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incident usually by putting up graffiti or sending themselves a death threat and then use the ensuing publicity to aggrandize themselves invisible women data bias in a world designed for men by carolina criado perez fascinating look into how both historically and contemporaneously much of data collection focusses on men or excludes women sometimes like for drug testing this is both understandable the companies do not want to risk what could happen if women in the test group are pregnant or become pregnant and birth defects develop but also dangerous when drugs are later given to women the light ages the surprising story of midieval science by seb falk much of what we think that we know about the dark ages a term that historians long ago abandoned is wrong and this book breaks down more of the myths that continue going into great detail about how medieval scholars knew much more than you probably think about astronomy and other sciences the mating season by p g wodehouse another entry in the jeeves and wooster series and wooster once again tries to remain unmarried despite his family and society wodehouse is a master of humor and observation project hail mary by andy weir weir is the author of the martian and this is another great hard science fiction novel the hero is part of a highly speculative team that has to solve the problem of what is threatening all life on earth like the martian lots of stuff goes wrong and has to be overcome with science highly recommended the queen s gambit by walter tevis the basis of the netflix series i liked it much better than the very good tv show the war of the worlds by h g wells still working my way through classics i skipped when younger though dated frequently the book still holds up as an exciting tale of alien invasion who we are and how we go here ancient dna and the new science of the human past by david reich reich a geneticist at harvard med school and an expert on ancient dna writes an engrossing book about the current state of our knowledge about ancient populations their migrations and how populations have mixed over the years the amount of ancient dna available has exploded in recent years and reich says that research shows that basically no group anywhere on earth has been in its current location more than 8 to 10 thousand years and that history is replete with groups invading conquering and replacing other groups my least favorite books the forty rules of love by elif shafak this book is loved by so many people but i hated it so much first off this is the typical book aimed at women that if you reversed the gender of the characters they would immediately see that the character that they are supposed to identify with is a terrible person second the book is supposedly a presentation of rumi and his ideas but the character of rumi as presented in this book and his great friend shams of tabriz are just obnoxious and would have been terrible to know plus the writing isn t even good as every character in the whether 13th century persian mystic or 20 century american housewife all sound exactly the same the little old lady who broke all the rules by catharina ingelman sundberg again i don t get what people see in this it is supposed to be a heart warming story of these elderly folk who fight back against injustice but they do this by engaging in major felonies and endangering the lives of numerous people the turn of the screw by henry james this is supposed to be a classic but nothing happens most of the book is told via the diary or letters of the governess of two children and her writing is painful to read james is clearly making her writing this bad since the other parts of the book aren t written like this just dreadful posted by brn at friday april 01 2022 1 comment 2020 12 29 the most annual book post yet for the fourth year in a row here are the best books that i ve read this year as usual i m listing them in alphabetical order not ranking them anna karenina by leo tolstoy i m trying to catch up on a few classics each year there are three of them that made my list this year including this one it is the first tolstoy book that i ve read and it was amazing despite being very long about 900 pages and having a huge cast of characters tolstoy make the themes that he covers vibrant and interesting a boy and his dog at the end of the world by c a fletcher extremely appropriate for the year this post apocalyptic novel sees most of the population of the world killed off by a plague the few survivors have trouble producing female children which further limits the population dogs have the this same problem so when a young adolescent boy s dog is stolen he sets out after the thief empire of the summer moon quanah parker and the rise and fall of the comanches the most powerful indian tribe in american history by s c gwynne the comanche tribe ruled a huge empire in the south west of the us and repeatedly defeated all enemies they faced including the spanish mexicans and the americans until finally the invention of repeating rifles turned the tide incredibly fierce warriors and quite possibly the best horsemen ever the comanches ruled their territory with an iron hand because their nomadic lifestyle made having children difficult they frequently captured young children from outside the tribe and adopted them one such young white girl from texas became the mother of quanah the last of the great comanche leaders humble pi a comedy of math errors by matt parker matt parker is a youtube educator entertainer who discusses mathematical issues this book looks at some of the most disasterous and frequenly amusing mistakes that have ever happened with math such as the unit conversion problem that destroyed a nasa mars probe iq by joe ide isiah quintabe the hero of iq and several other books in this series is basically sherlock homes transplanted to modern day inner city los angeles ide a cousin of francis fukiyama grew up in south central la and uses his knowledge of this environment to craft a memorable hero a brilliant young man who uses his wits to solve crimes that the police cannot or will not take on little women by louisa may alcott the second classic on the list i really loved this much more than i would have thought the story of the march sisters becoming young adults during the era of the us civil war is well known the naturalist by andrew mayne the first of a four book series so far the naturalist is about naive scientist theo cray who uses his scientific training to reveal the existance of a serial killer becoming an unwilling investigator after a former student of his is murdered lots of interesting scientific details throughout the book sense and sensability by jane austen the third austen book i ve read and by far my favorite the two eldest dashwood sisters navigate the troubled waters of romance beautifully written with lots of interesting details about the time period austen was a genius at observing and detailing human behavior the sisters brothers by patrick dewitt the two sisters brothers are hired killers in the old west and they ve been given an assignment to kill a prospector during the california gold rush the story is told via narration by one of the brothers and is beautifully done if you have ever read true grit this is the only book that i ve read that is in its class for developing the character of the narrator via the story the souls of black folk by w e b du bois and up from slavery by booker t