Some Book-Mail To Get Back to BookTube!

Ajouté : 2026-06-07

[00:00:00]Hello book. I've got some mail for you today to round out the first week of June. A beautiful, warm, overcast Saturday. Uh feels very heavy, very humid. I think that probably a little rain is in the offing. Uh it's mighty comfortable unless you move. If you move, then you're not going to be comfortable anymore. And long walks outside are out of the question, I think. I mean, I've had dogs where I could do it. I certainly could do it. Uh but my little dog now there was no interest. Not really. And no ability. Uh fortunately, I mean that means shorter walks, but that's okay because my little dog is far more sedentary than usual. Far more sedentary than she's ever been. So long pauses between walks, short walks outside, they're okay with her. Uh so we're going to see how we wrap up the week. This was an extremely book active week. I had a guest, Michael K.

[00:00:56]Von came to visit and we did book shopping.

[00:01:00]Uh, I got a pile of books on the day that we went to the brattle and I received plenty of books in the mail the whole time. And typically what I do is I pile up the week's books on my foot locker right right here by the fainting couch. Uh, and I only deal with them when the week is over. I deal with them on Sunday to, you know, catalog them, record them, photograph them, and then put them wherever they belong.

[00:01:32]Uh, and so that the Foot Locker can be clear at Start a Business on Monday. That's what I want. I want it to be clear at start a business on Monday. And it will be. And these will be the last books that do that, I think. I don't think it'll be any mail tomorrow. Uh, so let's see. Let's see what we have here. Uh there is a box uh and the box is from Amazon. Now I I have an order outstanding from Amazon, but I can't imagine it would be here so soon. So it could be one of you misbehaving. Uh let's see. Ah, okay. This is something that we've talked about already. Uh I read the the e galley of this thing and now I have uh the print review copy.

[00:02:17]Let's get let's get paper excess paperwork out of the way. This is by Corey Doctoro. Uh oh, this is going to be a paperback original. $18 paperback original. I didn't know that. Uh this is the reverse centaur's guide to life after AI.

[00:02:32]Um and this comes out at the end of the month.

[00:02:37]Uh let's see here. in many ways a companion piece to Cory Dotoro's much discussed 2025 book and shitification which I think is the best thing he's ever done and really is a kind of anthem of our time. Uh this book is a cleareyed and focused look at the present state of artificial intelligence. In it, the author considers what AI actually is and can do and what it isn't and can't do.

[00:03:03]What its future and impact may be and the frightening economics behind it.

[00:03:07]Central to his approach is the question of who a technology does something for and whom it does something to and the distinction between centaurs, people who use technology but streamline their work to make their lives easier and reverse centur people who whose work is dedicated is dictated by technology making it more inhumane and less meaningful.

[00:03:29]So which are you? Are you uh a centaur someone who uses technology to streamline their work and make their lives easier? or you are reverse centaur where you have to use it your life is entangled with it and it makes your life worse. Uh from this vantage point the author argues forcefully that while it is certain it certainly has its uses AI is not actually capable of what its biggest boosters or doomsayers say. He pushes back against the inevitabilism that defines much of the conversation around it and he raises a clear alarm about the unsustainable bubble that has underpinned its rise and the potential fallout when it bursts.

[00:04:07]Uh, and I've already read this, but uh, like I like I said, I like I mentioned when I brought it up in I think a Friday reads, I want to reread it definitely.

[00:04:16]This is an author who puts a lot of thought into what he does. I thought that uh that it was remarkably cranky old mananish, remarkably willfully blind, especially about that part about what AI can't do.

[00:04:31]Uh and also the obvious third category, the the the the category that is not a centaur category at all.

[00:04:39]There's the centaurs, people who merely use technology and the better the technology is, the more they can use it to streamline what they're getting done.

[00:04:49]And then there are the the reverse centaurs where you need the technology and if and its inshitification would make things worse for you has made things worse for you.

