FourScore
Finished JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, a gift from my granddaughter. It’s an easy, fast read and something that some will be able to identify with. The childhood days of broken homes, chronic alcoholism and drug dependence. A life that destroys communities, families and worst of all kids.
His use of the hillbilly vernacular would make him a real person in some families I have known, even here in the woods.
Some of those things were familiar but fortunately not personal. I saw similarities between his Marine boot camp and my days at OCS. His feelings of a generational gap, starting college at 22 brought a laugh from me.
Though the book is only 9 years old it is hard to comprehend that there are still communities that exist like Jackson and Middletown. We see many of the same symptoms in the mining towns where the resources have been depleted and the communities fight to try to keep a semblance of commercial life. Farm towns that are mostly abandoned store fronts and families still trying to hang on. The lack of opportunity requires that most kids leave as soon as they can or drift into the life Vance has shared with us.
JD Vance, however, is proof that with some nurturing, encouragement and luck it’s possible to break out of the circle of despair. While Vance has been able to make the transition many can be happy with a lot less and still have a pleasant successful life. Not all want or need the personal achievements that he has made but he has never forgotten his roots and family.
I’ll be happy to send the book on to another hillbilly that hasn’t read it already.
DEG
Sauron Defeated by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien – This book covers the drafting of the conclusion to The Lord of the Rings. The “Scouring of the Shire” is very different in this draft from the final form. Christopher also included two other works of his father in this book – The Notion Club Papers and The Drowning of Anadune. The Notion Club Papers was an attempt at a time travel story involving the Fall of Numenor. The Drowning of Anadune is another telling of the Fall of Numenor, but one that takes a Mannish perspective. Both The Notion Club Papers and The Drowning of Anadune are notable for the first mention of Adunaic, which is the language of the Numenoreans.
Tea: Milk in First or Last? by Jonathan Ferguson – This pamphlet was part of one of the Headstamp Publishing kickstarters I backed. Ferguson takes a dive into how the practice of pouring milk into tea first or last started. It is a class distinction, but not, as commonly thought in Britain, one related to whether or not you could afford higher quality porcelain.
Who Invented the Wheelgun? Colt & Dickens on Early Revolving Firearms by Samuel Colt and Charles Dickens, edited by N. R. Jenzen-Jones, with contributions by Jonathan Ferguson, N. R. Jenzen-Jones, and Ben Nicholson – The book reprints a lecture, along with a Q&A/comment period, which Sam Colt gave to a society of engineers in England; two essays Charles Dickens printed in a journal he owned but were written by other people; and finally an article written for “United States Magazine” on Colt’s factory in Hartford, CT. The material in the book shows that Colt did not invent the revolver, though Colt thinks his is the first practical and usable revolver.
Threshold #1 – Available at the Vaults of Pandius website, this is a fanzine for the Mystara setting for BECMI D&D. The inaugural issue has about 180 pages of fan material covering Karameikos, one of the countries in the Mystara setting. It also includes an interview with Bruce Heard. The quality of the fan material varies. The interview with Bruce Heard was a good read. “Billy Budd” by Herman Melville – At least it was short. I wonder if Melville was trying for some Gospel analogies with Budd and his execution. He writes at the end of the book that sailors took pieces of the spar Budd was hanged from as if they were pieces of the True Cross. There might have been a good story in the conflict between Claggart and Budd. This is not it.
Zwak
As usual, I have been sidetracked in my reading, but this is what I have been perusing:
Agatha Christy, The Blue Train. An early book by her, and equal parts mystery and romance. As far as the romance, very chaste ‘20s style. The mystery was…OK. Not a bad book, but not one I would recommend.
MR James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. Good old school shorts to give you a fright before bed. You can see clearly where HP Lovecraft comes from.
James Ellroy, The Black Dahlia. Ball breaking the American Gothic novel in the best way, with no time to slow down, no looking back, and no fear.
