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Hello all. I read. A lot. 😆 Patterson,Crais, King, Koontz . Reading LeCare - A Most Wanted Man!. Read the labels on soup cans when I run out of books. Oh! Where do I get most of my books? The Library. I buy the books that have been pulled off the shelf. Cheap. Good selection.
 
The movie version of A Most Wanted Man is on Freevee.
I liked both the book and the movie (not a given). I can't remember how similar they are.

Seems like forever since Robert Crais has had a new book out.
 
It's that time of year again (already! this year feels like it lasted about 5 minutes) --
I recommend On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed.
A beautifully written collection of short essays about growing up black in Texas and a bunch of other interesting stuff. The author is a law and history professor but she writes like a poet. Clear-eyed but not preachy. Very readable, also short. Not too expensive on Amazon. From a quick look at Worldcat, it seems to be available in a lot of libraries too.
 
Lots of audiobooks from YT.
Don't have a Kindle or other type of reader like that.
As long as I have a source of public wifi I can listen.
 
Lots of audiobooks from YT.
Don't have a Kindle or other type of reader like that.
As long as I have a source of public wifi I can listen.
Can get a good number of free public-domain audiobooks via the Apple Podcasts app. Most likely through the google equivalent as well... That way you don't even need public wifi. Can listen on your phone.
 
i have library cards from 3 different public library systems. On from my official home base address. One from the La Paz county Arizona library system which will issue nomads a library card. Easy to get at the La Paz county library branch in Quartzsite AZ. Another library card for non resident visitors from Pima County Arizona. I got it when I visited the branch in Ajo AZ. All three of those cards are registered in the app “Libby”. I use libbby to download ebooks and audio books from those libraries. The cost to do this is Zero dollars! If you want to download a bunch of them at a time while on Wi-Fi, no problem. They do expire in 2 or 3 weeks after downloading depending on which library you get them from.

Many thousands of free audio and ebooks are waiting for you when you get going on having a public library membership. It is the perfect zero cost solution to something to read every day or late night too. An open 24/7 free library!

Not all public libraries offer free cards to non residents but some do. Checking out physical books and media comes with some time and quantity limits but limits of quantity for ebooks and audio books are not as strict. Of course no fines involved on the digital copies as when the time expires they are automatically returned.
 
DARK RIVERS OF THE HEART by Koontz.
.
Synopsis:
Woman wants to be left alone.
Big-shot bureaucrat has 'the hots' for her.
Big-shot bureaucrat uses all other bureaucrats to chase her, with the goal of elimination of all traces of her existence.
Those bureaucrats use all levels of surveillance... including re-positioning orbiting surveillance satellites.
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Our Hero:
Disabled LawEnforcementOfficial -- with a technology fetish -- inadvertently stumbles across her trail because she was a nice waitress to him.
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* Murders by the dozens.
* Bureaucrats impersonating federal LawEnforcementOfficials to release a whack-job seriously serial murderer from a penitentiary for whack-jobs... with a nice side of blackmail of the warden, her crimes discovered through their decades of surveillance of her.
* Assault platoons hiding in moving vans.
* Psychopaths to the right, psychopaths to the left, psychopaths all over the dang place.
* Tsunami.
* Deserts, various versions of vehicles, and a hallucinating rabbit.
.
An excellent side-story of bureaucrats using surveillance at Las Vegas hotels to locate big cash winners, then whack them and grab their winnings.
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Highly recommended!
DARK RIVERS OF THE HEART easily earns TheLargeMarge SealOfApproval.
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PS:
DARK RIVERS OF THE HEART was released in 1994, well-before publishers could use Artificial Intelligence to simulate an author's earlier works.
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An aside:
I estimate probably 60% (sixty percent) of anything is cobbled by AI.
I recognize that rubbish in the first few sentences.
Skipping ahead several pages/paragraphs confirms my discovery.
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Thumbs 'DOWN' on drum machines.
Thumbs 'DOWN' on autonomous vehicles.
Thumbs 'DOWN' on AI-generated images.
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And I don't much care for that cheesy grifter tony robbins.
 
