Ace of Spades HQ

December 08, 2013

Sunday Morning Book Thread 12-08-2013: The Son of Narcissus [OregonMuse]
— Open Blogger

Story Time

Good morning morons and moronettes and welcome to the award-winning AoSHQ's prestigious Sunday Morning Book Thread.

Hubris

On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, "The voice of a god, and not of a man!" Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.

(Acts 12:21-23)

I just love happy endings, don't you?

Politics As Story

If you haven't yet read the landlord's article from a couple of days ago, The MacGuffinization of American Politics, kindly do so at once. If you're like me, you will have two reactions. The first will be "wow, that's brilliant" and the second will be "wow, that's depressing".

This is actually not a brilliant new insight from ace, but rather further development of an idea he has discussed a number of times in the past: beneath the obvious bias of media coverage of Obama (and liberals in general), there is a subtler bias at work, namely, that the news coverage is written and produced in such a way that Obama, or the liberal politician, or whatever aspect of the progressive agenda they're covering, is always presented as the side they want you to root for, the side you're supposed to want to win.

And thus politics becomes narrative.

On the one hand, this is an insightful observation. On the other, it really should be obvious: we're just doing what human beings always do, namely, tell stories to each other. We always overlay a narrative on top of events in order to better understand them. This struck me as I was watching the intro to the Auburn v. Missouri football game yesterday. The narrator was explaining how the two teams got here, what they had to do to play in a championship game, and it just sounded like they were setting up backstories for each team, and, unlike how the MSM promotes one and only one political narrative, in this contest, you could choose the narrative you liked best and that was the team you root for. It certainly wouldn't do for CBS to, say, talk up Auburn and trash Missouri. Why would they want to, they're not AuburnTV. They'd lose tons of viewers. If you suggested they do this, they'd think you were nuts, and they'd be right.

But they do this with politics ALL THE DAMN TIME. And it never occurs to them how outrageous this is.

And doesn't the WWE do this sort of thing, too, adding backstories? At any given wrestling match, isn't there always something else going on, some personal conflict or dispute between the performers that is calculated to make the actual outcome more significant than it would be otherwise?

I've touched on this topic in a previous book thread:

I don't think there's ever been a civilization that didn't have storytelling in one form or another. It seems that human beings are just wired that way and stories exert a powerful effect on the human psyche. There's something very compelling to us about hearing a good story.

And what's interesting is that the story doesn't have to be true in order for us to feel the effects of its power.

We just love to tell stories. It's why we write books.

The Reagan biography President Reagan: The Role Of A Lifetime by Lou Cannon is along these lines, positing Reagan as lead character in a story, a movie in this case. I remember rolling my eyes when this bio came out, but in the MacGuffin thread, moronette rockmom says it's actually a pretty good book.

Although I think I'd prefer just reading his diaries and letting the man speak for himself

The Most Admired Man

Best Fantasy

From one of Gabe's morning news threads, I picked up The 12 Greatest Fantasy Books Of The Year, according to Buzzfeed. I have read precisely 0 of them. But a couple look interesting enough that I may check them out: The Tattered Banner, by Duncan M. Hamilton and The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker.

Popular Education

I've always been a fan of those education-disguised-as-entertainment videos you can watch on Youtube. I stumbled upon this one a couple of days ago, a popular lecture by Walter Lewin, an MIT physics prof (and a bit of a showman), who, among other things, demonstrates that the period of a pendulum is the same regardless of its amplitude. Don't worry if you don't understand any of that, I didn't, either when the prof first brought it up, but it all gets explained. Mrs. Muse, who knows nothing about physics, watched it with me and she enjoyed it very much.

The Youtube lecture is about an hour long. Also, Prof. Lewin has written a book, For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge Of Time - A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics, where he (presumably) covers a lot of the same material seen in this lecture.

I am reminded of the actress Danica McKellar, who also happens to be a prodigious math talent, and incidentally, a lot prettier than Prof. Lewin. She has devoted herself to making the mathematics that she loves accessible to young girls, and towards that end, she's written a number of books, such as Kiss My Math and Math Doesn't Suck.

Yeah, maybe that's not quite the same thing, but I would like to see a lot more of this, meaning, people who know what they're talking about who can explain the complex concepts of their field in such a way that us non-specialists can understand.

True knowledge is a good thing. The more of it that's spread around, the better.

Name This Book

OK, so I have a book bleg. The book is a memoir of an Eastern European (maybe Russian?) immigrant in New York City in the late 19th or early 20th century. One of the story from it I remember is that a group of his friends are picking flowers in a public park (which is an infraction) and one of them see the beat cop approaching, hands the guy his load of picked flowers on the pretense that he has to tie his shoe, and runs away, leaving him holding the bag. So he gets written up for a ticket and all of his friends advise him to just pay it and forget it. Better than to lose a day's pay. Well, he doesn't want to say he did something wrong when he didn't, so he goes to court to plead his case, and the resulting courtroom scene is pretty funny. I think most of the stories in the collection are light, humorous, and touching.

And naturally, I have forgotten the title. Anybody recognize this one?

Regular Expression Bleg

The Movable Type Personal Publishing System, which I use to write these posts, allows me to search for text in previous posts. I can search for 'foo' or 'bar' or 'foobar' or whatever. I can do regular expression searches. I can enter 'foo|bar' which will return articles containing the text string 'foo' or the text string 'bar'. Which is great, but I want to do an 'and' search. That is, I want to search for articles containing the text string 'foo' and the text string 'bar' and it doesn't matter what order they're in. How do I do it?

I don't grasp the inner logic of regular expressions well enough to understand why there isn't a simple 'and' symbol, such as '&' or '&&'.

___________

So that's all for this week. As always, book thread tips, suggestions, rumors, threats, and insults may be sent to OregonMuse, Proprietor, AoSHQ Book Thread, at aoshqbookthread, followed by the 'at' sign, and then 'G' mail, and then dot cee oh emm.

What have you all been reading this week? Hopefully something good, because, as I keep saying, life is too short to be reading lousy books.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:07 AM | Comments (163)
Post contains 1369 words, total size 9 kb.

1 Morning, all. Reading The Heroes, by Joe Abercrombie, pretty good so far. Keep having issues with my rooted Nook HD+ which makes reading difficult right now.

Posted by: kalel666 at December 08, 2013 07:08 AM (pTJYC)

Last thing I ever want to see is a politician made into a martyr.

Posted by: rd at December 08, 2013 07:12 AM (D+lxs)

3 Oh god are those pictures real?

Posted by: Kaitian at December 08, 2013 07:12 AM (AFTTf)

4 I can't stand looking at TFG. His visage makes me sick.

Posted by: Insomniac at December 08, 2013 07:14 AM (DrWcr)

5 Is that Sasha and Malia chasing their dinner?

Posted by: Dr. Jesse Pinkman at December 08, 2013 07:15 AM (kkbgQ)

6 Is the period/amplitude thing only true in relatively weak gravitation fields?

Posted by: eman at December 08, 2013 07:18 AM (AO9UG)

7 Story Time

My Pet SCoaMF

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at December 08, 2013 07:18 AM (75uvI)

8 I am reading "if on a winter's night a traveler" by Italo Calvino. I think I heard about it on the book thread a couple of weeks back. I love everything about it so far. I can see where some people might not get the point of the book, but it is a book designed to be read on many, many levels. If you like a novel that's not formulaic or even normal in reality, this might be the book for you. You have to read it with a clear mind so that you can absorb and understand the subtleties of it, but it is worth the read.

Posted by: Zombie John Gotti at December 08, 2013 07:18 AM (uzmcT)

>>"I just love happy endings, don't you?"

I love them better in real life.

Posted by: rrpjr at December 08, 2013 07:19 AM (s/yC1)

10 Well, I sorta got over my reader's block. I finished "Sister Carrie", by Theodore Dreiser. (This after one false start, reading 50 pages, leaving it for a month, then reading 450 pages in 3 days.) It's...interesting. There are parts that are sublime. There are parts that are so dull that I wanted to claw my eyes out. A lot of the then shocking sexual content was so subtle that it went over my tiny little head - I'll take the scholarly introduction's word for it, but it's apparently full of sex. What ultimately kept me reading was the use of language. Dreiser wrote in English but clearly thought in German. There's something wonderfully idiosyncratic in the unexpurgated edition about his use of English - reminds me of so many people I know.

