Matt's bookshelf: read

Matt's bookshelf: read en-US Sun, 15 Jun 2025 10:28:10 -0700 60 Matt's bookshelf: read 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)]]> 77197
Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal bastard, cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals - the old art known as the Wit - gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.]]> 435 Robin Hobb 055357339X Matt 5
I struggled to characterize the tone until my daughter asked if it was YA fiction... in a way, I think that's right, since Fitz is a child during the book. It avoided some of the things I don't like about YA, and I'm curious to see if the tone changes as Fitz matures in subsequent books.]]> 4.21 1995 Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)

Assassin's Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy, #1)

author: Robin Hobb
name: Matt
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/01
date added: 2025/06/15
shelves: 2025, audiobook, fantasy, young-adult
review:
This was such a well-balanced book that it made for a delightful read. Strong description of setting, good characterization, unpredictable plot (for me), serious events told with a gentle tone (the book isn't dark)... I truly enjoyed this book. I cared about the characters and was intrigued to see where the story went. I've since heard from others that they thought the book was slow, but there are time jumps in the story that keep things moving forward--we are basically following Fitz's childhood.

I struggled to characterize the tone until my daughter asked if it was YA fiction... in a way, I think that's right, since Fitz is a child during the book. It avoided some of the things I don't like about YA, and I'm curious to see if the tone changes as Fitz matures in subsequent books.
]]> Homage to Catalonia 9646 232 George Orwell 0156421178 Matt 4
While his chapters on the politics of the war are long and of very different style than the narrative, he does warn the reader about them and suggest skipping them if needed. Some of the details were too much, but I appreciated his firsthand reiteration of what I had read in more general history books: the Communists' attempt to take power over the anti-Franco forces (can't help but position themselves as the "vanguard of the proletariat") splintered their sides, suppressed the anarchists, and likely cost the the war, vaulting Franco to power. Once again, it's a message that the means of achieving a new society must match the ends.]]> 4.09 1938 Homage to Catalonia

author: George Orwell
name: Matt
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1938
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/15
date added: 2025/06/15
shelves: 2025, audiobook, biography, military-history
review:
Orwell is a tremendous writing, bringing a poetic simplicity to the daily grind of living as a soldier in a war zone. He has a subtle sense of humor and a self-effacing style, which are quite winsome. He's someone we want to spend time with in his backwater corner of the front.

While his chapters on the politics of the war are long and of very different style than the narrative, he does warn the reader about them and suggest skipping them if needed. Some of the details were too much, but I appreciated his firsthand reiteration of what I had read in more general history books: the Communists' attempt to take power over the anti-Franco forces (can't help but position themselves as the "vanguard of the proletariat") splintered their sides, suppressed the anarchists, and likely cost the the war, vaulting Franco to power. Once again, it's a message that the means of achieving a new society must match the ends.
]]> <![CDATA[A World Beyond Physics: The Emergence and Evolution of Life]]> 41542080
Building on concepts from his work as a complex systems researcher at the Santa Fe Institute, Kauffman focuses in particular on the idea of cells constructing themselves and introduces concepts such as "constraint closure." Living systems are defined by the concept of "organization" which has not been focused on in enough in previous works. Cells are autopoetic systems that build they literally construct their own constraints on the release of energy into a few degrees of freedom that constitutes the very thermodynamic work by which they build their own self creating constraints. Living cells are "machines" that construct and assemble their own working parts. The emergence of such systems-the origin of life problem-was probably a spontaneous phase transition to self-reproduction in complex enough prebiotic systems. The resulting protocells were capable of Darwin's heritable variation, hence open-ended evolution by natural selection. Evolution propagates this burgeoning organization. Evolving living creatures, by existing, create new niches into which yet further new creatures can emerge. If life is abundant in the universe, this self-constructing, propagating, exploding diversity takes us beyond physics to biospheres everywhere.]]> 168 Stuart A. Kauffman 0190871334 Matt 4 2025, audiobook, science 3.80 2019 A World Beyond Physics: The Emergence and Evolution of Life

A World Beyond Physics: The Emergence and Evolution of Life

author: Stuart A. Kauffman
name: Matt
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/06/15
shelves: 2025, audiobook, science
review:
I'll admit that much of this book--despite being short--was over my head, especially listening to it as an audiobook while driving. But my main takeaways--which I very much appreciated--is that biology is not reducible to physics, and life has emergent properties, a reiteration of the nonreductive physicalism that I've studied before. I appreciate a science-based viewpoint that appreciates and explains the beauty and complexity of life without resorting to hypothetical religious explanations.
]]> Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune #6) 44439416
The desert planet Arrakis, called Dune, has been destroyed. The remnants of the Old Empire have been consumed by the violent matriarchal cult known as the Honored Matres. Only one faction remains a viable threat to their total conquest--the Bene Gesserit, heirs to Dune's power.

Under the leadership of Mother Superior Darwi Odrade, the Bene Gesserit have colonized a green world on the planet Chapterhouse and are turning it into a desert, mile by scorched mile. And once they've mastered breeding sandworms, the Sisterhood will control the production of the greatest commodity in the known galaxy--the spice melange. But their true weapon remains a man who has lived countless lifetimes--a man who served under the God Emperor Paul Muad'Dib....]]> 609 Frank Herbert 0593098277 Matt 4 2025, audiobook, sci-fi
I'm glad I persisted through my re-read of the series, but some parts were more enjoyable sailing than others.]]> 3.82 1985 Chapterhouse: Dune (Dune #6)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Matt
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/03
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: 2025, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
Definitely slower than Heretics of Dune, and even the philosophy/reflections seemed weaker than the equally slow God Emperor of Dune. Still, I appreciate the twists and turns of this universe, the focus on the Bene Gesserit and the unexpected threat of the Honored Matres. There are many intriguing, likable characters and definitely some loose threads (what was Scytale's purpose?). The ending is rousing and surprising.

I'm glad I persisted through my re-read of the series, but some parts were more enjoyable sailing than others.
]]> <![CDATA[Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life]]> 214709078 From one of our foremost psychologists, a trailblazing book that turns the idea of a good life on its head and urges us to embrace the transformative power of variety and experience.

For many people, a good life is a stable life, a comfortable life that follows a well-trodden path. This is the case for Shigehiro Oishi's father, who has lived in a small mountain town in Japan for his entire life, putting his family's needs above his own, like his father and grandfather before him. But is a happy life, or even a meaningful life, the only path to a good life?

In Life in Three Dimensions, Shige Oishi enters into a debate that has animated psychology since 1984, when Ed Diener (Oishi's mentor) published a paper that launched happiness studies. A rival followed in 1989 with a model of a good life that focused on purpose and meaning instead. In recent years, Shige Oishi's award-winning work has proposed a third dimension to a good psychological richness, a concept that prioritizes curiosity, exploration, and a variety of experiences that help us grow as people.

Life in Three Dimensions explores the shortcomings of happiness and meaning as guides to a good life, pointing to complacency and regret as a "happiness trap" and narrowness and misplaced loyalty as a “meaning trap.” Psychological richness, Oishi proposes, balances the other two, offering insight and growth spurred by embracing uncertainty and challenges.

In a lively style, drawing on a generation of psychological studies and on examples from famous people, books and film, Oishi introduces a new path to a fuller, more satisfying life with fewer regrets.]]> 256 Shigehiro Oishi 0385550391 Matt 4 2025, audiobook, psychology 3.87 2025 Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life

Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration, and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life

author: Shigehiro Oishi
name: Matt
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: 2025, audiobook, psychology
review:
There are stronger chapters and weaker ones, but I deeply appreciate the idea and exploration of "richness" or "interest" being a complementary life to the pursuit of "happiness" and "meaning." I can chart different times of my life when I'm emphasized different of these aspects, so it has a nice explanatory aspect that helps guide my life decisions. Lots of interesting psychological studies discussed.
]]> Chronicles, Volume One 14318 "I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else." So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles: Volume One, his remarkable book exploring critical junctures in his life and career.

Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities -- smoky, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.

By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences. Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles: Volume One into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.]]> 320 Bob Dylan 0743244583 Matt 4 2025, audiobook, biography 3.98 2004 Chronicles, Volume One

author: Bob Dylan
name: Matt
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: 2025, audiobook, biography
review:
A scattered but interesting biography. He jumps around in time, but it's interesting to hear his thoughts and process on life and music... it definitely humanizes a musical icon a bit.
]]> <![CDATA[George Orwell: The Life and Legacy of One of the 20th Century’s Most Famous Authors]]> 62599651
Before the advent of the digital age, the ability to write clearly and succinctly was mandatory for many walks of life, including commercial, diplomatic, academic, philosophical, and historical pursuits. George Orwell’s campaign for perfectly written English in an artistic and content-oriented sense might seem obsessive now, but the importance of written accuracy and well-conveyed meaning for that age cannot be overstated. In fact, Orwell and his works remain famous in large measure because they’re so critical of the ways in which language can be manipulated.

Orwell believed that a decaying language was a decaying society, open to misinformation, manipulation, and rewritten versions of history, the kind of themes that have become synonymous with his name and works. He was a philosophical and political writer caught between strong capitalistic, socialistic, communist, and fascist forces operating around the globe in the early 20th century, and to prevent extremes on both sides from adopting and distorting his works, he labored to simplify his style past the possibility of misconception. His works hauntingly warn readers of the dangers of extremism, totalitarianism, and all other kinds of tyranny that can be found in government, and as a result, the word Orwellian is often thrown around. In the same vein, critics of government policies or individual politicians often make reference to Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, dystopian works that were contemporary with World War II.

With such a successful nom de plume, it is difficult for almost anyone but family relations to recall Orwell’s real name. Eric Arthur Blair wanted to be a writer from the beginning, but so controversial were his works that he wished to avoid embarrassing or opening his family up to criticism. The name Orwell likely came from the beautiful River Orwell in East Anglia. Either way, the gifted English novelist, essayist, and critic became a major force in political literature of the 20th century, gradually transforming from a pillar of the British establishment into a “literary and political rebel.”]]> 87 Charles River Editors Matt 4 2025, audiobook, biography 3.91 George Orwell: The Life and Legacy of One of the 20th Century’s Most Famous Authors

George Orwell: The Life and Legacy of One of the 20th Century’s Most Famous Authors

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: 2025, audiobook, biography
review:

]]> The Silmarillion 7332 386 J.R.R. Tolkien 0618391118 Matt 5 2025, audiobook, fantasy
I've read this book several times and was struck this time by how much focus is on the First Age and its precursors. The more familiar Second Age (the story of Numenor and such) takes up a much smaller portion of the book.

Incidentally, the "Star and Swords" podcast by Alastair Stephens is currently doing a masterful 6 month series on the Silmarillion. His warm, erudite scholarship added so much to my re-reading of this text.]]> 3.99 1977

author: J.R.R. Tolkien
name: Matt
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1977
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: 2025, audiobook, fantasy
review:
This book contains a slow descent from discussions of the Valar ("demigods"), to the Elves, to humans... It can be quite dense and structurally difficult, but there is much beautiful writing here, and it provides the backdrop to which LOTR and the Hobbit only allude. As such, it adds so much depth to one's understanding of the Tolkien legendarium.

I've read this book several times and was struck this time by how much focus is on the First Age and its precursors. The more familiar Second Age (the story of Numenor and such) takes up a much smaller portion of the book.

Incidentally, the "Star and Swords" podcast by Alastair Stephens is currently doing a masterful 6 month series on the Silmarillion. His warm, erudite scholarship added so much to my re-reading of this text.
]]> <![CDATA[The Anglo-Saxon Settlement of England: The History and Legacy of the Anglo-Saxons at the Start of the Middle Ages]]> 55941853 40 Charles River Editors Matt 4 A helpful level of detail. 3.48 The Anglo-Saxon Settlement of England: The History and Legacy of the Anglo-Saxons at the Start of the Middle Ages

The Anglo-Saxon Settlement of England: The History and Legacy of the Anglo-Saxons at the Start of the Middle Ages

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.48
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2024, audiobook, other-history, medieval-history
review:
A helpful level of detail.
]]> <![CDATA[A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?]]> 135674440
Earth is not well. The promise of starting life anew somewhere far, far away—no climate change, no war, no Twitter—beckons, and settling the stars finally seems within our grasp. Or is it? Critically acclaimed, bestselling authors Kelly and Zach Weinersmith set out to write the essential guide to a glorious future of space settlements, but after years of research, they aren’t so sure it’s a good idea. Space technologies and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind. In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever wondered about, and many you’ve never considered:

Can you make babies in space? Should corporations govern space settlements? What about space war? Are we headed for a housing crisis on the Moon’s Peaks of Eternal Light—and what happens if you’re left in the Craters of Eternal Darkness? Why do astronauts love taco sauce? Speaking of meals, what’s the legal status of space cannibalism?

With deep expertise, a winning sense of humor, and art from the beloved creator of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, the Weinersmiths investigate perhaps the biggest questions humanity will ever ask itself—whether and how to become multiplanetary.

Get in, we’re going to Mars.]]> 11 Kelly Weinersmith Matt 4
They sound more helpful when they suggest that we wait to colonize space until we can "go big" with enough people, technology, and specializations to create a healthy, sustainable civilization. This is a worthwhile consideration. ]]> 4.06 2023 A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through?

author: Kelly Weinersmith
name: Matt
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2025, audiobook, science, space-space-exploration
review:
At times the authors seem overly pessimistic and I was inclined to dislike what they were saying, the book is an important caution to our discussions and plans of space exploration. There are major challenges with establishing and maintaining human existence in space that we have not yet solved. Perhaps their most important point is that the worst situation on Earth (climate change, etc.) is still vastly better than the most "hospitable" environment on the moon, Mars, etc (which aren't hospitable at all). And even if we placed humans on another planet as a kind of insurance policy, it'll be a long time before that colony can survive without the mother planet.

They sound more helpful when they suggest that we wait to colonize space until we can "go big" with enough people, technology, and specializations to create a healthy, sustainable civilization. This is a worthwhile consideration.
]]> Heretics of Dune (Dune #5) 44492287 Book five in Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune Chronicles--one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction.

Leto Atreides, the God Emperor of Dune, is dead. In the fifteen hundred years since his passing, the Empire has fallen into ruin. The great Scattering saw millions abandon the crumbling civilization and spread out beyond the reaches of known space. The planet Arrakis-now called Rakis-has reverted to its desert climate, and its great sandworms are dying.

Now, the Lost Ones are returning home in pursuit of power. And as factions vie for control over the remnants of the Empire, a girl named Sheeana rises to prominence in the wastelands of Rakis, sending religious fervor throughout the galaxy. For she possesses the abilities of the Fremen sandriders-fulfilling a prophecy foretold by the late God Emperor...

