Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
by Mary Roach
Nonfiction; 334 pages; pub: 2010; formats: HB ,PB, Audio, Kindle
One Book, One Community pick for San Mateo County for 2011. Variety of related programming at libraries during October 2011. Author in conversation with Beth Lisick, Oct. 13, 2011 at the Fox Theater in Redwood City, 7:00 pm, free to all.
About the book:
Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can't walk for a year? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 4,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations -- making it possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA's new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Packing for Mars takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.
Here’s what some are saying about this San Francisco Chronicle #1 bestseller:
“Her… lightweight style is at its most substantial — and most hilarious — in the zero-gravity realm that Packing for Mars explores.” – Janet Maslin, New York Times
"Hilarious." —Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
Kirkus: Popular-science writer Roach (Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, 2008, etc.) entertainingly addresses numerous questions about life in outer space.The author is less interested in the thrills and agonies of space travel than "the stuff in between the small comedies and everyday victories." In lucid writing well-tuned to humor and absurdity, Roach tackles such topics as bowel movements in zero gravity.
Makers
by Cory Doctorow
Fiction; 416 pages; pub: 2009; formats: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
I've read and enjoyed 2 young adult novels by Cory Doctorow, and this is on my list. He deals with issues related to computer security, privacy, and economic principles.
BOOKPAGE:.. The embers of the U.S. economy, the evils of giant corporations and the absurd notion of a fat-curing pill are just three of the targets in Cory Doctorow’sMakers. Oddballs Perry and Lester are two down-and-out, on-the-edge and off-the-grid inventors/hackers who create novel products, such as a robotic car driven by Tickle Me Elmos, as well as revolutionary economic systems such as the “New Work.” Slavishly following its basic tenets of capitalism, the New Work explodes, only to implode much as the dot-com bubble did. Rather than admitting defeat, Lester and Perry exploit the New Work bust by developing user-altered theme park rides (built in abandoned Wal-Marts) that revel in the boom of the New Work. But when the rides infringe on trademark law, lawsuits abound and things spiral woefully out of control (including Lester’s weight). Makers is the essence of good science fiction: extrapolating from today to tomorrow, though there is an inherent awareness in the book of the fragility of predicting the future, as evidenced by Disney’s Tomorrowland, which is laughably dated. That said, Makers is a wild ride through capitalism and American obsessions. Even if its praise of individual productivity and creativity while simultaneously condemning corporate America appears contradictory, the book does offer a possible, if not probable, escape from this dilemma. This is Cory Doctorow and science fiction at its purest and its best.
LIBRARY JOURNAL: After winning acclaim and awards for his YA novel Little Brother, Locus Award winner Doctorow (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom) returns to adult sf. His latest involves a corporate executive who funds high-tech microprojects—they cost thousands of dollars instead of millions—a pair of inventors who can make anything out of anything, and a blogger who chronicles their careers. Doctorow isn't Pollyannesque about the effects of rapid technological change: change of such scope and force is often devastating—boom followed by bust, then boom again, then bust. Theending of this well-written, well-conceived novel is bittersweet. VERDICT In speculative fiction, too often the ideas outrun the writing, but not here. Doctorow's novel features a good, modest story, appealing characters, and extremely interesting ideas that will appeal to his fans and sf aficionados as well as readers interested in cogitating on the social consequences of cybertechnology's near-exponential growth.Enthusiastically recommended.
PW:In this tour de force, Doctorow (Little Brother) uses the contradictions of two overused SF themes—the decline and fall of America and the boundless optimism of open source/hacker culture—to draw one of the most brilliant reimaginings of the near future since cyberpunk wore out its mirror shades. … While dates and details occasionally contradict one another, Doctorow's combination of business strategy, brilliant product ideas and laugh-out-loud moments of insight will keep readers powering through this quick-moving tale.
