What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

[DShomshak]

I just finished The New Cosmos, by David Eicher. It presents itself as an up-to-date summary on the major issues in astronomy... as of 2015. It says something about how fast the field progresses that some chapters are already obsolete. In some cases, Eicher sort of acknowledges this -- the chapter on Pluto notes that, yeah, the New Horizons probe is about to reach Pluta and we'll learn more about the planet in a few days than in the past century. (The publisher was able to slip in the NH photo of the "heart" at the last moment.)

 

I wish I could give this book a better recommendation. I did learn some things I didn't know before. Ex: Astonomers are not limited to Type Ia supernovae to find the distances to the further galaxies; there's also the Tully-Fisher relation and other measures that have been found to relate a galaxy's intrinsic brightness to other measurable traits. So, the dark energy claim might not rest entirely on Type Ia supernovae as a standard candle. (And speaking of dark energy, the chapter on that does a good job of stressing that there is as yet no clue what it is, and any scenario of what it is and what effect it has on the universe's future is pure speculation. Would that some other pop-science writers were so scrupulous.)

 

OTOH the book has some issues of clarity and organization that are a real disappointment considering that Eicher is the editor-in-chief of Astronomy magazine. Like, the chapter on the future of the Sun and how planetary nebulae form left me confused about the sequence of various sheddings of outer layers and stellar winds, and how they relate to changes in the star's core. Eicher also sometimes repeats statements, even within a paragraph, as if he were trying out different ways to say something and didn't delete the excess variations.

 

Eicher also sometimes uses technical terms (such as "ergosphere" in the black hole chapter) without explaining them, which could make the book more difficult for a layman who doesn't already have some knowledge of astronomy and physics.

 

Overall, only 2-3 stars out of 5.

 

Dean Shomshak

[death tribble]

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly: Heart Pounding, Jaw Dropping and Gut-Wrenching Moments in Minnesota Vikings History by Steve Silverman. A history of three kind of moments in the history of the NFL team up until the mid-2000s. I liked it.

[bigdamnhero]

Just finished Thanks Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years by former White House Speech Writer David Litt. Absolutely hysterical, and a great look at what's it's actually like to work in the White House. (Or at least, in the Executive Office Building across the street...) Highly recommended.

 

I also recently finished Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil. A very informative look at how corporations, government, etc are increasingly using algorithms to make decisions about our lives, and how badly flawed many of those algorithms are.

[bigdamnhero]

Oh, for those of who like me have had struggles with depression, the book that has had the biggest impact on my life this last year was The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression One Small Change at a Time by Dr. Alex Korb. I don't typically read many self-help books, and calling any book “life-changing” is usually such a hyperbolic cliché, but in this case I feel it’s justified. Unlike so many self-help books, this one starts from "Here's what the latest, best research says about how your brain works" and proceeds from there to "...so here are some concrete things you can do about it."

[Cancer]

Beneath Flanders Fields, by Peter Barton, Peter Doyle, and Johan Vandewalle.  About the British and German mining and countermining war on the ridges south of Ypres in WW1.  Includes pictures taken during the war and some from about a hundred years later (some of the old tunnels are still there).  The geology of Passchendaele Ridge was critically important, and though the Germans had the high ground most of that time, that was not to their advantage in the mining efforts.  Watching the surface and looking for color mismatches between the surface layers and the excavated stuff around the other sides dugouts and fortifications turned out to be really important.  Pick-and-shovel work was slower and noisier than "kicking" -- reclining on moveable boards, almost chaise-lounge in attitude, and stamping (as you lay back, so you're digging sideways with a stomping sort of action) into the clay layers with blades fixed to your boots that pointed perpendicular to your boot soles.  The "kickers" seemed to go three times or so faster than the pick/shovel guys in terms of feet of tunnel opened per day, and they were much harder to sense by listening.  (In the hard chalk layers -- not much of that near Ypres -- you had to use the pick, though.)  Then, load a gallery with tons -- looks to be as little as three tons, as much as 25 tons -- of explosive (and set a reliable initiating charge and fuse) and backfill it in with sandbags so the blast didn't merely come back out your tunnel towards your side.  At the intended time, blow the charges and hope the surface forces could take advantage of the destruction the blasts made.  Lots of detail and good info (if nearly all of it from the British side), it is another excellent recently-written work about aspects of WW1 that seems to have been written by men my age in memory of their grandfathers or men of their grandfathers' generation.  Side benefit: a useful discussion of the withdrawal of the Belgian army from their initial stations, then into Antwerp, and finally west to Ostende, and a discussion of the flooding that was done to make that last position unattackable by the Germans.

[Bazza]

Untitled Apocalypse from the Bruce Codex. Can't say I understood much of it (probably 90%).  

[Cygnia]

Paperbacks From Hell by Grady Hendrix.  It's a history on (lesser-known, IMO) 70's & 80's horror fiction.

