OMWC
Hardly anything because, well, new job and moving. But my bathroom book for the past week has been Steven Weinberg’s The First Three Minutes, a short tome on the Standard Model of cosmology. Come prepared for some real mental challenge.
While I was flying back and forth to Arizona, I indulged in a fantastically depressing and wonderful collection of stories, novellas, and a couple of complete novels by my favorite (((author))), A Malamud Reader. Although Malamud is usually lumped with contemporaries like Philip Roth, he really was a far better writer.
One day, I’ll have time to read again.
SugarFree
I have retreated to childhood, reading Piers Anthony’s Split Infinity series for the dozenth or so time. I’m going to be honest: he’s not a great writer, but damn can he churn out enjoyable fiction, and the kind that gets creepier to read the older you get, which is an aspect I like. I started with the Xanth series when I was nine or ten, picking up A Spell For Chameleon–mostly off the Darrell K. Sweet cover, familiar from Ballentine’s paperback series of Heinlein Juveniles–at a bookstore going out of business sale. (My dad’s way of dealing with me over my parent’s divorce was to give me money and turn me loose in a bookstore.) I wandered away from Anthony in high school, around the time I realized was reading books about the panties of little girls in the Xanth books, and the rampant sister-fucking of the Bio of A Space Tyrant series got a little weird, and the Incarnations of Immortality ran out of steam. And, I’ll be honest, I was done with fantasy after, um, certain works were read (Seriously, fuck The Elfstones of Shannara,) and it took years for me to bother reading high or epic fantasy again.
Riven
Well, I’ve definitely slowed down some on the Dresden Files, but that shouldn’t be a reflection on the books/stories themselves. It’s my fault for not making time for the important things. I finished White Night, moved on to Small Favor, and then rapidly consumed four short stories set between Small Favor and Turn Coat: Day Off, Backup, The Warrior, and Last Call. I’ve been on the first page of the last short story between Small Favor and Turn Coat for a couple weeks now, but I’m confident that one day, eventually, maybe I’ll finish reading Curses. … Probably. No promises.
mexican sharpshooter
Once again, the only thing of note that I read is a children’s book for my 4 year old. Today’s entry is Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss. Yertle of course, really is a turtle. It is a story I particularly like, because Dr, Seuss explains to children how to deal with assholes, particularly the ones that declare themselves king.
The story begins when Yertle realizes if he stands upon the shell of another turtle, he can see farther than he could if he stood on his own feet. Why stand on another turtle’s back? FYTW. Yertle eventually declares himself king of all that he sees and continues to enslave more turtles in his quest to obtain more power. Surprisingly, they all seem to agree to his terms. Stand upon each other’s shoulders, and let Yertle stand atop them all.
Except for one. A turtle named Mack, protested and explained multiple times how much it sucked being at the bottom of the pile. Yertle responded he was the king, so FYTW.
Until Mack sneezed. The entire stack of turtles came tumbling down with Yertle on top falling the farthest distance to Earth. Yertle spent the rest of his days being king of the mud. Honestly, this is probably the perfect allegory to explain 2016 to a child.
jesse.in.mb
Back in September 2017, I read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing due to interesting roommate-related circumstances and the pending possibility of moving. My roommate successfully got a job outside of the country and so I figured I’d revisit themes of throwing away all of my shit as I make room for my boyfriend to move in. In that vein I finally picked up The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story. It’s probably a great way to introduce kids to the idea of keeping things tidy and letting go of stuff they don’t want/need. I didn’t really get anything new out of it, but my boyfriend realized most of his instrument collection no longer “sparked joy” and is only bringing his uilleann pipes.
The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan was a fun procedural drama set in Galway and its environs that tied together a few disparate stories in pleasing ways. It was an audiobook and the narrator (Aoife McMahon) did a superlative job jumping between different characters in a way that gave them dimension without getting in the way of the story.
SP
Inventories of household goods. Bills of lading. Real estate listings and leases. Insurance documents. Utility terms of service. Receipts. Checking account and credit card statements. Truck rental contracts. Google Maps. Hotel booking sites.
Brett L
It was a slow month for me. I read the latest of John Conroe’s Demon Accords novel. I can’t really understand why I keep reading them at this point, except that they’re fast, and they don’t take themselves too seriously. Oh, and he’s good a blowing up his fake worlds real good. This one was kind of… not mailed in, exactly, but he needed to move some players from A to B to write the book he really wants to write. Contrived is a better word. Still fun, although he did kind of Harry Dresden genocide most of an alien race. What else? Oh, I did a re-read of Stross’s Iron Sunrise. I’m still sad he couldn’t really salvage that universe, but totally see his point about it being irretrievably broken. And lots and lots of MS Azure documentation.
Is it Snow crash first, then Diamond age?
I have never read Diamond Age, so yes.
Snow Crash occurs first chronologically.
If you havent, read Cryptonomicon before you read The Baroque Cycle. Then go back and re-read Cryptonomicon and catch the cool details from The Baroque Cycle that are like easter eggs.
I’m still reading that one, thanks for tip and order
Yeah, but it’s not really tied into Snow Crash or Diamond Age.
REAMDE is pretty interesting and not a bad take on things overall.
I was just making a different Stephenson recommendation. Cryptonomicon/Baroque are one universe. Snow Crash/Diamond Age is a different one.
Going by tThe Great Simoleon Caper, which another Glib linked for me, it is all one big world. I completed reading all six books together recently and I think it hangs together. Had the later two you mention been written closer to the former four, I think the ties would be even closer.
Great link. Thanks.
Seveneves was a fun listen but I’m not sure I’d have liked reading it. I remember thinking at the time it’s as if Stephenson sat down to write a “what if” scenario and grudgingly had to write in some fiction bits. It’s not a very sentimental book.
Anathem is a rollicking good adventure.
Anathem is the last thing I finished reading, and it really was a rollicking good adventure. And it had like an ending and everything.
SevenEves is probably my least favorite. It read to me like he had his own sci-fi RPG setting and spend 2/3rds of the book writing a disaster scenario to set it up.
He can’t write from a female perspective and making Neil Degrasse Tyson his Mary-Sue was off putting, to say the least. Has this guy ever heard the theory of denouement?
His endings are weak. I love a lot of his work, but it’s sort of like he gets to the end and just kinda goes, “And..um…yeah, that’s it.”
Out of fresh reading material so back to Gibbon. I’m unable to read genre fiction, Sci-Fi and Fantasy lost me when every story turned into a multi-tomed bout of excrescence. I like literary fiction but that genre has been turned on its head for at least a decade. Historical fiction is played out. It’s hard to find non-fiction works that are free from an agenda. I guess I’ve probably grown stale after having read so many thousands of books. Just my go-to sleep aid now.
I am still reading A Spendid Exchange, as I mentioned this morning. Reading it on my phone, it was free with prime.
I am also re-re-re-re-re-reading Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky. I only read it when my wife is away at my daughter’s feeding therapy, so may finish it up Tuesday night.
