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

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

This Shining Moment in the Now
by David Budbill

When I work outdoors all day, every day, as I do now, in the fall,
getting ready for winter, tearing up the garden, digging potatoes,
gathering the squash, cutting firewood, making kindling, repairing
bridges over the brook, clearing trails in the woods, doing the last of
the fall mowing, pruning apple trees, taking down the screens,
putting up the storm windows, banking the house—all these things,
as preparation for the coming cold…
when I am every day all day all body and no mind, when I am
physically, wholly and completely, in this world with the birds,
the deer, the sky, the wind, the trees…
when day after day I think of nothing but what the next chore is,
when I go from clearing woods roads, to sharpening a chain saw,
to changing the oil in a mower, to stacking wood, when I am
all body and no mind…

when I am only here and now and nowhere else—then, and only
then, do I see the crippling power of mind, the curse of thought,
and I pause and wonder why I so seldom find
this shining moment in the now.

David Budbill “This Shining Moment in the Now” from While We’ve Still Got Feet. Copyright © 2015 by David Budbill.

John, I look forward to discussing this one with you! I purposely placed that one in April after my March book of The Peloponnesian War ... two wars that went on and on and broke their societies.

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.

What makes a book a best book of all time? One definition is simply a book that lasts and has great effects on its readers and even others. I'll just leave it at that for now.

I plan to read and have some comments on the following books during 2022. One book a month. Feel free to pick your own books and share your thoughts about them as we work our way through the coming months.

LARRY'S BOOKS FOR 2022
Plato - Selected Dialogues
Daniel Defoe - A Journal of the Plague Year (fiction/non fiction)
Thucydides - The Peloponnesian War
Robert Graves - Goodbye to All That
Jacob Burkhardt - The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
Virginia Woolf - A Room of One’s Own
Cicero - The Catiline Orations
Tom Wolfe - The Right Stuff
Michael Herr - Dispatches
George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier
Benjamin Franklin - Autobiography
Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction

NONFICTION READING - ONLY THE BEST
Newsletter-01 -JANUARY 2022

Dear book group members,

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Let’s all hope that 2022 will be a better year than 2021.

This is the first of what may be a monthly newsletter … or it may just be something more random than that.

These topics are covered:

WHY THIS GROUP?
THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021
A MODERATOR’S PICK OF A BOOK FOR DISCUSSION … NOT REALLY
POETRY?
AND NOW MUSIC LISTENING?

Let’s begin at the beginning: WHY THIS GROUP?

The purpose of this book group is to find, identify and share what may be really good books that deal with a particular subject. You might call them “the Best books.” But it may be worthwhile to explain why those books stand out as the “best books” in some sense.

Perhaps an example or two to explain. So let’s find the the best books on China, or more narrowly Communist China, or even more narrowly, The Great Cultural Revolution. Or maybe we’ll look for and find the best books on Global Warming … or the effects of global warming on human life on earth … or the effects of rising seas on coastal areas. And so on.

Whatever the results, it should be easy to conclude that what is best for one person may not be the best for another person … or what was the best book ten years ago may not be the best books today. But the explanations of what makes book great or even best may be helpful in your decision whether a particular book might be a really good or even the best book for you. And that’s basically what this group is about. So use it to find what might be the best book for you … and even better, share what you have found and think is the best book on a particular subject with the rest of us.

MONTHLY DISCUSSIONS — THE BEST BOOKS OF 2021

When I started this group, I had no intention of doing a deep dive into reading any book. There are other groups, including some that I participate in, that have that as one of their best features. Monthly readings of books selected by the moderators or by votes of members have been a great feature of these. But that was not the purpose of this group. And it still isn’t. But I have added a new folder starting in January 2022 so that each of us can share what they thought was a best book of 2021. You can say as little or as much as you want to about that book. It can be one message … or it can be a message that turns into a discussion in that monthly folder.

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

And in February we’ll start with a whole new discussion … about another book that each of us thought was a best book of 2021.

To kick this off, I’ve actually listed twelve books that I plan to discuss through the twelve months of 2022.

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

A MODERATOR’S PICK OF A BOOK FOR DISCUSSION? PROBABLY NOT

Why not a moderator’s choice for discussion?

Even though we didn’t plan on extended discussion of one book, earlier in 2021, Sher and others started a discussion of one book, George Saunders’s A SWIM IN THE POND IN THE RAIN, which itself is devoted to discussing the short stories of several Russian writers. It’s worth noting that the Saunders book ended up on the nest of the year books of several lists. Indeed, the aggregated list of Bookmarks on the LitHub site has this book ranked as the 4th best nonfiction book of 2021. So far, we haven’t planned for any additional extended discussions of a particular book, but that could change. Let me note one thing. That book by Saunders is clearly on the nonfiction lists o fate best books, but as criticism, it’s all about fiction, in particular, the short fiction of several great Russian short story writers.

I thought the discussion of this book was really great. I’m open to another extended discussion of a book if you think that others might join you in such a discussion. (You should be prepared to lead the discussion.) Let me know with a proposal by Personal Message to me.

