Finished: Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain by Michael Paterniti and The Monuments Men, by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter.

Both are interesting books and worth reading. The first suffers some from style and interjection of the author into the story. Comes from it being first a series for a magazine I think and the author attempting gonzo style journalism that becomes trite and threadbare at times. Somewhat up and down but not a waste of time.

The Monuments Men (made into a movie) is good but also suffers some from mediocre writing. But the subject matter readily holds your attention and some of the people are character studies in themselves. The whole looting of art is a fun story - some are good at it (the Russians for example and the French under Napoleon) and some not so good. War is a great leveler. We need more of them. But that's another book.

This was ****ing awesome, I'm now gonna read everything she wrote and also a biography about her. Color me intrigued.

I'm just about done with Glass House by Brian Alexander. He examines an Ohio town which was once considered a model American community, and the effects that private equity financial engineering has wrought.

The author focuses on the Anchor Hocking glass making concern and spins the reader through a solid past of making glass wear products, to a more recent vintage where the company is constantly in play with private equity concerns, and the making of glass becomes an auxiliary task. The author is trying to put the lie to the idea that foreign competitors have beaten the Rust Belt and their traditional industries down. His view is that it is the Cerebrus and Monomy Capitals of the world who are to blame by sucking up a disproportionate sum through financial engineering.

Other themes are the opioid crises, lack of decent paying jobs, the ennui of high school educated 20 year olds and the constant attempts to reinvent a small town in flyover country.

https://www.amazon.com/Glass-House-E.../dp/1250085802

Confucian curtesy dictates that I not leave the denizens of The Lounge hanging by a war thread. The book alluded to above is History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides. Few have heard of it and even less have read it. So I feel justified in advertising it on The Lounge Channel. If you can pry yourself away from reading the garbage (mostly) from the New York Times Fiction Bestseller list, it may be worth your time to read - While you are Waiting for Godot.

You may now returned to your regularly scheduled programing. Thank you for your attention.

The Power Broker

The only dislike of the book is that there is no e-version available. It's pretty crazy there is not especially since I read the author specifically doesn't want to release an e-version which is pretty surprising since he in the book tells how Robert Moses is stuck in thinking about the use of roads/highways from the 1920's and didn't realize that the use changed.
The same is true for books, not having an electronic version is pretty disappointing.

That being said, the book itself is amazingly researched and put together. I don't even want to know how much material he had to create a book like this, despite the thickness of the book there is very little wasted information in it.

It is very interesting to see the way he acquired and then lost all his power and as someone living in New York City it's definitely interesting to see his mark on the city's landscape. I actually went to the flushing meadows park last weekend and saw his mark there quite a bit.

While reading through this book you will definitely develop some hatred towards this very unlikable man but it also makes you think about what is needed to get things done. I wish he cared more about the public transportation because then the subway system might have been quite a bit better


1491 & 1493
Highly recommended to anybody interested in a more in-depth look at what happened before and after the arrival at "the new world". Especially how much harder it was on the invaders than is written in my high-school history books.

Loved We Have Always Lived in the Castle. And that 1491 series looks fascinating.

The Elephant Whisperer by Lawrence Anthony tells about a guy who runs a nature preserve in Africa and the herd of elephants he decides to take on. The snippets of sub-Saharan culture and life are worth the price of admission, but the elephants are the real treat. At first I found it a little offputting the way Anthony humanizes the animals, but he managed to convince me as the story went along, and by the end I found myself wrapped up in each's personality. Minimal moralization, too, which could've easily bogged down the book.

Way back I listened to a Christopher Moore book, and someone recommended that I pick up Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Plenty of lowbrow humor in this one, though I never actually busted a gut (I think Moore missed a few spots to further tickle my funny bone). Some interesting back and forth between ideologies, nothing too deep, of course.

And I read PG Wodehouse's short story collection, My Man Jeeves. Jeeves stories = clever and fun to read. Reggie stories = mostly lame and exasperating, though I did like one or two of them.

Jonathan Ames wrote a hilarious semi-parody of a Wodehouse Jeeves novel, Wake Up, Sir. I think highly of Ames in general and am about to start his You Were Never Really Here, which evidently they just made into a Joaquin Phoenix movie.

I read elephant Whisperer several years back...very interesting. His dealings with local tribes, and poachers were dramatic as was his huge bull elephant interactions. He has another book I mean to read about saving what animals he could in the Baghdad zoo. I always appreciated his views on hunting which was you only kill for the pot. Sadly I believe the author has passed

BBC made an adaptation of China Mieville’s The City & The City. I thought it would be a tough book to convert but so far it’s pretty solid.

Interesting. I like Mieville's work.

