Weird_O Bill's 2022—Portending the Postquel, a.k.a. (sequentially) 4

          

The start of a new bookcase.

January 2022 (13 read)
1. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, Helene Tursten. Finished 1/1/22  
2. Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu. Finished 1/4/22  
3. On Tyranny graphic edition, Timothy Snyder, illus. Nora Krug. Finished 1/5/22  
4. Vertigo: A Novel in Woodcuts, Lynd Ward. Finished 1/12/22  
5. Way Station, Clifford Simak. Finished 1/13/22  
6. The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles. Finished 1/16/22  
7. The Paris Apartment, Kelly Bowen. Finished 1/18/22  
8. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Finished 1/21/22  
9. Macbeth (Usborne Graphic Shakespeare), Russell Punter, illus Massimiliano Longo and Valentino Forlini. Finished 1/23/22  
10. Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, Lauren Redniss. Finished 1/24/22  
11. Freddy and the Dragon, Walter R. Brooks. Finished 1/27/22  
12. Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, Art Spiegelman. Finished 1/28/22 
13. Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, Art Spiegelman. Finished 1/29/22 

February 2022 (6 read)
14. Mooncop, Tom Gauld. Finished 2/3/22  
15. Orwell's Roses, Rebecca Solnit. Finished 2/9/22 
16. The Sea of Monsters, Rick Riordan. Finished 2/11/22 
17. Animal Farm, George Orwell. Finished 2/14/22 
18. Moonglow, Michael Chabon. Finished 2/20/22 
19. The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones. Finished 2/24/22  

March 2022 (12 read)
20. Macbeth (No Fear Shakespeare), Will Shakespeare. Finished 3/5/22  
21. Macbeth, Gareth Hinds. Finished 3/5/22  
22. The Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan. Finished 3/8/22 
23. Freddy Goes Camping, Walter R. Brooks. Finished 3/12/22 
24. Dogs and Cats: Mutts II, Patrick McDonnell. Finished 3/19/22 
25. Instant Lives, Howard Moss. Illus. by Edward Gorey. Finished 3/20/22  
26. Amnesia Moon, Jonathan Lethem. Finished 3/21/22 
27. The Battle of the Labyrinth, Rick Riordan. Finished 3/23/22 
28. The King, Donald Barthelme. Finished 3/24/22  
29. The Last Olympian, Rich Riordan. Finished 3/27/22 
30. The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Robert Holden, illustrated by Drabos Zak. Finished 3/31/22  
31. Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind (volume one), Yuval Noah Harari. Finished 3/31/22 

April 2022 (8 read)
32. The Natural, Bernard Malamud. Finished 4/7/22   
33. The Plague Court Murders, John Dickson Carr. Finished 4/10/22  
34. The Speckled Band, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; illustrations, Dean Morrissey. Finished 4/16/22 
35. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, David Sedaris. Finished 4/19/22 
36. The Great Train Robbery, Michael Crichton. Finished 4/22/22.  
37. I'm Looking Through You, Jennifer Finney Boylan. Finished 4/26/22. 
38. A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit. Finished 4/27/22. 
39. Welcome to Hard Times, E. L. Doctorow. Finished 4/30/22.  

May 2022 (11 read)
40. Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr. Finished 5/5/22. 
41. In the Fog, Richard Harding Davis. Finished 5/6/22. 
42. The Scarlet Car, Richard Harding Davis. Finished 5/6/22. 
43. Zone One, Colson Whitehead. Finished 5/13/22. 
44. The Notes of a War Correspondent by Richard Harding Davis. Finished 5/15/22.  
45. The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty. Finished 5/20/22. Reread. 
46. Pietr the Latvian, Georges Simenon. Finished 5/22/22.  
47. Bone: Out from Boneville, Jeff Smith. Finished 5/27/22. 
48. DK Biography: Harry Houdini: A Photographic Story of a Life, Vicki Cobb. Finished 5/28/22. 
49. Polka Dot Parade: A Book about Bill Cunningham, Deborah Blumenthal, illus. Masha D'yans. Finished 5/28/22. 
50. River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, Rebecca Solnit. Finished 5/29/22. 

June 2022 (6 read)
51. I, Leonardo, Ralph Steadman. Finished 6/2/22. 
52. Everyman, Philip Roth. Finished 6/6/22.  
53. Old School, Tobias Wolff. Finished 6/8/22. 
54. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, Walter Mosley. Finished 6/13/22. 
55. In Pharaoh's Army, Tobias Wolff. Finished 6/17/22. 
56. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion. Finished 6/18/22. 
57. The Strange Case of Miss Annie Spragg, Louis Bromfield. Finished 6/21/22. 

      

Face frame glued to case, backs attached. A few impatient books try the shelves for size.

July 2022 (7 read)
58. Timeline, Michael Crichton. Finished 7/1/22. 
59. Last Night at the Lobster, Stewart O'Nan. Finished 7/8/22. 
60. The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes, Alan Bennett. Finished 7/10/22. 
61. Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh. Finished 7/20/22. 
62. The Benefit of Farting, Jonathan Swift. Finished 7/20/22. 
63. Terrific Mother, Lorrie Moore. Finished 7/22/22. 
64. Mostly Hero, Anna Burns. Finished 7/27/22. 

