Mabith's 2013 Non-fiction

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Mabith's 2013 Non-fiction

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1mabith
Editado: Ene 1, 2014, 6:20 pm

I kept my reading last year to slightly more non-fiction than fiction books and that worked out well. This year I'm going to try to knock off one of the really long audiobooks each month (41 hours for Team of Rivals...). For reference, I have pretty bad chronic pain in my hands and holding books is one of the worst things, so I do the majority of my book reading through audiobooks.

War Underground by Alexander Barrie
The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman
The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn Beer
Toms River by Dan Fagin
Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother by Xinran

Sister Citizen by Melissa V. Harris-Perry
Fooling Houdini by Alex Stone
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
American Nations by Colin Woodard
The Face of Battle by John Keegan

Yokohama Yankee by Leslie Helm
The Violinist's Thumb by Sam Kean
Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla by Marc Seifer
Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs by Wayne Bethard
Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz
Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
David Mitchell: Back Story by David Mitchell
Mythologies by Roland Barthes
A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

Island of Vice by Richard Zacks
Yiddishkeit by Paul Buhle and Harvey Pekar (editors)
The Last Voyage of Columbus by Martin Dugar
Gulp by Mary Roach
We Are on Our Own by Miriam Katin

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt
Girl Trouble by Carol Dyhouse
Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David von Drehle

The River of Doubt by Candice Millard
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty by Dan Ariely
Life Disrupted by Laurie Edwards
Getting Stoned with Savages by J. Maarten Troost
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan

Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Frasier
A Brief History of Roman Britain by JP Alcock
The Wet and the Dry by Lawrence Osborne
Slavery By Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth

The Student Loan Scam by Alan Collinge
The Man Who Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt
The Life and Ideas of James Hillman by Dick Russell
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry

The Girls of Room 28 by Hannelore Brenner
Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals by David Alan Corbin
Bad Astronomy by Philip C. Plait
The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage
The Endurance by Caroline Alexander

Against Their Will by Allen M. Hornblum
Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie
Moment of Battle by Jim Lacey
Stilwell and the American Experience in China by Barbara Tuchman
Holidays and Other Disasters by John G. Rodwan, Jr.

The Whiskey Rebellion by William Hogeland
Trouping by Philip C. Lewis
Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary
The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum
Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre

Just Kids by Patti Smith
The Great Crash, 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith
Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Great War in Africa by Byron Farwell

Indian Givers by Jack Weatherford
The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth
For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
How to Build a Dinosaur by Jack Horner and James Gorman
At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire

Charlatan by Pope Brock
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford
Unimagined by Imran Ahmad
Turing's Cathedral by George Dyson
The Riddle of the Labyrinth by Margalit Fox

Marie Curie and her Daughters by Shelley Emling
Sapper Martin (edited)by Richard Van Emden
The Great Race by David Hill
The War That Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander
Vikings by Neil Oliver

1493 by Charles C. Mann
You Are Now Less Dumb by David McRaney
Mary Boleyn by Alison Weir
The Captured by Scott Zesch
East End Tales by Gilda O'Neill

Song of Survival by Helen Colijn
Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger
One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina
Nella Last's War by Nella Last
The Notorious Benedict Arnold by Steve Sheinkin

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2mabith
Editado: Ene 5, 2013, 9:47 pm

01 - War Underground by Alexander Barrie

This book was excellent. It follows the British tunneling efforts by first covering the formation of the units and men behind that, and then focusing on individuals and specific events. Throughout the book it breaks away to talk about how these units were run or were getting along with the regular army, etc...

The writing is good and interesting, if a tiny bit dated in style, the stories are all generally amazing, I didn't notice any anti-German feeling, and the book is ordered chronologically. It ends with the Messines Ridge attack. The basic moral is "Pretty much every mine blown resulted in extra British losses and the effort generally only served to make the infantry feel slightly less paranoid." It really is staggering how utterly useless it was, apart from the Messines Ridge attack, and of course that was the idea that it took the leaders the longest to come around to.

I do recommend this, if you can find it! If you enjoyed Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong and want the real story on the mining then this is the book for you.

3mabith
Ene 13, 2013, 8:42 pm

02 - The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman

This book covers but a few examples of the way we're capable of continuing a course of action even when many around us have quite convincing evidence that it's the wrong choice.

It mostly focuses on the renaissance popes, Britain's loss of the American colonies, and the war in Vietnam. I admit I flagged a bit during the papal insanity, especially as I'd just read a book which touched on some of that.

Unless you really enjoy history, Tuchman will probably give you far more information than you really want. What I found most interesting was the Vietnam section, as it starts the story right at the beginning, after the end of WWII. I have a relatively good grounding in the history of the main war years, but really didn't know anything about the stupidity happening in the 1950s. I recommend reading that section if, like me, you really only know about the years we had a lot of troops there.

What's also interesting is that the British actually did learn a lesson from the Revolutionary War, exampled by their acceptance (creation) of the Commonwealth system. Sadly, many in the US learned absolutely nothing from the Vietnam war.

4mabith
Ene 21, 2013, 11:02 am

3 - The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn Beer

This is an excellent book. The writing/translation are good, and Beer tells her story well. It progresses in tight chronological order and there weren't any "Wait, what?" moments as far as chronology jumps go.

Beer is sent to various work details early in the war, but manages to avoid being sent to a ghetto and begins hiding in plain sight, pretending to be a gentile. I would say at least half of the book takes place prior to that.

The audiobook version is very well-read by Barbara Rosenblat.

5mabith
Ene 24, 2013, 10:56 am

4 - Toms River by Dan Fagin

When I received this book I was not in the mood to read about chemical companies' complete disregard for anything but profits or pollution or cancer. However, it immediately drew me in and I read 134 pages in the first sitting. I've also been compelled to tell everyone I'm in contact with about it.

Fagin's writing and structuring is particularly effective in keeping the book lively and interesting and preventing it from becoming overwhelming. He shifts between the specific history of Toms River, of the plant, its employees, and the citizens, and the history of industrial waste disposal, environmental safeguards, and the history of epidemiology, cancer, cancer treatments and research. The background feeds directly into the issues in Toms River, and each section seemed necessary.

While I find science interesting, it's certainly not specialist subject, but I didn't feel overwhelmed by the information presented. Fagin writes very clearly, and seems to keep the general audience in mind. For instance, if an acronym hasn't been used for a while he reminds you what it stands for (a move I greatly appreciate). There is a real balance in this book, both in the information reported (epidemiology is rarely completely obvious and solid) and between telling the scientific story and the human story.

I highly recommend this book, and really can't find anything to criticize. It will be released in mid-March, and I predict a swift rise to the best sellers lists.

6qebo
Ene 24, 2013, 11:05 am

5: Glad to see such a positive review, since I also got the ER book and it's on the agenda for February.

7mabith
Ene 24, 2013, 11:31 am

I hope you'll like it! I really couldn't have been more surprised or pleased with it.

8mabith
Ene 27, 2013, 11:47 pm

05 - Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother by Xinran

I was oddly disappointed in this one. It's supposed to focus on mothers who give up their children (mostly daughters) in China, the reasons they do this, and is kind of purporting to be a good text for adoptive parents and adopted children.

It's one of those books that you feel bad criticizing, but I really felt it struck the wrong chord. I found Xinran's writing style unpleasant in this context. Even though of course she's interviewed/talked to these women, I felt she was too present in the book. It's full of "I's" on her part, and she records conversations as dialogue, as opposed to pulling back and letting the women's stories take center stage. She instead puts herself in the center, making sure you know everything she did to get the story plus her reactions to every thing.

She also brings her own life into it, despite her situation being very different. Her mother, like many mothers of that era, put the Party ahead of her family and was then jailed for 10 years during the Cultural Revolution (as was her father). However, Xinran's family was eventually reunited. While a book about her experiences and her relationship with her mother (and hopefully a sharing of stories between them, about that ten-year period) would be very interesting, this was NOT that book.

She states in the beginning that she'd like to ask her mother about those ten years, but shifts focus to wanting her mother to hear about her life during those 'orphan' years (and doesn't mention interest in her mother's experiences again). She states that she had parents but they didn't love her, which seems like a very cruel statement (as opposed to "they didn't outwardly SHOW they loved her," which I'm sure is true), particularly since she hadn't bothered to talk to her mother about these issues. It's especially striking since she constantly defends the mothers who had to abandon children against their detractors in this book.

I'm going on and on, I know, but it almost sounded like a passive aggressive note in parts, so her mother will start the conversation first. I just kept feeling that if I were an adopted child this book would be of very little help to me. It tries too hard to straddle the line between an informative non-fiction book and a memoir or newspaper series, or feels as though it sprang from pieces she just couldn't quite fit into her book The Good Women of China.

9mabith
Ene 30, 2013, 8:56 pm

06 - Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry

This is an important book that anyone living in the US should read.

I grew up in an almost completely white town, but with well-meaning liberal parents who did things like diversifying the all-white picture books (before they could afford better books) by coloring the children in with colored pencils. The benefit of that town was that I didn't hear people making racist remarks, but we all have internalized racism, and we all lack awareness of the lives of people around us, and the struggles others face.

I really recommend this one. The writing, structure, and research are excellent. It's silly to try to summarize, and my opinions on this subject (no matter what they are) aren't particularly useful and certainly aren't important.

The book opens with this poem by Kate Rushin, and whether or not the book sounds interesting to you, do read the poem. It's short.

10mabith
Feb 4, 2013, 10:53 pm

07- Fooling Houdini: Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Power of the Mind by Alex Stone

I really enjoyed this book, though I don't really have an interest in magic (other than the interesting history). A lot of the book covers WHY magic tricks work, and specific aspects of our brains and how they function. Stone goes back and forth between stories of his personal life and how he learned magic, and long passages of science.

Definitely recommended.

11mabith
Feb 10, 2013, 9:05 pm

08 - Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves

This is the book that's been on my "I really have to get back to that..." list for the longest. I read the first few chapters about 4 1/2 years ago.

It was pretty much what I expected, very much a product of that time and his upbringing. I enjoyed it, especially the parts focusing on the the war in France, but I didn't love it. I find it a little odd that I don't have more to say about the book, but that experience/life/style is so ... not cliche, but it's become a trope that I'm very used to reading about.

When he's in Egypt at the end, I found more difficult to read that, having read a fair bit (fiction and non-fiction) about Egypt during WWI and after. Particularly the "Well how ungallant of the Egyptians to be nattering about independence, they'd be asking us back to fix things if we left" lines. Luckily it wasn't much of the book.

12mabith
Feb 16, 2013, 2:49 pm

09 - American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard

This was one of my books from my LT Santa and she couldn't have picked better! It was really fascinating, and everything rang true. You read going "Oh yeah, X part of this state does have more in common with X part of another state..." For me especially it made sense because I spend my life trying to explain that West Virginia is not a southern state in a cultural sense (except maybe Beckley where I can't have a two-second conversation without someone saying "Well bless yer heart").

Woodard brings us all the way up to the present day, in terms of how elections play out, etc... Most interesting for many of us, I think, will be the sections about the Civil War and the real, cultural divisions during that conflict.

