richardderus's third 2022 thread

The Silver Wattle, a January-blooming species of acacia, is a garden naturalized Aussie invader to these shores. It's absolutely gorgeous. And it BLOOMS IN JANUARY!! Of course, that's in Mediterranean climates and there's no way where *I* live could be called "Mediterranean" *huddles closer to heating pad*

These 30-foot loomers aren't long-lived...about 40 years...so they're absolutely perfect for January that way, too. Bright and colorful, blooming, and short-timers in a season that normally celebrates the long-lived evergreens. It's a gorgeous change of every pace.

For 2022, I state my goal of posting an average of 4 or 5 book reviews a week on my blog, for an annual total of 250. This year's total of ~200 (I need to do more to sync the data on my reads between my blog, Goodreads, and here this year for real) posts in 50 weeks of blogging shows it's doable. My *actual* blogged total for 2021 was 229.

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 >6 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!

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

017 Blue-Skinned Gods slapped, post 9.

018 Joan is Okay encouraged, post 43.

019 Three Apples Fell from the Sky unfolded, post 45.

020 Here and Now and Then had promise, post 139.

021 A Beginning at the End triumphed, post 142.

022 We Could Be Heroes worked, post 143.

023 Light Years from Home marched, post 149.

024 Red Milk: A Novel slammed, post 193.

025 The Vanished Collection disgruntled, post 222.

026 The Violin Conspiracy excited, post 270.

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. 225 reviews posted seems like a cheat as a goal since I'm on track for that now. I'm thinking 250...approximately 10% increase over this year's actual total.

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.


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


8. Read a classic written by a POC.


9. Read the book that’s been on your TBR the longest.


10. Read a political thriller by a marginalized author (BIPOC, or LGBTQIA+).


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).


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.


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.


23. Read a book by a disabled author.


24. Pick a challenge from any of the previous years’ challenges to repeat!

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 250 reviews on my blog

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

to complete at least 275 total reviews of all types

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.

Ask and ye shall receive! Nathan Burgoine's Twitter account hath taught me. See >6 richardderus: below. I just need to keep getting better about *applying* it!

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.

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!


JANUARY 2022's BURGOINES

8 January Now and Then charmed, post 41.

26 January Losing Our Minds: The Challenge of Defining Mental Illness illuminated, post 155.

27 January Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night: A Novel by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (tr. Philip Roughton) saddened, post 171.

29 January A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler stuck, post 231.

30 January Like A Sword Wound intrigued, post 243.

30 January The Pasha of Cuisine was delicious, post 244.

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.

***
Thread 1's Pearl-Rule post: here.

27 January's Pearl Rule: Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond, post 168.

Okay. The cuffs are off, type away.

017 Blue-Skinned Gods by SJ Sindu

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From the award-winning author of Marriage of a Thousand Lies comes a brilliantly written, globe-spanning novel about identity, faith, family, and sexuality.

In Tamil Nadu, India, a boy is born with blue skin. His father sets up an ashram, and the family makes a living off of the pilgrims who seek the child’s blessings and miracles, believing young Kalki to be the tenth human incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu. In Kalki’s tenth year, he is confronted with three trials that will test his power and prove his divine status and, his father tells him, spread his fame worldwide. While he seems to pass them, Kalki begins to question his divinity.

Over the next decade, his family unravels, and every relationship he relied on—father, mother, aunt, uncle, cousin—starts falling apart. Traveling from India to the underground rock scene of New York City, Blue-Skinned Gods explores ethnic, gender, and sexual identities, and spans continents and faiths, in an expansive and heartfelt look at the need for belief in our globally interconnected world.

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

My Review: A child is fed a diet of lies by his parents and all the adults around him. They seek many things from their lies, and he seeks only his truth.

Come for the writing, stay for the story...the sentences are lovely things, shining and glowing with the light of inspiration. The story's the one we all need to hear at this juncture, the one about the abuse of religion in service of religiosity and greed. The cost to this genuinely beautiful soul, Kalki, is so huge...the relationships he can not save are all built on the sand of lies.

What makes this story so extraordinarily resonant is that we're all surrounded by lies all day every day. Yes, it's true, Kalki's lies are costly to those he's lying to...not being a god and still trying to heal people is wrong...but he told the truth he had been sold all his life by the liars he was raised by and among. Kalki, unlike all the rest of us, has the weight of the literal world on him, has expectations of miracles mounded on him. That's his excuse for buying into the lies he's surrounded by. What's yours? What's mine?

The questions that this brutally honest look in the mirror of a story raises are urgently in need of everyone's answers, delivered with the honesty and the anger that Kalki uses as he does the absolutely unthinkable, the unbelievably god-like thing and takes control of his life: He forgives.

Being able to forgive is, I honestly believe, the single most important quality in a healthy person's happiness. I see it in stark relief as this novel winds its coils around my heart. Kalki, wronged on every level, betrayed and abandoned on every side, used and abused and ripped off...he forgives. And that is the most beautiful thing available for a mortal to do, to give. Come and be healed: Read BLUE-SKINNED GODS.

Happy new thread, RD.

>10 PaulCranswick: Welcome, PC, you are the first visitor:

Asian enough for you?

Happy new one, RD. And nice review!

>12 katiekrug: LOL

I was just at your place telling you to go look at Twitter about it!

Ah! So close and yet so far.

>9 richardderus: Trying to dodge that BB but I wasn't fast enough...

>9 richardderus: Your aim continues to be true.

>9 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Richard!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** Thanks for keeping my thread warm while I was sick. I am much better now, thanks to a lot of sleep!

Placing that review at the beginning of your thread was diabolical, Richard. You got me too!

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>1 richardderus: I love trees that flower in winter, they cheer me up during the dark days. We have a "Prunus subhirtella autumnalis rosea" in the garden. Despite the name, it does flower in winter. This season the first flowers opened exactly on December 21st :-)

>19 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! I, like you, really appreciate the color of blossoms at the dark end of the year. Happy-making color, yellow, and all too uncommon at this point!

>18 Familyhistorian: ::nail-buff:: My aim is true...I really want people to read that book, Meg!

>17 alcottacre: I'm so glad you're more yourself now, Stasia. I know how gross the side-effects feel but the protection *is* worth it. *smooch*

>16 Storeetllr: *happy dance* It's a terrific story, Mary, and so fascinatingly probable.

>15 SandyAMcPherson: I am doing well, I see...even got that bob-and-weave artist Sandy with this book-bullet....

>14 BekkaJo: You get one, too:

Happy new one, Richard! I had heard of Golden Wattle but not Silver. Who knew? But wouldn't you think that silver would not be gold in colour? But what do I know?

>22 jessibud2: I don't think you can see the leaves well enough in that photo, Shelley, they're a silvery-grey color and look really stunning.

Glad you're here!

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Happy New Thread. That topper is sure a welcoming sight, right about now. I did venture out this morning but damn it was cold. Home now, tucked safely in with the books.

Happy new thread!

>1 richardderus: Wow! That a striking yellow

>25 figsfromthistle: I agree, it is...a chromium yellow that will either grate your skin off or pull your cheeks into a grin. (I'm in the grin group.) (Obvs.)

>24 msf59: It's a lovely day here, thank goodness, since it's supposed to snain or raow tomorrow. A dose of sunshine feels marvelous!

Oooh, a shiny new, SHORT thread! Let me leap in and wish you a happy one!

>27 ronincats: Thanks, Roni! It won't last that long, so wise to get your licks in now.

Happy new one! I love the silver wattle. No chance it'll survive in Maryland, though. 😀

>29 drneutron: Thanks, Doc! It's a beaut, ain't it...and I suspect that, apart from the Cali coast, there aren't a lot of places the Silver Wattle would survive...especially not on the eastern fringe of the continent.

Your third thread and it's still January!!!

Hi Richard. I wanted to stop in and let you know that I started reading Runaway by Peter May yesterday. Just read a chapter during my very brief "lunch break" and I'm pretty caught up in it. Thanks for sending it my way!

>31 EBT1002: Thank goodness you're caught up. It's one of those books...if you like the beginning you'll enjoy the whole experience. Or so I expect, anyway!

Happy to see you out and about, since that means P's doing well.

Happy new thread, Rdear!

>1 richardderus: Love the Silver Wattle!

>3 richardderus: Sounds like a wonderfully unusual challenge. I’m avoiding challenges, but go ahead! I’ll follow along.

*smooch*

>33 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! I'm not surprised you love the tree, it's such a vivid colorful thing. It's interesting to me, that challenge, but I think it's going to see some modifications by the time I'm done.

*smooch*

Happy new thread!

>9 richardderus: Not that I'm a challenging target, but that's now on hold at library #3.

>35 quondame: Thank you, and I hope you'll enjoy Sindu's story...and its very odd rsolution.

Popping in on my break (I'm working till 8) to say happy new thread! Nice review of Blue-Skinned Gods, glad it was a good one for you!

>37 bell7: Hi there, Mary! It was indeed a very, very good read...give it a go, no?

*smooch*

Happy new one!

>1 richardderus: LOVE that topper! Color and warmth are missing here right now.

>9 richardderus: Great review, but I bought two other books today so I am showing some restraint and simply WLing this one. ; ) Happy new thread!

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

*smooch*

018 Joan is Okay by Weike Wang

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A witty, moving, piercingly insightful new novel about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself, from the award-winning author of Chemistry

Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations.

Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.

Deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head.

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

My Review: First things first: I think Joan's neurodivergent. There. I said it.

What else is Joan? A disappointing daughter, who isn't going to give her mother the expected grands. An annoying sister, who is resolutely unimpressed with her brother's lavish getting-and-spending lifestyle. A breathtakingly good, effective ICU doctor at the outset of the Plague. A clueless, oblivious object of somewhat diffident romantic interest...utterly unrequited...for her neighbor. And most of all, most satisfyingly and unbreakably, Joan is herself.

If you don't like to read "women's fiction" because it's about men (how to catch), read this book. It's about Others (how to evade), when it's about anyone not Joan. And that was exactly why I enjoyed the read so much. Joan's struggles are typical for an atypical person, and her intelligence isn't a problem but a solution, making her an extra delightful companion for this reader. As everyone around her tries to make her feel she's missing out, lacking something, somehow wanting for something, and until she decides for herself what she thinks, she remains upset and at sea. In her enforced idleness (bereavement leave? for a father she felt little connection to still less affection for, shouting abuser that he was?) she loses the armor of being too busy to deal with all the mishegas of ordinary life.

It is great to read about the woman lead's sense of self being explored and resolved without a boyfriend at the beginning, middle, or end of the process. It is bracing to read the genuinely painful experience of the first-generation American in attempting to come to a happy resolution to a parent's desires when these are rooted in a wildly different world. But then, as the visibly different as well as culturally different as well as neurologically different (this last is not explicit in the text, but its factuality is the hill I'll die on) Joan thinks, "Why try to explain yourself to someone who had no capacity to listen?" She thinks this in a different relationship's context but the truth is, it is Joan all the way. She's not going to do the same thing a dozen...even, I suspect, a pair of...times expecting or hoping for different results. What kept me from giving it all five stars was, however, that very thing: I felt Joan was harshly judgmental from beginning to end, despite questioning herself and her responses as we went through the story. I think that's a bit unbelievable, it seemed to me she would've adjusted some of her private judgments...still, not a fatal flaw since I liked her from giddy-up to whoa.

In fact, in just over 200pp, I fell in love with Joan as she is. I think you might do the same. Give her a few of your hours. She's a good companion.

>43 richardderus: - Sold!

It's snowing here. I assume you are just having rain?

019 Three Apples Fell from the Sky by Narine Abgaryan (tr. Lisa C. Hayden)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The Russian bestseller about love and second chances, brimming with warmth and humour

In the tiny village of Maran nestled high in the Armenian mountains, a place where dreams, curses and miracles are taken very seriously, a close-knit community bickers, gossips and laughs, untouched by the passage of time. A lifelong resident, Anatolia is happily set in her ways. Until, that is, she wakes up one day utterly convinced that she is dying. She lies down on her bed and prepares to meet her maker, but just when she thinks everything is ready, she is interrupted by a surprise visit from a neighbour with an unexpected proposal.

So begins a tale of unforeseen twists and unlikely romance that will turn Maran on its head and breathe a new lease of life into a forgotten village. Narine Abgaryan's enchanting fable is a heart-warming tale of community, courage, and the irresistible joy of everyday friendship.

THIS WAS A FREE DOWNLOAD VIA BOOKBUB. I THINK. ANYWAY, THANK YOU.

My Review: A clever little folk-tale that mimics the forms of earlier tales with modern, relatable trappings. It’s meant to be a means of processing the upheavals of Armenia as it bumpily traveled from tsars to commissars to…chaos, pure capitalism, as part of Russia then on its own with no stops at any rational place anywhere along the way. We’re not given much information but the wretchedness of the people to use as a calendar. The main event is World War I's Armenian Genocide, there was much suffering; there was much suffering throughout, but the weird thing about it is how little of it seemed to penetrate the inner lives of the characters, really better called "survivors" given how many die in the course of the story. Their village, isolated and insulated all together, goes on, despite the horrific events that unfurl between and around them.

