FWIS3

Thumper wrote:Sounds interesting but somewhat depressing, or scary.

It can be. I think the lessons we can learn from a book like this are valuable. The book presents the logic of using these methods in a fairly pragmatic way. U.S. Presidents and/or Congress have three major approaches to achieve national security. Those are diplomacy, war, and the "hidden hand". That "hidden hand" can be used to influence other countries, organizations, and cultures in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, those ways include methods that are considered to be morally questionable or downright reprehensible. And because that is true the system is set up to create a firewall around the president. That firewall is sometimes referred to as "plausible deniability".

And that is just one aspect the book covers. It also has a number of first-hand accounts from people who ran the operations and those who carried out the missions.

pumpkinpi wrote:I'll give you some other recommendations of non-Apollo astronaut biographies to read. There are some great ones.

I'd take some but I think I have about 5 sitting on the shelf that I haven't read yet. I stopped asking for them as gifts but they keep coming in. I know for sure I have John Young, Frank Borman, and Mike Massimino.

pumpkinpi wrote:Part of my problem is that I don't get a lot of time to sit and read, so when I pick it up I don't know if it's actually a new character or one I read about already but I have forgotten about.

I have this issue, I only get to read 5 or 10 minutes at a time separated by 2-4 days. Sometimes I'm a little lost when I pick it back up.

pumpkinpi wrote:The irony is that I have never seen a James Bond movie, and I am making it my life goal never to see one. I don't really have a good reason for that. In my 20's I realized I hadn't seen one yet, so I just decided never to start. I'm sure I would enjoy the movies, but I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by not watching them. However, based on clips I've seen, I think Sean Connery would be my favorite Bond.

Wow, I remember a time when we would wait for the next bond movie to come out and hit it a the local theatre on Friday night. Unfortunately, those years for me were the Roger Moore years. I agree, Connery is the best Bond.

Daniel Craig is a pretty good Bond. But yeah, Sean Connery.

I also have the issue of forgetting parts of the book I'm reading. I've taken to bookmarking my spot on my ereader and then doing a search on character names, places, what have you, to refresh my memory. One of the advantages with ereaders.

I have about ten books I've started and have not finished yet. For some reason, I'm loathe to just give up on them. Here are two:

After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC

Self-explanatory title and something I've been interested in. But damn, it's long and in fact, humans didn't do a whole lot of interesting stuff ten thousand years ago, much less twenty.

The Transcontinental Railroad

I like history, so I figured I'd like this one. Not so much. I think maybe the reason is that the author can't seem to focus on the important stuff - or at least the important people. According to him, about a couple of dozen people were the most influential advocates, proponents and doers in the effort to get a railroad built. I'm continually thinking "Wait, I thought that other guy was the important guy here". One interesting thing I did learn was that, while the idea to build a railroad had been bounced around a long while, it wasn't until President Lincoln was in office that it got going for real. In other words, while the Civil War was raging, a significant part of the US industry got busy building a railroad. And Congress was passing bills to support it. Hard to imagine given the national turmoil during that war. In any case, I'll probably pick this one up again.

I guess I'm lucky. Recently, there's only been one book I've put down. It's a really thick self help book I've borrowed from my counselor. I picked up some interesting ideas and some strategies. But it's full of exercises and instructions. It involves creating tables and charts and doing alot of journaling. I thought I could skip the exercises and just read the content. But it keeps saying if you skip the exercises, they're the most important part. So I just put the whole book down.

I've just finished the library book(that's the title, wise guy.) by susan orlean. wonderful book but then she's a terrific writer(the orchid thief, the bullfighter checks her makeup...)

she uses the fire that did great damage to the los angeles central library as a jumping off point to talk about libraries, book burning, her love of books ...

code monkey wrote:I've just finished the library book(that's the title, wise guy.) by susan orlean. wonderful book but then she's a terrific writer(the orchid thief, the bullfighter checks her makeup...)

she uses the fire that did great damage to the los angeles central library as a jumping off point to talk about libraries, book burning, her love of books ...

Sounds interesting! Whenever I hear of a good book I download a sample in Google Books to preview, then decide if I want to buy it (digital or physical) or look for it at the library. I'll check it out.

I miss the physical library. But on the bright side, I keep joking that I've been preparing for this quarantine all my life via collecting random books at secondhand sales and from Little Free Libraries.

My weird thing about quarantine is I am totally reading more books at once than I normally am- I'm sure a psychologist can suggest why. So far my two books I finished that felt really in tune with quarantine life were Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (about Plague in the 1600s in an English village, so make me feel way better about our current woes) and Icebound, which was the memoir by the doctor at the South Pole in Antarctica who had breast cancer while down there in the late 90s. It was just so interesting to read the second in terms of how it's one of the most isolated places on the planet, yet they were still WAY more social than we are right now!

Otherwise I'm working through two great books- The Price of Paradise about life in Cuba after WWII, and 11/23/69 by Stephen King. There's always some random true crime/ memoir on deck, and I'm about halfway through Little Women- I kind of lost speed on it once it became the second volume, but we live like 15min from Alcott's house which is now a museum so I'm hoping to finish it by the time this is all over so we can visit it.

Reading a variety of Science Fiction. And reading a book called "How to think like a rocket scientist".

Any good sci-fi? I'm on the lookout. My PhD adviser in Toronto was obsessed so I got so many good recommendations from him, but now that I'm no longer there it's been more difficult!

