Genre: Non fiction
The Great Railroad Revolution: The History of Trains in America, takes us throught the initial birth of rail travel in the U.S, to the present times.
A large portion of the book focuses on the 18th and 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. The current state of railroads gets a perfunctory treatment.
The subject matter the book tackles, is quite interesting. The history of railroad is full of colorful characters and interesting events. The book however never hit its stride and the pace of the book is plodding. The end result is a book that will only appeal to folks who already have a interest in the railroads.
Rating: 3 / 5, recommended if you have a interest in railroads.
Showing posts with label Non fiction books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Non fiction books. Show all posts
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Book review: Four fish: The future of the last wild food by Paul Greenberg
Genre: Non fiction
Related: Hooked, pirates poaching the perfect fish by G. Bruce Knecht
Four fish, looks at Salmon, Tuna, Bass and Cod, as the most common wild fish, that can grace supermarket shelves. That we have over exploited many fish species to a point of collapse, is well known. These four fishes have not fared any better. Paul Greenberg has done a good job however, of not focusing only at this negative, but tries to chart a workable way forward with regards to our consumption of fish.
For each of the fish Greenberg looks at - how they were fished throughout human history, how we over fished them, what efforts have been made to keep the wild catches sustainable, what efforts are being made to farm these fishes, whether this farming is sustainable or better then catching them in the wild. For each of these fishes he also looks at other fishes, with similar flavor and texture profile that may be used to replaces these.
One of the strong points he make is that none of these fishes are suited for being cattle. It would be better to select species of fish more suited to that role, before we attempt to domesticate and farm them.
All in all the book flows well, and is a brisk read.
Rating: 5 / 5; Great. Get it.
For each of the fish Greenberg looks at - how they were fished throughout human history, how we over fished them, what efforts have been made to keep the wild catches sustainable, what efforts are being made to farm these fishes, whether this farming is sustainable or better then catching them in the wild. For each of these fishes he also looks at other fishes, with similar flavor and texture profile that may be used to replaces these.
One of the strong points he make is that none of these fishes are suited for being cattle. It would be better to select species of fish more suited to that role, before we attempt to domesticate and farm them.
All in all the book flows well, and is a brisk read.
Rating: 5 / 5; Great. Get it.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Atlantic by Simon Winchester
Genre: Non fiction.
Atlantic ( with a long subtitle - Great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories) is a biography of this vast ocean.
Writing a biography of the Atlantic ocean is a ambitious undertaking. How do you weave a common thread through extremely diverse fields, that may have a passing link to the Atlantic ocean ? This book does not manage to find that common thread.
What we get instead is chapters, and sub-chapters that tackle diverse topics like the geological history of the ocean, ancient and modern battles on this ocean, cities along the coast, how the west explored this ocean and found the American continents, fishing, pollution, ocean conservation etc.
The writing in the book is good, and the authors personal experiences with the ocean give it some character. Sadly, none of this is able to overcome the lack of coherence in this book.
Rating: 2 / 5, Meh, skip it.
Atlantic ( with a long subtitle - Great sea battles, heroic discoveries, titanic storms, and a vast ocean of a million stories) is a biography of this vast ocean.
Writing a biography of the Atlantic ocean is a ambitious undertaking. How do you weave a common thread through extremely diverse fields, that may have a passing link to the Atlantic ocean ? This book does not manage to find that common thread.
What we get instead is chapters, and sub-chapters that tackle diverse topics like the geological history of the ocean, ancient and modern battles on this ocean, cities along the coast, how the west explored this ocean and found the American continents, fishing, pollution, ocean conservation etc.
The writing in the book is good, and the authors personal experiences with the ocean give it some character. Sadly, none of this is able to overcome the lack of coherence in this book.
Rating: 2 / 5, Meh, skip it.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Book review: Remarkable Trees of the World by Thomas Pakenham
Genre: Non-fiction
Thomas Pakenham went around the world looking for remarkable trees and when he found them he took photographs of them. If you like trees ( like I do ) then the premise of the book is extremely interesting. Thomas does not try to find record holders (like largest tress or tallest tree), though he may have visited some of them. Rather he is looking for interesting trees, trees with character. Each chapter of the book focuses on one aspect, like gaints, dwarfs, Methuselah (old trees) and so on, with Thomas finding interesting examples of these.
Thomas textual description of the trees and the environment he encounters them is good, poetic sometimes even. The photographs in the book are lovely. I really wish that there were many more photographs in the book though. This kind of a book demands a large number of high resolution photographs. Perhaps If this book was written more recently and Thomas used a modern high resolution digital cameras we would get many more gorgeous photos. Thomas likely lugged around a old school film camera and so had to be careful with what he shot.
