richardderus's twentieth 2022 thread

This is Methuselah, who "resides in the Bristlecone Pine Forest of the White Mountains, California. The exact location of this tree is unknown to the public for safety reasons, but the tree is believed to be nearly 5,000 years old, and the oldest non-clonal tree in the world." (Reddit thread r/interestingasfuck)

Bristlecone pines (Pinus longaeva) live in the Great Basin of the US, a place unusual in that its rivers don't flow into the ocean anywhere. This unique environment has two very tall mountain ranges defining it: the Sierra Nevada in the west and the Rocky Mountains in the east. These trees live (damn near forever, it seems) between 6,500 and 11,000 feet (2,300 and 3,500m) in elevation. Often they will die in portions. As the roots become exposed they will dry out and die. The tree directly connected above those roots will eventually die as well. The remainder of the tree will continue to live. This is among the causes that create the twisted tortured look of the trees. It also may prompt the question "why do they take so long to die?" as opposed to "why do they live so long?"

The National Park Service site (linked above) says it best, secondo mi:

Like all plants in National Park Service areas the Bristlecone is protected. Unfortunately the selfish tradition of collecting anything unique has caused many agencies who protect Bristlecone Pines to keep secret the age and location of their older trees. This is also the case at Bryce Canyon National Park. This resource management attempt to protect ancient trees results in punishment of the visiting public in general. Think about this situation the next time you complain about a rule you feel is too restrictive on public land. Is there something that you can do to insure that other privileges are not also lost?

Thanks to Karen O. for suggesting this winter-appropriate and genuinely fascinating tree for a thread-topper! Take a gander at Wikipedia for more information and handy links to other resources.

For 2022, I upped my goal of posting an average of 4 or 5 book reviews a week on my blog to an annual total of 288. 2021's total of 229 (I need to do more to sync the data on my reads between my blog, Goodreads, and here this year for real NB this goal's officially dead because Goodreads has implemented its hideous user-unfriendly redesign and lost portions of my data) posts in 50 weeks of blogging shows it's doable.

I've long Pearl Ruled books I'm not enjoying, but making notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read has been less successful. I gave up. I just didn't care about this goal, but I need to learn to because I *re*Pearl-Ruled five books after not remembering picking them up in the first place. What I've decided to do is have post >7 richardderus: be the Pearl-Rule Tracking post!

And now that I've gotten >3 richardderus: Burgoineing as a habit, I'm going to make a monthly blog-only post with my that-month's Burgoined books. It will appear the last Sunday of each month.



My Last Thread of 2009 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2010 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2011 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2012 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2013 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2014 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2015 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2016 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2017 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2018 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2019 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2020 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.
My Last Thread of 2021 Is Here:
Reviews are back-linked there.

Reviews one through eight? Seek them thitherward.

Looking for nine through sixteen? Click that link!

Reviews seventeen up to twenty-six? You know what to do.

I know you think reviews twenty-seven to thirty-three are here...well, you're right, they are.

Seekest ye the reviews entitled thirty-four to thirty-eight? They anent just so.

I understand you're curious about thirty-nine to forty-seven. Go back there.

Longing to view reviews forty-eight to fifty-four? Advance towards the rear.

The reviews numberèd fifty-five through sixty-four are por detrás.

Sixty-five, -six, and -seven, eh? Seekest thou in arrears.

Sixty-eight up to seventy-four aren't hard to find by using that link.

There are reviews numbered seventy-five through ninety, you know. This post links you to them.

Ninety-one through one hundred ten? Try that link, it'll sort you out.

111 through 131? Go back there.

Those reviews numbered 132 up to 142 will be found at the linked post.

Reviews 143 up to 150 can be found in a specific post back there.

Oh, are you looking for 151 up to 165? Follow that link!

Interested in 166 on through 178? This post should be your goal.

So, it's reviews 179 up to 188, is it? This is a dry hole, go back there for links.

So, you missed 189 all the way up to 211, did you? Don't sleep on 'em forever!

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

224 Girl In Danger (Lucy Hall #2) worked, post 272.

223 Journey to Death (Lucy Hall #1) entertained, post 270.

222 Dead and Gondola (Christie Bookshop #1) pleased, post 232.

221 Punishment of a Hunter (The Leningrad Confidential series #1) railed, post 224.

220 Murder at Union Station (Mason Adler Mystery #2) worked better, post 128.

219 Murder on Monte Vista (Mason Adler Mystery #1) wasn't great, post 126.

218 Outside shoulda stayed in, post 98.

217 Devil Take the Hindmost rolled along, post 97.

216 Kibogo scintillated, post 83.

215 Paradise Cove (Roscoe Conklin Mystery #2) worked, post 74.

214 Diver's Paradise (Roscoe Conklin Mystery #1) made its nut, post 72.

213 Palmares delighted, post 56.

212 The Birdcatcher slammed, post 54.

Author 'Nathan Burgoine posted this simple, direct method of not getting paralyzed by the prospect of having to write reviews. The Three-Sentence Review is, as he notes, very helpful and also simple to achieve. I get completely unmanned at the idea of saying something trenchant about each book I read, when there often just isn't that much to say...now I can use this structure to say what I think is the most important idea of the read and not try to dig for more.

Think about using it yourselves!




NOVEMBER 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #79, Underdogs: The Novel (Underdogs #1), in post 154.

Burgoine #78, The Blue Macaw, in post 65.

Burgoine #77, A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1), in post 61.

Burgoine #76, The Blade Between, in post 60.

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OCTOBER 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #71 through #75, are in this post right here.

Burgoines #69 & #70 live in that post there.

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SEPTEMBER 2022's BURGOINES

All (through #68) are linked in this post right here.

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AUGUST 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #53 through Burgoine #58 are linked in this post right here.

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JULY 2022's BURGOINES

Burgoine #52, is in this post here.

#44 through #51, are linked in this post here.

#37 through #43, are linked in this post here.

JUNE 2022's BURGOINES

***

#37 through #43, are linked in this post here.

#36 is in thread twelve, post 279.

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MAY 2022's BURGOINES

#34 and #35 are linked in this post here.

#31 through 33 stay linked right here.

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APRIL 2022's BURGOINES

#25 through 30 are backlinked here.

#20 through 24 are backlinked in this post.

The first two for April are linked here.

MARCH 2022's BURGOINES

The last one for March is linked here.

The first 4 in March are back-linked here.

***

FEBRUARY 2022's BURGOINES (through #12) are linked here.

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JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES are linked here.

This space is dedicated to Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50, or "the Pearl Rule" as I've always called it. I just didn't care about this goal as a separate goal, but I need to learn to because I *re*Pearl-Ruled five books this December just passed after not remembering picking them up in the first place. I realized how close my Half-heimer's is getting to the full-on article. Hence my decision to really track my Pearl Rules!

As she says:

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit.

So this space will be each thread's listing of Pearl-Ruled books. Earlier Pearl-Rule posts will be linked below the current month's crop.



NOVEMBER 2022's PEARL-RULES

Pearl Rule #47, The Finder of the Lucky Devil, in post 67.

Pearl Rule #46, The Camel Driver, post 66.

Pearl Rule #45, Caspian's Fortune (Infinity's End #1), in post 62.

OCTOBER 2022's PEARL-RULES

Pearl Rules #43 & #44, live in a post found here.

Pearl Rule #41 & #42 live in this post right here.

SEPTEMBER 2022's PEARL-RULES

There weren't any! I love months like this.

AUGUST 2022's PEARL-RULES

Pearl Rule #37 up to Pearl Rule #40 are linked in this post right here.

JUNE & JULY 2022's PEARL-RULES

#36 is in this post right here.

Pearl Rule #33 through #35 are linked in this post here.

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MAY 2022's PEARL-RULES

#32 is linked in this post right here.

#31 is linked here.

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APRIL 2022's PEARL-RULES are backlinked here: post 75.

The first one in April is linked here.

***

MARCH 2022's ONLY PEARL-RULE

It's linked in right here.

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FEBRUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

***
JANUARY 2022's PEARL-RULES are here.

I've decided to use BookRiot's 2022 Read Harder Challenge as a spice-me-up of meeting my reading goals. Since I'll post 225+ reviews (posts aren't the same as reviews posted, as some posts cover as many as four books!) on my blog this year *easily* I think I need to get a little more pushy. I've set 288 reviews as the new goal.

This is the list:

1. Read a biography of an author you admire.


2. Read a book set in a bookstore.


3. Read any book from the Women’s Prize shortlist/longlist/winner list.


4. Read a book in any genre by a POC that’s about joy and not trauma.
   30 Things I Love About Myself FTW!


5. Read an anthology featuring diverse voices.


6. Read a nonfiction YA comic.
   The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is illustrated and that'll have to do.


7. Read a romance where at least one of the protagonists is over 40.

Flying Solo is close enough.

8. Read a classic written by a POC.


9. Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.
   Central Station was awarded to me on NetGalley in 2016!


10. Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+).
    The Fourth Courier, though sadly not a supergood read


11. Read a book with an asexual and/or aromantic main character.


12. Read an entire poetry collection.


13. Read an adventure story by a BIPOC author.
    We Could Be Heroes did the business


14. Read a book whose movie or TV adaptation you’ve seen (but haven’t read the book).
    Against the Ice: The Classic Arctic Survival Story out on Netflix now...saved the book for me, no smallest doubt.


15. Read a new-to-you literary magazine (print or digital).


16. Read a book recommended by a friend with different reading tastes.


17. Read a memoir written by someone who is trans or nonbinary.
    High-Risk Homosexual! What a read.


18. Read a “Best _ Writing of the year” book for a topic and year of your choice.


19. Read a horror novel by a BIPOC author.
    Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda is just flat terrifying!


20. Read an award-winning book from the year you were born.


21. Read a queer retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, folklore, or myth.
    Briarley FTW! I can start 2022 with one task accomplished.


22. Read a history about a period you know little about.
    The Plot to Seize the White House: The Shocking TRUE Story of the Conspiracy to Overthrow F.D.R. chilled me with its January 6th parallels only 90 years earlier.


23. Read a book by a disabled author.


24. Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!
    I choose 2018: Read a mystery by a person of color who is also LGBTQ+
    

I liked all of them except the comic and I'm still looking for GNs that don't make me want to scream and barf, so it's a good challenge.

I'm wondering if, in lieu of setting a numerical goal for Burgoines (see >6 richardderus:), I could just agree with myself to use the technique on 3-stars-and-under reads about which I don't much care and count them as reviews here. I've decided that I'll post 'em & collate them in each thread's post #6. Then I'll just blog 'em in gangs, once a month on the last Sunday in the month...I dunno, but I read a lot of books I don't talk about because someone loved it & I loathed it or just didn't care much about it, or I simply have no useful response...it filled time, it failed to offend or delight me. Is that information useful to anyone? Would you care if I did that and gored your reading ox?

I suppose we shall find out.

2021's five-star or damn-near five-star reviews totaled 28, a marked decrease from last year's 46. Fewer authors saw their book launches rescheduled, but publishers still had to cancel many of their tours and events because COVID-19. The inflationary pressure that supply-chain issues are exerting causes a lot of economic drag on the market, though there is as of yet a lot less trouble than I expected getting tree-book copies of things.

My annual six-stars-of-five read is Cove (my book review), a perfect, spare, evocative story of the pain of existing when you genuinely can't process what is happening to you, around you, despite your best and most well-practiced efforts there is just no righting the boat. I cannot stress enough to you, this is the book you need to read in 2022. I can not forget this read. I refer to it in my head, I think about its stark, vividly limned images. I am so deeply glad Author Cynan wrote it. To quote myself from my review: "This is the book I wish The Old Man and the Sea had been, but was not."

In 2020, I posted over 215 reviews here. In 2022, my goals are:

to post 288 reviews on my blog accomplished; on to stretch goal below

to post three-sentence Burgoines of books I don't either adore or despise

to complete at least 320 total reviews of all types accomplished! Yay me.

Most important to me again this year is to report on DRCs I don't care enough about to review at my usual level. I still don't want to keep just leaving them unacknowledged! There are publishers who want to see a solid, positive relationship between DRCs granted and reviews posted, and I do not blame them a bit. To 1 November 2022, I've posted all 288 reviews I wanted to; that makes the stretch goal of 320 seem attainable. Only 22 more to go, and I've already written 16 of them.

Ask and ye shall receive! 'Nathan Burgoine's Twitter account hath taught me. See >3 richardderus: above. I just need to keep getting better about *applying* it, being less prolix and more productive!

I'll be planning in this spot...though my plans all too seldom turn into reality, don't they.

The current plans for November/#Noirvember posts of DRCs from NetGalley
The Storyteller's Death by Ann Dávila Cardinal
Dead and Gondola by Ann Claire
Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell
Murder on Monte Vista by David S. Pederson
Murder at Union Station by David S. Pederson
Outside by Ragnar Jónasson

And from Edelweiss+
The Law of Lines by Hye-Young Pyun
City of Ash and Red by Hye-Young Pyun
Diver's Paradise by Davin Goodwin
Paradise Cove by Davin Goodwin
The Honjin Murders (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, #1) by Seishi Yokomizo
The Inugami Curse (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, #2) by Seishi Yokomizo
The Village of Eight Graves (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, #3) by Seishi Yokomizo
Death on Gokumon Island (Detective Kosuke Kindaichi, #4) by Seishi Yokomizo
***
Here we are in November 2022...thinking about 2023...and I'm already getting a weentsy bit anxious about my reading totals.

So so many DRCs to review. For 2022 I set a goal of 250 reviews of all sorts written and posted to my blog; blew past it, set 288; blew past it, set 320. I'll get there no sweat at all. So...*gulp*...given that reality, I've got to make next year a challenge as well, so...*gulp*...I'm setting my goal at 350 reviews of all sorts written and posted on my blog.

I haven't reviewed that many books in a year since the 1980s when I was doing the school thing.

Well, it's my goal so I can always re-set it if I need to. But it does feel ambitious. That's a good thing, right? ETA Maybe not so ambitious after all since I'm already at 342 reviews for 2022...but go look at >153 richardderus: for more musings.

I stole this from PC's thread in 2020. I like these prompts, so I've decided to re-do them every December!
***
1. Name any book you read at any time most recently that was published in the year you turned 18:
The Street Where I Live by Alan Jay Lerner (2010)
2. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long:
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird
3. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
St. Mary's and the Great Toilet Roll Crisis by Jodi Taylor
4. What is the last book you didn’t finish (and why didn’t you finish it?)
Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple & Anita Anand because I lost interest
5. What is the last book that scared the bejeebers out of you?
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard...how easy it is to fail, to do the wrong thing
6. Name the book that read either this year or last year that takes place geographically closest to where you live? How close would you estimate it was?
Horseman: A Tale of Sleepy Hollow by Christina Henry...Sleepy Hollow's about 100mi from here
7.What were the topics of the last two nonfiction books you read?
Queer people's history and the Quaker resistance to slavery
8. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book?
56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard which I managed to get several LTers and tweeple to pick up *buffs nails*
9. What was the last book you gave a rating of 5-stars to? And when did you read it?
Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray, a gay WWII-set retelling of Beauty and the Beast, that I finished this week (and reviewed!)
10. Name a book you read that led you to specifically to read another book (and what was the other book, and what was the connection)
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy was a #The1976Club read, and was so disappointing that I went on to read The Malacia Tapestry by Brian W. Aldiss to cleanse my reading palate
11. Name the author you have most recently become infatuated with.
Aster Glenn Gray
12. What is the setting of the first novel you read this year?
The Multiverse in Genevieve Cogman's Invisible Library series
13. What is the last book you read, fiction or nonfiction, that featured a war in some way (and what war was it)?
How to Catch a Vet; the Afghanistan War
14. What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation? And who was the LTer, if you care to say.
There isn't enough space for all the book-bullets y'all careless, inconsiderate-of-my-poverty fiends pepper me with (bold added for emphasis)
15. What the last book you read that involved the future in some way?
The Toast of Time is part of The Chronicles of St Mary's by Jodi Taylor, so it involves the future, the past, and the Multiverse
16. Name the last book you read that featured a body of water, river, marsh, or significant rainfall?
Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
17. What is last book you read by an author from the Southern Hemisphere?
Ife-Iyoku, Tale of Imadeyunuagbon by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki
18. What is the last book you read that you thought had a terrible cover?
Your Honor, it is my intention to assert my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to any and all questions pursuing this subject
19. Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die?
Brian Aldiss, 2017
20. What was the last children’s book (not YA) you read?
good goddesses, I don't remember...Goodnight Moon to my daughter?— STET
21. What was the name of the detective or crime-solver in the most recent crime novel you read?
Officially it's part of the Jack Lennon series, though he barely even appears in it, so The Ghosts of Belfast via Stuart Neville gets the nod.
22. What was the shortest book of any kind you’ve read so far this year?
The World Well Lost, ~28pp
23. Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?)
see #4. I just...quit caring.
24. What is the most recent book you added to your library here on LT?
see #9
25. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay by Marcus Rediker, art by David Lester

I liked Sandy's Bonus Question for the meme above, so I adopted it:

26. What is the title and year of the oldest book you have reviewed on LT in 2021? (modification in itals)
The Sleeping Car Murders by Sébastien Japrisot, 1962.

