Wild Thing: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix – Philip Norman This is pretty good, but has lots of name-dropping and gossip.
I am always interested in the LDS as a topic of interests. I will never become a Mormon. The existence of an European empire in the New World before Columbus did not make sense to me. Their lifestyle will never appeal to me. Nevertheless, I wanted to know more about them. I decided to read this book after a trip to NYC where I watched the Book of Mormon musical. Then, Netflix also recommended two documentaries to me shortly afterward,
I lived in Park City Utah for 5 years in the early 80’s. Made me want to find out more about the whole Mormon ‘thing’ I still have a few books from that time. “Brigham’s Destroying Angel” Piss Brigham Young off and be sure to get a visit from Orrin Porter Rockwell. Few survived that visit. “Mountain Meadows Massacre” there are a few versions of this along with a whitewash version. I still have “William Clayton’s Journal” Englishman Clayton made an odometer attached it to his wagon wheel. Then recorded landmarks and there mileage along the way. it was then printed for the other saints that followed. Lots of interesting and controversial stuff written about the Mormons. Their first attempt at statehood took in a huge portion of the west, including a sizable part of California to Long Beach. Many Mormon’s came by ship around the horn. There’s a sizable Mormon community still in Long Beach. That was far enough. Anyhow, apologies for getting carried away. I won’t bore you with Buchanan sending the US army to end Mormonism and the battle of Echo Canyon that stopped them.
Any recommended version of the Mountain Meadows Massacre? Also, if you haven't read How Few Remain, the alternate history written by Harry Turtledove, one of the storylines that is threaded through it is how does the Union deal with the Mormons trying to cut themselves off from the US and Conferderacy during a second civil war.
I read recently that Tom Hanks and Spielberg have found a sizable hunk of England to film another WWII TV Series. It’ll be based on the book “Masters of the Air” Donald L. Miller. I thought I’d get ahead of the game.
Sorry ‘Joe’ it’s been so long since I’ve read any of that and many books have been written since. I couldn’t give a fair guess even. Thanks for the heads up on “How Few Remain.” I believe I may have read a Turtledove book on the Civil War. Is that the one where they learn how to copy AK47s and manufacture ammo? Gosh it’s quite a while ago. Edit: Nah, that was “Guns of the South” and they time travelled the guns at first. Then tried to make them.
Yeah, Guns of the South was an idea he came up with while corresponding with a fellow writer. It's what inspired him to take a further look at the actual time frame and then write a book where the Confederacy won the Civil War and try to imagine the fallout. He ended up writing 10 total books in that series (the 181 time line based on a real order that the Union intercepted) going through the end of WWII.
I went to an American High School overseas. Evangelical Americans in the 1980's thought it was a good idea to spread their Christian values overseas. The school was full of missionary kids, but I did not know it until I graduated. Being a non-American in an American school, I was often perceived as an outsider. I did not fully understand the situation at the time. We have a few Mormons. Most were good kids. One boy whom I actually fond of ended up as a drug dealer. My teachers disliked him and the popular kids were scared of him, I found out years later. He was very friendly to the non-American kids at school. In 2018, I met up with a HS friend in San Francisco who was gay. His father was a Southern Methodist minister, and he disowned him. I found it unheard of even in my generation. The episode does not seem real to me in 2022. The school was also full of Lutheran missionaries. The Pentecostalists were active. I went to their faith hearing section. We had The Christian Science Monitor in our library. They must be present at our school. Meanwhile, most teachers were hippies from the 1960's. So I grew up in a very liberal environment. They taught us Buddhism, Hinduism, John Lennon, Dr. King, etc. In the mist of all those things, I learned more about reincarnation and karma than Jesus Christ. My favorite teacher was a Quaker. My close friend in 8th Grade was a Muslim kid from the Middle East. Kids called him a "terrorist"(it was before 911). I did join the other kids in bullying him, but I also protected him. It was one of those relationship where I did not want to be his friend, but we knew that we were both outsiders in an American school. So is this your typical American High School? Please tell me.
“Holy” shit. You’ve had your share of religious crap. Yet you sound almost normal. Me, I went to school in Merrie Olde Engerland and saw enough religion for a lifetime. We have just about all, that I know of, books from different religions which has left me being for want of any other label an atheist. I don’t advertise it, I don’t put bumper stickers on my car. I don’t accost people in the street asking if they know the real truth. Despite that, I like people, for the most part that is. Some are just unlikeable.
