Jill Reads, Rummages, and Sorts Through Things in 2024 - Part Two

Okay, let's start the second quarter's roster of reading. What am I in the mood for?

Original post date and time: April 1, 2024 at 7:00pm. Spouse just turned on Jeopardy!

Edited to add:

Paladin’s Grace
Paladin’s Strength
A Passion for Books
Making It So: A Memoir
Sailing to Sarantium
To Shape A Dragon’s Breath
Vanity and Vexations
If on a Winter’s Night, A Traveler
Prairie Fires
Everyone on This Train is a Suspect
Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone
84 Charing Cross Road
The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street
Books Promiscuously Read
The Jefferson Bible: A Biography
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries
Spear

Above Completed During First Quarter (2024)

Happy New Thread!
*drags in cheese platter and bubbly beverages*

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread.

What they said.

Having read Sailing to Sarantium, have you got Lord of Emperors on your radar?

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread!

>6 Jim53: Yes, that particular title is in the queue at the moment.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've had no problem in shifting my reading to daylight hours. Washington Post opinion piece (gifted article; no paywall) https://wapo.st/4aG52cI

>10 jillmwo: I have no problem reading during the daylight hours either, when I have the time ;)))

Reading Fred Vargas is rather akin to reading P.D. James. They both write literary mysteries that are not solely about solving a criminal act of murder. They usually have something else in mind as they write. Today's example is from The Ghost Riders of Ordebec. The chief detective calls someone in his unit and incorrectly quotes the father of chaos theory, Edward Lorenz, who came up with the whole butterfly effect thing. The subordinate chides him for not getting the quote correct and Commissaire Adamsberg asks why that matters. His subordinate replies:

"Because once you get away from the original words, the purest of theories just become rumours. Then we don't know anything. From one approximation to another inconsistency, the truth unravels and obscurantism takes over"

ETA: For the record, the original quote that Lorenz used in his talk was "a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Texas."

Original post date-stamped at 10:40 am on Sat, April 6, 2024.

>10 jillmwo: I can't relate. I have always read in the daytime, never in bed, sometimes through the night though. When I was a busy mother, I read in the afternoons, or whenever I had a break. The chores got done enough, although my housekeeping standards are probably lower than a lot of folks. Working was a damper to get around, but I managed. The only thing that has set me back are sickness and mental distraction.

>12 jillmwo: Nice quote.

>12 jillmwo:
Brilliant quote. It is like people using the word “theory” when they should use “hypothesis”.

>10 jillmwo: I'll read any time I can!

>12 jillmwo: I think that quote describes 99% of the memes on the internet.

>10 jillmwo: I saw that article this morning, and I ignored it. Haha. Thank you for forcing me to take a look at it. Halfway through I said to myself "I'll have to check the author's name when I'm done and see if she's suffering from Irish Catholic guilt or Jewish guilt." I was sure it was one of them.

Definitely Bookshelf Porn: https://twitter.com/mooseandmouse/status/1777419845815894057/photo/1
Photo shows 50 years' accumulation of poetry in hardcover formats

>18 jillmwo: Veeeeeery nice!

As I had noted earlier in #11 above, my reading of Fred Vargas’ novels suggests to me that she belongs in the same literary class as P.D. James and Tana French. Her characters are vivid and she is able to weave in thematic ideas with the criminal behaviors that her Chief Inspector Adamsberg must wrestle with. I purposely slowed my reading speed down as I went through The Ghost Riders of Ordebec because I wanted to be sure I was picking up on her intent. While I kind of guessed who was driving the murders predicted by the appearance of Hellequin and his phantasmic army, I was entirely wrong about the psychological motivations behind it.

I should point out that I haven’t read the full range of titles in this series – just Have Mercy on Us All some fifteen years ago and, as it happens, this is one series where it makes sense to read the books in order. The personnel of the unit commanded by Adamsberg has changed significantly over the time frame between the two books I read and I suspect that might make a difference in the level of reading enjoyment. I was okay with the eccentric cast of characters in this novel, but additional background might have deepened the engagement. Essentially, all of the characters in The Ghost Riders of Ordebec are odd individuals with unique challenges in how they get through their daily existence. Adamsberg’s unit is an effective team, but you have members who are narcoleptic, bulimic, socially-inept, and sometimes near-genius in their command of details associated with past events, both cultural and criminal.

Adamsberg is drawn into a crime foreseen by a young woman who witnesses the ride of Hellequin and his Army of the Dead. Three of four victims that she sees riding in that vision are recognized locals of the small city of Ordebec. The surface plot is whether the deaths of those three are merely coincidental or if they are premeditated acts by a single person. Adamsberg is thrown into conflict with the local gendarmerie as well as with his superiors in Paris who would prefer he work on a case drawing greater public attention. A third case involving a street pigeon also draws his attention.

The point is that there are (depending on how you count) four distinct acts of criminal assault or murder in this novel. They may or may not be connected in any way; when the reader begins, there’s really no way of knowing. What is made clear is that the detection of patterns in chaotic behavior is central to success in policing, whether the case involves a small cruelty or a much larger transgression. There is a balance needed between noting significant details at the crime scene and recognition of intangible connections.

Fred Vargas is an interesting writer as pgmcc has already noted back when he was reading her Evangelists series of novels. The books require real attention as one reads, but there is a significant pay-off to be gained.

Always happy to see a Vargas book being enjoyed. Would second the reading of the series in order as although primarily focused on the Inspector the ensemble cast and relationships between them becomes more prevalent as it continues.

I have now started Seeking Whom He May Devour, the third story in Fred Vargas’ Commissaire Adamsberg series. Having started with, and completed the three Three Evangelists books, I decided to read the Adamsberg series in sequence.

>22 pgmcc: I'll be interested in your comments on it! (Was this particular title on your list of books to take with you when you escaped to France for your summer sabbatical from undercover work?)

>23 jillmwo:
It certainly was. When in France, and all that.

ETA: By the way, it has grabbed my attention already. I am finding it gripping.

>24 pgmcc: *thumbs up*

Continuing on --> what follows is a quick note on something I'd bought recently -- fleshing out bits of a collection. In either 2022 or 2023, the Christie estate celebrated the 70th anniversary of her play, The Mousetrap. I don't think I've ever seen it on stage myself, but I have a sense that the London show is still popular with families, tour groups and schools. I picked up Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap: 70th Anniversary Edition; an LT touchstone does not work for my purposes here, so visit the work page here https://www.librarything.com/work/9494273/summary/261172541 The book as a commemorative edition is adequate. You get an intro by Sophie Hannah, followed by the playscript and then a collage of photos, cast lists, and first night notices. I’d hoped for something rather more in-depth than this proved to be, but if you’re a true fan…

What follows is something of a spoiler commentary, so don’t click if you’re particular about observing theatrical tradition and not revealing the nature of the play’s solution but I had read the novella Three Blind Mice back when I was a teenager. I’m quite sure it appeared in one of those Reader’s Digest condensed books back in the sixties. It might have been my first exposure to Christie but I really don’t remember.( I didn’t notice the names of authors at that point. I remembered titles and covers.) At any rate, while Christie’s play was written before the novella, the novella is essentially the text version of the play. Frankly, there is a certain derivativeness about the play’s solution; Christie used a similar deception about the killer in Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. Be that as it may, revisiting both play and book in identifying possible changes in order to suit the needs of adaptation was kind of fun.

That said, quite honestly, Christie as a follow-up to Vargas is quite unfair. I ought to have put more space in between the two.

Side note: I have started on Mortal Love and the initial read is like trying to eat just a single potato chip from the bag. I read two chapters, got interrupted, and then an hour later -- as soon as I could -- I was back at it. One has to read at LEAST two chapters at a time. And no one had mentioned to me in advance that it was chock full of SEX (or at least versions thereof). My poor little puritanical side was shocked as I sped through to see where the story went.

>25 jillmwo:
You will have to read it in detail, take notes, and then read it again to see just how bad it is.

>26 pgmcc: & >25 jillmwo: And perhaps reenact some of the worst bits to see if they are really as shocking as they seem to be on paper. Of course you can do this with puppets if you think you and/or your husband aren't up to it.

>26 pgmcc: and >27 clamairy: I am too busy reading the book to even think about any performance aspect, although the puppet aspect made me giggle. It's really quite unexpected for something that was described as being Gothic fantasy. Nice writing.

In the interests of sharing -- a short story by Ray Bradbury. Originally published in the Saturday Evening Post and served as the initial basis for the movie, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Although really, the story has little or nothing to do with some monster stomping on NYC. *sob*
https://goms.rocklinusd.org/subsites/Jenny-Salmon/documents/Short%20Story%20Unit...

