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  1. #401
    Quote Originally Posted by JNort View Post
    Read the King Killer Chronicles!!!!!!! Book 1 is called The Name of the Wind and it's amazing and I need people I can discuss stuff with (3rd and final book isn't out yet).
    I think the third book is only moderately more likely to ever be written than remaining books in ASoIaF.

    In the sense that winning the lottery after purchasing a ticket is moderately more likely than winning without doing so.

  2. #402
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Albemarle, North Carolina
    Quote Originally Posted by BLPOG View Post
    I think the third book is only moderately more likely to ever be written than remaining books in ASoIaF.

    In the sense that winning the lottery after purchasing a ticket is moderately more likely than winning without doing so.
    In this, I'm an optimist. I think both series will be done in my lifetime and hopefully within the next 5 to 10 years.
    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking

  3. #403
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    My high school American history teacher gave me Battle Cry of Freedom as a graduation gift. I’ve put it off for 16 years (wow I got old). No time like the present to finally tackle it. Wish me luck! Oh and I just finished The Forever War. Really liked it.

  4. #404
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Mount Kisco, NY
    Quote Originally Posted by DUKIECB View Post
    Just finished Bad Blood, the story about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Crazy story about her rise and fall and the lengths she and others went to to deceive investors, the FDA and the general public about their invention. It's unbelievable that they put people's lives at stake knowing their product was a piece of crap the entire time.
    The author and WSJ reporter who broke the story, John Carreyrou, is a Duke graduate (Trinity 1994). He and I were in the same freshman dorm, very good guy.

  5. #405
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    My newest undertaking is Grant by Ron Chernow. I'm into Chapter 3 and hooked.
    Bob Green

  6. #406
    Quote Originally Posted by Cormac View Post
    My high school American history teacher gave me Battle Cry of Freedom as a graduation gift. I’ve put it off for 16 years (wow I got old). No time like the present to finally tackle it. Wish me luck! Oh and I just finished The Forever War. Really liked it.
    Battle Cry of Freedom (Pulitzer Prize winner) is easily the best single volume history of the Civil War.The opening chapters leading up to the War have some big time stuff in them concerning Slavery and national growth. Am embarrassed I didn't read it until last year. It includes everything you should know about the American Civil War but don't. It follows the war chronologically and you don't get to Gettysburg until 600+ pages. McPherson is a brilliant history writer with great transitions among topics. And he covers a lot of topics and the footnotes are the bottom of the page. Particularly like his use of newspaper editorials to illustrate public opinion. Cannot recommend an American history book more highly. He wrote a much smaller book on Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation (he is the gold standard on this topic) if you want a less ambitious introduction to his Civil War efforts.

  7. #407
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh
    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Green View Post
    My newest undertaking is Grant by Ron Chernow. I'm into Chapter 3 and hooked.
    At 960+ pages, that is indeed an undertaking. I thoroughly enjoyed it last year. An excellent choice!
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  8. #408
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    Arlington, VA
    Quote Originally Posted by WV_Iron_Duke View Post
    Battle Cry of Freedom (Pulitzer Prize winner) is easily the best single volume history of the Civil War.The opening chapters leading up to the War have some big time stuff in them concerning Slavery and national growth. Am embarrassed I didn't read it until last year. It includes everything you should know about the American Civil War but don't. It follows the war chronologically and you don't get to Gettysburg until 600+ pages. McPherson is a brilliant history writer with great transitions among topics. And he covers a lot of topics and the footnotes are the bottom of the page. Particularly like his use of newspaper editorials to illustrate public opinion. Cannot recommend an American history book more highly. He wrote a much smaller book on Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation (he is the gold standard on this topic) if you want a less ambitious introduction to his Civil War efforts.
    Thanks! That’s quite the endorsement. I’m about 100 pages in and really liking it so far. I learned some things just in his introduction which is probably an indictment on my own knowledge base and a compliment to him.

  9. #409
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Spearhead by Adam Makos. Just an incredible story. Shoot out between a Pershing and a Tiger amid the rubble of Cologne in the shadows of the cathedral. Battle was filmed by combat cameraman and can be seen on youtube. The tank's crew members experiences are simply amazing.

  10. #410
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Colorado
    I just finished "Hillbilly Elegy - A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis" by J.D. Vance

    Good read but it wasn't quite what I expected. He talked a lot about the dysfunction in his family and that of other Kentucky "hillbillies" who had moved to Ohio for jobs. It was interesting but there was less discussion of the broader culture than I hoped for.

    The author had a tough family life and joined the Marines out of high school . The Marine experience transformed him and freed him from the low expectations of his family and neighbors. He ended up graduating from Yale Law School.

