March 2019 book deals and book chat
5Created for @f00l because she was spent.
This is a continuation from Feb 2019 book deals and book chat.
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Created for @f00l because she was spent.
This is a continuation from Feb 2019 book deals and book chat.
Tonight I finally got a start on Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring narrated by Rob Inglis.
I’m only a couple chapters in, but I’m pleased at how the book is somewhat different from the Jackson film. Sometimes if the book and film are too similar it can be tedious with such a long story.
@ruouttaurmind
These book tellings go much more slowly; are far ticket in detail and evocation; and lack the “Hollywood” feel.
If you let yourself just go with it, and get into it, you are in for a most wonderful listen.
As JRRT noted, the most frequent comment he received from readers, (with which he agreed), was:
@f00l @ruouttaurmind They left so much out of the movies… understandable but still sad. And they made up stuff for the movies also. They were still wonderful but after rereading the books again, I think the movies were not improved by those removals and improvisations.
“So passed the sword of the Barrow-downs, work of Westernesse. But glad would he have been to know its fate who wrought it slowly long ago in the North-kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.”
Only no room for that entire subset of story and history in Jackson’s vision… sigh…
@duodec @ruouttaurmind
Yes. The painful cuts.
/image Bombadil
@duodec @ruouttaurmind
From, I think, the appendices:
(Not a spoiler, and certainly not a spoiler to anyone familiar with the films)
Tolkien, J.R.R.
(Although Jackson did handle some of this beautifully in visual terms, such as when Elrond speaks in TTT to portray to his daughter the image of her undying grief at the inevitable death of her mortal husband.)
(This scene was Jackson’s way to “up the present dramatic choice” of the Aragorn/Arwen relationship, and the scene per se did not appear in the books, where Arwen choice was made decades earlier.
However, Jackson’s portrayal in this scene of the bitterness of mortality is lovely, and was part of Jackson’s attempt to bring that part of the appendices into the present story. I find this film scene quite moving.)
@duodec @ruouttaurmind
In case your are wondering, FOTR the book is compellng, but still somewhat slow going, until Weathertop.
After that the story starts to really move along, and to my mind, never feels “slow” again.
Also, Tolkien’s use of the language is of astonishing beauty.
JRRT prob knew as much about the history of the English language as anyone else living at that time. He has done the most difficult work years earlier on the then current OED, because he was simply the best and most knowledgeable person working on it.
The publishers of the OED still have, and cherish, handwritten notes by Tolkien on word and language uses.
His publishers insisted on no edits. They admitted that they made a few cautious suggestions, but would not have dared to suggest strong changes
Indeed, the publishers admitted, they didn’t know anyone living who could edit Tolkien. Tolkien’s grasp of the language and how he intended to use it was beyond that of any editor.
@f00l @ruouttaurmind
Sigh… I may need to put down my Weber and pick up the trilogy again. It has been a few years…
So many books, so little time
@duodec @f00l @ruouttaurmind Now I have to go hunt for where I put my ebooks. I was mad at online storage, so I got clever and backed them up, then lost track of what was where.
@duodec @OldCatLady @ruouttaurmind
Do you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription?
Seems that subscribers can read the ebooks, or listen to the audiobooks, for free.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B011AE735O/ref=series_rw_dp_sw
@duodec @f00l @ruouttaurmind poor Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadilooooo
@duodec @f00l @ruouttaurmind I don’t have KU. As soon as life quiets down some I’m going to reevaluate that.
@f00l Wait… I get unlimited Audible access if I subscribed to KU? Nahhh. Ya?
@f00l @ruouttaurmind You get some audible books with unlimited. Prime also gets you some audible books. You don’t get to keeps them though.
@ruouttaurmind
If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited and:
If a book is part of Kindle Unlimited, and if there is an audiobook, and if the audiobook has WhisperSync-for-Voice enabled, then you get access to the audiobook at no additional charge.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings appear to offer this access.
@duodec @OldCatLady @ruouttaurmind
Various deals appear on Kindle Unlimited subscriptions
Particularly around “gift holidays” and “Prime Day”.