I have been reading free Prime books, I also read the 1st Harry Potter book (I never read em) and started A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived. It may be a bit too dry, I doubt I will go back to it soon.
Splendid.
Brazil a biography. I asked for history books for Xmas and this was one of them I received. The gift giver didn’t do much research, the book is in a Howard zinn tone hateful and pretentious . They came from Brazil and seem to really really hate it and now teach at Princeton. I’m still going to finish it I rarely ever quit a book. It’s informative I’m learning a lot about Brazil but they clearly have a bias which directs their focus.
Did it “knock you on you ass”?
Yertle the Turtle == Atlas Shrugged without so many words. And Mack doesn’t have a damn soliloquy.
And no rough trade either.
Yeah, I always enjoyed reading that one to the kids. The book that made me gag was “The Rainbow Fish.” A gift from a family member. Somehow it ended up being lost under the bookshelf. Oops.
I have to assume then, that it was not about trout fishing.
Ditto on Rainbow Fish (also a gift). I threw it across the room then put it in the thrift store box.
*looks up summary*
I’m not normally one for burning books, but how is self-mutilation something that gets treated as a positive in an imputed children’s book?
It was more the tone (or outright saying, I can’t remember) that the bland fish DESERVED to have some of the pretty fish’s scales. It was pretty clear the pretty fish had no right to his scales when the other fish didn’t have any.
I have the same feelings of disgust for The Giving Tree.
The Rainbow Fish is a children’s book drawn and written by Marcus Pfister, Swiss author and illustrator…
all you need to know, right there.
Yeah, it sounds like The Giving Tree under the ocean.
Hah. In one minute behind Mojeaux.
It could have been a good book, though. They should have given him an ax, and called it The Taking Kid – it would have made a great parable about socialism.
+1 Dorothy Parker
John Keegan’s The First World War – for the third or fourth time. It’s the best overview of the war, but does gloss over some of the nitty gritty for the sake of brevity, otherwise it would be a thousand pages long. Still horrifying though. If one wants a more detailed explanation on how the war started, The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman is my go-to.
and last night I just finished Lieutenant Hornblower, which was an interesting entry in the series since the story was told from Bush’s viewpoint.
Hastings, “Catastrophe 1914: Europe Goes to War,” is good although he comes down definitively on German/Austrian responsibility.
It’s kind of hard not to IMO. Germany not only fired the first shot, they spent decades leading up to it planning and preparing to do it in order to displace England as the leading global power.
I just started July 1914: Countdown to War by Sean McMeekin. Anyone read that one?
Yeah, Keegan is my man for military history. What a gifted writer he was.
Just the one I’m writing.
Never read what you write.
Note: ignore my advice.
Good, otherwise you’d be advocating trying to send out works that had not been properly edited.
Writers write. Editors edit.
Why make their job easy?
It’s the author’s name that goes on the finished product. The editor is anonymous and doesn’t get their reputation damaged if it’s not a good book.
Once again, I recommend my advice from 10:23.
I am trying to figure out how to weave my way to the black moment/ritual death, beefing up my villain (Gyp Rossetti type), dropping clues in (layering), because I’m working around history, so I can’t do what I really want to do (blow up the speakeasy).
Also, I am on an antidepressant that makes me not creative anymore, so I am struggling.
Ian Rankin’s latest Rebus novel, In a House of Lies, dropped on my second day of vacation. I was stoked and read it in a couple of beach stints.
I was disappointed. It wan’t bad, exactly, it was that I just didn’t give a fuck. The story was just OK, the characters seem bored with their roles and I feel like Rankin is wishing he would have ended the series a book or two ago. If you are a Rebus fan you’ll probably read it to complete the series, but otherwise you can save your money and read some of the earlier ones instead.
I’ve read bunch of other stuff, including Kurt Schlichter’s People’s Republic. You’ve all read his columns so you know where he falls. The story is actually pretty good – it explores a post-divorce blue/red split. It’s a beach book – $4.99 for Kindle.
This post is timely – I need some new reading action.
Since a couple of the tracks that I drive on are converted World War 2 airfields, and since I’m interested in Floridiana, RAF Wings Over Florida has taken my time up as late. It’s a bit odd reading about places that are so familiar to me, yet so different than they were seventy-five years ago.
I just finished reading Scintilla Vitae. The version I posted online lacks some proofreading. I don’t know why I picked it up again. Maybe because I realized the parallels between it and “Beyond the Edge of the Map”. Luckily, the parallels are weak, and I wrote both books.
I need to go back to “On Unknown Shores” and “Prince of the North Tower”, but I’ve also had some ideas for the next Tarnished Sterling book, if only I could figure out how to give it a climactic scene.
I also just finished listening to “Nemesis” by Agatha Christie. It’s perhaps one of the weakest Marple books of the set.
Swank and Asian Babes..
Is that really “reading”?
“I only read Barely Legal for the articles.”
Well DUH!
I read a collection of Norse mythology. The Nordic people had low expectations from the gods.
Slepnir’s backstory doesn’t do them much credit either.
Gods want a fortress built. Jotun comes along says he can do the job, but wants to marry Freya. They could have just said “no, we can find someone else”, but instead they put a crazy short deadline on the work, and when he’s going to meet the deadline anyway, they have Loki lure away the Jotun’s horse to slow him down and thus cheat him out of both work and agreed compense. The builder’s only crime is being a Jotun.
And then they killed him.
It’s been a while, so I’d forgotten. But don’t a lot of those stories end with ‘and then they kill him’?
Pretty much all of them.
I read the Neil Gaiman collection. The Norse Gods were dicks who just messed with humans and each other.
That’s the one I read. Really enjoyed it.
Nice avatar.
Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives
If you’ve ever watched Mindhunters on Netflix, this was written by the three people portrayed on the show. It gives some statistical analysis of the murderers they interviewed that led to use of criminal profiling. If also talks about the roles of various of people in the process like forensic pathologist, sketch artist, etc. And has chapters on victim response. It very text book like with chilling intervals describing many of the cases. It was written in the mid-eighties and if would be interesting to have this revised for the modern day. I don’t even think they touch on DNA for instance. But the plus side of that is seeing the old school techniques. It was an interesting although not quite what I expected.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0028740637/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_KDZsCb4KAWDJW
that would be a good book for the prosecution to focus on at trial.
I’m being lazy and re-reading Dorothy Sayers’s Peter Wimsey mysteries – nothing new. Just about finished with Clouds of Witnesses right now.
Never read those. Worth starting at the beginning?
Yes, with Whose Body. They’re good for the fun-and-not-so-serious casual reading.
Thanks!
Wrapping up volume 1 of Shelby’s Civil War and part II of Kristin Lavrensdater, starting on In the First Circle to go along with Econtalk.
I don’t get the love for the Dresden Novels. I have read the first 4. They are fun enough reads, but at $8 a pop for a 250 page book that I’ll tear through in a day or two, I can find just as much enjoyable stories in the 99 cent bin at Amazon and abandoned the series.
I’m reading Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B014DUR7L2/
Last week Amazon had a special, this was on the list
Figured why not
That’s a good book. It definitely takes on negotiating from a different perspective. I may re-read that soon.
