Non-Fiction

[HaroldArnold]

TO NONFICTION BOOK TALK

What are you reading?  Autobiographies, biographies, history, politics?

Tell us about the book; the good and the bad of it. 

Let's talk books!

Discussion Leader: HaroldArnold

Click the following for an interesting article on book selling in the future: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704448304575196172206855634.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs    

I suspect that we are poised to see major changes in the way we buy and read books as this year and next year unfold.  This article gives us a preview.

[JoanK]

FYI, as a little side note...remember Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea", about the building of schools in Afghanistan?  He and a co-author have also written a children's version of that book.
My initial surprise quickly turned into 'Of course,  children would like such a story'. 

I looked at that book, meaning to buy it for my grandchildren. Unfortunately, it was badly written -- I didn't buy it in the end.

[Babi]

Oh, that's too bad, JOANK.  Thanks for the tip; I won't recommend it to
friends with children in that case.

[Mippy]

Just jumping in with a book suggestion, although did not carefully read the past weeks, so hope it's not a duplicate.

Last week, I finished a very fine book:

The Bridge by David Remnick, a bio. of Obama but much more!   Excellent writing!  Link is:

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Life-Rise-Barack-Obama/dp/1400043603/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274802428&sr=1-1

[HaroldArnold]

Yesterday while doing some house cleaning I ran across. a particular book title stored in a box in the back of a closet.  The title is the “The Diary of Samuel Pepys.”  I have Volumes 1, 2, and 3 of the 11 volume complete set edited by Robert Latham and William Mathews.  The complete edition was released volume by volume beginning with Vol 1 in 1960 with the rest following during the 1960’s.  The publisher was the University of California Press. 

At the time my bookseller was Rosengrin’s Bookstore, an old  style family book store on Bowie street behind the Alamo in downtown San Antonio.  It is the complete text of this diary beginning in 1660 and ending in 1669 when Pepys’ failing vision forced him to discontinue it.  I purchased the first three volumes as they came out and am not sure why I stopped acquiring the later volumes.  I do not recall ever setting down and reading these volumes and their pristine new condition certainly confirms their previous un-read state.  At the time I had read a much shorter Modern Library condensation.  I’ll see how far I get, but it is the type of personal history writing that I find good bedtime reading.   

[Babi]

 Howard, I had no idea "The Diary of Samuel Pepys" ran to 11 volumes. I
read one volume and thought that was it! I wonder if I have/had the
condensed version. I'm not even sure I still have it, but I remember it
as quaint and entertaining. I remember that gifts were exchanged
with friends on Valentine's Day back then, and a proper gift for a lady
friend was a pair of gloves...lavender, as I recall.

[Ella Gibbons]

MIPPY, thanks for the suggestion.  I just finished reading GAME CHANGE by Heileman and Halperin which was about the candidates and their campaigns for the 2008 presidential election.  I've had my fill of political realities for awhile.

Harold, I explored this briefly, you might be interested:

http://www.pepysdiary.com/about/history/

Ginny mentioned this book in the Library; it's a new book and I am jusst into it and it's good reading also:  THE MEN WHO WOULD BE KING by Nicole Laporte: An almost epic tale of moguls, movies, and a company called DREAMWORKS.  Three huge egos forming a company?  

[HaroldArnold]

Jean I note the  "True Women", Janice Wood Windle Tv series is still around.  Yesterday between 9:00 Pm and 1:00AM this morning the Hallmark HD Movie channel ran 4:hours of it.  I did not watch it, but happened to run across it on my Time Warner on-screen TV guide.  This channel runs movies generally 10 years or older.

   

[HaroldArnold]

This morning's Wall street Journal in the Week End journal section has its Summer Book Review.

Also last night the PBS 6:09 PM News Hour had 15 minutes devoted to pending changes in book publishing resulting from digital books.  Included were interviews with  a N.Y. book store owner, Cathy Lanager, a publishing executive, Jonathan Galassi and a prominent Author whose name I did not recognize .  Of the three the book store owner was quite optimistic that her business of selling paper bound books would remain relatively secure.  The other two were much less optimistic about the future off bound paper editions. seemingly feeling that in the future most books would be digital for screen device reading. with the role of printed paper bound books significantly reduced.  The Author whose name I did not recognize was much concern about the maintaining the current high author royalty payments.  

