Good books

[GRANITEstateMP]

Swamp,  I'm thinking you could get a nice old Donkey Kong stand up machine and put it next to your loom!

[SwampDonkey]

Free Online Donkey Kong Arcade

[NewYankeeSawmill]

I wonder if there are any that right on now about our future.

It scares the crap out of me to think about it, but that Yuval Harari guy has some pretty for out ideas.

[GRANITEstateMP]

Just finished the latest "Longmire" book from Craig Johnson, Tooth and Claw.  It was the audio version, I've done all of the Longmire books that way.  I really enjoy the characters, the settings, and the stories.  This latest book took place before most of the other books and had a couple of the favorite characters.  It made for a much better commute than radio (mostly ads) or talk radio

[Bradm]

Bradm, Ready Player One the book was WAY better than the movie. Lots of 80's references in that one!

Finished this one plus its sequel Ready Player Two.  Great references and I can understand why they changed the movie from the book.

Now starting on a book called "Fire Road" written by a Vietnamese woman who was the child who came to be known as Napalm Girl.  I would think that many here are familiar with the picture taken in 1972 of a 9 year old girl running naked down a road after being caught up in a napalm drop.  She survived, miraculously, and this is her story of her awakening in a morgue, her recovery, and her life culminating in her becoming a Christian, her immigration to Canada, and a return to the place where her life was forever changed.

[SwampDonkey]

The community here sponsored or basically adopted a Vietnamese family back in the 70's. Got them a place to live and work. One night they disappeared and left here, probably to Toronto, and no one heard from them since. No good byes or thanks, gone. That you don't forget.

[Raider Bill]

Bradm, Ready Player One the book was WAY better than the movie. Lots of 80's references in that one!

Finished this one plus its sequel Ready Player Two.  Great references and I can understand why they changed the movie from the book.

Now starting on a book called "Fire Road" written by a Vietnamese woman who was the child who came to be known as Napalm Girl.  I would think that many here are familiar with the picture taken in 1972 of a 9 year old girl running naked down a road after being caught up in a napalm drop.  She survived, miraculously, and this is her story of her awakening in a morgue, her recovery, and her life culminating in her becoming a Christian, her immigration to Canada, and a return to the place where her life was forever changed.

I read this book and remember when it happened.

Anyone read Steven Hunters Bob Lee Swagger books? Shooter was a movie made from one.
They are another good light read. Like Elmore Leonard of Justified fame.
Sort of remind me of Reacher in a way.

[GRANITEstateMP]

I have done one, maybe two, of the Bob Lee Swagger books.

I did the Elmore Leonard "Justified" books, I enjoyed them and the tv show

Along the same lines, I really like Homer Hickam's "The Ambassadors Son" and "The Keepers Son".  I can't remember which one goes before the other, but really like the characters in The Ambassadors Son. They take place during WWII

[Old Greenhorn]

I am a (poor but avid) student of local history because I am just a naturally curious guy. Recently I found a (relatively) new book about the history of the Catskills (where I live) and picked it up on ebay. It is 400 pages. It was "OK" but focused a lot on the popular culture side and not as much on history. It had a lot of detail about he Borst Belt, what we call the Jewish alps, meaning the southern Catskills in Sullivan county and the resort culture which was prevalent from the 50's to the early 70's then died out leaving a lot of large resorts rotting in the sun. All through this long book it felt kind of stiff and lacking emotion. Near the end there as a section that described the village of Woodstock (about 8 miles from where I type this) and it gave the basic demographic description, major employers, churches, roads, population, etc. The problem was, none of those businesses existed, none of those roads were in that town, nor those churches. I put the book down and did some research. The book described the Town of Woodstock, Illinois, not Woodstock, NY. On the following page was a picture of "The Woodstock Green" which is also NOT in Woodstock, NY. Further research indicated (to me at least) that this book was written by 2 men from their respective offices. One in Chicago, and one in Manhattan who probably never left their desks and did all their interviews by phone and research over the internet. If they had the simple stuff wrong (and also missed an awful lot of good stuff along the way) how much of the other stuff in the book which I did not already have a close knowledge of was also wrong? To say I was degusted was an understatement.
 But for some reason, this prompted me to re-read a lot of books I had collected over the last 40 years on local history and forgotten a lot of the details. This too was fascinating in a new way. I began reading these books when I moved here and bought the new ones when they came out. But on my first readings, I missed a lot of details. Now I'm older and I pay attention more, I guess. I picked up a lot of fascinating details I never realized before. One book about the Roundout (which is 10 miles from where I sit now) was first settled 6 years before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. I had always thought the Roundout was subservient to the town of Kingston and it turns out it was the other way around, Roundout had the big money and wealth and Kingston was the rural farming community. It's been a week of revelations for me as I worked though a half dozen books. Small details that now loom large for me. Pretty cool, I think.( @aigheadish , if you recall the maritime museum, that is right smack in the heart of the Roundout where all the money was in 1850.)
 Being able to read a book on history, say around the American revolution, then being able to drive ten minutes and see those places in person is a bit surreal. I was reading about the Burning of Kinston by the British in 1773 on Wednesday night. On Thursday I had a chiro appointment and the house across the road from my Doc's office has a historical placard in front of it I have driven past 100 times. This time I walked over and read it. Turns out this Stone house was burned down by the British during the action, rebuilt, and inhabited by the descendants ever since. The current resident was taking out her garbage as I was reading the placard and we struck up a short chat and I asked her if this house was within the stockade district (the stockade was built AFTER the burning, in case it happened again) and it was not. She didn't know much history. But I still think it's neat to be able to have that conversation.