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I've been reading the Dune novels lately. I've just finished Chapterhouse Dune, the last novel by Frank Herbert. After that I started reading Hunters of Dune written by his son and Kevin J. Anderson. In the foreword they talk about how they had to write several other books before they could work up to this one. So now I'm wondering, should I start reading Hunters of Dune, or should I first read those other books?

I've only heard of Thucydides from one writer who's been using it to frame the current China/USA relations.

Published last year:
Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

(I haven't read the book, but the Atlantic article below by the same guy was a good read; basically reads like what I imagine was a condensed, rough draft of the book.)

The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. and China Headed for War?

This is an exceptional book about an exceptional artist. Bought it at a library book sale. Worth it just for the art presented but the artist was also very unique.

Kesu-Art-Life-Doug-Cranmer

Finished Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner. If only I could go back and erase the audio version of this from my memory and start reading it on the page! Erik Bergmann's narration is top notch, he does a fantastic job, but this book just doesn't translate well to the medium, what with the screenplay-esque presentation and the lists. I will say that I think most of the characters weren't particularly well built. Chad C. Mulligan's the man, though. The style and setting are superb. Once I got into the groove of the narrative it was too late to catch up on the plot. Probably one I'd like to give another go in the future, as it does seem to be right up my alley.

Definitely Jeeves > Reggie, though my enjoyment of even the best Jeeves stories was pretty mild.

My love for Wodehouse seems to go through phases. When I was a kid, I thought Wodehouse's portrayal of idiots was too exaggerated to be believed. By the time I was in my 30s, I thought they were too understated.

A character about whom who I like to read is Ukridge, an archetypical ne'er-do-well, schemer, and mooch extraordinaire. He's an acquired taste.

The Honourable Galahad "Gally" Threepwood bests them all, IMO. Or close to it. Uncle Fred roams about also, spreading light and goodness to all and sundry. A very noble character.

On the other end of the gender spectrum, Aunt Dahlia never fails to deliver the best of glee and entanglements to confound the Country Peerage. And Jeeves gives satisfaction in cutting through the Gordian Knot.

About half of the Jeeves stories are hilarious. As are his golf stories, which I also used to think were overstated even though I golfed, now I think they are understated. Slow play has only gotten worse over time.

1/4 into HomoDeus and enjoying his take on things so far. I have abstractly thought about a lot of the things he talks about and it’s fun to have some ideas and hypotheses that I can attach my rather ill-defined opinions about the future of humanity to.

I’m really interested in humanity in general (sociology, humans/intelligence/tech) - especially in the context of where we are going as a group. I get frustrated because I don’t know quite what to think and what my opinions are....it’s refreshing to read a book that helps with this.

Just listened to The River of Doubt: Teddy Roosevelt's Darkest Journey on tape. Good story, educational as well as entertaining! Perfect for the book-on-tape format too, knocked this out in 2 days. Written by Candace Millard, who's written some other popular history that I'm gonna check out. Like her latest is about young Churchill's adventures in the Boer War. Or was it the Boor War! haha, no escape from wordplay.

Reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. So far: very interesting and well written.

Finishing up "Foundation" by Peter Ackroyd - British history from the beginning to the Tudors - we get to London Sunday from Spain (we're finishing a cave-painting tour of France and Spain), so it seemed appropriate. He's one of my favorite writers (his "London" is truly great IMHO) - have especially enjoyed reading about a historical time that I really didn't know much about.

MM MD

"Flamethrowers" by Rachel Kushner was a favorite itt iirc. It is one of the best and most memorable books of the past decade imo. She may have outdone herself with "The Mars Room." A novel thats dark yet alive and sympathetic with the "seedier" elements of society. It's so compelling I started it less than 24 hours ago and I'm almost done.

Also, if anyone has recommendations for similar type books -- realistic literary portrayals of poverty, crime, seedy elements of society etc -- that'd be lovely.

I didn't know much going in about Alexander the Great, and I feel like I got a solid introduction from Philip Freeman's biography. Pretty amazing stuff. Only complaint is that it's maybe a little too concise and doesn't flesh things out as much as a longer treatment might have.

I picked up The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke since I like Wayfaring Stranger so much. It's pretty good, but you can tell he's still working on his style in this one. He seems to do the South really well.

And I finally got around to reading John Scalzi's Old Man's War. Interesting premise -- deploying an army of old folks to battle space monsters -- and funny execution. Even here in his first novel, Scalzi's got his shtick down well with his snappy dialogue that's probably relied on a little too much and some wicked swerves in the plot. It does sag in the middle, though.

Just started on Shogun. See you guys in six months.

Infinite Jest sucks. I'm finishing this gem tonight: