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This book is evocative and charming. It is set in the near north side and wanders throughout the city. It is warm and sensitive but powerful. It is about community, friends, immigrants and it is about the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and about the Lake. It is about business and gangs and the White Soc. The prose is delightful.
Started out well but he lost me when the Mossad showed up. Very complicated plot, unnecessarily done.
Very good articulate exposition. Uses Hegelian dialectic, via negativa, careful scriptural exposition. Talks about marriage, emphasizes the complete otherness of God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ. A detailed chapter about his belief in universal salvation which carefully deals with the relevant scriptures and all the counterarguments. A very useful chapter. Jesus Christ is all and in all of his thinking.
Murder mystery courtroom story, good plot, good characters, fairly good writing. Enjoyable.
Very long series of accounts of horse rides from inn to inn across England. Cobbett is irascible and vehemently in support of the common man against the elite. He is against the aristocracy, the absentee landowners, the clergy who live off taxes and live far from their parishes. He is antisemitic in terms of financial opportunism and biblical interpretation of the times. He had very interesting views of previous population of England in prior times based on the size and proximity of very old large churches. He is delightfully fond of calling very many English landscapes the most beautiful his eye had ever beheld! He went about giving talks which were very well attended. His most vociferous critiques were for paper money, debtors laws, forest use restrictions, and poaching laws. He was an expert on seeds, trees, cottage kitchen gardens and farm economics. He was a prolific writer and pamphleteer. He had a love/hate view of America, where he spent some time.
Written by a philosopher of games. Deals with the problems of metrics and how they capture values, capture subjectivity, and eventually fail. Also how games shed light on these matters. Alternately hopeful and discouraging, he admittedly gives more questions than answers. Not an easy read, but has good examples. He studiously avoids simple fixes and false formulas.
An interesting, very detailed account of progress in understanding bird migration from visual spotting to tiny radios to satellites to isotope measurements in feathers. Our feathered cohabitants of Earth reluctantly tell us their secrets, where they go, how, and why.
Missionary surgeon for many years in Gabon. Grew up in Southeast Asia, his parents were martyred. Had very fruitful ministry and culminated in forming a residency program across Africa to train surgeons. Many wonderful stories of faith and perseverance.
About autonomous warfare, but deals mostly with the people managing the transition and the inertia and ethics and not too much about the hardware and software which I suppose is secret.
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Another Hawthorne mystery, this one on the set of The Word is Murder. The usual multi-level plot, a bit complex, lags a little in the middle but ends very well with a satisfying couple of twists.
A very well-researched and convincing account of the interaction of Williams, Sayers, and Lewis concerning Dante. Academic but interesting though a bit deep for me. What I understand was very interesting.
A comprehensive account of OpenAI and Sam Altman by a very competent observer. Shows the rise of AI from the inside. Altman does not come out too well.
A page-turner, with some clever twists, interesting AI themes. Medically accurate. Russian villains.
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A second episode of our beloved coroner of Laos. Dr Siri is delightful but in this book is more shaman than detective. Very convoluted plot and much occurs in darkness. Still, the main characters are great.
About the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Gripping story of life and death on the Great Lakes. Very interesting details about freshwater storms and Great Lakes shipping. Multiple factors at work causing the loss of ship, cargo, and all aboard.
Another Catalina Island serial murder case. Quite a good story and good characers including Ballard and references to Bosch.
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Bruno depends on his military training and also solves a mystery about the history of Saint Denis. Jewish children and a child-like Muslim figure in the engaging plot.
About a damaged rudder from a torpedo and heroic efforts to steer a giant ship. The Intrepid was a fixture of the US Navy from Tripoli to Apollo splashdowns. Heavy combat exposure and repairs and back to war.
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The first of a series of mysteries set in Laos. Delightful characters and interesting political asides. Much culture and language interaction, which seem reliable and sensible. A fragrance of kindness wafts throughout, mainly through the doctor, who is a 72-year-old widower, retired surgeon.