You've been so good, I'll give you a treat! First one in gets a crown!

Happy new thread, Richard
I'm now going to go & read the Bristlecone information properly.

Happy new one! Love the tree choice this go round. *smooch*

>10 Helenliz: Hiya Helen! You, lucky duck, get the pine crown!

...looks uncomfortable to me...

>11 MickyFine: Thank you, Micky! I'd say you'd be likely to enjoy the pine season but it's too cold there in 4-moose-drive-land for bristlecones....

*smooch*

Happy new thread, Richard dear!
I love all the trees you indroduced this year. This bristlecone pine is again a very special kind, living for so long!

Happy new one!

I'm here. Observing your twentieth thread opening of 2022. Always interesting stuff to take in. I tip my hat to you.

Hi, Richard! Lovely new thread (hooray for the Bristlecone!) Have a great weekend!

Karen O

Amazing trees! Happy new thread Richard.

>12 richardderus: I will enjoy wearing my green crown. It will probably endup lopsided and over one ear, but that's the wearer, not the crown.

>19 Helenliz: OIC...well, permaybehaps a little less Merlot this Yuletide....

>18 humouress: They are stunning to me. They colonized scary-bad soil and made that entire biome their own. Hats off, Pinus longaeva!

>17 klobrien2: There she is! The Lady of the Thread for giving me this idea!

A special pearly wreath for you, Karen O., in thanks for the great tip.

>16 weird_O: It's usually about now that things get interesting, it's true. Enjoy!

>15 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

>14 FAMeulstee: Umm...thank you, Anita (in a Dutch accent this time)!

The trees are absolutely incredible specimens of tenacity. I am endlessly astonished by them and can't help but wonder if one would adapt itself to the sand-bar life here next to the ocean....

>1 richardderus: 5,000 years old. Can you imagine?!? Amazing!

Happy new thread!

>22 Storeetllr: And I'm sure he remembers them when they were but seedlings ... *skedaddles speedily*

>22 Storeetllr:, >23 humouress: I can just dimly perceive how it feels to be 70 and I'm sliding onto that base a lot sooner than it seems possible for me to...so, nope. Can't even.

*smooch*

>23 humouress: I shall Loftily Ignore such lèse majesté.

Happy new one! That is an amazing tree.

>25 drneutron: Thank you, Rocket Man. Isn't the bristlecone an astounding creature?

Definitely is - I love the twisty lines of that first pic.

Wordle 510 3/6

🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
AEONS, MIRTH, MEDAL That was fun.

Happy new one, RD.

GBBO Thoughts
Okay, really, what the hell does anything matter, Janusz went home and deserved to but really what the hell's the point of this, this, long grim fun-less sun-less trudge to the grave without my Polish pudgypot sweetiedumpling?!

So the pâtisserie week signature bake was mini charlottes. Syabira made sloppy, gloopy peanut butter and blackberry jelly wodges, and Prue acted like the uber-posh PBJs were completely unprecedented in the history of kitchens. Sandro made regular-sized charlottes with banana stuff inside and managed to get through TWENTY-FOUR EGGS. Abdul's pistachio tiramisu was not decorated and sounded, of them all, like the one I really, really, really want to eat. Janusz's pansy-topped plum-mousse charlottes had a sloppy chocolate problem. (That's a side-splitting joke in gayworld.)

The technical was a vertical tart. (Now y'all straight folk need to sit me down and explain how a tart can be any.fun.at.all in a vertical position.) It went okay...Abdul came second and Sandro, not for the first time I'll wager, was bottom. Syabira's looked less good than Abdul's, TBH, but we luuuv Syabira so she wins.

The showstopper was a stack of almond cookies with some sugar work. I'm not kidding. In pâtisserie week. I'm not going into it.

Abdul won. Janusz...*sob*

On a truly catty note, what in the unholy name of Satan was the idea of Prue's "outfit"? It looked like she threw something from the rejects pile on because it wasn't smelly. The necklace was *appalling* and the lipstick went with precisely none of the rest of the "outfit". Admittedly she's 82 but good GODDESSES someone vet her choices before taping! Or get better lighting in her dressing room! Something, just don't let this happen again.
And here endeth the lesson.

>29 katiekrug: Merci, ma belle amie.

>27 drneutron: It's ART in the way it grew...and art for sure considering how long it took to cook!

Happy twentieth edition, dear fellow.

>32 PaulCranswick: Happy to see you, PC, and thanks!

Happy new thread, Richard!

>30 richardderus: I noticed Prue's outfit not at all, but liked Noel's sweater better than usual. I also was like... peanut butter and fruit is classic, obviously, this is what PB&J IS, no? The technical was kinda on the weird side, but props to Sandro for figuring it out partway through and still managing to put something together, messy though it was. Abdul's did have one fallen over, right? I think that might've been the small difference between his and Syabira's, but I'm not always great with the details and look of things, honestly (some of it is it doesn't translate perfectly to screen vs. seeing it in person and part of it is... well, do I care what it looks like if it tastes good? Not really). All of the showstoppers looked really impressive to my inexperienced eye. I am sorry to see Janusz go, though. His personality came through even with the lack of back story and you couldn't help but like him.

*covering eyes to avoid mention of the baking show that we won't get to watch for another couple of months (husband is currently trying to work out how to get coverage of the Carabao cup for football, so I might as well just wait for GBBO to go to air here)* Did you make a comment on my comment? Can't read your thread right now.

Happy new thread Richard

Happy new thread, Richard. I have GBBO envy so don't bother to look. Netflicks serves us up a Canadian wannabe baking show instead. As if!

>37 Familyhistorian: Oh my...I don't think I can even get the Canadian edition! I take it you're not impressed...?

>36 ArlieS: Thank you, Arlie!

>35 humouress: see >24 richardderus: and relax, everyone uses spoiler tags!

>34 bell7: Thank you, Mary, yes I noticed his poinsettia, too. Quite festive if a smidge early...but better than Dame Prudence's navy-blue shimmery thing. Looked like the nylon (!) sheets my mother bought, used once, and tossed the next morning. Syabira's vertical tarts are not going to live in my memory TBH but they were indeed all standing up.

They did look impressive, but they were cookie towers and calling that pâtisserie is just flat weird and wrong. Cookie towers! Um...no. Swedish cookies, it's true; but basically another damned almond-cookie recipe and frankly the whole idea is nonsensical in pâtisserie week! In light of this they had no leg to stand on raggin' on Sandro for his maxi charlottes! Oh well, this is a weird season. The Sticky Bun Boys are right...it's Syabira's to lose. I hope she has a great weekend next week. I'll be happy with any of these three as champs.

It's been a long time since I woke up from a nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep. I generally remember my dreams and that's always helped me process through any residual weirdness but this one vanished the instant I got my eyes open. I am left with a really uneasy feeling of forgetting something I should remember, which is a thoroughly nasty feeling indeed.

Anyway. Subconscious: If you read my thread, please deliver the message more directly and while I'm awake, please.

>39 richardderus: Noticed you were up at an irregular time, Richard dear.
Sorry is was a bad dream, that even didn't want to be remembered. I hope your subconcious does read you thread ;-)

It is a long time ago that I remembered any dream. I probably have them as once in a while I wake up with a similair feeling.

Happy new thread, RDear, and happy Saturday.

>1 richardderus: I love bristlecone pines. Yay to Karen O. for suggesting and you for showcasing them on this thread.

>5 richardderus: By all means gore my reading ox. *smile*

>24 richardderus: Next year I’ll know how it feels to be 70. 🤞

>39 richardderus: I rarely remember dreams, but I had one last year, pre-heart attack, that was so disturbing and laden with symbols that I actually recorded my description of it and then transcribed it.

*smooch*

Wordle 511 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, PLEAT, VALET ...and just exactly where is he this morning...

>41 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible, hope it's beautiful there. We got rid of the dank nasty and it's sunstruck but cold and windy. Oh boo hoo, pity poor me!

How weird to have that kind of dream out of nowhere! Since 1964, when I woke up from a horrible nightmare I still recall, I've mostly recalled my vivid, detailed dreams. They all sort of blur together, of course, as the years go by, but patterns emerge as distance grows. I had lots of soap-opera-y dreams in the 1970s. Much less so as the years roll by.

I hope your 70th birthday, aka the END of your 70th year, is smooth and pleasant and ushers in a decade of dreams coming true. (Not the bad kind, though)

>40 FAMeulstee: That dratted subconscious hasn't said a darn word to me all morning long. Fool of a thing.

All's I can hope for now is not to be blindsided by A Vision or something.

Happy New thread, Richard. What a stunning topper!

I got the same 2 last words as you did today in wordle.

>44 jessibud2: Hi Shelley! Thanks for stopping in.

I'm so pleased about those words and the way they just flowed together! It was a satisfying Wordle.

*smooch*

Happy Saturday, Richard. Happy New Thread! I LOVE the Methuselah topper. Wow! Cold here too. It will be stuck in the 30s, so I plan on hanging at the homestead. I need to catch up on some reading. I didn't get much done the last couple of days.

>46 msf59: Hi Birddude, thanks for the approval of Methuselah...ain't life astounding?! Almost 5,000 years of it and still chuggin' along.

Staying home always has such a lot of appeal for me that I'm amazed when people don't.

Happy new one! LOVE that topper. Can't imagine being around for 5,000 years. LOL Happy Saturday and happy reading!

Hi Richard, Happy New Thread dear friend.

Hi, Richard! Hope you're having a great weekend!

>50 Storeetllr: Greetings, Mary! Happy you're here. I'm doing what I do best: writing reviews. That makes it a lovely weekend indeed.

>49 johnsimpson: Thank you most kindly, John!

>48 Berly: Berly-boo! I'm so pleased to see you. What do you mean, can't imagine being around for 5,000 years? Cast your mind back to youth, back in the Pleistocene, on the shores of Glacial Lake Bonneville....

Hiya, RDear.

I've Wordled, had a few sips of coffee, am watching the birds at breakfast, and will start reading here in a bit. I had fun making a Wordle sentence again.

*smooch*

212 The Birdcatcher by Gayl Jones

Rating: 4* of five

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION FINALIST! Winners announced 16 November 2022.

The Publisher Says: Legendary writer Gayl Jones returns with a stunning new novel about Black American artists in exile

Gayl Jones, the novelist Toni Morrison discovered decades ago and Tayari Jones recently called her favorite writer, has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century. Now, for the first time in over 20 years, Jones is publishing again. In the wake of her long-awaited fifth novel, Palmares, The Birdcatcher is another singular achievement, a return to the circles of her National Book Award finalist, The Healing.

Set primarily on the island of Ibiza, the story is narrated by the writer Amanda Wordlaw, whose closest friend, a gifted sculptor named Catherine Shuger, is repeatedly institutionalized for trying to kill a husband who never leaves her. The three form a quirky triangle on the white-washed island.

A study in Black women's creative expression, and the intensity of their relationships, this work from Jones shows off her range and insight into the vicissitudes of all human nature—rewarding longtime fans and bringing her talent to a new generation of readers.

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

My Review: It's very odd to me that Gayl Jones's voice was silent in American English for over a quarter century. This novel was first published in German during 1986—more than thirty-five years ago—and, until Beacon Press decided to take up the baton of being her publishing champions, simply didn't exist in her native country. It's hard not to see this as the fruits of racism-turbocharged sexism.

That said, this read (nominated for a National Book Award for Fiction, the prize to be awarded tomorrow) is a challenge for most readers. It's very complex and demands focus to derive a full picture of what happens in it; this makes a looser, less organized second half much more effort to decode.

Author Gayl has made a beautiful and strange artist's colony on the Spanish Mediterranean island of Ibiza where we meet Amanda Wordlaw (a name that might be familiar to some with previous exposure to Author Gayl), a Black American writer, as she resumes an intimate and borderline transgressive relationship with sculptor Catherine and her husband Ernest. The couple are deeply enmeshed in a psychically and physically violent relationship. Catherine, suffering from depression and other psychiatric ills, periodically makes strange attempts on Ernest's life. After Catherine is institutionalized, Amanda—in flight from a husband and child of her own for unexplained reasons—becomes ever closer to crossing the line into an inappropriate relationship with scientist and strangely calm Ernest. By the time Catherine comes home to continue work on her magnum opus, "The Birdcatcher" of the title...will she or won't she keep trying to kill Ernest? Are her materials-use restriction for Ernest's safety or are they self-imposed? And what the heck's this other artist, a white lady called "Gillette" like the razors, doing in this book? She's just irrelevant to my eyes...and why is Catherine allowed out of her institution? She's very clearly not in any way improved in her quotidian functioning....

This is why I am rating the book four, not five, stars. The second half shifts narrators from Amanda (whose husband has a *very* peculiar, and I suspect metaphorical, um...physiology) and her ponderings to being all over the place. It's not expected, and it means I now need to re-establish my investment in the tale being told as well as bring that level of investment to people I do not quite think are as interesting as Amanda, Catherine, and Ernest.

It was a very interesting note to end on...Catherine's past as a political activist and racism fighter (while never integrated into the story but rather reported to us at the end) was a major missed opportunity to explore but, more than anything else, explains the role of Catherine's obsessive de- and re-construction of the title sculpture. Such a graceful and beautiful metaphor deserved more from Author Gayl's talented pen.

If Palmares is a lyrical, evocative allohistorical exploration of the roots of identity, The Birdcatcher considers the eternal impossibility of knowing another soul, of being fully in touch with one's own soul, when in the toils of a toxic system of racism, misogyny, and the marginalization of creativity as anything except a commercial pursuit. If you're up for doing some very involved thinking about the story you're reading, this is a worthwhile story to invest in. I really ended up surprised at how much more I wanted from these characters, and then how glad I was not to be given it.

>53 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible! I'm still caffeinating, so no Wordle yet. I'm posting reviews all around the town.

I didn't desire my oatmeal this morning. It really does get tedious but it is heart-healthy. So I'm solely liquid this a.m. I'm glad you reminded me of the Wordle-sentence idea Janet gave us! I'll have a go today.

*smooch*

>52 Berly: LOL

213 Palmares by Gayl Jones

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The epic rendering of a Black woman’s journey through slavery and liberation, set in 17th-century colonial Brazil; the return of a major voice in American literature.

First discovered and edited by Toni Morrison, Gayl Jones has been described as one of the great literary writers of the 20th century. Now, for the first time in over 20 years, Jones is ready to publish again. Palmares is the first of five new works by Gayl Jones to be published in the next two years, rewarding longtime fans and bringing her talent to a new generation of readers.

Intricate and compelling, Palmares recounts the journey of Almeyda, a Black slave girl who comes of age on Portuguese plantations and escapes to a fugitive slave settlement called Palmares. Following its destruction, Almeyda embarks on a journey across colonial Brazil to find her husband, lost in battle.

Her story brings to life a world impacted by greed, conquest, and colonial desire. She encounters a mad lexicographer, desperate to avoid military service; a village that praises a god living in a nearby cave; and a medicine woman who offers great magic, at a greater price.

Combining the author’s mastery of language and voice with her unique brand of mythology and magical realism, Jones reimagines the historical novel. The result is a sweeping saga spanning a quarter century, with vibrant settings and unforgettable characters, steeped in the rich oral tradition of its world. Of Gayl Jones, the New Yorker noted, “Her great achievement is to reckon with both history and interiority, and to collapse the boundary between them.” Like nothing else before it, Palmares embodies this gift.

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

My Review: Lyrical writing, exploring the roots of Identity, in an exoticized "Brazilian" setting that the author herself acknowledges is merely called Brazilian without deeply exploring Brazil or its extremely complex society.

There's been a lot of stick wielded at Author Gayl for this latter decision. She's not even trying to hide her lack of research. In a Callaloo interview is, directly and simply, her making her statement of an author's privilege to invent and create as needed for her art: "...there aren't any facts or stories that one could say really happened."

The flipside of that choice is, of course, the responses of Brazilian people to what comes across to them as appropriation of their culture for the entertainment of others. The loudest complaints are Dandara do Palmares, famously African, replaced by a white character with her name. An unworthy part of me really enjoys seeing this kerfuffle center on a Black woman creator in this context. Another part of me is slightly impatient with Author Gayl for bringing such fully warranted criticism on a story that, at its heart, is about the roots of identity in memory, a notoriously unreliable source of any sort of truth or fact. Then the problems with Spanish words in a Brazilian context...well, it wasn't particularly well-handled to be honest.

