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Your book choices for 2026?

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

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We used to have a Pub topic where we posted books we're planning to read, and the reasons why. How 'bout starting it up again!

Mine for 2026 -

- Davy "A Short History of Power", 2022. How "power" creates organizations, institutions, and even countries, and tries to keep the power structure from changing.
- Achebe "Things Fall Apart", 1958. Colonialism brings change to native populations, leading to progress as well as misery which continues through generations.
- Arendt "The Origins of Totalitarianism", 1949. Tyranny takes over when people are complacent.
- Arnheim, "Zwischenrufe [Heckling]", 1984. Thoughts on his life in Germany, 1926-1940.
- Natoli, "Strange, Unusual, and Absolutely True", 2025. Just what it says!
- Wilczek, "A Beautiful Question", 2015. Does the physics of today reveal a higher level of Design than we recognize?
- Harvey, "Civilized Oppression", 1999. Oppression can be effected by individuals using morally wrong acts, as well as by power-hungry parties and governments.

(I hope I understand at least some of what I'm reading!)

So, what books are BCFrs planning to read?

Tom M.
 
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I recently finished two very good non-fiction reads. Midnight in Chernobyl and the The Gales of November. Midnight in Chernobyl was a real eye opener about what happened there and how the Russians handled it. The Gales of November is a great story about the Edmond Fitzgerald.
 
I'm about 1/3 of the way through a book named PAX, it's about the several hundred years of the Roman Empire, fights over who would be emperor, holding the borders, revolts and such. Had finished before that one call "Black Snow" about the development of the end of the war bombing across Japan and the overall last about a year pf the actual campaign. I also hit science fiction and adventure, order is just what appeals to me at the moment. Credit my dad who was a reader for getting me started young. I was maybe the only youngster in my school when young who'd read the newspaper, back in the days it had serious reporting, his time magazine and watch the news before I was even a teen.
 
NutmegCT said:
We used to have a Pub topic where we posted books we're planning to read, and the reasons why. How 'bout starting it up again!

Mine for 2026 -

- Davy "A Short History of Power", 2022. How "power" creates organizations, institutions, and even countries, and tries to keep the power structure from changing.
- Achebe "Things Fall Apart", 1958. Colonialism brings change to native populations, leading to progress as well as misery which continues through generations.
- Arendt "The Origins of Totalitarianism", 1949. Tyranny takes over when people are complacent.
- Arnheim, "Zwischenrufe [Heckling]", 1984. Thoughts on his life in Germany, 1926-1940.
- Natoli, "Strange, Unusual, and Absolutely True", 2025. Just what it says!
- Wilczek, "A Beautiful Question", 2015. Does the physics of today reveal a higher level of Design than we recognize?
- Harvey, "Civilized Oppression", 1999. Oppression can be effected by individuals using morally wrong acts, as well as by power-hungry parties and governments.

(I hope I understand at least some of what I'm reading!)

So, what books are BCFrs planning to read?

Tom M.
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Haven’t really got a plan, but three I’m currently reading are The Federalist Papers - Hamilton, Madison, Jay (“Publius”)
The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
And Chain of Command- Tom Clancy

My wife is reading The Widow - John Grisham and insists I’d like it, so will probably read it too.

Anything else is TBD.
 
Taking Indian Lands: The Cherokee (Jerome) Commission, 1889-1893 by William T. Hagan
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War by James M. McPherson
American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California by James N. Gregory
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (I've started it twice)
The Odyssey by Homer (The movie is coming out soon and I haven't read it cover to cover in probably twenty-five years.)
The Blight Way by Patrick McManus (It is the first of a mystery series that was recommended to me.)

There will be more but that is what is currently in the 'to read' stack.


It's close enough to 2026 that I'll include this one I'm going to read next week: The Wright Brothers by David McCullogh.
 
Tom, let me know what you think of Things Fall Apart. I think it is an excellent novel and one I used to teach.
 
Walt - re Achebe - will do.

The McCullough is *excellent*. If I recall correctly, that book is where we (air museum) learned that the Wrights adapted wing warping from someone else's prior art. Orville and Wilbur didn't "invent" it.

TM
 
NutmegCT said:
Walt - re Achebe - will do.

The McCullough is *excellent*. If I recall correctly, that book is where we (air museum) learned that the Wrights adapted wing warping from someone else's prior art. Orville and Wilbur didn't "invent" it.

