Book thread

[Tim]

Gladwell's new thing is a podcast called Revisionist History. The first episode didn't really click into place well, IMO. The second was an interesting new perspective on the buildup to the Vietnam war.

Ha. I liked the first one much more than the second.

[Jocephus]

[heyzeus]

I'm reading Joe Posnanski's nonfiction book about the lasting impact of Houdini, and it's pretty great.

[Michael]

I'm currently reading "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" by Hans Roslin. The book explains why the world is getting better and how we can better process information/stats we're presented with. It's really quite good and uplifting. Everyone should read it. Particularly if you think the world is getting worse and worse.

[Freed Roger]

"The River" By Peter Heller. Ripped thru it in 4 days (record pace for me, but I was sick in bed two days of it) A fictional buddy canoe trip gone awry. there are lots of factual tales of woe adventure stories, so was skeptical about bothering with a fictional one - however it was great story telling with great character and setting development. I enjoyed it.

Now into "Killers of the Flower Moon" non-fiction. Crazy tale of Osage tribe in OK -they were driven there by US govt and then in early 1900s , oil was struck, and many of them got wealthy due to retained mineral rights,... and then they were turning up murdered. My kind of book.

Got a ways to go, but am a bit sheepish of potential for author (same guy wrote Lost City of Z) focusing on a great white saviour and bringer of justice.

Now I see Scorcese is making a film on this.

[CardsofSTL]

That said, aside from Hermoine (who despite her brilliance, has to fight for respect, even from the perspective of the author it seems), every "good" woman in the series doesn't work and has a billion kids and just cooks and cleans. The only "good" woman with a job (Tonks) was a minor character and died, and the rest of the powerful/working women were evil. Aside again from Hermoine (who also is too afraid to tackle larger monsters), ALL of the powerful and those who run the world are men.

Finally, plan to use children's literature to oppress leetle girls in West is working. Fearless Leader will be most pleased.

I'm going to bump this in honor of snovikoff's birthday.