My only quibble was in the beginning where Woodard says that Appalachian's fighting nature is what makes them join the military in high rates. Sorry, but it's a combination of poverty, isolation, and lack of jobs. The military is the only path to college for many people in WV, and the only way to get out of their small, stifling, rural area for others. I grew up with tons of people who'd never been out of WV even when I lived in a town on the Ohio river, where you could walk to Ohio in about fifteen minutes.

I most heartily recommend this book. It was excellent.

13qebo
Feb 16, 2013, 7:59 pm

12: I most heartily recommend this book.
Glad to hear this. I picked it up at the end of last year based on another LTer recommendation.

14mabith
Feb 18, 2013, 11:05 am

10 - The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme by John Keegan

This was an interesting "new" look at battle for the individual soldier's sake rather than a look at outcomes or what led to the battle or how specific leader commanded it.

While the main focus is on the three battles mentioned in the title, it does randomly talk about the way battle itself has changed, how the emotional impact on individual soldiers has changed, how that relates to the culture/society that they grew up in, etc... It's an interesting book, which I'll have to re-read sometime, as I've had a bad flu most of the time I was listening to it, and slightly feel I didn't absorb as much as I could have.

15mabith
Feb 27, 2013, 6:26 pm

11 - Yokohama Yankee: My Family's Five Generations as Outsiders in Japan by Leslie Helm

This is an interesting book I received through the ER program.

It chronicles the author's own life and family in Yokohama, Japan and the United States over the generations, starting in 1869. It was certainly an interesting story, and their difficulties as outsiders in Japan matches what I've heard from Americans living there.

While the writing isn't tight enough to vault this to the next level of memoirs, it was engaging and I always wanted to keep reading it. The book really just flew by. It's full of pictures, both of the Helm family and general atmospheric shots. This is an uncorrected proof, but hopefully the finished version will have captions on all the family photos. The lack of them was fairly annoying.

I have an innate interest in family histories, my own and everyone else's, so this was a good book for me. Again, the writing could have been tighter (and no one should use the phrase youthful breasts, which is just completely unnecessary, we know you're talking about a teenager, just say chest or breasts, adding 'youthful' seems to sexualize them unnecessarily). but the author is a professional journalist and it wasn't bad. It had more of a finished book feel than the last family history written by a journalist I read (The Forgetting River), but it did go back and forth between the author's own history and his family (though that was kept in chronological order, for the most part).

16mabith
Editado: Mar 9, 2013, 11:53 pm

12 - The Violinists's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code by Sam Kean

I've done so little reading this month! I'm nearly done with the 22 hour audiobook Tesla biogrpahy, and just took a break to finish this, since it was the book I chose for my non-fiction book club.

This, like Kean's previous book The Disappearing Spoon, wanders all around. I'm not sure why these books can't be written in chronological order. Doing that would help me in keeping things straight.

There was lots of good information in this one, though it's hard to feel it's a coherent story, because it's not of course. I did find Kean to be a bit sexist and just unthinking. He talked about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemming's "relationship" as though it were romantic and they started it on an even footing! WTF.

17mabith
Editado: mayo 22, 2013, 4:50 pm

13 - Wizard: The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla by Marc Seifer

I can not express how happy I am to have finished this book. It was a 22 hour audio and focused far more on the minutia of the science of his discoveries/inventions than on his life. It's the science I'm not as good at understanding, so it was feeling a bit endless.

If you want to read a book that makes you both confused and angry over how unpractical/narcissistic some of these geniuses are, this is the book for you! This was just too much for me, interesting as much of it was.

Of course I knew this would be science heavy, but for a biography it's just heavier than I expected.

18mabith
Mar 14, 2013, 6:21 pm

14 - Lotions, Potions, and Deadly Elixirs: Frontier Medicine in the American West by Wayne Bethard

This book tries to be too many things. It wants to be a catalog of personal remembrances, a reference guide, and a history. It did not succeed at being any of these things.

In the first section it describes the different classifications of medicine, for example "The Wets." Many of these descriptions include personal memories, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with the subject (such as the amount of lard his grandmother consumed, a paragraph tacked onto a sections about paints and tars). This is a common occurrence throughout the book. The subject matter also doesn't adequately reflect the title of the book, with numerous anecdotes taking place neither in the west nor on the frontier.

Another issue I had was simply the writing. The author will use uncommon words without explanation (or will add an explanation during the third use of the word three pages later), but will then give a strict definition of what a powder is -- albeit by using words like comminuted and triturated (also without explantion). He also sometimes gives a common name for a plant or parasite, but will then give only Latin names for the next two or three.

The author often uses bad grammar for atmosphere but only sporadically. The general structure and style was also problematic. In a few instances he relates his reaction to a story before telling the story, he refers to a woman who dressed as a man to join the army as a "woman impersonator,” doesn't seem to question most of the stories or anecdotes related to the cure-alls, and doesn't mention the placebo effect even once (while constantly wondering if these remedies worked as well as testimonials claimed). The tone is also frequently patronizing towards women and non-Caucasians.

The second half of the book purports to be a "materia medica" but continues to include random personal memories. Not to mention that there are many far more detailed compilations of herbs and folk remedies already in publication. It seems more likely that the author wanted to put together a book of interesting stories of early(ish) America with a vaguely medical theme, rather than a true history of patent medicine.

It's yet another book that doesn't appear to have been edited by anyone but the author. Honestly, I found something to write a negative note about on every single page. It was immensely frustrating, especially since I was so excited to get this one (it's an ER). Given that the book is dominated by random stories it probably barely counts of non-fiction.

19mabith
Mar 17, 2013, 7:56 pm

15 - Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

This is an excellent and important book that I'd put off reading for far too long. Luckily, my LT Santa got it for me and prodded me along. It hits two of my main reading interests - the Holocaust and psychology.

Most of the book focuses on Frankl's personal experiences in the concentration camps, albeit through a lens of what pushed most prisoners to keep living and the general psychological experience of the prisoner. He chooses incidents that highlight his reflections on psychology and exemplify his points about human nature and the value of suffering when there's no other choice.

The last bit of the book talks about the basic principles of logotherapy, Frankl's far more reasonable progression from traditional psychotherapy and his work with patients in that field. Again, focusing in large part on what makes life worth living for people in bad situations.

I related to the book personally at numerous points, because I've had severe chronic pain for the last eight years. It's very difficult to find a focus for my life, because I'm no longer able to work or do the things that really spoke to me, but I keep living and find various things to give my life more meaning.

Highly recommended, of course.

20mabith
Mar 22, 2013, 7:05 pm

16 - Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

This was a rather long audiobook (25 hours), but it went by quite quickly. Child's life was just endlessly fascinating, both in its own right and by dint of the people she met and inspired and cavorted with.

It's an excellent book, well written and tightly organized, which I highly recommend.

It reminded me of something a friend and I did in high school... We'd found this horrifying picture of a very elderly Julia Child holding up this massive knife and grinning. We'd photocopy it and leave it around where the other would suddenly come upon it. After reading the biography, I rather think Julia would have liked that.

21AnnieMod
Mar 26, 2013, 7:17 pm

>19 mabith:

I am a bit... weirded by half of the psychology books on the market but sounds like that one might work...

22mabith
Mar 26, 2013, 9:17 pm

Annie, you might also investigate James Hillman. He's my model psychiatrist, and wrote a collaborative, discussion based book called We've Had 100 Years of Psychotherapy and the World's Getting Worse. I think Frankl and Hillman both give help without being self-help.

23JDHomrighausen
Mar 27, 2013, 3:09 pm

I tend to agree with the above - when I started seeing a therapist I specifically picked one with a more spiritual, Jungian approach. It seems like so much self-help is just about feeling good, or even about having the best job/spouse/car/kids/etc.

You mention chronic pain. I just finished reading Turning Suffering Inside Out by Darlene Cohen, which is a Zen approach to chronic pain. Cohen developed severe rheumatoid arthritis in her thirties, and this book flows from that and her decades of experience at the SF Zen Center. You might find it helpful - my mom who has chronic pain from her shingles was very interested when she saw it.

24AnnieMod
Mar 27, 2013, 3:52 pm

>22 mabith:

Thanks - I will. I find half of the current school of psychotherapy (and psychology) pretty much... useless - half of the people don't need a doctor but just a goal in life. Or a friend. Or a hobby. Or a backbone. Or all of those.

Don't get me wrong - I know that there are people that need the therapy and I respect the profession as a whole. But these days everyone seems to be running to a doctor as soon as the world does not seem to be the way they wanted it to be.

25mabith
Editado: Mar 28, 2013, 1:28 pm

Annie, I think it's a combination of things, one of them being that it's far more acceptable to seek psychiatric help now than ever before, another is that there seems to have been a huge trend in extremely over-protective parenting in the last few decades so you've got a lot of young people unprepared for the real world.

I was reading something recently that posited that people are going to therapists just to talk, to feel they have a friend to confide in, because they don't have that in their everyday lives. I can understand that to an extent, as almost all of my friendships are online, and it's just different when you can talk to someone in person.

26mabith
Mar 28, 2013, 1:32 pm

17 - Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

This is 'novelized' in the barest way. There are some added conversations for atmosphere, but honestly not many.

If you read much about the Holocaust or WWII in general and haven't read this yet, definitely add it to your reading list. It's pretty much a perfect book, with great balance, and one that's been extremely thoroughly researched. Keneally takes pains not to idolize Schindler, not to leave out his flaws, but he still comes across as an amazing and unique person in that day and age.

I haven't seen the film in quite a while, but I think it made him appear darker than the book does. Perhaps that's just the magic of seeing events rather than reading about them, and the fact that the book focuses are larger deals and events.

Highly recommended.

27AnnieMod
Mar 28, 2013, 1:37 pm

>25 mabith: there seems to have been a huge trend in extremely over-protective parenting in the last few decades

I suspect you nailed it right here. Some days I wonder how I survived my childhood - if you listen to most parents, half of the stuff I was doing should have been forbidden.

28mabith
Mar 30, 2013, 9:51 pm

18 - David Mitchell: Back Story by David Mitchell (can't do an author touchstone, as all I've tried go to the novelist)

I was slightly nervous about this book, because I love Mitchell's comedy work so much. I was pretty sure he'd write a good book, but you never know. It's an excellent book, hilarious, well-written, and well constructed. The pacing is good, the asides are short and funny, etc... As an American especially it's interesting to see the real progress of his popularity. I came upon his work mostly all at once or extremely out of order.

I did get rather upset at the end though, because he made me cry. What business does one of the funniest people in the world have in making me cry? It really wasn't fair. He moped (an understatement) around completely hung up on Victoria Coren (now his wife) for three years before they started dating, and I'm in a similar but more hopeless situation.

29mabith
Mar 30, 2013, 9:55 pm

Annie, what's especially odd about the childhood throttling people is that they surely can't have helped but notice that they survived and that our parents survived.