August 2022 (7 read)
65. A Short History of Dublin, Pat Boran. Finished 8/4/22. 
66. Colored People, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Finished 8/8/22. 
67. That Night, Alice McDermott. Finished 8/12/22. 
68. The Writer's Library, Nancy Pearl and Jeff Schwager. Finished 8/13/22. 
69. The Children of Men, P. D. James. Finished 8/16/22. 
70. The Third Policeman, Flann O'Brien. Finished 8/21/22. 
71. The Sea, John Banville. Finished 8/24/22. 

September 2022 (6 read)
72. The Happy Prince and other stories, Oscar Wilde. Finished 9/2/22. 
73. Typical American, Gish Jen. Finished 9/4/22. 
74. Women, Heroes, and a Frog, Nina Leen. Finished 9/13/22. 
75. Taken at the Flood, Agatha Christie. Finished 9/16/22. 
76. Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents, Pete Souza. Finished 9/20/22. 
77. Here, Richard McGuire. Finished 9/26/22. 

October 2022 (7 read)
78. Back Home, Bill Mauldin. Finished 10/2/22. 
79. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan. Finished 10/4/22. 
80. The Essential Book of Useless Information, Don Voorhees. Finished 10/7/22. 
81. A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate, Marc Reisner. Finished 10/9/22. 
82. The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen. Finished 10/18/2022. 
83. Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers, Robert Flynn Johnson. Finished 10/19/22. 
84. Silk Parachute, John McPhee. Finished 10/22/22. 

November 2022 (5 read)
85. Table of Contents, John McPhee. Finished 11/1/22. 
86. So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood, Patrick Modiano. Finished 11/3/22. 
87. Life & Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee. Finished 11/8/22. 
88. The Perfectionists, Simon Winchester. Finished 11/18/22. 
89. Galatea, Madeline Miller. Finished 11/23/22. 

December 2022 (3 read)
90. Big Fat Little Lit, Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. Finished 12/2/2022. 
91. The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid. Finished 12/3/22. 
92. The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn, Joseph M. Marshall III. Finished 12/16/22. 
93. Edward Gorey trio: The West Wing, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Epiplectic Bicycle, Edward Gorey. Finished 12/22/22. 
94. Tom Gauld duo: The Snooty Bookshop and Revenge of the Librarians, Tom Gauld. Finished 12/22/22. 
95. The Face of War, Martha Gellhorn. Finished 12/27/22. 
96. The West End Horror, Nicholas Meyer. Finished 12/28/22. 






                                          

    

Attached to the wall and with baseboard installed. More and more books move onto the shelves. Still missing is the countertop. The upper case (not as deep as the bottom case) will set atop the counter and rise to the ceiling.

Books I Really Liked… Selected from the 86 books I've read so far.

 

The countertop is finished and installed. More to come. Of course.

Hello, hello.

Please feel free to post now.

Beautiful work!! Happy new thread.

Happy new one! THat's a beautiful case.

Happy new bookcase! And also new thread.

Beautiful grain in that wood. And the workmanship is fine fine fine.

Happy new thread, Bill.

Happy new thread Bill!

A new bookcase is always worth celebrating.

Happy new one, Bill.

I am glad to see your enthusiasm for Small Things Like These - I read it in January and it is still my favourite read of the year.

Happy new thread!

Wow! It looks like you have been quite busy. Loving the bookcase and the natural grain!

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words, Shelley, Jim, Arlie, Linda, Anita, Susan, Paul, and Anita. The bookcase is coming together. Of course, my book acquisition is outpacing my shelf expansion.

>18 weird_O: - Of course it is. You wouldn't be an LTer if it was otherwise. :-)

Ooohhh, enviably lovely wood on your new bookcase!

lovely bookcase so far. Can't wait to see the next step.

Hi Bill! Happy new thread.

Woefully behind, as usual.

>1 weird_O: You need to come to my house. I need to gut the media room and turn it into a wing of my Library and a Stuff Storage Area.

>6 weird_O: I love the coffee ring. I have its sisters, brothers, cousins, and etc. at my house.

>9 weird_O: Escalation from >1 weird_O:. Emergency book case needs building in central NC! Come stat!! Seriously, you do beautiful work.

Happy New Thread, Bill. Love the bookshelves. You only need a 100 more. Grins...How is the reading going? Discovering any gems?

Thanks for the encouragement, Shelley, Richard, Judy, Karen, and Mark. The project is moving slowly, but steadily. Busy (by my standards) day today. Vote. PT for my aching hip. Haircut. Lots of driving.

The reading, since you asked, Mark, is slow but steady. I'm two-thirds of the way through Life & Times of Michael K, which earned J. M. Coetzee the Booker Prize in the '90s. A grim story, but not as off-putting as I feared.

CORRECTION: Booker to Coetzee for ...Michael K in 1983.

Finished the Coetzee novel last night. Contemplating what to tackle next.

ETA: I believe a bit of lighter fare is what I want to tackle. Not ready yet to read about the aftermath of Little Bighorn for the Lakotas.

I've stuck my toe into The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester. Not having been chilled through my entire body, I've ventured further into the book. I'm going to keep going. I was thinking that a bit of lighter fare is what I want to tackle, but Winchester is seldom lighter fare. It's interesting and doesn't descend into misery, so it appeals.

