Book Recommendations

[Dave Williams]

Just finished my annual re-visit of The Alchemist; probably known well enough but if anyone hasn’t read it… they should.

Now on to the next annual browse, “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. It’s a little out there but a powerful work, IMO.

I listened to The Alchemist on tape read by Jeremy Niven on a recent trip, thanks for the suggestion. Loved it, highly recommend the Niven version.

[FrankB]

I found out what the book is all about yesterday!

“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”*

* https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-d...e-of-the-hand/

No, I have never grown up.

[feudist]

I found out what the book is all about yesterday!

“Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”*

* https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/42/moby-d...e-of-the-hand/

No, I have never grown up.

[Bigguy]

The Secrets Within: Samantha Jamison Mystery Book 15
Edelheit, Peggy A.

4/5*

I'm 80% through it. It was assigned reading. I'll not likely read any of the others in this series. This is a warning as much as a recommendation.

Told First person singular by a mystery author who solves real mysteries, then writes about them. Apparently the real author has at least 14 other books by this fictional author.
In the story she meets somebody who has read her books. At one point he responds to her with, “Ahh direct and to the point, jut like your books.”

!!!!!

Lady …. It took you three chapters to get from the front gate to the front door. You spent two and a half pages describing the Kudzu on the fence and gate. Direct and to the point ??? Not a phrase I’d use to describe your writing.

Here she describes her Bond arms Stinger. she says, "It held two, 22LR (long range) bullets, which packed a deadly punch." sigh ... Two deadly Long range Bullets.

*That is a very generous rating that may not stand with 20% of the book to go.

[csheehy]

Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town In the Wild West.
Tom Clavin.
Well written, meandering history of the Sodom of the Plains during its cow town boom days.

Clavin strikes a decent balance between modern scholarship, contemporary news accounts(journalism hasn't changed much in 150 rears), legend and popular culture .
While it focuses on Earp and Masterson, every historical person mentioned gets a thumbnail biography of their life and ultimate fate.
The author does really well at explaining the confluence of economic pressures, geographical locations and social trends that led to the great Texas cattle drives and the resultant creation of Dodge, Abilene, Hays and Wichita.

He also does a good job of illustrating the rise of the "Peace Officer" approach vs the traditional county Sheriffs, Constables and the short lived 'Hired Gunfighter' solution. He maintains that this was pioneered and perfected in Dodge, largely due to the Earps and the Mastersons, who together formed a team of brothers that varied from six to eight strong, plus a handful of very loyal friends(many of them ex-buffalo hunters), a formidable group of tough guys by anyone's definition.
When you consider that during the season, a town of a few hundred would transform into one of tens of thousands of largely anonymous Texas cowboys and the gamblers, con men, thieves, Soiled Doves and business men out to relieve them of 3 months wages...the sheer scale of the problem is staggering.

The Earps of course have been written to death with 95% of it being either flights of fancy or partisan screeds, or both. The author bases his story on Casey Terfertiller's recent magisterial research into Earp's life. Masterson, on the other hand only has a couple of dated bios and his own reminiscences in later life. The author does a good job of pulling together a lot of disparate sources on Masterson and placing them into a more rigorous context. He was far more lethal than Earp, but so charming and friendly that, unlike Earp who inspired respect but resentment, everyone liked and admired him.

Picked up the audiobook of this for commuting time in the car. Very entertaining, and very little to no romanticizing of the characters-and the narrator is excellent (not sure oif it's the author). Highly recommended

[feudist]

Picked up the audiobook of this for commuting time in the car. Very entertaining, and very little to no romanticizing of the characters-and the narrator is excellent (not sure oif it's the author). Highly recommended

Definitely!
The audiobook is what I listened to.

[feudist]

Robert Heinlein. 1956.
A down on his luck actor gets hired-bullied-shanghaied into being a body double for a kidnapped politician.
From this very simple premise Heinlein weaves a tale of interplanetary and inter-species politics and culture with a lot of very economical world building.

