eReadings 19

The Sea-Hawk
Rafael Sabatini
When I started reading this I didn't know anything about it. Later I found that the author was English, in spite of his name suggesting otherwise, and that he was a somewhat prolific writer of swashbuckling tales. Another of his works is Captain Blood.

We can assume that he was fascinated by the early days of sailing, and must have spent some time learning about the history of the time. This isn't a history book, but a novel about a privateer turned gentleman, after having been given a title by Queen Elizabeth for his help in defeating the Spanish Armada. It so happened that I had read, though perhaps scanned might be more accurate, a nonfiction book, How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves, by WHG Kingston, and in it he credits the various privateers for their help in building the Royal Navy and in defeating the Spanish.

But The Sea-Hawk is of course a novel, about Sir Oliver Tressilian, who has amassed some wealth through piracy to go along with his title. It is full of dialog, both between people and the various characters with themselves, and rather verbose dialog it seemed to me.

Nonetheless, this is compelling storytelling, perhaps getting off to a slow start as we read what seems like it's going to be a book about the interfamily goings on revolving around Sir Oliver's plan to marry Rosamund Godolphin, then taking some quite amazing turns, so that we abruptly leave England and head off to the Mediterranean, quite active with Arab corsairs raiding Spanish and other ships. both for the riches, but also for the slave market. Suddenly we are introduced to Sakr-el-Bahr, an infamous corsair with the interesting past.

The story here is interesting, riveting at times, but seemed to bog down with the ever-heavy dialog.

eReadings 18

Common Sense

Thomas Paine

Yes, this is that famous book, a pamphlet really, published in 1776 as the Revolution was taking shape. You know a book is small when you click to the next page and each Kindle page is 1% of the book.

I'll be honest, it's not such an easy read. The language is a little thick, with some unusual words to be sure, but the sentence structure very heavy with clauses and loaded with commas. One might think that this was the English language of the time, which in some respect may be true, but one can read works by Samuel Johnson or Boswell's Life of Johnson and find a very different readability of 18th century English literature. I read Life of Johnson some time ago and found it quite easy reading.

Look at this passage from early on in the book:

Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. WHEREFORE, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows, that whatever FORM thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.

It's not that this isn't understandable, but reading page after page like this is certainly tiring. We have a way of getting to a point much quicker these days.

I would have probably stopped reading early on, but then I realized that July 4th was coming up so I persisted. One of the things which struck me in the early pages was that, if one translated to a more modern English, this was basically a rant such as one might read on the internet these days, or perhaps see on some news report. It becomes quite clear that Paine has no good words for monarchy, and in particular King George.

I did appreciate reading first hand some of the concepts that formed our country and its subsequent government, where he talks about creating a land governed by the rule of law rather than the rule of a man. It becomes a bit repetitious, but he sets out to bring up the many objections to the current state of affairs, the possible remedies, with the only sensible one being secession from England and formation of a new country with its own government, and finally that the time was NOW to do these things.

As a reminder of the history of the time, the thoughts of people at the time, this is a very enlightening book. Be prepared for slow reading of this formal 18th century English.

eReadings 17

The Innocents Abroad

Mark Twain

Having previously read A Tramp Abroad, I was reluctant enough to read this one that I read a bit first with a browser before downloading to my Kindle.

This book predated A Tramp Abroad, being published in 1869, after a chartered excursion to Europe, sailing around the Mediterranean. It differed quite a bit from the cruises popular now, since one might be let off somewhere in Italy and then go travelling for a month to Paris and other inland sites.

One certainly gets quite a bit of commentary of the mercenary nature of travel at the time. Everywhere you go, there is someone to pay some fee to, some guide to hire, and many a beggar along the way.

Not so different from sightseeing now is the pressure one feels and the ease of being shuttled around from sight to sight, and we hear Mr. Twain railing against the fatigue that sets in as you visit yet another church, with its collection of relics, with so many churches professing to have pieces of the Holy Cross or the Crown of Thorns. The artwork, the sculpture, at least for him, became numbing.

It's necessary to remember that this was the world before World War I, so a very different sort of place from today. He lost his passport somewhere in the middle of the journey, but that never appeared to be an impediment to travel. A number of ports were closed due to fears of cholera.