Hey there, thanks for stopping by my place. Turn about's fair play. And to answer you regarding giving you more Time-sucks. Welcome to the club. Want to see my BASS (big-ass-spreadsheet) that I keep track of all my reading statistics? I'm geeky that way. LOL.

Hey are you going to join us for the Christmas Swap this year? Curious minds want to know. Okay, just mine. (No problem if not)

>19 jessibud2: You are correct, of course, Shelley. :-)

>20 richardderus: It's mostly maple plywood, with some flashy curly maple trim.

>21 ffortsa: Boy, I can't wait to see the next step either, Judy. But it's my own dilatory nature that's making the step sooo long in coming. (Oop; the washer's stopped, so I must set things aside, put stuff in the dryer, and reload the washer. Then dishes in the sink... So it goes.)

>22 karenmarie: I hear you, Karen. I feel for you. But no road trips in the offing. While I can't create a coffee ring for you on your bookshelf or desk or (of course) coffee table, I can print out a few for you.

I'm happy to report that the sun has burned through the overcast. Yay!

>23 msf59: I do need more shelf space, Mark. Thinking about the next project. Heh. Reading is picking up ever so slightly. I did finish a short novel by each of two Nobelists—Patrick Modiano and J. M. Coetzee. Both books seemed slight, but each is lingering; their slightness is deceptive.

I'm watching the varnish dry on the shelves. Quiet time. Ah...booorring...

WoW! That bookcase looks amazing! You should read a book whilst the varnish dries. Just saying...

Thanks, Kim. I did do some reading, actually. Simon Winchester's The Perfectionists is entertaining me.

>32 weird_O: Perfectionists are so draining! How can they be entertaining you? ; )

I know what you mean about perfectionists being draining, Kim. But, see, when you merely observe their obsession in action, it's engaging and diverting, especially when the obsession pays off. Yeah, tedious passages intervene, but I'm entertained by learning how marvelous precision and accuracy are.

I took leave of my senses yesterday. I remembered that I needed another covid booster, and I logged onto the hospital's website and book an appointment. It was half-past noon, and the day's shot slots were abundant, so I picked 2 p.m. About an hour later, I drove to the vax store, arrived on time, got ushered in and shot. Wow! No self-imposed waiting, nor any required by the medicos.

Mine was a cancellation with a two hours notice -- Glad it was easy for you to get in. Now I just have to get Hubby to go. LOL. Hope you have less reaction than I did!

No reaction, Kim. Now reaction from PT. Yes, some aches in me butt, but that's good.

Surprise of the week: I got a tax refund from the gov'mint. No withholding from any of my revenue trickles. I followed the directions (I thought), sent 'em a check. I got a refund with a letter saying I did it wrong, and I paid too much. Ha. So I can use it to (help) pay the school real estate tax (final installment due in early December).

Making slow progress on the bookcase. Because.

Almost finished with The Perfectionists. As Winchester wades through today's cutting-edge precision, the mind boggles (MY mind, anyway). I've got the AAC book at the ready. The month is running out...

      

      ....Oh! And a double espresso...

>38 weird_O: Oh yes

>38 weird_O: "...and a cannoli or six"

And a beer!

>37 weird_O: After this happened 3x I went and found a new accountant - the first one silently went out of business and that's when I started trying to do my own taxes - well after the next one charged be 10x what the first had. It's well over 30 years we've been seeing Bonnie for our taxes - we took Becky as a newborn and Bonnie had done them for a few years before that.

Hey Bill. Did I first hear the word *embiggen* from you? I believe I did, and it tickled me to no end. Well, guess what? It's now in the official Scrabble dictionary!

https://www.npr.org/2022/11/16/1137179512/yeehaw-bae-an-embiggened-scrabble-dict...

Are you moonlighting?

:)

>39 ffortsa:, >40 richardderus:, >41 Berly: Of course, of course. Cannoli is perfect with the espresso; not so sure with pizza. Beer with pizza: okay.

>42 quondame: We used a tax prepper for 10 years or so. After the couple who were the business retired, the successors were duds. And I was retired too, so the complications retired, and I've been doing them myself.

>43 jessibud2: You might of heard it from me, Shelley. I was merely using the term I'd read on line. No moonlighting here.

>44 weird_O: Our technique of throwing all tax related mail into a box and taking the box to Bonnie has probably prevented murder or at least grave bodily harm. The occasional misplaced document disturbance is good evidence for that. I hope Bonnie survives us.

"Embiggen" originally came from the Simpsons. I'm waiting for "cromulent" to make it to the dictionary. (As it, "Of course using 'embiggen' is correct, it's a perfectly cromulent word. It's even in the Scrabble dictionary!")

Happy Sunday, Bill. Just checking in. I hope those books are treating you well. I am trying to wrap up a shared read of State of Wonder, which I am enjoying but we are busy with a lot of family stuff this weekend, so it has been tough.

>45 quondame: We never got away with gifting the taxpreppers with a carton of unsorted receipts and bills and stuff, Susan. Bonnie must be a saint.

