Friday Vocabulary

1. blue — [slang] to squander, to spend wastefully or without restraint

Of course he blued the whole hundred grand within a matter of months, and came back to me hat in hand looking for a handout to help him cover his rent.

 

2. craic — [Irish] fun, good time, esp. in pleasant company and conversation

“No, man, you don’t have to drink if you don’t want to, just come for the craic!”

 

3. henotheism — worship of single god while countenancing other deities

Are these pleas to a god called just ‘God’ in Aripostrophes’ prayers, as Ludwice believed, a form of henotheism followed by the Greek dramatist, or merely a rhetorical device—as is thought by many modern scholars?

 

4. hot gospel — [British] of a church or preacher where services have an emotional or frothy bent, esp. of an evangelical denomination

Pearson had grown up in the hot gospel churches of the American South, so our more sedate C of E services must have seemed quite dull to his mind, if not veritably soporific.

 

5. TDA — car theft, “Taking and Driving Away”

“You’re gonna charge me with TDA when she told me it was okay to take the car?”

 

6. garum — wildly popular fish sauce in Ancient Rome

Why was garum so popular, then, if it indued the food with such a fetid odor of decay?

 

7. crise de foie — [French] indigestion, “upset liver”

Such an enormous repast was bound to cause a crise de foie after the meal, if not right after the oyster starters, so I paced myself accordingly, only sampling lightly from each of the dishes, being sure to wash it all down well with the fine wine.

 

8. crise de foi — [French] internal religious tumult, “crisis of faith”

His endless months of captivity had apparently induced a sort of crise de foi upon his return, though not because of the strange beliefs of his captors but rather some sort of internal schism caused by his many hours spent in weary contemplation.

 

9. navvy — [British] manual laborer, esp. on construction project

“It’s simply a matter of aptness; a navvy can hardly have time to study Seneca and Epictetus, so tired is he from his work in the evening, and so the music hall and gin are perfectly suited to his needs and abilities.”

 

10. erubescent — blushing, red or reddish; rubescent

The fine old nose upon which I had seen the housefly alight lo those many years ago was now become an angry erubescent proboscis due to his constant sneezing and repeated blowing and wiping and massaging of that now intractable rhinal appendage.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British informal, from the phrase “It’s as much as my job’s worth” (to do some thing))

jobsworth — worker or official using their petty authority unhelpfully and refusing to make accommodations for particular cases

But the meter maid was a nasty little jobsworth who declaimed that ten seconds was the same as ten hours as far as she was concerned.

 

Bonus Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin, from “verbum sapienti sat est” [“a word is enough to the wise”])

verbum sap (also verb. sap., verbum sat, or verbum sapienti) — enough, no more need be said (used to indicate that further discussion would we unwise, unwarranted, or unnecessary)

It becomes obvious that all these ‘reasons’ have to do with money, rather than the underlying principle, so I’ll say no more. Verbum sap.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. cruentate — [obsolete] blood-smeared

But it was not in that fetid fly-filled room with its cruentate walls of horror that the worst nightmare was to be found, but inside the antiseptically clean closet at the back, within the tiny floor safe set into the dark linoleum.

 

2. nocent — noxious, harmful; not innocent

And so the better to pursue his nocent purposes he covered his garb with a dark leathern cloak and put on a wide-brimmed hat.

 

3. in posse — [Latin] potentially (as contrasted with actually)

Though this edict was bemoaned as, in posse, severely restricting the investment opportunities and freedoms of the richer classes, in practice the law was applied only to the most wretched of individuals.

 

4. abgeschmackt — [German] tasteless, vulgar

Such fervent melodrama now seems merely abgeschmackt burlesque to we moderns, like the guignol theater of fin-de-siècle Paris, though in its time it moved apparently both the most tender hearts and the most jaded spirits with its poignant tales of missed opportunities and derring-do.

 

5. fetlock — joint on horses between the hoof and the knee or hock; fur tuft growing at this joint

Garrick rode his horse sweating into the river up to its fetlocks, letting her drink the water so that I feared he might founder her.

 

6. acidulate — to make sour; to acidify

The flight of her lover made Grantha less demure and more forward, acidulating her tongue so that her sardonic wit became famous all along the Old West Road.

 

7. circular insanity — [obsolete] outdated term for manic-depressive disorder

The discoverer of what was then called ‘circular insanity‘ had to endure accusations of plagiarism until his death in 1870, though the record clearly shows the priority of his claim.

 

8. ferrididdle — [Southern] chipmunk, red ground squirrel

A ferrididdle had entered the tent through the poorly secured flap and was quite contentedly munching away at the peanuts Farrow had secreted in his backpack.

 

9. areology — study of the planet Mars

At the time these results were believed to be the biggest advance in areology since Lowell’s confirmation of the martian canals detected by Schiaparelli.

 

10. snib — [Scots or Australian] to latch

Jerry snibbed the screen door even though it was so warped that it hardly could keep out small rodents, let alone the insects that already plagued the rude cabin.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang)

brunser — male homosexual, esp. younger partner of a pair

There was some talk that he was Bobby’s brunser, but not a lot to his face after he knifed Freddy in the gut.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. scribatiousness (also scribaciousness) — quality of writing excessively

Finally we decided that the only cure for Artur’s scribatiousness was to take away all of his electronic devices and leave him solely with pen and paper—which was not a cure per se, but since no person other than Artur could read his handwriting, at least we were saved the bother of trying to keep up with his over-prolix logorrhea.

 

2. disanalogy — inaptness or lack of analogy between two things; failure of an analogy

Of course, the disanalogy between the circulatory system and American freeways becomes even clearer when one considers that—I mean, good Lord, have you driven on the roads recently?

 

3. glede — hot coal or ember

In my hand I felt it burn like a glede and would have dropped it had not Noreto warned me of its ability to cause dissociative sensations when touched.

 

4. kermis (also kirmess) — fair or festival

Her booth at the kermis was attractively decorated, so many passersby stopped to view her luxury seasoned almond oils and extracts.

 

5. tombola — raffle or lottery at which winning tickets are drawn from a rotating drum; such a drum

Inside the tombola Pritchett was surprised to espy a patch of double-sided tape, which an unscrupulous person—such as Edgar—might have used to ‘fix’ the results of the raffle.

