Walter Isaacson‘s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci was released in 2017 and sat on the #1 best seller’s list. It is 600+ pages all compiled by Leonardo’s notebooks and what we know of him from others.
Leonardo Da Vinci
My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this. Leonardo is a fascinating figure. It really is amazing what he was able to do and, even if half the things attributed to him were true, he is still one of the most influential people who ever lived. I knew some of what he was and what he did but not really the half of it. The biggest surprise was how the work was done. How collaborative he was with his students and others.
Recommendations
There are some adult themes so I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone but it was a great read and I didn’t get bored the whole time.
Catherine the Great was the Empress of Russia during the time of the American Revolution. Robert Massie details her life from birth to death in just under 700 pages.
Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
My Thoughts
This was a much better read than that of Elizabeth the II but the lives of the royals are pretty messed up. Maybe just from my perspective as a middle class American…
She led a pretty interesting and full life given the attitudes toward women. It seemed she played a good hand and things fell into place during her life. Oddly enough, there was a parallel with her daughter in law (Paul’s 2nd wife) and it makes me wonder what would have happened if she had been engaged to Peter instead of Catherine. By the account of the book, this other Sophia (later Maria) was well loved by everyone who met her.
It was an interesting read. I didn’t know so many things were going on in the world at that point. My education was mostly in the West so I knew about the French Revolution and, of course, the American Revolution but I didn’t know much about the rest of the world and how they viewed it.
This biography of Queen Elizabeth II was done by Sally Bedell Smith in 2012. It is 663 pages long to mirror the long life of Queen Elizabeth II who is currently 92 years old. This work takes her through her girlhood all the way through the wedding of her grandson William highlighting many of the events along the way.
Elizabeth The Queen
My Thoughts
While I was interested in the life story of Queen Elizabeth and I was keen on understanding more about the monarchy in general, I was pretty bored by the story. It was very long and felt formal and stuffy. I guess that was appropriate given the subject matter. It was a chore to get through it…
I did learn a lot and found I have more respect for the Queen as a whole.
Recommendations
I won’t be reading it again any time soon but I do have other royals to read up on. I can’t say I would recommend it.
To steal from the Great Courses page “Augustine of Hippo’s magnum opus The City of God is one of the greatest works of the Western intellectual tradition—so powerful, in fact, that one could argue all of Christian theology has been a series of footnotes to Augustine. Written during the transition from antiquity to the rise of Christianity, it is one of the key texts in defining our ethical framework into the 21st century. Yet even serious readers can be intimidated by a book that spans over 1,000 pages.”
Books that Matter: The City of God
My Thoughts
This was a pretty time consuming listen though I feel it was worth it. Pretty much most of the “ah hah” moments I’d had were discussed by Augustine of Hippo or “Saint Augustine” as we’ve likely heard of him. This lecture points out that not much is “new under the sun”. The ancients were pretty bright and most of the drama that we take on a daily basis had all been done before.
Recommendations
This work left my mind reeling a few times. If you can understand it all then you should start your own church. (You won’t be alone out there…)
This book is about how science has gone wrong. How usually well meaning people have created something that can’t quite be put back into the box. “These unwitting errors add up to seven lessons both cautionary and profound, narrated by renowned author and speaker Paul A. Offit. Offit uses these lessons to investigate how we can separate good science from bad, using some of today’s most controversial creations—e-cigarettes, GMOs, drug treatments for ADHD—as case studies. For every “Aha!” moment that should have been an “Oh no,” this book is an engrossing account of how science has been misused disastrously—and how we can learn to use its power for good.”
Pandora’s Lab
My Comments
This was a very interesting book. I was particularly interested in the examples from history; how mustard gas was created, why DDT was banned and so on. Similar books make me want to do a lot of fact checking. I didn’t agree with a few of the examples such as e-cigarettes as I don’t think the verdict is in just yet with what their influence will be. Still it was a great read.
Recommendation
Great book. It includes stuff everyone should know but should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.
The book American Sniper came out in 2012 well before the movie. Chris Kyle is credited as the sniper with the most confirmed kills of any American before. The story is in his words and was completed before he was killed in 2013.
American Sniper
My Thoughts
I still haven’t seen the movie so I was very interested in the book. I work with our Marines on a daily basis and was interested in the book purely on that merit. Much of the war aspects rung true with what I had been told in my years of working with the Marines. Of course, Chris Kyle was a Navy SEAL but he frequently worked with Marines and was very complimentary of them.
I was struck in particular of how plain his words were. We have heard so much rhetoric in our society, I enjoyed hearing an unvarnished version. No apologies, no excuses. He simply was who he was and was just fine with it.
My personal opinion is that war really sucks. It is also sometimes justified. Rarely are there black and white decisions. Chris Kyle says he sees things in mostly black and white with very little grey. I suppose he had to think of it that way to do his job.
I had a discussion a long time ago with an older gentlemen on the topic of war. The man told his sons, “Be loving in peace but be terrible in war.” I had a hard time with that concept then. I’m still struggling with it now. However, I do see the utility in the statement.
Recommendation
If you are an adult who is relatively secure with yourself, I would suggest you read this book. I did enjoy it and the thoughts it spurred. However, it is graphic and violent and generally not for folks with a forming or weaker constitution. It discusses a topic we should all know about and we are very fortunate to have avoided.
Yet another of the “Great Courses” series, The American Civil War is a lecture given by Professor Gary W. Gallagher, Ph.D. of the University of Virginia. This lecture series is over 24 hours of lecture. As such it took me a while to get through… Professor Gallagher takes us from what lead up to the war before the election of 1860 and details everything through the early parts of reconstruction and how we remember the war today. It was recorded in the early 2000’s.
The American Civil War
Comments
I live in Virginia and continue to be very interested in what happened during the civil war. Although this was a long lecture, I was kept engaged and found myself wanting to know more. I very much enjoyed Professor Gallagher’s presentation of each side and how he touched on many of the theories and popular misconceptions about the war. I feel he gave a balanced account to what had happened and he made sense of a subject highly sensationalized and used for propaganda on both sides. I still want to know more about it and I feel I have been given a good foundation.
Recommendation
This lecture series is not for the faint of heart. There is a lot of material and it will take some time to get through it all. However, I highly recommend it to all Americans. Both those who want to know more about the war and those who should want to know more.
