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

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

The air quality is really bad here in Northern Virginia, but in air conditioned houses and cars, it’s not so bad. It’s really terrible in NYC based in the videos I’ve seen and DANGEROUS in Ottawa.

I plan to keep this thread open for at least a year ... to let others add more or even start the book and comment over the next few months.

Her Further Reading section at the very end is great. Many would be surprised at how she could have learned by this kind of book. "On a more succinct scale, I have learned a lot from Christopher Kelly, The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford UP, 2006)"

But I guessnI'm not surprised. Those Very Short Introduction books are great.

I like her title of Ch.12, "Rome Outside Rome." Many good points in this chapter, one how Augustus tried to stop the expansion of the empire after the three legions were destroyed by the German tribes in the Teutoburg Forest. And the interesting point that rebellions were often led by provincial aristocracy.

I finished reading it today, and there were surprises all the way to the end.

This was maybe not a surprise, but Beard in Ch.10 mentioned that in the apartment complexes those with more money were in the lower floors, floors which could more easily be evacuated in case of fire. And the well to do ate at home ... while those with less money frequented the "restaurants." She thinks that liteacy might have been about 20 percent across the empire, but higher in cities.

And with no real police force, the poor more often were the victims of crime.

John wrote: "The Nor’easter passed through yesterday and left us with intermittent showers and very cloudy gray skies. It has not been the kind of weekend for beach goers here, but we did need the rain."

This is the time of the year when the long term (10 forecasts) for Northern Virginia mean much less than other times of the year. That weather system that gave you a lot of rain gave us rain off and on for about three days. Not much at all, but showers that were pretty nice. And now, we have a prediction that shows some rain next Thursday and only that day. That prediction is quite likely to change. Pretty nice temperatures for most days. The heat that afflicts Ron and Cynda will come later abut will never be as bad as it is in Texas. Although we do have humidity with it ... especially as the summer goes on. Northern Virginia most years is a very nice place to live. Traffic is the worst thing about it.

We do what we can to avoid it ... leaving our house at 5:40am today to be at our supermarket early (Wegmans which opens at 6:00am) to avoid the traffic and the crowds in the store that will come later.

I'll be happy to have you join us on this book, Ron.

NONFICTION READING - ONLY THE BEST

Newsletter -- June 2023

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


JUNE BOOK OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE

The June Book of the Month is Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future.


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


Why are we reading Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future?

This book was published two years ago and followed Kolbert’s Pulitzer Award winning, THE SIXTH EXTINCTION. If anything, it is better than that book. And if anything, the environment is under greater threats than it was two years ago.

The rave review from the NYT is a good introduction to many of the book reviews that have praised this book by Kolbert: “Under a White Sky is a fascinating survey of novel attempts to manage natural systems of all sizes, from preserving tiny populations of desert fish to altering the entire atmosphere ... Kolbert has for many years been an essential voice, a reporter from the front lines of the environmental crisis. Her new book crackles with the realities of living in an era that has sounded the death knell for our commonly held belief that one can meaningfully distinguish between nature and humanity ... Kolbert has a phenomenal ability to communicate complex scientific information ... She moves us gracefully across numerous scales, from aerial views of clouds reflected in Louisiana lakes right down to an individual scientist picking aquatic beetles from a mesh screen …”

MAY BOOK OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE

The May Book of the Month is Siddartha Mukherjee's The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human.

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

Why read Song of the Cell?

Let’s start with the reviews of this book.

Bookmarks collects the reviews of books from the best sources and then summarizes those reviews. In the case of The Song of the Cell, there were eight reviews, and six of them were Rave reviews. SOURCE: https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/the...

The review from the Guardian is fairly typical of those six reviews.

“Mukherjee uses sometimes salutary and always engaging stories such as these to teach the fundamentals of cell biology, but also to illustrate that no one individual is ever responsible for any advancement in science. Rather, progress is made in a series of often unwitting collaborations ... If you are not already in awe of biology, The Song of the Cell might get you there. It is a masterclass in how cells function and malfunction ... Catering for every level of reader, Mukherjee sometimes uses visual metaphor to simplify matters. In so far as it is possible, Mukherjee has captured the wonder of that in one book.”

