Weird_O Bill's Magically Real ADD Library (3)

          Books Read, as of February 20.

           Books Read, as of March 31.

 Books read, as of August 1.

Books I've Read in Quarter Three, 2024

July 2024 (6 read)
52. And Be a Villain, Rex Stout. First book of Triple Zeck. Finished 7/3/24. 
53. The Second Confession, Rex Stout. Second book of Triple Zeck. Finished 7/5/24. 
54. In the Best Families, Rex Stout. Final book of Triple Zeck. Finished 7/6/24. 
55. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, Salman Rushdie. Finished 7/11/24. 
56. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami. Finished 7/26/24. Doorstop @ 607 pgs.  
57. The Night Country, Stewart O'Nan. Finished 7/30/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

August 2024 (7 read)
58. My Favorite Thing Is MONSTERS, Book One, Emil Ferris. Finished 8/7/24. 
59. Faces: The Creative Process Behind Great Portraits, Jane Bown. Finished 8/15/24. 
60. Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum, Antonia Hylton. Finished 8/17/24. 
61. Masterpieces in the Van Gogh Museum, Van Gogh Museum. Finished 8/21/24. 
62. A History of the African-American People (Proposed) by Strom Thurmond As Told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid, Percival Everett & James Kincaid. Finished 8/28/24. 
63. Tenth of December, George Saunders. Finished 8/29/24. 
64. Good Girls Don't Make History, Elizabeth Kiehner. Finished 8/30/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

September 2024 (7 read)
65. Bad Monkey, Carl Hiaasen. Finished 9/15/24. 
66. Crows: Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World, Candace Savage. Finished 9/19/24. 
67. On Juneteenth, Annette Gordon-Reed. Finished 9/23/24. 
68. The Return of the Pharaoh, Nicholas Meyer. Finished 9/27/24. 
69. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill. Finished 9/28/24. 
70. Mary Ellen Mark: American Odyssey: 1963-1999, Mary Ellen Mark. Finished 9/29/24. 
71. Eileen Gray: Design and Architecture, 1878–1976 (Big at series), Philippe Garner. Finished 9/30/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

...and in Quarter Four

October 2024 (3 read)
72. Bookstores, Horst Friedrichs and Stuart Husband. Finished 10/24. 
73. A Dog's Life, Peter Mayle. Finished 10/24. 
74. Oh, the Things I Know!, Al Franken. Finished 10/24. 

November 2024 (4 read)
75. Murder Your Employer, Rupert Holmes. Finished 11/15/24. 
76. The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe. Finished 11/18/24. 
77. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, George Saunders. Finished 11/23/24. 
78. American Children, Susan Kismaric. Finished 11/23/24. 

December 2024 (1 read)
79. Post Office, Charles Bukowski. Finished 12/3/24. 
80. The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham. Finished 12/20/24. 

Currently Reading
Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels—From Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe, Anthony Arthur.

Books I've Read in Quarter One, 2024

January 2024 (10 read)
1. About Alice, Calvin Trillin. Finished 1/1/24.  
2. Egon Schiele: 1890-1918: Desire and Decay, Wolfgang Georg Fischer. Finished 1/1/24.  
3. Time and Again, Jack Finney. Finished 1/7/24.  
4. Finna, Nino Cipri. Finished 1/15/24.  
5. Oranges, John McPhee. Finished 1/17/24.  
  The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain.
6. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, Elif Batuman. Finished 1/19/23.  
7. The Color of Magic, Terry Pratchett. Finished 1/26/24. 
8. Make Russia Great Again, Christopher Buckley. Finished 1/27/24.  
  Snark, David Denby.
9. The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett. Finished 1/30/24. 
10. The Discworld Graphic Novels: The Colour of Magic & The Light Fantastic, Terry Pratchett. Finished 1/31/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

February 2024 (9 read)
11. The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb, R. Crumb. Finished 2/4/24. 
12. Gun, with Occasional Music, Jonathan Lethem. Finished 2/8/24. 
13. Doisneau, Peter Hamilton. Finished 2/14/24. 
14. H. P. Lovecraft Tales of Horror*, H. P. Lovecraft. Finished 2/16/24. 
15. The Biggest Bear, Lynd Ward. Finished 2/18/24.  
16. Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, Art Spiegelman. Finished 2/19/24. 
17. Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas, John Scalzi. Finished 2/23/24. 
18. The Iron Man, Ted Hughes; illustrations by Chris Mould. Finished 2/24/24.  
19. Lethal White, Jo-Bob Rowlbraith. Finished 2/29/24. Doorstop @ 647 pgs. 

* The Touchstone for this book is kinda sorta beyond normal (yes, and even abnormal) access. It won't supply you with any useful info, so why bother? Just one of LT's quirks.

Pick o' the Month: (a tie?!)  &

March 2024 (12 read)
20. Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, Steven Millhauser. Finished 3/5/24. 
21. Answered Prayers, Truman Capote. Finished 3/11/24. not rated
22. A Commonplace Book of Pie, Kate Lebo; illustrations, Jessica Lynn Bonin. Finished 3/14/24. Tasty
23. Kafka, R. Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz. Finished 3/16/24. 
24. The Canary Trainer, Nicholas Meyer. Finished 3/17/24. 
25. More: A Memoir of Open Marriage, Molly Roden Winter. Finished 3/20/24. 
26. Judge This., Chip Kidd. Finished 3/21/24. 
27. Hench, Natalie Zina Walschots. Finished 3/25/2024. 
28. The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead. Finished 3/27/24. 
29. Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller, the Man Who Created Nancy, Bill Griffith. Finished 3/28/24. 
30. Greenwich Village: A Guide to America's Legendary Left Bank, Judith Stonehill. Finished 3/29/24. SnackBook. 
31. The Muses Are Heard, Truman Capote. Finished 3/31/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

Books I've Read in Quarter Two, 2024

April 2024 (9 read)
32. Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, Brad Gooch. Finished 4/5/24. April AAC 
33. The Singing Sands, Josephine Tey. Finished 4/9/24. 
34. Shtum, Jem Lester. Finished 4/15/24. 
35. How to Win an Information War, Peter Pomerantsev. Finished 4/16/24. April AAC 
36. Eileen Gray: A House Under the Sun, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes & Zosia Dzierzawska. Finished 4/16/24. 
37. Life: Classic Photographs: A Personal Interpretation, John Loengard. Finished 4/20/24. April AAC 
38. Something Fresh, P. G. Wodehouse. Finished 4/22/24. 
  The Arrest, Jonathan Lethem.
39. Death From a Top Hat, Clayton Rawson. Finished 4/28/24. 
40. This Is Water, David Wallace Foster. Finished 4/29/24. Damp

Pick o' the Month: 

May 2024 (6 read)
41. A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, John Baxter. Finished 5/4/24. 
42. The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, Anthony Boucher. Finished 5/10/24. 
43. Keith Haring, Jeffrey Deitch, Suzanne Geiss, and Julia Gruen. Finished 5/18/24. Doorstop @ 528 pgs. 
44. I Must Be Dreaming, Roz Chast. Finished 5/19/24. 
45. Our America: A Photographic History, Ken Burns. Finished 5/28/24. 
46. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones. Finished 5/29/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

June 2024 (5 read)
47. Amphigorey Also, Edward Gorey. Finished 6/1/24. 
48. Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers, Deborah Heiligman. Finished 6/8/24. 
49. Burn Book: A Tech Love Story, Kara Swisher. Finished 6/15/24. 
50. Clear, Carys Davies. Finished 6/19/24. 
51. The Known World, Edward P. Jones. Finished 6/30/24. 

Pick o' the Month: 

      

I can't compete either, Al. I should have signed that "political party" to a non-compete agreement. Now it's too late.

So how's that. Hmmmm. How's that.

New thread. Congrats to me.

      

Have at it, yous.

>7 weird_O: Happy new thread! It’s looking good so far!

So will you just keep stacking books? What about when you get to the ceiling?

Great weekend to you!

Karen O

>8 klobrien2: I guess I'll have to cut a hole in the ceiling, Karen.

Maybe not.

Twin Towers?

Relocate?

Probably I can wait until Labor Day, at the rate I'm reading right now.

Happy new one, Bill. Looking good! Does each room in your house has those towers? Impressive!

>1 weird_O:, >9 weird_O: I think you're going to need another tower. Don't want to worry about you getting buried in the collapse

Your books read towers are unbelievable Bill. The Aug 1 tower appears to have reached the maximum possible height. Will you start a second tower? I agree with Linda, we'd hate to see you lying injured under a pile of books.

Happy new thread, Bill. Love the book tower pics!

Happy new thread Bill!

Weird is the first abused word I've wanted to see rehabilitated. I like being my own sort of weird and treasuring the weird in my dear ones.

Happy new thread Bill.

I agree that "weird" should be rehabilitated, you wear the sobriquet well dear fellow.

Happy New Thread! ~sneaks more Terry Pratchett to the top of the TBR pile~ I'll be putting Redshirts on my wishlist.

Happy New Thread, Bill!