 

6. speccy — [British slang] derogatory descriptor of one wearing glasses

“Why do I have to make allowances for some speccy bastard who can’t be bothered to read the brochure before the boat gets underway?”

 

7. sparrow-fart (also sparrowfart and sparrow fart) — [British idiom] sunrise, dawn, very early in the day; useless person or thing

I had training that day so had to rise before sparrow-fart to get to the other side of town on time.

 

8. maenadic (also mænadic) — frenzied, of or related to a maenad

And thus Gibbons fell victim to his own hubris, destroyed by the very maenadic devotees he had debauched for this vile orgiastic defiance of all common decency.

 

9. parti pris — [French] preconceived notion or attitude, bias

At this time in his career as a young junior executive on the rise, he was so much a prisoner of his own partis pris that trying to get Reggie to entertain a new idea was like teaching a lizard to appreciate Erik Satie.

 

10. landaulet — early automobile style having a small passenger compartment and an open area behind the windshield for the chauffeur

Though Sir Jennings had given us the loan of his landaulet, the large package with which we were encumbered made our seating arrangements quite uncomfortable, Peter being somewhat loath to let our prize out of his sight.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(slang, from the film Fatal Attraction)

bunny boiler — vengeful former partner after being spurned, usu. of a woman

Eventually Chip moved to the Florida Keys to escape this bunny boiler who kept showing up at his home and work and standing outside restaurants even when he was dining alone.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. pace — [Latin] “in peace”, with no offense intended to, with apologies to

Certainly we can all be grateful to Max Brod (pace Kafka’s own wishes in the matter) that he did not cast these writings into the fire.

 

2. Monel (also Monel metal) — alloy of nickel and copper

But its strength at high temperatures led to the use of Monel in both the frame and the skin of the hypersonic X-15.

 

3. Keeley Cure — supposed cure for alcoholism of the Keeley Institute at the cusp of the 20th Century, primarily consisting of injections of auric chloride

Of course it made sense that these shots of gold worked to counteract the shots of whiskey I’d been drinking, and I had every hope that the Keeley Cure would work for me as it had worked for thousands of other poor (in a moral sense) unfortunates.

 

4. MOT — [British] Ministry of Transport (now the Department of Transport) test of a vehicle’s safety and roadworthiness

“We both know this car isn’t going to pass its MOT, don’t we, even without that broken taillight?”

 

5. out at elbows (also out at elbow) — poorly dressed, shabby; needy, poor

The only inhabitant of the shop was a crabbed, out at elbows fellow who at first I mistook for an indigent seller of trifles hoping to interest the owner in some oddments he wished to sell, so I was surprised to learn that he was the owner of the bric-a-brac shop, with all its trifles, oddments, and whatnot.

 

6. typewriter — [slang] submachine gun (esp. a Thompson submachine gun)

Once again I had to duck as typewriter bullets flew overhead; at least I wasn’t standing calf-deep in mud this time.

 

7. all my eye and Betty Martin — [idiom] balderdash, nonsense

“He said that?!? What all my eye and Betty Martin! And you believed him!?! Saints preserve us!”

 

8. stap me vitals (also stap my vitals, or in abbreviated form as stap me) — [slang] exclamation of anger or surprise

“Well, stap me vitals if you don’t show up when you’re least wanted, Teddy!”

 

9. on the tapis (also upon the tapis) — [idiom] under consideration, up for discussion

The last thing on the tapis was the same old nonsense about the Founder’s Fountain, only under a new guise and disguised as a patriotic means of showing our support for the troops.

 

10. brass neck — [UK idiom] shamelessness, gall; person with this quality

I don’t mind being told that AI will provide cost savings and more efficiency, just don’t have the brass neck to tell me that those benefits are for the customer, rather than for the penny-pinching executives in their glass-walled offices.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(military slang, originally from ANZAC troops)

chocolate soldier — soldier who never sees combat; one unwilling to fight

He was too yellow even for the quartermaster corps, too much a chocolate soldier to face up even to harsh words or forms in triplicate.

 

1200 Books

Hardly 20 minutes have passed since I finished my 1200th book in my silly book-tracking project, which I began in earnest ‘way back in 2015. As per usual, I do not count comics and graphic novels (nor books about comics, for that matter) towards this total figure, though I am tracking the aggregate numbers as well.

This 1200th book was the classic—and rightfully so—Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. (My old movie tie-in addition has the novel as being by “Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.“, but I suppose that he eventually (the illustration there is of the 80th printing, the which I just finished reading) decided he’d matured enough to drop the “Jr.”, or maybe his pop left this mortal coil and he decided there wasn’t any question anymore of him being confused with his father (not that that seems all too likely).) I say it’s “rightfully” considered a classic because: Wow. I mean, seriously. Wow. It’s awesome. Now it may be the case that there are certain authors that we read at a certain time of life, and I’ve always considered Vonnegut as someone you read in your late teens or early 20s—and I still stick by that. (I also think that’s true of, say, Tom Robbins.) But re-reading Mr. Vonnegut now that I’m in my post-quinquagenarian years has brought home to me just how good a writer he really is. Sure, maybe he has annoying tics (lots of ’em), like in this novel “So it goes” and “And so on”. But maybe it’s also the case that for some authors like Vonnegut and Brautigan, they needed so to tell us things that simply could not be told, and yet they found a way to do just that. Sure, Slaughterhouse-Five is an anti-war novel; could it have been otherwise written in 1969? But it also speaks to and for the powerless, for those destined (one could say doomed) to always be the “listless playthings of enormous forces” who simply do as they’re told, or try to do so, or try to succeed, or strive, but … well, then, life just happens, keeps on happening. Some may not like the Sci-Fi elements of the tale (indeed, almost all of his awards were various Science Fiction prizes), but it may just be that SF presented the only effective way to tell his stories. As Chandler said of the mystery novel, “it is just possible that the tensions in a novel of murder are the simplest and yet most complete pattern of the tensions on which we live in this generation.” Maybe the same applies here to the Science Fiction genre, to the succeeding generation of which Vonnegut was part, to those who fought for democracy in WWII and then sought to ‘Impeach Earl Warren’. Anyway, listen to me gas on. Better still, read the book; it’s still great.

