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

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

Carol, I just put a hold on ACT OF OBLIVION at our public library. There’s an 11 week wait, but if they get additional copies, that may reduce the wait.

Carol,

Robert Harris has very interesting new book, Act of Oblivion. about the hunt for those who were responsible for the execution of Charles I. It's gotten a number of good reviews.

John,

The Stallings books landed today on my Kindle. One thing that impresses me is how good her poetry is when she writes about classical matters ... or the everyday things of life.

John, I just finished Jill Lepore’s article/interview of Mick Herron. She is incapable of writing anything that is not engaging and fascinating. It definitely makes me want to read the series.

I have an English friend who loves those books. Apple TV adapted some of the books into a fun series by the same name (Slow Horses). And the second season of it just started last week. We are going to start it this weekend.

Stefanie wrote: "Larry wrote: "Stefanie, I do detect a theme there. :-)"

It wasn't on purpose! I pre-plan what I am going to read and these were the last two in my selections for the month. It just worked out that..."

That kind of thing happens to me, too, Stephanie ... and sometimes it's pretty good to be reading two or even more books that are on the same subject or somehow else relate to each other.

Stefanie, I do detect a theme there. :-)

Thanks, Sher. I actually have those two Library of America volumes and have barely explored them. My failing.

Jeffrey, I just ordered a copy of the Ted Morgan book. I had never heard of it. Morgan is such a good author and the book has a number of good reviews.

John, I agree. She’s amazing in her specific interests (Native Americans, Wonder Woman, computer technology, etc.) and her knowledge of general history also.

Deep thoughts can be good thoughts.

Jeffrey wrote: "First an apology, I am English! That being the case my education was light on any colony which dared to leave the British Empire. Could anyone suggest a history of what is now the USA as far back a..."


Jeffrey, my own apology in the delay in getting back to you.

One fairly recent book is by Jill Lepore's These Truths: A History of the United States.

A frequently cited work is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States

A very recent book by an Oxford University professor is perhaps the best book I've ever read on the earliest days of encounters between Native Americans and colonists (Spanish, French, Dutch, and English) and how the Native Americans for the fisrst centures actually held the upper hand. This is Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen.

John, Neil Young’s latest album is co-produced by Rick Rubin. Over the last decade, there are two videos with Rick Rubin that are just great. One is the Avett Brothers’ MAY IT LAST, which shows how Rick Rubin worked with them to produce their 9th album. The second is the amazing McCartney 3-2-1 in which Rubin and McCartney just sit in a studio at a soundboard with Rubin leading McCartney in conversations about various Beatles’ songs as he uses that soundboard to isolate tracks, e.g. the bass line, on those songs. Like Neil Young says in the New Yorker album, “Rick is a genius. … You’re not going to find a person who loves music more than Rick.”

Sher wrote: "We just looked at two pieces of property farther out-- I wonder if we will make a change? ..."

Sher, generally speaking, where are areas that you would consider moving to? Getting away from a lot of people is pretty good when it comes to wells with stable water levels. The Central Valley in California has gotten to to the point where more and more people are giving up on trying to rely on their wells, with rapidly falling water levels of those wells. And that comes from too many people combined with agriculture that has drained the groundwater dry. Instead for many homes it's becoming water delivered by truck. Not a way I would want to live.

John wrote: "In the New Yorker Digital Edition today, there is an interview with Neil Young. The interviewer is Amanda Petrusich. She is a great writer, loves the work of Neil Young. I enjoy reading her pieces ..."

I will look for that article today!

One book that I neglected to put on my list of Desert Island Poetry Books was Poet's Choice. The editors, Paul Engle and Joseph Langland, ask a number of great poets to select one poem that they had written and to comment on it. Many, but not all, of the poems do seem to be a favorite of the poets. The poets include Robert Frost, Mark Van Doren, John Berryman, Stephen Spender, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, John Ciardi, Ted Hughes, and many others. It's a great collection.

John, the poem by Ted Hughes is Pibroch, which Hughes explains is a piece of music for bagpipes.

Carol wrote: "Hopefully, Sher, the non arrival of the juncos means, as you say, that it is due to warmer conditions up north, and not that there has been a cataclysmic reduction in their numbers."

Carol,

I bet that is one possibility.

I greatly admire how he embeds himself in the environment of the stories he wants to cover. In some ways, it's the opposite of what most journalists do. And it could be argued that it might lead to a lack of objectivity. But I think that there's room for both ways of covering stories.

John,

I just checked and saw that three of Ted Conover's earlier books are available on Scribd.

Larry

Sher wrote: "Oregon 200 plus acres.
I wanted to share something with you about a strange loss we have experienced at the farm.

I have been recording the birds here (via eBird) at the Farm since 2012, and since... To not see these little birds everywhere is startling and saddening. One expert I spoke with said these birds move south into Oregon when they lose ground cover where they are. This means they move when it snows up north and so this indicates a warming trend where they are –no snow—they are not moving. (This is a best guess as to why they have not arrived). This is coupled with declining numbers. So, here we see a real live example of an extreme example of the implications of global warming effecting my region. "

Sher, the nonarrival of the juncos is distressing and I think that you are right to point toward climate change as a probably cause.
We live in an age where we are living with so many unintended consequences of our actions as a global species.

I was reading yesterday about another unexplained but really troubling change and that is the shortening of the lifespan--by about 50 percent!-of honebees. Since the study group is strictly within a lab, it's probably not global warming.

Here's a link to the story (followed by the first paragraph of the study): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...


"A new study by University of Maryland entomologists shows that the lifespan for individual honey bees kept in a controlled, laboratory environment is 50% shorter than it was in the 1970s. When scientists modeled the effect of today's shorter lifespans, the results corresponded with the increased colony loss and reduced honey production trends seen by U.S. beekeepers in recent decades."