Or, that they overreact only to certain types of utterly unfounded news stories and not the ones that say "If you completely coddle your children they will be unable to cope with adult life." There was a British reality show about some of those types (Young, Dumb, and Living Off Mum), but you wonder why the parents chose to participate when it's obviously their fault!

30mabith
Abr 2, 2013, 10:39 pm

19 - Mythologies by Roland Barthes

I have no idea why I picked this up. It's so not my type of thing. I think perhaps I didn't read the description very carefully.

The topics were certainly interesting, but it switched gears so quickly and was so intellectual that I felt a bit lost half the time.

I think I'd have enjoyed this far more in print as opposed to the audiobook. It's a collection of articles compiled from elsewhere, and probably a better book to slowly browse through.

If I hear anyone say 'bourgeois' in the next six months though I will cry. The last quarter of the book especially used it in every third sentence, I think.

31mabith
Abr 7, 2013, 8:39 pm

20 - A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage

This was quite a fascinating book! The title had made me expect something far more frivolous and humorous, but that's not the style here at all. The writing/research is thorough and detailed.

The beverages are covered in chronological order, though of course some time periods will overlap. The pacing and organization of the book was very sound. I honestly learned a lot from this one. It was completely packed with interesting information.

Definitely recommended (though the audiobook reader has some pronunciation issues, some of which are regional and some are just through ignorance and laziness. Honestly readers, if it's an unfamiliar brand name it's really a quick thing to find out how it's pronounced).

32mabith
Abr 13, 2013, 9:21 pm

21 - Island of Vice by Richard Zacks

Proper review later. I had a mole removed from my arm which ended in a lot more stitches than were predicted and I can't really use my right arm at all.

Really interesting book, though I think there were some issues with pacing.

33mabith
Abr 19, 2013, 7:00 pm

22 - Yiddishkeit edited by Paul Buhle and Harvey Pekar

Really interesting book detailing Yiddish literature, theatre, movies, modern usage, etc... done in comic book style. It's broken up well, with lots of different artists and types of strips, plus some straight text.

34mabith
Abr 19, 2013, 7:01 pm

23 - The Last Voyage of Columbus: Being the Epic Tale of the Great Captain's Fourth Expedition by Martin Dugard

There are possibly a number of reasons I didn't love this book. It wasn't bad, particularly, but I'm extra cranky due to the mole removal and still can't do anything, so my usual audiobook routine was off. There's also the fact that it either glosses over or doesn't really cover the really evil stuff in regards to native populations.

It was an interesting story, but it didn't really seem like an "epic tale." Shipwreck and mutiny should be exciting but either the writing or the audiobook reader made it seem dull. Or, after reading Caroline Alexander's excellent book about the Bounty, every other tale of shipwreck and mutiny seems passe.

I feel a distinct sense of guilt over this, as my dad loved the book and is the one that gave it to me. Oh well.

35mabith
Abr 25, 2013, 1:23 pm

24 - Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach

I'm still dealing with pain from my mole removal so the reviews will still be not really reviews (stitches are out, but only about 1/4 of the incision knit together, and I am really sick of this, I have never wanted to do my own dishes more).

Anyway, Mary Roach is still great. Loved this one, though Bonk and Stiff are still my favorites. Some very interesting stuff in this one.

36mabith
Abr 25, 2013, 1:23 pm

25 - We Are on Our Own by Miriam Katin

A graphic memoir about the author's flight, with her mother, from Budapest in 1944. The style of art was really effective and it's an amazing story (granted any survival story from WWII tends to be...).

37mabith
Abr 30, 2013, 7:23 pm

26 - The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

This book should be required reading for everyone in the US. It is extremely important. If you think you know just how problematic our justice system is, you are probably vastly underestimating the problem. I know I was, and I at least have minor knowledge of it due to my brother's dealing with the police and courts.

Throughout most of this I felt sick to my stomach and on the verge of tears, which I think is the only sane response (along with rage) to the information presented. Over the last six months I've done a lot of self-education about both institutional and casual personal racism, trying to better keep my privilege in mind. It makes me deeply ashamed of my country, but it's necessary to wake up and to keep waking up every day (especially given how unintentional cognitive bias easily takes over).

I'm sure some people will decide that they can't do anything about the cognitive bias, so what's the point in trying, but I do think we can learn to consistently and automatically second-guess and examine our first thoughts. Not to mention, that we MUST be more aware in order to change the media and other influences so the younger generations don't have the same built-in bias

38banjo123
mayo 2, 2013, 3:07 pm

I am glad that you read The New Jim Crow. Hopefully more folks will be encouraged to pick it up!

39mabith
mayo 2, 2013, 3:17 pm

I hope so too! I'm certainly working to get everyone I know to read it.

40Mr.Durick
mayo 2, 2013, 7:52 pm

Okay, I've put it on my wishlist. That doesn't mean I'll get to it any time soon.

Robert

41mabith
mayo 2, 2013, 7:55 pm

40 - I definitely understand that. My to-read list is ridiculously long.

42JDHomrighausen
mayo 3, 2013, 10:43 pm

The New Jim Crow looks like painful but necessary reading. I'll put it on my summer list.

43mabith
mayo 5, 2013, 9:50 am

27 - The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton

This book is mostly about picking out the bits of philosophy most useful for daily life problems. It's an interesting little book, especially if you really don't want to read much philosophy.

What most interested me was part three about the power of expectations. If you don't acknowledge that things can go wrong it completely throws you when they do. I think a lot of us in school used the old "I totally failed that test" line so we'd have something to be happy about when we got a C.

It translates so much into really important things though. I was completely shocked when I became chronically ill and found that most doctors just didn't care (even about the mystery), and I had to fight to even get a referral. You're taught to think about the medical system in such a high, holy light, only to discover how difficult it is to get help when you need it. I can understand a doctor being unsure, but you imagine that they refer you somewhere else, or do a little research themselves. The sheer indifference I encountered was staggering.

44jcbrunner
mayo 5, 2013, 6:14 pm

>43 mabith: You should read Paul Watzlawick's funny The Situation Is Hopeless But Not Serious (The Pursuit of Unhappiness). Watzlawick is great and best known for his laws of communication, of which number one is "You can't not communicate." (i.e. the act of not communicating is itself a form of communication).

45mabith
mayo 5, 2013, 9:20 pm

I will definitely look for that one, as it sounds like just the type of thing I enjoy. I have moved Montaigne to the bedroom, though I promised my dad I'd read Trouping first.

46mabith
Editado: mayo 9, 2013, 1:48 am

28 - The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt

This book had a lot of interesting things in it, but also a lot of problems. The first being that the answer to the questions is obvious - they're divided because they have different priorities, and some are more rational than others.

The interesting part of this book was the scientific stuff. Experiments dealing with morality and the "morality matrix," and such. That was great.

Where it fell was in comparing liberals and conservatives. He wanted to talk about some issues as if there were no hard studies behind them. For instance, everyone wants to lower the abortion rate (given that it's easier and cheaper to use birth control earlier on), whether or not they think it should be legal and freely available. There are studies that show that teaching kids about safe sex and birth control doesn't increase the rate of sex, but only the rate of SAFE sex. It's leaving out a lot to act as thought conservatives are serious about lowering the abortion and teen parenthood rates when they ignore this data. A lot of these issues seem to be far more about controlling people (and especially young women) than actually wanting fewer abortions.

The book also takes it for granted that politicians practice what they preach, or that we haven't seen time and again places where extreme loyalty (one of his morality points) results in very bad things happenings. Yet he doesn't mention this when talking about the fact that liberals are less focused on loyalty to a group or leader.

So again, it's interesting, but frustrating. The author's purpose is to try to foster understanding, but he gave me the impression that he only thinks liberals are likely to try to seriously understand the 'other side.' I agree that we all need to attempt to understand where others are coming from, but when people consistently ignore what happens in the real world, and the content of scientific studies, that needs to be acknowledged.

At the end he also makes a claim about welfare being the cause of single parenthood and children by multiple fathers, but only mentions it in relation to PoC. I'm pretty sure that if there was a gain to be had by not being married it wasn't ONLY noticed and used by PoC. That really, really bothered me.

47mabith
mayo 13, 2013, 7:01 pm

29 - Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women by Carol Dyhouse

This book provides a history of the obsession with the conduct of young women, which has been a constant throughout history, from the Victorian era to the present. It's divided into several sections focusing on a particularly topic, and each of those sections are presented in chronological order.

I found the book extremely well-written and organized. Dyhouse is a balanced commentator, pointing out studies which are limited and drawing attention to differing views, especially on current events in feminism. Each section seemed warranted, without repeats but drawing on previous chapters. The book never lost my attention.

This book is also just important. Young women are still held to a higher standard than young men in almost every area. For instance, instead of focusing on teaching young men not to rape, and holding them responsible for reprehensible behavior, we focus on holding women responsible (you shouldn't drink, you shouldn't wear revealing clothing, you shouldn't invite a young man to your home if you don't want sex, etc...), even when it's been shown that most of these things have little to do with rape. It's important for both women and men, who should surely be shocked at the accusation that they have no self-control and cannot be trusted to NOT rape.

I'm not someone who puts markers in books or takes notes on them (except for negative things when preparing to review a book), but I filled this one with post-its - choice quotes from other books, novels and memoirs to look out, interesting information, etc...

Highly recommended.

48banjo123
mayo 13, 2013, 10:20 pm

Girl Trouble sounds interesting, esp since I have a teen daughter. They don't have it at my library unfortunately.

49mabith
mayo 13, 2013, 11:23 pm

Even if it weren't an excellent book for other reasons, you do get loads of amusing quotes from old periodicals. This was my favorite:
Familiarity with freedom is apt to make a girl blasé. When she has learnt the ABC of sin it is but a step to the first primer of vice.

I hope your library eventually gets it!

50JDHomrighausen
mayo 14, 2013, 1:38 am

Enjoyed your review of Girl Trouble.

51mabith
mayo 14, 2013, 2:42 pm

thanks!

52mabith
mayo 19, 2013, 5:42 pm

30 - Triangle: The Fire That Changed America by David von Drehle

This was a great look at the causes of, events during, and after math of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire. It's quite a detailed look, going into the histories of numerous people involved, numerous reformers after the fact, the lawyers and judge in the court case, the strike that preceded the fire, etc...

There were times when I questioned how the book was laid out, with factory worker profiles inserted slightly at random, but in the end I think it was a good way to organize the book.

I recommend this to anyone interested in labor history, but do avoid the audiobook. It's read by Barrett Whitener who sounds like a very advanced computer voice synthesizer, who I absolutely can't stand. His narration style/voice really takes away from the books.

53mabith
mayo 22, 2013, 5:26 pm

31 - The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard

I just read Island of Vice in April, so it was interesting to read this one so soon after. Roosevelt is basically annoyed at losing the 1912 election so he needs a grand adventure to distract him. The expedition was not particularly well-planned, and the plans changed after the quartermaster has already ordered the supplies. It's pretty much a miracle that they didn't all die.

Millard writes and organizes this book just as skillfully as she did Destiny of the Republic. It's very much an adventure book, and I found myself rather gripped by whether certain people would die (I knew Roosevelt didn't, but I didn't familiarize myself with the expedition before reading this).

