For the record let me say that I am not all kinds of inspired like yesterday, in which I was on a crazy kind of tangent inspired. I am not even inspired to blog all that much, but what did inspire me to do something was that I have been in a researchy kind of mood this evening. First I was getting the "First Responders Snubbed at 9/11 Ceremony" nonsense. If you haven't seen it yet on your Facebook feeds/blog posts or talking head shows, just give it a day or two. As we get closer to the 10th anniversary you will see more of it. The fundamental questions remain, like why in 10 years is Shanksville still nothing but a field and Ground Zero nothing but a hole? If anyone ever wants to make a case for why the private sector sucks versus big government, well, at least the Pentagon was fixed.
Anyway, after doing a little research on the policy regarding the ceremony regarding the 9/11 ceremonies (it is the same as in previous years) I started doing some research on another blog entry that I read. And it was this blog entry that ended up costing me money. Because during my research for my comment on the blog I ran into an interesting book, and because I have money in my Amazon account I opted to go ahead and buy the book.
Now we know the Matt policy on buying books on Amazon, I have to buy at least $25 worth, just so I can avoid the shipping fees. So I next went to the Amazon best seller list and in there was a book whose review I had read about a week ago and thought it would look good on my Christmas list. Of course the thing about my Christmas list and books is I never get the books I ask for, so they are almost as much of a running joke on the list as is my request for "a pliable female". So I decided since I needed to spend the money anyway I would go ahead and grab it as well.
Wouldn't you know that I was still roughly $2 short of the necessary $25 to avoid the shipping fees, so into the $5 and under bin I go and after going through about 11 pages of just crap books, I did find one I want. And with that I reached the $25 mark. I usually save the linkage for the Neverending Thread, but because I have been neglectful of that for a while now (because I haven't finished reading a book, still stuck in two different ones) I will go ahead and link them here
"The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What's Right"
"1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created"
That means in about 5 days or so I have new reading material arriving, so I better get cracking on finishing my other two books.
I have a stack I purchased at a used book store that I still have to read. I figure as it starts to get cold I will have more time.
ReplyDeleteI had read a review of 1493 in the Washington Post I think and it sounded amazing. But it is the second book in the series (if two books can be called a series) so if it is reallyt good I may have to backtrack and read the first one as well.
ReplyDeleteThe Christopher Buckley book is just pure brain candy for me, lots of silliness that will break up the non fiction reading streak I am on.
Pssst Chris Hitchens has a new book out. lol
ReplyDelete1493 does sound interesting. I like books that blow the lid off of precieved history.
ReplyDeleteIf you are refering to "Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens", I may pick it up, but I am a pretty regular reader of his current stuff (in Slate and Vanity Fair mostly) but I worry that many of his essays will either be things that I have already read or were to early to be relevant to me. It is the problem I had with "Hitch-22", it probably would have meant more to someone older who was politically active, or at least astute, but a large chunk of his memior ended up being a who's who of European political activists, a category I would do incredibly bad on in Jeopardy.
ReplyDeleteI would be surprised if he is doing anything significant on his own in writing another book, he is fighting a pretty severe form of cancer, one that doesn't bode well for his long term survival. He has already cancelled TV interviews and speaking appearance because of it.
If "1493" is good I am going to backtrack and read the first book, which is "1491", where Mann tries to piece together the history of the America's prior to Columbus's arrival.
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