Welcome to Litsy!

Read for my “Death Becomes Us” bookclub with @Eyelit and @thestarlesscasea . We read books about death, all nonfiction so far, stemming from a common interest in Stiff by Mary Roach and The Mummy Congress (⬇️).

Because we‘ve read a lot on the topic, this felt like repetition to me, except for the exhausting details about presidential burials, casket and hearse materials, and grave robbery protective contraptions. A bit dull, unless it‘s a new ⬇️

A day late (and a dollar short) for #weirdwordwednesday — but wanted to share anyway! I just finished the tagged book about the Dutch colony that first settled NYC. This section mentioned some of the Dutch words that were mutated into the English language and are still part of our lexicon 400 years later. As a word nerd, this type of stuff fascinates me!
@CBee

Fascinating account of New Netherland, the Dutch colony on the island of Manhattan that predated the Pilgrims. After the English took control of the colony in 1664, the narrative shifted in favor of the “victor” and much of the Dutch history was lost. This book draws on a research project at the New York State Library that included the translation of thousands of original documents from the 17th century.

Great collection of classic American documents, speeches, poems, etc. George Washington‘s speeches had a lot of big words that didn‘t say a whole lot. I also didn‘t know that it used to be first choice was made President and second choice was made Vice President. Teddy Roosevelt liked long, run-on sentences. The pledge of allegiance didn‘t originally have “under god” in it! President Eisenhower insisted it be added by Congress in 1954.

I found this very interesting. McPherson did an excellent job at providing a good overview of the political, social, economic, and other factors that led to the Civil War. He also did a good job providing a broad overview of the Civil War, as well as the different dynamics working in both the Union and Confederacy. Definitely worth reading.

Let the reading begin! This is my haul of publisher freebies for the Young Hoosier Book Award committee! 📚

As a #longtimefed I worked in a total of seven different buildings. I saw on Bluesky this morning that the current regime has offered hundreds of federal buildings for sale, about a third of them in the Washington DC area.

You would think a real estate genius would know that selling multiple properties at once, when the agency managing those properties has had its staff cut, might not bring the highest price? Or maybe that‘s not the goal?

A lot happened in 1776 in the colonies and a lot didn‘t happen. Several of the key events that we think of for the Revolutionary War happened in 1776, and yet there was a lot of just moving men and planning.
This was easy to listen to and interesting. The focus was on Washington and what he did. I wish there had been less focus on him.
Over all good worth the time.

⭐️⭐️ I wouldn‘t necessarily call it an “attempt”so much as a plan that was, thankfully, foiled. I will say with all the Kennedy books I read last year, I don‘t recall this piece of his story which happened after the election, but prior to inauguration. This would‘ve been better without the rudimentary recap of his life before and after it, but I guess they needed word count. This wasn‘t great.

Started this Friday. Haven‘t listened to it since because I listen to audiobooks while I work and I took a couple mental health days.
I like McCullough he‘s good at telling the information in a palatable way.