Missive #414 Published 26 December 2024
Lavender is a writer of western history but in this book he has concentrated on the fur trade in the middle part of America. He does provide some history of the move into the Rocky Mountains but mostly as it involves Ramsay Cooks, the main character in the book. A good read.
Missive #412 Published 22 December 2024
Continuing The Anti-Federalist Papers
Brutus XV (pt. 2)
by Robert Yates
Missive #411 Published 20 December 2024
66. The Thief with a Wagon…
A friend wrote recently about a decrease in his Heart Rate Variability (HRV) which caused me to do some research. I didn't know much about it except that it was the 'pause' between heart beats. What I found out was that my Polar Pacer watch, through Polar Flow, provides that data for me. From what I have read the best time to measure HRV is when you first get up in the morning. Since I have been wearing my watch at night with the continuous heart rate option turned on I'm capturing that data.
Missive #410 Published 19 December 2024
Dos Passos tried to write this book in the same style as his USA trilogy that has hailed by the liberal left when he was a liberal. Unfortunately, he moved right and this right leaning book, published after his death, has been virtually ignored. I didn't like the USA trilogy style very much. This book would have been better if published as two separate books; one a fiction and a second one as a series of essays.
Missive #409 Published 16 December 2024
Sigwulf, a minor Saxon prince, is saved from execution after his family is slaughtered by the ruthless King Offa of Mercia. Thanks to his Devil's Mark - his eyes of different colors — Sigwulf is exiled to the Frankish court of King Carolus, the future Charlemagne. There Sigwulf survives on his wits while at the same time trying to come to terms with disturbingly prophetic dreams.
Missive #408 Published 15 December 2024
Continuing The Federalist Papers.
Federalist No. 36
The Same Subject Continued: Concerning the General Power of Taxation
Author: Alexander Hamilton
To the People of the State of New York:
Missive #407 Published 14 December 2024
A rumor campaign threatens to thwart London barrister Leo Davies's hope of election to that rarefied strata of the British legal hierarchy, the Queen's Counsel. The rumors are based on truth, for Leo's sex life is hardly conventional. In a typical mystery novel, such a scenario would lead to blackmail or murder…or both. But Caro Fraser's new novel is neither typical nor a mystery. All of the drama in this character study of a fascinating protagonist comes from Leo's interior struggle with issues of sex, love, class, and ambition. The real mystery is how erroneously this book has been cast as a legal thriller.
Missive #406 Published 13 December 2024
65. Bags of Loot
Nasruddin’s wife woke him in the middle of the night. “I heard burglars!” she whispered. “I saw them leaving their bags of loot in the garden, and then I heard them come into our house. It sounds like they’re in the kitchen.”Missive #405 Published 11 December 2024
The Customer review that I have quoted got it right; it is hard to keep track and I was tempted to give up. The story progresses from character to character then returns to each one of them to pick up their part of the story; very hard to keep track. The author did this in his other alternative history books but this is even more difficult because it is fantasy.
