Category: Writing

author: Wendy Bernard
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/04/15
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: wishlist, crafty, knitting, non-fiction
review:
Particularly liked the techniques for designing your own items: how much yarn is needed for a pair of gloves, etc.

Made two items: semi-improvisational fingerless mittens & a “bonnet”, both of which I like.

author: Philip Schmidt
name: Elaine
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2013/05/01
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: gardening, non-fiction, wishlist, home-improvement, read-again
review:
Read date is approx. Some very cool designs in this book, I think it would be my preferred book for plans.

author: Philip Schmidt
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2013/05/01
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: gardening, non-fiction, wishlist, home-improvement, read-again
review:
Read date is approx. Some very cool designs in this book, I think it would be my preferred book for plans.

author: Philip Schmidt
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2013/05/01
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: gardening, non-fiction, wishlist, home-improvement, read-again
review:
Read date is approx. Some very cool designs in this book, I think it would be my preferred book for plans.

author: Michael Hastings
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/06/24
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: autobiography, biography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
Just finished reading and am still somewhat overwhelmed by a sense of despair. Which is to say that this was a really good book. The author did what I think is a very admirable thing: he took the access that he was given, and instead of using it to get more access, he actually shared what he saw. And put it into the context of things outside of those bubbles. Setting the ideology of the “COINdinistas” up against the reality of both on the ground and surveys like those done by RAND. (Look up “How Terrorist Groups End”, for example.) I haven’t been especially happy about the war in general, but this was…vivid and immediate.

(Minus one star for overly “Rolling Stone” style, which I suppose I ought to have been expecting.)

author: Michael Hastings
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/06/24
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: autobiography, biography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
Just finished reading and am still somewhat overwhelmed by a sense of despair. Which is to say that this was a really good book. The author did what I think is a very admirable thing: he took the access that he was given, and instead of using it to get more access, he actually shared what he saw. And put it into the context of things outside of those bubbles. Setting the ideology of the “COINdinistas” up against the reality of both on the ground and surveys like those done by RAND. (Look up “How Terrorist Groups End”, for example.) I haven’t been especially happy about the war in general, but this was…vivid and immediate.

(Minus one star for overly “Rolling Stone” style, which I suppose I ought to have been expecting.)

author: Michael Hastings
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2013/06/24
date added: 2013/06/24
shelves: autobiography, biography, history, non-fiction, politics
review:
Just finished reading and am still somewhat overwhelmed by a sense of despair. Which is to say that this was a really good book. The author did what I think is a very admirable thing: he took the access that he was given, and instead of using it to get more access, he actually shared what he saw. And put it into the context of things outside of those bubbles. Setting the ideology of the “COINdinistas” up against the reality of both on the ground and surveys like those done by RAND. (Look up “How Terrorist Groups End”, for example.) I haven’t been especially happy about the war in general, but this was…vivid and immediate.

(Minus one star for overly “Rolling Stone” style, which I suppose I ought to have been expecting.)

author: Jean H. Baker
name: Elaine
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/17
date added: 2013/03/05
shelves: history, non-fiction
review:
I picked this up after reading a blog entry that claimed that Bush couldn’t be called the worst president ever as long as there was Buchanan.

And I think the guy had a point, although it may be that only the existence of the slavery problem made that so. (Ie, a problem so huge that it was already tearing the country in two before Buchanan ever got there; except for 9/11, Bush seems to have manufactured all this sh*t himself.)

Because otherwise, the failings of the 2 administrations feel quite similar. In particular, a blind devotion to a particular ideology and to particular advisers. (Neocons = Southerners?)

Sometimes he seems to have acted beyond his own perceived limitations (in re: Kansas — the section on the statehood battle was fascinating), and in other moments chosen not to act and let let things get substantially worse, esp with the situation in South Carolina after the 1860 election.

Apparently the usual judgment is that he dithered, but this author thinks it was more deliberate than that, a choice not to act because his sympathies were essentially traitorous. (Holy moly!) She makes a decent case, I think, highlighting his behavior throughout his life in public service. It’s one of those stories that almost automatically draws out the “what if.” And it’s a sad, sad story, ultimately, both for Buchanan himself and for our country.

The book is also a very quick and lively read! Well worth a couple of afternoons.

author: Jean H. Baker
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2004
rating: 4
read at: 2008/11/17
date added: 2013/03/05
shelves: history, non-fiction
review:
I picked this up after reading a blog entry that claimed that Bush couldn’t be called the worst president ever as long as there was Buchanan.

And I think the guy had a point, although it may be that only the existence of the slavery problem made that so. (Ie, a problem so huge that it was already tearing the country in two before Buchanan ever got there; except for 9/11, Bush seems to have manufactured all this sh*t himself.)

Because otherwise, the failings of the 2 administrations feel quite similar. In particular, a blind devotion to a particular ideology and to particular advisers. (Neocons = Southerners?)

Sometimes he seems to have acted beyond his own perceived limitations (in re: Kansas — the section on the statehood battle was fascinating), and in other moments chosen not to act and let let things get substantially worse, esp with the situation in South Carolina after the 1860 election.

Apparently the usual judgment is that he dithered, but this author thinks it was more deliberate than that, a choice not to act because his sympathies were essentially traitorous. (Holy moly!) She makes a decent case, I think, highlighting his behavior throughout his life in public service. It’s one of those stories that almost automatically draws out the “what if.” And it’s a sad, sad story, ultimately, both for Buchanan himself and for our country.

The book is also a very quick and lively read! Well worth a couple of afternoons.

author: Richard W. Wrangham
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/04/25
date added: 2013/03/03
shelves: history, non-fiction, psychology, science, sociology, health
review:
Review of the evidence for cooking as an important part of our evolution, looking at the fossil record, the habits and physiology of other primates, and the practices of modern hunter-gatherer groups.

He spends a chapter taking down the raw-foodist movement, mostly based on a German study, before getting into the evidence for cooking in our evolution. Most of that study’s participants were at a chronic energy deficit, and a number of the women suffered from amenorrhea…and they had access to all the foodstuffs and processing devices of the modern world!

The physiology bits were fascinating: the trade-off between energy use in the gut and energy use in the brain, the differing jaw and teeth formations.

There’s quite a bit of just-so-story of the kind that one often finds with evolutionary psychology & biology, but it seems more carefully constructed than some. The chapter(s) on cooking and the evolution of the pair-bond relationship are troubling but hard to refute, at least by me. (Cooking leading pretty much directly to patriarchy. Damn.)

I could have used some graphics, both to show the actual differences, and to keep track of the timeline. I often had to jump back to remember which groups were which, and who might have evolved what when.

But definitely interesting nonetheless.