So what the heck am I doing giving it four stars?

Because this is a work of fantastical fiction, made by a writer in her own mind, and that to me is a different thing than an historical study, biography, or even conventional historical novel. The author isn't attempting to tell the story of the actual Dandara, but has made the choice to invent an entirely other Brazil that doesn't really resemble the real one. It was a choice. She made it up...and that is an artist's privilege. I'm not hugely interested in ownership arguments, as I see them as the wrong angle to take on the "who tells the stories" argument we, as a culture, need to have. The answer in my view: Bring diverse voices to the table, listen to all the voices you can find, and quit worrying about whose voice is saying things "wrong." That's not relevant to fiction...the story one wants to tell is either true to the spirit of the inspiration or not, but that's not "wrong" it's just something people whose identity is involved should bring up as a data point. I want to read stories, always; I usually prefer them to be true to the source that inspired them, but even that is negotiable.

This has a very direct and personal relationship to me, an older gay man, because so many...so! many!...books about gay men in relationships are written by straight women. They get things wrong. It's really inevitable...a few have done so in ways I found quite startling. But I'm not going to say they were wrong for "appropriating" my identity as a gay man because they didn't. They chose to tell a story about people like me without doing research? Okay...but I'm going to tell on you. What difference it makes is to the people who listen to me, and take my opinions for what they are: More or less informed, experienced in some areas, and where possible backed up by facts. (Opinions are of necessity based on facts as one understands them, but not wholly defined by them.)

Anyway. My point, and I do have one, is that I took on board the upset responses of actual Brazilians to the way Author Gayl used their history as a launching pad for this lyrical and flowing exploration of American Black slave identities, and still found much to admire and enjoy in the way the author told her unique, wholly fictional story.

I can't give it a full five stars, as some have done, because I found the longueurs of stream-of-consciousness writing obtruded into my ability to connect the story just that fraction of time too much for the experience to be fully immersive. It's possible the novel is just that touch too long for its story....Almeyda does not start out fully formed yet we're asked to invest in her as though she has...but, at all events, Palmares made me stay up too late and care enough to do it.

Wordle 512 3/6

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It's been AEONS since my MIRTH felt this INANE. Hmmm I think I'll need to up my game on this one.

Good morning, Richard. Using the same two beginners is going to make easy sentences hard to come by. Anyway, we are fellows in our Wordling 3-ness, and I wish you a fine day with a lot of good books. I'll have to come back later for your Gayle Jones reviews. I don't think I've tried her yet, but I've wanted to.
*smooch*

>58 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy! I'm glad we're in the 3boat. I'm pretty chill about the sentencing idea...if it stops working for me, out it goes.

Don't start your Gayl Jonesing here! Corregidora is the best entry-point IMO. Mmmaaaybe The Healing if you like the sound of it better. But these are the advanced-class reads for experienced followers.

Burgoine #76

The Blade Between by Sam J. Miller

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From Nebula Award winner Sam J. Miller comes a frightening and uncanny ghost story about a rapidly changing city in upstate New York and the mysterious forces that threaten it.

Ronan Szepessy promised himself he’d never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City’s distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge.

Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom’s wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become—overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable.

Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real estate developers aren’t the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan’s hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.

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

My Review: Whale ghosts.

Seriously. Whale ghosts! Go get the book already! What's that about the plot? Oh, okay: Ronan, our out and queer protagonist, comes home to Hudson, New York. He was roundly hated for being his gayboy self, but Things Have Changed and, well, I myownself call someplace homophobically stuffed turning into Boystown-meets-the-Tenderloin a Martha-Stewart level Good Thing. The whale ghosts, um...they are...weird, as expected. That was okay with me, too, since I like the cli-fi elements of the read.

We parted company when Ronan gets involved with his married ex-lover. I've been in that car crash and I do not like that trope.

Burgoine #77

A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses #1) by Sarah J. Maas

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a terrifying creature arrives to demand retribution. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she knows about only from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not truly a beast, but one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled her world.

At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

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

My Review: Romance? Really? This is what you're telling young women Romance is all about? I don't know, but to me this sounds like a Bad Thing.

Lots of damsel-being-rescued stuff, seriously squicky "I'm so dumb" self-talk, The Beast is mostly just a brat who needs a spanking, and in the end there's little or nothing in this fairy-tale retelling that adds a whit to the Disneyfied version of the story it's based on.

I do not like it. I would not recommend it to parents concerned about their daughter's internalizing pervasive misogyny. The writing is deft, but that even takes on a sinister cast because the message is just yuck-ick-ptui from giddy-up to whoa.

Pearl Rule #45 (20%)

Caspian's Fortune (Infinity's End #1) by Eric Warren

Rating: 3-ish disappointed stars of five

The Publisher Says: He needs a payday. He’ll settle for payback.

Betrayed and left to rot on the edges of the galaxy, Caspian Robeaux is deep in debt and stuck flying courier missions in an old rustbucket he can barely keep afloat. His only friends are an annoying robot named Box and a bottle of booze.

It’s a far cry from his once-promising military career, but Cas stopped caring a long time ago.

Things start to look up, though, when a stranger arrives and offers a lucrative job that Cas can’t refuse, with a payday big enough to change his fortunes permanently. His luck gets even better when Cas learns that the job might offer him the one thing he wants more than his next drink: A chance to clear his name.

But nothing in his life is ever that simple, and for a man trying to buy his way out of debt, the price of redemption might be too steep.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: There is a Serenity-shaped hole in my heart and I eagerly search for things to stuff into it. I loved the scruffy, "howinahell do we get outta this corner?!" vibe; I absolutely related to the search for the next payday just to keep the lights on and "keep flyin'" is a mantra I think most of us can relate to.

What turned me off was, in the end, I felt Cas was not particularly kind.

"I'm an engineer, I know how stuff works." He turned and made his way down the hallway, leaving her standing there. "But thanks for getting me out of my contract and for the repairs." He tickled the air with his fingers at her as he sauntered off in search of the nearest bar.

This woman tried to cheat him, and that merits a blow-off. But the whole vibe came across as unkind and that is something Mal never was. I stopped reading-reading at 20%, then, and skipped around to see what was going to happen. I checked out the Epilogue and, let's just say that I'm really, really glad I didn't read all the way through or I'd be incandescent and incoherent with outrage.

If you're okay with people abandoning their supposedly deeply-held principles, it's $3.99 on Kindle but...really?

Hmmm. Richard, I don't know, but for that serenity hole you might consider The Never-Open Desert Diner. I hope that Lullaby Road will be even better - leaner - but I haven't gotten to it. You looked at it once, I think.
Anyway, I am back with a bit of chagrin in that it's Gail Jones I'm remembering, not Gayl. Not at all the same thing!

>63 LizzieD: OMIGAWD Peggy!! Aussie-mystery-writer Gail Jones could not possibly be more different from Gayl Jones, and you'd've been so.very.lost. had you started one of the latter's books. Heh...I'm so glad you came back to share that with me, I needed that giggle.

I'll look at the desert diner! *smooch*

Burgoine #78

The Blue Macaw (Detective Valarie Garibaldi #1) by Ricky Ginsburg

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Officer Valarie Garibaldi, cancer survivor and heir to her cop father’s legacy, seizes an opportunity to fulfill his dream and earn her gold detective’s badge. A vacancy in the Ft. Lauderdale Police Department’s Homicide Unit is the twenty-six-year-old’s chance to prove to herself that she’d made the right choice between college, the beach, and the police academy. Partnering with veteran Detective Deesay Becerra, their first case together starts with a dead macaw–stuffed with millions in diamonds, and a murdered hooker–filled with heroin balloons. The body count ratchets up with the killing of two Miami Dolphins players, leaving the detectives no choice but to use one of their suspects as bait.

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

My Review: I don't think men should write sex scenes from women's points of view. We do not know what it's like. This was very obvious to me, again, and not a great start to my experience of this story. Add in a dead-in-a-gross-way female sex worker, a macaw that's been taxidermied by an amateur, and stakes I simply could not be less interested in, and this would've been a Pearl-Rule for me had it not had some silly, snappy dialogue...just enough to convince me to keep on.

Barely enough. But enough.

Pearl Rule #46

Pearl Ruled at 15%

The Camel Driver (Iron City #3) by Leonard Krishtalka

Rating: 2* of five

The Publisher Says: Paleontologist turned private investigator, Harry Przewalski, excavates the dirty underbelly of people's lives, unearthing sexual betrayals, treachery, fraud and murder buried beneath the science of petrified shards, skin and bones. Ultimately, he must face a brutal killing in his own past, when he fled to a desert war and came back with a gun and a license to detect.

A famous, 140-year-old museum diorama is vandalized—it depicts the ferocious attack by two lions on a North African courier crossing the Sahara on a dromedary. The belly of the taxidermied camel has been sliced open and a bundle removed, shedding bits of flesh from a child. Harry is hired to investigate the macabre history of the exhibit. The taxidermist has a grisly past: a sexual affair, a lover's betrayal, a lurid trial, and graves in Botswana and Tunisia plundered for human dioramas. The camel driver's skull and skin are mounted under his clothing. In a Paris museum, a dead archaeologist, a bloodstained journal, and the theft of a Neanderthal child's skull and teeth lead Harry to the stolen bundle—a scientific bombshell worth killing for in a murderous race for fame.

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

My Review: First, read this:

I knew the end had begun. I knew she had conceived in the night, that hours after our uncontrollable pleasure the milky seed would plow its inexorable route, intent of consummating the act.

I don't even care what comes after this. It can not justify my continued eyeblinks.

Pearl Rule #47 (18%)

The Finder of the Lucky Devil (Lucky Devil #1) by Megan Mackie

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Rune Leveau has a magical Talent for Finding things and a mountain of problems. Those problems get worse when she is approached by a charming, but dangerous cybernetically-altered corporate spy. When he says he wants her to help him find a wanted criminal called Anna Masterson, who went missing six years ago, it should be easy for a woman who's only special gift is finding things? The problem is Rune has a dangerous secret. She IS Anna Masterson, and the spy isn’t taking no for an answer.

St. Benedict has searched for the last six years for the Masterson Files, a computer program that is rumored to do the impossible, cast magic spells. Such a program would reshape the world. For his own reasons, he's determined to be the first to find it and the mysterious woman connected to it, Anna Masterson. Having exhausted his other options, he is left with a new hope that this Finder of the Lucky Devil can lead him to the prize he has sought for so long. But the Finder is proving difficult and he isn't going to take no for an answer.

Set in an alternate Chicago, where technology and magic are in competition with each other, this fast paced Cat-and-Mouse chase makes The Finder of the Lucky Devil a welcome addition to your urban fantasy/cyberpunk library.

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

My Review: Average-to-indifferent prose, stock characters, and absurdly overblown punctuation...seriously, never use double-exclams in a book ever...conspired to make this flimsily "altered" Chicago not worth the eyeblinks. In a publishing landscape where I can read Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines or absolutely anything by Ilona Andrews, there's nothing making this a good value proposition. Very disappointing to say, since more is better in urban-fantasy publishing only when it's good.

>61 richardderus:
I agree with you. This is not YA literature. It should be sold and classed as adult fantasy. What was Bloomsbury thinking when they published this as YA? Boggles my mind.

>68 benitastrnad: The shocking part, to me at least, is how many women are out there shoving this thing at teens! I mean, someone thinks I'm slightly too disrespectful to live peacefully because I think Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes, errrmmm, uninspiring prose and tedious stories and I spend a week digging out my inbox...but they peddle this pernicious poo all over and get away with it?!

Sexism is not a one-way street.

‘Morning, Rdear. Happy Monday to you.

>61 richardderus: Yikes. Seriously a no-go. And of course, a 19-year old can save an entire kingdom while being all fiery in her passion for the brat. I’ve read a lot of books like this, always excepting the faerie land bits.

>62 richardderus: There is a Serenity-shaped hole in my heart and I eagerly search for things to stuff into it. Sigh. Me, too. This one’s a hard pass, though. Thanks for even taking part of one for the team.

>63 LizzieD: Ah, Peggy, a BB on RD’s page. I just ordered a used copy from Amazon.

>65 richardderus: Carl Hiaason wanna-be?

>67 richardderus: Ewwww. Even what the Publisher says is gross to me, much less your example of why you abandoned it.

*smooch*

>70 karenmarie: Hi Horrible! Ain't that a sad thing...so much mediocre-to-bad stuff out there competing with the good? It's one reason I even say yes to many of the stories I agree to consider. "Stay away!" is as valuable a review as "Go get this one!"

Hopefully we can find some more Serenity-shaped things to stuff into the aching void.

Anyway, have a lovely Monday doing the things.

214 Diver's Paradise (Roscoe Conklin Mystery #1) by Davin Goodwin

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: After 25 years on the job, Detective Roscoe Conklin trades his badge for a pair of shorts and sandals and moves to Bonaire, a small island nestled in the southern Caribbean. But the warm water, palm trees, and sunsets are derailed when his long-time police-buddy and friend back home, is murdered.

Conklin dusts off a few markers and calls his old department, trolling for information. It’s slow going. No surprise, there. After all, it’s an active investigation, and his compadres back home aren’t saying a damn thing.

He’s 2,000 miles away, living in paradise. Does he really think he can help? They suggest he go to the beach and catch some rays.

For Conklin, it’s not that simple. Outside looking in? Not him. Never has been. Never will be.

When a suspicious mishap lands his significant other, Arabella, in the hospital, the island police conduct, at best, a sluggish investigation, stonewalling progress. Conklin questions the evidence and challenges the department’s methods. Something isn’t right.

Arabella wasn’t the intended target.
He was.

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

My Review: Living in New York for as long as I have done, I found the detective's name...Roscoe Conklin (no "g")...very humorous. I also appreciated the setting, little-used Dutch possession Bonaire, particularly fun. Author Goodwin evokes island life, with its on-top-of-each-other intimacy and its high stress on reputations and their value, absolutely spot-on at every turn. (My own island residence isn't tropical, but it's very much that way exactly.)

I do actually, in this case, agree that these two books can be read in any order and you won't miss out on any connections or subtleties. I'm usually a very by-the-order kind of a reader.

The sleuth, Roscoe, is a mensch...salt of the earth...a solid, do-right kind of guy. For all that, someone's got a grudge against him. I suppose that's pretty inevitable for the cops of the world. What isn't inevitable, I hope, is the somewhat slapdash way Roscoe and his island love Arabella (a cop, not a retired one) treat clues and miss seeing some important ones (eg, friend Tiffany's boyfriend's a domestic abuser among other things). That's where that missing star went.

One thing I found particularly endearing was retired Chicago PD detective Roscoe explicitly says he wants to get to the truth of the matter, that being the only way he'll be safe and able to keep Arabella and his other island friends safe from tbe violence that's followed him there. That really made me like the author and his creation that little bit more.

Morning, Richard. I hope you had a fine Sunday. It is currently 22F out there. Winter is here. Of course, I have Trail Watch duties today, so I be traipsing around out there in it but as long as I am moving.

I may have to give The Birdcatcher a try someday. BTW- Good review!

215 Paradise Cove (Roscoe Conklin Mystery #2) by Davin Goodwin

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Every day is paradise on Bonaire—until something unexpected washes ashore

On the laid-back island of Bonaire, every day is paradise until a seaweed-entangled human leg washes ashore. Combing the beach, retired cop Roscoe Conklin examines the scene and quickly determines that the leg belongs to the nephew of a close friend.

The island police launch an investigation, but with little evidence and no suspects, their progress comes to a frustrating halt. Then, thanks to a unique barter with the lead detective, Conklin finds himself in possession of the case file. He can now aggressively probe for his own answers.

Sifting through the scant clues, eager to bring the killer to justice, Conklin struggles to maintain forward momentum. He has all the pieces. He can feel it. But he’d better get them snapped together soon.

Otherwise, the body count will continue to rise.

The novels in the Roscoe Conklin Mystery Series stand on their own and can be read in any order.

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

My Review: The awfulness of a friend's loss is hard to bear. Roscoe, our hilariously yclept detective, has that experience in spades when Erika, the lovely Bonaire native who runs...well, let's be honest, his entire life on Bonaire...loses her nephew whom she raised from childhood.

Roscoe is for sure gonna get deep into this case. He found the young man's leg on the beach. Yes, his leg...singular...and unattached.

Foul play is suspected.

What ensues is, as expected, Roscoe dealing with the Bonaire cops (in the form of his love interest Arabella) though, this time at least, he also has to deal with the Top Cop. As a client, as it happens...there's some whiff of shenanigans between the Inspector's wife and...well, that would be telling.

