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  • Originally posted by pelagius View Post
    I just read the Churchill book. One of my daughters has been pestering (demanding?) me to read either one of these for a while now. I just wasn't that interested. So my expectations weren't sky high and I started it out of a sense of duty but I really liked it. Candice Millard is a very good writer, and I thought the book was genuinely insightful about Churchill while avoiding both hagiography and being overly critical.
    I read it last year. Enjoyed it.
    "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
    "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
    "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Jeff Lebowski View Post
      I read it last year. Enjoyed it.
      I also read it last year and thought it was pretty good (4+ stars on GR) I've really enjoyed all three of her books.

      I may be small, but I'm slow.

      A veteran - whether active duty, retired, or national guard or reserve is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to, "The United States of America ", for an amount of "up to and including my life - it's an honor."

      Comment


      • Just finished the DaVinci bio by Walter Isaacson. A bit too heavy on the hagiography for my tastes, but still a very good book. I listened on Audible, but thankfully they provide a PDF with copies of all the figures and reference them throughout the book. I just had to switch between apps and study the images.

        The timing was good on this. I was finishing it coincident with a trip to Europe. They had a special DaVinci exhibit at the Uffizi in Florence and it was fun to see some works that I had just read about. We also visited the Louvre and made sure to hit all the DaVinci paintings. Overall, we were able to catch more than half of the surviving DaVinci paintings. I was able to pontificate to my travel companions and fooled them into thinking I am some kind of art history expert. Ha.
        "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
        "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
        "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

        Comment


        • Originally posted by BigPiney View Post
          Read the winner and the finalists.

          Less: I could have done with a lot less. This was not that good. Just a book about a gay guy that runs from his problems, has a boring trip around the world. Lame. THere was a good line in the book about how you should never win the Pulitzer because it ruins things for the future. He was right, this should never have won the Pulitzer.

          I also read just before this.

          Dunbar: this is a modern telling of King Lear. This was ok. This is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. http://hogarthshakespeare.com/ Next up is Jo Nesbo's Macbeth. Nesbo is awesome, so I can't wait.

          I read Less a couple weeks ago and I mostly concur with you, though I did find his humor to be entertaining. I'm guessing there was nobody more surprised that he'd won than Greer himself.

          I've read a couple of the Hogarth series and have yet to be too impressed.

          Comment


          • I read in the Deseret News this morning that George Q. Cannon's journals are online. I've been reading them--interesting so far.

            Comment


            • I finished volume 2 of James Hollands history of WWII

              The War in the West - Volume 2

              Interesting take on the middle years of WW II in Europe (1941-43) The author looks at the War in the Desert, the Battle for the Atlantic, the air war and the importence of the Deseret Air Force for the British in North Africa, life on the Home Front and the mobilization of the various economies for war. There is some British slang that threw me for a moment and one glaring statement GI stands for General Infantry - I'd never heart that one before. In spite of the title, quite a lot on the war in Russia. He does opine a lot on Hitler's strategic mistakes (going into Russia in the first place and not mobilizing for total war in 1939 among others - solid 4 star read

              Currently reading an advance copy of P. T. Deutermann's new WWII novel The Iceman
              In this one Capt Deutermann returns to the Submarine war and the subs based out of Dawin Australia. I'm about half way thru and throroughly enjoying it.
              Last edited by happyone; 07-25-2018, 07:09 PM.

              I may be small, but I'm slow.

              A veteran - whether active duty, retired, or national guard or reserve is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to, "The United States of America ", for an amount of "up to and including my life - it's an honor."

              Comment


              • "Darwin" Australia. My father was based there during WWII. Your description makes me want to read the book. Thanks.

                Comment


                • "The Cadaver King and The Country Dentist", by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington. It's been a few years since I've read non-fiction for fun, but I'm glad I came across it. It's an expose of shoddy/fraudulent forensics work and prosecutorial misconduct in Mississippi, from the 1990's on. It centers on two men wrongfully convicted of murdering children, but it expands to other cases connected to the same pathologist and DA's in Mississippi. I found myself continually shaking my head, hoping that DA offices are not as bad in other areas of the country. I have a feeling that it's a more generalized problem.

                  If you can access the book online, read the first two chapters. You'll know soon if you want to continue.
                  "...you pointy-headed autopsy nerd. Do you think it's possible for you to post without using words like "hilarious," "absurd," "canard," and "truther"? Your bare assertions do not make it so. Maybe your reasoning is too stunted and your vocabulary is too limited to go without these epithets."
                  "You are an intemperate, unscientific poster who makes light of very serious matters.”
                  - SeattleUte

                  Comment


                  • Just finished Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Novel based on a true story of a young Italian man during the last 2 years of WWII. The main character almost took the story to his grave, which would have been a shame. Absolutely incredible story. Highly recommended. Movie rights have been secured so it will come to the big screen at some point.
                    "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
                    "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
                    "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

                    Comment


                    • I listen to books to help me stay awake while I drive, and recently I had to struggle to stay awake while listening to the last 10 hours of Titan (the story of John D. Rockefeller.) After that burden I decided to go more light and selected "Something in the Water" by first time author Catherine Steadman. The reviews looked good, and I looked forward to a move along story... what I got was a move along story where 2+2=5 or 6... and a lot of the story didn't add up. I pegged the ending half way through and the two main story lines for 90% of the book disappeared as if they were clever decoys so the book could make a big splash at the end. I hate buying a book and feeling duped when its finished.

