Mostly Dross
Ramblings From Benson
Mostly Dross
Ramblings From Benson
Book Deals for Tuesday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- The Informant (Butcher's Boy Book 3) by Thomas Perry ($3.99) Recommended - but may want to read the first two before this.
- The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown ($2.99)
- Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System by Sharon Waxman ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Revolutions in the Atlantic World, New Edition: A Comparative History by Wim Klooster ($3.99)
- Perfect English Grammer: The Indispensable Guide to Excellent Writing and Speaking by Grant Barrett ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Saladin: Hero of Islam by Geoffrey Hindley ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett ($1.99)
- God's Mechanics: How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion by Brother Guy Consolmagno, S.J. ($2.99)
- Hollywood: The Oral History by Jeanine Basinger ($1.99)
- Voices of the Codebreakers: Personal Accounts of the Secret Heroes of World War II by Michael Paterson ($1.99)
- The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped the World by John Davies and Alexander J. Kent ($1.99)
Assorted Links for Monday
- In America's Insurance Crisis, Hail Hits Harder Than Hurricanes and Fires. No wonder Nebraska's home insurance premiums are so expensive.
- Why Do Supply Disruptions Lead to Inflation?
- The Boston Globe Hasn't Been Afraid to Experiment. It's Paid Off
- 1 in 4 programming jobs have vanished. (Wash Post). But programmer and software developer are not the same thing here.
- Economic Espionage and Knowledge Diffusion Under US-China Rivalry
- Want Cheap Power, Fast? Solar and Wind Firms Have a Suggestion. (NYT)
- The Signal of Institutional Governance in Early-Stage Financing for University Spinoffs
- State of the Birds 2025. Hint: It doesn't appear good. Here is the report.
- My 1,000 Favorite Books
- Chicago dyes its river bright green for St. Patrick's Day. If they can dye the river green today, why can't the dye it blue the other 364 days of the year?
Book Deals for Monday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- Dubliners by James Joyce ($1.99)
- Ulysses by James Joyce ($1.99)
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce ($1.99)
- Target: Rabaul: The Allied Siege of Japan's Most Infamous Stronghold, March 1943-August 1945 by Bruce Gamble ($4.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Witch-Hunt in Hollywood: McCarthyism's War on Tinseltown by Michael Freedland and Barbra Paskin ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- A Short History of World War I by James L. Stokesbury ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Death on a Deadline (The Nero Wolfe Mysteries Book 2) by Robert Goldborough ($2.99)
- The War in the Mediterranean by Bernard Ireland ($1.99)
- Black May: The Epic Story of the Allies' Defeat of the German U-Boats in May 1943 by Michael Gannon ($3.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
Assorted Links for Saturday
- How Many Artists Did the Beatles Kill?
- Country Risk: Determinants, Measures, and Implications - The 2024 Edition
- Why prediction markets aren't popular
- Trade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardest (NYT)
- Voice of America is off the air - possibly for good. Here is the Executive Order. VOA is not mentioned directly but it's supervising agency, the U.S. Agency for Global Media is. Here is the Wash Post and the WSJ coverage as well.
- On the Rise of New Mathematical Spaces and Towards AI-Driven Scientific Discovery
- The story of The Onion is 'funny because it's true'
- Male octopus injects female with venom during sex to avoid being eaten
- 'A Diamond is Forever' and Other Fairy Tales: The Relationship between Wedding Expenses and Marriage Duration (2014)
Book Deals for Sunday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering by Malcolm Gladwell ($4.99)
- The World Atlas of Coffee: 2nd Edition by James Hoffmann ($1.99)
- Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars by Daniel P. Bolger ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler - How War Mde Them and How They Made War by Phillips Payson O'Brien ($2.99)
- Before the Quagmire: American Intervention in Laos, 1954-1961
- The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War by David J Eicher ($3.99)
- Discourses by Niccolo Machiavelli ($1.99)
- Leningrad: Siege and Symphony by Brian Moynahan ($2.99)
- The Real Cruel Sea: The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1943 by Richard Woodman ($1.99)
- Friedrich Nietzsche by Curtis Cate ($2.99)
- Marlborough's War Machine, 1702-1711 by James Falkner ($1.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Wellington: The Path to Victory, 1769-1814 by Muir Rory ($2.99)
- Sinatra: Behind the Legend by J. Randy Taraborrelli ($2.99)
- Eddie Trunk's Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal by Eddie Trunk ($1.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
Assorted Links for Saturday
- Why is your morning joe so expensive? (Wash Post)
- What inflation numbers DON'T capture (Barrons)
- Home Sellers and Buyers Accuse Realtors of Blocking Lower Fees (NYT)
- California Approves State Farm's Emergency Rate Increase for Homeowners (WSJ)
- The Curious Surge of Productivity in U.S. Restaurants. I previously referrenced this but didn't have a link to the actual study. This is that link.
- How Heat Pumps Became America's Hottest Home Energy System
- The Competition to Get Into Law School is Brutal This Year (WSJ)
- Homeownership as Life Cycle Goldmine: Evidence from Macrohistory
- Heuristics for Better Project Leadership: Teasing Out Tacit Knowledge
- The Real Effects of Climate Disclosure: Evidence from Insurance Products
- Mapping the growth of University of Chicago from 1890 to the present.
Book Deals for Saturday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien ($1.99) Recommended
- The Big Change: America Transforms Itself, 1900-1950 by Frederick Lewis Allen ($2.99)
- The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at the New Yorker by Amy Reading, narrated by Christa Lewis ($4.99) Audible
- Embezlement and High Treason in Louis XIV's France: The Trial of Nicolas Fouquet by Vincent J. Pitts ($2.99)
- The Best American Mystery Stories 2017 edited by John Sanford ($1.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being by Neil Theise ($1.99)
- Collision Low Crossers: Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football by Nicholas Dawidoff ($2.99)
- The French at Waterloo - Eyewitness Accounts: Napoleon, Imperial Headquarters and 1st Corps by Andrew W. Field (Free)
- The French at Waterloo - Eyewitness Accounts: 2nd and 6th Corps, Cavalry, Artillery, Foot Guard and Medical Services by Andrew W. Field ($2.99)
Assorted Links for Thursday
- Here's How Much Aid the United States Has Sent to Ukraine
- Why Europe is going 'car-free' (Wash Post)
- Consumer Angst is Striking All Income Levels (WSJ)
- The Minimum Wage, Turnover, and the Shape of the Wage Distribution
- Trump's Big Bet: Americans Will Tolerate Economic Downturn to Restore Manufacturing (NYT)
- Coverage Neglect in Homeowner's Insurance
- Extreme Weather Events, Agricultural Output, and Insurance
- Why Do Researchers Care About Small Language Models?
- Defense Against Dishonest Charts
- Electricity 2025 - Analysis and forecast to 2027
- Marriage triples risks of obesity in men - but not women, study reveals
Book Deals for Thursday
NOTE: These are NOT recommendations UNLESS clearly indicated. For more information see About Book Deals.
- A History of Warfare by John Keegan ($1.99)
- The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language by Melvyn Bragg ($1.99)
- The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki ($1.99)
- Commander of the Faithful: The Life and Times of Emir Adb el-Kader by John W. Kiser ($1.99)
- Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor, and Philosophical Practice by Stephen R. Clark ($3.99)
- Mud Sweeter than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania by Margo Rejmer ($1.99)
- Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli ($0.56)
- Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life by Roger Daniels ($3.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)
- The Fencing Master by Arturo Perez-Reverte ($2.99 or available through Kindle Unlimited)