Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II

Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II by Evan Thomas

The United States had an atomic bomb. Japan was still fighting. Should the bomb be used to end the war? This book explores the decision made by American and Japanese to end the war. There was a delicate balance made to help allow the Emperor to end the war without losing power. Did the bombing save lives? Maybe? But situations also changed. Fire bombing or an invasion may have been worse for both sides. Dealing with Japanese culture and an unwillingness to surrender was a huge challenge to navigate when ending the war. The Russian involvement was also forthcoming. This book brings in the "bigwigs", but the big focus is on the underlings that are steering policy. It provides a different view of what led to world-altering decisions.

Old School Indian

Old School Indian by Aaron John Curtis

I originally thought this book would be about Asian Indians. It didn't take long to realize it was about Native American Indians. The main character has some rare disease. He has had various life struggles and goes back to the reservation to meet with his ancestral identity. There were various anecdotes about Indian life and identity. It rambled on a until it reached some sort of conclusion.

The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics

The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics by Richard Hanania

The origins of woke is a case study in unintended consequences. What started out as civil rights legislation to end Jim Crow segregation in the south ended up encompassing many more "rights" and "identities". Many groups exist only because of the regulations. The many groups lumped together in "Hispanic" have little in common other than the Spanish language. (And even that can be very different.) However, they are combined together into the "Hispanic" classification. New identities have sprung up. Many more people have disabilities. Trial lawyers have become some of the greatest beneficiaries. Should they win against companies, they can collect fees. If they lose, the company cannot collect legal fees. Thus, companies are often willing to settle even somewhat frivolous cases.

Title IX is a bizarre case of unintended consequences on top of others. Original protection for women was added to civil rights legislation an attempt to scuttle it. It stayed. Then later through judicial fiat, equity of roster spots was required in college sports. It did not matter if women wanted to compete or not. (In fact, cheerleading was declared not a sport, despite it being something that women wanted.) A strict equality was enforced and many men's sports were dropped. Interestingly, this was applied to sports, yet not academic or arts programs. (Perhaps they were prescient in guessing how sports would dominate society.)

Judges are not the only ones to expand the definition. There are many executive orders that apply to policies for government contractors. There are no quotas, but many things that might as well be quotas. It is expected that people match their local population that can be even worse than quotas. There is a lot of "good intentions" in much of the policies. However, it has resulted in a whole "human resources" industry that is now dependent on the existing policies. There has been an industry built up around the policies making them difficult to take away without sound heartless. Yet the policies provide more difficult than benefit. The solution is hard to find.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson grew up in the Des Moines, Iowa in the 1950s. His dad was a sports journalist who extensively covered baseball (and liked to wear just a shirt to bed.) Things were "safer" in the 1950s, with kids roaming around without safety gear. The family also had a trip to New York where they stayed at a cheap hotel in Harlem, and even had the cops ask them to leave. (They stayed.) Bill had a friend who would always get the rap for getting in trouble, such as nearly burning down the house. For drinking, they started making fake ids out of old checks. Then the friend discovered it was easier to just steal from the grocery store and then grab pallets worth from the distributor. The book title refers to his superhero alter-ego.  The book is a funny, short tale of growing up in a different time.

Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians

Self-Made: Creating Our Identities from Da Vinci to the Kardashians by Tara Isabella Burton

People have been famous for being famous. "Social identity" is something carefully crafted to appeal to the others. Why do we care? Alas, I'm not sure. The book spends a while talking about "dandys" and people that have some particular public persona. People do seem to care a lot about about the Kardashians, so there is a market there somewhere, just not for me.

Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile

Goodbye Russia: Rachmaninoff in Exile by Fiona Maddocks

Rachmaninoff left Russia for the US. He didn't have much interaction with fellow Russian musician Leonard Bernstein. Russians wanted to claim him back later. He did stuff and had family. Honestly, his life in the US did not seem very interesting. 

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar

It depressing to read about how car parking space took over our cities. Parking sucked livelihood out of cities. Those that sought to play the "suburban" game ended up most bombed out. Most communities adopted very precise parking standards that had no basis in reality. They were pretty much pulled out of thin air and propagated. The end result was massing overproduction of parking that needlessly drives up the price of all real estate. The cost of parking that a car occupies is greater than the cost of of the car. The solution is tough. People get upset when the "free" parking is taken away. However, cost is the best way to regulate supply and demand. Typically when people complain about "no parking" there is plenty of parking available nearby, though it may be more costly or restricted to other users. Parking requirements have become one of the last remaining venues for bigots to fight housing. When parking requirements are fully removed, the market does not demand as much parking. Is there any hope for a future of American cities built for people rather than cars?

Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, a Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need

Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, a Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need by David Edmonds

Is this a history of philosophers? Or thought experiments? I'm not sure what the full goal of this book was, but it was a fun time. There are a number of thought experiences that boil down to "would you allow harm to come to somebody if it would reduce harm to a greater number of people?" In many cases, we we would do things that would not maximize total value. However, things are not that simple. When we know we cause harm or death to somebody, we feel the pain. The "saving" of others is often a theoretical. The book even pops in a real life "experience" similar to the thought experiments. Things end up a bit different in real life. 

Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies

Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy

Fathers play some role in nurturing their young. This book explores that by grabbing facts from all across humanity and the animal kingdom. It appears to be reaching for any example it can find, rather than having a coherent narrative. There is still debate over the physical vs. social reasons for men and woman's role in caring for children. There doesn't seem to be any strong conclusion here.

The River Has Roots

The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar

The book was short. That was about all it had going for it. There was something about fantasy and animals and humans. This is not something for me.

A Spirited History of Milwaukee Brews and Booze

A Spirited History of Milwaukee Brews and Booze by Martin Hintz

Milwaukee's history is tied with Beer. Miller still stands as a big beer brand. Schlitz was once a dominate brand that ranked number one or two nationally. Then they tried to cut costs to disastrous consequences. Pabst is another big one that declined in part due to limitations of the charitable ownership. All have been acquired by other companies. Miller is the only one that maintains a large brewery presence in Milwaukee.

The book touches the surface and feels like a series of college essays rather than one coherent work. Chapters typically focus on a single company from their origin to modern times. The chapters on the big brewers are interesting including covering ones that have lost significance (like Gettelman). Then things dive off. Modern craft brewers and distillers don't have nearly as much historical panache. The book also suffers from lack of maps to understand where things were happening geographically.

New Deal Law and Order: How the War on Crime Built the Modern Liberal State

New Deal Law and Order: How the War on Crime Built the Modern Liberal State by Anthony Gregory

Crime was really bad in the United States before World War II. Kidnappings, shoot outs and other incidents were common. Part of the New Deal helped encourage law and order. Policies could be somewhat contradictory and reflected the interests of those in charge. Alcohol was legalized to reduce crime. Marijuana was criminalized to reduce crime. Kidnapping penalties were increased. White collar crime was also attacked. Crime fighting also had to deal with political coalitions. Blacks wanted lynching to stop, while white southerners wanted to continue to lynch. The FBI and national crime fighting grew in importance, while states still maintained their jurisdictions. The book covered a lot of crime fighting, but struggled to have a common thesis.

The Money Illusion: Market Monetarism, the Great Recession, and the Future of Monetary Policy

The Money Illusion: Market Monetarism, the Great Recession, and the Future of Monetary Policy by Scott Sumner

This book had interesting somewhat counter-intuitive views of the impacts of monetary policy. I didn't fully grasp all the details, but felt it could be a good way to look at things. "Easy" money is a key way that the government can help the economy. However, interest rates are often only a part of this. Often the anticipation of rates can be more critical than the actual rates set themselves. Common explanations we hear of for economic crashes are often side correlations. For instance, housing production had already stalled before the great recession. Some "fixes" may also make matters worse. (Encouraging unions and high wages at the start of the Great Depression likely stalled employment gains and production.) Macroeconomics uses the same terminology as microeconomics to describe something very different. Getting the right policies in place can help keep things humming along well, while the wrong policies can make things worse.

The author is very cautious about his beliefs. While he holds them strongly, he also feels that common culture is not likely to take them up until ready. He also notes that "liberal economics" will almost always "win", though the definition of "liberal economics" is always changing. Could we really keep the economy moving around nicely for a long term? Or would the thought of bubbles and crashes mean they must occur?

Dead Souls

Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Richard Pevear

Dead Souls pokes fun of Russian culture and bureaucracy. The protagonist goes about the country attempting to purchase "dead souls" from landowners. These are people that have died, yet are still on the tax roles. He believes that owing a great number can help him to get loans and be rich. He also has a scheme to create a fake will to inherit the lands of a rich lady. Alas, that scheme falls apart because he forgot to cancel previous wills. This second part is a bit fragmentary, with sections missing and the end cutting off in mid-sentence. The tone is much less serious than other historic Russian novels.

Deep River

Deep River: A Novel by Karl Marlantes

This book explores the history of a few related Finnish people who came to the Pacific Northwest around the turn of the 20th century. They were primarily attracted by the logging industry. It was a tough industry with hard work and serious chances of injury and death. Men were attracted to the income with some looking at the chance of going on their own. One woman was attracted with the possibility of organizing a large union to help the loggers. The book slowly goes through their experiences and struggles with the local impacts of widespread events like wards, union activities and prohibition. At times it has interludes describing events instead of having the characters live through them. Even so, the book is quite long and it can be difficult to tell the characters apart. The historical settings can almost be identified, but even parts of that have been fictionalized. The female union organizer gets a bit too much coverage, while I would like to see more coverage of the evolution of the society from rough-and-tumble to legitimate towns.

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt

After ending with the exploration of doomsday AI scenarios, the book ends with the disclaimer that it cannot be used to train AI. Ironic or prescient? 

I found this book a better exploration of Nvidia than Nvidia Way. While that book focussed on business process, this book puts the emphasis on the people and what is being achieved. The founding of Nvidia and the evolution from graphics to GPU and AI is covered. However, more emphasis is given to the AI part here. Are we moving into dangerous territory now? 

Absalom, Absalom!

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

The novel fails like it should be a drama with a great musical score. The novel straddles the civil war, with Thomas Sutpen coming to Mississippi and building up a great plantation. He has strict racial views and disowns a wife and child after he learns that she has some black blood. He desperately wants a true heir. His next son seems good, but he flees after murdering his half-brother with white blood. Another woman births him a daughter. He is upset with this, which eventually leads to the woman's grandfather murdering Sutpen. The runaway heir later returns in tatters and dies in a fire. The dynasty is officially gone. The story is told from the view of people with connections to the Sutpen in the early 1900s. The strict southern beliefs end up leading to a similar downfall for a man. The narrator (now at Harvard in the early 1900s) ends by saying he does not hate the south. The book has great pageantry, though it is difficult to grasp the plot.

How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950

How Finland Survived Stalin: From Winter War to Cold War, 1939-1950 by Kimmo Rentola translated by Richard Robinson

Finland had an odd position during World War II. They were aligned with Germany, but never part of the Axis powers. They fought the Winter War against Russia. German alignment was seen as a necessary defensive measure. Stalin had underestimated the ability of Finnish army and suffered significantly during the hostilities. The Finns paid were willing to pay reparations and cede territory. However, they were not pushovers. They refused to become a Soviet satellite. They maintained their culture and political system. They were one of the few European capitals that was never occupied during the war. Stalin seems to have some respect for the Finns and was willing to let them be. The book was original written in Finnish and relied on many Russian sources that are now locked away again due to the Ukraine war.

The Unworthy: A Novel

The Unworthy: A Novel by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses 

The novel gradually unfolds a post-apocalyptic pseudo-religious convent. The women aspire for various positions there and must adhere to strict rules in the process. We learn of the background of the narrator and the rules of the strict rules of the "convent". The world has fallen apart with places like Great Britain under water. The narrator lost most everything, including her pet. Later, she has a romantic relationship with another woman. After an upper-level woman dies, the narrator learns more negative secrets of the society. The story is short, with a dark, pessimistic view of the future world.

Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy

Shock Values: Prices and Inflation in American Democracy by Carola Binder

The history of inflation and deflation is riddled with attempts at price controls. From the time of the revolutionary war, price controls were debated and sometimes put into place. Price controls had some impact on stabilization, but also created distortions in the market as well as made winners and losers. A national bank and monetary policy helps provide stability but exchange rates also caused distortions. (especially when values of silver and gold differed.) A strong, independent central bank can provide stability. However, it is difficult for politicians to resist tampering. FDR went to great extents to preserve his price controls. Policies to strengthen unions while controlling prices probably hurt the economy and employment (while benefiting those that kept jobs) Price controls stopped after the end of the war, but were tried again later without much success. People don't like it when things look more expensive and they always try to blame profit taking. Companies will look for an excuse to raise prices. They might be accused of short term high profits even if they don't make up for previous loses. Keeping inflation under control takes work, but does make people happy.

Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things

Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things by Dan Ariely

During Covid, Dan Ariely got attacked by those opposed to Covid policy. He had given some satirical discussion about healthcare that were taken out of context and used as bait. His "half beard" made him recognizable and subject to ridicule by those that did not like current Covid policy. Many of these people would latch on to "conspiracy theories" and could not be convinced otherwise. Ariely attempted to find out what drove people to believe irrational things.

There seemed to be a pattern to "misbelief." People would start with some objection. They may feel wronged or didn't like how things were happening. Then they would go online and after a few searches they would find some sites that seemed to support their position. Then they would dig deeper. Other sources would provide deeper validation. These would often start with some degree of credibility, but be missing certain features of respectability. (It may be something that looks like a medical organization, but is actually just a propaganda group.) Then people find their community. Others support their belief and provide the support they need. The community members often have an outward portrayal of intellectual humility, but inwardly are not willing to change their own mind, but they want others to change their mind. They see others that change their mind or even align with the enemy as outcasts. That makes them unwilling to change their own minds even if they realize they may be mistaken.

The book focuses on the fringe misbelievers. However, the same symptoms are present throughout society. Even in science, the orthodoxy may be insular and not intellectually humble enough to accept changes. Most conspiracy theories start with at least some grain of truth. When mainstream thought accepts falsehoods as a way of getting its point across it opens up the conflict. During the outset of Covid, government officials initially said masks were not useful and that schools should stay open. Later officials pivoted, despite the science not changing. Officials knew that masks helped slow the spread, but used falsehoods to preserve the supply. They also knew it was best to keep schools open due to past pandemic experience. However, they ended up closing them in the name of stopping the spread more due to emotional appeals. "Science" was used to back up what were primarily political decision. Science against the orthodoxy was discredited. This forced many "underground" and did more to harm outcomes. (If the government had lied about lockdowns, why trust them regarding vaccines?) Today, we often see any extreme weather event blamed on climate change even if there is not justification. Is this attempt of public persuasion just enabling climate change denial?

Season of Migration to the North

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

Somebody goes back to their home in Sudan. There things happen. He encounters people from other places like England. There are conflicts as well as intersection between east and west. It is rather short, not really bad, but not really great either.

Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life

Inner Excellence: Train Your Mind for Extraordinary Performance and the Best Possible Life by Jim Murphy

The author bills this as something more than sports psychology. It is something like "sports performance and life skills". You should focus on the experience. You are working with the others that you are competing against. The goal is to maximize your experience and have fun regardless of what others do. It is important to be self aware and adapt. Believing in yourself and not falling into a case of doubt helps you succeed. There are plenty of examples of sports figures that have fallen apart mentally as well as those that have lived for the moment and succeeded against odds. The audiobook includes some reviews with these figures at the end. The book seemed good as I was listening to it, but in retrospect it felt fairly standard.

Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society

Everyday Freedom: Designing the Framework for a Flourishing Society by Philip K. Howard

The United States has become so wrapped up in blame and liability that the ability to make good decisions has been lost. Organizations make policies and people implement the policies. If something wrong happens, that is seen as a defect in the policy and it must be changed. We must go through long slow processes to get anything done. It is expected that anybody can voice a concern and stop processes. As long as people follow the rule book they are seen as free from liability. This can lead to a bad status quo remaining while preventing much good. Much of the regulatory framework was built in response to what was seen as problematic behavior. However, it has now been carried away to such an extent that bad behavior can hide behind rules.

What is the solution? Give people power and judgement to make decisions. Replace a detailed rule book with principles that must be followed. Let humans make decisions instead of expecting a rule book to do it all. It all makes so much sense. Though to get it to work, we need legal reform. Bad things may happen. An organization should not be held to multi-million dollar legal decisions because the results of something did not end up perfect.

Zeno's Conscience

Zeno's Conscience by Italo Svevo

The novel is framed as a memoir written by a man undergoing psychiatric treatment. His psychiatrist sees it as a way to help the process. It starts with him talking about his failures to quit smoking. He later delves into his family life as well as other love experiences. He has challenges with his life and doing what is best. The novel was good at first, but I gradually got lost as he rambled more.