So any cons of this book are really a function of when it was written and nothing more.
Rating: 3 / 5, Good, wish it had many more photos though.
Thomas Pakenham went around the world looking for remarkable trees and when he found them he took photographs of them. If you like trees ( like I do ) then the premise of the book is extremely interesting. Thomas does not try to find record holders (like largest tress or tallest tree), though he may have visited some of them. Rather he is looking for interesting trees, trees with character. Each chapter of the book focuses on one aspect, like gaints, dwarfs, Methuselah (old trees) and so on, with Thomas finding interesting examples of these.
Thomas textual description of the trees and the environment he encounters them is good, poetic sometimes even. The photographs in the book are lovely. I really wish that there were many more photographs in the book though. This kind of a book demands a large number of high resolution photographs. Perhaps If this book was written more recently and Thomas used a modern high resolution digital cameras we would get many more gorgeous photos. Thomas likely lugged around a old school film camera and so had to be careful with what he shot.
So any cons of this book are really a function of when it was written and nothing more.
Rating: 3 / 5, Good, wish it had many more photos though.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Book review: The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
Genre: Non-fiction - Biographical, Adventure oriented.
This book came about from the authors obsession with a early 1900's British explorer - Percy Fawcett whom he stumbled upon while researching another story. Fawcett along with his son and his son's best friend disappeared into the Amazon while they were searching for a (perhaps mythical) City, Fawcett rather dramatically called Z.
To discover Fawcett's fate, Grann would himself have to sniff out the trail to Z. Grann estimates that around 100 people have already lost their lives searching for Fawcett and Z. Knowing this and despite being a self confessed city boy Grann decides to get on with the search.
The book in spite of the title is not purely focussed on the search for Fawcett and Z. The book also takes a biographical look at Fawcett's life. There are 2 main narrative threads here - first one is Fawcetts life and his exploration leading to his final expedition and the second one is Grann's pursuit of this story.
Besides the main narrative threads there are plenty of little stories, anecdotes and titbits that keep thing interesting and the book moving along at a nice pace.
I liked the writing style and pacing of the book, which combined with the shortish chapters and change in topics made this book a real page turner.
Rating: 5 / 5; Highly recommended.
This book came about from the authors obsession with a early 1900's British explorer - Percy Fawcett whom he stumbled upon while researching another story. Fawcett along with his son and his son's best friend disappeared into the Amazon while they were searching for a (perhaps mythical) City, Fawcett rather dramatically called Z.
To discover Fawcett's fate, Grann would himself have to sniff out the trail to Z. Grann estimates that around 100 people have already lost their lives searching for Fawcett and Z. Knowing this and despite being a self confessed city boy Grann decides to get on with the search.
The book in spite of the title is not purely focussed on the search for Fawcett and Z. The book also takes a biographical look at Fawcett's life. There are 2 main narrative threads here - first one is Fawcetts life and his exploration leading to his final expedition and the second one is Grann's pursuit of this story.
Besides the main narrative threads there are plenty of little stories, anecdotes and titbits that keep thing interesting and the book moving along at a nice pace.
I liked the writing style and pacing of the book, which combined with the shortish chapters and change in topics made this book a real page turner.
Rating: 5 / 5; Highly recommended.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Book review: Untapped - The scramble for Africa's oil by John Ghazvinian
Genre: Non-fiction, Oil and its impact on African nations.
The book does not deal with the whole of Africa, rather it explores the area south of the Sahara desert. Ghazvinian spent some time between 2003 to 2004 travelling around a bunch of these countries,, talking to the locals, Oil company representatives and employees, government officials and any other parties he could get a hold off.
The book points out that Africa has been gaining interest from the rest of the world due to the substantial reserves that have been discovered there along with the current high price of Oil. The chief theme in this book is how discovery of natural resources in a developing country, rather then causing a increase in the standard of living actually ends up reducing this. There is a term for this called 'Dutch disease'.
So the book does not sermonise on big bad Oil companies, rather he visits a country explores the current state of the country and looks like how Oil has changed the current dynamics of the country viz-a-viz development, politics, social order and foreign relations. The locals he meet do complain about the Oil companies but the author does try to get and present the other side of the story.
All this makes for great reading. Ghazvinian is a fine writer and he captures the unique vibe of each country well, the book holds ones attention and I found myself reading it for long spells. The only section not well written is the start where he make all these pop culture references to 'Fargo' - the movie and place. But that is just a bumpy start and it takes of well from there.
