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

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

One of the great things about Scribd is that you may want a particular book for a chapter or two but may want to buy the book. When I was researching my wife’s cancer and treatments, I probably looked at 60 books with Scribd and Perlego with no need to buy them. Actually, there was a great one in Perlego which Perlego discontinued access to which I then needed to buy.

As John mentioned the CSNY book, both Scribd and Perlego are great for popular culture and social media. Perlego is deeper into academic texts. I have been using it to read the annual Best Writing on Mathematics series. A number of the articles collected in these books are surprisingly easy to read.

Such a good posting, Cynda!

You can highlight, annotate, and bookmark in Scribd and Perlego …. But it’s a pain. I mainly remember books if I make notes in Notes and look back at those notes. And nothing beats the ease of writing comments in the margins of a paper book.

Ron, if you have a large iPad, consider subscribing to Scribd … or even to Perlego … and going cold turkey on buying any more books for say six months. You’ll have more reading than you can handle … for just one or two monthly subscriptions. Start with the free trials.

Ron and Larry are reading Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World by John Vaillant.

Ron, I’ll set up the Buddy Read thread when I get home (we’re out early while my wife gets a scheduled CT scan) and then start the book today myself.

Sher, good to seeing your smiling visage and your glowing words.

I love the whole poem, but the last words linger in my mind especially.

"What is is not speech. What is
is the line between the unspeakable
and the already spoken."

Makes me think of Wittgenstein.

Ron wrote: "This title came in my BN email and immediately I was intrigued, especially after I read the synopsis.

I've always wanted to read books on fires, but have never gotten around to it. Perfect timing ..."

Ron,

I just bought that one two days ago. Let me know when you start it and we can Buddy Read it.

Larry

John wrote: "I do enjoy the Florida angle. He was writing about development issues in 1968. That seems almost quaint now given the development in Florida these days."

He had a Harvard MBA and was not against business or economic reasoning. But he was observing early on what unimpeded development would do to Florida ... and did not like where it was taking the state.

John, he certainly is appreciated by other writers:

" Stephen King praised MacDonald as "the great entertainer of our age, and a mesmerizing storyteller."[11] Kingsley Amis said MacDonald "is by any standards a better writer than Saul Bellow, only MacDonald writes thrillers and Bellow is a human-heart chap, so guess who wears the top-grade laurels.""

I wouldn't rate them nearly that high. MacDonald tells a very good story, and his writing improved throughout his career (that is often not the case for successful writers), but they still have their ups and downs even in the later books. They are great commentaries about society and environmentalism, especially in the matter of the spoiling of Florida.

His original choice was Dallas McGee, but the first book in the series was published shortly after the Kennedy assassination, snd he changed the name to Travis, named as you said after the airbase. I’m reading FREE FALL IN CRIMSON now, book no. 19 in the series.

Lance wrote: "Even when the topic is specialized like the Baseball Book Club that two of us moderate (we were both in the nonfiction book club Larry mentioned) it seems like very few of the many are active. I do..."

I have pointed others to this Baseball book club because it is one of the few places on the Web where sports conversations remain civil. I stopped about 20 years ago from participating in ANY Yahoo sports threads. I have been online since 1981 (in the early days of online bulletin boards) and we used to speak of "flame wars" when the conversation became irrationally heated. It's still like that in those sports threads or many political threads.

Lance wrote: "Even when the topic is specialized like the Baseball Book Club that two of us moderate (we were both in the nonfiction book club Larry mentioned) it seems like very few of the many are active. I do..."

I also lurk in several other book clubs because they point me toward some really good books to read.

So generosity on the part of both Carol and Jeffrey. Let's call Carol's nomination the winner and proceed with Jeffrey's suggestion of doing his book as a Buddy Read. I'll join in on reading that book.

I was first exposed to Vaclav Smil's works about 25 years ago by my boss at the time who told me how great his work on energy was. I'll pull this from Wikipedia: "Included among Smil's admirers is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates,[12] who has read all of Smil's 36 books.[13] "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next Star Wars movie," Gates wrote in 2017.[4] "He's a slayer of bullshit," says David Keith, an energy and climate scientist at Harvard University.[4]"

Put simply, I think that Smil takes really different topics and explains them as simply as possible. That's easy to say and really hard to do.

Lance, glad to have you here … even a a lurker. You remain a touchstone for informed sports book choices.

I have read half of that book, and it is great. But we’ll see what happens. A book club takes time to take off. The Nonfiction Book Club was stuck at 13 members for a few months. I made a few suggestions to *Crystal* and we grew to about 1,800 members before I stepped down as moderator. But few members really are active in any of these GR book clubs. That’s bad … and good … 1,800 active members would probably be chaotic.

I decide in the case of ties. I’ll try to use a little wisdom … what little I have. Two books with two voters is not that hard. I’m hoping that some others may jump in … so that they can at least vote.

The nominations close tonight at 12:00 midnight … two good nominations in. Remember, to vote you must nominate a book or second a nom8nation that has been made.