I have about 9 months to go I think on some great deal I got in 2017.
Other deals appear.
Track them here
https://slickdeals.net/newsearch.php?q=Kindle+unlimited
Also is available month to month.
So you can only turn it on when you want it
@f00l I’ll have to check it out the next time there’s a free trial offer. I don’t suppose that would also give access to the Daily Deals?
@ruouttaurmind
If you mean access to the audible Daily Deals, I don’t think so. I think only an audible credit subscription does that.
@f00l I will need to put Fellowship away for a minute. I’m still meandering through the first bit of the journey (Farmer Maggot is taking them to the ferry as I put it away this morning).
There is a fair bit of tedium in this part of the story. Too much for my liking. I appreciate a well set scene as much as the next reader, but it’s truly not necessary to count the number of hairs on every caterpillar or spots on the wings of each butterfly they encounter, is it? I’m beginning to wish I had a dollar for each unique description of sunlight, darkness, wind or rain in the first three or four chapters.
@ruouttaurmind
I got through all that by getting into the rhythm of Tolkien’s language.
But … It is slow.
Since you basically know the early portions of the story, you might want to skip ahead. Either to the Inn at Bree or (of you want the full Tom Bombadil experience) to that.
Or even to Weathertop.
Also you might want to speed up the narration.
I almost never listen at 1.0. Usually at something like 1.25 to 1.5. Sometimes faster than that. Depends on the book.
Your app should make this adjustment easy to manage.
The app sw mostly cuts the silences between the words. It doesn’t sound weird. They mastered how to do this.
@ruouttaurmind
I edited the post above about speeding up the speech. Just letting you know since you already saw it.
@f00l I usually forget about accelerating playback. I had to do that to get through The Descendants. I wanted to finish the story, but it had a fair amount of content which wasn’t really relevant to the plot. Stepping up to 1.5x helped.
Although in the end I discovered the plot barely existed anyway. Another case where the movie was more enjoyable than the book (and the movie wasn’t exactly great).
@f00l I stuck with it and had the Tom Bombadil experience. I would have enjoyed Tom in the movie. Instead, Jackson seems to have rolled Bombadil into Gandalf. And Goldberry was replaced with… dunno, Galadriel? Arwen?
Anyway, I’m just into book 2. Yes, despite the constant songs and frequent tedium, the story as told in the book is certainly better than the Jackson film. I still love the film though.
@ruouttaurmind
Because it’s such a long story, just about every adaptation cuts Bombadil.
The world of Tolkien fanatics is full of huge Bombadil fans.
Goldberry wasn’t really rolled into anyone. Galadriel in the film is close to the character in the books. But some of Bombadil’s language was given to Treebeard.
What the sound people did in the films to give the echo to Treebeard’s voice is really cool. They seem to have built a huge wooden “echo room” in which John Rhys-Davis did the voice recording as Treebeard - so that the voice would be full of some sort of echo from wood.
I’m glad you stayed with FOTR thru the slow parts.
Tolkien was a huge expert on ancient heroic sagas and folk tales. (The entertainment of times when there was little entertainment for most people). He brought some of those archaic traditions of speed and detail into LOTR. Sometimes the echos of those traditions work well for modern readers, sometimes they don’t.
Most people I know doing LOTR have to get themselves past the hobbits’ very slow path out of the Shire and the Old Forest.
After that, the reader experience seems to change. As the quest continues, the reader goes past so many places where we as readers seem to want more detail, more history, more story.
I hope that, at the end, you are sorry there isn’t yet another book or 3 of story still to go.
Just finished “The Valley of Shadows”, from the “Black Tide Rising” series by John Ringo. The series is about a bioweapon-based zombie apocalypse. The first trilogy covered one family that went to sea to escape, and later to start taking actions to rescue others and recover what was lost.
This one is the brother of the trilogy family’s father, head of security for a multinational bank in NYC, and the steps they take to try to hold everything together long enough for a mass produced vaccine to be created and stave off the ‘end times’.
