This week’s triple-T is books we were over the moon to buy, but….haven’t gotten around to reading. But first, teases!
Volcanoes, then, can be sites of encounter and performance, where history is made. Sometimes their eruptions are so dramatic they make history themselves – the Indonesian volcano, Krakatau, which exploded violently in 1883 claiming 36,000 lives, comes to mind.And volcanoes are accomplished scribes – they write their history, in the folios of pumice and ash from which they are built. Pare back the layers of the archive and you might find ancient soils, agricultural land, towns, footprints, bodies and all traces of once-vibrant life whose chance exhumation connects us across millennia with fleeting seconds of peril. (Mountains of Fire, Clive Oppenheimer)
I propose that we view the late 1980s as the beginning of the transition from a “play-based childhood” to a “phone-based childhood,” a transition that was not complete until the mid-2010s, when most adolescents had their own smartphone. I use “phone-based” broadly to include all of the internet-connected personal electronics that came to fill young people’s time, including laptop computers, tablets, internet-connected video game consoles, and, most important, smartphones with millions of apps. (The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt)
So…I can’t do much for this topic, since I haven’t been buying many books lately. Let’s take a gander at my Amazon order history and see…
The Anxious Generation certainly counts, as it was a preorder that arrived in the middle of Read of England and was so shelved.
There’s The Atlas of Beauty, a photo collection of women’s stories from around the world
Oh, and America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone! Bought that one last year.
Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War, William Manchester. Read this back in high school 20+ years ago (…criminy…) and wanted to revisit it.
Earthings, by Sayuka Marata.
Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything
Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Peggy Orenstein. This one should be interesting, considering that I found it while looking for works like Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter.
A Brief History of Nakedness. I’d bought this one to read with Naked at Lunch, but got distracted.
Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages, Dan Jones
Star Trek: Burning Dreams. A Captain Pike novel (pre-Strange New Worlds, sorry) by Margaret Bonanno.
Reading Freely 
I predict good reading ahead! 🙌
The Anxious Generation is a book I’d like to read, but for now I can watch you read it and I can wait to see what you think about it.
That book about air conditioning sounds really interesting!
I have a few relatives whose asthma gets a lot worse on hot, muggy days as those also tend to be the days when the pollen and mould counts are high. (And we’re all allergic to that sort of stuff).
Having air conditioning is crucial to keep their lungs working as well as possible so they don’t need to make a trip to the ER. I’m so grateful such an invention exists.
Here is my Top Ten Tuesday.
Lydia
You always have interesting titles (I’ve never heard of), but I think it pays to work at the library.
Honestly, most of my book finds come from amazon’s “related” page, or as references cited by other books. I also listen to podcasts like EconTalk that frequently feature interesting books!
I haven’t heard of any of these books, whoops.
My TTT: https://laurieisreading.com/2024/05/28/top-ten-tuesday-books-i-was-super-excited-to-get-my-hands-on-but-still-havent-read/
Not surprising given the obscurity of my usual reading…XD
You still have plenty there that’s of interest and I hope you love them all! I want to read Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages too! I’ve been listening to Dan Jones’ podcast This Is History, and I am OBSESSED and I want to consume all his content when I am able!
I didn’t realize he had a podcast! Will check it out. If you like history podcasts, I’m loving Tom Holland and Dominic Sandborne’s “The Rest is History” — it’s very varied!
Yes, it tells the story of the Plantagenets starting with Henry II but it’s told in story format. Very engaging It’s now on a ‘guest season’ with another narrator before s 5 starts. Oh interesting, I’ll look into your suggestion too! Thanks 🙂
I hope you enjoy reading all of these when you get the chance.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/books-i-was-excited-to-read-yet-theyre-still-unread/
I hope you get the chance to read these great books soon! Happy Tuesday!
I spent much of this afternoon reading the Star Trek titles! Thanks!
By the way, I’m not able to comment on your blog, but tried to say that the Library of Borrowed Hearts is on my shortlist. 🙂
All of these are new to me, but some of them sound really interesting, especially the one about the history of the Middle Ages. I hope you enjoy them all when you get to them!
The one about a/c sounds fascinating, especially since I live in Arizona. I can’t imagine how people survived out here in the desert before a/c was invented. I would have died. Literally. I hope you enjoy all these when you get to them!
Happy TTT (on a Wednesday)!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
The south & southwest wouldn’t be as populated today without AC, that’s for certain!
Oooh, the air-conditioning book sounds interesting! I’ve often wondered about it, and the different ways it works in different countries too (I’ve lived in both a tropical country and a four seasons country).
Haze
https://thebookhaze.com/
I got the Atlas of Beauty from the library a few years ago… I’d say you could just leaf through it over a lunch break. 🙂 It’s got some lovely photos, the stories weren’t quite as compelling IIRC.
Ah, that’s too bad. Bought it hoping it was a bit like Humans of New York, but hadn’t taken a proper look yet.