... have you been reading anything interesting?
Consider buying some books — or anything — at Amazon, through the Althouse Portal.
And when you're done, if you're in Madison, maybe you can find a "little free library" like this one, where you can leave a used book and take a book somebody else left.
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104 comments:
This is an open thread.
Potlatch: A Comedy
by Bruce Hartman
A very amusing satire. Among other things, a South Philly loan shark becomes Financial Aid Officer for a University, his most lucrative scam ever. Available you-know-whare.
This will be all the raging news tonight and tomorrow, so I thought I'd get a jump on it.
While debating a talking head on TV, Corey Lewindowski got tired of hearing the guy talk and said, "Wah wah" like the teacher in Peanuts who just keeps talking without saying anything.
The guy speaking went immediately into rage mode, "How dare you sir!" because at the time he happened to be speaking about a girl with down syndrome. So the guy made it look like Cory was, in some way, mocking the girl.
This is why I stopped watching these shows so long ago. Because the fake outrage is just too WWE for me.
Just discovered that the two junior officers on the destroyer USS Fitzgerald who were responsible for its collision with a lumbering container ship were women. Six sailors died. The two did not speak to each other during their entire shift.
I think women can have a career in the military, and ought to be able to have a career in the military, but if they aren't going to do their jobs properly then they need to go elsewhere to make their living.
San Francisco Giants closer Hunter Strickland will be sidelined six to eight weeks after he fractured his right hand while punching a door Monday night following a blown save.
Crash Davis: Did you hit me with your right hand or did you hit me with your left? Huh? Did you hit me with your right hand or did you hit me with your LEFT?
Ebby Calvin LaLoosh: My left.
Crash Davis: Good! That's good; when you get in a fight with a drunk you don't hit him with your pitching hand. God, I can't keep giving you these free lessons so quit screwin' around and help me up.
Blogger Big Mike said...
Just discovered that the two junior officers on the destroyer USS Fitzgerald who were responsible for its collision with a lumbering container ship were women. Six sailors died. The two did not speak to each other during their entire shift.
I think women can have a career in the military, and ought to be able to have a career in the military, but if they aren't going to do their jobs properly then they need to go elsewhere to make their living.
It's not about women, per se. It's more about lowering the standards so that women can be equally represented.
My daughter is an epidemiologist. These neighborhood small libraries are nothing more than transmission vectors waiting for the next cholera epidemic.......and bed bugs!!
A human head weighs ten pounds.
Reading Lexington and Concord by George C.Daughn. It is new and the best on the British King’s 1775 Attack on New England. CSPAN’s Book TV has the authors of new books giving talks at bookstores every weekend. Just listen to the authors and you can spot the best ones.
I can't wait Until Althouse appears on the show. Her book on learning to
Love the Mighty Trump Thing will be a best seller.
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.
how are those penguins Holding On to their books? Are they related to dogs? It is a little remarkable how dogs can grasp a bat (or cards for that matter).
One to tie Two to win
I ordered a book on my wishlist. Next time I'll get that 3x prismatic sight.
Do I get a gold star, Mommy?
This "zero tolerance policy" talk is B.S.
The system is so overwhelmed they can't enforce anything but fitfully.
@Big Mike -- On the other hand, Irian Woodley, who was the Fitzgerald's surface warfare coordinator at the time of the collision, is not female.
Woodley, Combs, and Coppock stand in contrast to Lt. Cmdr. Ritarsha Furgan:
Lt. Cmdr. Ritarsha Furgan, who had been the combat systems officer on board the Fitzgerald until March 2017, said she had warned her boss that the ship was in too great a state of disrepair. After a period in dry dock and heavy crew turnover, the ship had been on back-to-back missions. It needed time for training and equipment repairs, she said.
"I stood in my boss' office and said we should not be going out, we are not ready," she said.
However, the investigation documents a ship operating with faulty equipment known to senior command:
Furgan said the demand for ships in 7th Fleet meant that the Fitzgerald had been having what was known as "red line issues," meaning higher level permission was needed to get underway because something wasn't working properly.
My plan is to put a mini camera in a book by Hannity or Limbaugh and leave it in one of those little libraries.
That way we'll get to observe the actual "liberal" book burning ritual.
Kinda like when the FBI bugged a house during an actual Mafia induction ceremony.
Mafia induction recording made history 26 years ago in Medford
Mobsters from throughout New England gathered at a modest home in Medford on Oct. 29, 1989, to baptize four new soldiers, who pricked their trigger fingers, burned holy cards and vowed to kill for the Mafia — unaware the FBI was recording every word...
The tapes, marking the first and only Mafia induction ceremony recorded by law enforcement, also provided undisputed proof of the existence of the Mafia, also known as La Cosa Nostra, Italian for “this Thing of Ours.”
