Victoria the Violin Fairy

Victoria the Violin Fairy by Daisy Meadows

The girls see a performance by a band with weird instrumentation that sounds really good. Turns out they are goblins with the magic violin. Victoria the violin fairy comes and helps them rescue the special violin. First they ring the other guy in the audience's cell phone to get him to leave. Then they shine spotlights on the violin goblin and drop a stage scene and curtains to try to separate him. Then they try to have him go back while swapping out the old violin with one they find sitting around. They cut the lights and then swap out hte violin. Now the goblin band sounds awful. Why do they need to do certain things when fairy magic can handle it also? I guess you just need to suspend beliefs. And don't goblins like bad sounding music? It was interesting that it started out with the girls searching online for music to purchase and download. This sets it in a very narrow range of time. 

Dennis the Menace...Here Comes Trouble

Dennis the Menace...Here Comes Trouble by Hank Ketcham

This is another collection of Dennis the Menace ruckus. There are some interesting ones where he seems to be a pre-schooler. I always thought he was older than that. There are also winter experiences and a trip to the beach. Many continue to be very relatable, even a half-century later.

Storybook Ending: A Novel

Storybook Ending: A Novel by Moira Macdonald

A woman leaves a note in a book in order to reach out to a bookstore employee who works with used books. However, he gets distracted when processing the books and does not notice the note. Another woman ends up receiving the book. The two women respond to the note, each thinking they are responding to the cute man in the bookstore. The man doesn't realize what is going on. He is also further distracted with a movie that is being partially filmed in the bookstore. He has been asked to play a small role in the movie. His role gradually gets expanded. He also has found an interesting book from an unknown author and is interested in finding out more. All the characters have encounters with each other in the "real world" without knowing that they are also communicating with each other in other means. The book comes to a conclusion with a number of fun twists. The book has a light tone with relatable characters with various struggles that are trying to decide what to do with their life in Seattle.

Dennis the Menace Ambassador of Mischief

Dennis the Menace Ambassador of Mischief by Hank Ketcham

This collection of earl Dennis the Menace comic strips consist of many experiences of "innocent mischief" by the boomer era boy. He drives his parents and neighbor crazy with the many bits of curiosity. He causes great grief, but people still manage to care for him. Many of the details go back to a long idea time, but things are still relatable today.

A Visit from St. Nicholas

A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore

The classic Christmas poem is often known by the first line "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Since it was first published anonymously, the authorship is sometimes disputed (and attributed to Henry Livingston Jr.) The poem is a classic and defines many of the established Christmas traditions and Santa Clause. The 8 reindeer (but not Rudolph) all make their appearance here. Together with Washington Irving's History of New York, they show the power of literature to define the holiday season.

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street

And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss

As I kid walks his regular, boring route home, he imagines that he sees something more interesting. This imagination keeps crowing and extending until it gets to the point of an elaborate parade of different people, animals and vehicles. Though when he finally does get home, he just mentions that there was nothing special. 

This was one of the first Seuss books and has since been withdrawn from publication because of a Chinese Man eating with sticks. It seems just weird that heirs end up with control like this. I guess that's what you get with copyright extensions. At least this will be in public domain in a decade (unless there is another extension...)

The Frozen River

The Frozen River: A Novel by Ariel Lawhon

Martha Ballard is a real midwife he lived in the early days of the United States. The author took some events from her life and then spun a legal case out of it. A frozen body was hauled out of the lake. This was a good-for-nothing guy that looked like he was murdered. Martha tries to get to the bottom of this. Meanwhile a woman accuses the dead guy and the local judge of raping her. Alas, it is difficult to get a rape accusation to stick since there are no witnesses. As a medical professional, the midwife is involved in both cases. However, a young Harvard-educated doctor comes into town and tries to take medical authority. He even tries delivering babies, but he does not have nearly the experience of a midwife in that area. Martha eventually helps tie up both the cases and even sets the judge in order. There can be justice in the legal system of the day, but it is not easy. There is also family drama of the day. The Martha of this book feels very modern, even with most of the other characters feeling placed in their day. The story moves quickly and is well engaging. I couldn't wait to figure out what happened to the characters. The ending took some interesting twists.

