Sunday Morning Book Thread - 02-27-2022 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Good morning, Horde! Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material, even if it's nothing more than the instructions for assembling a full-scale, operational Lego Super Star Destroyer (not that I know anything about that). As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...in which case, it's best to keep your trusty flamethrower handy.

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and crack open a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

The Philips Exeter Academy Library may be one of the most awesome high school libraries in the world. It can hold up to 250,000 volumes, though it currently only holds about 160,000. A casual glance at the outside of the library doesn't reveal just how neat it is on the inside. You should definitely check out the pics in the Wikipedia article. They reveal amazing details about the architecture involved in building this library. Remember, this is a high school library.

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, there's a running gag that all libraries everywhere are connected via "L-space." Librarians who have learned secret and mystical arts are able to move through space and time to all libraries. This is not too different from the idea of the TARDIS in Doctor Who, which is also able to move through all of time and space. Books do have that odd property in that we can take a mental journey through history and around the world just by opening a book. We can even explore the farthest corners of the universe or worlds that do not exist in our time and space. No other creature on earth has this ability.

The Philips Exeter Academy Library seems like it embraces this idea that libraries are often "bigger on the inside."

You can find a layout of the library here.

IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR WORD POWER

The Word Power segment has been a long-running feature of the Book Thread. Let's pause for a moment to consider the idea of "word power." Within this space it usually means presenting new vocabulary words, which is certainly one way of increasing your ability to communicate. However, increasing vocabulary is just ONE way of improving your word power. Another way to consider word power is that it's the effective use of rhetoric, or persuasion, to accomplish a goal. You don't need to use fancy, complicated words to do that. Sometimes simple explanations are the best means of persuasion. Consider the efforts that Ace and the COBs go to every day to populate this smart, military blog with content. Over the past couple of decades, they have been able to bring in thousands, even tens or hundreds of thousands of readers because they have mastered the art of using language effectively. The late, great Rush Limbaugh (RIP) was also a grandmaster of "word power," reaching an audience of tens of millions of people three hours a day, five days a week.

So let's look at one of the most important words in the English language, one of which should be familiar to all of us native English speakers:

Comment: Not all languages have the "indefinite article" as a part of speech. Russian, for instance, doesn't have definite or indefinite articles. You can often hear this when a native Russian speaker is speaking English. It's common for them to leave it out, though it may not be noticeable unless you looking for it. We tend to fill in the "gaps" when we listen.

This actually came up as a topic of conversation in last week's thread:

Incidentally, a guy on YouTube discusses why Latin has no articles. He said that languages with a developed case system, like Latin, do not need articles whereas languages with a simplified case system, like English, need articles. That makes no sense to me but appears to be true. Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2022 at February 20, 2022 10:19 AM (FVME7)

This is most likely because English is considered a "low-context" language, while Latin is a "high context" language. It's a fascinating area of linguistics. The differences between high- and low-context languages means it can be difficult to communicate across cultures, even when you are supposedly speaking the same language.

WHO DIS

CLUE 1 - Loves cats, obviously
CLUE 2 - Wrote really strange short stories, often involving cosmic horror
CLUE 3 - Had specific views about Asians and Asian culture

(Full disclosure: This has been me for the past couple of years. Every time I think I'm making progress, I acquire more books.)

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS:

I read The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F Kennedy Jr. The section on how Fauci handled the AIDS crisis seemed a bit long, but one must understand that Fauci uses the same playbook in the COVID-19 pandemic: suppress all promising early treatments, make lucrative deals with Big Pharma to develop a vaccine, and silence all dissenters. In a just world Fauci would be on the witness stand facing charges of crimes against humanity, and Bill Gates would be next to him. Also of interest is the CIA and military involvement in our healthcare system. Much, much greater than I knew. Posted by: Zoltan at February 20, 2022 09:11 AM (koc60)

Comment: I'm almost afraid to read this book. Just knowing what I already know about Fauci's evil machinations is bad enough. I'm not sure I could stomach knowing the full story. May he burn in Hell for all eternity, since it doesn't look like he will face real justice in this life.

I've been reading Thunder Road by Colin Holmes. Set in 1947, veteran Jefferson Sharp finds himself at loose ends when he returns to Fort Worth with an unfaithful wife and unemployed. He more or less accidentally falls into private investigation when he is hired to find a missing Air Force major he knew in the war and who has now gone missing after getting mixed up in some business over in Roswell, New Mexico. I've just started but so far, so good. Posted by: Anonosaurus Wrecks, Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter 2022 at February 20, 2022 09:17 AM (FVME7)

Comment: From the official blurb, it sounds like it could be intriguing. The Roswell incident is a fascinating chapter in American history.

There's a detailed map of the fictional planet Chiron in the sci-fi novel "Voyage From Yesteryear" by James Hogan. A nice touch is that there is an interior sea that the humans that have colonized the planet labeled the "Medichironian". It's a wonderful book and definitely worth a read. It touches on some very big themes, like money, value, leadership, and what really motivates people. Posted by: MichiCanuck at February 20, 2022 09:17 AM (VJkbf)

Comment: I tried finding an image of Chiron, but it doesn't seem to be readily available on the interwebs...I'd love to see it if you can send me a copy! *sigh* Never mind...found a hardcover copy of Voyage from Yesteryear on Amazon for less than $7. (see the meme above)

Hope I'm not too late.... I want to recommend an eerily prophetic (but not as depressing and nihilistic as 1984) novel called Eclipse of the Sun by Michael D. O'Brien, a Canadian Catholic author and artist. It was published in 1998 and depicts a "near future" Canada rapidly morphing into a police state. A lot of the story deals with Catholic issues such as Modernists vs Trads, mysticism, chastisement/end times prophecies, etc. But it also has chapters devoted to the manipulation of news, global elites, conspiracy theories, debates in Parliament, and other stuff that sounds like it could have happened yesterday. It even has characters that would have probably been Morons or Ettes if they were real. And it ends on a hopeful note. Posted by: Secret Square at February 20, 2022 11:25 AM (wBTPf)

Comment: I remember reading C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength last year. It has a strong Catholic vibe to it. It also describes eerily prophetic events regarding how government will use healthcare for demonic purposes (literally). I may have to check this one out as well.

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding my debut Sunday Morning Book Thread. I hope I am able to continue doing this for the foreseeable future.

If you have any suggestions for improvement, reading recommendations, or writing projects that you'd like to see on the Sunday Morning Book Thread, you can send them to perfessor dot squirrel at-sign gmail dot com. Your feedback is always appreciated! You can also take a virtual tour of my library at:Perfesser Squirrel's Library

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

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