A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff

A Great Improvisation:  Franklin, France, and the Birth of America by Stacy Schiff

Started: 6/23/2024
Completed: 6/29/2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

deracinated -- uprooted from one's natural geographical, social, or cultural environment

obsequious -- obedient or attentive to an excessive or servile degree

Review:

I enjoy stories about John Adams.  This one makes John Adams look like a country bumpkin who gracelessly insulted Franklin despite Franklin being an overall great guy.  Schiff is enamored of her subject and that is fine.  I really liked hearing about Franklin from someone who really liked him.  Who treated some of his womanizing as a man seeking love (as he undoubtedly was) instead of a cur who would sleep with anything in a skirt.  It is nice to hear this side of Franklin presented well.  I also had no idea how much of his work in France was not noticed (largely because of his lack of letters, both from not writing and from losses at sea).  I am constantly reminded when I read a biography like this how hard it was to communicate.

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley

 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Started: June 20, 2024
Completed: June 23, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My niece

Words for which I sought help:

penumbra -- the partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object

Review:

Time travel, for me, is an unpleasant topic because I don't generally like the impact of the future on the past.  I'm not a fan of the "Back to the Future" approach of multiple time lines.  This book starts out with a practical approach to time travel and then seems to violate it (by using future flashbacks).  In all, the fundamental concept (that you cannot change the past, you can only change the future) is an interesting idea.  My gut is that it is unlikely you could reasonably change your personal future and, so, this book charges into my personal buzz saw.  That it does, so, however, is not necessarily a shortcoming.  This is, after all, a novel and Bradley is consistent within her own terms.  The pace is excellent and the way that she takes what she calls a 'footnote" and expands it into an entire character is so pleasant, believable, and enriching that I will forgive many things.  One thing that bothers me is how she handled grief and, while I accept that grief manifests in different people in different ways, it feels to me that Bradley ignores grief in many of her characters.  That is a short coming that could be improved and so I feel that the book could be better, but I fully accept that it is quite nice as it is and harbor no reservations in recommending it.  Read the afterword, it is well worth the time and does not expand the novel but talks about Bradley's approach to writing it.

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, Carlo Rovelli

 

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli

Started: June 20, 2024
Completed: June 20, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Loop quantum gravity!  Gravity as seen through the lens of quanta!  Granular universe!  Right up my alley.

Brooklyn, Colm Tóibín

 

Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín

Started: 6/18/2024
Completed: 6/20/2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody, but I did enjoy The Magician so when I saw that Tóibín had released a new book, Long Island, I took note.  Of course, then I found out that it was a sequel to this book!

Review:

I read this book knowing that there was a sequel and I think it affected my perspective.  The writing was fabulous and the growth of the protagonist going out on her own and experiencing a whole new world (with all of its angst and all of its possibilities) was richly detailed.  I was struck by how her adventures (and misadventures) were handled and I think that as I neared the end of the book my approach to the book's conclusion would have been much different had I not known that another book was to come.  Regardless, I felt unfulfilled (which, surely, many others must have as well) by the conclusion and I ticked it off mentally without thinking that there was a book to follow.  Surely, the author had not intended to write another as he concluded this book.  Or, if he did, he certainly took his sweet time.  All the same, I can recommend the book with a clear conscious because he did, indeed, write a second book.

Hearts of Oak, Eddie Robson

 

Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson

Started: June 11, 2024
Completed: June 19, 2024
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This book is really a farse and it is a bit of a morality play as well.  It is not very funny although the opening paragraph is pretty darn good.  The plot, if I were to describe it is really rather sad and once you look under the hood, it becomes down right depressing.  It is not the light romp I'd hoped for.  The part that makes it hardest is not my blown expectations, but the feeling that I wasted my time on a pretty basic story with a nice little twist (although this twist is quite clear).

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years, Shubnum Khan

 

The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan

Started: June 15, 2024
Completed: June 18, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Kobo

Review:

This book is a character study wrapped in a mystery.  Khan also frequently uses anthropomorphism and this use imbues the tale with a house that has feelings and nature that walks, talks, whispers, and grasps.  In addition, Khan provides a sense of both destiny and purpose in the lives that, on their face, seem basic.  The human relations are both complex and dynamic fostered by flashbacks and partially told histories.  This was a fun and quick read which used the Djinn as foil rather than as wish fulfillment.

