Pimsleur Korean Level 1 by Pimsleur
Amazon doesn't have a link to the current full level one, so I linked to an old CD. This has 30 30 minute lessons. You are supposed to do one per day. You can check it out for 21 days at the library. This leads to a small math problem. The content seems ok, but I find it better to check out the individual 5 lessons chunks so that they can actually be finished.
Transport for Humans: Are We Nearly There Yet? by Pete Dyson and Rory Sutherland
Transportation planning often focuses on speeding up time. This is great for freight, but fails humans. Psychology can inform planners of the best way to improve systems for humans. The conditions of the transport and status may make a greater impact than the actual speed. Counteritivite improvements may be difficult in practice, even though they would theoretically help. (A variable speed limit that is lower than the maximum would help everyone to get there faster at a consistent speed. However, drivers have difficulty seeing how driving slower can make them faster.)
Planners often focus on the part of the system they control, without looking at a whole system. A train operator may shave 5 minutes off the travel time. However, a user would need to add time to travel to the train station and to arrive there early for security and check in. Reducing those times would reduce travel time without added expense.
The comfort of the transportation can also make a big difference. The Concord was fast. The 747 and descendents are much slower, but they have lay-flat beds in first class. The wealthy ended up opting for comfort over speed. Trains with clean windows or seat-back trays provide a more comfortable experience and make travel time feel shorter.
Numbers can also be misleading. A small speed improvement on a slower road will provide greater benefit than a similar improvement on a fast road. People don't care about "average" travel time. They want to know if their trip will arrive on time. Deviations and unexpected changes are of significant concern. Providing accurate up-date status on train arrivals greatly improves travel experience.
Will transit planners actually shift their focus to making transportation for people? Will they actually focus on making a good walking and biking experience for entire routes? It has yet to be seen.
Korean Hangul for Beginners by Soohee Kim, Haewon Cho and Emily Curtis
Hangul is a logical writing system that combines an intuitive alphabet in a syllabic writing system. The letters are written in a way that relates to the way they are pronounced. They are then combined in blocks with consonants and vowels that make up a syllable. The sounds are almost always the same, though there are some special cases especially at the ends of the words. This workbook provides a good way of learning. It explains the symbols and provides details on how symbols are built upon previous symbols. There is plenty of practice with both writing and hearing the characters. It does require some effort to learn the characters, but just reading the book can provide some background.
Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki
A fat woman criminal has captivated interest in Japan. She has been jailed for the deaths of rich men she dated. She has affairs with them and then they later die in a way that could seem to be suicide. She is jailed. A woman who works for a magazine wants to get her story. She meets with her regularly in the prison. At first she has trouble getting to her. However, she realizes that the criminal loves food. She works to follow the criminal's food suggestions and recipes - even enrolling in the same cooking school. She gains weight and learns to appreciate the criminal. She also gets closer to her and gets some stories out of her and her family. After the story is published, the criminal talks smack about the magazine girl and how she tried to be like her by copying her cooking and seemed to be attracted to her. This set magazine girl in a downward spiral and almost caused her death in traffic. She realizes that the criminal has strong narcissistic traits that has led to other's deaths. She manages to break out of it and calls her friends. The book has a number of other sub-plots with characters and their lives. It does show the power that somebody can have by suggestion. It fits in with the "Japanese obsession with food" sub-genre.
Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum by Michael J. Fox and Nelle Fortenberry
Michael J. Fox was a starving artist looking for any opportunity to act. He landed on the sitcom Family Ties. He jumped at the chance to start in the movie Teen Wolf. Then Back to the Future happened. The movie was not working with the current lead and they wanted him to come in and star. He worked on the movie during the night and the show during the day. They could tell the movie would be success from the early screenings and it was. It was one of the few "time travel" movies that really worked. This memoir focuses on the movie, but also provides some of Fox's early background (though it ends after the film is released.) It is timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the film. (Interestingly, that is 10 more years than the difference in the two time periods of the film.) The book is short and to the point, with the audiobook including some bits of dialog from the film.
