Tuesday, January 02, 2024

Books List - 2024

Ordered by most recently listened to, first.

Audiobooks 

  1. Queued:
    1. Conundrum (1974) - Jan Morris
    2. Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974) - Angela Davis
    3. Masha Gessen books
    4. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer  (2005) - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
    5. The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (2017) - Tom Nichols
    6. 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985) - Roger Zelazny
    7. Samurai William : the Englishman who opened Japan (2003) - Giles Milton
    8. The Silver Snarling Trumpet: The Birth of the Grateful Dead―The Lost Manuscript of Robert Hunter (2024) - by Robert Hunter (Author), Dennis McNally (Introduction), Brigid Meier (Afterword), John Mayer (Foreword)
    9. The Pillars of the Earth (1989) - Ken Follett
    10. Solar Express (2015) - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (suggested perhaps mistakenly as by David Weber)
    11. The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023) - Rick Rubin
    12. Perfume books by Luca Turin
    13. Connie: A Memoir (2024) - Connie Chung
    14. Patriot: A Memoir (2024) -  Alexei Navalny 
    15. Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America (2024) - Talia Lavin
  2. On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service (2024) - Anthony Fauci, M.D.
    1. "Importantly, to win over the skeptics, I learned that the cause for which you are advocating must be legitimate, worthy, and not motivated by self-interest; your arguments must be evidence based; and you must be truthful and consistent in your reasons for asking for resources."
    2. "Lighten up, Tony, things could be worse; we both could be picking cotton in Arkansas; trust me, I've done it." - Dr James Carroll Hill, from Manila, Arkansas
    3. Larry Kramer
    4. Martin (Marty) Delaney
    5. How to Survive a Plague (2012 documentary) - David France
    6. "It’s a good rule when you are walking into the West Wing of the White House to advise the president, vice president, or the White House staff to remind yourself that this might be the last time you will walk through that door. If you base your advice on the truth and on scientific evidence and do not sugarcoat anything, it is likely that sooner or later you will be telling the president or the vice president something they really don't want to hear, something that may point out a problem with how their administration is handling an issue. Sometimes when advisers do that, their opinion is no longer sought. It's a version of shooting the messenger. Some people might fall into the trap of never wanting to disappoint a powerful figure, and so they slant their advice toward pleasing rather than informing. Don't fall into that trap." I hope I would have arrived at the wisdom Jim imparted on my own, but he was explicit about it, and continued, "If you're consistent and totally honest, you might risk being being dropped as an adviser, but this approach with the right kind of president or vice president can also engender respect and a durable relationship." 
    7. "Daddy! Bono is here!" 🙂
    8. Debate with HIV deniers was not fruitful
  3. Dark Wire: The Incredible True Story of the Largest Sting Operation Ever (2024) - Joseph Cox
    1. Russia has institutionalized criminal behavior
    2. Gone are the days of organized crime--crime now crosses borders, etc. 
    3. Paraphrasing the police near the end: The drugs just keep coming
  4. What You Are Looking For Is in the Library ((Japanese: お探し物は図書室まで, romanized: O sagashi mono wa toshu shitsu made)) (2021) - Michiko Aoyama
    1.  “Singles are envious of those who are married, and married couples envy those with children, but people with children are envious of singles. It’s an endless merry-go-round. But isn’t that funny? That each person should be chasing the tail of the person in front of them, when no one is coming first or last. In other words, when it comes to happiness nothing is better or worse—there is no definitive state.”
    2. "I remember sitting in the passenger seat, looking at you and feeling devastated because I’d been fired, when in fact I hadn’t lost anything. I myself was no different from before. I’d simply left the company I worked for. That’s all. I still had the option to derive joy from my work and happiness from spending time with my loved ones. It all just depended on me, and what I did from then on. That’s when I realized that I wanted to work freelance in future."
  5. And Another Thing... (2009) - Douglas Adams (narrated by Simon Jones)
  6. Mostly Harmless (1992) - Douglas Adams (narrated by Martin Freeman)
  7. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (1984) - Douglas Adams (narrated by Martin Freeman)
  8. There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (2024) - Hanif Abdurraqib
    1. Listened to this in part while running Berkeley Half Marathon 2024
    2. Abdurraqib writes with eloquence
    3. Ball don't lie: "means that when a player misses a shot after a questionable foul call by a referee, it is essentially the basketball itself saying that the ref made a bad call, implying that the "truth" of the game is revealed through the missed shot"
    4. Make it, vs make it out of
    5. "Call me a fool and call me a cynic, but I love Otis because he approaches romance in the only way that makes sense to me: love as a feather that just hasn't found the wind to carry it away yet."
