Sunday, June 4th, 2023 - TrickJarrett.com: Semper Ad Meliora

Daily Science and Inspiration

Had this idea the other day. The way there are religious or philosophy books with daily entries or motivations, I would love to see something like that. A book I can make a morning routine about, that delves into a science discovery and what enabled it or how it happened, and what inspiration can be taken from it.

6/4/2023 12:59 pm |

| Tags: science, inspiration, idea

Just Finished Reading

This past week I finished both the book I've been reading and the audiobook I have listened to while in the car.

Blood of Tyrants by Naomi Novik, #8 in the Temeraire series

I've gone through this series entirely as audiobooks from my library. I enjoyed it, as I'm invested in the main characters though this may have been my least favorite of the series. It just felt slow and plodding, and it felt like it was largely there to do set up for the finale in the next book.

Tsalmoth by Steven Brust, #16 in the Vlad series

I've read this series since I was in middle school. I can remember the first book being suggested to me by a clerk at a small bookstore and I've kept up on it ever since. The series is not written sequentially, and this book jumps back a fair bit of time, introduces a new over-the-top story which happens to the main characters - but then undercuts it at the end, to explain why it hasn't been something that comes up in any stories which take place afterwards chronologically.

Both of these books were entertaining, and I'm glad to have enjoyed them, but neither blew my socks off.

Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip

This is what I've just started and I'm too early into it to say much, but it's interesting so far.

Blurb from Amazon:

The New York Times Editors' Choice

NPR Science Friday Book Club Selection An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver—the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future.

From award-winning writer Leila Philip, BEAVERLAND is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers.

Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on our nation’s early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the “beaver whisperer”.

What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, BEAVERLAND reveals the profound ways in which one odd creature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment.

Beaverland by Leila Philip

6/4/2023 1:55 pm |

| Tags: books, audiobook

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Season 5: 3/5 laughs

I felt the last season was a bit disjointed as I didn't really enjoy the hopping around in time as it worked to make a cohesive story which answered questions.