Is that realistic? What do I, fat comfortable American that I am, know about that; I know the author chose the fairy-tale/folk-tale structure and tenor for a reason. The Armenians have a saying:
As has been established in Maran legends since time immemorial, the night will drop them to earth from the sky:
And three apples fell from heaven:
One for the storyteller,
One for the listener,
And one for the eavesdropper.

Welcome, fellow eavesdropper, to the juicy apple of Narine Abgaryan's bestselling Russian-language tale of Armenia's wild ride through the 20th century. Strap your helmet on a little tighter. You're going to meet a lot of people, and not all of them have names you'll be able to pronounce. It does not matter a whit. Love them for who they are, not how they sound in your monoglot's ear. Anatolia, the woman at the actual center of the story, is one of the world's readers-cum-librarians so she merits our rapt attention. It's not hard to give.
Little by little, thanks to intuition and innate taste, she learned to distinguish good literature from bad and fell in love with Russian and French classics, though she came to hate Count Tolstoy, unequivocally and forever, as soon as she finished Anna Karenina.
Happen I agree...but the less said of her shelving preferences the better. Her travails, those of her fellow villagers, are deeply experienced in the author's (and translator's, what a great job Lisa Hayden did on this book! I honestly forgot it was a translation most of the time, and that is meant as a compliment) open, honest, and still lyrical prose:
For eight long, unbearable years, the war reaped a harvest of restless souls around the world, but one day it sputtered out and retreated, howling and limping and licking its bloody paws.
–and–
Anatolia suddenly grasped that there was no heaven and no hell: happiness was heaven and grief was hell. And their God was everywhere, all over, not just because He was all-powerful but also because He was the unseen threads that connect them with each other.

The other feature of the prose you'll have discerned by now is the simple, direct wisdom of it. The author and translator have taken care to make sentences that sound like they've rolled around simple peoples' minds and mouths for long enough to become weighty with meaning and light of touch:
“There’s nothing more destructive than idleness,” his father had loved repeating. “Idleness and leisure deprive life of purpose.”

Vasily now understood the truth of his father’s words. Life does, indeed, lose its purpose at the very instant a person ceases bringing benefit to those around him.

Which is a truth that many of us, disabled and/or retired, learn at a very high cost in self-esteem and peace of mind. It's not, youthful imaginings to the contrary, at all fun to be idle. So what is one meant to do? Find something useful to do! Me, I write book reviews...how about you?

>44 katiekrug: It's misting/piddling/gawd-shakin'-his-dickin' here with ColdColdCold wind. It'll be freezing rain by the time we get down in the temps. Icky as hell.

I'm really sure you'll enjoy the Wang book. Her demeanor, her absolute professional assurance coupled with complete cluelessness socially, should reach your funny bone and is very well-done structurally.

>45 richardderus: That's exciting, that's my next club book, expecting it by the end of the month.

I have my retirement plan in place. There's the genealogy that Mum started under the spare bed. And I'm going back to try the arts and humanities route that I shunned when I made my rather science heavy course selections at 14. I just need to decide which course I'm doing first. >:-)

I usually duck around, over, under your reviews, Richard, for the simple reason that, unlike Stasia, I don't have—and do not want!—a Black Hole to protect against temptation. But Joan Is Okay seems to have thwarted my zigging and zagging. One for you.

>48 weird_O: Oh, hi Bill! How are you?

It's good to see you here.

Pleased that your visit was productive, too!

So, you take care out there...lots of These People will be after your wallet! Watch out!

>47 Helenliz: Perfect retirement, Helen, the one where you poke around among the Roads Not Taken. Hoping for your sake that they end up giving you a lot of pleasure!

ETA sizes

>38 richardderus: I'm not completely convinced I want to read Blue-Skinned Gods myself (and definitely not before this particular dogsitting gig is over), but you got me with >43 richardderus: Joan Is Okay.

Edited to get touchstones to work when posting on my phone

Leapfrogging thread 2 to wish you happy new thread, Richard!

>51 humouress: Thank you, Supervillainess. I would expect nothing less of Your Kind than to simply ignore, skip over, hustle past without a glance, all 280+ of those deathless effusions of the soul.

>50 bell7: Hiya Mary! I don't honestly think you're missing much, from a Mary PoV, skipping the Sindu. It's a good book, and a good read, but it's pretty anti-religion.

I *do* think you'll love Joan is Okay! She's great fun, is Joan. And I would also recommend to you >45 richardderus: because it's a very smile-making read. Lots of your patrons could use it, I feel sure, as Wintertime blahs bite.

>52 richardderus:

>52 richardderus: duly noted! I'll see what I can do to wedge it into the book-buying budget this fiscal year.

>54 bell7: It appalls me how libraries get gouged...the darn thing's 99¢ on Kindle! *grrr*

>53 humouress: Heh.

Y'all comic-book people are sleepin' on a 42-item bundle of amazing stuff! The Incal and sequels, a lot of great sequential-story stuff for just $45: https://www.humblebundle.com/books/humanoids-megabundle-featuring-incal-books

Hiya, RD, and a late-in-the-day Happy Thursday.

>43 richardderus: And onto the wish list it goes!

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>57 karenmarie: Horrible! Happy to see you here, especially as you're not being your usual impossible-to-book-bullet self. *smooch*

Wow, Richard, you are having an excellent reading year! You make all of these sound so desirable...

>59 ronincats: Hi Roni! Oh, I'm just gettin' warmed (!) up, dear lady...there is some *excellent* readin' upgecoming.

Heh...not that this will surprise you...

>43 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, RD!

>45 richardderus: Added that one to the BlackHole too. Hopefully one of these days my local library will help me out by acquiring one or both of these titles!

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today

>61 alcottacre: Yay!! I'm getting better at aiming for you, Stasia...though for 99¢ I'd think you'd already've Kindled >45 richardderus: up despite your prejudice against the thing.

*smooch*

>43 richardderus: Joan is Okay sounds more than okay! Great review.

Karen O.

>63 klobrien2: Hi Karen! Thank you most kindly, I appreciate your kind words.

I hope you'll give ol' Joan a whirl one day soon.

>43 richardderus: On reserve.
>45 richardderus: On the Kindle
Licking my wounds.

Book-bullets only hurt the wallet.

And the reading schedule.

And the pride bone.

Yeah...they just hurt.

Happy New Thread!

Happy Friday, Richard. No time to get on the trails but I do have Jackson duty again today and should get in plenty of reading time, so no complaints here. Enjoy your day.

>68 msf59: I will indeed, Mark, and you'll be happier than a pig in a place because you get to be with Jack! Reading too? Bonus!

from Online Etymological Dictionary's list of trending words for today, Friday, 21 January:

Obsolete princock "pert, forward, saucy boy or youth" (16c.-18c.) might be a rude, low slang folk-etymology alteration of Latin praecox.

Let's revive that one. "Saucy princock! Respect your elders!"

Buenos dias, RDear! Happy Friyay to you.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>71 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! *smooch*

Such a pretty day outside, all sunshiney...and SO EFFIN COLD that I ain't touchin' trotter to pavement!

Happy Friday, compadre.

Wow, the silver wattle is gorgeous, isn’t it. A better name for it might’ve been found for it, seems to me.

Lovely review of Blue-Skinned Gods.

I’m having a good time with Project Hail Mary. It’s my first sci-fi book in a while.

Worth a chance for $0.99?

https://smile.amazon.com/Served-Hot-Portland-Heat-Book-ebook/dp/B00ONTR778/ref=s...

>74 katiekrug: Absolutely! Kindle that puppy up, I already have.

>73 jnwelch: Hiya, Joe! Glad you were lured in by Blue-Skinned Gods...maybe enough to read it...?

I'm completely unsurprised by your taste for Project Hail Mary. It's just about got your name tattooed on its butt. The sheer weight of its sincere and evidentially supported optimism couldn't've landed on more prepared shoulders!

Spend a splendid weekend ahead.

>70 richardderus: Happy Friday, Richard dear.
Looks you are having more fun with the Online Etymological Dictionary.
I doubt I will ever use that word, or even remember it when I could use it ;-)

You got folks chattering about "blue-skinned gods" and I'm reading about one such. In Watchmen a character called Dr. Manhattan is tall, buff, totally naked, and blue (skinned). Hmmm. Probably not the same.

>77 weird_O: Heh, nope...not related. Interestingly, the reason the blue-skinned is blue is very real.

What happens, though, isn't.

>76 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! It was part of the same search, in fact...got there from "apricot" if you can imagine.

Just popping in to wish you a happy weekend (starts Friday evening, when work stops, obvs) and say that I've just DNF'd a book and I hope you're very proud of me.
Audio book and after 15 minutes I could not cope with the accent any longer, so cut my losses and ran for the hills.
Last one was 2019; I wonder if I'm getting ruthless in my impending old age (probably not).

>79 Helenliz: I'm delighted to hear it, Helen! Crank up those DNFing book-antibodies, we ain't gettin' younger, no time to mess around with things that just aren't cuttin' it.

Happy new thread Richard, dear friend.

>81 johnsimpson: Thank you, John!

Happy weekend, RD! I hope you get a ton of reading done!

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>83 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia! I'm more about writing this weekend, though. For some reason that's being a struggle, not reading.

Happy weekend, Richard! I woke up to below freezing windchills this morning for a.m. dog walks. Brrrr! Hope you're keeping warm and curled up with a good book! *smooch*

Happy Saturday, Richard. I hope you stay curled up with some fine reads this weekend.

>86 msf59: Thanks, Mark, it's a wrestle-with-writing weekend for me. I might get one more book finished but it's not looking good.

>85 bell7: Ick! It's very cold, but we're not having howling winds here. I'm very happy about that. *smooch*

Wishing you a great weekend, dear fellow.

>87 richardderus: Stay warm. I have the opposite problem here but I won't make you grumble by telling you what the temperatures are over here.

Hiya, RD! Happy gonna-stay-below-freezing Saturday to you. Brrrr. I hope you can get some writing mojo going.

I'm feeling pretty chipper today and may actually get some good reading in.

*smooch*

>89 karenmarie: Yay for feeling chipper!

...wait...not that kind of chipper...

I so enjoyed The Vanished Collection and can't find any particular reason it's so hard for me to come up with a coherent review of it.

>88 PaulCranswick: I'm far more likely to condole with you, PC, as I think being hot is the Devil's Own, as cold is escapable where hot is not.

Happy weekend's reads!

*weekend smooches*

Much luck with the writing!

>91 MickyFine: Hi Micky! Thanks...I'm reduced to a fast revisit to the book to see what bottled up my ability to craft a sentence.

Wait! What!? Here I am at the current end of this thread and there hasn't been a review today. What's wrong?

Writing's wrong right now. I can't make anything out of my ideas about The Vanished Collection yet! I liked the read but it won't make sense as I write about it.

I've been reading Damon Knight's 1950s book reviews of science fiction of the time. Occasionally I run across a phrase so apt, so well-honed to a point, that I want to weep with jealous loathing:

The whole front half of the book is like that: evidence parades across the middle ground in a steady stream that the {insurance} Company is run by a bunch of corrupt no-goods and tyrants, &c. &c., and {main character} stomps around through it all, with a regulation smile on his face, uttering platitudes. His only function in the novel, in fact, seems to be to demonstrate this essence of shmoeness {sic}; he is utterly unimportant to the plot.

Brutal, funny, apt, and I can't even get "cow goes moo, chicken says cluck" in the right order.

Ooh, beautiful blossoms up top, Richard! And a new (to me) thread - congratulations! Sound like your weather has been yucky. Ours was unnaturally warm and dry until the week after Christmas - much more normal after that, which means cold and snow. Which we need but yuck.

>95 richardderus: Isn't it wonderfully awful when that happens?

>94 richardderus: It'll right itself, probably soon no doubt.

>95 richardderus: Damn it Richard! I have managed to dodge book bullets except for two. One of them is Damon Knight's book, which got added the the wish list. I should note that so far this year, getting hit by a BB means they go on the wish list for later purchasing.

And I can't get "cow goes cluck" to go either.

>84 richardderus: How is the writing going? I hope it is proceeding apace.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

Hiya, RDear, and happy Sunday to you.

>90 richardderus: Before I even scrolled down to the gif, I thought of Fargo. I wouldn't have expected any less of you.

I didn’t realize The Vanished Collection was a true story. It’s now on my wish list.

We’re at a nice, bright 13F right now… up from 9F earlier. Fortunately, we’ll get getting about 9 hours of above-freezing temps. I have high hopes that I’ll be able to get out tomorrow morning for my rehab appt.

*smooch*

>100 karenmarie: Heh. Never let it be said we have no ties. Yes, it's non-fiction, which could be my problem with it.

I'm hoping right along with you for an easy road to rehab tomorrow. Happy-Sunday *smooch*

>99 alcottacre: Not so far, Stasia, it's still bugging me. Drat the luck! I'm just about to move on to Monday's and pass this one up.

