When I decided I needed a blog again, rather than start fresh, I decided to convert old book review blog to something more general purpose. I deleted all the posts that didn’t age well and in the interest of OCD, I decided to consolidate the old book reviews into batches. This is the first batch, they were posted in January 2008 reviewing\/commenting on books I read the previous Summer\/Fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Title:<\/strong> Khrushchev’s Shoe: And Other Ways to Captivate an Audience of 1 to 1,000<\/strong><\/span> This is a truly interesting book. Roy Underhill has 25 years under his belt as a PBS TV personality as well as many years at Colonial Williamsburg. So, it’s interesting to see “behind the scenes” if you will for someone who has spent a lifetime explaining things to people that don’t have to stay and listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Far from a collection of anecdotes, this book starts off examining the science behind public speaking and the psychology of learning. There are numerous footnotes that reference suitably scholarly papers and books. It’s really surprising the depth he has gone to exploring this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have met him in person a couple of times and he really is an engaging speaking and charismatic figure. I wonder how much of that is evolved and how much is native.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This book is good, but honestly, it’s probably not for everyone. If you have an interest in public speaking, including teaching, you really must read this. Of not, well, it’s good, but… I give it 4 out of 5 due to it’s limited appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Title:<\/strong> Voices From Stalingrad<\/span><\/strong> This is one of several new books on the Eastern Front of WWII prompted by the availability of new Russian sources. The author focuses on the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153grunt\u00e2\u20ac\u009d level of the battle with only a nod to the operational levels. If you are unfamiliar with the battle, this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a good place to start, there are several excellent books that serve for that. The book, arranged chronologically, is mostly a series of vignettes that depict the day to day struggle of individual soldiers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of these stories show a life even more brutal and full of deprivation that we might have expected. We know it got cold, we know the German army, despite it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experiences of the winter of 1941, was not prepared for a long struggle. Also, Stalingrad is billed as a huge, epic struggle with 100s of thousands of soldiers on both sides taking part. While that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all true, the actual battle was 1000s of small fights involving no more than a handful of terrified but resolved soldiers shooting it out in the ruins, skulking through the sewers, swimming the Volga, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book includes dozens of photos, mostly new (to Western readers at least). And, one of my harping points for military history books, a sufficiency of maps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, I would give this about a 3.5 out of 5. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got new material and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s competently written without too many egregious errors, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that compelling and I found I had to struggle to finish it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Title: <\/strong>Collapse <\/strong><\/span> In his followup to Germs, Guns and Steel<\/em>, Jared Diamond continues the chronicle of man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s struggle to live in a world he has made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having read the previous book and not completely agreed with the premises, I expected to struggle with this one somewhat. I wanted to read it because it came highly recommended and because I have this quest to have something topical to talk about when I am not among the geeks that are my normal associates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, it was a good read. It took me a while because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty dense going. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a lot of time for recreational reading, so I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spend time doing a lot of fact checking on this one so I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t comment on it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s accuracy other than it rung a lot more true than his previous book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Diamond starts out with the assertion that while it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to directly compare one culture and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s situation to another, there are some basic characteristics in the way a culture operates that we can use. He went through history and rated every culture against these 9 factors and claims they validate his thesis that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible to predict the success or failure based on these factors and how a society copes with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To illustrate this, he presents case studies of nearly a dozen cultures, some who have collapsed, some who have succeeded and other about which time will tell. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s useful to note Diamond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s definition of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153collapse\u00e2\u20ac\u009d here: the society ceased to function, the political entity generally vanished and there was a dramatic (at least 50%, usually 90-100%) drop in the population. So the fall of the Soviet empire, for instance, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t qualify here. Things changed, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mostly the same too. There was a change in government but not a huge change in living conditions. The collapse of the Mayan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s however, does qualify. More than 90% of the people disappeared within a decade or two and the culture ceased to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first case study is the Bitterroot valley region of Western Montana. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an area the author has visited many times over the past few decades and one faces with more environmental challenges than one might expect. Actually, it also serves to point out the struggle between what is good in the short term of the local inhabitants versus the good of the greater society (economically, typically). And how things like farming or mining subsidies are pretty murky territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The book goes on through some of the usual suspects of failure (Easter Islanders, Greenland Norse, Mayans, Pitcairn Islanders). It also has a few success stories (New Guinea, Dominican Republic) and a few one the bubble (Montana, China).<\/p>\n\n\n\n I felt the case studies held up rather well. Again, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do a lot of fact checking here, but it all sounded pretty good. In this particular book, I think Diamond backed off from making the sort of generalizations and predictions that drew criticism in Germs, Guns and Steel<\/em>. In fact, the closing chapter has a bit of the feel of, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we need to tact on something uplifting here so my nuts don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get roasted over the fire again.