Fearless by Lauren Roberts
This conclusion to the Powerless series is filled with tons of twists and turns - way too many of them. The girl is going to be married to the "wrong" boy. It would have been nice to see her end up with the "true love" instead, but you knew it would not happen. A single twist could have done it. Instead there were dozens. She kills thet rue love, only to later find out it was somebody in disguise. She finds out that she is actually an abandoned royal daughter. A friend is not actually a friend. There was a plot to spread the plague around and the King was both noble and crazy. In the end, the king dies, she discovers that she is the royal rather than the guy she loves and they get to live happily ever after and have kids. Remove three quarters of the sub-plots and this could be a good book.
Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity by Paul Kingsnorth
Western culture has gone against itself. The elites have decided that the western culture is "bad" due to imperialist roots and sought to focus on individuals beliefs. Other cultures are still respected to some extent even if they go against individuality. However, they are also gradually being subsumed. Alas, we cannot dictate what will come and fill the void. What has been coming about is an unbridled individuality and capitalistic machine. Both the right and left work within this machine. Science and rational thought are the new "religion" of the machine. People are in a supreme position to remake the world however they see fit. However, what is instead being remade is humanity itself. People are attached to screens for much of their lives. New technology becomes ubiquitous, making it difficult to function outside of it. We have transportation that can move us faster - but the places we go are now all very similar. Religion and human-scale social ties are fading as mass algorithm-based communication has dominated. AI prevents many potential unknowns. The ancient Luddites were dispariaged for fighting against technology, but maybe they were on to something. Are all the benefits of modern technology worth it? Are we too busy debating the margins of the machine to notice what has subsumed humanity? The book is well reasoned, balance look from somebody that has taken part in various movements and tries to look at all sides of issues.
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
I started this after reading a quote from here about burned out light bulbs. It is a long book. After spending a few hours, I was not impressed and getting sick of the vulgarity, so I put it down. That's about it. (From November 18, 2016)
I am not a fan George Guidall narrations. His voice screams out "boring" and there are too many "empty spaces" as he reads. It doesn't help that the book is long and rambling. The Pulitzer Advisory Board was offended by its content, some of which was described as "'unreadable', 'turgid', 'overwritten', and in parts 'obscene'. That feels accurate.
While it is not being vulgar and scattalogical, there is a bit of World War II science fiction going on. There is some super device that some people want. Nazis and various other people come into play. Perhaps that would be an interesting novella, rather than an afterthought in 37 hours of blather.
Off With Their Heads by Zoe Hana Mikuta
The characters from Wonderland inhabit a fantasy world in a prequel to Alice and Wonderland. The idea has potential, but the execution is needlessly vulgar and complicated.
Pimsleur Korean Level 1 Lessons 1-5 by Pimsleur
This Korean course was a nice length that can be completed in a library checkout. There are other Pimsleur courses that have 30 lessons. This is a problem if you are supposed to do one a day and can only check out for 21 days. It attempts to use a conversational style of learning. However, there is too much English. It becomes "duolingo phrases" with most of the effort being matching English phrases to Korean phrases. They recommend going to the next level once you can respond appropriately to 80% of the prompts. After repeating lessons a few times, I finally just decided to skip ahead. There is no magic here. Luckily it does build on phrase work in future lessons so things are gradually drilled in.
My First Book of Korean Words: An ABC Rhyming Book of Korean Language and Culture by Henry J. Amen Iv and Kyubyong Park, illustrated by Aya Padrón
This is an "ABC" book of Korean words. The only catch is that the romanization of Korean does not include all the letters. Thus some of the words are English with a Korean translation, such as "F is for flying - nalda". Other words use less popular romanization "G is for gimchi", though most of us would think of it as kimchi. They do have downloads of the words. However, the bulk download did not work properly and the individual words were each in a single file. It did work, but it could be a bit painful. The book was not bad, but kids did not seem too interested.
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
The author partied a lot as a young adult and jumped around from boyfriend to boyfriend. She decided to get dedicated to work by taking a job in France. She also entered into a longer term relationship. Then she discovered she had cancer. Treatment was a long process. Her boyfriend and her parents provided a huge amount of selfless service. She did not appreciate it enough. She found herself distancing herself from them. She had started writing about her battle with cancer as she was going through the process. It took a while to realize the impacts it had on loved ones. She was not the only one to have life interrupted. There were also the challenges of dealing with life after cancer. With so much focus on beating it, it is easy to lose track of the post-cancer life. She goes on a cross country road trip to try to find herself post-cancer. Discussions with many people help her learn more about herself and relationships with others. Do we spend enough time looking at the social and other non-medical impacts of fighting disease. What is the point of licking a disease if it destroys lives?