    6. Airplanes taking off above him - describing himself as a child sitting in the grass and feeling the takeoff shake the earth before the plane emerged over a nearby structure
  9. Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past (2024) - Steve Benen
  10. Beautiful Days: Stories (2024) - Zach Williams
    1. Mouse traps: string represents an attractive (to mice) alternative to cheese, as they gather it for their nests
    2. Breezy stories; there was one about a mother realizing her and her immortal child are in some forested prison and exist as cared-for, possibly-robotic prisoners, doomed to (at least her) eventually wear down 👀
  11. Reading Genesis (2024) - Marilynne Robinson
    1. For whatever reason, went into this book blind, and was surprised when the 2nd half turned into a straight-up reading of the book of Genesis (1st half is exegesis)
  12. The God of the Woods (2024) - Liz Moore
    1. Enjoyed this book
  13. Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It (2022) - Richard Reeves
    1. Twice as many female ancestors (e.g., 1 in 200 present-day people directly descended from
      Genghis Khan)...the author makes the point while discussing what to do when surplus men exist, and how it shapes male risk taking behavior. E.g., populations need women for reproduction, but not necessarily in 1-to-1 male/female ratio
    2. Hikikomori also known as severe social withdrawal (Japan)
  14. Life, the Universe and Everything (1982) - Douglas Adams (narrated by Martin Freeman)
  15. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (1980) - Douglas Adams (narrated by Martin Freeman)
    1. Gargravarr's narration almost impossible to understand while driving (too much bass/distortion)
    2. The "end" of the universe is the moment before it ceases to exist (i.e., in time)...not in distance (i.e., the "edge" of the universe)
  16. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) - Douglas Adams (narrated by Stephen Fry)
    1. Stephen Fry narrates excellently
  17. Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner (2006) - Dean Karnazes
    1. Him running through the night hours to fit in runs has influenced my attitude over scheduling runs
    2. The tampon gift "joke" to his friend has not aged well
  18. My Name Is Barbra (2023) - Barbra Streisand
    1. Tinnitus
    2. Favorite ice cream: McConnell's Ice Cream - Brazilian Coffee (discontinued)
    3. “My Name is Barbara,” the song that provides the book its title (albeit with a slightly different spelling), was written by Leonard Bernstein, and she took it up after discovering a book of sheet music of Bernstein’s compositions.  “Can you believe it? I was amazed that such a thing existed,” Streisand writes of finding the song. “Now that’s bashert,” she added, using the Yiddish word for “meant to be.” (via)
    4. Lucky number: 24 (birthday, etc.)
    5. Hates: orange color
    6. Experienced audience reacting to her showing restraint and barely holding emotion in check
    7. On her relationship with Sydney Chaplin (son of Charlie Chaplin): "Sydney was well traveled, worldly. He had played tennis with Greta Garbo and turned the sheet music pages while Albert Einstein played the violin."
    8. I think Streisand mentions Sodom (or Lot), which dovetailed into the previous book (The Horse, the Wheel, and Language)...Sodom was destroyed because of inhospitality, and the previous book mentioned the sacredness of the guest-host relationship
    9. Fear is the energy to do your best work
    10. The more you like yourself the more you are drawn to people like yourself
    11. Cary Grant advice: get a tan (less makeup prep needed) and wear silk underwear
    12. Dancing the shag (unclear which version)
    13. If you repress, you repeat
    14. The world mirrors how we see ourselves
    15. "We're all mad. You're mad, I'm mad. The only difference is I respect my madness." - one of Streisand's therapists, in response to her saying "Sometimes I feel like I'm going a bit mad."
    16. Gambling and trading stocks
    17. Aerosmith song "I don't want to miss a thing" was inspired by Streisand's husband James Brolin, who said he misses her when he slept
    18. Former-President Bill Clinton suggested book "The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)" by Don Miguel Ruiz
  19. The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World (2007) - David W. Anthony
    1. This book was very interesting but also very dry in parts; I skimmed over a lot of the details
    2. "Spanish and Portuguese show a difference of 15%. As a general rule, if 10% of the core vocabulary is different between two dialects, they are either mutually unintelligible or approaching that state, that is, they are distinct languages or emerging languages."
    3. Proto-Indo-European origin not likely east of the Urals because no vegetation suitable for honey bees there (PIE has word for honeybees)
    4. Finno-Ugric abbreviated to initialism "FU" as spoken by the narrator 😅
    5. Kurgan ("a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons, and horses") reminds me of The Kurgan (Clancy Brown) from the movie Highlander (1986)
    6. High-status community members
    7. Crisis point discussions in cultures reminded me of Isaac Asimov's Foundation (book series)
    8. Stele - how to pronounce singular vs. plural; the narrator says it two different ways
    9. Wooden structures preserved by burning
    10. Graves reveal findings about the person, even though their name was long forgotten
    11. Guest-host relationships: "For example, the oldest recorded Germanic cognates for the word guest (Gothic gasts, Old Norse gestr, Old High German gast) are thought to be derived from a reconstructed late Proto-Indo-European *ghos-ti- (which probably meant both "host" and "guest" and thus referred to a relationship of hospitality between strangers rather than to one of its roles) through a Proto-Germanic form reconstructed as *gastiz."
    12. Guest-host relationships are very old--pre-dating Homeric culture
  20. Headshot (2024) - Rita Bullwinkel
    1. This book zooms back and forth in time
    2. Breezy, but good
  21. Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis (2024) - Jonathan Blitzer
    1. Title refers to an experience during Juan's testimony, as he responds to a jury request to see his torture wounds--he imagines those who have died from the military persecution are now with him in the moment
  22. Memory Piece (2024) - Lisa Ko
    1. This book started a bit slow but drew me in ✅
  23. Leonardo da Vinci (2017) - Walter Isaacson
    1. Listened to this in 2019 (did not list any notes); listening again with Dawn
    2. Pricking artworks for transfer
    3. Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Cesare Borgia: "holed up together for three months during the Renaissance winter of 1502-1503 in the five blocks by eight blocks Italian walled garrison town of Imola."
    4. Luminescence via fine layers of oil paint
    5. Stage productions informed his mechanical works
  24. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (2002) - Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
    1. Perfect practice makes perfect
  25. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010) - Rebecca Skloot
  26. Arthur Ashe: A Life (2018) - Raymond Arsenault
    1. Bentley and Rolls Royce vehicles used to shuttle Wimbledon tennis players
    2. Ashe processing trauma & how that may have formed the basis of his cool demeanor
    3. Romanian tennis player Ilie Năstase, speaking to his friend Ashe about Ashe's first trip to apartheid South Africa: "Hey, Brown Sugar, don’t let them put you in jail, ok?"
