Recent Reads and Blood Friggin' Meridian

 The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene. One of my wife's favorite books. If you get the call you've been waiting for, the one where the king requests your presence at court, be sure to read this first. Or Machiavelli. Same results. OK, that's harsh. But I'm not going to do 47 of the 48 Laws (maybe Law 28: Enter Action with Boldness). This book wasn't quite as bad as Aurelius's Meditations (longest Oscar speech ever). 

Merle's Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, by Ted Kerasote. Book club choice. I'm not really into "pet" books. Closest I've read to this is Arthur: the dog who crossed the jungle to find a home, by Mikael Lindnord. This book was okay, but I knew there would be a sad ending. I didn't want to read it. Not recommended unless you like end-of-life of pets. 

Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. Holy shit! Best book ever. I had all kinds of sections of it highlighted, but my library Kindle loan ended last night and I now can't get to any of them. Dammit. Spoilers: I really thought the judge was the devil. I thought the whole story was Biblical. I didn't know anything about this book but #BookTwitter was crazy about it so thought I'd read it. The writing: impeccable. Beautiful. Not sure if I like this or No Country for Old Men better. They are both so awesome. 

(Blogger is f^cking up, so no pictures uploaded.)

Language City, by Ross Perlin

 Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues, by Ross Perlin. In general, this is a good book. I really mean that. The languages the author highlights are unique, interesting, and sadly on the way out. Seke, Wakhi, Yiddish, N'ko, Nahuatl, and Lenape. The reader learns about these languages in the chapters in part III. (Part II covers NYC, an also interesting section of the book.)

The author is a co-director at the Endangered Language Alliance. I gave money to them or the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages; I can't remember which. Anyway, they do good work. You can find them on Youtube as well if you want to hear some of these languages spoken.

I read the Kindle version of it and in one instance (Seke, as evidenced by Rasmina), the font for the language didn't show. And one example from N'ko was such a small font I barely saw it. But otherwise the Kindle version was good. I'd buy a hardback copy of this because I love language books but the author is such an outspoken liberal and a dishonest one at that, that I don't want this book in my house. 

Yes, eugenics was horrible. But it was not the sphere of only one political party. 

Even when “eugenics” was [a] word known in every household it was hardly the property of any political party.¹ 

With little access beyond Google, I was able to find several references in academic journals that discuss both parties' guilt in the U.S. eugenics movement. I'd think a PhD author would be fairer and do his homework. 

Same with immigration quotas. Yet the author felt the need to mention a Senator by name (149), because he was a Republican.  But when mentioning the "Asiatic barred zone" (149) he forgets to mention that it was passed by a Congress that was majority Democrat in both chambers. Vetoed by a Democrat prez (Wilson) but then both chambers overturned the veto. He mentions the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, which dumped the 1924 Act limiting immigration, but he fails to mention that even in a Democrat-majority House and Senate, not all Democrats agreed; only 74% of Democrats voted for the bill while 85% of Republicans did. But that doesn't fit his agenda. 

The author obviously has issues. He must have tried to get data from Facebook and Tencent (whatever that is) related to these obscure languages and been denied:

The billionaire lords of Facebook and Tencent, who could care less, are the only outsiders with fraught potential access to this accidental archive. (194)

He mentions NAFTA affecting the Mexican economy by bringing "the price of corn and other crops crashing down, forcing farmers off their land" (367) but fails to mention that President Clinton signed it into law. 

And all his Trump derangement. Multiple mentions, especially in the final part where he is begging the reader for money to support ELA. 

Fiercely anti-immigrant politics of a sort not seen in a century drove the rise of Donald Trump... (442)

...the string of emergencies that began with Trump's election is 2016 is far from over... (444) 

 ...owners have become ever more of a political force since the Yemeni bodega strike of 2017, which protested the Muslim travel ban. (451)

Get over yourself. Wanting to protect the sovereignty of your country is not anti-immigrant. And for all that's holy, it wasn't a Muslim travel ban. Executive Order 13769 was a temporary ban on citizens from six nations with known Islamic terrorism ties. That's six countries out of 49 that are majority Muslim. And I think it lasted like two months.

