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Bred Any Good Rooks Lately?

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Comments

  • KurbenKurben
    After the Dinosaurs by Donald Prothero. There has been so many oversight books on the Dinos but this is a rather recent book on the age of mammals. How they evolved from the tiny creatures that were mammals during the dinos reign and spent a lot of time hiding. The truly bizarre creatures that evolved in natures test room during the first 10 million years (the Paleocene) before the mammal families we know today started to take form. Primates is an exception, they actually existed before the extinction but looked more like a treeliving rodent (think small squirrel) and probably filled a similar ecological niche as the rodents would fill much later when they evolved. These Mammals were not big, the biggest predator perhaps the size of a dog but the top predators were still dinosaurs, the bird kind. Diatryma was a little over 2 meter high and built like an ostrich but much more muscle and bitepower. Its an interesting story and Prothero tells it well.
    GNTLGNTHedda GablerFlakeNoirNotaro
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ....then it's one them damn dinosaur squirrels that's wiping out my birdfeeder every day!!!.....
    KurbenHedda GablerFlakeNoirNotaro
  • KurbenKurben
    Read The Judas Window by Carter Dickson (pseudonym for John Dickson Carr) again. It must be one of the best locked room mysteries ever written. Faultlessly composed. Carr specialized in locked room mysteries. Most of them were very good and the best of them has not been surpassed. The Hollow Man and The Burning Court are other highlights in his production. He ought, i think, to get more regocnition as a master of his craft than he does.
    Hedda GablerGNTLGNTFlakeNoirNotaro
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    I love lock room stories. I think we’ve talked about him before, I need to find these books. 
    GNTLGNTKurbenFlakeNoirNotaro
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    Hedda Gabler said:
    I love lock room stories. I think we’ve talked about him before, I need to find these books. 
    ....Jesus, for a second I thought you said "lockeroom stories"....my eyesight and brain just shat themselves.....
    KurbenHedda GablerFlakeNoirNotaro
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    Hmmm. I’d read those too for research purposes. 
    GNTLGNTKurbenFlakeNoirNotaro
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ...."research".....

    YARN Nudge nudge wink wink say no more Monty Pythons Flying Circus 1969 - S01E03 Video gifs by quotes 2a2d5557
    KurbenHedda GablerFlakeNoirNotaro
  • KurbenKurben
    reading A New Lease Of Death by Ruth Rendell. Really good. Written in the time (late 60,s) when mysteries still were about 200 pages and still managed to get characters, athmosphere, plot and tension in there. A forgotten art nowadays. I kinda miss it. I'm not sure when that started to change.... I know that Rendell in her later books or latest is perhaps more fair had begun to show signs of the sickness so perhaps somewhere in the 80,s? Or even later? How some books that are published now even passes an editors desk is beyond me.
    Hedda GablerGNTLGNTFlakeNoirNotaro
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    Okay Bev Vincent, I got The Lost Bookshop. I hope it’s good. 
    GNTLGNTKurbenFlakeNoirNotaro
  • KurbenKurben
    At last i found it! An actual good book on the Pacific war in WW2. the ones i have read is either focused on one theatre like Iwo Jima or Midway or Pearl Harbour or else they are rather weighed in favour of the americans, what they experienced, what they felt. This one talks equally about the japanese and the americans and and has a prologue describing the ascent of the japanese warrior that put away his sword in the 1850 and 50 years later defeated Russia in both land and naval battles (1905). Teddy Roosevelt, president at the time, expressed admiration for the fighting spirit and humanity in their treatment of POW. Its interesting how just a few decades can change the tone so much. It doesnt hurt that he writes really well and has a good flow to the narrative. The book is Ian W. Tolls Pacific Crucible: War in the Pacific 1941-1942. First in a trilogy. I have the first two and will probably get the third.
    not_nadineFlakeNoirHedda GablerNotaro
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ....I'm sure there were POW's held by the Japanese that would argue that point if they were still alive....
    FlakeNoirKurbenHedda GablerNotaro
  • KurbenKurben
    GNTLGNT said:
    ....I'm sure there were POW's held by the Japanese that would argue that point if they were still alive....
    His comment were about how they treated the POWs in the russian war which was a big difference to the WW2. Then both Western and eastern sources close by agreed. Most POW survived because they got properly fed and medical care by orders of the emperor. We all know that changed to the WW2. Exactly why i havent found out jet. I can make some guesses that Japan had to shift all good men to the front lines to have a chance at the much bigger US army and that left the bottom scrapers left to attend to POW. I think at the end they even released some from mental hospitals to serve at POW camps so more men could go to the front. Also, this i dont know, the new emperor in place had less influence or less interest in following Bushidos demands when it comes to prisoners. As i read these books i hope to find out.
    FlakeNoirGNTLGNTHedda GablerNotaro
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ....I missed the "Russian" war intent....sorry old friend....yes, in the second big war they were only a smidge above savages.....
    KurbenFlakeNoirHedda GablerNotaro
  • SusanNortonSusanNorton
    Hedda Gabler said:
    I am reading Cher’s memoir.  I found this little paragraph she writes charming. I loved being a kid. 