>98 AuntieClio: I was more at "oink goes duck" so....

His reviews were biting. Sometimes they bit harder than they might should've, but not in this case!

>97 quondame: I'm here hoping!

>96 AMQS: Hi Anne! I'm unhappy with the way it's been see-sawing...it's the change that causes havoc with my various tissues. But I'll take this over too warm, the plants need the rest!

*smooch*

Infuriating and correct.

>103 richardderus: Yes. I'm as angry at Manchin and Sinema as anyone, but what about ALL of those republicans??!?

>104 AMQS: One really can't be angry with those sort of people. They're doing what that kind always do: Saying NO, holding their breaths, stomping their feet, and making all this nasty, nasty Progress and Fairness doo-doo go away by squinching their eyes shut and plugging their ears.

How DARE anyone (not them) demand equal voting access! Why, they might USE it! And money? These, these unworthy, dirty immigrants and not-whites (can't even use the real word for 'em) might be able to live like they do in spite of being not-white!

>103 richardderus: That sums it up, RD. What ass wipes!

>104 AMQS: What I don't quite understand is what the gravity of a censure is. It reminds me of an episode of 3rd Rock From the Sun in which the John Lithgow character was brought up on some sort of ethics violation and called before a panel of his peers who were treating it with the seriousness of the death penalty. He asks what happens and the response is "You get written up in your personnel file." His reply is a laughing, "Oh is that all?"

I imagine Sinema responding the same way to Arizona's Democratic party censuring her.

I am so tired of all these shenanigans.

>105 richardderus: >106 msf59: >107 AuntieClio: Couldn't agree more.

Happy new week, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

Happy Monday, Richard!

Happy new thread and happy Monday!

‘Morning, RD, and happy Monday to you!

>103 richardderus: Infuriating and correct for sure. I’m glad that the Arizona Democratic Party censured Sinema, even if I’m not sure it’ll get her attention. If they took away party support that would be good, but THEN there’s a chance the seat would swing to the Gang of Psychos. Manchin has just become too big for his boots.

>105 richardderus: Yup. I don’t expect anything good of members of the Gang of Psychos anymore.

Morning, BigDaddy! Checking in with you even though it's that day. You got me with Fadeout from your previous thread.

Hoping today is kind to you. Please don't make eye contact with it.

TO ALL MY SLEEP-DISORDERED PALS:
You're not insomniac. You're revenants of an older, biphasic sleep practicing world.

There's a book about it: At Day's Close: Night in Times Past by A. Roger Ekirch

>113 Crazymamie: Mmmday orisons, Mamie me lurve! Hoping it's as full of fabulous as your common-or-garden, say, Thursday. I'm delighted you're here in spite of its glowering, hatefilled Mmmdayness.

I gotcha, I gotcha! You won't like anything I'm reading now, I'm quite sure, so I must savor one of my rare victories.

>112 karenmarie: Manchin's the most powerful man in the country, as long as the president allows him to be. Hard to give that up.

I'm pretty sure the Repulsivecans crossed the Rubicon when their supply-side voodoo priesthood grabbed the God Squad by the balls and enforced their greed and selfishness (as opposed to the Left's) on the country. There's no way that toxic brew of Being Right and Right With Gawd is ever going to let go of them.

>111 witchyrichy: Thank you and thank you, Karen, I'm glad you've visited.

>110 figsfromthistle: Hi Anita! Sunshine and melting snow...nothing bad in that.

>109 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia! *smooch*

>108 Storeetllr:, >107 AuntieClio:, >106 msf59: There's never going to be a day that humans don't LOVE being Right more than food, sex, and Heaven combined. Naturally that means we get really, really, really invested in our Rightness and exclude all others. Religion and politics are the finest examples I know of, except perhaps partisanship over the Oxford, or series, comma.

That means our discourse will be raucous, exclusionary, and guaranteed to hurt/offend/alienate The Other Side, who will then bemoan the absence of civility shown (to them) in this dreadful, fallen world.

Two names to Google: Pericles and Alcibiades.

This is not new, or newsworthy: It is Politics. And before anyone's internal voice says it, "I don't want to think about it" just means you already have and have decided the way things are is fine with you. After all, it's not you They are coming after.

Yet.

Ah, the washed brain: "...the theory of cognitive dissonance (attributable to psychologist Leon Festinger in 1957) explains “the strange alchemy in our minds that makes it possible for us to live happily in an upside-down world and believe that everyone else is wrong.” In other words, human beings will go to extraordinary lengths in search of internal psychological consistency to function mentally when faced with opposing ideas."

Fascinating HuffPost article about the author's fraught relationship with her nutjob brother.

>114 richardderus: I know about this one, and tried to find where I talked about it on a thread many years ago – but wasn’t successful. Second sleep. Yup. I practiced it last night.

>119 karenmarie: It accords with the biological clock of every single woman I've ever known. Mother, sisters, others...to a woman, they've all slept like this, and finding out I'm not just being sexist (tiresome accusation, sadly though often correct so not dismissable out of hand) was a big plus for me.

Well hey, so far Monday's been pretty good. Jus' sayin'. :-)

>117 richardderus: I hate politics, which is why I try and stay away from discussions of same.

I am sure someone is going to come after me at some point no matter what I do. Period.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today, RD.

>122 alcottacre: Hate it or love it, ignoring it will do no one including you any good at all.

*smooch*

>121 weird_O: Haven't heard about bird flu coming back, then?

>114 richardderus: How interesting!!! I will remember this the next time I wake up at 1 or 2 for several hours. As a retiree, I pretty much let my natural rhythms determine my sleep times anyway, other than my Friday morning responsibility.

>124 ronincats: I think that's a pretty typical way to age out of alarm-clocking into consciousness. Wonderful, isn't it?

Interesting read on historic sleep patterns! I find when I'm left to my own timetable, I tend to go to bed around 11/11:30 and get up around 8:30. Alas, I have to work and set my alarm to get up an hour earlier than that. Someday.

Mmmmday *smooches*

I think it's fascinating, too, and makes sense as a way of dealing with an agrarian life-style. Eat around 4p, go to sleep around 9p, wake up and frisk, check on the baby/feed the baby, look at the livestock, then back to sleep for a few hours and up at dawn. You've got time to get it all into one 24hr day!

>123 richardderus: Oh, I know. My aversion to it springs from my childhood - I know that too. Does not make me like it any better. I make a point of voting in the elections, but I am not going to belabor lengthy discussions on the subject.

>105 richardderus: Yep. But I'm still mad at them. Can't help it.

>107 AuntieClio: Good point! You see how cowed Liz Cheney is by her ex-communication... I'm sure Sinema could not care less.

'Morning, RDear, and happy Tuesday to you.

*blinks* Trying to wake up, groggy.

*smooch*

>130 karenmarie: Hey Horrible, howinahell did we get here anyway? The last Tuesday in January...yowza.

I'm slurping my go-juice even as I type. Since it's unpleasantly moist and chilly, aka "dank", outside, I'm savoring my fat-bellied mug's hand-warming capabilities, too. *smooch*

>129 AMQS: Not that I blame you, Anne. It's very hard to meet inability to change with new information or simply a changing world with patience; but for most of them it's unwillingness not inability and that is provocative, truculent, and deeply triggering.

Just checking in, BIgDaddy! I got nothing, but I wanted to share it with you.

>132 Crazymamie: All the nothing you'd care to share is welcome. I got nothin' too!

In my quest to reinvigorate my ability to make sentences that make sense and are comprehensible without inducing suicidal levels of ennui, I dipped into Fadeout so I could rev myself up:

In the stinking dark forest of splintery posts under the pier lay pizza tins, beer cans, cigarette wrappers, condoms—the joyless detritus of American joy.

Well! I will *never* write anything approaching that for pith and vinegar! Might as well give up now and write "I liked it" instead.

>134 richardderus: - What's a pizza "tin"?

>135 katiekrug: The disposable foil bottom of cheap frozen pizzas of the 1970s.

>135 katiekrug: - OIC. Thanks!

>135 katiekrug: >136 richardderus: I'd forgotten about those.

You don't need to repeat their feats. Your own are abundantly sufficient.

020 Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen

Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: To save his daughter, he’ll go anywhere—and any-when…

Kin Stewart is an everyday family man: working in IT, trying to keep the spark in his marriage, struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Miranda. But his current life is a far cry from his previous career…as a time-traveling secret agent from 2142.

Stranded in suburban San Francisco since the 1990s after a botched mission, Kin has kept his past hidden from everyone around him, despite the increasing blackouts and memory loss affecting his time-traveler’s brain. Until one afternoon, his “rescue” team arrives—eighteen years too late.

Their mission: return Kin to 2142, where he’s only been gone weeks, not years, and where another family is waiting for him. A family he can’t remember.

Torn between two lives, Kin is desperate for a way to stay connected to both. But when his best efforts threaten to destroy the agency and even history itself, his daughter’s very existence is at risk. It’ll take one final trip across time to save Miranda—even if it means breaking all the rules of time travel in the process.

A uniquely emotional genre-bending debut, Here and Now and Then captures the perfect balance of heart, playfulness, and imagination, offering an intimate glimpse into the crevices of a father’s heart and its capacity to stretch across both space and time to protect the people that mean the most.

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

My Review: First, read this:

Somehow, he’d mistaken her being good at something for really wanting to do it.
–and–
Sometimes I feel like I can’t move forward with things. Because it’s not right that life is happening without her. But I keep telling myself that she would want us to change and move forward. She’d say an awesome quote and it’d make it all right. So I’m nervous because of how I feel. But I’m also nervous because it’s like this big life thing without Mom and I wonder how can it really be me without her. We’re all different people all through our lives, but that’s okay, as long as you remember all the people you used to be.

What you really need to know about this read is there, in those quotes.

It's been several years since I got this DRC, to my shame, and I've put off writing about it because it was...good. Okay reading. Neat ideas! And it could've been so much more. There are reasons, though, to pass on from bashing a first novel. The resulting career is a big one: Mike Chen's a significant author in SF these days. He's grown a good deal as a writer, and this promising start has paid off.

The emotional core of this crossed-destinies story is still: Did a missing past even matter anymore compared to human touch in the here and now? It's a clear-cut choice and Kin, the point-of-view time traveler, must make it. What happens to him, as a result of making his choice, isn't a perfect ending. It is a happy one, and worthy of the suspenseful story that led to it. But...and this is a key consideration...there's a reason none of my quotes are dialogue.

Go in forearmed. Enjoy the good things the story offers, and be entertained.

Oh sure. Now Bird Flu is back? Argh!! Time to go get happy in a book. Smooch.

>139 richardderus: OK, so now I know about Mike Chen and you've written that review.

021 A Beginning at the End by Mike Chen

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: How do you start over after the end of the world?

Six years after a global pandemic wiped out most of the planet’s population, the survivors are rebuilding the country, split between self-governing cities, hippie communes and wasteland gangs.

In postapocalyptic San Francisco, former pop star Moira has created a new identity to finally escape her past—until her domineering father launches a sweeping public search to track her down. Desperate for a fresh start herself, jaded event planner Krista navigates the world on behalf of those too traumatized to go outside, determined to help everyone move on—even if they don’t want to. Rob survived the catastrophe with his daughter, Sunny, but lost his wife. When strict government rules threaten to separate parent and child, Rob needs to prove himself worthy in the city’s eyes by connecting with people again.

Krista, Moira, Rob and Sunny are brought together by circumstance, and their lives begin to twine together. But when reports of another outbreak throw the fragile society into panic, the friends are forced to finally face everything that came before—and everything they still stand to lose.

Because sometimes having one person is enough to keep the world going.

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

My Review: First, read this:

“See, relations are people with the same blood. But family, that's different. Family is about who gives you hope, who gets involved. And earns the right for forgiveness. Or at least starts down the path.”
–and–
As a community, we still emphasized the importance of familial ties but finally understood that the definition of family wasn't about blood or even who or what you'd lost. It was about what gave you hope and who was willing to get involved.

You're fully in the thick of this book's ethos with those two quotes.

Post-apocalyptic Britney Spears story, full of the expected drama, and all the better for it. The book was published very early in COVID times, so it really felt too on-the-nose for me to get much distance to do more than gibber incoherently at it. Author Chen's first novel, see below for Here and Now and Then's review, was a very good, if simplistic, rendering of an extremely complex story. In this sophomore effort, he's definitely learned from the crafting of a novel for sale to the public and applied those lessons. In the manner of telling, in the effort to craft sentences, every way this book shows the growth of an artist who listens and learns.

Many are the comparisons made between this book and the superficially similar Station Eleven...post-pandemic societies with survivors doing what people always do, muddling through as best they can to get their livings, as much like they always have as possible. This story's focus isn't on a complete collapse, as Station Eleven focuses on; instead it's more like this present moment, issues and hitches and ongoing crunches; then all Hell breaks loose.

That is where Author Chen shines in his craftsmanship. All the stuff you've read until now, thinking "hmmm is this actually worth going a-dystopianing?" snaps into focus. Author Chen does not stint. Because it's not the World that's ending again; it's the world of each character's own making.

