Books on the Table – Minimum Viable Python

Just finished

The struggle for Sea Power by Sam Willis. Really great audio book, but also got book in order to look at maps
Critical Mass – Sara Paretzky (physics missing persons mystery). v. ambitious V.I. Warshawski novel with tons of action and mystery

reading now

Why We Sleep
Probably Overthinking it: new statistics book from Allen Downey!
John Paul Jones by Evan Thomas – had no idea Jones went to help Russian navy after revolutionary war was over

to make sense

The Cruel Radiance – Susie Linfield: Photography and Political Violence. More recently, Linfield writes about Hamas
American Heresy – John Fanestil: Right wing Christian nationalist tradition of USA
Meme Wars

for fun

I feel Earthquakes more often than they happen – Amy Wilentz: Los Angeles memoir
Story of French (sequel to 60 million Frenchmen can’t be wrong)
The Appian Way – Portolo (ed.): about the ancient road to Brindisi

On deck

Born Into Blackness – Howard French. (ended up watching 90 minute interview with author instead)

Still on the table!

The Russo Ukrainian War – Sergei Plokhy (unfortunately, war not over yet)
Guide to Foods of México: Discover the Delights of Mexican Food Kindle Edition – Erich Almasy, Cynthia Blanton

Finished, would definitely read again

Under A White Sky – Elizabeth Kolbert

A series of essays loosely connected by the idea of human-engineered intervention in the natural world. Perfect companion reading for #InOurRealmOfNature
We of Little Faith – Kate Cohen

Surprisingly engaging account of the author’s personal journey in favor of atheism, recommends that if you don’t believe, say so.

Surprisingly fun novel

The Caryatids – Bruce Sterling

Sci Fi novel set in 2060 or something. Action on three continents as four cloned sisters work out their family conflicts amidst a global struggle between two or three dominant global factions. The odd thing about this novel was how pleasurable it was to read!

Could not get into

Mason Dixon – Thomas Pynchon

‘twas written in the present tense usin’ invented colloquial outlook of Mason and Dixon theyselves.
Peripheral – William Gibson

A (quite possibly) fully imagined not-so-near future. Incomprehensible.
Elon Musk – Walter Isaacson

Biography of Elon Musk. GFY.

Summer 2023

The Viking Heart: how Scandinavians conquered the world – Arthur Herman

Courage, daring, loyalty, resilience. Also, something called a Thing.
The Body – Bill Bryson

Funny as aways
The Perfectionists – Simon Winchester:how precision machining created the modern world

A classic, super enjoyable read.
The Rainy Season – Amy Wilentz

Best book on Haiti ever

About Ukraine

The Ukrainian Night: an intimate history of revolution (2017) – Marci Shore
Russia’s War – Jade McGlynn
The Gates of Europe – Serhii Plokhy
Red Famine – Anne Applebaum
Tim Snyder’s Yale lectures Youtube: The Making of Modern Ukraine
Course syllabus on Substack
The Ukrainian Night: an intimate history of revolution (2017) – Marci Shore

according to the author, a Husserlian experiential analysis of the Maidan

If you search for the terms ‘shoe+sculpture+European+Square+Dnipro+ukraine’ you will find many photos of an oversized sculpture of a shoe made of pots and pan lids Marci Shore talks about walking by in Dnipropetrovsk

Returning to from time to time

Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park – Allen Glazner Vignettes about Y’s geologic features. Rockfalls! Moraines! Waterfalls! Valleys! Every kind of lake! Also, contains this memorable sentence: >>Geologists commonly use beer for analogies, and in this case we can equate pumice to the frothy head on a mug of beer, obsidian to the beer in the mug (a nice dark stout), and granite to beer that has been put in the deep freeze.<<
*** Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics - Rebecca Solnit
- Solnit’s essay on Eliot Porter has started me on a different way of thinking about urban photography
**** Grokking Continuous Delivery - Christie Wilson
- everything is continuous delivery

Hope not to have to return to

Divider – Susan Glasser and Peter Baker. Trump’s term from 2016 to 2020.

Still reading

Just finished

The Traitor – Ava Glass

2nd spy thriller in a series, following “Alias Emma”. he level of dramatic tension is so high sometimes I could sometimes read just half a page & then put down. Finally did finish!

