Book Recomendations

[RiverDog]

I thought I'd start a thread that doesn't involve so much controversy. Being retired, I'm had a lot of time to read books and would like to share some of my experiences with you.

I once saw an episode on PBS's Nova called "The Mystery of the Megafloods" and it caused me to start reading on the subject of the Missoula Floods, the ice age event that was responsible for many of the features here in eastern Washington. It piqued my interest, as I could literally step outside my back door and see the evidence the book was talking about. The small towns and features mentioned in the book were places that I was personally familiar with. Hawktalk, being that you live in Moses Lake, the book should be really interesting to you. It's the best one I've read on the subject:

Bretz's Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World's Greatest Flood

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/327 ... tz-s-flood

It's about 3/4 geology, described so that a novice like me can understand it, and 1/4 human interest, mostly about the man that first suggested the idea of a mega flood, J Harlen Bretz. The flood contained an amount of water estimated to be 10 times the volume of all the rivers in the world combined and lasted just 7-10 days. He did his work in the 1920's, when aviation was in its infancy and satellite imagery was decades away, so all his observations were done at ground level. In addition, much of eastern Washington was barren wasteland, 20 years before Grand Coulee Dam transformed the area into farmland, making it very difficult to explore. As my dad described it, all that existed prior to the 1950's was jackrabbits and rattlesnakes. Very few maps of the area were available. They utilized railroad lines, trekking about the area on foot during the hot summers that often times reached triple digits.

Bretz also had to swim upstream of conventional wisdom of the day. At the time, science was desperately trying to separate itself from the religious POV that the world was created in 6 days, and Bretz's flood sounded too Biblical, too much like Noah's flood, for them to swallow. At the time, geology was beholden to the principle of uniformitarianism, that features like the Grand Canyon and Niagra Falls were created over thousands of years, not in the geologic blink of an eye as Bretz was suggesting.

What Bretz did was no short of amazing. He was originally a biology teacher at a high school in Seattle, saw some features on a map of eastern Washington that made him curious, went back to college, got a degree in geology, then for a number of years in the 20's, spent his summers exploring the remnants of the flood. It took 40 years, when satellite imagery became available in the 1960's, before his theory was accepted. He lived long enough to see his work and himself vindicated.

If you guys have any suggestions on other good reads, let's hear them.

[Aseahawkfan]

Hmm. I haven't been reading books as much lately.

Maybe read some of the ancient Roman and Greek historians. Livy is one I read recently. He was a Roman. His work opened my eyes to how messed up and evil the Ancient world was, but to them it was just matter of fact. I found it fascinating that the Roman army when out making war would just take women and boys to serve as their sex slaves. I recall reading a passage where the Roman military leader told the Roman soldiers to leave behind their women and boys so they could march faster as they were being pursued by the Persians I believe. Many of the soldiers did not want to leave behind their women and boys because they had become attached to them. Wherever the Roman armies went, the people in their path would hide their women and boys (not men as it was made clear it was boys) so they would not get taken for use by the advancing Roman army.

I found the entire methodology of the Roman army interesting. I can see where the European colonial powers learned their methods from. We paint Rome as the foundation for Western Civilization elevating their wisdom and ideas of liberty, but overlook how cruel, violent, and evil they were in their teachings. They taught empire building and colonialism. They took what they wanted by force. They enslaved other populations as needed. When they were on the move, they took what they wanted for their pleasure. Such was the way of the Roman army and many ancient armies.

Reading about the ancient world gives a good perspective of how lucky we are to live in modern times. That the violence and behavior we experience now is but a pale shadow of what man once did to each other in the quest for power and wealth. Life was cheap in the ancient world. If you couldn't protect yourself, you could have everything taken from you with nowhere to go for help.

I also recommend Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street. It was a good read for someone who wants to invest. Lynch manages to take investing and make it simple for any reader.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald was a great read. Almost any biography on Lincoln is worth a read. The most amazing American president. America would not exist but for Abraham Lincoln.

[RiverDog]

Hmm. I haven't been reading books as much lately.

Maybe read some of the ancient Roman and Greek historians. Livy is one I read recently. He was a Roman. His work opened my eyes to how messed up and evil the Ancient world was, but to them it was just matter of fact. I found it fascinating that the Roman army when out making war would just take women and boys to serve as their sex slaves. I recall reading a passage where the Roman military leader told the Roman soldiers to leave behind their women and boys so they could march faster as they were being pursued by the Persians I believe. Many of the soldiers did not want to leave behind their women and boys because they had become attached to them. Wherever the Roman armies went, the people in their path would hide their women and boys (not men as it was made clear it was boys) so they would not get taken for use by the advancing Roman army.

I found the entire methodology of the Roman army interesting. I can see where the European colonial powers learned their methods from. We paint Rome as the foundation for Western Civilization elevating their wisdom and ideas of liberty, but overlook how cruel, violent, and evil they were in their teachings. They taught empire building and colonialism. They took what they wanted by force. They enslaved other populations as needed. When they were on the move, they took what they wanted for their pleasure. Such was the way of the Roman army and many ancient armies.

Reading about the ancient world gives a good perspective of how lucky we are to live in modern times. That the violence and behavior we experience now is but a pale shadow of what man once did to each other in the quest for power and wealth. Life was cheap in the ancient world. If you couldn't protect yourself, you could have everything taken from you with nowhere to go for help.

I also recommend Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street. It was a good read for someone who wants to invest. Lynch manages to take investing and make it simple for any reader.

Lincoln by David Herbert Donald was a great read. Almost any biography on Lincoln is worth a read. The most amazing American president. America would not exist but for Abraham Lincoln.

