Minor Thoughts from me to you

The Fall of Heaven
by Andrew Scott Cooper
$19.99 on Kindle

While expensive, this book comes with a strong endorsement from Tyler Cowen. I've been reading a lot about the 60's and 70's over the past couple of years. This would fit right into that pattern.

The Fall of Heaven - Marginal REVOLUTION

I loved this book, the author is Andrew Scott Cooper, and the subtitle is The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran.  It is the best book I know for understanding the Iranian revolution, and it is compulsively readable throughout.  Did you know for instance that the Ayatollahs were deeply disturbed by the presence of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and also Rhoda on Iranian TV?

…

I would describe this book as relatively sympathetic to the Shah, and also arguing that the oppressions and tortures of Savak are sometimes overstated.

This one makes my best non-fiction of the year list, and it will be in the top tier of that list.

Northlanders
by Brian Woods
$40 on ComiXology

I heard about this series on a 4-year old episode of The Incomparable podcast. I'm not going to try to transcribe Lisa Schmeiser's comments, but you can visit this link to listen to them: The Incomparable #126: A Dark, Dark Narnia. (Her comments start at 42:33 and the link should jump you to right to them.)

The idea of a comic that tells interrelated stories about the historical Viking culture was a fascinating one. I read quite a bit about the Vikings (and Norse mythology) growing up. I'd love to read more about them and the visual storytelling aspect of comics should be valuable as well.

Hidden Figures
by Margot Lee Shetterly
$10.99 on Kindle

I was interested in this story when I first saw it as a movie trailer. Then I found out that it was based on a book and now I'm interested in reading the book.

Publisher's description

Before John Glenn orbited the earth, or Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as “human computers” used pencils, slide rules and adding machines to calculate the numbers that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Among these problem-solvers were a group of exceptionally talented African American women, some of the brightest minds of their generation. Originally relegated to teaching math in the South’s segregated public schools, they were called into service during the labor shortages of World War II, when America’s aeronautics industry was in dire need of anyone who had the right stuff. Suddenly, these overlooked math whizzes had a shot at jobs worthy of their skills, and they answered Uncle Sam’s call, moving to Hampton, Virginia and the fascinating, high-energy world of the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory.

Even as Virginia’s Jim Crow laws required them to be segregated from their white counterparts, the women of Langley’s all-black “West Computing” group helped America achieve one of the things it desired most: a decisive victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War, and complete domination of the heavens.

Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement and the Space Race, Hidden Figures follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.

Last year was a good year for reading. I made progress in all of my reading goals and discovered a number of memorable books.

I lowered my Goodreads goal from 70 books down to 40 books in order to "give me the space to read more on the web, read longer books, and read slower books than I ordinarily would". That was a success, as I felt more freedom to spend time on the reading that I don't normally do. I finished my 40th book before the end of July. It felt weird to finish my Goodreads goal so early.

As I look back on the last year, several things stand out. I read some great non-fiction books. I still think about Mr. Lincoln's Army, Hillbilly Elegy, and Embers of War. After discovering that the Horatio Hornblower series was available on Kindle, I bought and read the entire thing. I've been wanting to do that for years and enjoyed finally doing so.

After watching Jurassic Park with my daughters, I reread the book to see how it held up. Similarly, after rewatching The Hunt for Red October, I read that book to see how it held up. I'm happy to report that both books are still as good as I originally thought they were. I also reread Starship Troopers and found it to still be intellectually stimulating.

Finally, you can spend your time in a far worse way than reading Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others. As a friend put it, "each story reads like it came out of a possibly drunken conversation and a 'what if'". Given that the book includes a short background for each story, that seems especially apt.

And now, here's the full list of what I read last year, broken down by reading goal.

More Literary Fiction

I didn't do so well in this category, as I never got around to reading a second (let alone third or fourth) literary novel.

• Grendel

Non-Fiction

• Meet You in Hell
• The Prime Ministers
• Mr. Lincoln's Army
• Hillbilly Elegy
• Embers of War
• One Man Against the World

Fix the Oops

I had fully intended to read more of Jack Vance's novels. But I really didn't enjoy the first one and decided that I didn't care to read more than that.

• Lyonesse: Suldrun's Garden

Enjoy Comics

I never did read more of Saga or The Sandman, but I'm happy to have read Locke & Key. It was well worth the time.

• Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows
• Battlefields Vol. 1: The Night Witches
• Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom
• Battlefields Vol. 2: Dear Billy
• Locke & Key: Clockworks
• Locke & Key: Alpha & Omega

Hard Science Fiction

Maybe I just don't enjoy this the way that I used to. It's hard plowing. Greg Egan invented his own physics for The Clockwork Rocket. While I'm sure that it's 100% consistent, it made my head hurt. I like science, but I'm not enough of a scientist to enjoy that sort of thing.

• Space
• The Clockwork Rocket

Finish the 2014 and 2015 Goals

I finished reading The Wheel of Time and I very nearly finished reading the Culture series.

• Multiples
• The Gathering Storm
• Towers of Midnight
• A Memory of Light
• Look to Windward
• We Are For the Dark
• Matter
• Surface Detail

Reread Old Favorites

I nailed this goal, especially considering that the Hornblower series wasn't even on my initial reading list.

• Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
• Lieutenant Hornblower
• Hornblower and the Hotspur
• Hornblower and the Atropos
• Beat to Quarters
• Ship of the Line
• Flying Colours
• Commodore Hornblower
• Lord Hornblower
• Fool Moon
• Jurassic Park
• Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies
• Starship Troopers
• The Hunt for Red October

Other Diversions

Special mention goes to Children of Earth and Sky. I've yet to read something by Guy Gavriel Kay that wasn't excellent.

• Neuromancer
• The Library at Mount Char
• The Dark Lord Triology
• Warbreaker
• The Bands of Mourning
• Mistborn: The Secret History
• Beyond the Rift
• The Rithmatist
• In the Garden of Iden
• Children of Earth and Sky
• Dinosaurs!
• Perfect State
• Sky Coyote
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
• Robots
• Bones of the Earth
• The Assassin's Apprentice
• Royal Assassin
• Assassin's Quest
• Master and Commander
• The Magic of Recluce
• Stories of Your Life and Others
• Death's End

Into The Lion’s Mouth
by Larry Loftis
$13.99 on Kindle

I've been a long-time fan of the Bond movie franchise. I've even read a book or two. I've always thought that Bond was obviously fictionalized, that no real spy would come anywhere close to what Bond routinely does. According to Loftis, one man did. I first heard about his book on an episode of The Art of Manliness Podcast.

The Real Life James Bond

Bond is so damn manly, it’d be easy to think that he was purely the creation of author Ian Fleming’s imagination. But in fact, Bond was inspired by a real-life WWII spy, and his life and career was even more Bond-like than James Bond himself.

My guest today has written a biography of the real-life inspiration for James Bond. His name is Larry Loftis and he’s the author of the book Into The Lion’s Mouth: The True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot, and the Real-Life Inspiration for James Bond. Today on the show we talk about Dusko Popov and his career as a double agent during WWII. Larry and I discuss how Dusko got involved with spying, the insanely dangerous missions he went on, and the real-life encounter between him and Ian Fleming that inspired one of popular culture’s most iconic characters.

Hillbilly Elegy
by J. D. Vance

My rating: ★★★★★
Read From: 27 August 2016 - 10 September 2016
Goal: Non-Fiction

I highlight the things I read for one of three reasons: because I vehemently disagree with it, because I agree with it, or because it makes me think. I've highlighted this book more than any other and all of it made me think.

J. D. Vance writes his story, of how he achieved the American dream. He's now a successful lawyer and venture capitalist, living in San Francisco, married, and with two dogs. He started as a hillbilly in Eastern Kentucky, lived with his mother, grandparents, and a string of his mother's boyfriends and husbands. He came from a broken home — in nearly every way that it's possible for a home to be broken.

While this is a story about overcoming obstacles, it's really a story about the obstacles and how daunting they are. This is a story about J. D., but it's really a story about hillbilly culture and how it's both an asset and an incredible hindrance to success.

I was enthralled by this book and often had trouble putting it down. But I also had multiple nights when I had to put it down, because J. D.'s story was wrenching and too emotionally draining to just power through.

This book, more than anything else I've ever heard or read, showed me how incredibly privileged I've been. Not in finances — I definitely didn't grow up rich — but in having an intact family, in having stability, and in having a supportive community who never told me anything other than how I would succeed in life. J. D. Vance's story was educational, in the best possible way.