On the other hand....Kirkus:
A strangely lifeless outing from Canadian author and blogger Doctorow. The author again combines cutting-edge technology with libertarian ideas in his latest novel, set in a near-future America. A group of corporate-funded hardware engineers in Florida perfect a three-dimensional printer that allows products of all kinds to be churned out with little effort. The corporation tanks, but the printer technology spreads throughout society, and the out-of-work engineers independently use it to create their own amusement-park rides. Walt Disney Company executives, unamused, use lawsuits and shady corporate espionage to try and bring the creators down. Doctorow rides several of his usual hobbyhorses, particularly focusing on open-source technology, intellectual-property law and crowdsourcing; his obsession with Disney goes back to his debut (Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, 2003). But while the brilliant Little Brother (2008) meshed similar ideas with appealing characters and a sharp, fast-paced thriller plot, this aimless follow-up lacks the visceral narrative drive of Doctorow's previous work. Indeed, many of its two-dimensional characters—techies, bloggers, corporate types and goth teenagers—seem to exist merely as mouthpieces for the author's views, while the plot drifts along with little urgency. Uncharacteristically bland and disappointing
Portobello
by Ruth Rendell
Fiction; 209 pages; pub: 2010; formats: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
I haven't read any Rendell lately, but she is known as a master of suspense
LIBRARY JOURNAL: Well-to-do Eugene Wren finds an envelope full of cash and decides that the proper thing to do is to put a notice in the newspaper to locate the rightful owner. Of course, more than one person tries to claim the lost money, and Eugene's life becomes intertwined with two of the claimants: one, a sad and mentally ill young man who becomes obsessed with Eugene's fiancee, the second, petty criminal Lance Platt, who schemes to rob Eugene and his neighbors. Rendell excels at drawing readers into the minds of her most neurotic characters. Her dry humor and wit shine as she describes the world through their eyes. Verdict The author's (The Water's Lovely, 13 Steps Down) latest work is engrossing psychological suspense, which will keep readers engaged from start to finish. Highly recommended.-Linda Oliver, Colorado Springs, CO Copyright 2010 Reed
PW: London's Portobello Road, a street fabled for its shops and outdoor market, provides the backdrop for Edgar-winner Rendell's superlative suspense novel, which features a cast of colorful characters from varied classes and walks of life. Secretive 50-year-old Eugene Wren, who's addicted to cheap candy lozenges, is toying with marrying his longtime girlfriend, physician Ella Cotswold. Rootless Lance Platt cases the neighborhood for costly homes he can break into, and clashes with his great-uncle, Gilbert Gibson, a former burglar who now preaches the gospel. One man's losing 115 pounds triggers a series of coincidences that brings this disparate lot closer together, toward haphazard violence and death. Rendell (The Water's Lovely) is particularly adept at portraying young people just a dole check away from homelessness as well as the carelessness and callousness of the book's upper-middle-class characters. Her style has become ever more spare while retaining its subtle psychology and vivid sense of place.
The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story
by Robert Baer, Dayna Baer
Nonfiction; 305 pages; pub: 2011; formats: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
Heard the authors on NPR and was intrigued... although the reviews are middling... still intrigued....and we could watch Syriana as an adjunct...
BOOKLIST:... The book is full of insight into the world of international intelligence-gathering, and it contains some interesting surprises, too (at one point, after he resigned from the CIA, Bob came awfully close to taking a job in Kabul, working with the Taliban). An engaging narrative that should appeal to readers of spy-themed literature, factual or fictional.
KIRKUS: Two CIA spooks form a romantic bond while globe-hopping between trouble spots.
