What have you read lately?

[FishProf]

The Bomber Mafia by Malcolm Gladwell.  A very interesting story about the history or American military bombing philosophy.  Not quite what I expected from Gladwell, but a really engaging and interesting book.

I also listened to an audiobook of A Clockwork Orange.  I had never read the book and only vaguely remember the movie.  Interestingly, I learned that in the US, the book ends at the penultimate chapter, while the rest of the world got the epilogue.  That really changed the story.

[ab_grp]

I also listened to an audiobook of A Clockwork Orange.  I had never read the book and only vaguely remember the movie.  Interestingly, I learned that in the US, the book ends at the penultimate chapter, while the rest of the world got the epilogue.  That really changed the story.

That's interesting to hear about the epilogue! Good to keep in mind.

I've been listening to Charlie Wilson's War (which was also made into a movie with Tom Hanks at some point) about a Texas congressman's somewhat off-the-books work with the CIA to help the Afghanistan Mujahideen fight the Russians in the 1980s.  Unfortunately, some parts of it are pretty timely with what Russia's doing to Ukraine currently.  It's a very interesting (and supposedly true) story, but Wilson and his CIA pal are so unlikable (in my opinion) that it is getting difficult to continue to listen to.  Hearing about all the boozing, women, acting out, cursing, threatening people, growling at them... I am really a fan of most of the above when the time and place are right, but good grief! These people need to grow up and get a life.  It also gets a little dry after a while hearing about the various weaponry.  Still, it's amazing and scary to think about what kind of covert ops go on and how much gets funded behind the scenes and what the consequences are.  This is my second attempt to listen to it, and I still have over 5 hours left.  My guess is that they do not really get their comeuppances, but we shall see.

[Parasaurolophus]

General business overtook my pleasure reading in February, so I only just finished this one:

Stephen Jay Gould - Dinosaur in a Haystack: Reflections in Natural History: Always fun and always informative, although a few of these are a little on the duller side, subject-wise. He really was very good at writing these, though, and it's terrible that he's dead. It also turns out he had an interest in, and was quite knowledgeable about, feminist philosophy of science, which is rather cool.

[ab_grp]

I usually wait until I'm finished a book to recommend it, but I'm listening to one right now that I am enjoying too much.  It's called Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances That Flow Through Our Lives, by Mark Miodownik, narrated by Michael Page.  If you liked books like Salt: A World History and Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky, you will likely enjoy this one.  It's hard to describe but has a ton of little digressions about various liquids, scientifically and through history, told through the course of an airplane ride.  So he talks about the plane fuel (and other fuels), the ocean and other water (waves, tsunamis, nuclear reactors), the drinks served (wines and then coffee/tea), binding agents like glues and epoxies (holding plane wings on), bodily fluids, LCDs, polarized lenses, lots of things.  I am about half way in so far and am fascinated and totally adore the narrator.  I am definitely planning to pick up another of the author's book with the same narrator, Stuff Matters: The Strange Stories of the Marvellous Materials that Shape Our Man-made World.  The author is a British materials scientist, and there is a dry humor underlying the science that the narrator conveys really well.  I'm really glad I picked this one up.  There was an Audible sale, and I decided to just try out a couple that were highly rated but not necessarily something I would obviously glom onto.  Good choice! I hope the others I bought at the time are as good.

[apl68]

The Rise of Silas Lapham, by William Dean Howells.  Another classic that I've finally gotten around to reading.  It's the story of a New England businessman who rises from humble beginnings to make a fortune in the paint business.  He finds himself and his family struggling to fit in with upper-class New England society.  Then he is caught in a serious ethical dilemma that pits his desire to save his business against doing what he knows is right.  What sort of progress is he really trying to make?

This novel didn't really do much for me, although it's fairly readable.  Howells was famous for championing "realism," as opposed to sentiment, in his novels.  It occurs to me that many readers today would find the ending of The Rise of Silas Lapham too pat to be credible.  I suppose what people find "realistic" varies across generations.  The ending seems credible enough to me.  For me, the best part of the whole story is the very beginning, where Lapham speaks with a newspaper reporter looking to do a standard biographical feature on him, and the two hit it off while joking about hackneyed newspaper biographical pieces.

The book does come across as rather old-fashioned.  Which is understandable--the passage of 140 years since publication has a way of doing that to a book.  I can't help wishing that Hollywood in the 1930s had gotten around to adapting it to the screen.  If they'd had Wallace Beery play Lapham, it could have become a classic in its own right!

[apl68]

A Taste of Poison, by Neil Bradbury.  It's about eleven notorious poisons, how they're formed, and what they do to the body.  And also what dealing with such poisons has taught us about the human body.  Apparently a number of medical advances are tied in some way or other to the study of poisons.  Most of these substances have beneficial uses as well.  My only quibble is that Bradbury seems to have uncritically accepted some of the more lurid stories about the alleged poisoning activities of the Borgias in Italy.  Poison wasn't nearly as common in Renaissance Italy as people sometimes think it was--the paranoia of the day was such that every time anybody died from an illness that contemporary doctors couldn't diagnose it was blamed on "poison."