[00:05:03]And okay, that's very interesting. But there is a third category, a very obvious third category that uh I would have thought that would get a lot more discussion in this book. I don't think it's even barely glanced at certainly isn't given a clever name. And the third category is uh technology that's made by technology for the use of technology.

[00:05:21]The third category centers squarely on AI.

[00:05:26]Here the two categories presume that one integral part of either categorization will be humans human use.

[00:05:37]But Forbes magazine just did an analysis. They just they just ran an article that said that more than half the internet is now bots, is now AI.

[00:05:48]More than half. I think that number is hugely more than half. I think it's 80%.

[00:05:55]Well, that's well known. People write articles about that. So, manufacturers, advertisers, they all know that. Which means that those bots certainly aren't for them. the bots are multiplying on their own with bots being encoded for for independence and the ability to create more bots. So, there's a third category out there that is in fact the looming doom of AI if you're going to be a doomsayer. So, it seemed a little odd to me that a book devoted to that subject by one of our best futurists would seem not to care about it or not or to say that it's impossible, but I'm going to give it another try. I didn't know this was going to be a paperback original. You should. Cory Doctor is worth reading on technological matters.

[00:06:36]You should uh I will I will give you calls to action for my cult. You should you should buy this book $18 when it comes out in paperback and you should definitely uh set set some money aside for the paperback of Inchitification if you haven't read it already or get it from your library. Although I'd imagine it's the type of book that would have a very long waiting list at your library.

[00:06:57]Uh but anyway, uh he's worth reading. So I'm going to give him another try. Of course, no hesitation about that. Uh so let's let's move on.

[00:07:06]Uh, as we inch our way closer to the box, whatever the box is. Ah, okay. All right. This is another reread. Uh, this is definitely another reread. Uh, so this comes out uh in early August. We've already seen it, but this is the finished copy of Tracy Borman's new book, The House of Berlin, a new big work of tutor historical fiction. Uh, so let's see.

[00:07:32]And for those of you who didn't get the the description the first time, uh this Okay, this is already apparent, according to the pub sheet, this is already a bestseller in the UK, uh for the times teeming with a Okay. Well, okay. All right. Okay. Can we get Well, let's get to what the book is. There we go.

[00:07:54]Compelling for fans of period drama.

[00:07:55]Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy. Oh my. If you are writing about if you're writing about Henry VII and Amberlin, if you're a publicist writing up a pub sheet for a book on the subject set a novel set in the same time period as Wolf Hall, don't bring up Wolf Hall.

[00:08:12]Just don't do it. Uh you I've got this new novel. It's set in Napoleonic era.

[00:08:18]Go ahead and compare it to what's that thing? War in Peace. Just don't do it.

[00:08:22]Just don't do it. Um, this Borman's authentic storytelling not only shares the dynamic servants in the Bolan and other households who play significant roles, but also brings to life the court intrigue and cutthroat tensions between aristocratic British families vying for position in Henry VII's court.

[00:08:41]When nobleman Thomas Bolan, Lord of Hever Castle, is called to London in 1509 to present himself to the newly anointed King Henry VIII, he sets in train events that ensure the Bolan name will never be forgotten. His daughters Mary and Anne were young then.

[00:08:59]Quite a bit of back and forth dispute about the actual birth dates of either man Mary or Anne. Uh and though he was ambitious for his family to prosper, he could not imagine what would transpire in the two decades to come.

[00:09:12]Blending the history she knows so well with her creative imagination, Tracy Borman brings the Bolan's family's three decade rise to precip and precipitous fall to vivid life. Borman surrounds the main dramatic events of the Bolan saga with a colorful taboo in which familial and interfamilial rivalries threaten and true love often loses out to keen ambition.