This book is worth your time.

I find Robert Alter's Bible translations fascinating because of his footnotes and his uniquely fresh take on translating different passages. I recently bought, and started reading, The Five Books of Moses, his translations of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. He caught my interest right away.

Long time Bible readers will be familiar with Genesis 2:18 (rendered here, from the KJV).

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”

Because of this verse, there's a nice tradition (at least in traditional Christian circles) of referring to one's husband or wife as "a help meet". I do it myself, on occasion. So I stopped and took notice when Alter footnoted this section.

The Hebrew ‘ezer kenegdo (King James Version “help meet”) is notoriously difficult to translate. The second term means “alongside him,” “opposite him,” “a counterpart to him.” “Help” is too weak because it suggests a merely auxiliary function, whereas ‘ezer elsewhere connotes active intervention on behalf of someone, especially in military contexts, as often in Psalms.

Instead of "help meet", Alter translated the phrase as "sustainer".

“It is not good for the human to be alone, I shall make him a sustainer beside him.”

I really like that. It has a much more active sound and still maintains the same connotation as someone that a person needs to thrive in his or her life.

Remembering Abraham
by Ronald Hendel
$57.95 on Kindle

Robert Alter mentions this book in his introduction to The Five Books of Moses, as he talks about the historical origins of the Five Books.

Scholarship for more than two centuries has agreed that the Five Books are drawn together from different literary sources, though there have been shifting debates about the particular identification of sources in the text and fierce differences of opinion about the dating of the sundry sources. Some extremists in recent decades have contended that the entire Torah was composed in the Persian period, beginning the late sixth century B.C.E., or even later, in Hellenistic times, but there is abundant evidence that argues against that view. Perhaps the most decisive consideration is that the Hebrew language visibly evolves over the nine centuries of biblical literary activity, with many demonstrable differences between the language current in the First Commonwealth—approximately 1000 B.C.E. to 586 B.C.E.—and the language as it was written in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. There is very little in the Hebrew of the Torah that could have been written in this later era. (Ronald Hendel provides a concise and trenchant marshaling of the linguistic evidence against late dating in the appendix to his Remembering Abraham.) A recent revisionist approach, purportedly based on archeological evidence, places the composition of our texts as well as most of the Former Prophets in the seventh century B.C.E., during the reign of King Josiah, the period when, according to scholarly consensus, most of Deuteronomy was written. This contention, however, flatly ignores the philological evidence that Deuteronomy was responding to, and revising, a long-standing written legal tradition, and that the editors of the so-called Deuteronomistic History (the national chronicle that runs from Deuteronomy to the end of 2 Kings) were manifestly incorporating much older texts often strikingly different from their own writing both in style and in outlook.

I looked up the book and the description caught my eye.

According to an old tradition preserved in the Palestinian Targums, the Hebrew Bible is "the Book of Memories." The sacred past recalled in the Bible serves as a model and wellspring for the present. The remembered past, says Ronald Hendel, is the material with which biblical Israel constructed its identity as a people, a religion, and a culture. It is a mixture of history, collective memory, folklore, and literary brilliance, and is often colored by political and religious interests.

In Israel's formative years, these memories circulated orally in the context of family and tribe. Over time they came to be crystallized in various written texts. The Hebrew Bible is a vast compendium of writings, spanning a thousand-year period from roughly the twelfth to the second century BCE, and representing perhaps a small slice of the writings of that period. The texts are often overwritten by later texts, creating a complex pastiche of text, reinterpretation, and commentary. The religion and culture of ancient Israel are expressed by these texts, and in no small part also created by them, as they formulate new or altered conceptions of the sacred past. Remembering Abraham explores the interplay of culture, history, and memory in the Hebrew Bible. Hendel examines the Hebrew Bible's portrayal of Israel and its history, and correlates the biblical past with our own sense of the past. He addresses the ways that culture, memory, and history interweave in the self-fashioning of Israel's identity, and in the biblical portrayals of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and King Solomon. A concluding chapter explores the broad horizons of the biblical sense of the past.

This accessibly written book represents the mature thought of one of our leading scholars of the Hebrew Bible.

It's a lot pricier than my normal reads (by at least a factor of four), but it sounds interesting nonetheless. It's not on my immediate list of things to find and read, but I wanted to remember it for future research and reading.

