FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[sufue]

Kindle US is having a $4.99 and under deal on "Top history reads" through 11:59pm PDT on 02/21/21. I spotted one book I haven't read and want to: Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler. Also several books I have read and enjoyed: Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, and (YMMV - your enjoyment will probably depend on your politics) Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents, by Pete Souza. And of course, who would want to miss (probably me , although it has 4.5/5.0 stars at Amazon on more than 180 rankings): Sex with Presidents: The Ins and Outs of Love and Lust in the White House by Eleanor Herman. There are a bunch of others, and many are less than the $4.99 max, so check it out if you like history:

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=s9_acsd..._i=11552285011

[salty-horse]

Masters of Doom by David Kushner is $4.49 on Amazon.com
This is a popular biography of id Software, Doom, John Carmack, and John Romero.

For the record, there was a lawsuit against the publisher alleging some inaccuracies.

[BelleZora]

Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck is $3.99 at Amazon US.
https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Charl.../dp/B001BC6GN6

[sufue]

In a little bit of oddness, The Room Where It Happened, by John Bolton, is on sale in the UK (not the US!) as part of the Kindle UK Daily Deal for £0.99. So if you Brits really want a chance to read on the cheap about US dysfunction , here you go...

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Room-Where-...dp/B0847GZWJF/
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Room-Wher...dp/B0847GZWJF/

Spoiler:

As President Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton spent many of his 453 days in the room where it happened, and the facts speak for themselves.

The result is a White House memoir that is the most comprehensive and substantial account of the Trump Administration, and one of the few to date by a top-level official. With almost daily access to the President, John Bolton has produced a precise rendering of his days in and around the Oval Office. What Bolton saw astonished him: a President for whom getting reelected was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant endangering or weakening the nation. “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations,” he writes. In fact, he argues that the House committed impeachment malpractice by keeping their prosecution focused narrowly on Ukraine when Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions existed across the full range of his foreign policy—and Bolton documents exactly what those were, and attempts by him and others in the Administration to raise alarms about them.

He shows a President addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government. In Bolton’s telling, all this helped put Trump on the bizarre road to impeachment. “The differences between this presidency and previous ones I had served were stunning,” writes Bolton, who worked for Reagan, Bush 41, and Bush 43. He discovered a President who thought foreign policy is like closing a real estate deal—about personal relationships, made-for-TV showmanship, and advancing his own interests. As a result, the US lost an opportunity to confront its deepening threats, and in cases like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea ended up in a more vulnerable place.

Bolton’s account starts with his long march to the West Wing as Trump and others woo him for the National Security job. The minute he lands, he has to deal with Syria’s chemical attack on the city of Douma, and the crises after that never stop. As he writes in the opening pages, “If you don’t like turmoil, uncertainty, and risk—all the while being constantly overwhelmed with information, decisions to be made, and sheer amount of work—and enlivened by international and domestic personality and ego conflicts beyond description, try something else.”

The turmoil, conflicts, and egos are all there—from the upheaval in Venezuela, to the erratic and manipulative moves of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to the showdowns at the G7 summits, the calculated warmongering by Iran, the crazy plan to bring the Taliban to Camp David, and the placating of an authoritarian China that ultimately exposed the world to its lethal lies. But this seasoned public servant also has a great eye for the Washington inside game, and his story is full of wit and wry humor about how he saw it played.

[bartveld]

Originally Posted by sufue

So if you Brits really want a chance to read on the cheap about US dysfunction , here you go...

They have their own dysfunction...

[sufue]

True

Originally Posted by bartveld

They have their own dysfunction...

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by bartveld

They have their own dysfunction...

They must! I started watching a series on Amazon Prime called "Cobra"; a sort of combination disaster series, and political thriller. If the level of dysfunction is a tenth of what that series shows, their queen will be living in a tent by the side of some highway any day now!

The 11-year-old anarchist in me loves it.

[sufue]

The Invention of Culture by Roy Wagner is variously described as "one of the masterworks of twentieth-century anthropology" and one of the "few books [in the field of anthropology that] manage to maintain both historical value and contemporary relevance". And it's published by University of Chicago Press, which is not a marque given to much hyperbole. And it has pretty good ratings at Goodreads (4.01 on more than 70 ratings). And it's a field I like to read about when I dip my toes into non-fiction rather than mysteries. And the sample seems fairly readable for a textbook. And it has dropped to $1.99 at Kindle US as part of today's Daily Deal. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I'm going to buy it ...