>46 ursula: I shoulda known: The Simpsons. A Google search shows the term cromulent to be in various on-line dictionaries, including the Webster-Meridian. Can the Scrabble dictionary be far behind?

>47 msf59: Thanks for checking up on me, Mark. I'm still here, though I'm afflicted with a case of the slows. I did finish The Perfectionists, and I enjoyed it. Reading about chip-making practice and theory got to be a slog; challenges in packing more and more circuits and transistors onto a chip sort of overloaded my comprehension. In contrast, The Day the World Ended at Little Bighorn is relatively easy to comprehend. Even as the Lakota and Cheyenne won the battle, they knew they were going to lose the war.

Have a great Thanksgiving .

>48 weird_O: Oh, we don't either. We sit on the other side of the desk handing her each paper she asks for and after the income portion - much shortened these days - she asks if there is any thing more and then we go on to the deductions and we see if there is anything left in the box and deal with it. It's worked for years, though this year she closed her independent office and got one with association. But she is kind of a saint. She has listened to most of Mike's jokes repeated for decades.

>49 quondame: If you can find a good tax prepper, treat 'em nice. Right?
______________
I was good this week, so I awarded myself three books. New! Retail! And I finished one just an hour ago—Galatea by Madeline Miller. Okay, okay. It's a short story in a book-like package (a hardcover book, don't you know). Excellent story with an explanatory afterword by the author. It's my 89th read of the year; skeptical about achieving 100 reads this year.

The other two books will take me a bit longer to read. They are The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid, published just this year, and The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams, published two years ago and frequently praised and recommended by 75ers.

This Thanksgiving will be only the second I can remember that our immediate family won't be together, feasting on turkey, filling, gravy, sweet potatoes, broccoli, dried corn, mushrooms and such for those who want 'em, homemade rolls, apple, punkin, shoofly, and pecan pies (a little ice cream on the side). Our eight-foot-long table wasn't long enough once grandchildren joined us. Daughter Becky would travel from Boston, and younger son Ned would come from south Jersey with his wife and, ultimately, three daughters. My brother and his wife would always come. When Judi's stamina waned, our elder son, Jeremy, would come over on Wednesday and help with the prep, then Thursday, he'd cook the turkey. Four or five years ago he took over. But the gathering was at our home.

Well, this year Becky's stayed in Quincy, where her good friend and upstairs neighbor planned a dinner for three that quickly became a gathering for ten. (She told her brother that it is nice to have two cooks, each working in their own kitchen.) Ned and Sam and their three girls are having their own Thanksgiving. I'm being welcomed to Thanksgiving at Tara's parents home. I talked to Jeremy last night and learned that Tara has the flu and won't be there. Jeremy made filling and dried corn and a pie, staples of the Hylton Thanksgiving but not of the Gilligan (his in-laws) feast.

I lost the love of my life, but still I have much to be thankful for.

You all have Thanksgiving Americano in whatever way suits you.

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, Bill.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Bill, however it shakes down.

Happy Thanksgiving, Bill. I hope you make the best of it, whatever you decide.

Hi Bill. A different Thanksgiving for you this year, and I'm sorry there won't be a gathering of the clan. I hope you get some pleasure out of the day regardless.

Something I am thankful for. I finished the bloomin' upper case. All I need is a couple of furniture wrestlers to lift it and slide it on the base case's counter.

>56 weird_O: Oh wow, that is an achievement!

>56 weird_O: Beautiful object! I love the veneers you've chosen.

There's a thing to be thankful for.

What RD said, about that bookcase.

My in-laws used to dry their own corn in an outdoor fireplace, and it was always on their Thanksgiving table until they sold the "big house" when our daughter was a baby. I know you can buy it boxed or canned, but I have to say, I never missed that particular staple and when I'm the cook, it does not make an appearance.

>50 weird_O: I just received my copy of Galatea from the library. Glad it was a good read!

Hope you enjoy the dictionary of lost words. I enjoyed it :)

>56 weird_O: Wonderful bookcases. They look solid enough to hold heavy books ;)

Happy belated Thanksgiving, Bill. I hope you enjoyed your gathering despite it not being quite what you'd hoped for.

The bookcase is amazing. Beautiful work. I can't wait to see it in its permanent location.

Thanks for the sharing of thanks. >52 PaulCranswick:, >53 jessibud2:, >54 msf59:, >55 karenmarie:. 'Twas a pretty gorgeous day, the company was fun, the food was fine. The dishes that Jeremy prepared following his mother's recipes were very popular.

>59 laytonwoman3rd:. Never would have thought of drying corn myself, Linda. Seems to me that the dried corn came from my mother's side of the family, and she (and we since) have always used Cope's. Mom would add chestnuts. To me, mmmmmmmm. Your mileage varies, which is just fine.

>57 quondame:, >58 richardderus:, >59 laytonwoman3rd:, >60 figsfromthistle:, >61 lauralkeet: Thanks for your appreciation of the book shelves. I'll be most happy when I get it levitated into place and anchored to the wall. I do have a few more books for for the shelves than the photo shows. Heh.

Apropos Richard's comment about veneers, since most of the material is plywood, the veneers are luck of the draw. I did note that the gods slipped a spy onto one of the sheets, a vacant-eyed observer:

That’s beautiful!

