Last book, for now at least, I've read is 'The subtle art of not giving a f*ck' by Mark Manson. Like the Tim Ferriss' books, I was aware of it, but the hype escaped me completely. I stumbled upon it in the library and decided to give it a go.

I'm not exactly a fan of the self-help genre. At least this book isn't about positive thinking, but more about:

• accepting one's limitations
• taking responsibility for one's own action, which made me remind of Jocko Willink's extreme ownership.
• chosing what is important to you and disregard the rest, in a way a nod to minimalism
• failure is good as it can lead to growth. 

Jeff wrote:

I've started the book about Pancho Barnes and her Happy Bottom Riding Club, I mentioned the short documentary on her in the what are you watching thread, and am enjoying it. She was quite a woman, real hell on wheels, or wings, type. She wanted her preacher husband (mother arranged marriage) to give her a divorce and he kept not agreeing until she rode a horse naked up the steps into his church, up to the pulpit, and back out. Apparently this did the trick when her constant buzzing of the church during services in her plane didn't. She offered anyone who broke the sound barrier a free steak dinner up at Edwards AFB, but then it got to where she was giving so many of them away she only did it if you set a new speed record. Fascinating woman.

That sounds like a good read, Jeff 🙂

That book sounds interesting beocool, a tough love kind of "self help" book. Short on touchy feely stuff and longer on "grow the hell up" stuff. Something, sadly, the younger generations that have been raised with the everybody gets a trophy approach truly need. Yes, I'm an old curmudgeon, proud pipe and slippers brigade. Your music sucks and get off of my lawn! 😁

But the author is on the right track. Looking back on my life, most of the bad things that happened were either my fault, or if not they were often made worse by how I reacted to them. I'm older now, and pretty comfortable with who I am. As the old saying goes, not only am I not the man I used to be, to be honest I never was. One thing I've found that age does seem to confer on a person is more self awareness.

On the Pancho Barnes book, she was flying as a stunt pilot on Howard Hughes's  movie "Hell's Angels" and apparently the flying was very dangerous, the planes had to get very close to each other and to the camera planes. She said the pay, 5 dollars a day, was way too low, Hughes told her to buzz off. So she got everyone organized, and formed a stunt pilots union, and in the end they were getting 50 bucks a day. Quite a look into the early days of aviation.

As a (when they existed) Saab enthusiast, I recently discovered a book called 'Water Music' 'of 'Salmon Saab’s and Spey Rods' by David Swanson and published by Meadow Run Press. There are two limited edition versions of this book, currently on AbeBooks with prices from £9 to £800 or thereabouts.

I bought a lower priced limited edition (1500) signed by the author. What a beautifully presented book it is, in a clam case. (I've since noticed that Meadow Run Press specialise in very expensive sporting books.)

This is a story of fishing for salmon in Norway, interwoven with a 1999 policy whereby Saab would allow Americans to collect their new Saab at the Trollhatten factory, stay at hotel(s) at Saab’s expense, drive around Europe, and then have the car delivered to the US for the same cost as if you had just gone to a Saab retailer in the US in the first place. An entertaining story, with, for me, reminisces of a great car manufacturer mismanaged and killed by GM.

Graham

I truly miss Saab, a unique company. I knew an aerodynamicist back when who drove a 900 turbo, mid 80s, she still has it from what I hear.

vikinger wrote:

As a (when they existed) Saab enthusiast, I recently discovered a book called 'Water Music' 'of 'Salmon Saab’s and Spey Rods' by David Swanson and published by Meadow Run Press. There are two limited edition versions of this book, currently on AbeBooks with prices from £9 to £800 or thereabouts.

I bought a lower priced limited edition (1500) signed by the author. What a beautifully presented book it is, in a clam case. (I've since noticed that Meadow Run Press specialise in very expensive sporting books.)

This is a story of fishing for salmon in Norway, interwoven with a 1999 policy whereby Saab would allow Americans to collect their new Saab at the Trollhatten factory, stay at hotel(s) at Saab’s expense, drive around Europe, and then have the car delivered to the US for the same cost as if you had just gone to a Saab retailer in the US in the first place. An entertaining story, with, for me, reminisces of a great car manufacturer mismanaged and killed by GM.

Graham

I remember at the time I believe the advertising was meant to infer that the Saab was aero becausee Saab made jet fighters, anyway it had a rear spoiler and an air dam so it looked aero. And back in the mid 80's a lot of cars had bad aerodynamics, it wasn't as important as it is now. Aero meant fins at one time too.

I remember the car, black on black. Had a heck of a turbo rush too. I guess it's still kind of odd for an aero person to stick with it that long when slicker things come along.

vikinger wrote:

As a (when they existed) Saab enthusiast, I recently discovered a book called 'Water Music' 'of 'Salmon Saab’s and Spey Rods' by David Swanson and published by Meadow Run Press. There are two limited edition versions of this book, currently on AbeBooks with prices from £9 to £800 or thereabouts.

I bought a lower priced limited edition (1500) signed by the author. What a beautifully presented book it is, in a clam case. (I've since noticed that Meadow Run Press specialise in very expensive sporting books.)

This is a story of fishing for salmon in Norway, interwoven with a 1999 policy whereby Saab would allow Americans to collect their new Saab at the Trollhatten factory, stay at hotel(s) at Saab’s expense, drive around Europe, and then have the car delivered to the US for the same cost as if you had just gone to a Saab retailer in the US in the first place. An entertaining story, with, for me, reminisces of a great car manufacturer mismanaged and killed by GM.

Graham

Sounds like a good read. The automotive landscape is surely a poorer place with Saab gone. I'm sure you've read 'A man called Ove' by Fredrik Backman. I have and totally enjoyed it. They made a movie too, which I also watched a couple of years ago. Slightly different from the book, but also very enjoyable. With Saab gone and you being a strong advocate of the brand I'm wondering what are you driving right now?

Sometimes things come together in an unusual way. A couple of days ago I had a wardrobe malfunction; not the kind that makes you embarrassed in public, but a rod snapped in the wardrobe, leaving me with less space to hang my clothes. 

I decided to rearrange everything in the wardrobe, but not after reading 'The life changing magic of tidying' and 'Spark joy' by Marie Kondo. Until very recently I've never heard of her - one of the benefits of not watching TV - but she was mentioned in Fumio Sasaki's book 'Goodbye things' which I only finished reading last week. Turns out I've been doing about 80% of what she is writing about all along. Both books are fairly short, about 200 and 250 pages and easy to read, but lots of it is about her personal journey to becoming the person she is right now and how she interacts with clients and their belongings. 

So my conclusion is that like Fumio Sasaki's book these books too could have been a lot shorter as I was only interested in the best and most efficient way of packing my belongings. That said, my wardrobe looks a little better now, so worth the effort. I wouldn't buy these books, but it's nice to have library card 😕

Isn't having a library card very much in keeping with the minimalist, clutter free lifestyle espoused in the books? 😎

My wife and I fight this battle constantly with things, especially books. We had a small library at our last house, about 10 ft by 10 ft, but it was crammed with bookshelves. We used to have to do periodic purges, as we kept buying books, go thru and evaluate chances of rereading this or that vs space issues. Was always so hard to move books on (donated to the library for their book sales). Our current library is enormous, but you'd not tell it as much by looking as for every book on the shelf we have at least 10 in memory. Of course organizing and cleaning up a virtual library so you can find things has its own challenges as well.