Why We Love Baseball - A History in 50 Moments (Joe Posnanski, 2023)

Gift from Charlie, received late last year, he conceived it as sort of a distraction from prostate cancer treatments then underway. Good idea! I had read about 75% then and finished it this month.

Structured as "50 Moments" per the title, but author recounts way way more episodes than that.  Enjoyable throughout; oddly enough one of my favorite segments was the story of Sandy Koufax's fourth no-hitter - it consisted of quoting Vin Scully's call of the final inning.  Lots of obvious and not-so-obvious items were included, variety with a few from overseas, minors, Negro leagues - mostly MLB of course, a mixture of content going back 100+ years. Maybe a little heavy on the recent stuff but that was OK.  

Baseball is indeed awesome. The kind of book I like. 

The Road (Vasily Grossman, various dates 1930s - 1950s)

I really like this guy's writing.  I also like stuff set in Russia, including this dark era with Stalin, WWII, Nazi invasion, 1937 liquidations, kulaks, etc. - compelling settings. Grossman in trouble with the authorities from time to time while also having success with Russian army as writer for "Red Star". As mentioned elsewhere - his masterpiece was denied publication by the Soviets and had to be smuggled out.

This is a collection of Grossman's short stories plus a few essays and letters.

"The Old Teacher" - the ending where the young girl in a maternal way consoles the teacher who was waiting for words of love. Compare to Life and Fate scene with the (female, unmarried) doctor going into the gas chamber taking care of someone else's child. I liked this.

"The Hell of Treblinka" - read only a few pages plus skim. A topic on which I feel pretty well informed so not wanting to slog through the grim detail again.  This is notable because it’s one of the first accounts. 

"The Road" - two mules working with German army, then the younger mule with mare with Russian army. I see that this was about the Italian army invading Ethiopia; but it felt in many ways like a metaphor for folks slaving away in the labor camps. 

"Mama" - a key figure in the 1936-38 liquidations adopts an orphan, who then becomes an orphan again when this person (Yeshov) is himself arrested and taken away (also his wife).

Interesting throughout; recommended.

The Silk Roads - A New History of the World (Peter Frankopan, 2015)

Interesting, readable summary though there are plenty of aspects I didn’t love, per below. The subtitle - “A New History of the World” - suggests too much scope - hard to be comprehensive - yet I like the focus on the old Silk Road territories (though he applies the “____ Road” concept pretty much around the world). 

Presents history in this part of the world as sort of a discovery, unknown; I think anyone that’s read much history would have quite a bit of knowledge here.  Still - it’s a useful book, a good overview notwithstanding the annoyances. 

I do the think the author falls prey to the 2015 (not new in 2015, and persisting) trend of demonizing the West and acting like other regions lack agency. Maybe I’m too sensitive to this approach but I don’t think so.  The chapter about slavery suggesting Europe more or less invented it - c’mon. Dismiss European motives as gold, power. Europeans as backward, venal. Mongols as wise administrators - OK a little violent in the conquest phase but then long periods of peace and prosperity, OK maybe so. Muslims as tolerant, open minded. Etc. Seems to selectively present the histories on these topics. 

British actions post-WWI described as making the Middle East unstable - this after hundreds of pages often describing conflicts in the Middle East going back thousands of years. OK. 

Interesting - the idea that the spread of the religions along the trade routes somewhat threatened those same religions, motivating the religions to become more strident.  Buddhism starts using big statues and nice shrines and stupas to stand out; Zoroastrianism becomes more nationalistic, loses much of its famous tolerance; Christianity more of a threat especially when Constantine gets on board. This lets up when Rome weakens due to the Huns, etc., but then resurfaces when the Huns weaken. And has continued.

Vikings/Rus were effective, a bigger factor than I normally think. 

His summary of the run-up to the Crusades was a useful complement to this recently-read book. 