Those are really beautiful, also looking forward to when it's all put together and bolted in place.

Thanks, Jim and Ursula. Here I sit in The Comfy Chair, lifting my eyes from time to time, and ruing my need to accept other people's holiday agendas. All those empty shelves. Oh my!

Next week will feature 2022's final book sale at the Bethlehem library. All the more reason to get that bookcase placed.

I'm giddy with excitement. Help is on its way for the one-minute job of lifting the upper bookcase three feet off the floor and sliding it onto the lower bookcase and back against the wall. Four screws will hold it against the wall, and gravity will hold it down on the lower case.

And then...and THEN...Book Sale! See if I can secure a few tomes to populate the new shelves. Yeah. Like I need a few more books just for that. Ha!

Of course, photos will follow.

>67 weird_O: Life is good! I attended the SPL Friends book sale yesterday, and came away with only 2. But my feet were already hurting from other essential errands, so I think I get to keep my frequent buyer credentials.

As promised, here's the first photo, a portrait of books I purchased yesterday at the final Bethlehem (PA) Public Library for 2022. They are shelved—temporarily—on the finally assembled new bookcase. Yes, as soon as the internets finish processing my JPG files, I'll post a pic or two of it. For now, New-to-Me Books...

  

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury (mmp)
The Last Ballad, Wiley Cash (pbk)
Rule of the Bone, Russell Banks (pbk)
Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey, Ralph Leighton (pbk)
A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage (pbk)
The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, Anne Frank (pbk)
Defectors, Joseph Kanon (pbk)
Waiting for Sunrise, William Boyd (pbk)
Dear Life, Alice Munro (pbk)
Orfeo, Richard Powers (pbk)
A Passion for Books, edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan (pbk)
Big Fat Little Lit, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly (GN, pbk)
Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book Three, Ta-Nehisi Coats (GN, pbk)
American Children, Susan Kismaric (A⸱D⸱P, pbk)
Recitatif: A Story, Toni Morrison (hc)
Judge This., Chip Kidd (hc)
Plum Pie, P. G. Wodehouse (hc)
The Man Who Was Magic, Paul Gallico (hc)
Joan is OK, Weike Wang (hc)
The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe (hc)
Memory Wall, Anthony Doerr (hc)
An Intelligent Person's Guide to Classics, Peter Jones (hc)
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Radden Keefe (hc)
That Old Ace in the Hole, Annie Proulx (hc)
Henry, Himself, Stewart O'Nan (hc)
The Ink Black Heart, Robert Galbraith (hc)
Legacy in Stone: The Rideau Corridor, Fiona Spalding-Smith and Barbara Humphreys (A⸱D⸱P, hc)
N. C. Wyeth: The Collected Paintings, Illustrations, and Murals, Douglas Allen and Douglas Allen Jr. (A⸱D⸱P, hc)
Edward Hopper, Lloyd Goodrich (A⸱D⸱P, hc)

Note: A⸱D⸱P is my tag for "Art Design Photography" books

Having new shelf space means reorganizing, a lot of reorganizing. I plan to fill the new shelves with fiction, arranged in alphabetical order by author. I'll be emptying shelves in other rooms in the house. I think I can get away with eliminating genre distinctions and simply sorting fiction—any and all fiction—by the author's last name. I'll fill all the shelves I empty and still won't be able to accommodate all the books. More shelving is on the drawing board, but most of it is very utilitarian. For the basement stacks.

All of this is predicated on my continuing to remember where I left my brain. Tuesday night, I discovered a book I had been looking for and was confident I had a duplicate; I wanted both copies. So I moved about the house, found book in hand, scanning shelves for the duplicate. Well, I had some appointments, so I abandoned the search. When I returned home, I couldn't locate the "found" book. I did find the duplicate. But I still haven't laid my hands on the original "found" book. Big house, too many books, old man of little brain.

     

Wow! Looking good, no, Great!

Wow - Bookshelves for Really Tall Books so they aren't all laying on their sides
waiting for you to need the one underneath all the heavy ones!

Why...thank you, Shelley.

I have several of the stacks you describe, Marianne. I'm not sure that the space the lower case provides will really make them disappear. It will reduce the height of them, maybe reduce the number of them. Time will tell.

>71 weird_O: Ooooo! Lovely!

Wow Bill, that looks fantastic!

Hi Bill!

>56 weird_O: Gorgeous.

>63 weird_O: Wow for the vacant-eyed observer.

>69 weird_O: Score! Especially The Ink Black Heart. I’m listening to it in the car, and it’s quite wonderful.

>70 weird_O: Excellent goals, have fun planning, moving, shelving. Your duplicate search is quite amusing and exactly something I’d do – find a book, look for another book, find it, then lose the original.

>71 weird_O: Wow. Exciting. Beautiful bookshelf, and all that gorgeous, fillable space.

>69 weird_O: Great haul! Wow!

>70 weird_O: The bookshelves look fantastic. You should take no time filling them up.

Happy Saturday, Bill. I am currently loving Trust. This could be in contention for the best book of the year. Just sayin'...

>71 weird_O: FABulous and gorgeous! I'm very impressed.

>69 weird_O: Great haul! You live among very literate souls. (And people with a great eye, too.)