One of the things that makes an excellent non-fiction book, I've found, is whether or not an author knows where to put extra information, and how much to give. Millard is very good on that point, in my opinion.

What I'm wondering now though, is how history would have changed if Roosevelt hadn't run in 1912 and Taft had won instead of Wilson (who was certainly responsible for holding back the Civil Rights movement, likely for decades).

54banjo123
mayo 23, 2013, 12:17 am

Love your description of River of Doubt: "Roosevelt is basically annoyed at losing the 1912 elections so he needs a grand adventure to distract him."

It's one of my favorite non-fiction reads, so I'm glad you liked it.

55mabith
mayo 28, 2013, 10:37 am

Rhonda, yes it was a lot of fun! Books like this are why fiction adventure books don't interest me.

56mabith
mayo 28, 2013, 10:37 am

32 - The Honest Truth About Dishonesty by Dan Ariely

A nice little pop-science book about how much we lie and cheat, what keeps us from doing it, and the fact that while we're all a bit dishonest, it is usually limited to a bit.

Very interesting book, with some very neat experiments. Unlike a lot of the pop-science books dealing with similar subjects, Ariely isn't just collecting and describing these findings. He's actually a professor of psychology and behavioral economics, and personally conducted many of these experiments.

I do really need to get hard copies of some of these books for later reference. Unless I spent a ton of time taking notes while listening to the audiobook I just can't hold the information well enough to relate the most interesting bits to other people.

57mabith
mayo 29, 2013, 8:26 pm

33 - Life Disrupted: Getting Real About Chronic Illness in Your Twenties and Thirties by Laurie Edwards

I developed a chronic pain disease when I was 19, which is basically untreatable at this point. This book was really wonderful, and accurate. Some sections weren't relevant to me (particularly about frequent hospitalizations), but a lot of it was.

Edwards has a rare disease somewhat similar to cystic fibrosis. She also talks about the experiences of five or six other people with different chronic illnesses. She talks about relationships, work conditions, accepting help and a lot about balancing.

58mabith
Jun 3, 2013, 2:20 pm

34 - Getting Stoned With Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu by J. Maarten Troost

I don't think this one is quite as good as Troost's two other books, in part because it straddles a very different line. While he lived (rather than toured) in Fiji and Vanuatu, he seems to have been around westerners far more than in his first book about living in Kiribati and I think that changes the attitude and experiences.

It was still a very enjoyable read, and interesting. Troost tends to go back and forth between his experiences on the islands, and the island's history in terms of colonization and current politics.

59mabith
Jun 9, 2013, 6:13 pm

35 - The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan

I could have sworn I read this when it was new (I certainly carried it around for a bit), but none of it was at all familiar, so I must never have gotten to it. I do, however, remember the huge level of hype and press.

If you haven't read this yet, don't worry, it's NOT over-rated. I thoroughly enjoyed the writing and the subject matter. Pollan doesn't spend too long on any one section (or a single aspect of any section), and there's some really interesting information in here.

Highly recommended for the other 10 of who haven't read it yet.

60banjo123
Jun 9, 2013, 7:22 pm

I think Botany of Desire might be Pollan's best book. I especially liked the tulip section.

61mabith
Jun 9, 2013, 8:12 pm

Ha, better than Cat Treat Recipes? :) Yes, the tulip section was probably the most fascinating, though I know I'll enjoy knowing the (more) real Johnny Appleseed most. I take a horrible glee in educating my nieces and nephews so they can contradict their teachers (or just look all-knowing in front of their friends - something I adored as a kid).

62mabith
Jun 11, 2013, 5:19 pm

36 - Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot by Antonia Frasier

This is an extremely detailed book about the gunpowder plot, and the general events in Europe at that time related to monarchies, diplomatic relations, and Catholicism.

It was probably a bit too in-depth for me, and I occasionally got lost in the quantity of names that changed over the period the book covers. Also, who knew that Guy Fawkes had change his name to Guido!

Coming from a position of ignorance, this book seems to be incredibly well-researched. The author doesn't make fantastical leaps to support theories, just common sense judgements using research and traditions of the time.

63mabith
Jun 15, 2013, 10:56 pm

37 - A Brief History of Roman Britain by J.P. Alcock

By brief it really means "still really detailed, and don't even try to keep track of all the tribe names and chieftains because you'll go mad."

This is a well-written book. It's not dry, particularly (at least by my definitely), but it's very detailed and will maybe go on about things you don't care so much about. It will be an invaluable aid to historical fiction writers, I'm sure.

I would only recommend this to other people who are very interested in Roman Britain.

64mabith
Jun 15, 2013, 11:21 pm

38 - The Wet and the Dry: A Drinker's Journey by Lawrence Osborne

This book is about drinking, and especially about drinking in places where it's harder to find alcohol or the relationship to alcohol is changing/complex. Most of the chapters are spent in the Middle East, though he also revisits particularly meaningful watering holes and the drinking culture in his home country, England.

There's a lot of interesting information in this book, though you will run into sections which are the typical "Man, I'm so drunk, here's all the 'deep' philosophical stuff I've suddenly realized." Osborne also visits his childhood periodically, and the relationship each of his parents had with drinking. However, I would say that he didn't write enough about those things to warrant including them in this book. They somewhat go against the grain of the rest of the book's stated theme.

The book's conclusion is something most of us already know: If you're in the right position/are the right person it's possible to drink in any country, no matter how restrictive the laws. It's not a bad little book, but it does not hold to it's stated theme very well. It's a drinking-travel memoir while trying to impart a lot of factual information, and I don't think quite the right balance was found. The author also slides into misogyny very quickly and easily.

65lorax
Jun 17, 2013, 3:01 pm

60, 61>

If you especially liked the tulip section you might want to check out Tulipomania by Mike Dash; it goes into more detail on the subject. (Please don't be deterred by the thumbs-down on my member recommendation; I have a stalker who systematically thumbs-down every member recommendation I make. I've mostly stopped making them as a result, since I don't want people to be turned off from a good book by thinking it's a bad match for one they've liked, and I'm afraid that a rec-with-thumbsdown is worse than no rec at all.)

66qebo
Jun 17, 2013, 3:55 pm

59: I could have sworn I read this when it was new (I certainly carried it around for a bit)
Me too. I think I may’ve read part and set it aside for reasons other than the book itself.

65: I have a stalker who systematically thumbs-down every member recommendation I make
This would seem sufficiently contrary to basic citizenship for LT staff to step in behind the scenes. No?

67lorax
Jun 17, 2013, 4:50 pm

66>

Ah, I asked Tim about it years ago, he said something about looking into it. It's not a big enough deal for me to make a giant stink out of it.

68mabith
Jun 22, 2013, 8:40 am

67 - that really sucks about the stalker. I think I'd give Tim or someone another nudge at this point though. I will definitely have to add Tulipomania to my ridiculous to-read list, it is a fascinating subject.

69mabith
Editado: Jun 22, 2013, 8:43 pm

39 - Slavery By Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon

This is about the system of convict labor that developed in the south and quickly turned into slavery. Men and women were simply picked up off the streets, someone would lie and say they committed a crime for a fee from the police, and the police would sell them to a labor contractor. These men and women were help both by large national companies and individual farmers. Women were sometimes picked up solely to serve as sex slaves to white overseers in the labor operations. Some men in the coal mines were kept underground for months at a time.

It's a hard book to read, though less-so than if I hadn't already read The New Jim Crow. What's worse is that some officials, up to Theodore Roosevelt when he was president, made a stink, sent down investigators, and tried some people for the crime of debt peonage. A few men were given fines that they were never made to pay, and the main result was that the guilty kept more paperwork on the false crimes and set up 'courts' in case they were investigated again. I forget now how this happened, but the one jail-time result of the trials was actually given to a black man for something ridiculous.

Frankly, I'm surprised the author didn't relate this to the drug war, where police offices were given monetary incentives to arrest for drug crimes and the result ended up being completely racist. Not to mention that prison labor makes a lot of stuff at a joke wage, and those companies have every incentive to try to keep up the number of convicts available.

It's an important chapter in US history, and something that needs to be taught in school. You can't completely sanitize history for kids and teens, and then expect them to immediately adapt to real history. They're shocked, they're upset, they're confused, and many of them stay in denial, thinking that if things like this *really* happened they would have been learned about it in school. You can't understand current race relations at all unless you know the real history of our country.

(And in the news today... Pennsylvania Judge Sentenced For 28 Years For Selling Kids to the Prison System)

70mabith
Jun 28, 2013, 12:14 pm

40 - 1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth

This is an older, short work about 1066. It's the type of history book that tries to focus heavily on personalities and ignore the outcome of events when talking about the lead up to them.

It was quite enjoyable, and I liked the focus Howarth kept. The audiobook was a bit odd in that it was read by an American, but not too bothersome.

71mabith
Jul 1, 2013, 10:24 am

41 - The Student Loan Scam: The Most Oppressive Debt in US History and How we Can Fight Back by Alan Collinge

This is an extremely important little book. I had absolutely no idea things were this bad or unfair.

The companies both giving the loans and collecting on them once in default (often owned by the same company) do reprehensible (and illegal) things. The book details a huge range of different loan/repayment experiences. It also talks a lot about the power of the loan company lobbies.

I highly recommend this book, as this will be relevant to almost everyone, one way or another. Plus, it's a very quick read.

72banjo123
Jul 2, 2013, 12:56 am

Nice reviews! I went to put the Blackmon book on my wishlist, and found out it was already there. I will have to move it up on my to-read list.

73mabith
Jul 2, 2013, 11:31 am

Thanks! Slavery by Another Name is definitely worth a move up on the list, both for the quality of the book and the importance of having a fuller picture of recent US history.

74JDHomrighausen
Jul 2, 2013, 12:09 pm

> 71

As a college student, that book depresses me. It doesn't help that community colleges - a big thing in California - are being cut left and right.

75mabith
Jul 2, 2013, 12:29 pm

JD - Yes, it is truly depressing. Really the whole college system is depressing to me, but the current state of the student loan system. It's honestly hard to believe.

76mabith
Jul 2, 2013, 9:40 pm

42 - The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage by Anthony Brandt

A good book, though it occasionally gets a bit tedious, I think mostly because the journeys were quite repetitive. Oh they're sailing, oh these are the supplies, oh there's been some trouble, oh the wintering over is terrible, oh we're going to patronize some native peoples, oh here's a journey that went seriously pear-shaped, etc...

It was a bit depressing to read about, since they should have realized that even if/when they'd found the Northwest Passage it never would have been viable to use, given how much ice they consistently encountered. The whole things seems to mostly have been a vanity exercise for the UK.

Definitely a worthwhile read, and good for keeping you cool during the hot weather!

77mabith
Jul 8, 2013, 4:59 pm

43 - The Life and Ideas of James Hillman: The Making of a Psychologist by Dick Russell

James Hillman's books fell into my life when I was 14 and had a huge impact. In many ways he's the psychologist I most agree with, and his writing is always interesting to read. I'm always glad my makeout spot in the high school library was the psychology section, thus making me notice Hillman's We've Had 100 Years of Psychotherapy and the World's Getting Worse.

