Kevin's Social Blog: 2025

Time: 6:10-6:50 p.m. (40 minutes)
Resting heart rate (wake-up): 54 bpm
Weight: 84.32 kg (185.90 lb)
Distance: 4.26 km (2.65 mi)
Cumulative distance (2025; ignores XT days): 8.53 km (5.30 mi)
Calories burned: 361 kcal
Average/Max heart rate: 118/134 bpm
Weather at start: 🌓 12° C (53.6° F), Humidity 94% Wind: 0km/h
Terrain: 0 ft elevation gain
Avg Pace: 15'00" /mile
Best pace: 15'00" /mile
Stinkiness air level (0=No smell; 10=☣️): 2/10 (somewhat stinky)
Comments: First maintenance run since last Thursday. Lower back feeling sore, so catching up on sleep & recovering. Feeling somewhat human again and lower back pain diminished, so ran 40 minutes on a treadmill in the local community gym. Felt slightly more sore afterward, but hopefully continuing to focus on recovery with lots of sleep in 2025 will let me continue running regularly.
Any irregular feelings, aches, pains, heart rate, and so forth?: Slightly sore back

Ordered by most recently listened to, first.

Audiobooks

Queued:

Conundrum (1974) - Jan Morris
Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974) - Angela Davis
Masha Gessen books
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2005) - Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters (2017) - Tom Nichols
24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985) - Roger Zelazny
Samurai William : the Englishman who opened Japan (2003) - Giles Milton
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)
The Pillars of the Earth (1989) - Ken Follett
Solar Express (2015) - L.E. Modesitt Jr. (suggested perhaps mistakenly as by David Weber)
The Creative Act: A Way of Being (2023) - Rick Rubin
Perfume books by Luca Turin
Connie: A Memoir (2024) - Connie Chung
Patriot: A Memoir (2024) - Alexei Navalny
Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America (2024) - Talia Lavin
The Covid Safety Handbook (2024) - Violet Blue

James: A Novel (2024) - Percival Everett

Using the Libby app (via Overdrive).

E-Books

Print

Suggestions

Barack Obama's reading list

Favorite Books of 2024:

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness (2024) - Jonathan Haidt
Intermezzo (2024) - Sally Rooney
Patriot (2024) - Alexei Navalny
Orbital (2024) - Samantha Harvey
The Anthropologists (2024) - Ayşegül Savaş
Stolen Pride (2024) - Arlie Russell Hochschild
In Ascension (2023) - Martin MacInnes
Growth (2024) - Daniel Susskind
Someone Like Us (2024) - Dinaw Mengestu
The Work of Art: How Something Comes From Nothing (2024) - Adam Moss

Summer 2024 reading list:

~~James: A Novel (2024) - Percival Everett~~
~~There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension (2024) - Hanif Abdurraqib~~
~~Everyone Who Is Gone Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis (2024) - Jonathan Blitzer~~
~~Reading Genesis (2024) - Marilynne Robinson~~
~~Headshot (2024) - Rita Bullwinkel~~
~~The God of the Woods (2024) - Liz Moore~~
~~Beautiful Days: Stories (2024) - Zach Williams~~
Martyr! (2024) - Kaveh Akbar
~~Memory Piece (2024) - Lisa Ko~~
The Ministry of Time (2024) - Kaliane Bradley
When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (2024) - John Ganz
~~Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It (2022) - Richard Reeves~~
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (2024) - Hampton Sides
Help Wanted (2024) - Adelle Waldman

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):

The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic (2013) - Emily Croy Barker
Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (2015) - Sam Quinones
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World (2018) - Anand Giridharadas

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 (2024), Previously (2023), Previously (2022), Note: No books list 2021, Previously (2020), Previously (2019), Previously (2018), Previously (2017)

Kevin's Social Blog

Monday, January 06, 2025

Running Journal - 2025-01-06

Thursday, January 02, 2025

Running Journal - 2025-01-02

Books List - 2025

Audiobooks

E-Books

Print

Suggestions

Previously

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Running Journal - 2025-01-01 (XT - Walking)

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