Korean Folktales for Language Learners: Traditional Stories in English and Korean by Sukyeon Cho, Yeon-Jeong Kim and Andrew Killick
This is a language learning book disguised as a storybook. The Korean folktales are presented in both English and Korean. The book contains additional instruction on the basics of Korean characters and language. There are also definitions of many of the Korean words used. This would be a great text for intermediate Korean language study. Even without knowledge of Korean, the book works as a series of English stories. The folktales are short and include a paragraph of discussion. There are some that have parallels in the west (such as Cinderella). Many of them emphasize traits important to Koreans, such as humility and family loyalty. It would be a great book to revisit after learning more Korean.
The Languages of Pao by Jack Vance
This is the 2004 "Vance Integral Edition" of the book. It had reviewed various versions to produce an "authoritative" version of the book that as reviewed by Vance. It was not easy to find, and ended up coming from on library loan from New Hampshire.
Pao is a peaceful planet with billions of inhabitants. The language stresses a strong sense of community and togetherness. People are content having their basic needs fulfilled. However, this also leaves them susceptible to outside interference. The leader is killed and a pretender takes over. He is required to pay regular tribute to a warrior planet. The man with a real claim to the throne is taken under the wing of another leader. This leader trains him in the language and culture of the planet. It is part of a long scheme to get power. As part of this scheme a number of other people are sent off Pao to study linguistics in order to become future leaders. Different regions of Pao are also set up for certain groups (such as a warrior class) with their own languages. The true inheritor of the throne returns and is able to assume power. He helps the planet to grow and kick out their oppressors. However, he discovers that the planet is losing its identity. The grops have their own languages and thought processes. He hatches a plan to unify the country under a common language to maintain the identity.
The book has some interesting takes on languages and their influence on culture. The neighboring planet has a "selfish" society that has great power over others. The planet is almost entirely men. They import women as concubines. The healthy sons remain while the daughters return with their mothers after the concubine period is over. This allows the group to rapidly reproduce, but does make them highly dependent on having a continual stream of foreigners. Could a society like this really function for a length of time? However, even more concerning is the unity of the original Pao language. Could a simple agricultural planet really maintain a single language across 15 billion people? Would the society stay similar across this planet?
Reckless by Lauren Roberts
The book starts out with the two lovers hating each other because each has killed the other's father. It ends with them reconciling, but with his brother proposing marriage to her. In there the middle, there is non-stop Hollywood-style adventure. He chases her and after various escapes finally catches her. Then she is rescued and he is caught. Then they are both caught. They run through escapes and "play lovers" a few time before realizing they do love each other. They find out more about their past and the societal plans. Finally they reach his brother who is now the ruler. There are plenty of twists and turns that are just plausible enough to work, with the relationship gradually growing in a believable fashion. The world building remains a little confusing, but is not super important.
Powerless by Lauren Roberts
in a post-apocalyptic world, some people have "special powers". These people with the powers have taken power and relegated the "ordinaries" to a lower class. There are even people that go out and try to kill off any ordinary people. The society has a hunger-games style competition where people with special powers compete and kill each other, with some voted on by the general public. Into this situation, a boy meets a girl. The girl is an ordinary who fakes a predictive power (she is just very observant and can guess things about people when seeing them.) The boy is the son of the king. He works as the "enforcer", killing off ordinaries, though he has a soft spot for kids. They fall for each other, yet they also compete with each other. At the end, we learn that each has killed the other's father. There is not much original in this book, but the story telling is a bit better than similar books.
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson
This is the first book in a three book trilogy. It is very long. There are multiple chapters on what would have a sentence in our school history books. In this book, Benedict Arnold is still on the side of the rebels. How would the American Revolution turned out if the British would have won? The book paints the rebels as fighting for strongly held, if not noble beliefs. They were not as well equipped as the British, but they had the advantage of being local at a time of difficult transport. There remained loyalists who still sided with the Brits. The British attempted to grant slaves freedom to fight on their side. This would later be copied by Lincoln when he faced a rebellion. The rebels made overtures to Canada, however, they were somewhat conflicted. The book ends with some early disasters at the start fo the revolution.
