Here’s a list of the books:
And Goodreads also has links to abebooks so quite easy sometimes to find cheap used copies, if you don’t want to use a dedicated used book portal (I like buchhai.de and rebuy.de).
Got Fahrenheit 451 for Christmas.. Yeah I’m feeling optimistic about the state of the world these days,
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It was also made into a beautiful film, directed by Truffaut, in 1966, which won a Hugo for best SF film of the year. Great performances and direction.
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I want to take a moment to talk about my favorite book of 2025, which I didn’t have time to discuss when I was reading it: Lee Miller’s Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony (2011). Roanoke Island, site of the colony, is adjacent to the Outer Banks, North Carolina, where I vacationed every summer as a child/youth. I talked about this in a comment I posted here: https://forums.online-go.com/t/place-to-share-relaxing-and-thought-provoking-videos/31448/551.
The Lost Colony is a longstanding mystery about the first British attempt to colonize America. The mystery is that the 115/116 colonists vanished during the 3-year wait for the resupply ship. I have read several books about it since I was a child, and I have twice visited the Lost Colony site, once at age 7 and again at 13.
Although I have owned this book for more than 10 years, I was spurred to read it because of an extraordinary discovery made in January 2025: the finding of a Caucasian woman’s remains, dated to the colony’s time (1587) and located on the mainland in accordance with the theory in Miller’s book. There is little doubt that this was one of the colonists.
Miller took a much deeper dive into British historical records than any previous historian, especially into the poisonous politics surrounding Sir Walter Raleigh, the sponsor of the colony. The pilot for the ship appears to have been an agent for Raleigh’s enemies, and he orchestrated the stranding of the colony in a bad location. I knew that Capt. John Smith had encountered one likely, surviving colonist, and I knew about the mysterious Welsh-speaking Indians (one of the colonists was indeed Welsh), but I didn’t know that records show at least five other sightings of probable surviving colonists among the mainland Indians.
In sum, the colonists soon split, with some going to live with the Croatoan tribe at the southern tip of Hatteras Island (confirmed by DNA evidence). The others, possibly the majority, went to live with a friendly mainland tribe. Tragically, evidence indicates that a warlike neighboring tribe apparently conquered the friendly tribe shortly after the colonists arrived, with the prisoners likely sold into slavery. This would account for the distribution of sighting reports along the mainland.
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Read that one maybe five years ago and enjoyed it. I recall feeling like the argument was strong but not conclusive. It would be interesting to see if there was some scholarly debate on the question.
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Currently reading The Mysterious Private Thompson: The Double Life of Sarah Emma Edmounds, Civil War Soldier by Laura Leedy Gansler (Free Press, 2005). I picked it up for a buck at the library just a week ago. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, a number of books were published about women masquerading as men in various wars (I read at least two reviews about them). This was the first used copy I had seen on this subject, so I decided to satisfy my curiosity.
Emma (as she preferred) escaped a cruel father by running away. Fearing he would have the police drag her back, and craving adventure, she disguised herself as a man and became a very successful, traveling Bible salesman for couple years in Canada and New England. She was very devout and pro-Abolition, so wanted to actively participate in the war. She was now expert at pretending to be a man, so continued the masquerade. Because she had grown up on a farm and hunted in the woods, she was an excellent rider and shot, which aided her persona. The medical exam was cursory, as troops were so desperately needed.
She became a nurse because the conditions for that job were conducive to staying hidden. I never knew that all the field nurses, at least early in the war, were male. Due to her riding skills, she also worked as a mail carrier and sometimes as a courier of official dispatches. She went through the battles of Bull Run, Fair Oaks, and the Peninsula campaign. During the latter, she claimed to have gone on a brief spy mission behind enemy lines. Some historians have disputed this because there is no confirming, documentary evidence. I find that a bit silly, since espionage is poorly documented in general during the Civil War. I found her story plausible, lacking in heroics, and not something a devout person would lie about.