Russell has put together an extremely thorough, and incredibly interesting book. I absolutely loved reading this, and it was so interesting to find out about Hillman's formative years and various struggles. I listened to the audiobook but almost immediately ordered a print copy to keep on hand.

Highly recommended to those interested in Hillman's work, and I highly recommend Hillman's own books to everyone. His two most popular are the one I mentioned above, and The Soul's Code.

78mabith
Jul 8, 2013, 5:06 pm

44 - A Night to Remember by Walter Lord

I've never read much about the Titanic. I watch a few of the documentaries that come out when the big movie was released, and loved hearing about finding the wreck and the types of submarines they sent down, but didn't have that much interest otherwise.

This book was really well put together and interesting. It IS the classic account of the sinking for a reason. Lord covers all the bases in telling the story, and it FEELS like a story. He's also very good at mentioning when testimonies disagree and the weakness of eye witness testimony.

Definitely recommended, plus it's short and a really easy read.

79drneutron
Jul 8, 2013, 9:14 pm

I'm always glad my makeout spot in the high school library was the psychology section

:)

80mabith
Jul 11, 2013, 4:12 pm

45 - The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry

This book about the Chicago murderesses that the play (and musical) Chicago is based on. It was really interesting, and well put together, I think.

It turns out that one of the big reporters (for the Tribune, if I recall), a woman who came to get some real world experience after taking a play-writing workshop, actually wrote the play Chicago after her experiences. She was basically the opposite of the Mary Sunshine character, with absolutely no sympathy for the women, and a lot of contempt for the men who let them off just because of their looks.

Certainly recommended. Watkins, the intrepid girl reporter, was an interesting person and her own personal changes were fascinating. Though I'm a bit surprised that no one gave her trouble for using their statements verbatim in her play!

81banjo123
Jul 11, 2013, 10:30 pm

Sounds fun! I used to live in Chicago, so maybe I will try to give this a read.

82mabith
Jul 14, 2013, 10:27 am

46 - The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt by Hannelore Brenner

This is the first thing I've read that's really focused on Theresienstadt, which was the model ghetto, used to show outsiders that "Oh, no, these camps aren't awful, they're great." Conditions, while not excellent, were generally better than in any other camp or ghetto throughout the war.

With this we get an intimate picture of the whole bunch of girls from room 28, their lives prior to Theresienstadt, and snippets of their lives after.

Definitely worth reading.

83mabith
Jul 17, 2013, 12:38 pm

47 - Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals: A Documentary History of the West Virginia Mine Wars by David Alan Corbin

The WV mine wars are my specialist subject, so this wasn't new information. It is always interesting to see the period documents and reporting though. Some of the interviews with a senate committee were also hilarious. One senator from NJ, Martine, was so appalled by the whole situation, which was reassuring.

There was an amusing zinger from a coal baron to Senator Martine though, when Martine was condemning him for the appalling sanitation in company towns:
"West Virginia does not need to go to the mosquito-ridden swamps of New Jersey to learn sanitation." (said in 1913)

My quibble is just that this is such a small selection. I would prefer to see separate books with documents corresponding to specific periods and events. I also think Corbin fell behind a bit on dating everything. I think every article and interview should list the the year it was published, but most do not. You can figure it out mostly, but that's really a basic thing.

The mine wars are an incredibly interesting part of labour history, but often overlooked. If you're interested in the subject I'd recommend Corbin's book Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields. It's well written and covers the the entire relevant period.

84mabith
Jul 19, 2013, 10:24 am

48 - Bad Astronomy: Misconceptions and Misuses Revealed, From Astrology to the Moon Landing "Hoax" by Philip C. Plait

This was a very informative book, but I think the tone shifted oddly. There were some wordings (not the topics themselves, but just random little bits of writing) which my 10-year-old self would have found too dumbed down. Two paragraphs or so were spent on assuring us that when the moon looks bigger on the horizon sometimes it hasn't *actually* grown.

I definitely understand that some people are ridiculously misinformed about the universe, but they're not really the people who are going to pick up a book like that (the only way we'll stamp them out is by improving early education). The real audience for this book are the people who are reasonably informed but have forgotten certain things or worry they weren't taught them correctly to begin with.

Glad I read it, but by it's nature this information is less relevant to my daily life than, say, Ben Goldacre's Bad Science. So, I don't know, sort of recommended?

85mabith
Jul 26, 2013, 10:15 am

49 - The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage

This is a wonderful little history of the telegraph, the inventions that led up to it, the developing/laying of the underwater cable, etc... It was really interesting to see the development from basically an urban legend about a telegraph-like device to the visual telegraph systems and then to the electric.

It's also an interesting divide between the people with a lot of scientific training versus the amateur tinkerers and the businessmen.

Of course there are a lot of comparisons to the internet, though Standage doesn't make an effort to point them out through the book, which I liked, especially since they're all very obvious. That's especially good since the book was written in 1998 (with an updated afterward written in 2006, I think).

What's incredible to me is the fact that people didn't really see the potential of the telegraph very quickly. It was a novelty in the beginning, rather than "Wow, this will be incredibly useful!" It was also interesting to see the way the rules for it developed differently in the US and Europe (they were government owned lines in Europe and privately owned in the US).

86mabith
Jul 26, 2013, 10:20 am

50 - The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander

I knew the basic outline of this story, but it was wonderful to read the whole thing, and get all the entries from diaries and such.

Alexander's The Bounty really impressed me, so I've had her other books on my to-read list for a while. This one was good, but didn't hit me in the same way as The Bounty, presumably because the story was much more familiar.

Admittedly, my first thought after hearing when they were equipped and set out was "What? They left after the war started! What was the government thinking!" And of course that rather screwed up their homecoming, given that the public were thinking the same thing, and the only real hero was a war hero, at that point.

87Helenliz
Jul 26, 2013, 10:45 am

Book 49 - Must add that one to the list. I spent a really interesting holiday in Cornwall, and visited the museum that's now housed where the major telegraph lines came ashore at Porthcurno. And, in fairly close proximity, you've got Marconi's early transmitter station and Goonhilly Down, the major communications hub for the modern communications age. Fab location for a geek holiday.

88lorax
Jul 26, 2013, 11:20 am

84>

The real audience for this book are the people who are reasonably informed but have forgotten certain things or worry they weren't taught them correctly to begin with.


Or for people who want to know what misperceptions are out there so they know they need to be countered. That's one of the first things we learned when we were TAing freshmen in astronomy; before students can learn something, they have to unlearn the wrong stuff they've learned in the past. And if you don't know what that wrong stuff is, you can't do that.

89mabith
Jul 28, 2013, 3:03 pm

51 - Against Their Will: The Secret History of Medical Experimentation on Children in Cold War America by Allen Hornblum, Judith L. Newman, and Gregory J. Dober

This was an early reviewer, and given past experiences I'm beginning to suspect that Palgrave Macmillan no longer employs editors.

There's a lot of really interesting information in this book, and it's a history that should be more well known. The writing in general is good, but the organization is bad and the writing is sometimes repetitive. Each experiment is also covered quite briefly, so be prepared to look for other books if particular issues grab you.

The title/cover is also a bit sensationalistic given how few experiments in the book actually had anything to do with the Cold War, and how much of it was devoted to other time periods entirely. It is more like the shortest book it was possible to write on the general history of child experimentation in the 20th century. In the later chapters many of the stories aren't actually experiments, just questionable practices doctors embraced with vigor regardless of how little research had been done.

A frequent refrain is "Doctors in the US didn't pay any attention to the Nuremberg code at all." There's a chapter about WWII and the Nuremberg code but that line is still repeated frequently (numerous times in a single chapter) in reference to individual doctors/experiments. There are some other specific ideas that are over-repeated as well (such as researchers specifically choosing devalued populations vs college prep schools).

The individual sections on vaccine research, radiation research, etc... aren't organized chronologically and sometimes aren't organized in a logical way at all. There's also a slight tendency to leave out dates when something prior to 1945 is being talked about it, or sometimes the date is mentioned towards the end of the story that's being related, which is always frustrating, but especially so in a book that jumps around so much and mentions so many different experiments.

Again, lots of interesting information here, but it could have been presented so much more effectively and with a less misleading title.

90mabith
Jul 30, 2013, 10:29 am

52 - Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North by Stuart Maconie

This was an odd one for me. There are many interesting things in it, but the writing and all of it together managed to make them less interesting. It wasn't particularly humorous but seemed to be trying to be, and Maconie uses some anti-trans slurs.

91JDHomrighausen
Jul 30, 2013, 11:22 am

What's incredible to me is the fact that people didn't really see the potential of the telegraph very quickly. It was a novelty in the beginning, rather than "Wow, this will be incredibly useful!"

Reminds me of how it was considered a nutty idea in the '50s that anyone would want their own computer. I mean, really, who has an entire room to devote to one of those things?

92mabith
Jul 30, 2013, 12:28 pm

91 - Ha, well, that does make a bit more sense, given the size/personal applications.

93Helenliz
Jul 30, 2013, 1:09 pm

90> That's an interesting response. I read it and thought it was very amusing. But I did think at the time that you'd have to be able to tune into and recal a lot of his cultural references to find it amusing, which might limit its appeal. I think I did spot most of them, and it just adds to the richness of the ode to the North. But then I'm a fan of his work anyway, so maybe I was always going to be biased in his favour. I don't recal noticing very much that was derogatory - apart from about the Mancs & the Scouse, of course. And they deserve everything they get (says the unreconstructed southern softy!)

94mabith
Jul 31, 2013, 9:10 am

Helenliz - I'm sure I missed some references, but after long years of too many British shows and (lately) northern comedians, I wasn't struggling too much there. I think part too was when he'd go into the historical there was definitely wrong information (too much reliance on 'common knowledge'). Probably the biggest thing was that I listened to a weird audiobook of it, which switched readers about a dozen times (posh southern woman reading it was really odd).

Though, I don't know, I think I've also gotten a bit tired of that sort of slightly travel memoir but not book.

95mabith
Ago 5, 2013, 11:05 am

53 - Moment of Battle: The Twenty Clashes that Changed the World by Jim Lacey and Williamson Murray

I found this to be written well and extremely clearly. When you're dealing with the events during an actual battle it can be easy to get muddled, to focus too much on one part, to assume the audience more knowledgeable than it is, etc...

The authors spend roughly twenty pages discussing each battle. They typically cover the events (both military and political) leading up to the battle, and go into what might have happened if the result had been flipped. They also talk specifically about the changes in culture or politics that resulted because the battle went the way it did. All but two of the battles include a map (though with Trafalgar it's a period piece showing the lines before battle started, of course). The two that don't include them are Teutoburger Wald and Yarmuk. Each chapter also includes various pictures of art or relics relating to that battle or period.

One quibble, and this may only be found in the uncorrected proof, is that the maps were sometimes placed a dozen pages before the action of the battle was beginning to be described. I did also find some historical simplifying in later chapters, however, so I wonder how much that went on in with the battles I was less knowledgeable about.