Hillbilly Elegy
by J. D. Vance
$12.99 on Kindle

Throughout the Republican primary, I kept wondering what attracted people to Donald Trump. Because I always look for the good in people, I refused to believe that Trump’s supporters were motivated by racism, misogyny, or nationalism. Some were, I’m sure. But all of them? I believed that there had to be something more — something that Trump represented that resonated with certain Americans.

Rod Dreher’s interview with J. D. Vance in The American Conservative caught my interest. Dreher had high praise for Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy and focused on the problem of Trump.

The book is an American classic, an extraordinary testimony to the brokenness of the white working class, but also its strengths. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

…

His book does for poor white people what Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book did for poor black people: give them voice and presence in the public square.

​And the interview focused on the relationship between Trump and his voters.

RD: A friend who moved to West Virginia a couple of years ago tells me that she’s never seen poverty and hopelessness like what’s common there. And she says you can drive through the poorest parts of the state, and see nothing but TRUMP signs. Reading “Hillbilly Elegy” tells me why. Explain it to people who haven’t yet read your book.

J.D. VANCE: The simple answer is that these people–my people–are really struggling, and there hasn’t been a single political candidate who speaks to those struggles in a long time. Donald Trump at least tries.

What many don’t understand is how truly desperate these places are, and we’re not talking about small enclaves or a few towns–we’re talking about multiple states where a significant chunk of the white working class struggles to get by. Heroin addiction is rampant. In my medium-sized Ohio county last year, deaths from drug addiction outnumbered deaths from natural causes. The average kid will live in multiple homes over the course of her life, experience a constant cycle of growing close to a “stepdad” only to see him walk out on the family, know multiple drug users personally, maybe live in a foster home for a bit (or at least in the home of an unofficial foster like an aunt or grandparent), watch friends and family get arrested, and on and on. And on top of that is the economic struggle, from the factories shuttering their doors to the Main Streets with nothing but cash-for-gold stores and pawn shops.

The two political parties have offered essentially nothing to these people for a few decades. From the Left, they get some smug condescension, an exasperation that the white working class votes against their economic interests because of social issues, a la Thomas Frank (more on that below). Maybe they get a few handouts, but many don’t want handouts to begin with.

From the Right, they’ve gotten the basic Republican policy platform of tax cuts, free trade, deregulation, and paeans to the noble businessman and economic growth. Whatever the merits of better tax policy and growth (and I believe there are many), the simple fact is that these policies have done little to address a very real social crisis. More importantly, these policies are culturally tone deaf: nobody from southern Ohio wants to hear about the nobility of the factory owner who just fired their brother.

Trump’s candidacy is music to their ears. He criticizes the factories shipping jobs overseas. His apocalyptic tone matches their lived experiences on the ground. He seems to love to annoy the elites, which is something a lot of people wish they could do but can’t because they lack a platform.

The last point I’ll make about Trump is this: these people, his voters, are proud. A big chunk of the white working class has deep roots in Appalachia, and the Scots-Irish honor culture is alive and well. We were taught to raise our fists to anyone who insulted our mother. I probably got in a half dozen fights when I was six years old. Unsurprisingly, southern, rural whites enlist in the military at a disproportionate rate. Can you imagine the humiliation these people feel at the successive failures of Bush/Obama foreign policy? My military service is the thing I’m most proud of, but when I think of everything happening in the Middle East, I can’t help but tell myself: I wish we would have achieved some sort of lasting victory. No one touched that subject before Trump, especially not in the Republican Party.

​I already bought a copy of this book and I’ll be reading it soon.

A Mad Catastrophe
by Geoffrey Wawro
$11.99 on Kindle

I can be persuaded that a book is interesting on the slimmest of recommendations, sometimes. For instance, this offhand comment by Warren Meyer.

Back in the depths of WWI, the Germans woke up one day and found that their erstwhile ally Austria-Hungary, to whom they had given that famous blank check in the madness that led up to the war, was completely incompetent. Worse than incompetent, in fact, because Germany had to keep sending troops to bail them out of various military fixes, an oddly similar situation to what Hitler found himself doing with Italy in the next war. ([A Mad Catastrophe] is a really interesting book if you have any doubts about how dysfunctional the Hapsburg Empire was in its waning days).

