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What Are You Reading? Third Quarter, 2022


Fragile Bird

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Homes, A.N. (2022) The Unfolding. Supposedly a satire of contemporary politics, but it doesn’t seem satirical one bit (author says she began this book years before 2016) – begins with election night, the one McCain lost and Obama won.


This one moves fast.  I’m still waiting for the satire, but what I’m getting is a real novel that delves rather sorta whatever into the characters as people for whom we must have sympathy as they’re the protagonists, particularly the Big Guy’$ daughter, who is a senior in private school on Election Night 2008 – when her dad’$ hor$e lost. That same night he begins planning how to get the vastly wealthy and anonymously powerful to work together to destabilize the nation, and voting and everything else,  to insure this never ever happens again, that he and his kind might possibly lose a smidgeon of power and control of the country -- to the non-White rich men. Almost the entire thing is told in utterly vague discussion that is dog whistling to each other -- and even to themselves as we see in Big Guy'$ note to him$elf.

The only time Big Guy speaks w/o code, is to lament on election night the sheer horror of the Obamas making love in the White House.  Of course 'making love' isn't the word he employs.

That's how far they go to fly under the radar, because they are plotting a coup.  They don't like women either, yet, Big Guy is viewing his daughter, whom he's carefully groomed, as the end-game to his plan of taking over to "keep everything I've built from being destroyed."  What he's built -- or any of the other guys have built -- is nothing.  They made fuckwads of money, on top of the fuckwads they inherited.

Their interests are banal, even their violence is, and certainly their vaunted knowledge of history, and their relationships are toxic and dsysfunctional-- the entwined second plot is Big Guy'$ alkie wife leaves him, his daughter isn't his wife's, but from a relationship with that cliche, his dentist's assistant.

This book is rather scary because these people are horrible and they have all the money in the world, and we see how they use it.

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I’ve been meaning to post this here for weeks. I finally finished  The overstory. it’s as cathartic and life changing as the cover and the awards suggest. I absolutely recommend it to anybody and everybody. Pure, undiluted literary magic. 

I started Jane Eyre but I’m making very little progress because it’s too heart breaking. Cried four times already and haven’t even got through the first quarter. 

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On 9/15/2022 at 2:29 PM, LongRider said:

Funny update. On Her Majesty's Secret Service arrived today (only cost $14 including shipping), so I've got 2 of the 4 missing books now and fingers crossed You Only Live Twice arrives in the next few days with the correct cover. I hadn't tried Abe yet so I figured it was worth punching in the ISBN for the last one I've yet to find. There are three copies available and one of them is $357 plus another $29 in shipping costs. All in all I've probably paid around $150 for 13 of the 14 books, with YOLT being the most expensive at $29 ironically. Perhaps I accidentally made an excellent investment. 

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6 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I’ve been meaning to post this here for weeks. I finally finished  The overstory. it’s as cathartic and life changing as the cover and the awards suggest. I absolutely recommend it to anybody and everybody. Pure, undiluted literary magic. 

 

Loved the Overstory and while a very good book, I found it sad for the trees. 

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44 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Funny update. On Her Majesty's Secret Service arrived today (only cost $14 including shipping), so I've got 2 of the 4 missing books now and fingers crossed You Only Live Twice arrives in the next few days with the correct cover. I hadn't tried Abe yet so I figured it was worth punching in the ISBN for the last one I've yet to find. There are three copies available and one of them is $357 plus another $29 in shipping costs. All in all I've probably paid around $150 for 13 of the 14 books, with YOLT being the most expensive at $29 ironically. Perhaps I accidentally made an excellent investment. 

At $357 I would expect a hardcover in fine or new condition with a dust jacket a least in very good condition. 

Did you buy one of the copies?  

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10 minutes ago, LongRider said:

At $357 I would expect a hardcover in fine or new condition with a dust jacket a least in very good condition. 

Did you buy one of the copies?  

Fuck no, it's a used paperback book that's only 10 years old. I cannot explain what's going on here. I could have bought the complete set less than a year ago for around $150. 

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12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fuck no, it's a used paperback book that's only 10 years old. I cannot explain what's going on here. I could have bought the complete set less than a year ago for around $150. 

Is that the golden gun title?

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15 minutes ago, LongRider said:

Is that the golden gun title?

Yeah. I'll likely just end up buying another version of it for like $5-$10 and hope there's a market correction. These books should not cost anywhere near $30, let alone over $300. 

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20 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah. I'll likely just end up buying another version of it for like $5-$10 and hope there's a market correction. These books should not cost anywhere near $30, let alone over $300. 

I have a great used bookstore that I go to, do you want me to check there? Which titles?

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Just now, LongRider said:

I once bought a horse training book by an Australian horse trainer from Amazon for $7.00.  Nice little hardcover, new with a good DJ.  Looked again a few weeks later and it was priced at several hundred dollars!   :blushing:  Never did figure that one out.  Keep looking, it will pop up. 

edt; I was thinking the same thing, used bookstores can hold treasures. 

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43 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

You know that link goes to Amazon.ca and quotes $12.49.

The link on my end says it's out of stock, just like everywhere else I've looked outside of some jacked up prices. Is it coming up with a black and white cover with the title in red?

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45 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The link on my end says it's out of stock, just like everywhere else I've looked outside of some jacked up prices. Is it coming up with a black and white cover with the title in red?

One left, should I have it shipped directly to you? Pm your address.

like, NOW

eta: it ships free to me, I’ll send it to you. Used, in very good condition.

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13 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Fuck no, it's a used paperback book that's only 10 years old. I cannot explain what's going on here. I could have bought the complete set less than a year ago for around $150. 

Did you know there is a collection of short stories written by Fleming called Gilt Edged Bond? do you have that? One must be complete.

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I have been listening to a lot of library audio-books lately:

"Certain Dark Things" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - an urban fantasy stand-alone set in Mexico City. Fresh setting made it an entertaining, but not particularly memorable listen.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee - I am happy to report that the suck fairy passed this one by - it was a re-read - still excellent, IMHO.

"The Hate U Give" and it's prequel  "Concrete Rose"  by Angie Thomas, which I checked out on a whim due to the library homepage suggestion - coming of age stories in a black ghetto, one contemporary, one 18 years prior. I liked them, but preferred the prequel.

"Coraline" by Neil Gaiman - another re-read, another book that held up well. I needed a refresh to decide if I should recommend it to my 11-year-old niece, but nah, she is too much of a scaredy cat and they have just moved :ph34r:

Currently listening to "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" by Becky Chambers , which is nice, but didn't bowl me over so far (3/4 through).

I also read "Nona the Ninth" by Tamsyn Muir, which I loved and wrote about in detail in the Locked Tomb thread.

Currently making my way through "Locklands" by Robert Jackson Bennett and it is a somewhat slow going. I actually started it before Nona's arrival. This trilogy isn't quite doing it for me, sadly.

 

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