What are you reading?

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf

 

Fiction; set at the height of McCarthyism.

 

Current:



Concurrent:



Queued:

 

I’m not much of a history buff if it’s dry, but make it interesting and I enjoy learning.
75 pages in, this is pretty good

 

Not exactly a page-turner but the Electronics theory does get me off to sleep rather quickly!!!
The 622 question pool changes at the end of June and I'm hoping to test out of this part before then.


On Deck:


Pre-release hold.
Shannon, a fellow USN CPO served as a 'crippie' (cryptologic technician - also called spooks) and was down range in Syria when she was taken out by ISIS in an incident (2019 Manbij bombing) that I'm still tickling the strings of the OSINT web to find out more about.
We shared the same rank (CPO*) warfare designator (EXW) and similar security clearances - but THERE the similarities abruptly END.

Shannon was a warrior out on the sharp end of the stick who earned her combat pay!

(*) She was given a tombstone promotion to 'Senior Chief' - CTICS(EXW) if memory serves - the LEAST that a grateful nation should offer to a 35-year-old mom that left two small children and a husband behind!

 

I've made it pretty deep into this one and it's wonderfully satisfying.

I'm (barely) old enough to remember some of these public scares as they happened, and I've been putting up with the overreactions to them my whole life.

The author has done a decent job of running down a good list of 60s-70s bogeyman stories back to their roots. Sometimes they were real people, sometimes entirely made-up.

 

A new book, "To the Gorge." A woman RUNS the entire length of the Oregon stretch of the 1000 mile Pacific Crest Trail that goes from the Mexican border through California Oregon and Washington to Canada. First popularized by author Colin Fletcher in his 1960s book, "Thousand Mile Summer." Planned to do it sometime in my life, but living has gotten in my way.
Kris

 

That seems especially badass. TY for sharing!

 

Fletcher's book is certainly dated but still holds up. IIRC, in an odd twist of fate after surving a number of somewhat hazadous journeys, I think he died after being hit by a car while out on a walk in his neighborhood in Santa Barbara???

 

Got to thinking and dug up an old box of my father's books. Found Carlos Castenada, Hunter Thompson...and three Colin Fletcher works. "The Thousand Mile Summer," "The Man Who Walked Through Time" (solo Grand Canyon trek), and "The Complete Walker."

Think they all need revisits. Not sure I am ready for Thompson, though. His stuff just sort of grabs and twists you.
Kris

 

Castenada is lyrical and uplifting but apparently he invented his facts.

 

Remember discussing Castenada with my father. He said he had bought into much of the storyline when he was a teen, but reread the works in college while partaking of some "home-grown greenery" and just started laughing. At that point he "knew" it all was just entertainment. He then
tackled "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." He said it wasn't exactly factual either, but it was not meant to be.

Considering reading Bill Walton's "Back from the Dead" book at the moment.
Kris

 

The VW version kept my 1966 MicroBus running for five years. Many greasy finger prints and abuse. When it fell apart so too the VW died.

Bob Wilson

 

A re-read just to put my brain in neutral for a few days.....while I struggle with #207.
Shannon Kent's book will have to hang out in the bullpen for a while longer....



I remember reading as a 'left on the watch station' community book his during a submarine patrol when it first came out.
It's still entertaining nearly 40 years later........

 

I read it about that long ago too. And then I emailed Clancy to thank him as soon as I was done, because you could do that back then. (I guess there's twitter x now?)

I later learned that most of what I liked was actually the influence of his co-writer Larry Bond. Very much enjoyed some of the games he worked on.

 

We used to play some of those games out on patrol.....

 

Zen and motorcycle maintenance was one of the strangest books I’ve ever read

 

Ditto. Way back when. Around the same time, a couple of dense/intense tomes:

Giles, Goat Boy
The Sotweed Factor

Both by John Barth

Got a later book by him, even denser, sentences that went on half a page, soon gave up.