This may also be of interest: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/politics/maryanne-trump-barry-donald-trump-mary-trump/index.html
Yes, saw that. The book shows Maryanne saying she voted for Chump despite thinking he’d make a very poor president, out of family loyalty.
Finished Women Aren’t Supposed to Fly: The Memoirs of a Female Flight Surgeon , by Harriet A. Hall. It was okay, and had some very funny anecdotes.
Now I’m reading a science fiction novel, The Long Sunset, by Jack McDevitt.
Hi gang,
I am going to attempt to get the new thread up Saturday. I start a new job Sunday through Wednesday and I’m alternately panicked and excited 
However, if I am overwhelmed, not to mention over tired, it might not happen until Thursday. But remember Douglas Adams: Don’t Panic.
I’m still reading Leigh Perry’s The Skeleton Makes a Friend, the latest in her “Skeleton” series of mysteries. But I’m reading other things on the side:
The Chronicles of Averoigne by Clark Ashton Smith. Back in the 1970s, Lin Carter was a huge factor in re-igniting interest in adult fantasy a an editor at Ballantine. He’d collected Smith’s stories set in different milieu and published them in separate volumes – Hyperborea (set in the ancient North) , Poseidonis (set in Atlantis), and Zothique (set on the last remaining continent in the far future) – but he never did get around to collecting the Aberoigne stories, set in a mythical medieval French region. Somebody finally did colect them, and published them as an e-book. Great stuff, and highly recommended. Unlike his two companion Weird Tales authors (and correspondents) H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, Smith never really got the recognition he deserved (despite being name-checked in last Sunday’s episode of Lovecraft Country)
I also picked up the e-book of Henry Kuttner’s Elak of Atlantis and read it. I’d heard about this for years, but never saw a print copy. After Robert E. Howard’s suicide, the editors at Weird Tales wanted something similar to his most recent Conan the Barbarian series to take the place of his stories, so they asked Henry Kuttner to fil the gap. His Elak of Atlantis stories definitely take their cue from Howard – his barbarian Atlantis isn’t far removed from Howard’s, right down to the anachronistic presence of Picts (which Kuttner spells “Pikhts”) and Vikings, with much swordplay and wizarding. But it doesn’t really feel like Howard. An interesting footnote to S&S history, but if only this had existed, without Howard, I don’t think you’d have the whole 1960s-70s Conan revival.
Rocket to the Morgue by “H.H. Holmes” (Anthonu Boucher writing under his frequent mystery pseudonym). Another book I’d known about for a long time, but never saw in print, now available as an e-book. It’s a murder mystery and a roman-a-clef novel of Golden Age SF writers, with thinly disguised versions of Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, Cleve Cartmill, Henry Kuttner, John W. Campbell, Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton editor Julius Schwarz, and Jack Parsons. I’m still at the beginning of this one. It’s a sequel to Boucher’s earlier Nine by Nine, which I haven’t read, and the references to it are annoying.
Half way through “Judas Unchained” (Peter F. Hamilton) after finishing the prequel “Pandora’s Star” Not really into techno sci-fi but the story keeps me going. Same with “The Uplift Storm” trilogy by David Brin.
Just passed the halfway mark. It’s going in some directions I hadn’t anticipated, which is good.
I’ve begun Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel The Valley of Fear, much of which is an extended flashback set in Pennsylvania coal country. It’s ok but nowhere near as good as The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is hands-down his best Holmes novel IMHO.
Also still reading John Scalzi’s military sf novel Old Man’s War aloud with one of my sons, and we’re both enjoying it (me for maybe the fourth time; him for the first).
Finished The Long Sunset , by Jack McDevitt. Meh. Very bland.
Now I’m reading In An Absent Dream, one of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children fantasy novels.
I finished Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe, sequl to Sal and Gabi Break the Universe. It’s middle-grade Miami-Cubano science fiction.
When I love a book, I’m always a little worried a sequel will feel tired, rehashed, just more of the same.
Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe is delightful, hilarious, more of the same.
Everything that I adored about the first book–the utopian school, the flawed-but-genuinely-kind protagonist, the bizarre humor, the delightful prose–shows up here. There’s a side-plot about open house, and I’ve been a teacher for 14 years, and realized how terribly wrong I’ve done open house all these years. It’s just magnificent.
The only flaw in this book is that some of the humor is just off-color enough that I can’t use this as a classroom read-aloud (I’d love to get fero zucks about parent responses to the humor, but I just can’t do that). Otherwise I’d put this one in my annual rotation.
This book is going on all my recommendation lists. If you’ve not read the first one, do yourself a favor and track it down!
I finished Utopia Avenue, the latest novel by David Mitchell. I liked it a lot, but I think it helps that I’ve read several of his other books and have an appreciation for the music of the late sixties.
Finished In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire, which I enjoyed.
Now I’m reading Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed with Time, by Simon Garfield.
I just started A Private Cathedral by James Lee Burke. I’m only a few pages in and I’m already hooked. IMO, he is one of the greatest active writers we have. I am also reading John Adams Under Fire, an account of his defense of the British soldiers who were involved in the Boston Massacre. It’s refreshing to read about a time where opponents treated each other civilly and with respect (I’m talking about the lawyers, not the citizens/soldiers.)
The HBO miniseries John Adams had a good segment on the Boston Massacre and its aftermath.
That series, of course, was based on David McCullouch’s 2001 book John Adams, which covered Adams’ role in defending the British troops involved.
And a lot more, too.
I started today on an anthology, Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, edited by Ellen Datlow. No jewels as of yet.
Finished Timekeepers: How the World Became Obsessed with Time , by Simon Garfield. I enjoyed it, especially the section on Beethoven and the metronome.
Now I’m reading Best in Show, a cozy mystery by Laurien Berenson.
I just finished American Predator by Maureen Callahan. It’s about Israel Keyes, one of the most prolific American serial killers, and one you’ve probably never heard of. The book is written like a crime novel and is a fast and interesting read. Highly recommended.
Finished Best in Show , a cozy mystery by Laurien Berenson, which turned out to be better than her usual work.
Now I’m reading Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, by Alan Lightman.
Finished Leigh Perry’s The Skeleton Makes a Friend Moving on to a series of books I got on my Kindle, because I’ve never sen them in stores. I already mentioned Anthony Boucher’s Rocket to the Morgue, but I also picked up these:
The Book of Iod – Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos by Henry Kuttner. With all the interest in Lovecraft and all the pastiches, I’m surprised that I never saw this collection in print anywhere, but had to get it in e-book form
American Connections by James Burke. I was surprised to stumble across mention of this title on the internet several years ago, since I’d never seen it anywhere in stores. All my other books by Burke are print editions that I actually did stumble across in stores. This is not only the first e-book of his, it’s the first one I’ve had to search for. Definitely worth the reading, though. I had no idea, for instance, that Eli Whitney had been a boarder with Declaration of Independence signer Lewis Morris’ widow.