Hagar said...
The system is so overwhelmed they can't enforce anything but fitfully.
Agree completely.
@Henry, comes under the heading of "interesting but so what"?
Reading The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester.
If you are at all interested in automation and society's reaction to it (re: Luddites) this is a great read so far.
On another topic, wife is watching Meghan Markle on Hallmark channel in "When Sparks Fly." Not bad, but not precisely Oscar caliber.
have I been reading anything interesting? Funny you should ask. I have started reading "Whistling Vivaldi" by Claude Steele.
To answer our hostess' question, I am reading HEMINGWAY VS. FITZGERALD: THE RISE AND FALL OF A LITERARY FRIENDSHIP, by Scott Donaldson. Very interesting, even while traversing familiar territory.
I don't understand those library boxes. They only have them in solidly middle to upper middle class areas where people have plenty of books and good local libraries. Then there is the use case.. What, you're out walking and suddenly want to get a book you need to carry for the rest of your walk? You came out with an extra one to leave in return? There's also the problem of implicitly inviting strangers to hang out in your front yard (well into it at the closest local box I know of). There's also the problem of jokers larding your box with copies of "Punish Me With Scorpions" and "The Naughty Nurse's House Calls".
Of course, I guess those are mostly theoretical problems as I have never seen a person stop at any local library box ever, despite driving by one several times a day, and others fairly frequently.
I just started Niall Ferguson's "The War of the World." I've read several of Ferguson's histories and enjoyed them.
I check out those little libraries when I'm out walking but I haven't found anything I've wanted to read.
@Unknown,
"Punish Me With Scorpions" and "The Naughty Nurse's House Calls".
I those are two of Joyce Carroll Oates' best works.
The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and its opposite,
The Martian by Andy Weir
I always have several books on the go but I will only mention the series of historical novels The Accursed Kings, by Maurice Druon. Translated from French, written about 1960, concerning the fall of the house of Capet in the early 14th century. Excellent. I am just finishing book 4 of 7. The first is The Iron King.
Of Dubious Intent: A Dark Artifice Novel (Volume 1)
by J A Sutherland (as Richard Grantham)
Hmm. I don't know what happened here. I got the Kindle edition of this book from pre-order as expected, but when I went back on Amazon to look up a few things for this review, the Kindle edition is completely gone, and the only reference (in the link above) is to an out of print paperback edition. Given that the book had only been "in print" for a few weeks, that is kind of odd. So, I don't know if you can get this book or not, but if you can, you should.
However, you should not expect the tone from the author's other series, "Alexis Carew" when you dive in here. The series title is "Dark Artifice" and sometimes the dark is "very".
Years ago, Haley's Comet came back early and rammed into the Moon, opening a visible crevasse of some unknown material that somehow effects "electrics" on Earth an renders electricity incredibly dangerous several days of the month. Does it have an advancing effect on steam tech? Perhaps. From what little we see, steam is more capable than on our world, and develops earlier. Not that it has made the world a better place.
Orphan Cat has grown up in the hard streets of Georgian London. (We aren't sure of that at first, she thinks of the place only as "the city", and it's not until we are well into the book that a mention of Bow's Bells clarifies things a little). Hard streets breed hard people, and Cat survives as a member of street gang making a living, what there is of it, thieving, though most of the take goes to the gang leader and those above him. It's all she knows, but she won't be able to keep doing it much longer. Even malnourished as she is, puberty is upon her, and she won't be able to keep of the pretense of being a small boy for much longer and a woman's lot on those mean streets is even worse than a child's.
She has her eye on one score, a fat purse attached to a man of very predictable habits, that will enable her to slip the gang and strike out on her own. Unfortunately what she doesn't know is that stealing it is not her own idea, and the man whose idea it is has many other ideas, none of them "good".
Sutherland has said that to some extent this book is his "nature vs nurture" book in which he creates a protagonist with the same drive as Alexis Carew, but without her family support system, or even the hard but not evil Navy she turns to. Nothing in Cat's life has primed her to make good choices or to be a good person (in fact there is really only one good person in her life) and the turns she takes are sometimes heartbreaking especially after we are invested in her. Personally, I view her more as a dark Modesty Blaise than a dark Alexis Carew though. You can even see "dark Willie Garvin" in one character.
There are some very brutal scenes here, especially a sequence set in Bethlem (Bedlam) and I would say the book is not for those who want a happy tale, but I found it compelling.
I am still reading A Confederacy of Dunces which is pure pleasure, and trying to get into Interrupted by Jen Hatmaker which is for my church book club.
Reading a collection of Flannery O’Connor short stories.