I'm heavily into non fiction, which helps explain my preoccupation with the JFK assassination, and I don't seem to have as much interest in pre-18th century history as it's not 'real' enough, that I can't relate with it. Most of the stuff I've read is from the 20th century...WW2, MLK and the civil rights movement, the space race, Teddy Roosevelt's campaign against the trusts, the building of the Panama Canal, the transcontinental railroad, and so on. I've read biographies on all of the 20th century POTUS's except for Bush 41 and Clinton. Fictions don't generally interest me.

I have read about Lincoln, and I think I've read the very same book by David Herbert Donald that you mentioned. Interesting things from back then, like men sharing the same bed in a rooming house even though they weren't homosexuals. You're right, Lincoln was an amazing individual, and the country wouldn't have evolved as it did had it not been for him. The Civil War would have been delayed for a couple more decades, perhaps resulted in the confederacy being successful in their attempts to secede.

I'll go back and re-visit the Lincoln book you mentioned and see if I''ve read it, but it sure sounds familiar.

Thanks for responding.

[Aseahawkfan]

I'm heavily into non fiction, which helps explain my preoccupation with the JFK assassination, and I don't seem to have as much interest in pre-18th century history as it's not 'real' enough, that I can't relate with it. Most of the stuff I've read is from the 20th century...WW2, MLK and the civil rights movement, the space race, Teddy Roosevelt's campaign against the trusts, the building of the Panama Canal, the transcontinental railroad, and so on. I've read biographies on all of the 20th century POTUS's except for Bush 41 and Clinton. Fictions don't generally interest me.

I have read about Lincoln, and I think I've read the very same book by David Herbert Donald that you mentioned. Interesting things from back then, like men sharing the same bed in a rooming house even though they weren't homosexuals. You're right, Lincoln was an amazing individual, and the country wouldn't have evolved as it did had it not been for him. The Civil War would have been delayed for a couple more decades, perhaps resulted in the confederacy being successful in their attempts to secede.

I'll go back and re-visit the Lincoln book you mentioned and see if I''ve read it, but it sure sounds familiar.

Thanks for responding.

Another biography you may want to read is Churchill. It may still be free on Amazon with a Kindle. They had all the volumes of Churchill's biography as free for download. I had a friend tell me about the free download, I downloaded his multi-volume biography and read I think the first three or four volumes. Churchill was an extraordinary man involved in many of the events that shaped the modern world map. That surprised me. I did not realize until I read Churchill's biography that it was the fall of the Ottoman Empire after Turkey was beaten during World War 1 that shaped the modern Middle East. Churchill was appointed to Middle Eastern affairs to help shape the area in competition with France. You might find it an interesting read given how much of Churchill's life was spent involved in shaping the 19th and 20th century. I don't know when Churchill slept he was so busy.

I started reading about the ancient world because I wanted to become a fantasy fiction writer. To develop a realistic world, I needed to know how the ancient world worked. Once I started reading about it, I found it fascinating. It was a real eye opener about certain social ideas that we are taught about in a certain way that are not as it was in the ancient world. Basically, we are taught a lot of lies about where social beliefs come from and you don't realize they're lies until you read why they originally came about. Some of what I learned.

1. One man-one woman marriage: The one man and one woman marriage does not come from Judeo-Christian teachings. In fact, the original Jewish people were polygamous. If you read the Bible closer, there is no Christian law that requires monogamy. Abraham, King David, and King Solomon were all polygamists. Charlemagne the Great also had multiple wives. Polygamy was more the standard in the ancient world as powerful men took multiple wives.

But the one culture that had one legal wife was Roman culture. The Roman legal system only allowed a man to take one legal wife who would have his legal heirs who could lay claim to his titles and property. Once Rome was Christianized, the Roman Catholic Church, the most powerful Church in history, pushed the Roman legal system with Christianity to all parts of the Roman Empire. And as the Church spread, the Roman legal ideas spread with it into Europe. That is why the Christian and Western standard is one man and one woman. It has nothing to do with love or some kind of ordained by God union, it had to do with the Roman decision that the legal system was better served by a man having one legal wife.

2. Priests not marrying: A Vatican Council decided that the priests could not longer marry because certain priests were passing on possession of Church property to their heirs. So the Vatican Council outlawed marriage for priests to prevent the Catholic Church from losing property and wealth generated by the land they owned. It had nothing to do with some greater commitment to God and everything to do with property and money.

3. Homosexuality: Male homosexuality was a lot more common in the ancient world it would seem. Males tended to use younger men in this role, sometimes taken by force during military excursions. I primarily see this with Greeks and Romans. It obviously became outlawed with the adoption of Judeo-Christian ethics. It's a real interesting read as to why they had to outlaw this behavior to begin with as it must have been prevalent for laws to be put in place to reduce the behavior. Even with these laws in place, homosexuality has never been eradicated in any culture that I know of.

4. Race: Race doesn't exist as a biological reality in the ancient world as we know it. Race based on skin color was not a value in the ancient world. In general, power groups created hierarchies for rulership based on various ideas whether it be citizenry like being Roman or ethnicity like being Anglo-Saxon or position in society like being a Patrician in Rome. The power group would enforce their rights and powers with violence. I recall reading how the Anglo-Saxons could tell who native island people were in the British Isles by their round faces. They specifically forbade males with round faces from breeding with their females and sometimes vice versa as they didn't want their blood mixed with weak island native blood.

It really brings home that the white and black race are not a real thing, but an artificial creation to justify the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. It allowed the colonial leaders to use the European diaspora to kill, enslave, and oppress the native populations in the areas they colonized and justify the enslavement of the West Africans along the coastal areas where they were taken or sold. Many of the slave traders made allies with local tribal groups because the enslavement of enemy tribes was common in West Africa as in most areas, so the would have one tribe attack another to take slaves and then sell them to European slave traders for weapons and other goods.

The primary empires involved were the Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Dutch. Many of the other European nations were not heavily involved with the slave trade and they only used West African slave labor in the colonies. Generally it was outlawed in actual European nations.