These are my own thoughts. We live in an Age of Biology. It’s not that physics or chemistry or the other sciences are less important these days. It’s that we have come into a time when the science and the tools connected with that science have transformed biology to the point where major developments seem to come almost every day. Mukherjee’s book will help you to understand past failures and also the successes in the science. I'll also note that he deals with the Covid-19 pandemic in a chapter near the end of the book.

UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH

July 2023 - David Quammen - Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus

August 2023 - Judith A. Green - The Normans: Power, Conquest and Culture in 11th Century Europe

September 2023 - Carl Zimmer - A Planet of Viruses

October 2023 - Elizabeth Pisani - Indonesia, Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation

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

December 2023 - Michael Ruhlman - Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America

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

UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE

Beginning in July, a second Book of the Month will be selected by votes of the interested members.

This will be different than in most (maybe all) of the other GoodReads book groups. First of all, no automated polls.

More important is that you get to vote only on the choice if you nominate a book. But to make this easy … if you can't think of a book you want to nominate, you can just nominate the same book that someone else has already nominated for that month. I’m really looking for participation and want to aid that.

An example may help. So we may get ten members making nominations and six nominated books. And then the ten members who have participated in the nominations will be those who choose the books by voting. Why this process? Well, after having participated/lurked in about 20 GoodReads book groups, I have seen too many book groups select books of the month by a small minority, with in some cases minimal activity in the reading of the book selected.

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 June 1, I will call for nominations for the Monthly Reading - Members’ Choice for July. On June 11, I will call for votes among the books nominated from any and all who participated in the nomination process. On June 21, I will announce the winner. That book will be the July Members’ Choice Book of the Month. In case of ties, I will choose the winner.

Each month will follow a similar process.

LINK TO THE PROCESS FOR NOMINATIONS AND SELECTIONS: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

LINK TO THE NOMINATIONS FOR THE JULY MEMBERS' CHOICE: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

BUDDY READS - Call them Buddy Reads or Side Reads ... I don't really think it matters. But if you want to read any (or almost any ... I have some limits) books 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 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 Read folder, with two ongoing Buddy Reads (from Ron and Cynda):

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...


Good Reading!

Larry, Founder and Moderator

JUNE BOOK OF THE MONTH - MODERATOR'S CHOICE

The June Book of the Month is Elizabeth Kolbert’s Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future.


Why are we reading Elizabeth Kolbert's Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future?

This book was published two years ago and followed Kolbert’s Pulitzer Award winning, THE SIXTH EXTINCTION. If anything, it is better than that book. And if anything, the environment is under greater threats than it was two years ago.

The rave review forth NYT is a good introduction to many of the book reviews that have praised this book by Kolbert: “Under a White Sky is a fascinating survey of novel attempts to manage natural systems of all sizes, from preserving tiny populations of desert fish to altering the entire atmosphere ... Kolbert has for many years been an essential voice, a reporter from the front lines of the environmental crisis. Her new book crackles with the realities of living in an era that has sounded the death knell for our commonly held belief that one can meaningfully distinguish between nature and humanity ... Kolbert has a phenomenal ability to communicate complex scientific information ... She moves us gracefully across numerous scales, from aerial views of clouds reflected in Louisiana lakes right down to an individual scientist picking aquatic beetles from a mesh screen …”

The nominations for the July Book of the Month - Members' Choice are open and will close on June 10. Use this thread to nominate any book you wish the group to read. Voting will begin on June 11 and close on June 20.

UPCOMING BOOKS OF THE MONTH - MEMBERS' CHOICE

This will be different than in most (maybe all) of the other GoodReads book groups. First of all, no automated polls. But more changes this month!

We will open up the nominations process and voting 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 August 1, I will call for nominations for the Monthly Reading - Members’ Choice for September. On August 11, I will call for votes among the books nominated from any and all members. On August 21, I will announce the winner. That book will be the September Members’ Choice Book of the Month. In case of ties, I will choose the winner.

