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

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

Carol wrote: "I came across an interesting idea a few years ago. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492; some evidently made their way to New Spain where they lived until the arrival of the Inquisition. They ..."

I'm not sure that I want to get into with Ricky over what he thinks is "elaborate falsification and exaggeration of anti-Spanish historiography." My own personal story involves ancestors (my Stidham/Stedham ancestral line) who were driven from Spain under the Inquisition and were fortunate enough to make their way all the way to Sweden. From there, one of my ancestors would make his way to Delaware where he became the first surgeon in the colony. And then one of his descendants would marry Priscilla, a Creek Indian, whose family would soon undergo another genocide as the American government removed Cherokees, Creeks, and others under the several Long Marches. I have little time for those who want to defend the perpetrators of genocides.

Carol wrote: "The Black Legend of Spain had its origins in the eyewitness account of Bartholeme de las Casas, who graphically described torture, slavery and inhumane treatment by the Spanish in 'A Short Account ..."

I find Ricky's answer quite unsatisfying to your point here.

John, I'm getting ready to start listening to ROLLING STONES - EXILE ON MAIN STREET later today.

Have you read Keith Richards's Life? I really found it far more than just the recounting of episodes of sexual encounters and drug use that you might expect. It was deeply committed to explaining in ways that I had never thought of ... discussing the source of the Stones sound, which as you would guess starts with American blues, but then goes on to include rhythm and blues (truly a distinct category from blues), rock, and pop music. And then you get his thoughts on guitar playing ... and on how the Stones and Beatles actually coordinated to some degree when some of their albums would be released. And then finally this ... the phone call between Richards and the great American composer Hoagy Carmichael six months before the latter died. Virtually everyone I know who has read the book has been as blown away as I was by the depth of what Richards reveals.

And I should have said at the beginning, I'm really not a Stones fan. But I do look forward to discussing this album with you!

Carol,

In terms of the animals and countryside, my wife convinced me yesterday to give the first season of the ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL remake a try. I loved the first episode and look forward to watching all the first and second seasons. The Yorkshire countryside is incredibly beautiful.

Larry

John,

I bought Ted Hughes's New Selected Poems, 1957-1994.

Larry

John, I definitely want to see that documentary.

John,

You have led me in recent weeks to recognize that I need to read much more of Ted Hughes, I think I'll start with his Crow poems.

Larry

Ricky wrote: "Osprey is "military porn" (I don't mean anything negative by that, I love their books) and they're colorful, if slightly antiquated, books are very entertaining.
I am currently following up on Span..."

Yep, Ricky, I know exactly what you mean by that description.

Ricky wrote: "My #1 recommendation is "The Heart of Europe" by Peter H. Wilson, which is available in print, ebook and audiobook format (original European title, "The Holy Roman Empire"). Wilson goes through the..."

Ricky, I bought this when I saw that you were reading it and because I so much enjoyed his The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. But I have to say that upon buying it I also bought The Holy Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction by Joachim Whaley, just so that I could have a simple text to keep things straight in my mind. I actually did the same thing for Wilson's Thirty Years War book, using Ospey's The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648. This book comes from the Osprey Press, which is best know for their many publications of military uniforms for different armies and wars.

Ricky, I wish you would step back and ponder a bit when you post the following "If you are of a Progressive bent you may find it frustrating but enlightening nonetheless, and may lead you to reconsider whether Islam has much in common with your democratic, Enlightenment rationalist ethos"

Which strand of Islam are you referring to? I would guess you are thinking of Wahhabism or Salafism of the Sunni world ... or is it instead Shiism? Or is it Hanafi sects? Or is it Sufis? Probably not. I have a feeling that you were trying to say that the Islamic world often has had little congruence with the tolerance that flourishes best under some version of representative democracy sometimes found in the Western World, and I think that's true. But I also remember that few times in human history were less tolerant than existed when the Christian sects tore their world apart during the Thirty Years War ... and killed man, woman, and child simply because they worshiped a different version of Christianity. I know that you have read Peter Wilson's Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire. I totally recommend his earlier book The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy

I do know that you are more than a little reflective as is captured by your references to D'Souza and Robert Spencer (both of whom I've actually read ... although with little pleasure). I guess I'm just pointing out that our words matter a lot and may sometimes give the wrong impression.

Ricky wrote: "My current recommendations for books on Spain are Stanley Payne's "Spain: A Unique History", quoted in the text of my review below. It is simply the most entertaining and challenging (of popular mi..."

