Steve > Recent Status Updates

This one is more about the mechanics of the newspaper columnist. His practical tips may be helpful in spotting journalistic techniques in today's newspapers.

I read it in 1982. Still a favorite.

Very different from the Amazon web series, but that is a good thing. It's fun to pick up on the differences...and one can see why the series producers ran in many different directions. Still, the book is a chilling read, and I highly recommend it.

Stories of 1949 San Francisco. Poignant and humorous. I have intended to read Herb's books for some time, and I will work my way through them, chronologically.

Great insight into life in the City circa 1949 by a master of short-form prose.

This is a refreshingly in-depth look at the life of Julius Caesar written by a true scholar. I enjoy the author's brief disclaimers of uncertainty regarding various sources. This will help me to calibrate my sense of accuracy the next time I pick up Suetonius or Tacitus or even Cicero.

Harder to read than "War and Peace"...the language does not flow as easily, and the author jerks the reader from one unrelated scene to the next without much preparation or explanation. A worthwhile experience, nonetheless, since it provides a truly horrifying glimpse into Stalingrad during the onslaught of the Nazis.

The author draws a stark contrast to the Fair of Grover Whalen vice Gibson. The dour state of world affairs affected many changes to international exhibits between 1939 and 1940.

One criticism - as much detail as the author exhibits for the earlier half of Walt Disney's life, the second half seems truncated and rushed. In fact, I noticed that many of the quotes he uses toward the end appear to come from a single video biography commissioned by Diane Disney Miller, and freely available on YouTube. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho9nK...

One criticism - as much detail as the author exhibits for the earlier half of Walt Disney's life, the second half seems truncated and rushed. In fact, I noticed that many of the quotes he uses toward the end appear to come from a single video biography commissioned by Diane Disney Miller, and freely available on YouTube. See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho9nK...

Just discovered that Walt considered 3D for one segment of Fanstasia. Here is the short film that sparked the idea. Get your red and cyan glasses on!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZIb0...

I'm making it through the Hyperion studio days. The advent of animation as an art was purposefully instituted by Walt Disney. I am seeing the beginning of what we know today as CalArts, literally a university of the arts that had its beginnings with the classes Walt set up for his employees at the little studio on Hyperion Avenue in Los Angeles.

Trying to get this one finished before the 75th anniversary of the closing of the 1939/40 New York World's Fair. So far, no surprises in the book. Most of the contents are freely available on the internet. Yet, it is good that Mauro put all of this in a single place. I am noticing that he inserts quotes where there is no real evidence of those words ever having been spoken. But I get it. It helps the narrative.

What can you say. A posthumously-published masterpiece. And if you study the way it is written, you find out the essence of character development and plot: don't explain what is happening. Show, don't tell. The reader will react with emotion. That's the way it is supposed to be. Hemingway knew how to write well.

Fantastic book, especially for Aerospace Engineers. Trying to get finished so I can see it at the cinema.

Ingenious....

Nice start so far. I won't spoil any of the fun surprises, but suffice it to say, this is an engineer's book. Strangely enough we all do the same type of calculations of survival, whether we are on Mars, or the Good Earth....

On the home stretch! We all know how it ends, but I am surprised to find some significant differences from the television miniseries. Nothing that changes the general flow of the plot, but there are nuances. Just for the record, the funeral scene is really creepy....

Not surprisingly, the book is a fast read. Having read Stephen King's book "On Writing", it is clear that the more plain the language, the easier and faster the reading. However, that does not mean that the words are more memorable, or poetic. Something to think about. A book can be a thousand pages long and not contain a single memorable passage of prose. Yet, it can be fulfilling in its delivery.