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A strange foray into the Google archives has given me everything from: "the tie--look at its shape--is a PHALLIC symbol. and thus is worn by thepatrirchal overlord elite in their shitty business dealings which are raping Planet Earth" to "I was told many years ago by a school teacher that men wore ties in order to hide buttons!". So.. I don't think anyone knows. Though, the hiding buttons one makes a certain amount of sense to me.

The fashion sense of patriarchal overlords notwithstanding, isn't the tie just too thin and floppy to make a convincing phallic symbol? As for covering buttons, why? What's wrong with buttons? Isaac suggested that ties were used to cover cheap buttons, while the rich and powerful displayed their splendid bejeweled fasteners to the world. Problem is, there is plenty of evidence that rich men wore ties too. Would they do that if it were a sign that they wore stinky cheapo buttons?

 

I'm still stumped,

-Thoth.

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Hi Christina,

 

I am an amateur student of historic costume...

Perhaps you could shed some light on my tie problem? (see above)

A couple of notes you might be interested in--our instructor was a very full-figured woman (BBW), and she said that wearing a corset was far more comfortable for her than wearing any kind of bra, because it supported her around her torso, rather than putting all the weight on her shoulders. It also gave her a more flattering silhouette.

My dear departed mom was a BBW and seemed to have similar opinions. Thinking back, the "girdle" she wore had metal stays and was so "full" that she would often wear it without a bra. But she stopped doing that in the 70s. Empathy with the women's movement perhaps. To be candid, we never actually talked about her undergarments.

As you might already know, there is a subculture of corset-wearers, and if you want more information about what it's like to wear a corset regularly, you might search online for groups to question. Here's one Web site: http://www.romantasy.com I know there are lots more.

Thanks. (Girlie pictures!) Actually, I know this Goth Girl (she calls herself that) who often wears a black lace-fringed corset on the outside, not as an undergarment. In a way, it's quite fetching. I once asked her about it but got no real answer beyond, "why, don't you like it," which put me in the defensive. I suppose she's just part of the subculture of (rebel anarchist) corset-wearers you spoke of.

There's a man in Paris known as Mr. Pearl who makes super-expensive custom corsets for Dita Von Teese...

FYI: Thomas Paine, a.k.a the architect of the American Revolution was apprenticed to his father, a corset maker, at 13, but as an adult failed at this and went into other lines of work, fortunately for America. However, you can still find Paine Corsets (no pun here) at the better underwear museums around the country and (oh yes) at the Smithsonian (Women's Garments mid-1700s).

 

Happy in my BVDs (Bradley, Voorhees & Day),

-Thoth.

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The fashion sense of patriarchal overlords notwithstanding, isn't the tie just too thin and floppy to make a convincing phallic symbol? As for covering buttons, why? What's wrong with buttons? Isaac suggested that ties were used to cover cheap buttons, while the rich and powerful displayed their splendid bejeweled fasteners to the world. Problem is, there is plenty of evidence that rich men wore ties too. Would they do that if it were a sign that they wore stinky cheapo buttons?

 

I'm still stumped,

-Thoth.

When did the modern tie actually appear? (Christina?) I have Costumes and Settings for Historical Plays for the 19th century at the moment, and almost all the men are wearing either cravats (up to the 1830s), modified cravats with huge bows (1830-1860 or so), or bow ties. Only one guy from the end of the century has anything like a modern tie, and that's full and bright (flowers or paisley, hard to tell), more like an ascot. None of the neckwear would hide buttons.

 

Costume in Detail, 1730-1930 shows one guy in something that could be considered a tie from 1835, but all the "details" are from women's clothes, so that doesn't address the question of when men's ties took on their current form.

 

From these books, I'd guess that there was a progression: cravat --> cravat with bow --> bow alone --> bow tie with longer threads --> knotted tie. In any case, I doubt buttons had much to do with anything, because even working men wore scarves knotted around their necks and collarless shirts, not modern ties, up to 1900 at least. (Think of the colliers and street Cockneys in My Fair Lady.)

