about Amazon as a source of data. It's going to be ugly when little Baldy Beezus decides to yank the rug out from under users of "his" tech and brick it all if we don't pony up more gelt.

Cross that bridge when it looms. Ick.

*smooch*

>166 LizzieD: "Naming of Parts" was my big number in high school elocution and speech class. Even with the anti-war subject matter (in 1968!) It wss well received enough to get me into a statewide recitation thingie in Albany. which was a kick.

The contest was won by my friend Debbie whose breathless (and sexy!) recitation of "Patterns" had everyone fanning themselves.

For the man who would loose me is dead
dying with the Duke in Flanders
in a Pattern called a War.
Christ! What are patterns for?
-- Amy Lowell

>215 magicians_nephew: :-)
***
Fellow GBBO nerds: one of our own has a cookbook out! Shocking, no?

One Bake, Two Ways: Fifty Bakes with an All-Plant Option Every Time
Ruby Bhogal. Interlink, $35 (320p) ISBN 978-1-62371-679-0
In this outstanding volume, 2018 Great British Bake Off finalist Bhogal offers 50 baked goods with 50 vegan alternatives. Both playful and rigorous, these recipes, Bhogal promises, are “not something someone is going to forget about as soon as they put their fork down.” The traditional recipe for the stunning sticky Jamaican ginger cake with butterscotch sauce and orange cream incorporates eggs, butter, and cream, while the plant-based rendition calls for soy milk and cider vinegar to produce an equally sumptuous showstopper. Similarly decadent are the carrot halwa and chai Chelsea buns with medjool dates, raisins, and dark chocolate, which, like many of these dishes, draw on the author’s Indian heritage. Recipes often feature complex constructions, among them the coconut cake with whipped ricotta and mango cream, a spice-accented cardamom and raspberry cake with white chocolate and pistachio, and a multilayer nectarine and blackberry pavlova with basil crème diplomat. Throughout, the author’s voice comes through in chatty instructions (“Let’s start with the pastry so this baby can get in the fridge to chill”) and quaint Britishisms (“I imagine eating it stonkingly hot... on a cold winter’s day”). This first-rate collection will please novice and veteran bakers alike. (June)

>215 magicians_nephew: How about that!!!

>181 LizzieD: >185 richardderus: Abject apologies! I see I didn't include the name of the poem. Well, duh, Liz. It's "Bantams in Pine Woods," and that takes care of the henna hackles. The sound of the poem grabs me first, and I beam when I get to "Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal./ Your world is you. I am my world." OK. I'll stop. Really.

*smooch* for the evening!

>216 richardderus: I'm not a GBBO devotee, but I like the idea of the plant based alternatives being provided side by side.

114 Bright Objects by Ruby Todd

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Publisher Says: A young widow grapples with the arrival of a once-in-a-lifetime comet and its tumultuous consequences, in a debut novel that blends mystery, astronomy, and romance, perfect for fans of Emma Cline’s The Girls and Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands.

Sylvia Knight is losing hope that the person who killed her husband will ever face justice. Since the night of the hit-and-run, her world has been shrouded in hazy darkness—until she meets Theo St. John, the discoverer of a rare comet soon to be visible to the naked eye.

As the comet begins to brighten, Sylvia wonders what the apparition might signify. She is soon drawn into the orbit of local mystic Joseph Evans, who believes the comet’s arrival is nothing short of a divine message. Finding herself caught between two conflicting perspectives of this celestial phenomenon, she struggles to define for herself where the reality lies. As the comet grows in the sky, her town slowly descends further and further into a fervor over its impending apex, and Sylvia’s quest to uncover her husband’s killer will push her and those around her to the furthest reaches of their very lives.

A novel about the search for meaning in a bewildering world, the loyalty of love, and the dangerous lengths people go to in pursuit of obsession, Bright Objects is a luminous, masterfully crafted literary thriller.

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

My Review: A debut novel from a very accomplished author, one whose best gift is the deft touch of characterization. I felt very connected to Sylvia from the get-go, her fuddled and bewildered survivor's guilt, her unostentatious revenge-seeking against the one responsible for her loss, and her deep but unwilling fascination with a charismatic local cult leader.

The lovely patterns Author Todd weaves among these strands, spinning her threads from the ever-renewed internal structures of loss, guilt, sadness, and outrage, don't sag or drop. They're sometimes not as harmoniously tinted as a veteran writer might choose...the mother-in-law in particular is rather paler than I'd expected, Theo the astronomer a bit too intense...but these are quibbles. Not a line out of place, not a word (even when a not-American word crops up) wasted or obscured.

The lack of a full fifth star on my rating isn't because of some sense of disappointment. I got what I wanted. The plot...revenge-driven widow struggles to cope with her loss and her survivor guilt will catch me in its web every time...is consistent, is finished with an appropriate, yet unexpected, ending. What bothered me, and this is really a very *me* thing to be tangled up in, was the comet. A comet, one on a path to get this close to Earth, is not going to go undetected for very long. We're motivated, since Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked Jupiter so very hard in 1994, to go looking for these kinds of objects.

