Magician's Nephew 2025 - New Words

Hello.

My name is Jim and I've been on the Thing for a decade now.

I'm a retired computer programmer, a historian, an actor, and (once again) a piano player.

I was sort of AWOL the last few months on medical matters and other silliness. Hope to keep up with my friends and fellow readers this year.
This is from "New Words" a song by Maury Yeaston

Turn your eyes from the skies now
Turn around and look at me

there's a light In my eyes now,
and a word for what you see

We call it "Love" my son, say "Love"
So hard to say, my son, it gets harder

New words today we'll learn to say
Learn "moon" learn "stars"
Learn "love"

Still learning.

Welcome back, Jim!

Just filing a few DNF's for reference.

Tom Brokaw is a pretty good journalist and commentator who had a lot of smart things to say about The Greatest Generation and the men and women who fought in World War II. I read that book with much pleasure.

But his new book The Fall of Richard Nixon is pretty bad. It's subtitled "A Reporter Remembers Watergate", and as a Watergate junkie from way back, I thought that would be worth a look.

But it's not. Brokaw has really nothing interesting or new to say about Watergate and his casual off the cuff "remembrances" just don't tell us anything about what he was thinking or feeling back in those bad days.

Brokaw may be trying to look at Donald Trump through the lens of Richard Nixon, but if so, it's a swing and a miss. Coulda Shoulda been better. Disappointing.

“History is the study of all the world’s crime.”
-- Voltaire

Just a word about Attack From Within Barbara McQuade's new book about disinformation in social media and in other ways too

It's a frustrating book - half of it is "Oh Yeah I knew that" and a shrug. But the other half us "Holy Cow! I didn't know that!" and a shudder.

People will go on national television ( or social media) and tell blatant lies secure in the knowledge (a) that they won't be challenged and (b) that people who want to believe the lie will brush off the Fact Checkers as biased or irrelevant.

Pat Monyihan used to say "You're entitled to your opinion. You're not entitled to your own set of facts".

Sadly Ben Franklyn said " A Lie can travel halfway around the world while the trust is still getting its boots on".

It's not that people believe everything they read on Facebook. they believe everything they want to be believe on Facebook. And the national dialog we need to have just grinds to a halt.

Not an easy book to read. But a book worth reading.

Happy new year, Jim.

Great to see you back dear chap. I missed you in the latter part of last year.

Wow, 2025, hard to say what this year will bring. Hope it's a good one and you have lots of great reads, Jim!

>6 Familyhistorian: Thanks my friends. I'm back and Im here to stay.!

Read on MacDuff!

Just a word about Kitchen a new short novel by a young Japanese woman who rejoices in the name Banana Yoshimoto

Its a sweet little story tale of modern Japan told in clean spare but delightfully charming prose. Sometimes it feels like a fable - or a "Genji" story. The details make the magic.

It's about a young girl who loses her mother and then her grandmother and almost casually goes to live with a friend in Toyko who has - wait for it - a huge gleaming bright homey kitchen. This is a book makes you drool over the dishes cooked and eaten by our young heroine. But you have to stay around for the washing up too.

It's a very modern book - the author references "Bewitched" and "The Brady Bunch" but in it's respect for tradition and secrets it is a very Japanese book. It's a book about love and family.

You have to understand grief before you can really undestand joy. That's what the book is about. It's really amazing.

My book group loved it. I'll bet you will too.

>8 magicians_nephew: Not that new, Jim, as it was published in 1988, but it is still a pretty fresh book, I guess.

Have a great weekend.

Welcome back, Jim, and happy reading!

>9 PaulCranswick: Our book group is always looking for "new" books Paul and this one popped out at me from a "best of" list.

The book so captures the voice of a twenty year old girl and her friends its almost a shock to realize the author has just turned 60!

Sally Rooney is an exciting young Irish writer who has a lot of really good books out there.

This month I took a re-read of Conversations with Friends from a few years ago.

Rooney's first novel is a rush of words - conversations, text messages, new people, new situations. People searching for - what? Love? Security, acceptance? Or just Being grown up. Or not.

She writes intelligently about young Irish men and women finding their way and learning to live. This is a book about friendship and betrayal, a little of both. Restlessness and curiosity and being afraid to move on and being afraid to stay put. Both at once

Her characters are lively and self-aware, her dialog is clear and crisp and really carries you along. You care about her people.

Exciting. Recommended

>12 magicians_nephew: - I DNFed CwF but thought Normal People was pretty good. I listened to it, and the narration was excellent. I might try CwF on audio at some point to see if it hits me different.

>13 katiekrug: Thanks for dropping by, Katie. CwF is a little slow and you have to downshift a little to get its rhythm. Listening to it might be a good idea. I also liked Normal People

Robert Harris is one of my favorite authors. He's a historian who digs down and gets his facts right, and a writer who can make the story vivid and real for modern readers. He's done The Dreyfus Affair, The Bletchley Park Code Breakers and Ancient Rome. He's amazing.

But i have to state that i found only half of a good book in his V2

in the last months of World War II Hitler set up a team of scientist engineers to create weapons not to win the war but to wreak "Vengence" against England. (and Belgium)

This was the V-1 "Drone" and later the V-2 a solid fuel rocket carrying bombs that could be launched "ballistically" against Britain. Aiming was pretty crude. Loss of life was high.

The chief engineer of the project was our old friend Werner Von Braun, who later ran the the American Man on the Moon Project

Harris makes it brutally clear that von Braun was responsible for the death of thousands, not only British civilians but German Prisoners who sweated and died under hellish conditions to build and launch the rockets. He tells this story and tells it well. That's a terrific book.

But then he gives us a convoluted story of some British women with mathematical training who were tasked with calculating the trajectory of the rockets in flight, in real time. Some of this actually happened but the cloak and dagger spy story Harris describes probably didn't. So, OK.

If you don't know about the V-2 project and SS-Sturmbannführer von Braun's role in it this is not a bad place to start. and Harris can't Not tell a good story.

Once they go up, who cares where they come down
"That's not my department" says Werner Von Braun
-- Tom Lerher

Well. Was too restless for a new book, thought I'd try an old book.

Alistair Maclean was the go-to guy for "Thrillers" going back to The Guns of Navaronne He wrote a batch of them and they all sold a boatload of books. And I enjoyed a lot of them.

But this weekend i picked up my old copy of Ice Station Zebra and pretty quickly put it down again. The Ice Station in question is up in the frozen arctic and has stuff that both the American and the Russians want.

So the Americans - and one British doctor - go up north in an American nuclear submarine and have one hair-raising adventure after another, while manly men toss off self-deprecating quips to show their intelligence and humanity.

And you know - it doesn't work any more even as escapism. The heroes are dull and one note, the adventures are just preposterous (and thats not a compliment) , and I put te book down at around page 105.

The poet wisely said that "No man reads the same book twice - for the book has changed - and so has the man".

Doesn't do it any more. Maybe it never did. Moving on.

Had to have a pulmonology (lung function) test today and they put me into this little gadget



Can't work out if David Copperfield is about to make me vanish or if a Star Trek Villain is about to split me into two mirror selves.

Just a word about The Bell an old Iris Murdoch novel that I read this month wiht one of my book groups.

In this one we are introduced to a group of people who have come together in a semi-religious retreat away from the world to study and perhaps find a way to God.

There are innocent young girls (and beautiful young boys) and damaged older men all trying to find - what? Themselves? The Truth? Love? Seeking redemption the pass clings to each of them like heavy chains.

The convent nearby has lost its bell a century ago and is now in progress in getting a new bell to ring out and guide the hours of the faithful. The old bell was lost in the swamp, we find. And was rediscovered. And lost again.

Murdoch has the gift of being true and being funny about serious things, and there is some of that here . But it goes on a long time and there are many characters and back stories to keep track of, and after a while i just didn't know where to look. Or who to care about.

Call it a grade B Murdoch and youre still a lot better that a lot of writers.

But The Sea, the Sea is better.

Just to say a word about Marianne Faithful, the singer actress poet who died this week at the age of 78



She was already world weary at the age of 17 when her first big song "As Tears Go By" became a big hit. She had her ups and downs in life and in music. In Time the clear bell like soprano became raw, rusty and low. But always truthful and always powerful.

Her last records were reading of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shallot" set to music. To the streetwise cynical poet came a touch of the romantic and the yearning.

Her music touched me. I'm going to miss her.

For ere she reached upon the tide
the first house by the water side
Singing in her song she died
The Lady of Shallot

Lancelot mused a little space
He said "She has a lovely face
God in His Mercy lend her grace
The Lady of Shallot
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Wild houses and I keep wanting to write "Wild Horses" is a new novel by a young Irish writer that fell into my lap this past year.

The through line is a group of child-men drug dealers who more or less kidnap the brother of one of the gang for being short on money owed. They take the brother to the home of a local man who has some social development issues and is more or less a recluse.

But its just a occasion to show these desperate grotesque men (and women) these people who are trapped in the village and in the cycle of petty crime and violence. And the curious but rich ties of family and tribe.

One girl, Nicky the barmaid, has her eye on college and might somehow get out of this dead end, but the rest of them have no future and no prospects and they know it. The anger is fierce and scary but totally understandable. The ghosts of the past are real and palpable. The madness peeks out at every corner.

The writer is a great storyteller in the Irish tradition and his dialogue is worth the price of admission. These people really come to life.

Quick read but these people stay with you.

Recommended.

Had a great time in our book group with Plainsong a novel that came out a few years ago
.
Husaf tells the story of a small town in Colorado and some of its inhabitants - an unwed mother, two old bachelor farmers, a man raising two small boys on his own after his wife withdrew into depression and many others.

Everyone seems to be carrying a burden of sorrow and confusion and keeping it inside..

