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Old Holga shots, better scans!

 

2006

...like that—it is the miracle which can call back in a flash our dispersed mind and restore it to wholeness so that we can live each minute of life.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation -

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/live-in-the-moment

 

Ornamental figurine or statuette or any material (except cloth) one or a pair www.todaysposting.com/TPAssignment.php?TP=456

 

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Goodreads Book Giveaway

   

    

Walking the Eraserhood

  

by Bob Bruhin

    

Giveaway ends June 04, 2021.

  

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

      

Enter Giveaway

  

Via: Book Giveaway For Walking the Eraserhood

 

bob-bruhin.com/2021/05/20/book-giveaway-for-walking-the-e...

My full review is on Goodreads:

bit.ly/1p22E2A

 

This excellent translation is our best source on the life of Irena Sendler. The research is thorough and come alive through the many interviews the author conducted with Irena herself and the people who knew her. Most notable is that Ms. Mieszkowska lets Irena tell her own story in her own words. It provided much of the source material for the beautiful PBS documentary, Irena Sendler: In the Name of Their Mothers.

 

It was the request of Irena herself that her biography begin with the story of four high school girls from Uniontown, Kansas—half a world away and half a century from the terrifying experiences that defined her early life. That was Irena Sendler, a selfless person doing what she considered her moral duty.

 

yenir.

anadolu alıcı, yemişen olarak da bilinir.

bitkisi ağaç şeklindedir.

meyveleri sarı, turuncu ve kırmızı renktedir. bu albümdeki alıç fotoğraflarında kırmızı olanlar en olgunları ancak sarıyken de yenebilir. ekşimsi tatlı bir lezzeti var. olgunlaştıkça ekşiliği azalır.

 

latince: crataegus orientalis

ingilizce: haw, thorn apple, hawthorn

 

www.agaclar.org/agac.asp?id=722

www.wikiwand.com/tr/Adi_al%C4%B1%C3%A7 (adi alıç)

www.wikiwand.com/en/Crataegus_orientalis

 

kaynak kitap: www.goodreads.com/book/show/10662496-t-rkiye-nin-a-a-lar-...

From Goodreads - The author of Bird in Hand and The Way Life Should Be delivers her most ambitious and powerful novel to date: a captivating story of two very different women who build an unexpected friendship: a 91-year-old woman with a hidden past as an orphan-train rider and the teenage girl whose own troubled adolescence leads her to seek answers to questions no one has ever thought to ask.

 

Nearly eighteen, Molly Ayer knows she has one last chance. Just months from "aging out" of the child welfare system, and close to being kicked out of her foster home, a community service position helping an elderly woman clean out her home is the only thing keeping her out of juvie and worse.

 

Vivian Daly has lived a quiet life on the coast of Maine. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past. As she helps Vivian sort through her possessions and memories, Molly discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they seem to be. A young Irish immigrant orphaned in New York City, Vivian was put on a train to the Midwest with hundreds of other children whose destinies would be determined by luck and chance.

 

The closer Molly grows to Vivian, the more she discovers parallels to her own life. A Penobscot Indian, she, too, is an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past. As her emotional barriers begin to crumble, Molly discovers that she has the power to help Vivian find answers to mysteries that have haunted her for her entire life - answers that will ultimately free them both.

 

Rich in detail and epic in scope, Orphan Train is a powerful novel of upheaval and resilience, of second chances, of unexpected friendship, and of the secrets we carry that keep us from finding out who we are.

 

***********************************************

My review -

 

If your a lover of history, this is the book for you. They're not many books out there that can make me shed a tear or two (in truth their is not much that can make me cry period), but this one had the tears welling up and spilling out. All I can say is thank goodness I was sitting in my car alone while waiting for my husband to get out of work.

 

The orphan trains that were spoke of in the book existed between 1854-1930. These trains would take orphaned or abandoned children from the east coast to the Midwest. Some of the children would be adopted into loving families. Others were indentured to families to work on the farm as labor or to work in the house helping take care of the children and other household duties. Many were abused, beaten, sexually molested, raped, or thrown out to fend for themselves. The really sad part is that these children really had no rights what so ever and many times were not believed if they complained. These were the castaways that no body really wanted.

 

The story goes back and forth between 2011 Maine and the 1930's and 1940's in Minnesota. We have two main characters, Vivian and Molly.