I'm reading "Dagger John, Archbishop John Hughes & the Making of Irish America" by John Loughery. John Hughes was archbishop of the diocese of New York in the mid-19th C.
It's an amazing but little analyzed chapter in the sociological history of the Catholic Church that it took the American Irish community from being the poorest of the poor to now tied with American Ashkenazi Jews as the top ethnic groups in income & educational achievement.
It took generations of clergy, especially nuns, who lived lives of poverty in service to their community, a poverty that allowed Irish families to afford to give their children an education that was in its quality the equal of what the upper classes got for their children.
Here's the link.
Hegelian
Nuns, under the thumb of the patriarchy, working to advance white supremacy.
@Ken,
Nuns, under the thumb of the patriarchy, working to advance white supremacy.
Yeah, that kind of sums up my Catholic School experience.
Misplaced Pants, I'm curious to hear your thoughts about Hatmaker. She's very trendy in some Christian circles.
"It took generations of clergy, especially nuns, who lived lives of poverty in service to their community, a poverty that allowed Irish families to afford to give their children an education that was in its quality the equal of what the upper classes got for their children."
And not just the Irish. My blue collar dad sent all 5 of his kids to Catholic grade and high schools. It would cost a fortune to do that now.
I am currently reading a novel by Bernanos, with the simple title of Joy, which is about a young woman living in provincial France 80 years ago who has love in her heart for everybody. Much more interesting than it sounds? Yes. She is surrounded by people with less love in their hearts than they should. Not exactly one of the Jungian-approved plots you might encounter in a superhero movie, but Christian theology is, after all, more complex than Jungianism ....
I am also reading a novel by Agatha Christie, without Poirot or dear ever-young Miss Marple, called Zero Hour. I chose it from the bookstore, where I sometimes leaf through mysteries and other books, for two reasons: one, there was a beautiful exchange of dialogue between a very old lady and a younger friend, in which the old lady expressed, beautifully, how she viewed the way time still kept, almost impossibly, going on - and second, the dedication to Robert Graves, the poet, at the beginning.
I am also reading a book about the four 5 star admirals in the WWII USA Navy (Halsey, Leahy, Nimitz, and King - King is the one you might remember from the Incredible Mr Limpet, he was the guy in charge of the Atlantic naval forces and who had to decide if Mr Limpet was on the up and up) ) and I am in my second year of reading through Laurence Sterne's little novel about Tristram Shandy, Uncle Toby, and their friends. And the Mayor of Casterbridge, I read lots of books at once.
I decided it was time to read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, after getting through a surprising amount of higher education without reading it. I've spent the last few weeks with Kierkegaard (Concept of Angst and Practice of Christianity) and I think I'm finally getting him after reading other books of his in years past. Though, of course, my getting him means disagreeing with a lot of popular interpretation. Stephen Lawhead has a new book out, and my sentimental teenager reading of his books keeps me coming back. A little break from my Sharpe/Aubrey/Maturin/Hornblower cycle that I've been going through the last six months.
Reading Travels in Tartary by Peter Fleming, and For God and Kaiser: The Imperial Austrian Army by Richard Bassett, Both are good.
Interesting concept art for Jim Carrey (when he was funny) as Mr. Limpet. In the end I agree with the commenter who wrote that Don Knotts already looked like a fish and Carrey did not. I thought the final sketch could have worked though the movie was never made.
The perils of reading headlines from other Anglosphere countries:
Lord Monson: Super-strength skunk killed my son, which is why I want cannabis to be legalised
Blogger Big Mike said...
Just discovered that the two junior officers on the destroyer USS Fitzgerald who were responsible for its collision with a lumbering container ship were women. Six sailors died. The two did not speak to each other during their entire shift.
They identified as competent.
He continued, “Right now we have this beacon of, ‘We’ll leave the light on for you and let you come illegally into the country.’ If you’ve seen some of the stuff we’ve seen, you’d understand how important it is to have a tough stance to divert people from coming here.”
Cabrera then bluntly told Baldwin some of the horrors he has seen.
“When you see a 12-year-old girl with a plan B pill, her parents put her on birth control because they know getting violated is part of the journey, that’s a terrible way to live. When you see a 4-year-old girl traveling alone with just her parents phone number written across her shirt. We had a 9-year-old boy have heat stroke in front of us and die with no family around. That’s because we’re allowing people to take advantage of this system.”
The retelling of the child horror stories elicited an audible gasp from Baldwin.
Cabrera went on to say that it’s up to Congress to change the law, but until then his agents will continue to enforce the laws on the books.
