BOOKS - What are ASF members reading?

[basilio]

Title tells it all. Quite interesting read to see how law changes through precedent. Also an insight into the attacks made on people who begin these precedents.

The Woman Who Found a Snail in Her Soda and Launched a Million Lawsuits

Sixty-six years before the infamous spilled McDonald’s coffee, May Donoghue drank a ginger beer with a dead mollusk in it and changed personal-injury law forever.

getpocket.com

 

[basilio]

This is an out of left field story. Thought it was amazing and interesting enough to share.

A Journey Inside the World's Most Mysterious Cave

For nearly half a century, legends of a giant cave in the Andes—holding artifacts that could rewrite human history—have beckoned adventurers and tantalized fans of the occult. Now the daughter of a legendary explorer is on a new kind of quest: to tell the truth about the cave in order to save it.

www.outsideonline.com

 

[basilio]

The Philosopher and the Prodigy: How Voltaire Fell in Love with a Remarkable Woman Mathematician​

“That lady whom I look upon as a great man… She understands Newton, she despises superstition and in short she makes me happy.”

The Philosopher and the Prodigy: How Voltaire Fell in Love with a Remarkable Woman Mathematician

“That lady whom I look upon as a great man… She understands Newton, she despises superstition and in short she makes me happy.”

www.brainpickings.org

 

[basilio]

Anyone seen Back Roads ? It is the ABC series which swans around the countryside looking at little towns. A big feature of the program is focusing on some amazing/inspiring human interest stories of people in the towns.

I'm reading the ABC book, Back Roads, which picks up some of the best stories on the series. Quite uplifting and inspirational. Well worth a read or a gift.

Back Roads

From the ABC Back Roads team, Australia's inspiring rural communities in splendid, vivid colourDuring the five years it has been appearing on our screens, AB...

www.harpercollins.com.au

 

[basilio]

More background on Back Roads. The idea was the vision of Heather Ewart who wanted to highlight the richness of country life. She had been born and raised in the country. This story reflects on her 40 years career as a journalist. It concludes with her final gig on Back Roads before retiring.

Great insight into journalism and politics over 40 years.

'Journalism is no job for a woman': How Back Roads' Heather Ewart proved the blokes wrong

Heather Ewart looks back over a career spanning more than 40 years, the sexism she faced in the beginning, the stories that have stayed with her and why she's a champion of the bush.

www.abc.net.au

 

[noirua]

What are some 'unknown' historical events worth knowing? - World History

#

Occupation of Japan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[noirua]

Living alone on a remote mountain in the harsh Australian bush would not be every woman’s choice. In fact, Sharyn Munro has so often been asked, ‘Why do you live there?’ that she decided to write a book as her answer. THE WOMAN ON THE MOUNTAIN is the resulting lyrically written account of her journey towards a sustainable and truly rewarding lifestyle in her beloved mountain forests, where she has ‘only’ the abundant wildlife for company. That decades-long journey was no smooth, planned passage, but a stumble over setbacks, propelled by almost accidental decisions. After the ups and downs of relationships, single parenting, and an unlikely variety of jobs, at 55 she found herself alone — in the bush. Unsure whether she could manage the hard work and mechanical demands of a self-sufficient lifestyle, she nevertheless gave it a go — and mostly succeeded.
She has also learned to live in tune with nature on her wildlife refuge, despite the occasional discordant note, helping to repair past damage and trying to do no more. ‘Civilised conservation’ she calls it, ‘having your cake and eating it too — before the wallabies do.’ With increasing numbers of people longing for a simpler life, THE WOMAN ON THE MOUNTAIN reveals what can be achieved when vision and passion are combined with a little hard work, a lot of adaptabilities — and a dash of humour.
Often humorous, always candid, sometimes heart-wrenching, THE WOMAN ON THE MOUNTAIN will charm and inform, and inspire all those who have unfulfilled dreams. Sharyn's is also a passionate cry to us to tread more lightly on our planet so that we can leave a better world for future generations. Visit Sharyn's website www.sharynmunro.com
Sharyn Munro is a freelance writer as well as an award-winning short-story writer and regularly contributes non-fiction pieces to ABC Radio National's 'Bush Telegraph' program. She lives in a solar-powered mudbrick cabin on her mountain wildlife refuge in the New South Wales Hunter Valley. Here she is regenerating her property's vegetation, at a pace dictated by aging knees. Mother of two, grandmother of two, she is also a late-blooming environmental activist, at a pace dictated by concern for their futures. This is her first book.