TM
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I suspect I'll enjoy it, McCullough is one of my favorite biographers.
 
I am currently reading The Rose Code.
When I read the blurb on the back I saw Bletchley Park and Enigma.
That sold me on it, that's the nerd in me.
It started out a bit like a romance novel and almost binned it.
After a few more chapters it's getting more interesting.
I keep a stack of books in the house and one in my car.
Good for when I'm waiting my turn in the Doctors office
90% of what I read comes from Little Free Library.
I actually only pick a book by it's cover.
Some I start and just dump back in the box.
This way I discover different things.
On another 'car' forum I'm active on, I bought their recommendations on Amazon.
I'm going to stop doing that, money wasted.
 
equiprx said:
I am currently reading The Rose Code.
When I read the blurb on the back I saw Bletchley Park and Enigma.
That sold me on it, that's the nerd in me.
It started out a bit like a romance novel and almost binned it.
After a few more chapters it's getting more interesting.
I keep a stack of books in the house and one in my car.
Good for when I'm waiting my turn in the Doctors office
90% of what I read comes from Little Free Library.
I actually only pick a book by it's cover.
Some I start and just dump back in the box.
This way I discover different things.
On another 'car' forum I'm active on, I bought their recommendations on Amazon.
I'm going to stop doing that, money wasted.
Click to expand...
I use an app called Libby. I get ebooks or audio books from our library for free. I recently finished “Endurance” by Alfred Lansing about Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole. Highly recommended.
 
My middle niece who's mid 20s is an avid reader with a tablet and library card, she's mostly a fantasy, elves, dragons and that sort of thing person. But I'm glad she loves to read in a time when so many young folks don't spend the time on it. My sister in law told me that when she was in high school the other parents referred to he as "That girl with the book" and in 3rd grade when they did the reading testing she outdid all but about a dozen kids, from her grade through seniors.
 
John Turney said:
I use an app called Libby. I get ebooks or audio books from our library for free. I recently finished “Endurance” by Alfred Lansing about Shackleton’s 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole. Highly recommended.
Click to expand...
I bought a DVD of a PBS show called “Chasing Shackleton.” It’s a documentary about a team of six adventurers/ explorers who recreate Shackleton’s journey. They tried to make everything as close as possible to Shackleton’s journey, including the same equipment, clothing and supplies. Of course, unlike Shackleton, this team had an emergency vessel shadowing them just in case. They did follow Shackleton’s route to a whaling village on South George Island. Probably one of the hardest parts of the journey was that they had to hike across a glacier on the island because the village was on the other side of the island from where they landed.
It was an excellent documentary and really made you appreciate what a heroic effort it was four Shackleton in his men to rescue the rest of his crew.
 
If I recall correctly, that Chasing Shackleton team chose not to eat the original Shackleton survival rations: a mix of pemmican (dried, pounded meat mixed with rendered animal fat and sometimes dried berries), blubber, seal snout, seaweed, sled dog meat, and seabiscuit.
 
NutmegCT said:
If I recall correctly, that Chasing Shackleton team chose not to eat the original Shackleton survival rations: a mix of pemmican (dried, pounded meat mixed with rendered animal fat and sometimes dried berries), blubber, seal snout, seaweed, sled dog meat, and seabiscuit.
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I can understand that.
 
There is another book by F. A. Worsely called Endurance which is a very good read. If you aren't familiar, Worsely was the captain of the Endurance and he was one of the men who volunteered to accompany Shackleton in the boat "James Caird" due to his excellent skill as a navigator. I highly recommend reading it if you want a first hand account of Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Artic Expedition.
 
Great topic - thank you!

Hemingway, A Moveable Feast. Fun read, and interesting commentary about the art of writing. One that sticks, is the overuse of adjectives.

My teenage girls are heavy into the sci-fi fantasy realm - dragons snd such. If anyone is looking for a Christmas presents for that age group, it seems to be really hot right now. I don’t “approve” of all of it – but as their teacher tells me, they are reading an awful lot!
 
NutmegCT said:
If I recall correctly, that Chasing Shackleton team chose not to eat the original Shackleton survival rations: a mix of pemmican (dried, pounded meat mixed with rendered animal fat and sometimes dried berries), blubber, seal snout, seaweed, sled dog meat, and seabiscuit.
Click to expand...
That could be, it’s been a while since I watched it,
 
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