richardderus's fifteenth 2021 thread

Happy #Spooktober! What're your uneasy-lies-the-head reading plans to honor the month where the season of Autumn begins its fall into Winter?

I'm delighted to introduce, laddies and gentlewomen, my new spirit animal:
The Fucktopus.

**********************
In 2021, I stated a goal of posting 15 book reviews a month on my blog. This year's total of 180 (there are a lot of individual stories that don't have entries in the LT database so I didn't post them here; I need to do more to sync the data this year) reads shows it's doable, and I've done better than that in the past.

I've long Pearl Ruled books I'm not enjoying, but making notes on Goodreads & LibraryThing about why I'm abandoning the read has been less successful. I give up. I just don't care about this goal, so out it goes.




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

First five reviews? 1st 2021 thread..

Reviews 6 all the way through 25 can be viewed in the thread to which I have posted a link at left.

The 26th through 36th reviews occupy thread three.

37th through 44th reviews belong where they are.

Reviews 45 through 58 are listed here.

Reviews 59 through 65 present themselves in that spot.

Reviews 66 through 75 reside in this thread.

Reviews 76 through 98? Seek them before this.

Reviews 99 through 110 remain becalmèd thitherward.

Reviews 111 up to 123 actualize their potential in the linkèd thread.

Reviews 124 through 136 locatable in this locale.

Reviews 137 to 147 (inclusive)? Back up.

Reviews 148 to 155 are available here.

Reviews 156 unto 169 remain, patiently, behind.

THIS THREAD'S REVIEW LINKS

170 North: A Novel missed, post 10.

171 An Evening with Claire dragged, post 22.

172 Beauty Salon stirred, post 25.

173 Oh William! grated, post 85.

174 Death at Whitewater Church pleased, post 107.

175 The Well of Ice excited, post 188.

176 Go Back at Once snarked, post 279.

177 Nothing But Blackened Teeth unsettled, post 281.

2020's five-star or damn-near five-star reviews totaled 46. Almost half were short stories and/or series reads. While a lot of authors saw their book launches rescheduled, publishers canceled their tours, and everyone was hugely distracted by the nightmare of COVID-19 (I had it, you do not want it), no one can fault the astoundingly wonderful literature we got this year. My own annual six-stars-of-five read was Zaina Arafat's extraordinary debut novel YOU EXIST TOO MUCH (review lives here), a thirtysomething Palestinian woman telling me my life, my family, my very experience of relationships of all sorts. I cannot stress enough to you, this is the book you need to read in 2021. A sixtysomething man is here, in your email/feed, saying: This is the power. This is the glory. The writing I look for, the read I long to find, and all of it delivered in a young woman's debut novel. This is as good an omen for the Great Conjunction's power being bent to the positive outcomes as any I've seen.

In 2020, I posted over 180 reviews here. In 2021, my goals are:

to post 190 reviews on my blog

to post at least 99 three-sentence Burgoines

to complete at least 190 total reviews

Most important to me is to report on DRCs I don't care enough about to review at my usual level. I don't want to keep just leaving them unacknowledged. There are publishers who want to see a solid, positive relationship between DRCs granted and reviews posted, and I do not blame them a bit.

Ask and ye shall receive! Nathan Burgoine's Twitter account hath taught me. See >7 richardderus: below.

I stole this from PC's thread. I like these prompts!
***
1. Name any book you read at any time that was published in the year you turned 18:
Faggots by Larry Kramer
2. Name a book you have on in your TBR pile that is over 500 pages long:
The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power from the Middle Kingdom to Mao and the China Dream by Michael Wood
3. What is the last book you read with a mostly blue cover?
Wasps' Nest by Agatha Christie
4. What is the last book you didn’t finish (and why didn’t you finish it?)
The Perfect Fascist by Victoria de Grazia; paper book of 512pp, can't hold it...hands too feeble now
5. What is the last book that scared the bejeebers out of you?
Too Much and Never Enough by Mary Trump
6. Name the book that read either this year or last year that takes place geographically closest to where you live? How close would you estimate it was?
The Trump book; set in Queens and the Hamptons, so just down the road a piece
7.What were the topics of the last two nonfiction books you read?
The last successful rebellion on US soil and caffeine
8. Name a recent book you read which could be considered a popular book?
The Only Good Indians, a horror novel that's really, really good
9. What was the last book you gave a rating of 5-stars to? And when did you read it?
Restored, a Regency-era romantic historical novel about men in their 40s seizing their second chance at luuuv
10. Name a book you read that led you to specifically to read another book (and what was the other book, and what was the connection)
Potiki, which Kerry Aluf gave me; led me to read The Uncle's Story by Witi Ihimaera
11. Name the author you have most recently become infatuated with.
P. Djeli Clark
12. What is the setting of the first novel you read this year?
Hawaii and PNW
13. What is the last book you read, fiction or nonfiction, that featured a war in some way (and what war was it)?
The Fighting Bunch; WWII
14. What was the last book you acquired or borrowed based on an LTer’s review or casual recommendation? And who was the LTer, if you care to say.
There isn't enough space for all the book-bullets y'all careless, inconsiderate-of-my-poverty fiends pepper me with
15. What the last book you read that involved the future in some way?
Mammoths of the Great Plains by Eleanor Arnason
16. Name the last book you read that featured a body of water, river, marsh, or significant rainfall?
Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky by David Connerley Nahm
17. What is last book you read by an author from the Southern Hemisphere?
Red Heir by Lisa Henry
18. What is the last book you read that you thought had a terrible cover?
please don't ask me this
19. Who was the most recent dead author you read? And what year did they die?
Agatha Christie, 1976
20. What was the last children’s book (not YA) you read?
good goddesses, I don't remember...Goodnight Moon to my daughter?
21. What was the name of the detective or crime-solver in the most recent crime novel you read?
Poirot by Dame Ags
22. What was the shortest book of any kind you’ve read so far this year?
The World Well Lost, ~28pp
23. Name the last book that you struggled with (and what do you think was behind the struggle?)
Lon Chaney Speaks, because I really, really don't like comic books
24. What is the most recent book you added to your library here on LT?
see #23
25. Name a book you read this year that had a visual component (i.e. illustrations, photos, art, comics)
see #23
I liked Sandy's Bonus Question for the meme above, so I adopted it:

26. What is the title and year of the oldest book you have reviewed on LT in 2020? (modification in itals)
The Sittaford Mystery by Dame Aggie, 1931.

I really hadn't considered doing this until recently...tracking my Pulitzer Prize in Fiction winners read, and Booker Prize winners read might actually prove useful to me in planning my reading.

1918 HIS FAMILY - Ernest Poole **
1919 THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS - Booth Tarkington *
1921 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE - Edith Wharton *
1922 ALICE ADAMS - Booth Tarkington **
1923 ONE OF OURS - Willa Cather **
1924 THE ABLE MCLAUGHLINS - Margaret Wilson
1925 SO BIG - Edna Ferber *
1926 ARROWSMITH - Sinclair Lewis (Declined) *
1927 EARLY AUTUMN - Louis Bromfield
1928 THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY - Thornton Wilder *
1929 SCARLET SISTER MARY - Julia Peterkin
1930 LAUGHING BOY - Oliver Lafarge
1931 YEARS OF GRACE - Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932 THE GOOD EARTH - Pearl Buck *
1933 THE STORE - Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934 LAMB IN HIS BOSOM - Caroline Miller
1935 NOW IN NOVEMBER - Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 HONEY IN THE HORN - Harold L Davis
1937 GONE WITH THE WIND - Margaret Mitchell *
1938 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY - John Phillips Marquand
1939 THE YEARLING - Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings *
1940 THE GRAPES OF WRATH - John Steinbeck *
1942 IN THIS OUR LIFE - Ellen Glasgow *
1943 DRAGON'S TEETH - Upton Sinclair
1944 JOURNEY IN THE DARK - Martin Flavin
1945 A BELL FOR ADANO - John Hersey *
1947 ALL THE KING'S MEN - Robert Penn Warren *
1948 TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC - James Michener
1949 GUARD OF HONOR - James Gould Cozzens
1950 THE WAY WEST - A.B. Guthrie
1951 THE TOWN - Conrad Richter
1952 THE CAINE MUTINY - Herman Wouk
1953 THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Ernest Hemingway *
1955 A FABLE - William Faulkner *
1956 ANDERSONVILLE - McKinlay Kantor *
1958 A DEATH IN THE FAMILY - James Agee *
1959 THE TRAVELS OF JAIMIE McPHEETERS - Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 ADVISE AND CONSENT - Allen Drury *
1961 TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - Harper Lee *
1962 THE EDGE OF SADNESS - Edwin O'Connor
1963 THE REIVERS - William Faulkner *
1965 THE KEEPERS OF THE HOUSE - Shirley Ann Grau
1966 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF KATHERINE ANNE PORTER - Katherine Anne Porter
1967 THE FIXER - Bernard Malamud
1968 THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER - William Styron *
1969 HOUSE MADE OF DAWN - N Scott Momaday
1970 THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JEAN STAFFORD - Jean Stafford
1972 ANGLE OF REPOSE - Wallace Stegner *
1973 THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER - Eudora Welty *
1975 THE KILLER ANGELS - Jeff Shaara *
1976 HUMBOLDT'S GIFT - Saul Bellow *
1978 ELBOW ROOM - James Alan McPherson
1979 THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER - John Cheever *
1980 THE EXECUTIONER'S SONG - Norman Mailer *
1981 A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES - John Kennedy Toole *
1982 RABBIT IS RICH - John Updike *
1983 THE COLOR PURPLE - Alice Walker *
1984 IRONWEED - William Kennedy *
1985 FOREIGN AFFAIRS - Alison Lurie
1986 LONESOME DOVE - Larry McMurtry *
1987 A SUMMONS TO MEMPHIS - Peter Taylor
1988 BELOVED - Toni Morrison *
1989 BREATHING LESSONS - Anne Tyler
1990 THE MAMBO KINGS PLAY SONGS OF LOVE - Oscar Hijuelos *
1991 RABBIT AT REST - John Updike *
1992 A THOUSAND ACRES - Jane Smiley *
1993 A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN - Robert Olen Butler *
1994 THE SHIPPING NEWS - E Annie Proulx *
1995 THE STONE DIARIES - Carol Shields
1996 INDEPENDENCE DAY - Richard Ford
1997 MARTIN DRESSLER - Steven Millhauser
1998 AMERICAN PASTORAL - Philip Roth
1999 THE HOURS - Michael Cunningham
2000 INTERPRETER OF MALADIES - Jumpha Lahiri
2001 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY - Michael Chabon
2002 EMPIRE FALLS - Richard Russo
2003 MIDDLESEX - Jeffrey Eugenides *
2004 THE KNOWN WORLD - Edward P. Jones
2005 GILEAD - Marilynne Robinson
2006 MARCH - Geraldine Brooks
2007 THE ROAD - Cormac McCarthy
2008 THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO - Junot Diaz *
2009 OLIVE KITTERIDGE - Elizabeth Strout
2010 TINKERS - Paul Harding**
2011 A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD - Jennifer Egan
2013 ORPHAN MASTER'S SON - Adam Johnson
2014 THE GOLDFINCH - Donna Tartt
2015 ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE - Anthony Doerr **
2016 THE SYMPATHIZER - Viet Thanh Nguyen **
2017 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD - Colson Whitehead **
2018 LESS - Andrew Sean Greer
2019 THE OVERSTORY - Richard Powers
2020 THE NICKEL BOYS - Colson Whitehead

Links are to my reviews
* Read, but not reviewed
** Owned, but not read

Every winner of the Booker Prize since its inception in 1969

1969: P. H. Newby, Something to Answer For
1970: Bernice Rubens, The Elected Member
1970: J. G. Farrell, Troubles ** (awarded in 2010 as the Lost Man Booker Prize) -
1971: V. S. Naipaul, In a Free State
1972: John Berger, G.
1973: J. G. Farrell, The Siege of Krishnapur
1974: Nadine Gordimer, The Conservationist ... and Stanley Middleton, Holiday
1975: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Heat and Dust
1976: David Storey, Saville
1977: Paul Scott, Staying On
1978: Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea *
1979: Penelope Fitzgerald, Offshore
1980: William Golding, Rites of Passage
1981: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children *
1982: Thomas Keneally, Schindler's Ark
1983: J. M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K
1984: Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac *
1985: Keri Hulme, The Bone People **
1986: Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils
1987: Penelope Lively, Moon Tiger *
1988: Peter Carey, Oscar and Lucinda *
1989: Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day *
1990: A. S. Byatt, Possession: A Romance *
1991: Ben Okri, The Famished Road
1992: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient * ... and Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
1993: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
1994: James Kelman, How late it was, how late
1995: Pat Barker, The Ghost Road *
1996: Graham Swift, Last Orders
1997: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
1998: Ian McEwan, Amsterdam
1999: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
2000: Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin *
2001: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang *
2002: Yann Martel, Life of Pi
2003: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little **
2004: Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty *
2005: John Banville, The Sea
2006: Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
2007: Anne Enright, The Gathering
2008: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
2009: Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
2010: Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question *
2011: Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending **
2012: Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies
2013: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries
2014: Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North
2015: Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings *
2016: Paul Beatty, The Sellout
2017: George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo
2018: Anna Burns, Milkman
2019: Margaret Atwood, The Testaments, and Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other
2020: Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain

Links are to my reviews
* Read, but not reviewed
** Owned, but not read

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

Think about using it yourselves!

And with this post, feel free to begin the thread's activity!

Happy new spooky thread!

