The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova

 

The Biggest Bluff:  How I learned to pay attention, master myself, and win by Maria Konnikova seemed like a good poker book and now that I am in a weekly game, I figured I should pick up some more books on poker.

Started: 8/26/2020

Completed: 8/29/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By:  The New York Times

Review:

This is not a poker primer.  It does offer something of an insight into what it takes to be a professional poker player.  I am confirmed in my belief that I would go waaay too far if I ever decided to pursue poker seriously--I am far better off not playing or just playing in meaningless games.

It is interesting, however, to hear a little of how Konnikova decided to apply some of her poker experience to her real life and how playing helped her understand herself better.  She is much too young for this to be some sort of autobiography--we learn little about her, so it is not an autobiography.  It is not really a memoir.  It is about a budding poker player and her very personal experience to becoming a professional.  That is enough for one book.

A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

 

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin is a book I have read several times and I enjoy the Earthsea Cycle.

Started: 8/24/2020

Completed: 8/26/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

I come back to this cycle without having read it for 20 or so years.  I often cite it as my favorite set of books, but it has been long enough without Ged and I think it is good to spend time with him once more.

The audio version by Harlan Ellison is just amazing.

The Overstory, Richard Powers

 

The Overstory by Richard Powers is a book that just has wonderful reviews.

Started: 8/18/2020

Completed: 8/24/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

breakfast pap -- porridge or oatmeal, South African

Review:

Gotta love any book that references Flatland or The Lord of the Rings, but this has both!  I read Galatea 2.0 before I started keeping this blog, so I had a sense for Powers' prose.  I should have guessed that his bent would lead towards environmentalism, but, for some reason, I thought this would be a science fiction type of book.  It is not.

This book leaves enough for the future that it seems as though a sequel is intended.  On the other hand, it is reasonable that the author would leave this story partly told.  Powers does a good job of weaving together a bunch of people, making them all individuals, and making it clear who is doing the thinking when.  The book is a tapestry of ideas with a wide range of perspectives on what is broadly the same problem.  There is definitely a bias, but that is to be expected from someone who likes to tell a story, not just document lives or occasions.  This was a good read and well worth the time.

Scythe, Neal Shusterman

Scythe by Neal Shusterman is the first book of the Arc of a Scythe series.  I saw this in the library book store and it looked interesting to me.  I checked a quick review on the phone and decided to pick it up.  This is a young adult novel and I have no idea why I keep picking up young adult fiction these days.

Started: 7/25/2020

Completed: 8/24/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I enjoyed this novel.  It is a coming of age story, but there is plenty else.  There is young romance and old romance and enough overlap to be interesting.  I like the way the dystopia plays out and the idea that everyone is effectively immortal so some people have to do selective killing in order to prevent over population is tenable.  I think it will be worth reading the whole series.

The Wave in the Mind, Ursula K. Le Guin

 

The Wave in the Mind:  Talks and essays on the writer, the reader, and the imagination by Ursula K. Le Guin is a book I picked up as soon as I heard about it, but well after the author's death.

Started: 8/15/2020

Completed: 8/18/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By:  Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

didactic -- intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an alternative motive (in its used in this book, it appears that there was no moral instruction intended--the lesson was about the nature of poetry's mechanics in contrast to prose)

Review:

This was not the book I was expecting, but I am glad to have read it.  I have experienced the pacing of a novel, but I have not thought about it until reading this book.  I know that writers agonize over word choice, sentence structure, etc.  I have not had a coherent explanation for why this causes writers so much pause.  Is it critical to say, "onward" or "forward?"  Maybe it might be an issue with the patois of a given speaker or the environment in which something is said (a cowboy on the trail in the midwest might reasonably say "onward," but an English lord in India might be more inclined to say "forward"), but beyond that it has mystified me.  Le Guin explains that "onward" is likely not stressed in either syllable, or stressed in both ("onward" or "ONWARD").   "Forward," however is stressed in one or the other "FORward" or "forWARD."    In the former, it is usually elongated "FOOOORward."  This kind of stressing effects the pacing of the sentence.  That is part of the agony.  Part of the effort to bring forward a cohesive whole.

