David McCullough wrote The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal: 1870-1914 (and isn't that a veritable Gatún Locks of subtitles, dear reader?) in time for the Bicentennial.  My Francis Parkman Prize edition dates to 2002, during which time Ronald Reagan made an issue out of Jimmy Carter offering to return sovereignty over the ( Read more... )

Peter Norton's Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving elaborates on the argument laid out in the title, and Book Review No. 6 will turn to that in due course.

The post title, however, proposes a deeper lesson.  "Autonorama" is a play on "Futurama," which is probably a play on "panorama" or perhaps "cyclorama," although readers of my ( Read more... )

Today marks the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Midway, and I mark that anniversary by returning to the Fifty Book Challenge.  (So much for resolving to file more book reports and fret less about national affairs that I can't influence.)

I've reviewed a number of books dealing with the battle previously.  Book Review No. 2 for this year ( Read more... )

I read this, despite it getting a bad review on this very group; I was inclined to agree.


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At first it was great fun.  Indoor work, no heavy lifting, and piece rates that were generous by the standards of the day, particularly if you put a fine tip on your paint brush by licking it.  And the factory dust sparkled in your hair, and the boss didn't make an issue of you using scrap paint at the end of the week for nail polish, which lit up ( Read more... )

It's the end of July, which means Major League Baseball will be offering doubleheaders, these days that's an evil dictated by a 162 game season and a playoff schedule that runs almost to the beginning of Karneval, and doubleheader itself is borrowed from railroading, back in the day when the Superintendent could not connect units with an extension ( Read more... )

We'll finish the Fifty Book Challenge for this year a bit short of our goal, at Book Review No. 31.  Michael McCarthy's Ashes Under Water: The SS Eastland and the Shipwreck that Shook America looks at some of the personalities involved in Eastland's capsize and the subsequent investigation.  Mr McCarthy (of Grand Haven, not to be confused with an ( Read more... )

31. The Revenge of Analog, by David Sax. A lot of food for thought is packed into these pages. I wasn't sure what to make of the book at first, especially with the first chapters dealing with the reemergence of vinyl records and hardcopy books. I knew there was a niche market for vinyl that has emerged in recent years, although I didn't know the ( Read more... )

17. Glow Kids, by Dr. Nicholas Kardaras. I finished this one for the book on technology category for the Read Harder challenge. This one has actually been on my want-to-read list for a while. I've seen it referenced a couple times in articles concerning education and problematic technology use for children. So I knew what type of message I would be ( Read more... )