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 669 Frank Herbert 0593098269 Matt 5 2025, audiobook, sci-fi 3.83 1984 Heretics of Dune (Dune #5)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Matt
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2025, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
In my re-read of the Dune series, if I liked God Emperor less than I had the first time around, I enjoyed this one more. It is such an interesting turn of events, a story in the same universe and yet different. There is less navel-gazing than God Emperor (and I do like navel gazing to some degree); a far better blend of introspection, characterization, and plot.
]]> <![CDATA[A Concise History of Spain (Cambridge Concise Histories)]]> 43276663 13 William D. Phillips Jr. 1982642777 Matt 5 3.78 2010

A Concise History of Spain (Cambridge Concise Histories)

author: William D. Phillips Jr.
name: Matt
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2025, audiobook, other-history, medieval-history
review:
Nicely detailed for an introduction and just what I was looking for, never having systematically read Spanish history (only as they intersect with other histories). Of course there is the usual focus on royalty and nobles, but of course those are the most documented. And I would've enjoyed more detail about the Moorish kingdoms and accomplishments, as well as that of the Jewish people. But this was a helpful foundation for a trip to Spain, to give me a context to fit the historical sites I saw in.
]]> Desert Solitaire 214614 Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works and marks his first foray into the world of nonfiction writing. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.

Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book was written.]]> 337 Edward Abbey 0345326490 Matt 4 4.18 1968 Desert Solitaire

author: Edward Abbey
name: Matt
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2025, audiobook, biography, nature, the-american-west
review:
Such a fascinating glimpse at Arches before it was a national park. I do wish there was more discussion of his time and work in Arches and fewer side stories that went on overlong. He can be curmudgeonly, and his gender politics are rather dated, but he does have many good insights into conservation and modern tourism ("pave everywhere" modern tourists demand, so that they can drive there in their air-conditioned shells). I liked this less than I expected to but still enjoyed it.
]]> <![CDATA[Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction]]> 678069
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
]]> 152 Peter Coles 019285416X Matt 4 3.69 2001 Cosmology: A Very Short Introduction

author: Peter Coles
name: Matt
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2001
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2025, audiobook, science, space-space-exploration
review:
Very dense, even for a short introduction, but it gives a good sense of the current state of progress and controversy in modern cosmology.
]]> <![CDATA[Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction]]> 66839292 Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction examines all aspects of ancient warfare, from philosophy and strategy to the technical skills needed to fight. How did wars shape classical society? How was the individual's identity constructed by war? Can a war be just? Why was siege warfare particularly bloody? What role did divine intervention play in the outcome of a battle? Greek and Roman warfare differed from other cultures and was unlike any other forms of warfare. The key difference is often held to be that the Greeks and Romans practised a ‘Western Way of War’, where the aim is an open, decisive battle, won by courage instilled in part by discipline. What is this ‘Western Way of War’?]]> 1 Harry Sidebottom Matt 4 4.00 Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction

Ancient Warfare: A Very Short Introduction

author: Harry Sidebottom
name: Matt
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history
review:
This short volume problematizes the notion of a "Western way of war," showing that western cultures didn't follow the pattern of open, decisive battles for many centuries. Still, the ways ancient cultures "thought with war" is highlighted, in which warfare both shaped a culture and became a lens through which other cultures were viewed. Ancient art is discussed in an illuminative way, as well as adding nuance to how phalanx warfare with hoplites was conducted. He tries to have a chapter akin to "The Face of Battle" by John Keegan but doesn't quite get into the average soldier's viewpoint. Still, he gives some good insights into naval, siege, etc. warfare in this chapter.
]]> <![CDATA[Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction]]> 57237075 About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
]]> Véronique Mottier Matt 4 3.80 2008 Sexuality: A Very Short Introduction

author: Véronique Mottier
name: Matt
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves: 2024, audiobook, leftist-politics, other-history, science
review:
A helpful recounting of the evolution of cultural, scientific, and political views on sexuality. She offers the illuminating paradigm of sexuality historically being interpreted through moral, biological, and then social/political lenses. Beyond moral qualms and biological determinism, sexuality lies in a more ambiguous space of socio-political contestation. Ancient cultures viewed sexuality differently, highlight its arbitrary nature. This book was written a few years ago, but there was a decided lack of engagement with trans-sexuality, other than passing references in examples.
]]> The Big Sky (The Big Sky, #1) 202035 A classic portrait of America's vast frontier that inspired the Western genre in fiction.

Originally published more than fifty years ago, The Big Sky is the first of A. B. Guthrie Jr.'s epic adventure novels set in the American West. Here he introduces Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers: traveling the Missouri River from St. Louis to the Rockies, these frontiersmen live as trappers, traders, guides, and explorers. The story centers on Caudill, a young Kentuckian driven by a raging hunger for life and a longing for the blue sky and brown earth of big, wild places. Caught up in the freedom and savagery of the wilderness, Caudill becomes an untamed mountain man, whom only the beautiful daughter of a Blackfoot chief dares to love.]]> 386 A.B. Guthrie Jr. 0618154639 Matt 5
**Upon re-reading, I noticed and was more bothered by the racialized language for indigenous and black folks. While I'm sure it was reflective of the era, the language and stereotypes (e.g., the lazy, alcoholic but lovable Indian, Poor Devil) got a little heavy at times. Still, the sparse beauty and tragedy of the book were striking. The jumps in time kept the story moving, though you were almost sad to leave some eras.]]> 4.01 1947 The Big Sky (The Big Sky, #1)

author: A.B. Guthrie Jr.
name: Matt
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1947
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: fiction, the-american-west, 2024, audiobook
review:
This book is one of the most beautiful I have ever read... The setting is evocative and the language sparse, yet gorgeous. In many ways, Guthrie seems like a precursor to Cormac McCarthy. They both have the same lyrical prose, philosophical ponderings, both of which accentuate the moments of violence by counterpoint. Guthrie's depiction of the old West and its characters is beautiful but unromantic--the bad comes with the good. In this sense, the characters feel like real people--likable yet flawed, as we see most poignantly with Caudill. The book is deep, unforced, and memorable.

**Upon re-reading, I noticed and was more bothered by the racialized language for indigenous and black folks. While I'm sure it was reflective of the era, the language and stereotypes (e.g., the lazy, alcoholic but lovable Indian, Poor Devil) got a little heavy at times. Still, the sparse beauty and tragedy of the book were striking. The jumps in time kept the story moving, though you were almost sad to leave some eras.
]]> <![CDATA[Anarchism: A Very Short Introduction]]> 36395301 Colin Ward Matt 3 3.50 1981

author: Colin Ward
name: Matt
average rating: 3.50
book published: 1981
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024, audiobook, leftist-politics
review:
The book focuses more on modern geopolitics and environmental concerns from an anarchist angle. There is some consideration of the major theoreticians (Bakunin, Proudhon, Kropotkin, etc.), but I was expecting a greater summation of the principles of anarchist critique and organizing, as well as some of the varieties of anarchism. These are all largely missing.
]]> <![CDATA[Basque Country: The Turbulent History and Legacy of the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain]]> 52427223 *Includes a bibliography for further reading
It would not be a stretch to say that for a very tiny geographical territory (just 20,747 square kilometers), the Basque Country has inspired a plethora of intense stereotypes. Some of these stereotypes have been cast upon its people from the outside while others have been strategically propagated by the people themselves. For such a small area of land that is home to only 3,000,000 people, the Basque Country is anything but small in terms of its history, which is why opinions about its people are so intense, so consequential, and so contradictory. The Basque people have been called “the people who sing and dance at the foot of the Pyrenees,” a description that evokes not only their geographical location but also their strong folk traditions. Those words, said by the famous French writer Victor Hugo, infuriate the Basque people to this day. They have also been described pejoratively as “Europe’s aboriginals,” a reference to the age-old status of their culture, which has led many people to fetishize them and their language as ancient. In a much loftier vein, they also have been thought to be the “original,” true European natives, the people who established the most prestigious, celebrated elements of European culture.
While such small-minded stereotypes rightly tend to antagonize the Basque people, many Basque nationalists have been eager to cultivate an image of their culture as unique and separate from Spain and from France, the larger nations that engulf its territory and that threaten its autonomy. Basque nationalists are eager to point to the rich tradition of archeologists, politicians, anthropologists, nationalists and folklorists who have grown out of their culture. They have embraced their status as the oldest surviving European people, and they have celebrated their language, Euskera, as one of the world’s oldest spoken languages, a non-Indo-European tongue that can brag about having no other related languages in existence.
At the same time, even as the Basque Country seems to be commonly used as a synonym for all that is old, it is important to keep in mind the fact that the Basques have long been at the avant-garde of European history and culture, not to mention trade. During the wars against the Islamic caliphate during the Spanish Reconquista, the Basque kings often led the charge against the enemy. It was a Basque captain, Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who first made a journey around the globe. Moreover, Bilbao - a major city in the Basque Country - is not only the birthplace of Basque nationalism, but also of Spanish socialism. Beyond politics, the Basque Country is responsible for the start of the industrial revolution in Spain, thanks to their iron mines. Add to that the fact that some of the best writers of Spanish literary history, Miguel de Unamuno and Pio Baroja, come from the Basque Country, not to mention the political legacy left by Henry III of Navarre who became Henry IV of France, and brought an era of religious peace to France through the Bourbon dynasty.
Basque The Turbulent History and Legacy of the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain looks at the region, the most important events there, and the ongoing political tensions. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about Basque Country like never before.]]> 37 Charles River Editors Matt 4 3.50 Basque Country: The Turbulent History and Legacy of the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain

Basque Country: The Turbulent History and Legacy of the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024, audiobook, other-history
review:
Quick and insightful about the politics and history of this important region.
]]> <![CDATA[The Pleistocene Era: The History of the Ice Age and the Dawn of Modern Humans]]> 56277021 47 Charles River Editors Matt 4 3.99 2020

The Pleistocene Era: The History of the Ice Age and the Dawn of Modern Humans

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nature, science
review:
Mostly focuses on the development of hominids during this time, but situates it well within the relevant geologic eras and climactic changes.
]]> <![CDATA[The Cajuns: The History of the French-Speaking Ethnic Group in Canada and Louisiana]]> 44161718 85 Charles River Editors Matt 4 3.99

The Cajuns: The History of the French-Speaking Ethnic Group in Canada and Louisiana

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.99
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024, audiobook, jazz-new-orleans, other-history
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War]]> 212906442
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.

Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.”

At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.

Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.]]> 18 Erik Larson 0593828518 Matt 5 3.93 2024 The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War

author: Erik Larson
name: Matt
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nautical-history
review:
I never realized how prolonged and elaborate the drama at Fort Sumter was before reading this book. It is full of fascinating details and characters, including the commander of Sumter who was sympathetic to the South but felt it was his duty to remain loyal to the Army and to defend Sumter. Lincoln's cautious journey to D.C. for the inauguration is told in detail. The minds and motivations of many Southerners are portrayed, helping one to try to understand the thinking that fueled secession.
]]> <![CDATA[Morgan Is My Name (Morgan le Fay, #1)]]> 62300945
When King Uther Pendragon murders her father and tricks her mother into marriage, Morgan refuses to be crushed. Trapped amid the machinations of men in a world of isolated castles and gossiping courts, she discovers secret powers. Vengeful and brilliant, it's not long before Morgan becomes a worthy adversary to Merlin, influential sorcerer to the king. But fighting for her freedom, she risks losing everything – her reputation, her loved ones and her life.]]> 347 Sophie Keetch 0861545192 Matt 4 2024, audiobook, fantasy 4.16 2022 Morgan Is My Name (Morgan le Fay, #1)

author: Sophie Keetch
name: Matt
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fantasy
review:
The story keeps moving... so fast at times that you almost are sad to move on from a certain setting and time. But the characters are well-written and you care about them; the setting is compelling and fits with the historical setting of the day. The magic is subtle and hard-fought. People are complex but do change for the better or worse.
]]> <![CDATA[How Minds Change: The Surprising 카지노싸이트 of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion]]> 199895480 A myth-shattering exploration of the science and the secrets of changing minds faster than we ever thought possible

Why do people suddenly join cults? How can you flip someone’s stance on birth control in twenty minutes or less? Why does cultural change sometimes take generations, and sometimes just a few years? In How Minds Change, David McRaney, host of the popular podcast "You Are Not So Smart," explores what’s actually going on when individuals or societies rapidly switch their worldviews, and zeros in on the keys to transforming almost anyone’s thinking.
Scientists now know that facts don’t change minds. Empathy and understanding are crucial to making this transformation. McRaney meets a host of fascinating people who help prove his point, including a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and a man who, after making a career out of denying 9/11, came to realize that he was wrong. By explaining the mysterious mechanisms behind personal and cultural shifts like these, How Minds Change provides an arsenal of counterintuitive, powerful new tools we can all use to change the world around us for the better.
]]> David McRaney Matt 5 2024, audiobook, psychology 3.75 2022 How Minds Change: The Surprising 카지노싸이트 of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion

How Minds Change: The Surprising 카지노싸이트 of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion

author: David McRaney
name: Matt
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: 2024, audiobook, psychology
review:
Others on here have written quality summaries of this book, so I'll just say that it was helpful and insightful to read this just after the 2024 Presidential election. People hold beliefs because of their tribal identity; people are more open to change via stories and non-judgment; it is more helpful to explore why you think differently from someone else rather than argue with them; groups (provided they have the right trust and openness) are more accurate in their reasoning than individuals; the goal is to get them to consider their metacognition such as by asking how strongly they feel about something on a scale and why. I appreciated his accurate summation of epistemology, giving careful definitions that knowledge must be true; beliefs don't constitute knowledge unless they meet that standard. This section would've been improved by a brief discussion of the sources of knowledge (reason, intuition, authority, etc.).
]]> The History of Ireland 200466258 History Nerds Matt 4 4.00

author: History Nerds
name: Matt
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/04
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: 2024, audiobook, other-history
review:
A brief but helpful overview of a large subject, showing just how long "the Troubles" have lasted. I was struck by the displacement of population by loyalists and the consolidations of landowners, much like the Clearance in Scotland.
]]> <![CDATA[The Grand Strategy of the War of the Rebellion]]> 11372463
"We veterans believe that in 1861-5 we fought a holy war, with absolute right on our side, with pure patriotism, with reasonable skill, and that we achieved a result which enabled the United States of America to resume her glorious career in the interest of all mankind, after an interruption of four years by as needless a war as ever afflicted a people.

The causes which led up to that war have been well described... innumerable volumes have been published, and nearly all the leading magazines of our country have added most interesting narratives of events... Editors...applied long ago to have me assist them in their laudable purpose. I declined, but the pendulum of time seems to have swung too far in the wrong one is likely to receive the impression that the civil war was only a scramble for power by mobs, and not a war of high principle, guided by men of great intelligence according to the best light they possessed. Discovering that one branch of the history of that war, 'Grand Strategy,' has been overlooked or slighted by writers, I have undertaken to discuss it."]]> 38 William T. Sherman Matt 4 3.86 2011 The Grand Strategy of the War of the Rebellion

The Grand Strategy of the War of the Rebellion

author: William T. Sherman
name: Matt
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history
review:
Despite the title, this is more of a brief historical recounting of the course of the war than a discussion of "grand strategy." Still, Sherman is erudite and well-spoken, and helpfully divides the war up into three theaters, from west to east. He writes with humility and appreciation for the other generals and leaders of his day.
]]> <![CDATA[Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel]]> 13587131 Goliath, New York Times bestselling author Max Blumenthal takes us on a journey through the badlands and high roads of Israel-Palestine, painting a startling portrait of Israeli society under the siege of increasingly authoritarian politics as the occupation of the Palestinians deepens.