In other words, Life Goes On.

That's the post-apocalyptic novel I want to read, and the one I got here. The one where we're talking about "Post Apocalyptic Stress Disorder" or PASD. I absolutely devoured it because each story, the Britney Spears one and the fatherhood-in-dystopia one, kept me fanning pages as fast as I could.

Author Chen is, it is clear, a father, and that makes his storytelling from a father's perspective. That is very much what I want to read. And, I hope, to read his work when he becomes a grandfather...though it's not likely I'll live that long...because it's a refreshing change to find a man telling the emotional story of his parenthood against this backdrop.

022 We Could Be Heroes by Mike Chen

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The super hero book you need to read right now!

An extraordinary and emotional adventure about unlikely friends and the power of choosing who you want to be.

Jamie woke up in an empty apartment with no memory and only a few clues to his identity, but with the ability to read and erase other people’s memories—a power he uses to hold up banks to buy coffee, cat food and books.

Zoe is also searching for her past, and using her abilities of speed and strength…to deliver fast food. And she’ll occasionally put on a cool suit and beat up bad guys, if she feels like it.

When the archrivals meet in a memory-loss support group, they realize the only way to reveal their hidden pasts might be through each other. As they uncover an ongoing threat, suddenly much more is at stake than their fragile friendship. With countless people at risk, Zoe and Jamie will have to recognize that sometimes being a hero starts with trusting someone else—and yourself.

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

My Review: First, read this:

“I’ll figure something out” probably wound up being the last sentence said by a lot of people in difficult scenarios.
–and–
“If you're the one everyone relies on, if you take on people's burdens, sometimes there's just not that much left of you.”

There. That's the emotional core of this read, as I see it anyway; how can you live up to your best and still do your life's miscellany? Who gets to drain you of your reserves with your permission, and why?

Answering those questions outside the framework of a Romantic Relationship is the central conflict in the story of Zoe and Jamie. They aren't, and don't become, lovers; they are friends. They are bonded by something weird, that is being without memories but with superpowers. And they are very, very unlikely to remain friends when their pasts recrudesce.

Screw that, says my imaginary avi of Author Chen, Real Life has lots of examples of friends who don't fit! He is, of course, correct, and he makes sure that the story develops in such a way that they must come together to use their superpowers but only together will they work to stop...a villain who wants to feed the whole, overcrowded world...?!

Wait. What?

Yes, that's right folks, we're in the era of "superheroes aren't so great" fiction! If you've paid me the slightest bit of attention, you already know I adore Natalie Zina Walschots' HENCH for its unflinching take-down of the Cult of the Superhero. It is greatly to my taste. I think the whole MCU and DCEU are, in a word, brummagem. But there's something irresistible in the stories available to tell in them...Irresistible Force meeting Immovable Object can be played for laughs, for tears, for intensity or resolution. It is always going to find takers. But I, perverse old bastard that I am, want to find takers-on instead.

Author Chen's chops are up to it. What he doesn't seem to want to do, however, is explore pansexual Jamie's sexuality. It's not even there, it's simply referred to. If one doesn't want to use the gun, don't bring the gun out. I'm not asking for details, I'm asking for more than a mention of him having had a husband. This is the 21st century, not the 20th...don't tell me we're going there and we're not.

But that was not a fatal flaw in a story that gave me morally gray, but more goal-oriented than selfishly motivated, characters overcoming not only a handicap but a lifetime's conditioning to work together to solve a problem they could only hope to really fix if they worked together. That was worth so much to me. In a deeply divided world, it needs saying again and again: Do you want to Be Right, or fix what's wrong?

I like Jamie's and Zoe's answers.

>141 quondame:, >138 quondame: It's true...it just takes a spark, like being revoltingly jealous of a beautiful piece of writing to come up with SOMEthing.

Even if it's not about the book(s) I was going to write about. The point is to write!

>140 Berly: Heya Berly-boo, yep...time to shove your head down the sand again to stay sane.

As sane as you were to start with.

Well, you know what I mean.

>137 katiekrug: I don't guess they'd've ever hit your eyestalks, would they, microwavelassie that you are. A microwave was a HUGE HONKIN DEAL back in them days. If you had one, you were Rich and probably had Giuseppe in the kitchen making you a real pizza on demand.

>142 richardderus: & >143 richardderus: Not heard of the author or the books but you do a decent job of selling them dear fellow.

>145 PaulCranswick: Thanks, PC...I don't at all recommend the reads to you, they're SF and a particularly American strain of SF that would set your teeth on edge.

Hiya, RDear, and a very happy last Wednesday of January to you!

Not insomnia, nay, nay, but 6 blissful hours of straight sleep, ending at 5ish. Couldn’t get back to sleep, and then coffee beckoned. I may take a nap before rehab…

>132 Crazymamie: I got nothing, but I wanted to share it with you. Mamie, you da best.

>134 richardderus: - >138 quondame: Yikes. I was underprivileged – we only had cardboard rounds under the frozen pizza my mom bought. You could almost count the individual shreds of cheese – probably why I love pizza with lots of sauce even now, 60 years later.

>144 richardderus: My high school BF Lori’s dad/stepmom got the first microwave I ever saw. It was, as you say, huge physically and as a statement of decadence. Of course all I remember them microwaving was hotdogs – and those always came out looking gray. *shudder*

I’ll pass on Mike Chen, as you knew I would. I’ve got my teeth into the 52nd Eve Dallas book and am happy that my reading mojo is getting nourished.

*smooch*

>147 karenmarie: Oh nay nay nay, Horrible, you're not a reader of SF and his stories are just too firmly in the SF tradition to make them happy reads for you.

Yay for six solid hours! I find that I'm happiest when I sleep in threes...six or nine hours a night. (Twelve means I'm ill.) It's good you're feeling well. Fifty-two books, good gracious y'all are Perry Rhodanic in y'all's devotion to Eve. (And Roark.)

Cardboard? I didn't know they came on cardboard back then...they hadda go into the oiven, so I assumed they were all on foil tins. Palermo was Mama's favorite brand.

Humpday *smooch*es!

023 Light Years From Home by Mike Chen

Real Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: Every family has issues. Most can’t blame them on extraterrestrials.

Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren’t on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused—and convinced he'd been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob.

When Evie's UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He's different—older, stranger, and talking of an intergalactic war—but the tensions between the siblings haven't changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and if their brother is telling the truth, possibly an entire space armada, too.

The perfect combination of action, imagination and heart, Light Years From Home is a touching drama about a challenge as difficult as saving the galaxy: making peace with your family…and yourself.

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

My Review: Every damn word of this is so heartfelt, so honest and so completely resonant with my Kassie-like self that I feel like a rotter for not giving it that fourth star. But yet again, sexuality (Evie's probably Lesbian or Bisexual) is window-dressed onto an otherwise complete character. Please stop doing that.

When Arnold, the family patriarch (and doesn't he just know it!) disappears with Jakob, the underperforming (according to Arnold) son, the whole family flies into a state of emergency! Then Arnold comes back from that camping trip, without Jakob, but with a Purpose: Find him and bring him home.

No matter what, no matter who gets hurt or slighted.

So the family is broken again, not re-broken but the existing broken structure is smashed on a new rock. That rock is a vanished son...who returns one day! But what baggage he drags...and what a life he's led...and what his sisters had to put up with...and what they're coping with now.... And, as I am sure you've tipped to by now, this isn't a seamless, straight-through narrative. There are flashbacks!

Every single soul in this narrative has reasons for what they have done that do not depend on what the others did or didn't do. However, as in all toxic families, they blame each other publicly and themselves privately. Jakob made it easy for his twin sister to avoid the tough parts of growing up by leaving her the job of fulfilling the family's expectations. That'll make anyone angry! His little sister, growing up in the vacancy left by a father whose obsession with his lost son is all-consuming, opts out of sane, mainstream society...and this puts yet more pressure on her older sister. Then, wouldn't you just know, Dad dies! And Mom gets dementia!

I think it was around here that I went inside my emotional hidey-hole for a while. It's a lot. I related to Kassie. I was angry with Jakob for...vanishing...without a word. (I mean, come on! He can come back now, but he couldn't send some sort of interplanetary post card? "Having a wonderful war, be glad you aren't here" or something?) But that doesn't put the blame on him, Kassie, the way you want it to...you chose your path, and everyone has choices. Yes, some are harder to make than others, but they're still within the realm of possibility. A thing you, in your faithlessness, have every reason to know....

So this is sci fi? Well...yyyeeesss, but in a curious way no. It's what happens in the space opera between the acts. The messy human bits of the story that get elided over when you're telling the Ultimate Battle of Good Versus Evil!!! and the Hero is tasked with getting {thing} from his home, and whee! he comes back with {thing} and a story about his father being dead. Well, this is what actually happened then!

What makes the story compulsively readable for me is that quality, that interstitial nature. I am always interested in what occurs between the acts. I was not as interested in the seemingly grafted-on piece about the FBI thinking Jakob had run off to become a terrorist...Jakob?! lazy schlub that he was?!...but I can see how it felt timely for young Mister Shao to be branded as something he clearly could never bring himself to be. In a very odd way, though, I guess he did become a violent actor. Just not on Earth. Which, funnily enough, makes it okay...? Or does it?

Kassie's point-of-view narration is cringe-inducingly spot-on for the judgmental left-behind Responsible One's angle. It wasn't fun for me, but it was so real that at times I had to go look and make sure I was still an old, white man and hadn't transmogrified into Kassie Shao. So well done, Author Chen...sort of.

I don't think for a minute that the sci-fi elements will pass muster among the die-hard fans of the genre. They really aren't made for those readers. So if you're a hard SF reader, don't come here with those expectations. This is the moving, affecting, real story of one family's emotional dysfunction over the course of fifteen long, hard, lonely years of alienation and isolation, and the reason for it is science-fictional in nature.

I honestly wondered why I was so caught up in this family cess pit when the Universe is in danger out there! The first part makes you believe that Jakob's quest is URGENT and REAL and then...his sisters kludge onto him, Evie in a credulous, uncritical way and Kassie with her trademark judgment and blame (and she's a therapist?! Yikes), and suddenly it's possible that this is reality and Jakob's just not in it with us.

It gave my reading a focus, a real sense of the stakes, for the story to be presented in this way, though I would've predicted it to have been otherwise. Author Chen's work, which I've been reading for years now, has always made itself a home on my devices because he visibly grows with each published work. I haven't always liked his growing pains, but I appreciate that he is clear about what it is he needs to do and always tries to do it better every time. That he succeeds is a testament to his talent.

I don't remember if mom put them on a baking sheet or just put them in the oven... but definitely cardboard with a cellophane wrapping. Frequently on Friday nights. The whole family, excluding Dad (because we'd never eat pizza if he was eating at home) split what I now suspect was a medium-ish pizza. Three kids and a mom.

Morning, RD! Only -7 out there. I am sure glad I can sit tight here. I sure don't miss these work days. I have been off the trails for a week though, so I am missing that. Next week, I will be basking in the 80s, surrounded with birds. B.A.G.

>151 msf59: Hey there, Mark, wow...that isn't charming. Minus signs aren't pretty in front of temperatures.

Costa Rica will be a real, true thrill as you bask in that heat.

>150 karenmarie: Huh! And that had to be in 1965-ish. Our pizza-eating years were roughly contemporaneous, yet so different. AND we lived in Cali then, too!

Delurking to wave *hello*

Greetings, o de-Lurkess!

Burgoine #2

Losing Our Minds: The Challenge of Defining Mental Illness by Lucy Foulkes

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A compelling and incisive book that questions the overuse of mental health terms to describe universal human emotions.

Public awareness of mental illness has been transformed in recent years, but our understanding of how to define it has yet to catch up. Too often, psychiatric disorders are confused with the inherent stresses and challenges of human experience. A narrative has taken hold that a mental health crisis has been building among young people. In this profoundly sensitive and constructive book, psychologist Lucy Foulkes argues that the crisis is one of ignorance as much as illness. Have we raised a 'snowflake' generation? Or are today's young people subjected to greater stress, exacerbated by social media, than ever before? Foulkes shows that both perspectives are useful but limited. The real question in need of answering is: how should we distinguish between 'normal' suffering and actual illness?

Drawing on her extensive knowledge of the scientific and clinical literature, Foulkes explains what is known about mental health problems—how they arise, why they so often appear during adolescence, the various tools we have to cope with them—but also what remains unclear: distinguishing between normality and disorder is essential if we are to provide the appropriate help, but no clear line between the two exists in nature. Providing necessary clarity and nuance, Losing Our Minds argues that the widespread misunderstanding of this aspect of mental illness might be contributing to its apparent prevalence.

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

My Review: The author identifies and discusses, in clear and un-jargonized even-handed ways, the many poles of our society's increased awareness of mental health issues. Has the openness resulted in more frank and open acknowledgment of the central issue, or has it resulted in armchair psychologists diagnosing themselves and others with serious problems and then browbeating physicians into prescribing expensive medications for them? That answer is "yes" and that should tell you whether this is the book for you.

