NonFiction of the week 24 December

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

Light week for my non-fic reading. My last book of the year will be Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan, a biography of Edward Curtis. Curtis spent three decades photographing and recording Native Americans and their culture. Much of what he logged would become the best, and sometimes only, records we have of tribal languages and rituals.

So what non-fiction is everyone else reading?

[Goonch]

1. 👇👇👇👁️👁️

[Diamond_Dog]

2. Sounds like a fascinating book, ExWhoDoesntCare.

Would you recommend it as a gift book? I want to read it too.

I recently received a copy of “All We Can Save - Truth, Courage, and Solutions For The Climate Crisis”although with all the Christmas chores that needed to be done I haven’t gotten to it yet, I’m looking forward to starting it this week. It’s a collection of essays and poems all written by women in regards to climate change.

[cbabe]

4. Put on my library hold list. Thanks.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

5. Depends on what you think of as a gift book

Egan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning history author, so this is a serious historical text, with some some snapshot-style photos scattered throughout. So it's not a coffee-table photo album that most people think of when they think gift book.

But if you know someone who enjoys a good indigenous or American history book, then, sure, it would make a great gift book.

[Diamond_Dog]

6. My friend is a retired college professor with a PhD so yes I think she would like it Thank You.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

7. Also: your intersectional book sounds intriguing

If I didn't already have a chock-full reading schedule for the next year, I'd probably get to it soon. As it is, I'm adding it to my library's 'For Later' shelf, for a future date.

[Bristlecone]

3. I am reading Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer

It is not particularly light reading.

Happy Holidays.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

8. Well, it would be on the heavy side, given the subject matter

I've considered reading that one for a while. I read his Into the Wild a few months back, and have Into Thin Air coming up later this year. Book challenges sort of dictate what I get to during a given year.

[Bristlecone]

10. Into Thin Air is interesting. I read that 10+ years ago.

I have Into the Wild on my shelf. My daughter had to read it last year for school.

The only issue is that she is a serious highlighter, which is a bit of a distraction to me.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

11. Get her some of the 'erasable' highlighters

Pilot Frixion is the brand I know. The 'erasing' comes from the 'eraser' heating up the page with just enough friction. If you want the ink to go away faster, blast the highlighted pages with a blow dryer, or put the book in your car trunk in the summer.

Cold will make it come back, but it supposedly takes some ridiculously low temp to have it show up again.

Then you can both enjoy the book, in your own ways.

[rsdsharp]

9. I just finished The Man From the Train.

How many times over the course of fifteen years can an entire family (ranging in number from 3-10) be killed while asleep in their beds; where the murder weapon is their own axe, or that of a close neighbor; where the victims are bludgeoned with the blunt side of the axe; where a lit oil lamp without its chimney, and the wicked turned as low as possible is found at the foot of one of the beds; where money and valuables are left in plain sight; where there is no obvious motive, and the murderer disappears without a trace before the murders are discovered in a locked (or burned) house?

According to Bill and Rachael James the answer is “dozens” and the total number of victims — not counting those wrongfully convicted or lynched — was more than 100; all at the hands of one man, whom they purport to identify by name.

I came to this book after reading others about the Vallisca Axe Murders, which is one of the last the Jameses claim was committed by the man from the train. I’m not quite sure I buy their premise, but they list 33 factors they claim as the murderer’s MO.

I’ve just started The Boys In the Boat by Daniel James Brown, about the University of Washington crew which won the 1936 Olympic rowing medal. The George Clooney movie based on the book has just been released.