One could no longer travel as he did from Turkey to Syria to Palestine on horseback, camping out in tents as they went. He certainly appreciated the depth of history in Palestine and especially in Egypt, but the terrain and climate were awful. In addition, beggars were everywhere in the Middle East.

In the end, this is a very enjoyable book, full of insights into a time we think we know but have never heard about what it was like from a first-person perspective, hearing not only about the history and famous architecture and art, but the lives of the people in the lands he visited.

eReadings 16

The Lost World

Arthur Conan Doyle

This is a book initially serialized in 1912. It introduces the character Professor Challenger, a man of great intellectual and physical strength, who is something of an outcast in the scientific community. Challenger also figures in the subsequent story "The Poison Belt" (eReadings 11).

Professor Challenger has already made the outlandish proclamation that so-called prehistoric beasts remain alive in an isolated part of the Amazonian basin, though since various proofs of his personal expedition were lost or ruined on his way back to civilization, he is generally considered a charlatan, and therefore has isolated himself from the scientific and public community, and has been known to physically assault various members of the press who have tried to interview him.

Edward Malone, a young athletic Irish journalist, is sent to attempt an interview, already knowing about the fate of others. He is indeed assaulted, but in the process somehow manages to break the ice with the professor, who confides his experiences, and invites Malone to a public presentation where he will expound his experiences before a scientific audience.

Once again, things go badly for Professor Challenger, and another man, Professor Summerlee, steps out as his chief antagonist. In the end, Professor Challenger proposes an expedition back to South America to settle the issues, consisting of himself, Professor Summerlee, and with a couple of other volunteers, one being Lord John Roxton, an accomplished explorer and game hunter, and on an impulse, Malone.

Eventually the group, along with a number of guides and native helpers, make their way to a high plateau, somehow isolated from the surrounding jungle ages ago, and indeed, an abundance of life seen nowhere else in the world for ages is found there. The science of it seems more than a bit distorted, with a curious mixture of dinosaurs, mammals, and even "anthropoid ape-men" being found there. Challenger is vindicated, yet he and Summerlee continue to have many things to argue about as they explore the plateau.

At the time this book was written, just coming out of an era of exploring and plundering various parts of the world, it probably seemed sensible to consider how things went on the plateau. To the modern mind, it seems odd to read about how readily the group falls into killing so much of the life there, including the ape-men, who are depicted as quite savage. I suppose at the time there was thought to be little difference between studying a dead specimen and a live one.

But Conan Doyle is a good story teller, and this makes for good reading, with some well-developed characters.

I thought that I recalled that this story had probably been made into a movie, but even so was astonished on finding that not just one, but numerous movies have been made, the first a silent film in 1927! There have also been a number of radio adaptations, and other tangents, such as Michael Crichton's borrowing of the title for "The Lost World: Jurassic Park". Seemingly without exception, these movie adaptations take a number of liberties with the original story, for example finding a way for a woman to accompany the men on their expedition.

eReadings 15

A Tramp Abroad
Mark Twain

There most likely is a double-entendre in this title word tramp, but this is not the tale of a hobo roaming around Europe, but rather the travels of a well-heeled American making his way through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.

It's entertaining to a point, especially getting something of the gist of these areas as they were in the 1870s. There is a lot of great satire here, and I found myself laughing from time to time.

At the same time, because of the satire, one would need to know more specifics about Europe of those times to understand the depth of various jokes. To say the least, there is a great deal of exaggeration for entertainment purposes, and I found that this became silly and tiresome with the recounting of hiking stories about Switzerland.

eReadings 14

The Seven Poor Travellers

Charles Dickens

This is an odd little story, about a charitable inn in Rochester, set up to allow poor travellers a free night's stay and a meal, with the narrator venturing in as a seventh poor traveller, adding his assistance with meals and company.

For the entertainment of the travellers he tells an extended story within a story on a completely different topic.

As a whole, it is enjoyable, yet still remains an oddity.

eReadings 13

In Defense of Women

H L Mencken

The title interested me here, knowing that this was written in the very early 20th century. It took some time to finally decide that this book is a satire. It is written in an intellectual style, ostensibly by someone who has figured out women, and men, and a good number of other things.