Highly recommended for anyone who's said, "that orange guy's a narcissist," and felt smugly superior about it. Like me.

>155 richardderus: Well, is "that guy's a narcissist," accurate?

Yep...but it's not up to me to diagnose and label. It's part of the point of the book. You probably are correct in your judgment but don't blurt it out because Satan only knows who's listening, what they're feeling, etc etc.

Plus, I ain't a doc.

>157 richardderus: So, don't blurt it out, but watch that person carefully.

Nice set of reviews, Richard. I'm a little on the fence about the Chen books, honestly, and leaning towards not going out of my way to seek them out. Sounds like he has some interesting ideas, though.

>159 bell7: I think you'd enjoy We Could Be Heroes, Mary, but if it isn't in the library it's not likely to be worth your $10. If I see it go on sale I'll holler.

>158 quondame: ...if only I could...but the TV keeps his horrid orange mug in front of me...

>160 richardderus: There's 30 some-odd available in my library system. I'll place a hold and suspend it, maybe actually getting it in a few months.

>161 bell7: Oh good! I'll look forward to hearing about it.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

*smooch*

>163 FAMeulstee: Happy Thursday, Anita! I'm glad to see you here.

Morning, BigDaddy! We have made it to Thursday, so Friday is just around the corner.

>147 karenmarie: Aw, shucks. Thanks, Karen.

Sunshine-y smooches!

>166 katiekrug: *shivering smooch*

It ain't warm...and this "bombogenesis" event they're saying will happen makes me think I'd best wrap up warm and go get some bread!

>165 Crazymamie: We have, it is, and hooray for it! *smooch*

...now, if only my reads could get better...

PEARL RULED at 18%

Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond by William Dalrymple & Anita Anand

The Publisher Says: The Kohinoor is the world's most famous diamond, but it has always had a fog of mystery around it. Now, using previously untranslated sources, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand blow away the legends to reveal its true history – stranger, and more violent, than any fiction. Moving from the Mughal court to Nadir Shah's Persia, from Maharaja Ranjit Singh's durbar in Punjab to Queen Victoria's palace, this thrilling tale is full of drama and intrigue.

My Review: Fascinating details exhaustively footnoted about a spectacularly sparkly booty item ravished from the Mughals by the British. Dalrymple's The Anarchy is very much the big brother of this manageably sized story in tone and tenor. But when a man's dress decisions are characterized as "effete" and his artistic enthusiasms presented within a context of judgment, I lose the desire to keep slugging through the well-sourced and quite interesting, in the abstract, history of the superlative item of Imperial History's ill-got gains.

Ruling this vast empire was the effete Emperor Muhammad Shah – called Rangila, or Colourful, the Merry-Maker. He was an aesthete, much given to wearing ladies’ peshwaz (long outer garment) and shoes embroidered with pearls;

Others without my very 21st-century woke perspective will not share my eyerolling impatience.

>142 richardderus: I'm confused, and I've even had 3 mugs of coffee...
Is this review the same book as in >139 richardderus:?

I bet I'll be chagrined when you clarify. My brain must be in that fuzzy fadeout world.

>168 richardderus: PS. I did the same thing, with Dalrymple's book. I didn't care for his story, White Mughals and never did finish it. Gave it 2*s at the time and that was probably a waste of space. Others perhaps love his leaden style and (overly?) detailed, historical passages. OK. Yeah, I'm being judgemental, I suppose.

>169 SandyAMcPherson: No, they're different books...is it the author being the same that's causing your confusion? Or the same formatting?

I think Dalrymple's very heavily sourced style will repel many. It never changes, so if you didn't like it that much he's an author who just ain't fer youse. I'm okay with that...it's the sneering about otherness that wears on me, and this time I just...couldn't.

Burgoine #3

Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (tr. Philip Roughton)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From the “Icelandic Dickens (Irish Examiner),” a writer who “shares the elemental grandeur of Cormac McCarthy” (Times Literary Supplement), comes this profound and playful masterwork of literature—winner of the Icelandic Literature Prize and longlisted for France’s Prix Medicis Étrangere—that ponders the beauty and mystery of life and our deepest existential questions.
In small places, life becomes bigger.

Sometimes distance from the world’s tumult can open our hearts and our dreams. In a village of four hundred souls, the infinite light of an Icelandic summer makes its inhabitants want to explore, and the eternal night of winter lights up the magic of the stars.

The village becomes a microcosm of the age-old conflict between human desire and destiny, between the limits of reality and the wings of the imagination. With humor, poetry, and a tenderness for human weaknesses, Jon Kalman Stefánsson explores the question of why we live at all.

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

My Review: Beautiful, but complicated sentences:

We're not going to tell you about the whole village; we won't be going from house to house. You would find that intolerable. But we'll definitely be telling you about the lust that binds together days and nights, about a happy lorry driver, about Elisabet's dark velvet dress and the man who arrived by bus; about Puriour, who is tall and full of esoteric desires, about a man who couldn't count the fish and a woman who breathed shyly; about a lonely farmer and a 4,000-year-old mummy. We're going to tell of everyday events, but also of those that are beyond our understanding —possibly because there are no explanations for them. People disappear, dreams change lives, folk nearly two hundred years old apparently decide to make their presence known instead of lying quietly in their place.

There are two things I think you should know before reading the book: 1) it's almost 20 years old, so it deals with the world of the Aughties not today; 2) it is highly episodic, in fact it's a collection of linked short stories in my opinion not a novel. That seems to cause severe digital retraction from buy buttons, though, so pretend I didn't speak.

In a small place, Life is magnified because we are social animals; the issue is, what to do with that finer-grained view of Others this grants us...judge, blame? forgive, accept? deny, ignore?...and those variable and varying answers are this book. The Greek-chorus-ness of the village (see above), like that used with less success (in my opinion) in the well-received Lanny, gave me a sense of place that kept me reading past the author's clearly articulated disdain for Americans.

I think this delight should be on your TBR pile anyway, PLUS it is a paltry $1.99 today (here: https://smile.amazon.com/Summer-Light-Then-Comes-Night-ebook/dp/B08R3WDR41/).

Hiya, Rdear and happy Thursday.

>168 richardderus: Too bad. I remember us both enjoying The French Blue about another huge diamond from the same region.

*smooch*

Richard, hello. I've been away for a long, long time, but I don't forget you and appreciate your speaking to me anyway.
As you might predict, I loved White Mughals. When I get into a piece of history or a biography, I want to GET INTO IT. I'm not sure, otoh, about the Kohinor; if it becomes a deal, I'll go for it.
I am off to look at Mike Chen. With limited reading time in a limited lifespan, I should be choosing what I read more carefully. That feels like mental prison though.
I count on you to continue being your incisive, unique self as you read and review. Thanks!

ETA: Off to purchase *Summer Light* right now!
ETA2: Amazon could use a review of the book - from you.

>173 LizzieD: Hiya Peggy! I'm glad you came by. Bust out of mental prison: Get more Kindle samples! That usually gives enough of a taste of the book to help make a good decision.

I don't know if it's a deal, particularly, but Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond is 66¢ on Kindle right now...cheap enough?

Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night will get an Ammy review, I just didn't do it yet. I'm gettin' a li'l slower today. Something about the way the weather's changing? Maybe?

>172 karenmarie: Hey Horrible! I was sad about it, too, but honestly I am just not tolerant of smirking dismissiveness anymore. It's not like it's *bad* writing, it just isn't something I feel like I want to read enough justify overlooking the tone that grates.

>174 richardderus: 66¢ vs $9.99? I'm on it. Thanks!

>171 richardderus: Agreed on Summer Light, and Then Comes the Night, Richard dear. I have added more books by Jón Kalman Stefánsson to mount TBR after reading this one, but haven't gotten to them yet.

I liked Lanny even better... Can't agree on them all ;-)

Hey all..

I just spoke with Richard and his facility is having internet issues again. He will be back as soon as he is able. I would just say to keep posing to keep his thread warm and he will catch up as soon as he is able.

Take care all y'all

Keeping your thread warm for you, Ricardo...

Here is a fuzzy gray blanket to help keep things warm.

Sorry to hear your facility is (yet again) experiencing Internet woes! Hope you're back soon, and you're reading lots of excellent books in the meantime.

Oops! I mean

 

Of course.

LOL!

>1 richardderus: (yes, I am that far behind) Wattle! I have seen so much of that - it was instantly recognisable to me :)

>95 richardderus: I love reviews that can wow you. I feel insanely jealous of those that write those that do!

>114 richardderus: thankfully not me with the sleep disorders, but so many of them area around! I feel for you people....even though I cant say I sleep easy, I am a damn site better slept than some of my LT pals around here. Biphasic sleep....sounds...primordial.

>177 mckait: Happy Friday, Richard!

Sorry to hear about the internet issues (again). How annoying! At least it leaves you time to read :)

>186 DeclanMarquet: begone, foul fiend.
Hope that the internet issues are resolved soonest. How very frustrating for you.

Hiya, RD! Internet issues again!?! Ridiculous. And on top of that, the bomb cyclone coming your way. Whew! 2-4” tonight, 6-10” tomorrow, according to the NWS. Stay warm and safe. Yay for the peanut butter and bread acquisition!

>174 richardderus: I actually trundled over to Amazon just now and bought it because 66¢ is absolutely too ridiculous to ignore.

A different kind of keeping your thread warm:


Cheyenne Jackson

Internet issues? WTH? Sending a little warmth your way, my friend.

>170 richardderus: I’ve enjoyed the William Dalrymple books I’ve read, particularly From the Holy Mountain. But I read that a long time ago, before the Syrian civil war, and haven’t read anything recently.

>188 karenmarie: Very nice, but I know RD doesn't like to share.

>189 msf59: though maybe he will permit a nip of the whisky....

*aaahhh*
There is Peace in the Valley. I am fully internetted.

I will come back to respond, but needed to be sure y'all knew the crisis is over for now. I need to clean up Friday's review. I typed it on my phone! What a circus that was.

024 Red Milk by Sjón

Rating: 4.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A timely and provocative novel about a mysterious Icelandic neo-Nazi and the enduring global allure of fascism.

In England in 1962, an Icelandic man is found dead on a train bound for Cheltenham Spa. In his possession, policemen find a map on which a swastika has been drawn with a red pen. Who was he, and where was he going?

In a novel that reads as both biography and mystery, the internationally celebrated novelist Sjón tells the story of Gunnar Kampen, the founder of Iceland's anti-Semitic nationalist party, with ties to a burgeoning network of neo-Nazi groups across the globe. Told in a series of scenes and letters spanning Kampen's lifetime—from his childhood in Reyjavík during the Second World War, in a household strongly opposed to Hitler and his views, through his education, political radicalization, and his final clandestine mission to England—Red Milk urges readers to confront the international legacy of twentieth-century fascism and the often unknowable forces that drive some people to extremism.

Based on one of the ringleaders of a little-known neo-Nazi group that operated in Reykjavík in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this taut and potent novel explores what shapes a young man and the enduring, disturbing allure of Nazi ideology.

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

My Review: There is so much that goes into making a person's life. So many moments of seeming ordinariness, so many times unremembered but never forgotten.

Author Sjón absolutely understands this, relies on it, makes me aware of how unaware I am in my life. Living it day-to-day it's unremarkable. After it's over, as it's ending...those are the times reflection becomes available to the average person. Author Sjón takes that truth and makes it the structure of the novel.

We're reading the life of Gunnar after it's over, after it's been picked apart and examined...this book reads like an evidence box would, pick up this letter, what did this key open...and that lets us contextualize the story as the tragedy it really is.

I was gobsmacked to learn this is a based-in-fact story, this was a real person, the ending is factual. How Gunnar came to hold beliefs so horrible to me was all in the oblique and the sidewise and the interstitial parts of the text. Lest that sound Arty and pretentious, I hasten to say that there is no better way I evoke an honest emotional response than this. Author Sjón trusts you to Get It. He allows you not to know.

I'll take that sense of being allowed to find the truth in the fiction over being spoonfed any day.

What I hope you'll enjoy, resonate with, in this read is that quality of discovering the meat of the life Gunnar led, and placing the pieces in order for yourself. While you're never left in doubt about your position in time, you're not going to get everything there is simply by that means.

I think it was a real, living person that I found in this novel. Would I have "liked" him? I don't think so. But I wouldn't have known him the way I do because Author Sjón showed him to me in this simple, elegant piece-by-piece fashion. I like novel-Gunnar a little bit. He was so very empty. He found something to fill what a human can't live without having full. AND it was something awful. Something vile, foul...but it filled the void.

I understand the souls whose quest to be Whole leads them in dark, ugly, despicable places that one fraction better.

Thank you, Author Sjón. I can get better at being a good version of me after this read.

>191 Caroline_McElwee: I already share Luscious Jackson with the world, what's one more?

Whisky, OTOH....

>190 SandDune: He's a brilliant researcher, and he writes a cracking report. I'd like an executive summary, at least in this case, not to wade into the weeds with someone making snide asides about people like me.

