richardderus's eighth 2025 thread

Philip Gladstone The Key

Welcome to Year of the Wood Snake.

Reviews 1, 2, 3 are here.
Reviews 4 through 17 are here
Reviews 18 to 24 are here.
Reviews 025 up to 033 are here.
Reviews 034 through 044 are back there..
Reviews 045 to 059 are here.
Reviews 060 to 072 are linked there.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEWS
073 The staircase in the woods in post #30.
074 Lesser known monsters of the 21st century : stories in post #55.
075 Night of the living rez in post #92.
076 And Introducing Dexter Gaines : A Novel of Old Hollywood in post #104.
077 Empty vessel : the story of the global economy in one barge in post #105.
078 University Revolution: Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Learning in post #121.
079 The last secret agent : my life as a spy behind Nazi lines in post #122.
080 Mỹ documents : a novel in post #130.
081 Four by four in post #141.
082 Bad handwriting in post #142.
083 Reservoir bitches : stories in post #160.
084 Stories from the edge of the sea in post #186.
085 Metallic Realms in post #187.
086 The Boy from the Sea in post #203.
087 Frida Kahlo's Love Letters in post #216.
088 The imagined life : a novel in post #223.
089 The committed in post #231.
090 Esperance in post #272.

All my threads in the 75ers linked somewhere here
My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2022 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2023 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2024 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

All previous Pearl Rule reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD'S PEARL RULE REVIEWS:
#011 Denying to the grave: why we ignore the facts that will save us in post #264.
#012 The Fight That Started the Movies: The World Heavyweight Championship, the Birth of Cinema and the First Feature Film in post #265.

All previous Burgoine reviews linked here.

THIS THREAD:
#027 The Ghost Woods in post #241.
#028 Echoes in death: an Eve Dallas novel in post #242.
#029 Dark in death: an Eve Dallas novel in post #243.
#030 Faithless in death: an Eve Dallas novel in post #244.
#031Perfect Opportunity (A Posadas County Mystery 26) in post #246.
#032 Knife Skills (Shadows of Chicago mysteries) in post #247.
#033 Last to leave the room: a novel in post #260.
#034 The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris in post #261.
#035 78 Degrees and Bloody in post #262.

Seriously...not a great venue for normies here.
My 2024 goals are here, for reference.

2025 GOALS
I wrote an unprecedented 413 reviews in 2024, though certainly not all those books were read in 2024! I'm not counting books read, but reviews written. Decades of pilf from the review aggregators never got a real review written, just some notes on my computer. This year I went back to all my old computers and vacuumed notes onto a data stick. It's my purpose now to write at least a Burgoine review from those notes, post it here and on the DRC aggregator's site, and that will be my annual count.

For those who think I should follow the "books read in 2025" model, that's very interesting, and thank you for sharing your judgment with me. I will, however, be using the site the way I want to not how you think I should.

Numerical goals aren't really the point for me. I've shown I can meet or exceed them often enough now to think they're just unnecessary, and a little show-offy, for me. I will focus my efforts on getting my unwritten-review count down, and on focusing my efforts on reviewing #ReadingIsResistance titles.
☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂
1Q25 was a suckass time to be alive. The Felonious Yam and Muskolini came out swingin' and enshittified a lot of lives. It was a time of terrible stress and serious immiseration, and I myownself could not possibly hate it more.

I wrote eighty-three reviews of all types. Two reads stood out in excellence: Rio Muerto and The Case of Cem. Several were bad, but only one made me angry because it was so effing lazy: Conclave, whose movie actually won an Oscar!!! The apotheosis of blah, bland thinking and writing in both media, and directing of a film.
2Q25
3Q25
4Q25

See >5 richardderus: for 2024 achievements & 2025 goals, and quarterly wrap-ups. Special hashtag events in >7 richardderus:.
Monthly wrap-up posts are linked below.
JANUARY 2025 here.
FEBRUARY 2025 here.
MARCH 2025 here.
APRIL 2025 here.

GBBO and other special hashtaggie projects will be linked here.
Season 15's comments linked here.
☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂
2025 #PrideMonth 1 through 5 are linked here.
PRIDE MONTH #6 Disco Witches of Fire Island: A Novel in post #202.

☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂☀☁☂
2025 #ShortStoryMonth(see >51 richardderus: for details)
#1 Lesser known monsters of the 21st century : stories by Kim Fu in post 55.
#2 Night of the living rez in post #92.
#3 Bad handwriting in post #142.
#4 Reservoir bitches : stories in post #160.
#5 Stories from the edge of the sea in post #186.

Okay. I'm done. Go ahead and post.

Am I first? I am! Happy new thread!

Karen O

Happy New Thread Richard!

Third ----- it's the best I've ever done. Happy New Thread, my WBL!

Back to say that I'm a huge Richard Powers fan!!!!!! I started with The Goldbug Variations years ago: human genome project and Bach. He won a NBA for The Echo Maker: sand cranes and Capgras Syndrome. My favorite may be The Time of Our Singing: music, racism, and time. Just don't start with Operation Wandering Soul is my advice. I'm basing my study club program on The Overstory, based on the work in Finding the Mother Tree.

What do you say, Joe?

Salutations on your latest thread, RD.

>1 richardderus: Striking topper. Hopefully no skid-marks left on those tomes!

Happy new thread, Richard!

>9 klobrien2: You are indeed first, Karen O. So you know what that means:

Yours the crown, Thread Queen.

>10 SandDune: Thanks, Rhian!

>11 LizzieD: Oh. The Overstory. So I *have* read one of his books. mmm I think on balance he's a "not for me" writer.

Welcome to the fold, my dear shepherdess.

>12 PaulCranswick: Thanks, PC! You've got to think he's been...vetted, I suppose is the least meaty way to say it, prior to being so posed.

>13 atozgrl: Thank you, Irene!

Happy new thread, Richard!

Checking in on the new thread, RD. Now off to the books. . .

>19 bell7: Thank you, Mary!

>20 alcottacre: Go forth and read, Stasia, your socials are done.

Happy new thread!

>23 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita!

>14 richardderus: Ooh, I love the crown! Thank you!

Karen O

Happy new one, Richard.

Wow, really late to this party...oh well, still wish you the best with your new thread, Richard.

Happy new thread Richard!

Happy New Thread, Richard!

073 The staircase in the woods by Chuck Wendig

Author Wendig's latest horror/fantasy read. Scared me leaky with its condign cruelties.

>25 klobrien2: That's a beauty indeed, Karen O. Bavarian royalty were exceedingly rich.

>26 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley!

>27 RebaRelishesReading: Still in the top 20, Reba, since my eight starters don't count. xo

>28 Familyhistorian: Morning, Meg! Thanks.

>29 vancouverdeb: Hiya Deborah, and thanks!

😅 I'm only one day behind. Happy new one Rdear. Have a wonderful Wednesday. *smooch*

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Happy New Thread. Tending to the kids and then off to play PB. Cool start to the day (only in the 40s at the moment) so it will be indoors play.

Happy new thread Richard!

APRIL IN REVIEW

Twenty-eight reviews written, several high points, some harder to love than others. I'm still fueled by rage, and channeling my screams of fury and snorts of contempt into writing fuel so I don't get disappeared by Murruhkuh's Gestapo, ICE. That day is coming if you don't start screaming from the housetops, and YES IT CAN HAPPEN HERE. It ***is***happening here.

The best reads in a good month were my first merman/man romance, When the Tides Held the Moon, and Laurent Binet's superb Perspective(s) elevated my mood. Not so elevating was Sad Tiger, likely the most important book I read for what it has accomplished in the world. I was never *happy* to be reading it, though proud of the author for breaking her double shame-bound silence as both a rape victim and an incest survivor in a culture far behind ours in the path to reckoning. Uplifting me in spite of this depressing read was my finally-at-last read of Yes To Life in Spite of Everything, whose Man's Search for Meaning was always at hand all my life.

The world's burning, I'm pissed about it, and here we are. Cantú

>39 richardderus: Twenty-eight reviews with several high points and a tough read sounds like a darn good April, Richard. I'll be pondering my own "in review" soon.

>36 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara!

>37 msf59: Wednesday orisons, Birddude, and thanks! Enjoy the PB.

>38 humouress: Hi Nina, and thanks!

I implore you all not to close your eyes any longer:
“This is what we were always scared of,” said Kevin Bankston, a longtime civil liberties lawyer and a senior adviser on A.I. governance at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a policy and civil rights organization. “The infrastructure for turnkey totalitarianism is there for an administration willing to break the law.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/opinion/musk-doge-data-ai.html?unlocked_artic...

Hiya, RDear. Happy Wednesday to you! Happy new thread, too.

From your last thread, you’re probably right about the mermances not being for me. A bibliorifle. That’s a new one. You’re just Never Satisfied – I bought the LBJ book, after all, AND have put the horror staircase book in Ammy Saved for Later.

I don't need or want to like a president. I need to like, with fewest possible reservations, that president's aims. That’s why I read the party platforms before each presidential election. Last time the Dems was almost 100, I think, and the Gang of Psychos said “nothing’s changed – we’ll use the 2016 one”. People fell for it. People fell for the chaos demon.

>1 richardderus: Love it. Not so much the dog, as you can perhaps predict, but a naked man and books... yup.

>30 richardderus: Dammit, RD. I’m one of the people who still get the shudders when I think of The Exorcist, book and movie. Also, this one reminds me of Jumanji, the 32-page children’s book turned into a phenomenal movie, insofaras a child disappears, creating trauma for some of those left behind.

I’ve got this one Saved for Later on Amazon. $13.99 is too much for Kindle, I know with certainty I cannot ever listen to it, so a paper book it will have to be if I ever move it to my shopping cart and ‘Proceed to Checkout’.

>40 bell7: I looked at the Date/Time stamp on my laptop a while ago and truly realized that today’s the last day of April. Huh. Time to finish up a Kindle Unlimited read and acknowledge that the 6.5 hours to go on my current audio book will not happen ‘til May.

Congrats on twenty-eight reviews. All are a joy to read, insightful, personal, informative… you should be blushing by now. I realize you’re using the rage for writing fuel.

I, am, of course, distraught by everything political and religious-wing-nut right now. Even at Virlie’s yesterday, one friend commented on something a month from now but said “That’s if things aren’t beyond the pale by then.” They’re beyond the pale already, but haven’t impacted me personally. Yet. ICE deporting US-citizen children with cancer? Evil knows no bounds. Elections may already have gone the way of the dodo. The world is burning. I’m pissed about it. Here we are. I'm not even coherent about it.

Deep breaths. 4-2-8.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>40 bell7: It was indeed a darn good reading month, Mary. I'm pretty confident I'll be a widgin less successful in May, though hope springs eternal. I'll coddiwomple over to see what you thought of your reading month soon.

>45 karenmarie: Box-breathing is pretty much the way I get any sleep at all. The horrors these shitty people are busily unleashing are, predictably, going to impact Othered people like me the most.

Coherence is either a sign of inattentiveness, collaboration, or unusual levels of hate. I'm in camp #3.

...but Horrible...you don't understand...my entire sense of self-worth is dependent on you buying every book I aim at you! In hardcover and audio! Otherwise I drift through life invisible and purposeless. And it's all down to you.

Good goddesses, Mama lives on. Thank you for your very kind words. I'm pleased that AI can't replace me just yet. *smooch*

...honored more in the breach than the observance, true and valuable advice no matter what or who one is.

Great reading and reviewing month, Richard! Keep doing what you do with blessings all around! In fact, people will do what they need to do. Somebody else might rarely add a point for them to consider, but we make our own way and choose what we will be bound to. (Pronouns!)

>30 richardderus: I've never even heard of Chuck Wendig, but you know you have me with nowhere is violence slathered with prurient, pornographic adjectival drool. We may ATD about Richard Powers, but I'm right there with you in the search for good horror. My theory (and I'm sure it's not mine alone, but I think I thought it through) is that horror takes a societal fear and translates it into a personal story that a reader can handle and enjoy a brief catharsis. Anyway, I like it.
(I am now channeling my grandmother in her repeated conversation with her sons. GM: Eat your cabbage. Ss: WHY? GM It's good for you. Ss: How do you know? GM: I like it.)