Beginning with the national elections carried out during Israel's war on Gaza in 2008-09, which brought into power the country's most right-wing government to date, Blumenthal tells the story of Israel in the wake of the collapse of the Oslo peace process.

As Blumenthal reveals, Israel has become a country where right-wing leaders like Avigdor Lieberman and Bibi Netanyahu are sacrificing democracy on the altar of their power politics; where the loyal opposition largely and passively stands aside and watches the organized assault on civil liberties; where state-funded Orthodox rabbis publish books that provide instructions on how and when to kill Gentiles; where half of Jewish youth declare their refusal to sit in a classroom with an Arab; and where mob violence targets Palestinians and African asylum seekers scapegoated by leading government officials as "demographic threats."

Immersing himself like few other journalists inside the world of hardline political leaders and movements, Blumenthal interviews the demagogues and divas in their homes, in the Knesset, and in the watering holes where their young acolytes hang out, and speaks with those political leaders behind the organized assault on civil liberties. As his journey deepens, he painstakingly reports on the occupied Palestinians challenging schemes of demographic separation through unarmed protest. He talks at length to the leaders and youth of Palestinian society inside Israel now targeted by security service dragnets and legislation suppressing their speech, and provides in-depth reporting on the small band of Jewish Israeli dissidents who have shaken off a conformist mindset that permeates the media, schools, and the military.

Through his far-ranging travels, Blumenthal illuminates the present by uncovering the ghosts of the past—the histories of Palestinian neighborhoods and villages now gone and forgotten; how that history has set the stage for the current crisis of Israeli society; and how the Holocaust has been turned into justification for occupation.

A brave and unflinching account of the real facts on the ground, Goliath is an unprecedented and compelling work of journalism.]]> 512 Max Blumenthal 1568586345 Matt 0 to-read 4.37 2012 Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel

author: Max Blumenthal
name: Matt
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4) 44439415
Millennia have passed on Arrakis, and the once-desert planet is green with life. Leto Atreides, the son of the world's savior, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, is still alive but far from human. To preserve humanity's future, he sacrificed his own by merging with a sandworm, granting him near immortality as God Emperor of Dune for the past thirty-five hundred years.

Leto's rule is not a benevolent one. His transformation has made not only his appearance but his morality inhuman. A rebellion, led by Siona, a member of the Atreides family, has risen to oppose the despot's rule. But Siona is unaware that Leto's vision of a Golden Path for humanity requires her to fulfill a destiny she never wanted--or could possibly conceive....

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 587 Frank Herbert 0593098250 Matt 4 2024, audiobook, sci-fi 3.91 1981 God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Matt
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: 2024, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
This was my second reading of this book, and while it was one of my very favorites in my first reading, it decreased a bit in my estimation this time around. It is a potent meditation on the nature and necessities of power in governance and wildly inventive in many ways (a man-sandworm hybrid?). Yet it does get a little mired in its own meditations, and Leto's love for Hwi is a bit naive for a millenia-old being. Further, the gender politics of Herbert's era are on display with Idaho's persistent upset with the notion of an all-female army. There is a lot of gender essentialism and some sexism at play here. Still, it is a creative and deep book.
]]> Project Hail Mary 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Matt 5 2024, audiobook, sci-fi 4.49 2021 Project Hail Mary

author: Andy Weir
name: Matt
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: 2024, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
My daughter recommended this book to me, and I absolutely *loved* it! If "The Martian" was heavy on engineering, this book steers more towards science, though engineering is deftly handled by Rocky the alien. From the sheer scale of the events, to the science, to the touching friendship between Ryland and Rocky, to the surprise ending... I was there for it all. A tremendously good book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Mossad: The History and Legacy of Israel’s National Intelligence Agency]]> 45186007 76 Charles River Editors Matt 4 3.84

The Mossad: The History and Legacy of Israel’s National Intelligence Agency

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history, other-history
review:
The usual good production from Charles River Editors: it's a brief but informative entree into the topic. The dire exigencies of Israel's early history that gave rise to the Mossad are explored, as are its victories and shortcomings. The capture of Eichmann in Argentina is explored in intriguing detail. Overall, a very helpful book though of course such things can never be fully up-to-date.
]]> <![CDATA[From Here to There: The Art and 카지노싸이트 of Finding and Losing Our Way]]> 218288859
“An important book that reminds us that navigation remains one of our most underappreciated arts.”
—Tristan Gooley, author of The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs

“If you want to understand what rats can teach us about better-planned cities, why walking into a different room can help you find your car keys, or how your brain’s grid, border, and speed cells combine to give us a sense of direction, this book has all the answers.”
— The Scotsman

How is it that some of us can walk unfamiliar streets without losing our way, while the rest of us struggle even with a GPS? Navigating in uncharted territory is a remarkable feat if you stop to think about it. In this beguiling mix of science and storytelling, Michael Bond explores how we do how our brains make the “cognitive maps” that keep us orientated and how that anchors our sense of wellbeing. Children are instinctive explorers, developing a spatial understanding as they roam. And yet today few of us make use of the wayfinding skills that we inherited from our nomadic ancestors.

Bond tells stories of the lost and found—sailors, orienteering champions, early aviators—and explores why being lost can be such a devastating experience. He considers how our understanding of the world around us affects our psychology and helps us see how our reliance on technology may be changing who we are.

“Bond concludes that, by setting aside our GPS devices, by redesigning parts of our cities and play areas, and sometimes just by letting ourselves get lost, we can indeed revivify our ability to find our way, to the benefit of our inner world no less than the outer one.”
— 카지노싸이트

“A thoughtful argument about how our ability to find our way is integral to our nature.”
— Sunday Times]]> Michael Shaw Bond Matt 5
Another helpful insight is that some people (or at some times) navigate in an "egocentric" fashion, meaning turn-by-turn directions. Other people (or at other times) use "spatial navigation" where they have a larger picture sense of where they are. Overall, the latter are better navigators and can deal with shortcuts or blockages of route, but the former method has its place too.

He is not anti-GPS but says that it doesn't really engage the brains aeons-old navigational systems. An unanswered question to me is if one uses GPS to gain a spatial sense of where things are and not just for turn-by-turn (egocentric) navigation, is it as deleterious?

Clearly, a thought-provoking book, with lots of great historical anecdotes and examples.]]> 4.00 2020 From Here to There: The Art and 카지노싸이트 of Finding and Losing Our Way

From Here to There: The Art and 카지노싸이트 of Finding and Losing Our Way

author: Michael Shaw Bond
name: Matt
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: 2024, audiobook, science, survival, urban-studies-psychology
review:
A brief but deep book! He covers a wide range of topics with clear coherence. The deep dive into neuroscience provided helpful depth and context. He expresses profound sympathy for those who easily get lost, the wanderings of Alzheimers patients, and the challenges inherent in navigating. One of my most appreciated insights was that "mental maps" are not so much spatial maps as they are maps of cognition, neurons marking familiar places, boundaries, or orienting on a point so as to show degrees of deviation from that "fixed" point... but the mind isn't producing Google Maps internally.

Another helpful insight is that some people (or at some times) navigate in an "egocentric" fashion, meaning turn-by-turn directions. Other people (or at other times) use "spatial navigation" where they have a larger picture sense of where they are. Overall, the latter are better navigators and can deal with shortcuts or blockages of route, but the former method has its place too.

He is not anti-GPS but says that it doesn't really engage the brains aeons-old navigational systems. An unanswered question to me is if one uses GPS to gain a spatial sense of where things are and not just for turn-by-turn (egocentric) navigation, is it as deleterious?

Clearly, a thought-provoking book, with lots of great historical anecdotes and examples.
]]> <![CDATA[Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range]]> 210441678
A lyrical memoir that interweaves wilderness, homeland, cultural connections, historical figures, humor, and gritty experiences across northern Alaska, Arctic A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range takes readers along on a once-in-a-lifetime journey.

From the award-winning author of Ice The Cultural History of an Arctic Icon comes an intimate exploration of Alaska’s northernmost mountain range with observations on Indigenous cultures, conservation, and intense cross-country travel, all shaped by respect for the land. Follow author Michael Engelhard through tussock-studded tundra for a remarkable tale of bear encounters and white-knuckled river moments, as well as poetic reflections on a vast, untamed landscape. A trained anthropologist, Engelhard evokes classic writers like Edward Abbey, Barry Lopez, and Ellen Meloy with profound dives into human and natural history and vivid meditations on Alaskan wildlife, flora, and geology. When he embarked on this thru-hike, fewer people had completed it solo in a single push than had dived to the floor of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of Earth’s oceans.

Much more than a captivating account of a human-powered solo thru-hike and float, Arctic Traverse illuminates the spirit of Alaska, drawing on encounters with Indigenous elders, guided clients, scientists, and others as well as on Engelhard’s long-held dream and his experiences of the land itself.]]> 1 Michael Engelhard Matt 5 4.50 2024 Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range

Arctic Traverse: A Thousand-Mile Summer of Trekking the Brooks Range

author: Michael Engelhard
name: Matt
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: 2024, alaska, audiobook, nature, travel
review:
I really enjoyed his structure of interspersing the narrative of his journey with short excurses on local history, geology, biology, etc. It made for an interesting read, and the narrator is a likable, knowledgeable, humble individual.
]]> Chauvet Cave 347780 136 Jean-Marie; Deschamps Chauvet 0500282862 Matt 5 science, other-history 4.47 1995

author: Jean-Marie; Deschamps Chauvet
name: Matt
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2012/06/07
date added: 2024/09/25
shelves: science, other-history
review:
Lovely photos of amazing cave paintings! The narrative is not the main point of the book, but it does show the great care, passion, and professionalism of those who originally discovered these paintings and worked so hard to protect them and bring them under proper scientific study. To gaze at these paintings is to look into minds just like ours... only they happened to live 30,000 years ago! Mind-blowing...
]]> Killing Adam 42288901 카지노싸이트 Fiction category, 2020 Best Book Awards.

The world runs on ARCs. Altered Reality Chips. Small implants behind the left ear that allow people to experience anything they could ever imagine. The network controls everything, from traffic, to food production, to law enforcement. Some proclaim it a Golden Age of humanity. Others have begun to see the cracks. Few realize that behind it all, living within every brain and able to control all aspects of society, there exists a being with an agenda all his the singularity called Adam, who believes he is God.

Jimmy Mahoney's brain can't accept an ARC. Not since his football injury from the days when the league was still offline. "ARC-incompatible" is what the doctors told him. Worse than being blind and deaf, he is a man struggling to cling to what's left of a society that he is no longer a part of. His wife spends twenty-three hours a day online, only coming off when her chip forcibly disconnects her so she can eat. Others are worse. Many have died, unwilling or unable to log off to take care of even their most basic needs.

After being unwittingly recruited by a rogue singularity to play a role in a war that he doesn't understand, Jimmy learns the truth about Adam and is thrown into a life-and-death struggle against the most powerful mathematical mind the world has ever known. But what can one man do against a being that exists everywhere and holds limitless power? How can one man, unable to even get online, find a way to save his wife, and the entire human race, from destruction?]]> 224 Earik Beann 1732740801 Matt 4
Overall, this is a really enjoyable exploration of some relevant issues in society in terms of technology and personal relationships. The idea of personal implants that connect people to an online world so realistic that they forsake the actual world to the point of neglecting their physiological needs is, well, unnervingly plausible. Some reviewers have said that the protagonist's wife is underdeveloped as a character, but I think that's fitting, as she's absent 23 hours per day, only logged off for the mandatory one hour per day to eat and drink. She's underdeveloped as a character in Jimmy's life too!

The fluid integration of technology and action made this a fun, quick read. The ending was [spoilers removed]. The quality of writing and dialogue was high. If this is your genre, give it a go!]]> 3.83 2019 Killing Adam

author: Earik Beann
name: Matt
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2019/12/04
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves: artificial-intelligence, kindle, sci-fi
review:
Others have rightly critiqued the rape joke that occurs early in the book, so I'll leave it at that. Thankfully, that's an outlier in the book.

Overall, this is a really enjoyable exploration of some relevant issues in society in terms of technology and personal relationships. The idea of personal implants that connect people to an online world so realistic that they forsake the actual world to the point of neglecting their physiological needs is, well, unnervingly plausible. Some reviewers have said that the protagonist's wife is underdeveloped as a character, but I think that's fitting, as she's absent 23 hours per day, only logged off for the mandatory one hour per day to eat and drink. She's underdeveloped as a character in Jimmy's life too!

The fluid integration of technology and action made this a fun, quick read. The ending was [spoilers removed]. The quality of writing and dialogue was high. If this is your genre, give it a go!
]]> <![CDATA[The Thousand Names (The Shadow Campaigns, #1)]]> 15810910
Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was resigned to serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost. But that was before a rebellion upended his life. And once the powder smoke settled, he was left in charge of a demoralized force clinging tenuously to a small fortress at the edge of the desert.

To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must win the hearts of her men and lead them into battle against impossible odds.

The fates of both these soldiers and all the men they lead depend on the newly arrived Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich, who has been sent by the ailing king to restore order. His military genius seems to know no bounds, and under his command, Marcus and Winter can feel the tide turning. But their allegiance will be tested as they begin to suspect that the enigmatic Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural—a realm with the power to ignite a meteoric rise, reshape the known world, and change the lives of everyone in its path.]]> 513 Django Wexler 0451465105 Matt 0 to-read 4.03 2013 The Thousand Names (The Shadow Campaigns, #1)

The Thousand Names (The Shadow Campaigns, #1)

author: Django Wexler
name: Matt
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire]]> 200230014 In this grand and thrilling narrative, the acclaimed biographer of Magellan, Columbus, and Marco Polo brings alive the singular life and adventures of Sir Francis Drake, the pirate/explorer/admiral whose mastery of the seas during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I changed the course of history

“Bergreen masterly portrays...the swashbuckling life and times of the explorer who achieved what Magellan could not - and made England’s fortune in the process.” ( Kirkus )

Before he was secretly dispatched by Queen Elizabeth to circumnavigate the globe, or was called upon to save England from the Spanish Armada, Francis Drake was perhaps the most wanted - and successful - pirate ever to sail. Nicknamed "El Draque" by the Spaniards who placed a bounty on his head, the notorious red-haired, hot-tempered Drake pillaged galleons laden with New World gold and silver, stealing a vast fortune for his queen - and himself. For Elizabeth, Drake made the impossible real, serving as a crucial and brilliantly adaptable instrument of her ambitions to transform England from a third-rate island kingdom into a global imperial power.

In 1580, sailing on Elizabeth's covert orders, Drake became the first captain to circumnavigate the earth successfully. (Ferdinand Magellan had died in his attempt.) Part exploring expedition, part raiding mission, Drake's audacious around-the-world journey in the Golden Hind reached Patagonia, the Pacific Coast of present-day California and Oregon, the Spice Islands, Java, and Africa. Almost a decade later, Elizabeth called upon Drake again. As the devil-may-care vice admiral of the English fleet, Drake dramatically defeated the once-invincible Spanish Armada, spurring the British Empire’s ascent and permanently wounding its greatest rival.