 Of course, none of what I write here will matter to anyone except this: I am certain many of you live in areas where there is a rich history of it's founding and the people  who made it what it is. I encourage you to look into that and dig deep. Those links to what you have today are there to find.  There is neat stuff out there.

[aigheadish]

Nice, hearing from you about this stuff, Tom, is interesting because I also hear about the different locales on From The Forest. I'd be furious if I'd gotten most of the way through a book to find they talked about the wrong town but didn't realize.

I've done some minor general reading, mostly on the internet, about Dayton and Cincinnati and it's fascinating. Dayton is a very interesting town, and it'd be great to get back to our inventing roots. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Yesh, place names around here can be, and are a maddening thing at least for me. Most regions in this country have a 'relatively' short history, that is they got there start with the white invasion in the early 1800's. The history here begins in the early 1600's with the white people and goes back further from there with the indigenous population goes back much further. We are fortunate that we still have am active, if small, indigenous population here that can share some of their history and point of view from those early periods. Just as in the 1800's out west, the white man's treatment of the indigenous population around here from 1625 on was not very flattering.
 Consequently places names would go through a constant process of changes. First settled by the Dutch, everything had Dutch names. For instance was 'Wyltwick' (Wild Place), but when the British took over and drove out the Dutch government, they changed the name to "Kings Town" as well as all the other place names. But the sizes and borders of these places were also changing as settlement progressed. The earliest maps had almost no place names except for geographic features that stood out, al the other identifiers were simply the habitation zones for each of the indigenous tribes, the Esopus, Delaware, Mohawk, and others.
 Then we have the added issue of communities changing as they grew and in our case, communities that were either moved or totally eliminated, when NYC stole the land and built the Reservoir. Consequently, today, when I listen to folks talk, like on From the Forest, I can be pretty confused about many of the locales they are discussing, especially when the talk about "Dry Brook' (we have at least two), Kingston (At least 3), and other older names. It can make a researcher crazy. Roads, major and minor are even more of an issue, they also moved quite a bit. In one case an entire 20 mile section of major railroad track was moved north by 3-12 miles and stations were either moved or eliminated. Churches were also moved, by hand, at much as 10 miles. The train station that sit in the village of Woodstock (we drove past it on your visit) and currently serves as a bar and music venue used to sit in the bottom of the Ashokan reservoir and swerve as the West Hurley Train depot. Woodstock has NEVER had train tracks run through it closer than those in West Hurley.

 Lastly, the old mapping technology was not that great or accurate. I recently found, online, the mapping software I have been praying for for 30 years. It allows the user to overlay any map in it's database going back a very long way, over a current basic map of the terrain and major features and roads. THIS finally allows me to see almost exactly where the old roads and towns were in the region. I have also been about to got through various maps and at least find out that the road we live on existed in 1850 and was referred to as 'The old Stone Road'. It lead from the Quarries down into town and the RR depot, and also connected with the stone laid road that went to the Roundout on the river, where they finished and shipped bluestone to cities all over the east coast. ( I have a piece of that stone bedding sitting on my front lawn that was salvaged from the road.)

 I have been thinking about proposing to the 'From the Forest' folks that they (we?) do a show on books that we have all read and use as references for the local area and culture. We are also fortunate that we have had at least 3 small publishing companies that set up shop in these hills and valley's around here. They each focus on local history and writing and seek out the smaller, lesser known authors with the deepest knowledge and experience and publish their work. Unfortunately, they are usually limited runs and after a few years, those books go out of print and can be hard to find and expensive. That's why I try to buy them when they come out. Many of these authors you find in a local phone book and live just a few minutes away. Many are also gone now. Bu the legacy in these books hold a lot of value for me.

 Anyway, I find all this stuff, and the knowledge it brings, to be pretty fascinating. I recently discovered, through this new mapping system, that there was/is a road going east across Bill's property and I mentioned it to him. Yeah, he knows about it and one day soon we are going to talk a ride and walk the parts that are not wide enough for an ATV because of time and filling in. Interesting stuff indeed, but then, I am easily amused.

[aigheadish]

Safe to assume this is a local map project? I love maps!

[Old Greenhorn]

Nope, it at least covers all the USA. It takes a while to figure it out, but it's pretty neat. Use the search tool to search for an area, then select one of the maps of that area listed in a side bar. There is also a slider bar to search by years (in general). WARNING, it can be a real rabbit hole!. OH, you ant the LINK?    Enjoy.

[aigheadish]

Good stuff! I'll check it out, thanks!