Causal Inference: The Mixtape

Causal Inference: The Mixtape by Scott Cunningham

This is primarily an econometrics textbook. There are dense sets of equations and programs (in Stata and R) for performing Causal inference. I skipped over a lot of that and focussed on the narrative. The book primarily deals with teasing out the cause from complex data. Natural Experiments often play a key role. Two things that are almost the same with a slight difference can often provide insight into a policy based on that difference. However, you must also be careful to control for other factors. A lot of the math in this involves doing that. Often graphic visualizations can help to tease out these bits of interest. Much of the results are "freakonomics" style. These results are often well debated. Often some other factors can be found that swing the results in another direction. (Though sometimes the study is just bad.) Having an openness to accept a different result when the data shows otherwise is important for the process. I would prefer a book that is heavier on the stories and less on the mechanics, but I could not expect more from a textbook. The author also pulls in song titles for the chapter headings (thus a "mixtape").

Abe Lincoln (Landmark Books)

Abe Lincoln (Landmark Books) by Sterling North

This biography of Lincoln covers a lot of his law career and his early political career. It pretty much wraps up with him getting the presidential nomination. It is interesting to have insights into his law practice and family life. The presidency is well covered in many other books, so this one makes a nice addition to Lincoln stories.

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh

The Forty Days of Musa Dagh by Franz Werfel, translated by Geoffrey Dunlop and James Reidel

This is a somewhat controversial story of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks. The Turks were working to assert their independence and control over the region. The Armenians were Christian and thus did not belong. They had also done some bad things. This novel primarily deals with a small population and their resistance. They were forced out of their land (often based on some past wrong.) There were people that had differing views of resistance. There were also some internal struggles over property rights - even among those that had no properties. The book portrays the Turks in a bad light, and thus with America trying to keep a middle eastern friend, the powers that be were willing to limit the production of a film based on the book. The book itself is very long and reads similar to those covering Jewish ghettos.

Sadie the Saxophone Fairy

Sadie the Saxophone Fairy by Daisy Meadows

Sadie is the last of the music fairies. Jack Frost has her magic saxophone and this makes him a great musician and rapper. They manage to get it from the goblin that has it by having his shining wipe turn it invisible. After that Jack Frost's band sounds horrible and another band winds the talent show. The girls get to go off to a fairyland festival. It is a bit different than the typical goblin encounters.

Knickerbocker's History of New York

Knickerbocker's History of New York by Washington Irving

This history of New York City is humorous "history" of New York City that alternates between pure commentary and biting social commentary. Manhattan was named after  "Man Hat On". The land was claimed as unoccupied. What about the people that already lived there? Well, they stood on two feet, but their sounds were not distinguished. They also didn't have the negative foibles of the Europeans so they couldn't claim it. That part even breaks out to a discussion of the what would happen if aliens would try to claim it from the current inhabitants. The commentary seems remarkably current for something written over two centuries ago.

The second half of the book focuses primarily on New Amsterdam. There are many bits of biting commentary and jokes in with what is a straightforward history. Wampum currency has some matter of fact implications. A dutch leader ends up going by "Pig" as an honor. The book also provides details of the story of Santa Claus and St. Nicholas. This seems to be one of the first documented sources of many of the Christmas traditions. This all makes for a great early "history" of New York.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey

The author was somewhat addicted to opium. His novel details some of the experiences, which include visiting many of the people of the streets. There was some novelty in the time. It was deemed as being somewhat bad, but not yet so negative as it is today. 

