Whatcha reading?

[Low Down Low]

117) The Inimitable Jeeves - PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. 1923. My three simultaneous layers of thought when reading Jeeves & Wooster.

i) This is pure escapism. I may as well be reading an elf filled fantasy novel. No real world problems, what bliss in these so troubled times.

ii) I loathe these upper class twits. I wish a paramilitary communist cell would burst in at this point and noisily decorate the walls with the blood of these leeches. Jeeves had better defect to where his class interests lie.

iii) I wish *I* had a butler

118) The Book Business: What Everybody Needs to Know - Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger. Audiobook. 2019. Factual but not quite dry, quick but comprehensive. If you want to learn more about modern publishing - as I do - you can't go wrong with this one. One of the writers died just before publication but I'm certain that's no comment on his opinion of the work.

119) The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets - Simon Singh. Paperback. 2013. I'm a maths fucking idiot. At best, I've got the understanding of a fairly bright 12 year old. Which is about the time I started skipping school to hang out at home and watch Simpsons videos, now I think about it. Anyway, I'm planning on picking the subject up to stave off brain atrophy for as long as possible and this is a good book to get into it, explicable, enthusiastic, and quite well written. There's more dipping from the Shit Years than I'd care for and the writer loses the courage of his conviction and just starts writing about Futurama ere long, but it did what I needed it to.

120) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley - Peter Guralnick. Audiobook. 1995. Haven't read this since I got the paperback from a used record shop as a teenager so much of it was new to me, however familiar the story. Gracefully composed, lovingly - obsessively - researched, this book goes from Elvis' birth up to his leaving for Germany. Too famous at too young an age, you get the portraits of an indulged boy harnessing his talent, expressing his loneliness, and attempting to live in a moral fashion in the white heat of money, fame, and power. A must for any Elvis fan. Required reading. So exhaustive, I will need a break before picking up the next and last volume of biography.

There was a period round the first lockdown when i had this strange torpor hanging over me, could barely concentrate on anything for longer than 5 minutes and so I borrowed the omnibus version of Jeeves and watched the Fry and Laurie tv series. I didn't form any opinion other than they fulfilled a basic function at that time, kept me occupied and moderately entertained. I still prefer Pooh for my escapism, though.

[Silent Majority]

117) The Inimitable Jeeves - PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. 1923. My three simultaneous layers of thought when reading Jeeves & Wooster.

i) This is pure escapism. I may as well be reading an elf filled fantasy novel. No real world problems, what bliss in these so troubled times.

ii) I loathe these upper class twits. I wish a paramilitary communist cell would burst in at this point and noisily decorate the walls with the blood of these leeches. Jeeves had better defect to where his class interests lie.

iii) I wish *I* had a butler

118) The Book Business: What Everybody Needs to Know - Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger. Audiobook. 2019. Factual but not quite dry, quick but comprehensive. If you want to learn more about modern publishing - as I do - you can't go wrong with this one. One of the writers died just before publication but I'm certain that's no comment on his opinion of the work.

119) The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets - Simon Singh. Paperback. 2013. I'm a maths fucking idiot. At best, I've got the understanding of a fairly bright 12 year old. Which is about the time I started skipping school to hang out at home and watch Simpsons videos, now I think about it. Anyway, I'm planning on picking the subject up to stave off brain atrophy for as long as possible and this is a good book to get into it, explicable, enthusiastic, and quite well written. There's more dipping from the Shit Years than I'd care for and the writer loses the courage of his conviction and just starts writing about Futurama ere long, but it did what I needed it to.

120) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley - Peter Guralnick. Audiobook. 1995. Haven't read this since I got the paperback from a used record shop as a teenager so much of it was new to me, however familiar the story. Gracefully composed, lovingly - obsessively - researched, this book goes from Elvis' birth up to his leaving for Germany. Too famous at too young an age, you get the portraits of an indulged boy harnessing his talent, expressing his loneliness, and attempting to live in a moral fashion in the white heat of money, fame, and power. A must for any Elvis fan. Required reading. So exhaustive, I will need a break before picking up the next and last volume of biography.

There was a period round the first lockdown when i had this strange torpor hanging over me, could barely concentrate on anything for longer than 5 minutes and so I borrowed the omnibus version of Jeeves and watched the Fry and Laurie tv series. I didn't form any opinion other than they fulfilled a basic function at that time, kept me occupied and moderately entertained. I still prefer Pooh for my escapism, though.

Laurie is excellent in the role. I think Fry was probably either miscast or not yet the actor he needed to be.