Okay, so that's a half-star lost. A tiny smidgeon of the tarnish on my shiny loving cup of pleasure also traces to Theo and his own warping loss. It's a trope I find painfully Writerly, is the Conjunction of Damaged Souls. Theo's issues were understandably similar to Sylvia's; his response to her darkness was believable. His discovery of her, in Australia, where he happens to be for the confirmation of a career-defining discovery, is what rings false to me. As always I want this kind of other-directed man to exist; I suspect he isn't to be found in a man about to ascend to the heights of his ambitions. I also see the facile characterization of Joseph Evans, and honestly, since he's such a bell-end of a grifter, I just don't care.

Quibbles and crotchets aside, everything Author Todd does in this story fits. The mystery plot, the way it's rooted in the ugliness of revenge, the focus of the two leads on their personal quests, all works as a whole. The manner in which the ending's made manifest felt satisfying to me. I'm struggling with myself not to spoiler it (though I really want to!) because experiencing the event blind is a pleasure enhancer.

Tyro author does a fine job, will most likely do better next time, and very much deserves your treasure and time.

>217 LizzieD: OIC

Yep, that is indeed a source of actual "henna hackles" so it does indeed make sense now. That doesn't really sound as weird as it might when I'm armed with all the information.

Monday *smooch*

>218 Helenliz: It has multiple angles on my attention, Helen, and that's one.

'Morning, RDear! Happy Monday to you.

>216 richardderus: Huh. Good vegan versions of stuff with eggs, butter, and cream? Ricotta, though... ugh.

>219 richardderus: Excellent review as always. Pass. Probably 3 or 4 years ago I would have jumped on it, but not these days. My loss, no doubt.

*smooch*

>222 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! I think you'll live a full and enjoyable life without treading its paths. I have a deep love of ricotta, as all fresh cheeses, so I'm skeptical from the *other* side about a vegan impostor...I mean substitute!...for ricotta.

*smooch*

>219 richardderus: I was very happy to see something other than a Pearl-ruled book - and it looks like it is a dandy too! Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, RD!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes that you have a marvelous Monday!

>110 ArlieS:
I don't know about that "lots of infrastructure isn't being repaired" statement. I just drove from Kansas to Montana and my sister and I finally started laughing at all the bridge repair and road work being done along the way. At one point we would have had had to take a 35 mile detour because of bridge repair, so we just took the detour and kept going north instead of doubling back. Our mantra for the trip was "must be Joe Biden's infrastructure bill at work" because we haven't seen this level of road road done in the vast west in many many years.

You go Joe!

>224 alcottacre: That "last-Sunday-of-the-month" dump is always a bear for those seeking positive guidance, Stasia. *smooch*

>192 richardderus:
I like most of what I have read by Paolo Bacigalupi. I find his sci/fi very prescient. At least Windup Girl about GMO's and Water Knife about the water shortage in the American Southwest was very plausible and parts have turned out to be correct.

>225 benitastrnad: I'm unaware of the current state of the infrastructure spending, given that our governor just left a few billion on the Federal table so she could get re-elected.

*sigh*

>227 benitastrnad: It's fine...it's just so so Eurocentruc and I'm mortally tired of that; the access gate opening to other cultures is what excited me to retry fantasy.

>229 richardderus:
Fantasy is a great escape - except when it hits too close to reality.

I just listened to Rachel Maddow, and I'm feeling like we're living in a dystopian fantasy. I need fairy dust or maybe some K.J. Charles after all.

Good night, Richard! *smooch*

'Morning, RDear. Happy Tuesday.

I'm safely ensconced in no-news-is-good-news with the exception of Karen in Montana sending me a link to a yahoo news article about Allan Lichtman's 'Keys to the White House' predictors. Not finalized, but so far they favor Harris.

*smooch*

Morning, Richard. Heat and humidity moving back in. Ugh! I am still playing PB and then picking up the camper and bringing it back home. Our next trip begins on Thursday.

>211 richardderus: I heard Trump say he never heard of that one either. 😜

>230 benitastrnad: Fantasy will always be evocative of the moment, directly or in contrast. Escape's always an internal process.

>231 LizzieD: It really is, dear Peggy. KJ Charles has the virtue of being a lot cheaper than fairy dust.

>232 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I think the odds are far more in Harris's favor than 45's. That campaign has been royally wrong-footed. It seems to me their veep is not benefiting them in the way they'd hoped.

I'm cautiously hopeful. For the first time in a long time.

>233 msf59: He lies the way I sweat. Disgusts me that his cultists know, and just don't care.

Enjoy the escape! It's sticky here. North Atlantic proximity means I don't get the same degree of heat as y'all too often, but the gloopy-custard air quality "makes up" for it.

Tuesday *smooch*

High of 88 today, and the rest of the week is not much better. Hope you get some relief from the heat/humidity.

>238 bell7: EIGHTY-EIGHT!

*ewww*

I'm suddenly grateful for my now-paltry 77° and so so hopeful I will not be getting blasted with nudging-90° temps any time soon. *smooch*

>238 bell7: Good grief, 88 here in NC in July counts as a GOOD day. Sheesh!

Just peeping over the gate and waving RD.