In this last set of a hundred books———

Whoops

Okay, so it turns out that the book I thought was #1200 was actually #1201, and that I crossed the finish line of the last hundred with a truly terrible bad not-good-at-all book, which I’ll tell you about in a minute. But what happened, was that away back at book #1129, I used that same numeration twice, so that what I’d entered as Book #1130 was really #1131, Book #1131 was supposed to be #1132, and so forth and so on, all the way up to where we are now. Which means that I have to ask myself if I truly want to go back and change all the datapoints for seventy something books. Why am I even raising the question? Of course I’m gonna change them all; and just as of course, I don’ wanna. *Sigh*

What this means is that the veritable 1200th book read was the staggeringly bad Sword Of Power, by James Robert Hawkins, which is even worse than that cover over there implies. This is, in fact, a 1987 hardback reprint of a paperback originally published by Fawcett in 1980 as The Living One. It’s not that the writing is terrible (it is) or that the plot is among the worst science fiction has to offer (it is that, too), but that the whole misbegotten narrative is in the service of some weird-ass religion, like when PKD grabbed from the Bahai faith to make a major plot point of Eye In The Sky—only he knew what he was doing, wasn’t a true believer, and though he could never be called the best prose stylist, he would never have written garbage like this: “Her body was steadfast but flexible, much like the dancer she wished to be as a child; but now her only dance was one of death for the beasts that had slaughtered her people and shattered her dreams.” I won’t tell you which religion the author Hawkins draws from and likely follows, but if you really need to know, you can use your favorite search engine (if any of them are even working anymore) to learn about the odd word in the supposed series title of this new edition: “The Swordsmen of the SUGMAD Saga”. This is book one. It’s hard to say if there was ever a book two. There’s a couple of other books mentioned in the forepages of this turkey, but the only evidence is for this book, in the two versions. (One wise choice the author made when he (likely self-) published this new edition, is to use his longer name. The first printing was under the “Jim Hawkins” rubric, and I sure his writing career didn’t benefit from being associated with a fictional kid in a pirate adventure. (Though, come to think of it….)) The cover also speaks of Mr. Hawkins as being the “author of the Galaxy Award-winning novel, SHIFT”, though I can find no evidence of such a novel, nor do I think the Chinese SF award was presented to him, though there could be such an award I’m just ignorant of. (It would be tacky to speculate that … No, nevermind. It would be tacky.) Anyway, it is a sad, bad, pathetic, poor book, and I am sad that it was #1200. Had I known, I would have read something else at that time.

In this last set of a hundred books I’m still reading a lot of mysteries, though the percentage dropped another fifth, down to 29% (under a quarter if we count the comics I read). Only science fiction represented as much as 10% of this last tranche, however evil the result. (See paragraph above.) I actually plowed through 18 comics—including the delightful Poetry Comics—, though, as I said, I don’t count those towards each century of ‘books read’.

I maintained a truly ludicrous speed over this last hundred books, which surprised me a bit. I knew that I’d gone into the month of May determined to read a book a day, at least, but I guess the ‘at least’ doubled up a few days to allow me to reach this hundred book milestone in only 102 days. My absolute pace was dramatically higher as well, being 206 pages per day (as opposed to 131 pg/day in the last hundred), going up to 218 pg/day if we include the comic books.

   1 Book per 1.03 Days   

Eventually I’ll try to give you the entire book listing, which I assure you has several (well, one or two, at least) books better than the turkey that ended up being #1200.

Friday Vocabulary

1. muzzy — blurry, fuzzy, unfocused; confused, dazed; drunk, mentally impaired due to alcohol

Fernando shook his head—which was a mistake—to try to focus on what Jess was saying, and finally got it through his muzzy head that his roommate was shouting something about the apartment being on fire.

 

2. mouchard — [French] nark, police spy

Evard didn’t go to prison, however, and all the quiet dark men in the bars mused that he had become Captain Ranoch’s latest mouchard.

 

3. prepossession — opinion, bias, prejudice (esp. in a favorable sense)

These nervous tics made it impossible for his superiors to form that prepossession without which advancement in the bureau was almost impossible, especially to one who had graduated from Alabama.

 

4. teetotum — small finger-spun top, such as a dreidel

Like a wobbling teetotum the young toddler finally collapsed after all his spinning about, though I was unable to read the character inscribed upon his panting, smiling visage.

 

5. rampallian — vulgar person, wretch

“So you’ve taken your place among the tavern rampallians and have found your true level at last.”

 

6. star-crossed — ill fated, doomed by the stars

Thorne was to play a crucial role at the end of this sad farce, but the star-crossed clerk would find that his vigorous actions were as detrimental to his high hopes as had been his quiescent hesitations of the previous weeks.

 

7. legendry — legends in a collective sense, mythologies

Of the common tales told throughout these diverse peoples from the Kazakh plains to the Mountains of the Moon, no figure of legendry seems to suffer quite so sad a fate as does the Frog Boy, along with his partner in crime (in most versions), the Moping Mouse.

 

8. depreciate — to lose value; to belittle

However, inflation had depreciated the value of these fixed returns, and Jeremiah found himself having to expend his principal.

 

9. deprecate — to express disapproval of; to belittle; to cease support for

“I don’t mean to deprecate Tomas in your eyes, Emily, but it seems that the new version is even worse than the one who was sent off to prison.”

 

10. attar — essential oil made from flowers, esp. from roses

Just as three thousand flowers are needful to make one small vial of attar, so have I distilled the blessed memories of a wonderful life into these few pages.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Scots)

dowp (also doup) — buttocks; butt end of a cigarette

Aye, he made a fine figure of a man now, poking through the rubbish with his fingers, searching for a dowp or two so he could have a smoke, him who’d once bought his Cuban cigars by the box.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. pungle — to hand over, to pay

“If you’re gonna make me pungle up my hard-won cash,” said the gambler, his hand hovering over his pistol, “you’re gonna need more than three buffoons like you to do it.”

 

2. endopsychic — extant within the mind

But these are mere endopsychic phenomena, and can affect the physical situation only negatively.

 

3. quinquagenarian — of a person in their sixth decade of life, between the ages of 50 to 60 years old; 50 years of age

On the one hand we are told that the modern quinquagenarian lifestyle is one of whirlwhind activity and joie de vivre; on the other hand, I keep being told I should stock up on Depends®.

 

4. mushrump — [archaic] mushroom; upstart, arriviste

I see you’ve become a mushrump economist, grown wise overnight with a few hours in the Barnes & Noble business section.