I recently read “The Last Samurai” (not the crappy Tom Cruise movie thing) and “Gilead”. Now 3/4 through “Neuromancer”
Frankly I am totally confused how you all have more time to read and comment here than I could ever dream of and still have time to actually read anything. I have been spending a lot of time watching longform Youtube videos lately however as I can do them while doing other things at the same time. Lots of Dave Rubin interviews, Jordan Peterson Lectures (primarily his Maps of Meaning course), with some Sargon and Gad Saad and a few others tossed in for good measure
Insomnia helps.
Tundra: did you post about “The Forever War” a week or so back?
I’d wanted to add some comments to your post but the thread was dead by the time I saw it…Haldeman was v. much aware of “Starship Troopers” and has made both positive and negative comments about it. FWIW, he’s been on the board of Heinlein Society for 15+ years. Story is that when RAH met Haldeman, RAH congratulated him on the book. Whether or not Haldeman was riffing off ST, TFW was largely autobiographical, since Haldeman served as an infantryman in Vietnam and his wife’s name is Gay Potter.
I still remember the copy of TFW I read in my teens had a blurb on the front, “this war is the opposite of the one Heinlein glorified…bloody, cruel, meaningless.”
Hah! Yeah, I forgot to add that one to this thread.
The forward talks about how much difficulty he had getting someone to publish it because “no one wants to read a Vietnam book”.
Terrific book.
I liked both TFW and Starship Troopers.
…bloody, cruel, meaningless… and really, really entertaining.
Frankly I am totally confused how you all have more time to read and comment here than I could ever dream of and still have time to actually read anything
Multitasking. Audiobook while driving. Read Glibs while eating breakfast. Masturbate while showering. Read a book while cooking dinner. You know, normal stuff.
How many showers do you take a day?
My combos are slightly different.
So your the freak I passed on the I-90.
You have to admit, cooking and driving is an impressive feat.
I bought the Voonderkim Passenger Side Car Grill that was advertised on Somethings off with Andrew Heaton.
*too lazy to look up the Brian Regan lap grill clip*
Audiobooks. When I wake up, i put in my headphones and listen while I eat, get dressed, walk to and ride the bus, and get changed at the gym. Then I switch over to music while working out. That’s over two hours. Then lunch is another hour when I either read a book or read a journal article (or two.) Then the walk/bus ride/walk home is another 45 minutes. Then, at night I play a video game for 30 minutes and usually listen then to.
That’s a good 3 hours a day right there.
Second.
I have a hard time retaining if I do that. Definitely can’t listen to an audiobook while working. It goes in one ear and out the other.
Yeah, that’s my problem. Maybe while driving by myself or doing something rote, like dishes, but otherwise I’m not much of a multi-tasker. Frankly I find most people who claim to be…aren’t.
It depends on the parts of my brain each task needs. I can’t read and listen to someone talking at the same time, one gets the active attention of the linguistic center and the other gets discarded. I can, however, paint, assemble miniatures, play video games, etc while listening to someone talking, because those involve more motor corodination and spacial reasoning, while my language center isn’t in conflict.
I could paint a room or something, but listening to anything except music would make me lose focus on a task with any detail to it. Whoops that arm doesn’t go there!
Last time I had just started re-reading all the Goosebumps books I own from my childhood. I just finished number 7, Night of the Living Dummy. So far they are holding up well. The pacing keeps you interested, there is a little mystery and you can read them in a couple hours.
As you may guess, the horror level is low and all the protagonists are in their early teens, but imagination can fix all that. My brain ramps it up to 11 and all the kids are replaced with stock teenager horror movie characters in skimpy clothes. A directors vision FTW!
I recently finished Mental State by M. Todd Henderson. You can easily hate the villains. However, the protagonist places his hopes on Catholic priests and reporters. LOL.
I’ve just started reading Michel Houellebecq’s Sérotonine.
Just finished “North to the Pole” the Will Steger book of the 1986 trek to the North Pole by dogsled. Makes me happy to sit by the stove today. Next up is “Life among the Apaches”, a history of the Indian, oops, Native American life on the Plains. I just noticed that I still have a half dozen more books to read but you Glibs keep me tied up, figuratively speaking, a good part of the day. Hope winter lasts longer.
Just finished Mortal Engines. It was okay, typical Philip Reeve young adult stuff. I might listen to the rest of the trilogy if I have nothing better.
Started listening to Crimson Shore – yet another Agent Pendergast story. My digital library has them for free so why not?
SP, I recognized that first picture. Back room in Austin when I took over. We started getting those books out to sell pretty quickly, once we got organized. Hopefully the Phoenix stores won’t look like that.
I tore through Salt Fat Acid Heat in about a day. Nothing really groundbreaking but it was well written and I learned some new stuff. One of the things I’m trying to do with my cooking is get a little bit better at throwing stuff together from what I have on hand vs my usual practice of meal planning and shopping for it.
Reading After The Reich: A Brutal History of the Allied Occupation. Very interesting stuff about the period in between the surrender and the formation of the Federal Republic. Entry Number 497 in my “FDR’s stupidity was exceeded only by his evil” file.
Why FDR? He was dead before we Won
He was dead, yes, but the combination of him hating the Germans, disliking Churchill, and foolishly trusting Stalin, plus packing his admin with a bunch of reds and pinks, led to an enormous amount of suffering. He seriously considered the Morgenthau Plan, which would have been a permanent partition of Germany and the forcible deindustrialization of the successor states.
Big picture in the ETO, FDR had Churchill telling him A, and Stalin telling him B, and he sided with Stalin over and over and over and over again. He thought Winston was just looking to hang onto the British Empire, which of course he was. But Stalin was looking to create the Soviet Empire, and it was FDR who gave it to him. The Soviets were dependent on American aid to run their war. FDR simply refused to use the whip hand throughout. You can hang, at a minimum, the 50 year enslavement of everything between the Baltics and the inner German border on FDR’s stupidity.
Between work and two children I don’t have time to read – other than my on-going re-re-re-read of Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing – which sits on my bedside table and I read a page or two whenever I need something before falling asleep. His Border Trilogy is set in the area I spent most of my life in the US. It’s like he wrote those books for me.
I was/am hoping to get some Glibs input on Cormac McCarthy’s works. I know he’s had some commercial success – but wonder how people with political views similar to mine view his work. I realize that my joy in reading The Crossing is knowing much of the geographic tidbits thrown in, and that my Spanish is good enough to read through all the un-translated dialog without looking it up.
I particularly like how the condition/feeding of the horses through the journey is part of the story since most westerns treat the animals as if they were no more than machines which the riders can be indifferent about.
I’ve read a bunch of his stuff. Once I got used to the – uh – absence of punctuation I loved the books. The Border Trilogy is terrific. The Orchard Keeper was decent, but I didn’t like it as much as the rest. Blood Meridian was amazingly gritty and violent. Still an essential CM. No Country For Old Men demanded to be made into a movie.
Love his stuff.