There are aspects, which if serious, would offend many, since there is a lot of negativity in all directions. Women are held up to be more highly intelligent than men, yet in more than one part of the book prostitutes are noted to be an example of the high intelligence of women.

There is a good deal of entertaining wit here, but for the topic and content, I found it got quite tedious, and could have easily been half its length or shorter.

eReadings 12

The Black Tulip

Alexandre Dumas - père

This book begins with the description of a historical event, the gruesome murder of the brothers DeWitt in The Hague, in the Netherlands. This was a time of great antagonisms, between religions, between countries, and the DeWitts were in the middle of one of these moments when power changed hands, and were mercilessly slaughtered (literally) by a mob. The descriptions are graphic.

After this, the scene now shifts to a nephew of the DeWitts, Mynheer Van Baerle, living a simple life in the town of Dort, and very much a tulip fancier. Thus we find our way to knowledge of the great challenge of the time, growing a black tulip, for which a prize and great prestige is promised.

Van Baerle isn't alone in his quest, with the Netherlands full of tulip mania, but one in particular is a neighbor, Isaac Boxtel, who envies his skills at creating new varieties of tulip. So, with the machinations of Boxtel, Van Baerle becomes entrapped in the public antagonism for the DeWitts, and ends up in prison, but not before he has managed to create a true black tulip.

The bulk of the story, then, is about the intertwining of these events, these characters and others, and the eventual presentation of the black tulip. A very enjoyable story.

eReadings 11

The Poison Belt

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

This book was published in 1913, and has nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. It figures another of Doyle's characters, Professor Challenger, a large and boisterous man who is able to see phenomena and make some startling deductions, such as the impending demise of all life on earth, which he communicates to the London Times at the beginning of this story.

The story relies on a holdover from prior generations of scientific thought that there is some ill-defined "ether" that permeates the universe, which somehow plays a role in the maintenance of life.

Professor Challenger, noting reports of some aberrations in Fraunhofer's lines – these are the gaps in the visual spectra of light which depend on the light's source – attributes this to some disruption of the ether, and anticipates this will be lethal to the human race, this being accompanied by some coincidental epidemics being reported in faraway parts of the world.

Indeed, there is something spreading over the world, from south to north, with everyone falling lifeless as it comes upon them invisibly.

The story is a relatively short one. Although I can't imagine someone making a movie from the concept, something like an episode of The Twilight Zone could have been made.

eReadings 10

South Sea Tales

Jack London

This is a collection of short stories by this famous author. While there is some range to the territory this covers in these tales, there is an emphasis on the area around the Solomon Islands.

As depicted by Mr. London, these people were savages, untrustworthy, and liable to cannibalism and head hunting. I'm not sure how true this was at the time he wrote these stories. To the modern eye, the various white people who travel the South Seas are hardly less barbaric, capturing the natives into virtual slavery for use on plantations and as crew on ships.

There is a gruesomeness which all this lends to the stories as a whole, and one could not say these are uplifting stories in any way. It also seems likely that there is more than a little exaggeration for effect.

eReadings 9

Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde

This collection of essays, articles, and stories by Oscar Wilde was put together by an admirer, seemingly to counteract the various negative public opinions of him which came about and preceded his premature death. There is no explanation of any of that in this work, so consult Wikipedia or other sources for the details.

He was an infamous character in late 19th century Britain, with a flamboyant lifestyle and sharp tongue. He had been a top student at Oxford, and made a name for himself there, and later, with his most famous work being for plays such as "The Importance of Being Earnest".

As you begin this collection, you quickly get a sense of his wit and the sharpness of his tongue as he derides one person after another. As you read along, you see in contrast his exuberance about things he holds in high esteem, one being the supremacy of literature over all kinds of other artistic media, such as painting or music.

Some of the included material are his own attempts at prosaic stories, so there is a mix of critical commentary and his own creative output.

