OT: Book and Podcast Recommendations
Give us one book and one podcast episode.
Book: Wild Seed
https://b-ok.cc/book/1989773/6638f7
First book in an epic sci-fi fantasy series that centers around the story of two immortal Africans named Doro and Anyanwu.
I'd recommend the entire Seed to Harvest series, but this was my favorite. I've been trying to read more minority women authors, and Octavia Butler is a goddess.
Podcast: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-infantorium/
The insane story of the birth of neonatology and the carnival doctor who invented incubators to save premature babies...and displayed them to the masses at festivals and world fairs.
The emperor of all maladies
never lay up podcast
Book - Liar's Poker": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar%27s_Poker by Michael Lewis is a pretty interesting look into bond trading @ Solomon Brothers that's also got some very funny moments
Podcast - Stuff You Should Know's recent one on Andre the Giant:
they also did one recently on COVID-19 that covered the basics well
Liar's Poker was a fun read. A couple of excerpts:
They began with a round of onion cheeseburgers, fetched by a trainee from the Trinity Deli at eight a.m. “I mean you didn’t really want to eat them,” recalls trader Gary Kilberg who joined the trading desk in 1985. “You were hung over. You were sipping coffee. But you’d get wind of that smell. Everyone else was eating them. So you grabbed one of the suckers.” The traders performed astonishing feats of gluttony never before seen at Salomon. Mortara made enormous cartons of malted milk balls disappear in two gulps. ... Each Friday was “Food Frenzy” day, during which all trading ceased, and eating commenced. “We’d order four hundred dollars of Mexican food,” says a former trader. “ You can’t buy four hundred dollars of Mexican food . But we’d try – guacamole in five- gallon drums, for a start. A customer would call in and ask us to bid or offer bonds and you’d have to say, ‘I’m sorry but we’re in the middle of the feeding frenzy, I’ll have to call you back.’”
"Liars Poker" is an awesome pick:
"One hand, $10 million, no tears"
Thanks. I think that exchange was actually Gutfreund saying "1 hand, $1 million, no tears" and the guy responds with something like "No John, if we're going to do this let's do it right. 1 Hand, $10 million, no tears" (which in a way was a bluff consistent with the game Liar's Poker) and then Gutfreund backs down.
I'm an author, and some of my stuff is free right now. Here's one book; you can find others there (and some on Amazon) as well.
Do you have a link to the Clade Josso book on Amazon? Maybe I'm an idiot. I can't seem to figure out how to get it ? ill gladly pay market price for your work.
Edit: Never mind, found it!
What is a Girl Worth by Rachael Denhollander. It's both an account of everything that happened with Nassar and what we can do to stop it, an interesting meditation on Christianity (I say this as a non-believer), and a kind of cute love story between two nerds (she met her husband on Xanga, of all things).
One podcast episode: The Memory Palace: “Snakes”. The true story of the dozen deadly cobras let loose upon Springfield Missouri in the summer of 1953.
A timely book:
“The Last Town on Earth” by Thomas Mullen. Historical fiction based in the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic and the efforts of one isolated lumber town in Washington State to protect its inhabitants by a self-imposed and self-enforced quarantine.
God Awful Movies is a bad movie review podcast based around religious films. The episode "A Matter of Faith" is very funny, but it's pretty vulgar and offensive, so you might not want to listen to it in front of your kids or coworkers.
Altered Carbon is a 3 book series. I'm hoping the second book is better than the second season of the TV show.
Louis CK just released a new special on his website.
I'm reading Infinite Jest now actually. It's really interesting but also really long. And it's not as easy to get through as most fiction because of all the neologisms and obscure vocabulary. It can be funny, like a footnote to a long footnote simply stating "Don't ask" but probably the most interesting parts have been some of the meltdowns like Joelle ODing or the horrific withdrawals of the trans character whose name I can't recall right now (Tony, IIRC).
Chapo Trap House
Hooked on the Joe Rogan podcast and Dan Patrick show.
and supplement those two with the motley fool
find myself hardly listening to music now
I have mostly been binge listening to John Prine-related music and interviews and hoping we don’t lose him to The Beast. He’s still hanging on but they say every day on a ventilator is perilous. I saw him with Steve Goodman at the Power Center in the late 70s and was hooked.
I've been reading Antifragile by Nicholas Nassim Taleb since Christmas. It's fascinating and has changed my thinking. I see its application in my day to day life, more than any other non-fiction book I have read recently. Once I get through it (it's long and starting to get repetitive), I'll go back to Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan (though I think I get the general concept through Antifragile) then finish with Skin in the Game.
Taleb has his detractors and I can see why, but I still find myself siding with him in online fights more than his critics.
I've only seen him online and I can't for the life of me envision him as anything other than the biggest dickbag in the world.
Nothing very deep.