Another “wrote it for me” from McCarthy – one scene in No Country for Old Men pins down the year exactly – which was my senior year in high school and within 50 miles of where the whole story happens.
I’ve only read three, the most famous three – The Road, No Country for Old Men, and Blood Meridian. Enjoyed them, but man they’re pretty heavy and dark. It’s kind of funny that No Country is actually the sunniest of the three.
I tried to like Piers Anthony but his writing just bored the hell out of me.
It was just too precocious for me, and then it got weird and kinda gross, so I dropped the Xanth series and never bothered with anything else of his. I hear I’m not missing much.
If you didn’t read Anthony before you hit high school, it’s too late. I more or less followed Sugarfree’s progression. Went back to them once in my twenties and they did not hold up at all.
I am confused when was this posed seeing it has 53 comments? I mean the evning post usually comes at 7 pm and it is 7 16 now did this come earlier?
Dude, what do they put in the Romanian weed over there?
I don’t understand what you mean. I see the first comment is at 10:10 am blog hour. The post usually comes at 11 am blog hour. I assume today it came at 10 am blog hour but have no idea why
Likely there will be another post between this one and the PM Lynx.
point is i call shenanigans
Because you were inobservant?
You’re late Pie.
I’ve got The Grass Crown sitting here, but I haven’t started. Maybe I’ll take it to the bar tonight.
I read the first book from Brian Sanderson Stormlight Archive because I keep somehow hearing of it. I will not read a second. The prose is mediocre the dialogue is weak. He has some imagination of world building but overall meh.
I read the first two and then it took almost four years to get out the third installment, long after I lost interest.
Yeah I have no idea why people like Sanderson. Everything he writes I think is bland and not-memorable. Its impressive how prolific he is, but that’s like saying he’s the most efficient oatmeal chef in the world.
He did wrap up AWoT, but 1) he started with a good foundations and 2) Jordan’s writing got so flabby that bland oatmeal was actually a step up by the time he took over.
was there a poll / discussion on the view of glibs on not finishing books? Some people finish a book they start no matter what some say time is to short to read bad books.
I used to trudge on in a simple bloody-mindedness to reach the end. Lately I’ve taken the stance that I can abandon a book much sooner if it just isn’t working. I don’t need to suffer through the contents just because I started the book.
I usually finish a book if I start, but there have been a few exceptions. My take on food is calories are too precious to be wasted on bad food.
There’s only been a couple of books I’ve started and not finished. You have really piss me off or take me out of the story.
I don’t usually stop reading, but I may take a years long break that I never finish taking.
There is one book I didn’t finish: Something Happened — Joseph Heller
Wikipedia describes it:
I was halfway through when my toddler pulled my book mark out. I had no fucking way of figuring out where I was, and I wasn’t going to start over.
Yeah, Something Happened was a slog.
Which was a shame, because Catch-22 was really good.
Closing Time was disappointing. I put it down in the final stretch and can’t bring myself to finish it.
off topic : is the b pronounced at all in climb?
Not in m neck of the anglosphere. It sounds the same as clime.
and take off the c and it’s pronounced lim. Bastard language, fits us well.
Time to climb on the limb of the lime and enjoy the clime?
Unlike all the languages that sprang out of Zeus’s forehead or wherever.
It’s just that English took the simplest way to write a language and made it as complex as possible.
To learn to read and write English properly takes about the same level of wrote learning (for the spelling aspect) as learning Chinese does (not BS – I’ve studied Chinese). Before Spellcheck even academics needed a dictionary handy to assist in writing their native language.
Think about this – no Spanish or German language based culture holds “spelling bee’s”.
English has 12 spoken vowels – but tries to represent them with 6 (including the “y”). And the “r” is actually a vowel but we pretend differently.
Romanian spelling bee would be silly being a phonetic writing system and all
we have an old saying “hooct on fonix werct for mee!”
Phoenetic writing is impossible to read.
Not if you are used to it.
For example you take a loan word like the computer mouse and you make it Romanian phonetic by writing it maus and there you go
of course we had to invent 4 additional letters
You didn’t need to invent letters, just overload the definitions of some existing ones. Until everything has two or three sounds, you don’t need to introduce more symbols.
point is you don’t need sh when you have ș. șape for example
You have that backwards, you don’t need that… whatever that’s supposed to be, when you have a perfectly servicable digraph
Damn Phoenicians and their naval based writings.
people from Phoenix are Phoenicians
English has 14 to 21 spoken vowels, depending on the accent, not 12. English also has roughly 24 consonants, sometimes more, again depending on the accent.
who died and made you arbiter of English vowels?
No one. If you feel like adding a few more, go for it. I’m just noting the current counts.
There is some sort of stop after the M, so it doesnt sound like clime. But not a full B sound.
Maybe in your accent, but not around here.
ditto
I can’t think of a trailing mb combo that you pronounce the b, as soon as you add another syllable that changes: limb (lim)/limbic (lim-bik), jamb (jam)/jamboree (jam-bor-ee).
Both M and B start with lips pressed together. For words with a following syllable the M give you a running start on the B. If it ends in MB the tendency is to leave the M and pronounce the B as a soft, short ‘uh’.
I am not sure why that is.
For anyone interested in this sort of thing but not wishing to dive headlong into linguistics Bobrick’s ‘Wide as the Waters’ is a very intersting story on the origin of the English language as we know it. It certainly explains the countless idiosyncrasies of the language.
Studying Korean phonemics made me much more aware of some of the ways we take for granted the distinctness or nearness of sounds are not universal.
I’m surprised you didn’t go with Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue for your brief history of why English is the way it is.
At best it gets a soft pronunciation that is very short reduced volume and barely noticeable, sometimes sounding like ‘uh’. CLIMuh.
Mostly it is not pronounced at all.
I wasted an hour on this.
Short answer, no. If you’re interested in why not…
The word origin is probably Germanic “klamber” in which case the b is pronounced. As the word made its way into English, and through British upper class enclave dialects especially, spoken words had a tendency to be spoken a bit “lazily” (for lack of a better word). Basically, pronunciations change over time more often (do you pronounce the ‘t’?) while spelling tends to be more standard. So English has both “clamber” and “climber” where the b is usually pronounced in the former and usually silent in the latter.
Like right now an hour or over your lifetime ?
Read GA Henty In the Reign of Terror, that was fun read. Handed it off to the boy to read as well.
Currently reading Democracy in America. Such foreign concepts in there.
Democracy in America.
That book is a slog, I’ve never finished it.
Reminding me of Eddie with how much citation and footnotes are in there.
I’m not sure if I’ll make it through.
I enjoyed Demo in Ami about 2 books back, long and very enjoyable. Toucueville , for a young man, was extreme astute.
Not reading, but the art of moviemaking meets the art of ecdysiasm:
https://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Star-Wars-strip-show-offers-sexy-13561095.php#photo-16824630
“Big Trouble” by Dave Barry for about the 5th time, and back issues of Imprimus from Hillsdale College.
I don’t really read fiction anymore, but am always perusing books on different types of collectibles.
