Sacramento Public Library discussion

August means back to school, so for this month’s reading challenge let’s hit the books and read nonfiction. Feel free to choose any type of nonfiction, including history, science, biographies or memoirs.

I’ll be reading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb.

To participate simply post your progress or leave a comment below for a chance to win a pre-publication copy of a book.

Happy reading!

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

I'm almost done listening to Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. This book is not for the faint of heart!

Another fun challenge! I will be reading The Third Miracle: An Ordinary Man, a Medical Mystery, and a Trial of Faith. I've started it already. It is very good and reads more like a novel than non-fiction. This challenge will spur me to finish it.

I started but haven't made much of a dent in Takuan Soho's The Unfettered Mind. This challenge is a good impetus for me to finish the book, which was recommended to me by my tai chi instructor. Takuan was a 16th-early 17th century Zen master of the Rinzai school. His book, which in the Shambhala edition runs less than 150 pages, is a discussion about how Zen precepts apply to the mastery of a skill, in this case, swordsmanship. Takuan emphasizes that in order to learn anything well, one has to be willing to empty the mind of all preconceptions and start at the beginning. This might sound obvious, but I didn't realize how difficult it was to "get over yourself" until I took up karate at the age of 57, after a long period of inactivity following an injury. My knees and right shoulder hurt, and I was scared of re-injuring myself as I had done with running. When the sensei suggested I start out in the "youth class," I was further mortified. Trying to memorize the steps of a kata next to ten-year-olds who perform it as if they were born punching and spinning is ten times more humbling than scrubbing the privy as Zen acolytes were expected to do! When I was finally able to complete the pinan shodan without tripping over my own feet, I was glowing with pride---until I was told I had four more katas in the series to master. Takuan would probably say, "Of course! One never finishes learning!" But it shows that I have a lot to learn about work, practice, and mastery. So I hope to gain some insights from a 400-year-old Zen roshi.

I've just finished THUNDERSTRUCK by Erik Larsen. I enjoy his format. Being a mystery buff, glad for the the "who-done-it part" of his books. The Marconi part of the story gets almost too technical for me, but I plowed through. Look forward to his next one.........

I've been reading The Quarter Acre Farm by Spring Warren

I have just finished Demon in the Freezer, which scared me. Now I think anyone who is sick may have Smallpox! It was a great book though

I'm about ready for some non-fiction, but can't decide. I'm leaning towards Ned Myers: A Life Before the Mast, a biography by James Fenimore Cooper. (It sounds like Cooper took some liberties with the facts, but that's okay with me.) But there are so many books out there I want to read: The Boys in the Boat or Lawrence in Arabia or maybe even But Mama Always Put Vodka in Her Sangria!

The last biography I read was The Last Man Who Knew Everything: Thomas Young, the Anonymous Polymath Who Proved Newton Wrong, Explained How We See, Cured the Sick and Deciphered the Rosetta Stone, a dull, dry book about a fascinating man.

Gotta finish Charlie Lovett's novel The Bookman's Tale first, though - it's terrific so far!

Louise - As a fellow mystery lover, I'm certainly tempted to start reading Thunderstruck now, instead of finishing Antifragile. There are several book picks people have mentioned that I'm going to add to my to-read later list.

Eleanor - I love your story about the 10 year olds practicing kata!

Hope everyone is making progress in their nonfiction read.

I have started A History of the Vikings for I am Norwegian and I have ancestors that were Vikings.

I just finished "Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat. One of the earlier popular works in the environmental movement, it's on a number of high school reading lists. I originally read it almost 20 years ago and recently picked it up again.

I read "We Learn Nothing" by Tim Kreider. It's a collection of hilarious, saddening and poignant essays alongside cartoons. He told one of his stories on an episode of Radiolab http://www.radiolab.org/2012/sep/24/s..., and I haven't stopped thinking about it.

I cannot praise this book enough and now I really want to hang out and be best friends with the author.

Chelsea wrote: "John wrote: "I just finished "Never Cry Wolf" by Farley Mowat. One of the earlier popular works in the environmental movement, it's on a number of high school reading lists. I originally read it al..."

I'm just glad that the mice did not try to do the same thing to me the last time I went camping!

I'm finding Antifragile fascinating, but as usual with nonfiction, it's taking me longer to finish than the novels I typically read.

How is everyone else doing with the nonfiction challenge?

Earlier this month, I finished Ned Myers: A Life Before the Mast, a biography by James Fenimore Cooper. A very interesting read! It reminded me quite a bit of Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast, but where Dana was a rich kid taking time off from Harvard to go slumming with sailors, Myers was the real thing, who ran away from his foster parents to join a ship, was taken prisoner during the war of 1812, etc.

Myers and Cooper had served together on the Sterling when Myers was a cabin boy of thirteen, and then crossed paths again nearly 40 years later. The book is an "as told to" autobiography, written by Cooper in Myers' voice in the first person. For some reason, I had gotten the impression that Cooper had taken some liberties with the story, but now I believe that impression was wrong.

I read this as a download from Project Gutenberg. It was particularly gratifying to be able to flip back and forth from the ebook to Wikipedia or Google to look up further details on some of the ships Myers sailed, captains he served, ports he visited, and battles he fought. I was already familiar with a lot of "age of sail" jargon from books like Dana, Moby Dick, and Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, but a few of the terms left me - and Google! - scratching our heads.

I see that Cooper also wrote some other non-fiction books and biographies about the U.S. Navy. While Ned Myers might not be everyone's cup of tea, I'd say it's definitely worth reading if you're interested in sea stories or biographies from that period or the history of America and the American Navy in the first half of the 19th century.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our August 2013 Nonfiction Reading Challenge.

One lucky participant in our Reading Challenge discussion gets a free review copy of a new nonfiction book, and this month our winner is Chip! Please let us know which library branch you would like us to send your prize.