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I picked up the supplies for my next bookcase today. Had to rent a van to get it all home, but that only cost $20. The wood was all cut to my specifications, so all we need to do it stain it, varnish it, and build it. When it's done, it will give me 29 and one-third feet of shelving for paperbacks. I'm guessing it will hold about 425 standard paperbacks.

My collection is far bigger than that, of course; it's easily over 5,000 books at this point, most of which are in boxes in my basement. But I'm going to start by moving all the standard paperbacks off my large bookcase. That one has 12" deep shelves with considerably more height to them, so it will take larger books well.

I'll be able to shelve more of my favorite books (and alphabetize them, yay!). That will make it easier for me to write more recommendations for my working doc. And I'll have more space in the basement, which might allow me to set up a better work area to make more bookcases!

Oh, I also picked up a large board to slide under Sebastian's mattress. His boxspring is only five and a half years old, but it has HUGE holes in it - two or three people could literally stand on the floor THROUGH it. It was from Bob's Discount Furniture.

He sanded it and we brought it upstairs. He's on the bed now, reveling in being flat.

Bookcase

Sep. 25th, 2021 11:36 pm
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Sebastian and I finished making a new bookcase yesterday. We're using it for DVDs and Blu-Rays, though, rather than books. We made it from scratch. Here's how.

The case is 84.75" high, 6.25" deep, and 31.6" wide. It fits DVDs, Blue-Rays, and paperback books perfectly and efficiently; there's very little wasted space. It holds approximately 53 standard movies per shelf, on nine shelves; that comes to 477 movies in all. I'd guess it would hold about 350 paperbacks.

imgur.com/Ue6TrDZ

Ingredients
  • 2 sides: 1"x6"x84" boards
  • 9 shelves: 1"x6"x30"
  • 1 top: 1"x6"x32"
  • Backing: thin wood panel, 31.5" wide and 84" high.
  • 50 #10 x 1.5" flat-head brass Phillips wood screws for fastening shelves to sides
  • 50 brass finishing washers
  • 50 #6 x 1" flathead Phillips wood screws to fasten backing, any color
  • 32 ounce can of minwax polyshades combined stain/polyurethane Bombay Mahogany or the equivalent.

It's fairly easy to build. First, sand and then stain all the wood and allow to dry. Then apply a second coat. We had good results using stain sponges, but next time we might try a spray stain with a separate varnish. Allow to dry thoroughly after each coat, of course!

Next, attach top board to tops of sides using four #10 screws. Use a shelf to make sure that the sides are correctly spaced. The top will overhang the sides by about 1/4" on each side. Use a drill to make guide holes for the screws; that will help avoid splitting.

Attach the first shelf 8.5 inches down from the bottom of the top board - in other words, there should be 8 and a half inches between the top board and the top shelf. Use two #10 screws on each side. Aim the drill carefully to stay within the shelf board! Use #10 screws with brass finishing washers - they make the final product look MUCH better.

Do the same with the next eight shelves. The goal is to have 8.5" between each shelf and the next. The bottom shelf will be approximately 3/4 of an inch above the floor.

Finally, use #6 screws to attach the backing to the back of the case, again using a smaller drill bit to make guide holes.Use four screws per shelf, with one each approximately 3/4 inch from the edge of the shelf and two evenly spaced in the remaining width. Also use #6 screws to fasten the backing to the sides in the center-side of every other shelf. The backing provides extra stability, and keeps the shelves from bowing; I've had one bookcase with five-foot shelves for over 30 years now, and the shelves are still as straight as ever.

This is a very sturdy bookcase. I'm confident that it will easily still be fine in the time of my great-grandchildren. I hope they use it!

A good day

Sep. 5th, 2021 12:05 am
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Today was a good day. I finished applying the second coat of stain to the pieces of the new bookshelf I'm building; that's all the staining that needed to be done. It's not a professional job, of course, but it looks fine. I'll let the pieces dry for a few days, maybe a week, and then put the whole thing together. It'll be great to be able to alphabetize and shelve all our movies!