In my opinion it is the bookstore owner that has the most to worry about as I fear even a 25% reduction in the number of a paper edition printing would bring hard times for conventional book stores.  Also I think it is the authors that have the least to worry about.  They should be able to maintain or even increase the size of their royalty checks.    

[mabel1015j]

I finished Janice Woods Windle's "Will's War" yesterday. As i said before it is a fiction book, but Windles has based her three novels on her ancestors in Texas and in this one she uses the transcripts of her grandfather's trial for treason during WWI. It is very well written and a great look at how German-Americans were persecuted. Some of it is almost too eerily close to today's headlines:

".....Arthur recognized Rudolph Tschoepe. Until recent weeks he had been a highly respected member of the State Legislature. He had come to American from Germany w/ his parents when he was 4 yrs old. Now, half a century later, he was ousted from the Legislature because he couldn not prove he was an American citizen. Yet, no man Arthur knew was more loyal to American than Rep. Tschoepe. The faceless enemy was on the march. "

Other German-Americans had much more serious actions taken against them, including torching of their houses and businesses and being assaulted and sometimes killed.

The closing argument by the defensive atty for Will Bergfeld, the protagonist and Windle's grandfather, is one of the most compelling statements about protecting the right of free speech and association, etc. that i have ever read in literature. Since Windle had 1000,s of pages of trial transcript, my perception is that it was exactly as William Atwell, the defense atty,  stated it at the time. He, later, had a distinguished career as a U.S. District Judge in Dallas and wrote in his autobiography that "In many respects, this was one of the most remarkable trials ever held in America."

I tho't the book was well-written, compelling, and gave us an important piece of Amer'n history that is often overlooked....................jean

[HaroldArnold]

All four of my paternal great grand parents had migrated from Germany during the 1850’s.  At the time of WW I the extended family was living in San Antonio TX.  The family then consisted of 3 of the 4 original immigrant ancestors, at least 6 or 7 first generation descendant families born in the U.S. , and well over a dozen 2nd generation  U.S. born  grand children.  My father and his cousins comprised the latter group.  All the living immigrant ancestors had become fluent in English and all their first Generation off spring was fluent in both English and German.  The second native born generation had some knowledge of German but based on my father, it was definitely a second language. 

Emphatically, there is absolutely no tradition of discrimination against them because of their Germanic roots.   I think this fact is illustrated by some 1918 family pictures taken of my father and 3 of his cousins in “the new dodge” in San Pedro Park.  Three of the four are in their khaki U.S.  Army uniforms home on leave prior to assignment in France.  Only my father was in civilian dress.  He was 4-F for some reason.  Whatever it was it must not have been much as he lived a rather healthy life dying at 90 in 1986. 

I don’t doubt that there was some isolated discrimination against German citizens during WWI.  but I don’t think it was at all widespread, like it had been during the Civil War when there were instances of lynching of German residents opposing succession.  At the time only one of my Great grandparent families were in Texas.  Again there is no family record of harassment.  This Great Grandfather and his family (Last name Schlick) lived in Texas throughout the Civil War without harassment or military service.  He died in 1874 so he was not around during WW I.

[mabel1015j]

Harold - this story was in Seguin, (pronounced Sea-geen), Texas and Weinert, Texas. She mentions in her end notes that Will Bergfeld never spoke German again after the trial. I suppose the yrs from 1914 - 1946 could have been sketchy for some G-Amer'ns in some places. Many of my ancestors were from Germany, but they had come in the late 1700's or early 1800's, and lived in Pa where there were many of German ancestry, so i doubt they had much trouble.....................jean

[Ella Gibbons]

It's been awhile since I have read a good nonfiction book.  I've tried several but they didn't hold my interest very long.  Any suggestions?  A good biography or autobiography?  History?

Oh, certainly some of you have read a good one!

[maryz]

Ella, how about the biography of Frances Perkins (FDR's Sect'y of Labor); The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot; The Race Beat (about the role of the media in the Civil Rights Movement).  I've read these this year, and liked all of them.

[Ella Gibbons]

Thanks, Mary.  I'll look them up in my library, I'm going today if I ever get started here!

We discussed Frances Perkins in this book by Kirsten Downey.  Weren't you with us?  LOok:

http://seniorlearn.org/forum/index.php?topic=587.0

[maryz]

Ella, I'm sure this is where I originally heard about the book, but I didn't participate in the discussion - I think I read the book later. 

