Breakthrough: Spectacular Stories of Scientific Discovery from the Higgs Particle to Black Holes

Breakthrough: Spectacular Stories of Scientific Discovery from the Higgs Particle to Black Holes by Marcus Chown

This book looks at physics breakthroughs of the last century, with an emphasis on electromagnetism and quantum mechanics. The narrative works well with a good balance of personal details of the participants with stories of the physics and the actual breakthroughs. Stories include the prediction of Neptune with Urbain Le Verrier, electromagnetism with Maxwell and Faraday. Hertz, Hoyle and Dirac also get sufficient coverage.

Mom Genes: Inside The New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct

Mom Genes: Inside The New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct by Abigail Tucker

This popular science book explores motherhood. Moms act different in many ways. Humans are also fairly unique in that they can engage in full motherhood for kids that are clearly not their own. The placenta has a lot of dad influence and tries to take over the mom's body. Dad's have different priorities in child rearing than moms, though they do tend to work together. 

The book is as much an exploration of the author's experience raising children as it is on motherhood in general. The conclusion at the end tend to be more about modern policy preferences than deep scientific analysis. With science historically very male focussed, we have a ways to go to fully understand motherhood.

Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion

Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion by Nick Spencer

Science and religion have been much more closely related than many would have us believe. Science had been historically the domain of church leaders. Historical attacks on science by religion were often exaggerated to display their point. Figures like Galileo were attacked or politic as much as actions. The condemnation for going against established orthodoxy would be just as it would be today. The core difference is that in the past church was seen as arbitrar of the truth and holder of the consensus. Today, "leading scientists" hold that same position. Religion has often been fairly fragmented. Even when Catholicism was the religion in Europe, most localities were fairly autonomous with the local authorities being most important. In the Islamic there was not even the equivalent of the pope. After the protestant reformation in Europe there were different religious practices with their own beliefs. The conflict was more often between scientists attached to one faith tradition vs. another than to scientists vs. religion.

Things pivoted over time. Religion at times would use science to explain religious teachings. Later religious teachings would be used to explain science. During the cold war, the USSR was atheist, so the US became extra religious in part to counter it. Even more recent science vs. religion actions such as the Scopes Monkey Trial were really much less about science vs. religion. That angle was primarily brought up in later dramatizations and interpretations.

Religion and science had have their conflicts, yet they have also worked together for advancement. The full separation can be problematic. They each have their expertise and together can help humanity.

Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions

Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace

The book ends with dad's death as he turns into a fish. The rest of the book details various parts of his life. He was a larger-than-life character that had great stories. The experiences were all grounded in the real world, but got exaggerated and carried away. He helped talk down a giant from eating the town. He helped rescue a woman's glass eye from a group of fraternity brothers. In one case, he even bought an entire town. When he found one hidden lot that wouldn't sell to him, he fell in love with the owner. Most of the short book takes place in Alabama. Maybe things are just a little different there.

To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

A fisherman rents out his services to others from his home in Key West, Florida. He rents it to various not-so-legal causes. He is ok at outrunning officials as he transports contraband and other no-so-legitimate things. He meets his end when he transports some Cuban revolutionaries. However, before he dies, he does take all of them out. He leaves behind a family at the end. It is a shot Hemingway book that seems right at home compared to Old Man and the Sea.

Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America

Plunder: Private Equity's Plan to Pillage America by Brendan Ballou

Private equity firms has been able to exploit legal loopholes in order to transfer wealth from society to themselves. Their playbook includes mechanisms that insulate themselves from responsibility and allow them to profit even if the companies they acquire eventually fail. Leveraged buyouts will use debt that the company takes on itself in order for private equity to buy the company. The company then pays the firm a fee for the privilege of being managed as well as regular dividends. This necessitates significant belt tightening and leaves companies heavily vulnerable. Financial engineering, such as selling the real estate and leasing it back further harms the company prospects, while also helping to enrich private equity.

This book focuses on the negative wealth extraction and financial engineering performed by private equity. Operational improvements and long-term focus are barely covered. The book talks about failures like Toys R US, without even mentioning successes like Dell. Many of the areas that private equity has infiltrated have additional structural headwinds. Private Equity firms swoop in and separate the assets into good and bad. They make money off the good, then discard the bad. Alas, "discarding" often involves hoisting it on to the government. This type of financial engineering ends up harming society as a whole. Making the businesses lean leaves little buffer for downturns and also hurts customer service. They can also take advantage of industries where there is a big disconnect between who pays. In prisons, governments like the chance to get kickbacks from criminals. In hospitals, there are many parties involved, limited transparency and few options. There are great chances to financial engineer and frew responsibilities for doing so. Public healthcare may be the only true fix for the private equity mess there.

Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel

Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel by Meg Mason

A woman suffers from a mysterious mental illness, X. Her mother knew this early on, but never told her. The woman's marriage fell apart. She was intent on drawing attention to her self-destruction rather than trying to overcome it or caring about others. It goes on for a bit too long and using an unnamed mental illness feels like a cop-out.