Saturday orisons, Bill.

>75 quondame:, >76 lauralkeet:, >77 karenmarie:, >78 msf59:, >79 richardderus: Thank you, one and all. The shelves are collecting books. Of course I have to continuously shuffle the books to the right and down to make space for newly uncovered/discovered works in amongst an author's already shelved titles.

>77 karenmarie: There it was, Karen, in its bloated magnificence, the next Cormorant/Robin entry. My shopping companion was goading me. I'm so weak. I read the first three, and the fourth is on the shelf. Seem to have skipped the fifth.

>78 msf59: Trust is on my Christmas list for family, Mark, along with Demon Copperhead, and several other titles gleaned from various "Best Books of 2022" lists. The Kingsolver book has gotten very glowing reviews here, as has Trust. So many books, so little time.

>70 weird_O: I have my fiction sorted by author, with no genre distinctions, and it works well for me. OTOH, I positively hate it when libraries do the same - so many genres I don't want to read that browsing becomes looking for the 2 or 3 maybes (not wrong genre) in a shelf of no-way-at-alls.

And as for your brain, perhaps it's gone out on the town with mine, and will eventually come back drunk as a skunk and fit for nothing but sleep.

Hey, Bill. I plan on reading Demon Copperhead next month. If you get a copy, come join me.

Oh my, oh my! Been off wasting my waking hours on trivia and frivolities, and while I have skulked through my threads, I've written nary a word here, meaning Weirdo_O Bill's thread right here but also all the other threads I tripped through. I don't for a second imagine anyone will shatter the silence here, meaning Weirdo_O Bill's thread. I reap what I sow, not?

Time has been spent by me rearranging fiction books, beginning with the new shelves (see >71 weird_O:). After several rounds of shuffling my alphabetical arrangement by author's last names, shifting books from one shelf to the one to the right, in order to fit a title or five, newly discovered in the basement stacks, into the line-up. A couple of days ago, I changed my approach. Now I'm scouting my caches for all the fiction I have authored by writers' whose last name begins with A, B, C, or D and lining them up on the library/dining table. Currenmt range extends from Ben Aaronovitch through Dominick Dunne. For now, my new shelves accommodate that range. But I shall see.

Not going to be quick.

Before charging off—to infinity and beyond—I need to acknowledge comments from Arlie and Mark.

>81 ArlieS: For fiction, the alphabetical-by-author-name arrangement works in a private library. It doesn't work, as you pointed out, Arlie, in a situation where you don't have an author name or are scanning books for something that sparks your interest. I've got 50 Agatha Christie books (a few dupes) and 41 Dutch Leonard books. (I thank my stars that I haven't succumbed to the energetic and creative oeuvres of King and Patterson and Roberts and the myriad other writers.) The work will be a success if I'm able to arrange the titles—ALL the titles—before putting them on the shelves.

>82 msf59: We'll see what the new year brings, Mark. My interest is fugitive, and committing to being sufficiently intoxicated by a book five weeks or months from now to read it then is, well, sobering. :-)

Since >84 weird_O:, I scoured the various basement book caches and brought five (5) "Bankers Boxes" of fiction authored by As to Ds. They ain't all going to fit on my 12 new 30-inch-long shelves (given the volume of volumes already on said shelves).

On a much brighter note, enough Georgians voted for Sen. Warnock to keep him in office. Herschel can go back to Texas, where he's more representative of the populace.

When I mailed my LT75 Santa package yesterday, I told the lady the contents was books, so media mail. She asked me the standard declaration of not having dangerous or prohibited stuff in the package. "Just ideas," I answered. She laughed knowingly.

  

>87 weird_O: - He is an LTer, right?

Hi Bill!

>80 weird_O: The Cormoran/Robin books really, IMO, need to be read in order. Be on the lookout for #5!

>84 weird_O: Have fun alphabetizing your fiction. That wouldn’t work for me because I have too many places for books and am too scatty to try to keep them alphabetized.

>85 weird_O: I just read about Herschel – he’s a hot mess and not in a good way. Texas can have him.

>86 weird_O: I like that – ‘Just ideas.’ I’ve got a media mail box going out today or tomorrow, and will use it. I wonder if I’ll get a response?

>87 weird_O: Heh. In addition to donating books, I’d stop inside the charity shop and get more books.

>88 jessibud2: He must be, Shelley. He certainly has my number.

>89 karenmarie: Alphabetizing the fiction collection certainly is a challenge to me, if only because it exposes the deficiency of the infrastructure. I'm in need of more shelf space. Too, it occupies my mind, so I don't waste my time just reading. I...uh...wait. Reading... Oh, it's about reading, isn't it?

Getting to look like Christmas...

>91 weird_O: Very festive!

I thought so, Susan.

Happy Friday, Bill. My December reading has been great so far. I already managed to knock out a pair of TBR chunksters as well. I like finished the year on a strong note.

>87 weird_O: Love it!

>94 msf59: Very good, Mark. I am pleased you are having a stellar end-of-the-year milestone. Me? Well, I did complete the Lakota history, and I am reading Martha Gellhorn.

        

Cottage pie, fresh out of the oven. Looked good to me, smelled better, and tasted out of this world. Yes, I made it my own self, just for me. Comfort food. Three or four meals here. Thank you, thank you; enough applause.