I'll work on more shelves soon, if possible. I've heard that the price of wood has gone way up, but we'll see.

I also barbecued, and the burgers and hot dogs came out great. My technique has continued to improve. The burgers are smaller now (intentionally), but tender and juicy. Tonight I had Sebastian help by making the fries and some onion rings. I need to get him moving on learning to drive.

All in all I'm feeling good. Hopeful. For the first time in a long while.

Book Blog?

Aug. 17th, 2021 12:36 am
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I've been thinking of starting a book blog, but I'm not sure what service to use. Facebook is out of the question, of course. So is GoodReads, or any other site owned by Amazon. I'm tempted to start one here on DreamWidth, now that I think of it! It's one of the few blog sites I can think of that's not owned by one of the big tech companies.

The downside is that there's no way to allow searching by title or author or anything like that, as far as I know.

Reading

Nov. 17th, 2020 12:10 am
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 I ran out of books by Lawrence Watt-Evans to read to Sebastian (until he publishes more), so I started reading him the Taltos (aka Jhereg) series by Steven Brust. He's enjoying it a lot. Tonight as I was reading, a new male character with a high voice came in to the story. I may have made his voice a trifle too high, because I suddenly realized that I was sounding rather "Muppety", as I remarked. Sebastian agreed.

I must say that the word "Muppety" really amused me. As far as I know, I've never heard it before. So I guess I coined it.

Anyway, the voice kept getting higher and Muppety-er, and suddenly I burst out with "Super-Grover!".

We both cracked up.
 

Reading

May. 19th, 2020 12:16 pm
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I haven't made a list of the books I've read to Sebastian in a long time.

The best thing I ever did was keep reading to and talking with Sebastian every night at bedtime. I'd recommend it to every parent. Those years of reading and talking have given us a huge amount of shared experience which has given us an incredible connection.

I've heard a lot about the problems that parents have with their teenaged children. I won't pretend that we've never had any problems, and I'm not a perfect (single) parent - but his adolescence has been easier and less conflicted than ANY other child's I've known.

He's 18 now, and I still read to him every night. I'm sure that he'll read to his kids some day, too. And they will be better for it.

Here's what we've read that I remember:

  • Mister Penny by Marie Hall Ets
  • The Three Little Horses by Piet Wurm (series)
  • Otto Goes To Sea
  • The Chronicles of Prydain
  • The Hobbit
  • Doctor Dolittle (pretty much the whole series - the originals, not the censored versions)
  • The Narnia books
  • The Phantom Tollbooth
  • The Teddy Bear Habit
  • The Great Brain series
  • The Portmanteau Book
  • D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
  • Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
  • The Wizard of Oz
  • How to Eat Fried Worms
  • The Runaway Robot
  • Lost Race of Mars
  • Mister Penny (and the sequels)
  • The Adventures of Phunsi
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • All of the Ethshar books of Lawrence Watt-Evans, as well as his Lords of Dus and Obsidian Chronicles series
  • Rudyard Kipling's Kim
  • I Claudius
  • All of the Heinlein juveniles except rocket ship Galileo because it sucks
  • The Catcher In the Rye
  • A Confederacy of Dunces
  • Make Way For Ducklings
  • The Twenty-One Balloons
  • The Henry Price books
  • The Mad Scientists Club books
  • A lot of the Three Investigators series
  • The Door Into Summer
  • Starship Troopers
  • Black and Blue Magic
  • Several of the Black Stallion books
...and that's all I can think of for now - but there were definitely more. And I've started reading him Jhereg. We're on chapter 5 tonight.
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I was answering a question online recently, when I realized with a shock that I don't have a website about books. Considering how much I love and know about older books for children and young adults, that's a huge omission on my part. I need to do something about that.

But what should I do? A standard webpage? A blog? A YouTube channel? I really don't know what would be best. Any suggestions?