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel

A Gentleman in Moscow: A Novel by Amor Towles

An aristocratic Count was placed under house arrest in a hotel at the time of Communist Revolution in Russia. He maintained his spirit even as things gradually changed. In the name of "equality" he was demoted from the suite to a regular room. The service of the restaurant steadily declined as communist principles overtook ability as means for employment. Eventually he eventually escape (which he does in part with an antique gun.) A girl which he had raised had defected to the US embassy while on a musical trip. It is a bit long, but has an interesting take on the communist revolution.

Virginia Woolf in 90 Minutes

Virginia Woolf in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern

Virginia Woolf had a somewhat brief and literary life. She came from a literary family was into "modernism" and helped support authors that the modernist criteria. (This would sometimes exclude those that are now greatly respected.) I should read more of her books. She was mentally unstable and tried suicide a few times before succeeding. Her life seems very similar to Sylvia Plath's.

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West by Cormac McCarthy

This book is just dark and icky. It is violent and the characters are unsympathetic. It takes place in the American West from around 1850 until the 1870s. The characters do violent things, fight against natives and others. 

Record of a Spaceborn Few: Wayfarers 3

Record of a Spaceborn Few: Wayfarers 3 by Becky Chambers

There is a science fiction "utopia" where everyone lives in a perfect communist society. All necessities are provided and they do work that they enjoy. Then some others come in and start messing things up. There are various aliens. Some don't need to breath, but have organs that allow them to talk. There is a disaster that changes around life. The book goes through various episodes of different characters. It felt too long. Parts were interesting but others got boring.

The Heart

The Heart by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Sam Taylor

Some suffer a tragic car accident. One has severe brain damage and will not recover. However, his heart and other organs are in good condition. The novel then explores the widespread impact of this heart. The family and friends of the surfer must deal with their grief. There is great need of a heart to help others, but it is important to make sure the loved ones do not have regrets. The novel explores the lives of the many people involved, from the doctors, the "donor" and the "recipient" and everyone related to all of them. It all takes place in the very short period of time. There is much history involved in a final action that happens within the span of a day.

Transcription: A Novel

Transcription: A Novel by Ben Lerner

The narrator goes to visit Thomas, aging academic who served as his mentor. Shortly before the interview, he ruins his phone by dropping it in water. He learns to navigate the world without the phone. Since that was to be his recording device, he has the conversation with his mentor without recording. Later he gives a talk and confesses to relying on memory and fabrication to write details of the mentor interview. The book then pivot's to Thomas's son, Max, and his family. Max's daughter refuses to eat. The family tries to be healthy and technology restrictive, but they will let anything go to get the daughter to eat. One time she does surprise them by eating a lot - only to throw up. 

The book explores our dependence on technology and the flakiness of memory. It is very short, though a bit pretentious.

Radio Treason: The Trials of Lord Haw-Haw, the British Voice of Nazi Germany

Radio Treason: The Trials of Lord Haw-Haw, the British Voice of Nazi Germany by Rebecca West

I felt the book was short and episodic. A later learned that it was expanded from four New Yorker articles. That explained things well. Lord Haw-Haw was a British voice for the Nazi Germany. When he was caught, he was tried for treason. He nearly was able to let away scott free. His defense was that he could not be arrested for treason since he was not a British subject. He was born in America and immigrated to Germany, becoming a German citizen at a time when the US was at peace with Germany. Alas, he had secured a British passport and renewed it right after hostilities had started. He was executed, but was able to get a reprieve for his wife.

Ava and Taco Cat (Ava and Pip Book 2)

Ava and Taco Cat (Ava and Pip Book 2) by Carol Weston

Ava is an 11-year old aspiring writer struggling through life as a tween. She names the cat they get from the animal shelter "taco cat" - a palindrome to go along with the palindrome names she and her sister Pip have. Her family regularly explores palindromes and word play. 

The cat takes a while to warm to her and the family. She uses her experience with the cat to write a story in school. This is picked up by the newspaper along with a picture of the cat. This leads the original owner to come and ask for the cat back. Despite others being reluctant to give up the cat Ava gives it up. Later the original owner returns and offers it back, giving the story a happy ending. The book even concludes with a long list of palindromes. There is plenty of fund word play worked in without being overbearing.

How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now

How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now by Stanislas Dehaene

Humans have an ability to learn. There seems to be some special innate ability to learn languages. Babies start learning language in the womb and "unlearn" phonemes that are not in their language. Learning is a key part of how society grows. Active learning is more successful than passive learning. Tech has challenges duplicating the learning process that brains undergo.

The author is very pro-education. Alas, the education institutions do not necessarily follow the best practices. Are these best practices even the best?

The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us About Being Human and Living Well

The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us About Being Human and Living Well by Julian Baggini

Here is an interesting exploration of Hume as a philosopher within his environment. The author explores various areas of Hume's life. Occasionally the buildings are still standing, but even those have often been repurposed. These biographical bits are intertwined with Hume's philosophy. This connection of thoughts and person is a great way to explore philosophy.

