Book Recommendations #5 (with SF/Fantasy)

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, by Colin Woodward. Books like Hillbilly Elegy have had breathless reviewers salivating over how they explain Donald Trumps support. Poo on that. If you want to understand what is going on in the USA (and some of Mexico and Canada), read this. What groups settled what parts hundreds of years ago and how their culture acts in the ‘melting pot’ continues to play out to this day. America is composed of eleven “nations” that continually joust for power and influence. My mind was blown consistently every few pages.

For example, I am from “Yankeedom”, roughly described as “Founded by Puritans, residents in Northeastern states and the industrial Midwest tend to be more comfortable with government regulation. They value education and the common good more than other regions.” That’s me and my attitude towards government in a nutshell. I find it appalling and unfathomable that so many people are anti-government and willing to blow the whole thing up for relatively small partisan gains. But now I see it, most parts of the country are not from a culture that believes in the power of good government they way mine does. So read the book and learn more about our country. You’ll see why Donald Trump may be from New York, but is clearly of Appalachian mindset.

11/22/63 (Steven King): This was recommended by the most prolific Muttroxia commenter. He was correct. There is not a lot of horror in this tome, but there is a lot of good writing about a man trying to figure how to block the Kennedy assasination. Mrs. Muttrox also read it and loved it. Mrs. Muttrox does not give her approval lightly!

East of Eden (John Steinbeck): If you want to read John Steinbeck, you should start with The Grapes of Wrath. As Mrs. Muttrox says, if you aren’t moved by this book, you are dead inside. And East of Eden is also quite good!

Little Book of Common Sense Investing: The Only Way to Guarantee Your Fair Share of Stock Market Returns (Jon Bogle): Jon Bogle is the founder of Vanguard. This is a short book, a quick read in plain spoken language about the benefits of long term investing, mutual funds, and index funds. If you like to play the market you should this book so you’ll be convinced to stop. The most powerful part of the book is the intro to each chapter. In each one, he asks a titan of finance (Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, Paul Samuelson, Burton Malkiel etc.) about how they invest their own personal money. Not that money that has been entrusted to them to invest, but their own money. They all believe the same thing, read the book to find out.

Because Internet (Gretchen McCulloch): What happens when a linguist turns her eye on the internet? A fascinating exploration and history of how we communicate online. As a parent who grew up at the same time as many of these communication quirks, it was amazing to put it in a larger context. I found it very helpful to communicate with my own children (who have the arrogance to argue with me about the meaning of “trolling” or “lol”). It was worth the read to understand the difference between “Okay.” “okay”, “k”, and “kk”. Yes, there are differences to the new generation!

Prince of Thieves (Chuck Hogan): Look, if you don’t read much, you can skip this. Ben Affleck made a movie out of it, The Town. He stayed pretty close to the source material. That’s a good thing, the book is wonderful! By the way, fans of the movie will enjoy this oral history.

SF/Fantasy:

• Ted Chiang: His two short story collections are so wonderful and so diverse in their thinking I don’t know how to describe them. The movie Arrival is an adaption of one of the stories. Just go read them. Then leave a comment agreeing!
• Broken Earth Trilogy (NK Jemisin): Every once in a while you stumble on an author who just gets it. They get how to construct a story in a world and being you along for the ride. Anything by Jemisin is good, the Inheritance Trilogy stands out as well. The Broken Earth trilogy won three of her four Hugos in three successive years, which has never been done before or after. I especially want to recommend her after I un-recommended many other female SF writers.
• Blindsight (Peter Watts): Everything good science fiction should be. This is hard science. Watts takes a lot of current science about conciousness and perception and turns it into a story like none other. Mind breaker. Massive amounts of accepted current science taken to a logical extreme you didn’t see coming.
• Red Rising (Pierce Brown): I did not think this would be good. It looks like a Hunger Games ripoff. It shares many themes with Hunger Games (young man growing up in dystopian world, competes for power in games that impact the real society), but it’s done a much more adult level. A rollicking adventure tale.
• Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky): Among other things, this is an exploration about how intelligence works in non-human species. To what degree is the prison of our bodies and perceptions what drives how we see the world? How is evolution of our physical bodies related to our view of the world and cognition? This is embedded in a psychological thriller thrown onto a ‘last chance of humanity’ colonization effort. I am halfway through the sequel right now.
• Neal Stephenson: Some day I’ll do a whole post just about his work. He is my favorite author. Snow Crash is where most people start. His best work is Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and SevenEves.

(Sorry if there are any duplicates from past recommendations. It’s hard to keep track of these posts.)