Matthew Royal > Recent Status Updates

This is a much better installment, because there are actually some stakes! Looking forward to how this one will wrap-up, and hoping more main characters die. }:o)

This book is already better than the last one: the prose is just tighter somehow.

I'm nearly 70% through this trudge, and I have to force myself to keep reading. Most of the scenes are attending meetings discussing action that recently occurred, but with none of the sharp agenda efficiency of the previous book, they are obligatory, tedious, and joyless. It's like how some books are sequential dinner party scenes where nothing happens but conversation. Content is ok, but needs a rewrite.

Hmm... it's an enjoyable continuation of the series, from a different perspective, but honestly I love it a whole lot less than the first 3 Laundry Files series. I'll definitely finish it, but have demoted it from obsessive anytime reading to my bedtime book.

This book took a couple unexpected turns! I'm delightfully uncertain how this is going to end.

I've been reading this book to help me fall asleep... It's a bit dry, but very interesting at the same time. Especially now that we're revisiting the legality of abortion -- prior to Roe v Wade, the mafia was involved in offering (expensive) abortions performed by non-doctors (dangerous). I predict as we roll civil liberties back in the USA, organized crime will experience a renaissance.

Loving the concept, so far.

Oh man. So much brainfire from reading this -- ideas occurring to me as I read every sentence. It's going to take a while to get through this one, as I take notes and follow leads. Fundamentally, the gap between a notation system and the physical phenomenon of sound are very far from each other!

“verbal instructions in themselves are of no greater use to singers than to shield them from errors, since everyone knows that no printed matter [but practice alone] is capable of eliminating them in actual performance.”

Ugh, true.

"May I point out that poets, painters, sculptors, builders, and composers of music themselves, prior to exhibiting their works in public, ultimately have all the time they need for correcting and polishing them; but for the singer who errs there is no remedy: his error is irreparable."

Really interesting how many groups have an ax to grind with the Masons. According to Hodapp, at its core it's because of their rules about membership (open to everyone except us agnostics and atheists), no religion or politics in the lodge, and an internal social order that flouted the one outside.

This first book is so different than how I remember the rest of the series. In fact, I don't know that I ever read this first one! There are parts that seem familiar, but many more that I have no memory of -- definitely the right time to re-read this series! It's fun listening to the audiobooks while cooking in the evening, and the husband, who has never been exposed to Lilian Jackson Braun, is enjoying it too.

One of the "secrets" to a successful group that we should consider adopting again today: don't allow members to talk about their religion or about their politics.

[Due to the Renaissance,] things started to change dramatically for the Masons because society changed around them. The common people became better educated across Europe, and the Masonic guilds lost their grip on the big building contracts. All somebody had to do was print instructions on how to build an arch and fit a keystone in the middle of it, and suddenly the closed guilds weren’t in demand anymore.

Lots of information on error handling. I'll have to come back and use this as a reference at some point. I think it's interesting that common errors are represented in the grammar itself in order to provide clearer error messages. Seems like a bit of the blurring of the lines that should be re-thought for ANTLR5.

I'm nearly halfway through this introduction, and there's quite a bit of the Gutting present in the text -- it's more of a criticism of Foucault's statements and side comments than a clear presentation of his life and work. Adding to DNF shelf -- I'll just read Foucault directly instead.