washington i chose to read these two books for this year after the george floyd black lives matter protests du bois and washington were the two towering civil figures of the post reconstruction era in the us and frequent rivals as they had differeing visions of how to improve the lot of blacks in the late 19th and early 20th centuries washington s book is an autobiography that details his work including founding the tuskeegee institute to uplift his people via education and training du bois s book is a collection of essays that he wrote for various publications and details his vision for government intervention and his disagreements with washington s plans and actions war lord by bernard cornwell the 13th and final book in the saxon series that began with the last kingdom in 2004 war lord see the completion of the unification of england under the rule of alfred the great s grandson aethelstan the entire series is well worth reading as it covers the entire life of the fictional character uhtred of bebbanburg who is captured and adopted by the pagan danes when they invade northumbria but who ends up fighting for the christian saxons under alfred then his children and finally aethelstan cornwell who is also the author of the sharpe series is a master at military historical fiction posted by brn at tuesday december 29 2020 no comments labels books brn 2020 10 30 keep your social distance interesting sticker i saw at al jimi mall this week view this post on instagram social distancing sticker on the floor of al jimi mall a post shared by brian hall wbrianhall on oct 30 2020 at 2 50am pdt posted by brn at friday october 30 2020 no comments labels al ain brn instagram photoblogging sunrise over mbz view this post on instagram a post shared by brian hall wbrianhall on aug 14 2020 at 12 01pm pdt posted by brn at friday october 30 2020 no comments labels abu dhabi brn instagram photoblogging al ain from the top of jebel hafeet view this post on instagram al ain from the top of jebel hafeet a post shared by brian hall wbrianhall on oct 29 2020 at 7 38am pdt posted by brn at friday october 30 2020 no comments labels al ain brn instagram jebel hafeet photoblogging 2020 01 14 the even more annual book post for the third straight year here are the 10 best books that i read last year the list is in alphabetical order the accidental time machine by joe haldeman i ve been trying to catch up on some older sci fi that i missed when i was younger and read more haldeman is the author of the classic forever war which is quite often cited as the best war novel period sci fi or not this one is a lot less serious but still interesting and fun a grad student accidentally invents a time machine that only goes forward and the amount of time that it jumps forward increases each time he uses it the coddling of the american mind how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure by greg lukianoff and jonathan haidt an examination of why it seems that college age students in the west are incapable of handling dissent and seem to take offense at everything haidt the author of the great the righteous mind which if you haven t read stop reading this and go get that done now is a college professor and so has seen this first hand while lukianoff was the founder of fire a group that fights for free speech rights on campus an excellent and balanced look into how we got into this situation and several great proposed solutions don t panic douglas adams the hitchhiker s guide to the galaxy by by neil gaiman et al just what it says on the tin if you loved the hitchhiker s guide you will probably love this too eleanor oliphant is completely fine by gail honeyman a novel about a lonely and damaged young woman who doesn t really know how damaged she is or how to deal with the situation but who against her will develops a couple of friendships that help her begin to right her ship there were a lot of things about this to like i especially liked that the novel avoided the usual sort of cheap romantic solutions and that the resolution isn t a cheap or easy thing hillbilly elegy a memoir of a family and culture in crisis by j d vance a non fiction look at the plight of poor rural whites in america as they face addiction joblessness and family breakdown vance grew up in this environment before he left to go to college and he uses his family to demonstrate the troubles that this group is facing though the book is apolitical and was written and published prior to the 2016 election it does give hints of why this group might have been willing to take a chance on a non politician who seemed to be the only one who cared about them the last kingdom by bernard cornwell i first read this more than 10 years ago it is a fictional retelling of the danish invasion of what would become england and how alfred the great was able to begin to push the invaders back cornwell has now written several other books in this series all of which i ve read as well and it has been made into a tv series but this book still the best of the lot it s told through the point of view of a young saxon warrior who was raised by and is sympathetic to the danes but who is fated to fight for the saxons the library book by susan orlean this book tells the story of the fire at the los angeles public library in 1986 that destroyed and damaged over a million books as well as discussion the history of libraries and the la public library system the effort to repair many of the damaged books and the importance of libraries in our lives lost and found by orson scott card the hero of this story has a unique power which has caused him to become an outcast in school as fellow students and authorities misunderstand him he becomes the at first unwilling friend of another high school outcast who encourages him to learn more about his power and others like himself and then he is compelled to use it to try to help rescue his friend from danger thank you jeeves by p g wodehouse the fifth book in the tales of the upper class dim bulb bertie wooster and his brilliant valet jeeves the jeeves and wooster novels are delightfully funny and i m working my way through all of them at the rate of a couple a year world without end by ken follett a sequel to the brilliant pillars of the earth set two centuries after the building of the cathedral in kingsbury the story once again focuses on a builder who struggles to make the town better against the forces of ignorance and stupidity i didn t read any terrible books this year i one i most disliked was wuthering heights i ve been trying to read several classics that i either didn t read or didn t take seriously or understand when i was in school and most of the ones i ve read this year have been good to very good namely frankenstein autobiography of benjamin franklin hunger the plague adventures of huckleberry finn but this one is not it s long depressing not much happens and everyone in the novel is terrible i don t understand how this one is a classic however your mileage may vary posted by brn at tuesday january 14 2020 no comments labels books brn 2019 04 01 a bleak future i know some people some time back they formed an organization while this group isn t perfect it does some important things that no other group does as well anyway this organization has gotten itself into a bit of debt problem right now there are about 33 people in the group and the organization has debts of about 2 2 million the group keeps ...
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