Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Meka, thank you for your response.

Meka, did you use A.I. in your remark that begins .”Certainly!” It’s a strange response in several ways.

I will be praying for John, Ron, and Cynda here. Better health is a simple thing to ask for … but it is a hard thing to achieve. Prayers can’t hurt.

John,

I am so sorry that this has hit you. There are so many things that we have to deal with that are just so unfair. I'll be thinking of you and hoping for the best.

Larry

I did look at his book for a few minutes. Tom Paine would not have approved.

Carol wrote: "Have received an early Xmas present- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann. A lovely title; I see that the Boston Globe has written: A masterful work of literary journalism crafted with the urg..."

Carol, I just bought his new book, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder.

This is from the GoodReads review: "From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on the Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire. ... The Wager is a grand tale of human behavior at the extremes told by one of our greatest nonfiction writers. Grann's recreation of the hidden world on a British warship rivals the work of Patrick O'Brian, his portrayal of the castaways' desperate straits stands up to the classics of survival writing such as The Endurance, and his account of the court martial has the savvy of a Scott Turow thriller. As always with Grann's work, the incredible twists of the narrative hold the reader spellbound."

Carol wrote: "Have never heard of Shirley Hazzard but will look into her. Another writer I had never heard of is Paul Lynch who has just won the Booker Prize. His novel 'Prophet Song' takes place in an imagined ..."

I just got a copy of Prophet Song from our public library. I had never heard of Paul Lynch, either.

I really hate removing members from the group. Joining this group just to promote your book will do it, however.

Thank you, Reggie!

Welcome to this group, Reggie. That is a great list of books for children and their parents to access.

Larry

Meka, there is another book ( The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket ) that I read a few years ago that covers what goes on in a supermarket that is good ... but not as good as this one. It starts with what has to be done in the cleaning of a fresh fish counter (and the refrigeration countainers) at a Whole Foods in NYC. I like it because it is so important what goes on behind the scenes.

But back to the book we're reading. Ruhlman is good at personalizing his story ... especially about his father's experience with supermarkets. But he is also good at giving us the 30,000 ft. view of the industry and how it relates to us.

One important fact of the current status of the supermarket insutry perhaps starts with this: "The final marker of the food retail conversion from grocery store to supermarket to our modern, fragmented food retail system came in 1988, when, like the big kid doing a cannonball into a crowded swimming pool, Walmart entered the grocery business with its first Super-centers, which added groceries to their other nonfood offerings. Walmart instantly became the world’s biggest grocer. Of its total net sales of $482 billion last year, Walmart stores in the United States accounted for $298 billion. According to its 2016 10-K filing with the SEC, 56 percent of those sales, $167 billion, came from selling groceries. Add Sam’s Club grocery sales to that and Walmart’s total sales of groceries last year were $202 billion. The nation’s largest supermarket chain, Kroger, with its 2,600-odd stores, is a distant second with sales of roughly $110 billion."

Ruhlman, Michael. Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America (p. 16). Harry N. Abrams. Kindle Edition.

My own personal take on supermarkets comes from the fact that we live in anything but a food desert. (We live in Northern Virginia.) Within five miles from my home, we have a Wegmans, Costco, Giant Food, Safeway, Trader Joe's, Aldi's, and Lidl. We regularly shop at the first three of these and also hit a Trader Joe's about once every two weeks. I know how fortunate we are. I would also mention that increasingly over the last ten years we have gone to fixing most meals from scratch and relying less and less on processed food. It's been easier to do that sinbce we retired about ten years ago.

Meka wrote: "Do you have a order of the chapters we need to read and when to give feedback on each?"

Meka,

Feel free to just read at your pace and comment as you wish. I'll trey to react. I started Chapter 1 today. I probably will try to read it over two weeks.

Meka, I will read along with you in this thread.

NONFICTION READING - ONLY THE BEST

Newsletter -- DECEMBER 2023

* BOOK OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE
* BOOK OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE

* UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH - MOD'S CHOICE
* UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE
NOMINATIONS & VOTING

* BUDDY READS ...

***

DECEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE

Michael Ruhlman - Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America

Why you may want to read this book from 2017. I think what it tells us about supermarkets and our relationship to supermarkets and the food sold in them hasn't changed that much since that year:

"Grocery stores in America have changed from neighborhood corner markets to multimillion-dollar chains that sell convenience — along with thousands of products — to satisfy the demand of the country's hungry consumers. What caused this transformation? And what will our grocery stores be like in the future?

Award-winning food writer Michael Ruhlman, author of more than 20 books — including the best-seller The Soul of the Chef and co-author of The French Laundry Cookbook with chef Thomas Keller — examines this phenomenon through the story of the Midwestern grocery chain Heinen's. His new book, Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, not only offers insights on how we produce, distribute and buy food, but seeks ways of understanding our changing relationship with what we eat and how we get it."

SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...


LINK TO THE DISCUSSION: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


***

DECEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A book whose readership and influence has grown and grown:

"Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay collection, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” is a perfect example of crowd-inspired traction. The book was published in 2013 by Milkweed Editions. It did not have a large-scale marketing campaign, according to Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, who describes the book as “an invitation to celebrate the gifts of the earth.”