Makes a good companion to The Elements of Murder:  A History of Poison, by John Emsley.

[hmaria1609]

Two DC history titles from the library:
Snow-Storm in August by Jefferson Morley
Story of a forgotten 1835 race riot in the District

Washington Goes to War by David Brinkley
DC during WWII. I read the original 1988 hardback edition.

[ergative]

A Taste of Poison, by Neil Bradbury.  It's about eleven notorious poisons, how they're formed, and what they do to the body.  And also what dealing with such poisons has taught us about the human body.  Apparently a number of medical advances are tied in some way or other to the study of poisons.  Most of these substances have beneficial uses as well.  My only quibble is that Bradbury seems to have uncritically accepted some of the more lurid stories about the alleged poisoning activities of the Borgias in Italy.  Poison wasn't nearly as common in Renaissance Italy as people sometimes think it was--the paranoia of the day was such that every time anybody died from an illness that contemporary doctors couldn't diagnose it was blamed on "poison."

Makes a good companion to The Elements of Murder:  A History of Poison, by John Emsley.

This is SO PERFECTLY attuned to my interests! Thank you very much for the recommendation. I read the Emsley book because of another recommendation on this thread, and will now go seek out this companion.

[mamselle]

Two DC history titles from the library:
Snow-Storm in August by Jefferson Morley
Story of a forgotten 1835 race riot in the District

Washington Goes to War by David Brinkley
DC during WWII. I read the original 1988 hardback edition.

On your latter listing, there's a very good book by two newscasters caught up events in Berlin just as the US was being pulled into WWII. Of course, at the moment, I can neither recall the title nor the authors (one might have been Brinkley, in fact, or not--older, maybe...) and can't get up without much ado to go look at it in my bookshelves in the other room.

I especially recall issues with advertisers wanting to control news releases to their own ends....

I'll try to post it later.

And of course, there's the book, "On the Road," by Charles Kurault, on his newsgathering experiences around the world.

Journalism puts you where unfolding events are happening and people are doing surprising things.

M.

[hmaria1609]

On your latter listing, there's a very good book by two newscasters caught up events in Berlin just as the US was being pulled into WWII. Of course, at the moment, I can neither recall the title nor the authors (one might have been Brinkley, in fact, or not--older, maybe...) and can't get up without much ado to go look at it in my bookshelves in the other room.

I especially recall issues with advertisers wanting to control news releases to their own ends....

I'll try to post it later.

And of course, there's the book, "On the Road," by Charles Kurault, on his newsgathering experiences around the world.

Journalism puts you where unfolding events are happening and people are doing surprising things.

M.

I enjoyed reading both books! I remember David Brinkley from his Sunday morning show on ABC and one of the reporters on election night for commentary and analysis.

I read and own The Collapse of the Third Republic by William Shirer in paperback, copyright 1994. Shirer was in Paris the day the German army took over the city.

[Wahoo Redux]

Circe by Madeline Miller

A masterpiece. 

[mamselle]

I think Shirer's book is the one I recalled, as well.

M.

[Wahoo Redux]

I also listened to an audiobook of A Clockwork Orange.  I had never read the book and only vaguely remember the movie.  Interestingly, I learned that in the US, the book ends at the penultimate chapter, while the rest of the world got the epilogue.  That really changed the story.

That epilogue was a disaster for a masterpiece, IMHO.

The American version is far superior if far darker and more realistic vision of dystopia.

[apl68]

A Taste of Poison, by Neil Bradbury.  It's about eleven notorious poisons, how they're formed, and what they do to the body.  And also what dealing with such poisons has taught us about the human body.  Apparently a number of medical advances are tied in some way or other to the study of poisons.  Most of these substances have beneficial uses as well.  My only quibble is that Bradbury seems to have uncritically accepted some of the more lurid stories about the alleged poisoning activities of the Borgias in Italy.  Poison wasn't nearly as common in Renaissance Italy as people sometimes think it was--the paranoia of the day was such that every time anybody died from an illness that contemporary doctors couldn't diagnose it was blamed on "poison."

Makes a good companion to The Elements of Murder:  A History of Poison, by John Emsley.

This is SO PERFECTLY attuned to my interests! Thank you very much for the recommendation. I read the Emsley book because of another recommendation on this thread, and will now go seek out this companion.

Glad you were glad to hear about it!  When I ordered it for the library recently I hoped that it would appeal to our local true-crime fans.  If only I could credit your interest as a check-out here....

[FishProf]

I also listened to an audiobook of A Clockwork Orange.  I had never read the book and only vaguely remember the movie.  Interestingly, I learned that in the US, the book ends at the penultimate chapter, while the rest of the world got the epilogue.  That really changed the story.

That epilogue was a disaster for a masterpiece, IMHO.

The American version is far superior if far darker and more realistic vision of dystopia.

Having never read it without the epilogue, I am unable to confirm or refute that opinion.  It certainly reverses the message of the novel.