Reading about the ancient world was a real eye opener as to things we take at face value in the modern day. We are taught a ton of lies about people and the world in America. I'm glad many of these lies are being unraveled with new generations. I would hate to live in an older America that was taught so much rubbish about foreign people just to make it was easer to use them as a weapon to take land and enslave people.

The ancient world also really hits home how you don't need a majority to oppress people. You just need a very motivated, well-trained minority willing to use violence to oppress and control people. Human beings are usually very fearful creatures, especially if the don't come from a warrior culture. It's very easy to cow and control them when you know how to do so and come from a war-like culture. There is a method to their madness.

It also makes you appreciate America's founders more. They may have been raised with many of the old world ideas. But some of them laid a foundation for the dispersing of power so that singular power groups could not gain control of the country like they do in places like China, Russia, and pre-Democratic Europe. The dispersal of power, including military power, is extremely important for preventing oppression. That is made clear over and over and over again when you read about the ancient world. If you didn't have a warrior culture in the ancient world as a human group, you were meat for the slaughter if a war-like culture came up on you.

Ancient history gives real insight into humanity's development and helps see through many of the lies we are taught about humanity even in the modern day. I'm glad I spent some time reading it. Very insightful.

It can be very dry reading though. Roman historians tended to write what they see. They also wrote in a way to glorify Rome as many historians do from a given Empire. It is still very insightful material.

Glad to chat a little bit as I find history of all kinds interesting.

[RiverDog]

Another biography you may want to read is Churchill. It may still be free on Amazon with a Kindle. They had all the volumes of Churchill's biography as free for download. I had a friend tell me about the free download, I downloaded his multi-volume biography and read I think the first three or four volumes. Churchill was an extraordinary man involved in many of the events that shaped the modern world map. That surprised me. I did not realize until I read Churchill's biography that it was the fall of the Ottoman Empire after Turkey was beaten during World War 1 that shaped the modern Middle East. Churchill was appointed to Middle Eastern affairs to help shape the area in competition with France. You might find it an interesting read given how much of Churchill's life was spent involved in shaping the 19th and 20th century. I don't know when Churchill slept he was so busy.

I've read some about Churchill, but only as it applied to FDR and WW2. I've never read his biography.

But he's as fascinating charactor, and next to Yogi Berra, he's my favorite quotable source that I've read about. My favorite quote of his is one when he had been drinking...and Churchill drank one helluva lot..his lady, seeing Churchill very inebriated and not too pleased about it, said to him "Churchill, you're drunk!", to which Churchill replied "Yes, I am drunk. And you're ugly. In the morning, I'll be sober." Classic!

I started reading about the ancient world because I wanted to become a fantasy fiction writer. To develop a realistic world, I needed to know how the ancient world worked. Once I started reading about it, I found it fascinating. It was a real eye opener about certain social ideas that we are taught about in a certain way that are not as it was in the ancient world. Basically, we are taught a lot of lies about where social beliefs come from and you don't realize their lies until you read why they originally came about. Some of what I learned.

1. One man-one woman marriage: The one man and one woman marriage does not come from Judeo-Christian teachings. In fact, the original Jewish people were polygamous. If you read the Bible closer, there is no Christian law that requires monogamy. Abraham, King David, and King Solomon were all polygamists. Charlemagne the Great also had multiple wives. Polygamy was more the standard in the ancient world as powerful men took multiple wives.

But the one culture that had one legal wife was Roman culture. The Roman legal system only allowed a man to take one legal wife who would have his legal heirs who could lay claim to his titles and property. Once Rome was Christianized, the Roman Catholic Church, the most powerful Church in history, pushed the Roman legal system with Christianity to all parts of the Roman Empire. And as the Church spread, the Roman legal ideas spread with it into Europe. That is why the Christian and Western standard is one man and one woman. It has nothing to do with love or some kind of ordained by God union, it had to do with the Roman decision that the legal system was better served by a man having one legal wife.

2. Priests not marrying: A Vatican Council decided that the priests could not longer marry because certain priests were passing on possession of Church property to their heirs. So the Vatican Council outlawed marriage for priests to prevent the Catholic Church from losing property and wealth generated by the land they owned. It had nothing to do with some greater commitment to God and everything to do with property and money.

3. Homosexuality: Male homosexuality was a lot more common in the ancient world it would seem. Males tended to use younger men in this role, sometimes taken by force during military excursions. I primarily see this with Greeks and Romans. It obviously became outlawed with the adoption of Judeo-Christian ethics. It's a real interesting read as to why they had to outlaw this behavior to begin with as it must have been prevalent for laws to be put in place to reduce the behavior. Even with these laws in place, homosexuality has never been eradicated in any culture that I know of.

4. Race: Race doesn't exist as a biological reality in the ancient world as we know it. Race based on skin color was not a value in the ancient world. In general, power groups created hierarchies for rulership based on various ideas whether it be citizenry like being Roman or ethnicity like being Anglo-Saxon or position in society like being a Patrician in Rome. The power group would enforce their rights and powers with violence. I recall reading how the Anglo-Saxons could tell who native island people were in the British Isles by their round faces. They specifically forbade males with round faces from breeding with their females and sometimes vice versa as they didn't want their blood mixed with weak island native blood.

It really brings home that the white and black race are not a real thing, but an artificial creation to justify the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and colonialism. It allowed the colonial leaders to use the European diaspora to kill, enslave, and oppress the native populations in the areas they colonized and justify the enslavement of the West Africans along the coastal areas where they were taken or sold. Many of the slave traders made allies with local tribal groups because the enslavement of enemy tribes was common in West Africa as in most areas, so the would have one tribe attack another to take slaves and then sell them to European slave traders for weapons and other goods.

The primary empires involved were the Portuguese, Spanish, English, French, and Dutch. Many of the other European nations were not heavily involved with the slave trade and they only used West African slave labor in the colonies. Generally it was outlawed in actual European nations.

