The official book thread. Review one, recommend one

[Docwagon 856]

I just finished "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee".  This is essentially 500 pages of the Indians getting screwed repeatedly.  If you haven't read it, I'd recommend you read 1491 first and get an idea of why the Indians were so outclassed by the Europeans in terms of population and military strength by the time the Whites encountered the Plains Indians.  Its a sobering look at how an entirely defeated population was repeatedly kicked while they were down, and KNEW they had no choice but to take it or become extinct.

 

Read 1491 first, though, it definitely helps with perspective for "Bury my Heart".

[spectre 633]

BOOKMARKED FOR LATER

[Docwagon 856]

http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Way-Eating-Undercover/dp/1439171963

 

I'm currently about 1/5th of the way through this book.  So far there has been nothing Earth shattering to me.  Migrant workers get treated poorly and labor laws are ignored when the vast majority of your workforce is made up of illegals.  Yeah, I knew that.  Living conditions for people making less than $30 a day are sub-par.  Yeah, again, I knew that.  Picking veggies is hard work.  Oh, I DEFINITELY knew that.

 

However what I will say is that even though I knew those things, the way this book is written is compelling enough to make learning the details (the piece rate for harvesting a 5 gallon bucket of garlic is $1.60) worth reading. I also suspect that once the book progresses into later in the food distribution chain I'll learn some new things.

 

This seems to me to be a much more intellectual honest take on America's eating habits and how they are influenced by how food is distributed than the discredited, yet still popular, "Super-size Me" indictment of American's eating habits as being mainly due to stupidity and laziness.

 

On a side note, I remain extremely suggestable about food.  I stopped at Kroger on the way home and bought fresh lettuce, broccoli, and cucumbers to make a salad when I got home.  Good thing I'm not reading about how chocolate gets made...

[spectre 633]

Hey Doc, you might want to add "The Omnivore's Dilemma" to your list. If you are enjoying that book, this one is right up your alley. It talks about our food industry behind the scenes. I can't do a proper review of it because I read it 6 years ago or therebouts.

 

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Recommendation:

 

The Disappearance of Childhood

 

This book explains alot of the reasons why modern times have lost their morals and why kids are increasingly losing their innocence at younger and younger ages. Before television, the secrets of adult life were retained by the adults.  Sex, etc.  We were the gatekeepers to that knowledge.  Once television, and later the internet came along, the genie was out of the bottle.  Kids are now exposed to sex nearly everywhere they look; from advertisements to sitcoms and more.  Even innocent cartoons have subliminal messages hidden within them.

 

It's a short read, only about 200 pages or so, but well worth it. I read it in one sitting. I recommend his companion book "Amusing Ourselves to Death"

[Docwagon 856]

I finished "How America Eats" a while back and forgot I'd made this thread.

 

Next up was "Mercury Rises".  This is just a fun novel, the second in the Mercury series.  If you are easily offended by folks poking at religion, you won't care for these.  That said, I've yet to see anything I would consider degrading to religion, its just not very reverent.  Essentially, the angels are a giant bureaucracy.  Satan continues to rule Hell after his rebellion against God as part of his plea bargain, etc.  The titular Mercury is a fairly low ranking angel in the Apocalypse Bureau, which keeps things on track for the eventual Apocalypse.  Mercury Falls is the first book, and Mercury Rises is the second.  Mercury Rises is split into two stories, one thousands of years before the first novel and the second immediately proceeding the events of the first novel.  They are fun, if you liked Niel Gaiman's "Good Omens" and those sorts of books, you'll like these.

 

Now I'm on "Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation".  This is a combination future predicting/economics/politics book on the trend of the widening gap between the poor and the rich, and the resulting shrinking of the middle class.  The author makes no moral claims, he simply lays out what is currently happening and what he foresees continuing to happen as the free market globalizes, machines do more and more of the labor, and there are fewer and fewer unskilled or semi-skilled jobs.  I'm about 10% into it, and he believes the current middle class is predominately government employees and protected trades (ie, unions) who make more money than the market would otherwise support.  The rest are being ground hard by skill gaps, what he calls the "hyper-meritocracy".  

 

One thing that has really struck me is that the top 25 hedge fund managers made more money than the CEOs of every Fortune 500 company combined.  Now, from another book, consider that the average CEO in the 50's made about 25 times what his average employee made.  By 1980 the CEO was making about 40-50 times what his average employee made.  Now he makes 250-380 times what his average employee makes, depending on who's stats you use.  So you have 500 CEOs making about 300 times what an average worker makes, yet they don't make as much as 25 hedge fund managers?

 

That's got some pretty serious implications in the long run, and its certainly not a simple problem to solve.

[spectre 633]

That book Average is over sounds right up my alley. But I haven't been in a reading a book mood in a long time.  It really sounds like it would just be more "preaching to the choir" for me since I read about that stuff all the time online.  Something has got to give eventually. Things can't keep going "business as usual" forever and the cracks are already starting to show.

[Docwagon 856]

I finished "Average is Over."  While the book occasionally gets bogged down in the world of Chess, the overall takeaway on the direction of the economy is well worth it. Its also a good reminder of how we shouldn't over simplify complex issues, and how often the simple realities of a situation are much more powerful than the politics surrounding it.  I also like his ideas that self-motivation and determination are going to be more valued commodities in the economy of the future, as there is so many resources available but no one is making you take advantages of them.  Think of how much information Google puts at your finger tips, the Kahn academy, etc.  People willing to take advantage of the free or low cost resources out there, and who interact with technology well, will likely be the higher paid workers of the future.

 

Next up is "Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East."  I read Lawrence's own book "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" years ago, and while its a very good book it is from a very personal perspective.  It is as much autobiography as it is history, and while fascinating it does lack a certain width of viewpoint.  It could also have used a good editor, someone who would have mentioned to Lawrence that indepth descriptions of camel feces could probably be safety edited out of the final transcript.  Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how an author with a longer view interprets the events.

 

Has anyone read any of the "History in an Hour" books available on Kindle?  Its a huge series and at $1.99 each not a huge investment, I just wonder if they go into enough detail to warrant the purchase.  I'm considering picking up the one on the Russian Revolution.