Spanish taking silver and gold from the Americas on the ships; later oil is taken from the Middle East; this is discussed as some sort of illegitimate plundering. Not sure if this can be distinguished from actions of conquering groups throughout history.  And these supposedly advanced-peaceful societies didn’t have the know-how or interest to ever utilize these resources in the same way anyway. See Venezuelan oil. Yes, local labor was not treated well at all as part of the resource extraction, at least in the 16th-17th century Americas. As it happens. 

Russia experiencing difficulties in handling new central Asian territories, including fear of Islamic populations. Some history here.

Author kind of got bogged down in a lot of detail about Iran and Iraq in mid-20th century and into the 21st, I didn’t need that much detail plus the history here isn’t aged enough to draw conclusions. Britain trying to hang in there especially with Iran, I can see why Saeed’s generation saw the British behind so many things - they often were! US kind of steps into this role later. Lots of blame assigned to Brits and US. 

Russian revolution in early 20th-century - he writes that Russia was pushing self-determination in the various republics ha ha. Hilarious Lenin quote about freedom and rights on 335.

Page 391, Stalin’s speech opposing capitalism; author says (I think or hope paraphrasing Stalin) that capitalism is responsible for suffering, mass murder and horrors of the war of the twentieth century. Communism as “a new system that accentuated similarities rather than differences, that replaced hierarchies with equality” (author’s words) What?

Page 503 - the usual wrap up - everything is in a transition stage at the time the book is written, totally unclear what’s coming next! (As to everything looking back, it was obvious and easy to criticize.)

Summer for the Gods (Edward J. Larson, 2000 (with 2020 Afterword)

Book club selection courtesy Zach.  Session held June 7, 2026 at Zach's place, our first in-person meeting since February 2020. Useful book. 

Focus is on the 1925 Scopes "monkey" trial. Good rundown of the trial, lead-in, follow-up. Kind of odd - the town seeks out the trial for publicity/civic growth.  Celebrities on both sides who tend to make it about themselves or their pet beliefs.

William Jennings Bryan is old; I associate him moreso with 19th century presidential runs and the "cross of gold" speech.

I think author could have condensed this! Parts felt repetitious. 

Interesting, timely (evergreen, really) things to think about. 

Things that struck me:

* What about creation itself? Assume evolution is basically correct (as I do) - that doesn’t take us back to the very beginning. So how did it all start?? Who set off the Big Bang (or whatever)? Is this purely scientific? If not, then what? Seems relevant to a book devoted to creationism, but not mentioned.

* Fundamentalists picked on for as long as I can remember; an easy target and certainly some odd beliefs. But beliefs of other groups can feel the same way - taken on faith or tribal loyalty, not science. Harder to see when it's your own tribe.  

    * 2020 quote from CDC honcho showing up on sixth anniversary of Floyd fiasco - “In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”  

    * NPR tweet: “Dozens of public health and disease experts have signed an open letter in support of the nationwide anti-racism protests. ‘White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19,’ they wrote.”

Other recent/current beliefs. IQ and SAT are racist and not predictive. No differences in traits among groups. Everyone would perform the same if given the same opportunity. A man can be a woman if he says he really wants to be. Etc. 

* Who decides what is taught? Big topic in the book. For the mainstream government school, majoritarianism seems the right approach. But what if you are a progressive in a fundamentalist district and this leads to your child being taught creationism? Anti-vax? What if you don’t subscribe to progressive beliefs and your school is teaching that there is >2 genders, that a man can turn into a woman? What if the school is teaching that 1619 Project is actual history?  Apologizing for white privilege? Climate doomerism? 

    * There never can be a great answer - somebody has to decide curriculum and some others will be unhappy. 

    * Plato and the guardians. 

    * Best available protection seems to be that nobody should be trapped - vouchers. Yes there will be fraud and ridiculousness - but it cannot be worse in aggregate than what the government schools are delivering. Let the parents decide.

* In government schools - the teacher's words are not a freedom of speech issue. Somebody decides curriculum, and the teacher teaches.

This book mostly written from perspective that fundamentalists are the problem.  How to explain the persistence if not growth of fundamentalism? 

Try abortion (mentioned late in the book), is science enough to explain commencement of a person's life? 

Afterword told me this book was written years ago. Would be very much off track if written now.