Holly the Christmas Fairy

Holly the Christmas Fairy by Daisy Meadows

Jack Frost wants to get some special Christmas presents. The girls and the fairy want to keep him from getting them. Somehow, they can see exactly which presents are the special ones, but Jack Frost needs to open everyone to find out. Jack Frost hides in an exhibit in the mall and pretends to be Santa. Nobody seems to notice a bunch of Goblins and a mean Santa. They think it is cool when the reindeer fly away. The girls eventually get the presents, and then trick Jack Frost into wearing the crown that gets him banished. Then they get Santa working again to deliver presents. This has even more plot holes than the typical fairy book.

Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air-Conditioning

Cool Comfort: America's Romance with Air-Conditioning by Marsha E. Ackermann

Air Conditioning caused huge changes in society. Early advertising bragged of a climate control free from nature. Theaters were some of the first to adopt air conditioning. They would often heat the theater to chilly temperatures to bring in customers during the summer. During the world's fairs, air conditioner companies would create cold exhibits and showcase air conditioning as part of the city of the future. There would be no need for windows. Everything could be contained in a fully-controlled sterile environment.

Air conditioning led to changes in development. Natural circulation was not needed. Trees and landscaping were not important. It was better to have a tightly sealed environment that could be climatically controlled. These tract homes could be quickly reproduced across a barren landscape. Instead of building homes to work with nature, they were built via a pattern with no regard to the natural surrounding.

We continue to pay the price for this obsession with air conditioning. Climate change and air conditioning work together in a bad feedback loop. As climate gets hotter, more air conditioning is used. This requires more energy use. It also encourages more development that impacts the landscape.

The book is a quick overview of the rise of air conditioning and the challenges. The early history shows an optimism for a new technology at a time when humans thought they could fully control nature.

To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson

To the Rescue: The Biography of Thomas S. Monson by Heidi S. Swinton

There is an audiobook available from audible and ebook available from libraries. Thomas S. Monson grew up in a working class part of Salt Lake. His church unit was the combination of two wards, called the "6-7 ward" (This would be sure to attract giggles from children everywhere with the popular meme.) From a child, he was fairly sociable and had leadership positions from a young age. He liked the outdoors and was fairly sociable, though got into typical juvenile mischief. He had good leaders at a young age who encouraged him to help others. He continued to have a strong focus on the individual throughout his life.

He attended the University of Utah and worked in advertising and publishing. He would continue to have a keen eye for details throughout his life. He enlisted in the Naval reserves towards the end of World War II, but spent most of the time in San Diego. He became involved in church callings, serving as a Bishop and Mission President at a young age. He was also a young member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was involved in many areas of the church, especially the opening of the church behind the Iron Curtain. He continued to have a reputation for individual focus and looked after individuals from his stewardship. 

He was always a master storyteller. I recognized many of the stories from his talks. This book "fills in the details" for many of the events that are already well known.

The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State

The Myth of the Entrepreneurial State by Deirdre N. McCloskey and Alberto Mingardi

This book has good ideas, but is not well written. It was written as a refutation of Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State. It tries too hard to refute points and often comes across as pedant bickering. The style is also very loose and casual. It is a book, but barely.

Despite the poor writing, the argument is sound. The state is just not good at entrepreneurship. It is very bad at picking winners. It is even bad at picking areas to invest. The lack of signals can cause it to spend way too much time investing in the wrong things. It is much more inclined to protect the status quo. After all, the state is beholden to voters who tend to like their current jobs and have difficulty seeing what could happen in the future. Central planning has been a huge failure nearly everywhere it is tried. Touted benefits of government regulation are often "fixes" to excesses that previous regulation encouraged.

The government can take credit for encouraging some innovations. It has played a huge role in the economy and thus some would be hits. However, to achieve these hits, it was required to take money out of the economy. Could there have been even greater innovations elsewhere? The Concorde was the result of huge amounts of government outlays to provide supersonic travel. It does not fly anymore. Was that money well spent? Would it have been better to allocate it elsewhere?

In the end, the state is made up of people. In a democracy, these people are selected by voters. It may be nice to envision a technocratic elite that have thoroughly studied in the area and can provide the guidance of what would be best for the country in the long term future. Alas, what we typically get is politicians with their own beliefs and cronies. Democrats are not too happy with Trump being empowered to redirect science funding. However, in empowering the state, you are beholden to people to act in whatever way they see fit. 

My Friends: A Novel

My Friends by Hisham Matar

A man from Benghazi, Libya leaves home to go study in the UK. While there, a friend encourages him to go down to a protest at the Libyan embassy. They are shot at from within the embassy, and he survives a a significant chest shooting. This upends his life. He hides the details from his parents and spends time in London. He later transfers to a school there and keeps the details hidden to not risk he or his family's lives. He expects government spies to be present and eager to find out who the protestors were. He does not return home for decades. He does eventually get asylum in Britain and communicates with family. They don't learn the truth until much later. The book comes to a conclusion with the fall of Gaddafi and the Arab Spring.

The other "friends" involved include one that becomes a political activist and others that have seemingly more mundane lives with various challenges (like cancer). The book is an interesting look at Libyan and immigrants lives.

The Dream Hotel: A Novel

The Dream Hotel: A Novel by Laila Lalami

This novel hits many of the current cultural touch points like AI, immigration, privacy, bureaucracy and privatization . AI is used to help fight crime. Risk scores are assigned to people to help identify and detain those most likely to commit crimes. (this was launched after a mass shooting at the Super Bowl) The book centers around an immigrant daughter who is returning from a conference overseas. She is flagged at the border and goes through a Kafkaesque experience with the immigration. She is at the point of getting passed through, but then a shift change leads to her being detained. She is accused of lying about paying for the trip (since she paid and would then be reimbursed.) Her risk score was increased because a man on the airplane complained about her. He had appeared to have a medical emergency and he reported that to the crew. However, the man decided he did not want to leave and got agitated. Her risk score was already elevated due to her background and temper. She also had a device to help her sleep. The terms of service also exposed her dream data which could further be used against her. She is detained for a short period, which stretches into months with little way out. The detention center uses her labor for profit. The dream company also slips somebody in to do research on the "dream promotion" technology. There is a bungled evacuation due to a wildfire and poor conditions for the residence. There are also issues with diseases spreading through. Others encourage her to do good to be released. However, she is only released after becoming a troublemaker. She refuses to work and encourages others to stop working also. This probably encourages the people to let her go. She returns home and then struggles to adapt - and feels bad for those she has left behind.  The book takes the common occurrences and the plausible to paint a horrifying picture of the near future where anybody can be at the mercy of the algorithms.

The Inmate

The Inmate by Freida McFadden

This story is told from the present, with a corresponding narrative of the past. A young adult with a 10-year-old son is returning to her childhood home to live in her parent's house and work as a nurse in a nearby prison. She had got pregnant by her boyfriend when she was in high school. Later her boyfriend was convicted of murder for killing her friends and trying to kill her. This boyfriend is staying at the prison. She gets to know him and also reaquants with another childhood friend who is now an assistant principal. There are a number of twists and turns with some false imprisonment, additional murders and then the true murderer coming in place. She learns that it would have paid to actually listen to people instead of thinking she knows what is right. There were also some extreme messed up families in that small town. (Maybe even some incest?)

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.)