Decided to go over the books I’ve picked up or have been reading, just because I’m in a good mood and classes start in a week so best not squander my time and actually read stuff! These are all nonfiction because for some reason I’m just not very interested in fiction books, I tend to read that sort of stuff online, and instead buy books to learn about stuff I wouldn’t from Wikipedia.
Oh and here's a photo I took of all my books!

Now, without further ado:

American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin;
I watched Oppenheimer recently, and I liked the movie, pretty good, so my Mom decided to buy this book because she thought I’d be interested considering I like biographies. I haven’t read it so far, and honestly I don't know if I will because I have several other biographies that I already have to read that are about people I’m interested in a bit more. I already watched the movie as well. Still, it should be interesting, maybe around a year or so down the line when I’ve forgotten the movie.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell (AKA Eric Blair);
I’ve already read 1984 and Animal Farm as part of the American Education System, so I thought to myself “why not read Orwell’s (maybe) third most famous book?” So I picked this up at the bookstore recently, and I haven’t started it yet, but it should provide an interesting look into both Orwell himself, and into the Spanish Civil War and how that whole ordeal went down. Not too much to say about this one because I obviously haven’t read it yet, but hopefully it’s interesting.

Shanghai by Harriet Sergeant;
The Warlord era of China was a period from 1916 to 1928 where China basically fell apart, which was followed by the Nanjing Decade where the KMT gained power. These periods of Chinese history are some of my most favorite to read about, because of just how interesting it is to me, and I picked this book up so that I could read more about the era. In fact, I partially based my most recent story, Clash of Changes, on this period, with some adjustments. There weren’t any books solely on the Warlord era, and in the future, I hope to get a book on Chen Jiongming or Yan Xishan, but for now, I’ll settle on this.

Painting as a Pastime by Winston Churchill;
By far the smallest book I’ve obtained recently, this is a very short book by Churchill that details his interests in painting. My mom picked this up for me because she thought I’d be interested in it. I have painted a few things, although I prefer filling in the colors rather than drawing something out, but who knows, maybe Churchill was like Bob Ross in a way? I’ll have to read this soon, as it should be an easy thing to knock out quickly.

How to Survive History by Cody Cassidy;
I picked this up in a bookstore upstate because I thought it looked interesting and was similar to a few XKCD books that I own. The book is a semi-humorous detail of roughly how to survive several historic events, which I should keep in handy when I get my physics degree, in case I somehow violate most of the standard model. Haven’t read it yet, but it’s a smaller book and not exactly a feature length biography so I should be able to pick it up sometime and read through it.

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem by Kliph Nesteroff;
I also got this upstate in the same bookstore because I was drawn to the analysis of Native comedy. The book goes over the history of comedy amongst Native Americans, the nature of Native comedy (lots of dark humor in my experience), and also how we tend to be sidelined by much of popular culture due to the low amounts of us, meaning that we aren’t a very big demographic to focus on unfortunately. Also because of racism, because people were historically (and currently tbh) kinda racist against us, who’da thought? But seriously folks, I like comedy, I like the Indians, should be an interesting book. Little on the longish side, so maybe I’ll spend a few days in between larger books to read this one. Maybe it can me give tips on how to break out into comedy, you know?

Roosevelt Sweeps Nation by David Pietrusza;
I visited the FDR library while upstate, and I picked up this book there. The book details the 1936 presidential election, one of the most lopsided in American history. Now then, I’m a U.S. election nerd, I like this kind of stuff, so this is exactly up my alley. Reading about FDR and the decisions made on the campaign trail and what he did and also what Landon did, this is my bread and butter. The book’s somewhat large, so I’ll have to figure out what books I want to read before and after this one, but it should be interesting at least.

The Years of Lyndon B. Johnson: The Path to Power by Robert Caro;
This book is a huge book that I picked up… somewhere, I don’t actually remember. Regardless, this book is a biography of LBJ, kinda good, kinda bad president of the U.S.A. I find LBJ to be a fascinating politician because of how high his highs were, and how low his lows were. This book goes into detail about his early life up until his first bid for Senate. This is actually just the first volume in a 4 (soon to be 5 [hopefully]) volume set, of which I actually own all the rest. I don’t even know if I’ll be able to read all of these volumes, but it should be interesting. Currently reading this one right now, kind of the only book I am reading right now actually. So far I learned that the Apache one time tricked the Spanish into building a fort in the middle of nowhere claiming they wanted to convert, only for the fort to get sacked by the Comanche. Pretty smart.

On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller by Richard Norton Smith;
I visited Nelson Rockefeller’s house during my trip upstate, and so I decided to pick up this biography on him there. His house was actually much more interesting than I anticipated, first because of all the modern art lying around (of which I’m a pretty big fan), and because our tour guide was actually very invested in the place, so I enjoyed listening to him talk about it. Highly recommend. Anyways, Nelson Rockefeller was an interesting guy, last of the liberal Republicans, maybe could’ve saved Humphrey in `68 if he wanted to, may have died because he had sex with his mistress (happens to the best of us). Overall, interesting dude, and I will admit I don’t know many details of his life, so hopefully this book can shed light on it. I think I’ll plan to read this after I finish at least volume 1 of LBJ.

Also, I didn't pick this book up because I couldn't find it, but I do hope to get Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson soon. Talks about 1972 election, and Thompson's a pretty funny guy to read, even if he is a little, you know, weird. Hopefully I can get it soon!

Anyways, that’s all the books I’ve gotten in the past ~2 months or so, hope this inspires others to pick up these books and give them a try! Also I'll take book suggestions, don't know if I'll be able to get to any of them, but suggestions are appreciated :)