The trilogy was more enjoyable (humorous elements in a zombie apocalypse due to a gung-ho oversize 13 year old girl who loves getting into a scrum with the zombies); this was still a good, if depressing read. The family at sea didn’t have to deal with the corruption and backstabbing endemic to NYC, its politicians, gangs, mafia, etc. They just had to survive storms and zombies.
I just started “Uncompromising Honor” by David Weber; I think this is the latest in the Honor Harrington series, a story of the empire she serves and the massive space wars between various polities, currently the small but powerful and advanced alliance her Star Empire of Manticore has formed and the very much larger, but corrupt Solarian League based out of Earth.
The books are a little uneven, and Weber has a habit of exposition that can blow up the page count, but I keep enjoying the series enough to come back for more.
No deal, but I just finished the new biography of Eve Babitz, Hollywood’s Eve, after reading her first book, Eve’s Hollywood last fall, and I can’t stop thinking about her.
https://smile.amazon.com/Hollywoods-Eve-Babitz-History-L-ebook/dp/B07CMXZM8Q/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=eve’s hollywood&qid=1552111640&s=books&sr=1-2
The biography is interesting but not necessary, the author front-loads it with what’s essentially a pastiche of Eve’s Hollywood but naming names. It gets deeper as one goes along, but really: I just want everyone to read Eve’s Hollywood. It’s basically just an extremely self-absorbed '70’s era Californian rambling about her life, but it’s really, really good. She knew everyone and slept with most everyone, and did every drug, but her writing is just great and her stories are interesting. It’s not a tell-all, she’s not trading on anyone’s fame, she’s just a good writer with great stories. Like a smart, aware Edie Sedgwick. Or a smarter, more aware Pamela Des Barres. Or a smarter, better writing Lydia Lunch. Or a sexually adventurous, drug-addicted Nora Ephron.
https://smile.amazon.com/Eves-Hollywood-York-Review-Classics-ebook/dp/B00R047Y2Q/ref=pd_sim_351_2/137-5015436-7002665?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00R047Y2Q&pd_rd_r=9f09f042-4231-11e9-896d-83c6d60ef7eb&pd_rd_w=za98Z&pd_rd_wg=11BlC&pf_rd_p=90485860-83e9-4fd9-b838-b28a9b7fda30&pf_rd_r=FWKSX6G4156GK79072JS&psc=1&refRID=FWKSX6G4156GK79072JS
@mossygreen
Interesting and desirable set of possibilities to ponder.
Hmmm.
12 Kick-Butt Music Memoirs By Rockstar Women
https://www.bustle.com/articles/121568-12-kick-butt-music-memoirs-by-rockstar-women
I might start with one mentioned in the article …
I met Mapplethorpe a few times (he lived next door to a mutual friend)
Unfortunately, never spoke to Smith.
Another possibility: (I’m door there are many more ice yet to discover …)
And once upon a time
17 reasons Anita Pallenberg was the coolest girl in the world
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/17-reasons-anita-pallenberg-coolest-girl-world-sixth-rolling/amp/
@f00l It’s cool that you met Mapplethorpe! Or possibly just nodded companionably at Mapplethorpe!
I don’t know that I can accept a list of kick-butt lady memoirs that doesn’t include Faithfull, even though Marianne comes across as almost entirely passive in her own life and mostly interested in being a cool-ass Beat junkie. Actually, Eve’s Hollywood has a couple of good, random slams against MF, where (I paraphrase here) she quotes a friend as describing her as the kind of girl who “walks around barefoot but has a closet full of shoes” and “carries around books on witchcraft, but they’re new” (last one doesn’t seem fair, because you know Anita Pallenberg probably recommended them). Eve Babitz wasn’t (and probably still isn’t) that sensitive to other people’s fears and insecurities, I think.
@mossygreen
I was not up to doing a comprehensive list of interesting women in R&R
And I’m sure I hardly know about many of them.
Of course MF. I. Was a fan of hers before Broken English etc. And saw her in performance shortly after that.
Yes, many of the attractive R&R females of that era lived kinda trad GF roles where they looked cool, acted cool, and were kinda along for someone else’s ride.
Need to hunt out something good re Exene Cervenka.
@f00l I do not blame you for Bustle’s article unless you wrote or edited it! Even if you did!