There are a lot of similar books out there, and I think they all basically have the same strengths and weaknesses.

96mabith
Ago 7, 2013, 1:15 pm

54 - Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 by Barbara Tuchman

I know Tuchman is quite expansive and some consider her dry, but I absolutely adore her writing. The Guns of August is probably my favorite history book ever.

I seem to have developed a strong interest in China of the 20th century, so this was an excellent book for me. It's a fascinating look at a part of WWII that isn't as well-covered, generally, plus a great picture of the Kuomintang and their issues.

Recommend if you're already interested in the subject.

97mabith
Ago 17, 2013, 12:11 am

55 - Holidays and Other Disasters by John G. Rodwan Jr.

This book's summary states that it considers major US holidays from an atheist's perspective, but it really doesn't do that.

This is a collection of anecdotes, some personal, some not, which SOMETIMES have something to do with a holiday (however passing that relationship is). Salman Rushdie's personal relationship to Feb. 14th, it being the day the fatwa was declared against him, really has nothing to do with atheists' relationship to that holiday or the holiday itself.

Likewise, the author's relationship with a particular priest at his Catholic school is a section that has nothing to do with any holiday (and there are numerous similar sections). The book states early on that its audience is not the believers, yet spends time documenting contradictions in the Bible.

This book was so random and generally uninteresting. There was nothing that made me want to keep reading. Maybe if I'd just decided I was an atheist it would have been more interesting, but even then I think Rodwan would have an uphill battle.

I also believe that in assuming Thanksgiving immediately invokes thanking a creator, he's overlooking the real meaning of the event - being thankful for other humans' kindness. Pilgrims may have thanked god for their luck, but that doesn't take away from the truth.

Rodwan feels you can't pick and choose what parts of a holiday to celebrate. I'm not sure why he cares or is trying to convince atheists not to have a god-free Christmas but to abandon family traditions and memories altogether.

Personally, I don't need atheists pressuring me about how to celebrate, just like I don't need Christians doing it, and frankly, Rodwan barely elaborates on the subject, given that it's supposed to be what the book was about. He spends more pages talking about 9/11 and the opening day of baseball season than Easter and Christmas. Rodwan's sections about parades honoring specific nationalities had me bristling. He reacts negatively against that partitioning, but he's also not part of a marginalized group and his privilege in that respect shows in his comments.

98mabith
Editado: Ago 17, 2013, 3:52 pm

56 - The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty by William Hogeland

Now this was an excellent book. This was an extremely important and interesting part of US history that gets covered appallingly in high school history.

It also confirms my dislike of Alexander Hamilton, who was a jerk (to avoid stronger language). Not that any of the founding fathers were particular "friends of the people," but Hamilton gets off lightly because of the duel.

Hogeland writes well and clearly, though I think the choice of Simon Vance for audiobook wasn't great. "Oh, a book about US history, let's get a Brit to read it, rather than someone from the region who will pronounce the place names correctly..."

99mabith
Ago 20, 2013, 9:44 am

57 - Trouping: How the Show Came to Town by Philip C. Lewis

A really interesting book about the history of traveling theatre in the US. The stories are interesting, a lot of detailed is covered, and it's generally well-written.

My main quibble is the lack of dates when dates were known. Obviously now I can easily look up when Adah Menken lived and died, but that doesn't mean I should have to and it was a rather harder task in 1973 when the book was written.

I just don't understand why editors let this happen. Just one date would have helped, either when she was born or died or when she started acting or whichever. This was a somewhat recurring issue in the book. Mostly there are dates but then they just get left off certain things and the book isn't in precise chronological order.

100mabith
Ago 23, 2013, 8:52 pm

58 - Destiny Disrupted A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary

This is an incredibly important book if you want to have a better understanding of the current state of most Middle Eastern countries and Islam in general.

It's also very well written and filled with fascinating information. I am so glad I picked it up right at this moment. I listened to the audiobook and I don't think 17 hours has ever gone by so quickly before...

Ansary has a gift for organizing this information, presenting it clearly, and explaining why it's important.

Highly, HIGHLY recommended.

101banjo123
Ago 26, 2013, 12:26 am

OK--Destiny Disrupted is now added to my wish list. I will check to see if my library has it.

102JDHomrighausen
Ago 26, 2013, 3:22 pm

I'm with banjo on Destiny Disrupted. I'll be taking a class on Islam this fall and I greatly look forward to understanding that major religion.

103mabith
Ago 26, 2013, 3:48 pm

I really can't recommend it enough! I also recommend The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and Naguib Mahfouz's Children of the Alley (allegorical fiction about the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, it's nice a primer, I found, as the religion I know the most about is that of the ancient Romans).

104mabith
Editado: Ago 28, 2013, 12:18 pm

59 - The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

I put off reading this one for some reason. I think I'd seen a review that it wasn't what the subtitle claimed, which I definitely don't agree with.

This is a great pop-science/history book. You could scientific method and discovery but also Crime! Corruption! City management! All together a very interesting book, and well-written/organized.

105mabith
Ago 30, 2013, 9:56 am

60 - Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients by Ben Goldacre

I really liked Goldacre's book Bad Science, and since this one strikes closer to home I had to read it too. Strikes close enough to be incredibly depressing, and it was interesting to see the differences between getting prescriptions on the NHS versus here, where apparently they don't tell doctors "Nope, we're only paying for that med if the patient has X disease not for Y disease." Here, both private insurance and Medicaid and Medicare are pretty strict on what they'll cover. So even though lidocaine patches are widely prescribed for my nerve pain disease Medicaid would only pay for them if I had a different nerve pain disease (they would pay for the lidocaine cream though, which makes loads of sense, right?).

Anyway, the book is excellent and extremely important. Even if you think you know the scale of madness you probably don't. The discussion of specific laws is most relevant to Europe and the US (with some mention of Canada and Australia), but the discussion of the companies and their trial tricks is relevant worldwide. Highly recommended!!

My one quibble is that surely it wouldn't have been that hard to mention both the scientific and the generic name at the first mention of any drug. Goldacre states at the beginning that he'll switch back and forth and not mention both, but I don't see that it would have hurt anything to say both together at least once.

It was slightly odd to listen to the audiobook due to the some of the drug names (non-generic) sounding especially ridiculous. The best was a diabetes medication that was read as "rosy glitter-zone."

106mabith
Sep 3, 2013, 10:21 am

61 - Just Kids by Patti Smith

This is a memoir that focuses on Patti Smith's early adult life and her relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

It's really an interesting read just for the capturing of the artistic and poetic communities in New York City. It was maybe doubly interesting for me because I think her life (after she had a home in NYC, at least) was basically my mom's teenage dream life (she's five years older than my mum). Granted, that probably applies to a lot of teenagers (live in the city, be an artist, work in a bookstore, date an artist, randomly meet famous people you admire, break into rock and roll, etc...).

A wonderful book. The audio edition is read by Smith herself, which was probably good, though it took me a while to get used to her as she read somewhat slowly. Her accent also gets thicker as the book goes along, it's sort of cute. However, my intolerant nature made me want to shake her when she said "drar-ing," for drawing which she did rather a lot.

107mabith
Sep 5, 2013, 3:11 pm

62 - The Great Crash, 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith

So, I thought to myself, "The stockmarket is a huge gap in my general knowledge, I'll read a book about the 1929 crash." I don't think my brain wants to know anything about the stockmarket, deep down.

Given that, this was a pretty short book, and probably worth reading. It's considered a classic and has never been out of print. There was a lot of interesting information, my brain just didn't deal well with the more technical financial aspects. What I found most interesting was the steps taken by the wealthy and those trying to keep the crash from worsening, plus the fact that it would sort of work until the weekend when everyone was left to think on their own and solely about themselves.

108banjo123
Sep 7, 2013, 4:06 pm

I loved Patti Smith's music as a youth--still like her early stuff. But whenever I hear her speak--I want to shake her. I've avoided Just Kids for that reason, but mon your recommendation I am thinking about reading the book. Definitely not the audio though.

109mabith
Sep 7, 2013, 5:05 pm

Yeah, definitely read it in print. Great book, and written well. She handles the fact that she's mentioning so many famous people really well, and with a lot more humility than most would. She had a pretty rough/interesting age nineteen to mid-to-late twenties.

110mabith
Editado: Sep 11, 2013, 10:23 pm

63 - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Every American should read this book. I have a feeling the situation is even worse now, in terms of the cost of living being higher.

The writing is strong and it's easy to get hooked on the stories Ehrenreich tells. Highly recommended.

111mabith
Sep 12, 2013, 8:00 pm

64 - 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

This is a wonderful little book, containing the correspondence between Helene Hanff and various workers at an antiquarian bookshop in London.

It's incredibly short, which makes me sad. I highly recommend the audio edition, which is perfectly performed.

112Mr.Durick
Editado: Sep 13, 2013, 12:14 am

I've never read the book, but the movie 84, Charing Cross Road was well worth the watching. There was a story that Anne Bancroft was on the beach out on Long Island where a fellow got up, picked up his stuff, and tossed the book onto her blanket, saying, "I think that you should star in the movie they make of this."

Robert

113mabith
Sep 17, 2013, 9:42 am

That's a pretty neat movie story!

114mabith
Editado: Sep 17, 2013, 9:42 am

65 - The Great War in Africa: 1914-1918 by Byron Farwell

An interesting book covering the least known arena of WWI. The writing is definitely pretty dry and focused. Of course it's dated in the sense of country names, which had changed by 1986 and have changed still further now.

Farwell is pretty even-handed, in terms of not putting any group down, and making a note of which specific groups of soldiers had a reputation for bad behavior versus reality.

There was a very understated bit at one point where he mentioned that the Belgians had "not endeared themselves to the local tribes." The Belgians having the most violent and repressive colonial rule in Africa... He does go on to elaborate about that a bit later on, though without being very specific.

Certainly not a bad book, but I'd only recommend it if you have an extremely strong interest in WWI and love strategy and battle descriptions with a large dose of graphic descriptions of parasites.

115mabith
Sep 25, 2013, 8:21 pm

66 - Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World by Jack Weatherford

This is such a wonderfully written and completely important book, particularly for Americans, I think. The things they fail to teach us in school... it's just criminal. This book starts to make up for that.

It covers native tribes of north, central, and south America pretty equally, though it will spend a good while working through one topic that relates to only one area. There wasn't much presence from the far north, but of course they would have been isolated for a longer period of time, presumably.

Highly HIGHLY recommended.

116mabith
Sep 28, 2013, 11:13 am

67 - The Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth

This is a rambling little book about where words come from. Each section flows into the next relatively smoothly.

It's short, a nice book to randomly pick up or have in a guest room. Not great on audio, at least not if you have a faulty memory the way I do.

Interesting, humorous, nice little read.

117JDHomrighausen
Sep 28, 2013, 1:58 pm

> 115

Just out of curiosity. The title is how they changed the world, not just America. How did Native Americans change the world?

