Sunday Morning Book Thread 04-26-2020

Nebraska State Library, Lincoln, NE

Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules), the disconted, the malcontented, the stir crazy, the cabin fever'd, and all of you others yearning to breathe free. Welcome once again to the stately, prestigious, internationally acclaimed and high-class Sunday Morning Book Thread, a weekly compendium of reviews, observations, snark, witty repartee, hilarious bon mots, and a continuing conversation on books, reading, spending way too much money on books, writing books, and publishing books by escaped oafs and oafettes 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, undoubtedly from a Philadelphia lawyer who thinks he's found a loophole.

Pic Note:

The Nebraska State Library is primarily a law library:

The Nebraska State Library is the oldest public library in the state. In 1855 (before the territory of Nebraska became a state), Congress appropriated monies to the territory of Nebraska for library resources. In 1871, the Nebraska Legislature enacted a statute specifically relating to the creation of the Nebraska State Library. The Library was separated into two sections, law and miscellaneous...In 1968, the miscellaneous collection was given to other libraries, leaving only the law books in the State Library. At the present time, the Nebraska State Library contains approximately 130,000 volumes. The shelving in the library, if placed end-to-end, would make one continuous shelf nearly six miles long. The Nebraska State Library serves the needs of the Nebraska Supreme Court, the Nebraska Court of Appeals, attorneys within the State of Nebraska, members of the Nebraska Legislature and their respective staffs, members of other state agencies, pro se litigants, and interested members of the general public. The Nebraska State Library is primarily a reference/research library as opposed to a circulating library.

It Pays To Increase Your Word Power®

‘To wet both eyes’ is to pour or drink two drinks at the same time.

— Haggard Hawks 📚🦅 (@HaggardHawks) April 24, 2020

Due to the lockdown, I'm sure that for a lot of you morons, not only are your eyes wet, but you're positively SOBBING.

Book Shopping, 1940s

This One Ought To Be Good:

So this seems like a good time to announce the forthcoming release of my very first book on #NeverTrump. Coming June 16! https://t.co/VBb6GT2ahE

— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) April 20, 2020

Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried -- And Failed -- To Take Down the President is available for pre-order now.

Stung by [Trump's] ascendancy as Republican voters rejected one establishment candidate after another during the presidential primaries, exiled conservative leaders banded together to form what is known as “NeverTrump.”...

After failing to stop Trump in 2016, NeverTrump became part of #TheResistance, a crusade primarily organized by the Left to sabotage Trump’s presidency. The very same people who had used the Republican Party as their vehicle for power, fame, and influence are actively working to destroy the party’s leader and punish Trump-supporting Republicans in Washington. NeverTrump helped deceive the public about nonexistent Russian election collusion and supported impeaching the president. Some jumped on the Left’s mob against Brett Kavanaugh and the Covington Catholic High School students. NeverTrump opposed nearly every Trump policy without offering any alternative to what they derisively called “Trumpism.”

At the same time, NeverTrump became what they claimed to despise about Donald Trump: petty, vengeful, bombastic, reactionary, and abusive. As a result, it’s imperative that those associated with NeverTrump never hold a place of influence in the GOP again.

Many of you know, because ace mentioned it, that National Review Online ran an article by Mona Charen last month endorsing the candidacy of the cognitively disabled Joe Biden. He will be a "unifying voice", she said.

Because what this country needs most right now is a senile half-wit with poor impulse control who doesn't know what day of the week it is and can't voice a coherent thought to save his life, even with a script in front of him.

I can't wait to see this book reviewed by The Bulwark and the Dispatch. You know, the guys who are trying to conserve conservatism by supporting Democratic candidates.

Moe Lane KickStarter Project

Moron commenter ibguy e-mails:

Moe Lane (formerly of RedState, but a solid guy who hasn't poli-blogged for a while) has written his first novel, and it's on Kickstarter.

"It's a very straightforward detective story, only the detective lives in a post-apocalypse fantasy setting where there are orcs rampaging in the eastern desert, evil sorcerers lurking in their towers to the north, and Adventurers looting and exploring the post-American ruins."

Link to donate to this project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moelane/frozen-dreams-a-novel.

Who Dis:

(click for larger version)

Random Book Notes

I recently found out about The Internet Speculative Fiction Database which advertises itself as

...a community effort to catalog works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It links together various types of bibliographic data: author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collection content listings, and forthcoming books.

Look, for example, at the isfdb page for Clark Ashton Smith. Very impressive.

Mentioned before, but even so, still useful, is the Book Series In Order (BSIO) database:

The goal of this website is simple dudes: to list the series of every book in order.

We provide the book series in order by author(ie: Lee Child), and then in order of the character or series(ie: Jack Reacher) Where applicable, we provide you with both the publication order of the books written, as well as the chronological order of the books.

Potentially a very useful site.

Books By Morons

A lurker e-mails:

I've got a suggestion for the 'rons & 'ettes. Issue #6 of StoryHack is out and contains stories of action and adventure. My own story "Due a Hanging" is in it: "She was probably on the yacht in the Martian Canal. And he wasn't the only one looking for her."

It's all good stuff, complete with a sexy pirate girl on the cover!

The Amazon blurb for StoryHack Action & Adventure, Issue Six has a thumbnail description of the other stories. And it's only $3.99.

And here is the sexy pirate girl cover:

(Click for bigger pirate)

Shiver me timber! Arrrrrgh!

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From another email by a lurkette:

I am an artist, a blogger, and a long time lurker at the AoSHQ book thread. I recently published the book I've been working on for years... one of the positive results of this unexpected coronavirus lockdown.