I don't really need to, but I listen to Dave Ramsey podcasts during my commute each day. Hearing people give debt-free screams is downright uplifting and positive. The psychology of debt and repayment interfacing with society is interesting to me. I'm not a true disciple of Dave Ramsey. Just successfully Dave Ramsey-ish before it was a thing.
If you're a Major League Baseball fan and haven't read it, I would recommend Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big (2005) by Jose Canseco.
YouTube Channel:
I'm Not Norm
Would always recommend "The Stand" by Stephen King as one of the greatest books ever. Considering that it is about the survival of the human race following a pandemic that kills over 99% of population - even more interesting and relevant now.
Long book - but you will savor every word amd wish it was longer.
Podcast: "The Writer's Almanac"
This used to be a daily 5-minute segment on NPR until Garrison Keillor of all people got blown out during the "Me Too" movement (not sure the details, maybe he deserved it, don't know).
Anyway he has turned it into a daily podcast and email newsletter. As a literary type I absolutely love each daily edition. He gives a rundown of significant birthdays or world/literary events that happened on that particular day. Then he reads a short poem of his choosing. That's it. Even if you don't like poetry, if you really concentrate on his readings it can be very meditative and soothing.
And a newest afterword on Covid-19 Corona Virus.
And - user picture checks out.
And a newest afterword on Covid-19 Corona Virus.
And - user picture checks out.
I'm just finishing the first book in the The Outlander series. There are six more books, so I'm hoping they will take me through this period. There's a good amount of Scottish Highlander history, battles, and yes, romance in the book. There's also some good humor and good male characters. Even though the narrator is a woman, it's really more about the protagonist, her love interest, and he's a true warrior. Some of you guys might enjoy it.
For those interested in WWII history I recommend Ian Toll’s history of the war in the Pacific. My dad served in the Marines in the South Pacific so I was very interested in this topic. I have read the first two volumes and they are excellent.
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 (Vol. 1):
The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 (Vol. 2)
Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (Vol. 3) (not yet published)
“Often overlooked, these are the years and fights that decided the Pacific War. Ian W. Toll's battle scenes—in the air, at sea, and in the jungles—are simply riveting. He also takes the reader into the wartime councils in Washington and Tokyo where politics and strategy often collided, and into the struggle to mobilize wartime production, which was the secret of Allied victory. Brilliantly researched, the narrative is propelled and colored by firsthand accounts—letters, diaries, debriefings, and memoirs—that are the raw material of the telling details, shrewd judgment, and penetrating insight of this magisterial history.”
Timesuck with Dan Cummins. Perfect podcast for being stuck at home
Also, for books, just finished “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson. Great book, love the way he writes. Excited to start another of his soon.
My brother turned me on to a podcast called Zero Sum Empire. They review a couple of billionaires every episode. Very interesting.
Books:
The Puzzler’s Dilemma by Derrick Niederman. A fun, light read about “conundrums of logic, mathematics, and life.”
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking. An accessible book on Physics and Science and is less than 150 pages
For fun I like to read the John Sanford Prey novels with Lucas Davenport and the Virgil Flowers novels.
Finally, for those who can’t get enough about viruses/plague, the much-maligned Dan Brown wrote Inferno (since others have already mentioned Stephen King). As a bonus, a lot of the book takes place in Italy and Europe to match the current time
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. Disregard the Disney Movie, read the book. Although the movie is alright but clearly Disneyfied.
Not sure where the board stands on Bill Simmons, and I know many people here don't care of the NBA but I really enjoyed reading his 2009 "Book of Basketball". If you're familiar with the book, then you know that at some point it would need to be updated (specifically the "pyramid" of greatest players"). In the last six months or so he began updating, but in the form of a podcast "Book of Basketball 2.0.
There you go... a book and a podcast.
Books
The Harry Potter series
The Hunger Games series
Podcast
Crimetown
The Jim Rome podcast
Jim Rome -1
I highly recommend the entire Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien. They are among the most entertaining books I have ever read.
Regularly listening to The New York Times podcast The Daily for some more-in-depth looks at the news of the day and Men in Blazers, for those of still missing the EPL. If you're a fan of Family Guy, looking for a touch of humor in your news coverage, there's also Stewie and Brian Griffin's podcast on Seth McFarlane's Instagram channel.
A post shared by Seth MacFarlane (@macfarlaneseth) on Mar 25, 2020 at 6:48pm PDT
HBO currently is showing The Plot Against America series. I read Philip Roth’s novel on which the series is based in 2016 and liked it. There’s a companion podcast narrated by Peter Sagal, host of the NPR radio show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
For those starved for news about professional sports, but are stuck watching re-runs of events that you've seen before and know how they end, I've recently read Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL about the history of the USFL in which a character who's in the news every day these days plays a key roles in that league's demise. Among the other books I'm currently reading is Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association.