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Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning.
Not a fun read, not an easy read; relevant today in that I see us starting on a similar path in this culture.
Documents how the Nazi's turned a group of ordinary policemen into ruthless killers.
 
I found this 2023 Book related to Poverty in America that could relate to RV people who seek to avoid the "Poverty Trap". It offers some eye opening facts that would enlighten many Nomads to the true state of the economy that they live & struggle within. And an informational perspective many in media and leadership positions wouldn't want them to know.

Matthew Desmond is a Sociologist at Princeton University who has achieved a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier book "Evicted" and other work on the subject of poverty in the "Wealthiest Country in the World".

"Poverty, by America"

https://www.amazon.com/Poverty-America-Matthew-Desmond/dp/0593239911


Bill Gates wrote a glowing review printed on the jacket of the book.

Some of those figures here: _________

Page 6

The United States annually produces 5.3 Trillion more in goods & services than China. Our gross domestic product is larger than the combined economies of Japan, Germany, the UK, India, France & Italy which are the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th richest countries in the world. California alone has a bigger economy than Canada does; New York State's surpasses South Korea's.

Page 126-127

We should bump up the top marginal tax bracket- perhaps to 50%, as it was in 1986; or 70% as it was in 1975 and expand our tax brackets so that an investment banker's income is taxed differently than that of a Dentist. At 21% the Corporate tax rate in America is the lowest it's been in more than 80 years. We should increase it to 35% as it was in 1993 - 2017. Or to 46% as it was in 1979 thru 1986.

The Federal income tax is progressive. In 2020 it was 10% for the poorest people with incomes below $9,800, 24% for middle income $85,500 to $163,300 and 37% for those above $518,000. On average the poor and middle class dedicate 25% of their incomes to taxes. The rich are taxed at 28% and the 400 richest people in America are taxed at 23%. __________

Today 60% of people in the lower income tax brackets are thought to have a small business on the side, or a "side hustle", or a work from home presence that they can use as a tax shelter and have some deductions to use against their tax burden.
 
Surprise-Kill-Vanish a Kindle book on the true story of the OSS later CIA off the record assassin small teams to kill foreign leaders. It names names, many who later were the heads of the CIA. Very good read & history.
Just watched STEPHEN KING'S "QUICKSILVER HIGHWAY free on You Tube, it was 2 very good shows a lot like The Twilight Zone which I'm a fan of.
 
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I Cheerfully Refuse
Leif Enger

It's a hard book to categorize. Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife (in a time when books and science are discouraged and we have an illiterate President)... Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings,..

It's VERY well written.
 
I Cheerfully Refuse
Leif Enger

It's a hard book to categorize. Set in a not-too-distant America, I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of a bereaved and pursued musician embarking under sail on a sentient Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife (in a time when books and science are discouraged and we have an illiterate President)... Rainy finds on land an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, crumbled infrastructure and a lawless society. Amidst the Gulliver-like challenges of life at sea and no safe landings,..
It's VERY well written.
Sounds like current events :)
 
Carl Hiaassen, Stormy Weather.
I love his books (set in Florida) -- they're hysterically funny and the bad guys come to delightfully gory ends.
He's actually a reporter and has written a lot of nonfiction books too but I haven't read those.
 
Reading Jeffrey Deavers new series “Colter Shaw”. CBS has optioned the books and main character for a new series that started this spring called “Tracker”. The books are available as audio books or ebooks. I am downloading them remotely from my public library as I travel. You can stream Tracker with the CBS app for “free” with lots of commercial interruptions.
 
I ordered The Adventures of Lew & Charlie series of HC books. I looked on Ebay & many were $50+ used. 4 or 5x the price of new.
 
Currently enjoying Richard Russo's Sully Series, looking forward to #3.

I listen to audiobooks since I usually stare at computers for 10 hrs per day.
 
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