Beau Knott
The Girl with all the Gifts, Mike (M. N.) Carey. Intense SF thriller, engaging and very readable. No spoilers. If you like quasi-zombies, biologically based, near future SF thrillers, give it a shot.
Age of Ash, Daniel Abraham Maybe just me, but this disappointed. Fairly dark, slow to take hold. I’m a huge fan of his Long Price Quartet, which suffers some of the same flaws, but managed to impress me. I’ll try this series (2 of a proposed 3 books published) when I’m feeling more tolerant of dark fiction. Note that Daniel is half of the team that writes as S. A. Corey (The Expanse).
Into the Broken Lands, Tanya Huff Well written, readable, but not her best work. The Enchantment Emporium trilogy was much more engaging, and satisfying.
The Chronicles of Amber, Roger Zelazny Interspersing re-reads of this with the above, plus watching more videos again.
The Hyperbole
Golden Age Whodunits Various Authors, Edited by Otto Penzler (2024) **** Good collection of stories from the time between to two World Wars. Many could have been (might have been I didn’t check) turned in to Old Timey Radio shows.
Adam Hamdy’s DEADBEAT (2024) DNF Normally I don’t review books I don’t finish as it wouldn’t be fair to Author, but this one had an interesting premise and some of you people may enjoy it more than I did. A down and out loser gets a second chance when a anonymous benefactor bails him out of his lastest scape with the law and then offers him $100,000 dollars to kill a drug dealer.
Nick Kolakowski Boise Longpig Hunting Club (2024) only about a three quarters in but so far so good, If the author doesn’t screw it up it show get at least 4*s. They title gives it away, a Bounty Hunter his ex wife and his arms dealing sister get mixed up with a, well, Longpig hunting club.
Housekeeping
Remember if you would like to be included with all the cool kids email your reviews , criticisms , and or synopsis to whatarewereading25@proton.me by the last Monday of next month.
Plea to the contributors: Please do not put your book titles in quotation marks, Italicize them if you can or leave them plain, it’s a pain deleting all those Quotation marks. “Why not leave them in Hype” you may be asking, Well you see, Tonio is a strict adherent to the Chicago Manual of Style and If I don’t correct the titles I get a strongly worded e-mail. Thanks in advance.
I was just reading MR James Ghost Stories, good stuff!
I’m messing around with trying to find something in German to read. I don’t really want to read Sternenkind: Abschied mit Liebe. Maybe don’t translate that title if you don’t want to have your day ruined.
Star Child: Farewell With Love ?
Literally, yes, but the colloquial meaning of Sternenkind: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sternenkind#:~:text=Sternenkind%20n%20(strong%2C%20genitive%20Sternenkinds,(euphemistic)%20stillbirth
I just saw the movie version of Stefan Zweig’s Angst.
Something that could probably make an interesting movie is Stefan Heym’s Fünf Tage im Juni, about the June 1953 East German protests.
The Third Man has a remarkable amount of untranslated German in it. Good movie.
I have Schachnovelle by Zweig. Not fully understanding it but doing reasonably well. It helps a bit to know chess!
If you want something MR James-like, but Germanic, Try Jeremias Gotthelf, The Black Spider.
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Spider-Oneworld-Classics/dp/1847491081
“Chicago Manual of Style”? What spoor of madness is this?
It stipulates the use of a deep dish and the creation of a thick crust.
Along with the Oxford Comma!
https://ifunny.co/picture/eword-by-historians-everywhere-god-loves-me-do-i-have-I9ZL7zvFB
I am not going to slavishly obey a manual of style from unstylish people.
I reckon he just wants us to dress like Al Capone.
Then they need to abolish the NFA so that we can get the required Tommy Guns.
From NFA to MFA.
“I reckon he just wants us to dress like Al Capone.”
Well, in a bear economy, Ali C tried to bull it up with his soup kitchens. This is not the ursine Tonio seeks. (Hey, chicks dig scars. (Truth.) Same-same.)
The Chicago Manual of Style and the Handbook of Technical Writing rule the earth and always will.
I will happily come down and rap you on the knuckles with a metal-edged ruler if you do not comply.
