For those who are new ... we discuss books. I list what I'm reading, and people comment with what they're reading. Sometimes, on Sundays, I post a special edition on a particular genre or topic.
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Just finished
Nothing this week
Now reading
Charming Proofs. A book of beautiful (or charming) proofs in mathematics, nearly all of which require no advanced math.
Mr Speaker! The life and times of Thomas B. Reed, the man who broke the fillibuster by James Grant.
Reed was a Republican in the Gilded Age (back when Republicans were the good guys) from Maine, and rose to be speaer of the House. He was way ahead of his time, being a proponent of women's suffrage and equal rights for Blacks, among other things. As speaker, he broke the ability of the minority party to fillibuster in the House. House members used to be able to prevent a quorum by sitting in the House but not giving their names in roll calls. Reed started recognizing people himself. He also resigned from the House on a matter of principle - he opposed the USA starting and fighting in the Spanish American war.
God's Arbiters:Americans and the Phillippines: 1898-1902 by Susan K. Harris. I am only a few pages into this book, but it looks good. It is an advance copy sent to me by the publisher, with rather fortuitous timing since Cryptonomicon deals a lot with the Phillippines, and Mr. Speaker deals with the same time period, and I just finished The War Lovers, which is about the other part of the Spanish American war - the part that was fought in Cuba.
Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich. It's what the subtitle says. The good, ,the bad, and the ugly of the papacy. Norwich writes very well, and strikes a b nice balance. However, the book is marred because there is too much to cover in the space allotted, and it's impossible to write a history of the papacy that doesn't include a lot of European history. I'm not that familiar with European history between (say) 500 and 1500, and I daresay I am not alone. This makes portions of the book hard to follow.
Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell. Darrow was a great man, but he was not without flaws. This book covers the heroism and the flaws, and also captures the times in which Darrow lived (with not inconsequential parallels to the present)
Just started
The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. This is the second book in the series started by Old Man's War. It's not as good as the first, and reads too much like nonfiction.