Happy new one! I hope I don't get squashed under your tower of books ;)

>10 jessibud2: No, Shelley. The stacks are confined to the multipurpose room (a.k.a. library), a library annex, and the hall. Oh, yeah, and a basement room (a.k.a. the stacks). It's fun. You should try it.

>11 laytonwoman3rd:, >12 lauralkeet: >18 figsfromthistle: I am going to address the coming conflict between books and ceiling. Pretty soon. Well, real soon. I have experienced a tower collapse; inadvisably trying to extract a book from near the bottom. I survived. I was more worried about the books, tumbling from great heights to the bare floor.

>13 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie.

>14 quondame:, >15 PaulCranswick: "Rehabbing" words. Of course. I'm sympathetic to the desire to hang a label on the MAGAts to emphasize that their language and conduct are anything but normal. I think, anyway, that I'm a benign "weird" as opposed to a villainous, dangerous "weird."

>16 elorin: >17 vancouverdeb: Why thanks, Robyn and Deborah.

Good thing you don't have a Pet or tumbling books would be a daily adventure!

>1 weird_O: I love the look of your stacks, Bill!

Happy new thread! Have a super Saturday!

weird_o said on mahsdad’s thread: The first off that stack (to be read) is Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders, not hardly a doorstop.”

I’ve actually read Tenth of December, and really liked it. After reading Lincoln in the Bardo, I would vote all-in on anything George Saunders wrote, I think! I’ve got another of his in hand from the library—Pastoralia, which was book #84 on the aforementioned “best of” list.

You could take a picture of your new bookstack!

Great rest of the weekend to you!

Karen O

Happy new one, Bill!

Happy new thread, Bill!

Happy New Thread, Bill. I hope you are enjoying those books.

Hello, Bill, I've seen you around the threads, and since you show up on my Similar Libraries list, I thought it was about time that I dropped by to visit. I'm in NC, not too far from karenmarie. Of course, I have a large number of books not yet cataloged, so I suppose our libraries might not stay similar once I get them all in, but we do seem to have some similar interests. Any way, I wanted to come by and say hello. And happy new thread!

>1 weird_O: Impressive stack of books read!

>21 m.belljackson: Having a pet would definitely require changes, and not just in book-stack terms. I've had a number of people suggest pet ownership, but I am afraid I'd neglect a pet. I don't want to be one of those bad pet-dads.

>22 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia. You could erect one heck of a stack if you could reach into the Black Hole, extract real books, and pile 'em up.

>23 klobrien2: Karen! It's taken a week for me to sort through the posts. Sheesh. It's evidence of the general neglect that prevails here.

I liked Lincoln in the Bardo a great deal. I bought Tenth of December off the dollar cart for my wife, but the stories didn't entertain her. I've read only 3 of the stories so far, and I'm not sure what I think. The squib about Pastoralia on That List made it appealing to me. I'll just have to see.

>24 bell7:, >25 drneutron:, >26 msf59:. Hi Mary, Jim, and Mark. I have to add some content here so you stop back.

>27 atozgrl: Nice of you to stop by, Irene.

>28 weird_O:
As a single person, I have had well meaning friends suggest a pet. I don't want one. I come and go as I please and a pet might find that lonely. Also, I would have to bother somebody to care for it while I am gone or I would have to pay exorbitant prices to board it while I am somewhere else. All that considered - having a pet is not for me and I wish others would stop suggesting it.

>28 weird_O: Regarding Pet suggestions, Swami Pranayomama has a couple of unprintable ideas.

>29 benitastrnad: I agree with you, Benita. I've known single guys who have pooches, take 'em everywhere they go. Those guys have qualities I lack. No thanks.

>30 m.belljackson: Checked out your link. Surprise! You not only read the book, you posted a review. I'm putting it on The WANT! List™ and if I come across it, I'll put it on a shelf. Might even sample it. Thanks!

Monday morning and the weather is fine. Not out of the 60s when I checked the thermometer at 9 am. So... Mowing must take place. Many other worthy chores will be put off.

I've about 100 pages yet to read in Madness. It echoes a number of books I've read regarding Jim Crow, asylums in the 20th century, inane treatments for insanity. Henrietta Lacks passed through; her first-born was injured at birth, eventually was institutionalized at Crownsville State Hospital (the book's subject), and died there in her teens. Mrs. Lacks was never informed and was unable to get any explanation for her child's death.

I'm looking forward to some more pleasant reading.

>5 weird_O: that caricature is so funny...his hair! his hand! Talk about extreme rendering of his features. An art form really.

Your book stack in >1 weird_O:: also an art form. :)

Eta: >32 weird_O: I had a couple of heavy books recently and am now countering that with a book from Gorbachev on climate change and nuclear annihilation. I may need to get stuck into The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch toot sweet!

Cartoon for the day:

        

Yesterday I visited my hometown to get my hair cut and dropped in at my original hometown library. A $5-a-bag sale is usually on-going. But yesterday it was a $1-a-bag sale. And I—a guy who never has any cash money in his pocket—actually had a single folded up single tucked between my license and a credit card. Now I am broke. I blew my dollar on eleven hardcover books. Nothing really special, but at less than a dime each, I am not complaining.

It's getting late, and I do want to read at least a chapter in Madness.

           

>35 weird_O: oh no, all OK?

That's a nifty idea to pile your read books, Bill. I can see that you're going to have to make some accommodations for the rest of the year though.

Hope all is good with you!

>36 LovingLit: Stuff's okay. I'm just fantasizing about being retired, so I took something of a soma holiday. (You've read Huxley's Brave New World, haven't you?) I tried to mellow out and let the world carry on without me. But the Internet is strong here. "I am the eggman...whoooo...I am the eggman. I am a turnip."/???????????????????????????????

Oops, dozed off there.

Reading for the month has been spotty. I raced through the lauded GN My Favorite Thing Is MONSTERS (book one). Kinda dawdled in reading Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum by Antonia Hylton because I was distracted by some of the George Saunders' stories in Tenth of December and by Van Gogh artworks shown in Masterpieces in the Van Gogh Museum. Just to bewilder me more, I snuck a survey of Jane Bown's FACES: The Creative Process Behind Great Portraits in there too.

All have been completed but Saunders' stories.

I rewarded myself for pile-driving through trifling chores by having a Bezos minion bring me a couple of Percival Everett novels that are NOT James nor Erasure—but ARE I Am Not Sidney Poitier and A History of the African-American People (proposed) by Strom Thurmond as Told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid. These two join the GN of Watership Down and The Devil's Candy, which I acquired locally a couple of days ago. That last book is an account of the filming of Tom Wolfe's first novel (The Bonfire of the Vanities). I read it in 1991, then lent the book to a good friend; I was reluctant to badger him to return it. And then, after I was involuntarily retired from our mutual workplace, he died. (I do miss our almost daily chats.)

Hoping to mow tomorrow. Also to resurrect the bookcase project that's occupying the living room (it's not a hostile occupation).

Gots to go. Ta-ta.

Though I haven't finished George Saunders' stories in Tenth of December, I started reading the history of African-Americans purported to be by Senator Strom Thurmond. I'm beyond the halfway point, and it is quite bizarre. The premise is that the Senator, a staunch segregationist, wants to produce a history that establishes him as a lifelong friend and supporter of Blacks. The history is championed by a junior minion on the Senator's staff, who weasels a contract out of a junior Simon & Schuster editor, despite having no manuscript or even sample chapter, not even an outline. It's an epistolary novel, using correspondence and memos to present the story.

        

>40 weird_O: Holy Moly! Your stomach is stronger than mine, Bill.

>39 weird_O: Your mind is too. Kudos for getting through all that.

Howdy, Bill. Thanks for keeping us updated on your reading. Are you enjoying the Saunders collection? Have you read any of Nick Offerman's humorous books? If not, I think you would have a good time with them.

>40 weird_O: Now that sounds like a weird one. Pass for me, but thanks! : )

>40 weird_O: There's a joke I already got. A whole book? Nah.

Enjoy the weekend ahead, ex-Weird One.

Happy New Thread, Bill!

>34 weird_O:. I love that cartoon. “Are those large crowds in the room with us?”😂

I’m glad you (happily) raced through My Favorite Thing is Monsters.

I hope to follow your lead and read more Percival Everett.

Hell-oooooo September. :-)

I think things are looking up on a number of fronts. My bookcase project is advancing steadily now, albeit slowly. I can hear the boxed tomes whining and shuffling. Wanting out! I must oblige.

I'm running short of clean clothes as well as clean dishes. WTF? I must address this need for cleanliness.

Clutter is enveloping more and more of MY turf. It's like kudzu. One of those disputes that needs resolution. Am I up to the challenge?
Thought for the day:      

Hiya, Bill. Happy Sunday, happy new thread.

From your last thread, great pic of you with some of the fam, and another excellent book sale stack o’ books.

Lamborghini tractors, pineapple on pizza, political cartoons, and etc. Never a dull moment, for sure.

>2 weird_O: My RL book club is reading Knife for our November discussion, can’t wait. Loved the Zeck books each time I have read them over the decades. Tenth of December is still waiting on my shelves for its time in the sun.