The only downside to this book for me is that I found the extensive Civil War background provided for context to be humdrum. This is a personal objection because I read an enormous amount about the Civil War in my late teens and early twenties. It would probably be fine for anyone with less knowledge.
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The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt is a frontier story that thoroughly deromanticizes the genre. It’s realistic, often to the point of being naturalistic, very down in the dirt. It can also feel vaguely satirical, partly because the characters are almost always well-spoken and seemingly never at a loss for some droll commentary. Another reason, I think, is that events are arranged to emphasize that however intricate and precise our plans might be, life will always be provisional at best, just a step or two ahead of outright chaos.
In 1851 two hired guns set out from the Oregon Territory for San Francisco. Their mission is to locate and kill an eccentric prospector who has displeased their employer in some way. Working from this straightforward plotline, Patrick DeWitt zooms in on everyday concerns that have no major relevance to the mission. It turns out that gunfighters can have a toothache. They sometimes need to shop for new clothing. And they can be distracted by any number of other things along the way; a new female acquaintance, a duel being fought in the town’s main street, the need to remove a horse’s infected eye due to a recent encounter with a bear. All this and much more, much of it before the brothers have even crossed over into California.
As for San Francisco, the city is depicted as a manic hive of activity, where even attempts at light heartedness have a near hysterical edge about them. Rather similar to Frank Norris’ portrayal of the city in McTeague ( a novel that has a way of turning up repeatedly in this forum thread.)
It’s not only events that come abruptly and unpredictably. People too can change dramatically, experiencing some insight or access of emotion previously unavailable to them. The owner of a ramshackle San Francisco restaurant is reduced to spending the greater part of his day wagering dollar after dollar against a woman’s remarkable sleight of hand, a variation on the old shell game. A chatty prospector repeatedly offers and consumes a beverage made from dirt that he apparently takes for coffee. Another one appears at various points in the story, weeping inconsolably like Job and aimlessly wandering. The battle against chaos is fought both without and within.
This kind of narrative seems likely to wear thin with readers who would like to know when the brothers will finally get down to the business at hand. The thing is, everything is at hand. What you get is a kind of tapestry, no particular segment being any more meaningful than another. Each segment has been carefully crafted, with a keen eye for detail and an abundance of humour. It’s the sort of book that you can open randomly to any chapter and find something self-contained and convincing.
The Sisters Brothers was made into a movie a few years back, but it seems to have come and gone with little or no fanfare. That may be a bad sign, but then maybe not. Modern culture flows past us in such a torrent that a lot of worthy items are bound to go virtually unnoticed, let alone commented on.
I
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A couple months ago, I found reprint copies of two more mysteries by Fredric Brown at my favorite used book store. Brown was a notable SF and fantasy author best known today as the story source for an excellent Star Trek episode, “Arena.” His best novel, the comedic Martians, Go Home (where invading Martians are simply annoying) was made into a disappointing movie (1989) starring Randy Quaid. Brown shifted to writing mysteries, starting in 1947, and eventually had 18 published. Now I am reading his first, The Fabulous Clipjoint, which won an Edgar Award as the best first mystery of the year. I’m only about a quarter in, but it already displays the qualities of his other two that I have read: realistic characters, good psychological insights, and settings based on trades that Brown knew from experience, in this case a carney concessionaire and a linotype operator.
Brown has a nice bit of satire when the protagonist scoffs at the outlandish, complicated murders in books, saying in effect that life is not like that. Indeed, the murder in this book is the most prosaic, a surprise mugging in an alley. It’s a very promising start.
Loose ends: I finished the book in my previous post and wanted to update the details. Emma Edmounds did not participate in the battle of Antietam, but was very active afterward. Just before Fredericksburg, she was made an aide-de-camp to her brigade commander (formerly her regimental commander), who thought highly of her. Years later, when her identity became known, he admitted he had never suspected she was a woman. During Fredericksburg, she was in the most danger as she delivered orders and reports back and forth, often under fire. In April 1863. she left the army as her masquerade became more precarious. She published a memoir, got married, had a child, and was briefly controversial as she sought a pension in the late 1800s (she eventually did get a small pension).