And that's pretty much how Amazon describes the book too.

A prizewinning military historian explores a critical but overlooked cause for World War I: the staggering decrepitude of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Grendel
by John Gardner

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Read From: 2 July 2016 - 5 July 2016
Goal: Literary Fiction

I read this book because Adam suggested it to me, as a somewhat out of the box choice for literary fiction. It's the story of Beowulf. Except that it's really the story of Grendel, the monster whom Beowulf killed. The entire story is told by Grendel, from his perspective.

This is one of those books where I feel like I must be missing something. Probably a lot of somethings. A lot of people really like this book. I didn't like it. I didn't hate it. I was mostly apathetic towards it.

It's short enough that I'd be willing to read it again, if I was reading it as part of a larger discussion group. I'd be interested to see what's there that I'm not seeing.

The year is half over and I've been reading books that catch my eye, without thinking too closely about this year's reading goals. I think it's time to look at how I'm doing, measured against my self imposed yardstick.

I wanted to spend more time reading long form articles on the web and less time just reading novels. I've been doing that, spending much more time in Instapaper than I normally do. I've already read a few more "slower" books than I normally do, but I still want to read more.

More Literary Fiction

I haven't yet read any literary fiction. Clearly, I need to focus on that over the next six months.

Non-Fiction

I've read three non-fiction books so far this year: Meet You in Hell, The Prime Ministers, and Mr. Lincoln's Army. (None of them were on my initial list.) Mr. Lincoln's Army impressed me enough that I'm likely to be reading more of Bruce Catton's series during the rest of the year.

Fix the Oops

I haven't yet read anything by Jack Vance.

Enjoy Comics

I've read Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows and Battlefields Vol. 1: The Night Witches. I'm slowly working my way through Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom.

Hard Science Fiction

I'm still having a hard time finding hard science fiction that I like. I've read Stephen Baxter's Space, but I didn't enjoy it that much. I'll keep looking.

Finish the 2014 and 2015 Goals

I had a major success here. I read the last three Wheel of Time novels and finished the series. One of 2014's goals checked off at last!

I still have the Culture novels to go and may re-read Kiln People or Ender's Game.

Other Diversions

I finally read William Gibson's Neuromancer. Brandon Sanderson published two new Mistborn novels and I read both of them. I was finally able to buy all of the Hornblower novels on Kindle and I've read several of them.

Between Hornblower and my recent discovery of The Accursed Kings, I’m feeling a strong pull back into historical fiction. I’ll either give into that pull this year or else it will definitely be on next year’s reading goals.

Conclusion

If I want to finish all of my goals this year, it looks like I should focus on literary fiction, hard science fiction, non-fiction, and the works of Jack Vance, over the next six months.

Time to re-visit the 2016 reading ideas list.

The Accursed Kings
by Maurice Druon
$45 on Kindle

Reading Recommendations from George R.R. Martin (emphasis added)

Fantasies are not the only books I recommend to my readers, however. It has always been my belief that epic fantasy and historical fiction are sisters under the skin, as I have said in many an interview. A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE draws as much on the traditions of historical fiction as it does on those of fantasy, and there are many great historical novelists, past and present, whose work helped inspire my own.

…

Look, if you love A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE, and want "something like it" to read while you are waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for me to finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, you really need to check out Maurice Druon and THE ACCURSED KINGS.

I never met Druon, alas (he died only a few years ago, and I regret that I never had the chance to shake his hand), but from all reports he was an extraordinary man. He was French, highly distinguished, a resistance fighter against the Nazis, a historian, a member of the French Academy... well, you can read about his life on Wikipedia, and it makes quite a story in itself. He wrote short stories, contemporary novels, a history of Paris... and an amazing seven-volume series about King Philip IV of France, his sons and daughters, the curse of the Templars, the fall of the Capetian dynasty, the roots of the Hundred Years War. The books were a huge success in France. So huge than they have twice formed the basis for television shows (neither version is available dubbed or subtitled in English, to my annoyance), series that one sometimes hears referred to as "the French I, CLAUDIUS."

Hers the publisher's description for the first novel, The Iron King.

Accursed! Accursed! You shall be accursed to the thirteenth generation!”