>28 jillmwo:
I enjoyed that story. Thank you!

>28 jillmwo: This was definitely in one of the collections of his that I read back in the day. I absolutely adored it.

>29 pgmcc: and >30 clamairy: My husband has been reading a book entitled Remembrance: Selected Correspondence of Ray Bradbury and a friend who is an old film buff surfaced first the reference to the movie and then the short story. Our friend, Doug, told us that the short story was pretty much covered during the first 15-20 minutes of the movie itself. (Unsurprising for 1953 when the cultural worry tended towards the long-term effects of radiation. But IMHO the story's theme is about time and eternity and I was struck by the image of the huge school of fish silently looking at up at the red and white light.

>31 jillmwo: I have never seen that movie, BTW. Is it any good?

>32 clamairy: Not if you're looking for sophisticated sci-fi. I think it's best viewed with the understanding that the movie is very much of its time and primarily culturally famous for being a forerunner of and inspiration for the Japanese Godzilla movies. It runs about an hour and 19 minutes to watch so I'd either save it for when the family is interested in doing a MST3K session together on a rainy Sunday afternoon or for when you're recuperating in bed from the flu and weary enough to accept it on its own terms.

>33 jillmwo: I have a soft spot for cheesy old sci-fi. I think you're right, however. I'm better off watching it with someone else who will appreciate it

>34 clamairy:. To be fair, the closing ten to fifteen minutes do manage to be compelling, if you've ever seen or ridden the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island. Ray Harryhausen created the monster for the film but, according to Wikipedia, his Rhedosaurus offended many scientists.

I have been wanting to encourage you about the wedding, but the words won't come. Of course you will get through it, and of course it will be lovely, but I understand the anxiety up until the event. Remember to breathe and do the next thing. :)

>35 jillmwo: Ray Harryhausen was a master! (Even when his creations weren't scientifically accurate.)

>36 MrsLee:. No need for you to fret over anything. I appreciate the kind reminders. I have only wished that I could emulate your calm during family weddings!! You're great at handling those events and I tend to fixate on all the wrong things.

>38 jillmwo: My only salvation is to make reams of detailed lists, and then go by them! I can fill a notebook with lists. Things to be done a month ahead, each week, each day of the final week, each hour before the event, things in the house, in my wardrobe, to do with gifts, on and on. The reason that saves me is that once I put it on a list I know it won't be forgotten and my brain can stop gnawing at it.

>25 jillmwo: I honestly didn't particularly notice the sex; I think I was too busy trying to find all the ribbons that will eventually draw this story together, and the references to British folklore. Funny.

We changed planes in Philly on the way home from Georgia last Thursday. I waved to you. :)

>40 Marissa_Doyle: Don't misunderstand my flippant comment up there in #25. I am definitely enjoying Mortal Love but it wasn't at all what I was expecting in some respects. And like you, I have been making a list of references in the novel that I want to follow-up on, because there are layers of symbolism here that I will not otherwise fully grasp. Certainly, Hand was able to convey the sense of yearning that I associate with works of fantasy. As I was thinking about the book today, I realized that Guy Gavriel Kay's book, Sailing to Sarantium, also deals to some extent with the creative energy that goes into an artistic work. But Sarantium hasn't anywhere near as much of that sense of yearning that I think is part of books by Tolkien or McKillip.

(And I had wondered who it was who was waving at me off in the distance there.)

Just finished Elizabeth Hand's wonderful novel, Mortal Love. Wow. So unexpected. I swear that I must immediately go to all of the book groups of which I am a member and insist that they read this.

Acorns. Absinthe. A certain amount of insanity. Certainly there's a figure of the Feminine that looms large.

>42 jillmwo: *pew pew pew*

>43 clamairy: Don't sit down with it unless you have some serious time to spare. You're reading to find out what happens to these characters, but you're also trying to track all the literary allusions, symbols and metaphors. (I swear I have three pages of notes.)

And I'm mulling over whether I should immediately go out and find a copy of Waking the Moon.

What springs to mind when someone starts talking to me about Gothic literature are books with a sense of isolation, anxiety, mysterious noises, a sense of vertigo, and general vulnerability. If asked to name authors off the cuff, I’d come up with the Brontes, Sarah Perry, Sarah Blake, and Sheridan Le Fanu. At least in my head, the genre carries a certain dubious quality. Are you – as the author – really quite well that you feel compelled to come up with something this dark?

Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love gives the reader plenty of signals that the story they’re about to experience is not an ordinary one. Nineteen pages in, a secondary character uses the phrase “Manderley on bad acid” to describe someone’s summer home, an old Victorian structure that’s been assembled by a man made miserable by grief and loss. The place is deteriorating, falling into disrepair, an owner burdened by the taxes and remote location. This seems like a traditional setting for a Gothic fantasy but then the “bad acid” element kicks in – various hallucinogenic experiences as a means of controlling anxiety over loss. Only you’re not on that island on the coast of Maine anymore because the action shifts. You’re in London in the wee small hours of the night in what may or may not be the best neighborhood. Certainly, it’s not Mayfair. Another shifting of locale in the book's final third and you're on a cliff in Cornwall (but not alone).

The real feat here may be that the author has managed to deliver Gothic fantasy in an urban environment, with crowds of people, in an age when cell phones make isolation difficult and where private jets can cross oceans in a matter of hours. Heck, there was even a spiffed-up, classic motorcycle. Yet the reader still experiences all of those sensations and emotions that we expect will feature heavily in the Gothic – obsession, panic,anxiety, entrapment, etc.

There are four men whose lives we follow and none of them are entirely of sound mind and body. Should they blame their inability to cope with their base passions? (In the book’s initial pages, we see a medical professional attributing a woman’s madness to that general failure of her sex, an inability to control her base passions.)

Mortal Love references the rebellious spirit of the Pre-Raphaelite artistic movement, with those detailed renderings of natural flora and fauna. (Honestly, the book cries out for an illustrated edition.) We encounter mad poets and the folklore that inspired them. There are acorns, absinthe, and Keats’ La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Hand’s prose is not dense but literary allusions are spread out and thick on the ground. Which allusions are the clues that are critical to picking up her meaning? In a busy week, Mortal Hands had me pulling out dictionaries of symbols and googling obscure mythological names. (Vernorexia?) There was the flavor of Byatt’s crossing timelines in Possession but in half the number of pages.

I can’t figure out how I never ran across this book before now and I am resisting the impulse to go and find all of Elizabeth Hand’s other work. This may be one of my top five reading experiences when we come to the end of 2024.

>44 jillmwo: I will probably wait a while then. Maybe when the end of July comes and it's too hot/humid to go anywhere during day except the beach I will be ready.

>46 clamairy:. Whenever it works for you. The write-up probably doesn't make it clear but the Feminine figure and energy in the book is quite powerful. So much so, that it energized me to finish off another two things on my week's set of tasks. (Jill warbles some Helen Reddy *I am woman. Hear me roar...*)

With regard to my next read, I need to re-ground myself in some non-fiction. However, I've also got two book group discussions on Sunday to do. One covers the first half of Dan Simmons' Hyperion and the other is a second round on Martha Wells' Witch King.

>47 jillmwo:
I loved Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion. They struck me as one book in two parts. I found them very spiritual.

I read the next two books but found them unnecessary.

>48 pgmcc:. Well, there was some hesitation over the group agreeing to read Hyperion because of a perception that it was more horror than science fiction, primarily intended for a male audience, and designed as a series opener. (They prefer stand-alone novels.) Personally, thus far, I like the use of Canterbury Tales in framing the narrative, in particular the Priest's Tale and the Scholar's Tale. It's the first of anything by Simmons that I've ever read.

>49 jillmwo:
I believe it was my first Simmons too.

>49 jillmwo: I hope you enjoy Hyperion!

Conversations on an electronic mailing list consisting largely of trade publishers have pointed to these two items:

(1) From Elle Griffin: https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

(2) From Mike Shatzkin: https://www.idealog.com/blog/the-end-of-the-general-trade-publishing-concept/

I think someone else had already pointed to the piece by Elle Griffin, but the response from Mike (something he wrote back in 2020) is probably new to folks here. It dates back to the whole Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster acquisition furor.

The point (generally speaking) is how even trade publishing is changing from what it was 30 years ago (or thereabouts).

>48 pgmcc: and >51 Karlstar: I must admit I was worried about how the women in the Hyperion discussion would react to the initial half of the book, but as it turned out, they were already forging ahead because they were eager to find out where it was going. I warned them that the ending might be deemed ambiguous, given that the book closes with the pilgrims linking arms and singing "We're Off to See The Wizard".