Posted by: Lizzie at December 08, 2013 07:19 AM (GQgn6)

11 Found an interesting book this week. Written by Allan Pinkerton, it's his narrative of his live as a private detective. It's not great, but it's definitely interesting. http://tinyurl.com/mzp8227 And I just have to say, that reading about Andrew Jackson, I'm pretty convinced that he was either a psychopath or he suffered from some kind of schizophrenia. What sold me on the idea was his two pronged treatment of Indians. He was happy to slaughter them for any offence, but when he found a baby boy (I think he was Cherokee) amid the wreckage that Jackson had just wrought, he picked up the child and adopted him as Jackson's own son.

Posted by: David at December 08, 2013 07:20 AM (UtRhK)

12 4. Same here. I literally cannot stand the sound of his voice. (Literally literally, not Joe Biden literally)

I'll find the text and read the speech (always a festival of Fresham comp cliches, regurgitations of past speeches ("As I've said before"), strawmen ("there are those who would say..."), and banalities, but I just can listen to him. My blood pressure won't let me.

Posted by: Powderhouse Rules at December 08, 2013 07:22 AM (YBusZ)

13 Reading right now A Glorious Way To Die by Russel Spurr. It tells the suicide mission of the battleship Yamato to Okinawa.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 07:22 AM (5oAy6)

14 Just finished the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia. A cross between old film-noir and evil aliens taking over the world. Good characters, lots of crap blowing up, and great dialogue. If you haven't read anything by Correia, you should - the guy's a former gun-store owner, did some fighting, was an accountant, and based on some of his characters should be inducted into the Moron Hall of Fame. Also just started the Golem and the Jinni (got it after seeing the previous post where it was mentioned). About 30 pages in, and it seems promising.

Posted by: RightWingProf at December 08, 2013 07:23 AM (RtR5I)

15 Regarding King Herod, there is historical speculation that the eaten by worms refers to testicular gangrene which became infected by worms.

Posted by: WalrusRex at December 08, 2013 07:24 AM (E+uky)

16 For your bleg, I'll do it stupidly/simply- because I ain't getting paid to figure out something elegant:

.*( (foo.*bar)|(bar.*foo))+.*

That has a good possibility of working. Give it a go and let's see (Its Sunday and I'm too lazy to test)

Posted by: RegexMan at December 08, 2013 07:25 AM (AdFt+)

17 I think they got the title to Obama's childrens book wrong. It should be "Of ME I Sing".

Posted by: parteagirl at December 08, 2013 07:26 AM (Plx/u)

18 Regarding King Herod, there is historical speculation that the eaten by worms refers to testicular gangrene which became infected by worms.

The balls on that guy.

Posted by: Mariamne at December 08, 2013 07:27 AM (75uvI)

19 >>Same here. I literally cannot stand the sound of his voice. (Literally literally, not Joe Biden literally).

Me, too. Especially when it's paired with his arrogant demeanor...

Posted by: Lizzy at December 08, 2013 07:27 AM (JRmiD)

20 "What sold me on the idea was his two pronged treatment of Indians. He was happy to slaughter them for any offence, but when he found a baby boy (I think he was Cherokee) amid the wreckage that Jackson had just wrought, he picked up the child and adopted him as Jackson's own son. Posted by: David at December 08, 2013 11:20 AM (UtRhK) Nope, not buying it, at least not on the basis of that example. Read "Empire of the Summer Moon", by SC Gwynn. The Comanches had no problem with slaughtering women and children and subjecting them to the most appalling depravities. But they also adopted the youngest and treated them well, to the point where white and half caste warriors were often in the raiding parties, and children who had been kidnapped and returned often applied as adults for membership of the tribe. It's easier to be humane to one cute member of a group than to a group of savages in a fight for the death. One example (please, no race card whistling here) is a farmer who loves his pets but has no problem sending his cattle off for slaughter.

Posted by: Lizzie at December 08, 2013 07:27 AM (GQgn6)

21 And for some non-fiction stuff, I'm reading "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion". It presents a lot of the research from social psychology on how persuasion works (stuff like reciprocity, scarcity, etc...). Very useful if you're in a position where you want to get someone else to do something (whether sales, getting your students to work more, managing employees, etc...). A pretty light read for being written by an academic (hey - my tribe is know for being dense and wordy as F*CK) and worth reading simply to know how other people have been running game on you all these years.

Posted by: RightWingProf at December 08, 2013 07:28 AM (RtR5I)

22 I just finished reading _The Hidden Reality_ by Brian Greene. He's a big name in string theory, and the book is about multiple universes. Greene goes through about a dozen _different_ ways we could have multiple universes, and points out they _all_ could actually be true. So we can have multiverses within multiverses within multiverses. It's pretty daunting. Best takeaway: one possible way to have multiple universes is if we exist inside a simulation running on some incredibly advanced computer. To keep whoever set up the simulation from getting bored and switching it off, we should all try to be as interesting as possible.

Posted by: Trimegistus at December 08, 2013 07:29 AM (5nb1M)

23 Reading The Golem and the Jinni blurb on Amazon. And all I have to say it makes no sense. Why would a turn of the last century rabbi from Poland make a female golem?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 07:31 AM (5oAy6)

24 This is more of a thank you to the hoard than a book recommendation. My grandson is almost 3 and not really talking yet. He's good at puzzles and figures out fairly complex problems like bypassing child proof locks. But his mother is freaking out. Anyways someone at the HQ mentioned the book "Late Talking Children" by Thomas Sowell. The little I've read so far should help calm her down. So Thank you to the hoard since I learn more here by accident than I do elsewhere on purpose.

Posted by: The Hickster at December 08, 2013 07:31 AM (TI3xG)

25
Just finished:

"If Kennedy Lived: An Alternate History" by Jeff Greenfield

A follow up to his previous alt-history book "Then Everything Changed", the new tome explores the two terms of a JFK wounded in Dallas who survives.

Unfortunately, the book is a real Kennedy knob polish. Half way through you realize that JFK hasn't made a single mistake -- and that's how the rest of the story goes. 8 straight years of economic growth with low inflation and near zero unemployment, US out of Vietnam, detente with the Soviets and Chinese, and so on. Gets embarrassing, really.

Also, far too many distracting *wink nudge* references, like the young W Bush and Al Gore Minor popping in to comment on close elections.

Still, of interest if you're unfamiliar with the in and outs of 1960s politics and want to become more familiar with the players and process.

Publisher's site with excerpt: http://tinyurl.com/l6999jb

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at December 08, 2013 07:31 AM (kdS6q)

26 Melissa Mohr, "Holy Sh*t" - required reading for the Horde. I read this at the bookstore and literally LOL'ed several times.

It's about the history of vulgarity; what the Romans thought was too impolite to say, then the Mediaevals, up to the Renaissance and today.

I'd only suggest to the author (because I didn't find it in the book) that the Roman concept of irrumatio has made a small comeback in the act of teabagging.

The Dark Ages seem to have been completely lacking in privacy, decorum and hygiene; so nothing was obscene to them. So the redlight district in cities was "Gropecuntelane" and some poor guy called Thomas Turd was registered in a court.

Maybe blasphemy was off limits... nah. The commons viewed that as a joke. Vendors would sell pilgrims little statuettes where four dongs were carrying a foo on a litter. And there are pictures!

Posted by: the Capitol Police, solvin' the single-mom problem too at December 08, 2013 07:31 AM (4hRH3)

27 There's an interesting financial thriller by Christopher Reich, 'the PRince of Risk' that begins with an incident somewhat like what happened with Michael Hastings, but with much more significant players, the Fed Chairman and the New Stock Exchange head, and it gets complicated from their one,

Posted by: jeffrey pelt at December 08, 2013 07:31 AM (Jsiw/)

28 /off off sock

Posted by: boudler toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 07:32 AM (4hRH3)

29 *reads further* So Dr. Viktor Frankenstein, Rabbi, creates his Bride... but dies. *ugh*

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 07:34 AM (5oAy6)

30 The Story of Spanish [Jean-Benoit Nadeau, Julie Barlow]

- not so recommended. The story is interesting enough, but Nadeau and Barlow link this with "human rights" in the Spanish-speaking countries. The smug gets tiresome. Yeah, we get it; you don't like Franco. Someone ship these two cretins a copy of George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia"

Posted by: boudler toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 07:34 AM (4hRH3)

31 We are indeed wired for story telling. It's why the Greatest Teacher used parables. Storytelling is a right-brain approach that allows hidden truths to get past the defenses of the analytical and many times defensive left-brain and that truth can then trickle down our throats and into our hearts, so to speak. I've been pleased that there has been so many stories told of real human beings who have suffered hardships due to the loss of insurance. I believe it has had a huge effect on Obamacare's declining popularity. MORE PLEASE!

