Sunday Morning Book Thread - 11-03-2024 ["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. 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?

Did you remember to set your clocks back last night?

NOTE: I know there's something important going on Tuesday, but let's keep the discussion focused on BOOKS and READING...CBD will be along in a few hours with a political thread. Thanks!

PIC NOTE

Last week's pumpkin library featuring LEGO minifigs inspired me, so I looked for similar pictures and found the one above. Not bad. It looks like it depicts a writer working at his computer and he's having a "EUREKA!" moment. It's a bit hard to see, but one of the books on his desk is Dune by Frank Herbert.

MORE ON THE FEMALE DISPARITY IN THE PUBLISHING INDUSTRY

The YouTuber above claims that the dominance of women in the publishing industry in the U.K. and in America has become "farcical." It's true that publishing was dominated by men for a long, long time, and that did lead to the overabundance of male authors during that time. However, in the past couple decades, the pendulum has swung quite a bit in the other direction. Now, straight, white male authors will be relegated to the bottom of the pile when editors are selecting manuscripts for review.

When men dominated the industry, I suspect they looked down on female authors mostly through a combination of ignorance and arrogance, with some misogyny in there as well, as they couldn't believe that women could write as well as men (despite decades of evidence to the contrary). I don't think there was outright *hatred* of female authors though. Nowadays, there does seem to be a deliberate *malice* targeting straight white male authors to prevent them from succeeding in the traditional publishing marketplace. The result is what you might expect. More and more men will try their hand at independent publishing or alternate publishing houses, which is easy to do now thanks to platforms like Amazon, Smashwords, and Substack.

READING LIST FOR THE NEXT 30 YEARS

How many of us could plan out our reading activities for the next 30 years? I admire the dedication and determination of both this YouTuber and the man who inspired him, Gustave Doré.

I do have a "bucket list" of sorts when it comes to reading, much of which I was able to accomplish this year before I hit a milestone birthday, which was nice. I still have several hundred books in my personal library that I need to read in addition to the books I'm expecting to receive this holiday season before January. And I'm pretty sure the library in which I work (but do not work for) is planning a book sale in the next few weeks. They usually have one in November. Naturally, *when* that happens, I'll fill y'all in on my book haul...

MORON RECOMMENDATIONS

With all my science fiction and fantasy reading I've been neglecting my history jones, so it's on to Love to Love You Bradys: the Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. I caught Susan Olsen on a podcast talking about it and knew I had to check it out. Apart from riffs such as "The Simpson Family Smile-Time Variety Hour", it's been justifiably relegated to the ash heap of TV history. Says Susan, "I believe this show's time has arrived! With the nostalgic love for the horror that was the 70's aesthetic, there is no more garish a Technicolor display than The Brady Bunch Variety Hour. Bring it out to the light of day! We mustn't forget it happened. For we who survived, and for future generations."

I never tuned in as a kid; even then, I had standards. I was not surprised to learn that the spliff-yellowed hands of Sid and Marty Krofft were instrumental in bringing it to horrifying fruition.

"You just have to get stoned and watch it because it all makes sense when you're stoned." --- writer Bruce Vilanch

I was charmed to learn that the cast genuinely loved working with each other and that's one of the reasons they agreed to do it (and of course money).

Posted by: All Hail Eris, Cat Slave at October 27, 2024 09:03 AM (kpS4V)

Comment: From reading the Wikipedia page on this show, it sounds like it was a crazy idea that was too ahead of its time and never given a chance...Kind of like the Star Wars Holiday Special.

I'm on my continuing Joe Abercrombie streak. I'm on The Trouble with Peace which is just as dystopian and depressing as all of the other books in the series but with some good characters.

The girlbossing is strong in this series but alas...they aren't Mary Sue characters at least. The supreme girlboss in this series spent the majority of the first book eating shit sandwiches (literally) so I'll give it a pass. And her girlbossing isn't in a physical/combat way. In fact there was a great scene where she was practicing fencing with the best knight in the country and she was sick and tired of him holding back and taking it easy on him - her father granted permission for the knight to show her what the real world is like and she was instantly regretting that decision. Her talents lie in manipulation, business sense and cold-hearted ruthlessness...using her money and sex to get what she wants.