I just acquired a copy of Sheryl Atkisson’s STONEWALLED, so I may start on that soon.
Read I am Legend . Working through the short stories at a leisurely pace. I must’ve read the story before, because everything but the very end was quite familiar and I never saw the movie.
Listened toThe Road to Serfdom. It’s yet another book that I probably should’ve read instead of listening.
Currently listening to Orthodoxy by GK Chesterton. It’s interesting, even if it’s not 100% rationally convincing. That’s kind of the point of it.
Studying The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis for my Bible study group.
Need to find a new book to read at night.
I’m sure I’m late to this, but I Am Legend has been made into a movie at least three times, and referenced by a lot more.
Search the intertubes for the BBC radio dramatization. It’s excellent.
Sounds like Steven King.
The Revolt of the Public – Arnold Kling has been banging on this guy’s drum for a while. A new edition just came out. Of all the “This guy predicted Trump, go read his book” books, this is by far the best one I’ve read. Well, I started like 5, but gave up on the other 4 over the last couple years. In any case, here’s the pitch: Martin Gurri was a CIA analyst (so computer nerd, not Jack Ryan) who published a book pre-Trump and pre-Brexit pointing out that a wave of populism was coming and our media is shit. Surprise, he was right, but no one read his book. Now, there’s another edition and based on its Amazon ranking people are reading it. You should too. Most valuable insight – defining “the people,” “the public,” and “the elite” into useful categories, and showing how “the public” is not “the people,” but how everyone claims to be or speak for “the people.” Highest Recommendation
Red Rising – A good example of post-Hunger-Games dystopian sci-fi. I almost put this book down when I saw that, in a world where each class gets a color, the working class was Red. I assumed I was in for a comm-symp propaganda screed, and I know that most of them are ponderous and boring. But I stuck with it. Turns out – nope. The Reds are clearly Scotch Irish coal miners from Space West Virginia. The Gold are the aristocracy from Space Washington DC, not Evil Capitalists. I was expecting a 1 book story, where the Golds are overthrown by the end of the book, but nope. This is a post-Hunger-Games book. Why not stretch that over a whole series. Also, this is more a book about a double agent than a popular uprising. See, not commie. But a good double agent book needs time to make you sympathize with the baddies (or at least some members of their class.) All in all, this is a good book that obviously is structured to support a long series. I’ll probably read the next one, but I’m not banging down the door to get my hands on it. Recommended
Man of Legends Written by the guy who made V. I was a bit too young for that, but I remember my Dad watched it and loved it (he has good taste,) and I remember that it was basically Hot Chick Secretly An Alien vs Beastmaster, which also sounds great. So I read it. It was… it was very boomer. I don’t know how to describe it other than that. It was written in the early 2000’s and still glorifies print media. It was about an immortal guy who bumps into important people in history and alters history. Plus Catholic Conspiracies. Basically Dan Brown + Forrest Gump. I don’t like Dan Brown or Forrest Gump on their own, and the mixing didn’t help. Also, this had some things that relied on being conveyed in the visual medium, and the internet tells me this was first written as a screenplay. I put it down half way through.
But now I want to go track down V and see if it was any good.
This is the second book in the series, which in my head I call “Napoleonic Naval War + RAF + Fucking Dragons.” This one is now with less Napoleonic Naval War, but instead they have “China Stuff.” Its a light, entertaining read with a few smart parts here and there. Very worth my time.
For various reasons, I’ve had to get conversant about sleep and sleep technology over the last couple years (I use a cpap, but may no longer have apnea since I’ve lost so much weight.) This is a good book that filled in a lot of the gaps I had. Its very well laid out, very persuasive in its argument that most adults need much, much more sleep than they get, and I thought it was accessible. But then again, I’m a terrible judge of what anyone else would think is accessible, so *shrug.* My biggest critique is that is seems like the editor said “This needs more strained analogies that don’t contribute to understanding” and then sent the manuscript to a crack team of strained analgizers who know nothing about science. Would have been better if those were all taken out. Otherwise,
Fueling the Adolescent and The Renaissance Diet 2.0 I don’t normally list the nutrition and exercise stuff I read here, but these two were worth a call out. We’ve had some trouble in our family with Thing 1’s diet. Something about his GI track, but if his diet isn’t super-duper on point, he gets really bad distress. Been that way since birth. When he was little, this was easy because he would just eat whatever we gave him, and we just gave him what he needed. But he’s older now and needs to be able to make fully autonomous food choices. Its been a challenge, and a difficult one because every time a new strategy has been tried, its failure mode involves physical pain and unpleasantness in the bathroom. Or some other strategies work but compliance was too hard – like food logging. It works if Thing 1 does it perfectly, but that’s hard for an adolescent. So I decided to give up on the pediatric health lit and started looking around at the sports and conditioning lit. I found this book, and its a great read. It lays out a strategy that’s finally worked for us – Thing 1 is 100% autonomous in his food choices, and no compliance or potty problems in the last month. Best of all, it has citations to the articles from where it draws its info. So based on the strength of the first book, I got the second book listed, which is basically the same thing for adults. About 50% of it I know as pretty accurate from reading the weight-loss medical literature. The other 50% is about improving sports and training outcomes, which I don’t know. But based on the fact that the other 50% matches my preconceived notions, I am going to assume its all correct. Recommended
Currently Reading: Prelude to Foundation. So far so good.
Oh good, I fucked up the tags again.
I read / listened to the whole Red Rising trilogy (I hear there is a 4th book now I haven’t read). I liked them all.
V… did not age well. It used to be on every other year or so on one of the UHF channels when I was a kid and I loved it. The special effects don’t really hold up, the casting is strange to modern tastes (Robert Englund as a goofy nice guy), and reporters are critical to uncovering the secret. The original miniseries was the best of them. The original TV series was really bad, and the rebooted TV series just veered off course quickly.
“Martin Gurri was a CIA analyst…”
So, someone from the CIA actually made an accurate prediction?
And the book sounds like a good read. I may just pick that up.
Why We Sleep
Thanks for the reminder. A sleep doc recommended it to me and said that even as an MD, there was a ton that he learned.
“From The Cape to Cairo,” by Ewart S. Grogan. The tale of the first man to walk from South Africa to Cairo.
That’s badass.
Sorry, OT:
Barstool Sports Trolls Buzzfeed on Recent Layoffs
https://www.barstoolsports.com/barstoolu/top-nine-reasons-why-you-got-fired-from-buzzfeed-number-7-will-surprise-you
“Top Nine Reasons Why You Got Fired From Buzzfeed (Number 7 Will Surprise You!)”
Fish in a barrel, but I still laughed
Bad listicle, because Number 7 did surprise me.
And now this.
I have been trying to read Basic Economics by Sowell in my limited spare time. Maybe next week as this looks like weather to read a book by a fire coming next week.
Cold? What cold?
+1 “It keeps the riff-raff out”
It keeps the migration one way, other wise the CA people would be moving here. Same politics (in the metro area,that is)
Agreed. Even the metro is not like up here though. Last weekend I spent at my buddies house (helped with the heater core mentioned above). Low temp in metro was zero, low temp in Ely was just a bit colder (-36).