But in a series of quiet miracles, lives intersect, burdens are shared, things are lost and things are gained. And quietly and richly their stories go on.

This is not a Pollyanna book and things do not go on happily ever after. But they do go on.

A book about love, a book about faith, a book about trust. Lovely writing unforgettable characters.
AVOID the Hallmark channel movie made from this book. But read this book. Its good.

“When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.”
― Tennessee Williams

Had to fly down to Florida to see family and needed a good airplane book - one that i cold read a few pages, but it down, pick it up as the book struck.

So I pulled up The Disappearing Spoon a light-hearted and lively look at the Periodic Table of the Elements.

I remember high school science classes where the yellowing tattered HUGE chart was up on the wall every day but no one ever really explained it to me what it all meant. What element belongs to what period (and why?) was never quite discussed.

This book explains all that and electron donors and electron grabbers and the mystery of the Outer Valence Shell and more.

There are also lots of nifty stories about little know or totally unknown heroes of the chemistry world. Madame Curie makes an appearance but so do a lot of others.

The author is a cheerful and knowledgeable host, and the journey is interesting and pleasant, if never quite pulse-pounding exciting. But I enjoyed it and was sorry when it ended.

Maybe you will too.

Chemistry is not torture but instead the amazing and beautiful science of stuff, and if you give it a chance, it will not only blow your mind but also give you a deeper understanding of your world.
--Hank Green

>23 magicians_nephew: Theodore Gray's THE ELEMENTS Calendars are a lot of informative fun!

>24 m.belljackson: Thanks for stopping by! I'll have to look for those calendars.

Most of my high school and college science electives were in physics. Didn't know what i was missing, i guess.

Having a good time with a book I wasn't really expecting to like

City of Girls is by the same person who wrote Eat, Pray, Love and i guess i had her pegged as a writer of "inspirational" or even "self-help" books.

City of Girls is a light hearted semi autobiographical novel about a girl, thrown out of a snooty boarding school, who comes to New York in the 1920's and falls into her aunt's little local semi legit theatre company.

There's a lot of lovely stuff about New York during the "Roaring Twenties" and night life and theatre and colorful characters and growing up and learning about life as thigs go on.

Just when you think this is just for laughs, she ups with a few lovely insights and observations worthy of the New Yorker. And that's a compliment. She grows. She learns, She goes on.

Started out listening to the audiobook but got impatient and got the Kindle edition to find out faster what was going on. (The audiobook was read by the actress Blair Brown, who brought just the right mix of world weary and naivete to the story.

Fun. Enjoy it. I did.

I began to like New York, the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic men from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

>26 magicians_nephew: - Glad to see you liked this one. It's been sitting on my shelf for a year or two...

>27 katiekrug: Thanks for stopping by, Katie.

Like a lot of books written by best selling authors, it would probably benefit from a few judicial edits - the book is loong and sometimes it drags.

But so much of it is just so well written it would be hard to know where to makes the cuts'

From the New Yorker. A gentle warning to those to think they understand what the other person (frog?) is saying

The Good Knight is the first book in a series of Medieval Murder Mysteries and it's a nice strong beginning.

Our two "seekers" are Gareth, a landless knight in service to the local king and Gwen, the daughter of a traveling bard. Their backstory is interesting and illustrative of the troubled times of then and there.

A minor princeling has been murdered on the road, and peace between the Welsh states is threatened. Gareth and Gwen are interested bystanders. But when Gareth is accused, Gwen must go it alone -- a woman of no high birth or standing - and find the truth and the real killer.

We are brought back to the Wales of the 12th Century, and the writer has done her homework and the land and the people are drawn to vivid life The history is right and the history doesn't get in the way of the story.

This is the first of the series but we dive right in and it moves right smartly along.

If you liked Brother Cadfael, you'll probably like these.

"Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg" - (Tapping persistently breaks the stone)

One of the marks of a really good mystery yarn is that, even when you know the ending and all. you can still get pleasure from a re-read now and then.

Case in point Green For Danger an oldie but goodie that popped up on my Kindle this week.

Set in World War II England during the bad days of the Blitz, it's really a classic country house murder mystery except that it's set in a house turned into a hospital. Doctors and volunteer nurses and "Sisters" and Amy Officers village eccentrics and all that. You know.

A patient dies, under curious circumstances, and a real old Scotland Yard Inspector is called in, and the suspects are questioned, and the story comes out. The structure of the book is almost formulaic, except that in the hands of a master, it works.

It's a great cast of characters real people with real lives. Twisty and fun.

They made a movie out of it with the wonderful Alistair Sims (and who better to play a Scotland Yard 'tec than Sims?) but the book is worth a look too. I enjoyed every minute.

“We reveal more of ourselves in the lies we tell than we do when we try to tell the truth.”
— DOROTHY SALISBURY DAVIS

Two mysteries in a row and the both sound good. Enjoy the weekend, Jim.

>32 Familyhistorian: Thanks for stopping by, Meg

The weekend was a whirlwind and the week was a waste.

First up to Boston to visit old friends and reconnect. Ate at some amazing restaurants and toured the amazing Boston
Athenaem, half museum, half modern library. We love Boston and don't get up there as often as we'd like. Spent time with Marianne the former "Michigan Trumpet" of LT fame which was a joy..

Sad to report that my dear friend Kate is starting to exhibit some "cognitive decline" and is struggling to finish sentences and to follow the general conversation. We're all growing older, for true. But my heart ached to see her groping for connections so unlike her former self.

The good old Acela Express took us there and back again with clean comfortable seats and smooth speedy service -- high speed rail like i wish we had all over this country.

And then back in the city i was summoned to the Courthouse for a term of "Jury Duty". A drug case, we were finally told. Four days of being cattle-prodded from waiting room to trial part and back again while the parties to the case told dirty jokes and worked out the plea bargain deals that would make our jury service quite unnecessary. And everyone knew it. Interesting to make the acquaintance of some of my fellow New Yorkers caught up in the rolling mill of the "system". But the jury pool was just fifty people shipwrecked on the shores of boredom and procedure, unneeded and unwanted. Made my escape on the fourth day and was happy to go. Gotta be a better way than this.

The wards in Jarndyce v Jarndyce would understand.

Long train rides are good for wrapping yourself up in a rich, complex tasty book and this trip was no exception.

Judy had read and liked Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead a curious long novel that i had heard of the title but not much else. So I scooped it up on my Kindle and dived in.

It's about a woman alone in the wild winter country of eastern Europe, an astrologer, a lover of animals, a reader of William Blake, who one bitter day finds her neighbor dead in his cabin.

And she finds a photo of her neighbor and other locals, and it sets her off on a strange journey to learn who is killing the bluff, powerful men of her area.

The language is difficult and richly poetic but it draws you in. The Book reminded me a little bit of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time which also set a strange unlikely detective off on a journey of discovery.

A landscape of loneliness and darkness and cold and winter. A mystery the way Maigret is a mystery. A book steeped in nature. One reading is not going to be enough. I liked it a lot -- more than i thought I would.

““Now like a mighty wild they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Beneath them sit the aged man, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.”
― William Blake

Orbital seems to be the book everyone is talking about these days. So my book group and i took a look at it.

It's a beautifully written almost poetic pastoral about six men and women spending nine months on an scientific space station circling the orb every ninety minutes.

The book is just one day one 24 hour period which encompasses sixteen sunsets and sunrises as they race around the world. They see typhoons and other natural disasters. They see the lights go on (and off) across the face of the sleeping earth. They see blue ocean, green mountains' brown deserts. They see the damage man has done to his only home.

There isn't much of a plot but the descriptions are breathtaking. The people on the station see no borders on the ground below but are careful to keep their own borders and their own personhood intact.

A quiet book that left a deep impression me. It won the Booker this year. Sometimes the Booker gets it right.

“Some alien civilisation might look on and ask: what are they doing here? Why do they go nowhere but round and round? The earth is the answer to every question. The earth is the face of an exulted lover; they watch it sleep and wake and become lost in its habits. The earth is a mother waiting for her children to return, full of stories and rapture and longing.”

>35 magicians_nephew: This sounds interesting - I haven't heard of it, though. I must be out if the loop

>36 The_Hibernator: Thanks for stopping by Rachel. Orbital is a still small miracle. I'll be curious to hear what you think of it



This from Facebook just tickled me.

Just a few words about The Three Locks a mystery adventure novel that i really wanted to like, and in the end, regrettably, just didn't.

It's a Sherlock Holmes adventure and you know,if you want to sit at that table, you'd better have something to bring.

This is really three stories, one about a body found in the Lock above a river, one about the Lock on an escape artist's trick trunk and last but not least a box Locked and left to Dr. Watson by his mother and somehow not delivered until not. Of course the three cases Quelle coincidence! have connections and Holmes finds to solve one is to solve all. (But one case just peters out and one case just never gets started. Huh?).

There are some great characters in here -- the Magician's wife, the local Priest, and a locksmith with secrets of his own to hide, and that is all fine. Some good mystery writing too.

The letdown is that our author is incapable of writing a line of dialogue that sounds anything like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson -- or a line of description that invokes the period or the place. Conan Doyle did it so effortlessly that you think it must be easy. Alas, it's not.

May go back and read the last few pages but for now, not. Disappointing.

My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplaces of existence.
--Sherlock Holmes

having a great time rereading Dylan Goes Electric the recent book that was turned into a movie about Bob Dylan's early days and the Greenwich Village Folk Scene.

Woody Guthrie is here, and Pete Seeger, and a lot of others you may have heard of and may not . (New Lost City Ramblers anybody?).

Wald is a terrific writer about the music world, and he gets it right about the clubs and the coffee house circuit and the way the nation was waking up then too.