>28 weird_O: Lincoln in the Bardo was polarizing. I, not surprisingly, adored it, and have read it AND listened to it/read along with it.

>35 weird_O: That’s how I feel these days.

>40 weird_O: Yay for The Bookcase Project. Love the thought for the day.

>40 weird_O: Well, YES!!!!!!

Hi, Bill. I liked but didn't love *LintheB*. I think my objection was to the writing. Too unremittingly journalistic? It's been several years and many other books since I read it.

Ah! Bookcase Project!!! My DH has done that several times from using fine wood and a lot of polishing with beeswax and cheap ones painted for us. Best wishes to you!

Hello Clean September!! : )

>46 weird_O: Precisely.

September orisons!

         

>51 weird_O: Haha! Where did you find that cartoon? It’s a good one.

Happy weekend to you!

Karen O

P.s. Were you one of us who was reading Nicholas Meyer’s books (like The Seven Percent Solution). He’s got a new one out, Sherlock Holmes and the Telegram from Hell.

Hello all. Weird_O here. Lots of activity swirling all around me. I'm the lump over there on the side of the road.

The Bookcase Project is moving to a conclusion. Slowly, but steadily.

Reading is sampling just now. I've picked up and read pages in an assortment of books:

A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James. A chunkster at 686 pages, winner of the 2015 Booker Prize, ranked among the best books of the 21st century (so far).
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Also a chunkster (588 pages), also ranked among the best books of the 21st century (so far).
Crows: Encounters With the Wise Guys of the Avian World, Candace Savage. An impulse buy instigated by Karen O, and reinforced—LOUDLY—by an organization of crows that spends time—loudly...I say, LOUDLY—just outside my window every morning.
Eileen Gray: Designer and Architect, Philippe Garner. Another impulse buy sparked by my curiosity about several specific pieces of furniture Gray designed, fanned by her overall accomplishment in a male-dominated realm.
Bookstores, Horst A. Friedrichs and Stuart Husband. Picked up this flashy coffee-table book for 2 bucks at a library sale; observed interest here in the topic. (Who doesn't love a bookstore?!) Definitely Eurocentric. Fun to look at.

>53 weird_O: The Eileen Gray book caught my attention. Wow, that furniture! I like the lines more than the materials, especially of the chairs, but I totally adore her cabinets.

Hiya, Bill!

>51 weird_O: Gads. I didn’t watch the debate, but did some YouTube ‘research’ after and love what I saw. I’m put out that we can’t call him the Orange Menace any more.

Checking in on you, Bill. I hope all is well there.

Have a fantastic Friday!

>54 quondame: Mileage does vary, huh? I was alerted to Ms. Gray early this year by a goofball NYT piece about most revolutionary furniture designs since Pharaoh's chair. But something she designed was included, and I googled for at least a little more info on particular designs. That led me to Eileen Gray: A House Under the Sun, a GNF that I bought and read in April. Now I'm chasing more info, hence my look into Eileen Gray: Designer and Architect, a somewhat disappointing tome.

Anyway, I like the chair she designed after studying deck chairs on oceanliners. The best photos of it are at the Victoria and Albert Museum website. I also like her E-1027 table, which has an adjustable-height tabletop and a base that allows the table to be positioned with the top over, say, a bed. Her cabinetry strikes me as a clutter of cubbies with doors.

>55 karenmarie: I didn't watch the debate either, Karen. But I liked the post-event vidies and comments. Just call 'im what he is: Loser.

>56 alcottacre: Things are fine here, Stasia. Just progressing very slowly, which is the story of my life. Thanks for checking on me.

>57 weird_O: The most fun post-debate is the photo of the imprisoned Transgender Alien!

>57 weird_O: Yes, exactly! I adore a clutter of cubbies with doors. I just can't imagine being able to get out of the chairs I saw images of. And some were clever, but not quite on the right vector for me - if it folds up, it should fold up until it's no bigger than the pile of its pieces.

Thanks to Karen O, who reminded me that Carl Hiaasen writes enormously entertaining novels of Floridah. She cited a TV version of Bad Monkey. Turns out it is one of the Hiaasen novels I own but haven't read. I started reading it Friday. Only 75 pages to go; hope to finish it today.

>60 weird_O: Yay! for Bad Monkey! You’re a bit ahead of me—I’ve got about 150 pages left. But it’s going faster as the plot develops. I’m at the point where I don’t want to put it down.

This is my first Hiaasen, but it won’t be my last. I love his writing, and I love the Andrew Yancy character!

Karen O

>60 weird_O:
I am glad you found an entertaining novel to read. I also found one. I read Mr. & Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel and found it to be unexpectedly entertaining. I kept thinking that it would make a good TV series and then I found it that somebody made it into a series on Appletv. I guess it is a case of great minds and all that.

>51 weird_O: Love that, Bill!

Finished it. About an hour ago. 

I lost a screw-driving bit a couple of days ago. Only the one of its pattern in my toolbox. Spent an awful lot of time searching in said toolbox (which occupies about three rooms of the house). I said multiple times, "If you go buy a replacement, it'll turn up." So true. Yesterday I trekked to Home Depot (original source of the lost bit), bought a replacement, trekked home, and almost immediately spotted the missing bit. Bah! Didn't I tell you?!

>65 weird_O: Magic. But I'll bet you can return the one you bought. OR you could have a spare...

You are right, Linda. Of course. Regardless of the fact that I expect to pass by the very HD tomorrow, I'm not going back. Spares I now have. Book sale in Bethlehem tomorrow; door opens at noon.

>65 weird_O: And that's why any tool box of a 50+ year old person has multiples of just about everything. LOL. I can't tell you how many allen keys I have from all the various flat pak furniture I've put together over the years. :)

>68 mahsdad: Not only that, but if you've inherited your toolbox from your father, you have everything he couldn't identify too!

>69 ffortsa: Absolutely.

" I can't tell you how many allen keys" Those things multiple in drawers...I keep finding them, and we haven't assembled anything in years.

The real Allen wrench mystery is how the specific size you need can't be located. Regardless of the total number you have accumulated.

Also, any tool bought from a major trump supporter could be suspect...

>64 weird_O: What did you think of it? I have not yet read that Hiaasen.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, Bill!

>74 alcottacre: Bad Monkey is great fun, Stasia. Has all of Hiaasen's hallmarks. Bizarre story with multiple twists and surprises, Florida weather, good characters on every front, real estate scams, stupid stupid stupid grifters, wildlife and pets. I didn't believe that the author had written two novels featuring the same lead, but he did. The protagonist, Andrew Yancy, appears in this book as well as Razor Girl. And Razor Girl is on deck for a Weird_O read in the next couple of weeks.

>72 weird_O: Bill, surely a craftsman like yourself would have a set such as this?



Of course in my experience that doesn't make it easier to find the right allen wrench for the job because we still have to remember where we last put the thingamajig.

>76 lauralkeet: Wha? What are those things?

Went out in public yesterday. Uh huh. Book Sale. Not too bad. Although I was late, missing the opening surge of book addicts, I still had to wait in line for 20 minutes or so until I was left into the sale room. Since reopening after the Covid epidemic, the sale moguls (all volunteers, of course) have been limiting the number of shoppers in the room to about 50. When people leave, people are allowed in. I did get some good stuff, which I'll list soonly.

>77 weird_O: I realize you may be pulling my leg Bill, but as a public service for our 75er friends, here's a link (Amazon, by prolly also at your local Home Labyrinth):
Stanley STHT71839 Folding Metric and Sae Hex Keys, 2-Pack

These have saved our bacon numerous times!

>65 weird_O: Resistentialism in action. Gorram gods.

As I posted above (>78 weird_O:), I went to a book sale. The renown bi-monthly sale at the Bethlehem Area Public Library. Already the new-to-me volumes are settling in.



Here's a list:

How Like a God, Rex Stout (pbk)
On Writers and Writing, John Gardner (pbk)
The Ways of White Folks: Stories, Langston Hughes (pbk)
The Republic, Plato (pbk)
On Juneteenth, Annette Gordon-Reed (hc) (Read it already. Finished 9/23/24)
Picture, Lillian Ross (hc)
Jelly's Last Jam, George C. Wolfe and Susan Birkenhead (hc)
American Born Chinese, Gene Luen Yang (hc, GN)
Carnet de Voyage, Craig Thompson (hc, GN)
An Unfinished Love Story, Doris Kearns Goodwin (hc)
The Bee Sting, Paul Murray (hc)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. One, Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill (pbk, GN) (Read it already. Finished 9/28/24.)
Dali, Elizabeth Keevil & Kevin Eyres (pbk, A⸱D⸱P)
Home by Design, Sarah Susanka (pbk, A⸱D⸱P, oversize)
American Odyssey 1963 - 1999, Mark Ellen Mark (pbk, A⸱D⸱P, oversize) (Read it already. Finished 9/29/24)
Secret Knowledge: Rediscovering the Lost Techniques of the Old Masters, David Hockney (pbk, A⸱D⸱P, oversize)

John Gardner GOOD FOR YOU! He taught my daughter's creative writing teacher, G. W. Hawkes, who was also the inimitable Holly Wendt's creative writing teacher (undergrad). It's an amazing progression, and I recommend reading everything every one of those people has written and will write in future.

