So what, you are reading? v. 2017

I've also read some non-fiction this year. Breaking the Chains of Gravity by the wonderful You-tube v-loger Amy Shira Teitel (Vintage Space video shorts, mostly about NASA in the 1960s). This is about the history of getting into space *before* NASA is created, the book ending nearly on the page she describes the formation of NASA. Pre WWII work in the USA is mostly ignored in preference to the efforts in Germany which were much more important to the arc of history. She admits as much. I enjoyed it a lot, she's a good writer, so it called me back to keep reading, even late into the night on occasions.

Unfortunately, it is marred by a handful of preposterous errors. One is the suggested speed of the X-15 being listed in the millions of miles per hour. Someone did a calculation and failed to do a 'does this remotely make sense' test to make sure a decimal place (or something) wasn't moved. Those errors can't help but make a serious reader wonder if other less obvious errors occurred. Also, I feel she dropped the ball a bit on the X-15. She spends a fair amount of pages discussing its development, but doesn't see it through to telling us anything about how it turns out. (My guess is that the development of X-15 is pre-NASA, but flight of it is all NASA).

In sum, from the perspective of getting a good sense of what was happening in Germany prior to and during WWII, and how the US efforts in the 50s were affected by the importation of Germans, it is pretty good and I give it a strong positive recommendation.

 

Scarp: In Search of London's Outer Limits by lifelong Londoner Nick Papadimitrious. Most books about London focus on places that, well, you know. people want to visit, etc. Papadimitriou writes about the escarpment at the northern edge of London interacting with the landscape in some rather interesting ways. Pretty decent walking book with a bit of nature writing thrown in, which is interesting because "London" and "Nature" are not words that usually go together. But its an exploration of the places where the city (and exurb, etc.) meets the country, which is an overlooked bit of geography, from what I can tell.

 

P.G. Wodehouse -- Carry On, Jeeves

A year without reading Wodehouse is entirely too long. Glad I'm back.

 

For a class I'm teaching, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. Working pretty well so far.

 

As a psychologist, you may expect that I admire Haidt's work. It is intriguing and I'm glad someone has taken on the psychological dimensions of moral behavior. But, I have a feeling that a good number of his findings may not stand the test of replication. Time will tell.

 

I agree. Evolutionary psychology is a new and, pardon the pun, evolving discipline. It will be interesting to see a few decades down the road what holds up and leads to increasingly fruitful research, and what looks to readers in 2045 like phrenology looks to us.

But it does get some serious discussion going, which is one thing I like.

 

I saw the movie "Mystic River" and "Shutter Island", but never read any of Lehane's books.I was lookig for a book to read while visiting Boston. I enjoyed reading a book at a location where I was visiting. This book was recommended as it took place in downtown Boston.

Lehane did not get into the story until it passed half way of the book. The first 50% of the book covered materials that I do normally not enjoy to read, but I enjoyed it.... I had to put it down and googled to see it was a 'thriller" because the first 50% of the book dids not seem that way. so I supposed this must be a good book. I read through the first 50% even through I was looking for a thriller in Boston.. However, I did not like the ending.

 

So you didn't like the first half or the end but there was a bit in the middle that you recommend?

 

Paterson, a book length poem (now a major motion picture directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Adam Driver) by William Carlos Williams.

 

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by historian Christopher R. Browning. I was hoping to be able to get a librettro for an uplifting musical out of this one, but I don't think that's going to happen.

 

The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic


The creator of the award-winning podcast series The History of Rome and Revolutions brings to life the bloody battles, political machinations, and human drama that set the stage for the fall of the Roman Republic.

 

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions, and interesting cavalcade of catastrophe by Peter Brannen.

 

Waiting for the Punch a reader's digest like compendium of bits from the WTF podcast authored by its host, Marc Maron as well as the producer Brendon McDonald.

 

Trudged my way through Cham and Whiteson's We Have No Idea. It shouldn't be a difficult read. Cham is the guy behind Ph.D. Comics. But, it just barely worked for me, not really engaging, but I wanted to finish it because I'm interested in the topics. Done. 3 out of 5 stars.

 

History Begins at Sumer: Thirty Nine Firsts in Recorded History by the legendary scholar of Sumerian cultures and languages Samuel Noah Kramer.