The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World

The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World by Adam Gazzaley This book outlines a lot of the research that has gone into how we get distracted and why we are wired to be distracted. The consequences of being distracted can of course be very bad. Driving of course, but in everyday life where people think that 'multi-tasking' is a real thing. It actually is a very bad way to operate in the world, and ruins efficiency. The authors offer many strategies and ways of trying to cope with our distracting environments. I found it interesting that the idea of having an extended tech break, days without technology, can actually back fire. When you return to your tech world from the break you often dive in and are even more distracted than before. The strategies outlined really require a way of changing our behavior and changing the proximity of where are tech is at. Even it is not right in front of us, we are always aware that it is somewhere, offering us the latest update on 'vital' information. Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body By Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson

Running to the Edge

Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed by Matthew Futterman. This is a history of competitive running, from the 1950s to the present. It outlines the ways people train, used to train and how that evolved. The academic and economic forces that shaped running. This follows the personalities that helped to shape modern competitive running. Of course the shoe companies have had a big influence on this culture, and the fight to not let them control everything makes this a more interesting story.

The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777

The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson. This is a lot of the history that we know, but told in a non-academic way that makes it a great way to refresh our memories of the start of the American Revolution. This is the history of the revolution up to 1777. It has been easy to forget how much happened before July 4, 1776, and a lot did happen. This is a military history of the beginning of the revolution, not a political history, but of course it is impossible to completely separate the two. The familiar names of places and people are brought to life: Bunker Hill, Washington, Franklin, Princeton. And in an odd twist, I have never read a book where the word sanguine was used so frequently.

Black Death at the Golden Gate

Black Death at the Golden Gate by David Randal. This tells the medical history of the plague in the US. The first outbreak came in the early 1900s in the San Francisco area. This also tells the story of the National Hospital Service, which would later be the National Institutes of Health. In particular Rupert Blue who's ground breaking work helped to contain the plague and keep if from becoming a national catastrophe. Of course woven throughout the story are the politics that were involved. City and State officials in California not wanting to have the state economy affected by a reputation of being a plague state, while at the same time trying to stop an epidemic from taking hold. The pathology of the plague is interesting in that the american version proved slightly different than the epidemics that hit asia before it came to the US.

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir

Save Me the Plums: My Gourmet Memoir by Ruth Reichl. This charming memoir is mostly about the authors stint as editor in chief at Gourmet magazine, which lasted until the magazine folded. Some also about her early life and experience as food critic for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. Her experience at Gourmet tells the story of a lifestyle that will probably never some back, living opulently in New York with lots of expense account money. Basically a life that the internet destroyed. There are lots of funny anecdotes and great descriptions of meals and trips. The Paris excursion of the entire staff of Gourmet is a story of excess that cannot be matched.

Madame Fourcade's Secret War

Madame Fourcade's Secret War: The Daring Young Woman Who Led France's Largest Spy Network Against Hitler by Lynne Olson. This is the story of the french underground and the workings of its spy network. A fascinating story that I knew pieces of, but this tells the entire story from before the war to its end about the braze people who passed on vital information on the workings of the Nazis to the Allies. The impact they had on the direction and outcome of the war is tremendous, and the number of them who did not survive is sobering. Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was a native Parisian of the upper class, raised partly in Shanghai in the 1930s, when that city was more sophisticated than Paris. Tall, pretty and fashionable, she was the last person that the Germans would think would be a spy, which worked to her advantage. The fact that a women was the leader of the french underground was another factor. They passed on information to MI6, the British spy organization who then passed it on to military strategists. MI6 did not know that Fourcade was a women until well into the war, which again was to her advantage, as she assumed correctly that if the British knew she was a women they would have dismissed her information as invalid. The information that was passed to the Allies helped to delay the deployment of the V-1 and V-2 rockets by the Germans, which would have possibly won them the war if they were deployed sooner. Information from the resistance also directed the planning for D-Day in Normandy. This is a great true story that is finally being told.

Ten Caesars

Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine by Barry S. Strauss As the title implies, this is a collection of biographical sketches 10 roman emperors. But the title is a bit odd, since the authors starts by pointing out that Julius Caesar was a dictator and not an emperor. The emperors begin with Augustus, and this book ends with Constantine, the first Christian emperor. Between the two of those there were many more than ten emperors, but the author concentrates on the most impactful. Hadrian, Nero, Diocletian, Marcus Aurelius are all well known names to people. But the succession from one emperor to another was not easy. Many times there were civil wars, and there could up to 4 emperors in a year before a victor came through. In many ways the times covered by this book helped to shape the modern world, as the empire evolved and the Roman empire engulfed many cultures.