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.