The relationship between Drake and Elizabeth is the missing link in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire, and its importance has not been fully described or appreciated. Framed around Drake’s key voyages as a window into this crucial moment in British history, In Search of a Kingdom is a rousing adventure narrative entwining epic historical themes with intimate passions.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio. ]]> Laurence Bergreen Matt 4 3.38 2021 In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire

In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Perilous Birth of the British Empire

author: Laurence Bergreen
name: Matt
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/30
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: 2024, audiobook, biography, nautical-history
review:
A fascinating recounting of Drake's many adventures. One of my favorite aspects of these kinds of books are the discussions of how such explorers tried to make sense of what they were finding: animals, weather, cultural customs that defied anything they had known before. I hadn't realized the close connection of Drake and Queen Elizabeth I--the book shows the vulnerability of the nascent British Empire of the time, how the booty Drake brought back truly did prop up the kingdom and the Queen at a difficult time. Bergreen helpfully gives insightful biographies of many of the characters, and his discussion of the Spanish Armada's defeat was far more complex and nuanced than any I had read before.
]]> <![CDATA[Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism]]> 146844535
Timothy McVeigh wanted to start a movement.

Speaking to his lawyers days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the Gulf War veteran expressed no regrets: killing 168 people was his patriotic duty. He cited the Declaration of Independence from memory: “Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” He had obsessively followed the siege of Waco and seethed at the imposition of President Bill Clinton’s assault weapons ban. A self-proclaimed white separatist, he abhorred immigration and wanted women to return to traditional roles. As he watched the industrial decline of his native Buffalo, McVeigh longed for when America was great.

New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Toobin traces the dramatic history and profound legacy of Timothy McVeigh, who once declared, “I believe there is an army out there, ready to rise up, even though I never found it.” But that doesn’t mean his army wasn’t there. With news-breaking reportage, Toobin details how McVeigh’s principles and tactics have flourished in the decades since his death in 2001, reaching an apotheosis on January 6 when hundreds of rioters stormed the Capitol. Based on nearly a million previously unreleased tapes, photographs, and documents, including detailed communications between McVeigh and his lawyers, as well as interviews with such key figures as Bill Clinton, Homegrown reveals how the story of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing is not only a powerful retelling of one of the great outrages of our time, but a warning for our future.]]> Jeffrey Toobin Matt 4
I did feel he tried a little too hard to tie McVeigh's ideas and actions in with those of the January 6 rioters. He would often add a glib sentence at the end of a given chapter making this connection once again. I felt the ending chapter, where he went through these connections in detail, was far more effective than the somewhat facile connections he makes throughout the book.]]> 4.10 2023 Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism

Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism

author: Jeffrey Toobin
name: Matt
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/25
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: 2024, audiobook, biography, other-history
review:
I listened to this audiobook shortly after visiting the memorial and museum in OKC. It provided what I was looking for: a detailed recounting of McVeigh's life and motivations, actions leading to the bombing, and the aftermath. He helpfully details McVeigh's biography and intellectual journey, as well as the detailed actions and involvement of his co-conspirators.

I did feel he tried a little too hard to tie McVeigh's ideas and actions in with those of the January 6 rioters. He would often add a glib sentence at the end of a given chapter making this connection once again. I felt the ending chapter, where he went through these connections in detail, was far more effective than the somewhat facile connections he makes throughout the book.
]]> Children of Dune (Dune #3) 44492286
The Children of Dune are twin siblings Leto and Ghanima Atreides, whose father, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, disappeared in the desert wastelands of Arrakis nine years ago. Like their father, the twins possess supernormal abilities--making them valuable to their manipulative aunt Alia, who rules the Empire in the name of House Atreides.

Facing treason and rebellion on two fronts, Alia's rule is not absolute. The displaced House Corrino is plotting to regain the throne while the fanatical Fremen are being provoked into open revolt by the enigmatic figure known only as The Preacher. Alia believes that by obtaining the secrets of the twins' prophetic visions, she can maintain control over her dynasty.

But Leto and Ghanima have their own plans for their visions--and their destinies....

Includes an introduction by Brian Herbert]]> 609 Frank Herbert 0593098242 Matt 5 2024, audiobook, sci-fi 3.96 1976 Children of Dune (Dune #3)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Matt
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1976
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: 2024, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
Once again, Herbert defies usual literary expectations: Alia takes a dark turn; the Corrino scion turns out to be intelligent and thoughtful; Duncan and Stilgar must make hard, dynamic choices. And the children... Ghanima and Leto quickly steal the show, with their closeness to each other and epic vision of the future and the difficult path to avoid disaster for humanity. And Leto's hybridization with the sand trout... simply stunning as science fiction and symbol.
]]> <![CDATA[Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles, #2)]]> 117902
And even as House Atreides begins to crumble around him from the machinations of his enemies, the true threat to Paul comes to his lover, Chani, and the unborn heir to his family's dynasty...]]> 279 Frank Herbert 0425043797 Matt 4 2024, audiobook, sci-fi 3.75 1969 Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles, #2)

author: Frank Herbert
name: Matt
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1969
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: 2024, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
Such an epic book and so notable for what Herbert is doing here: completely reversing and complicating the ascending, conquering narrative of the first book. Here, a Messiah turns his back on his messianic status; an Emperor sees beyond the empire. The book is a slow burn, with lots of dialogue and ponderings, all culminating in the end with a resolution both organic and unexpected.
]]> <![CDATA[The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)]]> 31817749
The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother's mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

The remarkable conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed trilogy that began with the multi-award-nominated The Fifth Season.]]> 416 N.K. Jemisin Matt 4 2024, audiobook, fantasy 4.32 2017 The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth, #3)

author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Matt
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fantasy
review:
Highly imaginative and gives a lot of the background on how the world came to be as it is, as well as a resolution. It does get highly esoteric and metaphysical--even more so than the previous books. It was a little hard to follow as an audiobook, being my first reading. There's a little less about the characters and "daily drama" in this book, instead focusing on grand metaphysics and apocalypse.
]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,” recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist – an informational topologist with half his mind gone – as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 Matt 0 to-read 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)

author: Peter Watts
name: Matt
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Call of Cthulhu 15730101 The Call of Cthulhu is a harrowing tale of the weakness of the human mind when confronted by powers and intelligences from beyond our world.]]> 43 H.P. Lovecraft Matt 0 to-read 3.97 1928

author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Matt
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Moontide and Magic Rise (Moontide Magic Rise)]]> 36027154
The Age of Mages is over, and all the secrets of their magical arts are thought to be lost to the world. There are even those who suspect that the last of the great Mages spent their final years scrupulously eradicating all traces of their craft from the pages of history--insuring that their art will never be practiced again.

It is the dawn of a new an age of reason, science, and exploration, and Tristam Flattery is one of its most promising young naturalists. But when Tristam is summoned to the royal court of Farrland to try to revitalize a failing species of plant which seems to have mysterious, almost magical, medicinal properties--a plant without which, he is told, the aging king will surely die--he soon realizes that he has been drawn into the heart of a political struggle which spans generations, a conflict which threatens the very foundations of his civilization. And before long, Tristam is caught in the grip of a destiny which will lead him to the ends of the known world--on a voyage of discovery that has more to do with magic than with science....]]> 832 Sean Russell 0756414105 Matt 0 to-read 3.36 Moontide and Magic Rise (Moontide Magic Rise)

Moontide and Magic Rise (Moontide Magic Rise)

author: Sean Russell
name: Matt
average rating: 3.36
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)]]> 2
Harry has had enough. He is beginning to think he must do something, anything, to change his situation, when the summer holidays come to an end in a very dramatic fashion. What Harry is about to discover in his new year at Hogwarts will turn his world upside down...]]> 912 J.K. Rowling Matt 4 4.50 2003 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Matt
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: young-adult, 2024, audiobook, fantasy
review:
Quite good and entertaining, though Rowling seems to have a formula of lots of build-up, then lots of action for 100 pages, then 50 pages of denouement. The length of this book made it a long hike to those final sequences.
]]> <![CDATA[Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate]]> 66584665 --Publishers Weekly
""Interesting and exciting . . . a thoroughly enjoyable chronicle of an interesting life and interesting era.""
--Booklist
The definitive biography of history'smost fearsome and famous pirate
Of all the colorful cutthroats who scoured the seas in search of plunder during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century, none was more ferocious or notorious than Blackbeard. As unforgettable as his savage career was, much of Blackbeard's life has been shrouded in mystery--until now.
Drawing on vivid descriptions of Blackbeard's attacks from his rare surviving victims, pirate expert Angus Konstam traces Blackbeard's career from its beginnings to his final defeat in a tremendous sea battle near his base at Ocracoke Island. Presenting dramatic accounts of the pirate's very effective tactics and his reputation for cruelty, Konstam offers a fascinating examination of the life and business of piracy and the lure of this brutal and bloody trade.]]> 0 Angus Konstam 1662008872 Matt 4 4.00 2006 Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate

Blackbeard: America's Most Notorious Pirate

author: Angus Konstam
name: Matt
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/10
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nautical-history
review:
Fascinating background on the history and tactics of pirates, particularly as they relate to colonial American (especially the Carolinas and Virginia). There's probably as much detail about colonial politics as Blackbeard, but it is interesting context. I appreciated the structure of alternating the storyline with broader backgrounds. Other pirates, such as Charles Vane and Jack Rackham, are also discussed in reasonable detail.
]]> <![CDATA[The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)]]> 31554691 New York Times on The Fifth Season (A New York Times Notable Book of 2015)

The second novel in a new fantasy trilogy by Hugo, Nebula & World Fantasy Award nominated author N.K. Jemisin.

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS... FOR THE LAST TIME.

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring – madman, world-crusher, savior – has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy.

It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.

The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.]]> 14 N.K. Jemisin Matt 5 2024, audiobook, fantasy 4.11 2016 The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth, #2)

author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Matt
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/18
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fantasy
review:
The world-building gets deeper, and I appreciate the focus on Nassun and her storyline.
]]> <![CDATA[The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)]]> 19161852
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.]]> 468 N.K. Jemisin Matt 5 2024, audiobook, fantasy 4.28 2015 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1)

author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Matt
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fantasy
review:
Highly imaginative world and intriguing characters.
]]> <![CDATA[The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World]]> 2714607 442 Niall Ferguson 1594201927 Matt 4 3.90 2007

The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World

author: Niall Ferguson
name: Matt
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves: 2024, audiobook, finance-investing
review:
This book is now a little dated, but it's a useful exploration of the history of money. I thought it would delve more deeply into money specifically, but it rapidly broadens to discuss banks, bond, stock markets, insurance, etc. This is natural and helpful, but the book perhaps didn't have the specificity I was expecting. One of his key premises is that people suffer not from the financial industry but from lack of access to fiscal/banking resources. For example, someone without access to banks and credit might have to resort to a loan shark. His statement should be clarified that it is not just banking services but *scrupulous* banking services that help people--as his history shows, unscrupulous banking/fiscal institutions have indeed caused much harm and still do.
]]> <![CDATA[Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 Matt 5 4.19 2019 Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb, #1)

author: Tamsyn Muir
name: Matt
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/13
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves: 2024, fantasy, kindle, grimdark
review:
I probably read this book over too long a period of time to give a coherent review, but I found the world intriguing and unique, and I loved the snark of the main characters. Sometimes the action and dramatis personae became a little hard to follow, but again, I read this in a stop/start manner. Overall, very enjoyable!
]]> <![CDATA[Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs: How the Struggle for Survival Has Shaped Birds and Their Behavior]]> 34505296 0 Roger J. Lederer 1541405196 Matt 5 4.04 2016

Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs: How the Struggle for Survival Has Shaped Birds and Their Behavior

author: Roger J. Lederer
name: Matt
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/07
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nature, science
review:
Such an insightful and fascinating book! It's filled with so many scientific recountings of the lives of birds: how they see and hear, the mechanics of bird flight, feeding habits, group dynamics, migration, evolution, etc. This book did just what I had hoped: added a lot of insight and detail to my thoughts when I observe birds. I was pestering my daughter for days with random bird facts!
]]> <![CDATA[Pacific: The Ocean of the Future]]> 25816988
As the Mediterranean shaped the classical world, and the Atlantic connected Europe to the New World, the Pacific Ocean defines our tomorrow. With China on the rise, so, too, are the American cities of the West coast, including Seattle, San Francisco, and the long cluster of towns down the Silicon Valley.

Today, the Pacific is ascendant. Its geological history has long transformed us—tremendous earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis—but its human history, from a Western perspective, is quite young, beginning with Magellan’s sixteenth-century circumnavigation. It is a natural wonder whose most fascinating history is currently being made.

In telling the story of the Pacific, Simon Winchester takes us from the Bering Strait to Cape Horn, the Yangtze River to the Panama Canal, and to the many small islands and archipelagos that lie in between. He observes the fall of a dictator in Manila, visits aboriginals in northern Queensland, and is jailed in Tierra del Fuego, the land at the end of the world. His journey encompasses a trip down the Alaska Highway, a stop at the isolated Pitcairn Islands, a trek across South Korea and a glimpse of its mysterious northern neighbor.

Winchester’s personal experience is vast and his storytelling second to none. And his historical understanding of the region is formidable, making Pacific a paean to this magnificent sea of beauty, myth, and imagination that is transforming our lives.]]> 512 Simon Winchester 0062315412 Matt 5 4.04 2015 Pacific: The Ocean of the Future

author: Simon Winchester
name: Matt
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nautical-history, other-history, science, travel
review:
At first, I was put off by his "episodic" structure to this book, hoping instead for a more systematic treatment of the Pacific Ocean. But it is a massive subject, so some kind of delimiting structure was necessary. And by the end of the book, I felt like most of the topics I was interested in were covered: various points of history, geography, geology, commerce, politics, culture, colonialism, etc. What a fascinating path through an absolutely massive subject...
]]> Spare 63118389
For Harry, this is that story at last.

With its raw, unflinching honesty, Spare is a landmark publication full of insight, revelation, self-examination, and hard-won wisdom about the eternal power of love over grief.]]> Prince Harry 1529907780 Matt 4 3.79 2023 Spare

author: Prince Harry
name: Matt
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/09
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: 2024, audiobook, biography, leadership
review:
I've kind of gone down a rabbit hole on the royals because I think there are theological and psychological aspects to the projectionism, idealization, and vilification we give to royals/celebrities/gods. Overall, I was impressed and interested in Harry's perspective, vulnerability, and values. I find it interesting how many details he says he doesn't remember; this at time is almost an anti-memoir. But those blockages are part of his trauma and story. I appreciated reading about how he has tried to navigate his privileges and challenges to find a life that is satisfying and meaningful. Each in our own ways, we seek to do the same.
]]> <![CDATA[The Samurai and Ninja: The History of Japan’s Legendary Warriors]]> 59818644
To most people in the West, particularly the youth, the mere mention of Japan immediately evokes various images. A delectable rainbow of sushi, hand-rolled temaki, and platters of crispy, golden-brown tempura. An idyllic, crystal-clear lake flanked by trees covered with delicate, cotton-candy-pink sakura blossoms. A montage of unique, hand-drawn cartoons that are a masterful mix of delightfully exaggerated proportions, features, and colors, and elements of arresting realism, collectively known as “anime.”