The Blood in Winter: England on the Brink of Civil War, 1642 by Jonathan Healey
This book provides a detailed history of a specific time in British history. There were religious conflicts as the reformation has resulted in many types of protestantism. People have obtained more rights and question the privileges of the king. These are both great sources of conflict. Colonization and empire are also underway. Some Puritans have already set up colonies in New England. The conditions outside were not great. Streets were filled with manure and diseases remain. I had trouble getting involved with the story.
Cruel Is the Light by Sophie Clark
This book is like K-Pop Demon Hunters without the Kpop. There is a girl and guy that fill in love. The boy ends up being a demon, while the girl hunts them. They are part of some futuristic empire headquarted in the Vatican. It is fairly typical mediocre romantasy.
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam
This long book brings the Korean War to life. The author writes a riveting account of the war that was fought on multiple different levels. Korea was a key location in the ideological battle between western capitalism and eastern Communism. The United States had little understanding of Korea and had reneged on previous promises. On the communist side, the conflicts conflicts between Russia and China created issues for support. On the battlefield, Korea was in the realm of Douglas MacArthur. However, he spent much of his time in Japan and had very little understanding of the Koreans or the conditions on the ground. The book portrays him as a cocky old man who thinks he is above the law. He had great victories in the past and won't listen to his subordinates. However, he will gladly take credit for their plans after they succeed. His arrogance is a big cause of the prolongation of the Korean war. The victory at Incheon probably helped delay his eventual firing. The other sycophants under him denied intelligence and resulted in significant loses. Only with better leadership did the western UN forces gain ground.
Mao's communist forces were able to take advantage of MacArthur's arrogance to achieve some early victories after they entered the war. However, he also fell to arrogance.
In the end, the long war left Korea back in the state it was where the allies divided it after the end of World War II. On the geopolitical front, the US and China ended up needlessly poisoning their relationship. Attempts to contain communism probably helped more to maintain it.
The author is very opinionated, with sources to back his opinions. The Korean War had plenty of heroes and villains. What did it accomplish?
From Rails to Trails: The Making of America's Active Transportation Network by Peter Harnik
The rails to trails program had initially picked up some steam in the midwest. Railroad right of ways were "railbanked" to prevent development and allow for trails. Seattle's Burke-Gilman trail was one of the first trails built in the heart of a city. New York City's High Line and Chicago's 606 were popular elevated urban rail to trail conversions. Successful rail to trail conversions require advocacy, planning and government support. There are often challenges to overcome. Sometimes nearby property owners are afraid of potential crime or decreased property values. It may take some effort to convince them that trails almost always increase property values. Other times they expect to be able to use the trails for their own purpose. Railbanking "banks" the right of way for future rail use, prohibiting development, but allowing trails. There may also be challenges with bridges and passings. There are often regulations that require removing the bridges when a path is abandoned - however these are some of the beneficial bits of infrastructure on trails. Work may be needed to retain or rebuild these bridges.
Rails with trails can also work well. With these the biggest challenge is the railroads fear of liability. Even when they are relieved of liability they have trouble overcoming this fear. For trail users, a trail next to an active train line remains much safer than a road filled with cars.
Rail to trail conversions attract various users. They are typically flat and direct and have few road crossings. This makes them ideal for bike commuters. Runners, snowmobile users and horse riders also are heavy users of trails. Some traverse long distances and are great for bikepacking expeditions. Others are short urban lines. Some are open at all times while others are more restricted. Sometimes a trail changes character as it passes through different regions. We are getting more trails available.
The author has been quite involved in the rails to trails movement and covers many of the challenges and successes in the book. There seems to be strong support for trails, but there still remain opponents and financial constraints.
The Racket: On Tour with Tennis’s Golden Generation – and the other 99% by Conor Niland
Growing up, the author's parents pushed him to focus on tennis. He noticed other parents were not so focussed on a single thing, yet he persevered. He attended sports prep schools and eventually received a tennis scholarship to attend Cal. After college, he struggled just on the outskirts of the "big leagues". He worked his ranking up just beyond 200. He was able to play in qualifying sections of the major tournaments. He was the top ranked Irish tennis player and qualified in a couple big tournaments. He was never a well known tennis player, yet he would continue to work hard. The matter-of-fact tone of his journey separates this from other sports memoirs. He acknowledges he was pushed externally in his youth, yet had the drive of his own. He was able to take advantage of the opportunities, such as receiving a literature degree from UC Berkeley. With all that work, he got a few chances to play in front of big crowds, but mostly stumbled away in anonymity. The book provides insight on how most participants experience professional tennis.