170 North: A Novel by Brad Kessler

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: A powerfully moving novel about the intertwined lives of a Vermont monk, a Somali refugee, and an Afghan war veteran by the author of the acclaimed memoir Goat Song

As a late spring blizzard brews, Brother Christopher, a cloistered monk at Blue Mountain Monastery in Vermont, rushes to tend to his Ida Red and Northern Spy apple trees in advance of the unseasonal snowstorm. When the storm lands a young Somali refugee, Sahro Abdi Muse, at the monastery, Christopher is pulled back into the world as his life intersects with Sahro’s and that of an Afghan war veteran in surprising and revealing ways.

North traces the epic journey of Sahro from her home in Somalia to South America, along the migrant route through Central America and Mexico, to New York City, and finally, her dangerous attempt to continue north to safety in Canada. It also compellingly traces the inner journeys of Brother Christopher, questioning his future in a world where the monastery way of life is waning, and of veteran Teddy Fletcher, seeking a way to make peace with his past.

Written in Brad Kessler’s sharp, beautiful, and observant prose, and grounded in the author’s own corner of Vermont, where there is a Carthusian monastery, a vibrant community of Somali asylum seekers, and a hole left after a disproportionate number of Vermont soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, North gives voice to these invisible communities, delivering a story of human connection in a time of displacement.

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

My Review: I'm sure you've seen the reviews with fours and fives of stars around. It was my Goodreads friend Sarah-Hope's five-star warble of delight that brought into focus my three-star dissatisfaction with this well-written read.

A book about the refugee experience is, of necessity, a book in motion, a book of change and danger. There is a lot of literary precedent for this structure, from the original picaresque Don Quixote to the eternal shame-making Twelve Years a Slave, on through West with the Night's risky but voluntary peregrinations, In Patagonia's curiosity-propelled diggings. But the issue with North is that this structure crashes into the wildly different voyages of Father Christopher (also the name of the Catholic saint, patron of travelers) to the contemplation's deepest coves and Sahro's fear- and death-driven flight.

While I'm in the greatest possible sympathy with this novel's aims, I am not convinced that Author Kessler handled this crash with a convincing direction for these two characters to meet as opposed to collide. The core relationship of these people wasn't made into a meeting of like minds, but a compassionate man offering charity to a desperate woman in terrifying danger that she need not have suffered in a properly ordered US.

So while I read the book without pain (Author Kessler does craft a handsome image...Father Christopher "...reached the rise, his shoulders relaxed. In the warmth of the morning he saw the slopes white with blossoms. The apples carpeted in blooms," after a tense and fearful bout of worry about a freeze), I was left feeling that the travels inwards and outwards weren't brought to the same place at the same pitch of emotion. It meant I felt that I was led, steered, pushed, nudged; I wanted to feel that, after all the movement, I was somewhere I hadn't been before...but there was only more travel ahead.

All US royalties are to be donated to a refugee-aiding charity. Please factor that into your Holiday purchasing plans.

Happy new one, dear fellow.

My mum will be laid to rest tomorrow so I may not be around too much for a day or so.

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

Happy new thread, RD.

Happy new one, Rdear and have a wonderful start into the new week.

Happy new thread, Richard.

Happy New Thread, Richard. I had a great day watching the Bears game with my SIL and Jackson. The Bears lost but it was still a good game. I am sure it will cool off soon out east. Only 42F out there right now. We turned the heat on.

Happy new thread, Richard!

Have a wonderful Monday

>9 quondame: Thank you, Susan! You're the Queen of Speed-Threading:

A spiffy new chapeau is in order, don't you agree?

>17 figsfromthistle: Thank you, Anita! Happy new week.

>16 msf59: At 42° the heat has nowhere else to go but on! *brrr*

Sorry they lost, but the Bears making a good game of it makes up for at least some of the sting.

>15 humouress: Thank you, Nina.

>14 Ameise1: Ha! Yes indeed, Barbara, the truth of the Elixir of Life Itself is that it's just really hot water and burnt fruit-seeds.

Long may it reign.

>13 Helenliz: Hello there, Helen, and thank you for the well-wishes.

>12 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! Happy new week!

>11 PaulCranswick: I'm so sad with you that you can't be there, PC. Your time right now needs to be spent focused on you, and your attention needs to be there as well. Grief has its own needs and schedules.

We're all still here, when here is where you want and need to be.

‘Morning, RDear, and happy new thread to you.

From your last thread, I’m another non-Pratchett fan, except for the co-written-with-Gaiman Good Omens.

To answer your question in >1 richardderus:, none. I read what I want to read regardless of the season. But I am doing a happy dance that it does finally seem to be autumn here, finally.

171 An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov (tr. Bryan Karetnyk)

Rating: 3* of five

The Publisher Says: Two old friends meet nightly in Paris, trading conversational barbs and dancing around submerged feelings. Throughout the ten years of their separation, thoughts of Claire lingered persistently in Kolya’s mind. As the imagined romance finally becomes real, Kolya is thrown into recollections of formative moments from his youth in Russia, from his solitary early years through military school and service in the White Army in the Civil War, all leading to this union with Claire.

The first novel by the celebrated Russian master Gaito Gazdanov, An Evening with Claire is a lyrical, finely crafted portrait of a lost innocence and a vanished era.

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

My Review: While there is some lovely language in this short read, I did not end up thinking it was Deathless Prose.

These first, carefree years of life at the gymnasium were only rarely aggravated by those emotional crises from which I suffered so greatly but in which I nonetheless found an agonizing satisfaction. I lived happily—if one can live happily when a persistent shadow floats behind one’s shoulders. Death was never far away, and the abyss into which my imagination plunged me seemed to belong to it.

High school's like that. The highs are empyrean; the lows abyssal. Claire gets a whole lot fewer lines than an evening should hold. I was reminded of the Doobie Brothers' 1977 hit song, "What A Fool Believes", which covers the same territory in three minutes, forty-seven seconds.

Blasphemy to the literary, I know, but really I'll listen to the song again (and it was never one of my favorites) before I'll re-read this history lesson with straight-boy crush object posed in front of it. The entire Russian Civil War—one of history's major social paroxysms!—took place with a sleepwalking Kolya (Claire's fanboy) apparently numb to it. But of course he is...he is superior to the victims. (Where he got that idea, and what it's based on, must've been in a part of the read I didn't get in my DRC.) So, Claire of the title barely shows her face; the narrator's a numbed-out zombie or a sociopathic prick; and the story's too long for the récit it could've quite successfully been and too detached to work as a novel.

I'll see myself out.

>21 karenmarie: Happy Mmmday, Horrible! I recall your, um, want of enthusiasm for Sir Terry. But we're a minority, I fear. That's just the way it is with all the powerful storytelling out there in the modern world. Some will strike us and some will whiz past us.

*smooch*

Happy new one, BigDaddy! You know what day it is - don't make any eye contact.

>14 Ameise1: Truth!

172 Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin

Rating: 5* of five

The Publisher Says: Mario Bellatin’s earth-shattering allegory of plague that brought him to his cult status as auteur of Latin America's most singular literary vision, in a brand-new translation by poet and translator Shook.

Mario Bellatin’s complex dreamscape, offered here in a brand-new translation, presents a timely allegorical portrait of the body and society in decay, victim to inscrutable pandemic.

In a large, unnamed city, a strange, highly infectious disease begins to spread, afflicting its victims with an excruciating descent toward death, particularly unsparing in its assault of those on society's margins. Spurned by their loved ones and denied treatment by hospitals, the sick are left to die on the streets until a beauty salon owner, whose previous caretaking experience extended only to the exotic fish tanks scattered among his workstations, opens his doors as a refuge. In the ramshackle Morgue, victim to persecution and violence, he accompanies his male guests as they suffer through the lifeless anticipation of certain death, eventually leaving the wistful narrator in complete, ill-fated isolation.

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

My Review: AIDS was my first plague. Unnameable for most of its first five years of blazing, horrible death, when a name was agreed upon it gave us something to fight. A name is more than a label. It is a badge, a target, a focus.

A badge is also, as the Holocaust taught us, a symbolic sentence of death.

That's what this short prose poem is here to remind us. It's eleven years old in English. It's a quietly bitter, carefully outraged indictment of the fear and loathing that queers with AIDS faced when there was no hope, no treatment, no medical possibility of a future.

It's no longer just my acquaintances with the sickness advancing through their bodies. The majority are now strangers who have no place to go. If it weren't for this place, their only alternative would be to perish in the street.
–and–
Now I have to run the Mortuary. To provide a bed and a bowl of soup to the victims whose bodies have already been ravaged by the disease. And I alone must do it.

Our narrator in this bitter récit is a nameless drag queen/retired beauty salonista whose own life is ending from the disease. She makes her world starkly plain in those sentences, showing that her life lived in service is ending in service. She's been a whore, she's been a beauty maven, and now she's tending to the last needs of those, like her, whose bodies aren't bodies any more:

I ask myself {as lovers come to the Mortuary's door seeking the dying} what moves those poor creatures to search for the sick. And why come in? Only to find themselves before someone who is no longer a person. Someone who, besides the space they take up, is nothing but a simple carrier for sickness.
–and–
{The Mortuary's inhabitants} become so mired in their lethargy that it's often no longer even possible for them to ask how they're doing. This is the ideal condition for doing my work. It's how I avoid getting involved with any one of them in particular, which makes my labors more expeditious.

Heartless? Or disheartened? One young lad gave our narrator a reason to be glad, for a moment, that he was alive. The disease ended the way the disease always does:

We took up collections to purchase his medicines, which were exceedingly expensive. It was all useless. The conclusion was simple. The sickness has no cure. All our efforts were no more than vain attempts to appease our consciences. ... Because of that experience, I made the decision that if there was no cure, the best outcome was a quick death, in the best possible conditions for the suffering.

That, my olds, is what we call "dissociation." And as a survival strategy, during a plague, there's not a better one to be found.

In the end, of course, there's no hope to be found in this bleak little bagatelle. There's nothing to mitigate the agony of knowing you're going to die, and it's going to suck, and then there's the Great Unknown. What is Death? Where do we go when we die?

Folks...that's a question for the privileged. The living. The dying aren't worried about it near as much as one thinks they will be. They're worried about stuff they didn't do or say or couldn't do or say or wanted to do or say. They aren't all that worried about The After, but they do get worried about The Ending. Suffering preoccupies the suffering. The sense of "let it just be over" is quite, quite common.

Bellatín knows this. He's not giving anyone great death scenes here. He's not exploring the living's worries about Death. The closest we come is when our beautiful psychopomp has a huge bonfire of all his vanities, the dresses and the gewgaws and gimcracks of his life spent on the make for sex:

The more I sang, the more clearly I remembered new songs. It kept growing, the sensation that I was entering, bit by bit, the memories they evoked. Slowly, the fire burned out, until it was nothing but a slight wisp of smoke rising from the charred remains.

That, in the end, is pretty much all we have. A wisp of smoke, a singed satin hem, a moment of song snatched from a toxic conflagration of things not worth taking, of stuff we are ready to leave behind.

>24 Crazymamie: Thank you for coming out of your safe room this Mmmday, Mamie darling. I'd've understood if you waited until IT was gone to come by.

*smooch*

Happy new thread, Richard!

>14 Ameise1: LOL

Good morning, RD! I am not taking Mamie's advice regarding Monday today - it's the last one of my office-drudge life so I intend to stare it down and dare it to mess with me!

*smooch*

>28 katiekrug: Mmmday has always walked in a little fear of you, Katie. Not for nothing are you known (behind your back for safety's sake) as "Kick-Ass Katie."

My delight for you, being able to take this step, well...I really can't find an adequate superlative. Brava!

>27 thornton37814: Happy new week, Lori! Thanks for stopping by.

Happy new one!

HERE you are! Once again you somehow got too far ahead of me and I lost the trail.

>10 richardderus: Intrigued by this one, in spite of your quibbles.

>25 richardderus: Excellent review, but I'm afraid I will never be able to read any fiction about any plague ever again.

>31 laytonwoman3rd: Hi Linda3rd! I'm glad your tracking skills are up to the job of getting yourself here. And please, please do NOT read >25 richardderus:. You're not going to come away with anything worthwhile that will adequately offset the unhappiness of it. This also goes for Bonnie, when/if she gets here.

OTOH >10 richardderus: will likely fit you like a glove. The story's a cracker. The conflicts are sharp and real. My quibbles are really about *my* expectations and wants in a story such as this.

>30 drneutron: Hiya Jim! Thank you for the well-wishes.

Happy new Spooktober thread, Richard!

>25 richardderus: I see what you chose for one of your horror stories for Spooktober. I'm with >31 laytonwoman3rd: - I don't think I'll ever want to read another book about the plague, even if I survive the one we're currently living through.

My Spooktober reading consists of 3 rereads (The Girl With All the Gifts, The Boy on the Bridge, and A Night in the Lonesome October) and a couple of new-to-me horror stories: You Should Have Left and (I know I said I wouldn't read another book about a plague, but) Feral Creatures.

>14 Ameise1: Truth!

>11 PaulCranswick: My thoughts are with you and Hani and your family. {{{hugs}}}

Ok, I'm here and dropping off smooches. Try not to be carried off by spooks now.

>34 MickyFine: Hiya, Micky! Spooks are more scared of me than I am of them.

Luckily.

>33 Storeetllr: Welcome, Mary, and your list is plenty enough Spooktober scare for me. I know Feral Creatures is Plague-adjacent, but really it's just time with S.T. and company from my perspective.

I really liked The Girl with All the Gifts and I possess The Boy on the Bridge but haven't cracked it. Carey's way with a story is pretty darn fine.

So Yea on zombies but Nay on plague stories...hm...iiinteresting! *smooch*

Happy (relatively) new thread, Richard!

