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I’ve been working on various things and so slacking off on “What I’m Reading,” but here is some catch-up.

Standing by the Wall and The Secret Hours by Mick Herron – The further and past adventures of Jackson Lamb and the denizens of Slough House, where spy careers go to die. The Secret Hours fills in the important backstory of one key character…enough said.

Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor

I picked this up as an impulse buy and it was great. Murder and feuding in a small Ozark community, with meth dealing white supremacists, a tough Vietnam vet trying to raise a granddaughter and terrific supporting. If you like S. A. Cosby, you’ll like Ozark Dogs.

Razorblade Tears and Blackton Wasteland by S. A. Cosby

Speaking of Cosby. Razorblade Tears is a fast-paced story retribution where two unlikely ex-cons—Ike and Buddy Lee, one Black and one white, search for the murderers of their gays sons who were married. The plotting is intricate and we get to watch Ike and Buddy Lee grow to be better men even as they mete out violent justice.

Blacktop Wasteland is another intricately plotted and bloody story of fathers and sons, featuring Beauregard “Bug” Montage, a getaway driver gone straight who gets tempted into one last heist. It all goes wrong and Bug needs to salvage what he can as his choices put his family at risk

Next up, Cosby’s My Darket Prayer. I’m reading them in reverse order.

London Séance Society by Sarah Penner Read this one for my book club. The alternating narrative made the story a bit hard to follow (murder in the fake seance work of the late 19^th century) and the authors seem to have left no plot device unused.

Dogwhistles and Figleaves by Jennifer Mather Saul

Reviewed this one for CHOICE but I may do a longer post at some point. The author brings together the spread of explicit racism and the normalization of blatant falsehoods, showing how the two reinforce one another in different ways to different audience.  The  plural really should be “figleafs” though.

Mother tongue: The Surprising History of Women’s Words by Jenni Nuttall

Also reviewed this for CHOICE. It’s a terrific history of the etymologies of words used to describe women’s word, experiences, and bodies.

The Riddles of the Sphinx : Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle by Anna Shechtman

Schectman combined the history of gender in crosswords with a personal memoir of her anorexia, which I wasn’t expecting!? She somehow makes it work and I especially enjoy the bios of Ruth Hale (of Algonquian Round Table fame) and the linguist Julia Penelope.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

A literary tale of cultural appropriation and scandal that is only part satire. There were times when I was rooting for Juniper song and times when I was disgusted by her.

On Disinformation by Lee McIntyre Good enough and useful, but a bit disappointing in its preachiness and lack of depth.

Dark Angel and Judgement Prey by John Sanford

I’d been putting off the Letty Davenport series thinking they wouldn’t hold up to the Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers books. But I was wrong; they are just as compelling in the characterization, plotting, and pace.

Hero by Thomas Perry

Page-turner story of a young female bodyguard targeted by a hitman and his mob boss. Thomas Perry at his best.

On my summer reading list:

• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• Clete and Another Kind of Eden by James Lee Burke
• Honey by Victor Lodato
• The Bear Went Over the Mountain by William Kotzwink;le
• The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu

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How to Talk Language Science with Everybody by Laura Wagner and Cecile McKee.

This book should be required reader for every PhD and master’s student in linguists. Wagner and McKee explain how to build the necessary skills to communicate language science (really any science or technical field) to general public. Those of us who have fumbled when trying to explain linguistics to family members, friends, reports, and colleagues and administrators will appreciate the well organized and systematic presentation. In twenty bite-sized chapters – with plenty of examples – the authors explain how and why the of generating interest, building credibility and scaffolding knowing about linguistics to a variety of audiences. Wish I had had this when I first started teaching, back in the last century.

The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (1980) , Success with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense, (1989) The Last Word on the Gentle Art of Self-Defense, by Suzette Haden Elgin (1987)

A few years ago I picked up these three books in a thrift shop. I had known about Elgin’s work and occasionally taught her linguistic science fiction and Laadan, so I thought someday I’d read through my investment. The three books are a sort of applied linguistics—or applied semantics more exactly—focusing on way to recognize conversational presuppositions in interactions. More importantly, the books suggest how to challenge presuppositions to redirect (or derail) conversations that are unproduction. Elgin sets things up by taking about various modes of interaction: the placate, the blamer, the computer, the distracter, and the leveler (based on Virgina Satir’s psychotherapeutic model) and shows how different modes respond to verbal aggression.

As you can infer from the titles, the books are written in the self-help style, with sample conversations, journaling exercises, and so on. Some of the scenarios seem clunky, but overall ones get a nice set of examples of thinks like “I you really wanted me to get an A in math, you’d buy me a calculator” or “Even a nurse ought to be able to tell I’m really in a lot of pain.” Elgin touches on power networks and charisma and has special chapters “For men” For women” and “For College students” in the 1980s).

Success … is a bit more interesting linguistically, with discussion of factives, metaphor, time adverbs, and more., with a long section on language and public relations. The Last Word … adds in the idea of sensory modes from the Neurolinguistic Programming Work of Grinder and Bandler and introduces something called Syntonics which involves matching the sensory mode of others. Throughout the three books Elgin blends in linguistic ideas, with advice on

The most fun idea was what she called “the twirk” referring to language that calls attention to itself as a means of creating a distraction. I had thought I would skim the books and discard them, but I think I’ll hold onto them, just in case….

Spassky’s Best Games: A Chess Biography by Alexey Bezgodov and Dmitry Aleynikov

Boris Spassky is one of my chess heroes—I was rooting for him to beat Fischer (both times). Bezgodov and Aleynikov’s biography (pp 15-148) answers paints a comprehensive profile of Spassky’s life and career, and it answers some of the questions I’ve always had. We see Spassky’s intellectual and rebellious side, questioning communist orthodoxy, his need for father figures like Zak and Bondarevsky, his periodic laziness in preparation but also his deep understanding of the finding the critical moment in a game, his overload and burnout as world champion. We also see his sportsmanship and too acquiescent respect for Fischer as well as Spassky’s relationships with players like Tal, Korchnoi, and Karpov. And we see Spassky’s post championship life and career as a not quite expatriate Russian and chess ambassador. Spassky has written little of his own biography—and at this stage probably won’t—so this volume is likely to remain the definitive work for a time. The 61 “best games” portion of the book (pp 155-274) includes both familiar and less games of Spassky’s including the famous game with Bronstein that appeared in the was used in From Russia with Love.

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

Continuing my way through S. A. Cosby’s books with Razorblade Tears. It’s a fast-paced story of two ex-cons, one black and one white, whose gays sons are killed in an apparent hate crime. Ike and Buddy Lee do what has to be done and uncover secrets within secrets. It’s noir at its best.

Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Set on and around the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, Winter Counts follows Virgil Wounded Horse, who provides street justice for wrongs the legal system won’t address. He a Lakota of mixed ancestry, dealing with the prejudices of white people and full blooded Lakotas. His latest client is close to home—his own nephew – and Virgil and his girlfriend Marie get involved tracking down drug gangs and other unsavory characters to keep Nathan safe. Good action, a twisty plots, nice sense of place, and subtle commentary on Native life. Weiden has promised another novel and I’ll be watching for it.

Red Queen by Bourne Morris

A quick-moving and engaging murder mystery set in a journalism school. Plenty of academic rivalries to drive the story – and for a change the killer isn’t the provost. Wherever you are you’ll recognize a colleague or two.

Who Killed Truth? by Jill Lepore

You can’t go wrong with Jill Lepore. In this podcast/audiobook Who Killed Truth? she tackles epistemology through a wide-ranging series of explorations of lesser known events in the history of evidence—from the use of lie detectors in court, a history of meteorology, to the use of vaccines for combat polio and the 1976 swine flu, to climate science, women’s right and the Scopes trial, and World War II propaganda. No philosophers were harmed in this podcast.