What have you read recently?

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister. It's a love letter to fiction books and everyone involved in the world of books including the readers, authors, sellers, and agents. My favorite read so far this year (out of 44).

Second and third favorites are the novel This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub and the memoir All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore.
 
I am nearly the whole way through "The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits' Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime", by Renee Dudley and Daniel Golden.

This fascinating book describes how a bunch of computer nerds found each other in the last few years to thwart some of the many attempts by ransomware hackers who encrypt files of users, from individuals to large business, non-profits, and governments to force them to pay ransom to get their files back.

It sickens me to read how these greedy parasites do this over and over, often not caring about the damage they inflict, and how heroic the hunting team and other groups around the world have been to get those files unlocked without needing a ransom.

It wasn't until the hackers disrupted the Colonial Pipeline here in the US back in 2019 did the general population see how much they could disrupt the everyday lives of lots of people.
 
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. A reimagining of David Copperfield in rural Appalachia. She is a great story teller. A rough story but compelling.
 
God's Problem, by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman, who is a bible scholar I respect, discusses the problem of evil and suffering (if there's a God who is omnipotent and benevolent, and who actively intervenes in the world, why is there so much suffering in the world?). In it, Bart presents the various reasons the Bible offers for why this is, followed by his thoughts on the matter. Bart lost his faith because of this issue, so this is not a Christian apologetic. I procrastinated about reading it, because I expected it would be depressing. Which it is at points, especially when he digs into all the suffering in the world. But it's a good book. Plenty of plenty of food for thought for anyone who wrestles with this issue. More personal than Ehrman's other books.

Atomic Habits, by James Clear. This was almost universally recommended as a great self-improvement book. I was in the mood for that, so I picked it up. The first couple chapters were interesting, but it became a bit of a slog after that. I don't think the ideas within it warrant an entire book. Many other people would disagree with me, based on the book's sales numbers and reviews.

The Practicing Stoic, by Ward Farnsworth. Tried but couldn't get into it. Too dry and analytical for me. Just because you're discussing the philosophy of stoicism doesn't mean you need to take a dry, analytical approach. Seneca certainly didn't. I think other modern authors do a better job of it.

Fringeology, by Steve Volk. Volk is a journalist who investigated various "paranormal" phenomena (e.g., NDEs, telepathy, apparitions, non-local consciousness, etc.) with a skeptical predisposition and came away persuaded that there was something there. Good read for anyone curious about those subjects, as I am.

Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness, by Rosenblum and Kuttner. I am only a third of the way through, but this book purports to explain quantum physics and its entanglement with consciousness in terms a non-physicist can understand, yet in a scientifically grounded way, without adding the kooky new age stuff a lot of popular books insert. I'm finding it sort of slow going, a bit too detailed for my taste at times, yet understandable so far.

The Fall of Shannara: The Skaar Invasion, by Terry Brooks. This is light fantasy, a simplified Tolkienesque world. I need some light fiction in the evening, to help me relax my mind. I've enjoyed his Shannara series throughout the years, although it can get formulaic at times, so I take long breaks. Brooks is 80, so he's wrapping it up. This is the second book of four that will conclude the series.
 
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The Missing Link in Dementia, a memoir by Jo Dixon. It's about a woman in her 40s, a liverdoctor who starts having dementia like symptoms and her discovery of what was causing it.

So fascinating to read her story and see how her colleagues treated her and the instant changes that occurred. By the middle of the book-I couldn't put it down. I made some nutritional changes based on her story...absolutely fascinating. Definitely a story of hope and misdiagnosis.
 
I read the sprawling 700+ page novel The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese. He's a wonderful writer of both fiction and non-fiction, as well as an M.D. The book spans generations and begins in 1900 and ends in 1977. Although the novel begins in Scotland, most of the book takes place in southern India. Throughtout the story there are a fair number of medical diagnoses and treatments discussed, which I found fascinating.

Outlive, The Science & Art of Longevity, by Peter Attia, MD, with Bill Gifford. It's a very readable book about increasing both your lifespan and your "healthspan". Most of what they write about is backed up with studies and data, but sometimes it's supposition on the part of Attia. He offers lots of personal anecdotes.