In this story Vivian was one of the orphan train children. She was an Irish immigrant who was orphaned in New York City. She was handed over to what was called the Children's Aid Society for care and was then placed on one of these trains. Molly is a Native American teenager who has been tossed into bad Foster Homes since she was little. Molly tries to steal a book from the library and is given 50 hours of community service. Molly is directed towards Vivian, who is 91 at the time, to help clean out her attic.

 

While Molly is helping Vivian with the attic, Vivian's story about her childhood is being told. Molly comes to find out that she and Vivian are not that much different in how they grew up and an unlikely bond grows between the two ladies.

 

As a mother, reading Vivian's story is quite painful at times to hear. Children did not have many rights during the time Vivian grew up so they could be beaten, made to work long hours with no food, piss poor living conditions, and a host of other things. I think what really ticks me off is that the organizations like the Children's Aid Society ignored what was going on. They knew what kind of life some of these children were going to have and they had no qualms about releasing them into the care of what I would call Monsters. I understand that times were different from now, but how can you look at a child and do what some of these people did. I don't think I will ever understand.

 

The story is not entirely about the abuse. Vivian and Molly both have their share of some happy moments especially between the middle to the ending of the book. It shows you that even under the most dire circumstances that if you want to survive, you can. Your life is what you make it out to be. The actions in your past should not define who you are. Yes they happened, and yes they really sucked, but you can rise above all the hardships and negativity that you have suffered through. That is why I gave this 5 stars and would highly recommend it.

Melissa Fay Greene:

melissafaygreene.com/

 

Paul Robeson Speaks

www.amazon.com/Paul-Robeson-Speaks-Interviews-Celebration...

www.amazon.com/Paul-Robeson-Speaks-Interviews-Celebration...

books.google.com/books?id=V_CJfbpKOLwC&printsec=front...

 

Strike! by Jeremy Brecher

www.amazon.com/Strike-Jeremy-Brecher/dp/1604864281

libcom.org/history/strike-jeremy-brecher

secure.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=574

www.goodreads.com/book/show/979125.Strike_

www.thenation.com/authors/jeremy-brecher

 

The Port Huron Statement

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Huron_Statement

coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/huron.html

www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/sunday-review/the-port-huron-s...

www.lsa.umich.edu/phs

www.lsa.umich.edu/phs/about/thestatement

inthesetimes.com/article/13053/the_port_huron_statement_s...

www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-port-huron-statement-...

 

The New Radicals in the Multiversity, by Carl Davidson

www.amazon.com/Radicals-Multiversity-Writings-Student-Syn...

www.akpress.org/newradicalsinthemultiversityvolume1.html

www.akpress.org/newradicalsinthemultiversityandothersdswr...

www.goodreads.com/book/show/384837.The_New_Radicals_in_th...

libcom.org/library/new-radicals-multiversity-other-sds-wr...

 

The Great Labor Quotations: Sourcebook and Reader, by Peter Bollen

www.amazon.com/The-Great-Labor-Quotations-Sourcebook/dp/0...

 

Why Unions Matter, by Michael Yates

www.amazon.com/Why-Unions-Matter-Michael-Yates/dp/1583671900

monthlyreview.org/books/pb1900/

faculty.uml.edu/mduffy/48.371/Yates._Why_Unions._Why_Unio...

 

In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker, by David Brody

ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780195067910.do

www.amazon.com/In-Labors-Cause-History-American/dp/019506...

www.jstor.org/stable/27672268

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brody

 

Child Labor in America, by Juliet H. Mofford

www.amazon.com/Child-Labor-America-Perspectives-History/d...

 

The Lincoln Brigade: A Picture History, by William Loren Katz

www.amazon.com/The-Lincoln-Brigade-Picture-History/dp/162...

wipfandstock.com/the-lincoln-brigade.html

zinnedproject.org/materials/the-lincoln-brigade/

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-lincoln-brigade-william-lore...

 

Italian Anarchism: 1864–1892, by Nunzio Pernicone

www.amazon.com/Italian-Anarchism-1864-1892-Nunzio-Pernico...

press.princeton.edu/titles/5347.html

www.goodreads.com/book/show/5677204-italian-anarchism-186...

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/italian-anarchism-1864-1892-nunz...

www.akpress.org/italiananarchismakpress.html

www.drexel.edu/histpol/news/archive/passing-of-dr-nunzio-...

 

Triangle: The Fire That Changed America, by David Drehle

www.amazon.com/Triangle-Fire-That-Changed-America/dp/0802...