*smooch* from amidst the flock

>49 LizzieD: Hey there my dear shepherdess. I'm pretty sure Wendig won't disappoint if you can get one cheap.

Your (expanded) theory of horror's appeal lines up with Poole's in Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror. I like cabbage enough to feel Gran's reasoning is correct.
*Baaa*

May is #ShortStoryMonth in the US. I'm going to do my possible to feature my Bryce-method reviews of anthologies and collections more prominently than is usual.

As is my habit, I will address each story's merits (or lack thereof) using that aforementioned Bryce Method, named after my old Goodreads friend Bryce; it involves going tale-by-tale through all of the collection/anthology's stories, offering my take and rating by their individual merits. The collection/anthology as a whole then gets an overall rating based on its gestalt...did it hang together? was it supposed to? are these meant to address a theme, and did they succeed?...which I default assume you kinda suss out from the individual takes. If that's not the case for some reason, I'll provide an explanation of my thoughts. Reviews will be tallied separately under the hashtag in >7 richardderus: above. They'll also, I hope is obvious, count into my annual total; they just won't appear in >2 richardderus: above's totals exactly as >3 richardderus: and >4 richardderus: do not.

Happy new thread, Richard.

>52 ArlieS: Thanks, Arlie.

Happy newish thread and happy May, Richard!

>30 richardderus: hm.. I saw “horror” and thought “not for me”, then read on and it reminded me a bit of what I liked about IT. While it might be a book for me, I’ll wait for the Kindle price to go down from the 21 Euros it has now.

>48 richardderus: Sometimes I want to answer to these seemingly “simple” posts, like the one about privilege in the last thread and then my thoughts get too big and a whole essay about privilege or happiness starts to form in my head and I take those thoughts out for a walk (literally, I take a walk) and am very grateful for all the hidden layers. Or maybe I just overthink. Anyway, thank you.

074 Lesser known monsters of the 21st century : stories by Kim Fu
SHORT STORY MONTH #1
Kim Fu's best-known work, a great success indeed, full of eerie and memorable tales.

>54 Deern: €21?!? Mother of all goddesses. I'd never buy a book. That's horrible.

Anyway, thanks Nathalie, and you keep airing your brain. It's clearly working.

>55 richardderus: Great review Rdear. My local library doesn't have a copy.
Happy May 1 'Labour Day' big demonstration for more rights for workers are underway. Unfortunately the chaotic 'black bloc' are also out and about. They always cause a lot of unnecessary damage 😢.

>57 Ameise1: Thank you most kindly, Barbara! I'm sorry about the inevitable damage the break-stuff-up folk cause. They seem to glory in the act of ruining things. Angers me.

May Day orisons!

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday.

>47 richardderus: Hmmm. My financial well being or your self-worth. My Library shelves being manageable or your smugness when you get me.

>51 richardderus: It’s official. You’ve broken my brain with The Bryce Method. And, although I have 82 volumes of short stories on my shelves, only 30 of them are tagged ‘read’.

*smooch*

>59 karenmarie: Has it really been that long since I've reviewed a story collection? Looks like the Felonious Yam gets credit for doing something positive for me, making me so intensely enraged that I *have* to write or I'll combust. I've used the Bryce Method for years now. Like the Burgoines and Pearl-Rules, I needed some kinda way to get over my perfectionist paralysis when something I've read isn't instantly obviously reviewable.

Finances can be repaired...self-worth can't.

A couple of days late, but happy new thread, Richard!

>61 drneutron: Thanks, Doc!

>55 richardderus: YIKES! I think I can pass that one, Richard, but I appreciate the Bryce Review a lot. Thank you! I can't quite imagine writing in that quantity - not to mention quality, but that's always the case - for a whole month. You'll need to eat like an Olympian to support that output.

>63 LizzieD: Heh...you're very kind. To me, since I'm doing the writing as I go...read a story, make notes, next story lather rinse repeat...it feels like no writing at all. Trying to read 'em all, then come up with a cumulative effect synthesis, is utterly daunting and impossibly complicated. Plus it's better for my mental health to write constructively than doomscroll and shitpost 24/7. *Baaa*

Short story month in May? Where do you get your monthly categories from, Richard?

>65 Familyhistorian: The internet, social media, old contacts...wherever they come floating past me, Meg. In this case, it was searching "short story month" years back.

>30 richardderus: I've liked what Wendig I've read, and now this one has your endorsement. I'll definitely get to it.

>55 richardderus: And that one's tempting too.

>67 swynn: Hi Steve! I think both/either will earn your approval. I don't see a single reason, in either case, not to use the library, though, as neither strikes me as *that* much in your wheelhouse.

My #ShortStoryMonth is gonna be crammed, so many DRCs I never finished....

*guilt*

Oh...AANHPI month is now, too...wonder what I've got for that...

Happy Friday, Richard. Of course, I had a good time with Jack yesterday. He spent the night so Grandma will get plenty of time to hang with him today.

Lesser known monsters of the 21st century : stories sounds like a fun one.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Friday to you.

>60 richardderus: My financial well being or your self-worth. My finances for me, your self-worth for you. I should have written AND not OR.

>69 richardderus: I had to look that one up. I’m confident that if anybody here can conjure up a review or two this month, it’s you.

*smooch*

>70 msf59: Yay for extra Jack-visit time! It just sets the mood, doesn't it? If your library has the Fu, which is likely because it won awards, I hope you'll get it and immerse yourself.

>71 karenmarie: AANHPI was one I smacked my nose into yesterday. It hurt, and I have a weird little scrape on the tip. Some google time later, I started looking into my published reviews to see if I could come up with some to shamelessly promote. (Spoiler alert: I could.) This month is a maybe on going in hot on the topic...I'm still doing #PrideMonth reviews...and my May lineup's pretty well set.

*smooch*

You used to have a thing in your thread topper something about how to review a book in three steps.

Any chance you can post that again? 'Twas good guidance.

Welp, I've finally made my way over here, but I am drawing Karen's proverbial line in the sand and not going to try to get caught up on 100+ posts between here and your previous thread.

Happy weekend!

>75 katiekrug: Weekend orisons, Katie! Thread bankruptcy filings accepted here. The fee is....

Happy weekend, Richard!

May is also Jewish American Heritage Month. (The library where I work often uses these months for our book displays and catalog lists, it's often on my radar even though I'm not an organized enough reader to read a lot for any given month.)

>77 bell7: Thank you most kindly! I'm getting a twofer this month with a Yiddish translation of a story collection from Syracuse University Press, A Provincial Newspaper. Deeply satisfying.

075 At night he lifts weights by Yŏng-suk Kang (tr. Janet Hong)

A bestselling collection in Korea translated by award-winning Janet Hong.

‘Morning, RDear! Happiest of Saturdays to you.

>79 richardderus: Almost tempting… but short stories. Also, I still have 2 books translated from Korean on my shelves as yet unread.

*smooch*

Happy weekend Rdear.
I've just seen this comic in a Swiss newspaper.

>80 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! >79 richardderus: is *not* one you need to read. I'm not aware of a limit on unread-language titles...I have nine Italian and fifteen French translations that I'm able to conjure titles for in seconds, all as yet unread. I asked for another French translation yesterday, and got another Italian one the same day. Should I not have?

*smooch*

>81 Ameise1: Morning, Barbara. That cartoonist is exactly right, which makes me feel nauseated. This bloody creature is determined to wreak revenge on everyone for his 2020 loss. He disgusts me.

>83 richardderus: I also know many people in this country who are looking forward to the end of this era.

>84 Ameise1: Around the world! We are, in biblical terms, legion!

>83 richardderus: disgusts...terrifies...and so much time left...will we survive him?

>86 RebaRelishesReading: Thee and me? Probably. Millions of Others? Maybe not. Immigrants? Almost certainly not.

Our country will never again, ever, be able to claim (however dubiously or spuriously) any kind of leadership. That infuriates me, Little Vladdy Pu-Pu using this irredeemable scumbag to achieve in fifteen years an aim the Soviets didn't manage in forty years of trying.

Sending you sunshine-filled smooches, RDear.

I am greatly delighted to see your merman-man romance was a best read. Not my jam but I'm always pleased when a book finds its audience.

>88 MickyFine: It's probably because it's my first one, Micky, and the author's trans. I'm virtue-signaling like a proper leftie! (Plus it was fun.)

*smooch*

I am so glad we ended up with Carney as Prime Minister, Richard. I would be in turmoil if we had someone like Trump, which I think Pierre Poilievre was a little like. It is such a mystery why people voted for Trump. One person told me she thought he would solve the Ukraine / Russia war, but that would really surprise me.

>90 vancouverdeb: Someone who thinks the Felonious Yam could do anything at all has no memory of 2017. I'm so very glad Carney won!

SHORT STORY MONTH #2
075 Night of the living rez by Morgan Talty

Native American author Morgan Talty bursts onto the literary radar bigtime in this trumpet blast via Tin House.

A very early good morning, RDear. Happy Sunday.

>82 richardderus: Of course you should keep getting more books. I keep getting them – I have Entangled Life and Launching LBJ arriving this week, plus Dylan Hollis’s new book arriving May 20th. I also used a precious Audible credit on a BB from Stasia – Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green.

>83 richardderus: I am pretty much beyond words these days. It is infinitely worse than I could have possibly imagined. He is doing what he said he would do, and too many people either voted on one issue or his charisma or thinking his policies wouldn't affect them or their loved ones or friends. He is cruel, abusive, and malignantly narcissistic, according to Robert Reich. I didn’t want what he promised, and I never wanted a rapist, cheater, and criminal as President.

>92 richardderus: Well, damn. I was going to add this to my wish list but see that it’s in my Audible Library, acquired in January. Short stories. Me. As an audio book.

*smooch*

>92 richardderus: One of my co-workers read this and said it was really good. I'm not convinced his bleak tales would be for me, but I did purchase Fire Exit for the library collection and know he's an author to watch. Excellent review, as always.

>93 karenmarie: Goodness, sweetiedarling! You're out and about earlier than usual. And ruminating hard on the awful state of things. We're kids coming off a sugar high. This is the coming of age of the Boomers, and like everything else we've ever done we're making it all about our selfish, spoiled little pweshus selves. The rest of the world should laugh at us for thinking this would never happen here. It happens everywhere, including here, only spoiled li'l tittybabies thought if we kept pretending we're speshul it'd keep feeling true.

Everything is Tuberculosis ought to be very good indeed, so I hope you find it so. Your audio-Talty surprises me a bit, too. Must've been on a supersale when his novel came out.

Enjoy the Sundaying you decide to do.

>94 bell7: Thanks, Mary! I wouldn't shove >92 richardderus: at you, but I don't think bleak nihilism is necessarily "good" for everyone. In my case it rang me like a COVID-ridden 45-weary trauma survivor bell. I'm so glad I found the damned review, and most of what I did was spell-check and rearrange some stuff. Computer before this had a more capacious hard drive so I was wasteful and put almost all the reviews in separate files in a folder I labeled with the ISBN! Note to self: Please don't do that again.

Sunday orisons!

Happy Sunday, Richard. I had a busy day yesterday- birding and partying with friends. Today will be dedicated to chores, mostly the yardwork kind. Hopefully some book time in the PM.

I will have to get my greedy mitts on Night of the living rez. Sounds like a winner.

>97 msf59: Oh, but yardwork is so so satisfying! The rewards are so evident and orderly. Book time after makes it sound like a terrific day.

>92 richardderus: is a book I think you will really resonate to, his voice is so direct and so completely present in the stories. Enjoy!
***

Double Sisyphus.

>92 richardderus: A richardderus 5-star read? Okay, then, I’ve got Night of the Living Rez requested!

Sweet Sunday to you, Richard!

Karen O

>99 klobrien2: Oh, I hope you enjoy it! There's a lot of anomie, so if it comes in at a time you're not feeling chipper, maybe postpone it a while.

*smooch*

Hi Richard. I love that painting in >1 richardderus:. If you described it to me, I would predict otherwise but it's quite compelling and lovely.