“Most of our agents are parents. I’ve seen guys and I’ve done it myself, you give your last bottle of water to a kid, you’ll take a toy out of your car to give to one of these kids because you know the situation they’re in.” Caberera said. “Agents are very sympathetic. We’re human, we’re fathers, we have families. We do a lot for the communities here, whether or not a camera is involved. Our agents are very involved. And nobody saves more lives along the southwestern border than the U.S. Border patrol.”
http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/19/cnn-border-patrol-agent-speechless/
I just watched the first two seasons of The Santa Clarita Diet. It has an appealing cast --Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Drew is very appealing as a flesh eating zombie, but I have some quarrels with the series' political correctness. The conceit of the show is that Drew is a good person who makes a conscientious effort to only kill and eat bad people. Well and good, but, in the later episodes, she exclusively hunts down and kills members of an American Nazi baseball team. I have some problems with this premise. Just for one thing, I'm almost positive that the American Nazis do not have a baseball team, and, even if they did, what league would they play in. In my longish life, I have never met a Nazi or a transgender, but you see a lot of them on tv.......I wonder if the series was written before or after the Scalise shooting. Is there some kind of subliminal advertising going on.......Also, it seems to me that a truly ethical cannibal would seek out one fat bad person rather than a bunch of skinny Nazis, but there it is. You can't kill fat people. That would be fat shaming. Nazis and crooked cops are perfectly acceptable, however.
I have been reading home building contracts - only interesting if you want to learn about deception.
On the advice of my sister-in-law (a high powered L.A. attorney), we hired a local AZ real estate attorney to help us deal with this deception.
Lawyers seem to have a good thing going. They create laws, regulations and contracts that force us to hire other attorneys if we don't want to get screwed. It's like we hire gladiators to fight other gladiators.
Paddy... How did you like the role played by Earnest King? He was the epitome of a Calvinist Presbyterian at War. He was the perfect realist that FDR got out of mothballs and designated sole Chief of the USNavy for the greatest fleet in history. And the magnificent bastard never fell for the Brits tricks.
Happy Hour Of The Damned is the funnies zombie book I know of. I can't say the heroine tries very hard for a virtuous diet though.
(The series goes rapidly downhill after the first book. Luckily, Happy Hour comes to a decent conclusion, so you don't really miss anything by not continuing).
Arg. "Funniest", not "funnies".
Oh, and likewise for Staked and vampire books.
This year I have read on Amazon/Kindle Walker Percy's The Movie Goer and The Last Gentleman, both of which were quite good. Then on to Tom Mcguane's Driving the Rim and 92 in the Shade (I came across a great TM short story last year in the New Yorker and sought him out on Kindle). Driving the Rim was interesting with lots of unexpected turns. So then I rapidly consumed some Raymond Chandler, the best of which was the classic The Long Goodbye. In the background are Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules and the King James Bible. Glenn Gould on YouTube goes well with all this.
the Catholic Church that it took the American Irish community from being the poorest of the poor to now tied with American Ashkenazi Jews as the top ethnic groups in income & educational achievement
It sounds like a model for education and, generally, social reform.
Just started The Flamethrowers by Rachel Cusk. I like it so far but I’m only on chapter 3.
I am also reading a novel by Agatha Christie
I am going through Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I don't know if the 'mysteries' are any more mysterious, but she is a MUCH better writer...especially dialog.
Raymond Chandler, the best of which was the classic The Long Goodbye
Even Chandler lost the thread of his plots most times, but, boy, do I ever savor his writing
"From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away.".
We drove over from Tucson to Orange County today listening to the new Conrad Black biography of Trump.
Highly recommended. He knows him well a d the bio is warts and all.
Not enough warts for chuck, though.
Hammet & Chandler are the American classics. And you can't go wrong with Bogard in "The Maltese Falcon" and "The Big Sleep". Heck, even when you realize you no longer have any idea what's going on in TBS, it's *still* great.
Early Queen could really plot a fair-play mystery too.
I stole my oldest sister's copies of Raymond Chandler's novels in the early 1990s. Loved all of them. Eddie is right, the plots often lose the thread at some point, but that isn't why you read them, as he also points out.
I just watched the first two seasons of The Santa Clarita Diet...
I'd like to have a Socratic dialogue with Victor Fresco, the creator of that show. Here are some of the questions I'd ask him, and the likely answers I'd get. (Think of it as Crito for Dummies)
Q: What's wrong with being a Nazi?
F: Nazis are bad. Nazis kill people, especially Jews.
Q: All of them?
F: Yes.
Q: Palestinians kill people, especially Jews.
F: Not all Palestinians. most have never killed anybody.
Q: Surely some Nazis have never killed anybody.
F: It doesn't matter. If you agree with Nazism, you're a murderer.
Q: If a Palestinian agrees with killing Jews, though he hasn't killed anyone personally, he's a murderer?