[FlaJean]

I read "Troublesome Young Men" by Lynne Olson and enjoyed it so much.  Just picked up her latest "Citizens of London, The Americans Who Stood with Britain in its Darkest, Finest Hour" and am looking forward to some interesting reading.

[Ella Gibbons]

Let us know, FLAJEAN!  That book was on the display table at my Library not long ago and I almost brought it home, but I had my book bag full by the time I saw it.  She writes well; holds your interest.

[HaroldArnold]

I’ve been evaluating Book readers.  Do any of you here use one of these devises that seem to becoming increasingly popular?   I think my options are narrowing down between the Apples I-Pad and the Kindle DX, since I really want the larger 9.5 inch diagonal screen that both of these provide.  Both the I-Pad and Kindle DX offer this larger screen and both offer much more than simple book reading.  Right now I am leaning for the Apple since it seems to offer much more browsing resources then the DX whose $489.00 price tag approaches the cost of the I-Pad.  Also with the use of downloadable App software both can read books from the Apple, B&N and Amazon.com stores.   

Any comment from users or want to be users of any of these products are appropriate.

[maryz]

Harold, I have a Kindle 2.  I got it because I have trouble holding large books - or even paperbacks for any length of time.  I really like mine - and don't care about doing anything with it other than reading.  It's great for travel - I only have to take it, and don't have to worry about running out of something read.  I don't feel the need for a larger screen - maybe if I read newspapers or magazines on it, I would - but that's not an issue for me, either.

My only complaints would be that I can only buy from Amazon, and that I can't easily share books.  One of our daughters and I share an Amazon account, so we can read each other's books.  But I can't just pass it on to a friend - even one who has a Kindle.

Good luck with your research.

[FlaJean]

I think I mentioned in a different forum that I have an iPad and love it.  You do have to download iTunes (which is free) to your computer.  You "sinc" the iPad to your computer through iTunes.  Since it was a gift from my husband, he bought me the one that is capable of 3G cellular.  However, I haven't subscribed yet as so many places now have wifi.  I also have the cover and am very pleased with it.  It's nice having access to email, Internet and the MAPs app when we travel.  If we take a long trip, I plan on subscribing to 3G with ATT.

I downloaded "Persuasion" (free) as well as several other books.  It is so easy to make the print larger or smaller by simply using your thumb and finger.  You just have to touch the page to turn it--amazing.

[joangrimes]

of course I have talked at length about my Kindle...It is the first one out though, Harold.  I can also read anything that I have on it on my computer too.   It saves my place on the kindle and on the computer.   I can read for many long hours now on my computer.  I hreally enjoy the Kindle and haven't found anything that I want to purchase that I cannot obtain from Amazon....If it is not on Kindle at Amazon then other place sees to have for their electronic reader.  Of course each person must decide what is right for their needs.So I will only say that the Kindle has been such a huge blessing to me.  Joan Grimes

[serenesheila]

I have a Kindle 2, and love it!  Especially the fact that if a good book is reccomended, I can "buy" and download a book in about 1 minute. My hands both have arthritis, and my K is much easier for me to hold.  Finally, I have around 100 books available in my "home" catagory.  At this point in life, I may well die, before I have read all of them.

At Christmas time last year, I bought the K-2, and gave my K-1 to my dil who is a reader, too.  She ended up getting my book list at the time.  At the same time, all of my books on the K-1, were transfered from the K-1, to the K-2.

The thing I miss the most, is being able to pass a book on to one of my children, or a friend.  Another feature thing that I like is I can get a sample, of a book, free, to see if I like the writing style.

Harold, I am curious about the IPad.  After buying my first Kindle, I swore that I would not buy anymore, new technology. What features do you like about the ipad?  Can you give me a breakdown of what it will do?  I would appreciate knowing more.

Sheila

[HaroldArnold]

>Harold, I am curious about the IPad.  After buying my first Kindle, I swore that I would not buy anymore, new technology. What features do you like about the ipad?  Can you give me a breakdown of what it will do?  I would appreciate knowing more.

Shelia:  Principally I want the larger 9.5 diagonal screen and would value the added capability to do more than just read books as a small note book computer.  Of the best known readers from Amazon.com, B&N and Apple, the two models that appear to qualify are the I-Pad, and Kindle DX.  Bothe of these appear capable with the aid of free App (Software) of reading books purchased from the major on line book stores, Amazon.com, B&N, and the Apple store.  Both of these also appear capable of reading E-mail and general Web browsing either through Wi-Fi and 3G model.  The Apple I-Pad has been widely accepted by the Market since its release earlier this year.  In comparison there is not much actual reporting concerning the Kindle DX.  Both of the products are pricy but the $489 DX Base Price tag is just a few dollars less than the I-Pad making a decision to go with the popular choice seem the wise one.
 