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James Branch Cabell - a contemporary of Dunsany, and generally considered to be similar to him - albeit more "shocking". His novel Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice was denounced as indecent and the subject of an obscenity trial, although by modern standards it's relatively tame. Many of his works are available for free on Project Gutenberg.
 
Robert W. Chambers - another contemporary of Dunsany, and another early fantasist. He's best known for his collection The King In Yellow, which was used by writers such as H.P. Lovecraft and others in the same way that Lovecraft's Necronomicon has been used by later writers. Others who have referenced elements from The King In Yellow include Blue Oyster Cult (in their song "E.T.I"), Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Darkover series, and Lawrence Watt-Evans in his excellent Lords of Dus series. I highly recommend Watt-Evans, by the way.
 
Fritz Lieber was not quite a contemporary of Dunsany, as he was born in 1910. But he was a relatively early fantasy writer, and had a certain poetry to his style which is sometimes reminiscent of Dunsany. A surprising number of his works are available on Project Gutenberg. He was also a noted science fiction author. His son wrote a few rather good novels as well.
 
Fredric Brown was a contemporary of Lieber, and is one of my favorite authors. He wrote fantasy, mystery, and science fiction; one of his stories, "Arena", was credited for the original Star Trek episode of the same name, although the episode and story were actually rather different (the story was far more sophisticated and clever). He was particularly noted for writing "short-shorts", stories that were extremely short and which often featured surprising endings. Humor was also a frequent element in his work. Unfortunately not much of his work is available on Project Gutenberg, but some is available in commercial ebook format.
 
Cordwainer Smith was like Dunsany in that he was unique. Poetry and a sense of magic suffuse his works, although they are technically science fiction (he also wrote a couple of thrillers before he turned to science fiction). He grew up in China, and his writing style is patterned on Chinese folktales and stories. He was also an extremely unusual man who wrote the definitive work on psychological warfare. Unfortunately he died young, and only one of his works is available on Project Gutenberg. However, some of his works are available commercially in ebook form. A definitive collection of his science fiction is available in hardcover, as is an authoritative edition of his one novel. Strongly recommended; there's nobody like him, another way in which he resembles Dunsany.

Larry Niven is relatively modern, and in fact is the first author on this list who is still alive - as well as completely unrepresented on Project Gutenberg. Although he's best known as a "hard" science fiction writer (despite being more entertaining and imaginative than most authors in that category), he's also a fan of Dunsany. He wrote an outstanding Dansanian story set at the edge of the world called "Transfer of Power", which is included in his collection
Convergent Series (which I highly recommend; that story is what got me into Dunsany). His more recent work has been uneven, but his earlier works are excellent. He's unusual in that he writes outstanding short stories, but also wrote excellent novels as well.
 
Barry Hughart is also still alive, but gave up writing many years ago. He did produce a fantasy novel which has much of the fairy-tale quality of Dunsany's work: Bridge of Birds, which won the World Fantasy Award. The two sequels to that work are worth reading, but don't quite capture the magic of the original. Again, strongly recommended.
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The Last Days of Krypton
By Kevin J. Anderson

One out of ten stars (assuming zero isn't an option)
Shelves: Library, science fiction

The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson was disappointing and lame - so lame that I only got about 130 pages into it before returning it to the library.

Okay, I'm being a little harsh here. Actually, as modern SF goes, I've certainly seen worse (see the execrable Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, which was co-authored by Anderson. Or rather, DON'T see it if you value your sanity, as it may be the worst book ever written. But reading it gave me an insight into why I hate the vast majority of modern science fiction so passionately: it's stupid.

It seems to me that the current generation of SF editors and publishers came into the field after the Golden Age - in most cases, post-1970s. Lots of people working in the business now wouldn't know Roger Zelazny or Fredric Brown if they leaped out of their graves and bit them on the ass.

And I believe they think of science fiction as "childish" literature, for immature, adolescent minds.

