What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

[Ternaugh]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Last week, I finished Street Gang: The complete history of "Sesame Street" by Michael Davis. It's an often fascinating story of the creation of the TV show, and the people responsible for bringing it to the air. While there are a few rough spots where the narrative loses track, the book in general is a good read, and one I'd recommend.

 

JoeG

[mwiggins]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I've been reading beekeeping books, as I'm going to start a couple hives next spring. I'm doing the reading now and am going to order the hive parts this summer.

 

The backyard beekeeper LINK

And

The beekeepers handbook 3rd edition LINK

[mwiggins]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

The ABC & XYZ of bee culture 41st Edition LINK

It reads like an encyclopedia. Because that's what it is.

informative but dry.

[Cancer]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Currently reading parts from Planets and Life, edited by W. T. Sullivan and John Baross. I'm not reading it cover-to-cover, just individual chapters.

 

Make no mistake: this is a graduate-level textbook, published (Cambridge U Press) in 2007. 28 chapters, each from different contributors, authorities in their specialties. However, it's a textbook for an intrinsically interdisciplinary course, so that anyone with college-level reading skills should be able to get something out every chapter (especially if they have some science background). For example: I have never had a chemistry course since high school, but I can follow the biochemistry and molecular biology discussions in the chapters about the rise of life, metabolism, the sources of primordial proteins and amino acids, and so on. Includes an appendix listing "astrobiological sites" on Earth, sort of a laundry list of places to visit for unusual ecosystems, environments, and geological features (Yellowstone is one; so is Shark Bay, Australia), which makes for a very strange sort of geek tourism.

 

However, if you want a snapshot of what was known in 2006/7 about the origins of life on Earth, in the Solar System, and in the Galaxy, I think this could be the only book you need. Star Hero worldmakers (especially us incurable top-down design simulationist types) might see if they can look at this. Being a textbook from a textbook publisher the price is heartbreaking ($83 new in paperback), though. (Disclosure: I got mine for free from a textbook rep.) See if you can con your local library into getting a copy (good luck in these times, though) and using that.

[mwiggins]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

[

quote=Cancer;1834773] Includes an appendix listing "astrobiological sites" on Earth, sort of a laundry list of places to visit for unusual ecosystems, environments, and geological features (Yellowstone is one; so is Shark Bay, Australia), which makes for a very strange sort of geek tourism.

we got one here in WV. it is the only piece of arctic tundra south of the arctic. there are plants that live nowhere else on Earth

cranberry glade

 

See if you can con your local library into getting a copy (good luck in these times, though) and using that.

I haven't had any problems with them ordering books I've requested

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions

By Ron Fry

 

Seeing as this was the most important job I have had to date, I really wanted to make a good impression. I know that I have left interviews thinking "Well, I'm not getting that job." Conversely I have had interviews that I thought went very well only to never hear from the organization again. In a strange coincidence (if you believe in such things) this book came into the library one week before I was to have my big interview. I grabbed it before anybody else even knew it was there. (It's one of the perks of librarianhood.)

 

It was a very interesting mix of insightful advice and no-brainers. The faux pas examples, taken from real life, are baffling and amusing. Simple tips like:

 

• Don’t bring your dog to the interview.
  
• Don’t pull out the cell phone and make a call during the interview.
  
• Don’t wear a tank top, or flip flops, or a T-shirt advertising how much you like to drink.
  
• Don’t light up a cigarette in mid interview.
  

The fact that these even need to be stated is mind blowing. Are people that stupid? Don’t answer, I know they are. I’m proud to say, though, that I knew the faux pas to avoid.

I got some sound advice and reasoning on more complex issues, though. The book is well organized and the individual questions are analyzed with green lights (good answers), red answers (bad answers), and “What they want to hear.” Honestly, there were times when it felt like the book was saying “whatever you do, don’t tell the truth!” however most of it was good and practical. There were even a couple times I read a question and thought “so that’s what I did wrong.”

Very rarely does one get to read one of these advice books and follow it up with practice, but I read it having already lined up this interview. So how did it go? I won’t know the results for a while, but I can tell you how I felt. The main upshot is that it did help to calm me down. I was nearly in full panic mode before this interview because I’ve never had so much at stake before. Even if the book was wrong about everything, it made me feel like I had a better handle on things.

Did it help with the actual questions in the interview? Yes and no. I think I was better prepared for some of the questions but that may simply have been because the book forced me to think about the possibilities beforehand. I don’t think any of my answers would have changed. That is also in part due to the fact that I was preparing for nightmare questions and they didn’t come. I never got the “Why do you suck?” type of questions. That was a great relief.

