Thread XII for richardderus in MMX

Books Off the Shelf group thread is there, where I will review 25 books that've sat on my shelves since who-whipped-the-cat and also 75 new books...published no earlier than 2008...this year.

Reviews 1,2,3: first thread
Reviews 4-7: second thread
Reviews 8-12: : third thread
Reviews 13-20: ... fourth thread
Reviews 21-30: ... fifth thread
Reviews 31-37:... sixth thread
Reviews 38-42: seventh thread
Reviews 43-46: eighth thread
Reviews 47 & 48: ninth thread
Reviews 49-51: tenth thread
Reviews 52-57: eleventh thread

I now have a second Homeless Reviews thread in Club Read 2010. I've set a completely arbitrary goal of 50 books to review that I don't own, and were published before 2008, so they don't fit anywhere else.

FOR THOSE JUST TUNING IN: I don't know the readers of my reviews personally, for the most part, so I don't have any way to gauge whether you'll agree or disagree with me. It's always perfectly fine with me either way, and I invite comments from all.










Books are reviewed in post number:

65. Bury Your Dead...#186.

64. The Trade of Queens...#182.

63. The Secret Speech...#170.

62. Built of Books...#121.

61. People of the Book...#93.

60. Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn...#91.

59. So Brave, Young, and Handsome...#56.

58. Flights of Fancy...#14.

I haven't got a thing to say, but I'm the first to say nothing!

Hi Richard!

registering my presence, and a star!

Found you again, Richard!

LOL that pic scared you into a new thread :)

Hi Richard just passing by:)

found and starred :-)

Aw man, now you make a new thread, after post 254! You coulda let that one go on for a little while more, y'know! >:P

Once again, Woman Power carries the day. I knew you'd have to submit to Officer 254, Richard.

>10 laytonwoman3rd: Ugggggggg, that was enough to make me reach for the nite-nite bottle and the urpy-tummy bottle too.

It's completely gorgeous here today, cool and breezy and sunny and dry. It reached 70 about 2min ago. *bliss*

OK, found you!

You've been starred...

Review: 58 of seventy-five

Title: FLIGHTS OF FANCY: Birds in Myth, Legend, and Superstition

Author: PETER TATE

Rating: 4.2* of five

THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT BIRDS. It's a book about myths. It's a beautiful little cadeau I got from a certain Turkish gentleman. It's proof that even major publishers *can* make a beautiful book when they want to.

NOT ABOUT BIRDS. IS THAT CLEAR?

So, the author is this British ornithologist (remember now!) who's long been fascinated by the lore that surrounds our feathered brethren. He's spent a long career collecting the tales, the rhymes, the myths that envious humans have made part of their relationship to revenant dinosaurs. We're horribly jealous that they can fly, so we make them bearers of the luck we long for or the curses we dread (why are magpies considered bad luck, anyway? They're gorgeous, that's why, and us ugly nekkid apes are eaten up with resentment).

I loved the author's learned yet witty voice, though I can see many peole being turned off by it. He's not at all afraid to use his vocabulary, which I see all too seldom in books. More often than not, when I see an author use Big Words, he or she seems almost apologetic or embarrassed to know more than the Common Person. Faugh! Pshaw! Be smart and proud of it! Mr. Tate accomplishes that feat. He doesn't seem to worry about being accused of snobbery at all, which is admirable.

This beautiful volume is perfect for leaving on the coffee table, for visual pleasure; and for the browsability of its text, which lends itself to host-fetching-the-canapes reading, with subsequent chat about the interesting things one's guest has just learned. I love it, and not just because my sweetie gave it to me.

>10 laytonwoman3rd: - Oh my, "Officer 254"! I think that should be our new term for the thread police...

Immediately after my last post I was about to submit a post mocking your enthusiasm for birds ... and then this happened.

Punk baby.

BTW, that's my serger behind him ... ;)

>16 London_StJ: ROFL! It might be genetically impossible, but that's my grandson there!

>17 London_StJ: They look so innocous until they fail....

Have a great time at Ye Oldeee Rennaisanceee Fayreee this weekendeee. I'll be on my patio with a G&T, reading a really, really good book called Last of the Red-Hot Poppas published by those wonderful lads and ladies at Chin Music Press. I started it, and realized it deserved a peak-reading-experience setting.

#14: Flights of Fancy sounds wonderful, and I just love a beautifully-made book. Books like that are a pleasure to read on many different levels. Thanks for the recommendation!

Karen O.

Hmmm, richarddear. I wonder how many books you can read that have bird in the title but that are NOT about birds.

Just pop another few onto the tbr pile, I guess.....

Flights of Fancy sounds good and I've put it on my wishlist. Did I read somewhere that it was 75 cents? Sounds like a great find. Enjoy your good weather!

Yeah, the whole review is screaming 'birder' to me. :)

>19 klobrien2: You won't regret buying it, Karen, even for more than seventy-five cents.

>20 karenmarie: Horrible, stop being horrible.

>21 phebj: Yeah, Pat, it pays to live in a rich county with lots of elderly library patrons who don't regift, they donate.

>22 Ape: ...hmmm?...huh...I could *swear* I heard the foul gurgling of a cesspool overflowing....

...hmmm?...huh...I could *swear* I heard the foul gurgling of a cesspool overflowing....

Nope, that was just the sound of you unconsciously strangling me. :)

ok...read the review...sounds good...

OK, adding the book that is not about birds to the BlackHole :)

So glad that you liked How to watch a bird, I thought the Braunias style might appeal.
I've read a couple of others in the Ginger series, and am looking forward to reading How to catch a cricket match.

>27 alcottacre: *heeheehee* I did it!

>28 avatiakh: I really did, Kerry, and thanks again! But I'm befuddled...what does one do with a caught cricket match? Light it?

Richard - have pity...I'm an old lady. I'm supposed to be on vacation...and I'm breathless trying to keep up with your posts. have made a note to look at watching birds more closely when I return home.

Is it time for the G & Ts yet?

>30 tututhefirst: have pity...I'm an old lady ROFLMAO!

"Old ladies" sit arond and talk about the hussy their great-grandson married and how awful it was she wore a dress cut *above* the knee to her son's wedding, and make cabbage and noodles with cottage cheese, and go to band concerts! *YOU* stalk the Internet, terrorizing the illiterate and soothing the intelligent.

Old lady...ha!....

>31 phebj: When *isn't* it time for G&Ts, Pat? *stirs a little more lime into his glass* Cheers!

You are a nasty old fart, and I may need a great deal of convincing to forgive you.
( Imagine saying this when I am the person slated to send THE book your way. tsk tsk .)

::goes back to reading::

"This"? What "this" might you refer to, madame? *batbat* I am not understand the English about "this"?

>32 richardderus: - I miss those old ladies. There used to be lots in my family when I was growing up, and I love cabbage and noodles and cottage cheese. None of my generation have quite achieved the right type of old lady-hood (not that we're trying).