The thing was that the "Traditional" folkies like Alan Lomax and clean-cut "college boys" like The Kingston Trio and serious crazies like Dave Van Ronk hung out comfortably together, swapping songs and guitar licks (and hits on the bong) with the new younger singer-singwriters "in the Folk Tradition" like Tom Paxton and Paul Simon. Revolution was in the air. And the guys in black suits were there to see if there was a buck to be made off it.

(There's a funny story about two guys who come from the Ed Sullivan show to try to book Dylan as a Folk Act. "We think you're Way Out", They said, "We don't know if you're way out enough!"

And the Newport Folk Festival was OK with both kinds of music as long as it was a guy (or a girl) with a (acoustic) guitar

(Funny - all guitars were "acoustic" guitars, until one day, they weren't) .

Dylan going electric at Newport was just one nail (of many) closing the coffin over "Traditional" folk music. (The British Invasion was another.) From that day on the new voices would rule. Singing sixteen choruses of "Barbara Allan" wasn't going to cut it any more. And even Pete Seeger went electric, in the course of things.

A nice little book about a period of time important to the music scene in America, And about how America changed.

(The movie gets a LOT of this wrong, sorry to say, but go see it anyway. But read the book first)

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
- Steve Stills

OK The Post Office occasionally does something right.

This year they issues stamps in honor of the wonderful Alex Trebek who hosted Jeopardy with grace and humility for so so many years.



Sort of wish the stamps had been Alex's own warm smile but this is still a nice tribute.

Who is Alex Trebek? So many many clues that can answer that question.

>40 magicians_nephew: Pretty cool!

>41 banjo123: Thanks for stopping by Rhonda.

Some books are for deep dives reading in a sitting and some books are to be kept handy and dipped into now and then for a tasting of this or that

One such book is Broadway: A history of New York City in Thirteen Miles and there are many pleasures here.

From the downtown in the New Amsterdam's colonial era to the bright lights and big names of Theatrical Broadway, the author shines lights in long forgotten corners and tell some great stories.

The "Ladies Mile" above 14th street gets a mention, and the curious zoning laws that kept people from building housing where housing was needed.

I was born here and I thought I knew New York. This book - delightfully - taught me a lot of new things. A lovely stroll through history.

Been too tired to tackle a new book and so have been re-reading a few things from my History shelf.

Submitted for your approval Fred Emery's Watergate.

The reporter sat himself down with ALL the books written by people involved in the Watergate story, from Richard Nixon RN right down to Watergate burglar Al Baldwin. And he weighed their stories: found where they agreed, found where they disagreed, and told the tale, day by day, clearly and well.

Here is a story of a president coming into his second Term with a chip on his shoulder and scores to settle. A President who openly plotted to use the IRS and the Department of Justice to harass his many enemies in politics and the press.

A President who schemed to pull control of all the major Cabinet departments into his own hands, bypassing Congress, and creating what he modestly called "The Second American Revolution".

(Trump may have taken example from Nixon and his downfall: Though he (Trump) does many outrageous things, he never seem to worry much about running a cover up afterwards.)

A lot of my Democratic friends think that Trump, like Nixon, will overreach and fall, in the end. I remain dubious. But it was nice to read for a little while about a world where there was a "Watchman in the Night" and the Good Guys won.

Before Watergate, the American public believed everything it was told, and since then it doesn't believe anything, and both of those extremes hurt us because they prevent us from recognizing the truth.
--Daniel Keys Moran

>43 magicians_nephew: Reading all the books about an incident would be an interesting way to find out what happened but it makes me wonder if he actually got to the truth even then. Witnesses and memory are often faulty

>44 Familyhistorian: Witnesses and memory are indeed tricky things, Meg.

Joshua Chamberlain was a American General who commanded the Union Left at the Battle of Gettysburg, American Civil War. You might think, a reliable witness.

In his memoirs he reported that at the surrender at Appomattox , the Union Soldiers present were mustered at "Order Arms" offering a salute to their defeated enemies which the Confederates returned. A nice story about reconciliation after four long years of war, yes? The problem is, other people who were present at the time made no mention of this remarkable event, and while some writers take Chamberlain at his word, many others think that this was something he made up, or at best mis-remembered.

With Watergate we have tapes to weigh against testimony and even so many many events are lost in the shadows of memory -- and deception. Will we ever know? Probably not.

We dined with friends
We dined alone
A tenor sang
A baritone
Ah yes
I remember it well
-- Alan Jay Lerner

Come to my door, Baby
Face is clean and shining Black as the night

If you were around in the 1960's you might remember the first time you heard Janis Ian's "Society's Child" on the radio. People were shocked to hear a song that talked about "Interracial" dating - Oh My!

And the smart and talented girl who sang it was only fifteen!

And the record despite bans and blacklists made her a name in the new folk revolution of those days. In later years she wrote "Stars" and "Jesse" and the cool and compassionate "At Seventeen". She had a voice and it was pretty special.

Now someone has made a movie about Janis Ian's life and i saw it in New York last week. "Janis Ian: Breaking Silence" is the movie and it's rich with film clips and concert footage and people like Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez talking about Janis Ian and her music.

It was made with "American Masters" money so it will probably be shown on TV one of these days. It's streaming here and there online. Great to see Janis Ian and remember a woman whose music was pretty important to me, when i was growing up.

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball

I think Janis Ian, like Dylan, is primarily a poet - but don't tell her i said so.

>46 magicians_nephew: - I think I wore the grooves down in her records, back in the day. I also own her autobiography, Society's Child though I have not yet read it. I probably should, before I see the film.

>47 jessibud2: Thanks for stopping by, Shelley.

I'm embarrassed to say i have her book and have only read a few pages of it.

There's a nice CD of her Verve/Folkways albums still in print(or whatever you say about music). I play tracks from it pretty often.

Seems like every song she wrote was an autobiography, one way or another.

But the movie is worth a look, too.

Things I'm thinking on a quiet Sunday

Hi Bill. I am really looking forward to seeing you and Judy when Stasia and I visit NYC and the Met. Art Museum. I've been there often, this is the first time for Stasia. She is particularly interested in the Egyptian wing and the Temple of Dendur!

I will be great to see you and Judy again!!!!!!

Is your name Bill?! Why did I think it was Jim?!

>51 The_Hibernator: Jim's name is Jim. Weird-o's name is Bill. Maybe there was some confusion.

>50 Whisper1: Looking forward to seeing you Linda - its been too long

Its always a kick when a friend calls your attention to a book you've never heard of and you pick it up and are immediately charmed.

For example: Her First American a new book and new author to me that delighted me in so so many ways.

It's about a girl from Europe escaping from Nazi Germany and making her way step by step to arrive in New York City in the late 1950's.

In her quest to learn about her new country, she meets by chance an Older Man, a Black Man, a journalist more or less on the skids (and a drunk) but also quite a fascinating personage.

She takes on taking care of him when he is "in his cups" as my mother would say and in return he introduces her to the world of Black Intelligentsia and Literature in New York and environs.

Lovely outsider's view of America and the issues that were playing out then. Fascinating to see racism through the eyes of this wise young greenhorn.

Lovely looks at some Black figures in the arts world you may not have heard of but should have gosh darn it.

Lovely story about a girl who leaves her world behind her and comes to America, with little English but a lot of Heart. (A coming of age story, really)

Semi-autobiographical but that doesn't get in the way.

Very much Recommended.

“Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the goodness
Be wasted forever.

Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the return
Be never.”
― Langston Hughes

Michael Lewis is one of my favorite non-fiction authors.

He wrote The Big Short about the stock market and Moneyball about baseball and lots of other books too.

He finds interesting people and asks interesting questions and lets us sit in on the discussion, in a very lovely way.

As witness The Fifth Risk a book from a few years ago that suddenly seems very urgent and essential.

Lewis went around to various Government Agencies, the Departments of Energy and Commerce and others. (This was at the time when the agencies were planning transition from Obama to Trump and had created detailed presentations to explain to the new Trump administration exactly what each agency did.)

Here's the kicker: The Trumpsters never showed up. They weren't interested. Rick Perry was named to the Energy Department and spent four years saying to his staff "I didn't know we did that!" and "I didn't know we did that!" and (praise be) largely letting the career administrators and experts go about their business.

Is there waste and fraud? Of course. BUT there are also hard working people trying to do their best and make things better.

When I see Trump and his minions slashing and burning various parts of the American government I think about this book. Do they have any idea what they're doing? Do they even care?

A good book to read if you're curious about the nuts 'n bolts of American government. A book you should send a copy of to Elon Musk.

Here's the quote -- probably too long to print on a tee shirt.

“If your ambition is to maximize short-term gain without regard to the long-term cost, you are better off not knowing the cost. There is an upside to ignorance, and a downside to knowledge. Knowledge makes life messier. It makes it a bit more difficult for a person who wishes to shrink the world to a worldview.”
― Michael Lewis

The Christian celebration of Easter was celebrated concurrently with the pagan festival of Eostre, celebrated during the spring equinox.

The holiday celebrated the Germanic Goddess Eostre, a deity associated with spring and birth and new beginnings.

Wishing all of my friends good fortune in their new beginnings this year.

A new book from my book circle and a real eye-opener.

Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick is a short novel(?) in prose that really sneaks up on you in a kinda nice way.

(Saying it's a memoir not a novel requires you to be truthful doesn't it? Then this is a novel.

It's short chapters that shine a light on the life of a woman, perhaps the author, in real and imagined adventures with people like Billie Holiday and her mother, and many others.

I like to think of it as a collection of poems, on a similar theme but not necessarily related to each other. (As someone in the circle said they're related by sound, not by sense.)

Lovely writing, A wistful mood. Rich and graceful and it stays with you. Glad we read it .

