MERRY CHRISTMAS 2023!
Merry Christmas to all of you! Our Christmas dinner includes green salad, turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, Mac & Cheese, dinner rolls, and jello salad. Desserts include apple pie, Oreo Cookie Cake, and Christmas cookies. What’s on your Christmas menu?
NFL WEEK 16: DALLAS COWBOYS VS. MIAMI DOLPHINS [FOX SPORTS 4:25 P.M.]
The Buffalo Bills need some help in order to make the Playoffs (and maybe win the AFC East Championship). The Dolphins are favored by 1 1/2 points over the Cowboys who don’t play well on the road (for example, losing to the Bills last Sunday 31-10) while winning 15 games in a row at home. Go Cowboys! How will your favorite NFL team perform today (or tomorrow)?
BUFFALO BILLS VS. LA CHARGERS [Peacock]
Last week, after the LA Chargers got blasted by the Las Vegas Raiders 63-21, the owner of the Chargers fired the Head Coach and the General Manager. This week, the Buffalo Bills flew to the West Coast as 11 1/2 point favorites over the Chargers. Will the Chargers come onto the field with fire and fury? Or will the struggling Chargers struggle against the Buffalo Bills? We’ll find out tonight at 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time on the Peacock Network.
FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #722: VERY MERRY MYSTERIES
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod — 1
Corpus Christmas by Margaret Maron — 201
A Highland Christmas by M. C. Beaton — 407
FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOKS #773: THE BEST OF THE BEST: 20 YEARS OF THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION Edited by Gardner Dozois
AA
Gardner Dozois edited his monumental Year’s Best Science Fiction series for 35 years. The series started in 1984 and ended in 2018 when Dozois died. In Robert Silverberg’s brilliant “Foreword” to The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction (2005), Silverberg presents Dozois’s strategy to be the anthology of record for Science Fiction. Every event, every compelling story, every innovation to the genre was meticulously recorded by Dozois for Posterity. That’s what makes this SF series so iconic and important.
This 655 page volume includes the best SF stories from 1984 to 2004. Not only did Dozois select the stories for this anthology, he provides introductions to each story to explain why the writer and this particular story made it into this Big Fat Book.
If you have a Science Fiction fan on your Holiday Gift List, The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction would make a wonderful present. Or, maybe Santa could bring this great book to you! How many of these stories are you familiar with? Any favorites? GRADE: A
Table of Contents:
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS — vii
FOREWORD by Robert Silverberg — xi
PREFACE by Gardner Dozis — xvii
- Blood music / Greg Bear — 1
- A cabin on the coast / Gene Wolfe — 19
- Salvador / Lucius Shepard — 28
- Trinity / Nancy Kress — 42
- Flying saucer rock and roll / Howard Waldrop — 78
- Dinner in Audoghast / Bruce Sterling — 93
- Roadside rescue / Pat Cadigan — 103
- Snow / John Crowley — 109
- The winter market / William Gibson — 121
- The pure product / John Kessel — 137
- Stable strategies for middle management / Eileen Gunn — 152
- Kirinyaga / Mike Resnick — 162
- Tales from the Venia Woods / Robert Silverberg — 177
- Bears discover fire / Terry Bisson — 191
- Even the queen / Connie Willis — 199
- Guest of honor / Robert Reed — 213
- None so blind / Joe Haldeman — 238
- Mortimer Gray’s History of death / Brian Stableford — 246
- The Lincoln Train / Maureen F. McHugh — 293
- Wang’s carpets / Greg Egan — 303
- Coming of age in Karhide / Ursula K. Le Guin — 328
- The dead / Michael Swanwick — 342
- Recording angel / Ian McDonald — 352
- A dry, quiet war / Tony Daniel — 363
- The undiscovered / William Sanders — 380
- Second skin / Paul J. McAuley — 400
- Story of your life / Ted Chiang — 418
- People came from earth / Stephen Baxter — 454
- The wedding album / David Marusek — 464
- 10¹⁶ to 1 / James Patrick Kelly — 502
- Daddy’s world / Walter Jon Williams — 520
- The real world / Steven Utley — 541
- Have not have / Geoff Ryman — 561
- Lobsters / Charles Stross — 577
- Breathmoss / Ian R. MacLeod — 597
- Lambing season / Molly Gloss — 647
ELVIS CHRISTMAS, ELVIS PRESLEY BLUE CHRISTMAS, and ELVIS SINGS THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CHRISTMAS
Last week, Deb made the comment: “Christmas isn’t Christmas in our house without listening at least once to Elvis’s Christmas album—that is a mainstay.” And just by chance, I stumbled over these Christmas Elvis CDs (while searching for something else). Elvis Christmas is the only Elvis Christmas CD you really need to listen to. It includes all of the Christmas songs Elvis sings so well.
