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December 20, 2020
Sunday Morning Book Thread 12-20-2020
Good morning to all you 'rons, 'ettes, lurkers, and lurkettes, wine moms, frat bros, crétins sans pantalon (who are technically breaking the rules). 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, which Santa will give to boys and girls who have been very, very naughty.
The castle at Skibo dates back to the 13th century, but Andrew Carnegie purchased it in 1898 and spent £2 million improving the place: Skibo stayed with the Carnegie family until 1982. It was later purchased by businessman Peter de Savary and used as the foundation of a private members club, The Carnegie Club. Establishment of the club required restoration of the castle to recreate the luxury of an Edwardian sporting estate. Similar renovation was undertaken on the many lodges located amongst the castle grounds to provide additional accommodation for club members. De Savary sold the club to Ellis Short in 2003, for £23 million. Following the Shorts' purchase of the club, some £20 million has been invested in the refurbishment and restoration of the 8,000 acre estate. Aware of the historic significance of the category-A listed castle and its contents, the Club have undertaken a programme of conservation over the last decade with the aim of preserving as much as possible of the building whilst improving the existing facilities on the estate. This includes the redevelopment of the golf course, a sympathetic restoration of Carnegie's magnificent swimming pool, ongoing restoration of the Mackenzie and Moncur glasshouses and the refurbishment of all bedrooms in the castle and lodges. It looks quite hoity-toity now. Perfectly appropriate for the book thread.
Kick out the jams? ![]() ![]()
Hat tip to Wolfus Aurelius for telling me about the 2000-2001 A&E Nero Wolfe series in a Morning Rant thread a few days ago. The episodes are available for free on YouTube, but the video quality is disappointingly low (360p and 480p), so I located better quality versions and Mrs. Muse and I are slowly working through the approximately 23 episodes and they're quite good. We just finished the one mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, "When the Doorbell Rang", which plot involved a rich lady being so enthralled with a book entitled The FBI Nobody Knows that she bought 10,000 copies and sent them to various prominent movers and shakers and has come to Wolfe because she thinks that a result of what she did, she's now being followed by FBI agents. So, given the timely subject of FBI corruption and abuse of authority, I wondered if The FBI Nobody Knows was an invention for the purposes of the plot or an actual book. I poked around a bit on the internet, and sure enough, it turns out to be an actual book (published in 1964, but long OOP). Is it worth reading? Well, perhaps. It was written by Fred J. Cook, whom I had never heard of, but I gathered from his wiki entry that he was one of those muck-raking investigative, "no enemies on the left" journalists like I.F. Stone. Now Stone was a well-known rat bastard commie, so I'm guessing Cook probably was, too. The Amazon blurb for The FBI Nobody Knows doesn't tell you much, other than the fact that used copies are quite expensive. But I found a copy on Abebooks that had a photo of a blurb, looks like from some review, pasted to the front cover: In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt told his Attorney General, Charles J. Bonaparte (a grandnephew of Napoleon I) to create a permanent detective force within the Department of Justice. There was an immediate outcry. "No general system of spying and espionage of the people, such as has prevailed Russia, in France under the Empire, and at one time in Ireland, should be allowed to grow up," said an Iowa congressman. Congress rejected Bonaparte's request, but, without any authority, he quietly founded his own Bureau of Investigation, which has grown into the powerful and famous F. B. I. of today. So, is this book worth reading? I think it might be, just for the early history of the FBI section. I think it's interesting that it was created without any kind of authorization or approval, or, more accurately, in the face of explicit congressional *disapproval*. Evidently Cook was one of the True Believers™ who upheld the innocence of Hiss and the Rosenbergs for the rest of his life. In fact, Mr. Cook wrote his own book on Alger Hiss, The Unfinished Story of Alger Hiss, which is available on Kindle for $2.99. Unlike the book I discussed on the Hiss case last week, Perjury, where the author started out believing Hiss was innocent but then changed his mind, Cook went in the opposite direction: Cook had written four articles for The Nation by the time then-editor Carey McWilliams asked Cook to write an article about the perjury case of Alger Hiss. Cook did not want to do the article, thinking Hiss was "guilty as hell." After two more requests by McWilliams for Cook to do the article, McWilliams said, "Look, I have a proposition to make you. I know how you feel about the case, but I've talked to a lot of people who I trust. They say if anybody looked hard at the evidence they'd have a different opinion..." Now, maybe Cook was right. It's perfectly possible that the FBI agents who investigated Hiss may have done things that were shady or outright illegal. But that doesn't mean that Hiss was innocent, just that the FBI wasn't a bunch of Boy Scouts. OK, I'm kind of a long way from where I started out, so I'll just circle back around and leave you with this fun fact: there have been a number of adaptations of Nero Wolfe for the small screen, including an extremely short-lived series filmed back in 1959 with the part of Archie Goodwin played by, get this, William Shatner. Only 2 or 3 episodes were filmed and it's not clear that any of them were actually broadcast. Perhaps the first one was, but that's it. (h/t Donna&&&&&V who mentioned this in last week's book thread and even provided a YouTube link to the pilot episode.)
