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zephyr
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zephyr
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PostTue Jan 15, 2019 9:06 pm 
The Secret Token Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke by Andrew Lawler Doubleday, 2018. A little slow at times, but overall a great read to learn about our early Colonial history, the geography and cultural history of the mainly North Carolinian coastal waters, bays, rivers, and islands. I love maps and this book has lots of them--old and contemporary. Here's a review on Kirkus. From the Penguin Books review: A sweeping account of America’s oldest unsolved mystery, the people racing to unearth its answer, and the sobering truths–about race, gender, and immigration–exposed by the Lost Colony of Roanoke In 1587, 115 men, women, and children arrived at Roanoke Island on the coast of North Carolina. Chartered by Queen Elizabeth I, their colony was to establish England’s first foothold in the New World. But when the colony’s leader, John White, returned to Roanoke from a resupply mission, his settlers were nowhere to be found. They left behind only a single clue–a “secret token” carved into a tree. Neither White nor any other European laid eyes on the colonists again. There are more reviews and many links on the author's webpage. You can really dive deep there. I found the early history and many descriptions of the various Indians (mainly Algonquians) who lived and thrived there I found fascinating. ~z

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olderthanIusedtobe
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PostFri Feb 08, 2019 2:43 pm 
I'd seen several glowing reviews of Tomi Adeyemi's "Children of Blood and Bone" so I'm giving it a try. Okay but nothing great. I really don't get critics (books, movies, whatever), they just react to things so differently than I do most of the time. It's fantasy, where magic has been purged from the land by an oppressive ruler, but maybe it can be brought back again. I'm not even sure if this is YA or not. So while I'm about halfway thru that and muddling along, I had to finish off Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy. Got the third one, City of Miracles, and getting into it right away.

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olderthanIusedtobe
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PostWed Feb 13, 2019 1:45 pm 
olderthanIusedtobe wrote:
I had to finish off Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy. Got the third one, City of Miracles, and getting into it right away.
This series just kept getting better. Very heartily recommend it, but you have to be committed to reading all 3.

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Waterman
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PostThu Feb 21, 2019 10:33 am 
Wreck of the St. Nikolai Account of Russian traders wrecking their boat off La Push in 1808. What is interesting is the authors including oral history of the same event told from the perspective of the Quileutes.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost
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neek
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PostSat Feb 23, 2019 10:17 am 
Over the years I've read and greatly enjoyed several books by Michael Lewis: Moneyball, about the data revolution that transformed baseball a few decades ago (and I'm not much of a baseball fan); The Big Short, about the 2008 financial crisis (actually I didn't read the book but saw the phenomenal movie it became); and The Undoing Project, which was interesting, but by that point I was getting tired of behavioral economics. It was with some hesitation, however, that I picked up The Fifth Risk. Was this just another depressing and ineffective exposé about the state of American politics? Turns out, not at all. For sure, there was some stuff that made my stomach turn. But mostly it's an exploration of how the federal government works--not the critters we see on CSPAN and read about in the daily news, but the 2 million or so people behind the scenes, in the Department of Energy, the USDA, the Department of Commerce, and so on--who keep things running behind the scenes. Stuff that private industry has little incentive to tackle, but is of critical importance: keeping track of nuclear waste, managing gobs of weather data collected over the decades, handling health epidemics. Members of this site, I think, will find the section on the Hanford cleanup, and the closing chapter on NOAA, highly interesting and relevant. (I will never knowingly use another AccuWeather product.) The book ends with a powerful call for understanding and acceptance of our fellow citizens. It normally takes me a long time to slog through nonfiction, but I finished this one in a few days. It's short, very readable, and available now in the Seattle Public Library's "Peak Picks" section.

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olderthanIusedtobe
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PostThu Mar 07, 2019 5:11 pm 
I've thoroughly enjoyed the TV series The Expanse. I knew it was based on a book series, hadn't tried diving into it until now. I was a bit intimidated, the first book is about 550 pages and there are like 8 or 9 books. Now I'm about 3/4 of the way thru the first one, definitely like it. Sci fi, lots of political intrigue. Very tenuous peace between humans from Earth, Mars and the Belters (asteroid belts, way back of beyond) falls apart and an alien artifact throws everything into chaos. First book is called "Leviathan Wakes" by James S. A. Corey.

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GaliWalker
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PostSat Mar 16, 2019 9:27 am 
Just finished Alastair Reynolds' "Shadow Captain", the sequel to the unique "Revenger", and the second book in this fantastic trilogy. Reynolds has created a civilization in the far future where humanity lives on small created 'Worlds' that orbit the 'old Sun' and are close enough to each other that space travel is primarily done with light-sail pushed ships. He's extended the theme to make the books feel like those about old time sailing ships, complete with piracy on the high seas (aka space). I can't wait for the third one!
olderthanIusedtobe wrote:
First book is called "Leviathan Wakes" by James S. A. Corey.
On your recommendation, I've just started this one. I don't read too many non hard-SF books, so am hoping this one will be good...