Then, of course, there's the ninja, a willowy, graceful figure decked out in black from head to toe, his glinting eyes peering out from the window of his balaclava. He flits from rooftop to rooftop in stunning somersaults and slinks into the shadows, watching his unsuspecting marks from afar and calculating their every move. Then, as quickly as he came, he strikes, hurling throwing stars, twirling his nunchucks, and hacking away with his trusty sword, exterminating his targets with dizzying, lightning-quick speed and superhuman precision. At least, this is how those unfamiliar with the ancient art of ninjutsu, or shinobi-jutsu, see them.

Ninjas are, without a doubt, one of the most timeless and far-reaching cultural staples ever to emerge from Japan. They have become a global phenomenon, and there are countless depictions of ninjas in comic books, films, TV shows, video games, toys, and other forms of popular culture around the world, not to mention their continued relevance as a “conventional” go-to Halloween costume. Kids across the world are intimately familiar with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Snake Eyes from the G.I. Joe franchise, Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, and Black Noir from The Boys. Ninjas have also been featured in a slew of other international movies and TV shows, among them the 1986 Filipino film The Legend of Ninja-Kol, the 2010 Norwegian film Norwegian Ninja, the 1982 Turkish film Holy Sword, and the 2002 New Zealand film Tongan Ninja.

Similarly, the samurai are among the most iconic warriors in history. The fighting elite of feudal Japan, they have played a dominant role in the country's life for over a thousand years. Even today, a century and a half after the rule of the samurai has formally ended, they remain a powerful symbol of martial might, and the embodiment of the stoic warrior.
The Samurai and Ninja: The History of Japan’s Legendary Warriors looks at who they were, how they fought, and the events in which they played leading parts. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the samurai and ninja like never before.

(source: Amazon)]]> 124 Charles River Editors Matt 4 3.73 The Samurai and Ninja: The History of Japan’s Legendary Warriors

The Samurai and Ninja: The History of Japan’s Legendary Warriors

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/20
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history, other-history
review:
A great characterization of the era. The section on ninja (which oddly comes first) is more compelling in terms of details about weapons, training, tactics, etc. The section on the samurai is more a political history of medieval Japan, with the intrigues around the daimyo, shoguns, etc.
]]> The Scourge Between Stars 123166661
Faced with constant threats of starvation and destruction in the treacherous minefield of interstellar space, Jacklyn’s crew has reached their breaking point. As unrest begins to spread throughout the ship’s Wards, a new threat emerges, picking off crew members in grim, bloody fashion.

Jacklyn and her team must hunt down the ship’s unknown intruder if they have any hope of making it back to their solar system alive.]]> Ness Brown 1667076086 Matt 4 3.47 2023 The Scourge Between Stars

author: Ness Brown
name: Matt
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/19
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, sci-fi, space-opera
review:
This has a great set-up (a failed colonial generation ship attempting to return to Earth). The characters are likable, which makes the classic "malicious alien stowed away on the ship" set-up all the more interesting. The large size of the ship presents some unique challenges as well. It's more fun sci-fi than cerebral, but enjoyable for that very fact.
]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us]]> 61295483 14 Steve Brusatte Matt 5 4.16 2022

The Rise and Reign of the Mammals: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us

author: Steve Brusatte
name: Matt
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/19
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nature, science
review:
A fascinating a detailed history... perhaps a little wonkier than his first book on dinosaurs? There are detailed excurses on jawbones, teeth, etc. that can get a little heady. But still, the message about the deep history of mammals (mammals during the Jurassic era!) is loud and clear. Mammals thrived alongside dinosaurs and simply adapted after their extinction. Another message of the book is the recurring climactic change that has occurred throughout geological history and the resultant necessity of adaptation (or extinction). Lastly, I appreciated his discussions of the scientific/scientific community side of modern day paleontology.
]]> Daggerspell (Deverry, #1) 40777268
In a world outside reality, the flickering spirit of a young girl hovers between incarnations, knowing neither her past nor her future. But in the temporal world there is one who knows and waits: Nevyn, the wandering sorcerer.

On a bloody day long ago he relinquished the maiden’s hand in marriage – and so forged a terrible bond of destiny between three souls that would last through three generations.

Now Nevyn is doomed to follow them across the plains of time, never resting until he atones for the tragic wrong of his youth…]]> 15 Katharine Kerr Matt 4 2024, audiobook, fantasy 3.90 1986 Daggerspell (Deverry, #1)

author: Katharine Kerr
name: Matt
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fantasy
review:
An intriguing fantasy book with a Celtic backdrop. As with many books that have different time periods, I didn't enjoy the extended "flashback" as much, as it was mostly romantic/political intrigue. Still, the book was using that backdrop to set the stage for the character development that follows. For such an early book, there is also an admirable feminism here, with Jill acknowledging men struggling to admit she's simply a good warrior as a female, instead needing to ascribe some divine touch to her. She also genuinely falls in love with a man but resists getting locked into a traditional domestic life.
]]> <![CDATA[The 1811 German Coast Uprising: The History and Legacy of America’s Largest Slave Revolt]]> 56015785 66 Charles River Editors Matt 5 4.38

The 1811 German Coast Uprising: The History and Legacy of America’s Largest Slave Revolt

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, jazz-new-orleans, other-history
review:
A succinct yet informative discussion of an important and understudied event in American history. The book helpfully discusses why this revolt is not as well-remembered as Nat Turner's revolt: Lousiana was up for statehood and wanted to minimize any sense of instability.
]]> <![CDATA[A Darker Domain (Inspector Karen Pirie, #2)]]> 2573867 371 Val McDermid 0007243294 Matt 4 2024, audiobook, fiction 3.89 2008

A Darker Domain (Inspector Karen Pirie, #2)

author: Val McDermid
name: Matt
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/10
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fiction
review:
Mystery is not my favorite genre, but I enjoyed the twists and turns, which didn't feel contrived. The setting (northeast Scotland) and the characters were also compelling. I appreciated the delving into the labor politics around coal mining in Scotland.
]]> The Queen 57698999 'A worthy and balanced overview of the Queen's life. Dennison is especially good on her childhood... quietly, tactfully, tastefully reverent.'The TimesThe death of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022 was more than just a moment of profound sadness; her passing marked the end of an era in our national life – and the final closing of the Elizabethan Age. For millions of people, both in Britain and across the world, Elizabeth II was the embodiment of monarchy. Her long life spanned nearly a century of national and global history, from a time before the Great Depression to the era of Covid-19. Her reign embraced all but seven years of Britain's postwar history up to the accession of her son King Charles III; she was served by fifteen UK prime ministers from Churchill to Truss, and witnessed the administrations of fourteen US presidents from Truman to Biden.In this brand-new biography of the longest-reigning sovereign in British history, Matthew Dennison traces her life and reign across an era of unprecedented and often seismic social change. Stylish in its writing and nuanced in its judgements, The Queen charts the joys and triumphs as well as the disappointments and vicissitudes of a remarkable royal life; it also assesses the achievement of a woman regarded as the champion of a handful of 'British' values endorsed – if no longer practised – by the bulk of the service, duty, steadfastness, charity and stoicism.]]> 657 Matthew Dennison Matt 5 2024, audiobook, biography 3.99 2021 The Queen

author: Matthew Dennison
name: Matt
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/05
date added: 2024/04/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, biography
review:
A thorough, honest but tactful discussion of the life of Queen Elizabeth. There is particular attention paid to her childhood, learning to live in the public eye, and a dedication to duty. My thoughts are that people look to royalty as a kind of Incarnation, and thus royalty can be neither too near nor too remote. This book discusses that balance/tension ably.
]]> <![CDATA[Nagarjuna's Middle Way: Mulamadhyamakakarika (Classics of Indian Buddhism)]]> 16073117
Nagarjuna's renowned twenty-seven-chapter Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika) is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. It is the definitive, touchstone presentation of the doctrine of emptiness. Professors Siderits and Katsura prepared this translation using the four surviving Indian commentaries in an attempt to reconstruct an interpretation of its enigmatic verses that adheres as closely as possible to that of its earliest proponents. Each verse is accompanied by concise, lively exposition by the authors conveying the explanations of the Indian commentators. The result is a translation that balances the demands for fidelity and accessibility.]]> 368 Nāgārjuna 1614290504 Matt 0 to-read 4.68 1970 Nagarjuna's Middle Way: Mulamadhyamakakarika (Classics of Indian Buddhism)

Nagarjuna's Middle Way: Mulamadhyamakakarika (Classics of Indian Buddhism)

author: Nāgārjuna
name: Matt
average rating: 4.68
book published: 1970
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Wall: Rome's Greatest Frontier]]> 6533845 270 Alistair Moffat 1841587893 Matt 5 3.89 2009

author: Alistair Moffat
name: Matt
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/13
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: 2023, audiobook, scotland-scottish-related
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Faded Map: The Story of the Lost Kingdoms of Scotland]]> 7557031 The Faded Map sees past these and remembers a land that was once quiet and green. It brings to vivid life the half-forgotten kings and kingdoms of two thousand years ago, of the time of the Romans, the Dark Ages and into the early medieval period. In this fascinating account, Alistair Moffat describes the landscape these men and women moved through and talks of a Celtic society which spoke to itself in Old Welsh, where the Sons of Prophesy ruled, and the time when the English kings of Bernicia held sway over vast swathes of what is now Scotland. Heroes rode out of the mists to challenge them and then join with them. The faint echo of the din of ancient battles can be heard.]]> 352 Alistair Moffat 1841588857 Matt 5 3.95 2010 The Faded Map: The Story of the Lost Kingdoms of Scotland

The Faded Map: The Story of the Lost Kingdoms of Scotland

author: Alistair Moffat
name: Matt
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/15
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: 2024, audiobook, scotland-scottish-related
review:
An impressive tour through lesser-known kingdoms in an obscure time. There's a lot to keep track of in this narration, but the overall narrative puts down layers in one's understanding of the roots of modern Scotland. I found it both connected with things I already knew and added depth and dimension as well. Particularly notable is Moffat's exploration of place names and the deep linguistic and historical significance behind them. Now it makes me curious to explore the history of every place name I encounter! He does an excellent job of showing the complexity of interactions between Celts, Pict, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norse, and the many others that weave into the tapestry of Scotland.
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)]]> 6 734 J.K. Rowling 0439139597 Matt 4 4.56 2000

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter, #4)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Matt
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/12
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: fiction, young-adult, 2024, audiobook
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue]]> 50623864
Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name.]]> 448 V.E. Schwab 0765387565 Matt 4
Yet, Addie is eminently likable and the book surprisingly dark and insightful. I appreciated that Addie didn't just mourn the losses of her "curse" but also learned to embrace and celebrate the freedom it brought her and indeed turn it into a source of strength. There's more that could've been explored philosophically with regard to a life in which no one remembers you from one day to the next, but the book did interact with the larger issues.]]> 4.16 2020 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

author: V.E. Schwab
name: Matt
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves: 2024, audiobook, fiction, fantasy
review:
Very much an imaginative and unique book, with some beautiful writing. Just like you tend to prefer certain characters over others, I tended to prefer the earlier historical periods to the "contemporary" story of Addie and Henry. At times, that romance story struck me as a naive for a 300 year old person--surely she would be a bit more jaded and worldly-wise. And at times the book felt pretentious with its discussion of artistic displays and "underground" artsy events in NYC (if I read the word "palimpsest" one more time...).

Yet, Addie is eminently likable and the book surprisingly dark and insightful. I appreciated that Addie didn't just mourn the losses of her "curse" but also learned to embrace and celebrate the freedom it brought her and indeed turn it into a source of strength. There's more that could've been explored philosophically with regard to a life in which no one remembers you from one day to the next, but the book did interact with the larger issues.
]]> <![CDATA[The Guns at Last light (Liberation Trilogy #3)]]> 15803481 The eagerly awaited final volume in Pulitzer Prize-winner Rick Atkinson's New York Times bestselling Liberation Trilogy.It is the twentieth century’s unrivaled epic: at a staggering price, the United States and its allies liberated Europe and vanquished Hitler. In the first two volumes of his bestselling Liberation Trilogy, Rick Atkinson recounted the history of how the American-led coalition fought its way from North Africa and Italy to the threshold of victory. Now he tells the most dramatic story of all—the titanic battle in Western Europe.

D-Day marked the commencement of the war’s final campaign, and Atkinson’s astonishingly fresh account of that enormous gamble sets the pace for the masterly narrative that follows. The brutal fight in Normandy, the liberation of Paris, the disaster that was Market Garden, the horrific Battle of the Bulge, and finally the thrust to the heart of the Third Reich—all these historic moments come utterly alive. Atkinson tells the tale from the perspective of participants at all levels, from presidents and prime ministers to ambitious generals, from war-weary lieutenants to terrified teenage riflemen. When Germany at last surrenders, we understand anew both the devastating cost of this global conflagration and the awe-inspiring effort that led to Germany’s surrender.

With the stirring final volume of this monumental trilogy, Rick Atkinson’s remarkable accomplishment is manifest. He has produced the definitive chronicle of the war that restored freedom to the West.]]> 642 Rick Atkinson Matt 5 4.45 2013 The Guns at Last light (Liberation Trilogy #3)

The Guns at Last light (Liberation Trilogy #3)

author: Rick Atkinson
name: Matt
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/27
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history
review:
So much ground to cover in this book--D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the interplay with the Soviets, the liberation of the camps, the final demise of Hitler and the Wehrmacht--yet somehow the author manages it all in a moving, erudite narrative that captures both the strategic and the lived aspects.
]]> <![CDATA[The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (2) (Liberation Trilogy)]]> 2113134
In An Army at Dawn— winner of the Pulitzer Prize—Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943, attack Italy two months later, and then fight their way, mile by bloody mile, north toward Rome.

The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and their military advisors bitterly debated whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even wise. But once underway, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizing price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, the Rapido River, and Cassino were particularly ferocious and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, among the war's most complex and controversial commanders, American troops became increasingly determined and proficient. With the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory in Europe at last began to seem inevitable.

Drawing on extensive new material from a wide array of primary sources, and written with great drama and flair, The Day of Battle is narrative history of the first rank.]]> 8 Rick Atkinson 0743527976 Matt 4 4.20 2007 The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (2) (Liberation Trilogy)

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944 (2) (Liberation Trilogy)

author: Rick Atkinson
name: Matt
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/15
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history
review:
This entry in the series seemed to go into more detail and/or bog down a little further... but maybe that was just the nature of the Italian campaign. I hadn't realized that invading Italy wasn't completely the plan when the Allies invaded Sicily... the rest hadn't been fully decided upon yet. And the fall of Rome essentially coincided with D-Day in Normandy...
]]> <![CDATA[An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa (1942-1943) (The Liberation Trilogy)]]> 6804076 The Day of Battle, An Army at Dawn opens on the eve of Operation TORCH, the daring amphibious invasion of Morocco and Algeria. After three days of hard fighting against the French, American and British troops push deeper into North Africa.