Educated – Tara Westover.
A Field Guide to Getting Lost – Rebecca Solnit. An autobiographical book of essays containing a dream or an unmade movie similar to Vertigo. Also some doggone good meditations about getting lost, and what it means to get lost. I checked this book out of one library, read it on an airplane trip, and then returned it to a different library that I was walking by on my way home from the airport.
Refuge – Terry Tempest Williams

Book-length journaling, including dreams, about the atomic-test-caused cancer death of her mother and other women in her family, organized around the theme of birds and bird sightings of the Bear River Bird Refuge. Also, Great Salt Lake as its level rises and falls, and peculiarities of Mormonism. She thanks her father for editing the book

Not that long ago

**** Barbarian Days by William Finnegan (surfing)
- be sure to read the 3 pages starting at p223 with “I did become, at Kirra, a paddling machine…”
**** Here in Berlin, by Cristina Garcia
*** In the Eye of the Wild, by Nastassja Martin
*** Body Work (VI Warshawski mystery)
Issues in Science and Technology Summer 2022 (photo showing the issue leaning against green plastic trap for Japanese Beetles)
Fuzz, by Mary Roach
** Spider Woman’s Daughter – Anne Hillerman
Tony Hillerman’s daughter picks up the storyline with Jim Chee’s wife, who is also an officer with the Navajo Nation Police. Almost nothing happens for 350 pages, and then … suspense action thriller!
Desert Star (A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel 2022)

You Can’t be Serious! (v. funny, but v. Chihuahua lowbrow)

The Silence of the Chihuahuas by Waverly Curtis (another ‘barking dog mystery’)
The Chihuahua Alway Sniffs Twice by Waverly Curtis
Dial C for Chihuahua by Waverly Curtis (not as good as the sequels)

Python

Python One liners
Automate the boring stuff with python
Django REST APIs, by Will Vincent

trying to be reading

Money for Nothing, by Tom Levenson
Wildland, by Evan Osnos
the huge orange book about how the Native Americans informed European ideas of freedom

Gave up reading for the time being

Jerusalem – Simon Sebag-Montefiore

**** Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic history of 20th Century – Brad DeLong
Chihuahua Confidential – Waverly Curtis Murder in Hollywood at the Dog Dancing contest
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World – Tim Marshall (2015). I learned a lot from the chapter on India and Pakistan, although the sections on Afghanistan are now out of date. There’s a 2021 sequel.
that book about economics
the powershell books
Putin’s People by Catherine Belton (had to return to library)
The Origins of Agriculture and Settled Life – Richard S. MacNeish (1992) – this book literally fell off my bookshelf but somehow made its way back there.
** Hip Hop Architecture – Sekou Cooke Obtained before Ye went Defcon 3, turned out to have an entire chapter on Kanye West, a luminary of HH Arch.
Hot Tamale The Chihuahua only said yip by the end of the first third, so I took the book back to the library, even though the chihuahua did discover the body.

About to give away but not before reading 1 or 2 more interviews

Sick in the Head, by comedian Judd Apatow
- Would read again, filled with insights

Just got from the free library

YOU ARE A BADASS (not terrific, but could not pass up the title)
Seaman
Patricia Cornwell set in Cambridge

This freakin’ badass book sold over two million copies! (I’ll sell you mine)

Had to take back to the library

Chip War – Chris Harris
Let our Fame be Great, by Oliver Bullough. The story of the Circassian genocide
*** Getting China Wrong – Aaron L. Friedberg
Colour Scheme – Ngaio Marsh’s first (1942) novel. Great so far.

Really want to go through, a chapter at a time

The first editions were great

Geocomputation with R, 2nd edition (Robin Lovelace et al)
Working with Census Data, 2nd edition (Kyle Walker)
R for Data Science, 2nd edition (Wickham & Grolemund)
Advanced R, 2nd edition (Wickham)

Book	Chapters	Now reading Chapter
Geocomputation with R, 2nd edition	16	1
Working with Census Data (2e)	8	2
R for Data Science (2e)	36	2

RStats

R Cookbook
Intro stats with R
Statistics (The Easier Way) 3rd Edition, by N. Radziwill (dr. R)
Statistics, an Introduction Using R, by Michael Crowley

The Forgotten

Javascript, the Good Parts, by Crockford
The Cucumber book
Programming Ruby 1.9
Learn Azure in a Month of Lunches

On the reference shelf, or thereabouts

Behind the Scenes – Sarah T Roberts 2019 book by professor who spent 8 years studying content moderation in Big Tech

Classics

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
Mistaken were made (but not by me)
Crafting a Compiler
Joel on Software
Ogilvy on Advertising

Also Still Reading

** Wild urban plants of the Northeast : a field guide – del Tredici
- a classic

Exercise books

Built from Broken – Scott Hogan A science-based guide to healing painful joints, preventing injuries, and healing your body.

