What good book have you read lately? (New or old)

[gattaca]

I came across Swimming in the Dark, the debut novel by gay author Tomasz Jedrowski. It was published early this year. It's a very absorbing story of two young Polish men.

Swimming in the Dark has an extra resonance now as the populist right-wing government has used a homophobic scare campaign with the collaboration of the Catholic Church to win elections and works to roll back what little legal protection there was for LGBTIQ people.

Ultimately, I think you enjoyed the book, "Swimming in the Dark"?

It certainly has tremendous, stellar feedback -> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49977811-swimming-in-the-dark

Several references to being in the same league as CMBYN and BBM...

Do you still recommend reading this one these few years later?   V.

[tfferg]

Ultimately, I think you enjoyed the book, "Swimming in the Dark"?

It certainly has tremendous, stellar feedback -> https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49977811-swimming-in-the-dark

Several references to being in the same league as CMBYN and BBM...

Do you still recommend reading this one these few years later?   V.

Yes, Vince. The reason I found it absorbing was not simply because of what was going on in Poland in 2020.

[gattaca]

^^^ TY. I just added it to my must read kindle listing.  I’ll hit the audio/book whispersync.   Did you get the audible form too by chance?  I like to read while at the gym and so I mostly listen and read along when I can while on the ellipticals.   V.

[tfferg]

No, I usually buy books, sometimes borrow from the public library. I read on an e-book when we go to stay in Thailand.

I lashed out and ordered four books the other day. I'm hoping at least three of them will be delivered this week.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Most of the books I've been reading lately have come from our local thrift store that supports a number of AIDS charities. Some are clearly brand new and never read, and I've gotten them for 99 cents each, and sometimes two for 99 cents. 

[tfferg]

win-win!

[michaelflanagansf]

Here's an interesting article (with interesting links) from the BBC on banned books:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220921-the-dangerous-books-too-powerful-to-read

[gattaca]

^^^ Thanks for posting that enlightening article. 

BLUF: There are religious factions will stop at nothing to ban books and ideas they do not sprout or agree with. Everyone else's rights be damned!  You don't want to read the book, then don't pick it up!   

Given JD Salinger's history of being super reclusive, this sale is not not shocking... " an ultra-rare signed Catcher in the Rye (£225,000 / $264,000)"   I wrote a couple papers about CITR years ago....

I do not recall if I had to "obtain my parent's permission" to read the book in HS. I do recall there was an uproar every now and then about some book the local HS school library had to "lock up"... and I do recall there being a "with parent's permission only" list.  Seems like even "The Great Gatsby" was "locked up".

With the internet available today, once kids have access to that, it's very hard to police what they can read..though I can see some bat-shit crazy parent's doing just that.  They would be better off spending time teaching them how to "decide and think for themselves" vs following some person or dogma. V.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I do not recall if I had to "obtain my parent's permission" to read the book in HS. I do recall there was an uproar every now and then about some book the local HS school library had to "lock up"... and I do recall there being a "with parent's permission only" list.

I guess in some times and some places it went even further than books. I remember when I was still in elementary school we had to have permission to watch some sort of broadcast of the movie A Raisin in the Sun. (Love that movie, BTW. Great performances all around.)

[Lyle (Mooska)]

Vincent alluded to this, that the internet has so much dubious content on it and is more a danger than any banned book ever was or could be.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Vincent alluded to this, that the internet has so much dubious content on it and is more a danger than any banned book ever was or could be.

Sure enough!

[killersmom]

^^^ Thanks for posting that enlightening article. 

BLUF: There are religious factions will stop at nothing to ban books and ideas they do not sprout or agree with. Everyone else's rights be damned!  You don't want to read the book, then don't pick it up!   

Given JD Salinger's history of being super reclusive, this sale is not not shocking... " an ultra-rare signed Catcher in the Rye (£225,000 / $264,000)"   I wrote a couple papers about CITR years ago....

I do not recall if I had to "obtain my parent's permission" to read the book in HS. I do recall there was an uproar every now and then about some book the local HS school library had to "lock up"... and I do recall there being a "with parent's permission only" list.  Seems like even "The Great Gatsby" was "locked up".

With the internet available today, once kids have access to that, it's very hard to police what they can read..though I can see some bat-shit crazy parent's doing just that.  They would be better off spending time teaching them how to "decide and think for themselves" vs following some person or dogma. V.

My born again christian sister was one of those bat shit crazy parents. This coming from someone who got pregnant in Catholic high school and changed the year of the birth of her daughter so she wouldn't find out, which her daughter did, because she wasn't stupid. Then she proceeded to try to find out who in the family 'told' her daughter.

Unfortunately I am related to someone like this!!

[gattaca]

^^^ Fret not, you are not alone!   I have a whole "community" still prowling about where I'm from. 

Luckily, I mostly escaped their grasp into college but that was not soon enough - looking back all these years later.  It is interesting to watch their reaction when they start quoting "scriptures" and I start tossing that dogma crap back in their faces.

That's a very interesting story about your BAC sister! I bet she did some real "Linda Blare" contortions to "justify/aka lie" on her daughter's birth certificate!   We've talked many times in the past, these folks can "justify" anything, any sin they commit and write it off in their minds and dogma - which is what make'm all lame hypocrites.   Don't lie is pretty damn simple..and there you go.   Round and round the drain we go...  V.

[tfferg]

The Dangerous Kingdom of Love by Neil Blackmore is a very intriguing novel. The author very cleverly and freely imagines the twisting thoughts and feelings of the first-person narrator, the homosexual English politician, philosopher and writer Sir Francis Bacon as he plots to survive against deadly political enemies in the court of James I.

When these enemies centred around the king's vicious toy boy, Robert Carr form an alliance against him, he conspires with the neglected queen to find a beguiling young man to oust him from the king's bed, but the outcomes, both political and personal, are far beyond his control.

Neil Blackmore paints a very vivid, earthy picture of England at the time and the complexity of the characters as he imagines them. The prose is very readable. His dramatic story focuses on the need for power and the patronage of the powerful at a time when homosexuals could not live freely in loving relationships.

The novel was inspired by historical facts but its s greatly fictionalised. Although Neil Blackmore claims in his Author's Note that it is a true story, he signals that the truths are far from literal when he deliberately has his characters sometimes use modern words.

As he reminds us, the real Francis Bacon changed the world. His Francis Bacon rightly fears that all his books would have been utterly destroyed and lost to us if he had been charged with sodomy.

[michaelflanagansf]

Just read about this today - apparently the Internet Archive has an archive of vintage cookbooks:

https://www.openculture.com/2022/10/10000-vintage-recipe-books-are-now-digitized-by-the-internet-archive.html