Time to Think Small: How Nimble Environmental Technologies Can Solve the Planet's Biggest Problems

Time to Think Small: How Nimble Environmental Technologies Can Solve the Planet's Biggest Problems by Todd Myers

Libertarianism and environmentalism can go together well. Small scale, bottom-up improvements can exceed top-down mandates. Some general principles are remarkably simple. Energy costs money. People like to save money. Making it easy to reduce energy saves them money and encourages more savings. Mandates can backfire. I have a house that was built at a time when GU24 sockets were mandated. This was a hard mandate to encourage more efficient lights. However, this used CFLs which are expensive and hard to dispose of. Shortly thereafter, LED bulbs with standard sockets became popular. These are cheaper, use less energy and are easier to dispose of. The top-down failed by mandating something, while the bottom up got something better. The author alludes to similar cases of energy markets. The west coast had heavy regulation which limited innovation possible. Even west-coast startups were first to launch out east.

The book describes many technologies and companies that have done small things to improve the environment. Many have succeeded despite the difficulty of battling against entrenched interests and regulation. Microgrids can provide enhanced resiliency and greater efficiency (since electricity does not have to travel as far.) However, they do not fit in well with the large scale regulated utilities. Providing better knowledge about electricity usage can help users cut back on waste. Small scale clean up innovations can help reduce oceanic garbage. There are many other examples. Small improvements that spread can have a much bigger impact than large mandates that people are reluctant to use. Nobody came down and said: "we will require everyone to use a vehicle that ways 10 times as much as them to get around". However, people gradually started to use cars. Government came in to "improve" some of the problems with cars by creating highways to reduce congestion, safety standards, fuel economy standards, parking requirements, etc. These were attempts to improve issues, but they have also created additional issues and entrenched the poor environmental policy. The small solutions are the ways to move away from this, but that may require breaking away from the existing government challenges.

Gabby the Bubble Gum Fairy

Gabby the Bubble Gum Fairy: The Candy Land Fairies Book 2

Some goblins are chewing bubble gum and being mean at a park. Other people find gum too hard. There is one girl at the park that is a "park buddy" that plays with others that are feeling lonely. She is about to get a gum award from the factory, but the gum is all bad. Rachel and Kirsty go to the candy factory and help rescue the important fairy item from the goblins and get the candy back to normal.

Phoebe the Fashion Fairy

Phoebe the Fashion Fairy (Rainbow Magic: The Party Fairies, No. 6) by Daisy Meadows

A girl's party dress is ruined with green paint. It must be goblins. They hunt down the goblin with Phoebe that Fashion Fairy, but then the goblin swipes the special party favor and hides in a playhouse. They get him out by filling the house with water. Phoebe then makes everything good and the party is great. For a fashion fairy, Phoebe did not look very fashionable.

My Friends: A Novel

My Friends: A Novel by Fredrik Backman

A homeless girl breaks into an art auction to go spread some graffiti and admire a painting she loves in person. She runs away from guards and ends up crashing into homeless guy. The homeless guy befriends her and helps her escape. She later learns that this was not a homeless man, but in fact the famous painter of the painting she admired. They have mutual admiration and then part ways. That night, the artist dies. Before dying, the artist said he wanted his famous painting to go to the girl. (He and his friend had purchased it back at the auction, after selling everything the artist had.) The girl has trouble grasping this. She ended up chasing after the friend and ended up on the train with him. On the train ride, they share each other's history. She learns the history of the painting and the friends involved. They came from a rough, working-class town. They had various struggles and experiences as they grew up. The "bully" ended up pushing the artist to do his work. The "teacher" was the one that supported the artist at the end of his life. There was violence, death and other issues. Eventually the artist was able to paint his works and escape the town.

They have some adventures on the train. They try to separate, get in fights with others and think they lost the painting and the ashes. They eventually get them back. They struggle with what to do with it. They hook up with some people remaining in the hometown and finally decide to execute a "reverse heist" and sneak into a hometown museum to hang the painting there for all to see.

The book slowly develops the characters through the history and flashbacks. It is easy to relate to the lives of the characters, even if their experiences feel very different.

The Three Bears

The Three Bears by Robert Southey

I found the original Three bears in a Children's Literature collection. There is a later verse version by George Nichol in 1839. The story is very similar to the popular tale today. The key difference is that there is no Goldilocks. Instead, there is a bad, swearing old lady. The end has her jumping out the window to condition unknown. Maybe she broke all or bones or maybe she got away. The bears are also portrayed in a more positive light. They are out to let their porridge cool and keep their house very clean. It is interesting that we have an original story that is so much like what is handed down. (Though there are some variations that even predate this one.)

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wilhelm Meister comes of age. He spends some time in the theater trying to find himself. There are also romances with women and a deep relationship with another man. The book did carry on for a long time.

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant, translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott

Kant can be dense. He explores metaphysics and morals. Where do morals come from? What about animals? Can they be moral? The discussion can be quite difficult to follow.

This was originally Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten in German, and has some alternate English translations, such as Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, and the Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.

Human Nature

Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel

The author talks about ways we have changed the planet and what we can do. It seemed fairly well written, but was not very distinguishable from other books written about the environment. The author did smartly favor "natural" solutions. There is a great possibility of unintended consequences using great technical solutions to try to "cool" the earth. We are better off focussing on reducing what we do bad.

We Do Not Part: A Novel

We Do Not Part: A Novel by Han Kang, translated by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris

A journalist's photographer friend has a bad accident and is in the hospital in the city. The journalist goes to see her and is asked to travel back to her hometown near Jeju  help feed her birds. She tries to fulfil the request, but is caught in a big snow storm. She gets there and finds the bird dead - or is it? Much if the story is remembrances of things that happened in the past and how the small town got caught up the civil war and ideology. There were many people that suffered in various ways. I was even wondering if the story was told as a "post death" view after the characters had passed away. The story is of loyalty and uncovering the past woven beautifully together.

Aids to Reflection

Aids to Reflection by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I did not realize that Coleridge was a religious writer. His work responds to many of the concerns of the day. He advocates for his version of Christianity. He identifies problems with the Baptists and Catholics, but seems to side more with Catholics. There are also significant responses to metaphysics and the modern thoughts of the day. In addition to the responses, there are also some general more personal thoughts on morality. The book felt quite disjointed, which may be in part due to the heavy annotations and references that seem to have been applied to later editors.

The Normans: A History of Conquest

The Normans: A History of Conquest by Trevor Rowley

The Normans occupy a key role in the history of Europe, yet their period of control was very short. They were originally from Scandinavia and came down to occupy Normandy. While they ruled, they also adopted much of the language and culture of the region they occupied. Later they conquered England. (There was some conflict in succession and the Normans had some claim that they chose to occupy.) There, they also assimilated. There rule lasted a relatively brief period. The Normans were highly pious Christians. This lead to their involvement in the crusades. They went down to Sicily to work on chasing out the Moors. They also participated in the middle eastern crusades that would oftentimes seek to "reform" eastern Christians as much as Muslims. The book is a concise history of the Normans with many references to the Bayeux tapestry. It is interesting to read the context of many of the places that I have seen in Normandy and especially Caen.

Crystal the Snow Fairy

Crystal the Snow Fairy by Daisy Meadows

After they saved the rainbow fairies, the girls are called to rescue the missing feathers from the rooster doodle. The weather fairies help them out. The first feather is from the snow fairy. The goblin doesn't know how to use it and is making it snow in the middle of the summer. Alas, he doesn't like having his feet cold, so the girls are able to get it back by smuggling fairies in a box with slippers. The goblin naps after putting on the slippers and the girls steal the feather. The goblin chases them, but ends up tripping with the slippers and turns into a big snowball. This book has some interesting tricks and variety in the typical fairy story.