Like in many things (mostly Hollywood, but also in charities), why would you denigrate half your potential audience, or in this case, half your possible charity sources? (And with conservatives giving more to charity than liberals², maybe know your audience.)

Again, the part of the book where he talked about the language map of NYC and the individuals and their languages (RIP, Karen) were great. Everything else, bleck. 

¹ Lombardo PA. Republicans, Democrats, & Doctors: The Lawmakers Who Wrote Sterilization Laws. J Law Med Ethics. 2023;51(1):123-130. doi: 10.1017/jme.2023.47. Epub 2023 May 25. PMID: 37226752; PMCID: PMC10209985.

² Yang Y, Liu P. Are conservatives more charitable than liberals in the U.S.? A meta-analysis of political ideology and charitable giving. Soc Sci Res. 2021 Sep;99:102598. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2021.102598. Epub 2021 Jun 16. PMID: 34429211.

May 2024

 Books read:

• The Small Bachelor, by PG Wodehouse. Another great one from the Master. Story of love, as they always are, this time in NYC. FB Wodehouse group's May read.
• Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin. Had to read this after the other one by him below. This one was so good. Wife and I watched the movie right after and holy crap it was so good and pretty much word-for-word from the book. Ruth Gordon deserved the Oscar 100%!
• The Housekeeper and The Professor, by Yoko Ogawa. My one translation this month. Perhaps this year! (Unusual for me; I'll have to go back and check.)
• The Boys from Brazil, by Levin. As discussed in my post, excellent. As was the movie. 
• Ill Met by Moonlight, by W. Stanley Moss. Great story of a little-known op during WWII. 
• Love's Labour's Lost, by Shakespeare. Timeless.
• A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine. Good follow up to the first. 

Books bought: 

• The Small Bachelor, by Wodehouse. In the Collector's Wodehouse hardback. Add it to my list.
• Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York, by Ross Perlin. NYC has more languages spoken in one area than anywhere else in the world. The Endangered Language Alliance are working to document all of them before they die off. Perlin is one of the co-directors of the only organization I'd work for in NYC. 
• The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood. Read the first of the MadAdaam years ago. This one came up for two bucks, so had to.
• The Boys from Brazil, by Levin. For the family book club. Excellent!

Language-wise in May continuing on my Old English journey. Finished through chapter 6 and only today started chapter 7. Nice and slow so I can digest it all. Already reading some wonderful works in the original, like "The Seafarer," from which I have the lines of my next tattoo, if I ever get it:

hu ic, werig, oft in brimlade bidan sceolde

Rough translation: How I, weary, often have had to endure in the sea-roads. Or something like that. Figured that part of the poem is appropriate for my preferred extracurricular activity.

Also finished the June 2023 issue (yes, I'm behind) of Literatura Foiro (Literary Fair). Great little magazine with many articles on Esperanto culture: literature, film, gatherings, language. 

One translation and one horror

 The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder (tr.). Fantastic book. If you like baseball and math, you'll love this book. If you don't, you'll still love this book. I don't know didley-squat about baseball (my math isn't too shabby), but loved this. The housekeeper re-meets the professor every single day, due to his accident years earlier leaving him with only 80 minutes of present memory; everything else is 1976 or earlier. (Knowing that won't spoil the book.) The housekeeper manages to stay on, unlike her nine predecessors, and develops an interesting relationship with the professor, which includes her baseball-obsessed 10-year old son. Quick read (180-ish pages).

Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin. Recently read his The Boys from Brazil which was awesome. This one? Even better. Rosemary and Guy move into a new apartment, in a building highly sought after. For those who don't research these buildings to find out if they're evil! Well, the building isn't evil, but its occupants sure are. In moves the young, fertile couple. Target for satanists! Wife and I are watching the movie tonight. Can't wait! 

The Boys from Brazil, by Ira Levin

 What a great book!

Spoilers: 

Ezra Lieberman is a Nazi hunter. Barry Kohler thinks he is too, and follows suspected Nazis to a restaurant in Sao Paolo. Unfortunately for Barry, Dr. Mengele (yes, that Mengele) is a killer of Nazi hunters. Barry's life is cut short. But not before he's contacted Lieberman and got his interest. 

