History

33rd book of 2020. When Competition is Everything. Reading through Friday Night Lights, I couldn’t help but marvel at twin formative experiences growing up: First is my own experience with high school competition. In my last year at high school, I missed more than a third of school days, and slept through the remainder I attended. I remember flying to tournaments, scouting opponents in preparation for state competition, and even fearing the elite Texas schools who took competition to a whole new level. ...

27th book of 2020: This man Fights. Grant was not destined to rise through the ranks. Had the civil war not created a dire need for somebody, (anybody!) with an officer’s training, he would have lived out his life as a struggling head of a poor family with a problem drinking and driving fast cars horses. Indeed both before and after his second run in public service, this was his life path. ...

A nice, if dry history of VC in the US. While the recent history of VC firms like Greylock, Sequoia was interesting, I’m still partial to the description of the whaling ventures, and most appreciated the returns chart showing how whaling returns align almost precisely with VC shops. The last decade of VC megaboom has left this book a bit outdated, but getting the context on different models that have been tried and were considered failures (especially the government versions of VC made it a worthwhile read. ...

73rd book of 2019. If you liked ‘Fire and Blood’ by George RR Martin, this might be the book for you. A bit heavy on the 10,000 ft. view narrative of palace politics and succession, but just enough that some of the dry readings are that much punchier. “The emperor was much more interested in pursuing his prurient interests” I appreciated the broad sweep, the occasional commentary, and the willingness to cover every notable emperor across thousands of years. ...

72nd book of 2019. Breezy read, the author put a lot of effort into making it fun, and those efforts paid off. Essentially a romp through 19th century science and all the advances that we have made in the modern age, along with the quirky scientists that brought us those advances. I would like to think that I knew most of the content in here anyways, but there were just enough tidbits scattered about to keep me engaged. ...

TBW

The premise was great, and the focus on everyday Medieval life was fascinating, but I disliked every single character from the future timeline (i.e. just about all the main characters). They kept acting in dumbfounding ways, such that by the time I was halfway through I was rooting for reality to win and one of them to die due to their mistakes. Alas it never happened, and I lost interest about 2/3 of the way through.

This is the ‘surgeon generals warning’ of international studies, and I’m astounded I managed to get a degree in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations without this being required reading. Many of the points ring true, and the book is worth reading eveif you already kwthe general thesis. Only reason it’s not 5 stars is that it was a tough book to get through. The language was dense and the author assumes a lot of prior knowledge that I often didn’t have.

Does a great job trashing standard dogmas, but felt like it introduces new dogmas in their place. I kept hoping for some objective way to measure single vs. mixed use, and never found it. The section on cars was great (and sadly ignored) and what I found most interesting were definitions of slums and the chapter explaining the positive value of old buildings. Definitive required reading for anybody thinking about neighborhood or city planning.

2.5 stars. The Amazon series is better. I didn’t like any of the characters, the mysticism seemed pointless, and didn’t like pkd’s style of writing. Still grateful he came up with the premise so that the show could exist!