“Coming home from very lonely places, all of us go a little mad: we are the sole survivors of a world no one else has ever seen.”
― John Le Carre

From the New Yorker. I got a real Charles Addams vibe from this one

How’s it goin’, Minoan?

I envy you getting together in NY C with Linda and Stasia. We are hoping for a Stasia Chicago visit later in the summer.

Did you and Judy see the play Purpose? We saw it at Steppenwolf and it really swelled our sails. We’re big Jon Michael Hill fans. I’m hoping he got rich enough from a long stint on Elementary with Lucy liu and Jonny Lee Miller.

We just thoroughly enjoyed that Kinks musical, Sunny Afternoon, put together by Ray Davies. A tip of the hat to him: well done. We were thinking anyone auditioning for that show better be supremely multi- talented: acting, singing, dancing and instrument-playing required.

I hope spring is getting off to a good start in your wonderful city, and that you and Judy are doing well.

Not too shabby, Abby!

Thanks for stopping by, Joe!

We didn't see Purpose though we hear good things about it.

Judy posted some of our recent theater going on her thread a few days ago. We're telling people to look for "Eureka Day" and "John Proctor is the Villain" -- both plays should be touring this year or next.

The kick from last week was seeing John Douglas Thompson, the noted Black Shakespearean actor in a tryout reading of a new text of "Oedipus" in a small workshop space.

And having a chance to speak to Thompson after and discuss the new adaption of the play and where it might go next. He was in that post performance high actors get into and he was giddy and exciting to talk to. This is why it's great to live in New York.

We still are planning to come into your burg this summer around 4th of July ish times. Hoping to see you and other Midwest LTer's at that time.

I don't read a lot of books about computer security because- hey, I'm retired! - But several people have recommended Fancy Bear Goes Phishing and this week i dipped into it.

It's REALLY hard to write a book about computer security issues for the general public - too technical and people get dizzy and too casual and they don't learn anything new.

But the author of "Fancy Bear" gets it right - he digs deep into the first real virus - Robert Morris' rtm worm -- and he leads the reader right up to the most modern hacks and exploits that are still going on today. And explains them in ways that are understandable!

(Fancy Bear is not btw somthing out of Winnie the Pooh - it's a codename for a very sophisticated and hard working Russian cyber warfare center)

He makes the point again and again - it's not that hackers are so smart (though some are) it's that the people designing commercial software (I'm looking at YOU, Microsoft) were greedy, lazy and complacent - allowing tractor trailer sized holes in software (and networks) and looking sad and doing nothing when hackers strolled through them.

And the average user can be fooled -- and as much by clever psychology as by clever programming.

It's like a book of hackers Greatest Hits - rtm, then Melissa then ILOVEYOU - some of the biggest disasters were people fooled by social engineering into opening the door wide to malice and mischief.

I enjoyed it. I think a general reader would learn a lot from it. Recommended.

YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL ALIKE!
-- Will Crowther, Colossal Cave Adventure

Last time we looked through our box we found a 32 pin Centronics printer cable.

That'll come in handy some day you betcha.

I didn't know an
Bout Eostre. I suppose that's where the name "Easter" came from. They must have just picked a close holiday, though, because Passover was what the timing was around, as Jesus' last supper was Passover.

>62 The_Hibernator: Nice to see you in these parts!

Easter and Christmas were celebrated when people were used to having celebrations , in the spring and in the winter.

Though Eostre was a Teutonic Goddess her worship had spread all over the Roman Empire and she had temples in Rome herself. And her name lives on. I knid of like that.

Our Book Group spent some time with The Round House, Louise Erdrich's award winning masterpiece of Indian Affairsand it is a stunner.

Story is simple (ha!) thirteen year old boy and his friends growing up on an Indian reservation in the Northern Plains have to grow up fast when the mother of the boy is brutally assaulted and raped.

Curiously though the person who assaulted the women is known, he CANNOT be prosecuted, owning to the complex division of authority between the Indian and the Federal authorities. (If this doesn't make you angry, you haven't read the book.)

We see the mother and the father and the son and the community trying to deal with this horror over time.

And we see the boy coming of age in an society mixing ancient tribal rituals (and pride) with modern American culture.

It's a great story full of fascinating complex characters doing their best to survive and cope and understand. It's a story about love and family and Tribe. I think it's Erdrich's best book -- and that's saying a lot!

“When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.”
― Louise Erdrich

I would venture that everyone reading this knows the first two lines of this poem and no one reading it remembers the rest of it.
So, here you are.



Not to pick on HWL but there always seemed to me to be something wrong with the scansion of that first verse.

Hi - just yesterday printed out from Longfellow:

What then?

Shall we sit idly down and say
The night hath come; it is no longer day?
The night hath not yet come; we are not quite
Cut off from labor by the failing light;

Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear...

For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

>50 Whisper1: Jim, I apologize for calling you Bill. Yes, my mind is rambling every now and then. To try to justify why I made that error -- I have a neighbor who is a friend, and his name is Bill. He called me right before I wrote that posts....gesh.

Of course, I know your name -- It's "Judy" right?

>66 m.belljackson: Thank you for posting that. Longfellow is a unique voice but there are many rewards in reading his poetry.

>67 Whisper1: Linda I don't care if you call me Jim or Bill or Fred or "Sue" I'm just glad to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by the old thread today.

Don't remember who it was on LT who first talked about The Golem and the Jinni but whoever it was thank you!

A golum (A magical creature created by Jewish Magic) and a jinni (an Arabian genie) meet cute in early 20th century New York a melting pot of immigrant cultures for everywhere.

First time I think i ever heard of a female Golum, but OK go with it. This writer certainly did.

Lots of period details that seem just so right and the magic and the mystery is just matter of fact and just wonderful.

As you might guess (or might not) its a rom-com not usually my favorite genre but this one snuck up on me and won me over.

Not classic literature but a great thumping fun read. Historical pastoral comical tragical high fantastical. Recommended.

“All of us are lonely at some point or another, no matter how any people surround us. And then, we meet someone who seems to understand. She smiles, and for a moment the loneliness disappears.”
― Helene Wecker,

>60 magicians_nephew: I'm going to follow up on your recommendation to check out Fancy Bear Goes Phishing. Probably something I should know more about.

>70 Familyhistorian: I think it would be worth your time, Meg. The Chinese are taking cyber warfare to new levels with funding and training to attack American government and military targets.

Their technology filters down to the common criminal who's just trying to scam you out of your credit card info or to use your Ring Doorbell or your "Smart" toaster as a sleeper attack bot.

When I was working on Wall Street i was more plugged into the chatter of the Cyber-spooks. But the war goes on.

Even if you've read Sinclar Lewis you probably haven't stumbled over Kingsblood Royal one of his lesser known novels from the 1940's.

Neil Kingsblood is a Babbit-in-training, home after serving honorably in World War II and set up as a junior something or other at the local bank. Adoring wife, charming daughter, and well established as an up and comer in the white middle class community. Belongs to the right country club. One of “Us”.

While casually exploring his ancestry he discovers in his past a full blood Negro, several generations back in the hunter-trapper days. Doing the math Neil works out that he is one sixty-fourth Negro and so in the law of the land he is - wait for it - a Negro! One of “Them”

His response to this is to head down to the local Negro Neighborhood (and Negro Church) to meet some of his fellow Negros and see what's what. Of course they are cultured and educated and wise so unlike the lazy shiftless no account Negros that Neil and his family are used to. And Neil is confused.

And this is the launch ramp for a bumpy ride through 1940's America and 1940's racism, and the book just sort of trundles along. I've heard it called "irony" but here Lewis is laying it on so thickly it's exhausting. As Neil and his family are cast out step by step by step we are beaten over the head with the casual cruelties of white racism that was common place back in the day.

He makes his point, But it's a long book and a clumsy book, and at the end i was glad to put it down. "Ebony" Magazine gave it an award; other reviews were less enthusiastic.

As a thought experiment, try reading the book and replacing the word "Negro" with the word "Muslim" or perhaps the word "Foreigner". A lot of what Lewis is talking about is still out there. But you knew that.

“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.”
-– Maya Angelou

After a deep dive like Kingsblood Royal, you need a palate cleanser or maybe just an Amuse Bouche. Or something.

So I summoned up from the deep Half World of my Kindle Storm Front the first (and my favorite) of the Harry Dresden wizard detective novels.

I don't think anyone has ever combined the hard boiled detective yarn with the magic user story so effectively. The crime story is gritty and tough, the magic is taken, praise be, seriously, and the stories just flow. And work. And Entertain.

(And if the story reminds you of The Big Sleep well, hey nothing wrong with that, is there?)

I discovered Harry back in my Harry Potter days, before the great TV show and it's nice to have a return visit. Maybe I'll look and see if anybody is streaming the TV series. Maybe I'll just read a few more of these. Recommended.

“down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He is the hero; he is everything.
― Raymond Chandler

Hi, Jim. Lots to chew on here.

Like Meg, your comments on Fancy Bear Goes Phishing intrigue me. I’m checking with my coder son (at Duolingo now) knows it.

Enjoyed your thoughts on Round House. It’s the best Ehrdrich book I’ve read, and I’ve read several now. Wish I could’ve heard your book club talk about it. Much to discuss!

I love the Harry Dresden books (even as they get more convoluted, and like your idea of re-reading Storm Front. Like you, Debbi and I thought the tv adaptation was great, and we couldn’t understand why it wasn’t renewed.

Thanks for stopping by, Joe. I used to always nag people about keeping their computers up to date with anti-malware and such, but the problem is bigger than that, and scarier.

Hacking has turned pro - and state sponsored. We're so far past the days of Kevin Mitnick and rtm.

Fancy Bear is a good book for the non technical reader to learn the current state of play and what is being done and what SHOULD be being done about computer and net work security in the world today.