As much a tropical cozy as a procedural novel, the series is going to give you a lovely trip to Bonaire right as it's getting cold for #Noirvember here in the Global North. As the author lives in Wisconsin (!), one assumes he's there under eiderdowns and wearing Thinsulate gloves as he pecks these tales out with a pencil eraser-side-down in each claw-shaped frozen hand, tap-tap-tapping as he drifts away dreaming of being Roscoe.

I read these books back-to-back, and that was a mistake on my part. There are details in each, and the same sort of details, that go unnoticed and un-dealt-with in resolving the crime. There is not a huge sense of urgency in Roscoe's investigative technique...even when the dead person is someone close to his found-family circle. Everyone who needs to be found out is, and that is why I awarded the full fourth star to what otherwise would've been a three-and-a-half star read.

Space the reads out, don't binge, and make your experience mood-dictated, and you will have a lovely read indeed.

>73 msf59: Hi Birddude! 22° is about our windchill...it's windy and 39° outside. Trail watch duty actually sounds like a great way to spend a pretty winter's day.

I think you'd probably bounce off The Birdcatcher, TBH, and really don't think there's enough *need* for you to put yourself through it. Try Corregidora, though. More of it connects in satisfying story-arcs.

Wordle 513 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, MEALY, MAPLE Solid word!

>57 richardderus: I got it in 3 also.

>77 thornton37814: It was a good puzzle-day, that one.

>54 richardderus:
>55 richardderus:
I was not aware of Gayl Jones, so thank you for these recs.

>61 richardderus:
I *am* aware of Sarah Maas, but after the first two "Throne of Glass" novels concluded that I am immune to her charm. The Thorns & Roses series does not sound more appealing.

Roscoe Conklin sounds interesting, though.

>79 swynn: Oh yay! Go into your Gayl-force winds with a high heart and a strong ball of twine to use for clews. I say La Maas isn't someone worthy of our attention when she's perpetuating such depressingly bad stereotypical "girlie" behavior.

Roscoe (or "R" as he's addressed in the books) is perfectly fine and dandy as a popcorn book/series. Make no serious investments!

Glad to see you, Steve!

>61 richardderus: Totally with you on this one and all of this type of book.

>81 Storeetllr: It's just revolting. I strongly disapprove of all of it!

*smooch*

216 Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga (tr. Mark Polizzotti)

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION FINALIST!

It's my annual six-stars-of-five read!
Rating: 6* of five

The Publisher Says: In four beautifully woven parts, Mukasonga spins a marvelous recounting of the clash between ancient Rwandan beliefs and the missionaries determined to replace them with European Christianity.

When a rogue priest is defrocked for fusing the gospels with the martyrdom of Kibogo, a fierce clash of cults ensues. Swirling with the heady smell of wet earth and flashes of acerbic humor, Mukasonga brings to life the vital mythologies that imbue the Rwandan spirit. In doing so, she gives us a tale of disarming simplicity and profound universal truth.

Kibogo's story is reserved for the evening's end, when women sit around a fire drinking honeyed brew, when just a few are able to stave off sleep. With heads nodding, drifting into the mist of a dream, one faithful storyteller will weave the old legends of the hillside, stories which church missionaries have done everything in their power to expunge.

To some, Kibogo's tale is founding myth, celestial marvel, magic incantation, bottomless source of hope. To white priests spritzing holy water on shriveled, drought-ridden trees, it looms like red fog over the village: forbidden, satanic, a witchdoctor's hoax. All debate the twisted roots of this story, but deep down, all secretly wonder--can Kibogo really summon the rain?

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

My Review: Come and sit down. Settle in for a winter afternoon's pleasure-reading of someone else's culture's stories. This novella-in-stories is, in under 150pp or about three hours'-worth of reading, going to tell you about Rwanda. Not the country that threw itself a genocide in 1994. The foreign colony undergoing coerced christianization, the colonizers whose need for men and food to fight a war on another continent was the only thing they saw, the people of Ruanda-Urundi whose bodies and souls were the raw material and the means of production but never just themselves. What happens when Nature decides to withhold her usual munificence and deny Mankind her fecundity is always very, very educational to the mass of the people.

What Kibogo does, then, is tell you the stories of the people. They're funny, they're poignant, they're sometimes befuddlingly different from our Global Northern expectations. But they are alive, they sing on the pages of this book, they make their world felt and heard and seen through Author Scholastique Mukasonga's careful, gentle, unsparingly honest eyes. Translator Mark Polizzotti comes in for a heap of praise as well. I could hear Author Scholastique speaking to me, and he is the reason I wasn't slugging through the book with La Petite Larousse ten centimeters from my elbow at all times.

Kibogo is a god, a divine creature whose rule over Ruanda's people is challenged by the Catholic priests. If you know anything about that religion, the focus of worship is what they start with changing...Jesus, not Kibogo...while syncretizing as much of the pre-christian myth structure and storytelling architecture as possible. In the event, who's the god isn't always clear...it comes down to the name one calls when one is in extremis...and that name can surprise even the caller.

The worst part of believing in a super-natural being, a creature above the natural world we must perforce inhabit, is that there is always, always a loose end to tuck in, a wrinkled page to smooth out and make readable. When a man works to make this his life's gift to the world, he neglects the woman whose gift the world is in: No birth happens without a man and a woman agreeing to make it happen. The issues for the Ruandan god's bride and the Catholic church's groom grow urgent. Both seek a spirit, see a world for what it has and can be made into; the world, meanwhile, just Is. How can this end except in tears? Watch and learn, people without belief.

Or just follow Author Scholastique as she, seeming as bemused as the rest of us, watches the borning Rwandan African attempts to put flesh on the hollow bones of ancestral skulls. It is here that I felt the sting of tears as, not free of sarcasm, Author Scholastique offers up the flesh of a bumbling, pompous Western world in sacrifice to the simple, bright, carnivorous land we all must share. The land is the only god worth worshiping because it is the only god we can touch and who responds to us, who feeds our families and accepts our worn-out remains for its eventual reuse, recycling what can not be reduced more than it is by the myriad eating mouths and excreting guts of Life.

This was a rare, perfect reading experience for me. It came exactly when I wanted and needed it. It answered some call I made, unknowing, as I looked for a reason for winter's cold and brilliance not to weigh me down. Thank you for it, Author Scholatique, Translator Polizzotti, and Archipelago Books via Edelweiss+. Gifts of this great value come when they're most needed.

Wordle 514 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, SNARK, SNARL Ha! Fun.

>84 richardderus: Took me five, but I got there as well.

>61 richardderus: Okay, so, not that I'd have my young teenage (hypothetical, I hasten to add) daughter read this, but for what it's worth in the second book you do indeed see that Tamsen is a spoiled brat and not at all who Feyre is supposed to end up with. But all of that series is much more romance set in fantasy land than a true fantasy with a side of romance.

>85 bell7: I shall take your word for it, Mary, and allow La Maas to slide under the bridge over my reading-waters. *waves adieu*

Anyway, 5 is a perfectly fine result on the Wordle front. We're all keeping up with the world trends, anyway! *smooch*

>84 richardderus: Yes, it was a fun puzzle today, wasn’t it?! Congrats on your four—it took me five, but I was very happy with that!

Good day to you, sir!

Karen O

>87 klobrien2: Spend your Tuesday well, Karen O.!

*smooch*

Great review of Kibogo, Richard. It immediately landed on my obese TBR. 👍👍

>83 richardderus: What Mark said in >89 msf59:

I will definitely look out for that one, dear fellow. I read and enjoyed, if that is the right word, The Barefoot Woman earlier in the year.

GBBO Thoughts
Really.

Are you fucking kidding me?!

Craptastic work from 'em all and Syabira won because...well, because.

>90 PaulCranswick: They couldn't possibly be more different, PC, so have no fear of Author Scholastique.

>89 msf59: Oh yay! I'm so pleased because it is just that good.

Nancy Pearl does a live reading of Library Girl: How Nancy Pearl Became America's Most Celebrated Librarian!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGWps_v5p7s

>93 richardderus: Thanks for that!!

Hiya, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you. Yesterday got away from me, but I’m back.

>72 richardderus: Ya got me. Kindle for $1.99, not a bad deal at all and it sounds like my usual cuppa.

>74 richardderus: Unfortunately, $11.49 for the second book in the series is a bit rich for my blood right now. I’ll add it to my wish list and not worry about it, especially as you recommend spacing the reads out.

>83 richardderus: And onto the wish list it goes. I love the book cover.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

217 Devil Take the Hindmost by Martin Cathcart Froden

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A gripping historical noir set during the amphetamine-fuelled craze for velodrome racing which took London by storm in the late 1920s.

Into this world stumbles Paul, a bewildered Scottish farmboy running away from home. Powerfully built with a fierce passion for cycling, he is taken under the wing of Silas, a local loan shark, and from there enters a world he is ill-equipped to survive.

As the races get harder, the bets get larger, and the terrifying Mr Morton starts to take an interest in Paul's career. For fans of Peaky Blinders and Brighton Rock, Devil Take the Hindmost is a thrilling ride through a historical London that is rarely visited.

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

My Review: So, you've read the synopsis. You've seen the way the parade's headed. And, you clever thing, you've seen my rating. Why isn't it up to a four?

Because it was a very good story that didn't need to make Silas, the intermediary between the owner and the athlete, have a queer passion for the athlete to make its point.

It's not like it never happens. There's an entire subsection of M/M romances based around this plot. But those are *reciprocated* queer feelings. These, with the best will in the world, are not. I hasten to say this isn't ever promised to us. It's never even said out loud in the story's description. It's still there, though, one gets the little tickle behind the eyeballs that means either excess pollen or gay subtext is in the blurb's air.

Then we get to the story itself. To the author's credit there isn't a lot of dishonesty in the presentation of the gay subtext. It's there, it's known...just nothing comes of it. So, though I found this oft-told tale well done, and the author's gift for dialogue pretty darn decent, this story suffers from the same thing that My Policeman suffered from: Yes, in the 2010s; not so much in the 2020s.

What led to a whole star-and-a-half going back onto the rating is the way the athlete, a raw innocent from the nowhere that was Scotland in the 1920s, simply doesn't care about the man who's in love with him being a man. I mean, it's not for him, but it's also not a problem because they're really good friends and that's what he values the most. The ending, which did not surprise me one bit, did satisfy me. I was completely comfortable with the way Author Froden sent these characters off into the world to meet their destinies. Why? Because, in every case, there was a powerful sense of each one grabbing the power to *create* that ending. Win, lose, or draw, each character earned their destiny.

Nothing whatever wrong with a revenge story, in my book at least.

218 Outside by Ragnar Jónasson (tr. Victoria Cribb)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Four friends. One night. Not everyone will come out alive . . .

When a deadly snowstorm strikes the Icelandic highlands, four friends seek shelter in a small, abandoned hunting lodge.

It is in the middle of nowhere and there's no way of communicating with the outside world.

They are isolated, but they are not alone . . .

As the night darkens, and fears intensify, an old tragedy gradually surfaces - one that forever changed the course of their friendship.

Those dark memories could hold the key to the mystery the friends now find themselves in.

And whether they will survive until morning . . .

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

My Review: Short, intense, and darkly atmospheric novella by one of Iceland's most valuable exports.

This honestly feels like a climactic scene from a longer novel that Ragnar didn't think was working, but it was just too darn good to let go to waste. We join the dramatis personae in medias res, we experience the building tension of a climax, and then...that was it...? Abrupt ending that doesn't do a lot of explaining, at least to me. It makes the whole exercise of reading the book just a bit frustrating to invest in the idea of this kind of pressure-cooker plot and then...stop.

I think everyone over 21 knows that we're defined by our worst moments, our biggest lapses of judgment. (If there are kids in your life, you *really* know this!) And we all know there are people in our lives whose place is more theirs by habit than by any desire on your, often nor their, part. People change and when we're young we think that won't matter. It's only as the weight of coping with our own lives becomes more and more demanding that we realize the weight of carrying someone whose place in our life is no longer a good investment of our energy.

The problem for me, in reading this chilling short take, is that these emotions are so common to all adults that to see them turned into a justification for chillingly, cruelly premeditated murder is asking me to go a bit farther than I'm generally prepared to go. The murderer in this piece is so coldly obsessed with a terrible event that no other thing can be allowed to enter their mental sphere.

Sociopaths aren't delightful company, and the ugliness of the murderer's interior is too much the focus of the story for me to get anything I wanted in the way of understanding out of the read. I left as revolted as I entered, and that's not a good reult for me.

>95 karenmarie: Happy Tuesday, Horrible! I agree with you about the second book in the Roscoe series. Wait for a sale.

Kibogo is a terrific read indeed. Judging a book by its cover pays off once in a way, no?

Yesterday was a week of a day for us all. *smooch* for a smoother Wednesday.

>94 Berly: Yay! I'm glad you enjoyed it, Kimmers.

Wordle 515 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, RAWER, BAKER

>55 richardderus: Agree re the oatmeal.

>72 richardderus: Death in Paradise vibes?

>79 swynn: I gave up after the first 'Throne of Glass' as ridiculously improbable.

>101 humouress: #55 depressing stuff.

#72 Absolutely! Just not quite as quick-witted.

#79 U.G.H.

>102 richardderus: >55 richardderus: Oh, once in a while I really look forward to the stuff (the proper cooked for hours, Scottish type) but I can't do it on a daily basis. I'm currently still recovering from a stint last year when I was trying it every day to get my cholesterol levels down ... but I'm thinking about it again.

>103 humouress: I take fatbuster pills. (Triglycerides, not cholesterol, is apparently my enemy.)

I use it as an excuse to eat butter on the oatmeal I gag down since, as I'm taking these damned pills anyway, they might as well do me some good.

I'll be back. Gotta run!

*smooch* - to be going on with

>105 LizzieD: *smooch*catching program: Engaged!
***
Now...I don't want to alarm anyone...but I, the real me, the one who's lived in this poetry-hating skull for *mumble*ty-three years now, has requested of his own volition and absent pressure, threats, or applications of coercive pain, a
SINGLE-AUTHOR POETRY COLLECTION
and been granted access to same by its apparently-desperate publisher, Tin House Books: Trace Evidence by Charif Shanahan

Poetry? You? I can’t wait to read your coming review.

Happy as-we-used-to-say Hump Day! *smooch*

>107 Storeetllr: I am not a little surprised at myself and am frankly gobsmacked at Tin House!
***
I saw this on Facebook.

How high is "up"?

>106 richardderus: wow. Well I look forward to hearing about your reaction to that.

>109 Helenliz: "Buyer"s remorse has already set in, Helen. What the heck was I thinking?!

I guess we'll all find out what I think when its turn comes at the top of the pile.

>108 richardderus: Well, don't I just wish. I'd be a millionaire, and that's an underestimate.

Happy Wednesday *smooches* and looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the poetry book.

>111 bell7: My thoughts are, to date:

>112 richardderus: Hahahahaha

I am sorry it's... hmmm, being its poetry self. But you did make me laugh out loud with that picture.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>106 richardderus: Are you sure you are you? Starting with a whole collection is ambitious!

>108 richardderus: LOL I would be a very, very rich woman ;-)

>108 richardderus:- I would not be as rich as most of you but I think Stasis would be the richest!

*smooch*

I'm here, just not very talkative :)

Sweet Thursday, Richard. We are still stuck in early winter mode, with a frigid weekend ahead. Of course, this will limit my birding but not my Jackson time. I will see him this afternoon. Good luck with that poetry collection.

>108 richardderus: A millionaire, dude!!

‘Morning, RDear, happy Thursday to you.

>97 richardderus: Pass. *shrug*

>98 richardderus: I think everyone over 21 knows that we're defined by our worst moments, our biggest lapses of judgment. (If there are kids in your life, you *really* know this!) God, yes.

>103 humouress: and >104 richardderus: I finally went on Zetia for my cholesterol – a non-statin med – and had a heart attack a year later. I also now take 40 mg of atorvastatin 1x a day and my cholesterol and triglycerides are excellent. I should have given in and taken atorvastatin years ago as my doctor recommended. Would it have prevented my heart attack? Don’t know. But once I got on a dose that didn’t give me some of the awful side effects, it has done a great job.

>106 richardderus: As you questioned where the real karenmarie went when soccer got mentioned on my thread, I question where you’ve hidden our dear Richard. Poetry? The only thing worse would be poetry by Chuckles the Dick.

>108 richardderus: Well. That was an entertaining hour and a half to get my Books Read since 2008 up to date. 2013 through 2022 so far = 1,124 books = $1,124,000.00. I’d take it in a heartbeat.

>112 richardderus: Oooh, I like that.

*smooch*

Burgoine #78

Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends' abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.

Adèle grew up in the shadows—first watching from backstage at her mother's Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father's manor. When she's finally sent away to boarding school in London, she's happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors.

Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele's new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adèle save herself from the same fate as those she protects?

With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.

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

My Review: First, read this:

“Why do you think, when women tell the stories of their lives, they end with marriage? It is not a happily ever after, chérie, only the end of happiness?”

In its bitter essence, Jane Eyre is a terrible, horrifying account of a cruel and controlling man's determined efforts to get the twisted things he most desired from the women he surrounded himself with. They had little choice in the matter. He exerted a charm, I'm told, in his "masterful" handling of them. I don't see it, myownself...Bertha or Jane, makes little difference, he was an archetypal narcissist in pursuit of minions.

I honestly forgot Adèle's existence in the original. Not a single scintilla of memory creased my cranium about her...how typical...and thus, when I got this book, I was in essence introduced to her for the first time. Her story is very affecting. I think it's a great shame that Adèle came into my awareness as a victim. Yes, she uses her victimhood to achieve something good as the Villainess, righter of wrongs and leveler of abusers. But there's a passage where her treatment of a loving soul, and her response to a shocking and disgusting betrayal, that just...rang so hollow to me. Her drive was always mitigated by her fears, as whose is not?, but her behavior is hard for me to mentally count as redemptive.

The resolution of the story is condign. It didn't hit the wrong notes so much as it simply played them too fast, too loud, and failed thus to distract me from my edge of unbelief. It's a fine book to give to your feminist granddaughter or romantically challenged niece.

>118 karenmarie: Heh. Hi Horrible. As an example of "this is as awful as anything can ever get," I think poetry by Chuckles the Dick is pretty much The Winner.

I'm not having any trouble at all with the 600mg/day of Lopid I've been taking for years. Thank goodness!

#108 would have me a hair over $3.5MM for the LT years. I'm quite happy with that.

#112 is funny, in a "hmmm" kind of a way, isn't it?

*smooch*

>117 msf59: We're in the same bubble, Mark...cold weather more like mid-December is here through the Turkey Holocaust. I'm okay with it...my going outside is entirely voluntary at this point.

>116 katiekrug: Hiya Ghostie! I mean Katie! I'm glad you're here, talking or not.

>115 jessibud2: Yes, Stasia could probably settle the national debt of Peru with a few months' reads. I get it, though I can emulate it.

>114 FAMeulstee: A poem or two would never get read, Anita. I'd look at the line forms and simply turn the page or click the "next" button. If I've said I'll read it, I now must.

But I am dreading it.

Happy Thursday!

>113 bell7: I'm glad you liked the funny, at least, though your empathy tank needs topping up...I'm suffering here! Where are my sympathetic noises and kindly pats?!

Wordle 516 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, THERE Pretty darn spiffy.

>108 richardderus: How high is "up" indeed. I haven't kept records of everything I read throughout that period. I'll guesstimate 100 books a year - more than I report on this group, but I haven't been counting rereads. That gives me a round $1 million. Not rich by today's inflationary standards, particularly if it all gets taxed as income in the same year, but not poor either.

>123 ArlieS: I don't think of any number of millions as a bad thing to get, honestly. I'm too old to care about being rich. Comfortable is enough for me.

>1 richardderus: I love Methuselah.

219 Murder on Monte Vista (Mason Adler Mystery #1) by David S. Pederson

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: It’s 1946, and on a hot spring night in Phoenix, Arizona, things are only beginning to heat up at the Monte Vista Road home of flamboyant decorator Walter Waverly Wingate.

Private detective Mason T. Adler isn’t thrilled to be turning fifty, and the party Walter throws him makes him even more uncomfortable. Walter has arranged a special birthday present for Mason: a private hour with the handsome, young Henry Bowtrickle in Walter’s upstairs bedroom. But the night turns deadly when his birthday gift turns up murdered.

The room was locked, no way in or out, and only Henry and Mason were inside. Mason Adler is on the case, but he is also a suspect, along with the other assorted party guests who were all downstairs at the time of the stabbing. Or were they?

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

My Review: What I expect from a first-in-series mystery is simple: Let me know what this world is about; let me in to the characters' interrelatedness; and tell me what kind of crimes we're going to be dealing with.

Can't say I didn't get all those things...a little bit too much of 'em.

The story is of Mason Adler, newly fifty gay man, and his social circle: gal-pal Lydia, long-term frenemy Walter, and cop Emil. Various peripheral people step a measure before us, but no one else really matters. The main thing about a series mystery is the series, not the mystery, and that very much comes true here. By the halfway mark there's no body worth mentioning. Things are slowly unfolding, and the tensions of Mason Adler's life are lying before us prior to a murder accelerating the plot.

Possibly one of the most mean-spirited murders I've ever encountered, spite and envy fueling the circumstances that enable the murder to take place, and then the dead body comes in for a lot of muffled amusement because of how the whole plot evolved. There wasn't much to recommend the dead one, but there was little enough to recommend a lot of these people.

Phoenix, Arizona, is a place I've never, ever wanted to be the few times I've been there. I dislike deserts. I was transported to Phoenix circa 1946 with the author's major characters. It was darn near told in real-time vignettes. I got the sense of the oppressive, horrifying heat, the blasting, battering sunshine, the dreadful helplessness of life in this kind of nightmare before home air conditioning was ubiquitous in the US. (Even with air conditioning I don't want to be in Phoenix or any other desert city. Or town. Or hamlet. Or structure. Or outdoor space.)

So there was that going against the read. The pluses were the economy of the author's characterization. He needn't linger over loving descriptions because he chooses the details that actually matter and doesn't linger on them. He also doesn't clutter up my mental landscape, choosing instead to focus on the telling details. It was a way of bringing me a vivid, textured experience without using a lot of words to do it.

But at the end of the read, I was just...repelled...by the murder's cruel, appalling conception. (Murder will never not be cruel! I'm going on about the *circumstances* not the act.) The person whose life was taken didn't get, in life or after, near enough sympathy. Then there's the person whose idea erected the framework for the murder...I truly do not ever want to see that person in this series again.

I'll certainly move on to the next entry in the series. I won't be likely to revisit this one, though.

>125 Caroline_McElwee: Good morning, Caroline (why on Earth did no one tell me I'd typed the wrong name?!)! I'm so glad you're in Methuselah's fan club. I think he's gorgeous.

Lovely-weekend wishes winging your way!

220 Murder at Union Station (Mason Adler Mystery #2) by David S. Pederson

Rating: 3.8* of five

The Publisher Says: Phoenix, May 6, 1946

At close to midnight in the Union Station baggage room, the air is hot, still, and thick. The eleven forty-five Golden State Limited to Los Angeles is approaching rapidly when the baggage handler, Alfred Brody, notices a stray hound dog sniffing around one of the steamer trunks. The horrific discovery of a body inside the trunk can mean only one thing: there’s a murderer among them.

The young woman was certainly murdered, but who did it, and why? Suspects and motives abound as Private Detective Mason Adler investigates. He soon realizes that nothing, and no one, are what they seem to be as he races to uncover the truth and bring the real murderer to justice without becoming the next victim.

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

My Review: Oh damn. Walter's back. *shudder*

After the nasty stunt he pulled in the first book, I really don't want to believe it's going to go well for him vis-a-vis this series, if we're going to keep seeing Walter. But the good part is the mystery Author Pederson chose this time is one ripped from the century-old headlines! I was really curious to see what would happen next.

What happens is the requisite amount of banter, a close friendship between a straight woman and a gay guy, bitchy-queen Walter being a complete cow when he wasn't being a tedious crook, oh let's see...hm...oh, Emil the cop being bested by Mason again like Perry Mason beats Hamilton Burger in every contest...um...the murder was done in vain as no one gets away with anything in these books.

I don't think this one took quite as long as the first one, but these aren't propulsive "...and then what happened?!" reads. They're going to take you down the path the detective treads with him, and cause you to get your helper's badge on your efforts and merits. I particularly liked the detail of Mason's car being a 1939 Studebaker Champion, famously a cheap-to-run and stodgy vehicle. The kind of car Uncle Dale drives to Thanksgiving and parks in front of the house despite everyone urging him to take the bus.



By the standards of the day, a real plain-jane-mobile though I myownself would love to have one.

The unmaksing event that Mason stages is very interesting, and not something I expected. Let's just say that Lydia is a useful gal-pal indeed. I was very interested in the book from giddy-up to whoa, and will certainly seek out the next Mason Adler mystery to check in on everyone, make sure they're doing okay.

‘Morning, RD, and a very happy Friday to you.

>119 richardderus: Pass, but only because I’m not particularly fond of the Victorian era. I had to look up condign – you’ve used it before but I forgot its meaning. *smile*

>120 richardderus: Wow. $3.5 MM.

>126 richardderus: Excellent review, as always. I got the sense of the oppressive, horrifying heat, the blasting, battering sunshine, the dreadful helplessness of life in this kind of nightmare before home air conditioning was ubiquitous in the US. (Even with air conditioning I don't want to be in Phoenix or any other desert city. Or town. Or hamlet. Or structure. Or outdoor space.) I totally agree with you. SoCal’s SF Valley and my sister’s Rialto definitely fit into this category. Central NC has summer humidity but not the scorching blast-your-lungs heat I remember from SoCal. And, on to the wish list it goes!

*smooch* from your own Horrible

My snarkasm generator is revvin' up already.
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/most-controversial-novel-becoming-a-series...
Someone needed to tell me that Ben Shapiro and Jeremy Boreing had started a streaming platform for awful, heinous stuff like Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged! This is comedy gold!

>129 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! I think you'll like Mason Adler & Co. I hope they don't disappoint, anyway.

I hate the desert.

I think you'd really, really hate >119 richardderus: so I feel sure you're making the right decision.

Have a lovely! *smooch*

Wordle 517 3/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, GLYPH Nine of the ten most common letters knocked out. One in the correct space. There was not another word in my vocabulary that fitted these parameters and it was the correct one.

I am utterly gosmacked.

>132 richardderus: Congrats on the excellent Wordling! You’re right—sometime success comes when you know what the word *isn’t*. And the solution is a pretty cool word, now that I’ve been mulling over it.

Good day, sunshine!

Karen O

>133 klobrien2: *aaarrrgh* Now I've got the Beatles stuck in my head!!

Thanks re: Wordle...it really does help to get the commonest letters either positioned or eliminated early. It's why I'm willing to use the same two words over and over.

It really is a cool word. I don't use it often but it's always been one of those "notice-it-when-you-see-it" words. I like strange words, though, so I'm going to be aware of its usage.

You've read the 2020 #BookerPrize winner SHUGGIE BAIN (my #BookRecommendation: https://tinyurl.com/2aak4b3f)?
So happy to read on Deadline that there's a TV series coming from the BBC via A24 Studio! There's every good chance that these two will do it right.
https://deadline.com/2022/11/bbc-a24-stuart-dougla-shuggie-bain-tv-series-123517...

>132 richardderus: Ok that is seriously impressive! Kudos!

Whipping by to try and escape too many BB's!
Harya?
I am *finally* reading The Sleeping Car Porter. It took forever to edge up to the top of the request list ~ I guess it is a very popular book in our PL system and the powers that be didn't buy very many copies to distribute around all our provincial libraries.

>137 SandyAMcPherson: Howdy do, Sandy! I'm sort of appalled the PL didn't buy a bunch since the book won the Giller Prize. That just couldn't be because it's a gay subject, now could it. ::eyeroll::

Glad to see you today!

>136 MickyFine: I should hope to kiss a pig! Talk about pullin' it outta thin air. I was even impressed.

*smooch*

>132 richardderus: Nicely done!!

>138 richardderus: I hope that a gay subject is not an issue in book purchases at the PL, but I don't know anything in that regard.

I'm told (by my 🌈 friends) that our town is a reasonably tolerant community. We've a few elected city councillors who've been popular in spite of being openly 'out'. Though I'd say the elected dominating provincial politicians here are not in the 'enlightened' category, campaigning against an individual on the grounds of sexual orientation has evidently been shown to rally voters in protest. It's an issue for the nasty intolerant people, amongst those running for public office, have learned to avoid.

Like being black, indigenous, or an Asian immigrant, it is almost impossible to *really* know what level of discrimination is happening if one doesn't align with that cohort. I know at a woman's level, how blind too many men are to the discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, not to mention what happens to the elderly and the disabled.

When being over-concerned about ethnic ancestry turns us into xenophobes or worse, racial bigots, and inflexible attitudes to personal orientation, as seems to be happening, we’re on the wrong path to an enlightened country.
OK, /rant 🙄

>140 SandyAMcPherson: It's not likely to be out-and-out homophobia, to be sure; just "well, how do Gay Books fare in our system? okay, buy half again as many as that" kind of heedless homophobia.

The kind that women know *all* about from the inside!

>139 Berly: Hiya Berly-boo! *smooch*

>1 richardderus: Happy new thread!

>142 ocgreg34: Thank you, Greg!

>121 richardderus: My empathy tank is extremely low at the moment, I admit. Even on a good day, though, I'm much better at lectures, like, "See here, this is why we don't ASK for poetry books!"

In any case, I will still wish you some good reads for the weekend that have not a whiff of poetry in them.
*smooch*

>144 bell7: *sulkily* Yeah, yeah, it's my fault, but jeeeez!

Since I'm up so early, I figured I'd use my time wisely.
Wordle 518 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, ALERT, AVERT There we go.

>146 richardderus: I neede two additional tries to get to your 3rd and 4th word today.
Happy Saturday, Richard dear!

‘Morning, RDear. Happy Saturday to you.

>132 richardderus: Congrats.

>135 richardderus: *shudder*

>140 SandyAMcPherson: and >141 richardderus: Our public library celebrates the LGBT etc. community in all things, yet a sister branch in a different part of the county had an overwrought mother with toddlers complaining about LGBT etc. books this summer. Fortunately, the Library System has a consistent stance about not banning books, but it was disturbing to hear about.

>146 richardderus: I got it in 3 today, with my 2nd and 3rd words being your 3rd and 4th words.

*smooch* from Madame TVT Horrible

Morning, Richard. Happy Saturday. We will be celebrating a life this weekend. Today, we will have a small service and then a luncheon afterwards. We plan on swapping many stories. We are currently enjoying January weather. Damn cold here.

>149 msf59: Oh, well, there's a lot to celebrate with Sue's dad, so yay! But not entirely free of wistfulness. And the January weather part sounds like a nasty surprise.

>148 karenmarie: Yay for a 3day! I was clonked by the alpha-order fairy. *sigh*

I'm glad your county has such a policy and utterly unsurprised that someone decided to whinge about it. They like stirring up trouble to wear people down. Make enough noise, some will give in to shut them the hell up...not there, apparently. Yay.

So I'll be gifting you a DVD set of the Shuggie series, then? The day it comes out!

Saturday *smooches*

>147 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita! I'm so pleased you use Wordle to practice your vocabulary because it's very effective and your results are impressive for a native speaker much less a second-language speaker.

Saturday *smooch*
***

Pomona's Perfect Potion courseth through my veins world without end. Awomen, brethren and sistern.

*smooch*

>151 ronincats: Hiya birthday babe! I'm glad to see you around here!

*smooch*

Next Thursday being a holiday here in the US, and the Friday after officially kicking off the Yuletide consumer binge, I'm posting my month-end Sunday round-up this Sunday. Then the next week will be barren but I'll start my #Booksgiving posting on Friday.

Y'all remember Jólabókaflóð? The Icelandic give-a-book-then-read-it Yuletide gifting custom? That's what I'll be riffing on again this year. Gifting ideas for all the bookish. And of course ourselves...can't be martyrs about this.

If anyone's on Mastodon, I've finally got a profile there: @ExpendableMudge@mastodon.lol
It's a QUILTBAG server, and if anyone imagines I understand how this Mastodon thing works you're sorely mistaken. But Twitter's lost more people and could easily implode any second so...Tumblr, Facebleccch, and Mastodon all have me. I know they're all excited.
***
This November, which I've truncated at the 20th, I wrote and blogged thirty-one reviews of all three types. That means I'm well past 320 reviews, this year's stretch goal, with 346 blogged reviews. I'm going to keep my 2023 goal at 350 for now because if I get COVID again, or come near to die of some horrible plague yet to hit us, I'll have wiggle room. Looking at >7 richardderus:, I've got six of the original #Noirvember books reviewed and eight left to review. I might fit the Yokomizo books into #Booksgiving, which I'll end on the 24th, or more likely into the week after Yule. The Pyuns just could fit there as well, but I'm less sure about that.

My best-book-of-November is Kibogo, a beautiful braided-stories novella set in Author Scholastique Mukasonga's native Rwanda as it copes with the stresses of syncretism between Roman Catholicism and the indigenous religion centering the titular god Kibogo. It's most certainly in the running for the annual six-stars-of-five award. There is a full month of things I really, really liked ahead, though...stay tuned!