Reading about the ancient world was a real eye opener as to things we take at face value in the modern day. We are taught a ton of lies about people and the world in America. I'm glad many of these lies are being unraveled with new generations. I would hate to live in an older America that was taught so much rubbish about foreign people just to make it was easer to use them as a weapon to take land and enslave people.

The ancient world also really hits home how you don't need a majority to oppress people. You just need a very motivated, well-trained minority willing to use violence to oppress and control people. Human beings are usually very fearful creatures, especially if the don't come from a warrior culture. It's very easy to cow and control them when you know how to do so and come from a war-like culture. There is a method to their madness.

It also makes you appreciate America's founders more. They may have been raised with many of the old world ideas. But some of them laid a foundation for the dispersing of power so that singular power groups could not gain control of the country like they do in places like China, Russia, and pre-Democratic Europe. The dispersal of power, including military power, is extremely important for preventing oppression. That is made clear over and over and over again when you read about the ancient world. If you didn't have a warrior culture in the ancient world as a human group, you were meat for the slaughter if a war-like culture came up on you.

Ancient history gives real insight into humanity's development and helps see through many of the lies we are taught about humanity even in the modern day. I'm glad I spent some time reading it. Very insightful.

It can be very dry reading though. Roman historians tended to write what they see. They also wrote in a way to glorify Rome as many historians do from a given Empire. It is still very insightful material.

Glad to chat a little bit as I find history of all kinds interesting.

I have a hard time getting interested in history prior to the 17th or 18th century as it's difficult for me to identify with. 19th and 20th century events seem more real, something I can identify with. That's why I'm so preoccupied with the JFK assassination...because I remember it...and the Missoula Floods...because I live where they happened at.

[Aseahawkfan]

I have a hard time getting interested in history prior to the 17th or 18th century as it's difficult for me to identify with. 19th and 20th century events seem more real, something I can identify with. That's why I'm so preoccupied with the JFK assassination...because I remember it...and the Missoula Floods...because I live where they happened at.

You were never curious as to why society and humanity operates in certain ways? Or why some societal institution is structured in a particular fashion? Or why the American Founders chose to include certain rights while leaving other rights open and unexplained? So much of who and what we are comes from people far outside the boundaries of the lives and the timeline of America. We are a very young country. A great deal of who we are comes from the empires before us and the ones before them.

Even the Middle East has incredibly interesting history. The formation of Islam. The figures in it. How they died and the culture of warfare in that region that precedes the violence we attribute to Islam. Even the mythical jinn from that region were woven into Islam, creatures created thousands of years ago in the mythology of that area that they still teach prayers to modern people for how to rid your home of their presence.

Even the symbols on our money are ancient symbols from ancient empires and peoples. We are so much a product of many generations of human activity.

I get it. Most of my friends are similar, but worse in so far as their recollection of history is some news story on Fox News. They barely know why The Second Amendment exists, the underlying idea of Natural Law that underpins our Constitution, or much of the history that shaped the nations that shaped our nation. I hear this from them all the time from all sides. Even when I tell a person of African descent that is cynical that "racism will always" exist that they are wrong and that it did not always exist and won't always exist, they are surprised because their idea is based on modern America and America's short history rather than the idea that at one time comical idea of race based on skin color was a non-existent idea. And it will be an idea that dies again as some new idea of humanity replaces that idea as future generations build on the world we have built with different ways to categorize humanity as they are already doing.

I am surprised you have little interest in Rome. Roman culture had such immense influence on Europe and was spread so far and wide by the European colonial empires that I would think you would read a bit. We still use a Julian Solar calendar, though the days of our week are more derived from Scandinavian culture. There is immense amount of Latin in the English language. I imagine you can only read so much in a lifetime.

[RiverDog]

I am surprised you have little interest in Rome. Roman culture had such immense influence on Europe and was spread so far and wide by the European colonial empires that I would think you would read a bit. We still use a Julian Solar calendar, though the days of our week are more derived from Scandinavian culture. There is immense amount of Latin in the English language. I imagine you can only read so much in a lifetime.

It's not that I don't have any interest in ancient civilizations, just that it's limited to stuff like science and engineering. I don't have much of an interest in stuff like literature of the era, their wars, etc. I tried to get interested in the Crusades, but got bored quickly.

One of my favorite reads of the ancient world was about Eratosthenes, who lived a couple hundred years after the birth of Crist. I first read about him in a Carl Sagen book called "Cosmos". What impressed me about him is that during a day when conventional wisdom was that the world was flat, he calculated the circumference of the Earth within an accuracy of something like 98% with nothing more than a few sticks, human feet, and his brain as tools.

Eratosthenes made a couple of observations that didn't jive with the assumption that the Earth was flat, one of them being how far the sun shined in two different wells both the same diameter a number of miles north and south of each other. If the Earth was flat, then they should have shined to the exact same depth in both wells, but there was a noticeable difference. He then observed that two sticks of the same length and at the same time of day at two different locations north and south of each other, one would cast a shadow while the other one didn't. These observations piqued his curiosity.

He then conducted an experiment. On the same day, he measured, or arranged to measure, the angle of shadow of the noontime sun cast on two vertical sticks of the same length at two points on the Nile River north and south of each other to determine the percent of 360 degrees the angle represented, hired a person to pace off the distance between the two sticks, then applied some simple arithmetic to figure out the circumference of the Earth. So not only had he proven that the world was round and not flat, but he also calculated, with amazing accuracy, how big it was. It wasn't for another 1200 years that his theory was accepted. Talk about being ahead of his time!

It's those types of feats that impress me, not accepting conventional wisdom and trusting the rational side of their minds. That's why Bretz impressed me as much as he did, because he defied conventional wisdom, that all geologic features conformed to the principle of uniformitarianism, proposed a theory that was contrary to it, set about to prove it, defended it against scathing criticism that caused him great personal anguish, and wasn't acknowledged for decades. Too many people think that modern man has a superior intellect, that the smartest man ever to live is Bill Gates or Elon Musk.

