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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Tue Mar 08, 2022 9:45 pm
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1177 B.C., The Year Civilization Collapsed by Eric H. Cline, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2014. Revised edition 2021. An interesting read by a well-known archaeologist on the collapse of several key civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age. Illustrated with maps and drawings. I found it fascinating to read about globalism in cultures, communications, and politics from such a long time ago.
Here’s a brief description from the Wikipedia article: The book focuses on Cline's hypothesis for the Late Bronze Age collapse of civilization, a transition period that affected the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians; varied heterogeneous cultures populating eight powerful and flourishing states intermingling via trade, commerce, exchange and "cultural piggybacking," despite "all the difficulties of travel and time."[1] He presents evidence to support a "perfect storm" of "multiple interconnected failures," meaning that more than one natural and man-made cataclysm caused the disintegration and demise of an ancient civilization that incorporated "empires and globalized peoples."[1][2] This ended the Bronze Age, and ended the Mycenaean, Minoan, Trojan, Hittite, and Babylonian cultures.[2]
Available from the Seattle Public Library. ~z
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GaliWalker Have camera will use
Joined: 10 Dec 2007 Posts: 4929 | TRs | Pics Location: Pittsburgh |
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GaliWalker
Have camera will use
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Tue Mar 08, 2022 10:09 pm
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zimmertr wrote: | I've read House of Suns and Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds but I've been neglecting Revelation Space for a number of years. Finally got around to starting it … |
Alastair Reynolds is one of my favorite SF writers. The Revelation Space trilogy is fantastic, as is the standalone Chasm City. The novella Diamond Dogs is another classic Alastair Reynolds offering. (These last two are set in the Revelation Space universe.)
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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Wed Apr 06, 2022 1:09 pm
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Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire, A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen, Random House, 2017.
A terrific read on what makes the U.S. so "exceptional" starting with the Pilgrims in Massachusetts and the Virginia colonists. The 500 years refers to 1517 when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses and sparked the Protestant Reformation and how the printing press quickly spread his ideas. Quote: "However, out of the new Protestant religion, a new proto-American attitude emerged during the 1500s. Millions of ordinary people decided that they, each of them, had the right to decide what was true or untrue, regardless of what fancy experts said."
The author talks about the "fantasy industrial complex" and how that Americans have a weakness for fantasy. "Each of us is on a spectrum somewhere between the poles of rational and irrational." He covers our homegrown religious movements, spiritualism, medicine shows, P.T. Barnum, show business, reality tv, political movements, conspiracy theories, virtual reality, psychedelic drugs, and much more.
There was so much material in here to contemplate that I read it twice. More information here at the author's website or Penguin/Random House page here. Kirkus review here. Available from the Seattle Public Library. ~z
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Bosterson Member
Joined: 12 Sep 2019 Posts: 294 | TRs | Pics Location: Portland |
I just finished "Lost in the Valley of Death" - about a wandering world traveler who went missing in the Indian Himalayas in 2016 after going on a trek with a sketchy local holy man. The Parvati valley apparently has a history of many, many foreigners going missing over the years, including quite a few who decided to renounce their old lives and live under the radar in India. It ended up being a very interesting story about "searching" - not just for the lost people (most of whom are not found) but about the people themselves searching for an experience or new life.
Go! Take a gun! And a dog! Without a leash! Chop down a tree! Start a fire! Piss wherever you want! Build a cairn! A HUGE ONE!
BE A REBEL! YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE!
(-bootpathguy)
Go! Take a gun! And a dog! Without a leash! Chop down a tree! Start a fire! Piss wherever you want! Build a cairn! A HUGE ONE!
BE A REBEL! YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE!
(-bootpathguy)
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Malachai Constant Member
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 16092 | TRs | Pics Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
Just finished Utopia Avenue by David Michael author of Cloud Atlas (good book lousy film). About a fictional English rock group in the late 60’s good read a bit bizarre.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Sat Apr 16, 2022 9:56 am
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Ancient Bones, Unearthing the Astonishing New Story of How We Became Human by Madelaine Böhme, Rüdiger Braun and Florian Breier, Greystone Books, Vancouver, Berkeley, 2020. Madelaine Böhme is a professor at the University of Tübingen and founding director of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment. Braun and Breier are two journalists who helped her write this book on her work and discoveries which take us beyond Africa to earlier fossils in Europe and Asia. Great review here at Kirkus. Here's a CBC article with photos. This book is available at the Seattle Public Library. ~z
p 263 Ideas in paleoanthropology that were considered irrefutable for a long time have recently been thrown into disarray and must now be recalibrated. Numerous new finds present puzzles that are difficult to fit into the overall picture. The boundaries between the individual human species are fluid and not always easy to define. Research cannot yet show a clear, conclusive line of descent from early hominins to us. Today, the path to becoming human since we split from chimpanzees looks less like a family tree and more like a braided river delta, where some channels take their own course only to reconnect later, while others become rivulets before, at some point, disappearing completely.
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Kim Brown Member
Joined: 13 Jul 2009 Posts: 6899 | TRs | Pics
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Malachai Constant wrote: | Just finished Utopia Avenue by David Michael author of Cloud Atlas (good book lousy film). About a fictional English rock group in the late 60’s good read a bit bizarre. |
Should I read this?