    4. Jimmy Connors did not get along with Ashe (at least in Connors' early 20's)
    5. Meeting Nelson Mandela: "“Arthur is here?” he asked, with obvious surprise and delight.  “He’s right here,” David said, turning to me.  “Oh my brother,” Nelson said, looking straight at me. “Come here!”"
    6. Howard Thurman (1899-1981): "American author, philosopher, theologian, Christian mystic, educator, and civil rights leader"
    7. Influenced by book "The Seasons of a Man's Life: The Groundbreaking 10-Year Study That Was the Basis for Passages!" (1978) - Daniel J. Levinson
  27. The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2017) - Masha Gessen
    1. KGB statue preemptively removed in 1991 was hollow
    2.  "The Party" and no others
    3. Innate, positive qualities of Russians? "This open question elicited, on the basis of 2,957 surveys, three leading qualities: 'open', 'simple', and 'patient.' The ideal Russian, it seemed, was a person without qualities. It was clear to Gudkov that this was the blank mirror of the hostile and violent regimes under which Russians had long lived."
    4. "All of you, nothing spared--but how do you live without your self?" - Naum Korzhavin, "Tan'ka," in Vremya dano
    5. "...three of the NKVD brass took three thousand cases with them on a train journey, got drunk, and engaged in a speed challenge: Who could go through a stack of cases fastest, marking each with the letter P. They were not reading the cases. The letter P--pronounced r in Russian--stood for rasstrel, "execution."
    6. "Indeed, Yeltsin was proposing to dispense with all three of the 'energies' that Etkind has described as components of postcatastrophic recovery--knowledge, grief, and justice--and proceed directly to some imaginary future in which reckoning had been left behind."
    7. "...The Blue Flame, the New Year's Eve variety show that had been in existence for a generation."
    8. "Now Channel 1, which reached about 93 percent of Russian households, showed a film that sounded remarkably like the old show. Called Old Songs About the Most Important Things, it was billed as a musical."
  28. The Passion of Pussy Riot (2014) - Masha Gessen
  29. The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism (2023) - Tim Alberta
    1. Worship America
    2. Under seige 
  30. This Other Eden (2023) - Paul Harding (narration by Edoardo Ballerini)
  31. World Travel: An Irreverent Guide (2021) - Anthony Bourdain (with Laurie Woolever, posthumously published)
    1. Macau: pork chop bun
    2. Melbourne: brat
    3. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Going to therapy in Argentina is the norm
    4. Negroni: 1/3 Campari, 1/3 Gin (e.g., Bombay Sapphire), 1/3 Sweet Vermouth (e.g., Stock Sweet Vermouth Rosso (Italy)) video of Bourdain preparing the drink
    5. Atlanta: Clermont Lounge
    6. Los Angeles: hotel Chateau Marmont
    7. London: blood cake at St. John
    8. Trinidad and Tabago: Doubles
    9. Taiwan: Din Tai Fung
    10. Malaysia (Kuching): laksa for breakfast
    11. "So many of the good times traveling this world relate directly to finding a human face to associate with your destination, the food you eat, and the memories you’ll keep with you forever.  The best times are when its impossible to be cynical about anything.  When you find yourself letting go of the past, and your preconceptions, and feel yourself and your basic nature, the snarkiness and suspicion, the irony and doubt disappear, at least for a time.  When, for a few moments or a few hours, you change."
    12. Vietnam: "Do you smell that? Motor bike exhaust, fish sauce, incense, the faraway smell of ... something. Is that pork grilling over charcoal? Vietnam: It grabs you and doesn't let you go. Once you love it, you love it forever."
    13. "Om nom nomnivore" (word coined by Dawn as I shared anecdotes from the book)
  32. The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions (2023) - Jonathan Rosen
    1. Rosen experiences resonate
    2. Psychadelic etymology: Mind manifesting
    3. Thurgood Marshall cooked a great crab gumbo
    4. "A delusion is only a delusion if you don't think it's a delusion" - Frederick Frese
    5. "Read it? I haven't even taught it!"
  33. Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country (2023) - Patricia Evangelista
    1. Transitive vs. Intransitive descriptions of murder
  34. The Satanic Verses (1988) - Salman Rushdie
  35. All The Sinners Bleed: A Novel (2023) - S.A. Cosby
    1. Evil is rarely complicated. It's just fucking bold.
    2. Ain’t nothing to do in small towns except fighting, fucking, and drinking
    3. Even the finest sword plunged into saltwater will eventually rust
    4. Use a workingman's tools for toys
    5. This book was pretty great
  36. What Have We Here? Portraits of a Life (2024) - Billy Dee Williams
    1. Honestly appreciated his efforts to narrate, but the pauses detracted from the material (page turns?)
    2. The name drops of people he knew and associated with
    3. Audiobook gold: him pronouncing Lando Calrissian and "chandelier"
    4. He practices Transcendental Meditation (unclear
  37. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store (2023) - James McBride
    1. Return them to their milk
    2. Has some pretty good lines
    3. Started a bit slow (to me), but picked up my interest as it went
  38. Knife (2024) - Salman Rushdie
    1. Hearing it read by the author made it more powerful
    2. Precise way of writing
  39. A Runner's High: My Life in Motion (2021) - Dean Karnazes
    1. Kardo nickname
    2. Silk Road Ultra Marathon - stories from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan
    3. Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run
    4. Sage Summit aid station (Bishop High Sierra 100K):
      1. Ice in Yeti coolers: cap, scoop in each pocket, water bottles
      2. Piña Colada cocktail: icy cold, Captain Morgan rum, wedge of pineapple, & maraschino cherry (they had a blender powered by solar panels) 😅
  40. King: A Life (2023) - Jonathan Eig  
    1. Coretta Scott King's given name comes from her paternal grandmother Cora McLaughlin Scott and an aunt named Etta
    2. Authorship issues
    3. "Great men ... have not been boasters and buffoons," wrote Emerson, "but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned themselves to face it."
