What are you reading now?
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Quite a really good book.
The Dyatlov Pass incident (Гибель тургруппы Дятлова) was an event in which nine Soviet ski hikers died in the northern part of the Ural Mountains ridge in the Russian SFSR of the Soviet Union on 1 or 2 February 1959 under undetermined circumstances. The experienced trekking group from the Ural Polytechnical Institute, led by Igor Dyatlov, went on a hike of the highest difficulty level at that time, and had established a camp on the eastern slopes of Kholat Syakhl mountain. Overnight, something caused them to cut their way out of their tent by knives and flee the campsite while inadequately dressed for the heavy snowfall, strong winds and highly subzero temperatures (-50 – -40 F).
All of them, except for one, were about 20-23 years old. Going to the edge of Siberia in the middle of winter was not an easy hike. Plus, hiking and trekking equipment has improved a lot over the last 60 years. This book gives a possibility of what happened, but really, I dont think we will ever know 100%. The group was aiming to get a certain hiking category certificate, and documented their hike with pictures. Recommended to read.
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https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1NQz37O-rL._SY522_.jpgThis is a story I never knew. The worst naval mishap in American history. 1923. Seven US destroyers crashed into the California coast on a foggy night. Because they were all folllowing the lead ship which made an error in navigation and smashed at full speed into a rocky coast, and one after the other they next ones came flying in.
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I recently finished 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin. A great, relatively short book (compared to what I usually read). It tells the story of the run up to and aftermath of the 29 crash. Told as a narrative focused on a dozen or so key characters. Doesn’t cover the whole depression, just the crash and subsequent prosecutions and hearings, etc culminating in Glass-Steagle. Great read.
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I only just yesterday finished Chernow’s Mark Twain. While I liked the book and was never really tempted to put it down, it was definitely an endurance test. 1200 pages. I listened and the narration was 44 hours. I think they would do well to create an abridged version.
Still a fascinating man and a fascinating life.
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I only just yesterday finished Chernow’s Mark Twain. While I liked the book and was never really tempted to put it down, it was definitely an endurance test. 1200 pages. I listened and the narration was 44 hours. I think they would do well to create an abridged version.
Still a fascinating man and a fascinating life.
@jon-nyc said in What are you reading now?:
I only just yesterday finished Chernow’s Mark Twain. While I liked the book and was never really tempted to put it down, it was definitely an endurance test. 1200 pages. I listened and the narration was 44 hours. I think they would do well to create an abridged version.
Still a fascinating man and a fascinating life.
I read/lillstened to that book as well - great listen - but you're right, lonnng.
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Very interesting book. I highly recommend, regardless of one's political persuasion as it provides a pretty decent view of how DJT got to where he is today. It spends a decent amount of time on DJT's father and how he grew the business. Donald clearly effectively leveraged his father's connections, influence and contacts to get his start. Most of us have lived through those days - so it's revisitng territory we may have heard about back in the day - but with more detail on actual vs. reality. Trump's a great bluffer and salesman. It brings me back to the quote from Bill Gates and what he thought his own most essential skill for success - and his answer, "the ability to sell an idea."
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Just finished kind of an "academic" book - Germany 1923
Interesting, but also kind of a hard read for me. Not surprise, but it goes into depth about 1923 Germany (and a little bit of the year before and after) and some of the causes for the problems they had in economics, politics, etc.
As I said, and interesting book about that period of history and gave me a bit of background on that part of the world in that period of time.
Glad I read it, but probably will not read it again. LOL
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Interesting. My bedside read is a very academic book called The Nazi Seizure of Power that goes into great detail of how a single town (Northeim) got Nazified. Down to what local personalities, businesses, newspapers, etc did at the end of the republic through the transition and terror and finally through the end of the regime. It was written within 15-20 years of the war’s end and relies on months of local interviews as well as archives.
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@jon-nyc It was interesting to read about the "hyper inflation" and how incredibly bad it was. Prices were initially changed monthly, then weekly, and then hourly. There was a story about how a diner went to a restaurant, and when they got the bill, it was like twice what they thought. They complained, and the waiter asked what time they arrived, and gave them that price. LOL
I think I mentioned before that I knew a guy who was in Brazil during the early 1990's when they had a similar (but not as bad) inflation. He was with TECO (Taiwan Economic and Cooperation Office) and they would regularly have to carry in large amounts of cash (US$) as most places stopped accepting credit cards as the period of time between charging and getting reimbursed meant that their money was worth so much less. When they would go buy something, the money would be changed right before purchasing anything so as to get the current "best" rate.
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A friend of mine lived in Argentina during their hyperinflation. Grocery stores would announce new prices on a loud speaker throughout the day. He remembers seeing a woman crying while putting back some groceries she could no longer afford after the latest announcement.
