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I could not put this down, I absolutely loved it. It does not celebrate the bomb itself but it does celebrate the process. And the process was fascinating.

Rhodes does a wonderful job of explaining the science that made the bomb possible, the step by step exploration of the atom from the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th. It would be worth it just for that.

The leadership examples and the risk taking of so many people involved would also make the book worthwhile.

But the story is also fantastic. The ways genius manifested and the ways so many of the smartest people of their generation worked together on an enormous project. The fears of those people and the ways they kept such a big secret. The fact that they had one test of one of the two bomb designs before Hiroshima and that the Hiroshima bomb was already on its way across the Pacific before the test was completed. And that the Nagasaki bomb was a very different design, untested.

All fascinating. Some very funny parts. Lots of deep thinking about science and morality.

I highlighted 119 sections if you want to skim. You should put this next on your list, though. One of my all time favorites.

– originally written 2021-06-30

I highly recommend this book to everyone who cares about how governments spend and collect money, which should be everyone. The explanations are clear, important, and interesting.

Right from the beginning the story about about where the first US dollar (or any fiat currency) comes from had me hooked on the book. I listened to the audiobook of this one so I don't have kindle highlights. But the gist of this one is: the government could not possibly have taxed people without first spending some dollars in the economy.

The main takeaways for me were

• We don't have to fear deficits, which are just surpluses for private industry.
• Taxes are unnecessary for government spending but serve only to create incentives and disincentives and to redistribute wealth and resources.
• Balancing the budget would limit the supply of Treasuries and, taking the argument to the extreme, eliminating the market in Treasuries is absurd. Everyone should agree that the market in Treasuries stabilizes the dollar and empowers the US.

I want Stephanie Kelton to be in charge of the OMB.

– originally written 2021-02-02

Essential reading for anyone thinking about starting a business. The idea is simple, but important: It's too easy for someone to tell you that they like your idea and would buy. So don't talk about your idea, at least not at first.

Start by finding out what their problems are and what they're doing to solve them. Are they paying for something? Have they tried to find a solution? If not, it's not that painful.

The book shows you how to have these conversations in a way where even your mom would tell you the truth.

In theory, this is perfect and while having an actual conversation with this idea in mind, I can do it. My only issue is trying to get introductions to potential customers. How do you ask someone to take time to talk to you without leading them at all? I think the answer is to only say that you want to talk about a problem and hope they agree it's a problem. Don't mention your solution. If they don't agree it's a problem, you've lost the opportunity to learn from them.

If you have a good answer to this, please let me know.

– originally written 2021-06-30

I've seen the movie a few times and had a general sense that I wanted to read this book as it was recommended in a few places. Then Chuck Yeager died and William Zinsser recommended Wolfe and The Right Stuff specifically in On Writing Well and I moved it up my list.

It's a great story about what it means to be a hero and to represent a country, covering the beginning of the space age in the face of the Cold War. It filled in a lot of gaps and history with some of the same people from Rocket Men, which is about Apollo 8.

There are lots of moments that prove Zinsser's point that Wolfe is a master of nonfiction storytelling. One thing that really stood out to me – especially after thinking that Trump ruined it – was his use of the exclamation point. The key is that he uses it throughout entire paragraphs to control the pace and get you really into someone's head. It's masterful.

On the one hand, they hated the process. It meant talking to reporters and other fruit flies who always hovered, eager for the juice … and invariably got the facts screwed up … But that wasn’t really the problem, was it! The real problem was that reporters violated the invisible walls of the fraternity. They blurted out questions and spoke boorish words about … all the unspoken things!—about fear and bravery (they would say the words!) and how you felt at such-and-such a moment! It was obscene!

I recommend both the book and the movie.

– originally written 2021-02-14

A few months after finishing The Bureau (definitely one of my favorite TV series ever), I was craving more spy stories. I kept seeing this book recommended. I don't think I even knew if it was fiction or non-fiction before starting it (it's a true story).

For the first half of the book, I thought it was going to be filled with interesting facts but lacking the intensity and drama that I wanted from it. Then I realized that nearly all of the drama was going to be saved for one story, the escape. It turned out to be worth the wait.

There are lots of important, interesting, and fun facts in this book. There are lessons about leadership and planning and trust.

Here are some of my favorite parts:

On some gadgets:

During the war, the Hanslope boffins produced an astonishing array of technical gadgets for spies, including secure radios, secret ink, and even garlic-flavored chocolate—issued to spies parachuting into occupied France to ensure their breath smelled convincingly French on landing. Had Q, the technical wizard in the James Bond series, actually existed, he would have worked at Hanslope Park.

MI6 was still using the old-fashioned Minox camera. The CIA, however, was known to have recruited a Swiss watchmaker to develop an ingenious miniature camera hidden inside an ordinary Bic cigarette lighter, which could take perfect photographs when used in conjunction with a length of thread, 11¼ inches long, and a pin. Using a piece of chewing gum, the thread was stuck to the bottom of the lighter; when the pin at the end lay flat on a document, that measured the ideal focal length, and the button on top of the lighter could be pressed to click the shutter.

On Russian paranoia and secrecy:

Officers were expected to get married, have children, and stay married. There was calculation as well as control in this: a married KGB officer was considered less likely to defect while abroad, since his wife and family could be held as hostages.

[In the embassy in London, ] even manual typewriters were discouraged in case the keystrokes gave something away; there were notices on every wall warning: DON’T SAY NAMES OR DATES OUT LOUD; the windows were all bricked up, except in Guk’s office, where miniature radio speakers pumped canned Russian music into the space between the panes of the double glazing, emitting a peculiar muffled warble that added to the surreal atmosphere.

