Non-Fiction

[JeanneP]

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

Jonathan.

I learned speed reading more than 20 years ago? It did help both in my work and reading for pleasure. Got through a book fast and retained what I read.
Now as I have aged I find it not so good. Trying to break it because I find I don't retain. I have to go back sentences some times pages . Find myself skipping lines.I  want to slow down. Rather read less books now.

[ginny]

Jonathan, (how are you feeling? Better, I hope), no, it's a 2014 resolution.  I need to have it read by the 16th of January, tho.

Anyway, no,  but I am on page 100 which is a major accomplishment with that book. Once you get past page 40 or so it evens out nicely and becomes less dense. I'm enjoying it and learning a lot. I'm reading it before sleep at night and in the morning, hoping I can remember it that way.

I have to admit that audio books make my mind wander, especially when driving. It's not the best solution for me, but I was kind of desperate.

I don't recommend speed reading to anybody. I read too fast as it is, and, like Jeanne, retain nothing. The only time I use a  speed reading technique (the finger moving rapidly  down the middle of the page one) is when I'm looking for a specific word  in a hurry.

[marjifay]

I like the Woody Allen quote: 

"I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes.  It involves Russia."

Marj

[Jonathan]

I wonder if the people over in the Defense Deptartment could learn something from Woody Allen's experience. Perhaps wars needn't be dragged out for years on end. Perhaps there is something to be said for the blitzkrieg.

Resolved. Achieved.  I should have known, Ginny, that you were out of the gate before the gun. Congratulations. Your book sounds like those that come with a very erudite introduction, but become easier reads after that.

Yes, I'm feeling much better. I like to think the expereince has left me smarter. I walked out of the apple market carrying a bushel of apples to my car and heaved it into the trunk at which time I felt a small, dull pain in my spine. Every muscle in my chest got into a great tither about that and wouldn't calm down without a lot of painkillers and rest. Terrible suffering. No snow shovelling I was told by my doctor. I consulted three others before I found one who said: do what you like, trusting, no doubt, in my intelligence to do the right thing. Some experience. I hope I never forget it. Speaking of retention.

We've had a glittering holiday season here in Toronto. It seemed all the stars in heaven had fallen down and now dazzled us hanging there in the trees. Of course it was a heavy, freezing rain that covered the trees with ice and stayed there for a week. Absolutely dazzling - for a week - catching the moonlight at night and the sun during the day. And a wonderful snowfall as well. Snow has never looked lovelier, just laying there.

[BarbStAubrey]

Sounds glorious Jonathan - like a living poem - I'm back home - not as warm as I hoped but in another day it will be back up in the mid 60s which I prefer - While I was gone all the leaves blew off the China Berry and the Hackberry in back and the Elm in front - have a rogue post oak in my patio planter that really needs to be cut out of there but I will miss the prettiest maroon leaves that are still holding and are a real brown now.

The Jasmin, Magnolia and all the Live Oak trees are green and will stay green till Spring. Everyone is out walking or running or riding their bike - I love it - lots of folks to smile at or say hey as they passby.

Before I wind myself into any reading program this year I am determined to inventory - I finally figured out how to do some of it without hand writing everything - I plan on organizing into groups of like authors or like subject matter and take a photo so that I can read the title and author that I will store in a folder on my computer - I have DVDs and CDs and art supplies and needlework supplies, china, pots and pans I seldom use and and and that I want to organize, inventory - decide if I am going to keep it - photo what I keep and know where everything is located so I do not do any more of this duplicate buying that has been the bane of my existence for the last couple of years.

[kidsal]

I use Collectorz.com
Can enter all books using ISBN.  Have software for books, movies, music.

[nlhome]

Well, I requested books and got them all at once:  Blue Highways, This Town and the Poisoners Handbook. Of the 3, the Poisoner's Handbook seems the most readable.

[JeanneP]

nLHome.  Do you have anyone in mind? Never heard of "the poisoners Handbook.

[nlhome]

Oh Jeanne, you made me laugh out loud!

No, all is right with my world.