Ha!!!!! Take that rd

Blows a kiss to Janet

::goes back to reading::

#29 - Lol, 'catch a cricket match' is simply being a spectator at a game of cricket and does not allude to the lighting of any fires. Test matches take a leisurely five days to play so it's a fun ongoing summer spectacle especially if you are on the winning side. If your side is losing you can only hope for rain. International one-day cricket matches can be extremely exciting.

>35 JanetinLondon: You like cabbage and noodles and cottage cheese?! Weird....

>36 mckait: Take what? Am I in trouble for something? *batbat*

>37 avatiakh: Oh gawd, the world's dullest "game"! I should think people would want to catch beri-beri to *avoid* a cricket match.

To paraphrase Andy Parsons (I think) - Test match cricket: the only game where after four and a half days you can ask who's winning and get the answer 'it's too early to tell'.

The good thing about cricket is that you can leave it on the TV and also read or do other things and not miss much.

glitter-graphics.com

Now, who has the cabbage?

Test match cricket does absolutely nothing for me. But it's fun to go to Kew on a summer Sunday and hang out and watch the locals play by St. Anne's church -- and snaffle some great homemade cake and tea from the good ladies of the Women's Institute -- speaking of old ladies!

In my experience, old ladies tend to get into concocting weird things floating in bright-colored jello, always proudly displayed in cut-glass or crystal bowls. How/when did THAT start??

ewwwwwwwwwww

eta

http://boston.grubstreet.com/2007/06/jello_hell_no.html

LT is being difficult tonight....

Kath - that is just too gross to contemplate! Jello ..yummy. Salad .. yummy. But jello AND salad together? Eeewwwww is right

#44: I must say that looks sick.

I have never been a fan of jello in any way, shape or form. Bleh.
That and some jello wrestling are some of the first things to come up when I googled jello. Maybe I should have stuck with the Jello wrestling??

...jelllooo wressstlingg... *snaps out of it* Huh? Oh, right, Jello, I don't hate it. It's low in calories, so I've been eating a lot of it lately!

I love jello ... I still haven't gotten past the childish glee of mooshing it between my teeth before swallowing. But jello wrestling ... hmm... big waste of jello. They should use something else...... like Miracle Whip.

I just made Amish bread and roasted garlic mayonnaise this morning .. not to be eaten together of course, but I love making my own mayonnaise. Will look for some artichokes later on to snack on with the mayo.

Amish bread? Does it wear a funny hat and drive a buggy?

It's going to be 92 today, and even hotter by Tuesday, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel so I don't feel as put-upon as at the beginning of August.

>50 -Cee-: That is one useful GIF!

#51 That's not childish: that's normal.

I agree, Caty, making garlic mayonnaise is normal as all get-out.

18 - I'm just popping back in, and I hope you had a delightful Saturday. G&Ts are magical, but I had two on Friday night that really did me in. I must have made them stronger than I realized. ...

Review: 59 of seventy-five

Title: SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME

Author: LEIF ENGER

Rating: 3.9* of five

I read this for an August TIOLI challenge, can't remember which one.

I started this book annoyed. I did NOT like the pseudoformal English that the author posits regular people used a century ago, felt it was such a cutesy way of making the story feel "authentic" and so contrived as to make me want to smack the perpetrator.

I got over it. Glendon the train robber completely seduced me, just like he did the narrator, the narrator's wife, the narrator's son, and so many, many others along his twisty path.

This is a tale about Truth, not truth, and the author shows us that from the get-go with the very narrative voice I found so irksome at first. There is Truth in the world, often to be found shoved behind elaborate scrims of lies, where the facts that tell the truth are woven into the most fantastical beasts of falsehood it's amazing.

Leif Enger knows this, and tells us this amazing and important and underappreciated piece of knowledge in the voice of a man whose grasp of the facts is imperfect but whose knowledge of the Truth guides him and saves him from a wasted, useless life.

Very, very worth reading. I say grit your teeth at the narrative voice and charge into the story full tilt. You will be very glad you got to know these characters. They do remain characters, though; some essential *oomph* is missing that's necessary to launch them into full personhood. Still, they're good readin'. Go to it, unfettered by fear of disappointment.

Thanks for the recommendation, Richard, and a thumb from me. Always good to know when it's worth persevering.

Richard, did you post your review of Hons and Rebels on any of your threads? That book sounds fantastic to me and one I probably would never have heard of if not for your review showing up on my home page.

Sounds like a great library sale. Also loved the cover on your copy.

#56: Nice review, Richard; I've thumbed your review, and added this book to my corpulent wish list (I can't use 'obese', that's Caroline's word).

>58 phebj: Thanks, Pat! I put the review up on my Second Homeless Reviews thread in Club Read.

>59 kidzdoc: Good! I predict you'll like it...not at all lighthearted. ;-)

If we're staking claims to words meaning fat, I think I want "porcine" for my wishlist.

#60 Thanks, Richard. I'll have to star that one too.

I just saw your review of To the Lighthouse--you're hard to keep up with today! Fantastic review, btw.

Speaking as a NON-old lady of Eastern European descent, I am here to tell you that cabbage and noodles (with sour cream, nix on the cottage cheese fer cryin' out loud) is utter soul food in my house. It must have equal amounts of onion and cabbage, and a sprinkle of caraway seeds is a nice touch. Must be accompanied by homemade smoked kielbasa and horseradish, of course.

So sorry, Linda3rd, cabbage and noodles = old lady. No escaping the transitive property of elderliness. LOOOVE the caraway seed idea!

Side note: I steam cabbage in 1c milk, 1/2c water, and 1T mustard powder well stirred in, then sprinkle everyone with caraway seeds. *drool*

caraway seeds is for sauerkraut

Sour cream is for baked potatoes

although, your post does have possibilities 62 :)

And sauerkraut is made from what??? CABBAGE, that's what.

Sour cream is for lots of things. See Kitchen thread.

still not the same dearie... just not the same.. I want sauerkraut on my hot dog, not cabbage.

#56: I have already read that one, so I can dodge that particular book bullet. Nice review as usual, Richard!

BTW - I never see you on my thread these days. I am starting to get a complex.

>67 alcottacre: ...you have a thread...? I am never to know this, please, madam, I exist here only to breathing rare air, please madam.

Sauerkraut is yum. So is coleslaw. Caraway seeds belong on all things Eastern European and Swedish, including cabbage in all its preparations.

There. Controversy laid to rest.

Somewhere I have a great (Swedish) recipe for bread, using carraway seeds. Very yummy. Given to me by the mother of a Swedish friend in high school; great to eat in winter with soup. Requires obtaining graham flour, letting it rise twice and using metric measurements, so it doesn't get made often these days, alas!

I used to buy caraway jack cheese but never see it at the store anymore. Now, THAT was yummy cheese.

Controversy laid to rest.

seriously, rdear.........? Is that the old because I said so theory?

>70 Chatterbox: Work I don't much want to do, but it sounds like the results make it worthwhile.

>71 karenmarie: Oh, no doubt because there is a conspiracy going on against the delights of the caraway seed...led by...but there! I can't say....

>72 mckait: Hello, dear! How are you in your caraway-seed-hating way today? A-ha-ha-ha! *gestures frantically to Horrible for rescue*

I think I've been reading People of the Book too much lately.