The second group discussing Witch King were even more engaged. They really did engage in that sixty minutes. I thought it was interesting that they saw the original forms of Kai and his relatives as being those of naga! That hadn't really occurred to me. In my head, I had imagined Kai as either being a serpent or an airy wisp of some sort when he needed to shift bodies.

And by the way, let's all sing "Happy Birthday" to William Shakespeare. He turned 400 today (or so they tell me...)

>53 jillmwo: Happy Birthday to Shakespeare! :)

I'm happy to hear your book groups enjoyed both Hyperion and Witch King!

Gift article (no paywall) from the New York Times having to do with book conservation practices at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/18/books/book-conservation-met.html?unlocked_art...

Okay, let's keep an eye on those book lovers who may be wielding scalpels.

>55 jillmwo: Great article. What about the book lovers with non-approved bookmarks? "When asked about the practice of dog-earing, Dubansky’s brows shot skyward: “Talk about flagrant abuse!”"

I'll fess up, I do have one leather bookmark and some fancy, thin wood ones that are sword shaped. Sounds like it is time to retire those.

Really interesting 2023 blog post about book production costs: https://www.galleybeggar.co.uk/what-does-a-book-cost

You'll have to do your own currency exchange rates on the numbers.

W/R/T the wedding and all the associated furor. The new credit card did arrive in time. Hair still looks awful but rectifying that tomorrow. We leave to jaunt up on the train on Thursday. I've seen the schedule for the four day process and the weather predictions (definitely nippy-ish for an outdoor wedding). There will definitely be Prosecco. I expect to be exhausted upon the return and all of the household routine has been upended as I try to think about laundry and meal planning upon return.

>57 jillmwo:
Have a great time at the wedding. I am glad your card has arrived. That is one worry off your shoulders.

Do not be worrying about laundry upon your return. It will happen. Meal planning is another matter.

>57 jillmwo: Although they didn't specifically say so: don't buy from Amazon; don't buy from the supermarket or a big-box store. They did say, buy from an indie bookshop if possible.

>57 jillmwo:
That is a very interesting article on the costs involved in book production and distribution.

>57 jillmwo: Glad the credit card arrived, I hope everything goes perfectly.

What >60 pgmcc: said. Very interesting.

I hope all goes smoothly, and the weather cooperates!

>57 jillmwo: I am happy that your credit card made it on time! Wishing you the best of luck with everything else!

>57 jillmwo: Hoping your travels, event and return go off without a hitch, or only very minor ones if there must be any. Celebrating in my heart with you.

Best of luck for it all, particularly with the weather.

>57 jillmwo: I hope you have a safe and wonderful time at the wedding!

jillmwo, you will be happy to learn that you can officially chalk up your Mortal Love BB hit. It was delivered to our secret lair this morning.

Okay, they’re safely wed. Quick insight into some of the event:

–Travel arrangements: Amazingly smooth and without glitches. Trains were involved.
–Weather of the Day - *very* chilly for May. 56 degrees or so after the sun went down.
--Hair - Very lucky in the hairdresser who was able to style me in such a way as to look vaguely like Judi Dench.
–Clothing - pants suit. No need for me to have spent $$$ on specially-chosen jewelry for the event. I wrapped a color-coordinated pashmina about my neck to keep the chill off and that hid any so-called glitz. (It was COLD down there by the water.) Guests were all provided with a basket of pashmina shawls for the purpose of keeping warm.
–Venue: Involved a lighthouse
–Their vows: He vowed to bring her morning coffee every day. He also vowed to remind her at point of need that no, bangs were never a good Idea for her.
Teary moment: He started to well up as he began his vows (which meant as his mother, I did as well). Somehow, she wordlessly stopped him and got him to take a deep breath. They did beautifully.
–Sibling moment: My siblings and I hadn’t been together since our mother’s passing at the end of 2020. Great hug from my brother. Another moment: Brother-in-law grouped me, my brother, and the remaining sisters and finally got a photo of all of us together.
–Eldest son threat: “I’ll Turn This Table Right Around” which hearkened back to family joke.
–Eldest son’s wife: Amazing support with medicinal treatments and supplier of Prosecco.

Got home on Sunday. Still exhausted on Monday. Surviving on Tuesday (today). Stupid credit card upheaval continues (but that’s for another week). Now I must focus on kicking things back into regular routine.

>68 jillmwo: Sounds great, glad it went well!

>68 jillmwo: Wonderful! I am very happy for you all.

>68 jillmwo:
he hairdresser who was able to style me in such a way as to look vaguely like Judi Dench.

A good look.

Amazing support with medicinal treatments and supplier of Prosecco.

Administering medicinal Prosecco I presume.

Good luck with the credit card disruption.

>68 jillmwo: I'm so happy to hear it was a marvelous day. It sounds very memorable.

>68 jillmwo: A good start for them and a well done for you.

>68 jillmwo: That sounds like a wonderful day! All the little details taken care of so thoughtfully. I hope it is the start of a joyous long marriage.

How can a four-day trip out of town be so disruptive? Still not back into the normal groove.

At any rate, the LOCUS Award nominees have been announced. See https://reactormag.com/here-are-the-finalists-for-the-2024-locus-awards/

I've read far more of the titles in their fantasy category than in the SF category.

>75 jillmwo: Interesting, thanks for sharing!

I think it's the opposite for me - I've read four of the nominated sci-fi novels, and just one fantasy; one novella (fantasy) and two of the short stories (sci-fi).

>75 jillmwo: I have a lot to catch up on, I see.

>68 jillmwo: Catching up. What a brilliant day for you and the happy couple. (It seems like they actually are a happy couple.) Don'y you love it when a plan comes together?

I had finished this prior to the wedding but had not written it up. Not sure this conveys the full experience, but I enjoyed the book.

A couple of quotes clipped from A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay.

We see only glimpses of history, even our own. It is not entirely ours—in memory, in writing it down, in hearing or in reading it. We can reclaim only part of the past.

Or this one:

The random spinning of fortune’s wheel. It can sway us, change us, shape or end our days.

Finally: Truth and memory do not easily dance together.

The story is actually about a young man who finds himself embroiled in some ways in the significant events of the day. He does not mean to be. His actual plan had been to become a bookseller in his hometown, but he is swept up in the whirl of political acts and intrigue. Early on, there is a remarkably clever and successful assassination (Kay seems to like such killings as a narrative device.) The young man's experience brings him close to two soldiers in conflict and two very different women (one a noble woman and the other a healer). There's an exceedingly exciting horse race in a city-state that for all intents and purposes is this world's Sienna in Italy.

This novel is a stand-alone but does reference the world of Sailing to Sarantium and the Lord of Emperors. Not quite as heavy handed in the telling as perhaps Sailing to Sarantium; overall a pleasant and satisfying read.

My recent bedtime reading – the normal routine of which has been disrupted for a variety of uninteresting reasons – has been a Margery Allingham suspense thriller. The title is Black Plumes and while I knew it was a re-read, I was surprised to find a record here on LT of my review, dated 2009. In 2024, I could remember who dunnit but not for the life of me could I recall the why or how.

>80 Karlstar: Have you already read Children of Earth and Sky? The next one, All the Seas of the World, is also set in this place and roughly time and draws a lot from the events of A Brightness Long Ago.

>79 jillmwo: Nice! I've read a few books by Guy Gavriel Kay. The Lions of Al-Rassan is probably my favourite ;) This one is on my list, it's good to be reminded that it's there. Thank you!

>80 Karlstar: I have not yet read Children of Earth and Sky -- in part because I hadn't realized it was connected to this set of novels. I am about to sit down with Lord of Emperors and have ordered Children. I do like Kay's approach to story-telling. Oh, and I did find the quote we'd chatted about at some point -- the one that talks about the significance of the phrase "Sailing to Sarantium". It's this:

To say of a man that he was sailing to Sarantium was to say that his life was on the cusp of change: poised for emergent greatness, brilliance, fortune—or else at the very precipice of a final and absolute fall as he met something too vast for his capacity.

>81 Alexandra_book_life: I liked A Brightness Long Ago more than I had anticipated I would. I had thought it would me a quick casual read (on the order of one of the Paladin series by T. Kingfisher) but to Kay's credit, I found myself slowing down and picking up on the narrative nuances and planning. It's a good read without overwhelming the reader with too many info dumps regarding the setting. I could read about the horse race around the square and because Kay's successfully evoked the Palio horse race in Siena, it all went along seamlessly.

