The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 430 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here's an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 460 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 8 trips to carry that many people.
Travels In A Thin Country: A Journey Through Chile, by Sara Wheeler
While Sara Wheeler in her book consistently shows herself to be a nontraditional and feminist leftist, the book is nonetheless entertaining because of its wit and verve. This book, though somewhat dated by its early-1990’s references and somewhat marred by its anti-American attitude, manages to provide an intriguing look both at Chilean society and its tortured recent political history (namely the Pinochet dictatorship) and a humorous and self-effacing look at its hapless author and narrator, who suffers disaster after disaster in her attempts to see the entirety of Chile from top to bottom, including an excursion to Chilean Antarctica. In fact, the book was a somewhat funny read of Sara being compared to royals by every Chilean she meets, trying to find male company that respects her, and enjoying both the high life (exclusive trips to observatories, wealthy haciendas, and presidential homes) and the low life (sleeping on the beach, getting scabies, spending time in Santiago’s slums) during her travels. One gets the feeling that the author would not be enjoyable at a dinner party, but she certainly writes a funny and insightful book that unfortunately demonstrates how little Chile is thought of by most of the outside world. Both her and I share a bittersweet appreciation of Chile, though, and that is enough to make her travelogue a worthwhile and enjoyable read, despite our many differences.
The Newly Independent States of Eurasia: Handbook of Former Soviet Republics, by Stephen K. Batalden
One cannot really call this book “up-to-date,” since its statistics are all from the 90’s (or the late 1980’s), but it is an interesting read for someone who wishes to find out a little bit more about the issues faced by the nations that broke off of the Soviet Union (other than the three Baltic republics, which are *not* covered in this book). The book includes an out-of-date statistical profile on nations ranging from Moldova to Tajikistan and the Russian Federation, and is divided into four sections. The first section, about the Russian Federation, includes a chapter about European Russia and about Siberia & the Fear East. The second section is about the European republics of Belarus, Moldova, and the Ukraine. The third section is about the Transcaucasian republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, while the final section discusses the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kygyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The book especially succeeds when it talks about ecological disasters, the continuing problems of the ‘cult of personality’ in the post-soviet successor states (something I deeply loathe in its many protean forms), and the ethnic rivalries that continue to bedevil the new nations of the former Soviet Union. For those who share an interest, as I do, in the history, geography, and political affairs of the world, this book is a quick and handy set of cliffs notes, even if its it isn’t as up-to-date as it could be.
Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered The World, by Claire Harman
This book provides a very intriguing account of the popularity of Jane Austen and her works from her lifetime to the present day. A modestly successful novelist in her own time, with a life that even her own family members considered uneventful, her work did not achieve its full measure of popularity until more than 30 years after her death. The book shows how Austen’s work has been re-imagined through the decades and served as the fodder for creative re-interpretations, demonstrating how a deeply private author of ironic and often anti-romantic works has nonetheless inspired the romantic visions of Late Victorians and modern film adaptations. Indeed, each age has projected something of its own sensibilities on the opaque image provided by Austen’s novels, demonstrating that (like Shakespeare), Austen’s work has enduring value among the shifting tides of fad and fashion. It is an irony that Miss Austen herself would have appreciated.
Understanding Shakespeare’s England, by Jo McMurtry
This book is an informative and sometimes dryly humorous guide to the England of the late 1500’s and early 1600’s dealing with a variety of issues: English class structure, the Tudors, the genealogies of Shakespeare’s kings, Elizabethan cosmology, money, London, the countryside, marriage, education, literary stereotypes, outsiders, travel, the military, and luxuries. The end result is a book that provides a great deal of context to the life and habits of people in the Age of Shakespeare. Many aspects of the book are intentionally designed for American audiences that may be unfamiliar with the distinctive class culture of England being that we are a (purportedly) an egalitarian people. The result is a useful little book that is of worth to anyone wishing to read Shakespeare’s plays, or the writings of his contemporaries, like Marlowe and Fletcher, a little better.
Tax Free Retirement, by Patrick Kelly
This book is, or should be, the model for books of its kind–it is short, filled with practical and useful advice far outside of the realm of retirement planning (including an implicit endorsement of the biblical practice of tithing), and full of useful information about what can be done to reduce or eliminate taxes paid on retirement. Especially useful for entrepreneurs and higher income workers, the book excels in examining the tax implications of IRAs, 401(k)s, Roth IRAs, and life insurance, and should be a must-read for those who wish to maximize the tax saving benefits of retirement planning and have the self-discipline to avoid the traps of present-oriented thinking.
Nathan Albright's Book Review Blog 