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April 14, 2024
Sunday Morning Book Thread - 04-14-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel](HT: Sgt. Mom - Click for larger image!) 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 (April is National Poetry Month). 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, finish up those tax returns, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning? PIC NOTE Moron Author Sgt. Mom sent me this pic with the accompanying description: Hi, Perfessor - I just finished this little kit of a bookstore, and thought that you might like to have a picture of the finished project for the book thread, in case you were reaching the dregs of your archives of libraries and bookstores. It's a kit from Rolife, which I got as an Amazon Vine reviewer - a new release, it seems. It was the most fun, putting it all together, although getting the interior light to work was a bit of a pain. I love the book thread, BTW, although I don't always comment, as real life does interfere sometimes. This is a really neat kit! It's so detailed and interesting to look at. I can only imagine the level of care that went into designing it and then building it. Incredible! BOOKS I COULD NOT FINISH Science fiction author John C. Wright posted an article on his blog recently about books that he could not finish. His only criteria is that the books had to be something he thought he'd really, really like but he just could not finish them. Here are a few of my own that I just could not finish, even though I thought they sounded good. My general rule is I try to read through at least 20% of a book before I give up on it completely. If the first 20% is able to keep my interest, then it's likely I'll at least finish the book, even if the ending is less than satisfactory.
BOOKS I HAD TO FINISH On the flip side of the coin, John C. Wright also posted a list of books that he was compelled to finish. Here, the criteria was a bit more restrictive: books that he loved despite their obvious flaws. Mr. Wright and I do not have any convergence on this particular list--not of the books he listed, anyway. In fact, one of my books on the list would be on his list that he could not finish. Some of these are books in a series, but I felt compelled to read the entire series from start to finish because I was just that engaged with the characters. That does not mean they are great literature...just books that I thoroughly enjoyed and wanted to keep reading.
NONE of the books listed above would classify as "great" literature in the traditional sense. However, they all gripped my imagination and inspired me in ways that I still don't quite understand. Each of them involves an otherwise ordinary person being called upon to do great things, sometimes against his will. But all of the heroes in the stories above are at their core "good" men in the traditional sense of the word. Some (e.g., Rand al-Thor, Repairman Jack) go on to become truly great men at the end of their story. Others (Harry Dresden, Agent Pendergast) are still in development as their stories have not yet ended. I eagerly wait for the conclusion and will devour those books in turn. BOOKS BY FRIENDS OF MORONS Good Thursday morning Perfessor, MORON RECOMMENDATIONS Yay book thread! Last week I finished Hillaire Belloc's The Great Heresies. Comment: The simple definition of "heresy" is that it's a belief or opinion that is contrary to popular, mainstream, or orthodox views. I don't want to start a religious war this morning, so let's not go into the various heresies that apply to Christianity. However, "modernism" as a heresy that explicitly rejects even the *possibility* of the supernatural is something that could be discussed. To me, it seems that nihilism at its core is self-destructive. And we see that today with the behaviors and attitudes that lead to an increase of despair and hopelessness. A coroner buddy of mine said that he's seen a sharp increase in suicides recently. That does not bode well for society. I've been reading Broken Money, by Lyn Alden. Is money a store of value or something that facilitates trade or both? Why has gold been a unique standard for money? Can governments ever resist the temptation not to print/inflate instead of prudently managing spending and taxes? Comment: I have to admit I am not at all a financial guru in any sense of the word. I can live within my means and have a couple of investments here and there, but I do not pretend to understand high finance in any meaningful way. I leave that to the professionals. However, it's undeniable that we, as a species, rely on some medium of trade for our commercial relationships with each other. Barter ain't gonna cut it once you get past a certain point of trade. The fallback default medium always seems to be precious metals (gold and silver). Though one science fiction book I read (Illegal Aliens by Nick Pollota and Phil Foglio) had a galactic currency based on thulium. Not sure if that would work in real life. When Languages Die by K. David Harrison. Information dense - you might find it more interesting as a thumb through for examples of how strange and wonderful human languages are. There are languages that have the equivalent of "tomorrow" and yesterday" going out 6 days before and after today, but don't have the concept of a week. There are completely different counting, location and object description systems. It made me think more about the oddities of English. Comment: Languages are always evolving and changing. However, the rise of mass communication has led to much greater standardization and transmission of languages--especially English and a few others that are default lingua franca used around the world. It will be interesting to see how many languages go extinct in the next few decades. Will we achieve a true universal language for all mankind? Will it be English? Chinese? Or some weird mixture of both? In know in the Firefly universe the dominant languages of humans fleeing Earth-That-Was were English and Chinese, which is why the characters in the show occasionally speak Chinese phrases (badly, from what I've read). Or will our languages devolve as civilization devolves? 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. The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons This is the conclusion of Dan Simmons' epic space opera The Hyperion Cantos. Raul Endymion and Aenea must save humanity from itself so that it can grow again, joining the rest of the advanced civilizations in the universe that have ascended to a higher state of being in union with the true Ultimate Intellgence (i.e., God). Or something to that effect. It's actually a bit hard to follow exactly what's going on. We do get to see some epic battles when the Shrike faces opponents that can finally pose a challenge. Of course, the Shrike--being outside of time and space to some extent--does curb stomp one or two of them just to remind them that it's really the boss. Very good conclusion to the series that wraps up most of the loose ends and explains the origins, history, and diabolical plans of the human-created artificial intelligences that were operating behind the scenes this entire time. Highly recommended if you enjoy epic space opera. The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson This is the final novel in Sanderson's first Kickstarter project (I hear he's starting another). Of all of the four Secret Projects, this one seems most closely tied to the Cosmere as a whole. The main protagonist, Nomad, wanders the Cosmere fleeing the mysterious Night Brigade who are after him for some unspecified crime he's committed. Now he finds himself embroiled in a war that doesn't directly involve him, but he'll need the help of one faction in order to gain enough Investiture that will power him up and allow him to flee once again. It's a pretty conventional action adventure story, but it also involves Sanderson's trademark weird worldbuilding. The planet burns itself up once every rotation, so the humans have to flee ahead of the coming dawn, staying in eternal twilight. It reminds me of the planet Crematoria from The Chronicles of Riddick. Dawnshard by Brandon Sanderson This novella takes place on the same world as Sanderson's Stormlight Archive (Roshar) and is an interquel between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, featuring a few side characters from Stormlight. We get to explore of the areas of Roshar that is not really mentioned much in the main narrative. I think it's just a way to flesh out the world of Roshar a bit and give some depth to ancillary characters. Chronicles of Amber Book 1 - Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny Before A Song of Ice and Fire there was Roger Zelazny's magnum opus, The Chronicle of Amber, where nine princes (and some princesses) vie for the Throne of Amber, the one true world. Corwin wakes up in a hospital with no memory of who he is, why he was targeted for assassination, or what the stakes are in the struggle that will take him to the farthest ends of the Shadow realms in a life-and-death struggle both with and against his own family. Can Corwin claim the ultimate Prize? WHAT I'VE ACQUIRED THIS PAST WEEK:
PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 04-07-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!) Disclaimer: No Morons were harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. Quatloos are the currency of the future--stock up now! | Recent Comments
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