Books in Progress

I've read a lot of Patterson books.  He has a lot of series, usually coauthored with someone, so it can be hard to keep up with them all.  This is one I read when it came out, but I don't recall that much about it.

I've generally enjoyed him, and I'm sure at least some of them wouldn't be wastes of time.  But he does so many books, and I have so little capacity, that I haven't read him lately.  Perhaps his best known series, bot of which I've read many books, are his Alex Cross and Murder Club series.  (The Murder Club is a group of women -- not ball-busters -- whose jobs involve dealing with murder in a professional capacity.)

Has anyone here read something by Dean Kootz? If so, how would you rate his writing?

I love this quote that pertains to Tesla:



I have no idea if they are over-stating the mental condition of Tesla. But the author does bring him to life as a real (and sympathetic, if odd) character.

It would help to read this next quote in context. But the lawyer, Paul, is musing about the power-brokers of society. The context is the tale of the highly exclusive Academy of Music. It was such an exclusive performance house that the box seats had long been retained in perpetuity and were not available to even the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, or the Morgans.

So what do these guys do? They build their own place, of course: The Metropolitan Opera House. They drew the best acts first and apparently this then led to putting the Academy of Music quickly out of business.

That’s all well and good. But I thought the observation the author makes (through the character, Paul) is pretty interesting:



How fascinating to see how far back this goes. It explains why the idiot, Jeff Bezos, donated a billionaire dollars or so to “climate change.” As Dennis Prager noted, what a shame that this money did not go to something worthwhile such as finding a cure for Alzheimer’s.

We’ve seen Bill Gates do the same thing. Whether he is as much of a leftwing nut as his donation stream, his donation stream has clearly gone to what is “popular” (at least amongst a certain crowd).

Politics, of course, inherently intersects with the popular. But we see even more so lately how politics has increasingly intersected on pop culture, on feeding the masses not political ideas, per se, but mere vapid pop notions (“climate change” being one of them). Conversely, we have movie stars from the sphere of entertainment (the idiotic Alyssa Milano, for example) playing in this odd and new parallel universe the role of Henry Clay.

We’ve become an idiot nation grounded in mere fashion. And it shows.

I finished The Last Days of Night this afternoon. I put this on my recommended list. I thought it was so good that I went to look for other books by Graham Moore. There doesn’t appear to be much else of interest to me. He has a book titled “The Holdout.” But that smacks of political correctness.

Anyway, obviously read the non-fiction Empires of Light for a more chronological and detailed history if you’re interested in this subject.

As much room as there was for a historical fiction such as this one to go south, The Last Days of the Night holds together well. There’s some speculation in this. But the framework is apparently very close to the actual details. I thought the story and characters were good and there was about zero political correctness in it.

I would love to see this guy write another historical fiction in and around old inventors or inventions. But no courtroom dramas, please.

By the way, I just noticed that Erik Larson has a book out titled The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz. His Devil in the White City, Isaac’s Storm, Thunderstruck, and Dead Wake were generally so good (with Dead Wake the clear weaker one of the bunch) that I’m tempted to buy this sight-unseen. But I just sent myself the free Kindle sample so I’ll start with that. It’s publish date is February 2020 so it is something new.

Obviously Thomas Edison is central to “the current wars," the battle between his DC and Westinghouse's AC. I found Randall E. Stross’ The Wizard of Menlo Park also on the free online library and checked it out. The Last Days of Night just screams for wanting to find out more information on Edison. He's a bastard, yeah. Probably. But he also was an amazing person in his own right.

But it was apparently very true that he was so pig-headed about the-current-wars that J.P. Morgan finally ousted him and made peace with Westinghouse (cross-licensing of patents) and everyone made out a whole lot better because if it.

But in no uncertain terms are these businessmen (rightly or wrongly) shown as philanthropists or high-minded idealists (except for Tesla who was one-of-a-kind). This book would definitely pass the Kungian test for “They’re all a bunch of thieves and bastards.” This book takes you a bit inside what can only be called the sociopathic world of high finance and big business.

But there are also personal stories involved. And that’s where the author excels. They don’t feel tacked on. Never is the one chick in this, Miss Huntington, seemed forced upon us because we just must have a girl in it.

I would have loved to learn more details about the invention of the light bulb because it plays such an important part in the book. But the author does insert some general technical explanations here and there. But a bit more I don’t think would have turned off anyone.

And he does wrap the book up very well. I love the bit where Westinghouse is musing about how amazed he was when he saw the first light bulb. Can you image that or those days? When was the last time you were amazed? Imagine the pure joy of being amazed by something we so take for granted now.

Regarding the Sherlock book, at least one reviewer said "Read the real thing." And that's all I needed to hear about that book. Anyone who wants to volunteer and read his latest, The Holdout, I'd love to know if that's any good. But the synopsis at Amazon just made it sound like a painful drudgery of a novel.

I had not heard of Carl Auer von Welsbach. A Wiki article says “His work on rare-earth elements led to the development of the ferrocerium "flints" used in modern lighters, the gas mantle, which brought light to the streets of Europe in the late 19th century, and the metal-filament light bulb.” It doesn’t mention tungsten. “Auer von Welsbach then started work on development of metal-filament mantles, first with platinum wiring, and then osmium. Osmium is very difficult to work with, but he developed a new method, which mixed osmium oxide powder with rubber or sugar into a paste, which is then squeezed through a nozzle and fired. The paste burns away, leaving a fine wire of osmium.” He had developed a workable technique for this by 1898 and the product was introduced commercially in 1902.

Another Wiki article notes “On 13 December 1904, Hungarian Sándor Just and Croatian Franjo Hanaman were granted a Hungarian patent (No. 34541) for a tungsten filament lamp that lasted longer and gave brighter light than the carbon filament.”

Edison (and others) first used a “carbon” filament in 1879. This book mentions that bamboo was in use as some point. A Wiki article on the subject of the Edison light bulb mentions “carbonized bamboo.” I assume they pre-cooked little pieces of bamboo somehow and then stuck them in the bulb.

Lots of detail behind the creation of this ubiquitous device and perhaps I’ll see if I can find a good documentary on the subject. Anyone have any incandescent light bulbs left in there house? I’ve switched about everything over to LED.

I’m 12% into The Wizard of Menlo Park. It’s too early to give thumbs up or thumbs down. But certainly it’s been well written enough to continue.

It’s interesting that the mythology (including the whole “Wizard” moniker) was a creation of zealous and opportunistic journalists, not a self-conscious marketing plan by Edison or an attempt at self-aggrandizement. Those things would surely come later but his grandiose public image was very much a creation of the press.

In fact, the book makes what I think is a solidly good point when the author writes:



And it’s interesting to note precisely which invention gained him this fame:



It was interesting also, as the author points out, that two of the greatest inventions derived from attempts to improves someone else’s great invention. The telephone derived from Bell trying to improve the telegraph (specifically, Edison’s improvement of it) and the phonograph derived from Edison trying to improve the telephone.