The Woman on the Mountain

Living alone on a remote mountain in the harsh Australian bush would not be every woman’s choice. In fact, Sharyn Munro has so often been...

www.goodreads.com

The above was written quite a while ago as Sharyn Munro left the mountain after being persuaded to do so by her children. She wrote two books following this one. I lost contact with her several years ago.

 

[noirua]

 

[Value Collector]

I recently read “Die with Zero”, by Bill Perkins.

It has changed my perspective on money, and how I will be managing it, I highly recommend.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Mud and Stars: Travels in Russia with Pushkin and other geniuses of the Golden Age.
by Elizabeth Wheeler. 2019

A generalist, but she digs deep and is familiar with the place. They ( Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, etc) were all monomaniacs , slavophiles yet craving the approbation of the West. A neurosis that affects the current climate.

 

[Knobby22]

I am reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian.
Excellent hard SF.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Just finished The Anarchy, by William Dalrymple.

About the rise of the East India Company, probably the first global corporation. Opportunism, violence, greed, and an unerring ability to leverage itself against the disparate Indian states of the time (Mughals, Marathas, Rajputs, Avadhs, Bengal, Nizam, Tipu). And the relationship between commercial and imperial power. And the advantage of having an army to assert your 'rights'.

A few things I never really grasped before;

• The amassed riches of the 'native' rulers were enormous. A glittering prize, and in centralised treasuries.
• Technology. The states had huge armies, the British used Prussian military techniques and modern armaments to overwhelm them.
• A land of shifting alliances. And invasions. The Mughal elites were often Persian. Afghan warlord Durrani swept through Delhi some twenty times in as many years.
• when the EIC attained sufficient strength, and after a scandal or three, Cornwallis, he who surrendered to the American forces, was sent as Governor of Bengal. He stopped immigration from England other than functionaries. No evolving aspirations of independence this time!
• And the French, there big-time, as traders and as mercenaries, attached to various Indian states. By early 1800's, Napoleon sent his fleet to seize Suez and push toward India. Fail.

 

[macca]

I am currently reading "the Real Anthony Fauci" I borrowed it from the local library.

I would strongly urge everyone to check their local library and have a read, the skulduggery is truly amazing

The book is about the misinformation released by Fauci, Gates and the MSM regarding the trials and testing of the novel "vaccines"

As the book was published in the USA using official data and there has been ample time for lawyers to have moved in if necessary, I have to assume it is all true.

As they say, lies, damn lies and statistics abound, the manipulation of the results is very clever but also very frightening when we look at the true results.

Scary stuff

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Homo Sapiens Rediscovered by Paul Pettitt. 2022

Subtitled The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins , it looks at how advances in genetics are changing our understanding of human evolution.

Up-to-date, insightful, well written.

- it's likely we didn't kill off Neanderthals
- unforgiving and relentlessly changing climate forced adaption and migration
- brain change ... and heaps more

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Rebel Yell by S.C.Gwynne. 2014.

Subtitled The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson.

...A modern biography, well written exhibiting scholarship, flushing out vignettes and insights into an enigma, a complex but awkward warrior. And humanising what was a bloody conflict.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Grim .... and not that distant..


Some of these kids were still alive in the late 1940's

 

[basilio]

Came across the story of Yellow Kid Weil. Basically one of the great con artists in the US from the 1890's to I suppose his death in 1976 ?
Born 1875 - died 1976 .

I found an online biography written about him in 1948. Just browsing through I found the set up for the horse racing con used in "The Sting"

Joseph Weil - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Yellow Kid" Weil; the autobiography of America's master swindler : Weil, Joseph R : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

297 p. 22 cm

archive.org