The following is a recent Walt Mossberg, WSJ column concerning the I-Pad.
 http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20100331/apple-ipad-review/

[serenesheila]

Harold, thank you for the information.  Here is something which I plan to watch on TV, which might interest you, and others.  Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m., CSPAN 2 will be showing a panel discussion on the next decade in book culture; the effects if electronic reading devices.

Sheila

[maryz]

thanks, Sheila -I checked the booktv web site - that program will be on at 4 p.m. ET today, followed by an interview with Pat Conroy. 

[Ella Gibbons]

The program, BOOK EXPO AMERICA, I think it was called, a panel discussion concerning ebooks and how they will affect the future, was just on my C-Span.  Scott Turow, the incoming president of Authors Guild, was on it, plus 4 or 5 representatives from booksellers, publishers and the like.  Most of them agreed it is an evolving strategy of getting readership and no one knows how it will play out in 5-10 years.  The whole thing - libraries, bookstores, warehousing, and on and on, jobs, librarians - all in a flux.

Turow, particularly, was very concerned about author's profits; certainly we want them to continue, otherwise we would not get the quality of books we have today.

Gosh, it's been a long while since I've read a Turow book.  I think I picked one up a year or so ago and it seemed too long to read or something.

  HAROLD, what did you end up getting?

It does seem a little silly to pay $500 for a gadget in order to pay just $9 for a book, hahahahaa!   Of course, that is not the idea.  

I think I would like one eventually because you can change the text to a larger print and maybe you can change the text to a bolder one?

There are books I will not read because the print is too fine.  Of course, it is an age thing; one I live with.  I will probably end up buying one in the near future.

Then there is GOOGLE who is doing something, I didn't understand it exactly, but the fellow said Google will be coming out with their own ebook reader in the future!

WOW, competition will help, don't you think?

[Babi]

 Oh, yeah, competition always helps, ELLA.   So, I think, does time.  You know,  things always
cost more when they are still a novelty and 'the latest thing'.

[HaroldArnold]

I have not made a decision on a book reader.  I have been reading several rather comprehensive reviews on the Apple I-pad and the Kindle DX an find both have their short comings.  For example with the I pad there is no way for the reader to highlight or otherwise note important excerpts of text for future reference.  Also Apple could have done much better in providing for user connectivity to other computer components.  One obvious inclusion would be one or more USB access plugs on the chassis.  As a book reader the I-Pad seems to have other short comings. It strong points seem centered on its use as a sofa toy for general web browsing, E-mail music and movies.

As a Book reader the Kindle DX might be the best, but it too certainly has its shortcomings .  To me the ability to highlight and make notes on important points is essential for both Dl’s and discussion Participants.  The DX appears to have this capability; however, the small screen keyboard would make extensive text inclusions tedious.  Another principal problem with this Kindle noted in the reviews is the absence of quick and easy navigation to another chapter or another page in the book.

So I am still looking but a decision to make a purchase is still at least several weeks away.

Read the Following Reviews:
I Pad: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/03/apple-ipad-review/  If this is not clickable copy this addres and past it in your browser to open.

Kindle Dx: http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/19/kindle-dx-review/  

 http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/2010/02/21/amazon-kindle-dx-review.html/  
If this is not clickable copy this address and past it in your browser to open.

And longer and more Comprehensive:  http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/19/kindle-dx-review/

[maryz]

I've been wanting to read Robert Caro's Master of the Senate, about LBJ's years in the US Senate.  I've always heard that it was also a great history of the institution of the Senate and the way it works.  It finally became available on Kindle, and I got it last week.  I've only gotten through the Introduction and am into Chapter One.  The history is fascinating!  But I'm not sure I'm going to be able to read this book.  

Does this man not have an editor???!!!?!?!  I've just come across this ONE sentence!!!!  Don't feel obligated to read the whole thing.