Ugh, tell me about it. All our outside flower pots are breaking and the dogs don’t want to go outside. I’m ready for spring.
That looks…glorious right about now. The summer would kill me though.
^ Proof that cold is a relative term. ^
For sure. We’re supposed to get back down into the teens at night next week, and that’s damn cold for around here. I’ve got a friend from here who now lives in Chicago and when he tells me about those winters I shudder.
44 degrees?
That’s balmy.
Yep. It’s about 60 degrees warmer than my back yard.
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time reading Haynes Repair Manual for GMC Terrain. Would not recommend.
LOL. That’s what You Tube is for now. I had to pull my dash to replace the heater core in my truck last weekend. Good times…
It seems that designers would either make the heater core easier to access or make it from stainless so that it never needs replacing. Instead they inspire people to murder.
You’d think, but I’m convinced designers don’t really care about any of that. The dealers quote it as a seven hour job. I think it is pretty accurate for a shade-tree with the tools and aptitude, though a mechanic can probably do it in less than half that. We could have finished in about a day if I hadn’t broke the plastic frame holding the blend door as I tried to take it out. Of course that is a very difficult part to find on short notice. No way was I going to try to JB weld it or anything knowing it could break at any time. So we had to hit all the junkyards and pull off another dash to get to that one. Saved $900 bucks though!
Speaking of inspiring people to murder; I’m doing the timing chains on my wife’s Terrain. I was going to replace the water pump as a preventative measure because it is driven off the timing chain and (I thought) you could get at it with the timing cover off. Well, turns out all you can see of the pump is the drive sprocket. It’s actually mounted to the back side of the engine. To get it off you need to remove the manifold heat shield and the damn catalytic converter! WTF?! Needless to say, I’m crossing my fingers and sending the pump back for a refund.
The back side of the engine? Holy fuck. I have always seen them mounted either to the front or side. You are probably wise to do so. I have seen more than one hit 200K and the blades the drive the water are worn or rusted down to next to nothing. You can tell this has happened when your heater stops heating up quickly. My wrangler has a single belt that loopty loops around about ten pulleys, one of which is the water pump. I think I am taking it to a mechanic. The last water pump I replaced (Honda Odyssey) I looked at it and said “Bah, I can do that in an hour”. Five hours later I was nearly out of curse words.
You win! Even the dash wasn’t that bad.
Must be a ~’01 Silverado? Ask me why I guessed that. Or maybe all trucks are like that now…
No ’02 F150. Not just trucks. The friend that helped me is trying to flip a Pontiac something he bought for peanuts with the same issue. It also needs the dash removed.
Assholes. There’s no damn reason why they have to bury them so deep.
Manufacturing costs and ease of assembly. Although I realize you’re venting.
To me BMW has this down to a science. Miscellaneous bits like electric water pumps, plastic timing chain tensioners and the like all incredibly painful to remove and designed with a useful life of approximately End of Warranty + 30 Days.
I don’t buy that. All they have to do* is put it lower on the firewall so it’s below the dash instead of behind it. Like they used to be.
*Not a design engineer
I’m reminded of an anecdote that may be apocryphal, and which the teacher misapplied.
The story went that Henry Ford went around the country to junkyards to see what parts from his vehicles broke the least. Having identified the most durable part, he returned to Detroit and redesigned it to be less robust.
The teacher tried to spin this as “look at how awful and greedy the capitalist pigdog was”. But I took away, “if the part is so durable it never breaks, even on the wrecks and worn down cars, it probably cost to much, and there would be no harm to anyone to make it cheaper.”
If they can get it so that the whole car survives for the same amount of time, maintenence costs will drop.
Uncivil, that sounds like one of those old stories to the tune of: “In the 1950s this guy invented a car that ran on air, but the powerful oil companies squashed it!”
Actually, this is a common analysis in reliability engineering. It is of no value to anyone for the a part to be 10 times more reliable that it needs to be. It just adds cost with no appreciable benefit.
So, redesign the part to meet reliability goals and save everyone, including the supplier and the customer, money.
@UCS That does sound like something Henry Ford may have done, though certainly could be a myth.
@Sensei It is much like the printer/ink deal. It’s on purpose. Throw in the special tools needed so the tool companies have something new to sell and its a great racket.
@MIkeS I am going to sell this truck ASAP and get one about 40 years older for this type of reason. I was going to be a mechanic when I grew up but decided against it. I could troubleshoot and repair vehicles from 30+ years ago. Almost no chance of that now. I’m kinda glad I didn’t become a mechanic because the work they do now days is not like it was then. Gadgets and electronics mostly, with no actual repair of anything, just replacement. Blew a motor? Trade the old for a factory refurb. Takes all the fun out of it.
A lot of newer vehicles have no manuals. Gone are the days of building a tripod with a come-along to pull the motor.
“and the kind that gets creepier to read the older you get, which is an aspect I like”
Count me unsurprised, SF…
SPQR, by Mary Beard: It’s a history of ancient Rome written primarily as a study of Roman society. It kind of breezes past a lot of the basics and gets into things like Roman attitudes towards foreign cultures, politics, stuff like that. It’s interesting, and it’s pushed me to pick up “The Twelve Caesars” and “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, by Suetonius and Gibbon respectively. Also, Suetonius allegedly wrote a book called “The Lives of Famous Whores” which, regrettably, hasn’t survived to the present day. I can’t think of a better name for damned near anything.
Sharpe’s Rifles: I’m plowing through the Sharpe series. It’s just so damn fun to read, and I like the setting a hell of a lot. It’s not literature, but I can’t put ’em down. I’ve actually gone straight to “Sharpe’s Havoc”.
Deadhouse Gates: The second of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson. Like its predecessor it’s not an easy read, mostly because Erikson’s style is a little clumsy and he throws a ton of fantasy world at you at once, but right off the bat I get the impression that he’s figuring out how this whole writing thing works. I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve gotten used to his style or what, but it’s more approachable. He’s still on thin ice, though.
Was the subtitle for that “A history of politicians”
Well, allegedly the ancient Latin term for “foreigner” and “enemy” was the same–hostis–as was the term for “at war” and “abroad”–militiae–so I could see that as another case.
That’s not true. It in the public domain, so its even printed on the Intertubes.
How about “Kiki’s Delivery Service”. 魔女の宅急便 (Witch’s Delivery Service).
Currently attempting to read it to work on improving my reading comprehension. You may be familiar with the film which I can easily recommend for both children and adults. However, the book reminds me very much of “Mary Poppins”. Disney took a series of short stories and adventures with significantly different characters and turned it into a feature film.
“Kiki’s Delivery Service” is much the same – I very much think Hayao Miyazaki’s retelling as a movie is much superior to the source. Most would agree that it is the rare film that is better than the book!
i saw the animation but then again I saw all Miyazaki stuff
Miyazaki is rightly celebrated as a wonderful storyteller.
How do you watch them? Subtitles, English or is Romanian an option?