POETRY? WHY POETRY?

In another nonfiction book club, one member asked if she could post poems from reading and discussion. That led to some discussion as to whether poetry was fiction or nonfiction.

I’ll borrow some others’ thoughts here. “Poetry revolves all around imagination and emotions. Non-fiction literature don't have imagination it's based upon real events. So we can say that poetry is fiction.” (From a Quora posting). But a posting on Publishers Weekly ad this: “Not only readers, but bookstores and even libraries classify poetry as nonfiction—i.e., autobiography!” And elsewhere, “Poetry isn't either fiction or non-fiction. It doesn't really fit into any of those categories, although certain elements of a poem could be ...”

I’ll stop right there and just say that since it usually isn’t fiction, it’s easy for me to accept it as nonfiction … so it gets a home here … we talk about A Poem of the Day and even more. Most often that talk involves John, Carol, Sher and myself … we’d love to have more people join us.

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


BUT MUSIC … MUSIC? YEAH, REALLY.

And now music. John and I are starting the Listening Room, in which we have chosen some of our favorite albums to discuss weekly. I know that this led one person to threaten to leave us. I hope not. I’m not going argue over this decision to add music discussion, but I’ll add some thoughts by way of explanation.

I’ll just say that music is an important part of our lives and it spills over into other parts of lives. Whether it’s Bach’s music influencing the Protestant Reformation or the USIA using cultural exchanges with American jazz musicians touring the USSR or the protest songs from folk singers during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s. But we could just read about all this and not listen, right? Well, yes, but I see no reason to restrict our experience so narrowly. Music informs us in its own way. And it’s not just history, but it keep son doing it today.

Let me use one more example. The magazine THE WEEK chose two works by Michelle Zauner of 2021 as the five best works of the year. One was her memoir, CRYING IN H MART. And the other was music album, with her group Japanese Breakfast, Jubilee. I plan to discuss both of those efforts

So yeah, why music? Why not music? Join John and me as we work through music albums (all are available on the music streaming platform, Spotify, and probably most of the other major streaming as well, which unfortunately do require a subscription.)

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...


A SUMMARY

Our focus will remain finding and sharing the best nonfiction books … but, even after being around for a little more than a year, we are only beginning on that journey. Please share our book group with others whom you think will enjoy it.

LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

Larry Deaton, Founder and Moderator
Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best

Monthly Newsletter folder

A most Happy New Year to Carol, John, and any others who may find their way into these poetry readings!

John, I can remember when my English II professor read it out loud also. It's a great poem buut not about a great man. Thanks for sharing this one today.

Sher,

The naturalist in you should greatly enjoy this. It's the OneZoom Tree of Life and needs to be seen and not just described to be enjoyed and understood!

https://www.onezoom.org/introduction....

"Unless you want to count poetry as nonfiction ..." That gets argued over a lot. Some of the arguments are quite interesting, while others are tedious and sometimes even ill-informed. How did you like Call Us What We Carry?

On this Joy Harjo matter, she's been putting out albums of her saxophone music for almost 20 years. She works her poetry and Native American elements into the music and it's really quite good. Not as good as her poetry, but still worth listening to.

Carol wrote: "Franklin Foer's book looks interesting although I wonder if it is somewhat dated in its views, although I see it was published in 2005. British and European football have made enormous strides in r..."

All good points, Carol. But the broad brush differences between different nations and even different continents are the strength of the book.

There is another aspect to Ted Lasso that is worth mentioning. There is a book, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization that is well worth reading. It does pretty much what the title says. And then there is this show, Ted Lasso, which is the most profane and sweetest comedy I have ever seen, which does pretty much the same thing.

As one character, Dani Rojas, says, "Soccer is life." So the show has become the number one show on all streaming platforms in the United States and some critics have said it's the number one show in the world (I'm not sure that they are right about that.) Anyway, I don't really like soccer or football as it is called elsewhere ... I only watch it if it's the U.S. womens team playing. But I love this show.

I should have added that I first watched it after I heard that my daughter-in-law had watched very episode three times!

Sher wrote: "Larry wrote: "Sher wrote: "I see - I have never activated Apple TV, and I have a new Mac Air and a new iPad... thanks John..."

Sher, one series on Apple+ is absolutely a must watch show ... and th..."

Probably best to read the Wiki! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Lasso

It's been really warm here in Northern Virginia also ... probably about 10 degrees cooler than where John is, but still quite nice. My granddaughters keep hoping for snow, though.

Ron, let me echo Carol's welcome. We are glad to have you here.

60 degrees today on this Boxing Day in Northern Virginia, so it's not likely to be a Snow Day ...

Snow Day
BY BILLY COLLINS

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

Sher wrote: "I see - I have never activated Apple TV, and I have a new Mac Air and a new iPad... thanks John..."

Sher, one series on Apple+ is absolutely a must watch show ... and that's Ted Lasso.

Ricky, an excellent set of works. Thanks so much for both the list and your comments pertaining to each book. I see that you are reading Stalin's War: A New History of World War II. When you finish, let us know what you think of it. I read a good review of it.