Category: books
-
BLAM!
The ordinarily even-tempered academic Henry Adams goes all Chuck Norris on De Witt Clinton: With a violence that startled uninitiated bystanders, Cheetham in his American Citizen [newspaper] flung one charge after another at [Aaron] Burr; first his judiciary vote; then his birthday toast; then the suppression of a worthless history of the last Administration written… Read.
-
Genius
When it sucks to be a Genius: John Fitch, a mechanic, without education or wealth, but with the energy of genius, invented engine and paddles of his own, with so much success that during a whole summer Philadelphians watched his ferryboat plying daily against the river current. No one denied that his boat was rapidly,… Read.
-
The Ladies
Saith the Duc de Liancourt, writing in 1797: … it must be acknowledged that the beauty of the American ladies has the advantage in the comparison [to European ladies]. The young women of Philadelphia are accomplished in different degrees, but beauty is general with them. They want the ease and fashion of French women, but… Read.
-
Dynamite Ed
Politics was a lot more fun back in the day: … delegation-selection proceedings were under way in several states that had not yet adopted the primary system. On 23 January, Oklahoma’s Fourth District Republican convention grotesquely dramatized the factionalism of a party splitting three ways. The local committee chairman, Edward Perry, was a Roosevelt man… Read.
-
The End
Recently finished books: Millenium, by John Varley – based on the short story Air Raid, and I’m not sure I can say making it into a book improved it. The short story wowed me so much that it resurfaced in my memory just last week and and sent me searching the internet for it. When… Read.
-
A Different Boy
Robert Goddard was the father of American rocketry, or maybe something more like the crazy uncle. Like Tsiolkovsky in Russia and von Braun in Germany, he not only cobbled together working rockets, he was inspired by a compelling inspiration to fly to other planets, which was crazy talk in his day, and I mean people… Read.
-
Dad Does Books
I found out the other day that a guy I know collects books as rabidly as I do, if that’s possible. He’s got bookshelves all over his house and apparently likes them as much for their smell as their looks or their content. And what sane human doesn’t? Well, lots, it turns out, but that’s… Read.
-
Truman – Finished!
I finished it! It’s been about three weeks and almost a thousand pages after I started, and I am honestly sorry it’s over. I think I can say this is the best biography of anybody by anybody I’ve ever read. Maybe I’m biased a bit by the fact that I’m a huge fan of David… Read.
-
Truman by McCullough
I’m two-hundred pages into the biography of Harry Truman by David McCullough. My Darling B gave it to me for Christmas after I spent months trolling the aisles of every used book store in town, looking for it. Now that I have a copy, I notice that there are three on the shelves at Saint… Read.
-
Dark Side of the Moon
I just finished reading Dark Side of the Moon, a book about Nasa’s lunar landing project. I feel it is safe to say that author Gerard DeGroot, a science writer from Scotland, is no friend of America’s manned space program, or any other country’s. Time out: What, by the way, is a shorthand way to… Read.
This Is Drivel 