 

5. glaur — [Scots] muck, mud, mire

It were better to go unshod than to lose your best boots in the glaur.

 

6. whilere — [archaic] some time ago, formerly

Where are those brave men who whilere strove ‘gainst not only armies but opposed the fearsome attacks of Nature herself?

 

7. ovipositor — egg-laying tube of some insects or fish

The ovipositor of the wasp was designed for piercing, in order to lay her eggs within a paralyzed host.

 

8. undine — water nymph or spirit

In the classic tale, a nobleman falls in love with an undine he discovers living with some of his tenants, with tragic consequences.

 

9. teen — [archaic] grief, trouble

He wore ever a gladsome smile in public to conceal his private teen.

 

10. silentiary — one who remains silent, esp. as a religious compulsion; historical official of courts who stayed silent

His honor still offended, Patrick remains a silentiary until such time as his quondam friends make him a formal apology, so we are enjoying a respite of blissful peace around the house just now.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. obduracy — stubborn inflexibility, state of being unmoved or unashamed

Though Laithley continued in his obduracy, ever and anon did my lord offer the hand of friendship and pledged the return of his lands if only that stubborn knight would take the oath.

 

2. outrance — [obsolete] furthest extremity, at the very limits (of propriety)

And so the battle was joined à outrance, and no quarter would be pled nor given on either side.

 

3. lairy — [UK idiom] aggro; vulgar

Then this lairy lad in a Man U jersey comes up and smashes our lights and was just threatening to slash the tyres when the busies arrived.

 

4. ouzel (also water ouzel) — aquatic bird found in the Rocky Mountains

I knew the ouzel right away from the way he swam beneath the surface of the pool.

 

5. raffle — trash, rubbish

“Just toss it with the other raffle out back behind the cook’s cabinet.”

 

6. encomiastic — of or related to one giving a eulogy; laudatory

He had mistaken his encomiastic duties for yet another opportunity to perform his sky pilot holy roller tent meeting “Come to Jesus” routine.

 

7. kindle — litter of kittens, rabbits, etc.

Jesse wondered if this third report meant that three students had found the same litter, or if there were three separate kindles of kittens on the school grounds.

 

8. havey-cavey — suspect, dubious

The more we learned of this havey-cavey plan the less we liked it.

 

9. macerate — to soften or separate by steeping in liquid; to make thinner

It was found, however, that those plants whose inoculating agents had been macerated in acetone still had high likelihood of carrying the mosaic virus.

 

10. matelot — sailor; buddy

We exited the restaurant to discover the same gang of matelots lying in wait to reclaim their offended honor.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(archaic)

bear-garden (also bear garden) — place where bear baiting was offered as entertainment; any locale where hurly-burly is condoned or accepted

The strand alongside this part of the Thames was known to be a sort of bear-garden, and I saw exactly the sort of strutting popinjays I expected to find there.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. peripeteia — sudden turn of events, reversal of fortune, crisis

However, the thoughtful peripeteia of the classic Greek drama (as, for example, the drastic return of Neoptolemus to his normal open disposition) has been replaced by a poor pallid counterfeit, and every moviegoer knows that the dramatic scenes of failed plans and stratagems of The Avengers, e.g., are only a preface to the ultimate, inevitable, and—to be frank—quite boring triumph of the supposed heroes.

 

2. diuturnity — state of lasting for a very long time

What hand, through long mornings and nights of diuturnity, carved with mild feathered strokes these monuments of rock and packed earth through which we now floated on our rafts in awestruck wonder?

 

3. hieratic — of or related to priests, esp. those of Ancient Egypt; of or related to a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing; severely formal, overly styled

As we went deeper into the cave, the hieratic illustrations suffered a decline, as if the deep and secret meanings of the bizarre images had been forgotten, so that only the shells and forms remained, debased figures lacking the strength of the earlier icons, as the underlying mysteries became more and more distant to this devolving culture.

 

4. putto — representation of a cherub (sometimes winged) in Renaissance and Baroque art

The chalice featured an embossed representation of Venus, flanked on either side by tiny putti holding a ribbon about her head.

 

5. putrid — rotting, decomposing, esp. with a bad smell; vile, morally loathsome

“If you must descend further into study of these putrid philosophies, I will thank you to leave my house!”

 

6. conjury — conjuration, magic, witchcraft; an act of the same

So simply did he assuage the bank manager’s concerns that the entire visit seemed sheer conjury, especially as the manager had had his hand almost on his phone to call the authorities when first we arrived.

 

7. cachalot — sperm whale

Only the rich reward of the ambergris and spermaceti would induce the fishing of the mighty cachalot, so fierce and huge are these mighty whales.

 

8. league — unit of distance of varying measure in different places or times, usu. calculated as roughly 3 miles

Exhausted though we were, Ronnie allowed us only a brief respite, though we’d already traveled twenty leagues since daybreak.

 

9. inchmeal — extremely slowly, by inches, little by little

I drew the curtain aside inchmeal, not daring to awaken the sleeper before I was ready to pounce.

 

10. melioration — [archaic] amelioration, something which makes a thing better

The estate benefited from his hard work and the many meliorations he had set on course during the lord’s long absence.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British informal)

go spare — to become angry

“I dunno just how it happened, only that he’d go spare when I told him he was being made redundant, so I thought, y’know, if maybe he had a few pints first the news would go down easier.”

 

Book List: 1100 Books (The Last Hundred)

As I told you not too very long ago .. oh, who am I fooling? it’s been quite over a month now … I recently passed the eleven hundredth book read in my little silly book tracking project. And that means it’s time once again to foist upon you a listing of all of the last hundred books read, with a few callouts for this or that special item. (The Dirty Old Man book, for example, was the 1100th Book Read and thus worthy of note because of the random milestone crossed.

My last hundred began with Well-Springs Of Wisdom: From The Writings Of Frederick W. Robertson, which is a ‘greatest hits’ set of quotations, extracts from the sermons of this once oh-so-fashionable preacher in England away back in the first half of the 19th Century. I’ve loved some of his sermons preached at Bath, and thought his insights into the nature of language to be intriguing. So I was quite interested in this survey capturing his thoughts on any number of subjects. I found many inspirational insights, much to like in this volume … and then I stumbled over his views about the place of (Christian) women. Sigh. Would his perspective have mellowed if he’d lived longer? (He died at the age of 37.) Who can say?