In this unusual memoir, a husband and wife alternate chapters in describing their careers and connection. Robert Baer (The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, 2009, etc.) is well-known to espionage fans as the basis for George Clooney's character in Syriana (2005). Dayna had a more secretive career. Initially, she performed background checks, but then, to her surprise, she was selected for the "shooter" course, which prepares the CIA's little-known cohort of Protective Agents. Despite this potentially thrilling detour, Dayna emphasizes that "what I end up doing has nothing to do with banging down doors and firefights...The moment a gun comes out, the mission is compromised." Meanwhile, Robert was posted to places like Tajikistan and Iraq, where he was "caught up in a plot by a handful of Iraqi generals to oust Saddam Hussein," which led to his near-prosecution by the FBI. Yet he was admittedly addicted to the political intrigues of the Middle East, even as his first marriage was disintegrating. The early chapters have propulsive momentum, and the authors give a good sense of the improvisational nature of the CIA in the 1990s, as clandestine veterans like Robert tried to tie up the messy loose ends of the Cold War.Both Baers write affectingly of their experiences in Sarajevo, "a city radiant with sorrow," where they met during a covert operation. Dayna's initial impressions of Robert were decidedly negative, and their romance took some time to blossom.Unfortunately, once they wind up together, the narrative pace slackens (the love affair is only vaguely depicted). Eventually, they decided to leave the agency (Robert permanently, Dayna on a leave of absence) in order to build a family and pursue an international adoption in Pakistan, where the CIA is not highly regarded. Despite some chilling moments involving a Taliban-aligned judge, the book meanders toward a conclusion of domestic contentment. An intermittently engaging but not entirely satisfying tale of love and espionage.
PW: Robert and Dayna Baer's initial meeting was slightly unusual—both were on a covert mission in Sarajevo for the CIA. In this intermittently intriguing memoir, they describe their careers in "the Company," their romance, and the difficulty they have in establishing a balanced life outside the world of secret agents. Their travels take them to interesting places in interesting times—from Bosnia and Lebanon during civil wars, to Syria under the Assads, the mansions of sheiks, and the safe houses of terrorist groups. As the Baers drift away from family and see friends die, they learn the costs of covert life. Told in chapters that alternate between each partner's perspective, theirstory is best when discussing the minutiae of agency work. In understated prose, the couple effectively narrate the long bouts of tedium interspersed with moments of paranoia and fear that make up a CIA agent's life. On most assignments, they never learn if their efforts have any positive result—often, they don't even know their co-workers' real names. When the personal becomes the subject, however, the understatement feels inadequate. The Baers give us so little insight into their mutual attraction that it feels like another state secret. After they leave the agency, they seem adrift, and the book loses focuses as well.
Everyman
by Philip Roth
Fiction; 182 pages; pub: 2006; Format: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
This is one of those authors I feel I should have read and this seems like a good title to start with... mostly positive reviews
BOOKLIST: ... Despite its shortness in length and relative narrowness in scope, this novel speaks eloquently about life's unfulfillments, about making adjustments if the unfolding of one's life doesn't follow the original plan. Roth continues exercising his career-defining, clear-eyed, intelligent vision of how the psychology of families works. In The Plot against America, we saw how a family reacts to external forces; here, the reaction is to a family's internal circumstances. Perhaps, then, more readers will find this lean, poignant novel more relevant to themselves.
KIRKUS:... This risky novel is significantly marred by redundancy and discursiveness(especially by a surfeit of rhetorical questions), but energized by vivid writing, palpable emotional intensity and several wrenching scenes-for example, encounters in the painting class that he (an amateur artist) organizes for other seniors at his retirement village; a blistering exchange with second wife Phoebe, long aware of his womanizing; a wonderful conversation with a black gravedigger at the cemetery where his parents are buried, where he'll soon be buried. A rich exploration of the epiphany that awaits us all-that "life's most disturbing intensity is death."
LIBRARY JOURNAL: ... This brilliant little morality play on the ways that our bodies dictate the paths our lives take is vintage Roth; essential for every fiction collection.
PW: What is it about Philip Roth? He has published 27 books, almost all of which deal with the same topics--Jewishness, Americanness, sex, aging, family--and yet each is simultaneously familiar and new. His latest novel is a slim but dense volume about a sickly boy who grows up obsessed with his and everybody else's health, and eventually dies in his 70s, just as he always said he would. (I'm not giving anything away here; the story begins with the hero's funeral.) It might remind you of the old joke about the hypochondriac who ordered his tombstone to read: "I told you I was sick."