[death tribble]

Plutarch: Greek Lives Two of the nine lives here should be familiar to most of us, Themistocles and Alexander. Pericles people may know from either Shakespeare or Thucydides History of the Pelopennesian War. But Alcibiades, Cimon and Nicias of Athens, Solon, Lycurgus and Agesilaus of Sparta are probably unfamiliar to most. The lives of Cimon, Pericles, Nicias and Alcibiades show the downfall of Athens after Platea. Agesilaus life shows the downfall of Sparta.

Plutarch paired this set of lives with one about Romans with each Greek paired with a Roman of similar life. That is next on my list.

[death tribble]

Plutarch: Roman Lives Caesar is the life that most will be aware of. But three preceding one and one later contribute to the fall of the Roman Republic, Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Antony. The others are Cato the Elder and his stoic lifestyle, Aemilius Paullus who was selected for his moral behaviour and lastly the Gracchi who tried to reform Rome and suffered for it. Each life is brief for instance Caesar's one skips over the battles in Gaul but it gives an overall view of what was going on. Only two of the lives are parralled in the Greek lives and these are Pompey and Caesar who were paired with Agesilaus and Alexander.

[Pariah]

I just finished reading Claudia Christian's autobiography, Babylon Confidential. Wow. After everything she's been through--losing a brother as a teenager, raped at 15, kicked out of the house at 17, two abortions, three miscarriages, being mauled by a dog, having two lovers die in very public ways, all with runaway alcoholism on top--the fact that she's anything even closely resembling a functional human being is pretty amazing.

[Cygnia]

Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History

[Bazza]

Teachings of Ptahhotep, written circa 2300-2500 BCE. One of the oldest complete books in the world. 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Neil Degrasse Tyson's "Astrophysics for those in a Hurry." Audiobook read by the man himself.

[Vondy]

The Blank Slate, Stephen Pinker.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell.

Man and His Symbols, Carl Jung.

The Happiness Hypothesis, Johnathan Haidt.

 

 

[Vondy]

Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America by Gustavo Arellano.

 

The author is a columnist and food critic and has an entertaining style. Its not the sort of book I usually read, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

 

He also has an interesting take on cultural exchange leads to intersection, innovation, and fusion.

[Armory]

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

 

 

 

 

[Cygnia]

Hot Sauce Nation

[Christopher R Taylor]

The Texan Rides Alone, by the same author who wrote Open Range (made into a magnificent film).  It was pretty good, but I'm not a big fan of bad guy POV stories.  At least, unless they learn and become better men.

 

American Detective, by Loren Estleman.  He's the greatest living hard boiled detective writer and I like his Amos Walker character, but this wasn't Estleman's strongest novel.  A little too heavy on the baseball similies and phrases.  Otherwise very well written and interesting.

[death tribble]

The At of War by Sun Tzu and the The Book of Lord Shang by Shang Yang. The first deals with how to fight in war and it is short and concise. It is also relevant today. The second is a primer for rulers on how to rule. And oh boy is there plenty to offend here. Keep the people weak and the State is strong. It is against care of the old, music and history as just some of the things that should be discouraged. The logic is flawed believing that B must follow A. It does not allow for the unexpected such as earthquakes, typhoons or locust plagues. The Book of Lord Shang is fascinating but appalling.

[csyphrett]

marvelocity is a book detailing some of Alex Ross's work at Marvel. I was amused to see that he had needed multiple versions of characters and he threw in the Nick Hammond Spider Man, Reb Brown's Captain America, and Lou Ferrigno's Hulk, and Rex Smith's Daredevil and other television heroes.

CES

[death tribble]

Tony Curtis: American Prince. This is Tony Curtis's autobiography. Entertaining.

[Cassandra]

Star Trek Memories by William Shatner.

[Sundog]

Journeys to the Other Side of the World by David Attenborough. The second of his compilations of his Zoo Quest books, combining Quest in Paradise, Zoo Quest to Madagascar and Quest Under Capricorn.

[death tribble]

Michael Palin Diaries 1969-1979 The Python Years. This covers the entirety of the Monty Python series and the Python films upto Life of Brian and Palin's Ripping Yarns. It covers the background, filming etc. Very good.

[death tribble]

Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918 by Richard Holmes. It goes into the life and experiences of the ordinary British soldiers in France and Belgium. Holmes does a bit of myth busting such as the non-existent phrase 'Lions led by Donkeys'. He also points out that more generals were killed in one battle (Loos) than in the entire 2nd World War. He makes the point also that the bitterness felt towards the war was coloured by experiences after the war when returning to peacetime. He also notes that criticism of generals like Haig began after they had died and could not answer critics. It does not cover the battles in any depth but what life was like for the Tommy. It also reveals why British soldiers were called Tommy. It came from an example in one of the army books where a Thomas Atkins of the Dragoon is used as its subject.

It also makes the point that the Somme was necessary in order not only to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun but because the Italians and Russians were on the offensive as well.