Reviews and Comments

Engrossing and beautifully written.

Utterly fascinating and wide-ranging, Newitz wires about The relationship between propaganda, advertising, and popular literature in particular science fiction. Some of her case studies could be expected, like the one on The Bell Curve, but some are not, like her chapter on the Indian Wars. She ends the book with a section on why she thinks there's cause for optimism, which I thought was the weakest part of the book, but perhaps others will be less cynical than I am.

The subtitle of this book is "the prayer book as guide to a spiritual life" and that understates its scope, which embraces Christian spirituality as a whole in addition to providing a brief history and practical guide to the 1979 Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and its calendar, Daily Office, and the Eucharistic services. Very readable and highly recommended!

Lots of interesting facts but the organization runs more to chatty than systematic.

Really fun combination personal memoir/history of the tech world with thoughtful and often fascinating insights on many of its important figures.

I found this study of the New Testament and post-biblical texts convincing. His argument is essentially that although it's true that certain packages (in particular, in Mark, Acts, and Romans) can be interpreted as adoptionist, in the context of the theology of the authors as displayed elsewhere the case for an adoptionist view is severely weakened.

(Read in 5 to 10 minutes chunks before work.)

I read this book in the hope of understanding cryptocurrency, NFTs, and the blockchain and although I still find them - and their appeal - somewhat mysterious, the book was a remarkably lively and enjoyable account of crypto and its villains (some now repentant).

One of the best mysteries I've read in a while.

Sword and sorcery done very well. Since it's not obvious in ebook format, the book is really long! So if you check it out from the library, be aware of your progress and the due date. Also be warned that it ends on a cliffhanger and the sequel isn't due out until either 2024 or 2025 so you might consider waiting.

Really fun book, my favorite of the 5 of his (I think) I've read.

Fascinating, informative, but extremely depressing book on contemporary fires, concentrating on the 2016 Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, but with long sections on the history of the petroleum industry and climate science and discussing other fires in Canada and in California and Australia. The book concludes with some small hopeful signs (e.g., between its peak in 2017 and 2022, the number of US petroleum engineering graduates dropped by 80%) but will the required changes come quickly enough? www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/554938/fire-weather-by-john-vaillant/

Moving account of the principal author's father's illness and death from early-onset Alzheimer's, interleaved with shorter sections by the secondary author, a neurologist, about the nature of dementia. Touching and informative; highly recommended.

If you're willing to forgive the publisher for the implication of the dek, "Fungi and the Coming Pandemic," when the book is almost entirely centered on the danger of fungal diseases of plants (e.g., bananas and chestnuts), it's pretty good.