Reading anything?

[indianasmith]

I haven't read anything by Clive Cussler in many years - frankly, SAHARA turned me off of him completely - it was just a bit too silly for me.  But my sister handed me one of the adventure series that he is ghost-writing with another author these days, and I found it to be downright fun.  THE SOLOMON CURSE follows archeologists/treasure hunters Sam and Remi Fargo to the island of Guadalcanal, where they discover a sunken city in one of the bays with links to the Japanese occupation, a plot to overthrow the government, and a lost race of giants.  Fun, silly stuff, quickly read and quickly forgotten, but to answer the eternal question posed by Decimus Meridius Maximus,  I was indeed entertained!

[alandhopewell]

     Another one I've just finished re-reading....

[indianasmith]

Tonight I finished ANDREW JACKSON by Robert Remini, an excellent, brief, and highly readable biography of our seventh President.  I'd forgotten I had this one till I found it while cleaning house this summer!  Now to start in on the pile of books I have purchased in the month since I found out Hastings was closing down!

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

What magazines I read, and why I read 'em.

Cigar Aficiando
--for a look at a way of life and people beyond our own.

Entertainment Weekly
--for the entertainment news (American perspective)

J-14
--for the teen gossip

Mother Jones
--for a different look at politics

Sceptical Inquirer
--for the truth and nothing but the truth, as they see it.

Sight and Sound
--for the entertainment news (British perspective)

Texas Highways
--for the state

Texas Monthly
--for the state, parte dos

Time
--for the nation and the world

Town and Country
--for another way of life and people beyond our own

Next time: more magazines, and why I read 'em.

[FatFreddysCat]

Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: Faking It in Hair Metal L.A. by Anne Soffee

--effin' hilarious memoir of a small town rock critic who headed out to L.A. during the waning days of the Hair Metal era hoping to become the next big time Rock Journalist God ala Lester Bangs or Legs McNeil. As you might expect, the streets of Los Angeles were not exactly paved with gold by the time she arrived.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!
More magazines

AARP
--for the old folk news

Audubon
--for the nature news

Conde Nast Traveler
--for the travel news

Consumer Reports
--for the consumer news

Economist
--for news of the world

Esquire
--for the fashion news

Fortune
--for the business news

New Republic
--for the political news

Sports Illustrated
--for the sporting news

True West
--for news of the Old West

Next time: a compare 'n' contrast of 2 books associated with Empathy! the Breakfast of Champions
and later: 6 of 1 or 6 mysteries + 1 more fiction
and still later: still more magazines

[alandhopewell]

     Just started this....



     One of my favorite authors; I'd like to find a copy of this, to re-read....

[Rev. Powell]

This is surprisingly insightful. The prologue feature racist WWII propaganda that is often truly deplorable in its depiction of the Japanese as buck-toothed monsters.

[indianasmith]

I just finished SAMURAI: THE LAST WARRIOR by John Man. 
I lived in Japan for over 3 years, but somehow I never heard of the great revolt in 1877 led by Saigo Takamori.  This samurai warrior, who was a cabinet member of the great Emperor Meiji, led a fruitless rebellion against the modernization of Japan which failed utterly, got him and all his followers killed, and somehow made him into a national hero.  Man blends the narrative of Saigo's life with the story of the samurai class and their place in feudal Japan in a lively, readable story that is entertaining and informative at the same time.  Great read!

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

Susan Higginbotham's Her Highness, the Traitor (SHB)
and The 3 Janes' My Lady Jane (T3J)

While there are differences between the 2 books, which we will get to later, here are the . . .

Sames
BOTH see him--Guildford, Gil,  Gifford, G--from a different perspective than most other writers.
SHB not this tale, their tale: his mother Lady Susan Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, and his mother-in-law Lady Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk. Still . . .?! He's referenced twice as much as any 3 books in which he appears.
T3J for the 1st time, his tale thru his eyes.

BOTH portray him in a portrait that is--probably, remarkably--true to his life.

BOTH give him credible and believable relationships with others.
His wife
SHB unlike most writers, but . . .?! probably historically correct, more likable than his wife at first. Though, she does become likable as things start to fall apart around her and she learns that her actions have an affect on others.
T3J an arranged marriage that begins with mutual dislike, but . . .?! ends with the acceptance that they need each other, as they complement each other.
His siblings
SHB with his brothers: the Dudley Boys, where he's the little bro.
T3J the finger waggle to his little sister.
His parents
SHB her eye roll, when she asks him where he's been, and he says he's been studying his classical Greek grammar. Not like she hasn't heard that one ere.
T3J his bow to his parents, when he greets them.

While some see him as the villain, BOTH see him as the victim of others, where he works better as victim than villain, as do most children his age.

BOTH make mistakes.
SHB black velvet to his execution. Maybe so, but . . .?! black velvet is so somber. "Dress your best." More likely white satin or silk.
T3J he drinks stout country ale at his wedding. Maybe again so, but . . .?! More likely wine, as was said about another young gentleman, "stout country ale was too coarse a drink for this young gentleman." And anyway, at the wedding of the year, it is more likely wine would be served: the rarest, finest, costliest possible.

And more mistakes.
SHB he protested both his betrothal and his marriage. Probably not. Not from the one known as the "Dutiful Son," and who we can presume was smart enough to realize that any protest would be a waste of breath.
T3J he wears trousers. What we know as trousers would no be invented for another 350 years or so.

Unlike many writers, BOTH emphasize his human side o'er his historical side.

BOTH surprise.
SHB from other writers, those characters that are disliked, come off better here, than those characters that are liked by other writers.
T3J surprisingly historically accurate for a comic fantasy, especially the 1st half of the book.