That looks amazing, Bill.

>96 weird_O: That's got *exactly* the perfect texture around the edges, Bill. I love the slightly crunchy bits!

>69 weird_O: What an excellent haul!! Empty shelves are always great and a wonderful opportunity to rearrange the collection.

Ooh … YUM. Your cottage pie looks great Bill!

That looks fab!

I've never tried cottage pie. It looks yummy!!!

Thanks you all—Linda, Richard, Laura, Jim, and Linda. Mmmmmm. But one guy, three suppers, and it is gone. Mmmmm.

Whale of a football weekend. If you were interested. I was.

I'm making good progress in The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn. I have to finish it before I open the—yes, I'm anticipating—cornacopeia of books I'll be gifted on Christmas Day.

Try to stay sane.

Stuff is piling up, so I better begin wrapping. I'm giving some books (I know: Quelle surprise!), but several books are elusive. Well, missing deadlines has always been my signature skill, so family members won't be surprised by RainChex. (Look in the cereals aisle in your favorite supermarket. Wacka wacka!)

Still reading Martha Gellhorn's collection of war reporting, which is very good.

Hoping the huge snow bomb won't cancel my daughter's flight from Logan to Newark on Friday morning. She's already gotten an alert from the airline. Although the predictions are for rain along the east coast, that doesn't mean the airplane will get to Boston, so it can been flown from there to Newark.

That storm was in my mind as I read a Gellhorn piece about tagging along on a night patrol in a P-61 Black Widow, sitting on a wooden crate in the unheated plane. Outside temperature minus 30 degrees F. (and of course inside temp as well).

Stay well, stay warm, you peeps.

It is cold in Kansas. Today it was fog all day with lots of moisture in the air. Tonight the wind comes up and the snow begins. High today is about 25 degrees F. Good baking and reading weather.

Oooooo, I'm so glad I'm not in Kansas, Benita, or anywhere in the Heartland. Snow is falling here, and I'm being a bit anxious about what it'll do to the brief family gathering we have planned. My library table is heaped with stuff to wrap. I want something warm to eat—but don't want to make it.

Yesterday, I wanted to explore an independent bookstore in Kutztown for stocking-stuffer type things, and roadblocks sent me onto some roads I've never really travelled in all the years I've lived here. Took me an extra hour or more to get to my destination and back home, but I did find a Tom Gauld collection and a couple of Edward Gorey trifles. And I explored several windy roads through woods and fields, confirming that I'm not alone in favoring a rural life.

Glad your roadblock diversion was a productive and beautiful trip. Hoping the weather cooperates and you get to see the family. Have fun wrapping!!

Everybody get your bells on. Merry Chritmas, as one of the kids said, early in life, mastering the spoken word(s).

What a time. Too much left to do...

I've done this before. I got an assortment of stocking-stuffer books to stuff in select people's stockings. But...but...I wanted to keep them. So I did what I could and read them before wrapping them. Unseemly? How could I NOT read little stories by Edward Gorey. Or the literary cartoons of Tom Gauld. I did it. Enjoyed each one.

Merry Chritmas.

As I write, my daughter is being chauffeured across New Jersey. It's raining. The temp's in the low 40s. But the temp is supposed to crater as the day progresses, likely making driving perilous.

I hope your daughter completes her trip in a safe and timely manner. Merry Christmas to all!

Happy Christmas from my Christmas gnome!

Thanks, Linda. Becky arrived safe and sound, even brought some favorite cookies. Temp dropped into the twenties, a dusting of snow on the ground, there's more wind, but the sky is blue and the sun shining. I feel more relaxed, more placid. Nice.

Rhian, I like that gnome. I hope your holidays will be happy.

Today the high temp here in Kansas was 6. It was a big improvement as the day started at -12. Yesterday it was -16 and never got to 0.

I have been baking and not reading. I just started a big biography of Beatrix Potter titled Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. I have been wanting to read this one for a long time.

Wishing you a holiday full of comfort with sparkles of fun, Bill!

Have a wonderful holiday, Bill. Glad your daughter made it there safely.

BTW- I really liked Woodsburner. Let me know if you would like me to pass it along to you.

Epic! It's been an epic holiday for me. I am grateful for family, most of all, and for friends. So often, I fret about the appropriateness of gifts I've chosen for people—will they like it?. Right color, right size? Well, I liked everything I was given, and I believe the recipients of what I gave felt likewise. And the fun continues today, as family is coming to my house to dine on my cottage pie.

Yay!!

Sounds like a wonderful holiday Bill!

Hi Bill!

>96 weird_O: Yum. Just, yum.

>109 weird_O: My mother admitted to me that she read all the Agatha Christies she gave to me. I myownself have never done it, either releasing the book with love and regret or buying two.



So, Christmas haul? I'm not visiting 2023 threads yet in case you posted The List there.

Here are the books put, more or less, under the Christmas tree for me. No tree in my house this year, hence the "more or less" qualifier.

