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Current Non-Fiction reads

SFG75 said:
Reading St. Augustine's Confessions. Not something you want to pick up if you are looking for a quick read. Don't know why, but this kind of thing has interested me as of late.
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I recently bought this. Look forward to reading.

Am, at the moment, reading a bio of Wm. T. Sherman, yeah, that Sherman.
Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman
by Michael Fellman. Fellman took his information primarily from Sherman's own diary and correspondence. For a Southerner, it's a little hard to take, but interesting all the same.
 
pontalba said:
I recently bought this. Look forward to reading.
Am, at the moment, reading a bio of Wm. T. Sherman, yeah, that Sherman.
Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman
by Michael Fellman. Fellman took his information primarily from Sherman's own diary and correspondence. For a Southerner, it's a little hard to take, but interesting all the same.
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"A little hard to take" I can imagine -- understates your reaction by far, I would guess. Now that I am in the South, I find that my opinions are undergoing wholesale revision and my reading list on the topic is growing and growing.
 
pontalba said:
I recently bought this. Look forward to reading.

Am, at the moment, reading a bio of Wm. T. Sherman, yeah, that Sherman.
Citizen Sherman: A Life of William Tecumseh Sherman
by Michael Fellman. Fellman took his information primarily from Sherman's own diary and correspondence. For a Southerner, it's a little hard to take, but interesting all the same.
Click to expand...

For awhile, I was on a Ulysses S. Grant kick. More books have been written as of late that portray in him a very good light as a military leader, though it is interesting coverage of his presidency is notably lacking. He didn't do well picking his cabinet.
 
SFG75 said:
For awhile, I was on a Ulysses S. Grant kick. More books have been written as of late that portray in him a very good light as a military leader, though it is interesting coverage of his presidency is notably lacking. He didn't do well picking his cabinet.
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I recently read Destiny of the Republic, about Garfield's assassination/Presidency. It seems to have been the practice to give away cabinet posts and the like as the President wished. No vetting process IOW.
From the same book I gathered that Grant was an alcoholic and some, Sherman included, covered for him. Both factoids explain a lot.
 
I'm on a Band of Brothers roll - I've read the original book by Stephen Ambrose and the memoirs of Bill Guarnere, Edward Heffron and David Kenyon Webster, which all made great and interesting reads, and I've got a few more books to look forward to. I don't know what it is I find so fascinating about the boys of Easy Company, as I've never been much into military history, but somehow, all those books have kept me riveted, as did the excellent series.
 
It might be the story itself -- a lot of it seems to be right out of a movie with it's impossible-seeming outlandishness. Plus for the most part I would say that the members of Easy Company were likeable folks.

My 2 cents.
 
I guess you've nailed it pretty well. There was so much that would have seemed over the top in a fictional story but has been corroborated by numerous eyewitness accounts. And yes, those guys seem to have been mainly of the variety that you'd love to hang out with and have a beer. Or two or three or four. I loved the story of Guarnere and Heffron drinking most of the actors under the table when they visited the set of BoB in Europe.
 
The BoB books are excellent. Two other first person accounts from the American side are Company Commander by Charles B. MacDonald and Shots Fired in Anger by Col. John George.
MacDonald was in the 2nd Division in Europe and George was an Army Infantryman in the Pacific.
Both of these are unfinching and written soon after the war.
As me I am re- reading Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains 1846-1847 by George Ruxton.
Andy
 
Another WW II memoir I loved was "Helmet For My Pillow" by Robert Leckie, about the war in the South Pacific. AFAIK the series "The Pacific" was partially based on this.
 
Hedwig said:
I guess you've nailed it pretty well. There was so much that would have seemed over the top in a fictional story but has been corroborated by numerous eyewitness accounts. And yes, those guys seem to have been mainly of the variety that you'd love to hang out with and have a beer. Or two or three or four. I loved the story of Guarnere and Heffron drinking most of the actors under the table when they visited the set of BoB in Europe.
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I saw your review over on the other thread. Put it on my "gotta buy" list. :D Thanks.
 
L'Exploration Géologique de la Provence : Deux siècles et demi de débats et de controverses - Jean Philip , Jean Gaudant .
Un Savant séducteur : Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), Prophète de la Science - Marc-Antoine Kaeser .
(( 7:01 PM ))​
 
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I'm not far enough in to comment on that :)

but one thing that always puzzles me - so science can prove that the speed of light is a constant, but logically it does not follow that it is an absolute. Just because we can not conceive of a force / speed / energy form greater than the speed of light does not mean one does not exist beyond our present means to conceive / measure / logic it.

Just going on historical evidence - at one time it was inconceivable that the earth wasn't flat. It was inconceivable that the earth revolved around the sun and it was inconceivable to pass the speed of sound. Extrapolating that into the future, I'm assuming there are potentially many things we assume are not possible in terms of current scientific knowledge that may well prove to be otherwise in the future.
 
LOL I do know why Einstein thought it was logically impossible for there to be something faster than the speed of light HOWEVER ... my point still stands. Just because we cannot approach the speed of light coming from this side of it, does not logically preclude the possibility of there being an entire universe of things on the other side of the speed light for whom it is a lower limit rather than it being the upper limit for us.

Can a fish conceive of a world of air? Particularly if the surface of the ocean, that divider between mediums, was as far out of reach as the speed of light is for us?
 
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