Posted by: parteagirl at December 08, 2013 07:35 AM (Plx/u)

32 This is more of a thank you to the hoard than a book recommendation. My grandson is almost 3 and not really talking yet. He's good at puzzles and figures out fairly complex problems like bypassing child proof locks. But his mother is freaking out. Anyways someone at the HQ mentioned the book "Late Talking Children" by Thomas Sowell. The little I've read so far should help calm her down. So Thank you to the hoard since I learn more here by accident than I do elsewhere on purpose. Posted by: The Hickster at December 08, 2013 11:31 AM (TI3xG) There was a family who was a boy who was 5 years old and hadn't said a word. One day at the breakfast table, he suddenly said, "This toast is burned really bad." His mother fainted and his dad did handsprings. When everything calmed down, they asked the boy why he hadn't said anything until then. He replied, "Up until now, everything has been OK."

Posted by: Zombie John Gotti at December 08, 2013 07:35 AM (uzmcT)

33 Re. regexp bleg. Can you run two searches in series such that the output of one can be fed to the other? And, since this is an audience of morons: have you read the fcuking manual?

Posted by: DesiDad at December 08, 2013 07:36 AM (jMEPy)

34 Just finished Grain Brain by Dr Perlmutter. Synopsis, wheat bad, sugar bad, carbs bad, protein ok, eggs good, fatty food good. It gives you reasons to avoid carbs and wheat. I bought it when amazon was matching google play's specials on books. The bottom line is anything that spikes your blood sugar / insulin levels is bad, now where did I put that bag of cookies...

Posted by: Ben Ghazi at December 08, 2013 07:36 AM (Bjpw6)

35 Storytelling is the most effective way of promulgating an idea because a good story MUST respect and embed both human nature and the causal mechanisms that cause to do what we do. That's what makes a story plausible. Also, a really effective story will stir the reader's emotions, such that he "feels along" with the major characters as they undergo their trials. Most of us don't read for clever little plot twists, but for the roller-coaster ride of emotions churned by challenges that appear to defeat our wherewithal. Finally, the best stories are realistic about the price we must pay to achieve anything worthwhile: the greater the achievement, the higher the price. The hero must not win cheaply; there must always be a cost that very nearly equals what he has gained. Happy endings, yes; fairy-tale endings, in which no one on the side of the angels needs to pay a price, no.

Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at December 08, 2013 07:37 AM (d2g9U)

36 Cufk Bronco Bama

Posted by: Chavez the Hugo at December 08, 2013 07:37 AM (NbOvo)

Just finished two Myron Bolitar novels by Harlan Cobain. Bolitar is a quirky former basketball player turned sports agent, who with his crew of oddball friends, finds himself in crazy, edgy situations with bad people. No way to explain it without it sounding cheesy, which I guess it is, but I find them to be good, quick reads.

Finished Coulter's latest book a couple of weeks ago. Love her writing, but not wild about her habit of packing her books with lots of her past columns. Beware of this if this bugs you, there is less new material than you may anticipate.

Just getting started on Go Down Together, a true story of Bonnie and Clyde and their gritty beginnings and lives. Good read thus far.

Posted by: RM at December 08, 2013 07:38 AM (fRppw)

38 Currently reading The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream They had time for titles like that,back in the day.

Posted by: fluffy at December 08, 2013 07:38 AM (Ua6T/)

39 4 I can't stand looking at TFG

That's OK. He does it for you.

Posted by: Bat Chain Puller at December 08, 2013 07:39 AM (jpc8l)

40 There sure is a lot of that "moral ambiguity" in those 12 greatest fantasy books this year. Give 'em what they want, eh? And by "'em" I mean "timid publishers"

Posted by: boudler toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 07:41 AM (4hRH3)

41 I like the episode of McGuffin where he defibrillates a guy by using jumper cables and a car battery...and some chewing gum. That guy was amazing.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at December 08, 2013 07:41 AM (N/Sup)

42
I'm getting for Christmas, but don't tell me -- it's a surprise:

The Library: A World History
Text by James W. P. Campbell and Photographs by Will Pryce

"one of the first books to tell the story of library architecture around the world and through time in a single volume, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern China and from the beginnings of writing to the present day. As these beautiful and striking photos reveal, each age and culture has reinvented the library, molding it to reflect their priorities and preoccupationsÂ—and in turn mirroring the history of civilization itself. CampbellÂ’s authoritative yet readable text recounts the history of these libraries, while PryceÂ’s stunning photographs vividly capture each buildingÂ’s structure and atmosphere."

Publisher's site with extended except: http://tinyurl.com/n4ej2d9

Pricey book, $75 list, near $50 online, but there have been some 20% and 30% off coupons floating around for BN and Amazon that make the cost more tolerable.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at December 08, 2013 07:44 AM (kdS6q)

Posted by: fluffy at December 08, 2013 11:38 AM (Ua6T/)

They did not have amazon reviews or those cool jacket blurbs back then.

Posted by: rd at December 08, 2013 07:45 AM (D+lxs)

44 The book thread is expensive for me, both in money and time. I can't wait until I have read-for-me time! I have a growing stack of books waiting for that day.

Posted by: Gingy @GingyNorth at December 08, 2013 07:45 AM (N/cFh)

45 I have homeschooled for 13 years using a curriculum that uses as many "whole books" as possible- that is a book written by one author, with a protagonist and storyline, vs. text books which are pre-digested bits of information written by a committee. Whole books contain a story which makes the reader CARE. This is why Rush Limbaugh's new children's history book is so popular. It's the way I've been educating my kids all along. They read a lot because the books I give them tell stories about people that make them care about what happens to them. For those interested, the term "whole book" was coined by a 19th century British educator named Charlotte Mason. Many homeschoolers choose her approach to education with fantastic results.

Posted by: parteagirl at December 08, 2013 07:45 AM (Plx/u)

46 We always overlay a narrative on top of events in order to better understand them.

I explored this idea when I was writing my NaNoWriMo project. My stranded characters came up with three competing narratives/muthologies to explain and deal with their circumstances. Another character tried to develop rational, scientific explanations but could not get anyone to buy into his theories until he created a mythology/narrative to compete with the others. Then, driven mad by the contradiction, he went all Mengele.

Posted by: Gregory of Yardale at December 08, 2013 07:48 AM (lcVWe)

47 If the movable type regex engine is PCRE, then try non-consuming expressions: (?=.*foo)(?=.*bar) Heh. They kinda look like tatooed boobies.

Posted by: FRONT TOWARD LEFT at December 08, 2013 07:48 AM (V3kRK)

48 "Up until now, everything has been OK."

Posted by: Zombie John Gotti at December 08, 2013 11:35 AM (uzmcT)

*****

Once, a child was born with nothing but a head. No arms, no legs, no body. He developed pretty normally, but obviously he longed for the ability to do things the other children could do. For years his parents sought a medical solution. When he was about 8, his mother consulted with a renowned surgeon who had developed a technique for implanting a head on a body and achieving full function. Barely containing her excitement, she went to her son and said, "Son, we have a wonderful surprise for your birthday, you'll never guess what we're going to get you." The boy said, "Not another fucking hat!?"

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at December 08, 2013 07:49 AM (N/Sup)

49 I started "The Mongoliad" because I am a Neal Stephenson fan and it is an interesting historical period.

It is pretty uneven, which you would expect from a book written by a whole lot of people. I finished Book 1 and started Book 2. I am not sure if I am going to finish it. There are a lot more books to go.

Posted by: Obnoxious A-hole at December 08, 2013 07:49 AM (BcCwi)

The book is a memoir of an Eastern European (maybe Russian?) immigrant in New York City in the late 19th or early 20th century.

Anything Can Happen by George Papashvily?

Posted by: Nash Rambler at December 08, 2013 07:50 AM (aw9iI)

51 Also, buy my books and encourage others to do so....

http://worlds-apart.net/books.html

Posted by: Gregory of Yardale at December 08, 2013 07:50 AM (lcVWe)

52 My good book dump: The Grail Quest (2 books) by Bernard Cornwell Agincourt-B Cornwell Hailstone Mountain-Lars Walker Most anything by Jeff Shaara Cain at Gettysburg-Ralph Peters The Enemies Trilogy-Matthew Bracken Westerly Gales Saga-EC Williams Most titles by WR Benton Many were previously recommended in this thread.

Posted by: Nfield4 at December 08, 2013 07:51 AM (qGSvT)

53 A book from 1993 that the side-bar story about Artificial Super Intelligence reminded me about. One man had this drive to create an AI android. So he finally created such only to be forced apart from his creation. Maggie, left to fend for herself, has to adapt and survive in a world where AIs are outlawed much less an android that looks like a young woman. The book is called Virtual Girl.

http://tinyurl.com/ohgdyhs

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 07:54 AM (5oAy6)

54 That first picture - are you effin' kidding me? Get over yourself, asshole!

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars [/i] [/b] [/s] at December 08, 2013 07:55 AM (m4AUe)

55 Hey Gregory, so how big was your word count for NaNoWriMo?

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 07:55 AM (5oAy6)

56 MUST I have my favorite thread spoiled by That Face??

I think the book you're wondering about is called Anything Can Happen, but I can't remember the author. Sweet book.