>240 atozgrl: *gag* I am so triggered by those memories! South Texas's first 90° days came in mid-March when I was a kid; when I left Austin in 2008, it was late February. My whole life was spent too damned hot. Pansies were *winter* flowers, don't even imagine a peony surviving to bloom, growing lettuces and suchlike was December's work...yuck!

>241 Caroline_McElwee: *waves hi to Caro*

>242 richardderus: when I arrived in Austin (in 1991) it was early September. As I came out of the airport terminal there was a bus and for a good few seconds I thought it was only so hot because of the bus engine/exhaust. Nope.
I don't remember the heat particularly. I do remember the frigidity of the aircon - I used to take a cardi everywhere to put on when I went indoors. brrrr!

30C here today. >:-) I don't mind it; the husband is melting like an ice cube left out.

>244 Helenliz: Close enough to 90° to be a heinous human-rights violation. I'm with the husband.

September is always the gawdawfulest month of summer there...after the hideous torment of August, IT GETS HOTTER! Vile, vile, vile. No thanks. I'll take Siberian steppe cold because it's escapable. I, too, always have a cotton cardi to hand in case I feel chilled by the a/c...it does happen. Better that than heat!

>242 richardderus: Thank goodness it hasn't gotten that bad here in NC. At least not yet. Who knows about the future. Though we do plant pansies in the fall and have them over the winter into spring.

>246 atozgrl: It's the future we don't know about that keeps me awake nights, Irene. Pansies won't live up here until early April, for the most part, and that's the date I consider normal.

Pansies aren't winter flowers everywhere? Do tell.

I have learned. You can always put more clothes on if you're cold (and you have them). You can take off only so much.

Sleep well, Richard! *smooch*

It was 60 in Butte, Montana today. I was almost cold. And the best thing was that the wind carried the smoke from those California and Canadian fires away.

>225 benitastrnad: That's encouraging to read.

>248 LizzieD: Thanks, Peggy me lurve, I did...weird dreams because I fell asleep watching a space documentary and so was perched on the signal antenna of the Juno spacecraft, messin' witth the scientists.

Heh...yes indeed, there's a fairly firm limit on how little one can wear even indoors. Diminishing returns, given how much extra cleaning will need done.

>249 benitastrnad: GLORIOUS!!

Glad the smoke went away from you, sad the smoke exists.

>250 ArlieS: Ain't it just!

115 Someone Like Us by Dinaw Mengestu

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: After abandoning his once promising career as a journalist in search of a new life in Paris, Mamush meets Helen-a photographer whose way of seeing the world shows him the possibility of finding not only love, but family. Now, five years later, with his marriage to Helen on the verge of collapse, he returns to the close-knit immigrant Ethiopian community of Washington DC that defined his childhood. At its center is Mamush's stoic, implacable mother, and Samuel,the larger-than-life father-figure whose ceaseless charm and humor have always served as cover for a harder, more troubling truth. But on the same day that Mamush arrives home in Washington, Samuel is found dead in his garage.

With Helen and their two-year old son back in Paris, Mamush sets out on an unexpected journey across America in search of answers to questions he'd been told never to ask. As he does so, he begins to understand that perhaps the only chance he has of saving his family and making it back home is to confront not only the unresolved mystery around Samuel's life and death, but his own troubled memories, and the years spent masking them. Breath-taking, commanding, unforgettable work from one of America's most prodigiously gifted novelists.

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

My Review: I am a very, very white old man. I experience none of what Mamush does, or expects to, on a daily personal basis. My Young Gentleman Caller is half-black (he prefers lowercase to uppercase "Black"). There are times I am utterly oblivious to what that idiotic blood quantum theory of human identity means because I get none of it. What I *do* get is profiled, when traveling, as an American...some indefinable something about me is ineradicable, and inescapably American. Among anti-semites I am always assumed to be a Jew. (Among Jews as well, which can get awkward.) As a gay man, and an old one, I'm often seen as not queer enough, or just a bit too queer. Can't win for losin'.

So when I read Author Mengestu's books, I am not just pruriently peeping in on his characters' struggles with identity and its ramifications.

The great strength of Author Mengestu is his lovely language. One of my all-time favorite aperçus of his is from How to Read the Air: "There is nothing so easily remade as our definitions of ourselves." (Note to self: Why haven't we reviewed that one?) This book, too, is full of meaty thoughts on identity, on the mutability of selfhood, on the complexity of being alive in an interwoven web of love and fear and distrust, trying to spin new threads as old ones fray, of making the effort to stick yourself to the ones you thought you wanted to escape. The way webs form...from the center outward, directed by a design and made for a purpose...is, however, the opposite of that other great center-driven natural structure: the hurricane. These form when a depression becomes so empty that everything around it is drawn in to fill its vacant space in the atmosphere. Mamush, with the best of intentions, is a hurricane. “You’re like a donut. There’s a hole in the middle, where something solid should be,” says his wife.