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/triangle-david-von-drehle/111089...

books.google.com/books?id=Xw4fjRQFusQC&printsec=front...

www.booknotes.org/Watch/177888-1/David+Von+Drehle.aspx

www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment-july-dec03-triangle...

www.nytimes.com/2003/10/03/books/books-of-the-times-combi...

www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9613

www.librarything.com/work/147851

 

Triangle: A Novel, by Katharine Weber

www.amazon.com/Triangle-A-Novel-Katharine-Weber/dp/031242...

www.katharineweber.com/books/t_about.html

www.goodreads.com/book/show/108307.Triangle

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/...

www.katharineweber.com/books/triangle_review_LA.html

quarterlyconversation.com/triangle-by-katharine-weber-review

 

Bread and Roses: Mills, Migrants, and the Struggle for the American Dream, by Bruce Watson

www.amazon.com/Bread-Roses-Migrants-Struggle-American/dp/...

brucewatsonwriter.com/bruce-watson-bread-roses/

www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14417

books.google.com/books?id=c78_s1j2hucC&printsec=front...

 

Lawrence in the Gilden Age, by Louise Brady Sandberg

www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Gilded-Age-Images-America/dp/0738...

www.arcadiapublishing.com/9780738535104/Lawrence-in-the-G...

books.google.com/books?id=ar6O1-tzlngC&printsec=front...

books.google.dk/books?id=ar6O1-tzlngC&lpg=PP1&dq=...

 

Bone: Out from Boneville, by Jeff Smith

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_from_Boneville

www.amazon.com/BONE-1-Boneville-Jeff-Smith/dp/0439706408

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bone_(comics)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Smith_(cartoonist)

 

Bone: The Great Cow Race, by Jeff Smith

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Cow_Race

 

Bone: Eyes of the Storm, by Jeff Smith

www.amazon.com/Bone-Vol-3-Eyes-Storm/dp/0439706386

 

The Captain from Connecticut, by C. S. Forester

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Captain_from_Connecticut

www.amazon.com/The-Captain-Connecticut-Great-Stories/dp/1...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Forester

 

The Good Shepherd, by C. S. Forester

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Shepherd_(novel)

 

The Ship, by C. S. Forester

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ship_(novel)

 

To the Indies, by C. S. Forester

www.amazon.com/To-Indies-C-S-Forester/dp/0884119262

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/to-the-indies-c-s-forester/10016...

 

Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey%E2%80%93Maturin_series

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Aubrey

 

Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian

www.amazon.com/Master-Commander-Patrick-OBrian/dp/0393307050

 

Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Captain_(novel)

 

H.M.S. Suprise, by Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Surprise_(novel)

 

The Mauritius Command, by Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mauritius_Command

www.amazon.com/Mauritius-Command-Aubrey-Maturin-Novels/dp...

 

Desolation Island, by Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desolation_Island_(novel)

 

The Fortune of War, by Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fortune_of_War

 

The Surgeon's Mate, by Patrick O'Brian

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Surgeon's_Mate

 

The Far Side of the World, by Patrick O'Brian

www.amazon.com/Side-World-Aubrey-Maturin-Novels/dp/039330...

¡Hola! Acabo de publicar la primera reseña del nuevo blog , espero que os guste :)

 

Ver post AQUÍ

 

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Today our book club members created Goodreads accounts and joined our group on the site.

From Goodreads - Orphan Tessa Gray, sixteen, crosses the ocean from New York to find her brother Nate in Victorian London, her only possession a clockwork angel necklace from her mother. She is ignorant of her power to transform; the Dark sisters are not. They kidnap her for the Magister, who wants to marry Tessa and claim her power.

 

Shadowhunters, warriors of angel blood, battle demons and keep the peace in the Downworld of vampires, warlocks and other supernaturals. Orphan teen Shadowhunters Jem, Will, and Jess rescue Tessa and agree to help save Nate. Vengeful vampire Lady Camille Belcourt and her current lover, warlock Magnus Bane provide entrée to the Magister's secret Pandemonium Club.

 

**************What I didn't like:

 

I was hoping to love this like I did the Mortal Instruments series, but so far it's nothing to write home about. The whole book was pretty ho-hum, predictable, and just a wee bit unbelievable. Clockwork people? Seriously? When I think of Victorian London, shadow hunters, and downworlders that is the last thing that comes to mind. I have a very active imagination, but this just seems way too out there to actually believe. I'm still going to read the rest of the series and I am hoping it makes more sense and is a bit more believable.