On (bad) leadership:

In launching Operation RYAN [a search for proof that the US was planning a first strike], Andropov broke the first rule of intelligence: never ask for confirmation of something you already believe. Hitler had been certain that the D-day invasion force would land at Calais, so that is what his spies (with help from Allied double agents) told him, ensuring the success of the Normandy landings. Tony Blair and George W. Bush were convinced that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that is what their intelligence services duly concluded.

The Kremlin, however, assuming that capitalism penetrated every aspect of Western life, believed that a “blood bank” was, in fact, a bank, where blood could be bought and sold. No one in the KGB outstations dared to draw attention to this elemental misunderstanding. In a craven and hierarchical organization, the only thing more dangerous than revealing your own ignorance is to draw attention to the stupidity of the boss.

I came away with a deep appreciation for the work that the spy, Oleg Gordievsky, did and the impact it had on the West's relationship with the USSR. He helped avoid nuclear war and directly recommended the strategy which led to the USSR overextending itself financially, which I had understood (and still believe) is the primary reason for its collapse.

And the story about "the Traitor" is unbelievable.

– originally written 2021-03-29

Excellent. Like the other McCullough books I've read, it takes some time to get rolling. But once it got going, I couldn't put it down (err, couldn't stop listening).

Truman didn't go to college and seemed to fall into his political career. He was one of the last major players in the US who was backed by a "machine," like in the Tammany Hall, graft, and corruption sense. Because he didn't go to college, was raised in a small town, and knew economic hardship, he had an easy way of relating to people.

And everyone liked him. It seems like no one who ever worked with him ever said a bad thing about him.

The Truman presidency happened as a last resort: he was picked at the last minute to be FDR's VP in 1944 essentially because he would offend the fewest people. Jimmy Burns, known as "Assistant President" and handling all domestic policy during WWII after leaving the Supreme Court, had been too outspoken as a racist.

Truman then had a huge impact on history. He decided to go ahead with using the nuclear bombs (he actually only gave approval for the first and left the second up to the military), confronting the emerging threat of the USSR, communism and McCarthyism, then Korea and more.

By far the biggest disappointment on his record is the way he handled labor and strikes. He threatened to draft strikers and generally sided with management.

On the other hand, he alone, even in the Democratic Party, pushed for universal healthcare, and almost alone pushed for civil rights.

There was some interesting overlap in the story with The Making of the Atomic Bomb. More and more, I'm loving the small overlaps across fiction and non-fiction. Truman impacted so much that this gives a lot of cross section for those connections.

– originally written 2021-06-30

I saw this book recommended on Twitter and I honestly did not know what I was getting myself into. The subtitle – "on mushrooms and mourning" – is a great description. The mourning part that is hard to read if you're not in the mood for it is just at the beginning. The way out (or through) is most of the book. Litt Woon finds her new life in mushroom foraging at home in Oslo and around the world.

The book is filled with interesting facts about wild mushrooms, the culture of foraging, and her experiences going from beginner to certified expert. On a deeper level, it's about how foraging helped her create a new life for herself. That she could begin alone, when she was in no mood for company, and transition into new friendships and community built around her new interest made foraging a great fit.

I have been interested in mushrooms since my friend Jon encouraged me to watch a TED Talk by Paul Stamets (mentioned in passing in the book) in October 2013. I learned a lot about mushroom cultivation over the couple years following that as we explored starting a farm in upstate New York, including a visit to Cascadia Farm in Bellingham and two Stamets seminars.

Foraging is completely different, though. I have only gone foraging a handful of times and reading this made me want to go more often. The way I think about foraging didn't change much: I think it's great to go for a walk in the woods and if you find dinner, it's a bonus. If you can only have a good time if you find a basketful, I think you'll be disappointed unnecessarily.

My favorite passage on mourning is this one:

“If there’s anything I can do for you, just call,” people said after Eiolf died. The problem was that I didn’t know what I needed. Obviously there is no standard formula for how to be a good support to someone in mourning, but for me the map of my friends and acquaintances was redrawn after Eiolf’s death. People I had thought would be right there by my side, solid as rocks, never showed their faces, while others who had previously been more peripheral friends provided tireless and thoughtful help. They didn’t give up but followed me at the pace of my grief.

On foraging culture:

I once asked someone I thought was a friend where he had found his mushrooms. Obviously I wasn’t expecting to be given the exact location. It is generally assumed that everyone keeps their favorite sites to themselves. No one expects to be given GPS coordinates. But I did have some small hope of being provided with a little information as to the general location. Instead all I received was the useless and utterly worthless reply of “Oslo.” That earned him a big black mark in my book.

The book has lots of facts like this easy-to-overlook one:

Urban mushrooms are also a good plan B during a long dry spell, when the woods have little to offer but park lawns and grassy areas in graveyards—which are usually watered regularly by strategically placed sprinklers—more or less guarantee that there will always be some good pickings to be had.

I enjoyed it overall and recommend it if you're interested in mushrooms.

– originally written 2021-04-03

Larry McMurtry died today and in tribute I'm recommending this book, my favorite novel. There are so many deep, interesting, lovable characters in this book. I was intensely sad that I could not spend more time with the characters as I approached the end, a feeling I had only experienced with The Goldfinch.

It's a love story and a western (or anti-western). It's about friendships, fatherhood, adventure. It's about life and forgiving yourself. It does not have enough women.

One unusual thing that's stuck with me is the extent that the American West itself is a character. The rivers are almost characters. The idea of judging distance not by miles or hours but by days or weeks to the next river or the next source of water. The idea of understanding geography as anchored by the Rio Grande, the Red, the Arkansas, the Missouri.

It's the kind of writing that fires your whole brain, sharing the sensations of the characters. The sights and smells and pains and fears.

I don't think it's a book for people who love any particular genre. It's for everyone. I think you'll like it, too.

– originally written 2021-03-26