The Poisoner's Handbook is by Deborah Blum - on the cover it says "Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York." I believe a PBS program was based on this book, because my husband watched something with that title. I haven't read far enough to get engrossed, but it opens explaining how back at the beginning of the 1900's people could get away with poisoning others because there was no way of identifying many of the poisons in the body. So this tracks the development of the forensic science relating to poisons.

It's a very readable book.

[JeanneP]

NLhome.  So, your husband is safe. He read the book and you haven't . I think I will skip it . Not much can't be found in a system now.  We just have to watch what we buy and eat from the grocery store . Takes a few people dying before the FOOD AND DRUG catch it.

[Tomereader1]

I watched the TV version of the Poisoner's Handbook, and it was very, very interesting.  Showed how one guy, with some helpers, discovered how to determine if someone died of a particular poison, or did not die of poison, but other causes.  A lot of the foodstuffs and products in the early years  were poisonous.  Several cases were closed due to his discoveries. 

[mabel1015j]

I'm reading Freedom's Daughters by Lynne Olsen about women activists in Civil Rights. It's very well written, and a very easy read. Very interesting. Although i know all of the names she's mentioned so far, she has many interesting details i haven't know.

[marjifay]

I have not read Lynne Olson's Freedom's Daughters, but will add to my TBR list.

I really liked Olson's Troublesome Young Men;The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power.  It's a fascinating account of the daring politicians who challenged the disastrous policies of Neville Chamberlain's government on the eve of World War II.  One of the best of the troublesome young men was Ronald Courtland, younger brother of Barbara Courtland, the wealthy author of romance novels, who used some of her money to help Ronald become a member of parliament.

Marj

[JoanK]

I think I've found the "Poster book" (my word) for making an interesting subject boring -- "Brave Genius" by Sean Caroll. It's about two Nobel Prize winners, Camus and a chemist who fought in the French resistance when young. The thesis is that genius exists in every generation, but it takes extraordinary situations to bring it out.

I've gotten to the part discussing their work in the French resistance. The author describes in detail who came to every meeting they went to (although not what was done there) and all the organizations and who had what position in them. But glosses over their actual adventures in a few words. I felt like I was back working for the government.

I'm sure it is an important historical record, and a fitting tribute to these brave people, who were risking their lives, even just by going to a meeting. But it certainly doesn't make interesting reading for the casual reader. Sometimes the aims of scholarship and of writing are different. 

[Frybabe]

I just ran across and downloaded a couple of books by Felix Dahn. He was an historian, but I think several of his works are fiction. He was popular in his day. His works were influential in the formation of German national socialism, and we all know where that led. His books are part, I think, of the struggle of the German people form an identity and history of their own. Some elements of his writing appear, from a brief comment I read, to have put forth the notion of racial purity via an admonition against mixed marriages. I have been curious about the migrations and struggles of people during the late Roman Empire and early Dark Ages, the collapse of Rome's (government) influence, the rise of feudalism and city/states, and early Catholic Church influence. It is a period, before the crusades, that I know little about, except for some reading I've done of early Popes and Italy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dahn

[BarbStAubrey]

Frybabe a book that will be very helpful to that period is The Cambridge Historical Germany by Kitchens - goes into how the early kings of essentially tribes that soon had large land areas, kept themselves in power till finally, in order to win over the people from the lackadaisical sons of Cloves, who when he was Baptized with all his people and who was the first sole king of the Franks after defeating the last Roman governor of Gaul, Charles Martel, son of Pepin III got Pope Zacharias to be the first Pope to anoint a King - this was the most powerful way they could get rid of the Merovingians, sons of Clovis. The Merovingian kings believed they had magical powers in their veins that could make crops grow by walking across fields and interpret bird-songs and the calls of wild beasts. Powerful magic needed a powerful counter attack - thus the Pope.

This cemented kings being subject to and dependent on the Church in Rome. As history continues there is a constant which is the Germanization of the Catholic Church. There is a book I have intended to purchase with just that title. However, to learn how the downfall of Rome was picked up with the elevation of the Church it is more valuable to read about the Peoples not included in the Gallo-Roman history but rather read the history of the Vandals, Visigoths, Franks, Alemanni's, Goths on to the Carolingians till you hit Charlemagne when the whole kit and kabudle of Europe was the Holy Roman Empire with the Pope as its head equal to, if not superior to Charles the Great.  