Posted by: Tammy al-Thor at December 08, 2013 07:56 AM (KsM/z)

57
On the nightstand. Well -- technically the D: Drive, but same-diff:

Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks

by Keith Houston

"From ancient Greece to the InternetÂ—via the Renaissance, Gutenberg, and Madison AvenueÂ—Shady Characters exposes the secret history of punctuation.

A charming and indispensable tour of two thousand years of the written word, Shady Characters weaves a fascinating trail across the parallel histories of language and typography.

From the Library of Alexandria to the halls of Bell Labs, figures as diverse as Charlemagne, Vladimir Nabokov, and George W. Bush cross paths with marks as obscure as the interrobang and as divisive as the dash. Ancient Roman graffiti, Venetian trading shorthand, Cold War double agents, and Madison Avenue round out an ever more diverse set of episodes, characters, and artifacts."

Publisher's site http://tinyurl.com/llrb8ry
Extended "inside the book" excerpt available at Amazon.

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at December 08, 2013 07:57 AM (kdS6q)

58 I just love happy endings, don't you? You usually have to pay extra for that kind of action.

Posted by: Insomniac at December 08, 2013 07:58 AM (UAMVq)

59 Just started reading "How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain" by Gregory Berns. So far it has been an interesting read.

As an aside, I have learned the origin of the word "feisty" which has been in my household lexicon for many many years.

Posted by: Hrothgar at December 08, 2013 08:00 AM (XdnQT)

60 I don't remember, but I didn't talk until pretty late. As the youngest of eight, I could get away with just pointing and grunting and my older siblings were obliging.

One day my mom hired a babysitter would ordered my siblings to require that I ask for things. Bingo. Full speech by the end of the day.

Posted by: Jimbo at December 08, 2013 08:01 AM (V70Uh)

61 LOL, but I stumble though.

Posted by: Jimbo at December 08, 2013 08:02 AM (V70Uh)

62 Posted by: Nfield4 at December 08, 2013 11:51 AM (qGSvT)

Maybe I will have to revisit the Westerly Gales Saga-EC Williams since it seems to keep coming up here on the book thread with positive reviews, but when I tried to get started before it seemed rather tedious.

Posted by: Hrothgar at December 08, 2013 08:03 AM (XdnQT)

63 Anything Can Happen by George Papashvily? Yes, thank you, I think that's it!

Posted by: OregonMuse at December 08, 2013 08:04 AM (fd0Pp)

64 The book you're thinking of may be one of the H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N stories, by Leo Rosten.

Posted by: EricJ at December 08, 2013 08:05 AM (+wwk/)

65 A cousin of mine didn't speak at all until he was four because he had three older sisters that "interpreted" for him so he didn't need to speak. When he finally started talking, it was in complete grammatially correct sentences with a substantial vocabulary.

Posted by: Hrothgar at December 08, 2013 08:06 AM (XdnQT)

66 Also on the Buzzfeed list is A Memory of Light, the last of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I read the preceding 14 books while I was nursing to prepare for Brandon Sanderson bringing the series to a close. The chapter "The Last Battle" was definitely written by Jordan, and it's everything WOT fans could ever have dreamed of. Sanderson completes the task of "land a 747 without a scratch after the pilot died enroute" with no complaints from this WOT fan.

Posted by: pookysgirl at December 08, 2013 08:06 AM (kMnHs)

67 The sidebar link to "Our Final Invention" sounded interesting so I started it yesterday. So far it's pretty generic, but the topic is compelling and it's an easy read. I'll let you know if it veers into Terminator territory.

Posted by: pep at December 08, 2013 08:07 AM (6TB1Z)

68 I read Agincourt this week and liked it a lot, as with most of B.Cornwall's books. The coolest thing I've seen in ages though is "S" by JJ Abrams. It's not for the kindle or nook because it has inserts and artifacts in it. A mystery with parallel stories. I'm reading it with a long distance friend and am so excited, I can barely contain myself. And I'm only on page 10.

Posted by: Captain's daughter at December 08, 2013 08:08 AM (DR9Yc)

69 41 I like the episode of McGuffin where he defibrillates a guy by using jumper cables and a car battery...and some chewing gum. That guy was amazing. Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at December 08, 2013 11:41 AM (N/Sup) LOL

Posted by: Krebs v Carnot: Epic Battle of the Cycling Stars [/i] [/b] [/s] at December 08, 2013 08:09 AM (XOog0)

70 Â“Our political system made a possibly fatal mistake in 1968 [by] shifting the entire focus of the American government from one of forward looking future-supporting projects such as the interstate highway system, advanced aerospace, and space development,Â” Wingo said. Â“We are reaping the fruits of that mistake today.Â”

Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at December 08, 2013 08:09 AM (UCeCl)

71 Posted by: Islamic Rage Boy at December 08, 2013 12:09 PM (UCeCl)

It is hard to buy votes today with promises of advanced technology and living standards to be delivered next Tuesday!

Posted by: Hrothgar at December 08, 2013 08:12 AM (XdnQT)

72 I just love happy endings, don't you? LOL. You are a person I hope to meet someday. :^)

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at December 08, 2013 08:14 AM (BC6cY)

73 Morrissey's autobiography is here

Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 08:14 AM (yvLNt)

74 14 Just finished the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia. A cross between old film-noir and evil aliens taking over the world. Good characters, lots of crap blowing up, and great dialogue. If you haven't read anything by Correia, you should - the guy's a former gun-store owner, did some fighting, was an accountant, and based on some of his characters should be inducted into the Moron Hall of Fame. Posted by: RightWingProf at December 08, 2013 11:23 AM (RtR5I) I love, love, loved the first book and I am very much looking forward to finishing the trilogy.

Posted by: BornLib at December 08, 2013 08:14 AM (zpNwC)

75 For those interested, the term "whole book" was coined by a 19th century British educator named Charlotte Mason.
She's the one who had a swastika cut into her forehead, right?

Posted by: [/i]andycanuck[/b] at December 08, 2013 08:15 AM (vjQ/G)

76 Oregon Muse,

Nice topic.

As I mentioned in the Ewok's thread originating the Campbellian Myth as Political reporting theory I do in fact plan on posting a series of WWE inspired narrative vignettes on Ace vis a vis the Juicebox blogosphere on my travels this winter.

and that *is* all political reporting is now... a bunch of emo liberal bastards always casting the left as the Babyface versus the conservative heel it is at best lazy and infantile and at worst near treason to the Republic.

Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 08:16 AM (9jfyN)

77 OregonMuse, I apologize that this may be too much politics, but your observation that the media is the WWE media is brilliant, mostly because it's so obvious. On topic: I am appalled by that picture of Obama reading "his" children's book to a class. I am appalled that he is not appalled.

Posted by: AmishDude at December 08, 2013 08:17 AM (xSegX)

78 74 boulder toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 12:14 PM (yvLNt)

The Pilsbury Chronicles?

Heh

Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 08:17 AM (9jfyN)

79 53 Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 11:54 AM Amy Thomson's Virtual Girl was fun, but I liked her later book The Color of Distance more. The key idea is that an alien society is led by trained individuals. If those leaders make a mistake in judgement for a course of action, they must atone with their own death. A good leader leads a long life. A well-written story, IMHO. Applied to human society, we would lack any leaders or progress, and dogs would inherit the earth.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at December 08, 2013 08:18 AM (u82oZ)

80 78 AmishDude at December 08, 2013 12:17 PM (xSegX)

Not being puckinsh I commented on it in Ace's thread...

basically it is the simplest mode of storytelling known to mankind, and is basic mythology storytelling.

Here's a clip of Jim Ross commenting on a WWE match.....

tell me it is any different than MSLSD and Chris Tingle...

http://youtu.be/G90NjYNQ1RA

Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 08:20 AM (9jfyN)

81 "Whatever it was that Rough Trade were, they were not a hip label, and by their appearance, Rough Trade personnel in the early 1980s need never have feared sexual assault. Everything was a question of personal identity, and Rough Trade set out to assert autonomy whilst at the same time challenging the established order. They did this largely by pressing records that no one wanted to buy." Okay, he's a schmuck, but he's witty

Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 08:20 AM (yvLNt)

82 The other difference between WWE and the M$M is there is a heel commentator as well....

the newsies like one hand clapping.

Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 08:23 AM (9jfyN)

83 I am reading "if on a winter's night a traveler" by Italo Calvino. I think I heard about it on the book thread a couple of weeks back. I love everything about it so far. I can see where some people might not get the point of the book, but it is a book designed to be read on many, many levels.

If you like a novel that's not formulaic or even normal in reality, this might be the book for you. You have to read it with a clear mind so that you can absorb and understand the subtleties of it, but it is worth the read.

Posted by: Zombie John Gotti at December 08, 2013 11:18 AM (uzmcT)

I enjoyed that book a great deal and will probably reread it at some point in the future.

Finished "A Hero of Our Time" by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1840 and a big influence on Tolstoy et al. Very much a book before its time in terms of being about kind of an anti hero and not being told in a linear fashion. I ended up reading the next to most recent translation because the newer one just didn't flow well for me. The action takes place in the Caucasus with all the tribal nature of Georgia, Ossetia and Chechnya which I'm sure was a continual source of problems for the Rooskis.

Speaking of Rooskis, I just recently became aware, through the heads up of a fellow moron, about the new book by Catherine Merridale, "Red Fortress", about the Kremlin. I promptly reserved it at the library because an earlier book of her's, "Ivan's War: The Story of the Red Army in World War 2" was one of the most eye opening works of history I've read. She got her info from interviewing a bunch of WW2 veterans from the Crimea at one of their get togethers. At first nobody wanted to talk with her because the guys were very distrustful of outsiders and had had their asses kicked by Stalin after going through hell and back to survive in the war after which they thought they'd be treated like heroes. Going through bomb splattered Germany, they realized it still looked better than the shitholes they lived in for the worker's paradise. Anyway, one brave soul agreed to be interviewed and Merridale wisely gave him some cognac along with his tea. He went back and told his buds she was giving out top shelf hooch for talking to her. She ultimately had to turn people away because her tapes were all filled up. I suspect Red Fortress will be very good.

I'm to a chapter in Gibbon where he's shitting all over the Byzantine Christians for their various spats about the nature of the Trinity. Admittedly these were pretty fucking bloody and probably unnecessarily so but it's not like they've held on to these fucking feuds like the moooooslims have to this day.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 08, 2013 08:24 AM (A6gRF)

84 speaking of Pro Wrestling inspired things....

http://tinyurl.com/nsesa76

Wall Street Journal review of "The Sqaured Circle" by Shoemaker a history of the genre.

Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 08:25 AM (9jfyN)

85 FINALLY, got both computers attached to the router and working.

And I am currently trying to read the Belgeriad by David Eddings but stuff keep interfering.

Posted by: Vic at December 08, 2013 08:25 AM (SAP9y)

86 Moz doesn't like Mike Rourke. He accuses him of perjuring a court on page 156. Niiiice.

Posted by: boulder toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 08:26 AM (yvLNt)

87 Reading "Divine Mercy In My Soul" the diary of Saint Faustina Kowalska-a nun who died around 1939 and who was cannonized by John Paul II. I read a lot of the Christian mystics-Catholic as well as Protestant. it is a wonderful way to deepen ones faith as she brought the concept of divine mercy forward in a very powerful way through (she believed and I believe it too) divine revelation. It is a long book and I have not finished it yet but it a wonderful discipline to read through the Advent season. Also reading again "The Complete Fenelon" by Francois Fenelon-which is a continuing blessing to me,

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at December 08, 2013 08:27 AM (BC6cY)

88 Curently reading The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin. Quite Rah! Rah! for Western culture and thought for an ex-Commie author.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at December 08, 2013 08:27 AM (u82oZ)

89 Can anyone imagine Bush showing a picture of himself to school children? This man has no shame and no brain.

Posted by: Vic at December 08, 2013 08:27 AM (SAP9y)

90
From the math standpoint, it would be my best desire if most people knew enough for basic finance and basic economics. Don't really have any book recommendations, they are legion (probably Milton Friedman, Walt Williams, etc), but the nation sure would be better off with just the basics being known.

Posted by: Guy Mohawk at December 08, 2013 08:28 AM (MaP11)

91 90 Vic,

One thing is Bush could both write and illustrate his own children's book...

Bam can just "inspire one"

Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 08:28 AM (9jfyN)

92 Posted by: naturalfake at December 08, 2013 12:13 PM (KBvAm) LOL. It was that good, huh? ;^)

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at December 08, 2013 08:29 AM (BC6cY)

93 Hey Gregory, so how big was your word count for NaNoWriMo?

89,640 or something like that. Last few chapter were really sketchy, though.

Posted by: Gregory of Yardale at December 08, 2013 08:29 AM (lcVWe)

94 40 There sure is a lot of that "moral ambiguity" in those 12 greatest fantasy books this year. Give 'em what they want, eh? And by "'em" I mean "timid publishers" Posted by: boudler toilet hobo at December 08, 2013 11:41 AM (4hRH3) It's Buzzfeed.

Posted by: BornLib at December 08, 2013 08:29 AM (zpNwC)

95 Informational/cultural transfer through storytelling goes way back to early hunter/gatherer society. Hunters would tell stories of the hunt and of Other Places when they got back to camp, women would tell instructional stories to children, gossiphounds would tell stories of other members of the group.

That last group has evolved into the media.

Posted by: davidt at December 08, 2013 08:29 AM (//hi2)

96 Re: narrative, there also seem to be particular plots we prefer, as they keep popping up, like the younger son outwitting or winding up in a better position than his older brother(s), which in a system of primogeniture would be a BFD.

Here's another, the earliest example of which involved Sargon the Great, who was real (ca. 2300 BC), though the story has got to be apocryphal. His mother was allegedly a priestess of the highest rank who, at his birth, put him in a basket sealed with bitumen and floated it down the river, where a guy set to irrigating a garden, a job just above slave, plucked baby Sargon out of the river and reared him. It's the same baby-in-a-basket-on-the-river motif as with Moses, and a similar reversal in status, though Sargon went from highest to lowest while Moses went the other way around.

Which just now reminded me of a drawing I bought at an "art" sale of work by psych dept. inpatients at a hospital I worked at. It was entitled "Baby in a Basket". I think I stashed it in the attic. Should go find that sucka and frame it.

Posted by: Trotsky with an ice-pick in his head at December 08, 2013 08:30 AM (TuFuO)

97 For whatever reason "Hopscotch" didn't work for me when I read it years ago. Maybe I should try it again because I might be in a position to enjoy it more now...

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 08, 2013 08:30 AM (A6gRF)

98 . I have read precisely 0 of them

I have read A Memory of Light from the library when it first came out will I waited for the e-book price to drop. Amazon had it for $4 about a week ago and I picked up my copy and loaded it on my Samsung.

Posted by: Vic at December 08, 2013 08:31 AM (SAP9y)

99 "Ivan's War: The Story of the Red Army in World War 2" was a great book. The story has been told before, but not as well. She really pointed out what life in the Red Army was about. For example, she pulls no punches in the treatment of Germans by the Red Army once across the border. The Red Army's actions turned Germans into pacifists, after 100 years of militarism.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at December 08, 2013 08:33 AM (u82oZ)

100 Wait a second; Malor linked to Buzzfeed? Isn't that a ban worthy offense?

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 08, 2013 08:33 AM (A6gRF)

101 If you like italo Calvino, you might like Julio Cortazar: "Hopscotch" "62: A Model Kit" Nothing on Kindle though. And he wrote most of his best stuff in the 60s and 70s. Since he was Argentine that means he was, a leftard though not oppressively so in his books. Both are interesting and fun reads- though never really approach reality. Posted by: naturalfake at December 08, 2013 12:28 PM (KBvAm) Those sound very interesting. I love Calvino's commentary of authors, readers, and the act of reading. He really nailed it.

Posted by: Zombie John Gotti at December 08, 2013 08:33 AM (uzmcT)

102 I am reading the big book of Christmas Mysteries edited by Otto Penzler because I like to get one new Christmas themed book a year and read it. I can't tell you how it is yet because the print is super tiny and keeps making me fall asleep as I am reading it. But I have high hopes that eventually I will get past the first story, which is an Agatha Christie story.

Posted by: Paranoidgirlinseattle at December 08, 2013 08:34 AM (RZ8pf)

103 Wow Gregory, congrats! Sketchy just means in the rewrite still have a chance to flesh things out. And discover more of your world.

Managed to eke across the finish line to view Marathon without dieing. But still got a chunk of the story to translate from note cards to story to finish first draft. Yay! Gearing up for Kickstarter, incentive to finish if I have people paying.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 08:34 AM (5oAy6)

104 And naturally, I have forgotten the title. Anybody recognize this one?

Don't know the book but it reminds me of the time a couple from CA came to visit and me and the guy went to lpay golf at my clubs. Wifey's came with us to ride the carts and enjoy the scenery. As we were heading for the green after t-ing off on the forth hole we notices missing wifey's... Went back to look for them and they were picking the flowers planted on the side of the fairway.