Lieberman dismisses Barry's concerns at first, but hears him being killed, then feels hatred on the other end of the line, and is sure it is Mengele. Thus begins his hunt.

Mengele's plan involves the death of 90+ men, all around 65 years old, all civil servants. It slowly is revealed that each of these men has a son, around 14 years old, and a mother around 40. These boys from Brazil, all clones of Hitler (yes, that Hitler), need to experience their father dying, just like the real Hitler did. If the Fourth Reich is to rise, that is. 

The Reich doesn't rise, as Lieberman figures out Mengele's plan. Mengele also figures out Lieberman's plan. They both end up in the same house, home to one of the civil servants scheduled to die, a breeder of Dobermans. Mengele gets there first, cleverly talks the man into locking his dogs into a separate room. He kills the target, then stays to act as the man. Lieberman shows up to warn the man of his pending death and quickly figures out who's sitting in the living room with him. He gets up to let the Dobermans out of the locked room, but gets shot several times. The dogs hold Mengele in his seat and soon the boy, Hitler mini, comes home. He's really into making movies. (In the movie he's a photographer.) The boy sees through Mengele's attempts to place the blame on Lieberman and sics the dogs on the Angel of Death. Then he films the scene. He makes a handshake deal with Lieberman to not mention he (the boy) was there for Mengele's death, or he wouldn't call the ambulance for Lieberman. 

And in a final scene, the author describes another boy from Brazil, this one an artist, drawing excitedly a scene right out of Hitler's Germany. 94 possible Hitlers, perhaps 2 probables? 

Ich bin fertig mit den Spoilern ^^^.

Wife's choice for family book club and what a great pick it was. She and I watched the movie the day after I finished. Very well done with Gregory Peck and Laurence Olivier and Jeremy Black, the boy from Brazil, who played at least four of them IIRC, each with a different accent. This was his only film; I guess that was enough for him as he stuck to stage work after that. Wonderfully well done film.

Ill Met by Midnight, by W. Stanley Moss

 This is such a great book. I love War memoirs. Bought this in Boston years ago. Oh, how great Boston is for books. I'm looking at you, Commonwealth Books and Brattle Book Shop! I bought a lot while there, just because they looked good. No idea why I don't read these more often.

Ill Met by Midnight is the true story of a small team of Brits, Greeks and Cretan guerillas in WWII who kidnapped the German divisional commander on Crete. Spoilers coming, but you know you just looked this up: The original general (the Butcher of Crete) they wanted to kidnap was absolutely horrible to the Cretans: exterminations, 10 locals targeted for 1 dead German. Villages razed. Women and children killed. Terrible. Unfortunately for Billy (the author) and Paddy, a new general showed up a few weeks prior. 

The things this generation went through would make the equivalent gen nowadays cower in fear. I didn't realize till the very end, after reading about weeks and months of trying to parachute onto the island, then hiking hours and hours day after day, that the author was only 21 years old! Holy crap. And he was a Captain. Paddy was only 29 and a Major. 

Dear reader(s) know how much I love used books, especially when they come with extras! This one belonged to Mrs. Kathleen Wright, who bought it (or at least claimed it as her own) in March 1951. She also included an October 22, 1950, review of the book from the NYT. Finally, someone named Grace Berdew (Corlew? Burlow?) borrowed the book, and finally returned it to Mrs. Wright on or around April 18. (Which year? Who knows for sure, but Grace recommends another book to Mrs. Wright: Jubilee Trail. She admits it is "not especially good literature," but likes reading about a trail from Santa Fe to California, before they were part of the U.S. 

A Desolation Called Peace, by Arkady Martine

 Read the second of the Teixcalaanli books by Arkady Martine, nom d' plume of AnnaLinden Weller, a history professor. Her first was A Memory Called Empire, one of my favorite reads last year. I re-read it (chose it for the family book club, on purpose) before reading #2. 

Spoilers:

Three Seagrass and Mahit Dzmare are friends. Really good friends! Even though they only have known each other for one week. (First book.) But, that one week was quite eventful. They got blowed up. Mahit was poisoned. Almost stabbed. A lot happened, so of course it would end in a kiss. 