>92 richardderus: Got me. Onto the "next time I'm at the local indie bookshop" list it goes.

>101 EBT1002: Hi Ellen! I'm glad you like >1 richardderus:...I think it might be a big surprise because it's not prurient or salacious, but elegant and, in an odd way, vulnerable.

>92 richardderus: will reach you, I think, with its realness and its unflinching gaze.

>92 richardderus: Boom headshot. On the list it goes.

076 And Introducing Dexter Gaines : A Novel of Old Hollywood by Mark B. Perry

AND INTRODUCING DEXTER GAINES is lovely way to spend an afternoon in gay Old Hollywood...thank god we don't have to stay!

077 Empty vessel : the story of the global economy in one barge by Ian Kumekawa

This one's the best kind of economic microhistory, makes the tangled web of international financial skulduggery very plain indeed.

Tom Gauld is one of us.

>106 richardderus: Oh, yeah! That would be me too.

Hi, Richard! Thanks for visiting my thread to harangue me about kale. 😘

>106 richardderus: Let me in! Let me in!

Otherwise, my WBL, I have to speed through and away. Life calls. *smooch*

>107 Storeetllr: I suspect all of us, Mary. I evangelize against the Horrors of Kale-eating with All the fervor of a Baptist preacher in a revival tent. *shudder*

>108 LizzieD: Heh! No joke, Peggy, sound like heaven to me.

*baa*

Hiya, RDear. Happy Monday.

>95 richardderus: I wonder when the baby boomer generation should have figured out that what has gone around will come around. We were not taught real US and real World history early on, or if at all. I realize that things need to be taught at the appropriate age/level, but I think the US had drunk the KoolAid by then and thought the world was our the white male oyster. Learned a bit about Viet Nam when I was a senior in high school but didn’t truly have any kind of perspective on it ‘til way, way later; however, I only heard about Gary Powers and the U2 incident in my 3rd year of college.

We’re the recipients of special = The United States of America, est. 1789. Other countries are special, too, but this experiment was/is? stunning, with all its good and bad events and activities.

>99 klobrien2: Love it!

>104 richardderus: Interesting, but I’ll pass.

>105 richardderus: Intriguing and added to my wish list.

>106 richardderus: Sob. Want. Now.

*smooch*

>111 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I'm not sure >106 richardderus: is *meant* to evoke our concupiscence, but it sure does...I would suggest >105 richardderus: be a sale purchase not full price.

That mural made me sit very still for a good while. I found it telling that they're *pulling* not *pushing*....

>106 richardderus: Address please?

>112 richardderus: I suspect that if they tried pushing they'd lose to Mother Nature.

>113 humouress: Hi Nina! If I had the addy, I'd share it freely. (It says here.)

No matter what those two are endin' up on the short end of Mother Nature's patience.

Morning, Richard. Finally getting a decent warm-up. 70s for the next couple of days. Back playing outdoors. I am doing a reread of The Guards, in honor of Mr. Bruen. I love his lean style. Jack Taylor is such a damaged soul but he sure LOVES the books.

'Morning, RD! Happy Tuesday to you.

Book sort, Virlie's, a few errands in town, getting paperwork organized to put in the file cabinet. Fun times.

*smooch*

Hey, RD! Wishing you happy on this soggy Tuesday!

>115 msf59: Hey Birddude! I listened to the eastern towhee's call on YouTube, and heard its little catchphrase instantly...cool, that. A great way to commemorate Bruen...I think Jack Taylor is a terrific character.

It's not that warm here, plus it's soggy and gross. Maybe by Friday it'll be that warm here. I can hope.

>116 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! Paperwork gives me collywobbles, but I know organizing is your truest happy place so I know you'll enjoy it. Do you have your Pendaflexes all ready to receive their burdens?

*smooch*

>117 Storeetllr: Soggy indeed, Mary, with the marine layer sodden with fog just tipping into mist. I remind myself it's all about the plants. They need the water. I may not *want* the water but they need it.

*martyred sigh*

xo

078 University Revolution: Artificial Intelligence and the Transformation of Learning by Kevin P. Hallinan

Rating: 3 appalled, unnerved stars of five

079 The last secret agent : my life as a spy behind Nazi lines by Pippa Latour with Jude Dobson

Once there were Giants...very short ones:

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1968
Acrylic on watercolor paper

It is soothing, immanent, sensuous, enfolding.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Wednesday.

>119 richardderus: Pendaflexes and manila envelopes are going to be delivered today. I have some of each, but need more of each.

>121 richardderus: Successfully dodged. It’s here, and it, along with everything that can be monetized, can be corrupted and used unethically.

>122 richardderus: Fascinating woman, fascinating biography. Another BB dodged, only because WWII stuff isn’t my jam.

*smooch*

>124 karenmarie: Damn! adjusts biblioriflescope You can run but I *will* get you my pretty....

I'm pretty much convinced that old folks like us are the reason office supplies still exist. The world, the world, it flushes good away with bad. *smooch*

>1 richardderus: Ha.

>46 richardderus: Like.

>51 richardderus: I like short stories, yet I rarely settle down to read a volume of them now. Conundrum RD.

>126 Caroline_McElwee: Hi Caro, happy to see you here! I think story collections worry people more than novels do. It's inevitable we'll like some stories more than others. For many readers, that feels like a reduced return on time and money invested. I'm not sure what that bites harder than not caring for some bits of a novel, but it does. It's one big reason I stick with the Bryce Method; that way the stories themselves have a presence that can help the review-reader figure out if a collection's for them or not.

Anyway, on I go.

>92 richardderus: Wow! A five star read doesn't happen too often. Cant miss that bullet.

Happy rest of the week

>128 figsfromthistle: I couldn't agree more! >92 richardderus: is well worth it, Anita!

080 Mỹ documents : a novel by Kevin Nguyen

A near-future I do not want, though not as improbable as I think the author hoped while writing it.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. Jackson Day! Yah! It was sunny and in the 70s yesterday and today it is partly cloudy and in the 50s. I still will try to take Jack outside somewhere.

I loved The Guards as much as I did the first time and now I will probably reread book two. 😀

>131 msf59: Y'all Pratchettites are a passionate bunch. Enjoy your mooted re-read. It *will* have to wait until after your Jackson day, I'm sure, since there is no way on Earth to watch a toddler and do much of anything else except rote, routine work.

We're headed to the mid-60s, with oodles of sunshine. I do love this moment of spring! If only the summer was as lovely.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Thursday.

>125 richardderus: Adjust all you want, O Wise One. I can dodge and twist with the best of them.

I have an antique, hand-hewn 4-drawer dresser here in the Sunroom with office supplies, paper, envelopes, 3-hole punch, cards, stationery, cards, extra stapler, extra tape dispenser, packing tape dispenser and extra rolls of tape, and etc. Do I need it all? No. But when I need things, I need things.

>130 richardderus: Way, way too close to home these days. The chaos demon is now saying that he doesn’t know if non-citizens AND AMERICANS are entitled to Due Process. I need for my fiction to be less nonfiction-y.

*smooch*

>133 karenmarie: He's turned into early Aughties Putin. This is horrible to watch, and will only get worse until the opposition finally riles itself into actually opposing him. I love that David Hogg is using his post to make mischief...I'm extra worried about ActBlue's fate...I do not want to live in this world and I have to.

How much longer They will leave me to it remains to be seen.

>111 karenmarie: I doubt the baby boomer generation all had the same experiences or understanding of those experiences. (Actually, as a "boomer" myself, I know we didn't. There was plenty of conflict between us, not to mention clueless incomprehension.)

>121 richardderus: I look forward to a generation taught whatever some AI model predicts to be the most likely statement. I doubt they'll be any more clueless than a generation taught whatever the powerful want to be true, or whatever the powerful want peons to believe.

--

Another thought - the include-review-in-post interface hid *all* the meat of your review from readers. What I initially saw was what the publisher said, plus a rating.

I'd be much happier if everyone who writes substantial reviews goes back to cut-and-paste, boycotting a system that makes a thought out review look like a faux "review" consisting almost entirely of material from the publisher.

Note that I'm not using this new interface myself, even when I also post a review on the book page. This also has the advantage that I can edit the two versions to fit their context, removing e.g. references to members of the 75-books community from the version attached to the book itself.

>135 ArlieS: No two people live in the same world.

>136 ArlieS: I use it because I consider the effort to click "show more" (in blue, bottom right) minimal enough to expect people to manage it. My numbering is only in the thread post, not the book-page review for the reasons you cite.

>121 richardderus: AI in education too? It's hard to get away from it these days but it wasn't until recently that I found out how much power AI consumes. Scary thought.

>139 Familyhistorian: It's hugely expensive. It's terrible for us. It's threatening our lives.

Of course tech...bros, let's call 'em...love the damn thing, it gives them power.

081 Four by four by Sara Mesa (tr. Katie Whittemore)

Sara Mesa's odd, claustrophobic, upsetting challenge to smugness as translated from Spanish by Katie Whittemore.

SHORT STORY MONTH #3
082 Bad handwriting by Sara Mesa (tr. Katie Whittemore & Frances Riddle)

Sara Mesa's angry, bitter, truthtelling stories without any need to coddle you, as translated by two of the best Spanish translators working now.

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Friday to you.

>141 richardderus: Pass for a variety of reasons, not the least animal cruelty.

>142 richardderus: Another pass, but mostly because I’m avoiding ‘unsettling’ these days on top of this being a short story collection, 4.5* notwithstanding.

*smooch*

So many BBs, and with my current reading pace I‘d be busy for years. But maybe this is finally the time for short stories, it’s hard fow me to follow longer stories. For now, I put some on the WL.

>140 richardderus: Yes. *sigh*

>123 richardderus: Interesting. While I could look at this Rothko for a while and have all kinds of emotions, not only negative ones, for me it’s anything but soothing. But I sleep with a little light on most of the time. It’s like looking into a starless night, with some weight on my heart.
I like what those paintings do with me. I considered buying a print for my living room, but couldn‘t decide which one I‘d like to look at every day while excluding all the others.

Have a lovely Friday with great books! :)

>122 richardderus: Sold!

>123 richardderus: Ooh, YES!
Like Nathalie, I'm considering a Rothko print, but I would love to see one in person for texture!

And then I had to skip. I'll come back. Meanwhile, *smooch* for your day, WBL!

>143 karenmarie: Nothing I'm writing reviews for will be for you to even slightly consider until mid-next week.

Happy Friday, sweetiedarling. It's a generous interpretation to say Leo XIV is a signal of a turning of the tide of history...see here https://lithub.com/you-dont-have-to-believe-in-god-to-find-hope-in-pope-leo-xiv/... it would do a lot to re-burnish the public face of that collection of evil-souled sex perverts called "Cardinals."

>144 Deern: Not many people seem to read as fast as I do, Nathalie, but the reason is simple: It's all I have to do. I have the same number of hours as y'all, but I can fill them the way I want to. This is the way I want to.

Rothko's work is all about intentionally evoking feelings, not about *which* feelings to evoke. It's a big part of the reason I like the work as a body, while not always enjoying each piece within it, eg:

It jangles my nerves, makes me restless and irritable, gives my eyes no peace and reduces the dopamine in my brain. I actively dislike this color field work because it feels like what Jackson Pollock would do if he wanted to make fun of Rothko.

Weekend-ahead's orisons!

>145 LizzieD: Oh, excellent news Peggy! Pippa deserves your eyeblinks. I'm delighted you're thinking of such a thing. You've seen above one of his works I do not like. This not-stereotypical one:

...I really love. There's a lot to consider in his œuvre! Here's a modestly-priced selection to shop among:
https://www.allposters.com/-st/Mark-Rothko-Posters_c27892_.htm

>147 richardderus: That one made me feel angry -- of course the discussion of AI didn't help :>. That stuff scares me.