Finished On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed over lunch. Yummy. The lunch. I would label the book most excellent, but...not yummy, exactly.

Getting close with new shelves. I actually moved the sofas back in place, and watched football, some football, sadly not the successful plays.

Thinking now what books will go onto the new shelves and how those books will be organized. I've got mostly NF on the shelves on the opposite side of the living room, but the space granted to Bio, autobio, and memoirs is insufficient. Same same true for general history, US Civil War, World Wars, etc.

>81 weird_O: Definitely a Winter's Worth of great reading!

>81 weird_O: fantastic haul! How lucky you are to have lots of book sales in your area.

>81 weird_O: Nice haul Bill! I have read two of the sixteen.

Howdy, Bill. Happy Wednesday. Stop building the book shelves. You only will keep filling them. Grins... Hoping you hang around another 20-30 years, so you can make a dent in the stacks.

I have been watching the Bad Monkey TV series but have not read that particular Hiaasen.

The new bookshelves are almost done*, so I've begun to move the first block of non-fiction onto the shelves, that block being Bio, Autobio, and Memoirs. I've brought books up from the basement stacks, and I'll be shifting such books from shelves on the other side of the living room. Maybe I'll select books that fit the profile from my warehouseful of boxed books. Need to leave slack on each shelf for stragglers. Those books are being organized alphabetically by subject.

*The casework and shelves are fini. Some trim must be installed. Since I've usually been ambivalent about finish, I'm not worrying about it.

Filling new shelves is always exciting and fun for me. I hope it's the same for you.

Hi all, Weird_O here. Not being as productive as I would like. Not keeping up with my own thread is just one manifestation. I do plan (spoiler alert: I am a piss poor planner) to reply to selected posts.

But here's where I am, generally speaking. Last night I finished one of Nicholas Meyer's Sherlock Holmes novels, which is an okay entertainment. I've been reading several mostly visual books in a rotation—a few pages of this, then a few pages in that. So I may add a couple or three completions to the books-read list before September gives way to October.

Primary dither: Shelving non-fiction books in logical, orderly blocks. Fiction is easy: sort alphabetically by author names. Non-fiction is different.

Just another screwup. There will be more of them. Sh*t!

Survived another weekend. Whiled away the hours surfing non-literary websites. Watched the Penn State–Iowa football game on Saturday evening. Watched the beginning of the Phila–Tampa Bay game on Sunday, but threw in the towel pretty early on. Shuffled some books.

Onward!

New month. Those books are still being shuffled. I did finish Philippe Garner's review of Eileen Gray's work in his book Eileen Gray: Designer and Architect, 1878-1976. So there's that. But I jusss...t missed the cutoff for finishing the two books I chose to read for September's AAC challenge. Reading two 500+ pagers turned out to be too much to chew. I'm not consigning either to the DNF cemetery, just not getting 'em read now. But soon.

Happy October, Bill. It sounds like you were having tech issues. Did I misunderstand? Good luck, getting your reading back on track and tackling those chunksters.

The Bee Sting is good one, Bill! I loved it when i read it last year. Nice haul.

>94 msf59: PA has on-line auto registration and registration renewal. You fill out a form on-line, pay with credit card, then print out what we always called the owner's card. I need said owner's card at 9 a.m. tomorrow (Wednesday) to get my auto inspected. And my deadline for inspection was yesterday. I spent at least an hour staring at the state's website, trying to figure out how to get said owner's card to print. Considering the number of dolts in this commonwealth... Well, population 13 million, how many are dolts. At least one. (But I figured it out.)

>95 vancouverdeb: It's also a doorstop, Deborah. I'm currently engulfed by not one but two doorstop novels that I engaged at the beginning of September: A Brief History of Seven Killings and Americanah. Got a way to go.

>96 weird_O: There's never a simple "print card now" button, is there? *sigh* technology develops more slowly on the interface side than the implementation side. (I suspect that's by design.)

>96 weird_O:
I read Americanah and liked it. I found it to be easy to sit down with and read. It never made me want to just let it lay there like my current novel A Children's Bible. This one could sit there all day and never call to me.

On another Weird topic:
can you buy any packaged food that doesn't state
that it contains a "bioengineered ingredient?"

>97 richardderus: In my experience, the techy types code the websites, but they are not the people who are good at usability. They know how to make things work, and since they know how it works, it looks OK to them. But you also need to have usability experts come in and look over the website to find the usability problems--the things that people who don't work at the company or agency will find difficult. That's a different skill entirely. Government agencies tend not to have the money to hire people with all the needed skills.

>89 elorin: Yes, yes. It is exciting to shelve books. Even MORE exciting is my discovery of a nifty feature that sorts "Your Books" into the 21 main classes of the Library of Congress system. I've only just discovered this LT/LCC app. (May I call it an app?). (I've only been using LT for 8 1/2 years, so I haven't mastered its marvels completely.) LT displays a list of your cataloged books in a class you select.

Do you know what that means? DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?

LT will generate lists that I can use to shelve my non-fiction books. Why it's the greatest thing since sliced bread came on the market!!! And I've been unaware of it since I was 71.

>94 msf59: I was trying to grapple with a tech issue. Instead it was a know-how deficiency. The directions at the website weren't sufficiently elementary. I didn't know what to expect, so when nothing changed on the screen, I believed the action had failed. Boy, was I pissed when I figured it it out.

Also: Yes, Pennsylvania requires motor vehicles to be inspected primarily for safe operation—tires, brakes, lights (headlights, brake light, turn signals, etc) exhaust. I'm old enough to remember back into the 20th century, when the inspections were required every six months.

>98 benitastrnad: It's not so much about liking Americanah, Benita. It's not yet compelling. I fear my compulsion susceptibility is getting old. I'm susceptible to "promises" of a "compulsive read", but mileage varies, don't you know. I expect to get back to it. Also to A Brief History of Seven Killings.

>97 richardderus: It's that sort of deficiency, RD. The system generates a .pdf, and warns you that you need Acrobat Reader to print it. And provides access to Acrobat so's you can download Reader. But we dolts don't merit an explanation of the drill. I think the excuse is: "We told you that you needed Acrobat to print it." There should be a short explainer: When you click on the button, it downloads a file to your computer. The only way to know that this has happened is to look for the file. No bell will ring, no light will blink or flash. It's there somewhere; you gotta rummage around in your computer. Find that file and, using Acrobat, print it. To quote Chuck Berry, "Ahh! Too much monkey business!"

>100 atozgrl: How correct you are.

>104 weird_O: Ah. When I download a pdf, I get a notice on my screen that the download is complete and when I put the cursor there, I can click to open it with Acrobat. But it doesn't stay on the screen for long, at which point I also need to scurry over to my download folder to find it.

But I didn't realize I was downloading a pdf. The instruction said, and I quote: "The transactions listed below have been completed and your documents are now available. Click on the name of the document to access a PDF copy. You may see a popup box/bar asking you to Save or Open." And also: "You are not finished until you have printed your documents." Also also: "Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view and print documents."

Nothing wrong, exactly. But insufficient.

>100 atozgrl: I worked at a company replacing its central tech product twice in the Aughties. One did the techie solution technique, it was awful; the second one I stomped up to the "open-door" office of the president, said, "come with me," and showed him how it was going to cost them a lot of time therefore money.

He listened, put three end-users in with the techies and said, "listen to them." It was a lot smoother after that.

>106 weird_O: Clearly they need something to pop up to let you know that the pdf has downloaded. The usability is not good enough. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who experienced the same problem you did.

>107 richardderus: Exactly, RD! I'm glad you did something about it when you were working there, and also very glad to know that they actually listened to you.

I'm hopeful that I've got a sound plan now for shelving books in the new bookcase (and beyond). Serendipity took me to "Zeitgeist" and there I spied, in the left column headed "Overview", links to "Genres" and "Melvil Decimal System" and "LC Classifications". Holy Smokes! LC will generate lists of your books (those you've cataloged in "Your Books") sorted into the main classes. I chose the Library of Congress system. Eureka! I now have lists of my books sorted into the system's 21 main classes.

I realize that all you librarians out there are chuckling about the Rube who has just discovered how library collections are organized. But I'm astonished to discover this marvelous LT capability. It has been hiding from me all these years (well, since March 2015).

>109 weird_O:
I am going to use the LT sort when I get all my books moved to Kansas. They are currently randomly shelved but since I am a recovering librarian I desire a more organized system for them. LC is the perfect answer.

>109 weird_O: I love the idea of such organized shelving, but my bookshelves are of such a variety (some of which have family connection and can NOT be replaced) of sizes and configurations, in so many different rooms, that it's just not ever likely to work for me.

>109 weird_O: I am a retired librarian, but I had not dug into the usage of the classifications on LT that deeply yet. I just took a look at my books, and unfortunately, it's including books that are on my wishlist, and not just the ones I actually own. That's less than helpful. If there's a way to limit it to specific Collections, I don't see it.

