Sunday Morning Book Thread - 09-03-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: Nemo)

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. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(I just couldn't wait until Christmas...)

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

PIC NOTE

Today's pic is courtesy of Nemo, who recently took a trip to Ireland and visited the library at Trinity College, which has been featured here before.

Earlier this month, my wife and I were visiting Ireland. During our stay in Dublin, we visited Trinity College, to see the Book of Kells. One of the places on the tour was the Long Room - the principal library of the College. A photo is attached. As you can see, the shelves are mostly empty because the Long Room is being restored after several centuries, a process that is expected to take several years.

Another change was that four of the busts of the more obscure personages in the library have been replaced by four busts of women. The women were selected by a vote of the College's faculty and students, who selected Lady Ada Lovelace, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Rosalind Franklin, and Lady Gregory. I've attached a photo of the bust of Lady Ada Lovelace - as a retired computer programmer, I honor her. Each bust was made in a different medium; the one of Ada Lovelace was 3D printed - aptly, I think.

Here is the photo of the bust of Ada Lovelace:

PLOT TWISTS

The video below recently showed up in my YouTube feed:

Brandon makes some good points with respect to introducing plot twists into a story. There are bad ways and good ways of making it happen. Of course, the challenge in talking about plot twists is how do you talk about them without spoiling stories?

Yes, this is a repeat from last week, but there's a very good reason for that. The Moron Horde is full of surprises:

That pic in the Sunday Morning Book Thread today blew my eyeballs away, the one captioned "Closed On Sundays For Cart Racing". I personally know 3 out of the 4 people in it. The girl sitting on the cart looks kinda familiar but I don't think I know her.

Jim Reardon (Simpsons, Pixar) and Nancy Kruse (Simpsons, Disney, Pixar?) are pushing the carts and it looks like Nate Kanfir on the left cart. I haven't seen Nate since the early 90s. I haven't seen Jim or Nancy since about 2001. I can't correctly date this pic because of jumps in time and location since the mid 80s through 2001.

If you found this pic already captioned out there on the innertubes somewhere, that's bizarre because Jim & Nancy are fairly well off now and I think they'd kinda freak out a bit if their pics just started showing up out of nowhere. If one of them or a close friend of theirs sent you the pic, no biggie.

Please let 'the James Madison' see this email too. Being a moviegigue he's prolly heard of Jim and Nancy, both of them being directors and whatnot.

What? The content?! Oh, um, brilliant!

Thanks for your patience! Happy Reading!

Sarge Morton

This was just a random meme that I found on the interwebz, so I have no way to give proper attribution.

BOOKS BY MORONS

Moron Author Troy Riser has another short story published in an anthology:

I recently had another short story published entitled "Comes A Pale Bride", in The Monsters Next Door horror anthology, available on Amazon and--according to the publisher--wherever else fine books are sold; e.g., Barnes and Noble, etc.

On an even more exciting note, my 'Pale Bride' story has been nominated for the Horror Writers Association's Bram Stoker Award for best horror fiction in the long fiction category. It's a pretty big deal and I'm still processing it.

You would love this anthology, Perfessor. The publisher hired a comics artist to give each of the stories a comics cover in the style of those old schlocky EC horror comics, complete with advertisements on the next page for items like "Radioactive Candy!" and "A Box of Live Bats!" It's a hoot, just a fun book all around.

Thanks,

Troy.

I thoroughly enjoyed the last anthology that published a Troy Riser story, The Devil You Know Better so I am looking forward to reading another of his stories in this anthology.

Long time Moron PabloD informed me that his wife has a new book coming out:

Since I'm a long-term commenter, I don't feel any shame about promoting my wife's first book to the rest of the Horde.

It's called Junk Love, by Abilene Potts (her pen name). I have not read it yet, mostly because I told her very early into this project that it's HER book, not mine, and I tend to take over anything with which I become involved. It's a novel about relationships, faith, and sacrificial love, and it has Christian themes in it. As there are no machine gun fights or pirates, the projected audience is women (teen and up).

Anybody who wants more info can go to abilenepotts.com. There you'll find a blog with animated excerpts from the book. I've included a link below for a free 15-page sample. If you like what you read, my wife is seeking advance readers who can leave (hopefully positive) reviews on Amazon before the final release. To that end, she's willing to send the complete e-book for FREE to any Horde members who contact her at abilenepotts -at- gmail -dot- com. Her projected full release date on Amazon is October (fingers crossed), but the free e-book can be sent immediately.

Thanks in advance,
PabloD

Sample link:
Get your FREE copy of Junk Love (Sample) (bookfunnel.com)

Finally, we have a new book coming out from long-time AoSHQ lurker Randy Brown:

Longtime lurking moron here with a new book to share with you and the other morons. I"ve been here since the beginning, before Breitbart was reading the comments and Dave in Texas posted pics every Sunday of pointy elbows. I'm a once-in-a-blue-moon commenter but this is by far my favorite place on the Interwebs.

Anyway, I have a new book coming out. It's titled First and really is my first professionally published book. I self-published three others -- Sunset, Sundown, and Sunrise -- on Amazon in the 2010s. First will be released on October 10th and is available everywhere for preorder in paperback or eBook. Here's the Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/First-Randy-Brown/dp/B0CG2YN4BY. I'm biased but I think the cover turned out pretty kickass.

First is about Lewis, a new astronaut for a company called SpaceFirst. They race against a rival company to be the first to send an astronaut to another star system and bring them home safely. Each SpaceFirst astronaut is supplemented by a personalized AI which assists in controlling ship functions, including navigation and life support. Lewis and his fellow astronauts test the new technology within the Solar System and achieve initial success before tragedy strikes. Eventually, the program restarts and Lewis is picked to be the first to travel to Proxima Centauri, over four light years away. Once there, his ship and AI are disabled in a catastrophic accident and he finds himself alone with no way to return home. That's when the real fun starts.