It's been just about one hundred years since Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published in America, The first edition basically got remaindered - can you believe it? -- and Scott was crushed by it.

Since then the book has rightfully taken its place very near to the top of the pile of Vital American Literature.

Last year we heard a talk by the author Maureen Corrigan and I bought her book So We Read On and finally got around to reading it this year. It's pretty good.

What Huckleberry Finn is to race "Gatsby" is to class and it's just powerful and just as aware. (and race is not neglected in this.) It's a short book but no less impactful for that.

(I suspect narrator Nick Carraway is Huck Finn's Grandson, but I could be wrong.)

(And i suspect Tom Buchanan would have really been a MAGA man, generations before Trump was even born.)

I've read "Gatsby" many times over the years and yet this book found things to talk about that are new to me. Sometimes the author goes off on a tangent about herself and it's just grin and bear it time. But she has thought about "Gatsby", and taught "Gatsby", and she has exciting things to say about it.

Recommended. But go (re)read "Gatsby" first,

We drew in deep breaths . . . as we walked back . . . through the cold vestibules, unutterably aware of our identity with this country for one strange hour, before we melted indistinguishably into it again.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

We're fortunate to belong to a local book group of people who loves books and love to talk about them. Every meeting is a joy and a revelation.

As witness Seventh Heaven. Alice Hoffman's mundane and magical memoir of her mother and growing up in the 50's and 60's in the blue collar Long Island suburbs of New York.

It's the story of Nora, recently divorced with two small kids, moving into the haunted house on the end of the road, and finding her way into the community and just finding her way. Her Husband was a magician in Las Vegas who specialty was disappearing. The young son wishes he knew the trick.

A lot of people in the group also grew up on on the South Shore of Long Island and were tickled by the details in the background of the tale. A divorced woman with kids was as rare as a six foot tall jackrabbit, and people had to figure out just what to do and how to feel.

There's high school kids in this in that curious Eisenhower Malaise before started breaking out into non-conformity. These kids have learned to conform - and sometimes it costs them

There's a John Updike feel to some of this and the different ways people and families can be unhappy or stuck. Lots of characters with stories to tell but believe me you wont have trouble keeping track.

And there's magic - as in a lot of Hoffman's work - but it isn't played for laughs and it fits right into the story. There are no witches here - just mothers and fathers and kids trying to make do

Enjoyed it. Makes me want to read (and reread) other of Hoffman's books. and then circle back to The Witches of Eastwick which may have been Updike trying his hand at that sort of thing too.

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
--J. B. Priestley

A couple of people on here were talking about Assistant to the Villain and it fell into my Kindle last week and I said "why not"

( i read a lot of books labelled "YA" and thought this one would fit in there.)

It takes a while to get going, but the character narrator is spunky and fun and I was willing to go along while she set our scene. Have to say I put it donw afew times, but I always came back to it.

I guess the problem is that the villain is supposed to be villainous and while this one talks a good game, he's pretty much a interesting if conflicted guy. (Of course Stan Lee said the same thing could be said about Doctor Doom!)

The book started out sort of like Beauty and the Beast but the description of the "office politics" around the villain's employees drew me in.

There are a couple of sequels already out (of course) and I will probably get around to them . Nice bit of work on this. I liked it.

You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain,"
-- Harvey Dent

Just to pass the word that the new documentary about Janis Ian, the sixties (and later) folk singer songwriter will be shown on your Public Broadcasting Station sometime this month. As they say check your listings.

Lot of good music lot of good people talking a nice portrait of a singer who shook things up -- and her life and times.

Strange that her photographs always seem to show her somber face when in person she is always smiling always laughing one of the funniest ladies alive.

"American Master"? Yeah I'll go there.

Been having a great time with a new Graphic Novel thta pleases in so many ways.

Feeding Ghosts is the story of a girl a Chinese-American girl growing up in America and trying to be true to both her culture and her new home.



Her mother was a major activist in China before fleeing to California - her grandmother is in here too. Each story is held up and told and honored each for their own values.

There are some "Graphic Novels" that are words with drawing just along for the ride. There are some where the artwork shouts and drowns out the word. This one is in perfect balance and it's a joy.

Even if you don't read "Comic Books" you might give this one a try. Reminds me a bit of Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. That's how good it is.

"if you can't beat your demons (or your ghosts) maybe you can invite them for dinner"

Sorry - not a book today.

"American Masters" has been a staple of Public Broadcasting TV for years usually showcasing a Big Name Entertainer like Bob Hope or RoseMary Clooney (or, yes, Janis Ian)

But this week they did a long form bio of Hannah Arendt, the philosopher historian who lived through Nazi Germany and the years after and had some things to say about it.

In her teen years she fell into an affair with Martin Heidigger who was an influential philosopher (and married) before he became an enthusiastic Nazi.

Arendt covered the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and came out with Eichmann in Jerusalem. She took some flack for pointing out that Jewish leaders sometimes reluctantly took part in some Nazi culling of Jewish Populations. She didn't say they they did it willingly. She was just quoting Eichmann.

(But see Leslie Epstein's The King of the Jews for another take on that part of the story.)

She will be remembered for coining the phrase 'The Banality of Evil" to describe Eichmann but her book on The Origins of Totalitarianism will be the one that will last. And should be being read out loud from the rooftops, in these trying days.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists."
- Hannah Arendt

>80 magicians_nephew: I really liked this one!

>83 banjo123: Thanks for stopping by, Rhonda. We've been traveling, and having some medical to do,and I have been neglecting my thread-keeping.

Surfacing is an early novel by Margaret Atwood, and my book group took it up this month.

A young woman - we never learn her name - returns to the small town in Quebec, to search for her Father, her roots, and perhaps herself. There are many stops along her journey all beautifully described in Atwood's fierce and urgent prose. (Atwood started out as an award winning poet, and her language is as they say worth the price of admission).

There is a lot here about the way mondern women feel alienated from society and how women feel sexualized and isolated from "Man's World. (Scary to think this book was written almost fifty years ago and still seems chillingly current.)

Less current perhaps are the "colonial" relationship Canadians sometimes seem to be forced into by the United States. (and are woman "Colonies" of mens world? or something else?)

Reading it again after many years the storytelling seemed sometimes disjointed and slack. But for a second novel - not too bad.

Worth a look if you wonder if the author of The Handmaids Tale had anything else up her sleeve.

Out in this desert we are testing bombs
That's why we came here
--Adrianne Rich

Another not a book, I guess. One of the nice things abut living in New York City is that there are a lot of small independent movie theaters showing small independent movies.

Case in point "Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell’s Swimsuit Issue" a documentary about the woman editor who took the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition from a few pages in the back of the magazine to a national and international media powerhouse.

Jule got the best models and the best camerapeople and the most amazing locations and created the issue of SI that every year pushed the magazine into profitability.

And she stood between the models and the c,em and protected them from abuse and insult with a fierceness and professionalism that is lovely to behold.

The film documents a lot of the film shoots over the years and tells a lot of good stories. There were a lot of male faces behind the camera. Jule made sure there was a female voice to speak up for the young women in front of it.

(One quick story: Jule went to her editor in the late 60s and asked for a raise, seeing that her Swimsuit Issue was making millions for the company. The editor replied (and this is a quote) "You don't need more money - you have a husband").

Women in later years would have dived across the desk and gone for his throat - but Jule took it and went on.

If you like documentaries about interesting women you probably never heard of - this is one to go look for.

Jule Campbell Movie

>23 magicians_nephew: Since I already own Theodor Gray's book, ELEMENTS VAULT, I'll look for THE DISAPPEARING SPOON!

>86 m.belljackson: Thanks for stopping by, Marianne.

The Disappearing Spoons was a lot of fun for me as someone who didn't know a heck of a lot about the history of science in this area. Though I had seen the dissappearing spoon magic trick performed a few times

The author has a "Disappearing Spoons" podcast also that i have listened to a few times also.

Just for the record. Umberto Ecos The Name of the Rose
was a rich treat full of interesting characters and sly, subtle puns and wordplay.

But his last book (Posthumously published I believe) was a little squib called Numero Zero snf trust me he did not go out with a bang.

The book is a not-very-subtle and rather heavy handed attack on the newspaper business. Some anonymous moneybags wants to put out a newspaper and he hires an editor and some dregs and tired has-beens to staff it. Anything goes. Write what the reader wants to hear. Write big and wild stories and see the circulation rise. Write the day AFTER an event so your predictions of he event will always turn out true.

Ther's a germ of an idea for a good book here, but a germ is all there is. Perhaps better to have been left in the trunk.

YMMV

"Th' newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th’ banks, commands th’ milishy, controls th’ ligislachure, baptizes th’ young, marries th’ foolish, comforts th’ afflicted, afflicts th’ comfortable, buries th’ dead an’ roasts thim aftherward".
-- "Mr. Dooley" AKA Finley Peter Dunne

Many years ago John O'Conner was the unofficial TV critic for the New York Times. He occasional ended a review with "Well acted, well produced, and badly in need of a good rousing Indian Attack".

Well now I know how he feels. I'm talking about Trick of the Eye which caught my eye after a long appreciation of the author appeared in the paper.

It begins well. Our heroine in an artist specializing on Trompe-l'oeil she is single forty-ish and wounded from a previous relationship with a strange man.

A fabulously wealthy woman approaches her and asks her to do a massive project painting an old ballroom into something new and fantastical. The woman we find had a daughter who died under mysteries circumstances many years before.

So it's a mystery and a romance and a Gothic and a lot of other things. It's well written with interesting characters. And there is more than one double triple whammy in the plot before all is done. Whether your eye is tricked by this is pretty much up to you.

