Sunday Morning Book Thread - 12-17-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

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 (I know the author of this one). 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...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, jingle some bells and deck those halls with boughs of holly, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

I found the above pic while looking for a good pic to use on the Hanukkah edition of the Sunday Morning Book Thread. It's from Ets Haim (Hebrew for "The Tree of Life"), home to the oldest, continuously running Jewish library in the world, located in Amsterdam. It was founded by Sephardic Jews in the 1500s after the left their homes in Spain and Portugal (or forced out, perhaps...). Anyway, it sounds like it would be worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Amsterdam.

COLLECTIONS OF LETTERS BY AUTHORS

In before Tolkien jacks the thread.

Dammit!
Posted by: Dr. Bone at December 10, 2023 09:48 AM (klzFH)

Ya snooze, ya lose! The video below popped up in my YouTube feed last week. Although it's specifically about J.R.R. Tolkien's collections of letters and correspondence, I wondered just how interesting those might actually be. Yes, I suppose you would see insights into the author's thinking as they correspond with friends, colleagues, and business entities. Bilbo Baggins, the main character of The Hobbit and a side character in The Lord of the Rings, was very keen on writing letters to all of his friends and family. He spent much time writing just the right words for his intended audiences. No doubt this is a reflection of Tolkien's own fondness for writing letters.

Horror author H.P. Lovecraft was also very famous for constantly sending letters to his friends and colleagues. There was a time in the distant past where writing letters was, in fact, the thing to do if one wanted to be respected. Some of the letters written in those days are marvelous to read. Just beautiful prose.

The YouTuber below notes that a recent find of around 150 additional letters from Tolkien expands the previous edition of the book. But does that alone make it worth purchasing if one already owns the previous version? (Full disclosure: I do not own any editions of this book.)

WHY AMERICAN ENGLISH IS HIGHLY MISUNDERSTOOD

Most of the books I read are either by American or British authors. Therefore, it's not surprising to me at all that there are significant differences in the languages. You get used to it after a while. In my studies in graduate school, we explored regional dialects in America. Some of them are incomprehensible if you have not spent time around them. I once encountered a car salesman here in the middle of Missouri who had come from South Carolina. His regional dialect was so thick that I barely understood one word in three. Even around here, you can go 50 miles outside of town and encounter a thick Ozark accent that's difficult to decipher. In other words, not all forms of English are equivalent to each other.

DEPLORABLE BOOKS

Trying out a new title for this section this week. To me, "Deplorable Books" can have one of the following connotations:

• The content of the books is deplorable in some way. Badly written or offensive subject matter.
• The author of the books is a truly deplorable person. Either in their behavior or their character or both.
• The author is a "Deplorable" in the same way we are "Morons." He or she has embraced the word and made it their own.

This one was included in the Based Black Friday sale, and I'm keeping it at the low low price of 99 cents for the rest of the year. I anticipate a sequel up in 2024.

McMann and Duck

It's 1951, and Army veteran McMann is down in his luck in a Texas town, accompanied by his partner, Duck. Duck is an actual duck, which McMann credits for saving his life in the war. They are asked to investigate a case of theft at the local trucking company, where an employee vanished with the contents of the safe. The search for the missing man leads to the discovery of a murder -- a murder in which McMann himself looks like an interesting suspect to the sheriff. Of course, all the locals think he's crazy already, hanging around with a duck. Can McMann and Duck find the real killer -- or will the real killer find them first?

--Frederick Key

I am a long-time reader/Moron and sometimes commenter at Ace of Spades. I enjoy your weekly posts. I have just published a book called Manage Your Mission. It is about living wisely and abundantly for today and eternity by planning your 7 Fs: Faith, Family, Fitness, Field, Friends, Fun, and Finances. It is designed for both Christians and non-Christians, but I think any reader will consider it "based." If you would be so gracious as to mention my book on your blog, I'd be very grateful.

Either way, thanks for your weekly posts, and blessings to you!

Regards,

Neil Simpson (aka Eternity Matters)

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

Since we've gotten into a discussion of Spiritual Combat here at the HQ, I would like to mention a book recently published by the Lay Fraternity of St. Dominic, Province of St. Joseph. The book is Godhead Here in Hiding Whom I Adore, and is targeted towards Catholics for Eucharistic Adoration, in furtherance of the mission of Eucharistic Revival declared by the bishops. The book consists of a couple hundred mediations, prayers, mystical experiences, etc, that has mainly been written by lay brothers and sisters in the Order of Preachers (although a few consecrated religious also made contributions to the book). The book was edited by Father Ignatius Schweitzer, OP; he also wrote an afterword and included several historical prayers.

Most of the contributions are fairly short, typically 1 or 2 pages. I was one of the contributors: I wrote one of the prayers, and I also wrote about one of the mystical experiences that happened to me. I guess that makes me a "Moron Author" promoting a book.

The book can be purchased either through the Dominican Bookstore or Amazon. The price is cheaper per book at the Dominican Bookstore but does not include shipping costs.

