Sophie is a Norwegian girl who gets mysterious messages from somebody providing information about philosophy. She loves the opportunity to learn and explore, starting from the big questions of what existence is. There is another girl and a father working as a UN observer in the middle east. At times it goes to the supernatural with them doing things such as going back to view the ancient philosophers. It is an interesting exploration of philosophy and some of the rational and scientific-based influences. It felt that it went on for a little too long as the story got a bit "weird".
The Way of Shadows is ostensibly a fantasy book. However, the plot tends to be just an excuse to cram as much sex and violence in as possible. The focus is often on the low-life on the streets. They are violent. There are prostitutes and crazy royals. More sex and violence. And then there are "Wetboys" that can use some magical powers often for violent acts. People also have relationships with each other, with plenty of trickery and violence. Ugh.
Nicholas Nickleby came from a well-to-do family. His father died, leaving him, his sister and mother to fend for themselves. They travel to Nicholas's uncle for help. However, the Uncle, Ralph is not keen to help them. They struggle with various types of employment, and discover that the Uncle is connected with various nere-do-wells who are "white color scammers". They work through many odd jobs, including getting some renown as a playwright and performer. They finally end up in a comfortable situation at the end, while uncle meets a bad end.
John Donne was an important literary figure from a few centuries ago. He wrote amorous work and sired many children. He also wrote about death and suicide and has been identified as a source for other suicides. (He portrayed suicide as an act of bravery at a time when it was condemned as cowardly.) He also enjoyed hyperboles like super-infinite, hence the title of the book. 
I need to read more Borges. He loved to "mock" literature by creating some of the major works. I love the idea of creating a response or a summary to fictional work. Just get to the point instead of wasting time with all the work. This short work has piqued my interested to seek out more of Borges' works.
During the doping era, cycling teams would spend money on drugs rather than training. This may have provided some quick fixes, but prevented long term gains. Separately, the British cycling team focussed on science to improve the team and win gold medals. The first step is find the athletes. There are some basic physiological capabilities needed. They must also have the desire and drive to succeed. On top of that, there is training. The training that is needed to separate the elite athletes is different than that needed for more casual athletes. There are minor little things such as diet, training details and bike improvements that can be the difference. While these may help the casual cyclist, some more simple things may produce a bigger bang. The work on the margins continues to evolve. Bike technology has also improved, but is often limited by the cycling governing body. Psychology is not very important to a sport like cycling that relies almost exclusively on cardiovascular strength. There will continue to be advancements and people with the drive to be faster.
Wages of Destruction analyzes the rise and fall of Nazism from an economic perspective. Some of the seemingly nonsensical behaviors of the Nazi Germany do start to make a little more sense when looked at that one. Germany was suffering after World War 2. Even with some clever management, reparations took a toll on the economy. There was a significant portion of the country still working in agriculture, yet the country had trouble feeding itself. There was a shortage of available labor.
"Social" media has been the norm for most of history. The modern "mass" media is actually more of an aberration. Companies like Facebook and Twitter help enable social spread of information in a way that is similar to the way communication was spread in Rome.
I really thought I was getting into this Dune book. I was grokking the political intrigue and the environmental debates. Then I started to lose it and the novel ended. There are people that are in power. Others seem to know their position on life. The environment has changed in a way that seems to benefit most people. However, this change has also caused negative impacts that may lead to future destruction. There does seem to be a lot of potential in this book, but I couldn't quite absorb it.
What does it take to become a deity? What about a ruler? What would it be to live on forever? What would it be like to have a monopoly on water in a desert? In this Dune book, the leader has adopted a hybrid sandworm/human form and has ruled for thousands of years. The narrative structure relies on many "primary" sources and flashbacks. There is plenty of introspection in the book. Duncan Idaho comes in and tries to make changes. There is exploration of procreation and continuing on. Alas, success becomes pyrrhic.
The Prestige is the story of magicians that take their rivalry a little too far. It has an interesting structure, with a bounding narrative that eventually leads to the bulk of the nobel being in the form of a journal entry. The magicians try to one up each other in their performances. They also try to ruin the other's performance. This eventually leads to some science fiction elements. Nikola Tesla ends up providing a key bit of "magic" that allows people to be transmitted. This also leads to the interesting state of one of the magicians. However, this doesn't stop him from being able to ruin his rival.
Madame Bovary is the story of a bored young woman who wants more from her life. She engages in a number of hedonistic activities and a engages in various dishonest behaviors. Eventually things begin to unravel and she takes her own life. It can be a challenge to keep track of what is going on at first. However, it does start to tie together well at the end.
Black Prism is set in a fantasy world where colors are very important and have some special powers. We follow the goings of a fat boy who watches his village destroyed. We later learn that he is the illegitimate son of the "Prism", the sort of Emperor over the kings. However, we later learn that the Prism is actually the brother of the Prism in disguise. The society values people that can identify minute differentiation in color. It also has some practices that we would find abhorrent. The government servants participate in a "release" when they have reached the end of their service. They get to talk with the leader, and are then executed by him, "releasing" them from this life. Individual Kings have power to do whatever they so desire. However, the Prism also has some similar power, giving some means of balance. The book goes on for a while, and also follows the path of a girl from the same village who was the daughter of a disgraced general. Things seem to gradually come together at the end, though it takes a long time to get there.
in Crashed, Adam Tooze explores the interrelated economic meltdowns of the past decade and the resultant political actions. The approach is perhaps too detailed. However, in some ways it needs the details to bring out the relationships between activities in many different companies and countries. He openly admits a left-of-center viewpoint with that calls in to question some of the decisions made. (The investment bankers that really triggered the mess were the ones to quickly recover their full bonuses. The average Joe, however, often suffered through demands of austerity.) Governments often have a "built in" stimulus that triggers increased benefits (such as unemployment) when the economy takes a turn for the worse. Cutting government spending for these can further extend the pain of the recession. 
Why do we have music? What was the purpose? Music has been used through much of the history of man. Ancient paintings show indicators of musical instruments. However, we have little idea what this music was. While writing and paintings from early history can be studied, we have little idea what the actual music was. There were some early attempts to provide some guidelines for the performing of music (such as the psalms.) However, these were only very basic, and did not provide enough to fully replicate the experience of the ancient musical performances. It wasn't until the last thousand years where a form of musical notation was created. Even the early notation has only reached the modern sheet music in the last few hundred years. This finally allowed music to be shared and gave rise to classical composers. However, unlike paintings that are observed in their original form, sheet music is interpreted by the performers, and remains "living" centuries after it was created.
The Northwest Passage was the missing "holy grail" of exploration. Many explorers had attempted to make themselves known by finding this illustrious shortcut. Unfortunately, exploration involved traversing the arctic, where ice dominates for much of the year. And when ice was gone, mosquitos took up residence. It is hard to imagine how miserable the conditions must have been on the 1800s sailing ships.