Sunbringer, Hannah Kaner

 

Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner is the next book in the Fallen Gods Trilogy.

Started: June 10, 2024
Completed: June 15, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I really enjoyed this book and I'm looking forward to the last one in the trilogy.  Kaner does a good job of developing several characters in this book, forwards the plot, develops and resolves plotlines, as well as offering a fast paced adventure.  There is enough left askew that I can imagine several paths for her to take as the trilogy moves forward.  I can't wait for the next one!

Flashman, George MacDonald Fraser

 

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser is the first of twelve novels in the Flashman series

Started: 5/14/2024
Completed: 6/11/2024 (DNF)
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: David Norquist

Words for which I sought help:

abigail -- a lady's personal maid

nabob -- a merchant who has made his fortune trading in/with India

toco -- a penalty or sanction given for any crime or offence

Review:

I have recycled very few books.  Almost all have been in terrible shape.  This paperback hit the recycle bag tonight.  I struggled getting anywhere in it reading a few pages at a time.   Simply horrible.

Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It, Louis D. Brandeis

 

Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It by Louis D. Brandeis

Started: 6/8/2024
Completed: 6/11/2024
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: I read about this book in another book, but I cannot now remember where.

Review:

Brandeis was rather scathing in his analysis of banking and the role of the banker in society.  I have to admit, that was pretty fun.  The end of the analysis talked about how the principal of one person one vote (unlike how shareholding companies are run where each share is a vote and one person can outvote many others) works within cooperatives.  I have seen this in practice and I certainly like it.  It completely changes the dynamic and encourages inherent value in the cooperative rather than a quick profit which seems to be the way of the corporation.

The Rediscovery of America, Ned Blackhawk

 

The Rediscovery of America:  Native peoples and the unmaking of U.S. history by Ned Blackhawk

Started: June 3, 2024

Completed: June 10, 2024

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

There is a through line.  We have screwed the Native Americans at pretty much every turn.  They did not lie down and take it, but they kept getting hit.  The book was hard reading as the details are pretty horrifying and I have the feeling that Blackhawk spared some of the truly horrific.  Oh, and pretty much every treaty was broken by anyone who treated with Native Americans.

Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom

 

Superintelligence:  Paths, dangers, strategies by Nick Bostrom

Started: February 19, 2024
Completed: June 8, 2024
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: I cannot remember a single source, but I read about an AI conference in several publications including one by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but I can no longer find it.  In any case this book keeps showing up as a reference.

Words for which I sought help:

bradytelic -- of or relating to evolution at a rate slower than the standard for a given group of plants or animals

propaedeutic -- an introduction to a subject or area of study

Review:

This book is often identified as alarmist.  I did not find it that way.  Perhaps it is the sheen of time that suggests the issues discussed are quite realistic.  Bostrom is agonizingly detailed (even to the point of mathematical formulas that seem, to me, to be sort of a technical overkill as the concepts behind the variables seem to be immeasurable--thus the formula is present but it is not terribly meaningful).  His brief forays into philosophy do not serve him well (he makes a cheeky comment that since there is not majority opinion of how value systems should work, at least half the philosophers are wrong--which, while true, is meaningless because if there was a majority opinion that majority could also be wrong).  Despite this, I found the book both interesting and thought provoking.  It was so much so that my wife and family occasionally thought I was doing nothing when I set the book aside to try and think about the implications of a particular paragraph, page, or chapter.  In reality, I was stuck in such deep thought that I was not terribly mobile.  I'm not saying it was profound thought--just all encompassing for my brain.

The Husbands, Holly Gramazio

 

The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

Started: June 2, 2024
Completed: June 3, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My niece, Virginia

Review:

What a fun and easy read.  I really didn't want it to end.  This series of vignettes on the nature of marriage is just a quick peak into a series of "marriages:" happy, sad, wishful, hateful, and boring.  A great quick read. 

The Saint of Bright Doors, Vajra Chandrasekera

 

Started: May 31, 2024
Completed: June 2, 2024
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This was an odd book.  The reader is clearly brought into a fairy tale world, but it is remarkably immersive.  The characters are interesting largely because of different perspectives and I have to admit that I really liked it when one character looses his shadow and then cannot shadow his eyes from the sun with his hand.  I have to admit that I am left wanting, so I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a sequel in the offing.