As I've mentioned above, it's going to be #Booksgiving from here on out. I'll post reviews of books I liked a lot and feel confident that you'll get happy responses from people you choose to give them to. I've talked up the Icelandic custom of Jólabókaflóð before. I like its name, but honestly it's not likely to catch on is it...that "eth" at the end? Not a-flyin' here in the xenosuspicious US of A. My purpose in using this tag on my blog is to make that hard-to-shop-for giftee a little easier to pick out a fine quality book for, or get something really special for yourself to celebrate the Yule festival with a great get-away read.

Burgoine #79

Underdogs: The Novel (Underdogs #1) by Geonn Cannon

The fun part of taking advantage of NetGalley's "Read Now" collection is there is always some hidden pleasure or another to discover. A one-sitting canidae (werewolf to the tediously traditional readers like me) led urban fantasy chase story, this meets lots of my expectations. I was really amused and drawn to the very first pages' freshening-up of Little Red Riding Hood in particular...bringing to it that little something extra that comes from an eyewitness account of a crime as opposed to a polished and practiced witness-stand testimony via the Brothers Grimm. Much new information comes to light.

In general, I'm a lycanthropy fan. In this explicit case, I'm on a spiky fence because I question some of the judgment calls an author must always make...there seemed to me to be a peculiarly removed vibe to this fun take on a lesbian private eye-cum-werewolf urban fantasy. It's clearly an authorial choice, I must say, because it's in the structure of the sentences that're written in passive voice. It isn't, however, alienating to me as a reader. Honestly this surprised me because, under most every circumstance, I am hate-reading passive constructions in short order. So that was a surprise but was it a good one? I can't decide.

What made me finish the book in that one sitting mentioned above was the clarity of the conflict between Ari, our wolf sleuth, and her nemeses. If I can feel the pull of the story despite a narrative construct I'm not fond of, then there's something extra to this writer's storytelling chops. Kudos for that!

Wordle 519 5/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, READY, GRAPE, BRAVE Funny how a simple word can take longer to slot into place than a more unusual one.

Hiya, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

>150 richardderus: So I'll be gifting you a DVD set of the Shuggie series, then? The day it comes out! Only if you are interested in donating it to the Friends of the Library book sale next spring.

Or, I could return it to you as a Christmas present next year and we could send it back in forth. My sister and I do this with the DVD of Krampus. We watched it once when she wanted to watch what she thought was a Christmas movie. We couldn’t turn it off, it was so awful, disturbing, and scary. We just looked at each other at the end and said “Why?” So she bought me a DVD of it for Christmas that year and we’ve been trading it back and forth each year. This year I bought a Krampus Christmas Tree skirt to go along with it… I’d love to see her face when she opens it.

I’m on my second cup of java.

>153 richardderus: I’d read about Mastadon, but don’t want to expand my social media usage. I was never on Twitter, and with the new idiot owner reinstating t*****’s account, now more than ever I’ll stay away. I’m still on Facebleccch, but LT’s my only true love.

>155 richardderus: Took me 5 today, too, and our 4th word was the same.

*smooch*

>156 karenmarie: LOL @ y'all two goofy ol' broads tradin' Krampus like that! The tree skirt idea is *genius*, and I hope she sends reaction shots of her response...comedy *gold* right there.

Mastodon isn't becoming my bery bery favyoureet place to be. But I need a bolt-hole if things go Mad Max on Twitter.

I had a really hard time with today's word

>158 The_Hibernator: Hi Rachel! I'm not sure why the "simple" words are so often the hardest to slot in place. Seems to be the case for a lot of them for so many of us.

Glad to see you!

>158 The_Hibernator: It took me 6 goes; too many possibilities.

>160 humouress: ...another country heard from...I'm beginning to think we should protest (!) until they swear they'll standardize words used in less than 3.125% of all websites. Or something.

I’ll look for you over on Mastodon. If I don’t find you, I’ll be back to give you my handle over there.

>156 karenmarie:
I have never been on either Twitter or Facebook. I do admit I am watching them both carefully as one melts down due to a idiot running the place and the other slowly heads off into the sunset with a different kind of meanspirited person running it. Both are jerks and I don't want to support that. Added to that is the fact that I just don't understand how people have the time for all that time on Twitter and the other one - what was it called?

>153 richardderus: found you. I like it so far.

'Morning, Rdear, and happy Monday to you.

>157 richardderus: I may ask my niece to take a pic of her mother's reaction to the presents I send to her because this one should really take the cake.

>163 benitastrnad: Benita, my husband created my FB account and I have literally only posted to it one time. I have, however, taken quizzes (before realizing what info I was giving them), emoticonned comments/pics, and made comments to posts/pics. I stopped that about 6 years ago or so and rarely go on it any more. Lots of people love it, and I'm not advocating for folks to stop using any of the social media they use. For me, frankly, I got tired of the people in my high school group bragging on their jobs, kids, houses, jobs, and stuff All the Blasted Time. And once things became so polarized politically, I completely backed away.

Wordle in 4 today. *smooch*

Happy Monday, Richard!

Wordle 520 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, AMIGO, AXIOM Had I not chosen word #3 I'd be there yet, scratching my beard and pondering. Fun word.

Happy Monday, Richard. We are finally getting back to more seasonable temps after a very frigid week. Not a lot planned for the day. I would really like to just curl up and get some reading done. We have been neglecting Juno too, so I got to get her out for a walk or two.

>168 msf59: Hi Mark! Happy new-week's reads, though walking Juno is likely to be a big feature of your day for the next week. If it's nice out, that's a good priority to set.

>166 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita, same back at'cha!

>165 karenmarie: Morning, Horrible, we're Wordle twins today. I think you definitely should ask her for a candid of your sister's horror! That should be priceless.

>164 Helenliz: I've followed you back, I feel fairly confident...it's not the easiest learning curve but they're getting a handle on the traffic issue. "Toots" as a name is as eyerolling as "tweet" used to be, so I'm just studiously ignoring it and calling them posts in my head.

>163 benitastrnad: "The Other One" will do...we all know you mean the one run by That Fuck Zuck.

>162 Storeetllr: Followed you back!

>169 richardderus:. I know. *proud moment*. Tweet and toot are both a twee as a very very twee thing. But if that's my biggest gripe, I can probably live with it. I'm liking the extra characters for sure. I want to explore different instances. I joined a UK location driven one, and I wonder if a more niche one might be better in the long run. But that can all wait for another day.

Happy Monday, Richard! I also got today's in four with a very different path. I have been watching Twitter slowly disintegrate but am not willing to learn a new social media site at this point. I'm on Instagram and here, and that's plenty (and I may wander away from Instagram eventually, as the whole point was to see my friends' photos and instead of showing me those, it's become more and more ads and less and less of the content I actually want to see).

>171 bell7: I never got the hang of Insta. I let the effin' hackers keep that one. I don't want to post pictures. I'm not pretty, I live by the beach so anyone with Google can see that, and if you want to see my book-covers, go to my blog. Will I make a little still life for you? A couple times a year, maybe. Insta wasn't for me.

Hive and Mastodon are likely to replace Twitter soonish. I've been on Tumblr forever, mostly for the naked men, but finally regularized it with the other bookish stuff I do. *sigh*

Four's great! Streaks, you know, and days they live. *smooch*

>170 Helenliz: The Mastodon "instances" are the hardest part for me to factor into my browsing experience. I chose the gay Leftist Antifa one, quel surprise. I don't much *like* Mastodon but I can't afford to be without some social-media outlet for my blog. So far Twitter's still the big boy.

Monday morning *smooch*

>172 richardderus: I use the bare minimum of Insta (occasional stories, never reels), and carefully curate my content to be primarily pretty pictures I take, animals I'm sitting for, and knitting projects. It's a small part of my life, all told (I rarely post about what I'm reading, for example), though I do enjoy seeing pictures of my friends' kids. It's okay, I was never much into social media to begin with and if I'm even less so in the future, I'm fine with that.

*smooch*

I don't do - and never did - twitter, instagram, facebook or anything. My social media consists of LT, bookcrossing, postcrossing, I google a lot, I subscribe to some newsletters in NYT, and The Atlantic, I wordle, of course, and I enjoy the brilliance of Randy Rainbow on youtube. That's about it and it's more than enough for me. I am an easily distractable person and there simply aren't enough hours in my days. Even if I were more techy - which I am not - I doubt I'd care enough to be glued to the web for more than that.

I also try to find time to read, which hasn't worked out too well for me this year, sadly...
;-p

>175 jessibud2: I got sucked into social media a long time ago...it's the fastest and best way to get your blog noticed even yet...but really, I invest a fairly small amount of my social interaction away from our bookish home. It's nothing short of amazing how hard it is to get posts across platforms to resemble each other!

>174 bell7: Really, it's down to visibility necessity to me. If I want to feed my reading addiction, I need to pay the publishers for their crack with my reviews and that's easier if I can show them people notice the said reviews. Gotta give some to get some.

>173 katiekrug: *smooch* Gorgeous day out there, ain't it! On the chilly side for this early...we're not climbin' out of the high 30s today. Still, I'll take this over the 60s!

Afternoon, Richard. As to social media, I am on fb to keep up with scattered family, but I think the only thing I ever posted on my own was the Bill of Rights early in the nameless thing's reign. I got a twitter account to enter a Penguin lottery and never tweeted once. I closed my account over the weekend. That's it for me. I can't keep up here, and I care about here.

Stay warm. *smooch*

>177 LizzieD: Well, since it's more or less a business for me, I'm in a different "attention bracket" I suppose you could say.
***
Twitter's ongoing implosion is, honestly, exhausting...fifteen years' work collapsing isn't much fun to watch, though it's learning the replacement social media that're mostly wearing me down.

Mastodon? Not at all bad now that they've got a handle on the traffic. Hive's been balky, crashed my computer, so teething pains galore. Tumblr, where I've been for years...Faceblecch, ditto...the networking's completely different. *sigh* Yes yes, first-world problems, other people have it worse, all that's true and been said many times. It changes nothing in my personal experience of the debacle.

Thanks for the follow over on Mastodon. No clue if I'll ever post there, just wanted to stake my claim. I leave the twittering, now mastodoning? mastocating? Hmmm, I leave that to Laura, she has fun poking the political bear. I stay out of that and post my occassional weird pictures on IG. :)

What?! No tooting from you?! I am stunned. Into silence. Shocking!

>181 richardderus: - I am the juggler, the hoarder and the prepared, at all times, and probably each of the others at various other times...fun!

>181 richardderus: At times I am each of these. How is that possible??

Hi Richard, it is lovely to catch up with you here. This is the first GBBO I've ever watched in "real" time, so to speak. I was so sure that Janusz, Maxi, and Syabira would be the finalists. Abdul was a bit of a dark horse and I was cheering for him.

Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Wordle 521 5/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, CRIME, GRIME, PRIME Guessing-game day. *sigh*

>181 richardderus: Thanks for sharing, Richard dear.
I have been all of those during my lifetime :-)
Nowadays juggler, statue, hoarder, and prepared remain.

>184 richardderus: With my first word I avoided the guessing game today.

>185 FAMeulstee: You're very lucky, Anita. I am always a little put out by the guessing-game days.

I am all except the blanket one. Usually all at the same time!

>183 AMQS: Hi Anne! Welcome. Re: GBBO I know that predicting is half the fun of watching the show but I was *so* shocked when Maxy left!! And my sweet pudgy poppet Janusz! I'm happy that Syabira took the crown, though I always thought Sandro would be the King in the end.

Turkey Holocaust greetings!

>182 jessibud2: Hi Shelley! I'm all of them in one hour, oftentimes...though that blanket one makes me sweat to think about....

I'm not a shifter or a whisperer, but the rest apply RD.

>181 richardderus: I am the snuggler, the statue but also the shifter, absolutely the hoarder and (it should come as no surprise) the undead.

>181 richardderus: I don't think that there is a great deal of doubt as to which one I am!

>189 PaulCranswick: Yes, you *are* the archetypal Snuggler, aren't you? Always draped in your blanky to escape the never-ending chill of Kuala Lumpur. :-P

>188 humouress: The undead! You shock me!

>187 Caroline_McElwee: I suspect anyone on this site's a hoarder...except of course for >189 PaulCranswick:, we all know how abstemious he is when it comes to adding books to his library.

>190 richardderus: I thought I might. Mission accomplished.

Writers: Stuck? Visit The Literature Clock here... https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/
Though by then it was by Tina’s own desk clock 12.04pm I was always touched when, out of a morning’s worth of repetition, secretaries continued to answer with good mornings for an hour or so into the afternoon, just as people often date things with the previous year well into February; sometimes they caught their mistake and went into a “This is not my day” or “Where is my head?” escape routine; but in a way they were right, since the true tone of afternoons does not take over in offices until nearly two.
- The Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker
Readers: Bored? Visit The Literature Clock here... https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/
“I could not have committed this crime. Pauline Stacy fell from this floor to the ground at five minutes past twelve. A hundred people will go into the witness-box and say that I was standing out upon the balcony of my own rooms above from just before the stroke of noon to a quarter-past - the usual period of my public prayers."
- The Eye of Apollo, G.K.Chesterton
Everyone else:

Oh that's cool. Of course it probably can't find all the times. When I opened it, it was 9:40, with a quote from Ballard. Then at 9:41, it gave me a quote from Prince Caspian that was just saying sometime between 9 and 10 of the clock. :)

Yeah, it doesn't have a 9:46 either, got the same Between nine and ten of the clock" quote.

>181 richardderus: Do I have to pick only one? I'm a Hoarder-Juggler-Sipper.

>195 ArlieS: I couldn't pick one, so why should you have to?

>194 mahsdad:, >193 mahsdad: Remember it's randomized!

>181 richardderus: I can identify with a few of those but probably should put myself down as "The Juggler". I can't remember any time I only had one book on the go.

>197 sirfurboy: Apart from "Snuggler" I'm all of 'em at some point, and frequently all of 'em together!

Cheers for the visit, Stephen.

>181 richardderus: Definite juggler here although I can relate to a few of the others too.

‘Morning, Rdear, and happy Wednesday to you. I hope you had a good Tuesday.

>177 LizzieD: I can't keep up here, and I care about here. Amen, sister.

>181 richardderus: I’m a snuggler, juggler, shifter, hoarder, prepared, and undead. Love it.

>192 richardderus: Thanks, RD! It’s now a tab on my Edge browser.

More Turkey Holocaust Day prep, reading, etc.

*smooch*

>192 richardderus: I tried it just now and got a lovely quote for 7:36. What fun!

>181 richardderus: I have been all of these at one time or another.

Happy Wednesday *smooches*

>181 richardderus: I love it. I am closely related to The Statue and The Sipper. B.A.G.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Things have been a bit quieter this week and I have no problem with that- some volunteering, lots of reading and hanging with Juno.

*aaargh*
Learning about and building communities on new social media are full-time, stressful activities. Curse that Musk.

Since I'm going to be SUPERbusy starting Saturday, trying to keep #Booksgiving posting rollin', I expect to do quick dashes in and out everywhere. ...and there's the Mastodon doorbell...again
***
>202 msf59: It sounds like heaven to me, Mark. I wish I hadn't been handed an extra assignment to create a new network so I could copy you.

>201 bell7: Happy Humpday, Mary! *smooch*

>200 karenmarie: *more Mastodon doorbells* I'm in there sluggin' but it's a lot for someone who's wondering when he'll get to read today....

*smooch*

>199 Familyhistorian: I daresay most of us on this site are jugglers to some degree, Meg. I've always had at least 3 books on the go and, quite a lot of the time since finding NetGalley and Edelweiss+, as many as a dozen. *Mastodon doorbell again* That's too many for me, so I try to limit myself to 5 or 6 by giving the oldest read a Burgoine or Pearl-Rule review when a 7th read shows up.

Oh man, there's no way I can catch up on this one, Richard. I'll try to do better on the next one. Apologies. You're a much better 75er than I am.

What do you think of the sci-fi books by William Gibson? I suspect that you're no as enamored as I am. I'm really enjoying the Prime Video adaptation of his Peripheral. I'd love it if someone adapted his Bridge Trilogy.

I hope your week and your reading are both going well.

Before the onslaught of "Happy Thanksgiving" stuff begins, here's a reminder of why I don't respond in kind:

>204 jnwelch: Hi Joe! I'm mid-flow in learning the ins and outs of Mastodon because it looks like Musk really will take Twitter down to an ugly, ugly place. I am taking a lot of time to figure out stuff that I might be spending reading! *sob*

I hope you're going to stay covid free this whole holiday season. HEAR THAT JOE'S IMMUNE SYSTEM?! THOSE'RE YOUR ORDERS WE NEED HIM HEALTHY!