>36 SandDune: Thank you, Rhian! It's only been up today, so "new" it is.

35. Nay on zombies, too, with the exception of those two books. Which also include a plague, of sorts. Honestly, I'm nothing if not inconsistent. Also, I agree on Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures being plague adjacent, and spending time with S.T. (I love how proud he is of the name he'd been given by his human) and the other creatures being the main pull of the books.

Did you ever read A Night in the Lonesome October? It's a kind of mash-up of old horror movies, Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Jack the Ripper and Lovecraftian horror. It isn't all that scary, but it is fun. I think you might enjoy it.

>38 Storeetllr: I don't remember ever reading Lonesome October...it looks a bit like Good Omens from the description. I'll have to see if the local library has it. I can always use fun reads.

Happy new thread Richard! And #172 sounds really good.

>25 richardderus: Adding that one to the BlackHole!

Happy new thread, RD. ((Hugs)) and xxSmoochesxx

>41 alcottacre: Hey Stasia! Thanks for the hugs'n'smooches. I think Beauty Salon is one you'll really see the purpose of right away.

>40 swynn: Thanks, Steve! It was a really powerful book. It's not cheery, but it's top-notch storytelling.

>42 richardderus: Sound good, Richard. Thank you for the review and recommendation!

Hey, RD. Great review of Beauty Salon. I have added it to the list. I ended up really enjoying Tears of the Truffle-Pig. A very interesting author and one to keep an eye on.

Happy new thread, Richard dear!

>45 ronincats: A Jack'o'Tentacles! How wonderful! Thank you, Roni.

>44 msf59: I hope you'll really get down into it when its turn comes, Mark. And Trufflepig was a good read! That's always a good thing. It's still around here, so I can open it back up if the mood strikes. Never say never, right?

>43 alcottacre: *smooch*

Happy new one, Richard.

>18 richardderus: Nothing succeeds like excess. Thank you!

>48 quondame: Don't you know it! Such a glam lid...all those spinels and turquoises and such-like.

>47 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley, I just got back from saying the same thing to you on your new thread.

Wow, does this thread ever move fast! I love your lists up top.

Terry Pratchett on audio with various (almost all great) readers saved my bacon during a very very hard time a few years ago. (Which also involved a ridiculous amount of driving around. The first Pratchett I had read way before that didn't impress me at all, I just thought it was too silly, and I have no idea why I tried again, perhaps because I was told that as well as being funny, there was some sort of generous spirit at work in the work and that is what I needed desperately. I think it might have been The Wee Free Men and it was as if a door opened and I walked in. I doubt I would have enjoyed the novels so much just reading them.

I find that to be one of the fascinating aspects of reading, how a book you've picked up and rejected will suddenly be your best book of the year down the road. And conversely, of course, those books you can't believe you ever liked.

>50 sibylline: Hi Lucy! Really, it was the fact that Tony Robinson was reading an abridgement of Guards! Guards! that convinced me to try again at all. Ten hours?! Nay nay nay! Three? Okay, I can do anything for three hours. And lo and behold I didn't hate the damn thing!

So it's really true, never say never because you absolutely never know.

>25 richardderus: Well I'm not about to ignore a 5 star read Richard. Sounds like a great one.

>52 brenzi: Hi Bonnie! It's such a bitter indictment of the AIDS years' neglect and indifference...but it really is quite beautiful.

Happy New Thread!

Happy new thread, Richard!

Looking forward to seeing your Spooktober reads, though as you know I'll steer clear of the scary end of that spectrum. I may be rereading Rebecca at some point this month, though.

It's hard to see how this can be a new thread, but it's all only today.... Therefore, Happy New Thread, Richard! Read and treat us to lots of reviews, and I thank you!
Scary? I won't reread it this month, but I'll put my vote for The Haunting of Hill House.

I'm here I'm here I'm here!
*looks around for the Veuve Cliquot*

I’m a fairly recent convert to Terry Pratchett too. Tried one years ago, and wasn’t impressed so I decided he just wasn’t for me. Tried another one more recently and loved it.

Happy New Thread, Richard! I like the look of it, but wonder whether you might want to post a Freitas or two.

I've read several Pratchett books now, hoping to find the delight so many do but, alas, no such luck. I think I'm done trying.

Hiya, RD, and happy Tuesday to you.

It's a lovely day here in central NC. I've gotten the winter jammies out and will probably convert to winter sheets/bedspread for tonight's adventure in 64F-land. That's what I keep the temp at fall-winter-early spring upstairs.

*smooch*

>61 karenmarie: Happy Tuesday, Horrible, and enjoy your cuddly-warm sheetings. It's cooler than that here. Quite enjoyable, isn't it.

*smooch*

>60 jnwelch: Now that's a capital idea!

San Francisco really looks like that.

>59 SandDune: Oh nay nay nay, Rhian! I remain a heathen among Pratchettians. I've tried enough now. I see the humor. I just don't get enough out of it to want more. What's *astounding* is that I listened to a three-plus hour ear-read and (while I did fall asleep about midway through) did not hate it.

>58 Berly:, >57 LovingLit: That's a toast to be getting on with...

Now let's have the best of the best!

>56 LizzieD: Greetings, Peggy, thanks for coming by! I thought The Haunting of Hill House was unnerving, all right. I don't think I'll be re-reading it, either.

A new review tomorrow, so's you knows.

>55 bell7: I'm really not going in for spooks this Spooktober. I've decided it's going to be new-to-me mystery/thrillers! Friday...Friday...*loom*

Happy Tuesday! *smooch*

>54 SilverWolf28: Thank you, Silver!

Morning, BigDaddy! I loved The Haunting of Hill House. Also We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I think one of my favorite spooky reads is Something Wicked This Way Comes - love me some Bradbury. New to you mystery/thrillers sounds like just the ticket. *smooch*

>65 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie! *smooch*

I'm so pleased I did this Spooktober variation. Spies are spooks, right? And *real* scares, to me, are what people do to each other all the time.
***
Great news! My Pfizer booster is on Thursday at 10a!

>66 richardderus: Whoot!!

Happy Tuesday, RD!! ((Hugs)) for today

>66 richardderus: Terrific news about the booster!!

>68 alcottacre:, >67 Crazymamie: Thanks, y'all! I'm glad it's happening at last. I've now got to remember, once it's done, to cancel my *other* appointment for one in a few weeks.

>63 richardderus: Cheers!! And especially since you get your booster on Thursday!! Glad you are enjoying your spooky spies. LOL. I just got me the first in the Time Police series by Jodi Taylor.

>70 Berly: I am SO RELIEVED to be boostering soon. It's a huge weight off my mind, living among the vulnerable population like I do.

Enjoy the champers, and Doing Time, and get some spy fiction in your brain because it's so flooflyfluffypoof silly.

Hooray for the booster!

Oh, happy booster.

>73 Ameise1: Thank you, Barbara! I appreciate it.

>72 katiekrug: Thanks, Katie, it is a genuine relief. It's not like I'd never've gotten one but this way I don't need to fret about breakthrough infections anywhere near as much.
***
Oh William! is on sale today.

Hi Richard dear friend, happy new thread.

Hooray for the booster, RD! I am loving Once There Were Wolves. This woman has quickly become a favorite.

>76 msf59: Hi Mark, thanks about the booster...and the new book sounds really fascinating.

>75 johnsimpson: Thank you, John!

Congrats on getting the booster shot. I hope you stay safe.

I have yet to try any Pratchett books, though I've seen bits and pieces of 1-2 movie adaptations. During my recent covid layup I did think about putting out a call for any Pratchett books in the building to while away my convalescence. Went with the Heyer romances instead. Less effort to just pull them from my shelves.

‘Morning, RDear! Happiest of Wednesdays to you.

>66 richardderus: Yay for the booster. It has provided me with peace of mind again, what with waning vaccine protection and Delta. Still masking up, still hand sanitizing, still social distancing, of course.

>79 karenmarie: Thanks, Horrible! I'll still be doing all those things, too. Just don't want to have them being driven by anxiety rather allaying it.

>78 justchris: Thank you, Chris, it's just not worth risking a layup like yours for me...the booster can't but make my odds better.

The Heyer decision makes perfect sense to me. Her stories are almost all delightfully engaging to read.

Happy Humpday, and continued good health.

>45 ronincats: A dodecopus?

>81 humouress: Someone wasn't terribly good at shadows.

Happy Wednesday, Richard. Thanks for chiming in on Janet Frame and recommending Owls Do Cry. I will have to check that one out. Is that the only Frame that you have read?

>83 msf59: Happy Humpday, Mark. It's the better of the two I've read of Frame's books. Living in the Maniototo wasn't very well-hung-together. We shift between Frame's beautiful and evocative language serving a sense of place and its use to make philosophical discussions of Death more immediate.

It fails. I didn't read another after that although I had Faces in the Water and An Angel at My Table at one time.

173 Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: The Pulitzer Prize-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author traces the enduring bond between a divorced couple in a poignant novel about love, loss, and the family secrets that can erupt and bewilder us at any point in life.

Through her careful words and reverberating silences (The New York Times), Elizabeth Strout has long captured readers' hearts with her spare, exquisite insights on family, relationships, and loss. And never has her perfect attunement to the human condition (Hilary Mantel) been so evident as in these pages, as Strout's iconic heroine Lucy Barton, of My Name Is Lucy Barton, recounts her complex, tender relationship with William, her first husband—and longtime, on-again-off-again friend and confidant. Recalling their college years, through the birth of their daughters, the painful dissolution of their marriage, and the lives they built with other people, Strout weaves a portrait, stunning in its subtlety, of a decades-long partnership.

A masterful exploration of human empathy, Oh William! captures the joy and pain of watching children grow up and start families of their own; of discovering family secrets, late in life, that rearrange everything we think we know about those closest to us; and the way people live and love, despite the variety of obstacles we face in doing so. And at the heart of this story is the unforgettable, indomitable voice of Lucy Barton, who once again offers a profound, lasting reflection on the very nature of existence. This is the way of life, Lucy says. The many things we do not know until it is too late.

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

My Review: I, alone among US adults 49-64, did not like Olive Kitteridge. I was lukewarm about My Name is Lucy Barton, but I didn't find it intolerably tedious. I truly can't think what made me ask Random House for a DRC of this book, but ask I did and they, unaccountably, said yes.

I'm really rather glad they did.

Lucy Barton is greatly more to my taste than Olive ever was. Amgash, her terrible isolated childhood, her absolutely clueless bumblings through parenthood, childhood's memories, learning to be Other with her mother, her *her*ness, rubbed me the right way as opposed to Olive's sandpaper-on-a-sore-tooth effect on me.

This story comes to me when I am Lucy's age, and I am also taking stock of my many pasts. William, father of Lucy's two daughters, wasn't the right husband for her nor was she the right wife for him. (Two more failed or failing marriages later, no one seems to be.) But they're friends. And as anyone who's ever been married or long-term-coupled will tell you, that's the thing that lasts. Their continued use of Button, her nickname from William, and Pillie, his nickname from her, is signaling this is a friendship for life. What her divorce stemmed from was, I suspect she is now coming to realize, a misunderstanding of what their true connection was.

But why, after decades apart, are we back in the position of hearing about William? Because the crisis in his life, learning an unwelcome truth about his own mother (whose relationship to Lucy was always cordial, if fraught on Lucy's side), and realizing that at seventy-one he is not going to Make It Right without trying (for once!), draws him right back to his heart-stealing first wife. She, whose second marriage was so very happy until he died on her, won't ever say No to Pillie. (Skip over the divorce bit.)

What transpires in this book was that rare and precious thing: Self discovery. Pillie and Button don't have all the time in the world, and they don't have a lot to lose as a result. Their relationship-long ability to connect in honesty (which is also why she left their marriage) is, at this late date, the most precious and unbelievably rare gift each has to give; the gift that each is now grateful to receive.

Lucy's old. She's had time to marinate in her failures. And she *still* obsesses about surfaces and appearances! Such a little thing, her snarky asides about what others are wearing and who can't make a decent speech; but so instantly relatable. Her life-long isolation and Otherness, relics of the childhood she survived, are never going to be gone, finished, dealt with. And that knowledge is how she can relate to William, how she can find her way to being his friend...he's got the issues she's got, just from other causes. Where Lucy was made to feel invisible, William was made to feel he could only be BIG. It comes to the same thing in the end: Are you going to leave a hole in the world when you leave it?

Grief is such a—oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you.
–and–
I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me.

I feel invisible, is what I mean. But I mean it in the deepest way. It is very hard to explain. And I cannot explain it except to say—oh, I don’t know what to say! Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world. It could be as simple as the fact that we had no mirrors in our house when I was growing up except for a very small one high above the bathroom sink. I really do not know what I mean, except to say that on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.

These two people, these old friends, are groping towards the sense of life as it was lived being, when all is said and done, okay. Not great, not awful, okay. And the grief of that, the waste of "okay" to the world, is what they're learning to shrug off.

Eight decades on Earth and growing up never stops. If you're lucky. Pillie and Button are lucky. So are you and I, if we go with them.

Does my rating now seem mingy to you? I suspect it might. I'm not being unkind when I say there is a chemistry between writer and reader that I do not feel with Author Strout. Her phrase-making is often crazy-making for me. Her dithering women make me so so so so glad I'm gay. There are, of course, men who dither but thankfully I scare them off. I spent this whole book wanting to shout at Lucy, "GET TO THE POINT!!" when the point was that she doesn't. That made the read much more of a chore than a pleasure. But the story Lucy lived with her friend William, the story they're still living, was so very touching and moving and deeply agreeable to me that I powered through my desire to enact domestic violence upon her as she dithered and divagated and wittered *deep breath* Okay. Enough about that.