I do not hate caraway seeds.. I love them.. especially in caraway soup.. ( otherwise known as depression soup.. as it is made of flour, water and and egg or two for dumplings. .. with caraway and salt.

no need to gesture for help.
I am going to get into the shower and drown myself, in about 3 minutes.
You are safe

Goodness! Not in a cheery, then, love? I've ordered dinner in, because honestly it's too blinkin' hot to want to cook, so suddenly I feel much brighter.

People of the Book is bringin' me down...I just flat hate people...at least the nasty Nazi bastages and the Serbs who *blew up a museum*, them I'm hatin' on!

not cheery does not begin to cover it.

um....Ricardo ... maybe you should switch to lighter reading while the weather's so hot

#71 karenmarie
The cheese with crraway. We used to buy it too. It was labeled Leyden Cheese. Of course we cannot find it anymore either. We do buy cheese with rye that is very tasty.

#73 why, richarddear are you reading People of the Book at all? I found it derivative, predictable, and inconsistent.

A much better book by far, if you want to read a book that takes a series of artifacts and explains why they are where they are, is The Source by James Michener. One of my favorite books of all time. A stunner.

xoxo Horrible

#78 cindysprocket - cheese with rye? Explain. I can't get my mind around that.

>79 karenmarie: I think I'm agreeing with you, Horrible, but I can't seem to put the blasted thing down! I am just *whisked* along in the slipstream of the Haggadot. There is *no* reason why. I don't even think the writing is All That! But the book's worked some sorcery on me, and I Must Finish It.

*back to zombiereading*

breezing in to say hi.

Yoodlee-hooooo!

People of the Book was my least favorite of Geraldine Brooks' works. I hope you're done with it soon and move on to something more enjoyable, Ricardo.

karenmarie
It is a white semi-soft cheese with rye seeds in it. We
live near an Amish cheese factory where it is made. They also make a very tasty yogurt-vegetable cheese.

#79 karenmarie
rye cheese is a semi-soft cheese with rye seeds. We live not too far from an Amish cheese factory where it is made. They also make a yummy yogurt-vegetable cheese.

(note to self: Juan will be in the closet, Luigi will be under the bed...keep ears open for hiding places of other dancing boys....)

...and I like band concerts....

See, when you're behind in threads, you can just toss things in and no one knows what you're talking about because they've already forgotten the conversation three million posts above.

LOL ... love it, Terri!

88 posts in I find your new thread. Can I just say that whoever posted the picture of the jello with........gulp.....burp.....olives in it just made me almost toss my cookies. Ew-ew-ew.

well, Sorry I have no food pics to share.

Review: 60 of seventy-five

Title: REWIRED: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn

Author: LARRY D. ROSEN, Ph.D.

Rating: 3.8* of five

The subject of this book...the way the texting generation is being failed by teachers, schools, and bureaucracies that don't know, don't want to know, and can't imagine how these youngsters *actually* absorb information...is one of un-overstatable importance.

You and I, fellow LTer, are not the ones who should be making the educational decisions of this generation. Why not? Because, on average, we're about as likely to say "g'wan, skip the textbooks, don't make 'em buy a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, do it all on their iPhones!" as we are to suggest Fahrenheit 451 as a model for the future society we want to see.

But let's be realistic: Do we want books qua books to survive? If yes, we'd best make sure that there are people willing to read them. And that means getting the texters to read, probably via KindlNooReadPad. School has always been the biggest breeding ground for accidental readers, the ones whose families have no books, don't read, and don't care. This will still be true as the texting generation gets their American History textbook via KindlNooReadPad. Some few of them will get the idea: Reading gives me a better picture of my world! Maybe if I read other things....

Larry Rosen makes an excellent case for delivering the traditional educational topics in this new, potentially enhanced way. He takes on the issue of trustworthy content on the Net, and offers some ideas as to how to teach critical thinking about what's out there. (I know some adults who could use his training.)

Frankly, I hate the Brave New World. It's out of sync with the lifetime of conditioning that I've got, in some very uncomfortable ways. There were things about that world I absorbed that I think this Brave New World would do well to incorporate, but I am not kidding myself: They probably won't.

But it's here. And even *I* can see the bold Helvetica signs on the walls: Change or become more irrelevant. So I tweet, and I have a Facebook presence, and I'm on here (sort of like the Old World That Passeth on the Internet, this is), and I even have a cellphone with unlimited texting because that way I actually *hear* from my grandkids. Am I happy about it? Not specially. But here it is, and I for one am not willing to sink quietly into invisibility.

Now why in the holy hell can't the SCHOOL BOARD see this, and do even what little I've done to get with the program?!?!

#91: I have got to take a look at that one. Thanks for the review, Richard.

Review: 61 of seventy-five

Title: PEOPLE OF THE BOOK

Authoress: GERALDINE BROOKS

Rating: 3* of five

This is the very first book about books I've ever read that left me hating people more than when I started it.

Hanna, what a terrible waste of a person. Sarah, her mother, my GOD what a cold, stoney bas-relief of a human being she was. Orzen, Werner, yechptui on all of 'em and the parts set in the past...! The Nazis, well, it's shootin' tuna in a 55-gallon oil drum (aka the Gulf of Mexico) to hate THEM, but the collaborators! On and on, back through the Western World's horrible, cruel, hagridden-by-God history...!

The Sarajevo Haggadah is to be pitied that it was created by human hands. Books can bear evil (The Turner Diaries) but few become the focus of such concentrated evil as Brooks paints this poor thing.

Brooks isn't any kind of an exciting writer, and her structure here...skippity-lurch, tilty-whirl...never got down into anything like the *good* parts of the people who puke, fuck, and torture their way through the book. Too much to do, too much to tell, and I was left at the end of it all...blackly depressed. This may very well be the only time anyone will ever see me type this: Shoulda been longer. Or a short story. As it is, it's just a frustrating overachiever of a story, and that is annoying as all hell.

>92 alcottacre: I'm sorry, Stasia, I sent my copy to my daughter or I'd give it to you when you're here! It didn't seem to me like your sort of book.

#93: Sorry you did not enjoy that one more, RD. I really liked it (except for the ending). Oh, well.

#94: No problem. I found out it is available for my Nook so I will download it some time or other.

I would have to take the day off to respond to review in 91... then prepare to have no one speak to me for the rest of my life. Fair or common sense is my question.

as for 93... it seems generous considering what I heard during the trip through :P

Hallo again Richard, just been post-holiday catching up...

#14 Flights of Fancy sounds wonderful - right up my street - it's gone right to the top of my wishlist, so thanks for a great review!

#31 phebj, it is ALWAYS G&T time. ...but it is true, some G&T times are more G&T timey than others...

#32 ">31 phebj: When *isn't* it time for G&Ts, Pat? *stirs a little more lime into his glass* Cheers!" - ah, I notice you got there first ;o)

OKAY EVERYONE COMING TO THE PARTY ON 9/11:

Driving directions vary. PM me again if you need them.