In the everlasting quest for Truth in Advertising, I’m including the other two Elvis Christmas CDs I found: Elvis Presley Blue Christmas and Elvis sings The Wonderful World of Christmas. If you check the Track Lists, you’ll find they’re identical (except for the deceptive titles and different album covers).
Do you listen to Elvis at Christmas time? Do you have a favorite song? GRADES: Elvis Christmas—A, Elvis Presley Blue Christmas and Elvis sings The Wonderful World of Christmas — B
TRACK LIST:
Santa Claus Is Back In Town | 2:24 | ||
White Christmas | 2:23 | ||
Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) | 1:54 | ||
I’ll Be Home For Christmas | 1:52 | ||
Blue Christmas | 2:07 | ||
Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me) | 1:52 | ||
O Little Town Of Bethlehem | 2:36 | ||
Silent Night | 2:13 | ||
(There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley (For Me) | 3:21 | ||
I Believe | 2:05 | ||
Take My Hand, Precious Lord | 3:17 | ||
It Is No Secret (What God Can Do) | 3:54 | ||
O Come, All Ye Faithful | 2:48 | ||
The First Noel | 2:10 | ||
On A Snowy Christmas Night | 2:50 | ||
Winter Wonderland | 2:19 | ||
The Wonderful World Of Christmas | 1:59 | ||
It Won’t Seem Like Christmas (Without You) | 2:42 | ||
I’ll Be Home On Christmas Day | 3:50 | ||
If I Get Home On Christmas Day | 2:53 | ||
Holly Leaves And Christmas Trees | 2:14 | ||
Merry Christmas Baby | 5:45 | ||
Silver Bells | 2:27 |
TRACK LIST:
O Come All Ye Faithful | 2:47 | ||
The First Noel | 2:08 | ||
Winter Wonderland | 2:17 | ||
Silver Bells | 2:27 | ||
Blue Christmas | 2:05 | ||
Silent Night | 2:23 | ||
White Christmas | 2:23 | ||
I’ll Be Home For Christmas | 1:54 |
TRACK LIST:
O Come All Ye Faithful | 2:47 | ||
The First Noel | 2:08 | ||
Winter Wonderland | 2:17 | ||
Silver Bells | 2:27 | ||
Blue Christmas | 2:05 | ||
Silent Night | 2:23 | ||
White Christmas | 2:23 | ||
I’ll Be Home For Christmas | 1:54 |
WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #155: NO ONE WILL COME BACK FOR US By Premee Mohamed
One look at the cover of No One Will Come Back For Us gives you a big hint about why I like this book: TENTACLES! That’s a dead give-away that Cthulhu and the Shoggoths are in the house! My favorite story in No One Will Come Back For Us is “The Adventurer’s Wife” where a famous explorer goes to Africa and finds the ruins of an ancient race. The people in the village that protect the ruins warn the explorer not to take any of the ruins…but of course you know what happens.
Premie Mohamed’s other stories deal with monsters, gods, chaos, and strange beasts. The blurb on the back cover of No One Will Come Back For Us calls her stories “contemporary cosmic horror and dark fantasy.” That pretty much sums her work up. If you’re in the mood for some stories that will widen your eyes and send chills down your back, give No One Will Come Back For Us a try. GRADE: B
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Below the kirk, below the hill — 11
Instructions — 25
The evaluator — 31
At the hand of every beast — 49
The adventurer’s wife — 61
The general’s turn — 73
Sixteen minutes — 97
Fortunato — 101
The honeymakers — 121
Four hours of a revolution — 131
For each of these miseries — 145
Everything as part of its infinite place — 171
No one will come back for us — 191
Willing — 215
Us and ours — 225
The redoubtables — 243
Quietus — 259
Story notes — 275
Publication History — 289
Acknowledgements — 291
About the Author — 293
GONE TO GRAVEYARDS By Daniel Boyd
Daniel Boyd (aka, Dan Stumpf) is back with another Streak Wilson novel. The first Streak Wilson book, The Devil and Streak Wilson (you can read my review here) , was an unusual Western with an unpredictable plot and vivid characters.