 

BTW, that story about the boys' boarding school turns out to be, almost certainly, apocryphal. That is, there are a series of letters reporting versions of the tale, but all the schools are conveniently "faraway," somewhere on the Continent near naughty Paris or Vienna (England or the US, if you happened to live in Paris or Vienna), where pretty, buxom, dominatrix schoolmistresses (in 7-inch stiletto-heeled boots? Jeri Ryan would be so proud!) give wild young boys the discipline they so sorely need. Now if one of them had gotten hold of Eliot Spitzer....

 

Sorry to contribute to the flow of misinformation. :D

M

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When did the modern tie actually appear? (Christina?) I have Costumes and Settings for Historical Plays for the 19th century at the moment, and almost all the men are wearing either cravats (up to the 1830s), modified cravats with huge bows (1830-1860 or so), or bow ties. Only one guy from the end of the century has anything like a modern tie, and that's full and bright (flowers or paisley, hard to tell), more like an ascot. None of the neckwear would hide buttons.

 

Costume in Detail, 1730-1930 shows one guy in something that could be considered a tie from 1835, but all the "details" are from women's clothes, so that doesn't address the question of when men's ties took on their current form.

 

From these books, I'd guess that there was a progression: cravat --> cravat with bow --> bow alone --> bow tie with longer threads --> knotted tie. In any case, I doubt buttons had much to do with anything, because even working men wore scarves knotted around their necks and collarless shirts, not modern ties, up to 1900 at least. (Think of the colliers and street Cockneys in My Fair Lady.)

 

BTW, that story about the boys' boarding school turns out to be, almost certainly, apocryphal. That is, there are a series of letters reporting versions of the tale, but all the schools are conveniently "faraway," somewhere on the Continent near naughty Paris or Vienna (England or the US, if you happened to live in Paris or Vienna), where pretty, buxom, dominatrix schoolmistresses (in 7-inch stiletto-heeled boots? Jeri Ryan would be so proud!) give wild young boys the discipline they so sorely need. Now if one of them had gotten hold of Eliot Spitzer....

 

Sorry to contribute to the flow of misinformation. :D

M

 

I think the subject of ties has become officially too much like homework for me. Let's just accept that the evil alien overlords subjected us to them centuries ago, and their true purpose has been lost.

 

Now, about my business plan to recycle unmatched socks into neck ties...

 

IF

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Now, about my business plan to recycle unmatched socks into neck ties...

IF

Are you taking donations? My son has a positive genius for mislaying socks (perhaps they get into duels to the death over who's more stinky in a sneaker). :D

 

Duels ... there'll be duels in someone's novel, right? I know there's one in mine....

 

No socks, though. Wrong period. :)

M

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Lady M, with all your excellent research sources on period clothes I was expecting a definitive tie coup de grâce. It almost seems like you're saying that the reason men wear ties (now) is habit. True, my elementary school and middle school required them, and so did my Wall Street job. And I usually wear one when meeting clients. Why? And why do so many people still believe that not wearing one marks you as unprofessional? I'd like to believe that this is changing but, it seems, only at the top strata of business.

My son has a positive genius for mislaying socks (perhaps they get into duels to the death over who's more stinky in a sneaker).

So long as he's not into corsets (literally) you're okay. (No comment on Founding Father Thomas Paine being s corset maker?)

 

As for where the socks really go (Isaac) it has been established that many of them turn up under the metal basket of the dryer, above the lint trap. How they wind up there has something to do with physics, geometry and dryer architecture.

 

You're right, Isaac, this is getting too much like homework. So let me propose an alternate explanation: The rotating metal basket of the dryer intersects with Earth's magnetic field during solar flares thus evolving the microbial life on each sock and imbuing each little being with intelligence. Having intelligence they naturally declare war on the neighboring sock-world and utterly destroying it, reducing it to fodder for the lint trap. Intelligence being an evolutionary dead end, the sock people kill themselves (via pollution, global-sock warming, what-have-you) leaving your single sock fresh and clean.

 

See? Galactic Overlords aren't needed to explain everything. Just why the price of gas is up while demand is decreasing and reserves are high.

 

What Am I Reading? At the moment, this forum.

-Thoth.

