A few more for The Bookshelf…Sports, Hurricanes, History, Masonry!

Note, I put books on The Bookshelf if they’re on my bookshelf, not if I’ve actually read them–I might have but not always.  
The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000, by Chris Wickham (2009).
I was a bit disappointed when the first few chapters of this book were filled with kingship successions throughout Europe–I was interested in the cultural inheritance and the legal inheritance Rome left to Europe, not the lineal progression of kings. However, after I decided to just speed read the darn thing, I discovered many rich tidbits. Not sure how much I’ll retain with this method, but this is for sure a great resource, comprehensive and scholarly.
Builders of Empire: Freemasonry and British Imperialism, 1717-1927, by Jessica L. Harland-Jacobs (2007).
Haven’t read this one yet and I don’t think it’s a full-on conspiracy exposé. Just the facts. (Those should be enough!)
I Never Played the Game, by Howard Cosell with Peter Bonventre (1985).
The first paragraph of the prologue reads as follows:
“I am writing this book because I am convinced that sports are out of whack in the American society; that the emphasis placed upon sports distorts the real values of life and often produces mass behavior patterns that are downright frightening; and that the frequently touted uplifting benefits of sports have become a murky blur in the morass of hypocrisy and contradiction that I call the Sports Syndrome.”
You can see why I want to read this book–especially these days from the NFL kneeling nonsense (which Trump tees up himself) to the clearly rigged decision in the GGG v Canelo fight….
Hurricane Watch: Forecasting the Deadliest Storms on Earth, by Dr. Bob Sheets and Jack Williams ( 2001).
Ya gotta start somewhere! This book comes highly recommended by none other than Ben Livingston so you know it’s got some merit.