Book Reports

From China’s slumping economy to war clouds over the South China Sea and from environmental devastation to demographic crisis, Auslin says Asia’s future is uncertain.

Polk is one of the five US most successful American presidents in advancing American exceptionalism (the others, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump). ***

***Second Five: Nixon, FDR, Truman, Jackson, TR.

Its a different world up there that few of us, even the well traveled, will ever experience.

No hope... any place. No good story in Africa.

A troubled three billion dollar thrift like ASF is one thing...but, what happens when a crisis of such magnitude occurs that government regulatory officials, to prevent financial system collapse, are forced to take remedial steps that go beyond the statutory?

Pages turn into the night when, usually, I don't get through more than a couple of pages, while reading in bed, before dropping off.

Lee Child is the reading equivalent of being addicted to "Candy Crush."

"Darwin's Doubt" opened my mind to the incredible, information rich, complexity of life, and how randomness alone may not be enough to explain it.

Citi's risk schizophrenia did not augur well, I felt, for bank's future success.

Lewis writes a paean to big government as he scores Trump for ignoring the benefit that it does.

Oliver Prince Smith, the Marine General who led his 18K troops into the Chosin Reservoir battlefield, and then, back out may be the most effective US general that you have never heard of.

Oh. The title, "Everybody Lies," derives from the fact that what you click on on the internet is not necessarily what you tell people outwardly.

Utah does not have a water crisis.

It appears that the Permian Extinction opened the way for a radical redirection of the evolutionary process to allow for Prorotodactylus, precursor to the dinosaurs.

For me the novel was unconvincing as to its premise that tension between Russia and the West represents the type of existential problem on which the safety of the free world turns.

"Part of the difference as to why Trump won Erie and no other Republican in recent history has is that Trump actually came here. He showed interest."

The most important chapter (for me, anyway) is the last one, where Hart writes about the war's effect on the world and its future.

He has dubbed the current reshuffling of the earth's biota a "mass invasion event." It is, he has written, "without precedent" in the planet's history."

I remain perplexed at why the book seems so little known (in the LDS history canon) today.

We see both Spoerry's weakness and her courage, driven by a powerful need to atone.

"I only meant that the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game."

He does quadratic equations in his head for fun.

By 1956, Ivy has seen every conflict of the post war world up to that point: Vietnam to East Berlin.

Malaparte's writing on the early Soviet "aristocracy" is informative, insightful, and redolent of universal truth - "Power corrupts."

Yep. In this book there are multiple Jasons and Danielas. And, well, it gets complicated.

The book was a "hat trick" for me.

Returning to Russia was not exactly a safe move by the Count... after all, Tsar Alexander and his family had been executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918, only three years before.

Sheds a lot of light on the period between the wars... how such a seemingly inconsequential man could rise to power cornering the minds of so many to evil intent.

However, had the British won at New Orleans, by gaining control of the access to the Mississippi River, they could have stymied America's continued growth to the west.

America's contribution, though, was seminal in winning the war.

If you are inclined to be interested in UK politics or Marr as a pundit you might like it.

Also, one cannot help but be moved by the sacrifices made by the founders and their followers... particularly, when a majority of the residents of the thirteen colonies feared the British, thought they would prevail, and, therefore, were disinclined to stick their necks out.

I liked the setting. In and around Laramie, WY. Good descriptions of western distances, western scenes, and taciturn western people. Child's description of the setting sun, minute by minute, changing the colors of the vast, Wyoming landscape is great writing.

I supplemented my reading of Book Three with National Archives You-Tube footage of the actual Panama Canal construction. The Bucyrus shovels and dredges... and the locomotives.... and the blasting at the Culebra Cut is all there. It was emotionally thrilling to see McCullough's beautifully written descriptions of the construction process actually brought to life!

Seeing the scene through Antoinette's paranoia, its easy to believe that O'Kelly wants her out. But, there are enough clues to cause doubt.