Train directions are simple: Be on the train that leaves Penn Station headed for BABYLON at 1:10p on Saturday afternoon. Get off at ROCKVILLE CENTRE. Look for a tall old man with a gray beard dressed in orange cargo shorts and a small, buff woman, who will no doubt be impeccably turned out. The cars will be at the little brick station-house looking thing. Head for that and, if you don't see one of us right away, look forlorn and wobble your chin a little. We'll find you more easily that way.

>91 richardderus: Oh Richard I so agree with what you say about the i generation and will definitely have to get this book. Big thumb up on that review.

There was just an article in the Wall Street Journal about how that generation gets their information and why they don't ask their elders for advice in the way that previous generations did.

We need to either change or get run over by this younger generation who have embraced all the technological ways of communicating. Jump on the bandwagon or get out of the way. Let them read books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc. whatever way they want as long as it informs.

#98 You live near Babylon?! Can you get there by candle-light?

Ooooh, very much looking forward to seeing the photos of the event of the year - I will raise a toast to your birthday from over here...

>99 brenzi: Yeup, Bonnie, the key word for me, and the only one that counts, is "read".

>100 flissp: Fliss darling, I suppose I *could* get there by candle-light, but it's one helluva hoof. I do, however, live "By the Waters of Babylon."

Richard, dear, couldn't you set up a webcam and broadcast the party to the rest of us realtime?

Yes! Broadcast the party!

If I didn't hate being stuck in my house so much I'd seriously consider homeschooling my children.

Richard -- you got to 103 while you were 'lost' to me. Forgive.

I thought you might be interested to know that my daughter's VT high school is in a pilot program distributing Netbooks to about a third of the students (yes, the honors side of the equation). They will have no textbooks at all to lug around. They will read actual books when they are reading a novel or a play -- but I think most of the short stories etc. they plan to read will be loaded up on the Netbook. She did her English assignment on it yesterday -- had to print it up to hand in, of course. She is so comfortable with this medium, I can see that for her it is a relief actually, that it feels right.

I'm beginning to be ready to take a next leap -- to a Blackberry or an I-phone ..... Even an I-bookreader of some kind is on my horizon, though I'm waiting for one that I really really physically and visually like (as in the look of the print) and has a few more features.

Glad to find you again.

Liked both of your recent reviews. Rewired because it looked interesting and People of the Book because I think I'll avoid that one. Was Larry Rosen recently interviewed on LT?

I'll third the motion to broadcast your party. It would be just the thing to watch with a G&T in hand.

#104 Lucy, the thing I'm waiting for the price to go down on is the Ipad. I was playing with a friend's recently and the quality of the print and pictures was excellent. Much better than the Kindle, IMO, which is the only other thing I've tried.

*waves weakly*

Just saw your great review of Rewired on the front page. I was just discussing this subject with a friend who teaches high school and neither of us knew this book existed. Good to know - looking forward to reading it.

(I guess you can see which generation I belong to, calling the homepage the front page. :)

Richard

I am soooooo looking forward to your party!

Stasia, Terri and I will be there with bells on...or orthopedic shoes....

Reeshard... Since I'm coming from Atlantic Avenue LIRR, do you want to tell me what train to be on from here? Unless you want me to schlep all the way into Manhattan instead of walking 2.5 blocks to get on the train! Thank you... :-)

Suz

Cannot wait to meet you! It will be great fun!

>110 Chatterbox: Leaves Atlantic terminal same time as Penn, change at Jamaica for the BABYLON train.

Thank you! (Phew, don't have to get up until noon...)

#113: Lucky you!

Already revving up to be a fun day I think?

Rain this afternoon. Some breezes. No biggie. The East End might get something interesting, but we're right out of the path.

#116 That's good to hear!

>117 phebj: No it isn't! THe lawn needs rain, the garden is curling up and moaning for water, and the trees haven't had a good blowjob to knock out the deadwood in a year! We needed this storm. It's avoiding me, I'm sure. I showered! I used deodorant! I even washed my clothes! WHY is it heading for Montauk and avoiding Nassau, only 110mi away?!?

*sigh* have to think of something fun to do here in lieu of fun there on 9/11...

#118 Clearly, you should have stayed funky, so the storm thought YOU needed a good power washing!

Review: 62 of seventy-five

Title: BUILT OF BOOKS: How Reading Defined the Life of Oscar Wilde

Author: THOMAS WRIGHT

Rating: 3.8* of five

How very much I loved the idea of this book! I can't imagine why no one ever thought to analyze the content of Wilde's character through the lens of his library before. I think it's brilliant!

I like the author's delicate, clear sentences, leavened with a good dose of irony, in the best Wildean tradition. He is forced to rely on supposition and probability in many places in this book...how a volume came into the subject's library, what the effect of a particular book probably was on Wilde absent concrete evidence...and that means I don't judge the book by the same standard I would an academic treatise. It's a very interesting popular biography of a very interesting popular figure told in a novel and instructive way.

And having read it, I now dislike Oscar Wilde the man. He sounds like a perfect pill of a human being, contrary and crabby, sure of himself to the point of obnoxiousness in matters intellectual and aesthetic. He's one of those infuriating people who's Always Right, would never, ever admit to error or misunderstanding or ignorance.

Yuck.

Then came the hard labor years, which were *entirely* his own fault...the Marquess of Queensbury didn't tell a single lie about him, he knew it, and he arrogantly assumed his fame would protect him...and he seemed to get a little less cocksure.

Then he died.

It was a little like having the irrefutable evidence that Louis-Ferdinand Celine was a collaborator and an anti-Semite thrust upon me...I still like Death on the Installment Plan, but its luster is tarnished by the knowledge the author was a rotten, unworthy human being. Such is life, I suppose. Illusions lost later in life hurt no less than those lost early, it would seem. The Picture of Dorian Gray is just a wee bit besmirched for me now.

Read at your own risk, Wilde fans, and those who aren't really should give this book wide berth as it will bore them comatose.

Oh, I love Wilde no less for reading the book. True, Wright's interpretation isn't always flattering, but it's still just an interpretation.

But, while I politely disagree, I still think your review is wonderful!

I sympathize with those trees!

But I think you can separate the man from the works though, and I too think that Wilde wasn't an admirable person, but there's no disputing his creative genius though. And he's not the first nor the only author or even famous person to think that they are above the rules that govern society.

same here rd.. a quick splash or two .. not nearly enough.

The individual vs their creations -- one of the oldest debates in the world, second only to the meaning of life! Had Hitler been a great painter, would we admire his works? (Caravaggio, I seem to recall, was a murderer, although on a much less ambitious scale...) Or did Hitler's megalomania and genocidal impulses only rise to the fore the way they did because his artistic talent was never strong enough and he felt spurned? Begging the question of how a Celine or a Wilde or countless others might have behaved had they not been able to pursue their creative calling??

To me, there are a lot of similarities between the admirable character and the admirable writer. As long as I'm not contributing directly to their pet causes by buying/reading their books, and those books don't promote a philosophy I find distasteful/repugnant, I'm happy to read their work. That said, I can't force myself to read Ayn Rand. Both because I find her writing turgid, and because she seems to not only have been exceptionally self-important, but promoted a (to me) rather destructive philosophy of extreme individualism. (Taken to its logical extreme, it becomes nihilistic.)