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You're right, Isaac, this is getting too much like homework. So let me propose an alternate explanation: The rotating metal basket of the dryer intersects with Earth's magnetic field during solar flares thus evolving the microbial life on each sock and imbuing each little being with intelligence. Having intelligence they naturally declare war on the neighboring sock-world and utterly destroying it, reducing it to fodder for the lint trap. Intelligence being an evolutionary dead end, the sock people kill themselves (via pollution, global-sock warming, what-have-you) leaving your single sock fresh and clean.

 

At first this sounded kinda hokey, but then when I thought about it, it made perfect sense. When ever I wash socks, my lint filter has an abnormal amount of lint caught in it. I think I have a new outlook on life.

 

See? Galactic Overlords aren't needed to explain everything. Just why the price of gas is up while demand is decreasing and reserves are high.

 

I said Alien Overlords. I would not presume to imply that we are important enough for our Galactic Overlords to influence with such menial fashion, and I wish nothing but the best for them and promise to have that little assignment finished by next Tuesday.

 

What Am I Reading? At the moment, this forum.

 

Not that it matters, but I've been sporadically rereading Restaurant at the End of the Universe. After 15 or 20 years, the details were a little fuzzy, so I picked it up again. Hard to believe I had it on my bookshelf for that long.

 

How do you balance reading with writing? I find that I'm either doing one or the other, and rarely see a night where I do both.

 

IF

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Just to expand our corset, sock, tie, alien-overlord reading-list thread just a wee bit, and because you mentioned it, how would you compare the old 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series to the 2005 movie? Compare and contrast in 250 words or less. Or not.

 

Read and re-read the series many time. Always loved it.

Interesting that no one in this group reads (or admits to reading) graphic novels. If you're looking for something serious, consider Maus by Art Spiegelman. Not your usual cat & mouse fair.

Pass the toenuts.

-Thoth.

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Just to expand our corset, sock, tie, alien-overlord reading-list thread just a wee bit, and because you mentioned it, how would you compare the old 1981 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series to the 2005 movie? Compare and contrast in 250 words or less. Or not.

 

Forty two.

 

IF

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It might seem a bit convenient, but the question has to do with sock-tie, corset wearing aliens who don't know what time it is.

And the time is forty-two? Is that Eastern Standard Time or Pan Galactic Time?

 

Resplendent in my sock-tie and corset (and nothing else),

-Thoth.

 

What the heck am I reading?

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Lady M, with all your excellent research sources on period clothes I was expecting a definitive tie coup de grâce. It almost seems like you're saying that the reason men wear ties (now) is habit. True, my elementary school and middle school required them, and so did my Wall Street job. And I usually wear one when meeting clients. Why? And why do so many people still believe that not wearing one marks you as unprofessional? I'd like to believe that this is changing but, it seems, only at the top strata of business.

So sorry to disappoint, but habit explains much, don't you think? :)

 

So long as he's not into corsets (literally) you're okay. (No comment on Founding Father Thomas Paine being s corset maker?)

If he is, I don't wanna know. There is a lovely Freudian touch to balancing Thomas Paine's revolutionary zeal and corset making. Break your chains, but not your stays! :P

 

As for where the socks really go (Isaac) it has been established that many of them turn up under the metal basket of the dryer, above the lint trap. How they wind up there has something to do with physics, geometry and dryer architecture.

My favorite explanation of this comes from a cartoon (New Yorker? I think so) where a befuddled astronaut is standing next to his Lunar Entry Module saying, "Houston, I think we've found the missing socks." Alien overlords indeed.

 

On balancing reading with writing (since I haven't figured out how to quote more than one post at the same time), how else is one going to procrastinate when the Storyists aren't online? Reading is, like, research, right? Yeah, right.

 

On which, I'm now 300 pages into Vanity Fair, have decided that Stanislavski is just too comically Russian for words ("You must take a correct approach to your work"—he doesn't say "Comrades" but he might as well), and have contributed exactly nothing to the new novel this weekend. But I have compiled a list of agents for the first novel and am trying to prepare myself for rejection.

 

Feel free to pile on the support, "Comrades."

M

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So sorry to disappoint, but habit explains much, don't you think? :)

Not disappointed at all. Just saddened that we, as a species, find it difficult to break old bad habits. (Genetics?)

If he is, I don't wanna know.

Ah. Modern parenting.