    “My parents gave me a tricycle as a gift and THAT was truly my first set of wheels. I got on the seat, looked around, looked up at my parents, and thought, Okay, I think I've learned all I can from these people. It was like, time to go. And then I pedaled around the apartment complex and didn't actually go anywhere, but I had my wheels and I felt free.”

    If you get to pick which age you are in the afterlife, I want to be 10 forever.
    FlakeNoirHedda GablerGNTLGNTKurbenNotaro
  • SusanNortonSusanNorton
    FlakeNoir said:
    Hedda Gabler said:
    I am having a serious problem reading.  Focus gone, want to sleep. 
    I have reader's block. I hope it's not terminal. 🥺
    I was stuck for a few years. Re-reading favorite books was the only reading I did. The only things I've read lately are the Robert Galbraith books.
    FlakeNoirHedda GablerGNTLGNTKurbenNotaro
  • FlakeNoirFlakeNoir
    SusanNorton said:
    FlakeNoir said:
    Hedda Gabler said:
    I am having a serious problem reading.  Focus gone, want to sleep. 
    I have reader's block. I hope it's not terminal. 🥺
    I was stuck for a few years. Re-reading favorite books was the only reading I did. The only things I've read lately are the Robert Galbraith books.
    I'm not going to give up. Once upon a time reading was my greatest pastime. 📖 
    GNTLGNTSusanNortonHedda GablerKurbenNotaro
  • KurbenKurben
    Reading A Taste Of Sorrow by Jude Morgan. A historical novel about the Bronte Family. I have read Biographies of the Brontes but never really got a sense of them as persons but this is very well researched and we got to see them as individuals from the beginning. Not only the famous sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne but their older sisters Elisabeth and Maria and their hapless brother Branwell too. Started very, very well. I always been a fan of the brontes and Emily in particular. Wuthering Heights is one of the best books i've read and her poetry is awesome. The book starts with their mothers death when they were very small. Only the two oldest actually had memories of her as she died when the oldest were six. And they would all be dead before their father. Charlotte lived the longest, she became 38.
    FlakeNoirGNTLGNTHedda Gabler
  • not_nadinenot_nadine
    I'm reading October dreams II.
    The stories are great! 

    FlakeNoirKurbenGNTLGNT
  • KurbenKurben
    Reading The Keys Of Egypt by Leslie and Roy Adkins. Its a history of how the cipher of the hieroglyphs were cracked and at the same time a story of the many obstructions he had to fight. The man who discivered the key, the Frenchman Francois Champollion who was obsessed with finding the solution. He lived during the rise and fall of Napoleon and faced ridicule, Exile and treason trials during his quest to solve the riddle. For him Hieroglyphs was much more important than european powerstruggles. I knew, of course, that Champollion was the man who cracked the code but did not know what he had to fight against. Interesting story. There were many who tried but in 1812 he made his breakthrough and that we know as much of their history and faith and life as we do is thanks to his research. I just wish that someone equally obsessed could crack the riddle of the Etruscan language. They were the big power in italy before the romans and their big inspiration and has left quite a bit of writings but noone has been able to read it. Such a discovery would be a giant leap forward. I can dream at least.
    Hedda GablerGNTLGNTFlakeNoir
  • Hedda GablerHedda Gabler
    Well, Friday night and I burned up the town. Went to BN for a cat calendar (didn’t have it) and came away with King Sorrow by Joe Hill. And it’s thick. Sigh. 

    Now, I’ve mentioned I have reading issues. I love books but oh my god, I just want to go to sleep no matter how good it is.  It’s like a drug— sleepy sleepy gone. 

    Lordy, can one of you read to me? 
    FlakeNoirKurbenGNTLGNT
  • FlakeNoirFlakeNoir
    Hedda Gabler said:
    Well, Friday night and I burned up the town. Went to BN for a cat calendar (didn’t have it) and came away with King Sorrow by Joe Hill. And it’s thick. Sigh. 

    Now, I’ve mentioned I have reading issues. I love books but oh my god, I just want to go to sleep no matter how good it is.  It’s like a drug— sleepy sleepy gone. 

    Lordy, can one of you read to me? 
    I suffer from the same Booknosis. (Complete opposite to Booksomnia, that which kept me awake reading all night every night, in my youth.)
    I think audiobooks might have to be the answer. (In the absence of a "Bev".) ❤️
    KurbenGNTLGNTHedda Gabler
  • not_nadinenot_nadine
    edited October 25
    Audio books with sleep timer. Every night I do. 
    Well that came out like Yoda

    There's an app called chirp. Very cheap cheap. 

    Okay I'm just not going to talk today.
    FlakeNoirKurbenGNTLGNTHedda Gabler
  • GNTLGNTGNTLGNT
    ....I'm sure, that my dulcet tones would be just the ticket for audiobook reading.....salary negotiable....
    KurbenHedda GablerFlakeNoir
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