    4. "Now Yoki told her mother that she hoped her father would stay in jail 'until he fixes it so I can go to Funtown.'"
    5. "Later, King would joke privately that he had been fortunate: 'That was probably the fifth stabbing they had that night at that hospital,' he said. 'If you're gonna get stabbed, get stabbed in Harlem.'"
    6. Most underrated speech: "The Other America"
    7. The first major biography of King in 40 years
    8. Style:
      1. Shoes: Stacy Adams
      2. Cologne: Aramis
  41. The Covenant of Water (2023) - Abraham Verghese
    1. Ending a bit too tidy
    2. Good book overall though!
  42. The MANIAC - Benjamin Labatut
    1. "...[H]uman beings are not the perfect poker players that we envisioned. They can be highly irrational, driven and swayed by their emotions, subject to all kinds of contradictions. And while this sparks off the ungovernable chaos that we see all around us, it is also a mercy, a strange angel that protects us from the mad dreams of reason."
    2. Klári Dán von Neumann's perversity: "There is no middle point with these great men, at least that is my experience, they are either morbidly lustful or completely cut off from their genitals, and my husband, who really had to excel at everything, was perhaps the most disgusting in his relationship with women. It's no surprise that most of them found him unsettling, he had some sort of fetish, because he would fixate on any pair of legs that walked by him, and even had the appalling habit of peeking underneath the desks of the secretaries at the institute. Some of those poor women had to stick pieces of cardboard there, just so that this great man, this Übermensch, would stop staring up their skirts. I despaired, I really did, but at the time I thought, "Well, Klari, this is the price you pay for exceptionality," and I convinced myself that it was so. I had such a poor image of myself, especially at first. I had almost no formal studies or practical skills, so I was at his mercy. It took a while for things to change, and they did...."
    3. Eugene Wigner, on why von Neumann chose to travel into flee Nazi Germany: "He was so close, he said, so close to the foundations of mathematics that he could feel a tingle in his brain!"
    4. Richard Feynman:
      1. On the game of Go: "Go has a strange charm. It takes over your mind, you start to play it in your dreams. It's always running in the back of your head, whatever else you are doing. The best player at Los Alamos was Oppenheimer, but I got pretty good, pretty quick. Couldn't beat him, though. I later read that when they dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima, two famous Japanese grandmasters—Hashimoto Utaro, the national champion, and Iwamoto Kaoru, the challenger—were in the third day of a Go tournament, about three miles away from ground zero. The building they were playing in was almost completely destroyed, lots of people were injured, and yet these two guys, these Go masters, came back that very same day, after lunch, and continued to play on till the evening, while women and children were being pulled out from underneath the rubble and the entire city was ablaze. That's the Japanese for you. And that's how mesmerizing Go can be. It requires a particular type of intelligence and it's really intractable to computation, you have to feel your way around the board. It's spellbinding and unsettling, you cannot simply calculate what the next best move should be."
      2. On soldiers seeing shadows of bones during the bomb flash: "During the first instant of the thermonuclear reaction, a brilliant flash of light issued forth from ground zero, the same light that I had looked upon at Trinity. Battle-hardened soldiers who had fought and bled in World War II dropped to their knees and prayed. They sensed that something unspeakably wrong was occurring when they saw their bones appear as shadows through their living flesh. Even those inside were almost blinded by streams of light that shone through the smallest cracks and pinholes in secured doors and hatches."
    5. Julian Bigelow, on what Nils Aall Barricelli thought of Von Neumann: "Spoke of Johnny with undisguised contempt. He squats like a gluttonous spider on the web that ties all military and government interests. One of his milder insults."
    6. Klára Dán, on Von Neumann's appearance on NBC program Youth Wants to Know (partially available on YouTube, accessed 2024-05-06): 
      1. "That ridiculous little TV program is the only extant record, the only film of him that exists. How can that be? A genius lowered to the status of a bumbling tour guide."
      2. "It fills me with nostalgia, because in it you can hear so many of his mispronunciations (qwvickly, qwvestion, twvaining, or—his trademark—integhers), mistakes that were so common in his speech that I came to believe that he made them on purpose, since he was always perfectly articulate in all the other languages he spoke."
    7. Klára Dán, on von Neumann breaking her prized ceramic elephant in a drunken rage: "I opened the door and I saw him there, covered in sweat and shivering with frustration, standing among the remains of my favorite ceramic elephant, the one I had lovingly placed on his desk so that he would be reminded of me when he worked, now smashed to pieces against the wall. I was almost blinded by rage; that particular keepsake had been a gift from my father, and I treasured it above all the others in my collection, but when I tried to confront him, he very gently pushed me backward into the hall, shut the door in my face, locked it, and made his way back to his desk, to continue working on whatever he was doing, crushing the remains of my elephant under the soles of his patent leather shoes."
  43. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin (2012) - Masha Gessen 
    1. “Faced with a brass band that was positioned to drown out free speech, Russian activists reacted to the potential confrontation with lemons. With activists eating lemons or pretending to, involuntary saliva reaction of the band made it impossible for them to interrupt.” 
    2. USSR broke apart along ethnic lines
    3. "Informals" (or part of the informal movement)
    4. "As a description of the decision-making process for appointing the head of the main security agency of a nuclear power, this conversation sounds so absurd, I am actually inclined to believe it."
