Sunday Morning Book Thread - 07-10-2022 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(click on the image above to see the outside)

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 (who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?). 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 a post-it note with my latest password. As always, pants are required, especially if you are wearing these pants (flaming!)...

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

PIC NOTE

The Thomas Fischer Rare Book Library is located at the University of Toronto in Canada. It houses a massive repository of rare books and manuscripts. At the moment it looks like you would need to schedule a "research appointment" in order to visit the collection.

THE PATH TO READING...

Last week, CBD posed the following question:

That might be a fun stand-alone thread: Who was the first author who piqued your interest?

Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo at July 03, 2022 11:11 AM (XIJ/X)

This made me wonder: How did I start down the path of becoming a lifelong reader? My mother taught me to read from a young age, so in that sense I suppose my destiny was always to become a lifelong reader. Among my earliest memories of reading is checking out Dr. Seuss books from the library. From there, I moved up to fare such as The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander. However, I'd say the real catalyst to me becoming a reader would be my fascination with ghost stories. I read those before I ever started reading fantasy and science fiction. I also read a lot of Alfred Hitchcock anthologies of suspense stories when I was a kid, because those stories also fascinated me, even if they didn't have any supernatural elements (a lot of them did, though). Then things just sort of snowballed into my lifelong passion for reading. I think the key to becoming a lifelong reader, other than starting early, is to find a subject about which you are truly passionate. It doesn't have to be fiction. We have a lot of readers on this blog who are extremely fascinated by military history, for instance. Even technical manuals have their charm for some folks.

Authors sometimes describe their own journeys to becoming a lifelong reader. This often gives quite a bit of context to their stories when you see who influenced them in their writing. For instance, just the other day, I was reading the foreward to Philip Jose Farmer's The World of Tiers series on my Kindle and came across this passage:

I search my memory, scan the banks, for why I allotted certain levels of the tiered planet to certain people. Wht did I make the lowest level a paradise, albeit a stultifying one, for beings from ancient Greek mythology and from Homer? Because, I believe, I encountered Homer when I was three years old and never lost interest in him. When I was living in the second story of an apartment building in Indianapolis, the little girl I played with let me look through her parents' library on the ground floor. I came across The Iliad and The Odyssey, both profusely illustrated with black-and-white drawings based on painting from Greek vases. The titles meant nothing to me (I couldn't read, of course), but the girl's father told me they were pictures about the war at Troy and Ulysses' adventures after the war. I never forgot the illustrations or his words.

I still remember the thrill I had at the age of seven when I came across Homer's works in the children's section of the local library. When I opened The Odyssey and saw the illustrations in it (not the same as those I'd seen in Indianapolis), I had a hot flashback of the two books in my friend's parents' library. I don't remember the little girl's name or even what she looked like. I have photographs of me at that time, and it's incredible (almost) that the infant on the tricycle and on the seat of the a Stanley steamer could retain the memory of the Homer books. But it's true. Soemthing stamped that impression deeply.

Jose, P. J. (1965). Author's foreword. The World of Tiers Volume One: The Maker of Universes. Open Road Media.

What was YOUR first step into the wider world of reading?

(Be honest: Who hasn't had this experience?)

BOOKS BY MORONS

Dana ("Secret Squirrel") Epperson sent me the following:

I've updated my two children's books, Sir Robert of Cheshire, on Amazon and made them available on paperback.

I'm in the process of continuing the series, and my daughter will illustrate the next books. Anyway, these are non woke books for ages 5-10. They are meant to be read with parents or family members and feature a craft, recipe, a section about the creature in the book, and a discussion on values. Any interest in featuring it next week?

Here is a link to the first book. If you are interested, I will send over both titles to you for review.

OregonMuse featured them when I first published them back in 2012, but I revamped them and added a discussion section on a value from the story.

Sir Robert of Cheshire - Kindle edition by Epperson, Dana, Sullivan, Trina. Children Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

Comment: Always nice to know that there is still good, wholesome family entertainment available. Any Morons out there with kids or grandkids should definitely check these out!

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I just finished Red Horizens, Chronicles of a Communist Spy Chief that I highly recommend, written by Ion Mihai Pacepa. He was the highest ranking defector, at that time, of a communist country and immigrated to the United States in '78. His story is fascinating. He was literally a right hand man, the highest of advisors, to Romania's dictator president Nicolae Ceausescu and his ghastly wife, Elena.