I agree that 148 is lovely although the "splotch" near the top causes me some concern.

thank you for prompting me to look at Rothko more seriously

My Tumblr friend Macrolit captioned this:
"This is the saddest photo you’ll ever see.
Stacks of beautiful books inside a CLOSED bookstore in New Orleans.
And I left NOLA later that day. 😔 "

>149 RebaRelishesReading: I'm delighted you're re-thinking your ideas about Rothko, Reba. I like the "splotch' because it breaks the tidy visual boxes and has an exuberant energetic anarchic effect. Probably why I'm fond of it, and it discombobulated mot viewers.

>148 richardderus: I love this one particularly because of the irregular splotches, but I also like the one above it, with all its reds, oranges, and yellows. I get why it might jangle the nerves with its fiery vibrancy, and I wouldn’t want it in my bedroom, that’s for sure. Or any small room where I want to find serenity.

>147 richardderus: Interesting RD. I immediately took to that, but then amber/orange (except relating to a certain being) is one of my colours (along with teal/aqua/emerald).

>148 richardderus: I like this one too.

>152 Storeetllr: EXACTLY why I've loved Rothko since going to the chapel in Houston first in the late 1970s. We all see in his work...the same work...really really different things! That's exciting and fun to me. Friday orisons, dear lady!

>153 Caroline_McElwee: It's possible for us all to see things that just aren't available to others, and doesn't that make life so very much more interesting?

Weekend-ahead's orisons, Caro!

I hadn't heard about it on the news yesterday due to the celebrations regarding the new pope. The Felonious Yam fired the Librarian of Congress. Is that true? Can that really be happening? When is he going to come for my books?

>147 richardderus: I don’t dislike this one, but it screams „action!“ to me, it’s very pushy.
>148 richardderus: this is so touching, it humbles me and makes me want to cry (a good cry, not in sadness or anger). Can I say it makes me feel love? Thank you for posting it!

>157 benitastrnad: It is true, and appalling. If they could, they'd demand you register your books right now...I'm not a bit sure they won't do it soon.

SHORT STORY MONTH #4
083 Reservoir bitches : stories by Dahlia de la Cerda (tr. Heather Cleary & Julia Sanches)

Women's outrage...rage...there's more of it in here than meets the eye, and that's a LOT. The Feminist Press brought us this demanding collection to shake complacent ignorance out of us. It works.

>158 Deern: "Pushy" is a great way to put it, Nathalie! OTOH I see exactly what you mean about feeling "love" in >148 richardderus: because it is so positive-feeling to me as well.

I'm glad you're enjoying the artworks as much as I am enjoying posting them.

I just read the article about the firing in the Guardian. Since the Trump administration began their purges, I‘ve started visiting FB (which I don’t like) on a daily basis and quickly my feed was filled with feminst and pro LGBTQ+ content (and some great vegan recipes and thanks to my following Ralf König, comics). I give likes for all the nice stories, but looking at the comments, I can’t believe all the abuse and hatred and bitterness. I will never get the why. I fear this nightmare won’t be over after 4 years this time.

Serious question: what can I do from here? Is there anything I can sign, or some NGO like an organization that reads liberal books to kids I could donate to, not much, but something, anything?

>162 Deern: Donating to Dolly Parton's Imagination Library will always work to get books into kids' hands, and Miss Dolly is not a reactionary. The problem we're going to have for the next couple decades is the sheer appalling ignorance these vile scum have wished on us.

I hate that I've been yammering about this since Reagan's administration and still have to yammer about it. *sigh*

>162 Deern: EveryLibrary has also been doing a lot of work lately supporting libraries and fighting book banning across the U.S.

Hard to wish a "happy" Saturday with *waves hands at everything*, but hope you find some things that bring you joy today, Richard. *Smooch*

>162 Deern: And of course there's the American Library Association, which does a ton of advocacy work and are currently leading things like one of lawsuits against the gutting of the IMLS.

Saturday smooches for you, RDear, and bonus hugs.

>164 bell7: It's gorgeous here. I'm holdin' on to that. I'm watching art documentaries on YT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsgqjrCyOik
...discovering Black artists and weirdly enough, *museums*in*OHIO* of all places! Who knew they had art museums! *smooch*

>165 MickyFine: There is indeed, Micky, and Satan only knows they need money. Lawsuits don't litigate themselves.

*smooch*

>163 richardderus:, >164 bell7:, >165 MickyFine: Thank you very much! I donated to one of them, for the other two I must check if there are different ways to pay than giving my credit card details (they sure are 100% trustworthy, but twice it happened that my Italian bank blocked my cc for „unusual payments“, both times donations in USD, couldn’t unblock and then it took almost a month + extra fees to get a new one).

I don’t know about Italy, but after the nazi experience, Germans became very sensitive about book banning, with the exception of the Hitler book which was banned until the rights became public a couple of years ago.

>167 richardderus:
I am already a 32 year member of ALA and I don't think they are doing enough. I also don't think that the small town libraries understand the magnitude of the financial burden that is going to be placed on them due to the closure of IMLS and other funding sources.

What this all comes down to is the do-nothing Congress who refuse to stand up to that Yam Asshat. Not only is he ruining the middle class he is very much enjoying the Death By a Thousand Cuts of the US Congress. Where is that bastion of holier-than-thou savior of the US Congress - Moscow Mitch? He is already dead meat so why doesn't he stand up and say something?

‘Morning, RDear. Twenty four messages since I visited yesterday? Here I go…

>146 richardderus: Thanks for the warning. I do try to read all of your reviews. Leo XIV is an unsettling mixture of positions. I am impressed that he speaks 6 languages fluently and reads Latin.

>147 richardderus: I don’t know what it says about me, but I prefer this one to the more monochromatic pieces you’ve posted here. It exercises my eyes.

>150 richardderus: Major sadness indeed.

>162 Deern: and >163 richardderus: Donating money to Friends of the Library 501(C)3s, or, if in the US, possibly finding one to volunteer for or even start. Even volunteering at your local Library can help the staff.

>165 MickyFine: Our Librarians discussed the IMLS and threats to Libraries at our most recent Friends of the Library Board Meeting.

>166 richardderus: If you see anything about the Cleveland Museum of Art, pay attention to see if they mention the director emeritus of the Toledo Museum of Art, Roger Berkowitz. I had lunch with him and his wife Rhoda last week and have known Roger since the late 1990s. Rhoda and I are volunteers for the FoL and book sort/sale teams.

*smooch*

>168 Deern: It's the bloody AI flagging anything "unusual." They tell you it's to prevent fraud but then why cancel your card only to reissue it? Anyway, good on you, thank you for caring enough to do something!

>151 richardderus: I thought the "splotch" was a bit discordant with the otherwise peaceful feeling of the piece. I'll try to think of it as "exuberant energy" instead :)

>169 benitastrnad: They are not now nor have they ever been proactive. It's like the ACLU. Yes, good work gets done...slowly...and far too seldom.

Politicians are not likely to buck the system they still need to feed them after they retire. Moscow Mitch won't be alive that much longer, you'd think he at least would do something if he thinks we're heading the wrong way...so I guess his silence = agreement.

>170 karenmarie: It's been busy here! I never really know why traffic behaves as it does so I just take whatever comes with all the goodwill I can muster.

Cleveland. An art museum in Cleveland. Wow, that's stunning. I'm glad the lunch was fun!

Da Pope is going to be very interesting to watch as he defines his legacy. I hope it will be a solidly progressive one.

The IMLS could yet be saved, but nothing the religious nut christofascists hate is going to be safe while they're active. How best to deactivate them is what we need to figure out. The FoLs of the US are irreplaceable. How to get people to make labor donations is always the best choice, money second, because there are so many jobs need doing.

I'd so love to have a bookstore in Long Beach. I tried to convince Spoonbill & Sugartown to expand here from nearby Brooklyn but no joy. *mournful sigh*

>172 RebaRelishesReading: Heh! It's another way of looking at what you're seeing, though not necessarily any more valuable an interpretation. It's another reason I like Rothko...All open to interpretation, no one's right-er than anyone else.

>160 richardderus: I’ve seen a lot of talk about Reservoir Bitches on Booksky, but I hadn’t paid much attention till now. It’s on my TBR list now, so thanks!

>162 Deern: I’m with you on all you said.

>176 Storeetllr: It's quite the read, Mary. I think you'll be...affected.

*popcorn bowl*

Have a beautiful Saturday!

I didn't really "Get" Rothko until I saw one of hif in person - walking up to one and gazing deep into one is a very complex and moving experience.

>178 magicians_nephew: That makes perfect sense. One doesn't necessarily focus on the edges and spaces in a photo, but it's harder not to spend time on them in person...plus the real image is a lot bigger!

Interesting art , Richard. I like the orangey - red abstract . Sunday *smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. You landed a solid BB with Reservoir bitches : stories. Just my cuppa. I'm back doing some solo birding this AM before going out to pick up the camper. We want to get it ready in our driveway before the next trip, on Thursday. Back into the 70s today with plenty of sunshine. Yah!

>180 vancouverdeb: Hi Deborah! I'm glad you're enjoying the artwork. I think it's interesting to see who enjoys what.

Sunday *smooch*

>181 msf59: Oh excellent, Birddude! I think you're exactly on target, because >160 richardderus: is such strong stuff, so unsparing, and thus so much more interesting to us. If it isn't saying something loud and clear, I'm less and less likely to care about it.

Enjoy the birding and the readying!

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Sunday to you.

>174 richardderus: Our FoL always needs volunteers. We have a solid core group for book sales, and we’re expanding the things we’re going to be doing to help the Library – more fundraisers, more in-house volunteering if they want it. We also need more officers to serve elected positions on the Board and more At-Large members. Our FoL uses Wild Apricot software to manage our subscribers, volunteers, and email notices/reminders.

Funny you mention Spoonbill & Sugartown. Not because it’s a book store, but because Louise’s daughter sent a video of a Roseate Spoonbill grooming itself in the pond near their houses yesterday.

*smooch*

>184 karenmarie: A Spoonbill! They're proof that y'all's god has a sense of humor. Perfectly adapted to one little slice of a huge world, and blankly white until their food colors them a liminal red so they're safe at their most vulnerable hours.

Good that your library has such dedicated community support! Not hugely surprising given the general level of education there, though.

Sunday *smooch*

SHORT STORY MONTH #5
084 Stories from the edge of the sea by Andrew Lam

STORIES FROM THE EDGE OF THE SEA describes an edge I can see from my home, and wonder what's over it. Author Lam tells you in Red Hen Press's edition of his stories.

085 Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel

It's an "elegiac, sweet-talking mourning raga" (!) for a world that dared to disappoint Himself. Also really funny (if you're mean like me).

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Monday to you. Still happily cardiganed up?

>186 richardderus: I immigrated from my happy world to this ugly, mean-spirited one entirely against my will. But here I am. I feel exactly the same.

Unless I write otherwise, assume that I’ll pass on the short story offerings.

>187 richardderus: See, here’s the thing. The Publisher’s bait and your review caused me to say “I want this book, let’s see which is the best way to acquire it.” It’s being released tomorrow, and I don’t want to pre-order, so I had to make a note to myself to check out Amazon tomorrow to think about it a bit more.

Today’s turning out to be dangerous, because this is after getting a tangential BB from Mark this morning – his Wiley Cash recommendation turned into Paris Trout by Peter Dexter on Audible for me.

*smooch*

>188 karenmarie: *eville chortle* I think you'd like >187 richardderus: because it's got a slyness that you're prone to enjoy. It's pretty pricey for what it is...maybe ask the library to get it for you?

It honestly never occurred to me that you'd read a story collection. We're way closer to 20 years of friendship than any other milestone; I've been shocked, shocked! every time you mention even a single story you've *read* still less liked. You aren't That Reader, like I'm not for *shudder* poetry. (Pace Simon Armitage.) So, no, I'm not so lost to the world's facts yet to imagine I'll convert you. I'm still stunned at how quickly you took to smut! You've introduced *me* to quality smutterers!

You devil you. *smooch*

>187 richardderus: Are you a Trekkie? A Tolkien/"high fantasy" fan? Then no.

Oh. Maybe not for me then.

>190 humouress: Most, most certainly not for you.

>191 richardderus: It was looking promising until I read that in your review.