English subtitles like all anime. I don’t watch anything with Romanian subtitles they will be inferior.
Agreed.
I generally prefer to watch any non-English film with subtitles instead of a dub.
Miyazaki does really interesting things with language that just don’t translate especially well. That’s not the fault of the subtitles. You can’t give that kind of context or background with the limited time and space that subtitles permit.
But that’s a general problem with any subtitled film.
Miyazaki does really interesting things with language that just don’t translate especially well. – well yes that goes for every translation. dubbing is stupid beyond language a director directs the voices as well as other things take that away and it is shit
Yup – you get a new interpretation of how the voice should be cast and perform.
For most, if I have the option I’ll throw on dub and sub. Best of both worlds (I can read while listening to something else without an issue). I’d be curious on your take on the Mononoke dub, as it was done by Gaiman.
i have no take on it as I have not seen it with the dub
Same- watched it in the original Japanese.
Funny enough – I have a problem watching Japanese films. I need full concentration to try to understand the dialogue or I need to actively read the English subs.
OTH, English TV I can naturally leave going in the background as it doesn’t require 100% concentration.
Low hanging fruit: in a discussion that had veered into a comparison between the Dread Red Hats of Genocide and Che shirts, this is what a cretin employed by NBC News had to say….
I simply cannot figure out why so many people are pissing their pants with laughter over a bunch of reporters getting pink slips.
in fairness massacre is complicated
Wait, that’s a serious take?
Oh, yes
I mean, sure the one guy was a cold blooded murderer, but it was HER turn!
Wow. That tells you pretty much all you need to know. And, that thing is that some people just can’t be helped.
He’s “associated with liberation struggle” because he instituted death squads while setting up a dictator that people have struggled to escape from day 1. So that checks out.
Setting up concentration camps for negroes is a “liberation struggle” on their behalf? Also, Donald Trump has no problem with gays. Che made homosexuality a capital crime. Guess which one that mouth-breathing, uneducated buffoon paints as the homophobe?
I hate these people for making me defend Donald Trump. I really do.
Yup. 100%
“Che is associated with liberation struggles for people of color”
He may be associated with that in the minds of moron pinkos but I am pretty sure that is the opposite what he actually did. He forced blacks to the bottom of society and stamped on them with both feet. That is when he wasn’t mass executing homosexuals by firing squad.
That useful idiots revere that monster tells you everything you need to know.
But he’s so handsome…
He looked a lot better in a wheel barrow after meeting a few rifle balls.
It also made him a much better person
And Che’s a complicated figure.
He was a murderous sociopath, such a horrible human being that even the brutality of a Communist regime couldn’t satisfy him. No, he needed an active revolutionary movement for his sadistic urges to be fully realized.
https://www.barstoolsports.com/philadelphia/atypical-actor-michael-rapaport-is-on-the-list-of-possible-individuals-who-may-be-sued-for-defamation-by-the-covington-maga-kids
I guess the Covington Kids lawyered up pretty quickly. I don’t know how true this is (Gateway Pundit is the original source for this), but the list of celebrities that are definitely on the list of lawsuits includes: former CNN host Reza Aslan, actor Michael Rapaport and ABC News senior political analyst anchor Matthew Dowd.
Barstool Sports has a special dislike for Rapaport and they note the unequal use of banning employed by Twitter.
I have a special abject hatred for Matthew Dowd. He’s basically everything I hate the most about political pundits, distilled down into superconcentrated form.
He is a bit of a pompous douche.
Amen to that. He’s a pompous know-nothing. I remember a week before the 2016 election how he was pontificating that Hillary had it in the bag and the only question was how large her coattails would be. He’s one of the reasons my wife switched her vote from GayJay to Trump.
The
process
is
the
punishment
turnabout is fair play
Rapaport seems like a real peach.
Finally got around to reading HMS Ulysses by Alistair MacLean after Spudalicious recommended it a few months back, I’m kinda Meh on it, the story mostly I like the writing so I’ll probably try another book, something not naval related.
After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thomson, standard Thompson fare. short and sweet crime noir novel.
The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. Good fantasy, lots of standard tropes but well done, he doesn’t throw a bunch of characters and storylines at you all at once but by the end, you got a pretty well fleshed out world and cast.
In my early teens I read everything by MacLean I could get my hands on. I remember liking South by Java Head, Goodbye California, and Seawitch. No idea if they still hold up or not.
Way to a Dusty Death.
Had a huge effect on me when I read it as a fourteen year old.
After Dark, My Sweet. Yeah, in college I read one Thompson novel, and then everything else the library had.
I’m re-reading David Gemmell’s Rigante books.
Holy shit, can that guy write and tell a story. Never seems to put a foot wrong. If I someday manage to write novels like his, I will be very pleased indeed.
I’d never read him before reading Legend a couple of months ago. Not really my preferred type of novel, but good enough to make me consider his other stuff.
The Legend books have more of a Conan flavor. The Rigante books have a kind of alternate Scotlandish setting, with just wee bit of magic around the edges. I think they are my favorites of his – one scene where a village is trying to flee a group of Viking raiders and the men have to make a stand to try to save them never fails to raise goosebumps.
Reading is something that I’m hard-wired to do but I haven’t found anything very enjoyable for some time. The plots and tropes are the same. OT – the parts that I ordered for the Nissan brake job arrived incomplete and my Saturday chore is FUBAR. Festus is disappoint.
I’m reading Gardner Dozois’ “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” short story anthologies — started with the most recent, and working backwards. Finishing up the stories from 1996. They’re no longer yammering along incessantly about catastrophic AGW, and now starting to get a sprinkling of catastrophic global cooling stories.
And other stuff. Usually have 3 to 4 books I’m chipping away at as time permits.
Best by who’s metric?
I would guess Gardner Dozois.
OT – Dammit, the shutdown’s over. And I was having so much fun with it.
Boo. There was no cause to reopen anything.
A football board I frequent had a breathless announcement about it and much rejoicing, leading me to wonder who these people are who actually had a tangible reason for giving a shit about the shutdown?
There’s a reason the two American institutions the Left ensures they control are the educational system and the media. Control what the children learn, control what “everybody agrees on” and you control the nation.
Someone posed a theory that when LaGuardia got fucked up, everyone worried about Atlanta breaking down before the Super Bowl.
Guess that means Banjos won’t be in such a great mood when she posts the links in the morning.
It’s only temporary! 48 hours! 4D chess moves! HE CAN SHUT IT DOWN AGAIN ARGLEBLAAAR!
3 weeks.
I bet it’s back after the State of the Union.
Love the avatar
Future Shitlords of America
He craves his moment in the sun the same way that plants crave Brawndo.
Yeah, I’ve been working from home the whole time. Now I’ll have to go into the office. I don’t even know where my pants are anymore.
What a surprise ending. The spineless R’s pressured Trump so they can go back to their safe place of concession speeches and toothless opposition.
Hello President Beto.
That’s Presidente Beto to you!
Still rereading the Aubrey-Maturin series, just finished book 15 today. Damn, that is some good stuff.