[Aseahawkfan]

It's not that I don't have any interest in ancient civilizations, just that it's limited to stuff like science and engineering. I don't have much of an interest in stuff like literature of the era, their wars, etc. I tried to get interested in the Crusades, but got bored quickly.

One of my favorite reads of the ancient world was about Eratosthenes, who lived a couple hundred years after the birth of Crist. I first read about him in a Carl Sagen book called "Cosmos". What impressed me about him is that during a day when conventional wisdom was that the world was flat, he calculated the circumference of the Earth within an accuracy of something like 98% with nothing more than a few sticks, human feet, and his brain as tools.

Eratosthenes made a couple of observations that didn't jive with the assumption that the Earth was flat, one of them being how far the sun shined in two different wells both the same diameter a number of miles north and south of each other. If the Earth was flat, then they should have shined to the exact same depth in both wells, but there was a noticeable difference. He then observed that two sticks of the same length and at the same time of day at two different locations north and south of each other, one would cast a shadow while the other one didn't. These observations piqued his curiosity.

He then conducted an experiment. On the same day, he measured, or arranged to measure, the angle of shadow of the noontime sun cast on two vertical sticks of the same length at two points on the Nile River north and south of each other to determine the percent of 360 degrees the angle represented, hired a person to pace off the distance between the two sticks, then applied some simple arithmetic to figure out the circumference of the Earth. So not only had he proven that the world was round and not flat, but he also calculated, with amazing accuracy, how big it was. It wasn't for another 1200 years that his theory was accepted. Talk about being ahead of his time!

It's those types of feats that impress me, not accepting conventional wisdom and trusting the rational side of their minds. That's why Bretz impressed me as much as he did, because he defied conventional wisdom, that all geologic features conformed to the principle of uniformitarianism, proposed a theory that was contrary to it, set about to prove it, defended it against scathing criticism that caused him great personal anguish, and wasn't acknowledged for decades. Too many people think that modern man has a superior intellect, that the smartest man ever to live is Bill Gates or Elon Musk.

I agree. Humans produced a lot of highly intelligent people at all periods of their development. Nice to see you are interested in some of the ancient world scientists. I've always been impressed at the development of medical science a few thousand plus years ago. The Romans were studying the brain and anatomy. They didn't get everything right, but they had a lot of interesting men of wisdom. And advanced mathematics was a major invention in the Indian and Arab world. Architecture has definitely been an area where humankind has been doing interesting things for millennia. I'm also fascinated at times by food technology. They were brewing bear, making bread, and cheese from the time of the Egyptians. Most likely some local tribal group did it before hand and it was picked up by the Egyptians during their expansion.

Ancient world science is super interesting as well. They had some real smart humans thousands of years ago. My mother always thinks it was aliens and I have to chuckle and tell her there were a lot of smart human all over the world throughout history doing interesting things even back to the day when the first humans learned to harness fire or kill and prepare an animal.

[EmeraldBullet]

Really like this thread. One of my favorite reads is The Testament by John Grisham. For an autobiography I really enjoyed Juan Marichals "A Pitchers Story"

[RiverDog]

Really like this thread. One of my favorite reads is The Testament by John Grisham. For an autobiography I really enjoyed Juan Marichals "A Pitchers Story"

My wife has read a couple of Grisham's books, but they're mostly fiction, and I'm a lot more into nonfiction. But Juan Marichal played for the Giants back in the mid 60's when I was really interested in baseball. I used to listen to Giants games in the evening, straining to get a San Francisco AM radio station from my home in Walla Walla that would fade in and out. Marichal was one of my childhood heros, and as a little leaguer, would try to imitate his big leg kick, so I'll put your suggestion down on my list.

One thing I'll do is watch an episode of "Modern Marvels" on the History Channel and see a subject that looks interesting then find the best book I can about it. Two episodes that I now have watched and are now on my wish list were about two inventors, Nikoli Tesla and George Washington Carver. I like a book that's about science or engineering yet has a personal twist to it in something that the subject had to overcome, and these two individuals seem like they had a lot of personal challenges that they had to deal with.

Edit: Em, I tried looking up the book you suggested, and all I could find is this one, and it's about David Cone:

https://www.amazon.com/Pitchers-Story-I ... 317&sr=8-1

Are you sure of the title?

[EmeraldBullet]

My wife has read a couple of Grisham's books, but they're mostly fiction, and I'm a lot more into nonfiction. But Juan Marichal played for the Giants back in the mid 60's when I was really interested in baseball. I used to listen to Giants games in the evening, straining to get a San Francisco AM radio station from my home in Walla Walla that would fade in and out. Marichal was one of my childhood heros, and as a little leaguer, would try to imitate his big leg kick, so I'll put your suggestion down on my list.

One thing I'll do is watch an episode of "Modern Marvels" on the History Channel and see a subject that looks interesting then find the best book I can about it. Two episodes that I now have watched and are now on my wish list were about two inventors, Nikoli Tesla and George Washington Carver. I like a book that's about science or engineering yet has a personal twist to it in something that the subject had to overcome, and these two individuals seem like they had a lot of personal challenges that they had to deal with.

Edit: Em, I tried looking up the book you suggested, and all I could find is this one, and it's about David Cone:

https://www.amazon.com/Pitchers-Story-I ... 317&sr=8-1

Are you sure of the title?

Yes Im sure. "A Pitcher's Story" - Juan Marichal with Charles Einstein. Its a rare and out of print book. I happen to own a copy tho and would be down to let you borrow it if you are interested.

[EmeraldBullet]

Or you can purchase a copy here:
https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDe ... 4sQAvD_BwE

[RiverDog]

OK, thanks! I'll check it out.