F: No, it's different. Some Jews are Zionists. Zionists deserve it.
Q: So what you think is more important than what you do?
F: Yeah.
Q: So it's good to kill people for what they believe?
F: Yeah. That's what my TV series is about.
Q: Isn't that why the Nazis killed so many Jews and Communists, because of what they believed?
F: Yeah. But what makes the difference is what you believe. If it's bad you should be killed.
Q: How do I know whether what you believe is bad.
F: It's not bad. I believe in peace and freedom for everyone...
Q: Except the bad people.
F: Yeah
Q: You don't agree with Nazis.
F: Fuck, no.
Q: So you believe in peace and freedom for everyone who you agree with.
F: Yeah! I mean...
Q: The Nazis didn't agree with the Jews, did they?
F: No, but...
Q: I fail to see much difference between your ethics and Hitler's. Where Have I gone wrong?
I am going through Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
Agreed. My favorite is Have His Carcase. Her characters are richer and their motives are more subtle and complex, which makes them more like complete persons rather than devices serving to advance or obscure the plot.
so, when Howard Hawks decided to film The Big Sleep, he wanted Raymond Chandler to do the screenplay; but couldn't because Raymond was well into his alcoholism. So, he hired William Faulkner to do it. Which is kinda neat if you think about it.
Then, one day Faulkner calls up Hawks and says: I've got a problem. I can't figure out who killed the Chauffeur.
And Hawks says; it's been awhile since i've read it, i'll have to re read it and will get back to you.
Neither one of them can figure it out; and Hawks raises Chandler from his drunken stupor, and asks him: Who Killed the Chauffer? We can't figure it out.
And Chandler says:
I have no idea who killed the Chauffer; what difference would it make anyway?
If you ever want to know how a great writer thinks: That's how
ps. IMHO The Chauffer drove himself off of the pier (after Brody sapped him after the Chauffer killed Geiger after Geiger drugged Carmen after Carmen killed Sean Regan for not having sex with her). It's all pretty clearly worked out. One of the cops at the pier calls it (except for the parts about Brody/Geiger/Carmen/Regan), but it has NOTHING to do with what the book was about. The book was about Orchids, and most of all: Oil well Sumps
Penguins, eh?
Best-Selling Author Dropped as Literary Judge for Criticizing Penguin Random House's New Diversity Policy
Althouse disapproves of this site, so beware!
Penguin Random House's New Diversity Policy
Racism and color judgments/discrimination/exclusion generally a.k.a. "diversity" are a hard pill to swallow for people who are not monotonically divergent. Presumably, people remember Jew privilege that progressed as White privilege and now Asian privilege. Never again and again and again.
Buyers connected to Russia or former Soviet republics made 86 all-cash sales — totaling nearly $109 million — at 10 Trump-branded properties in South Florida and New York City, according to a new analysis shared with McClatchy. Many of them made purchases using shell companies designed to obscure their identities.
“The size and scope of these cash purchases are deeply troubling as they can often signal money laundering activity," said Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a former federal prosecutor. "There have long been credible allegations of money laundering by the Trump Organization which, if true, would pose a real threat to the United States in the event that Russia were able to leverage evidence of illicit financial transactions against the president."
Not to worry - nothing to see here - just another unfounded conspiracy theory. 86 "cash-on-the barrelhead" single payments averaging over $1.25 million per sale - all reportable to the Treasury Department.
I just worked Macquarie Island VI70MI on 40m (15w). The question now is what continent does it count as. Either Australia or Antarctica. It has penguins.
So the current immigration debate seems to be following the same trajectory as the gun debate and the police brutality debate.
We're mostly through the first stage which is basically just "outrageous outrage" and are currently entering the second one which is cynical political maneuvering. In about a week or two we'll enter the token legislation stage after everybody but the news networks has moved on.
I've gotta give Trump credit for keeping his political shit storms efficient. Where normally they'd stretch on interminably for him they typically disappear in about three weeks.
"The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami..."
Funny, that's the book I'd been reading for the past month (and finished last week). What a strange book (of so many patched together things). Made me think of writing a book with that kind of sense of freedom. Aimless main character goes out to find a cat and gets connected to one strange character after another and anything can happen and he must figure out what the hell he is really looking for.
Antone else notice what it took for IG Hororwitz to uncover the "We'll stop it" text from Strozk?
It took four steps, including an outside forensic contractor and the Pentagon to unmask it. It was buried by the FBI so congress could not see it, nor Horowitz. Rod "The Whitewasher" Rosenstein is the apparent culprit.
Reading Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens but it’s a bright and hot summer so i’m hankering to find a good spy novel, something dark, cold and East European. Thinking of Olen Steinhauer, Any Suggestions?
Ann Althouse said...