He sticks to nothing, nothing sticks to him. His deep and abiding depression formed in his deeply uprooted "family." His mother and father escaped imploding Ethiopia, and in a truly terrible series of bad decisions, engendered their child Mamush. Neither, though they are friends, wants to raise a child with the other. Mamush has the ordinary single-mother experience of childhood with all its spaces and silences and absences. His father would've been absent no matter what because he is a man on a mission to help other Ethiopian immigrants starting a taxi business to employ them in the US. Tgat makes him professionally unrooted, always in motion, at the mercy of those around him, subject to their moods and attitudes in service of making a living. Mamush is his father's son. He abandons a job as a journalist...someone who observes from the sidelines...to run away from the ever-darkening US. It's the way these men live. He starts a family in France, which honestly sounds like one of the worst ideas anyone ever had. That, unsurprisingly, just presses his depression even lower down: his son is disabled, a hard, hard road for the best prepared parent. Predictably, it's a terrible stressor for Mamush. At his mother's summons to come home to DC and help her figure out where his father has got to, he's outta there leaving son and wife to struggle along without him.

It's deeply telling that he misses his plane. It's even more telling that he, on a whim with no forethought, then switches his ticket from DC to Chicago. It wasn't just a whim, really, as his parents had lived with him in Chicago before settling in DC. His unmooring from his plans, from his family, from his career, is all in service of a Quest. Who doesn't love a Quest? He's so turbulent, such a low-pressure spot in his own life, that he's attracting chaos at such a huge rate he must find a way to fill himself from the center outward or succumb to that destructive chaos.

A man in search of a center, a man whose essence is unquiet and kinetic, who now wants something he's never had and has no tools in his kit to create, is a danger to himself and others until he finds the thing that can act as solid ground. Standing still is only possible when there's solid ground under you. Then the hole formed so early in life, made from the same stuff as the edges are, is the small nugget of solidity he can stand on. From this small, awkwardly shaped piece, a center is formed, and the spinning of that web of intent, design, and adhesion can begin.

This is when Mamush says to his father: “There isn’t one story. Things start and end abruptly. Some pages are just a single paragraph. I don’t always understand who’s speaking or what’s happening. If what you’ve written is fact or fiction.”

Homecoming, homegoing, home is now within reach. It is a beautiful moment in a book that, for almost half its length, made me want to slap the hell out of Mamush, out of his parents, and maybe most of all his idiot wife who had a child with this deeply unready man. All comes out well, or at least "well" is finally in sight, for Mamush. Guaranteed? No. Delivered? Not really. But visible at last.

I think Dinaw Mengestu deserves a stonking medal for taking me on this journey that irked and annoyed me, but lured me on with his usual glorious phrasemaking music, then delivered me to an ending I could both believe completely and feel satisfied with. Kudos to you, sir.

Great review of The Trail of the Cedars. I have only read one book by him. I need to get back to him and this looks like a good place to start.

"Stonking"? LOL.

>255 msf59: Don't know where The Trail of the Cedars came from, Mark...I am deeply unlikely to read any of The Campfire Girls series, TBH. Isn't "stonking" a great word? English for "really really big, over-the-top".
***
Murderbot goodness! System Collapse on sale NOW THROUGH 4 AUGUST 2024, ebooks are $2.99!
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250826985/systemcollapse
***
BIRD PEOPLE ATTEND!
The Hummingbirds’ Gift by Sy Montgomery is $1.99 on Kindle!!

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Wednesday to you.

>238 bell7: - >240 atozgrl: It’s all relative, isn’t it? 88F is very good for central NC as Irene points out. Today’s supposed to be 95F.

>244 Helenliz: I wore a long-sleeved cotton button-down shirt when I went to book sort yesterday, Helen, because I knew the Library and the after-book-sort breakfast we go to would be freezing. I was not wrong.

>246 atozgrl: When we planted pansies we did exactly that, too, Irene, although ours usually lasted ‘til June-ish in planters.

>254 richardderus: Wonderful, thoughtful review. It’s on my wish list. I see that it only got published yesterday, so your review is especially timely.

>255 msf59: and >256 richardderus: Weird link, Mark, but well, my goodness. I was a Camp Fire Girl – Blue Bird, Camp Fire Girl, and Jr. High Camp Fire Girl, from age 8 to age 13. I never heard of The Camp Fire Girl books. No need to read them now, of course… I have to say that being in the Camp Fire Girls was wonderful. I still have all the service beads I earned and charm bracelet charms I earned for selling candy.

*smooch*

>254 richardderus: Good news! This one is already on my TBR list (and if it wasn't, yeah, the review would've added it).

>240 atozgrl: >257 karenmarie: It is indeed relative. I remember my cousin's cousins coming up from Florida one spring day and we were so excited it was in the sixties for the first time in ages, we were in short sleeves... they were shivering in jackets. Also, the chiller/AC at work wasn't working yesterday, so I was anticipating the heat without it. Eighties is becoming the new normal for summers here in the northeast, and heat waves in the 90s or above coming in earlier and lasting longer than when I was a child.

A little more "normal" end-of-July with a high of 82 today, and a working AC to boot. Wednesday *smooch*

JULY IN REVIEW
~meh~

Eleven books reviewed of twelve read. One I really liked...Women in the Valley of Kings...I'll post my review of during #Booksgiving because it deserves five stars. The read I liked second-best I reviewed in >254 richardderus:. As usual Dinaw Mengestu does not disappoint. The rest were pretty much okay, not great not awful not memorable. The writing saved Ruby Todd (>219 richardderus: above) from the mouldering mound of ~meh~. She's one to watch, I think, and will likely only get better. I hope she picks a less predictable story next time.