My new bedtime read is Cranford which is soothing. Did you know that Gaskell really only planned the first two chapters as the full work? They work so nicely together. (Sad in so many respects, but yet satisfying.) Of course, I loved the recent television version with Judi Dench and Eileen Atkins and Imelda Staunton. Jim Carson, of course, played Captain Brown who takes such good care of his daughters. I don't know why I am charmed by him aiding his eldest daughter out of the church, relieving her of her prayer book so that she has two hands to put up her umbrella and then lift her skirts to avoid the muddy path.

Everybody should go read the first two chapters of Cranford over there at Project Gutenberg. You just fall in love with the place.

For more academic thinking about it, visit https://muse.jhu.edu/article/428872/pdf.

AND THE FILTHY VILE CREDIT CARD SCAMMER HAS RETURNED. The actual IT guy in the bank's credit card fraud department with whom I spoke today suggested avoiding use in any way of services such as Amazon Pays, Stripe and ABEBooks. I AM SO F***ing mad but am at a loss at this point. Does one just walk away from the bank who issued that particular card? Is that the only way to shut down this crap?

>85 jillmwo:
That is very frustrating. Good luck with sorting it out.

>85 jillmwo: It's hard to get rid of these vermin, isn't it? Makes you wonder if the Universe has decided to paint a large target on your forehead. Best of luck with it.

I suspect that for any particular card it's only a matter of time before someone manages to compromise it. and it happens essentially at random.

Yeah, my spouse has had his card hacked multiple times, but the bank takes care of it all and sends him a new one. If your credit card company is not resolving things quickly (a few days), that's a bad sign.

Some credit cards use random "virtual" numbers for online purchases so you're not giving out your real number. You could look into that. You should also probably change all your passwords.

>85 jillmwo: Do you frequent a particular vendor at abebooks? They may have a security exposure. Changing your passwords is also recommended.

>85 jillmwo: >88 reconditereader: I have an idea that Apple Pay uses the "virtual credit card" idea on line. If you're in the Apple ecosystem that might be worth looking into.

>85 jillmwo: Oh, I am sorry to hear that. This is frustrating! I hope it gets sorted out. Hugs!

It sounds like one of the vendors you are buying from is compromised? I guess it's difficult to know... And I agree with reconditereader, it's a good idea to change your passwords - and use two-factor authentication whenever you can, if you are not doing it already.

>86 pgmcc: >87 haydninvienna: >88 reconditereader: >89 Karlstar: >90 haydninvienna: >91 Alexandra_book_life: Thank you all. I am looking into all of this, but am seriously considering just showing up at the bank on Monday morning and growling at some poor "staff banker" that I want to close down my credit card.

Meanwhile, here's a gift article from the Washington Post written by Michael Dirda (https://wapo.st/3yxEQmG) -- his ten rules on how to read a book. I do like Michael Dirda. Come to that, I do like reading.

You can close the credit card online, no need to go in person.

>85 jillmwo: Arg. WTF? I'm so sorry.
This has been happening to my sister. She has gotten a new card at least three times from the same bank in about a year. I do not for the life of me understand why these people do not put their skills to some legitimate use.

>92 jillmwo: Closing the card with that particular bank is likely the most secure course of action.

>94 clamairy: I agree completely, why do so many use their skills for theft? Have you ever watched the Mark Rober videos on youtube about the call center scammers that steal cash?

>95 Karlstar: I have not. My daughter claims that a lot of the people that work at those centers are actually abused and mistreated and practically held prisoner. Is that true?

>96 clamairy: Definitely not from those videos. They were just ordinary call center employees, working for companies that had a front as a legit call center company.

These videos are incredibly enlightening, watch them, share them, get the news out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrKW58MS12g

>85 jillmwo: Arrghhh, I'm so sorry to hear this. It's so frustrating that the banks can't seem to stop these people. I hope you can get it sorted out as soon as possible.

>98 Sakerfalcon: Thank you for the kind thoughts. I am keeping things calm. The whole thing is certainly disruptive.

Meanwhile, I want to draw attention to the beautifully done Chapter 5 in Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford. The way in which she provides a back story on family life for Miss Mattie and Miss Deborah while introducing the story of their brother, Peter, is quite striking. Really great technique. I am afraid this is another one that I am unable to let go of (and not just because of the whole BBC mini-series previously mentioned). *sigh*

Follow-up link to Chapter 5 of the book on Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/394/pg394-images.html#chap05

Opinipn Piece from the Washington Post
How I Learned to Make the Most of Summer Reading by Louis Bayard
https://wapo.st/3KgPcKw (freebie article; no paywall)

Any post this weekend will likely be one of my long stream of consciousness kind. I have been reading for what its worth -- I keep putting down Lord of Emperors because it's clearly going to end in tears. And I still can't decide whether that and Sailing to Sarantium would have been better served as one novel rather than as two. But the man drew me in with the first of the duology and then made me care about these characters and if he kills off any more of them, I shall rage with the fires of a thousand suns.

I've read Cranford which is lovely and wonderfully done, but most of us don't live in communities like that one.

But more will come tomorrow. (And note, I still have a bunch more of Guy Gavriel Kay available to me. I just don't want him to kill off any more people.) Murfle.

>100 jillmwo: (And note, I still have a bunch more of Guy Gavriel Kay available to me. I just don't want him to kill off any more people.) Murfle.

Authors can be so cruel sometimes. I still have not found any institution I can complain to about this!

>100 jillmwo: Thank you for that. I ran out of time this morning and never looked at The Washington Post. That's a great piece. I am slowly regaining some of that ability to ignore the world and read for longer stretches than I used to. I'm not up to six hours in one go, but I have high hopes.

I'm sorry Kay is killing off people. I don't deal with that well either.

clamairy I read in less than six hour stretches myself these days and unlike you who walk beaches and bird-watch, I'm bone-lazy.

Okay so let’s start with Lord of Emperors which in many ways I enjoyed more than Sailing to Sarantium. These two books – in my opinion – should really be read back to back. Otherwise you lose track of who has played certain roles in the action or said certain things. This is why one wonders if this ought not to have been a tale told in a single volume; I haven’t made up my mind about that as yet.

Did Kay’s characters become real for me? Absolutely. I think the key being that when Kay writes a character, individual doubts and hesitations are fully integrated into actions taken. You have a protagonist, Crispin, whose life has been upended in such a variety of ways. He assumes an identity not truly his own. He journeys to an unfamiliar place, encountering people and spirits that he does not fully grasp but which fuel his art as a mosaicist. An Emperor tells him to decorate a great dome in a great building while all about him, there are on-going chess moves that affect the power dynamics of the great city of Sarantium. Somewhere on the thread or perhaps the previous thread, I noted that the first book was about taking on a great risk as one moves through the unknown future and the unknown physical world. Lord of Emperors is about the consequences of actions taken while engaging with others and the nature of any legacy left behind as a result. This almost sounds as if I’m saying that Kay is writing the story of a quest or coming-of-age story, but these novels seem more mature than those genre labels might suggest.

Kay drew on the history of Constantinople and Byzantium in constructing this duology. I don’t have any particular familiarity with either the place or the period. (I’ve seen photos of Hagia Sophia and have heard of Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora of course, but never spent any time reading about them.) Kay brings that period to life in a variety of respects. He doesn't sugarcoat the means used to come to power. Assassination was common; loyalties switched without remorse, and human beings wrought unspeakable harm even as they created a new world. On one level, it’s exhausting to read across 500+ pages, but time and again, Guy Gavriel Kay tells a good story. I do wish publishers would return to the practice of providing a list of characters up front, but I also remember the day that a snarky editor from St. Martins told me to pick up pen and paper and track it for myself.

Would it be easier to watch stories like this unfold on screen? Perhaps.Kay writes in a very visual way and I wish his work would draw as much attention as productions of LOTR or Game of Thrones. (Again, charioteer races work better on screen than on a printed page.) But having read three books this year by the man, I don’t think I have the emotional wherewithal to do any more for a while. And there are about 4 unread titles lurking about just in this house – never mind the ones by him that I haven’t yet acquired.

At the same time, retreating into the likes of Cranford (while a far more reassuring reading experience) is not particularly satisfying. The book is far lighter in terms of intent and nostalgic review of a by-gone period. Human beings are less cruel to one another in some respects, but events may still bring heartbreak. A man rescues a child, but gets killed by the train in doing so. One daughter dies of some long-lingering disease, and Jessie, the youngest daughter, is left alone. We survive these literary deaths, but primarily because a long-lost lover returns in the nick of time to rescue Jessie and reassure us with regard to a kinder future. (To be fair, Lord of Emperors ends with that kind of magical happy ending as well.) When it comes to reality, happy endings are a bit thin on the ground these days. Uncertainty permeates our existence.