So there's the missing star-and-a-half. On the cutting-room floor, shall we say. But I want to be clear about this: Of the three books by Author Strout that I've read, this is head-and-shoulders above the rest and is the only one I will say, "read this, you will like it," about. It can be read as a stand-alone. It is better read after My Name is Lucy Barton, though. If you've already read Lucy Barton, you should trot right over to the bookery you prefer to patronize to get this before the COVID shortages make it impossible. Or, like me, get it on Kindle/e-reader.

But do get it.

" I, alone among US adults 49-64, did not like Olive Kitteridge". Nope. It was DNF for me.

Morning, BigDaddy!

>86 Crazymamie: I'm relieved to have such August Company.

But, but that does not mean you shouldn't try this one! Much much better a story, and a read.

>87 richardderus: Nope. If you had given it five stars, I would think about it. Her similes and metaphors do not speak to me. But I liked reading your review, so there is that.

>88 Crazymamie: Well, good point...I'm not exactly standing atop Mount St. Helens sending up flares for y'all's attention, am I.

I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it, though.

I've never read any Strout. I feel a twinge of entirely self imposed guilt if I don't read in series order, so I suppose I ought to go and look out My Name is Lucy Barton, unless you'd suggest this one to start?

>85 richardderus: I already had My Name is Lucy Barton in the BlackHole. I will have to move it up a bit. Thanks for the reminder, Richard.

((Hugs)) and xxSmoochesxx for today. Happy Wednesday!

>91 alcottacre: It's worth your eyeblinks, Stasia. *smooch*

>90 Helenliz: Borrow it from the library, Helen. It's not something so marvelous I'd say to get your mitts on it no matter what.

>85 richardderus: Really excellent review, Richard. (I'm still not going to read it, at least not right now. I don't know I could endure the type of character Lucy appears to be at this time.)

Happy Wednesday! Woot-woot for the booster! Mine's scheduled for November. Since I live alone and mostly only interact with the kids and grandkids, who have recently been tested (yes, even the 4 week old), and mine was Moderna, I'm not too worried about the wait. Even so, I'm totally with you on wanting the peace of mind the booster will bestow.

>93 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! I think Oh Wiliam! will make its way to you when the time's right.

I'm so glad it's happening at last. I'm all about easing my mind of as many worries as I'm able to. Have a happy Humpday!

Happy newish thread. Good to see that Oh William was more to your liking that the other Strouts you read, Richard. I'm not a huge fan myself.

>95 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg, and while I dislike Olive Kitteridge, Lucy Barton wasn't in the field of fire. I'm pretty sure this one will make regulars purr, if it could get me to go all the way into it.

>85 richardderus: Glad it was an overall good read, if not perfect. I adored Olive Kitteridge (the last story made up for a lot, actually) but The Burgess Boys was a DNF for me. I do want to try Lucy Barton's tales at some point.

Hi Richard! I’m on the holds list for Oh, William but I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to reading it or not. I loved Olive Kittridge and Olive Again but was kind of lukewarm about The Burgess Boys and Lucy Barton. Luckily, I’m a firm believer in dumping a book that isn’t working for me.

My Spooktober read is one of Mary’s picks (thanks Mary!), A Night in the Lonesome October. It’s rather fun so it’s hitting the spot. I also have an Agatha Christie collection, The Last Seance, that I’d like to get to this month but, well, we’ll see if I get to it. I’ve been reading lots of mysteries lately. (I’m also a firm believer in reading what you enjoy.)

Happy to hear you’ve got your booster scheduled - good for you!! My hubby got his a week ago. I’m waiting for Moderna to be approved since I want to stick with the one I got. Anxiously waiting though, since I got my second shot way back in January. I don’t really go anywhere except maybe the grocery store and the library so I shouldn’t be too anxious!

>98 Copperskye: Hi there, Joanne! I'm glad you're on the list. You might like it better than you think.

It's a good feeling to know I'm putting another piece of artillery in the defenses against getting sick again. I'm hoping you'll get yours very soon.

Enjoy Spooktober, Dame Ags or no!

>97 bell7: What amazed me, TBH, was that I finished it at all. That tells me what I need to know about the quality of the tale!
***
Everyone ready for My Heart is a Chainsaw's sequel? You got until 26 July 2022 to put your affairs in order!

>85 richardderus: Well, as I did like Olive, this might be better for me. The corresponding vice in men isn't that they dither, it's that they barge ahead. It can be wearing, but is probably less tedious in storytelling than it is to actually live with. As my hold queues at the libraries are overflowing, I'll have to find an alternate means of stacking Lucy Barton in a TBR.

Octopus playing &| tarot cards by Jake Kobrin and Amanda Lyn Dietritch Kickstarter*:



*This link is just cycling back to your page when I click it from your page, but when I enter the URL I get to the Kickstarter page.

>100 quondame: I like that little spot of colour on each of them. I wonder if they're iridescent/ holographic?

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

My reading has slowed down a bit, so I had to delete Humboldt's Gift (and a few others) from my October reading list. Maybe next month...

Morning, BigDaddy! We have made it to Thursday, which is the last day of the week for me because Friday always feels like part of the weekend.

>99 richardderus: There's a sequel?! You just made my day!

'Morning, RDear. Happy Thursday to you.

I'm off to the Spine Clinic this afternoon to see what they can do for my poor back. The appointment was made in August and the immediate need has worn off, but maybe they'll have something interesting to say.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>104 karenmarie: Thursday orisons! I hope the spine appointment goes well, Horrible. *smooch*

>103 Crazymamie: ...I like your weeks better than the secular ones...

I know, isn't that a wonderful bit of news?! I'm so pleased that he's got more to say about the wonderful Jade.

>102 FAMeulstee: Hi Anita! Thanks for stopping by. I know what you mean about revising the plan. It's always wise to be willing to do this, though. To be okay with making the plan fit reality, not reality fit the plan.

>101 humouress: Oh, wouldn't iridescence just *make* these?!

>100 quondame: What cool cards!! I'm not sure what's up with that link. Maybe your grammar? Are both ends of the URL inside quotes?

Barging ahead is fixable with patience and explanation (and a modicum of intelligence in the student). Dithering is not. Ditherers dither. It is an essential quality. I am not saying women are the only ditherers, my own mother and both sisters were/are decidedly NOT ditherers and my father was.

It is exceedingly annoying in small doses. It is intolerable quite quickly.

174 Death at Whitewater Church by Andrea Carter

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A missing groom—a deconsecrated church—a hidden crypt—a skeleton wrapped in a blanket

When a skeleton is discovered in the hidden crypt of a deconsecrated church, everyone is convinced the bones must be those of Conor Devitt, a local man who went missing on his wedding day six years previously. But the postmortem reveals otherwise.

Solicitor Benedicta “Ben” O’Keeffe is acting for the owners of the church, and although an unwelcome face from her past makes her reluctant to get involved, when Conor’s brother dies in strange circumstances shortly after coming to see her, she finds herself drawn in to the mystery. Whose is the skeleton in the crypt and how did it get there? Is Conor Devitt still alive, and if so, is there a link? What happened on the morning of his wedding to make him disappear?

Negotiating between the official investigation—headed up by the handsome but surly Sergeant Tom Molloy—and obstructive locals with secrets of their own, Ben unravels layers of personal and political history to get to the truth of what happened six years before.

Death at Whitewater Church is the first in a series of Ben O’Keeffe mysteries set on the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal, Ireland.

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

My Review: A terrific series-starting book, also an excellent publishing debut. Author Carter is a talented writer and was well-served in her editor. The flourishes rhetorical were agreeable:

Being an outsider in a town where most people have spent their whole lives is not the easiest way to live. Sometimes, in my darker moments, I felt as if my role here was limited to that of an observer and facilitator for other people. That my own life was a sort of half-life, as if I didn’t really count because no one knew my “people.” But I have my reasons for being here.

Pretty, also useful, also informative. A good writer takes that kind of direction from a good editor..."make the infodump into a confession!" resounds to a truly wickedly attuned writer like Author Carter is.

There are many twists and turns in Ben's trip through Whitewater's past. Her beautiful world of small-town solicitor worries, conveyances and wills and the like, is completely upended by the toothy rocks she's clung to while getting herself out of the North Atlantic after one of her truly daft February swims. Her local knowledge makes the stakes of learning her new community's older secrets all the more poignant and relevant.

I'll offer a mild criticism here: There is very little sense of the Love Interest's appeal. He's a blank canvas with some sketch-lines showing what he can possibly be. Even the moments that are the most intimate between Ben and Tom, before the fire and after the wine, aren't so much said as reported in the past tense.

It's a minor whinge. It niggled slightly and I noticed it, so I bring it up. But the *important* bit is the crimes that were and are committed in this small town. It's quite the surprise as to who's been bad and why. I found the resolution quite unimpeachably witnessed and for reasons I was completely sure were logical. The resolution fit the facts, and the way it's told to us is well within my suspension of disbelief.

Bravo, Author Carter, for making this series-starting novel a career-starting one as well.

>107 richardderus: A direct hit. This one is currently $1.99 on Kindle, so I snagged it.

>107 richardderus: I found the resolution quite unimpeachably witnessed and for reasons I was completely sure were logical. An author who does the proper things and doesn't resort to confession to solve the thing? My major bugbear with a lot of modern crime fiction.

>109 Helenliz: Oh, confession enters into it! It's in a church, after all.

But not the usual way, shall we say.

>108 Crazymamie: I was going to come drop the link to the $1.99 in your thread, but you found it before I could.

I suppose that leaves my soul in less jeopardy as I didn't enact my eville plotte.

Sweet Thursday, Richard. Good review of Oh William!. I am glad to see you give it a try, especially since you are not a fan of Strout. I am, unabashedly a big fan of her work. I will be reading her latest.

Our weather has dipped back into late fall temps. Only in the low 50s today and probably through the weekend. Bringing out those flannel sheets.

>111 msf59: Thanks, Mark! It was a pleasure, albeit a mitigated one, to read the book.

I'm actually glad to hear that it's seasonable for a change. It's been such a wild ride. I think our mid-60s to 70° will do nicely, though!

What >108 Crazymamie: said.

>107 richardderus: As I was looking through my books to read (by series) card file, I noticed I had the first in that series downloaded because I'd picked it up on a Kindle bargain. I suspect it is one I'll attempt to get to next year.

>114 thornton37814: I suspect you'll enjoy it, Lori, it's one with an excellent sense of place and beginnings of characters.

>113 katiekrug: *smooch*
***
I'm Pfizered up for the third time! Yay me!

>115 richardderus: yay, indeed.

>115 richardderus: Good on the Pfizer trifecta. Welcome. I got the flu shot yesterday, and, I say, and I stopped by the Goodwill Store, dropped off some stuff (not books—Good God! What do you take me for?), and drove off without entering and scanning the bookshelf and leaving with a full sack. What a good boy!

>117 weird_O: An excellent boy indeed!

Also aptly yclept: weirdo

>117 weird_O:, >116 Helenliz: Thanks re: Pfizering.

>115 richardderus: I'm waiting until after the 1st of November to get mine although I'm eligible in a few more days. The main reason is that I can't afford to be sick for 36-48 hours with what I've got going on between now and the end of the month.

>119 thornton37814: I'm still asymptomatic, if that helps, ten hours on.

>120 richardderus: That's good. Did you get sick with your 2nd Pfizer dose? I've heard people who say they got sick on round 3 about the same time as they did with the second dose--which for me was about 12 hours later.

>121 thornton37814: I was tired about six hours later, and then slept a lot for another day. This time, nothing.

>106 richardderus: I've had almost the opposite experience. Sometimes a ditherer can get some confidence and isn't such a drag, but bargers just don't look back to see the rubble behind. As I'm a bit of both I figure I'd best be able to be generally tolerant.

>107 richardderus: The pile is getting quite high. And Ireland, why did it have to be Ireland?

>123 quondame: Not only Ireland...a five-books-and-counting series...and a television adaptation....

The wisest course is always to strain yourself towards maximal tolerance.

Glad you got your booster with no side effects (so far). I'm not eligible as a healthy young-un, but I might try in a few months if there's still a lot of shots available, and see if a pharmacist or my doctor will agree with me that my job should qualify me (they list teachers, not librarians, which still flummoxes me).

>125 bell7: Still nothing, more than 12 hours later. *shrug*

Of course there's no law of physics preventing me from dying in the middle of the night due to a neutrino bumping a single atom into the precise worst place. But that's true every day.

...Everybody Knows librarians are eligible because they're all over 65...

...Everybody Knows librarians are eligible because they're all over 65...

*eyebrows raised* As someone who still occasionally gets carded, I have a sneaking suspicion that I will not convince anyone I'm over 65 anytime soon. But I'll give you the fact that I've been the youngest at the library for most of my 22 years there.

>125 bell7: - >127 bell7: I think it shows that regulators are neither great readers nor very imaginative.

>128 quondame:, >127 bell7: Mary...dearest...I know you're not *actually* 65, having seen you in the flesh...but Librarians, to a person, are 65 and over the day they accept the job. Hand-knitted cardigans, antimacassars on the computer chairs, little frilly top hats in festive colors over the, um, sanitary paper...hot tea *retch* and wee little reading glasses...the whole nine.

It is The Stereotype. Lean in.

>129 richardderus: From under the sleeve of my local librarian's cardigan the sinuous curves of dark tattoos wander into view. Also at the neck.

Illusions! All illusions!

😂😂😂 Uncle. I fit most of the stereotypes of my job, I admit.

My boss is the one with tattoos. I'm planning on crazy hair color in January though.