OK, climbing down off the soapbox now and returning to my books...

>122 London_StJ: Thanks, Luxx! I liked the book. I think any book that has so strong an effect on me is a good one.

>123 Ape: Poor boy.

>124 cameling: I certainly differentiate between the art and the artist...but the two things are linked, no escaping it. While getting ready for the recent yard sale, I ran across some old-fashioned pulp books from the 1920s that were, how shall we say, dated in their racial attitudes. What to do with them? They're products of their times. Those times have passed, and those books aren't fine literature. Modern audiences would be *horrified* at the casual cruelty of them. Were those bad people, who wrote and read them back then?

>125 mckait: Barely even a piddle of rain! Grrr

>126 Chatterbox: It's an ongoing question, ever relevant. Does one censor Nietzsche for the odious uses his work was put to? Was he in part to blame for the uses his work was put to, justifying aspects of The Final Solution? Is that a good enough reason to disappear him from literature and philosophy, the way censors of all stripes so love to do?

I think...well...as much as I don't want to listen to some points of view, I think it's a scarier world that prefers to prevent them from being heard.

*wanders through thinking how fun it would be to chase horseshoe and fiddler crabs*

>126 Chatterbox:/127: D.H. Lawrence said "don't trust the artist, trust his art" (but then he would, wouldn't he). I always wished Oscar could have lived today. I think he would have been a very different kind of artist and possibly a very different man. The ego might not have been so necessary as a life raft. Then again, he might have ended up like that Hilton twerp out on the left coast....

CB, Ayn Rand's writing always reminded me of those paintings that came out of the Soviet Union in the 50s with the workers all square muscles and chiselled looking, holding on to shovels while striding forward with their faces upraised to the sun, everything all hard edged and definite. I love the word "turgid".

>129 suslyn: Well, not around here! Earl was a big, fat bust. 24mph sustained winds at MONTAUK! It's windier than that all winter long. So the crabs aren't fleeing the drowning waves.

>130 tiffin: Tui m'dear, I suspect that you're right. "Oscar Hilton arrested for lewd and lascivious behavior" sounds like a credible headline.

Old Tutu checking in.....I'd completely lost your thread, and being on vacation trying to sneak peeks on other people's computers doesn't make it easier. Great discussions y'all....I miss every one of you.

Richard, Have a wondrous time with all your friends, and know that I will be pining away for not being able to attend. I expect a full report when it's over, and you've recovered.

Hi Tina...I will really feel a lack, you not being here...I want us to be able to spend some time really getting in deep with several books (The Lumby Lines for one). My younger brother's spending a good part of 2011 in Machias, so I will visit during his stay if we can't meet sooner.

Tina and others...so sad you cannot join us in celebration of our dear friend Richard. I'll be sure to post photos.

Richard, one week from tomorrow, we will be descending upon you!

I'm really looking forward to it!

OOOO Machias is a neat place and we should definitely plan to meet when you come.

I love Machias..and any area along Route 1 or Route 1A....

How I envy the fact that you live in Maine.

I have nothing to add to the conversation, so I shall just wave as I am passing through. . .

(I do own the Wright book though and will read it eventually!)

Lumby Lines?

>137 Whisper1: Plenty of planning time, it's still only September!

>138 alcottacre: *wave*

>139 mckait: That's the one...read it yet?

No damn it... why is it so good?
do tell?

monks... moose... and mystery!
hmmm...sounds interesting :)

127- I think any book that has so strong an effect on me is a good one. I agree!

In a way, I'm drawn to flawed characters (well, flawed historical characters). I enjoy lives full of conflict and low morals and absurd personalities. I like the nitty gritty of dirty lives; this may be, perhaps, why I enjoy Dorian Gray so much. Debauchery is thoroughly entertaining, as is intellectually-based ego.

oh no..... there are moose?

monks, moose and mystery ......that's enough to get me smiling and adding this to my obese wish list..... even though it looks like another series? *sigh*

Ricardo ... I'm bummed, so bummed ... one week from now I'll be blue, sitting home and helping hubster pack while thinking of the fun you're all having at the party.

yeah... me too, drat it

Me three! We'll have to throw our own little e-party, where we can all wallow in our sorrow over not being able to attend the real thing. :(

That sounds like a great idea, Stephen! Count me in.

Monks, moose, and mystery?
Hmm. . . I think our library has a copy of The Lumby Lines . . . .

This has been an annoying day. Up early for morning beach. Nay nay! Our daily helper called in sick. Our neighbor, bless her, filled in. Then I had a return of the medication gastric side-effect and had to come home to be near the facilities...and the neighbor lady had to leave at the same time.

The Divine Miss is still beached, with her visiting friend, so I don't need to feel guilty about their day. But other than that, it's been a real pisser.

Bummer!

{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

I hate when a day goes all to crap.. so to speak...
feel better....

Seconding Pat's comment .. bummer indeed. Hope you feel better soon and if you can't be at the beach (Jones?) then I wish you a very restful day at home, rdear

Well, that stinks, Richard. And it's getting close to the time when beach means walking briskly along, leaning into the wind, duffel coat open because now you're sweating with the effort...Man, I miss New England quite a bit.

Hope you feel better soon!

Oh, and the art vs. artist discussion: Ya can't judge a book by its author, really. Some are too off-putting for me, but I don't want them censored. Uh-uh.

Hope everything's much better now.

Bummer, Richard, today would have been the perfect beach day -- nice breeze, lotsa sunshine.

I've been behaving like a hermit crab all weekend and have accomplished precisely nothing. Have to do a Bloomberg TV thing at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. Gah.

The Bloomberg thang'll go great, Suzanne!

The day got worse. Auntie made a huge drama-queenie fuss over everything because 1) her leg hurt 2) she didn't like the chicken baked in white wine, oregano, olives that I made 3) her leg hurt 4) she didn't like the collard greens and rice I made 5) her leg hurt 6) she didn't like that I didn't make a dessert (she's on a diet) 7) her leg hurt.

I've given her the maximum of Tylenol 3. Her leg doesn't hurt, she just likes gettin' high. I wish I could, too.

The Divine Miss's new gentleman friend, already a favorite of mine, earned my permission to marry her (TDM) by being helpful, patient, and practical. I now officially adore him. He is one of maybe three people who can show up at the train station and call to be picked up; I'll move the dinner off the burner and go get him, no prior arrangement needed.

WAAAY more patient than I am.

Cheer's for the gentleman friend -- we all need someone like that in our lives.

Well Done DM!!! Glad to hear that her new guy is so great..
Damn she has good luck and good taste!

Richard, I sincerely hope you have a better day today than you did yesterday!

People like you and I need someone with extreme patience in our lives. A big HUZZAH for TDMGF.

I'm sorry your holiday weekend was so disappointing, but I have a feeling that this coming weekend will be far more enjoyable!

Hello, Richard? I'm at the train station, and I need a ride. Can you get up, get dressed and get over here please? (Just testing.)

I hope Auntie realizes how fortunate she is to have you in her life.
Hope you're feeling better today.