But the confidence gained after several early victories soon wanes; casualties mount rapidly, battle plans prove ineffectual, and hope for a quick and decisive victory evaporates. The Allies discover that they are woefully unprepared to fight and win this war. North Africa becomes a proving ground: it is here that American officers learn how to lead, here that soldiers learn how to hate, here that an entire army learns what it will take to vanquish a formidable enemy. In North Africa, the Allied coalition came into its own, the enemy forever lost the initiative, and the United States -- for the first time -- began to act like a great power.]]> 0 Rick Atkinson 0743570995 Matt 5 4.19 2002 An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa (1942-1943) (The Liberation Trilogy)

An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa (1942-1943) (The Liberation Trilogy)

author: Rick Atkinson
name: Matt
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/04
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history
review:
This book does a particularly good job of discussing the strategic benefits of the Africa campaign.
]]> My Scotland 60618155 My Scotland will be a beautiful, fully illustrated book containing over 100 photos of the landscapes and locations that form the backdrop to Val McDermid's celebrated writing, and some of the places that have inspired her personally. From Skye to Edinburgh, from Glasgow to Jura, the book crisscrosses Scotland, offering readers a fascinating guide to the country, alongside Val's own thoughts about what it means to her.]]> Val McDermid Matt 4 3.62 My Scotland

author: Val McDermid
name: Matt
average rating: 3.62
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/02
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: 2024, audiobook, biography, scotland-scottish-related
review:
Terrific to hear loving, quiet narratives about a life in Scotland, especially her childhood in Fife, an area with which I was less familiar. Her writing in poetic, amusing, and clear. I learned about various places in Scotland but more so, what it was/is like to live there. Her discussions of the intersections of setting and fictional writing were intriguing. I hadn't read any of her mystery books before, but now I've added several to my list! (especially the ones set in Scotland)
]]> The Highland Clans 7965062

Alistair Moffat traces the history of the clans from their Celtic origins to the coming of the Romans; from Somerled the Viking to Robert the Bruce; from the great battles of Bannockburn and Flodden to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Risings; and from the Clearances to the present day.

These are the stories of great leaders and famous battles. They are also the stories of an extraordinary people, shaped by the unique traditions and landscape of the Highlands of Scotland. Moffat is an adept guide to the world of the clans, a world dominated by lineage, land, and community. Names were crucially important in this world: more than mere labels, names were also addresses, linking people to the map of northern Scotland. Even today the power of the ancient clan names persists, drawing many of the children of the scattered diaspora back to this rugged corner of the world. Special features include a clan map and a list of clan names.]]> 176 Alistair Moffat 0500251592 Matt 4
**Upon rereading, I found the historical narrative more compelling than I did the first time, reflecting the diffuse origins of the clans and their dissolution through the Jacobite revolution and subsequent Highland clearances. And interesting consideration of the resurgence of clan identity in the Scottish diaspora was intriguing, as well as the detailed summaries of each clan at the end of the book.]]> 3.83 2010 The Highland Clans

author: Alistair Moffat
name: Matt
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/01
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: military-history, 2024, audiobook, scotland-scottish-related
review:
This is an attractive book with a great set of illustrations, paintings, etc. The text was interesting but very episodic. It jumped around in time from event to event without a clear timeline or narration. Thus, the reader is left with an interesting set of stories about Scottish history but not a clear narrative of the history of the Highland clans. His writing is poetic enough, but it is more like "bemusing anecdotes in Scottish history" than it is a clear history narrative.

**Upon rereading, I found the historical narrative more compelling than I did the first time, reflecting the diffuse origins of the clans and their dissolution through the Jacobite revolution and subsequent Highland clearances. And interesting consideration of the resurgence of clan identity in the Scottish diaspora was intriguing, as well as the detailed summaries of each clan at the end of the book.
]]> A Sand County Almanac 86562529 462 Aldo Leopold 7542634712 Matt 4 2024, audiobook, nature 4.31

author: Aldo Leopold
name: Matt
average rating: 4.31
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: 2024, audiobook, nature
review:
The first part of the book contains quiet reflections from a person living and observing close to nature. That he lives on a quiet farm in Wisconsin--rather than some "dramatic" landscape--makes his quiet attention to and love for detail and patterns all the more winsome. The end of the book contains a few more "environmentalist" essays, but of a more centrist variety which could be very helpful today. He is no classic liberal but rightly urging movement from seeing nature as a community rather than a commodity.
]]> <![CDATA[The Long War (The Long Earth #2)]]> 17302173
Humankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by stepping, which Joshua and Lobsang explored a mere decade ago. Now "civilization" flourishes, and fleets of airships link the multiple Earths through exploration, trade, and culture.

Humankind is shaping the Long Earth, but in turn the Long Earth is shaping humankind. A new America that has christened itself "Valhalla" has emerged more than a million steps from the original Datum Earth. And like the American revolutionaries of old, the Valhallans resent being controlled from afar by the Datum government.

In the intervening years, the song of the trolls—graceful, hive-mind humanoids—has suffused the Long Earth. But in the face of humankind's inexorable advance, they are beginning to fall silent . . . and gradually disappear.

Joshua, now married and a father, is summoned by Lobsang. It seems that he alone can confront the perfect storm of crises that threatens to plunge all of the Long Earth into war.

A war unlike any that has been waged before... ]]> 14 Terry Pratchett 0062283901 Matt 4 2024, audiobook, sci-fi 3.39 2013 The Long War (The Long Earth #2)

author: Terry Pratchett
name: Matt
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/29
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: 2024, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
It's quite interesting to see the ways a quantum world with parallel Earths might evolve technologically, politically, economically, and culturally. This book adds a number of storylines and characters that accomplish that. The plot is not as intense or surprising as the first book, but I suppose that is to be expected.
]]> <![CDATA[Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche]]> 16000440 320 Bill Plotkin 1608681785 Matt 2 4.34 2013

Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche

author: Bill Plotkin
name: Matt
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/15
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves: 2024, audiobook, psychology, spirituality-meditation
review:
The overall concept is good, that we have diverse aspects to our psyche and that we should embrace all of them, being aware that denial or maladaptation will cause these aspects to act in ultimately harmful ways. But the book gets a bit lost in its own schema and terminology, obscuring rather than enlightening the human experience, in my opinion. Further, the "exercises" at the end of each chapter are almost always the same, journaling exercises that merely restate the content of the chapter.
]]> Mornings on Horseback 55767 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF JOHN ADAMS
Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy -- seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma -- and his struggle to manhood.

His father -- the first Theodore Roosevelt, "Greatheart," -- is a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother -- Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt -- is a Southerner and celebrated beauty.

Mornings on Horseback spans seventeen years -- from 1869 when little "Teedie" is ten, to 1886 when he returns from the West a "real life cowboy" to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew, a grown man, whole in body and spirit.

This is a tale about family love and family loyalty...about courtship, childbirth and death, fathers and sons...about gutter politics and the tumultuous Republican Convention of 1884...about grizzly bears, grief and courage, and "blessed" mornings on horseback at Oyster Bay or beneath the limitless skies of the Badlands.

]]> 20 David McCullough 0743533461 Matt 4
This is a very detailed recounting of TR's childhood... parents get detailed biographies; parents of parents get detailed biographies; ancillary characters get detailed biographies. But they are all interesting portraits of life in the 19th century. Most intriguing was the discussion of TR's father's ebullient character, his love for children, his propriety, his zest for life... an inspiring character.

TR lives of a life of privilege but also challenge. His mind is expanded by nature, travels abroad, reading, etc. His mother's southern roots add another element, including quite a challenge within the family during the years of the Civil War.

Terrific writing and interesting lives...]]> 3.89 1981 Mornings on Horseback

author: David McCullough
name: Matt
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/12
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: 2024, audiobook, biography, other-history, the-american-west
review:
As this book makes clear, TR's time out in the Dakotas was limited in time frame and extent. It was not solely what "cured" or "toughened" him. Exercise and nature were continually part of this equation for him.

This is a very detailed recounting of TR's childhood... parents get detailed biographies; parents of parents get detailed biographies; ancillary characters get detailed biographies. But they are all interesting portraits of life in the 19th century. Most intriguing was the discussion of TR's father's ebullient character, his love for children, his propriety, his zest for life... an inspiring character.

TR lives of a life of privilege but also challenge. His mind is expanded by nature, travels abroad, reading, etc. His mother's southern roots add another element, including quite a challenge within the family during the years of the Civil War.

Terrific writing and interesting lives...
]]> The Celtic World 39989071
In The Celtic World, discover the incredible story of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose art, language, and culture once spread from Ireland to Austria. This series of 24 enlightening lectures explains the traditional historical view of who the Celts were, then contrasts it with brand-new evidence from DNA analysis and archeology that totally changes our perspective on where the Celts came from. European history and culture have been profoundly affected by the Celts, from the myth of King Arthur to the very map of the United Kingdom, where the English confronted the peoples of the "Celtic Fringe."

Listening Length: 12 hours and 52 minutes]]> 13 Jennifer Paxton Matt 5 4.10 2018 The Celtic World

author: Jennifer Paxton
name: Matt
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/05
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: 2023, audiobook, scotland-scottish-related
review:
Wide-ranging, masterful, nuanced. She shows how "Celtic" is more of a cultural inheritance than a strict ethnic identity. History, art, language, politics... all are handled superbly.
]]> 1776 1941895
Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As British and American politicians struggled to reach a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about the dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure, including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that luck and the whims of the weather played in helping the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. He also effectively explores the importance of motivation and troop morale--a tie was as good as a win to the Americans, while anything short of overwhelming victory was disheartening to the British, who expected a swift end to the war. The redcoat retreat from Boston, for example, was particularly humiliating for the British, while the minor American victory at Trenton was magnified despite its limited strategic importance.

Some of the strongest passages in 1776 are the revealing and well-rounded portraits of the Georges on both sides of the Atlantic. King George III, so often portrayed as a bumbling, arrogant fool, is given a more thoughtful treatment by McCullough, who shows that the king considered the colonists to be petulant subjects without legitimate grievances--an attitude that led him to underestimate the will and capabilities of the Americans. At times he seems shocked that war was even necessary. The great Washington lives up to his considerable reputation in these pages, and McCullough relies on private correspondence to balance the man and the myth, revealing how deeply concerned Washington was about the Americans' chances for victory, despite his public optimism. Perhaps more than any other man, he realized how fortunate they were to merely survive the year, and he willingly lays the responsibility for their good fortune in the hands of God rather than his own. Enthralling and superbly written, 1776 is the work of a master historian. --Shawn Carkonen

The Other 1776

[image error]With his riveting, enlightening accounts of subjects from Johnstown Flood to John Adams, David McCullough has become the historian that Americans look to most to tell us our own story. In his Amazon.com interview, McCullough explains why he turned in his new book from the political battles of the Revolution to the battles on the ground, and he marvels at some of his favorite young citizen soldiers who fought alongside the remarkable General Washington.

The Essential David McCullough

[image error]
John Adams [image error]
Truman [image error]
Mornings on Horseback [image error]
The Path Between the Seas [image error]
The Great Bridge [image error]
The Johnstown Flood

More Reading on the Revolution

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The Great Improvisation by Stacy Schiff [image error]
Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer [image error]
His George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis [image error]
Washington's General by Terry Golway [image error]
Iron Tears by Stanley Weintraub [image error]]]> 10 David McCullough 0743544234 Matt 4 3.96 2005 1776

author: David McCullough
name: Matt
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/05
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: 2024, audiobook, military-history
review:
Compelling writing makes this story all the more interesting.
]]> <![CDATA[The Long Earth (The Long Earth, #1)]]> 13604418
The Long Earth, written with award-winning novelist Stephen Baxter, author of Stone Spring, Ark, and Floodwill, captivate science fiction fans of all stripes, readers of Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, and Carl Hiaasen, and anyone who enjoyed the Terry Pratchett/Neil Gaiman collaboration Good Omens.

The Long Earth is an adventure of the highest order—and an unforgettable read.]]> 336 Stephen Baxter 0062067761 Matt 5 2023, audiobook, sci-fi 3.92 2012 The Long Earth (The Long Earth, #1)

author: Stephen Baxter
name: Matt
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/21
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: 2023, audiobook, sci-fi
review:
Creative with an acerbic sense of humor. The concept of "parallel Earths" provides opportunity to explore concepts of imperialism, exploration, and human nature. Likeable characters and an unpredictable plot!
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)]]> 5 435 J.K. Rowling 043965548X Matt 4 4.57 1999

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Matt
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/19
date added: 2024/01/13
shelves: 2023, audiobook, fantasy, young-adult
review:

]]> Whalefall 63005972
The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.]]> Daniel Kraus 179715852X Matt 3 3.35 2023 Whalefall

author: Daniel Kraus
name: Matt
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: 2023, audiobook, fiction, survival
review:
Implausible but exciting story... I don't love hallucination sequences in books or movies, but the author integrated the main character's backstory and trauma into the present storyline in creative and compelling ways.
]]> <![CDATA[1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus]]> 39020 In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.

Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.

]]> 563 Charles C. Mann 1400032059 Matt 4 4.04 2005 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

author: Charles C. Mann
name: Matt
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/18
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: 2023, audiobook, other-history, the-american-west
review:
I really should write these reviews right after I read the book, but my overall sense was appreciation for the detailed history involved and the overall argument. Indigenous Americans were more numerous, complex, and environmentally-impactful than the usual narrative. Thus, the "Americas" were neither deserted nor a pristine wilderness, but a populated environment that the indigenous had shaped for millennia. Mann focuses mostly on the cultures of Central and South America because they were the most urbanized (he does talk about the northeastern and Cahokian cultures as well). I would've been interested to learn more about the Plains tribes, among others.
]]> Station Eleven 19480607 Length: 10 hours 41 minutes

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.

Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.

Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.]]> 11 Emily St. John Mandel 0553397974 Matt 3 3.92 2014

author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Matt
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/12
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: 2023, audiobook, postapocalyptic, fiction
review:
Intriguing characters and writing, but I found the postapocalyptic storyline to be the most interesting, yet there were many time jumps that brought the narrative to less-interesting storylines (like the actor's sordid life story).
]]> The Alamo 1948546 240 John Myers Myers 0803257791 Matt 4 3.62 1948

author: John Myers Myers
name: Matt
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1948
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/06
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: 2023, audiobook, military-history, the-american-west
review:
This book shows its age (using words such as "redskins"), but it's a compelling, reasonably-detailed telling of the backstory, players, and history of the Alamo. I appreciated the deeper historical context, including the back-and-forth of the "Texians" with regard to whether they were pursuing independence or simply better treatment as a Mexican state. The background chapters on the main characters were detailed and interesting. Regardless of their role in colonialist ventures, those in the Alamo clearly demonstrated courage, staying despite the overwhelming odds, when they could have pretty easily escaped.
]]> <![CDATA[Ukraine: The History and Legacy of Ukraine from the Middle Ages to Today]]> 53808780 Today’s Ukraine is a huge country, incorporating an area over 600,000 square kilometers and home to 42 million people. It stretches from the Crimean Peninsula on the Black Sea in the south to Belarus in the north, Russia to the east, and Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west. The Dnieper River is the region’s key waterway, running into the Black Sea, while the Danube Delta also forms its border with modern-day Romania to the southwest. A steppe exists in the middle of the country while the Carpathian Mountains feature in the west. This geographical formation has influenced some of the country’s key historical developments, as well as the location of its major settlements. Kiev (known today as Kyiv) is, of course, the longstanding capital of the country, located on the Dnieper River in the central northern part of modern Ukraine. Lviv is another large city, located in the northwest near the border with Poland. Odessa is a seaside city on the Black Sea in Ukraine’s southwest, while Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk are major cities in the country’s east, close to the Russian border.]]> 96 Charles River Editors Matt 4 3.55 Ukraine: The History and Legacy of Ukraine from the Middle Ages to Today

Ukraine: The History and Legacy of Ukraine from the Middle Ages to Today

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.55
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/12
date added: 2023/10/20
shelves: 2023, audiobook, leftist-politics, other-history
review:
It seemed as much a history of Russia as of Ukraine, but I suppose that is unavoidable. Very interesting and detailed for such a short book on a complex history. I was intrigued to learn of the occupation of Ukraine by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which puts the invasion of Poland during WWII in a somewhat more complex light.
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)]]> 15881
And strike it does. For in Harry’s second year at Hogwarts, fresh torments and horrors arise, including an outrageously stuck-up new professor and a spirit who haunts the girls’ bathroom. But then the real trouble begins – someone is turning Hogwarts students to stone. Could it be Draco Malfoy, a more poisonous rival than ever? Could it possibly be Hagrid, whose mysterious past is finally told? Or could it be the one everyone at Hogwarts most suspects… Harry Potter himself!]]> 352 J.K. Rowling Matt 4 4.42 1998 Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter, #2)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Matt
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/14
date added: 2023/10/20
shelves: fiction, fantasy, young-adult, 2023, audiobook
review:
I read the Harry Potter series in a very strange order, reading the later books first, then circling back to these. So I've ended the series with this book. I must say, it was pretty interesting to see the roots and seeds of what would come later in the series. Even in this book, there are some pretty dark events, so I now no longer agree with the idea that the later books are the darker ones. In some ways, I enjoy these early books better--lots happening, not quite as drawn out, and far less teenage romance angst.
]]> <![CDATA[All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)]]> 32758901 "As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated space-faring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. For their own safety, exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists is conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid--a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, Murderbot wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is, but when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth.]]> 144 Martha Wells Matt 5 sci-fi, 2023, audiobook
"Confession time: I don't actually know where we are... I hadn't looked at the maps yet and I'd barely looked at the survey package... The sense of urgency just wasn't there. Also, you may have noticed, I don't care." (p. 35)

I definitely want to spend more time with Murderbot, which is good, as I just read that several more books are forthcoming in this series.]]> 4.10 2017 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

author: Martha Wells
name: Matt
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/11
date added: 2023/10/20
shelves: sci-fi, 2023, audiobook
review:
I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It was short, quick-moving, unpredictable, and well-crafted. But mostly, I liked the main character--"Murderbot." Unlike many recent AI books and movies, this sentient machine/cyborg isn't seeking selfhood and independence for some grand ambitions, but rather out of a surly anti-authoritarianism and boredom. Mostly, Murderbot wants to be left alone to watch its store of entertainment media, and when it has to interact with humans, it's with the greatest sarcasm:

"Confession time: I don't actually know where we are... I hadn't looked at the maps yet and I'd barely looked at the survey package... The sense of urgency just wasn't there. Also, you may have noticed, I don't care." (p. 35)

I definitely want to spend more time with Murderbot, which is good, as I just read that several more books are forthcoming in this series.
]]> <![CDATA[Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)]]> 24490481 The landmark publishing event of 2015 -- a full-colour illustrated edition of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with breathtaking illustrations by Jim Kay, winner of the Kate Greenaway medal.

For the first time, J.K. Rowling's beloved Harry Potter books will be presented in lavishly illustrated full-color editions. Prepare to be spellbound by Jim Kay's dazzling depiction of the wizarding world and much loved characters in this full-colour illustrated hardback edition of the nation's favourite children's book -- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Jim Kay has created over 100 stunning illustrations, making this deluxe format a perfect gift as much for a child being introduced to the series, as for the dedicated fan. Brimming with rich detail and humour that perfectly complements J.K. Rowling's timeless classic, Jim Kay's glorious illustrations will captivate fans and new readers alike.

When a letter arrives for unhappy but ordinary Harry Potter, a decade-old secret is revealed to him that apparently he's the last to know. His parents were wizards, killed by a Dark Lord's curse when Harry was just a baby, and which he somehow survived. Leaving his unsympathetic aunt and uncle for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry stumbles upon a sinister mystery when he finds a three-headed dog guarding a room on the third floor. Then he hears of a missing stone with astonishing powers, which could be valuable, dangerous -- or both. An incredible adventure is about to begin!]]> 248 J.K. Rowling Matt 4 4.84 1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

author: J.K. Rowling
name: Matt
average rating: 4.84
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/27
date added: 2023/09/30
shelves: fantasy, fiction, young-adult, 2023, audiobook
review:
Definitely a fun book, and some of the illustrations in this edition are just beautiful! I'm struck by the beauty of Rowling's writing at points, and the sense of great fun and mischief in the book.
]]> <![CDATA[Blood, Dust and Snow: Diaries of a Panzer Commander in Germany and on the Eastern Front, 1938-1943]]> 63842385 "The infantry is only a few metres ahead of us when suddenly, on the left of our tank, a Russian stands up. The swine had pretended to be dead when our infantry came past him! That’s an old classic, pretending to be dead and then firing from the rear. But that isn’t a good idea when facing tank-men like us… floor the accelerator! Turn left and run over him!"

The war on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945 was the bloodiest combat theatre in the bloodiest war in history. Oberleutnant Friedrich Wilhelm Sander experienced this bloodshed first-hand when serving with the 11th Panzer-Regiment. This regiment made up the core of the 6th Panzer-Division, one of Hitler’s top armoured formations, which was involved in most of the major campaigns on the Eastern Front; campaigns such as Operation Barbarossa and Operation Winter Storm.

Sander recorded his experience of these campaigns in astounding detail in some recently-discovered diaries covering the period from April 1938 to December 1943, translated here for the first time by historian Robin Schäfer. Written during the fighting, these diaries not only offer an honest assessment of the war on the Eastern Front, but also provide an insight into the mind of a young and highly politicised officer, and offer an intimate glimpse into the close-knit community of a German Panzer crew.

A brutally honest, immediate and unfiltered personal account, Sander’s translated diaries make for some uniquely fascinating reading about some of the most important campaigns of the Second World War. Supported by more than 100 photographs and maps from the period, Blood, Dust & Snow will be of great interest not only to readers studying the war on the Eastern Front, but also to any historian researching the Second World War.]]> 449 Robin Schaefer 1784388270 Matt 4 4.23 Blood, Dust and Snow: Diaries of a Panzer Commander in Germany and on the Eastern Front, 1938-1943

Blood, Dust and Snow: Diaries of a Panzer Commander in Germany and on the Eastern Front, 1938-1943

author: Robin Schaefer
name: Matt
average rating: 4.23
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/18
date added: 2023/09/30
shelves: 2023, audiobook, biography, military-history
review:
Since he didn't intend his diary for publication, Sander is brutally honest. This allows the reader to both feel his humanity and humor as well as witness his Nazi ideology in operation and his callous brutality. This juxtaposition presents some of the core challenges of warfare. His way of speaking of Jews and Slavic people is rightfully offensive, but his bravery and care for his comrades is admirable. It is an interesting insight into the day-to-day life and tactics of German panzer units.
]]> Outer Dark 40471 256 Cormac McCarthy 0330314920 Matt 4 2023, audiobook, fiction 3.89 1968

author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Matt
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/04
date added: 2023/09/30
shelves: 2023, audiobook, fiction
review:
Dark, metaphorical, descriptive, intriguing. I got a little restless in the middle part of the book, because for a while it was mostly a narration of the interactions with strangers that the brother and sister had separately on the road. There was little plot for a while, and it seemed more like a device for odd conversations. But I enjoyed the tone and hardscrabble nature of this one.
]]> <![CDATA[Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928]]> 20821221 A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world

It has the quality of myth: A poor cobbler’s son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a revolutionary and finds a leadership role within a small group of marginal zealots. When the old world is unexpectedly brought down in a total war, the band seizes control of the country, and the new regime it founds as the vanguard of a new world order is ruthlessly dominated from within by the former seminarian until he stands as the absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. But the largest country in the world is also a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. Shortly after seizing total power, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the root-and-branch uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. To stand up to the capitalists he will force into being an industrialized, militarized, collectivized great power is an act of will. Millions will die, and many more will suffer, but Stalin will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. Where did such power come from? We think we know the story well. Remarkably, Stephen Kotkin’s epic new biography shows us how much we still have to learn.

The product of a decade of scrupulous and intrepid research, Stalin contains a host of astonishing revelations. Kotkin gives an intimate first-ever view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography, bringing to the fore materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. He details Stalin’s invention of a fabricated trial and mass executions as early as 1918, the technique he would later impose across the whole country. The book places Stalin’s momentous decision for collectivization more deeply than ever in the tragic history of imperial Russia. Above all, Kotkin offers a convincing portrait and explanation of Stalin’s monstrous power and of Russian power in the world. Stalin restores a sense of surprise to the way we think about the former Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.
]]> 976 Stephen Kotkin 1594203792 Matt 0 to-read 3.95 Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

author: Stephen Kotkin
name: Matt
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier]]> 9869499
In June 1992, best friends Jim Davidson and Mike Price stood triumphantly atop Washington’s Mount Rainier, celebrating what they hoped would be the first of many milestones in their lives as passionate young mountaineers. Instead, their conquest gave way to catastrophe when a cave-in plunged them deep inside a glacial crevasse—the pitch-black, ice-walled hell that every climber’s nightmares are made of.

An avid adventurer from an early age, Davidson was already a seasoned climber at the time of the Rainier ascent, fully aware of the risks and hopelessly in love with the challenge. But in the blur of a harrowing free fall, he suddenly found himself challenged by nature’s grandeur at its most unforgiving. Trapped on a narrow, unstable frozen ledge, deep below daylight and high above a yawning chasm, he would desperately battle crumbling ice and snow that threatened to bury him alive, while struggling in vain to save his fatally injured companion. And finally, with little equipment, no partner, and rapidly dwindling hope, he would have to make a fateful choice—between the certainty of a slow, lonely death or the seeming impossibility of climbing for his life.

At once a heart-stopping adventure story, a heartfelt memoir of friendship, and a stirring meditation on fleeting mortality and immutable nature, The Ledge chronicles one man’s transforming odyssey from the dizzying heights of elation and awe to the punishing depths of grief and hard-won wisdom. This book’s visceral, lyrical prose sings the praises of the physical world’s wonders, while searching the souls of those willing, for better or worse, to fully embrace it.]]> 288 Jim Davidson 0345523199 Matt 0 to-read 3.87 The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier

The Ledge: An Adventure Story of Friendship and Survival on Mount Rainier

author: Jim Davidson
name: Matt
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains: A Little Band that has stood against the White Tide for Three Hundred Years]]> 125794698
Horace Kephart is also the author of Our Southern Highlanders, Camping and Woodcraft and Smoky Mountain Magic, and the creator of the Kephart knife. Mount Kephart, a 6,217 foot peak just northwest of Qualla Boundary, was chosen by Kephart and designated in his lifetime. He was instrumental in the founding of the Great Smoky National Park.

This version of Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains was revised by Kephart's great granddaughter, Janice Kephart, a spoken word artist and subject matter expert who served as a 9/11 Commission counsel. Janice added context for some commentary within the text but left the writing mostly as is, added historical photographs from the Hunter Library Horace Kephart Archive at Western Carolina University and other libraries, and added a new Foreword and Introduction.]]> 83 Horace Kephart Matt 4 4.38 Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains: A Little Band that has stood against the White Tide for Three Hundred Years

Cherokees of the Smoky Mountains: A Little Band that has stood against the White Tide for Three Hundred Years

author: Horace Kephart
name: Matt
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/04
date added: 2023/09/10
shelves: 2023, audiobook, the-american-west
review:
A brief but interesting recounting of the history of the Cherokees and their lives in the uplands of the Appalachians. It includes the Trail of Tears, of course, but also an interesting reminder of the Cherokees that eluded removal and remained in the Appalachians.
]]> <![CDATA[South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation]]> 59838323
We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In South to America, Imani Perry shows that the meaning of American is inextricably linked with the South, and that our understanding of its history and culture is the key to understanding the nation as a whole.

This is the story of a Black woman and native Alabaman returning to the region she has always called home and considering it with fresh eyes. Her journey is full of detours, deep dives, and surprising encounters with places and people. She renders Southerners from all walks of life with sensitivity and honesty, sharing her thoughts about a troubling history and the ritual humiliations and joys that characterize so much of Southern life.

Weaving together stories of immigrant communities, contemporary artists, exploitative opportunists, enslaved peoples, unsung heroes, her own ancestors, and her lived experiences, Imani Perry crafts a tapestry unlike any other. With uncommon insight and breathtaking clarity, South to America offers an assertion that if we want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line.]]> 1 Imani Perry Matt 5 4.41 2022 South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation

author: Imani Perry
name: Matt
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/01
date added: 2023/09/10
shelves: 2023, audiobook, travel, other-history
review:
This book is basically a history of slavery and racism in the South, which is fair, since those constitute such a dramatic proportion of Southern history. The format is a series of vignettes of southern states or cities, usually involving the author's personal experience but then broadening into other personalities or histories associated with the place. Particularly fascinating is the author's recounting of language and phrases that are used in the South and how they are used. The author also mentions a lot of music and musicians, so much was added to my playlist. This is not a comprehensive history of the South (could anything be?), but it is a fascinating, insightful journey with a passion for justice.
]]> A History of Wild Places 59616400 New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep weaves a richly atmospheric adult debut following three residents of a secluded, seemingly peaceful commune as they investigate the disappearances of two outsiders.

Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend.

Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.

Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.]]> Shea Ernshaw 1797143697 Matt 4 2023, audiobook, fiction 3.62 2021

author: Shea Ernshaw
name: Matt
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/14
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves: 2023, audiobook, fiction
review:
This book hits a unique spot: spooky without being horror; dark without being actually post-apocalyptic; featuring a reclusive community that is *not* a religious cult. The writing and plot keep you involved, though the frequent shifts in narrator sometimes results in some repetition. Also, my favorite character is early in the book but then disappears (not a spoiler, as it's mentioned in the synopsis!), but this means I'm without my favorite narrative voice for the rest of the novel. An intriguing ending as well.
]]> <![CDATA[The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World]]> 35820369 The dinosaurs. Sixty-six million years ago, the Earth’s most fearsome creatures vanished. Today they remain one of our planet’s great mysteries. Now The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs reveals their extraordinary, 200-million-year-long story as never before.

In this captivating narrative (enlivened with more than seventy original illustrations and photographs), Steve Brusatte, a young American paleontologist who has emerged as one of the foremost stars of the field—naming fifteen new species and leading groundbreaking scientific studies and fieldwork—masterfully tells the complete, surprising, and new history of the dinosaurs, drawing on cutting-edge science to dramatically bring to life their lost world and illuminate their enigmatic origins, spectacular flourishing, astonishing diversity, cataclysmic extinction, and startling living legacy. Captivating and revelatory, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs is a book for the ages.