Posted by: Vic at December 08, 2013 08:34 AM (SAP9y)

105 Currently reading "A Tour of the Calculus" by a guy named Berlinski. Not because I'm sophisticated or smart, but because he rationalizes how things like irrational and imaginary numbers came to be, and why math developed as a logical extension of observation. I'd be willing to bet a lot of "primitive" cultures are/were more advanced than we realize.

Posted by: CrotchetyOldJarhead at December 08, 2013 08:36 AM (LP0Fj)

106 Finished Correia's Grimnoir series a while ago... very, very recommended. It's intelligent and amusing. Excellent reading. Also comes from an author who really, really pisses off the elites in the publishing world. Follow his blog for some excellent liberal troll take-downs.

Just finished my first Heinlein book, Glory Road. Also recommend. Subtle at times and laugh out loud at others. Most feminist panty-twist reviewers completely missed the point of the book, so read it for that at least.

Posted by: OCD Grammar Chief ON not at December 08, 2013 08:36 AM (qWES6)

107 Annd... sock off. Oops. Forgot I had that on there.

Posted by: Book at December 08, 2013 08:37 AM (qWES6)

108 currently splitting my reading time between "Anarchist's Tool Chest" by Christopher Schwarz and "By Hand and Eye" by George R. Walker & Jim Tolpin.

So far, good reads if you're into woodworking

Posted by: The Dude at December 08, 2013 08:38 AM (vJdyz)

109 THIS is the most amazing short piece of WOW video I've seen maybe this year: http://tinyurl.com/klyzw4k

Posted by: DAve at December 08, 2013 08:38 AM (b7yum)

110 OCD Grammar Chief ON Try The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein. It's a better book. Or Double Star. Or Citizen of the Galaxy. Or Â…

Posted by: NaCly Dog at December 08, 2013 08:39 AM (u82oZ)

111 Posted by: NaCly Dog at December 08, 2013 12:33 PM (u82oZ)

There were tons of nuggets throughout the whole thing. Nobody had boots that fit. For some odd reason, the Soviets were able to produce tanks that worked very well in very large numbers. Destroying French wine because it had too low of an alc content to the vodka swillers. Embedded members of the NKVD who would shoot them in the back. The POWs who committed suicide rather than be turned over to Stalin.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Posted by: Captain Hate at December 08, 2013 08:39 AM (A6gRF)

112 Currently re-reading Conquest by Juliet Barker, the follow-up to her excellent Agincourt. Obsessive narcissist politicos are nothing new; they used to be more common, which makes me even more grateful for the American Revolution. I am also reading some zombie novels on Kindle I got for cheap on Amazon. Will have to post some brief reviews when I am done.

I am also writing my own book, of sorts. It's a project to create my own set of preferred MERP/Rolemaster rules, culled from a stack of old game books and fan-mods posted online. I look forward to using it in the future.

Posted by: exdem13 at December 08, 2013 08:40 AM (lJaja)

113 Re: regex bleg again, it's because regular expressions are only a practical construct kind-of-by-accidentÂ—they were originally a topic of study in automata theory, a field of computer science, starting in about the mid-1940s. Automata theory looks at formal grammars (that is, rules that define every string which can be produced for a given formal language [that is, a set of strings]) and the abstract machines which can recognize strings from that language. A Turing machine is a highly-capable automaton. The machine which can recognize a regular expression is on the other end of the spectrum. It's called a deterministic finite automaton, or a deterministic finite state machine. It comprises a starting state, a finishing (or accepting) state, and a set of intermediate states, as well as a set of rules governing transitions from state to state. Here's a really simple example. Draw two circles on a piece of paper. Write S in one and F in another, then draw one arrow between the two and one that loops from S back to itself. Label the arrow between S and F 'a', and the one that goes from S to S '.', or your wildcard character of choice. You've constructed the finite state machine which corresponds to '.*a.*', which corresponds to the formal language which contains all strings including an 'a' and excludes all strings which don't. That's the mathematical foundation upon which regexes are built, and they impose obvious limits on what you can ask for. The impossible regex 'foo && bar' asks, "accept strings which contain both foo and bar," and that requires knowledge of context, which a DFSM doesn't have. You can ask an equivalent question like RegexMan gave in comment #16, though, which has the context embedded: "Accept strings which either contain foo, then stuff, then bar, or strings which contain bar, then stuff, then foo." Fun fact: this is the first time I've used any formal computer science since I graduated two years ago. Thanks for the opportunity.

Posted by: Fishbreath at December 08, 2013 08:42 AM (YL8eU)

114 Anna, I look forward to getting back to "Terra Incognita" (The NaNoWriMo Project) after its had time to ferment for a while. Meanwhile, strugging with the ending of Worlds Apart Book 12. I know how it ends... how it *has to* end... but the presentation is the challenge.

Unfortunately, for last week and next, I will be too busy "fixing" a clusterfetch at work to write. :-(

Posted by: Gregory of Yardale at December 08, 2013 08:42 AM (lcVWe)

115 Finished "A Hero of Our Time" by Mikhail Lermontov, written in 1840

A prof I know teaches an intro to reading literature course to undergrads who never ever read anything for pleasure. She introduced "A Hero of Our Time" in one class and it proved so popular that she now uses it as a staple. Surprised me, not because it's not a good read but because, I mean, 1840 for this crew of yutes! I would have expected them to reject it out of hand.

Posted by: Trotsky with an ice-pick in his head at December 08, 2013 08:43 AM (TuFuO)

116 112: Posted by: NaCly Dog

I've had the Moon Mistress recommended to me a few times. Going to pick it up next.

Posted by: Book at December 08, 2013 08:43 AM (qWES6)

117 Waitaminute waitaminute... I've seen that first pic a bagizillion times and I think this is the first time I've noticed... is the name of the book they're reading SERIOUSLY "Barack Obama, of Thee I Sing"??

Really?

W. T. F.

Posted by: Book at December 08, 2013 08:45 AM (qWES6)

118 Posted by: sven at December 08, 2013 12:20 PM (9jfyN) It's not just that it's fiction storytelling. We know what fiction looks like. We know the hero's journey, we know when we're seeing fiction, as "real" as it attempts to be. We also know bias and a rooting interest. What is different is a sort of farcical parody of the sports reporter with the parallel neutral storylines in which one is greatly preferred. Look at Totten's reporting. Cubans and North Koreans know they're being propagandized. But it's so total, they don't know the truth. We are very close to that point now. Certainly the LIVs aren't exposed to anything different.

Posted by: AmishDude at December 08, 2013 08:46 AM (xSegX)

119 NaCly Dog. Had never read that novel, sounds interesting. Succeed and survive. Of course there is always H. Beam Piper's Lone Star Planet where the whole state of Texas builds spaceships, abandons Earth, and settles their own planet far away from Earth control. And they enshrine in their constitution the right of every citizen to kill their representative for political crimes such as trying to impose a tax. And that is just the back story for the novel.

Virtual Girl is a nifty little yarn. An alien trying to survive in a potentially hostile world.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 08:46 AM (5oAy6)

120 I am the greatest.

Posted by: Prez'nit 404 at December 08, 2013 08:48 AM (Dwehj)

121 Gregory it sounds like you are killing your 'little pretty' with Book 12. And dreading it very much.

Sorry to hear reality is diverting your attention that much.

Good luck.

Posted by: Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 08:49 AM (5oAy6)

122 Might try foo.*bar|bar.*foo or [Ff][Oo][Oo].*[Bb][Aa][Rr]|[Bb][Aa][Rr].*[Ff][Oo][Oo] If you want to catch fubars which may have different casing.

Posted by: Frumious Bandersnatch at December 08, 2013 08:50 AM (iObsb)

123 If people are interested in WWII, I highly recommend HHhH by Laurent Binet. It's pretty amazing.

Posted by: Lizzie at December 08, 2013 08:50 AM (GQgn6)

124 119 is the name of the book they're reading SERIOUSLY "Barack Obama, of Thee I Sing"?? I believe the name of the book is "Of Thee I Sing" by best-selling author and Nobel laureate Barack Obama, but I was trying really hard not to pay attention when it came out.

Posted by: Anachronda at December 08, 2013 08:50 AM (U82Km)

125 To above, my youngest son didn't talk either. He absorbed everything and when he did start talking, he was also reading. I started him in kindergarden at 4, figuring no big deal if he had to repeat, but he was just fine and above 90% of the class in reading. He just couldn't be bothered with that baby stuff crap.