118mabith
Sep 28, 2013, 2:14 pm

They changed it through medicine, through food, through science, through their government systems... I really recommend reading the book, or you can do your own research.

The focus of the book is certainly the world, but it's more damaging for students in the Americas (and especially the US) to be totally ignorant of their contributions, since we live together and since it's our oppressive and racist system that these tribes live under. That's why I mentioned Americans specifically in my review.

119mabith
Oct 5, 2013, 11:33 am

68 - For All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History by Sarah Rose

First off, don't listen to the audiobook of this. It's read by the author and she's really not a good reader (and an American woman reader isn't the best choice for this anyway). She reads very much like she's trying to interest a class of 10 year olds in it, though at least she doesn't try to do any Scottish, English, or Chinese accents.

This follows Robert Fortune, a Scottish botanist. He was hired by the East India company to go into China (illegal for westerners to go past the foreign enclaves on the coast) and steal both tea plants and seeds, and discover the details of the tea manufacturing process.

Definitely an interesting book, though there are some problems with the scholarship that I noted, and that makes me worry about the things which I don't have the knowledge to notice. She also purposefully avoids mentioning sources in the text, which I really don't like. Since a lot of this came from Robert Fortune's memoirs I think it's more important to note when that's the case (and his wife burnt all of his journals and papers after he dead, which should make us even more suspicious of his memoirs).

There's definitely some interesting history here, though this is very much all from the British point of view, other than noting how we'd treat this kind of intellectual property theft now. What was most interesting to me was the difficulty of transporting the seeds and plants, and figuring out how to keep them alive, the facts of the highly refined manufacturing process, etc... Rose definitely seemed more inclined to focus on Fortune's adventures.

If you can turn off your non-fiction critiquing functions then it's an enjoyable, interesting book. Rose definitely tries to just make it a story, but doesn't entirely succeed. She doesn't know how to introduce the harder facts without breaking that, so it can feel a little like two separate books.

120qebo
Oct 5, 2013, 11:40 am

119: Hmm, looks interesting despite your reservations.

121banjo123
Oct 5, 2013, 2:37 pm

Interesting reading--I will have to give Indian Giver a try

122mabith
Editado: Oct 9, 2013, 2:31 pm

69 - How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to be Forever by Jack Horner and James Gorman

Really neat little book, with a lot of great background information on DNA, evolution, etc... There are a lot of small repeats in the book, but as someone with a generally poor memory that's probably a good thing.

This is a popular science book actually written by someone who is in that field (with help from a science writer).

Definitely recommended.

123mabith
Oct 10, 2013, 6:51 pm

70 - At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance (:A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power) by Danielle L. McGuire

Giving yourself a real education in US History is really depressing.

This is a hard book to read, both in terms of the stories in it and the feeling that things haven't actually changed all that much (given statistics I've seen recently), 40 pages at a sitting was about all I could handle. It is worth reading though, both from a history standpoint and because it's really interesting to see how specific sexual assault cases spurred large and important parts of the civil rights movement.

McGuire writes and organizes the book extremely well, drawing from many sources, and breaking up the stories in such a way that it's easier reading. She's very good at situating these events into the larger picture in a clear way and with lots of research backing up those connections.

124mabith
Oct 10, 2013, 7:07 pm

71 - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, The Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam by Pope Brock

Fascinating book about "Doctor" John R. Brinkley, who made his name transplanting pieces of goat testicles into men (and goat ovaries into women) as a "revitalization" measure. Morris Fishbein of the American Medical Association spend a lot of time trying to stop his quack doctoring in a variety of ways (which was kind of a new thing for the AMA).

Brinkley never stopped pushing. One setback after another but he'd rise up. When his medical radio show (diagnosing and prescribing over the radio, of course) was taken off the air, he built a station in Mexico, and accidentally discovered how to boost his signal significantly (and was able to broadcast at a wattage five times higher than the limit in the US, reaching Alaska and farther on clear nights). His radio station there eventually led to Wolfman Jack's widespread fame and both his stations guided a lot of the music industry (including the national fame of the Carter family, among others).

This book covers Brinkley in depth, but also the growth of the AMA and the changes in what they did. Of course, you still get just as much quackery today (though in the US it doesn't tend to involve life-threatening surgery), and now they know how to cherry pick studies, so who knows where we're heading. Ask anyone with a chronic illness and they'll tell you how often we deal with complete strangers (who know nothing about our illnesses) telling us that X supplement or Y procedure will cure us completely, and get it just as bad from some friends and family members.

Definitely a neat book, very recommended.

125mabith
Oct 15, 2013, 7:09 pm

72 - Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford

It's so much harder to keep track of things in a history audiobook when you're only family with one name in every period of the subject. Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, and that's all I've got...

Really interesting stuff, and an important period of history to know about, particularly since we absolutely vilified the Mongols out of racism and a feeling of cultural superiority. Yet the period sources speak so highly of their culture and laws until the enlightenment.

Basically - unprecedented religious tolerance, didn't meddle much in the cultures or agricultures of the areas they conquered, culture of meritocracy, promoted universal literacy (supposedly the first culture to do so), anti-torture, etc...

Definitely something I'll need to look through again in print.

126mabith
Oct 15, 2013, 7:20 pm

73 - Unimagined: A Muslim Boy Meets the West by Imran Ahmad

The subtitle is kind of misleading, since Ahmad moved to England around age two. It's less about culture shock or even cultural differences than it is growing up as an "other" to the dominant culture, trying to figure out religion in the way the most kids raised in a religious household probably do, and the mesh between two different cultures.

He writes each section from the point-of-view of himself at that age, so the tone grows up with him. I really like that in a memoir that is largely about childhood.

Absolutely loved this book (and loved the audiobook, read by Ahmad). It was really interesting and well-written and I didn't want to stop reading it for a moment. For reference, he was born in 1962.

127banjo123
Oct 15, 2013, 8:21 pm

We watched the movie Mongol, several years ago--( a great movie BTW), and afterwards my partner became Genghis Khan obsessed. He was interesting.

Unimagined sounds like a fun book--I will look for it.

128mabith
Oct 21, 2013, 10:47 am

I do hope you read Unimagined is was really well done, I think, and very interesting.

129mabith
Oct 21, 2013, 10:47 am

74 - Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson

This focuses on a small group and mostly in their time around Princeton, NJ, and the Institute for Advanced Study. It really doesn't focus too much on Turing or the building of his Universal Machine. It's more useful as little biographies of the people involved. The book focuses a lot of the building of atomic and hydrogen bombs, and the creation and expansion of the Institute.

It does get pretty technical in a way that makes me go "Oh god, my head," but I keep thinking that someday it will all click if I read enough of these books! It does talk about the changes from certain analog technologies to digital, and switching from electro-mechanical devices to purely electrical ones. I do think the title is misleading though.

Apparently if you want something that's a bit more focused on the early computers The Soul of the Machine by Tracy Kidder is a better one. The biography-heavy aspect of this was interesting, and the story of how these people all got together, how they worked together, etc... It also doesn't move chronologically, but focuses on one figure at a time and goes through their life and work in the period before moving on to another person. This means that you've got discussions of the same technology advance scattered throughout the book. It definitely needed a stronger editing hand.

I have a feeling that people more familiar with this subject would find the book more frustrating. For me maybe it's a nice start in becoming acquainted with some of the people before finding another book on the subject.

130mabith
Oct 21, 2013, 10:53 am

75 - The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code by Margalit Fox

This is about the cracking of Linear B, the bronze age writing first found on Crete in the 1900, and later dug up on the mainland as well.

Typically the only person credited with the decipherment is a young man, Michael Ventris, but his first breakthroughs come directly from using methods worked out by Alice Kober. She has been almost entirely left out of the story. This book puts the entire process in perspective. She does take work away from Ventris, by any means, but shows how it would not have been cracked at that time or probably for years to come without Kober's work.

Loved this book, and it was written and laid out so well. Fox is great at explaining techniques of decipherment, using abstract examples, and really making the process clear. Kober was an absolutely powerhouse of work. She did this in addition to a full teaching load, seems to have spent hours writing letters... It's astounding how hard she drove herself. She and Ventris both died young.

Very recommended!

131mabith
Oct 31, 2013, 6:36 pm

76 - Marie Curie and her Daughters: The Private Lives of Science's First Family by Shelley Emling

I received this as an ER with a bit of trepidation, as it come from Palgrave Macmillan and the last few I've had from them didn't seem to have ever been touched by an editor... I was pleasantly surprised, however.

This is a wonderful book, picking up a part of Curie's life that isn't usually paid much attention - both in terms of tracking her scientific pursuits after her second Nobel prize, and in terms of her relationship with her children.

She's such an interesting person, for a lot of reasons, and her relationship to motherhood is interesting too, especially in light of being away from her children so often. I knew nothing about her daughters' lives, and they are just as worthy of study.

There's a lot to love in this one, between the information given and the way Emling shares Curie's story with us. She balances the writing very well. This is a real Curie, rather than the two-dimensional idea of her many of us have. It also speaks on her profound impact in numerous spheres.

Highly recommended.

132qebo
Oct 31, 2013, 8:12 pm

131: Immediately wishlisted. I read Radioactive mere weeks ago, and noted the daughters. Also I have another book by this author, The Fossil Hunter, which I got (but haven't yet read) because I'd been both intrigued and annoyed by the fictional Remarkable Creatures.

133mabith
Oct 31, 2013, 8:54 pm

Ahh, Radioactive's been on my list for a while. I hadn't looked up other books by Emling, so I'm glad to know about The Fossil Hunter. I read The Dragon Seekers last year, and was so annoyed with it for a variety of reasons which I thankfully can't remember, but wanted to read more about fossil hunters.

134mabith
Nov 1, 2013, 1:12 pm

77 -Sapper Martin: The Secret Great War Diary of Jack Martin (edited)by Richard Van Emden

This was a really interesting find. Definitely recommended for anyone who's been reading general WWI histories lately but really wants a soldier's eye view. Martin wasn't in the the worst of things, in terms of danger of being sent over the top, as he was in the signal corps, so there's not a lot of blood and gore and horror.

His account seems stereotypically British, in terms of that era at least. He records things dutifully, and keeps his spirits up (as you pretty much have to in that situation, in order to stay sane, I think). It's a great portrait of regular army life in terms of the movement of regular troops outside of the worst trenches.

Definitely a great piece of WWI written history.

135banjo123
Nov 1, 2013, 11:00 pm

I just finished Marie Curie and Her Daughters as well. I don't think I am quite as enthusiastic about it, but it was very interesting. I had read Eve Curie's biography of her mother, back when I was a teenager. So it was fascinating to read the parts that Eve left out.

136mabith
Nov 10, 2013, 7:17 pm

78 - The Great Race: The Race Between the English and the French to Complete the Map of Australia by David Hill

First off, for some reason the internet really tried to psych me out with this book. Both here on LT and on Amazon this was coming up as having been written in 1912. I kept going "This cannot be 1912, the writing is far too modern," and of course it was meant to say 2012. Y2K came back to haunt, maybe.

