Don's Book Corner

[glenn kangiser]

I think you may have read some history before the current versions were re-written.

[ScottA]

Reminds me of the time I told my 12 year old daughter that Columbus did not discover America. She promptly told her teacher that she was wrong and the book was full of lies (repeating what I told her). I wasn't to popular at the next teachers meeting.

[glenn kangiser]

Unpopular but right.  That's gotta be worth something.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Reminds me of the time I told my 12 year old daughter that Columbus did not discover America. She promptly told her teacher that she was wrong and the book was full of lies (repeating what I told her). I wasn't to popular at the next teachers meeting.

[ScottA]

You think that's funny you should have been there when I asked them if they still taught reading in school because it seemed like the only one teaching the kids was me.

[MountainDon]

There's a lot of interesting reading about the early reailroads and about WW2; both European and Pacific.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Just finished my cow book... DD walked in the other day when I was reading and nursing the baby.  She looked at the book and read the title and then asked excitedly, "Mom, why are you reading farming books?  Did our house in Wisconsin sell???!!!"  It was a fun and informative read... had cheese-making recipes and the like, which was pretty interesting.

Started reading Light Force by Brother Andrew last night.  Looks like it will also be a good read.  So far we have folks meeting with reps of Islamic Jihad and Hamas.  Sounds like it could be enlightening.

[Sassy]

I read Light Force when it 1st came out - excellent book - really gives you a whole new outlook on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.  I'll have to read it again - so many books I've read in the past, I find that I'm reading them again now.  Did you ever read God's Smuggler by Bro Andrew?  I read that years ago, need to read it again, too.  Right now I'm reading a book by Robt Ludlum Apocalypse Watch, pretty good - never read any books by him before.  Just finished another book by John Grisham - can't recall the name  (read it last week) about a young journalist who became the owner of a small town newspaper in Mississippi - very good. 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Sassy, I read God's Smuggler a long time ago.  And I bought this book at least a couple of years ago...it's been sitting on the shelf this long, which is really pitiful.  I think I bought it on my first trip back to Oklahoma after we moved to Wisconsin... I thought I'd get right to it, but somehow that didn't happen, so I've hauled it over half the country and back and am finally starting to read it.  When we moved to Wisconsin, it seemed like every spare moment was spent working on that house, so I mainly read whatever stories the kids wanted to read as bedtime story books.  Thankfully Sylvia isn't as picky about what I read to her/with her.  And, since she's been on a week long feeding frenzy where she is up at night again, I've been getting a lot of reading done.

[sparks]

I finally got a copy of "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple. It's a study of the underclass as viewed by a British physician........fascinating!  Happy Birthday to me!!

Also doing a re-read on "The Demon in the Freezer".......that book will make your skin crawl.

[MountainDon]

Here's an older book, but still with relevant information...

Lethal Laws by Jay Simkin, Aaron S. Zelman and Alan M. Rice

Lethal Laws shows that Communist Russia and Nazi Germany, had previous "gun control" laws, allowing them to disarm the population and murder them later.

Disarming citizens before killing or oppressing them is a time-honored American tradition. After the Civil War, the first act of the Ku Klux Klan (like the Khmer Rouge) was to round up all the guns in the hands of ex-slaves. Only then did other oppressions begin.

Hitler looked with admiration at how the United States government had cleared the continent of Indians, and he used the U.S. government's 19th-century policies as a model for his own 20th-century policies of clearing Lebensraum for the German people.

[Sonoran]

I just read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I would suggest this as a good read.  It was written in 1932. The novel takes place in London around...2500.  It is about a dystopia society...well, depending on your point of view...concerning the role technology will play in "the future".  There are so many things in this novel that are an amazingly accurate depiction of our world today and it really will make you wonder about your spot in this world and what it means.

[harry51]

I recently read Molon Labe' by Boston T. Party. Really enjoyed this tale of outsmarting the establishment powers-that-be and making a place for liberty to thrive.

[MountainDon]

I'm about 60 pages into A Short History of the United States by Robert V. Remini. I really like it. It's a recent book. It begins with the land bridge over the Bering Sea and goes right on up to 2008 and Iran and it's nuclear ambitions. I'm up to 1796 when John Adams was elected President.

There's not a lot of small detail of course, but I love the book. It hits all the important things that occurred while the country was being founded, the arguments and disagreements that had to be resolved. I find it fascinating.

[MountainDon]

Recently completed and enjoyed:

The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia by Tim Tzouliades.

In the depression of 1930's America, thousands of Americans were so desperate for work, so disappointed in what was happening or not happening in the USA they emigrated to Russia. The Russian government advertised for workers to work in Stalin's first five year plan to prosperity.