I've been on reading kick about mid 60's rock bands lately. First, I read about the mods of the mid-1960's, then a book about Steve Marriott - how could you not? - and then an autobiography by Jerry Shirley (Drummer for Humble Pie - an interesting read, by the way. Highly recommend it. At King Co Libraries). Now I'm reading Peter Frampton's autobiography. Haven't found a book that looks great about Stevie Winwood, but I'll check out what they have after I finish Frampton.
Anyway - interesting, how these bands started. Frampton and Shirley were so young - Shirley needed a judges' approval from the Child Labor court in England to go on Humble Pie's first U.S. tour - and Frampton opted to drop out of school at 14 years old [I think it was 14] to pursue his career.
Note: If anyone is interested in Steve Marriott - again; how could you not be?, All or Nothing, (compiled by Simon Spence), includes mostly salacious quotes about Marriott - but also fascinating information about the music industry. You won't like Marriott at all after that book. So read Jerry Shirley's book also (Best Seat In The House). While Steve wasn't an easy person to deal with, Shirley has a much better tone about it, and highlights a lot of the incredibly good things about Marriott, who Shirley admired and loved like a brother.
All these books touch on the Stone, the Beatles, the Who, Alex Korner, David Bowie, tons of American blues musicians; it's interesting how they're intertwined.
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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Malachai Constant Member
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 16092 | TRs | Pics Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
If you have not you must read read Keith Richards book, a miracle the guy is even alive let alone coherent. Patty Smiths books are amazing also if you are interested in the New York 70’s early 80’s scene. Grace Slick has an interesting book also. Utopia Avenue is a novel typical of the author the group of course is fictional but many characters are not. If you are looking for history it is not your cup of meat. Of course fiction can often be more real than fact. Of course as they say about the 60’s if you can remember it you weren’t there.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Fri Apr 22, 2022 9:50 am
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Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, a Recent History by Kurt Andersen, Random House, New York, 2020. Here the author of Fantasyland takes us up until the first year of the pandemic. Lots to learn here about the 70s, 80s, 90s and how various persons and entities have influenced our policies and conditions today--the Reagan era, deregulation, the culture of greed, the politics of nostalgia, class war, the digital revolution, and more. Here's the author's page with some excerpts and a short audio. There's a Wikipedia page about the book and here's a Kirkus Review. Available from the Seattle Public Library. ~z
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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Sat May 28, 2022 8:55 pm
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The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone by Edward Dolnick, Scribner, New York, 2021. I saw this book at Elliott Bay Book Company a few weeks ago and then found it at the Seattle Public Library. This is the story of the finding of the Rosetta Stone by some of Napoleon's troops while invading Egypt in 1798-99 and it's journey eventually to the British Museum where it resides now. By this time Egyptian hieroglyphics were a lost language and had been for centuries. The stone carried three passages one in ancient Greek, another in Demotic (Egyptian), and then the one in hieroglyphs.
Copies were made and shipped to various cities and scholars set out to decipher and break the code. The effort took decades. Two main decipherers were in a rivalry to accomplish this task, an Englishman Thomas Young and a Frenchman Jean-Francis Champollion. This well-researched book is that story. The writing does have its issues and bogs down from time to time. But it is fascinating history. A Kirkus Review here. Bookpage review here. ~z
Anne Elk
Anne Elk
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Waterman Member
Joined: 21 Mar 2015 Posts: 590 | TRs | Pics Location: Big Snow Quadrangle |
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Waterman
Member
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Sat Jun 04, 2022 11:24 am
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Gun Fight, Adam Winkler
The battle over the right to bear arms in America.
Discusses court cases and gun control laws throughout our nation's history. Should be required reading for any educated discussion of the issue.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
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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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Mon Jun 20, 2022 10:35 pm
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David Douglas, A Naturalist at Work by Jack Nisbet, Sasquatch Books, Seattle, 2012
This book makes a great gift for the naturalists in your circle. It's beautifully printed with many well-researched illustrations. Nice hardbound with great design. The author is a writer from Spokane so he has a bit of an Eastern Washington perspective. David Douglas was a Scottish naturalist who explored all over Washington state, Oregon, and British Columbia while they still were British territory in the early 19th century. He made several visits, sailing around the Cape Horn, heading north and then crossing the bar of the Columbia River to arrive at Fort Vancouver. He worked with trappers and other employees of the Hudson's Bay Company who were interested in scientific explorations of the Northwest Territories. He "discovered", collected, and named many plants on his travels. Many plants familiar to us were named after him, e.g. Pseudotsuga menziesii, known to us as Douglas Fir.
Goodreads review here. Great article in the Oregon Historical Society site. If you're a native plant lover this book is for you. The author travels around in the northwest following in Douglas's steps (or canoe paddle strokes) when he can. He interacts with different folks including First Nations people, ranchers, and other naturalists to get a sense of how plant communities have survived, adapted, or struggled during our modern era of development. ~z
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mike Member
Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 6397 | TRs | Pics Location: SJIsl |
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mike
Member
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Tue Jun 21, 2022 9:23 am
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Jack Nisbet has written several other books that I found interesting. There are more that I plan to read
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Kim Brown Member
Joined: 13 Jul 2009 Posts: 6899 | TRs | Pics
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I have Ancient Places. Really nice essays; interesting stuff!
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
"..living on the east side of the Sierra world be ideal - except for harsher winters and the chance of apocalyptic fires burning the whole area."
Bosterson, NWHiker's marketing expert
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zephyr aka friendly hiker
Joined: 21 Jun 2009 Posts: 3370 | TRs | Pics Location: West Seattle |
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
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Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:21 pm
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Thanks! The cover art on that last one really draws you in. ~z
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