There is a lovely Freudian touch to balancing Thomas Paine's revolutionary zeal and corset making. Break your chains, but not your stays! :P

I thought you'd go for the pun. Paine and pain?

My favorite explanation of this comes from a cartoon (New Yorker? I think so) where a befuddled astronaut is standing next to his Lunar Entry Module saying, "Houston, I think we've found the missing socks." Alien overlords indeed.

Let us not dismiss the alien overlords out of hand. They hate that.

 

I seem to remember a New Yorker cartoon from around the time Raiders of the Lost Ark came out (1981?). Indiana Jones (or a facsimile thereof) opens the ark (or possibly a treasure chest) and it's filled with (you guessed it) dirty old socks. I don't remember the text. (The socks of the Covenant?) But I remember laughing.

I'm now 300 pages into Vanity Fair, have decided that Stanislavski is just too comically Russian for words ("You must take a correct approach to your work"—he doesn't say "Comrades" but he might as well)...

300 down and 436 to go.

...and have contributed exactly nothing to the new novel this weekend. But I have compiled a list of agents for the first novel and am trying to prepare myself for rejection.

Researching agents and editors is time well spent. Underspent by most writers, IMHO. There's no faster way to a rejection slip than to send the right manuscript to the wrong editor. ("But we don't publish that sort of book.") And don't forget presentation. Clean, uncrimped 20-pound bond white, unbound. 12-point fonts, double spaced, 1 inch margins, and so forth. Laser print if you can. Electronic submission (PDF) if they'll let you. The poor things are reading all day and are looking for reasons for rejection. You'll never see "Hard To Read" in a rejection slip but I've read that it's the single greatest reason for instant rejection. But you know all this.

 

And since we're in the What Are You Reading thread, might I suggest The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. It begins with a hilarious rejection letter that basically states that the submission is just too good for the publisher and would make all their other publications look bed in comparison.

 

It's a wacky world.

-Thoth.

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I thought you'd go for the pun. Paine and pain?

But Christina our Corset Guru says the corsets aren't painful.... :)

Let us not dismiss the alien overlords out of hand. They hate that.

Au contraire, I meant to imply that the Alien Overlords had placed the socks on the moon. How else would they have gotten there before the astronauts? :P

Researching agents and editors is time well spent. Underspent by most writers, IMHO. There's no faster way to a rejection slip than to send the right manuscript to the wrong editor. ("But we don't publish that sort of book.") And don't forget presentation. Clean, uncrimped 20-pound bond white, unbound. 12-point fonts, double spaced, 1 inch margins, and so forth. Laser print if you can. Electronic submission (PDF) of they'll let you. The poor things are reading all day and are looking for reasons for rejection. You'll never see "Hard To Read" in a rejection slip but I've read that it's the single greatest reason for instant rejection. But you know all this.

 

And since we're in the What Are You Reading thread, might I suggest The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. It begins with a hilarious rejection letter that basically states that the submission is just too good for the publisher and would make all their other publications look bad in comparison.

 

It's a wacky world.

-Thoth.

Did I somehow forget to mention Lukeman's book somewhere? Yes, that rejection letter is, in its own bizarre way, brilliant. Chinese, as I recall. The rest of the book has little to do with the first five pages, but very useful all the same (if not as useful as Nancy somebody's Beginnings, Middles, and Ends, which I think I listed somewhere in this thread in the pre-corset days). He was the one who revealed to me just how tough the odds against acceptance are. And it's worse now. One of the sites I looked at gets 50 queries/day; another pulls in 1,000/month. It's a wonder anyone gets published.

 

The fascinating part of checking all these agents' sites is how many of them now take only e-mail submissions, which used to be considered evidence of authorial laziness. Of course, it means that since I can't assume they're all smart enough to own Macs, I have to convert all my em-dashes and quote marks, but still, it's a kind of tectonic shift. I guess it's easier for them to hit the delete button than ignore paper, which is a bit depressing, though.

 

Six e-mail queries down, three more to send today, and two snail mail queries to print (one agency is a holdout, accepting only snail mail, and the other has done such a job on their website I can't figure out what they want in an e-mail submission). Then maybe I'll have time for the new book, or at least time to scratch my head wondering if I need to add a scene to the crucial first chapter of the old one just in case any of these folk want to see it. Sigh.

