Kevin's Social Blog: January 2025

Ordered by most recently listened to, first.

Audiobooks

Queued:

Conundrum (1974) - Jan Morris
Angela Davis: An Autobiography (1974) - Angela Davis
Masha Gessen books
Svetlana Alexievich 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 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
The Portable Feminist Reader (2025) - Roxane Gay
A Memory Called Empire (2019) - Arkady Martine

Audition (2025) - Katie Kitamura
Secrets of the Purple Pearl (2025) - Kate McKinnon
Finding My Way: A Memoir (2025) - Malala Yousafzai
Sociopath: A Memoir (2024) - Patric Gagne
The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness (2013) - Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga; Narrated by Noah Galvin, Graeme Malcolm, and January LaVoy
Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up (2025) - Dave Barry
Antifa - The Anti-Fascist Handbook (2017) - Mark Bray, Narrated by Keith Szarabajka
Personal History (1997) - Katharine Graham, Narrated by Carrington MacDuffie
But Seriously (2017) - John McEnroe
D-Day Girls: The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II (2019) - Sarah Rose
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War (2013) - Stephen Kinzer
The Secret Time Machine and the Gherkin Switcheroo (2019) - Simone Lia, Narrated by Edward Mitchell
Heartbeats: A Memoir (2025) - Björn Borg
The Sirens' Call (2025) - Chris Hayes

We want recognition, but we get attention

Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (2025) - Dan Wang

Examines an engineer state
Scientists should be on tap--not on top
One-child policy, and the horrors arising from engineer-driven policies
Shrinking Chinese population and implications for its future

Connie: A Memoir (2024) - Connie Chung

Connie Chung's theory of "F**k You or F**k You Over Syndrome."
Enjoyed this book: written and produced carefully and entertainingly, as one might expect from such an accomplished journalist

Patriot: A Memoir (2024) - Alexei Navalny

Rick and Morty
Prison life
Grew up inside a military family, so moves effortlessly in and out of that world
Show trials
Aspirations of a Russian future free from tyrrany

Growth (2024) - Daniel Susskind

"The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means."- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

Ghosts Of The Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone (2017) - Richard Lloyd Parry

Documents how administrative officials covered-up and avoided accountability for the tsunami
Mother who continued searching with heavy equipment for her child

Not Dead Yet: The Memoir (2016) - Phil Collins

Repeats relationship mistakes with Jill Tavelman and Orianne Cevey (the latter he self-describes as "stalkery" 😬)
Lifelong friends with problematic Eric Clapton, and no disavowal of his extremist views 😬
Audiobook sound design only has his spoken voice--no music, no singing, nothing; real missed opportunity
Collins wealthy enough to tell his story; we do not hear the other sides
Self-absorbed, addictive personality, always prioritizing "the work" over connections to family--even at the end of the book, he still half-jokingly entertains the temptation of new projects, rather than prioritizing his family as #1 in his remaining years

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity (2022) - Peter Attia

Normal vs optimal
Protein important as age
Hippocratic Oath: Originally in 2 parts, more like "either help or do not harm the patient", rather than just the "do no harm" which was, according to Wikipedia, "...traced back to an attribution to Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689) in a book by Thomas Inman (1860), Foundation for a New Theory and Practice of Medicine"
apoB ", or Apolipoprotein B, is a protein that plays a crucial role in carrying cholesterol and other fats in the bloodstream. It is a component of lipoproteins, including LDL ("bad cholesterol")"
Lp(a) "lp little-a" is a lipoprotein particle that carries cholesterol
"Studies of Scandinavian twins have found that genes may be responsible for only about 20 to 30 percent of the overall variation in human lifespan. The catch is that the older you get, the more genes start to matter."
Rapamycin
Calorie count over diet, sleep
Activities of daily living (ADLs)
Rucking
Portable lactate meter

Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company (2025) - Patrick McGee, narrated by Fred Sanders

"This might be it! The Apple Messiah disguised as the head of the paint department at Orchard Supply Hardware" (attributed I believe to Michael Malone)
Tim Cook gym rat

All the White Spaces: A Novel (2022) - Ally Wilkes

First selection of The Sword and the Sandwich book club
Vivid imagery of the aurora australis, or the southern lights, reflecting and casting colors

The Covid Safety Handbook (2024) - Violet Blue
Sonny Boy: A Memoir (2024) - Al Pacino

Voice occasionally reminds me of..."Sam the Snowman" I think 🤔
Audiobook almost required to fully capture the experience of his memoir...what a voice
Ends the book mourning and grieving the loss of his childhood friends, and celebrating how normal and alive his adventures felt

Ready Player Two (2020) - Ernest Cline

Just like the first book, the cultural references remind me of a shared history I was at once a part of and also disconnected from, both in time and space, due to limited resources
Wil Wheaton narrates adroitly

The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen: A Novel (2025) - Yuta Takahashi