By a certified personal trainer (CPT). Solid posture improvement in just 3 days of only one (1) exercise. Spoiler alert: you have to do the exercise
You are your own Gym – Mark Lauren

A covid quarantine classic!!!

--- title: "Books on the Table" image: BookNoInterfaceIMG_8151.png about: template: trestles --- Just finished - - The struggle for Sea Power by Sam Willis. Really great audio book, but also got book in order to look at maps - Critical Mass -- Sara Paretzky (physics missing persons mystery). v. ambitious V.I. Warshawski novel with tons of action and mystery ### reading now - Why We Sleep - Probably Overthinking it: new statistics book from Allen Downey! - John Paul Jones by Evan Thomas -- had no idea Jones went to help Russian navy after revolutionary war was over #### to make sense - The Cruel Radiance -- Susie Linfield: Photography and Political Violence. More recently, [Linfield writes about Hamas](https://quillette.com/2023/11/18/the-return-of-the-progressive-atrocity/) - American Heresy -- John Fanestil: Right wing Christian nationalist tradition of USA - Meme Wars #### for fun - I feel Earthquakes more often than they happen -- Amy Wilentz: Los Angeles memoir - Story of French (sequel to 60 million Frenchmen can't be wrong) - The Appian Way -- Portolo (ed.): about the ancient road to Brindisi ### On deck - Born Into Blackness -- Howard French. (ended up watching 90 minute interview with author instead) ### Still on the table! - The Russo Ukrainian War -- Sergei Plokhy (unfortunately, war not over yet) - Guide to Foods of México: Discover the Delights of Mexican Food Kindle Edition -- Erich Almasy, Cynthia Blanton ### Finished, would definitely read again - Under A White Sky -- Elizabeth Kolbert : A series of essays loosely connected by the idea of human-engineered intervention in the natural world. Perfect companion reading for #InOurRealmOfNature - We of Little Faith -- Kate Cohen : Surprisingly engaging account of the author's personal journey in favor of atheism, recommends that if you don't believe, say so. ### Surprisingly fun novel - The Caryatids -- Bruce Sterling : Sci Fi novel set in 2060 or something. Action on three continents as four cloned sisters work out their family conflicts amidst a global struggle between two or three dominant global factions. The odd thing about this novel was how pleasurable it was to read! ### Could not get into - Mason Dixon -- Thomas Pynchon : 'twas written in the present tense usin' invented colloquial outlook of Mason and Dixon theyselves. - Peripheral -- William Gibson : A (quite possibly) fully imagined not-so-near future. Incomprehensible. - Elon Musk -- Walter Isaacson : Biography of Elon Musk. GFY. ### Summer 2023 - The Viking Heart: how Scandinavians conquered the world -- Arthur Herman : Courage, daring, loyalty, resilience. Also, something called a Thing. - The Body -- Bill Bryson : Funny as aways - The Perfectionists -- Simon Winchester:how precision machining created the modern world : A classic, super enjoyable read. - The Rainy Season -- Amy Wilentz : Best book on Haiti ever ### About Ukraine - The Ukrainian Night: an intimate history of revolution (2017) -- Marci Shore - Russia's War -- Jade McGlynn - The Gates of Europe -- Serhii Plokhy - Red Famine -- Anne Applebaum - Tim Snyder's Yale lectures Youtube: [The Making of Modern Ukraine](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNewfxO7LhBoz_1Mx1MaO6sw_) - [Course syllabus on Substack](https://snyder.substack.com/p/syllabus-of-my-ukraine-lecture-class) - The Ukrainian Night: an intimate history of revolution (2017) -- Marci Shore : according to the author, a Husserlian experiential analysis of the Maidan If you search for the terms 'shoe+sculpture+European+Square+Dnipro+ukraine' you will find many photos of an oversized sculpture of a shoe made of pots and pan lids Marci Shore talks about walking by in Dnipropetrovsk ### Returning to from time to time - Geology Underfoot in Yosemite National Park -- Allen Glazner Vignettes about Y's geologic features. Rockfalls! Moraines! Waterfalls! Valleys! Every kind of lake! Also, contains this memorable sentence: \>\>Geologists commonly use beer for analogies, and in this case we can equate pumice to the frothy head on a mug of beer, obsidian to the beer in the mug (a nice dark stout), and granite to beer that has been put in the deep freeze.