What there isn't much of is suspense or tension or mystery or any other reason to keep reading what seems like a never ending book. Definitely would have been helped by Cochise and his tribe coming over the hill whooping and shooting flaming arrows.

I went in expecting a murder mystery and got a lot more. And somehow a lot less. It may be a while before i pick up a book by this author again.

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.
-- Dorothy Parker

From The New Yorker. Summer isn't even half over yet

Found this on Facebook. Gave me a smile.

Remember Shari Lewis? I sure do.

There's a new documentary out "Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop" that gives us a whirlwind tour of her career as a puppeteer and entertainer going back into the 1950's.

Fun to see the old black and white film of her in her first show, improvising silliness five days a week. Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) recommended she drop the big lap filling dummies and just work in-one with her hand puppets, Lamb Chop on one hand Charley Horse on the other. Brought a real closeness and intimacy to the performance. She was the wise patient older sister for a lot of us growing up.

When the network decided they could program cheap cartoons instead of live action shows, she got cancelled. Which led to specials, guest shots, acting gigs, Las Vegas,Japan! and sometimes small local venues here and there.

The film lightly touches on the strain her career put on her marriage and her relationship with her only daughter. She was a perfectionist. She was only happy in front of an audience. There were some long dry spells. Her Husband was a bit of a New Age nitwit. But then Public Broadcasting offered her a show and it was like she had never been away.

The biography makes it clear how Shari and Lamp Chop were two parts of the whole: Shari, who had been trained to be a nice girl and Lamb Chop who was born to speak up and speak truth to power always. Sometimes she talked to her family through the puppets, when there were things Shari couldn’t say but Lamb Chop or Mr. Bearly could.

Diagnosed with a nasty form of cancer in the 1990's. Insisted on taping one more song for the show before going into rehab. The song was called "Hello - Goodbye". Shockingly soon after, it was Goodbye.

Happy to have this film to rejoice in her amazing career. Will probably turn up on PBS one of these days.

From the New Yorker. The spirit is willing but the body is - uh-huh

>93 magicians_nephew: -- That is so funny and true!

Thanks for stopping by Rhonda!

We watch "The Daily Show" most nights but especially the nights when Jon Stewart is the host. The man is simply the best interviewer on the air today : curious , attentive, genuinely respectful, not afraid to ask hard questions , full of joy of learning and no meanness anywhere/

So when he introduced us to Kyla Scanlon the smart young author of In This Economy well i waned to read her book. The author is a Tik-Tok Queen but with lots of serious credentials.

She explains some of the terms we hear every night on the news (does anyone still watch - the news?) and probably don't really understand. She can extrapolate from Grandma's banana bread recipe to globalization and the various kinds of -flation that we are experiencing and probably should know a but more about.

Short summary (a) they're lying to you and (b) it's not as easy to tell they're lying as you think.

Would be a great book for a high school level economics class that all student should be required to take. This is the world we live in - this lady is trying to help us think about it.

Recommended.

“ Tomorrow the sun will come up again, and I’m pretty sure that whatever happens we won’t have found Freedom, and there won’t be a whole lot of Justice, and I’m damn sure we won’t have found Truth. But it’s just possible that I might get a hard-boiled egg.
Terry Pratchett

The Beans of Egypt, Maine is a book with a chip on its shoulder, but it's a book that's hard to ignore.

The Beans live in rural Maine "Off the grid" and are pretty much what my Connecticut relatives would call "Poor Whites" . The men work back breaking tedious jobs for minimum wage or less than that ; the women stay home mostly and try to keep house on no money ; they live in beat up trailers or leaky wooden shacks, they drink a lot and smash things up a lot. The men are sometimes savagely violent and abusive and the women just seem to be scraping along without much hope or much of anything else.

The author writes in a postscript that she was trying to hold a mirror up to nature - i.e. to show us Urban White Collar folks what the rural working class is going through. She clearly thinks we aren't paying these folks enough attention. She wants us to see these folks -- and their successes and failures - on their terms and not on ours. OK

(Some of my Book group thought the author was sensationalizing the poverty and the squalor -- exaggerating for effect. I do NOT think so.)

The group by and large didn't like it. I don't know if i liked it myself. But it was good during the years of Trump to pluck it down off the shelf and read it after so many years.

And the lady can write.

“Out here I feel more helpless
with you than without you
(. . . )
we talk of people caring for each other
in emergencies--laceration, thirst--
but you look at me like an emergency"
― Adrianne Rich

Having a good time re-reading The Andromeda Strain which believe it or not is forty five years old this year.

Creighton pretty much invented the "Techno-Thriller" and this one is state of the art. A sample collection satellite crash lands in a small western town carrying with it the deadly other worldly Andromeda virus.

A team of top medical guys (all men, of course) assemble at a secret laboratory to try to understand and ultimately defeat the "invader" from outer space.

There's a pulse pounding race against time to prevent an unwanted atomic detonation, and in the end, it's all OK. You know.

The fun here is watching Creighton try to replicate the look of a real technical document with monospaced green bar computer printout and security warnings ("BURN BEFORE READING") and all the trimmings. And nobody is better at the techno babble of government bureaucracy and the mumbo jumbo of the guys in the white coats.

Isaac Asimov's early stories always had the underlying "given" that science was good and science was great and scientists would selflessly solve all our problem, if we just left them alone. Creighton's take is a little different.

Fun to read it again. And now I hear there's a sequel. Hmm.

"Men are always focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to think whether they should do something".
--Michael Creighton

Wanted to say a few words about Code Girls Lisa Mundy's book about the American women who worked to suss out German and Japanese codes during World War II.

Unlikw the stuffed shirts at Bletchley Park In England, the Americen effort was happy to recruit young women from all over who liked math and puzzles and had (or could be taught) a knack for finding patterns and cribs in the numbing boredom of endless numeric code groups. Loneliness and doing without and the innate sexism of the Armed Forces added to their burdens.

(The men who might have done this were mostly overseas, of course)

If there's a flaw in this book its that the author tries to tell every story and include every woman's name. They deserve every minute of credit and recognition, but including them all makes sometimes for a muddled story and less interesting book.

The Women of Arlington Hall perhaps tells a smaller story and tells it better.

But this books explains very well how the "girls" cracked ENIGMA, without a computer assist and without Alan Turing. And they cracked the Japanese "Purple" code which led to some amazing Navel victories against the Japanese.

These women should be remembered. This book is a good monument to them.

"Sometimes its the people that no one imagines anything of are the people who do things no one has ever imagined"
Alan Turing

The Drivers Seat is Muriel Spark finger painting with words.

Sparks CAN write characters and plot and story (as witness The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ) but sometimes she just seems to splash ideas on the page and not give a toss what happens.

In this one she sends a strange and hapless shopgirl off on vacation in a dress that doesn't match her coat, looking for "The Right Man" . The Right Man we discover is someone who can be chivvied into murdering her.

She has comic misadventures and comes to a grotesque end. What the author felt writing it i have no idea. What I felt reading it was like being more than slightly drunk and tossed in a blanket.

Lovely writing. But oh! No!

A Blank sheet of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God
-- Sidney Sheldon

from the New Yorker - this made me smile

>100 magicians_nephew: Laughing Out Loud!!!! This cartoon is too darn funny. Thanks for posting this. I hope you and Judy had a wonderful summer!

>101 Whisper1: Was pretty good Linda.

Seeing you was part of the wonderfulness.

Hope you're doing well.

H. R. McMasters is a career Army guy who deserves a lot of thanks from those of us who went through lives wearing our own clothes.
He wrote a pretty good book about the Presidents and the Commanders during the war with Viet Nam and was not shy about saying who did good and who f**ked up.

Near the end of a long and distinguished military career he found himself serving as national security advisor to President Donald Trump in Trump's first term in office. He lasted a while and got a good insider's look at how Donald Trump does things, and he's written a book.

At War with Ourselves is the book and its a swing and a miss. It's a real inside baseball book and he knows whereof he speaks -- but the minutia of arms control and mission planning may wear out its welcome after a while. But you know, listen and you'll learn something, maybe.

McMasters is too much of a pro (and has worn the uniform too long) to flat out call anybody in the line of command a fool, or a liar. So he doesn't do that here.

But he described his time with Trump carefully and meticulously with lots of I-Was-There quotes and lets the reader make up his own mind.

Worth a read if you care about what happens in the back rooms of government

"There are two ways to draw a picture of a horse. One is to draw a picture that is a great likeness of a horse. The other is to draw a picture of a horse and write under it, 'Horse'. We just drew the picture.
--Senator Sam Erwin, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Watergate

Too good not to pass along.

Recently, a large corporation hired several cannibals to increase their diversity, "You are all part of our team now," said the Human Resources rep during the welcoming briefing. "You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don't eat any employees."
The cannibals promised they would not.
Four weeks later their boss remarked, "You're all working very hard and I'm satisfied with your work. We have noticed a marked increase in the whole company's performance. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?"
The cannibals all shook their heads, "No."
After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, "Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?" A hand rose hesitantly. "You fool!" the leader continued. "For four weeks we've been eating managers and no one noticed anything. But now, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something."

From a friend on Facebook

>104 magicians_nephew: That's funny. Decreasing middle management increases productivity! True

The God of Small Things is a BIIIG book with too many characters and too many story lines slamming into you from all directions like a Monsoon. It's about India.

It's the story of an extended family in a small village, and it's a lot of little stories that sometimes just stand on their own and sometimes add color and shape the the main story.

The main story - and I almost hate to say that - is the story of a baby girl who through a horrible accident drowns in the fast running river. We go back and forth in time who the family and see them prosperous and happy and then wrecked on the shoals of pain and anger.