Of all the perfect little nothings I’ve ever read, this beautiful incredible tale, Rock Crystal, is among the best. Adalbert Stifter builds a story where nothing really happens at all, creating the most wrenching drama of two little children who— But I dare not say more. Just read the book, and be sure to skip the W. H. Auden introduction (actually a book review pasted into the front of this NYRB Classic edition, perhaps to bolster the wafer-thin page count) until you read the text itself. It is an excellent, gripping, moving, overwhelming tour de force. Oh, and also, let’s not forget my usual caveats and explanations about books read and numbers and all that. Basically, I only count non-comic books as books read, though I do track the total volume in a separate field. All right, onto the beginning of the list.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1001 8/15/23 Frederick W. Robertson Well-Springs Of Wisdom: From The Writings Of Frederick W. Robertson Religion & Spirituality
1002 8/16/23 John Portmann When Bad Things Happen to Other People Philosophy
1003 8/17/23 Jane P. Resnick International Connoisseur’s Guide to Cigars: The Art of Selecting and Smoking Cooking
1004 8/18/23 Steve Alten Meg Mystery
1005 8/18/23 Aldous Huxley Brave New World Fiction
1006 8/20/23 Tommaso Landolfi Words in Commotion and Other Stories Fiction
1007 8/21/23 Kenneth Bulmer / Brian M. Stableford The Wizards Of Senchuria / Cradle Of The Sun SF & Fantasy
1008 8/21/23 Daniel Pinkwater The Magic Moscow Children’s
1009 8/21/23 Adalbert Stifter Rock Crystal Fiction
1010 8/28/23 Leonard Shlain The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image Sociology

 

The best book I read in the next set of ten was a re-read, Tony Hillerman’s 4th novel featuring his police detectives from the Navaho Reservation, People Of Darkness. I went back to this one (originally this was the 95th book I read, way back in 2016) because I wanted to compare the plot with the second AMC TV miniseries drawn from Hillerman’s books. The book came out best in the comparison, though the television program was not as reprehensible a reworking of the original material as the first time around. Still and all, I enjoyed the book. Chee is a much stronger, much better character in the book, and his character has that ring of truth which is the hallmark of good fiction.

Sadly, no newly read book in this set came up to the same high standard as the Leaphorn & Chee mystery. There were several books I liked, and the Orhan Pamuk book might have been fine if he hadn’t made the classic literary mistake of trying to color his fiction as a mystery.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1011 8/29/23 Paul Guinan & Anina Bennett Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel SF & Fantasy
1012 8/30/23 Robert S. Baker Brave New World: History, Science, and Dystopia Literary Criticism
1013 9/1/23 Philip José Farmer Hadon Of Ancient Opar SF & Fantasy
1014 9/2/23 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine June 2023 Music
1015 9/3/23 Francis Wheen Hoo-hahs and Passing Frenzies: Collected Journalism Essays
1016 9/4/23 Eugen Herrigel Zen Religion & Spirituality
95* 9/5/23 Tony Hillerman People Of Darkness Mystery
1017 9/9/23 Orhan Pamuk My Name Is Red Mystery
1018 9/10/23 Daniel Pinkwater Attila the Pun: A Magic Moscow Story Children’s
1019 9/13/23 John Scalzi Old Man’s War SF & Fantasy
1020 9/13/23 William Osler A Way Of Life Psychology

*See above
 

Although I cannot claim to love all of the works gathered here, especially some of the later writings which trail off a bit from his earlier verve, and though The Master of Ballantrae to me was a terrible tale of family abuse, there was much to love in this one-volume edition of The Works Of Robert Louis Stevenson. Oh, this book wasn’t complete, missing Quentin Durward and The Black Arrow, among other things. But there’s enough adventure and excitement in these tales to keep the interest of any red-blooded boy. On the other hand, one can make a strong case that Stevenson peaked with Treasure Island, which remains one of the best pirate stories ever. Of All Time. Still, even a gradual decline from that great height spans a taller reach than most, including the masterful (and even more mysterious in the original) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (Though supposedly Stevenson said that the protagonist of that book had his name pronounced ‘jee-kul’.)

Finally got around to reading Ken Kesey’s masterwork, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Wow. What a stunner. At one point I got so distracted by McMurphy’s calculated use of the n-word that I almost lost sight of the fact that Cool Hand Luke and so many other American Christ tales have used so much of what was contained in this shattering, stellar, brilliant novel. Having seen the movie long, long ago (it was the first R-rated picture ever I saw), I thought I knew the story. But reading this prose made me (finally) understand what all the fuss about Kesey was all about.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1021 9/14/23 Daniel Pinkwater Devil In The Drain Children’s
1022 9/18/23 Ken Kesey One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest Fiction
1023 9/25/23 Charlotte Joko Beck Everyday Zen: Love & Work Religion & Spirituality
1024 10/1/23 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine July 2023 Music
1025 10/4/23 Robert Louis Stevenson The Works Of Robert Louis Stevenson Fiction
1026 10/4/23 Michael S. Kimmel Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation Sociology
1027 10/5/23 Daniel Pinkwater The Muffin Fiend Children’s
1028 10/10/23 Terence Real I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression Psychology
1029 10/11/23 Kenneth Bulmer / Jeff Sutton The Ships Of Durostorum / Alton’s Unguessable [Ace Double 76096] SF & Fantasy
1030 10/14/23 Tim F. LaHaye Revelation, Illustrated and Made Plain Spirituality

 

I’ve spoken before of just how great a writer Daniel Pinkwater is. (See the book list for the last hundred and my quick note about his novel Wingman.) But I was blown away once more by just how well Mr. Pinkwater crafts that most delicate and difficult work, the short young adult novel. Sure, we have series galore and werewolf vs. vampire romance fantasies that we aim like a flamethrower at the potential readers in middle school nowadays, but those kids who fell in love with Judy Blume or Robert Cormier or Scott O’Dell can attest to a love of reading books that didn’t talk down to them while also speaking directly to them, a love which often translated into a lifelong love of the written word. And Daniel Pinkwater can work this same magic, though he is much, much less dark than those other expert writers. In The Last Guru, Pinkwater weaves a truly transcendental tale and creates an almost perfectly enlightened book. Words fail me, and I simply cannot express how tremendous, staggering, amazing … well, words fail me. There are things that some will take issue with, but this tale of spiritual power is super, in spite of a strange animadversion to Iceland.