I don't know much about the workings of LT's book cataloging system. I wonder how it tallies the books across the various collections I've set. What happens if I put one book in two or three collections. Does that inflate the total? I've got a collection labeled Borrowed & Read. I don't possess the books in this class; I want to keep the book listed as a notation of having read it. Maybe I should use tags to call out subsets like Woodworking, or Art Design Photography, or My Own Books (books I authored).

I think my mileage DOES vary, just from day today.

I don't use LT to organize our bookshelves, but I do enjoy tinkering with my collections, tags, etc. Home->Charts and Graphs lets you look at your library all sorts of ways (although, oddly by Dewey but not LC Classification). This recently inspired me to do a deep dive into my personal organizational system, and I did away with some tags that LT was already tracking for me. Genre is an obvious example: why tag every book as fiction or non-fiction when LT already does that? I kept tags for sub-genres like Gardening, because the parent genre (Home and Garden) was too broad. Similar to your Woodworking tag, Bill. It was a fun little project and I feel like my catalog is easier to maintain with fewer tags.

>112 atozgrl: If there's a way to limit it to specific Collections, I don't see it.
You can do this under Charts and Graphs for all kinds of book data but as I mentioned, not for LC Classification. I completely understand wanting to limit your view to books you own. I have the same issue with library loans. I created a collection called "Removed from Library"; any book that leaves the house is moved from the "Your library" collection to "Removed from Library". When I look at Charts and Graphs I can filter on "Your library" to see only the books we actually own.

>113 weird_O: What happens if I put one book in two or three collections. Does that inflate the total?
It does not. Each book counts once. A collection, like a tag, is just a way to organize.

LT data-tinkering can be a time suck, but a fun one!

Hi Bill! Happy Sunday to you.

>64 weird_O: I read Bad Monkey earlier this year and really liked it a lot, giving it 4*. Haven’t acquired the sequel/2nd in the series, Razor Girl, yet.

>65 weird_O: Big toolbox. 😏 And, one of Murphy’s Corollaries: Lose something, buy the replacement, the original immediately turns up. So far I’ve resisted replacing my favorite Cutco knife, brown swirl 1721. Of course, then I’ll have two, which won’t hurt my feelings.

>81 weird_O: Welcome to your new home, books!

>114 lauralkeet: Thanks, Laura. I'm always limiting to "Your Library" on my "Your Books" page. I know there are other places I can do that. I was just frustrated that I couldn't do that on the LC Classification page, and a little surprised that it wasn't an option. Which makes that less useful--at least for me--for the purpose that Bill was using it for.

LT data-tinkering can be a time suck
Yes, and that's why I haven't tested out all the options that are available!

>114 lauralkeet: Thanks for your reply, Laura, and particularly for your actual exploration into the gizzards of LT's system. It will take me some time to fully understand what you say saying. I have to tiptoe into the Charts and Graphs room and look around and see if I can understand your comment that Charts and Graphs "lets you look at your library all sorts of ways (although, oddly by Dewey but not LC Classification)."

Lots to ingest and digest. Something to occupy my mind in its idle hours, which is pretty much all the hours I'm awake.

>75 weird_O: Thanks for the input, Bill. I will have to see if my local library has a copy - of both it and Razor Girl.

>81 weird_O: Nice haul!

>90 weird_O: I want to shelve my books in an orderly manner too. . .one of these days. Currently there is a kitchen counter top in my library that has put the brakes on my rearranging my library project.

>109 weird_O: I have my collection on LT arranged in Dewey Decimal order, which is the way I will be arranging my shelves. The problem for me, of course, is trying to combine my accounts so that all my books will be in the correct order when I eventually get to shelve them. I feel your pain. . .

Howdy, Bill. Not much to add on the library shelving discussion. I am actually down-sizing my collection. I know we will be moving in the next year or two, so I want to be ready for that. Also trying hard to read more off shelf but as we all know, that is not always easy. Good luck.

      

>120 weird_O: - LOL! Poor old guys!
Reminds me of the art of Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers, of How Are You Peeling? and Play With Your Food fame (and several other titles. For years I used to buy their wall calendars to hang up in my kitchen. Just so creative and playful

>120 weird_O: Excellent. I can't decide if they are old people or Emperor penguins.

>121 jessibud2: >122 ffortsa: Do you remember The Dark Crystal, a Henson movie from the early 1980s? The villains were creatures called the Skeksis. Though I looked, I couldn't find a photo of the skeksis as I remember them from last century. I recall that my daughter, who would have been 8 or 9 when it was released on VHS, loved it and watched it endlessly.

Anyway, when I spotted the eggplants online, the skeksis popped into my mind. The person who posted the snap mentioned the Henson creatures. But maybe it's just me and one other weirdo. But mileage varies, as you know.

>119 msf59: I understand, Mark. You aren't alone in deaccessioning. Lots of readers, being of sound mind, don't hoard books or probably anything else. But then there's me.

So, moving in a couple of years? Have you a destination in mind? Hope it isn't Floridah.

>123 weird_O: I saw Dark Crystal characters too, but the Mystics not the Skeksis. Fun photo!

>120 weird_O: Oh dear! Have they been half-baked in the oven or are they naturally droopy? :)

Dropping by to point out how untrue comments about me perishing beneath a collapsing stack of books are. Not true at all.

>127 weird_O: ...spake the spirit electronically...

>126 LovingLit: I suppose that happens to all of us as we get a bit older!

>127 weird_O: Thank goodness!

I haven't been idle.

Over the summer, yes, and dragging well into the fall, I built a new living room bookcase unit, opposite one built about 30 years ago. Using nifty features for cataloging and organizing books here at LibraryThing I got the more than 5,000+ books I’ve cataloged into the 10 main classifications of the Melvil Decimal System. Working one category at a time, I followed a printed list of my books, collecting the books from more than a half-dozen caches in my house. Lined them up in list order on a worktable. I pulled the oversize books to shelve lying flat; it's easy to see which books are oversize.

   

That done, I transferred the books onto the shelves. The bookcase photo (below) shows the 30-year-old bookcase, now filled with my books in categories 0 through 6.

   

The new shelves across the room await books in categories 7 and 9.

   

>130 weird_O: Wow! Just gorgeous! Congratulations, and good job!

Karen O

>130 weird_O: Very impressive. Also quite handsome.

That is amazing Bill. I’m impressed with both your woodworking skills and your diligent, methodical approach.

Amazing! I'll bet that scooty stool came in very handy for this project.

Beautiful bookshelves!

The shelves look great, and the librarians here are proud of you for your organization!

Love the shelves, Bill!

great shelves. It's hard for me to imagine you built them yourself, and only yourself. They look really terrific.

>130 weird_O: absolutely gorgeous and nicely organised! You certainly have been busy creating such a fine book wall.

>130 weird_O: - WOW! On all of it! Congrats!

I am glad y'all like what Ive wrought. Specifically, KarenO, Susan, Laura, Linda, Robyn, Irene, Katie, Judy, Anita, and Shelley. What an experience it has been, and continues to be.

I'm taking a long weekend to travel with my elder son and his wife to the greater Boston area. We are going to meet up with my daughter Becky. On Saturday, we'll see The Grand Gracie and her teammates play in the regular season's closer at Wheaton College. Return home Sunday, rest and refresh Monday. And VOTE Tuesday.

Oh yes. Please do (vote, as well as take some time off, of course!)

Enjoyed my weekend enormously. Didn't have to drive. Gracie's team won their final match for the season. 4 to zip. Elsewhere, a game was played that rippled through the league and eliminated her team from the playouts. She was relieved actually.

On today's slate: Clean up the kitchen. Do some laundry. Organize a few books. Read some more of Murder Your Employer. October saw very little progress on the reading; I'm confident I'll past 75, but I was secretly hoping to get to the century mark. That won't happen.

Okay! Off to my happy little chores.

I did vote. Then got new batteries for my spiffy pocket flashlight.

Thinking and rethinking several book-shelving options. Going to move ahead on the easiest option in just a few minutes.

After review, I find I did digest three books in October. I'll post them for Halloween so that the October results will show something. Nearing the halfway point in Murder Your Employer, then expect to return to Americanah and A Brief History of Seven Killings. I've developed a huge list of WTR titles. (That's Want to Read.) (As opposed to merely To Be Read.) In my head; not written down. Liberating books from boxes and dark corners in the basement has been a treat. Lots of "O Wow!!" moments.

>144 weird_O: “Liberating books from boxes and dark corners in the basement has been a treat. Lots of "O Wow!!" moments.”

I can imagine! What fun!

Have a good week, Mr. Weird_O!

Karen O

Oh! Thanks. I guess I won't know whether the week is being good until about Wednesday evening.

>146 weird_O: Just don't answer your phone - our most recent call was from "President Trump."

Hi Bill, just wanted jump in to remind you...