Hope things are going a bit better today...and best wishes for a great party this weekend! :)

Your life sure is a roller coaster ride, Richard. Ups and downs and ultimately lots of fun.

Which train station would that be, rdear, and what's your phone number? ;-)

hmmmm no sign of him... not good..

#101 ...and hanging gardens?

#121 Enjoyed your Built of Books review - not sure whether to steer clear or not. While I agree that the artist and their work should be separate, sometimes it can be very hard to do that, particularly with those we particularly love. This is why I usually steer clear of biographys & gossip magazines...

#134 Yay for photos from Linda!

#147 Video streaming. It's the way forward ;o) Of course I'll probably be asleep...

#158 What everyone else said! Sorry you had such a stinker of a day yesterday Richard, hope today is head over heels better. Yay for TDMGF indeed! ...eyes on the weekend...

Suzanne, as I've not managed to catch up on your thread yet, I do hope the Bloomberg interview went well for you.

Review: 63 of seventy-five

Title: THE SECRET SPEECH

Author: TOM ROB SMITH

Rating: 3.4* of five

This series of books, the life of Leo and Raisa in a newly post-Stalinist USSR, is cold and damp and gritty and scary. Those are the *good* parts of the life of these two oddly assorted people, who are trying to form a family from some very unlikely and unnatural and uncomfortable pieces. (Sounds like my family!)

This outing centers on events set in motion by the (factual) secret speech of the title: Khrushchev's "private" deunciation of Stalin's terror. While never reported, as in made a news story, the speech *was* widely circulated under the excuse that now the State was dismantling the cult of personality that Stalin left behind, the cult's leaders...teachers, policemen, et alii...needed to know to cease and desist.

Oh, and "incidentally", it was now open season on the powerful apparatchiks who maintained the terror.

Leo's life has just become that much more difficult, and that, my friends, is sayin' something.

I like that this book makes Leo's travails into high-risk travels to, for example, Budapest during the anti-Soviet rebellion of 1956. I liked the historical tenor of the story in general, this being a time and a place that's outside my Cold War-formed mindset.

What I find a little wearing is the relentlessness of the smackdowns Leo and Raisa endure. It starts to feel like they're being used by God as target practice. It's the story of Job with funny fur hats. I want the next one to be lighter, please, Mr. Smith.

But prepare for a serious thrill ride, y'all, and don't hesitate to get going in this series.

>170 richardderus: Oooh sounds good -- love what you wrote about this book :)

It's the story of Job with funny fur hats. I love that phrase. Very expressive.

Adding Child 44 to the wishlist, with every intention of continuing with this one if the first is even halfway decent.

Good grief! Another series? Ok Ok, I give. Your review really entices me so.....another one for the wishlist.

BTW: I have Child 44, is it part of this series and should it be read before I delve into The Secret Speech?

this being a time and a place that's outside my Cold War-formed mindset. Mine too----until yesterday, when a woman I've worked with for years shared some family history with me. She has relatives who managed to leave Hungary during the 1956 Revolution and come to this country where other family members had been living for a couple generations already. According to Wikipedia,
"Public discussion about this revolution was suppressed in Hungary for over 30 years, but since the thaw of the 1980s it has been a subject of intense study and debate." Since it's come up twice in less than 24 hours, I think I'm meant to read some non-fiction on the subject right quick.

#170: I already own that one, and one of these days I will get it read. Thanks for the bump, Richard. Now I just have to find it.

Hi everybody...first and foremost, thanks for visiting me and leaving your well-wishes! It's a lovely fact of LT life that we're all interested in each others' welfare. I appreciate the effort y'all make to come here and tell me you're thinking of me.

Now, The Secret Speech...the books really should be read in order, all two of them, because things that happen in the first book are *central* to the second, and there's just no substitute for having been there yourself. It's not a light, toothsome cream-puff of a book. It's more like a painful, no-anesthetic tooth-drilling of a book. And it's all the better for that, he hastened to add as his readers recoiled and fled!

We're unfamiliar with the poverty and the terror that the Russians endured during the millennium or so of misrule they endured before the 1990s. Communications weren't good then. Now we see the horrors on satellite all the time, and they sort of blur together. (Why is this beautiful, immense, rich country seemingly doomed to be misruled and mistreated throughout time?)

But Tom Rob Smith, whose talents be praised, puts a human face on the class system that existed then, and puts very careful make-up on that face to convey the sheer grit and raw strength of the people who endured this especially dreadful time in their national history.

I think every reader does her/imself a tremendous disservice by avoiding entirely subjects that are difficult and sometimes even unpleasant to face. Not making a diet of those, yes I can understand that; simply saying, "oh, p.u.!" and rejecting them...? Not wise. And fiction, God bless its lyin' eyes, is the *perfect* way to interact with the uncomfortable.

Go on. Child 44 will bother you. It will inform you. And in the end, it's likely to entertain and sacinate you enough to make The Secret Speech seem less dauntingly grim and more fascinatingly shadowed.

"I think every reader does her/imself a tremendous disservice by avoiding entirely subjects that are difficult and sometimes even unpleasant to face.

I totally agree... which is why I recently struggled through to the end with The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and in the end rated it 4 stars. It really bothered me but I guess I'm glad I finished it.

A few in my book group thought this book one of the best of the 20th century because it was about the truth which many don't want to face, well written and universal in it's portrayal of the search for individual identity. I guess.

Looks like touchstones not working at the moment - had to put THE in the title to get it to come up. In fact, it is titled "Invisible Man".

ETA author's name. oops!

>177 -Cee-: Oh how I hated that book. HATED it. I thought its recursiveness was less style than incompetence. But, and here's the key for me, I read it with the respect that it deserved for its ground-breaking treatment of a fraught subject.

And I enjoyed it not at all.

Well, thank you very much!
I thought I was crazy! Well, maybe I am. lol
Much more inclined to agree with you than my book group on this one. Yes, it was ground-breaking and bold.

>179 -Cee-: I call books like that "cod-liver oil books." Good for you, but thoroughly unpleasant.

fiction, God bless its lyin' eyes, is the *perfect* way to interact with the uncomfortable

I totally agree with you there. I'm going to wishlist Child 44. I haven't read anything about this period in history in a long time.

Hope today is a good day.

Review: 64 of seventy-five

Title: THE TRADE OF QUEENS

Author: CHARLES STROSS

Rating: 4* of five

This is the sixth book, and final installment featuring these characters, of "The Merchant Princes." Alternate history novels about time-continuum-hopping people from an alternate America that's feudally run and stuck in ~1500 technologically; the few people who can hop between our own USA and their world (called "the Gruinmarkt") are rich beyond measure in both worlds.

The price they exact from our own USA is high, being the best and most successful of drug smugglers; the price they pay in the Gruinmarkt is equally high, being seen as witches and marked for persecution and destruction if possible.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Do the words "Final Solution" ring a bell?

So this entry in the series takes up from the point of amazing and unimaginably horrifying cataclysm in the USA that ends the last book. In fact, the series really reads like a very long single novel that's been broken into parts by the publisher, much like what happened to "The Lord of the Rings" may it rot.