>115 richardderus: Third times the charm!!

>133 Berly:, >132 bell7: Oh wow. I've been knocked flat! At 4a, I woke up *miserable* and achy. My hands have been so bad that I can't grasp anything despite wearing a narcotic patch!

I'm barely awake now. It's best described as the feel of my COVID infection, only faster acting. I'm starting to feel a tiny bit better already. But wow! Sudden onset, maybe quick passing...?

Morning, BigDaddy! Sorry to hear that yours has had such a rough start. Hoping you are feeling much better very soon.

The Librarian conversation made me laugh out loud.

>134 richardderus: - OOF. I'm glad you're already starting to feel a bit better, but what a wallop to awake to!

>136 katiekrug:, >135 Crazymamie: It's receding. Not quickly enough, of course, but my hands don't have such terrible pain and, if I remain recumbent, I don't feel dizzy and nauseated.

Coffee has helped. When has coffee not helped? It took me 10min to figure out that I had already prepped the pot, washed the Sacred Ronimug, and opened the milk while I was still okay yesterday.

I love yesterme.

Urgh. Hope the response diminishes and you're back on good form pronto.
Coffee always helps.

>138 Helenliz: The only problem is I'm rewatching GBBO and I *reallyreally* want a piece of Chigs's Prinzregententorte. Wow.

Sorry to hear you got hit with a side effects whammy. Hopefully you're feeling much more the thing in a few hours. *feel better smooches*

>140 MickyFine: Thank you, Micky, I'm feeling better after drinking hot coffee. It really does help.

Bleurgh to the whole process, but at least it seems to be moving quickly. I hope it keeps up that schedule.

Or someone comes to kill me. Either way.

Get feeling better. Right now! Dammit.

>142 weird_O: I am doing my dead-level best, I promise you!

>142 weird_O: What he said!

I am so very sorry that you are still not feeling MUCH better. What is taking so long?! I regret that I am unable to kill you as requested over on my thread because I have BIG love for you. Sending you a healing whammy instead. *smooch*

>144 Crazymamie: *sigh*

Permaybehaps Horrible, or our local CIA operative Larry, will deliver the coup de grâce.

*sigh*

It's the jumble-sale feeling that irks me! Like my hands came from one corpse and my knees from a much smaller one and these stupid glands straight out of the Chernobyl main reactor.

I'll have to put the next two Inishowen reviews of until Sunday, just can't do 'em justice. Such a terrific series!

>134 richardderus: Oh ouch! May it already be past and never seen again.

I signed up for a booster tomorrow afternoon.

>146 quondame: Nope. Just a bit less acutely awful, still aching and generally miserable.

Still, it's a sign that the vaccine is working, so it's hard to feel angry about it. Just miserable.

>147 richardderus: Sorry the side effects of the second booster are bad, Richard dear.
I hope you feel better soon!

Feel better soon. *smooch*

>149 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I'm starting to see some decent improvement.

>148 FAMeulstee: It's starting to improve, Anita, I'm actually not wishing a meteor would crash into me through the wall or something. Cross your fingers this keeps up!

>98 Copperskye: So glad you're enjoying Lonesome October, Joanne. I returned my copy to the library today in case someone else local wants to read it this month.

You're in luck! Apparently the Moderna (and J&J) booster has been approved by the FDA, and now they're just waiting for CDC approval. I'm getting mine next month from the clinic I go to for regular doctor appointments. The only vaccine they give is Moderna, so I'm good with that.

>107 richardderus: Another BB hits the target, and by "target" I mean me. Always in the market for a good new mystery series.

Trust that you will be feeling much better shortly, dear fellow.

Have a restful weekend.

Dropping in to wish you a wonderful weekend. May you feel better soon :)

Feel better my friend!! So you can enjoy the weekend. : ) Smooch.

Happy Saturday, Richard. I hope you wake up feeling better today. Sorry to hear you were struggling. I just started a story collection that you might like- The Office of Historical Corrections. It may have all ready been on your radar.

‘Morning, RDear!

>134 richardderus: I’m so sorry you were knocked flat yesterday. Didn’t you have strong reactions to the first two doses, too?

>137 richardderus: When has coffee not helped? You've got that one right!!

I hope you're having a better start to your day.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

Morning, BigDaddy! How are you feeling today? Any better?

Eww! Have you got the lergy? I'll be back ... sometime.

>158 Crazymamie:

>157 karenmarie: Not the first dose, but the second knocked me flat. This one's not quite as miserable as that, and neither compares to COVID.

>156 msf59: Hi Mark! I'm not really sure about feeling better but the things that hurt have changed.

>155 Berly: It's a work in progress, Berly-boo. Progress is what I'm hoping to make.

>160 richardderus: Oh, dear!

>154 figsfromthistle: Thanks, Anita, I'm still hopeful that this will be done by tomorrow.

>153 katiekrug: Yeup! And she was So Very Wounded by her bounce, clearly did not think she deserved it despite that *ab*surd* "upside-down cake" with the (as Prue said of her pavlova) sloppy bit in the middle leading down to dry crumbly "cake." Such a relief!

>152 PaulCranswick: Thanks, PC, I'm at least aching in different places and have lessened my desire to expire. Progress!

>151 Storeetllr: *preens*

Sadly I did not have the second book in the series...I could've sworn I did!...but the third has enough clues to the events of the second that I don't feel all at sea. It is as much fun to read as #1, so that's quite good.

>159 humouress: Wait! It's vaccine-related! I don't have the plague again!

>163 richardderus: Well ... alright then. Glad to see you're feeling a bit better. You're certainly typing up a storm ;0)

>164 humouress:

I just got the booster. Awaiting flattening.

>166 quondame: May it be brief.

'Morning, RDear! I hope you're fully recovered from the booster lurgy.

Here's a stunner for you - my sister, who I love dearly except for her politics and her religion, actually said yesterday that she would rather her 6-year old grandson get COVID than the vaccine. I'll be interested to see if my niece/wife get Oliver vaccinated (🤞).

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>169 karenmarie: I am...that is...you can NOT...
...
...
...human idiocy and pig-headedness are...
...
...oh my fucking goddesses.

That is...well, anyway, the niecewife collective could still exhibit common sense.

No further miseries to report. I had the fever-break sweat at 3a, now feel ravenously hungry (two bananas and oatmeal is more than my usual breakfast and I *never* eat before I'm fully caffeinated!) after eating at the ungoddessly hour of 7a.

Morning, Richard. Happy Sunday. I hope you are feeling a bit better today. Rain has moved in and will stay here for awhile, so it will be a perfect day for books & football.

Morning, BigDaddy! I am so glad that you are feeling better. I never eat before coffee, either, so I register the weirdness. *smooch*

>172 Crazymamie: Hiya Mamie! There's much weirdness in feeling that ill, bit having it cut off so abruptly is also peculiar and unsettling. But then to *need* to eat so very differently than is my norm...!

*smooch*

>171 msf59: Hi Mark! Perfect, perfect inside day. Hoping it all goes to your wishes.

Hi, Richard! Glad you are feeling better. After your experience, I'm gearing up for another bout of vaccination reaction. I had a rough time after my second shot back in March, but it only lasted for a few hours. After a good night's sleep, I was fine the next day. I hope it's no worse than that when I get my booster in November.

>169 karenmarie: With my 2 year old and 1 month old grandkids unable to be vaccinated, them getting COVID is my worst nightmare. I don't even know what to say about your sister's take on it.

Glad to read the vaccination side effects are gone, Richard dear.
Frank has returned to work last night, and just left for his second night. So it is just my and my books, I realise I like my alone time more than I used to do.

>175 FAMeulstee: Thank you, Anita! Yes, the aging process does bring our fundamental natures more and more to the fore.

>174 Storeetllr: Ain't that the gawd's honest truth...I'd be inconsolable if my daughter or her family came down with this nightmare disease.

I'd say the best that can happen is to feel crappy, what with the nature of the vaccination process. Given the awfulness of COVID's morbidity, I'm taking the investment my body made in sheer misery as a sign of its efficacy in preventing the nightmarishly worse outcome.

Glad your reaction is over now, Richard, and that you can return to regularly scheduled programming, accompanied by a suitable filled Ronimug!

>177 ronincats: Thank you, Roni! I had a truly awful moment this morning when I got up and went to fill the Ronimug with hot water preparatory to coffeeing it...and it wasn't there!!

It was still by my bed. I felt too crappy to give it the wash-and-drain. But briefly the adrenal system went into panic stations.

>176 richardderus: I'd put up with a lot more than I had with my second shot in order to keep myself safe (as safe as possible) from getting COVID. I mean, a few hours/days of misery to, you know, dying? Pfft.

>178 richardderus: LOL Glad you found your ronimug!

>170 richardderus: Oh yes, I do hope that the niecewife collective are smart in this regard.

>174 Storeetllr: My sister listens to her husband, who is a right-wing asshole. They watch Fox News and the stuff even to the right of that abomination. She told me that there are only 10-20 children in the Entire US who’ve gotten COVID. You just cannot reason with her. She’s drunk the Kool-aid.

>169 karenmarie: >170 richardderus: It is just hard to believe how people are, isn't it. Boggles.

I'm glad 1) no one took your whining seriously, 2) you are improved.

So far I'm just a bit sore at the injection site.

>181 quondame: I'm glad for you on the one arm, Susan, and hope that the shot's doing its sacred work in your immune system.

It's a source of never-ending amazement to me that people can *INSIST* that demonstrably untrue things are true (flat earthers, etc), and come up with the most baroque rationalizations to avoid facing the truth. The Big Steal?!? If they buy that one, they're retroactively throwing the 2016 election under the bus. Yet it simply does not crease their craniums that, if you invalidate one contentious election, you invalidate them all.

>180 karenmarie: She married him. She's stayed with him. Not just a few years, either. This is her, not just him, or she'd've hit the door a long time back.

>179 Storeetllr: Yuk it up, Mary, go ahead, laugh at my agony. :-P

Dying is pretty much off my to-do list for the foreseeable. Dying like that is off any list I can keep. I don't even wish that death on 45.

...well...I'd *like* to be that good a person...surely that counts...?

Glad to hear you're on the mend and your immune system has been doing it's thing. It's a good thing, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.

Hoping M-day behaves itself for you. Coffee mug cheers *chink*

>183 Helenliz: It's done its stuff, thanks Helen, and I'm here feeling normal and pleasant enough.

Other opinions are available...

Hoping you're onto a repeatable formula for Mondays, Helen. Behaving > misbehaving when it comes to weekdays.

Morning, BigDaddy!

>183 Helenliz: What she said.

‘Morning, RDear!

>182 richardderus: Oh yes, I agree – she married the bastard in 1975 when he was 19 and she was 18 and could have left had she had the self-confidence and emotional wherewithal to do so. There were several times when I wish she had. She even kicked him out in 2000 for 3 months but took him back, more's the pity. This is also the woman who didn’t go to college for a singing career because she would have had to work part time (parents made too much money for need-based scholarships) and was told she SHOULDN’T attempt it. She’s been regretting not going to college ever since. She married him instead. But she loves him. Blech. And it shouldn’t surprise you that she buys into the Big Steal, too. I do love my sister but there are a lot of things about her I don't like.

>184 richardderus: I didn’t wake up ‘til 9 and am still a tad groggy. Not drug-groggy, just went back to sleep about 6 and slept hard. Coffee is starting to work.

>183 Helenliz: and >185 Crazymamie: What they said.

*smooch*

>186 karenmarie: >180 karenmarie: I'm so sorry. It's hard to lose a loved one to the black hole of rightwing insanity. It's a real problem, the amount of crazy being promulgated to gullible people who then, apparently, refuse to change their minds no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. I imagine in future there will be a lot of studies undertaken regarding and books written discussing this phenomenon.

>182 richardderus: Dying is pretty much off my to-do list for the foreseeable. Dying like that is off any list I can keep. I don't even wish that death on 45.

...well...I'd *like* to be that good a person...surely that counts...?

With you there, Richard.

175 The Well of Ice by Andrea Carter

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A cold—and terrifying—Christmas holiday on the Inishowen Peninsula

December in Glendara, Inishowen, and solicitor Benedicta 'Ben' O'Keeffe is working flat out before the holidays. But on a trip to Dublin to visit her parents, she runs into Luke Kirby—the man who killed her sister—freshly released from jail. On the surface he appears remorseful, conciliatory even, but his comment as she walks away makes her realise he is as foul as ever.

Back in Glendara, there is chaos. The Oak pub has burned down and Carole Kearney, the Oak's barmaid, has gone missing. And then, while walking the dog up Sliabh Sneacht, Ben and her partner, Sergeant Tom Molloy, make a gruesome discovery: a body lying face down in the snow.

Who is behind this vicious attack on Glendara and its residents? Ben tries to find answers, but is she the one in danger?

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

My Review: I don't know how the heck I didn't get book two of this series! I thought I had it and it wasn't until I was writing these reviews that I realized it wasn't here. Quite peeved with myself for being so careless...there are things that happened in book two, Treacherous Strand, that form the basis of the mystery in this entry. Author Carter quite competently fills me in, I'm not left wondering what the devil's up or why, but I'd've enjoyed getting here the old-fashioned way.

Don't make my mistake! But let it be said that I'm not in any way feeling deprived in my enjoyment of this book's plot, characters, or action.

The story isn't a straight-forward one: there are threads that tie things together that we aren't so much tipped to, but whose...wrongness...is a clear indicator that your inner sleuth should be engaged in this read at all times. The relationships among the good burghers of Glendara are not the uncomplicated "rural places are full of the salt of the earth charming lovely folk" types. There's adultery, but ya know what that's no biggie; there's bigamy, and that IS a biggie; then there's bastardy, and this ancient uncrime becomes the weight on the loom of Disaster's tapestry.

