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The BOOK Thread

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Last book, Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks.
Andrea Lankford.
About rescue stories, from stupid thinking humans without awareness.
Long hours, low pay, little emotional support, hard core rescues, death.
Everything I didn't think about when I was "waffle stomping" Yosemite backcountry, solo.

Side note, way too many deaths this year in our National Parks, I haven't looked for a total, but that number isn't something they want to share. The heat has been a bigger factor, hard to work around.

Now, I'm back into Shogun, can't get enough, , ,
 
for park ranger stuff I recommend:

1) Book by Carl S. Chavez about his career with the Calif. State Parks - in particular, his first small book about his first assignment - wintering over in Bode with his new and pregnant wife. Carl went on to be Supt. of Parks.

A Year in Bodie: A Park Ranger's Diary​


2) Biography of John H. Riffey - the last true all-round ranger - who work and was buried at Tuweep (Troweap) North Rim Grand Canyon. Its an excellent read - I read most of it on site while waiting for a flatbed tow out after our Jeep broke a tranny fluid line.

John H. Riffey The Last Old-Time Ranger​

 
Just finished "The Wager", by David Grann. Excellent read, based on a true events of the Wager's journey from England down around South America's
Cape Horn and being wrecked on a small island on the south coast of Chile on 14, May 1741.
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The Wager.png


Also, just picked up another of Grann's books: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.
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Killers of the Flower Moon.png
 
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I don’t know if I’ve posted in this thread yet, but I have two books that are my favorites.

The first was given to me by my parents one Christmas. John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”. An absolutely beautiful book that has its origins in the Great Depression. A completely beautiful and stunning story. When I first met my wife, I encouraged her to read it but she hadn’t gotten around to it yet. So one Sunday morning I told her I would read her the last chapter. When I finished, she was silent so I turned to look at her and I found her with tears streaming down her cheeks. She had never heard or read anything that powerful. She finally read the entire book and it became her favorite as well.

And that book had a profound effect on my life.
 
My other favorite book is “The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran. It’s a short book, full of advice for the living of one’s life. It’s absolutely beautifully written (poetry, really) and has been translated and sold in more languages than just about any other book in the history of printing. In fact, I would put it at the top of my list.
 
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Cory Doctorow

Enshittification:​

Misogyny, conspiratorialism, surveillance, manipulation, fraud, and AI slop are drowning the internet. For the monopolists who dominate online – X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta, Apple – this is all part of the playbook. The process is what leading tech critic Cory Doctorow has dubbed ‘enshittification’. First, the platform attracts users with some bait, such as free access; then the activity is monetized, bringing in the business customers and degrading the user experience; then, once everyone is trapped and competitors eradicated, the platform wrings out all the value and transfers it to their executives and shareholders.

As a result, online public squares have become places of torment, and online retailers are hellish dumpster fires. The virtual gathering places where we once imagined the world’s problems might be resolved are now a sewer of hatred and abuse – thoroughly enshittified.

Doctorow enumerates the symptoms, lays out the diagnosis, and identifies the best responses to these diseased platforms: the monopolies online must be shattered. Companies too big to fail or to jail – and much too big to care – must be cut down to size. Only an attack on corporate power will permit effective regulation and real privacy. Tech unions must protect the workers who should, in turn, defend us against their bosses’ sadism and greed.

www.versobooks.com

Enshittification

*** Longlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year 2025 ***Misogyny, conspiratorialism, surveillance, manipulation, fraud, and AI slop are drowning the internet. For the monopolists who dominate online – X, TikTok, Amazon, Meta, Apple – this is all part of the...
www.versobooks.com www.versobooks.com
 
Peter Egan's new book.Landings in America. In the late 80's he and his wife flew around the country in a tiny Piper Cub. An airplane the equivalent of a Honda Trail 90. Six weeks and 7,000 miles. Stayed away from all the big cities. Kinda like just staying on only 2 lane roads.
 
Michael Polen apparently has a new book…
"A World Appears" is a book by Michael Pollan that explores the concept of consciousness. It delves into what consciousness is, who possesses it, and its significance in understanding humanity. Pollan combines insights from various fields, including science, philosophy, and spirituality, to examine this complex topic

He is a local. He is one of my heroes.
michaelpollan.substack.com

A World Appears: Book Tour Details

Dear friends and readers,
michaelpollan.substack.com michaelpollan.substack.com
 
Every once in a while a book I'm reading will mention another author and I'll go off and try one of their books, and now I have a new favorite author. I discovered Walter Mosley because of a reference in a John Grisham book, for example.

I can't remember who I was reading, but where it has the one sentence praise section from a bunch of publications, the author I was reading was compared to Raymond Chandler. He wrote the Philip Marlow books starting in 1939. I grabbed the second one, Farewell, My Lovely, written in 1940, and am enjoying it. I think I might read the rest of his books now. May even have to find a Humphrey Bogart movie too.
 
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