March 18, 201610 yr Just started the Frontiersman at my hubby's suggestion. Read it three times over last 5 years. Used 2 bookmarks to flip back and forth between footnotes and book. Absolutely gave me a wonderful perspective of our history in this region. Another suggested read is "Beyond the River" by Ann Hagedorn, Ripley, Ohio. Deals with the abolitionist movement's roots, John Rankin, John Parker, the politics of the early church, Augusta College, Mason Co. trials, etc. Just a great read with the preponderance of research done out of the Ripley library and archived access.
March 21, 201610 yr Started Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic last night. I'm about 1/4 of the way through. Gripping, informative read. The Ohio River Valley features prominently in his narrative. As the preface details, the title comes from the name of a pool in Portsmouth, Ohio that alludes to more promising past there. I grew up not too far across the river from there and we had a pool that seems like it was inspired by Dreamland. I'm sure heroin has sunk it's teeth in there just the same.
March 21, 201610 yr Several posts about re-reading books: Here are a few I re-read regularly (Every year or so for most) The Godfather Catch-22 One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest For Whom the Bell Tolls Good Omens Douglas Adams Hitchhiker books.
March 21, 201610 yr Started Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic last night. I'm about 1/4 of the way through. Gripping, informative read. The Ohio River Valley features prominently in his narrative. As the preface details, the title comes from the name of a pool in Portsmouth, Ohio that alludes to more promising past there. I grew up not too far across the river from there and we had a pool that seems like it was inspired by Dreamland. I'm sure heroin has sunk it's teeth in there just the same. Wife's family is from South Shore and South Portsmouth.
March 21, 201610 yr I finally slogged through Other People's Money: The Real Business of Finance. I believe Clyde had asked for my thoughts on it once I finished. I got bogged down with a few other books and this one wasn’t exactly light reading. That isn’t to say it’s a difficult book – he writes for a general audience – but the whole enterprise of finance is headache inducing when you try to get your mind around it. And that’s sort of his point. The theme of the book is essentially that the financial industry has exploded in profitability, but this explosion isn’t commensurate with the creation of anything useful. The author has particular disdain for some securities and derivatives and their trade. He makes plenty of analogies to the gambling industry and notes that casinos and lotteries are held to higher ethical standards by arguing that they’d lose their licenses and be shut down if caught engaged in some of the behaviors large banks have been caught in, only to settle with the SEC or other regulators for what amounts to spare change. He isn’t anti-finance (he served on the board of Halifax) and spends a good chunk of the book going over what he considers essential about the industry (facilitating payments and deposits, allocating capital, and controlling risks). His criticism stems from his argument that the industry was more than capable of doing this before the financialization boom of the 1980s and innovations since have been in simply gaming the system to manufacture profits. He says that to the average person there is no discernible difference between Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, or JP Morgan because they all provide the same services, but their competition takes place at stratospherically incomprehensible levels. He has an interesting anecdote about his time at Halifax when they decided to begin trading in derivatives. They promised huge growth and profits. He asked how this could be, since the system requires that for there to be winners there had to be losers. The response was that Halifax had smart people. He reasoned that everyone believed they had smart people and referred back to his gambling analogy. It’s a damning polemical. He argues that the best and brightest minds are going into finance to find ever more creative ways of gaming the market, including the manufacture and trade of complex derivatives like CDO, instead of more useful or productive occupations, like starting businesses or making scientific discoveries. Interestingly enough, his policy solutions are not more government regulation, but less of it. Or, at least, simplified. My main gripe with the book is that, while I found lots of what he said to be logically sound, the reader is forced to rely on the author’s credentials to be swayed rather than through the presentation of evidence that supports what he says. He does provide evidence, but it is often truncated or referenced in passing without going into detailed elaboration. Perhaps that’s just the style I like, but it would have made the book excessively long and only available to academic economists, which is a demerit. I found the first third of the book to be a bit of a frustration because of this. He seemed to lay back in his armchair and opine based on his experience as an economist and advisor, but he would eventually get into meatier topics. But then, as I said, it required more careful reading to get through. Overall I’d recommend it, but I wasn’t blown away even though I was loosely convinced of his argument.
March 22, 201610 yr Author @mcpapa @Clyde @MentschTrachtGottLacht @hoops5 Harlan Coben's new one is out today. But even better than that, a new Myron Bolitar book (called "Home") comes out September 8th: Ten years after the high-profile kidnapping of two young boys, only one returns home in Harlan Coben’s next gripping thriller, to be published in September 2016. A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For ten years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend Win believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for ten years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken? And most critically: What can he tell Myron and Win about the fate of his missing friend? Drawing on his singular talent, Harlan Coben delivers an explosive and deeply moving thriller about friendship, family, and the meaning of home. Home by Harlan Coben — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists
March 22, 201610 yr @mcpapa @Clyde @MentschTrachtGottLacht @hoops5 Harlan Coben's new one is out today. But even better than that, a new Myron Bolitar book (called "Home") comes out September 8th: Ten years after the high-profile kidnapping of two young boys, only one returns home in Harlan Coben’s next gripping thriller, to be published in September 2016. A decade ago, kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. For ten years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally, miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend Win believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for ten years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken? And most critically: What can he tell Myron and Win about the fate of his missing friend? Drawing on his singular talent, Harlan Coben delivers an explosive and deeply moving thriller about friendship, family, and the meaning of home. Home by Harlan Coben — Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists Thanks. Reserved it at my local reading establishment.
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