 

Will - I think we could have done without another angsty character. He is so flippin melodramatic. I swear that boy has more issues than a church full of pregnant nuns.

 

Jessamine - If I were Tessa I think I would have slapped that girl silly. She's pretentious, snooty, and ungrateful.

 

What I did like:

 

Tessa Gray - I like her. She's bold and although she is a bit shy, I think she may grow into her character and what will be in store for her later on. She has a pretty groovy power. It's different and I like that she is not just another shadowhunter with a chip the size of a small family car on her shoulder. I have high hopes for her and if I'm disappointed you will see a grown woman probably cry.

 

Charlotte & Henry - Possibly, not the most ideal leaders of the London Institute, but they can handle it better than the clave thinks they can. I don't trust the clave. I'm not sure why, but I think it will be their fault if any kind of upcoming war is coming.

 

Magnus Bane - Who does not like Magnus? (I hear nothing but crickets). He is such a central lovable character in these books that if anything were to ever happen to him, once again you would have to see a grown woman cry...AGAIN! If I were single, I would date Magnus.

 

Camille - I wondering why myself. She's a tad evil and self absorbed, but there is something about this vampire that I have come to admire and respect. I even liked her in the Mortal Instruments book. She knows how to get what she wants. Is that really such a bad trait??

 

Jem - The only other being that has ever been as calm as Jem is and I think that was the Buddha.

 

If I could give another half star I would. I don't hate the book, but I'm not impressed so far. This time it's the story line. If it weren't for all the characters that I loved, I probably would have only given this 1 1/2 stars. If the other two books live up to my expectations I will come back and increase my rating.*********************************

My review -

Willcox, AZ, (1877, pop. 3,796) • Pinterest

 

• Pablo B. Soto (1857-1947), was born in gold rush town Concord, CA • house built by Delos Hutchins Smith (1840-1909), sold in 1884 • Pablo & his Mexican born wife, Amelia lived here until c. 1910 —Willcox by Kathy Klump, Peta-Anne Tenney

 

During the final years of the Indian Wars, Willcox was a military shipping point for goods & troops necessary to defeat the Apache Indians, whose leader, Geronimo (1829-1909), surrendered in 1886 • became an important SE Arizona commercial center • goods unloaded at Willcox Railroad Station were transported to Army forts, mining camps, & ranches by freighting companies owned by Pablo Soto & Henry A. Morgan • they also operated mercantile establishments on Railroad Ave.

 

• Pablo Soto is said to have been one of Tucson, AZ's 1st school teachers, early 1880s • moved to Willcox, found a job as a salesman for Norton & Stewart general merchandise store • hired by Virginia born merchant John C. Fall, once owner of the J.C. Fall store & the Arizona (silver) Mine at Unionville, Nevada • Fall once refused a $750K offer for the mine • closed it in 1880, a victim of declining silver prices caused by rising silver production in the American West, & the "demonetization act" (Coinage Act of 1873) • virtually penniless, Fall moved to Willcox • Forgotten NevadaMark Twain, Unionville, Nevada —Literary Traveler

 

• in 1888, after 6 yrs. as Fall's bookkeeper, Pablo & his brother Mariano J. Soto became partners in the firm, renamed Fall & Soto Brothers • in 1893, they became Soto Brothers & Co. (Soto Brothers Mercantile), probably shortly before Fall's death • established the town's 1st banking operation • involved w/rancher James J. Riggs (1870-1911) in the development of the Chicago and Arizona Copper Company 's Juniper mine in Dos Cabezas • after several years of prosperity, the Panic of 1907 severely damaged their businesses • sold their general merchandise business • Pablo moved to Los Angeles where he spent the rest of his life

 

• National Register # 87000744, 1987 • NRHP Continuation Sheet

“For those who confuse you, recognize that their confusion is theirs and your clarity is yours.”

- Barbara Marciniak, Family of Light: Pleiadian Tales and Lessons in Living -

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/clarity

 

Showcase the beauty of living foliage! Make a photo of a single leaf or an entire greenscape today. www.todaysposting.com/TPAssignment.php?TP=606

Day 378- Today two things arrived in the mail for me. The first is a hat my cousin sent me from LL Bean. The second is a book I won from Goodreads.

Notice the two ladies walking on the jetty - going for a swim. The temperature with wind chill factor was 'round -8 C. The time is 09.12 am.

 

“For each new morning let there be flow of love. Let there be light of happiness in every direction.”

― Amit Ray, Walking the Path of Compassion www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/morning-thoughts

  

Current read. Beautifully written short stories.

