Sunday Morning Book Thread - 09-15-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

(HT: Dash my lace wigs!)

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...

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

This week we have a picture suitable for the Sunday Morning Book Thread, the Pet Thread, the First World Problems Thread, and the Haitian Food Thread.

Normally I would not post another picture of Allie (or any of my cats) so soon after the previous one, but I just couldn't resist. This is related to the book I was reading this past week (see below). I had just finished The Long Mars and had started the book you see above. Allie decided that she was going to be my new book critic--or maybe censor--and plopped herself down right on top of my book. I didn't have the heart to move her, so I let her sit there as long as she wanted.

FEATURED MORON REVIEW

Moron Skip sent me the following review:

Lenin - A New Biography was written by Dimitri Volkogonov who was an avowed Stalinist until disillusionment of the Soviet Union. E-book, 683 pages written 1994.

At the Ill Congress of Communist Youth in 1919 Lenin said that everything is moral that promotes the victory of Communism.

Lenin defined "It is the struggle of one part of the people against another, the mass of the rightless, oppressed and toiling against the privileged, oppressing and parasitic, it is the struggle of the workers or proletarians against the owners or the bourgeoisie."

Like many a revolutionary Lenin was well off yet never worked at any job; he lived off donations of wealthy friends and later criminal operations. He worked to bring down the Czar and Russia with assistance from Germany fully assuming Germany would fall as well to the Bolsheviks.

Right away after gaining control of the government, Lenin started murdering opponents, the first state security--the Cheka--was started in December 1917 and was given extra-judicial status from Lenin. Tens of thousands were shot in their cellar without trial.

This book covers his rise, to death and legacy.

Very few people in history have had influence of a global order: a few conquerors, some great philosophers and religious figures. Among them, undoubtedly, Lenin and Trotsky have a place.

I do recommend this book if you want to learn how the Russians fell into the Bolsheviks' grasp.

The author has said a Stalinist thought this should put a end of the Bolsheviks but he didn't get to see our Cultural Marxists were ready to have another go at it.

IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR WORD POWER

Back by popular demand! OK, one of y'all sent me an email asking if I'll ever do this again...

parvenu - n. - one that has recently or suddenly risen to an unaccustomed position of wealth or power and has not yet gained the prestige, dignity, or manner associated with it

Ace has been using this word a lot recently. I suppose it can describe people who have achieved a certain amount of fame or celebrity status but don't quite know how it happened or how to deal with it.

meliorism - n. - belief that the world tends to improve and that humans can aid its betterment.

As you can tell from the word, it is related to the word ameliorate, which refers to making things better, or at least less worse. I didn't know there was a philosophical belief around the root word.

zeugma - n. - literary term for using one word to modify two other words, in two different ways.

An example is, "She broke his car and his heart." Here, the word "broke" is modifying both "car" and "heart" but doing so in two different ways, one physical and one emotional.

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

This week's trash read: In Ruth Ware's One Perfect Couple, a post-doc research scientist whose contract hasn't been renewed is cajoled by her aspiring actor boyfriend to participate in a new reality show. They're whisked off to a tiny desert island in the Indian Ocean, where they and other couples are supposed to frolic and fight for the cameras. But a massive storm tears through the region and they are left with no power, no comms, and dwindling supplies. It turns into Lord if the Flies for pretty people.

Posted by: All Hail Eris at September 08, 2024 09:38 AM (kpS4V)

Comment: This could be an entertaining read...I never watched Survivor or any of its reality show clones, so I don't know just how remote they went for each season of the show. But if you are in the middle of nowhere, there are all sorts of ways that Mother Nature can ruin your day. Did any of those shows do a series in an arctic or sub-arctic region?

Last week's surprise find: Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer.

A detailed book all about parasites. Very thorough on organism types from tiny on up, behaviors, strategies and also a few movie examples. I did not expect to become as engaged as I did with this book. (Pt 2 to follow)

Posted by: InspiredHistoryMike at September 08, 2024 09:55 AM (L1omb)

Comment: Parasites are weird, creepy organisms. They depend on their host to survive, even as they slowly kill the host (or at least greatly inconvenience them). I read a book several years ago that described a successful attempt at eliminating the dreaded Guinea worm, a particularly nasty parasite that invades the body and causes horrific deformities in the host. The best way to stop it is to drink properly filtered water, so there was significant progress in implementing basic water filtering strategies in areas of Africa where the Guinea worm thrives and the people are much better off as a result.

Reading a Chrichton book. State of Fear. He handles the global warming fear scam and the eco-terrorists well in the book. Nice read.

Posted by: Cannibal Bob at September 08, 2024 11:48 AM (GTCVo)

Comment: I read this book earlier this year due in no small part to Moron recommendations. It really is an excellent deconstruction of the global warming movement. Crichton provides a lot of details about what is really happening based on the government's own facts and figures. Then he uses an eco-terrorism subplot to illustrate the fanatical devotion the cultists of global warming have towards killing vast swathes of mankind for an imaginary crisis.

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 Stormlight Archive Book 4 - Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

This is book #100 for the year! It's also one that I've put off reading for four years. I didn't want to read it until the next book was coming out, which will be in a couple of months (Winds of Truth should be released on December 6!).

The Stormlight Archive is Brandon Sanderson's magnum opus--his masterwork in epic fantasy. It doesn't disappoint in that regard. He takes "doorstopper" to whole new levels. Even Steven Erickson's doorstoppers (Malazan Books of the Fallen) are like, "Dude...dial it back a notch!"

The ten-volume series as a whole is supposed to be split into two five-book story arcs, taking place thousands of years apart within the same world of Roshar. Lots of crazy action with some amazing set pieces. Sanderson's motto when writing is, "Promise. Progress. Payoff." He's often very good about living up to it. Both the world and the characters are complex, with lots of hidden depths for the reader to explore at their leisure.

The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

This is a re-read from last year to bring me up to speed again before I read the next book in this series, Angel of Vengeance, which was just released a few weeks ago.

Constance Greene has fled to an alternate past in order to save her brother and sister from the horrible fates she witnessed over a hundred years ago. However, the man responsible for those fates is very much alive and just as dangerous as ever. Agent Pendergast must rebuild the time/multiverse travel device and go back into the past to save Constance from both herself and Dr. Enoch Leng.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 09-08-24 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

Disclaimer: No Morons were physically harmed in the making of this Sunday Morning Book Thread. We're just good ol' boys doin' what Gandalf said.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

| Access Comments