Linked by Gordon Korman
After a swastika appears in a rural middle school, the school adopts special training classes. After more swastikas appear, the school attracts the notice of a popular vlogger. The talk of anti-semitism also is the opening for a popular boy (Link) to learn from his mother that grandma was an orphan in Europe because her family was killed in the holocaust. The family only found this Jewish ancestry recently. The boys talks to the one Jewish girl at school (who is there because her parents are working on a nearby dinosaur dig). After that discussion, he decides to work towards a Bar Mitzvah at a synagogue in a nearby town. He also attracts other students to a student council meeting where they decide to make a paper chain with a link representing every Jew that died in the holocaust. The project ends up attracting worldwide attention due to the vlogger who has now set up shop in town. They do complete the chain and eventually caught a girl who had done all but the first swastika. However, the vlogger then has one more bombshell. Link, the boy undergoing a bar mitzvah, was the one that painted the first swastika. He is suspended. He is very repentant and makes peace with the school and Jewish community and has all attend his ceremony.
While Link is well-developed and undergoes realistic growth, other characters are caricatured. The swastika girl suddenly gets a bit of history only to be an unrepentant racist who happens to leave town after getting suspended. (She obviously had spent a lot of effort planning all of these - why is she such a throwaway.) The vlogger was needlessly demonized. Individual students were playing towards type (art club, jock, student government, etc.) rather than being more fully developed. Did the author intend to paint a color character with a black and white supporting cast?
The Death and Life of Aida Hernandez: A Border Story by Aaron Bobrow-Strain
The communities along the Mexico-USA border are caught in the crosshairs of immigration policy created far away. The borders were once quite porous, with families spanning both sides. People would freely cross the borders. There were no quotas on Mexican immigrants, and various iterations of guest worker programs. However, changes to increase "fairness" of immigration policy opened up immigration from other countries, but ended up reducing Mexican quotas. Then the country clamped down on the border. Soon organized crime became involved in getting people (and drugs) illegally across the border. This lead to more border security. The US has now spent a huge amount on securing the border, yet there are still huge numbers of illegal immigrants. There are also many industries that rely on the immigrants.
This book focuses on one of those immigrants, Aida Hernandez. She was born in Mexico and had family on both sides of the border. There was a history of domestic violence in her family. (Undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report violence for fear of being reported - especially if he perpetrator is a citizen.) She had a boyfriend she met at school in Douglas, Arizona. As a teenager, she had a son in the US, however, she still liked to party and went with friends to Mexico. She got caught on the border trying to return and was stuck in Mexico. Since she grew up mostly in the US, she did not have a Mexican ID and had difficulty getting a job. She worked a bar job that would get her some money. However, after work, somebody tried to rape her and ended up stabbing her. She was treated in a Mexican hospital, then rushed to a US hospital under a special treatment program. She was given special time to stay in the US to get better. She overstayed it and then was caught by immigration after trying to steal a lego set at Walmart. She was then in detention for about a year before finally getting resident status under an "abused spouse" provision. She was not an "upstanding citizen". However, she does have some positive attributes.
The book is not sure what it want to be. At times it is a history of the Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Mexico. At other times it is a Mexican immigration history. While the "title track" is the history of Aida Hernandez and her family. It also has a digression to the life of a woman that Aida would meet in the detention center and with whom she would enter and leave a relationship. The book could be more concisely written to bring out its main points.
The Dream Factory: London’s First Playhouse and the Making of William Shakespeare by Daniel Swift
Shakespeare's plays are well known. His life is also explored in various forms in fact and fiction. This book takes a different approach of exploring the culture of theater at the time. Shakespeare was put one of the characters in this drama. Theaters had become a popular form of entertainment at the time. The goals and rights of performers and playwrights were being established. The capitalistic financing scheme was just starting to take hold. People borrowed from each other and didn't see huge value in their work. Traveling troupes had their own separate economics. The plague seemed to bring much crashing down - especially with the unknown length of time. The book is loaded with interesting detail, though it went on a bit too long for me to maintain interest.
