Kate's Updates

Kate added 'The Path to Power'

Sat, 26 Apr 2025 18:57:57 -0700

Kate gave 5 stars to The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, #1) by Robert A. Caro
bookshelves: to-read-in-2023, to-read-2025
I didn’t realize that history originally had quite a different view of Lyndon Johnson than it does today thanks to Robert Caro’s biography. It was Caro’s far deeper research that pulled out the fact Johnson wasn’t a super great person, that he stole a senate election (although to be fair, the first time he ran he did win and had it stolen out from under him), and that he didn’t really give a crap about making life better for people �� he did what he had to do and said what he had to say to get more power. The ambition was power itself. Makes you wonder how many other people in history we have a completely distorted view of because no one took the time to research the way Caro did.

I love books like these because a place that seems so foreign and far away �� rural Texas in the 1910’s �� 19040’s �� actually tells us a lot about life today and how we got here. (Ok, I think I’m just describing history.) For example:

�� The sheer brutality of life in the Texas Hill Country. No one could survive under that workload and the effort needed to make a living. It doesn’t matter how much you might want to get an education, or make change in your community �� where survival itself required 18+ hours of back-breaking labor a day, those desires are irrelevant. Only electricity and mechanism could change that. There’s a danger in romanticizing this type of rural, life-off-the-land life (sounds like it was already happening in the 1930’s �� urban people with electricity signed about the nostalgia of the American farm while their rural counterparts were old decades before their time). And it made me understand climate change a bit more: who cares where the power and energy come from, no one is going to choose this type of daily life. I literally teared up reading about, and understanding, what electricity means when you’ve worked your whole life without it.

�� The utility companies who refused to invest capital in electrifying rural areas of the country to provide said electrification, simply because it might take 2-3 years to fully pay back. It took the government stepping in and investing the money (AND in such a way the utilities still got to turn around and make a handsome profit). Private industry cannot and will not solve big issues; their work is built on the back of infrastructure created by the public.

�� The insane influence money had on political elections, and how the maneuvering of the rich and powerful men in the early 1900’s landed us where we are today. If we thought money in politics was a new force �� it’s not, it essentially decided all Texas and national politics even during the new deal, and elections were straight up bought. Even then, money mattered the most, power came with money, and since wealthy business people had the money, wealthy business men decided the congressional elections. And then those politicians made sure the massive natural resource wealth of Texas wasn’t taxed, so that they ran away with fortunes while the ordinary folk got nothing. Reading about Texas �� the decisions of the rich about who would be in power and what would be passed; the governors who convinced the people they were ‘fighting corruption�� and then turned around and made allies with the same people they claimed to be fighting �� kind of felt like reading about the 2020’s.

But cynicism aside �� the book was also a reminder that we really do stand on the backs of so much work that came before us. There WERE also people fighting to build better systems �� Johnson did make that rural electrification happen, even if he did a lot of other crappy stuff �� and things like that are what make it possible for us today to have much easier lives, and have the energy to actually try and create a better world. Much of the groundwork of what makes our modern lives possible was laid less than a century ago.

Anyways �� I still have three books left in the series, we’ll see if that happens this year, but no surprise that Caro absolutely delivers and this book is an amazing read not because of Johnson specifically but because it illustrates much larger patterns of history and life.

Kate wants to read 'Master and Commander'

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 17:50:36 -0700

Kate wants to read Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

Kate wants to read 'Black Sun'

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 07:15:44 -0700

Kate wants to read Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Kate wants to read 'The Raven Tower'

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 07:14:56 -0700

Kate wants to read The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie

Kate wants to read 'Listening to a Continent Sing: Birdsong by Bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific'

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 07:14:08 -0700

Kate wants to read Listening to a Continent Sing: Birdsong by Bicycle from the Atlantic to the Pacific by Donald Kroodsma

Kate wants to read 'The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future'

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 07:12:56 -0700

Kate wants to read The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future by Gretchen Bakke

Kate added 'Ottolenghi Comfort: A Cookbook'

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 04:51:41 -0700

Kate wants to read Ottolenghi Comfort: A Cookbook (Hardcover) by Yotam Ottolenghi
bookshelves: to-read, cookbook-club
(in progress) june 2025 cookbook book club pick

"kate's enemy."

Kate added 'Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean'

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 04:48:56 -0700

Kate has read Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean (Hardcover) by Ana Sortun
bookshelves: cookbook-club
cookbook bookclub verdict: overall very positive. the first time no one made a dessert!

dishes made:
-Fried halloumi cheese with pear and spiced dates (CLEAR WINNER)
-C Sangria (this was ON POINT).
-Maria's Feta Sauce with Shrimp, Melon, and Tomato (as a vegetarian who had to pick around the shrimp, I thought this dish was pretty bland, but the fish eaters disagreed)
-Fresh Pea and Two Potato Soup (agreed to be the only dud dish of the group - v little flavor)
-Carrot puree and Egyptian spice mix
-Chopped romaine and cucumber salad with yogurt dressing (both the salad and dressing are now a staple rotation food in my house)
-Francisco's manaaeesh (flatbread with za'atar) (pretty tasty for how simple this was, a great prep-the-day-before bread for a dinner party)
-Chickpea pancakes (made independently w/Samantha outside bookclub - easy and quick)

Kate wants to read 'Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service'

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 11:01:28 -0700

Kate wants to read Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service by Michael Lewis

Kate is on page 608 of 882 of The Path to Power

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 08:27:10 -0700

Kate is on page 608 of 882 of The Path to Power.
Kate wrote: this book is so long and so good