Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin)

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals [LibraryThing / WorldCat] is a good history. It might be considered a biography, too. Or a management book. It’s a little of everything. There was plenty of history involved, to be sure. During sections when the author recounted the armies’ progress, I was thinking the title could just as [...]

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The Art of the Snowflake (Kenneth Libbrecht)

As kids we were all told snowflakes were six-sided crystals and no two were alike. Most of us even made paper cutouts or drew snowflakes for winter school projects. But how often have we had the chance to actually see six points on a real snowflake? I lucked out just last month as they fell [...]

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Endymion Spring (Matthew Skelton)

Every now and then I glance at a list of fiction titles for kids and young adults hoping to pluck out something interesting. That’s how I ended up reading Matthew Skelton’s Endymion Spring [LibraryThing / WorldCat] during a few rainy evenings last week. The premise was intriguing. Skelton ran two stories in parallel: one in [...]

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Unshelved (Bill Barnes & Gene Ambaum)

I’ll admit it. I’m not above comics. In fact, I read every Foxtrot collection that comes out. Most of the Dilberts, too. And why not? There’s no rule saying that everything you read has to be 200+ pages of seriousness with chapters, end notes, and an index. Comic strips can be every bit as funny [...]

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Mount Rainier National Park Impressions (Charles Gurche)

Last time we chatted I was longing to see Mt Rainier again and had comforted myself with one of Art Wolfe’s great photography collections of the Cascade Range: Seven Summits. I also went through Charles Gurche’s Mount Rainier National Park Impressions [LibraryThing / WorldCat]. Gurche’s book is not as ambitious as Wolfe’s but many of [...]

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Seven Summits (Art Wolfe)

I’m homesick for the mountains. Or simply The Mountain. I can usually see Mount Rainier out an upstairs window if I lean against the shower and hope the wind blows enough to strip the neighbor’s tree of its leaves. But outside right now it’s dark and gray and rainy. From the previous postings you might [...]

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The Big Switch (Nicholas Carr)

History has been known to repeat itself.  In The Big Switch: Our New Digital Destiny [LibraryThing / WorldCat], Nicholas Carr identifies one trend that seems to be doing a rerun in our modern world.  He connects the rise of electrical utilities in the late nineteenth century and the advent of Internet utilities during our own era. [...]

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The Book of Fate (Brad Meltzer)

Maybe a half dozen novels make their way into my stack each year. While I’m mostly NF, I still enjoy a good story now and then. It’s good to explore an imaginary world for a while, compare it to the real one, or just get caught up in the tale. I hope you, dear reader, [...]

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