[Low Down Low]

117) The Inimitable Jeeves - PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. 1923. My three simultaneous layers of thought when reading Jeeves & Wooster.

i) This is pure escapism. I may as well be reading an elf filled fantasy novel. No real world problems, what bliss in these so troubled times.

ii) I loathe these upper class twits. I wish a paramilitary communist cell would burst in at this point and noisily decorate the walls with the blood of these leeches. Jeeves had better defect to where his class interests lie.

iii) I wish *I* had a butler

118) The Book Business: What Everybody Needs to Know - Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger. Audiobook. 2019. Factual but not quite dry, quick but comprehensive. If you want to learn more about modern publishing - as I do - you can't go wrong with this one. One of the writers died just before publication but I'm certain that's no comment on his opinion of the work.

119) The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets - Simon Singh. Paperback. 2013. I'm a maths fucking idiot. At best, I've got the understanding of a fairly bright 12 year old. Which is about the time I started skipping school to hang out at home and watch Simpsons videos, now I think about it. Anyway, I'm planning on picking the subject up to stave off brain atrophy for as long as possible and this is a good book to get into it, explicable, enthusiastic, and quite well written. There's more dipping from the Shit Years than I'd care for and the writer loses the courage of his conviction and just starts writing about Futurama ere long, but it did what I needed it to.

120) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley - Peter Guralnick. Audiobook. 1995. Haven't read this since I got the paperback from a used record shop as a teenager so much of it was new to me, however familiar the story. Gracefully composed, lovingly - obsessively - researched, this book goes from Elvis' birth up to his leaving for Germany. Too famous at too young an age, you get the portraits of an indulged boy harnessing his talent, expressing his loneliness, and attempting to live in a moral fashion in the white heat of money, fame, and power. A must for any Elvis fan. Required reading. So exhaustive, I will need a break before picking up the next and last volume of biography.

There was a period round the first lockdown when i had this strange torpor hanging over me, could barely concentrate on anything for longer than 5 minutes and so I borrowed the omnibus version of Jeeves and watched the Fry and Laurie tv series. I didn't form any opinion other than they fulfilled a basic function at that time, kept me occupied and moderately entertained. I still prefer Pooh for my escapism, though.

Laurie is excellent in the role. I think Fry was probably either miscast or not yet the actor he needed to be.

I'd always pictured Jeeves as a middle aged man so he was at least 20 years too young for me anyway.

[Silent Majority]

117) The Inimitable Jeeves - PG Wodehouse. Audiobook. 1923. My three simultaneous layers of thought when reading Jeeves & Wooster.

i) This is pure escapism. I may as well be reading an elf filled fantasy novel. No real world problems, what bliss in these so troubled times.

ii) I loathe these upper class twits. I wish a paramilitary communist cell would burst in at this point and noisily decorate the walls with the blood of these leeches. Jeeves had better defect to where his class interests lie.

iii) I wish *I* had a butler

118) The Book Business: What Everybody Needs to Know - Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger. Audiobook. 2019. Factual but not quite dry, quick but comprehensive. If you want to learn more about modern publishing - as I do - you can't go wrong with this one. One of the writers died just before publication but I'm certain that's no comment on his opinion of the work.

119) The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets - Simon Singh. Paperback. 2013. I'm a maths fucking idiot. At best, I've got the understanding of a fairly bright 12 year old. Which is about the time I started skipping school to hang out at home and watch Simpsons videos, now I think about it. Anyway, I'm planning on picking the subject up to stave off brain atrophy for as long as possible and this is a good book to get into it, explicable, enthusiastic, and quite well written. There's more dipping from the Shit Years than I'd care for and the writer loses the courage of his conviction and just starts writing about Futurama ere long, but it did what I needed it to.

120) Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley - Peter Guralnick. Audiobook. 1995. Haven't read this since I got the paperback from a used record shop as a teenager so much of it was new to me, however familiar the story. Gracefully composed, lovingly - obsessively - researched, this book goes from Elvis' birth up to his leaving for Germany. Too famous at too young an age, you get the portraits of an indulged boy harnessing his talent, expressing his loneliness, and attempting to live in a moral fashion in the white heat of money, fame, and power. A must for any Elvis fan. Required reading. So exhaustive, I will need a break before picking up the next and last volume of biography.

There was a period round the first lockdown when i had this strange torpor hanging over me, could barely concentrate on anything for longer than 5 minutes and so I borrowed the omnibus version of Jeeves and watched the Fry and Laurie tv series. I didn't form any opinion other than they fulfilled a basic function at that time, kept me occupied and moderately entertained. I still prefer Pooh for my escapism, though.

