Aldean > Recent Status Updates

Very good so far, Msgr Burke writes well and I am liking his reflections on this topic very much indeed.

First boring chapter, as he takes a plodding detour into LARPing.

Really enjoying the tale of the early days of TSR. “Whatever the reason, Arneson’s departure was likely, at a fundamental level, related to the issue of party composition. […] Gygax the Barbarian, a competitive brawler, bent on victory and motivated by treasure, was never going to work well with the wizard Arneson, a playful thinker, more interested in theory than practicalities, and motivated by fun.”

Fascinating tidbit: the Gygax family believed they were descended from the giant Goliath.

Laugh-out-loud funny so far: I am really enjoying the author's voice. Maybe I will get a book read in 2013 yet...

Gertrude Stein. A great deal about Gertrude Stein. And almost all of it greatly fascinating.

After staring at the cover for three weeks, I opened it up tonight ad made it well into Chapter 3, where, after many amusing anecdotes and examples, I am finally learning the rules for actually, you know, diagramming sentences. Very pleasant reading, and I love her use of footnotes.

After several false starts, I am finally READING this, and loving it as much as I feared I would. Nearly unputdownable, and genuinely fascinating.

Questions of tribunal competence: always fascinating, and always confusing.

Mostly, at this stage I am just tickled to be reading fiction again.

To be fair, there were several pages numbered in small Roman numerals before the regular Arabic pagination began.

Funny stuff.

I decided (inexplicably and out of character) that I should read something patriotic over the Fourth of July weekend. This was my obvious choice: it may be the only book I own with "America" right there in the title. I just devoured another essay, and I am still hungry for more Poe Ballantine.

He is clearly a Strunk & White fanboy, which is fine (I have been, too), but it is unclear at this point what he is going to accomplish by rehashing selected bits of that classic handbook of prescriptivism. We shall just have to see. But he is unabashedly a believer in the craft as craft, as hard work, and that is worth sticking around for.

Enough with the memoir (the author seems to say); time to start talking about craft. I'm game.

Good bit of memoir so far; pithy and colorful vignettes of childhood. (Also: first think by King I've ever read.) Just starting to touch on the topic mentioned in the title.

Halfway through the book, and she has started reading the Code of Canon Law. I have to say, this story has really made me take a deep breath and think hard about what the annulment process is like for the people involved: an important thing to have before me, since I will soon be the face of the Church's bureaucracy for people in this regard.

A good read so far. I had to smile a bit when she tells her advocate how baffled she is by the logic [sic] of the annulment process. "'Well, don't feel badly about that,' he reassured me. He had studied canon law for years and even he still found it difficult to understand." (p. 18) Interested to see where she takes things.

So far, so loving it.

well-written page-turner so far, with a delightful darkness to it

Insane story, unbelievable writer. But I really do believe him so far.

There is an ORIGINAL Thomas the Tank Engine! Great train stories & illustrations, far superior to the TV derivative.