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley is an interesting mystery set in an upscale Paris home converted to apartments. There are some seriously messed up folks living there. The story was quite engaging.
 
Just finished William Bernstein's 2nd edition of The Four Pillars of Investing last night. Easy and entertaining read, not much math but plenty of graphs for nerds to digest. I downloaded a copy from Amazon using the Amazon Kindle app. The beginning of Chapter 15, Investment Pornography and You is a satirical piece, "There's No Place to Hide in This Market" by Hyman Q. Hackwriter alone is almost worth the price of the book.
 
I see all my reading buddies have been hard at it lately. I spotted a few candidates for my notes to check out.

The Measure, An Immense World, and Why Information Grows all feel like good candidates for me.

While y'all have been at it, I have nibbled the edges of a few books also. From the Ritholtz mafia, I spun through Nick Magiulli... Just Keep Buying. A positive stabilizer that leads with hope and promise, in a gritty blue collar sort of writing style. No pearls of wisdom or deep quotes. Just meat and potatoes investing.

For the gamblers among us, and those who might size positions according to criteria... I offer William Poundstone and Fortunes Formula. This is the intersection of gambling, the gamblers fallacy, the Kelly Criterion, Nyquist, signal/noise theory... Elegant math meets loaded dice, horse racing, mafia... The Kelly Criterion or partial Kelly is how position sizing based on risk/reward is done algorithmically. There is lots of engineering name dropping of famous folks and their idiosyncracies.

Power, Faith, and Fantasy is my most recent completion. Mr. Oren covers the history of Mideast US foreign policy, how it was influenced by transcendental/pentecostal/yankee bible belt, from colonies through the various gulf wars. I rarely read straight history, but narrow and deep made for a captivating historical perspective of 300 years of error prone bumbling. I discovered more US history than all 58 years previous.

The very last chapter is a summary of the nations history of mideast interactions. Revisiting it all in a stream of consciousness in 20 pages was a brutal conclusion. It physically hurts to see this much wasted blood and treasure. And this was without the failure of Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan. I'm shifting gears for lighter fare, but it was worth the read.

Next up is the Color of Law. Rothstein hits my GIS and mapping references from my ex with his book on federal zoning and mortgage control that still defines maps of poverty and social stress today. Hoping for a good read.

I must plug the Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. It seems sci-fi has a cultural imprint. This chinese approach to sci-fi somehow captures a different plot structure and ethos. I am not sure what he is doing, but it worked. At its worst, fiction can be formulaic, and sci fi and fantasy share that risk. There are racks of look alike series out there. This is different. Hoping someone can explain why?
 
I finished 2 books recently. One is "The Shadow Docket," by Stephen Vladeck. It's about the US Supreme Court's increasing use of the Shadow Docket, a term invented a few years back to describe mostly unsigned opinions in unargued cases, beyond death penalty cases which was the original purpose for most of these cases. Lots of long sentences make it a tough read at times, so be ready.

The other book is "A Most Tolerant Little Town," by Rachel Louise Martin. This is about the desegregation of the schools in Clinton, Tennessee, just northwest of Knoxville, in the late 1950s after the Brown decision. The reaction of the town's mostly white population against 12 black teenagers trying to attend Clinton's one public high school was atrocious, from daily harassment to protests to attacks and the eventual bombing and destruction of the high school in October, 1958 (nobody was killed or injured, but people who lived nearby suffered some minor property damage from the blast).

This book is a page-turner because it kept me wondering what awful thing was going to happen next to these teens and their families. Most of those 12 teens moved away, attended a different school in a neighboring town, dropped out of school altogether, or got expelled.
 
I am still going through the Cork O’Conner mysteries. And I recently finished Vermillion Drift.

Cork is Minnesota’s version of Joe Pickett.
 
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About 150 pages into Alaska in preparation for our upcoming cruise to same. It's my first ever James Michener novel, and I'm pleasantly surprised by how quickly I found myself enjoying it. Even the famous (infamous?) geological formation sections.