Best,

M

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But Christina our Corset Guru says the corsets aren't painful.... :)

I'm sure she's right. Women love to have their internal organs rearranged by steel and whale bone. But as she pointed out, that's only when the corsets are too tight. But as Bettie Page has said: "If it's not too tight it isn't doing its job."

Au contraire, I meant to imply that the Alien Overlords had placed the socks on the moon. How else would they have gotten there before the astronauts? :P

Magic? In any event, I'm sure the Alien Overlords are please by your acknowledgment of their efforts. (Count your socks!)

Did I somehow forget to mention Lukeman's book somewhere?

Nope. Just not in this thread. I mentioned him for other readers of this thread. See below.

Noah Lukeman, The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile.

Not really about the first five pages, despite the title, but one agent's guide to what he looks for in assessing a manuscript. Good if sobering insights into the realities of publishing--most notably Lukeman's initial assertion that the agent/editor wants to find a reason to reject your submission, so s/he can move on to the next 400 in the pile, so you have to do everything you can not to give him/her a reason to do just that.

... He was the one who revealed to me just how tough the odds against acceptance are. And it's worse now. One of the sites I looked at gets 50 queries/day; another pulls in 1,000/month. It's a wonder anyone gets published.

It's enough to break your heart, if not your spirit.

The fascinating part of checking all these agents' sites is how many of them now take only e-mail submissions, which used to be considered evidence of authorial laziness.

More likely cheap bosses who wouldn't spring for computers and e-mail. These days computers are indispensable everywhere. There was this place, "Ye Olde Candy Shoppe" on Water Street (Manhatten) which pulled out all the stops to appear like something out of the 1800s, even to the point of putting their staff in period clothes. They put a computer on the counter to do point of sale inventory.

Six e-mail queries down, three more to send today, and two snail mail queries to print (one agency is a holdout, accepting only snail mail, and the other has done such a job on their website I can't figure out what they want in an e-mail submission). Then maybe I'll have time for the new book, or at least time to scratch my head wondering if I need to add a scene to the crucial first chapter of the old one just in case any of these folk want to see it. Sigh.

Keep on truckin'. We're all proud of you.

-Thoth.

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And since we're in the What Are You Reading thread, might I suggest The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. It begins with a hilarious rejection letter that basically states that the submission is just too good for the publisher and would make all their other publications look bed in comparison.

 

It's a wacky world.

-Thoth.

For those who don't want to spring for Lukeman's book just to read the letter, here it is:

 

Most honorable Sir,

We perused your MS with boundless delight. And we hurry to swear by our ancestors we have never read any other that equals its mastery. Were we to publish your work, we could never presume again on our public and name to print books of a standard not up to yours. For we cannot imagine that the next ten thousand years will offer its ectype. We must therefore refuse your work that shines as it were in the sky and beg you a thousand times to pardon our fault which impairs but our own offices.

—Publishers

 

I know it's only 2008, but does that win the B.S. of the Century Award, or not?

 

Lukeman attributes it to Louis Zukofsky's A, so I can't swear to its authenticity, but really, who cares? It's a tour de force, whoever created it. :P

Marguerite

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For those who don't want to spring for Lukeman's book just to read the letter, here it is...

...I know it's only 2008, but does that win the B.S. of the Century Award, or not?

We underestimate the quality and quantity of Chinese B.S, at our own peril. But I happen to think that there are some pretty good American contenders as well.

 

The sleeping dragon wakes.

-Thoth.

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  • 2 months later...

Stephen R. Donaldson's Mordant's Need series: (The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through). Epic fantasy (in only two volumes) at its best. Just finished today.

 

Read it as a recommendation after a huge disappointment in Pullman's Golden Compass debacle. I usually loathe to read series fantasy because it is usually nth books long, big investment of time, and the author is usually 70 something (like Robert Jordan). So two volumes seemed a safe bet.

 

If you like fantasy, pick this up. It is plot, plot, plot.

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  • 6 months later...

Since nobody has posted anything to this thread for months--what, no one has time to read books? :mellow:--I thought I'd revive it. A heavy concentration on Muscovite military history and 16th-century Tataria, you'll see, but there are other books here, too.