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Currently I am reading these books:
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Plato: Five Dialogues
Just started Euthyphro. And liking this. I have no prior experience in reading Greek work, or any philosophical work in general. But I am enjoying the back and forth conversation. I want to write an mini-essay on this, but I am not sure what goes in such an essay. Maybe I’ll just write whatever I am thinking about the book?! -
“The Little Schemer” by by Daniel P. Friedman and Matthias Felleisen
Its a book about recursion through the Scheme programming language. It has a unique question/answer style. Which forces the book to be very hands-on. You have to actively work through each question to make progress. Enjoying it thus far, I think I am done with 60% of it.
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Dick Harrison ~ De Hanze
Opkomst en ondergang van de Hanze
Grote Nederlandse steden als Kampen, Deventer en Zutphen bloeiden op dankzij hun deelname aan de Hanze. Dit machtige middeleeuwse verbond tussen Europese handelssteden liep van de Baltische staten tot aan Nederland en België. Dankzij de Hanze floreerde niet alleen de economie, maar ook de wetenschap en de kunsten.
De Hanze wordt voor het eerst genoemd in een Zweedse oorkonde uit 1343. Oorspronkelijk werd het verbond opgericht om handelaren onderweg militair te ondersteunen, maar gaandeweg ontwikkelde het zich tot een strak georganiseerd samenwerkingsverband dat lobbyde voor vrije handel door heel Europa.
Dick Harrison belicht de opkomst en de ondergang van dit wijdvertakte handelsverbond, dat eind zeventiende eeuw zou afbrokkelen door de concurrentie van nieuwe economische grootmachten zoals Amsterdam en de vele oorlogen op Europees grondgebied.
Dick Harrison is hoogleraar geschiedenis aan de Universiteit van Lund in Zweden en sprak eerder op het Geschiedenis Festival over de Dertigjarige Oorlog. Dit jaar geeft de populaire Zweedse historicus een lezing over de Hanze als de middeleeuwse voorloper van de Europese Unie.
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That sounds like the best idea instead of following a pre-set format of what should go in there. 
On topic, I’ve rotated to re-reading three of my favorite Terry Pratchett books:
“Going Postal” (which is about swindling people and its consequenses)
“Making money” (which is about, well, making money )
and “The Truth” (which is about journalism)
Top notch satire.
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I like The Truth, but I have reservations about the Moist van Lipwig books, though almost anything by Pratchett can hardly fail to provide entertainment with thought-provoking moments (at least, once you get beyond the first 2 Discworld books). My favourites are probably Thief of Time and Hogfather, though many others come close.
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It is all a matter of taste, of course, but this is exact combination of “entertainment and thought-provoking moments” is very present in those books. Pratchett has the uncanny talent of presenting his (usually rather cynical) point about human nature in a fun way that doesn’t feel heavy handed.
In “The Truth” I just read the part yesterday where Lord De Worde mentions that “what is in the public interest is rarely what the public is interested in”, which is a great point - and very true - but it was presented in the perfect way in the book so that it was delivered in a comedic way and people can digest it, without feeling burdened by it.
Similarly Pratchett uses Von Lipwig, Vetinari and Richer Gilt, to provide a lot of similar insights about hope, honesty, money, belief and gullibility. “They say that it is very hard to trick an honest person. How nice that there are so few of them.” and later the book adds that sayings like that are usually spread by people that make a living out of scamming honest people.
Similarly I think that, for the same reasons, any books containing the “Watch” and books that are more or less standalone like “Pyramids” and “Small Gods” ( both a great spoof on religion and belief indeed), the “Thief of Time”, “Mort” and “Reaper Man” (where Death goes on vacation) and “Monstrous Regiment” (mostly a parody about war and the violence/greed of human nature), are top-notch.