In case you didn't see it, the 2024 Christmas Swap thread is live. I don't want to be too much of a pest, but last year I didn't post on anyone's personal threads about it and I got some comments that someone missed seeing the notices. So this year, I'm going to post on a couple of the "big hitters" to try to cast a larger net. If anyone's interested come on by

I hope you're in this year. But if you're not, I understand.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/365525

I'm still wallowing in disorganization, having tackled Class 7 books last week. "The Arts" encompasses 652 books, many of them hugely oversized. Examples:

Andrew Wyeth 17 1/2" X 13 1/4"
Cities From the Sky 14 3/4" X 12 3/4"
Georgia O'Keeffe: In the West 16 1/4" X 13 7/8"
Mary Cassatt 10 1/4" X 14 1/2"
Bettmann Moments 12 1/4" square
Quilts: A Living Tradition 11" X 14 1/4"
Skyscrapers 9 3/8" X 18 1/4"
Wisdom 12 3/8" square

So where do I shelve them? I think I will set an optimum space between shelves and separate taller books, segregating them to an oversize area. So fun!

Happy Friday, Bill. I hope you are doing well. I sure miss seeing you around. I had you down for a shared read of The Painted Veil for this month. I hope you can still join us. I plan on starting it next week.

>130 weird_O: Adding to the WOWs! Looks great! A booklovers dream.

Hiya, Bill!

>130 weird_O: Wow. Just… wow. Beautiful work, ambitious cataloging project.

>149 weird_O: On a much smaller scale, I’ve been populating a new antique book case and am almost done adding books. After that, I’ll update the location tags. My hugely over-sized books are on just a few shelves, and I don’t have that many of them. Fortunately or not...

>150 msf59: Focus. Gotta get me some focus, Mister Mark. I know where The Painted Veil is and I just have to get reading. :-) Right now I am stumbling through Murder Your Employer and also The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe. The latter is Wolfe's deliberately provocative take on modern art—"Another blast at the phonies!" Originally published in '75, I got my slender mmp edition in '78, read it, and stashed it in a carton. Interestink, as Arte Johnson would have said.

See what my "organizing" has turned up!?!

>151 karenmarie: Thanks for the encouragement, Karen. It's sobering, perhaps toooo ambitious.

I've seen your photos of the new but old bookcase. Nice!

I flat refuse to speak to someone who has such amazing bookshelves, still less has made them himself.

I love the shelves, Bill. You did a great job on them! I cannot wait to get back to my own library project which is currently being held up by the kitchen countertop in my library that is awaiting installation in my kitchen next week.

>153 richardderus: I surmise you want me to visit your bustling thread and talk to you. Amirite? I'll be glad to talk at you. Heh. I just have a couple of little details to finish.

>154 alcottacre: Thank you, Stasia. I fully appreciate the frustration of waiting, waiting, in limbo, for some essential service. (Of course, in my case I'm the service provider so the clutter and waiting is on my account. :-) But I'll get there. And I hope you do too.)

Likely you own a copy of the 1999 THE BOOK ON THE BOOK SHELF - if not,

here is an opening quote:

"Instead of being just places on which to store books, the shelves themselves intrigued me..."

Eek! You were looking at my collection, weren't you, Marianne? I do have that book, a Santa Swappee gift in 2022 from the marvelous Carrie (cbl_tn). I have sampled it, having really enjoyed an earlier Petroski book called To Engineer Is Human.

My project continues, of course. I have roughly 25 feet of books lined up, but only 13 feet of shelf space remaining in the new bookcase. Where will it all end?!?

How times change. A book that's evading me—don't worry, it'll turn up—is Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure. It recounts Mr. Truman's departure from the White House at the end of his second term as president. He ordered a new Chrysler sedan, and he absolutely rejected the manufacturer's offer of a freebie. He paid cash. Retail. Bess seated at his side, he drove away from the White House. No escorts, nor a chauffeur. And no one seemed to know where they were going. Within hours, the former president was pulled over by a state trooper on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, who was naturally disposed to let him off with a warning.

When you think about it, the fellow who served two terms as vice president to Truman's successor, Gen. Eisenhower, and dishonored the presidency in his own second term, was flown away from the White house in a helicopter.

I saw a cartoon today, Bill (from The New Yorker, I think but could be wrong). It showed trump in the driver's seat of a trolley car. Behind the steering wheel, facing backwards. Scrolling on his phone. No caption needed. At least he was wearing a trolley driver's cap and not a maga one. (insert eye roll...)

Hold the phone! I finished reading a book last night. It may be my first in about six weeks. Is that possible? I'm going to have to schedule a hearing to get to the bottom of this business.

Filled up the new bookcase. But I have books left over. Eek!

>161 weird_O: Do you double stack the books on your shelves?

>162 figsfromthistle: Shelf dimensions rule, Anita. I have a big section with 13 1/2 inch deep shelves, and those shelves are double stacked. The shelf depth is a result of making a unit deep enough to conceal a special heating register in the so-called kick-space. I don't particularly like having half its contents concealed. But realistically, it accommodates a lot of books.

The majority of my shelving is single stack.

Reportedly, I read a trio of books in October and a pair already in November. (Whaat?) And in doing so, I surpassed that magic number: 75!

In October I read:

72. Bookstores, Horst Friedrichs and Stuart Husband. Finished 10/24. 
73. A Dog's Life, Peter Mayle. Finished 10/24. 
74. Oh, the Things I Know!, Al Franken. Finished 10/24. 

November has not yet run its course, but already I've read 2 more, and I've engaged a couple of goodies. Have to see how quickly I can finish them.

75. Murder Your Employer, Rupert Holmes. Finished 11/15/24. 
76. The Painted Word, Tom Wolfe. Finished 11/18/24. 

Currently Reading
The Painted Veil, W. Somerset Maugham.
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, George Saunders.

>164 weird_O: Yay! Congratulations on 75+ reads!

Sweet Thursday, Bill. Congrats on hitting #75! Our magic number!

Happy 75th! A milestone indeed. :) :) :)

>164 weird_O: Congratulations on hitting the magic number!

Congrats!

>164 weird_O: Congratulations on hitting the magic number, Bill!

Thank you all for your support, re: 75. Susan, Mark, Megan, Linda, Jim, and Stasia.

I have a couple of shorties to report as read:

77. The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil, George Saunders. Finished 11/23/24. 
78. American Children, Susan Kismaric. Finished 11/23/24. 

congrats on reaching the collective goal! Nice.

Congratulations on surpassing 75!

Congrats on 75 (and beyond), Bill!

I'm late in seeing your bookshelves, but they do look lovely, and I hope the organization continues to be fun.

>164 weird_O: Bravo, Bill!! i'm impressed at how much you can read with the labor you do. I do nothing at all, and without lots of note-taking, I'd never get the reviews ready at all.

Book shuffling continues unabated in my library. The current wrinkle? I have a tower of books that I never cataloged. Books accumulated fifty years ago or more. Shirker. Didn't pull the oversize books from the shelf, open them, look for an ISBN. Quite a few lack an ISBN, because they were published before that string of digits became a thing. So I just didn't even try.

Now I must, so I am.

Thanks for your kind words, Richard. And thanks as well to Mary, Robyn, and Anita.

News story in today's edition of The Guardian:

"We’re all living through the enshittocene, a great enshittening, in which the services that matter to us, that we rely on, are turning into giant piles of shit,” author Cory Doctorow said earlier this year.

In 2022, Doctorow coined the word “enshittification”, which has just been crowned Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year. The dictionary defined the word as follows.

“The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.”

Social media users, if they don’t know the word, will viscerally understand the concept, the way trolls and extremists and bullshitters and the criminally vacuous have overtaken the platforms.

The Macquarie Dictionary is published in Australia.

May I add that the news story didn't bleep the word(s) that offend, apparently, American readers? Bravo, ya Brits.

>164 weird_O: Congratulations on 75 books!

Thanks Greg. Yah, 75.

It is that day here in the USA. Please give thanks for those things for which you are thankful. Nothing else; just be thankful on this one day.

I note that Weird_O's Home Library is 29 volumes short of 6,000. Time will tell if I really, actually have 29 uncataloged books scuttling from shadow to dark hole, escaping inclusion. I hope to locate those few cataloged volumes that didn't appear at roll call. Come all, all. I MISS youse.

>181 weird_O: Despite all the crap in the world, Bill, we can be thankful for a few things still.
5,971 books will soon be rounded up and more.
This wonderful group and the friendships it has bestowed upon us.
The comfort of like minded people.
All the books we have read and especially those still to be read.
Smiles and laughter come what may.

Thanks for engendering so much of those smiles and laughter over the years in this special spot, Bill.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.

Happy Saturday, Bill. I hope you had a good holiday. Were you able to spend it with the family? Making any progress in The Painted Veil?

>182 weird_O: I beg to differ, Bill. You are far more than 29 books shy of 6,000. You conveniently failed to account for the 20+ books you've "cataloged" for your Santa Swappee. Just like you failed to account for borrowed books you have read and returned, but nevertheless recorded in your catalog. There's 61 books right there. So really, you arithmetically challenged loser, you are 110 books shy of the target load.

Ha ha ha. Lewser!

Oh yeah. And about those "lost" books. The ones you have cataloged but now can't find. And duplicates, those titles you buy again and again, not remembering that you already have that very same book/edition.