Which, of course, it has often been from the very first. But there were always exceptional authors - the cream that rose to the top - who wrote truly intelligent, imaginative, and adult science fiction (and fantasy, of course; I'm not making a distinction between the two right now).

The problem is that back then, there were at least some editors and publishers who could recognize greatness. Now, those perceptive and mature people in the SF publishing industry seem to be gone - probably, I suspect, because the whole industry is far more commercialized than it used to be, far more integrated into the craptastic Hollywood culture that dominates American society. They're all looking so hard for the next Harry Potter that they would not only MISS the next Cordwainer Smith - he wouldn't even be able to get in their door.

I fear that the same must be said for fans. It may be that the vast majority of younger fans simply don't know what good writing is, because they've never seen it.

There are still a few good writers out there, of course, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

Like Hercule Poirot, I'm not going to pretend that I'm stupid. I'm more intelligent than the average reader (I have other flaws, but I'm not stupid). So maybe that makes me more sensitive to having my intelligence insulted. I can tell when I'm reading something written by someone who is dumber than I am, to put it crudely, and I'd say that 97% of everything new being published these days is either written by a relatively dim person, or deliberately slanted for an audience that the producers of the product consider to be - there's no other word for it - idiots.

And even so, the people producing this crap are not bright. If they were, even their dumbed-down writing would show it - and it doesn't. Typos, logical failures, unbelievable characters, the same tired old cliches again and again and again...lord! I'm so sick of it!

Anderson is a really awful writer, and should never be allowed near a keyboard again. Perhaps he could take up some useful trade, like shovelling raw sewage.

Okay, that's not fair. He's not quite that bad. He'd probably be a very adequate ditch-digger. Just keep him away from a keyboard!

Note: A comment on the original post of this review (elsewhere) asserted that it was unfair of me to criticize a work based on a comic book, by comparing it to high art. The comment also questioned my criticism because I am not a published author. Here's my reply, editing out the quotes from the original comment:

I do see your point. In the same vein, since I have never been a professional chef, I should never criticize any meal served to me at a restaurant, not even if they hand me a dog turd on a plate. Why didn't I see that before?

Okay. Sarcasm aside, although I have never been a professional author - I did make one sale, but the magazine folded before they paid me or published the story - I have indeed written a lot of stuff over the years, and have published both online and in several different amateur press associations. I have one of the older continuously-operating websites still in existence, and have received plenty of feedback, both positive and negative. I don't see why any of this is necessary to justify my low opinion of "The Last Days of Krypton", but there it is. More to the point is that I've *read* a lot.

If my review gave you the impression that I had expected "The Last Days of Krypton" to be high art, you can chalk that up to my lack of professional credentials as an author. I have strong feelings about the decay of modern science fiction and publishing, and inserted those views into the review because that's when those thoughts happened to come into my mind.

However, the fact remains that it is possible to judge quality even when dealing with a genre or class of works which are of generally low caliber. You can taste the burgers of McDonald's and those of Burger King or Wendy's and make perfectly valid comparisons and judgements between them; there are degrees of quality both in swill and the sublime. Merely mentioning that the sublime exists does not invalidate criticism of swill when it fails *even as swill*.

And even as swill, "The Last Days of Krypton" is abysmal. I've read my share of comic books, both crappy ones and those that transcended the former limitations of the genre; I grew up reading comics in the 1960s and 70s, and directly experienced the renaissance of the field in the 1980s and 90s. So I have some experience from a reader's point of view. And from that vantage point, I still maintain: "The Last Days of Krypton" is pure and utter *crap*, an absolute waste of time, and an insult to the intelligence of any reader who actually possesses a mind to be insulted.

To put it as simply as possible, it's a bad book. Really astonishingly bad, which at this point is pretty much par for the course for Mr. Anderson. That there are some who apparently admire it and him baffles me, but there's not much I can do to help such unfortunate souls; all I can do is post my opinion of his shoddy and idiotic work as a warning to others.