The book, as a result, will make no sense whatever to anyone not familiar with books 1-5. But for the initiates, this is **amazing** fantasy fulfillment and the sense that Stross leaves one with is that the next generation will be even more excitingly relevant to today's world.

In this entry, after the horrible cataclysm in the USA, an even more horrifying cataclysm is unleashed by the USA in the Gruinmarkt, and the main characters are frantically busy trying to prevent, then ameliorate, then escape the said disaster. It seems that their world-walking abilities aren't Divine in origin, and the USA expended huge resources to come up with a technological means of doing the same thing.

NOW they've done it, those Gruinmarkt fools! The USA is angry, and being run by a horrifying, evil former Vice President whose vileness and slime-dripping reactionaryness is too little for the even more vile Secretary of Defense. A coup is engineered, a shift in power to the so-far-right-they-can't-be-seen is validated by a sheeplike populace, and cross-dimensional havoc is unleashed.

For the politically and religiously conservative: Don't read these books. Your wrong-headedness comes in for a long, long, long bashing. Stross doesn't like conservatism. As I don't, either, ours was a match made in heaven, but for those otherwise inclined, I think he'd sound strident.

Recommended for those, like me, who feel disenfranchised by the rightward swing of the cultural conversation. But start at the beginning! Read The Family Trade first!

#176 I think every reader does her/imself a tremendous disservice by avoiding entirely subjects that are difficult and sometimes even unpleasant to face. Not making a diet of those, yes I can understand that; simply saying, "oh, p.u.!" and rejecting them...? Not wise. And fiction, God bless its lyin' eyes, is the *perfect* way to interact with the uncomfortable.

Amen. Sometimes it's very tempting to be an ostrich and pretend we can ignore the bad stuff, the difficult stuff, the painful stuff, and it will all go away. Nope. Very bad idea. Not going to work. But you're spot on that sometimes it can be a lot easier to deal with it through fiction.

I vividly remember traveling in the then-Soviet Union in the summer of 1979. We were with a Russian-speaking "accompanying" guide (who is a friend of mine to this day) from Belgium -- occasionally she and I would break away from the group and just go walking in various places, and meet the locals without anyone peering over our shoulders. It was fascinating how openly people would talk to a Russian-speaking foreigner, about the pros and cons. I heard about the corruption, but also about how much "better" things were in the 70s than the 50s -- the definition of "better" sometimes being something like, oh, they now have a kitchen shared among only three families instead of a dozen, or a whole two-room apartment for a family... In its own way, that was as much of a shock as my trip to India as a teenager two years previously, really encountering deep poverty for the first time.

Makes me wish for the ability to travel in time as well as geography to understand the realities of living in different places at different times. I know a lot more about Hungary in '56 (a lot of the refugees ended up in Toronto, and I have Hungarian friends) than about Prague in '68, for instance.

I'm going to have to buckle down and read those books, starting with Child 44... For anyone who wants a good non-fiction book about Stalin's Russia, I'd recommend The Whisperers by Orlando Figes.

#182: For the politically and religiously conservative: Don't read these books.

OK, Richard. I can take a hint :)

Review: 65 of seventy-five

Title: BURY YOUR DEAD

Author: LOUSY LOUISE PENNY

Rating: Oh, what's the difference, anyway? You're hooked and gonna read it, or you're not and so don't care.

Dear Lousy Louise Penny,

You really know how to hurt a boy. You make, ex nihilo, people whose reality I completely buy into, whose very existence (in a well-ordered Universe) is simply necessary, and then you give them real, human flaws, and dreadfully painful pasts, and generally screw with my reality/fictionality compass.

And then you make them do yucky, tacky things. And even vile, evil ones. And somehow, throughout that process, you *don't* make me dislike them, or even judge them. You make me wince and cringe for their foolishness and then weep in anticipatory pain for the inevitable consequences of the actions YOU, Puppet Mistress of the Damned, make them perform!!

I just want to know one thing: How did you make so many people suffer these same pangs with only a few flicks of your cruel, cruel pen?

Your friend,
Little Richie D.

So if you're on the Three Pines Express, I don't need to sell this book to you. I do need to let you know a few things about it: 1) Not very much of it involves Three Pines, Clara or the bookstore. 2) The manner in which Lousy Louise stitches the three story lines together is disconcerting, and very effective most of the time; when a fourth story line is added, it becomes too much and feels like short shrift is given to some fan favorites. 3) Gamache and Jean-Guy are the primary movers in the stories, and each comes across as a multidimensional character with new and unexpected dimensions; but both are also required to do a little too much on-the-page soul searching for effectiveness, and the end result is each character now feels a little more fictional than before.

And we are ALL OVER THE PLACE all the time. I truly, truly wish we weren't given a picture that's quite so fractured. It's not quite as much fun as previous outings, but it's still head and shoulders above the vast majority of non-four-hankies-and-a-pistol books. It's a fine addition to the body of work Penny's accumulating, to be appreciated by the intelligent, thoughful commoner with nothing to prove.

>183 Eat_Read_Knit: Now go forth and proselytize, Sister Caty!

>184 Chatterbox: My trip to the Eastern Bloc was in 1968, and was fraught with fear. No Soviet Union visits, but the Prague Spring was in progress and it was a tense time to be American and there, shall we say, informally....

>185 alcottacre: So glad I don't have to whack you over the skull, dearest, I'd hate to have to send you back to Sherman damaged.

#186: I cannot wait to get my hands on that one! I have had it pre-ordered seemingly forever.

#187: I appreciate you giving my skull due consideration.

>188 alcottacre: Cancel your pre-order, dear, I'll give my copy to you when you come on Saturday.

#190: Don't you want to hang on to it? If you are sure, I will cancel it, but if not please keep it.

>191 alcottacre: No, no, it's yours. I like the books a lot, but I don't anticipate re-reading them.

#192: OK, I am off to Amazon to cancel. Thanks, Richard!

I'm really glad that you're feeling better, Ricardo .... especially since it's just in time for your birthday too. Hey I have a thought, how about setting up your webcam during the party so some of us can participate remotely? Yeah, that way those of us who can't make it over will still be able to cheer, jeer, toast and trip the light fantastic along with you all and pretend we're there. :-)

Caro, I thought you were going to be there??

>182 richardderus:: I wondered when the next one was coming out. Unfortunately, his pace is just slow enough that I need to back and re-skim previous books to make sure I remember everything.

Lost this thread for awhile..but you are *Starred* now...

regarding the noodles/cabbage business, here's a recipe i found a while ago..adapt it to taste:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Polish-Noodles/Detail.aspx

;-}

Rating: Oh, what's the difference, anyway? You're hooked and gonna read it, or you're not and so don't care.

True words...

It's not quite as much fun as previous outings, but it's still head and shoulders above the vast majority of non-four-hankies-and-a-pistol books.

True words again

Angela will be glad to know that her book continues to make the rounds..

:)

I myownself have found copies of each of the books for my keeper shelf..
Cause I just have to know that I can go to Three Pines any time...