>192 humouress: Lovely way to piss off a reader, IMO, telling them only part of the truth. It's the one really good reason I give to people who ask "why should I read reviews?" The reader-response reviewer tells you not only what and how about a book, but why they felt some kinda way about it.

>187 richardderus: Of course, you got me, but I'll wait to see whether it or *BS* are offered as Kindle deals. I am a high fantasy lover and space opera too, but I declare that those two loves don't define me. We'll see.
In fact, I meant to ask you whether you read some of D. Weber's Safehold series. Did you? I'm rereading the first one and liking a lot of it (and there's a LOT of it) more than I apparently did the first time. I bought a copy of #2 at the time, and a friend gave me another 3 or so. Maybe if I lose steam, I can bring myself to get rid of them.

I'm with Karen although I have a collection of SS collections. I'll always read Wodehouse and Saki and maybe a few others.

Can't say that I'm caught up here, but I'm back. *smooch*

>194 LizzieD: *smoochiesmoochsmooch*

I read the first six Safehold books. I was enthralled but it, as must ever be, palled after a while. I still think someone should give that series The Expanse treatment. What a deeply satisfying watch that would be!

Stories are just one way to experience the storyverse. No one way works for everyone, and people change over time. I loooooved long novels in long series when time was limitless. Now, not so much. I insist on being cremated with my Kindle so I can haunt people who don't read fast enough with eerie notices of new books by dead authors.

heh

‘Morning, RD! Happy Tuesday to you.

>187 richardderus: I don’t have enough Ammie credit to buy the hardcover outright, so have put it in ‘Save for Later’, being cheap and having just gotten several books.

>189 richardderus: Most of the short story collections I’ve read have been Salinger, Christie, or Sayers. Other than that, they languish on my shelves. Poetry is not my jam either, especially poetry that doesn’t rhyme except for EE Cummings.

Long-time friends, indeed. You’re cherished, you silver-tongued devil. And yes, YOU started me on Smut, as you’ll remember, with Love, Hate, and Clickbait. Thank you.

>195 richardderus: Cremated with your Kindle... heh. I'm sure I'll be one of the folks you'll haunt, although since you'll be in the ether, so to speak, I respectfully request new smut by my favorite authors. Most of them are not dead, but you'll have connections with this plane, and I expect no less.

*smooch*

Morning, Richard. Stories from the edge of the sea sounds like another winner. You have been reading some real gems. No work today because I am leading a bird walk this AM. It should be a gorgeous day. Hoping to see plenty.
🤞🤞

I loooooved long novels in long series when time was limitless. Being less adult than you, I am still in denial of my limited reading time and expressing it by starting looooong novels in loooong genre series while mostly ignoring the Good Novel. (I did love that book last year!)

*smooch* Good Reading for your day!

>196 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible. I still think you're better off getting the Library to buy one.

Funny thing: I barely remember reading Love, Hate, and Clickbait, still less what it was about. It altered your brain architecture, and I did it, but it has melted into the soupy part of the stew that is my memory. *smoochiesmoochsmooch* I'm so glad I made that impact! I must've written a review...I should go look at it one day.

My ascension to Ancestor status will of necessity be one of going into the Storyverse. If, as I suspect, this whole ancestors thing is just the lingering of our conscious awareness like the last tiny flutter of battery life, that's where I'm spendin' it!

>197 msf59: Morning, Mark! I hope you can get a copy of >186 richardderus: because it is so your jam.

The bird walk better've been fun, or them birds'll be hearing from me....

>198 LizzieD: You'll end up outliving me, Peggy, based on your Mama's performance in that sweepstakes. This is the last decade I can expect to see both ends of. You keep sending that immortality vibe to the Fates. Atropos takes hints, though bribes seem ineffective.

PRIDE MONTH #6

Disco Witches of Fire Island: A Novel by Blair Fell

086 The Boy from the Sea by Garrett Carr

Garrett Carr's Irish fable-making for this century's needs, via Alfred A. Knopf:

Beautiful! A soggy bottom, or I miss my guess, but really really cool-looking:

I wish they'd showed me the baked version:


Best witches' pie EVER:


Ain't Tumblr grand?

>202 richardderus: Sorry just hearing in my brain the Village people singing

DIS CO DIS CO WITCH

I wanna be a Disco Witch!

Al right officer I'll go quietly

>205 magicians_nephew: THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT MY BRAIN DID!!

I'd go quietly but it's my thread.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Wednesday.

>199 richardderus: Well, damn. Our Library doesn’t have it (yet?), so I submitted a request for it to be added to the catalog. We’ll see if that happens.

I read Love, Hate, and Clickbait in June of 2022. Here’s my Lightning Round entry. You did write a review for it.

Love, Hate & Clickbait by Liz Bowery 6/14/22 6/18/22 325 pages trade paperback

This one probably deserves its own review, however it’s simply a contemporary romance, albeit between two men rather than the ones I have exclusively read prior to this one, always between a man and a woman. Clay and Thom pretend to be in a romantic relationship in order to offset a political gaffe by their disgusting boss, the female governor of California. It's all a game until it isn’t. Richard’s review is outstanding if you want to look it up on the Work Page. There are a few twee moments, but all in all very well done.

>203 richardderus: Excellent review. I’ll pass.

>204 richardderus: Wow. Yum. Baking artistry for sure.

>205 magicians_nephew: and >206 richardderus: No. Just… no. I now need to find another ear worm STAT.

*smooch*

>207 karenmarie: Given who and what you are to them, I'll be stunned if the library does *not* add it for you.

I went back to read my review of that book and, well, I clearly liked reading it *then* but I'm truly not coming up with one single line or scene in my head. Wow, that's scary.

You know, I'd still eat the baked pies. Beautifully decorated pie is pie nonetheless, so in it goes.

PRET TY PRET TY PIE
I WANNA EAT A PRETTY PIE

*chortle*

Good morning, Good Richard. I confess to being so old and so committed to my music that I don't get the ear worm at all. That's quite all right!

Those pies are amazing!!!!!! I would not only eat them when baked, but I'd wonder a bit at a person who would prefer doing that to reading. Wood carving, yes. Pastry carving, not so much.

There. I have renewed my female-urgeon credentials for the next little spell.

*smooch*

>209 LizzieD: How do, Peggy! I'm endlessly astonished at what people do instead of being commonsensical and just reading.
***
If you wonder why Capitalism is buying The Felonious Yam's ugly side, it's to quash this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC2eSujzrUY

Adding The Boy from the Sea to my library WL...

>211 katiekrug: Oh good! I hope it gives you the goods when you come to read it.

Oh, I love the pies, Richard! You are making me hungry. I think I would take the blueberry pie, but the Witch Pie is very cool looking . Maybe it is blueberry too ?

Cute pies, and ear worm here, can‘t decide if I prefer the pie or the dicso witch text, so my head sings them both alternately.

They make the strudels with pie crust pastry here (contrary to classic Vienna strudels or the cheap ones with danish pastry), I‘ll have to go and get a slice of apricot strudel later today.

087 Frida Kahlo's Love Letters by Suzanne Barbezat

Frances Lincoln Ltd brings us passionate Love for others in her own words.
Real Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: ‘I don’t know how to write love letters. But I wanted to tell you that my whole being opened for you. Since I fell in love with you everything is transformed and is full of beauty . . . love is like an aroma, like a current, like rain’

Frida Kahlo lived a passionate life and the letters shared between her and those she loved are an intimate insight into her life. Letters were sent to her first love, Alejandro Gomez Arias, and to her husband Diego Rivera. But she wrote declarations of love to many others, including Leon Trotsky, Nickolas Muray and Jose Bartoli.

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

My Review: Is somebody, other than the spy agencies, archiving people's emails? I doubt a book like this will be possible to collect in thirty years. That makes me sad.

It's lovely to have this peek into Frida's life of love.
who we're talkin' about
I deliberately said it that way because "love life" carries an entirely different meaning in English. I think no one exemplifies a "life of love" better than wounded, damaged Kahlo. Her many surgeries, her intense pain after the accident that mangled her, the earliness of her death...she was FORTY-SEVEN! I mean, I knew she was too young to die, but that's barely middle age!...all conspired to keep her isolated. It was inevitable. No wonder her artwork is a riot of color, is so intensely involved in portraying volumes in space...it had to be, or she'd go mad. Madder.
Frida in 1926, pre-accident
How I wish she'd lived in the time of the internet. How grateful I am that she didn't. It's like wishing her accident never happened, or she was not so severely broken by it...she wouldn't have been herself, then. Would we know of her as the monadnock of art she is had she not been made famous for overcoming her physical disadvantages? 17 September 1925 ruined one life, opened another. From the life before, her love letters to Alejandro Gómez Arias show a callow, intense crush on this handsome guy:
hubba hubba! me likee!
...who, to be honest, is very crushwortthy on value of face. The letters are, well, those of a young, very young, woman finding out about this amazing thing called Love:

It's the sort of thing that causes some people to insist their papers be burned after their death. I'm not sure that's wrong of them. After all, outpourings of Love are utterly cringe if you're not also in love; sometimes even if you are, but in a good way then.

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of Frida's letters as an object, and as per usual give Frances Lincoln Ltd's designers big ups for their presentation. I understand this is a gift object. I would give it five of five stars if it had included some of the responses the recipients returned. I'm not al all sure that would've been the same book, of course, so that's why I got as close to the full five as I did. I'm quite sure I'd gift this to my lesbian pal (she's still iconic among us, despite the careful heteronormativity of this selection), or my Frida freak cousin, or just pretend I'll give it to someone and end up keeping it on my coffee table for people to flip through.

It's two hours well-spent learning about the close relationship between a gifted artist's openness to Love, and her creative intensity. This was a spirit not to be trapped, not to be bound, not to be trammelled; this was a woman who Loved where she would, who she would.

>214 vancouverdeb: I'm glad they appeal, Deborah! I admire your courage even contemplating such an effort. I'm guessing you're right about the witch one being blueberry as well...maybe blackberry, but probably blueberry.

>215 Deern: Oh, what a great idea for strudel! Makes it the world's biggest hand-pie! Can't think you could make the strudel terribly big, though.

I think choosing between the pies and the book is unnecessary...enjoy both! Happy to see you, Nathalie.

‘Morning, RD! Happy Thursday to you.

>216 richardderus: Kahlo’s endlessly fascinating. Her love letters just add to that fascination. Excellent review.

Today’s another fun reading and puttering at home day.

*smooch*

>219 karenmarie: Hi there sweetiedarling. I know, Kahlo's a really interesting person, but I had little sense of the extremity of her bodily damage until I read her words to the people she loved. I think her art would never have scaled the heights it did had she not had the extreme limitations on movement and participation that she did.

Can't know that for certain, of course, but it just oozes from every corner of her writing after 1927.

Enjoy your puttery kind of day. *smooch*

>216 richardderus: The Kahlo book looks wonderful! Thanks for the excellent review!

Karen O

>221 klobrien2: De rien, ma amie. It's a gorgeous object!

088 The imagined life : a novel by Andrew Porter

THE IMAGINED LIFE is a very apt title about the illusions Life makes up for us, published by Alfred A. Knopf:

'Morning, RDear. Happy Friday.

>223 richardderus: You make great points about the flaws in the protagonist's approach to finding his father. Another BB avoided.

*smooch*

>224 karenmarie: Morning, smoochling. I'm really unsurprised >223 richardderus: fails to rev you up. It wouldn't ever be well-written enough to get over the essential hump of uninterest.

Spend this Friday well!

>223 richardderus: Tempting, very tempting

>226 RebaRelishesReading: Oh good, Reba! I hope you'll get it from the library, though.

Amazing looking pies, Richard!

>228 Familyhistorian: Aren't they? I'm astonished at the work someone put into pie. Something so ephemeral, turned into beautiful art. Happy to see you, Meg!

>204 richardderus: Would be a shame to eat them RD.

089 The committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Sympathizer #2 is a different, still very powerfully caustic, look at illusions and their costs from Viet Thanh Nguyen via Grove Press.

>230 Caroline_McElwee: ...but they're PIES! Imagine *not* eating a pie! (unless it's chocolate)

>232 richardderus: Tee hee.