This have I done. If your opinion varies, go and do likewise!
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When I was a teenager my father had a heart attack. He survived, thank goodness, and is still fine these many decades later. But while he was bedridden and convalescing, our neighbors brought all sorts of books over to help him pass the time. They were mostly best-sellers of the time; books that I would never have read on my own, since I was a science-fiction fan.

Shogun was one of them. I'm not sure if Dad read it, but I sure did. And I've read it every six months or so, ever since.

Why? Several reasons:

1. It's incredibly readable. This is one of those amazing books that simply sucks you in and makes you live its story. Clavell had the rare gift of writing, and Shogun was his masterpiece.

2. It's really long. I'm an extremely fast reader, but even I can't get through Shogun in less than a week. And yet every time I finish it, I always wish there was more, and more...I'm lucky that I can re-read it within six months and enjoy it as much as ever.

3. It presents a fascinating and accessible take on an ancient culture. True, it may not be an entirely accurate picture of Japanese society in the 1600s (I just read an article by a scholar that sneered at the book unmercifully, although many scholars are far less negative about the book*). Still, I've learned a little Japanese from the book - enough to help me understand anime a bit better - and while the culture as presented is doubtless over-dramatized, I believe that it has still given me some useful insights into Japanese culture.



* - The article is one of many collected in Learning from Shogun, which is available as a free pdf online:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/learning/Learning_from_shogun_txt.pdf

The specific article was "Japan, Jawpen, and the Attractions of an Opposite" by David Plath. It's the second article in the book, and it starts on page 20 (according to the pagination).
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Lord of LightLord of Light by Roger Zelazny

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Although he's best known for his Amber series, Lord of Light was unquestionably his greatest masterpiece - despite the fact that it's a remarkably slender book. Nonetheless, Zelazny managed to brilliantly combine science fiction, fantasy, and Hindu mythology in a truly...

Due to the acquisition of Goodreads by Amazon, the complete version of this review has been moved to two new homes:

http://www.librarything.com/work/2088...

http://pmaranci.booklikes.com/post/32...

If you, like me, object to what Amazon has done to the world of books, book lovers, and book shops, you can find many alternatives to GoodReads (for reviews) and to Amazon (for shopping) at the "Escaping Amazon" community [https://plus.google.com/communities/1...]. Our free public resource listing and describing alternatives is at [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/c...

Readers and their love of books are not commodities to be bought and sold - unless we allow it.




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Triumph of the WhimTriumph of the Whim by Adam Thrasher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Funny as hell. The balls-out, totally over-the-top collected comic strip (not a complete collection, mind you) of the adventures of Space Moose, the most perverted moose imaginable. How perverted, you ask? Well, when he gets his hands on a time machine, he -

No. I won't spoil it for you. Let's just say that if coprophagy, misogyny, abort-o-matic machines, feces, gore, sheer insanity, ----, and lots more ---- don't make you cringe, and if you don't hold anything sacred, you'll find this a hell of a funny read.

Or rather, you WOULD find it a hell of a funny read. But you can't read it. Because it was only available direct from the author, and he's not doing that stuff any more. I have my copy (and t-shirt), but you're out of luck!

But don't be sad. The online web archive of Space Moose was taken down when the author discovered that the grown-up world of employment and grants doesn't have much of a sense of humor. Luckily, I, personally, had cached a copy of most of the site. And I passed it on to a few select people. Google "Space Moose" and you should be able to find a copy.

They're all there because I saved that site. You're welcome!

But FYI, there are a couple of strips in the book that were never published online, including the soul-stirring sequel to "F-----io Barn". The humor! The tears! The nausea! The, um...

Never mind. You'll just have to imagine it.



