Books I've Read
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Pel And The Party Spirit
Inspector Pel investigates a 20 year old murder.
SMOKE QUOTE:
Pel could never smoke casually. While Darcy was totally indifferent to the consequences, Pel suffered from a guilt complex and a certainty that he would drop dead any day with lung cancer, be riddled with asthma or at the very least drive his wife to divorce him because she could no longer stand him smelling like an old ashtray.Read:
1/2000
Pel And The Sepulchre Job
Inspector Pel has a body, a museum robbery and a bank hostage situation to deal with.
SMOKE QUOTE:
He contemplated with sorrow the glowing end of the half-smoked cigarette he held. It was the fifth of that morning.Read:
1/2000
Assignment In Eternity
Two short novels and two short stories. OK, but probably not gonna read 'em again.
Smoke Quote:
"Gimme a cigaret." (pg. 164)Words I Had To Look Up:
ecdysiast (pg. 7) -- A striptease performer
tocsin (pg.230) -- Alarm bell or signal.Read:
7/2014Read:
5/2016Read:
9/2018Read:
9/2019
Beyond This Horizon
I LOVE Heinlein, I read a number of his titles over and over.
This will not be one of them.
I'm too dumb to understand the genetics, so LONG descriptions of same were...boring!
The use of the n-word (in one spot) was offensive to me. I think the author should have used another example.
There were a few instances of the "good Heinlein" showing through, but most of the text was dreary much to me.
Read:
9/2019Read:
1/2021
Citizen Of The Galaxy
Surprised to see I haven't read this one again in the last ten years. Thorby is a young slave purchased by the beggar Baslim. Wouldn't this make a great movie?
Read:
11/2010Read:
6/2012
Double star
Actor impersonates a kidnapped politician. Probably first read this back in junior high school.
Read:
7/2005
Farnam's Freehold
A man and his family are propelled, as it were, into the future by an atomic bomb explosion. There, now you don't have to read it!! This must have been an outrageous book in the 60s. First read way back then.
Read:
10/2005Read:
8/2012Read:
5/2018
For Us The Living
The master's previously unpublished first novel. Not a great story, but many of the concepts are used in later novels. Interesting.
Read:
7/2004
Friday
The heroine is a combat courier. A very resourceful woman, as it were, but with some serious relationship problems. Read this a long time ago, read it again in 2009. Still pretty good.
Read:
No dateWords I Had To Look Up:
A birdie with a yellow bill (pg. 71) -- Uncredited Robert Lewis Stevenson poem.
Teratololgy (pg. 75) -- The study of malformations or serious deviations from the normal type in organisms.
Honi soit qui mal y pense (pg. 95) -- The motto of the Order of the Garter. It is a French phrase which means "Let anyone who thinks bad things about it be ashamed.".
...a cowan can bribe his way into an esbat... (pg. 96) -- Unwelcome non-Pagan (Non-craft person, an outsider) intruder to a Witches gathering that is not on a Sabbat, usually occurring on a full or dark moon. Also a term for the monthly meeting of a Wiccan Coven, usually held during the full of the moon.
donna e mobile (pg. 119) -- Woman is fickle (Verdi's La Donna È Mobile from Rigoletto)
toasted rusks (pg. 131) -- Known in France as biscotte and in Germany as zwieback, a rusk is a slice of yeast bread (thick or thin) that is baked until dry, crisp and golden brown.
en tutoyant (pg. 163) -- To address in a familiar manner.
quondam (pg. 182) -- Belonging to some prior time; like "erstwhile friend".
triste (pg. 196) -- sad, wistful.
soi-disant (pg. 189) -- Self-styled; so-called.
Benjamin Franklin's parable of the whistle (pg. 223) -- Google it.
veriest (pg. 223) -- An adjective form of very.
slitch (pg. 249) -- Pretty much what I thought it meant.
doxyology (pg. 253) -- Doxology is a hymn or verse in Christian liturgy glorifying God. Friday's doxyology instructor trains her in the sexual arts.
Quote:
"...It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population."
"A very bad sign. Particularism..." -- (pg. 233)
Read:
4/2009Read:
10/2019Read:
4/2021
Glory Road
Of course I've read this many times, but is new to the data base. I bought this copy the other day at the used paperback store, and enjoyed it very much!
Read:
9/2019Read:
4/2021
Have Space Suit-Will Travel
Boy wins space suit, gets captured by bad guys! Fabulous book. Highly recommended!!!
QUOTE--"To what extent civilization is retarded by the laughing jackasses, the empty-minded belittlers?" --page 35
Read:
9/1999Read:
6/2012
Job: A Comedy Of Justice
Oh come on! This isn't in the database? Yet another book I actually OWN and have read quite a few times. In fact, I might characterize it as my favorite book!
Read:
9/2012
Podkayne Of Mars
A student gave me this after asking me what book I would want. I've read it several times in the last zillion years, but I've been wanting to read it again, the library doesn't have a copy, and I want my own copy, too. Now I've got one. Finished it this morning. Tears at the end.