Most of these down on their luck Americans had their passports confiscated and were refused exit from Russia. Most perished in the Time of Terror, some shot outright for supposed crimes against Russia, others sent to the mines where they were worked to death.


If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy -From the Revolution to the War of 1812 by George Daughan.

This covers the Navy's first forty years with authority, clarity, and detail. If By Sea reveals the tangled and contested origins of American naval power. It took forty years for a national consensus emerge that preparing for war was the best way of avoiding one—a lesson that remains worth remembering.


And I'm working on Ted Nugent's latest, Ted, White and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto.

This is a most politically incorrect book. It came out part way through the political season of 2008. Nugent puts together an "If I were president" list that includes eliminating welfare except for military personnel, making prisoners plant trees, forcing people in New Orleans live on higher ground and executing child molesters. He may be off the wall and arrogant at times, but Ted obviously believes in freedom, the Constitution, and old fashioned morals. His manifesto is replete with "full bluntal nugity".

[MaineRhino]

I have recently read "The Gatekeepers" by Graham (fiction), Zappa (biography), and am currently re-reading "Patriots" by Rawles. All highly recommended!

[MountainDon]

From Ted, White and Blue...



Maybe I'm nuts but it brings a smile to my face.   

[harry51]

You're not nuts, Don, or else I am too. Ted's one of a kind, but he's a refreshing counterpoint to some of  the other celebrities like George Clooney and Rosie O'duncel. Arrogant and off the wall or not, he's ok in my book!

[glenn kangiser]

I look at the family above and see nothing to fear unless I was a criminal or politician.  Oh - but then I repeat myself.



"Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself."

Mark Twain

[Redoverfarm]

I very seldom read.  Mostly the directions after it doesn't go together correctly but yesterday was an exception.  The book was "Man of the Mountain".  It was a story of Eldridge McComb a local farmer and mountain man.  Mr. McComb died last year but his life was told by his family and friends.

He lived in a remote part of the county on his farm which did not have an electricity.  He raised 4 children.  His life was simple and most thought he was behind the times.  But in reality he was ahead of his time.  He raised all his food organicly, fruit trees and vegtables were from seeds he saved from his childhood of all varieties.  He had even developed a "bread & butter" sweet corn which he had cross polinated himself.  No hybrid varieties for him.  He said that nothing went on his garden that didn't come out of the barn. 

His children recall that their entertainment was to listen to his childhood stories and the wealth of knowledge they contained. 

He raised all his own meet and what nature would hand him.  He was proud that he had even trained his hogs not to rush the feed trough but to wait until he was done slopping and he said it was ok. 

In his childhood he lived near the Watoga State Park which is the largest in WV and was built by the CCC. He picked up on traded to building and built his own house by watching and helping them construct the many log cabins in the park.  The land surrounding his house was owned by a timber company of some 21,000 acres and there were 10 lumber camps. 

Later in life he worked for the soil conservation finding property springs and advising on good farming practices.  His weather was how he seen it with the signs.  He would say that they would never put a roof on in the full moon sign as the wood would heave.  In the dark of the moon the wood would always stay flat.  He used alot of split rail fence on the farm and that was the opposite. Fence built in the dark of the moon would settle to the ground and rot.  Fence built in the full moon would never settle and not rot.  He might have something because he has fence still standing solid that was built in 1915 of split rail stacked.

While working in the woods one day he said it was going to rain.  So he took off his clothes and pushed them into a hollow log.  It did rain and afterwards he pulled them out and put them back on.  Everyone else walked home in wet clothes but not Eldridge.

His farm is still worked by his son which I know personally and to me he was a little strange.  But after reading about his dad maybe not so much. 

There is another book written by Dr. Roland Sharp who is 100 this year.  He tells of his life story of being a country doctor and farmer in  Pocahontas County. In fact he still farms.  Maybe I will start reading again.

[MountainDon]

Great, it's always interesting to read about local histories.   

[tesa]

i too love my local library, and my youngest was practially raised in it!

since she was tiny, we've been making weeky trips

i too don't actually buy too many books

this might have been posted prior as i haven't read all 7 pages, but do you know
the government spent more on one battleship than the entire public library system??

i saw that on a poster in the computer room the other day

anyway, i recently read a very interesting book on thomas jefferson

and i'm in the middle of the audacity of hope by barack obama

don't get much time to read these days, what with everything else going on, but i do try
to read enough that my children actually SEE me read

its hard to preach how important reading is if you don't practice it

i grew up watching my mother read almost every day

she's very elderly now, and her sight isn't what it used to be, but when i was younger,
she always had her nose in a book

tesa