I owe a commercial review for this book so i will proceed to gather my thoughts here

:reader::deepthoughts:

Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlen, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee

As the editor of the magazine Astounding Science Fiction for nearly four decades-from 1937 until his death in 1971-John W. Campbell, Jr. discovered such legendary writers as Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein and collaborated with L. Ron Hubbard on the development of dianetics, the philosophical foundation of the controversial Church of Scientology. In this extraordinary cultural biography, Alec Nevala-Lee tells the story of these four men, their relationships, and their collective vision of the future, revealing in unprecedented scope, drama, and detail how the literary genre of science fiction emerged to shape the imaginations of millions.

I was not excited when i opened the package, although i have done a ton of similar books so i did not question the assignment.

I described it to my officemates as a sausage-fest, i recall.

HOWEVER, i had to check the author's gender because i guess this is one of the first "cultural biographies" to come out in the eight months since the #metoo hashtag went viral and it really shows.

We all know Hubbard was a sociopath, but i did not know Asimov was a groper, and Heinlein reminds me of Charles Lindbergh a little bit, if Charles Lindbergh had been a literary genius. I had never heard of John Campbell (big racist apparently) or given any thought to early pulp sci-fi magazines, despite the fact that sci-fi is at least half of my pleasure reading, because early sci-fi looked to me like a sausage-fest.

It WAS. But the author is extremely frank about these "gentlemen's" terrible behavior and meticulous about crediting the contributions of the women in their lives and letting them be fully fleshed characters, empathizing with them where they are victimized and recognizing female pioneers in the magazine-- and that made the book readable for me.

Where i had resisted looking too much at the genre's development, i now understand the process that led us from John Carter to Star Wars, which is where my own history starts.

I feel like that understanding is worth having.

:reader::deepthoughts:

I guess that's what i will say in my review. I just have to completely depersonalize it somehow!

.


The Alice Network by Kate Quinn.:glasses:

Champion generator manual

Oh sure, I know how to start it but rarely use it so I forget the little details. Hoping I won't have to use it during the next few days. This subtropical storm named Alberto is reminding me we will all be happier if I am prepared. And it doesn't take long for Kevie Daniel to become over-heated ... must be extra cautious with dogs who have short noses!

In an enthralling new historical novel from national bestselling author Kate Quinn, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.
.
This is a fantastic read. I couldn't put it down!

Thanks so much dark_crystal for sharing about this book and how hard it can be at times, to evaluate books, as an librarian. I appreciate your thoughts on this particular subject (book). --K. :rrose:

I found this post because i searched the thread for THE PARIS WIFE (McLain) because i want to re-read it because i just finished A MOVEABLE FEAST.

From the NYT review of THE PARIS WIFE:

The strikingly attractive cover of “The Paris Wife” depicts a glamorous, poised-looking woman perched in a Paris cafe. She wears a belted, tailored dress reminiscent of the late 1940s or early 1950s. Her face cannot be seen, but her posture radiates confidence and freedom. The picture is interesting because it has absolutely nothing to do with the book it is selling.

The heroine of “The Paris Wife” is Hadley Richardson, the athletic, sturdily built, admittedly unfashionable homebody who married Ernest Hemingway in 1921. They were divorced in 1927. Hadley was, by all accounts including this one, a very fine and decent person, but she was the starter wife of a man who wound up treating her terribly.

I read THE PARIS WIFE years ago but i had never read A MOVEABLE FEAST until today.

I am wondering who else has read both and if they read them in succession...

Yesterday I read O FALLEN ANGEL, By Kate Zambreno.

I agree with the Rumpus reviewer in all but conclusion (mine was "no")

It is undeniable that Kate Zambreno’s O Fallen Angel is completely successful in its goals. It’s got the quirks, the puns, the joking asides, and the quickest pace of almost any book I’ve read. Zambreno’s characters are vivid—from Maggie the spoiled child turned bipolar wreck, to Mommy the quintessential Midwest housemom—and the setting seems somehow familiar, though actual description is rare. Paradoxically, these elements may begin to explain why I struggled with this book.