![]() (Last week's 'who dis' was Mrs. Frank Sinatra, Mia Farrow.
Moron commenter 'DIY Daddio' recommends the political thriller Ecochondriacs: The No Quarter November Novel by Douglas Wilson: It's election season--America's most lucrative sport--and there are no rules. The Kindle version is $8.99. Or, if you want to read it for free, Pastor Wilson is putting it up on his blog, one chapter at a time. I am familiar enough with Wilson to know that he has zero patience with 'woke' garbage. He is also the author of Ride, Sally, Ride (Or Sex Rules) and I have no idea if it's any good or not, but from the plot description, it seems rather timely: It's two decades in the future, and a Christian college student named Ace Hartwick has just destroyed his neighbor's so-called "wife"—actually a sexbot named Sally—in a trash compactor. Soon, Ace will be on trial for murder. I must say I like the opening line: Asahel Hartwick did not really intend to be the reason for the crack-up of the United States. You can read a 30-page chunk of it here. ___________ ![]()
On the Kindle, I read the excellent The Apprenticeship of Nigel Blackthorn by Frank Kelso. This is a coming of age story of a 13-year old boy who survives the slaughter of his family by the Comanche by hiding in a hollowed out tree. After two days of surviving on nothing but water, he is saved by two muleteers. They take him in and begin teaching him lessons to survive on the prairie and lessons for success in life. After a year on the trail, they leave him with a band of Cheyenne to live with them for six months. More lessons are learned and Nigel, known as Black Wolf, thrives and becomes a man. He also learns a new perspective, which is different from the white man. I was wondering why this book sounded familiar. Then I went to its Amazon page and was informed I had purchased it last year. So it's sitting on my device somewhere in my TBR stack. The Kindle version currently goes for $4.99. This is the first book of author Frank Kelso's Apprentice series. The second is North in the Spring, followed by South in the Fall. ___________ 37 Halfway thru She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper. Pretty fast paced and crisp writing so far. See if that and the plot holds up for the whole book. So far, the dad is just out of prison and grabs his daughter before the hit man does. Lots of dead bodies so far and dad is far from a saint. She Rides Shotgun grabbed an Edgar award in 2018 for Best Debut Novel: Eleven-year-old Polly McClusky is shy, too old for the teddy bear she carries with her everywhere, when she is unexpectedly reunited with her father, Nate, fresh out of jail and driving a stolen car. He takes her from the front of her school into a world of robbery, violence, and the constant threat of death. And he does it to save her life. The Kindle version is $9.99, which is actually a bit more expensive than the hardcover edition.
![]() "Ha! Ha! Your puny ray gun has no effect on me, hugh-mahn!"
Moron author 'RKF Adams' has just released the second novel in his 'Jess Archer Island Adventure' series, this one called Bobby's War: When the desecrated body of a missing DEA agent is discovered in a marina on Chico Bayou, the local cops are ordered to fetch coffee while the feds play jurisdictional spin the bottle. Just $6.99 for the Kindle edition. ___________ 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. ![]() | Recent Comments
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