This was a sweet book

Burn Book: A Tech Love Story (2024) - Kara Swisher

She reminds me of cartoon character Slappy Squirrel
Enjoyed this book

Where the Jews Aren't: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Autonomous Region (2016) - Masha Gessen
The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary (2025) - Susannah Cahalan

"Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face" - Attributed to John Updike
Timothy Leary comes across as a quite unsympathetic character
This book mentioned in passing the number 108 and its significance in Dharmic religions

Battle of the Linguist Mages (2022) - Scotto Moore

108 power morphemes may relate to the significance of this number in Dharmic religions (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism)The Ministry of Time (2024) - Kaliane Bradley

The Millicent Quibb School of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science (2024) - Kate McKinnon

Audio engineering on this book - off the charts 💯
Kate McKinnon is an excellent narrator in this production

Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service (2025) - Michael Lewis
Martyr! (2024) - Kaveh Akbar

Liked this -- flashes of insight, flawed people
Twist seems a stretch, but why not
Good books let us experiences the lives of others

The Art of Power: My Story as America's First Woman Speaker of the House (2024) - Nancy Pelosi

Anecdotes of names from the past 25 years: Harry Reid, Barney Frank
Perfidy of the 2nd Bush administration re: Iraq war
Kind words for McCain in contrast to empty promises of House Republicans to vote for the Affordable Care Act (ACA)
Pelosi overhearing others talk in the cloak room about how she got them to vote for the ACA (e.g., religious arm twisting)
Getting vote commitments on paper before bringing legislation to the floor
Congressional staff know how to get things through (e.g., drafting the same bills in separate committees so all on the same page)

Help Wanted (2024) - Adelle Waldman

Characters all treated mostly sympathetically, showing good & bad
Shows pros and cons of retail businesses in the wake of Amazon eating the world

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America (2024) - Talia Lavin

Charis'ntma
Talia's voice reading Christian rap
Imagine: keeping a list of abusers and moving them around instead of firing 😓

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost ldealism - A Memoir (2025) - Sarah Wynn-Williams

The Myanmar story of her traveling there by herself is a real WTF moment 👀
Sheryl Sandberg's sexual harassment & predation on staff members

The Message (2024) - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Darryl Stingley - became a quadriplegic after a tackle in a game

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)

Jerry

Here and now story
On meeting women: Sing, nod, smile

Jerry (or was it Alan?), talking about the deadly car accident: Changed his outlook; why work for a tomorrow that might not come
Surreal, sleep-deprived (or...?) dreams: egg-beaters and trees
The imagery and imagination this book documents was a real treat to listen to 🌟
First public concert with Jerry & Robert, the subsequent breakup of their band
Detailed first-person description of what it was like to live in poverty before everything took off (give-and-take between Robert & Jerry and others, etc.)...just hanging out, killing time in coffee shops with Jerry & his omnipresent guitar

Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories (2023) - Mike Rothschild

Great book
Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) 2018 conspiracy comment about the Rothschild family starting the fire represents the meaning behind the title
Amazing how much foundation this book documents to reach the MTG 2018 comment 👀

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents (2015) - Lindsay C. Gibson, narrated by Marguerite Gavin

Focus on the outcome not the relationship
Externalizers vs internalizers
Sometimes I listen to a book and the narrator just does not resonate...oh well

How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future (2022) - Maria Ressa

Probably best book of the year

Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life (2018) - Beth Kempton

Kakeibo: The Japanese art of budgeting and saving money
"It was, therefore, a real pleasure to spend an afternoon with Mineyo Kanie, the ninety-four-year-old daughter of the late Gin-san, at her home in Nagoya. Gin-san and her twin sister Kin-san were known for being the world’s oldest identical twins, living to 108 and 107, respectively. Full of fun and vitality, they were frequently featured on television and became national celebrities in Japan. I wanted to know what Kanie-san had learned from her mother and aunt about living a good long life. I was also interested to hear the perspective of someone who, statistically, is very likely to live to a ripe old age herself. Kneeling on a flat cushion in her tatami-matted lounge, Kanie-san exudes a gentle calm. You get the sense that she has seen it all. When she was born, in this very house, there was nothing but rice fields as far as the eye could see. Now it is a residential neighbourhood in the bustling city of Nagoya. Over green tea and blueberry sweets, we chat about parenting and politics, society and friendship. We laugh a lot. Her cheeky giggle is infectious. At one point, Kanie-san looks wistfully off into the distance and says, ‘You know, getting old is fine, but it’s sad when hardly any of your friends are left.’"

Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking, and Right-Wing Conspiracy inside the Catholic Church (2024) - Gareth Gore

Leonard Leo - Lost dad to cancer at early age

Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics (2024) - Elle Reeve

Charles Martel Society
"The American criminal justice system, which came under so much intense and deserved scrutiny in the summer of 2020, is now what many are counting on to stop a slide into fascism. In professional wrestling, this is what's called a face turn."
"If you decide before you walk into a room that whoever's in there will like you, they will--and they'll be thrilled you have relieved them of the burden of having to decide whether to like you. It's like a little gift."
"[The] reality of political violence should not be secret. It's not like the movies. There is no dramatic lighting. You can die in sunshine." (referencing Heather Heyer)
"In the late 2000s, Pepe was lifted from a stoner comic strip and made into an icon on 4chan, an anonymous online forum that was the dark heart of the internet, until it got so dark it wasn't funny anymore. Pepe had an innocent smiling face, but 4chan users redrew him with sad, downcast eyes to represent their loserdom. Because the forum was anonymous, they were free to talk about being losers, and any joke was permitted. Some made ironic Nazi jokes, and making Nazi jokes was a itself a joke, a way to keep away outsiders. Over time, new people came to the site and interpreted those jokes as sincere, and eventually the group became the thing they'd once satirized, a herd of brainwashed swastika-posting sheep."
QAnon: "Two teams of forensic linguistics, one Swiss and one French, found that [South African 4chan moderator Paul] Furber was likely the first Q, and Ron Watkins was the second. Their analyses suggested Ron took over in early 2018. (Both Furber and Watkins deny they were Q.)"

The Witch of Maracoor (2023) - Gregory Maguire

To me, this trilogy underwhelmed
I wonder how much the narration played a part in my reaction (?)
Not convinced a 70-year-old Maguire convincingly gives voice to a young woman
Word choices seemed pretentious at times
Decisions seem arbitrarily taken to advance the plot; e.g., Rain leaving the broom & Grimmerie, or Iskinaary staying to raise children
It positively depict same-sex relationships, and has a trans (is that the right characterization?) character portrayed positively (Ozma/Tip/Tippa)
Anyway, it advances the plot and sets up the next books, so there is that

The Stupidest Angel (2004) - Christopher Moore

Had its moments, but mostly I am not the target audience

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s (2024) - John Ganz

Two enemies of demagogues: 1) Context; and 2) Memory
Louisiana: "Laissez les bons temps rouler" (Let the good times roll)
Ross Perot: "'We're not interested in detailed positions. Nobody implements them.' Instead Perot called for movement... 'Taking action in Washington is apparently an unnatural event but that's what people want. If they put me there that's what we'll do.'"

The Oracle of Maracoor (2022) - Gregory Maguire

I thought to myself Maguire was writing the character of The Oracle in a somewhat autobiographical vein, at least as far as the character's pronouncements about getting old
Moey and Asparine the harpies

Hell Yeah or No (2020) - Derek Sivers

This was ... forgettable?
Perhaps best viewed as a stimulant for reflection

The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (2024) - Hampton Sides

Cook Inlet - Cook hated the perceived failure in exploring this, yet it was later named in his honor
Captain James Cook seems like the inspiration for "James Tiberius Kirk, often known as Captain Kirk, a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise"
Star Trek catchphras, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", possibly inspired by Cook's journal entry "ambition leads me ... farther than any other man has been before me"
Iceblink: "Iceblink is a white light seen near the horizon, especially on the underside of low clouds, resulting from reflection of light off an ice field immediately beyond"
10 minutes: the entire incident of Cook's death took only this amount of time

The Brides of Maracoor (2021) - Gregory Maguire

Plot moving characters into position
Anti-climactic finale...feels like build-up to something to come in next 2 books (?)

James: A Novel (2024) - Percival Everett

End turns Jim/James into a badass in a whirlwind of plot

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988) - Douglas Adams

Using the Libby app (via Overdrive).

E-Books

Print

Queued:

Schismatrix (1985) - Bruce Sterling
True Names (1981) - Verner Vinge
Rainbows End (2006) - Verner Vinge
The Shockwave Rider (1975) - John Brunner
Software (1982) - Rudy Rucker
Wetware (1988) - Rudy Rucker
Eclipse Trilogy (also referred to as A Song Called Youth trilogy) - John Shirley

Eclipse (1985)
Eclipse Penumbra (1988)
Eclipse Corona (1990)

Neuromancer (1984) - William Gibson
Snow Crash (1992) - Neal Stephenson

Dark Apnea (2024) - Frank Conniff

Suggestions

Barack Obama's reading list

Summer 2025 reading list:

Mark Twain (2025) - Ron Chernow
King Of Ashes (2025) - S. A. Cosby
A Marriage At Sea (2025) - Sophie Elmhirst
Abundance (2025) - Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (2025) - Stephen Graham Jones
~~Who Is Government? (2025) - Michael Lewis~~
The Book Of Records (2025) - Madeleine Thien
Rosarita (2024) - Anita Desai
~~Audition (2025) - Katie Kitamura~~
~~The Sirens' Call (2025) - Chris Hayes~~

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

Tuesday, January 07, 2025

Running Journal - 2025-01-07

Monday, January 06, 2025

Running Journal - 2025-01-06

Thursday, January 02, 2025

Running Journal - 2025-01-02

Books List - 2025

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Previously

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

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

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