[00:09:35]Anne's ever loyal attendant Esther Fry Friedwide and Thomas Bolin's perfidious steward Richard Cranwell are as memorable as Cardinal Walssey Thomas Cromwell or anyone in the increasingly dangerous orbit of the royal court. Henry VII pursues Anne relentlessly showering her with gifts as the Bolins are catapulted to political prominence. And when she can't give him the son and air he desperately seeks the family faces a terrible and bloody fate.

[00:10:02]Okay. Uh all right. Well, uh, I have already read this and, uh, boy oh boy, we've got two for two here. I've already read this and I did not like it. Uh, which is not always the case for me when it comes to Tracy Borman. Um, and I was pleasing myself the whole time. I was reading the GI copy. I was pleasing my myself the whole time thinking, okay, are you not enjoying this or are you only thinking that it's not as good as Hillary Mantel? Because the one is fair and the other is not.

[00:10:34]And I finished it and thought, "No, you were being objective." That just that had lots of flaws. Uh, and even when I finished it in the in the reader copy, I told myself that I would read it again. Definitely when I got the finished copy, I thought I'd be getting the finished copy a lot later than this, the first week in June for the first week in August. But that's okay. Uh, so I'm going to to reread this. I will wait. I will set it down aside, live my first reading, settle a little more, and read this when August starts. Uh but in the meantime, I have done what any self-respecting book section editor would do. And those of you who are new to this section, this section, this channel, I am not just a sexy influencer on YouTube. I am also a book reviewer. Of course, I don't read the books that I review because no one could. No one's is able to read more than about four books a year. Not properly. And if you think they are, you're moral wrong.

[00:11:30]Of course. Of course. I don't read what I talk about. Of course I don't. And I don't read what I've reviewed for 50 years with who knows how many dozens of paying editors all in on the joke.

[00:11:42]But but anyway, I am I am an editor as well as a sexy influencer and a reviewer. I am an editor for the online journal Open Legends Review where quite a few of you have tried your hand at writing reviews. Uh and I am the book section editor of Big Canoe News in Northern Georgia, which is tiny. It's pretty tiny. My readership there, my circulation is pretty tiny. I think even with my background from ye olden days in the American Midwest, it may still be the smallest circulation of any publication I have ever worked on as an editor. It's possible that it but it's still there and it's a pretty thing.

[00:12:22]It's professionally done. It looks wonderful. It doesn't look like a small town paper. comes out once a month in full color and it has an arts entertainment section but it also has a dedicated book section whole page of books coverage and I am the editor of that page for a print newspaper where if I don't do my job there's a blank page when the thing goes to the printer and for which I get paid now all of that means it's real it I may have the smallest seat at the table but I definitely have a seat at the table big canoe is news it is Uh, and like any self-respecting editor of either of those journals, I had a copy of this, the finished copy, sent to Janet Workman, the author, Janet Workman, has written tutor fiction, is currently working on tutor fiction, uh, and should be the one to review this, not me, whether I like it or not, on my second read. Uh, but that, you know, that's the that's the curse of being a book section editor is you're constantly trying to match people with books. Make the right match with the right book. Uh but anyway, that so we're two for two with uh finished copies of things that I have already read. Uh which is great because it sort of it sort of outlines my reading for the weekend, but it isn't very dramatic, now is it? So, let's see.

[00:13:36]Oh, no. Three for three.

[00:13:40]Oh, okay. Well, we still have the box. Uh this is also a finished copy of a book I've also read. Uh this is by Rasheed Nen, who did My Government Means to Kill Me. Some of you remember that book.

[00:13:54]Certainly is stuck in my mind. And this is uh his new book. There's only one sin in Hollywood. Uh in the finished copy. I don't have any paperwork for this. Uh but we can read the dust jacket as though I were sticking by your elbow in a new bookstore. Uh Xavier C. Barlo, one of Hollywood's young black stars taking the industry by storm in the late 50s, is Skyline Studios ambitious attempt to rival Sydney Poier. His arrival into the industry is calculated. His charm is magnetic and his seductive screen presence appeals to both audiences and celebrities across generations. But years after the years later, after Xavier dies at the height of his fame, Aaron Tusain, Skyline's designated backlot fixer who helps the studio stars stay as deep in the closet as humanly possible, is finally ready to expose the powerful culprit responsible for his untimely death. Uh, and I've already read this. uh Tusaintain is telling this story. He is sending this story. It's it's set it's a story within a story.