The book goes into great detail on Ceausescu's stealing of technology from capitalist countries, and his favorite techniques involving "disinformation" campaigns and the placing of "influence" persons abroad to achieve his goals. I was particularly struck by the web of deception that can be created to achieve any outcome, just through disinformation being injected into the mainstream. Helped along by the press and false documentation. As Pacepa explained, disinformation campaigns can achieve anything. He said it was easy to do, especially with the leftists in America as they were gullible enough to believe anything.

He ultimately came to deeply love America, and in the end, died last year at 92 from covid. Fascinating book. Fascinating man.

Posted by: Lady in Black at July 03, 2022 09:17 AM (sVtYq)

Comment: The story of Ceausescu should be a warning to our elites. But of course it's not. They seem to be "all in" on going down that path...

Also, I've been thinking about reading Uncle Tom's Cabin here lately. Heard the Warrant song on my streaming service and felt guilty for not actually reading that back in high school when I was supposed to. Mostly feel bad because I really liked and respected the teacher who assigned, but hey, I was a dumb teenager.

Posted by: She Hobbit at July 03, 2022 09:28 AM (ftFVW)

Comment: Uncle Tom's Cabin is one those American classics that everyone should read...And I confess that I have not read it. Fortunately, that's easily rectified, thanks to the fact that this book is in the public domain and readily available online: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/203

Hello Book Thread Coordinator,

I just finished an inspiring biography of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin by Donovan Moore, What Stars Are Made Of--The Life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin is probably one of the most famous astronomers that you've never heard of. Growing up in Edwardian England in the early 1900's and only expected to learn etiquette, manners and French, Cecilia became the consummate scientist and astronomer, conquering both Cambridge and Harvard with pluck, drive and an unwillingness to give up. At Harvard, weaving together seemingly disparate facts and time-tested physics, she dared the astronomy community with a new theory of the elemental composition of the stars and in doing so, changed the world.

Jim Kerschen, long-time-lurker, seldom commentor.

Comment: It's thanks to Cecilia's doctoral thesis that we now know that stars are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium. This was an idea rejected at the time, but then proved correct later. Science Marches On, after all. In other words, she challenged the scientific consensus at the time (1920s) and ultimately won because observations agreed with her theories. Funny how that works...

Lots of sitting around doing nothing. Re-reading Savage Grace by Natalie Robins and Steve Aronson about the murder of Barbara Baekeland by her son Antony, great-grandson of the inventor of Bakelite.

It's an oral history told by the biggest bunch of vacuous, horrifying people ever assembled. Little mag editors, authors, painters, art gallery curators, socialites and ladies who lunch, all backbiting and name dropping to beat the band.

The worst characters are the family itself. Two of them are dead, but the husband and father Brooks Baekeland takes the cake with stuff like "I was always free. I was always successful in everything I wished to do. But I despised success. I despised money and show. I laughed - a grave offense to those who cannot laugh! I thumbed my nose at my father and at the sheepism of Man." Then the brutal truth comes down from someone sensible: "a brilliant wealthy man who has never actually done any productive work though he made one expedition to South America and wrote an article about it."

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at July 03, 2022 09:31 AM (/U27+)

Comment: Hmmm. Maybe we should have a contest to see which family is worse: The Baeklands or the Bidens...

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (274 Moron-recommended books so far!)

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

• Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan -- Book 9 in The Wheel of Time. Part of the infamous "slog" in the series. It's part of my goal to re-read the entire series by December. It was much better than I remember!
• Monster Hunter International by Larry Correia -- Part of my epic library book haul from several weeks ago. So far, it's pretty entertaining. LOTS of gun fu and quite a bit of unrealistic recuperation from significant injuries, but on the whole I'm enjoying the first book of the series.
• Monster Hunter Vendetta by Larry Correia -- Also part of my epic library book haul. Second in the Monster Hunter series.

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding my Sunday Morning Book Thread. This is a very special place. You are very special people (in all the best ways!). The kindness, generosity, and wisdom of the Moron Horde knows no bounds. Let's keep reading!

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 OUR library at libib.com/u/perfessorsquirrel. Since I added sections for AoSHQ, I now consider it OUR library, rather than my own personal fiefdom...

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 07-03-22 (hat tip: vmom stabby stabby stabamillion) (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

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