Book

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."

Missive #257 Published 8 April 2024

I found this book interesting but a difficult read. The author is an academic and wrote this for her peers not someone like me. A lot of academic made up words, 182 pages of footnotes and considerable redundancy. Read at your own risk.

Missive #252 Published 30 March 2024

In his explosive New York Times bestseller, top CIA operative Robert Baer paints a chilling picture of how terrorism works on the inside and provides startling evidence of how Washington politics sabotaged the CIA's efforts to root out the world's deadliest terrorists, allowing for the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda and the continued entrenchment of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

Missive #250 Published 27 March 2024

A seemingly rushed and arguably lazy book filled with interesting ideas about a dystopian future. Huxley moved to hollywood and wrote quite a few scripts at one point in his career, this novel seems less a novel but a way of him getting something published that the studios wouldn't touch…

Missive #249 Published 26 March 2024

"From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Silent Girls comes another unforgettable thriller set in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, featuring Detective Sonja Test.

Even in a quiet Vermont town, unspeakable acts of the past can destroy the peace of the present.

Missive #248 Published 25 March 2024

What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore's dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What's at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children's health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.