And more surprises.
SHB gives us a speech, just ere he was executed, which he actually gave, even if none of his contemporaries thought to write it down. And which speech given is probably near to the real speech that he gave.
T3J not Protestant versus Catholic, which has become hackneyed o'er the years, but . . .?! shape shifters versus non-shape shifters, which is a newer and fresher take on the subject.

BOTH understand the young, especially the young male of that time.

BOTH give us, what it means to lose one's . . .
SHB spouse, children to war, prison, the headsman's axe, and sorry spouses, you can be replaced. Children cannot be replaced, even if there are more of them or there are more in the future.
T3J one's ability to control one's shape shifting. While such does not exist, this is probably one of the best takes on that subject.

Next time: the differences

[BoyScoutKevin]

Susan Higginbotham's Her Highness, the Traitor (SHB)
and The3Janes' My Lady Jane (TFJ)

Differences

The differences in TFJ for the most part work, or make no difference in the storytelling, except for a couple, which we will get to later.

Fantastical
T3J more. People change into animals.
SHB less. People do not change into animals.

Humor
T3J more.
SHB less. Though, there is a surprising amount of it in something that is not suppose to be comedic.

Name
T3J Lord Gifford Dudley or G
SHB Lord Guildford Dudley or Gil, which is the historical version of the name.

Readability
T3J simpler to read.
SHB harder to read. Not because it is badly written, it is well written, but . . .?! because the ending is harder to take, as it is more tragic, if more historically correct.

Thus the ending.
T3J happier. The 3 main characters survive.
SHB sadder. The 3 main characters die. Edward of consumption and Gil and Jane from being beheaded.

Now the changes that do not work or make a difference in the storytelling.

The age of Gil
T3J 19 or an young man becoming an adult.
SHB 16 or an young man who is still yet something of a child.
Gil's character works better as a child than an adult.

As a story
T3J a more shallow story.
SHB a deeper story.

Next time: another compare and contrast.

[indianasmith]

YEAR OF FEAR by Joe Urschel is a fascinating look at the kidnapping epidemic that plagued America in the early 1930's, and the nationwide manhunt for "Machine Gun" Kelly, whose kidnapping of oil magnate Charles Urschel made headlines across the nation - and made a little-known Federal agency, the Bureau of Investigation, a household word - along with its heroic director, a little known, obsessed bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover.  Well written and highly entertaining, this is a must read for those fascinated by the history of crime.

[Archivist]

Over the last few years I've read all the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child, and started the Vince Flynn series.  Nothing like the modern version of Mack Bolan adventure novels.

At the moment, I'm reading Frank Herbert's Dune series for about the seventh time, starting from the beginning.  Now up to Children of Dune, and finding that much of my mental imagery has been influenced by the George Lynch movie with Kyle McLaughlin.

[indianasmith]

I just finished reading THE ETERNAL NAZI by Nicholas Kulisch and Souad Mekhennet.
This was the story of the sixty year hunt for Nazi war criminal Aribert Heim.  Heim was a doctor at the Matthausen concentration camp, where he acquired a gruesome reputation among the inmates for killing Jews by injecting gasoline directly into their hearts, performing surgery on live, conscious victims, and for displaying the skulls of his victims, stripped of all flesh, on his desk.  After the war he initially evaded being identified and lived for several years in the German resort town of Baden-Baden.  Then, as the wheels of justice began to turn, he fled to Cairo, Egypt, where he lived in hiding until his death in 1992.  Over time, he acquired a reputation as the most wanted Nazi still at large, and this book describes the ongoing manhunt in vivid detail.  A fascinating read, and one more example of why Holocaust deniers are among the most stupid people on earth.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Ye-es!

Peter Robinson's
When the Music Is Over

as I said in "Fact of the Day," this will be a compare and contrast to the British TV show "Broad church," which is similar to this in its subject matter, but . . .?! oh so inferior in so many ways.

Robinson
The villains range from believably nasty to the credibly sympathetic, as hard as that is to believe.

Broad church
The villain is just not realistic.

Robinson
The victim or one of them.
She has just been gangbanged, thrown out of a moving vehicle, while it was still moving, so she is injured. She is high on drugs. She is drunk. And she is naked, but . . .?! when she is assailed by a 4th man in a 2nd vehicle, she fights back to the best of her ability, and when she can no longer fight back, she curls into a ball to protect herself. Not that it does her much good . . .but . . .?! Robinson understands victims and victimizations here and in the other victims.

Broad church
The victim.
He has not been gangbanged. He is not injured. He is not high on drugs. He is not drunk. He is not even naked . . . but . . .?! He does not fight back. No scratching. No punching. No kicking. No biting. Even when any of that would be instinctive. The writer here apparently has no understanding of victims and victimization.

Robinson
Sometimes when a writer delves into the subject of child sexual abuse and child murder, he or she could deal with child prostitution, date rape pills, gang rape, nudity, and underage sex, and the talk of porn videos, sexual arousal, and virginity. All of which Robinson deals with in his book. He is a writer who properly deals with the subject.

Broad church
Here there is no child prostitution, no date rape pills, no gang rape or any type of rape, underage sex, and even no nudity, except when the young victim is on the slab, and then he is covered up to his neck by a sheet. Nor is there any talk of porn videos, virginity, nor sexual arousal. Though the villain probably became sexually aroused as he killed the young victim. What the writer has here is the inability to properly deal with the subject.

Robinson
As sympathetic as he makes some of the villains in his book or not, he never seems to have more sympathy for any of them then he does for their victims.

Broad church
The villain comes across as being as deserving as much sympathy as his victim, if not more so. Especially in the 2nd season of the show, where he is allowed to walk away without being punished for what he has done.

Robinson is thus clearly the superior writer.

Next time: 6 + 1. 6 mysteries + 1 non-mystery.