American War is the most timely and poignant novel I’ve read in years. Grim from the first chapter, this isn’t a novel that will make you cry, but it sure as hell will make you despair. Set in 2075, the America of this future has been torn apart by a second Civil War. Three Southern states have broken off from the Union in order to maintain the freedom to use fossil fuels, which have been banned by the Union due to the devastation they have wrought on the continent. […]
Next time, more history less theory, please
Funny story: a number of years ago I read Blackout by Connie Willis, one of my favorite authors. I really love Connie Willis, even though there have been some disappointments (Remake is way too obvious and Promised Land. . .I don’t even want to talk about it). But when she’s on, I’m nuts for her writing. Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, which are curiously tied together by a time-travel theme and some shared characters, are two of my favorite contemporary novels, in spite of them being very […]
So you’re saying the movie 300 might not have been historically accurate?
I picked up this book not knowing too much about it, except that it looked quirky with some fun artwork and promised to teach me math and physics in an entertaining way. I didn’t know that the author, Randall Munroe, is the cartoonist behind xkcd.com, the delightful webcomic where stick figures rule and sarcasm explains science. Munroe actually studied physics in school and was a roboticist at NASA before becoming a cartoonist full-time. On his site, and in this book, he combines his passion for science with his keen […]
Resonating for the last 135 years
I first read An Enemy of the People when I was in high school and I can recall being quite moved by it. Since the phrase “enemy of the people” has been bandied about in the news lately, I thought this would be an excellent time to revisit the play. Would it be as poignant as I remembered, or would I discover that the brain of a teenager is too unsophisticated to appreciate Norwegian drama and that I’d missed the nuance? The plot is pretty much as […]
Too cute for words (but I’ll try)!
I took my first trip to Yellowstone last summer and in one of the official gift shops in the Park, I picked up this innocent little book as a souvenir–supporting the Park Service and all that! Originally published in 1932, Cubby in Wonderland tells the story of a mother bear and her cub as they travel from Grand Teton National Park to Yellowstone and the many interesting critters they meet along the way. I’ll confess, during the opening pages I was all set to make some good-natured jokes about this book, like how […]
So now I feel like an underachiever
Lab Girl is one of those books that makes you sit back and wonder what you’ve been doing with your life. It’s not enough that Hope Jahren is an accomplished geobiologist and geochemist, or that she has a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley. It’s not enough that she’s won three Fulbright Awards, or that Popular Science magazine named her one of its “Brilliant 10” scientists in 2006. It’s not enough that in 2016 Time named her one of the world’s “100 Most Influential People.” With all those accomplishments, you’d think she’d have […]
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