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/Invention-Cul...dp/B01N8YYHI0/
Kindle US/Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/Invention-C...dp/B01N8YYHI0/

Spoiler:

“This new edition of one of the masterworks of twentieth-century anthropology is more than welcome…enduringly significant insights.”—Marilyn Strathern, emerita, University of Cambridge

In the field of anthropology, few books manage to maintain both historical value and contemporary relevance. Roy Wagner's The Invention of Culture, originally published in 1975, is one that does. Wagner breaks new ground by arguing that culture arises from the dialectic between the individual and the social world. Rooting his analysis in the relationships between invention and convention, innovation and control, and meaning and context, he builds a theory that insists on the importance of creativity, placing people-as-inventors at the heart of the process that creates culture.

In an elegant twist, he also shows that this very process ultimately produces the discipline of anthropology itself. Tim Ingold’s foreword to the new edition captures the exhilaration of Wagner’s book while showing how the reader can journey through it and arrive safely—though transformed—on the other side.

[Section8]

Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels is $1.99 at amazon.com

A startling exploration of the history of the most controversial book of the Bible, by the bestselling author of Beyond Belief.

Through the bestselling books of Elaine Pagels, thousands of readers have come to know and treasure the suppressed biblical texts known as the Gnostic Gospels. As one of the world's foremost religion scholars, she has been a pioneer in interpreting these books and illuminating their place in the early history of Christianity. Her new book, however, tackles a text that is firmly, dramatically within the New Testament canon: The Book of Revelation, the surreal apocalyptic vision of the end of the world . . . or is it?

[sufue]

Lady Sings the Blues is Billie Holiday's autobiography. It's £0.99 at Kindle UK today as part of the Daily Deal.

Kindle UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sings-Blues...dp/B07D1FYFLD/
Kindle UK/Smile: https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Sings-Blu...dp/B07D1FYFLD/

Spoiler:

'A masterpiece, as fresh and shocking as if it were written yesterday' Craig Brown

"I've been told that no one sings the word 'hunger' like I do. Or the word 'love'."

Lady Sings the Blues is the inimitable autobiography of one of the greatest icons of the twentieth century. Born to a single mother in 1915 Baltimore, Billie Holiday had her first run-in with the law at aged 13. But Billie Holiday is no victim. Her memoir tells the story of her life spent in jazz, smoky Harlem clubs and packed-out concert halls, her love affairs, her wildly creative friends, her struggles with addiction and her adventures in love. Billie Holiday is a wise and aphoristic guide to the story of her unforgettable life.

[WillAdams]

Why Knot? an excellent book on knot tying by a famous contemporary aerialist

is on sale on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IF3UOQ4

(and probably other places)

[j.p.s]

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein and published on 2020 September 8 is on sale for 3.99 in the US at https://www.amazon.com/Money-True-St...dp/B083J1BPNC/

I recently finished reading it and highly recommend it. It was intersting, easy, enjoyable, and quick to read with useful insights into just what money has been, is, and might become. It is not in depth, scholarly, or authoritative, but it does a good job pointing out just how wrong about money economic experts and powerful rulers and politicians have been over time and how difficult a time people with new insights into money have had getting their ideas considered.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World by Rutger Bregman is the Kindle deal of the day today in the US for $2.99

https://www.amazon.com/Utopia-Realis...dp/B01MXDBTWM/

I got this a few weeks ago (for full price) and am about 25% in (I'm reading it during lunch breaks). The central premise might seem ludicrous on its face, but the supporting logic and documentation merit serious consideration. This book i well written and very readable. Bregman is a historian, but is far from stuffy.

Once again Kindle deal of the day for $2.99 and above link is still good.

IMHO if something like this had been in place before 2020 the economic impacts of the past year would have not been as severe. Maybe not, but I think it merits discussion (in the appropriate forums, online and off).

[Loosheesh]

How to Make a Vaccine: An Essential Guide for COVID-19 and Beyond by John Rhodes (University of Chicago Press) - $2.99 at Amazon (US).

[salty-horse]

Debt: The First 5,000 Years (10th anniversary edition) by David Graeber is $1.99 on Amazon.com

Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom: he shows that before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era, Graeber argues, that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors.

Graeber shows that arguments about debt and debt forgiveness have been at the center of political debates from Italy to China, as well as sparking innumerable insurrections. He also brilliantly demonstrates that the language of the ancient works of law and religion (words like “guilt,” “sin,” and “redemption”) derive in large part from ancient debates about debt, and shape even our most basic ideas of right and wrong. We are still fighting these battles today without knowing it.