What the author is really interested in is the "Love Laws" that keep "Touchable" caste and "Untouchable" caste apart. The laws were repealed in the fifties, but as with segregation laws in the American South, some people didn't get the memo. As American has class and color India had and has "caste". Every word of this book is aware of that, and it touches on everything.

It's a dark book with lots of pain and suffering and senseless cruelty and violence. Some parts of it are very funny. The writing is hard to describe - this author goes her own way - but it's beautiful and unforgettable.

If as they say the Devil is in the details, well sometimes the God is in the Small Things. A remarkable book.

“Perhaps hell is like that; a discordant confusion of anxious souls. Some argued, some slept, some shouted, some wept, some wrote, some sketched and many conspired about their coming interrogation. But mostly they did no more than stare into space, eyes unfocused as they tried to see tomorrow.”
― Len Deighton

Quoting Len Deighton and Reading Len Deighton too.

Aaide from his lovely "Harry Palmer" spy novels including The Ipcress File and his several illustrated cookbooks he wrote a long serious and occasionly angry book about World War II from the British side of things.

Blood Tears and Folly and to be honest it's a book for history nuts of the deepest dye.

As a Brit he can write about the early days of the war and the many silly shortsighted mistakes in judgement and planning that were made, when Britain fought alone against Hitler.

He writes about the British "Territorials" against the Italian army in Africa, and how even Rommel couldn't quite get the Italians to fight. (Churchill thought Indian troops would do well in Africa because they were used to the heat! Turns out they were not used to being shot at.) But what Rommel learned he took back to the war in Europe - so yeah.

Deighton knows his hardware and writes intelligently about Soviet Tanks and American Aircraft Carriers and British single seat fighter planes, until you can almost smell the av gas and touch the sweaty leather.

Good solid writing interesting arguments and things still being discussed almost a century later.

Fascinating. For a particular audience.

"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it"
-- Robert E. Lee

I remember reading Blood Tears and Folly it was good but I thought the info on the Burma Campaign could have been more in depth. One of the things I found out while researching family was that Deighton reached out to my Dad for info on that part of the war but my father felt he was still bound by the official secrets act.

The Harry Desden books look good and my library has the first one.

>108 Familyhistorian: Len Deighton wrote a few books on World War II including Bomber and a pretty good one about the Battle of Britain.

Deighton includes a long explanation of the O. S. Act(s) as a footnote in one of his "Harry Palmer" spy books.

My book Circle had a look at Where'd You Go Bernadette? a book I had read a few years ago and had on my shelf

It's pretty funny book that has, like a lot of funny books, a lot of real anger in it.

It's about a woman with real no-kidding talent as an architect.

She build two marvelous buildings, and loses them, and retires to be a housewife in Seattle married to a Microsoft engineer. They have a daughter Bee.

Bee tells the tale of Bernadette today fighting madly against the good ladies of the neighborhood and her snark at PTA politics (and Microsoft politics) is pretty funny.

But this woman should be doing a heck of a lot more than pushing mudslides down the hill, and the fact that she isn't is I think the backbone of the book.

Lovely writing, fascinating characters. The author writes sitcoms for TV and you can see some of that DNA in here. But she'd digging deeper here, and I think its worth it to hear this story.

Written as letters and diary entries and suchlike, You've been warned.

The Book Circle didn't like it much. But I did.

"When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth."
-- Bernard Shaw

And now for something completely different

"Captain Future" was a "pulp" magazine published in the 1930's Now someone has taken these oldies and scanned them page by page and offered them for new readers.

It's corny small balm "action" with ray pistols and robots and all the trimmings. And sometimes howler typos from writers who sent in the first draft and had it set in type, as is.

The underlying theme is curiously, that science is good and scientists are the best people to make decision about society. We're more skeptical nowadays, I think.

These things are what people read before cheap paperbacks of good novels became widely available. A cent a word! and worth it!.

Half the fun as in reading the old ads offering a chance to start a new career in "Radio!" Fun read. Loved it.

"The future ain't what it used to be
-- Arthur C. Clark?

Rereading a book that cme out years ago - sometimes it helps ot have a little historical perspective.

The book is ScandalMonger and if anything it shows tehre is nothing new under the sun. Its about James Callandar a Journalist-editor in the early years of our country, who published seamy gossip and nasty rumors in support of the side and the candidate he favored (or was being paid to favor)

Spoiler alert he was being paid by Thomas Jefferson and there was no no NO mud too low for him to fling at Jefferson's enemies. If it ws 2025 he would have been a Fox News "commentator" or blogger.

It's worth remembering that the "Objective" journalist a VERY rare bird up into the middle of the 20th Century. People flocked to the newspapers that printed things they liked to read and sneered at the paper who disagreed with that message.

A friend of mine asked me if i thought our democracy was in danger. We are living through a perfect storm of Lying and deception while Social Media based misinformation and outright muddy the waters. And yet . . . And yet . . .

Books like this one - by William Safire a speechwriter for Richard Nixon - give one a sense of proportion.

Recommended.

“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.”
— Hannah Arendt,

Catching up. H. W. Brands is one of our best historical writers and he does his research. More he digs down to find details that ad color to the dry stories and brings the past vividly to life.

As witness Our First Civil War A book about the American Revolution that tells some of the stories that you might miss when the eagle screams on the 4th of July.

There were Loyalists among us - people who honestly thought it was crackers to leave the powerful British Empire, and lose all the trading benefits and military protection that being in the Empire provided.

Among them a printer named Benjamin Franklin, who admired the British and thought that only minor tweaks were needed in the relationship to make both sides prosperous and happy. (and thought that Good King George should make him - Franklin - postmaster general for the American states)

Brand think that the American colonies were divided neatly in thirds - one third wanted to stay British, one third wanted to be independent, and a large middle third didn't give a hoot one way or the other.

We like to think the colonies were united in the battle for freedom - Brands gives us the other side and it's a rich and complex picture. I like his writing.

Joseph Wanbaugh isn't such a big name these days. in his heyday he wrote a lot about the LAPD and cops in general, from the vantage point of a fifteen year veteran.

He wrote The Blue Knight and The New Centurions basically putting the cop on the beat forward as a Knight and a nobleman, holding up the standards of society.

OK. And then he retired from the cops and he wrote The Choirboys and did that set a cat among the pigeons. These boys farted and swore and drank and lied and did a lot of other things not usually associated with "Knights"

Our book group took a look at it last night and the reactions were all over the map. Vulgar, sexist, racists, homophobic - these were real cops on the night watch patrolling and trying - is so many different ways - to do the job they were assigned to and also keep their own sanity and balance intact in the face of dead bodies and crazy people and more.

Some people have called it "Catch-22 as written by Popeye Doyle" and I think thats about right. Some of it is fall on the floor funny. Some of it is freeze your blood horrifying. How do you go out on patrol night and night and stay sane and centered. (well sometimes, you don't)

Nobody is better than Wambaugh at showing the day to day mixture of fierce danger and mind numbing boredom of the night shift patrol car. And nobody is better than Wambaugh at creating vibrant in-you-face characters that really stay with you.

Dated? Yes - and no. But the song remains the same. And the problems of society we ask cops to handle haven't gone away. Quite the contrary.

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?". (Who will watch the Watchmen?)
-- Juvenal

The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe

This was in the New York Times this week. I remember finding "LWW" on the shelves of the Elmhurst Public Library and how it just opened my eyes .

And i LOVED that when he came to write The Magicians Nephew years later everything just came together and mysterious symbols from LWW were cozily and deliciously explained in "MN"

British Children from a far away past acting like children and having adventures and having Magic Happen. Mind. Blown.

As a student of history , Watergate continues to fascinate me. Someone sent me a new book Watergate: The Presidential Scandal that shook America and it's worth a look, even to people who think Watergate is as far in the past at Teapot Dome. (q.v.). Like The Three Bears, it's a story thats always worth retelling.

Nixon also came into office believing in the "Unary President" theory and plotted openly to use the Department of Justice and the IRS to "punish" his enemies. (President Trump's "Retribution" agenda certainly calls this to mind). And Nixon stated on many occasional that any party who opposed him was full of "Communists", "Traitors" "Terrorists" and worse. Nixon, like Trump, believe he could bypass the Congress and do things is way with his "Mandate"

Trump seems to have learned his lesson from Nixon and never tries to "cover up" his questionable actions. Maybe thats the only difference. Nixon actually seemed to know when he was doing something wrong. Trump - well not so much.

It's said that History is always about THEN and it's alwasy about NOW.

his new volume doesn't add much new to the Watergate story, but reminds us that the American people are slow to move and slow to anger.

"Never forget, the press is the enemy, the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy, the professors are the enemy. Write that on a blackboard 100 times."
-- Richard M. Nixon

-

Just spent a few days visiting friends in Boston and it was an eye opener. Though both members of the couple enjoy reading , there is not a bookshelf (or a physical book) visible anywhere. What da Heck?. It's all on their Kindle's they say. Well to each his own.

Here I was leaning back in my chair and a book fell out of the shelf and hit me on the head. So of course I had to read it.

John McPhee is the kind of writer that made The New Yorker a must read in its heyday. Elegant spare precise graceful writing that was almost a sensuous pleasure to read, no matter what the subject.

The book in question is The Curve of Binding Energy and in it we meert one Theodore B. Taylor, who had been a low level worker bee at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project and can lay claim to knowing a heck of a lot about how Atomic Weapons work.

Back in the day, Taylor was concerned about nuclear proliferation, with powerful weapons being built (and deployed) by small nation state or rouge actors, doing deadly damage and killing thousands.

The American government said "Can't happen" "Too difficult" "You would need your own Manhattan Project" and so forth.

Taylor takes McPhee (and us) through a dozen possible scenarios where people working in kitchen table labortoies could put together A-Bombs. And steal enough fissionable material to make them work.