                      Right now I'm halfway through American Kingpin - The Story of Ross Ulbricht and his drug selling website Silk Road. Pretty interesting so far.

                      When poet puts pen to paper imagination breathes life, finding hearth and home.
                      -Mid Summer's Night Dream

                      Comment


                      • I finished Deutermann's The Iceman
                        My thoughts if anyone is interested.

                        I also recently finished The Darkest Hour

                        It is also excellent - A slightly revisionist look at Churchill's first four weeks as Prime Minister in 1940 - through Dunkirk. Excellent look at the politics and how once Chamberlain fell, Churchill was inevitable.
                        The author contradicts accepted history as to Churchill's willingness to accept a negotiated peace in the first couple of weeks of his premiership.
                        I understand the movie was based on this book. I haven't typed up my thoughts yet, but well worth the time it took to read.
                        Last edited by happyone; 07-13-2018, 02:14 PM.

                        I may be small, but I'm slow.

                        A veteran - whether active duty, retired, or national guard or reserve is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to, "The United States of America ", for an amount of "up to and including my life - it's an honor."

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Scott R Nelson View Post
                          I just finished The Crossing by Michael Connelly. It's a 2015 Harry Bosch murder mystery, but includes a bit of Mickey Haller who is my favorite Connelly character.

                          I was going to note this while I was still reading it, but finished it too fast. It was truly a book I couldn't put down. Unlike Lee Child (Jack Reacher novels), Connelly doesn't put words in there just to fill up the space. Everything is important to the story, but relatively easy to follow and the kind of writing that I enjoy the most. The next book I read will be something deeper, but sometimes I just have to read the ones that are a joy to read.
                          Just finished The Wrong Side of Goodbye, the next book by Michael Connelly. A 2016 Harry Bosch murder mystery with more Mickey Haller.

                          I really enjoyed this one too. Good story with enough complexity to keep it interesting, but unlike somebody like Tom Clancy, you don't have to keep track of a bunch of story lines in hopes of weaving them all together later. It is clear from the beginning how all of the story lines fit together. There were enough twists and turns to keep it interesting without feeling like the author is jerking the reader around.

                          I only have a couple of more Michael Connelly novels on my list that I haven't read, then I will have read them all. I might have to go back and reread a few, like maybe the Mickey Haller series.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by PaloAltoCougar View Post
                            I'm in the middle of four books at the moment (I don't like doing more than two at a time but my ADHD is going into hyperdrive), but I want to add another. Has Tara Westover's Educated been mentioned here? A NYT bestseller, it's the autobiographical story of a young woman (early 30s now) who was raised in SE Idaho by a survivalist, fundamentalist (or simply looney) LDS dad. She doesn't even have a birth certificate, and hadn't seen the inside of a classroom until she was 17. And yet she graduated magna from BYU, went on to study at Harvard, and now has her doctorate from Cambridge. Here's the NYT review; it's definitely up next on my reading list. I suspect others have commented on it here (or at least have read it), but I couldn't find any references to it...
                            So starting last week I put the other books down and focused on Educated, which I finished this morning. Read the NYT review highlighted above if you want details, but the book is fascinating, especially after she's able to get into BYU, including a classroom scene when she raises her hand and says she doesn't understand the word "Holocaust." The family is one of the weirdest, most dysfunctional, and in some ways remarkable groups I've ever read about. She and the three siblings who left the family all have PhD's; the three who didn't don't even have high school diplomas. But after struggling trying to make money off of their junkyard, odd jobs, and midwifery, her parents have finally struck it rich with essential oils (not DoTerra, but their own company, Butterfly Expressions).

                            It's a quick and pretty amazing read.
                            Last edited by PaloAltoCougar; 07-15-2018, 09:24 AM.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by PaloAltoCougar View Post
                              So starting last week I put the other books down and focused on Educated, which I finished this morning. Read the NYT review highlighted above if you want details, but the book is fascinating, especially after she's able to get into BYU, including a classroom scene when she raises her hand and says she doesn't understand the word "Holocaust." The family is one of the weirdest, most dysfunctional, and in some ways remarkable groups I've ever read about. She and the three siblings who left the family all have PhD's; the three who didn't don't even have high school diplomas. But after struggling trying to make money off of their junkyard, odd jobs, and midwifery, her parents have finally struck it rich with essential oils (not DoTerra, but their own company, Butterfly Expressions).

                              It's a quick and pretty amazing read.
                              Dude. Spoilers!

                              This is next in my queue.
                              "There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
                              "It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
                              "Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Jeff Lebowski View Post
                                Dude. Spoilers!

                                This is next in my queue.
                                Sorry, but there are plenty more! I note that her home (and the HQ of the company) is very close to Preston. I'm hope for a tie-in and sequel to Napoleon Dynamite.

                                Comment

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