As is expected, too, the law-enforcement officer and the sleuth are challenged as a couple. Their own trust issues, springing from different places but with similar power, are foregrounded by every development in the several awful, violent crimes. It can't be helped. When each person is in a position of community trust, a couple is going to be hard put to fulfill their required roles at every turn—frequently starting from the internal question "what is my actual appropriate role right now?" No one can always get it right, and with all the best intentions, getting something catastrophically wrong is inevitable.

This does not in any way mean that I wasn't shouting "ARE YOU MENTAL DO NOT DO THAT" at my Kindle on multiple occasions. I honestly wanted to find the place on the map, book a flight, and go hand out some ass-chewings. Luckily for me I can tell you Author Carter really did make these places up.

While there's no story without some characters (plural) making bad decisions, the sheer obliviousness to the stakes of inaction that each and every one of them demonstrated at various times frightened me. Decisions to act in foolish ways are always easier to fix than failures to act in appropriate and timely ways. "Least said soonest mended" is NOT THE WAY FORWARD with criminals. Worrying about someone's feelings when there is a murderer in the vicinity is stupid. Blurt it out, fix it later! And even if you can't *at least they're alive*!

There are people no longer alive at the end of this book but, in the approved fashion for cozies, they are not people I myownself mind being dead. Not one little bit. Though, to be honest, the conclusion of this entry in the series does not include a vital piece of confirmation that suspicious ol' series-mystery consumer me seriously feels the lack of. The story is one of those that contains a credible motive for the resolution by discussion, but this feature could easily become a bug if it takes place every book.

What I'll delight in seeing more of is the way the community of Glendara continues to be willing and able to face down its dissension, hurts, and divisions. What I'll anticipate...not for much longer, Oceanview Publishing brings out Murder at Greysbridge on the second of November!...is learning how the huge sea-change, the La-Palma-landslide tsunami-level surprise plays out in this modern-world-problems involving series. I'm always happiest when reading books that don't cocoon the characters away from reality without reasonable care being taken to explain why they should be. I'm extra happy that Author Carter decided not to do that at all in this series.

Yes, I wish I'd read book two before this and am annoyed with myself that I carelessly failed to check the series list before starting this one. No, I'm not at all saddened by the way I was brought up to speed. And most of all, I'm so happy I got to read Andrea Carter's Inishowen series. Seek it out in paper, download a digital copy, read them in order!, but definitely read them soon.

>187 Storeetllr: Thanks for that validation, Mary.

>186 karenmarie: Those early connections...so important. Usually for the worst, I fear, but important nonetheless.

>185 Crazymamie: Hey there Mamie!
***
Anyone else having problems adding books to their catalog?

>189 richardderus: Yes, I tried to add the Andrea Carter mysteries to my wishlist, but no dice.

>190 Storeetllr: I'm relieved! If it was just me I'd be worried but...they'll fix it sooner or later.

And yay for adding the series to your catalog!

Almost-Tuesday *smooches*

Hiya, RD, and happy Tuesday to you.

>187 Storeetllr: Thank you, Mary.

>188 richardderus: A BB! I just bought Death at Whitewater Church on Kindle for $1.99.

*smooch*

Morning, Richard. The rain has moved out so I am will be back on the trails. I am also on call, for my FIL. He should be released today. I am sure he can't wait to get home.

>188 richardderus: That's a series that's been on my radar.

>195 thornton37814: I think it's worth your time, Lori.

>194 msf59: Good kind of a day, then, Mark. I hope your poor FiL gets home soon.

>193 karenmarie: Heh. I've got you in my sights, mystery-wise....

*smooch*

>192 bell7: Happy it's-Tuesday-now, Mary! *smooch*

Morning, BigDaddy!

>197 Crazymamie: Howdy do, Mamie dearest. How goes the war?

>189 richardderus: Delurking to say: I added a heap of books to my catalogues about 10 hours after your post. Must be working again.

>199 humouress: Ha! Well, that made my smile come out of hiding.
***
A favorite read of mine, 11/22/63, has a new "enhanced" Kindle edition on sale for $2.99. It includes a 13-minute film written and directed by King designed to immerse the viewer in that historical moment.

Not necessary for us oldsters...but a great idea to start the younger world out on a trip through a very long-ago time.

>200 richardderus: I'm chuffed I could make you smile.

>201 humouress: You don't know how much harder it was than usual...today's been...challenging.

11/22/63 is one of my favorite King novels.

>203 karenmarie: Well then! Three bucks to own a King-made film that's meant to explain it sounds like a bargain to me!

'Morning, RDear, and happy Wednesday to you.

>204 richardderus: Maybe. We'll see. *smile* and *smooch*

>205 karenmarie: Hi, Horrible! How's by you? It's another cloudy one, but the terrible rainstorm hath apparently gone to meet its maker here. (It was pretty rainy. It was never crisis-rainy here.)

Spend Humpday well.

I'm doing pretty well - many errands - pick up a book for friend Karen (and two for me) from a local preacher selling religion-related books, go to the PO to drop off two letters and check the Friends PO box, take trash to the dump, unsuccessfully look for books at the thrift shop, get the suet the birds will actually eat, pick up a prescription for Bill, and drop off a urine sample from Miss Inara to the Vet, due 4 weeks ago, but I wasn't successful until today to get it without stressing the cat beyond measure. Only I've been stressed beyond measure. *smile*

And now home and back in jammies. They're quiet warm and it saves putting the propane heater on.

Glad it wasn't crisis-rainy there, just pretty rainy.

*smooch*

>207 karenmarie: The Stuff of a Life, in other words. It's so satisfying to get your busy-work done. It just piles up & that leads to stress-related fatigue and that leads to societal breakdown and that leads to rioting and arson in the streets and neighborhoods, so well done you for preventing The Collapse.

*smooch*

Not trying to catch up here, RD, after days out of town, but I did want to drop off ((hugs)) and **smooches** for today.

Happy Wednesday!

>209 alcottacre: *smooch* Glad to see you here, Stasia!

>210 richardderus: Thank you, Richard!

Just saying hello!

>212 quondame: Hi Susan!
***
Bonhöffer's Theory of Stupidity. This fine and noble soul was murdered for not being willing to stupidify himself.

>213 richardderus: Stupidity, hmm. Well the strong preference to listen only to what makes us feel good/better than others probably doesn't deserve a better name.

>212 quondame: Shhhh. Don't tell. I am copying your idea....!



>210 richardderus: Hello Ricardo!

>215 Berly: Tentacular greetings, Berly-boo!

>214 quondame: I'm not sure there's an argument to be made that there is a different name....

>211 alcottacre: I missed you up there! *smooch*

>216 richardderus: Ah, well. I will forgive you this once **smooches**

>208 richardderus: Thank you, RD! I knew my day’s work was just more than selfish stuff for Bill and me, that it involved high-level good works to offset some of the terribleness that has invaded the world these last 5+ years. *preens*

Checking in and getting book bullets. Though for once there is a remote possibility that these ones might be at my library... we will see.

Just picked up the latest Horowitz from my library - purely because it's set on Alderney. Awfully it's not an island I've been to, but it's close enough to home to be essential reading :)

Ah! They have two of them. Both in Large Print. Boooo! Cannot read Large Print - feels like it's shouting at me.

Happy Thursday, Richard dear!

We had a busy week, Frank returned to work and had a (planned) work meeting on Tuesday & an unexpected catch up course this afternoon. Yesterday we visited my father, and on Tuesday the tap in the kitchen was replaced. That was planned for next week, but the guy called to come earlier, as he happened to be near. Now back to my books, although the garden is also calling for me.

Morning, Richard. Sweet Thursday. I am on call today, to pick up my FIL from the hospital. He might be coming here for a day or two, until he gets comfortable, being on his own. I am sacrificing the sacred Man Cave but it is for a worthy cause. After I finish Bewilderment, I will start Passing. Have you ever read it? I had barely heard of it, until recently.

I am also a big fan of 11/22/63. Sounds like a cool new edition.

Happy Thor's Day, RD!

xx

'Morning, RDear! Happy Thursday to you.

I am not groggy this a.m., so yay. Coffee is being consumed, and I don't have to go out today.

*smooch*

double post, drat

>225 karenmarie:, >224 karenmarie: Seems those come around in occasional spurts. Well...it's a small tax to pay.

I'm still caffeinating. Got up at 5.30a to get my medications delivery for the month. Slowed me down 75%. *smooch*

>223 katiekrug: Hiya, Katie! Happy one for you, as well, it being a Nice Fall Day and you having perfect freedom to watch GBBO erm do whatever it is you do do.

>222 msf59: Hi Birddude! I'm glad you're another 11/22/63 fan. That edition seems worth $3 to me....

Passing is an absolutely amazing story I discovered early in the Teens. Such a sad thing that it wasn't the herald of a decades-long career replete with Good Stuff for us to read. Two novels and a few short stories? Not enough!!

Hoping your FiL is able to adjust to his new situation reasonably quickly. It's very much like childhood, this accustoming yourself to a new body and its powers.

>221 FAMeulstee: Well heck, a new tap earlier than planned sounds like a bonus to me. I hope you're pleased with the new one...does it sing show-tunes, or project scenes from great operas onto the soap bubbles, or something?

Have a great weekend ahead full of good reading and good news.

>220 BekkaJo:, >219 BekkaJo: Large print! How irritating. Well, permaybehaps they'll get the normal ones if you ask real pretty?

Alderney! I don't think it's ever been more than a name on a map to me. And the Horowitz is set there? I might have to give in and read it. Happy weekend ahead's reads!

>218 karenmarie: *snerk*

>217 alcottacre: *smooch*

Happy Thursday, RD! Sorry to hear you had to be up so early. Hopefully the caffeine kicks in for you soon.

((Hugs)) and **smooches**

>227 richardderus: The new tap doesn't leak, Richard dear, the old one did, and it was getting worse. As I am against spilling water, I had a glass under the tap, so I could use the leaked water. Glad that isn't necessary anymore.
Any better word to have used to describe the thing that is used to get water in the kitchen?

>230 FAMeulstee: Oh, well, simple practicality is good, too. I'd be doing what you did. I complained about the shower dripping here until they fixed it...two years later. It took me taking a bucket full of dripped water to the director's office to get it done.

I call all the indoor water-givers "faucets" because a "tap" has no mixing of hot and cold. It merely turns on and off the flow of water from wherever it's placed. Very old-fashioned sinks had two taps, one hot one cold, and the water mixed in the sink itself.

"If there is some rule insisting that every reader finish every book they start, isn’t each reader more likely to stick to their own personal tried and true, knowing there’s no escape once the first pages are turned?"
Read on, this essay says it all:
https://www.tor.com/2021/10/28/mark-as-read-on-not-finishing-every-book/

>232 richardderus: - I followed some of the reaction to the original piece in The Independent on Twitter and was glad to see the authors I follow all declare not finishing books - even their books - to be perfectly fine. As I've gotten older, I've found it much easier to stop reading books I'm not very engaged with.

Checking in, Richard. Went through your booster miseries and recovery all at once. I wish it could have happened that quickly in real time.
I've taken a BB with the Andrea (not Angela) Carters. Thank you, I think.

>234 LizzieD: Hi Peggy! Oh, I hope you'll enjoy Author ANDREA's books. The sense of place is one of its primary pleasures, so I hope you're seduced.

>233 katiekrug: If there is a defining struggle in this era, it's prescriptivism vs descriptivism..."you are what gawd made you" vs "I am what I say I am."

I'm firmly descriptivist, even when I hate the hell out of it. I'll never accede to adding superfluous "u"s to honor and valor, though "glamour" with its "u" distinctly pronounced strikes me as a useful intensifier for the utter, ridiculous pretentiousness of the concept. Still, it's what the misguided and ridiculous and ponderously over-endowed with self-regard folk want....

>231 richardderus: That is good, Richard daer, stepping up against spilling water. Sad it took such a long time.
Thank you for explaining, I'll try to remember next time a faucet needs replacement ;-)

>231 richardderus: OK, I is clearly an old fashioned girl. We have a mixer tap in the kitchen, but other wise it's separate hot & cold taps in all the sinks. They're familiar, I know where I am with a hot tap and a cold one.

>232 richardderus: I will have to read that. I'm a bit of a bugger for finishing everything I start. But that's not just a reading trait, that's me all over.

Checked the library, they have 3 Andrea Carter titles - and not the first one. Not sure the series completest in me can cope with starting at book 2.

Have you become a grandpa yet? Or did I dream that event for you?

>238 benitastrnad: I've been a grandpa since 2002...I'll be a *great* grandpa on or about 3 December, when Quentin's partner will birth Meili.

>237 Helenliz: Since I managed (involuntarily, carelessly) to skip book 2 of the Carter series, I can't comment either way. All's I know is the first one's on Kindlesale in the US, and £1.99 in the UK.

Living where you do, I'm surprised the gong farmers aren't required to perform their vassalage by heating your hot water for you.

I'd encourage you to give that up...the years are marching forward, the days are fewer and fewer...

>239 richardderus:
Oh good! I thought that somehow I had missed the big event, but since it hasn't happened yet - I haven't missed it.

>239 richardderus: If I Kindle'd I'd consider it.

ha! If that kind of behaviour still went on here, I assure you I'd be one of the serfs - I'm of working class stock.

My last abandon was 2019. So either I'm bloody minded or I'm very lucky at picking books to start.

>241 Helenliz: *snerk* I'm goin' with "bloody-minded" but only because I'm safely across an ocean from a vengeful, retributive Helen....