    5. Describes Putin as rash, angry
    6. Doted on by parents
  44. Surviving Autocracy (2020) - Masha Gessen
    1. Institutions will not save you
    2. Styrofoam cake: Inaugural cake was exact copy of Obama Inaugural cake, except it was mostly Styrofoam and by different baker
    3. Kakistocracy: government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state
    4. "blunt instrument of reassuring ignorance": "Contrary to popular wisdom, they were not political savants, possessed of one extraordinary talent that brought them to power. It was, rather, the blunt instrument of reassuring ignorance that propelled their rise in a frighteningly complex world."
    5. How to talk about extreme when it is common
    6. Recorded in back of rental car during COVID
    7. Let America be America Again: Poem by Langston Hughes
    8. Narrowed circle of us
    9. Liberty is a living flame to be fed
    10. Unimaginable: “The thing is, if something is unimaginable, then anything that happens in the present, which is by definition imaginable, is not like it,” Gessen says. “And I think that’s the crazy mental trick that we’ve played on ourselves.”
    11. Moshe Halbertal: "A moral life demands overcoming the natural human tendency to self-privilege."
  45. A Confederate General from Big Sur (1965) - Richard Brautigan, read by Jim Meskimen
    1. I...think he is joking about Big Sur joining the Confederacy (?)
    2. "Ha-ha fire" reminded me of Beavis and Butt-Head
    3. The sun broke like a beer bottle on the water
    4.  Amazing alligator noises by the narrator Mr. Meskimen 💯 😅
  46. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (2017) - David Grann, read by Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, and Danny Campbell 
    1. “This land is saturated with blood"...Then she repeated what God told Cain after he killed Abel; "The blood cries out from the ground."
    2. Third part details other killings which extends the time period before & after
  47. Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine (2024) -  Uché Blackstock MD
    1. Software which still provides poorer outcomes for Black patients based on discredited science🤬
  48. Novelist as a Vocation (2022) - Haruki Murakami
  49. Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (2022) - Susan Cain
    1. Heart is overflowing
    2. Vagus nerve
    3. Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care
    4. Saturn: melancholy (etymology: Greek, "Black bile")
    5.  Melancholic (loyalty, personal power) vs anger (reward or punish) leadership style
    6. Dead people goals (only dead are stress free)
    7. Effortless perfection: Duck syndrome (Stanford; as in ducks gliding effortlessly on the water), Penn face (UPenn), etc.
    8. May you be free... (saying)
    9. You can wish everyone love 
    10. Yearning: place you suffer is the place you care
    11. Sharing art
    12. Sublimation
    13. Individuation
    14. Jacques Brel music
    15. Memento mori
    16. But even so
    17. How many good years left?
    18. Be well kid: her dad's final words too her 
  50. How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing (2022) - KC Davis
    1. I am allowed to be human
    2. Shame is the enemy of functioning
    3. Drop the plastic balls
    4. Tier 1: standards, not racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic,ableist,  refrain from abusing it exploiting others, and always act with honesty and integrity
    5. 9 square: do the most good with least energy
    6. Timed cleaning
    7. Care tasks during wait times
    8. Create momentum (e.g., via music)
    9. Task initiation problems (vs. motivation, which is the desire to want something)
    10. 5 minutes was too big a goal, so what about less?
    11. Baskets: Put them everywhere stuff already is
    12. Can be organized & messy
    13. Organized (having places and system for getting them there) vs. Tidy (how quickly this happens) 
    14. Being unwell does not mean you don't deserve kindness
    15. Bullying oneself with yourself stepping in... Compassionate observer self voice (e.g., as you might with an animal)
    16. Bypass the executive barriers
    17. Find a functional reason to clean the floor (e.g., didn't like bits on feet), vs. making it a moral issue
    18. Three Layers: basic safety, comfort, happiness
    19. Home care for you: focus on function
    20. It's OK friend: throw the things away
    21. 5 things tidying method (last one: things that do not have a place)...helps to have multiple quick finish lines
    22. Getting unstuck: coffee vs candles
    23. White knuckling sobriety--not sustainable
    24. "It would be such a kindness to future me" (to do this thing now)
    25. Care tasks are morally neutral
    26. Slow quiet gentle
    27. You don't exist to serve your space
    28. PTSD around housekeeping?
    29. Why is skinny important?
  51. Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence (2024) - Yaroslav Trofimov
    1. "They were both called Vova—shorthand for Volodymyr. “Like Zelensky?” I asked. “Like Zelensky and Putin, the two Vovas that got us into this crazy war,” the older Vova replied."
    2. Ukranian national anthem: 
      1. Our enemies will vanish,
      2. Like dew at sunrise, 
      3. And we, oh brothers, will become the masters once again
      4. Of our own land.
    3. An amateur pianist who spoke in short sentences peppered with curses, Kozhemiako admitted that he had little tolerance for the regular army’s ways. “We have a joke that the Russians will never understand the corporate governance of our army because we ourselves don’t understand it,” he said. “My business is built in a Western way. The company is smaller, and decisions are made quickly by one man.”
  52. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder (2023) - David Grann
    1. Scurvy
    2. Various nautical terms: under the weather, three sheets to the wind, etc. 
    3. Re: John Duck, the free Black seaman who had gone ashore with Morris’s abandoned party, later captured and sold into slavery and who never got his story told: "Empires preserve their power with the stories that they tell, but just as critical are the stories they don’t—the dark silences they impose, the pages they tear out."