The Iron King – Philip the Fair – is as cold and silent, as handsome and unblinking as a statue. He governs his realm with an iron hand, but he cannot rule his own family: his sons are weak and their wives adulterous; while his red-blooded daughter Isabella is unhappily married to an English king who prefers the company of men.

A web of scandal, murder and intrigue is weaving itself around the Iron King; but his downfall will come from an unexpected quarter. Bent on the persecution of the rich and powerful Knights Templar, Philip sentences Grand Master Jacques Molay to be burned at the stake, thus drawing down upon himself a curse that will destroy his entire dynasty…

That sounds … wonderful. It's even better because it's all based on real history. The past is an experience that we can never have or see. I love historical fictional for its ability to make the past live and breathe again. (It's not a perfect reproduction of the past, but it's far better than nothing.)

The entire series is available on Kindle, for just $45.

1. Books 1-3: The Iron King, The Strangled Queen, The Poisoned Crown; $9.90
2. The Royal Succession; $6.99
3. The She-Wolf; $7.99
4. The Lily and the Lion; $7.99
5. The King Without a Kingdom; $11.99

I started reading The Wheel of Time on April 12, 2014. I finally finished it today, 2 years and 2 months later. I may have some reflections on the whole thing later. Right now, I'm glad to be done and to have the project behind me.

From:

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

To:

This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.

$13.99 on Kindle

I've enjoyed reading Guy Gavriel Kay ever since I read The Lions of Al-Rassan. After that, I read and loved both the Sarantine Mosaic duology (Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors) and the Under Heaven duology (Under Heaven and River of Stars). When Goodreads told me that he had a new novel coming out, I preordered it right away.

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist traveling to the dangerous east to paint the grand khalif at his request—and possibly to do more—and a fiercely intelligent, angry woman, posing as a doctor’s wife, but sent by Seressa as a spy.

The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the accomplished younger son of a merchant family, ambivalent about the life he’s been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif—to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming.

As these lives entwine, their fates—and those of many others—will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world...

Zak Zyz, writing at Tor.com, clues me in to a science-fiction series that I was previously unaware of. I'm a sucker for Golden Age SF. This sounds right up my alley.

The series takes place in Sector 12 General Hospital, a sprawling 384-floor hospital space station built in order to cement a lasting peace after humanity’s disastrous first interstellar war. A notable departure from the militaristic space operas of the time, the story of Sector General is explicitly pacifistic, eschewing conquest and combat in favor of the struggle of doctors to understand and heal their alien patients.

It has diverse alien species and environments.

The Sector General series is often commended for its depiction of extraterrestrials that are more than just humans with cosmetic differences. White’s aliens are physiologically far outside of the human experience, with asymmetrical bodies, unusual metabolisms, and strange and often monstrous appearances. Critically, they are also psychologically different. Empathic Cinrusskin aliens are aggressively agreeable peacemakers as they find negative emotional radiation physically painful. Predatory Chalder become too bored to eat when given food they don’t have to chase down and devour alive. White’s aliens are bemused by the human nudity taboo, described as unique to the species.

Designed to treat patients from all the intelligent races in the galaxy, Sector General has wards that replicate living conditions for a vast array of life forms. There are murky undersea wards for the forty-foot long, armored, crocodile-like Chalder, poisonous sections for the chlorine-breathing kelplike Illensans, sub-zero wards for the crystalline methane-breathing Vosans and superheated wards near the hospital’s reactor for radiation-eating Telfi hive-mind beetles.

​And it has the tape learning, so common to the stories of the era.

Facing this incredible menagerie of patients, no doctor could be expected to know how to treat them all. On Sector General, physicians overcome this impossibility by using “educator tapes,” the stored experience of famous alien specialists which the doctors download directly into their brains. The genius psyche temporarily shares space with the doctor’s own persona and advises them as they aid patients. The process is described as intensely jarring, since the educator tapes contain not only the expertise, but the entire personality of its donor. Inexperienced doctors find themselves struggling to eat food that the taped personality disliked, suddenly enamored with members of the expert’s species to whom they wouldn’t normally be attracted, and in some cases they must struggle to maintain control of their own bodies in the face of a personality stronger than their own.

Most doctors hurriedly have their educator tapes “erased” when the emergency at hand has run its course, but some working closely with patients from another species will retain tapes for long periods. The highest ranked medical staff in the hospital are the lordly diagnosticians—senior physicians capable of permanently retaining as many as ten educator tapes in a sort of intentional multiple personality disorder.