I'm pretty sure this'll be my worst month because I went so hard on #PrideMonth, got so much read...though I don't read and then write the reviews for the theme month reads solely during the month I publish the reviews or I'd go mad. August is #WITMonth, stands for Women In Translation, an annual event in its tenth year. As I read a lot of translations by preference anyway, it's good to have a reason to gang up the reviews. That ganging up has, I guess because of SEO, a big boost on viewed reviews on my blog.

Which is, I'm delighted to say, going to pass my one thousand five hundredth blog post, almost all of them reviews, next week! Eleven and a third years coming, but it feels good to hit a milestone. Here on LT I've posted 2519 reviews in the last about-to-be eighteen years on the thirteenth! People born the day I signed up for LT can vote for the president this year. *whew*

>248 LizzieD: You can always put more clothes on if you're cold (and you have them). You can take off only so much. That is my thought on the whole thing too. It is only going to be 95 here today :)

>254 richardderus: Putting that one in the BlackHole. I read Mengestu's The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears a few years back and enjoyed it for the most part so I am definitely willing to read more of his stuff.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and hopes that you have a wonderful Wednesday, RD!

>257 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I'm ever so pleased I could book-bullet you with Author Mengestu's latest. I left you another book-bullet above, too. I'm appalled afresh at what counts as acceptable in y'all's corner of Hades...95° should have all y'all out protesting in the malls (to avoid sunstroke) against the oil companies.

*smooch*

>258 bell7: Another target hit! I'm glad the TBR wasn't further fattened, though, as it was already there.

I left South Texas in April 1968 to visit my sister who was at Brown for her degree. Got off the plane in Boston, and thought I would DIE it was so cold...I'd left 85° and had no idea it was going to be 60° there! (Nor did my mother apparently, because I had no jacket.) Lynne laughed at me because it was (for Providence, where we drove after Logan) quite warm. We stopped at a Goodwill and got me a jacket and a sweater, so it wasn't all torture.

Enjoy the a/c!

>259 richardderus: I mean, really, does any actual adult not know this? (excepting my roommate, of course who must be shut up every so often with reminders to put his flannel shirt on)

Enjoy >254 richardderus:! It's a fine read.

*huggyhuggy smooch smooch*

August is W.I.T. Month!

This ten-year-old readfest is described on their website (linked above) as follows:

WITMonth—aka Women in Translation Month—is an annual celebration of women writers from around the world, writing in languages other than English. Started by Meytal Radzinski in 2014, WITMonth has grown to become a staple of the online literary community, as well as a prominent presence in independent bookstores around the world.

Every August, readers from all continents around the world (except Antarctica, but we’ll get those penguins yet!) gather in spirit (and sometimes in person) to read, review, and discuss works by women writers in translation. The idea is to spread the word about the Women in Translation project at large, and promote individual women writers in translation specifically. Follow #WITMonth on Twitter, Instagram, Booktube, and across the world!

The overarching purpose is one I support most of all because it is the opposite of the TERF essentialist and exclusionary mindset. A bit of history about their work, again from their website...

The #womenintranslation project is:

International, intersectional, and built around the notion that all women* (*and transgender and nonbinary and intersex individuals) deserve to have their voices heard. This project is committed to giving space to women* from all countries, all languages, all religions, all ethnicities, all cultures, all sexualities, all marginalized gender identities, all abilities, all bodies, all classes, and all ages.

Due to the stunning gender disparity in non-English language literature, this project will focus on all literature written by women* in any language other than English, regardless of the language in which it is read or discussed. This project shall not discriminate based on literary genre or designation, seeking instead to open as many gates as possible to all readers. This project is open to all readers, from all languages, from all countries, in the hopes that together we may build a better world.

This month I will focus on works written and/or translated into English by *women. My intention is to post twenty-one reviews, not including Burgoines an Pearl-Rules, in the thirty-one days of August. See the previous years' reviews, too.

I encourage all who love reading to join the fun...one book or ten, add some women's writing and translating to your TBR!

>264 richardderus: Sounds like a great challenge with excellent potential reads!

>264 richardderus: I was wondering what WIT month was , Richard and now I have found out. I'm not sure what I will read for that. I was thinking that The Safekeep by Yael Van der Wouden might fufill that, but despite the fact that she is from the Netherlands, it looks like she wrote the book in English. I'll have to think on that. Happy August! *smooch*

Ha! I made it here in time to say hi! before this thread ends. And leave a smooch. : )

116 Of Saints and Miracles by Manuel Astur (tr. Claire Wadie)

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: This mesmerizing novel opens with a fratricide in a beautiful if impoverished region of northern Spain.

The perpetrator, Marcelino, lives alone in his parental home where he recalls having doted on his baby brother and sought to protect their mother from their father’s drunken rages. Author Manuel Astur’s poetic language and seamless blend of lyricism with the grotesque renders this book a treasure for the reader that includes the mother’s bewitching tales about the sun, the moon, and an invisible horse-drawn carriage of death. Glimpses into other villagers’ lives reveal a community that gathers to slaughter pigs for feasts and to confront a mysterious plague of white worms.

