Book Recommendations

[Stephanie B]

https://www.amazon.com/Far-Feet-Will.../dp/1602392366

As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me. Someone gifted me the 1950's copy they had, and I just found out there's a reprint from 2008 so it's still easily available. The basics are a German POW escapes a Russian forced labor camp and over roughly 3 years escapes Siberia. On Amazon it's billed as similar to "Unbroken" but unless the reprint is significantly different, I don't see the connection other than being POWs. Unbroken is a much more uplifting story. I don't want to say too much more for spoiler reasons, but it's not Unbroken.

It is, however, a good story and one of those "the best of people in bad situations/the worst of people in bad situations" dichotomies over and over. There's a host of characters (real people, mind you) that are interesting and sympathetic. It's not exactly graphic, but the level of detail gives you a good idea of the hurdles and distances involved. It's one of those stories that would be dismissed as implausible were it to be fiction.

Unfortunately, it is probably fiction.

[holmes168]

Started the book - American Kingpin today about the Silk Road. So far- I’ve gotten through Ross Ulbricht getting the idea and setting everything up. Pretty excellent book- Ulbricht appeals to my Libertarian bent for sure. Snowden, now Silk Road, who knows what’s next!

[BehindBlueI's]

Unfortunately, it is probably fiction.

Eh, well that sucks. Fooled me.

[Coyotesfan97]

Unfortunately, it is probably fiction.

Oh well guess I’ll read it in that vein.

[spyderco monkey]

https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Spa...8071363&sr=8-1

Enjoyable and fascinating biography on Musk and specifically SpaceX / Tesla.

Favorite part was how SpaceX radically lowered the cost of rockets through one simple trick...in house manufacturing. While ULA relied on 1200 different contractors - each part resulting in its own padded profit margin - SpaceX made their own parts and essentially got them at cost.

So for example they were able to make their own $120k 'Space Actuator' (essentially a ruggedized garage door opener) for $3900. Rather then spending $100k on a 'Space Radio' from the leasing contractor they just made their own radio in house for $5k. Multi million dollar 'space computer' replaced with under $10k in off the shelf computers...on and on.

[Stephanie B]

The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed by Wendy Lower.

Lower came across a photograph of a Jewish woman in the Ukraine at the moment that the German and Ukrianian killers murdered her. She set to learn everythng she could about the location of the killings, the people who did it and the people who were murdered.

This is the photo:



The book has the feel of a much shorter article that was expanded into a book. It has a lot of descriptions about what the author did, the efforts she took to find the site and the people involved. It's a modification of the old saw about reporting to be: "Who, What, When, Where, How, Why, Me, Me, Me."

The book has a sort of happy ending, in that a Soviet KGB major investigated the case in the mid-1980s and determined the identities of the three Ukrainians who participated. A woman who had been a girl at the time had been hiding in the trees, witnessed the executions and testified. One was deemed to be a juvenile at the time (age 17), so he was sent to a forced-labor camp. The two adults were shot. After Ukraine become independent, the case was re-examined and the verdicts left undisturbed.

The Ukrainians who organized and led the local forces supporting the genocide were mainly identified by SMERSH after the war and hung.

The Germans involved were living in West Germany and, despite being denounced to the police by one of the Germans who was remorseful. Those perps were given a "catch and release" treatment.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

2034

Techno Chinese-USA war - not realistic at all and full of plot holes. If you want to read it, get it from the library.

[TNK]

The Territorial Imperative (1966) by Robert Ardrey.

[BehindBlueI's]

"The Long Earth"

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Earth-Te.../dp/0062068687

The setup for the book is there is (apparently) infinite iterations of Earth and with a simple device you can learn to hop between them. Each Earth is very slightly different, it's history being not quite the same, and the further you go the less like your Earth things get. The Earths are labeled "East" and "West" just as a means to keep track. You can step one east or one west at a time. Most people get nauseated by the process and have to wait a bit before they can step again. You also don't move physically or in time. If you step into solid matter, you won't step at all. If you step into the air, you'll fall when you arrive. If there are still dinosaurs, it's because that's the path that Earth took. You can move almost anything with you while stepping with the exception of elemental iron or it's metal alloys. The iron dissolved in your blood is fine, an axe head is not. It just stays in the Earth it was mined at.

Only our Earth has humans.

It's an interesting story but it's also an interesting take on what happens when access to many commodities are now almost limitless. There's more gold then people can mine. There's more trees than people can cut. There's more farm land than people can farm...and nobody actually *has* to farm if they go far enough out because you can successfully keep a hunter/gatherer society.

It's a 5 book series, all of which are out. I'll probably pick up the 2nd book at some point, but I've got a few others I want to catch up on first.

[0ddl0t]

Started the book - American Kingpin today about the Silk Road. So far- I’ve gotten through Ross Ulbricht getting the idea and setting everything up. Pretty excellent book- Ulbricht appeals to my Libertarian bent for sure. Snowden, now Silk Road, who knows what’s next!

For a counter perspective, you might add A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear. As a Libertarian I didn't think it was all that good, but almost everyone else seems to find it very amusing...