In the second book, their relationship went beyond. In just a few days. After a fight. Sure that happens. Could happen quick. It did happen quick, and frankly I didn't have any issue with it. Martine's sex scene would never be submitted to Bad Sex in Fiction, certainly. It was fine. It wasn't graphic like Fourth Wing. (Thank God.) The scene was done and was great. (I'm a hot-blooded American male; I have no issue with gay sex, lesbian or male. I read The Liar and had no issue, trust me.) But once it was over, it was over. I think it didn't need to be said (several times) how one character was recently inside the other character. A bit overmuch.

But that's really it. My wife wasn't as big a fan of A Memory Called Empire as I was, so she won't be reading this one. But I liked it. What I like about Martine is her world-building. Some could (and have) complain about all the female characters in her books. Most all the main players are. The fleet admiral-equivalent was female. The Minister of War, female. The emperor, female. Both main characters, female. Lots of females. Who cares. The characters were great. 

The story, also. I love Eight Antidote. He'll be a good emperor I think. (Shall we see in Teixcalaan book #3?) The Shard pilot, the Shard trick was intriguing. Especially its communicating faster than jumpgates. 

The fungi angle is interesting. My wife (award-winning author herself) is working a short story now where mushrooms are integral, so I had to tell her all about the fungus among...not us, till the end. 

I could hear the author a bit too much. Was she saying something about Hiroshima? Before I was even half through the first book I wondered: I bet she's married to a woman.* I didn't look into it. After the first book I looked her up enough to see she's a history prof (I really think Teixcalaan is based on Incan or Aztec empires). That's it. And I was right! This book, #2, I heard the author more. Her comment, when Three Seagrass said "...people of my gender and sex" I thought, Oh, here we go. But nothing again for a while. Until she had a they/them character. Le sigh... Thankfully, that character was in for a paragraph or three. And at about 90% on the Kindle. Unlike the fifth The Expanse book which had a they character for way too long. Listen to readers: That pronoun crap is going to become dated very soon. Stop doing it! (*I was right.)

Her writing is good, though. Well worth the read. And the world is believable and well-thought-out. I will read the third one. 

Spoilers done. 

I'm especially thankful to the author for providing this book (and her first) on Kindle Unlimited. 

April 2024

 Another month flew by. I'm kinda peopled-out.

Books read:

• The Doctor is Sick, by Anthony Burgess. One of his best. What a screwed up doctor.
• The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet, by Robert Zubrin. Preaching to the choir; I wanted to be on Mars a couple decades ago. I definitely want(ed) my kids to have the opportunity. Go go SpaceX and Blue Origin!
• A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine. A reread, my choice for family book club. I sped through it so I could get to the second, which I'm reading now. 
• Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming. Great story. Going to read these in pub order. 
• The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400-1066, by Marc Morris. Great history, listened to it. Complimentary to my Old English language study.

Books bought:

• Troy: The Greek Myths Reimagined, by Stephen Fry. I love him. Read a couple of his novels decade or so ago. Great writer. 
• War Isn't Wonderful, by Ursula Bloom. Had on my search list at Abebooks for quite some time, finally came in cheap(er). 

Language-wise, as discussed above, still doing Old English. Finishing chapter 4 of Complete Old English. Ready to move to chapter 5 but have and have had family all month, so will move on in a day or two. 

March 2024

 Where'd March go? 

Books read:

• The Man Who Walked Like a Bear, by Stuart Kaminsky. Porfiry Rostnikov number 6. Love this character. Will read #7 soonest.
• The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction, by Christopher Kelly. Love these editions. 
• Eaters of the Dead, by Michael Crichton. Found a first ed with dj in a little library! Great book.
• The Great Santini, by Pat Conroy. Wife's choice for family book club. Lovely book. 
• Uncle Dynamite, by PG Wodehouse. Great, typical Wodehouse.
• Dune Messiah, by Frank Herbert. I'd avoided this for years, decades. But after watching Dune 2 at the movies, it was obvious the next movie would be this book. Really, really good. Afraid to read #3.
• Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Love this author. I think I only have a few of his left to read.
• The Spire, by William Golding. Hubris, by a great author. 

