I read a book or two... when I get to it.
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Tom - Bookrastinating has read 7 of 12,000,000 books.
The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of …
It should be on the top 10 list of Science Fiction for all time. This book does what all great sci-fi does it bends your world and makes you look at it in a way that you wouldn’t otherwise have need to and in the end, you’re better off for it.
Established in 2025, the purpose of the new organization was simple: To advocate for the …
I waded 50 or so chapters into this book. Great start, honestly one of the most compelling starts I've every read, some good early chapters with plot and character development and then they just disappeared. I really wanted it to succeed on the basis of it's beginning alone so I got 10 hours of sleep caffeinated myself fully and read three chapters straight that did not include any specific advances in plot or even mention of a single character. I passed out twice. This book goes on my permanent pause shelf. If I'm wide awake and need to be asleep... I'll come find it again. Two stars for the first chapter being fantastic.
@Tania@bookwyrm.social Could not agree more. After reading three chapters in a row with no mention of any character or plot I quit reading it.
I loved Mike’s History of Rome podcast but it focuses heavily on the Imperial period. This text zooms in on the turbulent final centuries of the Republic and is a lovely treatment of it. It is a swirl of names and events all threaded expertly by the author.
Great fundamentals here from Stephens, who was living in Dublin during the rising and gives you a day for day account of what the ordinary person knew and didn’t. He then goes on to speak about what it was to be Irish in those days from his perspective. #book #BookReview.
When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Vice-President Andrew Johnson became “the Accidental President,” it was …
A good pop history of the personalities and events surrounding the impeachment of Andy "The Accident" Johnson and his ultimate acquittal at the first ever presidential impeachment trial. I definitely learned things I did not know regarding the reasons why he was impeached in the first place. His behavior was worse than I knew (and I knew a lot previously) but they impeached on a technicality. Like putting Capone up for tax evasion. Lesson observed... don't nominate a Veep just for votes if they're a sociopath.
Tom - Bookrastinating
boosted
A great primer on India's space program. The text was written at the level of a layman but the footnotes often went into some depth on stumbling blocks encountered by the space pioneers of the subcontinent. The reader is left with a great understanding of the framework of their program along with the hows and whys of the systems it developed. Additionally relevant are all the missteps they encountered (which were often very different than those encountered by other nations).
A former Commander in Chief during the Vietnam War examines official documents, dispatches, and high-level …
An easy read, only 271 pages of actual narrative. I recommend it to folks interested in Vietnam war history, and history of air power in war in general.
Always interesting to hear "from the horse's mouth" so to speak. Admiral Ulysses Simpson Grant Sharp Jr. (grand-nephew of his namesake the President and Civil War General) brings forward a first person tale about how the civilian and military leadership of the US fought the war in Vietnam. He was the Commander in Chief of all US forces in the Pacific and served from 64-68 in that role.
Most history I've encountered of this period focuses on the life of the fighting men (mostly men then) and less on the strategic context. The Admiral puts you in the chain of command between Secretary McNamara and the combat forces in theater and discusses his view as the conflict progressed. The crux of his …
An easy read, only 271 pages of actual narrative. I recommend it to folks interested in Vietnam war history, and history of air power in war in general.
Always interesting to hear "from the horse's mouth" so to speak. Admiral Ulysses Simpson Grant Sharp Jr. (grand-nephew of his namesake the President and Civil War General) brings forward a first person tale about how the civilian and military leadership of the US fought the war in Vietnam. He was the Commander in Chief of all US forces in the Pacific and served from 64-68 in that role.
Most history I've encountered of this period focuses on the life of the fighting men (mostly men then) and less on the strategic context. The Admiral puts you in the chain of command between Secretary McNamara and the combat forces in theater and discusses his view as the conflict progressed. The crux of his message is that the US political leadership did not process well the lessons of the armistice negotiations with North Korea. He plays that out by discussing the ineffective use of American air power throughout the conflict including the self imposed limitation on use on strategic warmaking targets.
This book, written in 1979, was clearly read by a later generation of American military minds as many of the lessons observed here appear, to me, to have been learned very well. Not that there weren't other hard lessons yet to be observed...
This brilliantly argued new perspective on the Civil War overturns the popular conception that Abraham …
I recommend it. Much of the pop history written about the Civil War focuses on battles and generals, but the story about how Congress fought the war is just as compelling. Bordewich builds the story into a narrative that weaves seamlessly with the external events driving the country and the war. From the secession crisis to the Impeachment of Johnson it's quite a tale.
You really get to know some of the main characters of the age: Pitt Fessenden, Thaddeus Stevens, Benjamin Franklin Wade, et al. Lincoln gets a lot of the limelight in other texts, but the Congress had to keep the lights on and figure out how to function as well as push the nation forward.
Book reading goals make me sad, so I set unreasonable ones. Fuck ... that... noise.
This text attempts to encapsulate the United States relationship and competition with the People’s Republic of China. It uses all kinds of authoritative texts as sources. I am often one who wishes to read primary sources, but in this case, I think the reader benefits significantly from being able to have all of these primary sources summarized. Anybody looking for a pretty thorough analysis of the competition between these two nations historically and extrapolations about the future would do well to read it.
William Manchester's A World Lit Only by Fire is the preeminent popular history of civilization's rebirth after the Dark Ages.
Content warning I talk about the plot a bit... nothing outlandishly spoiling
Do I recommend: Yes, if you like sci-fi, if you don't ... you should.
I was browsing the stacks at my library and looking for those lovely blue "Science Fiction" stickers found on volumes of that ilk. Many SciFi authors on the shelf are prolific and have over their careers produced many works which are on the shelves, but this one stood alone. Its clever title also stood alone in ALL CAPS.
I enjoyed the plot, the characters, the style of writing. It's all a fantastic modern work of art. It may be that K just hits my brain in the sweet spot or maybe it's a fantastic novel. Either way, I recommend it!
The plot centers around characters from one dimension very similar to our own who are marooned here in our world as refugees. Think the 1990's TV show "Sliders" but there are more than 150k of them and they can't go back. Their world, it's culture, the people, the technology are tenuously linked to this world by their memories, and the items they brought with them here. These refugees react in very human ways and the author explores their emotions and the limits of their adaptability to their new home.