​Most importantly:

The Sector General novels are available in omnibus editions from Tor Books.

I looked up the stories. Apparently, I can get all but two in Kindle editions.

• Beginning Operations (Hospital Station, Star Surgeon, Major Operation), $7.99
• Alien Emergencies (Ambulance Ship, Sector General, Star Healer), $7.99
• General Practice (Code Blue: Emergency, The Genocidal Healer), $7.99
• The Galactic Gourmet (also in Tales of Sector General)
• Final Diagnosis (also in Tales of Sector General)
• Mind Changer, $7.99
• Double Contact, $6.99

On Tuesday, I was happy to discover that I can buy most of the Horatio Hornblower novels for Kindle. Because I'm stubborn, I've spent the past three days trying to find out why Beat to Quarters and Ship of the Line aren't available on Kindle. I've figured it out.

All of the current Kindle editions are published by eNet Press. I'd never heard of them before seeing that Amazon listed them as the publisher. Their site tells me that they "specialize in publishing ebooks from the works of classic best selling authors of the 20th century".

I searched their site and they have a listing for Beat to Quarters.

Due to Copyright issues, this book is not available as a separate volume. However it is available in our three volume omnibus Captain Horatio Hornblower.

The omnibus includes Beat to Quarters, Ship of the Line, and Flying Colours. I can buy the omnibus directly from eNet Press, but I'd prefer to buy it from Amazon. It's not listed on Amazon's site. I asked eNet Press about that. They told me that it's their policy to only sell some of their books on Amazon. The omnibuses are deliberately being held back as direct sale exclusives.

I'm happy to learn that I can buy books 1–5 and 9–11 as single volumes and that I can buy 6–8, even if only as an omnibus.

I like the convenience of having all of my books directly in my Kindle library, so I'm disappointed that I can't buy Captain Horatio Hornblower through Amazon. I'll buy it directly from eNet Press, when I'm ready to read it. If they ever do decide to sell it on Amazon, I may buy it again, for the convenience of having everything in one place.

I had some feedback for eNet Press. I'm skeptical about their strategy of having direct sale exclusives. Over the past couple of years, I've done multiple Google searches for variations of "hornblower kindle edition" or "hornblower ebook" and their collection of Hornblower books has never once come up in my search results.

I didn't find them until after I first found their books on Amazon. Then I realized that I should check who published the books, to see if I could get more information directly from them. I think it's quite possible that they're losing sales by keeping things hidden away on their own site. It may be that they're making more per copy by selling it directly (since they don't have to pay fees to Amazon), but they may be losing money overall by selling fewer copies.

I read C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series many, many years ago, when I was but a lad. I loved them. I was captivated by the descriptions of life at sea, of the Napoleonic era, of Hornblower's mannerisms and insecurities, and by the action itself. They fired my imagination for a long time and I still have a fascination with old sailing ships, that's rooted in those books. (Sadly, I don't have the stomach for actual sailing.)

I've wanted to reread these books for the past several years. Since I seem to be incapable of reading paper books anymore, I've been looking for Kindle copies of the books. Surprisingly, the Kindle editions that existed were only available for sale in the U.K. or in Australia. Neither option did me a bit of good.

Last night, I did another check of Amazon and was happily surprised to see that most of the Horatio Hornblower series is now available on Kindle. I can buy everything that's currently out for $70. Somehow, that seems like a really good use of my money right. Now.

1. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, $7.99
2. Lieutenant Hornblower, $7.99
3. Hornblower and the Hotspur, $8.99
4. Hornblower During the Crisis, $4.99
5. Hornblower and the Atropos, $7.99
6. Beat to Quarters
7. Ship of the Line
8. Flying Colours, $7.99
9. Commodore Hornblower, $7.99
10. Lord Hornblower, $7.99
11. Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies, $7.99

I don't know what's up with Beat to Quarters and Ship of the Line. Beat to Quarters doesn't have a Kindle version at all. Ship of the Line has a Kindle version, but it's not available in the U.S. I hope that gets resolved post-haste.

For 2016, I want to shift my reading focus a little bit. I find and read a lot of longer articles on the web, but I'm often conflicted between spending lots of time reading in-depth reporting and opinions vs reading enough books to meet my reading goals.