[Stream Hawk]

Great thread idea! I got into reading again this past summer. Not that it's relevant, but I essentially quit drinking at the end of summer, and reading has seriously helped with that decision! My wife has been in a book club with her family the past few years, and I found myself piggybacking on her books laying around.

Here are my last books that I have read:

Educated. Tara Westover. Amazing book about Mormonism and its role in a woman's upbringing. Amazing writing; I couldn't put it down when I was traveling to So Cal last summer.
American Dirt. Jeanine Cummins. A story of a mother and son attempt to leave Mexican cartel and head to Merica'. Loved it.
Flea: Acid for the Children. Autobiography of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's a great writer who had a pretty wild life - before he became famous!
American Marriage.Tayari Jones. I am about halfway through and it is becoming a bit too much of a love story. It is written from husband and wife (and more) perspectives. I hope I can finish and get past the doldrums.

[RiverDog]

Great thread idea! I got into reading again this past summer. Not that it's relevant, but I essentially quit drinking at the end of summer, and reading has seriously helped with that decision! My wife has been in a book club with her family the past few years, and I found myself piggybacking on her books laying around.

Here are my last books that I have read:

Educated. Tara Westover. Amazing book about Mormonism and its role in a woman's upbringing. Amazing writing; I couldn't put it down when I was traveling to So Cal last summer.
American Dirt. Jeanine Cummins. A story of a mother and son attempt to leave Mexican cartel and head to Merica'. Loved it.
Flea: Acid for the Children. Autobiography of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's a great writer who had a pretty wild life - before he became famous!
American Marriage.Tayari Jones. I am about halfway through and it is becoming a bit too much of a love story. It is written from husband and wife (and more) perspectives. I hope I can finish and get past the doldrums.

Interesting. I'll make a note of a couple of those titles.

As I said earlier in the thread, I'm more into 19th and 20th century history, non fiction type stuff. One of my favorite authors is Stephen Ambrose, and I've read a number of his books, including one about the Lewis & Clark expedition, Custer and Crazy Horse, the construction of the transcontinental railroad, the D-Day invasion, two Presidential biographies, one on Eisenhower and one on Nixon, and that's just off the top of my head. All were very well written and footnoted.

[Stream Hawk]

I am interested in the Bretz book on the Missoula Floods. He was quite the pioneer in large-scale geomorphology of the Columbia Basin. I studied geology and physical geography at CWU, so spent a lot of time chasing around glacial erratics.

[RiverDog]

I am interested in the Bretz book on the Missoula Floods. He was quite the pioneer in large-scale geomorphology of the Columbia Basin. I studied geology and physical geography at CWU, so spent a lot of time chasing around glacial erratics.

There's also a Nova presentation on PBS, "Mystery of the Megafloods", that first got me interested in the subject:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=no ... &FORM=VIRE

As in most documentaries, it barely scratches the surface of the subject, especially for someone like yourself that has studied geology, but it's still very informative and interesting, well worth the 55 minutes it takes to watch it. Bretz was a rebel, refused to conform to conventional wisdom.

[RiverDog]

One of my more recent favorite authors is David Halberstam. I've read 3 books of his so far and am working on a 4th. My two favorites are The Fifties, an in depth look at post war America and the decade I was born in, and Summer of 1964, a baseball book that culminates in the World Series between the Cardinals and Yankees. The book of his that I am working on now is entitled "The Best and Brightest", an insight into the advisors in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (LBJ referred to them as "the Harvards") that were primarily responsible for leading us into the Vietnam War.

Once the weather gets a little warmer, we'll be firing up the motor home and taking some camping trips. Most of the campgrounds we visit don't have cell phone coverage, let alone wifi, so I'll be doing less internet browsing and more reading.

[Hawktawk]

Last book I read completely was "the genius" a book about Bill Walsh. A great read But that's been probably 15 years.
I was stuck in a remote cabin a few years ago and started reading war and remembrance. I'm a certifiably speed reader and even I couldn't do it. Something like 1100 pages . Books are an addiction to me. If I pick it up I have to try to finish it that day. I've been up most the night a few times. I read tons every day online, dozens of articles . Its just news and sports stuff though. The way the news is now maybe I should get some books and go off the grid

[RiverDog]

Last book I read completely was "the genius" a book about Bill Walsh. A great read But that's been probably 15 years.
I was stuck in a remote cabin a few years ago and started reading war and remembrance. I'm a certifiably speed reader and even I couldn't do it. Something like 1100 pages . Books are an addiction to me. If I pick it up I have to try to finish it that day. I've been up most the night a few times. I read tons every day online, dozens of articles . Its just news and sports stuff though. The way the news is now maybe I should get some books and go off the grid

The best book on football, specifically the NFL, that I've read was "America's Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation" by Michael McCambridge. I highly recommend it to any pro football fan, a very good read.

[c_hawkbob]

One of my favorite books and one of the last hardcover books I bought before going digital for my reading, but that I couldn't find until today is "Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin" by Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist (and huge baseball fan, devoted an entire chapter to why there will never be another .400 hitter)

[Aseahawkfan]

Last book I read completely was "the genius" a book about Bill Walsh. A great read But that's been probably 15 years.
I was stuck in a remote cabin a few years ago and started reading war and remembrance. I'm a certifiably speed reader and even I couldn't do it. Something like 1100 pages . Books are an addiction to me. If I pick it up I have to try to finish it that day. I've been up most the night a few times. I read tons every day online, dozens of articles . Its just news and sports stuff though. The way the news is now maybe I should get some books and go off the grid

When I think about it now, I spend the majority of my time reading financial information, company reports, and following the financial news. Some political and historical information if a particular topic catches my interest. And gaming materials for tabletop (virtual now) RPGs since I DM a group of friends that still enjoy wandering in fantasy worlds and pretending to be fantasy heroes aka D&D. And fitness information, though I consume more from Youtube videos as I've always been fascinated by strength, weightlifting, and physical power. From the day I saw Arnold in a movie, I was hooked on bodybuilding. That dude looked like no human being I had ever seen and I wanted to have some of that look. Too bad I could never master the diet to get there, though I did build up an immense amount of strength and size. And I didn't realize you needed roids to get that big too. I was never going to use roids. I hate taking drugs of most kinds and I don't even use asprin, drink alcohol, or use any recreational drugs other than caffeine. But I love good food way too much. But I still like to lift as my primary fitness activity. Even at 50, I have more strength than most humans. I stay interested in being strong and fit as old as possible. All the information I've read on fitness indicates maintaining strength especially in the legs and grip is important for living as long as possible.