Demonstration of forklifting techniques on the dock of an Alaskan cannery. Full length video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR5xvBYJB0A

 

Read about the long hours, dangerous work, strange characters and madness of Alaska salmon season and cannery work in the memoir

 

SLIME LINE: ADVENTURES IN FISH PROCESSING.

 

Amazon

www.amazon.com/Slime-Line-Adventures-Fish-Processing-eboo...

 

Barnes & Noble

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/slime-line-jesse-myner/111915999...

 

iTunes

itunes.apple.com/au/book/slime-line-adventures-in-fish/id...

 

Smashwords

www.smashwords.com/books/view/426716

 

Goodreads

www.goodreads.com/author/show/5240727.Jesse_Myner

   

Stained glass mosaic illustrations from my book, The Night Before Christmas. I'm giving away five books and ten postcards at Goodreads. Free to enter, good luck! Enter here: www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/212867

My bookshelf as of 03-08-09.

 

See my book list (read and waiting to be read) at Goodreads.

 

Click here for my Blog.

My latest obsession ~ Coco Chanel, thanks to my friend Hal.

Yesterday, I was lucky. Bart McDowell and Dean Conger's classic 1977 National Geographic book Journey Across Russia: The Soviet Union Today was one of the first books I ever read on the former Soviet Union, in the adult stacks in Charlottetown's Confederation Centre Public Library. Much to my surprise, I found a copy for sale, literally on the street at Bloor and Brunswick, for a mere five dollars. This copy even came with the classic two-sided ethnopolitical February 1976 map of the Soviet Union tucked away neatly in the back!

 

Journey Across Russia is a remarkable not least because of the date of its publication. In 1977, the Soviet Union was arguably reaching its peak relative to the United States, not that deep into the era of Brezhnevian stagnation at home while expanding its military footprint abroad. The Soviet model of course had its obvious flaws, but the Soviet Union did seem to work, did seem a viable alternative to the Western liberal democratic capitalist order. This book sought to communicate to Western readers something close to an insider's view of this fascinating, threatening, different society.

 

The biggest flaw of this book is that it doesn't deal with the ongoing oppression experienced by Soviet citizens. Reading Journey Across Russia from my particular position with my knowledge 36 years after its publication, I wonder what lacunae Intourist and state censors forced on the author. (The chapter including Crimea doesn't mention the Crimean Tatars, for instance.) Against this limitation in the depth of the book is the incredible breadth of this book, including interviews with people from a variety of social strata coming from all fifteen Union republics, and beautiful photos along with. And even the limitation in depth isn't so serious: again, reading with my post-Soviet mind, I see numerous indications of the ethnic tensions in Soviet society, with Georgians wanting to be seen as Europeans and seeing Russia as being as foreign as France, Armenians describing the way past Armenian sufferings influence the current generation's perceptions, the author's noting the quiet ethnic tension in Kazakhstan marked by Russophone incomprehension of said country's titular nation, and a Russian who tried to order a salad in Estonia ended up getting served with sliced eel while his American Estonian-speaking counterpart got smiles and the food he wanted. (Class tensions are lower-key.)

 

My main emotional reaction to this book is a sort of sadness. The picture of Soviet society that I got from the book is, in part, of a society that was devoted despite itself to its further development. The ambitious geoengineering projects--canals in the Turkmenistan desert, the overextensive development of the Soviet North, even plans to rechannel the Amur--are a case in point. They were environmentally potentially catastrophic, sure, but they did reflect a sort of ambition that liberal-democratic capitalist Westerners could identify with. I can almost understand why many Western leftists so overempathized with the Soviet Union as to be called on it later by Susan Sontag. Knowing how badly life would deteriorate for many of the individuals and entire peoples encountered in the book, I wished things could have been different.

 

This book has the flaws of its era, but in other respects transcends them. It's a fascinating worthwhile read, a look at a complex world power just a decade and a half before its fall. Recommended.

Beyond the Castle author Jody Jean Dreyer ready to greet trick or treaters as the Mad Hatter in Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. More info on book at beyondthecastlebook.com.

Nowhere to Go but Up

www.goodreads.com/review/show/909117846

 

"For the world's oldest flight technology," says Tom D. Crouch in introduction, "it seems there is still no place to go but up." Although In the history of flight, the lighter-than-air balloon is much older than heavier-than-air aircraft, the balloon keeps on evolving, finding new applications along the way. In 1783, Parisians for the first time marveled at the astonishing sight of two humans leaving "the surly bonds of earth," defying gravity and floating aboard "a wondrous craft that was the product of human brains and hands." The late eighteenth century was the eve of the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason. Science and technology held all sorts of promises and potential. After all, "in an age when human beings could fly, what other wonders might the future hold?"