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Common Core sparks war over words

Apparently the government is forcing English teachers to replace huge amounts of fiction with non-fiction. I had to comment:

What concerns me is that even most modern young-adult and children's fiction is, for lack of a better word, tripe. The old classics are routinely rewritten to simplfy and dumb down vocabulary and concepts. We are forcing our children to eat bland mush when they should be having a chance to try their literary and intellectual teeth on works of substance - and then we're surprised when they tell us that reading is boring.

It IS boring. But that's only because we're restricting them to books which have been sanitized and simplified into pablum. And those purile books must compete with the hyper-stimulating and omnipresent world of television and video games. What chance do our children have?

Since the day he was born, I've read my son REAL books. Alice In Wonderland (both books, and yes I know that's not the correct title). The Doctor Dolittle books - the original uncensored editions, mind you, not the painfully rewritten versions which are all that are being published today. The Wind in the Willows. The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings. Mister Penny. The Chronicles of Prydain. Bridge of Birds. The Black Stallion books. The original editions of Robert Arthur's Three Investigators books. The Portmanteau Book, The Teddy-Bear Habit, Edward Ardizonne's Tim series, The Jungle Books. Esther Averill's Jenny Linsky books. The Adventures of Phunsi. Robert A. Heinlein's juveniles. All of them with the original text and illustrations. Most of these are out of print, but you can find copies if you try - and it's worth it, it's so very much worth it. Great literature (and not-so-great but fun and challenging literature) is a gift beyond price for a child.

As for cost, many of these books can be obtained through your local library. Some of the best are in the public domain and can be freely downloaded from sites such as Project Gutenberg!

My son reads like mad on his own; his vocabulary and comprehension skills are excellent. And I continue to read to him every night. Next, we're going to tackle Rudyard Kipling's Kim.
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The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints (Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators, #15)The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints by M.V. Carey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a relatively late and inferior entry in the Three Investigators series. The series was created by Robert Arthur, a woefully neglected author who did a great deal of work with Alfred Hitchcock; Arthur wrote the first nine and the eleventh book in the series. Unfortunately M.V. Carey was no Robert Arthur!

I recently read the book to my son. We've read many of the books in the series together. In this one, there were several ways in which the book simply didn't work. Oh, Carey included the usual iconic elements of the series; Jupiter Jones' family, and the hidden Headquarters (a trailer buried under a pile of junk), and Pete, and Bob. But there are several false notes.

One that was particularly annoying was the use of Jupiter's name. Arthur usually referred to him as "Jupiter" or "Jupiter Jones". Once in a while his fellow Investigators, Pete or Bob, would refer to him as "Jupe". But in this book, he is almost always called "Jupe" - not just by other people, but by the narrator. I'm not that picky, but seeing "Jupe" repeated over and over in paragraph after paragraph just got weird! It started to become a meaningless sound - you know how some words get when you say them over and over? I ended up auto-correcting it to "Jupiter" when I read it aloud, except when it was said by Pete or Bob.

The mystery itself was just...okay. Nothing particularly clever or memorable about it. If anything, the resolution was rather anticlimactic. I won't bother to give it away, though.

But another thing that was quite irritating was a dramatic change in a long-standing supporting character, Police Chief Reynolds. In the early books in the series he was supportive and friendly to the Three Investigators, even going so far as to give them official cards identifying them as Junior Deputies or something like that. In Flaming Footprints, he has been completely changed. He's sneering, abusive, hostile, and sarcastic. The change was so extreme that my son remarked on it. Personally, I found the recasting of Chief Reynolds as a stereotypical negative adult authority figure so irksome that I couldn't resist editorializing: "'What do you want now, Jones?' snarled Chief Reynolds, while busily stomping on a cute kitten and simultaneously farting on a helpless old lady."

My son is more generous and/or uncritical than I am. He gave the book 4.5 stars. I feel I'm being generous in giving it three.

Oh, as always I should note that there are probably two different versions of the text extant. Older versions feature the character of Alfred Hitchcock. For legal reasons newer editions have been rewritten to replace Hitchcock with a lame-ass ersatz version. If you decide to pick this one up, try to go for an older edition. But if you're new to the series, I strongly recommend starting with the original nine books by Robert A. Arthur.