[Frybabe]

Thanks Barb. I'll look into it.

[Frybabe]

Three books I am adding to my reading list:

The Girls from Atomic City by Denise Kiernan
The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, the Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation by Harold Schechter
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Has anyone read The Girls from Atomic City?

[maryz]

I've read The Girls from Atomic City.  It's a good book, and an interesting look at Oak Ridge, TN, from a woman's perspective.  Oak Ridge is still an interesting city, and the whole development was fascinating.  It might lead you to read more about the area and the time.  

Sorry, I guess I assume everybody knows that Oak Ridge was originally a secret facility built by the government in the early 1940s to develop the atomic bomb.  I'm sure there is lots of information out there to google and read.

[Frybabe]

I'd heard of Oak Ridge, but not much. Found out that it is near Knoxville when I checked a map in conjunction with reading Blue Highways. And Knoxville, I discovered it real easy to get to. All I have to do if follow Interstate 81 the whole way down and then a short run on the highway it ends at.

PS: I am also learning interesting things about the history of The Oak Ridge Boys, who also have a connection to the facility. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oak_Ridge_Boys

[ANNIE]

I hadn't heard of this title but I will be reading it.  I've been through Oak Ridge while traveling but didn't stop at the museum.

I do remember my family being a B&B for  friends of my parents.  He and his family were on their way to Oak Ridge to a new job but he couldn't talk about the job.

I remember hearing of the Oak Ridge Boys but know nothing about them.  Will take a look at your link, Frybabe.

[ANNIE]

My gosh, I now know more than I needed to know about the Oak Ridge Boys.  What an interesting history they have had.

[maryz]

And if you get to Knoxville (and Oak Ridge), come on down south on I-75 and stop in to see us in Chattanooga.  It's only two more hours.

[mabel1015j]

Because she got bogged down in it a friend loaned me Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home, a history of the civil rights activities in Alabama. So i've started it. It is 700+ pgs in the smallest print i've ever seen. But the 70 pgs i've read have been interesting. I am skimming some of it. She started with her ancestors, some of whom where in the KKK.

It won a Pulitzer and is very scholarly. I told my friend it may take me a long time to get thru it and she said to keep it as long as i wanted even if it's a year or two, i told her it might be! 

Jean

[JoanK]

Read an interesting book: "The End of Night: Searching for natural Darkness in an Age of Artificial Light" by Paul Bogard.

He talks about something that has really bothered me: the fact that you cant see the night sky anymore. 80% of people born now will never see the milky way. Here near LA, I'm lucky if I can see three stars on a clear night.

Like all books, some parts are more interesting than others, but the best of it is fascinating. he gives all kinds of reasons why this matters -- I know it matters to me.

It seems it would be impossible to reverse this trend, but some simple things could slow it, like putting hoods on streetlights and banning searchlight advertising. This would also save tons of energy that is just being wasted.

Some parks are now having "dark sky" tours, for people who  have never seen a dark sky.

[ANNIE]

JoanK, my library doesn't carry this title, where might I find it?  When was it published?

I know we could drive out to the ocean for more darkness in Torrance but you had to also get to a place on Palos Verde Drive where there was no light.  There is a chapel on that road, further along and I think there might not be any lights after midnight.  But that was back in 1989?  That was 25 yrs ago so we were much younger then!   .  I will search for that chapel's address.  You and your son might like to drive out there just to see the place.  It is quite a beautiful place. Bye for now!

[maryz]

The husband of my cousin in Tucson is an astronomer, and is very interested in problems with light pollution. I haven't talked to him in a while, but I know there are folks working on it.

[ANNIE]

Oh, call him Maryz, maybe he knows some things that we don't know about.
Like JoanK's mention of the parks in Torrance offering "dark sky" tours.

