Should I support Obama because he has black ancestry, or Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, or McCain because he spent hard years in a prison camp? Somehow, much of what has happened politically in 2008 comes down to that. Everybody would be trumped by a one-legged blind, black woman.
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From the 21st century gazeteer: “Lubbock: A four-Walmart / one Sam’s Club community 50 miles South of the West Texas distribution center. Approximate gross purchases, $27.4 million annually.” That says it all.
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Like adventure novels? So do I. Two names you might not have heard of. Hammond Innes and Geoffrey Jenkins. Innes is famous and published worldwide for nearly 50 years. Jenkins, a South African writing in the late 1950s – 1960s, is less well known. If you like settings involving mining, the sea, ships, wanderings in the desert, lost treasure, give them a try.
I first encountered Jenkins in the pages of Argosy magazine, which carried his novel, “A Grue of Ice.” The images of that story, which combined whaling in the antarctic with the discovery of an island graveyard of lost ships captured by a Nazi raider, stay with me to this day. Jenkins’ best stories though deal with diamonds on the Namib coast of Africa.
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I’ve described before my discontent with the public library’s policies of culling books from the shelves. The people who make these decisions have no idea of what authors are staples of the genre, what writings are modern classics, and what books are of no enduring interest whatever. Seems they no longer repair books but discard them if they are torn (maybe the use of tape is a lost skill or perhaps it has something to do with the librarians’ union).
Some libraries, I am happy to report ARE REAL libraries, retaining books even if they are old or worn.
This was brought on by my visiting the sci-fi section of the Lubbock Public Library and seeing that almost all of Clifford Simak’s books have been culled to make room for new fantasy and Star Trek novels.
And yes, most of Hammond Innes’ and Geoffrey Jenkins’ books have been culled from the shelves.
BTW, the process of editing out the old occurs in encyclopedias too. The 13 and 14th editions of the Brittanica are still better than those that came later, and if you want a good Viking Desk Encyclopedia, get one no newer than 1965. The editors cut out the old to make way for the new, and what you end up with are long articles about Marilyn Monroe or, horrors, Donald Trump, and nothing about Edward Devere or Roger Bacon. There is an argument that we are becoming more and more rootless, living only in the pop culture present.