Exene’s sharp turn into conspiracy theory is distressing (although, maybe not even a sharp turn, could even be a straight line; I shouldn’t assume anything). But yeah, if you find anything good post it here!
@mossygreen
did not know Cervenka had gone over to conspiracies. That lessens the attractiveness of reading up a little.
Besides my reading list is pretty big as is.
Re MF
Yes, passive much of the time. Yes, a cool and fashionable follower much of the time.
And lost to drugs/homelessness for too long.
But, in her better days:
Now what’s wing with that?
Fashionable poseur?
Or just into both shoes and being barefoot?
No one would accuse me of being fashionable. Not ever.
And I’m not much of a poseur, since that sounds like way too much work. And too much caring about image.
But… “Going barefoot and also owning lotsa cool shoes” sounds like fun. I’m in.
@f00l I think people just projected a lot of assumptions onto MF based on their own insecurities and assuming that she had none. She was so beautiful and was running around with the biggest rock stars in the world, and had a music career she didn’t (at the time) entirely deserve (but once she discovered her voice–good god). So yeah, fashionable poseur who never had to worry about anything and had everything just handed to her was the idea. I don’t think anyone realized how shy and uncomfortable she was, or that she didn’t have any money at all and never did. She wouldn’t have talked about it.
I didn’t know there was a meh book club! I just finished The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. I wanted to say something about it because the title and brief description makes it sound a little like a low rent action movie, but instead what you get is 1990s Russian politics and history, tiger biology, and an interesting and well written story. I’m picky about books lately and this is highly recommended.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7624594-the-tiger
@evbarnstormer Welcome!
@evbarnstormer - Interesting! I’m reading Soviet Baby Boomers, which is kind of '60’s-'90s Russian politics and society. I’ll look for The Tiger, might be a contrast or support.
@evbarnstormer Huh, I remember reading The Endless Steppe as a child and being really fascinated by Siberia. I’ll have to keep an eye peeled for this one.
@mossygreen you’ll probably like it then. Lots of info about taiga habitat. Sounds like a frozen jungle.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Kindle Edition
by Charles Duhigg
Currently $1.99
This book is worth the time.
https://www.amazon.com/Power-Habit-What-Life-Business-ebook/dp/B0055PGUYU
A Kindle version of a revered classic on story and screenwriting is on sale today.
Currently $1.99
Price good until midnight PT.
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, Revised Edition
Kindle Edition
by Syd Field
https://smile.amazon.com/Screenplay-Foundations-Screenwriting-Syd-Field-ebook/dp/B000S1LAYG/ref=lp_6165851011_1_10?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1552192668&sr=1-10
(The Kindle version is the same book with am updated cover)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screenplay_(book)
There’s a Tim Dorsey book for two bucks today. Is it a great work of literature? No. Are they fun? I like them.
https://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Jellyfish-Novel-Serge-Storms-ebook/dp/B001NLKS1G/
Discounted in Amazon and on Google play
The Wounded Land
The Second Chronicles: Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever
Book 1
$.99
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/The_Wounded_Land?referrer=utm_campaign%3DSlickdeals&id=nuy7ExUKPDsC&hl=en_US
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0084U4L26/ref=nodl_?creative=9325&camp=1789&linkCode=ur2&ie=UTF8&tag=slickdeals&ascsubtag=01d6e070440c11e9a8692e3df80f031a0INT
Slickdeals post commentary:
@f00l Think on this and be dismayed.
I read them one, and while I don’t really regret that, I will never read them again and we gave away our copies.
Again, discounted on Google play and on Amazon
Seveneves: A Novel
by Neal Stephenson
$1.99
https://www.amazon.com/Seveneves-Novel-Neal-Stephenson-ebook/dp/B00LZWV8JO/ref=nodl_?creative=9325&camp=1789&linkCode=ur2&ie=UTF8&tag=slickdeals&ascsubtag=a62e519e440c11e993f79277d926bb460INT&keywords=stephenson&qid=1552302211&s=digital-text&sr=1-7
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Neal_Stephenson_Seveneves?referrer=utm_campaign%3DSlickdeals&id=0VWdBAAAQBAJ
Riders of the Purple Sage free on Kindle. The audible book is a buck if you buy it at the same time. I got the version read by Mark Bramhill which goes for thirty bucks. Amazon is weird.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004TP5JXA
@sammydog01 Cool. I guess I need to get my Bluetooth figured out on my Oasis. Just another thing to do in between yanking 100 fencing boards off of the fallen rails. Whee!!