[00:14:52]It's written that way and it he is sending the manuscript of his story.

[00:14:58]Uh he's sending it off because he is dying of lung cancer and doesn't have to worry anymore about legal actions or NDAs or making powerful enemies. But he did he did spend years and years as a fixer.

[00:15:11]So you've got a star who's splashing around naked drunk in the fountain in front of a hotel. He's the guy you'll send to go and collect them. This isn't all gay stuff. He was He was He's the guy you'll go you'll send to go and fix that. Haul them out of the fountain, dry them up, pay whatever behind the scenes, whatever bills have to be paid. Uh and he meets Xavier C. Barlo, who that is not the actor's real name. He's given that name when he makes the acquaintance of uh of a powerful studio executive.

[00:15:42]and he makes that acquaintance in an indelible scene. This book is full of indelible scenes. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. It's so much more uh I don't want to use I don't know what word to use. I want to say mature.

[00:15:56]Mature was the first word to come to mind. But that's not fair. My government means to kill me was mature.

[00:16:03]Uh this is assured maybe is a better word. This is so much more narratively assured than the than the previous book.

[00:16:11]It's amazing. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And uh the the scene where the where uh Xavier C Barlo comes to the the attention of the higher elites of Hollywood. Uh our narrator Twain wants to go to the bathroom. He's at a crowded club and he wants to go to the bathroom.

[00:16:28]There's a huge line, gigantic line. So he slips some money to uh an attendee at the club, tells him, "There is a bathroom down in the basement. You can go you can go down there." And gives him directions. He goes down there um and he is at a urinal right next to the man who will be dubbed Xavier C Barlo. Uh and the bathroom is well it's it's not just for utilitarian purposes or maybe its utilitarian purposes are slightly higher in number and they start to admire each other if you know what I mean.

[00:17:03]They start to admire each other and just at the last minute they get warning that someone is coming and that someone well he also admires the goats on display and what follows from there is perfectly done. This would have been so much weaker a novel I think if Rasheed Nome had decided to tell it from Barlo's point of view. It's so much more powerful a novel coming from the point of view of Tusain who not only erotically loves Barlo but also personally comes to personally love him and also admire him. It's it's amazingly good. This is just amazingly good.

[00:17:40]That's all there is to it. Oh, actually this is a finished copy so we can see what our author looks like. I don't know what is Oh, there he is. Uh so he is the author in the national bestseller My Government Means to Kill Me. uh which was selected as a lambda literary finalist for gay fiction and named one of the 100 best notable mo notable books of 2022 by the New York Times. He's also a television drama writer, producer, and showrunner. Okay, so he doesn't need this book to make money. He's making piles of money. Um he co-developed Bair and worked on TheQi, Animal Kingdom, and Narcos among other series. Uh and he currently lives with his husband and two children in Pasadena. There he is right there. Uh, is that the Hollywood sign behind him? It is way in the background.

[00:18:24]Ah, that's endearingly cheesy.

[00:18:27]I recommend this book. Boy. Oh boy. All right. So, we have three books. All three books were are copies of things, finished copies of things that I've already read. What are the odds?

[00:18:39]Actually, they're pretty good. Except I don't really read these things because how could you?

[00:18:45]Yep. I don't read anything except comic books. That's all. But even there, it's a stretch.

[00:18:51]Yes. Yes. Cuz the one accusation that people make about me is that I don't really read.

[00:18:59]Even my worst enemies would laugh their asses off if someone said that. Say, "Oh, come on. You have a million things to pick from. He's got a million shortcomings. This is what you pick on.