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Shadows in Flight (Shadow, #5)Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I don't like Orson Scott Card. There was a time when he was a gifted writer, but that was decades ago. And I'm rather glad of that, I must admit, because his homophobia and religious bigotry offend me.

But Shadows In Flight isn't as bad as most of his recent books have been. Yes, it has the usual "genius" children talking to each other in "shocking" ways; Card seems to find them irresistible. There's even some of Card's trademark child-on-child violence, which makes me wonder just how badly screwed up his head is. But for once he doesn't take it too far.

This is no Ender's Game or Songmaster. It isn't even A Planet Called Treason. But it's readable and not annoying, which is a big improvement over Card's other work this millennium.



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The Horse-Tamer (The Black Stallion, #14)The Horse-Tamer by Walter Farley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


First, a note: I will never try to use my Nook to write a book review again. I had written quite a long review - not easy on the Nook's touch-screen, which is not well-laid-out and lacks a number of conveniences which are standard on other Android devices - only to make the slightest mis-touch and lose EVERYTHING. That's incredibly annoying.

That said, The Horse Tamer is part of Walter Farley's Black Stallion series, and it's both charming and memorable. Bracketed by short passages featuring Alec, Henry, and the Black, it's actually a historical novel; Henry's story of his older brother, who tamed horses in the days when horses were the standard mode of transportation. Henry himself plays a small but substantial part in the tale.

Unlike most entries in the series, it's not a racing story. But the story of "problem" horses and how to help them is quite fascinating, as well as exciting. I first read this book as a boy, and it has stuck in my head ever since. I'm glad to be able to buy it for my own son, and for the chance to read it again. It includes the original black-and-white line drawings, which are charming. I strongly recommend this book. One caveat, however: the Nook edition has been formatted with HUGE margins. Even when the text is manually set to the smallest margin size, the margins are nearly as large as the text itself - which means that in portrait orientation, each line of text is only a few words wide. This is somewhat awkward.

I assume that the publisher did it because the book is SO short, only 100 pages. With reasonable formatting, it would have probably been closer to 70 pages long, even with the illustrations - and they may feel that it would be difficult to charge a full-novel price (even a low one) for what is probably only a novella. But it's a really fine story, and any fan of Walter Farley, the Black, or horses would be wise to pick it up. Strongly recommended!



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Three Men in a BoatThree Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Three young Englishmen decide to spend a fortnight boating on the Thames for their health.

A classic of English humor; I'm quite dismayed that I hadn't discovered it before now! It's one of the funniest books I've read in a long time (and I've read many funny books). I found myself laughing out loud quite often, and couldn't resist reading sections of it to my wife - even though I know it's not the sort of thing she cares for.

It's astonishing that a book written 123 years ago should feel so modern. I hadn't realized that such dark humor had been invented back in 1889!

The occasional turns into more somber and lyrical prose are a bit jarring at first (they're quite reminiscent of The Wind in the Willows, which was published 19 years later), but you soon get used to them. And the serious passages are quite brief, just sufficient to cleanse the palate (so to speak) before the next comic gem.

The illustrated EPUB edition at Project Gutenberg is excellent and, of course, free. The illustrations are well-formatted, clear, and enhance the text. If you appreciate humor, you have no excuse for missing this book!

Incidentally, I "found" Three Men In a Boat via Robert A. Heinlein's Have Space Suit-Will Travel. The protagonist's father is a fan. I'd read the book (Heinlein's that is) a dozen times before, easily - but I always assumed that Three Men in a Boat was fictional. For some reason while reading Have Space Suit-Will Travel out loud to my son, I found myself wondering if Three Men in a Boat was real; and Wikipedia soon set me right.

I'm glad it did. And now, on to Three Men on the Bummel! I've already downloaded it from Project Gutenberg.