The book did help in one very palpable way. As you probably know, at the end of every interview they inevitably ask if you have any questions to ask them. I try to ask a few, but I’m never sure what is appropriate, what is out of bounds, which questions will make a bad impression, etc. I came up with a list of questions to use that I can honestly say made a good strong impression when used. So if for no other reason than that, I’m glad I read this one.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I finished two books during my seemingly endless hours of waiting in airports this week. Here’s the other one...

The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame: Muwahahahaha!

By Daniel H. Wilson

 

You may remember Daniel H. Wilson as the author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion and Where's My Jetpack?: A Guide to the Amazing Science Fiction Future that Never Arrived and many more. The man obviously has a mad science (or SCIENCE!!!) obsession and I can relate.

 

A Mad Scientist Hall of Fame is actually a project I had thought about for a while now, and when I saw that Wilson had already done it I knew I needed to grab a copy. He does a very nice job with it, including real life examples and popular fictional characters. Many of the big names are here, from Dr. Evil to Dr. Jekyll, Nikola Tesla to Marie Curie.

 

While the book is mostly tongue in cheek, there is legitimate psychology and analysis in every biography. Each scientist is rated on a scale from 1 – 5 in the categories of Genius and Madness. Then, after a brief biographical summary, a psychological profile is provided to analyze the ‘madness’ of each individual. Being dead or fictional, the scientists couldn’t actually lie on the couch, of course, so the profiles are strictly observational. “No mad scientists were harmed during the writing of this book.” Still, they are some thought provoking deconstructions even for the parody intended characters such as Hubert J. Farnsworth.

 

It was a fun read, and I have to admit that there were several characters/people that I hadn’t heard of which I found fascinating. It’s a great start, but there’s more that could be inducted into the Mad Scientist Hall of Fame.

[Cancer]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Does it list Dr. Bunsen Honeydew?

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

It does include Seth Brundle, though.

 

Does it list Dr. Bunsen Honeydew?

Dr. Honeydew is notably absent. I think there are enough to fill a second volume, which I hope at some point happens.

[mwiggins]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions

By Ron Fry

 

I allways wonder about dressing for a interview. The usual wisdom says to dress nice, wear a suit.

But others say wear what you would wear to work.

Considering that in my job you can spit on the floor and no one cares. So for me, that means: jeans, steel toed boots, safety glasses, earplugs and a greasy t-shirt with burn holes.

[Cancer]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

The rule of thumb I heard was: dress like the guy(s) who are going to interview you. Figuring out what that is ... is a necessary part of your pre-interview prep.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I allways wonder about dressing for a interview. The usual wisdom says to dress nice, wear a suit.

But others say wear what you would wear to work.

Considering that in my job you can spit on the floor and no one cares. So for me, that means: jeans, steel toed boots, safety glasses, earplugs and a greasy t-shirt with burn holes.

I always try to dress nicely. I even wear a suit for interviews that I wear at no other time. (Well, one funeral, but that's it.) I was mostly overdressed, and at some points felt conspicuous. Most of the people I spoke to were dressed casually. (This was actually a relief because I wanted to see what would be expected.) However I did meet with the VP of Academic Affairs and the Dean of Libraries as well, and both were dressed impeccably in their suits, so I was very glad I dressed up too. Better to be overdressed in my estimate than to err the other way.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

'HEAVEN + EARTH (Global Warming: The Missing Science)' by Ian Plimer.

 

This book is full of information, along with copious notes, references and sources; that very very thoroughly torpedoes the 'CO2 = Global Warming Religion' (as he proves conclusively, actual SCIENCE has very little to do with it). Clear explanations in layman's terms.

 

Don't snarl at me, just read the book.

 

Ian Plimer, by the way, is a highly regarded Geology professor who has written a number of books. Noteworthy is one other in which he takes on and flattens Creationism - the title (IMO) pretty much says it all - "Telling Lies For God".

[Enforcer84]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I never got the “Why do you suck?” type of questions. That was a great relief.

 

Because he offered cash?

[Enforcer84]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I allways wonder about dressing for a interview. The usual wisdom says to dress nice, wear a suit.

But others say wear what you would wear to work.

Considering that in my job you can spit on the floor and no one cares. So for me, that means: jeans, steel toed boots, safety glasses, earplugs and a greasy t-shirt with burn holes.

 

I always try to dress nicely. I even wear a suit for interviews that I wear at no other time. (Well' date=' one funeral, but that's it.) I was mostly overdressed, and at some points felt conspicuous. Most of the people I spoke to were dressed casually. (This was actually a relief because I wanted to see what would be expected.) However I did meet with the VP of Academic Affairs and the Dean of Libraries as well, and both were dressed impeccably in their suits, so I was very glad I dressed up too. Better to be overdressed in my estimate than to err the other way.[/quote']

 

That's why I always dress like a superhero for job interviews.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

That's why I always dress like a superhero for job interviews.