Kimmerer has a hunch about why her message is resonating right now: “When we’re looking at things we cherish falling apart, when inequities and injustices are so apparent, people are looking for another way that we can be living. We need interdependence rather than independence, and Indigenous knowledge has a message of valuing connection, especially to the humble.”

Source: NYT, November 5, 2020.


LINK TO THE DISCUSSION: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


*****

NOVEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE

November 2023 - The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan

LINK TO THE DISCUSSION: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


NOVEMBER BOOK OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut

LINK TO THE DISCUSSION: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

*****

UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE

January 2024 - Michael Herr - Dispatches

February 2024 - Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?

March 2024 - Isabel Wilkerson - The Warmth of Other Suns: the Epic Story of America's Great Migration

April 2024 - Camilla Townsend - Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

May 2024 - Bill Buford - Among The Thugs

June 2024 - Michael Lewis - The Fifth Risk

July 2024 - Usherwood & Tinder - The European Union: A Very Short Introduction, 3rd Ed. by John Pinder - The link is to the third edition ... the recommendation is for the 4th edition, which so far has no link.

August 2024 - Malcolm Harris - Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

September 2024 - Ben Rawlence - The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth

October 2024 -John Keay - India: A History

November 2024 - Chris Miller - Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology

***

UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE
The nominations process and voting are open to all members ... I only ask that you nominate and/or vote for a book that you think you may read.

I would hope that the person who nominates a book that is chosen will actively participate in the discussion. You don’t have to lead that discussion, but if you do, that’s great.

Beginning on December 1, nominations are open for the Monthly Reading - Members’ Choice for January.

On December 11, voting may begin for the books nominated from any and all members. (Please remember to vote for the book you nominate. Unless you want to vote on a book nominated by another member. Yeah, that can happen!)

On December 21, I will announce the winner. That book will be the January Members’ Choice Book of the Month. In case of ties, I will choose the winner.

LINK TO THE NOMINATIONS AND VOTING FOR THE JANUARY BOOK OF THE MONTH MEMBERS' CHOICE: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...



***

BUDDY READS - If you want to read any (or almost any ... I have some limits) book with someone else here, I will set up folders for doing just that. Just propose a book that you would like to read as a Buddy Read along with any details, e.g. when you want to start and how long you want the discussion to continue.

I'll set up a topic/thread for a proposed buddy reads when someone proposes a book and someone else opts in for the shared reading experience ... or in some cases, even before someone accepts the invitation.

Here's a link to the Buddy Reads folder, with a number of ongoing Buddy Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...


Good Reading!

Larry, Founder and Moderator

Use this thread to nominate a book for the January 2023 Book of the Month - Members' Choice. The nominations open on December 1, 2023 and close on December 10, 2023.

The nominations process and voting are open to all members ... I only ask that you nominate and/or vote for a book that you think you may read.

I would hope that the person who nominates a book that is chosen will actively participate in the discussion. You don’t have to lead that discussion, but if you do, that’s great.

Beginning on December 1, I will call for nominations for the Monthly Reading - Members’ Choice for January. On December 11, I will call for votes among the books nominated from any and all members. (Please remember to vote on the book you nominate! Unless you want to vote on a book nominated by another member. Yeah, that can happen!) On December 21, I will announce the winner. That book will be the November Members’ Choice Book of the Month. In case of ties, I will choose the winner.

Use this thread to nominate a book ... and then later (beginning on December 11) to vote for the book of your choice

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

A book whose readership and influence has grown and grown:

"Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay collection, “Braiding Sweetgrass,” is a perfect example of crowd-inspired traction. The book was published in 2013 by Milkweed Editions. It did not have a large-scale marketing campaign, according to Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, who describes the book as “an invitation to celebrate the gifts of the earth.”

Kimmerer has a hunch about why her message is resonating right now: “When we’re looking at things we cherish falling apart, when inequities and injustices are so apparent, people are looking for another way that we can be living. We need interdependence rather than independence, and Indigenous knowledge has a message of valuing connection, especially to the humble.”

Source: NYT, November 5, 2020.

Michael Ruhlman - Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America

Why you may want to read this book from 2017. I think what it tells us about supermarkets and our relationship to supermarkets and the food sold in them hasn't changed that much since that year :

"Grocery stores in America have changed from neighborhood corner markets to multimillion-dollar chains that sell convenience — along with thousands of products — to satisfy the demand of the country's hungry consumers. What caused this transformation? And what will our grocery stores be like in the future?

Award-winning food writer Michael Ruhlman, author of more than 20 books — including the best-seller The Soul of the Chef and co-author of The French Laundry Cookbook with chef Thomas Keller — examines this phenomenon through the story of the Midwestern grocery chain Heinen's. His new book, Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America, not only offers insights on how we produce, distribute and buy food, but seeks ways of understanding our changing relationship with what we eat and how we get it."

SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...

Oh, well. Braiding Sweetgrass is the winner for December. Let's carry these more recent nominations into the January BOTM - Members' Choice thread.

Ron, each case of Covid is so unique to the one who gets it. I do hope that cough goes away soon. A few years ago there was a study that chocolate worked about as well as most over the counter cough syrups and cough drops. My wife accepted that as an excuse for me eating a lot of Hershey kisses.