O Fallen Angel tells the story of Maggie and Mommy and their tumultuous relationship. In the present-day story, Maggie has moved to the “big bad” city—Chicago, I think—and slowly become a pill-addicted prostitute who has sex with strange men to kill the pain. Mommy makes egg salad with way too much mayonnaise and thinks things like, “Mommy can visit Europe when she goes to Epcot Center.” Both are, of course, archetypes of a Midwest Catholic household—or maybe the subject matter is just all too familiar for me, being a Midwest Catholic girl who moved to the “big bad” city.

Either way, it seems clear that Zambreno intended her characters to remain static as they move through the narrative. She keeps a very tight leash on this story, her voice never faltering from the on-guard judgment she casts upon her characters. Although they may deserve to be derided—they’re honestly very stupid and self-centered—the question arises whether it’s possible to write a good novel in which the characters are stereotypes who don’t change and whom readers are expected from the beginning to hate.

Semi-conclusion: I want to believe it’s possible.

This concludes my book club obligations for June! Back to sci-fi...

The Gilded Years by Karin Tanabe


Built around the true story of Anita Hemmings, a light-skinned African-American woman who convinces the admissions board at Vassar College that she's Caucasian in order to attend school there.

Sidebar: I just read an most interesting article about Reese Witherspoon, her book club selections, and her production company Hello Sunshine. It mentioned that this is soon to be adapted for a film starring Zendaya who will also co-produce.

I went on a binge! Here is what i have read since i cleared the book club hurdles last week:

THE CIRCLE, by Dave Eggers

Mae Holland, a woman in her 20s, arrives for her first day of work at a company called the Circle. She marvels at the beautiful campus, the fountain, the tennis and volleyball courts, the squeals of children from the day care center “weaving like water.” The first line in the book is: “ ‘My God,’ Mae thought. ‘It’s heaven.’ ”

And so we know that the Circle in Dave Eggers’s new novel, “The Circle,” will be a hell.

LEVIATHAN WAKES, by James S.A. Corey

Leviathan Wakes is James S. A. Corey's first novel in the epic, New York Times bestselling series the Expanse, a modern masterwork of science fiction where humanity has colonized the solar system.

Two hundred years after migrating into space, mankind is in turmoil. When a reluctant ship's captain and washed-up detective find themselves involved in the case of a missing girl, what they discover brings our solar system to the brink of civil war, and exposes the greatest conspiracy in human history

AUTONOMOUS, by Annalee Newitz (2018 Lambda Award!)

Jack Chen is a pirate who's dedicated her life to the development and distribution of free drugs, reverse-engineering patented pharma cheaply and quickly and distributing it where it's needed. But when she drops a productivity-boosting drug called Zacuity on the black market and it starts unexpectedly killing people, she has to do two things very quickly: develop a drug therapy to fix her mistake, and make public Big Pharma's illegal development of a drug that deliberately makes work as addictive as heroin.

Unfortunately for Jack, two IPC agents are hot on her trail. Paladin is a brand-new military grade robot, partnered with a human man named Eliasz to track Jack down before anything can officially embarrass Zacuity's patent-holders. Paladin's job is to protect Eliasz while he gathers information – but the robot finds Eliasz himself more fascinating than their mission parameters, devoting time and processing power to understanding him and the nuances of their developing relationship

I had (justified) high hopes for AUTONOMOUS bc I happened to read Newitz's previous non-fiction book on surviving a mass extinction on the plane home from Shanghai last March:

SCATTER, ADAPT, AND REMEMBER, by Annalee Newitz

In “Scatter, Adapt, and Remember,” Annalee Newitz presents a sort of prophylaxis for the apocalypse. As the founding editor of io9, a Gawker Media blog about science and futurism, Newitz is a techno-optimist, convinced that we humans can outwit just about everything our solar system throws at us in the coming millennia. “How can I say that with so much certainty?” she asks. “Because the world has been almost completely destroyed at least half a dozen times already in Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, and every single time there have been survivors.” She’s probably right.

Also, Annalee is eye candy ;)

https://www.shimmerzine.com/wp-conte...01/annalee.jpg

I have now started GNOMON, by Nick Harkaway

To call Gnomon a work of genius is not entirely a compliment. Nick Harkaway’s epic, unwieldy, unpredictable new novel is outwardly brainy and pridefully digressive, and the distance it projects from its reader feels excruciatingly deliberate. Harkaway (Tigerman) wears his deep, fabulous vocabulary on his sleeve, and he’s unafraid to ruminate on the seemingly irrelevant in great detail. The sheer intelligence of the book feels almost beside the point; it’s to be taken as something of a given.