I'm going to drastically lower my Goodreads reading goal: from 70 books down to 40 books. It's easy to hit a high reading goal when I'm reading mostly science fiction and fantasy. It's harder to do when I'm reading more literary novels and non-fiction. This lower reading goal will give me the space to read more on the web, read longer books, and read slower books than I ordinarily would.

Here are my 2016 goals (and the corresponding reading list).

More Literary Fiction

I enjoyed the experiences I had with literary fiction last year. I'll do more of it this year. The key seems to be finding books that are long on the human experience and short on American middle-class angst. I'll keep an eye out and add them to my reading ideas list as I find them.

Non-Fiction

Since I completely failed at this last year, I'm going to take another run at it this year. My list of potential books was good, it was just my execution that stunk. I'll copy over everything from last year's list to this year's list.

Fix the Oops

Last year, I listed Jack Vance on my goals list. I had been wanting to read Jack McDevitt too, although I hadn't listed him in my goals. Unfortunately, I went to my reading list and added a bunch of books by Jack McDevitt and none by Jack Vance. Oops. This year, I'll actually read some books by Jack Vance.

Enjoy Comics

Adam's been feeding me a list of recommended comics and graphic novels. I've also run across a few on my own. I'll actually read some of them this year.

Hard Science Fiction

I'm still having a hard time consistently finding good hard science fiction novels. I'm going to continue to look for them and read them as I find them.

Finish the 2014 and 2015 Goals

In 2014, I wanted to read the Culture novels and the Wheel of Time series. I made good progress, but didn't finish either series. I'll continue to work through them again in 2016. I also plan to finish reading the Alex Benedict series from the 2015 reading ideas list.

I also still want to re-read some of my favorite books.

Interesting Hooks

I know I'm going to come across interesting sounding books as I go through the year. I might as well make it a goal to read some of them.

Over this past year, I read 69 books, a total of 31,138 pages. I had set a reading goal of 70 books and just barely missed it. By comparison, I read 3 fewer books than in 2014, but 154 more pages.

Overall, 2015 was a mixed bag for book reading. I had a hard time hitting my Goodreads goal. I'm happy with the literary fiction that I read, but disappointed that I didn't read more non-fiction. I read more hard science fiction (good), but didn't re-read any old favorites (bad). My reading goals were supposed to give me a focus, but I wasn't disciplined enough to actually read everything that I wanted to.

Here's how I did in each specific goal.

Reading Specific Authors

I had picked out several different authors that I wanted to explore this year. I did fairly well on this goal. I was:

• Brent Weeks: all 3 books
• Guy Gavriel Kay: 4 of 6 novels, including both of the duologies that I really wanted to read
• Robert Silverberg: 3 short story collections, out of 11 book ideas
• Jack McDevitt: 5 out of 14 novels, 2 in the Academy series and 3 in the Alex Benedict series
• William Gibson: nothing

I didn't read nearly as much of Silverberg as I'd originally intended to and I seemed to have skipped William Gibson entirely. I'm pretty happy with everything else though.

Reread Old Favorites

I failed at this goal. Theoretically, I gave myself permission to go back and re-read old favorites. In practice, I never actually did it. I did end up rereading Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, but I wouldn't have even done that much had I not been reading them along with my wife.

Literary Fiction

I had pulled together a list of 6 literary novels that caught my eye. I surprised myself by actually reading 4 of them: Cloud Atlas, The Shadow of the Wind, The Orphan Master's Son, and The Book of Strange New Things. I consider The Orphan Master's Son and Cloud Atlas to be two of the best books that I read this year.

Hard Science Fiction

I've been wanting to read science fiction that's heavy on the science. I picked out 8 books and read 4 of them: The Martian, Dragon's Egg, Time, and Yesterday's Kin. I'd recommend both The Martian and Dragon's Egg to anyone else looking to read some science fiction.

Non-Fiction

I picked out 21 interesting books for my reading ideas list. I read none of them. This was an abject failure.

Interesting Hooks

I picked out 23 different books (or series) for my reading ideas list. I ended up reading 10 of them, which is great for a list that was basically a pile of anything that sounded interesting. Highlights include The Just City, The Three-Body Problem, and A Night of Blacker Darkness.