Books bought:

• The New Rules of Coffee: A Modern Guide for Everyone, by Jordan Michelman. Bought for the wife. Cute.
• The New World on Mars: What We Can Create on the Red Planet, by Robert Zubrin. Wonderful book. Finished in April.
• Informal English, by Jeffrey Kacirk. Love language books, esp. about English.
• Colony One, by Tarah Benner. Sounded good, only zero dollars.
• Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin. Just because.
• James Bond Omnibus volumes 1 and 2, by Ian Fleming. Because they've been changing his books. 
• Casino Royale, From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, Diamonds are Forever, Goldfinger, Live and Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, by Ian Fleming. For the same reason I mentioned above. 

So many books...

 ...and even a language!

Good Lord I've read so much since last posting! Will post in less than a week my "March 2024" post so this'll be free verse!

The Spire, oh so much hubris. Tower of Babel much? Haven't read any Golding since 8th grade (or so) and Lord of the Flies. This one, well written and scary. Blindness takes me to three Saramagos. Love this guy's style. Had to watch the movie after, which wasn't half bad. Dune Messiah came about due to watching part II of the new Dune movie and presuming what's next. Half the size and still pretty good. Very political. Uncle Dynamite was a PG Wodehouse Reading Club (on FB) monthly a few months ago and I'm just now getting to it. Guess what? Hijinx! The Great Santini is my BIL's favorite book, which is obvious if you know my BIL (is he the son or Santini? I'll have to ask him). After reading Conroy's The Lords of Discipline I wonder if this one is also (semi)autobiographical. Eaters of the Dead I avoided decades ago. Not my kind of Crichton. But the movie is so damn good! Then I found this book in a little library where I was placing my wife's excellent book (Children of Cain. How do you not know this, dear readers?). And it was a first edition hardback with dj! Score! Great, fast read. Well done. The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction came next, Audible and quite good. I learn from every book on the classical world I read because the authors always concentrate on different aspects. Finally, I needed to read more Porfiry Rostnikov. This time The Man Who Walked Like a Bear. So very good and only 200-ish pages (finished at 80% on my Kindle which always shocks me even though they always have a long intro to the next book at the end. Why don't I ever remember?).

Currently I'm reading The Doctor is Sick. I needed another Anthony Burgess. So far so great. And I'm listening to The New World on Mars, by Zubrin. Been following him (and reading him) for years now. This is his latest. Preaching to the choir, but great ideas in here. You listening, Elon?

And yes! I'm studying a language again (besides constantly reading in Esperanto). I'm going through Complete Old English with a buddy of mine who a) only studies dead languages and 2) is already quite good at OE. I figure with someone else going through it with me I'll be forced to keep it up (as opposed to my latest attempt at Middle Egyptian).

February 2024

 Books read in February.

• Zero History, by William Gibson. Finishing Blue Ant. Love this author.
• Uneasy Money, by P.G. Wodehouse. Still good. The Plum will always be classic.
• The Enemy in the Blanket, by Anthony Burgess. A continuation of the Malaysian trilogy. So good. 
• Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, by John McWhorter. Great book. Read it when it came out, but great reread for language lovers.
• The Odyssey, by Homer. Been meaning to read this for years. Finally have. 
• Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. SIL choice for family book club. Really good! So much better than Artemis. 

Books bought in February.

• The Spire, by William Golding. Hubris. So much hubris. 
• The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English, by Hana Videen. 
• Burma Sahib, by Paul Theroux. About 
• Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English. 
• A James Bond Omnibus: Vol 1 & Vol II, by Ian Fleming. We accidentally bought one of the new, expurgated versions, with its vocabulary fixed for modern sensitivities. Managed to get our money back 10 minutes later. Then we searched for old versions with Fleming's actual writing in them. 
• Yeoman's Hospital, by Helen Ashton. Read about this book a couple years ago. Finally came in for about 10 bucks. 

(Just found this in a separate window on my computer; thought for sure I already published. Doh!)