The mountainous green of rural Asturias is as much a character as these residents, from whom Marcelino flees to the wild peaks after his brother’s slaying, becoming a cult hero as he evades authorities. Of Saints and Miracles is a sensuous portrayal of an outcast’s struggle to survive in a chaotic world of both tragedy and magical splendor.

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

My Review: What startled me most was being in medias res, knowing the murderer from the get-go and the inside out. That is a subversion of expectations that made me stick to the tale as it was being told. Normally I read murder-themed stories while looking for clues and hints from the off. I was made to think a different way about this true-life tale.

It worked in this read's favor, as the way the story's written is a joy to read:

When you see a weed in the vegetable plot you pull it out. When you've got more chickens than you need, you wring the neck of one and chuck it in the pot. When some dog mounts your bitch and she gives birth to a litter, you choose the best puppy, put the rest in an old potato sack with some stones and throw the sack in the river. When an apple tree no longer bears fruit, you cut it down and chop it up for firewood. When the grass in your field gets too long, you cut it, gather it up and store it in the hayloft. When a man in a suit comes and shows you some papers and tells you some stuff about mortgages and wants to take away your vegetable plot, your hens, your bitch and your fields, you defend yourself. Even if this man in a suit is your brother. And they can call you a revolutionary and talk about you on TV and in the papers and say who knows what about the oppressed peoples, or the last remaining guerrilla, but the truth is simpler, it's always simpler. And the truth is that you have to do what you have to do.
–and–
(Marcelino/)Leno's mother told him to give the little old lady a kiss. She smelled of cookies, earth, and bleach. Then she gave a toothless smile like a baby magpie and made a gurgling sound as if she had sand in her throat. She gurgled some more and his mother understood, even if he didn't. That was about all he could remember of the old world. The yellow smell of human piss and past lives filled with misery. A white washbowl with a tear shaped chip in its enamel, glowing in the darkness like an apparition. A one-eyed ginger cat asleep at the old woman's feet. A tatty old oil cloth on a rickety table. A few empty hooks, blackened by grease over the years. A handful of dried ears of corn tied up in a piece of cloth. Shadows dancing on the filthy wall. That's about it.

You like it, you don't...I don't think anyone can make much of a case that this isn't a robust storytelling voice. The way the voice comes across in telling this sad, brutal tale of a simple man solving problems he doesn't understand as best he can suited this reader as well as anything could.

The fearsomeness of committing a fratricide is never far from Marcelino's mind.

You see, this wound hurts just as much as yesterday’s wound, which hurt as much as the one before, and the one before the one before that, and as much as the first wound, the original wound that the first man feared. And though this wound is bleeding in the same way as all wounds bleed, and blood has always been the same, this wound thinks itself unique.
–and–
Death is never heroic. Life can be, but not death. Death comes to us all, but we know that if a woman watches over us on our deathbed, we’ll go to heaven.
–and–
All the dead are good because they are no longer alive and can therefore be imagined. As with fools and saints, we can lie about them because they can't defend themselves. They are a tale with countless morals, in illustration of whatever you like, a myth to be molded. The dead don't belong to the dead; the dead are ours.

These are simple thoughts, basic, grounded—even rooted—in the life of a man who has no sophisticated veneer to hide his innocent belief that the world can, and must, be made to make sense. Even or especially when it doesn't. Marcelino, based on a man called Tomasín whose life ended in exactly this concatenation of nightmares, becomes a symbol of the distant and rural province of Asturias's resistance to the rapidly modernizing economy of Spain after Franco's 1975 death. No one who's ever had a credit card or a cellphone contract won't, in some small way, fail to comprehend this desire to see someone stick it to The Man. No one whose family is normal won't, in some small way, recognize the urge to commit murder of a sibling who's just done you dirt.

Author Astur set out to tell us a story of a world, an old one, that is losing its battle to remain as it is. A world that pays attention, not compound interest. A world where Marcelino, salt of the Earth that he is, can be so in tune with Life that it becomes Art before his fulfilled eyes:
Just as a sun-soaked stone radiates heat for a while after nightfall, there is a point on still summer evenings whe objects appear to shine, as if to give back part of the generous daylight they've received. In such moments, Marcelino would stop what he was doing — clod of earth on the hoe, spade sunk deep in the hay, scythe dripping with fresh green blood — to stand up straight, wipe his brow with the back of his hand and contemplate the valley below. Everything would be gleaming, chiming like a bell of golden light. He would let his eyes fill with sky.

And so, as the sun set on that July evening, Marcelino stopped and contemplated. The house, the stilt granary, the cart with its shaft reaching skyward, the dry straw, the ears of corn, the cows in a single spine coming home along the track, the dog’s bowl, the rusty drum among the nettles, the axe in the tree stump, the woodchips and the logs, the sawdust on the ground, even the moss that hugged the stones in the walls of the small vegetable plot, even the trees in the nearby woods and the mountain peaks: everything shimmered, silhouetted against the deep-blue sky, in which a single bright star heralded the coming of a new age. Everything, that is, except the large bloodstain in the sawdust, and his brother’s body, both so dark they seemed to trap the light, as if the black ink that was slowly flooding the valley was seeping directly from them, saturating the sky and drawing the shapes of bats, which began to dance around the yellowish light of Cobre’s lone street lamp.