I still haven’t fully processed Hyperion. (The first pilgrim’s tale was harsh enough all by itself, ending as it does in a graphic crucifixion. The tale of the daughter whose life unravels across time is decidedly painful. Taken together, the stories signaled to me early on that this was not going to be a reassuring experience. Caveat Lector)

But, Jill, you say quite logically, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t complain about impossible or at least unlikely happy endings and then turn around and b*tch about more realistically rendered outcomes. How are authors supposed to make their point and keep you happy as a reader? You’re absolutely correct. And paraphrasing Guy Gavriel Kay in one of his book tour interviews, the problem is that readers want artists and creators to deliver the same positive experience, hit the same reassuring note time after time but frankly art doesn’t work that way. The experience will need to be different upon occasion if the experience is to be satisfactory or even life-changing.

But sometimes I crave the placid experience of a Jan Karon or a D.E. Stevenson and sometimes I feel sturdy enough to face up to works featuring assassination and betrayal. Sometimes I think I want the one but then realize that my mood demands the other. We’re all like that. (Why else did pgmcc take a huge stack of books with him to his chateau in the South of France and then order additional titles to be shipped to him as he claimed he did with Mortal Love?)

We’re wickedly changeable and fickle in our moods.

So now do I turn to non-fiction? Do I poke about the shelves hoping that some long forgotten title comes to hand? Something bought on impulse, primarily because I got hit with wayward BBs here in the Pub. You see, I believe you all are the reason that I have piles of books climbing up the baseboards in this house.

>100 jillmwo: I'm glad you enjoyed Lord of Emperors. Both of those books are some of my favorite Kay novels.

I've always thought that story arc in Hyperion is one of the worst things you could do to a parent. Just horrible.

Maybe a nice biography?

Quick casual read of He Who Whispers. As soon as I've finished it, I'm moving it on to the book box of titles to be re-homed. There was such a CHEAT mid-chapter, mid-way through. But it really does conform to what one might think of as the standard kind of Gothic tale. I mean old house with library (dusty books in piles all over the floor), the mysterious ruined tower set on a sheer cliff, the dead body found in said tower. The pretty little female who may or may not be planning to seduce (or worse) men, normally of rational mind. She wakens in the middle of the night and comes down to the kitchen in her thin white nightgown with a quilted wrap-robe about her and slippers on her feet. The man in the kitchen is boiling water (badly) and not really following doctor's instructions. Very much a product of its time (written in 1946).

And yet, I keep reading the damn thing!

More on the previous post to come (because it's a much better book than that paragraph might suggest), but in the meantime, every reader and book buyer should absorb what this article is telling you about the state of the trade publishing sector at this moment in time: https://bookriot.com/publishers-weekly-us-book-show/.

Personally, I am a mite skeptical about the promise of AI and recommendation algorithms (currently, at least) but best to know what the revenue-generating suppliers of your reading material are thinking...*murfle*

>106 jillmwo:
“Murfle” indeed.

He Who Whispers is a surprisingly good read. My copy is a 1986 mass market paperback from my father's shelf and the copyright date is actually 1946 -- so immediately released to a post-war London. The writing leverages this aspect as a means to heightening a sense of unease and disorientation.

The story begins with something of an odd premise. Three people show up for an event -- an invited speaker for the dinner and two invited guests. It's supposed to be the first gathering of the Murder Club since the war first broke out. But none of the actual *hosts* or paid-up members of this Murder Club gathering appear. Never mind, says the waiter, dinner is served. Over dinner, the speaker discusses a peculiar unsolved murder, one involving family members and a corpse left stabbed on the parapet of a ruined tower. It's one of Dickson Carr's tales of impossible crime.

Carr sets you up to expect Gothic occurrences -- bodiless faces at the window, sightings of mysteriously compelling women, dusty, uncared-for libraries. There is another attempt at murder, but Dr. Gideon Fell appears -- about a third of the way through this very short novel of 165 pages. Fell initially appears to be just as bamboozled as our young hero. (The young man is something of a traumatized disabled vet who has only just been released from hospital. He and his sister have come into an inheritance.) There's the sister, the sister's fiancee, a Frenchman of the name of Rigaud, and a reticent touch-me-not secretary/librarian.

Carr does a really excellent job of keeping you turning pages. Yes, there was a moment in Chapter 10 when my eyebrows went up into my hairline; Someone's found dead, but oh, wait a minute. Maybe she's okay, but I'm a doctor and I'm confused with regard to the strength of her pulse.. But if one is willing to just go along for the ride, this particular Gothic tale is a better read than perhaps the marketing blurbs might suggest. On my Dad's copy, the back cover shrieked in large letters, "Dr Fell and the Terrifying Tower".

I'd be passing it along to some other happy fan of Carr but the copy I had in hand literally came apart at the binding during this reading. I nearly lost the last three pages (those providing the final explanation of the solution). But it is fortunate that the British Library Crime Classics series put out a new edition this past August. I may want to think about getting a replacement copy.

As it happens, I ran into a posting somewhere here on LT that was talking about this being a Readathon weekend. I'd forgotten what one of those might be like (listing the titles you read, the snacks you ingest, etc.), but ten realized that's pretty much what I have been doing across these past three days.

Although my snacking has been limited.

Quote from Wil Derkse:

Reading in the Benedictine tradition is not intended primarily to inform oneself and to acquire knowledge -- even though such information may be taken along on the way and is sometimes needed to acquire a good understanding of the text. The reading of texts is intended to live out of them…Reading does not primarily have a cognitive but rather an existential goal. It is not so much about knowing more but to gain more life.

>110 jillmwo: What a wonderful quote!
"Gain more life" - maybe this is what I should say to the very few, but very obnoxious people who have opinions about the amount of books I read (too many).

>110 jillmwo: Very nice.

>110 jillmwo: Great quote.

>111 Alexandra_book_life: You should definitely try that, but I'm not sure they'll see it that way.

>113 Karlstar: 😍

Interesting write-up of some of the dramatic adaptations made from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. The bit about the initial use of Dracula's cape was new to me. (This is the Guardian so for the time being, the content is freely accessible on the web: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/jun/03/dracula-centenary-derby-gr...

(Apparently this is an anniversary of some sort for the book, the play or whatever.)

>115 jillmwo: Fun article.

>115 jillmwo: This was interesting, thank you!

>115 jillmwo: Thank you, that was interesting.

Another news story from this past week -- one I'd completely overlooked until this afternoon. Note: This is a gifted (no paywall) article from the NY Times:
( https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/books/costco-books.html?unlocked_article_code... )
Costco plans to stop selling books!

>119 jillmwo: Gotta say, I rarely look at the books Costco carries. They are either not my style, or too expensive. Or both. I have bought books there in the past, but for a few (10) years now I haven't seen much I cared for.

>119 jillmwo: I don't think I've ever been in a Costco? I've never lived near one. Closest one currently is 2 hours away, according to their website.

>119 jillmwo: I let my Costco membership lapse a long time ago because I spent too much money on non-essentials there and seldom need to buy in bulk quantities anymore. That said, when I did have a membership, I always checked the books and frequently bought one or two.

Coincidentally, just this morning I read an article on the Choice website (of the Australian Consumers Association) on whether Costco is worth it in Australia. (The page is here if you're interested — I don't know if it will open for a non-member.) The tl;dr is

"I tried to like it," said one jaded Costco veteran. "I can see why it works for some people, but I don't like mass buying because I don't have a heap of storage space, so I don't get the potential value from it. My youngest, who is the bluntest person I know, would always say, when I got home, 'So what stuff that we've never used before and will live just fine without have you bought home this time?' He was rarely wrong."

The nearest Costco to me is 23 km away.

>123 haydninvienna:
Children are prone to spoil a parent’s favourite things by saying something really insightful.

>124 pgmcc: Hopefully the parent reminded the child of that statement when they wanted the latest fad.

Folks I've never been in a Costco either. And I haven't ever in my life purchased a book from any outlet other than a real brick-and-mortar bookstore (like Barnes & Noble or the Strand) or online from Amazon.

I am, however, quite sure that the same people who only read fewer than five books in a calendar year are the sort who buy them at a Target or at a Costco. The loss of an outlet like this tends to contribute to incremental price increases for books. I thought this was an indicative paragraph:

Costco’s shift away from books came largely because of the labor required to stock books, the executives said. Copies have to be laid out by hand, rather than just rolled out on a pallet as other products often are at Costco. The constant turnaround of books — new ones come out every Tuesday and the ones that have not sold need to be returned — also created more work.

I don't necessarily think that this is a horrendous catastrophe and/or an apocalypse; I think it creates a headache for publishers and someone somewhere this weekend is lying in bed with their eyes shut and wishing they knew how to re-arrange things and still continue to maintain numbers.

