Yep, I am of the thought one cannot change or erase history, but I guess I understand not honoring the names of Confederate Generals and/or CSA national office holders.
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*Empire Of The Summer Moon * by Austin author S.C. Gwynne for the 3rd time. I guess I read it every 2-3 years. Great history of the Aborigines of North America and their struggle against the Paleface. It ends up at The Little Bighorn skirmish but a lot of details that are very interesting. Gwynne is a great writer and his day job is writing for Texas Monthly.
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Really enjoyed that book.
Great to read about the people for whom so many of our towns and counties are named.
If that book can be summarized as ‘Texas and the Comanches’, then Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides would be ‘New Mexico and the Navajo’.
Definitely recommend both books to anyone interested in the history of Texas and the Southwest, and US history in the 19th Century. Both are excellent.
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I never used to read more than one book at a time and this describes more or less precisely what I did this year. I woke up early and read from a book of poetry or short essays, then a chapter apiece from a book of nonfiction and a novel, meanwhile having audiobooks going in a much more casual way whenever driving or getting on the treadmill. It has been a revelation.
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Curious to hear what you think about Baker—have you read him before? He is one of my favorite oddballs. I’ll never look at shoelace tips or straws the same after that book.
I read SPQR some years ago and regret to say I haven’t retained much.
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SPQR is good, but kind of breezy; I’m not retaining a ton either but it’s interesting enough to keep going.
I haven’t read Baker before and I just started the book so I’ll report back. Good to know he’s worth the read. I forget where I came across the book, like in one of those 10 best fall reads or quirky reads or something. Anyway, I’ll get back to you pretty soon.
I am rereading The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. I read it in my 20’s and it made a deep impression on me then. Re-reading it now, I am struck by how I process his thinking and decision making very differently and very much similarly at the same time.
Like @JimR, I can’t normally really read two books at the same time but am also reading Exploring Calvin and Hobbes: An Exhibition Catalogue, the companion book to an art exhibition at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University. Watterson’s insights give a great context to his legacy, which I appreciate.
I am rereading the Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan ( finished by Brandon Sanderson)
It’s a huge ( 14 volumes of about 800 pages each) but has been my favorite for decades.
And Amazon Prime is starting a new series adaptation of it soon, so I wanted a refresher.
I’m finishing up The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski, which has given me a much better appreciation of early era players and especially Negro League players.
I’m starting Betrayal by Jonathan Karl and it is even crazier than I expected.
Next up in my queue is The Night the Lights Went Out by Drew Magry, a recounting of his sudden brain damage and the ensuing recovery.
Just finished the Star Wars:Aftermath trilogy (pretty meh). Before that, it was David McCullough’s 1776 (a classic) and Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga series (excellent fiction for the whole family).
On a slower pace, I’m also working my way through Esau McCaulley’s “Reading While Black,” about the tradition of Black Biblical interpretation).
Reading Blood’s a Rover by James Ellroy, rereading Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, and just started David Grann’s, Killers of the Flower Moon.
That’s a generous review.
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Years ago I read this and by the time I got to Volume III my wife told me I couldn’t read it anymore because I was having nightmares almost every night! I finally finished it but she’s still suspicious anytime I read any Solzhenitsyn. Cancer Ward is a particular favorite of mine.
I’m reading this now and am having trouble putting it down. It’s pretty gripping, and while it’s a testament to Magary’s writing, I also feel pretty invested in his story after closely following his career for the last decade (including weekly podcasts).
The best books I’ve read over the last few months are (1) The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen which chronicles the five mass extinction events in Earth’s history of complex life (oddly reassuring) and (2) Chasing Venus by Andrea Wulf, which tells the story of 18th century European scientists working together to span the globe amidst global war, the vagaries of transcontinental travel, and a variety of personalities and obstacles in order to measure the transit of the sun across Venus which Edmund Halley correctly predicted could be used to calculate the size of the solar system. It’s a quick easy read that I found thoroughly enjoyable.
Fiction-wise I recently finished the penultimate book in The Expanse (Tiamat’s Wrath) in anticipation of the release of the final book at the end of the month. I’ve also carried around a copy of Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist as Young Man which has been “next” on my list for last six or seven books I’ve read. I read it in college and would like to revisit more of the classics that I tore through in my youth, but whenever it comes time to start a new book (I’m in the camp of one book at a time) I can’t bring myself to start it.
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Oh wow. That’s pretty much exactly my experience too!
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Wait it’s coming out that soon?
Nov. 30th. It’s called Leviathan Falls. I’ve already preordered.
Gonna put this in my queue.
You may enjoy American Serengeti by Dan Flores. It’s the story of the fauna of the North American Great Plains, from prehistory to present day. Also a quick read.
Thanks!
Thanks, just ordered it