'Gali'Walker => 'Mountain-pass' walker bobbi: "...don't you ever forget your camera!" Photography: flickr.com/photos/shahiddurrani
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olderthanIusedtobe
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PostSat Mar 16, 2019 10:33 am 
GaliWalker wrote:
On your recommendation, I've just started this one. I don't read too many non hard-SF books, so am hoping this one will be good...
I don't know if it would be considered hard SF, but it does pay attention to 0 g and the effects on humans of rapid acceleration and deceleration.

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PostSat Mar 16, 2019 2:13 pm 
David Blight's fascinating biography of Frederick Douglass, released last year. Highly recommended!

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.--E.Abbey
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andypandy
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PostSat Mar 16, 2019 8:55 pm 
olderthanIusedtobe wrote:
I'd seen several glowing reviews of Tomi Adeyemi's "Children of Blood and Bone" so I'm giving it a try. Okay but nothing great. I really don't get critics (books, movies, whatever), they just react to things so differently than I do most of the time. It's fantasy, where magic has been purged from the land by an oppressive ruler, but maybe it can be brought back again. I'm not even sure if this is YA or not. So while I'm about halfway thru that and muddling along, I had to finish off Robert Jackson Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy. Got the third one, City of Miracles, and getting into it right away.
I could not get into the blood and bone book. Dialogue had a very modern flare to it despite the setting. I put down the book right after they revealed the plot and time constraints. For an author who teaches writing I didn’t expect such a heavy handed approach.

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olderthanIusedtobe
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PostSat Apr 06, 2019 4:51 pm 
GaliWalker wrote:
On your recommendation, I've just started this one. I don't read too many non hard-SF books, so am hoping this one will be good...
What did you think? I just picked up the second book in the series, Caliban's War. Another 500+ pages, so it will take me a while.

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zephyr
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PostTue Apr 16, 2019 12:32 pm 
'Just finished Andrew McCabe's The Threat, St. Martin's Press, 2019. Very well-written and a bit of a page-turner. McCabe was the recent acting Director of the F.B.I. following James Comey. I learned a lot about how the F.B.I. works and how they interact with the Department of Justice, the White House and the Congress. Available from the Seattle Public Library. There's a great review (written and audio) on N.P.R. ~z

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GaliWalker
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PostTue Apr 16, 2019 12:49 pm 
olderthanIusedtobe wrote:
GaliWalker wrote:
On your recommendation, I've just started this one. I don't read too many non hard-SF books, so am hoping this one will be good...
What did you think? I just picked up the second book in the series, Caliban's War. Another 500+ pages, so it will take me a while.
I like 'em. I'm on Abaddon's Gate, the third one in the series.

'Gali'Walker => 'Mountain-pass' walker bobbi: "...don't you ever forget your camera!" Photography: flickr.com/photos/shahiddurrani
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olderthanIusedtobe
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PostTue Apr 16, 2019 1:51 pm 
GaliWalker wrote:
I like 'em. I'm on Abaddon's Gate, the third one in the series.
You went flying right past me! Glad you're enjoying it. I'm getting a bit stuck on book 2. So many main characters, keeps jumping from one story line to another and from one point of view to a different one. That format is very different on TV vs. a book.

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PostTue Apr 16, 2019 4:53 pm 
I'm finishing up Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Dang near too much hard sci fi even for me, with much detail into orbital dynamics...however, when the Hard Rain begins and the 1200 survivors of humanity scrambled into orbit in the 29 months they have to work with, begin the final struggle for survival, the pace picks up. The second half of the book is where, for me, the story reaches escape velocity and gets pretty darned interesting. Last book was... The Secret Voyage of Sir Francis Drake: 1577-1580 I had no idea the scale of the plunder going on between England and Spain at the time...Drake's haul, stolen from the Spanish in a series of clever raids in the Caribbean was something like 25% of the entirety of the English budget of the time...from a single voyage. They had to hide off the coast of England near a minor port to give the Queen plausible deniability to the Spanish envoys and spies, then offload the treasure secretly.. Then, after stirring up the hornets there, he finally gets backing to round the Horn and hit them from the Pacific. However, this time it's not as easy...mutiny, some mistakes leading to alerts up and down the previously unguarded pacific coast forts...all kinds of stuff going on.. but the most fascinating is the view into the machinations concerning the reports from the latter expedition, where Drake pushed as far north as the Queen Charlotte Islands in a search for the Northwest Passage, which they were still convinced existed. Maps from captured ships were prime intelligence, and the Crown sat upon his navigation and reports from this trip for decades so as not to aid competitors. There are photos of globes and maps which were altered to misrepresent the latitudes he reached, in effect moving everything southwards to misdirect attention to his explorations. Good book

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. - Will Rogers
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