Joank,  I am leaving a link to that chapel that I mentioned on Palos Verdes Dr.  Give's its address and phone number.  You could call them about "dark sky" tours and ask if their parking lot is open at night for star watchers.  Even if you and your son go in the daytime, you'll love the grounds and the chapel.  

http://www.wayfarerschapel.org[/b]

Did I mention that Loyd Wright, Frank's son, designed  the chapel??

[maryz]

AdoAnnie, We haven't had much contact with them over the years - I just remember this.  He did work with the Kitt Peak Observatory in Tucson.  But I googled dark skies, and got this link...

http://www.darksky.org/ 

[mabel1015j]

I become aware of how there are lights everywhere these days even on roads with houses or businesses only intermittenly when my daughter talks of driving somewhere "that is SO dark on those roads." I forget that she has grown up in only lighted areas. She's 42, we live in suburban Philadelphia.

The first time was when our son was coaching a college football game at Colgate in northern NY. We drove there, she coming after work, so in the dark. She and her husband, who grew up in suburban Newark, NJ where you never see stars, were effusive about how DARK the roads were. Last week she was in Columbia, SC and drove to western SC to visit relatives and again talked about "roads with NO lights."

I grew up in rural Pa and have always loved a clear, dark night when so many stars are visible.

[ANNIE]

MaryZI love that site and have bookmarked it for later viewing.

Mabel
I grew up in Indianapolis,IN.  I remember watching the Northern Lights from my grandparent's back yard.  And seeing stars,too.
 
My granddaughter, 36, graduated from Colgate.  I seem to remember seeing stars from that campus when we attended a senior art evening.  Tiny campus, out in the middle of nowhere.  Its in a tiny little town, too.  Not many street lights.

We are glad to have a Wesleyan campus telescope up in Delaware, OH, where you can watch the stars from their unlighted hilly lawn.  People go there frequently to get a look through the telescope but the professor, who's in charge up there, told us that we could see just as much using a good pair of binoculars.  

Watching the pleides starbursts one night from a couuntry road, I was amazed how easy it is around here(in Gahanna,OH country) to see the stars.

We spent a week on Fripp Island, SC,in 2004,  Seeing the stars there is a wonderful experience, especially from my SIL's deck which is the top of her garage.  She is very close to the Atlantic. If you are too close to the water there, the waves coming in raise a watery myst that blurs more than the stars.
  
Another place we watched the stars (in March of '96) was from an island off the N/W coast of Florida, just south of Apalachacola.  St Georges Island had almost no lighting at night at that time.  Was just private beach homes then and very few of them.  Now that there are big hotels on the island, that has probably changed.

[JoanK]

ANNIE: thank you so much for that link: I had heard of the chapel, but didn't know where it was. I didn't mean to confuse you: the "Dark Sky" tours aren't in Torrance, just various parks around the country.

[ANNIE]

Have you clicked on MaryZ's link?? An eye opener for sure.  Its nice to see that many people are trying to prevent so much light around the world.

I hope you get out to see the chapel, JoanK.  We took people to see that place many times.  Once while seated in the back of the chapel, we saw one of our party climb up to the pulpit.  Then, he spread out his arms, as if he was giving a sermon. And his wife could be heard claiming, "I always thought Dan should have become a minister!  He looks perfect up there!"  Needless to say, he took a lot of good natured ribbing for her remarks.  But, I knew she meant that he looked like his father who was a minister.
At the time we were out there, I don't remember seeing what they are showing on the website.  Looks like, down the road aways, that there is a building you can go to and find out is the chapel is open for a wedding on a certain date.  Well, its been 25 years! 

[JoanK]

I've saved the Dark Sky link, and hope to look into both it and the chapel. you seniornetters are the greatest!

[marjifay]

I just read about a book I want to read when it is published this month.  SELECTED LETTERS OF ELIA KAZAN (who directed the films East of Eden, A Streetcar Named Desire, et al.)   What caught my attention was one of the letters which was an apology to his wife for having a short affair with Marilyn Monroe.  He writes of Marilyn's  crying as she tells him, after Joe DiMaggio's death, of how DiMaggio often hit her and several times beat her up.  There's a lot more about other subjects and I doubt I'll read them all, but this surprised me.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying, WILSON, by A. Scott Bert (the new excellent biography of President Woodrow Wilson.)