Beautiful Swimmers, William Warner

Beautiful Swimmers:  Watermen, crabs, and the Chesapeake Bay by William W. Warner is a book recommended to me by my father.

Started: 8/12/2020

Completed: 8/15/2020

Recommendation: Mild Recommendation

Recommended By: My Father

Review:

I am quite sure that this book is out of date.  It was updated in 1993.  As an environmentalist, it is worth hearing how people make a living in the Bay.  As a vegetarian, it is not as appetizing as it is to a carnivore.

My parents had a house on Tillman Island for a while and got to know some of the people who did this kind of living--I was only an occasional visitor.  It sounds like a brutal and difficult life to live.  There is frequent talk of the "freedom" of fishing, but I don't see it.  Like watching "The Most Dangerous Catch," it is interesting to get a sense of this occupation.  Also like watching that show, it is amazing how difficult a life it is and how hard it is for me to imagine myself in their stead.  Like any job that requires hard labor, one wonders how retirement is possible and how living on the knife edge of a single mistake must be trying.

The book does not discuss health care for the watermen, but I imagine that there is little or none.  Here are people who risk life and limb on a regular basis for a small return and have no safety net.  This book, which I think was intended to be uplifting, made me sad to think of the people on the Bay who are just scraping by with real risks all around them.  It is good that most enjoy their work. 

The Cycle of the Gift, Hughes, Massenzio, and Whitaker

The Cycle of the Gift:  Family Wealth and Wisdom by James E. Hughes Jr., Susan E. Massenzio, and Keith Whitaker is a book I saw on Mahogany books as highly recommended and I thought I'd give it a chance.

Started: 7/28/2020

Completed: 8/14/2020

Recommendation: Not Recommended

Recommended By: Mahogany Books

Review:

I was not fond of this book.  It was timely in that we started working on our will not long after I started the book, but it seemed mostly common sense to me.  Of course, one man's common sense is another man's wisdom, but I find it hard to believe that people need to be told most of this stuff.  I was unaware that a philanthropic trust could be created for as little as $10,000 and that surprised me.  The idea of linking grandchildren and grandparents using such a trust was a cool idea and I will remember it.  Otherwise, I got precious little from the book.

The Impostors, Steve Benen

The Impostors: How Republicans quit governing and seized American politics by Steve Benen is a book that was reviewed in Washington Monthly.

Started: 8/10/2020

Completed: 8/12/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: The Washington Monthly

Review:

I watched Democrats repeatedly try to negotiate with Republicans and have the negotiations go nowhere.  It seemed like Democrats would make concessions to Republicans and then Republicans would vote against the bill anyway.  This book documents exactly how that happens.  The Republicans were not negotiating in good faith.  They were simply trying to undermine as much as possible legislation that they could not stop.  I had come to the conclusion that it was pointless to negotiate with Republicans and that Democrats just needed to do the right thing and pass the best legislation that they could craft.  This book goes to great lengths to explain why that is the right course of action.  It also explains one of my favorite phrases, "facts have a liberal bias."  Republicans simply do not care about the facts and build a fantasy version of the world against which they can rail.

It should be noted that this is a very left book.  There is no effort to curb adjectives or offer anything seemingly like "both sides."  That is fine, this is a book that is intent on describing how the Republican party has abandoned governing.  As such it demonstrates that point.  All the sources are strong left, because the book appeals to a left audience who finds those sources appealing.  Is this THE definitive book on Republicans in the Trump era, no.  It is, however, a collection of very strong arguments and a coherent narrative and that is refreshing.

The Ringworld Throne, Larry Niven

The Ringworld Throne by Larry Niven is a book in the Ringworld Series.

Started: 8/4/2020

Completed: 8/10/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

neoteny -- the retention of juvenile features in the adult animal

Review:

I read Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers around 30 years ago.  It turns out that my memory of the books was not as strong as I thought.  It took me a little while to adjust to the terms and some of the assumptions that the book makes.  It still really expands my imagination and I remember feeling like there was something new around every turn.