Read:
6/2016Read Again:
7/2016Read Again:
8/2017Read Again:
6/2019
Revolt In 2100 & Methuselah's Children
Two books in one! I've read it before, of course, but the nice thing about Heinlein is you can read it again and it's still new! I love the clunky computers used to navigate space ships.
Read:
6/2012
Starman Jones
Max runs away from home and sneaks onto a starship as assistant pig-keeper, I mean, horse-poop shoveler. I've read this before, in the distant past.
Read:
6/2012
Starship troopers
A great book, classic Science Fiction! Book makes you think about personal responsibility. Highly recommended for Junior High. Also take a look at Citizen Of The Galaxy. Read again 2008! Read again in 2010, finally figured out Johnnie is from the Philippines. Read yet again in 2025.
"__to the everlasting glory of the infantry, shines the name, shines the name of Rodger Young!"
Read:
No dateRead:
2/2008Words I Had To Look Up:
Ochee Chyornya (pg. 27) -- "Dark Eyes", a famous Russian Gypsy ballad
moulinet (pg. 47) -- A circular cut, often composed of a parry, usually prime or seconde, moving thence into a circular cut.
scrofulous toads (pg. 44) -- 1. Relating to, affected with, or resembling scrofula.
2. Morally degenerate; corrupt
Danny Deever (pg. 75) -- A poem by Rudyard Kipling describing the execution of a British soldier in India for murder.
Ramon Magsaysay ( pg. 260) -- Guerrilla leader in the Philippines during World War II, he was later President of the Philippines.
Read:
11/2010Read:
1/2025
Stranger In A Strange Land
I've been complaining for years how much I disliked this book. I decided to take a break from Sean O'Faolain and read it again. I got the unabridged edition from the public library. I'm surprised how much better the book has gotten since I read it in the 60s... I'm also surprised it's in a middle school library! In several or them!
Words I Had To Look Up:
rump crews (pg. 5) -- A minimum crew for a vessel.
Wise Girl Malthusian Lozenges (pg. 75) -- Some sort birth control related pills.
apportation (pg. 70) -- The carrying or projecting of an object through space.
Karthago delenda est (pg. 72) -- Carthage must be destroyed.
Cry Harold (pg. 147) -- Can't find anything definitive.
bindlestiff (pg. 147) -- A tramp (hobo) who carries a bedroll (bindle) or a bundle of possessions.
gandy dancer (pg. 147) -- A railroad worker, an itinerant laborer.
philosophunculist (pg. 154) -- A person who pretends to know more than they do to impress others.
amphigory (pg. 154) -- Nonsensical writing.
imputation (pg. 189) -- A statement attributing something dishonest.
catenative (pg. 196) -- Having the ability to catenate, or form chains..
invidious (pg. 215) -- Discriminatory.
accretion (pg. 242) -- An increase by natural growth or addition .
odalisque (pg. 297) -- A concubine or woman slave in a harem .
capric cult (pg. 332) -- Must refer to the sexual activities of the Foster religion.
concupiscence (pg. 334) -- Sexual desire: a desire for sexual intimacy .
omniscio (pg. 341) -- As an adjective: Omniscient, all-knowing. Used here as a noun: An omniscient viewing device.
benison (pg. 343) -- A spoken blessing.
nautch dance (pg. 373) -- An intricate traditional dance performed by dancing girls in India.
peccavimus (pg. 390) -- Latin, we have sinned.
exempli gratia (pg. 391) -- Latin, for the sake of example, abbreviated as eg.
William Harvey (pg. 391) -- Described blood circulation correctly.
theogamy (pg. 414) -- Marriage of/between gods.
apotheosis (pg. 414) -- Exaltation to divine rank or stature.
syncretic (pg. 417) -- Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief.
scansion (pg. 429) -- Analysis of verse into metrical patterns. Whatever THAT means!
Read:
4/2009
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
I love the book jacket! A guy is murdered at Dr. Ames' restaurant table. How rude! Great first half, great "ending", kind of sags in the rest.
Words I Had To Look Up:
buy a round toowitt (pg. 364) -- Joke? Just where and how do you get a round toowitt?
Read:
4/2009Read:
9/2019Read:
4/2021
The Fantasies Of Robert A. Heinlein
Eight stories, including Waldo and Magic, Inc.
Read:
7/2002
The Moon I A Harsh Mistress
Luna is revolting! I've read this a number of times over the years, now I have my own personal copy!
Read::
10/2019
20 books displayed
[Haddix - Haldeman] [Hale - Hallett] [Hallinan - Hard] [Harland - Heat-Moon] [Hebden - Heinlein] [Heinlein - Hemingway] [Henry - Herriot] [Herriot - Hiaasen] [Hiaasen - Hillerman] [Hillerman - Hobb] [Hobb - Hornung] [Hornung - Huff] [Hughes - Hyman]