*Dons armored gauntlets.*
This is getting kinky…
I’m rereading Agatha Christie in publication order.
Best one? Second best? Only ever read one (“and then there were none/twelve little Indians/**”).
I do enjoy the movies I’ve seen though.
Sorry ten I guess
Inflation or tariffs? They all look alike anyway. Feather/Dot
Oh you.
Whoops. Reposting from dead thread:
https://nypost.com/2025/04/13/us-news/pennsylvania-gov-josh-shapiro-arson-suspect-arrested/
I’m sure he’s a crazed libertarian.
Aren’t they all?
He’s actually kind of a conservative hero since he refused to join Kamala’s campaign possibly costing her the election.
You’d have to be some kind of phenominal idiot to take the VP spot on a ticket headed by Harris.
Yes. He may be a tad more difficult to contend with if he is the next Democratic nominee.
I doubt Kamala Harris would have allowed him on.
Him being Jewish is irrelevant. Shapiro would upstage Kamala Harris. That just can’t be allowed.
He also has a Bill Clinton like saviness to him. He has come out in support of school vouchers. I think both to get in on the parade and also to control the program for teachers’ unions.
Insiders at the time said they tied him first and he straight up turned down the Kamala campaign. No proof though.
“Him being Jewish is irrelevant.”
I think you underestimate the Jew hatred in the core hard left Dem constituency.
Yeah and what are they are gonna do… vote Republican?
Would’ve been a good strategy.
Just found out….gonna be grandpa…again…in 8 months. Step daughter is having another.
Congratulations?
Oh of course! We were estranged. She is from my crazy now deceased ex wife. We have reconnected since.
That’s great to hear! 🙂 Mazel tov!
Congrats, old man.
Thanks! Money I will sink into that little one will outmatch the first
Stop for a minute and think how your comment makes Fourscore feel.
Ah, number 2 great grandson arrived about 6 weeks ago. Maybe that’s it, who knows? Who ever said age was just a number but damn, the number keeps getting bigger.
number 2 great grandson arrived about 6 weeks ago.
Congrats!
Grats Fourscore!
Congrats!
Nice! Congratulations!
/Slowly casts his eyes to The Boy, while drumming his fingers…
You mean you didn’t arrange a political union for him?
Woooot!
Freaking outstanding!
Since I started the z80 build project, I placed three separate orders from the guy in the UK who makes the kits. The Royal Mail has fucked up twice. I blame their policies of hiring unqualified people based on skin color and genetalia.
Let’s do generation hatred!
What? People who were raised with no basic skills are discovering that it is cheaper and easier to do things yourself for a lot of basic tasks? I blame their parents.
Its coffee. Its not complicated. Even cappuccino isnt hard.
Exactly. I blame their parents for not teaching them.
Who has time to teach kids basic life skills when there’s making sure they’re admitted to The Right School, after which there’s soccer and ballet and scheduled play dates and… 🙄
Speaking of basic life skills, is there a good generic minicomputer architecture to use multiple z80 processors to create a multithreaded unix box.
! The quesion mark key on this keyboard isn’t working…
And apparently, they want me to remove all 108 key switches to remove the plate between me and the circuit board to examine it for problems. No, I can’t just remove the back of the keyboard to give me access, that would be madness, so they didn’t set it up that way.
I don’t know
Bad students? Especially disruptive, inattentive, negative Distraction Dust kids – always look to the parents.
Sowell nails it – the biggest issue surrounding all black folks’ predicament, particularly with crime and education, is from single-mother homes.
Baby Mamas didn’t used to be a thing, until The State promised you a monthly paycheck for each one you had.
Not a coinky-dink.
About 45 years or more ago Temple, Texas high school had classes for school age moms and moms to be. It was not on the same campus, AFAIK. Apparently it was not uncommon even then.
LBJ raised a crop of Democrats, even from a distance.