While the title of this is misleading (wasn't much of a race, wasn't a real source of animosity or anything...) it was a pretty neat book. I admit I'm fascinated/baffled by the idea of charting coasts and surveying rivers and such, because it seems like magic to me.

There were a lot of neat little stories in this volume, and a general picture of life on ocean at this time, differences between the French and English methods, etc... One of the most interesting things to me was the fact that while England and France were at war they both gave a 'passport' to the other country's scientific vessel anyway, so they could sale freely (so long as they didn't engage in any action against the other).

Recommended for anyone interested in Navy life in the early 19th century, cartography, or Australian history. Keep in mind this book is more of a jumping off point than a complete history.

137qebo
Nov 10, 2013, 7:37 pm

136: Cool. Have you read The Great Arc about mapping India? A favorite.

138mabith
Nov 10, 2013, 7:58 pm

I haven't! Thanks for mentioning it.

139Helenliz
Nov 11, 2013, 4:29 am

136> That does sound interesting. ThI read Map of the nation which is about the first Ordnance Survey map of the UK. That mentions on a few occasions that the French had a slightly different approach, but doesn't go into detail - that not being the theme of the book. But must have been a tremendous challenge - Oz is on a slightly larger scale than the UK!

140mabith
Nov 11, 2013, 8:24 am

Helen, ha, yes, bit of a size difference. With this it was more the French method of equipping a shift for that kind of scientific endeavor. They brought way more scientists, but didn't seem to have the same understanding of preventing scurvy that the English did by that point... Map of a Nation definitely looks neat.

The one that really blew my mind (as far as mapping goes) was Caroline Alexander's River of Doubt. Doesn't hurt that she's very good at writing non-fiction like a novel without sacrificing detailed information. "Oh, let's go to Brazil and map this river no one's ever made it down before where we have no idea what to expect or where it will lead, and let's take a former US President and his son too and have to stop for ages each day to get detailed surveying measurements and such."

141mabith
Nov 13, 2013, 10:45 pm

79 - The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer's Illiad and the Trojan War by Caroline Alexander

I didn't read though out of any particular interest in the Iliad or the Trojan war, but because I had audible credits and I've loved everything Alexander has written.

This book was SO good! I was sucked in immediately, and the information she presented was simply fascinating. This is in-depth analysis that you cannot do unless you have a stupendous about of background knowledge about ancient Greece, ancient epics, heroic traditions, etc... It was fascinating to see just how much Homer bucked tradition, view Achilles as the anti-hero, and see the entire piece as an anti-war tract.

Totally, completely recommended. I immediately put this book on hold for my dad at our library (because I am the type of child who saves their parents' library logins in her computer so that she can reserve books she feels they need to read).

142banjo123
Nov 13, 2013, 11:08 pm

You are a good daughter! If I send you my library log in, will you you manage my reading as well?

Sounds like a great book--now it's on my wishlist.

143NielsenGW
Nov 13, 2013, 11:49 pm

Splendid to see that Alexander is such a good writer. I have her book on the HMS Bounty on the shelves and am now more than a little excited to get to it!

144mabith
Nov 14, 2013, 12:30 am

142 - Ha, I would love to manage everyone's reading! It would be an interesting experiment to decide what someone will read for the year and they do the same for you. I don't think I could ever submit like that, but it would be neat to see if varied reading tastes gradually converge (and how quickly a symbiosis develops, in terms of 'Okay, I'll only have you read things I truly think you'll enjoy...').

143 - Oh The Bounty is absolutely fantastic. It's the first I read by her and I was just captivated. Plus, it's an amazing story anyway, and so different from the common 'knowledge' version. I keep gushing about her writing and then erasing it, due to feeling like I'll jinx your enjoyment, but I do think she's one of the greats of non-fiction writing.

145mabith
Nov 15, 2013, 10:23 am

80 - Vikings by Neil Oliver (this touchstone was showing up for the last few weeks under the full title The Vikings: A New History but now it's shortened. Weird.)

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read, with very little speculation involved. The author follows settlement in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in the pre-Viking age, as well as the various routes these people took out of their countries.

Oliver gives you the full picture and I found the writing very engaging. The span is wide, as was the Viking Age, and there's a lot of detail from archaeological digs, of course. There's a pretty nice spread of color photos as well.

It was pretty neat to get the bigger picture involving all the various Viking groups and conquest/settlement areas, since usually the focus is more narrow. Definitely recommended.

146mabith
Nov 23, 2013, 5:49 pm

81 - 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created by Charles C. Mann

Really wonderful book! Great information, and written very well. Coming from Jack Weatherford's Indian Givers there's some repeated information, but Mann goes into solid detail.

I enjoyed his writing and that he actually quoted from conversations with experts, rather than solely from their research papers. It gave the book a very nice feeling. Mann acknowledges up front that he leaves out a lot, and just focuses on a few things.

There was a lot about Jamestown in there, which I appreciated. It's often left out of various things due to horror of most of what happened. I'm descended from one of the few survivors of the original settlement, so it always interests me.

Highly recommended.

147qebo
Nov 25, 2013, 11:27 pm

146: I read 1491 a couple years ago, and it was packed with detail but engagingly written, and I appreciated that he was careful to point out what is commonly accepted and what is controversial. I have 1493 on hand waiting for the mood to strike...

148mabith
Nov 26, 2013, 5:46 pm

82 - You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself by David McRaney

I've been reading a lot of these "geez our brains are dumb because they're still living in caveman days," books. I thought McRaney's first one was quite good. This one, however, seems a bit superfluous.

It may well be because I've read a lot on these topics, but I don't think he gave us anything new, and I'm wondering if some of the specific studes were also covered in his first book. I also don't think the book really focused on how to train yourself out of these behaviors at all. Most of the it was just about the various studies and experiments, which is fine, but this book purported to be more, and all the topics have been covered to death in recent pop science books.

Skip this one, read Incognito or The Honest Truth About Dishonesty instead (or McRaney's first book, You Are Not So Smart.

149mabith
Dic 1, 2013, 11:19 pm

83 - Mary Boleyn by Alison Weir

This books seeks clear away myth and rumour and legend from Mary Boleyn's life. It feels a fair bit like a rebuttal to all the popular 'historical' fiction books and the TV show about the Tudors.

I enjoyed this book, and I think Weir made it clear when any item was an assumption or guess and what information that was based on. It does get a bit tedious and I admit I didn't read every appendix about the other people in Boleyn's life. It's always quite interesting to suddenly get a real picture of a person like this.

150mabith
Dic 2, 2013, 11:16 am

84 - The Captured by Scott Zesch

An interesting book about various non-native children taken by Native American tribes on the plains. The author's ancestor was one of those children, and this book examines his experience through the testimony of people who knew him. It also focuses heavily on the stories of five or six other children while bringing in other stories a bit at random when a detail is needed.

No matter how traumatic the circumstances of their abductions it took an incredibly short amount of time for the children to feel the tribes were their homes (four to six months). None of them ever returned to their birth families willingly.

There are a lot of interesting stories and information, but the book can drag a bit in places. The author is generally even-handed and neutral, though there are parts where his tone seemed somewhat patronizing, or phrases that might grate a native reader.

151mabith
Dic 2, 2013, 11:29 am

85 - East End Tales by Gilda O'Neill

This is a very short book, with random remembrances about lift in the east end from the 1930s-50s. It's a mix of the author's own experiences and those of older people she spoke to.

It's really not worth even the small amount of time taken to read it. It doesn't go deeply into life there, and it's all the usual stereotypes about this kind of reminiscence. "We was poor but we had each other," "People today don't know their own neighbors," "Kids today have so much, they don't know how to make their own fun," etc...

(Guess what, older people, you can GET to know your neighbors! Stop using that as some sort of living standard. Also, when I was kid I liked concocting potions of household cleaners and setting things on fire, it might have been safer if I were inside with a computer game.)

There was absolutely nothing unexpected in this if you have even a passing knowledge of 20th century life. Yet, it doesn't go into life deeply enough (and passes too much judgement on 'people today') for young kids today to get much out of it.

This book is certainly appropriate for middle school children, and grade schoolers if you don't mind explaining abortion or prostitution to them (tiny aspects of the book, not graphic). Certainly not recommended for adults though, and I imagine there are far more useful books in a similar vein for the younger set.

152mabith
Dic 5, 2013, 12:38 pm

86 - Song of Survival: Women Interned by Helen Colijn

A very interesting memoir about the author's experiences being interned by the Japanese during WWII. She writes with feeling but not in an overly emotional way. It's all very straight-forward and calm, which I think mimics the attitude she had to adopt in the camps in order to survive.

Recommended, especially if you're looking to round out your WWII knowledge with something on this subject.

153mabith
Dic 8, 2013, 1:54 pm

87 - Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger

This is a memoir of WWI service at the front, originally published in 1920 in basically unedited diary form. It's been revised many times since.

The author does rather glorify war. It's a strangely dry book, and focuses on describing the actions and events rather than reactions or personal feelings (other than duty, loyalty, etc...). Junger was an interesting person - an extremely conservative Nationalist who was also an anti-Nazi.

While it doesn't have a lot of personal impact, it's an interesting book just for the front line experiences, and for those who haven't read an account from the German side. Junger is highly praising of the English soldiers, though not anyone else (at the same time he doesn't spend time disparaging the other nationalities). It's interesting because I think you find the same thing in English books. They can respect the Germans but not the French.

Only recommended if you're very very interesting in graphic trench life minus the emotions that went with it.

154mabith
Dic 13, 2013, 4:26 pm

88 - One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina

This memoir (mostly) about growing up in a middle-class Kenyan family is beautifully written, and more mood inducing than exhaustive, in terms of record.

It jumps around a bit in time (for reference, the author was born in 1971). I'm finding it hard to describe it, or why I liked it, but it was extremely evocative. It deals with normal things and political changes and language and migrations.

Recommended.

155mabith
Dic 15, 2013, 1:03 am

89 - Nella Last's War: The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49' by Nella Last

I only recently learned about the Mass Observation project, and I love it. This is exactly what I'd do if I had the power. Social/domestic history is so important.

This volume is more interesting for Last's development as an independent woman, starting to be true to herself and live a life more like what she wants, than as a record of life during the war. That's very subjective, if you don't know much about life in Britain during WWII it will give a great, particular, window.

It is absolutely, intensely personal though. There are some disturbing things (Last agreeing with Hitler's murder of the mentally and physically ill, as if she really thought the people involved had some choice and then later saying she couldn't bear to put down her old, suffering dog). Mostly I just found myself rooting for last to break free from her controlling husband, at least in terms of maintaining her freedom after the war ended.

Recommended.

156mabith
Dic 16, 2013, 7:14 pm

90 - The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, and Treachery by Steve Sheinkin

Loved this book. It was interesting, illuminating, and tightly written. The author didn't do any speculating and used of quotes from contemporary letters.

My knowledge of Arnold boiled down to "he became a traitor at some point" and I'm glad I picked this up and got the whole story. On the one hand it's a bit disappointment, because Arnold was rather vain and very proud and that's really what informed the treachery.

Definitely recommended.