 

Recently Finished

John Truby, The Anatomy of Story.

My current favorite "craft" book. It took me forever to get through it; and having reached the end, all I want to do is go back to the beginning. I figure if I read it about four times, the ideas may start to click. Yes, the idea of reducing a novel to 22 steps makes my fingers curl; and I suspect the book works best for pantsers, who will never pay it heed for long enough to make the implementation of the 22 steps mechanical. And like most writing books that use copious examples from great screenplays and literature, I end up wondering how much of the argument is ex post facto. Still, as a way of understanding what contributes to an organic story and builds dramatic tension, Truby's analysis is clearer and more helpful than any other I've encountered.

 

Martin Cruz Smith, Stalin's Ghost

If you liked Gorky Park, this is Arkady Renko in postcommunist Russia. I was fascinated until our hero bounced out of his hospital bed, having suffered a bullet to the brain, and ran around Tver chasing bad guys, at which point my plausibility detector kept beeping and I could no longer take the story seriously.

 

Alexander Filjushkin, Ivan the Terrible: A Military History

Very interesting, and fills a big gap in the literature. Unfortunately the author seems to have written the book in English and the copy editor presumably did not know Russian, rendering the results incomprehensible in places even to people familiar with the period and both languages. Has lots of information, though. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Livonians, and more.

 

And, although I may have mentioned this one previously (I read it first 20 years ago at least and reread it this past summer),

Cecilia Holland, Until the Sun Falls

A novel about the Mongol invasion of Russia, fascinating as a study of writing technique. Holland has one of the sparsest styles I've ever read--minimal description of thoughts, feelings, even settings. Just about everything is action, and yet the story is riveting and the characters are gradually revealed. Worth a dozen craft books, IMHO.

 

Current

German Fedorov-Davydov, The Silk Road and the Cities of the Golden Horde

A distillation of 50 years of archeological research aimed at the general public and thus offering pretty pictures of reconstructed pots and house plans instead of exhaustive descriptions of the 15 types of glaze found on sherds (yes, I read that one too!)

 

George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia

The grand old man of the field, but still the most comprehensive survey of its type.

 

Next Up

Elena Santangelo, By Blood Possessed

The sister of a local writer. I read a short story of hers here and was much impressed, so I'm looking forward to exploring a full-length mystery story. This happened to be the only one at my local library.

 

Sheila Paine, The Golden Horde: From the Himalaya to the Mediterranean

Not a history but a travelogue--I'm curious to see how many of the old customs remain in these regions.

 

BTW, I discovered while searching for Paine's name that Dreamcatcher has now put out a video game called The Golden Horde! It runs on Windows XP/Vista, so I won't be playing it, but if anyone wants to connect to his inner Genghis, here's his chance.

 

I also want to tackle Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, recommended by Sir Percy, the latest John Lecarré, and various books I received for Christmas, but those will have to wait for another post.

 

So, what are the rest of you reading these days?

Best,

Marguerite

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So you're a Terry Pratchett fan, I see. My son loves his books. I tried one but didn't get very far. Perhaps I wasn't in the right mood that day.

 

He also likes Orson Scott Card, whose novel Enchantment is one of my favorites. I'm always meaning to tackle the Ender series, but Genghis keeps muscling his way onto my book pile. :mellow:

M

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I thought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was good ("The trial was irretrievably over...all that remained was the summing up from the reporters..." that's how the book starts and it pretty much sets the tone) but word has it that The Girl Who Played with Fire is going to be better. We'll see.

 

More to my taste is Steven Pinker's The Stuff Of Thought. Hey, it's written by a Steve so it has to be good! This hefty tome (large print edition) is about language as a window into human nature. This is a feast of a book that attempts to explain how the mind works. I say "attempts" because Pinker seems to think that language is the "be all" of the human mind, and I disagree. He totally disregards the contributions of imagery and emotions to human thought. His arguments are pretty solid otherwise. But if you don't buy his assumptions you're not going to buy his conclusions. Still worth the read, though.

 

M, if Genghis (founder of the Mongol empire) and Attila (king of the Huns) were opponents, who would win? And if an EAO tried to put them in neckties or corsets, how would they respond? Please type your answers.

-Thoth.

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