>189 msf59: *aaahhh* Perfection, Mark! Thanks.

>188 karenmarie: Howdy, Smoochling! (Oh, and you too Horrible.) I'm pretty sure they're spot on...I'm already feeling the change of weather aches, so it won't surprise me if the actual total snow isn't more or less that amount.

*smooch*

>187 Helenliz: At least they paid the bill sooner this time. And really, LT needs to get after making their app a decent, workable thing. It's 2022.

>185 figsfromthistle: It left me time to write two whole reviews on my phone! The Blogger Android app is...workable. Like all other things Blogger, the GoogleWerke Kraft-durch-freude herrenvolk do as little as possible to make it go. Improve it? Nay nay nay.

>184 LovingLit: I love the color of wattle's blooms. I really think y'all's PR skills are deficient Down Under, though...wattle? Pineapple lump? eccchhh...and it could use a re-branding.

Biphasic sleep as a brand ain't a lot better, I acknowledge. Anyway. Glad to see you! *smooch*

>183 Berly: ...you're encouraging her....

>182 humouress:, >181 humouress: Rocks ≠ beach...I'm from the Americas, we have almost all sand beaches because we're cool like that.

>180 bell7: It lasted less than 24 hours, so I can't really complain the way I did about the eight days it lasted last time! *smooch*

>179 AuntieClio:, >178 Berly: *aaahhh* I'm warmed!

>177 mckait: Thank you so much, sweetiedarling, for doing this!

>176 FAMeulstee: We agree on far more than average numbers of our shared reading history! Lanny struck me wrong, and for some specific reasons...and you don't share those bad memories, so no reason they should affect your idea of the book. Glad to see you!

>175 LizzieD: At 66¢, Peggy, I'd recommend *anyone* buy the book!

>193 richardderus: Well, you got me with that one!

Glad the internet is back - just in time for the bomb cyclone! I've run all my errands, so I can just stay put and wait for it to be over. *smooch*

>200 katiekrug: I am deeee-lighted, to quote my idol TR. It was a short stint...but see your thread for the real brag.

>199 drneutron: I'm really glad you're gaffed, Jim, it's something I think you'll truly appreciate and enjoy.

Today was my day for strange surprises. First, best: Internet access restored. Second, strangest: Package arrives that contains *bar*shampoo* that smells lurvely. But bar shampoo? Whaaa...how...I am not to understanding this weirdingness. I guess one simply...rubs it on the hair...? I ain't got enough hair...and my beard's kinda at a bad angle to use something like a bar on, due to the fact I can't grip anymore. Third, odd but useful: An extra electric toothbrush!

And not one single clue who sent them. Rob denies responsibility but says he's Very Interested in who was so kind!

...??...

>202 richardderus: I lurve my solid shampoo and conditioner bars. Have used them for years. They're intensely practical, save on packaging and mean you don't have to unpack your entire bag when going through airport security (may or may not be a consideration).
You use them exactly as you think you would, get hair & bar wet, rub bar on hair, lather into suds, rinse & repeat, as necessary. It does behave a bit like the bar of soap in the bath and flies off at random angles at the least provocation. I tend to cup it in the palm of my hand, rather than grip it.

Good to see you're back. >:-)

>203 Helenliz: They smell nice, which I am glad of. But I can't bend my hands to cup things or grip them. I can't, f/ex, write anymore. I can type because there's no need to bend anything except the palm as one does that. Grasping things is simply not gonna happen.

I switched to body washes and the like decades ago for that!

Hooray for the return of your Internet! Boo on having to type out a review on the phone (but glad it was such a good read for you!).

>193 richardderus: Ok. Ya got me.

>202 richardderus: I'm a devotee of bar shampoo as well. But I can see it would be a problem with the grasping.

>207 SandDune: It makes sense from a plastics point of view, just isn't a solution I can implement. Oh well.

>206 weird_O: *preens*

You really are very likely to enjoy reading it, Bill, it's got that sneak-up-and-cosh-you thing that you respond to.

>205 bell7: Yay, boo, yay pretty much a win of a day, for me at least! *smooch*

You would think it might be me with my thread talking about all kinds of eco friendly products, but nope. Wasn't me!! Smooch.

>210 Berly: I'm just totally verschmeckeled. ???

>209 richardderus: Like.

>212 Caroline_McElwee: I know, right?!

Erwin Eisch has died. He was 94. A rampageously talented iconoclast in the glass-arts world, he's probably best known internationally for his portrait heads:

...and within Germany for his creation, with his wife and another artist friend, of a fake identity meant to entrap the poseurs of the art world. It worked. They never forgave him.

>195 richardderus: I love the LT website. It doesn't rely on icons to (fail to) convey meaning, and all the control are visible without being moused over. It doesn't downgrade my large screened computer to have all the capabilities of a tiny-screened cell phone, except the touch screen. What's not to like?

OTOH, while I believe they have an app, I haven't tried any recent version. (I was unimpressed with the add-books-by-scanning them functionality when I first signed up; I could add my books faster by typing the ISBN into the web page, and with far less aggravation.)

Glad your internet is back up!

>216 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori, I am so relieved it's not going to be back to coddling the phone into being a hotspot again!

>215 ArlieS: The site works well for what I need it for, Arlie, ie cataloging; its forums are perfectly fine for my purposes, and organized as they are into groups and then threads, I'm readily able to navigate them.

But the phone app...the Android one at least...is a different beast. It's never my go-to means of interaction, but it presents hassles and is balky on my phone which ruins my otherwise-seamless experience.

Maybe I have an older version of the LT app (on iPhone 6) but I've only ever used it for cataloguing functions, which it's great for. I didn't know we could type on there; I go to the mobile website for that - except it's too fiddly to move the cursor or highlight on it.

>215 ArlieS: A few years ago, I catalogued the club library (a bilingual Dutch and English library) books onto LibraryThing. I started before the app was available, first by typing in ISBNs and then got a TinyCat barcode scanner and it would take ages to enter (including finding covers and other details on the LT website). When the app came along, I could get my kids (if I could persuade them) to scan the barcodes of the books on a shelf without even taking the books fully off the shelves while I looked for covers and so on on the site. It took minutes rather than hours to do a shelf that way.

Glad your access to the internet is back, Richard dear.

>214 richardderus: I never heard of Erwin Eisch before. According to wikipedia there is work by him in museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Since their whole collection can be seen now in the Depot, we might plan a visit later this year, and see if we can find some Erwin Eisch art there.

Keep warm and keep safe dear fellow and.....stay on line!

Happy Saturday, Richard. Great review of Red Milk. Thumb! I have read Sjon once before but do not remember anything about it. Good luck with the storm or has it all ready hit?

025 The Vanished Collection by Pauline Baer de Perignon

Rating: 4* of five, for the message if not the messenger

The Publisher Says: It all started with a list of paintings. There, scribbled by a cousin she hadn't seen for years, were the names of the masters whose works once belonged to her great-grandfather, Jules Strauss: Renoir, Monet, Degas, Tiepolo and more. Pauline Baer de Perignon knew little to nothing about Strauss, or about his vanished, precious art collection. But the list drove her on a frenzied trail of research in the archives of the Louvre and the Dresden museums, through Gestapo records, and to consult with Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano.

What happened in 1942? And what became of the collection after Nazis seized her great-grandparents’ elegant Parisian apartment? The quest takes Pauline Baer de Perignon from the Occupation of France to the present day as she breaks the silence around the wrenching experiences her family never fully transmitted, and asks what art itself is capable of conveying over time.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
Note that the blogged review has links to citations that I have not transferred here.
My Review: Well, this review went through some changes. A lot like me as I read this book. I think the world needs to attend to the huge, stinking pile of denial in the center of Culture Inc. What happened to the art collected by Jews? It was stolen by the Nazis. Those bad Nazis!

...and then what happened? *blank stare*

In Author Baer de Perignon's tale of family, legacies, and fairness denied, you will learn that the reality is...nothing happened. Museums bear extraordinary responsibility for the nothing that happened. They don't want to give their ill-got gains back to the families whose rightful property it is. The whole raison d'etre of "the Museum" (in its broadest cultural-institution sense) is thus opened to serious question.

This isn't a small issue. The 2003-2011 Iraq war resulted in *appalling* levels of art and antiquities being looted or damaged, often destroyed. There is some tut-tutting over this. Not a lot, given the scale and value of it. Why? Because that leads to lots of awkward questions about how "the Museum" got the stuff in the first place. "Provenance" and "spoliation" in other words. Then that opens lots of graves "the Museum" wants to leave closed.

This isn't the first time that this issue has been raised, or wrestled with. Read a book called Goldberg's Angel: An Adventure in the Antiquities Trade (it's excellent, BTW, highly recommend it to you). The topic simmers along, looted antiquities are topics of concern on slow news days around the world. For a minute. They don't rate high on most folks' outrage meters. But the Impressionists and Academicians and Old as well as other Masters aren't talked about in media or entertainment almost at all (pace George Clooney's lukewarm The Monuments Men, which did poorly at the box office). Because people love them, come to see them in their hallowèd homes, are inclined to buy tat with the (profitably licensed) images on them (from "the Museum"'s store). The fact that many were looted from Jews by the Nazis is bad. But whatcha gonna do.

Nothing, for as long as possible, until the heirs of the murdered millions forget (I was *astonished* at the number of people Author Baer de Perignon met who just knew nothing about what had been looted, spoliated, from their ancestors!) or give up. "The Museum" will still be there, after all, taking in cash from ill-got gains they should've given back most of a century ago.

It is a scandal but no one wants to bring up the solution: restore spoliated property to its proper owners, or otherwise their descendants. As I read this book, I realized the case for this is unassailable. But I realized also why I had such trouble writing this review: I dislike the author.

She's quite sarcastic, very judgemental, has a serious oh-poor-me attitude. She snarks, in the text, about people she fawns over in the Acknowledgments. One assumes she thinks these people won't read the actual book.... Her scattered, disorganized research method draws criticism she fobs off as passing...but I promise you that her "mentors" did the real heavy lifting. I read this between the lines, I recalled many author Acknowledgments from when I was an agent that left out lots of realities not to the Author's Taste. And I realized that I support the message of repatriation, restitution, and acknowledging the harm done to generations of people simply because they were Other...but I dislike this messenger.

It's a shallow, personal response, and it shouldn't prevent anyone from picking up this book for its message of ma'at, fairness, justice, and the value of saying "I'm sorry."

Postscript: Sotheby's has auctioned the painting the author worked so hard to reclaim. Watch her conversation with the auction house's staff. In the end, it brought $1.23 million hammer price.

>221 msf59: Happy Snowyday, Mark! Thanks, I was pretty eager to get that review up...I loved reading the book, unlike the one I reviewed in >222 richardderus:.

There's a pile o' snow out there, and some is still coming down. I don't think it's been as bad as it could've been, but I still ain't goin' out in it since I ain't gotta.

>220 PaulCranswick: From your keyboard, PC....

>219 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita, I hope to. And now you've heard of him, I hope some of his work will speak to you as it has to me. The heads he was doing in the 1970s are probably my favorites. I think Chihuly, a generation later, did the expressionism-in-glass thing better, but that could simply be the "what you know is best" syndrome.

>218 humouress: I've got little use for the phone-scanning functionality, since I so seldom add tree-books anymore. I think it's got to work better than the CueCat.

Not trying to catch up, RD, but I wanted to say "Thank you" for dropping by my thread while I have been sick. I am feeling better today although not "well" yet, but probably by Monday i will be fully there.

((Hugs)) and **smooches** - from 6 feet away

>224 alcottacre: I was just over at yours! *socially-distanced smooch*

>196 richardderus: Also; everyone needs encouragement.

>226 humouress: It's a staple of the supervillainy canon that it is self-sustaining, that it is in fact a lot harder to *stop* its practitioners from practicing it than it is to motivate them to get out there and sow havoc and discord.

'Morning, RDear! Happy snowday to you.

I'm almost embarrassed to say we got about 1" of snow last night. it's pretty, and we're definitely staying inside today because we can.

*smooch*

>228 karenmarie: Happy Snowyday, Horrible, and for y'all's corner of territory an inch is plenty enough. A foot, where you are, would be snowpocalypse!

Listened to a YouTube lecture about Claude Flight.

I love his linocuts. Part of this very enjoyable Met talk.

Burgoine #4

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

Rating: I've always said 3* of five, but...welllllll...nope, still 3* of five

I guess y'all already know how you feel about Anne Tyler...I read A Spool of Blue Thread when it came out and, well...yeah. But as the years have galumphed along, I've remembered the Whitshank family with exasperated fondness, with occasional flashes of sympathy, and the odd moment of revelation.

I've rated books a lot more highly than this one that have had less impact on me than this one has, and continues to have. It's just so sure it's Literature, and it really isn't. It is, however, a Thumping Good Read. So go buy you one for your Kindle, since it's a lousy $1.99: https://smile.amazon.com/Spool-Blue-Thread-Novel-ebook/dp/B00MSS0WVY/

ATD, RD... not even for $1.99. I can't even begin to care about these people.

