I saw the Hernandez book in the bookstore, flipped to the index, and was disappointed to see a single reference, on one page, to his guest roles on Seinfeld. I probably would have bought it on the spot if there were at least a chapter on Keith's experiences doing the show.

yawkers

not a big sci fi fan she's known for her sci fi but i never liked her sci fi

ursula k le guin what a moniker

but she's from here and she wrote two good stories about here

so

Unlocking The Air

surprising to me and good. i gotta believe she was at a western writers conference and she rose to the challenge posed by her peers

Ether, OR

bagchucker, Ursula LeGuin, who died last year, is my favorite writer. Her Earthsea series (five books) is a masterpiece of fantasy matched only by the Lord of the Rings itself.

Her book The Dispossessed is great. City of Illusion. Always Coming Home. The Telling. A very long list of great works. Yes, she lived in Oregon nearly her whole life. Daughter of two anthropologists.

Her translation of the Tao te Ching is extraodinary as well.

Trump: A Century Too Late

Compulsory Games (2018) by Robert Aickman. Collection of so-called “strange tales,” most of which were first published in the 1970s. The writing is brilliant: creepy, humorous, grotesque, witty, dream-like, lyrical. E.T.A. Hoffmann crossed with Nabokov. Really enjoyable stories. Before picking this book up I'd never heard of Aickman, but I've already ordered more of his work.

Posted by combalt on 4/21/2018 1:50:00 PM (view original):
I tried reading Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

I had to give it up somewhere around halfway through .... it reminded me in ways of some of the early 'Baseball Abstracts' from Bill James ... there is a whole bunch of interesting data in the book but there are also a whole bunch of opinion and theories that are presented as facts. It eventually got too frustrating (it is always a bad sign when you find yourself shouting things back at the author in your head) so I just quit it.

I'm now finishing up Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr By Nancy Isenberg This is certainly a different read on history than most folks have. There is an extraordinary amount of everything always being the fault of someone else and never the fault of Mr. Burr himself. This has been another slog of a read and I probably wish I'd spent the time on something else.

Next up is Skin in the Game by Taleb ... I got it much sooner than I thought I would from the library :-)

Just started skimming this thread and noticed the reference to "Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr" by Nancy Isenburg. I listened to the audiobook, and really wound up resenting the author. She came across as a fan of Burr who wanted to make him the hero of everything, and to blame jealous rivals for every conflict. That's after she started the book by emphasizing that she is a serious historian, ready to correct all the popular misconceptions of Burr.

Anyhow, I just finished "If You Survive" by George Wilson, a WWII memoir. Upon arrival in 1944 France (just after the D-Day invasion), he's told that if he survives his first battle, he'll get a promotion. There is a lot of action packed into less than an year of combat, and packed into a few hundred miles of battling through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany.

Starting into "Wealth, Poverty, and Politics" by Thomas Sowell. Sowell's writing usually fascinates me.

Dr. Sowell's books are much more thought provoking than the typical libertarian literary effort. I especially enjoyed Vision of the Anointed.

what i learned reading Ivanhoe by Walter Scott is to trowel or trowl is to fling overhand and to bowel or bowl is to toss underhand

The Lottery and Other Stories (1949) by Shirley Jackson. Matter-of-factly told tales of paranoia, cruelty, disquiet. Some very good stories here, most of them better than the over-anthologized (and maybe overrated) titular story.

Re-reading " The Pickwick Papers" by Charles Dickens and "Master of the Senate" by Robert Caro

fiction in the day, history at night.

Posted by crazystengel on 7/15/2018 5:23:00 PM (view original):
I saw the Hernandez book in the bookstore, flipped to the index, and was disappointed to see a single reference, on one page, to his guest roles on Seinfeld. I probably would have bought it on the spot if there were at least a chapter on Keith's experiences doing the show.

Agreed, although the actual filming might not provide enough material, his experiences and reactions of fans since then would make great fodder.

Schopenhauer in 90 Minutes (1999) by Paul Strathern. Concise, elegantly-written summary of Schopenhauer’s life and ideas. I've always liked Schopenhauer, the “philosopher of pessimism,” and like him more after reading this book. Imagine a surlier, more mean-spirited Larry David. ****** off most of his life because his mother and society refuse to recognize his genius. He calls his much more popular rival Hegel a “flat-headed illiterate charlatan” and “scribbler of nonsense.” There’s a whole Curb Your Enthusiasm-type fiasco where he gets involved in a physical altercation with a gossipy woman in his building; when she finds out he's wealthy (not from his writing but from his inheritance) she sues him, and he winds up in court for six years, losing the case, then paying her off in quarterly instalments for the rest of her life (20 more years) because she milks her injuries. Fun read.

From an old pit thread and John Gardner novel( The Sunlight Dialogues)

THEREFORE WITH THE SAME NECESSITY WITH WHICH THE STONE FALLS TO EARTH, THE HUNGRY WOLF BURIES ITS FANGS IN THE FLESH OF ITS PREY, WITHOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF THE KNOWLEDGE THAT IT IS ITSELF THE DESTROYED AS WELL AS THE DESTROYER.
-SCHOPENHAUER

Chapter 22

Germanicus is dead.