Thanks for this deal.
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time
By Douglas Adams
Currently $1.99
On Kindle and on Google Play
I think this book is a collection of Douglas’s previously unpublished (and always wonderful) writings, pulled together after his unexpected early death.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Salmon_of_Doubt.html?id=DpIwyu_ZW9AC
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000FCK3X2/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=
William Gibson tweeted this morning that there’s a US-wide temporary price drop on Neuromancer ebook to $1.99. Probably worth picking up. My copy is a stolen library copy, so he hasn’t gotten any of my money yet…
@mossygreen
You won’t go ahead and give him the $2?
@f00l @mossygreen You can pay me the $2 if I hate it.
@f00l Oh, I gave him the $2. After I spent $3 on Jack Vance’s Tales of the Dying Earth (four books!). I’m a big spender today. @sammydog01 Or I could send you a different stolen library book!
@f00l @mossygreen Dammit you just made me spend another $3 too.
@f00l @sammydog01 Just let me know how many stolen library books I owe you.
@mossygreen @sammydog01
Just send me all the books you ever had, or have now, or ever get. That should take care of it.
@f00l @sammydog01 That would solve so many of my problems that it’s not even funny. Well, the look on your face when you realized just how many '70’s craft books were now your responsibility would probably be funny.
And now I just bought Mythago Wood for the kindle because I read the original short story in the '80’s and loved it, found out Holdstock expanded it into a novel in the '90’s, planned on reading it but never did, found it on kindle but for $7.99 which is past my limit for a book I could get through interlibrary loan, but today it’s $2.99. This is the end of a 30-year journey, people. And possibly the beginning of another 30-year journey, because there is a sequel. And it’s $7.99.
@mossygreen
Picked this up. Also the Jack Vance.
Dunno when I’ll get to either.
I like a large yet-unread bookshelf. So all is good.
@f00l It’s reassuring, isn’t it?
E-book on sale today at BN and Amazon
Sally Ride: America’s First Woman in Space
by Lynn Sherr
Currently $3.99
https://m.barnesandnoble.com/b/nook-daily-find/_/N-1p60
https://www.amazon.com/Sally-Ride-Americas-First-Woman-ebook/dp/B00GEEB99W/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Sally+ride+first+woman&qid=1553211530&s=digital-text&sr=1-1-catcorr
Anyone else into The Expanse?
Book 8 (Tiamat’s Wrath) will be released this Tuesday, and I’m really looking forward to it.
If you’re not familiar with the series, it is hard sci-fi, speculative space-opera set something like 250 years in the future (iirc), when humanity has expanded outward from Earth to colonize the rest of the solar system. It has a little bit of everything; political intrigue, epic space battles, mystery (complete with a future-noir style detective, complete w/ fedora), suspense and even mysterious alien tech.
It has some really well crafted and developed characters - after a few books, they start to feel like old friends.
The individual book plots do start to seem a bit formulaic by mid-series - our heroes pursue a mystery/threat, find themselves in an impossible-to-survive, no win situation, but miraculously triumph and live to repeat the formula in the next book - but the books are still riveting and a joy to read despite the formula and the overarching plot of the series is quite compelling.
The authors have stated that the 9th book will be the last, and there are also a handful of novellas that tell some smaller stories/character origins that are also great reads and do an excellent job of deepening/broadening the series’ universe.
Here’s a list of the books & novellas - if you’re going to read them, read 'em in publication order and don’t skip any! (first list is publication order, ignore ‘chronological’ list) https://expanse.fandom.com/wiki/Category:The_Expanse#Books
It has also been adapted into a fantastic TV series - best sci-fi space opera since BSG, IMO - canceled by SyFy after 3 seasons but picked up by Amazon who will be releasing season 4 sometime later this year.