[00:19:09]The one thing that has half a century of documentation." Anyway, anyway, uh the first two finished copies that I got that I've already read, I can't honestly recommend. It may be that a reread will nudge the Cory Doctoro into a recommend.

[00:19:25]that could be uh I I don't think it will completely because there's an enormous category that's that should be there and is not and is based on the on his presumption that AI does not talk to AI that AI has no independent movement of its own which I just don't think is tenable. I just I mean I'm no AI expert. I don't know that Cory Dotoro is either but I don't think that's tenable anymore. I don't think that's been tenable in a couple of years. Um, anyway, but the third finished copy of something that I've already read is something that I can recommend. Thank God. This is terrific. Uh, and you gays out there, oh my, can we can we, you know, step aside in the in the rave club for just a minute of serious conversation, uh, think about your new releases, okay? Think about all the variations on the word puck in a hockey romantic.

[00:20:20]Think of the gay new releases out there and how unspeakably awful they are.

[00:20:27]Recommendations like this aren't going to come around all that much. I mean, there was summer boy. It was kind of thin.

[00:20:37]Uh those beloved disciples that was had a lot more meat on its bones. That might be worth your time. This is a popular This thing deserves to be a bestseller.

[00:20:44]It's a it's popularly written for a broad audience. This is a book that you could hand to your Hollywood afficionado old grandfather who in every other respect probably has holds on to, you know, vestages or even more of just reflexive cultural homophobia. You could actually hand this to him and he would love it. There are name drop name dropping goes on all throughout the book. Uh all sorts of research. Anyway, anyway, I can recommend it. In other words, now we'll deal with the box which could be one of you misbehaving. Uh cuz I I I did an order for Amazon, but I I just did it, you know, yesterday. No way that this could be it.

[00:21:26]This is it. Good lord, that was fast. I swear. I guess if you're going to be an evil company, you'd better be efficient.

[00:21:34]Oh my.

[00:21:36]Okay. Well, I uh Okay, I've got to explain myself here. Oh. Uh, I just recently had Michael Kvon here as a guest. Won't be any surprise to any of you. Some of you saw those videos. Uh, we had a great time. Uh, I finally got to watch on YouTube that that great scene from the new James Gunn Superman movie. The James Gun Superman movie presents us with a a big screen version of Crypto: The Superdark for the very first time.

[00:22:08]Mike is is a huge Superman fan, as am I.

[00:22:10]Hey, we've both been waiting forever for something like that. I assume that both of us have been dreading it because we've been thinking how horrible it would look, but nope. It was incredible.

[00:22:19]And not only did we get crypto in that movie, but as a special aside, I don't know who was involved in the scripting.

[00:22:26]I don't know if maybe it's James Gunn's own experience, but as a special treat, we not just get Crypto. Crypto is also a bad dog.

[00:22:37]And you might think, well, you're you're Steve calling a dog bad. There's this particular kind of dog. Some of you who've had lots of dogs will know what I mean instantly. There's a particular kind of dog that is just bad. They are not they are not ever going to take a hint. They are not ever going to take instruction. They are always going to do something wrong. you love them all the same. But and I have had my share of bad dogs.

[00:23:06]For Krypto to not only be in the movie, but also be a bad dog, of course, I had to see that scene with Mike. And that was great. It was absolutely great. Uh and uh I we we got to talking about Superman products, and I I ordered one. I can't believe it's here already. This is the Superman Adventures compendium volume two.

[00:23:30]This was when Superman was a cartoon.

[00:23:32]Both the Superman Adventures as an on the animated series and then briefly the Batman Superman adventures. And when those things came out, the the uh studio paid for a dedicated tie-in comic book. So, it would have much simpler storylines, much simpler artwork. It would usually be a oneanddone story. So, one issue stood for itself. Uh there wouldn't be anybody, nobody would be getting raped.

[00:23:56]Nobody's corpses would be getting raped.