Sincerely,

Retired Buckeye Cop

Comment: I think it's cool that Retired Buckeye Cop has a prayer published in this book. As I grow older, I feel I become more "attuned" to the spiritual world all around us. It's hard to describe unless you've experienced it yourself. If you have not, then I pray that you will someday. It can be a life-altering experience for the better.

Reading A Senate Journal, 1943-1945 by Allen Drury, who covered the Senate for the UPI after his discharge from the Army.

Drury is occasionally scathing about the Senate as an institution and the way it ran itself, but what's striking is that we get his contemporary impressions of senators instead of the filtered distortions of today's academics.

For example, even as admirable an author as Robert Caro in his LBJ volume on his Senate years never treats Republicans as anything except Neanderthal subhumans. But with Drury's pen, people like Robert Taft and Ken Wherry come across as responsible and principled people. The other side of the battles of the time are amply discussed. In short, a very balanced view of an institution in wartime.

Posted by: Hadrian the Seventh at December 10, 2023 09:19 AM (9mNHV)

Comment: This may be a fascinating look at that elite American institution, but as soon as I saw the title, I figured it would be a snoozefest. Titles matter, people!

In the past two days, I devoured Wool by Hugh Howey, my choice this month for Family Book Club. It's a very thick book, a real door stopper, so I was afraid it was going to take me all month to read it.

I started apologizing to my kids for it, but they told me they'd already finished it, so, encouraged, I dug in. Geez. I couldn't put it down. I finished it in under two days.

Good recommendation by someone(s) here. It's about a whole society living in an enclosed, underground structure. It's the only life they know, and the structure (over 100 levels) contains everything a society needs to thrive. But there are secrets, and once every so many decades, someone starts asking questions, and it all goes to hell.

Posted by: Dash my lace wigs! at December 10, 2023 09:35 AM (OX9vb)

Comment: I read Wool many years ago and enjoyed it. If you've ever played the Fallout series of games by Bethesda, you might enjoy this book as it basically documents life in a "Vault" (silo in this case) where nothing is quite what it seems and there is an ulterior agenda driving events. Each "Vault" in the Fallout-universe was the subject of a different sociological experiment, often with tragic and disastrous results.

The book I finished most recently was Strange Wine, an anthology of stories by Harlan Ellison, published some time in the 1970s. It's upstairs and I don't want to go look at the copyright page, nor do I want to Google it. The fact that he's bitching about Nixon instead of Reagan indicates the 70s.

He bitches a lot about television, too. Which is odd coming from a man whose primary career for much of his life was writing television episodes. I'm not saying his complains are necessarily wrong, either -- although it is almost quaint to see him gripe about spending TWO HOURS every evening watching TV. His complaint is that it isolated people. Well, we've solved that. Now we're all obsessively communicating all the time instead.

The stories? They're good. Most of them. A few haven't aged well (again, Nixon). I will say that the overall effect is like watching a Twilight Zone marathon: you become very aware of the writer's personal obsessions, and there's a certain glibness that gets a little wearisome in large doses.

Still, recommended.

Posted by: Trimegistus at December 10, 2023 09:36 AM (78a2H)

Comment: Harlan Ellison is one of those people that has little tolerance for certain nonsense. However, if he does choose to be your friend, he'll be your friend for life. I know a few folks like that. They can be prickly, but once they get to know you and you get to know them, they are often true boon companions, even if you differ politically. Strange Wine is definitely a book that has not aged as well as some of his others.

More Moron-recommended reading material can be found HERE! (1000+ Moron-recommended books!)

WHAT I'VE BEEN READING THIS PAST WEEK:

After reviewing some of OregonMuse's old Book Threads, I thought I'd try something a bit different. Instead of just listing WHAT I'm reading, I'll include commentary as well. Unless otherwise specified, you can interpret this as an implied recommendation, though as always your mileage may vary.

Riverworld Book 4 - The Magic Labyrinth by Philip José Farmer

This would fall into the "not recommend" category for the most part. There are some cool moments, but it's also just a mish-mash of genres. We finally get the showdown between Sam Clemens and King John, but it's a bit underwhelming. It would be a pretty cool scene to display on the big screen, however, as it involves two gigantic steamships armed with a variety of cannons shooting at each other while primitive aircraft are engaging each other in the skies above them. Farmer does wrap up all of the loose ends in this book, though he leaves himself just a little bit of wiggle room for a sequel, which he wrote a few years later: Gods of the Riverworld.

The Riverworld series is mostly enjoyable. However, I think it's real value is in how you can see that it inspired other authors. For its time it was probably very revolutionary. But the world has moved on and many other authors have taken Farmer's ideas and created their own unique spin on them. Some time ago I mentioned that Philip José Farmer's name was used in conjuction with a collaborative series called The Dungeon. Now that I've read Riverworld, it's immediately apparent how each author of The Dungeon series took his cues from Farmer's worldbuilding style.

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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Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Many Deplorables were sacrificed so that you might be entertained.

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