The internet sure changed my reading and information consumption habits. Kindle is very nice too.

[RiverDog]

The internet sure changed my reading and information consumption habits. Kindle is very nice too.

Yeah, me, too. I get almost all of my news off my news app that I've customized so that I get a good variety of both liberal and conservative POV's. The only TV news, except when there is a breaking story, that I watch regularly is a network channel that has local news and weather that I'll watch in the mornings. And I love my Kindle, too. It's nice having a full library right at my fingertips to read when I'm confined, like when I'm traveling. I'll often times read several books at the same time, read one for an hour then switch gears and read another, sometimes reading the same book multiple times.

[Aseahawkfan]

Yeah, me, too. I get almost all of my news off my news app that I've customized so that I get a good variety of both liberal and conservative POV's. The only TV news, except when there is a breaking story, that I watch regularly is a network channel that has local news and weather that I'll watch in the mornings. And I love my Kindle, too. It's nice having a full library right at my fingertips to read when I'm confined, like when I'm traveling. I'll often times read several books at the same time, read one for an hour then switch gears and read another, sometimes reading the same book multiple times.

I though I would miss the feel of book, but Kindle is amazing. I do still like to read a real book on occasion, but I also enjoy the kindle as well with its easy ability to index, bookmark, search, and carry a library all in one device. It's easy on the eyes now too.

[Hawktawk]

I visit Matt drudges website which offers every perspective on news from Fox to AL Jazeera .

[RiverDog]

I visit Matt drudges website which offers every perspective on news from Fox to AL Jazeera .

Which is why you harbor conservative POV's in addition to your liberal stances.

The liberal/conservative bias isn't in the accuracy of their stories. It's in the stories they choose to report on. My favorite example is when one day as I was working out on an elliptical machine and was watching MSNBC. They were talking about the latest revelation in the first Trump impeachment saga. I turned the channel to Fox News and they were talking about an illegal alien that had murdered some college coed in Iowa.

The media will report on stories that they think will retain their core audience in order to support their rating so they can sell advertising, and both liberal and conservative sources are guilty of selective reporting. I could never get Idahawkman to understand that as he'd call me a liberal because I would reference news articles from CNN.

[Hawktawk]

When I think about it now, I spend the majority of my time reading financial information, company reports, and following the financial news. Some political and historical information if a particular topic catches my interest. And gaming materials for tabletop (virtual now) RPGs since I DM a group of friends that still enjoy wandering in fantasy worlds and pretending to be fantasy heroes aka D&D. And fitness information, though I consume more from Youtube videos as I've always been fascinated by strength, weightlifting, and physical power. From the day I saw Arnold in a movie, I was hooked on bodybuilding. That dude looked like no human being I had ever seen and I wanted to have some of that look. Too bad I could never master the diet to get there, though I did build up an immense amount of strength and size. And I didn't realize you needed roids to get that big too. I was never going to use roids. I hate taking drugs of most kinds and I don't even use asprin, drink alcohol, or use any recreational drugs other than caffeine. But I love good food way too much. But I still like to lift as my primary fitness activity. Even at 50, I have more strength than most humans. I stay interested in being strong and fit as old as possible. All the information I've read on fitness indicates maintaining strength especially in the legs and grip is important for living as long as possible.

The internet sure changed my reading and information consumption habits. Kindle is very nice too.

I figure you did something in finance as you are very knowledgeable and informative. Funny how we shape perceptions on the internet . I hadn’t considered you were into weights .

I met a guy in 1980 who was a heavyweight wrestler from Iowa state . He was the alternate to the US Olympic team that was boycotted from Russia . Ed could easily bench 550 and do about as many reps as he wanted with 225. I trained with him for a year and got to 16 inch biceps . Like many things I lost interest . I’d love to be able to lift weights but my shoulders are bone on bone . I’ll still swing a chainsaw till it runs out of gas without pausing . At 62 and 6 feet tall I weigh 260 but really only 30 lbs overweight . Still a quite strong old widebody that can physically work these young kids into the ground

[Aseahawkfan]

I figure you did something in finance as you are very knowledgeable and informative. Funny how we shape perceptions on the internet . I hadn’t considered you were into weights .

I met a guy in 1980 who was a heavyweight wrestler from Iowa state . He was the alternate to the US Olympic team that was boycotted from Russia . Ed could easily bench 550 and do about as many reps as he wanted with 225. I trained with him for a year and got to 16 inch biceps . Like many things I lost interest . I’d love to be able to lift weights but my shoulders are bone on bone . I’ll still swing a chainsaw till it runs out of gas without pausing . At 62 and 6 feet tall I weigh 260 but really only 30 lbs overweight . Still a quite strong old widebody that can physically work these young kids into the ground

I don't work in finance. It's for personal wealth building that I learned finance. I don't like working for other people. So I've always kept mostly garbage jobs that I don't care much about while building my wealth up through saving and investing in the market. Though if I had a do over, I would get a good job and invest as I would be retired easily by now had I built up more capital and not made some early investing mistakes that cost me a great deal. But that's ok. I recovered from the losses and have built up again.