  11. #411
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh
    Quote Originally Posted by Cormac View Post
    My high school American history teacher gave me Battle Cry of Freedom as a graduation gift. I’ve put it off for 16 years (wow I got old). No time like the present to finally tackle it. Wish me luck! Oh and I just finished The Forever War. Really liked it.
    Superb recommendation. I signed it out of the local library 2 weeks ago and had to renew it today having "only" covered about 400 pages. An amazing, comprehensive detailing of the ~20 years leading up to the Civil War so far. I suspect it'll take another two weeks to finish the book (850-900 pages total ), but that should work out well with a light week of work planned next week. After that, it may be Chernow's Washington: A Life (before Lin-Manuel Miranda makes a Broadway show out of it, hopefully ).
    [redacted] them and the horses they rode in on.

  12. #412
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California

    A study of the Obama-Trump transition

    Michael Lewis's The Fifth Risk. This is an NYT best seller. It is a compilation of anecdotal studies of the shortcomings of the severely undermined Trump transition team as it slowly took over various departments of government. It is a clear indictment of the process, demonstrating that the people who eventually arrived had no idea what the department does. In fact, they often did not want to learn. Invariably, the Obama people had left detailed summaries of their work and maps of what needed to be done. The Trumpists never bothered to read them.

    The book is easy to read, fairly short at 219 pages and ends abruptly without stating Lewis's conclusions. But the reader will already know what they are.

  13. #413
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by MartyClark View Post
    I just finished "Hillbilly Elegy - A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis" by J.D. Vance

    Good read but it wasn't quite what I expected. He talked a lot about the dysfunction in his family and that of other Kentucky "hillbillies" who had moved to Ohio for jobs. It was interesting but there was less discussion of the broader culture than I hoped for.

    The author had a tough family life and joined the Marines out of high school . The Marine experience transformed him and freed him from the low expectations of his family and neighbors. He ended up graduating from Yale Law School.
    This was my sentiment as well. It had been heralded as an examination of how the "Obama economy" didn't work for white blue collar Appalachians and how that demographic's cultural crisis helped explain their breaking for Trump. Maybe I was reading the wrong reviews but I didn't get the sense that Vance wanted to or tried to make his book do that. He makes the connection in a few spots but the book is mostly a biography...

    Anyway, they're making a movie and Glen Close and Amy Adams are in it so make of that what you will.

  14. #414
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Walnut Creek, California
    Quote Originally Posted by MartyClark View Post
    I just finished "Hillbilly Elegy - A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis" by J.D. Vance

    Good read but it wasn't quite what I expected. He talked a lot about the dysfunction in his family and that of other Kentucky "hillbillies" who had moved to Ohio for jobs. It was interesting but there was less discussion of the broader culture than I hoped for.

    The author had a tough family life and joined the Marines out of high school . The Marine experience transformed him and freed him from the low expectations of his family and neighbors. He ended up graduating from Yale Law School.

    I refused to finish it. I just became angry at how deliberately ignorant these people were/are. The opportunities are there, but the folks just won't take advantage. Vance managed to get through the ignorance, perhaps because he bounced between Ohio and Kentucky. Smart kid. Why couldn't other smart kids do something similar? A high school diploma is never out of reach. Community colleges, always inexpensive, are there to be used.

  15. #415
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Outside Philly
    Quote Originally Posted by devildeac View Post
    Superb recommendation. I signed it out of the local library 2 weeks ago and had to renew it today having "only" covered about 400 pages. An amazing, comprehensive detailing of the ~20 years leading up to the Civil War so far. I suspect it'll take another two weeks to finish the book (850-900 pages total ), but that should work out well with a light week of work planned next week. After that, it may be Chernow's Washington: A Life (before Lin-Manuel Miranda makes a Broadway show out of it, hopefully ).
    I've just started reading this as well. Perhaps my favorite nugget so far is that General Winfield Scott's nickname was Old Fuss and Feathers.

    I'm also one of those misty-eyed those-were-the-days kind of guys who wishes modern congressional delegations broke out in more fist fights.

  16. #416
    Any recommendations for anything by Sam Kean?

    This caught my eye. Out today.

    The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb

    https://www.sciencefriday.com/articl...hitlers-hands/


    But he has other books that look good too.
    ~rthomas

  17. #417
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    Quote Originally Posted by rthomas View Post
    Any recommendations for anything by Sam Kean?

    This caught my eye. Out today.

    The Bastard Brigade: The True Story of the Renegade Scientists and Spies who Sabotaged the Nazi Atomic Bomb

    https://www.sciencefriday.com/articl...hitlers-hands/


    But he has other books that look good too.
    I came across a different excerpt of the same book over at Deadspin.

  18. #418
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Mount Kisco, NY
    @Ian_OConnor
    Who says I don't listen to my readers? I just signed with Houghton Mifflin, publisher of my NYTimes bestselling Belichick, Jeter, and Arnie & Jack books, to write a biography of Mike Krzyzewski. Thanks so much for the input.

  19. #419
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Just started Rick Atkinson's The British Are Coming, the first of his trilogy on the American Revolution. I hope it's as good as his trilogy on the American army in ETO during WWII. Atkinson does this sort of thing as well as anyone.

  20. #420
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    About to finish Chuck Wendig’s Wanderers.

    An epic novel in a similar vein to Stephen King’s The Stand.

    My first Wendig book. Will be reading more.

    Highly recommended.

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