Sunday Morning Book Thread 04-15-2018

Library of Mikey NTH

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes. Oh, and we've got a new category of readers, escaped oafs and oafettes. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, and publishing by people who follow words with their fingers and whose lips move as they read. Unlike other AoSHQ comment threads, the Sunday Morning Book Thread is so hoity-toity, pants are required. Even if it's these pants, which I didn't think you could get away with wearing, even on late night TV.


Pic Note

Mikey writes:

The desk that is seen in part of the picture is one that my mom's maternal grandfather bought as a young doctor. He needed a desk that patients (early 1900's) would see as he was responsible. A date on a drawer is June 6, 1841, so he got it well-used. (Thrifty, I like that.)

The taller glass bookcase is not quite as old, but has been around for a long time doing that duty as well as china cabinet. The smaller is from a furnished apartment in a building my grandparents owned near where the old Olympia Stadium in Detroit was.

Some of the books were from a great grandfather's library - he was superintendent of the Detroit Public Schools in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.

You can click on it for an embiggened view.

The most typical modern books are those in which the central figure is himself an exception, a cripple, a courtesan, a lunatic, a swindler, or a person of the most perverse temperament…But in a fairy tale the boy sees all the wonders of fairyland because he is an ordinary boy.

--G.K. Chesterton

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

Something that is OUBLIABLE is deserving to be forgotten.

Usage: This. Is CNN: Putting the "oub" in oubliability since 1979.

Moron Mike Hammer submits the word 'rhodomontade' which is defined as blustering speech or rant. As in: "Nothing got accomplished because Maxine Waters' hair rhodomontaded the entire hearing."

The Man With Nae Trous

Vandalizing the Past

If you think there should be a novel, set in the 19th century, about a family of girls that is blended, multiracial and LGBTQ inclusive, then you should write a completely new novel, set in the 19th century, about a family of girls that is blended, multiracial and LGBTQ inclusive. I probably wouldn't read it, but I don't have any objection to it. But progressives aren't satisfied with that. Why should they expend all of that effort coming up with new ideas for a completely new novel? Instead, they prefer to just vandalize somebody else's property in order to propogate their agenda:

According to an exclusive by Entertainment Weekly, Louisa May Alcott's classic novel "Little Women" will be "reimagined" in a graphic novel in honor of its 150th anniversary. Except this one will have a twist: The title character Jo March will be lesbian...The new version will be titled, "Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy." EW says that “the March family is blended, multiracial and LGBTQ inclusive, with updates making it resonant to an even wider swath of today’s young readers.”

Of course, this is what progressives always do, right? They take something that's not theirs, hollow it out, wear its skin, and then walk around demanding respect. Alcott herself was a feminist, a participant in the Underground Railroad, and once told an interviewer, "I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body ... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." She probably made her female characters as outside-the-box as she felt she could get away with. But apparently this isn't enough for today's progressives.

This defacing of somebody else's work reminds of this Babylon Bee piece, Exclusive Reveal: 7 Upcoming Progressive Disney Princesses. Here's my favorite:

A Disney princess who uncovers an evil plot by her uncle to steal the throne, but rather than arm herself to stop him, begins a national protest movement to ban guns from law-abiding citizens. Upon discovering that her uncle wants to usurp the throne, she phones some powerful anti-gun lobbying groups and gets them to fund her “national movement” for gun control. Some animals sing a song about it in the woods. Sounds like a great time!

But getting back to Little Women, serious readers might be interested in the new edition, Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters by Ann Boyd Rioux:

Today, Rioux sees the novel’s beating heart in Alcott’s portrayal of family resilience and her honest look at the struggles of girls growing into women. In gauging its current status, Rioux shows why Little Women remains a book with such power that people carry its characters and spirit throughout their lives.

So this is a book with such universal appeal that it has stood on its own for 150 years. So why ruin it with modern tropes?

Bauhaus In Your House

If you do this with your books to decorate, I don't even want to know your name. pic.twitter.com/qrnGdWKLKB

— Christopher R Taylor (@KestrelArts) April 3, 2018

It's kind of ugly, too. It looks like a big pile of nothing.

Moron Recommendation

A number of you have recommended the 'John Dies @ the End' series by David Wong.

While investigating a fairly straightforward case of a shape-shifting interdimensional child predator, Dave, John and Amy realized there might actually be something weird going on. Together, they navigate a diabolically convoluted maze of illusions, lies, and their own incompetence in an attempt to uncover a terrible truth they -- like you -- would be better off not knowing.

This is part of the blurb for the third book in the series, What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror. This was preceded by This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It and the first, the eponymously named John Dies at the End, which was adapted for film back in 2012.

Anyway, I've never read any of them, but they're now on my list. The titles alone enough to make me want to read them.

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Moron Skandia Recluse recommends Yugoslavia Death of a Nation by Laura Silber and Allan Little. He sees forerunners of Trump vs. the progressive mob in the early days of post-Tito Yugoslavia:

The text starts on page twenty-five and at the bottom of the first page of text is this - 'This book shows that Yugoslavia did not die a natural death. Rather, it was deliberately and systematically killed off by men who had nothing to gain and everything to lose from a peaceful transition from state socialism and one-party rule to free-market democracy.'

Upon reading that first quote, I applied the palm of my hand to my forehead and exclaimed, "I should have guessed that." My first question had been answered. Reading further the word 'nationalism' appeared repeatedly and I gradually understood why the progressive liberal in the United States hates and fears Donald Trump. If Trump succeeds in inspiring and uniting the great silent patriotic majority to make America great again, the liberal dream of a fundamental transformation of the US into a socialist paradise and their ascension to power is delayed if not stopped. Trump must be neutralized if not destroyed or the socialist paradise will never be. Of course, the liberals could just hope to wait until Trump is out of office and another democrat assumes the Office of President.

As ace mentioned the other day, the progressives thought that with the ascension of Hillary, they were at last approaching the End of History and that Trump was just a meaningless distraction -- until he won.

What I'm Reading

I just picked up Uncommon Character: Stories of Ordinary Men and Women Who Have Done the Extraordinary by Douglas Feavel because (a) it showed up as an Amazon suggestion while I was looking at something else, and (b) it was FREE.

This inspiring book is filled with unforgettable people who challenged and changed their world in remarkable and admirable ways. You’ll be introduced to personalities who are living and historical, familiar and unknown, domestic and foreign. Prepare to meet pilots, farmers, missionaries, engineers, martyrs, businessmen, pioneers, presidents, soldiers, writers, and scientists – whose shared motivations become a part of us and our heritage. Together they answer the pertinent questions of our time: What makes a genuine hero? Why is a hero’s life worth understanding? How does a hero personify favorable character?

Glancing through the table of contents, the only names I recognized were Ronald Reagan and Richard Wurmbrand. So I figure at the very least, I'll get an education.

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Don't forget the AoSHQ reading group on Goodreads. It's meant to support horde writers and to talk about the great books that come up on the book thread. It's called AoSHQ Moron Horde and the link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/175335-aoshq-moron-horde.

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So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at the book thread e-mail address: aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

posted by OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

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