 

Tom Crouch, the award-winning writer from the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, offers in this highly accessible book an overview a history of lighter-than-air aircraft from the science of antiquity to the science of the space age, along with all the excitement these machines have brought along the way and continue to bring. "Why did it take so long to learn to fly?" asks Crouch in opening the first chapter, "Clouds in a Bag." After all, the Greek philosopher Archimedes (287-212 BC) figured out the principle of an object being able to float when it is lighter than the fluid it displaces. In the East, the Chinese for many years crated paper lanterns that floated in the air. Why, then, was it not until the Mongolfiers created hotter-than-air balloons on a larger scale that the technology would be able to be applied to human flight? Nearly a century and a half before the first balloon flight, the invention several scientists were working on the principles of creating vacuums, made possible by Otto von Guericke's invention of the vacuum pump. Bartolomeu Lourenco de Gusmao created the first model of a vacuum sphere rising, but a craft on the scale sufficiently large to carry a human aloft eluded him. It remained to the sciences of harnessing hot air and helium to pave the way for lighter-than-air craft.

  

In "The Newborn Babe Comes of Age," Crouch discusses the great balloon adventures (and adventurers) of the late 18th and 19th centuries. As with heavier-than-air machines in the 20th century, inventors kept busy finding military applications for this new aeronautical technology. While the balloon offered a valuable reconnaissance platform, their value of a form of transportation was limited by the directions the winds at a given time could take them. And that takes us to the third chapter, "Navigating the Air." To steer a balloon, one needed a power source, suspended by a sturdy network of ropes - the dirigible airship. Alberto Santos-Dumont, who was also the first man to fly in Europe, was one of the noteworthy pioneers, exciting the crowds of Paris when he was the first to circumnavigate the Eiffel Tower, itself a monument of engineering, technology, and industrial art. Ferdinand von Zeppelin seized on the idea of incorporating the two components of the dirigible and combining them into rigid airships, huge sleek silver fish in the sky.

 

The history of lighter-than-air machines does not follow a linear path. The two World Wars and the period between them saw the re-emergence of nonrigid airships for specific duties, "Fabulous Silvery Fishes," as Crouch calls them. The fiery crash of the Hindenburg sealed the fate of the futuristic rigid airships, leaving non-rigid airships and modern balloons to take their place in ruling the skies, along with their heavier-than-air brethren. After World War II, helium balloons proved to be very valuable tools for high-altitude atmospheric research. These sophisticated balloons, only looking like their venerable forebears, could climb to altitudes at which the air is too thin to provide lift for fixed-wing aircraft, as covered in the fifth chapter, "Science in the Sky."

 

Balloons experienced a another renaissance - as a medium of sport. Don Piccard is a particularly noteworthy figure in bringing balloons to the public, making them affordable to not just the super-rich. Another aspect of sport ballooning is in the use of lighter-than-air envelopes to carry highly sophisticated high-tech gondolas and their human occupants on record-breaking voyages around the world. In perusing about the history and future of lighter-than-air machines, the reader is sure to enjoy Mr. Crouch's excellent writing to make the history as interesting as the sight of a hot-air balloon or zeppelin floating overhead.

This is the fourth book I've received from Goodreads contests. Considering my book-hoarding ways, I'm tickled whenever I get a new book, but I'm a huge fan of short story collections. (I am that rare person who buys those collections, even though publishers say they never sell. Well, they sell to me.)

 

Coincidentally, I was just listening to an SF Signal podcast about military sci-fi yesterday, and the day before that another podcast featuring Jaym Gates. (Who I thought was named "Jane" until she spelled it at the end of the podcast. Definitely an unusual name.)

 

Thanks to Goodreads and the nice people at Apex for choosing me!

“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”

- Mahatma Gandhi -

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/cleanliness

 

Titled, papered or painted how do you keep the walls dry in the bathroom, post it then Tag it with #TP591 - not my walls, but a scene spotted at a department store yesterday

...was not that of my conscious choosing. But after persistent subconscious confrontation, I have finally embraced what is, 'souly' for me...and I am thankful, when called upon, to be able to share and give to those who seek their own way of the path.”

 

- T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence" -

www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/seek

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