Review

** The Most Boring President ** The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge is an odd document—less a presidential memoir than a meditation on restraint. Coolidge devotes as much space to his Amherst courses as to the presidency itself. The effect is both dull and revealing: the man who said little in office also wrote little of it afterward. Coolidge embodied the Jeffersonian ideal of limited government to the point of asceticism. He knew one big thing—that virtue and self-sufficiency mattered more than state action—and never wavered. His brand of stoic minimalism worked after the 1920–21 recession, which may explain why Republicans later hesitated to intervene when the Depression hit. The result left his successor, Herbert Hoover, in an impossible position: inheriting a “do-nothing” creed just as the country demanded action, or at least the appearance of it. ...

** End of the Solarian (and Honorific) Line ** Uncompromising Honor closes the Honor Harrington saga for now more with spectacle than substance. What should have been revelation feels like maintenance. The final battle plays more like a parade of invincibility than a fight. Weber trades tension for certainty, leaving little doubt or danger. Even Honor’s moral fury—her brief flirtation with vengeance—never quite lands. A Herbert might have let her descend; Weber never would. The result is tidy, but emotionally inert. ...

** Exposition Ascendant ** With a lower overall rating than previous and subsequent entries, Rising Thunder seemed like a throwaway installment. It isn’t. By this point in the Honorverse, exposition is currency with which we pay for space battles. The focus shifts from space battles to political economy, and the main conflict ends through non-military means—a choice that frustrates tacticians but fits the logic of the world. As one Army strategist told me: when you dominate the battle via conventional means, your enemies will go unconventional. Weber understands that, even if it costs readers their customary naval fix. ...

** Finally Worth the War ** A good book should distract from real life even when you’re not reading it. After eleven entries, David Weber’s Honor Harrington series finally does. The story is no longer a slog limited understanding for middle management; I can now see what James S. A. Corey borrowed—structure, politics, propulsion—and why. Weber’s universe remains brutal. You wouldn’t want to be Honor’s comrade, guard, or even a civilian from her home system. She has plot armor; everyone else in Manticore dies by the dozen. The Mesan Alignment, still twirling its mustaches, veers too far into conspiracy caricature, but the battles themselves are crisp and consequential. ...

** Domestic Drudgery, Galactic Glory ** At All Costs is Weber at his most uneven. Much of the book bogs down in domestic drama and organizational grind—material that felt tedious, especially as escapist reading. I would say I skipped sections without guilt, but actually o just kept falling asleep. Weber simply isn’t compelling in the register of family life and middle management. Where he excels is in politics and naval warfare. As the Republic of Haven grows more morally ambiguous, the series gains depth; villains and heroes blur. Weber writes these macro-level tensions with an authority missing from his micro-level character work. ...

** Badass Engineer, Failed President, Subpar Biography ** Herbert Hoover was a world-roaming engineer, mining executive, and world-famous humanitarian before he entered politics. He organized massive food relief in Europe after the First World War, once carrying a passport “from no nation but his own signature.” Few presidents had such a record of achievement before taking office. Yet once in the White House, he became defined by limits. His incremental, ideologically cautious approach was not disastrous in itself, but it was never enough to halt the Great Depression. He didn’t cause the collapse—its roots lay in postwar instability and systemic excess—but he could not persuade Americans that recovery was possible. In economics, perception is reality, and his stubbornness failed to inspire confidence in his plans for recovery. ...

** Burn It Down, Lightly ** At first this feels familiar. Scholomance, Iron Widow—another angry, gifted teenage heroine in the dark-academia mold. But here the author makes an unusual choice: the protagonist is a little racist, and stays that way even against evidence. The flaws aren’t polished out. The story treats moral injury almost playfully, keeping a lightness even while circling serious themes. By the second half the book takes riskier turns, moving quicker than Scholomance’s trilogy toward the inevitable conclusion: if the system is corrupt, torch it. Yet impassioned speeches don’t magically fix anything, and the attempt to burn it all down produces more death, including both main characters. ...

Read on a day where I’m looking for anything to distract me from being sick. Useful more for the tips than for the thesis. Surprisingly little content on day to day teaching philosophy, mostly notes on mid-80’s curriculum. Yet in a world where the perils of technology can outweigh the benefits, much of this remains relevant into the modern day. Attributes a lot of malice to modern education that is unwarranted, my main takeaway is that the Colfax family were able to benefit from a robust library, and perhaps most importantly, parent pickiness about the materials that they used to teach their kids with. Then a little bit of kids learning how to do things on their own and the Colfax family is off to the races.

Diplomacy, Budgets, and Blasters At the beginning of War of Honor I was wondering if I should settle for the mediocrity of this series. Ten books in, this is the first one I was motivated to finish. The appeal has never been the plot of any single book, but the long meta arc. Here Weber leans into a more Clausewitzian view, where diplomacy, economics, and domestic politics weigh as heavily as fleets in motion. Maybe it took the previous nine books of exposition, but now things are getting interesting! Post-war budget cuts become a plot point, a refreshing detail reminiscent of Truman, Eisenhower, and FDR biographies. The multiple points of view add texture, especially the poker game commanders play with limited information. ...

Give me berries Something small, short, a bust of flavor and relish the memory These are blackberries, prickled with thorns of death, greed, hopelessness Unripe and bitter Some might like the flavor I don’t Let me forage elsewhere