Rating: 5 / 5, Highly recommended.
The book does not deal with the whole of Africa, rather it explores the area south of the Sahara desert. Ghazvinian spent some time between 2003 to 2004 travelling around a bunch of these countries,, talking to the locals, Oil company representatives and employees, government officials and any other parties he could get a hold off.
The book points out that Africa has been gaining interest from the rest of the world due to the substantial reserves that have been discovered there along with the current high price of Oil. The chief theme in this book is how discovery of natural resources in a developing country, rather then causing a increase in the standard of living actually ends up reducing this. There is a term for this called 'Dutch disease'.
So the book does not sermonise on big bad Oil companies, rather he visits a country explores the current state of the country and looks like how Oil has changed the current dynamics of the country viz-a-viz development, politics, social order and foreign relations. The locals he meet do complain about the Oil companies but the author does try to get and present the other side of the story.
All this makes for great reading. Ghazvinian is a fine writer and he captures the unique vibe of each country well, the book holds ones attention and I found myself reading it for long spells. The only section not well written is the start where he make all these pop culture references to 'Fargo' - the movie and place. But that is just a bumpy start and it takes of well from there.
Rating: 5 / 5, Highly recommended.
Book review: The match king - Ivan Kreuger, The financial genius behind a century of wall street scandals by Frank Partnoy
Genre: Biography, written from second hand sources.
The rather lengthy subtitle to this book comes from the financial instruments that Ivan Kreuger created, all those fancy derivatives that have come into focus because of the current sub prime mortgage meltdown. Since the book chronicles events in the 1920's and 1930's , Kreuger can also be considered as the granddad of this generations Enron, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford etc.
While derivatives have got a bad rap recently, they are legitimate and important financial instruments and Kreuger by (allegedly) creating these instruments has shown that he was extremely astute if not a genius.
Partnoy potrays a case that there is no hard evidence Kreuger set out to defraud investors or banks. Partnoy builds up Kreuger as a figure who did not knowingly do anything wrong but rather ended up getting tangled in all the complex webs that he build. Far more shocking that what Kreuger did was that he could get away with it all for so long. From shockingly lax accounting for a company borrowing money from the average Joe, to shell companies over shell companies, to colossal fund transfers. Kreuger was rarely challenged over any of this.
All this makes for fascinating reading. Partnoy described having gone through a tonne of material for this book and there is certainly plenty of details in the book. Some of these details combined with Partnoy overly florid writting style combine to reduce the allure of this book. I would have preferred Partnoy to have focussed more on the facts he could glean then on interactions between various people. It is hard to believe that Partnoy found any truthful material that made him privy to the behaviours and dialogues he attributes to the characters in the book.
The subject matter of the book is great, the writing is average and often times overly dramatic. Still it makes for a fun read and is recommended.
Rating: 3 / 5, Above average, Recommended if the subject matter interests you.
The rather lengthy subtitle to this book comes from the financial instruments that Ivan Kreuger created, all those fancy derivatives that have come into focus because of the current sub prime mortgage meltdown. Since the book chronicles events in the 1920's and 1930's , Kreuger can also be considered as the granddad of this generations Enron, Bernie Madoff, Allen Stanford etc.
While derivatives have got a bad rap recently, they are legitimate and important financial instruments and Kreuger by (allegedly) creating these instruments has shown that he was extremely astute if not a genius.
Partnoy potrays a case that there is no hard evidence Kreuger set out to defraud investors or banks. Partnoy builds up Kreuger as a figure who did not knowingly do anything wrong but rather ended up getting tangled in all the complex webs that he build. Far more shocking that what Kreuger did was that he could get away with it all for so long. From shockingly lax accounting for a company borrowing money from the average Joe, to shell companies over shell companies, to colossal fund transfers. Kreuger was rarely challenged over any of this.
All this makes for fascinating reading. Partnoy described having gone through a tonne of material for this book and there is certainly plenty of details in the book. Some of these details combined with Partnoy overly florid writting style combine to reduce the allure of this book. I would have preferred Partnoy to have focussed more on the facts he could glean then on interactions between various people. It is hard to believe that Partnoy found any truthful material that made him privy to the behaviours and dialogues he attributes to the characters in the book.
The subject matter of the book is great, the writing is average and often times overly dramatic. Still it makes for a fun read and is recommended.
Rating: 3 / 5, Above average, Recommended if the subject matter interests you.
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