Mr. Wilde was by reputation a very entertaining person to be with or even just observe, based on what one can read about him, and one certainly gets a sense of his wit in this collection. At the same time, while he certainly was skilled at turning a phrase, there seems to me a shallowness to his own works, so that they lack the depth of character and story development that he admires in others.

eReadings 8

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

David Livingstone

I suppose there are ways to get some sense of the length of books in the Kindle, but generally I don't bother. I do notice after having read a dozen screens and see that the progress indicator shows that I've read just 1-2%. This is one of those sorts of books.

I considered quitting at several points early on, since this was not so interesting reading at first, covering particulars of the domestic life of a missionary and doctor. It gradually became more interesting reading, either because he began going on his exploratory travels, or perhaps his writing improves (or both).

David Livingstone was an interesting person, whose early life is given in some detail in a review from Harper's after the end of the book (in this Project Gutenberg version). He was deeply religious, which must have been the source of the audacity with which he ventured through wild and dangerous areas of Africa unknown to Europeans at the time (the mid 19th century). It's rather amazing he did not succumb to the recurrent "fevers" (I presume this was malaria), or some injury, or some hostile tribe. He was the first white man that some tribes had ever seen.

Since this was a decade before the US Civil War, slavery still existed in various parts of the world, though the English had abandoned it, and were intervening where they could to stop the slave trade. In the far south of Africa the Boers saw the indigenous people as part of the bounty of the land, who they could enslave to run their farms, and thus they would regularly engage in raids on villages for the capture of new slaves. The animosity between the Boers and English was further inflamed by the English trading guns for ivory, thus making the natives less defenseless against the Boers.

To the north, the Portuguese were engaged in the slave trade, which commonly involved buying them from various tribes. In some areas, there were some tribes more aggressive than others, with chiefs extending their domain by attacking and plundering their neighbors, taking captives back with them. These captives were then likely to be traded to the Portuguese for items like calico or beads. Livingstone found that in these areas highly travelled by the Portuguese that chiefs would demand "an ox, a tusk, or a man" for passage through their regions. Passage typically and most importantly involved being supplied with a guide to help choose the paths which led in the direction one wanted to go.

Yet there was much generosity along the way. In areas not involved with the slave trade, the people were quite generous, supplying large quantities of food. In return, there was a tacit expectation of some goods in return, such as calico, ivory, and such. Money had no value here. Making friends with various chiefs was key to Livingstone's success, since they could send messages to assist him on his way, and even supply porters for his trips.

In spite of the antagonism between the English and Portuguese about the slave trade, Livingstone found great hospitality among the Portuguese in the populated areas on the west and east coasts of south central Africa.

Among the surprises in this book is that Livingstone carried with him a sextant, and periodically in the text was able to note the latitude and longitude of some location, which can be taken to Google Earth to show where he was at that point. Even in Google Earth's latest images, these are mostly sparsely inhabited areas. There is also a listing of these measurements as an appendix at the end.

This was a highly interesting book, full of many insights into southern Africa and its people as they were in the 1850s.

eReadings 7

History of Science

This is a series of 4 volumes starting in prehistoric times (yes, I said prehistoric times), and carefully covering the advances of science. I think there were 2 eras in which the accomplishments were quite amazing. Keep in mind that I'm reading out-of-copyright books, and this series was written in the late 19th century.

First, the Greeks. Their powers of reasoning and investigation are astounding, and there was very little to match them for centuries after the Greek decline. The Romans added very little to what the Greeks had already discerned. In spite of their limited knowledge about the extent of the world, the Greeks had determined that the Earth was a sphere, even though they had no idea as to where land was, where sea was on this sphere. There was the first notion of heliocentricity of our solar system, forgotten and discarded for many centuries. And of course we have people like Pythagoras and Euclid, who came up with important principles we still learn today. But we also get a sense of the attitude of some of these Greeks, a fair amount of hubris and jealousy, so this series is more than a recitation of dry facts.

In the 19th century, abetted by some very clever people in the 17th and 18th centuries, we see the beginnings of modern science as we know it, with careful experimentation, the discovery of new elements, the early development of the atomic theory, and again the various rivalries, co-discoveries, and they way that some became famous quite deservedly, some who did so less deservedly, and some who should have been famous but were overlooked.