On the other hand:
Everything involving Rincewind and the Witches, usually leans heavily on the “plot armor” and tends to be a bit too weird.
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Sorry to hear you feel that way about the witches, but agree about Rincewind (though Eric and the Australian one have their moments). I am rather fond of Equal Rites and many others with the witches. But I admit I am not sure what you mean about plot armour: after all, Vimes also seems pretty heavily protected, especially in Thud! I also do not mind a fair amount of weirdness.
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Oh, I like the books and I’ve willingly bought them and read them, I just do not think that they are on par with the ones I mentioned. Just a step below the rankings.
The only books that I do not like are the two last ones (especially the last one), where it is obvious to me that they are based on notes by Terry Pratchett and now fully written by him, due to the progression of his illeness. 
I saw then why he chose to have his disks, flattened… literally:
Every Terry Pratchett major character has plot armor, you know from the beginning that there will be a happy end (it is not a Joe Ambercrombie or Steven Erikson book 
) but since the Witches and Rincewind are using magic, sometimes it feels like the plot armor in this case is “aaaand then some magic finally worked” kind of thing.
Thud! is a similar case, as well, but most of the book is building that part up to happen, so it feels a bit more expected. Thief of time is also like that. You can see the plot armor coming and it makes sense, even though it is “magical”.
I realized that it has been a long time since I read any G. K. Chesterton, one of my favorite authors for the past 50 years. Like many people, I came to him through his famous, philosophical, spy fantasy, The Man Who Was Thursday (1908). When his work went into public domain in 1986, Ignatius Press undertook publication of a complete hardcover edition of his works. It was a beautiful production with cloth-bound covers and actual stitched signatures (so rare today). They were not cheap, but I bought almost everything I didn’t already own (I was a bachelor at the time, so I had some spending money, ha, ha). This enabled me to read all of his novels and short stories, and most of his essays. Nevertheless, he was incredibly prolific, and I still need to read a number of essay collections and nonfiction works.
I recently bought an omnibus reprint edition of three of his essay collections. One I already have, but I’ve never read the other two. So, I am now reading All Things Considered (1908). Although it has his characteristic iconoclasm (i.e., smashing new icons in favor of tradition) and his clever use of paradoxical argumentation, it is not as sharp as other works from his early period, such as Orthodoxy and Heretics. The essays tend to sprawl, digressing substantially and then coming back to the issue, which is a little tedious to our modern outlook. Looking inward, I think I am tainted by that outlook, due to the internet. I once delighted in this sort of deep, digressive style, but I get a bit antsy about it now. However, I am still enjoying it and gaining original insights (such as the true nature of martyrdom in the context of civil disobedience, something highly relevant to our contemporary life).
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John Scalzi: Old Man’s War (2005)
At seventy-five years old, John Perry is after a fresh start - so, naturally, he joins the army. Earth’s military machine can transform elderly recruits, restoring their lost youth. But in return, its Colonial Defence Force demands two years of hazardous service in space. This is how Perry finds himself in a new body, crafted from his original DNA. A genetically enhanced and upgraded new body, ready for battle.
They even get an AI built into their heads … with this background, I found it interesting to find a recent blog post by Scalzi about AI.
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That’s a really interesting and unique concept. However, I’m wondering: would you do it?
You’re asking me, Re: new body and built-in AI?
The answer is more complex than it may seem, but actually, and to make it short:
As much as it would actually also be tempting for me as an (often enthusiastic) computer user since 1981, but … nope. I’d have to sell my soul to some company, and I’d have to trust anyone to put some hard- and software INSIDE OF ME, GOODNESS, NOOOOOO … we’re not there yet that I’d rely on anyone.
And, as I’m just catching up info-wise about OpenClaw … no no no no no … WAY too dangerous, at least currently. Nope nope NOPE.
A new, younger, self regenerating body (incl. photosynthesis!) would be really nice though 
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