The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us

The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us by Benjamin Recht

The book explores the rise of algorithms for decision making. The results are not very positive. In a lot of cases, we use algorithms to make decisions because we can. Are they really the best way to make decisions? Not necessarily. Algorithms can only take advantage of the data they have. We can feed them more and more data but does this really help us? Algorithms can continue to steer us in weird directions with the apparent objectiveness hiding biases.

Fire: From “A Journal of Love”: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1934--1937

Fire: From “A Journal of Love”: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1934--1937 by Anais Nin

At the start it was somewhat interesting life inside a mind. Then it just got boring. It was hard to care for her life or whatever intimate thought or action she had.

In Ascension

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

A marine biologist explores algae that survive deep under the ocean. She is later recruited to be part of a space mission where the algae will help them to survive. The ship eventually goes back in time, maybe even seeding life on earth. The tone of the novel reminds me of the movie Oblivion. The novel spends much of the time covering the biologist and her family. It goes back to the history of Rotterdam to explore her family origin as well as details in the relationship with her parents and sister. The algae could survive but needed to merge with others to grow to help populate the earth.

The Savage Detectives

The Savage Detectives: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

This long novel covers a group of bohemian pseudo-intellectuals that refer to themselves as "visceral realists". There is a character that has a name very similar to the author that is mostly him in real life. We hear about this character, but not much from him directly. We go into detail about the other characters. At first it is a fairly straightforward narrative about the visceral realists in Mexico. Then it turns in to a few first-person vignettes by individual people from periods spanning most of the 20th century across much of the world from Latin America and the United States to Europe, Israel and Africa. The stories somewhat tie together, but are not much of narrative. The end returns to a narrative and a journey to escape a pimp and find a long lost poet, with an ending of them finally finding her, but losing her as she dies in a shootout. The characters are generally artsy miscreants. They do what they want regardless of how it fits in the world. Sex and drugs abound. They dislike the literature "establishment". I don't feel a whole lot of sympathy towards them.

The Other Bennet Sister

The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow

I have unsuccessfully tried to read Pride and Prejudice, but have never got anything out of it. I did have much more success with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. This book, however, while having some of the tone of Jane Austen books, was easily accessible. Perhaps it is the "modernization" that does it. I was able to sympathize with Mary and follow the experiences. Maybe it was the application of modern sensibilities into centuries old characters that did it. The book follows the life of the "other sister". She is more intellectual and doesn't fit in well with the cultural life and ideals of the day. She eventually finds love, rejecting a wealthy suitor in the process. This is so 21st century.

The Bee Sting: A Novel

The Bee Sting: A Novel by Paul Murray

A "small town elite" Irish family is having money problems. They ran the car business in town and were among the wealthy. However, the business is doing poorly and everyone's life is falling apart in different ways. The father, Dickie, never really had his heart in cars. It was his father's business and his brother was supposed to take it over. However, the brother in a car accident, and Dickie ended up coming back from University to marry his brother's girlfriend and run the business. The daughter, Cass,  is ready to go off to college, but is struggling with family's less wealthy state and is not doing well. The son ponders running away and selling videogames. Eventually grandpa comes back and he thinks that will help things. Alas, it is never quite so simple. The book goes on for a long time and explores the history and disfunction the family. Both the daughter and Dickie have environmental concerns. Dickie decides to build a giant bunker with a friend to help survive the apocalypse. Dickie also had a tryst with a former employee who recorded the encounter and is trying to blackmail him. There is plenty going on - perhaps too much. I could almost care for the characters.

And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Ten people with hidden nefarious pasts are on a remote island. They start dying off. Nobody can identify who the murderer is. Eventually it is down to two people. One woman ends up killing the last guy and then after seeing a gallows hangs herself. A nursery rhyme frames the story as people are knocked off one by one. After they are all dead, we hear from the authorities who have no idea what caused them to kill each other. Finally we hear the conclusion via a message in a bottle. A judge had set everything up to punish the unpunishable. He even faked his on death (via gunshut) early in the process. He then continued managing the deaths. After everyone died, he commited suicide, but staged it to look like the documented death. This is a classical story that I found even better when listened to earlier in dramatized form.

La Sombra del Viento

La Sombra del Viento (El cementerio de los libros olvidados nº 1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

In English this is known as The Shadow of the Wind. I tried to listen to it all in Spanish. At 3x speed, I wasn't grasping much. When I moved it down to 1.5x, I could hear and understand most of it. It felt I was understanding most of the words, but not quite grasping the meaning. I have trouble with gothic novels in English and trying a long one in Spanish was too much. A lot dealt with Penelope and her story along with many books and the writers that were discussed. If it were shorter, I would have slowed it down more to try to grasp it better. But with something this long, even 1.5x speed felt much too slow.