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And I say that not because the message changes that dramatically (although there is a little of that), but the tone does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, I give this a 4.5 stars and a strong read recommendation. There is a lot to think about with this one and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything<\/span><\/strong> I am going to treat audio books like their print brethren for the purposes of these reviews. So, I will continue to refer to having \u00e2\u20ac\u0153read\u00e2\u20ac\u009d them even though I really listened to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This was the second Bill Bryson book I have read. I purchased this one in audio book form and loaded it on my iPod in preparation for driving from Denver to Baltimore (approximately 1700 miles or 30 hours) in a rental truck with my wife. I, correctly as it turns out, assumed we would run out of things to talk about within a few hours and something like this seemed a good diversion. Previously, I had read Notes From a Small Island<\/em> and found it hugely entertaining and thought this would be a good one for the long trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill Bryson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other books are basically self-abasing travelogues of the adventures he has had while traveling around Europe, the US, and Britain. This book is a science-book-for-the-layman type book. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basically a thumbnail history of the world (the actual planet, not just human history) wrapped up in an overview of the history of science wrapped up in a humorous view of all of the above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bryson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stated goal is to write a book that answers a lot of those little questions you have about the world around you, but never really find the time to learn the answers to. Such as, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153why is the sky blue?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153why is the ocean salty?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and others of a like sort. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really recall if he actually answers those particular questions, but by the end you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a lot of fun. Because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s his other stated goal: making the science bit fun and there it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go into what the book covers in detail, it is a credible attempt at what the title says it is. The unabridged (don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever buy an abridged version of anything) audio book weighs in at a bit over 24 hours and is read by a voice actor, not the author. The actor does a great job with the names Latin names of plants, animals and fossils and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s practically worth the price of the title just to learn how to say Australopithecus<\/em> properly. Also, the book has good replay. I started it over on a tedious commute and even though I had listened to it for the first time only 2 months earlier, had no problem surfing along on the repeat performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are only going to read one science book this year, make it this one. I give it 5 out of 5 for being both entertaining and informative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Title: <\/strong>A Walk in the Woods<\/strong><\/span> Bill Bryson is best known for his humorous travelogues and while this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t his strongest, it was still well worth the read (or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153listen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in this case). This book relates the adventures that befall the author when he and a high school buddy attempt to through hike the Appalachian Trail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two things need to be related at this point. The first is that Bryson has just returned to the United States after 20 years of living in Britain. He had intended to be abroad only for a summer between years at the university, but at the end of the summer he was brow beat by the friends he was visiting in Britain to take up a job and stay a while longer. That lead directly to his meeting his future wife and he stayed for the next 20 years writing for various newspapers and magazines and eventually books and raising children. Then, he decided to return so that, as he puts it, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my English wife can shop until 10pm\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and his children would get a taste of his home country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bryson had done a lot of hiking in Britain and felt that hiking the famous Appalachian Trail was a good way to get reacquainted with the States. Which brings me to my second item. The term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153through hiking\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is reserved for those people who are walking the trail from end to end. This is a bit more of a daunting task than you might think. The trail is well over 2000 miles from end to end (the exact length changes from year to year and is in some dispute). Weather in the mountains being what it is, you have only so many days to complete the hiking before it gets dangerously cold. Depending on how fast you can hike, you either start in Georgia early in the year (late march or early April) or in Maine (as soon as enough snow melts to make it possible).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bryson and Katz started in Georgia as Katz was not in very good shape and their estimated speed made northbound the only realistic option. I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t spoil the story, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a interesting thing to try and do and caused me to briefly consider doing a little section hiking (what 99% of the people on the Trail do, hike a few hours or a few days, usually through a National Park). But, I laid down until that feeling passed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story is good and Bryson feeds you with some ecology, meteorology, botany and geology along the way. Still, I found it a bit slow in spots so I will give this a 4 out of 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think 5 posts are enough in one go \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Author:<\/strong> Roy Underhill
Read:<\/strong> January 2008
Edition:<\/strong> Hardback (ISBN 0738203920)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Author: <\/strong>Jonanthan Bastable
Read:<\/strong> August 2007
Edition:<\/strong> Hardback (2006; 0715321765 )<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Author:<\/strong> Jared Diamond
Read:<\/strong> September 2007
Edition:<\/strong> Trade paperback (2006; 0140279512)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Author: <\/strong>Bill Bryson
Read: <\/strong>September 2007
Edition:<\/strong> Audible.com Audio book<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Author:<\/strong> Bill Bryson
Read: <\/strong>September 2007
Edition: <\/strong>Audio book<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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