"The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by H
aruki Murakami..."
Funny, that's the book I'd been reading for the past month (and finished last week). What a strange book (of so many patched together things). Made me think of writing a book with that kind of sense of freedom. Aimless main character goes out to find a cat and gets connected to one strange character after another and anything can happen and he must figure out what the hell he is really looking for.
A friend of ours said that she had read this book. Mrs. Tank and I brought up the part involving skin peeling. Our friend did not remember that scene. That was weird. Well, the whole book was really.
Just finished Who We Are and How We Got Here, by David Reich. A good overview of what we currently think we know about human evolution and population dispersal. He only occasionally falls into kneejerk progressivism, and it's only for a paragraph or two of reflexive anathematization and warding off the evil spirits, then he's back on track. (James Watson sure pissed in Reich's Wheaties, though.)
Next, Northanger Abbey for some fluffy light summer reading.
I’ve been flirting with the idea of reading a Haruki Murakami novel, but I understand he’s very surreal and I’m not sure I’m up to that right now. I’m currently reading The Brothers Karamozov and Augustine’s Confessions. I find Augustine easier reading. There’s a lot of interesting philosophy and theology in Dostoevsky, but it gets in the way of the plot so that when he picks up the thread of the story again, I can no longer remember why the characters are doing what they’re doing. I thought it might be the translation, so I switched to a different one, but that only helped a little. I restarted it, skipping over the philosophy and just reading the story and am now going back to read the non-plot-advancing sections, and that has worked out much better. I’m going to need something light and entertaining after this, though.
Blogger Unknown said...
"I don't understand those library boxes. They only have them in solidly middle to upper middle class areas where people have plenty of books and good local libraries."
There are at least three little libraries on my daily walk in neighborhoods near the UW-La Crosse campus and the public library. The area is safe, well kept and overwhelmingly liberal. The little library boxes make the residents feel good and allow conspicuous virtue signaling.
If you walk a few blocks further to the south things change. Street signs are vandalized. Yellow police tape marks rape and drug bust sites. Houses need repair. I walk there occasionally in the calm early morning hours. There are no little libraries. There is no demand for books, there is no virtue to signal and the libraries wouldn't survive even a few days.
I just read The Socialist Phenomenon by Igor Shafarevich. It was edited by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It's out of print you can still find it occasionally but here's a link. It's a historical view of socialist thought going back to Plato and Aristotle to the Incas and Asia. Fascinating
http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html
Unknown: I don't understand those library boxes. They only have them in solidly middle to upper middle class areas where people have plenty of books and good local libraries. Then there is the use case.. What, you're out walking and suddenly want to get a book you need to carry for the rest of your walk? You came out with an extra one to leave in return? There's also the problem of implicitly inviting strangers to hang out in your front yard (well into it at the closest local box I know of). There's also the problem of jokers larding your box with copies of "Punish Me With Scorpions" and "The Naughty Nurse's House Calls".
Yes, they dot my neighborhood, and they're just so precious. "Bringing books" to people with a fine public library nearby, and who can afford to order up any book they want from Amazon. I'd be one of those jokers you mention, if I thought anybody used them. (I'd go for a different genre of "shocking", though.)
The library boxes are virtue signalling that probably produces some kind of virtue. Not the reycling kind but community kinds. A sign of community.
William said...
I just watched the first two seasons of The Santa Clarita Diet. It has an appealing cast --Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant. Drew is very appealing as a flesh eating zombie, but I have some quarrels with the series' political correctness. The conceit of the show is that Drew is a good person who makes a conscientious effort to only kill and eat bad people. Well and good, but, in the later episodes, she exclusively hunts down and kills members of an American Nazi baseball team."
That sounds very similiar to the plot line of "Dexter," the Showtime series about a "good" serial killer/lab geek who hunts down other serial killers. The first few seasons were gripping, if far-fetched, and then the series went way off the rails in many different ways. Dexter started hunting down white supremacists and racist rednecks, because of course he did. We have to make sure our psycho white male hero shows he not one of those really, really bad white males.
Sounds like The Santa Clarita Diet is basically a supernatural version of "Dexter" with an extra heaping helping of wokeness, since now you have a female zombie taking out the bad Nazis. But there's still room for more PC evolution. The next series will star a Hispanic transsexual werewolf who takes out evil ICE agents.
[I'm] hankering to find a good spy novel, something dark, cold and East European... Any Suggestions?
Not East European, but French — An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris. This is a history of the Dreyfuss Affair treated as a novel.
[I'm] hankering to find a good spy novel, something dark, cold and East European... Any Suggestions?