    4. The sister-ship Centurion:
      1. "After the Centurion was decommissioned and broken apart, in 1769, its sixteen-foot wooden lion's head was given to the Duke of Richmond, who had it placed on a pedestal at a local inn with a plaque that read: 
        1. Stay, traveller, awhile, and view 
        2. One who has travelled more than you: 
        3. Quite round the globe, through each degree, 
        4. Anson and I have ploughed the sea
      2. Later, at the King's request, the lion's head was moved to Greenwich Hospital, in London, and placed in front of a ward for seamen, which was named for Anson. But over the next hundred years the artifact's significance faded, and it was eventually dumped in a shed, where it decayed into pieces."
      3. Illustration:

  53. How To Say Babylon: A Memoir (2023) - Safiya Sinclair
    1. Burned Monique's note to ash while reading The Tyger by William Blake
    2. Childhood memory of burning sugarcane and the ash falling
    3. Fatherly advice: Polite but right; don't be a weak-heart; be a lionheart
    4. Jamaican patwah:
      1. "The I", and the "I-man"
      2. My "glad bag buss" (my "glad bag burst")
    5. Lie, A man's invention
    6. "The artist life": outcomes of Sinclair's father vs David Lynch (both similarly self-absorbed, to me)
    7. The memory of her father's actions still crumbles Sinclair to nothing
    8. Pants, fixing her tooth
    9. "Now I wore it like old clothing"
    10. Sylvia Plath
    11. Always write in the margins
    12. She sprinkles lovely imagery throughout the book
  54. Being Henry: The Fonz ... and Beyond (2023) - Henry Winkler
    1. Winkler reminds me of a sweet spirited person
  55. Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Change Your Sex Life (2021) - Emily Nagoski
    1. Responsive desire
    2. Main idea: illustrate how the idea of all the same parts organized in different ways extends far beyond our anatomy to every aspect of human sexual response - this might be the most important thing to learn about your sexuality
    3. Accelerators & brakes (Foot brake consequences, hand brake failure)
    4. Reduce stress, be affectionate towards your body, and let go of the false ideas of how sex is supposed to work
    5. Context is 2 things: 1) the circumstances of your present moment (e.g., who you're with); and 2) Your brain state
    6. Emotional one ring: liking, wanting, learning
    7. Non-concordance – your body is not reacting the way your brain is. Your brain is not experiencing desire, yet your body is experiencing sexual arousal
    8. Self indulgence 
    9. Co-narrator Nicholas Boulton does a variety of wonderful voices 🎖️
    10. Anxious & avoidant attachment styles
    11. Gardens
    12. Mindfulness: practicing it one of the most important takeaways author hopes readers take from the book
    13. Spectatoring
  56. Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology (2023) - Chris Miller
    1. "Ming's Chinese Restaurant was a staple of the Silicon Valley lunch circuit...for its famous Chinese chicken salad"
    2. Intel: name comes from Integrated Electronics
    3. Book provides context for electronics development
    4. Fairchild logo building Hong Kong
    5. Sony: name comes from Sonos sound
    6. Etymology of the term "chip": "Multiple transistors could be built into a single slab of silicon or germanium. Kilby called his invention an "integrated circuit," but it became known colloquially as a "chip", because each integrated circuit was made from a piece of silicon "chipped" off a circular silicon wafer."
  57. Making It So: A Memoir (2023) - Patrick Stewart
    1. Vivien Leigh's perfume: Joy by Jean Patou (Still has the gold handkerchief; the perfume is no longer produced)
    2. Secret to cure hiccups: stare and say words "You are cured" or such (in part--still secret part)
  58. The Vaster Wilds (2023) - Lauren Groff
    1. Naming things is power
    2. This was a nice follow-up to Black AF History, re: European settlers and their early failures
  59. Poverty, By America (2023) - Matthew Desmond
    1. Tips (gratuity)--Desmond remarks on the history in America, which is explained in part from Wikipedia: Some have argued that "The original workers that were not paid anything by their employers were newly freed slaves" and that "This whole concept of not paying them anything and letting them live on tips carried over from slavery."
  60. Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America (2023) - Michael Harriot
    1. That's the Way of the World (1975) song
    2. Everything sounds better with a horn section
    3. "This book is the sleeves" (re: story about childhood stolen puffy coat)
    4. African etymology: Goobers (possibly Bantu: “n-guba,” which means peanut), tote bag ("West Africa, perhaps a variant of 'tota' – to pick up – in Kikongo or 'tuta' – to carry in Swahili")
    5. Whites use more drugs than blacks
    6. Whiteness is fear
    7. Seasoning jokes
    8. Chicken Bog recipe vs. Chicken Perloo Recipe
    9. Very strong close
  61. Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope (2023) - Sarah Bakewell
    1. War is sweet to those not acquainted with it. - Erasmus
    2. Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. - Robert Green Ingersoll
    3. Bertrand Russell almost died in a seaplane accident, surviving in part because he was in the smoking section
    4. Pathology of dead atoms
    5. Albert Einstein's oft-quoted aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter, dated 19 March 1940, to Morris Raphael Cohen, a professor emeritus at CCNY, supporting Russell's appointment."  Russell eventually lost his case.
    6. Learned Albert C. Barnes (chemist, founder of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia) funded philosopher Bertrand Russell after he was left stranded and penniless in America. Russell's lectures to the Barnes Foundation led to his book A History of Western Philosophy 💜
  62. All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) (2017) - Martha Wells
    1. This was a breezy short listen with a clever plot
    2. Antisocial murderbot
  63. Sure, I'll Join Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere (2023) - Maria Bamford
    1. "As a young comedian in Minnesota, Bamford got turned on to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way by another then-unknown comic, Frank Conniff (Mystery Science Theater 3000)"
    2. "... [F]ight negative thoughts like "I am a hosebeast made of hoses and beast...." -- I have not heard this word since the 1990's 😅
    3. "I'm a hog-pig. I hog-pig everything."
  64. American Gods (2011 tenth anniversary edition, which includes the "author's preferred text" and 12,000 additional words) - Neil Gaiman
    1. Midwest travels
    2. Audiobook has full cast and I found it an excellent listen
Using the Libby app (via Overdrive).

E-Books

  1.  

    Print

    1. Marathon: You Can Do It! (2001) - Jeff Galloway
      1. Training for San Francisco Marathon 2024
    2. Galloway's Book on Running: 3rd Edition (2021) - Jeff Galloway
    3. How To Write Cheesy Movies: The Only Screenwriting Guide You'll Never Need! (2017) - Frank Conniff
    4. Cats V. Conniff: A chronicle of the historic lawsuit brought against Frank Conniff by his cats, Millie & Barney by Frank Conniff (2017) - Frank Conniff
      1. I hear Frank's voice while reading his written words 
    5. Dumb Dumb Dumb: My Mother's Book Reviews (2022) - Mary Jo Pehl
      1. This was an honest, kind memoir
      2. Cheesecake
      3. Her mother's 10/10 review at the end hit me in the feels
    6. Let's Make Ramen! A Comic Book Cookbook (2019) - Hugh Amano and Sarah Becan
    7. Shubeik Lubeik (2023) - Deena Mohamed

    Suggestions

    • Barack Obama's reading list
      • Summer 2024 reading list:
      • 2023 Favorites, end-of-year:
        • The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store - James McBride
        • The Maniac - Benjamin Labatut
        • Poverty, By America - Matthew Desmond
        • How To Say Babylon - Safiya Sinclair
        • The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder - David Grann
        • Chip War - Chris Miller
        • The Vaster Wilds - Lauren Groff
        • Humanly Possible - Sarah Bakewell
        • King: A Life - Jonathan Eig
        • The Covenant Of Water - Abraham Verghese
        • The Best Minds - Jonathan Rosen
        • All The Sinners Bleed: A Novel - S.A. Cosby
        • The Kingdom, The Power, And The Glory - Tim Alberta
        • Some People Need Killing - Patricia Evangelista
        • This Other Eden - Paul Harding
      • Summer 2023 reading list:
        • Small Mercies: A Detective Mystery - Dennis Lehane
        • Hello Beautiful: A Novel - Ann Napolitano
        • Birnam Wood: A Novel - Eleanor Cotton
        • What Napoleon Could Not Do: A Novel - DK Nnuro
        • Blue Hour: A Novel - Tiffany Clarke Harrison
      • Dec 2019 (via):
        • The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power () - Shoshana Zuboff
        • The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company () - William Dalrymple (note: ebook only)
        • Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee () - Casey Cep
        • Girl, Woman, Other () - Bernardine Evaristo
        • The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present () - David Treuer
        • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy () - Jenny Odell
        • Lost Children Archive () - Valeria Luiselli
        • Lot: Stories () - Bryan Washington
        • Normal People () - Sally Rooney
        • The Orphan Master's Son () - Adam Johnson
        • The Yellow House () - Sarah M. Broom (note: ebook only)
        • Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland () - Patrick Radden Keefe b;
        • Solitary () - Albert Woodfox (note: ebook only)
        • The Topeka School () - Ben Lerner
        • Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion () - Jia Tolentino
        • Trust Exercise () - Susan Choi
        • We Live in Water: Stories () - Jess Walter
        • A Different Way to Win: Dan Rooney's Story from the Super Bowl to the Rooney Rule () - Jim Rooney (note: not on Overdrive yet; published Nov 2019)
        • The Sixth Man () - Andre Iguodala
      • Aug 2019 (via):
        • Toni Morrison: Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, Sula, everything else
        • The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
        • Exhalation by Ted Chiang
        • Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel­
        • Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women
        • American Spy by Lauren Wilkinson
        • The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
        • Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
        • Inland by Téa Obreht
        • How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mengestu
        • Maid by Stephanie Land
      • Dec 2018:
        • Becoming by Michelle Obama (Overdrive)
        • An American Marriage by Tayari Jones (Overdrive)
        • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Overdrive)
        • The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die by Keith Payne (Overdrive)
        • Educated by Tara Westover (Overdrive)
        • Factfulness by Hans Rosling
          • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
        • Futureface: A Family Mystery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belonging by Alex Wagner (Overdrive)
        • A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
          • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
        • A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul (Overdrive: Recommended 01/01/2019)
        • How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt (Overdrive)
        • In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History by Mitch Landrieu (Overdrive)
        • Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (Overdrive)
        • The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti
          • Note: recommended 01/01/2019 (Northern California Public Library)
        • The Return by Hisham Matar
          • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
        • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (read)
        • Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (Overdrive)
        • Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen
          • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
        • The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes (Overdrive)
        • American Prison by Shane Bauer  (Overdrive)
        • Arthur Ashe: A Life by Raymond Arsenault (Overdrive)
        • Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday  (Overdrive)
        • Feel Free by Zadie Smith  (Overdrive)
        • Florida by Lauren Groff  (Overdrive)
        • Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight (Overdrive)
        • Immigrant, Montana by Amitava Kumar (Overdrive)
        • The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson (Overdrive)
        • Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark  (Overdrive)
