Jeff Beck
“Crazy Fingers”
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg
From Canada to The Amazon in a Canoe
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The Wide Wide Sea by Hampton Sides. Sail with Captain Cook on his last fateful voyage, as he and his crew map the Pacific and discover areas of pristine beauty.
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That’s a great series. I got the companion book “Sea of Words” because my knowledge of British seafaring terms is a bit lacking. Helped a lot.
Since we’re on the topic of historical fiction, I recommend the Flashman Papers series. Harry Flashman is a 19th century British army officer, who has a Zelig-like quality of being at near every major military disaster in that period, from the British retreat from Afghanistan to the Charge of the Light Bridge.
Flashman is a keen observer and an excellent horseman. Those are his only good qualities. He is also a drunk, a coward, and a cad, and escapes disaster mainly by running away at the right time. Yet somehow he usually winds up being lauded as a hero.
But the historical background is fascinating. I learned really a lot about Afghanistan, India, Madagascar, etc. Flashman is dense history camouflaged as light reading.
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Just bought it. Thanks!
I need something not too heavy to distract me with actual history and amuse me with characters of “ahem, Quality”, during the next three days or so……
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I have become a published author…of course, the bar was set really low, and it didn’t pay well. But a small group of people with specialized knowledge enjoyed it.
Steve
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Wow, thank you so much, as I am not only hooked by this book but find myself being very usefully educated in a crucial character type I have encountered in life, mostly avoided, and need to understand far better.
I first met “Flashman men” at Harvard, where they swarmed and caroused in the periphery of those of my friends who had somehow survived, decency mostly intact, their toff prep schools.
Nothing has helped me understand the returning POTUS better.
An extremely valuable and involving read.
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Agreed the Bloody Jack series did not seem like my kind of series but absolutely loved it!
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The research behind the Flashman series constantly had me ‘fact checking’ and realizing how accurate the background was. Great series!
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Reading Woodward’s “WAR”. Fascinating look behind the scenes at foreign policy negotiations. Makes US intelligence capabilities look quite good.
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So glad you are enjoying it! I got a kick out of it as well.
Likewise! I had no idea all this stuff happened…and it turns out it actually did!
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Just getting back here report on two books you mentioned. I read #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and My Italian Bulldozer. I was not comfortable with #1LDA. The story did not speak to me either. I did like MIB a lot. The use of the bulldozer at the end was great! Thanks for the recommendations.
Quick book report time:
I started How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain by Peter S. Goodman. He is writing about how our global supply chain that depends on one source failed during the COVID pandemic. I am about a quarter of the way through and enjoying it and learning a lot. His writing reminds me of Michael Lewis.
Here are a couple of books that I’ve read since I started this thread and recommend if you are needing some lighter reading. Peter S. Beagle wrote The Last Unicorn in 1968 when he was 22 years old. It was, and still is, a very popular book, but I still do not care for it. However, his latest book I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons, published this year, is great fun. It’s nice to know that you can improve in 56 years.
The other book is Kailiane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time. This is a thoughtful time travel story. When the British government decides to bring people from the past into the present, they realize those “expats” from their time need a “bridge” to the present. This is the story of one bridge and her expat, a commander from the lost Franklin expedition. It is a story of massive adjustments, a love story, and eventually a thriller. When the book ends, every thread that is tied up is unravelling and the stories are continuing in the reader’s mind.
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Reading Lucky Loser, I’m about 250 pages in.
Can’t go into details here, but it has been an interesting read.
Hope whatever “Checks and Balances” are supposed to be in place are still working, or 4 years from now America will be a different country.
One question I had always asked myself is how does a businessman bankrupt casino’s ? The House Always Win,
is the driving force mantra behind the casino business. But TFG boasted and lied his way into being able to “purchase” these casino’s, backed by his Big Daddy’s bankroll and inside connections in the banking industry and Wall St.
Sure hope there is something or someone that is able to keep him from Burning Down The House.
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The big picture and long view - my cup of tea. Thanks for the recommendation, I will for sure not miss this one.
I read this a few months ago and really enjoyed it. Ostensibly it’s about the life of Rudolf Diesel and his mysterious end, but to me it appeared that a large portion of the book was also about how the invention and popularization of the diesel engine changed the world, and especially how it changed warfare for a time.
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I finished How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain by Peter S. Goodman this afternoon. He tells an engrossing history of how the COVID pandemic hit the world’s supply chain and economies in just the right way to show how fragile a system we have built.
Goodman goes back to the 19th century in looking at the roots of how trade shaped economies and was shaped by economic forces. He ties together many elements. There are several that show up repeatedly. Among them are the demands for cheap labor (Chinese railroad workers; enslaved Africans; farmers under the control of railroads, meat packing trusts, and modern conglomerates) which still plays a central roll. Government subsidies for businesses from the transcontinental railroad to the modern trucking companies being subsidized to train new drivers when millions of people already have commercial driver’s licenses. One of the key moments in our fragile supply chain came when the Dodge brothers won their suit against Henry Ford which enshrined the superiority of shareholders above all other business interests. He continues through the 20th and 21st centuries bringing it all the way up to the various engineered shortages that led to massive corporate profits during the pandemic.
Goodman fills the book with a wealth of historical information as well as personal stories. One was where he followed through the whole book a manufacturer of a Sesame Street toy in Mississippi trying to get a delivery of the toy from China at the height of the pandemic. Another was where he went with a long haul trucker on a two day run. These gave me a feel for what the broken supply chain was like from a point of view different than that of mine, the end consumer. The book was well worth my time.
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