>125 Karlstar:
That ceases to be effective once they are earning their own money and continuing to be insightful. My youngest is twenty-seven and still ruins things for me with his honest comments.

>126 jillmwo: Sorry, I wasn't implying that was good news. Fewer books sold in fewer outlets is not good. I think I bought a book at Walmart once? Their selection is horrible, but at least they have some books.

>127 pgmcc: lol! They do tend to do that, don't they? It is good that our children in some ways are wiser.

>127 pgmcc: & >128 Karlstar: The nice thing is watching these insightful kids with their own insightful kids who call them on stuff just like they did to us. :P

>129 MrsLee: Absolutely!

>123 haydninvienna: My husband has always had much the same disdain for shopping in big box stores. There is insufficient storage space in our house to make the savings worthwhile. (How much toilet paper can really fit into the itsy-bitsy cabinet underneath the sink?)

>128 Karlstar: I am in danger of becoming that cartoon character who looks through a magnifying glass at something and, in doing so, losing all sense of perspective regarding the thing under investigation. You just see the character's BIG EYE visible through the lens...

The bit I quoted about Costco's labor costs struck me primarily as being some kind of veiled hope that people will just buy ebooks, rather than the physical product because selling real BOOKS is such a PAIN. (Idiots. Does management really think they can make up the volume by selling more toilet paper?)

Unfocused reading to some extent this past week. Trips to see doctors, trips to see bankers, freelance stuff – the only book I read consistently was The Great Mistake, a 1940s murder by Mary Roberts Rinehart. By this point, her writing style was somewhat more modern than that seen in either The Wall or The Album or the Hilda Adams nursing mysteries. A young woman becomes the social secretary to a wealthy older woman, Maud Wentworth. Those who surround the widow Wentworth - whether family or friends – seem to have secrets. A son who spirits away specific envelopes addressed to his mother. A friend who takes back a philandering husband who had abandoned the family years before. A gold-digging woman who seeks her freedom via divorce but who is too frightened to actually leave. The story has a few light bits (the naked policeman was one such moment). Rinehart was still confined to the social norms of the 40’s – what nice girls did and didn’t do – but I found this one a pleasant bedtime read.

I did finish one book in a specific philosophy book series – A Philosopher Looks At Religious Life. Why would someone pursue the commitments required in a religious community (a monastery or convent)? The author didn’t seem to reach any ultimate conclusions, other than to note that this is a philosophical approach that men and women continue to choose. (The author had chosen to live as a member of a religious community but did not remain with the group. She was able to maintain a relatively objective stance.) Other books in the same Cambridge University Press series include A Philosopher Looks at Work, Science, Digital Communication, etc.

Oh and one last additional news story -- the one about Spam as part of one's carry-on luggage...https://wapo.st/45inC9x

>133 jillmwo: This is a challenge: “There isn’t a limit on solid food,” he said. “If somebody wants to take 100 cans of Spam, it would be okay.” That's a lot of spam.

As someone who's been stopped in the past for having an excessive amount of something going through the screening, I can relate. Way back when they were first testing the chemical compound detectors, myself and 3 friends got flagged for having too many plastic dice in our carry-ons.

>129 MrsLee:
Hear! Hear!

Ursula K. Le Guin's home to become a Writer's Residency
https://apnews.com/article/ursula-k-le-guin-home-writers-residency-8a119efb584b4...

The Le Guins lived in a 19th century house designed out of a Sears & Roebuck catalog, and the author’s former studio looks out on a garden, a towering redwood tree planted decades ago by the family, and, in the distance, Mount St. Helens. Downes-Le Guin does not want the house to seem like a museum, or a time capsule, but expects that reminders of his mother, from her books to her rock collection, will remain.

The AP story is publicly accessible to all.

I'm a huge fan of Costco, but I didn't join until one opened about 12 miles away from me in CT. I bought plenty of books there to give as gifts, because they would have brand new hardcovers for about the same price that Amazon was selling them. But I could just bring them home and wrap them. They also have the most amazing cheese selection! I am one of those people who does not mind buying her cheese in half pound and full pound wedges. I also have room to store toilet paper, facial tissues and paper towels.

I was very sad to hear about the books. Even though I rarely bought them there anymore, I did like to look at what was out on the table. My Target has a halfway decent book section, and I believe they even have an online book club, with selections choose by Target employees. (I love that idea.)

I don't think I've ever been in a Costco since I've never lived near to one for it to be convenience. Funny though, years ago Sam's Club stopped carrying a lot of the books they used to have, and for probably the same reasons. No one said boo. A little sad, I discovered T.C. Boyle because of a random Sam's Club purchase.

>136 jillmwo: That is wonderful! What an honour it would be to be selected for the residency.

Have pre-ordered Chaz Brenchley's next book in the Mars school series; it's due out later this month, Mary Ellen, Craterean. I'm really kind of jazzed about it.

The spouse has stolen from me Peter Ackroyd's The English Soul which came in earlier this week. He liked the look of it.

The rest of you are probably already well-aware of this aspect of real life, but let me just say out loud that being on the right medication when being treated for a medical "thing" can make one heck of a difference in one's outlook on life. I have a brain again!!! (Who knew?)

>141 jillmwo: Lots of hugs!

>141 jillmwo:
Viva the right medication.

I am glad you are feeling more brainful.

>141 jillmwo: As much as I want to avoid being on medication, I have to admit it can make a world of difference in our daily life to be on the right one.

>144 MrsLee: Regrettably, I have to agree to both parts of that (I think you know why). Life without the right chronic medication might be more affordable but would certainly be short and unpleasant.

Have any of you ever seen this particular church in Ireland -- that is, St. Joseph's in Terenure? Someone I know was talking about visiting it on the basis of the work by stained glass artist, Harry Clarke. (They had linked to someone else's blog post as well as including some of their own photos of their visit there in Ireland.

https://roaringwaterjournal.com/2021/01/10/harry-clarkes-terenure-masterpiece/

>146 jillmwo:
I have driven past this church many times but have never been inside.

Harry Clarke is a big name in stained glass. I must pay a visit now that you have brought it up. It is quite impressive looking from outside.

The Oxford English Dictionary is offering a list of the 700 vocabulary words and phrases they've added as of June 2024.
https://www.oed.com/information/updates/june-2024/new-word-entries/. There are a number of new scientific and chemical terms that show up. Also buzzwords made up by the media upon occasion, such as "shrinkflation". (That one makes me sigh.)

Then there was this that caught my eye -- chopped liver.

I honestly thought that the phrase has been around long enough that it might have been added long before now. They define it as being a noun, "Originally U.S. In Jewish cookery: a dish made from liver and onions fried in fat then chopped or ground with hard-boiled eggs to form a rough paste…"

There's additional information about what was done and how items were selected at: https://www.oed.com/information/updates/june-2024/

And in news on mergers and acquisitions, Barnes and Noble have acquired the famous Denver Bookstore, the Tattered Cover.
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/9...

>148 jillmwo: Wait, are you saying that prior to this year, chopped liver was chopped liver?

>150 Karlstar: I'm saying I think the OED was treating it as such...

>151 jillmwo: Indeed! :)

Death of Mr. Dodsley, part of the British Library Crime Classics series.

There’s an interesting opening to this 1937 mystery. We begin in the wee small hours of the night watching a member of the House of Commons pacing while waiting for the next vote to be called. In the next segment, a young constable deals with a drunken fool on a street of respectable antiquarian bookshops, all quiet and closed for the night. The action then switches back to the speech of an up-and-coming member to other members of the Commons.. It’s not until the fourth segment (which takes place over breakfast the next morning) that we see news of the fall of the government and the death of a murdered bookseller. How are these events linked?

The answer becomes clear over a very neatly structured narrative. While I do have some quibbles (example: too many characters whose names begin with the letter M - Male, Mallet, MacNab), I stayed up past my bedtime, trying to follow the chain of events. The prose was pedestrian and the pacing was off. Nonetheless, by the end of the book, I had a particular appreciation of how the author (a member of the clergy) had gone about his task of moving the various tiles around the puzzle board. A more “conscious” reader might have picked up all the clues but reading this one at the end of the day, I was feeling stumped.

If you are one to appreciate Golden Age puzzle mysteries, this book offers a challenge.

I have visited the Folgers in Washington DC. This GIFTED article from the NY Times is about their reopening following a significant renovation. Worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/arts/21shakespeare-folger-renovation.html?unl...

>154 jillmwo: That was interesting, thanks. I may have to go there next time I am the area.

