Monday, July 26, 2021

Stock Market Investing for Beginners - John Josefh Mallardh

 A great overview but I was definitely left feeling like I needed a lot more details on each topic before jumping into it myself.  I guess that makes this book a good place to start when you're considering investing options.  

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Click, Click, ChaChing!: Learn the best and easiest way to build a passive income in 2020- Raphael Leonardo

 Despite the horrid title, this book was a reasonably interesting and diverse in its topics.  I think the author's varied approach was honest and the potential negatives were addressed even if the plus side was over emphasized.  The author focused more on methods that seemed more likely to be successful like online stores and advertising as opposed to barely mentioning blogging or selling photo, which makes sense if the purpose is to create revenue.  I'd say this is a good book if you just want to think of what's out there for you to try, but there are no secret details that will really help get your head above the rest.  

Sunday, July 18, 2021

A Curious History of Sex - Kate Lister

 This was a fantastically fun book and I would highly recommend it for most people.  Of course, there is no way that one book can cover all of the history of sex, or even all of a single category.  But the author takes you on a lively trip through time regarding some of the most scandalous aspects that humans have created.  A few random bits to give you an idea of what to find in this book:

The word whore has only recently been associated with prostitution and for most of its existence simply meant a woman who had sex with anyone not her husband, but was still considered one of the greatest insults.

The word cunt is the oldest word in English for female genitals.  It is believed to originate from the same root as the word cunning.

Women riding bicycles was considered the highest of offences during the Victorian era. You could see their ankles!  They didn't squeeze themselves ill in corsets while riding!  It gave them freedom where they couldn't be watched by society!  Horrors!

People seem to have forgotten that if you don't have access to abortion and birth control, women will still get rid of unwanted children, including leaving them to suffocate in the outhouse. 

Once upon a time, the worst thing you could say were things related to religion, like "God's teeth", then it switched to things related to sex, like "fuck", and today the worst cuss words are shifting to things related to racism.  That's about 1000 years of bad word evolution right there.  Very interesting because the shift was so fast that there are people alive today who remember how horrible it was to say "fuck" not that long ago while they heard things like the N-word pretty regularly.  Those have now completely switched.

This book is littered with euphemisms for all manner of sex related acts and parts including the year they were first documented in print.  I loved learning the dates of when such terms came into common useage.  

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Turn Coat - Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files, Bk. 11)

 I think this might be my favorite of the Dresden series so far.  Nothing terribly convoluted and no cheap hero-randomly-gets-saved-from-insurmountable-odds-by-luck bs.  We have a defined bad guy who's hiding in the shadows, so you know what's going on but not who.  There was one obvious "twist" but otherwise a fantastically well played book, peak chaotic good action.