What are we reading?

[JasonPratt]

Just finished, "Russia's Last Gasp" by Prit Buttar. The third of 4 books covering WWI's East Front. And another great one full of detail and info mostly covering 1916's Brusilov's Offensive but the Rumanian Campaign as well.

I take it Book 4 will be about the subsequent multi-sided Russian Civil War?

[Sir Slash]

No idea but probably yes along with the wrap-up of the war in the east.

[Emeraldlis]

Georgette Heyer , A civil contract . She is an author along the lines of Jane Austen , with most of her books taking place in regency England . I discovered her a couple of years ago and I'm slowly making my way through her rather large catalogue of books !

I'm listening to this one on audible , usually before bed when I want to wind down , but today she's got me through cleaning the windows in the kitchen ....ugh , thank god for audible !

[JasonPratt]

Someone upthread mentioned a book covering the Roman Empire history through colorful discussion of all the Emperors -- A Short History of the Roman Empire? (I don't have my Kindle immediately at hand, and there is at least one more Short History book on the Roman Empire -- which also focuses on the Emperors iirc, just to make things confusing.)

Anyway. Wishlisted it at the time, and picked it up on Kindle a few days ago. Thoroughly enjoying it; currently up to Caesar having departed Cleopatra in Egypt.

[Bison]

Started Eye of the World this morning. 

[Windigo]

I was in the Dermatologists Office for over 2 hours today. Read a People Magazine that said Brad Pitt and Angelina were engaged.... sure there was one magazine that said it was Gwenyth and Brad that were the engaged couple... time warps are real... in doctors offices.

Oh and I now have a few more cool scars to make stories up for the grandkids

[Gusington]

^Olde.

[mirth]

They still print People magazine?

[Gusington]

You won't believe this but I receive it on a weekly basis and no one in my household ordered it. Started about three weeks ago out of nowhere. I plan to keep some of the issues around for when Mama Gus visits and toss the rest.

[mirth]

It's good for reading on the can.

[MetalDog]

Started Eye of the World this morning.

Do yourself a favor and stop now.  It is neverending and will leave you wanting something more "light."  Like the Complete Supreme Court Rulings from inception to the present day.  With addendums, annuals, commentaries, and notations.  Trust me on this.

[Bison]

Started Eye of the World this morning.

Do yourself a favor and stop now.  It is neverending and will leave you wanting something more "light."  Like the Complete Supreme Court Rulings from inception to the present day.  With addendums, annuals, commentaries, and notations.  Trust me on this.

Too late, buddy!  I'm already 200+ pages into the book, but its the only one I own in the series so I doubt I will go beyond this one.  Its the first for enjoyment reading I've done is several months, so far its been a nice light page turner.

[MetalDog]

It's your time good sense brain cells soul eyesight to lose.

[JasonPratt]

Never mind Sour-tok; it does end, and the ending is pretty great.  O0

Not that I blame anyone for giving up on it long before then, or for being bitter about it: the last six books actually written by RJ, could have been compressed into two quite feasibly, and that's where I finally gave up originally (until the series was actually finished by Sanderson and reports from friends gave me hope).

Feel free to keep us updated as you go!  O:-)

[JasonPratt]

I finished Vol 4 of Missing 411 at brunch today; as with Vol 3 (Vols 1 and 2 being intended as one large book), the cases are all entirely new, although like Vol 3 some brief time is spent mentioning similarities to earlier cases from Vols 1-3. The stat crunch at the end takes account of all four volumes so far, for 730 cases (if I recall correctly) up to this volume. I still lack another two or three volumes before catching up through the latest release.

Despite the colorful subtitle, "The Devil's In The Detail", Paulides doesn't focus especially on what he's evidently referring to from the cover design: the number of "devil" or similar names for geographical locations in North America. Maybe that's because there doesn't seem to be a significantly larger number of such sites in the missing list. I know from crypto studies that he's probably referencing Bigfoot with that list; but while he still doesn't talk openly about what he thinks is happening, a reader who knows his interests (he started this while researching native Bigfoot lore in the Pacific Northwest) can read between the lines a bit when he says he started this study with one expectation but has started shifting to other ideas. (i.e. fairy bigfoot aliens?) As of this book, he likes six rather different theories which he doesn't discuss the details of.

I'm hoping by the current entry (2 vols from now?) he'll have thought to start cross-comparing the disappearances with cases that seemed similarly strange but ended up with mundane explanations. In Vol 3, he ended with some updates and in one of them he very briefly reported that the woman in question had been found alive in a rest home or something like that. His lack of detail was itself suspicious, and in this case more against him: if this was a mundane explanation after all, that's still data to help in working out answers!

Moreover, I'd like to see better comparisons with a SAR guidebook he often references, about where children of various ages have previously been found in various terrain, e.g. 95% of the time a child X years old will be found on flat terrain within Y miles or something like that, with his current example busting that curve hard. (Weird missing cases can be found well inside the statistical location curve, too.) Are the weird missing cases significantly affecting that curve? -- that seems likely. If 5% of kids are found within X radius, how many of the kids outside this radius are M411? And of any that aren't, did they have M411 characteristics to any degree?

At some point, he should also consider bracketing out about 50 cases from Vols 1 and 2 which had very minimal information, which he included simply in case they helped identify clusters and evidently had enough unusualness to be reported wherever he found them (in news accounts and/or law enforcement records). I understand there's a good reason to include them for investigating potential patterns, but the level of detail is so low that they might be returning false data blips, too. They shouldn't just be ignored, he has enough data now that he should sideline them as proportionately minimal evidence.

I haven't started Vol 5 yet, so I can't report yet about whether he continues with fresh cases or starts re-printing old ones.

Edited to add: please note that sometimes the individual books are out of print; I got mine in a bound collection reasonably price, but the price gouging for individual entries on Amazon is freakish. Don't buy there -- not one penny goes to the author anyway (who doesn't sell them on Amazon). www.canammissing.com