Suz, I was planning on being there and I was supposed to be there because my husband and I were going to be down on Long Island this week so that he could visit with his parents before he left on Sunday from Boston to Asia where he'll be for 2 months. Alas, his father needed a minor operation last week, so Edd went down last week and spent a week with them instead. So he says now that since he's spent all that time with them last week and run errands for them through the week too, he's a little behind with his work and he also needs to prep and pack to leave, so we're not going down after all.

Boooohoooooo.... I'm so bummed. I was so looking forward to meeting you folks at the party and seeing Richard again.

oh that is too bad Caro.. I alto thought that you would be there...
I was counting on you to give rd a bit of a hard time...

#200: I guess I will have to do it in Caro's stead, Kath.

198- I AM glad! :)

Knew you would be Angela..

Stasia.. that will work..

All parties inclined to mischief are reminded: Public Humiliation awaits all miscreants.

Well, Caro, I will be up in Boston on the 23rd if you're around there...

I can manage public humiliation completely unassisted, Ricardus Rex.

Unless I have to go to London, I will be around on the 23rd, Suz. I'll know by next week if I have to go .... I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't because my October travel schedule is so wacky I want to stay Stateside this month.

I am exited about meeting you tomorrow!

Me too, Linda! How did the procedure go?

Thanks for asking Richard. Procedure was very painful, but I believe when the swelling and soreness is gone from the site of the injection, it just may bring tremendous relief.

See you tomorrow!

See you tomorrow!

...That's so cool.

Have a fantastic time tomorrow peeps. Richard, have a wonderful party!

It sure says alot about you Richard when you have 75er's coming from near and far to celebrate the anniversary of your birth. All the best to you Richard and have a fantastic birthday!

212 yep! I think it will be fun for all...

Happy, happy birthday, baby...

Wish I could join you. I'll be there in spirit, cheering all of you on!

Happy birthday!

Computers are marvelous instruments. I'm tracking Stasia's flight from Dallas into Philadelphia and the plane should land in five minutes. Two hour layover and then I pick her up in Allentown...Oh Joy.

And, Richard, it is very true that people are traveling far and wide to celebrate you and it is very true that you are worth itl!

You give so much to all and it will be wonderful to celebrate the kind, sensitive, considerate, intelligent soul you are!

*Sigh* Having participated in two LT meet-ups in the past, I seriously envy all you lucky people who are getting together this weekend. You WILL have a wonderful time, I'm sure of it. And Happy Birthday, Richard.

Enjoy the party everyone and Happy Birthday Richard.

Happy Birthday Richard!!! Hope you guys have a great time!!!!!

Happy Birthday (party) Richard! I'll be here, celebrating by myself...



:)

This will be the party of the decade! I hope ALL of you have a fabulous time tomorrow. Richard, what on earth can you do on your next birthday to top this? It may have to be an annual event. Happy (early) Birthday to you!!

glitter-graphics.com

Enjoy your party! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Wow. Found your thread just in time. Left you a private message with my information and misinformation. See you tomorrow. Yay.

and Happy Birthday, youngster.

Happy Birthday!! Happy party!! Happy friends!!

Have a wonderful time - wish I could be there in more than spirit!

Happy Birthday dear Richard :) xoxox

Re: 204--I am so not afraid of public humiliation. Heaven knows I've had enough experience with it...and I have learned that I cannot be embarrassed any more.

PS We're in the same state tonight!!!

Happy Birthday, Richard. Wish I could be there to celebrate it with you!

So Today is the Big Day....sure wish I could be there with everyone to celebrate your milestone. I know you'll have a wonderful time, and look forward to spending many more years with you, if only virtually. It is wonderful "knowing" you. May you day be full of sunshine, friendship, peace and health.

XOXOXO Tutu

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RICHARD! Have a wonderful party with all your friends.

Have the Best Ever Birthday, Richard! That shouldn't be a problem when you're surrounded by LT-friends live and far away. I'll be sipping a glass of champagne later today to the health and happiness of you and the rest of the LT-party!

Please consider making a single thread that you can all post party info to?
and photos? and link us to it?? ?

Great idea Kath!

(Early) Happy Birthday to Richard!

I hope everybody has a fun time at the party, it's wonderful to think of all the 75ers who will get to meet each other and celebrate with Richard.

I like Kath's idea in post 231, it'd be nice to have all the information in 1 thread!

Hope you are all having a nice time, right now. (Unless you are still asleep with hangovers and whatnot.) ;)

LOL A party thread! I thought that's what this was!

I suppose that's best. Everyone will know it's a long, slow load and won't feel put-upon by it if that's what the thread's for. I'll set it up now.

ETA: thread is over here, but nothing's in it yet.

Hi, Richard,

I hope you have/had a great party.

Janet

Happy Birthday, Sir Richard! I'm looking forward to the account of today's events.

Happy Birthday to ya, happy birthday, happy birthday to ya ... *band of chipmunks singing to you from my deck* ..... have a grand time today, Richard.

I just caught up on your thread... and it was interesting to see your thoughts about Rewired, because I'm finding it extremely boring and struggling to finish. Too bad, or I could have brought it to give to Stasia (or I could bring it and she could read it in a few minutes at the party... but then the Ekdysiast song would have to come on... best to avoid).

>238 _Zoe_: I'd say to bring it for Stasia, Zoe, because who knows? She might be edified and entertained!

;-}

I hope you are having a spectacular day, Padre dear! XO

I am pretty sure he is.. imagine him wallowing in all of that attention / adulation. Just his cuppa I would think???

lol

I think this will be a very memorable birthday for you Richard. Have fun!

Are you still partying or still sleeping off the excesses of the party, Ricardo? The pics look great! But where was the white satin suit? The brown tights? The green felt hat with purple plume?

Guess that in his old age a party like that takes it's toll on him.. the poor old soul

Especially if he was participating enthusiastically throughout

hey! great video.. did Terri take that?

Terri was the driver of the bus and waiting for Linda to kick him in so that they could take the party on the road, visiting each one of us in turn so we don't miss out on their fun

Great idea... (better start making a batch of fajitas .... and mojitos)

>247 mckait:-249 *hmmmf*
I Speak Not to either of you, Not-Shower-Uppers. *sniff*

I made Chili yesterday (and we all know Chili is better on the Second Day)...and corn muffins..all i needed was some CORONA..

So, if Caro & Kath are on your "Speak Not" list...wherefore am I , Romeo/Sweetie?...and I didn't bring.....a cat.

;-}

LOL....love the cat, Kath.

mmm.... chili and corn muffins ... Jude my love, why aren't you my neighbor?! Actually I'd love to have you on one side, Kath on the other and Richard across
the street ... I'd never starve and be assured of great food.

Richard, which translation of The Fall is your group reading?

omg Caro.. that would be a great neighborhood..
food and books flying every which way all night and day.

Richard, you are 5 - no 6! - posts over your designated limit. This does not make the thread police (i.e. YOU) very happy. I'm also worried about the psychological implications of your apparent disregard of your own criterion. Clearly these are the first signs of some sort of madness.

And being a birthday boy is no excuse, mister!

The thirteenth thread is up! NO CAT GIFs on any threads with my name on them!