I love the TV show, watched the first two seasons before discovering it was a book series (which I then read more voraciously and faster than anything I’ve ever read), but it’s no substitute for the books. A great adaptation and excellent TV, to be sure, but things get lost/changed/streamlined from page to screen.
I’m assuming if you’re in this thread, you enjoy reading, so my suggestion is to read the series first, then watch the show. They’re different enough to enjoy each on its own merits but, if I had to choose one, I’d choose the books in a heartbeat and, IMO, better to have some foreknowledge going into the show than to spoil the plots of the books.
Oh yeah - the future-noir, fedora wearing detective is played on the TV show by Thomas Jane, and he’s awesome!
There are quite a few other lesser known stand-out performers, too (Shohreh Agdashloo and Wes Chatham being my personal favs). But read the books first!
WORKER BEES! HERCULES! TURKEY GREASE! AWESOME!
@DennisG2014 Too late. But I have the first book and will read it one of these days.
@sammydog01 Well, like I said, I did watch the first two seasons before reading the books, but I’m glad I read the rest before watching season 3 or any upcoming seasons.
Everyone has different preferences, some people would rather stay ahead in the TV series than have the books spoil it - to each his own.
But, IMO, you should read at least through book 4 and probably even 5 before watching season 4.
Season 3 really rushed through its adaptation of book 3, and made several major changes to facilitate that - disappointingly so - there are more and better told stories in the book.
Season 4 will tell the story of book 4, which is more of a stand-alone story than the other books, and I think it will also touch on some of the stuff in book 5, which is a pretty damn epic story itself.
Anyway, if you’re a fan of the show, then I assume you must be a fan of Amos - because he is the best character in any story ever. lol Not just my opinion, but maybe not everyone’s. /shrug
If you do get through season 4 of the show without reading ahead in the books, I would strongly urge you to at least read the novella The Churn before watching season 5 (it’ll be more than a year before season 5, but I’m sure there will be a s.5).
The Churn is Amos’ origin story and, IMO, the best of the novellas. Gives a ton of insight into an already incredibly deep, complex character. A must read before reading book 5 and I’d say one should even read it before watching season 5 even if they haven’t read any of the other books.
I’ll stop ranting and raving now.
@DennisG2014 Amos is my favorite guy on the show.
Re Mueller Report
When findings are made public, audible will record and release them for free.
Audible has a history of providing this service for official reports of great public interest.
https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Mueller-Report-Audiobook/B07PXN468K?ref=a_pd_The-Mu_bsn_anon-pdp-book&serial=
@f00l Thank you.
@f00l When this happens, I’ll give in and subscribe to Audible!
@f00l @OldCatLady But it’s free, no subscription needed.
@f00l @sammydog01 I understand. It’s just that I need a reason to justify (or delay) yet another subscription. That’s as good as any. Why is the release date 30 Apr? It’s my birthday, which pleases me.
@f00l @OldCatLady @sammydog01 I envy you your spooky Walpurgis Night birthday!
A Day in the Life of Marlin Bundo by John Oliver $2 for the ebook.
https://www.amazon.com/Tonight-Oliver-Presents-Marlon-Bundo/dp/145217380X
It’s a book about Mike Pence’s Bunny except he’s gay.
On the list of books from today’s Kindle Daily Deal:
Three Classic Novels: The Great Santini, The Lords of Discipline, and The Prince of Tides
Kindle Edition
by Pat Conroy
$2.99 today
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Classic-Novels-Santini-Discipline-ebook/dp/B01M365B1Y/ref=lp_6165851011_1_8?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1553627814&sr=1-8
@f00l Three of my favorites. Thank you.
@Barney @f00l I have those! I should read one.
@sammydog01 If you only read one, read The Great Santini. The movie is pretty good, too.
@Barney @sammydog01
Conroy rocks.
I first found him with The Water Is Wide.
(filmed as Conrack I think?)
A bunch of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books are $2 on Amazon- kindle version. Looks like I bought them all in 2013. I should probably read one.