The Athenaeum - Reading updates and Literary Review from the Obsidian Elite (this means you)

[Guard Dog]

Kindle Unlimited has many self published titles. In other words books you cannot find elsewhere. They also have a great many that are just out of print. I read for five books a month. Sometimes more. It’s definitely a great source. I also make prodigious use of the local public library.

[Raithe]

For the setting of a disturbing precedent...

Disney attempts to withold royalty payments from Alan Dean Foster

Disney is attempting to do something really underhanded.

Quick background on how things work. Let’s say a hit movie is being released. A writer is hired to write a novelization of it. The movie comes out, the book is published, and then the parent company that produced the film and hired the writer pays royalty to said writer from the sales, usually a percentage of the earnings. For an average mass market paperback, for example, it would amount to about $1.60 or so.

Lucasfilm hired Alan Dean Foster to write many novelizations. He was the ghost writer for Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. He wrote Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Approaching Storm, Alien, Aliens, etc. Everything went as expected.

Disney bought Lucasfilm. They are claiming that they bought the rights only and so they don’t have to honor any of the contractual obligations. They are saying that they don’t have to pay Alan Dean Foster a dime, even though they are collecting money off the sale of his books every day.

Disney is a giant corporation. This is a dangerous precedent and it’s ridiculous.

 

[majestic]

So Disney is trying to shaft over artists they hired or are in their employ... again. What else is new?

[Raithe]

7 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Kindle Unlimited has many self published titles. In other words books you cannot find elsewhere. They also have a great many that are just out of print. I read for five books a month. Sometimes more. It’s definitely a great source. I also make prodigious use of the local public library.

I've been enjoying Kindle Unlimited for a few years now. Some months I don't read any via Kindle, other months I read 10+.  There is a lot of drek, and badly done (but amusing concepts) self-published through the service, and I regularly find little gems and things that keep me entertained.

[majestic]

13 hours ago, Raithe said:

I've been enjoying Kindle Unlimited for a few years now. Some months I don't read any via Kindle, other months I read 10+.  There is a lot of drek, and badly done (but amusing concepts) self-published through the service, and I regularly find little gems and things that keep me entertained.

I'm pretty sure that's because the US and UK Kindle Unlimited has a better selection that ours. But there are a lot of erotic stories with the fanciest of titles. I think I'll read the "Behind Hard Cloister Walls" series now.

Book 1, Title: Love Thy Neighbour

I wonder why those books are marked as for mature audiences only. What's so mature about praying?  

[Raithe]

4 minutes ago, majestic said:

I'm pretty sure that's because the US and UK Kindle Unlimited has a better selection that ours. But there are a lot of erotic stories with the fanciest of titles. I think I'll read the "Behind Hard Cloister Walls" series now.

Book 1, Title: Love Thy Neighbour

I wonder why those books are marked as for mature audiences only. What's so mature about praying?  

Oh god, when I feel down and depressed I go onto kindle and look up the "monster porn erotica" - My god, the cover art and the book synopsis just have me in stitches and I end up feeling better once I get past the insane giggling.

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, Raithe said:

Oh god, when I feel down and depressed I go onto kindle and look up the "monster porn erotica" - My god, the cover art and the book synopsis just have me in stitches and I end up feeling better once I get past the insane giggling.

Nice try covering for your strange search history. 

[majestic]

The author biographies are a riot as well. Behind Hard Cloister Walls was written by Lili Luder (lit. translation of Luder: hussy). So an English approximation would be, say, Minxy Minx. Lili is in her early 20ies, tall, blonde, has deep blue eyes, biiiiiiiiig breasts and is a semi-professional gymnast since the age of five, and all her books are actually just excerpts from her diary where she keeps detailed records of her sexual exploits.

[Raithe]

There are some strange things afoot there.

I remember a couple of years back, Amazon actually started to crack down on "allowable" fiction and such, which caused a little free speech argument.

There was an interview with a middle-aged lady who unsurprisingly wrote under a nom de plume, but she wrote books in the "cryptozoology erotica thriller" genre (specialising in anthropomorphic dinosaurs and velociraptor kink) and had become one of the "top sellers"...  She mentioned she'd started doing it almost as a joke, just to get a little extra income in to help with paying her kids college bills.  After about 4 months, she was regularly pulling in $2,000+ a month due to those sales. Also, her parents were the editors for every novel she put up on kindle.

The things you can never remover from your memory after finding them on the internet...

[majestic]

Love Thy Neighbour was pretty good. Except no neighbors were loved at all. In fact it was a just slightly anatomically impossible lesbian threesome in a shower in Catholic school.

At least it involed a virgin. No nuns, priests or prayer of any kind. Talk about a letdown after that buildup.

[Malcador]

On 11/20/2020 at 6:03 PM, majestic said:

In fact it was a just slightly anatomically impossible lesbian threesome in a shower in Catholic school.

Sold.

[Guard Dog]

It's been a few weeks since I've had my nose in a book or two. Sort of a long dry stretch for me. I started this one last night:

He really thinks very highly of himself doesn't he?

