Books

[SKT]

@mclaincausey truth

[mclaincausey]

Thanks to @Giles I have started the audiobook of Finding Endurance and while I am early, find it well-written and I am also enjoying narrator Saul Reichlin's lovely English accent. I also found a free audiobook edition on Audible of Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing from 1959 that I added to my list but have not started.

[Giles]

Thanks @Bridger

[Bridger]

Have you started/finished it @Giles?

Thoughts?

[Giles]

One of my measures for how much I am enjoying/appreciating/learning from a book, is how much I feel the need to read sections out-loud to whomever is in my orbit. I read the first 3 sentences of the preface out to P, I suspect they will not be the last......

[mclaincausey]

Speaking of violence.... You want violence, try reading this one I finished last night: Hannibal: Rome's Greatest Enemy by Philip Freeman. The era's casual genocide, infanticide, or butchery of as many as 60,000 soldiers in single battles are mind-boggling. The strategic brilliance of Hannibal is so impressive. It is interesting to speculate, as the author does, about how different the world would be had he taken to Rome after destroying their army in the Battle of Cannae and laid siege. It could well have been the end of the Rome in 216 BC. It's truly hard to even get my head around that. Constantinople fell in 1453 AD. Imagine almost 1700 years of Roman influence suddenly gone. We wouldn't be speaking the same languages or anything.

[Giles]

On my list

[Bridger]

Thanks @Giles - another on my reading pile

[mclaincausey]

@Giles what a damn book was Finding Endurance.

Shackleton was a high caliber human being. An unbelievable story. I welcome the author’s personal biographical details and broader observations as well.

[AdamJ]

haha I had not seen this thread till now, I am half way through this atm @Giles

[AdamJ]

Just finished this prior, which was good

[Giles]

@AdamJ you want this:

[AdamJ]

@Giles will add to this list!

[goosehd]

@AdamJ outstanding and I won’t ruin the ending for you

[Giles]

@AdamJ said in Books:

@Giles will add to this list!

I'll give it to you on Fri.......Ok?

[mclaincausey]

Another one I just read, and this one is free to Audible subscribers, was *The Four Percent Universe * by Richard Panek. This one was about the discovery of dark energy and dark matter and the race to publish that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. Two groups of scientists using different methods effectively tied in that endeavor and were awarded Nobel prizes for it.

[AdamJ]

@Giles nice one thanks!

[Giles]

@mclaincausey said in Books:

@Giles what a damn book was Finding Endurance.

Shackleton was a high caliber human being. An unbelievable story. I welcome the author’s personal biographical details and broader observations as well.

So glad you enjoyed. It's one of those books that if someone tells me they don't like it, they are history I personally learnt so much and it has given me a broader aspect on all sorts of things....

[goosehd]

The main takeaway from Trafalgar was the sheer terror of being on board one of those ships. The smoke tried to suffocate you, the sounds deafen you, and everything around you trying to kill you.

Absolutely insane conditions.

I’ve seen movies where the officers walked around nonchalantly on the main deck where there was chaos surrounding them. Always thought it was modern day artist’s interpretation of events…after reading quite a few stories realizing that it was reality.

[goosehd]

…and a hurricane trying to finish you off afterwards.