Reading the book now I would say the danger i if anything more severe with more crazies out there, and lot of ways to play this out.

Recommended for the elegant writing and for the portrait of a remarkable man. But it's a lot more than that.

“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

>117 magicians_nephew: A great quote to remember for November 22nd, 1963.

>118 m.belljackson: Thanks for noticing - and thanks for stopping by.

Even a few years ago the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination was a big story, with remembrances and opinion pieces about the event and how it Changed America.

Now in the Time of Trump, not so much.

"History is all about Then - - and it's all about now"

>119 magicians_nephew: So True - and now moved on to JFK's Granddaughter and the hateful RFK jr.

>1 magicians_nephew: Hey Jim, sorry to pester you here. If you are going to join the Christmas Swap with us, can you please DM me your name and address? The cut-off is supposed to be today (tho that's always flexible), and I'd like to make the picks tonight, so let me know as soon as you can.

Thanks!

Catching up or trying to.

In honor of Jane Austin's 250th birthday our book group took a look at Northanger Abbey her first book (or her last book) and a strange changeling child indeed.

In classic "gothic" novel fashion we are introduced to young Catherine' who wants to be a "heroine" from a classic novel but doesn't know quite how to begin. No Mysterious dukes, no creepy castles, no lurking quasi-evil servants, no secrets. Or are there?

The book is basically a coming of age story for Catherine, who learns what(who?) to trust and what to question.

She meets "men" and women of quality, and as with Shakespeare, the comedy ends in wedding bells and shouts of joy and reconciliation.

But i dunno. It's a book to admire more than to love. Austin manages the feat of making fun of the Gothic novel format popular in her day while also telling a Gothic love story of poor girls who dream of (and find) romance.

But everyone in the book is a stone ninny, and it goes on just a leetle bit too long and at the end we are as pleased for it to be over as we are pleased at a "happy ending"

Sending me smartly back to Emma or Persuasion (but NOT Lady Susan) for a palate cleanser .

Last night i dreamed i went to Manderlay again.
In my Maidenform bra.
-- Daphne du Maurier

I know these people. The abiding characteristic of this administration is that it lies
-- Seymour Hersh, NY Times

Surprising this quote is not from yesterdays newspaper but from fifty years ago, and it's not talking about Trump it's talking about Richard Nixon.

Ive been re-reading All the president's Men, the if anything too respectful story of the two reporters who broke the story of Watergate and brought down The Nixon Administration.

A lot of similarities:
Nixon also nursed long standing grudge about an election "Stolen" from him with Joe Kennedy's money.
Nixon also plotted openly about politicizing the IRS and the Cabinet Departments to wreak vengeance on those people ("they are bad people!")

Nixon also seemed to have been a closet racist and a not-so closet anti-Semite

Of course Nixon didn't have control of the Congress or a friendly hearing in the Supreme Court. Might have been a very different outcome if he had.

Nixon always said it wasn't the crime that did him it it was the coverup. Trump seems to have learned that lesson he never even tries to cover up anything he just brazens his way along. Never apologize never explain.

But it's useful to read the history of the downfall of Richard Nixon and see the little things that in the end brought him down. The Republican party got tired of his contempt for them and for the process and they turned against him. Will history repeat itself? Time will tell.

O Death thou cometh when i had thee least in mind

It's been quiet on the thread lately mostly becuae ive been travelling and also because Ive been doing a deep dive into Germinal Emile Zolas remarkable (but long) novel.

It's the story of coal miners in the north of France in the late 19th century and how they were trodden own and rose up and how that turned out.

Zola is like Hemingway - foremost a journalist. He describes in you-are-there detail the horrors of whole families working underground, the heat, the damp, the cold, the long hours, the unsafe conditions. And above ground the hunger, the cold, the squalid living conditions, the lack of any human comforts.

He shows us the owners and the managers and the people who live off the workers and it's not a pretty picture. Sex is brutal and loveless, drink is all that there is to push the darkness away.

A stranger comes to town, and we see the world throurgh his angry eyes. not yet ground down. Things are stirred up. Things are brought down.

But Zola is also and always a pamphleteer - a Dickens - and of course a social critic. Look at this, he says. Look at how we force people to live.

He is asking a question here - still current today - about a society that refuses to pay a living wage to those, women and children and old people and all, who work for our comfort down in the pit.

It's a plea for dignity and for humanity. It ends in horrible death and destruction.

And Zola (or his translators) can write too, movingly and even poetically about the horrors and the darkness of the pit, and makes us look down in there too.

It's an amazing book. "Germinal" was one of the new month names crated during the French Revolution. IT was the month of spring of rebirth. The irony is clear and explicit.

Recommended.

The History of the world, my sweet
Is who gets eaten and who gets to eat.
It's man devouring man my dear
And who are we to deny it down here. ”
― Stephen Sondheim

winding down the year with a favorite author and a new and interesting book.

The Infernal Machine is written by Stephan Johnson who writes lovely books blending science and history or the history of science or how science affects history or something.

This is a curious double biography of (a) the invention of dynamite, which made engineering by blowing things up easier and safer, and (b) the history of the anarchist movement in Europe and America and how they embraced dynamite as a way to express their political frustration and angers.

So we meet good old Alfred Nobel, who was marketing his new invention, and Emma Goldman, who ran with the revolutionaries in Europe and America and tried to get revenge after the Homestead Steel Mine Strike was so cruelly put down. Carnegie was more sympathetic to the workers but he left Henry Frick in charge and he was to put in mildly, not) The Pinkertons who were more or less on the side of the angels during the Civil War turns and became bully boy private armies for the big industrialists.

Lot of great stories here and Johnson knows how to bring out the telling details.

Recommended.

"There is only one thing that frightens me, and that is a scientist who learns a new trick,"
-- Konrad Lorenz
“Every society has the criminals it deserves.”
― Emma Goldman

For me there are two kinds of books: Books I read on my Kindle (or more rarely in the print edition and books i read (or listen to) from good old Audible. Books i listen to take longer of courese but there are satisfaction there too.

Which is to introduce you to 1929 a new book about the time almost a century ago, when as they say the Music stopped and everyone stopped believing.

It's a terrific book that tells the story and makes it fresh, but lots of mini biographies sprinkled in to better put things in perspective.

Mos of you know my motto about history -- "It's all about then - - - and it's all about now". Could there be another crash of all crashes on the horizon? The author is dubious but there is some evidence and some curious similarities.

Enjoyed reading (listening to it) at the gym and while walking or lazing. Bet you'll learn a few things. I sure did.

Curiously while scanning for the touchstone on this one LT offered as a possibility "Bambi", . Another tale of innocent woodland creatures lulled into a false security and being shocked out of by powers not always clearly undersood.

Recommended. And not just for history nerds.

“You know you are in a bubble when the shoeshine boy starts giving financial advice and people start taking it seriously.”
― Joseph Kennedy, who famously pulled all his money out of the market weeks before the crash.

Jim, as y'all start to celebrate, remember:

Merry Christmas! 🎄

I wish I could be Santa Claus,
for just one day
I'd fill a bag with kindness
And I'd give it all away
I'd make the world a better place
I'd do that if I could
I love the way it feels inside
when I do something good

I wish I could be Santa Claus
Imagine that
Although I could not fill his boots
I'd look great in his hat
I'd love the milk and cookies
And there's one more thing I'd do
I'd try to teach the kids to be
a little more like you

We know that love can bless the heart
when tears begin to fall
We know that "love" is the message of the season
The grеatest gift, and yes (yes), one size fits all

We wish we could be Santa Claus
Perhaps we can
The job's about the giving
It's not the suit and not the man
It's all about the caring
And the part that we can play
It's spreading joy and peace on earth
And love on Christmas Day
-- Paul Williams

To all my LT friends and readers - Happy Christmas and a very Merry New Year filled with love and joy and good books.

>131 SilverWolf28: Thanks for stopping by, Silver! and all good wishes to you for the New Year.

I want a Snuffleupagus for Christmas

For when a mere hippo will not do

Hi Jim, I hope your Christmas was a merry one and all the best for 2026!

>138 Familyhistorian: Thanks for stopping by, Meg.

Every Christmas I go through a "A Christmas Carol" film festival, and Judy has patiently sat through both Mister Magoo and George C Scott in the lead role. There's Alistair Sim of course, and Kelsey Gramner and perhaps Bill Murray yet to re-visit.

The piece just touches my heart. What can I say? I believe in second chances.



"God Bless us, Every One"

One more I guess before moving on

The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
by Lee Smolin and now there's a title for you - sort of like Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism

The author is talking about String Theory but he's really talking big picture about science and the scientific method. Theoretical physicists come up with "models" for the universe and then experimental physicists try to come up with experiments to prove or disprove it.

At one point we had a model of the universe with the Earth at the center, in heavenly perfection. Well that was fine and the Church loved it, but people with telescopes looking at the sky (and sailors trying to navigate) had their problems.

So in time the model changed. (Of course at one point there was a model of the world being carried through the Cosmos on the back of a giant tortoise. Would have liked to be the junior scientist assigned the task of disproving THAT one)

The British science writer James Burke once had a TV series called The Day the Universe Changed.
This is a book about times when our view of the nature of the Universe changed. It's pretty interesting

The problem with String Theory is that it's a great model and explains a lot of things that needed explaining, but there's no good way - at this writing - of either proving or disproving it. (We're back to that tortoise again.)

Lee Smolin is a good writer and he works hard to bring concepts down to the level where i can sort of understand them. It's a big book, and dense, but I think, worth the effort. If Schrodinger's Cat that's either dead or not-dead makes your head hurt, this book may not be a good one to reach for

For me, I will be riding this tortoise on and on, until something better comes along.

Happy New Year to all. Good Night, and Good Luck.

Happy New Year!