Hmm, don't have a superhero outfit.

 

...but I do have a Santa Claus outfit

[mwiggins]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

To hell and back By Audie Murphy. Amazon Link

 

He was the most decorated American soldier of WW2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Terence N. D'Altroy, The Incas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008) 978-1-4051-1676-3

What if an expert did an introduction to Inca civilisation for an academic press? It would be this book.

No army list/painting guide, unfortunately.

[yamamura]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstien

Rating 4.5 starts out of 5

 

So often when we see some of the films of Beat Takeshi, the movie Onibi, the movie Sleepless Town or even Koji Yakusho's noble gangster in Bounce Ko-gal we are lauded into an illusion of the Yakuza as noble men walking a path of the shadows so that the common man can walk in the sun. Also in some cases we see violence is something the noble yakuza does to ignoble yakuza as in Onibi or several of the Beat's film. Even Sonny Chiba's Kage no Gundan is a yakuza TV series where the yakuza name is not used but are replaced with ninja. But all the themes of the yakuza is there from several of the cast members having jobs associated with traditional yakuza jobs (construction and peddling) to the whole we are shadows so that others may live in the sun. But that is an illusion created by the Japan film industry (who has heavy yakuza control through ownership and pressure often violent) and only touches upon what the yakuza want to show.

 

What we do forget is that there are victims to the yakuza's action. Peoples whose whole lives are destroyed. Tokyo Vice reminds you of this. Jake Adelstein takes on a journey of him starting as the first American reporter for Yomiuri to the bringing down of one of Japan's most nasty gangster: Tadamasa Goto. It is a journey from a young and idealistic reporter to burn out numb reporter and then to man reawaken to the suffering of other. Along the way we meet people who through Mr. Adelstein's writing become memorable individuals. Some are noble and brave while others are scary and deplorable, we see them all. As I said we see the victims and they linger in your heart after reading it. I think it is a valuable lesson for us here in the west that see they are not noble criminals of the movies but dangerous greedy and violent people and seeing the results on normal people, you can not look at those films the same way again.

[teh bunneh]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Just finished What To Do When The S**t Hits The Fan, by David Black. His overall thesis is that while a disaster is happening, there is nothing you can do. You can't stop an earthquake, a forest fire, or a flood. But what you can do is prepare yourself (mentally and physically) for it beforehand. This means knowing what to do if you have to evacuate, knowing the proper ways of sheltering in place, having enough supplies on hand (and creating a "Go-bag") if you need to get out in a hurry. He talks about the things you should spend money on, and the things you shouldn't (don't bother buying a full contamination suit -- they're expensive, chances are you'll never need one, and if you do need one chances are you won't have it immediately available where you are).

 

It's a good general overview of disaster preparedness. He talks about some things that I've not seen others talk about -- like knowing how to shut off the gas, water, and electricity to your home. He goes into some detail about the types of disasters that a family in 21st century America might face (though, sadly, no chapter on zombie apocalypse), and how to best prepare for them.

 

But amongst all the good stuff, there's a bit of extraneous information there, too. He's got a whole chapter devoted to How to Rappel Out of a Burning Building, but the first sentance says "You can't learn to rappel by reading a book, go take a rappeling course with an expert climber or caver." He could have saved himself a lot of room by skipping over whole sections like this.

 

Still, it's a good primer on emergency preparedness, and I recommend it to anyone who was concerned about things like the breakdown of social order in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and other major disasters that have struck our shores.

[ghost-angel]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

London's Burning - Dave Thompson. A recounting of Dave's adventures at the birth of the London Punk scene from 1976 through July 1977. Starting with Patti Smith's cover of Her Joe on British Television through all kinds of mayhem. It's not a look back, as much as a look at what he saw and thought during the period itself. There's some high-sight but not a lot, it's a pretty raw recounting of the Punk Rock scene before it became just another music genre. With a lot of Reggae events listed as well since his girlfriend at the time was squatting in a house of Rastas and that since it was before Punk records that's what he bought in music stores.

 

This is about as real as it gets for relaying just what happened in a rather short 18 month period of time or so.

[BNakagawa]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

I just finished the Blind Side, the book that was made into a movie that sat at #1 for a while recently.

 

I was a little boggled by the description of Michael Oher's background, which is a combination of horrific starting conditions, a few unlikely events and some rich clever people bending and manipulating rules to put him on a path to a 1st round draft selection. Even with all of the help, Oher had any number of opportunities to become a statistic and managed to keep on the straight and narrow just enough to get by. Pretty remarkable, given his upbringing. I hope fully grasps the increased public scrutiny that comes with being a subject of a book and movie and doesn't become yet another star athlete that gets involved in carrying guns where they aren't allowed, getting in fights at strip clubs, domestic violence, drunk driving or extramarital affairs.