If Gnomon is not exactly a departure from Harkaway’s previous work, it’s at least his rawest effort, a window into his writerly impulses and motivations — into what separates him from the pack. It’s why, at first glance, Gnomon nicely stands out as a dystopian novel that manages to approach the genre uniquely and push it forward. The book arrives stateside after a year in which 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale skyrocketed on best-seller lists and found popular adaptations in theater and television, respectively. More broadly, the genre has felt appropriately ubiquitous in a tumultuous and unsettling political era.

Gnomon (Mark Harkaway)
 

Ooooh, I just read a good book review about Gnomon by Mark Harkaway, in The Guardian.

It looks like an good book to read and I hope to find it at Powell's.

http://static1.squarespace.com/stati...g?format=1000w

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ment-110011379

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...C9hctS7fnEQIcy


This was released earlier this month on paperback so I just picked it up and just started it. :glasses:

It's another book on Reese Witherspoon's book club selections and it too is soon to be made into a movie by her production company.:movieguy:

The Rohingyas
 

The Rohingyas by Azeem Ibrahim

This is a very disturbing book about the suffering of the Rohingyas people by the most unfortunate hands of some self claimed Buddhists. Each one of us has Buddha nature, no matter where we come from or what we do. Much Meta to all!

Knight

The year of magical thinking / Joan Didion.
 

From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage-and a life, in good times and bad-that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support.

Days later-the night before New Year's Eve-the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary.

In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over.

Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.

Mind by Daniel J. Siegel


Neuroscience studies the brain. A full examination of what we mean by the term “mind” has traditionally been the province of philosophers but here Daniel Siegel explores what neuroscience can teach us about it-how the mind differs from consciousness and how we know who we really are. In Mind, Siegel, The New York Times best-selling author, brings his characteristic sensitivity and interdisciplinary background to this most perplexing of topics. He explores the nature of the who, how, what, why and when of your mind-of your self-from the perspective of neuroscience. Mind captures the essence of our true nature, our deepest sense of being alive, here, right now, in this moment. How science explains it is one of the most exciting journeys into knowledge we can take.

I read this last Sunday and never wrote the review! Which is due today!

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....4,203,200_.jpg

This is the catalog for an exhibition of the Bodleian library's Tolkien collection. The exhibited items include photos, letters, drawings, maps, notes, etc,

I do not know whether i am supposed to review the exhibition itself or the book about the exhibition

Or what the difference would be.

One thing i learned from this book is that the novels were kind of beside the point for Tolkien.

His main deal was inventing the language. After that he cared most about inventing the mythology. The novels seem like kind of an afterthought.

What i need to know now is whether this is emphasized as heavily in existing Tolkien biographies. I have pulled three out of the stacks, but this seems like a lot of research for a 175-word assignment :superfunny:

libros...leyendo
 

"The Shallows What the internet
is Doing to Our Brains"
by Nicholas Carr

Clarifying, Challenging


"The Undressed Art Why we
Draw" by Peter Steinhart

Good conversation with a writer who
draws...good one.

Greco

Widows by Lynda La Plante
 

I've just started reading this heist thriller and yes the 1983 TV series was based on this book. The characters are well developed but total opposites of each. I hope Viola plays the role of Dolly.

Sidebar:Widows is soon to be made into a film directed by Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave) from a screenplay by him and Gillian Flynn. The film will features an ensemble cast including Viola Davis. . 20th Century Fox will release the film around November of this year.

I just finished "The Outsider" (the new Stephen King) and it was entertaining...Classic King but a good background listen while cleaning the house.

Also just wrapped "Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo" by Zora Neale Hurston. VERY good read.

I just downloaded a new audiobook and one for the Kindle since I have 2 going almost all the time.
The audiobook is "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis"

And one for the Kindle: "Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg"

I just finished The Great Alone. Wow... it was an all out binge read up all night finishing at sunrise on the back porch. Intense and so good and I totally have a book hangover from it. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5WRS2C...ng=UTF8&btkr=1

Alaska, 1974.
Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.
For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska—a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature