That’s right it’s t-shirts and shorts time, get those seedling started we’ll be floating in our inflatable pools in no time! Or maybe not, it’s snowing as I write this, fucks sake. Anyway we have many reports and reviews and synopses, as always we’ll begin with…
Fourscore
Public school education skipped over a lot of history. Mostly, if we’re lucky, we know of Washington and Jefferson as slave owners and John Hancock signed the Declaration of something or another in big cursive, so we would know who he was. As it turns out there were other things that happened that led up to Hancock’s big day.
Stacy Schiff takes us on an in depth ride in her book, The Revolutionary:Samuel Adams. Samuel Adams was a most influential revolutionary figure, certainly a main instigator that kept the spirit alive, as a writer/publisher of a sort of underground newspaper as well as the lead conspirator.
Most of what I had previously learned about the Revolutionary War was as if it had sprung up in a political vacuum. As early as 1766 Samuel Adams and others were beginning to feel a sort of libertarian itch. Top down political decrees coming out of England were annoying to those an ocean apart. They were Englishmen, By God, even the immigrants, being governed by a king and Parliament that had no idea what the political climate was like in the colonies.
Samuel Adams was one of the earliest to realize and understand that royal proclamations were not a one size fits all. He was probably the main leader, with a large supporting cast that required a lot of attention in organizing and maintaining the spirit of the early colonists. Constantly at odds with the English political leaders his underground methods eventually lead to the Revolutionary War and ultimately to where we are now.
Today every revolution always results in a top down dictator of the communist bent.
When I started reading this biography I thought it would be a dry slog but seeing the Founders as human, with families, with personal demons, made for an interesting historical story.
R.J.
Rick Atkinson: The British are Coming, The Fate of the Day – This is the best history of the American Revolution that I have ever read. Stunning, entertaining. Looking forward to the third and last book in a few years.
Joseph Plumb Martin: Memoirs of a Revolutionary War Soldier – Great companion to read while enjoying Rick Atkinson’s book series. It is the memoirs of a soldier in Washington’s army, at the grunt level. If you haven’t read it, you should get a copy. I really liked Joseph. He might have been a Glib. Here is his final resting place: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8619/joseph_plumb-martin
Matthew Buchholz: Night of the Monsters – This is a “Decide Your Fate” book. Very silly. Very silly indeed. I died while battling a giant monster.
DEG
A Collector’s View: The Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 and No. 5 Part 1 1931-1945 by Lance Lysiuk: The book covers the development of the last .303 generation of Lee-Enfield rifles from the No. 1 Mk VI through the No. 5. Like other books in the series, the emphasis is on identification. The book touches on sniper conversions, which are covered in depth in a later book in the series. There is coverage of bayonets for the No. 4 and No. 5. The book ends with two interesting chapters on experimental rifles: An experimental No. 5 Mk II which was capable of firing grenades and Long Branch’s attempts to make a lightened rifle based on the No. 4. The author still needs an editor. He had more than a few picture captions describing something an arrow in the picture was pointing to, but there was no arrow in the picture. He also had pictures with arrows but no explanations of what the arrows point to in the picture caption.
A Collector’s View: The Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 and No. 5 Part 2 1946-1983 by Lance Lysiuk: The book covers post-Second World War development of the Lee-Enfield. Coverage includes post-war rebuild programs, post-war conversion programs, the No. 4 Mk 2, and 7.62 NATO conversions.
A Collector’s View: ‘T’ The Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 Sniper by Lance Lysiuk: The book covers the sniper conversions of the No. 4 rifle from the trials rifle conversions through the Second World War No. 4 conversions to the post-war 7.62 NATO conversions.
ARMAX: The Journal of Contemporary Arms Vol. 1 No. 1: Helios House Press and Cody Firearms Museum teamed up to reprint the original run of ARMAX, the journal of arms research from the Winchester Arms Museum, which is the predecessor to the Cody Firearms Museum. The reprint preserves the original text with the addition of some new commentary and pictures. This first book covers the first part of Herbert Houze’s commentary on the inventory of Sam Colt’s firearms collection.
Small Arms of WWII: Soviet Union by Ian McCollum: This is a cataloging of major small arms the Red Army used. The pictures are excellent. There’s not a lot of technical detail as this is an overview. I found it interesting that despite all of the collectivization in the Soviet Union that Soviet weapon designations included the designer’s name.
The Target Rifle in Australia 1860-1900 by J. E. Corcoran: The book covers the start of rifle associations in Australia during the Victorian era. They grew out of a desire to defend the colonies so were heavily influenced by the Volunteer Force. There is coverage of early Intercolonial matches and the rifles used. The rifles were mainly English but there were some American rifles used. I liked the old-time gun advertisements reproduced in the book. There is one dated 1900 for Lee-Metford Mk II and Lee-Enfield Mk I target rifles. The price? £6/10/-. I put that into the Bank of England’s inflation calculator and converted to US Dollars. $942.49. There is one, a Lee-Enfield Mk I, on GunBroker at the time I write this for $2200.
ARMAX: The Journal of Contemporary Arms Vol. 1 No. 2: This is the second half of Herbert Houze’s commentary on the inventory of Sam Colt’s firearms collection.
Zwak
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway. Good, although I am only halfway through it right now. Briefly, the tale of an American fighting for the Republic of Spain during its civil war. The Republic was a big communist cause, and while the Fascists won, Hemingway doesn’t really talk about any atrocities that they committed, but, instead, illustrates what the left/Republicans did, which was pretty horrific in the telling. Anyways, good action, interesting point of view in the American former college professor protagonist, and, as per usual with Hemingway, very well written.
Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus. Excellent edition that reprints the stories we all love in the original published format, along with original illustrations, cover art, and, as an added bonus, additional stories from some of Howards other cycles. I grew up reading the 12 Lancer paperback editions, which have been heavily edited, created from other Howard stories, or made up from whole cloth entirely. So, it is fun to go back and re-enjoy these stories with a fresh feel as the additions have been peeled away.
Pope Jimbo
First off, the most recent stuff I have been reading is just mind glop. No redeeming values at all. I’m not going to even mention it.
I recently finished Joe Abercrombie’s Age of Madness trilogy (https://firstlaw.fandom.com/wiki/The_Age_of_Madness_Trilogy)
This is an extension of his First Law World, so there are still a lot of characters running around. Not my favorites, but I liked the first trilogy so it is nice to see them again.
This trilogy is not as good as his previous books. My biggest gripe is that the books cover a period of time when the old feudal system is undergoing an industrial revolution. Lots of going on about evil capitalists exploiting the poor to work in their dirty, dangerous factories. No mention of why those people want to work in a factory, or the possibility that goods are becoming more plentiful and cheaper because of those factories. Before you get too huffy about some UK commie writing economically illiterate stuff, it is nice to see that shit goes completely off the rails when the workers do sieze the means of production.
All in all, it was a decent read. Lots of sex, betrayal and gore.
DblEagle
I read three interesting books recently. The first Aftermath by Harald Jahner. is subtitled “Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich 1945-1955”. It is the story about how Germany started putting itself together after the war. It covers everything from the lighthearted like dating and nightlife to the real heavy topics like resettling the millions of displace eastern Germans, compensating war losses to German citizens, and the establishment of the new currency. I did not know that more Germans lived in Bavaria in Jan 1946 than in August 1939- even after millions of dead and millions of PWs still in camps. 24% of the ost Germans ended up in Bavaria with all the resultant issues that caused.
The second book is by Mark Stille called Pearl Harbor: Japan’s Greatest Disaster and was released in Jan 2026. He is a prolific naval historian, but this is his first book I remember reading. He is not a big fan of Yamamoto and is fair in his assessments of Short and Kimmel. He looks at the attack from the tactical to strategic level and his title pretty well sums up his conclusion. His naval background helps him point out issues with the attack, and the defense, that were just not up to standard.
The third book has no military ties. It is a 1973 history of the mountain men by Winfred Blevins named Give Your Heart to the Hawks. It has an old feel to it since it was printed with a brown ink on a light tan paper. It covers familiar ground in an entertaining way and because Netflix and Disney weren’t involved it doesn’t “put a trans-chick in it and make her gay.” It is better history than Bernard Devoto’s “Across the Wide Missouri” but lacks the prints of Alfred Jacob Miller that you find in the early editions.
The Hyperbole
I finished The Classic Collection of Fredric Brown (11 Novels and 60 Short Stories). Illustrated: Detectives, Thrillers, Science Fiction ***** the last ¾ of the collection was short stories and Mr. Brown was a master at the short story (hence the rating jumping up to five stars since the last post) As I mentioned this is a 99¢ Kindle book and it has a lot of typos and many of the stories are included two or three times. I imagine who ever put this together just copy/pasted what ever public domain collections he could find. The stories are great and run the gamut of genres, but unless you’re living on cat food I’d recommend spending a few more buck for a better curated collection.
Speaking of better curated collections. The Best American Noir of the Century (The Best American Series) edited by James Elroy and Otto Penzler **** fits the bill. I’m about ½ way thorugh and the stories have all been solid, though some aren’t exactly what I would call noir.
As always… of now.
Remember if you would like to be included with all the cool kids email your reviews , criticisms , and or synopsis to whatarewereading25@proton.me by the last Monday of next month. Whenever. We’ve become unstuck in time regarding the scheduling so I’ll just wait until five or six of you people send in submission and then throw together the next edition.
Thanks and good luck, The Hyperbole.
20 something at work, avid reader asks “Have you read Lonesome Dove?”
Me: “I have the book on my shelf in my office”
He proceded to look over my collection I keep at work which in includes Robert Ruark works about Africa and big game hunting. He was delighted.
Do other people have their shelf in your office.
Yes, obviously.
It could be on the shelf in my locker, which isn’t in my office?
Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian: The Complete Weird Tales Omnibus. Excellent edition that reprints the stories we all love in the original published format, along with original illustrations, cover art, and, as an added bonus, additional stories from some of Howards other cycles.
I need to find this.
Me too
Paperback and hardcover on Amazon.
https://a.co/d/0dEXHZTV
Thats the one!
I actually read books when I was on vacation. I need to write it up for the next go-round.
“Matthew Buchholz: Night of the Monsters – This is a “Decide Your Fate” book.”
In elem school I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books. They were so much fun. I forget if I played them to ‘win’ or what, but a fun influence. IIRC they kinda stopped making those. (Mostly cuz kids are illiterate?)
Curious and exciting these still exist. I’m really bad at reading books. I’m fairly embarrassed with myself about it.
UFO 54-40 is a Choose Your Own Adventure with a trick ending. The goal is to get to the paradise planet Ultima, but the instructions at the beginning say you can’t get there by making choices or following directions.
Turns out the only way to get there is to just read the book straight through until you get to Ultima. There’s no path of choices that lead there, just like it said in the beginning. It seemed kind of clever and I was always the sort of kid to read such books all the way through out of curiosity and because I didn’t like skipping around.
Last month I read a book about name meanings and a collection of quotes. There were some amusing nuggets in both. James Bond basically means deceitful slave.
Finished For Whom the Bell Tolls and, got dam, it lives up to its reputation. Damn fine novel. Picked up East of Eden which I hadn’t read since HS. So far as good as I remember, with different things come out at me. Also, picked up a collection of William Hope Hodgeson stories Out of the Storm and have been feeling the need for some Cormac and some Flannery. Get that old Southern Dread going.
Ive started to reread things from younger days to see how they impact now.
A few years ago I re-read some Vonnegut, they did not hold up well against teenager Hype’s memory of them. I decided not to revisit books after that.
Asimov for me.
I read an Asminov textbook once.
It was more lively than his fiction.
“The End of Eternity” is the only Asimov that holds up for me. I still re-read it.
I grew up pre-television and until I was about 40 or so hadn’t watched much TV. By then my kids were growing up and we spent a lot of time watching the family time shows, etc. Kids watched after school, evenings we watched the networks.
Now for the past 20-30 years I haven’t watched much TV, a little news and not much more. Now I spend much more time reading, winters are long and quiet, Mrs F watches her faves, home shopping, cooking, etc.
100s of channels, lots of reruns of old programs that I had enjoyed but now not much interest.
“Twitter was founded 20 years ago this month. Take a look at some of the greatest posts of all time.”
David Burge and skin-suiting is one of ’em! I love Musk’s “How much is it?” reply to “You should buy [Twitter]. I agree with (I think Mo?) that his buying Twitter was a remarkably powerful charitable donation (the biggest?) to mankind.
https://notthebee.com/article/twitter-turned-20-years-old-this-month-take-a-look-at-some-of-the-goats-from-over-the-years?from_social=twitter
Hillary posted a pic of herself in grade school: “Happy birthday to this future president.” — Oct 26, 2016
Awww. That’s gotta smart. I’m pleased she’s miserable and silent. Or I hope that’s why she’s silent. (I don’t hear from her.) I’m sure she luxuriates with the best of ’em, but I doubt she can shake that loss. And Biden taking her place. And Kamala taking her place. I’m sure she’s thrilled that word-munch blender lost.
No Johnny Tremaine for RJ?
I’ve been looking for a copy of Dept of Queer Complaints (televised as Colonel March of Scotland Yard with Karloff in the title role). I was able to find one in an Armed Services Edition on EBay which led me down a rabbit hole. Surprising to find good conditions of a series that was designed for cheap portability during WWII. Surprising range of titles, both fiction and non fiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Services_Editions
I remember liking that in 4th grade. That’d be interesting (and quick) to reread. I may need a dictionary.
I hated the ever-loving shit out of it.
My English class superpower was figuring out a way to (usually) pass the class without reading the many works I hated. The only year I did decent was the Brit Lit year.
Kid melts part of his hand together and kinda joins the Revolution? That’s all I remember, I think. He was following his brother or dad or something, and kinda did something semi important. *checks wiki*
Yeah. I loved history and Calvin & Hobbes. That story is rad as hell for a young boy. I don’t recall the quality of writing or any of the writer’s intent or anything. Kid w melted hand goes and fights Brits. *reads cover-to-cover*
I saw an acronym “FLEFF” on the theater marquee across the street thinking it might be the annual shout-your-abortion festival but this is something different that I don’t recall from previous years. Some sort of “environmental”, “sustainability” hoo-ha.
But holy crap this is peak present time and place.
When it isn’t shout your abortion around here, it’s shout your mental illness.
“MI
GRA
TIONS”
Limits of Math, 9 mins
Lay Yourself Down, 7 mins
Old Fair Lights, 8 mins
Grey Kitty, 7 mins”
Go. Fuck. Yourself. I want none of your fablesque animal-character-story-world. Nor your fucking hyphen overuse. I’m already getting guilty of that and I don’t need to lay myself down to fucking count, you cunt, directer “John Scott.”
I kinda love this world. Their existence itself is meta-ironically making fun of itself. But a fucking bird on it.
Put.
So after a surfing accident she was unable to do anything except find herself through dreams? I am all for art and expression…but it needs to have a story arc that isn’t just stupid.
That sounds like an incredibly boring book.
ELAINE: Oh, this is the one Vincent told me about. The Pain And The Yearning.
(reads from the box) ‘An old woman experiences pain and yearning.’ A hundred
and ninety-two minutes?
KRAMER: That’s a lotta yearning, huh?
ELAINE: You know, these movies are great, but they’re just so emotionally
exhausting.
KRAMER: Yeah, well, what you need is some summertime adolescent high jinx.
Hand/glove
I asked the girl from high school I’ve been in love with for twenty years whether she’d have kids with me.
She did not discount it. 40 years old soon, both of us.
I proposed: have a child with me, I will pay for everything. What’s the worst that can happen, she can’t conceive?
18+ years of financial pain as she runs off with child and claiming you cannot see he/her would be worst that can happen brah
*and emotional pain…
This.
You, alone, paying the lion’s share of what you make, and no contact.
That’s the worst that can happen. And often does.
We’ve been involved. If I were half a man I’d have put a baby in her ten years ago.
Do it.
Get her diet cleaned up because it’s going to be hard to conceive and carry a baby at 40.
Stevia alone reduces the chance of pregnancy something like 50-60%
it’s going to be hard to conceive and carry a baby at 40
yup
/guy laying next to his pregnant wife on her last day of her 30s*
Trashy, that’s awesome.
Congrats.
Of all the things we learned.
She probably has low magnesium.
Eat more meat
Eat more animal fat
Get early morning and evening sun
Plants are abortifaciants…
We learned far too late in our pregnancy battle.
Yep, she’s on a magnesium supplement. The issue has been finding any food that doesn’t cause indigestion, but those symptoms have mellowed as she has weaned off the supplemental progesterone.
Maybe I’ll make her some steak for her birthday tomorrow. she’ll probably ask for Tex-mex. Either way, meat’s back on the menu, boys!
Eighteen years, eighteen years
And on the 18th birthday, he found out it wasn’t his?
🎶
congratulation trshfmly!
Congratulations Trashy! That’s great news.
Have you considered going on a date with her?
I wonder what I’m doing every morning waking up, no kids, no wife. what’s there to look forward to? Coming home to what?
Life can’t be worse than this.
I had
My
First at 40
Wish we had started a decade earlier too.
*looks down at ring finger*
Yeah….
(It’s not all ball and chains! And not all roses either)
You’re dodging the question.
Peace and quiet is massively underrated, though I understand how they can also be boring especially if there’s still a lot you want to see and do.
Pretty much the only reason I want kids of my own is that they seem to make people happier in the long run, but there are no guarantees in that either.
Part of the reason why I tried teaching again was I thought it was good practice for parenting. My teaching career in the US is on indefinite hiatus after my last failure. Not having to put up with misbehaving teenagers is another advantage of trucking.
I’ve done pretty much everything I’ve wanted to do, so I’ve gotten more used to living a peaceful, simple life. We’re all just muddling along. If you’ve had more good times than bad, you’re lucky.
There are a lot of unhappy marriages and parents out there, and you have no way of knowing ahead if you’ll end up like them. It seems silly to envy people who might be secretly miserable.
A close relative told me he decided to get a vasectomy after his toddler threw up in his new truck. I laugh whenever I think of that story.
I volunteered on the side at an orphanage when I was in Africa, and seeing how deprived those kids were made me think long and hard about the hard realities of parenthood. Every adult who helps a child is a parent in some kind of way.
some related thoughts
Men have the option of having kids later in life, but that requires a younger woman and usually the man is rich and famous.
I’d still like to have kids of my own, though that seems increasingly unlikely now that I’m 41 and not particularly rich or attractive. If I end up as a bare branch, oh well. There are worse fates.
Divorce ruins many married men. If the laws weren’t so unfair, I’d consider it.
My cousin had kids out of wedlock on purpose, and it seems to have worked out. He broke up with the mother briefly, but they came to an understanding.
Based on what you wrote, sure, go on a date with her, etc. Operation Fatherhood might be a bridge too far.
I’ll add that it’s perfectly natural to want to reproduce as that’s what every other animal that lives long enough tries to do.
suggested music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xat1GVnl8-k