Sociology? History? Something entirely new? Gil Elliot calls The 20th Century Book Of The Dead a ‘necrology’ of the macro-violent deaths of the 20th Century. And this little book is very sobering, even moreso when you realize that this book covers the murder machine of modern life only up to 1972. This bold investigator hammers home just how staggeringly big was the modern invention of mass death techniques, and asks some perhaps unanswerable questions about how and what and wherefore. I found even his more questionable points worthy of note, in this thoughtful and thought-provoking book.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1031 10/16/23 Daniel Pinkwater The Last Guru Children’s
1032 10/21/23 Steve Paulson & Pam Paulson Church Signs Across America Humor
1033 10/22/23 Fritz Leiber The Swords Of Lankhmar SF & Fantasy
1034 10/23/23 Roald Dahl Matilda Children’s
1035 10/23/23 Jerry Patton Satan’s Angel Pornography
1036 10/23/23 R. A. Montgomery Mystery Of The Maya Children’s
1037 10/25/23 John Scalzi The Ghost Brigades SF & Fantasy
1038 10/28/23 Eugene Zamiatin We Fiction
1039 10/29/23 Robert Aiken The Mind Of Clover: Essays in Zen Buddhist Ethics Spirituality
10/31/23 Hergé The Seven Crystal Balls Comics
1040 10/31/23 Gil Elliot The 20th Century Book Of The Dead History

 

Like many of the John Le Carré novels about his hero-not-hero George Smiley, The Honourable Schoolboy fills page after page (after page, it’s a long book) with taut dialogue and lush description and a sense of sad truth that is likely the biggest lie that either of these two spies, one fictional and one pseudononymous, ever created. The frankly melancholy tale of underworld betrayal and misplaced love in Southeast Asia takes the reader on dizzying descent into world now long gone, a world where Englishmen and Americans vied in the Orient with the Chinese and the former ruled people of the farflung British Empire. Set in the dying days of the Vietnam War, the spy tome serves as an interesting counterpoint to this reader’s view of that shameful yet most American of wars. When Le Carré is on, he’s on, and he’s at his best in this somewhat lugubrious tale.

There were many good books out of this tenth of a century, among them Helen Waddell’s fine book of background and (mostly) sayings of The Desert Fathers, the writings and hagiography and wisdom words passed down from some of the first self-abnegating Christians, the monks and seekers who went into the harsh deserts of northern Egypt region to find a closer relationship with Christ along about the 3rd and 4th Centuries. These tales ring sometimes strange to our modern ears, analguous in some instances with the riddles of ancient Zen. Waddell of course bends the material to her own design, but that bent is towards a more lyrical, more humane wisdom than some of the harshest toils of the desert path. Her rapture (and ours) over the tale of St. Pelagia the Harlot is worthy of the entire book.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1041 11/4/23 Helen Waddell The Desert Fathers Religion & Spirituality
1042 11/8/23 Anne Hillerman Cave Of Bones Mystery
1043 11/16/23 William Gibson Zero History SF & Fantasy
1044 11/18/23 William Gibson Pattern Recognition SF & Fantasy
11/19/23 Hergé Prisoners Of The Sun Comics
1045 11/20/23 Robert Van Gulik The Chinese Gold Murders Mystery
1046 11/22/23 Bernard Glassman & Rick Fields Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Living a Life That Matters Religion & Spirituality
1047 11/23/23 Åke Edwardson Frozen Tracks Mystery
1048 11/25/23 John Le Carré The Honourable Schoolboy Mystery
1049 11/25/23 John D. MacDonald The Quick Red Fox Mystery
11/26/23* Anant Pai, ed. Harischandra: The Story of the Mythological King Whose Name is Synonymous With Truth Comics
11/26/23 Lakshmi Lal Jakata Tales: Elephant Stories Comics
11/28/23 Mike Baron Badger #7 [First] Comics
1050 11/28/23 Robert Nordan Death Beneath the Christmas Tree Mystery

* Read a second time; first read 5/18/2016
 

Now this was a book I found myself liking in spite of the fact that I had absolutely no earthly reason to like it. I mean, it’s exactly the kind of book I usually hate, a throw-away mystery full of conincidences and arch inside jokes about single ladies’ life in the Big Apple, and yet …. I really, really liked it. I mean, like “I want to write to the author and tell her how much I liked this book” liked it. Seriously, Sparkle Hayter (and that cannot be a real name, can it?) created a real gem with Revenge Of The Cootie Girls. Did I say ‘like’? No, it was love. I really found myself really really loving this book. Even though this is exactly the sort of fare that I usually (as in always) detest and blame for the downfall of … well, something. But this book was so well-constructed—in spite of ludicrous plot elements and a few deus ex machina—that I found myself just falling in love with the whole thing, and the mystery-not-a-mystery story of Robin Hudson. Sure, you get a lot of “Hey, wait a second!” tingles throughout the first half, but … no, seriously, it’s just very very well done. Maybe I will write the author.

Now I really wanted to tell you how much I’m starting to get into the adventures of The Saint, by Leslie Charteris (which I first came to love through the Vincent Price radio show (not the Roger Moore TV episodes, which are … okay I guess)). But my copy of The Saint Wanted For Murder doesn’t have a dust jacket, and the pic I made of the boards doesn’t ‘pop’, even with the cute logo of The Saint on the green background. So instead I’ll tell you about a beautifully illustrated version of The Book Of Common Prayer that I completed during this particular slice of ten books. The text, of course, is as near to set in stone as anything can be—save for daily devotionals of course. But it’s lavishly illustrated and nicely organized and just has that heft that make for a good book. Which is a good thing, even for those books that are only Good Book adjacent.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
11/29/23 Mike Baron Badger #8 [First] Comics
1051 11/30/23 Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights Fiction
1052 11/30/23 Eric Schlosser Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market Sociology
1053 12/2/23 Sparkle Hayter Revenge Of The Cootie Girls Mystery
1054 12/5/23 Leslie Charteris The Saint Wanted For Murder (Wanted for Murder / The Saint and Mr. Teal) Mystery
1055 12/6/23 Piers Anthony Split Infinity SF & Fantasy
1056 12/7/23 Daniel M. Pinkwater Yobgorgle Children’s
1057 12/8/23 John Dickson Carr The Mad Hatter Mystery Mystery
1058 12/9/23 Piers Anthony A Spell For Chameleon SF & Fantasy
1059 12/9/23 Thomas Cleary, trans. The Original Face: An Anthology of Rinzai Zen Religion & Spirituality
1060 12/9/23 The Book Of Common Prayer Religion & Spirituality