Brusatte traces the evolution of dinosaurs from their inauspicious start as small shadow dwellers—themselves the beneficiaries of a mass extinction caused by volcanic eruptions at the beginning of the Triassic period—into the dominant array of species every wide-eyed child memorizes today, T. rex, Triceratops, Brontosaurus, and more. This gifted scientist and writer re-creates the dinosaurs’ peak during the Jurassic and Cretaceous, when thousands of species thrived, and winged and feathered dinosaurs, the prehistoric ancestors of modern birds, emerged. The story continues to the end of the Cretaceous period, when a giant asteroid or comet struck the planet and nearly every dinosaur species (but not all) died out, in the most extraordinary extinction event in earth’s history, one full of lessons for today as we confront a “sixth extinction.”

Brusatte also recalls compelling stories from his globe-trotting expeditions during one of the most exciting eras in dinosaur research—which he calls “a new golden age of discovery”—and offers thrilling accounts of some of the remarkable findings he and his colleagues have made, including primitive human-sized tyrannosaurs; monstrous carnivores even larger than T. rex; and paradigm-shifting feathered raptors from China.

An electrifying scientific history that unearths the dinosaurs’ epic saga, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs will be a definitive and treasured account for decades to come.

Includes 75 images, world maps of the prehistoric earth, and a dinosaur family tree.]]> 404 Steve Brusatte 0062490427 Matt 5 4.23 2018 The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World

author: Steve Brusatte
name: Matt
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/05
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves: 2023, audiobook, nature, science
review:
A terrific way to update your knowledge of the evolution, characteristics, and science of dinosaurs if--like me--most of your knowledge about these subjects was formed decades ago during childhood. Brusatte amusingly details the quixotic personalities of paleontology, as well as anecdotes illustrating the kind of field work performed. Little did I know of the many, many types of dinosaurs, the diverse geological eras that separated them, and the complex survival of mammals, who managed to survive but did not really outdo the dinosaurs.
]]> After the Flood 43245867 An inventive and riveting epic saga, After the Flood signals the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.

A little more than a century from now, our world has been utterly transformed. After years of slowly overtaking the continent, rising floodwaters have obliterated America’s great coastal cities and then its heartland, leaving nothing but an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water.

Stubbornly independent Myra and her precocious seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, fish from their small boat, the Bird, visiting dry land only to trade for supplies and information in the few remaining outposts of civilization. For seven years, Myra has grieved the loss of her oldest daughter, Row, who was stolen by her father after a monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska. Then, in a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra suddenly discovers that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment near the Artic Circle. Throwing aside her usual caution, Myra and Pearl embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas, hoping against hope that Row will still be there.

On their journey, Myra and Pearl join forces with a larger ship and Myra finds herself bonding with her fellow seekers who hope to build a safe haven together in this dangerous new world. But secrets, lust, and betrayals threaten their dream, and after their fortunes take a shocking—and bloody—turn, Myra can no longer ignore the question of whether saving Row is worth endangering Pearl and her fellow travelers.

A compulsively readable novel of dark despair and soaring hope, After the Flood is a magnificent, action packed, and sometimes frightening odyssey laced with wonder—an affecting and wholly original saga both redemptive and astonishing.

]]> 419 Kassandra Montag 0062889362 Matt 4 3.75 2019 After the Flood

author: Kassandra Montag
name: Matt
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/25
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves: 2023, audiobook, postapocalyptic, sci-fi
review:
The unique setting of this book (mostly oceanic world, owing to global climate change) allows this to be both a unique take on the postapocalyptic as well as a sea novel with a unusual twist. The characters are likable and compelling, the plot interesting and unpredictable. And thankfully, the whole plot is not driven by the characters' deceptiveness.
]]> <![CDATA[Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety]]> 6452798 A myth-shattering exposé of America’s nuclear weapons

Famed investigative journalist Eric Schlosser digs deep to uncover secrets about the management of America’s nuclear arsenal. A groundbreaking account of accidents, near misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: How do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? That question has never been resolved—and Schlosser reveals how the combination of human fallibility and technological complexity still poses a grave risk to mankind. While the harms of global warming increasingly dominate the news, the equally dangerous yet more immediate threat of nuclear weapons has been largely forgotten.

Written with the vibrancy of a first-rate thriller, Command and Control interweaves the minute-by-minute story of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with a historical narrative that spans more than fifty years. It depicts the urgent effort by American scientists, policy makers, and military officers to ensure that nuclear weapons can’t be stolen, sabotaged, used without permission, or detonated inadvertently. Schlosser also looks at the Cold War from a new perspective, offering history from the ground up, telling the stories of bomber pilots, missile commanders, maintenance crews, and other ordinary servicemen who risked their lives to avert a nuclear holocaust. At the heart of the book lies the struggle, amid the rolling hills and small farms of Damascus, Arkansas, to prevent the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying the most powerful nuclear warhead ever built by the United States.

Drawing on recently declassified documents and interviews with people who designed and routinely handled nuclear weapons, Command and Control takes readers into a terrifying but fascinating world that, until now, has been largely hidden from view. Through the details of a single accident, Schlosser illustrates how an unlikely event can become unavoidable, how small risks can have terrible consequences, and how the most brilliant minds in the nation can only provide us with an illusion of control. Audacious, gripping, and unforgettable, Command and Control is a tour de force of investigative journalism, an eye-opening look at the dangers of America’s nuclear age.]]> 656 Eric Schlosser 1594202273 Matt 5
Great achievement, remarkable stupidity, and technological nihilism, all rolled into one.]]> 4.24 2013 Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

author: Eric Schlosser
name: Matt
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/17
date added: 2023/08/20
shelves: 2023, audiobook, military-history, science
review:
Fascinating for the details of how nuclear weapons were developed, designed, and deployed, as well as the many mishaps that happened and yet--miraculously--never resulted in a massive, accidental nuclear disaster, a deeper impulse of this book is the terrifying technological complexity we have created and and the very real issue of things getting out of control, as though we are getting stuck in our own web. The Soviets had a system called "Death's Hand" that would launch missiles even if all command centers in the USSR were destroyed. Of course this system, like all sensors and automated systems, was subject to mistakes and flaws... just with infinite consequences in this case.

Great achievement, remarkable stupidity, and technological nihilism, all rolled into one.
]]> Goat Mountain 17349136
Every fall they return to this dry, yellowed landscape dotted with oak, buck brush, and the occasional stand of pine trees. Goat Mountain is what this family owns and where they belong. It is where their history is kept, memories and stories that will be shared again by these men. And for the first time, the boy’s story will be added if he can find a buck. Itching to shoot, he is ready.

When the men arrive at the gate to their land, the father discovers a poacher and sights him through the scope of his gun. He offers his son a look-a simple act that will explode in tragedy, transforming these men and this family, forcing them to question themselves and everything they thought they knew.

In prose devastating and beautiful in its precision, David Vann creates a haunting and provocative novel that explores our most primal urges and beliefs, the bonds of blood and religion that define and secure us, and the consequences of our actions-what we owe for what we’ve done.]]> 256 David Vann 006212109X Matt 0 to-read 3.33 2013 Goat Mountain

author: David Vann
name: Matt
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Caribou Island 8584946 On a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, a marriage is unraveling. Gary, driven by thirty years of diverted plans, and Irene, haunted by a tragedy in her past, are trying to rebuild their life together. Following the outline of Gary's old dream, they're hauling logs to Caribou Island in good weather and in terrible storms, in sickness and in health, to build the kind of cabin that drew them to Alaska in the first place.

But this island is not right for Irene. They are building without plans or advice, and when winter comes early, the overwhelming isolation of the prehistoric wilderness threatens their bond to the core. Caught in the emotional maelstrom is their adult daughter, Rhoda, who is wrestling with the hopes and disappointments of her own life. Devoted to her parents, she watches helplessly as they drift further apart.

Brilliantly drawn and fiercely honest, Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction. A portrait of desolation, violence, and the darkness of the soul, it is an explosive and unforgettable novel from a writer of limitless possibility.

]]> 293 David Vann 0061875724 Matt 0 to-read 3.45 2010 Caribou Island

author: David Vann
name: Matt
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth]]> 43552762
For those who go in search of the isolation, silence and adventure of wild places it is - perhaps ironically - to the man-made shelters that they need to head; the outposts: bothies, bivouacs, cabins and huts. Part of their allure is their simplicity: enough architecture to shelter from the weather but not so much as to distract from the immediate environment around.

Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watching huts of Washington State, from Iceland's Houses of Joy to the desert of New Mexico, and from the frozen beauty of Svalbard to a lighthouse perched in the Atlantic, Richards uncovers landscapes which have inspired writers, artists and musicians, and asks: why are we drawn to wilderness? And how do wild places become a space for inspiration and creativity?]]> 336 Dan Richards 1786891557 Matt 4 3.53 2019 Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth

Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth

author: Dan Richards
name: Matt
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/06
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: 2023, audiobook, nature, travel
review:
This book is mostly a series of vignettes of travels to interesting and diverse places. There is not really a philosophical exploration of the "appeal" of wild places, as he seems to indicate--just a series of interesting travel narratives. Which is just fine. His chapter on the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah was probably the most unique and interesting.
]]> <![CDATA[Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life]]> 52950915 A Common-Sense Guide to Living Rich….Instead of Dying Rich

Imagine if by the time you died, you did everything you were told to. You worked hard, saved your money, and looked forward to financial freedom when you retired.

The only thing you wasted along the way was…your life.

Die with Zero presents a startling new and provocative philosophy as well as practical guide on how to get the most out of your money—and out of your life. It’s intended for those who place lifelong memorable experiences far ahead of simply making and accumulating money for one’s so-called Golden Years.

In short, Bill Perkins wants to rescue you from over-saving and under-living. Regardless of your age, Die with Zero will teach you Perkins’ plan for optimizing your life, stage by stage, so you’re fully engaged and enjoying what you’ve worked and saved for.

You’ll discover how to maximize your lifetime memorable moments with “experience bucketing,” how to convert your earnings into priceless memories by following your “net worth curve,” and find out how to navigate whether to invest in, or delay, a meaningful adventure based on your “spend curve” and “personal interest rate.”

Using his own life experiences as well as the inspiring stories and cautionary tales of others—and drawing on eye-opening insights about time, money, and happiness from psychological science and behavioral finance —Perkins makes a timely, convincing, and contrarian case for living large.]]> 240 Bill Perkins 0358099765 Matt 4
I think he kind of folds it into the centrality of "experience," but he could better emphasize the role of relationships in building life happiness. This needs to factor into decisions as well.

Some the later chapters seem to restate the central concepts and are a bit repetitive, but his central ideas hold--dying with a lot of money left over means time wasted working instead of experiencing. Hence, optimize this.]]> 3.84 2020 Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

author: Bill Perkins
name: Matt
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/05
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: 2023, audiobook, finance-investing
review:
The central idea of this book is important: you want to invest and save enough for your life but not waste extra time saving more than you need, i.e., don't be afraid to spend what you need to get the experiences you want out of life. And some of those experiences are time-sensitive: you're going to enjoy that hiking trip much more in your 40s than in your 70s, so spend the money now rather than saving everything for the "golden years." Time, health, and money are the 3 factors that affect the quantity and quality of our experiences. While money might increase over time, we tend to have less health and overall time as the years go on, so try to "optimize" your choices between these factors.

I think he kind of folds it into the centrality of "experience," but he could better emphasize the role of relationships in building life happiness. This needs to factor into decisions as well.

Some the later chapters seem to restate the central concepts and are a bit repetitive, but his central ideas hold--dying with a lot of money left over means time wasted working instead of experiencing. Hence, optimize this.
]]> <![CDATA[The Mamluks: The History and Legacy of the Medieval Slave Soldiers Who Established a Dynasty in Egypt]]> 50829296 *Includes a bibliography for further reading
*Includes a table of contents

Egypt in the 14th century was a glorious kingdom to behold. Spice merchants from Europe, Asia and Africa sailed up the Nile River to the great port city of Alexandria, carrying riches such as silk, jewels and spices. Cairo, the capital of Egypt, was the greatest city in the Islamic world, with a larger population and more wealth and splendor than any city in Europe. Cairo was a shining pinnacle of cosmopolitan splendor in the medieval world, and besides being a major trading hub, Cairo was famous for its scholars and intellectual class, offering countless academic opportunities for scholars across the Islamic world. The culture of Cairo was dynamic and famous for its wide range of intellectual debates on Islamic sciences and other academic fields, all of which far surpassed any contemporary city at the time. From across the Islamic world, scholars from all the major schools of thought were represented in Cairo. Spirited lectures occurred frequently in public squares and madrasas were often packed with patrons eagerly listening to readings by famed scholars. Cairo was a city filled with art, trade and knowledge.

However, there was another factor that made Cairo infamous. The city represented the last bastion of the Muslim world - a great Islamic caliphate, centered in Iraq, had once stretched from the edges of Central Asia to Spain, but invasions by outside enemies had mostly overrun this once mighty empire. The Mongol armies, pouring forth from their grasslands in Asia, had sacked Baghdad in 1258, destroying the caliphate and sending the Islamic world into a state of deep peril. Moreover, European crusaders had launched multiple invasions into Palestine and the Levant, threatening the very existence of the Muslim world.

Ultimately these foreign invaders were all stopped by one group: the Mamluks of Egypt, a group of warriors, slaves, and kings. Hailing from the Eurasian steppes, the Mamluks were not Arab, but ethnically Turkish, enslaved at a young age, and sold into military service in Egypt, where they underwent intense military training in Cairo. Thus, these Turkish warriors were utterly alien from the Arab populations they eventually ruled over in ethnicity, language and culture, but they were remarkably skilled in the mounted warfare styles of the nomadic tribes of the Eurasian grasslands and other aspects of medieval warfare. As a result, the Mamluks were some of the finest professional soldiers of their time, which they proved on multiple occasions through their brilliant military campaigns against the numerous enemies of Islamic Egypt. Critically, the Mamluks were one of the only groups to defeat the seemingly unstoppable Mongol hordes in open battle, potentially saving the Islamic world from annihilation. It could be argued that without the Mamluks, the Islamic world would have been completely destroyed, changing the course of history.

As the Mamluks took power in Egypt, they rapidly became the center of the Islamic world. Egypt’s political system made it unique when compared to other parts of the Muslim world, and though the daily management of the kingdom required interactions between the foreign Mamluks and their Egyptian subjects, a vast degree of separation remained the law of the land. The Mamluks held a tight grip on political and military power (ordinary Egyptians were even forbidden to ride horses), and this system of recruitment from abroad and social isolation created an elite army loyal to the state and succeeded in barring the ruled people, even the sons of the Mamluks, from entering the ruling classes. Nothing symbolized this system better than the Citadel, a complex of mosques, offices, living quarters, stables, and palace that stood on a rocky prominence 250 feet above the city of Cairo.]]> 64 Charles River Editors Matt 3 3.72 The Mamluks: The History and Legacy of the Medieval Slave Soldiers Who Established a Dynasty in Egypt

The Mamluks: The History and Legacy of the Medieval Slave Soldiers Who Established a Dynasty in Egypt

author: Charles River Editors
name: Matt
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/10
date added: 2023/07/08
shelves: 2023, audiobook, military-history
review:
This was an interesting enough book, filling in a gap in my knowledge of the "Islamic Empire" and showing the changes and complexity inherent in that empire. Still, I wish the narrator would learn slightly better pronunciation: "steppe" is not pronounced "steep" (which he does dozens of times), place names are often mispronounced, etc.
]]>