When I was in high school, one of my classmates got pregnant (senior year (‘79 – ‘80), if memory serves). She finished the year not at school – some kind of home study thing. She did graduate with our class, but I don’t think she was at graduation.
I’d rather hate you.
Reply jumps straight to Norman Rockwell era, instead of
https://youtu.be/cigjQzSzxBw
I am quite miffed at this keyboard. The switches work but the question mark key clearly has a fault at the circuit board level. Last time I swapped key switches I crushed the leads on two, so I’d rather not go pulling all of them just to get this thing apart. But I need forward slash and question mark for a qide range of things I do with keyboard. (unix paths, basic fiction writing, complaining on glibs, etc)
Nice reviews of what you’re reading, folks. Thank you.
You’s a lie!
Remember if you would like to be included with all the cool kids email your reviews , criticisms , and or synopsis to whatarewereading25@proton.me by the last Monday of next month.
Do you want them by the 27th of April (last Monday of the month, what I’ve been doing so far) or 25th of May?
A short video on a Mike Rowe Works scholarship recipient
“We see many of the same symptoms in the mining towns where the resources have been depleted and the communities fight to try to keep a semblance of commercial life. Farm towns that are mostly abandoned store fronts and families still trying to hang on.”
That would be the small Texas town I grew up in. It’s heartbreaking in its way. James Lileks used to do? Does? Google Maps street view tours of mostly dying small towns. It’s very sad.
Someone could have written that book about my ancestral home down with the decline of commercial fishing. All the same themes apply.
Damn, I drove through Pecos, TX a few times about a decade ago. How anyone continued to live in that place was amazing and sad.
Welfare, food stamps, other handouts, and government jobs keep old mill towns from drying up around here. Or if they’re commutable to larger cities, then cheap bedroom communities.
Very rare for me: I bailed on a book halfway through. It got a favorable mention on some SubStack, can’t recall, so I gave it a go.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CVFGZKKK/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
The Highwayman Kennedy Thornwick by Lisa Kuzniak. The protagonist is manic depressive idiot and I finally just gave up – he just pissed me off and there was maybe one likable peripheral character in the book.
Haven’t really started anything else – Fallout 4 is eating my time. I’m a console monkey, and learned the hard way that it just can’t handle some mods, including the excellent Sim Settlements 2, so I finally gave up on that mod (which is an incredible game within a game – basically a big AAA DLC) and started over. Twice.
Rip Jean Marsh.
Sim Settlements is great..but has issues. Horizon mod was ambitious but kinda took you out of the game in a way. There are a few modpacks out there that do a decent job of patching sim settlements with other QOL mods though.
er….that was for R C
There’s a lot of mods that are PC-only. I’ve decided to respect (submit to?) the limits of my machine, and I’m going pretty light on mods this go-round. When I decided to take up gaming again, I just couldn’t justify the layout for a decent-to-high spec computer*, and knew anything else would just frustrate me, so I went with the console.
*and no, I’m not going to build my own.
Ah see when I saw console monkey, I thought using the console in game not a console machine.
I get it now
A guy from ‘fornia,
Played a tournament with pneumonia, he had to, he lives,
/barely
Odd name for a fellow contestant.
Your dirty limerick lacks both rhyme and meter. And dirtyness
/sorry for your pneumonia.
DEG: in assume you are a fan of Mr. Welch.
I did a short comparison of Karameikos and Dolmenwood some time back:
https://greymerryfaire.wordpress.com/2024/03/17/dolmenwood-versus-the-grand-duchy-of-karameikos/
Hyperbole: which were the best writers, in your opinion, included in the detective stories compilation?
I’m currently reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh the tax deduction #5.
I had dawned on me that Bluth’s treatment of Jenner in his animated movie is highly annoying. Jenner wasn’t a cackling villain in the book, but was, rather, Nicodemus’s best friend. They just had an irreconcilable different point of view on what they should do.
I’m also reading My Man Jeeves to Lady Cav. Published in 1919.
It has four stories featuring “Reggie Pepper”, who was a prototype of Bertie. Reggie was wealthy like Bertie, but he didn’t have a valet—and certainly not a valet that solved his problems for him. Still, amusing stories.
