Tricia Romano. The Freaks Came out to Write.

     This is a book about the times when America was great. New York was a dirty, decaying rathole, but the people there carried the idea of infinite possibilities. Chuck Close, Andy Warhol, Philip Roth, Normal Mailer measured the streets and the likes of Hunter S. Thompson and Alexander Coburn wrote about their New York. These days, Manhattan is an abode of banksters and tourists with the sprinkles of homeless people here and there, more a transportation hub than a place where real people live. 

Amanda H. Podany. Weavers, Scribes and Kings: A New History.

     Very thorough reading of the texts from ancient Mesopotamia but with very limited reflection, which is typical of the modern Anglo-Saxon historical discourse. Real science is formulating hypotheses and proving them with facts or the results of experiments, even if they are proven wrong later. But the right of making mistakes is not conducive to earning a tenure in the modern hyper-competitive university culture.