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I vaguely remember reading Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, but I remember so few details from it that I honestly couldn't swear that I did read it (I'm pretty sure I did).Originally Posted by Blue Dawg
And you'd have to have the taste for the style, but I really like For Whom the Bell Tolls.
This is the aliens built the pyramids and appear in the Bible guy, right?
It does sound interesting in a "we don't really understand how this happened in history" sense. Were there like Time Life book series based on his stuff? I feel like there used to be commercials for those Mysteries of the Universe type book sets that included some of his kind of theories.
I'm reading a collection of travel writing called A Book of Traveler's Tales edited by Eric Newby. I was really looking for a book actually written by him (his Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Love and War in the Apennines are both excellent). I may have mentioned them here when I read them. In the first, he just decides on a whim to quit his job and go exploring in what's now Afghanistan (in the 1950s) despite not having any climbing experience. It's pretty funny and VERY British. The other one tells about his experience on the run as a WWII POW escapee in Italy. The local people helped him and he eventually fell in love with and married one of the people who helped hide him. They made of movie out of that story (but I haven't seen it). Super interesting guy, but for some reason the FW library doesn't have anything by him (at least not anymore, I read both of these from the library originally) other than this compilation thing.
It's ok, it's certainly interesting to read various excerpts from travel writing about various places through the centuries. Pretty long and not (to me) ideal for just sitting down and reading a lot of at one go (probably an ideal book for the bathroom).
Still working on The Great Dissenter. It's good but hadn't really been a page-turner until the part I just got to (we're at the Civil War). But we're picking up steam in the story now, it's really interesting to go through the different experiences of the two (probably) brothers.
I sometimes make book challenges for my kids (read a book about X, read a book set in Y, etc) and this year the boys opted out and the daughter asked to scale down (from the usual 52, to just 22 for '22). I may join her in doing hers this year.
Erich von Daniken has spent his whole life traveling to many countries around the world investigating structures such as the great pyramid and rock structures in Peru and Equador where mega ton rocks look like they have been melted in place to fit so close that you can't even slip a piece of paper between them. He has sold over 65 million copies of his books. He spent 5 years in a catholic boarding school in Switzerland where none of his teachers could answer any of his questions about what he read in the Bible. His religious upbringing and curiosity sent him out to seek answers.
<br><br>Erich von Daniken has spent his whole life traveling to many countries investigating structures such as the great pyramid and rock structures in Peru and Equador where mega ton rocks look like they have been melted in place to fit so close that you can't even slip a piece of paper between them. He has sold over 65 million copies of his books. He spent 5 years in a Catholic boarding school in Switzerland where none of his teachers could answer any of his questions about what he read in the Bible. His religious upbringing and curiosity sent him out to seek answers.
Just finished *The Guns of August* by Barbara Tuchman (corrected). It's a Pulitzer Prize winning telling of the first month of WW1. Insightful and at times pretty witty, it is another book where you have to like detailed analysis of what Corps did what in battle to really get the most out of it. I thought a lot more in the way of maps would have helped. Perhaps I should have read with a map sitting in front of me. Still, it's an excellent introduction to the causes (and absurdities) of the beginning of WW1.
Tuchman, maybe? If so that one is on my to-read list eventually.
A Distant Mirror was quite good.
Plato's The Republic
I'm an asshole! What's your excuse?
Yeah, Barbara Tuchman. I combined her names.
The queue in front of it on the "to be read" list is not short, but it's on there.
Yowza -- that's a slog.
My wife is reading Laptop From Hell by Miranda Divine. She said the corruption in the Biden family is much worse than we had heard. Hunter made a porn video with his brother's widow. Hunter and his family have taken millions of dollars from the CCP and other countries for favors from Joe.
Still trudging my way through The Godfather. It picks up for short stints and then crawls for a while.
it definitely has its "wth is the point of this section" sections.
This is the book challenge I made for the daughter this year:
22 for 22
1 A Newbury Book______________________________________________ _ 2 A dystopian novel ______________________________________________ 3 A graphic novel ________________________________________________ 4 A nonfiction book ______________________________________________ 5 A book published in 2022 ________________________________________ 6 A book published in the 1970s ____________________________________ 7 A book published in the 1980s ____________________________________ 8 A mystery book**__________________________________________ 9 A book you borrowed from a friend ________________________________ 10 A book of short stories___________________________________________ 11 A book you read to a younger child_________________________________ 12 A book you’ve been meaning to read, but haven’t yet__________________ 13 A book set in Australia/New Zealand_______________________________ 14 A book that has been adapted to a movie or tv show__________________ 15 A book that is part of a series______________________________________ 16 A book with an interesting cover __________________________________ 17 A book with a plain cover ________________________________________ 18 A book set in Arkansas, Texas, or Louisiana*__________________________ 19 A book you choose (free space) ___________________________________ 20 A book with a main character very unlike you________________________ 21 A book with a main character very much like you _____________________ 22 A book of the Bible _____________________________________________
Much easier than the last couple of years (which had 52 books each). I may play along myself. I think she's already hit #2 and is on her way through either #14 or #15 because she's started the Hunger Games trilogy (could be both when she finishes all 3 books). She and I both will have already satisfied #11 by reading to the youngest. Half the fun is slotting the books you'd have read anyway (the other half is picking and reading the rest).
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