This is one of the most highly regarded of fantasy world constructions, while at the same time one of the least appreciated. Personally, I think this is because most, possibly all, of the printed version of the books are big and heavy with tiny type. And, there’s not been a movie. Regarding the first problem, that is solved by there being a Kindle version, and now is your chance to stock up the third of the three for super cheap, two bucks, but only for a day or two.

• see associates note below
  ** Not a trilogy, though there are three of them. Peake died while writing the fourth in the series, leaving only three, and thus leading many to believe that this is a trilogy.

Regular price is way more, since this is new.

The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (Second Edition) by Robert M. Utley is a classic, but not necessarily the one book you’ll want to read about Native Americans of the northern Plains. But I put it here because it is currently dirt cheap on Kindle, and if your library does not have this 1963 title you may want to grab it up. I would recommend as a first read in this area of culture and history the recently published tour-de-force Wounded Knee by the amazing historian Heather Cox Richardson. Not on sale at this time but worth it.

I should mention that right now you can get some great deals on the Paperwhite Kindle.

A thought-provoking look at science denialism “for popular science readers who want better to be able to explain and defend science and scientific methods to others” (Library Journal).

“Prothero’s treatise will give the science-minded something to cheer about, a brief summary of the real data that supports so many critical aspects of modern life.” —Publishers Weekly

The History of the Ancient World*: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome cheap now on Kindle. I’ve been listening to the Our Fake History podcast and this is a handy reference to position some of the pods on older time periods.

One you might no know, but related to a writing project I’ve go going: The Orphans of Davenport: Eugenics, the Great Depression, and the War over Children’s Intelligence*, Kindle format, cheap.

“Doomed from birth” was how psychologist Harold Skeels described two toddler girls at the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home in Davenport, Iowa, in 1934. Their IQ scores, added together, totaled just 81. Following prevailing eugenic beliefs of the times, Skeels and his colleague Marie Skodak assumed that the girls had inherited their parents’ low intelligence and were therefore unfit for adoption. The girls were sent to an institution for the “feebleminded” to be cared for by “moron” women. To Skeels and Skodak’s astonishment, under the women’s care, the children’s IQ scores became normal.
Now considered one of the most important scientific findings of the twentieth century, the discovery that environment shapes children’s intelligence was also one of the most fiercely contested—and its origin story has never been told. In The Orphans of Davenport, psychologist and esteemed historian Marilyn Brookwood chronicles how a band of young psychologists in 1930s Iowa shattered the nature-versus-nurture debate and overthrew long-accepted racist and classist views of childhood development.

Drawing on prodigious archival research, Brookwood reclaims the Iowa researchers as intrepid heroes and movingly recounts the stories of the orphans themselves, many of whom later credited the psychologists with giving them the opportunity to forge successful lives. A radiant story of the power and promise of science to better the lives of us all, The Orphans of Davenport unearths an essential history at a moment when race science is dangerously resurgent.

Crows Encounters with the Wise Guys of the Avian World*

On Power and Ideology*

The Cider House Rules*

The Cider House Rules*, which is the first in the Gideon Oliver Mystery series.

The classic Starship Troopers* by Heinlein is two bucks now.

The book on which Call The Midwife is based (“The Midwife”), or more exactly, the first in the trilogy, is cheap in Kindle format. This is another book I’ve not read but I’m advised that a lot of people want it so here it is for two bucks.

Another classic: The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula Le Guin.

Star Trek Picard Rogue Elements*

Star Trek Original Book 1*

Star Trek Prime Directive original book*

Today’s special Steel Cage Death Match Up:

The Shape of Life* by Shing-Tung Yau. Cheap on Kindle

Vs

Lost in Math How Beauty Leads Physics Astray* by Sabine Hossenfelder. Not quite as cheap on Kindle but worth it.

*The above link takes you to Amazon, where this blog is registered as an associate. This is true of other links throughout this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which pays for as much as a third of my monthly $11 fee for having this server. In a good month.

The vast majority of people in the British Empire were born during her lifespan, and there can not be very many people in this world that remember the time before she was born. She has been monarch for longer than most people have lived. I remember as a child seeing film of her coronation, so I have a sense that I remember that, but it is of course a false memory. What I’m remembering is some anniversary jubilee or celebration, which involved a major parade and the showing of films of her coronation.

There are some 68 entries on the lists of English or UK monarchs. Some are disputed, but that’s not my fight, so I count them when I consider who has been in this situation in the past. Also, we assume that the list REALLY goes back to King Arthur and early kings or queens are missing, to the extent that any of them actually existed.

The average time on the throne across these centuries is about 16.3 years. Some 11 throne-sitters spend less than a year (sometimes just a few days) in that position, 16 less than 3 years.

The time-on-throne for Queen Elizabeth exceeded record-setter Queen Victoria, the former at 70 years and the latter at an impressive 63 years. Only five monarchs held the position for 50 years or more. They say that when Queen Victoria died, there was a sort of extra trauma across the British Empire, since she had bee queen for so long. I believe they invented a “Queens Day” to allow people to continue to celebrate her even though she was passé in the truest sense of the term.

The distribution of years-on-throne is no more normal than having a person on a throne is these days. Indeed, it is quite like a poisson distribution with all the “zero values” being MISSING VALUE as one might imagine is the case for pretenders and would-be throne-sitters. (Sorry, inside stats joke.) How long you are on the throne is a function of the chance of a bad thing (ie death or displacement) happening, plus average age of dethronement. So, this:

Also, finally, I have a direct(ish) connection to the British Monarchy, finally. My friend and former advisor-type in grad school, David Pilbeam, was for a time Charles’s tutor, I believe at Trinity. I may have some details wrong.

British Life Expectancy for males is about 79.3 years, so Charles will not be King as long as his mom was Queen.