I was just looking thru some of my old jump drives at my massive collection of book mark saves and found this. A website of vintage pulp paperback novels from the late 1930’s to the late 70’s. This at a time people were reading just for pleasure, entertainment, and just to pass time.
Just clicking thru all of the book cover art is a hoot.
Graphically Illustrating the Evolution of American Paperbadks
The rise of Athens (everitt) and “so you want to be a gladiator” …or maybe just “gladiator”
I just reread Home Before Morning by Linda Van Devanter
Read On the Road by Jack Kerouac on my last ship. He just happened to be a Merchant Mariner in WW2, most likely with the NMU.
Fantastic writer.
On the Road is absolutely brilliant, especially considering that the style wasn’t invented at the time of writing. It brought me closer to understanding what’s wrong with me. When I was done with it, I passed it on to a German philosopher struggling with his PhD while stuck in the Palermitan expat party loop. No word on whether it helped him finish 
Agreed. I re-read it about every 10 years or so.
The closing paragraph alone stuck with me after all these years. I think the first time I read it, I recall closing the book and thinking, "Wow."
My small understanding of the Roman Empire is the following: It was an agriculture/non-nomadic based cluster of societies dominated by the military centered in Rome.
IMO, the social profile of Roman society was less like a pyramid and more like an obelisk.
Books currently reading: Holistic Land Management by Savory & Butterfield, and it’s about grass and cattle and management. Next book I intend to read is “Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal” by Joel Salatin.
If you don’t know who Joel Salatin is, my suggestion is to watch his videos on Youtube. He’s a revolutionary and knowledgeable about American history in a way that is not exactly taught in schools.
He also puts International history and commerce in a different perspective than it’s usually portrayed.
So Uncle John Ross (imagineer of mountains) gets his hands on an old ferry: the paddle steamer Victory. Then he gets Buddy Felix Booth (distiller of gin) to outfit Victory for a voyage of exploration. Nephew James Ross (heartthrob of the fleet) to come along as Chief Mate. Off they go. But not very fast. Something is wrong. A boiler is leaking. Stop it up with “dung and potatoes,” says the maker. (but I have so many questons…) Then it exploded, but this was 1829, so I guess there wasn’t much pressure? Uncle John says: “…it had been predetermined that not a single atom of all this machinery should be aught but a source of vexation, obstruction and evil.” Young James says, “I still see Scotland.”
So they gave up on the engine, but managed to find the magnetic north pole for the first time anyway.
I’m reading Michael Palin’s (salesman of dead parrots) Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time.
I loved that book, in fact I liked all of Kerouac’s books
I need to get my hands on some more… all I have is OTR and a beat up copy of Tristessa.
Have you ever read this one?
5 posts were split to a new topic: Glomar Explorer
Just started: The Black Bat - CIA spy flights over China from Taiwan 1951-1969 by Chris Pocock with Clarence Fu.
This book was recently given to me by a friend, the daughter of a CIA officer who was instrumental in its being written and published.
The Death Ship
Its about an American sailor who becomes stranded and stateless in post WW1 Europe and his
struggle to find a ship to bring him home with no way to prove his identity.
The next book I will read just as soon as I can lay my hands on it.
I’ve wondered if it would ever come to this. Rats swimming away from a sinking ship? Or like at the end of WW1 and the Germans going into hiding only to
recoup and try again 20 years later. Presently there are plenty of players who could be groomed for it.
Charles Koch, “Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World,”
This Yahoo review is well worth the read.
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