Oh, never mind. Just say fifty-eleven Hail Librarians. Go and sin no more. *snort * Librarian wannabe.

How's that? How's that?

Flagged the above message as spam.

In response to the untold number of questioners—how was your Thanksgiving?—my Thanksgiving was quite wonderful. Since Judi died (the best wife I ever had), I've been welcomed into dil Tara's family. Her parents, who live nearby, have long been the seasonal-holiday hosts for Tara's father's siblings. This year, Gracie brought two classmates whose homeplaces are too distant (California and Texas) to make a flight home for the short break worthwhile. All together, 24 hungry folks gathered for the Gilligan traditional meal, seasoned with a few Pennsylvania dutch dishes (from Judi's menu) supplied by Jeremy and me (properly prepared sweet potatoes, dried corn, stuffing, and pies—dry-bottom shoofly, pumpkin, and pecan).

Friday mostly the same rowdy crowd gathered at Jeremy and Tara's for homemade cheesesteak sandwiches.

How was your festival of gratitude?

Interested to know what your family considered 'properly prepared' sweet potatoes.

>188 weird_O: I love the description of your Thanksgiving and it warms my heart to see new traditions emerging for you. We don't have much in the way of extended family so our gatherings have traditionally been pretty small. This year we were invited to join Julia's future in-laws in Connecticut, where there were 20+ people in attendance from our generation to a host of cousins to grandchildren. It was very lively! We were warmly welcomed and had a really nice time.

>189 ffortsa: Seconding this!

>188 weird_O: Your Thanksgiving sounds like one of our family gatherings from a couple decades back. Always a few unrelatives at the table, and contributions from many different traditions.

Everyone has simplified and cut back lately, and of course the generation that was SO wonderful at hosting those things has almost completely disappeared. We're the senior generation now, and just don't have the stamina for it anymore.

For me, a properly prepared sweet potato is roasted, then eaten from its jacket with butter, cinnamon and sugar per individual taste. But I'm interested too!

>189 ffortsa: Candied is what some called them. Not sure we ever did.

Wash the 'taters, then boil them until done, about an hour. (Stick a fork in 'em to check.) Remove the skins, which should slush off. Slice the potatoes in half lengthwise and line them up, flat side down, in ovenware that's been oiled. (I used Corning Ware and spray olive oil). Pour the sauce over the potatoes, then bake at 350° for an hour.

Sauce: Combine 1/2 c. maple syrup, 1/4 c. brown sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, and 2 tablespoons butter. Judi's directive is to "boil until bubbly", so I boiled it. On the back of the card, in a different hand that I don't recognize, is written: "5 large sweet potatoes needs 3x times the recipe." Since I started with 7 potatoes, I tripled the mix. Tastes fine.

I was sick with a cold that the dasterdly neighbor children brought over soon after I arrived in my new home. I stayed home and slept for most of the afternoon and then spent almost the entire day on Friday in bed. I am feeling better today, and actually cooked a casserole for lunch. It was faro, corn, tomato, and lima beans in a chicken broth smothered in parmesan cheese. I am going to count it as my Thanksgiving meal since I didn't make anything for the official day.

>192 weird_O: Mmmm those potatoes sound good Bill. Are they creamy/mushy by the end, or do they keep their chunkiness even after all the boiling and baking time?

>171 weird_O: I knew you read beyond "See Spot run," Bill. Looks like good reading there. I will have to see if I can track down copies of those.

Have a marvelous Monday!

Hiya, Bill.👏👏. I’m applauding your Percival Everett reading. That Strom Thurmond one, omigosh, I can’t believe that PE could stomach writing it, and I don’t think I could stomach reading it. PE is admirably bold in his thinking; James couldn’t have happened without that.

Hench was intelligent mayhem and fun, wasn’t it. Still deserves wider readership, IMO. Makes me think about doing a list of under-appreciated gems some time. What was that one about prison gladiators and reality tv? It’ll come to me.

What did you end up thinking of The Painted Veil? That’s one of his I haven’t read but have been curious about.

>193 benitastrnad: Sorry about your pesky "whatever it is that's going around," Benita. I bet you continue to bounce back into your regular state-of-mind-and-body.

>194 lauralkeet: Boiling and baking doesn't reduce the 'tators to mush, Laura. They keep their shape and are soft, but again, not mushy. I'm just now enjoying leftovers for breakfast/lunch. My host family has pureed sweets on their menu, which don't appeal to me.

>195 alcottacre: Well...okay, Stasia. The...Reign of Phil is a goofy, whacky novella that's topical—bigotry, conspiracies, authoritarianism. American Children is a pamphlet-like collection of photos taken by professional and amateur photographers. All are b&w, all from the Museum of Modern Art's collection. So okay, a higher level than "See Spot run." Thanks for your encouragement. :-)

>196 jnwelch: Everett is good. I have possession of I Am Not Sidney Poitier and So Much Blue, and both James and Erasure are on The WANT!! List™. I haven't yet finished The Painted Veil, and I'm teetering between liking and not liking.

My reading is almost non-existent, and it has been since October. I'll be happy if I can boost the eyeblinks, as Richard says.

>192 weird_O: Ah. Couldn't be more different from my preferences. No sweetness on mine, thank you. Butter is ok, but as with butternut squash, I prefer pepper. I suspect I'm weird in my own way.

Oh, Judy, you sure are weird. We're of different mileages, that's certain.

I was anxious to scan a few book covers for my book collection. Apple kneecapped me some time back by "censoring" my scanner's capabilities, and I wanted to explore VueScan, a program that does the job of factory software that's been abandoned/no longer supported. I think it was suggested by Arlie. I muddled my way through a download and installation of VueScan. It worked. I got a watermarked scan of one book (late at night). Fist pump! Shutdown and off to bed.

Next morning, having paid for the program, I collected the books. And the scanner wouldn't scan. The scanning apparatus doesn't move. MY tech karma is deployed. It gets better (heh). Call a computer repair shop near me. Not worth even diagnosing the trouble, I'm told. Just replace it, I'm advised. Currently, the equivalent scanner goes for about $1,300. I'd think you could do a repair for less than THAT!

Well, book sale tomorrow.

>201 weird_O: Reboot. Then, I'd look on line for updated drivers for that scanner, just in case. No charge.

>202 laytonwoman3rd: Great suggestions. I can't quite visualize your configuration but would be good to isolate the problem and see if it's really the scanner. Can you use something other than VueScan?

>202 laytonwoman3rd: >203 lauralkeet: Thanks for the suggestions, Linda and Laura. I'm not sure what I'll do. Right now I'm going set it simmer on a back burner while I pursue some other Fool's Errands. Such as purging the clutter. Continuing my library organizing. Fomenting insurrection. Same old stuff, ya know.

BTW, I finished a book last night. Charles Bukowski's Post Office. First Bukowski I've read. Not in any rush to find more of his books (although I think I have at least one other). The Painted Veil inherits the limelight.

Book sale yesterday, at my favorite venue, the Bethlehem Area Public Library. The last for 2024. I actually ran out of steam and failed to complete my amble around the sales room. I could return Saturday...just thinkin'.

Anyway. Here's the list, then the photo.

Goodbye Columbus, Philip Roth (hc)
Cults, Max Cutler with Kevin Conley (hc)
Gore Vidal: Writer Against the Grain, Jay Parini ed. (hc)
Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy (hc)
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World, Malcolm Harris (hc)
America Fantastica, Tim O'Brien (hc)
The Only Story, Julian Barnes (hc)
Joan of Arc, Mary Gordon (hc)
Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Isaac Fitzgerald (hc)
The Encyclopedia of Printmaking Techniques, Judy Martin (hc)
The Stanford Album: A Photographic History, 1885–1945, Margo Davis and Roxanne Nilan (hc, oversize)
Saul Steinberg, Harold Rosenberg (hc, oversize)
The New Yorker Album of Drawings: 1925–1973; (hc, oversize)
Marilyn, Andre de Dienes (hc, oversize)
Avedon: An Autobiography, Richard Avedon (hc, oversize)
The Black Mask Boys: Masters in the Hard-Boiled School of Detective Fiction, William F. Nolan (pbk)
The Oxford Book of Detective Stories, Patricia Craig, ed. (pbk)
The Fun of It, Amelia Earhart (pbk)
Into the Night, Cornell Woolrich and Lawrence Block (pbk)
IQ, Joe Ide (pbk)
Close Range: Wyoming Stories, Annie Proulx (pbk)
Catch and Kill, Ronan Farrow (pbk)
Not My Father's Son, Alan Cumming (pbk)

 

>206 weird_O: Oh man! What a wonderful and respectful haul!

>207 figsfromthistle: Glad you like it, Anita. Two of those books are destined for my granddaughter Claire, now a graduate student at Stanford. You can guess which two.

-----------------
My elder son visited yesterday, bringing me the broken base for a coffee table in hopes I'll be able repair. I took advantage of his presence to help me put a big old CRT television in my car so's I can take it to be recycled. He also urged me to host a day-after-Christmas gathering of his family, my daughter, and my younger son's family. That means, of course, I must productively address the clutter in which I live. Frightening it is.

