Totally recommend. I might be a little biased, but I think it was really well-done even though it may seem like a typical second-generation American’s memoir.
[quote=“EmilyQ, post:602, topic:267743, full:true”]
The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett, which I enjoyed.
@polo77j, I also have a sample of Thinking, Fast and Slow
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I read both of those last year. I really like Anne Pratchett - I read “ Run” right afterwards, also good. I thought the other one was a bit state-the-obvious, but didn’t really offer much on how to use the info.
I think that at a certain point as a reader, everything becomes typical to some extent (“there is nothing new under the sun”) and you begin reading for voice and perspective.
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Fair. I figured I would balance my praise with some of the critique that the book has received.
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The Specter of Communism by Melvyn Leffler
Good overview of the coldwar and everything that led up to it. I wish my highschool curriculum had more books like this short, sweet, and to the point.
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
Why was this book so popular? This book, along with everything Malcom Gladwell has written, has created a new genre of pseudo-intellectual “gothca!” books. They all kind of follow the same format “You probably think X happens because of Y, but you’re wrong, and an idiot”. I understand that the purpose of this book is to get people to approach problems from an objective data driven view, but at times it seemed like Levitt took massively complicated issues and pointed at one trend to explain them.
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The Struggle for Soy by Megan Sound
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
The Body Keeps the Score - great book.
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I like all of them, plus video games. On an average day I’ll listen to music for hours (83,000 total minutes on Spotify alone last year), read for a bit, play games and then watch shows/a movie. But maybe I just waste too much time on entertainment in general.
My listening minutes on Spotify last year nearly matched yours. I also read tons of books though. My other hobbies aren’t entertainment-related, so I didn’t squeeze in any other kinds. I don’t watch shows, and I can count on one hand the number of movies I watched last year.
There’s huge value in doing things, especially going for walks, without entertainment in the background. A lot of people are uncomfortable with their own thoughts. Yet I’m not sure spending considerable time on entertainment is automatically bad or wasted time. I think people who geek out over music, books, and films are cool. I like to think that relationships with entertainment can still be healthy, even when one spends a lot of time with it. Depends on how people engage with it.
I started Savvy Estate Planning
Gotta learn this stuff early
That’s what his academic work is based on
His papers all go something along the lines of:
Here is big social issue → find data-> run regression-> identify “significant causes” to even if the regressions have 7 variables and r^2 of <.3
If something doesn’t fit a hypothesis, just use a fancier regression
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Sadly, I thought The Body Keeps the Score was overhyped, as is the case for most pop science books.
Now I am starting The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.
Autobiography of Russell Means - Where White Men Fear to Tread
Pretty crazy life.
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Arghhh book sound like anti white critical race theory. Starts foaming at mouth
Merica
Men writing autobiographies is not CRT, no matter what he might title it. Russell Means is a flawed man who lived a remarkable life. I haven’t read this book but I’ve read about AIM, the Wounded Knee Occupation and Russel Mean’s activism, which was not protesting imagined racism but real polices and real broken treaties.
I did this without the benefit of woke people from 2022 and the framework of CRT insisting that there’s something wrong with me because I’m white. I reject that kind of racist crap. Russel Means never struck me as woke either.
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Very true. This is something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve read the book. Personally, I don’t think he sounds like a very good husband/boyfriend or father. I haven’t finished it yet, so maybe he got better at those things later on in life. He also drank, partied, and fought too much. However, he also did good things. I think many people look at just the good or just the bad in someone and make their decision based on that. For me, this book and other readings I’ve done lately have been good for me, as I have to learn about both the good and bad and realize that everyone has both sides to them, and it doesn’t mean that it rules the other side out.
Yup. Growing up in a shack with no heat gives you a little bit more to be upset about than being called the wrong pronoun. Not getting political, but there’s a difference in the injustices of the somewhat recent past and the ones of today.
I don’t think he is. He’s stated that while the concept of capitalism (and communism) is foreign to “his people,” he believes in the free market. He has very clear beliefs in gender roles, and values those. He was very interested in Jewish issues, despite Jews “being white” to many today and was upset to see them treated worse than blacks in some cases. He may have been a little homophobic, haha. Different era though. Etc. Doesn’t strike me as woke either, haha.
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Outstanding post. You have a thoughtful and mature perspective. Keep reading and keep up the good work, young man.
p.s. We’re all flawed men.
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Thanks man!
Also, fun fact on Russell: my grandma was a pretty active member of AIM, and was at least acquainted with, if not actually friends with, most of the movement’s founders and most prolific members. So she knew Russell, and has always thought he was pretty full of himself, haha.
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I was just as shocked as you were to learn that movie stars can act like divas sometimes. That said, I think he deserves credit for self-reflection. Russell Means owned his bad behavior like a man, or at least a good chunk of it. If you’d like to see what a great man with great accomplishments not exactly owning up to his flaws looks like, read about Douglas MacArthur.
My dad’s copies of The Last of the Mohicans and The Pathfinder by James Fenimore Cooper were what put Russell Means on my radar. I first heard about him when he gave an incredible performance in an incredible film adaptation of Cooper’s book, 1992’s The Last of the Mohicans, which I saw in theaters when I was 12 and have seen many times since.
Back to a real diva, here’s a little preview if you decide to dive into MacArthur at some point in the future.
MacArthur’s main aide during his time as Army Chief of Staff was Dwight D. Eisenhower, an officer of strikingly different temperament and style. MacArthur would later deride Eisenhower as ‘‘the best clerk I ever had,’’ to which the man who became his boss cracked back, ‘‘I studied dramatics under MacArthur for seven years.’’
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