We go into this read certain murder is Wrong, murderers must be caught and required to suffer punishment; and come out without such a comfortable Certainty. Did Marcelino do wrong by killing his wicked brother? Yeah. Was he Wrong, was his action a rip in the fabric of society?

Dunno about you, but I came out of this read not at all sure. Read it soon, tell me what you thought.

>265 figsfromthistle: A whole lot of amazing stuff out there, Anita. I hope you find something great to read among the offerings.

>266 vancouverdeb: Hiya Deborah! I'm glad I could inform and entertain, if only in the future tense, with the concept of #WITMonth. That Dutch lesbian horror novel I read not long ago was written in English, too...the Dutch are all like dear departed Anita...polyglot to the next level.

*smooch*

>267 Berly: Berly-boo! I'm so glad to see you. Doing well, I see. Have a happy-August *smooch*

>264 richardderus: Did I know it was W.I.T. month? I do not think I did since I have scheduled nothing to read for it and unfortunately, it does not look like that will change, especially since August is going to be a short month for me.

>268 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, RD!

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

>272 alcottacre: Oh well...the month is only a vehicle to be ridden, not a law to be obeyed, Stasia me lurve. I think you'll be book-bulleted often enough for the purpose to be served...like with >268 richardderus:!

*smooch*

Sweet Thursday, Richard. We are getting ready to shove off for our next camping trip. Juno will be joining us and she is quite pleased about it. Have a great weekend, my friend.

>274 msf59: I hope it turns cool and dry, Birddude, so y'all don't sweat/pant yourselves into dehydration. Enjoy the trip!

Hiya, RDear!

>259 richardderus: Look forward to your review of Women in the Valley of the Kings.

>261 richardderus: I definitely live in NC despite late spring, summer, and early fall. No plans on leaving the house today since it will be 95F again.

>268 richardderus: What startled me most was being in medias res, knowing the murderer from the get-go and the inside out. That is a subversion of expectations that made me stick to the tale as it was being told. Normally I read murder-themed stories while looking for clues and hints from the off. I was made to think a different way about this true-life tale. It doesn’t happen frequently, but I like knowing who the murderer is from the get-go sometimes.

*smooch*

>276 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I think the point being to solve the puzzle of a crime means we want to be ignorant; in this case it's not about any puzzle except "why did these men end up in this awful place?"

Happily the publisher and author are happy with my review. Retweeted it and said nice things.

*smooch*

Happy day, Richard, since I'm too late to wish you a good morning!

>268 richardderus: sounds like a very good book, but I don't think I can consider it now. Onto the wish list it goes with thanks.

*Women in the Valley* is a different proposition though but too new to buy right now. As for WIT, I'll have to see what I have on hand. I'll guarantee that it won't be Ferrante.

*smooch*

ETA: Happy that the author and publisher appreciate your review!

>268 richardderus: Sounds like an interesting one - got me, I think.

>278 LizzieD: Happy diurnal cycle, Peggy me lurve. I'm happy you visited, never mind the time of day. I think Women in the Valley of Kings will go on Kindle sale one day soon. If I see it, I'll come tell you right away.

>268 richardderus: will be around, no rush. The publisher's solid and won't just fold up their tents one night. It's a big pleasure to read.

>279 drneutron: I think you'll enjoy it, Doc. It goes into some really involving moral questions very deeply, and not from the usual judgmental angles. Your kinda story!

I will look forward to reading your WITMonth titles, though I'll probably be a few months behind in actually reading them! ;)

Hiya, RDear. Happy Friday.

>277 richardderus: Yay for the retweeting and nice things.

*smooch*

>280 richardderus: I'll be very happy if *Women/Valley* goes on Kindle sale. I wonder if the women who love Amelia Peabody mysteries will be interested in the real deals?

Good morning to you! Be cool and comfy and read something nice! *smooch*

>282 bell7: Heh! As one would expect, since I'm reviewing them months after reading them myownself. *smooch*

>283 karenmarie: Yay indeed, Horrible. I'm always pleased when my words reach someone.

Happy weekend-ahead's reads!

>284 LizzieD: I really hope they are, Peggy, so the book will build a big audience. My latest review's very much a "something nice" one, so go look. *smooch*

117 Bird Cottage by Eva Meijer (tr. Antoinette Fawcett)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: I want to find out how they behave when they’re free.

Len Howard was forty years old when she decided to leave her London life and loves behind, retire to the English countryside and devote the rest of her days to her one true passion: birds.

Moving to a small cottage in Sussex, she wrote two bestselling books, astonishing the world with her observations on the tits, robins, sparrows and other birds that lived nearby, flew freely in and out of her windows, and would even perch on her shoulder as she typed.

This moving novel imagines the story of a remarkable woman’s decision to defy society’s expectations, and the joy she drew from her extraordinary relationship with British garden birds.

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

My Review: A non-fiction novel, a fictionalized (more than usual) biography, it's a read that solves the need I feel to derive some kind of new-to-me knowledge from my entertainment. Len Howard was a real woman, and the facts of her life are as presented here.