Ricky, I actually have vol.1 of Payne's A History Of Spain And Portugal and find it really good for explaining those early centuries as Rome's power waned and the Visigoths' power grew. It does all that in about 16 pages, and so it's broadbrush indeed. And that's all that I've read. I understand that the book by Payne that y cited starts off with an extended personal chapter that's quite good.

John wrote: "I find Blue in Green and Flamenco Sketches rather similar. I also think these two songs are not as strong as the other three. They don’t seem to resonate as much with me. Frankly, if I had a loop going of So What, Freddie Freeloader, and All Blues, I could listen to that all day. Is that what brings forth a great album to a listener? I
think so. ..."

It would be easy to do that as a playlist, but I bet you would start adding other favorite songs pretty fast. As much a I really like many jazz songs, especially those that come the Great American Songbook, most of my playlists tend to have songs that are rock, pop, or Americana in origin.

John wrote: "Interestingly, I have listened to All Blues so many times, but I did not realize it was from this album. Quite a few covers of it. Kenny Burrell has a nice guitar version."

That is what happens when a song becomes so widely spread ... we may forget where it came from originally.

Here's another question. Is the sequencing of the five album tracks important on this album? Except for how the beginning of track 2 is influenced by the end of track 2, I'm really not sure that it is ... for this album. Here's a good article on the importance of album song sequencing.

https://theconversation.com/grammy-wi...

The more I read about this album ... the more I am reminded of what Stravinsky's Rite of Spring did to classical music when it was premiered on 29 May 1913. Nothing was the same afterward.

John wrote: "Larry, I have been listening to the album. I did give the Legacy Edition a listen with its outtakes, but I prefer to listen to the original."

In recent years, I really have appreciated the way that re-releases include outtakes. But I usually only listen to a few versions of a particular song that I may like. Generally, I do just what you said you did here ... and that's to listen to the original release.

That "meandering river" definitely is an example of what Miles Davis was trying to get with him pushing the other musicians to follow his lead and use modal scales for improvising. Did he really kill bebop with this album? I'm not sure about that, but I think he took jazz in another direction, and it was good.

John, I've listened to Miles David's KIND OF BLUE regularly since I first bought it as an LP perhaps in 1968. I still have that LP. And I bought a CD maybe 30 years ago. And today I streamed it. It is music that is part of the musical background of our lives. Just another example occurred last week. I started watching Stephen King's THE STAND on Amazon Prime Video and in episode three the first track (once we would have called this a song), "So What" is playing at the beginning of the episode as one character serves an other one dinner.

Anyway, I still find the music amazing after all these years. (If you haven't read the Wiki on the album, it's definitely taking a look https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_of...). Just five songs, but every one still connects. I like how the first song ends ... on two notes repeated ... and then the second song, Freddie Freeloader, starts on another two sustained notes, which are repeated.

John,

I have never read all the psalms and am unfamiliar with this one. But it is great. Like Carol says, the words are powerful.

BEST BOOKS ON CANCER --ALSO FILED UNDER HEALTH AND MEDICINE

If you just want to know a lot about cancer, I can totally recommend the following two books. But these two books can be slow going and are perhaps better if you haven’t been diagnosed with cancer or maybe after you have received treatment. IMPORTANT: Read past these first two recommendations if you currently are dealing with cancer.

Siddhartha Mukhergee - The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer

Even more than ten years after it was published in 2010, Mukhergee’s book may be the best book to read on cancer and its treatment. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2011.

Sue Armstrong - p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code

From the B&N review: “All of us have lurking in our DNA a most remarkable gene: it is known simply as p53 and its job is to protect us from cancer. p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code tells the story of the discovery of the gene and of medical science’s mission to unravel its mysteries and get to the heart of what happens in our cells when they turn cancerous. When all is well, this gene constantly scans our cells to ensure that when they grow and divide as part of the routine maintenance of our bodies, they do so without mishap. If a cell makes a mistake in copying its DNA during the process of division, p53 stops it in its tracks, sending in the repair team before allowing the cell to carry on dividing. Cancer cannot develop unless p53 itself is damaged or handicapped by some other fault in the system. Not surprisingly, p53 is the most studied single gene in history”

Now let’s get more personal.