Gone to Graveyards presents a series of surprises: Streak Wilson gets pummeled into unconsciousness. A young boy screams bloody murder with eerie fright after he sees something unworldly. And that unworldly creature terrorizes the community with its superhuman strength, its ability to travel undetected, and to munch on humans like they were Lay’s Potato Chips.
Streak Wilson, a man who’s quick with a gun (not so much with his fists) is hired by a Wells Fargo executive to hunt down the deadly creature. But Streak Wilson is a damaged man. He fought in the Civil War and sustained a head injury that almost killed him. Streak Wilson’s recovery was incomplete. Streak has a “wall” in his brain that he had be unable to climb to discover memories hidden from himself.
This all comes into play during the hunt and Streak learns key aspects about his Past and that results in a change in Streak’s future.
If you’re in the mood for a Western that breaks the traditional modes of story-telling, give Gone to Graveyards a try. Well done, Dan! GRADE: B+
GREAT SHORT BOOKS By Kenneth C. Davis
For that voracious reader on your Holiday Gift List, you might consider Kenneth C. Davis’s Great Short Books! I found Kenneth C. Davis an engaging guide to these great short novels. You might remember one of Davis’s other books: Don’t Know Much About History. The same clear writing and perceptive analysis from Don’t Know Much About History shows up in Great Short Books.
How many of these great short books have you read? Do you see some titles of books you’d like to read? GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction: Notes of a common reader — xv
Agostino / Alberto Moravia — 1
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story / George Orwell — 7
Another Brooklyn / Jacqueline Woodson — 13
The Awakening / Kate Chopin — 19
Ballad of the Sad Café / Carson McCullers — 25
Big Boy Leaves Home / Richard Wright — 31
Bonjour Tristesse / Françoise Sagan — 39
Candide, or Optimism / Voltaire — 45
Charlotte’s Web / E. B. White — 53
A Clockwork Orange / Anthony Burgess — 57
The Country Girls / Edna O’Brien — 65
Death in Venice / Thomas Mann — 71
Dept. of Speculation / Jenny Offill — 77
The Dry Heart / Natalia Ginzburg — 83
Ethan Frome / Edith Wharton — 89
Evil Under the Sun / Agatha Christie — 95
The Fifth Child / Doris Lessing — 101
The Ghost Writer / Philip Roth — 107
The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald — 113
The Hour of the Star / Clarice Lispector — 119
The House on Mango Street / Sandra Cisneros — 125
If Beale Street Could Talk / James Baldwin — 131
If This Is a Man [Survival in Auschwitz] / Primo Levi — 137
July’s People / Nadine Gordimer — 143
The Lathe of Heaven / Ursula K. Le Guin — 149
Lord of the Flies / William Golding — 155
The Lost Daughter / Elena Ferrante — 161
The Lover / Marguerite Duras — 167
Lucy / Jamaica Kincaid — 173
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History / Art Spiegelman — 179
Middle Passage / Charles Johnson — 185
Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf — 191
The Hours / Michael Cunningham — 197
The Nickel Boys / Colson Whitehead — 203
No One Writes to the Colonel / Gabriel García Márquez — 209
The Old Man and the Sea / Ernest Hemingway — 215
On Chesil Beach / Ian McEwan — 223
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich / Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn — 229
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit / Jeanette Winterson — 235
Pale Horse, Pale Rider / Katherine Anne Porter — 241
A Pale View of Hills / Kazuo Ishiguro — 247
Passing / Nella Larsen — 253
The Perfect Nanny / Leïla Slimani — 261
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man / James Joyce — 267
The Postman Always Rings Twice / James M. Cain — 273
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie / Muriel Spark — 279
The Red Badge of Courage / Stephen Crane — 285
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption / Stephen King — 291
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea / Yukio Mishima — 297
The Stranger / Albert Camus — 303
Sula / Toni Morrison — 309
Surfacing / Margaret Atwood — 315
Their Eyes Were Watching God / Zora Neale Hurston — 321
Things Fall Apart / Chinua Achebe — 327
Tokyo Ueno Station / Yu Miri — 333
Waiting for the Barbarians / J. M. Coetzee — 339
We Have Always Lived in the Castle / Shirley Jackson — 343
Wide Sargasso Sea / Jean Rhys — 349
Afterword: What’s not here — 355
My favorite fifteen great short books — 361
Index of entries by date of publication — 363
Index of entries by author’s last name — 365
Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates in this book — 367
More Great Short Books — 369
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS — 371
Notes About the Books — 373