Posted by: madamex at December 08, 2013 08:51 AM (1zsKV)

126 I thought I had been designated the official children's books reader. This sucks.

Posted by: Slow Uncle Joe Biden at December 08, 2013 08:52 AM (Dwehj)

127 If people are interested in WWII, I highly recommend HHhH by Laurent Binet.

Say what???

Posted by: HH at December 08, 2013 08:52 AM (XXwdv)

128 Of me, I sing.

Posted by: Prez'nit 404 at December 08, 2013 08:52 AM (Dwehj)

129 I imagine you'll have to search the used book sites like abe.com for this one: The Path Of The Masters -Julian P. Johnson First pubilshed in 1939. My copy is the 10th revised edition from 1975. "A comphrehensive statement of the Teachings of the Great Masters or Spiritual Luminairies of the East. Also an outline of their scientific system of exercises by means of which they attain the highest degree of spiritual development." Their interface with and love for Christ is very enlightening. These are the decendants of the Three Wise Men, who knew something important was up in Bethleham.

Posted by: Meremortal, let it boin at December 08, 2013 08:54 AM (1Y+hH)

130
Stories are how we explain the world to ourselves. Gene Wolfe wrote about stories, "t often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music .... Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own - hard for me, at least."

The problem with the MFM is not that they tell stories - we all do that - but that the whole lot of them are telling exactly the same story: and it's a story that, either by design or out of ignorance, defends a lie.

As for what I'm reading, for the first time in my life I'm reading the Bible; in the New American Standard translation, a Catholic Bible that includes the OT apocrypha. I'm well into the historical books now, and talk about excellent storytelling!

Posted by: Brown Line` at December 08, 2013 08:54 AM (a5bF3)

131 6 I believe that the period will remain constant regardless of the gravitational field.

Posted by: Mike Hammer at December 08, 2013 08:54 AM (aDwsi)

132 Erg. Probably better to use (foo.*bar)|(bar.*foo) so as to be unambiguous.

Posted by: Frumious Bandersnatch at December 08, 2013 08:56 AM (iObsb)

133 The fact that a gun-totin', right-wing knuckle-dragger like Larry Correia is making enough money writing that he quit his day job and now just concentrates on turning out kick-ass books must drive the barking moonbats who infest the sci-fi and fantasy publishing world absolutely fucking crazy.

Which, for me, proves that yes, there is a God...

Posted by: Pave Low John at December 08, 2013 08:57 AM (mhmeG)

134 129 If people are interested in WWII, I highly recommend HHhH by Laurent Binet. Say what??? Posted by: HH at December 08, 2013 12:52 PM (XXwdv) ================== I...will take that as a sincere request for more info. (Oy, I'm bad enough at recognizing sarcasm and slang in real life. Putting me on the internet is like putting a 2 y/o on the field during the Superbowl. ) It's about the assassination of Heinrich, the politics surrounding it, the planning, the repercussions, the people. It's really something special, not least because it breaks pretty much every rule I normally set for my reading (lots of digressions into the author's life and feelings, lots of reimagining scenes, going into things he really couldn't know) but, by Jove, he makes it work. (Francine Prose, in her work "Reading like a Writer", had a similar experience with reading Chekhov, and a sweet anecdote on how it nearly rendered her useless as a creative writing teacher, as every time she tried to give A Rule, she could think of a time when Chekhov gave the rule the finger and made something wonderful. I wouldn't take her advice on being a writer, but she knows exactly how to make you run, salivating, in the direction of the writers she recommends.)

Posted by: Lizzie at December 08, 2013 09:01 AM (GQgn6)

135 The first will be "wow, that's brilliant" and the second will be "wow, that's depressing". Uh, neither.

Posted by: Teh Most Interesting Man at December 08, 2013 09:01 AM (6RwsK)

136 My country, 'tis of me.

Posted by: Prez'nit 404 at December 08, 2013 09:11 AM (Dwehj)

137 Because I have several socialist friends on Facebook and because I simply do not understand how anyone can be that foolish and manage to dress themselves every day, I have several books on socialism checked out of the library and got a few more yesterday. I am currently reading "The everything guide to socialism" in the bathroom where it belongs, and on page 2 (Page 1 was less than half a page long), the first error pops up in the author's description of capitalism. I expect to be befuddled while reading these silly books for quite some time. I am also reading a true-crime called "The Good nurse" wherein I thought the author was being way too sympathetic to the criminal, but once the police entered the picture, things picked up quite a bit. We are doubtless supposed to think ill of the hospitals in this case, but what are they supposed to do? Their liability could cause them to close their doors, and I don't know how you can stop this kind of sociopath until he's killed several and a pattern starts to emerge. It's not as easy as "hospitals bad" as the author seems to want us to think.

Posted by: Tonestaple at December 08, 2013 09:12 AM (B7YN4)

138 A Tattered Banner is a very good book. Another book on that list, The Red Knight, is a GREAT book. As good as Blood Song if you can believe that.

Posted by: truth fairy at December 08, 2013 09:13 AM (ue2Nm)

139 Blood Song by who?

Posted by: BornLib at December 08, 2013 09:22 AM (zpNwC)

140 The kid, an only child, never spoke much at all until he went off to kindergarten. He was already reading by then and just didn't talk much. Still doesn't at 17. But he speaks four languages now. Some people are just quiet. Crap weather today, cold and rainy. Curled up with a book of essays by Emerson and two Sunday newspapers.

Posted by: NCKate at December 08, 2013 09:48 AM (H/qBR)

141 As I mentioned yesterday, Diana West's "American Betrayal" landed in my mailbox. I've had my computer off this morning so I could delve into it. Here is a progress report: When I ordered the book, I was under the impression that it was about Communist infiltration and subversion of the U.S. government. That's true, but there is more going on. This isn't just another listing of Soviet agents and Venona files. West is concerned about why our conventional history glosses over these facts or outright denies them. It has relevance to the present day, too. In Chapter 1 she discusses how our intelligence agencies and the military have purged any references to Islam and jihad doctrine from their briefings and discussions of terrorism. She makes it quite clear that this did not begin under Obama, but was in full swing during the Bush administration. Likewise, she explores how leading conservative commentators *cough*Charles Krauthammer*cough* dismissed any discussion of Obama's obvious socialist ideology and background during the 2008 campaign, when an open examination might have made a difference in the election results. It paints a very disturbing picture of how denial and willful ignorance of reality has become utterly pervasive in American culture, and how many conservatives and Republicans seem to be incapable of standing up for traditional American values. She starts out Chapter 2 by recounting the fall of the Soviet Union, and wonders why there were no trials or purges of Communists and fellow travelers in the aftermath. It seems that Boris Yeltsin was prepared to do that, but was discouraged by opposition from Western governments. Hmm. She segues back to World War II and notes the incredible volume of Lend-Lease materiel that was sent to the Soviets, which was given a higher priority than American and British military needs. For example, over 200,000,000 pounds of butter was sent to the USSR at a time when it was strictly rationed in the United States. Airplanes and tanks were being sent to Russia at the time of the fall of Singapore and the Philippines in early 1942. She discusses the Nuremberg trials after WWII, and notes that, while Nazi atrocities were examined in great detail, equivalent Soviet war crimes were strictly off limits. One Soviet judge was even a veteran of Stalin's show trials of the 1930s, which paints a disturbing picture of one group of blood-soaked mass murderers sitting in judgment over another group of blood-soaked mass murderers. All of this was done with the total complicity of the Americans and British, while the Soviets were subverting and subjugating the nations of Eastern Europe at that very moment, and also while US and British troops were forcibly repatriating some two million Soviet refugees, which she calls "our own war crime". ( I suspect that she will revisit that little incident in greater detail later on.) She wonders whether Nuremberg was a Western version of a Stalinist "show trial". All of that was in the first two chapters. She begins Chapter 3 with "Warning: Reading this chapter may be hazardous to your worldview." Oh goody.

Posted by: rickl at December 08, 2013 09:58 AM (sdi6R)

142 Anna Puma (+SmuD) at December 08, 2013 12:46 PM Virtual Girl is in paperback on one of my bookshelves, next to the hardcover The Color of Distance.

Posted by: NaCly Dog at December 08, 2013 10:00 AM (u82oZ)

143 Any book recommendations on how to correct a 12 yo daughter who keeps screaming at everyone, except of course at school. Ready to move out myself. If I won the lottery I'd be gone so fast to somewhere cold. And don't tell me it's my fault. I'm the most easygoing helpful person anywhere.