[00:23:58]The Wayne family would not be getting exumed. People would not have their heads cut off or their hearts cut out or anything like that. Nothing like that.

[00:24:04]Nothing like that would happen. It would just be terrific adventure stories and it wouldn't be part one of 22 and make sure you collect all these other ancillary titles that it's going to appear in or none of it will make any sense to you. And then when it's all done, it's still not going to make any sense. Now, no, these were allegedly for kids, but they were wonderful. They're absolutely wonderful. Batman Avengers is the same way. and the Justice League.

[00:24:25]Uh, and DC has decided to collect these.

[00:24:29]See, there are they're all the covers. I don't have to baby those things anymore because I now I have them. Now I have them all in a compendium volume. And these compendium volumes, uh, they're nice and floppy. They just they stay open no matter where you are. Uh, and well, I don't know. Mike would know better than I would.

[00:24:50]The cover seems like it is from a less laminated material. Actually, the pages do a little too. So, it could be that that DC did that to keep down the price.

[00:25:02]I have volume one. I don't have any of these as ecopies. I don't have any e comics of these. And now I have volume two. So, I Hi, baby.

[00:25:13]How are you doing?

[00:25:21]How are you doing?

[00:25:25]You want to get down? Want to go over to your chair? You want to come here? Yes.

[00:25:30]Those are in the way. What do you want to do?

[00:25:33]Oh, there you go. Probably don't want to wedge yourself. She likes to wedge herself against me. Uh, but it's pretty warm and I'm My body is pretty hot. It's not a not gnarl 98.6°.

[00:25:45]What do you want to do, baby? She's got some epic Freda yoga going on here if you can see it. She's not making up her mind. Oh, she's going to go over to her chair. All right. Uh, she's not a bad dog. She's never been a bad dog. She yells at bad dogs, or she used to. I was I was thinking about this. I was trying to remember the last bad dog I had. Uh, it wasn't. It has never been Freda. And it certainly wasn't my girls. Like I told Mike, I'm exempting my Basset Hound, Lucy, because she was insane. She was nuts. She was Mary Todd Lincoln. She heard voices. So, whatever she did that might have otherwise qualified as bad, I don't blame her for. I yelled at her plenty for it, but I didn't blame her for it. Uh, so I think you'd have to go back a long way. You have to go back a long way for me to have a bad dog, but I did have them. And there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, if you're a monster, I suppose you could break their spirit or break them physically or exile them to the yard and throw scraps out there and hope they live through the winter. But if you're a normal person, you just realize, oh well, I've got I've got angel number one, I've got angel number two, and then I've got a problem child. Uh, but anyway, I don't remember off the top of my head if crypto appears in any of these issues. Maybe not. But you've got this great cover. They chose that. That is the best cover of all these that are on the back here. So, I'm glad. See, there it is right there. I'm glad they picked it for the cover. So I am going to have a blissful summery Sunday just relaxing on the fainting couch reading Superman. How much life doesn't get better than that. So uh so there you go. That is the mail.

[00:27:15]Uh and it just realizing technically I have already read every single word that I got in the mail today. Every single word. I read and loved every one of those issues of Adventures of Superman of the Superman adventures. I loved all of them. I loved the Batman Superman adventures and the cartoon. Didn't miss a minute of it. Uh, and I also, you know, naturally I loved the comics because they were really professionally done. They were really exciting and often funny. There were no ridiculous, you know, sadistic see my psychoanalyst stakes involved. Uh, there were stakes, of course. There's a bad guy and a good guy, but there wasn't any of the ridiculous just necrotic stuff that you get in comics today. There wasn't any of that and it was done in one issue. You know, what's the story that you're going to tell me this time around? Well, I grew up on comics like that. So, but anyway, I have read every word that I got in the mail today. It feels a almost a little antilimactic. And I guess it is a Saturday, so it's possible that more mail is coming.

[00:28:22]We shall see. I'll I'll let you know tomorrow.