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

>205 richardderus: No holiday here today, turkeys are safe until christmas.
Tomorrow we will celebrate Franks birthday.

Happy just-another-Thursday, Richard.
If we're racking up the celebrations, it's our 17th wedding anniversary on Saturday. We have our first Christmas do on Saturday, so at least we'll be dressed up and doing something. Although muggins here didn't dodge fast enough so is proposing a speech to the guests & visitors. That's today's job, write the speech outline.

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, RD.

Wordle 523 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, BEAST, FEAST That one's for sure. Lovely dinners today, y'all. My ham and stuffing with lima beans followed by seven-layer bars is a rare treat indeed.

>209 PaulCranswick: A lovely wish, PC, happy to agree with you about that gratitude.

>208 Helenliz: *ooops*

Well, you're erudite and witty, it'll all be fine. Reminder to your self delivered, I suspect.

>207 FAMeulstee: Happy birthday to Frank, then! I'm a pig-meat-eater, so bird flesh isn't on my celebratory menus.

'Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you, in accordance with your >205 richardderus:.

Congrats on your four, I took five. Yum to seven-layer bars. I have everything in the house, could make 'em, but am saving the flaked coconut for a coconut cream pie later on with the fourth pie crust I made on Monday.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Sweet Thursday, Richard. Our mild stretch of weather continues. Right now, it is me, coffee and Juno!

Have a lovely Thursday, friend! Think of all of us on the other side of the border who have to work. Particularly when some of that work involves American products, which if they go down will not work again until next week. :P

>214 MickyFine: Oh yes indeed...now I know how much infrastructure simply working is situational, I am newly cognizant of outages that can and should be avoided. *sigh*

>213 msf59: Oh, excellent day planned there, Mark! I'm glad you're disfruiting it in climatic comfort, too. It's a perfect early-winter day here, sunshiney and around 50°...*aaahhh*

>212 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! Have a gorgeous feast today. I'm quite pleased to be eating the bits of the feast I like but not the ones I need to take to be polite. The seven-layer bars are storebought, I confess, and *horrendously* expensive to me, but I got a lovely surprise cash giftie from an old friend who instructed that it be used to procure my dessert.

Rob's working, of course, but neither of us likes this holiday as anything except a good reminder to be grateful for all we have. One needn't set aside only one day for this, however. And I hope like hell I don't succumb to that trap!

Coffee+seven-layer bar = delight

I hope I live the end of my own life like this leaf did: Green and hopeful inside the brown, shriveled bits.
#thankfulforitall

Hi Richard, Happy Thanksgiving Day dear friend.

Hiya, RDear, and happy Friday to you.

>217 richardderus: I like it. I would add gracefully – live the end of my own life accepting age gracefully.

*smooch*

It's time for #Jólabókaflóð planning! Since we're not in Iceland, let's call it #Booksgiving.
This year's #Yuletide preparations are #inflation-struck, #SupplyChain-challenged...a perfect moment to look for a #book to give.
Start with this #bookblog post at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud: https://tinyurl.com/2l7prwsq

Wordle 524 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, PITHY, ITCHY Another streak day recorded!

Good morning, Richard! Books and chocolate - oh my!

I guess I'm middle-old, maybe - at least in my family. I don't know about gracefulness, but like all other ages, best-of-times/worst-of-times are mixed. At the moment, I live in gratitude.

(Wordle in 3 for me this morning is making this a pretty good time.)

*smooch*

>222 LizzieD: It's the best way to live, regardless of age or income, Peggy. Gratitude is a self-reinforcing boost to moods and means to improve them.

A 3day! I'm very happy for you, he said as the voodoo-dolly cauldron appears all on its own.

*smooch*

>219 karenmarie: Graceful aging is a gigantic gift to give yourself, like Peggy's gratitudinousness. It's another self-reinforcing booster shot of positivity. I never expected to be a skinny old man and yet here I am...30lb down from my pre-covid era high but not losing any OR gaining any.

Happy Booksgiving!

221 Punishment of a Hunter (The Leningrad Confidential series #1) by Yulia Yakovleva (tr. Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp)

A #Noirvember/#Booksgiving crossover!

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The debut of the ultimate noir detective series: set in Stalinist Russia, riddled with corruption, informers, and purges that takes paranoia to the next level

MURDER
1930s Leningrad. Stalin is tightening his grip on the Soviet Union, and a mood of fear cloaks the city. Detective Vasily Zaitsev is tasked with investigating a series of bizarre and seemingly motiveless homicides.

MAYHEM
As the curious deaths continue, precious Old Master paintings start to disappear from the Hermitage collection. Could the crimes be connected?

MISTRUST
When Zaitsev sets about his investigations, he meets with obstruction at every turn. Soon even he comes under suspicion from the Soviet secret police.

The resolute detective must battle an increasingly dangerous political situation in his dogged quest to find the murderer―and stay alive.

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

My Review: This is a newly translated series-starting thriller. I'm eager for the second one to appear, so go buy this one now.

Seriously. The only way the publisher knows there's a market is if there are sales, so go on now.

What do you mean, "but why should I?" Oh very well. Look at this image, of the same title as the book:

Doesn't that simply say it all in artistic form? And the painting's in the Hermitage collection in Russia, too.

The 1930s were a scary, scary time to be a Soviet citizen. The surveillance state's apparatus was risibly primitive by comparison to today's hypercapitalist surveillance model, but it was effective. Like those old Hitchcock movies where men in slouch-brimmed hats smoked on street corners by your apartment, the pervasive atmosphere was paranoid and terrified. (Our {great-}grandparents had more sense than we complacent and indifferent acquiescers do.) To be a policeman in a state-sponsored terrorist society, to be studied minutely as one tries to achieve the ever-elusive goal of bringing justice to transgressors while avoiding the political pitfalls of society's mad/badness, adds a layer of suspense to thrillers.

Author Yakovleva does a truly creditable and credible job with Zaitsev, her sleuth. He doesn't miraculously float above The System somehow, nor does he set out to provoke The System's minions to make his points. He falls victim to the excesses of the times (CW for torture!) and he still stubbornly insists on doing the right thing by the victims of personal violence. It is very much in the vein of the "lone truth-seeker" genre of thriller. I think those stories can go wrong quickly, turning into libertarian screeds against any and all forms of government by equating them with oppression. This book dodges that bullet by being about, explicitly taking as its subject, that nightmarish oppressive government and its warped and broken victim/citizens. I wish more libertarians would read this kind of historical take because it puts into a cold, unfriendly light the mild checks on their worst selves that so chafe them.

Author Yakovleva is ably assisted in telling her story by Translator Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. There are bursts of informative explanatory things in the text that I'm sure are her work...no one in modern Russia likely needs as much explanation of the role of the OGPU, for example (the domestic secret police, like the FBI or latter-Soviet-days KGB). That this information, among so much other information needed by Anglophone readers not Russophone ones, was woven into the text pretty darn seamlessly is a testament to Translator Kemp's grasp of and skill at presenting the reader the best version of the original text.

What makes it a perfect book to get your thriller reader giftee, or your thriller loving self, is that very thing: It's the best version of what was, if my Spidey-senses do not deceive me, a top-quality read from the get-go. Translations are often serviceable, telling the story as it was told in the original and not grasping, or conveying at any rate, whatever special sparkle the original had. It sounds weird to tell you that the cold, grim, gray landscape of Stalinist-Purge era Leningrad, peopled with terrorized victims and subjected to psychic violence, physical violence, and sensory deprivation on an industrial scale, has a sparkle to it. But it does.

Not a joyous resolution to the weird, theatrically staged and colorfully over-the-top crimes committed here...but a resolution I believed and I supported with my whole readerly heart. More of Zaitsev, please, Pushkin Vertigo. We need this kind of "history as sly social commentary" Russian fiction; we in the Anglophone West need the warning klaxon of what *real* oppression feels like, why it does to its victims, so we will stop our loud, pointless whinging.

This #Booksgiving, which #books are you most #grateful for having in your life?
For me most of all THE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS by Dodie Smith (the 1956 original) checked out of the library and read dozens of times!

>225 richardderus: Mine is not going to please you much, RD. It is The Albemarle Book of Modern Verse Volume 2 edited by F.E.S. Finn which I won in a reading comprehension prize between schools back in the 1970s. Set me up for a lifelong love of "poultry"

>226 PaulCranswick: ...
...
...
...we are all as Heaven made us, as Dee Goong An says... *shudder*
***
I've begun to work on my Mastodon presence in preparation for Twitter's demise. (which I fear is inevitable) An author of my acquaintance on Twitter as well as Goodreads followed me on Mastodon, I gave it no special thought and followed her back.

This evening she and I both did the #Bookstodon meme #7BooksToGetToKnowMe. I commented that one of her choices, Pym, surprised me.

I need to get to know your reading tastes more to know why PYM surprises you but for me this book was an everlasting delight, with so many layers of playfulness, and was so clearly written by someone enjoying himself and not giving a bit of thought about where this book would ever be read by anyone else. Also important: I love that PYM's faithfulness to the source text includes a dog that disappears without explanation, as in the original

says she, then about a minute later:

oh Richard, it's YOU. Ha. Well your tastes are still a mystery to me, for the most part

How cool is that! She didn't recognize "ExpendableMudge" as me (we started being friends on Goodreads and I don't use my blog's name there) but *still* chose to be friends! Funny as hell and really quite flattering!

>227 richardderus: That is really cool, RD.

Now you have me pondering over the 7 books?!

>228 PaulCranswick: *preens*

Which seven of the squintillions you've read/procured are you going to choose? *evil chuckle*

I'll post my list. We get 500 characters on Mastodon, but it still means being stingy with words:

#7Books to get to know me? What a great ask, but *which* me are you wondering about?

1. WARLORD OF THE AIR b/c my love of #alternatehistory started there
2. THE LORD WON'T MIND because there's a word for boys like me!!!
3. ISLANDIA because (period racism cringingly accepted as real) deep love btw men appeals
4. THE HUNDRED & ONE DALMATIANS b/c rescue fantasy
5. HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN, we're in *fantasy*books*too!
6. MONTANA 1948, forgiveness heals
7. THE TALE OF GENJI, heteroflexible's real?

>227 richardderus: Cool that she realized who you were after a while, Richard. Looks like a lot of people are jumping ship from Twitter.

>230 Familyhistorian: I think she looked at my avatar at last, but whatever it was the whole thing made me so warm'n'fuzzy!

The problems are really gathering speed, and several people I know have been exiled for...for...well, we can none of us quite figure out what. Which is the problem that worries me the most. Fiat bannings without following any sort of process really make my alarm bells ring.

222 Dead and Gondola (Christie Bookshop #1) by Ann Claire

Rating: scraped up the goodwill of the season so 4* of five

The Publisher Says: When a mysterious bookshop visitor dies under murderous circumstances, the Christie sisters and their cat Agatha call on all they’ve learned about solving mysteries from their favorite novelist in this new series debut.

Ellie Christie is thrilled to begin a new chapter. She’s recently returned to her tiny Colorado hometown to run her family’s historic bookshop with her elder sister, Meg, and their friendly bookshop cat, Agatha. Perched in a Swiss-style hamlet accessible by ski gondola and a twisty mountain road, the Book Chalet is a famed bibliophile destination known for its maze of shelves and relaxing reading lounge with cozy fireside seats and panoramic views. At least, until trouble blows in with a wintery whiteout. A man is found dead on the gondola, and a rockslide throws the town into lockdown—no one in, no one out.

He was a mysterious stranger who visited the bookshop. At the time, his only blunders were disrupting a book club and leaving behind a first-edition Agatha Christie novel, written under a pseudonym. However, once revealed, the man’s identity shocks the town. Many residents knew of him. Quite a few had reason to want him dead. Others hide secrets. The police gather suspects, but when they narrow in on the sisters’ close friends, the Christies have to act.

Although the only Agatha in their family tree is their cat, Ellie and Meg know a lot about mysteries, and they’re not about to let the situation snowball out of control. The Christie sisters must summon their inner Miss Marples and trek through a blizzard of clues before the killer turns the page to their final chapter.

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

My Review: Meg and Ellie Christie, bookshop owners of Last Word, Colorado's, The Book Chalet, mystery solvers when a man who bumbles into their shop's séance turns up dead one gondola over from theirs on the funicular, and charming women trying to bring their worlds into agreement.

Meg, single mother of fourteen-year old Rosie, and her younger, newly unmoored sister Ellie, are invited by their retiring parents to come home and run the family's bookstore in their ski-resort hometown with her. It's a set-up that's an evergreen for a reason...it plays on the familiarity of a native place while still allowing the returned native a chance to "catch up on" the time they've been away. It also establishes the family's relations to each other, in that one would get a whole different idea of Meg had she seemed grudging or reluctant to accept younger, single Ellie to join the business. I think one is immersed in the sense of a happy family from the second their Gram comes onto the pages, knowing she has been their rock throughout life. That, too, sets a facet of the family's character as a system in addition to demonstrating the cozy-series bona fides Ann Claire is seeking to establish.

I'm a sucker for bookstores in fiction going back to the first mystery series set in one that I fell in love with: Claire Molloy's Book Depot in the Farberville, Arkansas, set humorous cozies by the late, lamented Joan Hess. This debut is joining a long and belovèd lineage. I am delighted to report that this is a happy meeting of fantasy (bookstores require *huge* amounts of labor and run on the slimmest of margins) and storytelling. The ski resort setting is nice, in that I'd always rather read about cold, snowy places than hot ones, but not outstandingly detailed. I suppose this is all a matter of what one wishes to have in a series-starting story...the sense of possibility is there in this story so there's plenty of room for additions and expansions.

Rosie annoyed me. She's fourteen, of course she was going to, but really this is a trope I can do without, the adolescent eyeroller. Anyway. At least she wasn't a bookstore cat, those horrible, misery-making creatures...like Agatha C. (for "cat" ickshudder) Christie. I mean, *obligatory warning of sexist stereotyping to come* I know I'm not a woman so I don't really get the appeal of cats *end sexist stereotyping*, but can there be a bookstore without a cat in mysteryworld now? Please?

WHat's right about the read far outweighs my grumbles about details. None of them ruined my reading experience. I am sure Author Ann Claire (also known as Ann Myers and/or Nora Page) knows her craft from practicing it for quite some time across several series. I expect a high level of polish from such an author and was not let down in this read. Recommending a book such as this is always touchy...what causes a series to soar is so often alchemical symmetry between author and reader...but consider this: I read this entire book that features a cat as a character...my most deeply beloathèd animals!...and am here writing a positive review.

This is an author with chops. Trust her, follow her through this story, and I predict a lot of y'all will have a new series to enjoy.

>227 richardderus: It is remarkable how you find such interesting friends out there, Richard dear. Nice she recognised you, without recognising the screen name :-)

Unable to choose only seven books...

Hmmm... 7 books to get to know me that showcase my personality/reading taste. It would change periodically, but here's a go at it:

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
3. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
4. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
6. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
7. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

There are books currently miffed at me for leaving them off, but I think that's a pretty good start.

Happy Saturday, Richard. Still enjoying some fine late fall weather. Things change later next week. Fantastic review of Punishment of a Hunter. Of course, I had to add that one to the list.

Oooh, fun!

1. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
3. The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
4. Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O'Nan
5. Animal Farm by George Orwell
6. Persuasion by Jane Austen
7. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

>236 katiekrug: Persuasion is my favourite Austen. >234 bell7: Of course, Pride and Prejudice is up there too but it was my first and it is so popular that it's hard to judge it objectively. And then there's Lady Susan ...

Wordle 525 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, PLEAD, CLEAN Had I not screwed up using word #3!!!!

>237 humouress: Lady Susan! That's not one I hear cited on a favorite-Austen-novel list very often.

>236 katiekrug: I expected four of those...Harriet, Lucy, Conrad, and the Lobster...but the others aren't ones I'd instantly associate with you as most-dearly-belovèds. Betty Smith's story is one I love, too.

Happy weekend-ahead's reads!

>235 msf59: Oh yay! I think you'll really like Yulia Yakovleva's book a lot, Birddude. It's a deeply darkly unnerving exploration of the negativity inherent in dictatorships.

Enjoy the last gasp of nice weather.

>234 bell7: I'm utterly unsurprised at those choices, Mary. I think any one of them would fit nicely on my list, too!

>233 FAMeulstee: I do make interesting friends out there in the world. It's more fun that way! *smooch*

>239 richardderus: - The Orwell speaks to my academic background, the Smith to my connection to my mother, and the Austen to my love of romance :)

>240 katiekrug: OIC!

That makes perfect sense. I resonate to Smith's story of not being sure why, exactly, others aren't responding to her the way they seem to respond to others. Plus writing and ambition and junk...and the Orwell, well. Eric Blair's tuberculosis is something I'd get in a time machine, travel to 1930, and pump him full of antibiotics without so much as a single hesitation. We got cheated when he died before he was 50!

