Author name: Ed Frey

Missive #266 Published 22 April 2024

The third novel [and last] in a World War I alternate history series [Black Chamber] where America's greatest weapon against Germany is Black Chamber secret agent Luz O'Malley and technical genius Ciara Whelan. Only they can protect America's best hope of winning the war.

Missive #263 Published 18 April 2024

Most of Pollan's books are about food and eating but this one about architecture was very interesting. I enjoy the way he ties the main subject of a book to side issues that relate to that subject. If you expect this book to be a 'how to' build a hut then you will be disappointed but if you want to read a well written book then give this a try. I'll be reading more of his plants, cooking and eating books as time permits.

Missive #262 Published 15 April 2024

Great book. Not a great novel. But rather a highly thought provoking Socratic dialogue with an agenda to introduce the reader to evidence based, experimentally derived public policy creation and the behavioral engineering world view.
It's important to remember, the book was first published in 1948. So yes, much of it is dated. But it's brash, atheistic, rational, highly pragmatic, dialectical approach would be ahead of its time if it were written in 2019.
Skinner is perhaps the most misunderstood and wrongly maligned Psychologist ever. But in the age of internet based, algorithmic behavioral tracking, behavioral forecasting and behavioral modification, ignore Skinner at your own peril.

Missive #259 Published 11 April 2024

In the Money is a sequel to White Mule, and the second volume in Dr. Williams's "Stecher Trilogy," but it also stands alone as a novel complete in itself. White Mule is a study of childhood—of the baby Flossie Stecher and her sister Lottie, and their parents, Joe and Gurlie Stecher, of German and Norwegian origin, living in New York before the first World War. In the Money is Joe Stecher's success story—the tale of his fight against graft and injustice to found his own business and get "into the money."

Missive #258 Published 10 April 2024

I did not like this book as well as the first one that I read in the American Folkways Series. It was published in 1942 so is very dated except for the geography and history which is good information. It is also as this other customer review said "this was not a story, but a series of small stories that frequently seemed disjointed and/or repetitive."