Cancer … it should be a four letter word. It’s scary and it is obscene. But it is something that when it gets close to you, you need to know much more about. For me, it really is personal. My wife was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer [that’s as specific as I’ll get] in August 2020 after months of symptoms that couldn’t be explained. After many visits to doctors and many tests, a CT-scan provided a definitive diagnosis. Two days later, we were in the office of an oncologist, who was laying out a treatment plan … six cycles of chemotherapy and a referral to a surgeon, who explained that surgery would be done after the first three cycles of chemo.

It all happened so fast. We have a great internist and she picked out a great oncologist who in turn picked out a great surgeon (who is actually an oncological surgeon). Our internist knows that I do a lot of Internet browsing and searching and she recommended that I not do that but just to place ourselves in the hands of the oncologist. (Later I would revert back to my old ways … but I listened to her for several months. And that was good advice.) And along the way, two kinds of genetic testing were done which led to the maintenance drug (a PARP inhibitor) my wife takes daily.

Right here, I’ll give you some advice about how to handle the situation if you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer.

Before you read any more books … find a really good oncologist at a really good cancer treatment center.

Read any written material that the oncologist gives you and then write down questions that you have for him/her for the next visit. If you have a family member or friend who can be with you at these appointments, that’s great. It helps if you have notes about what you oncologist says.

Everything that was most important was answered in a 56 page book given to us by the oncologist. This was NIH National Cancer Institute’s, Chemotherapy and You. (You can find that book here for free: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/p... )

That said, I wanted to know a lot more and so I searched a lot, spent a lot of time looking at the results, re-reading recommendations, and finally settled on these these books. Are they the best books? Well, I think that they are really good. Share them with your oncologist and ask if she knows any better books. And then definitely share those books with us here.


Jackson et al. - Living with Cancer: A Step-By-Step Guide for Coping Medically and Emotionally with a Serious Diagnosis

If you have to deal with a recent diagnosis of cancer, consider starting with this book starting with this book. It’s a John Hopkins Press Book … [this is from the Amazon review] “An empathetic resource full of relatable patient stories, this book teaches patients and caregivers how to ask the right questions to get the best possible care―beginning at the moment of diagnosis. Drs. Jackson and Ryan explain how to work with a team of doctors and nurse practitioners to minimize symptoms and side effects while living as fully as possible in the face of cancer. They relay important information about understanding prognosis, and they translate what doctors mean when they describe tests, treatments, and medical procedures. Finally, they discuss hospice care and answer questions about continuing treatment and managing the final phase of life.”


Beverly A. Zavaleta - Braving Chemo: What to Expect, How to Prepare and How to Get Through It

If chemotherapy is part of your treatment plan, then this book, by an individual who is both a doctor and a cancer patient, is excellent.

From the GoodReads review, “When faced with chemotherapy, you have many questions—but searching for answers on the internet can be overwhelming and pamphlets from your oncologist don’t begin to tell you all you need to know. In Braving Chemo, Harvard-educated physician and cancer survivor Beverly A. Zavaleta MD combines her medical expertise with a survivor’s insight to provide practical advice for both chemotherapy patients and cancer caregivers. This book will give you clear answers to your most urgent chemotherapy questions, such as:
How to keep your hair from falling out What to eat, and how to prevent nausea How to face tough feelings such as fear of dying. Braving Chemo is a valuable resource about what to expect during chemo, how to minimize the side effects and how to live life as normally as possible when life itself is on the line.”

Beverly A. Zavaleta - How to Prevent Infection During Chemotherapy: A Braving Chemo Handbook

A followup to Zavaleta’s BRAVING CHEMO. Basic and crucial information for the chemo patient.

Elaine Vickers - A Beginner's Guide to Targeted Cancer Treatments

The GoodReads review has this: “Provides a broad understanding of how targeted cancer treatments work Describes many of the new immunotherapy approaches to cancer treatment, such as checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-modified T cells Helps readers feel confident discussing treatment options with colleagues and patients Provides an overview of which treatments are relevant to each of the most common solid tumours and haematological cancers, and the rationale behind them Demystifies the jargon – terms such as the EMT, cancer stem cells, monoclonal antibodies, kinase inhibitors, angiogenesis inhibitors etc.”

This book, in a few pages provided essential information about PARP inhibitors, the daily treatment used by my wife. The book has much on treatments that really don't relate to our own situation, but what it had on the one family of drugs that helps my wife was just great.

Selected additions of new Best Books on a particular subject will be copied here ... the same additions will be found under the appropriate topic area.

DECEMBER 2021
Best Books on Cancer

I like how the meaningful mundane merges or maybe swerves into the deeply thoughtful.