Laurie is excellent in the role. I think Fry was probably either miscast or not yet the actor he needed to be.

I'd always pictured Jeeves as a middle aged man so he was at least 20 years too young for me anyway.

Definitely. Jeremy Brett would have been perfect round that time.

[Inder]

Sean Egan’s been brought up a few times in this thread, I think — here he is getting body-slammed by Guillermo de Toro:

[Dr. Medulla]

Need another book to assign for my popular culture class next term, so I'm reading a few that seem promising. This is the first one that's up:

Jason Sperb, Disney's Most Notorious Film. I've had this in the wings for a long time, but never got around to reading it.

After that, I'll be giving this a spin.

Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight. I've read an article by him with the same name, but we'll see if a full-on book works.

I haven't got a lecture dedicated to popular culture and race—it pops up here and there in several lectures, but not in a determined way—so I'd like to find a new book that allows discussion of that facet.

[Silent Majority]

Need another book to assign for my popular culture class next term, so I'm reading a few that seem promising. This is the first one that's up:

Jason Sperb, Disney's Most Notorious Film. I've had this in the wings for a long time, but never got around to reading it.

After that, I'll be giving this a spin.

Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight. I've read an article by him with the same name, but we'll see if a full-on book works.

I haven't got a lecture dedicated to popular culture and race—it pops up here and there in several lectures, but not in a determined way—so I'd like to find a new book that allows discussion of that facet.

I am so down for the SotS book

[Dr. Medulla]

I am so down for the SotS book

https://cc1lib.vip/book/2885816/6ca8e8

[Silent Majority]

I am so down for the SotS book

https://cc1lib.vip/book/2885816/6ca8e8

Gratefully received, ta. Will push that up the list.

[Silent Majority]

I am so down for the SotS book

https://cc1lib.vip/book/2885816/6ca8e8

Gratefully received, ta. Will push that up the list.

[Dr. Medulla]

I've abandoned the Disney book and the white flight book—not that they're bad, but because the class isn't primarily history students—it draws from diverse disciplines—I suspect it'll be too advanced and they'll just get lost in the text. A shame. So, I'm on to this one:

Matthew J. Costello, Secret Identity Crisis: Comic Books and the Unmasking of Cold War America. Superheroes and Cold War ideology. There's potential there. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I finished listening to Radley Balko's book on the militarization of America's police. Can't recommend it highly enough, especially to people who want to make the "just a few bad apples" argument. It's how ideology and institutions guide and select individuals to do and normalize horrible things.

New audio starting today:

Maggie Haberman, Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America. All kinds of buzz in the news about this, so why not.

[Silent Majority]

121) Edward IV: The Summer King - AJ Pollard. 2016. Paperback. As the big brother of Richard III, we're dealing with an interesting minor character in someone else's story at heart. This is true twice as this fun loving King who started out handsome and healthy and loved to fuck his way round England grew corpulent and too unwholesome to do any banging was also Henry VIII's maternal grandfather. Not the most interesting in itself, but cool in the shadows of what's to come.

122) A Ship of the Line - CS Forester. Audiobook. 1939. The seventh in the series chronologically, second written. I'm still digging these on their own terms, but will be pleased to be finished with the series. Forester isn't quite as good a storyteller as my intake of his wordcount would suggest. Something to remember next time I consider committing to a series.

123) The Essence of Buddhism: An Introduction to its Philosophy and Practice - Traleg Kyagbon. 2001. Audiobook. I love this stuff. A philosophy and practice that fits me like a glove. Always happy to revise the fundamentals.

124) The Customer Rules: The 39 Essential Rules for Delivering Sensational Service - Lee Cockerell. 2013. Audiobook. Had a job interview the other day so needed to fill my head with this stuff. Cockerell is the former EVP of Disneyland and worked in hospitality for years, so if you do wanna know stuff about customer service, he's a helpful fella. He also reads this with a stilted southern unnaturalness which I found appealling. He did say some stuff about cutting your hair and dressing smart which offended my sensibilities, but I see where that stuff comes from.

[Dr. Medulla]

Garth Marenghi interview promoting the book: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/ ... ror-comedy

[Silent Majority]

Garth Marenghi interview promoting the book: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/ ... ror-comedy

So great to have more of the character.

[tepista]

this fun loving King who started out handsome and healthy and loved to fuck his way round England grew corpulent and too unwholesome to do any banging was also Henry VIII's maternal grandfather.

I had the read that twice. "He did WHAT to Henry the VIII's grandpa? ... Oh, OK" I just saw banging and also really close to each other.