And yet, despite its coy title, the book is both universal and very, very specific, and Roth watchers will not be able to stop themselves from comparing the hero to Roth himself. (In most of his books, whether written in the third person or the first, a main character is a tortured Jewish guy from Newark--like Roth.) The unnamed hero here is a thrice-married adman, a father and a philanderer, a 70-something who spends his last days lamenting his lost prowess (physical and sexual), envying his healthy and beloved older brother, and refusing to apologize for his many years of bad behavior, although he palpably regrets them. Surely some wiseacre critic will note that he is Portnoy all grown up, an amalgamation of all the womanizing, sex- and death-obsessed characters Roth has written about (and been?) throughout his career.
But to obsess about the parallels between author and character is to miss the point: like all of Roth's works, even the lesser ones, this is an artful yet surprisingly readable treatise on... well, on being human and struggling and aging at the beginning of the new century. It also borrows devices from his previous works--there's a sequence about a gravedigger that's reminiscent of the glove-making passages in American Pastoral , and many observations will remind careful readers of both Patrimony and The Dying Animal --and through it all, there's that Rothian voice: pained, angry, arrogant and deeply, wryly funny. Nothing escapes him, not even his own self-seriousness. "Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work," he has his adman-turned-art-teacher opine about an annoying student. Obviously, Roth himself is a professional.
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentals, Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them
by Donovan Hohn
Nonfiction; 416 pages; pub:2011; formats: HB, PB, Audio
Heard about this on NPR and it sounded very interesting and fun...
BOOKLIST: Starred Review* Like Bill Bryson on hard science, or John McPhee with attitude, journalist Hohn travels from beaches to factories to the northern seas in pursuit of a treasure that mystifies as much as it provokes. His quest is to determine what happened to a load of 28,800 Chinese manufactured plastic animals in a container that fell off a ship en route to Seattle in 1992. Hohn's inquiry leads him to 10 Little Rubber Ducks (2005), children's author Eric Carle's idealized board-book version, and also to the plastic-strewn beaches of an Alaskan island, a Hong Kong toy fair, and the Sesame Street origins of the rubber duck's popularity. By turns thoughtful, bemused, or shocked, Hohn finds the story growing beyond his wildest visions as he learns about the science of ocean currents and drift and the lure of cheap plastic in a consumer culture that has dangerously lost its way. The resulting book is a thoroughly engaging environmental/travel title that crosses partisan divides with its solid research and apolitical nature. Rubber ducks as harmless, ubiquitous symbols of childhood? Not anymore, not by a long shot. This dazzles from start to finish.Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.
KIRKUS: finely spun chronicle of the wide-ranging quest to track the wanderings of a rubber duck lost at sea, from Harper's senior editor Hohn.
In 1992, a crate toppled off a container ship and dumped much of its cargo into the Pacific Ocean. Among the lost items were thousands of rubber toys. Ten years later, a yellow rubber duck of the same manufacture, barnacled and tortured by the elements, washed ashore in Maine. Could it have made it through the Northwest Passage? Thus began Hohn's pursuit for an answer. In prose that varies in tone from reflective to unaffectedly cool to delightfully wide-eyed ("[w]hat misanthrope, what damp, drizzly November of a sourpuss, upon beholding a rubber duck afloat, does not feel a Crayola ray of sunshine brightening his gloomy heart?"), the author follows in the wake of a half-dozen Virgils on a tour through driftology, oceanography, environmental degradation and the economics of toy-making. The characters are an engaging bunch—some crusty, some charismatic, some just doing their jobs—all with a touch of local color and all raising as many questions as they answer. Hohn spent time in the company of flotsam gatherers, on the shop floor of a Chinese toy company and with scientists exploring the toxic nature of plastic, and he learned about monster waves and the mysteries of tides and currents. He also crossed the Pacific on a container ship to refresh his sense of awe. To his credit, he doesn't dodge difficult questions: Should we tackle pollution at the source or on the beach? How do you measure the value of place? Can a small rubber duck push through the murderous climes of the Arctic?