The only problem is it's length at almost 900 pages. And the pages are dense(!). So, pretty sure I'm not going to finish it before we depart in a few weeks. :blush:
 
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My daughter has been insisting I will like an apocalyptic trilogy involving a weaponized bat virus that is turning victims into super strong blood thirsty monsters. It sounds like more of the goofy walking dead stuff that has been in vogue, but she kept insisting this is better. Well, I am about a third of the way through "The Passage," by Justin Cronin, and it is well written and very engaging. If this holds up, I will get the other two volumes and report back as I go.
 
Chuckanut said:
I am still going through the Cork O’Conner mysteries. And I recently finished Vermillion Drift.

Cork is Minnesota’s version of Joe Pickett.
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I'm in the process of re-reading the Lucas Davenport series, by John Sandford. Lucas is sort of Minnesota's opposite version of Joe Pickett. They're good page turners, and it's fun to read a series that shows the changes in technology and police work over about 3 decades.
 
anethum said:
Outlive, The Science & Art of Longevity, by Peter Attia, MD, with Bill Gifford. It's a very readable book about increasing both your lifespan and your "healthspan". Most of what they write about is backed up with studies and data, but sometimes it's supposition on the part of Attia. He offers lots of personal anecdotes.

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I just picked up the book ( based on your recommendation) from my Public Library after “requesting it” and it finally came in. What an interesting and well written book for the layman despite the large amount of science facts and studies. I’m enjoying it very much. Thanks for the recommendation.
 
Luvtoride said:
I just picked up the book ( based on your recommendation) from my Public Library after “requesting it” and it finally came in. What an interesting and well written book for the layman despite the large amount of science facts and studies. I’m enjoying it very much. Thanks for the recommendation.
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I subscribe to Atia's blog and occasionally watch his video interviews which usually involve in depth discussions of a medical topic. They are very good.
 
Lakota America by Pekka Hämäläinen. There was so much in there that was new to me, since it was not the history that they gave us in school.
 
I must announce my disappointment with The Measure. I had such high hopes for a unique plot tool that were completely dashed. It felt like young adult fiction gone wrong. I'm hoping another author can repurpose the idea with a bit more adventure.

On the good side, The Color of Law is turning up well. The risk going forward is that the laundry list of violations of law and property rights overwhelms the narrative. Hoping for good story management hygiene to preserve the narrative and hold the focus. We shall see.
 
I'm halfway through Guns, Germs and Steel: The fate of Human Societies.
I've always wondered why some cultures fell so far behind others. The book goes through the various factors that influence how and when societies went from being hunter gatherers to becoming farmers, how some were able to domesticate animals and why germs came from Europe to ravage native tribes and not the other way around.
 
I just finished Timothy Egan's, "A Fever in the Heartland," a riveting book about the rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana and in general back in the 1920s.

The Klan had risen in power in the early 1920s, taking control of state and local government, law enforcement, churches, and some newspapers in the Great Lakes region, especially Indiana, while terrorizing anyone who wasn't a white Protestant. But it all came tumbling down quickly after D.C. Stephenson, a Klan leader, was convicted of killing Madge Oberholtzer at the end of a night of torture. Oberholtzer, knowing she was going to die soon after her awful injuries, wrote out her dying declaration which was crucial to the local prosecutor getting the conviction.

A fascinating book, even while it was tough to read at times due to all the atrocities done to her and others by the Klan.
 
I recently read Ann Patchett's latest novel, Tom Lake, which is the name of a fictitious lake in northern Michigan. She is one of my favorite writers, and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge has the gimmick of including characters such as the real life Julia & Paul Child. They are placed into a mystery story set in post-war Paris, though the rest of the characters are fictitious. The main sleuth is a fictitious friend and neighbor of Julia's. The mystery was actually pretty good, and the lines Julia utters in the book are believable.

The Humble Lover is a new novel by Edmund White, who is now in his 80s. I thought it was OK, though I suspect that many on this site would not care for it at all.

Katherine Heiny's latest is a book of short stories titled Games and Rituals. These are often, but not always about infidelity. I liked the book, but I loved her earlier novel titled Early Morning Riser.
 
I'm half way through Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational by Michael Shermer. Simultaneously frightening and enlightening.
 
Just finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Engaging story of love, loss, and video gaming. Very poignant and engaging.
 
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