It takes a while to go through these volumes, but for those interested in science and science history, it's well worth your while.

eReadings 6

The First Men in the Moon

H G Wells

The title's "in" seems like a typo, but eventually you realize that it's very much intended by the author. We live now with the reality of space travel and men having actually gone to the moon, so keep in mind this book comes from the 19th century, when the moon remained a source of great speculation.

There are some inklings of the scientific knowledge at the time, as far as the lower gravity on the moon, the "thinness" of the atmosphere, but there are plenty of suppositions that are way off base, and if you can't separate yourself from what we now know about the moon, then you may find the book just silly.

There is the expected eccentric scientist, who comes upon some form of alchemy involving helium to create a substance which blocks gravity, much as an opaque object blocks light. Thus, we have a means of leaving the earth to arrive at the moon, with some curious, primitive means of survival on the way, yet Wells does manage a decent description of the implications of being in a state of zero gravity.

But there is an idea that the moon has a breathable atmosphere, and that at least as long as the sun is shining on it the temperature is such that one can walk on the moon without protection, and we might say the second surprise after that is that there grows a profusion of plants on the surface of the moon, at least while the sun shines. Somehow Wells had the idea the the sun shines on the moon continuously for many of our earth days, which figures in the events as the adventures on and in the moon unravel. Surprises continue as you read about the goings on beneath the moon's surface.

Of course, now science fiction and fantasy have to travel to distant planets and galaxies to give us believable stories of life outside of Earth, but if you cast away your prejudices about what it's really like on the moon, the story is nonetheless interesting to read.

eReadings 5

Hard Times

Charles Dickens

It doesn't take long into this book to really feel the grime, grit, and bleakness of a small English manufacturing town, covered with coal dust and soot, where most people's lives belong to the factories and owners.

This is really the backdrop, though, for what is going on with the main protagonists, Thomas Gradgrind, and his friend, Josiah Bounderby, both wealthy, both in control of their lives and those around them. Mr. Gradgrind raises his children at home, filling them with facts, so much so that there is no allowance for dreaming, wishing, reading novels, anything not based on facts.

Mr. Bounderby is a self-made man, and reminds those around him incessantly of that fact -- abandoned by his mother, scraping out an existence, to finally make himself what he is today, a wealthy manufacturer and banker.

By the end of the book, each man receives his comeuppance in his own way, and at least Mr. Gradgrind is the better for it. Meanwhile, the story details the inequities of the rich and poor, part of which rests in the way the rich think of and treat the poor, yet at least some of the poor have qualities the rich will never attain.

Dickens is quite the creator of interesting characters, one of whom, Mr. Sleary, provides the challenge of reading through the depiction of his lisp, "Well, Thquire", he returned... "Ith it your intenthion to do anything for the poor girl, Thquire?" Some of Mr. Sleary's long-winded moments are a bit mind-numbing to read, seeming like a poor trick Dickens plays on his readers.

It may be a bit syrupy and sappy in the end, but overall very satisfying.

eReadings 4

David Copperfield
Charles Dickens

Dickens writes in his preface that, at least of the time of the writing, this was his favorite book, since he really enjoyed the character.

My sense after reading it is that, interestingly enough, even though the story centers around David Copperfield and the things that happen to him as narrator of the story, it's not really about him. It's about all the strange and interesting characters in his life. There is much tragedy, various moments of happiness, sorrow as he tries to make his way through life, and the strange ways that people keep coming back into his life.

One of the most interesting families are the McCawbers, a family always on the verge of yet another financial calamity, going from one ruinous debt to the next, yet happy the whole while.

And now I see where the rock band Uriah Heep got its name, and quite a character he is.

Maybe the ending gets to be a bit of too much goodness, but this is a book full of enjoyable reading.

Occupy Wall Street

I try not to have many political/social comments, mostly because it's something of a cesspool of negative thoughts, but I find OWS interesting, in that it doesn't seem to have a coherent message, or maybe it only seems so to some.

This isn't to say that everyone involved in it has the same idea of what OWS should accomplish, what its message should be, but there is some intelligence in not forcing that to happen. It's a complex intelligence that even though I might have dissatisfactions with the high-living economic world, it's not flavored by going through a foreclosure, unemployment, or various other disasters others are going through.