TO NOMINATE A BOOK GO HERE: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I truly love this poem. It makes me think how much I usually love poems with done humor in them, even as Carol rightly suggests, those with some intimations of death.

John, that’s a weird storm … moving West Northwest right now … into Kentucky already,

John wrote: "We seem to have a classic Nor’easter this Memorial Day weekend in coastal North Carolina. The rain has been moving in off the ocean. I expect heavy rain tomorrow and it has already been raining for..."

John, I just checked the radar weather map (it's 6:30am on SAT), and it sure looks like you're in for another rainy day or two ... on top of what you got recently. No golf this weekend!

Ron, I read her first book when it came out and was deeply moved by it. It helped me to understand one of our bipolar friends a lot better.

John, I have read all the Travis McGee novels that MacDonald wrote. McGee is always an interesting character, but his evolution from a real sexist to a good guy with a raised consciousness is almost a reason in itself .to read the whole series. Maybe a better reason is that they are all just great stories. I’m not sure I’ll ever read them all again. But I do plan to read the last four in the near future.

Cynda wrote: "Larry this concept goes with another I have encountered: Land and peoples were shuffled around since time immemorial. Only with standardization of languages, cultures, ethnic indentifications that ..."

I wish more people thought about this. The Sioux (with most of their tribes, Lakota, Dakota, etc. weer woodland Indians until they acquired the horse and then steadily took over much of the Northern Plains pushing the tribes who were already there westward. Same story with the Comanche, who used their prowess with mounted warfare to establish Comancheria. The Russians, well the Russians ... ugh.

Cynda wrote: "Here Mary Beard says it well:

[W]hatever the the views of Suetonius and other ancient writers, the qualities and characters of the individual emperors did not matter very much to most inhabitants or the empire, or to the essential structure of Roman history and its major developments...."

Cynda, that passage really caught my attention also.

Carol wrote: "We will never know if the assassination of Hitler would have resulted in an end to the war, but it would have been a very worthwhile objective to have had in the hope of change...."

I just started Churchill's The Gathering Storm. about the time from the end of WWI to the beginning of WWII. He paints the history of the period with very broad strokes (fitting for an actual painter as he was). It is great for explaining what was going on in very general terms that led to Hitler coming to power, while the other nations, including the United States, dithered. I am sure that some of the sections are self-serving, but it is great reading. And important reading.

In August 1933, when Hitler first met Hindenburg, the old man said, "“That man for Chancellor? I’ll make him a postmaster and he can lick stamps with my head on them.” In March 1934, however, Hitler had become Chancellor and was given emergency powers for a four year period that doomed Germany to unconstrained Nazism and Europe to conflagration. If Hitler had been assassinated early on, I think it would have been good. If he had been assassinated after the war was fully underway, it might have been worse for the Allies, because other German leaders might have been more effective in military campaigns. We'll never know.

I wondered about several things. e.g. the Praetorian Guard, as I continued reading the book. So I ordered this book about two weeks ago: A Profile of Ancient Rome. It's an oversized book published by the Getty Museum, so the pictures are unsurprisingly great. I ordered it as a used book from Amazon for about $12.00 instead of paying the $35.00 if purchased new from the Getty. But like a number of other books purchased used from Amazon, I think it is actually new. Every subject seems to get two pages of coverage. So for important subjects like the Roman army, that's really not enough. For the Praetorian Guard, it's just about right. I'm glad I bought it ... as a used book.

The GoodReads review is accurate: "During the 1000-year history of Ancient Rome, the Romans developed a vast and sophisticated society that would produce a lasting legacy for Western culture. This is an overview of all facets of Ancient Roman society, including chapters devoted to Rome's economic and social system, its art and architecture - including large-scale building projects such as the Forum, the Colosseum and the Appian Way - and the everyday life of its inhabitants. It presents not only the accomplishments of the most eminent citizens of Ancient Rome, such as Julius Caesar, Cicero and Seneca, but also the often surprising details about the activities, customs and beliefs of common people - matrons and children, soldiers and tax collectors, musicians and craftsmen, slaves and poets."

But so is the GoodReads rating of 3.33 stars.