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

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

Christine wrote: "I would add World Travel: An Irreverent Guide by Anthony Bourdain
One does not need to know how to cook or be a ..."

One of the things I liked about Bourdain was how much he supported the people who worked in the back, the people who actually prepared and cooked the food ... and also how much he liked people around the world.

Christine wrote: "Finished the incredible and highly recommend Alexander Hamilton "

I enjoyed Chernow's books on Grant and Washington, but I was told by a friend who really knows history that they each had some inaccuracies in them. In the case of Washington, it was some highly speculative facts about Mary Washington, George's mother.

On the subject of George Washington, last week we were driving with both granddaughters as we passed the Fairfax County courthouse. I told them that when we filed my mother's will (after her death), I asked if we got the original copy of the will back. The clerk immediately replied, "Absolutely not. We still have George Washington's will." And they do. Pretty good website here:

If you click through to the third page, you get to a link to a facsimile of the actual will.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/circuit...

Ron wrote: "Okay, so I've got a semi-controversial topic to bring up.

I recently ordered the book Women Without Kids: The Revolutionary Rise of an Unsung Sisterhood . I discovered this book by.Not having kids is so stigmatized, especially in the U.S. Women are viewed as selfish, self-absorbed, and so many other things and a woman's value is to have kids.

I can't tell you how much I'm judged for not having kids. And how people always feel the need to know my reasons for not having them. .."

Ron, it is so unfair, and I totally believe you. There is a great book of essays (maybe the best book of essays I've read in the last five years) by Ann Patchett, These Precious Days: Essays, and in that book, she says that she made a conscious decision not to have children. She loves children, whether they are related to her or not, but she just didn't want to be a mother. It's hard to believe how people want to talk about that revelation instead of the thousand other good things in the book.

In THE GREAT GATSBY, those with old money live in East Egg. Those of newly acquired wealth live in West Egg.

Ron wrote: "I completely agree, Larry. I love her work. I was barely introduced to her in 2017, but I immediately caught up with a lot of it. She has stunning writing. I like that it makes sense and that I can relate to what she feels..."

Ron, that's almost exactly why I like the poetry of Billy Collins so much.

Ron, Mary Oliver is so brilliant … maybe even more brilliant in what she writes about poetry than in her own very good poems.

John,

Incredible imagery in that poem!

Chapter 3 has interesting information about the early kings of Rome ... but Mary Beard reminds us several times that we have no firm information about them. She says that three of them, the two Tarquins and Servius Tulius, were actually Etruscan ... and the strange thing about Tullius is that the institutions that came into the Republic, the army of centuries, the census, and voting came from the reign of Tullius ... or maybe not. Again, that's the historical tradition but so much is unclear about what happened during the time of those kings.

I really like this point that she makes about the openness of Rome. Did Rome actually become an Etruscan possession under the two Tarquinius and Servius Tullius? Probably not. But the communities seemed rather open. And it stayed open for centuries on into the time of the Empire as the Emperor Claudius urged the Senate to allow leading men of Gaul to become senators.

Christine wrote: "Weekend candy read. The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Windsor - the Truth and the Turmoil by Tina Brown
[bookcover:The Palace Papers: Inside the House of Win..."

I think that John here has read that book.

Cynda, thanks for the explanation. I do hope you’re going better.

Diane S ☔ wrote: "Reading A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them by Timothy Egan.Just a short ways in but I can already ..."

Egan is pretty amazing in the different parts of the American experience he has written about.

And I just downloaded Steve Job's new ebook (made available by his widow), Make Something Wonderful. You can get it here to read in the Apple ebook reader ... or as an epub.

https://stevejobsarchive.com/book

And I'm continuing with Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith about her spiritual journey through a life filled with more than a little pain and more than a few drugs.

I did finish Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands and can report that it is an excellent graphic novel (not really a novel ... it is memoir). I started Arkady Martine's A Desolation Called Peace, a SF novel which is a sequel to her A Memory Called Empire. Both novels won Hugo awards for best novel of the year.

John, I was so glad to hear how you acted on your grief like this … and then shared your information with us. We think about you every day.

The importance of writing and even accounting (well before the introduction of double entry bookkeeping) in running the legion is fairly well recognized. The best recounting that I have seen of this is in a magazine, a special issue of ANCIENT WARFARE devoted to centurions. It makes the point that probably more than half of the common soldiers, the legionaries, could read and less than half of auxiliary troops (often recruited from local populations) were literate. I bet that those numbers are just guesses though. What is known is that centurions, who were responsible for the 80 men (yeah, not a 100) in a century were literate, but they didn't do the records for their century. Instead each legion had separate men "to process documents, called either librarii (bookkeepers) or exacti (clerks)." Each legionary had to pay for his own equipment, even weapons. Romans were great at organization and records, and we have some of those records that report what was paid for barley or for a sword.

Ron wrote: "Christine wrote: "Nice to have found this thread. I look forward to posting here soon."

Looking forward to what you share and talk about.

*****

I'm not a religious person, far from it, but growing up Catholic, I am trying to learn about it (not so much as get back into it).

..."

Ron, I'm not a Catholic either, but before I met my wife, she was in a convent school (Sisters of the Precious Blood). I've enjoyed a number of books (histories and religious books) written by Garry Wills .... especially these: What Jesus Meant, What the Gospels Meant, What Paul Meant, and Why I Am A Catholic. He has also written about religion outside of his own faith, particularly with his fairly recent book, What the Qur'an Meant: And Why It Matters. That last one is okay, but there are probably better introductions to Islam.

I'm reading Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith about her own spiritual journey through several faiths and churches. Good writing.

I don't think our friend Olesandr (Acorn) will mind me revealing that he lives in Ukraine and has seen the brutality of invaders at firsthand. He also serves as one of the moderators for the GoodReads book group, Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels.

The link to that book group is here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

The Romans and their literature still serve as commentary on today and even tomorrow. I just started Arkady Martine's science fiction novel, A Desolation Called Peace, and she leads off with two quotations:

One is this one, in which Tacitus comments on how the Britons were treated by the Roman invaders. He quotes a leader of the Britons:

"To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles—this they name empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."

—Tacitus (quoting Calgacus), Agricola 30

Other Romans wrote about the brutality of the war waged against the Gauls.