Posted by: Defenestratus at October 27, 2024 09:26 AM (SGyXu)

Comment: It's nice to see instances where female characters may appear to be a "girlboss" in some circumstances, but also show key weaknesses in other areas. That's what makes a well-balanced character regardless of gender. Character development is important, so I am OK with female characters who are badass at the end of the story, but who go through a lot of struggle to get to that point.

As an example, Jame from P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath is a supremely dangerous young woman in hand-to-hand combat (she was trained by a 3,000-year-old grandmaster) but is laughably incompetent--at first--when she attempts to use any other weapon. It takes her months of constant practice and training before she becomes remotely proficient with any other weapon. Like the character in Joe Abercrombie's series, Jame uses her *other* skills in manipulation and cold-blooded ruthlessness to resolve situations that cannot be solved through strength of arms alone.

For those interested in non-fiction supernatural horror, let me offer Diary of an American Exorcist by Stephen Rossetti. It's a fascinating book that isn't really scary, but does highlight the reality of spiritual warfare.

A Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare by Kathleen Beckman also has some scary case studies, and while I enjoyed it, she does tend to repeat herself and I found myself skimming ahead a bit because yes, I get the value of prayer, etc.

What's interesting about both books is how mundane evil is. No need for head-spinning and pea soup eruptions - a lot of oppression and possession is just terrible life choices or cruelty that we write off as a personality quirk.

The books also highlight how people can be drawn into evil simply by assuming the spirit world doesn't exist, so cool goth tattoos or Santa Muerte decorations are just fashion statements.

To put it another way, you may not be interested in the spirit world, but it's very interested in you!

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at October 27, 2024 10:25 AM (llXky)

Comment: I don't know why, but I have become much, much more aware of a spiritual world around us over the past few years. It has led me on a journey back to Christ, so I can't complain. Still, it's pretty obvious to anyone who opens their spiritual eyes that a battle for our very souls is taking place all around the world. The Devil is powerful and can easily sway the weak-minded or weak-willed to his cause, especially those who actively reject a belief in spiritual matters. We will see on Tuesday if the Devil has finally "won" the soul of America, or if there is a Divine Plan to take America back to what it should be.

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.

Watchers by Dean Koontz

What would you do if you found a golden retriever that was as smart as a human? As I've mentioned before, Dean Koontz's favorite animal is the dog and his favorite breed is the golden retriever. This story is, at it's core, a heart-warming tale of a smart, friendly dog that helps two people find each other in love even as he is adopted by them. Being a Dean Koontz story, there is a much darker angle as the dog is not alone--he's being stalked by an evil, bloodthirsty, killing machine created in the same lab. It hates the dog with unholy fury and will do anything to kill the dog. Chasing both of them is the United States government in the form of NSA agents who are out of their depth, but who are also the only ones who know what is actually going on here.

Dean Koontz has an afterword in the book where he says that Watchers is by far his favorite book of the ones he had written until that point (2003) and that it was also among the easiest to write. He experienced "narrative flow" where the words just seems to fly onto the page.

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife

I'm taking a short break from reading fiction to re-read this book I picked up nearly 25 years ago (it came out in 2000). It's a short history of the number zero, which is pretty unique among all of the numbers. The ancient Greeks were terrified of it. The ancient Egyptians didn't even know it existed, as their geometrical system didn't require zero for their needs. Without zero (and it's counterpart infinity), we would not have the highly technological civilization we have today. Interesting read for the layperson with little-to-no prior mathematical knowledge required.

Saga of the Forgotten Warrior Book 1 - Son of the Black Sword by Larry Correia

Book 5 of Larry Correia's Saga of the Forgotten Warrior is supposed to arrive here on Tuesday (Election Day!). So I need a bit of a refresher. I'm re-reading the first four books in the series. According to Larry, Book 5 was supposed to be the last book, but his editor convinced him to split it up into two books as it was going to be quite lengthy. I guess I'll have to wait even longer for the conclusion. *sigh*

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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.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

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