 

And here I really must say something about Albert Campion, the self-effacing, somewhat unattractive and not very brash detector-type person who is the protagonist of Margery Allingham’s delightful very British mysteries. I started reading his exploits right about this time, having found a trove at the local library book sale (paperbacks are 25¢ each, so I find myself unable to resist). And I just loved him from the very first time I met him in The Crime At Black Dudley. Some of the charms of Ms. Allingham’s series are also failings, as in a certain grotesquerie which certainly pervades this strangely violent yet oh-so-British plot. And though some of the novel’s details and characters are not entirely to my liking, Mr. Campion emerges as a fully realized wonder, someone I could not wait to read more about.

Fortunately I was able to gratify this desire almost immediately, and my liking for the quite silly Mr. Campion continued, in spite of the bizarre nature of many of the Richard Hannay sorts of plots he found himself enmeshed in, and the silly enemies Campion faces, the Huns and that ilk. In Sweet Danger, we start with Campion posing on the French Riviera as a king (or prince, I forget) of some farflung and forgotten principality (which I guess would make him a prince, wouldn’t it?) in the Carpathians, only to give up this ridiculousness and return to England for further and different ridiculousness including the summoning of a demon. It’s delightful, and perhaps this is my favorite I’ve read in the series so far.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1061 12/10/23 Margery Allingham The Crime At Black Dudley Mystery
1062 12/12/23 Margery Allingham The Gyrth Chalice Mystery [orig. Look To The Lady Mystery
1063 12/15/23 Margaret Frazer The Prioress’ Tale [sic] Mystery
1064 12/23/23 Gérard de Nerval Selected Writings Fiction
1065 12/24/23 Boris Akunin The Death Of Achilles Mystery
1066 12/28/23 Margery Allingham Police At The Funeral Mystery
1067 12/30/23 A. F. Price & Wong Mou-lam, trans. The Diamond Sutra and The Sutra of Hui-neng Religion & Spirituality
1068 12/30/23 Margery Allingham Sweet Danger Mystery
1069 12/31/23 Andrew Mollo To The Death’s Head True
1070 1/2/24 George Breitman, Norman Porter, & Baxter Smith The Assassination Of Malcolm X Conspiracy

 

Many ways exist, of course, to judge books of sweeping history. And doubtless this particular book—a textbook of my mother’s in the ’50s and a revision of a work from the beginning of the 20th Century—has had many of its facts and arguments superseded by new research and (more likely) new ideas concerning the period we no longer call The Dark Ages (and they’re not called that here, either). But the book itself is extremely well-written, and covers this huge swathe of time in an engaging and informative manner. One might quibble with this or that emphasis (well, I might), but the authors keep up a steady pace in this work spanning, after all, over a millennium. About those authors: the original writer, Joseph R. Strayer, wrote the ur-version of this book in 1921. After another’s revision, it was up to Dana Carleton Munro to update the book, completely revising it and bringing the work’s study up to the 15th Century. (The original work by Strayer had ended at 1270, for quite sound pedagogical reasons, I’m sure.) The end result, The Middle Ages 395–1500, is a wonderful synthesis of the earlier scholarship and a highly readable work of history, even for a casual reader like myself. If I’m being entirely honest, part of my plaudits for this book are directed at the 9 fold-out maps which add materially to the information of the text, and which are just fun to fold out and to peruse. More fold-out maps, please!

I was going to highlight The John Franklin Bardin Omnibus here, but find that I neglected to scan its cover. So I’ll mention instead another favorite from this set of ten books, Ian Fleming’s 9th book of the adventures of James Bond, Thunderball. The movie (the 4th) is one of my faves, and the theme song is my favorite; I’ve a soft spot for Tom Jones, despite the strong contenders such as Shirley Bassey and Paul McCartney & Wings. The book itself seems to be better than many in the series, perhaps because its plot is kept on track because it began life as a prospective screenplay co-written by Fleming with four others. (The co-credit in my version—“based on a screen treatment by K. McClarthy, J. Whittingham and the author”—is apparently the outcome of a court battle.) Whatever the cause, the plot is more sensible than most, though of course SPECTRE continues to be ridiculous as a criminal conspiracy. Still, it doesn’t suffer from Fleming’s main problem, which is that he seems to have very little idea just what a secret agent superspy might actually do.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1071 1/14/24 Joseph R. Strayer & Dana Carleton Munro The Middle Ages 395–1500 History
1072 1/15/24 Agatha Christie The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd Mystery
1073 1/18/24 Michael Jecks The Last Templar Mystery
1074 1/18/24 T. W. Rhys Davids, trans. Buddhist Suttas Religion & Spirituality
1075 1/19/24 Margery Allingham Death Of A Ghost Mystery
1076 1/20/24 Sax Rohmer Daughter Of Fu Manchu Mystery
1077 1/25/24 Ian Fleming Thunderball Mystery
1078 1/28/24 Agatha Christie Poirot’s Early Cases Mystery
1079 1/30/24 C. J. Sansom Dissolution Mystery
1080 2/2/24 John Franklin Bardin The John Franklin Bardin Omnibus Mystery

 

Re-reading Frank Herbert’s Dune for the first time in decades reminded me of what a staggering accomplishment his magnum opus was. One can say it was ahead of its time—and be referring to its supposed focus upon ecology, oil, or psychedelics. Or one can compare and contrast with the movies that came after (not the William Hurt one, tho’)—and debate the different roles of women, religion, or politics in this or that version. But these points underline the book’s true greatness: almost 60 years after publication (the first half of the book actually appeared in Analog magazine starting in 1963!), Herbert’s work still manages to provide more and more interpretations, and new generations seem able to still find further nuance (and its opposite) within these densely packed pages. Coming back to the original source, I found the feudal medievalism of the political scenes striking, and realized how greatly my memories of the printed word had been subtly altered by Lynch’s staggering film. But Frank Herbert’s greatest triumph is in world-building at a level practically unheard of, at least in the science fiction genre. There are depths upon depths here, though in reading the appendices and the history of the Orange Catholic Bible and the Butlerian Jihad, we can also see that some of these enormous remote buildings may just be painted over wood and paper backdrops.

