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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 pretty good records and are remarkably open so they happen to know that collectively they earn about 1 96 million per year their budget for the current year is to spend about 400 000 on various projects unfortunately they are only going to collect about 318 000 in dues from their members pretty clearly something is going to have to be done to resolve this last week some of the leaders of the group suggested that perhaps some of the spending could be cut back a bit as i understand it it went something like this take a look at this 1 76 that we spend on this charity i m not saying that it isn t a good charity it is it does great work but we are 2 2 million in debt and will add another 70 000 this year so this seems like something we should look at this cut is only 0 0004 of the current budget unfortunately the membership of the group did not react how can i put this rationally to this suggestion i worry about the long term future for this group posted by brn at monday april 01 2019 no comments labels brn not very obscure parables politics usa 2019 01 08 the increasingly annual book post continuing the tradition that began 11 years ago and then took a decade off before continuing last year here are the 10 best books that i read for the first time last year they are in alphabetical order not ranked 1 to 10 infinite by jeremy robinson a science fiction story that begins with an intriguing premise and then takes a direction that i didn t see coming one of the more original books i ve read in a while a long way down by nick hornby i ve long loved hornby s books so i was quite glad to come across one i hadn t read yet a great story of a mismatched collection of characters who meet up when they plan to commit suicide full of great character moments and realizations the mountain between us by charles martin this seems like a simple survival story and it is a very well executed one but even more it is a love story not in the stupid hollywood romance novel sort of way but in a much deeper and meaningful way also about honor and choices that one has to live with i haven t seen the movie that was made from the book because i m frankly afraid of what hollywood might have done with this story norwood by charles portis portis wrote true grit which is great as well and this book set in the 1950s has his same ear for dialog that made that book so humorous the prodigal tongue the love hate relationship between american and british english by lynne murphy murphy is an american linguist who has been living and working in the uk for several years now and is an expert in the similarities and differences in the various types of english this book is a great in depth look at the relationship between us and uk english she examines the history and the way that the people of the two countries feel about their english and the other the professor and the madman a tale of murder insanity and the making of the oxford english dictionary by simon winchester i actually read two great books by winchester this year this one and krakatoa it was hard to limit him to one spot on this list as both were great the road to wigan pier by george orwell i d heard a bit about this one in college but never got around to reading it until now i really missed out orwell is of course a great writer but here he turns his pen to reporting on the living conditions of miners and other working poor in the north of england between the wars tons of fascinating details about exactly how they lived how much things cost and how they struggled orwell was deeply sympathetic to them but at the same time was clear eyed about their faults as well as their virtues scoop by evelyn waugh another book i had heard much about but never read a funny satire of the news business that seems just as fresh today as when it was written a study in scarlet women by sherry thomas what if sherlock holmes was a woman that is the premise of this book and thomas pulls it off brilliantly one could quibble that the view of victorian england borders on a caricature and that the mystery part of the novel is not as strong as it could be and you d be right but thomas s charlotte holmes is just so completely what a female holmes would have been while remaining faithful to the holmes of the canon that you have to forgive the weak points very good jeeves by p g wodehouse this is the third jeeves and wooster book i ve read and they are all great as a bonus here are the worst books i read bloody confused a clueless american sportswriter seeks solace in english soccer by chuck culpepper i should like this like culpepper i m an american who has fallen in love with english football but culpepper is determined to make himself unlikable insulting anyone who still likes american sports or disagrees with him about anything there is a definite element of converts make the most obnoxious members going on here it would be interesting to see if perhaps culpepper has moderated his passion now especially since his chosen team portsmouth has been relegated twice since the book was written upright beasts by michel lincoln a collection of short stories that range from the passable to the bizarre to the dreadful mostly the latter the light between oceans by m l stedman this book starts off so promising as it details the lives of a couple who tend a lonely lighthouse off the coast of australia shortly after world war i i love books that tell about people who don t get noticed but who make our lives possible and then the couple in the book steal a baby yet the book expects us to continue to feel sympathetic to them posted by brn at tuesday january 08 2019 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