 

In addition there is considerable background on the evolution of the NFL and football in general. In the early days, before the rules established to foster the passing game, the offensive line is considered a collective, with interchangable parts. Once the rules are changed to restrict defensive backs, widen the hash marks and allow the offensive linemen to use their hands to a greater degree, the passing game flourishes. The increasingly pass-happy league (interesting stats on the ratio of run-pass plays called cited) is then introduced to Lawrence Taylor, who does his best to shut down the passing game by going around the offensive line from the QBs blind side. Offensive coordinators respond by putting their best athlete on the left tackle spot, in an attempt to negate LT and others. Now, after the QB position, the position in the NFL with the highest average pay is the left tackle. No point in investing millions of dollars in a star QB if you can't keep someone from knocking him out of the game...

[Old Man]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

Just finished What To Do When The S**t Hits The Fan' date=' by David Black. His overall thesis is that while a disaster is happening, there is nothing you can do. You can't stop an earthquake, a forest fire, or a flood. But what you can do is prepare yourself (mentally and physically) for it beforehand. This means knowing what to do if you have to evacuate, knowing the proper ways of sheltering in place, having enough supplies on hand (and creating a "Go-bag") if you need to get out in a hurry. He talks about the things you should spend money on, and the things you shouldn't (don't bother buying a full contamination suit -- they're expensive, chances are you'll never need one, and if you do need one chances are you won't have it immediately available where you are).[/quote']

 

If you liked that, you'll probably like "Deep Survival" and/or "Everyday Survival" by Laurence Gonzales. I've only read the former. It has less to do with how to prepare logistically and more to do with how to prepare mentally, but still a great read. See also "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson and "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer, either of which will make you give up your dreams of becoming a mountain climber.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

(Together at the same time, even) David Rollason, Northumbria, 500--1100: Creation and Destruction of a Kingdom (Cambridge: CUP, 2003); N. J. Higham, (Re-)Reading Bede: The Ecclesastical History in Context (London and New York: Routledge, 2006); and Higham, An English Empire, which I no longer have before me.

If you like this period, I'd recommend Rollason with some reservations. Higham has written several rereadings of early British historians, including one focussing on King Arthur debunking, which would be the book for casual readers, not this one.

But as to why I was reading them---

Our history of England in sub-Roman times depends very heavily on a small library of histories and annual chronicles. This is not uncommon in Dark Ages Europe. Many particular parts of the old empire are ill-documented, even relatively important ones like the city of York, which controls the lowland access routes to the large area of North Sea coastal littoral north of the estuary of the Humber and south of the river Tweed --Northumbria. A few histories, and a slowly expanding set of land deeds (which large landowners are highly motivated to preserve --or fake, but that is another story.)

What is uncommon is that our history of Britain in this period as a whole depends hugely upon histories gathered at a single point in time (the cathedral city of Durham in the north of Northumbria about 1100AD) referencing another period --the Kingdom of Northumbria, described for us by a polymathic Christian scholar named the Venerable Bede, writing at the double monastery of Monkwearmouth/Jarrow near modern Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but which was then the Bernician subkingdom of Northumbria.

If it were not for Bede, we would not know very much about Northumbria, as no land deed archives have survived from this region. We would know even less (maybe nothing) of Bernicia. Even the notion, as exposed in the Ecclesiastical History, of one of the major sub-Roman states having its capital at a north coastal village of less than 600 people was outlandish to me on first reading. But more than that, we would know scarcely anything about "Angles, Jutes and Saxons," or even about Picts and Scots, that is, about the founding myth-history of England and Scotland.

The question is, should we take Bede literally, or locate the story he tells us within the political context that we can recover.

Of course this goes to the notorious recent question in sub-Roman history, whether the "barbarian invasions" actually occurred. But it also points forward to a possible reinterpretation of the Viking Age.

And it will all go into Chapter 5 of my Unsolicited Manuscript of Doom at the much-delayed point when I actually write it, which, since I'm getting ahead of myself here, is why I'm writing up my impression of these books now.

 

Thank you, you've been a very appreciative audience and I'd just like to add---

hey, where'd that hook come from?

[sinanju]

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

 

How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker.

An absolutely fascinating investigation into how the brain works, from how the brain processes visual images (and why television and movies can fool the eye as a result), to how it handles language, spatial relationships (and seems to map more abstract concepts into space/time-based coordinates), and lots of other amazing things. As he describes it, the brain is...modular, I guess, is the best way to put it. What we think of as "intelligence" or even simple perceptions like sight, are actually the sum total of numerous sub-modules all doing their own small part, and then higher-level modules integrating the results. Almost every page provides fascinating insights--I highly recommend it.