Marj

[Frybabe]

Found an interesting title on Project Gutenberg. It is an 1869 book, published 30 years after the last of the serialized episodes of Oliver Twist was published. Called the Seven Curses of London and written by James Greenwood, it lists seven parts: Neglected Children, Professional Thieves, Professional Beggars, Fallen Women, The Curse of Drunkenness, Betting Gamblers, and Waste of Charity.

I went to the end of the book, and the very last chapter, called The Best Remedy, begins with this sentence. "All other remedies considered, we come back to that which is cheapest, most lasting, and in every way the best—emigration."

By the time this book was written the "Clearances" had been going on for at least a 100 years to rid the countryside (primarily Ireland and Scotland) of people to make way for agricultural and industrial improvements. It was in effect class warfare because it was carried out primarily by the rich landowners against their poor tenant farmers. It was also used to rid the country of criminals and those perceived as inferior (primarily those of Celtic background).

James Greenwood was a social journalist who was known as the first (or one of the first) investigative journalists. He is mostly unknown today. http://thevictorianist.blogspot.com/2010/10/james-greenwood-1832-1929.html  The previous site is mostly about his social writing, the next has more biographical background. http://spartacus-educational.com/PHgreenwood.htm 

[mabel1015j]

I read Mark Kurlansky's "Salt" several years ago and probably mentioned it at the time, but our library book group is discussing it, so i'm skimming it again. I find it quite interesting.
I didn't finish his "Cod" book however, i found it not nearly as interesting as "Salt". I also liked his Dancing in the Streets about the song and the civil rights movement, and I liked his book "1968".
He talks about how important salt has been in many developments throughout history. From the intro.........

 "The search for salt has challenged engineers for millennia and created some of the most bizarre, along with some of the most ingenious, machines. A number of the greatest public works ever conceived were motivated by the need to move salt. Salt has been in the forefront of the development of both chemistry and geology. Trade routes that have  remained major thoroughfares were established, alliances built, empires secured, and revolutions provoked - all for something that fills the ocean, bubbles up from springs, forms crusts in lake beds, and thickly veins a large part of the earth's rock fairly close to the surface......almost no place on earth is without salt......for all of history until the 20th century, salt was desperately searched for, traded for, and fought for. For millennia, salt represented wealth.....it was taxed...and often used for money."

Jean

[marjifay]

I've heard of the book, Salt, but never read it.  But you made it sound so interesting I've added it to my TBR list.  Thanks.

From Amazon, I see that he wrote a book about the Basque people, THE BASQUE HISTORY OF THE WORLD; THE STORY OF A NATION, which looks interesting. Kurlansky, the author, says "They are Europe's oldest nation without ever having been a country. No one has ever been able to determine their origins, and even the Basques' language, Euskera—the most ancient in Europe—is related to none other on earth. For centuries, their influence has been felt in nearly every realm, from religion to sports to commerce "    Some Basque people must have immigrated to California because Bakersfield, CA has a couple of Basque restaurants I've always meant to try.

Marj

[marjifay]

A favorite book of mine is FROM THE LAND OF GREEN GHOSTS; A BURMESE ODYSSEY by Pascal Khoo Thwe (304 pp, 2002).  I loved this autobiography of a remarkable young man who lived in the mountains of Burma among the Padaung people (their women, called "giraffe women." had necks elongated by rings), his wonderful childhood, later a jungle fighter under the regime of the dictator, General U Ne Win, and his accidental meeting with a Cambridge don who enabled him to attend Cambridge University.  

(I had posted this in another section when someone mentioned Burma, and AdoAnnie asked me to post it here because it sounded interesting.)

Marj

[mabel1015j]

Interestingly, some of the people in the Salt book discussion thought it was very or somewhat interesting, some thought it was tedious and repetitive.  As we said in the 60s, different strokes for different folks. And isn't that just great.