Link-oh-frozen-rama

This is kind of a big deal for my neck of the woods. Author Amity Shlaes will be speaking at the winter graduation at S.D. School of Mines.

While I generally find authors to be boring, pretentious speakers, there are exceptions. She might be one, or maybe not. I’ve heard that her book on Calvin Coolidge, cleverly named "Coolidge," is pretty good if you’re into non-fiction biographies of dead presidents.

*** It’s getting to be the end of the year so the “best books of 2016” lists are coming out.

Here’s Goodreads best books of 2016.

And the Boston Globe weighs in with their faves. I notice “The Only Rule Is It Has To Work” shows up on a lot of lists. Might have to check it out.

This book also looks interesting: “Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel.” Not that I'm looking, but if this writing thing doesn't work out ...

*** Bill Gates and his top five books of 2016. It includes one from the science list below: The Gene.

In The Gene: An Intimate History, physician and Pulitzer-winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee offers a rigorously researched, beautifully written detective story about the genetic components of what we experience as the self, rooted in Mukherjee’s own painful family history of mental illness and radiating a larger inquiry into how genetics illuminates the future of our species.

*** The greatest science books of 2016 by brainpickings. “When Breath Becomes Air” looks interesting.

That tumultuous turning point is what neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi chronicles in When Breath Becomes Air — his piercing memoir of being diagnosed with terminal cancer at the peak of a career bursting with potential and a life exploding with aliveness. Partway between Montaigne and Oliver Sacks, Kalanithi weaves together philosophical reflections on his personal journey with stories of his patients to illuminate the only thing we have in common — our mortality — and how it spurs all of us, in ways both minute and monumental, to pursue a life of meaning.

*** A good first-hand account of Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis, hopefully our next SecDef.

This, from the Military Times in 2013, gives a good retrospective on his career and some of the stories that define it.

*** This gal’s making some waves lately. My daughter and Tomi interned together in Rep. Kristi Noem's Rapid City office.

*** Castro lovers might be wise to read this, which means they won't. Dude was kept in a dark cell naked for eight years.

*** Belated happy birthday to C.S. Lewis. Here's some stuff you might not know about him.