There are no easy answers, but it's the hunt that counts, and Hohn makes it a gladdening, artful journey of discovery.
PW: Whimsical curiosity begets a quixotic odyssey and troubling revelations about plastics polluting the seas in former high school teacher and journalist Hohn'scharming account of what he learned searching for 28,800 rubber bath toys lost at sea in 1992. His curiosity, prompted by a student's quirky essay, begins in 2005 around Sitka, Alaska, where yellow "duckies," frogs, turtles, and beavers washed up after three-story waves buffeted a container ship traveling from China to America. Hohn, a senior editor at Harper's magazine, eventually tracks more rogue ducks bobbing up from isolated Gore Point, Alaska, to Maine beaches. The author's quest leads him to a research vessel trawling for degraded plastic in Hawaiian seas, to the Chinese factory where the toys were manufactured, aboard a container vessel traversing the same route as the original ship (a particularly hair-raising section), and finally to the high Arctic to study the science of oceanic drift. Packed with seafaring lore and astute reporting, this enthralling narrative is the Moby Dick of drifting ducks.
Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History
by Scott Andrew Selby, Greg Campbell
Nonfiction; 336 pages; pub: 2010; Format: HB, Audio
Could be a good choice for a true crime book; the first chapter read well.
LIBRARY JOURNAL: Attorney and diamond expert Selby and journalist Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones) havemeticulously pieced together the planning and execution of the heist of the 21st century. In February 2003, a group of Italian thieves made off with somewhere between $108 and 432 million worth in diamonds, other gems, and cash, managing to bypass the security, including video cameras, an iron and steel vault door, magnetic locks, and motion, light, and heat sensors of the heavily patrolled and watched Antwerp (Belgium) Diamond Center. Spoiler alert: the crime was solved quickly thanks to the vigilance of the caretaker of a nearby preserved forest, who discovered trash dumped by the thieves the very next morning. By the time alleged ringleader Leonardo Notarbartolo returned to the center a week later to swipe in and out of the office he had rented there to throw off suspicion, he was already the prime suspect and was quickly arrested. He and three others were caught and convicted—but most of the loot was never recovered. VERDICT Fans of true crime (especially those who appreciate less violence and no gore) and of crime caper movies will especially enjoy this fun romp.
KIRKUS: Exciting, well-crafted tale of the "School of Turin," a gang of master thieves who looted the putatively theft-proof Antwerp Diamond Center. Selby and Campbell (Blood Diamonds: Tracing The Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones, 2002, etc.) provide an engrossing nonfiction thriller with a truly improbable story at its center, but they also provide a colorful look at the shadowy world of the diamond tradehow they're graded, sold, secured and stolen. In February 2003, the prim staff of the Diamond Centera supposedly impregnable fortress at the heart of that city's ultra-secure "Diamond Square Mile"found their vault had been looted over the weekend, with discarded gems piled on the floor. The heist was the product of two years' worth of planning by the storied School of Turin, a near-mythical fraternity of secretive jewel thieves based in an Italian city known for its clever criminals. The authors initially focus on the gang's "inside man," Leonardo Notarbartolo, who brazenly rented an office in the complex, then spent endless hours casing it, using tricks like a hidden video camera in the vault; one of the book's strengths is the attention to the minutiae of the heist. The Diamond Center's various defenses proved no match for the gang, whose specialists patiently analyze the various alarms, cameras, locks and sensors guarding the vault. The actual heist went smoothly, but the thieves miscalculated terribly afterward, throwing away incriminating trash in a forest patrolled by a ranger obsessed with littering. When Notarbartolo returned to the Diamond Center to allay suspicion, the cops were waiting for him. He served six years in prison, but almost none of the estimated $500 million in loot was recovered. Many readers will agree that "their capture and incarceration for the largest diamond heist in history seems to have been well worth the price they paid." Selby and Campbell offer an effective, well-researched collaboration, in which the classic heist story illustrates the seamy underbelly and criminal lure behind the bright facade of the diamond industry. Sure to appeal to armchair rogues and, like Blood Diamond, cinema-ready
PW:Starred Review. Two experts on diamonds--Selby wrote his master's thesis on them, Campbell authored Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones--turn in a top-notch true-crime read while dissecting the plot, the payoff, and the post-op investigation of a group of professional thieves who ripped off a supposedly impregnable vault in Antwerp, the heart of the world's diamond trade. As Selby and Campbell probe the personalities and mechanics behind the 2003 heist, readers will learn plenty about diamonds, their value and handling, the ubiquitous black market, the history of De Beers, the intricacies of insurance, and the safeguards (or lack thereof) meant to secure a constant flow of cut and uncut diamonds. Readers will also become familiar with the elite fraternity of thieves determined to carry out the impossible crime, known as the "School of Turin," and it's hard not to root for them. The minutiae of the preparation, the drama of the robbery, and the details of the investigation are all equally fascinating, supplying myriad surprises all the way through the machinations of the Belgium justice system (even now, the loot is still at large).Like a diamond, this true-life caper is clear, colorful, and brilliant. 24 b&w illus.
