Interesting books I read lately

Two interesting and provocative history books -

One was On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance, by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Probably, I would not have read it but for the famous author.

Another was A Land As God Made It: Jamestown And the Birth of America, by James P. P. Horn. Probably, I would not have read it but for the 400th celebration.

The Horn book makes me think that this goofy story in the Post is somewhat right but leaves out some of the interesting parts, on the story of Pocahontas and John Smith. Evidently, the big deal about Pocahontas at the time was that when she came to England, she became a celebrity as an example of how a "Virginian" could be made a Christian, which helped to revive support for the company behind the Virginia colonies.

I also read The Castle in the Forest: A Novel by Norman Mailer, which was really weird.