It's interesting to compare OWS to the Tea Party, as many have done, but the TP was long ago abducted by the rich to serve their needs. A Libertarian approach to things is great when you talk about not paying taxes, allowing anyone to make as much money as they possibly can, but it seems that strictly speaking, a true Libertarian would say that there is no reason to save the financial system, no reason to save the auto industry, anymore than we want to save someone from not having health insurance.

The message I think that OWS has to offer that needs to last is that it's time to temper the greed. It's time to not measure success based on how much money one can accumulate in the shortest amount of time. It's time to believe that, when you manage to benefit from wealth creation, that there is some payback to society for having a system that allows that to happen.

Connectivity

There seems to be an increasing number of doctors carrying around iPads for various reasons, one being that they can connect to the hospital's system to get patient information. Our hospital has free wireless.

I carry around a laptop for the same reason, and while I have considered getting some sort of tablet, so far it doesn't make sense. There are a number of things I can do on the laptop that would not be feasible with a tablet. I have some custom software, like a database for example, that I would have to find some substitute for, and really don't want to bother.

The overriding issue, though, is that I have begun to see connectivity in the same way I saw TV some time ago: a great way to waste a lot of time, and realize hours later that you haven't seen anything worth remembering and have accomplished nothing.

This isn't some abstract mental exercise. It comes from having one or more computers running in my house so that I can as often as I want step up to and look up something, browse for random information on selected sites, check out blogs, or whatever. In the end it's not any more interesting, mostly less interesting than flipping through the hundreds of channels I could see on my cable TV, and I've already decided TV is mostly a waste of time. If I lived alone, I probably wouldn't have cable, and maybe not even a TV at all.

Here we are, in the 21st century, bombarded with uninteresting stuff, much of it propped up with advertising dollars to get us to go out and buy something we'll be unhappy with after purchase.

eReadings 3

History of the Plague in London
Daniel Defoe

The first thing to realize about this book is its chronology. This is a "first person" narrative of the plague in late 17th century London, and if you check out the vagueness of Daniel Defoe's lifespan you realize he was at most a few years old during that time. His father is alleged to have kept some notes, perhaps a diary of the plague, so some have proposed that may have been in part the basis for this book. Others have suggested that Defoe used some other literary sources regarding the plague in other parts of Europe for his material.

So what you have is at best a second-person memoir, and when you consider the leeway one might see with a first-person memoir, at the outset you realize that there may be any number of distortions or exaggerations.

For a medical person, this is nonetheless an interesting book, showing as it does the profound effects on the infrastructure and the psyche of a large city faced with some medical epidemic for which no cure is known, yet a number of superstitions existed as to how to manage it, prevent it, most bordering on voodoo from a modern perspective.

Aside from the dubiousness of the factual information, this certainly seems more plausible than various movies about contagion we have seen. Some of the quite believable features are the accounts of people who took great precautions to avoid the plague only to succumb, and some who took none yet survived. Of course, there is ample evidence that taking unnecessary chances was generally a bad and fatal idea.

Will we ever face something like this again? The doomsayers predict it with regularity. If you ever wanted to think about coping with a very real disaster, this book is worth reading, and offers the safety of the distance of a few centuries when there was great ignorance about the cause of infectious diseases.

eReadings 2

Howard's End
E M Forster
 

I had not seen either of the movies made from this story, so I had no idea what it was about. For the most part, it focuses on two reasonably well-to-do young sisters living in London, due to an inheritance from their father, so neither they nor their younger brother would ever consider working. Nonetheless, the setting of the story is pre-WWI, at a time when at least some women are getting ideas about getting the vote, and speaking their minds even in the company of men.

Howard's End is a place which figures pretty early in the story, then manages to fade to the background until near the end. Meanwhile there is an interesting weaving in and out of various characters, with untoward if not disastrous consequences for some of them.

I found the story line the best part of the book. It's perhaps expected that one might have trouble connecting to the thoughts of young women about that time, but it seemed there was something missing in their characterizations. There certainly was a effort to show them as quite unsettling to the gentlemen of the time. I certainly would recommend the book as well worth the read.