Oh, I almost neglected to mention: there's an audio book of Three Men in a Boat, read by Hugh Laurie. A perfect choice, of course. It can be found in sections on YouTube, or, I presume, it can be purchased. But I must say that I laughed more when reading the book then while listening to it. I'm not quite sure why!



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Shoeless JoeShoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I picked this up used at the library's permanent book sale for a buck.

Add it to the very short list of books which aren't as good as their movie adaptations. A lot of the speeches were improved by much pruning for the movie, and the plot was cleaned up a good bit, too.

The book is okay, and I can see that for some it might really "click". But to me it just doesn't quite work. The whole thing felt forced to me, a too-deliberate attempt to create a classic (not unlike The Polar Express, which was annoying as a book and loathsome as a movie). Peter S. Beagle is able to create a far more authentic magical feeling in his books; fans of Shoeless Joe might appreciate Beagle. They might like Jack Finney, too. Both are considerably more deft stylists than Kinsella.

And frankly, if I were J.D. Salinger I'd have sued the crap out of the author.



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I haven't been pleased with Barnes & Noble's Nook Color. The book selection is relatively poor, and the prices are relatively high. Which is why I have been utterly delighted by Baen Books.

Not only do they offer a large selection of classic science fiction books for free, but they have a surprising number of books by classic and modern SF and fantasy authors for very reasonable prices. For example, they have quite a few of the Heinlein juveniles - which, I've been told, have often been out of print in recent years - for $5-$6 each. And they're well-formatted, have nice e-covers, and are available in many useful formats (including epub for the Nook and Kindle format too). What's more, they're not restricted by DRM, so you can download them to multiple devices.

I respect the hell out of a company that doesn't treat their customers as potential thieves. And so I've picked up a bunch of books from them for Sebastian, including most of the Heinlein juveniles as well as James H Schmitz's The Witches of Karres - a classic, and one of my favorites. Plus quite a few others! They can even be read online, on a computer, laptop, or tablet.

Most of their books are in the four to six-dollar range. I wish other ebook publishers had as much sense as Baen! But as it is, Baen has already gotten a lot more of my money than Barnes & Noble has. Or will, for that matter.
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While re-reading the Harry Potter series and watching the movies, I was struck by the ways in which J.K. Rowling's style resembles that of Agatha Christie. They share an intensely English, insular outlook - and rather a nationalistic, even racist one.

This is most evident in Rowling's portrayal of the two "visitor" schools in the Triwizard Tournament. Beauxbatons is a caricature of the French, at least as many older Britons perceive them: superficially attractive, concerned mainly about appearance (although to her credit Rowling did make an exception to that point later in the series, when Fleur surprises Mrs. Weasley by not breaking her engagement after Bill is badly scarred), and ultimately light-weights in every way (except, perhaps, in the field of romance). The movie accentuates this by representing the Beauxbatons student body as almost entirely female, and throws in a gratuitous mass-ass-wiggling scene which is simply ridiculous.

Likewise, Durmstrang is a heavy-handed parody of Russians and East Europeans in general. Virtually all male, sullen, buzz-cut, large, taciturn, and given to violence; the personification of the racist fantasies of some angry, graying old Briton, and an old-fashioned one at that. If they weren't school-age, I'd imagine Rowling would have made them drunks, too!

I almost wish that Rowling had included Americans in her books. Dame Agatha would doubtless once again have provided the template: quaint accents out of a 1930s western movie, combined with exaggerated New England ones from the 1890s. Ridiculous Biblical names like "Hiram", "Ezekiel", and "Jedediah". Poor taste in virtually everything. Far too much money than is good for them, and a propensity to throw that money around thoughtlessly. Ignorance combined with overweening arrogance. And I'd bet there'd be at least a touch of over-reliance on technology or its magical equivalent, as well - with a good solid comeuppance in the end, as our plucky British heroes prove that old-fashioned spunk and stick-to-it-iveness are the qualities that really matter when the chips are down.

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