Niven has a vivid imagination and his concept of the Ringworld is fantastic.  It is interesting and fun to experience his concept.

Enemy of All Mankind, Steven Johnson

Enemy of All Mankind:  A true story of piracy, power, and history's first global manhunt by Steven Johnson seemed like an excellent read from a review in the Washington Post.

Started: 8/2/2020

Completed: 8/4/2020

Recommendation:  Recommended

Recommended By: The Washington Post

Review:

If you do not know a lot about a particular pirate, it pays to describe what you do know.  Henry Avery was the first pirate subject to an international manhunt back in the 1600s.  Very little is known about him, although there is some first hand knowledge from letters he wrote and court testimony.  He was the second pirate to have a huge score, but he was by far the most famous.  This story literally covers the globe and offers interesting tidbits like that the East India Company was the first publicly held stock.  This was a really interesting story, but bear with it because the beginning seems hardly connected.  It turns out all the ground had to be covered and by intermixing the early events with each other, there are no long runs of seemingly irrelevant material.

Too Much and Never Enough, Mary L. Trump

Too Much and Never Enough:  How my family created the world's most dangerous man by Mary L. Trump is the inside story of the Republican president.

Started: 7/18/2020

Completed: 8/2/2020

Recommendation: Highly Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is less about Donald Trump and more about Fred Trump, Donald's father.  Mary Trump is definitely a slighted member of the Trump family, but it is hard to believe that this book is simply an effort of spite.  She makes the strong case that Trump is both victim to and driven by his ego.  He is described as less than smart and this is bolstered by his striking series of failures.  Mary Trump argues that Donald has "failed up" throughout his entire life.

The best insight came at the end when Mary Trump pointed out that Donald has no imagination.  This explains a lot and it explains a lot about many of the Republicans in his orbit.

Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen

Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong by James W. Loewen had a title I could not resist.

Started: 7/23/2020

Completed: 8/2/2020

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a sort of expose of the American history textbook, but also a broader swipe at the way that Social Studies are taught.  Many of the details, from the treatment of slaves to the behavior of Christopher Columbus are well known to me now that I am learning from historians and not text books.  It is shocking, however, to realize how many things that simply are myths or outright lies permeate the historical text book.  This book is not unlike the critical look that Feynman took of science text books.  He too found distortions, misrepresentations, and confusing depictions in the texts.

It seems likely that a part of the problem, in my opinion, is that actual members of the profession do not review the texts in general.  I can see where this could lead to nitpicking or support for a particular theory that does not have sufficient proof to be guiding or sufficient disproof to be dismissed.  It should, however, remove outright lies.

One of the things that my high school history professor did was to hold trials in the classroom that mimicked real trials.  In one of these, I was assigned Alfred Jodl who was a member of the German high command during WWII.  I remember researching the evidence from the Nuremburg trials (the high school had volume after volume of this material covering probably 20 or 30 feet of shelving) and discovering that Jodl did not sign his own orders--they were stamped by his secretary.  My defense team concocted the outrageous defense that Jodl was a drooling idiot who was only a figure head to the secretary who masterminded things and stamped all the orders.  Jodl got off in our classroom trial, but the most interesting part was reading the orders.  They were shocking and horrible tangible proof that the assault on the Jewish population was methodical.  I still feel the bile rise in my throat when I think about it.  How many people who read those types of orders, see the train manifests, read the concentration camp logs, and see the documentation of those liberated from the camps could still deny the holocaust?

I think that the author brings valuable information to the fore and pointing us all towards source documentation is critically important with the necessary support of secondary sources to try and sift the wheat from the chaff.  Does it matter that Lincoln said he would never free the slaves, then he did so?  If it matters, why?  Was Lincoln just a waffler blown about by political winds, was he someone who matured in his approach, was he an opportunist who was solely focused on winning the war, or was he some of all these things?  Can a human being have his entire life summarized be a trite phrase?