Also starting today:

[Achilles]

^^^^

Almost finished with Promised Land. Wondering when volume 2 will be released.

[Gromnir]

best books of 2020 lists from the smithsonian

a few we have read

history

can personal recommend only two from the list: One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.

only two we have read. both worthy reads.

food

Cool Beans: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking with the World's Most Versatile Plant-Based Protein, with 125 Recipes

won't recommend. is an over reliance on exotic and not easily attainable ingredients. is a similar frequency o' uncommon pro cook apparatus which may not be available in the ordinary home-chef's arsenal and for which no alterative method o' prep is provided. the book is more a vegan cookbook for real chefs who wanna impress their vegan friends.

three. three books total. is possible our all-time worst showing for having read books on the smithsonian annual lists.

not books but am adding here anyways. apologies...

The Ten Best STEM Toys to Give as Gifts in 2020

am thinking we might consider wordstruct as a purchase to play with our young relatives when they visit... or vice versa. gravitrax looks sooperkewl, but am knowing the pieces would start to disappear as soon as the little crumb snatchers got their hands on the game. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[uuuhhii]

finished the trouble with peace

savine are still the worst main character in all the first law book

first half of the book are agonizing farce of a war preparation

a lot less named character dead than expected

very disappointed that gorst didn't fight stour

[Guard Dog]

The words "banned" and "books" should NEVER be used in the same sentence. But, here we we are again. 

Even Homer Gets Mobbed A Massachusetts school has banned ‘The Odyssey.’ It's paywalled but I have a subscription so here is the text:

Quote

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss.

Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.”

Political correctness is a disease. One we are like to die from. It's practitioners are every bit as insidious as the "moral police" who wanted books banned because they were "sinful". It's a short step from banning them to burning them. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Amentep
Do not republish copyrighted articles in whole. Changed text to an excerpt.

[Amentep]

Can we still read Fahrenheit 451?

I'm also wowed that people read THE SCARLET LETTER and think it wasn't an indictment against the attitudes on display vis a vis Hester Prynne...

[Guard Dog]

9 minutes ago, Amentep said:

Can we still read Fahrenheit 451?

I'm also wowed that people read THE SCARLET LETTER and think it wasn't an indictment against the attitudes on display vis a vis Hester Prynne...

Sometimes I wonder if they have actually read the books they want banned. Shakespeare was called out as having “hate speech” but The Merchant of Venice also has one of the first and best soliloquy’s about anti Semitism. 

BTW sorry about posting the whole text. I knew that was a no no but just didn’t think. 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

On 11/20/2020 at 10:22 AM, majestic said:

all her books are actually just excerpts from her diary where she keeps detailed records of her sexual exploits.

Something we've all done.

I finished Seeing like a State last night. Will probably end up starting Against the Grain sometime this week.

[Hurlshort]

2 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Sometimes I wonder if they have actually read the books they want banned. Shakespeare was called out as having “hate speech” but The Merchant of Venice also has one of the first and best soliloquy’s about anti Semitism. 

BTW sorry about posting the whole text. I knew that was a no no but just didn’t think. 

Never apologize to these censoring fascists!

Banning stuff rarely has much to do with the content itself. Instead it is just a way of controlling people through their access to information. You know, instead of teaching them to think critically about what they are reading. It is the laziest form of manipulation, I guess. 

edit: Also, bit comical to hide an article on censorship behind a paywall. Certain articles should just be easy to read.

Edited December 29, 2020 by Hurlshot

[Guard Dog]

27 minutes ago, Hurlshot said:

Never apologize to these censoring fascists!

Banning stuff rarely has much to do with the content itself. Instead it is just a way of controlling people through their access to information. You know, instead of teaching them to think critically about what they are reading. It is the laziest form of manipulation, I guess. 

edit: Also, bit comical to hide an article on censorship behind a paywall. Certain articles should just be easy to read.

“Beware the man who would deny you access to information. For in his heart he deems himself your master.”

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Eh, can't find any sources that aren't blatantly biased. The only thing I could find from the excerpt is this: https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=weeding-out-racisms-invisible-roots-rethinking-childrens-classics-libraries-diverse-books

"I’m not advocating we ban classics. Or erase the past. Classics are undoubtedly examples of excellent writing, or they wouldn’t have survived the test of time. I’m just suggesting we study classics in social studies classrooms, where inherent ideas of inequity are exposed and examined; where Huckleberry Finn may be viewed as an example of literature that showcases the white lens. Delay the study of classics until readers are mature enough to question, debate, and defy subtle assertions. Dissect classics in college by setting aside time to delve into both literary merits and problematic assumptions. Redefine parochial notions of what “well-read” means; after all, British children are unaware of many celebrated American authors."

Seems to be fairly uncontroversial, but I'm not enough of a hackpundit to write for WSJ or THE BLAZE so what do I know?

[Hurlshort]

It is laughable that you can only expose and examine inequity in a social science classroom. ELA teachers are pretty smart, too.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Either way it's a far cry from whatever the wsj guy was mad about.

[ShadySands]

Probably socialism