Nine Years Among The Indians by Herman Lehmann. The author spent 9 years with the Amerindians, first with the Apaches who captured him, then with the fearsome Comanches. He wrote this book when he was an old man. It has very short chapters. Looks extremely interesting, though it contains some dated language. In case anyone cares, there's a photo of the book cover @MattHofer1 on Twitter. PS-I've had my share of religious crap, too, though I do currently attend church.
My friends American or non-American all wondered how we became normal. "If our kids go to the same school under the same environment, we would have been worried," several of our friends often concluded. We actually did not know.... kids just grew up and did not think much.
You mentioned an American High School overseas. Care to say which one. Asking because my Daughter (a Kiwi) has been teaching American High Schools abroad for about 15 years. She’s heading back to New Delhi American Embassy School this weekend.
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir by my educated at a Directional State University in Illinois homey, Bob Odenkirk. Nothing about his heart attack that, had it been worse, would have pretty much ruined the ending of Better Call Saul, but good enough. It's not in the same league as Steve Martin's Born Standing Up or John Cleese's So Anyway, but it's still worth reading if you're interested in sketch comedy from the last 40 years or so (and his transition from writer and sketch performer to pretty damn good serious actor is surprising . . . even to Odenkirk), it's worth reading.
I'm halfway through a two-week vacation/visit with family. I brought a stack of NYRB Classics with me, those in my own TBR pile at home and a few from the library. I've read three thus far and have started a fourth.
A sometimes confusing web of 8 real stories of renters and landlords in Milwaukee. Published in 2016 it seems like the data only runs up to about 2013 and the real people that are discussed were mostly up until about 2009-10. Despite the constant jumping around between the various stories, it's still a really intriguing concept and well worth the time spent.
The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance, a book that I was pretty close to embarrassed to be carrying out of the library, like. . . I would almost rather be caught "reading" Barely Legal magazine on a park bench across the street from a high school than be seen carrying this book, but Tom Brady's book (well, his book and his personal trainer's) has a pretty good range of resistance band exercises, which I've been doing for most of this year, much to the happiness of my joints and ligaments, and there are some surprisingly good recipes in the nutrition section. And some outright crazy stuff, like the idea that you are less likely to get sunburned if you are adequately hydrated with electrolyte-supplemented water.
Thank you for taking care to change up the coffee cup colors for each book. I stumbled on a really fun series of mysteries set during World War II called the Billy Boyle Mysteries. Author is James R. Benn, who was a librarian before starting this series in the mid 2000s. I get the sense from a couple of things in the first book he didn't anticipate a series, but it's a good one. I just finished the fifth one, Rag and Bone; there are now 17, one published each year. The character of Boyle is a young lieutenant, assigned to "Uncle Ike" Eisenhower's staff, who was a newly minted Boston detective when the war started. The five I've read have been fun and rather easy reads with some nice surprises in some. Book one - based in the UK, with the Norwegian government in exile the background Book two - based in Algeria, with penicillin and the Vichy the background Book three - based in Sicily, with the mob and the mafia (a distinction is drawn) the background Book four - based in N. Ireland, with the IRA and the German wish to get Ireland into the war the background Book five - based in England, with the Poles in exile and the Soviets and MI5 all circling the Katyn Massacres of 1940 the background Not sure how they work going forward; perhaps, like the Aubrey-Maturin books from Patrick O'Brian, they stop following along chronologically/historically when they run out of actual battles (the naval series parallels the Napoleonic Wars for the first six books, then hypothetical years after that for the remaining two years of the Napoleonic Wars). I don't mean to compare the quality of the two, just the way they handle chronology. O'Brian once said (or probably he said it many times) that if he knew how many books would follow the first, he would have started the sequence much earlier. Regardless, I will have fun figuring out how Benn handles it.
"A Gentleman in Moscow" was the reason why I chose this book, but I actually never read it. I did not like "Lincoln Highway" at all, but several of my friends recommended the "AGIM",
A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. I watched the movie A Spaceman In King Arthur's Court as a kid. I expect to be entertained.