What are you reading this week of March 25, 2018?

[hermetic]

Nice library...


I'm still enjoying Tales of Burning Love by Louise Erdrich, Ian Rankin's Rather Be the Devil, and Christopher Moore's Secondhand Souls.

What are you enjoying this week?

[TexasProgresive]

1. For a change of pace from monstrous human killers to monstrous monsters:

Lincoln Child's Full Wolf Moon, and for non fiction Draft Animals: Living the Pro Cycling Dream (once in a while) by Phil Gaimon.

[hermetic]

2. Awwoooo

Cool. This is a new one from Child. Well, last year anyway. Interesting that his investigator is named Logan but I looked around a bit and only just a coincidence.

Good to see someone else is here today.

[pscot]

3. All roads lead to Australia

Or maybe it just seems that way. Hi, Hermetic. I'm reading Lexicon by Max Barry. A mysterious group is training gifted individuals in the secret and ancient arts of persuasion. Certain words have the power to drop "recipes into people's brains to cause a neurochemical reaction to knock out the filters. Tie them up just long enough to slip an instruction past. And you do that by speaking a string of words crafted for the person's psychographic segment." In some respects this feels like it's right out of the headlines about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, but then Barry introduces some jarring metaphysical note that pushes things off kilter. It almost feels like the meaning was changing for the author as he wrote it. And it does come to a crisis in Broken Hill, Australia. The book opens with our hero getting a needle jabbed into his eye by an unknown assailant and sustains momentum pretty well despite being one of those stories told by several observers until it all merges at the end. It's an entertaining read. I'll probably finish it in 4 sessions.

[hermetic]

4. That sounds really interesting

Of course I have a real predilection for themes of linguistic power and coercion, the "magic" of words, so this is a must-read for me now. Thanks!

[pscot]

8. We're all thinking

about linguistic power and the magic of words right now. I just saw a list of data Facebook extracts from our phones and shares with corporate trolls.

[hermetic]

10. Oh, yes indeed.

Scary stuff. Luckily, I've never had a phone that works like that. All they know about me is that I enjoy puns, nature, pictures of animals, and food. And they certainly did not affect how I voted. So I'm sort of ambivalent about all that.

[pscot]

15. Don't be so sure

If they know ewe love lambs and never eat lamb they might try to pull the wool over your eyes.

[hermetic]

16. Baaaa

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. Two books at the moment.

Can't Buy Me Love, the Beatles, Britain, and America by Jonathan Gould and Prairie Fires, the American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser.

Both are excellent. And they both go into a lot of background and analysis of the world surrounding their subjects, rather than being a straightforward biography.

Fraser also wrote God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church a while back (2000) and that's an amazing book.

[hermetic]

6. And see?

There you are, picturing/imagining what it was like. What they looked like. So wouldn't that have the same value as reading a novel, as was being discussed below? Just something that got me thinking...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Actually, it's obvious to me that there's an enormous

difference between a novel and non fiction. In non fiction you often have photographs, so you don't totally make everything up in your head to begin with. And it's the other aspects of novel reading that come into play: getting inside someone else's head, seeing things from another perspective, just to name two. It doesn't happen the same way in non fiction.

Me, I read both. I also read an enormous variety in both fiction and non fiction, and if they were to stop publishing books entirely, I would never run out of books to read, even if I do live to be 108.

Right now I have 10 books checked out of my local library, 19 books on hold, and 160 books on the "Books I want to check out" list. Not to mention several hundred as yet unread books that I own.

[hermetic]

9. Yeah,

I have 25 books to be read on my bedside table. My local library is pathetic so I only have one book on hold there but the list I keep on my computer, and add to each week from suggestions here, looks to be approaching 200 now. I gonna have to drink A LOT more coffee!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. Interlibrary loan

is wonderful. I don't need to use it too often because my library system is quite good. Also, my library allows me to suggest purchases, and a bit more than half the time they buy them, probably because other people have also suggested the same books.

[hermetic]

12. Right, BUT...

Here's what happens. I have requested a few books over the years through interlibrary loans and when I go in to pick them up they tell me they would like me to pay around $3 for postage. So I say I don't have any cash on me and I'll take care of it later. Then I return the book after hours, dropping it in the return slot. I find this to be stressful and annoying so I avoid it most of the time. For around $3 I can buy most of the books I want, used, and that is why I now have around 100 in my living room.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

13. I have never before heard of a public library charging postage for

interlibrary loan. You should contact whoever is the Head Librarian or whatever the title might be of the person in charge.

[PennyK]

14. I am confused by this

I can request books through my library's website. They will pull them from any of the county branches and email me when they're in. Is your library the only one in your county, and that's why they charge for postage?

Oh, and I'm reading The Alienist now...started the show and decided the book would probably be more enjoyable (although I am crazy about the old New York scenes).

[hermetic]

17. It matters not

which county. I am in a very small town, big city 20 minutes away, same county. I know for a fact one lady who works in my library lives in that big city. The first time I got a book from the city library, there was an invoice in it for the postage amount. I wrote on that invoice that they should consider having an employee do a book delivery back and forth maybe once a week or whatever. Since they were driving anyway. I mean, duh. I've looked into getting a card at the city library but since I do not live there I would have to pay $50 something a year for that privilege.

Be advised, this is what to expect from a state under Repugnant control for many years. I've only been here for 3 years and have plans to get out of here as soon as I can.

I have recently started watching the Midsomer Murders episodes. Quite enjoyable. And I just finally watched Wordplay. Absolutely love it!

[PennyK]

18. Finished and loved The Alienist

Carr's The Italian Secretary was quite enjoyable, too, so I'm going to get The Angel of Darkness and Surrender, New York...and sneak a few more peaks at "The Aiienist" on TV. Eeek!