I've been rereading a bunch of Graham Greene novels. The Ministry of Fear is dark, cold, but really a crime noir despite a spy element. Nazis. Our Man in Havana is wildly funny, though really a novel of characters, despite a spy element. The Quiet American is dark, philosophical, and sort of a spy novel. It's really a Greene novel.
@Big Mike -- I always try to complicate.
the part involving skin peeling.
I looked up Nomonhan (Japan attacking Mongolia WTF?), and came across the Khalkhgol Victory Museum (! Trigger warning: stuffed horse); one of the photographers there (a Chinese-looking guy with a Russian name) has a series of panorama pictures of other mostly abandoned overblown monuments throughout that weird area, where Russia, China and Mongolia meet-n-greet.
dustbunny said...
something dark, cold and East European
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, uh, The Tin Drum, The Flounder (too weird), and uh, that Russian chinchilla smuggling murder mystery, you know the one I mean.
There's also the problem of jokers larding your box with copies of "Punish Me With Scorpions" and "The Naughty Nurse's House Calls".
Could be worse, it could be backdoor sluts 9
backdoor sluts 9 makes crotch capers 3 seem like naughty nurses 2/
Not chinchillas, "sables" -> "Gorky Park".
And Jussi Adler-Olsen's "Department Q" books, though set in Denmark they "feel" like Eastern Europe, what with the moldy high-pressure chamber and such.
Khalkhgol Victory Museum Click on the map icon to see the purty pichers...
For cold, dark, and east European: check out the novels of Alan Furst, e.g. "Spies of Warsaw" and several others. He specialized in World War II and prewar espionage.
Re the so-called Nomonhan Incident, a.k.a the Battle(s) of Khalkhin Gol: a full-scale if brief war between the Soviet Union and Japan. Notable for involving the largest tank battles yet seen, with Zhukov commanded Red Army forces to a stunning victory over the Japanese. Zhukov made his bones in this conflict (and avoided being purged). His innovative approach to armored warfare set the tone for WW2 armored operations. The battle is of immense geo-politico importance because it played a role in convincing an important faction in the Japanese military leaders -- primarily navy leaders -- to forego war with the Soviets and instead strike east across the Pacific. Up until then those favoring war with the Soviet Union were ascendant. The Japanese defeat at Khalkhin Gol strengthen the hand, and the arguements, of those who favored war with the ABDA nations. The treaty Japan signed with the Soviet Union last until literally the final days of World War II and allowed the Soviets to strip the Far East of military units for the fight against the Germans. It was Siberian units stationed in the Far East, rushed to the Moscow theater of operations, that saved the Soviet state in the winter of 1941-42. If the Japanese had decided to go to war with the Soviets or even threatened the Soviet Union with war, those Far Eastern formations would have had to stay on station in the east and the Soviet Union would probably have lost the war with Germany, a very near-run thing in the first two years, in early 1942.
I recently read NO MORE WACOS by David Kopel and Paul Blackman, an excellent dissection of the atrocity perpetrated by two federal law enforcement agencies on a group of people minding their own business in Texas 25 years ago. "They ambushed us!" cried the ATF, who perpetrated a surprise armed assault on a residence filled with women and children.
I have lots of books waiting for me: a biography of William Burroughs, (CALL ME BURROUGHS); a biography of cartoonist Saul Steinberg; Kafka's THE CASTLE,(an acclaimed new translation...from a few years ago); a collection of short stories by R.A. Lafferty; continuing working my way, off and on, through the short stories of Philip K. Dick; and many more.
Blogger Paco Wové said...
Just finished Who We Are and How We Got Here, by David Reich.
He gets a little progressive in the last 1/3 but he obviously does not want to end up as Charles Murray.
Greg Cochrane on his blog has a good discussion and summary of the book with lots of good comments.
You have to scroll back a couple of weeks in the posts.
an excellent dissection of the atrocity perpetrated by two federal law enforcement agencies on a group of people minding their own business in Texas 25 years ago.
There are also books on Ruby Ridge, an atrocity by the same DOJ, on people minding their own business.
Waco and Ruby Ridge: FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi played a murderously active role in both. Wonder what became of him.
"Sounds like The Santa Clarita Diet is basically a supernatural version of 'Dexter' with an extra heaping helping of wokeness, since now you have a female zombie taking out the bad Nazis. But there's still room for more PC evolution. The next series will star a Hispanic transsexual werewolf who takes out evil ICE agents."
Well, SANTA CLARITA DIET is a (very black) comedy, so nothing in it can be taken seriously. I mean, the main characters, sweet and likable, perpetrate grotesque crimes of murder and dismemberment. Each scene of bloody mayhem really shocks and repulses me.
But it's a great and very funny show.
"...Ruby Ridge, an atrocity by the same DOJ, on people minding their own business."