I don't think that's necessary to know to appreciate this celebratory telling of one woman's remarkable life. It's interesting, and raises the question: Why not go into a full biography of this powerful, if quiet, personality? She would stand out in any era but in her lifetime (1894 to 1973) she was a unicorn! So, from the start, I was inclined to stand a bit apart from the story. When I'm told it's based on a real person's life, but is fiction, I'll never settle in to a naturally flowing response now. The "which is this thing, fact or fiction?" will arise at every turn.

No fifth star for you, book.

That said, the story told...quiet, meditative, filled with Howard's own sense of wonder and awe at the beautiful world...is an enfolding, enriching experience. I'm not deeply interested in les burdies, unlike so many. Howard's decision to stop creating music to pursue a close and deep connection to them was surprising to me, as it was to those very few she was close to. Her desire to see what unthreatened birds would do differently from the ones she saw being "studied" in harrassing ways, as was the norm at the time, made me think she was trying to find a space free of threats, free of unnatural demands, for herself. What she does in this beautiful idyll is make careful observations, meticulously recorded and thoroughly analyzed. This led to two published books, in 1952 and 1957, now seemigly out of print in English, though not in Dutch...for obvious reasons. Author Meijer's deft hand at work, I suppose, though she did not translate the book.

It is the story of a restricted life, told beautifully, and fully. It reveals that even a woman of restrained temperament...nothing in Len's life before or after her assuming residence at the eponymous Bird Cottage suggests she was a repressed soul, just a quiet one...can feel pinched and coerced into a mold not to her liking. Often the quiet souls, uncomplaining and undramatic in their manners and manner, are mistakenly supposed to be happy or at least contented. Len Howard was neither. She disliked most human interaction. When, at forty-five, she left the social demands of the world behind to be fully in the natural world, she began to achieve things, to see things, that simply would not be seen in the regimes of study then fashionable. She began, I think, to live her life for herself, as herself.

The strength of my own lurid energies makes me think "that can not be a happy life" but the evidence of her writing suggests it was. I'm appalled, fascinated, and very slightly amazed that someone could choose, at any age younger than I am now, a life without sex. Without companionship. Without others. She wasn't the first, or the last, but "really?" is my one thought.

So there's the missing star explained away; the other four represent my glad-hearted, deeply gruntled feelings as I immerse myself into a calm pool of beautifully clear word-water, telling me a satisfying story of a life lived on the terms its subject most wanted. That she was lucky enough to do this for almost half her years on this planet makes her one of the most fortunate and privileged of people.

This beautifully translated novel of an extraordinary woman's life is an excellent seasonal read. It's one that, during a vacation, will allow the reader to submerge into a truly different way of life. Even though I myownself wouldn't want to live Len Howard's life, I'm glad Author Meijer and Translator Fawcett shared it with me.

>273 richardderus: Yeah, you book bullet me enough that I really do not need to worry about it, do I?

>288 richardderus: From the sounds of it, I will be wishing that the book was nonfiction all the way through. I am adding it to the BlackHole anyway.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** and wishes that you have a wonderful weekend

Just a quick hello on this muggy Friday so you know I haven’t dropped off the Earth’s crust. It’s just a lack of energy and focus. It’ll get better. Have a lovely weekend!

>289 alcottacre: I, Madam? I am utterly innocent, guiltless, unfairly accused! You travel very widely and innumerable malefactors aim their biblioguns at you! I merely comment upon the passing scene with no particle of intent to harm your budget. Seek elsewhere for fair apportionment of blame!

(Unless you loved the book, then it was totally me)

>290 Storeetllr: It's August, Mary. You get to be lethargic when it's August. That is the one excuse for August to exist, for all of me.
***
Follow me to fifteen:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/362409

>216 richardderus: She's not the first GBBO baker to have a book out. I'm sure Nadiya has some books out - she did some TV series, after all - and I know I've seen one or two by Kim-Joy of the kawaii characters.

>238 bell7:, >239 richardderus: The daily standard temperature here is 32ºC but lately, what with climate change and all, it feels hotter. We haven't had much rain in the past week or two.

>242 richardderus: Our only trip to Austin was probably in 2001 and probably in February - or possibly in April? But it was pleasantly cool, not too much warmer than NYC at the time, I believe.

>293 humouress: 32C is perfectly acceptable anywhere I'm not, especially if said place is at sea level smack on the Equator like Singapore.

Austin's climate is much more reasonable than *SOUTH*-South Texas where I lived, on the Mexican border, in that it gets *hot* early but then cools down, then gets HOT again...just doesn't stay hot until April/May most years.

I reviewed S10 winner David Whatsit's books a few years ago. I've got S3 finalist James Morton's books and somehow never reviewed 'em. Kim-Joy's identity book is one I might well read but it has stiff competition....

>291 richardderus: Uh huh. I am sure that everyone believes you :)

>295 alcottacre: But apparently no-one actually reads his thread.

>296 humouress: Sad, isn't it, the utter absence of interest in or traffic on my ignored little thread?

No reply to my post? Ah well.

>298 humouress: ...?...didn't look at >297 richardderus:?

Still nothing? Maybe I'll try another thread ...

>300 humouress: Clean your lenses, sweetness. :-P

>301 richardderus: :0)