From Carrie a.k.a. cbl_tn, who drew my name in the 75er gift swap:

Regeneration (Regeneration Trilogy), Pat Barker (pbk)
The West End Horror, Nicholas Meyer (hc)
The Book on the Bookshelf, Henry Petroski (pbk)
What Is Left the Daughter, Howard Norman (hc)
Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat, Giles Milton (hc)
What It's Like to Be a Dog: And Other Adventures in Animal Neuroscience, Gregory Berns (pbk)
Totally Weird and Wonderful Words, Erin McKean (pbk)
He Wanted the Moon: The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him, Mimi Baird (pbk)

Most of these have been on my WANT! List™ for several years. I salute Carrie for her choices from the list. And the volume of volumes is swell; I don't deserve the largess, but I do appreciate it. I'm looking forward to reading each of these.

From family:

Around the World in 80 Books, David Damrosch (hc) Tom & Gig (fellow grandparents)
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World, Mark Miodownik (pbk) Ned 'n' Sam 'n' their Jersey girls
When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamin Labatut (pbk) Ned 'n' Sam 'n' their Jersey girls
How to Be Safe, Tom McAllister (hc) Ned 'n' Sam 'n' their Jersey girls
Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver (hc) Becky
Fathers and Children (New York Review Books Classics), Ivan Turgenev (pbk) Jeremy and Tara
The Collected Tales, Nikolai Gogol (hc) Jeremy and Tara

From the gift-giver not to be named:

Lessons in Chemistry, Bonnie Garmus (hc)
Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, Kate Beaton (hc)

I'm pretty close to "back to normal," which isn't much to crow about. I enjoyed having a familiar house guest for several days. But still, I'm glad to veg alone again. Didn't get out of my jammies yesterday. Today, I'm up, showered, dressed, breakfasted, caffeinated, and deep in ruminations about WHAT THE HELL I'M DOING!?!!? Ooop. Excuse me there.

I did complete The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn for December's AAC. A very good collection of her war-zone reporting, ranging from the mid-1930s to mid-1980s. Spain, Finland, China, WWII, Java, Vietnam, the Middle East, and Central America. Gellhorn didn't mix in with front-line troops much, but reported on war's impact on civilians. The Allied command wouldn't authorize her to cross the channel and go ashore on D-Day, so she stowed away on a hospital ship and was involved as casualties were brought aboard. She displayed that gumption in whatever war zone she was reporting from. A worthwhile read.

I've started The West End Horror, the second of Nicholas Meyer's Sherlock Holmes novels. (Thanks, Carrie!) It is relatively short (220 pages), so I can jam a couple of extra books on the "read in 2022" list.

Finished The West End Horror. Just sayin'.

Glad that horror is over. Phew! ; )

Hi Bill!

>121 weird_O: Vegging alone is always wonderful. Jammie days are a plus.

Having finished reading the latter day Sherlock Holmes mystery, I started a book called When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut. My older son got a copy of the book some time in the last year, and I had an opportunity to scan the first couple of pages. The opening paragraph:

In a medical examination on the eve of the Nuremberg Trials, the doctors found the nails of Hermann Goring's fingers and toes stained a furious red, the consequence of his addiction to dihydrocodeine, an analgesic of which he took more than one hundred pills a day. William Burroughs describe it as similar to heroin, twice as strong as codeine, but with a wired coke-like edge, so the North American doctors felt obliged to cure Goring of his dependency before allowing him to stand before the court. This was not easy. When the Allied forces caught him, the Nazi leader was dragging a suitcase with more than twenty thousand doses, practically all that remained of Germany's production of the drug at the end of the Second World War. His addiction was far from exceptional...

Practically everyone in the German military received methamphetamine with their rations, calculated to keep the soldiers awake for days, even weeks, at a time.

Wow! So that hooked me and I put the title on an Amazon wish list. My younger son Ned sent me a copy for Christmas. Having finished with Holmes (who ironically had some issues with pharmaceuticals himself), I raced through the first chapter, then smacked into Albert Einstein and a German astrophysicist named Karl Schwarzchild, who was serving in the German army in The Great War. The latter had mailed Einstein pages of calculations he had made—while commanding an artillery battery on the Eastern Front and simultaneously being wasted by pemphlgus, a disease to which Ashkenazi Jews are particularly susceptible. Labatut explains the so-called Schwarzchild Singularity. Need I say that this chapter has slowed me down. It's obstructing my advance, and I have pulled into the pits. But not out of the race. Oh no.

I have begun reading Regeneration by Pat Barker. So far it hasn't exposed my intellectual shortcomings. So far. I am grateful for that. I've also begun Ducks, Kate Beaton's graphic memoir. (I am sure, had she known how very very very far down the Touchstone list her book would fall, she'd have found an alternative title. But I digress.)

Twenty twenty-two is wasting away. So further readings in these books will go on the tally board for 2023. I hope I will see 75ers on the other side. Just next week.

Happy Friday, Bill. Glad you are getting back to "normal". Looks like you got some good reading going. Between you and Bonnie, you have me stoked to try some of Gellhorn's writing. Maybe 2023? I hope you enjoy Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands. It is a strong memoir.

"you have me stoked to try some of Gellhorn's writing." If you'd just follow the AAC, Oh Revered Founder... ;>)

Well, I guess that's it. I'll set up shop on the other side, likely tomorrow.

Well, I guess I'll see you there.

Me, too!

Bye for 2022!