Hiya, RDear! Happy Saturday to you.

>225 richardderus: Charlotte’s Web. Mercy, humor, love, friendship, grief. It was first read to me in 3rd grade by Mrs. Shigeta and I have read it upwards of a dozen times in the 61 years since.

>227 richardderus: #7BooksToGetToKnowMe

1. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, see above.
2. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers – strong representation of romantic love plus a thumping good mystery
3. Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney: Slavery, Secession and the President's War Powers by James F. Simons - US History and interest in the Civil War
4. The Source by James Michener – sweeping fiction and my interest in religion
5. The Story of Human Language by Dr. John McWhorter – words
6. These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer – romance and the Georgian/Regency periods in England
7. 11/22/63 by Stephen King – time travel, SF, and US history/assassination of JFK

>229 richardderus: Excellent list, RD. I still haven’t read it, but I did buy Montana, 1948 because you told me to.

>238 richardderus: I got it in 3 today, just sayin’.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>237 humouress: I'm not an Austen fan so it makes sense that the most atypical Austen is the one I enjoyed the most. I get that it's not polished and needs work, but I found it the least mannered.

I've seen that 7 books thing and have avoided it, on the grounds that I really can't decide.

>243 Helenliz: It's all optional, Helen. No one's got a flensing knife to threaten you with! (It's a machete.)

I think the lack of polish is a good thing in Austen's case, too, because it means there's a smidgin of sincerity left in. But that's not why one reads Austen in any event.

>242 karenmarie: Hey Horrible, Saturday orisons. I'm glad you got Montana 1948, because the wonderful thing about books is they don't readily go bad or need replacement with fresh ones. It'll still have the same words in it when its turn at the top of the pile arrives.

I loved the one-and-done experience of Charlotte's Web. Never again, but once is (to my mind) Necessary. Like Winnie-the-Pooh...not a re-reader for me but absolutely necessary to have it in my eyeholes.

Happy you got Wordle in 3 today.

No.

Really.

>243 Helenliz: I didn't comment on the 7 books either, for the same reason. But I had to agree with Katie about Persuasion.

Although I'd have to put a word in for Anne of Green Gables I discovered it in the school library at around the time I was studying for my O Levels (national exams in Britain which we took at 15 years old) and her fire inspired me to focus a bit more on my studies.

>245 humouress: That's interesting, Anne inspired you to work harder on *school*? I don't remember the books right, I guess, since she seemed to me to be Ferris Bueller's great-granny.

>245 humouress: I'm in the UK too. I know about O'levels. Even if I did GCSEs.

I first read ANne of Green Gables as too old an adult to appreciate her. She annoyed me mightily. Probably says more about me than Anne...

>244 richardderus: *sticks tongue out & runs away*

>247 Helenliz: That was more for Richard's benefit. But I see you know exactly how to deal with him :0)

>248 humouress:, >247 Helenliz: Wait...I thought GCSEs were for young people, like under-60 type young people. Surely y'all put on the stable boy's clothes and sat for the Holy Orders admission tests...?

Saturday salutations, my fabulous, famous friend!

I haven’t seen the book thing on mastodon. I’ll have to check it out.

>250 Storeetllr: *smooch* Did you click on the "bookstodon" label? It's a big community. Active, too, and so much more helpful than I'm accustomed to.

Yes.

I'm up too late, but you should know that I spent the day trying to narrow down to 7 books to know me by. Can't be done. I'm too random a person. At least this Austen lover can state that Persuasion is her 2nd favorite Austen.

>252 richardderus: Exactly.

*smooch* for a happy Sunday

>249 richardderus: Did you see us when you were overseeing the tests? (also: Holy Orders? Me?)

>252 richardderus: For whom? Disturber or disturbee?

>247 Helenliz: She annoyed me mightily.
I had the same recaction to Anne, when I read it two years back.

>252 richardderus:: All true!
Happy Sunday, Richard dear!
*smooch*

Sunday morning greetings, RDear!

>243 Helenliz: I think of the 7-book thing as a snapshot in time, Helen, which I simply went along with. My list could very well be different today or tomorrow.

>244 richardderus: Oh yes, the wonderful thing about books is they don't readily go bad or need replacement with fresh ones. However, I did upgrade my trade paperback copy to a first edition hardcover, bought at the spring fiction/mystery/SF-Fantasy Friends of the Library sale in March of this year. *smile* I’ve never re-read Winnie-the-Pooh to my knowledge, but have read The Enormous Egg, The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek and Escape from Warsaw, all acquired as a child at Scholastic sales through elementary school, many times. Thanks re my Wordle. Today it took me 4.

*smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. It is raining and dreary here. A perfect day to hang with the books but alas- not to be. We have family/friend obligations to attend to. That will probably take up most of the afternoon. Boo!!

>252 richardderus: LOVE IT!!

I never got in to the Anne of Green Gables books or shows. Maybe it was the summer spent in Charlottetown where she is a big tourist draw that made me wary of the hype.

Wordle 526 3/6

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A hard-won 3day. Went through five or six minutes of choices that couldn't work because of the eight letters I'd eliminated. AEONS, MIRTH, HAPPY

>258 Familyhistorian: I don't think I ever really became a fan so much as knew there were a lot of fans. Like the Little House on the Prairie and others in that ilk phenomena, it didn't appeal to me.

>257 msf59: It's a fairly dank day here, too, but tomorrow will make up for it since it's going to be January cold from there on. I suggest taking a book with you and holding up a printout of the meme above if they dare to approach you in your corner. Enjoy the day, no matter how it looks.

>256 karenmarie: Happy Sunday, Horrible. Hoping your sportsball squad (whichever one's playing today) heaps the hurts on their opponents today.

How wonderful that schools back in your day had stories involving the students' real lives! It must've been so comforting to see a story about a stegosaurus when you could see them roaming about the plains just outside. Which dinosaur laid The Enormous Egg?

*smooch*

>255 FAMeulstee: I know, right?! I can incinerate a fool whose courage overcomes their caution when interrupting me mid-read.

*smooch*

>254 humouress: I Oversee All, foolish mortal.

"-er" is more at risk, I should think. "-ee" needs to perform the sacrifice.

>253 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! Like >256 karenmarie: says, it's a snapshot in time...it's not possible to reduce a person's entire inner life to just seven anythings!

That said, it's more interesting doing the thinking than writing down the results in any of these "test/listicle" things. It tells me a lot about where I am emotionally when I feel the answers bubbling up.

*smooch*

Warlord of the Air was a good one! Thanks for calling it back to my mind - good memories!

(pondering re-read)

>262 magicians_nephew: It was a good read, but I'd be afraid to re-read it now. So much about SF and its practice has changed that I would fear its effects on my long-held delight.

>251 richardderus: Yes, I did. Thanks.

>258 Familyhistorian: >260 richardderus: I never read any of the Anne books, but my daughter played Anne one year in a community theater production. I have a great photo of her in costume. If I can find it, I’ll post it on my thread.

>261 richardderus: Can't stop thinking about it, so I'll do it. This is mostly a reflection of the past in the order that the books became important to me.

#7BooksToGetToKnowMe (Fiction)

Little Women
Pride and Prejudice
In This House of Brede
Gaudy Night
Bleak House
Grass
Infinite Jest

Almost all women, as you see, and leaving several others shaking their pages angrily at me ..... The one I'm least sure about is Grass; I probably love After Long Silence and parts of The Fresco more, but Grass is the best book. Anyway, I did it, so maybe I can stop obsessing.

3 for me in Wordle today, much easier for me than you, Richard, because of my second word.

>265 LizzieD: Well, that is an eclectic list, Peggy! It's impossible to get a whole person out of a snapshot of a mere seven books but you're pretty thoroughly described in those choices.

Iiiiiiinteresting....

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Monday to you.

>260 richardderus: I did not watch any sportsball yesterday. We were still avoiding Bill in the Living Room, and I just wasn’t in the mood to try to watch on my laptop. I read pretty much all day.

Uncle Beazley, the dinosaur in The Enormous Egg, was a triceratops. I don’t know when science realized that birds were the descendants of dinosaurs, but this book was published in 1956.

Wordle in two today. Only 6 times in my current run of 193.

*smooch*

Dropping in to say hello and wish you a glorious Monday morning!

Wordle 527 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, PETRI, TEPID When will I learn not to Wordle until *after* the coffee pot is empty?!

223 Journey to Death (Lucy Hall #1) by Leigh Russell

Rating: 4* of five for suiting my exact mood

The Publisher Says: Lucy Hall arrives in the Seychelles determined to leave her worries behind. The tropical paradise looks sun-soaked and picture-perfect—but as Lucy soon discovers, appearances can be very deceptive. A deadly secret lurks in the island’s history, buried deep but not forgotten. And it is about to come to light.

As black clouds begin to gather over what promised to be a relaxing family break, Lucy realises that her father stands in the eye of the coming storm. A shadow from his past is threatening to destroy all that he holds dear—including the lives of his loved ones.

A dark truth is about to explode into their lives, and that truth is going to hit them right between the eyes.

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

My Review: The wages of sin are paid by those born of it. This is the first of a new series starring the woman who will pay for the sins of the past. It definitely kept me going as we start the book following George in the 1970s...a time of terrible political crises and much violence, as any of us who lived through it remember. Despite the terrible things happening, we're moving at a dream-like pace...it kept me from being fully immersed and presented a problem for me throughout the read.

Landing in the Seychelles for a family vacation, Lucy, George's twentysomething daughter, is ready for a complete change because she's just broken her engagement to a man whose idea of marriage isn't like hers. Because we do hear a LOT about that subject, I was about to skip the rest of the read. I kept going because the descriptions are fully and completely involving. I can't really extract one to show you, sorry...the problem with reading a DRC is that I can't copy-and-paste the way one can with normal Kindle books.

What I found ironic is that ever-so-betrayed Lucy's mother, put in jeopardy by her husband lying by omission, doesn't seem ready to snatch some passing policeman's gun and shoot him dead. I assure you that, were my Young Gentleman Caller to whisk me off to a beautiful foreign destination where he (searching for a lost love) got me kidnapped, you would need one sheet of blotting paper and a whisk broom to clean up what was left of him once I was free.

Anyway, I love reading about tropical places, I enjoyed Lucy's complete unwillingness to accept anything told her at face value no matter whose face was uttering it, and I wanted just this level of readerly demand. It's not perfect, it's not fast-paced, but it is lush and it gives you plenty to think about. Recommended!

>268 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita! "Glorious" might be out of my reach (certainly out of my grasp!) but the wishes alone make me feel a hair less grouchy. Mission accomplished, I'd say.

>267 karenmarie: Hey Horrible! The birds-are-dinosaurs hypothesis is quite a lot older than 1956. The men of the paleontological pooh-bahate decided it was simply incorrect and any fossil that supported the hypothesis was 1) fake b) a fraud iii) wrong. Tediously manly responses to change, re-focusing, shifting the solid ground of "I know this is true" even when it isn't.

Annoying creatures.

I hope your 2day goes as well as it started! *smooch*

224 Girl In Danger (Lucy Hall #2) by Leigh Russell

Rating: squeaks to 4* of five on its mood-suiting qualities

The Publisher Says: Chasing a story, reporter Lucy Hall plunges into a desperate fight to save her own life.

Lucy Hall’s first summer in Paris promises to be idyllic. She’s fallen in love with the city and enjoys her new job as an investigative reporter. When her friend Nina comes to stay, the girls look forward to a wonderful summer. But Paris is a city of contrasts and Lucy is about to experience its dangerous side.

When an anonymous source promises her a scoop, Lucy can’t resist the chance to make her name. The deeply unsettling meeting with her informant indicates that there may be more at stake than she’d suspected. Returning home with questions instead of answers, Lucy finds her apartment ransacked and Nina gone.

Lucy knows her friend is in danger, but the police are unwilling to help. When her informant is found dead, she realises she may be next. Lucy has something the killer wants and he’ll do anything to get it back…

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

My Review: Another case of feeling the scenery is a co-star in the read and might deserve a cut of the royalties. This time it's set in a place I've been! So I felt even more connected to the locales.

Another situation where I wonder how the bloody hell the woman got there...how is a twenty-four-year-old going to get an investigative journalist's position in a city she's not from, and barely speaks the language? And what journalist's boss would chastise her for pestering people for story ideas? That is the literal definition of her job.

Well, no matter, I wasn't asked to fact-check the MS so I let it go.

I totally bought that Lucy, knowing she's dealing with a dreadful underworld figure, would go to the police the second her visiting gal-pal vanishes and her apartment gets ransacked; I also totally bought that the police, knowing what they are bound to know of the criminal in question, basically shrugged and said "come back after forty-eight hours, kthxbye" because the young visitor will either arrive back confused from being lost or in Ziploc baggies piece by piece to scare Lucy away from being a journalist investigator. Either way the police don't really need to do much.

A little harder to buy is Lucy teaming up with Alain Michel (Alan Michael, the author didn't spend much time researching names), the proverbial P.I. with a Past; of course he Knows Stuff. It's a pearl-clutcher, this level of suspense. I will say that the author makes a serious effort to add some physical danger to this entry (largely theoretical last time), but most does this with details of the aftermath of violence and that doesn't have the same effect long-term.

But as I thought these dismissive thoughts I realized I was more than half-way through the read. What?! How did that happen? It happened because the prose is direct, well-formed, and the plot is familiar enough to make few demands and still involving enough to require that I finish the read. I enjoyed the sentimental journey to Paris, I liked the resolution of the plot, and found myself exactly the right read for a sloppy Sunday in this series.

If anyone reading this has been touched in any way by #suicide, please go get this book. It is free to read on #NetGalley for the next three days.
How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind by Clancy Martin

Good morning, Richard, with hope that the rest of the week will be good too.

>272 richardderus: This sounds like my own cup of tea, but I just can't put another book on my Kindle right now. Sometimes the mind recoils from glut, even of books, and my Read Now stacks are ridiculously high. I'll keep Lucy in mind though.

>273 richardderus: I can't do this either, but I wish I could for my former students who killed themselves.

*sigh* Wordle in 4 for me too. I could have made a less stupid choice for my 3rd word, but there's no saying I wouldn't have ended up in the same place or worse without it. Actually, 4 feels average.

*smooch* and maybe back later.........

Well today the 7 books would be:

The Great Gatsby
84 Charing Cross Road
Middlemarch
The Complete works of James Baldwin (cheating ... who said that?)
Out of Africa
Virginia Woolf's Diaries
War and Peace

>275 Caroline_McElwee: Interesting choices, Caro! Solid classics all.

>274 LizzieD: Good morning-for-a-few-more-minutes, Peggy! If you can't, you can't...they'll still be there, and be cheap in the series-books' case, when you can.

4days are fine with me, since I took my focus off how much I got and put it onto how *many* I got.

*smooch* I hope it all goes well today!

>273 richardderus: Thank you Richard for posting this.

Quick hello before I head off to book sorting and lunch with a friend.

Happy Tuesday and all that jazz...

*smooch*

Happy Tuesday, Richard! I'm enjoying seeing everyone's "7 books" and different approaches to it. I wasn't approaching it as "favorites" necessarily, but a list that would give you a good idea of what I like and what's important to me in life (thus Fahrenheit 451 showing up, which even two years ago probably wouldn't have, but in this climate of anti-library pro-censorship... yeah).

Anyway, hope it's a good day for you with good reading ahead!

Wordle 528 4/6

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AEONS, MIRTH, ENDED, UNDUE Unexpected word! With eight letters eliminated there's nothing on Earth like the answer that came springing to mind. Four's a great result for me today, it easily could've gone five.

>280 humouress: Well! Isn't that lovely to host an animal I loathe, despise, and detest only slightly less than Republicans on my thread! How did you know I needed that spur to start a new thread today?

>279 bell7: Thanks Mary! I'm having a tussle with tomorrow's reviews. *sigh* It does sometimes seem as though my subconscious likes to make its dominance known to me on these occasions when editing. *another sigh*

Have a happy snappy day at the salt mines!

>278 karenmarie: Oooo it's bookfondling day! Have a lovely time, Horrible. *smooch*

>277 magicians_nephew: It's both a duty and a pleasure, Jim.

>282 richardderus: Psychic.

>283 humouress: Not guilty, but don't do it again.

>281 richardderus: Wordle-in-4 is great, especially with a solution like this! Were you well-caffeinated today? Seems like it.

Have a great day!

Karen O

>285 klobrien2: I started the process just after finishing my pot of coffee. Well spotted, Karen O.!

Happy Tuesday.

>287 richardderus: Is there now? I'd better pay it a visit ...