give yourselves a pat on the back, peaceniks

if you are not familiar with cilantro you are her bright chirpy separated at birth sister wife

Castaway (1934) by James Gould Cozzens. Weirdo little novella, sort of a Lord of the Flies set in a department store, and with one adult (maybe two?) instead of a bunch of little brats. Started off okay, nice prose style, but even at 120 or so pages it dragged by the end.

The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer (2016) by Kate Summerscale. Another nicely done “creative non-fiction” account of a Victorian murder, this one about a mother killed in 1895 by her 13 year old son. Lots of great period detail including the history and workings of the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Quite a kicker at the end as the author winds up, in 2012, interviewing an old man who in the 1930s was very close to the murderer.

I just finished and sent to the publisher today the draft manuscript for my new book, based on a series of lectures I gave (by live-streaming) earlier this year.

The title is "We're Done For...Unless: Lectures on the Future of the United States, Europe, and Capitalism".

the worst book i ever read was based on a series of lectures

Ron Insana "The Message Of The Markets"

My lectures are better than his.

what about the book

My book is better than his too.

The markets CAUSED the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with economies like those in South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and even Thailand merely had some shorter term public debt issues that they could have resolved. The Markets were not "predicting" they were exercising power, or rather not "markets" but investors, capitalists. This is HOW capitalists mainly maintain dominance in the world, punishing public policy that goes against their interests. That you learn in my book, not in his which continues to do as pro-capitalist economics always does, namely reify markets and mask the real actors at work and what their class interests are.

Just sayin'.

Looking forward to your book, italyprof! Let's us know when it's published and where we can get it.

Two of the best bathroom reading books I've ever come across are humorist Roy Blount Jr.'s Alphabet Juice (2008) and Alphabetter Juice (2011). Both books can be summed up with the first one's subtitle:

The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof: Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory.

Here's the entry for "First Sentence" (from the second book):

Generally an author takes great pains with the first sentence of his or her book. I know I have never been quite satisfied with any of mine. But then I've never had all the ranks of assistance available to Karl Rove, author of Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Rove acknowledges an editor; a "close friend and trusted former colleague" who "also helped craft every chapter and episode"; a line editor; a researcher; seven research assistants under the "expert guidance" of yet another person, his chief of staff; twenty-two people who read important parts of the manuscript; and ten more people who "devoured and improved major swatches of this manuscript."

An interesting process, devouring and improving, maybe something like free-range chickens turning bugs and scraps into high-quality manure. But never mind that. Here is the opening sentence produced by Rove and his team:

"On September 11, 2001, I was the first person to tell President George W. Bush that a plane had slammed into an office tower in New York City and was aboard Air Force One as it crisscrossed the country in the hours that followed."

The second sentence is nothing to write home about either. But at least it doesn't place an office-tower-hitting plane aboard Air Force One. The president really would have been slow on the uptake if his trusted aide had informed him that such a plane was crisscrossing the country aboard the president's own plane. I hear people saying, "Oh, you know what he meant." I'm sorry, but that don't get it in Sentence Writing 101. Much less First-Sentence Writing 101. I have to call him out here. Hey, Karl Rove, you're a writer? Ain't you got no pride? When you think of the people who have sweated blood to write good English sentences, you can feel all right to write a sorry-*** first sentence like that?

Posted by dino27 on 3/19/2020 4:45:00 PM (view original):
she will read it or she will rid it ?

she will not rid it

she says she read it

you know how sometimes you read a book published 600 years ago and you try to turn the page and the two are stuck together by a printer faux pas a unsharp blade

yer like this is a classic its been read by millions and right in the middle is stuff never read

welcome to the stacks thats my girl

so i stack it by the door and it piles up it never vamos

Best American Short Stories year after year after year after year

this quest is getting tired

a ton depends on the guest editor

not a amy tan fan but she does like fairy tales and luck

lets call it china

which made em good cause something happens

magic



whereas kingsolver smiley atwood its r word after r word

if i have to read another alice munro story in this lifetime i will um do something

Posted by bagchucker on 7/17/2020 11:10:00 AM (view original):
a ton depends on the guest editor

not a amy tan fan but she does like fairy tales and luck

lets call it china

which made em good cause something happens

magic



whereas kingsolver smiley atwood its r word after r word

if i have to read another alice munro story in this lifetime i will um do something

I don't know what an r word is. I like Barbara Kingsolver's books a lot, sometimes like Atwood's. What's the r word?

oh my friend how you do lack

you know when you have a history with a person and you know them well and they know you

thats a R word



on the positive side, this pile o well read books is up to 2001