Posted by: bill sometimes bill from canada at December 08, 2013 10:02 AM (0MI+/)

144 I completely forgot to mention West's most important point about Nuremberg, which was that WWII started as a collaborative effort between the Nazis and Soviets, yet the Molotov-von Ribbentrop pact was ruled "inadmissible".

Posted by: rickl at December 08, 2013 10:04 AM (sdi6R)

145 And, since this is an audience of morons: have you read the fcuking manual?

Posted by: DesiDad at December 08, 2013 11:36 AM (jMEPy)

RTFM? Please...we're morons not idiots. Of course we haven't RTFM.

Also, buy my books and encourage others to do so....

http://worlds-apart.net/books.html

Posted by: Gregory of Yardale at December 08, 2013 11:50 AM (lcVWe)

Yes. Do this.

Recently finished the three Westerly Gales books and enjoyed them thoroughly. Also finished Tom Kratman's books A Desert called Peace, A State of Disobedience, and Caliphate. Also, Patriot Dawn by Max Velocity and Godshead by Holly Chism. Recommend them all, but Godshead takes a while to get into since it starts out as more of a collection of related short stories before getting into the actual plot.

In the Kindle right now is Gravity Kills by Steve Rzaza and Vox Day on the recommendation of Larry Correia on his blog (Monster Hunter Nation, all morons should be familiar with this writer). Vox Day has the distinction of being the only author ever thrown out of the Sci Fi Writers Ass'n, which is a recommendation all on its own IMO. Next up will be A Man Disrupted by the same authors, and then the follow up to Godshead, Highway to Tartarus.

Anxiously awaiting the next Worlds Apart installment (love this series) and anything by moronette Sabrina Chase.

Keep the recommendations coming roonz and roonettez!

Posted by: GGE of the Moron Horde, NC Chapter at December 08, 2013 10:12 AM (yh0zB)

146

Tatiana, new book by Martin Cruz Smith.

Haven't finished but expect it to be up to his usual standards.

Posted by: Frankly at December 08, 2013 10:12 AM (n30YX)

147 Any book recommendations on how to correct a 12 yo daughter who keeps screaming at everyone, except of course at school. Ready to move out myself. If I won the lottery I'd be gone so fast to somewhere cold. And don't tell me it's my fault. I'm the most easygoing helpful person anywhere. Posted by: bill sometimes bill from canada at December 08, 2013 02:02 PM (0MI+/) My Daughter did that. We spent 10's of thousands from our own pocket for Psych testing./ Found out she has Aspergers, a mild form of autism. Once we got over our own bullshit and accepted the fact that she really had it and yes it could happen to us, we were able to get her treatment. Other than a few eccentricities and an occasional outburst when she's stressed, she is a relatively normal 14 year old.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at December 08, 2013 10:29 AM (XIxXP)

148 23 Because he can?

Posted by: Tuna at December 08, 2013 10:30 AM (M/TDA)

149 Hate to break it to you, but the period of the pendulum is only approximately independent of the amplitude, for small amplitudes. More precisely, the two are independent for angles small enough that sin(x) is approximately equal to x. If you pull the pendulum all the way out to one side, the period will not be the same as it would be for a smaller amplitude.

As to the gravitational field strength, that isn't an issue. Increasing the field strength would decrease the period, but would not affect its amplitude dependence.

Posted by: Jerome at December 08, 2013 10:32 AM (eQa5p)

150 Read a great book this week, Writers Between the covers: The Scandalous Romantic Lives of Legendary Literary Casanovas, Coquettes, and Cads by Reardon and Schmidt. From lord Byron to Tennessee Williams, those people were FKD UP freaks before the world knew what a freak was. It explains much about us that choose to write.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at December 08, 2013 10:36 AM (XIxXP)

151 Martyred by communists, here's a little story I ran across at a blog I read occasionally. http://tinyurl.com/ma9omhc The blog is one of a Passionist monastery in Kentucky.

Posted by: Tonestaple at December 08, 2013 10:43 AM (B7YN4)

152 Oh, and Amy Lynn: Golden Angel, had another chapter added this week, even after working four 12-hour-days in the factory.

Posted by: Oldsailors Poet Palin/Bolton 2016 at December 08, 2013 10:49 AM (XIxXP)

153 Osp, thanks. I was reading about Asperger's recently, scary, it described me a lot I thought, so I just gave up looking for info. Although I don't fly off the handle shreiking at everbody, even though I feel like it sometimes. She's super smart, etc and it doesn't reaaly make sense. My 14.8 yo son is a model kid, people haves asked me if he's going to be a minister of some kind. Probably going to be a school sports coach.

Posted by: bill sometimes bill from canada at December 08, 2013 11:13 AM (0MI+/)

154

A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization by Dean Overman.

Written in response to an article in Telicom, the journal for the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, that set forth the proposition that because the Miller and Urey experiment "works", individuals are free to select their own purposes and goals without regard to any standard.

Overman destroys this argument. The Miller and Urey experiment, the ultimate Junk Science, is still taught in high schools today. Good read if you are science minded.

Posted by: See Ron Run at December 08, 2013 11:21 AM (tmZwI)

155 Re- late verbalizing kids. My wife teaches kindergarten, and has these 2 kids (1 boy and 1 girl) who are neighbors, and went to daycare and pre-k together. The boy never speaks; he just points, and the little girl acts as his "translator". My wife said it was cute at first, but with all of the tests and evaluations she has to do as part of the curriculum, she told the boy's mother that he needed to start speaking on his own. The mother told her that as long as the little girl wasn't around, the boy would talk. Otherwise, he would let the little girl do all of his talking for him.

Posted by: DaveinNC at December 08, 2013 11:45 AM (/NgNT)

156 No mention of "Warbound" by Larry Correia? Then it's not the "12 Greatest Fantasy Books of the Year".

Posted by: Calvin Dodge at December 08, 2013 04:33 PM (JTaw8)

157 Regex doesn't do that easily. Do this instead, to search for both foo and bar in a file using a unix command line, type: cat filename | grep foo | grep bar

Posted by: rammerplex at December 08, 2013 05:01 PM (K5YuV)

158 If you want to read a good book children's book about Barack Obama, try "The Fable of Bearack Obama". http://amzn.com/1479194778 There are fish to catch, berries and nuts to gather, and a den to dig out- but Bearack Obama the Brown Bear soon discovers that the government can do all of those things for him! There is only one problem- the government doesnÂ’t do any of those things as well as Bearack can himself, and he soon finds himself becoming bored, sad, lazy, and unhealthy. It isnÂ’t until he breaks free from dependency on others and relearns the joys of being self-sufficient that he once again is the healthy, happy, and free bear that he was always intended to be. Come join Bearack in this charming and fun story. Beautifully illustrated, full of humor, and with an important message, both you and your child will read this book again and again! Available on Amazon for the low price of $14.95! Buy it now and give it to a friend or relative or loved one this Christmas!

Posted by: Joseph Teach at December 08, 2013 05:05 PM (idosS)

159 regex can do foo followed by bar or bar followed by foo with: grep "^*.foo.*bar.*$" or grep "^*.bar.*foo.*$" either of those should work in wordpress.

Posted by: rammerplex at December 08, 2013 05:14 PM (K5YuV)

160 Sorry my fingers got tangled up in typing that. This is fixed, . should precede * Regex can do foo followed by bar or bar followed by foo with: grep "^.*foo.*bar.*$" or grep "^.*bar.*foo.*$" either of those should work in wordpress.

Posted by: rammerplex at December 08, 2013 05:16 PM (K5YuV)

161 I'm also thinking the book you're blegging (but not really blegging) about is one of the Hyman Kaplan stories.

Posted by: Otto Zilch at December 08, 2013 05:46 PM (eEa5w)

162 The book you asked about: Anything Can Happen, by George Papashvily (who was Georgian, not Russian, and came to the United States in 1925). It is the author's autobiography, and I know there was a sequel to it, but I can't remember the title. It was also made into a movie. I LOVE this book!!! The chapter "Yes, Your Honesty" (which you mentioned) was part of a junior high reader in my school. I read the book to my kids when they were in about 5th grade -- they were going to a Lod grade school where almost all the kids were from Georgia. Only a couple of kids in their classes had names that didn't end in ...shvily. This is a wonderful immigration-to-America story; it has both humor and sadness. By the way, George Papashvily and his wife Helen also wrote the volume on Russian cooking that is part of that wonderful Time-Life series.

Posted by: Alifa at December 08, 2013 11:31 PM (X8JZK)

163 I know it's late to post but post 157 reminded me. My youngest brother and sister are twins. They were in Kindergarten together and the teacher reported that she was answering for him. From that moment on they were separated into different classes at school and it worked perfectly.

Posted by: Jaclyn at December 09, 2013 01:49 AM (ocU5X)

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