>233 Caroline_McElwee: Well, these chocolate tartlets are cute and all, but *eat* them? *baa*

‘Morning, RDear!

>225 richardderus: You nailed it! The Essential Hump of Uninterest. I shall use it from now on. Friday was spent well. I have 12 boxes of galley proofs in the back of my SUV as part of the success of the day.

>231 richardderus: I have Nguyen’s The Sympathizer on my shelves, as yet unread, so will just let this one ride in the ether for a while.

>234 richardderus: Cute. I’d eat them, what with being chocolate and all.

*smooch*

>234 richardderus: Stop it! Mutton chocs.

>236 Caroline_McElwee: I was calling 'em "lamb chocs" but yeah....

>235 karenmarie: *ew* on chocolate glop covered in chiboust, no matter how cute the decor.

I *really* don't think these books are your jam, sweetiedarling. Darker than dark, deeply exploring mental violation, and quite tendentious. Good shelf ornament, though, so why not keep it.

I'm glad that crystallized a thought for you! It's how I feel about straight romance...and I should care about this because...? It's an essential hump of uninterest.

Dropping off (Canadian long) weekend smooches, RDear. Wishing you sunshine, cool breezes, and excellent reads.

>239 MickyFine: Happy long weekend, Micky! Your predictions reached the goddesses' inbox...that's pretty well what's outside right now. *smooch* for doin' that voodooin' that you doin' so well!

BURGOINE #027

The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In the midst of the woods stands a house called Lichen Hall.

This place is shrouded in folklore—old stories of ghosts, of witches, of a child who was not quite a child.

Now the woods are creeping closer, and something has been unleashed.

Pearl Gorham arrives in 1965, one of a string of young women sent to Lichen Hall to give birth. And she soon suspects the proprietors are hiding something.

Then she meets the mysterious mother and young boy who live in the grounds—and together they begin to unpick the secrets of this place.

As the truth comes to the surface and the darkness moves in, Pearl must rethink everything she knew—and risk what she holds most dear.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU. CW: graphic nonconsensual sex

My Review: Heed my content warning. It's part of my biggest problem with this well-written, if awkwardly paced, gothic tale: Making action too graphic does not make a read go faster. If anything it slows the reader down to have this strong a tonal shift from beautiful evocative scene-building to bloody or emotionally violent moments.

Not without pleasures for tougher gothic-fiction fans in search of a powerful modern twist on Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest.

BURGOINE #028

Echoes in death: an Eve Dallas novel (in Death series #44) by J. D. Robb

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: This chilling new suspense novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author J.D. Robb is the perfect entry point into the compelling In Death police procedural series featuring Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

As NY Lt. Eve Dallas and her billionaire husband Roarke are driving home, a young woman—dazed, naked, and bloody—suddenly stumbles out in front of their car. Roarke slams on the brakes and Eve springs into action.

Daphne Strazza is rushed to the ER, but it’s too late for her husband Dr. Anthony Strazza. A brilliant orthopedic surgeon, he now lies dead amid the wreckage of his obsessively organized town house, his three safes opened and emptied. Daphne would be a valuable witness, but in her terror and shock the only description of the perp she can offer is repeatedly calling him “the devil”...

While it emerges that Dr. Strazza was cold, controlling, and widely disliked, this is one case where the evidence doesn’t point to the spouse. So Eve and her team must get started on the legwork, interviewing everyone from dinner-party guests to professional colleagues to caterers, in a desperate race to answer some crucial questions:

What does the devil look like? And where will he show up next?

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

My Review: What you signed up for, if you're already a series fan. All the near-future tech feels just as plausible, without the AI paranoia popular now; but as a starting place, it's subideal because it's more about Eve smoothing down her more dramatic expressions of PTSD. She and Roarke, her very high-class husband, are on a case that really could be more exciting in how they pursue it. Oddly, in this case that means less: less violent confrontations, less fraught choice of victims.

I recommend it to those who, like me, bounced off the earlier, ruder Dallas.

St. Martin's Press wants $11.99 for an ebook. Most people seem to love these books, so who am I to say don't?

BURGOINE #029

Dark in death: an Eve Dallas novel (in Death series #46) by J. D. Robb

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: It was a stab in the dark.

On a chilly February night, during a screening of Psycho in midtown, someone sunk an ice pick into the back of Chanel Rylan’s neck, then disappeared quietly into the crowds of drunks and tourists in Times Square. To Chanel’s best friend, who had just slipped out of the theater for a moment to take a call, it felt as unreal as the ancient black-and-white movie up on the screen. But Chanel’s blood ran red, and her death was anything but fictional.

Then, as Eve Dallas puzzles over a homicide that seems carefully planned and yet oddly personal, she receives a tip from an unexpected source: an author of police thrillers who recognizes the crime—from the pages of her own book. Dallas doesn’t think it’s coincidence, since a recent strangulation of a sex worker resembles a scene from her writing as well. Cops look for patterns of behavior: similar weapons, similar MOs. But this killer seems to find inspiration in someone else’s imagination, and if the theory holds, this may be only the second of a long-running series.

The good news is that Eve and her billionaire husband Roarke have an excuse to curl up in front of the fireplace with their cat, Galahad, reading mystery stories for research. The bad news is that time is running out before the next victim plays an unwitting role in a murderer’s deranged private drama—and only Eve can put a stop to a creative impulse gone horribly, destructively wrong.

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

My Review: This one was fun for me. I'm a Hitchcock fan, (re?)discovering Roarke is too made me like him more...not that I dislike him, just kinda not as impressed as everyone else seems to be...and the Author Nora stand-in here, Blaine DeLano, was entertaining as well. The plot resolved itself pretty much on autopilot. That did not seem bad to me, as it meant Eve did less kickassery and more homebodying.

Don't start here; starting in the earlier series-40s, say #40 itself (Obsession In Death) is better. I will note that the endless cycle of violence against women wears me down.

BURGOINE #030

Faithless in death: an Eve Dallas novel (in Death series #52) by J. D. Robb

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: In the new Eve Dallas police thriller from #1 New York Times-bestselling author J. D. Robb, what looked like a lover's quarrel turned fatal has larger—and more terrifying—motives behind it...

The scene in the West Village studio appears to be classic crime-of-passion: two wine glasses by the bed, music playing, and a young sculptor named Ariel Byrd with the back of her head bashed in. But when Dallas tracks down the wealthy Upper East Side woman who called 911, the details don't add up. Gwen Huffman is wealthy, elegant, comforted by her handsome fiancé as she sheds tears over the trauma of finding the body—but why did it take an hour to report it? And why is she lying about little things?

As Eve and her team look into Gwen, her past, and the people around her, they find that the lies are about more than murder. As with sculpture, they need to chip away at the layers of deception to find the shape within—and soon they're getting the FBI involved in a case that involves a sinister, fanatical group and a stunning criminal conspiracy.

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

My Review: Ruh-roh, Raggy...the Moonlighting Syndrome is bitin' hard. Eve and Roarke are gettin' a bit stale. The cultist who seems normal as a victim kept me trying to stay engaged, since I'm all about bashing on cults.

Among people like me, not deeply invested in the series, Roarke takes a lot of brickbats for being Too Much: too rich, too pretty, too cultured, too talented. Unfair, say I. Roarke is a bigger version of what someone not worn down by wage slavery, tired out by not-optional Life stuff could be. He's the poster child for a post-scarcity lifestyle I want to see come true.

I will take all the chocolate you don't want. Different tastes are what make the world go 'round after all. Saturday *smooch*

BURGOINE #031

Perfect Opportunity (A Posadas County Mystery #26) by Steven F. Havill

Real Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Octogenarian former sheriff Bill Gastner and Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman investigate a puzzling double murder in this twisty, page-turning instalment in the critically acclaimed Posadas County mystery series "If you haven't yet discovered these wonderful mysteries, you are in for a treat!" Anne Hillerman, New York Times bestselling author

The morning after his eighty-seventh birthday bash, former Posadas County sheriff Bill Gastner drives past a couple of vehicles stopped on the highway shoulder. It's not an unusual a sheriff's patrol unit, emergency lights ablaze, pulled in behind a pickup truck. The female deputy hasn't radioed for backup. But there's something about the scene that makes him feel uneasy.

The next day, Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is called to a rather more dramatic and disturbing roadside scene, with the same truck the star of the show. But this time, its occupant is in no fit state to talk—his dead body stabbed through the chest with a Ka-Bar, a second corpse in the ditch beside the car.

What happened to the two men? And what were the dead man and the deputy discussing in the quiet of pre-dawn the previous day? The truth is more twisty and complex than even Estelle and her long-standing friend and former colleague Bill are ready for, and it will take all their combined years of experience to untangle the sorry tale and ensure justice is served.

Fans of CJ Box, Anne Hillerman and Terry Shames will love this thrilling, small-town Western mystery set in New Mexico, as will readers who love strong female protagonists and retired sleuthing heroes.

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

My Review: Wowee, did I screw this one up! I started with book TWENTY-SIX because, I suppose, I didn't believe a series could last that long...? Whatever my reasoning, I'm amazed I felt I could follow what was happening while knowing there were character nuances I didn't get, all while still enjoying myself.

It's as the comps say it is; I liked strong, unflappable Estelle, the oldness of Bill was not truly believable, the murder was a bit less twisty than I was led to believe, and I do not want any of those eyeblinks back.

Severn House requests $14.99 at checkout. Unless you're familiar with the series, maybe asking the library to get one's a better idea.

BURGOINE #032

Knife Skills (Shadows of Chicago mysteries #1) by Wendy Church

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: "Dizzying . . . Audiences who wished the TV series The Bear had made room for Russian mobsters are in for a treat" Kirkus Reviews Starred Review

Sagarine Pfister is a great cook but has been blacklisted by almost every restaurant in Chicago. She gets her chance at Louie's, a below-average restaurant, the only place that will give her a job.

Things change when she finds head chef Louie Ferrar dead in the walk-in freezer of his restaurant. But instead of closing the place down, the owner, Russian gang boss Anatoly Morzov, not only offers her Louie's job, but also the position as his personal chef. Sagarine agrees, and while she knows she's playing with fire, the chance to turn out extraordinary food at both the restaurant and for Morzov's extravagant private parties is just too tempting.

While the Chicago P.D. searches for Louie's killer, the FBI pressures Sagarine to inform on the gang. She has no choice, but things take another dangerous turn when she falls for one of Morzov's lieutenants. As Sagarine becomes more deeply involved with the gang and with her lover, the FBI's demands put her at increased risk of discovery. She has to make a decision about where her loyalties lie as she finds herself running for her life.

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

My Review: Don't read it hungry! The beautiful food descriptions will send you to the fridge, the store, or the computer, there to drop a lot of money. The plot's familiar, the mob boss is a foodie so obviously Sagarine and I are infatuated with him...she picks Ekaterina (the only woman on his team...why? the mystery tempts Sagarine), though, where I'd be all over Anatoly. The murder victim comes under my heading of "some folk just need killin'" so the police solving the crime wasn't interesting to me.

Time with the FBI, exerting pressure on Sagarine to betray Anatoly (and Ekaterina) has her in a swivet. Maude, her sassy BFF/roommate, listens like we do...and there's a resolution, but I'm not tellin'.

Severn House wants $14.99 for an ebook. That's steep to me, but the story is tempting...maybe the library....

>245 bell7: You'll be goin' up against Horrible for it, Mary, and frankly I don't like your chances...that chocoholic's got age and guile all over you. ¡Suerte, comadre! *smooch*

Like Mary, I will take all of the chocolate you don't want, Richard . Those cupcakes look lusciou.! Tempting everyone to your thread! It's not fair, RD.

Those lamb tartlets look way too cute to be eaten (I know that makes no sense when the alternative is having them turn green and more furry). That’s why I never wanted those Lindt easter bunnies. And while I enjoy chocolate in small quantities, I don’t like it much in creamy form, so I‘d happily have the empty tartlet shells.
Lovely Sunday to you, Richard :)

Hey - save some chocolate for me please!