The story of how the book came to be written is pretty interesting.
Heinlein's wife worked at a local theater troupe, and their house soon became the after rehearsal drinking hole. The Heinlein's were incredibly social, maintained a huge circle of semi-permanent guests and their liquor bill alone must have been staggering. Heinlein found the techniques, traditions and lore of theater absolutely fascinating and soaked it up. He soon realized that he had a story and a character centered around the theater, and just needed a plot.
Thus "The Great Lorenzo" is born. Supercilious and smug, incredibly vain, completely devoted to his craft and always "on", he is a wonderful insider's view of the Theater and those that love it. Lorenzo is a keen observer of humanity in his pursuit of mimicry and characters to play, giving us disquisitions on everything from how to recognize Spacers by their walk to altering a man's appearance to the art of strolling.
The book won the very first Hugo award. ..which Heinlein knew nothing about and wasn't notified of for months.
The ever present thorn in his side, Forrest J. Ackerman, accepted the award for Heinlein...and simply kept it for years.
I recently listened to the audio version and the narrator does an excellent job of capturing Lorenzo's snotty vanity and self centered disdain for anything not related to the Stage.

[Jim Watson]

Thanks for the background.

Another of the same era with the same low pressure storytelling is 'The Door Into Summer'. At one time the protagonist lived in an old house with seven outside doors. All Winter, his cat was going from door to door, looking for the door into Summer. An inventor's trials and tribulations bringing his designs to market. I like the old stories' versions of high technology, especially the way they handle - or gloss over - computational requirements. Dan makes use of the recently declassified Thorsen Tube which can store an extended series of actions. Reprogram a device just by plugging in the appropriate Thorsen Tube.

[feudist]

Thanks for the background.

Another of the same era with the same low pressure storytelling is 'The Door Into Summer'. At one time the protagonist lived in an old house with seven outside doors. All Winter, his cat was going from door to door, looking for the door into Summer. An inventor's trials and tribulations bringing his designs to market. I like the old stories' versions of high technology, especially the way they handle - or gloss over - computational requirements. Dan makes use of the recently declassified Thorsen Tube which can store an extended series of actions. Reprogram a device just by plugging in the appropriate Thorsen Tube.

I had a cat named Petronius the Arbiter in the 70s.
He wasn't near as smart as Pete, though.
I really enjoy the dated mechanical engineering approach to tech in Heinlein's Future History. Slide rules and three brained analog computers. I remember just before the electronic calculator revolution(remember that?) how the math and physics geeks would carry their slide rules in holsters like gunfighters.
He was constantly on the cutting edge of science, describing Radar stealth in Between Planets, remote microsurgery in Waldo, using analog robot hands; Artificial Intelligence in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Time Enough for Love; hyperlinked internet in Friday, and calculating by hand every orbit and boost vector he described.

I heartily recommend his two part biography by William H Patterson. He was given complete access to Heinlein's voluminous papers and correspondence by Virginia Heinlein. It's both a life and writing biography.

[JAD]

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, translated from the Polish by Jeremiah Curtin in 1896. The basis of a pretty well-known movie from the early fifties, it's a romance to a certain degree, and Christian allegory to a good degree, and a critique of Polish society in both ways. It is set in a well researched but luridly described Nero-era Rome. It was one of the most popular books of its time; it has been translated into 40 languages and was a major part of the author's Nobel-winning body of work.

There are better translations (Kuniczak's is much more readable -- Curtin uses a ton of thees and thous which isn't representative of Sienkiewicz's modernish Polish), but I breezed through it. If we remember that there's a difference in credibility between a historical novel and a history text (Sienkiewicz takes liberties, which are hard to describe without spoliers), it is really excellent allegory. Its critical target -- the culture of materialism and relativism -- was as much a problem in Sienciewicz's Poland as it is in today's America. I may try a different translation in a few years, but I found it rewarding.