WAR
by Sebastian Junger
Nonfiction; 320 pages; pub: 2010; formats: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
Timely topic and usually interesting author. Mixed reviews but generally positive.
Library Journal: Embedded as a journalist in an infantry platoon of the U.S. 2d Batallion, Junger here tracks the unit's 15-month deployment at a desolate mountain outpost in eastern Afghanistan in 2007–08. Fighting is on foot, over rugged terrain, in a series of patrols and chaotic firefights interspersed with interminable periods of boredom. In a change from his earlier books (e.g., The Perfect Storm; A Death in Belmont), Junger here is an observer of the now, not simply a reporter of the past. Trying to capture in words the elements of combat, fear, and ennui through the eyes of the soldiers, he communicates with a level of objectivity that the soldiers cannot. Junger is there, in the moment, with them, but he can also of course pull back and give distance and perspective. Junger's work here is reminiscent of David Finkel's The Good Soldiers and Tim O'Brien's fictional The Things They Carried, yet his work is neither simple hands-on reportage nor a work of fiction. VERDICT Although ostensibly about combat in Afghanistan, War examines the raw, brutal reality of combat—period—and why men fight. More than anything else, soldiers fight for one another, and Junger paints them as humans, as heroes, as brothers. Highly recommended—not simply for those interested in military history but for all readers concerned with the human condition.
KIRKUS:.... As in The Perfect Storm (1997), Junger blends popular science, psychology and history with a breathlessly paced narrative. What's absent here is not only a significant political angle but also any big-picture questioning of what exactly these soldiers are fighting and dying for. Junger portrays the infantryman's life as one dominated solely by the most primitive group loyalty. It's this love for one's brothers-in-arms, the author concludes, that allows the soldiers to stir up the courage and selflessness necessary to function at optimum levels under fire. An often harrowing, though mostly conventional, account of the physical and psychological toll of modern warfare on the average soldier.
PW:.... Despite the stress and the grief when buddies die, the author finds war to be something of an exalted state: soldiers experience an almost sexual thrill in the excitement of a firefight—a response Junger struggles to understand—and a profound sense of commitment to subordinating their self-interests to the good of the unit. Junger mixes visceral combat scenes—raptly aware of his own fear and exhaustion—with quieter reportage and insightful discussions of the physiology, social psychology, and even genetics of soldiering. The result is an unforgettable portrait of men under fire.
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
by Sam Kean
Nonfiction; 400 pages; pub: 2010; formats: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
An interesting book about the Periodic Table of Elements? Yes, indeed. Heard about this on NPR, I think on To The Best of Our Knowledge. Along with the history of the development of the Table are many quirky facts about the elements. Grabbed my attention and sounded like a good science book for the general reader.
Kirkus: In his debut, Science magazine reporter Kean uses the periodic table as a springboard for an idiosyncratic romp through the history of science... Nearly 150 years of wide-ranging science, in fact, and Kean makes it all interesting.Entertaining and enlightening.