        • There There by Tommy Orange  (Overdrive)
        • Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (Overdrive)
    • Josh Marshall 2018 Holiday recommendations:
      • Eric H. Cline: Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World. Nicholas Ostler
        • 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (Turning Points in Ancient History)
        • Only History of Ancient Greece available
      • Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek
        • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
      • Barry Cunliffe: By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia
        • Nothing as of 01/01/2019
      • Felipe Fernandez-Armesto: Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration
        • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
      • David Anthony: The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World
        • Recommended 12/31/2018
      • Roger Crowley: Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World
        • City of Fortune and Conquerers recommendable as audiobooks
      • David Abulafia: The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean
        • Nothing as of 07/18/2018
      • James Romm: Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire
        • ebook only (Overdrive) as of 07/18/2018
      • Peter Heather: 
        • The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians
        • Empires and Barbarians: The Fall of Rome and the Birth of Europe
        • The Restoration of Rome: Barbarian Popes and Imperial Pretenders
        • Note: ebook only; audiobook not recommendable (Overdrive) as of 07/18/2018
      • Hugh Thomas: Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico
        • Nothing available as of 07/18/2018
      • Lionel Casson: Libraries in the Ancient World
        • Unavailable in any format (Overdrive)
        • Life in Ancient Rome recommendable as Audiobook (Overdrive)
    • Josh Marshall 1066 Norman Conquest Discussion:
      • Short History of the Normans (2016) - Leonie V. Hicks
      • The Norman Conquest: The Battle of Hastings and the Fall of Anglo-Saxon England (2013) - Marc Morris
      • The Norman Conquest: England after William the Conqueror (Critical Issues in World and International History) (2007) - Hugh M. Thomas
      • Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise, 400 to 1070 (2011) - Robin Fleming
      • William, King and Conqueror (2013) - Mark Hagger
      • Conquest and Colonisation: The Normans in Britain, 1066-1100 (1994) - Brian Golding
      • The Normans in Europe (2000) - Elisabeth van Houts
      • William the Conqueror (The English Monarchs Series) (2016) - David Bates
    • 2018-01-08: David Finkel's The Good Soldiers (via)
      • Note: ebook only (Overdrive)
    • Mike Liebhold (via):
      • Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah 
      • Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of God 
      • Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East
    • UCSC LIT 61U - Introduction to SF (online class):
      • The Left Hand of Darkness, Book I of the Lilith's Brood Trilogy (1969) - Ursula K. Le Guin
      • Dawn (1987) - Octavia E. Butler (note: not on Overdrive)
      • Childhood's End (1953) - Arthur C. Clarke (note: not on Overdrive)
      • "The Cold Equations" (1954) - Tom Godwin (note: not on Overdrive)
      • Sail On! Sail On! (1952) - Philip José Farmer (note: not on Overdrive)
    •  John Cole (via):
    • Bookshop Santa Cruz - Winter 2023 reading list:
      • North Woods: A Novel - Daniel Mason 
      • Signal Fires: A Novel - Dani Shapiro
      • Swimming Back to Trout River: A Novel - Linda Rui Feng
      • Elder Race - Adrian Tchaikovsky
      • More Than You'll Ever Know - Katie Gutierrez
      • The Sun Is a Compass: My 4,000-Mile Journey into the Alaskan Wilds - Caroline Van Hemert 
      • The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession - Michael Finkel 
      • Poet Warrior: A Memoir - Joy Harjo
    • Ask A Manager 2023 recommendations (she bolded her favorites of the favorites):
      • How Lucky - Will Leitch
      • Ms. Demeanor - Elinor Lipman
      • Mouth to Mouth - Antoine Wilson
      • L.A. Weather - María Amparo Escandón
      • Lolly Willowes - Sylvia Townsend Warner
      • Silver Sparrow - Tayari Jones
      • A Quiet Life - Ethan Joella
      • None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive - Carolyn Prusa
      • Happy All the Time - Laurie Colwin
      • All Together Now - Matthew Norman
      • Vintage Contemporaries - Dan Kois
      • The Sweet Spot - Amy Poeppel
      • Sam - Allegra Goodman
      • Small Admissions - Amy Poeppel
      • The Helpline - Katherine Collette
      • Pineapple Street - Jenny Jackson
      • Romantic Comedy - Curtis Sittenfeld
      • Limelight - Amy Poeppel
      • Liars and Saints - Maile Meloy
      • Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers - Jesse Q. Sutanto
      • Yellowface - R.F. Kuang
      • Bad Summer People - Emma Rosenblum
      • Games and Rituals - Katherine Heiny
      • Every Heart a Doorway - Seanan McGuire
      • By the Book - Jasmine Guillory
      • Barbara Isn’t Dying - Alina Bronsky
      • My Last Innocent Year - Daisy Alpert Florin
      • The Guest - Emma Cline
      • The Truth and Other Hidden Things - Lea Geller
      • The Innocents - Francesca Segal
      • The Appeal - Janice Hallett
      • Sunshine Nails - Mai Nguyen
      • Heartburn - Nora Ephron
      • Maame - Jessica George
      • The Connellys of County Down - Tracey Lange
      • Tom Lake - Ann Patchett
      • You Can’t Stay Here Forever - Katherine Lin
      • Fifth Avenue Glamour Girl - Renee Rosen
      • The Whispers - Ashley Audrain
      • An Available Man - Hilma Wolitzer
      • Daughters-in-Law - Joanna Trollope
      • Flight - Lynn Steger Strong
      • High Maintenance - Jennifer Belle
      • Mrs. Caliban - Rachel Ingalls
      • Hello Beautiful - Ann Napolitano
      • A Family Daughter - Maile Meloy
      • Family Happiness - Laurie Colwin
      • The Man I Never Met - Elle Cook
    • Bill Gates 2023 reading list:
      • The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human - Siddhartha Mukherjee
      • Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet - Hannah Ritchie
      • Invention and Innovation: A Brief History of Hype and Failure - Vaclav Smil

    Previously


    Previously (2023), Previously (2022), Note: No books list 2021, Previously (2020), Previously (2019), Previously (2018), Previously (2017)
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