I keep meaning to look at the Jeeves books, probably as Audible. The bits I’ve seen make me think they would be good books-on-tape.
Read by Stephen Fry?
Wodehouse is a wordsmith, as they say.
The stories are formulaic, especially the early ones.
Bertie has some element of fashion he wants to try out, but Jeeves disapproves. Bertie then tried and fails to help a buddy of his out (usually girl trouble). He eventually calls on Jeeves to solve the problem, and as payment, Bertie gives up whatever it was he wanted (purple socks, a check suit, a mustache, etc.), and finds that Jeeves has already arranged for the thing’s disposal.
Really Cav, wordpsmith.
Veddy well observed, sir.
Great Scott!
Zwak is right!
It’s not surprising, though. Look at the way Zwak’s head sticks out at the back. He probably eats lots of fish.
🙇♂️
Of course, as I began reading the next “Reggie Pepper” story, I find that he *does* have a valet, whose name is “Voules”.
Aaaaaand, Voiles is sacked at the end of the story.
Spoilers.
Voules. VOULES, you idiot spellcheck.
Not quite Voules
The Bonfire of the Vanities.
I just finished HR McMaster’s book on his time as the National Security Advisor during OMB 1.0. The title is “At War with Ourselves” and holy flying feces Batman working for Trump 1.0 sounds like it was a hideous experience. I worked with McMaster for a short series of days (only an hour or two each day) when he came over to Iraq in 2008. I can’t say I know him in any real sense, but I am at least somewhat familiar with him. I think the book is probably a good summation of working in the WH then. Mattis and Tillerson had no real interest in working with him- Tillerson because of his background in industry, and Mattis because HR was only a LTG so Mattis saw him as a subordinate and not as a peer. (Yet another reason to put in the basket on why retired Generals should not be the SecDef.) Trump is fundamentally lazy and spoiled and takes it out on his subordinates who are trying to help him prepare and to follow his expressed intent. I hope OMB is better disciplined this time around.
I plucked of my shelf a book about the Santa Catalina Mountains- aka Mt Lemmon- to read for the first time in 20 or so years. “Frog Mountain Blues” by Chuck Bowden is still a good read. I will be going to Tucson next week and wanted to get my mind back into the area. Those mountains are special, as is the city.
I will try to send in my more complete reading list in time next month. I have a rapidly expanding draft I keep forgetting to submit on time. But TYFYS for bringing this back.
Re-reading The Golden Torc, book two of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_Pliocene_Exile
I read them as a teen and the worldbuilding remains great but the “science” in this science-fiction still bothers me; they’re “shapeshifting” via their psychic powers into insects? Where does their mass go?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Shut up, they explained.
Julian May was quite the bloodthirsty author. Most of the characters in her Pliocene series died, often in very horrible ways. Most were also self-centered assholes. I had a hard time identifying with any of them. At least she didn’t spend interminable amounts of time describing fights blow-by-blow.
Trump is collapsing the Chinese economy and in doing so will reduced greenhouse gas emissions more than Greta Thunberg ever did.
He had help, with fifty years of “one child policy”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Marriage_Market
@RCDean, XY landed himself in what used to be called a “boy’s home” for a year. 1/3 juvie, 1/3 school, 1/3 psych unit. It was the best thing that could have happened to all of us. Turned him around completely. I guess spending close quarters with kids whose parents were … not like us … gave him a better idea of how lucky he was. Also, it took somebody with more power than we had to rein him in.
So I separate his life into “Before Waverly” and “After Waverly.”
His fuckups now are just stupid things most 19yos stumble into. He comes over often. He hugs us tight. We talk every day. He takes some of our advice. To be honest, he’s a little clingy for a kid who’s spread his wings and flown, but I kind of like it.