The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory - Tim Alberta (Non-fiction) Excellent overview of the evangelical movement in the United States since the 1970s. The narrative is actually structured to give you a sense of the grassroots base (the Kingdom), the political groups seeking to influence that base (the Power) and the final section (the Glory) looks at how the various tensions might work out. Very readable; the author is not entirely neutral in his outlook but he does appear to have spoken to a variety of actively engaged individuals. Honestly recommended for those seeking to understand the current environment.

S.S. Murder - Q. Patrick. A 1933 murder mystery set on board an ocean cruiser of the time. (No big pool or water slides, no casinos, no shows – just drinks furnished by the steward, tournaments of various sorts, and deck chairs. Written as a diary, the narrator is an intrepid girl reporter who is supposed to be enjoying a quiet recuperation between an emergency appendectomy and her upcoming wedding. Sadly, there are two murders early on in the cruise and Mary is drawn into the investigation. Fans of Ellery Queen (and I'm thinking most particularly of MrsLee) will find this thoroughly enjoyable! Great bedtime reading. (Note: I found an appallingly stupid and obvious error in the introduction provided by Curtis Evans so don’t bother to read his essay until you’ve finished the novel itself.)

West Heart Kill - Dann McDorman I’m only 30 pages into this one and the writing thus far is sophisticated and intellectually engaging. One is paying attention to every little bit of dialogue thrown in the reader's way as the narrator continually breaks the fourth wall. This one was recommended to me by pgmcc and drat the man. It's not fair when he zings a recommendation off in his thread. Despite my best efforts to wait until I had a discount of some sort, he had aimed at me with this one and I found I could not wait. I can see why he recommended it and so he gets another notch on the bedpost.

NOTE: Original post timestamped as June 23, 11:46am; Edited to correct touchstone for the Alberta book.

>156 jillmwo: " It's not fair when he zings a recommendation off in his thread."

HAHAHAHAHAGAH oh my sides HAHAHAHAHA!
Just read your own post >156 jillmwo: to see why I'm laughing. Pot calling the kettle black much? ;)

>156 jillmwo:
I am glad you are finding it worthwhile. I look forward to discussing it with you.

I have lost count of the number of BB hits you have inflicted on me. :-)

>157 MrsLee:
Self-knowledge is the first element of emotional intelligence. You tell her, Lee.
😂😂😂😂😂

Locus Awards Announced (https://reactormag.com/here-are-the-winners-of-the-2024-locus-awards/) Witch King won best fantasy novel but Martha Wells won a second Locus Award for best sci-fi novel with System Collapse. T. Kingfisher won for best Horror with A House With Good Bones AND she won for Thornhedge as best novella. Lots to look at.

>158 pgmcc: Not sure I believe that -- that you've lost count.

>157 MrsLee: I only recommend things to you with love!!

#161
I only recommend things to you with love!!

>157 MrsLee: She is good.

Not sure I believe that -- that you've lost count.

>161 jillmwo: I get confused by big numbers.

>160 jillmwo: Oh such good news. I love both their writing! I've got both of Kingfisher's books and System Collapse in my TBR. No doubt Witch King will appear shortly.

Hey, guess what!!? TODAY is my Thingaversary (18 years, assuming my math skills aren't completely off kilter). I must now think how best to celebrate with you all. Cheese, I know, is the preferred food option and wine of some respectable vintage. (Those who do rowdy celebrations may be seeking some Pangalactic Gargle Blasters.)

I did actually (and with some degree of guilt) do a book binge yesterday, but nothing will tumble through the door for another few days or so. (And, honestly, some of those titles will be of no particular interest to this crowd.) I could do something totally wicked and buy a used set of Folio editions that I saw last week.

Or I could do what I did last year and just provide a long list of books for others to explore and perhaps binge-buy. I must retreat to my desk and consider the best approach. Because there should also probably be an elephant somewhere in all of this?

>164 jillmwo: Congratulations! You list many great ways of celebrating :)

>164 jillmwo: Congrats! I hope the books are of sufficient quantity and quality.

>164 jillmwo:
Happy Thingaverssry. Between the cheese, wine and book binging I think The Enforcers will be well pleased with you. Also, given the estimate you gave your financial advisor for what you spend on books you will have a lot of catching up to do to make your statement true. That was a really clever ploy.

Happy Thingaversary! However you chose to celebrate, may it bring you joy.

>164 jillmwo: Happy Thingaversary :)

In celebration of my umpty-umpth thingaversary here

I spent time reviewing my threads here in the Pub (which doesn’t cover all of the years, but at least the majority of them.) and these are titles which I came to acquire because of you all

1. Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett and recommended to me by MrsLee ten or more years ago. I have it. I know exactly where it is on the shelf and I am going to read it. Both Lee and @claimairy introduced me to Terry Pratchett, specifically to Wyrd Sisters was a particular winner.
2. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and recommended by tardis. It took me a long time to get around to reading this one as well. But it was worthwhile. It has been a struggle to avoid the lovely edition that Folio Society put out. I don’t know how long I can hold out on this one.
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was recommended by clamairy and based on one of my older reading threads, I picked it up on sale when Borders was just going out of business and shot four hours on a Sunday reading it.
4. Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie – general group agreement within the Pub that it was a great read. Reading that one led me to read Leckie’s The Raven Tower which I absolutely LOVED.
5. The Goblin Emperor - @Tardis, Marissa_Doyle and Sakerfalcon all recommended this one when I asked about it back in 2015. One of the women in my book group wouldn’t read anything that had zombies in it and so I felt it incumbent upon me to check with the Pub as to whether this title would be safe. Loved this one and the two sequels with Celehar. Those two sequels, by the way, got recommended by Karlstar, Sakerfalcon, and Clamairy (who in a later reading thread would blame tardis.)
6. Miss Mole - one of the Virago classics that Sakerfalcon so frequently recommends.
7. The Monk- This one was one from pgmcc as I recall.
8. The Moving Toyshop This one was one from pgmcc as I recall. Although MrsLee helped.
9. Imprimatur - This one was one from pgmcc as I recall.
10 Into The Woods - This one was one from pgmcc as I recall.

Anyone sensing a theme here? It’s dangerous to cultivate the man’s acquaintance. And then he sends you photos of people he’s met who happened to have been at your wedding 35 years prior and all kinds of things go off the rails. (Never doubt that man’s global reach.)

11. Vanishing Point - This one was a recommendation by Sakerfalcon. I had never heard of it, but then found it to be really interesting science-fiction.
12. Witches of Lychford was one that came up via Marissa Doyle. It was made worse when pgmcc noted that he knew the guy. (He did that to me with Chaz Brenchley as well. I think the man may know just about everyone.)
13. The Curse of Chalion was my introduction to Lois McMaster Bujold. While it was tardis who recommended this title specifically, again MrsLee was chiming in and telling me that I was remiss because I hadn’t read any of the whole Vorkosigan saga. The book buying budget wouldn’t stretch to that assignment.

14. Again, we think MrsLee is just this nice, sweet grandmotherly cook but she can be just as much of a problem as pgmcc. Another thing she recommended to me back in 2015 was Phantom of the Opera. I read it when I was gifted a Folio edition by my boss and it was scary. (Not quite the love story the musical makes you think.)

15. Someone here was also responsible for me reading A Gentleman in Moscow (perhaps it was stellarexplorer, @haydninvienna, or hfglen or maybe Karlstar. I can’t seem to verify an initial comment.)

16. Stellarexplorer recommended W. Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge. I believe that one is lurking about on a shelf (perhaps buried in a box) as well. And he was responsible for bringing Peter the Great to the fore as well.

2018 had some great cat and squirrel pictures contributed by various souls on that year’s three threads. At the same time, hfglen recommended the book The Bletchley Girls. Amazon Kindle had it on sale for 99 cents and the paperback for less than $10.00. So I got that one as well. People like him are why publishers are still in business despite our overbooked lives.

Then he got me later in 2020 with The Lie Tree. And Sakerfalcon backed him up on it!

Meredy vouched for Angela Carter’s book, The Bloody Chamber. And she was right.
Haydninvienna vouched for The Rituals of Dinner
Marissa piped in with Rory Muir’s Gentlemen of Uncertain Fortune which I found entirely readable and then I went and got his second book about Love and Marriage in the Age of Austen. So she recommends one thing and gets credit for two well-aimed shots. Very sneaky.

Aha! Just found another one of Peter’s excellent recommendations. I would never have read Arcadia by Iain Pears without his leading us off on it as a group read.

So there’s my Thingaversary observance. Look at all those lovely books and all the lovely friends. This is why I celebrate the acquisition of books. (Even as I lost count of how many there were across all the many threads.)