He also provided me with a path to getting a print-out of the books fitting in MDS8: Literature. He told me that I can export the list of my cataloged books into an Excel spread. That spreadsheet can be downloaded into Google Docs. How did he know I can do that? He googled it.

Bah!

But I'm anxious to try it. After football.

:-) Happy Sunday.

Hiya, Bill! Happy December.

>164 weird_O: Congrats on 75!!!

>176 weird_O: So where was this tower of uncataloged books? 50 years ago?

>178 weird_O: I re-posted this on my thread, crediting you, of course.

>192 weird_O: Somewhat similar what I used to make – Jenna loves one of her grandmother’s Sweet Potato Souffle so that’s what I make the years she’s here instead of yams/sweet potatoes that are recognizable as such.

>206 weird_O: Love books of photographs, especially very old ones. Good haul.

Sorry about your scanner, yay for your son’s tech prowess, and etc. all around.

I hope the clutter removal for the Boxing Day celebration goes well.

>209 karenmarie: Yay, Karen. Thanks for your point-by-point comments. Gives me a framework for recording what I've been up to (it's ALL good, although some endeavors turn out punk).

>164 weird_O:—I did make it to 75, thank you very much. But 2024 will yield the shortest pile of books-read since I signed on to LT.

2010: 81
2011: 74
2012: 68
2013: 90
2014: 80
2015: 102 *Joined LT 3/12/15*
2016: 85
2017: 93
2018: 103
2019: 110
2020: 81
2021: 115
2022: 96
2023: 99
2024: 79 *as of 12-3-2024*

>176 weird_O:—My book accumulating dates back to the '50s. But cataloging didn't become a thing until 2015–16. When cataloging got me, it was too much trouble, I think, to extract the oversized books from the bottom shelves (partly hidden by the television) and log them in. (That very television, a 32-inch CRT unit, coincidentally, was dropped off just yesterday at Best Buy to be recycled. Cost me $29.99, in return for which I got the hulking thing outta my house AND a $30 gift card.)

>178 weird_O:—No credit to me, but to Cory Doctorow, some dictionary-publishing Aussies, and The Guardian.

>192 weird_O:—Coincidentally, I acquired three big sweets just yesterday, leftovers from the Thanksgiving pile at the supermarket.

>206 weird_O:—Me too. Photo books me likey.

The scanner DOES work. I powered up a Toshiba laptop that has the original Epson software and tried a scan. The scanner made a sound that indicated that the miscreant (ME!) had moved a slider that "locked the carriage for transport". With it unslid for scanning it worked. Running it from the au courant Mac with VueScan also worked. Yay!

Incidentally, I bought some Clutter-Be-Gone at the Home Depot near me. Now ready to put it to use. Shazam!!

>210 weird_O: great news about the scanner, Bill!

>188 weird_O: 24 hungry folks gathered
Wow, that is a large group! How nice to have been adopted and included for such events.

Howdy, Bill. Hooray for getting rid of the CRT unit. Thanks for sharing your yearly book totals. 115 in 2021 is pretty impressive. Why do you think your numbers have declined this year? Too many distractions?

I should be around 140 for the year, which is just about the same as last year. I am happy with those numbers.

>211 lauralkeet: Yes indeed. The hitch that leads to tech problems is ME.

>212 LovingLit: There are moments when you think the firehall is the appropriate venue for such events. The typical American suburban house isn't designed to accommodate this banquet, even if it's a modest-sized banquet.

>213 msf59: Too many distractions? Oh yes. Being ADD exacerbates distractions. Many have been the days that I feel I've got one foot nailed to the floor and can only move in a circle, with stuff just out of reach.

But, see, I am getting a few things done. Regrettably, reading isn't one of those few things.

Reading The Guardian just moments ago, I stumbled across an article about a real exhibition of Imaginary Books at NYC's Grolier Club. I can't explain it, but here's a link to the article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/dec/11/imaginary-books-exhibition-byron-s...

Show closes February 15.

It has come to us. Yes, "it" being sub-freezing temps. 15°F outside the front door. Not as cold many of you, but a lower temp than I've seen on the thermometer in a couple of winters.

Snow overnight Sunday into Monday. It's Tuesday, so of course that thin covering of snow's gone. I do have to venture out, so I am appreciative.

I have to investigate the realm of "noise cancelling headphones" because I want to buy a reasonable pair to give to a favorite giftee. I also need a honkin' big woodworking clamp to reassemble the base for my elder son's coffee table (the one with the 150-pound glass top). So. Gotta go.

Happy shopping, Bill. Did you get everything you need?

I got everything I had to have today, but I decided it did not need the headphones or the clamp this very today. So I stayed home and cleaned up for Boxing Day. That's when my children and their children will gather here. I don't want them to see the squalid conditions I've created for myself, so I'm scrubbing floors and baseboards and furniture. I've gathered up random piles of books that don't have a home and housed them in a closet (one that locks...haha).

To decorate for the holiday, I unpacked the most recently acquired nutcracker. Did the trick! Makes the entire place festive.

I semi-collect nutcrackers. They are fun!

>219 weird_O: I don't want them to see the squalid conditions I've created for myself
That made me laugh. For similar reasons, I just cleaned the refrigerator the other day. One of my daughters is an absolute hawk about expiration dates. To be fair, the fridge looks much nicer now.

         

The newest nutcracker in the collection, which came to us for Christmas, five or more years ago. And beside that nut..., oh maybe cracker...that's not right either. Anyway, Stasia's presents, not unwrapped yet.

>222 weird_O: Wow, that's a beautiful nutcracker Bill. We might need to see more from that collection you mentioned ...

Hi Bill, I noticed a comment you posted on Karen's thread:

Exporting the file and putting it in Google Sheets was duck soup. But Jehoshaphat!! It's enormous. Thirty or forty columns, all jammed together for the lack of formatting. No column titles, so I've got to puzzle out what the data is in each column.

I've exported data before and yes, there are lots of columns (A thru AW), which I hide or delete if I don't need them. But I do get column headings (Book ID, Title, Sort Character, Primary Author ...). I'm not sure why you didn't. These are the steps I use:
* Import/Export page: https://www.librarything.com/more/import
* Under Export from LibraryThing, choose Export as Excel
* On the next screen make sure the "Excel" button is checked and not one of the other formats.

Is that how you did it? Seems a shame for you to have to do all that extra work. I could send you a list of the column headings in my latest export if that would help.

>224 lauralkeet: That's what I recall doing, Laura. Let me try again, and see if I get column heads. Your offer to share a list of the heads is swell. I'd welcome it. A lot of the data in the full LT file is irrelevant to me, but before I expunge it, I want to know it IS irrelevant to me.

What a lovely nutcracker!

>225 weird_O: That makes sense, Bill. If you don't get column headings on your second try, then just PM me your Google ID (email address). I'll share one of my export spreadsheets with you so you can copy/paste the column headings into your own spreadsheet.

Thanks for much for the offer, Laura. But I exported the data a second time and it came through with headings. So I made a list of them and redlined those that seemed irrelevant to me. I dropped little bombs atop the irrelevant columns and watched them disappear. Tomorrow or Sunday I'll do a second elimination round.

So thanks again. You gave me the kind of tips and tricks I needed.

Solstice cheer, Bill!

>228 weird_O: I'm so glad it worked the second time, Bill! Have fun messing around with the data.

Several remarkable happenings this holiday season.

1. I finished W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil. No official end to the Group Read, but no one was hanging around the finish line as I stumbled across it. I'm pretty sure I finished last.

But. I did finish. My dilly-dallying aside, I'd score it . BUT, having reflected on it, I'll add a Plus to that, so it's 

2. My current read, Literary Feuds, offhandedly endorsed my tagging Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad a DNF. The book, written by Anthony Arthur, recounts eight "celebrated quarrels" between notable writers, beginning with Mark Twain vs Bret Harte, ending with Tom Wolfe vs John Updike. In citing Twain's early works, Arthur branded Innocents "an intermittently funny Ugly American collection about traveling in Europe and the Holy Lands." Yeah. I thought the funny bits were too intermittent and the Ugly American stuff too prominent and abandoned it two weeks into January 2024.

3. An Amazon emissary placed a carton on the porch just this morning. He was sporting the Amazon colors. He was driving a black Mercedes-Benz sedan, of the S Class, I believe. I was probably hallucinating in thinking the license plate read "Jeffie's Toy."

Have you enjoyed any remarkable happenings?

Happy Christmas Eve!

Nadolig Llawen, Happy Christmas and Happy Holidays!

nutcrackers



Photo taken in January 2010, so not entirely up to date.

>234 weird_O: Wow! Those are gorgeous! How tall are the tallest ones? (trying to figure out the scale of them) What a fun collection!

Karen O

>234 weird_O: I loves them! I don't have near as many.

Thinking of you at this time, Bill.

>234 weird_O: I very much like the image of all the nutcrackers!

I hope you had a lovely day!

I hope you are having a fine holiday with the family, Bill.

I'm kinda lonely over here....

https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/24622/75-Books-Challenge-for-2025