Be kinde to folk. This changeth the whole habitat.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 2
I receive an email from “Book Bub”- that includes a list and thumbnail sketch of 8-10 ebooks that I can purchase for my e-reader, usually for vey low prices.
Each day’s email usually includes at least one critically acclaimed book, as well as a few that climbed the charts of the mass market.
The rest, most often, are books I’ve never heard of, by authors who share that same distinction.
Some are free- and some of those free books, if I take a chance on them, can prove to be delightful reading. It’s all in the summary/introductory paragraph included with each book. Like the following that appeared today:
On a picturesque small-town ranch, a gender reveal party goes fatally wrong — leaving outside investigator Jamie to unravel the truth.
Nope- not going to download that book, but its subject matter is ripped from the latest human interest headlines, no?
Who knew we’d have a book of fiction about a gender reveal party that went fatally wrong?
We have a world of authors who moan about not having anything to inspire their writing.
Obviously, that doesn't include this author, who obviously found her muse in the pages of People magazine.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Best random find I encountered, was at a clearance sale at the student bookstore, at Whatsa Matta U, in the 70s.
iirc, what was driving the project was a missionary project to deliver Bibles in Africa. To perform the deliveries, the group developed a hybrid of a zeppelin and an airplane. I remembered the original, triple hull attempt, appearing on the cover of an early 60s issue of Mechanix Illustrated. In the early 70s, a guy in one of my drafting classes brought in a Christian magazine he had, with a two page article about their second attempt at a craft. So, when I saw the book in the clearance sale, I knew what it was about, and snapped it up.
The Deltoid Pumpkin Seedhttps://www.amazon.com/Deltoid-Pumpkin-Seed-John-M...Steve
No. of Recommendations: 1
The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed
What made the Deltoid Pumpkin seed different than a Zeppelin or modern blimp?
It can be argued that blimps and zeppelins have engines and propellers, so already incorporate elements of an airplane.
What did the Pumpkin Seed add to that mix?
No. of Recommendations: 2
McPhee is one of my favorite writers. Have you read other books of his?
No. of Recommendations: 1
What made the Deltoid Pumpkin seed different than a Zeppelin or modern blimp?It had a rigid frame, like a zep, but it was delta shaped. "Pumpkin seed" was because it was painted orange. iirc, one or more of the team were Princeton graduates. Princeton's school colors are orange and black.
The craft survives, in a museum in New Jersey. Pix at the link.
The AEREON 26 was an experimental aircraft developed to investigate lifting body design. Using its shape to create a hybrid design, the prototype is part airship, part conventional aircraft. It was powered by a piston engine, driving a pusher propeller, and generated lift through the aerodynamics of its lozenge-shaped fuselage.https://njavm.org/aereon/This video discusses the earlier, triple hull craft, that I first saw in Mechanix Illustrated. As the video says, the craft was rolled over by a strong crosswind during taxi testing, and destroyed.
Aereon III: The Forgotten Airship That Tried to Fly Without an Enginehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDMcUdWCzsSteve
No. of Recommendations: 1
Have you read other books of his?
Nope. That was a one off, a collision of cheap price, and a subject I was already familiar with.
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 1
Looks like it was an idea that didn’t quite get off the ground……
One of the hangers for a Goodyear Blimp was just north of Houston in Spring Texas. Whenever I drove by, I’d either see the blimp through the open end of the hanger, or I’d know that it was off to a football game somewhere.
They closed that hanger in 92. I heard that the last thing that occurred there before they tore it down- was serving as the backdrop for a Genesis music video.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Treat yourself to more of his writing. Your local library probably has several of his books.
He won the Pulitzer, I think, for his book on Alaska - Coming Into the Country.
His multi-volume look at the geology of North America along the I-80 corridor from NYC to San Francisco is my personal favorite - Anals of the Former World.
Since basket ball is hot right now, maybe his profile of the young Bill Bradley might interest you - A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton.
If you are really lucky you might even stumble across The Curve of Binding Energy and read about Project Orion.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Treat yourself to more of his writing. Your local library probably has several of his books.
I checked. The library has physical copies of three. Lots of others, available on Hoopla. My library seems to have a phobia about having books. They purged their collection a couple years ago, according to some rule about frequency of check out, which left all the shelves half empty. The checkout rule must have been pretty tight, because they threw away two books that I had checked out in recent years, and another one that was only a few years old. They got rid of half of their CD collection too.
Steve