Painting, Passion and the Art of Life by Michele Bledsoe, who describes herself as a self-taught artist who has been exhibiting her paintings and drawings in galleries for over 20 years. Her new book is

...an inspirational, artistic journey that will change the way you think and feel about your own gifts, your purpose and your impact on the world around you.

Bledsoe devotes much of Painting, Passion and the Art of Life to God, spirituality and the pursuit of higher meaning. It encourages the use of our talents for a purpose beyond the commercial value of our gifts

These meditations on painting and drawing contain universal messages on work, love and life. Readers don't have to be artists to connect with this moving collection of personal stories; we all have our own unique gifts to share.

Michele's book is available in a hardcover as well as paperback and Kindle. She also shares her thoughts on art, as well as some of her drawings, on her blog.

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Moron VictorTangoKilo, author of the Worlds Apart series, has come out with a "New Improved Retcon Edition" of Meridian, the first installment in the series.

He did do a lot of editing:

According to MS Word, there are 12,740 changes in the new version: fixed typos, tightly edited dialog, and a smattering of new jokes some of which are even funny. Try some, won't you?

Here's a side-by-side comparison of a random pages which should give you some idea. It is available on Kindle for $3.99. The blurb is long and complex so I'm not going to reproduce it here, but the events of the series occur in a future time wherein a galactic collapse has followed the galactic expansion and the separate worlds are reaching out again.

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Moron Recommendations

Moron author George Milonas e-mailed a couple of military history suggestions, the first is the Pacific War Trilogy by Ian Toll. George said:

I've read 2 of his 3 book trilogy on naval history of WWII. He is a great writer. He makes everything understandable even to non- historians and tells great stories. His 3rd and final book on the subject comes out this summer, and I've already preordered it.

The first in this trilogy is War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942

On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss, a blow that destroyed the offensive power of their fleet. Pacific Crucible—through a dramatic narrative relying predominantly on primary sources and eyewitness accounts of heroism and sacrifice from both navies—tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history to seize the strategic initiative.

He also likes James Hornfischer's He also likes The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, but thinks that Toll's histories are better. Having said that, though, he has nothing but praise for Horfischer's The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour, calling it a masterpiece.

It's similar to the band of brothers but takes place during the us retaking of the Philippines. I strongly recommend it.

This one has been mentioned a number of times on this Smart Military Blog®, I believe.

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From an e-mail sent to me by a lurker:

I’d like to mention EM Foner's "Union Station" book series. For anyone who has the Kindle subscription they are "free". They are great reads and very family orientated. I have no fear of my children reading weirdness in them. (One of the reviewers on Amazon was urging him to add LGBTQ%*!%&! characters and I would hate to see that happen. If some of the horde read the books and gave good reviews praising the family friendliness, that would probably help. Although I guess it’s just a matter of time before They go after Foner for his insolence.

There are > 10 books in the "Union Station: series, centered around an AI controlled space station (and empire) that saved humanity from the idiocy of bureaucracy and government. Yeah, that smacks of WrongThink so I can see why progressives might turn their noses up at it. The first one in the series, Date Night on Union Station, almost sounds like a romance novel:

Kelly Frank is EarthCent's top diplomat on Union Station, but her job description has always been a bit vague. The pay is horrible and she's in hock up to her ears for her furniture, which is likely to end up in a corridor because she's behind on rent for her room...When Kelly receives a gift subscription to the dating service that's rumored to be powered by the same benevolent artificial intelligence that runs the huge station, she decides to swallow her pride and give it a shot. But as her dates go from bad to worse, she can only hope that the supposedly omniscient AI is planning a happy ending.

This intro novel is available for 99 cents. Subsequent installments are $2.99 each so that's not bad.

E. M. Foner's other books look interesting, too. The reader reviews he has chosen to include in his bio on the left side of his Amazon author page praise how positive and uplifting his writing is. Sample: "The Union station books are my go-to sanctuary when life gets me down. The stories are all interesting and fast paced and ... feel good. It is very cleansing to read about these very real seeming, normally flawed, people who have a great time while treating each other with decency and respect."

I think he's an author worth checking out.

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Long-time lurkette 'Lee Also' e-mails her recommendation:

While I usually don't read romances (more of a murder mystery reader), I really enjoyed this: "Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes" by Ella Cheever Thayer.

It's in the public domain. I downloaded it from some site, but I bought a printed copy for my aunt as a present. It's a fun read. It's a romance involving telegraph operators. You'll learn about about how the telegraph worked. (I love the scene in the book when she sends messages using a pair of scissors...)

It clearly influenced an episode of the TV series, "Murdoch Mysteries" from Season 2, "Murdoch.com" which involved telegraph romance -- and, of course, murder.

"Send Your SOS To My Heart..."

The Amazon blurb remarks how modern it is:

In this 19th-century bestseller, two young telegraph operators meet "over the wire" and begin a romance, sight unseen, using Morse code as their secret language of love. Written in a remarkably modern voice, this charming tale offers both an authentic glimpse of Victorian society and a prescient view of online friendships.

Nattie, known as "N," has no idea at first whether "C" is a man or a woman. While she becomes increasingly interested in her correspondent, she finds plenty to occupy herself with among the other young people at her boarding house — Cyn, the singer; Jo, an artist; and awkward Quimby, who has a crush on Nattie. But her thoughts always return to her invisible friend. If only, she thinks, they could have "something to carry in their pockets, so when they are far away from each other and pine for a sound of 'that beloved voice,' they will only have to take up this electrical apparatus, put it to their ears, and be happy." Readers will delight in the similarities and differences between courtship in the 1880s and modern romance.

Available for free on archive.org and Project Gutenberg. Also Kindle

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So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, bribes, insults, threats, ugly pants pics and moron library submissions 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.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as you all know, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

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posted by OregonMuse at 09:00 AM

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