Monthly Archives: March 2008

The Iron Ores of Lake Superior (1923) by Crowell and Murray: a short review

Absolutely essential if you’re studying iron ore shipping on the great lakes, or iron mining along the shores of Lake Superior. This book contains a surprising, and wonderful, amount of information about individual mines, and about the companies which ran those mines.

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Effective Cycling, by John Forrester: a short review

This is the second, self-published, edition of the book. At the time of publication I thought it absolutely wonderful, and still think very highly of it; it summarizes very well how excellent cyclists think of riding.

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The Command of the Ocean, by N.A.M. Rodger: a review

Roughly speaking, this book covers the period from Pepys through Nelson–the period when the Royal Navy came into its own as a world institution. Really a wonderful book; Rodger is (as always) a careful and lucid historian, with a good sense of what’s important and what’s trivial-but-intereresting. Well worth a read if you’re interested in any aspect of naval or British history.

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The Bill James Gold Mine 2008: a review

Guess we’re just supposed to value it for the nuggets. Those are definitely there, and for me that really is enough.

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World communism, by Franz Borkenau: a short review

Probably the worst book I was ever assigned to read. I dropped the course.

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Dodger Dogs to Fenway Franks by Bob Wood: a short review

It’s an OK book, in general, as much about the trip and his life as it is about the ballparks.

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The Mac Do Book by Mary Gwen Owen: a short review

Mary Gwen Owen explains manners to Macalester’s freshman class; received shortly before I enrolled in 1967. Dated, I think; absolutely hilarious, not always intentionally. In particular, the word “gay” has (and already had) connotations which the book ignores. Repeatedly.

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The Doonesbury Chronicles by G.B. Trudeau: a short review

Contains my favorite Doonesbury strip ever. Mike & Zonk talking at a party. Zonker asks if Mike remembers “that New Frontier stuff”; Mike launches into Kennedy’s inaugural speech, they both laugh. Then they stop. Z: “God, what’s happened to us?” M: “I dunno, man, I dunno.”

Exactly.

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Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey: a short review

Quite likely my favorite novel ever. A big, sprawling, wonderful, complicated novel about family, about keeping the faith, about American culture, about the conflict between big modernity and the individual. Funny, too. Well worth a read.

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The Man Who Sold the Moon, by Robert Heinlein: a short review

In many ways my favorite Heinlein book. Future history written in the fifties; a portrait, reasonably convincing, of the way things might have happened in the second half of the century. The Roads Must Roll–about a strike by the technicians who run the transportation system–is nicely worked out. The title story, beyond question, is RAH at his very best.


This short review was originally published on LibraryThing.

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