How's snowpocalypse treating you?

>232 karenmarie: Heh...not even for $1.99, now *that* is some serious nay-sayage! *smooch*

>222 richardderus: Sotheby's has auctioned the painting the author worked so hard to reclaim. Watch her conversation with the auction house's staff. In the end, it brought $1.23 million hammer price.

Separate but related: Takeaways from Ruth Bader Ginsburg Library Auction

I had a few whimpering fits yesterday, wanting something, ANYTHING, from her collection.

Hope you're staying snug. *weekend smooch*

>235 MickyFine: As a bug with a rug! *smooch*

>234 karenmarie: *chuckle* but not $6K-worth? That looks like about the cheapest lot sold, after the commissions and taxes and the like are tacked on.

>234 karenmarie: Wow. Deep pockets required indeed.

>192 richardderus: Glad you’re back, Richard! Hope things stabilize, already!

Karen O

>238 klobrien2: So far, so good...snow doesn't count, since it's winter in New York.

>237 Caroline_McElwee: Notice that this auction will benefit the heirs...a strong hint to wealthy institutions to pony up.

How annoying is this!
Wordle 224 6/6

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I'm impressed that you were able to use Blogger on your phone, Richard. Good thing that they paid the internet bill faster this time though.

>241 Familyhistorian: Thank you, Meg, it really isn't easy to type that much on those tiny keys. I don't much want to do it again!

Burgoine #5

Like A Sword Wound by Ahmet Altan (tr. Brendan Feely & Yelda Turedi)

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Volume 1 of the Ottoman Quartet

A powerful, beautifully written saga set during the fall of one of history’s greatest empires.

Altan’s “Ottoman Quartet” spans the fifty years between the final decades of the 19th century and the post-WWI rise of Atatürk as both unchallenged leader and visionary reformer of the new Turkey.The four books in the quartet tell the gripping stories of an unforgettable cast of characters, among them: an Ottoman army officer, the Sultan’s personal doctor, a scion of the royal house whose Western education brings him into conflict with his family’s legacy, and a beguiling Turkish aristocrat who, while fond of her emancipated life in Paris, finds herself drawn to a conservative Muslim spiritual leader.

Intrigue, betrayal, love, war, progress, and tradition provide a colorful backdrop against which the lives of these characters play out. All the while, the society that spawned them is transforming and the Sublime Empire disintegrating.

Here is a Turkish saga reminiscent of War and Peace, written in lively, contemporary prose that traces not only the social currents of the time but also the erotic and emotional lives of its characters. The female characters in Altan’s gripping saga will upend prejudices about Turkey, the Middle East, and Muslim nations.

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

My Review: This early-20th Century-set Turkish soap opera is just about as much fun as there is to have reading. There are women with agency, there are men with Yearnings, there are Grand Historical Changes! It is just as juicy as you could wish, it is volume one of four...written by a novelist imprisoned for his liberal politics, therefore without any serious distractions...and it will appeal to any historical-fiction lover as well as those whose taste for magical realism (ghosts! Plenty o' ghosts!) is on the restrained side.

I'm suggesting reading it pretty strongly, right? Mostly because I think you'll enjoy that it's a great value at $2.99 on Kindle the absolute most.

Burgoine #6

The Pasha of Cuisine by Saygın Ersin (tr. Mark Wyers)

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: For readers of Ken Follett's Kingsbridge series and Richard C. Morais's The Hundred-Foot Journey, a sweeping tale of love and the magic of food set during the Ottoman Empire.

A Pasha of Cuisine is a rare talent in Ottoman lore. Only two, maybe three are born with such a gift every few centuries. A natural master of gastronomy, he is the sovereign genius who reigns over aromas and flavors and can use them to influence the hearts and minds, even the health, of those who taste his creations. In this fabulous novel, one such chef devises a plot bring down the Ottoman Empire—should he need to—in order to rescue the love of his life from the sultan’s harem.

Himself a survivor of the bloodiest massacre ever recorded within the Imperial Palace after the passing of the last sultan, he is spirited away through the palace kitchens, where his potential was recognized. Across the empire, he is apprenticed one by one to the best chefs in all culinary disciplines and trained in related arts, such as the magic of spices, medicine, and the influence of the stars. It is during his journeys that he finds happiness with the beautiful, fiery dancing girl Kamer, and the two make plans to marry. Before they can elope, Kamer is sold into the Imperial Harem, and the young chef must find his way back into the Imperial Kitchens and transform his gift into an unbeatable weapon.

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

My Review: First, read this:

“There's no such thing as forgetting. No matter how hard you try, you only think you've forgotten, and over time the things you think you have forgotten emerge again under another guise and tear into your soul. Understand this: whoever says they have forgotten have merely condemned themselves to an endless repetition of the same event until the end of their lives.”

Extraordinarily beautiful sentences dot the landscape of this read with unseemly, almost brazen, promises of Delights...and they come just seldom enough to make the promises feel like a tease. But there's a lush, vigorous urgency to this story of the rare person born with the gustatory equivalent of perfect pitch. If Like Water for Chocolate or The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake left you with a hankerin' for more magically delicious food fiction, run get this book.

NOT, however, if you're dieting, or if you're already hungry. You'll come to regret that five pounds later.

‘Morning, Rdear! I watched your Long Island News 12 just now and it looks vicious out there.

>236 richardderus: Sigh. My friend Karen and I were discussing it last night and having major envy. She mentioned the cryptocurrency $43 million purchase of a copy of the Constitution late last year, and we both marveled at how anybody could have enough to spend that on one document.

>240 richardderus: RD’s in the game! Addictive, isn’t it? I finally figured out how to post my results yesterday and have already played today’s game and posted.

>244 richardderus: Not dieting, but hungry. I’m going to go get one of my experiments – low-sodium buttermilk biscuits. Result: tolerable, a bit chewy. And I'm usually a light hand at biscuits. Sigh. I'm going to figure out how to make low-sodium self-rising flour and try my Crisco Buttermilk biscuits next time.

*smooch*

Happy Sunday, Richard. Believe it or not we change planes in NY tomorrow morning, before continuing on to CR. I hope everything gets sorted out with the flights and snowstorm by then. Fingers crossed.

>244 richardderus: Looks just my thing if it wasn't for this intermittent fasting. Would probably eat the book, chapter after delicious chapter.

Morning, BigDaddy! Excellent reviews!

>243 richardderus: I'm glad to see some positive comments for this one as I have it in the stacks.

>244 richardderus: A direct hit. Adding it to The List. Food and magical realism, yes, please.

Hoping your Sunday is full of fabulous. *smooch*

>248 Crazymamie: Hiya Mamie, Sun's Day orisons to you.

A lot of folks who didn't like >243 richardderus: are down on the author's depiction of women. Much as those same people don't see misandry in the "dumb ol' dad" or "gay = drag" tropes they pass over without comment, I didn't see this historical novel about harem-havin' Turks as being especially noteworthily misogynistic.

And in that vein, >244 richardderus: has a man obsessively pursuing one of y'all in order to protect her. So's you're prepared an' stuff.

>247 PaulCranswick: You very much would, PC, and moan in especial transports of delight when they were just sittin' around havin' a snack...oh myyyyyy

>246 msf59: Hiya Mark! You should be fine. Neither LGA or JFK is that badly hit, though I'm sure there are delays.

Enjoy Costa Rica!

>245 karenmarie: It's on the snowy side here in Nassau County, but Suffolk..."out east" as we call it...is pretty slammed.

Having to go low-sodium in baking is the challenge to end all challenges, but your motivation is pretty solid...so good luck with the Crisco recipe! I hope that tinge of chewiness was a fluke. A fluffy biscuit's a glorious comestible.

Wordlegame.org let me practice the pattern skills on an unlimited basis. It helps.

Happy Sunday, Horrible! *smooch*

>249 richardderus: Gotcha.

>249 richardderus: :-)

Persona best!
Wordle 225 3/6

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OTOH, WordleGame.com beat me resoundingly with both "kebab" and "cycle".
My Wordle Stats: 23 Games played, 18 Games won, 78 % of Games won, 12 Max Streak.

>243 richardderus: Sounds good, Richard dear, even better that it is available in Dutch translation.
As a somewhat older book (published in 2002), my own library doesn't have it. So now the question is, is it worth spending 4.50 Euro (fee for library books from other provinces), not knowing how long it will take to arrive?
Have to think about it. I loved Altan's other book I Will Never See the World Again.

Nice couple of reviews, Richard! I got The Pasha of Cuisine on my Kindle before your review, but you do make me want to read it soonish. So far this year, though I've been reading a variety of good books, I somehow don't feel like I'm reading fast enough to keep up with it all haha. But, making note of all the Turkish authors I didn't get to this month (and I'm sure, other authors in subsequent months), at least I find myself in the happy place of knowing about a plethora of global authors that were not on my radar before.

Hope you're having an excellent, relaxing Sunday and staying warm!

>255 bell7: Thanks, Mary! I'm pleased I've made your reading life a little more complicated your TBR a wee tad more diverse. I'm delighted to be inside and under blanky, or I'd be grousing vociferously about the snow.

>254 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita...and very definitely yes on the fee. Whenever it gets there, you'll be glad you read it!

>243 richardderus: As you might know I disagree with the agency statement. The only agency the women have is in service of the men, a worthless collection of whiners who won't even talk to their wives, thinking themselves martyred.

>257 quondame: Yes, I was aware of that interpretation. As you can see, there is another one that has equal claim to validity.

>258 richardderus: Equal, nope, not seeing it. Of course agency in women is monstrous to men, but just because they react as if there are monsters doesn't mean they are correct - or looking in the correct direction.

I just finished my first 5 start read for the year! I have never had one in January so I will be anxious to see if it is still a 5 star read in December of 22.

Oh - the book. Well, it is We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Berry. It is funny, snarky, and sentimental without being slapstick (although there is a bit of that too), mean or meanspirited, or smarmy. It is nostaligic in all the right ways. It is perfect for those of us who remember that nothing comes between me and my Calvin Kleins or for those who remember hair mousse and David Lee Roth. It is perfect for those who stood in line to buy a copy of "Thriller." It is so 1989-90. The book is set in Danvers, Mass. and is about a women's (back then it was girls) field hockey team who are working their way to a state championship. It is a coming of age story and all about girls making their own choices about who they want to be. (and there are some interesting characters of all genders in the book.) It is full of cultural touchstones and the beginnings of the culture wars. It has big hair and big personalities. It is about history - the Salem Witch Trials - and it is about new history. It is full of witches and b-----s, flamers and shamers, adolescense and adrenaline. It is not great literature but It was just plain fun.

>260 benitastrnad: That sounds wonderful, Benita. I'm so glad you enjoyed the read!

>259 quondame: I don't know what powers you to come here, Susan. I don't come to your space after your stupid, pointless rant about insensitivity to your sensibilities after I denigrated Tolkien (want an example of women with no agency? find a woman in any of his fiction, just one human woman, one female hobbit AT ALL). I not only disagree with you, I don't like the way you force your views into conversations that don't need to involve you *specifically to disagree* with others.

I don't like people who can dish it out but can't take it.

And here you are. Dishing out what I don't want to have. So, you are excused. My opinionated maleness would you to leave and not return. Should you do as some others have done and decide to return anyway, do not leave comments. Your invitation is rescinded. I find your company disagreeable and want for *my*space* to contain people I find agreeable.

I will henceforth ignore you in the threads of others. I have blocked you, so will not see anything you post anywhere.

This is the last thing I have to say, and I say it with all my heart: Farewell.

I finished another review, bringing my January total to...THIRTY blogged! Go me! I'll post it here tomorrow, but I'm quite chuffed.

>214 richardderus: Quite interesting. I enjoy portrait heads. I have always enjoyed Eisch's whimsy.

Another great legend of portrait heads that I enjoy looking at is by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt.

Too bad I can't own one piece from each artist ;)

>262 richardderus: Thirty blogged in January is quite a feat, Richard. Well done!

>262 richardderus: Wow! Accolades dear fellow. That's an awesome achievement.
I've read 7 books this month (all reviewed, paltry number that it is by comparison, but I'm feeling good about the reading).

I'm in the midst of absorbing two non-fictions which need to be assimilated slowly.
I want time to let the concepts and reasoning sink in, so that I understand where the author "is coming from".
One title is an ecology/habitat sort of treatise, Swamplands (Edward Struzik) and the other was a BB from Auntie Clio, The secret lives of introverts (Jenn Grannerman).

I'm also bingeing on Martin Walker's Bruno Courrèges series, which is rather good comfort reading to settle my pandemic brain.

>260 benitastrnad: One heck of a good overview. I'm enthralled.
I didn't like the 89-90 cultural icons much, but I sure am tempted to dip into this book, Benita. Thanks!

>262 richardderus: I haven't even read 30 books so far this year and you've blogged 30 reviews! That's quite the feat, Richard!

>243 richardderus: After reading Susan's review of that one, I decided to pass on it. I am really not interested in soap opera, Turkish or not.

