March 2019 book deals and book chat

@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.

@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:

The books are too short

@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)

He [Aragorn] did not know it, but Arwen Undómiel was also there [Lothlorien], dwelling again for a time with the kin of her mother. She was little changed, for the mortal years had passed her by, yet her face was more grave, and her laughter now seldom was heard. But Aragorn was grown to full stature of body and mind, and Galadriel bade him cast aside his wayworn raiment, and she clothed him in silver and white, with a cloak of elven-grey and a bright gem on his brow. Then more than any kind of Men he appeared, and seemed rather an Elf-lord from the Isles of the West. And thus it was that Arwen first beheld him again after their long parting; and as he came walking towards her under the trees of Caras Galadhon laden with flowers of gold, her choice was made and her doom appointed.

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

I don’t suppose that would also give access to the Daily Deals?

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.

@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.

@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!

@mossygreen

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.

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:

the kind of girl who “walks around barefoot but has a closet full of shoes”

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.

@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.

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.

@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?

@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?)

@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.