And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Ten people with hidden nefarious pasts are on a remote island. They start dying off. Nobody can identify who the murderer is. Eventually it is down to two people. One woman ends up killing the last guy and then after seeing a gallows hangs herself. A nursery rhyme frames the story as people are knocked off one by one. After they are all dead, we hear from the authorities who have no idea what caused them to kill each other. Finally we hear the conclusion via a message in a bottle. A judge had set everything up to punish the unpunishable. He even faked his on death (via gunshut) early in the process. He then continued managing the deaths. After everyone died, he commited suicide, but staged it to look like the documented death. This is a classical story that I found even better when listened to earlier in dramatized form.

La Sombra del Viento

La Sombra del Viento (El cementerio de los libros olvidados nº 1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

In English this is known as The Shadow of the Wind. I tried to listen to it all in Spanish. At 3x speed, I wasn't grasping much. When I moved it down to 1.5x, I could hear and understand most of it. It felt I was understanding most of the words, but not quite grasping the meaning. I have trouble with gothic novels in English and trying a long one in Spanish was too much. A lot dealt with Penelope and her story along with many books and the writers that were discussed. If it were shorter, I would have slowed it down more to try to grasp it better. But with something this long, even 1.5x speed felt much too slow.

Murder at University Park

Murder at University Park: A Novel by Cheryl Miller Dellasega

The protagonist is on the tenure track in a college town. If she does not get tenure, she is toast. Her husband has a nice accounting job in town and there are no other prospects for her locally. Alas, her department head is a jerk and a womanizer. A specific study is his claim to faim. She receives some data which indicates that the study may be flawed. She enlists an IT friend to help trce it down. Then the friend ends up dead. The friend had almost no family and little standing in town. The police seemed to think that she committed suicide by consuming some drugs. The protagonist really wanted to find out more, but she was mostly on her own in the investigation.

Sometime later, she is at a party with the department head and another high-ranking guy in the department. They are among the last to leave. As they are leaving, the very drunk department head sexually assaults her. She and the high-ranking guy push back and the head falls down. He seems injured but implores them not to call ambulance. High-ranking guy encourages them to comply and they leave. The next day, department head shows up dead in the snow and high ranking guy becomes interim department head.

Later, interim head drives with protagonist out to a remote vet. On the way back, he confesses to having killed IT girl by sneaking some of the medications his psychiatrist wife has access to (and replacing them with look-alike pills so nobody would notice.) He was the one that planted the fake data and just wanted protagonist to report it rather than going to IT girl. The dead department head had stolen his work and he had plotted this revenge. Just in time, the dog in the back lunged, the guy swerved and crashed into an oncoming vehicle and he died instantly, with her coming to many days later in the hospital.

After all the events, a woman is taken from another department to head up the department. The protagonist's husband gets a job in Seattle. The kids are nervous, but the boy sees that there is a space museum there. (What? Museum of Flight has an exhibit, but that is pushing it.) She interview for a position at University of Washington. It seems that good has won out.

Then there is a final bit that the woman who ended up heading the department at the end had whacked the original department head with a terra-cotta warrior to kill him. This makes this seemingly "good person" the one that had actually committed murder in cold blood. So much for the good ending. So the moral is university people are vicious killers, especially the women? The protagonist had also witnessed this killing and never spoke up about it. Even in the 1990s, this is extremely heartless. This all seemed to bring down the story a notch.

Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World

Allies at War: How the Struggles Between the Allied Powers Shaped the War and the World by Tim Bouverie

There are many books on World War II. This book tries to provide new insight by focussing on the interaction of the allied leaders as they battle against the Nazis. Churchill and Roosevelt behaved like competitive siblings. They had similar ideologies, but looked at things from different viewpoints. America advocated for "freedom" of colonies. The British identified the hypocrisy of Americans doing this when they treat their black soldiers as second class and have nearly wiped out their Indians. The war was taking place next to the British, so they were much more involved. The Americans were more concerned about the Pacific. Roosevelt was willing to cave to Stalin's demands. In retrospect this helped enable the Soviet position in the cold war. Stalin was eager to do whatever he wanted regardless of agreements. The position of China was also interesting. They were somewhat propped up by America, yet not fully trusted.

The books is quite long and does provide a different approach. Since the focus is on allied deliberation, the actual battles are afterthoughts. The Axis powers are merely supporting characters. These deliberations among "frenemies" ended up having heavy influence of the post-war world.

Pig: King of the Southern Table

Pig: King of the Southern Table by James Villas and Lucy Schaeffer

Pigs are important part of the southern diet. Nearly every part of the pig is used in some way. BBQ is understood to be pork (thus leading to Texas and it's beef BBQ not being considered "southern"). The book includes some introduction to the history of pigs and the south followed by hundreds of recipe with all sorts of different ways to cook the pig and its various parts.

Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less by Alex Epstein

Alex Epstein argues that we have a moral obligation to support  fossil fuels in order to have humanity flourish. He argues that while emissions can impact the climate, the damage they cause is overshadowed by the gains humanity receives. Most of the argument to reduce carbon focuses on the harm without looking at the positive. If there were no positives, there would be no justification for using fossil fuels at all now. However, there are positives and we don't have any alternatives that can provide the benefit they provide. There is also confusion on adoption of policies, with some of the best non-carbon energy sources (nuclear and hydro) being attacked, while intermittent sources like solar and wind are subsidized. The climate research framework and reporting is willing to bend the facts to support an anti-fossil fuel agenda. The focus is on harm rather than benefits. Even as weather and climate related deaths have plummeted, reporting declares any incident as being climate change related. There is very little reporting on positive response to increased temperatures. Estimates of negative impact are also significantly underreported. Many advocates are seeking to eliminate any human impact rather than doing what is best for people.

It is easy to see the hyperbole and inconsistencies of climate change. Every heat wave of forest fire is declared to be a symptom of climate change (even if the problem had nothing to do with climate.)  Plastic straws and shopping bags are replaced by paper ones. Electric cars are mandated instead of gas. These are "swap in" solutions that may be a little less convenient, but feel better for the environment - even if they actually require more energy to produce. "Others" are encouraged to skip fossil fuels. We have low flush toilets that may need to be flushed a few times, high efficiency dishwashers that require more handwashing and other "improvements" that have limited value. 

If we really want to reduce energy use, we need to reduce it. The cheats are not going to cut it. We need to allow cities to be built in a way that people can walk instead of drive. We need to be "smaller" and produce less waste. If we are not willing to use less energy, then making changes is just rounding errors. Wind and Solar are "green", but they require disturbing the environment with their placement and the transmission lines needed. They also need backups, which can require moreland and possibly fossil fuel.

The books simple argument is that we should focus on what is best for humanity. With that model, fossil fuels are required. No other fuel is close to providing similar benefits. Others may have some limited benefit, but all have challenges. Things get a bit slow in the middle of the book, before the end presents ways to argue the point. 

Myth Conceptions

Myth Conceptions by Robert Asprin

Skeeve is an apprentice Wizard who tried to get a job as a court magician. He and his demon mentor (who is posing as his apprentice) are able to convince them to hire him. Then they realize the kingdom wants the wizard to help defeat some enemies. He eventually meets the enemy army and finds the only reason they are fighting is due to debts they have. Instead of fighting, Skeeve helps make them disappear, making everyone happy without a fight. The plot is simple, but the way they go about it is what brings the fun.

The Romans: A 2,000-Year History

The Romans: A 2,000-Year History by Edward J. Watts

The author Roman empire had a start date around 800 BC to the fourth crusade in the 1200s AD. He argues that Rome had a continues political system for the 2000 years, even as it moved the base from Rome to Constantinople. The "Byzantines" considered themselves to be Romans, with only us in the future retroactively adding different names. However, he sacking of Constantinople put an end to this continuous government. Despite going through many different rulers and types of government, a common history could be traced. The changes were incremental rather than revolutionary. 

The book is not poorly written, but it is too long. The coverage is focussed on the times that we have the most data. It rockets through the early history, then slows down as it goes through more popular events. IT would be better served by shortening the narrative to have a large scale overview.

Beach Read

Beach Read by Emily Henry

A woman writer goes out to a beach town to occupy her deceased father's old house and escape her writer's block. A male writer is also in the town. They had been in college together, and were attracted to each other but thought the other one didn't like them. They fall for each other after a bunch of ups and downs. They also try to write books in each other's style. They also find out more of each other's backstory, including his in-process divorce and her dad's affair while her mom had cancer treatment. IT is a very typical light romantic comedy.

Against Democracy

Against Democracy by Jason Brennan

Democracy enables everyone to have a say. This is both a feature and a bug. Everybody has a vote, but not everybody has a clue as to what they are doing. Many frequently vote against their own best interests - often because they don't have any idea how their votes impact them. They would be better off if they did not vote. It is not worth the investment to become more knowledgeable. Encouraging people to become involved and vote generally makes things worse. (As a thought experiment, how would Black activists feel if we could wave a magic wand and make all Black voters vote in all election? ... if it had the side effect of always having them vote for MAGA Republicans?)

The author explores different types of voters. "Hobbits" are uninformed. "Hooligans" are highly partisan and passionate, but generally clueless.  "Vulcans" dispassionately analyze and choose what is best. A nation of Vulcans would produce great results, but alas we have mostly Hobbits and Hooligans. People are often attached to a particular party and favor people that way and will even vote if out of their best interest.