>240 benitastrnad: Oh, nay nay nay! I'll be trumpeting about it soon as I know!

>239 richardderus: Wow! Great-grandpa! You are WAY ahead of me there. I will certainly be well into my 80s before I ever get that honor.

>232 richardderus: I love that article and the sentiment behind it.

I will likely be a great grandmother within the next year or two. Our oldest granddaughter, Alyssa, got married not too long ago.

>244 alcottacre: Well, it beats the heck out of doing the heavy lifting. *smooch*

>243 msf59: I started (and finished) before you, too...my daughter's 41! It's kind of a shock to me.

>245 richardderus: Agreed! My oldest stepdaughter is 44 or 45 (I never can remember), so she has your daughter beat by a few years :)

>246 alcottacre: And Kerry has me beat by a few years, IIRC, since I'm a mere stripling of 62. I'd guess we both started in our early 20s (though I started at 19).

Dropping in for my weekly-ish post (although I lurk daily). There was an article of similar tone on Book Riot (I'm pretty sure it was Book Riot?) in a similar vein although there the emphasis was more on there being a finite number of books you're going to get to in your life, why waste time on ones you don't like? It was a compelling argument for me and I'm being much more free with my abandonments.

ETA: *smooches!*

>248 MickyFine: Hi Micky! I'm happy you de-cloaked, you book-Romulan you.

By their calculation, linked in that article, a "Super-reader" reads 80 books a year. Umm...come hang here, y'all. So by that standard I'm, erm, a hyper-reader? Anyway, maybe 3,000-ish books left in my life of 80 years (which I do not expect to achieve).

Stacked against almost 100,000 trad-pub books in English (including translations), and NOT counting over 1.5MM self-pub titles per year. The very idea of an afterlife, previously risible, becomes appealing if Borges is correct and heaven is a sort of library.

Hey, I'm back home and cruising the threads again! *smooch*

>250 ronincats: Hi Roni! Welcome home, and welcome home! *smooch*

Sorry to hear you were up early today, and hope you're able to make up for it soon! I was too - mousy sounds had me awake at 4:30 or so, and I sort of dozed but didn't sleep well again 'til my alarm went off. (Later investigation reveals that I caught one in a trap in the basement essentially under my bed, but it's still alive... so I'm not going near it just yet.)

>249 richardderus: Oh I saw that article too! Though a little depressing calculating the potential number of reads I have left compared to my current TBR list.

>250 ronincats: I'm hoping Borges is right, in some sense.

>200 richardderus: Me want Book! I was meaning to read that one - even though I'm NOT a Stephan King fan usually, but never got around to it.

Having a nw Kindle version out there is a nice incentive.

Even though I was only ten at the time i do not need any help to re-immerse myself into that horrible terrible no good time.

>253 magicians_nephew: I think it's a different-enough sort of read, Jim, that it's Kingness won't intrude on your reading pleasure. Try it! At $3, what harm in giving it a whirl?

>252 bell7: Hi Mary, I'm really not eager to get up at such a dreadful hour anymore. I don't have to very often, so it's not like I'm back at work.

The article makes a great counterpoint to the silly git in The Independent, and there's really nothing more depressing than contemplating how much more there will always be than one can actually do.

I'm counting on Borges having Peeped the Beyond...there's so so so much more I want to read!

Mice-death is a good thing. Uniformly.

>100 quondame: wow they are gorgeous octopi!
>235 richardderus: I'll never accede to adding superfluous "u"s to honor and valor...
Me, I love me some "u"s in my words. Call me Britishist if you will, but I yam what I yam.

>242 richardderus: *snort* you're probably not wrong!

My grandparents were in their 40s when I was born, with my surviving great grandparents being 71 and 72. WW1 goes some way to explaining that.

I remember both my great-grannies as being little old ladies. That's not usually what you'd describe someone in their 70s as now. I remember them both with affection. Great Granny Bloy was a fat jolly woman, who was as round as she was tall and wore her hair in a bun, so that she looked like a smiley three tired cottage loaf. >:-)

I hope all goes well for all concerned as Great GrandDaddy-ness approaches.

Morning, BigDaddy! We made it to Friday.

‘Morning, RDear! Happy Friday to you.

>231 richardderus: I love the image of you carrying a bucket to the director’s office to get the job done. Good one.

>235 richardderus: I just finished the first of ANDREA’s books Death at Whitewater Church and liked it immensely. I’ll continue with the series. Thanks for the BB!

A few duckduckgo searches on prescriptivism vs descriptivism just now were informative and intriguing. I’m sort of in the middle – I like some rules and some ‘proper’ words, but after listening to John McWhorter’s The Story of Human Language several times since 2018 when I acquired it at a FoL sale, I’m much more open to the fluidity of language. I will still always use the Oxford comma, but understand more about creoles and pidgins and welcome the richness of their contributions to the language. What I am getting seriously tired of is the overuse of fuck, shit, etc., and the introduction of that seriously taboo word, c***, which, as you see, I can't even write out because of its taboo nature to me.

>239 richardderus: Ooh, I’d lost track of the Great-Grandpa event. Well, actually the Quentin/partner event.

>252 bell7: I’ve been known to remove dead mice from traps, but my husband, bless him, is happy to do the deed if they’re still NOT dead.

>253 magicians_nephew: It’s a stunner of a book, Jim, and I encourage you to spend the $2.99. I just broke down and did so, even though I have the lovely hardcover on my shelves. I was 10, too, in 5th grade.

>258 karenmarie: Hiya Horrible! A big 5-gal bucket that used to have spackle in it...I was Not Amused, as you can imagine, but the visual told a much stronger story than me flappin' my gums.

I can't think that being doctrinaire in either way, pre- or de-, is a winning strategy. There's a time to let Norma Loquendi work her wiles on the Body of English...I'm all for "they" singular...and a time not to, eg the c-word.

Yay for Inishowen! I am so enjoying the series. I've got the fourth one's review set for Monday, it comes out Tuesday. And the TV series adds to my hopes for the books to live long and prosper.

Yep, Meili will make her appearance on or about then. *sigh*

>257 Crazymamie: Hi Mamie! *smooch* Happy weekend-ahead's reads!

I had a funny dream about your home-buyers. Robin Leach, remember him? "champagne wishes!" guy?, was showing them a 10,000 square foot castle of a house and they were all unsure.

Ha. I'd be *terrified*!

>256 Helenliz: I'm a big believer in buffer zones....

Great-granny Bloy was like my Grandma Derus. She was spherical. She cooked stodge better than anyone else ever, her potato salad was the delicious bacon-and-dill kind with spicy brown mustard, and the bagels she could produce...! Her cooking was so very not kosher, since she was married to a Bavarian Catholic, but once he died she sorta reverted. Kasha is just not a patch on bacon-and-mushroom spätzle.

>255 LovingLit: Well, of course you do, poor lambkin. You've been indoctrinated to think Frenchifying words is classy! "Centre" and "valour" *shudder* well, it's probably too late to unlearn the bad habits of a lifetime, but we'll be broad-minded and overlook the solecisms.

>259 richardderus: Too funny! And yes, I remember Robin Leach and Lifestyles go the Rich and Famous - I can only say it in my head with his accent, which is cracking me up.

>247 richardderus: Kerry turned 67 in September, so yes, he has a few years on you :)

Have a fantastic Friday, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today

>262 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia, you do the same. I'm pretty much set...I've got three book reviews to finalize in the next three days. So no mystery at all in my activities!

*smooch*

>261 Crazymamie: *snerk* I did that, too!

>258 karenmarie: oh there's no removal, just a throwing out of the entire thing, trap and all. Not sure what I'll do if this one doesn't die on his own soon.

Happy Friday, Richard! 😘

>264 bell7: Thanks, Mary! (Be of good cheer...the mouse *will* die.)

GBBO S12E6 PASTRY THOUGHTS: Crystelle so pluperfectly deserved the star baker accolade! Her showstopper really stopped the show, and the handshake's only the second I remember Hollywood giving out on a showstopper (Rahul got one for his saffron & chocolate cake). This week's leaver Amanda really, really bollixed up the showstopper, it literally fell to pieces where poor George's just sagged and cracked and drooped.

My husband, Chigs, gets Man of the Match for the way he dropped everything to try to save Amanda's soggy bacon. What a lovely thing to do. Giuseppe's chouxnuts were da bomb, but so were Amanda's! I did want to box Hollywood's ears with his snarky little "the pie's looks are uninspired" to Giuseppe. Jürgen was completely blah except his baklava, unlike him to do those naff Day-Glo chouxnut fillings.

And Dame Prudence needing two holes to squirt out of...! The sheer volume of double entendres this week harked back to the Mel-and-Sue days! It was a fun episode and the proper results were handed out.

>266 richardderus: I have no idea what you are talking about, so I will just go about my business and pretend that I do :)

>266 richardderus: - notlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlookingnotlooking

I'll be back tomorrow!

>268 katiekrug: That's why it's under a spoiler tag! It'll still be there tomorrow.

>267 alcottacre: Heh. It's big-lady stuff, Stasia. You want another husk of dry, flavorless zweiback?

>269 richardderus: Um, no, thanks, Richard. Zweiback is not something I ever eat.

>268 katiekrug: *snort*
>266 richardderus: as a non-watcher, I feel like I'm getting the essentials each week virtually. >:-)

We all made it to the weekend. Hurrah. Hope it treats you well and you get your reviews done. I have minutes of a meeting held 3 weeks a go that I really need to get written and sent out. But first coffee and maybe a danish to accompany it. Enjoy!

Happy Saturday, Richard. The rain has finally moved out. It rained non-stop for two days. Bree is dropping off Jackson for a couple of hours, while she runs errands and we will see him again tomorrow at Bree's, for a birthday brunch for Sue. A Jackson weekend. Can't get enough of that kid. BTW- I am really enjoying Passing, but I am not very far in.

>266 richardderus: - Yes to all of that!

‘Morning, RDear, and happy Saturday to you!

>259 richardderus: I wanted book two in Inishowen but am too cheap to pay $11.49 for the Kindle version right now. I’ve started A Perfectly Good Family by Lionel Shriver, and think it’ll be a good’un.

>264 bell7: Ewwww. Bill puts them out of their misery and we save the trap. Merciful and thrifty.

>274 karenmarie: The Holiday gift-giving season approacheth. You can gift it to yourself for that.

Happy Sa'urday, Horrible! I hope La Shriver does her best for you. My Coffee and I are still revving up.

>273 katiekrug: :-) (Although I got the comment wrong, it was Chigs that Holly said that to not Giuseppe.)

>272 msf59: I'm sure you're grateful the rain's let up! Being inside's only fun if it's a choice.

Hooray for a Jackson weekend...it's a delight, isn't it. I'm glad for the goodness of the read, because it's a story that I think makes the whole world a little richer. She *got* that sister-tale exactly.

>271 Helenliz: Heh. We're here all week. *smooch*

I thought about a pastry today...just not worth getting all the accoutrements out to have, so clearly I didn't want it enough.

>270 alcottacre: :-P

>275 richardderus: Christmas presents are usually “one for X, one for Karen”. I rarely spend more than $5 or $6 on a Kindle book. C.K. McDonnell is the big exception, paid $13.57 for her first book and have the second on pre-order for $12.68.

I absolutely adore every book by La Shriver I’ve read. I’ve got 7 of the 17 novels she’s published, and will acquire more as the mood strikes me. Should We Stay or Should We Go is her newest, and I might ask for it for Christmas.

*smooch*

Afternoon, good sir! How's Saturday treating you?

>273 katiekrug: What she said.

>277 Crazymamie: Hey there, Mamie me lurve! It's perfectly fine as a Saturday. Thank goodness Rob's away because Old Stuff's squatted in here without any sign of going off on his usual binge. *sigh*

>276 karenmarie: You've got it well in hand, dear Horrible. As one would expect! *smooch*

176 Go Back at Once by Robert Aickman

Rating: 3.75* of five

The Publisher Says: A gloriously eccentric fantasy by the ‘most profound writer of what we call horror stories.’ Peter Straub

Completed by Robert Aickman in 1975, but unpublished in his lifetime and never before widely available, Go Back at Once is a delicious, delirious comic fantasy about the joys and terrors experienced by two young women seeking to escape the degradations of our technological and conformist age by fleeing to a chaotic, poet-ruled utopia.

Snobbish yet humane, reactionary yet camp, strait-laced yet queer, old-fashioned yet radical, Go Back at Once reveals Robert Aickman as a master not only of the ‘strange story’, but a satirist deserving of a place alongside the mischievous and venomous greats of the inter-war canon: Firbank, Compton-Burnett, Waugh, Powell.

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

My Review: I'm quite sure a lot of people will not like this book very much.

Sad, but inevitable; Aickman's work, when outside the unsettling norm of it, is quite an ask. You're going to meet Types, not characters, ones whose existence is actual, but susceptible to change in the century since the story...here based on the Free State of Fiume...is set. There are the expected players, if you've been reading British literature a long time, or are enamored of E.F. Benson or Ronald Firbank. There are the stock situations, eg the defended virtue of one of the leads. There is a tone of facetious, in fact malicious, judgment of those who express any notion of Idealism or Utopian thought.

Am I putting you off? I don't mean to; I want, though, there to be no misunderstanding about the book you're going to read: This is not ghost-story unease-inducing Aickman; this is sharply observant, unsparingly opinionated Aickman. It's not like we don't see this Aickman in his other works (or in his life, just read about how viciously he treated his co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association!); but this novel, centered on Cressida and Vivien as they leave school and move in with Vivienne's Aunt Agnes the free-spirited divorcée, shoves the mean-girl pedal to the floor.