I think AoS readers will enjoy the woke-free story and thank you for running the Sunday Book Thread. Those were big shoes to fill after OregonMuse and you've done a great job.

Thanks!
Randy Brown

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

I've been reading a real oddity: Salammbo, by Gustave Flaubert, the guy who wrote Madame Bovary. After examining the lives and infidelities of the French upper middle class -- and getting dragged into court for it -- he decided to write a sword-and-sandal novel set in ancient Carthage. He got very into the research, pestering scholars and archaeologists, even taking a trip to Tunisia (in the 1850s, when that wasn't an easy thing to do).

I like it a lot. Others may find it slow, with too much description, but it fits my guiding principle for fiction: that's what it would be like. I can believe I'm reading about people in Carthage.

And the world is far more fantastic and interesting than 99 percent of the politically-correct Extruded Fantasy Product on the bookstore shelves.

It's based on a real event: the revolt of mercenaries after the First Punic War. In real life, of course, it was because the Carthaginians tried to stiff their hired soldiers and the mercs thought that Carthage was ripe for looting. In the novel it's driven by the doomed romance between the mercenary leader Matho and the Carthaginian maiden Salammbo.

Recommended. I may even look at Bovary again.

Posted by: Trimegistus at August 27, 2023 09:13 AM (QZxDR)

Comment: Trimegistus makes an excellent point that REAL history is fascinating and full of interesting details that rivel even the most creative fantasists. Of course, the best fantasists often draw upon historical knowledge and events in order to craft their stories. There really aren't too many original stories under the sun, although there are infinite ways in which to share them.

Currently reading The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone. History of the battle between Catherine de'Medici and her daughter Marguerite de Valois. Makes me glad I'm a peasant.

Posted by: Mpfs at August 27, 2023 09:19 AM (G5ty7)

Comment: I'm including this recommendation because it's an excellent companion to Trimegistus' recomendation. Again, this is a fascinating story about power and rivaly among the complex web of Renaissance politics.

This week I read most of the first issue of Savage Realms, an e-zine I bought off Amazon. It's an anthology of Sword and Sorcery themed short stories. Basically, an attempt at a pulp revival. The first issue is an obvious homage to Robert E Howard in general, and Conan the Barbarian in particular.

So far, I'm enjoying it. Fun stories, easy to read in one sitting. And while the first three stories each featured the Barbarian archetype as the main hero, the main character isn't actually Conan, so there is enough variety in personality and style that it doesn't feel repetitive.

Posted by: Castle Guy at August 27, 2023 09:27 AM (Lhaco)

Comment: I think it's cool that there's still a market for "pulp" fiction, even if it's delivered in electronic format these days. There are quite a few Savage Realms issues available.

Currently re-reading The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan. His theme is the history of the later Roman Republic in the century or so prior to the Triumvirates, when the Republics went through a series of crises that undermined its peaceful government of consent by both the patricians and plebians, and paved the way for dictatorial government. Duncan claims he is not making a specific allegorical comparison between that period of history and our current era in the USA. (The book was published in 2018.) The reader is free to draw their own conclusions, and shudder. It's still an excellent work of period history in its own right, and one will learn a great deal about how the republic worked, or was supposed to work, before it was perverted by too much blood and gold.

Posted by: exdem13 at August 27, 2023 12:04 PM (W+kMI)

Comment: The turbulent period we are experiencing now in American history is not a new concept. Empires always crumble and fall over time, as they are hollowed out by those who crave power over serving the needs of the subjects. Then another empire will rise from the ashes, only to go through the same process all over again. I never expected that I would be living during the fall of the American Empire, but here we are.

I recently finished reading Margaret Coit's 1950 biography John C. Calhoun: American Portrait. If anybody's only exposure to Sen. Calhoun is through Ken Burns' pozzed "documentary" or a public skrewl education, they really need to seek out this book. Before the Marxists completed their long march through academia, Calhoun was widely regarded by both Northern and Southern historians as the greatest political philosopher America ever produced. Coit does a great job humanizing a larger-than-life historical figure without going down the post-modernist deconstruction path a lot of modern authors do.

Afterwards I read Calhoun's A Disquisition on Government. It's a warning of the dangers of pure democracy and the threat posed by a powerful central government that disregards states' rights, along with a blueprint for a system that protects states' rights and individual liberty. When he says that a limitless democracy is every bit the absolutist tyranny that a monarchy or dictatorship is, you'd think he was looking into a crystal ball and seeing current year. Also, we don't use the word "disquisition" nearly enough these days.

Thank you for the weekly book thread,

Prince Ludwig the Deplorable

Comment: Since I work in a university library, I decided to see if we had a copy of Calhoun's A Disquisition on Government readily available around here. Sadly, it was not immediately available. However, another campus within our system does have a copy of it, so I put in a request to have it sent to my local campus. University libraries are awesome!

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (953 Moron-recommended books so far!)

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

• The Scorpion's Tail by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child -- No scorpions appear to have been harmed in the making of this book. Not even sure why it's called that.
• Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison -- It's a very good anthology of stories by New Wave science fiction authors such as Poul Anderson, Philip José Farmer, Damon Knight, Roger Zelazny, and many, many more. In this edition, there is additional front matter by Michael Moorcock and Harlan Ellison, along with the original introductions by Isaac Asimov and Harlan Ellison. Each story has an introduction by Ellison, providing amusing details about the author, as well as an afterword by the author, explaining details about the story.

That's about all I have for this week. Thank you for all of your kind words regarding the 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 discussion topics 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...

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(The only monster Huggy Squirrel worries about is the neighbor's cat!)

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