Rommie wrote:Any good sci-fi? I'm on the lookout. My PhD adviser in Toronto was obsessed so I got so many good recommendations from him, but now that I'm no longer there it's been more difficult!

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers.

Rommie wrote:Any good sci-fi? I'm on the lookout. My PhD adviser in Toronto was obsessed so I got so many good recommendations from him, but now that I'm no longer there it's been more difficult!

Good is such a relative term.

Have you discovered Niel Gaiman? He wrote American Gods.

I almost always recommend Isaac Asimov to anyone who wants "real" science fiction. He wrote some murder mysteries involving a human detective and robot detective. Elijah Bailey / R. Daneel Olivaw I highly recommend those if you have not read them.

If you are into science fiction with humor and lots of just plain fun Lois McMaster wrote a series called the Vorkosigan Saga that pokes fun at military SF.

And if you have not I encourage you to read the Dragon Riders of Pern series.

ok, science fiction fans. I have a challenge for you!

i'm trying to find a short story that I read several years ago. it was published well before that. (golden age or somewhat after. think Asimov, Heinlein, simak, silvergerg …) an alien is waiting for a creature that he is responsible for to be released from exile. (the creature was exiled for having committed 'unspeakable acts'). it ends with the alien having encountered a human and saying to the human something along the lines of 'oh! so you have creatures(beings?) who depend on you!'

I cannot remember anything of the title or author. I have a vague feeling that the story had something of the feeling of 'waystation' but nothing has turned up. this is driving me up a wall. I know that, were Michael here, he'd have the title and author in next to no time and then would pull a book that contained it from the shelf.

help!

@Rommie

I thought Provenance by Ann Leckie was very underrated, especially the political aspects. (I just love her Ancillary universe though.)

Also liked The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard, which is a bit like if Philip K. Dick wrote a Sherlock Holmes novella in a Vietnamese space empire.

ATM I'm reading Kameron Hurley's story collection Apocalypse Nyx which I kind of highly recommend for people who liked Firefly TBH? Very different worldbuilding, but kind of a similar narrative feel and character dynamics. Also Nyx's home country is a matriarchal biopunk dystopia, where "magic" is done by telepaths controlling genetically modified insects. It's weird as hell and I love it.

@code monkey

No idea, sorry Never read anything like that. At a glance it looks like the sort of thing I might expect from Keith Laumer in his better moments?

I took a break from Astronaut biographies to read Pale Blue Dot by Sagan. For whatever reason, never read it before. Loving it. But just received a dual biography by Astronaut Dave Scott and Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Really looking forward to that.

mrs Lincoln's dressmaker.

once I finish that i'll be reading 'the fire is upon us - James baldwin, William f buckley, jr and the debate over race in america'. the author's nick Buccola who was Elliot's advisor.

code monkey wrote:mrs Lincoln's dressmaker.

once I finish that i'll be reading 'the fire is upon us - James baldwin, William f buckley, jr and the debate over race in america'. the author's nick Buccola who was Elliot's advisor.

That sounds interesting.

SciFiFisher wrote:

code monkey wrote:mrs Lincoln's dressmaker.

once I finish that i'll be reading 'the fire is upon us - James baldwin, William f buckley, jr and the debate over race in america'. the author's nick Buccola who was Elliot's advisor.

That sounds interesting.

they both are. and William f. buckley was even more awful than I remembered.

SciFiFisher wrote:

code monkey wrote:mrs Lincoln's dressmaker.

once I finish that i'll be reading 'the fire is upon us - James baldwin, William f buckley, jr and the debate over race in america'. the author's nick Buccola who was Elliot's advisor.

That sounds interesting.

William f just keeps getting worse.

and now onto the gossip from thrush green. the author is miss read. a pleasant stroll through an English village where life just rolls along and, while a few people are less than nice, nobody seems to ever lose his/her temper. the most controversy (so far) involves an older woman with no housekeeping skills whatsoever and numerous animals in and around her house who wishes to adopt a child.

I'm definitely using this year as an excuse to work on some bigger books. Right now I'm working through The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin, because I keep getting asked if I've read it and have colleagues who loved it. It's definitely good so far- I always love sci-fi writers who actually know their science and this one definitely does.

Daylight reading: Apocalypse Nyx by Kameron Hurley, Meanwhile, Elsewhere by too many people to count

Bedtime reading: too fucking many Phryne Fisher mysteries (yes yes I know, they're trash, I make no apologies)

Audiobook: The New Jim Crow. I didn't want to hop on the audiobook bandwagon, but I've found the spoken format helps a lot with really intense/factual stuff, and I'd been putting off for way too long... So, whatever works. Wish Amazon would make audiobooks available as simple MP3s instead of needing a streaming service. C'est la vie.

Still on Pale Blue Dot, but also got a biography of of a US naval pilot credited with winning the battle of Midway. I either need to find more time to read or learn to read faster.

lady_*nix wrote:
I thought Provenance by Ann Leckie was very underrated, especially the political aspects. (I just love her Ancillary universe though.)
Also liked The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard, which is a bit like if Philip K. Dick wrote a Sherlock Holmes novella in a Vietnamese space empire.

I've just ordered book 1 in the ancillary series based on your statement. couldn't find the aliette de bodard but will keep an eye out for it. it sounds fascinating.