One great re-read deserves another, and returning to The Crying Of Lot 49 was like sitting in the Brady family’s living room with old friends and passing the bong around while discussing conspiracy theories. Even this most accesible of Thomas Pynchon’s work (I keep seeing people advising new readers of Pynchon to start with Vineland or even—*choke*—Against The Day, and I ask myself why they hate these people so much?) has sentences that challenge the attention and may actually be not best read while stoned. Most of the parallel history and doings of the demimonde (constant themes of Pynchon) will be quite well known nowadays, at least were to me, though I did find myself going down a few rabbit holes looking up the visit of the Russian Navy to San Francisco during the Civil War and trying to pinpoint that reference made to Motley’s magisterial Rise Of The Dutch Republic, and the Jacobean play at the center of Lot 49 made me go out and read right away The Tragedy of The Duchess of Malfi. But Pynchon manages to pack into these 138 pages (in my edition) so much much more than most authors uncover in their entire oeuvre. Like Against The Day, there are unresolved unanswered questions here, but … well, the worlds of the squares and the hip in America are not separate countries, but somehow manage to co-exist simultaneously, in all their contradictory glory. That Mr. Pynchon manages to put Heisenberg’s United States into this small a box is a testament to his incredible genius.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1081 2/4/24 Michael Bonner, ed. Uncut Magazine August 2023 Music
1082 2/5/24 Jean de Brunhoff Les Aventures de Babar Foreign Language
1083 2/7/24 Frank Herbert Dune SF & Fantasy
1084 2/10/24 Margery Allingham Flowers For The Judge [aka Legacy In Blood] Mystery
1085 2/14/24 H. P. Lovecraft At The Mountains Of Madness and Other Tales of Terror Horror
1086 2/17/24 Margery Allingham Dancers In Mourning Mystery
1087 2/20/24 Thomas Pynchon The Crying Of Lot 49 Fiction
2/20/24 Meera Ugra The Hidden Treasure: A Jakata Tale Comics
1088 2/21/24 Margery Allingham Mr. Campion: Criminologist Mystery
2/22/24 Meera Ugra Jakata Tales: The magic chant and other stories Comics
1089 2/23/24 Ross Macdonald The Drowning Pool Mystery
1090 2/24/24 Bob Murphy Desert Shadows: A True Story of the Charles Manson Family in Death Valley True Crime

 

I’ve been working through my comics lately, approaching them from both ends—meaning Amar Chitra Katha and Badger at one pole, and of course Zap Comix at the other. This particular issue, Zap Comix #1, was pretty much an all R. Crumb production, though interestingly (according to Mister Wikipedia) was not originally supposed to be the first issue, indeed, was not even extant, as the original strips by Crumb were apparently stolen or at least taken out of the country by a Philadelphia publisher. There’s lots of good stuff here, and it is condign that Mr. Natural has pride of place on the cover. Later issues would showcase other fantastic artists of the underground ‘comix’ movement, and issue #4 of Zap gives me all sorts of … funny feelings, perhaps more appropriate for the pages of Young Lust.

Ah! The joys of Little Libraries! A while back—last Christmastime—I found a whole passel of the Penguin Modern Poets series just sitting in a Little Library near my home, and I selfishly grabbed the lot. I am working my way slowly through the books (I’ve just started the third poet in the third volume), but I was quite blown away by that first trio of poets in the first volume pictured here; well, two-thirds of them at least. The Lawrence Durrell was a revelation, in that I had no idea the author of the Alexandria Quartet also wrote very good poetry. The R. S. Thomas was also a revelation, though likely only to such a one as I who has no idea about such things, for Mr. Thomas was a quite well known Welsh poet for decades and decades. I loved so much of his verse in the Penguin collection that I’ve taken to searching for him in every used bookstore I spend time in. (No luck so far, but I need more books like the proverbial you-know-what.) His “Cynddylan on a Tractor” I loved so much that I added it to my personal anthology of the poems I love best.

 

# Read Author Title Genre
1091 2/25/24 CALL (Center for Army Lessons Learned) Operation Enduring Freedom III Militaria
2/25/24 Mike Baron Badger #9 Comics
1092 2/26/24 Ruth Fenisong The Wench Is Dead … Mystery
2/26/24 R. Crumb, et al. Zap Comix #4 Comics
1093 2/27/24 Erle Stanley Gardner The Case Of The Turning Tide Mystery
2/27/24 R. Crumb, et al. Zap Comix #2 Comics
2/28/24 R. Crumb Zap Comix #1 Comics
1094 2/28/24 John Webster The Tragedy of The Duchess of Malfi Drama
1095 2/29/24 Lawrence Durrell, Elizabeth Jennings, & R. S. Thomas Penguin Modern Poets 1: Durrell Jennings Thomas Poetry
1096 2/29/24 Scott F. Crider Office Of Assertion: An Art Of Rhetoric For Academic Essay Reference
1097 3/1/24 Iain Pears Death And Restoration Mystery
1098 3/3/24 Jane Langon The Fact On The Wall Mystery
1099 3/5/24 Josephine Tey A Shiling For Candles Mystery
1100 3/6/24 Isaac Asimov The Sensuous Dirty Old Man Humor

 

So I did manage to find that John Franklin Bardin book; I hadn’t put it away with the other already-read books just yet. And though I won’t bore you (further) with a description of its three excellent (well, some parts are quasi-excellent) tales, I’ll leave the image here for you to comtemplate like a mandala of murder. I see that turning back on the spigot of the Mysteries genre in this last set of a hundred books led once more to their overwhelming predominance, with over a third of my top-rated books in that category. (Second most winning group were the Comic Books, which of course I’ve said elsewhere don’t really count.) That emphasis seems likely to endure into the next hundred books, where almost a third of the 60 books I’ve already read since the 1100th book above are in that genre as well. This, no doubt, is because I take these to read at work during my lunch break etc., as a serious inquisition into the role of the concept of Free Will in the development of mid-17th-Century Capitalism can be hard to follow with constant interruptions for this or that service call. Ah, well. So seems I’ll be talking to you about Books #s 1101 – 1200 in the not too far distant future. Until then, happy reading!

 

The lists of previously read books may be found by following the links: