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.
Playlist for the Apocalypse: Poems by Rita Dove
I had my firephone read this book to me. It may have been better to read the poems in print. There were some that dealt with watergate and slave politics. Also other bits of random poems. They went in one ear and out the other.
The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future by Joel J. Miller
Books have played an important role in the development of humanity. Knowledge has been able to be passed down down and accessed by greater numbers of people. There were challenges. Books were initially hand-copied. This required skill and limited the number of copies. It was also seen as a negatively impacting memory. Printing opened up more wide-spread reproduction of books. However, this also opened up significant cultural and religious conflicts. Printing rose in concert with the reformation and counter-refomration in the Christian world. Each side was keen to destroy books that they did not like, leading to the loss of many ancient texts. The Islamic world simply opposed printing, leading to a stagnation in intellectual capacity. (During the earlier era, the Islamic world had been the primary source of intellectual advancement.)
New forms of books later evolved. Don Quixote has been acknowledged as the first novel. Soon fiction branched to cover people from many diverse backgrounds. Today books have proliferated in paper and electronic formats. They are easy to produce and cover variety of different specialized topics.
This book seemed extremely appealing and interesting. I enjoyed the discussion, yet very little of it stuck out as memorable.
The Magic of Code: How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World—and Shapes Our Future by Samuel Arbesman
What is the philosophy of coding? This book explores computer programming from a near metaphysical standpoint. How are we able to communicate with computers? How has this communication evolved over time? How does this relate to the way we can describe ourselves with genetics? It is a different take on the history of code and how it impacts us.
Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's Eyeballs by Gina Keating
Netflix was founded by Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings in the late 1990s. They had worked at a software company together that was acquired by IBM. Randolph was the primary force behind the initial idea and wanted to do something Amazon with video. Netflix was somewhat lucky that the potential competitors like Amazon and Blockbuster were inept, allowing Netflix to grow. An "activist investor" was busy trying to pull money out of Blockbuster preventing them from putting enough money into the DVD delivery operation to compete with Netflix. Blockbuster also had to struggle with the possibility of cannibalizing their existing store's revenue model - including the reliance on late fees. Netflix had optimized fast delivery of DVDs through the mail system to locations where their customers were. This seemed simple, but was difficult for others to copy. This book was written more than a decade ago, so only touches the surface of the pivot to streaming. Netflix did not do things perfectly, but was able to learn from mistakes and pivot to continue succeeding.
The Summer War by Naomi Novik
There is some realistic fantasy with some magic and siblings and lack of love. It was easy to fall asleep
March: Pulitzer Prize Winner (A Novel) by Geraldine Brooks
The book is set primarily during the time of the civil war. The lead is teacher and chaplain. They manage to interact with many historical figures at the time. (It does feel that they are just trying to have anyone possible appear.) The book is historical "fan fiction", exploring the life of the father in Little Women as he was off to war. He has various struggles as we tries to work with the system and maintain his moral values while away from home. There was nothing very special.
On What Matters: Volume Three by Derek Parfit
The philosophy in the book is interesting, but the writing is tedious. There is a huge summary at the start that goes into great detail. The actual work is only slightly more in depth than the summary. Much of it is in response to responses of other philosophers. I felt like I was eavesdropping on some private conversations. Much of the work discusses ethical situations and the practical applications. People are reluctant to cause harm to somebody even if it reduces harm to more people. However, people tend to be ok performing an action that has a side effect of harm. These ethics can lead to greater overall harm. (As an example, nuking 100,000 people would be considered worse than a demonstration of a powerful nuclear bomb - even if that bomb would result in 300,000 people dying of nuclear fallout.) Similarly a longer episode of military bombing is preferable to direct civilian bombing - even if more civilians die in the military bombing. People end up not being fully rational.
Other arguments get into the weeds of philosophy, such as what it means to refer to something. There is also discussions of effective altruism and efficient desire to donate to charities. Philosophy proves out some of the strange contradictions in humans.
Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician's Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing by Molly Gebrian
This book applies neuroscience to music. Some of the research experiments cited started with sports, but are applicable to music. Practicing mentally can just be as valuable as practicing physically. Imagining your hands in the proper position can develop your brain just as well as actually practicing.
Practicing the right way is also important. It is good to practice starting at various points in the piece. It is also important to practice the "hard parts" correctly multiple times. Generally, you should practice doing the right thing multiple times in a row. Playing the right thing 10 times in a row gets it stored properly. Just going through a bunch of easy parts doesn't house. Practicing properly can be more important than practicing a lot.
Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese by Zev Handel
For the most part, Chinese characters represent individual things such as objects or actions. In theory this would enable them to be understood across multiple languages. In some sense they can. Japan users Kanji to represent ideas that would be understood by those that know Chinese. Korea and Vietnam had also used Chinese characters for some communication. Ancient Chinese was primarily a literary language that would be used to communicate ideas and not necessarily one spoken by normal people. The pictographs were intelligible, shared ideas. However, they were just part of the language. Everyday speech also has some indication of sounds and grammatical structure. Ancient Chinese was similar to Latin in that it could communicate ideas across languages, but could not display the vernacular spoken language. Modern Chinese has adopted from ancient Chinese to write modern Mandarin. Japanese has incorporated Hirigana (and Katakana) with the characters for Japanese. Vietnamese and Korean have pivoted away from the characters altogether, adopting their own alphabet or a Latin letters for writing. The book has been adapted from an academic work for a general audience and still has some of its academic feel while covering the topic generally.
Earth Revisited by Byron Alden Brooks
A man from the 19th century wakes up in 1992. He is in a different body with a different woman (Helen) that reminds him of his early love, Theresa. Helen tries to nurse him back to health, thinking he is delirious. The world he lives in is a spiritualist socialist Utopia. There is no war. People live by Christian virtues, but there are no churches. There are interesting new technologies like a "tone telegraph". The book got more modern technologies wrong than it got right. It also spent a long time exploring the spirituality of the Utopian world.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, photos by Russell Munson
This is a very short book of a seagull who tries to fly very fast. He is rejected by other seagulls and hurts himself in some crashes. We wants to give up. After going to heaven, he helps teach another seagull to fly fast. Eventually the other can pass it down. This is a slightly trippy way of saying "follow your dreams regardless of what other people say."
The Price of Victory: A Naval History of Britain: 1815 - 1945 by N. A. M. Rodger
This is a long, well annotated history of British Navy up until World War II. It is best targeted to the military buff. As a casual reader, I was lost with the intricate details.
Saving Can-Do: How to Revive the Spirit of America by Philip K. Howard
America is over-regulated with nobody able to make decisions. This may prevent some bad things from happening. But it also makes it much more difficult to accomplish good things. It also leads to different types of bad things. Society is obsessed with "liability avoidance". Instead of being free to solve problems, people focus on adhering to regulations as they exist. Government jobs have become collectively bargained sinecures. In education, the teachers' union bargains for the benefit of the union. Highly regulated teaching plans work fine for tem, even if it harms the overall quality of teaching. Building things requires going through huge amounts of red tape and reviews. These processes often are used as means of rent seaking and stalling. Thus projects take much longer and cost much more than similar projects elsewhere in the world. The solutions to this problem of this bloat seems simple, but will be a huge challenge to implement.
Take a Girl Like You (NYRB Classics) by Kingsley Amis
In the 1960s, young adults behaved badly. The book centers on a man that is trying to put the moves on a girl. The girl likes him, but doesn't want to go all the way. There is also a girl that is pretending to be French that puts the moves on her. There is also a married couple behaving badly. Everyone is depraved in a different way. The book ends with the girl getting drunk and being raped by the guy that was trying to put the moves on her. They treat it as something normal and meet afterwards - though she says she does not want to be with him. It's hard not to feel sick after reading this dated book.
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.
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.
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.
Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History by Bruce Cumings Ph.D.
This is a long history of Korea that was written a couple decades ago. At time of the writing, the author didn't know of any Korean movie that was released in the US. Since then a Korean movie has won the best picture Oscar. Korean drama and music have also exploded on the world stage. The government has become more stable. When a president attempted to implement martial law, he was instead impeached. The South Korea's economy has continued to grow and is now vastly larger than North Korea.
Korea has been one defined area with one population for much of its history. It has had significant interactions with Japan and China. It previously used China's characters, but later adopted its own alphabet. Japan controlled Korea during much of the first half of the twentieth century. After World War 2, America artificially divided the country in two. The Korean War was a civil war between two parties that looked to different sources for influence (USSR vs US). Both sides committed plenty of atrocities. The North was probably in better condition to succeed. However, it was also more heavily bombed. After the end of fighting, both sides were lead by dictators. The North seemed to be industrializing faster and was centrally commanded. The south was relying more heavily on US largess. In the south there were coups, assassinations and other not so great leadership transitions. With heavy government support, big companies grew bigger and grew to compete on the global market.
The author has experience in both North and South Korea. The history primarily focuses on "modern" Korean, though the book was originally written in 1997 and revised in 2005. The coverage of the Koreas is balanced, though the book is quite long.