\<\< - \*\*\* Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics - Rebecca Solnit - Solnit's essay on Eliot Porter has started me on a different way of thinking about urban photography - \*\*\*\* Grokking Continuous Delivery - Christie Wilson - everything is continuous delivery ### Hope not to have to return to - Divider -- Susan Glasser and Peter Baker. Trump's term from 2016 to 2020. ### Still reading ### Just finished - The Traitor -- Ava Glass : 2nd spy thriller in a series, following "Alias Emma". he level of dramatic tension is so high sometimes I could sometimes read just half a page & then put down. Finally did finish!  - Educated -- Tara Westover. - A Field Guide to Getting Lost -- Rebecca Solnit. An autobiographical book of essays containing a dream or an unmade movie similar to Vertigo. Also some doggone good meditations about getting lost, and what it means to get lost. I checked this book out of one library, read it on an airplane trip, and then returned it to a different library that I was walking by on my way home from the airport. - Refuge -- Terry Tempest Williams : Book-length journaling, including dreams, about the atomic-test-caused cancer death of her mother and other women in her family, organized around the theme of birds and bird sightings of the Bear River Bird Refuge. Also, Great Salt Lake as its level rises and falls, and peculiarities of Mormonism. She thanks her father for editing the book ### Finished these awhile back -- still recommend & would read them again - A Matter of Trust -- Meenakshi Ahamed. India's relations with the US from Truman to Trump. Clear exposition of India history of the last 75 years - \*\*\* We Shall be Masters -- Chris Miller About Russia and the Far East The most interesting chapter has been on the railroad through Manchuria - \*\*\* Lords of Finance -- Liaquat Ahamed. Following Montagu Norman, Benjamin Strong, Hjalmar Schacht & Emile Moreau: the 4 central bankers leading up to the 1929 crash. A good one. - Why Learn History (When It's Already on Your Phone) -- Sam Wineburg (one review says Chapter 7 -- "Why Google Can't Save Us" -- knocked my socks off with its stories. Very glad I got new socks for Christmas) - \*\*\*\* They called us 'Lucky' -- Ruben Gallego Harvard student becomes a Marine, serves in the Iraq War's hardest hit unit, then goes to Congress. - Gallego has declared his candidacy for US Senate.  - \*\*\*\* The Secret Life of Groceries - Benjamin Lorr - (The original CI/CD, ever since the cardboard box was invented) - \*\*\* Códice Maya de México -- Understanding the Oldest Surviving Book of the Americas -- Edited by Andrew D. Turner - (contains replica of the 10-page Codex, a rare survivor in Mexico, where the invading Catholics burned all the Mayan books they could find but missed this one and two or three others) ### Not that long ago - \*\*\*\* Barbarian Days by William Finnegan (surfing) - be sure to read the 3 pages starting at p223 with "I did become, at Kirra, a paddling machine..." - \*\*\*\* Here in Berlin, by Cristina Garcia - \*\*\* In the Eye of the Wild, by Nastassja Martin - \*\*\* Body Work (VI Warshawski mystery) - Issues in Science and Technology Summer 2022 (photo showing the issue leaning against green plastic trap for Japanese Beetles) - Fuzz, by Mary Roach - \*\* Spider Woman's Daughter -- Anne Hillerman\ Tony Hillerman's daughter picks up the storyline with Jim Chee's wife, who is also an officer with the Navajo Nation Police. Almost nothing happens for 350 pages, and then ... suspense action thriller! - Desert Star (A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel 2022) #### You Can't be Serious! (v. funny, but v. Chihuahua lowbrow) - The Silence of the Chihuahuas by Waverly Curtis (another 'barking dog mystery') - The Chihuahua Alway Sniffs Twice by Waverly Curtis - Dial C for Chihuahua by Waverly Curtis (not as good as the sequels) ### Python - Python One liners - Automate the boring stuff with python - Django REST APIs, by Will Vincent ### trying to be reading - Money for Nothing, by Tom Levenson - Wildland, by Evan Osnos - the huge orange book about how the Native Americans informed European ideas of freedom ### Gave up reading for the time being - Jerusalem -- Simon Sebag-Montefiore  - \*\*\*\* Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic history of 20th Century -- Brad DeLong - Chihuahua Confidential -- Waverly Curtis Murder in Hollywood at the Dog Dancing contest - Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World -- Tim Marshall (2015). I learned a lot from the chapter on India and Pakistan, although the sections on Afghanistan are now out of date. There's a 2021 sequel. - that book about economics - the powershell books - Putin's People by Catherine Belton (had to return to library) - The Origins of Agriculture and Settled Life -- Richard S. MacNeish (1992) -- this book literally fell off my bookshelf but somehow made its way back there. - \*\* Hip Hop Architecture -- Sekou Cooke Obtained before Ye went Defcon 3, turned out to have an entire chapter on Kanye West, a luminary of HH Arch. - Hot Tamale The Chihuahua only said yip by the end of the first third, so I took the book back to the library, even though the chihuahua did discover the body. ### About to give away but not before reading 1 or 2 more interviews - Sick in the Head, by comedian Judd Apatow - Would read again, filled with insights ### Just got from the free library - YOU ARE A BADASS (not terrific, but could not pass up the title) [This freakin' badass book sold over two million copies! (I'll sell you mine)]{.aside} - Seaman - Patricia Cornwell set in Cambridge ### Had to take back to the library - Chip War -- Chris Harris - Let our Fame be Great, by Oliver Bullough. The story of the Circassian genocide - \*\*\* Getting China Wrong -- Aaron L. Friedberg - Colour Scheme -- Ngaio Marsh's first (1942) novel. Great so far. ### Really want to go through, a chapter at a time The first editions were great - [Geocomputation with R](https://geocompr.robinlovelace.net), 2nd edition (Robin Lovelace et al) - Working with Census Data, 2nd edition (Kyle Walker) - R for Data Science, 2nd edition (Wickham & Grolemund) - Advanced R, 2nd edition (Wickham) | Book | Chapters | Now reading Chapter | |------------------------------------|---------:|--------------------:| | Geocomputation with R, 2nd edition | 16 | 1 | | Working with Census Data (2e) | 8 | 2 | | R for Data Science (2e) | 36 | 2 | ### RStats - R Cookbook - Intro stats with R - Statistics (The Easier Way) 3rd Edition, by N. Radziwill (dr. R) - Statistics, an Introduction Using R, by Michael Crowley ### The Forgotten - Javascript, the Good Parts, by Crockford - The Cucumber book - Programming Ruby 1.9 - Learn Azure in a Month of Lunches ### On the reference shelf, or thereabouts - Behind the Scenes -- Sarah T Roberts 2019 book by professor who spent 8 years studying content moderation in Big Tech ### Classics - Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Mistaken were made (but not by me) - Crafting a Compiler - Joel on Software - Ogilvy on Advertising ### Also Still Reading - \*\* Wild urban plants of the Northeast : a field guide -- del Tredici - a classic ### Exercise books - [Built from Broken -- Scott Hogan](https://saltwrap.com/pages/built-from-broken) A science-based guide to healing painful joints, preventing injuries, and healing your body. : By a certified personal trainer (CPT). Solid posture improvement in just 3 days of only one (1) exercise. Spoiler alert: you have to do the exercise - You are your own Gym -- Mark Lauren : A covid quarantine classic!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------

reading now

to make sense

for fun

On deck

Still on the table!

Finished, would definitely read again

Surprisingly fun novel

Could not get into

Summer 2023

About Ukraine

Returning to from time to time

Hope not to have to return to

Still reading

Just finished

Finished these awhile back – still recommend & would read them again

Not that long ago

You Can’t be Serious! (v. funny, but v. Chihuahua lowbrow)

Python

trying to be reading

Gave up reading for the time being

About to give away but not before reading 1 or 2 more interviews

Just got from the free library

Had to take back to the library

Really want to go through, a chapter at a time

RStats

The Forgotten

On the reference shelf, or thereabouts

Classics

Also Still Reading

Exercise books