Reading my year-end financial statements. Down from November! THANKS FOR NOTHING MAGA!
Someone has to oust that fucker. I want him to die a la “Bikini Girl” and fall into a crevasse somewhere. Poetic justice.
Just finished Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski. Interesting (if brief) history of the country, it was a fun read having just visited in December.
Currently waiting for The Baader-Meinhof Complex to show up in the mail, so in the meantime I’m juggling between Monumental Propaganda by Vladimir Voinovich and The Assassin’s Blade by Sara J Maas.
The latter is a book given to me by my girlfriend, and it’s perfectly alright. Generic fantasy world and tropes, protagonist is a 16-year old Assassin girl who *GASP* turns out to be Very Important to the safety of the world. I do chuckle at how Maas seems to be obsessed with putting in sex scenes in what’s supposed to be a YA series. Also the main character makes you want to punch her in the face because of her arrogance, which I guess is true with a lot of 16 year olds?
Monumental Propaganda is hilarious. Voinovich is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers, as he’s one of the few Russians who wrote critiques of the Soviet Union that weren’t doom and gloom sci-fi, but political satires. This one is about a woman who is a devoted Stalinist, and puts up a huge statue of him in the local town square, but after Kruschev’s 1956 speech, decides to put the statue in her house because “she can’t bear to hear the lies spoken about her beloved hero”. He’s great at taking jabs at the absurdity of the bureaucratic state.
Voinovich really needs to be better known. Maybe putting some of his books on digital would help? I would reread “Moscow 2042” and Chonkin Saga, at least.
Digital might help, but just some new publishing probably would too. I bought Monumental Propaganda from a third-party seller on Amazon just because no one’s printing anymore, it seems.
Haven’t read Chonkin Saga yet, but it’s on my list. I’ve heard it’s his biggest work. Moscow 2042 was how I was introduced, and I thought it was great. Still my favorite of his that I’ve read.
Forgot about Voinovich. Also, Good Soldier Svejk is another one that I’d like to read.
Svejk is some good stuff.
And libertarians might like History of The Party of Moderate Progress Within Boundaries of the Law (or however English translation goes) by the same author. He and some (serious) drinking buddies decide to create a political party as a lark, and name it as they do because they though there were enough “Radical”, “Progressive” etc. parties springing around them already. Mostly it’s about his friends and some stupid stuff they get into, with occasional super-trolly performance as “campaigning”.
I’m reading The Forgotten 500, which showed up in my Xmas stocking:
https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-500-Untold-Greatest-Mission/dp/0451224957/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1548445446&sr=1-1&keywords=forgotten+500
It’s a quick read about a WW II allied mission to rescue airmen shot down over Yugoslavia while coming and going on missions to bomb the Romanian oil fields. They got a lot of help from the locals. Plenty of talk about the Mihailovic vs. Tito dynamics. Recommended.
The book sounds interesting but the reviews are triggering.
God dammit, Tito wasn’t “Stalin’s puppet”, he was our blood-thirsty Communist dictator, who won the civil war honestly and did his atrocities after.
I’m doing the timing chains on my wife’s Terrain.
ChainS, plural? WTF? Is it a Northstar?
Ugh. Timing chain on a Ford Granada was the first serious work that I attempted. No training, minimal tools and a barking crazy Wife that needed her wheels not now but RIGHT NOW! Good times.
Also reading the Saga of the Elven books. The third one comes out this summer, I think. Beautifully written, elegaic, with elves who are kind of nasty pieces of work (cruel, prone to intrigue and betrayal), nicely realized human characters in a Norse setting, and plenty of nasty orcs etc. Sounds like a juvenile series with elves and whatnot, but definitely for adults. Written originally in German, but the translation is phenomenal.
Mr. Dean,
You need to hop on this gravy train!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/24/business/hospitals-asking-patients-donate-money.html
That’s been happening for decades.
For fun, I just started rereading O’Brian’s Aubrey–Maturin series. On Book 2.
My non-fiction read is a how-to book on grant writing.
Working my way through Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Also have been listening to Economics in One Lesson on youtube as I lay tile in my kitchen.
After that I’ve got this on deck in my audible account which I’m exited for even though it’s probably going to be a soul crusher.
Grumble……better link:
https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution/dp/0062303023/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1548449486&sr=8-2&keywords=ordinary+men
Is it okay if i just want to nod off and never wake up again?
You alright? I’m here if you need to talk….
is this a despair thing or a fatigue thing? because the answer is different.
Little of column A, little of column B. Don’t mind me, I’m drunk and have been up and about for too many hours. Thanks for your concern all the same.
Sleep really does help everything. When you are chronically tired it’s easy to have a very skewed interpretation of reality. Not to sound overly righteous but booze doesn’t do you any favors in that arena.
Stop drinking and take some GABA. It will help you sleep and probably brighten your mood.
“Gaba Gooble one of us?” I’ve no idea… I’ve been running from the black dog since I was a toddler. Literally.
Also have been listening to Economics in One Lesson on youtube as I lay tile in my kitchen.
Kinky!
You were supposed to say “Hawt!”
More. I want more
journalistspropagandists to laugh at.Learn to code,
Indeed, this is a delicious chain of events…
This is the greatest thing I’ve seen whole week. You Are A Great American, sir!
OT: The work situation has me apprehensive. I’m in a position where my field of expertise is unique in my organization and I only have a boss for administrative purposes. For the last several years I’ve been given nearly complete autonomy. I make my own schedule, work travel plans, manage my programs budgets, etc and bring my supervisor into the loop occasionally as a courtesy. Now a new supervisor is swapping in and I’m afraid my days of quasi-independence might be over. My usual routine of running things by him as a courtesy is met with “well I’ll need to think about it” or “let me talk to my boss” rather than the “sounds good to me Bob” that I’m used to. This might give me the motivation I need to get out of here.
That’s not a red flag. https://youtu.be/86URGgqONvA
If your old supervisor is still in the company, you might set up a meeting with the three of you to talk about the new supervisor’s transition to the role. Let your old boss tell the new boss he doesn’t need to waste time micromanaging you, and probably shouldn’t be pointlessly delaying your work.
Wise and logical advice.
Now a new supervisor is swapping in and I’m afraid my days of quasi-independence might be over.
“You want to WHAT?”
*Rolls out of sleep cubby. Blinks*
Night 909. Getting there.
Ken Bruen Into The Galway Silence **½ Run of the mill Jack Taylor novel, as Tundra touched on earlier some writers need to learn to end a series, this is the case here, also though he doesn’t hit you over the head with it there are signs of TDS and I’m just tired of the entire political world and want my reading to be free of even passing remarks about Trump or Brexit.
Stuart MacBride The Blood Road ***½ The exception to the above book 11 and still entertaining as hell
Joe Abercrombie Before They Are Hanged**** Book two of a sword and sorcery fantasy series, lots of tropes and stock characters but well written
Kevin McCarthy Wolves of Eden ***½ Murder mystery western with an interesting structure. It’s told from two points of view a first-person confession retelling the tale switches off chapters with a more common second-person account following a different character as the story happens.