Fever Beach

By Carl Hiaasen.

Hiaasen's books are always full of Trashy bad guys pulling off trashy crimes while trashy investigators try to stop them in trashy ways. 

It's a fun read. Not high brow, though it's smart with its social commentary. 

Pillion and Box Hill.

Wikipedia says Pillion is a 2025, romance, comedy, dark drama film. We saw it a while back. It was OK. I thought I'd read the book (Box Hill) that it was based on.

The story in both is focused on an S&M romance between Colin and Ray. 

Both the movie and the book have the same emotional and narrative core though their structures are very different. Near the end of Pillion Ray abruptly vanishes with no explanation. Box Hill doesn’t have that mystery. About 3/4 of the way through the book Ray dies in motorcycle accident. This leads to a long section where Colin rebuilds his life.

The Domestic Revolution

By Ruth Goodman

Goodman is a historian and a reenact-or of history who has much experience on living with wood, peat and coal fuels. In this book she digs into how different fuels influenced architecture as well as how we live.

Coal smoke is more dirty than wood smoke. As such coal heating pushed the development of chimneys and iron stoves.

Toasting and toast became more popular with coal stoves as it’s difficult to evenly toast with a wood fire.

Soap and cleaning— wood ash can be purified into lye. Wood ash and fat can make soap. The same is not true for coal ash. When wood ash was the dominant fuel, people didn’t buy soap. They made their own or just used ashes; ash on greasy dishes makes its own soap. It wasn’t until coal became dominant that people needed to buy soap. 

The spy, who came in from the cold

By John Le Carre. 

More of a spy procedural than a spy action adventure novel. The story follows a spy who ages out of the British Secret Service, defects to East Germany and then becomes embroiled in machinations to kill (or protect?) the head of the East German spy service. There are twists, turns and a few murders.

A good read. 

Love Your Enemies

By Author C. Brooks.

A good book in the model of "one page of thesis, 200 pages of examples and explanation." The book almost says that in the conclusion...

1. Standup to the man. Refuse to be used by the powerful.

2. Escape the Bubble. Go where you are unexpected and say things people don't expect

3. Say no to contempt. Treat others with love and respect, even when it's difficult.

4. Disagree better. Be part of a healthy competition of ideas. Engage in earnest debate while not shutting anyone out. 

5. Tune Out. Disconnect more from unproductive debates.

These are hard things to accomplish. Brooks is *not* advocating that we cynically & passively disconnect. He advocates that you to actively love your enemies and become a better person.

List of philosophical bits....

Life is difficult.
Problems are inevitable.
Avoiding solving problems and the emotional suffering inherent with them is the primary basis of all human mental illness
Problems have solutions.
Great solutions offer progress. By solving problems we grow.

Great explanations are the heart of great solutions. Great solutions don't overgeneralize. Great solutions offer deep insight. 

Attention, Reflection Decision, Action. (Is this just the OODA loop?) these are the primary moral, creative, effective actions of life. 

A Richer Retirment

By William P Bengen.

Bengen originated the 4% rule for retirement portfolio draw-down. He revisits this strategy in this book. With the right portfolio he says the safe withdrawal rate not starts at 4.7%. 

I see the concerns people can have with the 4% rule. It's not a stretch to call the math behind it curve fitting. Honestly, that's probably as true of monte-carol simulations. Of course you can't really predict the future. You can only make sure that your facts and theories are aligned, and prepare for the day when that is not enough. 

Retiring now is... interesting? Inflation is high. The Shiller PE ratio is near an all time high. As I retire, we are starting off at a 3.5% drawdown rate. If things go wrong then we have buffer. If they don't then we can give ourselves a raise.