His time at Chipotle managing people has mellowed him out. He’s a natural manager and he’s considerate of his employees. I had to pick him up from work late one night, and he didn’t want to leave until his 16yo employee’s mother arrived to pick her up. Well. Mom didn’t show up for another hour. He was apologetic (to me), but I’ll happily wait 1.5 hours so a 16yo girl doesn’t have to wait out in 10F weather at 1a. He’s going for a facilities manager position in Champaign, and has a 2nd interview this week. Facilities is where his heart has always lain since he was a boy sleeping with his ULine catalog.
So, yeah. He really was a fuckup and then he found out. Now he’s better for it.
That is good to hear. Much less trauma than what takes other young people to get their poop in a group. Good luck to him in the interview process.
Mornin’ reprobates. Today should be blissfully quiet, save oddly-timed, last-minute Easter shoppers. We have a beautiful overload of bullshit Easter candy. Peeps, especially, the most cutesy bullshit candy this side of candy corn.
And the 4yo nephew should be awaiting me upon my return from my grocery tundra. (Grocecerial should be a word. Fun sounds.)
Fantastic rewards to end my workweek. Tuesday will involve a Michigan mission to get new vaping weed. The price difference between Michigan v Illinois is striking, with the latter adding 3x the taxes.
Your Chicago Cubs took two of three from the Dodgers in convincing fashion. We’re better than people think.
Kick ass as well, y’all.
Last-minute would be Friday or Saturday.
They’re not *that* devout.
Damn, where did the weekend go?
Happy Monday, y’all!
🤔🦩🍌☕️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgxcvmkPD-I
🎶🎶
Where have all the weekends gone,
Long time passes
Good morning, Sean, Ted’S., ChipP, and EfE!
Morning, how goes?
So far, so good. Still limping a little because of my popped knee from Thursday, but it doesn’t really hurt. Icing it at the moment in anticipation of the walking I’ll have to do when I get to work (mainly from my car to my office.) How about you?
Mornin’ Good morning, GT, Sean, UCS, Ted’S.Evan, and ChipP,
Got up extra early today, things to do that I probably won’t do.
Good morning, 4(20)! That’s retirement for you – wake up in the morning with nothing to do, and go to bed at night with most of it not done!
I guess I’m doing all right.
Not too much to complain about objectively speaking.
At least it sounds like you don’t have another funeral to attend, Fourscore. 🙂
😃👍
(It’s OK to speak subjectively, too.)
I get the impression that Ted doesn’t have the time to listen to me whine.
Nah, I only tease you because your complaints are predictable.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg8e5gq8ljo
6 women ride a penis shaped vehicle. News at 11.
Watch for drugs coming out the back end of the rocket.
Before or after they have to stop and ask for directions?
No balls, very apropos. Maybe his fiancée has them in her purse.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/04/13/disney-marvel-fantastic-four-wades-into-gender-politics-leading-lady-sue-storm-wont-be-a-doormat/
🤣😂
Lose more money, Disney.
Comic book movies are the epitome of schlock entertainment and I welcome their further degradation but doesn’t the money run out at some point? Just put Sue in a tight suit, have the Human Torch act like an asshole pickup artist, let the Thing throw some cars around, and show the science guy eyeballing a flask of water with some blue food coloring in it. This isn’t rocket surgery you know. It’s like they’re incapable of learning.
The money men need to start cutting the golden parachute strings of the corporate officers and chucking them out of the helicopter before things will turn around
Petite little pepper plants popping up in potting soil. 12, with any kind of luck
🥳🌶
suh’ fam
whats goody
Seems I acquired some sinus/respiratory thing over the weekend. I may dodge my DOT physical this morning.
A hearing test is part of it, and my head is plugged solid. Sinus drainage has me coughing every minute or so, and I imagine they’ll throw me out anyhow.
It’s covid. If you’ve gotten your (♾️ + 2) boosters you’ll be fine. If you’ve only gotten (♾️ + 1) boosters, start planning your funeral.
I’m an un-vaxxed pureblood.
I died 5 years ago.
Tre died of net neutrality.
Let him RIP
Good morning, homey! Hope you feel better ASAP!