>244 richardderus: Already in the BlackHole!

>260 benitastrnad: I went to add that one to the BlackHole and discovered it was already there. I hate when that happens, especially when my local library still does not have a copy.

>262 richardderus: Woot!! You go, Richard!!

Have a wonderful week, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>262 richardderus: Blimey! That deserves a few smug points.

>266 Familyhistorian: I endorse the remarks of the previous speaker.

>262 richardderus: WOW, well done with 30 blogged reviews, Richard dear!

026 The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A riveting tale about a Black classical musician whose family heirloom violin is stolen on the eve of the most prestigious classical music competition in the world.

Ray McMillian loves playing the violin more than anything, and nothing will stop him from pursuing his dream of becoming a professional musician. Not his mother, who thinks he should get a real job, not the fact that he can't afford a high-caliber violin, not the racism inherent in the classical music world. And when he makes the startling discovery that his great-grandfather's fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, his star begins to rise.

Then with the International Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—fast approaching, his prized family heirloom is stolen. Ray is determined to get it back. But now his family and the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray's great-grandfather are each claiming that the violin belongs to them.

With the odds stacked against him and the pressure mounting, will Ray ever see his beloved violin again?

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

My Review: Want to know what people really think of you? Stand between them and a big, fat payday. You will get your actual, genuine position in their hierarchy delivered at express speed and before the varnish could be applied, still less dried.

Rayquan (usually "Ray") McMillian learns that there's nothing in this world like the benjamins to bring stuff into focus very early: He grows up without anything extra and the minimum was as cheap as it could reasonably be (often enough cheaper). As soon as it became possible, Ray was pressured to stop wasting time with his stupid fiddling and get a shelf-stockin' job to "help the family" (aka his selfish mother). Time to make horrible noises on his fiddle was more than merely grudged, it was a source of actual anger...seen as selfish, unproductive, the action of a loser. (All those fingers pointin' back from the accusatory poking one missed her notice, it seems.)

You knew there'd be a grandmother in here, right? One who Believes in Ray? You were right, there is.

And a more wonderful soul it's hard to conjure. I was all ready to Pearl-Rule this bad boy before Grandma Nora (she whose belief in Ray makes her "talk so sweet {about him} it could give you diabetes") came on stage, I was so pissed off at the Philistines and money-grubbers Ray has to call family! What malign genetic flub gave Grandma Nora a daughter like Ray's mom?! And there's no end to the nasty, of course, since this is a thriller/mystery. But that's the tour I signed up to take, and was ready for. A bracing dose of lovingkindness later, it was all gas no brakes and that finish line won't know what hit it.

Ray, as you'll have gathered, is a fine musician and to hell with his grasping, whiny mother complaining about the "racket" his practicing makes. He perseveres, Grandma Nora's staunchness in his corner, and actually begins to climb the ladder of classical violin's performance hierarchy. What he faces along the way is no surprise to anyone reasonably sentient, as his ethnicity is used by everyone around him. Only rarely to help him, I'm sure you'll be stunned to learn. His other shining light is his teacher, his one professional mentor, Dr, Janice Stevens. She makes school a haven, a place where someone really gets him and sees the music in his being.

Ray's early training in Keep Calm and Carry On within the loving bosom of his family pays off. That ability to focus is his superpower. It leads him to the *pinnacle* of a violin soloist's ambitions: the International Tchaikovsky Competition, a quadrennial classical-music Olympics that unquestionably makes a musician's career. Even competing there is a leg up...and for a Black man raised with nothing, it is damned near unprecedented for him to be there.

That? That's enough novel for most of us. But Author Slocumb said, "...now, what happens if the Black man happens to get a Stradivarius from his grandmother...?"

What happens is betrayal, heartbreak, and the kind of publicity you damn sure can't pay for. Broken hearts mend; wounds don't fester forever; a career launched into the stratosphere by a juicy scandal leads to a lifetime of opportunities. Ones Ray's absolutely up to taking full advantage of, coming away with a silver medal in spite of the horrors around his violin's rape from him. This one unique possession, it will surprise no one to learn, opens so many doors to him. It will not surprise anyone, either, that he walks boldly up to the doors expecting them to open...and they do.

Ray's search for the thief of his prized possession, his almost desperate desire not to believe where the search leads him, and his dogged perseverance through it all speak volumes for the value of adversity surmounted in creating character. I think Author Slocumb did exactly the right thing by enabling Ray to reach back, to offer a hand of fellowship from his place of privilege.

Ray made it a point to highlight music by Black and Latinx composers. After all those years fighting and proving wrong the preconceptions that people who looked like him couldn't play the music of dead white men, he dove into the phenomenal music written by those people who did indeed look like him.

It is the thing that defines my memory of Ray McMillian, fictional character: He worked his ass off, he focused on the problem at hand, and he stomped the daylights out of the inner voices installed early that demanded he think about unimportant stuff instead of powering himself, supercharging his gifts with well-honed talents.

In the end, what matters in a life? Looking back, what difference does any of what we do make?

"Music's the gift. Caring's the gift. There are a lot of ways apart from a concert hall to make a difference in someone's life."

That's Dr. Janice Stevens, if you're wondering, having a ghostly chat with post-disaster Ray. Thanks, Janice. Whatever your name, wherever you might be...whichever one of us you reached out for, gave a hand to...Thanks to the Janices the world over who do something easy for them and priceless to the recipient.

Care.

>269 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita, it's quite a big deal to me. It's my second-most productive month yet, blog-wise.

>268 Helenliz: Thank you, Helen. I am pretty smug about it.

>267 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia! *smooch*

>266 Familyhistorian: I appreciate it, Meg. It is a big deal for me.

>265 SandyAMcPherson:, >264 SandyAMcPherson: Thank you, Sandy, I'm sure it'll be the best I do this year but it's a good start.

There's a lot to be said for having what amounts to limitless personal time expendable any way one wishes to. It's an extremely rare condition of being, and is of necessity fleeting. But I've decided how I want to use mine. You're looking at it.

>263 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita!

‘Hiya, RD! Happy Monday to you.

>252 richardderus: Yay.

>253 richardderus:

>262 richardderus: Congrats, my dear.

>270 richardderus: Click, click, click, enter, click. This one has made it to my LT wish list account, kairfa. *smile*

>273 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! I'm well-pleased with this extra fillip of productivity.

I'm pretty confident you will enjoy yourself when reading The Violin Conspiracy. It's very interesting, and while it deals with difficult topics, it does so with what I found to be admirable focus. Not dwelling, not minimizing, not making it feel exaggerated.

Hiya, Richard. Wow, much has happened in my absence.

>75 richardderus:. LOL! I don’t know how you picked up so well on my subtle optimism. Yes, Project Hail Mary was a good fit. He must’ve been in nerd heaven figuring out all that science and math.

The Maid fit, too, with its happy ending for stalwart Molly.

You went on quite a Mike Chen spree. Lovely reviews, as usual. Do you ever pay for books? I wish publishers were showing up at my door like that, with arms full of ARCs. Although that might wreak havoc with my mood reading.

>275 jnwelch: Heh...of course I pay for books! I just don't review books I've paid for with cash from my own pocket. That way I can honestly say I want to review your book, Publisher, but need a DRC, and they know I'm not kidding. (There are over 1,000 reviews on my eight-year-old blog...that gets 100-200 views, on average a day...and it's all I do, review books. They check those things!)

Mike Chen's books are, I'm happy to report, good mood reading. Those are all his presently published novels. It was a great week, putting that together! I really got to know him as a writer. I've "known" him on Twitter for years. This was a deeper, better look into his psyche because of it.

Stay safe and warm!

Afternoon, Darling! My head is spinning from 30 blogged reviews - most impressive! Way to go, you!

>277 Crazymamie: Thanks, Mamie! I'm pretty chuffed. It gives me a wee cushion in case disaster strikes later in the year. I can probably still make the annual goal given another month or two with this speed.

30 is alot of reviews! Especially when they are pithy. I wish I could write reviews as well. (sigh)

>279 benitastrnad: Thank you, Benita! I will say you're no slouch in the pithiness sweepstakes. But consider this: I've been doing nothing whatsoever to earn a living since 2008. In fourteen years, no matter that some were spent in ordinary busyness of Life, I have had a helluva reading life! And have been writing reviews steadily for most of that time.

I'd be pretty pathetic if, given those advantages all working for me, I hadn't become modestly proficient at the task.

>276 richardderus: I want to review your book, Publisher, but need a DRC, My friend Karen is a reporter for the Belgrade News in Belgrade MT and has recently figured out, after getting her editor’s approval, that she can ask for copies of books with a Montana slant with the promise of reviewing them for her paper and their sister paper the Bozeman Chronicle. Of course, she then keeps the books. She writes good reviews. She may eventually see this since I’ve been bugging her for 3 years to join LT, but I’ll take a risk that she won’t – she’s a good writer/reporter but I think you will always have book review supremacy.

>281 karenmarie: *smooch* you're very kind.

Belgrade? Montana needed a Belgrade? Are there lots of Serbs in Montana?

Your reviews, Richard - wow! And congratulations!

Thank you, Anne, I appreciate it.
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Wordle (the real one):
Wordle 226 5/6

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My go-to starter was a flop, which is the first time that's happened. It was a relative doddle after the two-in-position, though.

JANUARY IN REVIEW

January 2022. What a month. Four five- or almost-five star reviews out of thirty! I am so pleased, because to meet my stretch goal of 275 reviews of all sorts (see >6 richardderus:, >7 richardderus:) I'd need to post 23 a month. Seven in the pocket! This makes me so happy.

The Famous Five

Fadeout--reread of a fifty-year-old California Noir novel starring a GAY MALE who had a happy relationship until his husband dies of cancer. I'm pretty sure my mother, who gave this to me to read, either didn't realize or knew perfectly well how it would strike me.

High-Risk Homosexual--what. a. ride. Good goddlemitey. Pulse did one good thing: It got Edgar Gomez to write this astounding passionate memoir.

Blue-Skinned Gods--what evil religion does. Knowingly. Eye-popping, and based on a weird and wonderful fact.

Red Milk--I am a Sjón fanboy. Astonishing. Brilliantly conceived, fact-based tale of a horrible trend in today's world that is NOT new. Depressingly.

>285 richardderus: Nice round up, RD. I'm glad to see this happiness here. I had some dandy reading myself this month, though not enough to even *think* of declaiming numbers. Good-on-ya' ~ I hope the next month proceeds so smilingly well too.

>286 SandyAMcPherson: Thanks, Sandy, I hope your keyboard is hooked into the godesses' inbox directly. February is Old Nell's Curse among the months. I generally find myself wishing it was April already by Valentine's Day. So this one being better would be nice.

I am now running at a 14 win streak on wordle, RD, but still don't have sufficient intelligence to get my results to display. When I click the share image that comes up it says "saved to clipboard" but I don't have a clue how to go to the clipboard.

>270 richardderus: Already on the list. Glad it was a good one!

>289 bell7: *fingersnap* Well, I can't get you every time, I suppose. *sulks*

>288 PaulCranswick: Your clipboard is a name for a place you'll never see. It doesn't need you to see it because your keyboard will take things from there to the place you want them to be.

You have posted photos...you know how you use command keystrokes to put the URLs in the proper place? Do that. Just that. No need to type any text or anything. Just place your cursor where you want the photo and use that command...I'm not an Apphole so I might be wrong but I think it's command-v...voilà there it will be.

>290 richardderus: I gotta manage to get *some* books on the TBR list through work by reading up on and watching publisher's webinars about upcoming titles ;)

>291 bell7: Pish-tosh! Nonsense. Read along with Richard.
***
I just found out this podcast, The Deckle Edge Podcast! You need to know about it. Very cool: https://thedeckleedge.com/2022/01/31/brendan-slocumb/

That's the author of >270 richardderus: The Violin Conspiracy's episode.

>290 richardderus: Thanks RD, off to try again!

>293 PaulCranswick: I am on tenterhooks...

>292 richardderus: duly noted! I should warn you I'm perpetually 4-6 (currently 6) weeks behind on podcasts, but I've downloaded that episode and a couple others

>294 richardderus: Don't be, RD, I couldn't do it. I'll see if Bello can show me how to do it if she eventually surfaces from slumber.

>296 PaulCranswick: Drat! Well, Belle will know. Please come back and tell me how it finally worked!

>295 bell7: I'm not a podcast listener as a habit...like audiobooks, I need to keep it short or the sandman pours a Bahama into my eyes...but I really resonated with this interviewer. Liked the subject, too.

>284 richardderus: What's 'the real one'? All my research indicates the powerlanguage site.

ETA: comme ça?
Wordle 227 3/6

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>288 PaulCranswick: Once you've got it on your clipboard, just paste (however you usually do that) it in your post; either from the edit or shortcut menu or, for Apple devices with a keyboard, command+V to drop it in.

>298 humouress: Oui, madame. I used wordlegame.org to practice because the words are unlimited and the opportunity to get the "hang" of it was very reassuring.

The thread that is new marches well now.