I'm from a poor background. But I wasn't about to do like so many of these liberals encourage and ask for handouts from the government and not learn to manage money and have control of my life. Another book I read called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Tiyosaki illustrates the difference between the working person and people who attain a wealthy status in society.

I know with absolute certainty that even if you are from a poor family, even a poor minority family as my American of Mexican descent grandfather and grandmother started poor and worked up to middle class, you can manage your money intelligently and earn your way to a higher standard of living for yourself and your children by being wiling to work hard, save, and invest. Even if you start with nothing, no help from your family, a broken home, drunk mother and a drug addict father, you can change your life by making intelligent choices and you don't need handouts from the government to do so. I know this to absolutely be true and factual as I've done it myself. I paid my own college working at 7-11. I chose to pick up books to learn to invest. I chose to lift weights and be healthier. I made these conscious choices even though given my background according to liberals I should have been lining up at the handout office and whining to some counselor about my parents with substance abuse issues. I did not do that because I do not think that way. Instead my logical mind went this person made a bad choice and is suffering the consequences of that rotten choice and I will not make a similar choice and go down that obviously bad path. It is why I generally don't agree with the liberal Democrat mentality of handouts and no standards for work ethic or financial management before you to go to the tax and spend handout programs for people to improve themselves. If a person has not first attempted all means by their own power to make better life decisions with money, then there is zero reason why the government should tax and spend on handouts to invest in a person who is not managing their life well. That's money in the garbage as far as I'm concerned and I don't believe in investing in bad investments like drug addicts and people who choose to ruin their own lives. I wouldn't do it with my personal money and I don't know why I'm expected to do it when my money is taken in taxes.

Once you think of the world in terms of investing whether time or money, you start to have a very different mentality about how you judge relationships and money. It's why I think young people should be taught about investing and the idea of opportunity cost. Money is a resource necessary to manage your life and the fact that we don't teach young people much about how to manage it is criminal. It would be like not teaching them how to hunt or gather in a hunter-gatherer society. I always encourage younger folk to learn about investing as it is like learning how to change a tire or hunt or take care of a fever in the modern world. Money management is one of the most important life skills any person can learn. There is a marked difference in the lives of those who learn to at least manage money competently versus those who treat money like its some confusing piece of paper that they spend and spend and spend without thinking of it as a limited resource they must learn to manage well.

[Hawktawk]

I never invested much unfortunately and with the wolf at the door I’ll be working at least part time for years . I’m a full time golf course Supe right now but very blue collar . But I’ll be doing something for a while . I can do lots of things . I have in my life . I agree with most of the handout stuff as I have never taken welfare , never sat on unemployment and didn’t immediately go find a job . I’ve never screwed people over , never stole money when I controlled it although I caught plenty of others. I do believe in a hand up though , being humane to those who can’t care for themselves . The debate is who are those people ? If they are drug addicts there are carrot and stick programs that are working . Free syringes and allowing them early social security disability doesn’t .

And one more thing about handouts . The market has been supported by massive pumping by the fed preserving trillions in wealth artificially . Even in Biden’s dreadful year it is still several thousand points above Election Day I believe . You would know. My wife’s made a lot in her retirement as has my friend who’s retired and worth millions . But I’ve never put a dime in . I thought it was a Ponzi scheme and it is and now it’s too big to fail . Only about 45% of Americans own stock but all our great grandkids are gonna pay for all this stimulus .

[RiverDog]

And one more thing about handouts . The market has been supported by massive pumping by the fed preserving trillions in wealth artificially . Even in Biden’s dreadful year it is still several thousand points above Election Day I believe . You would know. My wife’s made a lot in her retirement as has my friend who’s retired and worth millions . But I’ve never put a dime in . I thought it was a Ponzi scheme and it is and now it’s too big to fail . Only about 45% of Americans own stock but all our great grandkids are gonna pay for all this stimulus .

I don't want to take the thread too off topic as several have made positive comments about the subject, but I do want to respond to your comment.

I agree 100% with what you are saying. The first payment was critically necessary, and in order to make sure that it got to the people that needed it in a timely manner, they had to use the shotgun approach and include people that didn't need it. Plus there was a chance that the economy could be plunged into a deep recession, and the infusion of cash kept that from happening. But by the summer of 2020, it was apparent that the economy had recovered and anyone that wanted to work could find a job, so the two subsequent payments were completely unnecessary and contributed to the inflation that we now are having to deal with.

I'm afraid that they've now let the inflation genie out of the bottle. Once the cycle of rising wages and prices gets started, it's damn hard to break it, especially now that we have a labor shortage that's not going to be solved overnight.

[Aseahawkfan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price/wage_spiral

The wage-price spiral is what some people think will occur. We will see.

[RiverDog]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price/wage_spiral

The wage-price spiral is what some people think will occur. We will see.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's a vicious circle. I experienced it in the late 70's-early 80's just as I got my first job out of college, and given the pandemic/supply chain problems, the labor shortage, and now the Ukraine crisis, there's going to be a lot of upward pressure on prices. Don't be surprised if we see double digit inflation again.

Now I need to go find a book to recommend so we can get the thread back on topic.

[RiverDog]

With the discovery of Ernest Shackleton's Endurance, a sailing ship that went down in an ice jamb over 100 years ago, it reminded me of a real life adventure that I read some time ago about the experience:

South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143999.South

If you haven't heard about him, Ernest Shackleton was a British explorer that was on an expedition to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent by land when his ship got caught in an ice jamb and was crushed before the expedition even got underway. Shackleton took a few men from his crew in an unpowered boat some 800 miles, navigating with a sextant in heaving seas with just one chance to find South Georgia Island and the only outpost of civilization, cross a mountain range with peaks over 9,000' in elevation, then return to rescue his crew. All 28 men on his crew survived.

I'm surprised that no one has made a major movie about this event. It's truly one of the most daring and incredible adventures in human history.