Among other things, what tumbled through the door today was the new Judi Dench memoir (which is all about Shakespeare which I had expected from the Patrick Steward memoir and sadly didn’t get) and two – TWO – of the Fred Vargas books, specifically early entries in the Adamsberg series. And there’s a Victorian anthology of murder mysteries as well. (That modifier may be in the wrong place. Oops.)

Oh, by the way, have some cheese and wine as long as you're here!!

>170 jillmwo: That's a very nice reminiscence. I can't take credit for A Gentleman in Moscow though.

>170 jillmwo: Same comment as >171 Karlstar: . I can't take credit for it either.

>170 jillmwo:
That is a lovely post and a great way to celebrate your Thingaversary. I am glad I was able to be there. :-)

All being well T. J. and I will have a coffee in Glasgow in August. I hope we remember to send you a commemorative selfie.

>170 jillmwo: What a lovely post!
I've had cheese and wine yesterday, does that count? :)

>170 jillmwo: What a fun project! I would love to take credit for A Gentleman in Moscow, because I loved it, but I was also hit by that bullet by someone in this group.

Good to know about the Judy Dench memoir.

West Heart Kill

Okay, it's one of those wonderful American long weekends. Folks are gathering for barbecues, family reunions, old college buddies, etc. Our story opens with a detective and a college buddy driving up the road to a country club, the center of a set of vacation homes. The year is actually 1976, the American Bicentennial. We may not be sure of the specific state we're in, but we're not too far from some larger urban environment. This is, after all, a place of weekend getaways. You have to recognize the opportunities for murder that this set-up provided. A crime is in the offing.

The first gun goes off before page 75, but you get small whiffs of later events as you listen in on the cocktail hour chitchat. By close of page 272, there will have been the requisite number of corpses (carefully stored in the club's walk-in freezer).

This is a very clever -- a remarkably clever -- construction of a mystery. Dann McDormand understands the literary conventions and honors them (in kind of a twisted way, but still...). There is the list of dramatis personae. There will be a map, eventually complete with hand drawn figures and one-word signifiers written in very fine script. You *won't* know his ultimate intent however until you read the whole novel.

Why isn't this already on the bestseller list of the NY Times? (Probably some James Patterson thing pushed it down but this is much better than that kind of factory output.) Think more along the lines of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. (Except that too may be something of a red herring.) Anyway, you won't know until you read the book.

I truly don't want this one to sink into oblivion. Beg your library to order it. Filch from the coin jar on your dresser and buy it from your local shop. If worse comes to worst, go into debt and put it on the damn credit card.

Read it over the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. It will fit well into the holiday, as it features some fireworks and swimming. It may rattle your cage just a bit when the power goes out. Because it's not what you think you will experience.

P.S. Blame pgmcc for this one.. I hadn't heard of it at all until he read it. But then he took aim....

>176 jillmwo: I put a hold on West Heart Kill at my library but there are 7 people ahead of me in line for the three copies they own, so I'll be waiting a bit.

>176 jillmwo:
I am delighted you enjoyed the book. It was a great analysis of murder mystery structures and conventions. I thought McDormand was very good the way he intermingled the story with commentary on the genre tropes and practices, and I did not find his shattering of the fourth wall in any way disrupted the flow of the story. A beautiful piece of balance realised.

I was slightly niffed with his final resolution for the final death. In a way it was a twisted piece of axiomatic humour that should appeal to me, but I still felt it was a bit of a cheat. At the end of the day he was clearly stating that all the murder victims in a fictitious* murder mystery were all murdered by the author.

*Germ of an idea: A factual murder mystery book with the writer taking an active role in the story and really doing the murders. Thought: should the writer write the book first or carry out the murders first? The latter approach would give them accurate data on which to write a convincing story. The former approach would require them to replicate what they had written when they are carrying out the murders. If anything happened to disturb their plans and alter the action from what was in the book they would have to do a rewrite. Murder first sounds like the way to go.

>170 jillmwo:
I have looked back to my 2017 threads for clues as to who was promoting A Gentleman in Moscow. I found my first mentions of the book. In one mention I thank "...the LTers" who have been talking highly about the book. I do not name names, and while I tagged the book as a BB, 2017 was before I started recording the BB marksperson. The best I can do is that when I announced my enjoyment of the book, Sakerfalcon rapidly swooped in to say she is very happy I have enjoyed the book. It was almost as if she were pleased at the success of her recommendation.

Now, I am not saying Clare is guilty, but she may be one of a group of individuals who are jointly responsible for this particular BB.

>179 pgmcc: Had a looksie in my reading threads as well, but I only mention that it was recommended by many in the pub. I read it after you, so you were probably one of the many for me.

Mine came via Santa Thing.

>179 pgmcc:. - Questions of culpability (or at least of attribution) can be so challenging. (even MrsLee in #180 is having difficulties chasing down the trouble-maker...)

At any rate, let me say this about your hidden comments in #178. McDorman begins his novel by noting all of the people who sought to establish rules about writing detective stories. These have become accepted conventions for writers to adopt in creating an immersive reading experience. McDorman spends half of his time in this novel exposing the reader to and making the reader aware of those conventions. I think it may have been his goal to suggest that logic puzzles such as may be found in Golden Age detective stories are flawed as a means of looking at the human condition. They don't adequately account for the illogic of human emotion and behavior. The stories are deceptive when they tie up in a neat little bow.

He characterizes Julian Symons' book Bloody Murder as being magisterial at some point. The thing is that Julian Symons pushed for writers of detective stories to transform the genre into more literary crime novels. He wanted the perception of the work to be less one of "entertainment" and become one more of "literary note" -- great literature in fact. Hence his praise of P.D. James and dismissal of Marjorie Allingham. Otto Penzler has been dismissive of those mysteries -- so popular with some readers -- that resort to including recipes or similar ephemera. (Some feminist authors were perturbed that he was given the honor of interviewing a major woman writer at Bouchercon this year because they thought his sexism should be called out and held against him.)

Like you, I was a little outraged by the failure to furnish us with the name of the murderer of the detective. But I think that was kind of his point. That the "pure" detective story might need to be killed; we don't know if any subsequent resurrection will be possible.

I've got to go run now, but I'll be back later in the day to see if you have additional THOUGHTS about what you think Dann McDorman was doing. Tomorrow is July 1st and at some point I will want to start up my third quarter thread.

>181 jillmwo:


I loved the section where he summarised the rule givers. It was a lovely little synopsis of the subject.

His book supported the key premise of Snobbery With Violence, a BB from you I recall, that all the murder mysteries of the golden age tend to involve the rich and debauched. It appears the lives of the ordinary people are too boring to warrant incorporation in a golden age, or golden age styled, murder mystery. Such lower class murders must be relegated to the pages of the modern day police procedural crime novel.


Good luck with your next quarter thread. I am sure you will include many BB strikes for me over the coming months. I shall strive to return the compliments.

Regarding the originator of The Gentleman in Moscow BB, the search continues.

Happy Belated Thingaversary, Jill! And what a lovely post to celebrate it.

I also cannot take any credit for A Gentleman in Moscow, I know several people read it and raved about it before I got my hands on it. I do think it was stellarexplorer who raved first.

Just so that I have a list assembled for later in the year, the books read and reviewed this quarter were:

The Ghost Riders of Ordebec
Mortal Love
Hyperion
A Brightness Long Ago
Cranford
Lord of Emperors
He Who Whispers
The Great Mistake
A Philosopher Looks at Religious Life
S.S. Murder
Death of Mr. Dodsley
The Kingdom, the Power and the Glory
West Heart Kill

One book group focused on and finished the biography, American Classicist: The Life and Loves of Edith Hamilton.

Another book group had me revisiting Witch King, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, and one of the novellas by Nghi Vo.

And now I'm probably going to start the July-September thread (third quarter). BTW, I don't think I shared with you all that I actually did go rogue and spent money on the horrendously-priced (albeit lovely) Folio set of four Agatha Christie novels. (One last gasp at celebrating the 18th Thingaversary.) It is a used set, not one that qualified as being mint, still in the publisher's shrinkwrap, or anything. Then I went and immediately shut off the credit card to prevent ANY further extravagance. However it's coming from Canada so heaven knows when the slow-moving camels will actually arrive with the parcel.

Okay, now for the new thread...

>170 jillmwo: Wow wow! I need to show up more often! It’s been a long time and it’s so nice to be remembered - yes I loved that book relatively early, I was touting it, and I reviewed it with passion. Thank you for remembering my possible responsibility. And yes, The Razor’s Edge and Massie’s Peter the Great are favorites of mine. This is great! 😍

>183 clamairy: 😍