>249 vancouverdeb: Since Horrible has standing on the Chocolate Question, y'all're gonna have to throw elbows amongst y'all's selves to decide how to divide the bounty I don't want. *popcorn bowl*

Fair, no; fun, yeah! (for me anyway)

>250 Deern: I'd scrape off the goo, then, Nathalie...unlike the bunnies of yore, it's not built in that it looks like a wooly-baa-lamb so it can turn back into a chocolate tart any old time.

Sunday orisons!

>251 humouress: ...sharpen them elbows, Nina...

>254 richardderus: Anything for chocolate! (Sorry Karen.)

Clear: A Novel is the WINNER of the £10,000 2025 Ondaatje Prize for writing that “best evokes the spirit of a place.”

My 5* review: https://www.librarything.com/work/30617751/reviews/261246786

>255 humouress: Oh dear...gonna get messy up in here....

'Morning, RDear. Happy Sunday to you.

Rather than skip quickly through the 19 messages and book reviews now, I'll come back later or even tomorrow and give them the attention they need.

*smooch*

>258 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! I don't think the reviews will be of much interest to you, TBH, as none are all that stellar. I'm getting a lot of Burgoines done so I can focus on my #PrideMonth reads. You were never an Eve Dallas cultist IIRC, and my ~meh~ reviews aren't likely to convert you. Have a great book-club meeting, smoochling!

BURGOINE #033

Last to leave the room: a novel by Caitlin Starling

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Last to Leave the Room is a new novel of genre-busting speculative horror from Caitlin Starling, the acclaimed author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement belonging to Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster.

As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before—and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world.

With her employer growing increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads to.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU. CW: body horror

My Review: What worked for me: Tamsin's doppelgänger discovery and subsequent action. What didn't work for me: the first third of the book's quotidian tedium, and the underused plot-point of the sinking city. Too much of one, too little of the other; while I, on balance, liked the read just fine, I put it down for a year at the 15% mark, and only picked it up because someone I trust told me I should. He was correct.

But I could've just left it very easily. Tighter beginning without some stuff I never felt I needed anyway would serve the really good bits better.

St. Martin's Press expects $11.99 from you. I'd say it's a perfect library borrow.

BURGOINE #034

The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris by Evie Woods

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Edie is … not in Paris?

Edie Lane left everything behind in Ireland for a once-in-a-lifetime job at a bakery in Paris. Except, thanks to a mistranslation, the bakery is not in Paris, and neither is Edie.

The tiny town of Compiègne, complete with its local bakery on the Rue de Paris, holds many secrets. This might not be where Edie intended to be but it's not long before she realises it's exactly where she needs to be…

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

My Review: Republishing an earlier work by a bestseller's a very old publishing-industry tactic. Unless the bestseller in question does a real overhaul, it's seldom a good idea. In this fine little essay in self-published magical realism, a few things were off...no one is middle-aged at twenty-nine, please do more with M. Moreau...but it's clear why all y'all like Evie Woods.

Perfectly fine way to spend your waiting-room time.

One More Chapter only wants 99¢, so do not hesitate even a moment to ebook it right onto your ereader.

BURGOINE #035

78 Degrees and Bloody (The Casey Stafford Series Book 1) by George Prior

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: An Internet influencer and her boyfriend are brutally killed in their home in Los Angeles, and homicide detective Casey Stafford is under pressure by the LAPD and the news media to catch the disturbed killer—even as he desperately murders more people to cover his tracks.

It appears that their suspect is killing any potential witnesses, and each murder is more disturbing and out of control than the last.

The investigation leads Casey and his partner, Banchet, to a Chinese gang, a Mexican hitman, the FBI, a million dollars in stolen gold, and a leak in the LAPD itself, and with each murder, media interest in the case grows until the entire nation is watching.

Casey needs to stop the deranged murderer before he kills again, and he needs to do it before he is taken off the case by his commanding officers.

With Prior’s “crackling prose and relentless pacing,” each book in the Casey Stafford Series is filled with action, torn-from-the-headlines criminals, authentic LAPD police procedural details, and Casey’s joy in getting justice for his victims and just being a good cop.

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

My Review: The prose crackles like a police-band radio; the pacing is surprisingly tense and falters only at the very end; this read is as hyped. So why three stars?

I just don't care who killed these unpleasant, useless people. I dislike Casey's smug law-n-orderness. If you're not pushing me somewhere interesting...LA is uninteresting to me as a California native...I need to like SOMEbody. I did not.

Prospect & Main charges $3.99 for an ebook. If you want entertainment without strings, it's a bargain!

BURGOINE #036

Cold Burn (National Parks Thriller #2) by A.J. Landau

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Agent Michael Walker returns when multiple deaths at Glacier Bay National Park are just the first steps in a potential global disaster.

In Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, a frozen woolly mammoth is uncovered by a geological survey team. When all of them are found dead at the site of the thawed-out carcass, National Park Service ISB special agent Michael Walker is called in to investigate.

In Florida’s Everglades National Park, FBI special investigator Gina Delgado traces the murder of an environmental science intern back to another U.S. Geological Survey team’s ongoing experiments that are decimating the fragile ecosystem. Beneath the icy waters of Alaska’s Elfin Cove, the crew of a stranded Los Angeles-class attack submarine is wiped out by a mysterious contagion, inexplicably causing their lungs to freeze. The link between these apparently disparate events lies in a deadly, prehistoric microbe that killed the mammoth the same way it did the USGS survey team in Glacier Bay and the crew members of the submarine. A microbe that a rogue billionaire is desperate to attain, and a Russian strongman will do anything to weaponize to achieve even greater, wide-ranging power.

Fighting a battle on several fronts—militarily, intellectually, and biologically—Walker and Delgado are running out of time to stop a devastating attack that would reshape the entire world.

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

My Review: Urgent, uneasy story about things James Rollins would have Sigma Force out to resolve. Propulsive, intense action scenes that do not exist to decorate the plot. A very fun read.

That sounds more like a four-plus star review. Would've been if we'd had more pages or fewer PoV switches. Also, maybe this is made clear in book one (Leave No Trace), but why are these two working together exactly?

Minotaur Books requires $14.99 for you to legally possess the ebook. You don't want Walker and Delgado on your butt, looking into your trashcan, so procure legally.

PEARL RULE #011

Denying to the grave: why we ignore the facts that will save us by Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman (40%)

Rating: ?4?* of five

The Publisher Says: Why do some parents refuse to vaccinate their children? Why do some people keep guns at home, despite scientific evidence of risk to their family members? And why do people use antibiotics for illnesses they cannot possibly alleviate? When it comes to health, many people insist that science is wrong, that the evidence is incomplete, and that unidentified hazards lurk everywhere.

In Denying to the Grave, Gorman and Gorman, a father-daughter team, explore the psychology of health science denial. Using several examples of such denial as test cases, they propose six key principles that may lead individuals to reject "accepted" health-related wisdom: the charismatic leader; fear of complexity; confirmation bias and the internet; fear of corporate and government conspiracies; causality and filling the ignorance gap; and the nature of risk prediction. The authors argue that the health sciences are especially vulnerable to our innate resistance to integrate new concepts with pre-existing beliefs. This psychological difficulty of incorporating new information is on the cutting edge of neuroscience research, as scientists continue to identify brain responses to new information that reveal deep-seated, innate discomfort with changing our minds.

Denying to the Grave explores risk theory and how people make decisions about what is best for them and their loved ones, in an effort to better understand how people think when faced with significant health decisions. This book points the way to a new and important understanding of how science should be conveyed to the public in order to save lives with existing knowledge and technology.

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

My Review: Over the years (almost ten since I got the DRC) I've tried and tried to finish this read. I'm already inside the church on the subject...the psychology of science denial...but I stall out on "Confirmation Bias" chapter, where the repetitious nature of the prose just overwhelms me.

We need this information on why people simply reject objective truth...they deny it *is* either of those things...but I can't say I think this compendiously-footnoted tome is the way to get that done.
Oxford University Press asks for $21.99 for an ebook.

PEARL RULE #012

The Fight That Started the Movies: The World Heavyweight Championship, the Birth of Cinema and the First Feature Film by Samuel Hawley (19%)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: On March 17, 1897, in an open-air arena in Carson City, Jim Corbett and Bob Fitzsimmons fought for the heavyweight championship of the world. The contest was recorded by film pioneer Enoch Rector from inside an immense, human-powered camera called the “Veriscope,” the forgotten Neanderthal at the dawn of cinema history. Rector’s movie of the contest premiered two months later. Known today as "The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight," it was the world’s first feature-length film.

The Fight That Started the Movies is the untold story of Corbett’s and Fitzsimmons’ journey to that ring in Nevada and how the landmark film of their battle came to be made. It reveals how boxing played a key role in the birth of the movies, spurring the development of motion picture technology and pushing the concept of “film” from a twenty-second peephole show to a full-length attraction, “a complete evening’s entertainment,” projected on a screen.

The cast of characters in the tale is rich and varied. There are inventors Eadweard Muybridge, Thomas Edison, William Dickson and Eugene Lauste, figuring out how to photographically capture and reproduce motion. There are the playboy brothers Otway and Gray Latham, who first saw the commercial potential of fight films, and their friend and partner Enoch Rector, who pushed that potential to fruition. There are fighters Jim Corbett with his “scientific” methods of boxing; Bob Fitzsimmons with his thin legs and turnip-on-a-chain punch; hard-drinking John L. Sullivan and the original Jack Dempsey and the gifted but ultimately doomed Young Griffo. There are loud-mouthed fight managers and big-talking promoters, and Wild West legends like Bat Masterson and Judge Roy Bean when the story heads to the Rio Grande river. And finally, there is the audience, our collective ancestors, discovering that movies were more than just a curiosity to gape at, but a new and enduring form of entertainment to rival the theater.

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

My Review: I was interested in the movie stuff. I quit when I hit: "Freed from middleweight constraints, Bob trained up rather than down for the Maher fight and stepped through the ropes weighing one-sixty-five, the heaviest of his career."

I can't make myself care in any positive way about boxing. It was just not gonna happen. It's too darn bad I can't because this is a pivotal moment in popular culture.

Conquistador Press offers this through Kindle Unlimited, if you are less boxing-averse than I am.

Before you move on from this thread...

Love your topper! VERY handsome. Glad I didn't miss it. ; )

Nice reviews on your latest two reads and...

SMOOCHES!!!

>266 Berly: Berly-boo! So happy to see you here. I'm just a little surprised that I'll be needing a new thread before the end of May. I mean, since, nobody comes to see me and all....

Ain't he purty, our >1 richardderus:? I'm glad you liked the reviews, even though I didn't like the books too awful much. *smooch*

Yeah...it must suck to be so unpopular. ; )

>268 Berly: *sad lonely snivel* Poor piteously neglected moi

>267 richardderus: I can say the same and be similarly disbelieved RD!

I think those poor little chocolate lambsies would be a bit sickly to the tastebuds but I would join Deb in trying them out for ya.

I thought I'd be safe because it's short story month (not my jam) but then you started on murder mysteries. *sigh*

090 Esperance by Adam Oyebanji

Adam Oyebanji's alt-hist/many-worlds Chicago noir thriller via DAW Books gets 4.5* here:

>270 PaulCranswick: *chuckle* We're such a pair of wallflowers, no? Poo' widdle us'ns

>271 Familyhistorian: Well, gotta aim where the targets are....

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Monday. I’ve successfully emerged from book club prep, book club execution, and book club exhaustion. All went well, and I hope you enjoy Dinosaurs.

>238 richardderus: I may have spoiled myself for straight romance forevermore unless it’s part of a series that I am enjoying and need to read a MF entry to fully ‘get’ the series. Like the Like Us series by the Ritchies, which I will read again sometime down the road.

>242 richardderus: Hmm. Number 44 of the current 60 published. I really like the series, have all 60, and need to read the last 3 or 4. I can’t read too many of them in a row.

>243 richardderus: I really like Roarke, too, since alpha males are my kryptonite, even if he is straight.