The bitchiness of Aickman's observations is *epic* and unsparing and unerring. His trademark ambiguity is largely absent, in that he's unambiguously making the most savage sport of the people on these pages. It does become rather one-note as time passes in their company. If that note is to one's taste, that's all right. If it isn't, stop reading immediately because it won't change.

I was deeply enmeshed in this story despite its waspish tone. I am, perhaps, a touch on the waspish side, so I empathized with Aickman's desire to bat away the cigarette smoke of Fame and Adulation that surround those whose life-choices make no sense seen face-on. The Great Revolutionaries whose Ideas are Noble, but whose grasp of governance and finance is wanting, are a dime a dozen. D'Annunzio, whose life makes excellent reading, clearly fell into that category. (Though I think the judgment of modern people that he's a stalking goat for fascism is a great deal too harsh.) His treatment here, at the very end of the story, was hilarious if savage. No less savage was Aickman's invented future for Vivien and Cressida, whose identities I am not familiar enough with the literati of the period to tease out...though I hoped for Ivy Compton-Burnett and that Jourdain woman, they're entirely too old...a descent into what was a marriage in all but name, without a single sexual suggestion being made by the author.

Given his own repressed gayness, that can't come as a surprise. Merely being married to a woman (called "Ray" for heavens' sake!) for seventeen years didn't prevent him from being (discreetly!) known to have had liaisons with like-minded men. It was the way of that world, that time. It shows up in this story with lots of queer-coding, the way "foreign" people simply appear naked or are...touchy-feely, shall we say. Given that he died in 1981, one would've thought he'd've made a bit better peace with his gayness; this, however, did not occur. I suspect that he'd be a closet case even had he been born in 1964 not 1914. Some people just are.

One of the great pleasures of this kind of story is its structure. It reminded me a great deal of Candide, shorter journeys but just as much to-in and fro-ing where we are. There's also a lot of wetness, dunkings in the sea, raining, all the cold, clammy feels that brings up; lots of clothes-being-changed, shared, in general a sense of the instability of each character's presentation of self that Voltaire gloried in. Also Candidely is the sexual innocence of the young leads, their almost preternatural resistance to (and embattled saving of in one case) losing their innocent insensitivity to the Charybdis-level undercurrents flowing around them.

It won't be for everyone, but those it's for will batten upon its high-calorie low-nutrition richness.

>279 richardderus: Passing on that one. I do not do horror. Period. I have too vivid an imagination for it.

Happy Sunday, Richard!

177 Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Cassandra Khaw's Nothing But Blackened Teeth is a gorgeously creepy haunted house tale, steeped in Japanese folklore and full of devastating twists.

A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company.

It’s the perfect wedding venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends.

But a night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare. For lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

And she gets lonely down there in the dirt.

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

My Review: No one gets do-overs in life. The one thing Horror teaches us, firmly and finally, is that single adamantine truth...that final, fierce fact that trumps them all.

When privileged and pretty people want to play, they go mad. They have no reason to consider consequences and no desire to moderate their demands on the Universe's supply of goodwill. There's nothing to say that a destination/theme wedding, a haunted-house horror wedding for five, couldn't be just lovely.

Except, of course, common sense.

As the events of the day unfold, as the people whose lives were compressed into a block of being by the exigencies of education and privilege come unstuck, their masks reveal the real cracks in their faces. Then the masks fall off. Then the faces fall off. This is a horror novella about the awfulness of unslakable appetites, and the enduring pain of never, ever having Enough. Being enough. Finding enough.

Author Khaw has used the silences of screaming people to make this dread-soaked, foregone-conclusion-led, story into a fable for our use. You can find anything in it. You're going to try, so don't bother to front. Looking for a climate-change metaphor? The ancient house with the dead people in its walls. Looking for a religious metaphor? The Forces of Evil animating one of the young people to perform uncharacteristic acts. Revenge fantasy? Dude!

Slasher fans: You have a new talent to follow. Author Khaw understands why we love to see the world end in a welter of blood. Go down the dark alley leading up to the ancient haunted mansion with the moldy old books falling apart in its library.

Go on. You know you want to.

>281 richardderus: Go on. You know you want to.

No, I do not. Seriously.

‘Morning, RDear, and a very happy Sunday/Halloween to you.

>279 richardderus: Does it surprise you that I think I might like this and have put it on my wish list? It almost surprises me. I’ve never heard of Aickman – that probably does not surprise you. This one isn’t available until January 11th, of course – is there another of his books you think I might like that I should put on my wish list for sooner?

*smooch*

>283 karenmarie: Yes...The Late Breakfasters should strike a similar note of arch, delicately-painted-china-teacup satirical smirkingness. It's quite amusing in the right frame of mind.

Halloween Hisses!

>282 alcottacre:, >280 alcottacre: You're quite wise to avoid Khaw's story, Stasia. You would loathe it. Aickman's story contains ZERO horror. But I still think you'd hate it. Silly girls being foolish don't strike me as a Stasia staple somehow.

You'll have to soldier on, desperately seeking literary sustenance, in this unbookèd desert of a life. Sad, really.

Morning, BigDaddy! I can't believe tomorrow is November. Seriously, how did that happen?

"You'll have to soldier on, desperately seeking literary sustenance, in this unbookèd desert of a life. Sad, really." This made me laugh. I love your sentencing skills. *smooch*

>235 richardderus: I do hope you're not making personal comments about me, Webster.

>231 richardderus: And faucets are taps. Us modern folks have mixer taps ;0)

>284 richardderus: You'll have to soldier on, desperately seeking literary sustenance, in this unbookèd desert of a life. Sad, really.

Yeah, because I do not have 15,000 books in the BlackHole. My desperation knows no bounds.

OCTOBER IN REVIEW

It was a good month. I read and reviewed twenty-one books, and Burgoined a few. On my blog, the subject of my actual 2021 goals, I posted twenty-one reviews, three ahead of the eighteen needed to reach 190 overall in 2021.

Three of this month's reads were five-starrers: Beauty Salon, a fierce and oh-so-bitter AIDS tale from Mexico in the 1990s, in a new English translation; A Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Year, the antithesis of the above, a truly amazing and useful six-word-memoir collection from teachers and students in this Year of Plague; and a possible six-stars-of-five candidate, The Wrong End of the Telescope, a transwoman's tale of going to assist the refugees in the 2016 Syrian crisis.

I am off the hook vis-à-vis Terry Pratchett because I listened...yes, listened...to two of his books and, frankly, changed my mind about nothing. I didn't fall asleep in twenty minutes, however, so I now know from experience that it's not solely the read-to-me effect. I don't like Sir Terry much, and ear-reading is perfectly fine if one doesn't care about the subject. I retained zero information, I received some mild pleasure, it was as though I was watching commercial television...nothing stuck. Literally not one line, not one image, nothing lodged in my brain at all.

Is that why y'all like it?

Three 5-starrers is great!

Have a happy Sunday.

>289 katiekrug: Hey there, Katie! Thanks, it really is a delight to get so many really excellent (and wildly different) reads in a month.

>287 alcottacre: *unhappy sigh* I recognize the cry of a desperate soul...poor thing.

>286 humouress: "Mixer taps" aaahhh...another of those needlessly overcomplicated explanatory labels y'all delight in! "Faucet" is fewer characters, easier to learn. And it doesn't have the vaguely ghoulish overtones of a military-funeral-cum-pick-up-bar.

Saint Noah de Webster's "wimmin" makes a lot more sense (ask any lesbian separatist!). So does "soop." Logic has limited appeal to the hoi polloi, as Melvil Dui learned.

>285 Crazymamie: Hiya Mamie dearest! *smooch* I'm glad I can raise a smile, even in your direst hours of need...imagine saying you can "like" *shudder* turkey...how bad is the famine there, really?

"And it doesn't have the vaguely ghoulish overtones of a military-funeral-cum-pick-up-bar." You made me snort my coffee!

I am in my direst hours? Oh, dear!

>290 richardderus: So it would seem..."like" used to modify "turkey" but not a living member of the species? Oh how my heart aches for such desperate hunger!

>290 richardderus: 'Soop' *eye roll*

>281 richardderus: Sounds delicious! (I do like horror, in small to moderate doses, especially around this season.)

Happy 🎃 Halloween, Richard!

>294 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! I'd suggest checking the Khaw out of the library...$10.99's a bit steep IMO.

>293 humouress: ...yeeesss? It somehow makes less sense than "plough" pronounced "plow" instead of "pluff" or "ploo"?

>295 richardderus: Hmph. Well, what's your thinking on 'burglarised' so sorry: 'burglarized'? Instead of 'burgled'?

>296 humouress: "Burgled" is the word I use. The "-ize(d)" ending sounds naff to me. Very 1950s ad-slang, like "dry cleaned" being "Martinized" in the Austin of my youth.

>281 richardderus: It's true. I know I want to.

>298 swynn: Let no one stand in your way. Consume! Consume!

>281 richardderus: On the whole, no I don't. Though it sounds well done.

>288 richardderus: Somehow I don't think the animate shopping carts being a larval form of malls would have left no impression on your psyche. But perhaps paperclips/hangers/bicycles created the space for that......

>301 quondame: None. Not a glimmer. Nothing he ever wrote has left a single fly-speck on the mirror of my mind.

>300 quondame: It is well-done; you won't like it. Not your thing at all.

>290 richardderus: One of the funniest things I remember learning in library school is that the founder of the Dewey Decimal System was a spelling reformist, and that the re-spelling of his first name to Melvil took while his last name Dui did not.

Happy rest-of-the-weekend (I feel like mine's just beginning 'cause I worked today, and I'm off tomorrow) *smooches*

>303 bell7: Heh...yeah, "Dui" is a bridge too far. If we're going to do spelling reform, let's teach everyone the IPA, why not. It's fearsomely complicated but really quite simple. One sound, one character. End of story.

>303 bell7: & >304 richardderus: Dunno. I quite enjoy the quirkiness of language and spelling. It would be a boring world where it was wrong to spell words right, or should that be rite?

>288 richardderus: I ended October with four 5-star reads, 3 of which were nonfiction. It was a pretty good month for me too in the end, RD. Let us hope that November is as nice to us!

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

>305 PaulCranswick: I've always thought the Malaysian language was a bit quirky with regards to spellings. They use the Latin/ English alphabet and use English words but spell them more phonetically. Words like 'teksi', 'bas' and 'motorsikal' (forms of transport). If they used the traditional English spellings, even more of the population would be comfortable with English (as a foreign language).

Similarly, I thought sign languages missed a trick because each spoken language seems to have its own version, so British Sign Language is different from American Sign Language. Wouldn't it have been nice for people using sign language to be able to cross the foreign language barrier easily?

>307 humouress: I didn't know that about sign language, Nina.

"Bas" is most definitely not phonetic if you are from the North of England!

>307 humouress: The problem is that sign language is based on words, not meaning.
Universal language was tried with Esperanto, but it never really took.

>309 FAMeulstee: No one wants to give up the prestige of having Our Language...look at the Ukrainians, insisting their accent is a separate Russian language. *snort*

>308 PaulCranswick:, >305 PaulCranswick: It's all fun and games until someone says, "why didn't you just toss me off {the computer}," to his British boss and gets fired.

>307 humouress: see >309 FAMeulstee:

>306 alcottacre: That's an excellent track record, Stasia! Yep, let's hope that our months will go up the taste scale.

'Morning, RD, and happy Monday to you. Up late, on my first cup of coffee, beautiful day. Relaxed morning, then a few errands this afternoon.

I hope you have lots of great reads going.

*smooch* from your own Horrible

>297 richardderus: There may be hope for you yet.

>309 FAMeulstee: *sigh* But they could a/ should a.

>312 humouress: ...probably not...

>311 karenmarie: Howdy, Horrible, happy Moon's Day. I've assomoired my french-press-worth, had a corn muffin, and am now considering without any enthusiasm my lunch options. I'm not hungry so it makes it tough to care. I might just skip it and have dinner a bit early.

Decisions, decisions....

My review-writing apparently got interrupted last night and auto-saved my draft. I thought I'd taken some spoilers out and realized in time that I hadn't...now they're out I need to stitch up the holes they left. Carelessness irks me!

Happy Monday, RD! ((Hugs)) and **smooches** for today! I hope you have a wonderful week!

>314 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia, the same wishes heartily returned *smooch*

>315 richardderus: Appreciated!

Hey, RD. Chilly on our birding walk this morning (only in the 30s) but when the sun burst out it was beautiful, with the fall colors popping, plus more birds seen than expected. Now, I want to get some book time in. Finishing up Passing. A terrific read.

Carelessness irks me! (>313 richardderus:)

Yes, me too. I was rooting out weed trees and vines, and wearing gloves because I knew one area was infiltrated with poison ivy. But I was careless about the glove-wearing. Now? Poison ivy rash between the fingers of my right hand. Annoying as hell, but I'll survive.

I'm close to the end of The Voice at the Back Door by Elizabeth Spencer. I saw that you are one of very few that've posted a review of it. My perception of it is different than yours, but I end up where you did. I really wanted to love it, but no, I can't say that I do.

>318 weird_O: Oh, yuck...at least my carelessness wasn't quite so annoyingly punished. Sorry for your itchies!

I suppose that's the difference sixty-five years makes. That the topic was broached at all was somethin' big back then. Now? Pretty tame.

>317 msf59: I'm so pleased, yet unsurprised, that Passing has been such a pleasurable read for you! Colder temps do not come amiss here in November. We are, after all, a few weeks into Wintertime.

>316 alcottacre: :-)

>313 richardderus: I climbed down off my high horse for nothing?