Other systems may provide better results. Epistocracy is a potential system where the most knowledgeable rule. We could provide additional votes for those with more education or who have passed a civics test. Or we could randomly pick from among the people that had shown basic knowledge. (Though there are questions on how the demonstration of knowledge can be made - one proposal is to have that democratically produced. People often have a strong idea of how they should act, they just don't necessarily act that way.)  There are other ways that could also be explored that would be improvements on democracy. Is there a will to adopt anything better?

Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation

Triumph of the Yuppies: America, the Eighties, and the Creation of an Unequal Nation by Tom McGrath

The yuppies came to prominence during the 1980s. The term was not the first one to be used to describe the group, but it was the one that stuck. They sought out money in the corporate world. Yuppies focussed on career first and would work long hours and eschewed starting families. They worse suits and preferred living in the city to the distant suburbs. This led to gentrification and popularity of trendy urban eateries and health clubs. They tended to be socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative. They supported Reagan and led to Democrats pivoting away from New Deal policies. 

The Yuppies were self observant and self deprecating. Marketers would cater to them. Near the end of the 80s, they had run their course. The wall street crash of 1987 was an event that triggered the end. Culture started to turn against the yuppies and they started to raise kids and move out to the suburbs. Since then, history has continued to go through different faces as young people flock to cities to earn huge amount of money, only next time they were casually dressed tech bros.                                                                           

The book is an interesting cultural history, but feels a bit thin.

The Last September

The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen

Things are violently changing in Ireland. There is a revolution going on. However, the English aristocracy still has their social activities to attend to. They ponder going elsewhere, but like where they are. In the end, things turn violent, with death and the final official end. It has a "Jane Austen in the time of war" feel.

The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020

The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020 by Rachel Kushner

The author grew up in San Francisco and went to see concerts and things there. She rode around in a motorcycle. She was involved with labor and other figures. It was not super interesting.

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah

Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel's Messiah by Charles King

Handel's Messiah has become one of the most famous classical works. It's Irish debut at a charity function was very well received. After that, it faded in popularity before it boomed again. The book focuses mostly on the background of the time and characters involved. Handel had leaned into playing for his audience. He took elements of popular opera, but made them accessible in English. Scriptural stories were also understood. Oratorios were an alternative to the high production costs of opera. The book also delves into the history of one of the early stars of his opera. She was a popular actress, but then had a scandalous personal life due to an affair and distance from her playboy husband. Years after things calmed down she was ready to make a comeback with Handel.

Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit

Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit by Ashley Mears

There is a "super rich people" party circuit that goes around New York and other key areas of the world. To help run this, promoters help bring "girls" into the clubs. The girls must be young, tall, skinny and good looking. They should preferably be models, though occasionally "civilians" that meet the criteria are ok. Having a lot of girls help the clubs attracted more rich men. The men are encouraged to engage in ridiculous conspicuous consumption. The clubs usually have an "it" lifespan of only a few years. Though they may stay around afterwards basking on their past glory and attracting tourists. The promotors get to schmooze with the rich and famous and think of them as friends. However, the rich think of them as service staff. For the girls, they are typically provided some reciprocal benefits by the promoter (such as free meals, club entry, and even places to live and rides.) Models are typically independent contractors and this party circuit is one of the few ways they can make ends meet. They get some opportunities to hob nob with the rich and sometimes travel the world. However, their life is not super great, and their expiration date usually comes in the late 30s, with most having little long term relationship. They don't want to get paid for what they do because that makes it feel more like a job. The prostitutes and those that are paid occupy a lower level in this whole rent-a-friend culture. I guess if people like partying, getting involved in a way to do it for free may feel nice as long as they know what they are getting into.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

I had read this back when it came out. There have been many that contradicted the argument since then. However, the general research and arguments are still quite convincing. He argues that factors in the natural environment play a big role in the development of cultures. When there is a large connected region across similar climates, the agricultural knowledge can easily be shared. When there are barriers in between, sharing is a much slower process. Some areas had many plants and animals that were ready for domestication, while other places did not. There was one example from polynesia where one culture advanced significantly beyond another after a period of separation. Through history cultures that were more advanced were able to dominate those that were not.

The Forger’s Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century

The Forger’s Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and the Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century by Edward Dolnick

Towards the end of World War II, Holland was in ruins. One of the few ways to make money was to sell artwork to the fleeing Nazis. Han van Meegeren was a talented artist whose paintings did not gain much respect. He was willing to experiment and concoct ways for his paintings to past the tests to identify them as centuries old. He then created some "new" Vermeer paintings. The experts believed him and he was able to make a fortune selling these paintings to the Nazis. Alas, he was eventually caught - not for creating forgeries, but for collaborating with the enemy. He admitted to forging and ended up with a lighter sentence, but died before he served it. It is interesting that the "art" in artwork is not very important as compared to the provenance.

You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation

You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation by Paul A Offit

Medical innovation has saved many lives, but it has not all gone well. Even common treatments today have had rocky starts. This book details many of these cases of tragedies with medical innovation. Blood transfusions had many challenges early on. Once AIDS come on the scene, hemophiliacs were susceptible to the virus before things were improved. People died from early doses of the polio vaccine because the virus was not properly killed. However, both of these treatments saved many lives and resolved their initial problems.  Alas, in the hyper-litigation culture of today, we can halt promising treatments due to early deaths. A little bad publicity can set a treatment regime back years. Should we accept the risks to experiment? Or should we try to be 100% safe, even if it results in more deaths?

No Bad Parts

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Schwartz

The book is a psychological hippie trip. The author explores people's multiple personalities and works to bring out certain "parts" to help make people better. Often these parts were caused by trauma and still view people as being the age when the trauma occurred. The audio book includes "sessions" that are slow and sound more hippie than psychological. (There is even advocacy for using psychoactive drugs to help.) There may be some sense to exploring different "parts", but the way he goes about it is a real turn off.

Feast of the Goat

The Feast of the Goat: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Edith Grossman

Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic as a cruel dictator. Near the end of his reign, there was extreme depravity. He demanded loyalty and killing of enemies. He enjoyed showing his virility by sleeping with girls, especially young ones. The novel covers much of this depravity as it tells the story of a senator and his daughter. The senator fell out of favor with the dictator and had everything taken away from him and is even forced to give his daughter to the dictator's pleasure. After the experience, she is able to leave to study in the US. Shortly after that the dictator is assassinated. However, the planned coup fell apart and eventually another strongman came to power. The framing story is that of the girl returning back home to care for her ailing father (the former Senator) and the current state of the Dominican Republic. This is interleaved with the many tails of the past and the terrors of the regime. It uses this fictional framing to provide a strong story of the terrors of the past regime.

Blightfall

Blightfall by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson

There is peace in the Skyward society. They are now going on a mission to meet a human colony that never seemed to be under the Superiority. It seemed simple. However, they ran into problems. There was a dangerous debris field and they were attacked by an AI. The AI is controlling the society with a gladiator game to get the best fighters who she supposedly sends out to fight human enemies. Through some difficult spying they discover that the AI is actually freezing these people as she accumulates a frozen army. The AI has been programmed to save humanity. She had done this by moving earth through the "nowhere", which in the process destroyed the Americas (which became a debris field). Those that survived the earth moved over to this new planet which included walking trees. The Skyward crew manage to get out as they also struggle with relationships among each other and the awkward communication challenges, especially across species. They explore relationships and as "joy" vs. population necessity as well as gender expression as they try to save themselves and this other world. Tone is light, though it does feel a bit long. 

Several People Are Typing

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

The book is told in the form of Slack conversations. The story is primarily an office-style workplace romp, with a key event being a storm that requires most people to work from home. One of the people battles with a slack bot, and ends up being stuck in there. It is a nice attempt, with some humor but will get dated very quickly.

Memoirs of Hadrian

Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar translated by Grace Frick

The Roman emperor Hadrian was a real man. This book contains many accurate events of his life wrapped in a fictional narrative addressed to his successor. This brings the emperor to life in a way that a simple non-fiction work cannot.

Dark Matter: A Novel

Dark Matter: A Novel by Blake Crouch

A middling professor gets abducted and beat up, but not killed. When he comes to, he relies he has been out for some time. The world seems about the same, but some things are different. His house is still his, however, there is no sign of his wife or child. He discovers that he decided to focus on his work instead of getting married. His work led him to some great discoveries and positions at elite universities before going to work for a private company. There he discovered ways of traveling into different realities. However, he had been missing for some time. He realizes it was the him from the future that had abducted him and they had now swapped lives. The book alternates stories of the two lives of the same man, but focuses on the original one. (The version of himself that had abducted him is now living the laid-back family life.) 

The original version of the professor is now treated as insane and involuntary committed, but escapes. He is also chased by members of his company. He teams up with a psychologist and explores alternate realities. One is a Utopian version of Chicago with high-tech L trains. Others are dystopian. The book concludes with many versions of the man encountering each other. What would happen if we could go back and see how things would turn out if we went down different paths? What if a version of us from one path went back to travel down a version of the other?

Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI

Why Machines Learn: The Elegant Math Behind Modern AI by Anil Ananthaswamy

This book explores the math behind AI. It is rather straightforward, with a lot of vectors. However, it requires some close attention to grok. It seemed to be an interesting topic, bur I didn't feel I came out better understanding it after completing the book.