Earned Prosperity

Posted on February 2, 2021January 29, 2021 by Simon

A lot of people could be employed in the tedious work of digitizing and cataloging old books and records. I seems it would be a better way of distributing money than welfare or eternal unemployment ch... Read More

Words Seldom Seen: Savant

Posted on October 7, 2020October 3, 2020 by Simon

Savant Noun: A learned person, especially one who grasps advanced concepts quickly. Example: “Nicolas Tesla was an electrical savant.”... Read More

Words Seldom Seen: Bowdlerize

Posted on May 28, 2020May 9, 2020 by Simon

Bowlderize Bowlderize, verb: To remove text that is considered offensive from a published work. Example: “The editors bowlderized every use of the word f**k from the final edition of the poem.&#... Read More

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Posted on May 16, 2020May 16, 2020 by Simon

“It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime.“ Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston There is a great audio version of this book available read by Ruby Dee. Even though you rea... Read More

Binge Reading Factfulness

Posted on April 7, 2020April 26, 2020 by Simon

I just finished binge reading Factfulness by Hans Rosling. Even conceding that for me a lot of it is confirmation bias, I found it to be one of the best books I’ve read in years. It taught me no... Read More

The Widow’s Strike

Posted on April 4, 2020April 26, 2020 by Simon

Since many of you are sheltering at home and are already giving up on reading Thackeray or Adam Smith I’d like to recommend The Widow’s Strike by Brad Taylor. It is a thriller that has a m... Read More

Gourmet Plastic

Posted on March 3, 2020February 29, 2020 by Simon

Processed food is one of the inventions mentioned in the book Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy by Tim Harford. He focuses on the Swanson TV dinner but points out that among the first pr... Read More

W.E.B. Du Bois

Posted on October 3, 2019September 28, 2019 by Simon

Nostalgic reprint from October 2009 I just finished reading “The Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Du Bois. It was written in 1904 and was remarkably prescient. Du Bois was the first the first ... Read More

Book Read: The Opium War

Posted on September 25, 2019September 4, 2019 by Simon

The Opium War By Julia Lovell The first half of this book is an excellent telling of the details of the Opium War that the British Empire and China fought in the mid 19th Century. It is pretty balance... Read More

Book Read: The Big Rock Candy Mountain

Posted on September 18, 2019September 4, 2019 by Simon

The Big Rock Candy Mountain By Wallace Stegner Stegner’s prose are beautiful. He paints word pictures that are so vivid they make you feel like you are living in the time and place he describes.... Read More

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Simon Burrow

Quirky thoughts from an old man.

Tag: books