With the dawn of the new century, the public’s demand for an end to trusts and to the high protective tariff that was “the mother of trusts,” the tariff that robbed farmers and gouged consumers, and that had now been in place for almost fifty years - the demand, for legislation to ameliorate the injustices of the Industrial Revolution, that had begun to rise during the Gilded Age, only to be thwarted in part by the Senate - began to rise faster, fed by the books of Jacob Riis and Lincoln Steffens and Theodore Dreiser and a hundred other authors; by the new mass-circulation magazines, which, in the very first years of the twentieth century, educated America about the manipulations of Standard Oil and stirred its conscience to the horrors of sweatshops and child labor (in 1900, almost two million boys and girls were working, often alongside their mothers, all the daylight hours seven days a week in rooms in which there might not be a single window); and by the Populist and Grange movements, which gave farmers insight into the power that railroads and banks had over their lives, and into their helplessness against them.

A

[maryz]

Sorry, I meant to add this, but couldn't get it into the "reply" window.

This sentence isn't even the only one in the paragraph!  If this whole book is filled with these, there's no way I'll be able to wade through the convoluted prose.  @#$%#%@

[Babi]

 That's too bad, MARYZ.  It sounds like this could have been an interesting
book, with reasonable control.

[Frybabe]

George got after me long, long ago about my long sentences (never THAT long). He of the PhD in Reading Ed. told me that more than 15 words in a sentence and people start to lose track of what is being said. Seems a little low, but if you are writing for a high school level or below, maybe.

[Ella Gibbons]

That's ridiculous, MARYZ.  I agree, I couldn't sustain interest in a book that read like that.  I know LBJ was a powerhouse in the Senate.  There must be other biographies that, while not as good as Caro, would satisfy?

HAROLD, I never thought of highlighting on a Kindle.  I would need to do that in a book discussion.  Can you cut/paste possibly into another document that might hold your notes?  As you can see, I know nothing about them!!

[maryz]

Ella, the Kindle is not a computer - you don't have a cursor.  You can make a note that will record in another section, which you can change to, but not at the same time you have the text showing.  At least that's the case with the Kindle 2.  I don't know about the Kindle DX.

[JoanK]

MaryZ: Proust got away with sentances like that, but no one since should be able too. In graduate school, to earn some money, I once took a job with a German professor who couldn'tunderstand why no one was reading his papers. He thought I could make them "more American. His sentances were even longer and more conveluted than yours. My editing consisted mainly in breaking each sentance into 5 or 6 short ones. I kept telling him "one idea, one sentance, Dr. Muller"! but he never "got it".

[HaroldArnold]

Maryz & all- regarding Robert Caro's Master of the Senate, I also have a copy.  Though I have never read it in its entirety, I have used it many times as a research source mostly in connection with our book discussions.  I had never before realized that Robert Caro was prone to writing extremely long sentences like the one in the illustration.  True sentences that long are often incomprehensible.  However, for me when reading it, it’s use of colons and other punctuation marks seemed to break it up in understandable segments.  In any case I remember in college reading writings by John Mansard Keynes .  He seemed to use extremely long sentences in long paragraphs requiring great effort for an understanding.   

Also Maryz, the Kindle DX is in many ways a computer.  It and the Apple I-Pad constitute the first commercial offerings of a new type of computer termed “Tablet Computers.”  This new technology is being discussed at the All things Digital Conference currently in progress in San Francisco.  Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal included an entire section concerning the agenda of this conference.  It included the text of an interview with Steve Jobs on this tablet Computer’s “Past, Present, and Future.”  Steve Job argues that the convenience of the wireless hand held 10 inch screened wireless powered by its 10 hour battery made powerful by a multitude of free or cheap software products (Apps) will in time make the home desk top computer and even note book computers obsolete.   Walt Mossberg, the WSJ Technical editor in his March 31, column pretty much agreed that the current Apple I pad comes close to achieving this end.    Click the following for the Mossberg, March 31, 2010 article:
http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20100331/apple-ipad-review/

[Babi]

 One of the nice things about waiting for a year or two for the later models is that they've had time to work out the bugs and respond to customer complaints.

[mabel1015j]

Good Lord, Mary you're right "get that man an editor!" ..........when i worked for Dept of Army, in the early 90's they were training their officers in writing w/ clarity. The rule was 10 sentences to a paragraph and 15 words to a sentence. Maybe Caro should take that training..... ............. I do love to hear him talk about LBJ and his work on tv.  He is enthralled w/ his subject, which makes him interesting to listen to, but apparently is too much for his writing skills. .............. jean

[FlaJean]

Harold, the last of this month, Apple is going to add notes (using the keyboard which is very easy to use) and bookmarks to the iPad iBook app.