Library Journal: Kean, an award-winning freelance news and science writer,intertwines fascinating stories with biographical sketches about the scientists who contributed to the discovery of the 118 elements found in the current periodic table. From hydrogen to ununoctium, the filling out of Mendeleev's original 19th-century periodic table is a curious story of history, politics, etymology, alchemy, and mythology. Kean primarily concentrates on discoveries since the dawn of the nuclear age and postulates on elements yet to be discovered. VERDICT Aiming at a general audience with a cursory knowledge of science and chemistry, Kean writes in a whimsical yet easy-to-read style. Although he includes copious notes, his book complements rather than replaces Eric Scerri's excellent The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance. Highly recommended for public libraries and for amateur, high school, and undergraduate scientists wishing to be informed as well as entertained.
PW: Science magazine reporter Kean views the periodic table as one of the great achievements of humankind, "an anthropological marvel," full of stories about our connection with the physical world. Funny, even chilling tales are associated with each element, and Kean relates many. The title refers to gallium (Ga, 31), which melts at 84°F, prompting a practical joke among "chemical cognoscenti": shape gallium into spoons, "serve them with tea, and watch as your guests recoil when their Earl Grey ‘eats' their utensils." Along with Dmitri Mendeleyev, the father of the periodic table,Kean is in his element as he presents a parade of entertaining anecdotes about scientists (mad and otherwise) while covering such topics as thallium (Tl, 81) poisoning, the invention of the silicon (Si, 14) transistor, and how the ruthenium (Ru, 44) fountain pen point made million for the Parker company. With a constant flow of fun facts bubbling to the surface, Kean writes with wit, flair, and authority in a debut that will delight even general readers.
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
by Richard W. Wrangham
Nonfiction; 320 pages; pub: 2009; formats: HB, PB, Audio, Kindle
Sounds like an interesting book, especially as we read Michael Pollen not too long ago.
Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma
“Catching Fire is convincing in argument and impressive in its explanatory power. A rich and important book.”
Kirkus: An innovative argument that cooked food led to the rise of modern Homo sapiens. Wrangham (Biological Anthropology/Harvard Univ.; co-author: Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence, 1996, etc.), the curator of Primate Behavioral Biology at the Peabody Museum, begins by demolishing the fashionable raw-food movement. Despite claims that raw food is the natural human diet, the author finds no culture, however primitive, that doesn't cook. Studies show that a pure raw-food diet provides adequate nutrients but insufficient energy; subjects lose weight and half the women stop menstruating, a sign of malnutrition. Compared to apes, our gastrointestinal tracts (lips, mouth, jaws, teeth, stomach, colon) are tiny. The reason, he asserts, is that cooked food is calorie-dense, soft and easy to digest. Searching for and consuming food occupies most of the day for all primates except humans. Chimps spend six hours per day chewing, humans about one. Searching the fossil record, Wrangham describes earlier hominids, pinpointing the cooking revolution at the appearance of our direct ancestor, Homo erectus, in Africa 1.8 million years ago. "Cooking was responsible for the evolution of Homo erectus," he writes. Many anthropologists focus on its larger brain, larger body size and more stable upright posture. Wrangham emphasizes its smaller teeth and narrower rib cage and pelvis, which indicate a smaller gut. Sadly, the author concludes, modern, sedentary humans get fat, not because our bodies remain adapted to the constant threat of starvation but because we love our calorie-rich diet. Apes in captivity don't grow fat unless fed cooked food. Experts will debate Wrangham's thesis, but most readers will be convinced by this lucid, simulating foray into popular anthropology
PW:... Wrangham's lucid, accessible treatise ranges across nutritional science, paleontology and studies of ape behavior and hunter-gatherer societies; the result is a tour de force of natural history and a profound analysis of cooking's role in daily life.More than that, Wrangham offers a provocative take on evolution—suggesting that,rather than humans creating civilized technology, civilized technology created us.
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