Yes. Ruby Ridge is also discussed in NO MORE WACOS.
"There are also books on Ruby Ridge, an atrocity by the same DOJ...."
At the time, the BATF was part of the Dept. of the Treasury.
Been reading "To the Last Man" by Jeff Shaara who's perhaps better known for his/his father's Civil War trilogy. I am enjoying the book for its historical aspects but starting to find his writing style a bit wearing with the unusual punction such as:
"He moved past the shape, could hear the hard buzz of flies, was grateful now for the dark. He squinted his eyes, fought through the worst of the smell, stared down for a long while."
Argh.
Waiting anxiously for the arrival of my first edition "John Goffe's Mill," the book that inspired Bob Moore to start his Bob's Red Mill business. Bob is featured in a recent podcast of "How I Built This."
At the time, the BATF was part of the Dept. of the Treasury.
But the shot that killed Randy Weaver’s wife was fired by an FBI sniper. The sniper, Lon Horiuchi, claimed to have been aiming at one of the armed men but missed. Montana jurors, many of whom hunt and were accustomed to making more challenging shots from further than 200 yards, were not buying his story.
@Althouse, speaking of books, how is “How I Learned ...” coming?
My daughter's property is just south of Sandpoint, about 30 miles south of Ruby Ridge,
We were there a week ago.
Several of the historical accounts falsify Weaver's circumstances.
He was not a "white supremacist" a code word these days, and he was entrapped by the ATF which, solicited him to cut down two shotguns knowing he was in financial distress. They were trying to pressure him into being an informant on the Hayden white nation people. Then, his probation officer gave him the wrong date for the court appearance.
It was as bad a setup as Waco, which was at the time of budget hearings for ATF,
"But the shot that killed Randy Weaver’s wife was fired by an FBI sniper. The sniper, Lon Horiuchi, claimed to have been aiming at one of the armed men but missed. Montana jurors, many of whom hunt and were accustomed to making more challenging shots from further than 200 yards, were not buying his story."
That aside, if he's employed by the FBI as a sniper, one must presume he is skilled enough not to buy "I missed" as an excuse.
"It was as bad a setup as Waco, which was at the time of budget hearings for ATF."
At a time when the BATF was under much negative public scrutiny due to charges of racism and sexual harassment in the Bureau from its minority and female employees and agents.
Reading Calypso by David Sedaris; going back and forth from that to Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery.
I started reading the "Woman at the Window" a summer mystery/thriller. It started out interesting, but after finishing a third of the book I gave up because it got so tedious. One long winded description of every minute detail just got to be too much. Then I decided to read the last chapter just to find out what happened. Couldn't even get through that. I realized I didn't care whether the protagonist lived or died or what because the book had gotten so boring.
“A friend of ours said that she had read this book. Mrs. Tank and I brought up the part involving skin peeling. Our friend did not remember that scene. That was weird. Well, the whole book was really.”
If you can’t remember that scene, you probably didn’t read the book. One of the most memorable, horrible things I’ve eread.
As for my book, I’m up to page 12.
Waiting for July 1st, when Yeoman House will publish my fifth Hacker golf mystery novel, Death from the Claret Jug. Golf writer Hacker, who covers the Tour, is in St. Andrews for the British Open and tries to help solve the murder of a local golf official. While helping an old caddie friend avoid a gang of Russian thugs chasing him. Among the suspects is a flamboyant American resort developer (no...not him!). You can watch the trailer, here.
Thanks to all for the suggestions, I love Greene and have read some Furst. Will check out the others.
"As for my book, I’m up to page 12."
Hey, I had a good day!
I'm up to page 30 now.
I've started another Murakami book: "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki."
From "Wind-Up Bird"
“I want you to look at his knife. Closely. It is a very special knife, designed for skinning, and it is extraordinarily well made. The blade is as thin and sharp as a razor. And the technical skill these people bring to the task is extremely high. They’ve been skinning animals for thousands of years, after all. They can take a man’s skin off the way you’d peel a peach. Beautifully, without a single scratch. Am I speaking too quickly for you, by any chance?”
Yamamoto said nothing.
“They do a small area at a time,” said the Russian officer. “They have to work slowly if they want to remove the skin cleanly, without any scratches. If, in the meantime, you feel you want to say something, please let me know. Then you won’t have to die. Our man here has done this several times, and never once has he failed to make the person talk. Keep that in mind. The sooner we stop, the better for both of us.”
Holding his knife, the bearlike Mongolian officer looked at Yamamoto and grinned....
Murakami, Haruki. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: A Novel (Vintage International) (Kindle Locations 2824-2832). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Henry said...
[I'm] hankering to find a good spy novel, something dark, cold and East European... Any Suggestions?
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, by John le Carré
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