>246 richardderus: Not a fan of any of the authors in the blurb, so can easily pass. I’m still trying to figure out if I want to try to read the Longmire series. I’ve got the first 13, but there are 8 more, and I’ve only read the first one. This really makes me want to deaccession them…

>247 richardderus: Sounds like too much bother, and how in the heck to you pronounce Sagarine, anyway? "some folk just need killin'" is absolutely true and one of the guiding lights of my crime fiction reading when the victim(s) just need killin’.

>252 richardderus: Yay for me! Dare I admit that there is ONE thing that is incorrectly called chocolate – white chocolate – that I love? Nothing Bundt Cakes White Chocolate Raspberry. I’d eat a bundtlet every single day if they were close by. Good thing they aren’t.

>253 richardderus: In looking at the tartlets again, I’d still eat them and still not scrape the goo off since it looks like frosting, not marshmallow. I’m only a fan of marshmallow in two things – Peeps (I know, I know…) and Mike Roy’s Fudge that my mother made and that I make.

>255 humouress: I guess I can share, Nina. If you prefer milk chocolate, we’re okay, dark chocolate Will Be A Problem. You are cruel, RD – pitting us against one another.

>259 richardderus: I do love the Eve Dallas novels, just don’t re-read them every year like Stasia does. Thanks re book club – it was a great success.

>260 richardderus: Over-the-top publisher’s blurbs irritate me and make me suspicious. a new novel of genre-busting speculative horror indeed.

>261 richardderus: Perfectly fine way to spend your waiting-room time. I am happy to spend my waiting-room time reading MM romance on my cell phone, so will pass.

>262 richardderus: Ah, "some folk just need killin'".

>264 richardderus: You can’t use logic on people whose belief is irrational. Thus 47.

>265 richardderus: I looked at a bit of the film on YouTube. It’s fascinating, but not enough for me to get the book, even if it’s on Kindle Unlimited.

>272 richardderus: Tempting, but no. And why is there a BUG on the cover? Mosquito, I guess, but still. 6 or 8 legs, I don’t want to see either on a cover.

Successful BB avoidance and even wish list avoidance. I'm a happy camper.

*smooch*

>275 karenmarie: Oh dear; I prefer dark chocolate. But it's fine, I can eat milk choccie too. Anychocolate in a pinch.

>275 karenmarie: Morning, sweetiedarling! After a dank and drear Sunday afternoon, it's a gloriously sunny, breezy, cool May Monday morning, and one would need to be a lot unhappier than I am to feel grouchy in this. The tartlets are decorated in crème chiboust...a kind of middle ground between marshmallow and pâtissière because it adds equal parts of it and Italian meringue together.

So glad you had a good book club...I'll coddiwomple thitherward here directly to get the fuller report. I'm not even opening Dinosaurs yet because I need to write more #PrideMonth and #ShortStoryMonth reviews!

I didn't remember at all your interest in Eve Dallas. I read #40 on someone's recommendation, having actively disliked the two or three earlier ones I read and being assured she'd grown up a bit; I liked it okay, and having widgets for those three I figured I was safe...they're okay. I'm not spendin' my very own United States dollars on any of 'em.

>264 richardderus: explains perfectly my helplessness in the face of what I see as self-selected idiocy. Logic can't dent it? That and screaming insults and abuse is the extent of my arsenal. I'mm better on Our Side supporting and cheering on. Outreach is not my forte.

>272 richardderus: is really really good. I don't think you'd like it because it's truly SFnal. I tried to think of some way to sneak it past your filters, but no, honesty requires I say, "you're correct this read really isn't for you." *sigh*

Speaking of widgets, I got a cishet romance one this morning: You Make It Feel Like Christmas: A Novel by Sophie Sullivan. Apparently my 2022 review of her How to Love Your Neighbor, all 3.5* of it, got me on their list. I *do* enjoy a holiday sentimentalfest so in I go.

All y'all chocoholics gotta settle distribution internally. I shall Loftily Ignore the kerfuffle. Please note white "chocolate" is not included in this largesse because I've discovered white chocolate-macadamia cookies. *num*

>276 humouress: Even ruby chocolate?

>278 richardderus: I don't think I've ever tried it.

>279 humouress: 9/10
deffo recommend

Buenos días, mi amigo! (Yes, I’m still learning Spanish. Or trying to.) Anyway, hope you’re enjoying the lovely cool sunny weather. Rain is in the forecast for later this week, but for now, spring is glorious!

You got me with a couple of BBs. Only maybes, but they’re on the list.

I love the In Death series, probably because they don’t take a lot of mental effort and there’s always a happy ending. I do agree with you that the earlier books are pretty rough and that the series improves a lot as it goes on. I have a few of the books in my Audible library. I don’t remember if you are an audiobook fan, but they are pretty good on audio.

>281 Storeetllr: I think your reason for being fond of Eve Dallas is the reason most people are, Mary, so it's also why I decided to try 'em again. I still don't care if I never read another one, but I don't feel hostile to them anymore.

You're filling up that MBR (might be read) to overflowing! xo

Happy Monday, Richard. Trying to catch up with a few of my LT pals after my camping adventures. Of course, I have to do some skipping. You have been churning through the books and most of them have landed on the positive side, which is good. I also loved The Committed. Such a good writer.

Only two more work days left for me before summer break. FREEDOM!!

I can't catch up and can't keep up and definitely can't refer to post numbers.
But I will say without them -----

I did not expect that you would cannibalize those tartlets, my WBL.

In Death ---- I became a fan because I like the whole outfit (especially Peabody) when I need them. I'm at #15 and manage 2 or 3 a year. At that rate I'll never finish the ones I've stocked from PBSwap.

Oh! Clear!!! I need to check whether it's on my wish list. Esperance should be too.

*smoochedysmooch smooch smooch _________ Smooch Smooch*

>284 LizzieD: No indeed! They're chocolate custard *urp* so I'll leave 'em unmolested. *Baaa*lidarity, ya know

If I stop to think how many books I'll leave unread when I assume room temperature...if the Afterlife is any fun, I'll get to read 'em all. *smooch*

Chocolate custard is a totally different thing from chocolate. At least my taste buds think so. The tartlets are cute but not tempting.

I enjoyed Evie Woods two previous books, Richard. I will read The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris eventually. I had it out from the library , but I had too many other books to read, and many others had a hold on it, so it will have to wait .

>286 Familyhistorian: Maybe it's the eggs? That bothers some. I like egg custards in their many permutations. I don't like chocolate in almost any of its permutations...peanut butter, mint, or raspberries work to remove the worst of the curse.

>287 vancouverdeb: I think her writing pleases many, Deborah, though I assume it's the stories she tells that really get her a fandom. She understands how to change emotional pitch and register very well indeed.

I had a bad few moments when I got Evie WOODS confused with Evie WYLD, whose work really disagreed with me, but it passed.

‘Morning, Rdear. Happy Tuesday to you.

>282 richardderus: Glad you’re not hostile to Eve Dallas anymore, even if you might never read another one. I like the grittiness of future NYC, the love story between Dallas and Rourke, and the love story between Peabody and McNab. I have, however, gotten impatient with the de riguer sex scenes between Rourke and Dallas and have started skipping them – this started before my plunge into MM romance, by the way. *smile*

No book sort/Virlie’s for me today – I was able to get a last-minute-cancellation appointment with the Spine and Pain Management Clinic for 11 a.m. today.

*smooch*

>290 karenmarie: It won't surprise you to learn that I've always skipped the sex scenes in the Eve Dallas books. *shudder* Ma Roberts does not have much imagination in matters bedroom, does she. The future NYC she posts is more like *my* NYC of the 1970s and 1980s. I really don't care much for Giuliani's Disneyfied Manhattan. I don't like police states and it is one.

I'm so pleased for you, getting that surprise same-day appointment. I really hope it results in that epidural. *smooch*
+++
I want this lamp. I want to put it above Old Stuff's motherfuckin' babblebox and leave it on 24/7 to make him miserable.

New thread's open!
https://www.librarything.com/topic/371045

>272 richardderus: Putting it on the list.

>291 richardderus: Love it RD.

>293 Caroline_McElwee: Oh good! I'm pretty pleased with the way people are taking to Author Oyebanji's work.

>291 richardderus: Now I want one too.

>295 Storeetllr: Isn't he a handsome beast? Maybe they'll give us a discount on two.

>264 richardderus: The problem with this sort of writing, is that the author *knows* that everything currently being said by authoritative medical types is true. And not just true, but obviously true. Anyone who questions it is therefore wrong. Q.E.D.

I'm old enough that the truth according to the medical profession has changed in my lifetime. I'm also aware of fentanyl being pushed as non-addictive. I'm aware of about 20 years of claims that fat was always bad - much more than sugar - that turned out to be sponsored by the sugar industry, as well as being dead wrong. I'm aware of heuristics that usually work (BMI) being pushed on lay people as if they were holy writ. I'm aware of inaccurate guesses about covid transmission being treated as obviously true - until disproven. I'm even aware of historical claims made by the medical profession back when they were still using leeches routinely, long before they'd ever heard of germ theory - yet they were so much more "right" than anyone else.

Most of the time, the average doctor, or the average guide to some subject on a good health web site, is more right in their specialty than I'd be without that input. Some of the time, they are wrong, whether because they made a mistake (e.g. mistook an unusual problem for a more common problem), or because medical science does not yet know enough about the condition in question. Or worst of all, they stand to make a profit, by selling harmful drugs, doing expensive surgery that probably won't help, or whatever other scam they might be running.

Put another way, they are human, and neither always honest nor always right, any more than you or I are, in our own specialties. I continued to consume whole milk rather than skim through the whole period when only low-fat counted as "healthy". I also continued to use butter, rather than whatever ersatz fat spread (margarine) was currently touted as healthy. I think that makes me one of those people who denies medical science, deprecated in this book. Presumably I'd be classed as fearing corporate and government conspiracies.

And as for incorporating new information - well, for me it helps a lot if it comes with references. Footnotes. Numbers. Ideally a selection of scientific papers. That both validates the information and shows me its limitations. (Did they only do the research on white males in their 20s? Did they only follow the subjects for 3 months, yet insist the intervention produces lifelong improvements? Was it one of 20 similar studies, and the only one significant at the .05 level - i.e. the result of random chance?)

I won't bother with that level of research if the information is non-surprising, and the cost of acting on it is low. But when I had breast cancer, you better believe I read everything in sight, even while basically trusting my oncologist to do the right thing. (Trust, but verify, to the extent practicable...)

Other people probably use similar heuristics, though often with a lot less numeracy, and perhaps a more limited vocabulary. Perhaps they do this for similar reasons to me - they know that members of the medical profession are human, as are medical researchers, and not always right.

Edit: What I'm trying to say, is that I'm unappreciative of books by elites analyzing what's wrong with people who don't believe all the same things they do. Maybe "those people" (TM) aren't "crazy", or even "stupid", though they can sure seem that way to someone steeped in the Truths in question.

I'd like to see such books also consider explanations that put the fault with those communicating these Truths, and perhaps even with the Truths themselves.

Yes, some of the science denial I've encountered looks pretty crazy to me. But OTOH, some of the promotion of "scientific" truths I've encountered has looked like Scam Peddling 101. (I once got shouted down for asking ignorant questions in a MOOC about climate change. Because i wanted clarification, and questioned some points, I was self-evidently a climate change denier come to troll, and was treated accordingly. Meanwhile, "evidence" for the truth climate change included the percentage of climate scientists who believed in it - which from a scientific POV is not evidence at all. Fortunately the course also included enough of the science (Data! Numbers! Experiments!) to prevent me from concluding from this experience that climate change science had no more scientific support than the average religion, since it was being promulgated using the same methods. )

>297 ArlieS: Research and synthesis are tainted, most sadly, by corporate greed and the manipulations of data gathered. All the orthodoxies you mention were greedy manipulations of data. Poor experimental design is something we keep coming across as science keeps moving more towards serving orthodoxy (money) than seeking answers to interesting questions.

>298 richardderus: I'm not sure it was ever all that much better. Look up the Bone Wars for an example of science motivated by greed in the late 19th century. And that's just the first example that came to mind.

>299 ArlieS: Certainly true, also look at the political motivations behind what goes into the US Pharmacopeia. That started after aspirin was created from willow-bark tea. If human, them greedy.